#being a sour note in the harmony trying to act as a benefactor kind of

[razzle-zazzle]

Have chef eat creek in front of gristle (and branch) so he can see what "true" happiness looks like or have creek try and bargain with chef for her to let him go and in return he'll "help" the others stay positive so they don't turn gray and inedible

Ignoring that first part, what I currently have for the movie is thus:

Things happen as in canon, but with no bunker, Peppy leads the Trolls away from their former village after Chef's attack. Poppy leaves for Bergentown regardless, and some Trolls leave a trail of sorts so she can find everyone once she's saved her friends (it's unspoken but pretty much every Troll is certain that Poppy will obviously manage to save her friends! She's Poppy!!!).

Poppy makes it to Bergentown, meets Cloud Guy before entering the tunnels, and it's all hunky dory as she makes her way to the castle. In said castle, Chef has arrived and is already working her manipulation muscles. And surely, with Trolls in her deck, she's got this game in the bag!

Except. Well. Branch. I still need to work out all the little intervening details, but Branch is pretty obviously going to be an opposing force to the lady that ate his grandmother. So Gristle finds himself with two different people trying to catch his ear and direct his path, and has to figure out who to listen to.

Poppy makes it into the castle, but her timing is slightly off; her Hug Timer goes off before she gets anywhere near the cage Chef is keeping the Snack Pack in, so that cage ends up being taken by Bridget without Poppy ever seeing. As a result, she takes to exploring the castle in greater depth, running into Branch in the process.

While Branch and Poppy are having their little philosophical argument, Bridget is interacting with the Trolls she's suddenly found herself in charge of. It's hard not to, when they look so much like the Prince, and one thing leads to another as she semi-intentionally recruits the Snack Pack to help her out, which ends with Lady Glittersparkles. There's no Poppy here, so whether Bridget intentionally sets out looking for a date with the King or whether she's helping the Trolls with something else and happens upon King Gristle is undecided. I'm leaning towards the latter, though.

So Poppy's poking around the castle while Bridget and Gristle are going on their first date. I still need to figure out a lot of the intervening details, but the current plan is that she and Branch reconvene with the Snack Pack at just the right time and place for Chef to spring her trap. She singles Branch out and "disposes" of him, though indirectly—throwing him down a garbage chute or similar after trapping him in a jar or the like.

The lack of the bunker works in Chef's favor, it turns out, because she's able to find the trail that the Trolls left for Poppy. She and her sous chefs return to Bergentown with full fannypacks, and Poppy blames herself for everything. If only she hadn't thrown such a loud party, if only she had been faster in getting to Bergentown, if only she had found her friends sooner, if only her people didn't leave a trail for her sake (not her fault but she blames herself for it anyway), if if if. She goes gray, and the rest of the Trolls in the pot follow.

Meanwhile, Branch manages to narrowly escape the mortal peril Chef cast him to, through a bit of help from Bridget, who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or he escapes on his own and crosses paths with Bridget after?? I'm leaning towards the former, though. But, because of Branch and Bridget crossing paths, Bridget doesn't make it in time to be the scullery maid entrusted with bringing the pot into the banquet hall; Chef assigns one of her sous chefs to do it instead. Or another scullery maid.

So Chef undoes the latches on the pot, ready to seize her victory and truly reestablish her political power in Bergentown...

Except all the Trolls within are gray. Inedible. The people are ready to riot, Chef is trying to find some way to salvage the situation, and King Gristle assumes responsibility as King. Chef moves to capitalize on this, to shift the blame off of herself—

Enter Bridget, Branch in hand. Branch goes off on Chef for the attempted regicide, and adds in the fact that she's untrustworthy by pointing out that she used to often flaunt the rules concerning when Trolls could be eaten—his grandmother wasn't eaten on Trollstice, after all. Chef retorts by bringing attention to the fact that Branch is a Troll, trying to discredit him herself.

I still need to work out how, exactly, Poppy gets involved in the scene, but the goal is as such: Branch sings for the first time since Rosiepuff's death, and a three-way harmony of sorts between him, Gristle, and Poppy ensues. Current top contender for the song in question is "Soap" by The Oh Hellos. Color returns to the Trolls, to Branch, and then the Snack Pack reveals that Bridget was Lady Glittersparkles and the rest of the finale plays out pretty much how it did in canon.

Well, there is one difference. Poppy's speech about happiness is more focused on pointing out the pride and fulfillment that Bergens can find in the things that they love, and though it boils down to a similar "you don't need to eat a Troll to be happy" it's just a tiny bit more nuanced than how the movie presented it; happiness comes in many forms and the happiness that comes from eating a Troll may be intense, but it's empty nonetheless.