my heart's not fluttering or anything

[quadrangle]

Who: Hamsteaks,Team RWPY, & Dipper
Where: GOLDENROD INN, specifically Dave and Karkat's room but possibly others as well? It depends.
When: 3/5, afternoonish/evening/well into the wee hours of 3/6
Summary: A certain travel party largely consisting of traumatized teenagers initiates a team building exercise, AKA sleepover. This is clearly the best idea ever and will in no way backfire at all.
Rating: PG-13 for, uh. Homestuck vocabularies.
Log:

[Despite having been in their immediate vicinity for three weeks, Karkat had somehow managed to avoid talking to most of the people in their group for any significant length of time. A lot of it was personal preference because yes, he was still intermittently freaking out about being a human surrounded by humans, but the fact that he'd blown up at two of the other party members and probably guaranteed that Jade or Dave or both would be auspisticizing between them for the foreseeable future (oh god please no) didn't help matters. He'd rather stay in his damn room or hide in the local bookstore than deal with any of that bullshit.

Unfortunately, maintaining his busy schedule of staying the fuck away from other people as much as possible was untenable, especially when his best friends were also their friends and he literally had no excuse to keep putting it off—unless he could say he needed to take his Pokemon on a walk? Do people even take Pokemon on walks? Would Dave even buy that when neither Merope nor Sharru have shown the slightest amount of interest in going on walks? Well, okay, no, Dave might not even care, but Jade...

Either way, the moment his roommate decides on the impromptu movie night, sends out texts to inform the others, and begins putting together a Sweet Throh and Hella Sawk flyer for their door to mark the occasion (why is he friends with this moron again) is the moment Karkat's fate is sealed.

They're going to have a sleepover, and everyone is invited.]

Comments

[quadrangle]

[... Holy shit he cannot possibly be hearing this right now. What the fuck does she think he's been doing?!]

Do you think I get off on making little girls cry?! What the fuck, Yang!

[If he sound genuinely insulted, that's because he is. Also—]

And what even is a swear jar, am I supposed to be tenderly mashing up every "shit," "fuck," and "hell" like I'm making fucking grub sauce?

[yanginthere]

I didn't say that!! I'm just — you can't control how others respond but you can control if you do things that set them off. It's like. I wouldn't try to make you eat burgers if you hated beef. I'd try not to even cook it around you if the smell bothered you that much. Does that make more sense? [ Maybe not a perfect analogy, but he's talking about some kind of sauce so she rolled with it. Yang probably should have gone with a comparison to smoking. She'll explain the other part in a sec. ]

[quadrangle]

[... Hamburgers are that sort of. Uh. Shit, he swears he knows this one. They're like grubloaves? Okay, no, fuck, priorities, come on, it's food and it has beef in it, that's all he needs to know.]

I mean, I guess. It's easier in person than over text anyway.

[Mostly. It's harder in other ways.]

[yanginthere]

That's where the swear jar comes in. As motivation.

[ Yang looked over the counter by the mirror. There's nothing really to use as an example besides a glass one might use to rinse out after brushing, so she grabs that. ] Just pretend this is a jar. Every time someone — any one of us traveling together, say — lets out a word on the list scribbled on it, that person has to put in some cash. Like P100, or something.

Then when it's full we decide how to spend that money to embarrass the biggest contributor to the jar.

[quadrangle]

[... He'd sort of been following this, but then they get to that last bit and seriously what the hell kind of bullshit is this.]

What the fuck good is that supposed to do?

[If they've already contributed the largest sum to the jar, doesn't that make shit entirely redundant? And besides, it's—]

If you're humiliating them, you're just going to make them resent you worse. How is that supposed to reduce negativity?

[yanginthere]

There has to be some kind of consequence, right? The whole idea is to not have any money in there at all. [ She shrugged. ] If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears.

[quadrangle]

[He snorts. Loudly.]

Reward everyone who wasn't the biggest contributor. They all get to, I don't know, go to some fancy human restaurant while your reigning asshole champion is left in the fucking hotel.

[It would have worked with his team. Even he didn't want to be left alone.]

[yanginthere]

[ She grinned. ] All right.

Does that mean you're up to take the Swear Jar Challenge, Karkat?

[quadrangle]

[... This is a fucking trap isn't it.]

Which words are you adding to the list?

[yanginthere]

[ Who's trapping who? Yang made a face at the prospect of actually saying any of them out loud. Why tempt herself to do so even once, for informative purposes? ] You know the ones...

[quadrangle]

No, I really fucking don't. I'm assuming "fuck" is a given, and maybe "shit," but who knows? Does the word "damn" upset you?

[yanginthere]

I'm not the one—

[ She sighed. ]

Okay. Sit tight. [ Yang exited the bathroom, and hopefully Karkat will stay there for just a minute longer while she collected a sheet of paper and something to write with. If they were going to make this out like a contract, she might as well have the tools to do so with.

Also, it was a good idea to give a reassuring smile to people to show that she was not, in fact, murdering anyone in the bathroom. ]

[quadrangle]

[... Did she seriously just

oh my god

All right, so fine, don't mind Karkat while he lounges around his own goddamn (shared??) bathroom, apparently trapped with no regard for his sanity because WHAT THE FUCK, YANG, HOW IS THIS APPROPRIATE.

Eventually, he may just be sidling up to the bathroom door and wrenching it the tiniest bit open. Is the coast clear?]

[yanginthere]

[ In that instant she's back, knocking briefly so she doesn't risk smashing the door into his nose, and she's got the supplies with her. ]

I'll have to go buy a jar tomorrow but, anyway. The list. [ She sets the paper down on the counter (not bothering to lock the door this time) and begins to write as many swear words as she can think of. It's not a slow process, but she does deliberate on a couple.

Among the lines were "3x for compounds" and "the first 'damn' is free". Because sometimes things just happened and if there was one word that was easy to let slip when losing a match, or stubbing one's toe, it was that one. ]

[quadrangle]

[Karkat gives her space to move, but the second she's slapping that paper down, he's at her side and scowling. Time to see what idiocy Past Karkat has gotten him into because yes apparently this is a trap and he's as much of a fucking moron for falling for it as ever. Not that he wants to make the girls uncomfortable, but seriously what does "3x for compounds" even mean?]

Compounds? Do you mean multiple swears in a sentence or put together in a single word?

[Either way it's sounding pretty fucking unfair to him, although if this does apply to everyone and isn't just a way for Yang to fuck with him, Jade is really going to need to retire her favored epithet for him. Hah.]

[yanginthere]

Put together. If you're putting effort into be that vulgar, you gotta pay the price.

[ Yang is not going to list examples because, really, some of those words just don't need to be repeated. But all the classics are on there. "fuck", "shit", "dumbass", etc. ]

[quadrangle]

[... Motherfucker. Also, what.]

You're seriously including "ass." That's a thing you're doing right now.

[He'd assumed as much, but seeing it written down alongside the practically useless "first damn is free" is starting to make the reality of the situation sink in. It also makes him tempted to ask if this means that other body parts would also be on the list, but yeah, no, he already knows. Fuck. At least she probably won't recognize terms for troll anatomy? Or would Dave and Jade wind up telling her just to fuck with him?

God. Fucking. Dammit.]

I'm not agreeing to this horseshit.

[yanginthere]

...well, okay. [ She strikes through "ass" a couple of times. ] Calling someone an ass can be warranted sometimes. Just as long as it isn't abused. [ Kind of like "damn", except more subjective. She can think of a few people that deserve that title and wear it proudly; present company mostly excluded. ]

Better?

[quadrangle]

Get rid of "damn" and add "the first five 'fucks' are free" and I might consider it.

[He does pause, though, glancing at the door.]

And give everyone else input.

[Maybe he can get Dave on his side. Probably not Jade. Jade is going to enjoy this too much. Fuck, he needs to get to Dave fast if he's going to stop her from winning him over first, why isn't he just vetoing this right now, he's still the leader, right? Haha, no.]

[yanginthere]

Nuh-uh. That's too easy. [ She tapped her chin with the end of the pencil. ]

Besides, I planned on running it past them, but they're pretty chill about this stuff already. Especially on my Team.

[quadrangle]

[... but what is he going to do if he can't say the word "fuck." Well, all right, he has plenty of other words in his arsenal, but how the fuck long will it take before they're added, too? Goddammit, Yang!]

"Chill" as in you know they'll fucking agree with you. And you outnumber us.

[And he's. Not actually sure about the younger human, Dipper. What the hell.]

Would this shit be in effect all the time or just when the sanctity of your delicate auricular sponge clots and feelings are on the line?

[yanginthere]

[ Don't let it ever be said that Yang isn't fair. ] My sister doesn't get to vote because familial bias. [ She's... pretty sure Jade and Dave aren't related. Probably.

Dipper is the wildcard but, even then, he's like 12 or something so she's not even sure if she wants to let him see the list. ]

Hey, if you and your friends don't have a problem with this kind of language privately, that's fine. I'm mostly worried about the kids. [ Said smol human, Ruby, and Penny. "Kids" is a relative age here. ]

[quadrangle]

[Okay, that is pretty fair. Ish. Still a little obnoxious, but. Also, yeah, what was that?]

"Kids?"

[Yeah sorry, incredulous as fuck over here.]

I can understand you wanting to protect your sister, but she's, what, se... uh, fifteen? And Dipper's nearly thirteen. How long are you planning on keeping this shit from them?

[yanginthere]

[ She just shoots him an incredulous look right back. ] No offense? But you don't look old enough to be talking like that, either. My uncle's had a rough life, and even when drunk he didn't swear around us.

[ Being compared to Qrow is not exactly a high honor. ]

[quadrangle]

[Oh no. Time for a glare.]

I'm sixteen. How the fuck old do I have to be before you stop giving me shit over it? Have you even talked to Jade or Dave about this? They swear, too.