Oh gosh I love this. All these tender new relationships, like blood feathers at that aching. still-growing-in stage where the slightest touch can wreck them and result in bleeding everywhere: Dave's hesitance with Terezi and conflicted feelings about her new partner, Karkat's tentative brushes with Byrd, Gamzee's first foray into caliginous territory, plus K&G's fraught trial-by-fire with parental relationships and adult-humans-who-aren't-family! With, in the background, the shaky beginnings of Byrd+aliens, Bro+aliens, and Dirk+humans, Byrd's and Dave's relatively new coexistence as separate people, and the severing of the long-term 'relationship' between the Striders and their apartment! That is a lot of emotional turmoil; no wonder it's leaking out of everybody's ears.
I went "aww" when Karkat took the 'giving head' joke for what it was, and when Byrd got all secret!happy!hoarding about having an attraction that was solely his.
Gamzee... I sort of hope Karkat shakes sense into him! Because while I will grant that he has a point about humans not necessarily understanding what 'pale feelings' are, and that their language doesn't have the words but that doesn't mean they don't have the feelings, he's clearly stepping on Karkat's last nerve and the poor guy has enough to deal with!
(Sudden thought: could this be partly blamed on the situation he's been dropped into? Is Gamzee storing up stress at being lusus-less and in the charge of an adult and releasing it on targets he isn't afraid of?)
Anyway, I loved (hated, because of what they mean for Karkat; but as a reader that's love) the signs that, Great Predestined Pale Romance or not, Karkat isn't up to dealing with Gamzee's problems all the time, flawlessly -- I winced when Byrd noticed that Karkat's voice was suddenly rage-high instead of controlled, and ten seconds after that Karkat hit Gamzee hard enough to knock him off his perch. (Combined with Byrd's earlier observations on Gamzee's vocalisations, I'm betting that tone and pitch and nonverbal sounds are even more important to trolls than to humans. Also I love Striders because their musical obsession makes sound something that they really notice, and I generally don't so I get all these nuances I'm not used to thinking about!)
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I went "aww" when Karkat took the 'giving head' joke for what it was, and when Byrd got all secret!happy!hoarding about having an attraction that was solely his.
Gamzee... I sort of hope Karkat shakes sense into him! Because while I will grant that he has a point about humans not necessarily understanding what 'pale feelings' are, and that their language doesn't have the words but that doesn't mean they don't have the feelings, he's clearly stepping on Karkat's last nerve and the poor guy has enough to deal with!
(Sudden thought: could this be partly blamed on the situation he's been dropped into? Is Gamzee storing up stress at being lusus-less and in the charge of an adult and releasing it on targets he isn't afraid of?)
Anyway, I loved (hated, because of what they mean for Karkat; but as a reader that's love) the signs that, Great Predestined Pale Romance or not, Karkat isn't up to dealing with Gamzee's problems all the time, flawlessly -- I winced when Byrd noticed that Karkat's voice was suddenly rage-high instead of controlled, and ten seconds after that Karkat hit Gamzee hard enough to knock him off his perch. (Combined with Byrd's earlier observations on Gamzee's vocalisations, I'm betting that tone and pitch and nonverbal sounds are even more important to trolls than to humans. Also I love Striders because their musical obsession makes sound something that they really notice, and I generally don't so I get all these nuances I'm not used to thinking about!)