cordyceps

computationalsphinx , mistytpednaem , lilaclegionnaire , cleverthylacine : who wants to talk HOMESTUCK? I'm in desperate need of some nice, thoughtful homestuck theorizing and discussion that's isolated from tumblr culture.

dragonspyre17  : Is it just me, or does Unwound Future have more in common with the prequel games at times than with the first two games?

computationalsphinx , cunief0rm : can we please just...talk about thing. story ideas, our favorite japanese animes, whatever the shit. We can't all be on FB at the same time and tumblr is a shit medium for private-y text talkin

So, the first thing one needs to do when trying to make sense of the fascinating but haphazard worldbuilding regarding troll biology is throw away the notion that the hemospectrum correlates to the human concept of race. The concept of "race" is a largely arbitrary cultural construct that varies vastly across the globe, and doesn't even meaningfully exist at all for some societies, and the phenotype features often considered to be markers of one's "race" are part of a vast continuum with lots of fuzzy borders and grey areas.

The hemospectrum, on the other hand, is a fixed set of discrete biological morphs, each with its own special biological properties. Hussie has stated in the past that there are exactly twelve blood colors in the hemospectrum, excluding mutations, and the Beforans' use of acronyms to refer to different segments of the Hemospectrum (BUOYs, OJAs, CIPs, and Royal-Vs) appears to confirm this. A troll's blood color has a meaningful affect on their lifespan, their body temperature, and whether or not they have psychic abilities.

Perhaps a better model for blood polymorphism in trolls is something along the lines of throat coloration in side-blotched lizards:

Throat color in the side-blotched lizard is controlled by genes at a single "locus" or position on a chromosome. The chromosomes come in pairs, and the particular combination of two "alleles" or versions of the throat-color gene determines an individual's color pattern.
The remarkable thing about the color morphs of side-blotched lizards is that an enormous range of behavioral, physiological, and life-history traits are correlated with throat color. Genes for different traits can be linked physically if they occur close together on a chromosome, but according to Sinervo, throat color is linked to far more traits than could possibly be physically linked on the same chromosome.

A mere handful of alleles could be responsible for the 12 blood morphs found in trolls, with a mixture of linked genes, epigenetics, and stabilizing selection solidifying the other traits associated with each morph.
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Canon Information and What We Can Extrapolate from It

I used Read MSPA's extended MSPA search to look through statements made in the Act 6 Intermission 3 interactive games, as well as through the regular text portions of the comic. 1.  Most of the blood colors are approximately 10-20 mspaint hue units apart. However, there is a HUUUUGE gap between Olive and Jade. Interestingly, all of the blood colors under Jade are warm-toned and (excluding Maroon) contain some yellow, while all the blood colors above Olive are cool-toned and contain some blue. I propose a phylogenetic split here, essentially dividing the hemospectrum into two more manageable chunks.
2.  Now that we've created that split, there's an interesting symmetry going on with the cool-blooded castes.

1. The extreme ends of the upper hemospectrum, Jade and Fuchsia, have a lot in common: they're rare, almost always female, and have the least bluish tint to them.
2. The three middle castes, referred to by Porrim as the "CIPs", are all disproportionately male, and are the most bluish castes on the hemospectrum. The two castes on opposite ends of the most blue caste both tend to be psychic (manipul8ion and chucklevoodos), even though indigoblood themselves are not.
3. Teals and Violets appear to express no particular gender bias or powers.

3.  Contrasting with the huge Olive/Jade gap, Olive and Lime are extremely close together, despite (based on what little we know about limebloods) exhibiting vastly properties. I think it's likely that Lime is Olive + a modifying gene that only affects greenbloods, or vice-versa.
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BLUE EXPRESSION LOCII (Sex-Linked Recessive)

Dilute Blue Locus
X^D+: the "wildtype" allele.
X^d: the "dilute" allele reduces the amount of blue pigment a troll produces, causing genetically teal trolls to be phenotypically jade green and genetically violet trolls to be phenotypically fuchsia. It is, with rare exceptions, only expressed in female trolls. It is recessive to the wildtype allele. As a result, the number of phenotypically Jade trolls is quite low compared to the number of tealbloods. In seadwellers, this allele's expression is epigenetically suppressed by the presence of two or more other fuchsiablood's pheromones.  The Condesce uses artificial means to spread her pheromones throughout the empire, in order to suppress the formation of multiple heiresses.

Noble Locus (Hypercyanism A)
X^N+: The "wildtype" allele.
Xⁿ: The "noble" allele. A teal-based troll expressing this gene will have cobalt/cerulean blood, and a violet-based troll expressing this gene will have  purple blood. Due to gene linkage, this trait is often associated with the mental reading and manipulation variety of psychic powers.

Cobalt Locus (Hypercyanism B)
X^C+: The "wildtype" allele.
X^c: The "noble" allele. A teal-based troll expressing this gene will have cobalt/cerulean blood. Theoretically, a violet-based troll expressing this gene would have  purple blood, but this gene is very rarely found among purplebloods.

A male troll whose X chromosome has both Xⁿ and X^c will have Indigo blood, as will a female troll who is homozygous for both those alleles.

A female troll who is homozygous for one of the hypercyanism alleles but heterozygous on the other locus will be cerulean or purple instead of indigo.

A female troll who is homozygous for both Matri and either Noble or Cobalt will have teal or violet blood;

a female troll who is homozygous for all three recessive traits will be cerulean or purple blooded.

Non of these genes affect the blood pigmentation of BUOYS or olivebloods.

Reading Wizardy Herbert and the Mobius Slipknot on pastebin...

• Mobius Slipknot seems to be heavily influenced by AURYN?
• "The same Bandicoot" concept seen in Homestuck - two individuals based on the same template, which then diverge - also shows up in Wizardy Herbert, as a property of the Mobius Slipknot - as long as one has multiple copies of the same text, one can pull multiple copies of the same character into the real world. This appears to explain the older version of himself that Herbert saw on his Seinfeld tapes, and how Grant Anonama and Slinus Marlevort can apparently be the same person and not be the same person at the same time.
• Existential angst represented through amnesia - the trio of kids (Herbert, Beatrix, Russet) cannot remember large chunks of their pasts, or why they exist, as a consequence of the Mobius Slipknot's use
• The Wizardy Herbert excerpt written by Roxy makes much more sense in the context of the original novel than it does as allegorial foreshadowing for homestuck. Examning it in the Novel's context, it appears as though the characters have re-entered the shitty "Wizardy Herbert" story that was written by Herbert's brother-by-adoption, Louis Eggwood. Obviously Hussie had to change a few details to indicate a female author instead of a male one for the homestuck version, but nonetheless that is what happen.
• General Metafiction Bullshit
• Fort Pizzahut