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birchbow · 1 year

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CLOWN CHURCH THE COLLECTION

For the me and my readers both; my reference document for Clown Church nonsense. Compiled character ref, clown scriptures, fleet ships, saints, schoolfeeder names and specialties, etc. Subject to change and additions.

EDIT: nice lmao

Griefing Specializations

Subjugglator – frontline barbarian/tank, high damage low defense. Not much concerned with stealth, not worried about taking hits. Ex: Feeder Rissan, Sungazer, Cisine, Khalse, Travye.

Laughsassin – stealth and assassination, not good at taking hits but very good at infiltration. Quieter/subtler weapons, or the strength and size to make one hit count. Mime-inspired paint. Ex: Rishet, Kurloz, Untoxxic, Hurrel

Contorturenist – field interrogation experts, armored, usually with long-distance weapons. Clean-up crew for missions where information will need to be extracted during the process of the mission. Ex: Ianche and Verato Uderak, Yettah

Acrobatterer – frontline opportunist, experts in speed and evasion. Many lighter, faster hits instead of one heavy one. Better at taking prisoners. Friendly rivalry with the subjugglators, because they’ll often use a noisy, head-on assault as a distraction to opportunistically whack their target on the head—sound tactics or cowardly cull-stealing depending on who you ask. Ex: Ravell and Raywar Olemma. If asked, some of the younger clowns would probably group Karkat here.

Gymnabsolutionist – On missions, a form of field chaplain, praying for fallen faithful to make sure the messiahs took note of their sick-ass sacrifice. On-fleet, spiritual council and advisors. The oldest is expected to lay to rest the soul of the previous Grand Highblood and help the new one through their prayers/vows, although this role hasn’t come into play in a very, very long time.

Joker – Not technically a position you can train for, but colloquially a highblood who multi-classes or whose style and focus doesn’t fit neatly into a category. Gamzee is technically a subjugglator (very big, doesn’t give a shit if he gets hit) but can rapidly flip to acrobatterer tactics. Travye's bonekind uses subjugglator style, but his bookkind doesn't fall into a category.

Saints And Martyrs

Saint Mortor the Defender — Burned alive to protect other purplebloods from lowbloods; like his giant salamander lusus, he proved incredibly hard to burn, and his execution pyre burned for a night and a day. Saint of aspiring martyrs.

Saint Trasti — Prayed to the messiahs for vengeance as she was cut apart by lowbloods; when they burned her corpse, the messiahs listened and brought up a plague from her ashes. Prayers to bring a plague on your enemies or for sick/poisoned faithful

Saint Ekorot — Patron saint of pupation and cocoons, and especially the faithful who die during pupation. One of the oldest saints, said to have hatched with the lower half of her body deformed/largely missing and survived a perigee before being found by the church, surrounded by dead lowbloods and wild animals she'd killed. She was sanctified on the spot because lo, it was fucking dope as hell.

Her bladekind became the Knife of Messiahs' Mercy, the weapon the Grand Highblood uses for ceremonial culling of the faithful (By the new Grand Highblood to finish off their predecessor after the fight is won, when church kin pupate too malformed to live or are so deeply wounded in battle they won't survive, etc).

Saint Jakill — Fought an entire army despite being ripped to increasingly brutal pieces. Refused to go down, until his skull was finally split with his own hatchet. Patron saint of berserkers, death-rages and suicide missions.

Schoolfeeders Of The Flagship Dark Carnival

Halore Travye — The Stædfast, advanced scripture and exegesis.

Separates his letters with an extra space, capitalizes nouns and the letter I. Square bracket smiles/frowns.

"sacredDidaction: T h e q u I c k b r o w n F o x j u m p e d o v e r t h e l a z y D o g . : o ["

Veneno Krelle — The Untoxxic, advanced mediculling, poisons/antidotes.

Doubles Xs and inserts them in place of similar sounds. X-eyed smiles/frowns. When speaking they tend to have difficulty finding and forming words due to a long, long career being exposed to all sorts of neurotoxins and poisons.

"abstersiveDetoxifier: If you axx me, the foxx has better things to be doing. X...X" (=uX, XnX XsX)

Ianche Uderak — The Inquirer, advanced information management/propaganda.

Hisses on S, ends all sentences as questions except the occasional Shocking Headline. Snake-tongued faces.

"mortalRigor: Sssso why wasss the fox with the dog at all? >:oY Ssscandal!! Quick Brown Fox Hass Torrid Pitch Affair With Ssslothful Barkbeasst?"

Arelux Stelos — The Sungazer, schoolfeeder of galactic navigation, omens and starcraft.

Starts and ends with ~* and *~, replaces I and O with 1 and 0. Tends to trail out words and emphasize with capitals and multiple asterisks/punctuation when worked up, which is often. Smiles/ frowns have starry eyes.

"grandlyCosmic: ~*000h mess1ahs you w1ll **never** bel1eve what the STARS told me today about the fox's dest1ny!!!!*~ *u*

Belico Rissan — Warmaker, Combat/griefing, avid collector of various strife specibi

Largely normal clown syntax but will frequently phrase things with all-caps over-the-top violent language. Doesn't bother to capitalize or use periods but an avid user of exclamation points.

"sanguineEclectica: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy barkbeast and landed in THE PIT OF A SPIKED AND BLOOD-PUTRID CULL-TRAP as a lesson to complacent wrigglers everywhere! :o)"

Karkat Vantas — Schoolfeeder of quadrantcraft, originally as a joke, but unfortunately for all the elder members of the church the new baby clowns don't know that and he's increasingly accepted and legitimized with every class he teaches.

Minera Tresor — Scriptural basics (deceased)

The Holy Holidays

TURNING NIGHT/DAY

The troll equivalent on New Years Night/Day; for most of the population it's a raucous all-caste night of celebrating that they've made it another sweep without dying. For the church it's their most sober holiday, a reminder that another sweep came and went without the promised Vast Honk and Dark Carnival. Faces are painted white (funeral paint) during the night, and in the morning everyone takes off their paint entirely until the new sweep is rung in at noon.

In the meantime, it's expected everyone will spend the night/day fasting from food and drinks, and tempting themselves with things they want or enjoy, whether that's making your favorite food and not eating it, or hooking up with a quadrant and then breaking off before either of you are satisfied.

Then at noon everybody goes buckwild and indulges until they're sick.

ALL COLORS WEEK

A very rowdy church-wide holiday. Work forbidden, only fun and capricious impulse. Copious colored clothes and decorations, painting, and powder dye are rampant. It’s traditional to stash little brightly-colored objects (and vials of blood) throughout the rest of the sweep and then hang them out a day at a time through the week so that the decorations get slowly more colorful and vivid. They lump the seadwellers in with the rustbloods and the last colors to get hung up on the last day are the colors of the church.

There’s also a different major saint for each day, which some people remember to pray to and some people don’t. There’s a lot less quiet internal prayer at this point too--if you have something for a saint or messiah to hear, you probably shout it.

Also; massive games of--essentially--capture the flag. Teams are assigned according to age group, with the youngest/most numerous cohort starting on the first day. They’re split in half into a team with a seadweller-color flag and rustblood-color flag, which they play for for the first day. After that the next age-group comes in with their color, and all three teams try to collect the flags, and onward and upward until the schoolfeeders and generals come in to play, each with an incredibly high-point-value purple flag. You have to challenge them to a duel to win one, in whatever area they teach/specialize in. It’s pretty widely assumed that you won’t actually beat them, they just respect your attempt enough to hand it over, but if you do everybody is like !!!!!!! WOW HOLY SHIT DUDE and you’re a hero to the rest of your team. The points system is pretty unofficial but the more flags you have, and the higher the blood color of those flags, the more you “score”. Winner gets preferential treatment for the next two weeks.

Ships Of The Holy Fleet

Names of ships are subject to change when a new captain takes over, although they aren’t always changed—when Kurloz joined the fleet, the flagship was the Painted Disciple, and Kurloz changed the name to the Dark Carnival after he successfully challenged the previous Grand Highblood.

The Blessed is intensely focused on prayer and meditation and prophesy—much less in the way of combat training etc. You can get religious training anywhere on the fleet, esp. the flagship, but if you want to basically focus your life on spirituality the Blessed is full of like-minded trolls.

The Orisoner is Just Straight Up Vibing to an extent that many trolls find unnerving, but the crew of the Blessed are absolutely ride or die with her/him/them/etc. His powers are 100% min-maxed into sucking hate/rage/fear out of people, and the resulting good vibes and soft euphoria are a powerful (and borderline addictive) combination. Secretly terrifying, because nobody wins fights against her--because very few people can even bring themselves to lift a hand against them in the first place.

irenicDevotion: no caps, sooo many smilies :o) and just like... emphasis extensions my duuude :oD copafuckincetic

The Sinner is a party boat, which is considered an act of worship in and of itself. People just get rowdy and wild and live it up at all times. If there was air in space, you would be able to hear it as you approached to board—when it’s landed, you can hear it, and it’s super eerie. Lots of trolls whooping and honking and shouting in a big metal box.

The Libation's powers are addictive in a different way; he's physically intoxicating to be around. If he focuses, he can easily have most people, especially people who aren't used to being drunk/high, blacked out and pretty much incapacitated.

ecstaticEroticism: 8RO h'es. straiht up nightdrinking rn. look hers his 8onkinggourd. all teh 8s their 8s its little drinking gurds. motherfuckr this paryts LIT roflmao

The Joker is a pretty standard barrack ship, although it has the notable reputation that under the current captain if you’re cheeky enough to do something and do it well, you should be allowed to get away with it even if it’s against the rules. It takes the majority of mediocre-to-fair trainees every generation, and compared to the Dark Carnival, a much higher percentage of its graduates go on to live off-fleet on shuttles or colonies.

Sister Waspclaw is a walking test of everyone who meets her's ability to read a passive level of threat and calculate accordingly. Very talkative, encouraging and pleasant, with an extremely dangerous and unhinged core. Her whole philosophy is that you can get far in life by figuring out what the most daring trick you could pull and get away with is--but it's very important you don't try to take even an inch with her. She's tiny, but her claws are incredibly venomous and very few trolls in the entire church fleet can match her for speed.

toxicAudacity: wazpclaw'z zo excited to talk zhe can't even bother with the zentencez and ztuff like that and it all flowz together but if you pizz her off you're DEAD MEAT and you can tell if you've pizzed her off becauze when zhe's angry zzzzzhe zzZZTARTZ GETTING A LITTLE UNHINGED AZZZZZHOLE!!! >:o[

Elixir and Stardust are commercial centers; the two ships used to be separate, but the people living there had so much reason to cross between the two, they put boarding passages up and welded them in place, fusing them together. People who handle the dark, mysterious and miraculous arts of financial management and resource acquisition work here. It’s also the most common place for the few cult members who aren’t purple-blooded, one of the few places they’re comparatively safe. Some non-church quadrants of purplebloods will also set up hive here.

The Abattoir is canny, sober, and calculating, a loyal ally until slighted and then a bitter enemy. The nature of her identity is a topic of fierce public debate, and he's certainly not giving out answers. Whether her consciousness is originally one of his bodies now inhabiting two, an amalgam of two minds indistinguishably linked, or some completely external force puppeting two bodies, everybody can agree she's damn good to have on your side, and that crossing him is a fatal mistake.

duelReactor: II speak clearly and concisely because II respect your time, motherfucker, and forsooth you will respect me similarly. II am busy today: I am on-ship and I am travelling to the flagship for work. II will be back in office by sunrise.

The Freakshow is a cesspit of violence and bloodshed. A very dangerous place, but also prime picking ground if you have strong conciliatory urges and are looking for your One True Diamond. People who want to settle shit once and for all can come here, and the winner will probably get a cut of the pot from the people betting on their death-match. The bloodshed and rage are technically holy and irreproachable but most fleet faithful tend to give this ship a wide berth.

The Behemoth is the epitome of Alternian culture: take what you want through force of bloodcolor and unmitigated violence, and maintain it through merciless supremacy. Sharper than it likes to act, and with a blatant disregard for any power except its own monstrous strength, it's been butting heads with the Grand Highblood ever since it came to power, and only a surprisingly canny ability to judge the rare occasions it's outmatched has kept it from marching on the Big Top and trying to take the throne by force.

brutishAnnihilation: O- BIG MOTHERFUCKER, BIG LETTERS, ONLY LITTLE BITCHES BOTHER WITH PUNCTUATION -O

The Penitent is essentially church jail, for sinners and troubled faithful, especially/specifically those who don’t have any close mentors or quadrants to help rehabilitate them. It’s also where prisoners under suspicion of church-related crimes are kept to wait for inquisition, as well as non-urgent/non-imperial messengers from outside the church who are waiting to be heard by the Highblood.

The Judgment is both incredibly stern and strict, and also surprisingly forgiving--her job isn't to decide who to cull, it's to decide which sinful highbloods can make their way back into the church, through a lot of prayer and ritualized punishment. In person, though, she's a terrifying battle-ax of a troll with zero patience for dilly-dallying or lollygagging or talking back or not talking back enough or failing to use her title or answering clearly and concisely!!! She has shit to do!

consecratedCourtroom: Very rarely embellishes. Very rarely ends sentences with anything but a period. Speaks CONCISELY to get her point across. Uses emphasis scaling that always seems a LITTLE passive aggressive and sarcastic. Occasional interjections of OVERRULED. GUILTY. DISMISSED. IRRELEVANT. Etc etc.

The Dark Carnival is a little bit of everything, but the clowns who work there are generally the best of the best in at least one area, or extremely promising. Intensely-devoted cultists, genii of violence and/or interrogation, artists, artisans, the rare mechanics, geeks and scientists, navigators, or just trolls who show a lot of ambition and leadership, all get funneled into the Dark Carnival to be trained up as heads of their respective fields.

Trolls are always coming and going from ship to ship for whatever they need or to visit other faithful, and there’s always the constant low level of kinship between any members of the church, but there is also a certain amount of distance between the microcultures of each different ship.

Outfitting is pretty consistent ship to ship, with exceptions; on the Penitent nobody but the sufferingmasters and the captain are allowed weapons, armor, or decoration. On the Blessed clothes tend to be plain and austere by cult standard, but they are allowed to wear armor and carry weapons.

Scriptures (to date)

Beginnings - a clown book of Genesis, of sorts. Creation myths and ancient church history.

“When it started we had fuck-all but dark. And so it stayed until Messiahs pulled back the curtain and said ‘let’s get this motherfucking party started’. And they threw stardust down and it hit mud and it made dirtbloods, baked all dry enough like they could crumble if you breathed wrong. And it hit water and it made waders; wet, cold, mirthless salty motherfuckers with too much eye for their own motherfucking sparkle. But where it hit oceanside it made trolls out of sand, all capricious as fuck and changing with the water. Trolls who could go hard or give when they had to. All balanced on the universe high wire and not ever falling sea-side or ground-side but right there on their line like the acrobatterers they were. From the sand were made the faithful; from the beachwood their horns, their goddamn bone snapped off from sea-floor stones on mountains under the water. And what they made was Troll. Only that. Just that and no motherfucking more. And when the last world was all fit together, messiahs looked on it and said ‘motherfucking money’.

“Remember this story, faithful, and remember its lesson. Change yourself always like sand in the water, you motherfuckers hand-shaped of surf and whimsy.”

“Urge of chaos and whim of change be ever on your skin like paint, in your pusher like blood, on your horns like a crown. Mirthful, faithful. Kickass and giving no shits.”

(Book of) Colors - church policy on lowbloods, seadwellers, social order and painting, as well as the meat of the “Dark Carnival” scriptures/afterlife mythology.

“You’re next. You’re motherfucking next, give no mercy because the mercy of the messiahs is only as much as fits in their hands and what’s poured out on shitblooded scum will not be given you in the dark carnival gates and—”

“The Vast Honk will deafen and take from us, and all together we’ll head on up and get our dance on through fire and over skulls and horns—”

“No fear, brothers and sisters, no fear of the waders, the brine-drinkers. There's no mirth in the sea and no painting the water doesn't wash off and you've got your hands on the righteous shit they won't ever know. No fear of the waders, for you're higher than them. You're higher than anybody.”

“I fucked up, I fucked up, the fault's mine and there's no motherfucker I can share it with, I fucked up, forgive me.”

Sacrament - ceremonies, specifically related to new initiates and promotions within the church. Naming ceremonies, promotions, priesthood bestowal, etc.

Suffering - Stories of martyr deaths and heretic executions. Unique in that it is occasionally edited or added to if the church believes a story has been included in error or that a modern event needs to be added to the record.

“…I am lost, kin. My eyes see no colors I know.”

The Cult of Flesh were a heretic movement deemed too dangerous to the faith of the readers to be included in the book of Suffering. Their belief that the Messiahs came to Alternia and were raised in flesh bodies by a troll acting as a lusus has been stricken from this record; their attempt to win over the current Grand Highblood, who they consider the descendant/reincarnation of the holy troll-lusus Brother Immortal, caused a schism and internal inquisition violent enough to be purged from the accepted imperial history.

Hilarities - Platitudes and words of wisdom, including the rules of comedy, the Great Unfunny Jokes, and some really quite good dating tips.

“It’s not a wise one who leaves the place of their motherfucking heart untimely. No laughter in the suffering of those early lost of their quadrants so rest you with heart and spade and club and diamond and speak of the fucking Hilarity to each other.”

“Fill the night enough full of holy deed and you’ll have no need of sopor to bless you with dreaming.”

“Ha ha, you salty motherfucker.”

“Let your spade burn hot, drive you up and make you great. In this motherfucking way your kin will increase you and I’m not just talking about your bulge, LOL.”

“The wage of weakness is death; fear the only edge sharpened by waiting.”

“Take all you can grasp in your greed and your lust. If something you want comes to your fronds, motherfucker, take it and run like it’s yours.”

Hot Shit – Letters from a historical Grand Highblood to his matesprit. Considered by some to be a holy template of pity and matespritship, and to others a hot piece of smut that has been hilariously canonized.

(Hot Shit 1:1) "My sister in mirth, blessed in hilarity, peerless in holy rage; u up girl? :o?"

“Only let me hear you want me! Hold me down and devour me, my love.”

“When my feet touch soil again I’ll make my way to you. Take me as you like, heart of my heart; throw me down and fuck me under night sky and the Messiahs will only hear me sing praise out louder. I’m hollow as a thunderstruck tree for you, sister. I need you like starving needs food, like rage needs mercy, like sin needs forgiveness, like pain needs pleasure.”

"In grandest tradition of hot motherfuckers at the prime of their lives, fuck if I don't get mad stupid when I'm horny, sister. :o("

"Well the fuck I will reward you when you come back to hive. So well will I show my love for your thicc motherfucking ass, not for a night and a day and a night will you get feeling back in your motherfucking legs."

Revelries - Praises and adulation to the messiahs.

"I'll sing out my praises with wicked flow to the messiahs who saw fit to smile on me. I'll praise and shout how I'm greatly blessed, I'll cry and weep how I'm not fucking worthy; their claws are in my soul, in the shape of my body, in the beat of my pusher. Oh, my holy kin, we are color and light inside. We are stardust. Hands raised and faces laughing, spitting sick and delirious, together in glory.”

“…the halls around you will be painted bright and all the glitter and shine you’d want; get ye lit as fuck, brothers and sisters, let the beauty of their holy color and noise spin your pan like a motherfucking top.”

“Oh that I’m of use to you, all times and ways and places, my idle rest is to watch your show and my dreaming to hear the holy motherfucking noise."

“For not a troll was ever made, who didn’t fuck up nightly; never a faithful hatched who deserved their seat at the show.”

“Never will we be anything but loud, nitty-gritty dirty little freaks. Lo, pour elixir and raise a glass.”

Conviction - The duties and trials of the church

“…leave ye not the dirtbound warm of blood to crawl and scrape, and waste offerings in vain. They owe you penance and awe and what they give you are owed to take. A good ruler does the mercy of taking.”

“When your feet are unsure and what comes on you is un-fucking-funny, seek you holy suffering in penance.”

“Dumbass, don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“If fool-ass jokers fail to learn from looking, let their bodies learn it for them; scars teach best what a motherfucker’s too deaf to hear.”

“If your kin gets you sinning, cut them away, no true fucking family can they be. If the noise from your flap be blasphemous, carve it from you and stitch shut your filthy mouth, motherfucker. If your flesh leads to sin scourge it clean, washed in blood; cut away rot, and leave only what’s holy. Repentance by mouth never saved a soul; spill blood and flesh in price of forgiveness.”

Angels - Death, last rites, damnation/double death, hell, etc.

“[death] itself is not a glory; more glorious far to walk on and trail paint where you walk.”

‘I suffer pain, and want become need…I am allowed no motherfucking means to make resistance. I wait for death, brothers. Pour one out for remembrance of my soul’.”

“Why seek martyrdom when you could bring a hundred down with you? Turn martyrdom to murderdom. Paint the way; make them pay. Shit, kin, let’s be destroyers.”

Devotions - Prayers, repentances and rituals. (”Leader.” “Congregation/faithful.”)

Repentance of sin (ending) - “Hail messiahs both.” “Their works, their great motherfucking joke in the pits of the worlds they left and in the space in between.” “Hail messiahs both.” “Your penance is paid.”

Reaffirmation of faith - “If I go false on promised devotions let messiahs grind stardust out my bones.” “If you’d paint the face of flawed unholy troll with the shades of our holy messiahs, answer yes brother I will.” “Yes brother, I will.”“If you believe truly in what holy mess and bloody riot will come at end of worlds, if you plan on being full and motherfucking ready, make some motherfuckin’ noise.” “(Response, freeform).”“Have your ticket ready when you kick it, give me an amen brothers and sisters.” “Amen.” “No mercy, faithful one.” “Amen.” “No fear.”

The Dark Scriptures - only shown to religious sacrifices before their deaths. Readers must subsequently die. Contents are a mystery.

His/Her/Their Mirthful Majesty

King/Queen/Crown of Colors

His/Her/Their Holy Hilarity

Biggest brother/sister

The Ringmaster

#Homestuck #CLOWN CHURCH BAYBEEEEE #anyway I have always had trouble finding my much older (now outdated) post of scriptures so this one's getting pinned lol #Hopefully this helps the people who have had to scroll through my whole-ass blog in the past trying to find ref #I keep this plus story notes at the bottom of the document because there is SO much lore and bullshit I have to remember #and my memory is NOT that good lol #art time!

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