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deathmaiden) wrote2012-01-16 05:50 am
singularity app [Done]
Your Nickname: Marion
OOC Journal:
unificationUnder 18? No
Email/IM: Private. If needed I'll gladly give it to a mod in private.
Characters Played at Singularity: N/A
Character Information
Name: The Handmaid*
Name of Canon: Homestuck
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Canon
Reference:
The Source Canon
Homestuck Condescended Summary
The Ancestors (Scroll down to "The Handmaid")
Canon Point: En route to landing Her Imperious Condescension's battleship and fighting her to the death, just as the universe nears its end before The Critical Moment (aka End of Act 5)
*- The Handmaid is regarded as her title and not her name, but at the same time it is highly likely she has no actual name ever given to her.
Setting:
The series Homestuck is one divided into two universes; a human universe and an alien universe home to a race known as trolls. The two universes are playing the game Sburb (or Sgrub in the troll universe), described as an interactive sims application to the world. Only instead of one person playing, it is normally played by a group of people. Each person playing is assigned a server player, who is also playing the game with them, to manipulate their world by building and creating and so on. However while the game seems sweet and innocent enough, as it just appears like a multiplayer sim game in real life, it has far more sinister undertones. Activating the game and starting up the system also activates the apocalypse and dooms the world playing it to destruction. Within under an hour of playing the first sign of this doom is already apparent, as meteors begin to fall from the sky and aim themselves for the homes of the players.
It is then later revealed that the goal of the game is to create a new universe entirely, completely different from the one playing the game. This not only goes as far as new planets in this universe, but even different species alien to the players. The narration describes this goal as “the ultimate purpose” and that all universes with intelligent life are fated to play this game at some point, with a group of children foretold to become heroes and usher in this new universe together if successful. There are game constructs, such as a universe called Incipisphere (also referred to as The Medium) that the players abscond into to avoid being destroyed by the falling meteors, and moon planets called Prospit and Derse, where the players of Sburb wake up in when they are dreaming. The two moon planets are in the midst of a war akin to chess on a central planet in The Medium called Skaia, with Prospit representing white and Derse representing black, locked in a stalemate until all the players enter The Medium. White is ultimately doomed to lose and, after their defeat, the Black King will begin to release a set of meteors which fall upon the planet Skaia. Skaia will then automatically try to defend the planet by creating defensive teleport gates, which unfortunately rain the meteors onto the home planet of the Sburb players. The players then fight the Black King and, if victorious, the game is won and the new universe is created. Homestuck begins with John Egbert, a boy who will play this game on his thirteenth birthday with his friends.
…But, let’s get away from that for a while and talk about what came before John Egbert began playing the game with his three friends. As stated, Sburb is a game where the end goal is to create a new universe. Naturally this means John’s universe (aka the human universe and modern day Earth) was created before by a different set of players, who achieved the ultimate purpose and created the universe John lives in. That is the universe of the trolls, the dominant species of life living on a planet called Alternia, and the place Handmaid originates from.
Trolls are more human looking than not, with the exception of all trolls having grey skin, variously shaped candy-corn colored horns and twelve different shades of blood depending on their genetics. Their planet Alternia, and the troll culture, on the other hand is nothing like Earth. For starters, their calendar system is different. One year, also known as a "sweep", in Alternia is the equivalent of two earth years. So in the series, the trolls are six sweeps old and that translates to roughly 12-13 years old in human years. That's just the beginning of their oddness! Trolls are a species that has a cultural belief in the process of natural selection. That the weak will die and the strong will survive. They are also a culture with a strange definition of love and rituals of procreation. Instead of one way of being in love with someone, they have four ways. A love defined much like human love (matesprit), a love based on pacification and watchful diligence to make sure one or the other does not become too violent (moirallegiance), a love based on rivalry and mutual hatred (kismesis) and a romance based on mediation with a third party, who will help the two involved console any obstacles and differences that may come to be (auspistice). If two trolls in a romance are visited by a battle drone, they are required to deposit their fluids into a single bucket. That bucket is then taken to the Mother Grub, a creature who bears all the trolls in her body and is given special handling by a single troll assigned to take care of her for life. When trolls are hatched from an egg sack within the Mother Grub, they are left to fend for themselves within the caves the mother dwells in and make it to land.
If they survive, they will be given an animal custodian called a lusus to raise them and given the means to create a home for themselves. However, that is only the beginning of their struggles. The culture strongly encourages trolls to test each other physically and mentally, and has no quarrels with any fights ending in the death of one or multiple trolls, particularly if the troll initiating the attack is considered to be a “high blood”. Going back to the different shades of blood, the culture has a hierarchy in place where one’s social and economic status is dependent on their blood color. The highest class are the sea-dwelling trolls ruling Alternia, followed by the indigo colored land trolls that work for them, the noble class blue bloods, the middle class green bloods and the lower class rust bloods. Depending on what class a troll is put into, they will either live a life of luxury or have a simple home to survive in, with the exception of a special jade blooded troll that lives with the Mother Grub. Naturally this sort of hierarchy is very unfair when one knows of troll biology. That the lowbloods are the majority in population compared to the higher bloods, despite their lower life span, while highbloods have significantly lower numbers and a longer lifespan. Thus the planet is no stranger to many rebellions against the royals of the planet, though many of them being quickly squashed and things going back to the way they were quickly. Of the twelve shades, Handmaid herself is the lowest on the spectrum as a dark red rust blood. If she lived a regular life on Alternia, Handmaid would have been put into the lowest class and given only what was needed for her to sustain life if she survived the trials within the caverns. But she was snatched away by the First Guardian of Alternia, Doc Scratch, who is charged with protecting the planet until the game of Sgrub begins.
There is also a belief that every troll has an “ancestor” that they are linked to. An ancestor is simply defined in the comic as someone who is the closest linked to a troll genetically. As trolls all originate from the same Mother Grub and are hatched hundreds at once, a troll discovering their ancestor is a very big deal for them, as they can be akin to their closest biological family member. Descendants share the same blood color and assigned symbol as their ancestors, and can grow up to look almost exactly like them. Handmaid is one of these ancestors and her descendant is Aradia Megido, one of the twelve trolls who plays Sgrub and creates the human universe. And, as seen in comic, Handmaid was a complete identical twin to Aradia when she (Handmaid) was a young child appearance wise.
On a final note going back to Sburb/Sgrub for a moment – this game is hard. Naturally a game that causes the apocalypse and attempts to create a new universe is. It’s so hard that the game itself has a failsafe called “The Scratch” installed within The Medium, in case the players mess up or are unable to defeat the game. This failsafe is activated through a mechanism and how it appears varies with each game, but it all ultimately serves one purpose: a hard reset. Think of it as playing a game. If you mess up in the game, or decide to start all over for some reason, you have the option of deleting your save file and restarting from the very beginning. That is what this failsafe mechanism basically does, should the players decide to activate it. As implied by the metaphor, if activated it means that the world and universe itself is completely erased and then starts anew afterward. It’s still the same universe and world, with the same species and all that, but only it’s begun all over again. Memories are erased, including those of the players, and a second chance to win the game is given as a result.
So why note this? Mainly because the troll universe was one of the many sessions implied to have activated this mechanism and trigger the hard reset. When the reset is done, the original players swap places with their biological ancestors. So imagine you and your grandfather switched places completely in all existence. That you took the place of your grandfather and your grandfather is now your grandchild. That is basically what happens when the mechanism is activated and the universe goes under the hard reset. The implications of this are very stark when it comes specifically to the ancestors of the twelve trolls who play Sgrub. Those ancestors, which Handmaid is one of, were once their descendants in another life and have switched places with them and bear no memories of Sgrub or what they did. So, in other words, Handmaid is essentially a version of Aradia Megido that lived a different life than her descendant due to the scratch.
Okay that was a lot so let me give you a nutshell:
- Homestuck is about a bunch of human kids playing this game called Sburb that ends their planet, where the end goal is to create a new universe.
- Before the humans even existed, a universe home to a species of troll aliens played the game first. This is the planet Handmaid comes from. Trolls are aliens with grey skin and candy-corn colored horns and are violent creatures. They have twelve different shades of blood and their entire way of life is dictated based on what color they were born with.
- The trolls also played the game to create the human universe when they won, but Handmaid herself was not part of this game herself. But, in the previous universe before the reset, Handmaid was one of the twelve players and had her memories of that period of time wiped out.
Personality:(As a note much of this is extrapolative, given Handmaid is a minor character in her series)
Before talking about Handmaid’s personality and who she truly is, first I want to focus on the misconceptions formed through her own canon. Throughout troll culture, since an unspecified point of early history, Handmaid has been painted as a Demoness who brings suffering wherever she appears and an emissary for Death. A woman who has appeared in many eras of Alternian history, haunting and sometimes murdering trolls, made into a mythical scapegoat for the intense bigotry and warlike state the culture is in. She is much like the archetype witch character you would see in a fairytale. A beautiful and elegant woman, who lures unsuspecting trolls into a false sense of security with her voluptuous appearance and hollow voice, then ends their life without hesitation using her magical powers. She is a mythological character who is paired together with the figure of Death, often portrayed a skull-headed man with a hypnotic stare akin to the human concept of Death (it turns out that this figure is Lord English, who Handmaid works as a slave for), yet is stated in canon to be even more feared than him. And naturally, as she is stated to be a large part of the reason trolls have such an intense focus on blood class, it easy to let her actions speak for her and write her as a Demoness. A servant for death, revered and feared by children and adults alike. Thus the misconception would be that she is a force of evil to be reckoned with, unforgiving and without any sympathy for those she curses, due to her reoccurrence in history and affiliation with death and doom.
Of course, that is naturally a misconception on some level if one understands her history.
If one were to actually speak with Handmaid, they would quickly see a reserved troll who doesn’t try to bring much attention on herself. Her voice is empty and even, never betraying any real emotion, and her words short and almost robotic in precision. She never says more than what needs to be said and often doesn’t think before she speaks, which can lead to her coming off as very blunt and discourteous. That isn’t to say she is always insulting others, but she has trained herself to act in a manner that would leave the other person with no desire to affiliate with her. It’s her way of assuring that no one will get close to her and possibly have to face consequences of knowing her, as her role of Lord English’s Handmaid is a very demanding one that allows her little freedoms. Making friends, or even acquaintances for that matter, is not permitted. While she does have a more elegant appearance than most trolls in blood caste should, her demeanor is reclusive and less imposing than other adult trolls at first glance. She won’t actively seek out fights and, while she won’t always be friendly off the bat, doesn’t have any desire to make enemies that she doesn’t need to make. All she wants to do is blend with a crowd. No one would likely guess that she is actually a catalyst for suffering and despair, trained for her role since childhood and constantly told that she would spread hatred and oppression through her own race.
The manner she acts in as an adult is the complete opposite from how she was as a child. As a young troll, Handmaid was rebellious and disobedient, as implied by her frequent physical fights with her guardian Doc Scratch. She did not bend to authority and yearned to escape her imprisonment, which she has been kept under since she arrived to the Green Moon as a grub. While only one spat between her and Doc Scratch was seen, he implies that she has disobeyed him and caused havoc many times before. It is equally implied that she has also attempted suicide multiple times, which results with him beating her with a broom until she is unable to do so. She was rude, uncaring for any consequences that came about from her actions and was a little monster so to speak. However, that was when she was young. After having a near chance of escaping her fate as a child and failing, only to run into the monster that is Lord English before she could get away, much of her rebellious spirit began to wane over time. While she could still be as rude and crass she was back as a child, she became more closed off emotionally and didn’t attempt to disobey her master anymore. She has closed off her heart and adapted a very fatalistic idea of existence. That everything that she was causing was inevitable and that fighting fate would be a waste of energy, so accepting would be easier and lead to the death she desires at some point or another.
Alongside this, Handmaid is also not a proper troll in the sense of her upbringing. She was never raised by a lusus like other trolls and never even lived on Alternia while growing up. It isn’t hard to believe that she was taught much about Alternia and the history and culture of the troll race, as part of the training Doc Scratch described putting her through until she met Lord English. But, just knowing about something doesn’t mean you can fully understand it. Everything she ever knew about Alternia before arriving for the first time was taught through lessons and history books, but never actually experienced in person. So things that are big things in the culture, like the multi-romance, the colorful language or the blood caste, were lost on her as far as far actually being involved in that process. It was only after she came to Alternia and caused much chaos on the planet that she fully came to understand the troll culture. At the same time she still doesn’t see much point in the blood bias or their bigotry, and wouldn’t be fazed by an insult like “lowblood” because she can’t wrap her mind around why it’s so terrible to have red blood in troll culture.
So falling back on her history, it's easy to see Handmaid as a very rigid and unabashed troll in the way she acts. In the end, she's more like a lost child who has never had a home or anyone to care for her. While trolls are warlike and their culture is based on bigotry, they still have a very large definition of love and divide it up into four aspects even. Caring about those in your blood caste and sticking together is a huge deal for such a tribal society. Handmaid has never belonged into anything like that. Her entire life was full of strict oppression and living in a place where no one cared for her as a troll, only as a weapon and a "handmaiden". She never received the love of a lusus, never was allowed to associate with anyone outside Lord English and possibly Doc Scratch, and was constantly reminded that her reason for existing was to make others suffer. Her childhood was loveless and psychologically abusive, her adulthood was filled with murdering others and making the planet a miserable place to live on and it's no wonder that she wants to die more than anything. To her it's the only way to finally rest and give herself relief, along with paying for the sins she has committed in her long life.
In a way, Handmaid’s development is very much the opposite of Aradia Megido’s. Aradia lived, died, came back and intends to stay alive. Handmaid lives, but is held back from a death she yearns to earn her chance to die by doing what she is told. Handmaid is alive and does not intend to stay that way, a phrase which mirrors Aradia’s statement in the series that she is alive and intends to stay alive. Handmaid in adulthood is much like the ghosts that are known to haunt Alternia, empty and without any capacity for understanding basic emotions. When Aradia Megido was going through existence as a ghost before ascending, it is not out there to compare her own fatalistic attitudes at the time to be akin to Handmaid's constant pessimism and belief that fate cannot be changed or fought. As such, her actions are done with the express purpose of appeasing Lord English and doing what she must to reach the end of her timeline, so that she may go to fight Her Imperious Condescension and die at last. While she has not reached this point in where I want to take her from, it is important to note that she has always known that Condesce will kill her. Doc Scratch said it would be her very last act of life.
But it is made clear that Handmaid doesn’t just land in front of the other and allows herself to be culled. She actually fights to the empress to the bitter end, despite knowing the ultimate outcome before the battle begins. It is not likely that Handmaid had a change of heart and decided to live. Rather she did it for two reasons. One, because it was the first time she felt like she had a choice in the matter. Handmaid in adulthood followed orders, did want she had to do and didn't question what she was doing. All for the sake of getting to the end point she wanted, she did what she had to do whether she wanted to or not. Fighting Condesce was not something she had to do, because the high-blooded troll likely would have culled her regardless, so fighting her was solely of Handmaid's free will. The second reason is to show Condesce firsthand what she in for, as she would only be Handmaid's appointed replacement upon the latter's death. From going to being a royal tyrant, who had an easy life thanks to the merciless land Handmaid helped to craft with Lord English and Doc Scratch, to being the empress of a nearly extinct race and now serving under the ruthless monster who both gave the troll her wealth and took it away. While Handmaid was forced to do what she did, Condesce never was and enjoyed being an oppressive tyrant. To Handmaid, she is an existence that is just as bad as she is. Being doomed to serve Lord English is a fitting karmic sentence in Handmaid's eyes, which is why she willingly fights and gives Condesce a look at what is to come under the employment of Death itself.
Limitations: Naturally the time control portion will have to go for game purposes, so no travelling forward through time or backward through time. And, as seen in the comic, she can only use her majyyks when channeling them through a pair of wands. Though using the majyyks as a set of spells that can physical hurt someone would still be kept, albeit its power greatly reduced.
Immortality: As she has been under Lord English’s curse of immortality, Handmaid is incapable of dying and any feelings of pain may very well be heavily reduced as well. She is also unable to age past her current appearance, despite being alive for millions of years. It can be inferred that she only died in battle with Imperious Condescension because Lord English wanted to test if the empress would be a suitable replacement through a fight to the death and as a “reward” for all of Handmaid’s diligent work. The curse is also likely the reason her eyes rapidly blink when extensively using her power, as she was not seen with them as a six year old before the curse was placed.
Limitations: Obviously nixing the incapability to die for game purposes, but if possible I’d like her to keep the inability to feel pain to some degree. She’ll be able to feel pained under normally extreme circumstances, like getting a hole in her chest for example, but not for smaller things like being cut or bruised.
Psychics: As she a lowblooded troll she has a greater potency for developing telekinetic skills like Aradia’s. However, because she was raised under Doc Scratch and not in a normal troll society, her skills in this area are not nearly as trained or well rounded, as he focused more on her majyyk training than natural psychic ability. In one case she was able to psychically flip an electric switch by snapping her finger, so the natural talent is there and could lend to her greater power in clockwork majyyks.
Limitations: Because of her low ability to use psychic powers already, it will only be limited to lifting or moving small objects and flying. Other than that it won’t be able to develop within the station, as part of a power cap.
Flight: She is capable of flying when using her psychics.Limitations: She won't be able to fly for long periods of time and not very high either.
WEAKNESSES:
Lifespan: Handmaid's lifespan is both a huge advantage and huge disadvantage at the same time. The advantage is that she gets to live for as long as Lord English wants her to. This turns out to be hundreds of sweeps, which is far beyond the average life expectancy of a lowblooded troll (Doc Scratch states about 10-14 sweeps is usually how long they live). However, because she essentially immortal and cannot die unless he allows her, she takes much of this for granted. She knows she can't die and that knowledge gives her a very reckless attitude toward her methods and the way she conducts herself. Getting away with more is easier because she just can't suffer any of the consequences that she wants.
Physical Strength: Or lack of it. As Handmaid has always been trained in majyyks and has an unnatural extension on her lifespan, she appears thinner and weaker than the average troll would be. That isn't to say she has no strength, as she was throwing chairs with one arm and even leaping from one high building to another at quick speeds as a child, but trolls are supposed to be incredibly strong physically given the warlike culture. Handmaid relies more on her powers than not, so she is not especially gifted in this area.
Her Horns: These things are so damn wide how does she even walk through doors with them???
As far as clothes go, she has only the best quality that a servant of Lord English is entitled to. She wears a black qipao with a dark green floral pattern, the left side of the dress extending down past her feet, which bears her sign on a tiny stitch on the right side of the neck collar.
For reference here is a animated version and a non-animated version of her intro panel. The animated one involves her eyes flashing with different colors rapidly and may cause a slight headache (at least for me it does), so the non-animated version is there in case.
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?
If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?
N/A
Samples
Log Sample:
"Welcome to Sacrosanct. Please watch your step."
Her eyes slowly scanned the surroundings and concluded one thing. A junkyard. Was she inside the garbage disposal of Condesce's ship instead of outside of it? The troll frowned, still lying in the midst of the junk and unfazed by the prickly feeling of something sharp scratching up against her arm. No way could she have casted her majyyks wrong. For such a special moment in her life, the final moment in her life, she made sure not to screw up. Travelling through the time stream was as simple as lifting up a wand for her now. To make an error in such a critical time is--
Her thoughts are quickly stopped by the sound of something coming out of it's place amidst the junk and starting to tumble its way toward her. She immediately acts on instinct and quickly flings up her right arm and focuses her mind. The junk stops a foot away from her face, as it begins to emit a soft white glow of psychic energy, only to be flung by her arm toward the far left of her body. Close one. Don't need any more obstacles in her way. She has an empress to be killed by and none of that stuff would have helped her.
"Ok. This is ok."
She mutters quietly and slowly attempts to push herself up by her arms. Immediately she feels an acute pain in the larger portion of her head and easily figures out it was her damn horns. These things are always in the way, but wow did crashing in this pit not help that. And to make matters worse? As she tries to get up and get out of this heap, she quickly takes note that her horns are holding her head back from picking up fully.
Oh please tell her they were not stuck.
"..."
She grits her teeth. They were stuck.
"No. This isn't ok!"
She shouts particularly at no one, though imagines that a certain cueball headed guardian was in sights. If he was doing this to mock her, it would not be a shock, but even she did not think that he would do something so impolite as this. She isn't supposed to be in a junkyard dump, she is supposed to be going off to die. These obstacles were not wanted and it was not ok to shove them at her.
Her hands quickly move around until she finds what she is looking for, a white stick that she can easily grasp in her left hand. It won't be a lot, but it should be enough. Handmaid slowly closes her eyes and tries to even her breathing, slowly calming herself down from her burst of anger. It takes a minute before she feels truly at an empty peace, before lifting the wand. In an instance the wand burst into colored strobe light, and begins to cover her entire arm. In the next instance, the trash holding back Handmaid's horns is demolished into pieces and the troll quickly stands up, biting back any added pain from her fall.
...
"Hm," she hummed boredly, turning around to admire her work. That was...a lot less than she expected. The junk was destroyed, but not completely obliterated as per usual. Her eyes turned to the wand and she rolled her aching shoulders. Must have been the use of only one wand. Now to find the other wand and fight that bitch. ...No wait, witch. But what was the difference really?
Network Sample:
0k
l00k it is nice that y0u th0ught i was imp0rtant en0ugh t0 be br0ught here
really nice
but i really have t0 g0 and fight this huge witch
big hair and h0rns and will pr0bably hate me 0n first sight
and en0ugh hate t0 want t0 kill me
i have been l00king f0rward t0 meeting her since
well
f0rever at this p0int
s0 it is very imp0rtant that i g0 d0 that
n0rmally i w0uld be 0k with distracti0ns but this is a very imp0rtant battle f0r me
i want t0 get it 0ver with s00ner than later
tell y0u what
after i fight her y0u can have me
at that p0int it will n0t matter s0 please g0 ahead and have my b0dy
maybe y0u can have a party
0_0
but 0nly after i fight her 0k