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-- His Rumbustious Honknificence [AKA The Grand Highblood, You Dumb Fuck] began trolling every motherfucking last one of you [@list:dipshits, @list:crew] --
GHB: And so now you know the meaning of what it would be to follow this angel among trolls, and to have ALL CASTES AND COLOURS FIT TOGETHER.
GHB: GOOD MOTHERFUCKING LUCK TO YOU for the having of this knowledge, by the most gracious grinmacing faces of the for realest of gods.
Gamzee stared at the new messages for a lot longer than they took to read, but everybody on board the ship thought he couldn't string two consecutive syllables together without actually factually sweating blood, and he could get away with it. Might be that he would get sweaty in trying to avoid contemplating whether the crew was messaged because they wanted to see entertainment, or because the Grand Highblood had a mind to dangle a punishment in front of the maximum of lookstubs, including the exact match to his own purple.
But he had to look back at the arena eventually.
"So, um," said Gamzee.
A freshly-judged loser - this one all the way dead, thankfully - get shot up into the air by the psychic trigger, contorting and cracking and spraying green on the way.
"I'm guessing this is all up and, like, motherfuckin hilarious. And shit." With such stoned confusion, as if this subjugglation was in truth a surprise. "Right?"
"It is meant to be a parable," said the Grand Highblood, who hardly looked to the screen at all. But that was better than the times he did look, though. "These little lost woolbeast cultists do so motherfucking love their parables. Should they wish to set themselves against the laws of blood and the writ of the mirthful messiahs - they get, as the oldest of the scriptures say, to play. a. game." He dropped his preacher's voice and flipped casual. "And to learn the cost of what it would mean to change all things."
The latest corpse drifted back down, even their mass of hair flinchfully twisted so as to wedge them into a shape for the contestants below to make a space for. It was probably going to take a long time before they built something stable and high enough to climb out of the arena. Or colourful enough. The Grand Highblood had said he sometimes let the contestants out if they had a good eye for composition.
Gamzee traced in his memory his best friend's symbol, a sign pale in his thinkpan and bright red sacrilege as displayed on the arena walls. Karkat had never shown much of an inclination for painting and shit like that.
He thought about the message Karkat had got, a sweep and a couple of seasons ago, to move somewhere he wasn't known and change his sign before Ascension, and of how he'd told Karkat it was a miracle to get such a caring message from right the fuck out of nowhere. There had been a lot of arguing and research and fear among his friends that Gamzee still hadn't caught the track of, but Karkat had after all decided to hide his true sign, and by now he was settled aboard his own ship.
It felt more like a miracle than ever, knowing he was safe. But if the gods turned their laughter away from this sign ... where else could he believe that a miracle could come from, and that it might deign to come for him?