"The first time you pass by the troll in the box you kind of try not to see it.
"It's gross as fuck when people do this. You guess maybe it's better than driving them out into the country and dumping them to make it on their own, or those stories you've heard about people dumping unwanted wrigglers in sacks into rivers—those you try not to think about because fuck, that is not okay on any level but it's not like you can do shit about it."
—the synopsis of the story
Unwanted Free Ugly Troll
is a Homestuck FanFic that starts with Dave Strider finding a young abandoned troll in a box on the street. He tries to ignore the little troll at first, until he sees the troll, still sitting in the box, later on that night. The box has the words "UNWANTED FREE UGLY TROLL" scribbled on the side. Dave takes pity on the poor creature and takes it home.
- Abandoned Pet in a Box: Dave finds Karkat abandoned in a cardboard box and ends up adopting him.
- Adaptation Name Change: Karkat and Sollux share Dave's last name after he and Bro/Dirk adopt them, making them Karkat Strider and Sollux Strider.
- Alternate Universe: In this place, trolls are pets.
- Break the Cutie: Karkat and Sollux's backstories, but the point of the story is to reverse it.
- Cronus falls under this category as well after it's revealed that he spent the vast majority of his life as a test subject for Crocker Corp's experiments, which got him addicted to smoking and drinking.
- Cuteness Proximity: Karkat is cute. So is Sollux. Exploited by Dave, who promotes their troll rescue society by having Karkat meet people and evoking this reaction.
- Drowning Unwanted Pets: Dave mentions stories of people throwing sacks full of unwanted wrigglers into rivers.
- Everyone Can See It: Equius and Feferi are clearly interested in each other, and everyone else is basically taking bets on when one of them will finally ask the other out.
- Gentle Giant: Equius is described as towering over everyone and looks like a bodybuilder, but is very gentle with his patients.
- Guile Hero: Equius is able to trick Sollux's former owner into giving Dirk ownership and the FUSB by using his status as a veterinarian and her ignorance of the law.
- Interspecies Friendship /Romance: Dave and Cronus have recently become moirails after Cronus admit to having very strong pale feelings toward him.
- I'm Talking Him Home With Me: A serious example as Karkat was abandoned, was ill and had emotional trauma from being abandoned.
- Jade tried to take in Sollux, but he was allergic to her dog. Also like Karkat, Sollux was very sickly, injured, and suffering the abuse and abandonment from his former owners. He was taken in by Dirk
- Kindly Vet: Equius
- Mythology Gag: Gamzee's Miracle Modus makes an appearance as one of Sollux's favorite iPad apps.
- Plot Allergy: Sollux was supposed to stay with Jade, but gets taken in by Dirk because he's allergic to dogs.
- Precocious Crush: Sollux develops a blackrom crush on Cronus almost immediately after meeting him, much to the latter's dismay once he figures it out. It mostly manifests as Sollux making threat displays with his horns and psionics and drawing pictures of bombs dropping on Cronus' head.
- Recursive Fanfiction: Has one in the form of Loophole.
- Canon Welding: The two fics were eventually made part of the same continuity. The Plot Hole that ensued from having two different versions of Feferi appear was fixed by making them twin sisters who had the same first name due to it being a family legacy.
- Self-Deprecation: Cronus would often delve into this, much to Dave's annoyance and frustration. He eventually started keeping it to a minimum.
- Shout-Out: To Brainbent, that Sollux's most beloved object is the
FUSB (Fucking Ugly Stuffed Bee). - The Load: Cronus very quickly turned into this shortly after his arrival.
- Too Dumb to Live: Sollux's former owner dumped him on the side of a road, even though he was microchipped.
- Troubled Child: Karkat and Sollux are little kids, but are recovering from abuse and/or abandonment.
- Cronus is essentially an adult version of this trope and is recovering from depression and smoking addiction caused by his years as a test subject for Crocker Corp.
- Upper-Class Twit: Sollux's former owner, which Equius exploits as he threaten to prosecute her for animal cruelty, neglect, and illegally abandoning a pet without filling out the proper release paperwork.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The fanfic shows that while the trolls are kept as exotic pets, they are still sapient beings.
- The named human characters are starting to start a organization that rescues abused and abandoned trolls in hopes of eventually encouraging more positive treatment toward trolls.
