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The planet of Alternia was in a state of torrid flux. With the new Empress Feferi replacing the tyrannical and cruel Condescension the planet and the troll people who had lived for millennia under the Condescension’s bloodthirsty thumb didn’t know quite what to do with themselves.
Without the widespread culling of millions of trolls and grubs for their defects population was booming uncontrollably. Mutants, the orphaned and the disabled were no longer culled from the population and there weren’t any institutions made to accommodate trolls with mutations, who were disabled mentally or physically or grubs who were orphaned.
The subjugglators were all but disbanded, most went into hiding and some rebel militant subjugglator groups continued to carry out their murders in earnest, though now they were actively hunted by the government much like human serial killers on Earth.
Colonization efforts were doubled to accommodate the new influx, but now under a regime that actually cares about sentience of alien life forms, many of the habitable planets were in fact- already inhabited and the aliens discovered were left alone instead of being enslaved.
Well most of the new aliens were left alone.
Earth was special.
Humans were a race that could raise young and with a lusii shortage due to the abolishment of culling the Alternians quickly set up contact to try and establish lususing agreements with the populations of earth. Many grubs were given to human families to raise and many humans were offered jobs on Alternia in government grub care facilities or made contracts with highbloods to raise their spawn.
With constant communication set up between the two planets there was an unforeseen and surprising consequences.
One of which being Earth media.
Before the new empress Alternian media was highly propagandized, such as the grub books “why the little grub must be culled for incompetence” and “Be useful to the regime or you’ll be decapitated”.
The same went with novels, movies, even music. The regime kept a tight control on media produced and edited lyrics and lines to portray the government as all-powerful and omnipotent and rebels as weak and ineffectual.
On the popular website “Trollr” (and I use the word popular loosely as all trolls were required to have an account or be culled) all citizens were required to reblog the Condescension’s selfies at least twice a day and all activity was watched intensely by the regime.
There were of course dark places on the troll internet where actual critical things were discussed and even some critical and thought-provoking media produced but with the threat of death they were few and far between.
But with the new Empress and the close bond with Earth came access to Earth’s internet and an explosion of new media and ideas.
Marika Mallen was an adolescent greenblood. She had grown up for most of her life through the regime so she had become very adept at hiding. Only her lusus and her moirail knew she was a mutant. She adjusted the grey false skin prosthetics that hid her second pair of eyes. It was illegal to cull her now but she still tended to wear them. It's illegal to do a lot of things but that didn’t stop people, mutants are still getting killed only now there are punishments for those who kill them.
Which is nice and all but she would prefer no mutants getting killed at all.
Oh she’s getting a text from her moirail.
LL: (✿◠‿◠) HEY!
MM: oh..hi linnik...what's that thing before your message?
LL:╚(•⌂•)╝OH MY GOODNESS GRAVY YOU DON’T KNOW?
MM: no..i don’t know...thats why i asked you...also whats gravy?
LL:(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ ITS A HUMAN THING! ISN’T IT KAWAII DESU???
MM: oh..i think i heard about um...new aliens that might help with the grub crisis...whats kawaii desu?is it a type of weapon?
LL:（ミ￣ー￣ミ）OMFG LOL! GURL! HUMANS ARE FUCKING AWESOME OK? i’VE BEEN WATCHING OURAN HOST CLUB ALL DAY!
LL: Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ OH MY GOODNESS GRAVY THAT’S RIGHT!!!! I FOUND THIS AND TOTALLY THOUGHT OF YOU!! WATCH IT I’M SURE YOU’LL LOVE IT!
LL:（〜^∇^)〜 CHECK THIS OUT!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQMuQjFZAJI
Marika clicked on the link. The music was nice and it seemed to gear up for a kismessitude between the black shaggy-haired one and the skinny one with a thingy on her forehead based on them both competing for the red affections of the tall pink one. Pink superiority of course, the pink one and the skinny one began dancing, she might as well wait out the song and-
They fused and-
She was absolutely beautiful. And she had two sets of eyes.
Marika watched in awe and the beautiful creature animated in front of her, the graceful dancing the flirtatious confidence.
And with two sets of eyes!! Two sets of eyes!!
She began to cry. Violently sobbing the patches hiding her second set of eyes started to slide away but she didn’t feel ashamed. She wasn’t ashamed because she was shown that two sets of eyes could be beautiful.
She watched every episode of the show “Steven Universe” and read everything she could on it. There were large fan bases dedicated to it, some of which were trolls! She talked with other trolls and humans who liked the show and traded headcanons and theories about the show. She clicked through some blogs one day and found it. A violet blood cosplaying as Malachite but those extra arms...Those were real! She stood proudly against a plain background flexing and showing off her costume and she was so pretty and confident even though she was a mutant and-
That night she bought blonde hair dye off the internet and started to carve out gems like on the show.
She dances like rainbow quartz and for the first time in her life she felt beautiful.
Marika wasn’t the only one. The epidemic of human media spread through the fast-growing populace like wildfire. Anime references proliferated speech and fashion, trolls began to cosplay to ship, to write bizarre fanfiction and create fan art and fan animations.
It was a cultural renaissance for a people who had lived for countless generations with nothing but propaganda, even if the entire planet looked like the one embarrassing anime phase that every human goes through in eighth grade.
This wasn’t without it’s consequences though, and although Alternia was trying to become peaceful they had lived for countless generations as violent warmongers. Some habits are hard to break and fan feuds became actual feuds.
Kirika kambih bit off the ear of a fellow Doctor Who fan when he told her that Martha was a better companion than Rose.
In the Undertale fandom someone threw a grenade into the house of a popular blogger who said that Mettaton/Papyrus as a ship was trash.
There were many a fist fight in the Steven Universe fandom over who Peridot should be paired with, almost all of which led to broken teeth.
In the Gravity falls Troll fandom half of them were convinced that Bill cipher was real.
Churro Chandi was a tall and brutish former-subjugglator with battlescars criss-crossing his body. He was a ruthless warrior and had one of the highest kill-counts in his subjugglator faction. When the subjugglators disbanded he found refuge in human media as a distraction.
He stood over the charred wreckage of what USED to be the hometown of a certain blogger.
“HA.” he chortled to himself and adjusted his miniskirt.
“Try and tell me that the Sailor Moon reboot is better than the original again you fucker.”
His hair was tied into two long pony tails accentuating his long horns. He struck a peace sign over one eye “BY THE MOON I PUNISH YOU!!”
Empress Feferi gathered her war generals to help address the problem. They were all muscled and battle-hardened trolls who had hundreds of years of battle and strategic experience.
The first one stroked his chin thoughtfully “so trolls are actually getting into militaristic feuds over this?”
Feferi rubbed her temples “I know it’s strange. Anyt)(ing you could tell me would be kelpful.
“So over simple things like...which Powerpuff Girl is best or…”
“Blossom” another general piped in, banging a fist against the table. “Obviously it’s Blossom” the violet-blood nodded “What with her noble eye color and scholarly pursuits.”
A Green blood stood out of his chair and swung his axe into the table “INCORRECT! OBVIOUSLY THE SUPERIOR ONE IS BUTTERCUP AS HER WAR-LIKE NATURE IS BEFITTING OF A GREEN-BLOODED WARRIOR!”
The both of them were body slammed by another who had taken a running jump to tackle them. “BUBBLES FOR BEST POWER PUFF GIRL!”
Feferi sighed as a brawl broke out between her generals. Secretly she liked bubbles the best but none of them needed to know that.