Not sure about Chahut–we’re thinking maybe Seer, maybe Sylph, maybe Maid? Honestly don’t have a clue right now.
Azdaja, though, makes himself real easy. He’s the Prince of all Goldbloods, his destructive power is showcased throughout his routes–he’s. Yeah. He’s a Prince. I think it’s cool how these things don’t always have to be such a federal fucking issue.
I talked about this briefly on twitter but a handful of the characters in friendsim have “canon” music that we don’t use because it doesn’t fit the mood of the route. A great example is Konyll’s music.
In Hiveswap Act 2 there is a significant interaction with her that I won’t spoil, but it involves Azdaja as well. When you overlap their two songs, it becomes a full melody. (kind of like their trollcall card, two sides of one coin etc)
With characters like Remele, who have tracks made for them for Friendsim, it follows what I’ve been referring to as the established “Musical Canon” in that the instrumentation choices are largely based on blood caste. Homestuck has a tradition of doing this whether it wanted to or not a lot of the time and I spent a great deal of time reverse engineering the existing canon to make hiveswap feel like it fit. A good example of this is something like Tagora’s and other tealbloods tracks being the only ones allowed to use harpsichord. “But what about Tri-” shh!
anyway the established musical canon in hiveswap is something like: Burgundy: Synths/Percussion Brown: Trumpet/Horns/Brass Yellow: Chiptune ???: ???? Olive: Mallets Jade: Harps/Bells + Airy/Ethereal Sounds Teal: Harpsichord Cerulean: they just… steal other castes instruments so its complicated to explain. Indigo: Overwrought and Orchestral Purple: Honks lmao Violet: At this point they are so individual that each one has its own musical motif Fuchsia: Whatever they want.
none of these are hard rules so those of you out there doing fantroll stuff can just do whatever you want, this is just what we came up with.
July 7, 2018
Bonus video for the month! This isn’t any sort Homestuck or Hiveswap lore post, just a rough overview of the current state of Homestuck, Hiveswap, What Pumpkin, and their relationship with VIZ media.
If you’re feeling down about things as they stand, I hope my contribution makes you feel a bit better about things. And maybe even makes you consider checking out Hiveswap and the Hiveswap: Friendsims! They’re both fascinating and add a lot to the Homestuck universe, in my opinion-Alternia has never been more interesting than the last couple of weeks!
All things considered, I am quite excited to see where things go from here. Hope you’ll join us!
Oh, just thought way too much about him all the time, nbd!
Really, though, writing character-driven stories is fun. So even if I can’t fit it all in a short friendsim route, I like digging into the established character designs/traits. I thought about how Tagora’s personality is informed by his extended zodiac traits, his upbringing, motivations, fears, alignments, etc.
All that while, like, having this image open in a tab to check when I needed inspiration. It’s about that balance, y’know?
Anyway, thanks, and I’m glad that uhhh showed through some for you??
They’re fucked up assholes, and I like them a lot anyway because they’re also pretty kind people to those they deem true friends. Sounds a lot like the Captors and Cirava tbh.
If the energy transfer thing struck anyone as out of nowhere, they weren’t paying attention. Neither Kuprum or Folklyl were shy about the somewhat sexual connotations of Kuprum literally feeding Folklyl his life force to keep her alive.
more rambling under the cut
I find it kinda weird to call them codependent in this context, too, since again–Folklyl needs energy to survive. Kuprum cares enough to give it to her. Alternia does not. She’d be dead without him, and he’d be purposeless and lonely without her. They talk a lot of shit to each other, but the foundation of their friendship is that simple fact.
They’re broken people trying to survive and make the best of a broken world much bigger and stronger than they are. This is Alternia 101. I keep being surprised that anyone’s surprised by this stuff.
The MSPA Reader volunteered to take over a role they didn’t understand, to try and break Kuprum and Folklyl up because they failed to pass their own standards of good behavior. It is not exactly a surprise that the 4chan trolls took that moralizing gesture and milked it for all it was worth.
And like, I get that the noncon element of the energy transfer thing gave it an uncomfortable edge, but…guys…they were basically leaving the MSPA Reader to die. The readers well-being and comfort was quite obviously out the window. It was supposed to be uncomfortable, not just because it was non-con but because it was attempted murder.
All that aside, their friendship is still really genuine and heartwarming, as the drone path shows us. Kuprum deeply, genuinely cares about Folklyl’s well-being. It matters to him whether or not she’s alright. And both of them are victims of Alternia and targets to Trizza’s drones, no matter how much Kuprum kisses her ass. This is important context.
Anyway, How morally ‘good’ a character is has precisely 0% to do with how interesting I find them. I only really care about how much I think they add to the narrative.
Folklyl and Kuprum are very interesting, and add a lot. To our understanding of the conflict between lowbloods and highbloods, the condition that made Sollux’s eyes black (we have a name for it now! Voidrot!), and goldbloods in general.
Psiionics got so much more interesting as a result of that energy transfer beat, even though the noncon element did make it uncomfortable.
In light of all that, honestly, who caaaares about how good or nice or likeable they are. Characters can be flawed and mean and fucked up and still interesting. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to grow up and learn to treat people better. Also hopefully, they’ll get a chance to grow up at all.
Honestly vol 6 blindsided me, to the extent that classpect stuff isn’t even what I found most exciting about it. It ended up not being at the forefront of my mind while playing and I def missed stuff. I’ll have to replay them eventually. anyhow
MAXLOL & FOLKLYL
This is just a thought, but Kuprum and Foklyl both them seem to echo a Mage of Doom-they know how each of them are doomed, just like Cirava did, and this awareness lends to a self-serving nature and a sense of self-assured arrogance. Starting to remind me of how all indigos seem to evoke pages.
I’m not sure about Folklyl’s Class. I kinda feel like Thief, kinda feel like Page, could go either way if she’s a creator class. Rogue almost makes sense but I consider it less likely since we have a Rogue of Void in Roxy already.
Maxlol I suspected was a Knight of Hope as early as Troll Call, and everything I saw confirmed as much for me. I suspected he’d believe in the empire a lot and serve “through Hope” that way
And Maxlol DOES turn out to rationalize his service to the empire through Hope…but it has nothing to do with faith in the empire or Trizza. It just goes through the Hope player sexuality filter. Which is. hilarious, frankly.
He uses his powers to serve (help, give, protect) his friends Hope, or serve (totally own/defeat/beat) his enemies through Hope–literally, through his Hope and Rage colored psiionics. Goldbloods’s duality motif manifests as Maxlol seemingly using both his primary aspect and its complement.
Bonus points for the fact that even in a situation Maxlol might have interpreted as him getting cheated on or w.e, his instinct is to help the MSPA Reader give Folklyl power–Folklyl has to literally tell him to “stop helping”. An event that’s pretty Hope coded–kisses, shows of affection, the general nsfw-y nature of it all.
ELWURD
Strikes me as a witch of hope, mainly because she seems quite disappointed at her inability to Change bronya into a bad girl. The MSPA Reader quite gleefully parses as someone who tries to become her familiar figure, joining them in Hope-fueled pretense, moving the Reader to lie to Elwurd directly or to lie to Bronya with Elwurd.
Either way, the ability to commit to a lie remains a powerful Hope motif. As does horniness. Elwurd’s true “familiar” figure in this paradigm would likely be Bronya, who Elwurd can’t get over and also can’t stop lying to.
Elwurd’s biggest romantic obstacle is her overly inflated self-Importance(Light) which holds her back from being honest about her feelings. This culminates in an act of theft that Elwurd denied ever happening, to force continued interaction with Bronya. So i think its reasonable to suspect shes roleplaying a Thief of Light, and its not doing wonders for her if so.
Rather than a Witch, its also possible shes a Rogue with their particular fixations on romantic partners. Heir is a possibility, though I feel pretty strongly Cirava’s an Heir of Hope, so I think its likely she’s a Witch if they’re both change-classes. I may just be overstating the Change references in either of their texts, but I don’t think so.
Guess we’ll learn more later, but those are my thoughts right now!
Hiveswap is gradually educating a new crop of Homestuck fans without them having to read the source to understand anything, and it’s doing a great job.
Flying through Storytelling 