Canon • 
Dubiously CanonEquius Zahhak, also known by his Trollian handle “centaursTesticle”, is one of the trolls. His associated zodiac sign is Sagittarius (♐), and he has one broken and one arrow shaped horn. He also has broken sunglasses and broken teeth. He has a prominent widow's peak and his hair extends down to his back.
After a series of “8acksta88ings” and “%%ings”, he ended up being the leader of the B100 Team.
Concept and creation[]
Equius uses "100" and "001" to replace "loo" and "ool" sounds where they appear in words such as look, fool, and pollute. He also replaces the letter “x” and the word cross with a percent sign (%) (with two percent signs meaning doublecross). Cent comes from the Latin centum, meaning hundred (although not in centaur, since this word has a Greek origin). Aside from the 100% STRONG theme of his, the percent sign might also be a reference to different percentages of milk, such as 1% or 2% milk. The word percent comes from the pseudo-Latin phrase per centum, meaning out of one hundred.
Equius also often references mythical beasts, and speaks with a certain tinge of superiority, becoming angry when Nepeta uses foul language (“what the hell”) and tells her that her “fraternization with the base classes” has “100sened” her “morals” 
.
The use of “centaurs” in Equius's chumhandle is a reference to Greek mythology, in which a Sagittarius was identified as a centaur. Equius' typing quirk includes adding a bow and arrow (“D -->”) before speaking, which also references his sign, since sagittarius means archer in Latin. The “Testicle” part of his chumhandle may reference the erotic nature of his musclebeast portraits.
Etymology[]
"Equius" was suggested by Angetaro. "Zahhak" was suggested by nextian. Equius takes its root from the Latin equus, meaning horse. It may also be in reference to the play Equus, in which a boy discovers his sexual affinity towards horses. This would explain Equius' almost unhealthy obsession for anything relating to hoofbeasts. Equus can also be a variation of "calm" in Latin [citation needed], which would be ironic considering the fact that Equius has a habit of going on rages. His first name could also come from the constellation Equueleus, equuleus meaning little horse in Latin.
Zahhak is a figure in Iranian mythology, who was strong and clever, but was easily manipulated by his evil counselors into world domination. Zahhak was also known as Bēvar-Asp, which translates into "[he who has] 10,000 horses" (10,000 being equal to 100²).
The Spanish name of the letter X is also equis, though it may also be a reference to the cross shape at the lower end of his sign. This word also ties into his aspect, void, in that equis is slang for something ordinary or unimpressive [citation needed].
Biography[]
Hivebent[]
Sgrub proves to be no challenge for his incredible strength. Rather than building, Equius simply strongjumps to the first gate on his planet in the Medium, the Land of Caves and Silence (LOCAS). He beheads a massive enemy with a single punch and makes it to the second gate in very little time. He then delivers Aradia Megido her robot. After he asks her if she feels any odd feelings or desires once she is ensconced within her new robotic body, she learns that he put a chip in her heart so that she would have romantic feelings for him. She reacts violently before kissing him.
Afterward, Equius arrives on Nepeta's planet, the Land of Little Cubes and Tea (LOLCAT), where she welcomes him with a friendly “pouncegreet!”. When asked about what happened to Aradia, Equius tells her that he does not know, and says that she has disappeared.
Post-Hivebent[]
Equius dies with a smile.
Ever since Aradiabot self-detonated, he has spent much of his time with Nepeta (at least one hour of which consisted of talking about feelings in a broken robot pile). After receiving Karkat Vantas' warning about Gamzee Makara, he instructs Nepeta to hide and goes searching for Gamzee. When he succeeds in finding him Equius is killed by Gamzee, who strangles him to death with a bowstring. He died with a smile on his face, possibly due to the pleasure of being strangled by a highblood, and as a form of erotic asphyxiation. It is possible that his title, Heir of Void, is a play-on-words implying "void of air" as per Equius' death. It may also relate to his trollhandle, “centaursTesticle”, as a common way of castrating a horse is by simply cutting off circulation to the genitals until they stop working. His smile also alludes to a previous conversation in which Gamzee says that if he could make Equius smile “iT'd Be ThE bEsT fUcKiN mIrAcLe I eVeR dId PaRt Of”.
After death[]
Equius' body was sequestered by his killer for later use; Gamzee seemingly used his blood to void information in Rose Lalonde's tome.
One ghost of Equius, spending time with two Aradiabots, watched a sleepwalking Roxy Lalonde float through his dream bubble. In fact after his death at least one Equius began courting a “great plurality” of Aradia's “mechanical doubles”.
Equiusprite[]
Upon arrival in the B2 session, Gamzee made multiple attempts to prototype Dirk Strider's kernelsprite, with Equius' remains, but Dirk took measures to prevent his attempts, hoping to prototype Lil Hal instead. After 5 months, however, moments before Dirk decided to finally prototype his sprite, Gamzee interrupted with Equius' corpse, resulting in their merger into Arquiusprite.
Post-retcon[]
After a significant retcon, Gamzee was not responsible for Equius's prototyping, and instead Dirk prototyped both Equius and Lil Hal at Vriska Serket's insistence .)
Personality and traits[]
Equius likes to solve things by punching them.
Equius is a complicated and initially disturbing troll. He is a firm believer in the blood caste system, believing one should respect those higher than them and be personally disgusted by those who are lower (such as those on the Red Team). He believes one is not only allowed, but obligated to boss around anyone who is lower-ranked than them and to accept and obey orders from anyone who is higher-ranked. He believes "highbloods" should act with elegance and authority and "gutterbloods" should act with crass and submission, and most importantly, highbloods and gutterbloods should not fraternize. Any deviation from this pattern (such as Gamzee and Aradia's actions) flusters him greatly. He tries ordering highbloods to order him around, but notices the contradiction. He tries to keep up with many aristocratic practices, and has dabbled in slam poetry (mostly about his strange fetishes).
He likes to (and is brilliant enough to) build robots, intending to destroy them in bouts of rage. He builds a pair of robotic legs for Tavros, a robotic arm for Vriska, and an entire indigo-blooded robot body for Aradia. However, his actions are also referred to as “misanthrobopy”, as he finds pleasure in dueling the robots he builds in brutal cage matches, often losing teeth in the process (though they “usually grow back”). Broken robot parts are piled on his floor. The technology he uses to build his robots is very similar if not identical to the technology used to build Jade's dreambot and augment John's bunny, as well as the technology Dirk uses with Brobot.
He has an appreciation for fine Alternian musclebeast art, depicting extremely muscular and well-endowed beasts displaying their brutish strength. The posters on his wall are actually part of an old and respected Alternian tradition, despite their outwardly disturbing appearance. The posters themselves are taken from ironic art reviews made earlier by Andrew Hussie. Some have also appeared in the Jandrew Edits he co-creates.
Equius has a tendency to quickly fly into a rage about practically everything. He is only able to express his rage by building robots, setting them to "Kill Mode," and smashing the shit out of them with staggering quantities of violence. In a pinch, other acts of destruction will do, such as when Aradia throws a bath tub through his wall to calm him down. He also gets profusely sweaty when placed in compromising situations, or when flying into said rage fits. According to him, he would probably be far more dangerous if he didn't have Nepeta as his moirail to keep him subdued.
STRONG.
Equius is freakishly strong, and has trouble controlling his strength; under his touch, bows snap, glasses break, and his exceptionally strong lusus bruises from little more than a gentle pat. This enrages him further. As a result of his strength, he has never successfully fired a single arrow. Broken bows and arrows litter the floor of his room. He has acquired a near-fetishistic obsession with breaking them, similar to Vriska's obsession with smashing magic 8-balls. Nepeta misconstrues this as simply sucking at archery.
He seems to enjoy the concept of domination, admiring his own strength, as well as the clout that his blue blood gives him over the lesser blood colors. However, it would seem that he would prefer to be dominated by the few trolls that occupy a caste higher than his own, or by anyone lower-classed who acts with a manner refined enough that it confuses him. He even went so far as to make an artificial heart which pumps blue blood for Aradia.
He likes games, but only if they are serious important games with high stakes. He has no interest in Flarp, and forbade Nepeta from playing as well. This may have saved her from being eaten by Vriska's spider lusus. While alone with Nepeta, however, he will begrudgingly accept to engage in more frivolous antics (horsing around, if you will).
Relationships[]
Nepeta Leijon[]
Equius cares deeply for Nepeta, so much so that he kept her from joining Flarp games and perhaps getting hurt, despite her protest. The two initially squabble often, but grow closer to each other, and eventually find each other's quirks endearing. At one point Equius attempts an entire conversation with Nepeta in roleplay form, and they have the most poignant and heartfelt feelings jam in paradox space history. Their relationship is the iconic moirallegiance and is perhaps the single most straightforward and uncomplicated troll relationship among the entire group. Their relationship is alluded to in their quirk prefixes (“:33 <” and “D -->”). If one combines the less-than and greater-than signs they form a diamond, the symbol of moirallegiance, “<”“>”. Equius' moirallegiance with Nepeta may be based on the good compatibility between the Sagittarius and Leo astrological signs.
Aradia Megido[]
Equius has an obsessive crush on Aradia and created a robotic body for her upon request (complete with artificial passion for him programmed onto an artificial heart that pumps indigo blood). But this may have been Vriska's idea to begin with, as stated in the pesterlogs, fantasizing that in that way she could be considered a blue-blood and he could be with her romantically. Later on, he was upset about how Aradia had become his superior (being his server player and thus in control of his physical environment) but then took perverse pleasure in being dominated by her, even ceding the leadership title to her. His relationship with Aradia is hard to define, like much of troll romance, but his feelings tend to lean more towards the flushed quadrant. They were, however, together romantically. In the Ministrife, Aradia notes that Equius is courting a plurality of her robotic doubles in the afterlife, plausibly against her will, and mentions that she “never should have kissed [him] that time it was such a mistake :(” most likely separating her non-Aradiabot self from him for good.
Other trolls[]
Gamzee gets ready to kill Equius with a bow he just broke.
Most of Equius' qualms with the other trolls concern acting above or below one's rank. He questions how a troll like Gamzee, whose purple blood—a color historically associated with royalty—is a tier above Equius' indigo blood, could act so crassly, while Aradia, who is “of the most abject, verminous b100dline of all”, can conduct herself with (in his opinion) poise and grace, casting doubts upon the practicality of the system. Equius becomes flustered and apologetic when a highblood like Gamzee accepts an order from him without question. Judging from this conversation, Equius seems to have a complex, unconventional fetish for being “whipped into a state of contrition” for his impudence. Equius's desire to be put in his place is what ultimately led to his downfall. Equius could possibly have saved himself easily, but he was killed because he would rather uphold the caste system, feed his own fetish, or perhaps uphold a pacifist idealism (as he shows towards the idea of killing an animal) than save his own life. The trolls he is in romantic relationships with (Nepeta and Aradia) represent the signs Leo and Aries, which along with Sagittarius make up the fire signs of the Zodiac.
Despite his obsession with those considered above him in rank, Equius seems to greatly dislike Eridan, with Karkat even stating that Equius insults the seadweller somewhat frequently. Equius at first cites Eridan's blood color, stating that due to their disparity as landweller and seadwellers, they are to always be feuding, but later admits “his advances make me uncomfortable”, making it clear there is a more personal (if negative) relationship between the two. It is unclear whether this claimed landweller and seadweller feud would extend to Feferi or the other fuschiablooded trolls, or is strictly limited to violetbloods.
His relationship with Vriska is also deeply rooted in his 'traditions', with him constantly treating the ceruleanblood as if she is a threat to be kept at arms length, as he claims he believes bluebloods should behave with each other, while also coordinating with her to benefit his own means. He generally considers himself to be better than Vriska, and seems to have no qualms about putting her in her place when she angers him by trying to read his mind, or about doublecrossing her in order to take charge (though he later surrenders this leadership to Aradiabot).
Equius seems to have a negative relationship with Karkat, calling him “a tactical midget with a short fuse, a foul mouth, and paralyzing insecurity over the color of his b100d” and outwardly rejecting his leadership. But later, when Karkat calls on him to deal with Gamzee and Eridan, he seems to be more neutral towards the troll, and even does as he asks. Though interestingly, Equius doesn't seem to grow flustered at being ordered around by Karkat in the same way as he does with Aradia and Gamzee, even though he directly acknowledges that he does “appreciate the debauchery inherent in receiving an order of such gravity from a rogue-b100ded foulmouth”. He appears to be recognizing that he should be enjoying this, rather than actually enjoying it. This implies that, despite Karkat being even lower than Aradia, he does not enjoy the idea of being bossed around by him quite as much as her, though this could perhaps be simply due to his uncertainty of the actual contents of the order, with him showing an aversion to the idea of having to “raise a hand to the highb100d”.
Lusus/Kernelsprite[]
Equius's Lusus, Aurthour.
Aurthour, after prototyping.
Equius's Lusus, Aurthour, is a muscled centaur with udders and a nice mustache. He serves as Equius's butler, offering him cold glasses of nutritious lusus milk, presumably among other things. He resembles a creature from one of the author's older works, Humanimals. Equius considers him to be one of the strongest lusus species in existence, the only one suitable for raising him and his absurd strength. Even though Equius tries to be as gentle as possible with him, his strength causes Aurthour to bruise incredibly easily, leading to a prominent black eye. Aurthour is also, according to Equius, the best there is at butlering.
Aurthour dies after an explosion caused a piece of Equius' house containing Aurthour to plummet into the rocks and spiderwebs below, to later be scooped up and deposited into his kernelsprite. In Alterniabound, it was revealed that "Aurthor's Ghost" had died as well. However, the means by which this happened is unknown, but it could simply be because Equius' planet got destroyed.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Equius is against the consumption of Alternian fauna
, making him somewhat of a vegetarian, if that is even a possibility on Alternia. - The number 100, which Equius uses in his quirk, is the atomic number of the element fermium on the periodic table, which is the heaviest element that can be formed by neutron bombardment of lighter elements.
- His constant need for towels is a possible reference to horses' being one of the few mammals to sweat, and that they sweat profusely.
- His death caused by strangulation may reference the fact strangled people get blue lips from the lack of oxygen.
- The bags under his eyes match his blood color, which is a unique feature among his fellow trolls, though these could be bruises from all his excessive sparring.
- His aspect, Void, may be a reference to the astronomical object Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star), believed to be a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and conveniently located in the Sagittarius constellation.
- Equius' belief that lusus milk is the secret to being strong may be a reference to Heracles who was endowed with incredible strength after suckling the milk of the goddess Hera.
- Equius seems to be generally made up of references to Hussie's past works. His lusus quite resembles a humanimal, which were the main cast of one of Hussie's previous comics, and the paintings on his walls come from some of Hussie's old ironic art reviews. On top of this, Equius is also related to both robots and, in a way, rapping, which were both subjects of And It Don't Stop, another comic which Hussie used to work on.
- Dirk, who has often been likened to Equius, is also related to quite a few And It Don't Stop references.
- Equius is depicted on the "IV: The Emperor" card in the Homestuck tarot card deck, which represents power and authority. The astral ruler of the card "IV: The Emperor" is Aries. He can also be seen with most of pre-act six cast on the "Six of Wands" card.
- Equius's name bears a striking resemblance to the word obsequious which means "obedient to an excessive degree", as well as the word acquiesce which means "submit or comply silently or without protest", which is quite fitting given his personality and treatment of highbloods.
- The RGB values of Equius's blood color are 0, 33, 203. The green value being 33 is possibly a reference to Nepeta.
- Equius swears once, after finding out Aradia was his server player.
- Equius is the only post-scratch troll that is never seen attempting to attack another troll.
- Equius lives on a ledge above Vriska, a possible reference to him being higher on the hemospectrum than her.
- The 100 in his quirk in combination with his habit of drinking milk may mean "100% milk", which would likely be misunderstood to mean unpasteurized milk (even though in reality it would just be pure fat).
- Zahhāk is a figure from Iranian legend depicted either as a man with two snake heads growing from his shoulders, or a monstrous three-headed serpent. Therefore, Equius' surname might be interpreted as foreshadowing his incorporation into Lord English, who is associated with pairs of snakes (such as Calliope's Caduceus symbol, or cherubs during their mating ritual) and is "three-headed" in the sense that he is a combination of Caliborn, Gamzee, and Arquiusprite.
- Equius wears “METAL SHOES”, as seen in multiple Hero Mode illustrations (, ). This may be a reference to horseshoes.
