#i made him before friendsim came out and i refuse to give him a different haircut | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

retconjuration · 3 years

Note

elaborate on autistic lanque pls 🤲

oh, don’t mind if i do. before i begin:

this contains some major spoilers for hiveswap: act 2, and some minor spoilers for lanque’s friendsim routes(but those have been out for like three years).

disclaimer: i don’t care if you disagree, i’m not claiming this as canon, i am autistic and projecting.

now that that’s out of the way.

point one: possibly the most important thing to note is that lanque is incredibly good at masking. given this quote from his wiki:

“Lanque's writer has stated that both of his Friendsim routes are heavily exaggerated for comedic purposes, with one being more true to his actual personality. As shown by his attitude in Hiveswap: Act 2, it's heavily implied his NSFW route is the truer one. However, this leaves his personality to be drawn from his Friendsim routes to be dubious for readers to interpret what the actual "balance" of his personality is.”

the actual tweet has been deleted, but one of the assumptions that can be made from this is that both the sfw and nsfw routes are, in some way, true to his personality. this would mean that he is actively and drastically changing the way he interacts with the people around him according to the setting, or through imitation. effectively this would make him a social chameleon, another thing often attributed to autistic masking.

and the idea of constant masking fits, given his whole Thing- he’s already being set apart from all the other jades by his transness, and from how he acts in act 2(this will be mentioned later), he doesn’t quite enjoy this difference being pointed out. it would make sense that, given the opportunity to hide something that would lead to more attention(maybe more accurately, attention he doesn’t like), he would take it. this being said, i don’t think lanque sees his transness or unchecked neurodivergence as a bad thing- rather, he sees how other people treat him for it as annoying and something to avoid.

point two: lanque seems to have a very strange range of emotions. while he usually presents as very calm, when he does express true emotion(like when he’s caught off guard by the reader shouting for bronya), its often overstated, and in some cases, a total non sequitur from what came before. the way he reacts in the valid ending scene specifically reminds me of times when i have been startled out of masking- especially since he goes from formal prose straight to “what the fuck, dude?”

the only time he expresses emotions neurotypically is when he’s doing it through another medium(his poetry in the sfw route).

point three: lanque repeatedly is shown to not be the best at conveying or reading tone.

at the start of his sfw route, lynera ends up rambling on about something or other. it’s immensely awkward.

lanque doesn’t register it as such, and while this could just be attributed to sfw lanque’s overexaggerated kindness, i raise you: i’m building a case here, let me twist my evidence.

in his nsfw route, we have some gems such as:

lanque is shown to use a tone entirely unfitting of the words that he’s saying, and its specified that this demeanor is nearly indistinguishable from how he was acting before. could this just be an example of professional bitching? yes. play on my court for a second, though

and perhaps my favorite example of lanque totally misreading tone/a situation in general(which is both the aforementioned act 2 scene AND an example of his abnormal reactions to things) is the scene where joey asks lanque about the hatched2dance magazine from lynera’s locker. immediately, he (incorrectly, and without much reason except prior experience) assumes that joey’s intention was to harangue him about being a male jadeblood.

after joey specifies what she meant, he refuses to respond until xefros tries to actually ask him about being a male jadeblood, and lanque tells them to fuck off. personally i think this is as close to embarrassment as lanque will willingly show in public

point four: lanque is Painfully straightforward. this is obvious in the everything about him, but best summed up with:

lanque sees no use in not just saying what he means, which often leads to him being(often rightfully) seen as a bitch. again, it’s hard to say things for certain with what little content there is, but i wouldn’t be surprised if some of the things he says- for instance certain parts of his calling out lynera(mostly the parts about her talking shit, not the parts where he’s outright insulting her) were just intended as honesty, rather than animosity. this is a common trait in autism, but i see a lot of neurotypicals look over it because it’s seen as rudeness. ultimately he still uses that honesty to be a bitch on purpose on several occasions, so don’t take this as me saying he’s free of flaws or whatever

another thing i like to point out, though admittedly it’s much more of a stretch, is this bit where lanque has to ask for specification when joey uses a less direct method of asking him what he thinks of the other jades:

take that as you will

point five: mildly connected to point four, lanque shows possibly one of the most out-there forms of rejection when it comes to social norms. he’s able to skate by in the wider lens of alternia because people of most castes participate in shitty parties, but doing it as a jadeblood gives it an entirely different context.

he also(and this is maybe half speculation, but let me be) seems to have issues sticking with quadrants as a rigid construct. when bronya says this to lanque:

many people took it as evidence that lanque was abusive to his partners. and if people want to hold that headcanon, i really don’t care, because it can be an accurate reading of how he is presented in the nsfw route specifically. my personal opinion, however, given that his personality is said to be exaggerated in these routes, is guided by this section from his sfw route’s poem:

i believe that lanque is just extremely prone to vacillation, because he doesn’t truly grasp why quadrants are divided in the way that they are, only that others “press” him to do the dividing. thats autistic attitudes towards social constructs baby

point six(and here’s where the trial spoilers come in): lanque has a very unusual way of solving problems, apparently. when confronted with the issue of his impending ordeals and the idea of having to spend his life as a celibate space nun, lanque’s solution is.... to attempt to join a boy band, using the chaos of the trial(that He caused by stealing the book) as his cover. when joey presents this theory to tyzias(a theory that lanque confirms is more or less correct before chucking joey off of the train), she responds with:

meaning that not only are his problem solving skills out of the box to joey, but to other trolls as well.

there’s also something to be said about how little he values personal space, but i’m wary of claiming that as an autistic trait of his, and if it is, he is very purposefully weaponizing it.

oh, and point seven: i’m autistic and i want him to be

thanks for reading

#long post #lanque bombyx #hiveswap friendsim #hiveswap #homestuck

32 notes · View notes

twilightprince101 · 6 years

Text

The Friendsim protag is being controlled

The following contains my findings from all of the Friendsims up to volume 15, along with my theory to how exactly this will end and how it will play into the Hiveswap narrative. This is gonna be pretty long but i think I cracked the code so bear with me.

All of the friendsims that have been released so far I have enjoyed (the characters in every single one though is, debatable). I liked the bits of story that these one hour long things give, while preserving enough lore for the next act of Hiveswap.

However there were countless times throughout these volumes that I noticed something weird. More than often, volumes would reference both good and bad ends from a specific route. Take for example our very first buddy: Diemen. In his route, the good end had you finding the meat locker and sharing the tender moment. The bad end, on the other hand, had Diemen literally die due to the MC’s iron ass. But a key thing in this mad end is that before he dies, he gives the MC his t-shirt as a sort of sling for his broken arm.

Fast forward to Amisia’s route one volume later. She offers to heal your broken arm when you get back to her hive with the power of technology, which is all well and good! But there is something that is hard to process: the sling is mentioned.

I was a little worried when this popped up, mainly since it implied that Deimen died. But since this was canon I accepted it. Bu then, fast forward even more to Mallek’s route and suddenly, there Diemen is. Living, breathing and working for the hacker punk.

There were several more instances of this later on, such as a reference to getting drunk with Chixie while also hearing her rap and knowing the purpleblood in Polypa’s route despite joining her at anime club. At this point I assumed that there was some sort of way that there are elements of bad ends that can happen in the good ends. After all, the MC and other Troll Call characters don’t recognize the contradictions present or acknowledge them, so it shouldn’t be anything huge.

And then Boldir’s route happened, and everything changed.

The good end isn’t exactly too much to talk; you save Boldir from an assassin. But the bad end is the moment of interest; you fail to save Boldir from the poison and she slowly dies, but as she does she tells the MC some things-specifically that fate is less about one thing destined to happen but the things that lead to a certain thing, butterfly effect style. The MC, right then, is prompted to think about how things led to their moment, and something big happens.

He remembers people dying because of him-failed routes. But that shouldn’t be possible, since the people that died were Deimen, Tirona and (if we’re counting off screen deaths) Tyzias. They’re all still alive and well, we’ve seen proof of this! But upon realizing their mistake, their mind practically shuts down.

And then we see the ever famous ending line of “Again? Must I do everything myself?” I’m sure you’ve seen it so I won’t put up the picture (that and there’s a ten pic limit)

This volume is, by far, the most interesting route of all the ones released, purely from a mystery lore standpoint. The information that the MC is prompted to recall almost traumatizes them, as if it was forced into the back of their mind. But this is not limited to Boldir’s route; we have seen this before in Galekh’s route when he prompts the MC to remember their home planet and how they got there.

Both times the MC tries to recall information, it causes something in him to set off a panic alarm and make them shut down, like something is stopping them from recalling it. But back to Boldir’s ending.

After Boldir dies, the volumes onward change. You can see it right away in volume 14 in the opening dialogue before you choose which character to befriend. Apart from the entirety of the past volumes, the focus on friendship is absent. Whenever friendship is mentioned in the opening it’s highlighted in yellow, but its gone in volume 14. There’s an immediate difference there.

Another important thing to note here is that in Karako (previously known as “WHOMST”), in one of his bad ends, literally dies. Straight up. This could be lumped in with other bad ends, but what’s significant about this is that the MC goes down kicking with him, getting brought into the Dark Carnival afterlife along with the young lad. It’s one of the very first times the MC, without being given any sort of prompt, tries to do good for their own sake. Along with proving that the dark carnival exists in the Hiveswap universe, this is a key factor in this theory. Keep this in mind.

Volume 15 is where results begin to clearly, visibly show. Not just to the player, but to the MC as well. The opening has the friendship word separated from the opening narration, while the MC says that they don’t have a purpose (aside from FRIENDSHIP). It’s treated as a sort of side topic, not exactly worth mentioning all too much.

In Wanshi’s route, while talking to Wanshi and getting himself prepared to talk to the child, he recalls previous children he has befriended. But then the MC begins, unprompted, to recall when Tirona and Karako died and tries to shake it out of their head.

Even later in Wanshi’s route, the MC fights and defeats a bloodthirsty cholerbear rampaging at a convention, protecting the young child from getting mauled. A part of me feels like this will most likely be referenced, because this is important. This ending, along with Karako’s, is one of the few instances where the MC is confirmed dead. There was Chahut and Tagora’s bad ending, but those were vague and left the possibility open for the MC to escape. These though? The MC is dead, no doubt about it.

And then we get to Charun’s route, and the difference is jarring and right in your face from the start. The MC outright refuses to do anything related to finding new friends or hanging out with old ones. We’ve seen this before at the beginning of Boldir’s route, but that was more of a depression thing in general. This though is specifically a “FUCK FRIENDSHIP” message. And then the text slaps on screen, and by far the most important thing in the friendsims is shown.

The main character remembers and references Karako’s bad end, where they died. This should be outright impossible though, considering that they mentioned earlier that they befriended Karako and the fact that they are still alive! This point, right here, is where I realized:

The Friendsim protag is experiencing every single ending in every single route. Not only that, but they remember everything.

Upon realizing this, I tried to figure out why. I remember rumors going around that the MC could be connected to some sort of Time Aspect player, rewinding time to get the desired outcome and possibly even merging timelines (like we’ve seen in [S] COLLIDE with Dave and Terezi’s team attack). But I don’t think that’s the case. In fact, we already have a lead on who is doing this. We have since Act 1 of Hiveswap.

The puppet manipulator himself, Doc Scratch.

I know this sounds crazy, but for a moment, think about Doc Scratch’s character in the Homestuck story. He is a master manipulator, controlling both the Beta kids and SGRUB players into doing exactly what he wanted so he could ascend to becoming Lord English. He made Rose turn Grimdark, he tricked the Beta kids into creating the Green Sun, and had Sollux find and use the code for when the universe would end, summoning him into the multiverse. His entire character was manipulating others to set things into motion.

Now look back up at the Galekh picture, where the MC is prompted to recall what their home is like and how they got to Alternia. They don’t know why they did it. Sure it was referenced in Boldir’s route that they stole the spaceship and in Konyyl’s route it’s said that the MC wanted to escape Earth because it was a hellhole. But the inciting incident that led to stealing a god damned spaceship is never stated. It was almost as if they were blindly doing it for some reason.

Almost all of these friendsim volumes have that exact same unknown motivation in that friendship thing. I don’t know about you, but I think if I crash landed on an unknown planet with nothing but countless injuries, I don’t really think anyone’s first instinct would be to find a friend, no matter how lonely they were on Earth. It’s only after Boldir’s intervention that the MC begins to deviate from this motivation; trying to not get involved with Marsti, proving themself to themself in Karako’s route, stepping up to protect others without making a decision to do so in the first place and outright refusing to do the thing they wanted to do from the very start. It’s as if they only now came to their senses.

Did you notice how I called Boldir’s death an intervention? Did you notice that after Boldir’s death everything began to change? Did you notice that, despite literally dying, Boldir was almost content with doing so after giving her message to you despite how pointless it seemed? What Boldir said, about thinking about the past and how it led the MC to where they were then, that sparked everything. What Boldir did in the long run was intentional.

But this begs the question: how is Doc Scratch manipulating the MC? Throughout the first handful of volumes the MC doesn’t have a palmhusk after all, so there’s no way they have been contacted since landing. But I think there’s a more indirect answer: subliminal messaging. Through some unknown means, the MC is being sent messages on how to act and behave from the Doc. It sounds outlandish, but the proof has been right in front of us the whole time, every single time we boot up one of the Volumes.

White text.

What we saw after Boldir’s bad end was Doc Scratch’s message, complaining that he must do everything himself. The white text box that we see, is Doc Scratch’s subliminal messaging in the flesh, as he writes out your every move and translates those messages into thoughts. The entire 2nd person narration here was an illusion: it was actually first person. The end of Boldir’s route had the 2nd person structure break and for the first time, the narration is in first person perspective. Doc Scratch has revealed himself after being tricked by Boldir.

Another thing to note is that a lot of Friendsim takes place either before or during Act 1 of Hiveswap, (as confirmed by one of the devs). So when the text says “Must I do everything myself?”, this references what happens in Act 1, where Xefros receives the Scratchware protection program and traps the troll under rubble. The reason he does this is simple: with the help of Boldir, the MC is beginning to break free of Doc Scratch’s control.

So overall, here is what I’ve gathered and my theory about all of this:

Through some unknown method, Doc Scratch has been sending subliminal messages ever since they lived on Earth. He manipulated the MC to steal the spaceship and fly off into space, then causing the crash through some other means (such as manipulating one of the people building the spaceship to leave out certain parts to cause it to break down. I know this part is baseless but it’s the best I’ve got). Through these subliminal messages and other powers, the Doc has been manipulating the MC to do specific events and even crossover different timelines to lead to some sort of end goal that will show in Act 2 of Hiveswap. However since Boldir interfered and limited the manipulation, Doc Scratch had to resort to manipulating the main cast through the Scratchware program.

As for the Friendsim volumes, these most recent volumes are suggesting that something big is coming, and the events that happen in this story will directly cause what happens in Act 2. This not only would act as a sort of prologue to Act 2, but also give a reason to why Whatpumpkin is prioritizing finishing these before releasing any Hiveswap information. I’m not sure what might happen or what’s coming, but there is one thing we do know for sure about this whole situation.

He is already here.

676 notes · View notes