After three years out of contact, John and Karkat can finally talk again. The conversation doesn't go quite the way they were expecting. Now the three weeks it will take the golden ship to match velocities with the asteroid seem like three million. Why are the laws of physics so unkind to desperate teenaged boys? [an antidote to sadstuck! if this is not the fluffiest, most sentimental xenoporn ever written, i will eat my writekind specibus.]

He's not cute anymore, is the thing. He's not small and scrawny and bug-eyed with shock, standing there like a tool as a water-holding device plummets down to become his new hat. He's… He's… Prowly.

John is one of eight mech pilots heroically protecting Earth from an alien invasion. Pretty easy on the moral choices. See evil monster from space, kill evil monster from space. Only then he actually meets one of them face to face.

In which a mutant too famous to cull is dropped like a grenade into the midst of the peace process, a foolish monarch proves himself secretly shrewd, the power of friendship functions as a force multiplier, and it is discovered that in the Great Game of espionage, the dealer does not always win.

There are some things you have to do as a friendleader, and some you have to do as a friend. Sometimes, it's the same thing.

Arson Clinic engages in a nerdy rap battle with Lil Cal while stagehand Karkat smokes in an alley behind the venue and hates life. Meanwhile, homeless punk John Egbert goes on a quest for a little rubber alien.... AND THEN THEY ALL ROCK.

Wherein, Having Beaten A Game, All Players Are Taken Back To The Same, Worst Available Universe, With Species Changes To Match For Those Who Did Not Match Beforehand. In short: You're all trolls now, welcome to Alternia.