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Your name is Karkat Vantas. You are currently attempting to watch one of the humans’ so called romance movies and cuddled up against Dave’s side while he jeers at the screen.
You turn to him and ask, “Why aren’t they fighting over who gets the first date? If they get that battle out of the way she could date both of them and then pick.”
Dave pauses the movie, “What?”
“I mean, if she didn’t like both of them it would be different, she’d just choose she liked as her matesprit and be done with it. And then the two of them would be free to become kismesises or, if they don’t hate each other like that way, just go their separate ways. But she does like them both, which changes things, and since you humans don’t have a hemospectrum how else are they supposed to determine who gets the first date. A dominance fight would solve all their problems.”
“Wait, what?” Dave asked, again.
“So, why don’t they get it over with. All this dancing around this is just hurting all of them. If the poor girl doesn’t flip ashen for them by the end of this I will eat my sickles, then neither of them will get her in the quadrant will want and she’ll fuck off to find someone else to be her matesprit. Why isn’t her moirail telling her that they’re both assholes that need their heads removed from their wasteshoots? She needs a new one.”
“Karkat, humans don’t have quadrants or dominance fights,” Dave says and then pauses, considering something, “at least not outside of high school. So either shut up or explain. Preferably explain, so I don’t have to spend the entirety of the next movie either bored out of my mind or confused to all hell.”
“You don’t have dominance fights?” You ask because that’s weird. Dominance fights are a very important part of adult life, even between members of differing blood castes. “Well, that’s stupid.”
“No, we don’t and, yes, it probably is. Now, explain.” Dave says.
“When two trolls like the same troll very much,” you begin and Dave is probably glaring at you from behind his shades, “and that trolls also likes the both of them very much and they can not choose between the two suitors there are two ways of determining who gets the first date. The first is through the hemospectrum but if they’re the same caste or if the troll who is being courted doesn’t give a shit then you move onto option number two, a dominance fight. Once one of the suitors is defeated or yields voluntarily the winner gets the first date with the object of their affections.”
“But the loser still gets to date person C?” Dave asks and you nod. “That might actually be the only smart thing your society has come up with-”
“Hey!”
“-but in human romance the quote love triangle plot unquote is normally solved by either first come first serve or a bunch of wishy washy dramatic tension until one of the boys does something assholish enough to make the main girl hate him or one of them dies or, well the list goes on and on and on. Remind me never to show you a movie where the main dude’s an actual asshole.”
Your brow furrows because that’s stupid. And whoever came up with it is also stupid.
“How would the fight work between two trolls of different blood castes?” He asks and you brighten a bit.
“That’s actually a common romantic gesture between kismesises but some high and midbloods also declare dominance fights as a bit of a formality. It’s expected that the troll in the lower caste will forfeit but there’s a couple of movies where they go through with the fight anyway and that can cause a quadrant flip. That trope became popular to use in movies a couple of sweeps back because of a movie that used a dominance fight as a catalyst for the two combatants to flip pale for one another and then one of them, the lowblood flipped black for his flush crush and-”
“Do you have the disc with you?” Dave asks and you stop talking to look at him.
“Yes.” You say, mildly affronted. It may not be your favorite movie of its ilk but it is a classic.
“Can we watch it? It sounds far more interesting than this.” He gestured at the screen where the male leads were frozen, glaring at one another.
“Sure.” You say and stand up to switch discs.
“One sec.” He says and pulls you down for a kiss. “If I was born on Alternia I would have fought for you, even if I was a lowblood.”