people arent excited about the friendsims because they arent canon to hiveswap

That isn’t true, though.

The point of the Friendsim is obviously to let us get to know some of the troll call trolls before we met them in the context of Joey and Xefros’ adventure. It’s set at around the same time in their lives as Act 1, which means they’re going to be dealing with similar struggles, have the same basic personalities, and so on.

It’s loosely canon because it’s playing fast and loose with reality RE: the MSPA Reader, but we’re not even sure the MSPA Reader’s existence will be completely retconned in Hiveswap, or if it’ll just take on a more structured form! Who knows?

Either way, the stars of the show are obviously the trolls, and THEIR depictions are roughly accurate to how they’ll be in Hiveswap. Hence the point of the Friendsims.

same hiveswap anon ive been going through your hiveswap tag and reading your theories and I absolutely LOVE your A. Clair = Anna = Jane clone theory (there’s even a pony pals poster in Joey’s room!!!) but I wondered why you see her as a life player and not as a light one? Is it only because she is (probably (hopefully)) Jane’s clone? Or are there other textual reasons I’m missing?

I think it could go either way, which is partly why I can’t tell what JOEY’s true classpect is, and thus why I haven’t felt confident making a Joey video yet. I am going to have to say fuck it and bite the bullet soon because Joey deserves better from me, honestly.

If A. Claire is a Jane well into her prime and roleplaying a Light player rather than Life, that could maybe explain her early death from a classpect perspective, and it would suggest Joey might be roleplaying LIGHT as a result of A. Claire’s influence, when she’s actually naturally a Life player like her mom.

This would be delightfully ironic, and if true I’d wager Joey is actually an Heir of Life by nature, since it would account for how she feels she can’t be assertive all the time.

It would also make sense if her rise to stardom along with Xefros is orchestrated by Doc Scratch, who’s always been fond of manipulating Light players, and her arc eventually involves moving a bit further away from her desire for stardom/the spotlight and towards simply enjoying spending time with her friends and pets.

This makes a degree of sense, especially since her Life imagery is displayed pretty much entirely through the variety of pets she’s accruing–Byers, Slothdad, Deercat–and pets are so far a more consistent source of joy to her than her dreams of stardom. But then, part of Joey’s light imagery also has to do with imagination and stuff like video games, so its not all bad or anything!

Still, if she were an Heir of Life, she’d be a mix of John and Jane’s title, which would be quite fitting, I think. Hence why I just don’t know right now! I think it may be a mystery we’re meant to riddle out as the Acts continue, but maybe Act 2 will contrive to give her a True Sign and thus give us the answer.

What do you think about Hiveswap Act 2 delaying? And why isn’t what pumpkin or Hussie saying anything about it?

here is an entire video just for u, since your ask is what prompted me to take this off the backburner finally

Personally, I assumed Act 2 would be delayed as soon as WP announced the friendsims. It seemed implied to me by the lines:

First, the most important thing to address is, Hiveswap’s development
absolutely will continue. The approach to its development will evolve as
this transition goes forward, but ensuring the release of the full
Hiveswap series remains our priority. We should have more specific
information about what exactly this means for Hiveswap in coming weeks.

Obviously its been longer than weeks, but that’s nothing new with Hussie.
This is also pretty much why I’m not bothered they haven’t said more about it–the current situation has already pretty much been outlined for us.

It doesn’t really matter, in my opinion. WP is still committed to releasing the full series, and WP already went through worse just getting Act 1 to us. I don’t know when Act 2 will come out, but I believe it will, eventually.

More people buying and enjoying the Friendsims would make that happen faster though, I’m sure. Which they should anyway because they are excellent and for the first time ever we basically have full-blown upd8s on an actual schedule. I really don’t understand why everyone isn’t ecstatic over that.

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!

HIVESWAP ACT 1 is currently 40% off on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/623940/HIVESWAP_Act_1/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/833040/Hiveswap_Friendsim/

Find me at my own Patrons-only Discord, or the r/Hiveswap reddit and Discord: https://www.patreon.com/optimisticDue…
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hiveswap/
https://discord.me/hiveswap

Sources:

Official What Pumpkin Blog: http://whatpumpkin.tumblr.com/post/17…
Hiveswap Website: https://www.hiveswap.com/credits

Homestuck news updates & website edit logs:
https://wheals.github.io/newsposts/ne…
http://homestuck.info/
@homestuck-info (Is a fantastic source for all updates on WP, by the way!)

Videogame Choo Choo:
http://videogamechoochoo.com/recent-w…

PCGamer on Warframe:
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-story-of-warframe-how-a-game-no-publisher-wanted-found-26-million-players/

Rose City Games:
https://theworldnextdoor.com/

VIZ Media:
https://www.viz.com/news/newsroom/v/1…

Polygon:
https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/6/1697…

Anime News Network:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pres…
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news…

Ember Reviews’ excellent video on Hunter x Hunter Alluka’s gender identity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDUhU…

Find the music on Bandcamp!:
Terezi’s Theme: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…

Rustless Fall: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…

Dord Waltz: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…

Hollow Suit: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…

I watched your recent video, love it by the way, and I have a question (which might be easy to explain) what if one of the troll calls (namely the oliveblood detective) has the same aspect as their cast aspect but a different moon, how would the aspect be represented then cause from what said aspects go from their original life being the blood aspect and then rising Into their real aspect but what if they are one in the same

Dunno! Presumably, like the true sign trolls themselves, those players would have a leg up since society itself isn’t pulling them away from their true Aspects. But maybe the difference in dreaming moon counts for more than I think, and they’ll have stress on them that way?

Impossible for me to say right now, but the question sure is interesting. Hope we get such a troll in Hiveswap eventually!

how did you make tagora such a fleshed-out character but also such a meme man at the same time?

la-loh:

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??

overall, what do you think of kuprum and folykl + their dynamic? I know that some people got super uncomfortable at the ‘kissed to death’ end due to it feeling rather unconsenty and out of nowhere, so I’m interested in your take on it. so altogether, did your personal feelings on them as characters change? you like them more, less, the same amount?

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.

I’ve seen a few people suggest folykl is a thief, but I see her as a mage, seeing as she’s literally suffering through her aspect, void(rot)

I didn’t buy into the “Mages suffer” headcanon back before the premier example of that idea–Sollux– was canonically established to have the suffering Aspect. Every character we’ve seen in both Homestuck and the Friendsims have suffered their aspect one way or another, so that by itself doesnt really tell me much of anything at all.

What do you think Elwurd, Kuprum and Folykl’s classpects are?

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!

it occured to me that lanque would make sense as one of the trolls for tomorrow’s friendsim!

ofc thats at least partly just me REALLY WANTING TO GET TO KNOW LANQUE, and I’m not particularly expecting to be right. but my logic goes roughly thusly;

We know that Vol 6 will be titled “Of Text and Envy, Green”

If we’re talking about green text, the likeliest option is Maxlol as the clearest 4chan representative. But what about the envy bit?

Well, we know Lanque’s a Life player, and that he craves eternal life.

As a Jadeblood, that gives us two sources he might be jealous of:

–Fuschiabloods, who live practically forever

–Rainbow drinkers, who…might? And who are considerably closer to home, as a phenomenon exclusive to Jadebloods.

I’ve also had friends suggest that envy might suggest Charun as a Ragebound, and that Rage might have some intrinsic links to envy and jealousy. Either would be pretty interesting to me!

But I favor Lanque over Charun by a very slim margin, so this is what I’m personally hoping for, for now.

Who knows how things will pan out, but I figured I’d throw the thought out here.
Happy friendsim day, however it pans out! ^_^