Homestuck Rambles

Okay, okay, I pulled myself together to be able to get this ramble down. To keep myself from derailing COMPLETELY, I'll try to stick to talking about the biological parts of the hemospectrum and avoid the social details. I know they're pretty strongly tied together so I'll fail badly, but I'll try to limit myself and talk more about bloodcastes at a later date. I also wanna warn you that this ramble's gonna contradict canon more than most of my headcanons. Please excuse that. I like overcomplicating things...

Anyways! *rubs hands* We all know what the hemospectrum looks like, right? Red, warm blood at the bottom, pink, cold blood at the very top- no wait. Not if you ask me.

Basically, in my (canon-contradicting, sorry 'bout that, I'm gonna stop apologizing because I'm having fun and have no reason to be ashamed) headcanon, the hemospectrum, rather than being a spectrum, is a circle of a sort. Like a color wheel. This color wheel then has two polarities - with rustbloods being the warmest color, highest chance of psionics, with the shortest trolls (on average) - and ceruleans being the coldest color with the lowest chance of psionics but the highest physical strength, as well as (on average) the tallest trolls.

With it being a circle of a sort, the colors blend into one another. So the 12 colors we see aren't the only ones - there's every shade in between. Though the blood colors of the "true sign" bloodlines are pretty close to the default, so, somewhat based on them, the rest of the troll population are sorted into castes. (If you're somewhere between teal and jade but closer to Kanaya's color, you're gonna be counted as a jade. If you're squished precisely between, you're a cusp and in a really fishy social situation.)

Blood colors are inherited from ancestor to descendant and they're *static*. Okay fine, they can change by like 0.5 of a value but that's *it*. However, (okay I gotta talk about this soonish too) if you're the kit of two fertile trolls, you're gonna have your blood color be somewhere in between your parents.

Anyways, the Condesce (oh god the Condesce, she has a role in half my societal headcanons) wanted to put herself on a piedestal so she made a spectrum of it with two very different polarities from the biological ones - where the rustbloods are filth and the fuchsias are royalty. Over the generations, through selective breeding, the old polarity has been more or less erased, so despite the warm blood of the fuchsias, they've made sure their every generation is taller and stronger than the previous.

This also means, because she wanted a spectrum rather than a circle, that everyone in between Fef-color and Ara-color are illegal now. Kill them all. They're not exctinct exactly but they're very very rare and considered *weird as fuck* because nobody can actually tell if they're higher than a fuchsiablood or lower than a rustblood.

Annnnd this leads us into mutants! There's four sorts of hemomutants, basically - off-spectrum trolls (being the ones mentioned above), limebloods, redbloods and miscellaneous.

Limebloods are, well, technically not mutants but they still have... basically the same level of rights. Dirty, gross bastards that you don't want in your gene pool. The Condesce made an effort to wipe them out until she realized you could sedate unruly trolls with their blood. So nobody sees 'em any more. Well that's because they're busy being strung up and used as sopor factories.

Redbloods are- okay I gotta give you some background information to tell you what redbloods are. Basically, trolls have a sort of pigment in their blood that gives them their various interesting colors (this pigment gets errywhere - hence their blood-colored eyes, tears, et cetera) that humans lack. Well, redbloods (then we're talking candy red, like Karkat) lack this pigment, which, in a way, also puts them outside the hemospectrum which is also dirty and we don't want.

Lastly, miscellaneous hemomutants are an unfortunate bunch - these are trolls with natural variations to their blood color that are *just a bit too strong* to be okay. Say you're a jadeblood but your blood color is really, really pale, or way too bright, or way too dark. That's not something they want you to spread! That's weird and there's probably something wrong with you. Cullbait. (These are really tricky because given that blood colors are inherited, you'd have to wipe out an entire bloodline...)

That being said, miscellaneous hemomutants can be excused if they're, otherwise, of a higher caste. Equius is very much on the border of having too bright blood, but he's left alone because he's a highblood. And nobody touches a fuchsia. That's like rule number one.

Given that drugs = special interest for me, I simply have to ramble about this. I’ve been thinking a lot about sopor slime recently...

Sopor comes, originally, from an enzyme in lime troll blood. (Meaning that in my headcanons they’re not extinct, they’re just busy being tranquilized and serving as sopor machines in hidden-away facilities. It’s a well-kept secret of the Empire’s. I’ll go into this some other time). The enzyme has this sort-of-soothing effect to it (which results in the stereotype that limes are very mellow), but it’s mixed with chemicals which enhance the effects but are also very harmful to health. This mixture is called sopor concentrate, or just sopor if you’re in a verbal hurry.

The concentrate is mixed with a gooey substance produced by the recuperaccoons themselves to dilute it and remove some of the harmful side effects. This is what’s called sopor slime, and what sensible trolls sleep in, although you can make stronger or weaker solutions. When sleeping in sopor slime they almost appear dead - they stop breathing and their heartbeat is suppressed. The slime gives them oxygen straight through their skin though (together with the substance itself ofc), so… trust me. They’re not dead.

Now for the stuff I’m so very interested in! Sopor has, often, been described as the troll version of weed, but given its function (and the fact that it’s a more intriguing substance), I’d rather compare it to troll heroin. It makes you feel warm, safe and fuzzy, removes anxiety and depression, and makes you kind of sleepy. If you’re nightmare-prone, yeah, removes those too. (There are purplebloods with psionic abilities specifically made for giving nightmares to lowerbloods. Y’know, chucklevoodoos. Thus they need stronger sopor solutions, ending up sort of woozy and compliant. Also they die earlier, because this stuff is NOT healthy. The conspiracy theorists are onto them.) From an outside perspective it might seem like all trolls are nightmare-prone when sleeping outside of sopor solutions, but it’s actually because the vast majority are so used to it that they don’t know how to deal with nightmares without them.

So as I’ve said, sensible trolls only sleep in it, and even then it’s just in its diluted form. However, eating sopor slime, or, Messiahs forbid, drinking concentrate, or even injecting it, is stronger, more addictive, more dangerous. Not saying skin absorption isn’t addictive as it is. Meaning, trolls who even miss out on one sopor sleeping night get headaches, chills, insomnia, delusions and behavior ranging anywhere from cranky to uncontrollably violent. (Sound like anybody we recognize?)

So horns!

I headcanon that troll horns are made out of keratin. They have a meaty and blood-filled core (breaking it hurts like hell), and its base is covered in sensitive fuzz (sensory hairs, basically). They’re very rarely completely straight, and may be kind of rough and jagged (Aradia), banded/ribbed (Feferi) and/or spiraling/twisty (Eridan). I also canon-divergently HC that their horns are tinted with their blood color, but not much, it’s still mostly orange-ish.

Honestly I could talk for hours about troll horns because I’m a big horn fan so I will try to make this not-overly-long. Troll horns are really frigging important in their society, annnnd it’s mostly as a status symbol. Back in the ancient world, trolls would use their horns for jousting (they’re still able to, it’s just considered somewhat brutish) and this still matters on some level. A large, sharp-pointed, preferably well-tended and decorated set of horns is not only impressive, it’s also very attractive in all quadrants, perhaps barring pale (meaning that Karkat has good reason to feel embarrassed by his nubs, however, say, Tavros, he has a killer rack. I mean. Imagine that polished and with a few copper rings on it. That right there’s the stuff of flush dreams. Not even going to go into the topic of his ancestor. Swoon.). However, one or several broken horns is so incredibly pity-inducing because they’ve lost something so important. Also somewhat impressive because they’ve lost something so important and they still keep going.

So anyways, as a status symbol, decorating it isn’t neccessarily important but it sure increases attractiveness. Highbloods spend lot of time polishing and smoothing their horns, so smooth horns is considered attractive (hypothetically if your horns have a twisty pattern, you could file that down, not a lot of trolls do because it’s a lot of work).

Then it’s the matter of decorating your horns with jewelry, piercing them, carving them and in some cases even dyeing them (think scrimshaws, but alive). Carving the symbols of your quadrants is not unusual, and invites the melodramatic image of a troll filing on one section of their horns with tears in their eyes after losing a quadrantmate and wanting nothing more to forget.

As we’ve seen with Karako, some subjugs also paint them! For extra effect. We’re not sure what effect they’re going for, but effect, motherfuckers.

Then there’s the matter of troll horns being passed down from ancestor to descendant, so it’s a family trait, and given their near-religious connection to their ancestor, this adds an extra layer of importance to your horns. (I’m in love with the idea of two trolls passing each other on the street and realizing ”holy shit they’ve got my horns”, checking their symbol and blood color and it matches and they don’t ever leave each others’ side because same ancestor!) Horns aren’t passed down perfectly, there are small differences like smoother or sharper angles in hooked horns, looser or tighter spirals, even just the matter of length and thickness varies slightly. It takes several dozen generations for visible alterations to appear, though. Horns aren’t a mutation-prone part of troll psychiology, thank goodness.

Because of these points, horns are very, very personal. You don’t touch someone’s horns without getting permission first. It is not a thing you do. It’s not like groping someone, it’s more personal than that. It’s like carelessly touching a visual representation of who a person is. I want to say its like poking at their soul, that’s a bit exaggerated but also not too far off. So it’s considered extremely rude, startling and a little humiliating, and far too personal for a stranger to do. Might result in violent responses.

However, if you allow someone to touch your horns that’s... really nice. It’s like, ”this is sensitive and important to me and matters a lot to who I am. You matter a lot to me too, so I’m letting you touch it to show that”. Touching the fuzz at the base of their horns is a common submission trigger, so many trolls get a little bit ”melty” and limp if you do that. Pale and flush relationships may have gentle horn-pats to calm down, rewind and bond, while in conciliatory relationships, grabbing it firmly is a way to get someone to stop that immediately. Kismeses bump their horns against each other or grab and tease their bases all while going ”fuck you” and trying to resist the instinct to melt in their partner’s hands.

(Also imagine a highblood having one of their... uhm... ”moods” getting a little bit out of control in a situation they really shouldn’t be out of control in, and their fed-up ’rail or auspistice just firmly grabs their horns and pulls them out of there, all while they’re making confused noises because that feels good but I’m supposed to be scary and angry right now...)

And! Horns being cut off mark a form of ”non-troll”. Slaves, deserters, trolls that may only narrowly avoid culling have their horns removed by authority, but some do it willingly as a way to shed the past, become someone new, or try too blend in (given that horns are unique for every bloodline and important for identification). This is an excruciating process and removes both a status symbol, a connection to your ancestors and something that can work as a source of comfort, so its essentially removing a large part of yourself. When forced upon you, it can be traumatizing, especially when done several times over to keep the horns from growing out. If kept short, horns will eventually scar over and stop growing, which in slaver circles marks the point where a troll is ”broken” and is a point of no return.

My thoughts are that Eridan used to swim like your average seadweller, not at all minding the deep ocean. But after he begun seeing Feferi, she introduced him to her lusus. Said lusus might have spoken to him, given that, one, she spoke to Feferi, and two, he’s a Derse dreamer. Said lusus needed food or she would kill him, and every other troll with him, excepting his flushcrush. Said lusus was gigantic, dangerous, unknowable and so far down in the darkness you couldn’t see her.

Ok, but hear me out.

Rustbloods are the lowblood equivalent of purplebloods. This does in no way have to do with the fact that I’ve gotten Aries and Capricorn confused for a long time. But seriously though, just listen. Rustbloods, burgundies, whatever you want to call them, are at the very bottom of the barrel. They are considered dirt on the shoes of highbloods, essentially worthless. They survive in two ways - either they become servants or slaves and devote themselves to a high- or midblood master, or they continue living in the filth, live off of scraps, sell themselves, lie, trick and steal.

Alternia teaches every troll its individual worth, that despite their status, even a lowblood matters because they form the base of troll society. But this base is stepped on and neglected, so rusts have to take their survival into their own hands.

Even those who give themselves to servitude are often strong-willed and many lead their masters down strange roads, tricking and manipulating them into giving them what they want. They keep their heads low, but they do not submit. They are bent but not broken. They are compliant, polite, and deceitful.

As if this wasn’t enough, rusts have always had a strange connection to death. Their psionics are often attuned to hearing the words of the dead, and it is true that death haunts this caste in ways that none other experiences. They die en massé at the hands of highbloods and poverty, after all. It’s not strange that ghosts will cling to this vulnerable group of trolls.

When the hemospectrum was set up, rustbloods were supposed to be looked down upon by all other castes. This backfired. Essentially all trolls of lime blood and below, even some olives, admire rusts, because they’re beat down by literally the entire planet, and yet they’re the caste with the most plentiful psionics, they’re the biggest caste too, and how the heck do they do it? How can we learn from them? There’s this wary admiration from other lowbloods toward burgundies, and most burgundies are more than happy to let this remain.