Fic: Past John: Pester Rose for the first time (Rose & John)

[cest_what]

This was supposed to be a much longer story about all the ways John has met Rose for the first time, through timeline shenanigans and unfortunate bouts of unconsciousness and grimdarkness, exploring the things I love most about the dynamics of their friendship. Also: grimdark throes! Totally were going to be a thing. That story tied itself into knots and fell in an unworkable heap, but I really liked this pesterlog and I thought it could stand alone as a ficlet.

Homestuck | Rose & John | 800 words | G | at AO3

Summary:
TT: That's what I mean.
TT: I am not a good friend.
GT: i bet that's not true.
TT: That would be a singularly ill-conceived bet.



Past John: Pester Rose for the first time.

-- ghostyTrickster [GT] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

GT: hi.
TT: ...
TT: I believe that the dictates of social protocol now demand that I respond in kind.
TT: Probably with something painfully inane befitting the social expectations associated with the arbitrarily significant numeral that is my age.
TT: "Hey", I suppose.
TT: Or "hi!!!!"
GT: haha, wow.
GT: that's ok, you don't have to say hi back!
TT: Your generosity of spirit overwhelms me.
TT: Does it stretch to telling me who you are?
GT: i'm a friend of jade's!
GT: or gg, i guess?
GT: but she told me her name right off so i bet she told you too.
GT: i'm john btw.
TT: Hm.
GT: ?
TT: I'm beginning to suspect she has a hitherto-unrevealed vindictive streak.
GT: no way!
GT: jade is totally nice.
TT: She has that veneer, certainly.
TT: She wears niceness like a smooth coat, polished to a low lustrous shine through painstaking secret care.
TT: But I can't imagine what nice reason she could have for sending you to talk to me.
GT: uh.
GT: i guess she thought maybe we could be friends?
TT: That's what I mean.
TT: I am not a good friend.
GT: i bet that's not true.
TT: That would be a singularly ill-conceived bet.
TT: If you took it, you would find yourself destitute, bereft of all but the stuttering, piteously youthful appeal of your voice as you begged for alms in the street.
TT: That and the void-like despair eating away at your insides once the last tattered shreds of your sunny good nature and hopeful disposition had fallen away.
GT: wow, it seems like you are being really hard on yourself.
TT: I'm only being realistic.
TT: Please take this warning in the spirit in which it is intended.
TT: I have only your best interests at heart.
TT: I don't have the tools for friendship, you see.
TT: My nature was formed without them, and I have never troubled to correct that oversight in my making.
TT: I lack the capacity to derive innocent pleasure from the company of others.
TT: The inclination to enter into the interests of my peers, vapid and mind-numbing as those interests invariably are.
TT: The ability to sympathize with another's woes, without tearing hound-like into the tender underbelly of the suppressed yearnings, complexes and unhealthy fixations that have produced or contributed to them.
TT: In place of these things I am possessed of an advanced understanding that paradoxically exiles me from the arena of understanding with my peers.
TT: And a curiosity to uncover the deepest and most horrifyingly convoluted secrets in the psyches of those who cross my path.
TT: If we became friends, I would apply the scalpal of psychoanalysis to all of the softest parts of your soul.
TT: I would forge a way into the darkest paths and deepest forgotten spaces of your subconscious.
TT: I would go spelunking in the lost recesses of your poor, shrinking mind, and I would drag out what was most pitiful, most mutated, all of the things that it made you cry out in wordless horror to see.
TT: And I would expose them to the pitiless sunlight until they crisped and burned.
GT: um, wow.
TT: Do I make you uncomfortable, John?
GT: you're deliberately trying to sound like that character in movies who leans too close and is soft spoken and creepy, aren't you?
TT: ...
TT: Yes.
GT: hehe, i knew it.
GT: it's ok, you can psychoanalyze me if you want!
TT: Really?
GT: yes!
GT: i give you permission to delve into my psyche.
GT: but if you see any clowns down there, it's just because my house is full of them.
GT: my dad has this weird obsession with clowns, haha.
TT: Fascinating.
TT: You know.
TT: Now that I look closely, I believe that you're right:
TT: Your subconscious is a coruscating rainbow vortex of clowns.
GT: be careful!
GT: don't make any sudden movements in front of them.
TT: It's alright, they appear to be largely friendly.
TT: I believe one of them may have just waved at me.
GT: oh man, no, that's when you want to look out the most.
GT: it's just as well you have me as a guide to the egbert subconscious.
TT: I will proceed with the utmost caution.
TT: Clearly these are devious jokers after all, made feral and unpredictable by their long years in the abyssal darkness of your supressed fears and desires.
GT: they are totally vicious jesters.
TT: Conniving motley-wearers, in fact.
GT: deceitful japesters.
TT: Rabid soldiers of mirth.
GT: crafty ... uh, comedic figures.
GT: i am just joking btw!
GT: there aren't really clowns in my subconscious.
TT: John.
TT: If we could say what lay there, would we call it subconscious?
TT: By the way.
TT: If it's of interest.
TT: I'm Rose.
GT: hi rose!
GT: it's nice to meet you.

Comments

[gloss]

Wow, this is so good. SO GOOD. I don't even know what to say, because your character voices are so eerily spot-on, and I want to hug Rose, and, and, and. I really love this. It's damn good. <3333

[cest_what]

Oh man, thank you ♥ ♥ I feel like I'm finally starting to get a handle on Homestuck voices, I'm not so constantly intimidated. Although writing Rose's voice is enough like channelling the most obnoxious phase of my adolescence - if I'd been anything like as smart as I thought I was - that it always feels kind of self-indulgent *g*

[blottingtheink]

J THIS IS SO GOOD I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU ALL THE TIME

[cest_what]

<3333333333333333333333

I need a delighted icon.

[blottingtheink]

SO. GOOD. I was like, gosh, Rose is verbose OH OF COURSE SHE IS omg JOHN look at you YOU'RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE the worst kind of accidental insight UGH IT'S SO PERFECT and then she tells him her NAME ahhhhhhhhghhhhhhhh

[cest_what]

and then she tells him her NAME

The most Homestuck of all emotional payoffs! ♥