Leprechaun

Leprechauns are a “mythical race”, argued by “some baloneyscholars” to in fact be a breed of gnome and also at times likened to elves, originating in Caliborn's session and comprising most of his gang the Felt.

Concept and creation

The presence of leprechauns in Homestuck harkens back to numerous references to various kinds of fairy throughout the MS Paint Adventures. The name 'leprechaun' was first mentioned among various other whimsical creatures in Act 6 Intermission 2, where they are said to get “tiny erections” from playing pranks, and the species were formally introduced by Aranea Serket over 1000 pages later in Intermission 5, one day before Saint Patrick's Day, commonly associated in North America with popular Irish iconography such as the mythical leprechaun.

The "charms" making up the leprechaun romance system are clearly inspired by the shapes found in boxes of Lucky Charms, whose box sports a leprechaun mascot - a product produced by the General Mills company which is in real life a subsidiary of the Betty Crocker corporation. These symbols, however, or at least a very similar group of nine symbols, had in fact already appeared once before in Problem Sleuth as the symbols on PS' phone; one sequence in particular, STAR - HEART - HORSESHOE, appeared early on in Homestuck as options on Jade Harley's wardrobifier before becoming regularly associated with the raunchy leprechaun Clover.

Biology

Like carapacians, whom they resemble in shape, leprechauns are physically diverse, ranging in size from the tiny, like Clover, to the enormous, like Cans. However all known leprechauns share in the same lime green skin color that is their master's trademark; similar in appearance to the surface of a pool table, it appears this skin is in fact literally made of felt. This felt exterior gives them some likeness to puppets, in particular the famously green Kermit the Frog, for which reason they have also been called both “PUPPET PEOPLE” and “FROG MEN” or “TOAD GOBLIN”s. Whether this indicates they also possess some semblance of amphibian biology is not clear, though Andrew Hussie dismisses this speculation as “really esoteric [...] headcanons”.

Also like carapacians, their bodies are filled with distinct candy red blood, which they display eagerly and repeatedly throughout the first Intermission.

Society and culture

Most of leprechaun culture and customs revolve around luck.

Romance

Leprechauns have a complex system of romance consisting of nine charms. One of these corresponds to the concept of romantic love as known by both trolls and humans, the other eight charms are related to this by a continuum of relationships established by pranks, riddles and games of chance. Unlike the quadrants, instead of attempting to have only a single relationship with another individual per quadrant, leprechauns strive to share as many charms with their partner as possible, with a pair sharing three or more charms being called a trove.

There are a possible 466 troves (84 three charm troves + 126 four charm troves + 126 five charm troves + 84 six charm troves + 36 seven charm troves + 9 eight charm troves + 1 nine charm trove) if the order of the charms does not matter and 181,440 (9! permutations divided by 2! permutations) if they do, with some troves being more conducive to reproduction than others. Reproduction involves an elaborate coupling followed by a lively mating jig, with the jig in question being defined by the charms involved. While Aranea's exposition on the matter was interrupted, an extended version of her lecture posted by Andrew Hussie confirms that the species reproduces homosexually. The rest of the lecture, a graphic description of the reproductive process, is covered with glitches and rendered unreadable except for a few phrases, the majority of which quote or otherwise reference Dave's remarks from earlier in the story regarding his Bro's smuppets, except for a few somewhat legible sentences at the beginning of the glitched section, seemingly written by Hussie himself, in which the reader is assured that this does in fact mean every (leprechaun) member of the Felt is "super gay".