CnC App
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Snapple and/or Abby
AGE: I am going to be 30 so soon, oh god
JOURNAL: snapples-apples
IM: ispyslytherin
E-MAIL: tsukechick at the gee mail
RETURNING: I currently play Sirius Black (purmoncul), and have had other characters here before. :)
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Tavros Nitram, Page of Breath
FANDOM: Homestuck, the latest saga from mspaintadventures.com
CHRONOLOGY: Tavros will be coming from the latest point in the timeline that we see him, technically after his own death. Death not being as final in this canon as others, we see him later moving through various dream bubbles, and this is the canon point he's coming from.
CLASS: Hero. Such a bad one, though.
SUPERHERO NAME: Page of Breath - the comic revolves around two groups of kids playing different sessions of the same video game, in which they get assigned heroic titles. "Breath" seems to refer to wind, though Tavros hasn't manifested any wind powers (he wsan't...very good at the game). "Page" could mean anything, but to me it indicated that his role was specifically to assist the other players in the game. Even those who were unfailingly cruel to him.
ALTER EGO: Outside of heroing, he is Tavros Nitram, paraplegic troll, all-around-nice-guy, and massive, bull-horned doormat.
BACKGROUND:
META INFO:
The reality of Homestuck holds these things to be true: there are multiple planets and multiple realities. Every planet / reality with an intelligent, dominant species was created as the result of another intelligent dominant species playing a "game". Every planet / reality with an intelligent, dominant species is doomed to be destroyed by playing that same "game". The "game" is the creation / expression / summoning of an ancient all-powerful demon whose servants can re-set reality at will. Within these games, and thus within reality, time and space is malleable, and thus the narrative of this comic is REALLY CONFUSING.
Other things that are real in this comic that are just kinda accepted without much fuss despite being questionable in actual reality include: telepathy, seeing the future in dreams, time travel, teleportation, trans-reality chat clients, trans-time chat clients, super speed, cthulu monsters from space / the ocean deep, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the world except for the characters in the comics.
WORLD INFO:
Alternia is a world much like a harsher version of Earth, with oceans and mountains and forests and plains and cities and suburbs. It's flora and fauna are similar as well, save that the fauna tend to be white, do not always obey the laws of physics (flying whales, for example) and are almost always antagonistic. Alternian "years" are called sweeps, and are about twice the length of an Earth year.
The Alternia that we see in the game is actually a reset of the original planet - the first Alternia and its troll denizens were too peaceful to successfully play the "game", and rather than fail completely, they agreed to allow the demon and its servant Doc Scratch to go back in time, reset their world, and shape them into a species that was not utterly doomed. ...This worked only so well, as the new species was both TOO good at the game and prone to violence to be successful, and temporal echoes of the peaceful people that they once had been still manifested and caused trouble. Tavros's attitude is very much a throwback to that more peaceful world, although he doesn't know it, and it wouldn't do him any good anyway.
TROLL INFO:
A race of aliens who live far from Earth, trolls are nocturnal, highly evolved insectoid creatures who live in a strict caste society based on the color of their blood, and whose existence depends on a symbiotic relationship with several other creatures of lower intelligence. Much of their food and the substance they sleep in is slime-based. Slimes have a strong chemical effect on troll psychology, and the sopor-slime they sleep in helps repress the naturally violent subconscious mindset that plagues them. Since Alternia is such a dangerous place during the day, trolls are nocturnal, and most find the sun to be blinding.
If you look at the general ROY G. BIV spectrum that we learned in our limited human schools, the "lowest" blood colors are at the right, in the ROY area, and we move across to the left to reach higher and higher (and rarer) blood colors in the BIV. The spectrum covers a full gradient of shades and hues, but by and large, those who have blue, indigo and violet blood are the nobility of troll society, and are seen as having absolute authority over anyone of lower blood quality than their own. Blood color is also associated with what professions an adult troll may have, and where on the planet they live. Red through indigo are land-dwellers, while violet and fuscia are acquatic.
Trolls go through several transformations in their lifespan, which begins when they are hatched from eggs laid en-masse by a symbiotic mother grub that exists for this purpose. At this stage, trolls are six-legged grubs called "wrigglers" who have faces, hair and horns similar to the ones they will have as adults, but with segmented, grub-like bodies the color of their blood. The term "mother" is misleading, as the trolls are born without parents and the grub takes no role in caring for them - they are expected to survive a series of grueling tests before they are deemed worthy of a guardian. It can be assumed that many young trolls die at this stage.
Based on a combination of their performance, their blood color and fate, they are chosen by a "lusus", at which point they go through their first transformation and emerge as grey-skinned, humanoid children called pupa. A lusus is one of basically kind other of creature native to Alternia, and much is made of the prestige and responsibility that comes with being chosen by this or that lusus. Lusii seem to share a sort of psychic bond with their charges, or an extremely strong emotional one at the very least, and while they're more clever than the animals we know on Earth, most are not fully sentient - they care for and protect a young troll but by the time that troll approaches puberty, the role has been reversed and it's the troll who is acting almost as a zookeeper for its lusus. Many lusii have unusual (and horrific) dietary requirements and can become quite violent and destructive, and it becomes the troll's job to keep the lusus fed and content. Lusii are white, though it is not clear if they're born that way or if most animals on Alternia are white or if they turn that color in to their new duties.
It is as unthinkable trolls that an adult troll would successfully raise a child as it is to us that a human child would be successfully raised by wolves.
There seems to be yet another transformation as the pupa become adults, though whether this is figurative or literal isn't entirely clear. Adulthood marks a time when trolls must contribute genetic material to the mother grub before leaving ALternia to join the troll fleet in conquering the galaxy. ...How exactly this genetic material is gathered is highly unclear, but it seems to involve at least two partnerings and some buckets. The production of this material is highly tied to the troll's emotional state: one of the partnerings must be joined in love, the other must be joined in hate, and the stronger the emotion, the stronger the genes produced. It is also unclear what exactly the mother grub does with it, but somehow every troll's genetic material gets combined within her before she lays another batch of eggs of all colors. If a troll can't pony up the emissions required, he or she is killed, or "culled", so they get a bit obsessed with it all around puberty.
Around this time they also join whatever professional group is appropriate to their rank and skills, and then leave the planet. Long ago, trolls lived their whole lives on Alternia, but after some lowbloods rose in rebellion, the highest blood of all, Her Imperious Condescension, ordered that all adult trolls would leave in the fleet, in order to decentralize the population and prevent further uprisings. This becomes a moot point when the planet is destroyed.
GAME INFO:
During the events of the comic, twelve troll children from across the hemospectrum began playing a game called SGRUB, around the time of a massive meteor storm on Alternia - the extent to which starting the game itself is responsible for causing the storm is arguable. The children and their homes survive the planet's destruction by being physically uploaded into the game (which seems to be run out of asteroids in paradox space) and were given to believe that if they completed the session successfully, they would get to build a new reality. The games rules are complex, but it ran much like any roleplaying adventure game, involving heroic characters going on quests to retrieve treasure and points and level up to eventually confront a powerful boss. The player's choices had direct in-game effects, influencing the power level and complexity of the game's "NPC" opponents. Rather than follow the game, the troll children tried to complete the game as quickly as possible, as the creation of an idyllic new world seemed more important than mucking about with sub-bosses and frog genetics (...don't ask).
This unfortunately meant that they made a huge mess of things. The new world they created was literally the comic's version of our Earth, but since they'd half-assed the steps that led to making it, the new world was flawed. Having escaped into paradox space, the trolls then meddled with the dominant intelligent species in this new world, (i.e. humans), either out of boredom, malice or curiosity. This meddling proved even MORE disastrous, as between their actions and the kids' they cause the NPC opponent in the kids' session to become, by all evidence thus far in canon, completely unbeatable. They in fact made him so powerful that he was able to travel back in time to the troll's session and ensure that they would fail also. So because they failed, the trolls messed up the other session so badly that they contributed to the monster that would cause them to fail. Everyone screwed everyone else over in a time loop of bad ideas, bsically.
TAVROS'S CORNER OF ALL OF IT:
Tavros, being of the second-lowest blood caste of any of the kids, has a weak lusus and lives way out in the middle of nowhere, on a windy field. His hive has a windmill at the top, which presumably provides the power to run the place. His room is messy, as he's been wheelchair-bound for at least a sweep by the time the trolls start playing the game. His lusus, a little winged fairy bull called Tinkerbull in keeping with his Peter Pupa Pan theme, is as sweet-natured and useless as he is.
Few of the troll children had physically met before playing SGRUB, but Tavros knew them through internet chats. His only real-world companion was Tinkerbull, with whom he liked to play poke-mon and Yugii-Oh like games using actual Alternian beasts, who he can commune with psychically. His only contact with his peers was via the internet. His closest friendship was with Gamzee, another troll who seemed unusually peaceful and fun-loving, and he got along well with Nepeta, who was odd but kind.
He was involved with playing interactive roleplaying games with a few before, Aradia, Terezi and Vriska, specifically, and it was with that group that he played a game called FLARP - basically a Live Action Roleplaying Game with a VA component involving holographic monsters controlled by another player. Where most games do not have real-world consequences, players could be hurt or killed playing FLARP, and that's exactly what happened to Tavros. The line between kindness and sadism blurred at the best of times for most trolls, and she was particularly prone to setting unbeatable challenges for him with the stated attempt of making him stronger, only to get frustrated and cruel when he failed at them. When he tried to stop playing rather than continue playing a game he was doomed to lose, she used her psychic ability to possess his body and made him jump himself off a cliff. The fall paralyzed him from the waist down, and he stopped talking to her after that.
Once the game started, Tavros found himself paired up with Vriska once again, who helped and tormented him in about equal portions, as always. She eventually got him through a teleporting gateway into her corner of the game, and they met in person for the first time, at which point she put on an elaborate cosplay-based scene of seduction, dressing as a tinkerbell-type fairy, and kissed him. Completely bewildered and stunned, he just froze up, disgusting her, and she seemed to give up on him completely. It ended fairly well, actually, as he was able to apologize to her for not returning her interest, and was forgiven, after which point the two actually made a pretty good team. They plundered her world, she taught him to be a better fighter and to actually ride on the animals he communed with.
This brief period of happiness was cut short when Aradia showed up to wreak vengeance on Vriska for her sins. As she lay dying, Tavros nearly kissed her (which would have revived her based on the game's rules), but she once again possessed him and wrote him notes in her own blood to explain that she wanted him to take her to a special place in the game, which he does. There, she demands that he kill her, rather than let her bleed out. In a moment of twisted mercy, she refuses to force him to kill her, but Tavros can't bring himself to murder her even at her own request, and he has a mental breakdown and leaves. Regardless, by dying under these circumstances, Vriska rises up to a new power level in the game, but her respect for Tavros is completely destroyed. He himself is so traumatized, he spends the rest of the game "asleep" and thus playing in a more peaceful level of the game.
Over the course of the story, Tavros is one of the trolls who interacted with the human kids, specifically the cool kid Dave Strider (who turned Tavros's attempt to troll him around and delivered a reverse-troll so powerful it sent Tavros running), and Jade Harley, who he actively tried to help. During a period of wakefulness after the KILL ME incident, and with the encouragement of his friends, Tavros resolves to be more self-confident and act like he has more self-esteem. The trolls can view any point of the human kids' timeline, and Tavros uses his ability to commune with animals to make Jade's godly-powerful dog save her from shooting herself, and cause the bullet to kill an old man nearby instead. Since Tavros had no reason to know that the old man was Jade's guardian and not some sort of intruder, he was pretty proud of himself. He tells Jade about this and that he's developed a crush on her, while asking her if he can use the dog again to fight the similarly-godly-powerful Boss Villain of her session. A confident person would be heroic and helpful, after all. Jade manages to not get angry at him while explaining that he'd killed her grandfather, but she also turns down his advances, forbids him from influencing her dog, and points out that his understanding of self-esteem comes across extremely hollow and bullying.
Vriska, who was able to read the conversation because Jade's computer projected things large enough for anyone viewing a scene she was in to read, immediately tears into Tavros. She accuses him of "copying" her, because she had been meddling with the kids from step one, and explains explicitly low her machinations caused the godly-powerful Boss Villain to be created in the first place. This appalls Tavros sufficiently that he resolves to take action for the first time in his life. He grabs his lance and goes to confront Vriska. Unfortunately, even if he'd spent his whole life training for battle, since she transcended to god-tier herself, he had absolutely no chance against her. She blocked his charge, took his lance, and killed him with it. Since events in the story had destroyed any chance he would have to transcend or resurrect, he died truly.
This did not spell the end of his involvement in the story, however. His awareness came to in a sort of mass-unconciousness shared by the trolls and humans. He was able to apologize to Dave for insulting him earlier, see Jade, and learn some of the hidden truths behind what the hell was going on. It is this point that I am taking him from, in game.
PERSONALITY:
Tavros is a horrible troll. Not as in "he is a horrible and cruel person who happens to be a troll" but in that he is absolutely not horrible or cruel in any way, and thus does not fit in with the cut-throat, violent society around him. It is quite safe to assume that the only reason he hasn't been culled yet is because he lives way out in the boondocks and is too quiet to notice.
While most trolls are focused on growing up, finding romance, and taking a position of some kind amongst their wider society (and all of these positions seem to be based on expansion, conquering other species, or ruling over their own), Tavros would rather spend time in escapist activities like roleplaying and other games, and thinking about fairies, Pupa Pan and other fantasy worlds. He would avoid growing up entirely if he could, probably because there just isn't much of a future for him in troll society as it is, and certainly not one in which he'd be happy.
Tavros has the ability to commune with animals, and could, theoretically, use them to make himself more mobile and more powerful (and therefore more useful), but he is so passive that he wouldn't even consider commanding an animal to bear him on its back. Of all the trolls, Tavros has never killed anything in his life (except by complete accident), and refused to kill the monsters and imps in his session of the game - instead he befriended them, and rallied them to help him solve side-quests. Vriska observes, quite aptly, that Tavros's greatest strength is in making friends who are stronger than he is, but again and again those friends have not been enough to actually save him from harm.
With his head in the clouds most of the time, Tavros has spent most of his life avoiding reality and passively ignoring the hateful behavior of other trolls, even when it directly results in pain and injury for him. Worse, his poor self esteem also leaves him making mistakes - when he tries to act braver, he edges closer to bullying activity, and if anything leaves himself even more vulnerable. He also never demands anything, and rarely asks for things directly - he assumes that people will turn him down anyway.
All of this may make him seem idiotic, but Tavros isn't unintelligent: he often points out the flaws in others' logic, or that they are being unreasonable, while still accepting their authority. He can also, after a truly ludicrous amount of abuse, be inspired to take up arms, but in defense of others, rather than himself. There is something in Tavros that wants to be truly noble and good in a society where nobility is understood to be tyranny, and goodness is synonymous with cruelty. He's young yet, and he died trying, so there is still some hope that he will find true self esteem and empowerment, given time.
Time which, suddenly, he has!
POWER:
Page of Breath: Due to sortof being a videogame character, Tavros is dead, but the game isnt over yet. In death, he's got the use of his legs back, but his eyes are white and pupil-less. That's the functional price to pay for the power that it gives him: Tavros is only kind-of killable. Any time he receives enough damage, his body disappears, but his spirit remains as an incorporeal ghost. He remains incorporeal for the same amount of time that an imPort would normally have to wait to reappear in the city, and he has no tags or communicator. When the standard re-spawn would occur, he re-appers in the porter room again, this time corporeal, with tags and comm.
Effectively, while his body is gone, his awareness is still in the city and he can only whisper in people's ears and talk to them in dreams unless that person is psychic or has some other power that would let them interact with ghosts. Anyone who has the ability to hurt or banish ghosts can damage him, at which point he's just gone until the standard re-spawn time hits.
I AM AWARE THAT THIS POWER IS WONKY AND AM OKAY WITH REVISING / GETTING RID OF IT! He's...probably going to get killed a lot in game, so it'd be nice to not be on hiatus every time it happens. :/
C♉mmune: Tavros can communicate telepathically with animals and get them to do what he wants. This is not possession - the animal is still fully aware and in control, so he can't force them to act completely against their nature (and he wouldn't anyway, because that would be mean) but he can change their moods and give them commands that they are likely to follow.
Trolololol: Rather than coming in with a human body, Tavros is in the city as a troll. ...A dead troll. Some guys have all the luck?
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[The video comes on to show a young teenager smiling down at his communicator with pointy teeth.]
[His skin his grey and he has some impressively big yellow-orange horns, longhorn cattle-style. He is also COVERED in pigeons. They're all around him on the park bench, on his shoulders, head and of course on the horns. He seems to be miraculously poop-free.]
[He waves and smiles at the camera, but doesn't say anything: first round of communication in troll-text begins NOW!]
[cut for troll-text goes here.]
AT: hEY, uH, iF YOU'RE NOT A TROLL OR, i GUESS, jADE OR HER FRIENDS, yOU CAN IGNORE THIS,
AT: sO HI EVERYONE,
AT: i DIDNT KNOW WE COULD MAKE MEMOS IN DREAM BUBBLES, bUT ITS PRETTY NICE, tHAT WE CAN,
AT: i DONT KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU HUMANS HAS THIS COMMUNAL HIVESTEM COMPLEX IN THEIR MEMORY, bUT IT IS, rEALLY, a NICE PLACE! }:)
AT: lOOK AT ALL THESE CHIRPBEASTS, tHEY'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE, hAHAHA!
AT: tHOUGH, uH,
AT: tHERE ARE, kIND OF,
AT: a LOT OF YOU HUMANS HERE, aND MY HORNS AREN'T, uH, sO CONVENIENT IN THAT CONTEXT,
AT: sO IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE i AM SUPPOSED TO GO, tHAT IS NOT IN EVERYONE'S WAY, tHAT MIGHT BE A GOOD THING FOR YOU TO TELL ME,
AT: i ALSO DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND,
AT: wHAT THAT FEMALE ON THE SCREEN MEANT?
AT: iS THIS A NEW PART OF THE GAME? dO WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DO?
AT: nOW THAT i AM IN TOUCH WITH MY SELF ESTEEM,
AT: uH IN A MORE CAREFUL WAY, jADE,
AT: i AM READY TO DO SOME HEROING,
AT: tHAT WILL NOT RESULT IN THE DEATHS OF ANYONE'S GUARDIANS, oR MAKE ANYONE FEEL BULLIED, oR MESS WITH THEIR PASTS IN ANY WAY!
AT: }:D
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
He missed Prospit, where he could not only walk but fly, and things seemed somehow simpler and more adventuresome. He'd felt like he could almost be Pupa Pan there, brave and heroic and uncomplicated. Even the dream-bubbles that he'd awoken in after dying weren't so bad. Seeing everyone's memories could be painful, but he'd finally gotten to meet Jade and Dave, and his legs hadn't been invisible or chopped off with a chainsaw anymore, which was nice.
The city seemed like something half-dream bubble, half reality. Human society was so overwhelming it made his pan rattle, and there were just so many of them here. It seemed like all of the players, troll and human had been here at some point or other - appearing and disappearing just like in the dream-bubbles, which at first had seemed extremely exciting, but...there were a few individuals who were here that Tavros knew were just trouble.
He'd expected as much from Vriska and Eridan, they were just...how they were. He had not expected it from Gamzee.
It was probably a very stupid thing that he'd just done. If it had been a brave thing, Tavros thought, he should feel more confident than he did, his self esteem should have grown, right? It often seemed that the things Jade thought a brave person and good friend should do didn't make him feel brave, though, only more nervous. It was probably his own fault - his self esteem being a completely made-up fake friend and all, he just wasn't very good at being brave.
It was just that Gamzee was his best friend, and sure the guy had always been really weird, but he'd never hurt anybody. Tavros felt strongly that it was up to him to find out what had happened, and maybe help somehow, because there had to be a reason for the change. Everyone else seemed to think that Gamzee had just started acting like a royalblood was supposed to, but he'd gone six sweeps without being that way, so it seemed to Tavros that just because it was natural for a rolayblood didn't make it natural for Gamzee. Nobody seemed to want to talk to him anymore except for Eridan, and...well it wasn't Tavros's place to say, because maybe Eridan was actually a really good kisemesis, but it seemed like Eridan wasn't going to help Gamzee feel better. In fact Tavros kind of hoped Eridan sucked as a kisemesis because otherwise he'd do everything he could to make Gamzee feel worse, and Gamzee didn't deserve that.
So he'd offered to meet Gamzee to talk, and maybe lay down some sick beats. ...He felt a bit sick right now and hoped that it would help with the beats, even if the sickness was meant to be metaphorical, and describing the beats, and not the one who laid them. Oh, Rufio, if only you were really real, and really were his self-esteem. To have a real friend who never got angry or confusing or tried to kill him would be nice...
NAME: Snapple and/or Abby
AGE: I am going to be 30 so soon, oh god
JOURNAL: snapples-apples
IM: ispyslytherin
E-MAIL: tsukechick at the gee mail
RETURNING: I currently play Sirius Black (purmoncul), and have had other characters here before. :)
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Tavros Nitram, Page of Breath
FANDOM: Homestuck, the latest saga from mspaintadventures.com
CHRONOLOGY: Tavros will be coming from the latest point in the timeline that we see him, technically after his own death. Death not being as final in this canon as others, we see him later moving through various dream bubbles, and this is the canon point he's coming from.
CLASS: Hero. Such a bad one, though.
SUPERHERO NAME: Page of Breath - the comic revolves around two groups of kids playing different sessions of the same video game, in which they get assigned heroic titles. "Breath" seems to refer to wind, though Tavros hasn't manifested any wind powers (he wsan't...very good at the game). "Page" could mean anything, but to me it indicated that his role was specifically to assist the other players in the game. Even those who were unfailingly cruel to him.
ALTER EGO: Outside of heroing, he is Tavros Nitram, paraplegic troll, all-around-nice-guy, and massive, bull-horned doormat.
BACKGROUND:
META INFO:
The reality of Homestuck holds these things to be true: there are multiple planets and multiple realities. Every planet / reality with an intelligent, dominant species was created as the result of another intelligent dominant species playing a "game". Every planet / reality with an intelligent, dominant species is doomed to be destroyed by playing that same "game". The "game" is the creation / expression / summoning of an ancient all-powerful demon whose servants can re-set reality at will. Within these games, and thus within reality, time and space is malleable, and thus the narrative of this comic is REALLY CONFUSING.
Other things that are real in this comic that are just kinda accepted without much fuss despite being questionable in actual reality include: telepathy, seeing the future in dreams, time travel, teleportation, trans-reality chat clients, trans-time chat clients, super speed, cthulu monsters from space / the ocean deep, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the world except for the characters in the comics.
WORLD INFO:
Alternia is a world much like a harsher version of Earth, with oceans and mountains and forests and plains and cities and suburbs. It's flora and fauna are similar as well, save that the fauna tend to be white, do not always obey the laws of physics (flying whales, for example) and are almost always antagonistic. Alternian "years" are called sweeps, and are about twice the length of an Earth year.
The Alternia that we see in the game is actually a reset of the original planet - the first Alternia and its troll denizens were too peaceful to successfully play the "game", and rather than fail completely, they agreed to allow the demon and its servant Doc Scratch to go back in time, reset their world, and shape them into a species that was not utterly doomed. ...This worked only so well, as the new species was both TOO good at the game and prone to violence to be successful, and temporal echoes of the peaceful people that they once had been still manifested and caused trouble. Tavros's attitude is very much a throwback to that more peaceful world, although he doesn't know it, and it wouldn't do him any good anyway.
TROLL INFO:
A race of aliens who live far from Earth, trolls are nocturnal, highly evolved insectoid creatures who live in a strict caste society based on the color of their blood, and whose existence depends on a symbiotic relationship with several other creatures of lower intelligence. Much of their food and the substance they sleep in is slime-based. Slimes have a strong chemical effect on troll psychology, and the sopor-slime they sleep in helps repress the naturally violent subconscious mindset that plagues them. Since Alternia is such a dangerous place during the day, trolls are nocturnal, and most find the sun to be blinding.
If you look at the general ROY G. BIV spectrum that we learned in our limited human schools, the "lowest" blood colors are at the right, in the ROY area, and we move across to the left to reach higher and higher (and rarer) blood colors in the BIV. The spectrum covers a full gradient of shades and hues, but by and large, those who have blue, indigo and violet blood are the nobility of troll society, and are seen as having absolute authority over anyone of lower blood quality than their own. Blood color is also associated with what professions an adult troll may have, and where on the planet they live. Red through indigo are land-dwellers, while violet and fuscia are acquatic.
Trolls go through several transformations in their lifespan, which begins when they are hatched from eggs laid en-masse by a symbiotic mother grub that exists for this purpose. At this stage, trolls are six-legged grubs called "wrigglers" who have faces, hair and horns similar to the ones they will have as adults, but with segmented, grub-like bodies the color of their blood. The term "mother" is misleading, as the trolls are born without parents and the grub takes no role in caring for them - they are expected to survive a series of grueling tests before they are deemed worthy of a guardian. It can be assumed that many young trolls die at this stage.
Based on a combination of their performance, their blood color and fate, they are chosen by a "lusus", at which point they go through their first transformation and emerge as grey-skinned, humanoid children called pupa. A lusus is one of basically kind other of creature native to Alternia, and much is made of the prestige and responsibility that comes with being chosen by this or that lusus. Lusii seem to share a sort of psychic bond with their charges, or an extremely strong emotional one at the very least, and while they're more clever than the animals we know on Earth, most are not fully sentient - they care for and protect a young troll but by the time that troll approaches puberty, the role has been reversed and it's the troll who is acting almost as a zookeeper for its lusus. Many lusii have unusual (and horrific) dietary requirements and can become quite violent and destructive, and it becomes the troll's job to keep the lusus fed and content. Lusii are white, though it is not clear if they're born that way or if most animals on Alternia are white or if they turn that color in to their new duties.
It is as unthinkable trolls that an adult troll would successfully raise a child as it is to us that a human child would be successfully raised by wolves.
There seems to be yet another transformation as the pupa become adults, though whether this is figurative or literal isn't entirely clear. Adulthood marks a time when trolls must contribute genetic material to the mother grub before leaving ALternia to join the troll fleet in conquering the galaxy. ...How exactly this genetic material is gathered is highly unclear, but it seems to involve at least two partnerings and some buckets. The production of this material is highly tied to the troll's emotional state: one of the partnerings must be joined in love, the other must be joined in hate, and the stronger the emotion, the stronger the genes produced. It is also unclear what exactly the mother grub does with it, but somehow every troll's genetic material gets combined within her before she lays another batch of eggs of all colors. If a troll can't pony up the emissions required, he or she is killed, or "culled", so they get a bit obsessed with it all around puberty.
Around this time they also join whatever professional group is appropriate to their rank and skills, and then leave the planet. Long ago, trolls lived their whole lives on Alternia, but after some lowbloods rose in rebellion, the highest blood of all, Her Imperious Condescension, ordered that all adult trolls would leave in the fleet, in order to decentralize the population and prevent further uprisings. This becomes a moot point when the planet is destroyed.
GAME INFO:
During the events of the comic, twelve troll children from across the hemospectrum began playing a game called SGRUB, around the time of a massive meteor storm on Alternia - the extent to which starting the game itself is responsible for causing the storm is arguable. The children and their homes survive the planet's destruction by being physically uploaded into the game (which seems to be run out of asteroids in paradox space) and were given to believe that if they completed the session successfully, they would get to build a new reality. The games rules are complex, but it ran much like any roleplaying adventure game, involving heroic characters going on quests to retrieve treasure and points and level up to eventually confront a powerful boss. The player's choices had direct in-game effects, influencing the power level and complexity of the game's "NPC" opponents. Rather than follow the game, the troll children tried to complete the game as quickly as possible, as the creation of an idyllic new world seemed more important than mucking about with sub-bosses and frog genetics (...don't ask).
This unfortunately meant that they made a huge mess of things. The new world they created was literally the comic's version of our Earth, but since they'd half-assed the steps that led to making it, the new world was flawed. Having escaped into paradox space, the trolls then meddled with the dominant intelligent species in this new world, (i.e. humans), either out of boredom, malice or curiosity. This meddling proved even MORE disastrous, as between their actions and the kids' they cause the NPC opponent in the kids' session to become, by all evidence thus far in canon, completely unbeatable. They in fact made him so powerful that he was able to travel back in time to the troll's session and ensure that they would fail also. So because they failed, the trolls messed up the other session so badly that they contributed to the monster that would cause them to fail. Everyone screwed everyone else over in a time loop of bad ideas, bsically.
TAVROS'S CORNER OF ALL OF IT:
Tavros, being of the second-lowest blood caste of any of the kids, has a weak lusus and lives way out in the middle of nowhere, on a windy field. His hive has a windmill at the top, which presumably provides the power to run the place. His room is messy, as he's been wheelchair-bound for at least a sweep by the time the trolls start playing the game. His lusus, a little winged fairy bull called Tinkerbull in keeping with his Peter Pupa Pan theme, is as sweet-natured and useless as he is.
Few of the troll children had physically met before playing SGRUB, but Tavros knew them through internet chats. His only real-world companion was Tinkerbull, with whom he liked to play poke-mon and Yugii-Oh like games using actual Alternian beasts, who he can commune with psychically. His only contact with his peers was via the internet. His closest friendship was with Gamzee, another troll who seemed unusually peaceful and fun-loving, and he got along well with Nepeta, who was odd but kind.
He was involved with playing interactive roleplaying games with a few before, Aradia, Terezi and Vriska, specifically, and it was with that group that he played a game called FLARP - basically a Live Action Roleplaying Game with a VA component involving holographic monsters controlled by another player. Where most games do not have real-world consequences, players could be hurt or killed playing FLARP, and that's exactly what happened to Tavros. The line between kindness and sadism blurred at the best of times for most trolls, and she was particularly prone to setting unbeatable challenges for him with the stated attempt of making him stronger, only to get frustrated and cruel when he failed at them. When he tried to stop playing rather than continue playing a game he was doomed to lose, she used her psychic ability to possess his body and made him jump himself off a cliff. The fall paralyzed him from the waist down, and he stopped talking to her after that.
Once the game started, Tavros found himself paired up with Vriska once again, who helped and tormented him in about equal portions, as always. She eventually got him through a teleporting gateway into her corner of the game, and they met in person for the first time, at which point she put on an elaborate cosplay-based scene of seduction, dressing as a tinkerbell-type fairy, and kissed him. Completely bewildered and stunned, he just froze up, disgusting her, and she seemed to give up on him completely. It ended fairly well, actually, as he was able to apologize to her for not returning her interest, and was forgiven, after which point the two actually made a pretty good team. They plundered her world, she taught him to be a better fighter and to actually ride on the animals he communed with.
This brief period of happiness was cut short when Aradia showed up to wreak vengeance on Vriska for her sins. As she lay dying, Tavros nearly kissed her (which would have revived her based on the game's rules), but she once again possessed him and wrote him notes in her own blood to explain that she wanted him to take her to a special place in the game, which he does. There, she demands that he kill her, rather than let her bleed out. In a moment of twisted mercy, she refuses to force him to kill her, but Tavros can't bring himself to murder her even at her own request, and he has a mental breakdown and leaves. Regardless, by dying under these circumstances, Vriska rises up to a new power level in the game, but her respect for Tavros is completely destroyed. He himself is so traumatized, he spends the rest of the game "asleep" and thus playing in a more peaceful level of the game.
Over the course of the story, Tavros is one of the trolls who interacted with the human kids, specifically the cool kid Dave Strider (who turned Tavros's attempt to troll him around and delivered a reverse-troll so powerful it sent Tavros running), and Jade Harley, who he actively tried to help. During a period of wakefulness after the KILL ME incident, and with the encouragement of his friends, Tavros resolves to be more self-confident and act like he has more self-esteem. The trolls can view any point of the human kids' timeline, and Tavros uses his ability to commune with animals to make Jade's godly-powerful dog save her from shooting herself, and cause the bullet to kill an old man nearby instead. Since Tavros had no reason to know that the old man was Jade's guardian and not some sort of intruder, he was pretty proud of himself. He tells Jade about this and that he's developed a crush on her, while asking her if he can use the dog again to fight the similarly-godly-powerful Boss Villain of her session. A confident person would be heroic and helpful, after all. Jade manages to not get angry at him while explaining that he'd killed her grandfather, but she also turns down his advances, forbids him from influencing her dog, and points out that his understanding of self-esteem comes across extremely hollow and bullying.
Vriska, who was able to read the conversation because Jade's computer projected things large enough for anyone viewing a scene she was in to read, immediately tears into Tavros. She accuses him of "copying" her, because she had been meddling with the kids from step one, and explains explicitly low her machinations caused the godly-powerful Boss Villain to be created in the first place. This appalls Tavros sufficiently that he resolves to take action for the first time in his life. He grabs his lance and goes to confront Vriska. Unfortunately, even if he'd spent his whole life training for battle, since she transcended to god-tier herself, he had absolutely no chance against her. She blocked his charge, took his lance, and killed him with it. Since events in the story had destroyed any chance he would have to transcend or resurrect, he died truly.
This did not spell the end of his involvement in the story, however. His awareness came to in a sort of mass-unconciousness shared by the trolls and humans. He was able to apologize to Dave for insulting him earlier, see Jade, and learn some of the hidden truths behind what the hell was going on. It is this point that I am taking him from, in game.
PERSONALITY:
Tavros is a horrible troll. Not as in "he is a horrible and cruel person who happens to be a troll" but in that he is absolutely not horrible or cruel in any way, and thus does not fit in with the cut-throat, violent society around him. It is quite safe to assume that the only reason he hasn't been culled yet is because he lives way out in the boondocks and is too quiet to notice.
While most trolls are focused on growing up, finding romance, and taking a position of some kind amongst their wider society (and all of these positions seem to be based on expansion, conquering other species, or ruling over their own), Tavros would rather spend time in escapist activities like roleplaying and other games, and thinking about fairies, Pupa Pan and other fantasy worlds. He would avoid growing up entirely if he could, probably because there just isn't much of a future for him in troll society as it is, and certainly not one in which he'd be happy.
Tavros has the ability to commune with animals, and could, theoretically, use them to make himself more mobile and more powerful (and therefore more useful), but he is so passive that he wouldn't even consider commanding an animal to bear him on its back. Of all the trolls, Tavros has never killed anything in his life (except by complete accident), and refused to kill the monsters and imps in his session of the game - instead he befriended them, and rallied them to help him solve side-quests. Vriska observes, quite aptly, that Tavros's greatest strength is in making friends who are stronger than he is, but again and again those friends have not been enough to actually save him from harm.
With his head in the clouds most of the time, Tavros has spent most of his life avoiding reality and passively ignoring the hateful behavior of other trolls, even when it directly results in pain and injury for him. Worse, his poor self esteem also leaves him making mistakes - when he tries to act braver, he edges closer to bullying activity, and if anything leaves himself even more vulnerable. He also never demands anything, and rarely asks for things directly - he assumes that people will turn him down anyway.
All of this may make him seem idiotic, but Tavros isn't unintelligent: he often points out the flaws in others' logic, or that they are being unreasonable, while still accepting their authority. He can also, after a truly ludicrous amount of abuse, be inspired to take up arms, but in defense of others, rather than himself. There is something in Tavros that wants to be truly noble and good in a society where nobility is understood to be tyranny, and goodness is synonymous with cruelty. He's young yet, and he died trying, so there is still some hope that he will find true self esteem and empowerment, given time.
Time which, suddenly, he has!
POWER:
Page of Breath: Due to sortof being a videogame character, Tavros is dead, but the game isnt over yet. In death, he's got the use of his legs back, but his eyes are white and pupil-less. That's the functional price to pay for the power that it gives him: Tavros is only kind-of killable. Any time he receives enough damage, his body disappears, but his spirit remains as an incorporeal ghost. He remains incorporeal for the same amount of time that an imPort would normally have to wait to reappear in the city, and he has no tags or communicator. When the standard re-spawn would occur, he re-appers in the porter room again, this time corporeal, with tags and comm.
Effectively, while his body is gone, his awareness is still in the city and he can only whisper in people's ears and talk to them in dreams unless that person is psychic or has some other power that would let them interact with ghosts. Anyone who has the ability to hurt or banish ghosts can damage him, at which point he's just gone until the standard re-spawn time hits.
I AM AWARE THAT THIS POWER IS WONKY AND AM OKAY WITH REVISING / GETTING RID OF IT! He's...probably going to get killed a lot in game, so it'd be nice to not be on hiatus every time it happens. :/
C♉mmune: Tavros can communicate telepathically with animals and get them to do what he wants. This is not possession - the animal is still fully aware and in control, so he can't force them to act completely against their nature (and he wouldn't anyway, because that would be mean) but he can change their moods and give them commands that they are likely to follow.
Trolololol: Rather than coming in with a human body, Tavros is in the city as a troll. ...A dead troll. Some guys have all the luck?
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[The video comes on to show a young teenager smiling down at his communicator with pointy teeth.]
[His skin his grey and he has some impressively big yellow-orange horns, longhorn cattle-style. He is also COVERED in pigeons. They're all around him on the park bench, on his shoulders, head and of course on the horns. He seems to be miraculously poop-free.]
[He waves and smiles at the camera, but doesn't say anything: first round of communication in troll-text begins NOW!]
[cut for troll-text goes here.]
AT: hEY, uH, iF YOU'RE NOT A TROLL OR, i GUESS, jADE OR HER FRIENDS, yOU CAN IGNORE THIS,
AT: sO HI EVERYONE,
AT: i DIDNT KNOW WE COULD MAKE MEMOS IN DREAM BUBBLES, bUT ITS PRETTY NICE, tHAT WE CAN,
AT: i DONT KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU HUMANS HAS THIS COMMUNAL HIVESTEM COMPLEX IN THEIR MEMORY, bUT IT IS, rEALLY, a NICE PLACE! }:)
AT: lOOK AT ALL THESE CHIRPBEASTS, tHEY'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE, hAHAHA!
AT: tHOUGH, uH,
AT: tHERE ARE, kIND OF,
AT: a LOT OF YOU HUMANS HERE, aND MY HORNS AREN'T, uH, sO CONVENIENT IN THAT CONTEXT,
AT: sO IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE i AM SUPPOSED TO GO, tHAT IS NOT IN EVERYONE'S WAY, tHAT MIGHT BE A GOOD THING FOR YOU TO TELL ME,
AT: i ALSO DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND,
AT: wHAT THAT FEMALE ON THE SCREEN MEANT?
AT: iS THIS A NEW PART OF THE GAME? dO WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DO?
AT: nOW THAT i AM IN TOUCH WITH MY SELF ESTEEM,
AT: uH IN A MORE CAREFUL WAY, jADE,
AT: i AM READY TO DO SOME HEROING,
AT: tHAT WILL NOT RESULT IN THE DEATHS OF ANYONE'S GUARDIANS, oR MAKE ANYONE FEEL BULLIED, oR MESS WITH THEIR PASTS IN ANY WAY!
AT: }:D
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
He missed Prospit, where he could not only walk but fly, and things seemed somehow simpler and more adventuresome. He'd felt like he could almost be Pupa Pan there, brave and heroic and uncomplicated. Even the dream-bubbles that he'd awoken in after dying weren't so bad. Seeing everyone's memories could be painful, but he'd finally gotten to meet Jade and Dave, and his legs hadn't been invisible or chopped off with a chainsaw anymore, which was nice.
The city seemed like something half-dream bubble, half reality. Human society was so overwhelming it made his pan rattle, and there were just so many of them here. It seemed like all of the players, troll and human had been here at some point or other - appearing and disappearing just like in the dream-bubbles, which at first had seemed extremely exciting, but...there were a few individuals who were here that Tavros knew were just trouble.
He'd expected as much from Vriska and Eridan, they were just...how they were. He had not expected it from Gamzee.
It was probably a very stupid thing that he'd just done. If it had been a brave thing, Tavros thought, he should feel more confident than he did, his self esteem should have grown, right? It often seemed that the things Jade thought a brave person and good friend should do didn't make him feel brave, though, only more nervous. It was probably his own fault - his self esteem being a completely made-up fake friend and all, he just wasn't very good at being brave.
It was just that Gamzee was his best friend, and sure the guy had always been really weird, but he'd never hurt anybody. Tavros felt strongly that it was up to him to find out what had happened, and maybe help somehow, because there had to be a reason for the change. Everyone else seemed to think that Gamzee had just started acting like a royalblood was supposed to, but he'd gone six sweeps without being that way, so it seemed to Tavros that just because it was natural for a rolayblood didn't make it natural for Gamzee. Nobody seemed to want to talk to him anymore except for Eridan, and...well it wasn't Tavros's place to say, because maybe Eridan was actually a really good kisemesis, but it seemed like Eridan wasn't going to help Gamzee feel better. In fact Tavros kind of hoped Eridan sucked as a kisemesis because otherwise he'd do everything he could to make Gamzee feel worse, and Gamzee didn't deserve that.
So he'd offered to meet Gamzee to talk, and maybe lay down some sick beats. ...He felt a bit sick right now and hoped that it would help with the beats, even if the sickness was meant to be metaphorical, and describing the beats, and not the one who laid them. Oh, Rufio, if only you were really real, and really were his self-esteem. To have a real friend who never got angry or confusing or tried to kill him would be nice...