Bloodswap

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	guardianswap, Hemospectrum
See also	Dominance Hierarchy
Related articles on Fanlore.

Bloodswap is the name of a common trope in Homestuck fanworks. In these AUs the blood color of the trolls and therefore their social status is different than in canon. Because blood castes are very important on their home planet Alternia and also correspond with special powers and roles both inside and outside of the game Sgrub, this changes each character's fate significantly. Stories in which the blood color of the characters do not change, but the social blood hierarchy does, are also frequently called bloodswap.

On Archive of Our Own tags such as "Bloodswap," "Hemospectrum Inversion," and "Hemoswap AU" are synned with "Hemospectrum Shift."

Examples

• Red Dead Virgo by adamantApoplectic, in which Kanaya has mutant red blood.
• fanworks tagged "bloodswap" on deviantArt
• entries tagged "bloodswap" on Tumblr
• Bloodswap Database on Tumblr (has a masterlist of bloodswaps)
• works tagged "Hemospectrum Shift" on AO3 - these also include stories that are not technically bloodswap AUs, but change the caste, system, for example:
  • Be the Sea Dweller Lowblood (link) by ckret, a fanventure in which sea dwellers like Eridan are at the low end of the social hierarchy (unlike in canon)
  • Hemostuck (link) by roachpatrol and urbanAnchorite, in which the canonical social hierarchy is reversed

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

add other examples, pictures?

Resources

• Hemospectrum Shift works at AO3