A Lullaby for Tinhatters

Remember when I said 'Fun without Plot'?

Good times.

That tag is now dead and gone, and I'd like everyone to know that I tried my best to hold on to it, but a plot broke into my house one night and ate my cacti while looking me straight in the eye. I cried.

Currently I have a notebook (Well, actually, more like several pages from several notepads and notebooks that I tore off and then stapled together because I tended to plot on the go and wrote on everything I could get my hands on. With a green pen. Not because I'm Green Penned Bastard but because I didn't have any other pen.) filled with notes and context, an Excel Spreadsheet to keep track of everything that's going on, and have at least one (1) classpect guide blog bookmarked.

So, in case you've only been following the story from Patreon and not AO3, I'll restate a few things:

Chapter 17 is titled: The Heir (Presumptive)

 Heir Presumptive
[noun]
- an heir whose claim could be set aside by the birth of another heir. 

Chapter 18 is titled: The Heir (Apparent)

 Heir Apparent
[noun]
- an heir whose claim cannot be set aside by the birth of another heir.
- a person who is most likely to succeed to the place of another. 

Chapter 19 is titled: Three Dimensional Chess

Three-dimensional chess (or 3D chess) refers to any of various chess variants that use multiple boards at different levels, allowing the chess pieces to move in three physical dimensions. 

I mentioned that I use some of creative-classpect.tumblr.com's descriptions of the classpect, specifically the Pool Master's, and also that the chatlog handles of Hal's friends might be important. 

They might be randos or they might not be, it's best if you don't trust me. It's best if you don't trust anyone in this story until all the cards are on the table - once they are, it'll be safer to make your judgments. Trust me, the cards are not on the table, the dealer is hiding so many from us.

That said! I'm gonna confirm a few things:

• Autotestifieus is indeed Hal, I just mixed Auto Responder and timaeusTestified. 
• The nightmare imposter from Karkat's dreamscape is an Heir of Blood (and you know I've given you the classpects if you go back to my previous Lullaby posts).
• The Ancestors are involved in this story, I just forgot to tag them in the AO3 post.
• The name Anshu was taken from http://the-alternian-lexicon.tumblr.com/post/133492769800/anshu , lets pretend it's the actual word for Hope in Alternian.
• Am I ever going to tell you straight to your faces who GPB and The Radio and The Heir  and The Heir of Blood are? No.
• Are there people in Hal's chat group that are important. Well, all people are important, because we're all irreplaceable, even if there's like, multiple versions of us across time and space. Each iteration is still different, and I have been reading too much multiverse fiction.
• 777angeles is in fact a Safehouse resident.
• 777angeles is 5'0". Height jokes all around.
• The birds in Karkat's dream are in fact a reference to Odin's ravens (I put a line that said their names tickled at his thoughts and memories - that's an obvious clue because of Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory)).
• GPB does not own the birds, the birds are borrowed.
• I actually took the nickname Angel from another thing I'm working on. I just got attached to it and it fit because of 777angeles' username.
• The laughter Loki heard that he thought felt malicious was not his own voice. The one that sound like his own voice was the one that said 'leave him out of this'.
• GPB actually hates the color green and doesn't like writing with the green pen.
• (No offense to Loki, of course, he can keep green as his color. Preference is just a thing.)
• Cecil knows a few things but is unsure of what to make of it and working with Loki to try and make sense of it.
• Don't worry about Winston, he's just a very curious dog and he...has a penchant for people-watching and knowing things because he's very observant.
• Cecil's cat is indeed Khoshekh.
• I have notes even on Hal's online friends, it's ridiculous how much planning I'm doing:
  
  lksenna - lowercase
  tcrimeeats - perfect syntax
  BorkinBork - capitalizes but sometimes forgets to use punctuation
  abeille - lowercase
  777angeles - lowercase
  
• Abeille, despite being French for 'bee', is not affiliated with the Captors.
• Lksenna is the one who keeps having weird footage and showing it to their chat group (and effectively, to Hal).
• Whatever writing utensil Tony uses to make runes would actually work, but The Radio has a preference of glitter pens. Pink pens are okay, purple pens are even okayer.
• Have you ever tried writing in a purple glitter pen? Aesthetic.
• Random info but GPB has been tempted to steal Tony's glitter pens because writing with an ugly green pen is. ugh.
• Lksenna has said: too bad the fates will find a way
  but 777angeles responded: i'll fight fate itself
  Spot the difference and keep in mind the mythology closely tied to MCU or Lullaby.

Also, here's a bit of a draft from October 28, 2013 in the story that I didn't include in Chapter 19:

The radio is gone again. 

Karkat is not even surprised anymore. This is the fourth time it’s done this, and it’s every time someone other than him enters the room. Kanaya has found him talking into a corner of a wall twice, and he’s running out of excuses fast, which is pathetic since it’s only been two times since she’s walked in on him arguing with a disappearing and reappearing radio.

Currently, Rogers is looking at Karkat strangely and Karkat is staring him down, refusing to say anything because he really doesn’t have an excuse for yelling at empty space for being vague at hints. There’s about several minutes of awkward silence before the human coughs, and then goes to grab his bag and jacket, then hurries out the living room.

Karkat hears the radio return before he even turns to it.

“I am not being vague.”

“Yes you are, you lusus-puked waste flinger of a brick,” Karkat says, “What on Alternia is a ‘Hal-o-een’.”

The sigh comes out as a static. “As I’ve said. It’s a human holiday.”

“Well I don’t know human holidays in case your thinkpan got lost in the air while you were using your psionics.”

“It’s a human holiday on the thirty-first of October.”

“I don’t know what an ocht-to-burr is either!”

“God, just ask Steve Rogers to teach human culture to you, please. October is the month you are in right now.”

“What the hell is a month.”

Silence.

He should get an award for shutting up the radio, honestly. It’s been nagging at him all day. That said, he should also get an award for managing to sleep fine recently, even if he’d had to wake up in the bioluminescent planet every time he’d gone to sleep. It was peaceful, at least.

“I know you’ve used the term before, you can’t fuck with me.”

Karkat gives the radio a flat look. “I can’t believe, in all the short time we’ve unofficially agreed to annoy the shit out of each other, this is the first time you’ve said that.”

“Do you fully understand what a month is?”

“No. I know it’s a human thing, but I only have a vague idea and Dave didn’t explain shit, and I have no idea what the connection between ocht – ” the way he says the syllable is awkward, and the sound scrapes against his throat like he’s  trying to swallow glass “ – to-burr is to a month.”

“You divide a solar sweep into days right?”

“That’s wriggler knowledge.”

“And you group those days together and have names for those groups? Culluary for example?”

Karkat frowns. Whoever this is certainly has done their research. “…yeah?”

“That’s a month. In human terms, that’s what a month is.”

That’s painfully simple. Karkat resists the urge to slam his head against the wall for fear of disturbing Kanaya, or throwing the radio across the room for fear of it reversing its trajectory and slamming right into his face and breaking his nose.

“Each month has a name, and October is one of those names. October also happens to be the month you are in now. Please don’t tell me you have been using human terms without at least gaining knowledge of what they are by osmosis, because I am actually considering the fact that you are just messing with me, but from what I can see, you are actually confused, and it’s making me cry.”

He kicks at the radio. The insignia’s light flickers and its antenna snaps off. “Maybe that shit of a spell of yours rotted my thinkpan, asshat.”

“I will not descend to ad hominem.”

He kicks at the radio again, this time he cracks the control panel.

The Time symbol spins into view underneath it again, and slowly, the pieces reset and repair themselves, but the radio doesn’t stop speaking anyway even while it’s broken. 

“You are on the 28th of October, which leaves you with three days until the 31st. Halloween is a holiday which takes place on the 31st, and it’s a holiday where people, usually children or teenagers, dress up for fun and go around knocking at other people’s doors to ask for tricks or treats – usually, treats are given out.”

“That’s a stupid holiday, why would humans seek out other humans willingly, especially wrigglers – the adults could kill them.”

“Humans killing other humans isn’t legal, normally.”

This is slightly distressing. He knew human culture and troll culture were vastly different, but he was actually disturbed by the idea of younger humans seeking out older, possibly higher-ranking humans. 

“Calm down.”

“I’m – ” He shuts his mouth before he finishes that sentence. He doesn’t really do calm.

“So, in three days’ time, there’ll be four people arriving in the city. I have no guarantee they’ll stop by your building, but hopefully they will, because they’re looking for you. I can’t give you names.”

“See, this is why you aren’t really helping.”

“I can’t give you names and you’ll know why if they end up spending time in your building.”

“That really isn’t helping.”

“I know.”

He kicks the radio hard enough for it to crash into the corner. The eye insignia’s fizzles out as it smashes in half, bits and pieces of it tumbling out from behind it.

“Rude,” says the radio, still somehow able to broadcast that even while broken.

“You said you’d talk if I slept!”

“And I’m talking right now, aren’t I?”

“You son of a – ”

The door to the respiteblock Rogers had lent Kanaya and Karkat opens, and Karkat bites his own tongue to silence himself. As he blinks, the radio and its tiny broken pieces disappears, and he’s back to staring at the corner of the wall again.

Stupid thing.

He clenches his fists, praying Kanaya doesn’t comment on him talking to himself again, and he hears her pause on the threshold before heading to the kitchen. He holds his breath for the entire time it takes her to get what she wants from the thermal hull and return to the respiteblock.

And then the radio’s back.

“ – asswiping offspectrum degenerate, I’ll throw you into the street!” he hisses, pointing at the radio (now restored to its shiny, migraine-inducing glory) threateningly.

“You can try, the radio will reverse back into your face.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Don’t do cliché lines, please, Karkat.”