a pune, or play on words
A panfandom jamjar roleplay
on Dreamwidth, set in a glitched session of the game Sburb, from Homestuck.
Sburb is a computer game that exists to spawn worlds. Each session of it annihilates a planet in order to create a new universe, which in turn will contain the seeds for a new session of the game.
The game's participants are unavoidably destined to play it through a complicated system of closed time loops – at least, that's how it usually happens.
But in this session, something went wrong.
Only one player remains, not enough to complete the game alone. Ordinarily, this would doom the session – but the surviving player has worked out a way to code a glitch into the game, resulting in copies of Sburb appearing in planets across the multiverse. Now, people who were never meant to play Sburb are being dragged into this session – and their participation is the only way to keep their own homeworlds from being bombarded by meteors.
But, perhaps, with their "help," this session doesn't have to be doomed.
This game provides examples of:
- Accidental Marriage: Bertie and Ienzo, via wasps. Also Bertie and Mary Katherine (actually her double), officiated by the Grand Highblood.
- A Fête Worse than Death: A lot of the parties qualify by accident. The only one where this intentionally happened was the Halloween Party that Bianca's chandeluresprite, Ghostlight, threw in hopes of killing someone.
- Agent Peacock: Jay Zimin. When he wants to be, he's competent.
- All-Loving Hero: Signless loves everyone.
- Almost Dead Guy: Sollux, implementing backups to the game's code before the Horrorterrors kill him.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: A lot of players end up with these as their sprite. Nephel and Ghoulia are two of the notable unfortunates.
- Apologises a Lot: Ienzo. Just Ienzo.
- Appliance Defenestration: Happens rather a lot to computers, and pesterchum happily details the precise nature of the loss, whether by fire, smashing, or ice.
- Be All My Sins Remembered: Riku, Ienzo, and to an extent, Shelly.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: It's generally recognized that trying to discuss transuniversal morality is the most effective way to bring any conversation to a screeching halt.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: Human Karkat, to Ghoulia.
- Break the Cutie: Cassandra's breakdown over the course of the game.
- Chastity Couple: Bertie and Ienzo are the most notable example, going so far as to hardly kiss in public. Entirely subverted with Signless.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Signless, who gets referred to as Troll Jesus sometimes in-game
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Bertie dying in Ienzo's arms after getting run through.
- Dirty Mindreading: A consequence of the horrorterrors setting up a hivemind for their thralls.
- Femme Fatale: Mary Katherine.
- Eyepatch of Power: Theo
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Shelly. Theo too.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Shelly, to Mary Katherine.
- Interspecies Adoption: Signless and Zhosma for Human Karkat
- Interspecies Romance: Pale romance in the case of Cassandra and Redglare, along with Ammond and Ienzo. And let us not forget the red that was Sirius and Vriska, along with Theo and Signless... for SCIENCE.
- Little Miss Snarker: A little more than half the characters in-game; makes teamwork hard, but at least things are never boring.
- Masquerade Ball: There was one. It didn't go very well.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: The main way Cassandra and Cersei interact.
- Power Gives You Wings: Signless after he godtiers
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Dasraa, Sollux, and Ammond would really prefer not to talk about why they don't want to go home. Ammond makes use of a less invasive version of the technology in question on a day to day basis, though.
- Precocious Crush: Human Karkat on Theo (and Sleipnir), Nephel on Bertie, Vriska on Redglare
- Psychic Link: The Horrorterrors forged one between Merricat and Cassandra.
- Running Gag
- Eggs
- A wizard has stolen your heart!
- You're bad at things.
- Servers antagonizing their clients with bathtubs
- Alchemized pornography
- Castlecon
- Messpellin
- Characters are apparently incapable of holding a party without inviting disaster.
- Shipper on Deck: Pretty much all of Bertie and Ienzo's friends squeeing about them behind their backs. And occasionally to their faces.
- Stock Ness Monster: Blink's denizen, Niseag.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Theo after he lost Sleipnir and threw in with the Indigos. He's now better thanks to getting a Clown Intervention.
- Transparent Closet: Bertie lived in one for much of the early portion of the game.
- True Companions: A lot of found families get forged in game, especially once people started moving in with each other. Zhosma's Cave Dwellers, the Indigos, Cassandra's Castle Crew and the LOPAP clusterfuck (Jay Zimin, Ammond, Bertie and Ienzo) are notable examples.
- Two Beings, One Body: A characteristic of a lot of the player fusion sprites that Sollux made while under the effect of the Spark
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Cassandra and GHB. Redglare and GHB. Billy and Vladik. Bertie and Ienzo. Vladik and Kairi.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Sollux after he got Theo's Spark in the powerswap
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Literally, in the case of a broken down Sollux editing the game code to delete entire planets.
