@cassikat was asking about a fic I wrote, and I couldn't find it in my vent thread, so I'm going to use this as an excuse to finally make a thread for my fic. Expect fanfiction and poetry, and, like, at least one instance of fan-poetry. Organisational nonsense: Spoiler: Fanfic Spoiler: Homestuck - Physical Affection (Dave-POV Davekat drabble, fluffy) - The Pauli Exclusion Principle (Davejadekat, all three POVs, nasty miscommunications) Spoiler: Fanpoetry Spoiler: Homestuck - RED (Dave-focused, trans Dave, abuse cw) - Dreams (Beta kids and their dreams) Spoiler: Original Spoiler: Poetry - Autobiographical Memory (abuse cw) - Does the world hate you? (abuse cw, blatant venting) - Music Stick (hospitalisation cw) - Curse (abuse cw) - A Name - Shape (abuse/ptsd-centric cw) Comments welcome, I love comments.
Putting another post down here just in case I need more space for a table of contents. I'm organised.
Physical Affection is a drabble I wrote for Harvey when they were talking about an aspect of Davekat they liked, and, like, coincidentally I also like Davekat. Second-person POV from Dave's perspective, features Dave Wearing Glasses Which Actually Correct His Vision. Spoiler: Physical Affection Did you know that physical affection is one of the biggest goddamn mysteries of the universe? Shit. You're used to locking the world out at twelve paces - reflective lens, stoic face - and it's weird, it's weird, it's fucking Quark matter all up in here. (Way too hot, way too dense, a primordial goddamn soup. Jade told you about it once, but you can't put that on the label, people might think you actually have realtalk hour with your friends.) Trail off, spin a story, deflect from the issue. Right. Did you know that physical affection is one of the biggest goddamn mysteries of the universe? Subsection 1, article A: You agreed to watch some shitty movies with Karkat and now here he is, just napping on you like it's no big deal. Yeah, that's a lie. It's a big deal. It was a big deal when you first went from brief, affirmative, manly shoulder-pats to literally anything else. (The first hug was awkward as shit and you're glad both of you were too cagey for it to be in public.) So here's this big deal, right, and - Subsection 1, article B: This is way better than the shitty movie ever was. Sometimes you're still easily spooked, the both of you, and yet here you are goddamn oozing onto this couch like a puddle of cats. You can kinda glance down and see him without the black tinge of your glasses, the way he's slumped against your side. The grey's a little lighter, the horns are a lot more colourful. He's a bit blurrier, but that's what the lenses are for, you guess. (Yeah, the goggles do something useful. Eat your heart out, TVTropes.) You'll probably have to get up eventually, but honestly, fuck that noise. Physical affection is one of the biggest goddamn mysteries of the universe and here you are being all sciencey and shit.
The Pauli Exclusion Principle is (actually just the name of the first part of) a fic I wrote for trash week, which is basically just a thing where some of my friends were like 'let's write fic about our ships having Interesting Problems'. (I haven't written any of the other days yet, because I either write at 0% or 100%, no in-betweenies.) This day's theme was Nasty Miscommunications, so it features Dave and Karkat not knowing how to communicate with Jade, and everyone's buttons getting pushed because of it. It also features Jade's Isolated Childhood Actually Impacting Her Pretty Heavily, because that is my most darling headcanon. Also: Codependent Davekat. Spoiler: Part 1 - Jade: The Pauli Exclusion Principle Dave and Karkat want you to move into a hive with them. Into a big, sprawling thing, because you're Gods, after all, even if some of the trolls on the street glower in your hornless direction. You see them and snap your teeth together, and they avert their gaze, and you're all good. The trolls you time-travelled back to (forward to?) are pretty good at reading your body language, because trolls are a pretty physical people, being raised by Lusii and all. That's probably part and parcel of how much better you get along with trolls; Becquerel wasn't exactly a big conversationalist, even if he was a good dog and your best friend. They're just fine, you're just fine with them, you could see yourself living here. Maybe a few hours out, in a nice country house. You'll get a plane and fly out to see them sometimes. But Karkat and Dave want you to move in with them, in the city, surrounded by people. You try to talk to Dave about it when he proposes the idea, but he doesn't understand. He thinks you'd be happy to be around people for once, as if it's a binary switch, on/off, yes/no, people/isolation. As if you hadn't been surrounded by people on the ship, as if it wasn't a constant battle between socialising with your friends (you like your friends!) and socialising with some plants (infinitely more comfortable!). "I just don't know," you say eventually, after half an hour of hedging around the conversation and talking shit about nothing at all. "I'm not really... into city life?" "Oh," Dave says, clicking his tongue up against the top of his mouth and going silent. He's disappointed. You can tell, even though his lip is a line and his glasses cover his eyes. Those things are distractions to you, anyway, since the only person with expressions on your island was wearing a rictus stare all those years. You hear the gaping silence where his words should be, the place where he'd be rambling carefully around the topic like water circling in the drain. It's just like text. "Just give me some time to think about it, okay?" You finish, eventually, because that's what you need. It's too direct for him, but you're frustrated by your inability to get it across. "Yeah," he says, turning with a cape-swoosh, "yeah, sure." You head out to the country and make camp underneath a truly shitty statue of liberty, covered in moss and crumbling from the years. And the truth is, you don't think about it, because you're trying to avoid thinking about it, because you're just completely done with interpersonal trouble, and you don't want to be Queen of the Trolls when they don't even want you there, okay? And you don't want to let your friends down, because they're inevitably going to notice all the things you don't do, like how John was always stumbling over weird habits you had or didn't have. (Look, brushing your teeth wasn't really a big thing on the island.) And Dave doesn't talk to you, at all, and you know you're avoiding him, and he's avoiding you, but thinking about it is painful. Now, Karkat... Karkat is a different matter. He messages you daily with things like this, CG: WHAT THE FUCK DID WE DO? GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT, JADE. I'M A BIG BOY. I'VE EVEN GONE THROUGH MY MOLTS. GRADUATED BOTTOM OF MY SCHOOLFEED, OBVIOUSLY. CG: I'M A FUCKING ADULT IS WHAT I'M GETTING AT HERE. CG: DAVE IS A FUCKING ADULT TOO. GG: youre still a teen, karkat! GG: and you didnt do anything!!! GG: aside from messaging me all the time when i just need some space CG: YEAH, I GET IT, YOU'RE THE "SPACE" "PLAYER". MEANWHILE YOU'RE FUCKING GHOSTING US FOR NO FUCKING REASON, AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, BECAUSE THE AMOUNT OF USEFUL COMMUNICATION I'VE GOTTEN FROM YOU ABOUT THIS IS ABOUT ZERO PERCENT. CG: CAPTAIN THE SHIP WON'T GO WITH THAT AMOUNT OF POWER! WE'RE GOING TO CRASH RIGHT INTO THE SHITTY FUCKING PLANET! ALL SYSTEMS RED, WE'RE CRITICAL HERE! GG: haha the only shitty thing around here is this shitty statue of liberty CG: OH, IS THAT WHERE YOU ARE? COOL. MAYBE I CAN GET THROUGH TO YOU FACE TO FACE. GG: i dont want you to do that! GG: stop being such a stupid baby!!! CG: UGH, FINE, I GET IT, YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE MY STUPID FACE. FINE. I GET IT. I DON'T WANT TO SEE MY STUPID FACE EITHER. WHO CARES WHETHER YOU'RE UPSETTING DAVE, RIGHT? CG: I'LL JUST TAKE MY HUMAN RATTLE AND GO. Except he never does go. He always comes back. It's really pissing you off. You know you're upsetting him, but every time he reaches out it reaches new depths of desperation and you remain incapable of making him understand. You know you're being stubborn about this, and they're being stubborn about this, and everyone's being stubborn, but fuck it. You're always the one who had to bend. You're not bending this time. Pauli's exclusion principle states that two identical fermions can't occupy the same quantum state, let alone three of the blessed things. You feel desperately alone as the days go by, because Bec is a part of you now and Bec is a good dog who likes his people. It's Bec, of course. You were just fine being alone growing up. That's the only thing that's changed. Spoiler: Part 2 - Dave: Paranoid's My Synonym To Sober It was a modest proposal, but it went over about as well as eating babies. Jade's always gotten on well with you, and she likes Karkat, and she was raised by a dog just like Karkat was raised by a fucking kaiju, so it makes sense to bring her in with you guys to the troll kingdom. (A real thing which you are actually king of. Wild.) And she was real enthusiastic about it, until you fucked up. See, you figured she'd be happy to be around people for once. Being completely fucking isolated for years fucks you up. You know that. You were fucked up and you were just isolated because of your weird life. You at least got to go outside to get food and brush against other people, even if you couldn't invite them home in case they got a faceful of fucking puppet ass. Imagine not even having that. That's what you did. That's what you were going for. It did not get across. You're real fucking embarrassed about that, too. You were so excited to get her in on this and she just... balked. You fucked up somewhere, and now she's run off to be alone because you offended her that badly. Karkat's upset about it. Karkat's upset about everything, but especially about this, and fuck, it really puts you on edge. He's upset because you're upset, of course, so you can't just tell him to not be upset. But you do spend more time in your room than in the lounge. "What's up with you?" Karkat asks - demands - one morning at breakfast when you're grabbing some cereal to go back to your cave. "Working on a hot new take," you reply. "It's gonna be huge. I've got to catch up with 5000 years of culture and cause a cultural revolution here. Gotta focus." "You know I don't believe that," Karkat replies, gesturing wildly as he always does when he's upset. He does it more these days, because he's trying to keep his voice down. It fucks with you in other ways. You try not to flinch too much because you know he's trying. One day you'll bring it up with him, probably, when the moons are in alignment. But not today. "That's too bad," you say, instead, escaping to your room. You are, technically, working on the hot new thing. You're just not getting anywhere with it. You can't stop thinking about how you fucked it up, and now all your friends are going to be mad at you, because you chased Jade off now they're finally all together. This was supposed to be the good ending. Happily ever after. But somehow you cocked it up. Sometimes the trolls ask you where your hornless friend is. It's a lot of social pressure you're just not used to. You've been known to just time-travel away from those questions. You could probably use that power to go and see Jade, but she's got spacey first-guardian powers and she'd beat you in a teleport-off, hands down. Plus, Jade doesn't want to talk to you. You know that because she hasn't tried to talk to you. You haven't tried to talk to her, because you don't want to make things worse. Talking to upset people always makes things worse, and you are exceptionally good at tip-toeing around eggshells. Sure, you've tried to make some improvements with Karkat, since Karkat actually gives a shit, but it's like riding a bike. The skills never really go away. You know that Karkat has been trying to talk to her, because he rants about it over dinner when you eat together. You try to tell him to leave her alone, but he won't have it. He's worked himself up into a real panic about all this and you're not really sure how to defuse it, so you just leave him alone too. You've been listening to a lot of music to try and process this shit, because that's kind of what you do. There's one song you keep looping. It reminds you of Jade, and it reminds you of you, and you're not really sure who's the one speaking sense here. It's called 'Abandoned', and you'd laugh at the irony, if you didn't have a fucking solid mask established. She'll forgive you, probably, eventually. Spoiler: Part 3 - Karkat: Yeah, I fucking cooked it. No one is talking to you about shit and that really soils your britches. Dave liked the idea of Jade coming with them, so you loved it, too, because he was actually enthused about something for once and you love seeing actual emotion from him. Your excitement feeds each other, which is romantic as shit, actually, even if Rose pulled her psychoanalytic shit and tried to pass it off as 'unhealthy' back on the meteor. Fuck off. And then Jade fucked it up by panning it, for no adequately explained reason, and fucked off into the woods. Dave's been shit at explaining why. You're sure there's some little detail which will unlock why the fuck everything is going wrong suddenly, but suddenly you're an outsider. So you've been trying to talk to her, instead. That's been going about as well as slapping a dead fish to get it flopping again. The conversation wriggles around when you're hitting it, sure, but it goes limp as soon as you stop. You'd love to share that comparison with Dave, because it's a very Dave sort of metaphor, but Dave's fucking holed himself up in his room and won't say shit to you. Whatever. Whatever! You don't need this shit. You are now, inexplicably, king of all you survey. Troll culture has been changed inexorably because you were their model, and now there are mutants just walking around like it's no big deal. You, on the other hand, are a huge deal. Oh, who are you kidding, you're just a huge fuck-up. Someone knocks on the door when you're busy sulking in the lounge watching shitty television. You almost don't answer, just to make someone else as miserable as you are, but you manage to pry yourself off after the second round. When you open the door, there's Terezi, dressed up like she's actually going somewhere. "Wow," she says, nostrils flaring, "you smell like shit." "Gee, thanks, I could never have figured that out. Where are you going?" "Out," she says, stepping inside without even asking. "I thought I'd drop by and see how you guys were going first, since I'm gonna be leaving you guys in charge and all." Sniff, sniff. "Where's Jade?" "Oh, sure, ask the incredibly fucking loaded question." You stalk back over to the lounge and flop down, and Terezi takes a seat next to you. "You cooked it, didn't you." "Yeah, I fucking cooked it. I cooked it like a takesgiving gobblebeast, plucked and roasted to perfection. And then do you know what I did with this amazing, majestic beast? I left it in the oven for six more hours and now it's fucking toast. It's charcoal. It's an ex-bird." "Okay, okay," Terezi raises a hand for silence. "What actually happened?" "Dave asked Jade if she wanted to live with us, then for no fucking reason she went and ran off into the middle of nowhere. I think she's like, living under a shitty statue of liberty now. Which really says something about the quality of my company, if you think about it, which I'm sure everyone fucking is." Terezi twists up the corner of her mouth, though the rest of her face remains curiously blank. "And you've been trying to talk to her all this time, right?" "Well, yeah, obviously." You grimace, because you've done it to her too. "Okay. Listen. I'm gonna drop by on my way out, and I'm gonna talk to her, and I need you to not talk to her until I'm done." "Look, you don't have to..." "If I don't," Terezi says, "it's going to weigh on me, and I'm not really going somewhere with good distractions from this sort of thing. I can't just leave all this stuff undone and expect you guys to bullshit it out. I know you, and I know how you solve your problems, and let me tell you as a professional seer I'm not seeing anything good in your future." "You mean that's not what she would do," Karkat grumbles, and instantly regrets it when Terezi's mouth turns down into a frown. She's just silent, dead silent, and you hasten to add: "Sorry." "Anyway," she says, drifting right over that topic, "that's not just a pithy joke. That's actually my thing. Seeing things. Mind things. And do you know how loud your mind things are right now? I won't be able to see anything if you guys keep shitting up the place with your weird interpersonal problems." "Sure, whatever," you say, because you know she's trying to spare your feelings but you don't want to acknowledge how shitty you are that you need that in the first place. "Tell Dave I said hi, and that if he goes with the sharp C he'll have a lot more luck." Terezi gets up, and heads out the door. She can probably smell your shame. And, you know, you don't hear from her for a while. Well, maybe it's just a day. Whatever. Long enough that you're kind of crawling out of your skin. Then she sends you a message, and tells you Jade is going to drop by tomorrow, and to try not to completely overwhelm her. - In the end, it turns out that she didn't want to live in the city because she was used to living on her own, and you kick yourself for not putting two and two together like some sort of thick fencepost. You get a house in the country instead.
RED is one of two Homestuck poems I wrote while my internet was down for a day, and I was just, incredibly bored. It features trans Dave, some Davekat, and has a big ol' abuse cw warning stamped over it because it talks about Dave's home life. Also cw blood (injuries AND an insinuation of periods) and some casual gore, which is not a pair of words I expected to put together today. Spoiler: RED RED -- the colour of blood As it cracks from your nose As it cracks on the stairwell As you crack on the concrete The colour you've known Since you were small And you thought it was yours For a different reason (You grew up without it It's the one good thing Your brother did for you Because unlike food It seemed important) The colour you took And made your own When your finger catches in the blender Because it's clogged with stuffing You had to pull out The colour you wrap around yourself When you can afford a computer And you can open the doors To communicating with people Who aren't nearly as cool (It's weird Because 'Coolness seems entirely proportionate to danger,' At least that's what TT would say) The colour you embrace You're not bothered by blood Until you meet him And he rails against it Like a bird fighting a mirror The colour which bound him Makes you think For the first time That maybe the blood Wasn't as great as you thought (And it's a long process Complicated and dumb In the end He starts typing in it And you never stop) 'The most complicated colour is certainly red,' Rose told you years later Over gossip and scones And the psychoanalysis might be ironic But that doesn't mean it's wrong.
Dreams is the other poem I wrote while my internet was down, and I don't think I ever actually posted this one but I found it while I was digging out the rest of them so here you go. Spoiler: Dreams She dreams of cotton-candy clouds And all the things Which can be said and done in a moment Captured by some unseen camera Pour into her mind And she dreams darkly It's not the only reference she's made To deep and unknown things You might fall through If you look into the sky He fell asleep too late To recognise anything Wrought in fate and gold Crashing as the sky falls down And he never looked out the window Never lowered his guard As he subverted his room To sick beats They dreamt together Until they died.
And now we come to the original stuff, which are, like, pretty much exclusively just me venting in pretty word form, but I did post these to my vent thread so I may as well mirror them here for accessibility. Spoiler: Autobiographical Memory "Autobiographical memory," A cluster which conjures the image of a tale A story in a book With a timeline of events Which make sense A coherent narrative A line from A to B to C A thread connecting G through P Where events are tied to history When politics and music changed A thorough connection between your life and the world "Trauma," Is a process which interrupts memory Illustrates the fragility of recall Fill a book with notes Fatten the size of your text document It's still lost to you Taught not to think about it, It's still fog on the ocean, Further out than you can see All pressure and nausea, Wrangling disparate events, At any point in time "Autobiographical memory," A thousand points in time Wrenched from context Troubling you at random hours Immersing you in the moment Fens and bogs and forgotten things "Trauma," I do not know what this is, I Failed to synthesise my existence. I cannot hold it in my hands, my Archives are locked and guarded I do not believe mine Wilful eyes I cannot process what they have seen.
Fair warning, this one is not very good and derivative in parts of a much better poem, I'm just putting it here for completion's sake. CW abuse, rape, misogyny, gender stuff, blatantly misusing mythology, there's a bunch of shit in here. Spoiler: Does the world hate you? Does the world hate you? With judging eyes and words which shape experiences Which do not quite fit Like a skirt too-too tight Slut skirts for slut girls Who want sex, of course they do, they'll love it, it will feel so good (It will rip and tear and they'll be miserable,) But of course I'm not talking about you I'm never talking about you You're one of us, you're one of the good ones I'm so sorry that happened to you Now act the way I want you to Now respond the way I need you to Because variance is terrifying I cannot comprehend why you would want this Why are you such a broken and disgusting freak? Why do you hate me? Of course I hate you; you're a monster You just want to steal from us You just want to be special Of course you don't know what this means How could you know what this means? You have not been bent over the hay-barrel You did not have to carry your bloody unmentionables In your pocket after the fact How could you? How could you? I thought we were friends And that means you agree with me Why do you think I hate you? You're being unreasonable The malice dripping from my words is not for you You're one of the good ones Aren't you? Or do you have something to tell the class? I thought you were cool You made the jokes with us and threw it all under the bus You tried to fit in And now you're making a big deal out of it? What a crazy bitch We're better off without you You're a monster Unspeakably twisted You will never be like us So crack the edges and tuck in your blades To fit into the mould we have made for you So that we can stomach your presence - I loved you and protected you - I let you hang with us - I tried my hardest to reason with you - I accepted the version of you which suffices Why do you screech? Why do you bare your teeth and hiss? - I thought you were one of the good ones - I thought you were one of the good ones - I thought you were one of the good ones - I thought you were one of the good ones Don't take it so personally! If you're going to be like that It's obvious that I hate you I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you You should not have existed in this world I should not have brought you into this world You are a Minotaur, brazen and crass A symbol of my suffering and torment Sent to me by the Gods To mark their displeasure on my house You are the Medusa, cursed in this world To freeze anyone who looks directly into your eyes That anyone who looks upon your true visage shall perish Because your true self is a monster Because your true self should not exist How could the world love you? It cannot There is evil in the world And I know that you are evil A good girl would not say these things A good girl would wear the skirt And spread her legs and take it But look at you! You do not even think you are a girl You have failed step one, And look at all the other steps you've failed I did not raise such a disgusting child I do not know such a disgusting child Why aren't you speaking to me? Of course you're not a monster You're a good person Not like those other people Not like those fakers But of course I'm not talking to you Of course I'm not angry at you Why are you frightened? Of course I wouldn't exclude you Why are you backing away? You bitch, you must be taking this personally for a reason Why won't you rely on anyone? Why won't you talk about your feelings? I would not betray you You're one of the good ones So the world doesn't hate you Not like it hates those cunts who parade Like they own the world Being things they aren't But not like you, never like you So rip your heart out And bleed on the scales So we can weigh your sins It's okay, you're safe Of course we wouldn't hurt you Is it good enough? Is it worthy? What a silly question you ask You're so sensitive and needy Why are you so insecure? Do you have something to hide? Perhaps you want to tell the world How you are taking my pain And tearing into it to make yourself bloody So the internet will offer you sympathy? I wonder what they'd say if they heard my story I wonder how many would flock to you then Is it safe? Of course You can trust us You can believe in us We will always support you Because you're one of the good ones You've left your monstrous origins behind Haven't you? Why don't you trust me? Why aren't you opening up? Do you think I hate you? What fucking nonsense You're not important enough to hate Get over yourself The world hates you exactly as much as it hates everyone else Of course you deserve it You wouldn't be straight with anyone You wouldn't trust anyone How can we help you when you won't reach out? You're still a monster You'll never be anything but a monster So why won't you love me?
Hospitalisation cw, but this one is fairly fluffy. Spoiler: Music Stick When I went to hospital In that gorgeous place Old architecture and moulded banisters Which I gripped as I dragged my suitcase Up stairs which curved gracelessly Half-flight, stop, half-flight Ker-chunk, ker-chunk, ker-chunk I was never seen without A little stick Around my neck With a little jack For my headphones And a USB connection It was approximately Three or four centimetres long A little tiny thing With a display With two colours With marquee text Because the screen was so small It took One triple-A battery I think It might have been double But I was always Always Running out It never left my side Because this was an obtuse ward Where you could wander to the boathouse So long as you were levelled up Much like an RPG system But you lose points when you hit yourself So I was not looked askance For having a cord around my neck Attached to headphones Or earbuds Blasting music Loud enough for them to hear And I think Without it I would have done far worse I still carry it today Metaphorically Literally it's long gone But I play music on my phone And jack in with my earbuds Because situational awareness Is a small price to pay For less panic attacks And I'm thankful.
And this one is tiny but fuck it, completionism. Implied abuse cw? It's only really bad if you know what my deal is. Spoiler: Curse There lies A curse in my blood Passed from mother to mother to mother Misery Bound by virginity 'Til death does it part.
Okay, that's all I've got which I posted up here (and one which I didn't, new content???). Please enjoy this fine artisanal crop of words.
Woop woop backlog. Spoiler: A Name a name is just a collection of syllables which you'll usually choose for yourself though it's always the first one which hurts most which you had no control over and you sling them together and people observe you and ascribe traits and shapes to those syllables -- person as collaborative act and you take them and collect them because the edges can't meet clusters of traits of how much you show and how much you keep aside it's got to be this way oversharing is intoxicating and toxic too much of a good thing will kill anyone and it's usually the bad things which drag down the mood which make people sad gotta keep the mask on keep it light ironic cool because the things you don't say are the real poisons too much of them will kill the groove is that why i'm so desperate to scream into the void?
abuse/ptsd-centric cw Spoiler: Shape There is a shape in my mind. I cannot see it fully, it's all blurred lines. And sharp edges. It creeps through the walls as though it was not bound by mortal thoughts. Like solid matter impeding solid matter or heat warping glass. It is not bound by the fourth dimension. It's been here since I was born -- when I look forward, there it is. It snakes underneath my bed. I do not remember in the morning. It snaps the door shut and alerts every nerve in my body that it is time to leave. I cannot leave. It is inside me, it has never left. I am shaped by it. Fouled by it. Left with only my mouth to wail warnings to passers-by: Do not dwell here. This is not a place of honour. There is only death in this place.