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bagelartnstuff: Someone asked for more short hairstyles a while...

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:01:52 -0400

Transparent Background

White Background

Someone asked for more short hairstyles a while ago. Here they are!

(Two sets, one that’s transparent, one with a background.)

(Aaaaand within each set, one just black, one with black and gray. There are really only three hairstyles.)

whatevachild: (I could only find connections between half of...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:53:49 -0400

whatevachild:

(I could only find connections between half of them but it was too interesting for me NOT to post them! also i dont own any of the images.)

Murali Ulayad

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

I’m basing this fantroll off Krishna, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. Appearance-wise,he’s fairly androgynous, and having thick eyelashes (and eyeshadow). He’s got one ring on his left ear. It’s kind of hard to see (and hard to draw) but he’s got the bangs in the front of his hair, and the back is more pushed backwards, more like Eridan’s? Hm.

Name: Murali Ulayad

“Murali” is one of the many names of Lord Krishna (who I’m using as a theme for this character) and means “the flute-playing lord”. “Ulayad” is another of Krishna’s names, “Dayalu,” which means “repository of compassion.”

Trolltag: inauspiciousBerceuse

inauspicious- One of the things that Krisha makes a point of during points in his life are that all things are special. (This is also where the peacock lusus comes from)
Berceuse- French for “lullaby” ..

Quirk: SUDDENLY i HEARD A SH-SHOUT FROM DAVE FURTHER BEHIND.

I think that maybe he’s not too great at computers. I feel like he would just… type with individual fingers. And…he leaves his caps lock on but always manages to still hit Shift on ‘I’ so it comes out as ‘i’ all the time. (also i literally went on a website for sample sentences and that was one of them. woah.)

Blood color: Cyan

Age: ~8 Sweeps

Sex: Male

Strife specibus: flutekind?

Sign:

I wanted a Hindi symbol to use for this guy, and i found this one, which is pretty simple, so i looked into it. It makes the “sh” sound at the beginning of a word and therefore is classified as a ‘retroflex voiceless postalveolar sibilant.’ The ‘voiceless’ bit really stuck out to me since I knew I wanted him to have a quiet and generally low-key demeanor.

God Tier: Knight of Time

Land: Land of Stars and Music (subject to change??)

Lusus: peafowl (peacock)

Re: Krishna and his teachings: Apparently peacocks used to be seen as mundane and inauspicious in India. Krisha thought they were beautiful and stuck a peacock feather in his hair to show that all things were special and should be appreciated.

Hive/home location/description:

Since peafowl basically just scrape holes in the ground, put sticks and stuff around in it, and lay their eggs there (like this http://cdn1.arkive.org/media/6F/6F462778-2D11-4F5F-9368-20D24D58C0A0/Presentation.Large/Female-Indian-peafowl-incubating-eggs-on-nest.jpg ) , his hive is, well, built in a hole (not like a big giant deep pit or anything, just kind of sloped into a hole? if that makes sense?). Since peacocks lay decoy eggs, the hive walls are, well, eggs, and the lusus had laid sticks and grass, etc. on top of them. So Murali lives among the eggs and has lined it with fallen feathers of his lusus, who sits atop the brush/roof of the hive. I think he might even sit upon his lusus’ back at times to his flute peacefully.

Personality:

I think he’s generally pretty calm and laid-back but gets frustrated due to his stutter with the beginnings of a lot of words, particularly ones that start with ‘sh’ (as shown in his quirk). He doesn’t think he’s all that special even though he’s near the high end of the midbloods. I think with this whole theme, his ego will be very small. I’m probably gonna have to work more on this since I’m just trying to get a little bit of stuff to build on right now.
Personality Pros: Humble, generally calm, faithful and loyal to close friends, relatively peaceful, compassionate
Personality Cons: probably more introverted, a bit faint-hearted (probably changes later on?? whispers i see a place for character development), probably a bit of a pushover and doesn’t really do well under pressure and is indecisive

Hobbies:

-Playing his flute, as Krishna did.

And so the legend goes: “Once, Lord Krishna asked his devotees what they would like to become in his hands. Some said the lotus, some the conch, some the chakra and so on, but no one mentioned the flute. Krishnaadvised them to become his flute. In his discourse to his devotees, he said that in the human personality structure, as in the flute, there are 8 main spots: The five organs of perception, mind, intellect, and ego. If you get rid of your ego and become like a hollow reed flute, then the Lord will come to you, pick you up, put his lips and breathe through you and out of the hollowness of your heart, the captivating melody will emerge for all creations to enjoy. But if you will continue your attitude of dislike, hatred and jealousy, the Lord will distance himself from you, since you will be useless for his purpose.”
I think he just really likes to play it to relax.

Crucial BG info:

-Uh, well, I think his lusus used to sing to him as a young’un. One day he found the shaft of a feather that it had stepped on and punctured a few holes in. He found that blowing through it would create a sound similar to his lusus’ and thus took that up as his instrument of choice, and later learned to make his own flute(s).

My Fantroll's Description

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:57:00 -0400

Name and meaning: Selini Noctis. Selini means “moon” in Greek and “Noctis” means “night” in Latin. This is because Selini’s horns and sign are based off of the moon.

Blood color (if troll): Sort of a pastel blue. She is a mutant blood but she’s on Beforus, so this is tolerated. So she does not hide her blood color.

Age: 19 human years/9 solar sweeps

Strife specibus: Scythe, she uses a moon-based scythe weapon

Lusus (if troll): Kind of undecided at the moment…I’m kinda thinking of something moon-based though so perhaps a form of wolf?

Hive/home location/description: Her hive is near a vast lake since the moon is very water-related. She enjoys coming out of her hive and sitting near the shore to look up at the sky at night and think about various things.

Personality Pros: Selini is a very peaceful person. She is rather serene and calm in personality most of the time. She is also very understanding and helpful, which leads to her ancestral title, which is The Altruist. An altruist is a person who is selfless and puts others before themselves. This describes Selini’s usual personality.

Personality Cons: Very rarely, Selini switches to a complete opposite personality. This is due to the moon’s relation to emotion and tidal waves. When she switches, she’s very up-and-down like the ocean during a violent storm. She is also very selfish and violent when in this state.

Interests: Helping others, being there for others, talking walks near the lake near her hive, likes to sit and look at the sky during night

Typing quirks: She uses proper grammar and punctuation at all times but does not use capitalization unless when she is in her “switched” state. In her normal state, she replaces her c’s with ( because of the crescent moon. When in her “switched” state, her usual quirk completely disappears and she types in all caps.

Crucial BG info: Like described above, Selini’s usual personality is very kind and caring. The moon tends to be connected to emotions and being sensitive, and this describes Selini. But the moon is also very heavily connected to tidal waves, which explains Selini’s sudden switches in personality on occasion.

God tier: Knight of Doom

Location: Land of Skulls and Disorder

Trollian Handle: tidalCrescent

the item captchalouged/punched for entry items should be the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:53:34 -0400

the item captchalouged/punched for entry items should be the one you will enter with—not a random item. for example, john used a pre-punched card of an apple.

to make new items or upgrade current items, simply repeat steps 1-5. instead of making your entry item, it will create whatever is on the codes you’ve put together.

the tab and apple juice codes aren’t correct, i just needed something to illustrate the point.

this is really the basic stuff, the machines can be upgraded!

a punch card shunt can be added along with a jumper block extension. the jumper block extension attaches to the alchemiter, and you then put punched cards into the punch card shunt, which goes into the jumper block extension. this allows you to change the alchemiter itself. for example, dave puts in a blender which causes the alchemiter to blend objects—rendering it useless.

a holopad can also be added to the alchemiter to preview items that will be created.

the intellibeam laserstation is used to extract ‘hidden’ captcha codes that are unreadable through any other method. for example, sburb disks.

Troll OC Details: Strife Specibus and Hives

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:48:07 -0400

So you’ve got your character’s personality and design all fleshed out, and they’re lookin’ miiiighty fine. But how will they function in day to day life? What about the details that allow them to participate in the gameplay? Let’s figure out how to flesh those out.

Start by listing some basic elements of your OC’s life. I’ll use Raskol as an example for this.

Raskol (my lil’ dumb yellow oc troll lady) had a pretty huge life changing event occur when her face got messed up. If you’re unfamiliar with the backstory, basically she got into a bad fight gone worse with an (ex) kissmesis, leading to his ripping off half of her face. She retaliated by coming back for him later and stealing his face, sewing it back to hers.

How can her story relate to her hive and strife specibus, and vice verse? Let’s take a deeper look at her character and pluck out a few keywords.

For the strife specibus, let’s think about finding things in her life and personality that are meaningful. For her, it’s a bit obvious. Embroidery is one of her interests. She used her embroidery materials to sew her face back together, a huge changing point in her life and personality. What better to symbolize this strife than her using Needlekind to fight? It makes sense because it’s symbolic and it ultimately hugely relates back to her. You can also do this with the symbol for your kid or troll. Equius fights with a bow and arrow, although not very well, because his symbol is literally a pictographic bow and arrow. Easy peasy! Just remember to play with words!

Now, onto the harder element, the hive and its location. This took me a while to figure out for Raskol. First, I did the same thing as above… I look at her life and thought about how I could symbolically use her house to push her story further. Raskol’s lusus is a Pichiciego (or pink fairy armadillo), a strange animal that looks like God took an armadillo and smashed it on top of a prairie dog. I chose this because like her lusus, Raskol is the combination of two very different creatures, herself and her (ex)kissmesis Zdrada (who was a seadweller, so he’s much higher blooded than she is, especially since she’s a mutant.) Pink fairy armadillos are animals that bury deep into the ground, so I had to make Raskol’s hive somewhere where her lusus could survive, so it had to be near or in the ground. Maybe a cave? No, that doesn’t seem to fit very well with her. Hmm. How can we push the aesthetic of the hive to match her a bit more?

Ah ha! A fault line opened up by an earthquake. Physically, earthquakes are incredibly damaging and they can leave huge crevices. This, once again, relates back to Raskol, especially the scar on her face. Her hive could be around that fault line. But how would she get to her lusus, who’d probably live in that crevice? Maybe a bridge? No. We can push it further. What if her hive was literally strung between both sides of the fault line by a series of ropes? Those ropes relate back to the thread in her embroidery and her face. She can use a pulley system to go up and down from the crevice with her lusus and she can swing from one side of the fault to the other. Perfect!

I hope this helps. Obviously, I’ve gone a bit more in depth than what we’ve learned about the hives of the canon trolls in Homestuck, but I really feel that it helps in text based roleplays to flesh out everything as much as you possibly can because we have no pictures to help the story along. (And I understand that Raskol’s blood color isn’t canon, but as with everything else, she has a reason to be so and it’s reflected in her character. :3) Also, feel free to vary the theme of your character. Raskol is pretty blatantly centered around her whole facey-thingy, and I’m still working to make a few of the connections a bit more subtle. But I think you guys get the general idea. Feel free to message me or send me an ask if you have any questions. (^u^)

Fancharacters 101

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:08:00 -0400

So, you’ve got this great idea for an OC! How do you make it believable and playable? How do you make it work well with others? Here’s a super quick list of things to think about when constructing your character.

1. Keep them balanced.

Now, when I say “balanced,” I don’t mean mentally stable. Too many OCs often fall under the Mary-Sue or Godmod categories, which make them nearly impossible for anybody but their creator to enjoy. There’re a million ways you can offset the perfection of a character, and most of them really help drive a personality home. Remember… Heroes are boring if they ALWAYS win. The appeal in most characters is their struggle. It’s also reaaaally unfortunate when the character is TOO crazy. Nobody wants to have to interact with an inconsolable murderous LOLRANDOM!! xD psycho. If you want to lean them more in the psychotic direction, I recommend looking up the elements of a Sociopathic disorder, which often makes for really fucking cool antagonists.

Try making a list of personality pros and personality cons. Make sure there aren’t any contradictions and make sure the amount of cons is the same as the amount of pros.

2. Keep them simple, but unique.

One of the great things about Homestuck is the aesthetic simplicity of its characters. They’re easy to draw quickly and they (for the most part) are unique in some way, but not ~*~OVERTLY SPECIAL~*~. Another big mistake people often make is letting their characters fall into archetypes, such as the goth, the romantic, the cliche hero, ect. Your character should have motives, feelings, expressions, moods, everything you have.
Physically, don’t let them look too much like any canon characters, and try to use some restraint. Look at them and think “how would their personality be different if they didn’t have this detail? Would this color make them look happy or sad?”

3. Don’t be an angsty bitch.

Just. Don’t. Please don’t have sob stories, no “my parents died and I had to fend for myself!!!!,” no “I’m that crazy random lol chick SPORKS!!! lol!!!” and please no “Grr I’m the chaotic bad guy I’ll kill all of you bwa ha ha!” Give. Them. P e r s o n a l i t y. Their backstory should influence who they’ve become now, it shouldn’t be a reason to make them into a cliche. Give them depth! For instance, Jake English finds it difficult to understand how his friends feel about his actions because he’s lived with ONLY his grandmother for so long, getting used to HER reactions and HER way of doing things and interacting. There are a million other examples. Ponder them. Ponder them. P n d e r t t h e m.

4. FOLLOW THE CANON RULES!

Making a troll? Read this. Read it a million times over. Go to this blog. Look at it and tell yourself “I WILL NEVER EVER MAKE ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER.” Drill it into your brain. Dream it.

5. Please sprite your character out!!! Even if you have to ask someone to make a sprite for you, it’s so nice to have a reference, especially if you want to drop them into pictures of their land.

6. For God’s sake dON’T RELATE YOUR FANCHARACTER TO A CANON CHARACTER OH MY DICK GUZZLING CHRIST. Just. Just please. Don’t do it. No.

7. Take advantage of word associations. A huge proponent of Hussie’s characters is that they’re brilliantly researched. You know why Sollux has a lisp? Because there’s a type of programming language called L.I.S.P. Fucking brilliant addition right there. Try to think in those kind of terms. For example, my fantroll Raskol lives in a hive suspended between two cliffs on an opened fault line. This symbolizes a huge element of her character, as she’s largely based around the consolidation of two beings. (She’s sewn on half of her ex-kismesis’s face. Even the suspension element ties in because, like the hive, her face is held together by a series of strings.)

Go around Google and look for great homestuck ocs! See how they crafted their character! MAKE YOUR CREATION! WooooooO!

If you think I’ve missed anything or have any imput on the subject that you think I should add, or even if you disagree on anything, please feel free to message me!