Storytime

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Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Diana who was taking a class in her Technical Communication program for which she read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. The princess is me, by the way. Anyway, all the talk about affordances and limitations in different media got me thinking about which storytelling medium offered the fewest restrictions to its creators. I concluded that the webcomic medium was that medium, because it allowed for visuals in both images and text on an infinite canvas, provided total flexibility of release schedules, could be accessed by any audience, and could be utilized by anybody (or group of anybodies) with a computer. Not only that (and here's where my mind started to race), but webcomic creators weren't limited by standard conventions of sequential art; alt text was only the beginning; they could include sound, and video, and maybe make the comic interactive like a video game, only without many of the limitations of the video game medium! Little did I know that at that time, a webcomic that did all those things and more already existed, and not only that, it was a science-fiction-time-travel-parallel-universes thing with tons of meta, which is so up my alley that it's maybe a little obscene.

So, to sum up, this is me coming out of the Homestuck-fan closet.

Don't get the wrong idea about that first paragraph; I'm not recommending the comic based on that. I am just saying that in fifty years, when webcomics are considered worthy of serious academic interpretation, Homestuck will be required reading. I am recommending the comic because it's hilarious and has an excellent and complex plot and tons of lovable characters. Also, a soundtrack. And an embarrassing fandom! But we won't talk about that. Instead we will talk about my reason for making this post.

I first started thinking about this awhile back, when I read (on Andrew's formspring, I think?) that the "twelve evil children" in Complacency of the Learned represent the trolls. At first I thought, "Evil? All of them?" But then I thought about what Evil Sims are like: they don't mind the dark, being rude, or being around suffering, but they can be loving and caring and goofy in addition to that. It's only one aspect of their personalities, and not necessarily even a dominant one. I kind of liked the idea of Evil being sort of a cultural trait for trolls - which is actually canon now, in a way! So then I started thinking about what other traits the main twelve would have if they were Sims, and then I wrote them down, and then awhile later I got bored with the household I was playing at the time and decided to make some trolls, just to see if I could. It ended up being some of the most fun I'd ever had playing The Sims. So now I'm playing Karkat and Terezi, all the others having been moved into other houses in the neighborhood. I've also come up with traits for the kids and their guardians (replacing Bec with Grandpa), but making twelve Sims in such rapid succession has kind of burned me out for the time being, so I haven't gone any farther with those yet.

Anyway, pictures! And traits, since that's what got me doing this in the first place.

Aradia (Evil, Adventurous, Loves the Outdoors, Friendly):

All eyes and mouth.

Tavros (Evil, Loser, Loves the Outdoors, Couch Potato):

What he lacks in horns, he makes up for in eyebrows.

Sollux (Evil, Computer Whiz, Grumpy, Unlucky):

This guy was so hard to make. I've redone him twice now and...I don't know. I guess he's okay.

Karkat (Evil, Ambitious, Grumpy, Over-Emotional):


Nepeta (Evil, Childish, Artistic, Hopeless Romantic):

She was so much fun to make. I'm always having to remind myself that she's (presumably) just a normal troll with normal land-dweller physiology, and not some kind of catperson hybrid.

Kanaya (Evil, Artistic, Nurturing, Perfectionist):

I took a lot of liberties with her. I'm happy with the end result, though.

Terezi (Evil, Genius, Charismatic, Good Sense of Humor):


Vriska (Evil, Lucky, Hot-Headed, Flirty):


Equius (Evil, Snob, Inappropriate, Handy):

Another fun one. I like to think that he's actually a pretty attractive guy, if you're into weird and creepy and can get past the broken teeth.

Gamzee (Evil, Absent-Minded, Easily Impressed, Couch Potato):

No big hair for guys. :( It was this or the mullet.

Eridan (Evil, Ambitious, Inappropriate, Loser):

I love this one. I never realized until I was customizing his outfit how odd his color coordination choices are, though; it kept making me want to punch him in the face. But maybe that's just because it's him.

Feferi (Evil, Excitable, Friendly, Angler):

Another favorite. It was so much fun trying to make her as fishlike as possible without also making her freakish.

So anyway, I've still got some unfinished business with Karkat and Terezi, but I'm planning to play all these guys eventually, and I was curious to see what they've been up to. So I decided to save, switch to all the different households, and then quit without saving, and checked out everyone's current inventories, school performances, skills, and relationships. I was kind of concerned that Equius and Nepeta would be in a romantic relationship because they live together and she's a Hopeless Romantic, but they were just best friends! Yay! The other households, though...okay, so in the Red Team household, Kanaya and Tavros are romantic interests, and Vriska and Gamzee are romantic interests. In the Blue Team household, Feferi and Aradia are romantic interests (who knew?), and Eridan and Sollux are IN A RELATIONSHIP. I have no idea how that could have happened, especially since I only moved them in like three Sim days ago. Probably Eridan kissed him, because he's Inappropriate and those Sims are always kissing people they barely know, and things just happened to turn out well? Anyway, SO WEIRD.

Edit: I have made some significant improvements to these Sims. Here is the new Gamzee. Maybe I'll change the other pictures later, too; I dunno.