Ruby city application

[camefirst]

PLAYER
Name: Dees
Age: 26
Personal Journal: dees
E-mail: hornpile[at]gmail[dot]com
AIM/MSN/etc: hornpile

CHARACTER
Character Name: The Signless
Canon: Homestuck
Age: Around 15 sweeps, roughly 33 earth years.
Timeline: Shortly before his arrest, at the start of the sectarian war; he's losing control of the situation, the Condesce is ordering down her subjugglaters and highbloods on his followers, they are striking back and he never wanted this war, you guys.
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: Nope

Personality:

While Signless has not been given a direct, focal role in the story, much of his personality can be derived from his life's story, told by a story teller who does not lie, as well as from Karkat Vantas, his ectobiological clone, and from Kankri Vantas, Signless' initial incarnation in the Beforus universe. By the author's word, it is confirmed that Signless, Kankri and Karkat share many central traits, though they also all three differ on certain subjects.

First things first, much like Karkat and Kankri, Signless is a mutant, an abomination upon his species. His blood falls outside of the blood spectrum, a crime for which he could be culled at any point. Despite the fact that his blood made him a pariah from his earliest time, Signless does not hate his blood. Regardless of how others might think of him, Signless considers himself equal to any other troll. In that, he is much the same as Kankri. However like Karkat, Signless has been raised on Alternia, a planet on which his blood colour is enough to sentence him to death. As such, despite how he accepts his blood colour himself, he is still careful about revealing it to other trolls. Signless has always been raised to hide his blood and avoid situations in which it might spill. As such, even an innocent wound might still provoke an instant reaction to cover it up and hide it from prying eyes.

The most central thing to Signless is his love and caring. He cares. About everybody. A trait abnormal and even heretical to his race. In this, he is not much different from Karkat, who also cares more than a normal troll should. But rather than try and hide his caring nature, and lead a life more troll-like like Karkat, Signless fully embraces his caring. Being raised a pariah with only one other troll for a constant companion, Signless was never pressured by society to stop caring, or hide his kinder emotions. In addition to that, he has also come to realize, he needs to care. Because unless someone cares a whole lot to try and stop the endless cycles of anger, hatred and revenge that troll society so easily falls into, nothing is ever going to change.

Much like Kankri, Signless is a champion for social change, a revolutionary to his very core. However where Kankri is an immature teen who has gotten too caught up in attacking the small problems and often uses his rhetoric as a means to feel superior to others, Signless is a mature adult with a far more balanced view of the world. He focuses on the bigger problems, knowing how to prioritize the true problems over minor transgressions. He's able to forgive thoughtlessly cruel things because he know most Alternians have been raised never to consider the kinder approach. He is willing to stay patient because he knows that even the slow, small changes will eventually lead to what he desires. Aranea mentioned that while both Kankri and Signless sought the same goal, that is to say, to improve their society and champion the cause of those truly disadvantaged, Signless' ability to prioritize and honestly listen, forgive and emphasize with others is what led him to be successful where Kankri failed.

A lot of the difference between how Signless and Kankri approach social change can be traced back to their history; where Kankri learned a lot of his knowledge from academic, written sources, Signless' knowledge comes not from books but from experience. Having traveled the world as much as he has, with Dolorosa at his side, Signless was able to see more of his world than most trolls would, and learn from those experiences. He was able to see the way the system has negative effects on everybody within it, from the lowest lowblood to the highest highblood.

Signless’ desire to change the system does not just stem from seeing the pain inherent in the system. In addition to these experiences, he also experiences visions. These are his latent seer of blood powers establishing themselves. More about the visions can be found in the abilities section, but to sum it up, these visions allowed him to see troll society as it had been on Beforus. As such, Signless learned that once upon a time, the troll race had lived in peace, without the constant war and strife they experience now. From his visions he learned that there was a way of being other than the one they currently lived, a manner of existing in which the weak were cared for, all trolls are equal, and kindness and forgiveness reigned supreme. Which lead him to believe that they could once more achieve this if only they learned to forgive each other and choose kindness over anger. And it is with this message in mind that he started to travel, preaching about his findings and visions to other trolls.

Signless is an intelligent, well-spoken troll, something we can infer from how he preached. As stated by Doc Scratch, rather than throw his message at everyone regardless of the danger, he was careful to select the right groups for preaching to, speaking only to those he knew would be somewhat receptive to his message. And while he would never turn away anyone who's willing to listen to his words, he knows better than to fight windmills. He knows his message needs to find ground amongst the lowbloods first, before he can even think of converting highbloods to his cause. In addition, another thing that points to him being an intelligent, well-spoken troll is the fact that he was raised by another troll. Most (okay, all) troll children are raised by lusii, half-feral guardian beasts that lack the ability to speak and only communicate with their charges through growls, clicks, bleats and what not. Signless, on the other hand, was raised by the Dolorosa, a fellow troll, who spoke to him. As such, it was easier for him to learn language and learn to express himself through words rather than screeching.

Okay, so he still screeched sometimes. Being an alien toddler equivalent is hard, it is hard and nobody understands.

It might be easy to mistake Signless for someone that is all fluff and caring, but the truth is, at his core Signless has a spine of steel. Signless, much like Karkat and Kankri, is a stubborn and driven troll. He might not come across as bullheaded as some of the others, but there is no disguising this truth. Who else but a stubborn troll could journey to fight a powerful empire with only a message of peace and understanding? Who else but a driven troll could tell this message time and time again, no matter the results? While he did not always encounter hostility, and in fact was careful to avoid preaching in the wrong situations, he no doubt did often encountered disbelief and broken spirits, which can work more discouraging than anger. And these reactions were nothing surprising. After all, the troll race had been as it was for longer than anyone could remember. A message as simple as Signless' could not instantly undo the thousands of sweeps of oppression, of stagnant thinking, or the threat that hung over the head of the heretics. And yet he continued trying, time and time again, proving that he is, to put it lightly, one stubborn ass son of a bitch.

Signless is the type of person who presents a very different view of himself to whoever he is speaking to. To his followers, he shows the preacher, the leader. This is the troll who speaks of nothing but kindness and forgiveness, who explains his visions like he understands them completely and who rallies them, supportive and understanding. While it is not say this part of Signless is a lie, it is also not all there is to him.

It is his closest companions that see the other side of him. The side of him that has a temper, and occasionally simply has to rant about their experiences, about the pressure that is put on him by all his followers. It is them who get to see the side of himself that doubts his self-worth as a leader and that second-guesses his decisions. In this, he is not much different from Karkat. While Signless knows that the cause he is fighting for is worthy, the method of how to accomplish this cause is a constant debate even for himself. He knows that his decisions will affect the lives of thousands of trolls, and quite frankly that is a lot to take.

Additionally, Signless is the kind of troll who will place the problems of others before his own, to his own detriment. He is the kind to bottle up his own stress and grief in favour of helping out others with theirs. Part of this is due to the fact that he feels he cannot be honest with most people. As most of the people he interacts with are either his followers (he cannot show them weakness, it might discourage them away from his cause) or his opponents (he cannot show them weakness, it might encourage them to eat him) it is absolutely vital in his mind to present a composed face to them. Again, it is his nearest and dearest who fall to the role of forcing him to deal with his problems, by extending a listening ear to him for a change, though even them might find it hard to drag his deepest problems and fears out of him.


In the end what it all comes down to is: S1GNL3SS 1S TH1S YOU?



History:

Signless’ history starts not in the troll universe that we know, but in the universe that came before that. In that universe, the trolls were a peaceful race and Alternia, then Beforus, a peaceful planet without the harsh blood-prejudice that would reign on the Alternia we would come to know. There was no major strife, no struggle, and everyone was at peace and happy.

When time came, a group of twelve players played a game - a very dangerous and deadly game known as sgrub. However coming from such a peaceful race that had never known strife, that had never known the influence of Doc Scratch, the twelve players were not prepared for the challenges they were about to face and failed. Badly. In a last desperate attempt they sought an audience with the mother of all monsters. She gave them a choice: either face the ultimate defeat and destruction of their race or reset the game and start anew, this time with a group of players capable of winning. The players took the second option: they performed a Scratch.

However, because this is Homestuck and all cannot be that simple or easy, this Scratch led to more than they expected. First of all, the twelve that once played the game would no longer be the heroes in this new session. Instead they would become the ancestors of the new heroes. Secondly, and more importantly, by scratching the game, they let the darkest evil into their universe in the form of Doc Scratch. Doc Scratch made good on the mother of monsters’ promise to create a group of players capable of winning, however his methods were brutal. No longer would Alternia be the peaceful planet it once was. Instead, Doc Scratch turned them into a warrior race that would rather cut you down than turn the other cheek, a race full of prejudice, inequality and hatred.

And it was on this planet, Signless was born. Well, not born. Not even hatched! Instead he kinda crash landed on a meteor after being cloned by his own descendent through time shenanigans. It is really complicated. I’ll spare you the details.

By a stroke of luck, or more likely, predestination, Signless’ meteor landed in the brooding caverns. Being a grub with a mutant shade of bright red blood, his chances of survival were about as low as as the Red Sox winning the world weries. But much like the Red Sox won, so did Signless survive, his salvation coming in the form of the Dolorosa.

The Dolorosa was one of the jade-blooded attendants of the mother grub, tasked with taking care of her and the eggs she laid. However upon discovering Signless, and knowing this little grub would never survive without her, the Dolorosa made an unprecedented decision in troll society: she took the young grub, fled the brooding caverns and raised him as her own.

For the next however many sweeps, Signless grew up with the Dolorosa as his guardian, outside of the boundaries of troll society. They travelled much to avoid detection, and Signless saw more of the world than most young trolls might. Through this, he was in an unique position to recognize the wrongs of troll society, seeing the pain it inflicted on every caste. However, Signless had another unique point to him: he was starting to remember his past life before the Scratch. His visions were never quite clear, and Signless never learned exactly of his role in everything that happened, but what he did learn was what would shape his destiny forever. He learned that trolls had the potential for peace. He learned that the way it was was not the only way it could be. He learned that they could change, that they had hope and that they too could one day have peace.

And with this knowledge, this message, he started his travels anew. No longer was he just a young wiggler aimlessly traveling to avoid detection with Dolorosa at his side. Now he had become a man with a mission and a message to preach, a message of peace, hope, and understanding. And on his travels, he met those of like mind. The first he met was the Psiioniic, a young, yellow-blooded slave and one of the most powerful psionics in the universe, that would become one of his closest confidants and his dearest friend. He also soon met his closest companion: the Disciple. It was she who recorded all his speeches faithfully, every encounter, every message. And in time, between her and Signless a love grew that knew no equal. They had no use for the conventional quadrants of troll society, not when they had a love that transcended all of that.

Of course, this could not go on forever. No matter how careful Signless was in his preaching, eventually his followers grew too numerous to avoid detection (and probably a heap too violent on top of that) and they caught the attention of the Empress. She commanded her High Subjugglators to put an end to Signless and his heretical message and so they did, but not without a short, vicious war that would have gone down into troll history as the Sectarian War had the Empress not ordered all mention of the Signless to be struck from the record after his death (#tw: spoilers). Signless and his group were captured and Signless himself was tortured. Indeed, it was never a question of whether or not he would be put to the irons; just of how hot they would be when they did. And they were pretty flaming hot.

In the last hour of Signless’ life however, he underwent a transformation. Broken, bloodied and beaten, tortured and defeated, with his nearest and dearest at the hands of the highbloods, his never ending love grew into a righteous fury. So righteous and full of anger in fact, that it grew into the Vast Expletive, his last and final sermon. And so he died, with a final fuck you, a boatload of anger, and a message of truth that would not resurface until the appearance of Karkat Vantas.


Abilities:

One of Signless' more unique abilities are the vision he has. These are memories of his past life before the Scratch and instrument to him understanding that there is another future for trolls, one without bloodshed and war. It is these visions that drove him to spread his message of peace. Signless does not completely understand his visions, and much is still a mystery even to him, but that never kept him from promoting his message of peace and understanding.

Signless' other big ability is his oratory skills. He is a very skilled preacher with sweeps/years of experience, who has marked skill at picking out those receptive to his message. It was mentioned that Signless only preached to those who were willing to listen. So he is less the guy on the corner of Times Square ranting about the end times, and more troll Gandhi. This skill however was not an innate one; it was definitely one Signless had to learn and his first speeches were nothing to write home about. He got better.

Beyond that, Signless has your standard array of skills. He has fairly good health and stamina from traveling his whole life. He is not a very skilled fighter, due to the ideals he lives by, but he would be able to defend himself for a short period against an opponent of similar strength.

He can also rock armpit high tights. That has got to count for some sort of skill.



Relationships to Canon Characters:

Karkat Vantas: Descendant. Neither have met each other, but by the current canon point Karkat is probably at least somewhat familiar with the rough story of Signless' life through the dream bubbles. Signless meanwhile foresaw Karkat's hatching, preaching of him as the second signless who would continue his work and lead their people to the glory beyond this realm.

Kankri Vantas: Signless' alternative reality incarnation. Kankri came first, and Signless was who he was reborn into after the Scratch. Signless recalls parts of Kankri's memories which come to him as visions. He does not completely understand these memories but understands enough to know that their race was one peaceful. Kankri, for his part, learned of the Signless' story in the dreambubbles and disapproved heavily. #tw: alternative self shaming, #tw: v9w-6reaking jackasses

The Dolorosa: The jade-blooded attendant of the mothergrub who found Signless as a grub in the brooding caverns and rather than kill him, as was her duty, decided to abdicate from her role to save Signless and raise him. She is the one who kept him safe, gave him his name, taught him, and shaped much of his personality.

The Psiioniic: A yellow-blooded former slave and Signless' first friend. Early into their travels, Signless and Dolorosa met with him, and after hearing his message, Psiioniic freed himself from slavery and began to travel with them. He is Signless' best friend, his first friend, and one of his closest confidants.

The Disciple: The fourth of Signless' tiny circle, they encountered her after the Psiioniic. She too started to travel with them and became Signless' scribe, carefully recording his message. In time, the friendship between Signless and the Disciple grew into a love without equal, leading to them both espousing the normal quadrant system troll use for relationships and instead finding their all in each other. After Signless' death, Disciple is instrumental to making sure his message is not lost.

The Grand Highblood: Some terrible clown dude who tortured him.

Expatriate Darkleer: This dude put an arrow in him, possibly (probably, maybe) killing him.

Her Imperial Condescension: The Empress of all of trollkind. Ordered his execution and took his best friend to become her engine. Pretty terrible fish-lady all around.



First Person:

[For a member of such a technologically advanced species, it sure had taken Signless forever to figure out the functions of the pocket watch. Technology had just never been his forte! He had grown up as a pariah, always traveling from one place to the next, living in caves as often as abandoned hives, technology had never really entered the picture.

Still, by now he understands it enough to make basic posts. Privated feeds and filters are still beyond him, but hey, he can always do something crazy like... talk to the person face to face. Radical.

When the video turns on, it shows Signless sitting rather relaxed against a tree. The sky overhead is dark, and his face seems to be lit by the flickering light of a fire. His hood has been folded back, leaving his face plain for anyone to see. After realizing that his blood colour could not really bring him harm here, he had reveled in finally getting the opportunity to wear his blood as open and proud as any member of his species. Which mostly involved not hiding his bright red eyes.]

Hello. It has been a while since we spoke like this.

Ever since I was a young wiggler-- a child, [With so many non-trolls around, it was good to be sensitive to cultural differences.] me and my guardian traveled a lot. Through that I've been able to see so many places and I've learnt things about my home most would never realize. [like how filled it is with oppression, there is that.]

It has made me think about how so many of you are from worlds very different from my own, worlds I will never be able to see for myself. Which leads me to ask... would you please tell me about your world? I'd love to hear and better understand the places you all came from. I could tell you more about my world too, if you wish.

We could talk like this. [He moves his hand for a moment, jolting the camera, clearly indicating it, though if one were to pay close attention they can realize he does not seem entirely satisfied with that option.] Or if you would like to talk in person, you can come join me here at the fire.

I look forward to hearing your stories.



Third Person:

Signless stood at the entrance of the cave, one hand resting on the rock, the other holding the heavy cloak they had hung across the entrance to keep out the daylight aside. His eyes scanned the rocky path running down from their shelter. Against the dark of the night, he could faintly make out the outline of two cloaked figures hurrying back to the village, hoping to beat the dawn. A dull pain pounded in his temple, the early precursor to another day's sleep filled with confusing, context-less flashes of an existence not quite his own. But it was not just the early signs of a vision digging its claws into his sponge.

He was losing control.

The messages that had been brought to him by the two trolls flitted through his mind, whispered tales of small outbreaks, of village after village where lowbloods had united, yes; united to strike. They had spoken to him of the murder of cool-blooded trolls, a young subjugglator even, with their eyes shining with excitement, looking at him as if expecting praise for the murder of those that should be their brothers. He had been short with them, hoping to persuade them from any such further acts but it was hard to tell how successful he was. These two had not been the ones to dip their weapons in blood and there was no telling how much of his message they would carry back with them.

His stubby claws dug into the cool rock face.

He had not meant for this to happen... had he?

Behind him he could hear the sounds of his family, and it would be so easy to join them, to find comfort in Disciple's embrace, to let Rosa soothe the panache pounding behind his temples with her fingers as she had done so often since his wigglerhood, for Psii to... probably shrug off the deaths as expected.

His mouth flattened into a line and rather than step into the comfort of their shelter for the day, he stepped forward, allowing the heavy cloak to fall shut behind him. By the light of the waning moons, it was easy to follow the path to the small lake they had gotten their water at earlier. That was not to say the lake had been his particular goal; he just wanted to be alone for a bit. Once he arrived at the rocky banks of the mountain lake, he almost mechanically scooped up a few of the flat pebbles that lay around his boots, flinging them one after the other across the still surface of the water.

He had been told, time and time again, that it was naive to believe they could change their society to that of his dreams without strife, that it was stupid to think the Condesce would let the power she had grown so fond slip through her perfectly painted claws without striking back at them. And perhaps they were right. But was it not as naive to think they could force a victory through strife? He loved his people, but he saw them for what they were: slaves that starved for bread as much as they starved for freedom, the young and the old, the forgotten and the soon-to-be forgotten. They were many things, his people were, but they were no army and he was no general.

He was barely a leader.

His arm faltered and the next stone sunk straight to the bottom without even skimming across the surface. Sometimes this followers scared him. He loved them, he did, but there was something unsettling about the way they stared at him at times, as if he was more than just a troll, as if his message was something divine rather than the same message of kindness and peace each of them held in their own pumps. Sometimes he wondered if they truly understood his message of equality and freedom or if they were just looking to replace one absolute monarch with another.

Letting the last two pebbles fall from his hand, he sat down heavily on one of the large rocks that dotted the lakeside, burying his hands in his hair. Sometimes, he wished he could run, just turn around and keep walking. Sometimes he wished things were as they had been once, when it had been just the four of them traveling from settlement to settlement without the Empress' cool breath fanning down their necks, without the warrants for his capture plastering the walls as heavily as Troll Dante Basco posters, back when the weight on his shoulders had not been so heavy.

Breathing out, his eyes unfocused for a moment as a memory that was not his own trickled through his pan, the vision of a finned smile and a cool, heavy hand against his own without the need to fear someone figuring out the colour of his blood from the heat of his body. The vision was gone before he could focus on it, but he knew others would follow.

The rustling of fabric from behind him caught his attention and he turned his head to spot his guardian standing on the path that had led him here, and despite himself, despite the heavy weight on his shoulders, he smiled. It was easy to imagine the three of them drawing straws over who could have the dubious pleasure of pulling him from his latest self-blame stint. Apparently Rosa had been the lucky one tonight.

"I'm okay," he mouthed at her, and truly he did feel more okay than just now. Perhaps it had been the vision. Short as it had been, it had served to remind him of all they fought for, of the kindness and peace that they once had been able to call their own, and they would again some day, if he had something to say about it. Or perhaps it was her appearance, serving as an equally important reminder that no matter what, he was not alone. His eyes closed for a moment as he felt her hands settle on top of his hair, and he turned his head to bury it against her side for just a moment, breathing in the scent of her worn traveling cloak. As much as the world was at a constant turmoil, changing quicker than he'd like at times, Rosa herself seemed to stand outside of that, always the same steadying and calming influence she had been in his wrigglerhood. Leaning against her side for a few moments more, he allowed her presence to relax the tightness of his shoulders, finally rising to his feet. "I'm okay, really. Lets go back."