Terezi Pyrope is a Neophyte Legislacerator looking to lease an administrative assistant. She was not expecting to find Dave Strider, a secretarial asset with a sense of integrity as strong as her own. Dave Strider is a secretarial asset with "personality problems" that would have gotten him culled if not for his otherwise exemplary administrative abilities. He finds himself drawn into the quadrants of the would-be social reformer who leased him. He finds he is surprisingly Okay with this. Both their lives become interesting (in the curse sense) when the Heiress retains Pyrope and her team.

Karkat comes to the Derse Dreamers as a gift. Not under the best of circumstances, but they make the best of it.