"I really don't see why I have to be pinned down for this."

"Don't be silly, you know what you did. Feferi, can we borrow you for half an hour?"

Feferi looked up from her coding, still not even partially sure what her matesprit was trying to get her to accomplish. "I guess so, Sollux, can we break?"

"No problem, FF, do your thing."

Feferi headed over to the couch in the corner, where she found Jade and Nepeta sitting out in front of the pile of DVDs Karkat and John had arranged like a coffee table. Jade had a pile of them in her lap, but Feferi did not see the full situation until she had rounded the couch.

"Um... do I have to sit on Karcrab, too?"

"Hell no," Karkat replied. He was not really being sat on so much as pinned against the back of the couch, both hands trying to push Jade away, but she was stubborn and surprisingly strong. Except for a laughing jolt when he accidentally tickled her (something he would never do willingly lest risk looking playful), she stayed perfectly still.

"He wouldn't get up," Jade said, matter-of-factly. "I figured if he wanted the couch so bad, he could keep it."

Nepeta leaned forward with a grin. "Do you not want to sit on Kitty?"

Feferi eyed Karkat and noted that he looked half ready to bite Jade's arm. "I'll sit over here," she said, settling on the arm. "If that's okay."

"Oh, thank god one of you isn't a bitch," Karkat said, as Nepeta reached out to pat him on the arm. "Am I allowed to ask what was so important that you had to have the TV right away?"

"Well you weren't interested before!" Jade said. "So maybe you don't get to know now! I wanted to show something to Nepeta and I wanted Feferi's opinion on something related, stuff like that."

"Season 3?" Rose had stepped up from behind, where she had cast a look over Jade's shoulder. Her hand was still caught in Kanaya's, surreptitiously placed behind Nepeta where she would not think to look, and it brightened Jade's eyes to see it. "I thought you hated Season 3."

"I don't hate Season 3," Jade tried to explain, as Rose plucked the DVD case from her hands. "The Dargon Arc just scared me when I was little." Nepeta, emotive as always, looked up sharply and began to tremble.

"Yeah, you do seem like the type," Rose said, returning the case. She reached over and rubbed Nepeta's shoulder. "She meant 'scary for little kids,' Nepeta. It's not that bad," she reassured. "Seriously, calm."

"What's a 'Dargon Arc'?" Feferi asked.

"Dargon's a character," Jade said, looking forlornly at the box. "A villain. He's not even in the episode I want to show you. The show wasn't doing so well when they got to Season 3 and they were on their fourth animation studio, so this one threw out a few ideas to see how they'd do with the viewers. It must have worked, because a few episodes later they started a plot arc that lasted until the end of the season."

"A very Western, nineties move," Rose said with a nod. "Gargoyles, Batman: The Animated Series. Weird, what with it being a turn-of-the-century, originally Asian-produced product, I mean. Didn't work so well."

Jade piped up. "Yeah, because it was too scary for little kids! Nepeta, stop it, we're just exaggerating!" Jade reached over to hold a hand down on Nepeta's shoulder. She was not there long before Karkat kneed Nepeta, which stopped her quivering if it earned him a swat from nearly everone present.

"Not scary," Rose said. "We were just invested in the plot! What episode are you showing them?"

"Uh... Ties that Bind."

To Jade's surprise and to her own embarrassment after the fact, Rose's voice jumped a half octave. "Oh, that one's cute!"

"Cute?" Nepeta looked upside-down for confirmation. "Oh, hi, Kanaya!"

Feferi looked over at the boxes a second time. "Well, I think I can do 'cute'."

But Jade just scoffed. "Only you, Rose."

"What? How could you not find this one cute?"

Dave, who had been chatting with John and Aradia not far away, overheared their conversation and approached. "I think she's saying you were a really old kid for your age, Lalonde. What the hell are you all talking about, anyways?" Jade held up the DVD case. "Oh, hell no." And he left: not just from the corner but from the entire room. John and Aradia exchanged shrugs and followed him.

"I'm going to be the only guy here, aren't I?" Karkat asked, and was immediately ignored.

"Well, there'll be a few less girls, Karkat," Rose said. "Kanaya and I have got... We have plans."

Karkat nodded. "Uh-huh. 'Plans.'" Rose sneered back at him.

"Rose, we can spare a half hour," Kanaya said, looking over the DVDs. "We have all day, after all, and this is a part of your childhood, if I'm hearing you right. I'd like a chance to see a part of that."

"Well, if you're up to it, Kan, but I wouldn't wait to be too impressed."

Nepeta made a gasping, squealing sound and shot the other girls conspiratorial looks, unawares that she had been completely lapped in the Kanaya/Rose department just before her arrival. Karkat, on the other hand, began to make a series of retching noises that required both Jade and Feferi to silence.

"Jade, why don't you put in the DVD before this carping jerk interrupts again?" Feferi suggested, shooting Karkat a glare that broke into a smile when he responded to Jade's absence by simply making himself more comfortable. Everyone taking a seat, Rose and Kanaya by Jade's feet together, Jade hit play.

The others had gotten well used to working around Karkat and John's usual movie-watching in the past month or so as a matter of course, but nothing that had come before prepared them for this new DVD. Garish and loud, piercing and bright, it struck them to their cores with the raw force that dwelled at the opposite extreme from horror and insanity. It was too welcoming, too gleeful, too...

...far too...

...pink.

A dark-clouded night, shock bright with lightning, with the camera low by an island tower set barely above the ravenous, storm-whipped seas that spanned as far as the eye could see in every direction. The tower formed a scene of bleak desolation, a shot of the tip of an iceberg: a lost civilization consumed by the waves. It was ominous, it was brooding. It was a shot completely overthrown by bright-shaded animation and an obnoxious Casio piano tune being played in the background. In the dark, figures shuffled aboard a vessel anchored just off the flooded shore of the island, all dripping from head to toe. One struggled to find the switch for the deck lamps and found them inoperable, and each began bickering and blaming the others for every misfortune and stubbed toe. Two of them brought up the rear, still climbing aboard from the ladder. They hefted a bundle together, as though no one of the rabble trusted another enough to handle the task alone.

"I hope you realize none of you are going to get away with this," said a female voice, muffled. "My friends will see I'm gone as soon as the sun comes up, and then..."

"Wha's she talkin' about, mate?" said one of the figures, helping the other up to the deck with a free hand.

"Beats me, guess no one bothered to tell her the plan," said the other, giving a wheezing giggle that would accompany him in all his scenes. The characters on the boat all spoke with the sorts of accents children's providers liked to choose for their thug villains, though these in particular did not seem to know or care how one accent ended and the other began, and simply glued them together at random. It was an ill-planned and offensive association at best, but a trope so prominent that any English-speaking child would have immediately understood their role even this were their first viewing. The camera cut across the animated deck and to the bundle: a round sack no larger than a head, which the second figure collected. Along with his companion, they made their way to the stern in shadow.

"Yeh," said the first. "Step one, kidnap youse."

"An' step two," said the second, holding up two oddly-shaped fingers. "Get you on th'ship. So it looks to me like we already got away wif it, y'see?"

Hitting the indoor lights, a garish room came into view, built with a nautical dcor. There was a bed complete with mounted ship's wheel on the wall above, flanked by photographs of fishing trophies. Nearly every piece of furniture was decorated with harpoon designs, sailing masts in miniature or mermaid figureheads. At one side of the room, just under the porthole, rested an armoire carved in a wave motif, carefully nailed to the floor and wall. Atop the armoire was another carefully secured bit of furniture: an aquarium. It was stocked with all the necessities, from coloured rocks and carbon filter, a chest that opened to spill out bubbles and the tiny castle with mermaid figurines built straight into the model. The two thugs went to the aquarium, their shadows cutting only briefly into the shot, where they up-ended their burden and an angry, purple cartoon jellyfish landed inside, upside-down.

"You know, you don't have to be so rough," she said, shaking her body off and then crossing two of her tentacles in front. On a second inspection (and as she began to right herself through buoyancy), her angry look gradually became one of simple, routine displeasure. A yellow crest atop her bulbous head, zig-zagged almost like a crown affixed with a single teal spot for its jewel creased with that same look. As she frowned, the teal freckles about her face swelled in what could only be described as an animator's quirk.

"'Ey, you know how this works," said the first figure. The camera cut to a shot from the jellyfish's perspective, showing the first figure to be a large, angry fish-man and the second to be some sort of fish-legged goat-man. The goat man prepared a tight mesh cover while the fish a screwdriver, which they used to seal the top of the aquarium. "We pick you up, you go in the box!"

"I'd prefer you not call it 'picking me up,' Rat, and some of your crewmates have been much gentler with me in the past. Now what were you saying about this being the end of the plan? Please tell me you're not just kidnapping me for the fun of it."

"Not this time, sweetie," said the second, holding up a finger to her and the camera for silence. Rat withdrew, returning the tools to their home in a box under the large bed. "We've already tol' you the whole plan and that's all you're gonna get."

"Ram, ey!" said Rat, leaning against the elaborately carved naval battle scene carved into the foot of the bed. "You don't think the boss is holding out on us, do youse? I mean... so we don't tell Prin-"

With a camera jump and a sting on the soundtrack, the door to the cabin slammed open and a crack of thunder and lightning revealed the silhouette of a tall human man. He was decked in a heavy overcoat, captain's hat and held a corncob pipe in hand. He tossed aside a towel to another member of his crew on the deck, who caught it in one of several tentacles. "No," growled the captain. "No, that be the whole plan, Princess. T'ain't no one skipping any details this time."

The jellyfish did not seem at all bothered by the new arrival though his goons, forced grins on their faces, clutched tight to the nearest pieces of furniture. The reason for their allegiance was quite clear. "Then what," asked the jellyfish, "am I even doing here?"

The man, now visible and visibly aged, smiled to her as he lit his pipe, casting a flash of red over sunken, grey eyes ("Japanese footage," Jade explained. "More permissive. Mixed with the American dubbing for the DVD release"). "Maybe I'm just taken by ye, Princess, and've decided to take ye in as a pet of me very own?"

"Not likely," she replied in a huff.

The captain stepped forward, tapping his pipe in one hand. "Yes, well, i's too bad, I suppose, since tha'd be much more polite to yer friends and... ur, gents?" He turned to face his sailors on both sides as the music began with comic trumplet blats. The soundtrack was ever willing to spell out the situation to its younger viewers so they would laugh along without understanding the joke. "As it stands, I'm a sixty-five year old man with a teenaged Squiddle locked up in his chambers, so none of ye try to eat her this time. But still, I think we might be a bit better off here if everything creepy in here that isn't part of the plan get back on the deck immediately."

Ram and Rat met one another's eyes. "Um... Skip?"

"That means the both of ye," supplied the Skipper, lowering the tone of his voice. With a bumbling trill of the old Casio, the crewmen bolted from the room with a "Yes sir, Skipper Plumbthroat, sir!"

Plumbthroat took Rat's place, leaning against the foot of his bed. "...Can't get good help these days, Princess."

The Princess was not amused. "What's this about, Eustace?"

The Skipper winced and winced hard, throwing into a pantomime of disgusted gestures and sounds. "Princess, how many times do I have to tell ye not teh use me given name!"

The Princess began a mimic of his own gestures. "Well, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Berryboo?"

"Well!" said the Skipper, and carried on in a high-pitched voice that did not at all match his menacing entrance. "Excuuuuuuse me, Princess Berryboo, if I stand up for me own point of view in me actions!"

"Well I guess we've reached an impasse!" replied Berryboo, in as regal a fit as she could manage.

"Fine!"

They both rounded and faced the walls, Plumbthroat stepping forward to slam open the opposite porthole. From her position inside the aquarium, Berryboo could see just over the bottom edge of her own porthole but could make out nothing but gale and wave in every direction. She turned back toward the room and found the Skipper drinking in the sea air.

"You're waiting for them, aren't you? You've set another trap."

Pulling his head back into the room, the Skipper faced her and his lips slowly curled into a menacing half-smile. "...Aye." The lightning crashed again and put every detail of his aged and cruel face into sharp relief. "But I didn't lie to ye, Princess. My plan's already finished. By the time the other Squiddles come to save ye in the morning, there won't be anything they ken do."

The lightning flashed again, and this time Plumbthroat caught notice of it and an odd look crept across his face. "...that's remarkable, does it do that for every dramatic moment?" He walked away and stuck his head out the porthole. "...'And with this Viking Gold I'll be able to rule the world!'" Another strike. He shook a fist triumphantly. "'And as soon as I'm done bulldozing this orphanage-!'" Krack-kaboom! "Ye know, I think I might consider settling down here when all is said and done," he said.

He turned back to her, and his smile began to simmer to one of dominance. The music, as well as the lighting, began to dim almost imperceptibly in a rare moment of competent subtlety. The Skipper's voice actor followed suit, his growl clearing up enough to speak at a dark whisper. "Tell me, Princess. Do you know where we are?"

Berryboo shook her head, her tentacles trailing after her like a dress. Plumbthroat smiled again. "Too bad," he said. "I know yer pappy does. He'll have yer friends here right on time, I promise." Another bolt of lightning touched down, this one much closer by far, striking a lightning rod stuck fixed to the top of the nearby, otherwise ancient stone tower. Plumbthroat followed her eyes, smiled and nodded. "Do ye truly not recognize that island, Princess? Have ye spent so much time under the sea that yer head is full of salt?" Berryboo was not about to dignify that with a response, so he continued. "That be the Island of Dread and Hate!"

Berryboo looked back at Plumbthroat with a pleading expression. "Eustace, it doesn't matter! You won't get away with this, my friends will rescue me! Please, won't you listen? We can still cooperate, I've said it a hundred-"

Plumbthroat knocked a hand against his footboard to interrupt her. "Yea, and each time less and less in my favour! I take it ye don't recognize the island of Dread and Hate, then, Princess? Not exactly a part of yer territory, I imagine."

Berryboo sniffed and shook her head. "No, we can't live there, it's too close to the Leviatha-" She shot back to attention in a panic and fluttered to the corner of the aquarium. "Eustace, no! M-my friends..."

"Ah... so ye do know about the Leviathan." The music then began to lower in tone dramatically, to remind the viewer that this was the real frightening moment. "Doesn't eat Squiddles, though, does he? But I think yer father would have told ye just how territorial he can get. I think ye see what I was saying about me plan, don't ye, Princess? I kidnap you, I bring ye to the ship... and by morning the seas will be so full of Squiddle ink I could scoop it up with me bare hands!" And he began to laugh, the lightning again casting contrasting shadows across his face.

Another electrical sound interrupted him, this time form the deck. "Bah!" he shouted. "'How many fisherman does it take to screw in a light bulb?'" he asked rhetorically, putting his pipe back in his mouth. "More than these!" he said as he punched his way out of the room.

"But... Eustace, my friends! M-my..." But he flicked off the lights as he went and the princess was left in darkness.

Jade clutched at her hair, ignoring the others as they reached past her to grab at the popcorn on her lap. "I hate this season!" she reiterated as the Squiddles theme song began to play as though nothing that had preceded it had even occurred.