This year I participated in the 2020 Homestuck Secret Santa Event!!! My giftee is @accidental-child and I drew him some soft afternoon naps featuring our fav Egbert snuggling with Karkat :3
This is my gift for @accidental-child! ♥ You asked for a “getting together at gusu summer camp” au which fit a thought quite well I had a day before I received your wish \o/ So I decided to do a little canon divergence: What would have happened if Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian had met when they were kids?
*****
xié shǒu
hand in hand, to join hands, to collaborate
~*~*~
Black and white. Black and white and black and white and -
Black letters on a white ground. Black deck. White gravel underneath his knees. Black wood. White walls. But there's no light behind the walls, not even a single ray of light shining through the cracks.
Steps behind him. Lan Wangji sights softly. So they are here... It's either Uncle himself or he sent his brother - or they both came. To tell him he needs to return to the wedding celebration, to tell him he needs to show up there, pretending to be a perfectly good Lan family member.
They don't understand he can't come. Not as long as the most important family member is missing.
Hello, it's me! Revealed at last. I hope all my other messages got to you safely, and that you have a good new year!!
My final question: I'd you had to take over the life of one person in mdzs who would it be? As in you were plopped into their body and had to take over their life. I would pick one of the random background juniors: be part of the new gen and get in trouble, but get a cool evil babysitter and avoid a big ol' war.
-the axe cultivator
It's you!!!!
Full disclosure, i kinda suspected you :D thank you so much for all your questions! They gave me so much to think about! 🥰
As for the ones that are sitting in my ask box waiting to be answered, I'm so sorry that I didn't get to them! I was just, you know *gestures at life in general* 😬 i will answer in the coming days! (And now I can tag you! 😊)
Whose life would I want to take over? Honestly, I think you fave the only sensible answer 😅 you get to be in a cultivation sect and study under Hanguang-Jun and senior Wei and crucially DON'T have to fight in a war. I don't wanna fight in a war so going with your answer, too
I hope you have a good night today and that 2021 is going to treat you kindly! It's been wonderful to get to know you! Keep your axe sharp! 🥰💙🥰
Arthur sighed, leaning against the steering wheel of the van. The bus was a little late, but that wasn’t unexpected. Not out here at any rate.
There was a small selfish part of himself that wished he hadn’t picked up the phone that day. It was selfish - and ridiculous. The call had been at the garage, he needed to answer those calls!
It had been some great Aunt, or far removed cousin. He wasn’t quite sure how they were related. Apparently her son was originally going to spend summer break with one of his friends, but their trip had been cut short. The problem was said parents and their daughter had already made other arrangements and wanted to know if the aforementioned son could stay with Lance.
The problem was, Lance wasn’t there and wouldn’t be for a while. He was off on a road trip with some of his old buddies from his days when he absolutely positively was not a wrestler. It was a well overdue vacation and Arthur wasn’t going to call him back from it.
But something stopped him from just turning her down. It wasn’t her, but… it was the idea that their current plans ‘couldn’t be altered’. Lance had planned his trip to originally be last year, but he’d dropped everything after Arthur had turned up in a hospital without an arm. Also that they were reaching out to family that wasn’t that close at all made Arthur wonder if the closer relatives had also had plans that couldn’t be altered. It stank too much of no one wanting this kid, and damned if he was going to add to that
So here he was, waiting for a cousin he’d never met who’d be spending a month with him. He didn’t think it would matter so much if he wasn’t the age he was - 18. Younger would have been easier to slip into a child-guardian relationship and older meant this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place. But 18 was an age of feeling you were coming into your own authority, and much more likely to take onus with someone a mere five years older than you being in charge.
The bus pulled up and Arthur braced himself. Two figures got off the bus, his cousin and...a dog? A rather large dog at that. Something else Aunt Wendy had forgot to mention. Hopefully it was good with other dogs and hamsters.
Pushing his misgivings aside, Arthur left the van with a big welcoming smile. No need to borrow trouble till it was here. “Hi, you must be Norville, right?”
The teen winced. “Like, call me Shaggy please. I hate Norville.”
“Done and done.” Arthur agreed readily. “The name Norville is thus dead and shall never be spoken from mine lips again.”
“Ri’m Scooby Doo.”
Another talking dog, huh. “Just to make certain, you’re not actually an ancient kitsune with an evil Japanese tree after you?”
“Like, not that we know of?” Shaggy looked confused. So did Scooby so Arthur let it slide.
“Okay, let’s get some food, and we can figure out stuff out.” Apparently he said the right word, because his cousin and dog perked up a lot. “Let me help you with your bags.”
“Is your arm metal?” Shaggy asked, surprised.
“Sure is, made it myself.” Arthur wiggled his fingers at him, inwardly bracing himself.
“That’s cool.” Shaggy said earnestly, picking up his other suitcase.
No ‘How did that happen?’ or ‘That must be so terrible’? Okay, thus far Arthur was counting this as a win.
~
“So,” Arthur started as they slid into a booth at Pepper Paradiso, “Let’s go over your options.”
“Options?” Shaggy asked, surprised.
“Yeah, you have two main options, and we can tweak them as need be. The first is what I told your Mom. You come to stay with me and my boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ve set up a spare room for you, and Scooby I guess, sorry no one told us he was coming.”
“If you’d prefer not to deal with three people being kinda mushy, or just want more privacy I’d give you a key to Lance’s place. You could stay in my old room and basically have the house to yourself. I’d still be checking in everyday and making sure you had food and stuff, but other than that, you’d be on your own.”
Shaggy seemed to think a moment. “You have a boyfriend and a girlfriend? You can do that?”
“Yes.” Arthur answered simply.
“Okay, like if it’s all the same, man, I’d rather stay with you. I don’t think me or Scoob want to be alone.”
Arthur tried not to take it as a warning sign. True, most teens would jump at the first chance to be on their own, but that was hardly universal. There was a small feeling that something was wrong, not just parental negligence. What, he didn’t know. And truthfully it could be nothing. Arthur had a tendency to jump to worst case scenarios (catastrophizing, his therapist had called it), so for now he’d wait and see.
“So is this the mysterious cousin?” Mrs Chef Pepper came over, winking .
“Yeah, this is Shaggy. Shaggy, this is one half of the best cooking team in Tempo, and honestly Texas.”
“Flatterer. My name’s Carmella Pepper. My husband’s running the kitchen, so I have the front end today. I assume the usual, Arthur?”
“With no Cayenne additions, please.”
“She’s banned from the kitchen after the last hot sauce-strawberry shake.” Carmella assured him. “What about you, Shaggy?”
Shaggy looked at the menu. “Like, could Scoob and I each get a ‘Vivi Special’ “ he pointed to the menu.
She raised an eyebrow. With the exception of its namesake, the Vivi Special was usually ordered to be shared by a family. She’d never seen an order of two of them. “Do you want the plate of spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?”
Scooby and Shaggy looked at each other. “One of each please. And, like separate checks? Mom set up an account for me for food and stuff.”
Arthur tried to hide his relief. One extra mouth he could feed. Two more Vivi appetites would have strained his budget beyond feasibility.
~
“Lewis, Vivi— we’re home!” Arthur called, letting himself and his two guests in.
“Welcome home, Arty.” Lewis greeted, pulling his boyfriend in for a kiss. “So this must be Nor-”
“The name is not to be spoken. It has been cast into the abyss and replaced with Shaggy.” Arthur said with a completely straight face. “It has become one with the void.”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “Sorry for the melodramatic one, I’m Lewis. Lewis Pepper.”
Shaggy shook his hand while Arthur sputtered over Lewis calling him melodramatic. “Pepper, like the people who run the restaurant?”
“My parents.” Lewis explained.
“Wow, like they’re great cooks, man. It’s the first place me and Scooby found that we could be full off one thing on the menu.”
“If you can call the ‘Vivi Special’ one thing.” Arthur quipped.
“Someone call me?” Vivi slid into the front room, literally, her socks holding no traction on the hardwood floor, causing her to crash into Lewis.
“Arthur’s cousin Shaggy is a fan of your addition to my parents menu.” Lewis said.
“Ooooo Did you get the version with the spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?”
“Like, Scoob and I got one of each. I really liked Aztec Chocolate sauce on the sweet chili!”
“I know! And the smoked gouda filled jalapeño poppers!”
“Arthur, I think our girlfriend just adopted your cousin.” Lewis commented.
~
Vivi stretched as she got home from her morning shift at the Tome Tomb. Arthur was having a full day at Kingsmen’s, so she figured she’d check in on Shaggy and Scooby before getting in some serious cuddle time with Lewis.
She found them in the living room, Shaggy was looking at a book. Not reading it, but staring at the cover, while Scooby leaned against him comfortingly.
“Everything okay boys?” She asked softly.
Shaggy took a moment to answer. “Do you believe in this stuff? Magic and monsters?”
“As a matter of fact I do.” She tried to keep the humor out of her voice. Shaggy had no idea he was spending the remainder of his summer with a ghost and a kitsune. “Do you?”
Shaggy didn’t answer. “Doesn’t it scare you?” he asked.
“The supernatural? Not really. Or at least, not more than anything else.” She sat down next to him. “There’s good and bad magic, just like there’s good and bad technology. Some beings are friendly, some just want to be left alone, and some are truly evil, just like people. You always, always, have to be careful. But I’d rather know, you know?”
Shaggy shook his head. “Like, I think I’d rather not.” He looked at the book again. “Like, have you ever heard of something called the Chest of Demons?”
“Not off the top of my head, why?”
Shaggy shook his head. “Nothing, like what’s for lunch?”
Vivi accepted the topic change, but didn’t forget what she’d heard. This merited some digging into.
~
Arthur felt dead on his feet (though not quite as much as Lewis, ha!) as he got home that evening. Working in the garage was one thing, but running it was quite another. He couldn’t wait for Lance to get back.
It was Vivi who greeted him at the door, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him. Arthur melted into the embrace, the warmth he felt in his heart giving him back the strength spent on budget balancing and unruly customers.
But as he felt himself relax, he realized she wasn’t easing up. Something was wrong. “What is it, Vi?”
“Your cousin.” She answered, her head still buried in the crook of Arthur’s neck. “He was looking at my books and mentioned something called the Chest of Demons. I hadn’t heard of it, so I sent out some feelers.”
“Bad?” Arthur guessed, as if the name didn’t give that away.
“Not just the chest itself. I still don’t know what it is, because one of the few things I did manage to learn is it’s protected by near total secrecy. It’s not something he could have just randomly heard of.”
Arthur’s mouth set into a grim frown. He could think of a few reasons, but none of them were good.
“And this isn’t some random client messing with something he shouldn’t, he’s your cousin and I like him, but this is serious.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Arthur promised.
“No!” Vivi squeezed him tighter. “I don’t want to think he’s up to anything bad, but-” Honestly with how Shaggy had reacted to ‘Magic and Monsters’ she doubted it, but she couldn’t be sure and she wasn’t willing to put any of her boys in the path of danger.
Arthur laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You can have one of the Beats watching over us if it makes you feel better, but we can’t leave this alone and he’s nervous enough I don’t want him to feel like we’re ganging up on him.”
“That still puts you at risk,” Vivi argued.
“There’s always a risk, love. And you can’t take all of them for me. And I think this is a small one. Have you talked to Lewis yet?”
“Talked to be about what?” Lewis popped his head in. “You guys were taking a while. Is everything okay?”
“Shaggy may or may not have gotten mixed up in something supernatural and I want to talk to him about it. I want to do it alone so I don’t overwhelm him, but Vivi doesn’t want me to go talk about an evil artifact with the person who brought it up by myself. I volunteered to take a Beat with me.”
“Take Mystery too.” Lewis suggested. “Shaggy likes him, so he wouldn’t feel ganged up on.”
Vivi let out a sigh of relief. “I love your Deadbeats, Lew, but I feel a lot better about that plan.”
~
“Hey Shaggy,” Arthur sat down. Mystery curled up by his feet, looking innocuous, but keeping a careful eye on Shaggy and Scooby.
“Hey,” Shaggy didn’t look up from the video game he was playing. “Like, how was work?”
“Not too bad. Can we talk about something?”
“Sure, man.” Shaggy paused the game. “What’s up?”
So many questions ran through Arthur’s head. Why do you know about the Chest of Demon? How did you find out about it? How much do you know? But there was one question he felt the need to ask above all the others.
“Are you in any danger?”
Shaggy blinked, caught completely off guard. “Huh?”
“You brought up something called the Chest of Demons to Vivi today. She did some digging. It was bad.” Arthur kept it vague to hide how much he didn’t know. “It’s also not a name you’d just stumble on. So, are you in any danger?”
Shaggy deflated. “Like, not right now. Probably later. Thirteen seems to be keeping a low profile, but given the other twelve? At least Boggle and Weird are sealed up.”
Okay, Arthur didn’t understand any of that after ‘Probably later’. “Can you start at the beginning?”
“Okay, so like originally the five us were supposed to spend the summer on a global road trip, but Fred and Velma ended up going to camp, so like it was just me, Scooby, and Daphne. And we kinda sorta got lost. We ended up in the place where the chest was hidden. There were these two ghosts, Boggle and Weird. They wanted the thirteen evil spirits in the chest free, but it can only be opened by the living. So they tricked me and Scoob into opening it.and setting their masters free.”
Shaggy then rolled his eyes. “And of course only the ones who open the chest can return them, so like, suddenly we’re chasing down the nastiest ghoulies this side of the River Styx. We got the first twelve and got Boggle and Weird sucked in for good measure but with no sign of number thirteen Vincent cut us loose till he finds him.”
“Vincent?” Arthur inquired.
“A mystic who knows a lot about the Chest of Demon and it’s prisoners. He’s been helping us.” Shaggy shrugged. “Daphne suggested continuing our vacation while we’re on break, but I just kinda wanted to go home.”
“Did you tell your family any of this?” Arthur wondered.
His cousin snorted. “Besides you? Like no one would believe me! And Daphne….” Shaggy trailed off.
“And Daphne?” Arthur prompted.
“It sounds weird to say, but this seemed to be, like, good for her? Before she kinda followed whatever Fred said. This summer though, she was taking charge and becoming more confident in herself. And like, I’m happy for her, but it means-” Shaggy seemed to struggle for his words, Scooby putting a reassuring head on his knee. “I’m a coward. I’d rather run from scary things than fight them. And I know I have to get them back in the box, cause it’s my fault they’re out-”
“Rour fault,” Scooby corrected.
“-but I’m scared all the time and I don’t want to be and no one but Scoob seems to get that.”
“Of course you’re scared,” Arthur scoffed. “You’ve had thirteen evil spirits after you. That’s objectively terrifying. You’d be crazy not to be scared.”
Boy and dog seemed taken aback.
While he couldn’t say he had been expecting those details, at least this lined up with what Arthur suspected, that Shaggy had stumbled into trouble, not sought it out.
“Okay, so first things first, what do you know about Spirit #13? What kind of spirit is it?” Arthur’s voice was all business.
“Not yet, Vincent usually tells us about them as he finds them.” Shaggy explained.
“If you can contact him, see if you can find out what we’re dealing with. It’ll be more effective if we can narrow that down.”
“What will be?” Shaggy asked, confused.
“Protective wards. That reminds me. Lewis, Vivi, Shaggy has a potential evil spirit after him. Brainstorming time.”
“Huh?”
Lewis and Vivi showed up a bit too quickly to not have been listening in, but Arthur hoped Shaggy wouldn’t notice.
“There’s already some basic wards against hostile entities on the house, Pepper Paradiso, Lance’s, Kingsmen’s, and the Tome Tomb.” Vivi listed.
“I’ve got a few things around town warning me of anything of any level of power entering.” Mystery put forth. “It’s only weak spot is the lake.”
“Which has a protector of its own.” Arthur had a wry grin. “Nothing coming in from that side.”
Shaggy and Scooby shared a confused look. “You guys had this already set up?”
“You get surprised by a Jubokko once, you take precautions.” Vivi said dryly. “But this is all general stuff. The more specifics we know, the better defenses we can make. We can also figure out what places near your home we need to ward, or come up with something portable.”
Shaggy just looked between the four of them, confused. “Why?”
Lewis took a deep breath ( or at least mimed doing so). “Shaggy, you’re Arthur’s cousin, do you know what that means?”
Shaggy shook his head.
“It means you’re family, you’re our family. And we protect family however we can.” Lewis stated. “And we know monsters exist. We’ll be ready.”
Shaggy seemed at a loss for words. His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Thank you,” he finally whispered, his voice raw with emotion.
Arthur pulled him into a hug. “That’s what family does.”
“A name is an idea. An idea is a symbol, a shield, a tool, a weapon, a turning point, a rallying cry, a weakness.” - an arrow to prove a point by misandrywitch, or @junosteeled.
Nureyev - I read this scentence and for some reason this image came to mind right away, with Peter standing above a battlefeild, having won the revolution. He wonders if it was worth it. I spent more time on this piece than literally any other drawing (and i have 2 more planned like this one kill me).
