the fire in the iron

PLAYER INFO
Name: Quix
Preferred pronoun: Female
Preferred means of contact: AIM: uncannyArtisan
Any other characters currently in-game? Sollux

CHARACTER INFO
Name: The Signless
Gender: Man
Age: 26 (12 sweeps)
Source: Homestuck
Canon Point: Post vast expletive, just slightly prior to actual death.

CANON
History: Scroll down to “The Sufferer” on here to see the basically canon information. Beyond that, though, I’m going to give some headcanon deets since a lot of this requires fleshing out.

The Signless grew up with his adopted mother (a concept entirely foreign to trolls, but very appropriate to their relationship) in the desert. For most of his childhood, he was kept away from greater Alternian society due to the fact that he would likely be killed by other trolls of they discovered his mutant blood color. Due to this sheltering, he grew up much more nurtured and innocent than the average troll child, and it wasn’t until his teens that he truly started to realize what life as a troll was like for the rest of his people.

He started having his “visions” as a preteen (at about six sweeps in troll terms) - or more accurately his memories of being a different troll in the version of his universe that existed before his past self inadvertently took part in bringing out its rewriting. He remembered a version of trolls that were kind and nurturing to each other, and as a result he became filled with a desire to spread that potential to the rest of the world.

Within a sweep he was saying a temporary goodbye to his mother, the Dolorosa, and heading off on his own to see the world and spread the word of his epiphany.

He started out slow and cautious, learning about the world he lived in and keeping his blood identity a secret. He gained skills in public speaking, and found ways to express what he’d learned to others. He taught lessons of compassion and peace in a world where such things were almost non-existent. With time he picked up a following and reunited with the Dolorosa, meeting new important followers like the Disciple and Psiioniic, both of whom he eventually fell into romantic relationships with.

The movement lasted for longer than he could have hoped. He made it to 26 human years of age before things finally began to fall apart. Because the more well known he became, the more that the highbloods in control could not tolerate his existence.

He was eventually captured in a siege against a rebellion stronghold, where he gave himself over to the highbloods in the hope of saving his followers. As a surprise to no one, that didn’t save anyone. He was executed publically, and his closest followers were sentenced to worse. All the while he never fully realized what his visions had actually been, or what they really meant.

Personality: Signless’s personality comes in two parts - the peace and compassion of his early life, and the fury of his dying days. In most cases, it would be impossible to know what kind of person he would come after his execution. He was dead very shortly after the vast expletive, after all. Thankfully, exploring these things are one of the many joys of panfandom roleplay.

For most of his life, more than anything else, Signless was known for his benevolence. He was a lover in a world of fighters, and the ideals he held most dear were at a harsh contrast with the shameless hatred and butchery that most trolls were accustomed to dealing out. He was cursed with a conditionless sort of compassion for his fellow troll - he could see some good in just about anyone, and would pursue that good as far as he was able. He was caring, but never unwise in his interactions with others. He knew when his attempts at peace would be spurned, and while he would give the world to any soul in need, he would not put himself or others in needless danger when he already knew an individual wasn’t ready to accept his message.

He was intelligent and well spoken - he chose his arguments and his lines of attack wisely. Despite becoming the center of an ultimately violent rebellion, he was never a warrior or a strategist himself. When it came to issues of war, his only advice would be to harm others as little as necessary, and then he would take a step back and allow those more knowledgeable in combat to take the wheel. He was, and would also be, a spiritual leader and not a war leader. However, his own compassion and pacifism was not enough to blind him from the fact that many of his peers did not have the luxury of sticking to such ideals. While he hated violence, he knew that sometimes it was necessary to protect those you loved, and while he would always ask that people find another way he could not fault those that had hurt or killed in the past out of necessity and fear.

He functioned outside of troll cultural expectations in a lot of ways. He was a mutant, but he wasn’t ashamed, he sought peace instead of war, and he frequently defied the troll expectations of romance, too. His romance with the Disciple would be remembered as one that had transcended the four traditional quadrants of troll romance, but their all encompassing love wasn’t the only place that Signless defied romantic tradition. He was a rare sort of troll polyamorous, the kind that would allow himself to love and stabilize any troll that needed it from him. He formed as many concupiscent and conciliatory relationships as felt appropriate - the only one he never fully experienced was the caliginous quadrant, the one based on powerful hatred. He wasn’t opposed in concept so much as he found it impossible to hate anyone enough to enjoy it. The closer he got to someone, the more he found it impossible to ignore their good qualities.

But this all changed when the fire nation attacked when his capture brought about the end of his movement, and sparked the transition from one half of his passion to the other. Realizing the depths of the hopelessness and corruption of his people, his love turned to anger.

In occurred in his final days, climaxing at the moment of his death where his anger became so all consuming that it overwhelmed him. He screamed with a fury that shook thousands, and though the aftermath would not be seen, it changed him. As he enters Changed, the power of this transition will still be shaking him. His peace and compassion will be buried beneath his anger and that sense of betrayal, causing him to withdrawl and question those around him. His kindness won’t be gone entirely, but he’ll be reluctant to allow himself to give into it. He doesn’t want to be hurt again, and even though he won’t remember it at first, these feelings of rage and despair will live with him.

INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Possession
Role: The hearth fire, AKA, the internal heating system.
Abilities: He makes and controls fire because he is a fire. Really, though, he can create and manipulate fire much like your bog standard pyrokinesis, and generally make things warmer with his presence. Also he can set himself on fire, because why not.
Description: In some ways, Signless’s spiritual form still looks like that of a regular troll. He still has the same grey skin, the same dark hair, and the same size and shape. But that’s where it ends. Fire has marked his body in a variety of ways - his black hair seems to burn with patches of orange, like coals. His skin has become more literally ashen, like something burned to cinders. Molten cracks cut lines across his entire body, burning with inner fire, matching the scars and wounds that peppered his body at the end of his torture. The areas around his wrists appear to be almost entirely molten, the ashy skin torn away entirely in favour of bright bands of fire. When agitated or pained, these cracks spread and deepen, showing more and more of what he’s become inside. His eyes and horns, however, as constant - they both glow like superheated iron, and never fade.

Despite appearing very much like fire, the burning areas of his body are normally only about the temperature of a hot cup of coffee, though they can grow hot to the point of actually hurting someone if he doesn’t keep himself in check. When he walks, he always leaves a trail of burning footprints, though the fire usually doesn’t seem to damage the surfaces it burns on.

His physical form is a fire burning in a hearth - a huge fireplace in the center of the house. Though it’s obviously no longer made of iron, the base of the hearth is set with metal crafted very much like the shackles he was executed in.

Reasoning: There are a few different reasons why a fire works so well for Signless. The most obvious is how it relates to his execution in canon. His method of torture was being put in a red hot pair of shackles and left to burn, and his reaction to this cruelty and to the apathy of his troll peers was to explode with a sort of depthless rage at the state of his people. He screamed with an anger that was said to burn hotter than fire, one that radiated out through the universe in an expressive selection of flavour text. That anger finally released, he died, and his body was burned.

Beyond even that, though, there are ways that fire relates to his personality. Even before his terrible end, he was a troll filled with passion and warmth for just about everyone he met. A counter to the anger he became renowned for in his death, as a younger troll he possessed a legendary sort of love. His passion has always been reminiscent of fire, whether its harsh and burning in anger, or gentle and nurturing with warmth.


MEMORIES
First Memory: His public torture and execution at the hands of the Empire.
Another Five:
- Living with the Dolorosa, and being held back from fully experiencing the world because of how dangerous it would be to him.
- Giving himself up to the highbloods in the hopes of them sparing the trolls who followed him, and then his people being slaughtered anyway.
- Happy funtimes with his rebellion family!
- The lowblood rebellion, as a concept.
- A memory of a memory of being Kankri on Beforus, because who doesn’t need that kind of confusion in their life.

SAMPLES
Signless meets his descendant for the first time.
Signless tries to gather help after Prospit is attacked.