Oh dear god no.
You remember why you never go on Eridan’s blogs. Ever.
But. The things you’ll do for love. The stupid, stupid, pointless things.
You brace yourself and dive in.
‒‒ caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling centaursTesticle [CT] ‒‒
CA: so youre still usin this fuckin stupid trolltag huh
CT: D ‒‒> What’s stupid about it
CT: D ‒‒> And nobody asked you
CA: your trolltag is balls
CA: literally
CA: its fuckin horse balls
CT: D ‒‒> I would be grateful if you would cease using such 100d language
CT: D ‒‒> Please
CA: wwhy should i yours is about as crude as mine mister hoofbeasts nutsack
CT: D ‒‒> Testacles is a scientific term
CA: uh huh
As far as you know for sure?
He wanted to watch three episodes of a counterculture children’s cartoon with you.
Which in and of itself is suspicious.
But, if he has any further goals, he hasn’t revealed them yet.
It’s not porn.
You are eternally baffled by how many people assume that your hobbies are sexually deviant.
And for the record, the episodes were as high-quality as ever.
You aren’t a navigator and you aren’t interested in the destination. You are not trying to get from point A to point B. You aren’t involved in Alternia’s eternal mission of galactic conquest.
Your life is the ship itself. You no more care about where it is in space than a child cares about where Alternia is in space.
But for the record, Alternia’s right here.
Thank you for 100 followers!
You should not be allowed near colored markers and half-blank pieces of paper.
In your defense, you had already finished proofreading this program to the best of your ability. And you didn’t have any other duties to attend to for another fifteen minutes. And you were feeling nostalgic for Nepeta and her shipping wall nonsense. And then you were wondering if maybe attempting to chart out your prospective quadrants might help you begin to sort out your unholy mess of a romantic life…
It didn’t help. But it was worth a shot.
However, you have no defense for the stick figure rescue scene.
Or the “ΨH: ii<3you,EQ”.
What in the world are you doing with your life? You should destroy this ridiculous image.
Instead, you hide it in the back of the folder where you keep the programming documents and medical paperwork for your job.
Probably dead.
A couple of sweeps ago, she asked you to replace Tavros’s legs with prosthetics. You refused.
Several nights after that, Gamzee asked you to replace Tavros’s legs with prosthetics. You agreed.
You invited Tavros over, replaced his legs, and sent him home. A few nights later, Vriska came storming over to your hive, threateningly wielding her dice, demanding to know why, after turning her down, you had gone behind her back and repaired Tavros’s legs. She accused you of trying to steal credit for the gift she had wanted to give Tavros, and furthermore of trying to pull the same trick on Tavros that you had attempted and failed on Aradia‒‒buying a lowblood’s pity through electronics. You vehemently denied her accusations and expressed your revulsion at the thought that you might be courting Tavros of all trolls, and told her that you were only following Gamzee’s orders.
She immediately set off for Gamzee’s hive.
You immediately trolled Gamzee to warn him. You caught him in a sober mood.
Gamzee immediately set off to meet her in the middle.
You later heard, from other trolls who were nearby when they finally found each other, that Gamzee and Vriska had engaged in a vicious battle for the right to claim Tavros as matesprit. It was the kind of battle where they left with more blood on their clothes than in their bodies.
You haven’t seen Vriska since. It’s just as well that she never came back; Gamzee ordered you to capture her and bring her to him if you ever saw her again. You also demolished her hive in order to crush her lusus and remotely activated her robotic arm’s self-destruct.
But you know she survived. You have heard tales of innocent flarping parties being ruined by the intrusion of a wild-eyed one-armed cerulean-blooded raider. She would force the players to turn against each other, and then steal their booty and supplies.
After the whole thing died down, you learned from Tavros that he’d had no idea either of them was interested in him.
Rehab.
Due to some sort of miracle (Gamzee’s phrasing, not yours), his ancestor is still alive, and voluntarily tracked down Gamzee. AND his ancestor is none other than the Grand Highblood.
Gamzee was fortunate to be born when he was. In the past, whenever the Grand Highblood discovered that a descendant of his had been hatched, he would personally hunt it down and kill it, even if that meant traveling back to Alternia, to make sure the descendant never challenged his power.
However, he is growing old‒‒he suspects he only has another thirty or forty sweeps left‒‒and wishes to train an heir. Trolls are legally recognized as adults at ten sweeps of age, but trolls of Gamzee’s caste cannot be formally inducted into the subjugglator ranks as full members until they are at least fifty sweeps old, so the Grand Highblood need not fear Gamzee overthrowing him. Gamzee won’t be able to legally take power until the Grand Highblood is dead of old age.
Between now and then, he is the Highblood’s protege. He will be personally trained by the Highblood and, over time, start to take his place in official functions.
But as long as Gamzee has his ridiculous addiction to sopor slime, he is not and will not be fit for duty.
When the Grand Highblood found Gamzee, he was busy bouncing back and forth between incomprehensible stoned reveries and cranky withdrawal-fueled killing sprees. If he had been tripping rather than raging when the Highblood met him, he might be dead now. Luckily, the Highblood thought he had potential, and had him hospitalized. He has been locked up for nearly a sweep now.
According to Gamzee, he only gets to see the outside world once a perigee, when the Grand Highblood summons him to check on his progress and impart some worldly wisdom. Gamzee says that the detox process was torture and the aversion therapy is even worse, and there are times when he cannot get on Trollian for nights at a time because his muscles are spasming too hard for him to type. He says he has lost four teeth during seizures and so far only three have grown back.
He has made best friends with every patient and employee in the facility.
He’s doing wonderfully.
For heaven’s sakes, you’re not turning into some sort of proponent for lowblood equality!
The hemospectrum is as it is for a reason, and that reason is the fact that it is RIGHT. It is CORRECT. The lower castes are hatched specifically to serve the higher castes, and the higher castes are hatched specifically to control the lower castes. Lowbloods are naturally inferior, highbloods are naturally superior. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. That is how it is coded into the very genetics of the species.
The hemospectrum is RIGHT. It is CORRECT. It is PERFECTION. It is UNCHALLENGEABLE.
It is simply that… sometimes, it seems… some trolls are… are just…
Born in the wrong caste.
Like the Helmsman.
… Like Aradia.
Oh for pity’s sake, what is this? Do you have some kind of lowblood fetish? Bluh! No! That can’t be true! You were‒‒still are‒‒revolted by Aradia’s original blood color. And as for the Helmsman’s, you…
Well, you suppose you…
Try not to think about it.
Or just. Automatically don’t think about it.
When you try to picture his blood in his veins, all you see are blue and red lines of electricity.
And in his right eye, he holds the color of nobility. The same color as your own blood.
No, you are not giving up your opinions‒‒nay, your beliefs about the hemospectrum. You just don’t want to say anything to disrespect the Helmsman. To hurt him. Because he deserves so much more.
That doesn’t mean you’re a dissident. That doesn’t mean you’re a heretic. That doesn’t mean you’re a rebel. That doesn’t mean you’re an anarchist. That doesn’t mean you’re opposed to the spectrum, opposed to the hierarchy, opposed to your superiors.
That doesn’t mean you’re a mutineer.
Right?
You spend a sleepless day wondering.
… Yeah why haven’t you tried that yet?
D ‒‒> Hello
D ‒‒> I’m
D ‒‒> I’m not sure if you recognize me
D ‒‒> Or if you can hear me
D ‒‒> But
D ‒‒> I am Equius Zahhak
D ‒‒> Or rather, the Arbalist
D ‒‒> I suppose that’s the more appropriate appellation for me now
D ‒‒> I mean name
D ‒‒> Er
D ‒‒> I’m sorry
D ‒‒> I’m forgetting myself
D ‒‒> You have been in the company of highb100ds for countless sweeps
D ‒‒> If you are capable of hearing me now, then you were certainly capable of hearing them long enough to learn such terms as “appellation”
D ‒‒> Oh, goodness, what am I talking about
D ‒‒> I came here to formally introduce myself to you, not to e%pound on class vocabulary
D ‒‒> I’m making quite a foal of myself
D ‒‒> F001 of myself
D ‒‒> I’m sorry
D ‒‒> For some reason it seems I’m rather neighvous
D ‒‒> Nervous
D ‒‒> Good grief, my apologies
D ‒‒> I must 100k more skittish than a hoofbeast in a thunderstorm
D ‒‒> You know what, her highneighss will probably be returning any minute
D ‒‒> Perhaps I should cut this short and make another attempt at a more favorable time
D ‒‒> Please forget this conversation ever took place
D ‒‒> That
D ‒‒> That isn’t an order
D ‒‒> Just a cordial request
D ‒‒> Or a polite suggestion, I suppose
D ‒‒> Feel free to do whatever you want
“Feel free to do whatever you want”? Did you really just say that to a slave?
D ‒‒> Oh God
D ‒‒> How insensitive of me
D ‒‒> I’m sorry
You have recently come to realize that the hardest part of being a racist is trying not to be racist.
D ‒‒> I’m so sorry
Ǝ‒‒Arbalist? W)(at are you doing )(ere?‒‒E
D ‒‒> Good evening, your Imperiousness
D ‒‒> I merely wished to familiarize myself with the Battleship Conde%ension’s engine
D ‒‒> I was attempting to e%amine the mechanisms by which the Helmsman is kept connected to the ship
D ‒‒> I assure you, I neither touched him nor did anything to disrupt his performance
D ‒‒> I was simply intrigued…
Ǝ‒‒Did )(e speak to you?‒‒E
D ‒‒> Uh
D ‒‒> No, your Imperiousness, he did not
D ‒‒> Should he have
Ǝ‒‒No‒‒E
Ǝ‒‒)(e cannot speak‒‒E
Ǝ‒‒)(owever, very few trolls refer to t)(e )(elmsman as “)(im.”‒‒E
Ǝ‒‒Ψe were simply intrigued.‒‒E
D ‒‒> Ah, o-of course
D ‒‒> Please pardon my ine%perience, your Imperiousness
D ‒‒> Due to my lusus’s superior service, I had no need to take any slaves in childhood, and only rarely socialized with trolls who had
D ‒‒> It seems I briefly forgot how to properly address hi…
D ‒‒> …it
D ‒‒> My apologies
D ‒‒> It will not happen again
Ǝ‒‒Ψe don’t particularly care for your excuses or reasons, Arbalist.‒‒E
D ‒‒> Er
D ‒‒> I
D ‒‒> Please e%cuse my presumption
Ǝ‒‒If you wis)( to examine t)(e )(elmsman more closely, you will wait until we are underway.‒‒E
Ǝ‒‒Ψe do not want )(im to be disturbed during )(is time offline.‒‒E
D ‒‒> Yes, your Imperiousness
D ‒‒> My apologies
Ǝ‒‒You may keep your apologies, Ψe don’t want t)(em.‒‒E
D ‒‒> As you wish, your Imperiousness
Ǝ‒‒I’m sure you )(ave ot)(er t)(ings you could be doing wit)( your time, Arbalist?‒‒E
D ‒‒> Er
D ‒‒> Yes
D ‒‒> Your Imperiousness
Ǝ‒‒T)(en do t)(em.‒‒E
She calls the Helmsman “him.”
Feferi is a sea dweller.
You hate sea dwellers.
This isn’t very hard.
In addition, she was opposed to culling the weak, which anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of evolution should know would lead to the weakening of the whole species: if only the STRONG survive to reproduce, then future generations will be STRONGER yet. Plus, the Princess advocated uniting land dwellers and sea dwellers‒‒a concept which makes your stomach turn‒‒and claimed to believe that she and her fellow sea dwellers were no better than land dwellers. Which is in theory all well and good, given that land dwellers are all but obligated to secretly believe that sea dwellers are no better than them. But for a sea dweller to claim the same makes her a traitor to her own race. What sort of empress would she be, if she sat on the throne while simultaneously claiming she had no more right to it than anyone else? She would be unable to maintain power; the empire would fall into anarchy. Either that or she would be exposed as a hypocrite, on the one hand advocating an end to the land/sea rivalry but on the other continuing to support it to legitimize her rule. So that’s a second strike against her.
And if she did make a bid for the throne, and if she gathered enough followers to constitute a revolutionary army, then you, as one of the Condesce’s closest servants, would likely be required to go to war for the Condesce. And you do NOT want to participate in a sea dweller war. You work for the sea dwellers, yes, but because it’s your job and because it’s beneficial to the entire nation. If a sea dweller vs. sea dweller civil war had broken out, you would have wanted no part of it, but you would have had to participate anyway. So that’s a third strike against the Princess.
If trolls had any games that contained special three-strike rules, that would be more than enough to justify your hope that Feferi Peixes is dead. However, trolls have no such games, so rather than considering 3 strikes to be sufficient, they look for π strikes.
You also consider her clothing garish.
There. That’s a sufficient .14159th strike.
I’m not even LOOKING at Tumblr until Sunday!
If I miss anything, please send me an ask or submit letting me know. Thank you! :)
