BONUS ROUND 5

[hso_mods]

Bonus Round 5

Tales from the Road

Hey, shippers! HSO is winding down, so we thought we'd take a look back at the journey, so to speak. With that in mind, this next bonus round is going to be roadtrip-themed! Give us a little taste of your characters' life on the road, whatever form that takes.

Rules

1. Submit prompts! Prompts should consist of one ship (friendship/gen is fine too!) and a location. This cannot be your team's ship! This round we will not be giving points for prompts.


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 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 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!

Bonus Round 5 is now closed!

16/08/12 Comments are unscreened again, for the sake of comments on fills. No new fills are being counted for points.

Comments

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[tawny]

Equius♦Nepeta, the Australian outback

PROMPT: TEAM ENGLISH

[cerulean_neuf]

Ship: Hussie / Vriska

Location: Land of Souls and Olive

(aka Olive Garden: http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/12963616983/land-of-souls-and-olives-a-conclusion-pasta-la-vista )

Re: PROMPT: TEAM ENGLISH

[grausam]

what a great idea :D c'mon, somebody fill this with a hilarious story!

PROMPT: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

[vulturer]

ship: John<3Jade
location: driving through forested mountains in the rain

Re: PROMPT: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

[aloice]

So filling this.

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[tawny]

Jade♥Kanaya, Venus

PROMPT: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

[vulturer]

ship: Dave<>Aradia
location: Death Valley

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

[fayharley]

Warning: Animal harm

"Death Valley," Aradia read from the map. "Dave, Dave, we need to make a detour."

"I can promise it's not half as good as you're imagining right now," Dave said.

"Come on," Aradia said. "It's not like we're short on time."

"Yeah, we're practically made of it."

"That's a terrible joke."

"Sorry, I will step up my game in the future."

They pulled off the main highway, cutting across the desert towards the famous valley. Aradia looked out the car's window and bounced in her seat in excitement.

"Oh!" she cried suddenly, making Dave jerk the wheel. "Dave pull over, pull over!"

"Christ, do you gotta piss all the sudden?" Dave snapped, but he obeyed. Aradia hurriedly kicked open her door and took off into the sand.

"Dave, come quick!" Aradia called. "Come check it out!"

"Okay," Dave said. "That actually is pretty awesome."

It was a skeleton. It looked like some sort of bull, at least by the skull. The body's bones had been scattered by scavengers.

"Weird," Dave said. "There's no farms around here. Maybe it fell off the back of a truck and staggered out here to die?"

"Can we take it?" Aradia asked. "The skull is so awesome."

"Sure, I think it'll fit in the trunk," Dave said.

It took both of them to haul it up to the car. The whole way they kept checking over their shoulders but the dinky little highway was empty.

"Perfect fit," Aradia said, closing the trunk gently. "This is going to look so awesome in my hive."

"Whoa, who says you get it?" Dave said. "It would look awesome in my apartment too."

"Hmm," Aradia said. "That's tough. Maybe we'll find another one?"

"I doubt it," Dave said. "Whatever, it's hot as balls out here, let's get moving. There's suppose to be a gas station soon."

The rumbled down the road, air conditioning not doing half as good a job as it should of. Even with all the blessings of a god it was miserable. When they finally saw the gas station they cheered.

"Water!" Aradia cried.

"Apple juice!" Dave added.

They chugged down two bottles each in the store and bought extras and ice and a cooler and dragged it all out to toss in the backseat.

"Sweet, sweet, nectar," Dave said, sucking down his third juice.

"You're like a grub salts junkie," Aradia said.

"Whatever, let's roll- oh my god." Dave froze.

"What?" Aradia asked.

"Over there? See it? The snake."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"That's a striped whipsnake!" he said excitedly. "I've wanted one for years oh wow."

"Well, grab it!" Aradia said.

"No way, it'll bite the fuck out of me soon as I get near."

"You're the Knight of Time and you're letting a snake get the drop on you?"

"Snakes are fucking scary, okay? There was a kid in my class that got bit by a rattlesnake on a field trip and holy fuck. I guess we should just get going."

Dave stared sadly at the snake before turning and going back the car.

"If you're not going to do it, I am," Aradia said. She walked right up to the snake and like a flash her hand struck out, grabbing the snake by it's throat and there was a distinct snap.

"Wow," Dave said. He looked at her and then at the dead snake and then back and forth a couple times. "Let's stick it in the cooler."

For the rest of the drive they had to push the snake aside every time they wanted to grab a drink. It was sort of inconvenient but hey, it wasn't like you could find formaldehyde in bumfuck nowhere unless you were a serial killer.

"So you get the snake, I get the skull," Aradia said.

"Deal," Dave agreed.

They finally got to Death Valley just before dark. They got out of the car and stood on a hillside, staring at the sunset.

"Wow," Aradia said. "This really is lame."

"Yeah. Though I think we passed a stand with jackalope taxidermy a couple miles back."

"What's a jackalope?"

"You are in for a treat."

PROMPT: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

[vulturer]

ship: Terezi<3Aradia
location: some random tourist trap souvenir shop off the highway, you know the ones

FILL: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE

[psonu]

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[masumi_hijiri]

Sollux, Kanaya, and Eridan (terrible, terrible friendship)

New Orleans (for Mardi Gras)

if it wasn't obvious, I'm just prompting this for the colors.

Fill: TEAM Eridan♥Sollux

[lovethighholsters]

Kanaya: Have A Marvelous Time While Dressed To The Nines.

You return to the bar with Sollux and dodge past other patrons to grab some drinks. It's crowded, loud, and the air is saturated with alcohol but neither of you care. Partially because you are both having a grand time, mostly because you are delightfully buzzed and Sollux makes positively horrible puns while drunk.

It's good to see him so relaxed, even if you have to occasionally catch his arm to prevent him from toppling into a table.

You are missing one member of your triad of 'bead hunters' as Eridan had dubbed it. Roughly an hour prior you all split up with the intent to collect as many beads as possible.Or rather, Sollux and Eridan had ran off to collect more beads than each other and you walked over to another bar across the street for another glass of wine. An attractive blue-blood let you hand-pick from the beads around her neck... and then she introduced you to her friends. So you managed to pick up a few.


Sollux seems to have fared decently in his endeavor, after all he isn't nearly as color-conscious as yourself. You accepted only greens or reds to complement your dress. He sorted red and blue beads onto either arm and the other-colored beads went on his neck.


In your little alcove with Sollux, you are looking at the door while he accounts one of his more amusing 'conquests' involving mistaken identity, a poor bystander, and a trampoline. You spot Eridan walk in. Knee-jerk instinct makes you want to guwaff and laugh unattractively but you manage to reign it in. You smile serenely at him and signal him over.

Him and his giant piles of beads dripping off of him. He has beads coating his arms, his neck; there are pairs slung across his horns as if someone tossed them through the air in a game of hoofbeast-shoes.

"Wooooooooah ed, you got theriouthly fucked up." Sollux slurs then devolves into uncontrollable laughter as he sags against the wall. Eridan glowers at him and pushes Sol further down the wall before turning his 'I've-been-victimized' face back to you.



"Shovve it Sol, you havve no idea wwhat I'vve seen tonight. Kan, the parts of humans I'vve seen... the horror."

But indeed, Eridan is 'fucked up': his heavily-styled hair is disheveled and hangs down around his cheeks. His turtleneck is wrinkled past all hope and one sleeve has been rucked up to his elbow with no chance of pulling it back down over the mass of beads.

"Oh you poor unfortunate troll, come here and tell me all your woes. Now hold my glass while I bring you back to some semblance of well-groomed." You get an eye roll for the sarcasm but he still shuffles a bit closer, pulling off stings of beads to toss at Sollux's face.

You dig a comb out of your purse and get to work while Sollux laughs on the floor of the bar.

PROMPT: TEAM JADE<3KARKAT

[sakiexcel]

[Friend!]ship: John/Dave/Jade/Rose
Location: Disneyland

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

[veira]

John♥Vriska; Great Wall of China.

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

[aloice]

The noise I made when I saw this prompt was not human

I really want to see a fill for this prompt...

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

[veira]

Rose♥Davesprite; Aricebo radio telescope, Puerto Rico

FILL: TEAM AUTORESPONDER<3ROXY

[teakei]

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[tawny]

Autoresponder&Roxy (gen or ♥), Detroit Deluxe

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

[veira]

Jade+Dirk, gen; CERN, Large Hadron Collider

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[slippy]

Signless & Dolorosa

Location: the place where an epiphany awaits.

FILL: TEAM JOHN<3ROSE

[threeley]

When he was young, he used to stare at her like she wasn't a stranger who picked him up out of the dust. He would squint his eyes and his eyebrows would flatten and he'd purse his lips, like it was vitally important that he place her name. Even if she was the only troll he had known his whole life.

Perhaps it was strange, but at times she thought she was forgetting something very important about him, too. But whatever it could have been eluded her.

She would hum some melody that she'd known all her life and he would say, "You used to sing that song all the time. Why don't you learn some new songs already?"

He would yell and wonder what the hell was the matter with people and why couldn't she remember who he was? And she would arch an eyebrow and tell him that of course she remembered him, she raised him. And he would sigh and shake his head, and some part of her turned because she knew that something had gone wrong. Because this wasn't how things were.

"I think we were friends," he whispered one night in a sleepy haze as she hummed her old song (and he had an intense apathy for that song, but wouldn't talk about it). "Really good friends."

Something about that felt right.

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[tawny]

Eridan♠Feferi, Venice

FILL: TEAM NEPETA<3TEREZI

[vulturer]

Slight warning for emetophobia. Wicked awesome prompt btw.

- - -

It's freezing cold and pouring rain and the water is filthy and you have no idea where she's going. She's flying up the Grand Canal along with the current, her ragged skirts twisting and fluttering like fuck you, suck it deadweight, too sloooow, ha ha ha. They brush her legs as she kicks, long webbed feet churning the water. You grab at speed, just trying to keep her visible in the clouded river under colored lights that flash and scatter; you're stronger, but she's faster. And she's got a goal in mind.

She banks a hard right into a narrow canal; one flash of light in her hair, and then she's gone. You roar through your open mouth at the impossibility of catching her, kicking your feet hard and angry, too hard; you slam into the canal's wall. It scrapes a thin layer of skin from your shoulder, smearing it with shit you definitely don't want to know the name of, but you just curse it off and grab at a step and pull. Silt and minerals coat your insides like a film, layer after layer with every yard you cover; gargling bleach sounds like a treat. But you catch a glimpse of her and you swim.

She pushes off the slime coated walls like a grasshopper, fast and sharp and featherlight, but she curves like a snake. It's hot as fuck, her twisting and guiding her path with claws catching on the grooves eaten into the walls, like she's climbing through the water, weightless. It shoots through your nerves, up your spine and then down lower, and you're furious simply from that. She goes and goes and goes, through the drowned labyrinth, and then finally breaches out of the water onto the stone. You grab for a notch and pull yourself out, the cold air bubbling horribly through your fouled airways.

You're sick to the side, hacking up as much shit from your system as you can. It slips out in gobs and a shudder slides up your spine. A tiny comfort is the sound of her coughing too, except after she clears her throat, she just spits. You want to kill her. You want to kill her so hard, but she doesn't give a floating fuck; she's up and sprinting in seconds. The splashes of her steps in the rainwater fade away fast, and you scramble to your feet to chase her. You slip on the stone and curse under your breath, not wanting to wake up the ghosts in the vine lashed houses. The mortar is mottled with soot and old spray paint, glistening in the faint lights that still burn even after the city has faded. You look up to see a painted square on old brick reading Calle dei Morti, and it chills you right down to your blood, cold as nothingness. Reprieve is fleeting as you follow her over a bridge, crossing the Grand Canal, and then plunge back into the dark streets. You can just barely hear her footsteps slapping against wet stone, splashing lightly as she crosses the bridges over canals. The alleyways close in on you, towering, dark and dripping with old rust, silent.

The water at your feet gets higher the further you go, like the streets are slowly sinking. It's up to your ankles when suddenly the narrow city vein explodes into the open air of the Piazza San Marco, walled in by crumbling structures. You find her standing on the edge of a water filled sinkhole that nearly swallows the whole courtyard. It's pitch black and bottomless, the water's surface spattering and distorting with the downpour. Her toes curl over the edge. You stop a few feet away, bloodpusher racing in your chest.

"Whoa..." you say casually, catching your breath, "What's with the hell tunnel?"

"That's what I came here for," she says and looks over her shoulder, a wet curl of dark hair clinging to her cheek. Rain pours a thin gauze in between you and makes her flicker like a wraith, tall and dignified with her regal posture, like a ghost queen who set aside her jewelry.

"One a those squid monster freakshows?"

"It might be."

"Fef, that's a fuckin' madness, let's just make like a tree an-"

"They're not evil, how many taimens do I have to raypeat myshellf?" she snapped and the echo of her sharp, high voice made you look around warily for disturbed spirits, or screwy curses, or what the fuck ever still lingered in this forsaken shithole.

"Coulda fooled me."

She whirls and tackles you right to the ground, snarling up in your face with sharp teeth and furious pink eyes. Pure reflexes gets your arm pressed up against her neck, holding her back. Up close, without her goggles and gold, she looks like a pure fighter.

"I never asked you to follow."

You lean up and growl, "Like hell I wouldn't, princess."

Her lip curls and she pushes away with a hiss, stepping toward the edge once more. She turns, standing still and straight like a diver on her toes, heels hanging over the edge.

"Wait up here if you're scared, sandwalker," and she falls backward into the pit, dissolving into black instantly. You are out of your fucking mind with terror, but there ain't no way you're staying, what with her last knife digging into you. Absolutely no goddamn way, so you jump up and dive in after her, the inky darkness embracing you like oil, and you descend.

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[slippy]

Eridan c3< Kanaya/Vriska

Location: police station

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[masumi_hijiri]

Calliope and Caliborn (gen)

London Olympics 2012

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[slippy]

Kanaya ♦ Karkat ♦ Gamzee

Location: crime scene.

Because together, they fight crime.

Re: PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[cypher]

this is a good prompt and you should feel good *_*

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[slippy]

Calliope ♠ Caliborn

Location: Derse.

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

[fayharley]

Warnings: Blood, gore, violence.

Her chest ached, from sternum all the way down to hips, the gash still slowly oozing lime blood and puss. She wasn't sure how she was alive but she wasn't going to question it. She had more important things to worry about at the moment.

The sky above Prospit was going dark. It wasn't as if something was blocking the sun at all. Something was destroying the light. Some blackness had wrapped its tendrils into sunlight itself and was siphoning it away into the ether to be destroyed. Calliope knew there was only one person who would be sick enough to start that kind of chaos, to hurt that many people, just to get his own kicks.

She headed towards Derse. It was difficult to breathe around the clots of bloody phlegm and bile she coughed and spit involuntarily. Her throat was rubbed raw but them, she was sure by the time she actually confronted him she would no longer have a voice to scream.

Everything around her was being pulled apart at its seams, reality stretching and unraveling bit by bit. She stubbornly flew on, dodging around broken pieces of golden towers. She didn't want to think about how many people were inside those. Prospitians clad in their dark tunics huddling in corners as they spiraled towards the end.

He had to be stopped, she told herself, clinging to that one thought against the pain. Around the darkness was a bright rim, as burning red as Caliborn's blood, offensively bright and searing in the sky. She hated it. She hated him. She wanted to grab and shake him, rend his flesh with her claws and teeth. What she had of a heart thudded in excitement at the thought.

Her golden gown was tattered and soaked through with lime. Her eyes could barely stay open, making her fly crooked and allowing herself to slam into debris. Everything hurt so much. She just wanted to give in except for that one burning ember of hatred settling deep in her stomach and slipping lower, making her body tingle. This was it. This was the final moment, the ultimate confrontation, the pinnacle of their whole relationship. It wasn't like the soft romance of the humans, the desire to stroke Roxy's beautiful hair back from her forehead and to have lips to kiss her skin. It was something completely different. Something terrifying.

She twisted around another broken buttress and then she saw him. He was glowing, flashing lime and red in some terrible monstrous way. He was missing a leg, replaced by steel stained with drips of red. What had he done to himself?

She growled.

"Hello, Calliope," he said, voice so deep it seemed to shake reality itself. "I'm glad to see you're alive, now I have the pleasure of killing you myself."

She hissed as she threw herself at him, twisting the fabric of space around her as she dodged each of his blows, twisting their force back onto him.

"Why are you hitting yourself?" she croaked, smirking bloodily.

He roared in anger.

"This is it, brother," Calliope said, pausing to hack up another half dried chunk of flesh and blood. "Are you going to mate me or what?"

He lunged and she braced for impact.

PROMPT: TEAM DAD♥ROXY

[masumi_hijiri]

Karkat♦Kanaya

to the Indigo League in Kanto.

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

[veira]

Kanaya+Nepeta; Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

PROMPT: TEAM ENGLISH

[cerulean_neuf]

Ships: Roxy <3< Meenah

Location: Snazzy Machine/Automated Car Wash

PROMPT: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[slippy]

Vriska & Tavros

Land of Sand and Zephyr

PROMPT: TEAM ENGLISH

[cerulean_neuf]

Ship: Aranea / Jake (any quadrant)

Location: Movie Theater

PROMPT: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE

[psonu]

dave♥terezi♥rose in las vegas

PROMPT: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE

[psonu]

john♥rose♥dave♥jade at disneyland