#rustbloods

[finichk]

Art Trade with friend's OC

[cannoliparty]

talking about rustbloods

I LOVE RUSTBLOODS!!! im a fan of a lot of trolls and bloodcastes but the way rustblood characters are portrayed in the comic is just too cool for me to NOT call out!!! this post will be an overview/me prattling on about the rustbloods in homestuck, and even the caste as a whole!

quick overview on time! its an aspect connected to mechanics, inevitability, death and so on. it can even be connected with music, due to the timing in bars of songs or the progression of time as music plays.

furthermore, to talk about rustbloods as a whole, theyre connected to the original sgrub players of alternia, which would be aradia and the handmaid. its important to give explanations on these connections and thats exactly what ill be doing! i havent read hiveswap or played the friendsim so i will not be using those rustbloods as a reference to look at.

the beta troll rustblood is aradia, maid of time. she embodies the time in her session, and as a maid she keeps her aspect "tidy"! aradia was especially connected to the death in the time aspect. she had died, been trapped in a body not hers, been a sprite and so on. for a while, she WAS made of death and therefore that was a way of being made of time. but when they were at the universe gate and aradia sent out all her different aradiabots, that was her way of roleplaying as a witch of time (her ancestor!), as she manipulated previous timelines to CREATE (maid word!) more time for her friends to act! though maids are considered an active class, they "prepare others with their aspect" and otherwise tend to stay in the background always tending to their aspect themselves, helping the session grow. aradia did this in multiple ways. first was when she first died, and worked with the spirits to get her sgrub session started. and we all know death/the dead are very related to time.. then, after godtiering, she travelled to countless dream bubbles, keeping those memories and times afloat, doing the "housekeeping" a maid does with their aspect. and theres also aradias off-screen timeline travels, as at one point she says shes been through hundreds of years worth of doomed timelines! all of these actions are inextricably linked to time, and even sometimes the death in it, and further proves how aradia is made of time. in the end, aradia has always been maid/made of time, and the inevitability of time allowed her to accept her challenge of self-relying easily, and shes a solid character!!

so i believe how rustbloods connect to aradia is through that "made of time" play on words! this means rustbloods can be heavily related to any part of the time aspect whether its death/spirits, mechanics and routine, or just a sense of inevitability. its loose, but rustbloods take what aradias putting down, and relate to it how they can. they also carry the self-reliance of maids, and are usually very powerful in that same sense!

the rustblooded ancestor is the handmaid, one of the 2-3 ancestors who made it off alternia. shes also a witch of time! witches are naturally rebellious of their aspects rules, which brings about their nature-changing powers. the handmaid rebelled from the timeless inevitability of having to serve lord english, and tried to overcome it as hard as she could, but doc scratch unfortunately guaranteed her fate. its also of note that witches tend to have familiars (jade with bec, feferi with her lusus) and so the handmaids would be lord english!

the beforus counterpart of the handmaid is damara, also a witch of time! she embodies her classpect in a fuller manner, as she had some free will of her own. of course, she has the alpha troll curse (NOT GETTING ANY SCREENTIME...) T_T;.... but its obvious shes very rebellious against inevitability and instead does things her own way, which is not caring too much about anything!

this connects rustbloods to doing what they want with the sense of inevitability, death, etc... time is of the essence, and they inherited the witch's powers of doing whatever they want with that essence!

overall, i hope this makes sense!!! i know aradia has like 300 more words dedicated to her but she IS the one with the most screentime..... but damara & the handmaid are genuinely some of my favorites in homestuck and if they got more to themselves as characters i can guarantee itd be QUALITY stuff to talk about!!! as usual feel free to leave feedback or add on to rustbloods however youd like ^_^

[fantrollz]

A troll oc for my lovely little critter @redwing95

[catarrow12]

I drew me and my friends’s trollsonas :) 

Also got a new pixel brush on fire alpca gonna use the hell outta this

 I’m the rust blood :,) why everyone gotta be highbloods man lol

[softsynthetic]

Let’s appreciate the Rustblood and Bronzeblood background characters too. They’re straight babies bro.

[avianartstuff]

These were very fun to make and I will probably be making more

[ditheringluminary]

The Alternian caste system and how it raises its trolls

Hey all! Taking a bit of a break from doing session analyses for a sec (thank you all so much btw i love doing them) to talk about something I didn’t think would come up since so few people use the full signs of their classpects, most likely because they’re talking about themselves or a friend and not a fantroll.

But it’s still important to recognize how Alternia structures its society in such a way that each troll would HAVE to take some part of their True Sign. Ever wonder WHY they call it a True Libra or True Cancer and the like on the aspect quiz? This is why. An important part of Doc Scratch’s and Lord English’s manipulation is that they changed the core values of troll society. Unlike Beforus Alternia is all about keeping groups sad and oppressed by their role on the caste, highblood or lowblood. This is all done in service to breed the True Signs, which would be people like Karkat or Gamzee or Feferi. Of course, THIS is all done so that the events of Homestuck can even take place, with each and every character in it (no matter how small their part is) being a cog in the machine to creating Lord English and perpetuate other dumb time loops. As such if your fanventure or the like doesn’t take place on Alternia or a troll planet under a similar caste system, you can PROBABLY disregard all this, though I would still look into how that planet’s society treats and raises its trolls.

Let’s start from the bottom: Rustbloods (burgundy-bloods...?). Rustbloods are overshadowed by the Time aspect. Time is the aspect of destruction and decay, but is also the aspect of work and labor. Oftentimes the Time player in a session is the resident busybody. Hence why Rustbloods are Alternia’s manual labor caste, and likely why they are the lowest on the spectrum.

Next is Bronzebloods. They mostly shadow the Breath aspect, which might not be readily apparent to most (it certainly wasnt to me). I think that this means that... Bronzebloods are raised to be expendable. Detached from their loved ones and treasured objects to be the main cavalry and footsoldiers in the war. This gives them the “freedom” of Breath, though it’s a sad and lonely freedom when you know that your life can be thrown away at any moment. Anyone would be resigned and detached at that point. <:B

Now Goldbloods seems to be the MOST obvious of the caste, or at least the secondmost. They are shadowed by Doom, and this is portrayed in them being used as living batteries for ships. Doom isn’t just about destruction. It’s about suffering, sacrifice, and unstable consumption. All of these fit the description of a person turned into a living battery. This also explains why most Doom-bound trolls are nihilists, or are severely pessimistic. You would be too if you knew you’d be a battery.

Limebloods seems to be the gray (hehe) area, as their true sign’s aspect shows as Blood. It’s possible that this represents 1. That there are meant to be no intense, caring bonds on Alternian society (hence why Karkat was a Knight of blood: even his planet lacked bonds and care) or 2. That a limeblood can ONLY survive through strong bonds and friendships (again, Karkat). Either way, we haven’t seen any official limebloods (that out themselves as limebloods) and so we don’t know how they would be “raised”.

Olive Bloods are shadowed under the Heart aspect. While Olive bloods don’t really have a set or concrete role in Alternia’s society, this actually fits Heart perfectly. Heart is all about individuality and uniqueness! Of course the caste that fits Heart wouldn’t really be able to be pegged down as a single role.

Jadebloods: Ghost Space. This is seen pretty clearly when they are in charge of the creation and perpetuation of lil troll babies. They’re even banished to an entirely separate part of Alternia, which fits Space’s  intense loneliness. You might be thinking that Life would be a better fit for them, as they ARE creating Life. However, Life is more of an aspect of improving and bettering what is already there. SPACE is the aspect of creation, and as such why they are set to create life.

The most obvious one by far is the Tealbloods. They ghost Mind, as they stand in for Alternia’s entire legal division. They judge, prosecute, and defend the CHOICES of others and alter the CHOICE their jury makes. Mind is also just flat out about strategy and intelligence, which a lot of Tealbloods are known to have.

Cerulean/Bluebloods are shadowed under the Light aspect. I kind of see this as them being technically highbloods, and thus have access to enormous wealth and fame. This would of course breed Light’s sometimes outwardly pompous attitude.

Indigobloods fit into the Void aspect as their True Aspect. This kind of makes sense, as the Indigobloods main job is to perpetuate Alternia’s caste system, and fit well into whatever role they ARE given. They are “nothing” until they are given a role and a purpose, which Alternia forces on them. Them “being” nothing/void is what would eventually lead to Equius, an Heir of Void.

Purplebloods naturally are surrounded by Rage, being negative emotions and confusion. What illicits more negative emotions and pure confusion than clowns? Not only that, but their sheer strength and focus on violence also fits into Rage, which is often linked to physical harm. They also perpetuate these negative emotions by being so oppressive on those who disobey Alternia’s law.

Violetbloods are... tricky. Their true sign says Hope, but... there isn’t even much to go on about them. We only have Cronus and Eridan, and their roles in alternian society aren’t explained besides being royalty. It’s entirely possible that this is the point: they’re just wealthy buttholes. Delusion and immense power are what encompass Hope, and oftentimes royalty are delusional fools with immense power. Of course, not as much power as...

Fuschiabloods. Fuschia’s true sign spells Life, and this is mostly seen in Feferi’s ideals. As said above, Life is all about betterment for what’s ALREADY there. Fuschiabloods are the ruling class, and NORMALLY would be expected to improve/continue ruling Alternia. One could even take it a step further and say that the Condesce killing off any possible opposing Fuschiabloods represents killing Life, too. Making sure that Alternia never gets better through a different ruler.

And that’s all the classes! I want to reiterate that you don’t HAVE to take these into consideration, even if you DO have your fantroll on Alternia. However, it’s always nice to think how its differing society has an effect on its people, and how the society basically acts as a shadow that each and every troll lives under and is expected to live up to.

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 12

Your name is MARSTI HOUTEK and there is some dumb bitch climbing up the siren pole behind your hive.

Watching in utter disbelief, you take a sip of scalding leaf water as the tiny figure uses a rope to haul themself up, one determined pull at a time. If you were more awake you might be impressed; it’s obvious that they’re really going all out on this. They can’t be any bigger than a rustblood male, but despite their size they appear to be fairly strong. You wish it isn’t so cloudy so you could see who the hell this joker is.

It says a whole lot about your life that spying on some cullbait climbing a pole is the most interesting thing you’ve seen all perigee. You go places. You clean. You leave. Sometimes you even get paid, but that’s becoming less of a thing these nights for whatever reason. Some highblood tries to kill you and you get away in the nick of time. Somehow, you keep living.

The newly-healed scar on the back of your neck twinges.

You give a small hiss when the climber slips and almost falls, only for somebody else to dart out of the shadows, looking up towards the siren. The climber calls down to them but you can’t hear what they’re saying, due to the fact that the siren is up on a nearby hill. With renewed vigor, they tighten their hold on the rope and keep going.

“Not bad, squirt,” you mumble.

Another person detaches themself from the cover of a tree, taller than the other two, and joins the other troll on the ground. The first troll gives the newcomer the finger. The newcomer shrugs, their body language betraying no annoyance at the insult.

So these guys are a team, huh? This ought to be good.

Your attention snaps back to the climber when they finally reach the siren. They quickly fling their rope over the head of the machine and actually clamber up on top of the thing, like an actual freakin’ monkey.

This dude’s just asking to be culled. Wow.

You can’t see exactly what’s going on, but they’re obviously messing with the thing. A bit of concern makes your brows furrow as you consider the situation-- that siren could mean the difference between people living or dying. Should you try and stop them?

… No. Even with Catmom around, you’re still outnumbered, and Catmom raised you to not start stupid fights.

“Mrraow?”

Speak of the devil. You reach down and stroke your lusus’s ears. “Get a load out of this. Maybe I should take up parkour, too. You’d be a great teacher.”

Catmom rears up on her hind legs and stares intently out the sliding glass door. She goes still for a moment, and then her long white tail starts whipping back and forth.

“What is it?” you demand.

She meows again, more urgently this time, and starts pawing at the door.

You hesitate. You don’t want her going out there. That wasn’t an I need to pee meow, that was a there’s something up meow.

And that’s when the moons shine through a gap in the clouds, lighting up the silhouette of the climber as they fiddle around with the insides of the siren.

Even before your thinkpan registers their strange-but-familiar pale skin, or their fluffy white-gold hair, you know who it is. The air whooshes out of your bellowsacs, and you set down your mug on the counter before tearing open the door and sprinting like your life depends on it, Catmom right on your heels.

The two trolls at the base of the pole are more than ready for you when you scramble up the hill, so you raise both of your hands even as Catmom arches her back and hisses. One is an oliveblood chick with a spiky mane of hair and even sharper claws, and the other is a tall jadeblood boy, which definitely isn’t something you see every day. Both of them look very strong and ready to tear your rustblood ass up like a napkin.

“I’m a friend,” you say quickly. “Their friend.”

The oliveblood stares you down, but before she can respond you hear a shout of surprise from above. “Marsti!”

You look up at the alien, moonlight twinkling in their wide eyes. Something in your worn-out bloodpusher softens. How they’re alive, you have no idea, but they’re really here.

“I thought you were dead,” you say, swallowing back something in your throat.

“Marsti, you can’t be here! There’s gonna be a drone raid!” they cry.

Any happiness you feel at seeing your long-lost friend evaporates like acid rain in the sunlight. At your side, Catmom arches her back and hisses. Your acid tract does a backflip and falls right out of your anus like a brick.

You just stare at them. “And how the fuck do you know that?”

“Because we do! That’s why we’re here, to trigger the siren early so people have a better chance of getting to safety sooner,” the oliveblood snaps, crossing her arms.

“Like you, for instance,” the jadeblood explains, much more calmly than either of his companions.

“Guys!” You look back up to your offworlder friend, who is gripping the sides of the pole between their surprisingly strong legs and holding onto something in the siren. “Once I touch these two wires it’s gonna go off.”

“Do it!” the jadeblood calls. He’s clearly more excited about this whole plan, even though he immediately covers his ears and braces for the deafening wail. You and the oliveblood do the same, and you wonder how the fresh hell any of this is actually happening.

Your disbelief about this entire situation doubles as you watch the alien simply… flash out of sight for a fraction of a second before reappearing on the ground beside the greenbloods. None of you say anything as the siren starts to wail, slowly rising in pitch and volume until all four of you are running away with your hands over your ears.

Catmom herds everybody inside your hive and shuts the door behind you. Both the oliveblood and the jadeblood are looking around warily, but your alien friend seems more interested in giving you a hug, which you return in your shell-shocked state.

“So, you can teleport,” you say instead of spilling your guts about how much you missed them.

“Yeah! Long story. I’m glad you’re okay.” They grin up at you and run a hand through their hair. You’re amazed at all the little details you’re seeing on them now, like all of the colors in their eyes and the barely-there layer of fur that covers their skin. Is it fur? You’re not certain.

You nod. “Yeah. Me too. I mean, I’m glad you’re okay too.”

The oliveblood comes up to gently pat the alien’s arm, fond but exasperated. “How many friends do you even have?”

“A lot.” They beam proudly and lean against her. “Marsti, this is Polypa, my moirail, and that’s Lanque. Thanks for letting us into your hive so we don’t go deaf.”

“That’s still up in the air,” Lanque groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks like he’s in physical pain from the howling of the siren. You don’t blame him; every time that damn thing has gone off you end up in your recuperacoon with a pan-ache.

“Sorry babe, should have brought ear protection.”

“Hmph.”

Your friend looks hopefully up at you. “Look, we have fifteen minutes before the first bombs start to fall. Are you gonna come with us?”

“I might live in the shittiest neighborhood known to trollkind, but we do have bomb shelters,” you assure them. “This isn’t my first rodeo. Catmom and I will be fine.”

“... Alright.” They look reluctant, even as Polypa starts tugging them towards the door. “Once I get a palmhusk I’ll text you, okay? Stay safe.”

You give them a smile. When’s the last time you smiled? “I will.”

Lanque nods to you and follows the pair back out into whatever hell awaits them. You watch them go, feeling Catmom circling your legs as she urges you over to the basement door. It won’t be long before the drones show up.

“Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming,” you sigh as you grab your water bottle and your palmhusk off the counter. “What a fucking night, huh?”

She swats at your ankles for your language, but you can tell she’s feeling the same way.

<>

Your name is DIEMEN XICALI and you think this might be it.

This isn’t totally unusual for you, given that you are hiveless and broke, but it’s the first time since you lost your lusus that you would be facing a drone raid alone. You can hear the sirens not too far away, accompanied by the occasional sound of somebody screeching and running for cover. The oblong meat product you ate for breakfast churns nervously in your acid tract.

You’re deciding against making a run for it, given that you have literally nowhere to run to, when you feel the ground shake beneath you as the first bomb hits. The shockwave blows out the windows of a nearby hive not long after. You wince and cover your ears.

Well, this sucks.

Beside you, your palmhusk starts ringing. It’s Mallek.

“You’re literally calling at the worst time ever, dude,” you whisper frantically, shutting it off as fast as you can. Everybody knows the drones can track a palmhusk. Given what you’ve been up to these last few perigees, you wouldn’t be surprised if that actually happens.

A wave of grief and guilt hits you as you think of what happened to your juggalo friend. Mazzot Sazzox had died saving your stupid self from another clown that had gone insane for whatever reason. In doing so, he gave you enough time to get away from the drones that decided to show up out of nowhere.

Maybe in another life, you two would have been together, as close friends or maybe even more, but you guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

A lot of things aren’t.

Another explosion lights up the night sky, closer this time. That’s when the screaming starts, and you pray to your dead friend’s Messiahs that it’s not the five-sweep old that lives just down the road. She deserves to live, they all deserve to live, and even if they don’t survive the next few hours you pray that they’ll make it to wherever they’re meant to go in whatever comes next.

Where would you go? The Dark Carnival? Probably not, you’re no purpleblood, but one time after Mazzot preached to you about his faith you had the strangest dream about a dazzling carousel and some butterfly-winged angels. Could that be it?

“Oh, oh fuck somebody HELP ME-!”

BOOM

You shriek and curl up into a tight ball as you feel another shockwave nearly blow out your eardrums. Whoever was screaming stops.

The roar of drone engines passes over your bush. You don’t breathe until you can’t hear them anymore and release a shaky exhale. Not too far away, a second siren joins the first.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” you groan, holding your ears for all they’re worth.

Something a random guy told you at a party once comes back to you. He was a bronzeblood, you think, with big anter-like horns.

“Do you ever think about how some people believe we’ll be hatched as a higher caste after we die? Like we’re supposed to wait our whole lives for something better, except it’s only better because society made it that way?”

You were extremely stoned, but you remember telling him, “Dude. That’s deep.”

“Thanks. Pass me the blunt?”

You pass him the blunt and watch some gold chick and her moirail have a psionic orgy in the corner with a couple of rustbloods and a cerulean. She asked if you wanted to join earlier, but you were way too high to even hold a bucket upright, much less bust a nut, so you passed. Maybe you should have said yes so you didn’t have to think about how fucked up everything is about the world you live in.

Everything is so fucked up.

The bombs start falling with greater frequency now. Underneath you, the ground rumbles, and the part of you that’s still a kid is scared that it’ll break and you’ll fall into the planet.

“Get the fuck up,” somebody says. You startle, and then you realize you’re the one who said it.

You stare at a candy wrapper lying in the dirt an arms-length away, and you repeat yourself. “Get the fuck up, Diemen. You’re gonna die under a bush if you don’t move now.”

Amazingly, your right arm moves, followed by your left. You push yourself upright. The world spins around you as the blood rushes from your head.

You grab your palmhusk and do the universe’s sloppiest youth roll out of the bush, taking off running like you’ve never run before. Smoke and fire is filling the air, into your bellowsacs, and you barely make it a block before you have to stop.

Death smiles and waves at you as you look back just in time to see your bush go up in flames as a bomb blows everything up. You dive behind a nearby tree to avoid the resulting blast, and once it passes you’re running again.

Up ahead, the hive of the five-sweep old is nothing but a hollow husk.

You stumble to a stop and stare.

Keep moving, you tell yourself, except what you do is charge and leap in through a hole in the wall like some kind of idiot.

Stuff is on fire, but you remember enough about the layout of your own hive to know where the bomb shelter is. You shimmy around the burning hole where the living room used to be and make your way into the kitchen. The Messiahs must have been listening, because the trap door is unscorched and intact from the bomb.

You tear it open. “HEY! Hey, kid! Can you hear me?”

“YEAH!”

You whoop for joy, and for a moment everything is okay. “We don’t have a lot of time before the drones come back for seconds! Can you walk?”

“Yeah! Sort of!”

It takes a few minutes for the girl to drag herself over to the ladder, but once she hauls herself up to the main floor you can see why. Her left leg is totally broken, and her left ankle is dislocated. Behind her comes her lusus, an elderly beaverrat, who chitters warily before reluctantly allowing you to carry her precious charge around the destroyed living room and out the hole in the wall.

“Everything hurts,” the girl tells you quietly as you carry her down the sidewalk.

“I know. Don’t worry, I have a cerulean friend with a medicalizer. He’s let me use it before,” you tell her.

“So… so I can walk again?”

“You’ll walk again.”

On the way out of the neighborhood, you pass Marti’s hive, which has been completely blown to pieces. You hope she’s okay.

Once you get this kid’s legs healed, you’d come back for her and Catmom. Something is different about tonight-- the stars are shining so brightly they hurt to look at, and there’s a fragile unease in the atmosphere, like all of Alternia is holding her breath. You keep walking and don’t look at the moons, which stare down at you like a pair of eyes.

Everything’s fucked up, but it suddenly hits you that maybe, just maybe, you have the power to change that.