WORLDBUILDING WEDNESDAY RESPONSES

8th February 2012

WORLDBUILDING WEDNESDAY RESPONSES

(the serious ones!)

PREDICTABLY THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG BUT IF YOU STILL WANT TO ASK SOMETHING THE LINE IS STILL OPEN

1. In some ways it is and in some ways it isn’t. I don’t think there is a gradient between pelagic and terrestrial, or at least it wouldn’t be an average phenotype. Like how most humans clearly have male or female genitalia but occasionally due to genetic mishaps or exposure to certain substances you get someone who is undifferentiated/a “mix”. And I’m sure some people would be born like that, so I don’t have anything against the Karkat and Gamzee headcanons.

However! I also think that all landdwellers would have remnants of the gill structures, because they evolved from amphibious organisms, their larval forms retain those traits (differentiation occurs during pupation), and landdwellers do seem to have some weird behaviours that link them to it. Everyone sleeps in vats of liquid, for one. So technically landdwellers having no trace of gills whatsoever is “wrong,” while the underdeveloped structures people like to draw Gamzee and Karkat with are probably more along the lines of what a typical landdweller SHOULD have. Not that I draw them proper either, mind you—mostly I excuse myself for this because if I don’t think I’ve ever drawn a naked troll so I’ve never had the chance to show dark pigmentation masking the colour of all the blood vessels in the lumbar region. Terrestrial “gills” might not be visible externally but there might still be weird-looking vessels where the gills are meant to be, and probably still serve some sort of function. I guess landdwellers ought to have dark spots on the skin there, too. Never really thought of that before.

The lowblood/highblood division is totally arbitrary though, like class divisions tend to be. There is a difference in blood chemistry obviously, but examining it causes the hemospectrum system to fall apart. It’s the greenbloods who have the highest concentration of the two pigments; both extremes of the spectrum, maroon and tyrian, are very low in pigment; no one is completely without one pigment because they are normal products of metabolism.

I’m sorry if this explanation doesn’t really jive because it’s really bare-bones!! There are a lot of details but I am trying to keep answers relatively short and yours is pretty complicated. ): I will answer this in depth in about a week, though.

2. The ancestors are the same as canon, minus things connected directly to Lord English, plus whatever headcanon I’ve accumulated about them. So Mindfang is a pirate queen who is blinded in one eye, who kills Redglare, keeps the Dolorosa as a slave, and bangs the Summoner a lot. She also has connections to the Disciple and her group because this is true in bloodbent. Feferi doesn’t have much of an opinion on it because Mindfang’s journal belongs to Kanaya.

Nepeta has opinions about it though because

3. Nepeta♥Terezi is a thing from the getgo. The natural result of too much time spent roleplaying characters who are in love with one another probably? I thought this one was… super obvious and completely unmissable. Sollux♦Tavros is also a thing, Feferi♣Eridan might be a casual sort of thing, there are other things of varying degrees of obviousness and likelihood of happening.

4. actually this will have its own post nvm

5. I don’t think I ought to say! Aside from Terezi ofc. She is friendly and doesn’t take shit from people and is it possible to really hate Nepeta? She and Equius are not nearly as close as they are in canon, but they like each other well enough except when he asks her to draw things. Vriska’s a good friend, I guess Aradia is too if not for the blood colour thing. Kanaya at least listens to her and lets her paint fanfiction all over her walls, and I guess they both The one thing that did carry over is that I think she still thinks that Karkat has a nice ass, but it’s more in the hot friend sort of way than the I want a relationship this person sort of way. Maybe Terezi and Nepeta are discussing what-if scenarios sometimes and are like

“if i didnt exist or if we werent together in another life for some reason and you had to kiss somebody from our group who would it be????”

“1 WOULD PROB4BLY SNOG K4RK4T 4 M1LL1ON T1M3S NOT GO1NG TO L13”

“yeah me too :3c”

6. Aradia I guess?? She’s an indigoblood who’s familiar with most of the subjuggulator doctrines, and an overwhelming amount of them predictably have to do with death. Plus there’s just the whole death thing she had in canon I guess but I’m interpreting that as her being excited at the prospect of getting to guide people through something she knows a lot about (instead of being the one who is guided like she had been for her whole life) rather than just “yeah death is cool.” If you mean apocalypse buff as in fallout shelters and whatnot though I don’t think any of the trolls lend themselves very well to that…

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