Val's Guide to Fantrolling

Val’s Guide to Making a Fantroll

or

How Not To Suck

 

Greetings, children. I am Professor Val, and welcome to the wonderful world of Homestuck. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of fantrolls by now. Some are good, some make you want to go home and scrub yourself, but what’s the difference between the two? Let’s go over some basic ground rules.

 

One: Do NOT save your troll as a .JPG. It will fuck up your shit. Use .PNG, always.

 

Two: Do NOT use supersaturated or bright eyeburn colors. Aim on the side of subdued for blood colors. Did you know Tavros is orangeblooded? No? That’s because his Crayola crayon is brown, not atomic tangerine. Do the same.

 

Three: No pentacles. No. None. Sorry, no. If you have to resort to a pentacle or a pentagram for your troll’s symbol, you’re being lazy, not reinventive. Try again. There are so many symbols out there that humanity has forgotten about, use one.

 

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. Ready, strawman archetypical Homestuck fan?

 

Buckets!

 

Yeah okay. The first thing to do when making a fantroll is also the first thing to do when you start any video game ever. Decide if you’re a boy or a girl. Once you have that figured out, you get to take a ride on the roller coaster that is the learning curve and-

 

Make a chumhandle?

 

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. If you make a chumhandle now, you will forever be warping your troll to fit that handle. It’ll be forced, and everyone will know it. Hang on for a little bit. For now, decide what blood color your troll should have. This is very important; caste is a big fucking deal on Alternia, no matter how easily people make fantrolls saying “they don’t really care about the hemospectrum.” That’s bullshit, it wouldn’t be around if nobody paid any mind to it.

\

IMPORTANT LESSON: The Hemospectrum is directly linked to the upbringing your troll got. The higher your troll is, the more money they have, the better stuff they have, the bigger hive they have. This operates in reverse, as well; Aradia and Tavros both lived in small, rural hives and Sollux had an apartment, whereas Vriska had a castle. The hive-blood correlation has some exceptions, but as a general rule it serves. It also affects how your troll acts, from demure lowbloods to arbitrary and unstable highbloods. Again, exceptions occur, but not everyone can be an exception.

 

After you’ve picked a blood color, work out a couple basic details about who you want your troll to be. Think of some basic likes and dislike, personality traits--

 

I wanna make mine a kitty troll! Everything about them is--

 

Stop right the fuck there, missy. While it’s true each canon troll has their “thing” that is most prominent about them, they have complex personalities and tastes. Karkat is not a walking FUCKASS sign, Vriska is not a walking number 8 with fangs, Nepeta does not constantly meow. You will be expected to make a person, not a perambulating stereotype. That being said, their “thing” should be decided at this point along with their personality and a little history. Make it mesh with their blood color; you can’t have a lowblood spending billions of caegars on a fancy hat collection. Be reasonable, and if you aren’t, be clever. Be clever anyway, but especially with your troll’s defining traits.

 

Right around here you should decide if your troll has a psychic power and what its strife specibus should be. A word of warning: Vriska by all rights should not have the power she does; psychic powers should stay below teal and maybe even jade, and even then the real powerful stuff is reserved for lower than that. Also, avoid eye lasers and game breaking powers; subtlety is appreciated in the community.

 

Likewise, choose a strife specibus that is versatile and fun to use. There’s not a whole lot of caste-specific specibi, but avoid jokerKind. It’s better that way. Look for weapons that are more creative than swords; the way alchemizing works you’ll have a badass weapon any way you start from.

 

Now that you’ve got a skeleton to work from, yes, you can decide a name and trollhandle. Be intelligent about it. A good rule of thumb is their given name (like, say Sollux Captor) is usually the one with a fairly overt reference relevant to them, (in Sollux’s case it refers to Castor and Pollux, two twins in reference to his bifurcated nature). The trollhandle is usually not directly linked to the troll, but connections can be drawn. Eridan, for example, has caligulasAquarium, in reference to his seadwelling nature.

 

What if I want to call them helpfulSorceror because he has magic to help people with?

 

How about no. Avoid blatant and/or lazy chumhandles. This is how your character will be known for the rest of their life, but some spirit into it. The same goes with names. Avoid using too much Latin, I know there are so many languages that draw on it, but avoid Romance languages because they’re cheap and they seem very blatant to those with any knowledge of Latin roots. There’s tons of languages out there.

 

Now that that’s taken care of, the big one. Appearance. I’m not going to take the time to plagiarize spriting tutorials here, but I will give you some hints and tips.

 

Remember the rule up there about blood colors? That applies to clothing as well. Feferi can get away with pastel facefuck junction, but unless you’re the empress-in-waiting (hint: you’re not) you’re SOL. Here’s some guidelines for blood color and clothing. REMEMBER: If you can make something really work in a clever manner, these can be ignored, but they do well as basic guidelines.

 

Mutants: If you MUST have mutant blood colors such as white, black, lower than Aradia, or higher than Feferi, note that your troll will most likely be on the run or hiding. They will not be dressed terribly well, but they don’t have to be in rags. Definitely nothing flashy or accessorized.

 

Maroon: Congratulations, you’ve landed at the bottom of the social ladder. Your troll’s clothes should be simple, and the only color will most likely be on their symbol.

 

Orange/Brown: A step up, these trolls are also counted among the rustblood ranks. They’re still going to be simply dressed, but they might be able to afford something like a cheap button-up shirt or something similar.

 

Yellow: This is the start of lower-class. Trolls here have some disposable income, but not a whole lot. Some simple sunglasses, a hat, boots, simple accessories, that sort of thing starts here.

 

Green: Admittedly it’s a little hard to tell what this caste is like from Nepeta’s cavedwelling lifestyle, but we can infer that they can afford some more diverse clothing like Nepeta’s green longcoat and blue hat. Again, not dressy, but comfortable.

 

Jade: This caste you should avoid, but if you’re making a daywalker troll, keep in mind they break caste pretty hard. Jades prefer very diverse fashions and bright colors provided they care for a Mother Grub, and even otherwise they are almost like a lower nobility class.

 

Teal: Teal is the highest of the middle classes discounting Jade’s special privilege, and it shows in their appearance. Think higher middle class, with splashes of color here and there and accessories very much accessible. There’s a lot more freedom here than the previous classes for color and flair.

 

Cerulean: The lowest of the nobility. These trolls have some definite cash. Keep in mind, however, that even Vriska, the showoff that she is, kept to an open jacket and jeans over her symbol shirt and red shoes. If your troll is the type, however, you can have them dressed a little classy here, school uniform style is definitely possible.

 

Navy: Smack dab in the middle of noble life, navybloods can range wildly in their fashions as well as moods. Equius’ opting for a tank top and shorts is evidence of that. Get creative here; bluebloods are notoriously unstable, and your troll should be no exception.

 

Purple: Alright, I’ll handle this right now. No, not all purplebloods are subjugglators. You do not HAVE to do the clown thing if you don’t want to, and in truth it’s best to thing outside the Faygo bottle. This is the highest landdweller caste, so roll with manors and morning suits and classy lifestyle. You can splurge a little on the color side of things, but keep in mind most of troll culture is gray and black and unsaturated.

 

Seadwellers: The gloves come off here for the most part; you’ve seen Eridan’s striped scarf and jeweled rings and purple cape and stripeypants. Seadwellers have the money and power to dress how they please. If you have a seadweller, you can go for a little brightness here and there, but for the most part keep the brightness down. Go opulent.

 

Royalty: I will not cover royalty here, you have no business being fuchsia.

 

Now that that’s over with, you have your fantroll. Sure, you can sprite it, draw it, fuck it, whatever you want. This is just a guide to make sure you don’t end up with people complaining about how yours is the fifteenth bright pink pentagram troll with crazy psychic powers and a jokerKind strife specibus looking for a bucket to fill.

 

See you all on Pesterchum,

 

Val