#also its so funny to me that john strider is becoming this elusive figure on here cuz i cant stop mentioning him hsjkfgsdfg

[yandere-monoma]

They haven’t gotten any real focus yet and John Strider hasn’t even appeared in a fic yet but it’s notable how you write the prospit kids as being more resistant to Strider bullshit. Like, they come off as normal almost? Is that a good thing or not? Only time (and new fic updates) will tell

:3c indeed!!! is being resistant a good thing or a bad thing? is it better to adapt to your surroundings or try and resist and fight every inch of the way in the hopes of finally gaining something suitable for yourself? is there a 'better' tactic to cope with abuse or neglect?

it's so super fun to explore that give and take. rose strider ending up (debatably) the most mentally unhealthy of the strider kids but also becoming (debatably) the strongest of them all as a result. does this make her more successful than dave, since she can absolutely fight better than he is and thus is better 'suited' to play the hero? or is dave, who manages to regain his individuality and break through his (co)dependency on his brother faster, better than her? can they even be compared??? oh the traumalympics of it all...

or, another example, using a different set of messed up kids: rose lalonde vs jade lalonde.

the latter doesn't immerse herself completely in her mother's antics, which has actually heightened the sense of competition between them, even if there is no active 'war' between them like rose and her mom. rose and mom create a 'loving' '''rivalry''' of their dynamic, which gives rose an outlet and gives her a way to express her frustration towards her guardian, even if it's not translating right. jade does not. she makes a habit of venting to her friend(s) but she otherwise does not feel heard when trying to confront mom on her terms and she doesn't feel like she can do much to retaliate otherwise, because she doesn't want to play the same game her mom does. and since she isn't playing along, she's actually formed twice as many insecurities linked to her that rose has.

another really fun aspect of all this is the fact that... MAN!! i have so many thoughts just always about the way homestuck is told mostly through dialogue and pictures, so you're only able to infer so much about characters. there's a characterization tip i learned in college that everything people say (or at least most of it) is twice removed from their actual thoughts, at the very least. like, people say things that perhaps they've been thinking for days, weeks, years before the fact. and that's if they're even willing to be honest with themselves and their emotions to the people around them. something that is so great about homestuck is that people lie, they deflect, they manipulate the perspectives around them so successfully that readers don't even catch on unless it gets spelled out for them... if it gets spelled out

(jake is such a great example of this i could talk about jake forever)

switching from a comic book medium to one that uses narrative prose is so interesting because of that, because we suddenly get a window into the direct thoughts of the characters, we suddenly get the full picture that all of their dialogue leaves out.

i say this because it is a very very deliberate choice that certain killswitch characters and their arcs are only implied in dialogue vs others who have their entire psyches written out. we know rose is batshit because we spend 9+ chapters of prose in her head, reading her thoughts. we don't actually get to see how messed up dave is inside until way later when he expresses it. the jades are all jumbled up inside, but we keep missing out on it because they have such a good handle on their personalities and making themselves sound stable even when they aren't, and who knows when we'll actually get a peek inside of their heads. and like... DAMN it's so fun to think of what kym would have been liked if it started off like the other killswitch fics, where you're just subjected to dialogue that gets parsed out later. like rose strider talks like a 4channer and it's fun to imagine a world where that was in the forefront and she got a chance to seem just as normal as jade and dave strider get to at the beginning of their journeys. alas i need everyone to know she's insane... 😌🥰