BEFORUS ANCESTORS. PT. 2
All written and drawn by Andrew Hussie.
Tavros - The Treeaboo
A member of the Lost Weeaboos, who dwells in the trees. Another term for these trolls is Treeaboo, which he has claimed as his title. A common misconception about the Nitram legacy is they're based on Peter Pan, or the troll equivalent, Pupa Pan. But this is not true. Actually the Treeboo styled his themes and persona after Troll Robin Hood, who similarly dwelt in tree villages. But at some point there was a mixup, when Rufioh had a vision of his ancestor and thought he was LARPing as Pupa Pan, so he ran with the idea, and conflated "Lost Weeaboos" with the "Lost Boys" of the Pan myth. Actually the Lost Weeaboos had nothing to do with that, they're just weeaboos who live in trees.
Sollux - The Helpsman
A key part of Beforan society is emphasis on voluntary service, by using special abilities to assist with public works and infrastructure, like healthcare, energy production and such. Certain members of this force of volunteers are called "helpsmen", so that's his title. He's extremely enthusiastic about putting time in the power plant, using his telekinesis powers to boost the electric grid. He spends hours or sometimes days on end clutching the terminals with a huge smile on his face, thinking about the joy he is bringing to every troll enjoying his electricity. At some point due to a karmic chain of events, there is an accident that affected him quite negatively, but we don't need to talk about that.
Karkat - The Imposter
Because he has mutant red blood, he spent his life posing as a lime blood, because that's the caste he would have naturally fit into with his friend group growing up, but no one ever found out, even his friends. The lime bloods, a class that was hunted to extinction on Alternia because of their dangerous pyrokinetic powers, were not similarly hunted on Beforus. Instead they were put to work on public infrastructure, like other helpsmen. Very powerful pyrokinetics got tough jobs like melting huge amounts of ore to make steel, but extremely weak ones like the Imposter got stuck with menial jobs, like burning off trace amounts of excess gas in coal mines so it doesn't build up and explode. But because he didn't have any powers, he couldn't burn off the gas, so such a buildup did happen which led to a massive explosion, setting off the karmic chain of mishaps affecting this group. He was uninjured from the blast, because he left the mine long before the blast, ashamed of his lack of powers. He was arrested for negligence, was discovered to be an impostor, and was jailed for life. No one ever found out about his mutant blood because the government covered it up. He believed he should be a tragic martyr figure for being forced to live a lie, leading to deadly consequences, but his story was forgotten by time. Kankri learned of his ancestor in a vision, and tried to redeem the Vantas legacy by proudly wearing his blood color on his red sweater, and spent his life preaching perfect morality to everyone to bring honor back to his name.
Terezi - Songbird Sootnose
The Songbird is also a sort of helpsman, using her abilities to help with coal mining. Due to her great sense of smell, she played the role of a mine's "songbird", which is similar to the way canaries are used on Earth. A canary is brought deep in the mine, and if it stops singing and dies, that means there's too much gas and people need to evacuate. She uses her nose to detect gas, but an injury which started this karmic chain of events left her without a sense of smell, but she tried to keep songbirding anyway. When the Imposter allowed a massive buildup of gas, she couldn't detect it, and a huge explosion followed, rocking the neighborhood above, affecting a nearby powerplant manned by the Helpsman, a tree village housing the Rankmaid and Treeboo, and a hospital where the Lamplady was on her shift. The Songbird lost an arm and an eye in the blast, with the damage to her eye being done by a very specific piece of shrapnel... a stray coin in the mine. She decided to use it as an eyepatch so she could never forget her deadly mistake.
Gamzee - The Bland Highblood
On Beforus, clowns weren't invented yet, so most of the purple bloods were mimes, and delighted the other classes with their mute street performances. They considered it a sacred duty as members of the highest land dwelling class to entertain their lessers and bring joy to their lives. Kurloz resisted the tradition of swearing a vow of silence to honor this solemn duty, but terrible events conspired to finally make him honor it by sewing his mouth shut and becoming a freaky juggalo. The Highblood is an unusual designation because it's the only one that isn't 8 letters, it's 9. But that's because it isn't actually a formal title, more like a nickname that is commonly used. His title is Mummerer, which is just an old fashioned sort of mime. But this raises the question, did the Grand Highblood have such a title? Which of course he did, it was Murderer. But this was rarely used when describing him, because it was considered too... on the nose :o) ... Ok but seriously, it was sometimes, but got lost in the sauce due to what is referred to in clowny nomenclature as the "Abbott and Costello Effect" named after two confusing Earth clowns. Their humorous dialogue confuses words and names, like "Who's on first" means either asking who is on first, or stating a guy named Who is on first, so stupid shit like this would happen with purple bloods all the time, and people often thought "Murderer" was a literal descriptor, not a title. Also the Mummerer's name was Marcmarc, after the famous mime Marcel Marceau, which wasn't that confusing so people remembered his name. But the Grand Highblood's full title and name was Murderer Honkhonk, which REALLY tripped the Abbott and Costello effect, because any time a bunch of clowns get together, all they do is honk, so nobody can tell if they're talking about the Highblood. This led to a lot of stupid situations, and he has had literally thousands of people killed over such buffoonery involving his name.
Eridan - Zoologer Coolscar
Widely recognized as the kindest and most wonderful troll of this group. Dedicates life to rescuing stray, childless lusus, or ones which have been injured or are unfit for parenting in some way. There really isn't much else to say about Coolscar except they are hands down, the best character in Homestuck, bar none.
