Emotions
Trolls are complicated things and I have a lot of ~feelins~ about them. In here there'll be a lot of miscellaneous essays on troll romance, Kanaya headcanon, and other such matters.
Troll romance. I have all the feelings about troll romance. All of them. A lot of these feelings are based on extrapolation and not really shown in canon; however, overall this summarizes the attitudes and emotional background you'll be seeing from Kanaya in approach to romance.
First! Matespritship, also known as being flushed. Hearts. This is essentially the same semantically as human romance: Your love for someone is so intense that you want to kiss them and be with them all the itme. However, for trolls this is just one romance out of four. This lends it a somewhat more passionate nature, more volatile in short term but stabler in long term because it's not the sole source of romantic fulfilment. Romeo and Juliet fit this model of investment, as did Prussia and Luka.
Kismesissitude, called the caliginous relationship. Spades. This is a romance based on hate. Romanticized, exclusive hate. Your hate for someone is so intense that you... want to kiss them and get upset when they don't return your calls. It's important to note that just like in human culture "I love you" is viewed as meaning romantic love unless otherwise qualified, a declaration of "I hate you" is thought to imply this unless otherwise specified, and intense enough hate in the right circumstances is very likely to lead to this romanticization if left unchecked just like love that's romanticized emerges in the right situation. Shizuo and Izaya, or Galinda and Elphaba in early acts, would have such a relationship if they were trolls. Poland flirted with this both with Prussia and Russia, though the dynamics were fucked up enough that sex would never actually come into it in-game. Medic and Andrea are fairly close to something exactly like this, though.
Moirallegiance, which leads to pale emotions. Diamonds. This is a form of romanticized friendship, but a very specific dynamic is required to qualify. One troll is inclined towards uniwse decisions, often violent; the other is a milder sort. They come together and the hothearted troll is inspired to greater heights of reason by the coolheaded one's affection. Relations somewhat like this are Wilson/House, Romeo/Mercutio, and Harry/Hermione. Miku and Prussia were enough like this, and so were Gokudera and Yamamoto to a point.
Auspisticism, denoting being ashen for someone... or rather someones. Clubs. This romance is unique in that it has three members and thus occupies an entirely different emotional landscape. What is romanticized here is the mediation between an "auspistice" and two feuding trolls who might otherwise be kismeses, generally when they're already taken, or wouldn't be suited for each other that way. Thus there are both the feelings of the auspistice and partners, and the partners for each other. The former is a kind of investment in their well being, in their not getting into trouble - a blatantly conciliatory remotion rendered distinct from the pale by a focus on the practical goal of nobody getting hurt. The partners generally should respect the auspistice in a friendly way and trust them. As for the partners... Well, hopefully they behave civilly. Any mediation between two others in a conflict is viewed as in a sense romantic in this way - as explicitly a romantic solicitation as a kiss is for the flushed quadrant - but in spite of this the only relationship anywhere close to this in Carriero was Prussia/Miku/Poland, very briefly.
Four other words you'll need to know: Red, black, concupiscent, and conciliatory. Red relationships are generally positive happy ones, and are based on love--I MEAN PITY. Moirallegiance and matespritship are these. Black relationships are based on negative emotions and unhappiness and the emotion of hate. Kismesissitude and auspisticism. Then a concupiscent relationship is the kind based on that greed, that desperation, that need, to have them in your arms physically and stare into their eyes and never, never let go - matespritship and kismesissitude. While conciliatory relationships are those of investment that's "platonic", based on welfare. Moirallegiance and auspisticism.
So in summary: You have romantic love, romantic hate, romantic friendship, and romantic mediation. These are associated to an extent with emotional fidelity as well: Seeing your moirail in a pile with someone else talking about feelings would be just as much of a betrayal as seeing them and your matesprit in bed together. And so in troll culture ordinary friendships are kind of looked on with skepticism, just as if you said "Yeah, I sort of am dating Stacey a bit, we do go to the movies and kiss and stuff? But it's not like we're boyfriend and girlfriend or anything - I'm already with Lisa, you know?". There's a reason it's "the troll disease called friendship". Hence even if the relationship is conciliatory, it's still romantic and monogamous.
I also just tend to have lots and lots of feelings about whatever relationships any of my characters end up in, because of all the nuances. Kanaya has an especially bad case of this because I already have a bad case of nuance-addiction and, hell-oooooooo, nurse, troll romance also inspires lots of new ways of looking at relationships, adding a dimension of romance where it would never exist before.
At some point in her future, Kanaya is destined to become a fucking vampire. Yes. ...fuck is this a doorstopper.
Rainbow drinkers are "heinous undead" who feed off "light and the living". The medium thorugh which they consume life is primarily blood, and their skin glows with white light: They are diurnal, unlike nocturnal trolls. Their victims survive without being turned or sucked so dry that they die; becoming a rainbow drinker is more complicated, and will only happen to certain trolls in certain circumstances. The "transformation" takes place while the troll appears dead, over at least half an hour. They have a reputation for libidinosity and bloodthirstiness, and are hunted by warriors traditionally armed with chainsaws.
Here ends everything canon has told us about rainbow drinkers, and at this point I am fairly confident it will not tell us much more: Act 5 ended without exposition, act 6 will focus on humans, and act 7 is a mere epilogue. Xenobiology has never been a focus of the author, and is used as a narrative tool more than anything else; as much as we might wish so, rainbow drinkers do not run off of white science. Hussie liberally takes cues from Stephenie Meyer in creating his funhouse vampires, making them verbose and virtually scintillating. Hence I will be using Twilight vampires as my first reference, with augmentations where it is contradicted by Homestuck or has its own gaps. From here on I will speak in the indicative mood, as this will be canon for the purpose of any roleplay this version of Kanaya is involved in. This is almost all, relative to the canon of Homestuck, hypothetical speculation.
The inception of the rainbow drinker's undead existence is at a violent death involving severe blood loss after high lifetime exposure to sunlight - 612 hours, say. The skin pregnant with absorbed light is what triggers the transformation. It functions as the rainbow drinker's placenta, consumed entirely and replaced by the new vampiric skin, a complex network of interconnected living, breathing light. The consequent "newborn period", one of increased thirst and strength, is a result of the lack of blood and pure fueling of the rainbow drinker by light, a substance more linked to the sympathetic nervous system for them than blood, as the digestion of blood is a function of the parasympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system that takes over in its absence is largely a manifestation of bloodlust. Strictly speaking, the nervous system can be divided into three parts: Parasympathetic, pseudosympathetic, and sympathetic. A parasympathetic vampire's eyes are a yellow as warm as a normal troll's orange. (Drinkers' eyes don't fill in with their blood; in my opinion that process is analogous to graying of hair, to which they are obviously not prone.) They turn the glowing yellow Kanaya demonstrates in most of canon when not entirely sated. The pseudoparasympathetic system kicks in after a certain severity of thirst, and causes glowing such that the area around the eyes is more white than black. At this point the rainbow drinker's entire conscious mind is devoted to the pursuit of blood, and they will make active intelligent attempts to obtain it, such as negotiation, seduction, and kidnapping. A truly starving rainbow drinker, completely sympathetic, burns ocularly with the white of their internal light, and is now past any conscious intellectual process. In this state, there is a high risk that any victim they find will be sucked dry.
Therefore drinking blood is also necessary, and because of the literal blood rainbow trolls possess within themselves (i.e. the hemospectrum), the substance is rich in metals and color that light lacks. The rainbow drinker's skin is like a prism, repurposing the disparate intake into a single white light. During the moment of feeding, with duration similar to how the taste of food lingers in the mouth, the blood color is visible on the rainbow drinker's skin; over an extremely long period of a lopsided diet, this effect may become more permanent. Newborns need to feed three times a day, the more experienced once. Here originates their libidinosity: Since trolls can barely endure losing blood more often than every several days, no matter how much a drinker might prefer to feed only from her lovers, she must seek out further pray with whom to partake in this intimate act. This is only exacerbated by the natural desire for a wide variety of blood colors - after all, as has been said, they are "rainbow" drinkers. A preference for certain colors is common. Most rainbow drinkers have a "singer", with whom they almost inevitably become romantically involved, in the flushed quadrant somewhat more often than others. Their blood color is usually somewhat higher, or a shade lower, than the rainbow drinker's own. Blood matching a drinker's color has a more neutral taste to it, and that of another drinker is hardly appealing or nourishing at all, especially if it is their own - that scenario is an absolute last resort in the tradition of Fedorafreak. The blood of animals, or bright red blood, can provide sustenance but does not have any appeal whatsoever. Alien blood is a mixed bag, and depends largely on the similarity to trolls both with respect to the species' general nature and blood color itself.
Rainbow drinker anatomy mostly still resembles trolls'. The nervous, endocrine, and lymphatic systems are modified to run off light, augmented with appropriate hormones by blood. Hence the lack of blood intake easily triggers bloodlust. Ordinary illnesses are easily burnt with unholy light in the white blood cells, while the neurological changes explain the improvements to senses, reflexes, and charisma. Light also reinforces the musculoskeletal, boosting strength, speed, and sex appeal. The rainbow drinker's personal features are of course still entirely recognizable; improvements are mostly to things like facial symmetry and bone structure. Compare Twilight vampires' indescribable statuesque quality, or becoming a Pretty in Scott Westerfield's Uglies series. The pervasion of light into the unaltered reproductive system is more subtle.
The entire cardiovascular system becomes frozen, and the heart ordinarily ceases its activity. However, when stirred, the rainbow drinker's heart may beat once; the sensation is similar to when a living troll's heart skips a beat. The blood in their veins has dried up where it hasn't been consumed, though a watery venom, mostly saliva with the slightest clotting agent, does exist in the mouth to lubricate throat and fangs. Likewise the entire respiratory system ceases to act for the conversion of oxygen, and only functions now to take in air for scents and release it for speech.
Both respiration and circulation are taken over by the intergumentary system, the crown jewel of the rainbow drinker's body. This shining tapestry of interwoven light makes troll skin seem like a mere dull gray cloak fit only for suckling by wigglers - which, from the rainbow drinker's perspective, it is (recall the earlier placenta analogy). The intricately inter-connected light is determined to keep its own shape, which makes physical injury quite hard, and permanent harm almost impossible: The pieces come back together. In this way they're also immortal, because the processes of light take an infinite time to grind to a halt. The light is forever reflecting, renewing, reabsorbing. Processing of blood into light takes place here, taking the digestive system out of play. In a sense the rainbow drinker is dead mostly below the neck and above the waist. If you cut their body open, the knife would be mostly dry; there's little fluid outside their venomous mouths, and most of the organs have a distinct shine to them like wax models in a museum.
In light of the skin's importance and its functions of both circulation and respiration, it should be no surprise that glow is a key measure of rainbow drinker emotion. The main major variations are listed below. (Note: The following art is either from MSPA, from my userpics, or alltheladies's userpics.)
"Faint" refers to a glow less than an inch away from the face. "Bright" refers to a glow with a radius of at least half a foot. The standard, unsized glow is somewhere in between.
No glow at all. The skin has only a sheet-white, slight, sparkling, shining sort of quality. This takes a concentrated effort on the rainbow drinker's part, and is generally reserved for such serious moments as "Do I Dazzle You".
Faint feathered glow. "Feathered" here means that kind of aura that has feathered edges. Our main canon example. Something like :|, the glow made without outside influences. General situations are sober and unfortuante ones but low on actual emotion.
Feathered glow. More like :), the default calm state. For peaceful situations and passive happiness. Or just being calm enough to Suggest You Come To Terms With It. This manip is slightly better.
Bright glow. Overwhelming, pure happiness. May pulsate, but not violently enough to suggest potential homicide. Often associated with red feelings.
Faint pulsing glow: Dissatisfaction. This icon flickers to the same beat her glow would.
Pulsing glow. Anger. Something is wrong with you. Often associated with negative feelings, along the lines of Lets Motherfucking Dance.
Bright pulsing glow. Righteous fury. Usually homicidal. Well, obvously potentially homicidal.
Faint flickering glow: Flickering is distinct from pulsating in that rather than the glow shifting from near to far, it shifts from off to on. Therefore the predatory nature is nonexistent. This icon could fit for expression.
Flickering glow: Anticipation, nerves. This icon would have this if it flickered.
Bright flickering glow: Heart stopping, or rather beating again, or hysteria. This icon has the same beat.
Faint sharp glow. A "sharp" glow has a constant radius, and the beams within it merely shift; one moment the cheekbones will seem to be the brightest point of the light, the next the forehead. It marks a sort of focused mood, as its basis - the faint sharp glow - is that of the predatory rainbow drinker. For this purpose the drinker needs her glow to be tightly controlled, both to better predict where to go next and hide better. This icon has the same beat.
Sharp glow. Concupiscent. It isn't meaninglessly that this is an intensification of predatory. This icon obviously has the expression, and just needs the glow.
Bright sharp glow. This marks every nerve in her body rising at a critical moment, and usually will collapse into another kind of bright glow depending on the actual emotion. The radius is often well over a foot. You can see how this started as one of these, and then began a collapse into bright pulsing.
And here is a list of potential headcanon blood color tastes. Because troll blood comes in colors. Yes.
Candy red: Sour patch kids. A bitter iron blood-tasting outside that gives in to a brief rush of candy at the core. Human blood would be pretty much the same as this but a little less intense with the candy taste. As it's not a natural color of troll blood, I don't think it would actually be healthy for her to live off this long-term, nor human blood. Maroon is a really hearty cider, the kind that you can actually see the hue of. As it's the most basic troll blood I think it would work really well as bread and butter in a sense. Amber... she almost definitely wouldn't drink of her own accord. It'd be the worst kinds of chocolate with a faint cast of something else that people associate with the taste of brown. Yellow is lemons and mustard sandwiches and has this thickness that makes it feel more like food than water. Forest green is the waterier attempts at apple juices from Capri Sun's coolers. Jade green tastes watery in a thick heavy way, almost like holy water, and you can't actually live off it for a very long time at all (even if it belongs to another rainbow drinker). It's like a certain other kind of self-parasitic drinking you might encounter on a desert island. Teal is thick in a similar way to yellow, some wet hearty flavor of Jell-O. Azure is the brilliant brightest transcendant nectar, her brand of heroin in Sparklepirespeak. (This is also related to its place on the hemospectrum relative to her own, I think, not just the coincidence of who has it... though that helps.) Navy is... blue-colored but mostly... milk. Like the strawberry milk you would put flavor packets in, but probably a blue raspberry instead, but milk, I am shameless shameless shameless. Indigo is flat Faygo, big surprise. Violet is a kind of oversweet plum wine, brilliant the first time but the sugar cakes up behind your teeth. And Tyrian purple is this dizzyingly rarified French red-wine type claret.
Troll romance. I have all the feelings about troll romance. All of them. A lot of these feelings are based on extrapolation and not really shown in canon; however, overall this summarizes the attitudes and emotional background you'll be seeing from Kanaya in approach to romance.
First! Matespritship, also known as being flushed. Hearts. This is essentially the same semantically as human romance: Your love for someone is so intense that you want to kiss them and be with them all the itme. However, for trolls this is just one romance out of four. This lends it a somewhat more passionate nature, more volatile in short term but stabler in long term because it's not the sole source of romantic fulfilment. Romeo and Juliet fit this model of investment, as did Prussia and Luka.
Kismesissitude, called the caliginous relationship. Spades. This is a romance based on hate. Romanticized, exclusive hate. Your hate for someone is so intense that you... want to kiss them and get upset when they don't return your calls. It's important to note that just like in human culture "I love you" is viewed as meaning romantic love unless otherwise qualified, a declaration of "I hate you" is thought to imply this unless otherwise specified, and intense enough hate in the right circumstances is very likely to lead to this romanticization if left unchecked just like love that's romanticized emerges in the right situation. Shizuo and Izaya, or Galinda and Elphaba in early acts, would have such a relationship if they were trolls. Poland flirted with this both with Prussia and Russia, though the dynamics were fucked up enough that sex would never actually come into it in-game. Medic and Andrea are fairly close to something exactly like this, though.
Moirallegiance, which leads to pale emotions. Diamonds. This is a form of romanticized friendship, but a very specific dynamic is required to qualify. One troll is inclined towards uniwse decisions, often violent; the other is a milder sort. They come together and the hothearted troll is inspired to greater heights of reason by the coolheaded one's affection. Relations somewhat like this are Wilson/House, Romeo/Mercutio, and Harry/Hermione. Miku and Prussia were enough like this, and so were Gokudera and Yamamoto to a point.
Auspisticism, denoting being ashen for someone... or rather someones. Clubs. This romance is unique in that it has three members and thus occupies an entirely different emotional landscape. What is romanticized here is the mediation between an "auspistice" and two feuding trolls who might otherwise be kismeses, generally when they're already taken, or wouldn't be suited for each other that way. Thus there are both the feelings of the auspistice and partners, and the partners for each other. The former is a kind of investment in their well being, in their not getting into trouble - a blatantly conciliatory remotion rendered distinct from the pale by a focus on the practical goal of nobody getting hurt. The partners generally should respect the auspistice in a friendly way and trust them. As for the partners... Well, hopefully they behave civilly. Any mediation between two others in a conflict is viewed as in a sense romantic in this way - as explicitly a romantic solicitation as a kiss is for the flushed quadrant - but in spite of this the only relationship anywhere close to this in Carriero was Prussia/Miku/Poland, very briefly.
Four other words you'll need to know: Red, black, concupiscent, and conciliatory. Red relationships are generally positive happy ones, and are based on love--I MEAN PITY. Moirallegiance and matespritship are these. Black relationships are based on negative emotions and unhappiness and the emotion of hate. Kismesissitude and auspisticism. Then a concupiscent relationship is the kind based on that greed, that desperation, that need, to have them in your arms physically and stare into their eyes and never, never let go - matespritship and kismesissitude. While conciliatory relationships are those of investment that's "platonic", based on welfare. Moirallegiance and auspisticism.
So in summary: You have romantic love, romantic hate, romantic friendship, and romantic mediation. These are associated to an extent with emotional fidelity as well: Seeing your moirail in a pile with someone else talking about feelings would be just as much of a betrayal as seeing them and your matesprit in bed together. And so in troll culture ordinary friendships are kind of looked on with skepticism, just as if you said "Yeah, I sort of am dating Stacey a bit, we do go to the movies and kiss and stuff? But it's not like we're boyfriend and girlfriend or anything - I'm already with Lisa, you know?". There's a reason it's "the troll disease called friendship". Hence even if the relationship is conciliatory, it's still romantic and monogamous.
I also just tend to have lots and lots of feelings about whatever relationships any of my characters end up in, because of all the nuances. Kanaya has an especially bad case of this because I already have a bad case of nuance-addiction and, hell-oooooooo, nurse, troll romance also inspires lots of new ways of looking at relationships, adding a dimension of romance where it would never exist before.
At some point in her future, Kanaya is destined to become a fucking vampire. Yes. ...fuck is this a doorstopper.
Rainbow drinkers are "heinous undead" who feed off "light and the living". The medium thorugh which they consume life is primarily blood, and their skin glows with white light: They are diurnal, unlike nocturnal trolls. Their victims survive without being turned or sucked so dry that they die; becoming a rainbow drinker is more complicated, and will only happen to certain trolls in certain circumstances. The "transformation" takes place while the troll appears dead, over at least half an hour. They have a reputation for libidinosity and bloodthirstiness, and are hunted by warriors traditionally armed with chainsaws.
Here ends everything canon has told us about rainbow drinkers, and at this point I am fairly confident it will not tell us much more: Act 5 ended without exposition, act 6 will focus on humans, and act 7 is a mere epilogue. Xenobiology has never been a focus of the author, and is used as a narrative tool more than anything else; as much as we might wish so, rainbow drinkers do not run off of white science. Hussie liberally takes cues from Stephenie Meyer in creating his funhouse vampires, making them verbose and virtually scintillating. Hence I will be using Twilight vampires as my first reference, with augmentations where it is contradicted by Homestuck or has its own gaps. From here on I will speak in the indicative mood, as this will be canon for the purpose of any roleplay this version of Kanaya is involved in. This is almost all, relative to the canon of Homestuck, hypothetical speculation.
The inception of the rainbow drinker's undead existence is at a violent death involving severe blood loss after high lifetime exposure to sunlight - 612 hours, say. The skin pregnant with absorbed light is what triggers the transformation. It functions as the rainbow drinker's placenta, consumed entirely and replaced by the new vampiric skin, a complex network of interconnected living, breathing light. The consequent "newborn period", one of increased thirst and strength, is a result of the lack of blood and pure fueling of the rainbow drinker by light, a substance more linked to the sympathetic nervous system for them than blood, as the digestion of blood is a function of the parasympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system that takes over in its absence is largely a manifestation of bloodlust. Strictly speaking, the nervous system can be divided into three parts: Parasympathetic, pseudosympathetic, and sympathetic. A parasympathetic vampire's eyes are a yellow as warm as a normal troll's orange. (Drinkers' eyes don't fill in with their blood; in my opinion that process is analogous to graying of hair, to which they are obviously not prone.) They turn the glowing yellow Kanaya demonstrates in most of canon when not entirely sated. The pseudoparasympathetic system kicks in after a certain severity of thirst, and causes glowing such that the area around the eyes is more white than black. At this point the rainbow drinker's entire conscious mind is devoted to the pursuit of blood, and they will make active intelligent attempts to obtain it, such as negotiation, seduction, and kidnapping. A truly starving rainbow drinker, completely sympathetic, burns ocularly with the white of their internal light, and is now past any conscious intellectual process. In this state, there is a high risk that any victim they find will be sucked dry.
Therefore drinking blood is also necessary, and because of the literal blood rainbow trolls possess within themselves (i.e. the hemospectrum), the substance is rich in metals and color that light lacks. The rainbow drinker's skin is like a prism, repurposing the disparate intake into a single white light. During the moment of feeding, with duration similar to how the taste of food lingers in the mouth, the blood color is visible on the rainbow drinker's skin; over an extremely long period of a lopsided diet, this effect may become more permanent. Newborns need to feed three times a day, the more experienced once. Here originates their libidinosity: Since trolls can barely endure losing blood more often than every several days, no matter how much a drinker might prefer to feed only from her lovers, she must seek out further pray with whom to partake in this intimate act. This is only exacerbated by the natural desire for a wide variety of blood colors - after all, as has been said, they are "rainbow" drinkers. A preference for certain colors is common. Most rainbow drinkers have a "singer", with whom they almost inevitably become romantically involved, in the flushed quadrant somewhat more often than others. Their blood color is usually somewhat higher, or a shade lower, than the rainbow drinker's own. Blood matching a drinker's color has a more neutral taste to it, and that of another drinker is hardly appealing or nourishing at all, especially if it is their own - that scenario is an absolute last resort in the tradition of Fedorafreak. The blood of animals, or bright red blood, can provide sustenance but does not have any appeal whatsoever. Alien blood is a mixed bag, and depends largely on the similarity to trolls both with respect to the species' general nature and blood color itself.
Rainbow drinker anatomy mostly still resembles trolls'. The nervous, endocrine, and lymphatic systems are modified to run off light, augmented with appropriate hormones by blood. Hence the lack of blood intake easily triggers bloodlust. Ordinary illnesses are easily burnt with unholy light in the white blood cells, while the neurological changes explain the improvements to senses, reflexes, and charisma. Light also reinforces the musculoskeletal, boosting strength, speed, and sex appeal. The rainbow drinker's personal features are of course still entirely recognizable; improvements are mostly to things like facial symmetry and bone structure. Compare Twilight vampires' indescribable statuesque quality, or becoming a Pretty in Scott Westerfield's Uglies series. The pervasion of light into the unaltered reproductive system is more subtle.
The entire cardiovascular system becomes frozen, and the heart ordinarily ceases its activity. However, when stirred, the rainbow drinker's heart may beat once; the sensation is similar to when a living troll's heart skips a beat. The blood in their veins has dried up where it hasn't been consumed, though a watery venom, mostly saliva with the slightest clotting agent, does exist in the mouth to lubricate throat and fangs. Likewise the entire respiratory system ceases to act for the conversion of oxygen, and only functions now to take in air for scents and release it for speech.
Both respiration and circulation are taken over by the intergumentary system, the crown jewel of the rainbow drinker's body. This shining tapestry of interwoven light makes troll skin seem like a mere dull gray cloak fit only for suckling by wigglers - which, from the rainbow drinker's perspective, it is (recall the earlier placenta analogy). The intricately inter-connected light is determined to keep its own shape, which makes physical injury quite hard, and permanent harm almost impossible: The pieces come back together. In this way they're also immortal, because the processes of light take an infinite time to grind to a halt. The light is forever reflecting, renewing, reabsorbing. Processing of blood into light takes place here, taking the digestive system out of play. In a sense the rainbow drinker is dead mostly below the neck and above the waist. If you cut their body open, the knife would be mostly dry; there's little fluid outside their venomous mouths, and most of the organs have a distinct shine to them like wax models in a museum.
In light of the skin's importance and its functions of both circulation and respiration, it should be no surprise that glow is a key measure of rainbow drinker emotion. The main major variations are listed below. (Note: The following art is either from MSPA, from my userpics, or alltheladies's userpics.)
"Faint" refers to a glow less than an inch away from the face. "Bright" refers to a glow with a radius of at least half a foot. The standard, unsized glow is somewhere in between.
No glow at all. The skin has only a sheet-white, slight, sparkling, shining sort of quality. This takes a concentrated effort on the rainbow drinker's part, and is generally reserved for such serious moments as "Do I Dazzle You".
Faint feathered glow. "Feathered" here means that kind of aura that has feathered edges. Our main canon example. Something like :|, the glow made without outside influences. General situations are sober and unfortuante ones but low on actual emotion.
Feathered glow. More like :), the default calm state. For peaceful situations and passive happiness. Or just being calm enough to Suggest You Come To Terms With It. This manip is slightly better.
Bright glow. Overwhelming, pure happiness. May pulsate, but not violently enough to suggest potential homicide. Often associated with red feelings.
Faint pulsing glow: Dissatisfaction. This icon flickers to the same beat her glow would.
Pulsing glow. Anger. Something is wrong with you. Often associated with negative feelings, along the lines of Lets Motherfucking Dance.
Bright pulsing glow. Righteous fury. Usually homicidal. Well, obvously potentially homicidal.
Faint flickering glow: Flickering is distinct from pulsating in that rather than the glow shifting from near to far, it shifts from off to on. Therefore the predatory nature is nonexistent. This icon could fit for expression.
Flickering glow: Anticipation, nerves. This icon would have this if it flickered.
Bright flickering glow: Heart stopping, or rather beating again, or hysteria. This icon has the same beat.
Faint sharp glow. A "sharp" glow has a constant radius, and the beams within it merely shift; one moment the cheekbones will seem to be the brightest point of the light, the next the forehead. It marks a sort of focused mood, as its basis - the faint sharp glow - is that of the predatory rainbow drinker. For this purpose the drinker needs her glow to be tightly controlled, both to better predict where to go next and hide better. This icon has the same beat.
Sharp glow. Concupiscent. It isn't meaninglessly that this is an intensification of predatory. This icon obviously has the expression, and just needs the glow.
Bright sharp glow. This marks every nerve in her body rising at a critical moment, and usually will collapse into another kind of bright glow depending on the actual emotion. The radius is often well over a foot. You can see how this started as one of these, and then began a collapse into bright pulsing.
And here is a list of potential headcanon blood color tastes. Because troll blood comes in colors. Yes.
Candy red: Sour patch kids. A bitter iron blood-tasting outside that gives in to a brief rush of candy at the core. Human blood would be pretty much the same as this but a little less intense with the candy taste. As it's not a natural color of troll blood, I don't think it would actually be healthy for her to live off this long-term, nor human blood. Maroon is a really hearty cider, the kind that you can actually see the hue of. As it's the most basic troll blood I think it would work really well as bread and butter in a sense. Amber... she almost definitely wouldn't drink of her own accord. It'd be the worst kinds of chocolate with a faint cast of something else that people associate with the taste of brown. Yellow is lemons and mustard sandwiches and has this thickness that makes it feel more like food than water. Forest green is the waterier attempts at apple juices from Capri Sun's coolers. Jade green tastes watery in a thick heavy way, almost like holy water, and you can't actually live off it for a very long time at all (even if it belongs to another rainbow drinker). It's like a certain other kind of self-parasitic drinking you might encounter on a desert island. Teal is thick in a similar way to yellow, some wet hearty flavor of Jell-O. Azure is the brilliant brightest transcendant nectar, her brand of heroin in Sparklepirespeak. (This is also related to its place on the hemospectrum relative to her own, I think, not just the coincidence of who has it... though that helps.) Navy is... blue-colored but mostly... milk. Like the strawberry milk you would put flavor packets in, but probably a blue raspberry instead, but milk, I am shameless shameless shameless. Indigo is flat Faygo, big surprise. Violet is a kind of oversweet plum wine, brilliant the first time but the sugar cakes up behind your teeth. And Tyrian purple is this dizzyingly rarified French red-wine type claret.