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Player Information

Name: Inkwell
Personal Journal: misterporcelain but I barely use it.
Age: 19
Contact Info:
aim: misterporcelain
plurk: mister_inkwell
tumblr: wufenbachmanpain
email: misterporcelain@gmail.com
Other Characters Played: n/a

Character Information

Character Name: Sollux Captor
Character Series: Homestuck
Character Age: 6 sweeps / roughly 13 years
Character Gender: Male
Alternate Universe
Canon Point: Immediately after becoming official kismesis with Vriska.
Background Link: His page on the wiki
AU Background:

Some quick and dirty background information about this AU: This is a universe independent of any SBURB or SGRUB involvement. Thus, Lord English, Doc Scratch, the Alpha trolls: none of those exist or are tied with this universe (though I am assuming that ancestors share names with dancestors for ease of identification). The Heiress (in this bloodswap, that's Terezi) does not have a Horrorterror lusus. Alternian society, while still as ruthless and awful as it is in canon Alternia, got there all on its own (we're so proud).

Much like in canon, hundreds of sweeps previous to Sollux's time there was an uprising of lowbloods who advocated for caste equality and changes to the power system, spearheaded by a mutant redblood (Meenah Peixes), an oliveblood (Cronus Ampora), a yellowblood (Meulin Leijon), and a jadeblood (Kurloz Makara). Unlike the canon Signless's preaching of tolerance and love born of his memories of Beforus, Meenah's preachings were mostly along the rationale that the Empire was corrupt, oppressive, and needed to be forcibly overthrown. Helped by Meulin's psionics, high-level empath powers that could influence the mood of large groups of people, Meenah amassed an army of lowbloods and marched on the palace of Her Judicious Condescension (Latula Pyrope).

Her Judicious Condescension was not unprepared. Her tealblood adviser to the throne (Kankri Vantas), the Grand Highblood (Mituna Captor), and her violetblood second-in-command (Aranea Serket) were all instrumental in her victory over the uprising. The Highblood played an especially essential part, using both his axe and his innate Indigo control of fear in those around him to cripple the revolutionary fighters and render them easy pickings for the rest of the Empire's forces. It was he who predicted that the lowbloods would lose the war and that the Signless would be killed, and this gave Her Judicious Condescension a solid reason to fight and an assurance of victory despite the greater numbers on the side of the revolution. The uprising was quashed handily, the Signless nailed to an H-shaped structure and martyred as a show of the Empire's strength, and the rest of the original group of four scattered. Her Judicious Condescension kept Meulin for herself, intending to use her powers of emotional persuasion much like she'd used the Highblood's: to keep her subjects under her sway through fear. Cronus fled into the desert after Meenah's death and was never seen again. Kurloz went into hiding as well, and penned the book that would keep the revolutionary spirit alive for sweeps and sweeps to come. He was also one of the original Sufferists, and those who still follow the Signless's teachings in Sollux's time can point to him and his book as the source of their teachings.

Her Judicious Condescension, meanwhile, was beginning to move the majority of the adult trolls off-planet at the urging of Kankri. His rationale was that dividing the population and ensuring that all lowbloods were properly watched and monitored at all times on fleet ships by trusted highbloods (Notably including Rufioh Nitram, blue, and Damara Medigo, cerulean,) would cut down on the possibility for uprising, both because organizing would be difficult with communication so well-monitored and because there would never be an environment completely free of the Empire's influence and watchful eye to escape to. The only adults to remain behind on-planet would be trusted highbloods, who would make sure that the younger generation grew up well-watched and free of any ideas of revolution (Her Judicious Condescension was a little smarter than the canon empress in that regard).

Little did she know that her trusted adviser was harboring Sufferists and espousing Sufferist ideals. It is largely thanks to Kankri's work as a turncoat revolutionary in correspondence with Kurloz that the revolutionary spirit survived at all. He helped to hide the existence of a Sufferist base on Alternia, and when Her Judicious Condescension did eventually catch him in his deception, he was able to warn them soon enough for many (but not all) to escape.

Hundreds of sweeps later, Her Judicious Condescension had expanded the Empire greatly and having the majority of the adults off-planet had worked well for her. There had been no talk of revolution since Kankri Vantas's trial. It was assumed all Sufferists were killed in the raid on their base on Alternia.

This was not true. A small but dedicated group survived, largely undetected, underground, even deeper than the brooding caverns. When another redblood troll was hatched, they ensured she was able to beat or bypass her trials, and that there was a sign and lusus for her. Feferi Peixes emerged onto the surface of Alternia alive and anonymously gray, and for some time she was largely undisturbed.

This hardly meant that Her Judicious Condescension was unaware of her. Indeed, she knew of the young troll and her particular sign, the meaning of which was not lost on her even if the girl herself didn't yet know it. And that is why she wasn't immediately culled. Her Judicious Condescension would rather murder her in the public eye, making a statement of the strength of the Empire by making an example of someone who knows what they mean to both sides of the revolution. She has known for eight sweeps now that anti-Empire sentiment is still alive and well, and gearing up for an eventual second try at an overthrow, and she plans to squash them openly and decisively rather than in secret.

This is where Sollux comes in. He hatched around the same time as Feferi and ten other trolls that would become part of his life over the sweeps. Much like Feferi, the Condesce had her eye on him from very early on. Her Highblood was still in his prime, but that hardly meant training up another to take his place when he eventually died was a bad plan. His powers of fear and persuasion were integral to her ability to keep her Empire, after all.

Even before the death of the Signless and even more so after it, the Highblood had a cult following as a prophet. He often spoke of an end of all things, a great undoing that would happen sometime in the future (his powers were far more developed than Sollux's from centuries of use, to the point where he could very faintly sense the eventual inevitable death of the universe as a whole). In his teachings, this great undoing would be an end to all life and thus an end to all suffering, just as individual death was an end to suffering on a smaller scale. It would be a time when those trolls deserving of peace and happiness would be given it and those who were not would be cursed to wander in limbo for the rest of eternity, neither alive nor dead. What constituted being deserving was, of course, obedience to the Empire and quiet servitude to one's betters. It was a constant threat especially to lowbloods in the fleet, who were on the frontlines of planetary takeovers and thus most likely to die at any time, and thus an effective measure toward keeping them obedient if they believed in the Highblood's prophecies (and most did, since they were so openly backed by Her Judicious Condescension).

Sollux grew up inundated with this philosophy. His bicyclops lusus (much less bumbling than its canon counterpart) was specially selected for him by the Empire, and it taught him well and raised him strong. Much of his early years once he pupated and left the caverns was spent being carefully surrounded with Empire propaganda, and his hive was built as close to the seashore as it possibly could be so that he would have no excuse not to interact with the sea-dwelling royalty and hopefully form some loyalty to those that would eventually control him.

Those were his first friends: Vriska Serket, the mouthy violetblood, and Terezi Pyrope, the heiress to the throne. Friend is probably a loose term, of course. Terezi he respected due to her blood status, even if her personality was grating to him, and his interactions with Vriska were frustrating at best. He disliked that she had a great deal of power but very little finesse in how she wielded it, something he was already beginning to value in himself.

And then he met Karkat Vantas, the tealblood with a large collection of Alternian film and literature and very strong opinions on all of it. Though their initial conversations were often argumentative, as time went on Karkat began increasingly making pale overtures toward Sollux, often in the form of telling him to calm down or pointedly trapping him into talking about his mixed feelings on the empire and his ancestor.

By the age of five sweeps, Sollux was old enough to know just how big a hand the Empire had in his life, and why, and he was old enough to know it didn't sit well with him. Always an argumentative and sometimes arrogant person, he loathed the idea of being manipulated as someone else's pawn, while his more depressive and self-deprecating side turned it into a reason to hate himself and devalue his own existence as an autonomous person. Karkat picked up on this and forced him to talk about it, often validating his uncertain views on the Empire with his own brand of anti-Empire diatribe, which Sollux would in turn silence for fear of his moirail being culled.

Through Karkat, he met (through the trollian chat client) several other trolls. One of them, Feferi, by this point was beginning to have her own ideas about the Empire, very similar to her canon idea that those in higher status ought to look after those beneath them instead of subjugating them (Karkat got it from her). He was also beginning to form a relationship with Aradia, a ceruleanblood who often played FLARP off his coast in a ship she'd won in a past game, when Vriska killed her for 'muscling in on her territory'.

This is about the point he truly began to detest Vriska, and the incident that pushed them from merely constantly antagonizing each other to full-on blackrom. I'm taking Sollux from only a few weeks after Aradia's death, very soon after he and Vriska begin their relationship.


Personality:

Sollux is not the sort of individual that lends himself well to making friends or even just generally being nice. He's highly introverted, not so much in a shy and retiring way as that he has precious little energy to deal with social things and once that energy's spent he's very much done and will become even more difficult to deal with until left alone. He's prone to mood swings between aggressive and cynical, and either Sollux isn't exactly a walk in the park to deal with. In his more aggressive moods he's ornery, sarcastic, and will often provoke arguments. In his more depressive and cynical moods he's... well... depressive and cynical, and often gets into cycles of simply talking about how shitty his life is.

He doesn't think this is childish or self-absorbed, however. In fact, Sollux places a great deal of importance on maturity, likely because of how he was raised and the duty he knows will eventually fall to him. To handle that knowledge he's forced himself to grow up perhaps quicker than he would have otherwise, and prizes his maturity and seriousness because it means he must be up to the task he doesn't really think he's up to. If and when he does act his age, he will generally ignore it afterward or, if it's a log, delete it out of embarrassment.

Sollux has a lot of issues tied up in the Highblood and his cult, most of which lead back to his own feelings about himself. He often puts himself down and says that he's not good enough, and this is partially because he has such big shoes to fill, even when what he's putting himself down about is not directly related. He has a deep inferiority complex linked back to the Highblood and the fact that he himself is the scion to the cult, something he didn't ask for and isn't sure how to do well at.

He also is in general uncertain of the cult and its teachings. Though he too has the ability to predict death, Karkat's critical eye has alerted him to the fact that much of what the cult does it does to keep down lowbloods. As mentioned in his history, he hates the idea that he might in fact simply be a pawn in the Empress's game, and so his 'faith' in the cult he is supposed to one day lead often fades in and out depending on his mood.

That isn't to say Sollux isn't a highblood and, like most highbloods, he's fairly hemoist. He does believe that lowbloods are inferior to highbloods and he does treat them badly because of it, though never to the level of Vriska, who usually just treats them as playthings. In a way he has pity for them, because he realizes they've got the very short end of the stick, and his talks with Feferi and Karkat about alternatives have wormed their way into the back of his mind (again, feeding into his uncertainty about the truth of the Highblood's word). Still, if he were to come across a lowblood on the street chances are he'd be spewing hemoist slurs and aggressive language left and right.

There's also his other power, his vision twofold which allows him to see a troll's fears and make them see them as well. Sollux doesn't like using this ability unless he has to, because he believes that maturity includes restraint. He sees nothing inherently wrong with the act of using his powers, however, merely using them indiscriminately. If he had a good reason, he would use them without hesitation.

In terms of differences and similarities to canon Sollux, this Sollux is slightly more together and often calmer unless provoked or particularly frustrated (it helps that he has a good moirail). Unlike canon Sollux he doesn't have the psionics to make him unstable, and unlike canon Sollux, he doesn't have the guilt of killing Aradia on his conscience so he has inherently less issues with his powers over all.

Though he still believes that some blood hues are better than others, this goes almost in the opposite way from canon: in canon, he's convinced that his hue is the absolute worst and that being a lowblood is awful and that his blood is the reason his life is so unhappy (partially true, what with his powers). In this swap he is still hemoist and still believes some bloods are better than others, but this time it works in his favor, giving him power that he can wield and a whole host of people he is allowed to take his anger out on simply because they're of lower hue than him and he's the descendent of the Highblood.

Abilities:

In canon, Sollux is very powerful. He has very advanced psionic powers which he can use as a power blast as well as telekinesis, vision twofold which allows him to see the present and the future, and an ability to hear the voices of the imminently deceased and make predictions about the future accordingly.

This indigo version of Sollux is no different in terms of power, though the type he wields is slightly different. As a highblood, he has no telekinetic ability, since this is usually connected with blood of a lower hue. However, indigos in canon display their own sort of mental power, referred to as 'Chucklevoodoo' by the canon indigo, which is implied to be strongly linked to fear. This is what Sollux's vision twofold becomes in this AU. He can look into a person and see their deepest fears with one eye, and with the other make the person see those fears as well, effectively trapping them in a shadow hell for as long as he keeps it up. For instance, a person is afraid of spiders. Sollux would make them see spiders crawling all over their body. He wouldn't actually be able to manifest these in the physical plane or make real spiders, but one of the best things about fears is even though they're intangible they can still be crippling.

He can also still sense death, though it's not the point of hearing the voices of the dead (which is implied to be more of a lowblood ability), more of a general notion that someone (sometimes someone specific) is going to die. Given that death is a very common fear that almost everyone has, it makes sense that it would be something he would always have a general sense of even when not purposefully using his vision twofold, even though this ability is not strictly a subset of that (it's very vague in canon, bluh).

Sample Entry: Musebox!