Homestuck.XYZ 2.0

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You walk through the narrow streets of the troll slums. It's dark out, huge clouds gather around for an upcoming storm. There was no battle today -- drones seem to be awfully quiet. Perhaps for an upgrade in their killing technology or such. There were no sirens today either, so there probably won't be any battle later too. What do you care? You're not a part of it anyway.

You walk past some trolls fixing up a barricade; they look up at you, but your appearance doesn't seem suspicious to them and they keep working, despite your full-body cloak. A lot of them wear these types of cloaks nowadays, be it fashion inspiration from their Revolutionary Leader or simply the fact that if they leave the slums with their horns showing, they'd be shot on sight. You think this is great, at least for you. Makes hiding among the crowd easier.

A rickety bar on the street is your destination, if your informants are right. It seems empty, and the mustardblood behind the counter looks at you expectantly. You sit at the counter, order some light drink to heat yourself up from walking around on the wind, and tell him the password. He places the drink before you, looking at you up and down as you take the glass in your gloved hand and down it in one gulp, careful to not let your hood fall. As you place the glass back on the surface, closer to the Attentive Bartender than to you, he walks around it and asks you to follow him, leading you to a door to the basement and its long staircase downwards.

You enter, knowing exactly what's behind, but not wanting to believe.

In the dimly lit room, trolls and humans alike talk loudly over each other, sharing drinks and placing bets to three or four Overworked Employees keeping tabs. In the back of the room, you can hear impatient growls and screams, both familiar and somewhat inhuman. Right in the center, a large ring was set up, and two carapacians, black and white, were held by literal reigns on each side by two or three of the squishy-skinned. They had big heads, and bigger bodies -- rooks, if your memory on eugenics is correct -- and looked at each other with bloodshot eyes as if they hadn't eaten in ages. For all you know, they might as well could have been kept fasting for this exact purpose. The kind tends to get vicious if not fed properly.

One of the employees keeping tabs calls for last bets before the fight starts.

What will you do?

> Consider the state of the world in a long winding internal narrative monologue.

> Stay in the background looking for your mark

> Stop this cruel tomfoolery by attacking the softies

> Bet on the one that will win

>Enter name/title.

explain your goal and finish the job

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> consider the state of the world in a long winded internal narrative monologue

Eh, you're not really a fan of the undying internal lecture supposed to make exposition, you stopped reading anything longer than a text message a long while ago. Truly the situation has been too bleak for you to care about parsing long scripture and ponder about its meanings; after the civil war between humans and trolls started, carapacians had been on their toes, avoiding being caught in the fire. They serve as valuable voting contingent on the more complex, and somewhat meaningless part of the conflict, the government and its halfway democratic proceedings. They have such a deeply strong social herd behavior that convincing them to vote for a specific thing en masse is fairly easy.

It's not that they don't have any brains, it's just instinct. When you're a pawn for so long it's hard to have instantaneous agency.

>bet on the one that will win
>stop this cruel tomfoolery by attacking the softies

You're not that pointlessly cruel, to bet on any of the rooks, and also you're out of money. You only brought enough for the bus fare and the drink to soothe your shivering body. Though if you were asked on who'd win, you'd say black.

As much as you'd want to make this stop, you can't right now. You don't carry any weapons. You're sort of a pacifist. But more than that, you know that if you let these rooks go, they'd just start killing left and right. You look into their eyes and you know that they've never been treated right -- never given a name, never picked their pronouns or their title, never taught to speak, to sign, were never integrated with society. They're feral, and for feral carapacians, the only thing they know and they follow is their pure instinct to kill the other color.

The parlor around the rink grew quiet as the window to place the bets ended, and all eyes were on the two carapaces on the fenced space, growing more and more impatient and vicious upon seeing each other and being held back. A horn was ringed somewhere, and the people holding the reigns let go, the two rooks rushing into the fighting rink like maddened bulls.

>stay in the background looking for your mark

You watch the rooks run into each other, fighting shell to shell and teeth to teeth, like two hippos, and reach into your cloak's pocket, retrieving your cellphone. Gazing side to side to make sure nobody was paying attention to you, you start to tape this abhorrent display.

The White Rook grabs hold of the other one's arm, chomping it right out of the shoulder socket. You quiver, but the people around you scream, cheer and yell. As they took their time trying to crunch the shell on their newfound meal, the Black Rook stumbled to their feet, blood waterfalling from their shoulder, and went for the other's throat. Rooks don't have claws -- their only natural weapons are their sharp teeth and their enormous strength. You were taught that, during the war, these pieces didn't shy away from nibbling onto their victims. Someone that big and strong needs a lot of sustenance.

The crowd closes in on the fighting rink, excited by black's sudden recovery, and you can't see how it ends, but you really don't need to. You're feeling a little queasy. You adjust your cloak around your head and go up the stairs.

>explain your goal and finish the job
>enter name/title

You walk home, defeated, a measly Weary Spokesperson, not sure if they can live up to the task or not. All you have to do now is prepare yourself for your TED Talk.

What can you do?

> Create your PowerPoint

>Explain what the TED talk is about

wow i like this a lot

>send short message to friend confirming you're still alive and your mission is complete.

>take a small nap before doing your TED thing, you need to rest.

UPDATE 2
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>send short message to friend confirming you're still alive and your mission is complete.

You don't have any friends.

But you send a message to someone who set you up with this gig and you presumed it was fair to send him updates about your progress. He asks you if you got home well. You say that yes, you did, but you're still thinking about what you saw. It's not easy to forget such a display of cruelty and brutality, especially with people that are so similar to you. Were you born a bit tubbier, you could be one of those.

He tells you to take care as you walk up the steps to your apartment, and you tell him to as well. Your apartment building is somewhat bleak, on the outskirts of the Human Kingdom, along with some other carapaces and a few lost consorts here and there.

Why they're called kingdoms, you're not so sure. The appropriate word you'd use is "megalopolis", but that's what the Gods named the places way back then. You always wondered why the human kingdom would have a president anyway, and some scholars debate about the credibility of the term "carapacian kingdom" even. You, personally, think they shouldn't have seventeen-year-olds be the ones to make the rules.

> Create your PowerPoint

You brew a fresh cup of coffee and set yourself to work. You had it almost done by this morning, so you just insert the images and videos you need, revise it one more time, and send it to the folks. You go over your speech again, and you feel confident on it. You try to brush off all the stuff you saw and distract yourself, and at some point it works. A bubble bath, a few episodes of your favorite webseries and you can at least take your mind off it enough to have some sleep.

>take a small nap before doing your TED thing, you need to rest.

Ok, you do that. It is now the next day. You're dressed in your finest button up and slacks, and the hostess, an outgoing-looking troll, greets you and introduces you to the crowd. Mostly carapaces (as most crowds tend to be), and a few humans and trolls here and there. Consorts don't attend this type of thing. You're anxious, but you nod to them with a smile. Your talk is about to start.

What will you say?

> Begin your Ted Talk with an anecdote related to the topic at hand before segwaying gracefully into your opening statement/thesis

>Begin by saying you're here to make an announcement on your twitter.com

> Warm up the crowd with a spirited tap dance.

thank everyone for coming. tell them they're the real heros here

Wonder about the meaning of our existence and the futility of our actions and how them being here is irrelevant.

>wonder who TED is and why he likes to talk so much

UPDATE 3
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> Begin your Ted Talk with an anecdote related to the topic at hand before segwaying gracefully into your opening statement/thesis
> Thank everyone for coming. tell them they're the real heros here

You glance upon the crowd, and speak to your fellow hard-shelled people.

"Hello, thank you all for coming. I want to start with a little story that I saw recently on the internet and I think it illustrates my point pretty well. C Street with 8th avenue, carapacian kingdom, the opening of a new supermarket, a dozen or so years ago. Everyone piled up to see it, you know, it's a big new shiny thing, and when they open up the doors they find the floors to be a perfect black and white tiling. Poor little things just did what they were made to do and soon there were people stepping forward one square at a time, some others sprinting through the diagonals and a third group smashing against the walls for going forwards or sideways too fast."

A few of the trolls and humans in the crowd let out some shy chuckles, and you smirk in retribution.

"Thank you for laughing, because no one did, that day. Three severe injuries and a whole bunch of deeply traumatized people who'd probably have to spend a fortune in therapy, because of the checkerboard tiling on a supermarket. Now, checkerboard tiling on public spaces is outlawed on the Carapacian Kingdom because they're mental health hazards, but not anywhere else, even if carapaces --and consorts, I'll give 'em that --are the vast majority of the population. Which brings me to the point of my presentation."

The room went silent, even more than before, somehow, a respectful silence of those who regret what they've said. You smirk again, and change the slide with the pointer in your hands.

"Crazy times those we are, aren't they? Some of you can't be outside after 7 PM, some of you hope you don't get drafted to operate drones, and some of you don't understand what's happening, but don't want to be shot. I understand you, and believe me when I say that I wasn't sure I should even be doing this at the present time, but I came to realize that, if I didn't say anything, nobody would, for as long as I lived, and I couldn't live with that thought.

What I wanna bring forward is the reality of what we, carapacians, face for a long time coming, actually, and I know it's hard for either party to focus on someone else when you're exploding each other out but I really need you to know this; the way carapaces are treated out there is horrendous.

Every day I see people being treated as inferior, beastialized, as funny little monsters, by humans and trolls alike. Grown adults being patronized and talked down to, made into pets so others can pamper them with treats and clothes and put them in confusing situations to see how they react. Just because most of us don't speak up, because we're wired differently and we're physically different, and we have different needs.

Sounds like I'm complaining with a full stomach, doesn't it, look at this person, thinkin' being treated like a little lap dog is bad business, but I mean it. It's humiliating, honestly. That is, if you're small and cute. For those carapaces that don't have such luck, well..."

You pause, your thumb rolling over the next slide button.

"The following images aren't for the faint of heart."

When you press it, you show a few stills of the rook fight you recorded last night. The audience is deeply uncomfortable. Most of the carapaces glance away, cover their mouths, with the most pained of looks on their eyes that make you think that perhaps putting that on the presentation wasn't the best idea. Some of the humans and trolls, the squishy-skinned, show no change in expression, just merely engaged with the speech.

"That there is a rook fighting ring in the basement of a bar on the outskirts of the Troll Kingdom. It's... Such a cruel display I couldn't hang around for too long. I felt like I was in danger every second I spent on that place even if I wasn't showing my face, or my shell. I didn't mean to bum you out, but I needed to prove a point, and if that's not enough for you, I present you this."

You move on from the grotesque images onto some boring headlines and graphs.

"The biological reproduction of carapacians has been outlawed for ages, I'm not sure if the squishy-skinned know this -- that's what we call the humans and trolls -- and all reproduction is clone-based. Why, you ask? Well, that's the question every shelled couple out there ask themselves, and for a long time we had a hunch, but we didn't know for sure. Well, that thing where confidential documents are released after a hundred years or some such made the documents of the congressional session that passed this law free to take a peek a few years ago and apparently it's for, quote, 'aesthetical reasons'?"

You take a pause. The silence in the room is one of shame and uncertainty.

"I don't see trolls complaining about that. Well, the reason for this Talk isn't just to call you out and make you feel like miserable, racist little mooks but it is a call to reflect upon what exactly you're doing with yourselves. In the grand scheme, I mean. If you paid attention to your History classes you know, maybe as much as I do, that we carapaces aren't strangers to race war, but once we needed to live and work together, we put most of the differences aside. I do believe there's a way to fix all of this with pacific diplomacy, the same way we did among ourselves, and if we all work together we can achieve a better place for all, and that we, carapacians, deserve better than the way you treat, or I guess mistreat, us, we deserve to be equals.

I needed to speak up, to say that we, too, suffer, and that we too, deserve a chip in the equality deal, because frankly the way you act made me feel that if we didn't say anything, we might never get the same equality the trolls strive for. It remains then for you, and I hope to whomever is watching this on Youtube, to figure out whether this is a message you wanna stand for and pass down to your peers. My name is Weary Spokesperson, and thank you for coming to my TED Talk."

The crowd takes a moment before they realize what they just heard, and erupt first in shy applause, that gets more and more heated as the carapaces raise up and express just how much your speech meant to them. You smile fondly, somewhat proud of yourself, before absconding to the backstage area.

> Wonder about the meaning of our existence and the futility of our actions and how them being here is irrelevant.

You can’t wonder about the meaning of your existence because you’re too busy being the other guy.

> Be the other guy?

You are JAKE CROCKER and you just saw the most interesting TED Talk in a long while. You were right to sponsor this little fella on their endeavor to find an outlet to their message -- you knew what it was like to be ignored, and frankly if you have to be honest with yourself, if there wasn’t a God name attached to it the pawn would never be able to find a venue for their speech.

You’re happy about the outcome though. You and Spokesperson had bonded once at a bar over not having any agency or direction in life and they opened your eyes to just exactly what’s been hiding under the surface, and since then you’ve grown quite fond of the little white carapace. You’re now dismissing some people who’ve recognized you from the telly and trying to make your way down to meet your little friend.

What will you do then?