#hiveswap has been fun to play and all tho

[booperbeanv3]

ok i know this ask game is from Þe Olden Times but.

everything except 1, 2, 7, 8, 30 and 31. covering all the bases

“Homestuck Isn’t Dead” Tag

jesus a full faq here

Well I'm incredibly vain and love talking about myself so here goes

3. Do you call your s/o a matesprit? 4. Do you call your best friend your moirail?

S/O, no. Best friend, sometimes.

5. Are you “kin” with any characters or commonly called a character?

I've never taken kinning seriously and never will, but I strongly related to Dave and Karkat thanks to that "born wrong + childhood neglect" flavour. But my friends (SIDE-EYES YOUR URL) have holed me into Jake English, so, y'know, whatever. Not everyone can be davekat, I get it

6. God Tier?

Knight of Light!

9. Do you roleplay homestuck? where and how often?

I haven't been able to do it often thanks to the circumstances. I'm too scared to use dreambubbles.xyz. But if you're interested, my discord is boolean2390 and while I main alphabeta boys (i.e. Dave, John, Jake, Dirk), I have RPed Dave and Karkat before in actual, concrete examples I can show you.

10. Do you cosplay homestuck characters? Who and where?

I was gonna cosplay Karkat before Omegle shut down.

11. Are you apart of ask blogs?

I am not and I have actively avoided this! I'm gonna be real here, I'll never top the current set of kid ask blogs, so I'll just watch from afar. Plus, it's quite a bit of work when my faves are so popular, and therefore will not fill any real niches. (a jake english would be kinda funny even if it already exists tho)

12. Are you in any homestuck groups?

Hoesslut server on Discord

13. Favorite character?

you can make a tri venn diagram of all my faves with the headings "waifu", "literally me" and "actually good/interesting character" with some mild overlap

that said

objective best is jade and personal fav is karkat

aradia is super based also. best part of act 5 but utterly forgettable afterwards. served cunt, died, served cunt, revived

14. Least favorite character?

tri venn diagram of "obsessive hatred", "boring" and "annoying"

most of my "least favs" disappoint me from lack of potential being utilised effectively

idfk doc scratch??

15. OTP? 16. NOTP? 17. BROTP?

JANEROXY 4EVER!!!! that's the only consistent one. i can like any ship if given some good enough motivation (even if it's my dick).

that being said i scour johndave and johnkat most often. however i am THE blackrom vantas and johnkat/davekat must be spades ONLY. spades johndave is fun but no one writes it. dude i just love spades

18. Do you want homestuck to just die already?

No, I just got here!

19. Are you following up with hiveswap? Do you play? Watch YT videos?

I don't, and I don't care.

20. Tell us how homestuck has affected you in real life?

Locked myself in my room and did nothing but read Homestuck for about 2 weeks to a month. I finished it during this time

Got so high I tripped balls thought I killed my best friend and got stuck on Prospit while Homestuck music was playing in the background. Last summer!

Started laughing uncontrollably in the middle of a psychotherapy appointment since I was being so Davecore

My karkalicious x wannabe remix is on my friend's playlist bc she genuinely enjoys it. This remix also haunted me during an important art project I was doing and singlehandedly cursed the entire thing

Wore sunglasses IRL for a bit. (It does help.) Would keep doing it if I didn't lose my clip-ons

My sister thinks I sell Karkat foot fetish art now. She follows me here

21. Have you met anyone through homestuck?

IRL? No. Online? Duh

22. Have you left the fandom before?

No, I'm a total newfag

23. How many times have you read through it?

TOTAL newfag. Only once

24. Did you ever skip intermissions/dialog/animations?

I'd scan over them, but not totally skip. I also read act summaries in full when they were there because I am a baby with goldfish memory

25. Opinions on the fandom?

Depends... I think it's gotten a lot better from my observations, but of course, Twitter is still a cesspit full of retarded babies that shit their diapers. But that could be said about any fandom that's majority kids. Also any stridercester that thinks theyre oppressed for liking shota boy twincest should btfo and jerk off in peace. Which in fairness, most of them do! But to the ones that don't, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY NOTES FAGGOT

Besides those, I think it's great, but I also main Tumblr, so...

26. Opinions on the comic?

Personally I enjoyed it a lot, but I'll get a more rounded impression once I re-read it. All plot shenanigans aside, Homestuck's main selling point has always been its characters, and its method of introducing and developing them is one of my favourites. Also its humour

27. Do you favor the trolls, humans, or carapaces?

Humans, because I'm a boring fucknut who reads sci-fi for the humans and will put them in an office building and say "imagine if they did IT"

28. Favorite moment of all of homestuck?

29. Least favorite moment of all of homestuck?

beginning of act 6 felt like i nodded off on dope and woke up in the hospital. retcon was kinda mid

[flyttadigs]

so glad homestuck ended after act 7 & the snapchat credits. so glad no ones beating this dead hors

[mary-is-writing]

I´m currently playing Hiveswap Act 2 and here are some of my opinions (spoilers so be careful)

I haven’t finished the game so I can’t do an overall rewiew (yet)

First part before the train was nice and fun. I liked Joey and Xefros just talking and learning more about each other and their cultures and laughed really hard at the joke they made when Joey asks “To do what with your what?” after Xefros explanation. Some things were very intuitive while other weren’t, and I had a little trouble in the Bee House cause of me not understanding how the game worked. After that I got that Joey and Xefros are supposed to be played like a team, so try to make one do something that helps the other was good to learn to continue. 

The part in the station was also nice. I really liked some of the trolls I met there and was more than happy to see they were also in the train. Joey made me kinda anxious taking so much inniciative of talking and telling stuff to trolls, specially Marvus and the bronzeblood from the station, and I totally agreed with Xefros freaking out about it. This was also the part where I got that I would probably forget most of the names of the trolls. There are a lot and are hard to memorize. Sad, but oh well.

The first two cars of the train were fun. It took me by surprise how most of the issues and puzzles/little quests can be solved by just. Talking to people. It was like the game was calling me out, cause most of the time I tried to find solutions and answers by myself. Same thing happened in the fight against the yellow blood: I first tried to find a way for Xefros to knock him down, and even the hint option said to not let Joey fight Xefros' battles, but apparently letting her doing it first to give Xefros enough motivation was the right choice. Again, the answer was just ask for help, and it took me by surprise AGAIN. After that, I tried really hard to remember it and keeping the two of them trying all the options, aka making them work like a real team. 

So that was nice, but then I got in the jade and teal car and holy crap that was frustrating. I don’t think I liked any of the jades besides Wanshi and then turns out she was the freaking mastermind who made the other jade take the blame just cause she didn’t like her. I figured it was Wanshi like half trough the trial but I couldn’t came back to it even tho I knew it, and Idk if it’s just that the game has only one ending or what. I liked most of the teals tho, specially the one with rectangular horns that helps you during the trial, but the whole trial thing was super long and kinda annoying at times. After I talked with everyone multiple times, the game kept telling me to find more clues and testimonies and I didn’t know where else to look around: I had to go over everything and everyone in the car multiple times for like a good half hour or more until giving up and looking for a guide online, that said to look in the restroom. The grub in the restroom that I was supposed to notice and pick up as evidence was SO SMALL, I swear, it was so easy to miss it and only after slowly moving my cursor near it I could find it. The trial itself was long too, and tho I liked having the company of the two teals who were my “mentor” and the prosecutor, the other characters made it annoying to play after a while, and specially near the end. I appreciated the reference to Ace Attorney games, tho, and I bet the trial was so long because the ones in that game are as well. I was more than happy to finish that and get tf out. I still love Wanshi even tho she played me. GG Wanshi

The blueblood’s train is the one I’m currently at, and so far has been way more straightforward and less frustrating than the last one. I liked that to complete some of the little quests I had to go back in the train and ask for help to the trolls I had already met. I believe I’m almost about to complete this one, but I’m currently struggling to find a way to pass the last mini quest before the main one, tho is definitely nothing as hard to realize like in the last car. The only thing I don´t like is that I have to go through the jade and teal car again every time I want to go to find clues. 

That’s it so far. One of my favourite things is how, depending on who you are controlling (Joey or Xefros) the dialogue when you click on things will change and give you more info about it. Anyways, I’ll be back with more when I finish it.

[yoitscro]

First thought: Homestuck^2 should've just been called Beyond Canon, and more people should call it that. 

The 2 was put on for chuckles; HS trending the day it was announced with it being a sequel spoke enough about how such a thing shant be underestimated, and why Homestuck is ABSOLUTELY more than just our small twitter crowd (and the scrap of us still on tumblr). I say that because remembering the Beyond Canon part slightly reassures me about the fact that this is a fanwork that will do some weird shit, and things I don't agree with, but isn't something that I have to subscribe to enjoying all the way with how I engage with Homestuck.

Homestuck 2 is not the canon continuation. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, is an OFFICIAL continuation.

Not having it on such an important stool and as the only content we all are only allowed to digest should come from both people who obsessively dislike it, and people who defensively support it. If a character says they kick babies then I can say, hey that's weird, maybe not great writing, but I can pretend they don't in my content, and i dont have to send threats or call people cishet white men for it! and, it's an absolutely great thing that we were all encouraged to create our own ideas without anyone who's influenced us to do so squinting their eyes when we actually go through with it. Glad I don't have to put this story up to the expectations of being a sequel to a 11 year, worldwide IP that's shooketh the internet landscape since it's merely optional, Death of the Author persists, and ideas aren't just dominated and revolved around the perspective of a 1% in this entire fanbase.

That said.

As an OFFICIAL continuation versus a canon one, HS2 is ok. It certainly has that fanfiction vibe, and a story it wants to tell. I can't really tell what that story is since we have like, 10 sub plots rn though. There's not a real a clear indicator on where the focus of main conflict is that connects all these stories together.

I thought that the prose in replacement of Vriska's battle was jarring, but not teeerribly surprising for the format HS2 is going for. It's more so using drawings to compliment text versus Homestuck's usual of panels being side by side with visual importance, or even itself being the one compliment. It sorta feels weird tho that it brought old fans back in with art just for them to get sneered at when they get a bit upset that there won't be main staples of art known to progress the story forward. 

Also people who mock people for “having to read homestuck” knowing there’s language barriers and struggling focus from those who’ve been use to something that was never so dense, are ridiculous.

Personally this could be solved by knowing how old flashes worked, having way more artists on the team, maybe even an art director if not already, and noting that we're not asking for the next Cascade. Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rose Ride sure was, and Homestuck’s animation is absolutely not the same as a 12-24 framed 12 minute cartoon. That, or just snuff the illustrative art as a whole since it's very clear on where the focus is.

I’m sure you’re not here trying to see my opinions on how the outer workings are though, versus plot.

Uuuuh, let's see. Yiffy's still a name I don't care to use until I eventually get tired of any of my art that do not show up in tags. This is fine and not as offensive as people are saying it is. Minors who want to cosplay this character don't have to call themselves this character. Not wanting to be one letter away from accidentally entering a very NSFW space of twitter is fine. Also the lot of people call Tavros, Tavvy.

I hope Kanaya's anger at being cucked is actually seen versus being implied through fan guesses and another character having to say she was.

Roxy needs to be more of an involved character. Where are they during all this?

Jane should have a mention of her relations to HIC being a main/bad influence on her current parallels to Alternian dictatorship.

The PRE-RETCON GROUP should have a fun one-shot update for fans who like them, since they oughta be around if they fell through the ghost hole. Most of them. The sprites that aren't Jasprosesprite should also show up too, since they're around.

Aaaaaand I think we should be extra careful going into the future when it comes to the alien rebellion. It's weird that a lot of the writers are white and toy around with concepts that can be a not so great parallel to racism. Currently not great timing rn! If the characters are going to remain aracial, but with them still doing not much to reference other non-white earth cultures or getting new hair cuts that have different textures (looking at you, Rose), we shant make the species with actual biological benefits a racism commentary. the xeno joke at least had a play on words. If any writer has happened upon this then a, please don't get mad at me again haha, and b, consider having more black writers or directional assistance on your squad. You know who they are.

In the future. I casually want the ghost from the Dream Bubbles to be shown since it's a big elephant in the room to not have a single one of them in the bg despite a load of them appearing from the ghost whole. Don't gotta give them speaking lines, especially the dancestors. I personally don't know if I want that right now.

I also hope in the future that we don't get HS content that is only going to revolve around HS2, if it's optional enough to engage with without being the only option. That's why PQ could ended a bit better for me, and why I hope it's not the main thing that's keeping Hiveswap on the backburner. I don't think it's farfetched to consider that multiple HS content could come from more than just one team; to relieve work load, but to also strengthen the idea that Homestuck can be a various amount of perspectives when it comes to the ideas fans have. The most dedicated fans leading the direction of the story is not just a handful of them. If anything, at least acknowledge the massive ass fan projects going on once in awhile to showcase the different avenues.

"Hey Cro, you sure have bitched about this alot. Do you have anything good to say? Why don't you stop reading if you hate it so much!"

Not every comment needs to be golden, love. Again, some of these decisions I eck at, but ultimately they're just words on a computer that I'm not holding anyone at gun point to do, and I'm curious to see how the story handles itself going forward, since again, it's just a fanwork. Sometimes I wish to not only see where the plot goes, but to see a writer's craft in action.

Good Things:

The Art. Again, please have more artists. It'd help so much, especially since the main one is also double timing for VE. That said, HS2 sticks out to me because of the way the color composition is used. Aside from hair and other tiny things, I haven't seen black used a lot, which makes colors pop. It's really nice to look at. I hope we get more sharper styles of character in the future, since it builds on nostalgia and makes the trolls feel much less like they're from Repiton, but I can deal with it for the most part. I also like that one panel where the omega kids and vriska are talking in the dark room, and based on where they're standing, the text aligns. Tasty as hell.

Meat and Candy still do hold neat logic in the direction the stories go. Candy, while it could be more tasteless in some areas, is chaotic and too much of a good thing. Meat is having something a little more straightforward, though I'm not sure quite yet where it's going. I always found Candy to be the part of the epilogue that actually entertained me the most, from how much of a surreal Robot Chicken skit at 3am it felt. Sometimes the jokes slapped real nice and made me wonder, going in, how is this monkeys paw gonna play out and, hopefully, make people laugh or smirk like they got a good roast at themself?

The slightly episodic feel of each update is what I wanted from the Epilogues, so it's interesting to see that play out when it comes to switching different perspectives.

The bonus updates get points for featuring characters that a lot of us have been wanting to see for ages.

Hopefully this isn't unpopular, but I think the tension of Yiffy's introduction was nicely composed and written (ignoring some of the things I wish for Jane). It leaves you with enough want to see what'll happen next time. You could also say that despite her growling and making a lot of noise, it's not actually bad writing: I see it as the audience being forced to see her in the same perspective that Jane see's her; a dog. Upon no context we're seeing the same thing while knowing things are obviously off, and once we see this character in a new environment where their personality shines, it'll have a bigger impact her own character being humanized. So I like that.

Okay, I think that's all I got. I improv wrote most of this; hopefully I won't be taken out of context since I don’t think that HS2′s writing should ultimately be a judgement of the writers as people, nor treated as if they should hold the same unhealthy work environment that Andrew forced himself to do when writing the og comic. And I'm still like, donating to the patreon and everything, lol.

[runs away]

edit: i was going to put the cw as another positive thing for the comic...but...yeaaaah.

[meraki-sunset]

Hiveswap! My complete theory of what I think is happening and what I think will happen

To commemorate this 413 I want to share my ideas of what I think is coming up for the next video game, as how I believe the timeline of homestuck and hiveswap are entwined and how hiveswap prelude all homestuck events

 And everything starts in Friendsim (Have in mind that this are just my ideas and i could be wrong. but theorizing it’s fun and i want to share this)

The M.C  begins his story as a human who fell in alternia, finds himself alone and wants to make friends. This raises the questions

1- where did he came from? 2- Is he really human?

and for this i had several theories, of which, at the end of the game one proved to maybe be true.

The M.C could be:

- a human taken from earth, his life story it’s real

so his story of how he came to the planet is true and he is no more than an ordinary human with really bad luck

- a human created by ectobiology, his life story it’s still real

karkat mentioned that if a baby/grub was created wrong in some way, it is discarded and can it not be the player. He could have been a defective human who ended up on earth anyway.

- a human created by ectobiology but his life is not real, his memories are fake

Same scenario than before but It could have been a defective human that doc scratch took

(it's would not the first time) maybe it accelerated its growth on the lab like they do with the beings created for the chess war like carapacians. his memories were implanted by doc scratch and then he sent him to alternia (this one it’s really improbable, because it has been stated in numerous occasions that any being created by ectobiology needs to be placed on a planet to grow and then fulfill their intended role, no matter what that is. Like how Doc had no choice but to raise Damara)

 - He is not human, his life is not real, his memories are fake (this seems to be canon)

he is something else but he doesn’t know it and his memories were implanted by doc scratch right before he sent him to alternia

Homestuck plays a lot with the representation of its characters (how the art style changes depending on the mood) and the simple way of representing the m.c  caused many to overlook that he is a Carapacian, and has always been not only the reader of the webcomic from the beginning but an actual character and not an abstract representation of “us the fans”

(As a side note, than explains why ardata was able to control Reader, he was never human to begin with. That chapter was written by Andrew Hussie, that had to be intentional)

the Carapacians may be different from eachother, but in the end they are all the same species, and like the mayor and the rest of the exiles who were the ones who introduced the commands for the beta children, it was an illusion that the one reading the comic (all of us) was the one who controlled the actions, since in reality there was a character behind the command selections (Wayward Vagabond, Peregrine Mendicant, Aimless Renegade and Windswept Questant)

The same goes for the character of reader and it was an illusion as well that the character we saw should be representing us in an abstract way because he was already someone with a role on the comic

Now that we stablished he is a Carapacian. Where did he came from?

My initial theories were.

- A Carapacian could have been created by doc scratch with the cloning machine of the the veil, where all the pawns are made for the battle

- A Carapacian who already lived in prospit or who was already in battle and his memories were erased

But i don’t think Doc scratch really has a way to go in and out of sburb (the condesse went from earthA to earthB through sburb portals tho) in the end the most reasonable for me is

- A Carapacian who would live as an exile many years in the future in alternia, after the desolation and Carapacian repopulation on the planet, so Doc only have to jump in time with the handmaid or a window portal in time after the apocalypse , take someone at random from the Caparacian society, return to the time where alternia was still populated and the rebellion was beginning to resonate and drop him there (the only problem with this it’s that it’s always the looser kingdom the one who becomes exiled, and alternia had black dersite exiles. But on earth where the exiles where the prospitians there where still some derse carapacians, so I think it’s still possible, they may be just  way less in comparison)

- he should have the tattoo on his wrist to prove it, like the mayor, jack noir and his crew, and everybody who isn’t royalty. But if he could ignore all the signs of not being human, he may have ignored the tattoo too. Or maybe Doc put an excuse in his head to ignore it, which brings us to the next point 

One way or another, doc scratch convinced this Carapacian that he was a human, that he came from the earth, where he had always lived, that he was an orphan (so he would have no memories of having a family, which is why at some point I though he could have been an ecto children) and a thief with no friends (no memories of meeting anybody on earth) who had stolen a spaceship (that looks like junk and there is no way that thing could have gotten anybody out of earth) and who had crashed landed in alternia. (the Carapacians are created in laboratories in the veil to fight in the war, so it makes sense that his broken bones healed much faster than human ones, wich would have taken months) Filled with an insatiable desire to make friends with whoever he crossed paths with. (and by the way, there is no possible way to travel from earth to alternia, because those exist in diferent dimentions, billions of years apart in time from eachother and the only way to cross apparently it’s with cherub technology. Because they can jump through dimentions, just saying)

Why a human?

- because if he had any memory of being "Carapacian" he would have to be able to remember skaia, prospit  and the troll’s session. And maybe the post-apocalyptic world in alternia in which he probably used to live. He would have connected the dots and that would have been an inconvenience for Scratch.

He needed a pacifist creature filled with an alien culture, that no one could doubt after listening to him that he definitely came from a diferent planet and culture.

His ship impacted on the planet, not from space, but thrown from doc scratch’s green moon

BOLDIR must have seen this and that's why she knew that reader was on a mission and that it was about to end. She must have seen him fall, because of the constant vigilance she has towards the moon, she knows there is something there. (also she knows stuff)

when he was almost kidnapped along with konyyl by an adult troll, the ship began to shake and could not move forward, and he says he remembers that it was the same thing that happened to him. This was the power of doc scratch, he recognized it from when he dropped him on alternia

Happy late 413 and 10 year annyversary of homestuck!! This theory will continue

This is part 1 of a three part theory, i’ll be posting the next 2 parts today and  tomorrow!

Part 1 (youre here) - Part 2 - Part 3

[is-hiveswap-act-2-out-yet]

November 29, 2017

Hiveswap: Act 2 is not out yet.

We all join in and continue to have fun with hussies new sign chart.

I am seeing SO many fan trolls/trollsonas. Like not only new ones but even old ones that people are digging up to give them a proper canon sign and redesign and its so good. it feels nice. it feels like how it used to and its just really great.

decided im a viries and will probably also make a fan troll for the first time ever bc i want to be in on the fun. if you want to, send me your fan trolls too!!! that seems like it would be SO much fun. you can submit them and i can post them or you can just send them to me via message but i wanna see em allllll.

got some COOL new trolls!!! im scared of the high blood bc thats very obviously blood on their axe, meaning they are a murderer for fun but i love the design so much and........its like...........britneys "criminal" plays in my head everytime i look at her....

probly my fave design so far? its defs rly cool. and then the bl00 girl is cool but just seems normal to me idk. wrestlers tho!!! yeah!!!!

anyway keep sending me ya signs if ya want. its been fun seeing them all!!

It has been -(18) days since we were told the release frame for Hiveswap: Act 2.

[zenosanalytic]

Crimes Unto Heaven

 MMmmmmOk so

This is A Gag

to be clear(tbc, fyi)[1].

I don’t actually think the Hiveswap team is attempting to cover-up TERRIBLE ZODIAC CRIMES to protect themselves from the Star Police and avoid Astrajail or anything, and obvsl they can structure the EZ however they like since the Zodiac’s been Public Domain for 3000 years, and their Extended additions are their creations. And, while I don’t take it terribly seriously, it’s Fun! Which: Yay. But, I noticed some seeming-discrepancies when looking it over to write a “My Thoughts” response to @witchknights on the EZ, and the idea of running those down a wee bit and writing about them was Also Fun, so I’m Doing This o_o I’m Making This Happen(Requisite(TM)) o_o o_o

My original idea was to get superdetailed about it and explain everything, but then I started taking SCREENCAPS of The Star Grid(this is what I’m calling The Symbol List), and each individual Sign so I could group them all into their various CATEGORIES to illustrate my arguments(:| :|), and then I said to myself “ok this is ridiculous, you don’t have that kind of time, your screencapper can’t isolate fragments on the MSPA page for some reason, it doesn’t seem like you can save custom-sized/shaped selection tools in Paint3D, and you are beiNG RIDICULOUS!” so instead I’m going to just write up the basic patterns I noticed(which prob aren’t all the ones in there, given Hussie), their seeming-violations, and their possible implications, according to Me. You -Our Dear, Sweet, Dear, Dear, Sweet Readers- can imagine the visuals if you like, though, I have no problem with this I am Very Gracious[2] vuv

EZ Rules

Each sign-class has two associated suffixes(they’re also associated with the Aspect of the canon troll of that sign. Possible Sign Pun? Can mean Both??): one for Prospit, one for Derse. The List:

Aries(Time): -ries, D; -rist, P.

Taurus(Breath): -un, D; -us, P.

Gemini(Doom): -mini, D; -mino, P.

Cancer(Blood): -cen, D; -cer, P.

Leo(Heart): -o, D; -lo, P.

Virgo(Space): -ga, D; -go, P.

Libra(Mind): -za, D; -ra, P.

Scorpio(Light): -pia, D; -pio, P.

Sagittarius(Void): -ittarius, D; -ittanius, P.

Capricorn(Rage): -iborn, D; -icorn, P.

Aquarius(Hope): -rius, D; -nius, P.

Pisces(Life): -sci, D; -sces, D.

Now, a Neat thing you’ll notice is that these suffixes are exclusively arranged in top-left-to-bottom-right diagonal series across The Star Grid(I’ll symbolize it \ thusly). So Aries(Derse) is the topleftmost, then the second sign in Taurus is Taurist(Aries-Prospit), the third sign in Gemini is Gemries(Aries-Derse), etc, etc. This pattern holds true; you’ll only find those suffixes along a \ starting with their “parent” sign(the “True Sign”. I’ll call this the “Alpha Sign”, with the meaning First not the HS meaning, to avoid “True”’s connotations), or in another \ an appropriate period down(the period being how long it takes to work through the other sign-suffix \’s. So the Taurus suffixes are on the \ below the Aries, and the Gemini below the Taurus, etc, until it reaches the Aires again). Generally, the Derse-Prospit alternating holds true as well, and that has implications for the verticals and horizontals; to maintain this they’d have to alternate between Derse and Prospit and the horizontals do from Aries untIL-

-LIBRA! At the middle of the chart, at the Libra-line, the pattern breaks down. BUT! From Libra to Lipio along the vert the breakdown in alternating starts at the Libra signs; beginning with Libza it becomes much less predictable. The Arza-Libza \ is “regular” until Scorza, then regular again until Pira. The Arga-Liga \ becomes “irregular” at the Virgo-line(Lega, Virga instead of Virgo). The Aro-Libo \ becomes irregular at Leo. The Arcen-Licen \ becomes irregular at Cancer and is highly irregular from that point on. Like I said I’m not going to go through, find, and list all of the irregularities and I’m CERTAINLY NOT going to try and figure out if there’s a mathematical relation that defines the irregularities(if they are formulaic, or, as I suspect, the result of a non-mathematizable logic), but you get the idea. Periodicity’s Whack! It ain’t right!! I doubt this has any bigger implications beyond the HS Crew wanting to place the 12 canon trolls as the “True Signs” of each of the sign families -which only makes sense from an Earth-centric or Game-centric viewpoint; I mean, Troll culture would order the signs by some interior logic of its own if it wasn’t a narrative creation, and wouldn’t care about preserving the primacy of 12 unknowable nascent apotheokids at the end of history- and there are other bits of evidence that this is the case that raise other objections.

Another pattern in the EZ is that the last(Omega) Sign in each Sign Class shares the suffix(and Moon and Aspect) of the first(Alpha) sign in the next class. This makes a sort of sense if you conceive of them as a ring or continuum: The Omega Sign in each Sign-Class(or symbology, or alphabet) would be the one “closest” to the next sign-class, and so it displays this similarity in its naming until-

-LIBRA! AGAIN!! Or Virgo, depending on how you want to figure it. There is a regular, predictable pattern -Arus, Taurmini, Gemcer, Cano, Lego- until the Virgo|Libra Interface where Virgo ends with Virza and Libra begins with, well, the obvious :\  Though a larger pattern of Omega Signs having one of the two suffixes of the next Sign Class over holds true; just this smaller pattern of Alpha and Omega sharing a suffix breaks down. Both Libra and Scorpio(or Virgo and Libra) are irregular, then the pattern reemerges at Scorpittarius, only to break down again at the Aquarius|Pisces interface. The Pisces|Aries interface is also irregular.

Just to give you an idea of the sort of thinking this can make room for in the EZ, I’ll do a deeper dive on Libra, por ejemplo(though similar implications apply to Virgo, and other sign-classes). One possible implication, I’m sad to say, is that Lipia shouldn’t be the Libra Omega(thus Ultimate) sign, but rather Lipio, which actually makes some very good symbological sense as:

This is Lipio

This is Libra

To begin with, Lipio is a struck-through latin upsilon, which looks like(but is not related to) an upside-down Greek omega. Upsilon, the ancestor of our “u”, is the first letter in the latin word Ultimatus which means mostly the same thing as Greek Omega; both mean “the last, final, end”[3]. So making it the “ultimate”, or Omega, Libra Sign(which is an Omega-themed sign-class) would be a Funny Symbology Pun. Its design would visually reinforce this Omega postion through it’s “letter” being “reversed” in form to Libra’s. Libra is an Omega “balanced” over a line, symbolizing a balanced scale; A potential visual reversal of this would be an overturned scale, an “upside-down” Omega with the bar across it, rather than under. It would also create a nice bracketing of the sign-class, though sadly not a complete one since Libra and Lipio aren’t mirrored. Of course, if they were, then Lipio would be in a kind of balance with Libra, which would undermine it’s conceptual opposition to it, making it less symbolically satisfying. If you dig that sort of reading *looks away at sky, squint-frowns, and kicks dirt; entirely metaphorically*

I suppose you COULD equally say that Scorpia should be the Alpha sign for Scorpio, but that’d break the Derse/Prospit pattern and I refuse to play favorites u_u u_u u_u Replacing Libra with Libza is, of course, Right Out since that’d mess up the visual symbolism. Although...

Libza

Lipia

Crap -__- One is angular, one curvy; one is balanced, one unbalanced; one is open the other closed; they are in (at least)THREE symbolic and conceptual oppositions: these DO make good visually symbolic opposites |:T |:T AND it’d preserve both the Derse/Prospit alternating, AND AND the Omega-Alpha interface to Scorpio, AND AND AND switching Libra and Libza would make Terezi the Fulcrum of the Libra Sign-Class which would be VERY thematically and symbolically satisfying since, if you think about it, The Omega-Sign being most like the Sign-Class to the right implies the Alpha-Sign would be the sign most like the Sign-Class to the Left, logically making the Fulcrum Sign, that furthest from the ends, the “Most Signiest Sign” within each Sign-Class. ANDx4 the \ pattern would then break at Libra instead of Scorpio...

 Daisuki :| :| :|

....Though I now realize that would ruin a potential 8reak/Scorpio pun....

Moving On........

The other Big irregularity I found was the Pisces line. ALL it’s Derse signs/suffixes are in the top half of the line, and ALL its Prospit ones are in the bottom half. Pretty odd.

The only other thing I have to say is that I noticed, in a very cursory way, that some signs are visually similar to the sign-class they share a suffix with(a decent number of Aquarius-suffixes seem to be), and some don’t. It’d be Cool if they’d really committed to this, but I understand why they didn’t since such a level of detail is really stressful to maintain and also creatively restrictive. But, like, clearly Sagius:

should be a Leo-suffix(Sagio or Sagilo), and Camino

should be an Aquarius-suffix(Canrius or Cannius). I Mean: C L E A R L Y. Right??[4]

Anyway, those are the SHOCKING REVELATIONS of my RUTHLESS PEDANTRY that will surely bring down this WRETCHED HOUSE OF CARDS we’re all living in, No Doubt in an Noir-Sufficient-Fashion. If I find/think of any more examples of Dastardly Chaos Weighty with Meaning in our beloved fictional cosmology, I’ll let y’all know :p

[1]Also tbc(and because repeating it here would mark the third time I’ve written it, and I find such triplication aesthetically Pleasing nwn nwn), the EZ lacks my own, secretly created and never shared, fansigns, and so it’s obvsl an incomplete symbology, possibly recovered from a damaged husklet for pre-wrigglers yet unable to pull their own pants on umu

[2]I’ll still probably end up doing that at somepoint though, so there might be a bevisualed vers of this post in the future X| X| X|

[3]Fun Fact: the “extreme” meaning that our “ultimate” inherited from ultimatus may possibly have a connection to omega even though it lacks such an explicit meaning since omega literally means “big O”. Etymology is Fun for many reason, but this un-looked-for and unexpected explication of an anime pun, years after I had last watched an episode of the series in question, is one of the better ones I’ve encountered uwu uwu

[4]Though Camino is a Gemini suffix, so it’s satisfying in it’s own ways.

[landofquartzandmelody]

ok i finished hiveswap act 1 lmao. i actually liked most of it a lot i think? and there’s a lot to talk about and there’s also a few things which were like.. Incredibly annoying. my overall impression was good tho! i’m going to dump my thoughts under a readmore though so no one accidentally gets spoiled

obvious warning for that !!

the setting is actually incredibly detailed and i occupied myself for a long time clicking on everything in the background? the art was really pretty and the actual gameplay itself was really smooth and not glitchy at all.

the video cutscenes didn’t play for me at all lmao. I had a few tabs of text-only websites open, and join.me, and that was it. i couldn’t easily lower the settings to make it run smoother either? which was really annoying, and i don’t see why the cutscenes were sooo much harder for my computer to get through than the actual gameplay.

the only other glitch i had was a framing glitch in jude’s treehouse i think

i liked most of the puzzles a lot and it all seemed very organic and fun. using items on other items was pretty cool, and i only got stuck like once or twice.

i really did not like the snake game mainly because i had to swap to using my keyboard for that and that alone lmao.

the monster fights were REALLY fun, i thought. they had a really classic homestuck feel.

it was kind of hard to walk up and down the stairs, actually. there wasn’t enough room to click where you needed to go and that was a bit irritating

i really really really loved the harleyclaire mansion!! everything about the first part of the game was REALLY good!!!

there’s so much to get into with jake and joey and jude and anna claire that it’s nuts tbh. but i really liked everything about that. imo it dealt with parental issues in a lot more depth than hs ever did, and surprisingly nuanced parental issues is definitely an hs thing. but joey’s problems with jake are a lot more fleshed out and realistic.

definitely one of the themes is that the adults in joey’s life have never been there for her. her mom isn’t there because she’s dead, roxy isn’t ‘there’ because she’s irresponsible and is already developing drinking problems, and jake isn’t there because he’s always been somewhere else. so there’s something interesting when xefros talks about parents there

i think i was expecting jake to be a decent father so i was definitely really sad when it became obvious that he was kind of.. not? and it’s evident that he’s really screwed joey up, but i think that it’s also very in line with how canon portrays jake. like his biggest flaw was being unwilling to put in the emotional work and commitment that his friends needed.

sometimes he was definitely scared of those, so i can easily conceive of jake taking the easy way out and heading out to trawl the pacific for a meteor baby.

the line about how ‘having a second thing which is sort of like the first thing but somewhere else is exactly the same as having the first thing’

it’s interesting that jade and joey both do the same thing by projecting on their dead guardians. jade’s thinking is a lot more magical than joey’s, but it really shines a light on how everything we assumed about grandpa harley was through the eyes of a girl who never really got to know him.

and like he died well before he could disappoint her, so.

it was REALLY really sad but i don’t think i actually have a problem with it.

part of the reason i don’t have a problem with it is bc it made joey claire’s characterization SO much more compelling

because she’s very angry at her father for doing the things he did, and is openly disparaging about him, and even chooses to use her mother’s last name instead of his? but she’s not angry or hard or bitter

i love my hard trauma girls but it’s really nice that joey just gets kinder and better in the face of a childhood full of neglect- without being pushed to forgive or minimize the damage that was done to her

the detail about joey absolutely refusing to use guns because she doesn’t want to be like her dad, and choosing to love animals and heal them was so good. and how that’s framed as an act of rebellion?

like the idea that kindness can be radical but that =/= forgiveness.

we didn’t see a lot of jude but i loved everything about him so much

like it was pretty subtle so i don’t know if y’all would consider it ‘canon’ but the bit where joey says that ‘when things got bad with my brother, our babysitter took him to see a doctor, and he was better for a while’ seems like it’s saying joey is being treated for a mental illness of some sort?

which seems completely in line with his character! he almost falls into the trap where it’s like ‘we all called this person crazy for seeing all these conspiracies but he was right all along’ but he doesn’t and that’s nice. it’s very subtle and pretty respectful imo. (also, fox mulder)

he and joey are the cutest siblings in the entire universe, and he was so sweet to her. he seems very earnest about wanting to protect her and caring about her.

the part where his birds left him made me SOOOO SAD. it was so sad. i felt so bad for him. I named dammek’s catdeer Frohike to pay my respects even though frohike was the worst gunman.

i’m really worried about him tho. i hope he’ll be okay without joey around

joey claire is such an obvious lesbian

honestly i know a lot of people were nervous because it seemed like it was setting her up to have a relationship with xefros but i absolutely don’t think that’s the case, just because she’s definitely gay.

every time she looked at a picture of a girl in the harleyclaire mansion she had one gay thought or another, and her entire room was plastered completely in images of pretty girls. not ONE guy.

there was also a lot of dialogue which implied she felt guilty or ashamed of how she felt when looking at girls, or like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to, or if people would judge her for having pretty pictures of girls on her walls.

also her password being the name of a boy she has certainly never met or talked to, and who we never saw an image of (despite said guy being an actor? i think) or heard mentioned before

the scene where xefros mentions he is a boy who likes boys and joey is like ‘oh. huh’ seems to me like it’s very obviously from the pov of a lesbian who had absolutely no idea what a lesbian is, or that she is allowed to be one. 

i think joey is definitely going to realize she is gay at some point in the future acts

i didn’t expect to like or care about xefros as much as i did?

he was obnoxious at first but basically as soon as we figured out what was up with dammek and that xefros thought he’d been speaking to dammek he became 100% less annoying and i started liking him a lot lmao.

he and joey had a really sweet friendship, actually.

homestuck breezed over a lot of the more horrible things about troll civilization, but hiveswap did a very good job of making it patently obvious how horrible troll civilization is for xefros and other lowbloods, and i think it has a redeeming effect on the Other Stuff.

i like that they made it obvious what’s happening is horrible and needs to like, stop or whatever, and don’t like... condemn the revolutionaries.

his situation isn’t really played for laughs or mocked.

that being said a lot of the writing for dammek was really really annoying and dumb.

people like dammek definitely exist and i think hiveswap does a faaairly decent of not conflating dammek being a shithead with the rest of the movement? the joke about personal property was very very annoying lmao but the movement itself is portrayed as legitimate and necessary. it’s a dumb reactionary type of joke but it doesn’t ruin the game for me

i do think he’s going to Learn To Be A Better Person while he’s hanging out with jude. i don’t think he’s going to get a vriska type arc at all but i do think he’ll learn the error of his ways.

i wish that we’d gotten to see a bit more of his personal motivation for being so intense about revolution.

i ALSO wish they hadn’t used like actual symbols of movements in the bg that was really annoying and crass imo. and if they had to, i wish xefros had had an anarchist flag or whatever.

abuse / neglect are big themes in hs so i’m not really surprised at all that they came back? they definitely shouldn’t have advertised dammek and xefros as being cute moirails though because it’s kind of scummy to do a bait and switch like that.

i don’t think the game’s going to be hetero though. xefros and joey would be incredibly ugly and i doubt it’ll happen

i also think homestuck the original thing is actually pretty on the nose about class stuff, even if it does feel the need to like couch that in Fake Alien Racism? at the very least i’d be surprised if hiveswap tried to pull the You’re The Same As Your Oppressors thing

i’m still annoyed that there was so much promo art of xefros and dammek being cute together when the actual game condemned every interaction they had. i think that it would have been possible to say the same things as they wanted to while also not making dammek a crazy leftist stereotype and grounding him in reality like a real person.

to be fair, we are going to get a sequel game with him, so he’ll probably be fleshed out a LOT better then.

trizza is somehow so much more evil than expected? how evil she is feels a lot more real than like, the condesce, tbh. she feels like a real person

i’m SUPER curious about cridea now and i can’t wait to see what she’ll be like

[spiralguide]

hiveswap liveblog part 1

- the home screen music is so pretty! love the harp + piano + synth strings combo and the chord progs. reminds me a bit of the sims opening music somehow - ooh that opening noise was quite undertale esque - fucksake my laptop can't play the opening cutscene :I :I i guess im in a room now. some nice monstery bg sound

BEDROOM - roxy is the babysitter i guess? and their dad is gpa harley? - oh wow joey actually goes to school that's slightly jarring. breaks the isolated feel you get from the comic - oh look a fiduspawn reference. there's a cheruby key in there. ok - couple of misses with the writing style so far for me but some good hits. - what the fuck there's a manthro chap there. solid "what a daring dream" and pony pals references - there's so much to look at why is there so much to look at - damn that outside landscape is pretty! - more misses. man it's hard to avoid the fact that a walkaround game written by hussie would have been hilarious. but then if it were written by hussie i would be being much less critical of it so maybe not a fair comparison - ok jude using walkie talkie speak is cute. the joke of him being way too serious about this is pretty funny and his dialogue is landing well w me - wow was that... a misspelling. on 'material'

HALLWAY - good god that's a lot of crap in the hallway. i hope i don't have to click on all of it - I LIKE THIS MUSIC. I REALLY LIKE THE GLOCKENSPIELY MIDDLE 8. the staccato string chords remind me of something from the homestuck soundtracks but i can't think what - what the fuck is the signless doing in the hallway - the geography of this hallway is not immediately clear but it opens out on a landing which is why both directions of an apparent fork go the same way - more stuff is landing w me. tho some of the LOOK / ACTION choices seem a bit confusing and superfluous - what are pogs.... google says milk caps. is this a weird american thing - the significance of the mulder/scully preferences was lost on me because i don't know which is which lmao i am a fake nerd - "i better shake a leg" what. does that mean. hurry up?  - this is a VERY pretty game i have to say

ATTIC - oh gpa harley hangs out up here? this is weird and i don't get the familial basis of this game. feels like a weird au - miss and hit - ooooh nice music upon peering into the attic i hope there's more when you go in - more good jude dialogue - it feels weird to be playing a game where you have to click to move vs like, the johns land walkabout flash which was much simpler and yet allowed you to navigate with keys. i keep reaching for them

STAIRS - a miss... oh god. bad miss - there's a picture of jake and jane. and roxy. still a solid what the fuck on that one. and there's also a wedding picture of joey's random hot mom with mustachioed jake english and just. what is he doing there. ok foreshadowing that the dog betrayed jake which sounds stupid but whatever - another miss. why isn't there a space after any of the ellipses. i noticed this in the first room but it felt petty to mention it then and now it is annoying

DOWNSTAIRS - a tuba? this music is pretty noiry. i would LOVE a noiry soundtrack, trollcops was always one of my fav ever hs songs. tho there's some weird piano happening in the background which doesn't fit tonally and is confusing me - does joey have a crush on the green lady from reboot? sure seems like it. ok the idea of jake's daughter having a thing for GREEN ladies is p funny - aww i was really excited for her to play a haunting melody. MORE CREEPY MUSIC - oh some blue ladies! yeah she's defo gay and not being shy about it in her internal monologue omg yay - may have been another typo there but i clicked too fast to tell - thing where she turned the static noise off seems kinda unnecessary but ok - that commentary lacked a full stop... - spice mix seems irrelevant - the rooms aren't labeled or anything and it's not v helpful and making everything feel a bit disordered - why are jude's question marks separated... also it would be funnier if he did a vocalised "question mark" a la kanaya. but his dialogue is still good - something i only just noticed because im dumb: joey types in jane's blue but no capitalisation. jude types in yellow which is a new colour, it's not sollux's yellow - the action box for going back up the stairs from the living room is so tiny wtf. also that's probably not what it's called i don't know game things - this is the point at which i would be consulting a walkthrough were there one available. oh thank god there are the flashlight batteries. the different batteries in the sylladex are not labeled very clearly that's not that helpful - significantly more misses than hits in this part of the game BASEMENT - this music is a little cruder but i like the jazzy tuba(?) still - equal hits and misses - jake likes betty crocker in this universe? - missed that cutscene again. fucksake. and that one - battle music is alright. i like the melody but theyve gone for a weird synth and there are some weird false relations - "the room where it slappens?" what? the strife writing is really hard to read. altho "let's do lunge - check please" is silly but funny - i love jude's dialogue, it's well done. joey just kinda talks the same way as jane but lower case. she even has the skepticism thing - haha wiliness attribute. i notice that the game isn't doing much in the way of inventing its own running gags, it's actually just still referencing those of the original comic. not that they aren't working but. it could do better TROPHY ROOM - is that a different strife music or am i an idiot. nice bass and a maybe less offensive synth? oooooooh nice 8bit work - i really like the concept of the strife text, what a good adaptation of the comic. most of the puns are a bit weak tho. but a few are gooduns. - how the fuck do i win. ive tried all the options. oh there we go - fun victory text but the music is basic and annoying. oh the same rank ascension jargon as homestuck that's nice if in a less readable/interesting format than in the comic - more hits than misses in this room! that digression on a mexican folk monster is pretty random. im still very into the glockenspiely part of this music, that wasn't a thing that stopped happening or anything - there are some ashes in this room. I have a newfound appreciation for john's exploration sequence at the start of homestuck. i wouldn't say im tired of the point-and-click thing yet but im not loving it - some of jude's dialogue reminds me of WV's commands to john before he reads the etiquette book. abrupt capitals. maybe that's where some of my affection for it comes from - i do like the conversation options those are pretty well done