Twelve kids. Four trolls. Twelve guardians, four ancestors, one doloros, four lusii, seventeen lands, one megaplanet, one session, one two three one team. One more chance to win.

In which all sixteen kids live reasonably happily ever after in the Veil. Alternately: that one AU where trolls have sex by barfing blood into buckets.

"They just watch," John says, kicking the mop bucket into the broom closet after a hard day's asteroid-cleaning. "I guess chores are like a spectator sport for trolls? It's pretty weird! But... that's trolls for you!"

"You've got no fucking clue which end is up about this kind of thing, do you?" Karkat asks, almost gently. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone off on you. You're such a huge bitch it's easy to forget you weren't hatched like this."

He walks like a cat who has tape on his paws, and has had tape on his paws for a very long time, and who never expects to ever again walk without scrunching miserably from side to side in a tangle of self-loathing and confusion. It hurts to look at him, but it hurts more not to.

“It’s like, his little hornzorz!” Latula says. She rips open a new pack of Flamin Hott Fire Crispoz with extreme prejudice, manic with food dye and pity.

You get culled.

CG: DO YOU WANT ME TO COME OVER? CA: oh my god really CG: YEAH. I MEAN, IF THAT WOULDN’T BE WEIRD. CA: fuckin hell i shoulda got gillpox prevvious if that wwas all itd take for you to accept my standin invvitation to come and hang

Dave leans forward. You can see a camera reflected in his shades, in the high-rez screen, you can see his own face peering out of the camera in his shades, his reflection reflecting itself into infinity. Not you. You’re not there -- he’s not here.

A fantasy: Dave doesn’t leave a block as soon as you enter it.

This particular smuppet is sewn out of some kind of blatantly artificial orange microfiber, the nap of the plush so silky it almost feels slick. When you give it a squish the body seems more firm than his regular model, denser. Bro usually keeps his toys light, too fluffy to feel like anything but props and puppets, but this one’s pleasantly dense and heavy. You don’t think you’ll be ripping it apart as easily as the last few. And then, of course, there’s the unusual addition of a tail.

“Get out,” Karkat growls, from the top of a staircase. His voice is thick and unsteady and he reeks of that red smell, it’s pouring off him, spiking up your heartrate. Sollux takes a startled breath, then another, and crowds up against your back. “I mean it,” Karkat snarls. “I told you guys we were through, why the fuck are you here?”

“You ready?” you ask, and the most important human in the galaxy sticks her tongue out at you. Several of your organs do a giddy flip. Then the knot is tied and that’s it, you’re moirails.

Dave says, bouncing his heel on your thigh for attention, “Are you drunk? Holy shit, are you— like, are you tripping out? Did Rose just roofie you with her pretentious fuckin’ leaf water? Oh my god.” “Oh my god,” Rose repeats, and colors brilliantly across her cheeks, blood coursing bright and close under her skin.