Triggers: ableism, violence

Last time on Homestuck: We transitioned from John’s post-ectobiologist madness to trolls’ backstory. Trolls are kind of weird. Karkat envisions coding a doomsday virus to be released on the event of his death and thinks that this is perfectly normal. His programming buddy is much better at it than he is and has sent him a file that will curse the user forever along with everyone he knows and everyone he’ll ever meet. Yikes.

His friend, twinArmageddons (TA), trolls Karkat talking about a Mysterious Game ™, which shall remain nameless. He reveals that on this game rests the fate of their civilization and that he helped code it from some technology a spooky mutual friend dug out of a temple. They proceed to insult each other a lot, which seems like troll bonding. TA sets up two teams of trolls for the game, and Karkat is very insulted by not being immediately chosen as the red team leader. It’s emotional. TA apologizes because he didn’t know that Karkat would be interested in being leader, and then they insult each other a lot to get over the emotions.

Elsewhere, gallowsCalibrator (GC) is revealed to be Terezi Pyrope! She is enthusiastic about dragons, engages in live-action role-play with her stuffed dragons, and has an interest in justice. She used to role-play with friends before her accident. She is blind, but she can smell and taste words. She enjoys pretending that her stuffed dragons are real in order to annoy people. Her dream is to become a legislacer, and a lot of her role-play seems to be acting this out. Her interrogation is more intimidation than interview. Terezi finally sentences the felon by flipping a coin a la Two Face from Batman.

While the coin lands favorably, Terezi proceeds as she wanted because she’s blind and can’t see which side the coin flipped. What she wanted, turns out, was to lynch her toy from one of the branches of her treehouse. After the sentence, she seeks out teammates. She first picks someone who goes by arsenicCatnip (AC), who likes to role-play as a cat. Terezi role-plays as a dragon. It’s adorable. Terezi asks her to play, but AC has to get permission first. If she doesn’t, she is scared of a mysterious him’s response. Terezi attempts to coax Gamzee into the game, a conversation we’ve seen, and then deals with Karkat.

Karkat leads off with the announcement that he is now the red team leader. Terezi doesn’t care who is leader as long as she gets to play the game, because she’s more mature. Granted, that doesn’t take much. Karkat instates her as second-in-command as reward. Terezi tells him that the leader is the first one to enter the game while the second runs around doing menial tasks for the leader, and that is an absolute genius way to get him into a position where you can boss him around. Terezi, you’re amazing. Karkat quickly arrives as the Knight of Blood in the Land of Pulse and Haze — because trolls get things done.

But back in the past, Karkat was just about to approach his custodian, a Lusus Naturae. These are what trolls have instead of biological parents. Adult trolls give biological material to be combined in a huge incestuous slurry by the Mother Grub, who then uses it to lay thousands of eggs deep underground. These hatch into troll pupae, who must then fight for survival. The ones that survive get picked by one of the monsters native to Alternia and learn to build a hive. Adult trolls are mostly off-planet serving in imperial conquest. So… trolls are basically groomed from birth to be ruthless serial killers for the glory of the Alternian Empire. Hahaha wow.

The story moves on to someone else who would like everyone to know that he is a very cool dude. His name is Sollux Captor. He is Karkat’s programming friend! He has bipolar disorder and a penchant for bifurcation. He is haunted by the psychic screams of the imminently deceased. He uses apiculture networking; his computer mainframes are literally bee houses. The bees talk in beenary code. They store mind honey. I can’t make this up. Sollux recruits Terezi for the game and then predicts that he is going to go blind because he has to as a prophet of doom. He also predicts that they’re all going to die, but most especially him. Elsewhere, a glowing troll decapitates a troll temple and glories in existential pointlessness before cutting back to Sollux.

Sollux and apocalypseArisen (AA) talk. AA is also haunted by voices but is okay with it as she’s okay with a lot of things, even their inevitable mission critical failure. She wants Sollux to be happy even as she explains that they’re both the pawns and the orchestrators of their own undoing. Sollux continues to not be happy, so she decides to come up. Sollux tries to make the game not happen by contacting Terezi and Karkat and cancelling, but Karkat assumes that he’s just trying to undermine his leadership and does the stupid thing, which is to run the programming curse Sollux sent him. Congratulations, son, you played yourself.

So everyone will continue to experience great misfortune, and all of the trolls’ lusii will die. The chesspeople out in the Medium will get all the powers of the various lusii because the trolls all prototype their sprites with them. Kernelsprites apparently are super attracted to the dead, although it’s not a rule that they get prototyped with the dead. But that hasn’t happened yet and Sollux, frustrated by what Karkat’s done, decides to delete all the rest of his viruses so that they can’t hurt people. He discovers a virus that he copied from a far away server that’s set to go off after the end of the universe. While he deletes that one too, it’s still running. The narrator proceeds to explain that the virus will summon a demon into the voided universe, but it’s more of a preliminary than anything: the demon is already here.

We then become a troll in a wheelchair. This troll’s name is Tavros Nitram. He enjoys fairy tales and fantasy, and Alternian Slam Poetry. He is able to speak with animals and used to participate in extreme role-playing until his accident. He’s fascinated with flight and believes in fairies, even if they aren’t real. His username is adiosToreador, and he is such a sweetheart; wow, how did someone like this even come out of troll society? Tavros’ home is not disability friendly, and he has to worry about being culled. I’m gonna venture out on a limb here and say that’s exactly what it sounds like — getting killed because he has a disability.

Tavros, the sweetheart, is a big fan of Pupa Pan, who is Troll Peter Pan. Tavros has left his window open since he was very small in case Pan stopped by and sprinkled him with stardust, and this is the sweetest thing — oh my god. He makes the point that being paralyzed doesn’t make him want to fly, but it does make him want to walk. What happened to this child? I need to know.

In the future, Tavros has robolegs because a friend who likes to break his robot creations decided to be philanthropic, and grimAuxiliatrix (GA) cut off Tavros’ legs with a chainsaw while said friend watched creepily. It’s ambiguous whether or not they had Tavros’ consent. He was sleeping. I — wow. Troll society is showing this propensity for violence and cruelty that is pretty offsetting to me. But I’m pretty sure this was meant to be kind.

Next time on Homestuck: Bad things happen to good trolls.