June 2016

Dance Me To The End Of Love. I'll be honest, I didn't think a 1930s dance-marathon AU with Dave and Jade was a good idea, given that I did see "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" But you proved me wrong! I'll never forget the way Jade grabbed Dave's thigh in that tango, or the way that the two of them planned to spend their loot if they won. But did you have to do that to the kumquats?

FIRST LINE: “No, Jade, you don’t get it, pole sitting is old hat, we gotta go for the big bucks, the moolah, the stuff that requires cold hard effort. We gotta go for the dance,” said Dave, with the kind of fast accent that best belonged buried under the Brooklyn Bridge.

LAST LINE: “Now I know why they call it ‘the shag,’” said Jade, as the drummer hit snare, then cymbal.

I only wrote this because I used to be in a 20s-40s dance club and wanted to vicariously live out my past experiences through DaveJade, and also Depression-era exploitation narratives. Americana! Hot dog!

The biggest problem I had while writing this was that I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to peel a kumquat. I just thought they were, like, supposed to be really sour. Sort of makes the poisoning scene nonsensical, in retrospect.

MEME ME SOME MORE, GUYS

Auspice is just a fancy word for Cockblock: honestly one of the best fics about cross species romance and quadrants also hilarious. The idea of Condesce needing a third leaf for a human relationship isn't something I ever read before. And the dialogue was amazing!!! Honestly probably one of the best fics I've ever read.

FIRST LINE: “Well,” said Rose, uncrossing her legs and growling like a tiger. “It seems like we’re at an impasse, Empress.”

FINAL LINE: “Looks like we all got a… peace of mind, huh?” said Vriska, winking. Rose and the Condesce, despite being mind-control pinned to the floor, managed one, collective groan at her pun.

The hardest part was definitely the galactic war parallels. Researching military strategy was sure hard work, and it didn’t help that the only planet destroying technology I’ve come in contact with before was from Star Wars. Pretty sure I managed to pull off the parallels between Rose/The Condesce/Vriska’s relationship and Earth’s crumbling defense force and catastrophic population loss tho.

can you believe i almost tossed the human genocide scene at the end??? god. if earth achieved a diplomatic stability…. as opposed to a totalitarian one with the condesce as a puppet ruler for rose and vriska, as I thankfully decided on… man, that would have been hells of boring.

MEME MORE! MEME MORE!

Not a meme, but. Do you think that Dave and Terezi in Underworld lived (mostly) happily ever after? Because from all the signs, those two crazy kids could actually make a go of it.

i feel like i can answer that question with another au.

once upon a time, back five years ago in the “golden age” of homestuck fandom, my bff and i outlined an amazing fanadventure, where post game all patrons/kids were married, respectively.

the punchline, of every goddamn joke, EVERY GODDAMN JOKE, was that each couple was really, really bad at being married except daverezi. daverezi was the only perfect, wholesome, heteronormative couple, against all odds. and they HATED IT. they hated that they were good at it. they never asked for this. they were so domestic. they had perfect, wonderful sex where they gazed deep into each other’s eyes while in missionary despite one of them being blind and dreamed about the children they would have.

and they pretend otherwise, to everyone, because they hate it so much. they subtly allude to all the dirty kinks they don’t have in public. they pretend to be swingers. they go as “nacho and salsa” to john’s racist cinco de mayo party and make vore jokes. but they fool no one.

since i really haven’t reevaluated my ships since then and also i subscribe to “5.2stuck” as per characterization forever and always, yes, they will probably make it.

Much Lucha Over Not So Mucha: You really made me appreciate Karkat's and Kanaya's friendship in a whole new way with this one. And I still can't believe how seamlessly you combine the premise of a luchador-AU with all the drama and thrill of a heist movie. And I honestly full on cried when our two scoundrels finally reunited with their girlfriends after all what they went through.

FIRST LINE: “I can’t believe lucha libre survived humanities migration to space,” said Karkat, donning his mask.

LAST LINE: And then they blasted off, second star to the left.

Pulling off a space pirate lucha libre au was difficult to do with complete sincerity, but I’m pretty sure I managed it? I’ve never written 100% straight drama before, without any humor or trope lampshading whatsoever, so this was new territory for me. I’m sorry the story got bogged down by the vast amount of Alphonse Mucha puns.

My favorite part was when Kanaya suplexed Vriska into space.