September 2016

davekat is fucking precious

landofsomethingsomething:

Does anyone else just remember out of nowhere sometimes what it was like reading that Roxy & Dave dialogue and when she was like “Have you ever kissed anyone” and Dave flipped out and it was like HAHA, OH MAN, THAT’S JUICY AF, DAVEKAT KISSES, and you thought that was it but you were so starved for content it felt like sunlight after a storm on your jaded shipping face

BUT THEN

LIKE FIVE SECONDS LATER

SHE ASKS IF HE’S EVER BEEN IN LOVE

AND HE FLIPS OUT EVEN HARDER??? EMOTES MORE THAN HE DID IN LIKE THE ENTIRE COMIC PREVIOUSLY (EXCEPT MAYBE ARGUABLY WHEN HE HAD THAT MENTAL BREAKDOWN LOOKING AT HIS SELFIES)??? REFUSES TO ANSWER. REFUSES TO DENY IT??? 

OOOO DAMN I clutched my heart and had to go walk around my house gesturing excitedly to myself for like ten minutes before I could settle my ass down and keep reading

and it still makes me smile so fucking big like dang they ain’t just kissing here they are in L O V E

anyway davekat is a good ship thanks for ur time

davekat is a good ship

landofsomethingsomething:

Just sitting back chilling and thinking about how cool it is that homestuck gave us a canon positive portrayal of m/m romance and how goddamn touching it is that two boys suffering from emotional constipation and emotional diarrhea respectively learned to find sweet equilibrium through each other’s influence. relationship fiber supplements. emotional benefiber. gay metamucil 

nekurothings:

am i doing the fluff right?
i hope so.

allyssinian:

Bonus: genetics, man

orsob:

A commission. Water is so hard and at the same time fun to draw :3

allyssinian:

allyssinian:

So here at discord we started making up a meteorfic AU where Rose and Kanaya basically write a collab story which turns into self insert Beauty and the Beast: Eldritch God version

Bonus Dave and Karkat keep trying to interfere on how theyre written in (theyre two of the furniture servants)

image

image

heres my attempt at uncursed Rose! She has no chill haha

This is art of a fic I’m going to be writing after I finish Today Is The First Day of the Rest of Your Universe!! I’m so excited to have Ally drawing concepts and illustrations from it oh my god she is the most talented person ever.

Working title is Beauty and the Eldritch Horror From The Deep.

ive got too many feelings about knights tbh

landofsomethingsomething:

sometimes i just lay awake at night thinking about how crazy it is that dave and karkat both thought they were fundamentally unlovable for so long and how overwhelming it must have been the first time they realized not that they had feelings for the other, but that the other had feelings for THEM. 

dave constantly blamed himself for not being good enough to earn any affection and eventually thought wanting it all was a symptom of his own insurmountable defectiveness. And karkat believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that anyone who got close would either be appalled by his mutant characteristics or barring that eventually “realize” his personality and the things he wanted were just as flawed as his biology and run screaming. 

imagine how scared they were at first, the first time dave lets himself just be tentatively physically affectionate and he’s expecting mocking or worse but karkat is just flustered and reciprocates immediately, the first time karkat admits that the things he’s feeling don’t fit into a quadrant and never have and dave’s response is positive and relieved instead of condemning. 

imagine how terrifying that must have been and how amazing it must have felt to have those first realizations that all the things they hated about themselves were actually the things that would make the person they fell for fall for them in turn.

god damn.

lowbushbluebeary:

i heard it’s @johnroxyweek … :0c

nekurothings:

golly!

pda

landofsomethingsomething:

I sometimes think about how after Dave officially comes out to all his friends he’ll probably slowly be more comfortable with reasonable pda, like I’m pretty sure this boy craves it 24/7 just casual things like holding hands or the arm drape thing while sitting back somewhere and stuff and meanwhile karkat cannot handle it, he cannot deal, dave I thought we were on the same level with this shit and he’s just sweating bullets like NO ONE LOOK AT ME WHILE I DO THIS I’M SERIOUS AVERT YOUR EYES

like one morning dave walks downstairs and dirk is watching tv and karkat is at the table and dave just wraps his arms around him and kisses him on the cheek and then walks off grinning and karkat sits there for like 30 minutes after internally screaming and dirk moves like 1 centimeter and the couch creaks and he’s like “DON’T YOU DARE SAY A SINGLE WORD” and dirk just looks over like ??????

mikoeko:

I strongly associate jake with nathan drake

optimisticduelist:

castielonabike:

I cringe whenever people describe Jake English as a “tiny cinnamon roll” and think he needs a “protection squad.”

ill protect jake english from this shitty fandom and ill protect all the alphas but i am thoroughly fucking sick of people infantilizing him and denying him agency in favor of ~vicious abuser dirk~ readings or w.e, same 

callmearcturus:

sorrydontknowman replied to your post:

I am completely fucking roadblocked on my royalty AU I’m writing, so sure. LET’S TALK ABOUT JAKE ENGLISH, because my god I love Jake. I love all the Alphas (far more than the betas, sorry betas) but Jake is one of the mega faves, and it really makes me sad how few peeps get how Jake English’s brain ticks.

Blah blah this is my interpretation of Jake, if you have another that’s great, blah blah, DISCLAIMER OVER LETS TALK ABOUT THE ENGLISH SWEEPSTAKES AND HOW JAKE WON IT HIMSELF.

Every Alpha has a huge fucking tragic flaw or five to their name, and one of Jake’s biggest flaws is his purposeful obfuscating stupidity. Because despite what Jane thinks of him, Jake is not actually stupid. He’s an incredibly resourceful kid who routinely works with robotics and nuclear materials and survivalism. He’s a rubber fucker, you cannot keep the boy down.

What he isn’t is good at being forthright about his desires. It’s really the central issue in Jake’s character arc, that he doesn’t know how to assert himself. On the Quest Slab, talking to Roxy, he outright says that all the things he believed about himself were wrong, that he had tied himself to this biographical list of personality traits only to… grow out of them or to realize they were never true.

To me, a central part of reading Jake is to notice the times he hides behind that persona. There are times when Jake talks about himself as in his personal feelings, the “I feel” emotions, and there are times when he doesn’t. When instead of talking about what he would do, he talks about what a Dashed Rugged Adventurer would do. And it’s pretty fair to say that a lot of the time, that’s a tactic to put a cipher between himself and what he’s saying, to make his real emotions more obscure.

For example: The Pesterlog Where Jane Could Not Spit It The Fuck Out.

When Jake brings up his apparent attraction to Jane, it’s not couched in what he feels about her. It’s about what this Hypothetical Guy should feel about her. Because cripes, of course anyone in Jake’s shoes should be thrilled to get with Jane, right?

Right?

When the cards are on the table, Jake’s regret with Dirk is that it wasn’t the way he wanted it to be. (And, Jake, don’t worry, Dirk feels the same, lol what a fucking MESS.) When Jane presses Jake it’s not about how a Gentlemanly Adventurer would feel about Dirk, it’s about the ideas he’s been percolating over, it’s about how he feels it’s unfair to write Dirk off for not being a girl. The barrier is gone, and Jake’s being at least more honest about his attraction to Dirk than he is to Jane.

Jake spent the entire day desperately trying to get a hold of Dirk to talk to him, and is genuinely upset he never got the chance to.

Jake absolutely knew what was going on with Jane when they had their big conversation about their feelings. Not only does he imply it on the Quest Slab, but Brain Ghost Dirk gives him shit for it during their huge conversation. Jake is not stupid. He repeatedly picks up on people’s flirtatious remarks to him, onto Roxy’s implications that Jane likes him, and does some flirting in return.

(mostly to dirk but nevermind that)

So when Jane shoves her foot in her mouth and tries to backpedal, Jake stops her, thanks her for speaking her mind, and almost instantly reassures her that he’s glad and relieved that she’s not interested in him while Jane scrambles to fix her blunder. But he doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise and launches into a conversation revealing that he’s been considering dating Dirk for a long time.

Ergo Jake takes the out Jane accidentally gives him, and then underhandedly informs her that he was more interested in Dirk the whole time. After all, any gent worth his salt would date Jane! But… what about Jake English?

The problem is that Jake can only set things up this way. He is terrified of disappointing people. Everything he did in the Trickster Arc, how his shortcut to “happiness” was cheerfully becoming a doormat for everyone’s desires, expounds on the idea.

I believe down to the bottom of my heart that if Jane hadn’t messed up and had successfully asked Jake out, he would have said yes. Because he doesn’t know how to say no. Because at this point in the narrative, he’s hitching his entire modus operandi to this nebulous idea of what he’s supposed to be, and it clashes with what he actually wants. Not just in regards to Dirk, but in the wider scope of his character.

Jake’s convinced he’s a cheerful extrovert when really he’s an intense introvert, and it puts him in this position where the only way he can get what he wants from people is in this quiet, underhanded way.

Jake wanted to date Dirk. So he let Jane stumble and mess up asking him out so Dirk would be the one to ask him out instead.  So he created a situation where he didn’t have to say no and could live in plausible deniability.

And from there obviously shit got Complicated, but Jake was not a shrinking violet with no agency in the situation. He’s a clever thing, which Jane never truly realizes.

dyonoi:

stressfreckles:

ah yes. lets ship an abuse survivor with someone who has anger fits and yells a lot. yeah. that sounds like a good idea. who cares about how daves feels right. as long as karkats happy uwu

karkats anger is 100% bullshit and dave obviously recognizes it instantly in their first conversation. not to mention all signs point to bro being distant and neglectful who showed 0 emotions and dave himself makes a distinction between someone being a peer vs being the same age so implying all child abuse falls under “adult yells a lot at child” and that theres any correlation between bro and karkat is just objectively wrong and kind of laughable

either way dave looks pretty happy to me

Honestly and this is just something that’s been kicking around in my head but like… the way that Karkat wears his heart on his sleeve for better or worse is actually something that’s AMAZING for Dave, I think.  SO much of his abuse came in the form of being shown an emotionally blank cipher that he was forced to interpret in all sorts of way to get any sort of emotional feedback in his life.

I think the thing that makes Dave really upset and nervous is when he thinks someone is holding back. When he feels ignored. When he feels neglected. When he stares at an empty chat room, a blinking cursor, and has no idea whether the person is really AFK or just ignoring him because he fucked up somehow.

He’ll never have to worry about that with Karkat. Karkat will NEVER show Dave that impassive, stern, unreadable face. He’ll never have to worry about what Karkat is REALLY thinking.

(Also Dave canonically is unphased by Karkat’s rants and thinks they’re all just hilarious overwrought bluster, which… they are. this is canon from literally moment one. “later windbag”)

chubsintubs:

grandma will keep you safe

chubsintubs:

after all the trolls and caliborn, finally some humans. jane, roxy, and all the beta kids will follow eventually!

things that fuck me up pt. 2

landofsomethingsomething:

dave watching rose immediately latch onto kanaya, experiencing terezi prioritize vriska over him, realizing he can’t contact jade or john and feeling so fucking jealous and lonely

dave slowly getting used to spending time with people who like and desire his company

dave slowly letting his desire for attention and affection win out over his instincts

the first time he catches himself thinking of him and karkat in the same context as rose and kanaya and every subsequent self conscious moment afterward, sleepless nights staring at the ceiling thinking about every girl he ever had a crush on and every boy he told himself he didn’t like THAT way and wondering how you know what’s real and what’s not because how can it all be real it’s too much no one FEELS that much that’s absurd right? what the fuck is wrong with him?

(and meanwhile, in the next room over, karkat is laying awake and having the exact same problem except instead of bisexuality, it’s – how can you imagine a person in every quadrant so easily, how can one person fit every qualification you could possibly want in a moirail, matesprit, kismesis, how could that possibly all be the same person, what the fuck is wrong with HIM?)

dave strider waking up in the middle of the night with the white hot bolt of clarity that comes with understanding that something you always took for granted was a complete fucking lie and now you have to relearn the way the entire world works, only the world is fucking over and how can you be prepared to create a new one when you were so damn wrong about the old one from the start?

wow this is some heavy feels bro

hello here is davekat

SO I HAD NO IDEA the post I originally wrote this on had become embroiled in drama while I’d been at work, lmao. And I liked my post I put work into it so I’m reposting. This is generally a response to the idea that karkat is abusive or that Dave isn’t equipped to deal with his anger due to his history of abuse:



This is just something that’s been kicking around in my head but like… the way that Karkat wears his heart on his sleeve for better or worse is actually something that’s AMAZING for Dave, I think. SO much of his abuse came in the form of being shown an emotionally blank cipher that he was forced to interpret in all sorts of way to get any sort of emotional feedback in his life.

I think the thing that makes Dave really upset and nervous is when he thinks someone is holding back. When he feels ignored. When he feels neglected. When he stares at an empty chat room, a blinking cursor, and has no idea whether the person is really AFK or just ignoring him because he fucked up somehow.

He’ll never have to worry about that with Karkat. Karkat will NEVER show Dave that impassive, stern, unreadable face. He’ll never have to worry about what Karkat is REALLY thinking.

(And, once again, for the record, Dave canonically is unphased by Karkat’s rants and thinks they’re all just hilarious overwrought bluster, which… they are. This is canon from literally moment one. “later windbag” - dave’s first line to Karkat after a particularly long rant)

short-and-artsy:

some spacey ladies checking out the latest memes for day 14!! special shout out to @aradiiaa who really wanted me to draw porrim

wah soooo cooooool

TT: Who needs small and serviceable adjectives when the most ass-backwards way of saying a thing is right there, tantalizingly hidden within the vast ocean of language.

give me the canon dirk smiles!!

:IIII

what in the jesus h. dick

smirky smirk

someone help him

him smile!!!

i needed more happy dirk so i made MORE

chuchumi:

dirk talksprites to round off the alpha set! hiveswap and misc. sprites are next on my list!

it’s okay to use them, but please ask for permission first! thanks wink wonk

sprite commission info here

jade / jane / jake / roxy / davepeta / fefeta

appl-juice42:

my secret headcanon: hella hairy n muscled jake

he looks like he could catch a bear with his bare hands but really all he can do is give u nice awkward hugs

i mean honestly he had no reason to shave back on his island so why would he even. :y

after his leg hair disappears in act6 i imagine him being devastated, going; “no..my hair..! we’ve been together for years..!”


(dirk has absolutely no problem with it, by the way.)

human romcoms

landofsomethingsomething:

ok but can you imagine the first time karkat sees a wedding. like even hears of the concept of this? two people choosing another person to be their one and only life partner until death do us part? i imagine he’s so fucking mad at first like his initial instinctive reaction is just wow these fucking humans have the stupidest ideas that’s the worst thing i’ve ever heard who can possibly keep a promise like that it’s so unrealistic and unfair to expect that level of commitment from another person fucking humans don’t understand anything ever

but he just lays awake at night thinking about it. puzzling it out. wondering how they make it work. wondering if it ever does work. 

imagine him phrasing this to rose or dave like okay but do any human marriages ever ACTUALLY last until someone dies that’s just the unattainable ideal right that’s not how anything actually GOES and they’re like wow first off, morbid, and secondly, yes/who cares (imagine the teasing he gets for this… oh god)

and he’s just dumbfounded by this and it keeps getting in his head and under his skin and he can’t figure out why it BOTHERS him so much it must just be because it’s so ALIEN and WRONG

but like after he’s been dating dave for awhile it starts to sink in, of course the reason it always bothered him was that part of him always found it so fucking appealing, and they’re snuggling together watching some cliche fucking movie and the bride and groom are walking out triumphantly and people are throwing rice and shit and karkat is just 

sweating

o god w the anon saying dirkjake is abusive. They were teenagers in their first relationship in a terrible situation and they screwed up. It wasn't /abusive/ or /toxic/ it was just kids who didn't know what they were doing. Dirk is not some evil manipulative mastermind. He's not Bro. Jake's not some shivering delicate waifu. They both messed up and acknowledged they messed up. U don't say failed relationships at high school are abusive. they're just kids.... kids mess up.... chill

landofsomethingsomething:

I find it interesting how fandom and indeed the general public always seems to beg for more nuanced portrayals of relationships and morality – they seem to ask and ask and ask for complex situations where no one is hard-line at fault, where all sides are sympathetic in certain lights, where characters behave in realistic ways that suit their motivations, their arcs, their histories and their personalities. 

But when content creators deliver even a LITTLE bit of this, the narrative always immediately and, tbh, VICIOUSLY shifts to assign blame, to shove what we’re presented with into the Good Box and the Bad Box, into Hero and Villain or in this case, Victim and Villain, and as a writer myself it’s honestly just so… shitty. 

It’s just so fucking shitty, lmao. 

realtalk

landofsomethingsomething:

ok but seriously how fucking real is it that the boy who never felt cared for ended up with the Blood player, whose Stuff is all about bonds and relationships and providing support and taking care of people, and the boy who sought an escape from feeling his own mortality too fucking keenly every god damn day ended up with the Time player, whose Stuff is about facing and accepting reality, inevitability, mortality and working within those confines to achieve greatness regardless.

appl-juice42:

wow its hs stuff

who wouldve guessed

in-laws

landofsomethingsomething:

I love imagining how the entire strilonde extended family unit interacts with itself considering who they all ended up with like jesus christ imagine john like rose isn’t it hilarious that karkat said we were going to get married but then i dated your mom instead now i am kind of like your step dad ha ha ha and rose is like yes john. hilarious. truly. almost as incandescently poetic as dave and i both falling in love with trolls while our ill fated post scratch incarnations were doomed to die tragic deaths locked in fruitless battle against one. ha ha ha.

john is like rose why do you always do this 

meanwhile karkat and jake are watching romcoms on the couch discussing with great enthusiasm how terribly dashing the protagonist is while their insecure striderian boyfriends squirm with lowkey jealousy of a movie character but they can’t say shit because if they say one single word they give away how much they care and the fact that they’ve been watching all along and who the fuck agreed to this double date

davekat headcanon

landofsomethingsomething:

I like to imagine that Dave put off having The Talk about their relationship for as long as he possibly could, not just because of internalized homophobia but also because the thought of trying to explain himself and specifically that he didn’t want a quadranted relationship without Karkat flying off the damn handle in self defensive meltdown mode was so exhausting to even think about.

But in the meantime Karkat has been watching all these human movies and talking to Kanaya like nonstop about her thing with Rose trying to triangulate How Humans Do Things because he knows SOMETHING is happening and Dave can’t put off this talk forever and he wants to be ready and prepared and no Kanaya I’m not asking for myself I’m asking as a concerned friend!! (Kanaya just smiles and tries to be as helpful as possible because she knows what’s up)

So finally at some point they’re snuggled up together and Karkat is like okay look we are going to talk about this now it’s ridiculous that we haven’t yet and Dave is like ://///// and Karkat browbeats him into it and Dave panics and expresses himself HORRIBLY because he’s stressed out and embarrassed and doesn’t want to have this talk in the first place. Like just blurts out “I don’t want to be in a fucking quadrant with you!!!” and Karkat’s kneejerk reaction to that is just like, Dave sees his face totally fall before he can shutter it and panics even more, that’s not what I meant, I mean I DO want to be with you just not in a quadrant and this is why I didn’t want to talk about this I’m not good with words, or talking, or feelings, or pretty much anything except rambling at myself and pushing the corpses of doomed daves into lava!!!

and karkat is just like 

cool if you’re done with that now I was going to ask if you wanted to be my Human Boyfriend??? 

and dave goes really quiet and just like…….. yes :|

and they watch the rest of the movie or whatever together in silence sweating and fidgeting and when it’s over karkat asks if he can kiss him goodnight and it’s the fastest most dry ridiculous peck on the lips ever and they both STILL stay up all night thinking about it and grinning 

anyway that’s my headcanon thanks for reading

meteorstuck fic recs

landofsomethingsomething:

kagedt replied to your post “slowburn meteorstuck”

Hah. I’ve actually just started writing one myself on Ao3. (Not longform, but still. “Stepping Stones” is the title, if you’re curious.) I’d love links to others that you’ve enjoyed, if you can recommend some good ones. Feel free to message me!

I read that one, looking forward to seeing the rest! (Here’s the link for anyone interested, it just recently went up

my meteorstuck fic recs are not wildly different from everyone else in the davekat fandom’s meteorstuck fic recs, so you’ve probably already seen these if you’ve been looking. But here’s some anyway. A lot of these are nsfw because I know what I like but I do want to point out most also use the prevailing bulge/nook troll hc just in case it squicks you out (I saw your note on your fic’s summary) 

The Cardinal Red Series by paradoxmachine (there are 5 fics in this so far, all are nsfw, and they DON’T use the prevailing bulge/nook troll junk fanon)

Wanderlust (tiny right things) by AliveArsenic (nsfw)

Alpha Rats Nest by sharkskin

Book Club by Ayyyy

Painkillers by shruglay (very light nsfw)

The Year After The Year of Living Dangerously by callmearcturus (nsfw)

Perspective by MsGeekNerd

Being Alive by HexMeridian (kinda dark but gets less dark)

Gays in Space: A tale of love, trust and buttsex by aprilthesaurus (shockingly, nsfw)

Xenocultural Sensitivity in Alien Observances by ayyyy  (very light nsfw for implied stuff at the end)

hey there bright-eyed mister melancholy by attentionmerrymakers (this is in the pre-retcon/GO timeline, but it’s VERY VERY GOOD)

Pro-Tip: Don’t Panic by autoeuphoric (nsfw)

A Series Of Unfortunate Freakouts by sburbanite (nsfw)

Your Interpersonal, Intergalactic Relationship: A Beginner’s Guide by sharkskin (nsfw, but it’s classy about it)

Within, Without by reinkist

And of COURSE I have a bunch, I like to think they are pretty good, but again most are NSFW (I don’t use the prevailing bulge/nook fanon, but I still use bulges as retractable tentadicks and the nook is the sheath for that instead of a vagina-like thing) 

One Year Wiser (nsfw)

Hard To Stay And Watch You Walk Away (this is the only NOT nsfw meteorstuck I’ve written, lmao)

The Sometimes, Occasional Benefits Of Being A Greedy Piece Of Shit (nsfw)

Waves And Thunder (nsfw)

Say What You Mean (nsfw)

Two of my fics are on here! I’ve read a lot of this list and they’re all do good, I love meteor fics and honestly I will never get tired of them. Thanks for mentioning me :3

I’m especially proud of Book Club.

arraydia:

ʙʀᴇᴀᴛʜ, ᴛɪᴍᴇ, ʟɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ

jellojolteon:

I re-submitted this mess because I have nothing left to give of myself on this sweet planet, so you know. Do what you like with that information.

allyssinian:

brady bunch music plays

taiyoooh:

gods and role models

landofsomethingsomething:

I think it’s super fucking cool how if you subscribe to the theory that the kids are all going to be the “pantheon” of the new world that the “father” and “mother” figures are going to be karkat and kanaya, two people with a strong platonic bond but no romance between them, instead they have their own healthy independent relationships with people who happen to be their same sex. like I want to live in that universe where these dynamics are not only normal but fucking deified?? god damn. 

(also the trickster god and the god of thieves (rogues I know but come on) dating thank you homestuck you truly know what I like)

listen

landofsomethingsomething:

I can’t believe Dave’s queerness, after being played off as a joke for so long, turned out to be not only something that mattered but something that was part of his core character arc. I can’t believe that Dave’s last serious conversation in canon ended with him asking his gay brother for advice on how to come out, I cannot b e l i e v e my two favorite characters are both bisexuals who are canonly shown in relationships with both men and women and their bisexuality isn’t treated as a phase and they aren’t treated like they are less trustworthy because of it and they ended up in one of the healthiest most ridiculously sweet relationships I’ve ever seen in fiction

I also can’t believe I never got to see Rose rub it in his god damn face

cuernosbeste:

davekat requests for @daveactualstrider

Hey there *slides 20 bucks* so...tell me about dirkjake

ikimaru:

(eats 20 bucks) Dirkjake is great

notmikey:

>:3c

landofsomethingsomething:

I really just want Jake and Karkat to be really good friends post-canon and talk all the time about movies and adventure and their striderian boyfriends, and be full of all this good natured bluster. like karkat is constantly trying to impress jake with stories about the troll session and life on alternia and jake is always trying to impress karkat with stories about tomb diving and the exploring the island and they BOTH have so many impressive stories about dave and dirk respectively…. but karkat is always shy about telling stories about him and dave explicitly dating, and meanwhile jake has absolutely no similar filter. YEAH AND THEN DIRK AND I MADE OUT IN THE PILE OF VANQUISHED SKELETONS. 

let the abraxas children bond

(dave and dirk would be so nervous, what are they talking about, are they talking about us, do they talk about us to each other, what do they say, oh god)

JohnxRoxy?

:

city date night

bewters:

knock knock its davekat

dyonoi:

…Wow, tumblr really sucks at gif compression. pls full view this if you can.

ANYWAY. I’ve been asked a few times what my troll headcanons are, and as someone who is squicked by the common one you see around I decided to make my own! With bonus glowy bits.

You see, trolls live on a planet that orbits a red giant. Daytime is far too hot for most lifeforms to survive in, so most life evolved to be nocturnal. This includes trolls. And you know what ends up developing in low-light situations as a means for communication? Bioluminescence.

90% of all deep sea creatures have developed bioluminescence in direct response to low light. It’s developed all over the natural world, from sea to land and is a readily available chemical reaction. From single celled bacteria, to starfish, from flies and worms, to jellies and fish, to snails and mushrooms the reaction is so common it’s evolved independently on completely separate branches of the evolutionary tree more than 40 separate times.

In fact, it’s so common and advantageous in low-light situations, that for large amounts of life on alternia to not develop bioluminescence would actually not make sense. Hell, technically trolls are capable of this when you look at rainbow drinkers. (I’ll get back to this in a bit)

Communication

One of the most common ways bioluminescence is used for is in mating displays because nothing stands out in a dark environment more than a light. Bioluminescent ostracods and fireflies attract mates using this, with fireflies utilizing the first part of their patterns to communicate their species and the second part to impress mates. Extending this concept to trolls, it would be advantageous to develop a system which would serve to communicate differing romantic intent based on whether it was black or red especially when you consider a pre-historic era where trolls didnt always have the internet as quick tool to converge and form strong relationships based on their highly complex romance. It also serves as a means for synchronization in a couple, since trolls have a hard time making logical sense of their own feelings with how volatile and prone to quadrant vacillation they can be.

image

Red romantic displays, based on pity, highlights areas of the body that show vulnerability - the vitals, neck, and the spine.

image

Black romantic displays, based on contentiousness and rivalry, primarily highlights the limbs which show the size and strength of an individual (allowing trolls to make a more viable and balanced kismessis choice) and features eyespots on the shoulders as a means for intimidation and to draw attention away from more vulnerable areas.

The mating displays are akin to a more advanced full body blush and only display in concupiscent situations where a troll is sexually aroused, so there are no pale/ashen displays.

Aside from romantic intent it also communicates blood color and health of the individual. A troll that is sick or in a weak state will not be able to keep up the display consistently, making them less desirable.

Now why is Karkat up there looking really bright and static? No, I didn’t mess up making the image! Some trolls naturally do not adhere to the quadrant system altogether and will have trouble differentiating between their red and black feelings. Because of this they have difficulty switching between the displays or are outright unable to. These trolls are what are called panquadrant.

image

Panquadrant trolls are seen as HIGHLY undesirable and is a great source of shame for the troll in question. Not only is the super flashy double-display seen as trying too hard and sends unsynchronized and confusing signals, but the brighter display can potentially alert predators. And once the mother grub and drone system is instilled it also indicates someone who is doomed for culling. A desperate fool, so to speak. Between that and it displaying his blood color its no wonder Karkat covers up well.

Hunting

So if you’re hunting for prey on alternia where various species attract mates via light displays, it would be real easy to set up a lure to trick your prey, right? After all, you see this behavior in both glow worms and anglerfish which use lights as a method to catch their food. Since this is be a pretty common tactic, trolls developed acute sensitivity when it comes to detecting mating displays because anyone who didn’t got eaten. Because of this, any light displays that resemble the mating displays but are even slightly off go straight into the uncanny valley and will put a troll on edge. This is in part why rainbow drinkers are seen as threatening, aside from actually having increased speed. They’re innately seen by trolls as lures/potential hunters.

Defense

Most trolls don’t use light to hunt, but some are able to use it as a defense mechanism. Similar to Acanthephyra purpurea, trolls that have breasts store bioluminescent fluid in them which they then are able to spit onto an aggressor. This will temporarily blind them and give away their location to their own predators while the troll flees. This is why breasts are illuminated in both red and black displays for trolls that have them.

Speaking of boobs….

★ NSFW UNCENSORED PICS//NAUGHTY BITS UNDER THE CUT ★

Keep reading

ÔuÔ

they'd totes buy matching underwear

groveofsketches:

☆*:.。. o(≧▽≦)o .。.:*☆

seitoro:

under the same sky

crabapplesoda:

Look more DaveKat what a surprise. I like to think they’d be cuddly and no one can tell me otherwise.

Too bad none of my stuff is showing up in the tags so no one will see it (yes I’m salty I wanna share my ship).

chibigaia-art:

THE COLORS WERE TOO BRIGHT I LOST HALF OF MY REMAINING SIGHT WHILE DOING THIS AAAHhhh

steamshade:

Who said that trolls are not fashionable?

I was working on this for such a long time, and I’m really proud of the final effect! ;v; Click full view for the details, they are also all transparent~ I really want to do some boys too.

All designs by PinkCuttlefish~♥ ;3;

darkandfullofhomestuck:

sometipsygnostalgic:

i saw a post suggesting “davekat week” and was like “oh wow that might not be a bad idea since davekat GENUINELY needs some positivity what with this hatred from Every Angle” but then i saw it was made by a Thirsty Straight Girl™ and i dont like it anymore

but instead of boycotting “davekat week” (absolutely pointless endeavour) im gonna….. draw some davekat stuff, as an unthirsty unstraight girl. not in any organized Week. just casually. right now.

and would find it cool if other people joined in

 especially boys who like davekat

we never get to hear their story really, you must be out there

I’m a gay man who ships davekat and here’s my story: please drop the gross queer purity rhetoric because it’s completely unconstructive and serves no purpose aside from stirring up petty drama.

I belong to a fairly large circle of friends who met over our shared interest in davekat. There’s a LARGE variety in our genders and orientations. There are gay men, straight women, lesbians, people who are bi, pan, ace, etc. I’ve even met a straight guy who ships davekat. The thing we all have in common is a deep appreciation of the CHARACTERS. It’s frankly ridiculous to start policing shippers based on whether they’re queer enough or the right kind of queer for the ship. Like, god. Seriously.

Straight women aren’t hurting anything or anyone through the simple action of shipping a m/m ship. This pervasive idea that straight women shipping m/m is inherently gross because… I don’t know, they’re fetishizing and reducing the characters to a sexuality I guess?? is really annoying because it’s simply untrue in the vast majority of cases. They like the characters. They like the relationship dynamics between the characters.They like the art. They like the fics. They’re not “thirsty,” they’re not somehow dehumanizing or reducing gay men to their sexuality, and they’re certainly not doing any harm or creating a “bad space” for gay men by simply liking what they like and sharing that with others. 

Maybe there are some straight people out there who ARE Problematic™ about it! But it’s a miniscule problem perpetrated by a small handful of people, and your complaints about how the ship was poorly characterized before the retcon well over a year ago isn’t exactly evidence that it’s a lingering problem that’s at all relevant today. And, for the record, I know queer women who grew up homophobic and used to think they were straight who were helped immensely by m/m shipping fandoms making them more open-minded. Maybe stop trying to shame straight people into thinking it’s wrong for them enjoy queer stuff that isn’t “for” them.

So no, davekat week isn’t “for” me and other gay men. It’s not “for” queer people in general. It’s for people who like the damn ship. And, just as an aside, I actually went and looked at the blogs owned by both of the davekat week moderators and it barely took any effort at all to find evidence that both of them consider themselves not-straight. And no evidence at all of any “thirst” being displayed. So get over your holier-than-thou crusade, stop assuming that anyone with female pronouns is straight just because they ship m/m (I know far more queer women who ship m/m than straight women. What a shock!), and stop acting like straight women deserve suspicion just for expressing their enjoyment of a healthy ship in a healthy manner. Please.

(putting this on a shell blog cause I have no fandom blog and I don’t want it on my personal where people I know irl follow me, but for transparency’s sake my main is darkandfullofhodors)