#rainbowblood

Another troll for Suechained, and probably the most interesting one story-wise!

This character is definitely really interesting! Especially to me. I’ve got to give some background for my interest here. I, mod CD, am the “core” of a multiple system. I’ve got two alters and I’ve had a walk-in before, so the most we’ve ever had in the brainspace is four, so not quite as many as Kiupai here, but close. I get really excited about anything even resembling system dynamics and the fact that we’re a multiple system will probably inform a lot of my ideas throughout the review. 

Name: Xiupai Kareki (Xiupai is a heavy corruption of how Chimera is spelled in the Greek alphabet, gotten by transcribing the appearance of the word Χίμαιρα using the Roman alphabet into Xiuaipa and then mixing some letters around. Kareki is drawn from the Basque “elkarrekin”, meaning “together”.)

I was going to wonder at whether μ would be better transcribed into a y considering the lack of a Greek ‘u’ and the fact that it is pronounced [mŷː] in Ancient Greek, closer to ‘mee’ but I think the u works well here? Kiypai would look odd, also. [bangs gavel] for aesthetic purposes, I’ll allow it. 

Theme: Chimera (Both of the mythical and genetic kinds, which ties heavily into both the real-life and in-universe history of the Suechained trolls. Her theme within the group is rainbowbloods.)

Age: 7 sweeps- slightly older than Tetria, making her the oldest of the group.

Gender: Genderfluid, but tends to prefer feminine pronouns (and outfits because who even has /time/ for pants).

Just a note! There’s no such thing as “feminine” pronouns. someone masculine can still use she/her, so just say “she/her pronouns” in the future o: 

Strife Specibus: ???

Fetch Modus: ??? (Possibly something which, on a failed attempt to remove an item, will eject it and another item, combined into one- think of John’s terrible jetpack/poster/flowerpot thing for an idea of what it’d do.)

Suggestion: GOGGLY EYE GAME GLASSES

They’re glasses that distort vision severely. She has to try to draw the object she wants while wearing them. If she either attempts to cheat by taking the glasses off or the drawing is too grossly distorted to be recognizable as an item in her inventory, the thing that most resembles the drawing and whatever the items to the left and right of it are get ejected as a weird combo.

Blood color: Technically, rainbow. To be more specific, her blood /appears/ to be #583614, a relatively dull brown, and she has always considered herself to be a brownblood. (The color’s exact tone varies based on where it’s drawn from, but it’s always a dull brown of some sort.) Xiupai is a genetic chimera, resulting from an impressive error in Sburb’s “character generation”, so to speak, that smooshed five different trolls into a single being. As a result of this, different parts of her body produce different colors of blood- thus the “technical rainbowblood”- but they mix in her body and end up as a sort of gross brown tone, which is the major reason that she hasn’t been culled yet.

Seeing as all blood starts in the heart, I think your “colors running together to make brown” is a great idea, but the different browns throughout the body might be questionable? In chimeric organism there can be differences in chromosomes found in different cells and there can be blood with mixed blood types. But since it’s all made in the same place and it’s all gonna run together. There might be differences depending on if it was oxygenated or not (assuming trolls breath oxygen, which they probably do considering them and humans can survive in the environment? though maybe that’s just through came construction-) but different parts of the body aren’t going to have different browns, unfortunately. 

Symbol and meaning: ???

I was looking back through the blog because it seemed familiar and I think this symbol is 

Meaning “amalgam.” Thank you, TR, for that one! 

Trolltag: ???

Since she’s going to be part of a game, I’ll go with the GCAT rule. You mention below that she’s… sort of a fan of energy drinks, or at least drinks them a lot, so caffeinated is probably a good word. to put in there. caffeinatedCorti, maybe? Corti being the spiral-shaped organ in the ear, it can be damaged and lead to hearing loss, a little off-hand reference to her tendency to listen to really loud music

Quirk: ??? (Most likely uses no capitalization or periods, though I have no idea for any other quirk stuff for her.)

I feel like her chimera nature can definitely fit in here as well as her tendency to feign cheerfulness. consider: speaking in mostly lowercase, but when she’s trying to fake excitement she uses an exclamation point that is a little removed from the sentence ! She’s express excitement, but it’s actually a little removed from her. And then if she’s getting frazzled/any of the Components of her are more prominent that day or if the voices are just not shutting up, some of their quirks can end up slipping in. I don’t know enough about them to come up with individualized quirks, but it’s an option. 

Quirk Example: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy red dog.

(I’m going to supplement sollux’s quirk for an invasive quirk here because it’s the easiest one for me to type, but)

example: “oh, that sounds great !” “no im okay im doiing ju2t fiine !”

Special abilities (if any): Xiupai can hear the voices of “the trolls that should have been”- more accurately, the trolls whose theoretical lives were prevented by her existence. The only one of them who doesn’t absolutely despise her is the jadeblood, who has done her best to drive Xiupai towards the other members of the Suechained group. All four of the other voices want her dead.

[Strikes a pose] Now this is where my system experiences are really going to start kicking into gear. Having other existences sharing the same brain as you can be really tiring and I do in fact have one that really hates me (and everything, actually) and wants me dead so I know some of what she’s got going on. It seems like she’s mostly functioning sort of like the “core” of a system. I would definitely recommend looking into stuff about multiple systems or even conversing w/ me privately about them more after looking this over because there are a lot of really neat stuff that can probably get done with this if you have the right information. What I can comment on for now is that make sure all the other trolls have motivations for desiring her dead or hating her. Obviously “her existence nullified ours” is there, but it’s something they’ve been dealing with since her creation, and that hate would probably fade over time, especially if their existences developed together. I think your best option here is to say that because they were never completely reincarnated/reborn, they maintained some of themselves from their past lives? Some bits and pieces of personality that made them feel distinct from her and that they have resentment from not getting their own body, but also because of their personalities conflicting with her’s.

Lusus: A chimera-like thing, made up of the lusii of her five dancestors.

I know you’ve probably got this in development, but make sure to explain how they got mashed together and how the mixing affects their personality and how they take care of Xiupai/how Xiupai takes care of them. 

Personality: Tries her best to put on a facade of vague cheerfulness. Underneath it, though, the constant hatred from the voices has left her with almost no self-confidence, and very little will to argue with anyone- as a result, she’s very easy to boss around. She’s not very easy to frighten, though, and is extremely intelligent. As a result of having a highblood in her genetic mix, she’s fairly quick to anger, and the highblood’s voice is quick to point out people who have wronged her so that they can be hunted down and killed.

Her personality sounds good and very well-rounded. And I like the added touch of the highblood, my Alter ladi is… quite like that, very aggressive, and full of violent impulses, has a sort of “I’m the only one that’s allowed to make you miserable” mindset that might just actually be perfect for Highblood Entitlement, if you want a little idea there. 

Hemoloyalty: Almost nonexistent, though she tends to avoid highbloods just so she can avoid conflict with stronger trolls.

Interests: Loves listening to loud music, and will do so almost all the time while she’s awake so as to drown out the voices. Also enjoys fantasy stories and games, is a reasonably skilled artist, and FLARPs regularly to help feed her lusus. Also, drinks energy drinks almost constantly in an effort to avoid sleep. (A few of the voices have expressed some interest in helping her learn about some of the stuff they would have enjoyed in between bouts of bullying, to no avail.)

Dislikes: Doesn’t sleep much, since when she’s asleep it’s harder to ignore the voices in her head. Also hates arguments and having to spend much time around trolls she doesn’t know.

The explanation for not sleeping much is a little [hand wavery], when sleeping dreams might be bad, but other actual entities in the brain tend to also be asleep considering the body is asleep. I could see this better being justified as her having a hard time getting to sleep because of the voices, or her having insomnia as a result of depression caused by being beaten down on by the voices. 

Title: Unknown of unknown. (This doesn’t mean I haven’t decided- rather, it’s the result of SBURB viewing her as five players instead of one. Her class and aspect change more or less at random among five possibilities for each, though they occasionally get garbled enough that the game and her consorts will just spout gibberish instead of any coherent combination. This presents some problems for the session overall, since one of the trolls she contains is the Space player for the group.)

I like the idea of this, but I think six options might be a little better. Yes, she’s a genetic mishmash of 5 trolls, but she also has her own distinct personality, motivations, drive, direction, etc, so her actually having a unique title would be great. For her specifically, I would settle on her being a Knight of Heart. We all know that Heart plays are about the self, the soul, the individual, so her sharing her brain and body with five other people and being essentially a container for 5 other fragmented selves is really great for this. Furthermore, the Knight begins overwhelmed by their aspect- in this case, she begins overwhelmed by these other entities within her, who treat her poorly, who she doesn’t know what to do with- but over time and through development she will reach her potential and realize her true self, possibly learning to work in tandem with the other headmates? Sorry for my God Tier Ramblings. But I feel like here especially would be the importance of having concepts of how multiplicity works, and that the god tier title could rather than shuffling randomly sort of change up depending on what voices are most prominent, with the knight of heart title always functioning in the background, since Xiupai is sort of the base for the entire existence. This could also lead to shenanigans where a certain power or ability would be useful but the individual linked with that power isn’t very prominent/even awake so there’s scrambling to either get them up or deal with a more complicated solution to the problem. 

Land: (I haven’t named it yet, but, like her title and her character overall, it’s a planet basically formed of five possible lands, flung together at random with massive chasms, mountain ranges, and other such formations in between the parts. One of those sections does have the Forge, though, and a major part of her main quest is preventing conflicts between the various consort types so they can help her breed the Genesis Frog.)

This sounds very good and I love it. 

Dream Planet: I honestly have no clue, though I’m considering putting her on Prospit just because I feel like adding the horrorterror’s voices onto her pile of existing ones might outright break her.

I feel like Prospit is a pretty fitting place for her definitely. But I feel like dream planets and the fact that they’re part of an idealized self might be super interesting for potential with her and the other trolls she shares a body with, like as things develop or depending on who’s around there might be variations in her dream bodies appearance, or she might have a dream self on each planet like Sollux but it’s the result of multiplicity instead of his weird theme of twos-

Ancestor: Believes that she doesn’t have one, which is technically true- she has five, as of yet unnamed, whose stories were closely interlinked.

Dancestor: Again, has five of them, who are significantly kinder towards her if/when then meet her than her inner voices have ever been.

Beforan self: None, really, since she’s the result of a mix-up. Each of her components, though, has their own Beforan self.

As I mentioned above these Beforan selves can probably play a really interesting role in the characteristics and the anger that the trolls that could’ve been feel 

Hive: A small cave, which she has decorated to the best of her ability with stuff gifted to her by friends and items she’s found that other trolls have thrown out.

Appearance notes: I was going for a sort of unkempt, tired look for Xiupai here, as though she hasn’t been sleeping or caring for herself very well. Her horns are based on more modern depictions of the mythical Chimera- one of them is intended to be a ram’s horn, and the other… I was at least trying to go for a backwards-pointing, slightly curved horn? Like what the red dragons in D&D have.

The longer I look at her, the harder it is for me to find anything to legitimately criticize or suggest changing. I’m gonna give it a whirl anyways. As always, top down: 

Horns: I really like them, actually, so they didn’t get changed much. I moved the ram horn up and in a bit so that both horns would emerge from the same place on the head. I also added a bit of hair to cover the lower part of the ram horn, because it looked a little tacked on otherwise. And a small adjustment to the bottom of the dragon-y horn, just so it would flow more naturally and not seem to appear abruptly. 

Hair: I was debating whether or not to do anything to the hair. I felt like it already kind of carried the shape of a lion’s mane, which was nice, but also you said you were going for a disheveled look and I thought the top of the hair was just a little bit too flat. So I tried some things. A few more swoops to make it mane-y. And then with the horn shifted just a bit up and in there needed to be some hair at the back to fill in the space, so that’s there. 

Mouth: I removed the shine because the shine on the lip thing has always been a peev. It’s just big enough that it can be accidentally read as a tooth and we’ve never seen shine on any normal sprite’s lips, even for the trolls that wear lipstick. Speaking of teeth, trolls having protruding fangs is a pretty common thing. Considering there’s a lot of lowbloods and also a jade in there, I thought giving her noticeable teeth was a good idea. I tried to make them reminiscent of the shape of lion’s fangs. 

Shirt, Skirt, Shoes: I changed the blood color more as an experimental thing than anything. There are some blood colors I feel are too dim and some I feel are to vibrant and this is one of the ones that felt a little too dim. When I think of colors running together into a gross brown, the first color I think of is the one that happens when you mix red and green (#733A00). So it’s… that. Though that was, once again, more experimental, and one of the less important of the changes. On the shoes I changed the color as well. On the skirt and shoes I removed the dirt once again as an experimental thing? I absolutely loved the dirt and it looked impressive, I just wanted to get a glimpse at how it looked without. Especially since such details are typically forgone on the regular base sprites. 

Other notes: The real-life explanation for Xiupai is that she’s the result of my desire to have a rainbowblood in Suechained- after all, what’s a good set of Mary-Sue fantrolls without a rainbowblood in the mix? She ended up being a mixture of five troll concepts I just couldn’t make work- a yellowblood with a genuinely awful quirk, who was scrapped because Mituna topped anything I could ever come up with; a colorblind greenblood under the impression she had both red and green blood, scrapped because the reasoning behind her being there was shaky at best; a hemofluid jade who was originally supposed to be the team’s “rainbowblood” before I realized that that would be both massively awful and nearly impossible to justify; a ceruleanblood who would have a wrongly-formatted name, scrapped because I had no idea how to build a character with that as a major part of their design; and a rather bright, almost orange brownblood, whose information I can’t remember at all tbh.

Learning about your creative process is super interesting. I really hope you call upon some of the characteristics of these characters that you had down prior to create a neat amalgam of Trolls That Could’ve Been. All very cool! Thank you for sharing such a wonderful troll. 

I’m not a fan. I can’t find a purpose to it other than justifying the existence of a rainbowblood, to which I say just choose one blood color.

Honestly, any seadwellers I run into that are any color other than pink or purple really grind my gills (haha fish pun).

But if you must do it, I can’t stop you. And who knows, it could be very interesting. All I ask is that you treat your character as a mutant would be treated. 

No. Why.They’re essentially cringe-inducing and should never be made.They hurt my love of biology.They hurt my soul.(Edit) Now that I have my laptop I can be intelligent again.

Rainbow-bloods are among many cringe-inducing fantroll traits, and by far the most difficult to make work.One reason rainbow-bloods fail is because it is presented with explanation. There are many silly things played straight in Homestuck, and it’s only when we try to explain it that it seems ridiculous. Think of Lord English; he’s a green angel/alien with a golden tooth, with billard balls for eyes, who’s general appearance is fashioned after an unsettling puppet, with a peg leg, suspenders, and a technicolour coat that travels through space and time through a sarcophagus.But when we first see him, we aren’t given explanations for his appearance. We never are. Hussie never explicitly says ‘this and this are the reasons he looks like this’. Clues are left that allow us to determine these for ourselves, be they obvious or not. (i.e., rainbowdrinkers are only jadebloods, but we aren’t given a reason why until far later in the story)Essentially, it is the character profiles people give their fantrolls that ruin the potential of an idea. There is a way to work any idea well, they’re just uncommon with rainbowbloods, particularly because the majority of people don’t understand suggested design rules, or the tips and tricks of character design.I would share my one good idea for them, but considering I might use it in a fan adventure, I’m withholding it.Another way to make it possibly work would be if they were Beforan, and if they didn’t actually have rainbowblood; they just changed the colour of their clothes often enough that other trolls would be uncertain of their blood colour, or if they were hemofluid; they identify as different bloods colours at different times.(Edit 2) I forgot to mention that such a characteristic IS possible among Beforan trolls. Kankri makes a mention of them in his first speech with Karkat.