Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You had honestly never expected anything quite like this. You had imagined a lot of different things awaiting you in the new universe. A world without movies, or cars, or even completely different social stereotypes. But never… this.

Trolls didn’t “exist” on this Earth, which should have been expected, but it forced all the trolls into a sort of hiding. It was also caused the repopulation process to be… slow going. It will happen! We swear! We just don’t know when… or how. Or where. (God knows not on earth, this place is taken.) It wasn’t too bad for them as they’d reassured you several times.

“John, seriously. It’s fine. We’re all used to being stuck inside a huge Building with way too many rooms for years at a time. Plus we have like 20 acres of land surrounding this place so at least it’s not as bad as the meteor.”

Variations of that were pretty much all any troll would say on the matter. Except Vriska. But Vriska is Vriska so there’s really no escaping some sort of complaint.

The mansion you all lived in was in this huge area in the mountains of Colorado. It was far enough from Denver that people wouldn’t think it was worth a drive, but close enough to not be late to work every morning. Although there wasn’t much of a need to work, seeing as Jade, Jane, and Jake’s family fortunes could keep everyone running for the rest of their lives, but you all wanted something to do with your lives. Whether it was to keep from thinking about the game too much, to satisfy boredom, or just so that you could feel like a normal person, almost everyone had a job. You were all about twenty now so you could actually have real jobs.

You work with Roxy at a computer repair shop. You’ve actually gotten pretty good with computers since you became friends with Roxy. You had dated for a while, but you had mutually decided to split up. You say mutually, but it was mostly Roxy’s idea. She had been in love with Calliope for a while and wanted to act on it. So she made up her mind that breaking up with you for her would be the best and least painful way to go about it. And it was a good thing that she did, because now they are engaged and sort of married? They can’t actually get married because Calliope is an alien… but it doesn’t really matter because aside from the actual ceremony (which was held in the garden about a month and a half ago) it would’ve just been a legal thing which allowed them certain perks for like, social security or something. You never quite understood the legal implications of marriage, and never bothered to look it up. Regardless, you stayed friends, and though it hurt a bit to be loved second best, you were happy for them.

Dave works from home on music and occasionally goes out to popular clubs to dj with his brother. Dirk and Dave were like a special two person dj act. And people would pay hundreds of extra dollars to dance at clubs when they performed.

Rose is currently writing a series of novels. Jane works a bakery and often volunteers at soup kitchens. Jade is a scientist studying atomic structure and radioactivity and so is Dirk.

Jake is a Park Ranger for one of the many state parks, and you’d honestly been surprised how often people break legs by doing stupid things that could have been easily prevented. Jake says he’d feel a lot worse for those people if they paid more attention to the freaking signs that say what not to do.

As for the trolls, Karkat spends a lot of time reading and learning how to cook. Nepeta likes to explore the mountains with Equius, Aradia, Vriska, Terezi and Jake. Although Jake has to remind Nepeta that she’s not allowed hunting the bears and mountain lions.

Kanaya does online commissions for all kinds of outfits. Sollux has already programed ten online games that are just genius and hacked into the President’s twitter twice and gotten away with it. He got grounded from the internet the first time, and yet he still managed to do it the second time. We just gave up and gave him the Wi-Fi password. It was CAHOOOOOOOOTS. Vriska’s idea.

Eridan is now moirails with Karkat… so that’s something. Sometimes they’ll have rom-com marathons together.

Feferi has a respiteblock with a literal swimming pool in it. Needless to say, she hardly ever leaves her room. But not in an unhealthy way. In fact her room is like another living room and it’s big enough for everyone to hang out in on a regular basis. And it has floor to ceiling foot 6 inch thick glass windows on the east side. She gets to watch the sun rise over the mountain every morning. She has an adjourning restroom and a pretty huge walk in closet. Sollux visits her quite frequently, but as they are matesprits it’s really no surprise.

Gamzee and Tavros are moirails and they share a room… Actually, they might not be moirails… It is really hard to tell with those two. They spend a lot of time playing video games. At first there was a lot of tension between the trolls, but things have way mellowed out since the first few weeks of everyone living together.

But aside from all that, it was like life on the meteor and the golden battleship, only there’s an outside and you could order things online if you wanted to.

Your name is John Egbert and you thought you had seen everything after you won that stupid game. But now you are starting to doubt yourself.

When you saw the first broken record shirt you silently laughed to yourself and just knew you had to tell Dave about it later. But then you realized what was going on.

There was about twenty something people dressed up as your best friend Dave Strider. But they were not just dressed up as him. They were all wearing close to exact replicas of outfits he had worn during the game.

They were posing for what looked like a photoshoot, and there was an even bigger crowd of people in costumes obviously designed to look like yourself and your friends. You stopped and ran to sit on a bench facing away from the crowd. You let yourself panic for a minute or two before approaching one of the teenagers dressed as Kanaya.

You tapped her shoulder. “Um… excuse me. What exactly is this? Like, um. What are you all dressed up as?”

A few people next to her turned and watched the conversation. A Jake, Karkat and Aradia.

“Oh- eheh. Well, we’re all cosplaying characters from a webcomic called Homestuck. This is the Nan Desu Kan Homestuck photoshoot. Those people up there are the Dave Strider cosplayers. And just so you know, us grey people are cosplaying an alien race called trolls. We are not demons.”

“Homestuck? Uh, who wrote it? And where can I find it?”

“Andrew Hussie.” She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen out her bag and wrote something down.

“Here. This is the website where you can read it. I highly recommend it. It starts out slow, but trust me, it gets really good. And don’t ever skip the intermissions… Was that all?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

You leave and drive home and race to your computer. You type in the address and wait for it to load. You tap your foot nervously. The page comes up and you stare at the screen for a good two minutes before loudly shouting, “What the hell?!”

Whoever this asshole was decided to draw you horribly. Though, it might’ve been intentional? Whatever. You begin reading and then stop when you get to the part where thirteen year old you is assigning his strife specibus. You scroll up and click map, then Homestuck and click on act 5. This time you read the whole thing and then you just kind of curl up in your bed and lay there for a while confused and horrified.

“ROOOOOSE!” You shout and then get to the page where it introduces Rose, before flopping back down on your bed.
She enters your room about a minute and a half later.

“John? What is it? Have you-”

“No Rose. Whatever kind of funny but preposterous thing you are about to say did not happen. What did is something 100 times more preposterous and I guess maybe you could look at it as funny? Or maybe just ironic… whatever. Just look at the screen Rose.” You lift your arm and point lazily to your computer.

She walks over and sits in your computer chair. Then stands back up so quickly it knocks the chair over.

“Holy. Shit.”

“I know.” You respond.

“John, this cannot be a prank. There’s no way you could draw this well using technology.”

“Hey!”

“So please explain what this drawing of me from the game is doing on your computer.”

“Well Rose. From what it looks like, someone decided to make a webcomic about us.”

“Who?!” she shouted, starting to get really freaked out.

“Some guy named Andrew Hussie.”

“What the fuck… Ok fuck it. I’m not the leader or anything, but I feel like we should all read this whole thing... Or at least the parts about ourselves… But then again no… Who else has read this?”

“Uh... well. I saw about a hundred cosplayers a while ago... That was really weird by the way. But I’m pretty sure that can’t be all of them.”

“Hm... Well we have to tell everybody, obviously…”

“Ok once we figure everything out, you Vriska and Karkat should decide on what to do.”

“Alright. Keep researching this… I’m going to go do my own research. We can tell them tomorrow.”

“Good plan.” You respond and then wave to her as she leaves the room. You go back to your computer and type in Homestuck in the search bar again. You look through google images for a little while and then go back to regular search already pretty mentally disturbed. And then you find the fanfictions.

“Nope.” you shout. “Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.” Then you just leave your computer, walk downstairs and walk into the pool. And then, despite you freaking out and caring about nothing right now, you completely regret just walking into the pool fully dressed. You get out of the water and sit down on one of the hotel like lawn chair thingies on the ground outside the pool. Feferi looks at you odd. She says nothing but goes into her closet and comes out with a pair of swimming trunks. She hands them to you along with a towel.

“Here. You can go change in the bathroom. And then, let minnow what’s up.”

You take them and then change in the bathroom and fold your soaking clothes and lay them on another chair.

“So. What’s going on?” Feferi has her arms folded on the side of the pool and she’s resting her head there while she aimlessly treads water with her legs.

“Um. Oh jeez where do I even start? Ok so I was on a walk right? But then there was this huge crowd of teenagers at an anime convention, and they were dressed as all of us, and they said that this guy wrote a comic about us and a bunch of people read it and then wrote porn about us and it is just…. Auuuugh!”

“Wow. That dream sounds pretty terribubble.”

“It wasn’t a dream. I just sucked at explaining it...”

“Wait just a glubbing minute! Are you saying that there’s a huge population of people who know about us?”

“Yeah. And they’re crazy. Very good at costuming… and drawing erotic scenes…” You shudder. “But they’re definitely crazy.”

“Wow! That’s amazing! Did they actually have grey skin and horns too?” She asked excitedly.

“Uh yeah, but I think it was just face paint. And the horns were like, on headbands. You should’ve seen the costumes of you. They were all so accurate. Of course it would’ve been the outfits we all wore in the game, but they still look amazing.”

“Hey! Hold on a second! I’m getting a great idea!!!!” she shouts excitedly and dunks herself underwater so she can bullet up the surface and jump a few feet above the water before landing safely in the water again. Feferi squealed in excitement and kind of jumped up and down in the water.

“John. John! If there are a bunch of people who make themshellves grey and go to these conventions, and that not be considered too weird than guess what??”

“What?”

“We can go outside John!!! All we have to do is put on one of our outfins from the game and go to these conventions! We could even make fronds with some of the humans! Of course we’d have to tail them we live too far to visit often so we would have to communicate via the internet!”

“Holy crap you’re right! I’ll be right back!” You race upstairs and grab your iPhone from your bed and run back down to the pool. And then you accidentally slip and fall on your ass momentarily. But you get back up and sit down in the chair again. Dirk is here now as well. He’s just getting an orange crush out of the mini fridge though, but he sits down in the chair next to yours.
“Scrod clammit John. How many times have I told you not to run next to the pool?”

“Too many times.” Dirk answers for you.

“Yeah…” You say regarding the comments. Then you go online and find out how long the convention is open.
You smile at Feferi.

“Good news Fef,” You like to call her that because it’s a pretty great nickname. “The convention is open the whole weekend. We missed today be we can go tomorrow and Sunday.”

“Wait… What are you guys talking about? I thought the trolls couldn’t go anywhere?” Dirk asked.

“It’s a little difficult to explain… Let’s just get everyone down here so I can tell it to everyone at once.”

“Okay then…”

It took a few minutes to gather everyone, and even longer to get everyone to shut up long enough to listen. So you explained it to them and then told everybody that they’d need to tell you if they wanted to go to the convention and also that they should do some research on the fandom because they seem pretty intense and you might need to be prepared for whatever happens.
Everyone wanted to go. Well Jake didn’t really want to go but then Aradia said she’d hang out with him the whole day and he agreed. Aradia is kind of his moirail.

So you bought tickets for everybody. Then you figured out who’s riding in whose car. This, surprisingly, wasn’t too hard. Only the humans had cars. So that’s eight cars, but twelve trolls. So the arrangement went like this. Only six cars would be used; John’s, Rose’s, Jade’s, Dirk’s, Jane’s and Roxy’s. None of them had any cars with more than five seats. So each car would have approximately two passengers. Feferi, Nepeta and Calliope rode with Roxy. Gamzee and Tavros rode with Jade. Kanaya and Vriska rode with Rose. Sollux and Terezi rode with Dirk. Equius and Eridan rode with Jane. Aradia rode with Jake, and Dave and Karkat rode with you.

You fished out your god tier outfit from some old storage boxes. You also took out the Warhammer of Zillyhoo just for fun. Then you watched a bunch of Homestuck comics on YouTube and tried not to cringe too much at the inaccuracy of the ships and the voices. Oh god the voices. Is that really what people think you sound like?

Then you go to sleep.

Chapter Text

It is Saturday now and you’re all standing in line, waiting to buy your tickets. It is taking forever too. You look around and spot a few Homestuck cosplayers here and there.

It’s still so weird to think that there are people who would spend tons of money just to run around looking like you. You also see some cosplayers from other fandoms, like Attack on Titan, Hetalia, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, and then a bunch of other stuff that you couldn’t recognize. But Dirk seemed to know what everything was, and he got really excited when he saw some good cosplays. He’s already taken three pictures so far. Vriska’s complaining about how long the line is.

Once you finally all get your passes, you start to try and find out where to go. Then as soon as you’ve walked five feet, you all get asked for a photo, and get invited to a photoshoot later in the courtyard.

Then you all split up and explore. Aradia is with Nepeta, Equius, and Jake. Roxy and Jade are with Jane and Calliope. Dirk is with Dave and Karkat. Vriska is with Terezi, and Sollux. And Feferi is with Eridan. Gamzee is with Tavros. You are with Rose and Kanaya.

First you wander around with Kanaya and Rose for a while at the booths. You buy this cool Japanese soda in a bottle and some pocky. Rose mentions something about a pocky game, but you don’t know what that means so you shrug it off. Kanaya buys some earrings that look like tiny bottles with colored glitter inside. Rose buys a crocheted squid. After that you get something to eat and sit down. Then you find this big group of Homestuck cosplayers just sitting down in this big area where nothing is going on.

You guys decide that you all should sit with them. The cosplayers are very welcoming and some of them are roleplaying as their character as well. You talk to a Nepeta cosplayer as though you’ve never met Nepeta. Like the first time you met her. They are okay at portraying her. They are a lot funnier about it, but so are you.

Then someone asks Rose and Kanaya to kiss for a photo. They look at each other as if to say “do you want to?” and then they nodded at each other and then said yes. Some other people got their cameras out as well. Rose couldn’t stop laughing and she ruined several photos. (It was Kanaya’s fault because she kept making faces or tickling her lips with her fangs.) But then they got it right. And it was really cute. You take a picture of people taking pictures and send it to Dave.

You smile but your smile breaks as someone announces a game of spin the faygo.

Chapter Text

You are now Nepeta Leijon, and you are having the time of your life. Or… second life… third? Fourth? You’re not sure. With all of those things that happened in the game, what with having a dream self and a real self, and paradox selves, and being prototype merged with Davesprite at one point, you’re not sure what life you’re on right now. But you are sure that you are having a great time.

Currently, you and Equius are roleplaying as yourselves from the game with a Dirk cosplayer and a Jane cosplayer. “Dirk” and you are explaining shipping to Jane as Equius mutters horse pun alternatives under his breath.

Aradia and Jake are posing for a picture right now. Jake and Aradia are back to back. Aradia with her whip out holding both ends dramatically, and Jake with one pistol pointing in front of him, and one held as if he were blowing smoke off of it. NONSUGGESTIVELY. Except yes completely suggestively.

You all hang out there for a while, just doing random shit until someone says something about a panel and you get dragged along to it. When you get there you realize that you have been separated from your group. And most importantly, Equius. He’ll flip his shit if he doesn’t know where you are in this sea of people. And what if you can’t find them again and you get stuck here.

You start to panic and leave the room. You run around and eventually find a big area with ceiling to floor windows on two sides and stairs that lead to a second floor. You go up the stairs and find a big circle of Homestuck cosplayers. You also find the real John, Rose, and Kanaya. You rush to Kanaya and explain what happened.

“Kanaya! Oh thank goodness I found mew. I just got lost from Equius. Do you know where he might be?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Sorry. If you’d like to stay with us that is fine.”

“Yeah… okay. So what is this anyway?”

“Spin the faygo.”

“Oh. Okay.”
You sit down with the and watch the bottle spin and squeal a few times when a good ship kisses. You almost miss it when the bottle first lands on you.

But you get up, walk into the middle and kiss the Feferi cosplayer on the cheek. People clap. They do that for all the good ones, and you didn’t expect that one to be very popular. You keep that in mind.

You spin the bottle and it lands on a Terezi. You blush profusely and try to hide a small smile. The Terezi catches this, grins and dips you, before kissing you, right on the mouth. You kiss back and then, surprisingly, it lasts.

People start cheering and the kiss… gets deeper. But then you both back out because you’re both strangers and you are both in public. You are smiling way too much now and you hide your face. You sit back down next to Kanaya, and they kind of stare at you. Rose is smiling like she’s proud. Kanaya looks questioning, and John’s facial expression looks more like he wants to high five and fist bump you at the same time.

“What? I don’t have a matesprit.”

They laugh.
And you grin.
Then the fire alarm sounds.

Your name is Aradia Megido and you regret what you just did. You took extreme measures to shut up Equius. You slapped him in the face. Then he kissed you, thinking you were black flirting. So you slapped him again and specified.

“Equius no! I am not flirting with you! You just need to shut up for twenty nine seconds. Nepeta is fine. She can handle herself. And even if we don’t find her, and she doesn’t find us, then that’s okay. Because Nepeta grew up in a cave in a forest and she never died once out there.”

Jake watches silently as you grip Equius’s shoulders and shake him slightly every few seconds.

“Repeat after me. Nepeta is fine.”

“Aradia, this is foolish-”

“REPEAT AFTER ME EQUIUS.”

“… Nepeta is fine.”

“She grew up in a forest and knows how to find people.”

“She grew up in a forest and knows how to find people.”

Jake smiles to himself and mutters something about Hufflepuff.

“Okay Equius. Now you need to calm down so we can enjoy this time here. Or of course you could go on your own to find Nepeta. Just let us know before you leave okay?”

“Okay. I am going to find Nepeta.”

“Alright. Good luck Equius.”

“Good luck.” Jake echoes.

You are now Jade Harley and you really wish you would’ve worn your trollsona instead of just dog tier. Calliope is wearing hers and you and Jane agree that it would have been soooo cooool if you all matched. Roxy’s just really excited to be here, and Calliope is too.

Calliope has done the most research on human culture since you all arrived here, so she knows about most of the fandoms that are spread out around here. She had also heard of Homestuck a few times before this whole thing happened, but didn’t check it out until John made that announcement. So Callie is very excited about purchasing art prints of all of these things. She tends to stay away from doctor who related things though. For reasons that are only obvious to those who know. That is, anyone who knows what the doctor is.

However, you are all having a great time in the gaming area. You are playing Pokémon and Roxy is helping. Calliope is playing Skyrim for the first time with tips Jane picked up from John and Roxy.

You just caught a level four poochyena. You named it Jane. After playing around for a while you go to a Hetalia panel at the request of Calliope. When you guys walk in you see Nepeta bolting out the door of the panel room. You shrug and take a seat. And despite not understanding most of the panel, you still found it hilarious. That is, until all hell broke loose.

Chapter Text

Your name is Sollux Captor and you just came out of the gaming room, only to meet up with Terezi, Vriska and Eridan again. They tell you that Feferi found a pool and you nod, understanding. They lead you to this big circle and sit you down next to them. Vriska goes to this guy in the center and returns with several cards labeled “Cards against Humanity”. You end up teaming with Eridan. You also end up helping Eridan win.

After that you find Feferi, and you go out for lunch with her, Terezi, Eridan, and Vriska. You go to a sushi restaurant. You, Feferi and Terezi love the food they have. But Vriska did not, and stopped for Subway on the way back to the convention hall. A photographer asks if she can take a few photos of your group. Feferi agrees excitedly, and Terezi grins very wide.
“Any specific poses?” Eridan asks.

“Yes.” She responds and goes on to take a picture of Feferi pointing her trident at the camera. A picture of Vriska and Terezi back to back. Terezi with her cane in front of her, both hands folded on top of it neatly and politely. Vriska with her dice in between several fingers. One hand over her forehead as if using her mind powers and one hand held out to accentuate the dice.

Then she asked for a picture of yourself and Eridan dueling. You politely refused and she settled for a picture of you holding up Eridan in the air with your psionics. You winked at her as she gaped in disbelief. Eridan suggested she name it Catch of the Day. You and Feferi laugh. Then you all see Tavros chasing Gamzee and witness Tavros and Gamzee destroying a panel.

Your name is Tavros Nitram and you just ruined a panel. You really don’t know how it went wrong.

You are now Karkat Vantas because of strategic storytelling. And you are wondering how the hell Dirk manages to know everything about atomic structure and science while still having room in his thinkpan for all of these fucking fandoms. He’s tried explaining too many fandoms to count, and you’re still trying to wrap your head around the first one he mentioned. Vocaloid or something like that.

Dirk is walking in front of you and Dave, so he doesn’t notice right away when Dave pulls you around a corner, wraps his arms around you, and kisses you.

You smile against his lips and kiss back putting your arms around his neck to keep him where he is. The kiss only lasts a couple of seconds but as soon as you break away he leans over next to you ear and whispers “Love you.” You respond by kissing his neck and saying “I love you too, Dave.”

You let go of his neck and he lets his arms fall from your waist, but he takes your hand in his and you catch up to Dirk.

He leads you two into a panel room and it is immediately evident that something went horribly wrong. And it’s also obvious that it was Tavros’s fault, as he is standing directly in the center of the stage.

“What the fuck?” Dave mutters.

It’s very loud in here. There’s a lot of shouting and people running around. You let go of Dave’s hand and run over to Tavros. But you stay off of the stage and look up at him.

“What the hell did you do Tavros!?”

“I don’t know! I was looking for Gamzee and I found him in here and he was hiding behind the curtains. But when I tried to catch him he ran and I grabbed him then he tripped and brought down the whole thing.” He said, pointing to what used to be stage lighting equipment. Gamzee was sitting next to Tavros. The curtains were on fire.

“Ugh!” you shout. “I can’t leave you alone for three hours! C’mon let’s get out of here before we’re arrested.” You lead him out of there and have Dirk drive Gamzee and Tavros home.

Now you and Dave are sitting outside in the courtyard watching the Homestuck photoshoot. It had to be postponed because of the fire, which was taken out pretty fast due to a fire extinguisher. You’re sitting on a brick ledge about 5 feet up, above a ramp. You’re resting your head on Dave’s shoulder. You and he had just gone to Subway to eat and now you’re just hanging out.

“We should not have brought everybody.” Dave says.

“Yeah. We should go in small groups to these things.” You respond.

“Think anything else stupid has happened?”

“Probably.”

“Why is our group always so prone to shenanigans?” He asks.

“No idea. We weren’t even like this before the game. I guess it just stuck.”

“Yeah.”
You sit there for a while leaning on him.

“This is really weird.” You say.

“What do you mean?” Dave asks you.

“This is the first time I’ve been out in public in seven years. And this is the first time I’ve been out in public without having to hide.”

“Really?” Dave asks with a look of genuine shock.

“Well yeah. I’m a mutant. I never went out in public a lot. And when I did I always had to hide. If the drones had seen my shirt, and saw that the sign was grey. They’d take my blood, and then I’d be culled. So whenever I went out I would wear this green hoodie, so they would think that was my blood color. It feels weird here. Like I’m exposed.” You explain.
Dave hugs you tightly and you chuckle.

“It’s okay Dave.” You say.

“Alternia sucks.” Dave says.

“No. Alternia was okay. The Condesce sucks.” You reply.
Dave lets go and kisses your head. You kiss his mouth.

Chapter Text

Your name is Roxy Lalonde and you’re pretty sure that it was Tavros that just screwed up this panel. You leave the room very quickly with Jade, Jane, and Callie. You tell them to go look for John and Rose.

You walk down the hall and turn a corner only to find Jake (your Jake) pinned against a wall by a Dirk cosplayer. You grab the cosplayer by the shirt and pull him off.

“HEY. Don’t do that! Don’t you know that they broke up? Or did you just skim over that!” You shout full of protective anger.

Jake mouths “Thank you.”

You tell that cosplayer to beat it, and they do.
Then you turn to Jake.

“Are you okay? Did he do anything?”

“W-well he pinned me against the wall. And then he kissed me right before you got here.”

“Asshole!” you mutter in the direction that he left.

“It’s okay Roxy.”

“Are you just saying that Jake?” You ask, because you know that he sometimes just says that so he won’t be a burden.

He pauses. “Yes.” He says after a few seconds.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask.

“Not right now.” He says.

“Okay.” You nod and the hug him.

Then the fire alarm sounds and you walk downstairs and walk outside in front of the lobby and wait until it’s safe to come back inside.

Your name is Dirk Strider and you saw what just happened. And you wish you had done something rather than just stand there and watch it happen. You felt like it wasn’t your place to do that. But now you want to slap yourself because it doesn’t matter that a person that was dressed like you kisses him when you used to date. Because he’s your friend and someone just kissed him without consent. It wasn’t one of your splinters, so it would make a difference if you had done something. You leave full of guilt and exit into the courtyard.

Your name is Nepeta Leijon and you’re kind of bored right now. You’re just sitting in a chair and sorting out all the stuff you bought. You bought a lot of stuff after you came back inside from the fire alarm. You love all of it. You are looking at a deck of cat themed cards when you are approached by the Terezi from earlier. They give a sheepish smile and say “Hey.”
“Oh. Hi.” You say.

“Um, I just wanted to come over and apologize about before. I should have asked before I kissed you. I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh! No, no that’s okay.” You say and gesture for them to sit down in the chair across from you.

“What’s your name and um, actual gender?” You ask.

“My name is Lizeth and thanks for asking that by the way. Not many people do. I am a girl.” She replies.

“That is a beautiful name!” You say.

“Thank you.” She says. “What are your pronouns?”

“I am a girl as well, and I would like to be called Nepeta.” You play it cool and say it like Nepeta isn’t your name.

“That works.” She says.
You talk with her for a while and learn that she had a sister, but that she died two years ago from lung cancer. Her name was Danielle and she had beautiful blonde hair and green eyes. Her sister had introduced her to Homestuck but she didn’t read it until last year.

When you talk about yourself you do it vaguely. You say that you live in this big house in Oregon. You say that you don’t have parents and none of the people that live with you do.

“Like an orphanage?” she asks.

“Not exactly.” You say, and you wish you wish you could tell her.

You exchange tumblrs and emails. Then you spend more time with her until Equius finds you again when it’s time to leave. You hug her and say goodbye.

Chapter Text

Your name is John Egbert. And according to everyone this was a catastrophe. You had no idea. Well except for the fire alarm thing. Most of them said they had a lot of fun. But they all said that it went horribly wrong. And- wait… hold on. You do a head count.

“HOLD ON.” You shout. “WHERE IS ARADIA?!”

“Oh shit.”
“Wait, I thought she was in your car.”
“Wasn’t she with Kanaya?”

You dial Aradia’s cell phone.
“Aradia?”

“Hey John what’s up?”

“Uh, are you still at the convention?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I saw that you guys left, so I met some really nice cosplayers who said I could spend the night in their hotel room.”
Your face goes white. And now you kind of know how it feels to be a parent.

“What?”

“I met some nice people who had an extra hotel room in the building. They thought that some other friends were coming with, and it was too late to fix it because they had paid in advance. You guys also forgot Terezi.”

“Hey John!” Terezi yells.
“Aradia are you sure this is safe? Who were these guys? How old are they?”

“They’re our age. They have a YouTube channel so you can look at their faces. Besides, I brought my whip, so I’m safe.”
She gives you the name and you look at them… they look nice but you’re still not sure.

“Can I talk to them?” You ask.

“Yeah.” She says. Then she gave the phone to one of them.

You talk to them and then you feel a lot better and know that they’re safe. Well… you don’t know that…. They’ll be fine. You tell everyone that they are okay and in good hands. They seem skeptical but then you explain and they’re still skeptical but less.
Then everyone explained what happened with Tavros and Gamzee at the panel. You face palmed. Later Roxy and Jake told about that cosplayer. So yeah. It was a total disaster. It was a pretty unanimous decision not to go back tomorrow, and that next time only small groups will attend conventions together.

The next day you drive back to get Aradia and Terezi. You also buy them Ice cream to make up for leaving them behind.
That part went like this.

“Hey, sorry we forgot you guys. Yesterday was a mess.” You apologized, keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.

“Yeah John, you should be sorry! I can’t believe you would leave us. Worst leader ever.” Terezi said sarcastically. You take a second to give her a face.

You sighed. “Terezi.” You said, a little agitated.

“He owes us something don’t you think Aradia?” Terezi elbowed Aradia softly and knowingly. You rolled your eyes.

“What?” Aradia said looking up from a book she had bought. “Ice cream.” She said randomly.

“Perfect! John, Aradia says you owe us Ice cream!” Terezi said with a devious grin that seemed to highlight all of her sharp pointed teeth, framed by her black lips.

“Okay, okay, we can go through the drive through of dairy queen. Just make sure you know what you want so it doesn’t take three years.”

Terezi got the mint girl scout blizzard thing. Aradia got a snickers blizzard. You got an Oreo blizzard.

Then you drove them home and parked in the garage. Aradia walked quickly inside and you were about the follow when Terezi caught your arm, gave a smirk and then kissed you, making sure to bite your lip break away and give you that blackrom face that she makes sometimes before leaving you in the garage. You locked the car and went inside.
What happened after that isn’t very important to the story so you decide not to think about it right now.

(They fucked.)

Now that everyone knows about the fandom, they have a lot of things they can do. They often do readings of the comic and put them on YouTube. As well as voice overs for the fan comics, and ask blogs.

Calliope is the main producer of fanart from this house. Along with Jade and Rose and Tavros. You all have read the comic now and seen most of the fan content. And you’re all planning to go to several conventions, so it’s a good thing there are a lot of them. You have to drive everywhere though because the trolls can’t get on planes, which is a drawback but Jake got a van so now you can transport a lot of people and/or things.

The next convention you are going to is in Kansas City. It’s called Naka-con. You’re going with Karkat, Dave, Feferi and Terezi. So, probably nothing will go wrong. Maybe. You’ll have to see.

Everything ends up being way better than before. There’s always something going on for everybody, and none of the trolls are bored. They’re all making a lot of friends. And Nepeta has established a long distance matespritship with Lizeth. She’s thinking about telling her about being the real Nepeta. You think it’s a great idea, but Vriska and a few others don’t think so. You hope she tells her.

All in all things are really great now. Even though it’s really weird to see people dress like you and see fanart of you and porn of you, it’s actually kind of great to be known for everything you did in the game. Everybody did so much to make this universe; they really deserve to be recognized for it.