Just Surviving

and Hell followed with him

“Where the hell are your glasses?” Dave asked, and immediately closed his damn mouth because what the hell is he doing?

Bro looked bad. Bad to the point that Dave wondered if maybe he was faking, because surely even at his worst Bro would not let anyone, much less his brother, see him in this state. Maybe it was a test. Maybe Dave was failing right in this moment because he didn’t bother to hesitate, to wait and assess the situation before rushing in and literally poking the dead guy.

as a hawk from the moon

"No offense, but I wouldn't do any of that to talk to Jake."

"But I did!"

Jade looks for Jake after the latter goes missing in a presumably alien-less alien planet.

bite the bullet

A new hunter has come into town. She's maybe the best you've ever seen.

Brainless

The fact that he’s in this situation is incontrovertible proof that there is a god and that she hates Sollux Captor personally.

Choice

Aranea pursed her lips. As much as she trusted Porrim (although she really shouldn't have), she had to admit that thus far, this field trip hadn't quite been what she was expecting.

Aranea Serket had a scholarly interest in history, and what better historical repository was there than a vampire so starved he had nearly withered to dust?

Civic Engagement

This is utterly miserable. You've been walking for goodness knows how long, which wouldn't be a problem, except you're also being sent on a wild civic goosechase just to find a gas station.

Your name is John Egbert, and when you run out of gas on a rural back road in the southwest, you find yourself stranded in a town that isn't on the map, and tangled in a web of bureaucratic nonsense.

Cosmic Hero

The door clicks shut behind you, keys clattering and the ambient noise of the TV striking your ears. Your roommate sits on the couch, watching. He doesn’t visibly react to your coming home, shoveling popcorn into his mouth to the sound of a laugh track. You set your things down on the counter and move to head to your room. Karkat’s voice stops you.

“Wanna watch TV?”

You pause in the hallway, mouth twitching into a frown. He’s only been living with you for a couple months.

“No, man. You should head to bed. It’s late as shit.”

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look up at you. He never does.

Earth as a Character Gallery (Enter, Sandman)

Something about it makes her stomach twist. Her face in the picture looks stretched too, pulled subtly out of proportion, like it’s being viewed through warped glass. Her features are there, technically, but they don’t sit right. Her eyes are too dark. Her mouth too straight. The rest of her fades into the shadows that fall over her, edges dissolving until it’s hard to tell where her body ends and the background begins

Or; Jade's god tier goes wrong and instead of fusing with Bec, she fuses with the space aspect itself and becomes a sandman of sorts.

Evil stares will turn your flesh to stone

Once upon a time, a lonely egg was laid in the middle of an isolated grove, left to fend for itself. Beings like the one that laid the egg didn't raise their own young, isolationist by nature.

However, when the egg hatched, two little monsters slithered out.

Just a Monstrous Dream Bubble

What should be a standard dream bubble ends up being a bit more fun for some parties (Rose, the Mayor) than for others (Karkat, Terezi).

Lift your head, and (don’t) look out the window

A strange phenomenon causes anyone that looks outside to transform into monsters... Four young adults, who didn't play a game, grapple with this new reality.

(Basically this is a homestuck look outside crossover :)

Like Me Less

John is studying abroad in Japan when he happens upon a mysterious young lady. His sense of self-preservation could use some work.

Little Lion Man

Jade is the Guardian of the Green, a powerful witch destined to remain forever locked inside her magical forest. She has been waiting for her lover, Dave, to return for... For decades. What happens when Dave does show up, but no longer as himself? Jade still loves him, of course, but the Creature himself is not as sure.

long black night, morning frost

It’s an honesty that you only ever get here, in the early hours of the morning, after months of knowing him in this way, the way of private moments tinged with blood.

Metamorphoses

Trolls could survive fine on Earth, this was the accepted narrative.

Of course, this narrative did not account for alternians who travelled beyond the conveniently delimited touristic parts of the planet.

-

Or, what happens when an alien is unprepared for the way their biology reacts to a new, harsh, environment.

The old gods abandoned us, but their beasts remain

When the trolls invaded, the humans were woefully unequipped to fight back. It wasn't the gods, new or old who saved them, though. It was the monsters.

The Pyrope Parable, Annotated Edition

The Pyrope Parable is an ancient (circa 25th Century C.E.) work within Skaian mythology. Though generally disregarded as a fanciful and simple tale by modern scholars, it is still notable for hosting the first appearance of the “Pyrope”, an increasingly obsolete — but no less intriguing — folkloric beast.

Citation: Lalonde, Rose. “The Pyrope Parable, Annotated Edition.” Skaian Mythological Society 4, no. 13 (3014): 4–12.

shoot the moon and miss completely

Renowned monster hunter Jacob Harley captures his quarry, but when he finds out it's not entirely what it seems, he makes it an offer it can't refuse — because he won't allow it.

Speak To Me

Dave is breaking under the stress of Bro's training. Rose takes matters into her own hands.

Until You’re Resting Here With Me

In which our main character attends her mother's autumnal ball, falls ill after the events of that night, and eventually recovers, due to the assistance of her dear friend.

Wasn’t there in the first place

Cronus is the black sheep of his species, too social, too passive.

He quickly finds the right company after meeting another social outcast.

Doesn't really end well for either of them

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? THE WORLD'S MOST LITERAL MONSTER MASH?

In hindsight, attempting to mix a slew of extraterrestrial foodstuffs in a meat grinder and stuff it into a sausage casing was not the brightest idea ViewTube trio “ShadesCodesNShouts” has ever had. In fact, this may be their worst idea yet.

Known on Alternia as “In Which a Stupid Human Conceives of an Even Stupider Plan, and Said Plan Leads to a Creation That No Loving Creator Could Ever Endorse.”

What The Water Gave Me

Unable to sleep, she swims instead. Seethes.

It’s this lake that keeps Feferi awake, the spite that poisons it. Spite’s bitter taste stays on her tongue whenever she swallows a mouthful. The same spite keeps her adrift and thrashing against the surface, against the dappled sunlight that dances above her head. For some reason, she can’t breach it.

After awaking at the bottom of her kingdom's lake, Feferi finds herself sad, incensed, and something new entirely. A fairytale inspired by folklore of the rusalka.

When does a monster become a monster?

“The real signs had been far more pervasive, far less clear. Sometimes she thought she had only realized she wasn’t human when she was fourteen. Sometimes she thought she had always known.”

- More Full Of Weeping Than You Can Understand, Rosamund Hodge.

Wintering

Winter has been hard.

Granted, all winters have been hard for as long as he can remember but this one felt colder somehow, the chill more biting than the last. Even now as an adult and as much as it physically affected him little there was something about the long nights and ceaseless icy wind that cut deep on an emotional level. The struggling to keep fires lit alone in the woods and the long trips from town to town. He’s supposed to return to his keep, to Kaer Caelah to spend the winter with his fellow Witchers but he’d rather not on account of who else would be there. Today his luck had turned, strapping the severed deer skull of a Leshen to the saddle of his horse, Dave Strider was about to get paid.

You Can’t Really Control the Shifting

It's hard, being a therianthrope and Shifting in the modern day. It's hard, and no one understands.

you know what they do to trolls like us in imperial prison

Two trolls stuck inside a cell tell eachother stories to pass the time. One of them retells their favorite movie, while the other reveals the reasons they have for joining the insurrection mounting against the Alternian Empire. Together, they come to a conclusion of what really makes a monster.

AHAHA, YOU'VE FALLEN INTO MY TRAP OF ERIDANOFICATION OF KANKRI UNDER THE GUISE OF BEFORUS REMAKES!!1!

But in reality, this was a natural progression of events - given how strongly the Sufferer's fate influenced Karkat, I was interested in trying to directly connect the Imposter's fate to Kankri.

Kankri is the Seer of Blood. And, as an ancestor, he was able to realize his potential by seeing life on Beforus before the scratch. But what if the visions visited him during the game as well? In a previous post, I said that the bags under his eyes were a consequence of these prophetic dreams. But that's not the only thing that changed in him after the very first vision.

I headcanon that recuperacoons on Beforus were unlikely to be as widespread as on Alternia - they were primarily a medical device, as trolls didn't need to take sedatives for regular sleep. Kankri, like his peers, calmly used a bed until one day he had a series of dreams so vivid, so colorful, and so real that upon waking up he couldn't immediately understand who he was or where he was. Most often, these were fragmented memories of other trolls, but one dream stood out particularly among them.

It was a vision of his ancestor's life. A vision that showed him what could happen to him if he wasn't careful.

That was the last straw. After that, he slept exclusively in recuperacoons - they didn't remove the visions completely, but significantly muted them, making them easier to process.

He also became more insufferable, gradually becoming the version of himself we see in the comic. More indifferent to others and detached. After all, he is self-sufficient. He is an adult. He can take care of himself. He is not a somewhat dim-witted grub.