Friday, November 13, 2015

Homestuck Trolls

Trolls are a race of aliens in Homestuck. There are thirty six trolls within this group. From lowest to highest on the Hemospectrum, which is like the caste system, the troll families named are Vantas, Megido, Nitram, Captor, Leijon, Maryam, Pyrope, Serket, Zahhak, Makara, Ampora, and Peixes. There are also two canon fan trolls, Mierfa Durgas and Nektan Whelan, because there was a Kickstarter campaign for the homestuck game Hiveswap, and anyone that donated $10,000, the largest amount you can donate to Kickstarter, could have their fan troll made into a canon character for a page. There was a donation available outside of Kickstarter for $100,000, that guaranteed that your troll would survive more than one page, but no one donated to it, and it was made as a joke. There are also thirteen more confirmed trolls in the Hiveswap game coming out soon. The new trolls with confirmed names are Xefros Tritoh, Dammek, Cridea Jeevik, Fiamet, and Trizza Tethis. The trolls with placeholder names are Troll with ticket-end shaped horns, Burgandy blood with a shovel, Pirate Theif, Rebel Marshall,Gatherer, and Beekeeper. They are also planning on bringing back the two canon fan trolls.

The trolls from the A2 session of the game are Karkat Vantas, Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Nepeta Leijon, Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Serket, Equius Zahhak, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, and Feferi Peixes.

Karkat has horns that are rounded instead of pointed. He types in grey with all capital letters and perfect syntax, using asterisks for emphasis. The name Karkat possibly comes from Karkata, the Sanskrit astrological equivalent of Cancer.  It may be drawn from Karkinos, a giant crab who fought Hercules, and the origin of the sign Cancer. Vantas is a prostate cancer treatment drug.

Aradia has curved ram's horns. She types in her blood color and doesn't use capitalization or punctuation. Her name comes from Aradia a goddess and witch from Neo-Pagan folklore and Megido, the place where a number of religions believe the final battle will take place, also the name of a known excavation site, referring to her love of archeology. Her surname is also derived from that of a specific kind of goat, referring to her zodiacal symbol, Aries.

Tavros has giant bull horns and has to use a wheelchair because of an accident that occurred while he was playing a game. He types in reverse case, replacing periods with commas. However, he uses an excess of commas, giving the impression of uncertainty or stuttering. Tavros is Greek for bull and is also the Modern Greek pronunciation of the name Taurus. His name resembles that of the Doctor Who villain Davros, the wheelchair-bound creator of the Daleks - this allusion may not be intentional, but it fits with his disability as well as his later acquisition of robotic parts. Nitram is Martin written backwards. There are two possible connections for this. Operation Taurus was the name of a planned prosecution by the Royal Ulster Constabulary against Martin McGuinness, and Mary Martin played Peter Pan in the 1954 musical. Nitram may also be derived from the word nitrates, which, when present at high levels in the water, produce a serious illness in fish called brown blood disease

Sollux has two sets of horns. When typing, he doubles all of his 'i's, as well as replacing 's' with '2' and 'to' and 'too' with 'two'. This is meant to convey that he speaks with a bit of a lisp, possibly a reference to the programming language LISP. This duality theme may also be a reference to Binary code, because of his talent at programming. Sollux divides into sol and lux, the Latin words for sun and light, respectively. In addition, if you switch the S and P in his name it becomes Pollux Castor. Pollux and Castor are the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini. It is also worth noting that Pollux is a red giant, while Castor is bluish white, complementing the red/blue duality theme. Castor and Pollux were famous mythological twins, which is where Gemini, Latin for twins, gets its name.

Nepeta has horns shaped like cat ears. Her typing quirk consists of preceding every line with :33 <. :3 is generally used as a cat face. :33 also represents the face of her two-mouthed Lusus. She occasionally changes these to form different facial expressions. She replaces syllables of words with feline-related homophones, such as purrmission, refurring or pawses rather than permission, referring and pauses, respectively. Instances of doubled-e in a word are replaced by doubled-3 but she otherwise does not use letter substitution. She also tends to type in actions between asterisks, though this is a result of her roleplaying. Nepeta is derived from the scientific genus of Catnip, and Leijon is taken from the surname of Anna-Greta Leijon, who was a Swedish Minister of Immigration in 1976 and victim of a kidnapping plot dubbed Operation Leo. The Swedish word lejon means lion. the Finnish word for lion is leijona.

Kanaya's left horn curves into a hook, emulating the tail of her astrological symbol when viewed from the front. She capitalizes the first letter of every word, and writes in jade green. Her name comes from the Sanskrit counterpart of Virgo, which is Kanya, and Maryam is the Arabic name for Mary, as in the Virgin Mary.

Terezi's horns are perfectly conical as opposed to being curved like other trolls. She types in all caps and leetspeak, A, I, and E replaced by 4, 1, and 3, respectively. Terezi is the Albanian word for Libra or Balance, but may also be a reference to Tiresias, a blind prophet from Sophocles' Oedipus, and Homer's Odyssey. It may also be a reference to Denny Teresi, who is blind. Her last name, Pyrope, is a type of red garnet. This is most likely a reference to her red spectacles as well as her burnt red eyes, especially given that Pyrope derives from greek fire and eyes, and Pyrope is the scientific species name of the Fire-eyed Diucon.

Vriska's horns are shaped like a pincer and a stinger. She types in a cerulean blue font and her typing quirks revolve around the number eight in relation to arachnids such as scorpions and spiders. The letter B and sounds like eight are replaced with the number 8 and some characters are repeated in sets of eight, usually vowels or punctuation marks. Vriska is a shortening of "Vrishchika", the Hindi name for Scorpio, or could be related to "Vṛścika" the Sanskrit word for scorpion, but could also refer to Kalpavriksha, a wish-fulfilling tree below the fourth chakra according to Zentra Yoga. Her surname is taken from Serket, the Egyptian goddess of healing stings and bites, and also the personification of the scorpion.

Equius has one broken and one arrow shaped horn. His typing quirk includes adding a bow and arrow (D -->) before speaking, replacing the letter x with %, and replacing loo and ooc with 100 and 001, respectively. The name Equius takes its root from the Latin word Equus, or horse. Equus can also be a variation of calm in Latin, which would be ironic for the fact that Equius has the habit of going on rages. His first name could also come from the constellation Equueleus, which means little horse.

Gamzee's horns resemble that of a goats. He uses purple as a text color, and types with each letter alternating case. Gamze is a Turkish name meaning dimple or coquettish look. Gamzee sounds similar to the word Gämse, which is German for Chamois, a european goat-antelope. Makara is the Sanskrit counterpart to the Capricorn sign, as well as referring to a mythological Hindu creature with the hind legs of an aquatic creature and the forelegs of a terrestrial one. Makara is also the Arabic word for deceit or scheme.

Eridan's horns are wavy. He doubles w and v, excludes g in words ending in ing, uses no punctuation or capitalization, refers to trolls by shortened names (Feferi = fef, Kanaya = kan, Vriska = vvris), and sometimes uses a in place of an or of.
His name is derived from the river Eridanos, which was poured onto the Earth by Aquarius in Greek myth, or possibly from the constellation Eridanus, and the amphora, a type of Greek vessel for carrying liquids which is often seen in depictions of Aquarius.

Feferi's horns are shaped like the top half of her astrological sign. She uses )( instead of h, and puts a hyphen before E. Her first name could come from Metasepia pfefferi, a poisonous species of cuttlefish. Her first name could also come from feri, which is a form of traditional witchcraft. Her last name is the Portuguese name for Pisces, as well as the Portuguese word for fish.

The trolls from the A1 session of the game are Kankri Vantas, Damara Megido, Rufioh Nitram, Mituna Captor, Meulin Leijon, Porrim Maryam, Latula Pyrope, Aranea Serket, Horuss Zahhak, Kurloz Makara, Cronus Ampora, and Meenah Peixes.

The troll Ancestors are The Signless/The Sufferer, The Handmaid, The Summoner, The Psionic/The Helmsman, The Disciple, The Dolorosa, Neophyte Redglare, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, Executor Darkleer/The Expatriate, The Grand Highblood, Orphaner Dualscar, and Her Imperious Condescension.

Trolls are from the planet Alternia, in another universe from Earth. The troll families shirt signs correspond with the zodiac, Vantas being Cancer, Megido being Aries, Nitram being Taurus, Captor being Gemini, Leijon being Leo, Maryam being Virgo, Pyrope being Libra, Serket being Scorpio, Zahhak being Sagittarius, Makara being Capricorn, Ampora being Aquarius, and Peixes being Pisces. The symbols are not visible on all of the B2 troll's outfits. The colors of the trolls symbols correspond with their blood color. Trolls have grey skin, pointed teeth, yellow nails, black lips, and black hair. They also have horns, which resemble candy corn. Trolls names have six letters,for both first and last names. Relationships amongst trolls are built around hate and pity and are really, really confusing? There are four quadrants of troll romance, matesprit being the closest to human romance, moirail which is like best friends, kismesis being worst enemies, and auspistice which involves three people, essentially, two rivals and their mediator.

























6 comments:

  1. Most informative. I especially like the inclusion of the illustrations to complement the description of each troll. The illustrations impart additional information like, for example, that both Eridan and Feferi have gills.

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    1. I was going to mention that, but I decided not to

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  2. Does Homestuck have any FanFiction?

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    1. dad, every fandom has fanfiction, and i can show you some of my original characters later

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    2. How many non-troll characters are there in Homestuck, and how do they interact with the trolls?

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    3. I will get more into that later

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