BONUS ROUND 1

[hso_mods]

Bonus Round 1

Genre-Mixing

Hey, shippers! Welcome to your very first bonus round proper--we hope you have lots of fun with it! This time around we're going to be asking you to mix it up a little--each fanwork posted for this round will be a mish-mash of two different genres, blended together in a delightful incestuous slurry to create an UNSTOPPABLE CREATIVE CONCOCTION--er. Or. Something.

Yeah, we're genre-mixing. That's what we're doing this round.

Rules

1. Submit prompts! Prompts should consist of two different genres and one ship. This cannot be your team's ship! These are worth 5 points each, for a maximum of 100 points per team.


2. Look through the prompts and fill whichever you like!


3. You may not fill prompts for your ship, nor may you fill your own team's prompts.


4. Fills should be posted as replies to the prompts which they are for, following the format below. They may be any medium.

Title Format
If you are starting a new thread, please use this format in your title.
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.
If your team name is not in this format and in the title we cannot guarantee that it will be counted.

If you are filling a prompt, use this format in your title.
FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.
If your team name is not in this format and in the title we cannot guarantee that it will be counted.

Posts not using this format in the title will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, no matter what they contain. They, like all comments on the comm, are subject to the Wank Policy.

Scoring
For prompt posts: 5 points each (maximum of 100 per team)

For fills (as stated here):
First 5 entries in each post: 30 (per entry)
Entries 6-10 in each post: 20 (per entry)
Entries 11-15 in each post: 10 (per entry)
Entries 16+ in each post: 5 (per entry)

All scored content must be created/assembled new for this round.

If you have any questions, please ask them at the FAQ post here, or email them to us (homestuck.shipping at gmail). Otherwise, we cannot guarantee that we will see them in a timely fashion!

Comments

PROMPT: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

[veira]

John<>Jade

sea story + detective fiction

Re: FILL: TEAM DIRK&lt;3JAKE&lt;3JANE&lt;3ROXY

[teakei]

Awesome fight scenes, cute banter, and great writing! THANK YOU! :D

FILL: TEAM EQUIUS<3TAVROS

[cygna_hime]

The Mystery of the Missing Mainframe
by Jane Crocker
with a little help from D.S.

PAGE ONE One fine evening, you clamber out of your recuperacoon and head over to your husktop to check in with - yell at? yell in with? - your friends, just as usual.

But what's this? Your precious computer is gone! Vanished, without trace!

to look for clues, go to page 2.
to blame Roxy automatically, go to page 3.

PAGE TWO Sollux Captor, I know you're cheating and going through the book in order! You go back and play the game properly, mister!

Ahem.

Rather than leap to any conclusions, you resolve to do what any gumshoe worth their guts would do, and examine the scene for evidence!

Someone certainly did a number on your respiteblock while you were asleep. Such vulnerability is the cost of sleeping in a sedative, you suppose. The door is open, even though you're pretty sure you shut it before going to sleep. Whoever was here managed to unlock your double-locked door without breaking it.

A piece of masonry crashes past close outside your window. You barely jump. That kind of thing happens a lot in this building.

to conclude that Roxy is definitely the culprit, go to page 4.
to investigate the door, go to page 5.

PAGE THREE Without so much as looking for evidence, you let your emotions run away with you and decide that one Roxy Lalonde must be the culprit! You fling yourself through your window in a blaze of psionics, ready to have a few words with her.

A piece of masonry falls from above and crushes your skull.

Return to page 1 and try again.

PAGE FOUR You decide that there's no point in investigating any further. You know who did it! You don't need no stinking evidence!

The lights go out. You are eaten by a grue.

Return to page 1 and try again.

FILL: TEAM DAVE <> ARADIA

[binners]

Rose Lalonde is an exceptional desktop football player. Her thumbs and index fingers make steady goalposts and she folds excellent symmetrical paper footballs. The trick, she says, is running a thumbnail along the creases. Karkat looks at his bitten-down nailbeds and believes that he'll stick to defense for now.

Sometimes he bites his cuticles bloody. Sometime blood comes out his palms, and from a spot on his side. Sometimes when he takes communion he feels the wafer catch fire inside his mouth. At these times he clenches his fists and holds his jaw shut.

On a Sunday in March the fire does not go out. He keeps his mouth closed until homeroom on Monday. Rose looks at him with her cool violet eyes, and folds paper, making perfect creases.

She puts her fingers on his chin and her thumb on his lips, and feeds him the paper football with her other hand. The flames extinguish into minty smoke.

She turns away and closes her notebook.

Karkat has an exam next period, and knows most of the answers. The rest is guesswork.

Re: FILL: TEAM DAVE<3<KARKAT

[plaidmage]

screeches
BEAUTY...

Re: PROMPT: TEAM ARADIA<>TAVROS

[plaidmage]

this prompt, it was made for me

(i am filling this asap)

Re: FILL: TEAM JOHN<3DAVESPRITE

[nextian]

This is genius.

FILL: TEAM DAD<3JOHN

[danidoom]

Here is the radioplay I wrote for the prompt. It's called, "The Circle".

Re: FILL: TEAM DAVE<3TEREZI

[thatreevesgirl]

*flails* *flails wildly like a beached whale with a penchant for DirkJake*

This is amazingly adorable. And I just love when people write Jake taking command and kissing Dirk silly. I think it is my weakness. This is even better than I could have imagined. Thank you so much for writing it. <3

Re: PROMPT: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

[thatreevesgirl]

<3 that would be amazing <3

Re: PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3SOLLUX

[uki_la_maid]

Wait, I might actually be able to pull this out!

TIME TO PUT MY NONSENSICAL ART SKILLS TO USE!

PROMPT: TEAM JADE<3JOHN<3KARKAT

[inkysquid]

Slice of Life + Paranormal Romance

Dirk<3Jane<3Jake<3Roxy

FILL: TEAM DAVE<3TEREZI

[orange_yarn]

(When I first read this prompt, I read it as "life of crime." This song immediately popped into my head and inspired the ficlet.)

optimist vs. the silent alarm by casiotone for the painfully alone

She peels off her mask and you peel out of the parking lot, tires screeching as rubber sears against the asphalt, as cheap molded plastic gives way to red cheeks and a manic grin. There's half a dozen duffle bags piled up in the backseat, sliding as you bank a hard right, as the mask drops to the floorboards in a graceless heap. Gone is the girl who climbed into the passenger's seat forty-five seconds ago, the girl who wrapped steady hands around her gun, the girl who would have pulled the trigger. She comes off with the mask, like another skin, and all that's left underneath is the Bonnie to your Clyde, all that's left is Roxy.

You anticipated every variable, every possible outcome, you thought of everything except this fickle mix of terror and exhilaration, or how your fingers would clench against the steering wheel, or the press of cold steel against your flesh from the gun tucked in your waistband. You couldn't know how she would look, your partner in crime, smiling wide enough to split her face as she dreams up a better future for you both because holy shit, you actually made it.

The car goes thump-thump as you clip the curb, and Roxy rolls down the window and just cackles. It's this wheezing, wrenching laugh, like she's been holding her breath since the two of you walked into the bank this morning, since you starting sketching floor plans and escape routes on napkins. You barrel down the street and Roxy laughs and laughs and laughs, and sirens wail in the distance.

Re: FILL: TEAM JOHN<3DAVESPRITE

[jack_of_none]

I MAY NEVER STOP LAUGHING.

PROMPT: TEAM Dirk<3Equius

[cypher]

Equius <3 Tavros, mythical creatures + curtainfic

PROMPT: TEAM Dirk<3Equius

[cypher]

Rose<3Kanaya<3<Vriska, western + mystery

PROMPT: TEAM Dirk<3Equius

[cypher]

Sollux<3Feferi, future noir + hurt/comfort

Re: PROMPT: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

[doubleohally]

omfg someone please do this omfg wait can i do this since im not on that exact team omfg

FILL: TEAM DAVE<3<KARKAT

[makingtriangles]

((Auugghh I sadstucked D:))

It had grown dark, the light from the television flickering over their faces as they stared blankly at the set, John on the floor, Dirk and Jake on the edges of their beds. There was so much that needed to be said that none of them could breathe a word.

It was Jake that finally switched off the TV, and clicked on the lamp on his dorm desk. John was staring at nothing. Dirk was staring at Jake.

"I have to get to Dad," John said finally, voice high and strange.

"There won't be time." There was a quaver in Dirk's voice that made Jake's heart give an awful twist. "There aren't enough jets for everyone who wants to go west and the roads will be nearly impassable."

"I have to call him." John scrambled to his feet, eyes frantic. He made it to the door in two steps, and they heard his running footsteps echo off down the hall before the door slammed.

Jake buried his head in his hands. There was nothing any of them could do. That's what they'd said. The scientists. Nothing anyone could do.

"Jake..." He felt the bed dip under his roommate's weight, and a cool hand on his arm. "I need to say something."

Dirk sounded nervous and sad. Jake wondered if he'd ever hear any of his friends sound happy again. "Go on, then."

"I know you and John are...but I can't..." He let out a shaky breath, hugging himself, his eyes downcast. "I'm in love with you."

Jake could barely stop his hands as they reached for Dirk's shoulders, pulling him around. He only caught a glimpse of those startled orange eyes for a split second before he was crushing their lips together, hands sliding up Dirk's shoulders to tighten in his hair.

Dirk made an anguished sound, hands fisting in the front of Jake's shirt, kissing back in desperation. Soon they slowed and stopped, panting for air, foreheads still touching. They sat that way for a long time, in silence, their hands intertwined.

When John returned, face pale and eyes rimmed red, they pulled him between them, holding him tightly in a many-armed hug. John kissed Jake first, desperate for affection, for consolation, and didn't release his hold on Dirk even when Dirk leaned in and pressed a slow, nervous kiss to his throat.

Jake pushed John back onto the bed, and Dirk hovered for a moment, unsure of his place, until John curled one shaking hand around his wrist. "Please stay."

FILL: TEAM ERIDAN<3FEFERI<3SOLLUX<3<ERIDAN (1/3)

[shellfishdimes]

Thunder outlines his hive against the night sky. It's like everything you've ever read about and unlike anything you ever thought you would lay your eyes on. And yet, here you are, nothing but a whelk, unfit for everything but feeding off the very bottom of the ocean: you, Eridan Ampora, find yourself at the door of the hive of Dualscar, the Orphaner.

It used to be a ship, but you can tell that it hasn't sailed the seas for many sweeps: it is deeply moored on the shoal where it stands, the three masts piercing the sky like thorns. Light glitters out of the portholes like the glowing eyes of revenants which plague Alternia in the daytime, and you wait on his doorstep, the rain lashing your wiry, poorly-dressed frame, your glasses off because there isn't a point to keeping them on when you have to wipe the rain off them every few seconds.

After what feels like an eternity, the door opens with a groan of rusted hinges. The warmth of the inside of the hive hitting your half-frozen form makes you shiver. You can't make out who it is that's standing in front of you: the light is hitting their back, and your eyesight makes it impossible to make anything out at such close quarters. All you can see is the outline of a tall troll with wavy horns and a high collar looking down at you.

"What?" an authoritative voice demands.

"I heard talk you're lookin' for a personal assistant," you say, hoping that how cold and nervous you are won't show in your voice. You put on your most charming, sly smile, ignoring the way the rainwater is trickling down the back of your shirt.

"Why would I want to hire some barnacle clinging to my ship on a night like this?" He is haughty, dismissive, and just how you imagined him. It makes your gills flare with excitement.

"Because I'm a violet blood," you say, standing your ground. "I'm Eridan Ampora, and I am your descendant. I've looked at the histories: I've traced my bloodline. I want to be an Orphaner. I want to learn from you. It's my hatchright." You brace yourself on both your feet, determined to stand here for as long as you have to. You ignore the way the rainwater squelches in your soaked through shoes when you move.

Dualscar laughs: a throaty, unkind sound. "Yes, wiggler, I can see the sign on your shirt. You're the one that the Heiress Apparent threw out like yesterday's grubsauce, aren't you?"

"If you're the one that the Condescension regards with as much attention as the sea does a jellyfish." The thing with Feferi still stings, but you aren't going to let him get to you.

"I float along according to her whims, but she doesn't feel any loss if she rips me apart?" he asks, an edge to his voice. You regret taking your glasses off at this point, and you regret not bringing a weapon. It was extremely stupid to say what you just did, and it was even more dangerous to come with just the clothes on your back. It is entirely possible that he'll attack you for this, even though the entire kingdom knows that he was laughed out of the palace when he confessed his red feelings for the Empress.

All Dualscar does, however, is chuckle quietly to himself, nothing more than a rumble in his throat. "Sounds about right," he says. "I enjoy your lip, descendant. You can stay. Until I get bored of you, and then I'll tie you to the bowsprit and leave you to the mercy of the sun."

FILL (2/3)

[shellfishdimes]

After that night, you work harder than you've ever worked in your eight sweeps to impress him: you scrub the decks, mop the galley, polish his collection of legendary weapons, shine his boots, get the grit out of his jewellery, file his horns, and do pretty much everything else he asks. He makes you sit on the floor of his cabin in the stern of the ship while he faces away from you, looking out through the huge window onto the sea and dictates to you his memoirs. On other nights, he locks you in the library with a small mountain of scrolls and journals and asks you to copy them out, which you do, painstakingly, until the first light of day shows on the horizon and your eyes start to water.

You keep regular correspondence with Karkat, who pleads with you to go against your natural instincts for once in your life and not be a colossal idiot. He accuses you of having finally lost it, and calls Dualscar a self-obsessed, narcissistic megalomaniac, and then concedes to the fact that you would probably find that attractive, considering how you're growing up to be the same exact moron as your ancestor.

The ship creaks in the day; wind whistles through the portholes at night, and you get up at the crack of dusk to scrub the barnacles off the bow, your bare feet making the wood groan eerily as you walk. Once outside the hive, you make your way to the front of the ship, an empty waste receptacle and a metal scraper in hand. It is low tide, so the ship is fully exposed to the wind, and the barnacles to your mercy. You sigh heavily, sitting on the sand and, arming yourself with the metal tool, get scraping. It's dull and taxing work: after an hour you're hardly rid of half of them. You keep pausing to mop your forehead, and your shirt is stuck to your back with sweat. Frustrated with it, you pull it off your head, taking special care not to catch the fabric on one of your horns.

It takes another thirty minutes for you to notice that Dualscar is sat with his legs swinging from the bowsprit, watching you work. When you realise it, you nearly jump out of your skin, scraping your tool against a barnacle you were trying to remove. The shell cracks, leaving only the fleshy underside. You'll have to scrape it off with your claws. Dualscar laughs at your blunder. Apart from ordering you around, it's all he's been doing: laughing at the mistakes you've made, in that haughty, bored way of his, like he saw them coming.

"How old are you, wiggler?" he shouts down at you. He hasn't called you by your name once.

"I'll be nine in two perigees," you say, standing up. Sand is sticking to your trousers, but you aren't going to bend down and expose your weak spots to him in order to brush it off.

"Will you have anything to contribute to the filial pails?" The question is so forward it makes you blush plum. Dualscar sneers. "I thought not. How do you think I can allow you to call yourself my descendant if you shame me like this? Do you really believe I will allow my bloodline to end with the likes of you?"

"If I have nothing to give to the drone when it comes for me, I'll fight it," you say, clutching the metal scraper tightly in your fist. You expect him to laugh, but all he does is raise his eyebrows at you, regarding you in silence.

"Then you'd better start practicing," he points out.

He jumps down from the bowsprit and makes you spar with him for the first time right there and then. You're on your back after an embarrassingly short time, the skin on your cheek broken by the rings you never see him take off. He lets you get to your feet, and then hits you again, this time landing a punch on the side of your torso, his knuckles scraping against your gills. You clutch at your side, yowling.

"Useless!" he jeers. "Is that how you'll fight a drone?"

"I can fight!" you protest. "I can shoot a gun, give me a gun and I'll show you!"

He grabs you by the throat. He's ridiculously strong, and his grip lifts your feet off the ground. You've never fought an adult before, and you don't think your odds would be very good even if this wasn't one of the best fighters Alternia has seen. Your lungs shut down and redirect your breathing to your gills, which flutter rampantly, struggling to draw the oxygen from the air.

"A drone won't give you enough time to get a gun," sneers Dualscar. "Pathetic!"

"You hide out in a wreck on the beach and bully kids to get a sense of superiority, and you call me pathetic? That's fuckin' rich!" you spit. "Maybe I don't want to uphold our bloodline if I'm descended from such a loser!" Dualscar's sneer cracks at the edges, and then shatters altogether. He roars, throwing you to the ground. Your back collides painfully with the sand, and you clutch at your throat, coughing as the breath returns to your lungs. You see Dualscar storm away and wade into the surf. He jumps into an oncoming wave and disappears under the surface, leaving you alone and bleeding on the beach, your gills smarting, your cheek bleeding and your throat raw from coughing.

FILL: TEAM EQUIUS<3ERIDAN

[messageredacted]

Warning: sadstuck, doomed timelines.

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board ALSKDFASKJDHFLAKJSDHFLAKJSHDF.

CCG: I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TO HAPPEN, BUT I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE MY OWN RAGING STUPIDITY.
CCG: I’VE BEEN FORCED TO TALK TO MYSELF FOR SO LONG THAT YOU’D THINK I’D KNOW MY OWN CAPACITY FOR PAN-MELTING INEPTITUDE BY NOW, BUT NO.
CCG: YOU WOULD BE WRONG.
CCG: I HAVE UNCOVERED FURTHER UNPLUMBED DEPTHS OF PURE BUGFUCK IDIOCY.
CCG: SO FUCK YOU, FUTURE SELF, FOR NOT TELLING ME THE TRULY HUMILIATING CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO/ARE GOING TO LEAD TO MY OWN DEATH.
CCG: ALTHOUGH I GUESS I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DIDN'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
PAST carcinoGeneticist [PCG] 1000 HOURS AGO responded to memo.
PCG: OKAY, I GIVE IN.
PCG: WHAT HAPPENED?
CCG: I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
PCG: I SAW THAT COMING.
PCG: ARE YOU REALLY DYING?
CCG: TO BE HONEST, I DON’T KNOW.
CCG: I WAS HOPING FUTURE ME WOULD SHOW UP TO TELL ME HOW THINGS TURN OUT.
CCG: IF I WERE FUTURE ME, WHICH I PLAN TO BE, THEN I WOULD COME BACK AND LET ME KNOW.
CCG: SO IF HE NEVER SHOWS UP, THAT MIGHT MEAN THAT I DON’T ACTUALLY MAKE IT.
PCG: YOU SHOULD KNOW IF HE SHOWS UP, BECAUSE YOU ALREADY HAD THIS CONVERSATION BACK WHEN YOU WERE ME.
CCG: YEAH.
PCG: HOW BAD ARE YOU HURT?
CCG: PRETTY BAD.
CCG: THERE’S KIND OF A LOT OF BLOOD.
CCG: AND I THINK MY LEG IS BROKEN.
CCG: I DON’T THINK I CAN DRAG MYSELF ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE ALCHEMITER TO MAKE SOME BANDAGES.
CCG: I’LL BLEED OUT BEFORE I GET THERE.
PCG: WELL I’M GLAD TO KNOW WHAT I’LL BE DOING 1000 HOURS FROM NOW.
PCG: I SHOULD MAKE SOME BANDAGES AND TAKE THEM WITH ME.
PCG: WHO CARES ABOUT DOOMED TIMELINES? I’M ALREADY IN ONE.
CCG: I HAD THAT SAME THOUGHT.
CCG: LET’S JUST SAY THAT IT DIDN’T WORK OUT AS PLANNED.
PCG: SO.
CCG: SO.
PCG: WHAT IF YOU TOLD ME WHERE YOU ARE? I COULD GO THERE NOW AND LEAVE YOU SOMETHING.
CCG: WOW.
CCG: I HAD HONESTLY FORGOTTEN THIS PART.
CCG: OKAY, LET’S DO THIS.
CCG: I’M AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS RIGHT OUTSIDE THE SECOND MAINTENANCE BLOCK.
PCG: YOU FELL DOWN THE STAIRS.
CCG: JUST SHUT UP.
PCG: TELL ME YOU DIDN’T ACTUALLY FALL DOWN THE STAIRS.
CCG: FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS WAS ACTUALLY THE LEAST STUPID PART OF THIS ENTIRE EPIC FUCKUP.
PCG: OKAY.
PCG: WHAT DO YOU NEED?
CCG: BANDAGES. WATER. FOOD. SOMETHING TO USE AS A SPLINT.
CCG: PAINKILLERS. LOTS OF PAINKILLERS.
CCG: I MIGHT BE HERE A WHILE.
PCG: BRB.
CCG: NO RUSH.
CCG: I REMEMBER WHERE I LEFT ALL THAT CRAP SO I’LL SEE IF I CAN DRAG MYSELF OVER TO IT RIGHT NOW.

PCG is idle!
CCG is idle!

PCG: OKAY, I’M BACK.
PCG: BUT YOU’RE NOT.
PCG: FUCK.
PCG: I’M REALLY NOT SURE WHAT TO THINK ABOUT THIS.
PCG: I MEAN, 1000 HOURS IS A LONG TIME TO SPEND BY YOURSELF.
PCG: FROM MY POINT OF VIEW, TEREZI DIED TWO WEEKS AGO, AND SHE WAS THE LAST OF EVERYONE TO GO.
PCG: TWO WEEKS LIVING ALONE ON THIS METEOR HAS BEEN TORTURE.
PCG: THE THOUGHT THAT I HAVE TO GO THROUGH ANOTHER PERIGEE IS JUST
PCG: I DON’T KNOW.
PCG: HONESTLY I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I’M HOPING YOU’LL SURVIVE THIS, OR THAT YOU WON’T.
CCG: I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN.
CCG: I THINK THE ONLY REASON I’M STILL GOING IS BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP.
CCG: THANKS FOR THE SUPPLIES, ANYWAY.
CCG: AT LEAST IF I’M GOING TO BLEED OUT, I’LL DO IT IN A PLEASANTLY DRUGGED HAZE.
PCG: HOW BAD IS IT? THE SOLITUDE, I MEAN.
CCG: YOU KNOW WHAT I MISS THE MOST?
CCG: THE SOUND OF OTHER PEOPLE.
CCG: I WOULDN’T EVEN NEED TO SEE THEM. IF I COULD JUST HEAR THE DISTANT SOUND OF OTHER PEOPLE LIVING ON THE METEOR, IT WOULD BE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
PCG: SHIT.
PCG: I JUST
PCG: LET’S CHANGE THE SUBJECT.
CCG: OKAY.
PCG: I DON’T KNOW IF I WANT TO KNOW WHETHER YOU SURVIVE OR NOT.
PCG: BOTH OPTIONS SOUND SO SUFFOCATING.
CCG: THEN CLOSE THE MEMO.
CCG: DON’T READ THE END.
CCG: I WON’T SPOIL IT FOR YOU.
PCG: BUT WHAT IF YOU DIE ALONE?
CCG: I DON’T THINK THERE’S ANY OTHER WAY TO DIE.
PCG: I’M SORRY.
CCG: DON’T BE.
CCG: IT HAS TO END SOME TIME.
PCG: I KNOW THIS IS REALLY STUPID, BUT I WISH I COULD BE THERE FOR YOU RIGHT NOW.
CCG: HEH.
CCG: YOU ARE.
PCG: YEAH BUT
PCG: YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
CCG: IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO GO NOW.
CCG: CLOSE THIS MEMO AND DON’T LOOK BACK.
PCG: I
PCG: FINE.
PCG: BYE.
CCG: SEE YOU.

CCG banned PCG from responding to memo.

CCG: SO YEAH.
CCG: FUTURE ME.
CCG: IF YOU DO SURVIVE THIS, DO ME A FAVOR.
CCG: DON’T TELL ME.
CCG: I DON’T THINK I WANT TO KNOW.

CCG ceased responding to memo.

FILL (3/3)

[shellfishdimes]

You aren't planning to leave before you've learnt something. You leave the waste receptacle and the metal scraper where they are, and head back to the hive. The first thing you do when you re-enter the ship is head for the gun deck. Most of the cannons have been removed to make way for weapons stands. You take a large, streamlined blue rifle, hoisting it on your shoulder, and head to the captain's cabin. You prop a chair against the door handle, hoping that it will keep him away long enough for you to arm the rifle. Heading to his desk, you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the window. You look terrible. There are circles around your eyes from lack of sleep and your hair hasn't been properly conditioned in weeks. The cuts on your cheek have started to scab over, and there are eggplant, finger-shaped bruises forming on your neck. You sniff irritably, running your hand through your hair. All that does is make it stick up in different angles. You direct your attention back to the desk, rattling the drawers open. You know there's something here he's keeping from you: you've heard him shuffle about here when he thought you weren't listening, and you've seen him unlock the third drawer down when he thought you weren't looking. After not managing to produce a key from anywhere, you use the butt of the rifle to smash the lock, and pull the drawer open. Inside, you find what you'd only call a notebook if you were feeling exceedingly generous: all it is, in fact, is bits of foolscap paper tied together with string, rolled up, and tied once again. You untie the first knot and open it, using the inkwell as a paperweight.

The paper is old and water damaged, but the ink has mostly withstood. As much as Dualscar likes to talk your ear off about his exploits, there are no notes in this, just sketches. There are octopi, eels, cuttlefish and squid, drawn with reverent accuracy. A narwhal takes up an entire page, its movement fluid enough that you're ready to swear it is going to swim away. Some of them have dates, and you see that they go back as far as sixteen sweeps ago. A drawing makes you pause. You think it's Feferi, but it can't be: this is one of the few dated ones, drawn sweeps before either of you were hatched. The horns and the face shape are the same, and although you've never seen the Empress in person, it doesn't take you long to figure out that it's her, except younger. She can't have been more than ten sweeps when this was made. She's looking away, as if she didn't realise someone was drawing her. She probably didn't, you think. You collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system clenches. It's not just that she didn't care, she never even knew.

You flick through the rest of the foolscap, finding more pictures of her: her features begin to gain more of the royal arrogance typical of her blood colour as she grows to adulthood. The last sketch is unfinished: she is looking over her shoulder, her hair pushed behind her ear. A loose strand is spilling over her clavicle, and her mouth is upturned in a quizzical smile. You doubt the Empress would ever smile like that, and Dualscar must have thought the same when he drew it: the sketch has been scrawled over with angry ink strokes.

A bang at the door makes you look up in bewilderment. You raise your rifle, watching the doorknob rattle. There is a brief pause in which you can only hear your own panicked breathing, and then the door burst open, the chair splintering and falling to the side. Dualscar stands in the frame, hair and clothes still wet from the sea. His eyes go from you, to the rifle, to the sketches on the desk, and back again.

"Nobody has ever called me pathetic and lived," he warns. "But who are you, Eridan Ampora? You're a nobody. You don't have a single quadrant mate, you're hiveless. You didn't even get into the nautical academy because you failed your entrance test four times, until they turned you away to save yourself further embarrassment. And what do you do? You come crawling to me to teach you how to be an Orphaner, so that you can impress a little fish girl who threw you face-first out of the pale quadrant."

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not doing this for Fef," you continue. "We've had to feed lusii to Gl'bgolyb since we could swim to keep her quiet and keep everyone alive. Everything is depending on me not to fuck this up, and I'm not gonna. If all the land dwellers, and everyone else, gets to die, it won't be because I fucked up. I'm going to be better than you, because I'm not going to let my quadrants rule my life." You lower the rifle from where it was pointing at Dualscar's chest, and place it gingerly next to the drawings. You walk around the table, so that there is nothing standing between you and Dualscar now. "I'm not going to fester in a relic and leech off a memory. So, thanks," you conclude, shrugging. "I guess you taught me some shit worthy of my time after all."

You go to push past him and leave the cabin, but he grabs your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. You glare at him, and he glares back. It's frightening, in a way, to see your future staring at you from his face: he looks twenty sweeps old, although you can't judge it very well, since highbloods age very slowly. He could be sixty. None of the records you've read mention a definite hatch date. He looks like you like to imagine you will one day, when you lose your wiggler blubber, grow into your lanky form and stop fucking around and put some actual muscle on your bones. You wonder how many trolls he's killed for telling him the truth. You wonder how many he let stick around long enough to be able to hear the truth from them. Neither number is one you wouldn't be able to count on the fingers of your hand, you think. You can't hate him, but it's a horrible type of pity that you feel towards him. He is both someone you're fighting desperately to become and someone you don't want to end up like.

Alarm pools in your gut as he leans closer, crashing your lips together. His other hand goes to your shoulder, and he pushes you against the doorframe, your naked back digging painfully into the wood. You open your mouth and his tongue slides against yours, and your blood pusher is hammering in your chest as he presses against you, his salt-stained, damp shirt sticking to your chest. He barely has to bend down; you're almost as tall as he is. He trails his hand down your side, fingers tracing your gill slits, and you shudder helplessly. He breaks the kiss as suddenly as he started it, leaving you flustered.

"I guess you taught me something, too," he says.

FILL: TEAM GAM<>KAR

[sicklikewinter]

i think i got this down?
it was fun!
uvu

there's not much science-y stuff in here i don't think? i'm sorry!
————————————————————————

You have a tea party at half past one ‘o clock in the afternoon, when the pitter of hoof beats sound from the top of the sprawling gazebo, the tinkerbulls are on their usual move. The smells of the gardenias mix relatively well with the smell of your warm tea-n-troll-blood combination, zapped into existence by your little scientist with her appearifier. You daintily sip at the concoction in your hands, and mentally count—one, two, three, four, five—before there’s a snap-crackle-poof poof! and your lover is sparkling into view. She isn’t fully there, oh no, she is a hologram. Well, not exactly. It is a creation of her doing, space travel is a sure possibility, but it is too much of a wait for her; so very impatient your scientist is.

“Sorry Kanaya, I have to make this quick because there’s this one breakthrough I’m about to hit and—“

She halts her rambunctious tittering at the slight movement of your hand. You try to keep down the feeling of hurt down and out of your expression, but she spots it lightning quick and she is already leaping across the table (through it, if you’re feeling technical, of course you are not) to wrap you up in her holographic arms.

“I do not mind Jade, I do understand that you are quite a busy girl. I shan’t keep you waiting. Go on then,” Your voice is clipped and very polite, ever so slightly strained though. Jade hiccups and presses a kiss to your forehead, mumbling ‘I’m sorry’s over and over again before she stands and straightens up her holographic image.

“This won’t take long I promise Kan! Honest!” she is eager, and your bloodpusher quickens its pace inside your chest cavity. You sometimes wish that you could hold her, not an ersatz Jade all fuzzy-fizzy not flesh, but you do know that it is quite difficult to cross two universes in under an hour—it is just near impossible. She blinks out of view before you can open your green lipsticked lips to reply. You sit the tea cup filled with your cooling drink and try not to seem too discouraged. She does love to tinker and create new things, and it shouldn't (but it does) make you upset. it would be like her trying to dissuade you from drinking troll blood or sewing outfits. It just wasn't going to happen.

The sound of frightened tinkerbulls interrupts your thoughts, and you wonder what could up and send those beasts into a tizzy. Rising from your perch on the gazebo you lean over the rails to glance out around you. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong, no danger at all that you can visibly see—

oh.

The gardenias are all crushed and broken and there's a new addition to the ruined patch of flowers. A certain bubbly islander with wide wide green emerald hued eyes sits rubbing at her head as she tries to gather her bearings. You cannot help the sly smirk that grows across your face at the sight, your bloodpusher is racing so very fast at the sight of a tangible Jade.

"Jade, I do believe we were in the middle of our usual tea party," you murmur quietly, and Jade visibly perks up at the sound of your voice. She jumps to her feet and races to you, leaping over the railings and into your arms—feather light kisses already peppering your cheeks your nose your eyelids your forehead until your lips are pressed tightly against hers—and you don't feel the need to scold her for ruining the flowers. She nods her head—it's another poof-crackling of energy, a something you need to get used to with your space witch lover—and pops into being in the chair opposite of yours. Another cup of tea (sans troll blood) is perched daintily on another saucer and you think you fall in love a little bit more with the bubbly girl.

"Of course Kanaya!" her lips curl into that precious parenthesis of a smile and you couldn't be happier with your unusual little space witch.

FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY

[nextian]

...I LED THE DOG ALONG AFTER ME AND FOUND M WHERE WE HAD SPLIT HOLDING THE REGISWORD AND LOOKING SORT OF ILL. SHE SEEMS TO HAVE DECAPITATED SEVEN OR EIGHT PEOPLE WHILE I WAS DISTRACTED. I DO NOT THINK IT SAT PARTICULARLY WELL WITH HER. I USED MY ETIQUETTE ON HER AND SHE SMILED AT ME WITH ALL HER PECULIAR TEETH AND TOOK ME BACK TO THE CAPITAL.

I HAVE NO HOME HERE OF COURSE BUT ACCEPTING HER INVITATION I HAVE MADE MY RESIDENCE IN A SMALL AND COMFORTABLE SHED OFF OF HER ALLOTTED HOUSING. IT CONTAINS SUSTENANCE AND SHADE. MOST SATISFACTORY. I WAIT HERE WHILE THE PLANETARY GOVERNMENT DECIDES WHAT MY FATE IS TO BE. WHETHER I AM TO BE AWARDED FOR MY PACIFICATION OF THE CANINE MONSTROSITY OR EXTRADITED AS PRISONER OF War confound it what was that button!!! the letters are more pleasant but this machine is incomprehensible. r i hope you can make sense of me.

it is very strange, r. all my memories are of their ships shelling us and of the burning of my fields but the army is hated here just as much as ours is. their farmers are just farmers. their herdsmen are just herdsmen. their giant mutated bishops are just giant mutated bishops. i do not know who the war serves.

that is the end of my tale. i dispatch this communication with my hostess who will politely ferry it back to you. r you are probably wondering why i am trusting it to her as this letter is half treason and half meditations on how beautiful she is but you will see that you get this letter unopened and safe. she is so trustworthy. and her shell is so fine. please do not court her even though your properties are much more extensive please please please i like her very much. when she returns she has agreed to talk treaties. you should consult with her. she knows everything about documents and you know everything about the law. i am sure you will be friends.

yours in space

warweary villein a wayward vaGABOND DAMN THIS INFERNAL MACHINE