- Equius, upon finding out that Karkat is a mutant, suggests betraying him to the threshcutioners and letting him die. Cue a flood of messages from half the zodiac, all going, 'He's one of us. We're not abandoning him.'Aradia: I expected better of you.Terezi: I cannot believe you are actually typing those words. What about Nepeta? Can you look her in the face and repeat those words?Sollux: Fuck you. Just fuck you.Feferi: Equius, by royal decree I order you to stop being such a glubbing douchebag.
- And Equius listens to them! Admittedly, he argues the point for a long time, but it says a lot about Equius's loyalty to his friends that he didn't alert the threshcutioners immediately.
- Gamzee's confession of pale love to Karkat, who is so overwhelmed by it that he caresses the computer screen, like a "mushy dipshit."
- Gamzee sobers up. Without murdering anyone. Further detailed on the awesome page.And just like a miracle, you can feel your brother all up and around you now, warm like a cooking oven, his bony legs under your head and his fingers carding through your hair and scritching with those blunt rounded nails what couldn't put the hurt on a wiggler's silky little cocoon. You can hear his voice far above your head, words all tumbling down like the little lost snatches of old conversations, when your thinkpan was up and showing you how easy you could choke a brother in a turtleneck and he was staring straight down into the Dark Carnival inside your eyes, smiling with blunt teeth and not a trace of fear.And all of a sudden your blood pusher’s swelling up and pumping out pie oven warmth by the gallons, washing away the ants in your veins in one big gushing happy flood. Your whole body gives out this big surprise shudder from a soft chill, a good kind of one that comes out together with this purring noise you can’t remember when you last made, making you tremble all over and squeeze your eyes shut from the good of it. You raise a heavy uncertain hand and pat your mess of hair in search of those sweet dreamed up scritching fingers, and you can think of nothing other than how much you desperately want to kiss every single one of those knuckles, bury your face into his warm oven chest and kiss every single miraculous beat you hear—All your worries and fears go poof.
- Upon realizing that Nepeta is the Disciple's reincarnation, and will be culled by the Empire because of this, Equius has to make a choice between his beliefs and the troll he loves. His first thoughts?...It really is shameful how easily you’ve taken a side. It doesn't even feel like there was a choice to be made.
- And then he goes out and kills the threshcutioners.
- Tavros remembering how everyone helped him after Vriska crippled him.Thinking back on that time reminds you of all the complicated thoughts and feelings you were dealing with, the reactions of everyone you knew, the decisions you made which you still don't know if were correct but which you fail to regret nonetheless. You remember Aradia and Sollux showing up with the device for you, remember Karkat bringing you all those mysterious pain-diminishing herbs and teas (now that you think about it this place explains a lot about that) with surprising frequency (yeah, the tunnels would explain that one too). You remember hearing, through the haze of near-constant pain, about some sort of confrontation between Terezi and Vriska, the results of which you never quite learned about; Gamzee sending you reams of messages you could make heads nor tails of; the friends of your friends who just sort of stepped in and then stuck around after the dust settled — blues and violets who you became somehow able to call acquaintances, and who you sometimes felt very close to despite having never met them in person or talked to at length.
- Tavros being given a new wheelchair by the Cult, and realizing that they- unlike most other trolls in the world- they actually care for their injured instead of culling them on sight. He's touched to the point of crying.
- Havera being taught about the hemospectrum in school. Apparently, the teacher started crying halfway through, so the children gathered around and hugged her.
- Blade Dancer realizing who Karkat really is,
and calling him by his grub name. - "I want to see your eyes."And then the Grand Elder takes off his glasses and raises them where its silhouette will be clear to those on the back. His eyes glitter from the shadows under his hood, refracting like a meowbeast's under the dim light; seeing their color makes you want to laugh — in surprise or hysteria — as a hundred hints coalesce in your mind into a sudden bubble of understanding.The other Elders raise their glasses as well, not to be outdone, and as you glance at each of them in turn you can't help thinking I would have never pegged you as olive, I could swear you didn't have fins, you're the mildest purple ever, holy shit, you're brown!, another blueblood?, how are you still alive if you're rust, you being jade explains a lot, you're the opposite of sollux, and so are you, why is there another fucking violet what do violets stand to gain—Your train of thought is derailed as the darkness behind the Elders wavers, dances, and starts to fill with multicolored stars.You stare dumbly at the blinking spectacle in front of you; perhaps because of the fading drugs, or maybe because of the severity of your wound, you forget the stone under your feet and for a moment are utterly convinced that you are floating, waiting half-asleep on the edge of infinity, and the shivering lights of the universe are laid down at your feet, a billion thousand wigglers for you to defend and nurture.Then you slip back into the cave, and ahead of you is not a magnificent cluster of stars but merely a gathering of very scared, very brave people, some staring stiffly ahead, others turning their heads shyly to their neighbors. Yet the intense joy you carried from that vision doesn't diminish in the least; instead, it overflows and runs down your cheek in an embarrassing display.
- In Bringing down the moons, a young Karkat learns that the Grand Elder can't see the moons and the sky, and hasn't seen them for a very, very long time. His response is to draw a picture of the moons and the sky to make the Grand Elder feel better.
- In Chapter 15, Equius has a minor Freak Out at the thought of Nepeta being involved with the cult, and says that he has to take a brief break to calm down. Despite everyone previously enjoying giving him shit for his multiple fuckups, they all tell him to take all the time he needs and that they hope he feels better soon.
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