I believe that Troll Romance, from Homestuck, could be relevant to romance in Thrive, even if different reproduction systems aren’t handmade by the player.
Can you explain what entails to the people on this forum who have never read homestuck (such as myself)?
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best way to understand is to read this until it moves on to the rest of the story.
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Why would this be added in the game instead of taking inspiration from real biology and psychology?
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okay so this post was supposed to be a draft and it wasn’t supposed to be submitted, which may have been seen by the lack of the long walls of text that the full idea would entail, so I should probably give enough information to effectively give this topic a, well, topic, but basically:
I am not suggesting that troll romance would be possible in the game, but rather that human romance would likely be impossible due to the differing forms of reproduction between mammals and whatever the player will come up with in Thrive. Troll Romance as a concept was intended to be a comparison to how alien the concept of alien romance could be, compared to what we know about human psychology and human romance, and although the reproduction system that Trolls in Homestuck use is, and would likely be unable to be made in Thrive due to age restriction limitations, I think that whatever the player is able to do in the game with reproduction would still be enough for vast differences in romantic systems.
In the link that Willow posted, it is said that Troll Romance is different from human relationships in that many things that could be said about human relationships would never conceptually be grouped with human romance, simply because they are not coupled by the same forces, that is to say, hormones, which drive human romance. Even if the player were not to design their own hormones, but to merely control how they are released, a different form of romance would likely arise, simply because of how many solutions there are to the same problem in nature, and how different cultures in Thrive would be able to handle the hormones given to them. In other words, if the player has any control at all over romance other than in the form of affecting the culture around them, what we have examined from human psychology may not be enough, and what we have examined from non-humans would likely not provide an analogous way to interpret emotions to the player, though I would be quite happy to be proven wrong, as it would make developing the game much simpler.
Now that I have made a case on why Thrive should have different romance in order to be realistic, lets look at the other part of Thrive: the gameplay. I think that romance would be similar to other negotiations in the Aware stage, assuming that “brain” chemistry is still similar enough to allow such a thing, and because of how much time is skipped in between segments…
Oh, this is the wrong section for this post isn’t it…
I would be okay with this post being locked if it’s too much of a hassle to move it because I would appreciate the opportunity to rewrite my thoughts on the matter of Troll Romance from Homestuck, and how it could relate to Thrive, though if it isn’t, then it would probably be a good idea to move this post to the Awakening stage, as that is what I meant when I was speaking of the Aware stage, as I had forgotten the difference between the two. The Aware stage would likely prepare the framework for the romance in the Awakening stage, though, so this could still possibly remain in the Aware stage category, depending on where the conversation travels.
Anyways, because of how much time is skipped in between segments in Thrive, and presumably in the Awakening stage as well, I think it would be interesting for the player to have to adapt to the romance culture around them in order to reproduce successfully in order to evolve, while still progressing to the Society stage, though if the timeskips are too short for evolution in the Awakening stage, it would probably be better for this discussion about alien romance to be relegated to the Aware stage, though the impacts of the players decisions on how romance works would likely be felt all throughout the Awakening stage. I think that the player should be forced to adapt to many different romance scenarios in order to reproduce in the Aware and Awakening stages, as many people are forced to do in real life, only this learning would have to be condensed, likely with many less complexities than either human or troll romance, in order for the player to still be able to reproduce and progress within the Aware and Awakening stages. This is the way that I believe that Troll Romance from Homestuck may be relevant to Thrive, as pertaining to gameplay. I hope that my discussion of both reality and gameplay has provided the answers to any questions regarding why the systems for alien romance to be created, should be created, and I hope I have made it clear that I am not asking for Troll Romance to be added to Thrive, but rather for it, or something like it, to be possible within the confines of Thrive, by adding what effectively amounts to procedurally generated romance systems.
Now, onto a problem with using Troll Romance from Homestuck as an example of alien romance, which is related to their reproduction system: genes are more likely to be transferred the stronger the bond was between 2 trolls, thus causing a link between culture and gene transfer, meaning cultures that allow for stronger bonds would be selected for. Of course, there is question of how these stronger bonds would be detected, maybe it would be detected by the presence of hormones, but I digress (that would be of digression). I would like to instead address that culture is already greatly linked to hormones by looking at Troll Romance. If we were to pretend for a moment that the cultures that lead to Troll Romance were not directly linked to genetic representation, or in other words, were not selected for genetically, we would find a great difference between Troll Romance and Human Romance: negative emotions associated with love. Although we are often taught that hate and love are opposites, they are quite often 2 sides of the same coin, and with Troll Romance, this is emphasized more so; In Troll Romance, there is both kissmesissitude and matespritship, comprised of negative and positive emotions respectively, and yet both still serve the same purpose of reproduction. On the other hand, humans often confuse hate for love, and vice versa, possibly just from them both being strong emotions that are exhibited between 2 humans. If humans were incapable of hate, this would not be a possible dimension for human romance, as would many other romantic happenings, real or fake, also be made impossible. Troll romance simply showcases one of the many possible ways hormones can interact to make a fascinating culture, now it is simply a matter of implementation to see if it’s possible to make all kinds of romance possible within Thrive.
TLDR:
I think that Troll Romance from Homestuck could be relevant to Thrive’s Aware Stage gameplay, even though Troll Romance relies mostly on the reproduction system of trolls (it would be impossible to implement it into Thrive without implementing player-made reproduction), the underlying hormones presumably present in the Aware Stage would provide interesting consequences in later stages of Thrive, such as the Awakening stage. I am interested in the interaction between hormones and possible romance cultures that could arise from them, and I think that Troll Romance is a good example of one way for hormones to interact with culture, although culture is somewhat closely tied to the ability to reproduce, thus causing a sort of literal social Darwinism.
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