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hs_olympics2012-06-10 01:02 am
hso_mods) wrote in hs_olympics2012-06-10 01:02 am
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BONUS ROUND 1
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
- 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.
- Look through the prompts and fill whichever you like!
- You may not fill prompts for your ship, nor may you fill your own team's prompts.
- 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.
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.
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!
PROMPT: TEAM DAVE<3JADE
for Rose/Jade!
FILL: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE<3TEREZI
It takes you three days to find it, three days spent pressing hard looking men against crumbling brick walls and hissing questions at them, needles at their throat. Three days spent sleeping during the day and traveling at night, hood up, knowing that not even the nastiest of sewer-gnomes will fight you with your iridescent scars and sure steps.
You finally find her court in what used to be a park, and still looks like one if you squint. Buildings have fallen sideways into it, crushed stone slowly being smothered by green vines, and there's more fountains than there ought to be. You notice that the fountains are made out of soda cans, after a minute.
There's heaps of rubbish and shrubs everywhere and you slip your boots off (a necessity in the glass ground gravel streets) to wiggle grateful toes in thick moss.
The entrance to the court is a joke. The guard's a dog, a huge white beast that could probably tear your throat out before you could draw your needles, but not nearly as impressive as the gutter rats and soothsayers near twenty-third street had made it seem.
You straighten your shoulders, adjust the rucksack slung across your back, and nod to the guard dog.
He nods back. This surprises you not in the least. When you make a move to the iron wrought gate, all hung with weeds and thistles and strange pink green flowers, he doesn't kill you.
The court's scattered with a dozen dozen strange creatures - tall willowy girls with branches for hands, stocky men who sometimes shift into different shapes in the corner of your eye, a thousand chittering icy beautiful ladies who all smile at you like they'd cut your heart out and eat it, like you'd enjoyed it while they did.
You ignore them.
You ignore everything.
You walk in a straight line to the center of the throng and you do not look behind and you do not let yourself become distracted, by the jangling bangles of witchy women or the sweet smell of something from your childhood that you can't quite place.
The Queen's sitting on a throne of milk crates and street signs, and she looks every bit the girl you knew so long ago. She's wearing a dress as green as the grass, and her head's thrown back, laughing at something a skeletal man to her right said.
There's a hush, when you approach her.
You sweep your skirts, torn and tattered as they are, into something approximating a bow, and the Queen sits there and she laughs and doffs her aluminum and tin crown to you.
"My lady," you say.
"Oh, come on!" she says, and bounces to her feet. "You know my name. Use it."
"Jade," you say, averting your eyes from her bucktoothed shine, the lush green of her dress. "I've come to pledge to serve you. My wands and I. If you'll allow it."
She cocks her head, steps down from the throne, off the dais. "Why are you acting like this, Rose?" Jade asks.
You push up your sleeves a little, so she can see the black and silver burns, the scars of your service to uglier things.
Jade wraps her arms around you and pulls you in close, you can smell the honey-and-clover smell of her hair and you wilt, a little.
"I missed you," she says.
"I'm sorry. I had things to do."
"People to kill," she says, and bumps her nose against yours. "I know. Are you back now?"
"I don't know."
There's nothing left of New York, or your mother's home, the places you spent your childhood days glomping around all unsure and stiff. There's nothing left for you out there, not really.
Jade kisses you, and her mouth is a bear trap. A lock. Locked lips, long nibbling thoughts of old days and her hands curled in your lavender sheets, before everything went to shit.
"Come home, Rosie," she whispers.
no subject
Re: FILL: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE<3TEREZI
this is absolutely gorgeous, thank you so much!
FILL: TEAM DAVE<3TAVROS
--
Dark magic was never something to be studied carelessly, and it was never something one should feel like they could control; The deeper you go, the more you have to be careful, and humble, and good. Being greedy about powers and summoning would only bring tragedy, and the higher you were on the hierarchy, the more careful you had to be. Rose knew it very well; Apparently, the Grand Master did not, judging by the supposedly sealed ancient gods that were now rampaging through the world, breaking all pretenses of masquerades the mages and their familiars upheld during centuries.
She and Jade met in the night the world was ending, dragged and pushed along a group of human survivors to whatever safe place they could find. Rose recognized her instantly as a white witch and Jade was the first to realize exactly what Rose was; her eyes were wide and scared when Rose smiled, putting a finger over her lips.
The horrorterrors were laying pitch-black boiling destruction over the world and everybody was busy trying to survive, so it took the others a couple of months to catch their mistake.
Jade reappeared into existence with a quiet pop and the smell of ozone.
They could see half the city from the remains of the AGT building, and Rose’s nocturnal eyes detected any movement even in the scarce light of the crescent moon. The tall piles of rubble from the demolished buildings around surrounded them like trenches and, past them, the things trudged aimlessly, leaving behind trails of deep purple goo. One of them was lying in the middle of the street, body chained to the ground by finger-thin smoky tentacles, and Rose was sitting on the ground and looking at her hands, focusing.
“Sorry I’m late” – Jade said, crouching behind the sniper rifle secured in one of the broken windows - “Magic or bullets?”
Rose shook her head once.
“Magic, then.” – She took a sharp breath and muttered a ‘goodbye, motherfucker’; a second later, Rose could feel the pressure of her own magic vanishing, and asked Jade why she took so long.
“Rose, you’re speaking in festertonges again!” – Jade said, hugging her hard and kissing her cheek – “Kisses will make you better.” – and she kept kissing her cheeks, her neck, her lips, until Rose laughed and kissed her back.
“Jade, I don’t think kissing and hugging is the correct antidote to black magic corruption.”
“But it worked! You’re normal again, hehe.” – She answered, lying on the floor and dragging Rose with her.
“I wouldn’t have had to slip into black magic if you were back here on time.”
“I’m sorry, Rose! They didn’t want to let me stand guard again tonight, so I had to do a little arm twisting.”
“Not literally, I hope.”
“Well…”
“You’ll end up in trouble” – Rose said, running her fingers in Jade’s hair. – “But they’re right; you should rest a while, instead of keeping guard every night. They don’t know I am here and they think you are exhausting yourself.”
“I wouldn’t have to keep guard every night if you had let me talk to them!” – Jade said, frowning – “I miss you, and if you were there for real we could be together every day.”
“They have their reasons for not wanting a dark mage shouting eldritch curses in her sleep around them. Besides, I’m happy enough that you still want me around, their approval is not necessary. But if we don’t want to make them suspicious, you should let someone come keep guard once in a while. They overlook your powers because they are useful and they think they are harmless, but no one would be so tolerant if they knew the nature of our relationship.”
“I know, but… it’s not fair.”
They kissed again, and Jade let out a sigh.
“Rose?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Outside, unspeakable terrors lurked in the shadows, tearing down walls and breaking minds and souls apart, turning people into mindless hungry monsters.
--
Re: FILL: TEAM DAVE<3TAVROS
Re: FILL: TEAM EQUIUS<3GAMZEE
Re: FILL: TEAM EQUIUS<3GAMZEE
Re: FILL: TEAM EQUIUS<3GAMZEE
FILL: TEAM KANAYA<>KARKAT
---
The steady patter of half a dozen footsteps behind her was getting steadily closer, and no matter how she tried, she couldn't run any faster. It was as though her limbs were weighted with lead, heavy and tired and groaning with every movement of muscle.
She wanted to rest, to collapse, to give up.
Blood leaked down her side, trailing from her dress skirt and splattering on the dirty concrete behind her. It left a clear trail. Even if she did manage to get away, it would be easy for them to track her down again. A wound like that would be barely a scratch to a vampire at most times, but now, when she was already so low on blood, it only made her weaker. It made her unable to reach her heightened speed, which could easily outpace the humans in pursuit, or even her greater strength, which could give her an edge if she turned and attempted to fight. The fact was, she was hopeless. An injured wolf, barely able to fight back, that limped through this steel forest until the hunters finally caught her and put her down.
It's your own fault, Lalonde, she hissed in her mind, acid in every word. You've waited too long to feed, and the hunters know that. They struck when you were weak, and you have no one to blame but yourself. She bit her lip, her fangs drawing more blood that she couldn't afford to lose. However she had dreamed she might finally die, it certainly wasn't hunted down like an animal.
So deep in her thoughts and with her ears focused on the footsteps, Rose Lalonde did not see the human woman before her until they collided—or rather, Rose struck something all too solid and simply bounced off. She stumbled, easily losing her footing in her weakened state, and fell onto the pavement. She tried to rise, but she was far too slow. The vampire hunters were already rounding the last corner. She heard a shout and knew it was too late. When she looked up, one of the hunters was already lifting a gun, its barrel trained on her. She recognized it—the bullets it shot were condensed sunlight, designed to kill a vampire in one shot, no matter where it hit. She tried again, weakly, to climb to her feet.
Someone spoke, but it was drowned out by the gunshot. The bullet itself never met her. She heard it ricochet, and when she looked up, she saw a gently glowing barrier between her and the hunters. The hunters themselves seemed to have turned their eyes away from Rose and to the woman Rose had run into.
"Stay out of the way, witch! Or don't you recognize the monster for what it is?" One of the hunters snarled. From the ground, Rose could only see part of the woman, but she could plainly see the green, tattered dress, the long black hair, and the rifle across the woman's back. She could also see the glow around the woman's hand, bright green shot through with black and flecks of white.
"I know she's a vampire, if that's what you mean!" The woman (or witch, Rose supposed) replied, perhaps a little too happily.
"You're human, too!" Another of the hunters yelled. "You know what they did, and you know they deserved to be killed!" Rose cringed at that. It was common knowledge that the vampires actively hunted humans and had killed millions. Only a few cities and a smattering of nomadic groups remained, but, of course, the vampires couldn't live without them. That was why Rose had been forced to come to this half-destroyed city. Never mind that she had only recently become a vampire herself and that it wasn't a choice of her own. The humans believed she deserved to be killed, and, not too long ago, she would have agreed with them. Now, though, she didn't particularly want to die.
"And you don't know much about vampires!" The witch replied. She turned and crouched over Rose, offering her a hand. She passed through the barrier around Rose with ease. From this position, Rose got a much better look at her would-be savior. The woman was younger than Rose had originally thought, perhaps only eighteen, with vibrant green eyes behind a pair of round glasses.
"Need a hand?" The witch asked. Rose accepted it and let her pull her up. Both Rose and the witch turned when the hunters rushed forward.
"You idiot! She'll kill you!" The witch raised a hand, and the hunters were surrounded by a pale green glow. They stopped in their tracks, obviously unable to move.
"You're kind of annoying, aren't you?" The witch said, a touch of irritation in her otherwise cheery voice.
"They're right, you know." For a moment, Rose hadn't even realized she'd spoken, until the witch turned to her with a perplexed expression. "There was nothing keeping me from killing you," Rose went on.
"Oh! It's alright," the witch replied. "You wouldn't have been able to touch me if you tried! Not in your weakened state. But to be honest, you look kind of new." She smiled brightly. "It's always the new ones that the hunters catch! And they're usually more confused than dangerous. My name is Jade, by the way! Nice to meet you!" The witch practically beamed, leaving Rose flabbergasted. She'd been able to gather so much about Rose from very little. She might not look it, but the tattered young witch had been in complete control of the situation.
"Rose," the young vampire replied after a moment of hesitation. "You know quite a bit about vampires for a witch, Miss Jade."
"No 'Miss'! Just Jade!" The other woman replied brightly. "And, well, you pick up things here and there, you know! Anyway, want to come over for a drink?" Jade jerked a thumb towards an array of buildings behind her that seemed to be mostly still in one piece. "I keep some of my own blood in bottles on hand for special spells and potions, but I always make sure to keep extra! Just in case, you know!" She glanced down and noticed Rose's injury. "We'll get you patched up, too." Rose couldn't help but smile wanly.
"I don't believe I'm in a position to say no," she admitted. "But why would you take pity on a young vampire?"
"Oh, I've got a few vampire friends," Jade replied. "I know you're not all bad! And who's to say you might not help me out in return? Either way, I just like helping people!" Rose shook her head slightly, but the genuine way that the witch spoke (and, perhaps, her own weakness and thirst) won her over.
"I can't argue with that," she said. "Please, lead the way."
"My pleasure!" Jade offered Rose her arm, and she took it rather weakly. They had only taken a few steps when Jade started.
"Oh!" She said, turning back. "I almost forgot!" She waved a hand, and the hunters fell to the ground in a heap, groaning as they climbed back to their feet. Obviously, immobility hadn't been very comfortable.
"Don't blame them," Jade said to Rose. "They're really pretty nice! They do their best to keep us safe from the really nasty vampires. They're just a little over-zealous is all!"
"I'll take your word for it," Rose replied, turning her back on them and trusting that Jade's shields would keep them safe if the hunters decided to retaliate again. "You mentioned blood?"
"Oh, right! Just this way! Oh, and don't mind Bec. He's a little wary about visitors, especially non-human ones, but he'll warm up to you pretty quick!"
---
And then Rose listened to Jade chatter about being a witch while she drank blood from a fancy teacup and patted Bec on the head.