Bloodswap!Homestuck

Detailed Info About Trollsonas

H O M E S T U C K f a n T U T O R I A L
Hello, and welcome. I'll be listing helpful hints for creating a fantroll for the series Homestuck. This is in no way the laws of making a fan troll, it is merely a guide. You may follow whatever bits and pieces of the tutorial as you want, but be warned; the internet feeds off Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus.
Melodramatic warning aside, now let's continue.

Rule one to making a fan troll: You NEED to have read the actual webcomic before creating an oc. Going off of what you hear and not what's stated in the actual webcomic is the perfect way to mess everything up.

Now, some vocabulary, for those not familiar with the "proper" terms.
Trolls - If you do not know, get out.
Hemospectrum - The blood caste system which classifies the upper, middle, and low classes in troll society.
Blood Caste - A troll's position in the hemospectrum.
Culled - Being killed for being "useless" or "wrong" in troll society.
Lusus Naturae - usually shortened to lusus; it's a troll's caretaker, to put it simply.


Somewhat Unnecessary Table of Contents:

I- Design
II - Themes
III - Blood Colors
IV - Personality
V - Relationships
VI - Typing Quirk
VII - Ancestors
VIII - Lusii
I Design
Now, for the sake of all that is good, use common sense. Please, oh please use that common sense you were gifted with.
Now, all trolls have gray skin, yellow sclera, black/gray pupils and irises, black hair, and at least two orange horns on their head. If you break one of these rules, you should fix it immediately. These are the genetic facts about trolls, and should not be broken ever. You might think, "Gamzee has a white face, right?" That is face paint. "Blah blah, insert reasons here," No. All trolls have the listed features, there's no getting around it.
But, on the topic of eyes, as trolls get older, their macula (The colored part of the eye) begins to fill with their blood color. So, if you make an adult troll, they should have colored eyes. Also, there are trolls with oddly colored eyes, such as Terezi and Sollux. Each have a reason for their eye color, so if you want to have oddly colored eyes, you must have a reason. I.e., Terezi's eyes were burnt by the sun; Sollux's eyes are most likely due to his powers, and it fits in with his duality theme.
Troll's' eyes turn white when they're dead (like with dream bubbles or ghosts). The same might be true for humans, though.

And, a prickly topic, is colored streaks in troll's hair. Now firstly, you can't make the hair predominately colored, which means half or more. It should, preferable, be rather small. The streak should be the same color as the troll's blood color. Eridan's hair is the number one example of how to use colored streaks, considering he is also the only canon example thus far (along with his ancestor).
Though, colored streaks tend to be criticized by a lot of people regardless. Just a heads up.

Now, as it appears, troll wardrobes consist of mainly dark colors. Whether your troll's outfit is the most elaborate thing ever spawned or a tee-shirt and jeans, it should have some dark colors on it. While Feferi wears a lot of bright colors, she still has some black on. Now, if you want to have a rainbow color scheme on your troll, for god's/gog's/cod's/gpi's/ect.'s sake, don't over do it. People will be able to see, "Oh hey, cool, there's a rainbow theme,"but we don't want,"Oh god, my eyes!" To successfully pull of a rainbow color scheme, you pick a main color and then use the colors of the rainbow as accent colors. As in, a red streak there, some yellow decals there, not having the stripes of the rainbow in every place you could squeeze them in. This goes with other schemes as well, but I've seen rainbow one's mucked up the worst. Use common sense, please. Also, it's advisable to look up some complementary colors, find two main colors, and find complimenting colors of the decals. It will turn out nicely that way.

And on to the horns. First off, they have to be striped with orange, light orange, and yellow. That is how troll horns work. You can have painted pattern or something on it, but be sure to state it somewhere, or most people assume that it's natural. Horns by no means need to be symmetrical (shown with Kanaya and Vriska) and you can have some creativity with them. From swirls to sticks, arrows to nubs, you and use practically and shape you wish. Just so warn you, though; you should at least have two horns and at most four or five. Horns should not be placed on the center of the forehead (like a unicorn of any sort). They also shouldn't be longer than the troll's body, or any other insane size. If you're having troubles with your horns, I suggest looking up some form of horned animal and basing it off that, or base it off the symbol you chose for your troll. Try to avoid having horns exactly like a canon characters, though you can, it's not a big deal, really.
Also, horns can be broken (like Equius' horns).
As trolls grow older, their horns grow longer (as shown with the ancestors). So, have a troll's horns the right size for their age, as in a really young troll has small horns, and an adult would have long horns (long and small in comparison to their horns as a child/teenager).

Most trolls seem to have some form of large canines (fangs), at least larger than a human's. This is just extra, and doesn't have to be followed, seeing as Aradia has relatively flat teeth. And about having some sort of animal theme (like Nepeta being based off a cat). Don't over do it. You can have a hat with ears, sure. You cannot have actual ears. You can have a tail on your jacket or belt, that's fine. No real tails. Painting animal features on you (like little whiskers, or other decals). Sure, that actually fairly creative. Having a snout? Bad dog, bad!

II Themes.
Most trolls and groups of trolls have a theme. It's a nice way to find ideas for you troll. But, sometimes people can over-theme their character. And example: You theme your character off of, per say, Egyptian culture. So, you design them in Egyptian robes, face paint, their lusus is a Sphinx, their hive is a pyramid ect ect. Try not to do this. Since Trolls are from a different planet, they probably wouldn't know much about any of our culture. To successfully use an ethnic theme, you'd have a name from that language (within reason), maybe have parts of their outfit inspired by the culture, maybe a little bracelet or pattern, not anything "in-your-face obvious". People can take a subtle hint, they don't need anything shoved down their throat.

Now, a grand offender of theme overload would be the "otaku" based trolls. Now, if you're troll had been on the internet and somehow found any form of anime and manga and became interested in it, that might make sense. But, I doubt they begin speaking Japanese and dressing completely in anime clothes. They would not have access to a lot of this stuff on their planet. Same goes for most stereotypes. They do not have any "Hot Topics" on Alternia, and I doubt the company could branch across the paradoxical galaxy.

Now, a good theme may be a god/goddess, an animal, color, or something of sort. Just remember: Be subtle. Don't have your troll dressed as the god and have the same power. Now, animal themes are a delicate subject. A good example would be Nepeta. Nepeta's theme is fairly obvious: cats. So, per say, you want a wolf theme. So you base everything of of a wolf. WRONG. You see, Nepeta isn't only based off of a cat. She's been based off many different things, not just cats.
So, be subtle, use common sense, and research. Don't do a poor job researching your theme and base your troll off of that. Poor research equals poor theme, poor theme could equal poor troll.


III Blood colors.
First off, let's get this out in the open: No rainbow bloods, no white bloods, no pink bloods, no transparent bloods. Now, if you're considered a mutant, fine, but if at least Karkat's blood is kind of close to the actual scale. No one will stand for a bright pink, a rainbow, or a transparent blooded troll. Ever. Keeping that in mind, now let's talk about the hemospectrum.
The range of bloods is fairly simple, and you should avoid deterring from these colors (In order of lowest to highest):

Dark Red - Brown - Yellow - Lime Green* - Green - Jade Green - Teal - Cerulean - Indigo - Purple - Violet - Fuchsia

* To note, within Homestuck canon all lime bloods were extinct. They're a special case and most canon information is from Caliopee's oc so the accuracy is questionable.

Karkat's blood, candy red, is not listed because it is a mutant color and is not part of the hemospectrum. More about mutants later.
Now, as you get higher on the hemospectrum, the probability of that the troll is violent rises. Low bloods are less violent, high bloods are more violent. That is not always the case, seeing as Aradia is fairly destructive, and Feferi is very nice and friendly.
Lower bloods are more likely to have some form of psychic powers (Aradia speaking to the dead, Tavros speaking to animals) and higher bloods are generally stronger (Equius is the best example).
Now, there are some exceptions, like Vriska having her powers, but don't over do it. You can be a little out of range, seeing as Vriska isn't extremely high up on the scale, but still. Use that ever so helpful common sense.
There are no blood colors between Violet (Eridan) and Fuchsia (Feferi) bloods. It was stated in canon, so violet is the highest blood aside from Fuchsia.

Now, you're troll should be fairly aware of the hemospectrum and their ranking on it. If a low blood blatantly goes against the spectrum, they may be culled. High bloods can be a bit more loose, but if they spend a lot of their time around low bloods, other high bloods may look down on them.
Feferi's blood (fuchsia) is the blood of high royalty, and having her blood designates the troll with it to be the next leader of the troll government, an empress/emperor. Be careful when using this blood color, and, just to be safe, I don't advise going above Eridan's blood (violet), but you can if you want.
A Troll's blood color should be shown on their shirt, unless they want to hide it, for some reason, such as being mutant.

Mutants, time to talk about them. Now, having a mutant character is a very delicate path to tread and it's not to late, you can run now. No? Well then, continue reading. If you don't have a mutant, I advise skipping this, it may get boring, and a lot is speculation.
Now, if your troll is a mutant, they had better not be proud of it. Mutants are culled, if they're not useful or if they do not get a lusus, I'm fairly certain, so it's not the kind of thing you just let the world know. Both high and low bloods look down on mutants, it they're hemospectrum-savvy.
Now, to figure out how a mutant blood should act, take Karkat and his ancestor, the Sufferer, as an example. Now, seeing that the Sufferer was relatively calm and compassionate, and Karkat is a broiling ball of rage, mutant bloods don't have a specific violent-ness like most on the hemospectrum do. That in mind, it's safe to assume that the strength and psychic powers traits in normal bloods doesn't affect them either. It leads me to believe that they have neither psychic powers or large strength, seeing as Karkat had neither (to my knowledge), though this is only speculation.

Links to more info about the Hemospectrum in the Artist's comment.


IV Personality
Now, trolls have a wide range of unique personalities, just like humans, but keep in mind that the troll race is naturally violent. The amounts a violence has been stated many times in the web comic, and even Tavros got a little violent once (if you've read up to that point, you should know). But, don't have a character that can be absolutely happy one second, and a raving lunatic the next, it doesn't work like that. That personality has been done so much to death, it's funny how un-funny it is. A good personality is a consistent one. Such as, you have a kind loving troll; She'll be kind and loving to most people, not a raving sociopath half the time for no good reason.

And for your personality, make sure there is a reason for most everything, please, if you do nothing else, at least do this. Don't have some sad mopey troll whom tortures themselves for no reason. And don't make the reason stupid, like their lusus beat them or something. Lusus are animals with parental instincts towards their trolls, they practically live to care for their troll. A valid reason for being an "emo" stereotype would be that they've tried to befriend society, but their creepy behavior scared everyone away, or maybe they saw someone who was actually this sad and depressed, and though it looked cool, so they decided to copy them. Though, I advise staying away from all stereotypes in general.
Try not to exactly copy one of the canon characters' personality, that's just silly.


V Relationships.
Troll relationships are a complicated topic for most people, but I'll try to explain them here. (And I'm sorry if I use the wrong plural or other tense of these words.)

There are four types of relatonships: matesprits, morails, auspistice, and kismesis. The first two are redrom, and focus on positive emotions, and the latter two are blackrom and focus around negative emotions.
Matesprits are essentially lovers, and this is the most like human romance.
Morails are friends who look out for each other, it also involves the calmer one keeping the more violent one in a non-violent state.
Auspistice is a three-way relationship. Simply put, two of the trolls hate each other, and the third makes peace(Kind of) between the two.
Kismesis is two people with a love/hate relationship. In my opinion, this is the hardest one to explain. People often get kimesis confused with just being enemies, but there has to be a little bit of attraction (something like that...) *It is important to note, kismesis do not try and outright kill each other, that would honestly defeat the point. They keep the other alive so they can compete.

I advise looking these relationships else where, such as the MSPA Wiki, for a more in depth explanation.

So, with all that in mind, you can start filling your quadrants- Wait. I see you there. Yes you, the huge Eridan fan. Don't do it. Don't. Please don't.
Never, NEVER pair your character with a canon character IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. It does not work like that. When the trolls were sent to the medium from their homeplanet, their homeplanet was destroyed, and so was everyone on it. And if you have a relationship way before then, the canon trolls would be kind of young, and you would be kind of creepy. And, if your troll is with other trolls(not canon ones) and is playing a session, that happens in a different timeline then the main troll's alpha timeline. It would take place in the alpha timeline for your troll group, and thus, the canon characters would be dead. A relationship with the canon trolls just will not work. Now, I could probably delve into paradox space, time travel, and the like, and find a reasonable way to fit a character into the canon characters plot, but that would involve a lot of research, and you'd be in a doomed timeline, assuming Hussie's writing the alpha timeline, and there would really be no point in all this work. No matter how hard you work, over half the internet will dislike your troll. So please, no relationships with canon characters. Ever.

My hatred towards canon relationships doesn't stop at romance. YOU SHOULD NOT KNOW, BE RELATED TO, OR ASSOCIATE IN ANY OTHER WAY WITH THE CANON CHARACTERS. Just don't do it! Be creative, geez!

Now, you can freely fill your quadrants with fellow trolls, but you can only have one troll per quadrant (besides auspistice, which needs two trolls and your troll).
So, have fun...


VI Typing Quirk
We all noticed that all the trolls have a certain way of typing, correct? Most all trolls have one of these, and your troll should to. Now, first thing, make it legible. You don't have to replace every single letter with something. And second, be creative. Don't just copy a canon's quirk.
And, it's nice to have something that relates to you character's theme, like how Nepeta uses cat puns. Such as, I've seen money orientated trolls replace an s with a $. You can base your quirk off of a canon's, like having some form of leet speak like Terezi, or messing around with the capitalization of certain letters, such as Gamzee or Tavros.
But before you can even use a quirk, you need a Trollian Handle (literately, a troll chum handle). It should relate to your troll's personality and hobbies. For an example, let's look at Vriska's handle, arachnidsGrip. The first words relates, obviously, to her spider lusus and very, very obvious spider theme. "Grip" refers to how she has had a major hand in many events, holding a grip over them. Also, to her power, which lets her take control of another trolls. So, all you need to come up with a good handle is a decent premise and a bit of time and research (probably about five minutes). But please, for the sake of all that is good, don't use extremely long words in an attempt to make you handle sounds "cooler". It will backfire in the end, especially if you end up misspelling your own handle. Just for your reference, this is exactly what I don't want to see: recockulousHonorificabilitudinitatibus (and yes, those are real words). I will weep tears of black, liquid sorrow if I happen upon a name like this.
(The phrase recockulousHonorificabilitudinitatibus is now belonging to Growleaf & co, for all intents and purposes, in case I, for whatever reason, need this extraordinarily humorous phrase.)

VII Ancestors

Ancestors are trolls that lived long before your troll and are very similar to your troll, having the same symbol and blood color. They tend to be nearly visually identical (but older, and usually with more elaborate outfits).
An important thing to note: This is not the Trollian equivalent of a parent. It is not known if a troll's ancestor was even the one that gave the genetic traits for your troll. Overall, your troll shouldn't know a lot about their ancestor, unless they happen to find something from them, like Vriska did with Mindfang's journals.
Ancestors seem to usually have an eight letter name, but seeing as Gamzee's ancestor broke this, it may not be a rule, though I do advise using an eight letter word. You can use unusual spellings, shown with Sollux's ancestor, the Ψiioniic. Another thing pointed out is that Jadeblood and lower castes tend to have titles, while higher castes have names.
All of the canon ancestors seem to have done at least one really major event, whether it be a direct influence (like the Condesce) or something less direct (like the Disciple). So, you should pick something for your troll's ancestor to have done. This could be something along the lines of being great at something, like a being a legendary blacksmith, or, if you have enough characters, you could have them be part of a larger story.
Design-wise, the ancestors' outfits seem to be mainly based around their symbol, but, as you can see with Dualscar, they can wear practically anything. Their color schemes seem to have, at most, three colors. Black is the base color, and your ancestor's outfit should be at least half black. Then, they use their blood color and some other accent color (like the Summoner's red stripe things on his pants, of the seadweller's gold jewelry). Though, the Ψiioniic had red and blue as his accents, due to Sollux's duality theme. Essentially, the ancestor should look like an older version of the troll.
An important thing to point out: Don't rip off a canon ancestor. Doing so would, firstly, be uncreative, and secondly, be boring. Be original! Do some research! Base the ancestor loosely off of whatever your troll is themed around.
Relationships for the ancestors are pretty much the same as they are for trolls. One per quadrant (two for auspitice) and no canon characters.


VIII Lusii

Lusii are a trolls caretaker. They pick a troll once they come out of the brooding caverns and take care of their troll for the rest of their life. The trolls also have to take care of their lusus, acting as a kind of zookeeper.
You could make your lusii any kind of animal, but it'd be more interesting if you did something creative, like mixed two animals together or gave it some kind of extra limbs. You lusii shouldn't be just a frog, but you could have the traits of one, like creating some kind of frog/squirrel abomination.
Most of the time, trolls are based on animals, but they could also be like Sollux's lusus and be based off of a mythological creature. Kanaya's lusus, a virgin mother grub, is extremely rare, and you probably shouldn't give your troll one. It is also exclusive to jade bloods.
Gl'bgolyb is a lusii attended to by the heiress and the empress, so unless your fuchsia blood has ascended to the position of heiress, do not have them care for Gl'bgolyb.
Jade bloods tend to get rare types of lusii, purple bloods, Gamzee's blood color, have semi-aquatic lusii, and violet and fuschia bloods (seadwellers) have aquatic lusii.

Your troll should not be raised by another troll. This was specific to the Sufferer and is not a common occurrence.


Miscellaneous.
Now to cover broad and random things.
- Trolls are nocturnal. The sun is extremely powerful and is capable of burning a troll's eyes out (see Terezi).
- Don't over complicate your symbol. It should preferably be made of lines and curves.
- Your name MUST have 6 letters in the first name and 6 in the last name. No exceptions.
- Do not give your troll a human name. Do not. Don't do it, even if it's six letters. Look at the canon troll's names and tell me human names would fit in, I dare you.
- Keep any special powers under control, no leveling cities on a whim. Try to do something to this affect; you have a super strong power, but it's extremely hard to use and you can't control it at all. Or; the move doesn't do much, but it's pretty easy to use.
- Trolls do not have siblings, so don't give them siblings.
- Have a reasonable weapon and captchalogue system. I don't like seeing about 50 fan trolls with a miracle captchalogue. Try and make up something cool.
- When figuring out your trolls age, those whom play the game are all around 6 sweeps (13 years old). Most adult trolls are off planet, keep that in mind.
- When picking a strife specibus, make it interesting. A "Sharp pointy stick" kind has more potentially to be fun and annoying then the infamous "sword" kind.
- Also, I don't want to see a whole roster of trolls with "dagger" kind, "sword" kind, "rapier" kind, "blade" kind, and "uber saber" kind. Don't abuse those poor adjectives.
- 1 sweep = 2.17 years.