Homestuck.XYZ 2.0

I’m making this thread as a continuation of the conversation begun in the “Feferi Is Problematic?” Thread. In my opinion a lot of Alternia worldbuilding and troll lore is broken, difficult to believe, or outright contradictory and confusing. This discussion was inspired by a question i had after finally watching a playthrough of Hiveswap Act 1, wondering why Trizza got the drones to do her bidding but Feferi did not in homestuck canon text.

If there are any questions, contraditions, or general gripes anyone else has with how Alternia has been presented to us, relay them here and we can whine about it together or have a friendly debate about it.

There's a lot of contradictory information and inconsistencies with the trolls in general, but specifically with Swap vs Stuck Swap is meant to be like an AU spin-off sort of deal. That being said, the continued avoidance of setting things about trolls in stone has become tiresome.

For instance: Andrew had originally stated that trolls don't really view mlm/wlm in the same way humans do. Where humans see it as separate sexuality, for trolls it's more akin to a fetish. But now with Hiveswap, Elwurd in particular, there's lesbian/women exclusive bars? So what, is it like a fetish bar? We don't have an answer, and it contradicts what was originally set in stone. Not that I mind what an AU timeline does with its original property, I would accept being told "It's basically just a fetish bar" except we're not even given THAT.

Additionally, we're still not given an explanation for how transgender trolls or troll dysphoria would work, given that they don't have gender roles in their society and a lot of the factors that play into human dysphoria and transgendered humans isn't prevalent in troll society, like gender roles and the expectations that come along with them. The closest thing they HAVE to gender roles is the caste system, and I don't imagine that it would be acceptable or even possible to try and transition one's own blood color.

So does this mean trolls only want to transition purely on a physical level? There's a lot of questions that pop up the closer you look at it and no answers, I would GENUINELY like to know.

The gender confusion is also something I find tiresome and a huge headache to deal with. If the troll species is not sexually dimorphous, or is otherwise a eusocial species such as bees and ants and naked mole rats, their concepts of gender would be incomprehensible to us.

Why do troll women have breasts when they are not mammalian? We are given no answers. Why are there recognizably different pronouns used for trolls who present as one gender or another? How can it be that these trolls are so superficially similar to humans anyway, just with small joke differences that are just completely silly? Are we supposed to take the worldbuilding at face value or are we just supposed to DISMISS it? There are a lot of unconfirmed theories about it that are pure fanon and have no confirmation or rejection one way or another.

Leddy wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 12:50 pm

calamityCons wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 25, 2019 9:55 pm

I’ve got one.

If the drones do as the Heiress says while on Alternia, then why in the fresh hell is Karkat still in danger from regular drone scans while Feferi is the heiress. Feferi should be able to make the drones knock it the fuck off. And if Feferi can’t do it because she has to feed gl’bgolyb then how the hell is Tizzia getting away with it?

The answer is because there is no consistency with troll lore and it’s all arbitrary grimdark nonsense but whatever.

I think it'd be pretty clear that stopping the drones entirely would catch HIC's attention. I assume that those drones follow her first and foremost, and beyond anything you must realize that Karkat kept his blood color secret so the others didn't know of the sheer level of danger he was in because of that.

Trizza is ordering the drones basically to do what they'd already do normally, and we don't even know if she has access to control all drones. We know she has access to some and it's pretty similar to normal. I assume if Feferi tried to do something like that it wouldn't result well for her. Beyond that, there's a real possibility that in-lore they could explain it that something some Fuschia does, say even Trizza, makes other Fuschia lose their ability to control the drones at all.

Here's my response to that Trizza and drone question you brought up, might as well move it here.

Thanks Leddy! Questions like those are important and I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.

calamityCons wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:11 pm

The gender confusion is also something I find tiresome and a huge headache to deal with. If the troll species is not sexually dimorphous, or is otherwise a eusocial species such as bees and ants and naked mole rats, their concepts of gender would be incomprehensible to us.

Why do troll women have breasts when they are not mammalian? We are given no answers. Why are there recognizably different pronouns used for trolls who present as one gender or another? How can it be that these trolls are so superficially similar to humans anyway, just with small joke differences that are just completely silly? Are we supposed to take the worldbuilding at face value or are we just supposed to DISMISS it? There are a lot of unconfirmed theories about it that are pure fanon and have no confirmation or rejection one way or another.

Obviously, we need more poorly done meta jokes/commentary and $1 dating sims instead of actual content or answers.

I think, for an unsatisfying an answer as it is, the main idea is that we're not supposed to think about troll biology. If Hussie wanted to build this alien race in a logically consistent way he wouldn't give trolls breasts and then dangle an answer of what the fuck their actual purpose is just out of reach. The whole trans thing though holds a bit more water, as if we are supposed to take the sexuality/gender of these aliens jokingly, there wouldn't be a serious scene addressing Vriska being trans, but if we were supposed to take it seriously, there wouldn't be jokes about how baffling and mystifying troll biology is. It's a paradox. The writers are trying to have their cake and eat it too by being as vague as possible as to what gender or sexuality actually means.

Hussie didn't think very far ahead on the troll worldbuilding when they were even introduced, as the book commentary suggests. A lot of what we understand about them, even big things like the hemospectrum, only were detailed in further updates. So it makes sense that there would be inconsistencies, especially as people project into the trolls and paint them as literally grey humans with funny horns.

ThePungeonMaster wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:25 pm

I think, for an unsatisfying an answer as it is, the main idea is that we're not supposed to think about troll biology. If Hussie wanted to build this alien race in a logically consistent way he wouldn't give trolls breasts and then dangle an answer of what the fuck their actual purpose is just out of reach. The whole trans thing though holds a bit more water, as if we are supposed to take the sexuality/gender of these aliens jokingly, there wouldn't be a serious scene addressing Vriska being trans, but if we were supposed to take it seriously, there wouldn't be jokes about how baffling and mystifying troll biology is. It's a paradox. The writers are trying to have their cake and eat it too by being as vague as possible as to what gender or sexuality actually means.

That would make sense if they weren't trying to push for these themes and character traits in the trolls so hard. If they want to have canonically transgender trolls, then they need to provide SOME kind of answer as to how it happens given the already set up rules. Even Hussie gave SOME kind of answer when questioned about how troll sexuality works, but the new-age homestuck team is so hands-off about giving answers it's mind-boggling. It's made doubly hard by the fandom, because the instant you ask how a troll could be trans, based on prior information, you're called transphobic. As if your issue is the character being trans, not that it breaks the pre-established world-building.

Changing pre-established and set up lore/worldbuilding without giving any explanations is just bad writing.

Which isn't even getting into Hiveswap and all this new content being AU alternate timeline stuff, which just leaves more questions than it answers. This feels less like being vague and more like purposely avoiding logical questions people would have about a race you continue to show characteristics off of.

Being vague worked in the original comic because there was still a lot of unpainted canvas and it didn't matter to the core story, but being as swap acts1-2 AND friendsim take place specifically on Alternia, you'll naturally end up showing more of troll society which will bring up more questions. The problem is that introducing all these new questions and then leaving so many unanswered is narratively unsatisfying. What's the point of showing aliens and their homeworld if you're going to beat around the bush and constantly contradict yourself about them and their mannerisms?

It's just... Not great.

I mean alternia has the concept of platonic love, called literally platonic love, to refer to pure nonromantic hate, this implies that there was a Socrates in alternia who created the concept of platonic hate, which means that greece as a whole, or the greek world, did in fact exist on alternia, since it is impossible for Socrates to get to the conclusions he gets in his philosophies without the greeks conflicts he participed on.
So, since not only Socrates was a thing that actually existed in alternia, but also the hellenic world, and, as we all know thanks to the teal caste, trials by jury, which is another proof of Greece existing in alternia, my question is, how come there are no lighthouses in ALL of Alternia?

Clearly, Alternia's lore makes no sense until i see a lighthouse.

Troll Socrates from Troll Greece makes as much sense as things like Troll Will Smith existing. It is humorous and included as a joke that the Thresh Prince of Bel-Air is a thing that exists, entirely an indication of “troll society is something that does not need to make sense.” I mean fuck, that entire PAGE is just a huge blinking billboard saying “TROLL CULTURE IS WACKY AND WEIRD AND GOOFY AND I MADE IT THIS WAY TO TELL JOKES.”

Troll Will Smith is a “green” troll who becomes a Threshecutioner amongst the blue bloods, whose blood is literally blue. It is a good thing troll television is a younger technology than troll films, or this joke couldn’t happen.

And now here we are, neck deep in getting pounded over our heads that ALTERNIA SUCKS THE HEMOSPECTRUM IS DESPICABLE AND EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TELEVISION HAS YET TO BE INVENTED AND ALSO We will never bring up troll Will Smith or Troll Plato or any other Troll Celebrities because uuuhhhhhh this is an AU.

trolls having the world platonic does not necessitate a troll plato, lol, it's a translation convention. it would be far more annoying for andrew to make up a completely new word that trolls use instead. nor does a troll plato necessitate a troll greece in much the same way trolls having an actor called will smith does not necessitate the existence of a troll united states

VAL wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:38 pm

For instance: Andrew had originally stated that trolls don't really view mlm/wlm in the same way humans do. Where humans see it as separate sexuality, for trolls it's more akin to a fetish. But now with Hiveswap, Elwurd in particular, there's lesbian/women exclusive bars? So what, is it like a fetish bar? We don't have an answer, and it contradicts what was originally set in stone. Not that I mind what an AU timeline does with its original property, I would accept being told "It's basically just a fetish bar" except we're not even given THAT.

normally i try to steer clear of trying to justify stuff from the dating sims bc theyre not canon, and the gay bar from elwurd's episode confused me as well, but you've... answered your own question here? obviously if trolls see attraction to one gender as a fetish rather than an orientation, it would follow that they might have fetish bars instead of gay bars? i could argue that this is GOOD worldbuilding since you were able to come to the conclusion of fetish bars just based on the worldbuilding we already have. something doesn't have to spoonfeed you every individual fact to be good worldbuilding.

besides, the stuff about gender fetishism and gay bars are both extracanonical information from different authors. griping that they aren't 100% consistent with each other is kind of like remarking that the star wars sequel films aren't consistent with lucas' post-star wars novels.

Additionally, we're still not given an explanation for how transgender trolls or troll dysphoria would work, given that they don't have gender roles in their society and a lot of the factors that play into human dysphoria and transgendered humans isn't prevalent in troll society, like gender roles and the expectations that come along with them. The closest thing they HAVE to gender roles is the caste system, and I don't imagine that it would be acceptable or even possible to try and transition one's own blood color.

So does this mean trolls only want to transition purely on a physical level? There's a lot of questions that pop up the closer you look at it and no answers, I would GENUINELY like to know.

the idea that trolls don't have gender roles is decidedly untrue. this has been the assumed case since act 5 (STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS) and explicitly true since early act 6 when porrim touched upon the roles of patriarchy and faux-female empowerment on beforus and alternia.

calamityCons wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:11 pm

Why do troll women have breasts when they are not mammalian? We are given no answers. Why are there recognizably different pronouns used for trolls who present as one gender or another? How can it be that these trolls are so superficially similar to humans anyway, just with small joke differences that are just completely silly? Are we supposed to take the worldbuilding at face value or are we just supposed to DISMISS it? There are a lot of unconfirmed theories about it that are pure fanon and have no confirmation or rejection one way or another.

this IS touched upon, in the epilogues:

CALLIOPE: my ideas aboUt gender were entirely inflUenced by my time watching earth.
CALLIOPE: i sUppose i only thoUght of myself as a girl because my, Um...
CALLIOPE: my brother took mascUlinity qUite serioUsly.
CALLIOPE: by which i mean, he became very enthUsiastic aboUt all the things it sUpposedly meant to be a boy.
CALLIOPE: cherUb existence is dichotomoUs, bUt not in the same way hUman biology is.
CALLIOPE: i sUppose oUr view of hUman cUlture indirectly inflUenced alternia’s development, which in tUrn affected yoUrs, which is something i’ve had a lot of time to think aboUt since we came here.
CALLIOPE: it’s all so very circUitoUs and arbitrary.

caliborn took gender very seriously, and then later became part of lord english, who heavily manufactured society on alternia and on earth. indeed, there is precedent for caliborn deciding the genders of his subjects arbitrarily, even when the notion barely applies:

THEY'RE ALL MEN. BECAUSE I SAY THEY ARE. AND I WANT THEM TO BE.
IF I BELIEVE HARD ENOUGH IN THEM BEING MEN.
THEN THAT FACT BECOMES ABSOLUTELY INDISPUTABLE AS A PERMANENT MAN REALITY.

Concepts of masculinity being explored through the Felt do certainly pique my interest, but the headache-inducing recursiveness of how gender works and what it is and what it means to people in-comic makes the discussion even more difficult to have. If trolls have gender because Lord English says so, that is essentially a Get Out Of Jail Free card for any conceivable worldbuilding problem or question. It's a valid one, but also, a really weak and unsatisfying one, that I don't like.

everything about trolls is that way because lord english said so, it's... kind of the point? they were a race engineered to be as shitty as possible for english and scratch's purposes.

I know, and I get it. My feelings on Alternia are ultimately really mixed and conflicted. On the one hand, I super love Doc Scratch, his manipulations and blatant evil were more entertaining for me to read because I like Doc Scratch as a villain and character. He's a phenomenal, sinister, oddly disarming, pompous, polite, chatterbox of a main antagonist, and I find him engaging and his deeds suitably monstrous. However, from a writing perspective, it is disappointing to me that Doc Scratch dies and Lord English pops out, when Lord English himself is a much shallower character than Doc Scratch and also less entertaining to read about (in my opinion). This takes me out of the universe of the story and makes me realize "wait, THIS asshole is what Scratch was working so hard toward? THIS is why Alternia is so horrible? Wow. That's underwhelming and kind of lame."

JakeMorph wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:59 pm

i could argue that this is GOOD worldbuilding since you were able to come to the conclusion of fetish bars just based on the worldbuilding we already have. something doesn't have to spoonfeed you every individual fact to be good worldbuilding.

I am well aware that readers can come to their own conclusions, but I wouldn't exactly call a lingering question a conclusion. Considering that Hiveswap is supposedly AU/Alternate Timeline stuff, it's reasonable to assume that these trolls could be different from the ones in the original comic. So as such, I can't 100% make a conclusive answer based on what Andrew said prior, because what he said about the OG comic may not entirely apply to the trolls in Hiveswap. I.E. trolls in Hiveswap clearly don't follow the same preset lore about how trolls view fashion/clothing.

I also wouldn't exactly akin it to be the same? Andrew is still overseeing the new projects being created and outlining stuff, George has 0 involvement with the new Star Wars films.

JakeMorph wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:59 pm

the idea that trolls don't have gender roles is decidedly untrue.

This is my bad for the phrasing, I specifically meant in the same way humans do. Which also raises questions. If the Cherubs supposedly took a lot of influence from human culture when it came to their concept of gender, and it was used as a base for the trolls, why would something like FLARPing be considered "for girls," as roughhousing (let alone, fighting to the death) is a hugely stereotyped "MANLY" thing to engage in.

VAL wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 7:51 pm

I am well aware that readers can come to their own conclusions, but I wouldn't exactly call a lingering question a conclusion. Considering that Hiveswap is supposedly AU/Alternate Timeline stuff, it's reasonable to assume that these trolls could be different from the ones in the original comic. So as such, I can't 100% make a conclusive answer based on what Andrew said prior, because what he said about the OG comic may not entirely apply to the trolls in Hiveswap. I.E. trolls in Hiveswap clearly don't follow the same preset lore about how trolls view fashion/clothing.

i'm not sure what you mean by "AU/Alternate Timeline stuff"? Hiveswap takes place in a different time PERIOD, and the friendsims are "semi-canon", but it's all the same Alternia that Homestuck features.

on the other hand i also don't really understand why you're trying to reconcile the two things if they're firmly different versions of alternia in your head? like if that's what you personally like to do that makes sense but it's not exactly "broken worldbuilding" if they're two explicitly different canons.

I also wouldn't exactly akin it to be the same? Andrew is still overseeing the new projects being created and outlining stuff, George has 0 involvement with the new Star Wars films.

sure, they're not EXACTLY the same situation, but my point was less about andrew's involvement and more about the "canons" they take place in. if a game series explicitly says it's not 100% canon on the box i don't see why andrew would feel compelled to step in and say "hey, this contradicts something i said outside of the comic in 2010, change it please".

This is my bad for the phrasing, I specifically meant in the same way humans do. Which also raises questions. If the Cherubs supposedly took a lot of influence from human culture when it came to their concept of gender, and it was used as a base for the trolls, why would something like FLARPing be considered "for girls," as roughhousing (let alone, fighting to the death) is a hugely stereotyped "MANLY" thing to engage in.

i think the implication was that violence is so normalised on alternia that a violent game involving dressing up and roleplay would be like a "girly" version of violence. in fact with the context that alternia's version of femininity was supposedly based on calliope's version of femininity, this makes even more sense: calliope was obsessed with dress up and fanfiction and all sorts of shit caliborn found totally detestable.

IIRC there was a post that was advertising PQ with "timelines collide!" This leads me to believe anything related to Hiveswap would be an alternate timeline since MSPA reader is jumping over from the HSFS turn of events. It could just be a throwaway line I'm looking into too much, though.

JakeMorph wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:08 pm

i also don't really understand why you're trying to reconcile the two things if they're firmly different versions of alternia in your head?

It's to try and piece together answers, what is/isn't the same and to what extent is it the same/not the same. I wouldn't describe it as broken worldbuilding, though. Just some inconsistencies I (and others) would appreciate official clearance on.

JakeMorph wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:08 pm

if a game series explicitly says it's not 100% canon on the box i don't see why andrew would feel compelled to step in and say "hey, this contradicts something i said outside of the comic in 2010, change it please".

It's more about wanting to know how much of the newer HS content can be applied to the original comic to fill in the gaps left by said comic, less about the new stuff not lining up 100%. For instance comparing Swap and Stuck's Alternias and their trolls, finding things that don't line up, and then wanting to know what the true "canon" answer is, I feel, is a fairly reasonable thing to ask.

JakeMorph wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:08 pm

i think the implication was that violence is so normalised on alternia that a violent game involving dressing up and roleplay would be like a "girly" version of violence. in fact with the context that alternia's version of femininity was supposedly based on calliope's version of femininity, this makes even more sense: calliope was obsessed with dress up and fanfiction and all sorts of shit caliborn found totally detestable.

Caliborn's perception of violence being something tied inherently to masculinity should technically still be the prevailing factor in whether FLARPING would be considered "for girls" or not since in a timeline of events his observation of human life and their gender stereotypes would have happened prior to violence being normalized and common for trolls.

That being said, I could speculate that perhaps Caliborn had a narrower idea of what masculinity was, even. I would say FLARPING is basically lethal DND and DND is also typically associated with "nerdy dudes." I would then find it believable that Caliborn's view of what is "manly" also excludes things that might be considered "nerdy" like DND and thus like FLARPING. Since I've definitely heard "that shits lame, REAL men like to do-" hundreds of times. Something for "boys" not for "men."

But that's completely out of pure speculation. There are certain things I'm PERSONALLY fine with being left to speculation, but the trolls are sitting in this kinda weird limbo where we know SOME things about them in-depth, we know A LITTLE about other things and we don't know anything at all about others. I'm not asking to know what minerals in the ground are used in crafting ships, where it's mined, what's used to mine it, who mines it, ect.

I can give you 100% assurance that hiveswap the game was advertised as being NOT any alternate timeline or AU shenanigans and just a 100% canon homestuck game. i'll have a look around and might not be able to find the exact quotation, but i'm totally convinced that's the case.

like I said, if caliborn-english-alternia's perception of what is unmasculine comes from calliope it makes total sense that "nerdy" stuff would fit into the female category. stuff associated with the male-dominated highblood culture definitely seems to sway more toward the physical and the sporty, what with their glorification of muscles and archery. i don't think caliborn's low opinion of women necessarily precludes them from violent behaviour, either: the hyper-binarised (binaryised? binaried?) cherub sexuality necessitates that both sexes take part in violence, with each other.

Caliborn’s opinions on gender notwithstanding, it would still be pretty cool if I could dig a little deeper into Alternia Lore and not run into the rebuttal of “Just Don’t think about it because Lord English” when I find something doesn’t make sense or is difficult to believe.