[Fic] "Narutostuck: Set with Stars" -- Homestuck/Naruto
A little Narutostuck interlude while the teams are en route to the eastern Elemental Countries, to participate in a chuunin exam. Terezi, Dave, and Karkat have been a team for about a sweep at this point (as have the other kid-and-troll teams). The revolution ended when they were, oh, let's say fourteen, so they're roughly sixteen now. Previous
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Karkat was totally comforting Terezi in his awkward, grumbly, I-do-not-have-a-soft-fuzzy-center-underneath-all-the-angry-shoutiness-how-dare-you-insinuate-that sort of way, wasn't he. I mean, consciously and deliberately, not as a side-effect of "oh-my-god-you're-doing-it-wrong-you-moron" that he may or may not have been subconsciously aware of. (This time, that was just an excuse.)
And Dave knew the constellations already (he grew up in Time, after all. Raised by Bro. Why would he not know how to navigate by the stars?) but was humoring/annoying his teammates by pretending ignorance because diamonds. And possibly clubs.
The constellations described by Karkat and Terezi are very evocative of the implied folklore and ...mythscape? mythological worldview? mythos? of troll-human society, at least under the Condesce. That's very cool; so many people, when coming up with fictional constellations, just come up with a few random names and objects and stick them in the sky without thinking about the the stories, cultural values, and worldviews they signify, or how the stories of each constellation interacts with the others. (This is especially annoying in settings that have functional astrology, when you'd expect this sort of symbolism to be particularly important.)
Vriska...ouch. That's somehow even worse than what she did in canon, when she was acting in the heat of the moment. This Vriska, even if she was heavily indoctrinated (possibly brainwashed?) made a calculated decision in cold blood to betray Terezi.
Does this Terezi have synesthesia to substitute for vision? If not, is she going to develop it? Also, how does being blind and without a synesthetic sight-substitute impact her ability to function as a ninja?
What is Karkat's life like under the new regime, considering he has the same blood color as the Lord of Time? (And now I can't stop picturing Signless as the Doctor. Better than Caliborn, I guess...)
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1. Yes, Karkat is intentionally comforting Terezi. (As was Dave -- though his response was to play along with her error, while Karkat corrected her instead. This probably says deep and important things about their respective relationships.)
2. Dave does not actually know much about constellations, and particularly not the stories behind them. What he knows is a few of the most obvious asterisms, and which to expect where in the sky based on the season and time of night. Bro taught him how to find north because that is a basic life skill (especially for a ninja in the rebellion), but the other stuff he learned from different people for unrelated reasons, and anything else would be a spoiler for HIS tragic angsty backstory. (Everyone on this team has a tragic angsty backstory. Yes, that includes the Summoner.)
3. Hey, if you're going to create constellations at you, you ought to do it right. Besides, myths and cultural stuff is like catnip for me. :-)
4. I will tell you now and for free that Vriska's smile was mostly a front to convince Mindfang that she was okay with the torture (and also a futile attempt to convince herself that she was okay with it). She did consciously decide to betray Terezi... but remember, also, that this is Vriska. She doesn't think about logical consequences, and I am fairly sure that she (stupidly and against all evidence) thought that she could persuade Terezi to switch sides -- using Terezi's capture as evidence that the rebellion was obviously doomed! -- and then they'd be partners again. Which... um... yeah, understanding people is not her forte.
5. Terezi is using the blindsight jutsu I developed for Sasuke in "What Isn't Broken (Can Still Be Fixed)." Think of it like Daredevil's radar/sonar thing -- chakra echolation processed through the visual centers of her brain to produce a faux-image of the surfaces and edges surrounding her. She has no color sense at all, though, and she misses that a LOT.
6. Karkat gets no official special treatment whatsoever, by dint of shouting down every attempt to give him any. The Sufferer tacitly agrees with this, since he's never offered any special perks beyond calling Karkat in for extremely awkward tea and conversation every couple months. They like meritocracy and democracy, thank you very much. (It's Lord of Space, actually -- the country is Uchuu no Kuni, and the ninja village is Kouingakure no Sato. Unless someone gives me a better translation of "Hidden Time" to use in this context. Internet translation is not very accurate, even if you double check by going from English to Japanese and then back again.)
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