Homestuck

We got a sneak peek of a weird character cleaning a discarded faygo bottle off of the beach. And we also know that caligulasAquarium [CA] is one of the 2 trolls we’ve yet to meet. We know they are kind of an asshole. So now it’s time to meet them.

Eridan Ampora. We meet him riding a seahorse while armed with a neat blue harpoon gun. He is above a vast ocean while a storm ages on around him (yet there’s no waves?”). A huge white whale breaches the ocean and charges at him. He doges and shoots the whale with a huge blast of the rifle. The whale falls back into the sea, probably dead.

As this is a double introduction we cut to cuttlefishCuller [CC], the last troll to meet. Her name is Feferi Peixes. She is under the sea and a dead whale has landed on the surface above her. She captures the whale in a net and drags it to the dark depth of the ocean. Tentacles rise from the darkness and the whale is consumed by a creature about 1000 times bigger than it. A tentacle monster the size of a small town. These had been Lusus, though we don't know who the whale belonged to, the tentacle creature belongs to Feferi. Eridan’s Seahorse is his lusus. They return to their hives.

Feferi lives on the ocean floor. Eridan’s hive is a pirate ship crashed onto an island. His hive is covered in piles of gold and gems. He's got some viking wizard statues, harpoon guns, maps, and some books. He says he is nearly of the highest blood color, simular purple to Gamzee. He is from a line of sea dwellers, genetically distinct from other trolls. This likely refers to the fins coming out of his cheeks.

Eridan’s openly genocidal, wanting to kill all land dwellers. This being anyone who isn't Feferi and himself. We learned he had commissioned a doomsday device from Vriska to accomplish this, though that plan failed. He has an interest in Military History and Legendary Conquerors. He’s based his personality off of this.

Feferi’s hive is full of sea creatures, cuttlefish and sea ponies. There's a bunch of bird cages (for cuttlefish). Her blood color is fuchsia. This is apparently the highest one. I had assumed it was Gamzee for some reason, but it's apparently Feferi. She is the Heir apparent to be the empress. This would normally make her the target of assassination attempts from the current empress, but her gigantic lusus is protecting her, for now. Her lusus is called The Rift's Carbuncle, Emissary To The Horrorterrors, or Speaker of The Vast Glub.

However, as she's aware the game will soon doom everyone, any royal aspirations are doomed with it. But she’d want to make a point of caring for all of the unfit and infirm, and wildlife. Though her idea of caring seems to be more like imprisonment as it's what she is trying to do with the cuttlefish. Fortunately her bird cages dont secure them. Unlike Eridan, she wants to reunite with the land dwellers.

Last time we learned that after entering the medium Kanaya had to deal with something and leave her team. It seems we won't get to know what that was yet as we now meet Kanaya shortly after the crisis she had was resolved. She is in her room, her lusus sprite next to her.

As she is hosting Vriska she can see everything she is doing, including the things she just did with Travos. Possibly only the kiss as she was very shocked and pissed off by seeing that. She apparently even helped Vriska make the dress that she had been wearing. She repeats the same odd line caligulasAquarium [CA] said before. “Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.”

We are then given the explanation of how Troll relationships work and what all the weird words mean. I'll try to sum it up. Humans only have one kind of romantic relationship represented with the heart ♥(red). I think this is a horribly simplified view of human romance but let’s just roll with it.

Trolls experience 4 different kinds of relationships, presented as quadrants.

♥ ♦

♠ ♣

• Top left is the flushed quadrant, relationships in here are Matesprits ♥. This is what humans typically experience. With both humans and trolls is “playing a role in the reproductive cycle”. It's described as being “Concupiscent”, possessing more sexual desire. As it's red it is a positive relationship. The example given is John's Dad and Rose’s Mom, it's been implied though I guess this confirms it.

• Bottom left is the caliginous (dark or dim) quadrant. These relationships in here are Kismesis ♠. As it is a black it's a negative relationship, a dark Romance based on hate. If the hate between two people is strong enough it leads to a strong romantic connection. It is also concupiscent and plays a role in reproduction. The example given is Jack and the Queen.

As an aside we are given an explanation on troll reproduction. At least the parts that are different then the human reproduction. For an explanation on human reproduction I recommend you ask your parents, guardians, or google it. For trolls an Imperial Drone is sent to them and they need to provide “genetic material” for a bucket. Failure to provide results in death. I’ll let you use your imagination on what material is required. The buckets contain the “incestuous slurry” of all trolls and is given to the mother grub, Kanaya’s lusus. This is likely related to the weird orb Kanaya pulled from its dead corpse.

• Bottom right is the ashen quadrant, relationships in here are Auspistice ♣. This does not play a role in reproduction as it can be like being the “third wheel” in an existing relationship. Conciliatory relationships act as mediators to help to resolve conflicts . The example given is Kanaya being an auspistice for Vriska and Travos. It is further explained that these auspistice are needed. As all these relationships are volatile. A Matesprit can switch into a Kismesis leading to mass infidelity and conflict. It's not mentioned, but since this is a black relationship it is a negative one. IT seems the role takes a toll on those in it.

• Lastly top right is the pale quadrant, relationships in here are Moirallegience ♦. This one also does not play a role in reproduction. It is also a Conciliatory relationship. This is more like a platonic relationship. The example given is Nepeta and Equius, Nepeta is the Moirail. The moirail needs to pacify another troll. This is for trolls who may be particularly dangerous or violent. A Moirallegience can work both ways personalities can complement each other. These can also be confused for Matesprits. Much like human relationships this situation causes issues. A second example is provided with the 2 trolls we’ve yet to meet. caligulasAquarium [CA] and cuttlefishCuller [CC] are another example of a Moirallegience. We’re shown CA clearly wants a Matesprits relationship with CC. this is unrequited, thus the relationship is in constant flux.

We are given more hints on the current status of trolls. This unrequited situation was the situation with Kanaya’s feelings towards Vriska. As that failed she became the Auspistice for Vriska’s relationship with Travos. It hints she will also become Auspistice for a relationship between Vriska and CA. That may be a future thing.

We had been told of this before. Just very poorly by Karkat to John. This was a conversion between him and John way back on page 1603 I think?. The point he was trying to make is that Troll romance is way more complicated than human romance. Also John is an idiot for not understanding this apparently very complicated subject. But trolls are apparently all diehard romantics. They believe that someone is out there waiting for them in each of these quadrants. I’ll remind you failure to find love is literally a death sentence. so this belief is a little more understandable.

Later we see Travos entering a ruin. His ability to commune with animals works on the underlings as a band of them are travelling with him. He is solving some puzzles though Vriska finds this boring.

Vriska has been scheming a way to “help” Travos get an advantage and skip ahead in the game. She provides him with a map to a great treasure horde. This seems familiar to Terezi “helping” John skip ahead in the game and nearly getting him killed. Travos is skeptical. But, Vriska claims to have used her mind-reading ability on his underling friends to find this secret. Travos wants to ask the others but Kanaya and Karkat are both busy. So Travos agrees to Vriska’s plan. She also makes him dress like Pupa Pan.

This led him into the second gate, and Vriska’s hive in the Land of Maps and Treasure and The Thief of Light. Much like John and Roses meeting, Travos smashes through her wall with his rocket chair. Vriska is asleep though she has fairy wings and some kind of white dress. Vriska wakes up, apparently only pretending to be asleep. She is in roleplay mode, as the hero pupa pan has come to take her on an adventure. With his rocket chair crashed Travos is just laying on the floor unable to really do much. So the torment begins. She tosses some “magic glitter power” at his face which only seems to make him dizzy. She comments on how useless he is. She then grabs and kisses him to make him think happy thoughts. This only confuses the hell out of him. She uses mind control to make him more.. wanting. This seems to make him madly desire her. But, she doesn't really seem to want that either and tosses him back onto the floor.

It’s clear she had other intentions here. Vriska is a character that instantly needs to be loved. She sees Travos not only does not seem to like or trust her, but the others hate her for what she did to him. Perhaps she saw romancing him as a way to get back into everyone's good graces. Though when seduction failed she opted for mind control. This was frustrating as it supports her perceptions that she isn't loved.

We’ve been following Kanaya. She's been “meddling” with the last 2 trolls we’ve yet to meet cuttlefishCuller [CC] and caligulasAquarium [CA]. Also her lusus had died, and she removed the Matriorb from its corpse.

Kanaya returns to her hive. She doesn't want to be a Meddler. With this game she wishes to use her knowledge to become a real helper. She has the clouds providing her with some visions. But she has another source, the game FAQ micro server that Rose sent to the realm beyond the medium. It seems time there is not linear. She believes that the server is written by an ancient alien race. But, we know this would not be put into the realm of the old gods until much later. Kanaya is confident the writer and their co-players will have succeeded. She Imagines their leader is Rose, but as a troll, doing awesome magic.

Travos entered the game with Vriska as his host. One role of the host is to build their player base up so that they can reach the gates. Vriska has done this with stairs. Obviously this is useless to Travos for obvious reasons. Vriska had apparently “saved” Travos by logging in and getting him into the medium. She now feels justified in demanding Travos get over his disability (that she created). She seems to believe that Travos’s spine can just be fixed if he somehow muscles through it. She then demands he apologize to her for being disabled.

He refuses. His spine is broken but he still has one. Though Vriska doesn't understand what ‘no’ means and proceeds to try and force him out of his chair. Fortunately, Vriska’s own host is Kanaya. Upon hearing of the bullying threatens Vriska with her own toilet. She strongly suggest Travos will need ramps. Also she may accidentally dump the contents of the toilet onto Vriska’s head. Vriska decides to comply.

As Kanaya cleans Vriska's room (I’d have done the same) Vriska retrieves a pair of rocket boots she happened to keep in her vault of plundered goods. Using some alchemy she gives the code to Travos, who combines the boots with his chair. This gives Travos a sick rocket chair he uses to easily get to the first gate.

We start today with grimAuxiliatrix [GA]. She is one of 3 trolls we’ve yet to meet. We have seen her in a few scenes though. She was talking primarily with Rose and even managed to best her in a battle of social wits. GA was also seen removing Travos’s paralyzed legs with a chainsaw. She isn't great with technology, as she has leaned on Sollux to help her with using computers.

We learn her real name is Kanaya Maryam. Unlike other trolls, Kanaya can go outside during the day. It seems the sun above Alternia is too bright for most trolls. Daytime is also when hordes of undead rise from the sands. Kanaya’s chainsaw helps with this but she tries to avoid them. She spends the day tending to her landscaping and topiary hobby. She mentions she dreams of “puffy oracles”. She also likes to read about “rainbow drinkers”, “shadow droppers” and forbidden passion. Her blood is jade green in color. Though this isn't high in the hemospectrum based hierarchy, it's a special position. Her lusus is the “Virgin Mother Grub”. We learned in an earlier conversation that the other trolls hold this lusus in high regard. Also different from Kanaya, she loves aesthetics and colors. The trolls we’ve met so far only care about blood color and have otherwise been pretty drab. Kanaya loves fashion and plants. Her room is decorated with fabrics and flowers. She also seems to have access to advanced technology like the Wardrobifyer. Her room somewhat resembles Jade's tower though we haven't seen much of it yet. We did see the outside of it briefly in a false intro. It looks like the section of Jade's room that her dreambot self-destructed. She mentions the hive was a ruin dug out of the sand by her lusus. The ruins are not from Alternia but from another world she has seen only in her dreams.

Firstly she equips her ~~chainsaw~~ lipstick. This, being a reference to Problem Sleuth where weapons were often stored as random items. So “The thing you saw is not the thing you think you saw”. In this case the chainsaw is just lipstick, until it needs to be a chainsaw, and her Strifespec is Makeup Kind. As her outfit is randomly changing, she is being pestered by cuttlefishCuller [CC]. Notice her laptop is the same Squiddles lunchbox laptop Jade was using. CC is not a troll we have met yet, we haven't even seen their pester handle until this time.

CC is friendly to Kanaya. So far it seems everyone is. CC is the sign of pisces, the one with 2 fish. This may be why she “glubs” when excited. CC is very excited about getting into the game. She will be entering late after her “moirail”. Again, this word hasn't been defined yet. But I know it will be later. we can assume it is a relationship of some level, and based on context it's somewhat of a solemate or romantic thing. Kanaya also has one. They mention they will lose contact with their moirails shortly for a time. But see them again later. Though they are pretty vague on the details, it mentioned that Kanaya see’s hers from the clouds.

After this Kanaya goes to see her lusus in its final moments. But, she is too late as it seems to have died peacefully in front of her hive. She had made a bargain with it. She proceeds to cut into here lusus’s corpse with her chainsaw and removes an orb. The orb is covered in small troll forms from the creature. She stores this in her Chastity Modus. The item, a “matriorb”, is locked until Kanaya can find a key to unlock it. She is nearly overcome with a strong urge to drink the blood of her lusus, but seems to resist it. She then decides to meddle with her moirail. This is apparently Vriska. This was the conversation from page 2204. This was the one where she tells Vriska her lusus will die soon. Also that she wants to keep an eye on Vriska to keep everyone safe.

Before she can move on she is pestered by someone. The last of the trolls we have yet to meet caligulasAquarium [CA]. Surprise, it's another asshole. They are the zodiac of aquarius and have salty mouth. CA is demanding Kanaya have Vriska unblock him so he can talk to her. He was the one who had commissioned her to build the massive doomsday. The device that had eventually killed her lusus. He wants to use it to kill all land dwellers. Kanaya points out she hasn't really been motivated to help him. She certainly isn't interested in helping him get a device that would kill her and everyone else. She also points out that the planet will be destroyed by the game anyway. CA seems to have been mostly out of the loop about all this, and is grouchy about it. Kanaya decides to meddle and suggests that CC was talking about how she feels about CA. This really seems to get his attention but she refuses to give him any details of the conversation. He says something about how it's hard to be a kid and grow up before ending the convo. I don't really know what he means by this, or how it's related to the conversation.

Jack presents Operation Regisurp, a plan that will need Karkat’s whole team to put in place. This includes mind control powers. Unlike the queen of the kids' world, the queens for the trolls have rings of 12 fold power. All the lusus they’ve prototypes are now part of the dark queen's powers. She can take on all these weird freaky augments. but one thing addition she cant handle, frogs, she despises them. This is why frogs are contraband across the kingdom. The frogs hail a god of a few different names. We'll stick with "Bilious Slick". Since Aradia has prototyped the frog ruins, the queen now refuses to wear the ring of power. She's sealed it in the royal vault.

We're told this operation will succeed. The black queen will become the Banished Quasiroyal living in the wastelands. This is very much like the Windswept Questant. Yet, once in the wastelands she’ll encounter Doc Scratch and get a new purpose. The assumption the trolls had is that the red and blue teams would have a queen to defeat. Each team would be able to help each other to jointly achieve victory in these separate tasks. But this wasn't the case. The prototypes of the red team affected the underlings that the blue team would fight as vice versa. Each team also appeared to have its own set of mystical frog ruins. But in reality there was only one session. All 12 trolls were on the same team from the beginning. They just didn't know it. In this case the players were allowed to create 2 separate chains. 2 players entered the game separately and formed chains of 6 players, the red and blue teams. But the 2 chains would be connected in something called the “Mobius Double Reach Around”. This would link Sollux to Karkat and Equis to grimAuxiliatrix [GA], one of 3 trolls we’ve yet to meet.

This log is a little short. A lot of this was explained with diagrams that are tricky to explain. The very TLDR version of this is. Jack has presented himself to Karkat. Much like in the session with the kids Jack wants to murder the monarchy. But in this session he is a little less ambitious and power hungry. He presents Karkat with a lengthy plan to kill the black queen. Both teams need to work together to accomplish this goal, they are both on the same side in the same game. This means, as Aradia had been telling everyone, the teams do not matter. There's no “leaders”. All the bickering, betrayals, and fighting had been pointless.

Vriska has just had to put her lusus down. Her luck has been terrible and her plan to gain Aradia’s favour with a gift has completely gone. With all this she’s also been kicked off the blue team. She’s now going to have to join the red team with a lot of people who she dislikes.

Karkat messages Vriska to recruit her. Though she doesn't have much choice in the matter. Karkat is a little less sympathetic to her situation. He suggests she just “dump” her dead lusus into the sprite, clean the blood off and get into the game. She retorts with an accusation about him hiding his blood color. All the other trolls have their blood color as their font color, his font is grey. He mentions that it's no one's business and he doesn't need to wear his color “on his sleeve”. That is a bit on the nose.

Karkat tells Vriska she needs to get Travos into the game. She protests this, because she hates Travos. There was never any reason given for why Vriska hates Travos and Karkat questions this. He suspects they have a “dark romance” or “Kismesis”. This is denied, Karkat gives a lecture about how trolls only experience pity or hate for each other that determines their relationships. He says Vriska only has a mild hate towards everyone so she cant real relationships like a “Moirail” or “Matesprite”. We are not told what these words mean yet but it will be explained later. Karkat gets called out for watching too many romance movies and is told to get to his damn point.

Karkat needs Virska to get Travos in then herself. He needs her mind powers to help him with some kind of double agent. A game character named Jack. Jack as we know from previous acts is not as terrible in this world. Here he is performing the same role as the Wayward vagabond was for John. Though in most other ways he is the same, and eventually becomes Spades Slick.

It’s shown to us now that Karkat had been having this whole conversation with Jack awkwardly standing behind him. Also Karkat is nursing a stab wound. We learn Karkat blood seems to be all the colors?. This is to hide his blood color to the reader.

It seems Jack wants to work with Karkat to overthrow the black queen. Apparently their meeting was violent, as Jack's stabbing is like a “hello”. But Karakt is cool with him despite having been stabbed. He’s been given intel about the queen's weakness. Vriska is wondering what his blood color is but with Terezi being his host no one can actually see him. She mentions there should be a way to see past and future events in the game, and Karakt mentions Sollux may be working on that.

We are given a flashback of Jack and Karkats meeting. Jack only stabbed Karakt because he was talking too damn much. Apparently the sight of his own blood freaked Karakt out, he was trying to hide it and mostly concerned about hiding it from Jack. We’re now shown the real blood color on Jack's knife. Karkat's blood is red. Jack has no idea why this would concern anyone.

Karkat explains he is the only one with this candy red blood. It makes him a complete outcast in the hemospectrum based hierarchy. We can assume this is the lowest level on the spectrum. Jack doesn’t care about any of that and just wants him to shut up. So Jack slices his hand and reveals his blood is also red. Karkat shuts up and shakes Jack's hand. They are allies now.

The last few pages had been a flashback. Well technically this entire act is a flashback. Prior to it a doomsday device was triggered when Equius got angry and smashed one of his bots into it. The result was that both his and Virsika’s Lusus had been killed. Well nearly...

Equius’s Lusus Aurthor the milk providing centaur is very dead. We see Equius crouched over it with a sprite nearby waiting to be prototyped.

Virsika’s giant spider Lusus survived, but was fatally injured. She had to use her dice to put it down. Fortunately it was a good roll of her dice. This summoned a giant guillotine to finish the job. Though it also caused the canyon to cave in further causing Equius’s hive to fall. However, it is taken to the medium before it can crash into the canyon floor and into Vriska.

It seems this was the work of Aradia. She was the player hosting for Equius. This last minute save made Vriska.. Angry? She rushes back to her PC to complain to Aradia. This early entry into the game messed up her plan. Equius will no longer be able to deliver the AradiaBot to her. Though he was planning to not do that anyway.

Vriska freaks out that her plan was to give Aradia so they could be friends again, but Aradia probably knew all this was going to happen and didn't care. Aradia emotionlessly states this is true, she is dead and it doesn't matter. If they had been friends, she can't actually remember.

Aradia tells Vriska that she isn’t a co-leader and isn't even on the blue team, she needs to be on the red team, after she “wakes up”. Vriska believes this is revenge for the whole murder thing, but Aradia doesn't actually care about that. She just knows that Vriska needs to be on the red team and that the teams don't even matter. Vriska is of course in full rage mode over these developments.

Equius had just arrived in the Land of Caves And Silence. Author is back in sprite form, no utter or hooves, just a jacked chest and manly mustache. Good for him!. Equius confidently tells Aradia that he is now the leader of the blue team. He has no idea how this game works, so Aradia tells him, sure, he’s “leader” now, why not. He is flustered by this obedience from her. She tells him that she is his “server” which flusters him even further. Though once she explains what “server” means in the context of the game he realizes she is the one in control. This puts him at peak flustered.

Aradia helps him calm down by smashing a bathtub through his wall. He loves this and demands she do it again. With this feeling of subordination filling him, Equius pledges to get to the second gate as fast as possible to give Aradia her new robot body. He also asks that she be the leader of the Blue team. He really likes being her subordinate. His feelings for her are pretty obvious, but she doesn't really give a damn as she is dead and also now half frog.

With now building necessary Equius just jumps like 100 feet into the air over his hive and into the first gate. He then finds the second gate without any issues punching massive underlings to death as he goes. Within what seemed like probably a few minutes he delivers Aradiabot.

Entering the bot Aradia freaks out. Equius had implanted a chip in the bot's heart to give her romantic feelings for him. She promptly rips the heart out of the bot, destroys it then savagely beats the living crap out of Equius… then they make out?? Well that’s fucked up.

Hosting Aradia is Nepeta, meaning she is seeing all of this go down in utter confusion. It seems Nepeta has a whole wall of her cave dedicated to tracking relationships between the trolls. She calls this the Shipping Wall.

We learned that Vriska had not only broken Travos spine, but murdered Aradia. She wasn't alone in this. This girl with the power to manipulate others had herself been manipulated. An omniscient third party with no name and white text had been messaging her. We’ve been calling them the blank one, but his name is Doc Scratch.

Scratch is in a green tinted room with a sort of old fashioned Victorian mansion vibe to it. He is wearing a pure white tux, with a green undershirt and bowtie. He’s phasing into a familiar green lightlining. His head is just a pure white sphere. Around him are 2 miniature versions of the battleground of Skaia, one the cube and the spherical version nearby. He also has a typewriter and holstered pistol on a nearby chair.

He’s described as an officer for Lord English. His job is to destroy the universe so that Lord English can come into it. This will bring about something called The Great Undoing.

If you've been paying attention you might notice guys Lord English is mentioned in the intromission sequence with the Midnight Crew. This was Spades Slick's key target but he failed to even see him. I’ll also note that Lord English’s name is spelt differently by Doc Scratch. The o in Lord, is now a gif of various pool balls.

Scratch is apparently the “First Guardian” of Alternia. This is what grants him omniscience and the ability to facilitate the planet's purpose. It mentions every planet has a first guardian and they come in various forms. He also has a specific genetic sequence in common with all other first guardians of all other planets supporting intelligent life.

I’ll point out a theory here. I probably didn't piece this together in my first read. Doc Scratch, is related to Jade's Dog Becquerel (Bec). Bec must therefore be the first guardian of earth. As Doc is guiding Vriska, Bec is guiding Jade. Though since Bec cannot speak, we dont know its motivations.

That audience isn't able to control Doc, though at this point I'm not sure the audience was even playing any character or if Hussie had taken full control. I honestly never cared. For this scene Doc's actions are only speculated on by the writer.

It seems he’s concerned Vriska is getting harder to control. He plays games with her but lately she is nearly winning, he doesn't know how. At this point he receives a message on his typewriter. This is even more concerning as his account shouldn’t even be listed, and the others shouldn't even know about him. It’s from Terezi. Before she can really say anything he deducts that she had Sollux trace his account and open the line of communication. This must still be in the context of the flashback as it seems to be shortly after the death of Aradia.

He hints that Aradia is not as dead as they think. Terezi isn't sure what to make of that but tells Doc that he will help her with revenge once she provides a tip to him. That tip is that Vriska has been cheating in the games she has been playing with him. She will tell him why in exchange for his help.

Before doing this, Terezi has one last chat with Vriska before she has doc kill her. Though not surprisingly Vriska thinks Terezi is bluffing and has no way to kill her. Terezi suggests Vriska consult her artifact. It seems before she switched to crappy magic 8 balls she had acquired an actual magic cue ball. With her 8 fold vision ability she could use it to tell the future. This Cueball of course belonged to Doc Scratch. By using it she was able to predict even his moves.

Terezi tells doc scratch about the CueBall which makes him pretty pissed off. Vriska was gazing into the cue ball for answers on how Terezi plans to kill her, the cue ball only states “I will explode in your face”. It then does so, presumably by Docs command. This destroys Virsika’s arm and her eye. Obviously as this is a flashback we know this doesn't actually kill her.

We are moments before a doomsday had exploded outside of her hive. Vriska is on a tirade of “meddling” with the other trolls. So Vriska is now chatting with Terezi. Terezi is now on the roof of her treehive, she is battling imps with a more battle ready version of her cane. She now has glasses that project a holographic screen so she can chat hands free. I’m not sure how she is seeing that screen.

Vriska tells Terezi that she is terminating their truce for the duration of the game. The truce was an agreement between them to not back stab each other. For Vriska this included not using her powers on anyone who didn't deserve it. This is apparently related to whatever happened to Aradia. Terezi mentions that whatever Vriska did to her broke Aradia’s brain. This implies that Vriska potentially murdered Aradia somehow. Vriska feels the gift she is going to give Aradia, a robot made by Equius, will absolve her of whatever it is she did. Terezi was the other half of “Team scourge”. Terezi believed they were taking “bad guys” to Vriska’s spider lusus to eat. But Vriska was just feeding anyone to it. Terezi was very good at breaking people down and using headgames. Manipulation without powers is something Vriska finds powerful. Vriska then just lambasts Terezi for not offering any kind of forgiveness or trust. The convo ends with Vriska hearing an explosion and avalanche outside. This was the doomsday device going off.

We flashback to just shortly after Vriska breaks Travos’s spine. We see Terezi, she isn't wearing the red glasses so this is from before she had been blinded. Her room looks more like Vriska’s with a FLARP poster, character sheets on the wall and some dice on her desk. Terezi is chatting with Aradia about Travos. Aradia is mad about the incident. She suspects Equius will never give Travos prosthetics out of hate for his blood color. She wants vengeance and to make Vriska pay. Apparently Aradia is immune to Vriska’s powers. But, Terezi warns her against taking action, powers or not Vriska is still dangerous. They also mentioned that they failed to help Travos because they were distracted. Someone associated with Vriska prevented them from coming to his aid. Someone who has “playing her” and is potentially even more dangerous. They agree to not take action for now.

Aradia isn't satisfied though and the voices of the dead are calling out to her loudly. She has powers of her own. She summons the ghost of all those she has fed to her spider to haunt her. Vriska is feeling all this, and it's freaking her out. The blank person reaches out to her. They tell Vriska she needs to kill Aradia. We also learn they’d played a role in hurting Travos, but the goal was to kill him as well. They tell her that all they are doing is giving Vriska the opportunities. These are things that she actually wants to do anyway. They claim they haven't convinced her to actually do anything at all.

Blank's motives are to bring about the events which will allow their employer to enter into the universe. They’re acting as a linchpin, and subtly altering things to get the desired results. Blank claims they are omniscient (knowing everything). But, they also have gaps in their knowledge. This doesn't make much sense. But he seems to know a lot of things Vriska doesn't so she has to believe him.

Vriska, plans to use someone who she only has limited control over to do what she needs to do. She messages Aradia to tell her that her boyfriend is waiting outside for her. Aradia suspects it's a trick, but falls for it anyway. It seems she was with Sollux at this time. Aradia sees Sollux floating over to her hive. He holds his glasses in one hand, and a bunch of mind honey in the other. We’ve seen that when Sollux consumes mind honey his eyes blast out a powerful laser with massively destructive potential. We can only assume that this completely atomized Aradia. This left her hive as nothing more than the foundation that she presently sits in.

Vriska had used mind control on Sollux to kill Aradia.

So far of all the trolls we’ve met it seems like these 2 may be the worst. So far at least. Vriska is an utter psychopath who only seems to take joy in the misery of others. Also, Equius is a creepy muscle head . He's obsessed with “pure bloodlines”, very demanding towards others. They live close to each other and have very similar blue blood colors.

It seems they are pretty cordial with each other. Vriska has commissioned Equius to make a gift for Aradia. Equius considers Aradia a lower blood, and doesn't approve of working with her. But Vriska tells him to mind his own damn business, she had made a promise of some sort with Aradia. This present will help in the plan to take leadership from Sollux. This will in turn help Vriska to take leadership from her.

Vriska and Equius want all the trolls to be led by those of the “highest” bloods. They are exempting Gamzee who is apparently of the highest blood among them. They are also exempting the “underwater freaks”. It seems they have an agreement but don't actually trust each other.

Vriska attempts to read Equius’s mind and he in turns slaps her with her own robotic arm. He made this arm for her and seems to have control of it in order to keep her in line.

Equius is planning to double cross Vriska . He reveals the gift for Aradia is a robotic version of her. This could be handy for a ghost. He plans to deliver it himself to gain her favor and bypass Vriska in a run for leadership. Neither of them know that Aradia isn't actually leading anything. They are just wasting time.

He gushes a bit about the AradiaBot and how he’s built it to perfection. He’s creepy and Pygmalion about it. He feels that if she inhabits a robotic body then her blood will no longer be impure. In a moment of creepy passion with the not yet active AradiaBot he freaks out at one of his battle bots. He smashes it through a wall and into the giant doomsday device outside.

This was a device that Vriska had built and had hanging in the canyon between her hive and Equius’s. It's called the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader. It looks a bit like an old board game called Trouble. This has more pop dice, and is like 60 meters in diameter. This device appears in Problem sleuth as well and is explained there. It can cause up to 50 trillion points of damage, but also only deal 1 point. It's up to luck. In this case it activates and after a lot of crazy effects, the machine just dies. But, all the jostling caused the machine to fall into the canyon. It then explodes killing Vriska’s giant spider, Lusus. Also Equius’s Lusus Author, then fell into the canyon for some reason, and also probably died.

Vriska has been trying to meddle in everyone's business. But it seems she's been the one getting meddled with. A “friend” grimAuxiliatrix [GA] has just informed her that her lusus is doomed to die soon. She is now going to check on her lusus.

It seems Vriska's hive is some sort of tall structure. She needs to descend down “millions” of stairs to reach her lusus nest. She passes a huge contraption hanging outside. She explains it was a doomsday device she had built for a member of the nautical aristocracy. We’ve seen some nautical trolls briefly, perhaps one of them?

Reaching the near bottom of her hive, Vriska finds her lusus. A gigantic spider, it looks to be about 70m tall, and healthy. We see her hive is a building on top of a canyon. It's about as big as Karkats. The spider's nest is at the bottom of the canyon under the hive. On the other side of the canyon is another hive.

Vriska's neighbour it seems is centaursTesticle [CT]. Who we now have to be introduced to. As we saw before his room is covered in robots, broken bows, and naked pictures of muscle bound centors. His name is Equius Zahhak he’s obsessed with strength.

He talks about wanting to join some noble group of Ruffiannihilators and Archeradicators. But he’s unable to actually use a bow properly as he destroys every bow he tries to use. He describes it as “fetishistic” as Vriska did with her 8-balls.

He says the priceless masterpieces around his room are of Nude Musclebeast. These are apparently local creatures Equius finds their strength to be stunning. And tosses a comment about how those of “lesser bloodlines” are unable to appreciate art.

When he is angry, which is often he goes into violent rages. His robots are designed to fight him and give him a target to focus his violence on. His lusus is also his butler, one who milks himself to give Equius to give something to drink… damn that's just wrong. His lusus apparently bruises at the slightest touch. But Equius believes his lusus is the strongest.

He has 3 weapon specs. Fist, bow, and 1/2 bows. This is only the second time we see the Strife Portfolio that allows for multiple specs. The writer hints that he may have forgotten it existed.

After spilling his milk Equius flies into a rage breaking a bow. He chats with Neopeta to calm down in the conversation we saw earlier. This is where Nepeta had asked him if she could join the red team, but he forbade it. He wasn't sure if he had actually convinced her to join him on the blue team. He’s still angry, Nepeta is associating with lower bloods.

He decides to chat with Gamzee. He says Gamzee is a friend. But friend and enemy are the same word in trollian, and he hates Gamzee. This seems to be because Gamzee is of the highest bloodline. However, Gamzee does not act in a way that Equius thinks someone of his class should.

Gamzee is more concerned about running out of Faygo while in the medium.

Equius commands Gamzee to stop drinking Faygo. Gamzee agrees. Equius then back pedals. He doesnt feel like he has the right to make demands of someone of a higher blood class then his own. He suggests Gamzee need to be more commanding. Gamzee agrees but has no idea what the hec Equius is talking about, and doesn't desire to be better than anyone.

Gamzee mentions he is on the red team and in the game already. He was defeating imps but now just eats pie with them. Equius suggests they roleplay a scenario of Gamzee being authoritative towards him. Totally not for some kind of homoerotic kink thing. Though this likely became the source of a lot of fan material. Anyway, Gamzee strongly suggests Equius stay out of the sea. This being pretty low impact as Equius doesnt live near the sea. He pressures Gamzee to be even more bossy, he humours the request. It was another very creepy interaction.

Gamzee, again mentions he has no idea what Equius is going on about with all this bloodline stuff. Equius finds it terrible that someone with Gamzee's blood behaves in such an undignified manner. This while “she” of low blood can have such dignity. He doesn't say who “she” is and ends the convo.

We’d seen a lot of a character who’s under the sign of scorpio. arachnidsGrip [AG]. She’s the one who broke Travos’s spine. She has an ability to control or place strong suggestions in the minds of others. This ability seems to have no limited range as she had controlled Karkat while he was in the medium. With this seemingly overpowered ability she’s completely psychotic.

So we start with “Being the huge bitch”. This phase being a reference to Sn0wball back in the intermission. Her name is Vriska Serket, somehow a fan favorite. Also an artist favorite as we’ll see later. I truly do not understand this.

As we’ve seen she is into extreme roleplay, the game that got Travos injured. It seems to also have caused her own injuries. As we’d seen in previous pages her arm is robotic. This was not the case during her encounter with Travos.

Vriska mentions her lusus needs to feed on the flesh of young trolls. She uses the “Flarping” to take advantage of the impressionable and get spider food. As a hobby Vriska thinks heavily about the Apocalypse and builds potential doomsday devices. She also likes to develop prophecies. It seems she used to have the ability “Vision eightfold” that gave her the ability to see the future. She now uses “Black Oracles” (magic 8-balls) which she often destroys in frustration. Her room is littered with broken 8-ball and the d-20 dies that they contained. She is apparently addicted to destroying them, despite the bad luck it brings her.

Her room also has spider webs, “devices”, game manuals, and character sheets on the wall. She also has a drawing of her Flarping character Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. Which given this is larping, is just a picture she drew of herself in a costume.

She steps on a d4 dice (the pointy one). She blames this on bad luck that she’s been having since her accident. She seems like the sort to blame her misfortunes on anything but herself, her floor is covered with these damn dice so luck had nothing to do with it. She’s just a brat who needs to clean her damn room. Her weapon is also dice. 8 enchanted d8’s called the Fluorite Octet. The weapon has a wide range of effects that can help or hinder the wielder. With her bad luck she is afraid to use them.

She starts off a long night of bugging, fussing and meddling. But she receives a message from a meddler she hasn't heard from in awhile. Against the rules of pester clients this user is unnamed, just blank. The also chat with all #FFFFFF white text which is annoying as hell to read. They are well spoken and don't seem to have quirks either.

The blank one mentions this is their last communication with Vriska. They seem to know what events will soon take place in Vriska’s future. They blatantly tell her that they’ve been exploiting her. Vriska doesn't believe she's being exploited in any way. Given she usually is the one exploiting others this is not acceptable. The blank one states they will no longer hold Vriska accountable for her actions. This is because of the “incident”. Also they feel she was a complete waste of their talents. He suspects she won’t survive to see the destructive results of her own actions. They then end the conversation.

This conversion seems to get to her a bit. There’s a lot of vagueness and unexplained history here. Vriska is unable to even smash one of her magic 8-balls. grimAuxiliatrix [GA] had also been trying to get ahold of Vriska. GA let Vriska know that her lusus had died. GA’s lusus was the A Virgin Mother Grub, it had decided to stop producing offspring and died shortly after. She is telling Vriska that her own lusus will die as well as many others have already. Aware of Karkats curse, she doesn't believe that is the case. GA believes the death of the lusus is an inevitable result of the game. This is much like the destruction of their planet. Vriska relates her bad luck to the curse. Though GA points out her bad luck is just a messy floor. Vriska‘s problem is that she is dangerous. GA feels that despite this she is important and it's her job to try and keep Vriska in line.

Vriska is obviously not cool with this but is too concerned about her lusus to really care.

We start back on page 2061 Karkat had recently entered the Medium. His home had been terribly vandalised by his game host Terezi. He’s gotten the hang of the game quickly, fighting mobs, and gathering resources. He’s just discovered his own toilet, not in his home but out in the field. He calls up Terezi for an explanation. Having a blind home designer who is sensing the game via tasting colors on her screen has some drawbacks. Though it’s likely that Terezi is just screwing with him.

Terezi reminds Karkat that meteors are currently destroying his home planet. Everyone left on it is in trouble. He had no idea He needs to talk with Aradia([AA]) to get caught up because Terezi needed to “step-out” of her tree for a bit. After this conversation we had a 100+ page flashback. So now we’re back to this point.

Karkat, still in a field of the medium standing in front of his toilet. arachnidsGrip [AG] pesters him, He is aware of AG’s predilection for betrayal and general evil. She wants to be on Karkat’s team. He doesn't buy this at all. Her actual purpose seems to have been to psyche him out as she is the “leader” of the blue team. Also to threaten use of her mind control powers on him. Karkat reminds her that she is bound to an agreement with “Better scourge sister” to not use her powers. That other sister is on his team. However, she uses her power to make him rejoin the chat after he leaves it, just to flex on him.

We’re given brief looks at 2 of the other trolls. centaursTesticle [CT] we see in his room with his lusus. His walls are covered in pictures of nude muscle bound centaurs. Mercifully they are censored. His lusus is also a centaur, but with an utter, and a black eye. He’s surrounded by broken robots and bows. CT himself wears broken shades, broken teeth and has a broken horn. He wears a tanktop with the mark Sagittarius on it. We also see a troll under the sea poking a sea creature with a trident.

Using her telepathic powers Aradia is riding the giant stone frog head home. She broke this off of the frog ruins she had been living in. She needs to start the session for the blue team. She decides to go to her previous home. She mentions she lived there before she found her “calling”. The voices of the dead had ordered her to move to the ruins after the death of her lusus. She mentions she never buried it, but it’d have been unusual to bury the dead.

Her old hive is nothing but an overgrown foundation. It has some holes around it that she had dug to test her archaeology skills. She sits on the foundation floor and opens her Crosbytop and loads the game. Next to her is a music box. She logs in on to the session started by her co-leader. She wanted to be the second player in the chain. She’s selected a specific troll to be the third in the chain.

Shortly later, her non-prototyped sprite is already out. No fancy base, the Cruxtruder is just deployed next to the remains of her home. All the others had used their Lusus as a prototype, but hers is long gone. Her instructions from the dead are to use the giant stone frog head. This is the true reason for her taking it.

It's revealed to us now that the first player in the chain was not Sollux or AG, but Nepeta. We can see her watching Aradia in utter confusion. This technically makes Nepeta, who didn't really even want to be on the blue team, its leader. She likely has no idea.

Later again, we see Aradia no in the medium. She’s in Land of Quartz And Melody as the Maid of Time. She mentions the player she is hosting has an important item to give her. But it's one too expensive to alchemize. Once this player gets to the second ring, they will be able to meet her in person. This is how John eventually ended up seeing Rose at her house. This item is important to Aradia’s plan.

Nepeta hosting her is also part of the plan. For some reason Nepeta isn't able to actually see Aradia in game. She needed someone less savvy with games and who would be more oblivious to what was going on. Someone only following instructions.

The reason Aradia hasn't been visible is because she had been dead. A ghost. It's possible none of the other trolls knew this. Though to us it was pretty obvious (right?)

Aradia prototypes her sprite once more, with herself. She is now a frog girl sprite. Nepeta is now able to see her for the first time. She explains that her death was caused by ignoring the advice of a friend. She asks Nepeta to keep this a secret, and she agrees to do so.

Travos has been told his friend Nepeta won't be joining him. She seems to be obedient to some arse hole going by centaursTesticle [CT]. Travos was reminded of his accident and wondered if Nepeta wasn’t better off on the opposing team. Thinking back to the days of his more intense and dangerous role playing, he is looking forward to the game he will soon play with his friends.

We flash back to Travos in a “boy skylark” outfit holding a tiny “dagger lance”. He is going to engage in some “Extreme Larping”. He pesters Aradia to let her know his game grub has laid eggs and that means he is nearly ready to play. Terezi is supposed to join them but she is running late. Aradia reminds Travos that the class of character he picked is not effective until higher levels. But she is supportive of his choices. Aradia is very different from the character we met recently. It would seem these events took place prior to whatever changed her. She gives Travos a pep talk and reminds him that the “clouder” will be at the top of its game, they will have fun.

The eggs hatch into little bats called Gaming Flapstractions that will provide the game data. This game also has 2 teams. Team Charge is his team and Team Scourge is the opposition. The clouder is a member of team charge and will affect the scenario he will play. The bats fly off but one remains his “stat bat” to keep track of his attributes.

We see a bit later Travos is surrounded by large monsters backed to a cliff. He’s chatting with arachnidsGrip [AG], the mean spider girl. She seems to be his clouder and has made things far too difficult. He lets her know this but she’s yelling at him for being weak.

He tries to contact his team but neither Aradia or Terezi respond. AG appears before him with the monsters pressuring him to make a move. Travos refuses, he knows the only right move here is to give up but AG will not allow that. They had agreed to not use any of their troll powers during the game but she’s breaking that rule.

AG’s power seems to be mind control, or at least powerful mental suggestion. She convinces Travos he can fly like Pupa Pan. With this he jumps off of the cliff. AG laughing psychotically as he lay broken at the bottom. He reaches out to Karkat to let him know what just happened, he can no longer feel his legs. Karkat just tells him to stop playing a “girls game”. If girl games are that dangerous maybe that is good advice. It seems as dangerous as the extreme roleplaying stuff was the real danger was AG.

Last time we met Aradia Megido. A troll with very powerful telekinetic powers. Despite her powers though she seems completely without emotions, desires, or memories. Aradia gives off ethereal vibes and can hear the dead. We start today off with a look at arachnidsGrip [AG]. AG has glasses with one lens being solid, one robotic arm, fangs and blue makeup. But this is all we get. Apparently we the readers are not cool enough to learn more about this character. For now they are just arachnidsGrip [AG].

Sollux pesters Aradia. She is floating just outside his window but he doesn't know this. Sollux apologises for freaking out on her. He says he doesn't mind not being the leader, he just wants to play the game. Aradia informs him that he won’t be playing the game yet. She tells him to look out his window. Before Sollux can even see her she snaps him into an instant sleep with her powers. He passes out right into the mind honey. Sollux wakes up much later. We're told he has dreams of visions that will help guide his allies. He’s now the last to log in and needs to log into Karkats server. We see his lusus is still fine but there is an intense meteor shower occurring all around him. Upon awakening he accidentally consumed some of the mind honey he had passed out onto. This causes his eyes to shoot intensely powerful laser beams Cyclops style. This destroys everything above him, likely vaporizing his lusus.

Now we are the cat-troll living in a cave. We'd seen this character briefly before but didn't get an introduction. Safe to assume this is arsenicCatnip [AC], her real name is Nepeta Leijon. She has cat-like facial features. Pretty much the :3 face, with fangs. She's wearing a blue hood, a blue tail, and an oversized green jacket. She lives in a cave and likes roleplay. She empathizes that she likes “Friendly” roleplay. Not the dangerous kind that gets people hurt. But she also likes to hunt large beasts with nothing more than her claws and fangs. Her cave's littered with the blood and corpses of her kills. She uses the blood to paint “wall comics”. Her claw gloves are her primary clawkind weapons. Her lusus is a large 2 mouthed cat sleeping in the corner named Pounce De Leon. Nepeta seems aware of her lusus’s fate, but not when it will happen. But we're shown it’ll be a cave-in. I am not sure we are always shown the fates of lusus in this way. But, it isn't surprising to see weird time skips and flash forwards at this point. Though they're written like they are from someone's perspective. Karkat pesters Nepeta. He reluctantly role plays with her to recruit her into the red team. He refers to her as the “autistic girl”. As if he and every bloody character in this thing isn't neurotypical in some way. Karkat, Terezi, Gamzee And Tavros are already in the game. He needs her to log in from Travos and wants grimAuxiliatrix [GA] to log in from her. But, much like when Terezi tried to recruit her she says she needs to talk to someone first. Karkat's annoyed by this but can't actually do much about it.

That guy is a troll we've yet to meet. centaursTesticle [CT]. They choose that name for themselves. We’ve only seen this guys creepy silhouette. This was during the scene where grimAuxiliatrix [GA] removes Travos’s legs with a chainsaw. We can learn a lot about this guy from this conversation. He’s not at all receptive to Nepeta’s roleplaying. He seems to be all business and always fully serious. He’s also a classist as blood color seems to determine a trolls class. Also their text colors seem to represent their blood colors. He accuses Nepeta of having "loosened morals" for having “fraternized with the base classes”. Nepeta doesn't care about blood color or classes. Nepeta mentions that CT uses a bow. Also CT has seemingly no idea how to actually use a bow. This means Nepeta is actually a better hunter as he is. She's actually taking out large prey with nothing more than her claws. CT apparently is against killing beasts as he venerates them.

CT claims Aradia and him have made a deal that he will co-lead the blue team. It seems she’d made this deal with everyone on that team. The collective ego’s of everyone on that team just seem to have made that possible. Nepeta tells him she will be joining the red team. This really seems to upset CT. He claims she is too delicate to associate with base blooded hooligans. Painfully Nepeta obeys CT’s demands and lets Travos know she can't join the red team. Travos is ok with this. He mentions this happened during the dangerous role player event that caused his injury. So perhaps it's better that Nepeta stays with the blue team.

A few times we’ve cut to a girl who seems to have strong psychic powers destroying the frog ruins. We now get to meet her. Her name is Aradia Megido, she mentions she had interests such as Archeology. But, but she no longer remembers any of that. She says her current calling is to destroy the mystic ruins she found because she's bored. Like Sollux she hears the voices of the dead and they guide her. She’s always been able to hear these since an accident involving a kind of role playing caused an accident. This accident also killed her lusus. Instead of building her own home she’d apparently been living in the ruins. This is also where she had also discovered the game. Knowing this game would destroy her civilization she gave it to Sollux to adapt and play. She’s named the game SGRUB (like SBURB). She got him to get 12 players for the game including herself. He believes he’s the leader of the blue team but she says that isn't the case.

Her modus is a Ouji Board she can only gets items if the spirits will it. In this case she's given the Bing CrosbyTop used by Spades Slick. She says she had found it during an archaeological dig. She has no idea who the person is but she finds its mobility practical.

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is pestering her. GA has genuine concern for Aradia. She mentions that today is the day that Aradia wanted to doom everyone. GA tried to remind her that she doesn't actually need to follow the will of the voices in her head. But, this doesn't seem to work. Aradia and GA will be on separate teams but GA offers to help should Aradia need her. It seems Aradia's transfixed by whatever will is controlling her and ignoring GA.

Aradia checks in on Sollux in a conversation we’d read before. The one in which she informs him of the ploy and he tries to abort the game. She’d then go visit his home. Or at least the roof of it where his Lusus is chained up. Sollux’s Lusus isn't a threat to her as she uses her powers to hold the creature in the air above her. She holds the creature while she responds to some chats on the cosbytop.

arachnidsGrip [AG] pesters Aradia. AG seems to know everything Aradia is doing. She asks if she has hatched her plan against Sollux yet. Aradia is working on that. AG also mentions that the plan is that she and Aradia would co-lead the blue team. AG mentions that she had a present for Aradia that she will find later. Aradia has no reaction to this. AG wants a “team” name for the pair of them. Apparently they had some kind of beef in the past and have only recently begun collaborating. Aradia seems to tolerate this arrangement but doesn't actually seem to like AG. AG just seems to talk considerably more than she listens.

Last time we met Travos. He’s odd, especially for a troll. He’s not afraid to show vulnerability and isn't ashamed of his interest. At least not to the audience. Though this isn't why I dislike the character, these are positive traits. The reasons I don't like will come later. Also that creepy expression on his face.

During his zoning out flash forward thing Travos has gotten a few messages. Firstly arachnidsGrip [AG]. This one is new, the troll under Scorpio. They are mean. They inform Travos he is on the red team while she is on Blue. She points out his team has “blind girls” and points out his disability insinuating team blue is for disabled people. Travos doesn't want to talk to her but also doesn't seem to be doing much about it. He mentions he’s given a name to his self esteem, on the advice of grimAuxiliatrix [GA]. He named it Rufio a character from the Peter Pan based movie “Hook” (1991). This gets him ruthlessly insulted by AG for having imaginary friends. She instructs him to stop listening to GA and she rambles on like a dang coke fiend for a bit before leaving.

Polar opposite to this encounter Travos then chats with Gamzee. Gamzee apologized for zoning out mid conversation even though they had not actually started the conversation yet. Gamzee is also on the red team and is cool with Travos. He’s actually somewhat nurturing towards Travos being more confident. They enjoy some slam poetry and discuss the game. The chain for the red team is that Karkat will log in from Terezi. Gamzee will then log in from Karkat, and then Tarvos from Gamzee. Then supposedly 4 others. We know karkat is in already but Terezi is off doing something in her forest. Then after faygo they have the worst rap off in all of paradox space. Fortunately, it doesn't actually show us any of it. I’ll be thankful for that small mercy.

Terezi is doing a thing in the forest. Which is to say she is in a forest which is burning all around her. In front of her is a giant scale. On one end is an egg, her lusus that she has never met. On the other scale is a giant skull. The skull is over an ominous button. We can guess if the egg hatches then the skull will depress the button. Terezi also mentioned that the day she meets her lusus the world would end. The reason she hasn't met her lusus yet is because it had not hatched yet.

Terezi explains that there is a dragon in the egg. The dragon is blind until it reaches maturity so it was able to psychically connect to Terezi and teach her how to survive without sight. She was able to access her dream self and vaguely see the world around it. To us is familiar, as is her outfit. She was seeing Prospit.

The fire from the forest was caused by falling meteors. This is much like what Rose experienced before entering the medium. The heat of these fires hatched the young dragon causing the doomsday button to activate. The dragon is immediately struck by a falling meteor and killed. We are told this one will be prototyped into a sprite. The doomsday device counts down from 6:12.

Last time we saw apocalypseArisen [AA] floating over to Sollux’s Lusus. Given the effects of the curse that Karkat had unleashed we could assume something bad was going to happen. The audience asks to “be the other girl” hoping to learn more about AA.

We start off with grimAuxiliatrix [GA]. She is riding on the head of her lusus, a giant flying bug with horns. She appears to be flying around Jade's tower, but most of it is submerged in the ground. The frog ruins are nearby, intact but very weathered and rusty. The audience isn't pleased with this and asked to stop being the “other girl”.

We now see adiosToreador [AT] in his room. He is bound to a wheelchair. His lusus is a tiny bull that flies around him. His name is Tavros Nitram. He likes fairy tales and fairies in general. Many of the posters in his room are just fairies with troll features. He wants to capture and train the various wildlife of Alternia to fight battles for him. These are apparently in the form of card games. He also enjoys “Hardcore roleplay” which leads to his accident. He’s also into slam poetry, though given how badly he gets destroyed by Dave we can assume he’s not very good at this.

He plays a card game called Fiduspawn with his lusus. He throws a ball which hatches into a weird spider alien face hugger. It attacks a “host plush” teddy bear causing another weird alien horse thing to burst from its chest. This new thing eats the spider thing that created it. Tavros then uses his mind control to take over the creator and do battle with his lusus. Though apparently that means he commands it to take a nap with it. I guess he doesn't like violence. He decides to also take a nap which is a struggle given his disability, and giant horns. Later he equips his jousting lance in his strife specibus. He practices with this weapon in hopes of becoming a Cavalreaper. But he suspects he will be culled for being disabled…

That's kinda f#%ked up. The trollian empire is brutal but that’s straight up bad eugenics.

On Travos’s wall is a poster for Pupa Pan. He wants a man to come with some Special Stardust so that he can fly and enjoy adventures. Though he mentions this desire to fly had been around long prior to his accident.

We are shown a future where Travos has Robotic legs built for him by a friend who likes robots. He seems to be in the same place the troll had been when chatting with the kids. He mentions GA was kind enough to remove his old legs with her chainsaw. We see his blood is brown. We also see that the troll with the mark of Sagittarius watches from the shadows. Travos mentioned this was the friend who was into robotics, he likes to silently watch and it's creepy. We’ll meet them later I am sure.

We got a glimpse of a troll floating around the frog ruins before. She removed the head of the frog statue seemingly with just her mind. Perhaps these are psionic powers like the ones Sollux. We still don't know who this is but she further destroys the frog statue just by giving it a little, uncaring kick. We can assume this person is very powerful. What we're given is that this person is apocalypseArisen [AA]. The one who was able to confirm the vision Sollux had. She's also the one the other trolls don't seem to like chatting with anymore for some reason.

Sollux and AA are chatting. They speak of going to a new dimension. The voices haunting them should stop once they get there. AA’s outlook is generally hopeless and depressing. But she’s mostly just emotionless, she mentions she doesn't remember anger. She mentions that Karkats anger is vital to him sabotaging his own plan. His sabotage of his own plan is critical to a greater plan. She mentions the voices never lie. This is familiar to the old ones that Dave and Rose can hear. AA informs Sollux that this game isn’t a way to save their world. Their world is already fated to be destroyed. They can only hope to preserve their species. She also lets him know that he isn't the leader of this operation. Someone else will enter the game before him. Sollux doesn’t like what he is hearing. As a Seer himself he’d know if this was true. He now wants to abort the whole game in hopes it will change something. He reaches out to Terezi to let her know. But she already offloaded the leadership role to Karkat. Frantically Sollux demands Karkat quit playing the game. This doesn't work. Karkat already accused Sollux of trying to put Terezi in charge as a way of weakening the red team. He now thinks that this is another attempt to gain an advantage. Also he’s already installed the game and has begun playing it with Terezi. This leads to the usual petty arguing that we’d come to expect. In doubt of his hacking prowess, Karkat runs the code that Sollux created. This was the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, the one that makes computers explode. The code worked shortly after while Karkat was away from his PC. This is what caused the giant hole in the side of his hive. This code also curses everyone on his contact list to grave misfortunes. Specifically their Lusus will die. Karkats has become the first. It got killed in the explosion. We're told all the trolls except for one would prototype their Lusus. This would make their monarchs extremely powerful.

Apparently the prototyping process prefers the dead or doomed. Though this isn't required. We see Gamzee Holding the head of his sea dragon Lusus which looks to have been impaled somehow.

Sollux is beating himself up for even giving Karkat that code. He realized that he was just showing off and it cost everyone dearly. He decides to delete the code and all of his viruses so that cant do any more harm. He noticed one virus he had found was not one of his. He had found it, and it triggers only if the universe is destroyed. He mentions even if he deleted it, it's likely to have spread. It seems to contain an ominous gif of various pool balls. It gives strong vibes of “The Felt”

We are told that the code summons an indestructible demon into a void world. It will then rule over it. This Demon can also traverse time. And the creator of the code is the demon itself. We can see that this code has installed itself in a server that exists beyond the medium. One placed there by Rose to house the GameFaqs entries. This means this impossible to kill time traveling demon is not only already out but no longer bound to one universe. Sollux’s Lusus starts to act up. He’s apparently built his hive on Communal Hive Stem which is like an apartment building. He has his Lusus chained up on the roof of this structure. His Bicylops Lusus has a visitor, its AA floating in the sky around it.

Last time the story was focused on Terezi attempting to recruit her team for “the game”. This attempt was going poorly as her friends all had excuses to delay any commitment to the game. But Karkat wanted leadership of the team so Terezi just gave it to him. We then got a look into a future where Karkat is already in the medium, his home was covered in paint and modified by Terezi’s blind gaming.

We go back to a time prior to this skip to when Karkat was about to confront the crabby neighbour living below him. He had dropped a vault through his floor which was no dough upsetting to the one living below him. He faces a giant white crab monster.

He mentions this is his Lusus Naturae and Custodian. I assume that the custodian is the relationship between the trolls and these creatures, and a Lusus is the creature? Lusus meaning “freak” and Naturae Meaning untamed. This creature apparently raised Karkat. Trolls do not have parents. Karkat describes that imperial drones carry Filial Pails (based on websters this is just a bucket relating to offspring. I’ll leave that to your imagination. This bucket is tossed into a slurry by the Mother Grub who produces thousands of eggs. Those eggs hatch into larvae which metamorphosis into the more humanoid-like forms. After some trials in the deep underground a lusus may adopt them to raise on the surface. They use droids to build a hive, then once adults, they leave the planet. It makes sense that the Trolls we’ve met are only “teens”.

Anyway this fight isn't met with a cool animation sequence. We are given a bit of a cool track from Toby Fox but just told to imagine how cool the fight was. I guess someone was feeling tired that day. We are told that Karkat ended the fight by feeding the lusus. He describes the relationship as being codependent as he is protected by the creature but must also care for it on some levels.

Then we’re introduced to the next troll. We’d seen them as twinArmageddons [TA]. We had seen them before helping grimAuxiliatrix [GA] with her computer. We get the intro explaining how cool he is, almost Dave likes his coolness. But he is also moody as hell. We the readers are told to F#%K off. If I had to guess, the character's obsession with duality is some sort of split personality or bi-polar disorder.

Anyway we are introduced instead to a cat-troll living in a cave? Nope GA changed his mind and decided it's his turn.

His name is Sollux Captor, He confirms his bipolar disorder. He’s a computer wiz as we already know. He claims he can hear the voices of the dead with his mutant brain, or see visions of the the future? He knows this game he has adapted will somehow be necessary to save his people but he doesn't know how.

He apparently doesn't need an inventory modus as he has psionic abilities. In demonstrating his psionic abilities he manages to slice open one of his Beehouse Mainframes with a giant ninja star. This seems to be a server made out of a large beehive. Obviously slicing it in half made the bees unhappy. But he just makes them sleep with his power. He mentions the mind honey that came oozing out should never be eaten. He uses this to feed his lusus.

Sollux contacts Terezi. He has picked her as the leader of one of the 2 teams he’s planned for this game. He decides 2 teams will optimize their chances of success. Terezi is on board with this idea but isn't really sure about the whole world ending thing. Sollux points out he isn't the only one with this vision as apocalypseArisen [AA] had also had this. He also predicts before he dies he too will be blind like Terezi. Though everyone dies in his vision his death is the most brutal. Terezi thinks that Sollux might still just be a little melodramatic. She’d confirm with AA but she finds that AA is not fun to talk with these days.

Last time we met Terezi, the troll behind the handle gallowsCalibrator [GC]. She’s still in her room. She decides to equip her walking cane as her strife specibus. This counts as a canekind. She mentions she will need it for the Medium. This is very interesting as she somehow knows the Medium exists. Her current goal is to recruit her team members. She chooses arsenicCatnip [AC] as she frequently role plays with her. What follows is pretty much the kind of roleplay I saw many teen girls do in the early 2000’s. It’s weird and cringy with a lot of asterix. AC is some sort of lion with many mouths and baby cubs. While Terezi is a dragon of some sort. The scenario is that AC is preparing a meal out of something called a choler bear. She offers it to Terezi in exchange for not eating her cubs. After whatever the heck that was, Terezi asked AC to join her team for the game. But AC needs permission from someone named Blar.

She then contacted Gamzee in the conversion we saw earlier. Gamzee suggested she recruit Karkat instead. He told her he’d join whenever he's done spacing out on the beach. She assumes that will be an eternity and moves on.

Reluctantly she answers Karkat who’d just begun to pester her. He informs her he’s the leader now whether she likes it or not. He’s decided this is best. Terezi has decided she doesn't give a darn. She just lets him have it stating she didn't think he’d actually want to be leader and she really doesn't care. Karkat seems disappointed by the lack of a fight and let her be second in command. She instructs him that she will start a server and he will join it and “lead the adventure”. She also mentions she had no “Lusus”. It's not mentioned if we can assume this is the troll word for “guardian” though they had mentioned “Custodians” . She can hear her Lusus in her dream but believes that if she ever meets then the world will end. This inspires Karkat to deal with the crabby neighbour downstairs before entering the game. But we don't see this.

The story skips ahead. Karkat's home is now covered in bad drawings and has some odd modifications to make it taller. It's now located in a land with black islands and red water called The Land of Pulse and Haze (LOPAH) . There's also a giant hole in the side of his house, and a sprite near it. He sees Karkat calling himself the Knight of Blood. He is wielding a sickle called the “Homes Smell Ya Later”. The hero stands before his own toilet which is on an island and not in his home. Karkat complains to Terezi about who reminds him that she is blind. She tells him he’ll need to host the next player so the chain will start. She also knows about the meteors that will soon crash into her. Karkat doesn't know anything. He’s apparently not contacted any of the other players. But she reminds him that if they fail to get her into the game he's screwed. “A while” prior to this. We see the frog ruins. The same ones from Jades island and a meteor floating in the veil. They are now in a cave. Floating near them is a troll with solid white eyes and a tattered dress. She has the mark of Aries on her shirt. Seemingly with only the power of her mind she removes the head of the main frog statue. As this statue has a head in Jades time, this may be either a copy of the ruins or somehow a distant future version of them.

In a different place we see a trollian hand with many rings picking up a 2L bottle of Faygo from a beach. They complain of “land dweller rubbish”. One of the rings has the sign of aquarius on it.

So far in act 5 we’ve met Karkat and Gamzee. Karkat is some kind of angry kid who seems fed up with everything and has “ambitions”. Gamzee is just some sort of stoned juggalo.

We are with Karkat as he attempts to code using a Trollian programming language. This language sounds like looping recursive hell. He shows off a virus made by twinArmageddons [TA]. The virus will apparently make the target's computer explode. This also apparently curses the user and everyone it then spreads too. Notably this is importing 2 libraries Universe 1 and 2. He has no idea how this code works and is too proud to ask.

TA reaches out to invite Karkat to invite him to the game. He describes it as a game in which their civilization depends on them playing it. TA had somehow adapted the game using some kind of technology that apocalypseArisen [AA] (who we haven't met) found in a ruin. Boy does that seem like a good idea. Karkat also mentions that TA has a “mutant brain”. It seems like TA can hear thoughts or something but it isn't explained yet. More on the game TA explains there is a red and blue team. TA is leading the Blue team. Karkat is on the red team but he's upset he isn't the leader. TA chose gallowsCalibrator [GC] for that. The accusation is that TA chose a blind girl to lead his opposition so that he could win. Though Karkat isn't very vague about his jealousy over his self given status as a great leader. TA mentions he doesn't really care and if Karkat can get GC to agree to give him leadership of the team then he can have it.

After this conversation, Karkat notes that the resident below him is getting “crabby”. He needs to have an encounter with them soon. This is similar to the kids not wanting to face their guardians.

We are then taken to another character. This one we’ve met before as gallowsCalibrator [GC]. Her room is very colourful, but she can't actually see it. Though from what we know she can taste colours. So perhaps the semi transparent colorful curtains make the air taste nice? Her name is Terezi Pyrope. She has a wall covered in colorful dragon scales, dragon plushies called Scalemates. Terezi also enjoys roleplay. She describes it as hardcore justice and “orchestrating the demise of the wicked”. She has many Trollian law books in braille. Almost shocking such a brutal culture would have respect for accessibility needs. She also has a bunch of chalk drawings on her walls. She mentions she lives alone in the woods. Also she is currently the leader of the red team with 5 friends. The blue team also has 6 players.

She starts us off with a scenario. One of her Scalemates is on trial. She is the prosecuting attorney and the Judge which she calls the Honorable Tyranny. She is prosecuting Senator Lemonsnout, and defence isn't a thing in Alternia. She proceeds to slap the yellow plush to interrogate them. They’re accused of stealing beetle reserves. The key witness was murdered. It seems the green plush was stabbed by a dagger. However, the senator dropped his personal satchel containing illicit beetles in the courtroom. As the prosecuting attorney she can decide the fate of the accused. The Honorable Tyranny is apparently just there to be menacing. She borrows old movie tropes from Batman and no country for old men and flipped a coin. Though the coin flip is favorable to lemon snout. She reminds him that justice is blind and hangs him anyway. Lemonsnout hangs from Terezi’s treehouse along with many other Scalemates. She adjourns and ends the fantasy by licking the drawing of the Honorable Tyranny she made on the wall. She says the red chalk taste good.