We now have apparently canon dialogue and typing quirks for Diemen and Ardata! And Diemen's just as much of a little squee-bundle as I thought ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
Completely random thought about weapons for my celeb-trolls thing; a variation on bowkind which is instead a violin bow strung with Razor Floss.
i wonder if they're planning to use the main contributors they laid off as freelancers instead of full-time or part-time employees? that would make sense perhaps?
Okay, so according to the sim trailer, Ardata keeps other trolls in cages and films them. Can we assume from this she is in fact a highblood, and if so, why is she hiding her sign? My assumption was she was a disguised lowblood. Perhaps she still is, and the trolls in cages are highbloods she's wreaking vengeance upon? If she actually is a cerulean, why hide her sign from either other trolls or the reader? We can't determine anything meaningful about her role from it, the classpect stuff is all guesswork, and among trolls I'd presume the colour matters much more than the specific sign.
My theory is that Viz is trying to figure out how to fix the problems they know about, with the information they would've had going into this. Remember, outside of the Homestuck community? It's not common knowledge that the original game studio who was supposed to work on Hiveswap ran off with the money and that this is why Hussie had to start a whole game studio just to get Hiveswap made at all. Hussie and What Pumpkin are under an NDA about the whole thing, the only reason it's known inside the Homestuck community is that a friend of Hussie's, who (I think) used to work for WP, leaked the info because they got upset that Hussie was being blamed for things that weren't his fault and he couldn't explain. And that leak got taken down. So from the info Viz would have? It sort of looks like the team working on Hiveswap has some sort of systemic issue. So they're testing to see how to fix the problems, and the first option - the easiest option - is to completely replace the team, or to at least replace large portions of it. (I'm not sure how much of the team got replaced, I'll admit.) And doing it now, right after they've acquired the property, lets them do it in a way that won't significantly affect the reputations of everyone who just got fired; doing it now, it just looks like new management is reorganizing things and that happens in this industry. It doesn't reflect negatively on anyone. If they waited a couple months to see how the original team did their work, and then started replacing people? Then it would reflect negatively on the people who got fired, because it would look like there was a problem with them. Hopefully, the people who got fired will be hired back or at least brought in as consultants or something, because I'm pretty sure the issue was pretty much just that everyone involved was having to learn how to make a game and work to a tight deadline, all from first principles.
As far as I can tell after doing some digging, they've kicked out so many people it probably means 'everyone, but the few people that are left are just waiting for the axe to fall on their necks.' I don't know who all the dev team are of course, but uh, it's not looking good. ... And that is one hell of a fuck you to do to people who have worked on the game for five years, full time, cleaning up after the mess TOG made of things. Remember how they had to switch from 3D to 2D? That would have been a NIGHTMARE. (I sincerely doubt there were any part-timers, with the way game dev works.) How do we know they didn't? From our perspective, Viz suddenly took over, but for all we know things were shifting smoothly in the background up until this point. Is it the done thing in the industry that an entire original team gets the boot unexpectedly? Because it's pretty clear from the team members that are talking about this that they didn't expect it, at all. That may be 'business as usual' but it's complete shit if so (as would be then re-hiring any team members as consultants or freelancers, i.e. "we're too cheap to pay for the overhead and benefits for full time employees but isn't it great we're allowing you to still work on something you poured your life into for years :) :) :)").
I'm not trying to argue that it isn't incredibly harsh, and probably an incredibly bitter pill to even contemplate swallowing. It is. I'm just pointing out the most likely reason I can think of for why it happened. Under specific circumstances? It's not "the done thing", so much as it is "understandable and no one who has hiring power is going to be surprised or consider it a red flag in terms of taking on the newly-unemployed team members". The specific circumstances involve the company being brought under new management, and the reason for new management being brought in being to try and fix major issues with the company's ability to function. From the viewpoint of someone who doesn't know the backstory of what happened with TOG - meaning anyone who isn't a part of the Homestuck fan community - the history of Hiveswap looks like "Hussie and/or WP had some sort of falling out with TOG, Hussie started his own studio to publish the game, and his studio has taken five years to put out the first part of a game that was expected to be released at least three years ago and has consistently failed to meet their own announced deadlines." Given that perspective, no one in the industry is going to be surprised that the Hiveswap team was let go when Viz took over and no one is going to consider it to be a black mark against the team members. I doubt Viz announced layoffs ahead of time; they likely didn't go in expecting to do layoffs, but completely replacing the team is the fastest method they have for testing how to fix the problems they know about. Also, I'm not sure where you're getting the "we're too cheap to pay for overhead and benefits for full time employees" bit out of 'they might re-hire people as consultants'. An independent contractor charges more, out of necessity; it would literally be cheaper for Viz to just rehire everyone as full-time employees.
Oh, it sounds like consultants might be different? It's just it's kind of a newish and unpleasant thing for companies to fire a bunch of people and re-hire them back as freelancers that they no longer have to pay the kinds of benefits for that they have to for full-time employees, while the now-freelancers have to shoulder a bunch of extra work wrt things like taxes, bookkeeping, making sure they get paid at all...
Charun doesn't seem to have much Rage of their own, and having them turn out like Gamzee would probably be way too obvious, so what's their class? Saw a theory just now that they could be directing negative emotions into their art and perhaps using it as rebellion propaganda. There's a fan theory that Pages equip others with their aspect, or as a Rogue they could be letting others vent about their horrible lives to them and painting about the stories they hear in order to spread dissent. Mages and Witches manipulate their aspect but it doesn't have to be their own, or else Jade would only have been able to change her own size and shape. Bard and Prince destroy their aspect but are already taken and I'm hoping there aren't repeat classpect combos. Lot of the same theories could apply to Xefros and his music but then he was pushed into making the music, he doesn't seem as enthusiastic about it as Dammek is, so he's probably not giving Rage to others that way...
how in the world are you judging 'doesn't seem to have much rage' from 17 words, most of which are about worms.
Many of the other trolls have descriptions of their fighting/killing prowess. Charun doesn't, and looks pretty relaxed and happy if not outright stoned, hence why I thought "another Gamzee", but I'm hoping they don't turn out that way because it's already been done.
not particularly. of the 38 troll call trolls, 23 at my count do not reference fighting or killing. (Lanque, Who Is This, Chixie, Zebruh, Wanshi, Bronya, Fozzer, Stelsa, Cirava, Tagora, Vikare, Boldir, Elwurd, Galekh, Charun themself, Folykl, Kuprum, Diemen, Skylla, Barzum, Baizli, Xebede, Tyzias)
Just speculating based on ideas I've seen around. It's fun. Thinking Bronya, if the gender restrictions on classes haven't been lifted, might be a Thief of Breath if she's organising/restricting/forming bonds, but that implies she's using freedom for herself. Might she be using her status as organiser of the Grubsitter's Club and buddy systems to somehow gain more leeway for herself, perhaps? Hm.
oh, wait what about a Rogue of Breath? what if she's removing freedom from herself/other older trolls in order to give more freedom to grubs/younger trolls? I'm tired and not articulating well but like--being a grubsitter theoretically takes time and freedom from the troll doing the grubsitting, but at the same time, it might allow the grub to have more freedom to learn and explore and maybe see things and places they wouldn't otherwise because of the grubsitter redistributing the freedom
