MSPA Fanfiction VI: Trashy Rainbow Drinker Fanfiction

[sebastian]

So, this update just shot Re: Champion to hell

I barely called a single thing right and I don't think I'm going to continue it

I don't know

So instead, here's everything I had planned for it. These ideas were going to fuel most of the rest of the story.

Not that I'm complaining! Canon ancestors were infinitely more interesting than my fanfic and they're rad as hell

But there's no real point on continuing a speculative work now that we know exactly what went down, I guess

Fuck canon.

And that's really all there is to say on the matter.

[Altum]

What really happened to the Leggings:

>Executor Darkleer: Lift it like it's heavy.

You figure you've left him hanging long enough.

You take down the rebel from the jut.

> Drop it like it's hot.

You burn your hands on the cuffs. Darn it. Well, they will get hotter before it's over. Just have to get this accelerant and WHOOPS who's this... wide-eyed young lady?

> Recognize.

Why, it's the Disciple. This is great, you were going to hunt her down and murder her later anyway.

...what... what is she doing.

>Take your best shot.

...you cannot do it. You cannot kill the girl.

>Now STOP.

You just stand there.

And watch.

Wow, is she stealing his pants?

> Disciple: Abscond

You can't. This wall is so high you can't get over it.

> Darkleer: Break it down.

NO ONE CAN KNOW.

She has to get that, er, stuff out of here.

You could really use a towel.

> Return Righteous Leggings.

She says you can just hold on to them for her.

[Paosheep]

> Oh Mother Stucker, Part 1: Candy Blood

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Karkat was not the best at composure, as he was the first to admit. Of course, if you asked, he tended to say something that was more expletive than sentence, but he refuted it all the same. He was easy as hell to anger (as was painfully obvious to anyone with a brain), to frighten (OH GOD OH GOD, anybody?), to sadden and to shock. The sound of a honk could send him into bilious conniptions of fury just as well as pants-wetting, nookchafing terror. A troll of extremes, everyone said. In extreme circumstances he rose to the occasion.

He was certainly in extreme circumstances now.

So, said his inner voice, shorn of the shock or terror that now suffused his frame. Let's review. Eridan, that hipster douche, has a new weapon. A white magic wand, and no, I don't care how much he insists it's science. He intends to betray us and join Jack Noir as his whipping boy. He duels Sollux AGAIN (because he's absolutely fucking desperate for any romance, red or black), only this time, he wins. The shitty white scientific beams evaporate that blue-and-red shit Sollux hurled out of his face orbs and toss him to the wall, where he is currently KO'd and useless. Then Feferi runs at him like the glubbing idiot she is and BAM, white science hurls like an angel's sword, cutting through flesh and bones and a heart just as easily as paper. She's dead. Festering on the horn pile like an idiot. And then.

And then.

And that's where he can't handle it any more. Because he knows that right here, right now, is Kanaya, his best friend and only sane team mate, is on the floor with a hole in her gut, her eyes closed almost as if she is only dreaming, waiting on Prospit for its prophecy. And he watched as she died (god, it was so clean, like a goddamn flame so hot it wasn't flame any more, had gone through hot to some sort of insane hellfire). And he knows that this is. This is.

All his fault.

He stood there like some sort of hamhanded grubfisted mutant douche and watched as the hipster put a bolt in Sollux's eyes and reduced two living breathing trolls (trolls under his guidance, trolls he could have saved!) to nothing more than corpses, empty bodies, so much keratin and bone and dirt. So much worthless fucking garbage. Just like him. Worthless. Just like him. A useless puddle of candy blood JUST LIKE HIM. It occurs to him that just like him Eridan will be in the depths of the labs now and that he'll have full access to the others. Tavros. Nepeta. Equius.

Terezi.

At this point, Kanaya's computer rings. Karkat walks over, trembling. On edge. Hellishly close to the edge, as a matter of fact, striding out on the air after the edge and unwilling or unable to look down. And as such, he's completely unprepared for what he hears:

[Don't turn your back on the body.]

He snaps like a fucking bowstring.

======>

You are now Terezi. Specifically, you are Terezi several hours from the events prior. But not many.

You were wandering around the halls in your typical fashion (although the Dead Dave who you'd caused was a change in routine) when you smelled a whiff of ugly gray, overlaid over candy red.

Except it's not really overlaid over the red any more so much as beneath it. You're positively ecstatic. Maybe Karkles has finally embraced his blood color? Not only that, he's come to apologize for prodding your face while you were all sniffy about Dave! Man, just when you think you know a troll he proves you wrong, huh?

You run out to greet him. But- no! Gotta play it cool. He sees you grinning like a fool and he'll take it for all it's worth.

GC: K4RK4T!!!
GC: NOW WH4T 4R3 YOU DO1NG OUT H3R3 1N MY P3RSON4L L4BS? >;?
CG: oh.
CG: hello, terezi. (:B

Immediately you can tell that something is wrong here. For one thing, when have you ever had to strain to hear Karkat's voice? He's practically whispering now, compared to his rage-filled futile screams that you think are just too cute. And the candy red doesn't taste right to your tongue. It's always tasted like candy to you, delicious cheery cherry red.

Now it just tastes like salt and metal. Like blood.

GC: UH
GC: K4RK4T?
CG: terezi, would you like to help me?
CG: i am in the middle of a very important task.
CG: it is vital to the survival of the team.

He advances closer. And he's smiling faintly, and that can't be right, because you haven't seen Karkat smile in ages, the angry little grub he is (and this isn't) never admitting happiness.

GC: K4RK4T YOU'R3 K1ND OF SC4R1NG M3!
GC: WH4T 1S UP W1TH YOUR VO1C3?
GC: 4ND WHY 1S YOUR CH3RRY R3D OFF? >:[
CG: you see, terezi...
CG: eridan was on the loose.
CG: he had alchemized a magical wand, and he was a threat to us all.
CG: the operative word, of course, being... was. (:B

Chills run up your spine.

GC: 4R3 YOU S4Y1NG
GC: K4RK4T
GC: D1D YOU K1LL 3R1D4N?
CG: how could i have?
CG: you kill a troll, terezi.
CG: but you put a monster down.

He's begun to advance, now, smiling that same faint smile, and as he approaches you slowly become aware that he's full of holes. One eye is missing. So is one hand. There's a hole through his ear that's still constantly leaking blood, leaving a bright salty mutated trail behind him. It does not contrast well with the grape smell from his sickle, gleaming dully in the fluorescent lights.

GC: K4RK4T 1'M W4RN1NG YOU
GC: ST4Y 4W4Y
GC: 1 H4V3 MY C4N3
GC: 1F YOU TRY 4NYTH1NG 1'LL DRUB YOU OUT OF YOUR STUP1D NUBBY HORNS

He ignores you, walking closer and closer. You begin to get the feeling that he's not really hearing, not really listening.

CG: but terezi, you see, don't you?
CG: even if you are blind.
CG: we must protect the others.
CG: i must protect the others.
CG: bec noir is still out there, after all.
CG: so i decided.
CG: bec noir can't kill you if you're already dead, right?

As the scent of salt red mixes with other scents- chocolate brown and grape Faygo, blueberries and olives- you realize, with a sinking feeling, that you preferred Karkat gray.

I think I'd probably give this a 6.5, maybe a 7. Actually, no, definitely a seven. I'll even tell you why, if you care to hear my opinion.

(spoilered for those who don't care to hear my opinion)

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So! Things I didn't like: The first one barely even counts, but I feel like your first three sentences could be better. I wouldn't even mention it except they're right there at the beginning, and first impressions, etc. Also, I suspect that you just sat down and wrote this all in one go [?], and that you weren't quite "warmed up" until you hit "bilious fury", at which point you were pretty consistently awesome. Like I said, barely even counts.

Second is that Terezi's scene is so darn cliched: The lead is alone when she sees her love interest. At first she is happy to see him but something's not right. The male's behavior is increasingly alarming until he finally admits to an act of questionable morality, and he is cemented as a monster when he shows no remorse. The lead tells him to stay back, and the psycho insists that the only way forward now is death. Fade to black.

Now, the cliche in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. But without some clever dialogue to spice it up, or some interesting variation on the idea, it just seemed kind of boring.

That leads into the last (most important!) point, which is that this freakout doesn't seem all that unique to Karkat. In that last scene, I could replace Karkat with Kanaya, Aradia, Feferi, John, Jade, or Rose, and the lines would need almost no alterations. I'd kind of hoped for something more specific! Like, Karkat is sick and tired of people ignoring his orders, so he kills someone as an example, and things escalate from there. Or he becomes convinced that everyone who's been falling asleep is now tainted by the horrorterrors and needs to be culled. I'm starting to slip into a brainstorm here, but that's the general idea. Anyone can be a serial killer. But why would Karkat in particular be a serial killer?

That's all of that. Now for things I liked!

"The sound of a honk could send him into bilious conniptions of fury just as well as pants-wetting, nookchafing terror."
"Then Feferi runs at him like the glubbing idiot she is and BAM, white science hurls like an angel's sword, cutting through flesh and bones and a heart just as easily as paper."
"god, it was so clean, like a goddamn flame so hot it wasn't flame any more, had gone through hot to some sort of insane hellfire"

It was really easy for me to tell you about the things I disliked, but I'm finding it hard to express just why I love the way you put words next to each other so much. You've got a little of Karkat's mouth and a little of something that seems like poetry, and the way it all fits together, both the straight composition and the rhythm in my head, makes my brain kind of melt and shiver. The paragraphs leading up to Karkat's break are amazing. They carry Karkat's emotions as well as his thoughts, and build in intensity so that when "he snaps like a fucking bowstring", we're ready for it. I gave you a seven because even though I thought the dialogue was kind of bland and boring, most of the story was not dialogue, and all of those parts were pretty much absolutely delightful and I loved them.

So, enjoy that massive wall of text! And please remember, if you disagree with me: that's okay! I'm just one guy, and not even a writer, and I could be totally wrong. You're the author, and it's not like you're trying to make money off of this, so if you're happy, then that should be good enough.

Overall? I liked it, and I hope you decide to go ahead and do the rest. I look forward to it.

Thanks for sharing with us! ^_^

[crash826]

@Paosheep: Thanks for the concrit! I'm always looking to improve my writing. And yeah, I am kind of suck at dialogue in other peoples' character voices. So... 8P

I'm planning on Aradia, next. So watch out for that!

[Wigmund]

Hiya, it's been such a long time since I posted anything in the fanfic threads. Quite some time since I posted anything on the forums, but I wanted to drop this off here.
It's something that popped into my head when I was visiting my father today, something that's perfect for the relationship between Dolorosa and the Signless/Sufferer.

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A troll held the strange new grub and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

The little grub grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was two sweeps old, and he ran all around the house. He pulled all the literature off the storage racks. He pulled all the rations out of the refrigeration unit and he took his ward’s time monitor and flushed it down the load gaper. Sometimes his ward would say, “This Pupa Is Rendering Me Insane!”

But at rest time, when that two-sweep-old was quiet, she opened the door to his respiteblock, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his recuperacoon; and if he was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

The little wriggler grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was five sweeps old. And he never wanted to come in for last meal, he never wanted to use the ablution trap, and when companions visited he always said bad words. Sometimes his ward wanted to give him the Grand Highblood!

But at rest time, when he was asleep, the ward quietly opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the recuperacoon. If he was really asleep, she picked up that five-sweep-old child and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

The child grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was eight-sweeps-old. He had strange friends and he wore strange clothes and he preached strange ideas. Sometimes the ward felt like she was in a beastward!

But at rest time, when that signless troll was asleep, the ward opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the recuperacoon. If he was really asleep she picked up that great big troll and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

That troll grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a proud troll in his own right. He left home and wandered across Alternia. But sometimes on bright days the ward would track him down. If all the lights in the troll’s hive were out, she opened his respiteblock window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his recuperacoon. If that righteous troll was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

Eventually, that signless troll caused a great uproar amongst the highblooded nobility. They hunted him down and chased his followers. Then they caught him and chained him to the flogging jut, humiliated him and bound him in heated irons. While he was on the jut, his ward came to him and spoke softly to the troll she had raised:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always…

But she couldn’t finish because her vascular system was too full of grief at the sight of the grub she had raised. The little grub she raised looked up at his ward, red blood in his eyes and he smiled at her, then he spoke these words:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Am Remembered
My Ward You Shall Be.

A great many sweeps past, tales were created and forgotten and eventually, the ward too passed on. Amongst the dream bubbles, two memories joined and became one. A young jade-blooded troll walked towards a crater that she remembered well and took hold of the one she had lost so long before. As she held him, she sang:

I Shall Love You Forever,
I Shall Care You For Always,
As Long As I Breathe
My Grub You Shall Be.

Adapted from "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch

[SkaianRedeemer]

Quick everybody, we have to keep clogging up this story with our troll fanfictions!

@Wigmund: Aw, Wigmund, I can't *sniff* read that!

[armeggedonCounselor]

.... Dammit Wigmund. Now I'm all choked up. Bluh.

[Doodled]

Wigmund, you're back!

*reads*

Whoa...

And you've still got it. Really hit the emotions, and I don't quite know how...

[eruditeColossus]

My parents used to read me that story when i was little.

As soon as I read that first song I knew what it was

[Graven_Image]

SADNESS

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And is that wasn't enough reaction, here you go.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[Wigmund]

Thank y'all.

Hopefully I can come up with more to wrench everyone's emotions.

[chronicProcrastinator]

The Sufferer, as appearing in other religions and philosophies:

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Catholicism: I DIED FOR YOUR SINS, FUCKASS
Protestantism: WORK HARDER YOU FUCKS
Hinduism: IT KEEPS HAPPENING, NOOKSUCKERS
Judaism: QUIT FUCKING WITH ME
Hedonism: WELL SHIT IT FEELS GOOD TO BE THE FUCKING MESSIAH
Existentialism: DON'T ASK ME FOR SHIT, BULGEEATER, DO IT YOURSELF
Communism: IF YOU DON'T TREAT US AS EQUALS WE WILL FUCK YOU UP
Agnosticism: HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW
Nihilism: I DON'T GIVE A SHIT
Hare Krishna: RAMA RAMA DING DONG FUCKASS

More later. Maybe.

This ended up as a page bottomer. And I would just like to say this is the best thing, and has made my day so far.

Also, decided to post this thing I wrote last night, after listening to MidnightSpider like eight times.

All of the Noir........ all of it.
Prologue

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A city sleeps uneasy. The lady stood on the rooftop of the now hollow bank, curls of bitter wind whipping her hair out behind her like a demented bridal train. She hurls her gaze across the city-scape below, black shadows outlined in cold silver. She takes in the blazing hive block, flames flickering, half way too the horizon. A silhouette is outlined against the of-white moon, before diving towards the fire bellow, a long hood trailing behind. The lady's smile twists into a malicious rictus as she tales a deep double lungful of breath. The cold night air is sweet, and bitter. A saxophone is raised, cradled in her hands, to press softly against her lips. It tastes metallic, of old money, of fresh blood. Oh, wait; that's just the blood. She plays.

Chapter the first

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A shouting voice bludgeons the night into ugly submission. "[COLOR="rgb(0, 0, 0)"]FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOUUUU SPIIIIIIIIDEEEERRRR BIIIITCHHHH.[/COLOR]"

Should I write more - Y/N ?

Inspired by aforementioned melody, the Policestuck AU (I think?) fanart, the midnight crew album and not enough sleep.

also, just found and started reading this thread. I now what I'm doing for Easter.

[Latia]

oh hey, gonna drop some short things i forgot i had

to thank that unseen Friend, about Jade and WQ

Cerulean, about

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Vriska's death scene

from Terezi's pov

[stuffedAnimal]

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You are now. . .

But that's not important. What's important is your masterpieces painted on the walls, in green and blue and brownish orange and even a little tyrian and jade here and there, and it's wonderful how the colors mix together, and you bite your finger and add a little of your blood to the wall. Done. Perfect. With a grin, you head up to the roof, stinging a bit from your cuts.

And there's Terezi and Vriska, and you watch them as one kills the other, and you turn as the transportailzer (a stupid name, you decide,) activates and Karkat comes through and stares. They glide across the roof to each other and make out. It is extremely sloppy. You think that they might be bleeding a bit, their wonderful candy red and teal spilling to the floor, prime material for your paints. (KILL THEM ALL) You see Sollux and Kanaya enter the room. Good. (all the players have arrived) You swing around behind them and draw your hammer. You try to speak, and the words t

w

i

s

t

a

| n

d

b

e

n |

d |

and brea|< on your tongue and

hitches (LIKE A HOOFBEAST, HAHA.)

your breath

as you begin to speak.

"hey bro" you say, not what you wanted to say but it'll do. (WE'RE GOING TO KILL YOU) You breathe in and SHOUT (shout, let it all out,) the next words. "WELL ISN'T THIS JUST PERFECT." Karkat manages to tear his (honk) lips from his matesprit and (HONK) turns to you, looking (honk) absolutely terrified. (HONK) You grin like a mad man, (you might as well run) and charge. (MAKE THIS SPORTING)

(honk) You don't go for Karkat, not (HONK) yet, can't go for the prize until (honk) he's good and terrified and (HONK) everyone else is dead (honk) for good this time. You swing the hammer up (HONK) and manage to get Sollux. (honk) You break one of his arms before (HONK) they even have the time (honk) to register that you (HONK) are already here and there is (honk) no time to rest, (HONK) no time to fight, (honk) no time to run (NO TIME TO HIDE) any second it'll be (honk) over and done (AND BETTER YET, YOU HAD SOME FUN!) The hammer's back hits Sollux's stomach (honk) due to bad aim on your part (HONK) and you hear a ripping noise (honk) and he's down and Kanaya's revving her (HONK) chainsaw and you bring the hammer down on his back (honk) and there's a crack and then he's still (HONK) and Kanaya's chainsaw lops off your hand, (honk) not the one with Zillyhoo in it but the other (HONK) one, and Karkat and Terezi are (honk) closing in on you and (HONK) they've drawn their weapons and you swing (honk) at Kanaya and hit her with the side (HONK) of the hammer by accident, (honk) pushing her back (HONK) and you charge Terezi and (honk) break her cane, following it up (HONK) with a hit to her side, (honk) pushing her into (HONK) Karkat as his sickle (honk) cuts into your (HONK) side and there's blood (honk) and you swear (HONK) as the sickle comes up (honk) to your neck, the (HONK) chainsaw against your back (honk) and you're still (HONK) smiling like a (honk) fucking loon, (HONK) and you spin (honk) and try (HONK) to bring (honk) Zillyhoo up (HONK) and hit (honk) Kanaya, glowing (HONK) like a (honk) motherfucking rainbow (HONK) drinker (honk) and (HONK) you (honk)

eviscerate yourself on his blade by accident. He pulls it out and you collapse, your various fluids coming out as you turn your head towards Sollux's body, noting the yellow spilling out of his stomach like a MiRaClE aNd YoU lOoK uP aT yOuR bEsT fRiEnD iN tHe WhOlE wOrLd AnD sAy TwO wOrDs. "ThAnK yOu. . ." YoU eXhAlE bEfOrE bLeEdInG oUt.

AnD tHaT's ThE sToRy. :o)

A/N:

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I had some cool things going with the words thing in the original document, but spacing on here isn't the same. Either way, enjoy.

[armeggedonCounselor]

So I decided to write a shitty fanfiction. Sometime over the next few days, I'll post it. I should post it while this is still Trashy Rainbow Drinker Fanfiction thread, because there's a Rainbow Drinker in it, and the fic is pretty shitty.

Get your eviscerating blades ready.

[Doodled]

This ended up as a page bottomer. And I would just like to say this is the best thing, and has made my day so far.

Also, decided to post this thing I wrote last night, after listening to MidnightSpider like eight times.

All of the Noir........ all of it.
Prologue

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A city sleeps uneasy. The lady stood on the rooftop of the now hollow bank, curls of bitter wind whipping her hair out behind her like a demented bridal train. She hurls her gaze across the city-scape below, black shadows outlined in cold silver. She takes in the blazing hive block, flames flickering, half way too the horizon. A silhouette is outlined against the of-white moon, before diving towards the fire bellow, a long hood trailing behind. The lady's smile twists into a malicious rictus as she tales a deep double lungful of breath. The cold night air is sweet, and bitter. A saxophone is raised, cradled in her hands, to press softly against her lips. It tastes metallic, of old money, of fresh blood. Oh, wait; that's just the blood. She plays.

Chapter the first

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A shouting voice bludgeons the night into ugly submission. "[COLOR="rgb(0, 0, 0)"]FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOUUUU SPIIIIIIIIDEEEERRRR BIIIITCHHHH.[/COLOR]"

Should I write more - Y/N ?

Inspired by aforementioned melody, the Policestuck AU (I think?) fanart, the midnight crew album and not enough sleep.

also, just found and started reading this thread. I now what I'm doing for Easter.

That is sincerely the greatest one-sentence chapter I have ever read.

Ever.

That being said, it's kinda... You know...

Short.

Still, please do more! You've got some good writing and sentence structure, though the sentences may be few.

[Layra]

Fun with the Handmaid. No, not that kind of fun.

Instig8r

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And in.

She landed silently, drawing the Minute Hand from her hair and sliding it up his back. He stiffened and spun to face the hapless, bound trolls cowering in his shadow. He roared at them, dismissing their claim that a troll appeared and vanished as the desperate excuses of the soon-to-be-dead. The room was proofed against psionics and sendificators; nothing could get in, much less out.
He turned again to the troll he was interrogating, frowning as her eyes widen. He spun about, only to get a rock to the face. But the other trolls in the room were still bound, physically and psychically.
Or so the engineers had claimed.

And back out.

She slides through the timestream, watching as the rumors move. The investigation is swift but inconclusive, first targeting the lowblood psionics themselves, then moving to the engineers and the psychics; those are usually trusted highbloods, but the Subjugglators are learning otherwise.
The culling is swift and pointless.

And in.

She pointed to the bar and the three bluebloods sitting there. He stared at them, counting them, and counting the lowblood trolls who filled the rest of the room.
After long moments of deliberation, he moved to spread the word. Slowly the crowd tensed around them, trolls drawing weapons and turning toward the bluebloods.
The three bluebloods were completely unaware of the shift, exhausted from hunting a mysterious redblood who seemed to vanish whenever they caught her. Tired and frustrated, it only took a single glimpse of her to set all three of them into a frenzy, only to find themselves surrounded and outmatched.

And back out.

The three bluebloods last almost two minutes before they are swarmed under, just long enough for them to send out a distress call. The army arrives and the entire town is razed to the ground as an example. From outside of time she makes sure the event is transmitted to all the vision-prone lowblood trolls for sweeps.

And in.

She raised the Hour Hand and cast, the caves around her groaning and swaying and crumbling with age. From the wreckage, a bedraggled purpleblood glared up at her, his face spotted and pocked.
She pulled him from the rubble and into the air, turning back his clock with the Minute Hand every time he tried to fight her off. Then, finally, she came to a stop above a small cluster of blueblood towers and dropped him, flung him to the ground and letting his blood splatter against the windows. As the residents came out to investigate the noise, she moved on.

And back out.

Quarantine means nothing to her. The disease, once isolated to those caves, spreads throughout the highblood population and into the sea, and a carefully timed uprising leaves the lowbloods in charge for almost five sweeps. They never forget the taste of power.

And in.

She stood behind him, whispering to his generals. The past few lunar cycles without sleep have driven them all to bickering and paranoia, and even their leader was losing his temper over trivialities. And his grip on the lusi was failing. She told them so, and they noticed. The lusi were late to battle, uncoordinated, even disappearing entirely. He was demanding more from the ones who remained, and demanding more from his dwindling army.
And she made sure they knew about his cerulean-blooded matesprit, who could clearly control thoughts. How could they trust him when he spent so much time with an almost-highblood? No, the blank look in his eyes wasn't sleep-deprivation, but reflected his loss of will.
As he turned to his generals and began outlining the plan to attack the capital, they all watched and waited for the moment when he betrayed them. Or perhaps, when best to betray him first.

And back out.

Sometimes all you need is a nudge.

In other news, Militia has been thoroughly debunked, but I'll continue writing it once I figure out how much of canon I want to involve.

[SkaianRedeemer]

@Layra: Really like the concept of the Hour Hand and the Minute Hand!


And so, A Hand in Holding Hands now has its completed Intermission:

You don't have to read it, but like the Felt intermission, it probably helps if you do. That banner (it's not done yet, my newly-drafted and dearly-needed art beta has gone missing...) was made to mark the Intermission: after Chapter 12 (AO3 13), just before the second recap. It'll be put up when aHiHH next updates. I can't do it now because I want a chapter to mark it and no one wants the confusion of a fic that says it's updated only to find the update is hidden somewhere and only points toward another fic. That's just silly.

Squiddles Intermission: far less silly.


Retcon + New Content:

Some new content was added to Chapter 3. There's a retcon-of-sorts, transferring my Author's Notes about Ox (from both Chapter 2 and 4) into the text. There's also a new block of Voice Actor profiles from the "DVD Bonus Material" which was intended to go into the first of today's new chapters, but I decided worked better before Gl'ybgolyb's reveal. Copies of both are below:

New Scene

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"He seemed nice," Karkat said. It was hard for the Humans to tell if he was really being sarcastic.

"Ox is a victim of behind-the-scenes collapse," Rose said. Jade, for once, did not interrupt her. "See, in even the tame episodes of Season 3, Squiddler and his friends are the leads, like in the second half of Season 2. But that wasn't always the case. Originally, Berryboo was the lead, along with another Squiddle, named Mint."

Karkat barked a laugh. "Quality of names used to be an inch higher," he said. "If even."

"There have been a lot of production teams involved in this," Rose admitted. "Naturally it was kind of sloppy. For example, Mint kept getting bigger and bigger, and I think partway along the line they forgot why they were doing it and just did it again. But in the middle of it, one of the Japanese voice actors left. Mint's. But you can't kill off a Squiddle."

"Why not?" Feferi asked.

Jade raised an eyebrow. "Because it's too dark for kids! And he's a main character! You can't do that... to... a..." Jade saw the looks on the Trolls' faces, and backed off.

"Anyway," Rose said, having already expected the reaction. "Mint was off with Berryboo when... something happened off-screen. Berryboo refused to say, she was so upset. The next thing we knew, Mint was calling himself 'Ox' and working for Plumbthroat, having lost all his friends. Whatever the studio was planning to do with him, we'll never know, though. A few episodes later—" she snapped her fingers, "bankruptcy. Studio Upton took over with no idea how it was supposed to end. They just... rolled with him like that..."

New DVD Bonus Material

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Amelia Everett (b March 17, 1924 – d April 13, 2009). Voice of Princess Berryboo, The Queen of Chimes, Sisters Bethany and Odette. "If I could be anyone I'd ever played," Everett said in a 2007 interview, "it would be [1943 femme fatale] Dahlia State by night, and Princess Berryboo by day. […] There's something to be said for optimism and pessimism and I'd rather take both hand in hand." Everett stayed with the show until its final days. "I think we were doing very good work with [Squiddles!]. We covered old ground… maybe too often… but some days we covered lessons I don't think young girls and young boys are hearing much of one way or another. […] It was a shame to watch the others go. I'd have liked to do at least one more run."

Aidan MacDermott (b March 1, 1932 – d April 13, 2009). Voice of Skipper Plumbthroat, Mint and various members of Plumbthroat's crew. Always the anecdotal bridesmaid, MacDermott's career, starting with the role of Ariel in The Tempest, spanned no less than 47 award-winning productions, though he never once collected an award himself. As he noted during his 2006 roast, "I was raised in the company of some of the finest actors of the British and American stage, and if my being here is any proof, have learned nothing from them." After a lifetime in dramatic and comedic roles, the classically trained actor claims to have been just as happy in either. "It was nice to be Plumbthroat. In the early seasons I was a goof and in the later seasons I got to be a monster, a little of both." Regarding his character swap with Jacob Watt, MacDermott says he holds no grudges. "Jacob did an excellent job as Mint-gone-bad," he said, "A shame about the accident."

So now, without any further ado:


The Dargon Arc
Part 5 of 7

There are a few parts of the frame story, with the Kids and the Trolls, which are only important to readers of A Hand in Holding Hands. I apologize to everyone else, but hopefully I've provided enough context to keep them from being a problem.

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Feferi had been staring straight at the TV when she made her dramatic announcement, and so did not notice the immediate reaction. As a result, she had time to add: "I thought you were going to ask me a BIOLOGY QU-ESTION!!" before all hell broke loose.

Karkat jumped to his feet and rounded on Jade and Feferi, pelting them with questions as Nepeta and Rose stared on in flabbergasted horror. Kanaya attempted to overpower Karkat's shouting to bring the discussion to a more reasonable volume, but no one heard her, as others in the lab joined in to tell Karkat to shut up. They finally left outright and did not return, leaving the six at the TV to their own private spat. The shouting only became more focused when Jade seemed to hear Kanaya and began angrily pelting Karkat with popcorn up until she landed one in his open mouth.

"WHAT THE HELL?"

"I said shut up, fuckass!"

"OH AND A SIMPLE FUCKING 'BE QUIET' WAS TOO HARD FOR YOU, THEN?"

"Looks it was too hard for you! Why don't you try listening to people once and a while, and maybe—" "MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY SHUTTING YOUR DAMN MOUTH WHEN SOMEBODY'S TALKING, DIDN'T YOUR DOG TEACH YOU…" "…think you'd have realized by now that just maybe you're not the centre of…" "…WAITING FOR A PAT ON THE FUCKING HEAD FOR ENFORCING BASIC SOCIAL NORMS, I CAN'T IMAGINE—" "…so far up your waste chute that you don't even—"

But then: "Maybe you two should get a room!" Nepeta cut off her shout by tearing off her hat and spiking it in her lap. "Ugh!" She reached forward to snap up the remote and the room shook with noise as the others tried to shift out of her way. Karkat was so quick to avoid her that he knocked over a pile of Friedberg and Seltzer films. Nepeta, wilfully ignorant to the shocked silence about her, began to rewind the DVD to its position just before the interruptions. When she looked up after pausing it there, a blush began to creep onto her face. She smothered it with anger until finally passing off the conversation to "…Karkat?" with as much sarcasm as possible.

Karkat watched her out of the corner of his eye and did not speak until her hat was once again securely on her head. When he did, it was to Jade. "You know," he said, "you could have just said, 'Hey, there's an eldritch horror in this TV show. That's weird.'"

"I wasn't sure what it was, Karkat," Jade said, with a tip of her head to Feferi. "It might have just been a squid, or a kraken."

"A what?" Feferi asked.

"It's a… well…" Jade turned around to Rose for an explanation, only to see her friend staring off into space, tapping a finger on her lips. "Uh, Rose?"

But Rose gave no response: not even a blink from her enthused, focused eyes. "She's thinking," Kanaya said, not without concern. Jade had to defer to her when it came to Rose's physical expressions – though Jade had known Rose for years, Kanaya had spent more time with her in person by degrees.

"Great," Karkat said, "Grimdarky had gone bye-bye. Okay, honesty time:" Karkat said to Feferi. "Did you, or did you not, put your fucking lusus into the new universe against my goddammed orders?"

"No!" Feferi snipped.

Nepeta's did not take the renewed shouting well and stomped to her feet. "Karkat, this is a cartoon!"

Karkat spread his arms wide toward the TV. "Then why is she THERE?"

"I don't know!" Nepeta said, irritation still her byword. "Maybe she sent them a picture?"

"On Earth?"

"Oh my God, that's it." Rose whispered, unperturbed by the nearby argument. "…They're insane." In a bit of a daze, Rose stood up and began to pace, but on her second pass she stopped to reached out and rub Nepeta between the horns, eliciting the first cat sound from her since her outburst. "It explains everything. Assuming that this is unmistakably Feferi's lusus and not some other ambassador from the Horrorterrors…"

"Of course it's my lusus!" Feferi said with a bit of a huff. "And if there was an Ambassador on Earth, you'd have known! Think I don't know my own lusus…"

Rose nodded absently. "Well, Earth hasn't been short of eldrich rule ourselves," she said, earning a confused glance from Jade, "but we'll assume that isn't the case. Listen: the production staff had to have seen her to get such an accurate drawing. Spending that much time staring at a Horrorterror, trying to figure out how it relates to space and light to properly depict it…"

"Gl'bgolyb wasn't a real Horrorterror," Feferi said, arms crossed and glaring.

"I…" Rose looked back to Kanaya, who shook her head. "I'm sorry, you're right. That was rude of me to assume." But Rose's mind did not stop working. "…However, if your lusus had never been on Earth, the means of transmission…" she snapped her fingers. "The only way someone could have drawn your lusus is if they saw her, either because an image was put into their minds or because she talked to them directly via timeless space. Humans don't react well to that over time," she said, then stumbled. "Trust me."

Perhaps because she had Rose had already discussed Rose's history with the Horrorterrors to satisfaction, Kanaya was the one to break the awkward silence that followed. "But why a cartoon? If we're assuming that this was a sent message, it must have been deliberately sent to Human cartoonists."

"Not necessarily," Rose said. "Most evidence on Earth about eldritch interference was found second-hand via archaeological sites, et cetera."

Jade rolled her eyes. "Rose, those were short stories in science fiction magazines from the thirties!"

"Extremely accurate short stories, weren't they?" Rose tapped the side of her nose, and Jade hit her with a pillow.

Kanaya actually pondered Rose's point for a moment. "Then allow me to invoke a simple example. What seems less surreal: that an ancient Human artist contacted by Gl'bgolyb drew a piece on her that was rediscovered by a company producing a grub show about Human Friendship, or that she may have contacted the producers of a grub show about Human Friendship directly?"

There was a genuine pause in the conversation as the six of them took a moment to consider the question. "Kanaya," Nepeta said. "That's just more confusing."

It was Karkat who pieced it all together at last. "Well," he said, his throat dry. "Kind of obvious, isn't it?"

"How lucky of you to think so," Kanaya said, her own head now lowered in thought.

"No, really," he said. "Either she sent it herself or someone else did it. Maybe a God we know. Maybe an old friend," he said, Rose not meeting his eyes despite his attempt. "What's the common element?"

"My lusus," Feferi said. "So?" But after a moment, she caught on as well, her face falling. Jade saw the change and looked to Karkat.

"She or they used Feferi's lusus," he repeated. "Why use her lusus when they could have sent any sort of vision?"

Nepeta suddenly squirmed up into her spot. "Fefurry," she whispered.

"Us," Kanaya clarified. "This… either the episode or the entire – as you've said, unusual season – is intended for the sixteen of us."

"Can we be that sure?" Rose asked. "I'd appreciate a bit more evidence before assuming that it's meant for us and not… uh…"

The others exchanged glances. They were sixteen survivors, all alive, all relatively safe in the lab. They had long known that it was all too lucky. Not one of them was going to jinx their lives by uttering the words "Doomed timeline."

"…Leijon," Karkat said. "Turn it back on. Lalonde, Peixes!" Karkat pointed straight back to the maw emerging from the sill, paused sea. "I want to any word she says."

-------------------------

When the camera returned from the Leviathan to the Squiddles, their reaction was one of pause and terror, like deer in the headlights. Berryboo reached toward Squiddette, both of them clinging her staff as if for reassurance that they were somewhat armed. Squiddler gaped at the whirlpool that had swallowed Squidradar whole; he was the one to speak first.

"I'm going after him," he said, mustering that impossible cartoon bravery that would be called foolhardy in any other place.

Squiddette floated forward to confront him. "No, we have to get the princess out of here! She's more important than all of us! "

Her words seemed to strike a devastating blow in Squiddler. "How can you say that about your friend?"

Squiddette clearly did not want to say anything of the sort about her friend, but she straightened up all the same, and was about to speak again when she was touched on the side by a small, purple tentacle. "…Go, " Berryboo said to Squiddler. "We'll be right behind you."

"Princess! " Squiddette said, turning to face her mistress. Squiddler slipped away at once, which only caused Squiddette to become more urgent. "We can't go down there! I thought you understood!"

"No, he's right!" Berryboo insisted. "You know it as much as me. We're Squiddles, we can't..."

Squiddette stood firm, the look of despair on her face cutting Berryboo all the deeper, until the princess' mind was made. In an instant, Berryboo demonstrated just how hard it was to keep someone constrained in mid-air by going into a dead-drop, down into the whirling waters.

An echoing call caught on the air as she plunged, and it hung there like a muffling blanket, warping the soundtrack to counter its vibrations and ripping through sound effects and art at random.

("She's talking." Feferi said. "It's like I'm hearing her against the current, though."

Rose agreed. "There's a voice there but it's not coming out right."

Some experimentation provided their answer, and Karkat conducted their viewing all-but-seamlessly from there. He replayed each line of the Leviathan's at half speed in reverse from there on out, demanding and receiving a translation for each with only a few quick orders. He was Leader and his battlefield was a televised program emphasizing the power of relationships: if never before, he was now in his perfect element.)

"a'crovis ntoyo, may caerwwych nechion ex br'ith merrarch, nre…"

(Rose closed her eyes to think. "She's noticed the whales are there for the Squiddles and wants to capture him so…"

Feferi giggled. "Eridan could tell you that one. She's hungry!"

"Well at least this confirms she's genuinely a Horrorterror," Rose said. "'The sleeper wakens… feast upon the souls of the…' et cetera, et cetera. This is all fairly boilerplate."

Jade rubbed out her ear. "Is it just me, or do the whale songs sound funny backwards?")

Berryboo fluttered for a moment, as though she had recognized the strange sounds about her as speech, but darted away, knowing Squiddette must have been in hot pursuit.

----------------------

In the distance another boat approached, with its young passengers now leaning fore to see what all the commotion was about.

"Oh no!" Squibump squeaked to the others. "It looks like there's some kind of storm!"

"Iiiiiii dooon't knooow if we should go ooouut theeerrre!" said the Diver, still managing the controls.

"Are you kidding?" shouted the child behind him, Sebastian. "Our friends are out there!"

The other child, Amber, agreed whole-heartedly. "We have to go help them!"

Squibella flew up from wherever she had been hiding, never once raising the subconscious question of how she stayed floating above a fast-moving vehicle she was no longer physically touching. She pointed a tiny tentacle forward and shouted "Full speed ahead!"

They didn't see the whales moving about below them, those of the pod staying back to protect the young. They didn't see one of the adults move to block one of the older children when she made a dash toward the whirlpool.

Far ahead, Squidradar bounced back and forth through the waves. Every escape route seemed blocked, another tentacle rising to block in his path and the current swept him aside with doubled force every time he tried to pull aside. The water about him trembled, sound passing by warped and distorted. The whales kept their distance, but he pulled toward the nearest all the same.

("I can't make her out underwater," Rose said.

"I'm not really following it myself!" Feferi said. "'Space is' …uh… 'no space…'" Feferi waved her hands. "She's taunting him about not being able to use his eyes when she's not entirely on Earth."

"Ohhh…" chorused Jade and Kanaya. "Yes, definitely," said Kanaya. "In fact I can easily demonstrate the same. The tentacles in the top-left would have to be knotted to achieve that arrangement. Your lusus is strictly non-Euclidean, it's fascinating."

Jade pointed to another tentacle. "Heck, this one's a möbius strip. Look."

"DOES ANYONE WHO'S NOT IN THE SPACEY CLUB UNDERSTAND THIS?"

"i don't understand it karkitty, you can be confuzzed with me!"

"THE LAST THING IN THE WORLD I WANT TO BE IS CONFUSED WITH YOU.")

Suddenly, the world slammed shut in a spiral about the yellow Squiddle, the Leviathan claiming its prize between its tentacles. Squidradar threw himself against one tentacle wall, then another. Taking a deep breath, he began to send out his radar pulses and gave the wall one final ram. When he opened his eyes, he did so to discover himself free, if dramatically to the right of the arrangement (Jade nodded, sagely). He snapped his eyes back to the nearest whale and made his way toward it, eyes once again closed and relying entirely on his radar. The tentacles swirled behind him and everything came to a jarring halt, all at once.

Squidradar opened his eyes, first just a crack, and realized that he had somehow ended up upside-down. He opened them wider before throwing them open all at once.

"You're not a whale!" he squeaked.

"Is that so, lads?" Rat asked over his shoulder to the rest of the Catchyegrabber's skeleton crew. "We not a whale?"

"Well don't that just beat all," said Horse, who through thanks to rigid application of themed names was in actually a talking crane-man who had flown out to join the others. He held Squidradar hostage in what the animation team had accidentally drawn as a butterfly net. "Well, I'm just let down."

"Yer all be 'let down' if ye don't get back to yer posts!" snapped Ox, who grabbed the net by the strings just above Squidradar's tentacles. "Double-time, swabs!" The two made off as fast as they could, and Ox took the opportunity to raise the net and its passenger to eye-level. "Welcome aboard, " he hissed. "Now where be my dear brother?"

"Ox!" called a voice from the edge of the ship. "Let my friend go right now!" Squiddler hovered just onboard the ship, and Ox turned to face him, setting his hook against Squidradar's face.

"Now tha's not fair, Squiddly, " Ox said in a juvenile tone. "We was just having a little chat is all." He adjusted his grip with his many tentacles, and dropped the net soundly on the ground, only for one of his back tentacles to pass fore a single-shot flintlock pistol. He levelled it and fired in the blink of an eye, only for Berryboo to land aside his brother, grabbing him as she went. They both glowed purple for a moment, and the shot ricocheted into a nearby crate.

"What is wrong with you?" Berryboo shrieked as the power faded from around her. Ox just shrugged, a grin on his face and a gleam in his one good eye.

("That wasn't in the American release," Rose noted.)

----------------------

Not far away, on the Isle of Dread and Hate, Plumbthroat's land-bound crew laughed uproariously at the display on their ship. Even Plumbthroat began to chuckle about his pipe, goaded on by his crew.

"Five dollars on the bosun taking 'em all on 'is own!" shouted Pig, after Tiger pointed out that their other allies on board were tied up bringing the ship out of the whirlpool.

"Five bucks on the bosun?" laughed Ram. "Ten on the giant squid!"

The others laughed even harder, and the thunder crashed as the Island as its guardian seemed to think so appropriate. They laughed so hard that only Plumbthroat, who was standing at Ram's side, noticed when his shipmate suddenly developed a lump on his head almost as tall as his attacker. Squiddette and Plumbthroat both watched him drop, he with a snarl on his face and she with a look of boredom as she tapped her staff in her other tentacles.

"…I've… eh… 'come to talk,'" she said, still admiring her work.

The rest of the crew had noticed her by then. Plumbthroat was saved the trouble of even having to take his hand off his pipe as a thicket of weapons rose past him to point at the Squiddle girl. "Aye?" Plumbthroat asked with a straight face.

Squiddette kept her eye on Ram for a moment longer. "Stop this…" she said, spinning her staff so that it pointed out to the storm. "Right now."

Plumbthroat waited, then leaned forward, cleaning out his pipe on top of Ram. "…and?" he asked at last.

Squiddette finally looked up, and when she saw the weapons, she cracked a smile. "Really, guys?" She pointed to Plumbthroat's head cook, the snail. She giggled the way Squiddles do. "Because… I fought a turtle, today. Your call!" She shrugged and let the results stand ambiguous. The snail slowly lowered his cutlass, and those around him could not help but retract theirs as well.

Plumbthroat glowered at his faltering left flank and crossed his arms behind his back. "Did you hear that, lads?" he said, as he walked toward the shore. "She wants me to call off the giant squid!" Squiddette, not quite sure what he was doing, followed him as he went. "She wants me… to call off… the giant, underwater Squid-Monster the size of the skyscaper!" A chuckle rolled through the crew. "Might as well move the moon!" he shouted, and the others laughed out loud. Plumbthroat turned back to his guest. "No, little one, your friends are on their own." And the thunder crashed.

Squiddette clenched her staff. "Not while I'm still here," she said, and made for the water. The sound of a half-dozen pistols cocking behind her cut off her escape. She turned to find the crew back at attention, and Plumbthroat with his pistol at the ready and cutlass at his side. Squiddette let go of her staff at once, first at one end and then the other, so that it fell standing up in the black sand. Lightning crisscrossed the skies, lighting up Plumbthroat's grin.

"Funny thing about Squiddles," he called over the noise of the storm, now so prominent. "They don't do well on their own." He smiled, and again the air shook with thunder, and his face fell. "Yarr!" he growled up to the skies. "Curse it, would ye leave me to manage me own gravitas?" Plumbthroat roared. The storm quelled, just a touch, leaving Plumbthroat and his crew's focus entirely on their prisoner.

-----------------------

Aboard ship, Ox calmly swapped out his one-shot pistol for his cutlass. He hovered low, two of his heavy tentacles now holding Squidradar's net firm to the deck despite his fervent attempts to escape. Berryboo edged herself in front of Squiddler – being very careful not to let go of his tentacle.

"Why are you doing this, Mint?" she asked.

"Aye," Ox said, "the Skip said ye were having trouble callin' folks by their proper names, but ye seemed much more polite before so I can't say I believed him at the time."

"P-polite?" Berryboo glanced down at Squidradar, who was curled up inside the net, quivering. "I was scared of you, you bully!"

"Yes, yes," Ox said, "but if ye'd be so kind, my business is more with me kid brother, who at least knows to call a gent what he'd rather be called, than be called whatever he'd rather not."

Squiddler pulled himself to the front, adjusting his tentacles with Berryboo. "Gee, Ox," he said, more chipper than the scene really demanded, excusing a nervous taint lurking at the end of his greeting. "I just call you that 'cause it makes you happy! You're still my brother!"

Ox scowled. "I don't be needing your pity any more than you be wanting to fake it."

Squiddler's face fell. "I'm not faking it, Ox. I still like you!" He looked back at Berryboo. "It's what we do, isn't it? Squiddles love all their friends!" Back to Ox, he said: "Don't you remember?"

"I remember…" Ox said, with a telling sneer. He reached down and hefted up Squidradar to his side. "I remember enough. You!" he said, pointing to Berryboo. She looked hurt by his refusal to address her by name, but he just smiled. "…Leave," he ordered, and tossed Squidradar overboard, still tangled in the net.

Berryboo and Squiddler exchanged glances for only a moment before she leapt over the edge after her other friend, and Squiddler ducked to the side before Ox pulled his second pistol. The shot embedded itself in the rail beyond, and Squiddler slipped into hiding between crates.

"Sir!" Rat called from the helm. "We're about ta pull free of the whirlpool!"

"Then bring us ashore!" Ox shouted, eyes strafing the crates. "We'll drive out this Squiddle scum for sure when we've got all hands on deck!"

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Berryboo went after Squidradar, who was sinking further and further as he struggled against the tangled mess that held him. He had managed to get his head free by the time she reached him, but it took their combined effort to free his tentacles. When she had, he immediately replaced the old tangles by tangling his friend in thanks. She laughed, and so neither was looking when a great shadow came out at them from the deep. Squidradar caught sight of the thing at the last moment, and shouted out loud. In their panic, the two shot off a beam of their friendship at the shadow, and the dusty murk of the sea flashed with dim cyan light. The Leviathan's tentacle reeled back, but only for a moment before charging back toward them, with reinforcements.

"We need the rest of our friends!" Berryboo shouted as they swam.

"Where'd Squiddette go?" Squidradar called back.

The camera jumped back, back to the beach where Squiddette hovered under the guns of a sore-looking Ram. The Grundy Catchyegrabber was pulling in by the shore, where the crew was for the rope ladder to drop so they could board. The camera offered a poor angle, but slowly began to focused on Squiddette's face. She looked first right, toward Ram, then fore to Plumbthroat, who was not minding her in his hurry to get the others onto the ship. There, in the middle of the sudden chaos, she was given her opportunity. The ocean itself pulsed cyan, the bright light drawing the eyes of everyone around, except for the Squiddle, who they had already forced to look the other way.

She dropped to the ground, snapped up her staff and struck out, once at Ram's ankles, then at Plumbthroat's. The Skipper proved more resilient, and he turned his attention and cutlass on her, if too late to stop another blow across his kneecaps. They fenced once, twice and Squiddette pulled back with each step. Then, once she was far enough away, she threw herself back into the water and disappeared.

"Forget her!" Plumbthroat called to the others. "Onto—" But Plumbthroat's command was cut off when a red Squiddle landed on his head.

"Oh, hi Skipper!" said Squiddler. "'Scuze me!"

He snapped up the Skipper's hat and tossed it away, so that it landed square in the middle of Bosun Ox's face the moment he cleared the ship's rail. Squiddler was off like a shot from there.

"After him, ye dogs!" Ox shouted. He tore off the hat and tossed it back to the Skipper before continuing pursuit, which was not made easy for him. Squiddler kept one step ahead of Ox and the rank-and-file crew members: he bounced off of heads and dropped down only to steal one of their bags of gunpowder and shot, which he hurled again at his brother. From there, he hit the beach like a pinwheel, kicking up sand and spraying in the faces of his would-be pursuers. Turning back to Ox, who had jumped into the water to clean himself, he blew a raspberry and made his way back up the Isle, the bosun hot on his heels.

"After them, men!" shouted Rat, safe on top of the boat.

"No!" Plumbthroat shouted, still trying to rub sand from his eyes. "Man the net cannons!"

Back from the ship and centrally situated on the tiny Isle of Dread and Hate was a ruin: a small ruined tower barely a storey tall. It was to that point that Squiddler tumbled, and Ox followed.

"Wow!" Squiddler chirped as they went. "You can barely even fly any more, can you?" He frowned and fluttered a little lower to the ground. "You really don't have any friends on that ship." Ox threw a rock, which kicked his brother back into motion. "Why're you so mad at Berryboo?" he asked instead. "She still wants to be your friend!"

Ox grunted as he picked up the pace. They were ascending the tower, up a pile of rubble that might have once been stairs, but Squiddler was making sure to keep visible around the edge of the tower. "I'd tell you to ask her yerself, little brother, but once I catch ye, ye won't be doin' much askin' at all!"

"Aw, Ox, you're not gonna catch me!" Squiddler said. He paused for thought. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry? Yer sorry?" Ox swung his cutlass at the air. "There's no way off this island, Squiddler! The Skip'll see t' that!"

"Sure there's a way off!" Squiddler said. "I just have to trust in my friends!"

Something about that tweaked Ox. His eyes narrowed and he charged forward, catching up to his brother at once. He swung his cutlass wild, hitting the step there, the wall there, and Squiddler dodged each one with ease.

"That!" Ox shouted as he struck air. "Is not! A plan!"

Squiddler dodged the last swing and vaulted over the parapets at the top of the tower. Ox followed, but when he landed his battle rage slipped away at once.

"I don't know about that," Squidradar said when he saw Ox's frown.

Squiddette grinned at Ox, as maliciously as a Squiddle could, the animator clearly strained to match the voice actress' tone "It sounded like a pretty good plan to me!"

The camera cut a wide shot of the island, where the tower wall burst open and Ox, sent flying by a beam of muddied white light, landed in the water below. When the camera returned to the Squiddles, they were still glowing off-white and bouncing with elation and concentrated friendship.

"We should get out of here!" Squiddette said once the light and exuberance had faded, but it was a moment too late. A shriek cut through the scene, and all four Squiddles looked up to the hole they had made in the parapets.

("Squiddles can hear when people are upset over a mile away!" Jade said matter-of-factly. She was now deeply embedded in the couch, with Karkat's legs on her lap, the popcorn on top of that and Nepeta curled up around her arm and resting her head on Jade's shoulder.

"Really?" Karkat said. "How do they hear anything else over the sound of their audience, then?"

"Karkat, you don't have to insult everything."

"Try me.")

Then another cry, and then more. The Squiddles met one another's eyes.

"That was Squibella!" said Berryboo. "A-and that was Sebastian! And Amber and Squibump! Oh, guys, tell me the kids aren't here too! Tell me you didn't leave them with Squibump in charge!"

Squiddette made a face. "They're not supposed to be here-here," she said, and went to the hole to check, but fell down with a yelp. A net, propelled through the air, slammed over the opening. Squiddette popped up her head and looked out, but only until the net fell loose of whatever purchase it had found on impact. The old net tumbled to the sea – the next might thread the gap entirely.

"They're on Billy's diving boat!" she whispered to the others.

The other Squiddles exchanged glances for a moment, and Berryboo edged her way along the wall toward the hole. Once there, she called out: "Skipper?"

Through the magic of a writer's poor understanding of acoustics, Plumbthroat heard her clearly. His return cries sounded only slightly distant. "Princess! We've got you trapped in that tower. There's no way down and we'll net you if you come up. Now how about ye make this peaceable and come out quietly?"

"Skipper, there's another boat out there!" She gave him a moment to send someone to check and then continued. "Our friends are going to die if you don't do something!"

The pause clearly extended longer than she had expected. Berryboo's breathing began to shallow, knowing that every second Plumbthroat squandered was another second their friends had to spend at the mercy of the Leviathan.

"…Ye forget, princess!" Plumbthroat called. "The plan was t' let the Leviathan at yer friends! Seems to me there's no sense in stoppin' what's already the plan!" Berryboo simply closed her eyes when she heard Plumbthroat's complaint, but the others reacted with varying degrees of panic. From the distant sounds of things, the crew took the whole exchange as a joke.

"Skipper!" Berryboo called, eyes still shut. "Skip, don't do this! You don't want to hurt these people!"

The jeers from the crew answered her complaint before the Skipper even opened his mouth. "I think you'll find, princess, that the ends necessitate the means."

"Is there any way out?" Squiddler asked Squidradar. His friend shook his head.

"The whole building's collapsed under us!" he said. "It's just the roof here, on top of some really strong beams, we can't get out!"

"No, guys, " Berryboo said, her eyes sad. "I know how to get us out. Trust me. I know Plumbthroat." They watched her carefully, but all Berryboo did was to call out again. "Skipper." she said. "There are kids on that boat too. From the orphanage."

This time even the crew was silent. "…Children?" Plumbthroat said. There was a murmur of conversation from the ship.

"Doesn't care about us one bit, does he?" Squiddette said, her staff at the ready. The line was once again in the voice actress' under-her-breath tone, but the production team seemed to have decided to go with it.

Berryboo looked even more sullen and sad. "He… he should." Squiddler, who was nearest, fluttered over to hug her.

Plumbthroat called back a moment later. "There's nothing we can do about that monster," he repeated. "Jus' like I told yer friend."

Berryboo turned to her more tactically-minded friends. Squiddler spoke first, clearly improvising. "Well, all you need to do is get them out of the whirlpool. Get them onto your boat and get going."

Squiddette chimed in as soon as he was finished. "We'll distract the Leviathan!" When the others turned to her to ask how likely that was, she could only shrug.

Plumbthroat took another moment and then started shouting orders, loud orders, to move out and head toward the whirlpool. Squiddette peeked back out, this time between two of the parapets. When she signalled to the others that Plumbthroat was indeed fulfilling his end of the bargain, they followed after at doubled speed.

"Two of us weren't enough to stop one of its tentacles before," Squidradar said. His eyes were stuck on the water, which was rendered fast beyond what one would have assumed of the studio's budget. The Emissary of the Horrorterrors writhed below past silt and shadow, her tentacles tearing toward the boat but intercepted time and again by the whales, which were falling back bit by bit.

"Then we're going to have to get the others from the boat," Squiddette decided. "C'mon!" She veered off from the others, Squiddler fast behind her.

"I'm going to go talk to the whales!" Squidradar said. Below the two Squiddles, the whales' battle agains the Leviathan was still clearly visible. "We don't want them to get hurt!"

"Okay!" Berryboo had to shout to be heard over the storm as they got closer to the centre. She looked straight down, toward the white beak of the creature and the torrents of water the swept up into it with every passing moment.

"Are you going to wait here?" Squidradar asked.

Berryboo sighed. "No," she said. "…I…" she added, almost a laugh, "I'm… I'm gonna talk to it," she explained, with a half-hearted shrug and a forced smile. "It deserves as much a chance as anyone else, right?"

Squidradar looked astonished. "That's a great plan! I can't believe no one else thought of it! I can't believe anyone thought of it" he babbled. "We'd be a lot better off if we just talked about our differences instead of fighting over them!"

("All right, time to stab me. You all promised!"

"Karcrab, shush!")

"Heh heh… yeah." Berryboo turned away and started her slow descent toward the maw, but was stopped abruptly when Squidradar hugged her from behind. When he left a few moments later, Berryboo was left alone with her plan. She looked down, took a deep breath, and plunged.

The Leviathan did not take her intrusion without notice. Though the whales continued to strike at it from below, new tentacles appeared from the shadowy mass and rose up, high into the air until they and Berryboo nearly touched. She flew back, but froze when she remembered why she had come.

"Hello," she shouted. "My name is Berryboo. …We live near here, and I want to talk!"

For a moment, with the camera caught over the princess' shoulder, the whirlpool stopped in mid-motion. Just for a split second it froze, and when it returned the sound in the air changed, worse than ever. Distortion reigned and the calls of the coordinating whales were once again replaced with a strange, jarring soundalike.

"gwoshna brestos mi senarii"

("'Your pleas fall on the deaf ears of mountains.'"

"'Sunken mountains,' I think.")

Berryboo shook her head intermittently, violently. "Please!" she called. "Just talk to me. Ugh, gotta get closer…" She reached down toward the creature, and as she spoke and fell, the reverberations around her continued.

"Meazathoth kav brestin"

("'The Noble Circle isn't here to listen.'")

"brestiu gah feferi iar"

("You'll be the one to listen, sea-princess."

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT. I HEARD THAT."

"W)(AT IS IT?"

"It said 'Feferi!' What, you were named by your five-hundred storey space-lusus?"

"OF COURS--E!! Didn't your lusus name you?"

"…Is my name 'Grarrrggghgllgl'?")

Berryboo reached out further; the thunder crashed above her and the power of her hope for friendship glowed about her in a purple haze. She was so focused on the horror below her that she did not see the tentacle sweep out of the dark to her left. For a moment, the camera jumped to her point of view, staring straight down at the beast below, and then, impact! The camera jarred violently to the right, and twisted her view left before it suddenly went red. When it returned it stared straight into the dead eyes of a rotted skeleton, and then jumped: a man wrapped tight in shadows, then a relic lost deep on the seabed, then red again, which held.

-----------------------------------------

"Stop, stop!" Karkat shouted. "What were those?" He had the others strafe back and forth over the brief montage until he had his answers.

"They're from later in the arc," Rose said. "Except they're in reverse order. Not unlike her speech."

"Yeah," Jade said. "You remember the relic from the sea floor," she said, pointing to the third image paused on screen. "Look at the top of the screen. There's the winch: this is from a few episodes from now when Plumbthroat brings up the relic."

"The second shot…"

"That's Prince Dargon," Jade said. "Or Plumbthroat possessed by Dargon, however you want to put it."

Karkat began to curse. "…so yeah," he said. "You both realize by now that your evil prince that wants to open a hole in reality is—"

"A Horrorterror, yes," Rose said. "Fairly obvious in hindsight, but it's all coming back now."

Jade picked up the last. "The third shot… well, the first shot, is one of Cap'n Flint's pirates from Treasure Island!" No response. "It's a children's novel from a hundred years ago?"

Rose explained without the trouble of going into the actual plot. "When Dargon's plans go south, he gathers all the major villains at Treasure Island and the Squiddles go to find him there. Common assumption is that the producers conned the investors into thinking they were funding a literature plot instead of the terrifying episode that actually resulted for the series finale."

When Jaded realized, to her relief, that no one was actually listening to Rose's fannish speculation, she picked up the story. "Dargon turns out to be a pretty bad boss and pretty much everyone is bloodied and half dead. Plumbthroat's crew tattles to the Squiddles that Dargon is just possessing Plumbthroat. In the end, all the bad guys have turned on Dargon and the Squiddles are going to blast him with friendship from everybody, but Berryboo tries to talk Plumbthroat out because she doesn't want him to be hurt. Long story short, it works and they blow the real Dargon into paradox space before he can really attack."

Karkat grunted. "So where does that leave us?"

Nepeta raised a hand, and when no one noticed, propped it up with another hand. "Question," she said, until Karkat acknowledged her with a glare. "Am I the only one that actually wants to watch the episode instead of talking about it?"

"I kind of do," Feferi said. "I don't want the princess to be hurt!"

Karkat's protests about all them being hurt by "fucking eldritch magic" if they were insufficiently prepared were quickly overturned.

------------------------

Far below Berryboo, Billy the Bellsuit Diver's little boat rocked back and forth as a whale, just below, lashed out at an approaching tentacle. The whale's tail caught the boat on the follow-through, and its passengers hung on for dear life.

"Whoooooooa! Iiiiiii don’t like this any more!" Squibella clung to a bundle of rope on the wall of the ship's cabin.

"Just hang on, Squibella!" called the little girl, Amber.

"Nowwww," said Billy, who was still outfitted in his diving suit and did not truly seem perturbed by the situation. "You children are wearing your life jackets, riiiiight?"

"Wow," said Squibump, who seemed to be the only one brave enough to look over the edge, if only barely. "I'm sure glad Squibella and I can breathe underwater, or we'd need life jackets too!"

"You should alwayyys wear your life jaaaackets," said Billy. "Even when there's not a stoooorm because you neeeverrr knooooow juuu—"

"Guys!"

"Squiddler!" Everyone on the boat walked carefully to the side of the ship where their friend had appeared. Billy continued his lecture to an audience of none.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're okay!" Squibella shouted, and then herself at Squiddler. When Squiddette appeared to his side, whatever she was about to say was interrupted as she, too, was struck back by a tiny green bullet.

Sebastian looked up sheepishly toward Squiddler. "We… we came to help," he said.

"Now you kids know better than that!" Squiddler said. "I know we've had lots of adventures together but this is too much! Billy!" The bellsuit diver lurched, as though shaken from sleep.

Squiddette floated forward after prying Squibella from her skin. "We've talked to Plumbthroat, he's coming to get you all. You're going to have to abandon ship!"

"No!" protested the children, which in this case included Squibella.

"Nowww kiiiids," Billy said. "You come over heeeere, and I'll tell you the story about why it's impooortant to trust people, and to never look a gift hoooorse iiin the mooooooouuuth."

"Not you two!" Squiddette said as the other Squiddles started off to join the kids. "We need as many Squiddles as we can get!"

"But…" Squibump looked back at the kids. "Gee, Squiddette, we can't just leave them! They need us!"

"We need you too!" Squiddette admitted. "And they need you to be with us! We need every Squiddle we can get!"

Squibump turned toward his tangle buddy, who put on her toughest face and headed up to him. Together, they took to the air after their friends.

The Squiddles had not gone far from the boat, however, when Squiddler stopped. "Every Squiddle we can get, huh?"

Squiddette turned back to him. "Oh, no, Squiddler, don't."

But he turned all the same, and swept through the air just outside the perimeter of tentacles. He flew until he came up to the still-distant hull of the Grundy Catchyegrabber, only now out to sea and en route to the children.

"I don't see yer distraction, Squiddle," Plumbthroat accused in lieu of greeting.

"Almost on it," Squiddler said, determination in his eyes. He passed by the sea captain and several of his anthropomorphic crew before finding the one he looked for.

"Ox…" he called, and held a tentacle outstretched. Ox, his tentacles still gripping a rope, looked to his brother, but his look tightened and he turned away.

"…Okay," Squiddler said. Without another word, he turned back to the sea, and flew up to join his friends.

"There he is!" Squibella called when she saw a spot of red on the horizon.

Squibump reached out to take her tentacle. "That's great, Squibella, let's go!"

Squibella was a jostling bundle in his hands from there on out. With her friends, she was no longer afraid, and she was already bubbling with both her and his power. "This is going to be great! We're going to show that big monster what it means to face friends that look out fo—" She stopped with a gasp as Squibump and the others came to a sudden, aerial halt.

Berryboo hung in the air, slumped forward, her breathing carefully rendered: shallow and slow. Her eyes were closed and her cartoon skin had changed: where she had once been purple, her skin now sucked in the light with a deep black; where she had been highlighted yellow or teal, her markings now shone with gleaming light that cast a white aura about her body. An eyelid cracked open, revealing a pupil like a pit, surrounded by white that glowed stronger than any other part of her body. She saw them.

"…a'vrr?"

("…Oh! That was: 'Guys?'" Feferi translated, but only when she realized Karkat alone had kept his focus on the show, as opposed to their company.)

Berryboo, seeing the others stare, looked down at her own tentacles. Squiddette floated forward and reached out toward her princess, but Berryboo shirked back, and shook her head violently.

A whale's coo cut through the air as the Squiddles tried to sort with one another, but the call changed as a wave of air seemed to pass up by them from below. The reverberation returned and the whale song changed, this time clear and without distortion: like all the others, it had been replaced with a human shriek.

"r's nrakk mlcorian trok br'th nyrania"

("'The plans of children will fall like blocks…'" Rose said, unperturbed by the developments or the stares. "That's odd."

"No fucking commentary!"

"Well it's just very human-centric, considering… Never mind. …She's just talking about food again, now.")

"…mr'sis nechion, nret merrarch q'dwow" The thing repeated itself many times, the whirlpool speeding up below it as the whales pulled away. It became impossible to tell from the distance whether or not the ships were safe.

Squibump, his eyes darting between the princess and the sea, caught sight of the tentacles first. They were still low below them, but rising. He grabbed hold of Squibella and Squiddler by the tentacles and Squibella, in turn, reached out to Squiddette. Squiddette barely noticed long enough to grip her back. Her staff held tight in other tentacles, she focused instead on her mistress and friend, tentacle outstretched.

Berryboo stared at the others as they began to glow. Slowly, she began to float back and away.

Squiddette shook her head. "No time!" she called. Berryboo raised her tentacles in protest.

("'I can't, it's not safe.'")

More strange syllables spilled from Berryboo's mouth. "Nykava, x'p dtree!"

(Feferi did not so much confirm Rose's translation as turn back to her in confusion. Rose knew the others were looking at her, but she only looked to Karkat. "This…" she said, with a tap at the back of the couch, "…is meant for our timeline." She said no more. Instead, she took off to pace the room, clutching her head as though it hurt. Kanaya went after her before she finished a single lap.)

A powerful glow, growing brighter and closer to white with every new Squiddle, had come across the linked tentacles of the other Squiddles and had almost blended across Squiddette's dark green. She extended her tentacle as far as it would go. "Please!"

"mr'sis nechion! mr'sis nechion!"

Berryboo faltered for a moment, but took the step forward. Her tentacle took Squiddettes', and at once things began to change. The soundtrack dropped, and the combined white light of the other Squiddles ceased to spread. Instead, the black ran from Berryboo into Squiddette's tentacle, spreading like a burn that darkened her skin before consuming it entirely. Both Squiddles gasped, and met one another's eyes in panic, and Berryboo pulled away at once.

But her bodyguard was too fast. Squiddette's tentacle shot out and caught the princess', pulling it back and wrapping around it all the tighter. The camera changed to Berryboo's eyes as Squiddette spoke, but neither the princess nor the viewer could hear. Whatever she said, her lips moved and settled on a nervous smile. Then Squiddler appeared, taking one of Berryboo's other tentacles and closing their circle. Though the black power soon spread down his body as well, he also spoke, and then Squibump, apparently in agreement. Squibella was in agreement too, for all she smiled and swung about, using the tentacles of the two Squiddles that held her like swings. And as the camera took away, Berryboo herself smiled, and the light swept over her from both sides.

Far below, Skipper Plumbthroat watched as the ring of Squiddles above exploded with light, stronger than the veiled moon beyond the clouds. A low whine cut through the air, building until a lance of bright, white light shot down and struck the beast in the whirlpool. And the Leviathan screamed, a deep, rumbling shout that shook the air until it cracked, snapping the lines above the Skipper's head. It shook the ship with waves and the soundtrack with a constant bass that brought the force of the scream into every home that watched the show around the world…

----------------------------------------

Nepeta shrieked and Kanaya as well, into Rose's ear as she collapsed in her arms. Feferi's breathing simply quickened, but Karkat screamed until he was out of breath, his hands in his face as he began to bleed. Jade panicked. She had the remote, but she searched for Mute instead of Pause and by the time she had found either, the scene had passed and the damage had been done. Kanaya shuddered for breath, unable to stand, and Rose helped her to the ground. Nepeta clutched her stomach as though she were about to vomit, and Karkat did not respond until Feferi broke the silence.

"Sollux!" she said, after taking in the room, and her shell laptop was out at once.

Nepeta, still queasy, turned toward her leader, who had his legs yanked up close to his chest. She pulled up over the leg, as though it were a tree she had to climb, and then shouted "Karkitty!"

Karkat lowered his hands, revealing the full mess of blood from every orifice, and he froze for a moment before he remembered there was no one present that did not know about his blood and did not care. Before he could prevent it, Nepeta leaned forward and began to rub at the blood on his face with her sleeve.

"Ge—Get off!" he shouted, keeping her at bay. By then, Kanaya had recovered, if only somewhat, and stopped trading silent words with Rose to hand Karkat a monogrammed handkerchief. He cleaned himself furiously, face and hand, before anyone else could walk in.

"He's okay," Feferi said with a sigh. "Sollux. He didn't hear any—" Her laptop chimed, and she checked another window. "I don't think anyone heard anything who wasn't here."

"Well it's a good thing the Jellyfucks scared everyone else off!" Karkat shouted. He pointed straight to Feferi. "That was her. That hit all of us. Do I have to spell it out? How? How did they get that sound clip? Is there a Not-So-Vast Glub she might have used at some point in the past? In all Troll history?"

"Well… no!" Feferi looked to Kanaya and Nepeta, who did not appear to know any different.

To Rose, who still clung tight to Kanaya's arm, Karkat asked: "Well, could she have sent it as she was dying?" Rose shrugged and Karkat swore. He swore under and over his breath for nearly a minute until he looked at the screen and saw the shot of empty sea that served as their pause point. "Is that it?" he asked Jade.

"Well, there are a few scenes left," Jade said, "but yeah, she doesn't show up again."

"FUCK!" Karkat threw up his arms. "I don't get it! Why go to all the trouble of sending us this message if all you're going to say is 'The Noble Circle's here to speak, now excuse me while I help myself to the seafood buffet?' What, was she just trying to kill us? Because if it didn't kill me, it wasn't gonna work!"

The others looked at one another in dismay. Jade alone tried to look bright. "Maybe it's not just about her?" she said, but Karkat swatted a hand toward her.

Nepeta, who still remained clinging to Karkat's leg, slumped down against it: less cat-like and more teenager. After a long moment of thought, she spoke up. "…Fefurry's lusus isn't the only demon in the story."

Karkat raised his head slowly, and did not even detach her from his leg. "…Harley," he said. "How many episodes is this Dargon punk in?"

Jade waffled on the point for only a few moments. Math was a strong suit. "Thirty-one, if you count three cameos as 'one.' It's a little kid's TV show. 'Season' is a pretty broad term."

Karkat cursed again. "Okay then." He pondered for a moment. "…spill. Just the gist. How does the Dargon arc end?"

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Sometimes the scene is too fast paced for me to point out the incompetence of the storyboarders and animators. Example: "The Grundy Catchyegrabber was pulling in by the shore, and the crew waiting for the rope ladder to drop so they could board." Eh, whazzat? Shallows? …What are shallows?

[SkaianRedeemer]

The Dargon Arc
Part 6 of 7

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Jade exchanged glances with Rose at Karkat's request to fill him in about the Dargon arc. "Do you… do you remember Milo?" Jade said. Karkat nodded. "He was in some other episodes after the second time with Dargon. His friends were there too – Carmen and Diego. I know how that other episode ended but after that they decided the adoption process wasn't actually finished yet. It doesn't matter. They team up with Amber and Sebastian and the usual cast of kids. Milo's friends all help with his reading and speaking but he doesn't quite get it. But one day the new parents come."

"Sort of a B-plot, actually," Rose said.

"And so Milo is upset again," Jade said. "So Dargon shows up, and he says that he should wish for his friends to stay. But Milo's stronger now, and he says at once that he's happy for his friends, even though he's sad. You know, the same thing he said the second time around. He says they taught him how to write, so they can exchange letters. Dargon tells him that he's going to be alone, so he repeats from the first one: he'll make new friends like he's already been doing, and together they'll make a new group."

"And it looks like that's it," Rose said. "Dargon leaves and we go back to the A-plot about one of The Colonel – one of the other villains – smuggling… kumquats? It really seems like Dargon showed up just to keep his face out there. At the end of the episode we see Carmen and Diego heading off with their new family."

"…But then," Jade said, almost with a sigh. "Milo gets a letter, at the very start of the next episode. It's from his friends' new aunt, their… mother or father's sister," she explained to the Trolls. "He opens it and…" Jade stalled, began fiddling with her fingers for a moment, until it fell to Rose to continue.

"His friends… died," Rose said. "With their parents. Car crash, just a few days after they all got settled. I suppose I have to emphasize that this is not exactly normal for a children's cartoon. …Dargon wasn't saying Milo would be alone because his friends would be gone, he was…"

"That's awful," Feferi said, which seemed to give Rose hope that the Trolls at least understood the impact to a Human child to a point.

"So everyone at the orphanage is upset," Jade said, "and so are the Squiddles."

"But not Milo," added Rose.

"No," Jade said. "Milo is angry. He doesn't want to talk to the Sisters, and when the Squiddles try to talk to him—"

Rose cut in. "See, they're sort of inconsistent about this, but some of the writers portray the Squiddles as something you have to believe to see. What Dargon did when he talked to Milo the episode before was to get him to reiterate his believe in what the Squiddles taught him. But now his relationship with his friends has changed for good, and he can't be happy for them. And he's too angry to make friends."

Nepeta shrank away into the couch and filled in the blanks. "So he doesn't believe in the Squiddles now either," she said, with the stress on 'believe,' as though betrayal of imagination cut her as deep as plot.

"Dargon doesn't even have to come to him this time," Jade continued. "Milo just goes to the basement with the artefact, and the Squiddles follow because as far as they're concerned, he's still their friend. So then Dargon shows up and takes his hand, which is… so, so creepy. He says to wish them back, because heck, that thing doesn't actually grant wishes, what does it matter what he says? And Milo thinks and finally he says, very strong and clear, that he wishes he could go to his friends' funeral."

John had long since explained to the Trolls what a funeral was when he tended to their parents' bodies back in the game, and they reacted with only small nods, not really having an emotional connection. Rose picked up from there. "Except… because he was speaking so clearly – speaking for his friends who were teaching him how to improve his writing and his speech – he doesn't have his lisp any more. And it doesn't trigger the artefact and Dargon leaves in a real huff for the final episodes."

Jade smirked, but only for a moment. "That's pretty much it. We've explained the Treasure Island part. There's just the last scene. There's this little girl, and she's new to the orphanage. And Milo's still upset but he realizes that… since his friends are gone, it's his turn to be the big kid, and to try to make friends with the new girl. And he goes over to her and sits with her, and that's how the whole show ends."

"Lack of funding," Rose asserted, but Karkat was no longer listening.

"I'm going to have to watch the whole damn thing," he muttered, like a curse. "The whole gogdammed fucking season from start to finish." It may have just been a trick of the light, but it seemed that his nosebleed had restarted.

"…Can we watch the rest of this episode first?" asked Feferi.

"yes!!" said Nepeta, climbing all the way back to the top of Karkat's legs. That finally earned her a shake off, and she landed with her head in Jade's lap instead.

"Whatever," Karkat said with a wave. His mind was clearly on other things. Jade looked to her other friends first, and seeing that Rose and Kanaya seemed ready to stay as well, she resumed play.

----------------

The Squiddles arrived on the deck of the Grundy Catchyegrabber and into the arms of their Human friends. The five of them still pulsed with power, lingering far longer than usual, and that same light flowed down to their friends as they laughed and spun about. Plumbthroat growled at them only out of the side of his mouth but otherwise let them be, tending instead to the crates that had been jostled loose in the storm. Only Berryboo sat apart, waiting for the glow began to fade. When it did, it revealed her own purple skin beneath and she breathed a sigh of relief.

But when the glow had faded, a mechanical clack sounded just off-screen and a barrage of nets flew out, quickly pinning the Squiddles and children to the deck. Squiddette reached toward Squibump, but their tentacles were not long enough to reach, and they were left helpless under the weight of the nets. Berryboo looked about – in her privacy, she had been spared the nets, and she locked confused eyes on Plumbthroat. He seemed no less confused than she, and worse when Horse stepped out from off-screen to hold Billy the Bellsuit Diver hostage at sword point.

"Tidier than sea monsters," Ox said with a sneer, the net cannons at his back and the crew behind them.

"Bosun…" Plumbthroat growled.

"You!" Berryboo shouted, springing forward once she saw that the net cannons were all unloaded. "What do you think you're doing?"

"'You'? " Ox parroted. "I thought I was still 'Mint' to ye. Looks like we're half-way there, but I think I ken forgo the rest."

Berryboo tried to ignore him. "What do you want with my friends?"

"Oh… few hundred an ounce, and at least a few dollars a pound for meat once you go dim. How's the market, Skip?"

Plumbthroat grunted in reply, though Berryboo began stammering over the word "meat." Seeing her out of sorts, Plumbthroat sighed and spoke up. "What, princess? Did ye think he was here for the benefits?"

Berryboo was aghast, but her reaction served some purpose. Behind her, safely ignored, Squiddette began to squirm against her ties with the help of the stronger children. But it was still no use: the nets had been securely tied and heavily weighted. As she and the others struggled, Squidradar alone stopped. His eyes up at the sky, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate his hardest.

"I… I don't believe you!" Berryboo shouted. "These were your friends," she said to Ox.

Ox wagged a tentacle at her as though he were scolding a naughty child. "Ye can keep saying that all day, princess, but it doesn't make it any more important to me."

Berryboo edged away from Ox, straight into a crate. "But… that's your brother, and I… I…" She could not say it, and Ox smirked back at her. Instead, she rounded on Plumbthroat, her mood changed fast from sadness to fury. "And you!" she shouted. "Why do you never listen? For a moment today I thought you might have understood, but now?"

Near the back of the ship, Ram tapped Ox with one of his hooves. "Uh, boss?" He tossed another look over the edge of the rail when the bosun did not turn around. Berryboo did notice, however, and her eyes lowered, and she turned back on Ox.

"I don't believe you," she said, "I take it back. Earlier, when I said you were a bully. You're not a bully, you're a monster! When your mom and dad hear what you've done they'll just…"

"Boss!" Ram shouted, but Berryboo's gambit had paid off. Ox pushed the crewman away, and advanced on Berryboo.

"I think, princess, that me folks have long since made peace with what ye'd rather ignore."

Plumbthroat was not as foolish as his subordinate and he ran past Ox and Berryboo at the sight of Ram and the other crewmen's panic. Berryboo tried to edge out in front of him, missing only by inches, but to no worry. Just as Plumbthroat reached the rail, before he could even see what was coming, the ship shook from a powerful blow from below.

"All hands!" Plumbthroat shouted, before another blow rocked the ship. A jet of water shot up into the air just behind he and the crew as the passing whale crested, moments before a third blow. "Get us out of here!"

"What about the prisoners?" Ox shouted over the sudden cacophony.

"Damn the prisoners!" Plumbthroat shouted back. Ox had to strain to listen, and as he did he relaxed his grip and Berryboo swiped in and took away his cutlass. Ox started to go after her before Plumbthroat called again. "Man yer post, sailor!" Ox scowled, but did as he was told.

The camera did a short time skip, showing the Squiddles and Humans having duly freed one another with the stolen cutlass. Squiddette had made a point of shredding the nets before they tossed them and the sword safely overboard. "Skipper!" Berryboo called. Another whale hit, almost knocking the children to their feet. Billy the Bellsuit Diver slammed head first into the floor with a clang!

"Welllll thiiiis is not how I intended to spend todayyy," he said, barely audible above the whales' attacks. The children rushed to help him up.

"Skip," Berryboo said, a growl still on her voice, "we'll call them off if you get us safely back to Billy's boat and let us leave." The boat shook again, and though he stalled for a moment, Plumbthroat nodded. "Squidradar, tell the whales to hold off until Billy's ship is safe."

There was still after that, and the crew looked to Ox and Plumbthroat for their orders. Plumbthroat kept them still. Through the magic of television, it was not hard for the Squiddles and children to unload to Billy's boat, which for all the trouble it had getting out of the whirlpool, was still operational. The boat tugged away, but as it left, Berryboo, Squiddette and Squidradar stayed behind.

"Well, princess," Ox said as he watched the others, including his brother, disappear in the distance. "Looks like ye win this round."

"It does, doesn't it bosun?" Berryboo's voice was dry and tired, and she did not meet Ox's eyes. Instead she hung down and low, as though she might fall from exhaustion at any moment. "I think this is one you'll try to keep in mind in the future."

"Oh, I'll be keepin' it in mind," he said. He ran his hook along the edge of a cutlass he had taken from the stores. Plumbthroat had his back to the proceedings, as though he wished the Squiddles would just go away and leave him to his long repairs. Ox was not so dismissive. "The next time we meet, princess, you'll see just how well I've been keepin' in it mind!"

He levelled his hook at her, but she did not seem to notice. Instead, for just a few frames of animation, her sunken eyes seemed to seize on something far below. "Oh Mint," she said.

The Grundy Catchyegrabber heaved in the water, another spout of water jutting off to the left of the Squiddles. Berryboo's eyes snapped back to Ox, but her haggard expression did not change. "I agree," she said. "I think Billy's boat is safe now."

Squidradar, suddenly realizing how he had been used, did a double take between the whales and his princess. "B-Berryboo!"

Ox, before the Skipper could prevent him, lashed out at Berryboo with his cutlass, only for Squiddette to spring in between them. His cutlass bit deep into her staff. From there, the storyboarder's poor understanding of coral served Squiddette well as she used that new grip to yank the sword from her opponent's hands and toss it after the other, into the sea.

"Bosun!" Plumbthroat shouted, and he yanked Ox back onto the deck. "Get to work, damn ye!"

Ox scowled back at him, but slipped back into order not long after. "Load the nets!" he called the others.

"We already used the nets!" called Ram, and the rest of Ox's plans fell into the muffled background noise of the scene.

Plumbthroat took to the nearby rail as the ship reeled again. "What are ye doin', Yellow?" he asked Squidradar. "Call 'em off!"

"I…"

"No!" Berryboo interposed herself between Plumbthroat and Squidradar, swiftly followed by her bodyguard. "You went too far this time, Eustace," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can't let you keep going like this."

"So ye'll drown us? Leave us stranded on this shell of an island?" Plumbthroat tossed his hat to the deck in anger.

"Oh, like you get a say," Berryboo said as the ship shook again. "Like you gave us a say when you kidnapped me, or when you tried to have us all killed, only so you wouldn't have to do it yourselves! I thought you were better than that!"

The boat shook again, throwing loose all the crates the crew had already re-secured. Plumbthroat stood his ground solid. "Princess," he said, "this isn't you."

"Well maybe I've learned something," Berryboo said back. "I can't let you get away with this any more, Eustace."

Plumbthroat kept his solid expression. "Well then it'll be a fine afternoon back at home, won't it? First ye sink me ship—"

"You'll be fine," Squiddette interrupted. "You always are."

Plumbthroat ignored her, except to step aside to get a better view of Berryboo. "First ye sink me ship," he repeated, "leave us to starve on your well-wishes. Then ye and yer red friend go to tell the bosun's folks how their oldest boy is a would-be murderer, to use yer terms." Berryboo's eyes lowered. "And then ye go home to yer mother and father, and tell them how their little girl's a hero. Aye. A fine afternoon."

With that, Plumbthroat turned back and started shouting at the crew, his orders coordinating smoothly with Ox's in the background. Berryboo watched him go.

"…Squidradar," she whispered. "Call them off." Squidradar nodded vigorously, already glowing with his power. "Let's get out of here."

By the time the shaking had stopped and one of the whales had taken a parting shot for their own reasons, the Squiddles had gone. The camera swept out from the crew of the Grundy Catchyegrabber and into the seas, which began clearing as the light of dawn rose up behind the clouds.

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Plumbthroat and his crew eating the Squiddles is probably mentioned virtually every episode, but given that they never manage to capture any of them and the way they have long conversations, Berryboo probably never thought they actually meant it…

Oh for goodness' sake, I can't honestly be just 300 characters over. Shit...

[SkaianRedeemer]

The Dargon Arc
Finale

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The footage that followed was worn, with backgrounds and many of the characters taken from reels that had been used and reused so many times that they had lost all quality and context. More than worn, it was rotted, gangrenous and ignorant to the scenes it had followed, like a dead limb. Back in the town square of the opening, Squiddler once again popped up in front of the camera.

"Wowww, that was sure an adventure!" he said, that one clip almost as worn as the scenery. "I think we all learned a lot from that one! I learned…" he said, his animation suddenly vibrant, his voice clear. "I learned that you really don't want to hit your head on a rock! Oww! Squiddette sure looked like she was hurt!"

Squidnanna, the older Squiddle from the opening, swam onto the set. "That's why you should always wear a helmet when riding a bike or a skateboard!"

"That's right, Squidnanna!" Squiddler swam over to Squibella, whose introduction as a character was too recent for her footage to have worn. "What did you learn today, Squibella?"

"Wwwwelll," Squibella said with a spin, "I learned that turtles eat all kinds of things like sea grass or…" A campfire whisper: "…jellyfish!"

Squibump appeared from the side. "A-And I learned that little kids will eat their weight in free cookies!"

"Wow!" Squiddler said with a laugh. "And what does that tell you!"

The reused shot of Squibump had him looking directly at the camera. "That they should probably brush their teeth twice a day!"

"At least!" added Squidnanna in a group shot.

From there, Squiddle swam up to the audience much as he had at the episodes' start, and all those that had come before. "Wow!" he said, audio quality plunging. "Those are all great lessons, you guys! Well, it looks like all the trouble's gone, so it's time to sing a Squiddly Song!"

"Yaaaaay!" chorused the crowd. "Ohhhh, ♪ SQUIDDLY DEEEEE! SQUIDDLY DUMMM! EVERYONE SIIIING… ♪"

And as that final scene came to its traditional end, like every episode that had gone before it, something swerved. Visually: the camera, which hooked to the left, and began to travel. And as it went the sun began to set again over the ocean, casting shadows down from coral trees and rock mountains, until the camera came to slow as the world woke up in starlight. The music played low alongside, coasting on one last chord of whale song as the pod passed overhead late into the night. The viewer passed eels, fish and other things, until they came to a slow rest on a heavy anchor, and then up, up the chain to the Grundy Catchyegrabber.

With a gentle pop of water, a small, dark green head breached the surface and shot slow looks in each direction, before she signalled below with her staff. Berryboo followed, exchanged glances with her bodyguard, and then pushed off into the air above, dripping water in her trail. Squiddette watched her go until she was over the edge and out of sight, her face screwed up from the moment the princess turned away, but once she was gone Squiddette returned dutifully to the water below.

The deck was empty save for a single shadowy figure leaning against the rail, her arrival perfectly timed. Beside his feet lay a small board, unattended as he blew clouds of smoke into the air and abandoned the watch. Berryboo hesitated, but then inched forward, making sure to stick to the air just above the rail in case she had to beat a hasty retreat. He did not look in her direction, though she waited a fair time; his eyelids drooped low, and what little attention he minded in the present was limited to his pipe.

"Eustace."

Plumbthroat's movement slowed, his grip on his pipe tightened. "Aye?" he said, voice taught but wavering. He settled to brace his pipe along the rail and did not look up.

"I… I came to apologize," Berryboo said. Though she could have fluttered into the air above the sea to face him she respected his right to look away, though it pained her to see him choose it. "You were right. I didn't want to hurt any of you. If you hadn't been there…"

Plumbthroat moved for a moment, as though to wheel, snap up his pipe and respond, but he seemed to think better of it. Berryboo's face fell when she realized she was talking to a wall, so she changed the subject. "Is… will Ox be standing watch tonight?"

"No," Plumbthroat said. He himself off before he could say another word, as sharp as though he had bite his tongue to hold his peace. He glanced over his shoulder, just a few degrees, and saw the Squiddle princess hang her head and sashay her tentacles back and forth in worry. That time the pipe made it back to his teeth. "Why? Are ye going to pick us each up and apologize in turn?" Berryboo froze when he caught her in her favouritism, so he pounced. "How ye almost drowned us, left us in wreck and repair and not a dime to show for it back home?"

"'Not a dime…'" Berryboo's embarrassment turned to shock and she did fly up to him, eye-to-eye. "Your ship needs fixing because of your plan to kill us! I think you've earned every lost penny! The only thing you have to blame for that is you being pig-headed and selfish to point of… of murder! If I hadn't…" She trembled, and let out a shout of aggravation. "You're not going to listen! Why don't you ever listen?"

Her tentacles hung limp, but as Plumbthroat opened his mouth, she floated down to the rail. "No," she said, the wind taken out of her sails. "I know. I know how it works." Plumbthroat held his pipe to his lips as he watched her drift slowly to her stop and then drape about the edge, letting gravity pull her lower. He kept his silence.

"I am sorry, you know," she said. "And grateful. I don’t think I could have lived with myself if—"

"We'd have survived," Plumbthroat said, before his sudden reversal in stance caught even his notice. "Ye were right. I didn't hire this lot because they're bad at fishing… goodness knows…" He coughed. "I hired them because they're stubborn."

"Stubborn as an Ox," Berryboo muttered.

"And now ye want t' apologize to him."

Berryboo glared back. "He was my friend. He was…" she repeated. The Skipper's only response was to blow a stream of smoke in her direction, which she coughed at out of contractual obligation to the censors but otherwise ignored. "He was more than my friend and I wanted him to come back so much…"

"It's not that easy," Plumbthroat said. "Ye think I don't talk to my men? That one wants subordinates, an' nothing else. I don't know what happened between you two, but… I'd wager 'friends' are fairly low on his list. Much less you, princess."

"I think you're wrong," Berryboo said. "I think everybody wants friends, Eustace. You just have to open your hear to them and if they want to come…"

"Let in the bosun? Princess," said Plumbthroat. "I don't think you were listening to me today. He's not yer friend any longer, princess. Letting him in would mean nothing but pain and trouble t' ye."

Berryboo knew well enough when she was being made fun of. "I listened. And I thought about it, Eustace. I did. But I think… if you don't let people in, they can't get in."

Plumbthroat replaced his pipe between his lips, his eyes turned away. "Aye."

Berryboo's face fell. "I know he's not very good right now. I don't think I'll ever really understand why. And, today… when he…" She clenched her tentacles, ground them at the tips as though crushing sand, then released. The venting drained the hate from her eyes until there were only traces of hurt. "But you stopped me. You."

She perked up, leaning in closer. Plumbthroat barked a dismissal and turned away, but Berryboo was not so easily pushed aside. "But you did!" she insisted. "You didn't let me hurt anyone!"

Plumbthroat was aghast. "I didn't let ye hurt me!"

Berryboo laughed a bit. "Well, yes, but…" Berryboo shook her head. "It's not just that. You've been looking out for me all day! You're a good person, Eustace! Isn't that what I told you? You could have talked to the others, but you talked to me because you knew I would listen! Because you listen!" Plumbthroat turned even further away, his shoulders hunching in as if wincing under the blows of her words. Encouraged, she pressed on. "Because you know me. You knew you could stop me and I… That was more than I deserved." She seemed to flutter for a moment, the memory searing her still. "Because… you've got a good heart, and you just need to listen to it, Eustace! I just needed someone who cared to remind me who I was, and maybe that's all you need, too!"

Plumbthroat's hand shot out, directly in front of Berryboo as she tried to close the final gap between them. "Stop," he said. She looked up toward his face and met with angry eyes, choked and narrowed. "Stop, aren't you listening to yourself? Don't you know how you sound?"

"Eustace…"

"Plumbthroat!" he shouted, and he slammed his hand down on the rail, blowing her back up into the air as it rattled. "You! You with your smiles, you with your glassy-eyed speeches. You!" He removed his pipe and jabbed it at her. "There be a word for this," he said, "and I'll have no part of it!"

Berryboo's frowned at him. "I am not delusional!" she countered. "This isn't some… coping syndrome! Don't you think for one minute, 'Skipper Plumbthroat,' that I've forgotten whose plans these were today! You were the one who kidnapped me and you were the one that tried to have my friends killed! I'm not here because I'm deluded, Eustace." Her shouting calmed. "I'm here because I think everyone deserves a chance. I think you're a good person because… well, that's just how you act. You listened to me today. You helped those kids as soon as I mentioned them, even though that thing was in the water. Squiddles just… with our friends, we can do anything, and we'd do anything for our friends. I just… I think if you had someone who cared for you, you'd see how good you are."

Plumbthroat glowered, and then he began to mutter. Whatever dialogue had been set before his voice actor had been read with only a whisper, but it was a whisper sharp and personal. It sunk to murmurs cut by sharp lashes of his tongue to heights of legibility, where the viewer could catch the hint of a phrase, none of it complimentary. He stopped only with a jolt, and when he looked down, Berryboo had latched to the back of his free hand.

"…Princess…" he growled in caution, though that only succeeded in getting her to squeeze tighter, eyes clenched shut in strain.

"You care," she insisted. "I know you do, I just want you to see. I don't want anyone to be hurt and I don't think you do, either. I don't want you to hurt anyone, anymore."

The Skipper had reached toward her, to pry her from his hand directly, before he realized what she was trying to do and halted, tangled in her grasp, and he said: "Then you don't know 'care'." He rested his hand instead on the rail aside the other. "And what will you do when you're wrong? When I have your friends in my traps and all you have is that I 'care'?" He set his pipe back to his lips. "Or what if you're right? Because I don't think you understand what you're sayin'. Yer talkin' about takin' on the weight of another person, a person who wants things you hate, while you cap their violence until yer overwhelmed. That's no friend. That's pourin' all your care, and your love and your pity into a pit to win nothing o' yer own!"

Berryboo glared up at him. "My people would be safe."

"Aye," Plumbthroat said with a chuckle. "Your people. A good royal answer, except not for you. Yer people are yer friends, princess. Yer friends, watching yer sails lose their wind, day after day, only for it t' come blast ye back the way ye came."

She tightened her grip on him to reinforce her honesty, but he ignored her, so she spoke instead. "You can't ask me to give up, Eustace. You can't ask me to give up on people. Mi—Ox and I were friends my whole life! You… much as you've been a rash on it, you've been here my whole life, too, and I don't… I don't need to be friends. If you'd just look out for other people. That'd be enough." She pointed to her face. "I'm allowed to hope for the world. And I'm allowed to work for it, too!"

"Not like this, not like this!" He raised his hand so that she was at eye level. "Ye can't force help on people tha' don't want it, and the people that do… you don't want that. Ye won't find joy strapped to a deadweight on the ocean floor, ye won't find safety chained to a monster!"

"You're not!" Berryboo rubbed at her eyes, as though afraid of tears that had not yet come. "You're just trying to work, I know that, and Ox—"

"People change," Plumbthroat snapped.

"People grow!" Berryboo cried, though her grip loosened to do it. "As much one way as the other!" Her tentacles tensed under her, above his hand, as was reflex, and she shook with pain and hope. "Sometimes all they need is a friend who loves them."

Plumbthroat paused, and he took a moment to dump his pipe, to tap it against the rail until it had emptied into the sea. After that, there was silence. Drained and exhausted by the day, they waited alone on the deck in silence. Stars peaked through above: the Isle of Dread and hate had lost its curse.

Finally, Berryboo picked herself up. "…You care. I don't know what you call this if not that. B-but I'm done. I'm sorry, Eustace. I did mean what I said. I… won't bother you any more."

"Wait," Plumbthroat growled. "Princess." She turned up to look at him, though he did not look to her. "Why're ye here, princess?" Berryboo half opened her mouth before he interrupted again. "Are ye truly here to apologize, or are ye here so an old monster will tell ye that ye don't have to?" Berryboo looked up as Plumbthroat continued. "That the ends justify the means, that ye were 'just protectin' yer people,' that yer father and mother would un'nerstand?"

"…I don't have to take this, Eustace," she said, and she turned.

Plumbthroat paused, and as he did, he reached down and picked up the board that rested by his feet. "Ye said ye thought I'd be happier if I had someone in me life to love and t' hold. Well imagine me, if ye will, with a little one. Heart as big as yours." That stopped Berryboo. Though they stood apart, their eyes met, and she listened. "And one day, she saw the world was dark? That other folks were like storms instead of good winds, and that even she could be dangerous? D'ye know what I'd tell her?"

Berryboo looked away, but Plumbthroat stepped forward. "I'd tell her it was all right to be angry, when the time is right," he said, drawing her attention and surprise. "And seein' as how she was growing into the world, I'd hope she'd find someone to love and love her back. Just as angry as her," he added, and it was clear he knew how odd this must have sounded at first. A smile cracked on Berryboo's face. "So that they'd both un'nerstand why, when one of them was sad or angry," he explained, his voice still soft, "and bring each other back again. Both ways. That's not friendship. That's love, and it's stronger, even if it's much, much harder. I wouldn't damn her to someone so opposed to her that she'd never get anything back. That's not love. I think you see that."

Berryboo sat up as straight as she could in his hands. "I don't think of you or Ox as worse than me, Eustace." Her eyes wavered all the same, and Plumbthroat's face fell.

"Take it from an old man, princess," he said, lowering her to the rail. "Who's been there before. Ye tried, and ye can be proud of that. But I think ye've spent enough love, even before today. Don't waste it. We both know how that would end."

She looked up at him, sad at first, but then smiled as broad a smile as she had ever managed. "I don't think you know Squiddles very well, Eustace. We know we're not wasting our love on our friends!"

But he did not smile back. Instead, he took up the board he had gathered and brought it into the light: the mesh cage that had rested atop the aquarium. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a spool of wire and a pair of clippers, and set to work repairing the thing. "Ye'll see," he said.

When he looked up next she had disappeared, leaving him alone on the deck, and he nodded to the empty air. He worked for a moment before his hands first fell lax, and then toward his pipe as his mind drifted. Finally, Plumbthroat held up the mesh frame, examining not the tear but the opposite, intact corner. The starlight that bounced off the ocean shone through obscured, casting glimmering light onto his face past grid in black. And Plumbthroat sighed, stepped back, and let the frame fall into the sea.

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It was beyond late, deep into the Human's night and the Troll's day, and Karkat watched the screen with eyes too bloodshot to hide his once-greatest secret. He had cleared the others out with his trusty Broom of Office and had locked himself, metaphorically, in the corner of the computer lab, trapped with his new roommates. His new roommates were bright neon, and voiced in only the highest octaves. He had trapped himself, he thought, until he had watched Season 1 from start to finish, scouring it for "evidence."

They were driving him slowly mad, and he was sure it was intentional, a surety that grew with each passing scene. That only made sense, didn't it? After all, these episodes were messages from a sanity-twisting pack of gods, weren't they? Or was that just the third season? After seeing what he had of the first, he was no longer so sure. The morals of the Human children's programming were opposed to his own, nearly to the point of induced vomiting. The programs the fleet air-dropped on Alternia and slipped alongside the schoolfeeding was focused on the hemospectrum, on the importance of filling quadrants and on taking your neighbour's land if he or she didn't deserve it. Perhaps because the foremost applied so little to him, Karkat had trimmed his respect for the last, but he had never discarded them entirely.

Besides, the show was shit.

Kanaya entered the room via the transportalizer, her arrival gone entirely unnoticed as Karkat stared up at the screen like an antlerbeast caught in the vehicular visible spectrum highbeams, and did not even notice her nervous hand touch down on the couch. He sat there, hypnotised, until the moral of the story had been triply confirmed and the credits rolled. At first, he was too incapable to give her any more response than an askance glare.

"The animation looks different," Kanaya commented.

"Watching the first two seasons first to get context before going back to Three. This style is early nineties anime," Karkat replied from memory. Jade had been allowed to stay until he had gauged that she had "overdrawn her helpfulness account" for the day.

"It seems somewhat more limited than that the later seasons, but that may just be a cultural difference."

"It's asinine," he said, and then stammered: "I-I mean the writing is asinine. Unbelievable. Did you know you shouldn't fight with your friends, Kanaya?" His hand clenched the arm rest next to him near hard enough to tear. "You really shouldn't! Because they've told me five times. And this show is fucked, by the way. The end credits try to convince Human babies to go to sleep on time or their favourite characters will be horribly murdered. People in our shows were only murdered if they deserved it!"

Karkat's manic mood began to fizzle when he looked up for a reaction. Kanaya's look was haggard, heavy. Though she kept her voice even, it was clear at a glance that she had been crying. Karkat truly did not have the energy for this.

"What is it?" he asked. He was worried that the worst had happened. He and Kanaya had had a conversation the day before on other subjects. He had helped defuse that situation. It couldn't be the same thing.

"I may have… exploded at Vriska." Kanaya wavered. "About… everything."

"Oh… Good. About time," Karkat said as credits wrapped up. Soon the screen had exploded in a familiar pattern of technicolour that made up the main title credits as the next episode began.

"No 'I told you so?'"

"I said you should, is what I said. Did you hurt her?"

Kanaya stopped, as though this was a particular worrying point. When she replied it was to say: "No, I did not."

Karkat glanced partially over his shoulder before the gleeful grins on the screen forced him to growl at the TV just for posterity. He upturned the pillows he had been leaning on and slapped a hand on the cushion he had freed. "Sit."

Kanaya did not approach. "No further inquiries as to the outcome? Lectures about the need for cooperation in trying times? No insult implying that, given my temper, my 'explosion' must have been lacking?"

"Jegus, Kan, of course you can blow up as bad as the rest of us. Better with the gogdammed chainsaw." Karkat reached forward to the coffee table of stacked DVDs to retrieve the bowl of popcorn, which he offered to her along with the adjoining seat.

Kanaya, somewhat less nervous, took the offered seat with a graceful toss of her skirts. "How have you found the program's earlier seasons?"

Karkat grunted and collected the popcorn for her to share. "Harley wasn't lying, these Season 1 episodes don't have a thing to do with one another. Though it's messed as fuck watching Mint fucking Julep," he said, pointing to the Squiddle that would become Ox, "cuddling with Carefree Princess Bubblegum here." Karkat did not have to look up to feel Kanaya's stare at the names. "…Terezi decided to drop back and started naming everyone. With the clown again, of all people."

"I take it the conversation did not go as you could have hoped."

Karkat squelched a puffed kernel between his fingers, in what at least passed as unintentional. "Kanaya, rule number one is to not talk about Pyrope."

"I Was Simply Observing That Your Use Of Her Colour-Coded Terms Implied—"

"Hey!" he snapped. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND START TALKING!"

Kanaya stopped and took a handful of popcorn. "I'm sorry things aren't at their best."

Karkat just ignored her save to gesture for her to continue her story. Instead, Kanaya stopped and watched the show, the manic and flashy appearance of a children's program always hard to ignore. Mint – Ox – spun about the town square, saying good morning to all the citizens. A little red Squiddle, somewhere in size between Squibella-to-be and his fully grown, third season self, trailed after him. The young Squiddle parroted Mint's greetings, though he suffered at the uneven hands of comic relief in pratfalls and stumbles aplenty. Like déjà vu in form of a script, Mint's conversation with a carpenter Squiddle was interrupted by the royal entourage. A discouraged Berryboo approached to tell him that the Pepper Islands were behind on their Smiles Quota (oh no!).

"Fascinating," Kanaya said. The two Squiddle leads were over-enthused to see one another in a way only lazy anime could convey; with the bonus of shots being reused and taken out of context in a way only a shoestring could afford. Mint and Berryboo had exchanged these same emotions a dozen times before and would a hundred times more, until the show turned a profit and a tentacle-driven hook would slam through mesh wire. "Whatever could have changed things so drastically?"

Karkat just shrugged. "I haven't seen it yet, have I?" was all he had to say. The comfortable repetition of the opening scenes had already seized his attention in a way he would never admit. The Princess, too, had a shadow: a dark green Squiddle with a crooked chunk of coral in her grip and an iron headband that slumped over her eye. "So are you here to watch TV or are you going to tell me why you decided to blow up at Vriska now, of all times?"

Kanaya did not at first seem all that comfortable with his question, and curled up her legs to her chest. She kicked off her heels instead – a blister of green ran along one side of her foot – and sighed. Onscreen, Berryboo and Mint reassured one another about their dangerous mission with egregious, Tangle Buddy tangling. Mint's little brother tried to copy him but the girl that-would-be-Squiddette deflected him with a blow from her coral staff. Comic injury, frames dutifully recycled. Something about the scene caused Kanaya's sad frown to fade even, and she said: "I've grown."

Karkat did not quite know how to take that sort of ambiguity, and Kanaya simply sat with her head on her knees. She kept her eyes on him, and when he had nothing to say, spoke up again, cautious. "Can I talk to you?"

Her tone was quite serious, even for her, and lacked all ambiguity. Karkat met her eyes, a bundle of cautious nerves suddenly between them both. "Why me, anyway?" he asked.

"Because I want to." Straightforward, for Kanaya. Though perhaps not for a Kanaya that had just had words with Serket. She smiled. "Because a cartoon Human told me to look for balance in my relationships."

Karkat growled. "I hope you realize that if this story of yours doesn't end with Lalonde or Nitram prying your heel off of Vriska's throat, I'm just gonna be fucking insulted."

Kanaya laughed in spite of herself. "Of course, Karkat. What am I here for if not to humour your delusions of rage?" Karkat harrumphed. "You… still wish to speak with me?"

"Of course I'll talk with you," Karkat said with a wave of his hand. He reached forward to grab a new bowl of popcorn – he had prepared several out of what he firmly felt was necessity. "You're the only one sensible or pleasant on this rock. It's nice to pretend the world's still sensible and pleasant from time to time, and how the hell am I gonna trick myself into thinking that when the most sensible person here's got a beef with Vriska big enough to throttle her."

Kanaya smiled.

On screen, Berryboo and Mint had arrived at the islands, where they worked and brought smiles to everyone they met, implicitly trusting their friends to bring reinforcements if it came to that. Karkat and Kanaya talked. Kanaya told him about Vriska, how she had come in the middle of her time with Rose and how it had all gone downhill from there, and how Rose had to pry her off in the end. Karkat provided a running commentary, solid as he could manage second-hand. Kanaya had lashed out, and he told her that only made sense – it was an action he understood, and applauded. She had threatened to put paid some of Vriska's old debts, and while Karkat had leaderly concerns about her carrying it out, he was proud to hear she had stood up for herself. She asked him questions about Rose's response, and he answered.

As the conversation carried on, something changed. Though Karkat was happy to compliment his friend on her behaviour, Kanaya's early enthusiasm began to burn away. She began to pull back, into her corner of the couch, and Karkat was at a loss to explain it. As flowed naturally, he had his own questions, though he tried to turn things back to her. She was stubborn, however, and he came to ask her about Nepeta's behaviour that afternoon, and had questions about her answers in turn.

The show went on, Mint and Berryboo's investigation landing on the troublemaker with only a single interview. Kanaya, on the other hand, kept quiet, not willing to speak another word even as Karkat pried at her for follow-up. He asked about the conversation Kanaya had had with Rose after the fight and more, until the entire conversation had dried. The Squiddles took their information and moved on, to stop the evil Colonel before it was too late. Kanaya shrank further away.

"Is that all?" Karkat asked, after a long, awkward pause he was at an utter loss to explain. Kanaya nodded and Karkat resigned himself to wait. The episode wavered on, through obvious reveal and final conflict. Mint and Berryboo had made friends with a local hermit crab, who helped their reinforcements arrive right on time. As time wore on, Karkat noticed Kanaya watch him: gauging, guessing and trying to speak, only to cease each of her own attempts. It was only once the plot was almost said and done, and it seemed to Karkat like her time had been exhausted, that she spoke again.

"I wish…" she confessed, "I wish that I hadn't."

She shook to say it, but she had Karkat's full attention. "You…" Karkat had never heard a Troll confess to anything of the sort. "Is that what you're so tightly wound about?"

She slowly nodded. "I know, considering the circumstances, that that is not the prescribed response. You've been very supportive of my attitude, and I appreciate, but that was never…" She shook her head. "Vriska and I have known one another for some time. And though our relationship is no longer in the state it once was, I hardly think that justifies my response. I told her that she'd never had a pitying thought in her life, and she never bothered to be my moirail… but I would never all of our history to simply come to senseless platonic violence over some minor slight. If I could take it back… and… I'm sorry, this is… much harder than I thought it would be. I am a mess this evening."

"What, you're apologizing for not wanting to gut Serket?" Karkat rolled his eyes. "Well of course you don't want to hurt her. What, you come in here post-cry and you think I don't get that you were upset about what happened?"

"I…" Kanaya's legs slipped out her arms. "…truly?"

He reached for more popcorn. "Yeah?"

"…Karkat, if I had said that to anyone else…"

"That's why you're here, isn't it?" he said. He stopped his digging for snacks and snapped up a raised finger in Kanaya's direction. "Do not," he ordered, "hug me."

Kanaya retreated to her former position with a fang-bit smile. "I Will Refrain"

Karkat nodded. "I mean, shit. Who did I go for when I wanted to bitch about how I was getting used to fucking Egbert? Don't you realize we need to co-operate in these trying times?"

"Karkat."

Karkat snorted. "What, that was funny!" Kanaya frowned her hardest – she was quite good at it – and Karkat took another handful of popcorn before turning the bowl over to her. "You don't wanna hurt Vriska?" Kanaya ignored the popcorn and shook her head. "Good," he said. "I don't want you to hurt her either." Karkat took to his feet, and swung out his tired arms. "…You're right," he admitted. "That was weird to say. But I mean it. If you're this upset because you jostled her a bit I'd hate to see the mess you'd be in if you killed her."

"Stranger to say, stranger to hear," she said, a nervous smile on her face. "Considering it's you. You, saying it's all right to not want to hurt another; you, the one with the speeches about pride in our natural bloodlust—"

"Uh huh."

"…and your initially persistent attempts to terrifying the Humans with our culture clash!"

"Ah! I did no such thing!" Karkat said.

Kanaya shook her head. "No, Karkat, I remember it being direct orders!"

"They're standard tactics!" Karkat countered. "Every species is afraid of Trolls!"

"It didn't work." Kanaya crossed her arms, trying to look cross, but her anxiety had melted away. "Karkat… Speaking of speeches."

"What?" But then he remembered. "Oh. No, it's nothing. For fuck's sake…"

"I seem to recall," she said, ignoring him, "a certain noble and… vociferous leader of mine making an example of his own red and black quadrants, despite several pieces of evidence implying he had no such filled quadrants."

Karkat coughed, and took a seat on the pile of DVDs serving as a table across from her. "Now, see, what I was doing…"

"Mm-hm." Kanaya leaned forward.

Karkat held up his hands between them to gesture. "What I was doing was making a illustrative point in front of the moron gallery." Kanaya nodded. "They don't understand subtleties, people like Egbert, so I based my example on... uh…" Kanaya had pulled down his hands.

"Your speech was to the other Trolls, not John," she reminded, "…and a gentleman asks," she said.

Karkat could not help it if he broke out in a smile. Just a little one. He freed a hand to point at her. "A gentleman was going to fucking ask the next fucking afternoon. Gog knows you're the only one who listens to me any more, and I think the speech proves it."

Kanaya used her free hand to pull back a lock of her hair behind her horn, where it would stay out of her face. "Would you like to know a secret?"

Karkat suppressed the urge to shrug. If he was going to flirt he was at least going to pretend to know what he was doing. "What's that?"

"I… despise… your speeches." Karkat snorted and she laughed. Still. He should have seen that one coming. "I find them… biased," she said, and he nodded. "…poorly organized… and most disappointing I find they are often conducted by a small, angry little boy who – while he has my respect as a leader!" she said, while taking his hands between her own. "He is nowhere near as eloquent as a certain calm young man I know. He and I have spoken to a number of times in moments of duress or stress, and I think would do excellently in a… more public role."

"Mm-hm," he echoed, looking at his hands pressed between hers. "…You trying to picture my manicure?"

Kanaya managed to keep a straight face. "…It is favourably towards the back of my mind."

"…So," Karkat said. "You want to take me and my rage issues and turn me into a portrait of authority…"

"Mm," Kanaya said, now overtly examining his nails.

"And I…" Karkat let her do it. "I want you to go back to doing… whatever the hell it is any of us are doing here in this lab of infinite opportunities." She laughed. "But I bet it'll be kind of hard for you to do if you start by putting half of an old friend in one side of the room and the other half in the other."

"Extremely hard."

"Well," Karkat said. "I just wanted to point out how that sounds."

"Well," she said, "we do need to cooperate in these trying times…" Kanaya freed her hands and set them under her chin. "I think it's exactly how it sounds. You?"

"…do you want to know a secret?" he asked.

Kanaya nested her hands tighter together. "If you're willing."

Karkat nodded, and then sighed. Kanaya reached up to brush some of his hair behind his ear. "…Here it is:" he said. "…if I watch another episode of this show, I'm going to… brutally murder everyone in this laboratory. Starting…"

"With Jade," Kanaya said, understanding covering her smile. "This is originally her fault."

"Right, so instead, I was thinking that instead of the killing… you and I get something to eat, and then we riff this shit into paradox space and no one has to die."

Kanaya crossed her arms looked at him in feigned suspicion. "You can't cook."

"No, but Egbert and Gamzee can and I have all their alchemy codes."

Kanaya, feigning faint, fanned herself with her hand. "Oh my, Mr. Vantas! You'll spoil me!"

"Shut up," Karkat groaned as he took to his feet. There, he stood up straight and offered her his hand. Smiling, she reached up and took it, and when she was standing to her full height, she pulled him into an embrace.

"My pardons," she said, past his shoulder. "But I think I have a certain imperative to sidestep your orders from this point if they're against your… better interest."

"Yeah, yeah," Karkat muttered. He fidgeted for a moment before caving and pulling her closer. "Hey," he said when she broke off the hug. "Speaking of ignoring my orders, what the fuck was Vriska doing in your room when you were so pissed at her, anyway? I thought those things were locked."

"Oh," Kanaya said, with a shake of her head. "Did you hear the news?"

"Doubt it."

Kanaya took the lead down to the kitchen. "Apparently, Vriska was in the main transportalizer chamber with," she counted off: "Aradia, Feferi, Equius and Dave, and… well, I should step back for the full story…"

They left the DVD paused behind them as they went. There on the screen, Berryboo and the others had returned to town, where the morals had passed and the celebration had begun, each frame of animation still new and fresh. The Squiddle princess cheered and danced with her Tangle Buddy, happy and safe, in that childhood world that would keep them so, forever.

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This is all Decker's fault. It all started with me at the Valentine's Gift Exchange, realizing that I wanted to participate but didn't… actually… have any ships. Hmph. So I tried to come up with the weirdest thing I could just for laughs, and then I came to the fanfic thread and told them I had just had "the dumbest idea." Decker said something about "one man's trash" and here we are. I never went to the gift exchange. I had Squiddles to write by then.

Jack and Black Queen kept coming up when I was writing this chapter. …Playlist. Playlist, no.

You know, I figured the best sort of context for inventing "pale flirting" (it is a romance) would be between characters whose sexual preferences would make them flushed/caliginously incompatible, but I was quickly reminded how much characters resemble puppets in poorly prepared hands. When things went right, they did indeed go very well. When I got pale flirting wrong… ugh. I'm so sorry, Kan. Go make out with Rose or something. I don't care if it breaks your character arcs, you've got my permission. …So skeevy.

"The end credits try to convince Human babies to go to sleep on time or their favourite stars will be horribly murdered." No, really. Give Let The Squiddles Sleep another listen. The first half, not the second half. This show is for reals fubar. And so, congrats to Robert J! Lake.


Fic-Wide Notes
As I was wrapping this fic up, I was actually going to add a fourth-wall breaking segment called Squiddles Says!, first as an interrupted gag (that broke mood, so I dropped it) and then in a bonus chapter. Unfortunately, I lost my original jokes in the time it took me to finish the final chapter. It was going to star Robert J! Lake's two rapping Squiddles from Tentacles (not that I could work out the first one's name) as they tried to teach you how to make a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And while I still think it's kind of hilarious to have a focus group inspired, blinged-out rapping jellyfish telling you, with a straight face, to tell your "mommy or daddy" if you get a burn, I think I'm done criticizing the early nineties now.

Regret: I had to drop a joke that was going to span the fic about there being barnacles on Plumbthroat's ship that were constantly gossiping to one another, despite the fact that they're barnacles and so were obviously all there at the time of the story. After a while they were just going to be these tiny voices in the background I would not even identify after their first few appearances because they were kind of tell-tale. This was going to culminate with them reminiscing about the whale attacks in between individual blows. The trouble was that they kept ruining perfectly dramatic scenes, as you can imagine. Oh well.

All the voice actors have a double-T in their last name. This was originally unintentional but I ran with it (but nevertheless covered the majority of the names – only the ones in Chapter 3 were forced) since it alludes to the eldritch connection between the outer gods and Rose. One thing that was dropped from the actors was that two of them were originally supposed to be cultists, but I worried about that corrupting their characters' lines, so I won't even say who they originally were. There is a remnant of that, however: several of the actors that left the show suffered injuries in the water, Squibella's voice actress being killed. The two that stayed, however, both owe some measure of success to water: Everett for her health, MacDermott for his work in The Tempest, where he started his career.

And that's it. Whew. I did it. I got through this entire fic without saying "bitches lovve wwhales". You cannot imagine what a load that is off my back. I think that deserves a trophy, but they probably ended up giving it to Vriska. #hipwiththeinjokes

DVD Bonus Material

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Esteemed Character Actor Charles S. Dutton (b January 30 1951 – d ???). Writer. Voice of Squidnanna.

The power of friendship and the
Power of love will guide us,
We'll all live in harmony.
And sing the song of the sea…

[chronicProcrastinator]

Well that was gog damned exelimpressive. Kudos.

[Decker]

This is all Decker's fault. It all started with me at the Valentine's Gift Exchange, realizing that I wanted to participate but didn't… actually… have any ships. Hmph. So I tried to come up with the weirdest thing I could just for laughs, and then I came to the fanfic thread and told them I had just had "the dumbest idea." Decker said something about "one man's trash" and here we are. I never went to the gift exchange. I had Squiddles to write by then.

Man, I've been getting blamed for awesome stuff a lot lately.

I'll finish the last couple chapters after work tomorrow and then I'll have more comments. Day job and all that fun stuff.

[TacticGamer]

i wonder

whats with the SURPRISING LACK OF BODYSWAP FICS in this community?

ive only seen three so far

[SkaianRedeemer]

@chronicProcrastinator: And you have exelimpressive wordsmithing skills!

@Decker: Gotta watch out for that inspirational power if it's spawning Squiddles fic, but otherwise, I say let it loose. But if you haven't read the last couple of chapters (if that's what you meant), how did you know about the Author's Note? (shifty eyes) Inspires others... can hear name mentioned when not in vicinity... Decker, are you Fandom Superman?

EDIT: Aw, shit, you didn't read the last chapter and miss 5 and 6, did you? Shit, I should have put a notice up on AO3 about the triple update. I did it last time...

[Decker]

Hehe. Actually, it's because when I check to see if a fanfiction is updated on AO3, it's usually by scrolling to the end and seeing if any of the text looks familiar. If it's stuff I know I've read before, Then I know it hasn't updated. Then I'll move up the chapters (Scrolling up from the bottom. I usually have all the chapters on one page) until I see something I recognize and then start from there. (Specifically, I was looking for the "Thanks guys" line from Rose.) Didn't quite work that way this time though. I caught my name while I was scrolling down.

So no, I didn't read the last chapter, only maybe the last sentence of the last chapter.

Edit: Anyway, I'm glad I could help get the ball rolling. I really think the world would be better if people took themselves a little less seriously, and I try to encourage that. Some great things have happened because someone decided to do something strange or silly on a whim.