#i used to do this kind of stuff with homestuck aus where id explore whatever the fuck was going on in specific parts of the story

[weirderscience]

im gonna word barf about aus and why i use them. when i make aus i tend to focus primarily on exploring characters and themes under a specific situation- eg the roleswap au is about exploring what parallels and contrasts to dhmis.

dhmis to me is about conformity to norms and how the world is constantly telling you how and what to think about certain topics even though theres so much more to explore on any subject than the surface level. it’s about how episodic formats can stifle storytelling. its about how nobody really knows what theyre doing and theyre just trying to feel normal when everything is going to shit around them. its about inaction and passivity being beaten into you as a child. its about grief, and about mourning a past that distorts and warps itself to envelop your entire way of thinking, and the more you look back the stranger and more upsetting it gets.

so like, how can we explore that with the character archetypes we have? what themes and archetypes can we boil down to the very basics, what can be expanded upon? can we divorce the concepts from each other, or is it really the same media after being transformed so much? that’s what the fun of aus is to me. if that makes sense