troll names

will admit "homestuck is presented as a game and that game has a character limit" is a funny ass explanation but i take 6/6 naming structure as a rule*. this is based on the following:

sheemajay asked:
Do all the ancestors have names? Like actual names other than titles? Like Mindfang she had a name. If it’s not a spoiler would you mind telling us?

They all have names.

But it seems culturally that trolls graduate to formal 8 letter titles which supercede their given names.

Now you want to know how they’re given names?

Simple. The lusus gurgles some incomprehensible monster noise, and the closest pair of 6 letter words matching the sound is the name.

TROLLFAX [sic(k)]

- hussie via tumblr QnA, december 2011

like i said many of these are built from questionable sources. for my trollian purposes, i pretty much take this entire statement as fact - young trolls are given names interpreted from their custodian's noises, then later gain titles which supercede [sic] given names.

sometimes i describe it as the first sound they hear from their lusus but that makes very little sense with my vague idea of how troll early development work, so for something resembling realism and logic, i'd instead say that a lusus will come to use one noise (vocal normally, but some use other methods such as stomps or clicks) to call or refer to their charge. these can be pretty individualized, some lusii will conciously name their charges, others use general instructional vocalizations. thus, troll given names are onomatopoeia, culturally smushed or elogated to fit into two sets of 6 characters - both often their lusii's frequent commands.

to lay out an example, say a young troll has a woopecker-like lusus. this lusus calls for the troll with a "churr" sound, and warns it away from dangerous activities with a "pik" sound. this troll gets into a lot of trouble, or maybe has kind of a hardass custodian, so it comes to call itself Churru Pikpik (Churru Pikpik). the fun thing about this means you can sort of reverse-engineer what lusus sounds like from its troll's name. or, if you know enough about a type of lusus to know that this species uses "pik" as a warning "fuckin get your hands out of there kid" sound, you might get an idea of what that troll was like at a young age. of course more self-aware lusii may use this to try and imply their kid wasn't a little shit by making their name something equivalent to "wow greatjob" and more verbose lusii may just name their kids like. lakynn. but the animalistic result is way more common.

the other fun thing is that, because there are common lusus species, this means there are actually common names on alternia, and those do include Tomman, Dickus, and Harriy

~I've seen nary a Tomman, Dickus or Harriy round these parts who might fit the bill~

- vikare ratite, friendsim vol. 4 'of wright and wronged'

it's okay for me to interpret translated idioms in weird literal ways bc i think they're funny.

related to where i speak about troll gender assignment, that does mean verrryy specific names have some level of gender association. but a troll seeking to change their name is probably looking less for a distance from a gendered connotation and more from their lusus or a previous lifestyle.

*there are trolls with names that do not fit a 6/6 style, like troll will smith. these will in the grand majority of cases be affected, not given. even self-given names will still normally follow a 6/6 structure, as any non-6/6 structure immediately stands out as affected. compare to something like 2 Chainz - something someone is for sure professionally called but not really something you'd expect a baby to be named. nobody really thinks "troll will smith" was his given name, it's immediately recognizable as an affected stage name.

horns

horns are not a part of the troll internal skeletal structure - they're actually modified from antennae. they're still technically a sensory organ focusing on touch, which is much more noticable in grubs. grub horns are slightly more flexible (they do dry and harden if removed) and function like whiskers in the dark, narrow caverns grubs often trial in. adult trolls generally have hardened horns, with a slightly ribbed texture. their sensory purpose is weakened, though they are still sensitive to touch and extremely painful to damage. it'd be an exagerration to say that in mature trolls they serve as a mating display, but general beauty standards do ascribe attractiveness to large horns, in part because of their association with long-livedness.

but yeah, not a part of the skull, but sometimes they're depicted as so ficticiously in the same manner halloween decorations give cat skulls ears to make them recognizable as cats.

(plan to insert more examples + sources - theres some in collide and there are some in lynera's room but i'd like to find more - depictions of them as part of the skull or not vary)