#Alternian history

[soupygremlin]

alternians of tumblr! i have an announcement your gonna wanna hear :3

im making a history book of OUR STORIES!!!! Our lives, the way they actually went, not the way Homestuck told them. Of course, somethings about us had to be changed to make the audience more engaged and/or comfortable. We are aliens after all. But i want to give us the chance to tell our real stories. No changes, no beating around the bush. It will (hopefully) be in both English and Alternian, and will likely be a public (public to view, mine to edit) Google doc! Send your story into my ask box if you want in, reblog to spread the news, and tag your friends if you want!

[celestialtrolls-moved]

I still never solidified my Halloween headcanons for my fantrolls

I feel like Alternian Halloween has got some kind of relevance to the undead and ghosts of Alternia

But I don't know what? Is it a common day for mass hoards of zombies to encroach on living cities? Is the day especially long and the undead are more powerful? Are ghosts able to cross over back to the living realm? Are people more likely to become undead if their corpse is still around that night? Or did one dude exist in the past, Mr. Hallowse Evennynn who was just a necromancer that targeted people, especially during this time of year? I don't know.

I feel like for the living of Alternia there's like...

Parties are common, originally stemming from a 'safety in numbers' standpoint where people would barricade themselves from the undead on this particular day, but now it's just about the fun of having parties or still staying safe from people doing 'tricks',

Dressing up like the undead to 'fool them' so you don't get eaten, or as a mockery of the past or to trick people into thinking they're going to get eaten by zombies (this does sound like something that highblood wrigglers would be encouraged to do, potentially with high levels of actual violence, a trick or treat but the treat is that you survive...)

[spaceoperastuck]

The Brazen raid of '78

So you may be asking, who is crazy enough to run the security blockade over Alternia that is maintained by the Condesces Honor Guard Fleet? Two people. The first one was Marquise Spinneret Mindfang and her 8 fold fleet, whom used a slipstream gravity drop and stolen access codes to slip past the fleet and coming dangerously close to the pink moon of Alternia. Now why did the marquise do this? easy, a second descendant of hers had finally hatched. She and her fleet made a breakneck reckless run just so she could descend to the surface, blow up a couple dozen of the Condesces drones using a pair of Balius war striders, claim a smol blue grub, and return to orbit with minimal losses. The other person who would conduct such a bold raid? Lord Admiral of the Human Unions 28th fleet, Lord Admiral Ed Teach and his Gloriana-P class superbattleship Queen Anne's Revenge, which just so happened to initiating a hit-and-run raid against Alternian home system logistics hubs. this attack basically made the Honor Guard Fleet have to break off from the pursuit of the marquise Fast Cruiser, and by the time Teach had made his escape, the marquise and the 8 fold fleet was out of the system. This day saw the destruction of 14 of the honor guards frigates and 1 of their grand cruisers. while the ships would be replaced in short order, this would result in multiple captains being killed by Her Imperious Condescension, and a mark on the record of the Honor Guard Fleet.

[thewertsearch]

The heroes chose to accept this bargain, and scratched their session. In doing so they jumpstarted the reality in which the twenty-four figures of legend would together be created - and I as well - and then sent back in time to take our places in history. Though I was delivered well before history even began, before the dawning of life on their planet. This time around, I would oversee its development, and thus fulfill the mother's promise of an aggressive, ruthlessly prepared group of heroes. One that would not rest until victory was secured.

It sounds like Scratch's changes weren't really about combat ability at all. Instead, he was more concerned with ensuring the trolls were psychologically prepared to face the game. We don't really know what made the pre-Alternians so bad at Sgrub, but Scratch solved any and all such problems by replacing them with a group of belligerent power-gamers who sought to conquer the universe they made. Thanks, Doc!

Also – this might be a little pedantic, but did the post-Scratch session really count as a victory? I mean, when your frog is terminal, your universe is sealed off, and your species is almost extinct, can you really say you won?

The pre-Alternians might have grounds to sue, is what I’m trying to say.

The young twenty-four would again be scattered in two groups, twelve modern contemporaries, and twelve ancients. But in addition to losing their memories of everything that had happened before the scratch, there was another catch for the failed heroes. In the new reality, they would not serve as the heroes. They would mature to become the ancestors of the twelve they formerly regarded as theirs, and this twelve would be chosen for glory.

...the Ancestors were Alternia's original Players.

I speculated that the kids might change Guardians after the reboot - but for some reason, I never even considered that a Guardian could become a Player. If this is how a Scratch actually works...

This... this changes everything. This is Act 6's hidden twist - the fact that we're not going to be getting our kids at all. Homestuck's new heroes, the next session's champions, are Joan Egbert, Roxy Lalonde, Dale Strider, and...

and...

PEN-PAL IS THE SCRATCHED VERSION OF GRANDPA.

Jesus christ, everything fits. He's a child with Grandpa’s mannerisms because they’re time-duplicates, and it's looking increasingly likely that memories can bleed between the two. He recognizes Jade as his 'grandmother' because in his timeline, Jade arrived before he did, and became the new matriarch of the Harley family. He knows about Earth culture because he grew up on another Earth. His access to the bunny's endgame weapons... is still a little confusing, actually, but this fits literally everything else. I am absolutely, 100% confident that this is the answer to Homestuck's most maddening riddle.

I can't fucking believe what I'm reading. Literally every prediction I have about Homestuck's future is going to have to change.

[weaselmcdiesel]

ok so it's not a comic hope thats ok with you but instead it's karkat n nepeta but designed by someone whos madly in love with them both

some more au explanations + transcript beneath the cut

they're maybe around 30-40 yo? This was mostly just an exercise to give both of them adult designs. uh. i'm only calling it an au because I made bs some explanations behind their designs while i was drawing them. so uh, in this universe, sburb never happens + things that happened because of sburb don't happen either, but the alternian society is relatively unchanged. i dont actually know.. what.. karkat does.. like i cant figure out why he wouldnt be culled but it doesnt really matter i just wanted to draw him looking cool! (i am. open to hear about speculation if you have any). also i figured that Kanaya would go to the brooding caverns after her lusus dies, bc the wiki said her lusus would die regardless of the game taking place n whatever, and probaly do something with the matriorb there idk. thats all tho! ill prolly draw them more and maybe develop more lore as i do ^^;

--

Transcript!

i don’t know what their dynamic is in the canon of this au… but that won’t stop me from making them kiss :]

The Vigilant adult karkat on alternia

new highly developed shoosing skill

honestly has a calmer demeanor because he’s learned what’s worth exploding about… though he probably developped a crazy resting bitch face

pleased (arrow to karkat with a neutral face)

The sash doubles as a sling for when he visits Kanaya in the brooding caverns. He’s also very tranquil around grubs because they don’t cause unmanageable problems. He’ll get mad if someone else bothers one

(yes i’m obsessed with dilfkat that’s why i drew this)

The Predator adult nepeta on alternia

Taller than karkat <3

still a silly goober, but better at getting what she wants

she probably got her title from a history of single-handedly slaying fearsome lusii. she likely takes assassination type of jobs because of her stealth. one of the more easy-going trolls from the group

--

also! fun fact. i was having trouble designing kk's outfit so i looked in an old antiques catalog book from the internet archive to get inspiration from objects that had the same colors as those that i wanted to use in his design? not sure why i did that. just had a hunch that it would be fun. so this is the object i found that strangely enough inspired kk's fit

haha.. and i also found one for nepeta, though it was easier to design her fit and i didnt actually need a reference object

the book was "Antique Trader antiques & collectibles 2009 price guide"

[dingodad]

the presumption that the troll kids are "intended to be weird exceptions" and therefore should never be taken as representative of broader troll society is a) poor form when it comes to appreciating storytelling but also b) when you think about it even a little deeper implicitly requires you to buy into the fascist alternian mythology about ancestors. like does it really make more sense to believe that the ancestors' stories mirror the lives of their descendants because of some mystical threads of fate which tie together trolls who share DNA than it does to consider that maybe trolls in the same caste live similar lives throughout history because their society continues to place the same expectations and responsibilities upon them. or am i just too marxist for this shit. no. it is all of you who are simply not marxist enough to appreciate all of the solluxes in hiveswap having cyclops from the x-men eyes

[vexwerewolf]

Actually if you want an even more controversial Homestuck hot take:

Feferi's not the uwu guiltless softgirl a lot of people make her out to be

Her lusus is her responsibility, and yet she offloads the horrific task of killing other trolls' lusii onto her moirail because she wants to keep herself morally pure and her hands clean. See, technically, Eridan killed all those guardians, not her! Nevermind that it was to keep every troll in the galaxy alive, a duty that rightfully should've been hers.

Does that entitle Eridan to her love? Of course not, nobody's entitled to love. But I think it's really telling that the moment her lusus is dead, she pale-dumps him. The frustration she felt with Eridan had clearly been building for a while, and a moirail's whole purpose is to regulate their partner's behaviour and cultivate their emotional maturity. Yes, he's a difficult person to talk to at the best of times, but he's also a thirteen-year-old raised in a turbofascist civilization, and specifically in a culture that's even more turbofascist than the rest of that civilization. It may sound harsh and unforgiving to say this, but that's something the prospective monarch of Alternia should be prepared for if she's going to pick a moirail.

Even if Feferi dumping him the exact moment she no longer needs him to enact mass murder on her behalf is just a coincidence, it's a pretty fucking awful one. If it's not, she was deliberately stringing him along and potentially even stunting his moral growth so that she had a pet killer on hand to maintain her own imagined moral purity.

Also, while her aspirations to reform Alternian society would certainly make it less of a hellscape, we have a test case for what it would look like, and it sucks. The dancestors come from a society run by pre-Scratch Feferi and while it's clearly less murdery and fascist than Meenah's regime, at least Alternia is a fascist dystopia on purpose - Beforus manages to replicate a lot of its flaws (and, crucially, none of its strengths) simply through benevolent incompetence. It treats the physically and mentally disabled as invalid in both senses of the word. It managed to produce twelve of the most unhinged and monstrously dysfunctional teenagers in the history of the multiverse - arguably even worse than their counterparts from Alternia. Kankri's pompous criticism of Beforan society is played for laughs but... uh, no, that place legitimately sucked.

Every Alternian and Beforan troll is deeply flawed, but I feel like some of them get a pass that they don't deserve, and number one on that list - I would say even surpassing the unironic cries of "Vriska did nothing wrong" - is the naive hereditary monarch who's too much of a moral coward to personally perform the one task she must do to ensure the survival of her species. In almost every other troll's case, we can make the excuse of "they had no choice" but Feferi did have a choice, and she made the fucking wrong one, which was to fob the responsibility off on someone else.

[relaxxattack]

you are so very homestuck knowledgeable. when you have the time and should inspiration strike, please tell all your headcanons about oliveblood trolls.

ooo what a great question! for this one i think first we'd need to break down current stereotypes about olivebloods. there's actually not much that we're given about them tbh

according to the homestuck wiki, which is based on info from both the comic and more dubiously canon things like friendsim and hiveswap, the olive caste's two singular traits seem to be "wild animal" and "romance liker". both of these, obviously, are traits pulled from our wonderful main girl nepeta, who was the singular representation of the olive caste for a long time; alongside her dancestors. which is quite cute, who doesn't love nepeta?

the thing is though that i am one of those nitpicky people who likes to say, "well, hey now, nepeta isn't actually representative of her caste at ALL." in fact, none of the beta trolls are. i honestly feel like it should be assumed that just like the beta kids, the beta trolls are weirdos, and not really the 'norm' in their society.

nepeta lives out in the wilderness very specifically away from society in a way that is remarked on as being unusual even for someone of her color; and she does not even understand what role her caste would have given her in normal society. and i mean... considering aradia tavros and sollux are LOWER than nepeta, it doesn't really make sense for them all to have nicer houses than her unless she's unusual in her situation.

^ nepeta is in fact NOT a good representation of olivebloods.

which means... no, i don't think all olive trolls are romance obsessed wilderness girls, actually, sorry, hiveswap friendsim, i have to shelve you from my alternia analysis for now.

luckily, there ARE other olivebloods in the series!

first of all, the other leijons. unfortunately, none of them are really "good" examples either. meulin is from an entirely different planet, and disciple is from an ancient history perhaps even less representative of "normal" life than nepeta is. all we really get from them is stuff we already knew from nepeta-- the wildness, the relationship interest. with an added fact that both meulins seem to be somewhat bookish.

and so who does that bring us to? the final canonical oliveblood.

that's right.

troll will smith.

troll will smith is canonically an oliveblood. not only that, but he's a famous actor, which means he is basically a "model" for society- for what it looks like once you "have it all made". i would imagine this goes even more for alternia, supposedly a very movie-geared society.

the two troll will smith features that canonically exist on alternia are Fresh Prince and Hitch. in both of these films, will smith plays a character that is self-made and clever, a regular guy who is just skilled. it should also be noted that while a "threshecutioner" is a job with a heavy blueblood populous, greenbloods can also be one, and it's common enough that a show about it wasn't cut by the alternian dictatorship.

so therefore, what traits can we pull that all of these olivebloods (and equius lol) display to us?

olive trolls are lower class, but they're capable of working up through their connections

likely due to this, olive trolls are often clever and self made. they're likely quick-witted and sharp

they're good at their jobs! most olive trolls that are seen in the comic are very good with their respective practices (be it drawing, writing, bookkeeping, or melee fighting)

it's possible that olive trolls have a good intuition, and are fairly in touch with their own instincts. this would explain why some of them seem to fare better in the wild or in fights, and also why they are stereotyped as having a natural inclination for relationships. i think this is also a good transition ground between the impressive physical psionics of the castes lower than olive, and the emotional/mental psionics of the highbloods above them.

so, there we go. these are my olive headcanons! they're not comfortably well off or anything, but they're not wild animals either-- they're hard workers and skilled at what they put their minds to. probably usually working a nine to five and doing their best in life hoping to move up with a good quadrant or promotion. at least, in my headcanon anyway- no need to take this as fact!

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

points at u. how do u play eridan so well!!! hes such a tricky bastard to write for 4 some reason

It's because he's got so many problems and playing him is basically Mental Illness Simulator :') Whipped up a small (that's a lie, it's large and extensive) guide under the cut

ERIDAN DOES NOT HAVE FUN

First most important thing about playing Eridan: THIS BOY DOES NOT DO JOKES. He does NOT DO BITS. He does NOT HAVE FUN. If you check out his logs, pretty much every time he talks to somebody, he has a very clear purpose in mind (usually flirting or grandstanding). One of the few times he does strike up a conversation without a clear goal in mind, it's absolutely disastrous:

CA: fef CA: hey CC: ? CA: glub CC: Glub glub! CC: 38) CA: yeah CA: hm CC: W)(at is it!!! CA: wwhat

He's sooooooo so so so bad at conversation. He doesn't tell jokes. He doesn't know how to lighten the mood. He has no chill. He has no sense of humor. When playing him, if you are making jokes, you are doing it wrong!

The reason for this is because, psychologically, you have to imagine that he is constantly teetering on the edge of a murderous freakout. If he is not, at all times, Being Useful (AKA murderous, sea dweller-y), then Something Bad Will Happen. His entire life is about duty, pressure, responsibility, and, accordingly, at ALL TIMES, he feels an extreme, anxious weight on his shoulders, which makes him incapable of indulging in "frivolous" behavior, like making smalltalk or doing things for fun. In fact, sarcasm and facetiousness are literally considered childish by Alternians, and Equius associates it with lower blood colors:

CT: D --> Humorous insincerity is for pedantic wigglers AG: Pshhhhhhhh, I know! I know you never make jokes. I was the one 8eing sarcastic, you stooge! AG: I was 8eing sarcastic a8out you 8eing sarcastic. Duh. CT: D --> That's because you're a little worse than me

That's why it's also kind of important to make him not really have hobbies. Eridan DOES have interests: he loves wizards and magic, and he's a hipster. HOWEVER, he only ever talks about magic in pursuit of some other goal, like finding a date or winning at a rivalry, AND he's constantly denying his own interest in these things, because they're frivolous, stupid, ridiculous, and deviations from what he "should" be like. He actively distances himself from things that make him happy. In fact, we only know he's a hipster because it's part of his design and Karkat mentions it once - Eridan himself has never talked about it. That's how far he's buried anything that actually brings him joy.

If your Eridan is smiling for ANY REASON, you are DOING IT WRONG!

While we're on the topic, things Eridan is NOT ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN:

History (he only ever talks about history in the vaguest possible terms; I think he is book smart and genuinely knows a lot ABOUT history, but his actual interest in it is middling. He's just expected to be really obsessed with history, especially military history, as a member of the aristocracy, and he reads it in the same way as one doomscrolls on twitter - it's a way for him to self-reinforce his own mental illness and soothe his cognitive dissonance)

Marine life/marine anything (he's TERRIFIED of the ocean, and has spent a few days underwater TOTAL. He knows nothing of the sea.)

Weaponry (he HAS a lot of guns, so he definitely knows how to use and maintain them, but there's a reason he outsources the building of all his doomsday devices. Also, he got a "god weapon" early on in his life, and has kind of just been... using that. He neither has a need to know much about weaponry, nor has ever displayed any particular interest or knowledge. He leaves fully loaded harpoons just lying around on the floor of his house. It's knowledge of necessity, not interest.)

Hunting/Violence/Murder (he's really good at it, he knows a lot about it, he will teach you on request, he will mention it constantly, but he doesn't actually derive any particular joy out of it, especially since we know his thought process after each kill is "that's going to make an orphaned troll very sad. they will be culled soon :/")

Fashion (he has more of an interest than the average Alternian, but it's still not a lot. He dresses up to emulate Dualscar, and his actual clothing choices beyond that are pretty disastrous. Canon Eridan has never shown an interest in fashion. Even if you do want to play him with an interest in fashion, which I think is fine, you have to remember that he deliberately distances himself from anything that brings him joy, so even if he likes fashion, he'll keep that a secret and insist he only does it for utility purposes.)

Pale Romance (just throwing this in there, it's the one quadrant he is *never* shown to pursue. He's tried Feferi and Nepeta in flushed, Sollux, Terezi, and Kanaya in ashen, and Rose and Vriska in pitch. if anything, he goes out of his way to AVOID pale romances, both because he just had a painful pale breakup, and because he freaks out at the implication that he's weak in any way, which pursuing a pale romance would all but be admitting)

The thing that makes playing Eridan so hard, I think, is that he's abjectly fucking miserable, BY CHOICE, and for most RPers, playing a character who's abjectly fucking miserable kind of goes against the appeal of RPing in the first place (that is, having fun). All of the things he says he's really into are things that he either has no interest in, or that actively make his life less enjoyable. All the things he spends all his time thinking about are things that make him feel anxious and hopeless. All the things he actually likes and would have fun with are the things he actively, deliberately, and loudly decries and suppresses.

So that's point 1: Eridan does NOT have fun.

ERIDAN IS AGGRO AS *FUCK*

The next most thing I see that trips people up is that they make Eridan too friendly, usually as an extension of accidentally giving him too much chill. There are two main factors here at play: the first is that he's desperately trying to be a violent, casteist, oppressive, dangerous sea dweller, and outright pushes that image, and the second is that he's really fucking anxious ALL THE TIME, and most peoples' sociability goes down when they feel the cold breath of the reaper on the backs of their necks 24/7.

When looking at the 4 responses to danger - fight, flight, freeze, and fawn - Eridan will overwhelmingly choose "fight," with "fawn" as his secondary option. This makes absolute sense in context: all his trauma comes from its inescapable nature - if he tries to run from his duties, everybody dies; if he freezes up and fails to complete them, everybody dies. Therefore, his only two options are to Fight, and to channel that violent response into completing his duties, and to Fawn, to capitulate to the things that are hurting him - much moreso the former than the latter. Unfortunately, that bleeds over into everything else. Great!

We can see this illustrated really well in his conversations with Kanaya: Eridan does not ask for favors or help, he makes demands:

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin ... CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

ERIDAN: you should of told me about this ERIDAN: if theres goin to be any sort a hope for our race as the prince of hope i demand to be invvolvved ERIDAN: so dont go anywwhere wwithout me got it

The only time he ever really backs off is in confessions, where he's willing to be like "hey, I think we really got something here, don't you think so?", or when talking to Karkat (Karkat is really the only person that Eridan doesn't feel the need to put on airs around, and we can only speculate as to why. It's because they're destined moirails for each other.)

He will also do this for statements that he isn't 100% sure about. If he's going to say something, he is going to ASSERT IT as if it is IMMUTABLE FACT, even if he's immediately disproven. In which case he will admit fault, but then his NEXT wild assumption is the IMMUTABLE FACT.

CA: wwell fine you dont havve to behavve vvillainous if youre bent up on actin against the grain a your nobility or somesuch CA: i can play that role its not like i evver didnt get my gills dirty before TT: Nobility? What are you talking about? CA: wwell arent you TT: No. What gave you that idea? CA: the wway you CA: ok CA: i had a misconclusion about that so my fault CA: obvviously you got rich blood so maybe when you crash landed you wwerent recognized for it by wwhatevver vvehicle upholds the class structure in human society

I feel like he's the type who, if he's genuinely unsure about something, he just won't say it at all. Basically, Eridan is always operating at either 0% or 100%, with almost no in-between. NO CHILL. Given that he only strikes up conversations when he's trying to achieve something from it - whether that's actively getting someone to do something for him, or just trying to assert that magic is fake - he treats every conversation like it' i's a battle, where the prize is whatever it is he's attempting to do, and his conversation partner is an enemy that he has to beat into submission. (Karkat is the only exception. He actually just likes talking to Karkat, and will do more traditional "hey man you wanna talk about your feelings" kind of dialogue with him.)

If your Eridan has chill, you are doing it wrong!

ERIDAN STRUGGLES WITH EMPATHY

This really needs to be qualified: he does HAVE empathy. He DOES care about his friends. But his brain is really cooked, and he has an extremely difficult time actually working up the emotional energy to express or experience it.

He's kind of downright sociopathic, lol:

ERISOLSPRITE: iim of the miind2et that wwhen you havve a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 tiied twwo the dock, you dont bloody wwell tug the knot loo2e and 2hovve the fucker off wwiith the heel a your boot. ERISOLSPRITE: but then another part of me ju2t wwonder2 wwhat the FUCK ii ju2t 2aiid there? liike that wwa2 ju2t 2uch a wweiird 2ociiopathiic thought ii had, ii hone2tly had no iidea howw bad ii could po22iibly feel about my2elf untiil ii BECAME my2elf, iif THAT make2 2en2e.

Like, okay, how do I explain this. His body count is 2000+. He has an EXTREMELY difficult time caring about life or death. He's had to watch kids cry over their dead parents. He has had to kill kids trying to protect their parents, whom he has then had to kill. And he has done this over, and over, and over again, as long as he can remember, to the point where he calls it "all i evver done practically."

Just for the sake of preserving what's left of his sanity, he's had to learn how to not care about that. If he sees someone crying in front of him, it's unlikely to even emotionally register to him as anything beyond "factually, this person is sad." Shit happens, people die. Violence, tragedy, murder, injury, and death are literally daily occurrences to him. For you, the day I killed your lusus was the most important day of your now tragically short life. For me, it was Tuesday.

Vriska is in the same boat, BTW. I think a combination of just being a less sensitive person to start with, the existence of a support network (Equius and Kanaya and Terezi as friends + she was friends with Team Charge before the... incident), and the lack of all the Duty(tm) and Responsibility(tm), helped her cope a bit better, and be better about opening up to people and relying on them for emotional support.

What this means, in terms of playing/writing him, is that his priorities are extremely skewed, and he is genuinely not going to understand things like "maybe I shouldn't tell this land dweller I'm trying to kill all land dwellers," or "maybe this person is sad and I should comfort them," or "maybe my constant talk about murder and death is offputting to other people." Here he is, literally not understanding why insulting and belittling Kanaya has led to her not wanting to help him, as well as not understanding why Vriska might've blocked him:

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her

His brain is constantly running at a fevered 100% full-tilt run; he doesn't have the space, leisure, or energy to spend considering things from the perspective of other people. It leads to weird paradoxes, where he IS considerate of other peoples' feelings, but doesn't actually consider their feelings. After spending almost the ENTIRE conversation with Kanaya belittling her and demanding she be his and Vriska's auspice, he abruptly switches gears:

CA: fine i get it ill step off CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly CA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

Because he LIKES Kanaya, he REALLY CARES ABOUT Kanaya, he WANTS GOOD THINGS for Kanaya... and yet is entirely, wholly, not taking her feelings into account at all.

BUT! This also applies in reverse! You can make all the death threats and casteist insults and demands towards Eridan as you want, and he won't give a shit aside from his usual grandstanding protests. The only time we ever truly see him offended is when he's genuinely trying to do Jade a favor by giving her the code to his gun, and she calls it a piece of shit and tosses it out with the trash - and even then, he doesn't take THAT much offense. Judge for yourself:

GG: so ill just dump it outside the house with the trash GG: and if it is fated to find my penpal one day then so be it! CA: god damn it CA: its like you people go out of your wway to think a howw to disrespect me GG: maybe you should have been nicer to me! GG: in any case i dont appreciate the spirit in which the gift was given so this is what i will do! CA: fine fuck it wwhat do i care CA: this has been a completely flippin useless exchange as havve they all been wwith your species

After all, he's accustomed to much, much, much worse. His emotional response here is indignation, not even really HURT. Karkat also makes a bunch of genuine death threats towards Eridan, which get entirely written off as "wwitty repartee." He's just really bad at processing hostility! Hostility is very normal to him!

So basically, before letting Eridan engage in any act of empathy or compassion, you have to ask whether or not he's going to recognize that the situation would call for that in the first place, which he is REALLY BAD at identifying. He only asks Karkat if Karkat wants to talk about his feelings after Karkat explicitly says that he's freaking out in every possible way, and without that explicit indication, I don't think Eridan would've even noticed.

If your Eridan has social skills, you are Doing It Wrong!

This also means that, even if Eridan has realized that he needs to act compassionate, he's still going to be really fucking trash at actually providing emotional support. He can't even emotionally support himself, you think he can figure it out for other people?

The most he can do is call it like he sees it - "this is a stupid thing to get worked up over," for example. Or he can jump straight to solutions, like "so what, are you gonna kill that guy?" Being as charitable as humanly possible, he might be able to fire off a "that's rough, buddy" at ABSOLUTE maximum.

ERIDAN KIND OF JUST SEES SLURS AS FACTUAL DESCRIPTORS (AND OTHER GENERAL NOTES FOR HIS SYNTAX AND VOCAB)

And, let's face it, on Alternia, they kind of are. Kanaya doesn't even bother to call him out for calling Karkat an assblood, Terezi and Feferi and Sollux don't bother taking offense to calling Sollux a mustard blood, and Karkat calls himself a gutter blood at one point. Like, even if you're playing/writing an Eridan who's rejected Alternian society, he'll still probably be out here calling people slurs? Things that would be considered hostile from other characters are very much just neutral coming from Eridan. There is no emotional difference to him, calling someone a rustblood or a burgundy, but he's expected to say rustblood because of his sea dweller status, so that's what he goes with.

Also, make some grounded but wild assertions about people and things. This boy loves to Assume. Writing Eridan is a lot of going "ERIDAN DON'T SAY THAT!!!" it's great. Really painful. Highly unrecommended.

He's obviously quite book smart and uses a lot of big vocabulary words. You guys need to have Eridan go on these insane purple-prose rants more often. They're so fun to write and so cringe to post.

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once

CA: but the thing is i need a rivval wwho can pose me a challenge CA: and frankly shes not evven fit for holdin my cape anymore CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

For no reason at all. I'm going to post a little Karkat for comparison.

PCG: THE FUNNY THING IS IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL RECOGNIZE ME AS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER, EVEN YOU. PCG: YOU WILL BE STANDING ON THE TIPPYTOES OF YOUR IDIOTIC METAL SHOES, TAKING DELICATE PURCHASE OF MY NUBBY HORNS AND HOISTING YOURSELF OVER MY HEAD TO PUT YOUR SWEATIEST TOUGH GUY SMOOCH UPON MY TWITCHING SPINE LUMP. PCG: IT WILL BE TENDER AND DEFERENTIAL, LIKE A PAUPER KISSING A NOBLE'S RING. PCG: JUST SCROLL DOWN, READ THE LOGS.

Also, notes about his typing quirk:

First, the ww and vv stuff is actively a fake accent he puts on for the #Aesthetic, and his natural way of speaking doesn't include those at all, so it's entirely likely that if you're writing him after he's rejected Alternian society, or if he's trying to be really really emotionally sincere, he wouldn't be bothering with that part of the quirk specifically.

He doesn't ALWAYS drop the G at the end of words ending in -ing. It's frequent and common, but don't feel bad about letting a word end in a g, especially if it would sound or look better (for example, "being a kid and growwing up" doesn't bother to drop the g's at all).

Similarly, he doesn't ALWAYS change "of" to "a," especially preceding a vowel sound. You gotta be careful with when you change this up, because he pretty much only does it when it would make sense spoken aloud.

In phrases like "must have" or "could have," he will often (but not always) change "have" to "of" (so "must of" or "could of").

Dropping the D from the word "and" happens only one time in the entire comic, so it's probably a typo, and if it isn't, it's REALLY REALLY infrequent.

He will sometimes use shorthanded words, like "em" instead of "them" or "ya" instead of "you." I'd say it's occassional, a bit rarer than the G-dropping. He does tend to use "got to" instead of "gotta," however. Again, try saying his lines out loud, to figure out when best to use what.

Given his loquaciousness and clear command of the language, it's likely that this is for Style, but he also doesn't always bother with proper grammar. Places where "[person] and I" would be used are often switched out for "[person] and me," and he might forgo a contraction like "I've" or "we've" and just post the pronoun (for example, "you got to" instead of "you've got to."

He references ocean shit, and ocean anatomy, like his own fins and gills, pretty often! He just doesn't do the puns. Try using "flippin" instead of "fuckin" every now and then, or "glubbin" instead of "talkin," or nautical analogies.

Also throw in some British "bloody"s every so often.

Cusses like a sailor, though, has one of the highest "fuck" counts relative to wordcount out of all the characters (cough like Karkat cough).

HE DOES NOT USE PUNCTUATION. EVER. (Ok, he does use a period once while talking to Terezi in Alterniabound, but I think that that's a mistake because it's literally the only time). This is actually in STARK contrast to other characters that don't generally use punctuation, like Aradia or Nepeta, who will still use ellipses, exclamation points, and question marks. Eridan actively, consciously forgoes using ANY punctuation, EVER, even for questions (which you shouldn't be asking too many of, because Eridan makes DEMANDS).

ERIDAN DOES NOT ANGST

This is another thing that I see a lot. Yes, Eridan thinks that he's worse than everybody. Yes, he deliberately keeps fun things at bay and focuses on things that make him miserable. Yes, he's sad, anxious, emotionally neglected, etc. etc. But I often see this self-loathing played for dramatics - Eridan being withdrawn, quiet, moody, and sad. Or being consumed with guilt and regret, and wishing he didn't have to be a murderer or wasn't forced into the position he was. And that's just not the vibe.

Because Eridan has a lot of pride. He refuses to appear weak, and he has genuinely lost the emotional capacity to feel too guilty about all the killing. Moreover, here's something I often see get overlooked:

He would think of the murders he committed, and the fact that he's so good at murdering, as good things.

It's not only useful, but oftentimes NECESSARY, for somebody on the team to be willing to make those kinds of sacrifices, to be willing to pull the trigger. Very literally, murder kept him and his friends alive long enough to play the game.

There's no universe in which Eridan would denounce killing and violence, because to do so would be to say that he shouldn't have kept his friends alive. Even in a hypothetical golden ending, where everybody survives to the end, Eridan would be the guy on the team who posits murder as a potential solution to problems, reminds people that society is built on sacrifices and suffering, and offers to do the dirty work himself if nobody else has the stomach for it. As much as being the orphaner was DISASTROUS for his mental and emotional well-being, he wouldn't regret the things he did.

And this is reflected in the comic - the rare times he does break down and show that he kind of hates himself, the focus is never on guilt or regret, it's on his perceived shortcomings - calling himself an idiot or pathetic. Because that's what his real insecurity is - he doesn't hate himself because he sees himself as this awful piece of shit, the way Sollux does, he hates himself because he thinks of himself as not good enough, because if he's Not Good Enough, then Something Bad Will Happen.

Remember, his danger response is FIGHT. It's a different paradigm than what most of us are used to, which is why I see his inner turmoil so often represented by him being moody and broody, which he's never really done in the comic. Eridan doesn't get sad, even though he is sad; he gets mad, aggressive, combative. He doesn't wallow; he just keeps swimming.

CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance

Again, his response to being insulted is indignation, not hurt. He doesn't sit in his room feeling sorry for himself, he obsesses over genocide and murdering all the land dwellers. His response to seeing the love of his life turn on him with killing intent is to flip out and start killing right back. After being broken up with, his response is to go and pester his friends (and yell at Gamzee a bit) until he can get some emotional support. He doesn't angst, he tries to solve the problem, and, if he can't solve the problem, he starts shooting.

He's awfully violent! If your Eridan is not awfully violent, you're probably doing it wrong!

BUT, ERIDAN LOVES HIS FRIENDS

At his core, however, as tangled up in all of the above as he may be, Eridan loves:

His friends

Wizards

Magic

Probably hipster shit

Happy endings

He is still, after all, a HOPE player. He struggles as hard as he does because he can't give up on the idea that things will get better, eventually. Even if he's struggling in the wrong direction, toward the wrong ideals, and even if emotionally, he's feeling more and more hopeless and closed in, he can't stop himself from trying, and trying, and trying again.

He loves magic. As much as he tries to push it away and calls it stupid and fake and lame at every turn, he still brought his shitty wands onto the meteor. Why does he love magic? It's an extension of his inability to give up. No matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how awful he feels, no matter how unrealistic salvation might seem, if only magic is real, then there's a solution. He wants to be a wizard so badly because wizards can do magic, and magic can overturn reality, and reality is this awful, inescapable nightmare. He is constantly being caught between nihilism and pessimism and hope and belief. In the comic, the nihilism won, but that's the great conflict at the core of his being.

So ummmmm yeah, I hope any of that helps with writing the fish boy at all. Basically, if you aren't constantly cringing while writing the bullshit that comes out of his mouth, you're probably doing it wrong...

[hs-transfusion]

> ARADIA MEGIDO

HEMO: Fuchsia (#99004D) TROLLTAG: ariolatesAftermath [AA] SIGN: Piari, Sign of the Vengeful STRIFE: 2x2dentkind MODUS: Sacrifice LUNAR SWAY: Prospit MYTH. ROLE: Sylph of Doom LAND: Land of Glaciers and Ruins

AA: there is n()thing the v()ices have been inc()rrect ab()ut as ()f yet

Once upon a time, Aradia was a worthy candidate for the ALTERNIAN THRONE. That was before she was SACRIFICED to her lusus B'AHBLAHK as part of a VICIOUS REVENGE CYCLE. She now roams Alternia as a GHOST, diligently working to SET THE EVENTS OF SGRUB IN PLACE, along with a few detours to PETTY ACTS OF REVENGE.

At present, Aradia has NO INTERESTS beyond being a COSMIC PLOT POINT. Before her ill-timed demise, she had a strong passion for HISTORY, working hard to maintain her PERSONAL MUSEUM of STRANGE ALIEN RELICS. She also had a fascination with THE WORLD OF THE ETHEREAL, knowledge that has served her well in her LITERAL AFTERLIFE.

Aradia's SACRIFICE Fetch Modus requires her to sacrifice a NEARBY ITEM to retrieve something from her sylladex. Thankfully, her WORN-DOWN PALACE is filled to the brim with RANDOM CHUNKS OF RUBBLE she can use as cannon fodder.

Aradia's lusus is dubbed B'AHBLAHK, BRAYER OF THE BLEAK. A massive, curled mass of TENDRILS AND HORNS, this eldritch sea-goat threatens to extinguish ALL EXISTING TROLL LIFE should its voice be raised too loud. It is said that anyone naive enough to MAKE A DEAL WITH IT will get whatever they wish for, but at a much steeper price than expected.

The Land of GLACIERS AND RUINS is an arctic area, covered in DECAYING RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CIVILISATION of consorts. Though they may have lived to see The Sylph through her personal quest, it seems denizen THANATOS didn't see fit to maintain a world for a player that has ALREADY MET THEIR END. Or perhaps that's just a defeatist attitude on his part...?

Aradia's ancestor is known as HER IMMORTAL OPULENCE, otherwise known as THE IMMORTAL. Though most fuchsiabloods live for FREAKISHLY LONG TIMES, HI() has lived longer than any other empress by a landslide. In fact, unbeknownst to many, she has walked the soils of Alternia on its VERY FIRST DAYS, witnessing each and every significant event in ALTERNIAN HISTORY personally. Alternia's bloodthirsty environment was influenced by her for nothing more than SHEER ENTERTAINMENT VALUE.

[soupygremlin]

:3

[unorthodoxie]

Hiveswap Foils: Xefros and Marvus

The parallels and contrasts between Xefros and Marvus in Hiveswap are striking. It’s surprising this has little discussion, as they both serve as narrative foils, each reflecting aspects of the other’s characters. Marvus embodies the type of person Xefros aspires to be: famous, powerful, and adored by the masses. On the other hand, Xefros represents who Marvus likely once was—a boy dreaming of stardom, uncorrupted by the violence it takes to achieve it on Alternia.

Xefros dreams of glory despite the dangers. His passion for arena stickball drives him to train for the Thrashthrust Snowglobes, even though the tryouts could cost him his life. Arena stickball is a bloodsport where players risk their lives not only to win but to survive the competition itself. This brutal sport mirrors Slam or Get Culled, a lethal reality TV show where rappers compete to the death for stardom. Xefros idolizes the star player and powerful psychic Xultan Matzos, aspiring to follow in his footsteps—a path that comes at the cost of others.

In contrast, Marvus has already attained fame by winning Slam or Get Culled. Both Marvus and Xultan pursued the perilous path to Alternian fame, where survival built on the death of others is as vital as talent. Xultan would have endured lethal tryouts to secure his position on the team, and during matches, other players would have been eliminated for him to succeed. That is how Xultan met his end: executed by the then-heiress when the opposing team mind-controlled him into behaving inappropriately towards her. Similarly, Marvus's rise to stardom as Slam or Get Culled grand champion required both talent and the deaths of his opponents. Funnily enough, even the names of Marvus Xoloto and Xultan Matzos sound similar when flipped.

Marvus serves as a dark mirror of Xefros, an older and more sinister purpleblooded counterpart. This comparison is not just figurative but also literal, as they both have similar appearances. Upon examining their trial sprites, they both have downturned eyes, pointed noses, and buff physiques—albeit Xefros is smaller with rounder features and Marvus is bigger with more angular features. Both use ‘X’ in their typing quirks: Xefros capitalizes ‘X’ while Marvus censors swear words with ‘x’; both spell ‘tickets’ as ‘tiX’ and ‘tix.’ Even their zodiac aspects reflect the other’s caste—Xefros’ rage aspect aligns with Capricorn, the true sign of the purpleblood caste, while Marvus’ time aspect corresponds to Aries, the true sign of the rustblood caste.

Both characters are outwardly friendly and altruistic, quickly befriending Joey within a single day. Xefros tries to help her during a drone raid, while Marvus helps secure train tickets for her. However, Marvus’ manipulative tendencies surface if Joey persuades Zebruh to give up his ticket. Marvus encourages Zebruh to audition for Slam or Get Culled by feeding him false praise—perhaps to silence a critic, as Zebruh is implied to have written negatively about him. Xefros joins in by assuring Zebruh his auto-tune mic will guarantee his victory. They both know the indigoblooded Zebruh has no chance; only purplebloods have ever won. While the audience may know of Zebruh’s history as an abuser (as revealed in Hiveswap Friendsim) and might see this as justice, Xefros and Marvus are oblivious to this having met him that day.

Why does Xefros participate in sending Zebruh to his potential doom instead of waiting for the next train? It is likely because he fears other trolls or drones may take notice of Joey being an alien while at the train station. His willingness to endanger Zebruh for Joey’s safety highlights his moral complexity. Marvus' manipulations—such as flattering Joey into acting as the defense legislacerator—mirror Xefros' own manipulation of Zebruh. While Xefros sees through Marvus' manipulation and disapproves of it, he is not above using similar tactics when it serves his interests.

Marvus’ darker inclinations surface during the trial mini-game to determine who brought the illegal book Fresh Teeth onto the train. The tealbloods organize the trial to entertain Marvus, whom they fear, and invite him to act as judge. While Joey views the trial as a harmless game, the stakes are deadly: the jadeblood found guilty is taken away by Marvus, and it is strongly implied he kills her—something he expresses disappointment over if a mistrial occurs. Though, given his past deception in Hiveswap Friendsim, he may have only pretended to kill her. Marvus refrains from pushing for a verdict, adhering to the game’s rules. His actions suggest he views death as part of the game, but with boundaries.

Marvus’ detached view of mortality is even more evident in the murder game he arranges in the purpleblood train car. The game tasks Joey with ‘killing’ a troll whose blood color is randomly chosen by a spinning color wheel, with her refusal leading Marvus to offer Xefros as a hostage to Chahut. His motives for involving Joey and Xefros remain unclear, but they seem to serve multiple purposes: entertaining his purpleblood peers, controlling their aggression, and shielding Joey and Xefros from escalating danger for their refusal to play. When the wheel selects purple, signaling that a purpleblood must die, the purplebloods laugh as they find their own potential deaths amusing. Marvus laughs at death like the others, showing that despite his survival-driven actions, he views his own death as part of the game.

This mindset mirrors Xefros playing arena stickball, where death is an accepted part of the game. Both characters navigate a society where violence is entertainment—whether in the form of a game between friends or in the brutal, high-stakes world of professional sports. Marvus orchestrates the murder game with detached amusement towards the death of others and his own. In the same vein, Xefros willingly steps into a deadly arena to risk his life and the lives of other players. Despite the violence central to the murder game, Marvus never directly inflicts harm himself. Instead relying on persuasion and calculated decisions to control the situation.

Rather than taking Xefros hostage, he offers him to Chahut—distancing himself from direct aggression while ensuring Xefros remains under his watch. Throughout the game, Marvus actively helps Joey maintain the illusion that she’s killing trolls to satisfy the others, even when her deception is obvious. If she confides that she hasn’t actually killed anyone, Marvus reacts with surprising gentleness—reassuring her and advising her to uphold the charade. Later, when Baizli attacks Joey, Marvus intervenes by freeing Xefros, giving him the opportunity to kill Baizli and protect her.

Marvus shows a clear protectiveness for Joey over Xefros, likely not only due to their closer friendship but also his possible awareness of her role in returning to Earth through the Cherub Portal—an event crucial to preventing Alternia’s destruction. Marvus has some foresight, anticipating their arrival at the purpleblood car despite them never sharing their plans. Marvus’ fourth-wall-breaking remarks, such as “This is just a game” and “No one who matters to the plot is gonna die” hint at meta-awareness of the game’s structure and future events. This insight might come from contact with the near-omniscient Doc Scratch, who is implied to have provided Xefros with the mysterious Scratchware. If Marvus has been in contact with Doc Scratch, his awareness of future events could explain some of his actions.

Despite hints of foresight, Marvus is not omniscient. When he notices Xefros clinging to Joey in silence, he teasingly asks if they are matesprits—only for Xefros to angrily correct him. If Marvus were truly all-knowing, he likely wouldn’t have tested the waters with such a question. While Xefros and Marvus serve as foils to each other, they have virtually no relationship. Xefros responds to Marvus with anger or silence, never initiating contact and rarely speaking directly to him. In turn, Marvus mirrors this treatment, speaking almost solely to Joey and never addressing Xefros by name.

Marvus’ early interactions suggest that he initially sought to connect with Xefros alongside Joey. Joey attributes Xefros' silence to shyness to spare Marvus’ feelings, but it’s clear that Xefros deliberately avoids Marvus. During the trial, Xefros speaks freely to other highbloods but continues to ignore Marvus. This exclusion stems from Xefros’ deep distrust of purplebloods and his specific animosity toward Marvus. The exact reason for Xefros’ negative feelings is unclear, but it may relate to how Marvus gained his success in a contest rigged in favor of purplebloods. Xefros might feel Marvus’ success is undeserved, deepening his disdain.

While understandable, Xefros' shunning likely hurt more than Marvus lets on. His decision to offer Xefros to Chahut reads as both an opportunistic and passive-aggressive response. Despite his outward confidence and assurances that he is not offended, Marvus' tendency to retaliate against minor slights, like manipulating Zebruh after being criticized, suggests deeper insecurities. Marvus likely struggles with rejection, as it reinforces his feelings of worthlessness—insecurities that mirror Xefros' own self-worth issues and internalized rustblood stereotypes. Xefros’ and Marvus’ mutual cold-shouldering, further exacerbated by the murder game, keeps them from recognizing their similarities. If they were given the chance, they would likely see much of themselves in the other.

Both Xefros and Marvus suffer from the lack of unity within their respective blood castes. The other rustbloods fail to intervene when Xefros is taken hostage. Similarly, the purplebloods display a lack of care for their own. After Baizli is killed, neither Chahut nor Marvus expresses any mourning or attempts to prevent his death beforehand, despite their ability to intervene. This lack of camaraderie leaves both characters emotionally starved. 

Xefros' isolation is compounded by his marginalization as a rustblood and the abusive relationship with his moirail, Dammek. His emotional starvation is evident in how quickly he forms a protective bond with Joey, whose genuine concern for him fills a void he's long lacked. His “best dream” was of becoming a champion arena stickball player, cheered on by crowds. Most tellingly, Dammek was the loudest voice in the stands, reinforcing that Xefros equates fame with love and approval. Having never been shown real care by others, he chases fame as a substitute for self-worth.

Marvus, too, is surrounded by indifference. His purpleblood peers treat life and death as a joke, showing no concern for whether he lives or dies. Although he is a celebrated performer, no one genuinely cares about him as a person. His craving for true connection is evident in how he shuns Zebruh—who seeks him out only for his status—contrasts with his quick attachment to Joey, who is unfamiliar with his fame and treats him without pretense. Like Xefros, he is trapped in a cycle of emotional neglect, surrounded by people who fail to value him for who he truly is.

Both Xefros and Marvus seem to seek self-worth through fame. Xefros does not play arena stickball simply for the love of the game—he craves the adoration that comes with fame. Likewise, Marvus, though a musical genius, does not rap simply for the artform but for the fame it brings. His repeated participation in Slam or Get Culled reveals his willingness to sacrifice the lives of others to build his fame, highlighting how his need for validation outweighs his empathy. By relying so heavily on the spectacle of death to maintain his status, he demonstrates that his self-worth is tied not to who he is but to the applause of an audience.

Music serves as a medium for both Xefros and Marvus to express their political beliefs. Xefros, the lead singer of the Grubbels—a garage band he formed with Dammek—uses his censored lyrics to denounce lowblood oppression and call for rebellion against highblood tyranny, specifically Trizza. Beyond his music, Xefros secretly collaborates with rebels to dismantle the caste system to achieve equality for all. While Xefros seeks equality, Marvus’ music—as Zebruh interprets it—focuses on purpleblood oppression, suggesting a self-serving political agenda.

Xefros’ deepest connection to Marvus lies in their shared friendship with Joey and their mutual protectiveness of her. Marvus appears to protect Joey not only out of personal care but also as a calculated step to maintain the storyline. In contrast, Xefros’ devotion is more personal—Joey is his first true friend. His loyalty drives him to drastic actions, including killing Baizli to save her. Afterward, he reassures both Joey and himself, “I know it’s hard the first time,” reflecting that he had already accepted he’d inevitably kill.

This loss of innocence marks a pivotal shift for Xefros. Though he killed Baizli to protect Joey—someone he would risk his life for—it was not purely selfless. He sacrificed another’s life for someone he values. His ambitions, whether in stickball or rebellion, may demand further sacrifices. With blood on his hands, Xefros could be pushed toward adopting the cunning and manipulations Marvus uses to carve a path toward his goals. Marvus too sacrificed the lives of others in Slam or Get Culled to achieve his success, discarding any innocence he may have once had, if it hadn’t already been lost.

Though Xefros’ kind-hearted nature makes it seem unlikely he would adopt Marvus’ cunning, subtle signs suggest otherwise. Having witnessed manipulation from his abusive moirail, Dammek, Xefros is familiar with such tactics. Dammek treats his underlings as “disposable lackeys,” a behavior Xefros is aware of. Despite discovering Dammek’s deceit—offering both Xefros and Chixie spots as tetarchs without revealing the offers to the other—Xefros still justifies the manipulation. This rationalization could pave the way for Xefros to adopt similar tactics, like Marvus, who blends manipulation with acts of kindness. Xefros might set aside his compassion when he believes manipulation is necessary, as he had done to Zebruh when given the option. 

Though Xefros and Marvus share similarities, key differences make them foils. Xefros stands on the edge of corruption, yet to embark on his deadly journey for fame; while Marvus has already sacrificed others in his pursuit. Xefros has a true friend in Joey, while Marvus lacks any real friendships, sabotaging a potential one with Joey by forcing her into the murder game and surrounding himself with shallow relations. Paradoxically, Marvus seems drawn to Joey precisely because she offers him the genuine bond he craves. Both seek fulfillment in a world that isolates them emotionally, but their paths diverge. Driven by a desire for fame, Marvus has embraced evil, while Xefros remains innocent—though this may soon be lost.

Ultimately, Marvus and Xefros represent two sides of the same coin, shaped by the brutal world they inhabit. Marvus embodies what Xefros might become: someone who wields trickery to navigate the system and sees death as part of the game. Xefros, despite his selflessness, is gradually learning that on Alternia, achieving one’s goals—whether protecting loved ones or enacting change—is paid for in blood. His journey reflects the harsh evolution forced upon trolls by their world, where survival and ambition come at the cost of innocence, compelling even the kindest individuals to make ruthless choices. Their dynamic is both compelling and tragic, and I eagerly await their further development in future Hiveswap acts.

[hsoppositezodiac]

Chahut Maenad

One of the only limeblood survivors. Despite her large size, she had somehow managed to lay low until she was rescued by the little goldblood Amisia. She is extremely devoted to the mutantblood who marked Alternian history. She enjoys crocheting.

Marvus Xoloto

A very popular man who disguises as an oliveblood. He has an online blog where he publishes his songs, however, he never dares to show his face. When outside, he wears sunglasses and clothes in an olive shade of green. The first and only troll to find out about his secret was an tealblood, who are known to be faithful to law. The man, however, was different, and was secretly in support of limes. His secret is being kept.

Karako Pierot

a little child being raised in secret by one of the fuchsiabloods. He lives in the aforementioned fuchsia's large hive outside sea, and is too innocent and young to know that his mere existence could get him culled, if he ever gets discovered.

Barzum & Baizli Soleil

They are young twins who reside in a creepy, abandoned hive where no one dares to check. And if someone does, they scare the invasor away using fake clown sounds and large sillhouettes. They are, in fact, pretty nerdy, and enjoy reading and studying a bunch. They anonnymously ramble about their interests online, and use the gray color to hide their blood.

[thewertsearch]

During his penance, it was said the Sufferer's compassion for his people underwent a divine transformation, into limitless, burning rage.

I would expect nothing less. He might be a hero, but he’s still a Vantas.

It burned hotter than the irons shackling him to the imperial flogging jut, and redder than the blood soaking his Righteous Leggings.

You hear that, Karkat?

Those are holy garments that you’re wearing. Respect them.

When he was finally killed, his anger rung through the cosmos with his last breath. This Vast Expletive was his final sermon, and somewhere encoded in its wavelengths was the truth in his teachings, waiting to reveal itself to any who would inherit his burden.

Some day, the grand legacy of Karkat's bloodline will arrive in his heart – and if I’m not mistaken, it will arrive as the loudest FUCK that our boy has ever heard.

This is exactly the kind of awakening that Karkat deserves. 10/10.

His teachings would also persist through surviving disciples, but in hushed tones.

Redglare was born long after the Sufferer’s tale was censored out of existence, but these Pyropes are savvy girls. I'm sure the Neophyte was wise enough to question her planet’s bloody history, and sneaky enough to seek out like-minded compatriots under the Grand Highblood’s nose.

It seems like she even knew enough to predict the location of her own descendant’s hive, and gifted her a dragon that I’m willing to bet was kin to her own. An unsung hero of the previous age, for sure.

His following would dwindle to an obscure cult facing persecution for centuries.

Surely he’s not talking about Gamzee’s cult? Those clowns are all about the hemospectrum, and certainly wouldn’t heed the sermons of some bleeding-heart redblood.

Maybe the Juggalo cult is technically a splinter of Sufferism, but its founder’s message has been corrupted beyond all recognition, to suit the needs of those in power. We should all be thankful that such a disturbing concept has only been explored in fiction.

The Sufferer preached that after he passed, another Signless would come, heralding the end times for their planet. The Second Signless would continue his work, and lead his people to glory beyond this realm. The followers kept his teachings alive for ages, even as the uproar surrounding the movement subsided. By modern times, the Sufferer's scripture was little more than ancient superstition all but forgotten. Hardly the anathema of old. But the followers had already made their preparations in the shadows, and when the Second Signless finally came he would have a lusus to raise him and a sign to his name.

You hear that, Karkat? You were never really alone. If anything, you were the most loved troll in all of Alternian history – loved by trolls who would never meet you, but who worked for centuries to ensure that you’d be born safe.

That you’d have your Crabdad.

...alright, what if I just cried.

[dingodad]

Can we hear about some buwai'i culture, maybe some before and after contact with the trolls?

it's hard to speak of a unified "Buwai'i culture" because they are so widely spread geographically and varied in their social groups. but there are a few broadly unifying features stemming from their shared biology.

Buwai'i are born in clutches contained together in one thick, leathery sac called a birthskin. while the exact practise surrounding the release of young Buwai'i from their birthskin differs from group to group, the emergence from the prenatal microcosm into the world at large bears great cultural significance in a Buwai'a's life, and the preserved birthskin is a significant artifact to the Buwai'a.

as such, leathers or skins are sacred material to the Buwai'i. within the broader Buwai'i society, groups of Buwai'i collect together in complex kinships called "Hides" or "hide groups" - but the name Hide can also be used to refer to the symbolic hide structures that are central to each group. by gathering together in one skin, the Hide become symbolic clutchmates. adding to, subtracting from or altering the communal Hide can be used to symbolise birth, death, marriage, ostracism, or any number of cultural events important to the hide group, and the practise of sewing two or more adult Buwai'i back into their birthskins can similarly be used to emblematise kinship or rebirth.

because Buwai'i optic nerves run through electrosensitive sledges either side of their head on the way to the brain, a Buwai'a can also essentially 'see' disturbances in nearby energy fields, which similarly plays a role in their spirituality. differing electromagnetic regions on the sea floor have been used as one basis for socio-political borders since time immemorial, and common Buwai'i lore asserts that the Hide is just one small part of a great skin - or "Brane" - which separates one world from the next, and that the spirit of the young Buwai'a struggles through various such layers on its journey from the primordial spirit world into the realm of the living.

it is difficult also to generalise the colonial Buwai'i. for many hide groups, like those dwelling primarily in the deep sea, culture hasn't changed, or is at least only just beginning to change. the coastal peoples, however - particularly those custodians of the areas around the primary settlements of Bitizgaki and Pumptunnel - have endured sweeping disruptions and even the total annihilation of their traditional hunting and fishing calendars, and thus been forced to adapt to the industries that now dominate Gracilia. the Alternian Schools established by the Sisters of the Outer Caverns early on in the colony's history provide opportunities for Buwai'i to become involved as labourers in the extraction and shipment of the planet's signature palm spore oil, but other roles more suited to traditional Buwai'i knowledge - such as the native police who use their ancestral wisdom to enforce Alternian law deep in the Gracilian rainforest, or the trawlermen who fuel the growing colony's ever-expanding hunger for cheap seafood - only push urban Buwai'i deeper into conflict with their kin.

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF: Monthly Matchups!

FTF: Total War!

This Week's Fighters...

Alternia vs Viltrum!

Conditions:

All characters act in character according to a total war scenario. Doc Scratch and those associated with the Felt elect not to interfere.

Scenario:

The Viltrumite Empire and the Alternian Empire discover each other's galaxies at roughly the same time and begin spying on each other to prepare for an invasion, unaware that their target has already discovered them.

Analysis: Alternia

Before our universe begain, there was a galactic terror that dominated the universe that came before. A menacing force built up solely for the self-aggrandizement of the Empress who reigned over them all. For billions of lives across millions of worlds, the red trident of Her Imperious Condescension's flagship heralded death.

This Alternian Empire consisted entirely of Trolls hailing from their home planet of Alternia, conscripted at the day they become an adult to expand the empire across the galaxy. Alternia itself is a brutal hellplanet specifically crafted to turn Trolls into savage killers, beat any compassion out of them until only killing instinct remains. Acid rains from the sky,the sun incinerates you during the day, killer beasts roam the lands with only your own parental "lusis" monster to protect you from them, and all are expected to reproduce before their adult lives begin to create more soldiers for the Empire. From the very moment you are hatched, you must kill your fellow newborn grubs to survive or be killed and forgotten.

Alternia enforces a rigged caste system over itself where highbloods reign supreme over their lowblooded counterparts. From bottom to top, the blood color castes are rust, bronze, gold, olive, jade, teal, cerulean, blue, purple, violet, and fuschia, each with their own unique abilities. Thanks to a long history of eugenics, higher, colder blooded castes are meant to be far stronger physically than their warmblooded brethren, but this is not a universal constant, a lower caste trolls have overpowered higher ones on occasions. It's almost as if eugenics is a bunk science that doesn’t actually work! On top of that, highbloods can live for thousands, if not millions of years and are increasingly immune to telepathic influence the farther you get up the scale.

Starting with the warmer hues, rustbloods are able to use minor telepathy and speak to the ghosts, with the rarer, stronger telepaths among them able to lift temples and push moon sized meteors around. Bronze bloods are able to be gifted with the ability to commune with any type of animalistic beast, even those that are nigh omniscient and reality warping, provided their brain is approximately animalistic. Golds, however, are in a complete league of their own, boasting remarkably destructive telekinetic powers utilizing psionic energy from their minds.

This gift has caused the Empire to view them as nothing but expendable batteries, to be plugged into their spaceships and sucked dry into a withered old husk. As batteries, they can push soaceships at borderline lightspeed, generating enough kinetic energy to wipe the surface of the Earth clean of all life, or even destroy a small planet! That's energy equivalent to 2.8 Zettatons of TNT.

Source:

That might sound insane, but Doc Scratch has commented that any of the Empress's armies could rip apart a planetary civilization. Many of them can even keep up with Kernalsprites, who can move at quintillions of times light speed traveling between planets.

Source:

The higher you go, the more insane the abilities get. Jadebloods can come back to life as undead vampires. Rainbowdrinkers who can walk off fatal wounds destroying major organs and effortlessly survive the otherwise lethar daytime of Alternian climate. Cerulean bloods possess extraordinary telepathic gifts, capable of commanding hundreds, if not thousands of people at once. Purple bloods have even stronger telepathy, tasked with terrorizing every troll in the galaxy with horrific nightmares to keep them reliant on sopor slime to sleep, on top of possessing inhuman regeneration that can walk off being utterly shredded with bullets or other fatal wounds.

Violet bloods are sea dwellers, veritable royalty living in the most dangerous climate on the planet. The dark depths of the sea where the Horrorterror Gl'bgolyb dwells, rasing the next Fuschia Heiress who will challenge the Empress for the throne. Fuschia are unquestionably the strongest caste around, completely immune to all telepathic influence. Even to Gl'bgolyb's voice, which would otherwise drive all of Trollkind to extinction with a single cry.

Naturally, several people across history had problems with this system. Revolutionaries like the Signless and the Summoner fought to free their people from this enslavement and both of them failed. Foiled by the background manipulations of Doc Scratch. The Devil who lead Alternia down this path in the first place. The First Guardian who rigged the game from the start.

If Doc Scratch hadn't meddled for centuries, Alternia would've been crushed under the weight of its own cruelty centuries ago. Kept chugging along past the real logistical failings of its own core ideology by necessity and immediately left to crumble and rot once its purpose was played out.

Perhaps the purple bloods and their cruel fantastic religious ideology was right all along deep down. They worship the Mirthful Messiahs and paint the stars in blood in their name. Their every atrocity a joke to keep their gods laughing. Perhaps the futility of Alternia’s very existence was the cruelest joke of all.

Analysis: Viltrum

Somewhere, far beyond the stars, lies a technological utopia. Populated only by miraculous superbeings who help the people of other worlds join the galactic community. A wonderful world that knows only peace and prosperity, protected only by glorious supermen.

If such a world exists, Viltrum is the furthest thing in the galaxy from it. The Supermen who come from the sky do not bring truth and justice. The bring the option to submit or be exterminated by your superiors.

A horrific war world dedicated to the rule of might makes right, Viltrum saw fit to remove the weak from their society after Grand Regent Thragg came to power. To emerge stronger and spread their influence across the galaxy. Committing genocidal atrocities in the name of being the only empire in the galaxy left standing.

To this end, they often send lone agents undercover to infiltrate notable planets. Become their superheroic protector while covertly paving the way for a full Viltrumite invasion. "Elevating" worlds with the honor of being their thrall species.

Their strength is immense. More akin to a force of nature than a species. Most species attempting to overwhelm them will splatter against them like paint balloons. A single Viltrumite can render a planet lifeless in seconds.

This is because they're made up of "smart atoms". Able to manipulate their atomic structure to a limited extent to achieve superhuman feats. As such, Viltrumite cells are invulnerable to almost any conventional form of harm. Radiation, viruses, prions, impossible heats or colds, none of it matters. This is what allows them to freely fly, hold their breaths in the vacuum of space for weeks on end, and survive nearly anything you can throw at them. Anything short of destroying their brain or heart most likely will not kill them. You can even outlive them, they'll survive for thousands of years after you're dust in the wind.

On the surface, it would seem that their attempts to become the strongest species out there were successful. But at a severe cost. Their constant waring nature as decimated their own population, leaving only 50 pure blooded Viltrumites alive. They're forced to rely on vassal species to run their empire and their expansion is driven by finding a compatible species to rebuild their numbers with.

Even so, a handful of Viltrumites is all one would need. Even just that many Viltrumites can single handedly rip the Earth apart, a feat that would require a combined total of 1.8 Zettatons of TNT.

Awfully consistent considering they can move at speeds billions of times Faster Than Light.

Source:

In other words, what happens when you combine Kryptonians and Saiyans? You get an unstoppable Empire of Genocide.

Throwdown Breakdown:

Despite all appearances, this matchup is actually decisively very open and shut.

Quintillions of times FTL is much faster than Billions of times and a Gold Blood pushing a spaceship can get up to 2.8 Zettatons over splitting the Earth at 1.8 Zettatons. Made worse by the fact that splitting the planet is overtime group effort whereas the ship push is one individual gold blood.

In fact, no matter what end feats you use, trolls have a superior one over the Viltrumites. Multiple Viltrumites nearly dying to punch through a planet, meet multiple Beforan trolls smashing two planets together and being just fine. With Beforus trolls being weaker than Alternian trolls.

Source:

Even the strongest feat you can argue with the infamous Sun Disk:

Is millions of times weaker than Roxy just standing inside a massive black hole, which the average Troll should be at least somewhat comparable to:

This is made worse by the versatility factor. Viltrumites are stubborn motherfuckers to kill, with far superior healing factors than most trolls, but they have no answer to the scope of telepathy and telekinesis brought to bare here. Sure, they've fought against both before, but never to this degree. Viltrumites can resist mind control from the Sequids, but trolls can mind control you from literally another universe away and have the range to effect thousands or billions at once. That's not a contest. And the strength gap makes the telekinesis point clear, as two of the earlier mentioned feats were performed with telekinesis.

But, what really does Viltrum in here is the logistics. Alternia has spent most of its existence shielded from the logistical consequences of its own darwinist ideology, as Doc Scratch still had need of them. Viltrum hasn't and is suffering the consequences for it. Their species is running low, they're nearing extinction. Without their thralls, they wouldn’t have the manpower to be an empire at all, and that's a bad position to be in against a galaxy spanning empire with none of those same drawbacks. Alternia is what Thragg pictured Viltrum being when he took over in his head.... because it didn't have to deal with any of the real consequences that made his ideology unsustainable.

Fighters like Conquest and Thragg will absolutely take down a few armadas before going down. This is the same guy who can sink New York City deeper into the Earth with one punch, after all. But the simple fact is, they're too outnumbered, underequipped, and underpowered to win this fight.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Alternia!