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

[usedglaciate]

First of all, why are you cursing at me? I came over because I was trying to be friendly, not to get cursed at.

Second? I get that. But I really don't think you need to worry unless someone does something stupid, like starting a food fight.

[She's dancing around the fact that she, Ruby, and Yang were once part of a food fight that left a hole in the cafeteria's roof.]

Not as many as I did before I left home, but enough. I've been the person at the party freaking out over the flowers and the color of the tablecloths.

[quadrangle]

[... Goddammit.]

Okay, look, white-haired pillar of magnanimity and pointless fucking questions, this is how I communicate. It's an immutable fact of nature, not unlike the pervasive stupidity of your species—no offense. Some of my best friends are humans.

[This is obviously helping his case right now. Also, "magnanimity" may have been pronounced with the same distant loathing as, say, "fetid, bloody discharge." From which orifice? Probably all of them. Anyway.]

And I take your point, I guess. [About the food fight, not the swearing.] You were the one throwing the parties, then, not just attending?

[usedglaciate]

[If Weiss could roll her eyes any harder, she would.]

I'm pretty sure that profanity isn't immutable in the slightest. It's a choice.

[At least she shrugs.]

Even if there are a lot of dunces among humans.

...sort of? They were parties for our family's company. I was expected to be the perfect, gracious heiress.

[quadrangle]

[SURE, WEISS, YOU GO AHEAD AND BELIEVE THAT. He mirrors her eye-roll, then—]

You were an heiress? [Er, wait—] Are an heiress? To what kind of company?

[usedglaciate]

The short version is that my family runs an energy company.

[A beat, then -]

The longer version is that back in Remnant, the major source of energy is called Dust. The company mines it, purifies it, and sells it. When I say 'major', I mean 'powers everything from vehicles to weaponry.'

[quadrangle]

[Well that's


huh.]

So basically you and you family are a big deal. [Bluebloods. More or less. Maybe higher, considering heiress, but who fucking knows how human hierarchies work.] I've seen those kinds of parties in movies. Is everyone actually that fucking pompous or is it exaggerated?

[Yeah okay so he really doesn't know what else to talk to her about. Help.]

oops, wrong journal

[usedglaciate]

That's certainly one way to put it.

[She's gotten the nicknames 'Princess' and 'Ice Queen', though she's not going to say that.]

...do not get me started. [Weiss laughs.] I wish it were exaggerated, but by the time you're forced to talk to the tenth so-called good boy from a good family and all he can do is brag about the fancy car he bought, it gets incredibly old fast.

<3

[quadrangle]

[—Tenth so-called good boy from a okay he's interested.]

You mean that really happens?!

[uh, er]

Did your—your parents ever try to arrange a, a marriage between you and one of these boys?

[And then she hid somewhere to avoid meeting this suitor and wound up having a chance encounter with some charming human male who didn't seem interested in her at all and it was so novel that they got to chatting and she started falling for him only then it was revealed he was the heir to a rival company and/or her matesprit-to-be??]

[usedglaciate]

It absolutely happens.

[That's enough to make her smile.]

Not yet, but I'm sure it's in the pipeline.

[Oh, if only. Instead, there's the complete idiot who won't take no for an answer, and the charming one that can't stop flirting with other girls in front of her.]

[quadrangle]

[Holy shit. Okay, maybe Weiss is tolerable.]

We don't have those where I'm from—marriages, I mean. So it was interesting to see that used as a plot device in, uh.

[fuck shit ABORT, they weren't even talking about romcoms, does Weiss need to know he was thinking about romcoms?? WHY DID HE OPEN HIS MOUTH oh wait, he mentioned moves earlier, it's probably okay.]

In movies, you know? I guess if you have them, too, they're a common human thing.

[usedglaciate]

That's a little surprising. I wouldn't have even thought to ask whether marriages are universal, I would have just assumed so. I'm kind of interested to hear more about it.

[It's cool, it's cool.]

Mm. We have a lot of things we do differently in Remnant, but we definitely have marriages.

[quadrangle]

[He shrugs.]

There are a lot of weird human rituals we don't do. Formalizing a quadrant like that seems kind of nice, though, if a lot of hassle. I guess it would be a bigger deal to us if we had just one?

[Weiss. Weiss, no. Please don't ask about quadrants.]

[usedglaciate]

It's a pretty big deal.

[Sorry, Karkat, you jinxed it.]

Quadrants? I don't think I follow. Like teams?

[quadrangle]

[... He should print pamphlets or something. Fuck.]

No, like romance. We have four types. Your human concept of love is only one of them.

[usedglaciate]

[That might not be a bad idea.]

...now that sounds complicated. Four types?

[quadrangle]

Types or categories? Quadrants. Theyre divided by the nature of the relationship, conciliatory or concupiscent, and the dominant emotion, pity or hate.

[usedglaciate]

That actually makes a lot of sense. More so than I would have initially thought, but I don't quite get -

[Wait. No, that's not right, she does get it, a little.]

- wouldn't a relationship based on hate self-destruct eventually?

[quadrangle]

[He rolls his eyes.]

Romantic hate, not platonic hate. A kismesis gives you focus, something to strive for, even if it's just the satisfaction of absolutely pulverizing them.

[... uh, maybe he should clarify.]

Not literally, figuratively.

[usedglaciate]

Something like a rivalry with that one person who always manages to drive you up the wall, but you wouldn't have it any other way?

[...that's a really good clarification, she was going to ask.]

I'm glad to hear that.

[quadrangle]

[He actually perks up a little.]

Yeah, exactly. It's a lot more nuanced than regular hate. Most humans don't get it.

[And the fact that Weiss does wins her major bonus points. She is now Acceptable in his books. It's better than merely "tolerable," shut up.]