2022-04-19 17:29:47 ¶ ●

the reason an apocalypse buff “is something you can be on Alternia“ is because, just as it is a planet that suffers under every possible kind of dystopia, Alternia bears the scars of a history of apocalyptic events; (repeated) political uprising and suppression, undead plague and alien invasion are just the examples that are the most clear in the text. and this is of course deliberate; Alternia’s trolls have had apocalypse after apocalypse thrown at them to culturally prepare them to leave their world behind entirely once the species of their race, SGRUB, is fulfilled.

Aradia and Sollux go by the tags “apocalypseArisen” and “twinArmageddons” because they’re psychically aware of another imminent world ending event; but I think even they are aware that this is far from something unique to them. generations of warmbloods will have gone through this same experience, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before the forces that be wipe them from the face of the planet like a stain to make way for the next iteration of the regime. the tragedy of a story like Hiveswap isn’t that we all know it’s going to end in a meteor shower anyway; the tragedy is that no matter what any of the characters achieve, it can only end in yet another in a long line of tragedies that stretches forever in both directions. the crushing piston in Alternia’s machine is inevitability; how can you hope to escape what has already happened and will happen again for perpetuity?