#and childhood on alternia is just absolute hell

[ugghouly]

make her pay or whatever... I think about that fight a lot

[paragonrobits]

Could you do a karezi of them being in love in a tree house in earth c??? Pretty please

I also posted this on fanfiction.net and my AO3!

The wind blew, hard and strong and it was like a memory, of adistant time, and the smell was like somethingfrom Alternia, but not. Some other alien thing, hints of a world theyhelped make in another time, another place, when they were bothyounger and dumber and not exactly ready to hold hands and divehorn-first into hearts like wrigglers about to bite something thatwas gonna bite back a lot harder-

But Alternia. SGRUB. Everythingelse, every dumb mistake in other timelines only remembered stronglywhen Terezi is close, it could have been a thousand sweeps ago orjust two or three. It felt the same. Distant and lost and not reallyeither of their problem anymore. Old hurts, old faults and old woundsjust... faded away. Bad blood draining out a wound, and the scarshealed just fine, and the infection was long since gone.

Karkat smelled the air, his eyesclosed, doing it as she did.He did his best to pretend that he was totally getting this crap, hewas understanding the lessons of dragons like someone who wasn'tbuilt mostly of bullshit and yelling real loud, but he felt somethingon the wind, a taste of something that noses couldn't tell you andeyes wouldn't help with. A memory carried on that wind, from someother person, a flash of emotions he'd never felt and thoughts he'dnever imagined on himself. A scrabbling, dirt-low thought that movedin a mind as fast as a river and about as complicated, excited andtoo quick to worry much about consequences.

Terezi sniffed the air too, herlips quirking into an odd smile, threatening to go full grin. “Iknow what it is,” she said, sing-song, words rising up and downwith her rumbling, deep voice in a way that was absolutely terrifyingand enormously attractive. WithTerezi, the two things blended together. She was all claws and spikyquill-hair and teeth that could bite his arm in half at the elbow andshe wanted to keep him alive andshit that really meant a lot. On Alternia, in the meteor, on this newworld.

(Maybe they had achance in another time line to get close on the meteor. Maybe theyscrewed that up. Maybe they'd drifted apart in this timeline for awhile, but yeah, okay, this was an new world. A new chance, a newplaces; she'd promised him she'd seen all the possibilities of oldtimelines, and this was a new world. A new place. A new chance, andshe sealed it with a kiss between his horns, soft as falling leaveson water.

Then they both fucked it up because he poked her in the eyewith his horn and she thought he did it on purpose so she headbuttedhim and that ended up with them both falling into a pile of leavesand holy fuck she was heavy and for some reasonthey were both laughing. So that was okay.)

“Okay, fine, I give up, whatthe shit, don't drag out the suspense.” Karkat tilted his head up,and up, and up some more at the room filling glory thatwas Terezi Pyrope, sitting down with her legs crossed andsickle-shaped toeclaw cutting a weird spiral into the wood floor.Dammit. She was grinning. “You're gonna drag it out. Aren't you?”

“Hell yeah.” She grinned,lips mostly a deep black a few shades darker than the beautifulobsidian tone of her chitin, tinted teal at the seam lines artfullyinscribed into her chitin to state her lineage and story. Those lips,full and thick and entirely capable of making his whole face grosslymoist with a single overexcited smooch, were half painted teal.Karkat fumbled with the tools in his hands, impatient to finish thejob. “Guess what it is.”

“Come on, tell me!”

“Nah. It's cheating. Guess!”

Karkat grumbled but he complied,casting his power into the air, feeling it tightly. He felt the flowof the grass and the echoes of seeds from a thousand years ago. Hefelt how this forest had grown, planted ages ago, and he felt theedges of words spoken hundreds of years before that, shaping mindsthat would come to speak other words that led one day to peoplecoming here and placing down seeds, and then a seed became this tree,and here they came, putting up a tree house and staying there,together, free and safe like he'd never been, and she wasn't alonelike she'd always been.

He knew blood, and all the thingsit flowed through. Blood wasn't just life-juice in veins. Blood waswill, life, unity, andhe knew it well.

He felt the air, and heunderstood the memory upon the wind, something that never would havesurvived Alternia. He sniffed. “Consort?” he guessed. Coldthoughts, excitable but also inclined towards the depths, fond ofsand and water, looking for a beach to build a home, and with a hintof rain to its memory... “Turtle. One of Lalonde's, I think? Rose'sturtles. One of her consorts.”

Terezi nodded sagely. “Yep! Yagot it.” She grinned again, and wiggled her clawed fingersimpishly. “I'm this closeto being proud of you.” Her fingers were held apart a fraction ofan inch apart. “Thiiiis close.”

“Put those fingers closer so Ican bite them.” He gnashed his teeth in mock-threat.

“What, and risk you bustingyour cute little wanna-be fangs on me?” She scoffed, and stuck heralarmingly long tongue out at him. It smacked him in the face. “Noway! I like your teeth. Wanna keep them nice and intact so I can putthem on a necklace if anything happens to you.”

“You're the soul of romance,”Karkat said dryly, wiping off a bit of spittle.

Terezi wound her tongue back. “Iknow!” It was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic and reallygood at hiding it, or if she was being sincere. Probably the latter,she was smiling too much for it to be one of her attempts to hide herreal feelings.

“...I could bust out a few ofmy teeth so you could have a necklace?” Karkat said, feeling likehe ought to at least try tomake her sense of style look like she wanted.

“What?” She blinked.

“There's probably a hammeraround here. I could take a couple whacks-”

“What, no.”her hands clasped his cheeks, eclipsing his head. “I forbid you totake any implements of smackery to your teeny, adorable face muffin!”she paused. “The hell is a face muffin... WHATEVER, don't tellanyone I said that!”

“Can I tell them you're beingprotective?” he mumbled. “It's kind of... oh god, please don'tput me in a toilet or something, I have to say this-”

“Don't you dare!”

“It's kind of cute you beingall protective.”

“OKAY FIRST OF ALL HOW DAREYOU.” She scooted back, arms crossed and her head tilted up to hidethat she was blushing very heavily. “I! Am a totallybadass troll, I have more badassin this pinky claw than you do in your whole body.”

He snorted, not disputing it.“Well, duh.“ Heconsidered her neck, bearing a little charm on it with the symbol ofhis ancestor upon it, worn in secret throughout her childhood as herown ancestor had done. “Some of my teeth would look pretty good onthat necklace. Hold on, let me find that hammer-”

Her arm curled around him. “No!”

“Let me be badass, dammit!”

“No way!”

“They'll grow right back,probably?”

“No!” Terezi crossed herarms, tugging Karkat into her lap and scowling so fiercely that itwas surprising that some of the tree house didn't light aflame fromher glare.

“Ugh, fine.”Karkat curled up against her thigh, her arm and her stomach. It wasreally comfortable there and despite how damn strong she was, verysoft. He poked her stomach. “You feel like a recuperacoon.”

She giggled despite herself,trying to cover her mouth. “Knock it off, you little shit-goblin!”

“Poke, poke!”

“Swear to your ancestor I will crush you between my thighs,you know I can!”

He paused, leaning against her,contemplating this. Terezi relaxed around him, leaning back andrumbling pleasantly as his head soaked into her. “Is that, uh.”He nuzzled her stomach, horns lightly sliding against her skin. “Isthat honestly a deterrent.”

“Suppose that depends on howthreatened you are,” she said, with a faint smile she wouldn't evershow so easily except around friends. But here, now, her personaswere allowed to slip, and she got to show the ones she could withoutworrying about image. She patted at her mouth. “So is this stuffdone, or what?”

“Oh, your lip paint and shit.”Karkat was quite comfortable where he was, but if she needed him todo a thing, then oh well for that. “No. Gotta finish it up.” hetried to scramble free.

“Oh, come on!” She hunchedover, scowling as Karkat loped slowly on all fours to the paint kit,most of them in shades of blue and green, and glowing faintly.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, quiteunconcerned. “I haven't even finished with the base layer, you knowthere needs to be something forit all to be on before I apply the subtle bits.”

“And then the glowy stuff thatlooks cool?” she said, without really expecting it to be over soquickly.

“Sorry, that comes later. Theface paint too, if you want to sit still for that long.”

“Ugh.” Terezi sat back, quiteenjoying the feel of his hands on her face. “Fine, IGUESS.”

Karkat mixed them up asappropriate. Terezi leaned in, so he could take a soft brush, paintedteal, and slide it in slow, lovely strokes across her lips, makingthem a bright teal one stroke at a time.

Minutes passed in this way, softand calm and gentle. Neither of them had a lot of time for thepassionate, soul-searing kind of love. Passion had its charms, yeah,but, right here and now-

It was good to just have thingsbe soft, be sweet and quiet. To trust, and to be in love withoutworrying at all.

Terezi smacked her lips. Karkatgrunted in annoyance but left her to it. “One of these days,” hesaid, patiently keeping at it, admiring the artistic effect of herlips against the chitin. “You could learn to do this yourself.”

“What, and not have my personalmutant attendant do it for me? That sounds boring.”

He mumbled, almost missing astroke when his hands shook, and he couldn't stop himself fromsmiling.

More time passed, the two of themtogether like this and Terezi gently moved a hand up, trailing hisside and studying the shape of his shoulder, moving up. He hummedgently as her claws lovingly moving up the side of his face, thentowards his horns, cradling the back of his head and just sliding inand out, into his hair and out, and he resisted the urge to purr. Shedidn't, her blind eyes closed and her mouth smiling softer than shedared to show in public, and her contented rumbles made a few windowsshake and leaves fall out.

“So, uh.” She was stillsmiling, her eyes closed. “If I kissed you know, would it totallyjust screw up everything you did?”

“What, shit really?”He thought about it, the first impulse being something along thelines of 'hell yeah Pyrope go for it'.“Well, shit, if you wanna, I'm not gonna stop you.” Her mouth wasvery inviting, the curved blades of her teeth beauteously fierce.

Terezi made a pfftnoise. “It's not fun if youdon't whine a little first!” She leaned closer  to him, loomingover him like a dragon over its most treasured hoard. “But. I thinkI can deal with it.”

Her lips brushed against him,cool and soft, gentle as tree roots finding purchase in the mostverdant of soil. He leaned into the kiss, his heat warming her kissand it remained smooth ad calm, as steady as something they both hadso desperately needed, and now it was here, and it was safeand yes, this was love, not thekind of thing either of them had thought they needed with so manymovies telling them that love was hot and wild and ended in blood.

There is a kind of beauty inpeace, and in not being afraid anymore.

Terezi parted, it felt like yearslater than neither of them noticed. Karkat didn't bother to clean upthe teal, because he could still feel her breath on him and the smellof her on his face, and hell no tojust wiping that off. Instead he blushed, head tilted up and throatbared, and in such a position he was well equipped to kiss on thecheek.

She didn't giggle, or laugh, orrumble, but she did sigh contently, putting an arm up to loosely hughim.

All was right and well, for both.

[terramythos]

Review: HIVESWAP ACT 1 by Whatpumpkin Studios (2017)

Genre/Tags: Atmospheric, Puzzle, Adventure, Parallel Worlds, Multiple Protagonists, Female Protagonist, LGBT Protagonist, Humor, Science Fiction, Lore Heavy, Multi-Part, 2D.

Warnings: Genocide and emotional abuse/neglect are both pretty heavily referenced. They’re both called out for being awful.

Playthrough Notes: I’m told stuff you do affects future acts as well as the parallel game. But I have absolutely no idea what notable things I’ve really done at this point, so… lol?

My Rating: 4 / 5 (Recommended)

**Minor Spoilers and My Thoughts Follow**

Xefros, I am going to do my absolute best to raise your standard of friendship to the point where having your name remembered is not the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you. -Joey

My Summary: While this is takes place in the same universe/continuity as Homestuck, it’s its own distinctive side-story. Evidently this game will be published in four acts with a sequel/parallel game called Hauntswitch, also comprised of four acts. Which I guess makes for eight games total? That’s crazy.

You play primarily as JOEY CLAIRE, who is playing outside with her brother JUDE HARLEY when they are attacked by some weird monsters. As a result, Jude holes himself up in their treehouse while Joey flees into their weird expansive mansion and hides in her room. The two of them put their heads together to navigate the now hostile homestead and solve puzzles in relatively straightforward point-and-click. You learn about Joey’s generally absentee adventurer father and her now deceased mother, and her thoughts and attitudes on a variety of things. Joey eventually escapes to the attic and uses an ancient family heirloom from her late mother to unlock a weird alien relic.

As soon as she does, however, she is thrown through a portal onto a strange alien world known as Alternia, trading places with someone from that world. Once again solving a variety of point-and-click puzzles, she explores this alien world and befriends an alien “troll” named Xefros.. She has to team up him to help with that world’s conflict and find a way home. Meanwhile, a troll named Dammek has been sent to Earth in her place, and the consequences of this are not yet known. 

The Good:

This game is visually quite nice. The backgrounds are hand-drawn with an immense amount of detail, and the character animations and cutscenes look very fluid. It’s good they went for the 2D approach and scrapped the 3D models, because this looks much nicer. The amount of detail in the backgrounds went a long way in making the world feel genuine and real.

Once you reach the actual “swap” part of the adventure, things really pick up in terms of story and character. I was worried because the Earth part seemed to drag a little bit, but the overarching conflict and level of world detail is appealing once you get there. That’s not to say the Earth part isn’t interesting, but the stakes are relatively minor.

The minigames were quite cool; there’s the turn-based (ish) “STRIFE” sequences which nod to the comic, and a version of SNAKE used to open doors. They’re well-animated and worked quite well. I thought it was pretty cool that they bothered to include minigames at all for a rather short and simple adventure game.

In true classic adventure game fashion, the number of interactions between items you pick up and various objects in the environment is frankly insane. I want to know who was capable of writing dozens of unique dialogues about using a jar of spice or a pigeon on every item in the game world without it falling flat. These also lead to some interesting bits of information (and amusing achievements).

The writing in general was solid with a good sense of humor. I laughed at the official title.

Unsurprisingly, the soundtrack (composed by Toby Fox and James Roach) is very good and brought the game to life. Some of my favorites were Snake Escape, That’s How I Beat Snake, Rustblood, and Wish You Were Here. Those are links if you’d like to listen. 

The game feels true to some of the best aspects of Homestuck; nostalgia and the sudden emergence of surprisingly deep/complex lore. Joey’s room, for example, really brought me back to my own childhood. And, of course, most fans of Homestuck will probably be thrilled how much this game expands on troll culture and Alternia in general.  

Homestuck fans will probably enjoy the references to the comic; it’s obvious who Joey and Jude’s father is, who their babysitter is, the design of the portal, etc. There’s also smaller references in dialogue and some of the objects you interact with. At the same time if you haven’t read it, these things won’t really bother you; they’re extraneous details.

I liked the characters! Joey got the most screentime. Xefros and her definitely felt the most well-rounded, but you get a glimpse of the other characters through dialogue of the main two. Probably the most interesting thing was the character relationships. The only one who feels a bit underutilized is Jude, but you do get details about him and he will be one of the stars in Hauntswitch so… make of that what you will? 

The Mediocre:

For being an adventure game, there really isn’t much in the way of puzzles as of this act (with one major exception). There’s some minor “use x item on x thing” parts but that’s about it. This appears to be intentional, as the game lampshades this by setting up big puzzles that get solved rather easily and calling attention to it. Overall the game seems more concerned with telling a story as you navigate various setpieces, which may or may not be your thing. I was fine with it as that’s pretty true to the premise of mspaintadventures.

It’s hard to say, as someone who read Hometuck, whether or not this is as approachable to someone unfamiliar with the source material. My thought is yes-- it’s an independent story. But there are a lot of references, and newcomers may be confused by some aspects of, say, troll culture. This might be a good starting point for people looking to get into the series because I feel like a lot of references would work well in reverse as you discover them in the comic.

I am told that this game Has Bugs, some of which are gamebreaking. I do not deduct on this because I did not personally encounter any, but it’s something to keep in mind. Save often.

The Bad:

There are some parts where it’s just really difficult to tell what the game wants you to do, which can be frustrating. It’s less puzzle solving and more mashing everything until something works. I consider that a pretty major flaw of adventure games in general.

Act 1 is short; my total play time was 3 hours. On one hand, this isn’t bad because I kickstarted this game and will be getting copies of the subsequent acts. But $7.99 for a 3 hour game is a bit excessive for people who don’t already own it. It might be better to wait for a full release.

Final Thoughts:

To be completely honest with you, after the development hell this game went through I expected it to blow chunks. I was surprised by how nice the game looks and feels. The story is interesting enough that it doesn’t just feel like fanservice, which was another concern of mine. It takes place in the same continuity as Homestuck, yes, but it’s very much its own thing, which makes it a good fit for fans and newcomers alike.

The concept itself is quite interesting and makes sense for the universe. I greatly enjoyed the level of detail to be found in the environment of each area. The artists working on the project really outdid themselves. And it’s always a good sign when at the end of a first “part”, I feel the desire to continue the story and see what happens to the characters.

Of course, the gameplay is also pretty good. It’s not mindblowing or anything, but other than the occasional small clickbox it plays pretty smoothly. As mentioned earlier, it feels more like a story than a game, which may or may not appeal to you.

Again, though, I think it’s priced too high for what you currently get. I assume they will release subsequent parts and bundle them for a better deal. But if I wasn’t already a fan and didn’t already pay for the game five years ago, I probably would skip on it until there was more bang for my buck. Catdeer. Whatever.

“WISH YOU WERE HERE”

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 6