Yeah just dive in. You dont need to know anything about Homestuck to enjoy it–plenty of Non-Homestuck streamers are doing so right now. and if youre some of the ways in you’ll likely get something out of the references, too.
Besides its an episodic game and act 1 is only a couple hours. You can just finish act 1 and you’ll have at least a couple months to finish catching up before act 2 drops.
We’ve already got Lord English references all over the place, and LE has always had three main prongs of underlings so to speak:
Doc Scratch & Whoever he commands at any given moment–usually the Felt.
His Witch figure, IE: Handmaid/Condesce.
And the cult that worships him–the Subjugglators, Kurloz, Meulin & other acolytes in the bubbles, and Gamzee.
We’ve always known the Condesce was on B1 for years before disappearing for the Alpha universe, but nothing much came of her involvement in B1 in the comic. And we never learned too much about the cult’s specifics, either. Given that Scratch is already involved in Hiveswap, and that Joey already wondered if some of the kids at the school were evil (and referred to them as clowns), it makes sense to think Jude is right about the cult and they’ll be the primary opposition in Hauntswitch.
Hence, we’ll learn about the Guardians and the Cult in one fell swoop.
The other game thatll come out after Hiveswap, set on Earth with Dammek as the protagonist instead of Joey. We’ll play as Dammek and Jude and presumably deal with the cult Jude’s been tracking, which is probably the mirthful messiah cult from Homestuck.
Grandpa was always kind of a neglectful piece of shit–he let Jade play with loaded guns. To be clear, I think its likely Grandpa very much does care for Joey and Jude, and he probably maneuvered the portal and other events to ensure they’d somehow escape their certain doom on earth. Let’s not forget this man is preparing for what he knows full well is the apocalypse, as is MOM.
Which isn’t to say that Joey’s anger isnt justified. Pa is still a shitty guardian. But that isn’t news, and it doesnt mean that Grandpa is now unambiguously terrible in all things. He’s probably responsible for saving vast swathes of humanity through sburb, and he orchestrated the salvation of the Beta kids at the very least. Odds are, he’s done the same for Jude and Joey.
But there’s a measure of truth in your idea, especially about the Alphas–l felt the same about the Betas until literally today when I had a conversation that made me reconsider a bit, so I’m mulling them over.
But like. The Beta Guardians have always demonstrated how much the Alpha kids love and need each other. They are terrible, non-functional, broken people by themselves. The only SORT OF exception is Jane/Nanna, but even she lives a life that leaves her unfulfilled and unsatisfied by her own choice to limit her impact and potential, which is why Nanna is so moved to know about Alpha Jane’s potential.
Except for possibly Bro, who has been corrupted by Cal to some extent so I’m not sure what his state of mind is exactly, the Guardians and Alpha Kids all have an recurring motif of caring and loving desperately intensely, and none of their care and love helps them be good people to those they care about, because love only goes so far if you don’t learn to communicate and do the hard work of connecting.
The Guardians show us the miserable, tragic extremes that those self-destructive habits lead them to. The Alpha Kids manage to rise above them and grow and improve as people through their connections to each other. That’s what matters to me.
So I guess what I’m saying is I kinda agree but I really don’t want us to swing to regarding Grandpa as like, Basically Evil now. It’s not that simple. Joey’s anger is righteous and I ate it up forever and she deserves her bitterness, but her perspective is also limited. We’ll probably learn more about Grandpa along Hiveswap and Hauntswitch along those lines, which’ll be an interesting ride.
it took 5 years for them to publish this joke and id gladly wait another 10 for more
That’s a good point. I gotta be honest and say I’m not 100% informed on either my anarchist or communist theory atm, though it looks like I’m gonna have to brush up. Thanks for the additional nuance!
Flying through Storytelling 