Those fucking humans. You remember. They won. They won everything. They even won you. Won all of you back from your dead-end fucking universe and took you with them into their reality-spraining victory. Cheating nookstains didn’t even fight; they won by ‘shenanigans’, that peculiarly human trick of winning-by-not-playing. And in that inside-out, backwards way of theirs, they never even considered keeping all the spoils for themselves.

Karkat Vantas, despite numerous protests, has just joined Alternia High's Gay-Straight Alliance. Shenanigans ensue.

Your wriggling day is in three days, and while you normally celebrate this event with the apathy it deserves, this particular sweep is different. That’s because it will be your eighth sweep, and it happens to coincide with the arrival of the imperial drones. This is a milestone that every troll looks forward to with a heady combination of excitement and terror. For most trolls, when they reach their eighth sweep, they become adults. Not you. When you reach your eighth sweep, you will die.