#homestuck guardian swap

[casinocrow]

John + June Lalonde sprite edits based off a shirt I own irl that's perfect for a JJ Lalonde. Also because my friends said I was a irl John Lalonde.

Said shirt can be bought here: [link] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1105522965/purple-n-black-stripe-sleeved-bunny-goth

Reasons why I'm a John Lalonde according to my friends

+ I have family who own a bakery irl, no I don't have ties to Betty crocker

+ I like stuff like Ghoster Busters, Saw, Genloss, Reanimator, as well as some action movies like Deadpool, Venom and the Kingsmen and pod casts like welcome to nightvale and Magnus archives

+ an interest in cryptids, ghost hunting, the paranormal, urban exploring, cryptozoology or the zoologically dubious as it may be called,

+ the shown shirt above being THE JJ Lalonde shirt

+ I sleep with a hammer under my pillow, my guardian keeps trying to reclaim and move it elsewhere but no I really think it prefers being under my pillow in case of hammer emergencies it's not like we've had break ins before because 911 responders got the adress they were called to wrong

+ Im Transmasc enby but thats ok the June is still present being born in June and all

+ I'm dorky like vanilla JJ to outsiders but to those who've met me and know know me you see the lalonde

+ I think I know a two or thing about coding but am just bad at it. Don't let me near you gaming set up guys

[ithinkdogshouldvote]

Guardian swap au for 4/13 ^ ^

[weirdmageddon]

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me

[shimshamshimsham]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Homestuck Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jade Harley & Dave Strider, Jade Harley & Rose Lalonde, John Egbert & Jade Harley Characters: Jade Egbert, Jade Harley, Dave Lalonde, Dave Strider, Rose Strider, Rose Lalonde, John Harley, John Egbert, Dad Egbert, Nanna Egbert | Beta Jane Crocker Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Guardian Swap, ill add more characters as we get further in lol, Same For Relationships Summary:

Your name is Jade Egbert, and today is your 13th birthday! Coincidentally, it is also the day that everything in your life will change.

(In which the guardians of the beta kids are swapped)

Original AU and art by @ithinkdogshouldvote​! Check them out!

[vampirephlebotomy]

I realise that was an old post but. Please tell us about dave lalonde and rose strider. The People Need To Know

Sorry that I'M getting to this late but yeah, I don't mind buddy. I'll toss it under a cut though, I dunno how long this will get because originally this "essay" was a 1 A.M. rant I sent to a friend (hello to you if you're reading this buddy) but I'm going to try and make it actually coherent and normal for you. Because it was a bit of an insane ramble I kept getting distracted on.

So. Guardianswap Dave Lalonde:

Eccentric, as all Lalondes are. Probably finds himself drawn particularly to odd art and paintings, and despises Mom's statues as Rose does

Reads more than he interacts with others/is slightly shut off and often doesn't respond because of this. He tries not to seem cold when he does get back to his friends, though

Drinks tea often, writes odd stories and often muses about changing the world in some way, yet isn't ever really sure how he could really impact things so they stay as musings

Translates anger into visual mediums like painting but it never really goes away, frustrated at almost everything and everyone but has gotten very good at concealing it unless poked and prodded too much. Compares himself too often to the artists he has paintings of/is inspired by/etc.

This anger at the world and everyone mainly stems from his issues with Mom Lalonde and her neglect, and this leads into being a Rage player instead of taking up Light or staying Time. I've never once payed attention to the "gender locking" of certain classes (its weird as fuck to me) so yeah, I think he'd be a Witch of Rage. He craves control/command/whatever word you prefer for Witches over just something so much and it's shown in that. Fight me on that or whatever.

His chumhandle becomes [aC]: airbrushedCholeric (referencing a painting method and being bad tempered/irritable).

And on the other side, Guardianswap Rose Strider:

Has an interest in entomology, (that I would say is bordering on obsession but she's just autistic). Especially involving raising bugs and pinning them after death and learning about them and their behaviours, and framing them.

Still plays violin and is scarily good at it. It's one of those things she just threw herself into so hard it's unnerving to Bro. She makes it like, her life mission at a certain age

Knife collection instead of the whole sword thing. I don't have much reasoning for this other than I feel it in my soul

Not phased by the puppets, she mostly thinks they're stupid now and has used this against Bro more than once to terrify him.

Probably has thought about eating a person

I established that I think she would be a Time player instead of keeping Light, despite Dave Lalonde becoming a Rage player, but I do think she would keep the Seer class. So, Seer of Time.

Her chumhandle becomes [tC]: trackingCoronatus, referencing an Orchid Mantis, (Hymenopus Coronatus) and, obviously, tracking someone down/stalking.

And uhhh I'm pretty sure that's it. Questions/comments/concerns are welcome, come scream at me for all I care, my inbox stays fresh and open a sexy 24 hours 7 days a week. Here's a pic of my cat for the road, stay frosty duderino

[hartteart]

your name is jade egbert, your name is john june harley, your name is dave lalonde, your name is rose strider

-

hey anyone want a good guardian swap AU?

(@shimshamshimsham is doing a wonderful job with the above fic, btw, which in turn was inspired by an AU by @ithinkdogshouldvote)

[dingodad]

what made you choose denizens as your main inspo for your fantroll names? is there more lore/characterization for them based on the denizens whose names they match? easter eggs?

(scrolled your whole fantroll tag to make sure i wasn’t crazy and that a yaldabaoth (yiaweh) and a typheus (typhon) existed)

braxas and co were born out of a kind of homestuck AU bubble that formed when guidestuck was really popular. this kind of thing was everywhere in ask blogs and fanadventures that obviously did not have enough substance to last any longer than a hundred pages... what if the consorts were humans who played sburb, what if the LANDS were humans who played sburb, what if sprites like tavris and fefeta were humans and played sburb, what if the guardians were young and played sburb, what if the lusii were trolls AND genderbent... i wanted to get in on the action and i guess it seemed like the denizens were kind of what was left.

at that time it was pretty standard to have fantrolls that were ""based on"" something so i ended up roleplaying as braxas a bunch and he developed so much as a character that he ended up sticking around. the rest of them never really got the same level of care but basically came along with him as accessories. i guess in this way braxas is kind of like my own personal version of sans underfell???????!!!!!!!!!

(ok i googled this and it turns out the sans i was thinking of with all the error stuff wasn't even sans underfell but in fact a completely different popular AU version of sans. so for all the people too young to know what the fuck was happening in the homestuck fandom 10 years ago, that should give you a pretty good point of comparison for the level of swap AU saturation we were at.)

a lot of their characterisation largely still draws from their origins with a little bit of their mythological namesakes mixed in (though their ancestors play out the original myths a lot more faithfully). braxas is probably the least explored denizen in the comic so most of his deal is inspired by the philosophy of abraxas as a concept, and his anguipede lusus is directly based on classical depictions of abraxas. most of their designs can in some way be traced back to their designs in homestuck too, though braxas has probably been through more iterations than anyone else.

i imagine you can also see how i got hemera and nix' horns from their associated denizens' "tails".

their whole sburb story that i don't really talk about because i still have it in my head that it will appear one day fully-formed on the internet as a fanadventure is largely an elaboration on themes of like, becoming a myth and apotheosis and such so the fact that these are trolls who for some strange reason also happen to look and talk exactly like the mysterious gods of sburb has definitely been incorporated into their reason for existing. but like for instance the fact that they all live on their own different conquered alien planets which vaguely look like the kind of planet you might find those denizens on is all part of it

[the-final-sif]

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 75 total works currently!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

904,821 total words written!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently only really DSMP, but in the past I've written for bnha, marvel, rise of the guardians, homestuck, transformers and a bunch of other random ones in there.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Before looking, my guess is it'll all be bnha, since some of those are my longer ones and and got pretty popular.

Katsuki Bakugou has No Goddamn Chill (But It's For The Best That He Doesn't) - 26,412 kudos

Lessons Learned - 15,859 kudos

You know that thing where an orchestra swaps instruments, and like, some of them get it right away, but others have no clue what they're doing? This is that but with quirks, two unwilling participants, and also Emotions - 11,774 kudos

The Green Eyed Monster - 7,066 kudos

A Yellow Box, Time, Trust, and A Few Adjustments - 6,579 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Not usually, I respond sometimes if there's something that catches my attention. but. Uh.

This my inbox filtered by "comments without replies". I do read them all though! Even if I don't mark them as read.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhhhh, for dsmp they aren't too bad but probably A Palimpsest Mind.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

For DSMP again, Mercenary to Mailman

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Nope, never really had issues with that. I've had a couple of weirdos but not really hate.

9. Do you write smut?

I did it once to prove I could but I didn't find it too interesting. Sometimes ideas can be fun but ever since the one time I found myself just wanting to write something else when I tried.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nah, it's not my thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes, very weirdly. Was able to get it taken down though!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Several of my fics have been translated and it was super cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I don't think I have? But I've done RP and worked out ideas with people before!

14. What‘s your all-time favorite ship?

Uh, honestly I'm less interested in ships themselves and more the nonsense that you can create with that. Any ship can be my favorite if it serves my purposes.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Fissile Family tbh. I have so much written for that and it all planned out but my interested in the bnha fandom is currently dead.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I'm a pretty fast writer overall, and I think I do well with characterization and dialogue. I know that when I get in a flow I can get character voices down pretty well and that's something that I'm proud of. I'm also pretty good with doing my own take on characters that's different from their canon versions but is still verisimilar.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Sometimes I just forget words or switch what sentence I'm writing halfway through and then never catch it. Also I have to actively beat back my own comma abuse.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

It's neat? Unclear what this question is asking me for.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Warrior cats! It was hand written in a binder that I actually still have, about clans in an abandoned shopping mall. It was very silly and I'm still proud of baby me for writing it!

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Seven Year Old Katsuki Has The Ability To Kill A Grown Man And No Concept Of Legality

The formatting on this one was insane and took so long and I'm proud of how it came out!

[kuromispamton2000]

Welcome to my blog (i guess)

the name's Crystal, code-name: kuromispamton2000 and i'm...an amateur (?) artist not the best but i like to art actually, i love roleplay as well, i am a Mr. Puzzles simp and i love him so much fr, fr....apart there's Kuromi and Spamton...oh! and here's my sona reference

i am an weird mix of aesthetic and pastel goth girl lover

i am 24, my birthday being on June 22

errr i'm mexican

I AM TAKEN (errr hasn't edit this post twice, no no)

i have many fandoms which are: Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, Animal Crossing, Bendy and The Ink Machine, Pikmin, Sanrio, Steven Universe, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, Undertale/Deltarune, SMG4, Star vs the forces of evil, Gravity Falls, Five Nights at Freddy's and a big etc

actually jobless

i have various mental issues, between these, that i get sad randomly and i feel unmotivated to do shit of time by time, be warned by that

my favorite holiday is Christmas uwu

i love cats and chocolate hehe

my main focus is SMG4 and would...rarely (until the SMG4 Hype goes down that gonna be when Mr. Puzzles disappear) draw of other fandoms, mostly i focus on my OC's only, not much on do canon art, my OCS are all based from Mr. Puzzles

my Mr. Puzzles ocs that had gave recognization to this blog:

SMGP (Super Meme Guardian Puzzles) the least Popular of the 4, belongs to #swap au, he is just simply a swap between SMG4 and Mr. Puzzles, Mr. 4's reference can be find on my profile, if you're in mobile just click my profile and search: "swap au" in tags, with a plot twist, he decapitated, no was born with a tv head already

🔥Trickster Mr. Puzzles🔥 the most popular of the blog, he is simply Mr. Puzzles but he engaged Trickster mode! (Trickster Mode from Homestuck) the first one on engage the Trickster Mode on SMG4 universe, he wants spread the Trickster Mode around the mushroom kingdom, and create the reborn of "Puzzlevision" but under the name of "Trickstervision"

Guardian of Popstar Mr. Puzzles, the 3rd popular of the blog, he is an Mr. Puzzles that had swallowed his pride and apologized and asked a second opportunity to SMG4 after had a strong fight with "the entity" . . .SMG4 just for get rid of him sent him to Popstar/Dreamland and now he is a father to Kirby, Kirby got very used and is happy to have a dad

🔥Mr. Puzzles: Trivia🔥 the second most popular of the blog, being the first transexual character i ever made, he is transexual female to male, Trivia is shy, nerd, aesthetic babygirl/boy (he is called babygirl by the fans XD), his apparence takes after Mr. Puzzles and Spamton G. Spamton, he is a dealmaker but very amateur, he lives on a very futuristic mushroom kingdom thanks to a strange group of scientists that came from future to stay, his ratings are stars and likes, he is a very slow working villain, but more of his story later (writen only i no feel like draw)

rules:

suggestive is good as long as you no start a sexual shit on time line, if u want a +18 thing (of course being an adult) send me a dm

no ask for donations, please, real life subjects make me so nervous, and this is a art blog, i no want be rude, i just no want mix my art/vent blog with real life things of wars and etc

not be annoying or not use to sarcasm with me unless you do /joke, /silly OR XD at the end of a sarcasm, if you don't you'll have 5 strikes, you'll be blocked, i am very sensitive, i'll try do the same, even if my humor seems i am mad or something-

i am spanish, english isn't my main language, please don't judge my english grammar, or if you gonna do, do it respectfully

it's all you need to see my blog and follow if you want and decide stay by my side! thanks you for read, and hope you enjoy your stay!

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

think about it

interest swap - each of the characters gain the hobbies and interests of their server and pass on their own to their client, their personality doesn't change much and they treat it in a same/similar way to their original.

(this'll also affect sprites)

the goal is to change what the kids like but not how they like it

for example, in this universe

John: likes to write long winded reviews or analyses about trashy wizard and cosmic horror books he likes, he specifically likes to analyze characters and the psychology in the writing. He loves making references to the books he likes. His sprite is a one armed wizard statue fused with nana

Jade: likes comedy and pranks, and trashy movies. she has a great understanding of comedy and the nuances of it, has it down to a science pretty much. And she also really likes trashy movies, thinking of them as if they're really deep and meaningful. Her sprite fuses with taxidermy jade and the stuffed bunny

Dave: furry, it was inevitable tbh, he's into science and tech, probably keeps up with news about technology advancements and stuff, but he's not a genius with it or anything. He's also into gardening, he's pretty bad at it but he loves the very few plants he manages to keep alive very much. his sprite is a guardian tiger fused (who was NOT his) with alternate timeline dave (Cal would, unfortunately, be a blue lamp or something of a woman, which Dirk brings everywhere he goes ironically, and also because it contains the influence of a homestuck obsessed super fan (yes in this AU Calliope hates homestuck and Caliborn loves it))

Rose: raps, calls it slam poetry or musical poetry or something like that, definitely doesn't call it rapping. She's a nerd for irony like Dave, but more in her sarcastic mind games tone, she loves drawing shitty ironic comics that look like they're trying to be like old newspaper comics from the 20th century, her main comic is a garfield knockoff but with jaspers. her sprite is a cake with problem sleuth drawn on with icing, which I am declaring is an old comic of the likes of garfield and calvin and hobbes in this AU (unless if a better idea presents itself to fit this role), fused with jaspers

thoughts?

oooh i LOVE these!!! i love how the characters are still themselves in this ask, rather than "rose dialogue on john sprite" that i saw in a lot of old bloodswaps. i love keeping their core traits and having their environment bend around them to suit those traits, rather than their core traits changing because of the environment theyre in.

i especially love the idea of rose making ironic parodies of newspaper comic strips. she seems like someone whod really enjoy r/imsorryjon and other weird garfield media.

and yeah. dave is already a closet furry if he was raised on an island hed just embrace it.

[yandere-monoma]

should i be insane and start the kill your masters commentary now

i am gonna be insane and start the kill your masters commentary now

hi this will contain spoilers for the killswitch au which imo is fine because i have no intentions of writing it in its entirety so HSJKFGFG

god. rose strider.

rosie rosie rosie rose strider UUUUUUGH.

fun fact i actually attempted to go off about all this weeks ago but tumblr deleted the fucking draft but now im drunk (or i was drunk when i started this at 1am and now its fuckin noon LMFAO) and trying again so LET'S GO!!!!

so. actually. my iteration of rose strider was first sparked after reading BGB by MermaidMayonaiise oh god bless tf out of them

like, guardianswaps is an ancient concept in the fandom so it's not like i've never considered her or any other strider kid before but GOD. this one line from BGB absolutely blasted through my soul:

You never knew her, but a Rose Strider would have been a killing machine. Considering the multiverse, she exists. Just not in any timeline that matters.

as i lovingly say in the comments of that fic, i literally copypasted that line to every hs friend i know. it drove me crazy

it'd still be a couple of weeks (months?) after reading that fic that i actually conceptualized her, though. rose strider was born via the homestuck renaissance chat which i will reference 6738459634563456 times in this commentary because killswitch would not exist without it. the renaissance chat went off with a million and one headcanons about a million and one different guardianswaps and my impulsive ass couldn't help but actualize them in some sort of written form, complete with ridiculous long ass plot and even a couple of sburb sessions that i'll never write cuz it'll take me years. like. the ideas were just so good.

ironically, our first official swap we discussed was actually john strider, who i hopefully will get to at least allude to in the next iteration of killswitch, along with dave lalonde (WHO I FUCKING LOVE AAAAA), jade egbert and rose harley... then we actually discussed jade before i finally revealed how insane i was about rose strider rose rose rose rose ROOOOOSE

from that first initial outline to the first chapter of kym, it took about two months of plotting and dragging through drafts which is CRAZY cuz it rly does feel like time has fucking flooown by. a lot of that time was also dedicated to the first installment of killswitch, which got interrupted because the third chapter of kyd got tragically deleted and i've never recovered and i only recently healed past the hurt enough to start to rewrite it. god. trauma.

anyway.

before i get to the first chapter, i wanted to talk about rose's initial concept as a strider and what it meant. as i've said 738596356 times already, nature vs nurture was how i approached every placement within the au. it was very important to me to blend every character with who they initially are in canon and who their guardian's influence turned them into. this made for an incredibly fun process that lent itself to a pretty easy formula characterization-wise.

for example, rose strider's excessively extreme experiences with self-harm are born of rose lalonde's early act 1 habit of engaging in empty suicide threats towards her mother. i took that tendency to act out and cranked that fucker up to 11 because there is nothing passive aggressive about how bro raised dave.

every killswitch character features this pairing blend approach to their writing. jake lalonde, for example, inherits roxy's hyperactive silly energy, though he lacks the grace, ease and confidence to carry it out without stumbling. however, rose is especially special because i wasn't just trying to blend rose and dave. because of rose's identity blurring motif, i had to build her up using elements of rose AND dave AND dirk AND, most importantly, bro. that made her, honestly, really fucking hard to write because i still wanted her to be recognizable enough, while still sounding like a carbon copy of bro, simultaneously perfect and flawed all at the same time. and, ngl, it's super interesting to me, the way she deviates from the formula and refuses to follow the easy pattern i followed for literally every other character in the au. it's just so fitting for her to fuck with the meta like that JSKFG

anyway LETS START READING

fucking with the commands was actually a last minute choice done right at the very final edit. so much of the narrative fuckery that happens in kym is very on the spot, lots of last minute decisions that start with the impulse of 'oh shit yknow what'd be cool' and end with a big ole internal ramble of what it could all ~represent~

in this case, i thought this was nifty, i've been using this same one fuckin glitch generator for YEARS at this point: but also, i think it was a fun way to allude to her classpect, even though it's never really discussed outright

yeah see this was actually supposed to be a description of her room but in the very last draft as i was cleaning it up i saw this section that i still had to write and went nope. JHSKFGSDFG which is hilarious to me because doing so literally transformed how i approached the rest of the piece. originally this chapter really was supposed to just be a pretty direct copypaste of act 1, but god. GOD i'm glad it isn't. i've had so much fun with this style and it's so amusing to me that i have laziness to thank for that JKGFG ah yes the creative process

facts about john harley and his first conversation with rose!!

i suck at chumhandles and enlisted help from the renaissance chat for a lot of them. other handle options suggested to me at the time include: garrulousGallivant, groovyGallywag, galleyGaffer, giddyGelogenic (this was in second place to me i rly loved it sob)

(rose's handle was incredibly easy in comparison, largely because i hardly put any effort into it. i just wanted something suitably edgy and what could be edgier than naming yourself after genocide HJGKF)

his initial character premise:

the hardest part about starting the fic where i did is that there was just so much imagined backstory for rose and so little time to actually get to detail with it. the purpose of the first few pesterlogs with john and jade was to establish something that honestly i don't think got as much spotlight in the fic as i would have wanted: the fact that rose strider is a compulsive liar who actually tries her hardest to seem normal to her friends, both out of habitual manipulation and out of a subconscious urge to escape her life. it's an attempt to sprinkle her with the void traits that she clings to at the beginning of her arc (guess what her classpect is >:3) before embracing what she really is, but damn. if i could have, i would've written 100k of cute casual conversation with rose seeming like the sweetest most thoughtful friend in the world, only to reveal what she's really like

anyway! we get to see her make up a life for herself first through john, as she lies about going to school when ngl i don't think she's been since like. idk. the 3rd grade. GJKFLGS

this is always an interesting pesterlog to reread remembering how much i fucked with rose's dialogue jesus christ. i did NOT want her to sound like herself in the rougher drafts. she was honestly just a straight up blend of bro and dave, very casual, very ramble-y, however at the last second, i incorporated a touch of her usual more formal vibe/dialogue. again, because i was blending four different characters rather than two, it was difficult to find a balance i really liked. i definitely got there eventually but. hoo.

ro-stri originally used to copy the punctuation of anyone she spoke to. there are still aspects of this in the current draft, rose plays along and sprinkles more exclamation points in than usual to match john's hyperactiveness despite the fact that she feels like roadkill atm. however, in the end, i thought it was a little too subtle and wanted her to have a more uniform sound to her, rather than disappearing into anyone she encountered.

john harley thinks the funniest possible thing to joke about in the world is the fact that he's pretty much a feral kid who has never touched humanity and thus doesnt know the most basic things. he does this 9356354963 times a day. he loves playing dumb. in truth he's experienced a Lot through movies but sometimes he simply cant resist the urge to pretend he doesnt know what a fork is. jsdkfgsfg he was such a delight to write, jesus christ.

despite rose's attempt to fade into the background a little, all of her friends depend on her massively to fill a hole in their lives, which she ends up using to further manipulate and control the topics of their conversations. for john, he's just so incredibly hungry for what life in the real world is like. so rose fabricates a normal school life for him. and she's not even doing that for him. it's completely coincidental that they both just desire the same thing of each other and ngl i really adore and am fascinated by their dynamic. johnrose fuckin sneaks up on me i SWEAR.

rose calling herself a bishounen is the first hint of her weird gender fuckery. it is a hilarious hint that i'm so very proud of cuz it's so dumb HAHAHJKFS

john's flirtiness towards rose is inherited by (epilogue) jade's sexual promiscuity and slight pushiness towards the people she's attracted to. it also just seemed like so much fun lmfao it rly snuck up on me as i was writing and i couldn't help but go all in once i realized what was happening. like, john really does just find one bad joke (usually at someone's expense) that he really likes and does it over and over and over and OVER cuz so much of the joy for him is knowing that he's the only one fucking laughing and that everyone in the vicinity wants to throttle him. but they can't :P

someone tell me why :B emojis are so cute. the very first time i went >:B as john harley i went oh no because i fell so hard at that point HAHA

jade lalonde!!

can you believe this is the first time i've ever written jade in my life jesus fucking christ

other chumhandle option: tipsyTurvey

rose's canon handle is a pun that fucking murders me every time i acknowledge it and i desperately wanted a cute pun for hers. i am bad at puns. i am so very bad at puns. telekineticTactoe is the first pun i've made in all my decades of living. i am so proud of her fucking handle jesus christ GHJFKGS

something that's fun but also agonizing about pesterlogs like these is, again, i don't really get the chance to explain things. so much show, so little tell, which works out great for the narrative but makes the part of my brain that built up so much of the world pout so much. so i never actually go into detail about the fact that the 'update' jade is working on is to a webcomic that she has picked up and abandoned 87593456 times. this is seen more in her later conversations but one of jade's whole shticks is that she has tens of thousands of hobbies and she can't commit to a single goddamn one. she is absolutely CRUSHED by how much she wants to have a perfectly successful career like her mom. everything she tries just isnt perfect enough and it frustrates her endlessly. she is so so very cute i love herrr

it is SO fun discussing the lalonde issue through someone who is earnest and honest about their feelings and who airs them out the second they feel them. it's so fun to interpret some of the issues rose perhaps had with her mother, while also just poking at issues i think would have just. always bothered jade because of the type of person she is. she is going to be an incredibly fun perspective to write through the rest of the au and i rly hope i can figure out a way to focus a fic on one of her iterations one day

jade having a having a habit of traumadumping and rambling was supposed to be a play on just how excessively wordy rose can be. idk how much that shows (people associate rambling way more with dave imo) but either way it was super fun to write

rose's manipulative streaks are more obvious here. jade is incredibly vulnerable and rose jumps at the opportunity to attempt to further isolate and pit her against her mother. she's doing that completely out of habit, too. she has no malicious plan behind it all, it passes the time and it keeps jade close and that's really all she wants. she can see the way jade suffers under the weight of her work and she makes up her own stressful worklife, just so that jade can relate to her more than she can relate to the others.

DAVE FUCKIN EGBERT LET'S GOOO

the first words uttered about dave eggy in the gc:

and what his character ultimately turned into:

there is so much to say about dave i love him i love him i love him let's gOoooOooOOo

first off, i wanna explain why he's an egbert rather than a lalonde, since swapping the strilondes is way more common:

dave lalonde would have taken up too much screentime which would not have worked for the fic/verse. he is. god. an INCREDIBLE and fascinating specimen that i need to specifically write 100k about and pairing him with someone like ro-stri would just be a disservice to either of their stories. they simply can not exist together in a way that i would find narratively satisfying because they both just take up too much SPACE. GOD!!!

dave egbert is just cuter LMAO.

i am a dirty dirty multishipper and making him an egbert means i get a version of johndave and a version of daverose all at the same time

(and this doesnt even also allude to the fact that john strider and dave lalonde are also a hugely amusing dynamic like i rly needed the homophobic af angy boy paired with the darling excitable lil femboy ok

but really, my approach to dave is this: as much fun as tragic backstories are, sometimes a really fascinating narrative can be watching someone getting actively traumatized in the present for the very first time. being a bystander to someone you love's suffering, the survivor's guilt of not being the abused one, the overwhelming stress of being someone's sole confidant, the way it feels to be crushed by codependency and forced to witness unrelenting suffering when you are so woefully unprepared to provide proper support. dave just being a normal boy in an incredibly toxic relationship with his first love is just. GOD. so fun to me. so so fun it's honestly one of my fave decisions coming into the fic

there's also something to said about the fact that dave finally gets to experience normalcy and familial love at the expense of his sister taking his role in the narrative. there is a point in the au where the killswitch characters (who i also refer to as the 'zeta' kids) are made aware of their canon counterparts and thinking about what dave eggy will think about dave strider is SO exciting to me

anyway, again: this was a hard pesterlog to incorporate. i needed a quick summary of their dynamic and a quick summary of both of their characterizations: dave egbert being dryer, quieter, more withdrawn and blunt with his words, rose strider being abrasive and quick to anger and almost sadistically playful in the way she immediately seeks to tease and degrade her boyfriend. i also needed to show this without making rose the most unlikeable character this side of homestuck HGJKFGGS. fun fact, so much of how they talk to each other and exist in general is based on the fact that i think both of them just, like. fuckin LIVE on 4chan. rose is a 4chan troll while dave is just, like, a lurker. and i do wish i could have showed that more and showed even more of both the cruller kinds of dialogue rose can dish out and the more weird/fond/playful parts of their dynamic, because to me rose is the type to just constantly drop slurs and insult people and speak in a way that's designed to shock and horrify people and dave was her punching bag as much as he's her stuffed animal, and he's just so in love with all the ways she overwhelms him. he has so much fun trying to just desperately keep up with her and it all just creates this intense atmosphere that he's absolutely addicted to.

like, it's tragic that her talking like this never shows up in the fic itself but alas. alas, alack...

anyway

HOW CAN I FORGET HOW FUNNY DAVE'S HANDLE IS TO ME dave making his whole personality around himself being a npc is so funny to me ok godhjskfg

There is no excusing what must have occurred the previous evening, but there’s no point trying to contend with what happened. 

considering 'what happened yesterday' is a big huge plot point in chapter 2 i'll leave it to the chapter 2 discussion but just know that this is one of my fave part's of rose's characterization that i ALSO mourn its lack of focus in the fic. i think it's present enough but UGH i wish i got to write it so much MOOOORE, DAMN!

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

there were so many versions of this line and this introduction in general HJGKFGS happy with what i settled with

this section was hard because, again, had to quickly establish all the things i wish i could have spent time just slowly building up. i do enjoy how the final product looks, though. one of my favorite styles to utilize is a very compact, slightly minimalistic type of prose that leans

lil cal as a corrupting force is one of my fave hs things in the world it drives me insane to think about, so it was incredibly fun deciding that this was one of the biggest and most important differences between dave and rose is that dave fucking hates lil cal but ro-stri is not scared of puppets :D she loves them :D

When you sleep, if you sleep, your gaze never breaks from his, and you spend your nightmares drowning,

rose having an eternal staring contest with dream cal amuses the hell out of me especially thinking about dave going to derse just to watch in horror. it's also another aspect of that internal soul flaying she keeps forcing herself through, trying to create a perfect ouroboros between herself and what bro has been turned into. trying to fuckin speedrun through her own corruption

gurgles blood.

this next section about all the ways rose attempts to cope with her trauma was so nervewracking to publish. a lot of parts of this fic was but jesus christ. was really worried i'd get flack for a few of the ideas that got tossed out there, but i couldn't remove them even despite that anxiety. there is such a specific vibe to the 00's that i really wanted to incorporate into the fic... just, how it felt to be an absolutely insane teenager, always overwhelmed, constantly abused, and gifted with unadulterated unsupervised internet access to do terrible AWFUL things to. i wanted to depict it because it's what i relate to, what i've experienced, what i've seen and heard from others.

it's also just generally rly important to me to sprinkle darkweb references into as many of my strider fics as fucking possible cuz i know those boys LIVE on it LMFAOHJGKFG

In reality, you have no hobbies your brother hasn’t given you.

short but important: the fact that rose just does not get the opportunity to start creating her own personality like dave does was very important for me to highlight, though it's also not necessarily true. since the narration is filtered through rose's perspective, and rose is the one that is so adamant (especially at this part of the story) that she is a perfect clone of her brother, she skips past the experiences she has where she's strayed from bro's influence.

the end of this chapter was a very fun escalation that i'm very satisfied with. ahh, my killing machine 🥰❣️ how i adore you... now that i think about it, i forgot that originally i really did just want to make a quick oneshot summarizing all of my thoughts on her. as i was writing, the ideas got bigger and bigger, the hcs spiraled more and then my friends in the chat [shakes fist] dropped a huge BOMB of a plotline right into my lap that forced me to extend it way past its original plan but ughsjfgdfg i'm so glad that they did because this is a story that i'm so incredibly proud of godddjksfg

AND THAT'S CHAPTER ONE, STAY TUNED FOR MORE

[ithinkdogshouldvote]

do you have any more of your homestuck gardian swap aus??? I adore them and would LOVE to see more, if theres more story or something. posibly a fanfic hideing??

Haha, I'm really glad you like them! No, unfortunately, I don't have a fan fic to give you. I have something in my drafts on my alt that's just like, bits of information on each kid in the au, but I wasn't sure if anyone would really want it. But idk now that you said something I might finish it and link it to my post if the interest is there

[weirdmageddon]

some dave lalonde ideas lol...idk if i like the hair curl or not...something about it here is too busy in the design without much counterbalance? too "feminine"...? i mean granted being raised by mom would make dave be more in touch with his inborn softer side. not that he'd be completely effeminate though, he's just more natural in presentation instead of trying to be hardass macho like bro but the design should still communicate "masc"

i noticed a big thing about dave lalonde is naturality, to his design, to his relationship with earnestness and post-irony (that wraps back around to genuine sentiment) and that being his natural type of humor and communication (like roxy herself), instead of artificially inflating the irony layers with bro

i LOVE the idea of him unlocking the roxy curl with conditioner and in my head it would look EXACTLY like dave’s hair in lobster’s art but im kind of on the fence about the execution just from an appealing/balanced character design perspective... hmm.

edit: i changed the swirl in the sprite edits so that it's less "dense" -- taking it from mom's sprite instead of roxy's, and it looks a whole lot better. it also sort of looks like a bass clef which is fitting for dave's music interest lol

regardless heres the ride edits without.

let me know what you think

[neonknightjaey]

So, question for the Homestuck readers/authors out there since I’m in a celebratory mood.

Are there any stories you all recommend about

A,) The Trolls and Humans switching places?

Or

B,) A Beta swap AU where it’s the four betas swapping guardians/where they were raised?

[shimshamshimsham]

figured i might as well post this art I did for my fic . look its her ! ! jade egbertdd ! !

[hskinhome]

hey ive b33n s33ing a lot of people being kin with homestuck characters that have a diffurent last name than source and im confuzzed about what that really means? beclaws based on how they specify it it doesnt s33m that its /just/ the last name changing and nothing else examples; aradia pyrope, eridan captor, roxy strider, ect

that's shorthand for swaps, generally including living situation and personality- ie, I kin rose egbert, and in that timeline, my home was more like canon john's than canon rose's, and I was more overtly cheerful than canon rose. I also kin rose harley, and in that timeline, I lived on an isolated island with my mother's taxidermy corpse, and was combined with a first guardian cat similar to canon jade. it is also possible for things to get changed more or less than those examples