(They clearly can't literally read the minds of all trolls all the time, but the fear that they MIGHT be reading your mind at the moment would be enough to keep most trolls in line.)
NEW TROLLS NEW TROLLS Spoiler With hidden sigils. Oooh. And yes, that one with the top-hat-looking silhouette IS a subjug ringmaster in a top hat! Both highbloods and both kind of evil-looking so I'm guessing antagonists. And... is that facepaint or does Ardata have an extra eye on her cheek? Is that a risky mutation or is it like Vriska's vision eightfold and considered okay?
http://whatpumpkin.tumblr.com/post/170351519435/whatpumpkin-troll-call-curious-about-new Spoiler xoloto?
Spoiler: I think that Ardata actually has a third eye, although it remains to be seen whether that's a risky mutation or fine like Vriska's, and also whether it grants her anything 'extra' like Vriska's--but given the reference to Vriska in her description....inclined to think it at least probably does something special, her mutation, assuming it is a real third eye. also, it's interesting that Marvus's background is appropriate color for a purpleblood, but his curtain covering his sign and some of his accents are the color of a violetblood. that said, if one of them is lying about their blood color, I'm not sure why you'd bother pretending to be purple if you were really violet--but given that he's using different shades of purple, I'd be inclined to suspect Marvus was the one lying about blood color, and I'd be inclined to suspect he's not actually ANY shade of purple....maybe a lower shade, somehow related to the rebellion? maybe by being the ringmaster, he escapes having to use anything like chucklevoodoos and can just manage to fool those around him. or maybe he has some sort of psychic ability that allows him to prevent others seeing things he doesn't want them to see in his mind, or something...I don't know, I'm just really interested in the idea of a low or midblood rebel having successfully infiltrated highblood society and pretending to be a purpleblood. or maybe the answer is more obvious and he's actually violet, or he is really purple but just has a violet moirail, or he's purple and just happens to enjoy wearing other shades of purple, which violet technically is, and it's just that the curtain covering his and Ardata's signs are things they're wearing (because her sign cover is black and she is wearing a black cape).
Spoiler I don't think a violet could pretend to be a landdweller very well, wouldn't it be obvious where they hid or hacked off their fins? Also a quick search turns up "xōlōtōn", which is Nahuatl for "servant", so yes, definitely thinking he's a lower-blood. Ooh, just thinking is the "shitshow" he runs actually the rebellion and he's another Tetrarch?! And yes, I'm thinking that's a real eye, and whether it does anything probably relates to whether she is really a cerulean.
Spoiler one person was like "his hair is so fluffy though" but I'm HONESTLY leaning so heavily towards 'he's a lowblood or midblood pretending' because like--if he was violet, why would he wear violet? wouldn't that be just a tiny bit obvious? and also, you can't....convince me that he would be able to hid his fins under his hair forever. someone would get suspicious with that combo at some point, I think. also like. if his name is related to a word that means 'servant'. OH MAN PLEASE LET HIM BE A SECRET REBEL LOWBLOOD? god that's so cool. kinda feeling a little 'props to them for not putting it in the Obvious Choice Spot on her forehead', although if it is a real third eye I'm thinking she probably is cerulean or some other highblood color because....I do feel a bit like Alternia might not be super lenient about a lowblood with a third eye, especially if it did anything special. on the other hand, they'd probably give a pass to a highblood with a third eye--even if it didn't do anything, it's not like it's harming them, so who cares. but if it was a lowblood, well....lowbloods, imo, are less rare, more likely to be culled for having any mutation that seems abnormal, and a third eye is....I mean it's not exactly a huge threat to the hemospectrum, but also, it's not exactly a thing that's Clearly Harmless or Clearly Useful To The Empire, unlike Sollux's psionics. it's a question mark. and after the Summoner, I feel like they might not be that chill with question mark mutations where lowbloods are concerned.... ....but also what if she's not cerulean but she was smuggled out by a jadeblood or something and now pretends to be cerulean hi I have an eternal theory about jade Sufferists trying to help grubs that would be culled when they can--like they just hide the grub, try and help it survive, and then the young troll fakes its way through society, or something.
There seems to be some conflation with how Alternia is run as an extension of the empire and how Alternia is run under an individual heiress. Trizza has control of the drones when Feferi had no such imclination. Trizza actively cultivates a cult of personality, promotes herself as some kind of omnipresent celebrity, and enforces a strict bloodcaste hirearchy. Feferi keeps to herself, and feeds her lusus by hand, with only help from Eridan. The rest of the trolls are left to suss things out for themselves, and we end up with some who almost out right ignore that it's a thing and some who obsess with it as a status marker, and most of them freely engaged socially across color lines. Alternia is awful. But it's awful in ways specific to churning out war fodder. Anything else I would hesitate to attribute too broadly.
I mean, it does other things than churn out war fodder--the hemospectrum hierarchy is enforced by more than just the heiress, and I'd also figure they'd need trolls to inhabit some of the conquered planets and such, hence Xefros being trained to be something non-military? unless it's common for indigo military trolls to just. keep butlers on their ships or something. and I also think that caverns being more lenient on highblood mutations is probably an empire-based thing, because for there to be so many lowbloods that they can have short lifespans and Trizza can wipe an entire neighborhood out without either of these causing an issue, there probably have to be more lowbloods in each grub batch, meaning that highbloods are rarer and so mutations in them are probably more likely to be tolerated. of course the only mutations which are an insta-cull are ones that threaten the hemospectrum as a thing, but I'd still think that lowblood mutations would be less tolerated unless useful or clearly not a threat to the status quo. like, I do agree some things are specific to heiress, but I wouldn't agree that Alternia is just awful in ways related to churning out war fodder. it's also awful in ways related to trying to keep the system that has worked for the Condesce in place. eta: just possibly less so under different heiresses, because they would have an effect on the planet.
I don't know, I look at it and I see troll society going out of its way to be awful. Like the gender thing upthread; I think what was going on there is you all were coming at it from the angle of "why would they ban it" while I was thinking "why would they allow it". (Combine it with this and it wouldn't surprise me if it's fine for highbloods but not lowbloods. Basically everything else is.) Another theory going round is that Spoiler he's a limeblood because his name sounds like axolotl so he should have some connection to the axolotl in the concept art, but haven't the limes all been dead for centuries by this point?
Are What Pumpkin intentionally leaving the leaked trolls for last? Aahh, so frustrating! I wanna see what they're like! *gnaws angrily on things*
@ChelG It takes more effort to ban something and enforce that ban than to allow it. Effort that can be used for conquest. Condy needs her subject divided and terrfied, and she needs fighters, all of which a Lord of the Flies hellscape provides without too much oversight. Control over what people can read helps keep them loyal to the empire and denies them education they could use to defeat her. Control over gender serves no useful purpose to her.
the "does alternia hate gnc trolls" discussion has been making me really uncomfortable for a long time and it's been going on for weeks now, would you guys be okay maybe moving that to another thread
I've gone back a few pages and what I'm seeing is mostly, like, super tied up with other worldbuilding mentions. Are there some I've missed in particular that y'all would like moved, or do you think starting a separate thread of people are interested in discussing troll gender and having all future gender-related discussion there would work?
I don't know, delete it outright if you wanna, or set up a thread for SJ-in-universe discussions of fandoms in general? On a less fraught topic, here's a theory from Tumblr I like:
I think both of last week's Troll Call must be Spoiler hiding their blood colours. I can't think of any other reason they'd conceal their signs from the audience; troll sigils are effectively meaningless to us except for maybe vague hints at what they might possibly do, which might not be accurate and would also depend on their SGrub class which we don't know, and they don't even tell us their SGrub roles because they won't be seen playing SGrub.
