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fantroll-purgatory · 4 years

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@theshieldswordandcrown

I’d like it if you guys could look over my tea man for me! (Art by my friend lythaeriahomestucks. I haven’t made him a sprite yet.

Oofadoofa it’s been a while. Hi I hope your roleplay group is fun!

World: Alternia, but the draft is a lot further off than in canon, because none of my group is interested in roleplaying interstellar space battles or politics, especially considering the amount of setup that would have to go into making deep space believable. Though I think Friendsim’s stated they’re dragged off planet at 9 sweeps, so he’d still have a little time before getting dragged underground anyway.

Name: Oolong Matcha. Yes, they’re both types of tea. It started off as a quick joke, but I’ve grown to love it. Not only is matcha green, like his blood, but he’s a gardener, and really enjoys tea.

Mmmmm I mean joke trolls are famously canon in Homestuck. See: SWIFER EGGMOP or the salt and pepper shaker troll BUTTT mmmm. I feel like naming a character based at least partially on Japanese monks Oolong would deserve some side-eye. But I like the matcha bit! So let’s see…I like him being a gardener since monastic gardens were very much A Thing, and one of the famous still-extant ones is at Rievaulx abbey, so maybe we give him RIVULX, which sounds sufficiently trollish and is obvious enough for someone to get the reference.

Age: 9.69 Sweeps, or 21 Earth years.

Theme/Story: He’s partially themed after monks, specifically Irish and Japanese, which was originally an excuse for his bald head, but ended up influencing his clothing, calm demeanor, and lusus. I was also, oddly, thinking of 4chan – not maniacs like /pol/, but just average people who don’t get out enough, like to chatter about anime or cooking, and generally act like a bit of a dipshit. Fatherhood is definitely a theme with him as well – he’s already a father figure to two other trolls.

Hmmm. I like the broad concept, but I think we can tighten up a little on the “monk” theme by expanding it. Review Goals: General overview, classpecting advice, filling in missing details like fetch modus or lunar sway, etc.

Strife Specibus: He greatly prefers to snipe threats before they reach him, but if he’s forced into melee, he’ll grab a pipe and go berserker nuts. He takes satisfaction in neutralizing threats, especially if he’s protecting someone or something. He’s not averse to talking things out, but dislikes putting others on the line.

Hmm. None of that is a strife specibus, though I suppose you’re going for riflekind and pipekind. Generally void players use fistkind since it’s the absence of a weapon, but if you want to give him another option besides hand-to-hand melee may I suggest poisonkind? He could use something from his garden, like monkshood :3c. Or if you want to give him a melee weapon he could use the sansetsukon per the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which would double as a symbol reminder since he could arrange the segments in a backwards s. Fetch Modus: ;;3;; I have absolutely no idea.

What about a clue modus where the items are obscured but contain details describing them? With the caveat that some of them will have similar color/taste/textures listed. I think this might be fun because there are actually *two* famous detectives with the last name Monk, Adrian Monk and William Monk.

Blood Color: Jade.

That works great, especially with Friendsim’s reveal that many jades are indeed monastic/cloistered.

Lunar Sway: Not sure.

Given that he’s a monk and you have painted him as someone unlikely to cause conflict or rebel against the system, I think he’d be a Prospit dreamer.

Title: Knight of Void, someone who exploits what little secrecy and irrelevance he has for all it’s worth. He was first conceived as a Bard, to fit into a fansession, but I eventually decided it didn’t fit what the character had developed to be.

Symbol and Meaning: I made it up, and it doesn’t have a name. It’s an infinity symbol, broken in the center - like this, but flipped 90 degrees clockwise. I guess it could tie into his aspect by…destroying infinity, I guess, but I really haven’t put that much thought into it.

If we’re going by the EZ, he would be Virittanius, the Deliberate. Which I think fits him quite well! It also looks like a further corruption of the sign you gave him, so I may toy with that a little in the redesign. Handle: I feel like I might have given him a serious handle at one point, but if I did, I forgot it, so for now, it’s oolongMatcha. Just his name. Considering his classpect and desire for secrecy, this makes about as much sense as a rain barrel made out of crackers, but I’m not sure what to give him.

Since his new initials are RM, maybe revenantMyiopsitta. Revenant, of course, to hint at the fact that he’s part of the blood caste most commonly associated with rebirth after death, and Myiopsitta being the genus for two types of parakeet: the cliff parakeet and the monk parakeet. So we have his true identity as well as the unusual nature of his hive, both concealed in plain sight. Quirk: he types in all lower case and likes putting his horns in his emoticons! ’:) Maybe doing it like (:; would make more sense, as it’s his right (our left) horn that’s busted.

I like it! Depending on his redesign you may also want him to uƨe backwardƨ ƨ’ƨ to mimic hiƨ ƨymbol.

Special Abilities: Supreme Dadliness. Jokes aside, he’s a crack shot, even with his impeded vision, and has been successfully flying under the radar his whole life.

If you still want him to be a crack shot even with the changes I suggested above, maybe he uses blowdarts to poison his enemies from afar?

Lusus: His father is a MASSIVE white snake; I was thinking some kind of constrictor. Personality-wise, he’s close to a prototypical 50s dad. He’s a safe haven for his son and those his baby cares about, and is exceedingly patient, to the point of letting a small child fingerpaint on him. He’s also willing to carry Oolong in emergencies, though I’m not really certain that would work in real life, movement-wise.

I feel like the snake can be a little overplayed as a lusus. If we want to give him something similar to a mother grub as a jadeblood, why not a massive butterfly based on the monk/dusky friar? It also gives you the mechanics for how his dadderfly would carry him around in emergencies.

Interests: He used to spend a lot of time alone on the internet - I originally conceptualized him as a very lonely NEET, to the point he had to find his wallet to remember his own name - but has become more adventurous and friendly, spending more time with his girlfriend and friends (and he has friends now!) He’s very proud of his garden and fruit trees, some of which are rare, difficult to grow properly, and/or dangerous (offering more security).

Huh! You don’t explain *how* he goes from isolated to friendly, but I’d hope that gardening is a way for him to reach out to others since it’s a hobby you can commit to on your own but bond with other hobbyists.

Hive: He lives out in the woods by himself, though not so far from other trolls that he can’t take the day to go shopping or see his mate. His hive is surrounded by his garden on all sides, and has a very visible path down the center (making it easy for him to see anyone approaching, and shoot if they’re a threat). Trees surround it, and dangerous plants are strategically placed to make going through his garden unpleasant at best (it also makes weeding a pain, but he thinks it’s worth it). His hive is especially unusual in that the porch is raised up to the second floor with large poles, and you have to use a ladder to get up to it (unless you’re snakedad, in which case you go up the poles). He has a remote so he can let it down from the ground, as well as access to it on the platform, so he can let people up himself. I don’t think the ground level has a door. I’d be happy to submit pictures, if you want.

Feel free to show us pictures, but I like the concept a lot!

Appearance: Tall and rail-thin, excepting his oddly curvy hips. (I figured due to jades being majority female, developing jade males might be exposed to more than the usual amount of estrogen and androgens. Also I’m way more used to drawing women than men and his initial outline was a gal for like ten minutes.) He shaves his head bald. (This is because A) I didn’t want to bother trying to figure out men’s hair - I almost never draw dudes - and B) he’s partially themed after monks, who often shave their heads. I don’t remember why he says he does it.)

…man, I’m gonna take issue with the way you phrased this description. There’s a lot of gender essentialism going on in your explanation there, and given that a number of us mods are trans and nonbinary I feel obligated to point out a few things:

1) Trolls are bugs. They’re not even mammals. They aren’t exposed to androgen or estrogen or any hormone to give them a certain body shape. It is quite heavily implied that when the mother grub gives birth it is to a bunch of larvae.

2) I know that Homestuck lore has given us largely jade girls and one jade trans guy but that’s no reason to assume that jade men are broadly more “feminine” by default in *any* dimension

3) Even if trolls *did* work like humans, it rubs me the wrong way to see someone talking about a man’s “oddly” curvy hips like I’ve got guy friends both trans and cis with wide hips and the only reason to remark on it at all is because We Live In A Society that forcibly genders people in relation to physical characteristics.

…So I am otherwise taking your description at face value. ______ Matcha is tall, rail thin, with curvy hips and a bald head. I will probably add some little fangs, per the Alternian fashion guide.

He wears leggings (unless it’s very hot) and long tunics or robes, usually tan, with his symbol emblazoned on the breast. He goes barefoot if he can. His right (our left) horn is broken, due to an accident in his youth (I think he fell onto something?), amusingly improving his vision, since his unbroken left horn points in front of his left eye, obscuring it somewhat. His face could almost be described as delicate, and his default expression is calm.

I don’t knooooow that tan is a color trolls wear all that often in Alternia, so I will see how I can rework that in the redesign. I get him being barefoot, but I may give it a shot spriting him monk shoes for if he wants to go on an outing. :3c For his broken horn…hm. When we see trolls with physical damage, it is almost always something more significant than just “childhood accident” (see: every troll in Homestuck except Equius who somehow had like 3 simultaneous accidents?). I have an idea for his horns that I will get to in the redesign, and I will probably add a hook to his front horn, both because it’s a jadeblood trait and because it seems suitably horrifying to constantly have a sharp implement millimeters from your eye.

Personality: Oolong is a nice, fatherly young man, well regarded by most he meets. He really really likes tea. He has a beautiful, dangerous mafiosa matesprite in a rustblood named Andora Ingenu, and they adore each other. He’s also taken on the substitute dad role for an adorable young fuschia who lives in the swamp near his forest, Lillie Waters, teaching her how to cook (and keep her tools clean) and rescuing her from other fuschias. He’s very protective of his and his loved ones’ privacy and safety, and spends a LOT of his time in the massive gardens around his hive, of which he’s deservedly proud. He is very good at being sneaky, and sometimes takes the time to run around seeing what he can get away with, especially in the realm of snatching seeds up for his garden. He sells whatever plants he can grow for money, especially fruits and vegetables, but he doesn’t really enjoy sales. He doesn’t put a lot of stock in blood superiority, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s oddly well adjusted for someone who spent most of his life alone.

I like this description! Also looking at his close compatriots, it looks like I can swap the tan in his design for rust or fuchsia. We already see jadebloods wearing a fair amount in the red/burgundy/purple spectrum, so it should fit right in with the others.

Land: I don’t remember if I’ve come up with one. If I did, I feel like it may have heavily wooded areas, dark and tangled and difficult to navigate.

Hmmm. What about Land of Rough and Reflection (LORAR)? Covered in rough terrain, with pools to contemplate oneself. Unbeknownst to your troll, there are switches at the bottom of each lake (deeper than he could ever hope to dive and hold his breath) that must be flipped to drain the lakes and free the consorts from the underwater caves in which they’ve been trapped for generations. His land would initially seem completely empty and without guidance, and it neatly parallels his own situation before he began to socialize.

I hope you like him! :) I’d love to see what you guys think of him.

He’s certainly an interesting troll, and I hope I’ve helped by way of sharpening up on his theme! Let’s move on to the redesign.

Top to bottom as usual!

Hair - I gave him some stubble courtesy of fan-troll (I have never managed a post without plugging fan-troll/tajazzled’s sprite sheet and I’m not gonna stop now)

Horns - I wanted to make his other horn sort of…curve away from his head so it looks like his symbol from above?

Eyes and brows - they didn’t change but big ups to fan-troll for giving me bases to modify!

Mouth - this is a modification of Sollux’s mouth but I gave him lil fangs and a little lower lip definition

Robes - I just modified some of Kanaya’s robes, appropriately enough! I decided to go for a red/pink shade that was between rust and fuchsia so he could fit in while subtly broadcasting his allegiance

Shoes - they’re John’s but with buckles! :B monk shoes

Aaaand that’s about it for my critique! I hope this helped!

-TR

#jadeblood #submission #oolong matcha #oolong #matcha #theshieldswordandcrown #rivulx #rivulx matcha #review #redesign #tr review

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