hs_olympics | BONUS ROUND 1

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bonus round

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Reality Game Show + Survival Horror, Dave<3Jade<3Tavros

I was planning to do something more Bad Wolf when I bookmarked this, but then my moirail mentioned Battle Royale/Hunger Games and suddenly this happened. I'm not sure how survival horrory these scenes are, but this worldbuilt itself into something way too huge for a bonus fill while I wasn't paying attention, and I'm definitely planning to give this a proper go and finish it up after the HSO ends. Uh, hope you like this.

---

"Harley," Dave calls, trudging after his companion. He curses as his feet snag on roots in the swampy, thick underbrush that threaten to trip him up with every step. His shoes are heavy and waterlogged, and he can feel the dampness seeping up his pants legs to unite with the sweat streaming down his face in what will undoubtedly be a very touching moment. He finds his hand flitting periodically to the knife at his belt, almost rhythmically. Now up to brush the hair out of his face, then back to the belt, just to make sure it's still there. He misses his swordkind strife specibus.

Jade Harley plows relentlessly ahead of him.

"Goddamn it Harley," Dave snaps. "This compassion schtick is great and all, don't get me wrong, but we're not adopting the crippled kid."

"I think it was just over this ridge," Jade calls back blithely. "At the very least, we can try to get a decent view from up higher."

The marshy ground opens up into a deep pond ahead of them. Jade hikes her skirt up around her waist, skipping easily from stone to stone across it. Dave rolls his eyes and follows more slowly. The rocks are smooth and wet, and slippery under his feet.

"Well, that's just what we fucking need, isn't it?" he snaps, windmilling his arms for balance as his foot slips out from underneath him. "Enjoy the scenic vistas of Hellmurder Island! Wish you were here!" Jade rolls her eyes and catches his hand as he hops to the next stone, pulling him back onto somewhat-solid ground.

"Hellmurder Island is the number one travel destination on Trial fucking Planet, as made popular by the hit reality television show. Check your TV guide for local listings. Tourists flock to the gristly scene like mice to a mousetrap spiked with gouda and cocaine to photobomb the vacation photos of a family of Asian cockroaches with their fat rodent asses and fake orange tans."

Jade actually giggles, and Dave allows a brief smile at that small victory. "The mice have fake tans?"

"The metaphor got away from me a little. The point is... the point got away from me a little, too, but the point is this fucking blows."

"It's not that bad," Jade muses, pausing as they reach the top of the ridge and rolling her shoulders.

"Not that bad? Look at this face. This is my unamused face." Dave crosses his arms for emphasis.

Jade tosses a look at him over her shoulder. "It looks the same as every other face you make," she says. "I'm going to climb this tree now."

"You do remember we're in the middle of a brutal deathmatch being broadcast on live television, right?" Dave asks, peering up to watch as she hoists herself up.

"Don't look up my skirt," she warns, sticking her tongue out at him. "I know, but we haven't seen anyone since we landed, and barely any dangerous fauna."

"So that ginormous diseased rat that tried to eat my face off right after we landed was-"

"Barely any! I don't know, it's just not that bad! Kinda reminds me of home."

Right, Dave thinks with a sigh, leaning back against the trunk of the tree now that Jade is fully obscured by the foliage. His only ally is officially batshit crazy. He could not have possibly known this when he met her on the ship. A camera droid flies out from behind a bush with a high-pitched hum to zoom in on his face, and he bats it away irritably. It dodges the blow, righting itself quickly at a slightly further distance.

"Dave!," Jade calls down, "I see a 'chute and I think it's Tavros! Let's go get him!"

"Great," Dave deadpans.

---

They find the troll still stuck in the tree where he landed.

"Could, uh, could you please try to make it quick when you kill me?" he calls down. Dave's not sure, but from what he can see of the troll through the branches he might be hanging upside down.

"Don't be silly, Tavros, it's Jade!" Jade climbs up into the tree to cut away the parachute cords pinning him to the branches. "We allied on the transport ship, remember?"

"Oh, I thought you were, uh, maybe not entirely serious about that."

Dave coils the lengths of cord as Jade tosses them loose, half-listening to Jade and the troll chatting inanely. Jade is speaking in what is clearly meant to be a soothing tone.

"Help me get him down," she calls, and then shrieks.

Dave tenses and draws his knife. He can't make out what the hell is going on up there. "Jesus, Jade, what's wrong?"

"Oh my god you have metal legs!" Jade babbles in a high-pitched squeak of excitement. "Those are so coooool! I didn't think you had these on the ship, though? How did you get them, oh my god!"

Dave pounds his forehead against the tree trunk. "Christ, Jade, don't scream unless it's an emergency, okay?"

"Dave, look at these! They are so cool!"

"They, uh, don't seem to be made for this much moisture," Tavros says, when they finally manhandle him down onto the ground and Jade stops cooing over him long enough that he can speak. "I can't move them very well."

Jade hmms over that, sitting down on the ground next to him and manhandling his legs about while she looks at them.

"So how'd you get your hands on those fancy cyborg legs in the first place?" Dave asks. "Last we saw you, you were in a wheelchair."

"Oh, uh, um," Tavros stammers. "I have a, uh, I guess your word for it is friend? She got a few of her friends in to see me before we got here."

Dave frowns. "People can do that?"

"She, uh, I guess she has connections."

"These are fully prosthetic, aren't they?" Jade asks.

"Yeah there, uh, there might have been a chainsaw involved. That was definitely a thing that happened."

---

Dave takes back every single bad thing he ever thought about Tavros after he stops a cholerbear dead in its tracks mid-charge. It's a monstrous son of a bitch that looks like a bear and a great white shark did the horizontal can-can and then neglected to take their horrible bastard offspring to the orthodontist, never mind they had no need to fear the schoolyard bullies ostracizing the kid for its unfortunate headgear because it would have ripped their arms out of their sockets long before it got to that point. It undoubtedly got kicked off the tee-ball team in preschool for abusing steroids and Dave is aware, on some level, that he is, in fact, hysterical. He can feel the beast's breath on his face, so hot it almost feels sticky, and reeking like a dead fish that's been flushed down a toilet and then regurgitated onto his face.

"Dave!" Jade shrieks, and Tavros is also saying something, but Dave can't hear it over the sound of his blood pounding in his ears as the cholerbear lies down and curls up on the ground in front of him.

Jade yells his name again and before Dave can locate her she's on top of him, squeezing him tightly. "Oh my god," she says, "I thought it was going to eat you!" Dave takes a moment to breathe in deeply, strands of her hair shoved up his nostrils, before he can move enough to pull away.

"Chill, Jade, my hot Strider ass is all in one fine piece," he says, looking around for where he dropped his knife.

Jade pinches his arm, hard. ("Ow!")

"Don't you dare almost get eaten again!"

Dave retrieves his knife and shoves it back in his belt. "What the hell was that, anyway?" he says to no one in particular. A second later, he realizes he probably should have addressed the question to Tavros, who is kneeling next to the cholerbear and scratching it idly between the ears.

"I can, uh, commune with animals," he says, looking sheepish. "Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier."

---

"All done!" Jade announces, squeezing her body into the small space on the ground between Dave and Tavros. "The whole area is rigged, so nothing should be able to approach without us noticing. Just in case, I'll take first watch." She drops a heap of junk onto the ground in front of her, grabbing a branch and shaving away at it with her knife.

"What are you doing there?" Tavros asks.

"Making a crossbow!" Jade says cheerfully.

"How do you know all of this stuff about booby traps and crossbows and robotic prostheses anyway?" Dave asks.

Jade hums under her breath. "I told you my grandpa and I grew up alone on an island, right?" she asks. Dave nods. "Okay, well, that's basically why. We trapped and hunted and foraged for most of our own food. My grandpa was, is, a really big gun nut, but he taught me about all kinds of weaponry."

"That doesn't explain the whole roboleg whisperer thing you've got going on though."

"Well, we got way more rations than we should have through plane drops. Not just extra food, but weapons and circuitry and mechanical components. My grandpa even built me my own robot. He-" Jade turns and fixes her bright earnest eyes on Dave. "I think he was part of the resistance, Dave!" she chirps excitedly. "That must have been what was going mmf-"

Dave cuts her off with a hand over her mouth, looking around anxiously for any camera droids lurking in the bushes. "Jesus, Jade," he says. "If he was, you can't just go around saying stuff like that."

Jade shoves his hand away. "Even if they didn't know by now, which I'm sure they did, knowing isn't going to change anything. He's been away for a long time. They're not going to be able to find him through me!"

She glares at him, and Dave slumps back down to a half-sitting position. "Fair enough."

"He didn't tell me anything anyway, god!"

"All right then."

Jade resumes work on her crossbow, elbowing him in the side as she does so, possibly on purpose. "I guess eventually they figured out we'd been living off the grid and I got airlifted out here," she finishes. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Dave asks.

"Why'd they stick you out here?"

Dave shrugs a shoulder. "My bro disappeared for a few days, no big." He traces a finger over the handle of the knife at his belt. He's been trying to avoid thinking about this since it happened. "Next thing I know they knock down the door and drag me off. Dunno if they thought I was living alone and in violation of housing ordinances or what."

When he looks over at Jade, she's staring at him with big round eyes.

"What?"

"Do you think he could have been a member of the resistance, too, Dave?" she asks. "I've been thinking about this and it just doesn't make sense to throw a bunch of random kids onto a death planet! There has to be something else going on."

"What, no!" Dave says. "No, he's just - he's a cool dude and an awesome DJ and pretty good at strifing but, no, he's not like... he's not underground resistance material."

Jade furrows her brow at him, clearly unconvinced.

"Anyway, no, trolls don't need an ulterior motive to watch kids die on live television. They love this sort of stuff. Back me up here Tavros." He reaches across Jade to poke the troll.

"Oh, uh, yeah, that sounds about right, for trolls, I guess."

"Don't you ever watch TV? It's just not entertainment unless someone dies a brutal gory death, and I'm not just talking about their shitty soap operas."

"We didn't have TV!"

Dave gapes. "You had your own robot, but no television."

"Nope! We had a radio though." She wrinkles her nose. "Did you actually watch this?"

"Well, I caught it on every once in a while. It's usually a lot bloodier than this. Like the cholerbear thing, only all the time, and without the part where Tavros saved our asses at the end."

"So they all get eaten by animals mostly?"

"That or the poison plants get them. Or they fight each other to the death."

Jade squeaks, approaching dog-whistle frequency. Dave pokes her. "Volume."

"Sorry! I guess I figured that much out, but... I still don't get it! Why would they kill each other?"

"Because if things get too boring they send in the drones and everyone dies horrible deaths. Plus, some aliens like killing things and, I guess - I mean, you met some of them - sometimes if you're the last one left standing before they drop in a new group, they'll airlift you off the planet and presumably not kill you after doing so. I don't know, they're kind of vague about that last part."

"Well, I don't want to kill anybody."

"If they attack you, you may not have a choice in that."

Jade pokes him in the side, hard. "We're not killing anybody. So that silarian we found..."

"The one that had been stabbed so many times he looked like a block of swiss cheese? Yeah, par for the course. Surprised we haven't seen more of that. It's kinda eerie, actually."

Jade huffs out a loud breath of air. "What about you, Tavros?"

Dave laughs. "What?" Jade snaps.

"He's a cripple, what do you think he's doing here?"

"Yeah, uh, that's definitely- I mean, I'm not sure why they didn't just send a drone to my hive to cull me, like they normally would, when their records were updated after my, uh, injury, but I guess, they had, uh, different plans, this time."

"Well," Jade says. "Go to sleep. You," and Jade rounds on Dave and points a finger in his face, "get next watch, so actually fucking sleep, okay?

"And don't worry," she says, more cheerfully. "I'll protect both of you."

Dave stares at her.

"Okay, we'll all protect each other, and I'll make sure we make it to the end alive, and then we'll get the hell out of here! Now, sleep."

Dave shrugs. "Whatever you say." On Jade's other side, Tavros shifts around, trying to find a spot to lay down with those ridiculously large horns. Dave slides down so he's lying on the ground. It's cold and a bit damp, even though the parachute fabric they laid out on the ground. Jade Harley though, bless her, is radiating heat like a space heater, and Dave quickly - reluctantly, but quickly - drifts off to sleep.

Oh my. Oh my god. I honestly am at a loss for words.

This is so amazing. I really can't wait to read more or an expansion of this... <3

Have you given any thoughts to the Summoner's role in your resistance? :3

Again... <333

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

BONUS ROUND 1

Bonus Round 1

PROMPT: TEAM Aradia<>Dave

FILL: TEAM JADE<3JOHN<3KARKAT

Re: FILL: TEAM JADE<3JOHN<3KARKAT