Castelocked
is a Homestuck fanfic by Thunder Reign, written as an Interactive Comic fan adventure on the MSPA Forums. It draws inspiration from Red Dead Virgo (amongst others) and follows a similar theme with a different approach. It updates with new panels every two days. Or, well, it did, before the proliferation of other popular bloodswaps led the creator to abandon the venture.
However, the author started the adventure back up again on the 24th of March 2012. The new thread for the adventure can be found here. The mirrored version of the adventure can also be found here.
It follows the adventures of twelve trolls, all who seem rather familiar. To be more specific: It's an Alternate Universe Fic, a bloodswap where Sollux is now an anonymous-blooded hacker and Tavros is the Emperor-To-Be. The title refers to the overarching theme of the adventure, namely the impact the caste system has on the trolls, and the social isolation produced from that.
This adventure displays the following tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Vriska for Kanaya.
- All Take and No Give: Eridan and Tavros' relationship, with Eridan as the taker and Tavros as the giver.
- Gamzee and Karkat, too. It didn't start that way, but as Gamzee underwent Sanity Slippage it increasingly fell to Karkat to keep him in check — by the start of the story, Karkat's life is almost completely consumed with caring for Gamzee, while Gamzee does very little in the relationship.
- Ambiguously Evil: Vriska, emphasis on "Ambiguously". Yes, she has convinced herself that Eridan's paralysis of Nepeta to win her black affections is simply trolls being trolls, but she never actually does anything malevolent herself, apart from stalking Kanaya. Plus, it should also be noted that she's portrayed as having a dependent personality, so it's more likely she possesses Selective Obliviousness when it comes to his utterly selfish personality.
- Ambiguous Gender: Equius, despite being as muscled as his canon counterpart.
- Alternate Universe Fic: Of the "bloodswap" subgenre prevalent in the Homestuck fanfic world.
- Badass Cape: Tavros and Karkat.
- Cape Swish: Somewhere, an eyeless redblood is very upset that Karkat has pinched his cape.
- Bold Inflation: As in Homestuck.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Nepeta...
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Terezi, who was already quite strange in canon, is even weirder here due to constant psychic spamming, as well as having had to kill her lusus at a young age. She has an
intestine belt, and likes to do things like sneak into her friends' homes and write on their stuff. - Covered with Scars: Feferi, thanks to her robots. She doesn't think the scars are bad, but Eridan does...
- Darker and Edgier: compared to the original Hivebent. And that's saying something.
- Empty Shell: Aradia is a shade of her former self, barely able to interact with the world.
- The Faceless: The cast, prior to introduction, were shown as silhouettes in the author's signature.
- Flashback
- Flat "What": Eridan, twice, when Vriska proposes her plan to sneakily become Kanaya's server.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Eridan can mind control anyone, regardless of blood caste, so long as he's looking you in the eyes.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Karkat believes that, as an indigoblood, it's his duty to oppress lowbloods; unfortunately, he's much too softhearted to do it properly and just gets his ass kicked. Plus, he's usually too busy playing therapist to his Ax-Crazy moirail to have time for much of anything else.
- Interactive Comic
- It's All My Fault: Karkat blames himself for Aradia's death because that was the one night he didn't force Gamzee to eat sopor.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Equius.
- Love Martyr: Gamzee is so Ax-Crazy that even Equius says that Karkat should just kill him and be done with it, but since Karkat refuses to do that, he has to spend almost all of his time caring for Gamzee, and blames himself every time Gamzee hurts someone. It's gotten to the point where he barely has a life outside of this.
- Karma Houdini: As of now, Eridan. Lampshaded in his bio post, as his ability to weasel out of bad situations has convinced him he's invincible.
- Kick the Dog: More like Kick The Cat.
- Knight Templar: Gamzee. Donk donk.
- Mad Oracle: Terezi, even moreso than Sollux was. Knowing Terezi, she was strange to begin with, but the constant whispers of the doomed have made her worse.
- Manipulative Bastard: Eridan, who crippled Nepeta just so he could have a kismesis. Also 'flushed' with with Tavros for the sole purpose of Gold Digging, and strings along his moirail knowing she has a flushcrush on him.
- Meaningful Rename
- Nepeta changed her trolltag from adorableCritters to abaddonCatalyst.
- Kanaya changed her trolltag from gracefulAdmirer to guardianArmstice.
- Mood Whiplash: Nepeta's come-down.
- Morality Chain: Karkat functions as this to Gamzee.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Eridan to Nepeta.
- Never My Fault: As in canon, Vriska has a tendency to justify her actions by saying it's normal troll behavior, even when other trolls are being quite vocal about their disgust. Granted, what happened to Nepeta wasn't her fault, but entering a quadrant with Nepeta's attacker, and showing no remorse for doing so, decidedly is.
- Present Tense Narrative
- Pungeon Master: Equius fills his speech with every sort of plant-related pun possible.
- Screw Destiny: Terezi's attitude towards her abilities.
- Second-Person Narration
- Self-Made Orphan: Terezi, as well as Equius.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Kanaya and Vriska, before The Nepeta Incident.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Nepeta's skull hat.
- Super-Strength: Equius and Feferi.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Eridan mindcontrols the audience into deciding to switch to another character, rather than nosing around in his business.
- Unstoppable Rage: Suppressed, in Feferi's case - but it comes out in the programming of her robots.
- Wild Child: Like her canon counterpart, Terezi lives by herself in the woods — unlike her canon counterpart, she hunts dragons for fun and decorates herself with their organs.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kanaya was not pleased by Vriska swooning over Eridan attacking Nepeta, and calls her out on it.
