Quest ♆ oo1 [video]

[persea]

[Percy looks tired. He's in his pajamas and drinking milk at the counter in his kitchen.]

Hey, people of Vatheon. I figure it's about time I introduced myself on here. So far I've met some really cool people, and it's helping me get my bearings in this strange new place.

[He takes a swig of the milk, then wipes away a milk mustache with his sleeve. So classy.]

So anyway. I'm Percy Jackson. Been here a couple weeks now.

[His smile fades.]

I haven't been sleeping well. Anyone have any tips?

Comments

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

[Karkat stares at him a good long moment.]

Did it really not penetrate the dense, stony cranium you carry on your stem until now that the grey kid who talks about a different planet and different culture and altogether different mode of life than you humans is an actual fucking aline? Do you not know what the word means? Do I have to buy you a dictionary or do I have to beat it against your skull until the knowledge physically breaks into your brain?

So yes, aliens. Yes, really. Yes, we were even invaders, conquering planets across the galaxy, and yes one of our kind even took an Earth in our name, alone, because you suck that much next to our spacefaring might.

What did you even think I was, if not that?

[VIDEO]

[persea]

[Oh there's the jerkiness! Percy was starting to wonder.]

You can have a different culture without being from a different planet. And I am still not an idiot. The Earth is a big place. And I've met cyclopes and satyrs and centaurs and pegasi...a troll isn't that far of a stretch.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

I'm from Alternia! It's a planet! Our home planet! And then it got wiped out in a meteoric apocalypse and the Vast Glub happened and all the rest of us died, the end, except the Empress who as mentioned went on to conquer Earth 2.0. The 2.0 is not a literal part the name, before you ask, if you would even think to do so at this rate.

Didn't I tell you last time that we completely made the universe that contained Earth? At least the Earth we interacted with, not yours. That does not speak to being from the same place, dumbass!

[VIDEO]

[persea]

That sucks, man. I'm sorry you lost your planet. [Now Percy is thinking about how Karkat is like Spock.]

I guess I didn't connect the dots. Sorry.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

[Karkat doesn't know what a Spock is.]

No, you didn't connect the dots. You looked at them and probably thought they were freckles on the conversational face, nothing but spots to look at because god forbid you actually stop and think that maybe they formed a pattern, like some mystery picture encoded in some sorry bulgeblight's DNA just waiting for someone to figure it out.

[That metaphor kind of got away from him.]

...But it's in the past, and honestly this is a better life than I would have had in the long run if our planet and species stuck around.

[VIDEO]

[persea]

[That's okay, Percy does and that's all that matters.]

Wow you make a lot of assumptions. And expect me to, too, apparently.

Yeah? Life on your planet a bit different than Prince Gumball's Candy Kingdom, I assume?

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

It's called basic deductive skill, you moron.

Can we leave the candy people out of this? Please? Just declare a whole moratorium on the subject of him, his kingdom, and any sucrose lifeforms both within and without the boundaries of imagination. But yes, life was different.

[VIDEO]

[persea]

You don't know me, dude. Your "basic deductive skill" sounds more to me like snap judgments and general misanthropy. Give me a break, dude. This is the first time I've ever met an alien.

Fair enough. Just trying to make a joke. Well my life hasn't exactly been a cake walk either.

Er...sorry.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

Misanthropy is a perfectly useful trait to have, thanks.

[His eyes narrow a bit. His question, however, comes out more genuine than the look might suggested.]

What's been so awful about your life?

[VIDEO]

[persea]

Not all the time. I really am trying to keep up, dude.

Demigods have complicated lives. We attract monsters, for one. We just make them really angry for some reason and they can smell us and try to kill us any chance they get. So just on that front it's impossible to live a normal life.

[Percy shrugs, like, this is just how it is, nbd.]

Then there's always some kind of trouble brewing. The Titans, who ruled before the gods tried to rise up and I was part of a prophecy that meant I was right in the thick of everything during the whole Second Titan War. The gods are powerful but they need demigod heroes to fight their battles for them a lot of the time. They're not allowed to interfere, or they have their own crap going on or whatever.

Then just a few months after the Second Titan War ended, Gaea, the Earth herself, began to awaken, throwing into motion this...whole even messier thing that I also am a part of a prophecy that dictates I have to help save civilization as we know it.

[video]

[fundemetal]

Dude, could you keep it down? I could hear you all the way from my room.

[He's walking through the kitchen and Percy can be seen in the background as Leo heads to the fridge.]

[video]

[bethehugejerk]

[Karkat purposely keeps the raised volume.]

No, I cannot keep it down, particularly when A) I don't know you, B) you're not part of this conversation, and C) this isn't even that loud for me! Trust me, you whiny little pustule, you have not heard the half of the raucous volumes my squawk blister can reach. Learn when to save the dumb comments and maybe you won't have to.

[video]

[fundemetal]

Chill, dude. [He's laughing. He knows a bit about Karkat from Percy and he's amused to find out just how true it is.]

The name is Leo Valdez, demigod son of Hephaestus. So now you know me. [He laughs again.]

Might not have been a part of that conversation except for the fact that I could hear you on my way to the kitchen. BUt I am a part of this conversation now.

What in Hades is a squawk blister?

[Leo, save his dumb comments? Never.]

[video]

[bethehugejerk]

Wrong. I know your name; I do not know you. And for the record, I won't buy the demigod thing any more easily from you than I did him.

This is a squawk blister.

[He points a finger at his mouth.]

If you can't keep up with the terms I use, I suggest you give up now.

Now what's Hades?

[video]

[fundemetal]

[Waves his hand] Small details. No need to nitpick, dude. And I don't expect you to buy the demigod thing. It doesn't work like that. You either got it or you don't. [Leo knows that's not what Karkat meant, but he can't resist.]

Geeze, if you can't keep up with the terms I use, then stop with the hypocrisy. Hades is a god. It's also the place where he resides. The underworld.

[video]

[bethehugejerk]

Got what?

[He tilts his head briefly.]

Don't compare terms when they're completely different. Squawk blister you could have figured out from context if you bothered to listen, but I guess you have the same problem as Percy does. Squawk implies noise, i.e. speech. Blister's a bit more opaque, but it's still not that hard in this context.

Hades doesn't sound like anything. It's two mystery syllables strung together into a word, until you explained. A place I could have guessed, but that tells me all of nothing about it, let alone that it's the name of a supposed god.

[video]

[fundemetal]

Seriously, dude? You're going to blame me for not paying attention when you can't do it either? I'll say it again, you can't buy being a demigod, you are either one or you're not one.

I got the squawk bit. But blisters pop and ooze pus, so unless you ooze pus from your mouth, don't go saying it should make perfect sense to me.

[He rolls his eyes.] It's where dead souls go for judgment. Does that help you any?

[VIDEO]

[ex_knowledge575]

[ Annabeth can hear this altercation in her bedroom and decides to listen in and see what's what. Her eyes widen as the conversation goes on. So this is one of the so-called trolls the boys had been talking about.

As far as she can tell Percy hasn't really even inspired this argument, other than by being a Seaweed Brain like usual, but she keeps her cool in battle, as always. ]

Don't mind my boyfriend, he just hasn't been sleeping well since we got here and it makes his mind hazy. I hope he didn't offend you, Mr...

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

His mind was "hazy" - [His fingers lift to mime the enclosure talons quote marks.] - from the time I first spoke to him when he couldn't follow a nice, detailed description of a topic I kindly took the time to explain to him. He didn't even absorb the first fucking concept I laid out.

I'm Karkat Vantas, and drop the Mister. What's your name?

Re: [VIDEO]

[ex_knowledge575]

[ Annabeth raises an eyebrow. She's used to being the only one to call Percy an idiot and she bites back a quick retort in favour of working out what actually went on here. ]

He has ADHD so 'detailed' was probably where you went wrong. What did you try to tell him?

Fair enough. I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

See! He told me that, but it still sounds like "shitty excuse for being a bad listener." I tried to explain troll romance to him, which, yes, is complicated, but that's why the level of detail was required in the first place.

Let me guess, Athena is another of your so-called gods.

[VIDEO]

[ex_knowledge575]

Nope, it's an actual thing. Most demigods have it but some have it worse than others. [ Annabeth's worked hard to overcome hers although it was never anywhere near as bad as Percy's or Leo's. ]

Yep. Athena is goddess of wisdom, war, battle strategy... [ a beat ] and handicrafts. [ What can you do. ]

Can you tell me more about troll romance? Percy mentioned it and it sounded interesting.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

Still not buying it. He didn't follow even the first quadrant I explained, which is closest to human romance out of any of them. You can't just excuse that level of failure to pay attention!

[He huffs a sigh. Her question gets a moment of consideration before he says:]

Will you actually listen properly to the whole thing? If you're actually the earth daughter of some force of wisdom, I will be frankly pissed if I go through the whole thing only for you to not live up to it.

[VIDEO]

[ex_knowledge575]

[ Annabeth has some level of sympathy with Karkat here. After years of dyslexia and ADHD Percy did have a habit of brushing off stuff he didn't understand and it could get frustrating at times. This is why he and she work well together though and she ignores the first part of Karkat's little rant in favour of the latter. ]

Wait, you have quadrants?

[ Romance wasn't usually her area of interest but anthropology in general was fascinating, and the trolls had quadrants? This she had to hear. ] Don't worry, I'm known for my research skills. I'll be all ears.

[VIDEO]

[bethehugejerk]

That's what I said.

[He gives her another skeptical look, but he's already made more or less clear that he intends to hold her to that sort of claim.]

It means we, obviously, have four forms of romance. They're divided and classified by categories, the primary two of which are red and black romance. Red romance or redrom concerns positive feelings, namely forms of pity, and blackrom concerns the negative - hate.

The secondary two are concupiscent and conciliatory romance. Concupiscent quadrants are involved in procreation, whereas conciliatory ones are comparatively platonic and instead focus on keeping one or more people from doing stupid shit and/or sorting out other emotional problems.

The first quadrant is classified as concupiscent red romance, and is called matespritship. The two trolls in this quadrant are called matesprits. Flushed is the adjective, and a red heart is the symbol. Basically, it involves feelings of mating fondness, and is the closest analogue to human romance we have. You like the person, you take pity on their faults, and you love them.

Second is redrom's conciliatory version, moirallegiance, with two moirails. Pale is the adjective, pink diamond is the symbol. Trolls are largely a violent and volatile race, and some of us are worse than others. A less stable troll is generally attracted to one who has his or her shit together, and vice versa, though the end goal is a balanced sort of thing where both can complement the other's flaws and help them sort out their issues. Again it involves pity, but it's less the kind where you look at them and like them anyway, but instead want to fix what's wrong with them. Think hugs and talking about feelings, and occasionally stopping your partner from either getting killed or killing someone else.

Third is concupiscent blackrom, kismesissitude, two kismesises, caliginous, black spade. Things matespritship but with hate for the watered down explanation. To give it more detail, it's a particularly devoted rivalry. Hate is one of the primary emotions to trolls, and it has a lot of nuance; in this, instead of the kind of hate where you want to avoid someone, or the kind of hate where you want them dead, it's the kind where you want to ruin them. You want to find every flaw they have and exploit it, prove how much better you are than them, and taunt and mock them however you can. You want to push them to have to fight harder, just so you can crush them all the worse for it. It's the same thing from them. And then you make out about it.

Fourth and last is conciliatory blackrom, auspisticism, which is the only quadrant to have three people. In this, one troll - the auspistice - mediates or auspisticizes between two others in a volatile relationship. Often this is used to prevent things from boiling over into a full blown kismesissitude. The reasons vary, but it can be for things like preventing black infidelity if one or both already have kismesisses, or to stop something that would create a lot of social havoc for others surrounding them, or keeping them from something that would otherwise be unhealthy, unbalanced, and dangerous to engage in. Devoted bulgeblocking, in another sense. The symbol is a grey club.

Furthermore, there are cases of quadrant vacillation where two trolls in a quadrant will have mixed feelings. Maybe one feels caliginous and the other flushed, but instead of forgoing the whole thing, they flip from one quadrant to the other - matesprits, then kismesises, and back again. This can involve more than two trolls, too, provided the feelings flip back and forth in a way that it can be sustained, but it's not an easy thing to manage.

Let it also be noted that gender doesn't matter, since we don't have your human concept of homosexuality or any other term for that stuff. A troll might date a guy or girl and not think anything of it, and I still don't understand why that's a thing for you despite knowing that it takes a male and a female for your species to reproduce.

We also have the concept of serendipity, which is to say the way seemingly coincidental events contrive to bring us together as if fate had planned it all along. It's an ideal, and it's not true of every relationship, but sometimes things just seem to work right and you know it has to be that. It's kind of like your human idea of true love.