#i have a lot of thoughts about dirk lalonde

[corvidterror]

2B Dave? Or 2A Dirk Lalonde ?

How about both?

[whamss]

Don't have a lot of thoughts on the HSBC update, but I am extremely stuck on this panel:

And the thought of how absolutely horrifying it must be for Rose if Roxy actually grew up to look like Mom Lalonde. And I guess the implication here that the other alphas might have also grown up to look like their guardian counterparts (although Dirk died in his early 20s in this timeline, and Jane and Jake are still way younger than Nanna and Grandpa, so the hypothetical doesn't hit as hard for the other three beta kids)

Just like, I guess this was already to some degree a thought that is implicit with the existence of the alpha kids, but spending your late teen years and early adulthood getting close to a girl who Rose probably gained a more sisterly bond with, only to slowly watch her become the spitting image of the dead mother who neglected her, who she also regrets never bonding with must be some flavor of horrifying, right? But also maybe cathartic in a way?

I don't know, this just threw me out of it a little. I like the depiction of the adults looking like guardians when the story shifts to the pov of the children, kind of neat if they keep that up. I just also think that seeing Roxy look exactly like Mom Lalonde is such an interesting play because like. It makes sense, but thinking about how that would fuck with Rose's head a little is doing great things for me (<- person who makes everything about Rose). Extremely interesting

[clay-pidgeon]

post title pending. my weird swap au

this is the post im making for scratchswap, my au where i switch the post-scratch kids with the post-scratch trolls sharing their aspect (dirk-nepeta, roxy-equius, jake-eridan, and jane-feferi) and then the pre scratch dudes get swapped accordingly. yes this bc of the Parallels between feferi and jane and then i got a whole Thing out of it. im working on classpects/ages. characters under the cut

pre-scratch trolls

note for the record i did not think much about these guys

johune peixes: i have done 0 thinking on johune so sorry. theyre swapped w meenah and everyones really confused about how that funny little guy was a huge scary empress in every other universe

rozela zahhak: the sorcerer wooooo! pretty similar to canon rose shes just really fucking strong. good friends w aranea

dayves leijon: im still not 100% sure how to go about this one tbh but he does like romance in some form. also i got in in my head hes skittish. no idea where that came from. capitalizes b (glasses) and maybe something else?

jaidli ampora: oh i actually thought about this one a little! fashion is sorta fifties inspired like cronus but shes not a greaser thats his schtick. you dont steal a mans shtick. is there a c in that word or not

post scratch trolls

jaynce peixes: feels like i should work on that name huh. anyways jaynce does Not want to be the heiress (for reasons both transgender and not) at all and is in a little bit of denial about this. i lied actually a lot of denial. may or may not be moirails w jayque havent decided. replaces e and o with -E and -O forks and spoons!

roxxie zahhak: a little more into robots n shit than coding but still does that. bit of a jack of all trades! thinks deyirks lusus (its. kity) is the most special boy in the whole wide world. probably moirails w deyirk now that i think abt it but maybe not. im on the fence abt a lot of stuff here. uses some kind of prefix, emoticons have X for eyes, replaces x sounds with x, y (as a vowel) with ie, and s w z

deyirk leijon: WORLDS MOST NORMAL MAN (lying) lives in a cave in the middle of the woods not for catgirl reasons but because this guy is going insane in solitude works best when isolated. also uses some kind of prefix for a quirk. roxxie drops off robot parts at his house every few weeks and they make a day of it theyre Pals

jayque ampora: he helps feed gloybsub or whatever her name is and hes so normal about the deaths on his conscience. really hes so normal guys cmon. normal

pre scratch kids

mimi egbert: token cis friend sorry meenah. or not idc. more mellow because dad egbert is just a normal guy and isnt raising her to be the literal queen of the world. still meenah tho

hans lalonde: i am unsure about the name but i think its fine. the ultimate horse girl (therian). keeps maplehoof in the foyer. if he had to interact with his dad for more than 20 seconds they would both implode from the sheer awkwardness. the house is big as shit they just gesture to each other when they see each other and thats fine for both of them

manu strider: wears heart shades everywhere as a sort of joke. he doesnt actually know. caps lock is broken and refuses to fix it + uses kaomoji a lot. fujoshi to transmasc pipeline haha who said that

crow harley: im stilling working on which animal to furrify cronus with. watches a bunch of old movies and picked up those speaking habits. other shit pending

post scratch kids

fifi crocker: she wants to be crockercorps new ceo sosososo bad she would make up for all of their horrible crimes against humanity by uh. shes working on it ok?

neta strider: the she/her to she/they to they/them to he/they to he/him to he/they to she/he/they to The Creature pipeline. percentage of their diet that is fish he caught w her own bare hands has been steadily increasing. is trying to buff up on history but keeps on going down wikipedia rabbit holes and rereading the nyan cat article for the thousandth time. would still do the detective pony rewrite but would get sidetracked by the lolcat metaphor for way longer

eqis lalonde: do you know how hard it is to smush equius down to four letters? i just made this name up man. anyways i dunno what to do with her but shes a girl of the horse variety

dani english: diversity win this sickly victorian orphan child is genderfluid! fucking terrified of the lusi on the island. fancies herself sort of a romantic poet

the entirety of this was brainstormed while i was bored in class for the record. still brainstorming so im gonna edit this when more shit arises

[pochapal]

would you be able to briefly explain the meta stuff in the homestuck epilogues? i've never read any hs, but i'd be interested to know for myself how close you are in comparing it to umineko since you keep bringing it up.

caveat for mega massive homestuck epilogues spoilers (also caveat that this post got way too long) but basically my thinking on all this is as follows:

the whole of the homestuck epilogues are "meta" but to track it through the plot, a bunch of characters in the homestuck epilogues begin to undergo a process they refer to as "reaching the ultimate self" (debatable) which the text itself defines as an individual growing aware of the existence of their various alternate selves across timelines/canons. since the epilogues/homestuck^2 continuity died before we got any concrete answers a lot of this is more interpretation than fact, but essentially this leads to a kind of existence where your consciousness is placed on a level "above" that of your canonical reality, allowing you to see it as the story it is.

within the context of the homestuck epilogues this happens to two people that we know of, with a suspected third. the opening acts of the story cover rose lalonde's ascendancy to this state, which manifests as a series of visions of alternative realities and a growing awareness of what is/isn't canonical to homestuck (one other major feature of the homestuck epilogues in particular is that the characters and world are now at least one degree separated from canon itself - there's a lot of stuff in here about fanfic presentation/ooc tropes and the like). throughout the half of the story where they stay moored to canon (known as "meat"), rose's condition worsens as she turns to dirk strider for solace. about a third of the way through this epilogue the two have an extended conversation about textuality and puppetry and your place as a passive/active agent in the narrative fabric which ends with this bombshell cliffhanger:

the reveal here is that, at least for the duration of the epilogues' narrative, dirk strider has been in the driver's seat of the story and has been manipulating/nudging things according to his overarching goal of keeping the story "relevant" even though homestuck's main narrative ended years ago (homestuck itself features a great number of villains hijacking/rewriting homestuck at various points for their own ends so this is not without precedent) (this is also most likely an intertextual shoutout/callback to seminal fanfiction detective pony, which shares basically all of the dna of the epilogues in a truncated form done years earlier as an extended response to a short-lived bit in homestuck itself) (if you also look closely there are shade's of 999's "he knew because i knew" present too) (there are many layers to this).

in order to do all this, dirk has seized a great degree of control of the narrative engine driving the epilogues' reality. he is able to dominate how we perceive things by literally painting over the story in his own text color and voice and is able to put thoughts in people's heads and words in their own mouths - that said, there is a limitation to this ability, where even though dirk-as-narrator could do whatever he wants, in order for any of this to Matter everything he makes everyone do must always be believably within character for them to do, even if it lies at the more extreme end of their characterization (see a later chapter in the epilogues where there's an emotionally charged breakup/confession between himself and jake english with whom he has a storied and volatile romantic history with - dirk wants jake to do things one way, but jake himself thinks/feels in another and thus this tension underpins the scene).

throughout the plot, dirk brute force narrates certain events, manipulating characters and outcomes in his favor (he ensures john egbert, who has the ability to alter canon irrespective of the rules of the text, is killed off and unable to interfere. dirk also rigs an election for a whole other slew of reasons that are tangentially relevant). his driving motive, despite the overt villainous posturing, is a deep love for his friends and a deep fear that all face a fate worse than oblivion without an active and engaging story to inhabit. if that destroys the happy ending of homestuck, then so be it.

meanwhile, in the other half of the story (titled "candy"), these machinations do not go unnoticed. calliope, or to be more specific the version of calliope who ascended to godhood and then ghosthood and defeated the main villain of homestuck by absorbing him and all of his metanarrative poisoning into a literal black hole that is also a metaphorical stand-in for "fanon", grows aware that in one world there is one person who is disrupting the narrative peace of postcanon for his own selfish ends, thereby threatening to permanently rupture the eternal harmony such a state of being should have entitled their entire reality to. this itself is a bare-faced lie as candy goes to painstaking lengths to show the terrible consequences that come from the characters abandoning canon and complacently accepting their lot in a world that "doesn't matter" - this includes greatest hits such as "everyone gets married and has kids young, then epic divorces each other, then descends into a series of increasingly absurd and abusive relationships, and oh whoops somebody did a fascism and now there's a planetwide war being fought".

so. while the world of candy is falling to shit, calliope is behind the scenes working things to try and break out of her self-imposed impassible black hole in order to return to canon and put a stop to dirk's antics. it is heavily implied that she's been tipping the narrative scales in order to escalate things in the candy timeline to the point of chaotic absurdity in order to make it the most relevant point in fanon and thus a beacon for lord english's body to end up (there are many other dubious factors at play here, such as an incessant need to keep everything under her aegis for their own good and a drive to transform everything into a fanfiction-esque """utopia"""). the plan is to use the remnants of english/canon to break free of fanon and confront dirk somewhere beyond canon (this is where the story's chronology ends so we never got a concrete answer to what that'll look like).

one key thing here is that unlike dirk who saw fit to paint the town orange in his narrative dominion, calliope controls candy with a much more subtle touch, preferring to fall so far back into the narrative that it's almost impossible to say whether these absurd things everyone is doing is something they would have done on their own terms or something calliope is making them do (not helped of course by the fact that candy is dominated by well-known fandom tropes that help to distort the reader's perspective on what these characters "should" be like). this is by design - a lot of her philosophy is that the most effective story is one in which the speaker is as unseen as possible although one can never have a story without a speaker, nor a speaker without an agenda. see the following (NOTE: if you're looking at this sans context, calliope in this chapter is possessing the body of jade harley in order to use her as a conduit/vessel so that she can be physically present on this plane of reality, hence the dialogue tag. aradia is just aradia):

so. dirk seizes control of meat through a brute-force attack where you can only notice his narrative imprint and nothing else, and calliope dominates the narrative through an all-encompassing subtlety where it's impossible to tell where the story ends and calliope begins. a hostile first person narrative versus a hostile third-person omniscient narrative.

this culminates in a back-and-forth between the two where both try to assert their contradictory version of events as the "true" narrative, engaging in a yes-and squabble as they build upon and refute what the other is saying in order to come out on top.

there's a lot of questions of narrative "truth" here, of which version of events gets to be assigned "real" and how that assignment happens. is it the most logically compelling story? or the most emotionally resonant one? this is further explored in a subplot with character roxy lalonde, who undergoes two separate trans character arcs in each timeline with different outcomes (in meat a 23-year-old roxy embraces his identity as transmasculine, and in candy a 39-year-old roxy reflects on how her relationship to motherhood and her relationship to gender do not cancel one another out). but basically the crux of the homestuck epilogues is who gets to be the one to tell a story, and why? and what happens when irreconcilable accounts fight each other for the position of the One True Narrative Version Of Events?

the epilogues give a lot of questions on this front with very few answers (the only real answer is "read everything in its entirety and try your hardest to truly understand what is being told to you, and then you as a reader have the responsibility to decide and construct the final meaning for yourself") which i suppose is par for the course for a text of this nature.

(for further reading/consideration on this post-canon dilemma, also check out godfeels and the 3.1 epilogue which wrestles with these same concepts on an adjacent axis - particularly good stuff about the role of reader response and audience interpretation in here!)

(for even further reading/a way sillier plug also check out my own fic omelette route which is my personal thematic extension and understanding of everything the epilogues left behind and also a whole bunch of other things too long to get into in a brief self-promo lmao)

to bring this waaaaaay back to my umineko discussion points, this dirk/calliope/narrative thing is essentially the baseline with which i am examining umineko's narrative quirks. i don't necessarily think there'll be any 1:1 correlation with this specific brand of narration nonsense but i think this is a useful framework in general for thinking about stories about stories and how people intersect with their own narratives.

for umineko in particular i'm interested in the "course-correction" part of the epilogues and how the narrators show their hands most when things risk not going their way (see the third screenshot for the best example). i don't think anything'll be this over but what is "his finger tenses up and the gun doesn't fire" if not a more extreme version of "this mystery wasn't worth thinking about any more, so everybody left the crime scene as it was"?

if there's no "free will" in a story, then it ceases to be a compelling story at all. this rings true even outside of crazy metafiction stuff. if there isn't any evidence of the actors in the script, well, *acting*, then what's the point of telling your story as a story? there has to be that element of unpredictability and uncertainty to prove the thing you're constructing is alive and matters, even if that runs the risk of throwing your own plans off the rails (another way to frame all this the metaphor of the plot "getting away" from the author in the process of writing).

the narrator in umineko may not appreciate the way that battler is constantly threatening to undermine their carefully-plotted mystery narrative, but if battler just danced to their tune all the time then this isn't a story or a mystery but instead a one-person puppetshow using "real" human beings as the marionettes. a compliant battler ceases to be battler but instead a narrator using battler to sate their own whims, a story without an audience, etc etc etc.

but that balancing act is hard. you need to tell your story and you need the people in your story to act in all the right ways without accidentally transforming you narrative efforts into yet another meaningless diatribe. it needs to be meaningful. it needs to be more than navel-gazing for its own sake.

even outside of the meta stuff you see this with the culprits of the in-universe Witch Narrative. genji/kinzo et al could very easily brute force the family at gunpoint to play along with the story of beatrice and the supernatural, but threat alone isn't enough to grant something "existence". the deeper truths will remain buried without that organic spark of belief, without that chance for the other characters to contribute in their own way to the collective narrative. it's important that eva as a collaborator still makes everything about her steadfast belief that natsuhi's complicit in a coverup conspiracy instead of just robotically affirming "this is demonic beatrice is real and definitely exists". eva and natsuhi don't need to be at each other's throats to create the illusion of a witch killing people, but them being able to do so in proximity of the witch narrative validates the truths of their beliefs and the "truth" of beatrice's existence. it makes it more real to the other family members and to us.

this is very much the same dilemma as the homestuck epilogues. you as a narrator have an agenda, but you also need the people around you to augment that in a convincing and compelling way. you are not just seeking out a truth, you are telling a story. the homestuck epilogues are a story. umineko is a story. a story requires a narrator, characters, and an audience that cares about what is being presented to them. i've brought it up before, but in this way meat/candy and detective/romantic as dichotomies serve very similar purposes when it comes to narrative-building philosophy. you have to approach this dialectically if you are to produce something with any value.

so, in summary: the homestuck epilogues are driven by the tension inherent to filtering "reality" through a narrative lens and how to reconcile the unpredictability of real people with drive to have your message be heard. umineko, as a mystery presented through self-conscious narrative construction, can be understood through similar terms even if the two texts aren't necessarily directly related in this manner. there is a tension of control and truth when it comes to telling a story of your own, and on many levels both stories are about finding a way to reconcile this tension within their respective storytelling "languages".

meaning cannot be found in isolation. a story needs more than one moving part. juggling things beyond your control is simultaneously the most impossible and necessary thing you need to do in order to build a narrative that matters, be it piloting your reality back into canonicity or infusing an island with the legend of an ancient and powerful witch. it's all the same thing in the end.

[jaspertjunk]

How to turn your brainrot into fresh new characters

I don't know if anyone else does this but I wanna explain how my "taking extremely heavy inspiration from a different thing and turning into its own thing" creative process I sometimes use works. i'm on my 'puter and don't give enough of a fuck right now so prepare for inconsistent capitalization and other errors.

Using a character I'm working on right now that is heavily inspired by roxy lalonde.

Step one: setting

So let's start off with setting: the setting is also extremely homestuck inspired and I don't wanna talk about it because it's still morphing into its own thing and it's still very homestuck.

Naturally, considering that's the setting right now, you're gonna see a lot of homestuck in the characters as well. There's an aradia/jade mashup character fucking shit up and a weird gamzee/dirk combo??? And those aren't even characters I'm particularly fond of? (I do like all of them a lot though don't @ me I just don't have strilonde brainrot and there's other trolls i prefer to aradia and gamzee)

But so anyway there's a roxy clone. Like I literally used roxy as a placeholder in my head when i was thinking up what type of character i wanted to fill her role. here's where setting comes in

first, you mold the roxy to the setting (or the setting to the roxy). this is actually where i got the idea for my setting to have misassigned roles for the heroes, because homestuck's whole science/magic thing has an interesting presentation in roxy, and i thought it would be cool if she was always meant to fill the sort of intellectual role (i came up with some cool name but i forgot it) but when the shit actually started up was pushed into a magic-based role instead and just had to roll with the punches and become a sick ass technomancer.

And this place within the setting then helped to inform her personality, because she needed to be someone who was flexible, and a lot more tech-oriented than the original roxy, and also someone whose personality meshed with what both her intended and assigned roles are meant to represent.

Step 2: experiences

what a person lives through hugely influences their personality and how they act. so look at what the character has experienced. notroxy, as we've established, is a techy character. i start thinking about how she got that way. i think she picked it up from her best friend, because that unhinged little shit is a mad scientist at 15. She's also a weird kid in a small town, so I think notroxy is probably an outsider from the start for being so close to her.

and then there's the Big Event, where said friend dies under mysterious circumstances. THAT was definitely formative. I decide that probably a big part of shaping notroxy's character is the fact that she wants to fill the gap left by her bestie dying. (this also makes for a bit of a funny transfem moment about a year later when she finally comes out. cuz it's just like "oh noooo i have to take on the social role of our dead friend so our friend group doesn't fall apart." "okay bestie" "oh nooo i have to emulate her so that we have a balanced party without her to fill her assigned role in our adventure" "good idea" "oh nooo i have to be a girl to restore the gender balance of the friend group" "girl what are you talking about"). Also, she's legit fucked up about her best friend and the only person who Got Her dying because why wouldn't she be?

So we start seeing this character who is trying to fill the void left by a whole ass person all by herself, not just FOR herself but also for everyone else in her life. She thrusts the weight of the world onto her own shoulders in the exact moment when she's least equipped to handle it.

Step 3(?): compare and contrast

Now I take all the new character stuff I've come up with and compare it to the original character. Then I pick out all the roxy traits that i used for this character initially and decide which ones I wanna keep. I really like the whole roxy thing of she seems like she's just this silly goofy drunk girl but she doesn't WANT to be and she's actually the one holding everything together and the closest thing to a leader their fucked up little team has. Can't elaborate. Too brain. This isn't a roxy post. I discard the parts I don't need or want to replace with new parts. I don't need the flirtatiousness, for one. Doesn't really mesh with how I'm begining to envision the character. Keeping the sex jokes though. As a treat.

I also do like the sort of shitty handling of feelings we associate with strilondes, but I want to go about it differently with notroxy. I want her to overtly know what's wrong with her and face it head on, something that they don't ever do, but I also want to see her weaponizing her pain. She is very strilondy in the fact that she makes all of her problems infinitely worse through her actions though.

Step 4: go do something other than the brainrot thing

I'm working on this step right now. You need to step away from the original inspiration so you can separate your new ideas from it. Get obsessed with something new, incorporate new ideas from that into what you already have. Find other sources of inspiration. Repeat the previous steps but with a stronger base this time. Make your characters finely woven tapestries of all the things you've liked and all your own ideas. be cringe. be free.

[cadaverousconsumer]

helloooo here are my beta kid headcanons! @icarusshomestuckfan do u remember that one convoersation we had about how i had no headcanons? well i do now!!!!

also im only doing the beta kids rn cause i dont wanna spoil anything for @giggleshitter0

ok chat starting with my main dude

Dave Strider hc!! dave is definitely, at the start at least, very thin but relatively lanky bc of general malnourishment from bro. however i like 2 think that he would become healthier throughout the comic and eventually become a healthy weight for his height. dave i think, if he went 2 school i think people would like him and think he was cool and wanna hang out buttt i think that he wowuld only have a couple good friends like the other beta kids buttt like his irl friends. i think dave definetly learned many domestic chores at a very young age. however i think bro would care about how dave looks, like his style and whatnot, but it would be strictly mandated by bro, with lil room for dave to express himself differently from bro. i think that dave is biracial bc i think roxy is black n dirk is pale asf in a white way.

kk now for our unoffical main character the nicest sigmaest guy john!

John Egbert hc: just clariying i think june egbert iis totally cool and probably canon buttt i personally never rly thought about it b4 getting into the fandom so i have no headcanons for her so here r my headcanons for john. john definitely is on the chubbier smaller side imo. his dad does bake a lot! i think john had a pretty good upbringing and was pretty happy with his bad movies and prank obssession. at school he probably had a couple nerdy friends and tehy were all very close! i dont think he would play dnd buttt if he did i bet thats where he would meet his friends, stranger things style. john is a classic nerd and people like him bc hes so nice and very considerate. john likes basketball n has fun playing it but isnt very good. i think john is half brazilian bc i think jake is brazilian but alpha kids are for another day haha. john has definetly broken his glasses a few times tripping over things. i think hes a bit clumbsy lol.

now onto our goth queennnn rose

Rose Lalonde hc: rose definitely had a rough childhood 2 but i think her mom took more care of her then bro did even if it was only 2 play the role of motherhood for her passive aggressive tendencies. she definitely stopped doing anything (other than vacuuming lol) once rose was old enough to do it herself. i think roses hair is bleached and straightened to oblivion and when she gets older shes defintely gonna wish she hadnt done it so much when she was younger. i think at school many people would have wanted to be her friend but she prefered more solitude, for wizard fanfics and eldritch god study. i think rose is shorter and curvier, (i def like the idea of her being shorter than kan) and a bit darker than dave. she started her intensive makeup routine in the hopes of attracting her mothers attention negatively, but with no luck. however she kept up with it because she found she liked the repetitivness of putting it on each morning, as well as the fact that it fit her overall aesthetic.

now for everyones fav doggie girl, jade!

Jade Harley hc: i love jade i think she is sooo cute. jade had an interesting childhood, being raised by a god level dog. i dont think it was necessarily bad just... very different from the other kids. i imagine she was left unattended a lot, but bec would always be aware of when to teleport in 2 save her. her hair is very long and has never really been cut officially due 2 living in the woods. jade is completely homeschooled and has nevre left the island. i think jade is rather petite and pretty thin overall... i imagine dogs probably arent the best at nutrition for humans haha. even tho jade doesnt know any kids her age in person i think she probably had many online friends and spent a lot of time online, playing games, watching videos, and just messing around. i think she learned bass from a youtube video. jade is also half brazilian cause jake

well those r my shitty headcanons

[house-bound]

My current read of Homestuck is just like the way I framed the entire story and helped me see things I would have otherwise not thought of even though I still have a lot of empty space there, pockets to be filled if you will.

It “starts” with the Cherubs, the Callie twins’s parents. In cherub reproduction they hate-fuck (Also see: blackrom, wrestling erotically), and the loser, the father, carries the egg. The loser carries the egg.

That event then is what makes it so the male child is red blooded and the female child is green blooded, but as explored on the Epilogues, gender only means as much as you want it to, that’s why Callie comes out as nonbinary, because even though the gender division is presented as a rule, it does not need to be that way at all, reminder that we learn all about cherubs from Aranea, someone who exists within the context Lord English allowed to exist, observing Alternia and learning from experience and assuming things from those.

But the main event is that, the man looses the battle to the woman, and Caliborn’s misogyny may be a subconscious resentment of that, that his male parallel lost, causing feelings of inadequacy that he tries to make up for enforcing toxic masculinity through time and space, that paradoxically he learned from 2009′s internet, even though Earth was already destroyed before he was born, he then enforces that into Alternia and Earth and all events through Homestuck.

Speaking of subconscious feelings, we know that the Squiddles are a sort of pacified rose-tinted versions of the subconscious memory of the horrorterrors, that shows that all Earth Citizens have a sort of residual memory from those that came before them to create their universe. I believe a similar effect is at play when the characters have similar thoughts about gender as the Callies, part of them remember that primordial wrestling match that created all of the events in homestuck and try to “compensate” for it. The women feel a pressure to be more passive to “balance out” for the Cherub mother that won, the men feel a pressure to be more active and masculine to “make up” for the Cherub father’s loss. Kanaya will try to be a team mom, Vriska will try to play as a fairy, Jane will put her feelings and frustrations down, Jake will try to be a masculine explorer, Dirk will try to be Dirk, and so on.

I think looking at how gender is presented is essential to looking at homestuck because SO many things draw attention to it, Calliope saying the classes have gender biases, Dave’s lecture on toxic masculinity and homophobia, Dirk’s insecurity and hesitation to even call himself gay, as well as characters having subtle transgressions in regards to their gender, Jake likes to dress like Lara Croft, Jane likes to wear mustaches, Kanaya has to break free of her passivity, Karkat is nurturing gossipy bitchy and loves romcoms, every character has these subtle breakthroughs or insatisfactions from their genders, much like how the woman defeating the man on “combat” served as a primordial instigator for all that happens after with their children.

And I could speak more of how I see things in homestuck as a reflection of the Cherub household, how Lord English is always watching on the same way Bro Strider is, how Alt Calliope is lost in the void, constantly absent much like how Mom Lalonde is. An always present father, like Dad Egbert, like Gamzee once Caliborn is free, and an absent mother like Nanna who died, like June who just fucked off. And also I could go on about Freudian imagery but like let’s not right now.

[yandere-monoma]

You mentioned a John Strider that would eventually be featured in upcoming fics. I’ve been binge reading your guardianswap fics for awhile. John Strider crumbs? I’m having a hard time imagining him

HELL YEAH my pleasure and also thank you for the message and for reading along 💖🥰🥰

john is actually my second favorite strider swap after rose! and just in general strider kidswaps are all so nicenice because we know how everyone feels about bro in canon (john thinks he's a nerdy creep, rose is amused and likes his content, jade happily goes along with the shtick in a way that you can easily argue is either genuine or mocking)

SO, that being said, the basic idea behind john strider is:

imagine a strider kid who absolutely did not grow to idolize bro in any way. in fact, he actually thinks he's incredibly lame and annoying!!! he hates his music and his fashion and his interests are dumb and he absolutely despises swords and fighting and the puppets are creepy as hell. most of all, he hates his training and shirks it as much as he can (though, after a certain point, it'd be fatal not to learn something, so he learns... enough) and really all he wants is a normal boring life like everyone else gets and he hates that, because of his dumb bro, he can't get it at all

my approach to most of the john swaps is the way he seems naturally resistant and a little bit bratty to whoever is raising him. he's rebellious but only a little bit, not enough to take any sort of action against his guardian but enough to do things his way no matter what they're trying to make him do. john crocker doesn't leave home like his far more rebellious sister (ps, guess what jade strider does fucking constantly) but he doesn't quite follow in the ole family footsteps like he's supposed to, so that's largely what's fueling these thoughts on him!

another way i imagined it: if rose strider is a 4chan troll, john strider is a reddit bro stuck with his dumb incel cuck weeb ass brother :/ life is hell

bonus: he's paired with dave lalonde, jade egbert and rose harley! while jade is still technically the leader of the group, john kind of takes a dirk-ish approach in trying to brute force his opinions on the others to the forefront and a lot of his and dave's are very heavily involved in gender roles and the repression of it vs the euphoria of actually being free and accepted 🥰

[computer-boy]

1 11 12 13 17 18 19 23 24 29 31 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 49 51 52 62 63 64 65 72 93 88 89 93 94 98. Uh. Feel free to skip some i’m aware this is a lot. i’m curious.

sorry for taking so long, answers are under the cut!! ill try to answer as many as i can lol

@st4rguy

heres the link to the post https://www.tumblr.com/sleepy-kitty-boy/743051716942004224/100-homestuck-asks

oo like... around december this year i think. (when you first got into hs)

11. not counting my fav alpha character, roxy! she's so interesting to me i love her (fav alpha kid)

12. cronus. he is a giant douchebag and i hate him (fav alpha troll)

13. dirk and hal. they're fucked up <3 (fav alpha character overall)

17. jade, but i love them all equally. jade a bit more though. (fav beta kid)

18. sollux!!! no comments he's just great i ove him (fav beta troll)

19. uhhhhdhfhdvh i can't chose sorry 😔 (fav beta character overall)

23. oo this is an interesting one!! i think bro. i want to study him Why is he like that (fav guardian) (edit: i changed my mom i like mom lalonde more now)

24. i don't really know. i don't really dislike any of them in particular (least fav guardian)

29. oo!!! either stylla, tyzias, or tegiri. (fav friendsim character)

31. davesprite or erisolsprite (fav sprite)

33. ohoho this is hard ok. either aradave or solkat i think, although i have also recently been swung onto pale erisol which is interesting! can't forget the classic meowrails too (fav pale ship)

34. vrisrose holy shit they're the kismeses of all time (fav pitch ship)

35. arafef or jaketav :) (fav flush ship)

36. im not sure honestly. i gotta think about auspisticism more man i don't have anything. karkat/jade/karkat is pretty funny though

37. erisol or davekat! (fav vacillating ship)

38. jakehal 🔥🔥 (OTP)

39. jakedirk �� (NOTP)

40. sollux and roxy are besties and you cannot convince me otherwise (BROTP)

49/51/52. gonna skip these ones bc i legitimately cannot think of anything? it hasn't been that long since i became a fan so

62. i have!! it was really fun and all the characters are interesting and unique in a way that made me really invested in it. the jade/teal car was so fun but also took me like two days lol (have you played hiveswap?)

63. ive played the first two or three volumes, but haven't had time to get around to the rest. someday... the bits that i played were fun though :) getting locked in ardatas basement was an experience (have you played friendsim?)

64. yeah! it was pretty fun. the darker endings especially were great i fucking CACKLED at the terezi one. there were some great notable moments that ill put in the tags to avoid casual spoilers lol (have you played pesterquest?)

65. no. i might but i don't particularly plan to (have you read the epilogues?)

72. feferi's head fins are axolotl gills!! also i think john can play the ghostbusters theme song on piano. he'd find a way. and roxy loves milo. it becomes her drink of choice on earth c i think :) (character headcanons?)

88. ohoho i have so many. holy shit. just a few: dreaming in binary; space cadet (hello, hello, hello, hello); So It's Going [series]; Love Letters in Digital Ink; things that go bump in the night; 12:56 (favourite fanfics)

89. serfuzzypushover, helmtechnician, missbehaviourOuO, beescake and like. a ton of other people (favourite fanartists)

93. voidbound or therapystuck!! highly recommend both. (fav mspfa)

94. about the only thing i haven't thought of about my trollsona :guaugh: probably two daggers, so 2xdaggerkind? no reason in particular i just think it's cool (what your strife specibus would be)

98. dirk, i think. something something plurality (character you relate to the most)

[pesterloglog]

Gamzee Makara, John Egbert, Roxy Lalonde, Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas, Jake English, Jade Harley

Candy, page 15

GAMZEE: OoOpS mOtHeRfUcKeRs.

JOHN: oops???

ROXY: its fine gamz

ROXY: accidents happen

ROXY: um

ROXY: hey thx everyone for joining me today

ROXY: wow now that im up here its like

ROXY: idk

ROXY: i have no idea what to say

ROXY: and i guess thats cuz there IS nothing to say

ROXY: theres no words to describe how i felt about dirk strider

ROXY: and even tho he left a note that had hella words in it

ROXY: they might as well have been sayin nothing

ROXY: which is just like dirk i guess

ROXY: to leave us with a load of bullshit and no idea why he did what he did

ROXY: so im just gonna say that

ROXY: im glad that he was in my life

ROXY: and give it over to someone whos way more eloquent than me

DAVE: hey guys

DAVE: wanna apologize in advance cuz this is about to get a lil real

DAVE: realer than that three quarters of a corpse im standing about two feet from right now

DAVE: i mean i totally hate to ruin everyones mood on a day where weve gathered to think deep thoughts about how one of us just went and fucking offed themselves

DAVE: not like were gonna be stumbling through our lives constantly experiencing intrusive thoughts about this specific event or anything

DAVE: hey remember what our good pal dirk looked like with no head

DAVE: p hard to forget since getting decapitated was like his third favorite hobby

DAVE: so its not so much the body thats the problem but the sorta

DAVE: existential realization of finality i guess

DAVE: though i aint gonna lie the bodys starting to stink

DAVE: sorry all that shit i just said was a load of absolute bull meant to deflect from the fact that im pretty shook about this

DAVE: i used to do that a lot

DAVE: like basically every time i opened my mouth

DAVE: most of you know this but i had a kinda shitty childhood

DAVE: not gonna go into details but

DAVE: long story short it was technically my good ol bro-dad heres fault

DAVE: not this specific version of him

DAVE: the one i grew up with was a

DAVE: a

DAVE: he was

DAVE: he was just an absolute bastard no offense to the dead

DAVE: yeah ok sure he taught me a ton of shit that if were being generous was in theory useful

DAVE: but he didnt give a single solitary shit about raising a well adjusted kid

DAVE: or

DAVE: raising a kid in general

DAVE: i was more like his disciple

DAVE: and all that mattered was his grand design or wtf ever

DAVE: and i know dirk struggled with

DAVE: you know

DAVE: the idea that he could eventually become that kind of person

DAVE: or even worse that he was somehow cosmically fated to become that person no matter what he wanted or did to prevent it

DAVE: thats prolly how he managed to off himself in the first place considering how the mechanics of god tier works

DAVE: maybe hed been struggling with that the whole time weve been here on earth c

DAVE: who knows with him

DAVE: he was always so inside his own head i cant even imagine what insane train of thought led him to decide that this was his only option

DAVE: but i dont think hed want us beating ourselves up about it

DAVE: or torturing ourselves trying to figure out what it fucking meant

DAVE: esp jake jane and roxy

DAVE: he loved you guys and wouldnt do anything to hurt you

DAVE: well not intentionally i mean

DAVE: anyway all that shit about my bro

DAVE: im over that

DAVE: like as much as you can get over it

DAVE: theres a subconscious response to certain stimuli you cant exactly rewire

DAVE: but the conscious part of my brain is all like

DAVE: shit dude

DAVE: i feel great

DAVE: wtf is hypervigilance??

DAVE: i love being alive and having all these friends who care about me and dont beat the shit out of me every day of my life

DAVE: etc

DAVE: and part of thats cause i got to be friends with dirk

DAVE: it was great getting to know this rad version of my childhood guardian who wasnt completely batshit insane

DAVE: and like just chill with him

DAVE: shoot the shit and freestyle or debate dumb crap without it being a federal fucking issue

DAVE: and more than that he treated me like i was on the level with him

DAVE: he let me give him shit for being a pretentious blowhard every day of his life

DAVE: which i did

DAVE: but despite that i

DAVE: i looked up to him

DAVE: the way i always felt like i should have been looking up to my bro

DAVE: the way i WANTED to look up to my bro but couldnt

DAVE: dirk taught me so much shit i didnt know i needed from him

DAVE: i mean picking up dirks opinions was unavoidable if you ever hung out with him considering he never shut his fucking mouth

DAVE: but im glad he didnt

DAVE: he taught me about combat

DAVE: philosophy

DAVE: life

DAVE: and im sure had he not killed himself the literal day i was finally gonna ask him romantic advice

DAVE: he wouldve taught me about love too

DAVE: so in the end

DAVE: i really got no idea how the fuck im supposed to feel right now

DAVE: but thats probably ok right

DAVE: like its ok

DAVE: to not know how to feel when someone dies

DAVE: its ok to not have all the answers

DAVE: i wish dirk were still alive so i could tell him that

DAVE: but hes not

DAVE: so

DAVE: i guess thats all i got to say about that

ROXY: anyone else have a eulogy theyd like to give

ROXY: i think the best way we can honor dirks memory at this point

ROXY: is to spew an untold number of words into the void

ROXY: as many as we fuckin can

GAMZEE: WhAt’S uP oN tHiS mOsT rIgHtEoUs AnD fRoWnY Of DaYs My BiTcHeS. :’o(

KARKAT: OH MY GOD

KARKAT: NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY, GAMZEE.

GAMZEE: HaHaHaHa YoU sTiLl GoT iT bRoThEr.

GAMZEE: mY mOtHeRfUcKeR oF cOmEdY’s In ThA pRaYbLoCk! ThAt MiRtHfUl NoIsE yOu HoLlEr StIlL sLaPs My MaNg.

KARKAT: IT’S NOT A FUCKING JOKE.

GAMZEE: NiNjAs AnD gEnTlEhOeS!

GAMZEE: We GaThEr Up At ThIs ShRiNe Of WoRsHiP tO wHaTeVeR fAlSe IdOlS oR mEsSiAhS tHeSe HoMiEs GeT tHeIr DeVoTiOn On FoR.

GAMZEE: BuT tHaT’s Ok, BeCaUsE wE’rE mOtHeRfUcKiN uNiFiEd ToDaY, nO mAtTeR wHaT oUr BaD aNd DiFfErEnT bElIeFs SaY aT uS tO oUr PiEtY pAnS.

GAMZEE: We CoMe In CeLeBrAtIoN oF tHe LiFe! :o)

GAMZEE: aNd DeAtH. :o(

GAMZEE: Of ThE oNe AnD oNlY, a TrUlY cHoIcE pIeCe Of MaN-bItCh WhAt WhOm I hArDlY eVeR kNeW:

GAMZEE: tHe DiRkStEr.

KARKAT: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

GAMZEE: ThEn, YoU mIgHt Be Up AnD wOnDeRiNg, WhAt PlAcE hAvE i GoT aLl OrAtInG oN tHe SuBjEcT oF tHe LeGeNd Of ThIs FiNe FeLlOw?

GAMZEE: tHaT’s A gOoD qUeStIoN mY mIrThFuL bRoThErS.

GAMZEE: i MaY nOt Be AlL uP aNd LeArNeD aBoUt HiS lIfE, bUt I’vE gOt DeEp SpIrItAl CoNnEcTiOnS tO hIs DeAtH.

GAMZEE: It JuSt So HaPpEnEd ThAt FaTe BrOuGhT mE tO hIs DoOrStEp On ThE vErY dAy ThAt He WeNt AnD mOtHeRfUcKiNg ChOkEd It OfF aT tHe NeCk.

GAMZEE: oNe Of ThE mOsT sPiRiTuAlLy AwAkEnInG mOmEnTs In My LiFe...

GAMZEE: In SuCh A sHoRt TiMe He TaUgHt Me So MuCh.

GAMZEE: ThIs WaS nO cOiNcIdEnCe. It WaS a HiGhEr PoWeR gUiDiNg My PaTh.

GAMZEE: tHeSe PoWeRs MaDe SuRe ThAt I wOuLd Be ThErE, tO rEcEiVe A gReAt WaRrIoR’s FiNaL mEsSaGe, AnD rElAy It To YoU oN tHiS dArK aNd DrEaRy DaY oF dEaTh.

GAMZEE: HoNk!

GAMZEE: AwWw, ShIzZ. i GuEsS i’Ve GoT tO uP aNd WiNg It!

GAMZEE: YoU eVeR wAkE uP aNd SiT dOwN tO dRoP a FaT oNe In ThE lOaD gApEr, BuT yOuR fLeSh BoDy JuSt AiN’t ReAdY tO gO aNd DoOk It OuT yEt?

GAMZEE: tHaT’s WhAt LiFe WaS lIkE fOr ThE d-MaN.

GAMZEE: A mAn BoRn WiTh A pUrPoSe. A pLaN.

GAMZEE: bUt ThE wIcKeD wAyS oF tHiS wOrLd StOlE tHaT aWaY fRoM hIm...

ROXY: WOW WASNT THAT GREAT FOLKS!

ROXY: WOW JUST WOW I KNEW THIS GUY WOULDNT LET US DOWN

ROXY: BRAVO!!! DAMN I FEEL LIKE IF I NEVER HEARD ANOTHER WORD THIS GUY EVER SAID THATD BE FINE BECAUSE THAT WAS ALL JUST SO *PERFECT*

ROXY: ANYTHING MORE WOULD ONLY DAMPEN THIS PERFECT MEMORY HE GAVE US!

ROXY: TAKE A BOW GAMZEE AND THEN OH YEAH THE EXITS THAT WAY!

GAMZEE: hOoOoOoOoOnK.

ROXY: (hey dude can u get up there and say somethin as like...)

ROXY: (a palate cleanser?)

JAKE: Gulp! Uh...

ROXY: (he was your best bro! come on man surely u got somethin in ur heart to say)

JAKE: Oh... Okay.

ROXY: hay everybody its jakes turn!

ROXY: hes got a few words hed like to say about our dear departed buddy

JOHN: (oh for fuck’s sake.)

JOHN: uhh, hi guys!

DAVE: hey

KARKAT: I SEE THAT EVEN YOU COULDN’T BEAR GAMZEE’S ASININE, BRUTAL AND 100% NONCONSENSUAL ASSAULT ON YOUR LISTEN CRATERS, AND ALSO THE BASIC DECENCY WHICH SAPIENT BEINGS APPARENTLY OWE TO ONE ANOTHER ON THIS PLANET.

JOHN: no, um, actually i listened to the entire thing.

JOHN: i have no idea why i did that. now i have this whole memory in my head that i could have definitely lived without.

JOHN: i was just worried... because you didn’t come back.

JOHN: dave, are you ok?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: well no

DAVE: but its ok to not be ok about this specific thing i think

DAVE: so for once i think im having like

DAVE: a totally unironically normal emotional reaction to a thing

DAVE: which loops around back to being ok

DAVE: in fact im probs the okayest ive ever been objectively

JOHN: are you SURE?

KARKAT: THAT WAS HALF A HUNDRED WORDS TO EXPRESS A THREE LETTER SENTIMENT.

KARKAT: I’D SAY HE’S DOING FINE.

JOHN: hmm.

JOHN: because i was thinking...

JOHN: do you... want me to go back?

DAVE: go

DAVE: back??

JOHN: with my retcon powers.

JOHN: i could go back and stop him.

DAVE: dude

KARKAT: JOHN!

JOHN: what!

KARKAT: DO YOU NOT HAVE AN INCH OF GODDAMN SENSE IN THAT THICK FUCKING SKULL OF YOURS?

JOHN: what!!!

DAVE: john

DAVE: come on what are my powers

JOHN: ummm... time travel?

DAVE: so you dont think i wouldve already done that if i thought it was a good idea

JOHN: well ok yeah, obviously.

JOHN: but if you DID do it we wouldn’t even know right now because it would’ve just made a new timeline where dirk didn’t kill himself. that’s how time travel works, right?

DAVE: ehhh well actually

JOHN: but!

JOHN: if i retcon it...

JOHN: then it’s like it never even happened!

JOHN: we wouldn’t have had this horrible funeral at all.

DAVE: i dunno dude thats

DAVE: a little fucked up actually

JOHN: you think so?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: dirk was a complicated guy

DAVE: dude obviously had reasons for doing what he did

DAVE: if you go back and just rewrite his decision

DAVE: thats like denying him his personal autonomy

JOHN: huh. i... didn’t think about it that way.

JADE: dave!!! roxys wondering where you are

DAVE: oh yeah be right there

JADE: what about you karkat? you coming??

KARKAT: YES! GOD!

KARKAT: CAN’T A MAN STAND ON A MOIST AND DREARY PIECE OF RELIGIOUS PROPERTY TO HELP CONSOLE HIS MAIN BRO?!

KARKAT: JESUS FUCK, GOD FORBID WE UPSET THE CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED FUNERAL PROGRAMMING WHICH JUST FEATURED A SEGMENT WHEREIN A DEEPLY UNPOPULAR CLOWN PISSED HIMSELF IN FRONT OF THE CLAMORING PAPARAZZI!

JADE: oh lord... you dumb baby

JADE: karkat it looks to ME like youre the one third wheeling dave and johns poignant brotimes

JADE: so why dont you get your butt on over here???

KARKAT: ARGH... FINE!

DAVE: john

DAVE: i get what you were trying to do

DAVE: but

DAVE: its ok dude

DAVE: im ok

JOHN: that’s weird...

JOHN: it was working just the other day.

ROXY: lmao john its just me

ROXY: doin ok up there b?

JOHN: i’m fine!!!

JOHN: wait. b?

ROXY: yea like short for babe

ROXY: cuz ur my babe b

JOHN: oh, haha. right.

ROXY: is dave ok?

JOHN: yeah, i guess.

JOHN: ...

JOHN: are YOU okay?

ROXY: yea

ROXY: yea

ROXY: actually

ROXY: im more than ok

ROXY: cause ive been thinking

JOHN: oh?

ROXY: about you n me

ROXY: and this

ROXY: hey john

ROXY: we should get hitched

JOHN: ummmmmm...

JOHN: um...

JOHN: ...what???

ROXY: um what WHAT?

ROXY: john cmon

ROXY: marry me

JOHN: like...

JOHN: right NOW?

ROXY: lmao totes

ROXY: were already at the church n everything

JOHN: o-oh my god.

JOHN: oh my god!

ROXY: john

JOHN: oh my god, are you serious??

ROXY: no LOL

ROXY: john u take everything so literally

ROXY: its fuckin adorbs

JOHN: is that... why you want to marry me?

ROXY: yea

ROXY: im off the charts with all my jokes n shit

ROXY: and i gotta even all that out

ROXY: with this like HUGE helping of clueless nerd :)

JOHN: roxy...

ROXY: ok but lets be serious here moment

ROXY: i actually do love that youre so earnest

ROXY: its cute as fuck and also

ROXY: i always know where i stand with you

JOHN: roxy...

ROXY: sides this whole

ROXY: THING with dirk

ROXY: its made me realize that even though were immortal

ROXY: were not necessarily gonna live forever

ROXY: lifes too short not to spend every moment with the one u love

JOHN: you...

JOHN: LOVE me??

ROXY: yea john i love you

ROXY: wanna marry u and spend the rest of my life with u and pop out a bunch of cute lil buck toothed babies with you

JOHN: oh, uh. haha, wow. roxy that’s um.

JOHN: that’s a LOT.

ROXY: well you dont gotta answer rn

ROXY: just know its on the table

JOHN: i...

JOHN: i...

JOHN: ok.

JOHN: ok, let’s... let’s do it!

ROXY: ooo u want to do it??

JOHN: yeah!

JOHN: er... i mean...

JOHN: um, yeah. that too.

JOHN: but i meant...

JOHN: about the getting married thing.

JOHN: let’s... do that!

JOHN: let’s totally get married!!

ROXY: omg

ROXY: were gonna be SO freakin happy!

[nightsky-edits]

would it be cool to ask for a shufflemancy for the relationship between jake crocker and i (dirk lalonde [roxyways])? i feel like i had a strong attachment to him, but i don’t think it was returned. i feel like we weren’t really “friends” per say, but it could just be me self loathing.

I got Downhill by Lincoln and Crooked Teeth by Death Cab for Cutie

To me, it sounds like you may have initially believed you had a strong attachment to him, but you were viewing him through rose-tinted glasses. Jake could do no wrong to you. And so you put him on a pedestal placing him above yourself in the hierarchy of needs because you didn't want to care about yourself. Creating a sort of like messy nightmare situation. I don't think you were necessarily one-sided but you definitely were one-sided in the pedestal placing. I think you both cared about each other but in the end, a mixture of your self-hatred and self-realization probably wedged between you two. The first song is very much an "I know you hate me cause I hate me and I'm sorry I can't be what you need" sort of song while the second one is more like "I know that I fucked up and I don't think I ever truly loved you I just thought I did because I hated myself so fucking much" But yeah i think that the initial stages of your relationship probably taught you a lot about yourself while also distancing you from him probably out of shame or guilt.

The most important lines in both of these songs to me in this context are

"You cant find nothing if there was nothing there all along" - Crooked Teeth

" And if I meant every word that I ever said, You would probably question the life I have led, You’d probably think I’m an evil, broken person, And you would be right" - Downhill by Lincoln

Here you go! Hope this helps :p

[davekat-sucks]

Was re-reading the official "first year of homestuck" recap Hussie mde and when he brought up the strife between John and his dad it was literally described as "domestic adversities". Does this mean Dad Egbert beats his kid? Where's his call out post? Lol. Idk the strifing is so casual i always had interpreted as super exaggerated interaction from the kids pov or just rough housing. Bro definitely bullied Dave but not as horribly as the fandom likes to claim. People act like Bro never cared for Dave when that definitely isn't true considering he and Dave hung out a lot and let Dave have his own room and interests. Plus he saved Daves life more than once. Though leaving weapons and porn puppets around was pretty irresponsible even Dave had expressed annoyance with it. Act 6 writing took a turn and became shitty teen drama stuff and that conversation where Dave berated Dirk made him look like an absolute hypocritical cunt. Dude wants to talk about irresponsible parenting to a guy that he didn't raise in Dirks timeline.

We never even got to hear Dirk's side of the story of his own relationship with his father. Yes Alpha Bro is some famous celebrity, but we don't hear Dirk on how he deals with that kind of fame and the aftermath of his brother's death to defeat the troll queen. For all we know, Dirk may not have the physical abuse, but he probably had to deal with Alpha Dave's ideal of irony that it had damage any close connections Dirk tries to have with him. It would give him a reason why he is a bit controlling of relationships because his shit bro/dad brushed him off. People had thought the strife between parents thing is a joke, but why is it Bro vs Dave taken as a serious thing compared to others? They are even fine with Rose almost killing herself during that heat of moment. Bro saved Dave's life and had assisted him on entering the Medium. I would say that his treatment to Dave is more of hard training to prepare himself on Sburb. It's parallel to how Mom Lalonde was preparing Rose. She has her Skaianet Lab to help explain about ectobiology and paradox clones. Bro went to physically train Dave to be prepared for any dangers that will come. Be it the journey that Dave would have to go through on his planets and the imps & monsters. The only thing he didn't account for was Jack Noir, which he had to confront himself to let his younger brother live just a little longer.

[simmonsized]

Is it cool if I keep asking for your hcs? They’re pretty fun tbh. I got excited seeing the notification for the last one and they did not disappoint. Maybe I’ll ask for Alpha Dave this time because he’s pretty fun in your fic. I love his characterization a lot! Mom Lalonde would be nice too but hmm, maybe next ask? Or do both if you’d like to. It’s really up to you.

I just really like your guardians hehe.

Of course!!!! Honestly it is a lot of fun for me and it gives me an excuse to talk because, you know! Tbh it's the first time anyone has asked me in depth about any of the silly stuff I spend all my time thinking about, so I kind of love it! (also please always ask abt the guardians, i really like them, too!!)

WARNING THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME AFTER ALL IT’S VERY LONG I’M SORRY

SO: Alpha Dave (in context of rng)

A!Dave (and Bro) broke his nose when he was 13, for plot reasons, so his nose is slightly crooked (lists to the left)

He is Tall and hunches constantly because he hates being the tallest person in the room but no he doesn't but yes he does

Also it makes it easier to talk to people shorter than him

He can in fact fit into alpha Rose's clothes

He's a nail biter

This man has anxiety

He didn't get his glasses until he met Ben Stiller obviously so before that he would just wear very funny plastic sunglasses

Speaking of plastic this man own nothing but plastic cups EXCEPT

He owns one Whataburger mug that he has had since he was 10

He slept on John Crocker's floor for like, 4 years when he said he was going to college (he did not go to college)

This man did not even bother finishing high school

The Con Air Museum was a birthday present for John (he never got to see it in person)

Absolutely refuses to eat the crusts on his pizza and leaves them lying around the house for weeks until someone else picks them up

Only owns 7 pairs of socks god help him

Yes some of them have no heel

Also Left-handed for obvious reasons

collected Zoobooks until the fall of the humanity meant the publishing company went under

He keeps them in the back of his closet where no one but him will ever know

The secret to guardians is that they are duty-bound to their "kid", even if it means dying for them (example Mr bro bad man strider) but their separation over time and a whole life lived has caused Dave (and Rose) to lose most of that. Interpret any changes after meeting Dirk as you will

He is really bad with kids, mostly because

Dave Strider does not like kids

He does not like talking to kids, does not know how to talk to kids, because by the time he died at 65, there were no kids left for him to talk to, and he is just. Kind of a weird dude

My man has not had an apple juice in literally 16 years

Also to reference my last post, the alpha guardian formula [(2024+4n)-1995+t] means he and Rose were 65 when they died, according to RNG canon

He also broke his arm when he was 12 :)

He has never been to Disneyworld but used to take himself to Disneyland once a year for Christmas, sometimes Rose if she would fly out for him

He used to work in a record shop in Houston

This man can cook even less than Mom Lalonde

all his chapter titles have a theme

He does not like puppets but his proximity to Dirks (and Bro) are giving him pretty much unwanted exposure therapy lmfao

His favorite soda is Cherry Cola :)!

This man has never wanted anyone to like him as much as he desperately wants every iteration of Dirk Strider to like him

He is more interested in getting his own way than placating people, and this causes him to routinely mow over other people's thoughts and feelings

If he realizes he cannot get his way this way, he switches to Being Nice

He cannot (will not) stop following after Bro Strider like a lost dog after a bone no this will not change

It's fucked up but he is genuinely jealous that, at times, Dirk appears to get along better with Bro than he does with Dave

He uses strawberry scented shampoo

But still buys cvs brand detergent yes even now

He has scars across his knuckles in the exact same pattern as Bro Strider

He's also got the same scar across his palm as Bro :)

Only ties his shoes into bunny ears

There was a time when the alpha guardians did not know that their lil packages would never arrive

Can sleep literally everywhere on everything

Undisclosed back injury that causes bouts of sciatica from time to time

Is 120% more likely to accidentally kill a person than Bro Strider, but both of them have that kind of control you only get from a lifetime of not being particularly kind to yourself

Not afraid of blood

Has always wanted to go to a candy store

Actually likes driving BUT

Possibly the second most reckless driver out of all the guardians, after Mom Lalonde

Has some fucked up way of viewing both the Daves through the lens of his younger self, but unfortunately for all Daves, dead (or recently back to life) daves are the enemy

Did not learn how to swim until he was in his teens

Alpha Rose Lalonde was his only friend for like 20 years and my god, it shows

It is actually so fucking funny to me that bro spent so long trying to get Dave to stab him, on purpose, and yes this is also about Bro but mostly about Dave, and yes, he was in fact hoping Dave would stab him, and he was also a little disappointed that Dave had enough control to stop himself

Probably also impressed

Dave thought he was fucking insane (he is) and thus felt guilty every single fucking time because it's just a Dirk (bad)

But also at the same time has the same compulsion as Bro to like. Poke him until one of them gets stabbed by a sword, on purpose.

Wears a watch for the funnies

I really like the concept that Dave and Rose both maintained some kind of connection to their aspects but for Dave who never had a connection to the horrorterrors or Light (fortune), he mostly came across as what I am currently calling "a Failed Knight" (thus my joke about the old knight adage, "service without complaint")

Has a tendency to put things into his pockets instead of his sylladex without thinking about it

Started smoking younger than Bro

Pall malls, always, shitty on purpose, yes

Learned to sit still during [redacted] but has since pretty much lost that ability and is now completely fucking unlikely to stand still for longer than necessary unless it's like

Performative

I think he is more likely to yell than Dave, because that cold anger is a Learned Trait, and I think he has a lot to be angry about

He absolutely is going to need bifocals one day never before has a man squinted so much as a computer screen for so long

Coffee is half his diet

His favorite color is blue

stardust is an intentional parallel of neptunium

Remember that time Dave beheaded a juggalo president and no one talks about it what the fuck is up with that

He also has a fucked up death scar but I think I already said that

Thank you for asking I'm realizing I could go forever so I'm stopping here

[loki-zen]

Hot Take:

1. post-canon Homestuck is quite good actually,

2. certainly better than the bad/off the rails latter parts of canon Homestuck,

3. and, actually, on several craft-of-writing levels it’s better than canon Homestuck full stop; AH has grown as a writer and an artist in the intervening years and as such the day-to-day panels of HS^2 look better, its story is better paced, jumping between story threads is done more artfully, the cast is pared down to a more manageable size, and there are several characters that it always felt like he didn’t really know what he was doing with them who have been figured out and used to far greater effect, as well as popular original Homestuck characters whose arcs are meaningfully improved by the continuation.

Spoilers under cut (mild I guess)

The character stuff really benefits from the greater freedom post-canon provides in terms of narrative role.

In canon, there was basically only one role any of the human or humanlike characters could have - Hero of [Blah], player of the Game, aspiring saviour of the universe. Boring. Especially in the Alpha kids, it fell flat in everyone but Roxy.

Jane and Dirk are infinitely more interesting as sometimes-at-least-somewhat-sympathetic antagonists. Jake English is infinitely more tolerable when his role is not ‘Hero of Hope’ but ‘that shallow somewhat irritating guy you knew as a kid who is now a shallow somewhat irritating celebrity.’ Roxy’s quantum transness is Extremely Relatable and I think pretty damn well-written in the end (I’m thinking of eg the conversation Candy Roxy (she/her) has with John about the situation in ^2).

Speaking of which, the timeline shit is better utilised here and easier to understand. And the way fourth-wall breaking, format screw shenanigans interfaces with the plot is a lot more well done (or at least more well thought out? More coherent.), and imo genuinely sinister and chilling at times.

All that said, it does lack some Inestimable Something that prevents me from claiming that it’s outright better. Maybe it’s just that by definition it can’t be groundbreaking the way the original was. And it’s far from perfect - Meat is much longer than it needs to be in classic AH style while Candy is very half-assedly (un)finished, and ^2 itself will probably never get finished, or at least I’m not getting my hopes up.

But it’s got its charms, for sure, and might’ve been unfairly skipped out on by people who were put off by how the original went off the rails. It’s definitely a valiant attempt to get back on some rails.

YMMV if your favourite troll isn’t in it, of course. (Off the top of my head, Eridan, Nepeta, Equius and both Piexes do not reappear at all; Sollux is barely in it, Aradia has a somewhat minor role, and Tavros… well that one’s kind of interesting, but the character we know does not reappear.)

[SPOILER re the above: a character with the same speech/typing quirk, approximate narrative positioning and first name does appear, but he is a human who is related in no way to the Tavros we remember.]

(also I think Jade fans could reasonably say she is done dirty by post-canon to the point that they may well prefer her arc untainted by knowledge of her post-canon self. Depends what side of her you’re into. Same goes for Jade and Dirk fans who prefer to think of them as heroic characters I guess?)

(Additionally, in ‘things I just think are neat’, there is an Egbert/Strilonde baby in the mix, and we discover that the synthesis of Egbert nerdery, Strider extroverted-insecurity and Lalonde virtuosic dramaticness is, naturally, a Theatre Kid.)

[paradoxkinspace]

Mod Memory Event Guide Post!

We thought it would be fun to talk a bit more in depth about our timelines, swaps, etc so for ease, we’ve put together this small guide for organization. 

You guys are of course all welcome to ask questions or share some of your own memories if you’d like! But even if you’d rather keep to yourself, this should hopefully serve as a reference for our incessant babbling, hahahahaha

We’ve provided lists below of the specific timelines we’d most like to talk about for this event, though a reminder that a majority of our Homestuck kin lists are included in the Mod Info section of our pinned post if you’d like to ask about something listed there instead.

Also- thank you guys for 200 followers!!! We hope we can keep bringing you great stuff in the future!

---

💫Mod ClowncAR💫: hmmm, let’s see... well I’m mostly interested in discussing timelines that are pretty canon divergent if not full on AUs. let’s see... honestly a huge chunk of my Gamzee timelines are a good go (Vantas, Megido, Captor, Zahhak, and Peixes). I’d talk about my False Prophet or Beforus Ancestor timelines if my memories were more concrete but they’re mostly fuzzy visuals and audio right now. Then there’s my Dirk “Dusk” Lalonde swapline, and honestly I could talk about either of my Hal timelines since one is highly canon divergent (for example I wasn’t the only AR) and the other is a kidswap. There’s also Lanque Soleil, Meulin Vantas, and GHB Serket. I got some others I like but they’re still so fuzzy that any questions would be pretty much just an “i dont know” and a spit of guesswork soooo I’ll leave those quiet. For now ;o)

🃏Mod Clownbae🃏: If I had to pick a few timelines to talk about, it'd probably have to be some of my bloodswaps (Lime Marvus, Horuss Captor, Meulin Serket, Lime Kurloz, or Kurloz Serket specifically), or maybe my Dirk Egbert timeline. I also have two AR timelines, both where I'm technically Hal, but I was made by a kidswap Dirk so its a little different. I'm also very willing to talk about some of my weirder tls, like my cowboy Kurloz timeline, or my.....southern horror Roxy timeline. Which was also a kidswap, and I went by Rome. I also have a non canon troll kin, Azodus Temera, that's a little twisty fun and weird. Pick your poison!

🍭Mod Jubejube🍭: I could babble about a lot of timelines but I especially wanna talk about my swaps; Bronya Xoloto, Nepeta Megido, Vriska Nitram, Jace (Jane) English, Remele Goezee, Cirava Carmia, and Cronus (Serket, Makara, both vantas’). And of course some of my favorites Kuprum Maxlol, Lynera Skalbi, Jade Harley, and Quinn Egbert!! Heck, they’re pretty fuzzy, but you could ask me about my Uncle Crotuna, Swapped Calliope, and Trickster Eridan timelines. Ask away!!

[tomatograter]

What are your thoughts on Dave's bro/Beta Dirk and Grandpa Harley/Beta Jake, as in, how do you feel like their relationship played out in their timeline?

(If you already talked about this in a post I'm so sorry but could you link it?)

I don't think i ever actually talked about this aside from joking, nop. If you mean relationship as in their work dynamic, we know that grandpa employed both mom lalonde and bro strider— whether this was done officially in paid Skaianet positions or just person to person to put plot shit in it's place is like, up to the viewer. Main miss i see frequently is the impression that beta dirk operated alone or got his information alone while the others played npc roles, which is simply not true. If anything grandpa + mom are implicated in the direct coding, orchestration and release of Sburb wayyyy more openly than he is, which makes him look like he's doing fuck all on the side, but they still aren't solitary operators. Dad egbert is legitimately the only guardian who just jumped in for the ride last minute and was prolly clueless during his tragic short time there. Mom could have filled him in when they were onboard the spaceship? Idk.

If you mean their relationship as in romantic relationship, being fairly honest; chances are nothing happened here. Its a bit noticeable that while grandpa does take roxy under his wing and keeps her relatively close to his family (she's included in joey's family crafts even)

The same cannot be said about dirk. (Read the following with a slight sigh:) according to the skaianet archives, beta jake moves up to new york to help raise roxy halfway through working on the development of some "incredibly advanced software" that he will only later discover results in the game, when he finally comes into contact with the artifacts on the frog island; while dirk, all the way out in texas, was set to grow up remotely with a trust fund. Through the items present in Jade's house, particularly the neon colored rooms made vaguely in honor of the other 'alpha' kids, it is somewhat implied that beta jake, like jade at the beginning of HS, had some foreknowledge of things yet to come thanks to Inane Plot Bullshit, and this is joked about/referenced with alpha jake a few times too. (You could blame this on info he got from the ruins or visions from the clouds of prospit or just general story bullshit thanks to the fact the alphas are paradox-people that originated out of themselves ie nothing, and they exist to fill mechanical roles) SO while we get a lot of fond cross-referencing of their interests & dirk's character in a postmortem way in the beta universe—it does feel like he was purposefully avoiding dirk. Reasons vary: The age difference is too dramatic in a fixed timeline, that's not something i think jake would be comfortable with, he's deeply closeted still, they are all literally working against the sands of time and going to die, etc.

The alpha universe provides ideal conditions in that it gives them the opportunity to live a life they simply weren't programmed to before, but i'd be remiss not to mention that even there, dirk is sent 400 years into the future. Running theme.