#not tagging anything else cus its probably gonna show up in searches anyway

[karkatting]

alphaswitch au - introduction

hi! here is some info about the alphaswitch au by @clockworkdrop​ and i, since some people expressed interest in it!

all of this is directly copied from the huge doc we have, and this post is mostly focused on the characters. not everything is set in stone/planned out yet, so some characters have more info than others. my plan is to update this post with new stuff as we figure it out lol.

general stuff

alpha kids and dancestor trolls are the ‘beta session(s)’

dirk and roxy live in the same year as jane and jake

alpha kids and dancestors are the same age (16 at the beginning, 19 by the end)

not a direct parallel of the canon beta session, some things are different

session lasts several months

the rest is under a readmore cus this shits long

alpha humans

jane:

server player: roxy

sprite: gcat + poppop

patron troll: aranea

receives guidance from meenah

guardian, dad (dad), john is deceased

meenah insisted on being her guide instead of aranea because of their connection

meenah tries to give relationship advice but since she’s jumping all over it’s not helpful

jake:

server player: supposed to be jane, ends up being dirk

sprite: dirkbot + ??

patron troll: kankri

receives guidance from aranea

guardian, jade, is deceased and was grown into a giant tree on the island

aranea became his guide after kankri fucked off and meenah stole jane from her

aranea tries to give him romantic advice but it kinda doesn’t work

roxy:

server player: dirk

sprite: wizard doll + frigglish

patron troll & guidance: porrim

guardian, rose, is a prolific author whom roxy really looks up to, but she feels a sort of distance from her that she doesn’t know how to fix

often talks to meulin about cats and other things. roxy learns about the quadrant system from her

when her mom dies, has an aspect berserk moment similar to rose’s grimdark that causes her viewport to go dark

has some internalized homophobia, doesn’t know she’s not straight (yet)

dirk:

server player: jake

sprite: a puppet i guess + dirk’s head

patron troll: latula

receives guidance from kankri & latula

guardian, dave, is a famous movie director and is rarely home. he leaves various items and notes around the house for him

secretly wants to be closer with him, probably kind of fucked up when he dies

still has lil hal who is just as much of a nuisance. maybe even more so

while his patron troll is latula, kankri quickly took her place as his guide both because dirk is the only one that can even somewhat handle talking to him and kankri finds him infuriating in an intrigued way. he also thought latula wasn’t “doing it right”

he still talks to latula, they get along well. she maybe helps him out with jake stuff cus kankri sure as hell isn’t going to. she is also more helpful with game stuff than kankri is

after dirkjake kiss, dirks head ends up in dirks puppet sprite so he has dirksprite (another splinter, he mad)

hal

still glasses

just being so annoying to dirk

also to kankri

he figures out whats up with dirkkri before dirk does

eventually dirk is convinced to make the body for him, its a horse robot but it can also transform into a human body too. hal loves it unironically but dirk is using like 12 layers of irony to rationalize this being a good decision

trolls

session lasts 3 years (13-16)

won but just barely

still gave the frog cancer

tons of teen drama still

basically everything that was described in the comic to happen before the dreambubbles still happens, except the scratch

kankri:

trollhandle: genesiologicalCancriform (GC)

genesiology - obsolete term for study of genetics/reproduction

cancriform - latin adjective describing crabs/cancers

in a neverending cycle of debate with his past and future selves

probably likes troll documentaries

panquadromantic like karkat, but just suppresses any sort of romantic feelings he has towards anyone. a lot of internalized… panquadrophobia???

pretends he’s not suppressing anything because all microlabels are valid but also shames porrim but he’s never been a hypocrite in his life 

his celibacy is more of a result of the hemocaste system on beforus rather than a genuine disinterest in romance - he wants to feel independent and not be “coddled” by anyone

picks fights/debates with dirk over stupid shit just for the hell of it

still has a crush on latula (at first)

pacifist, so probably relied on porrim to help him during the game (was mad about it though) (his plan was to lecture to imps and ogres to go away)

she teaches him how to use guns but he still rarely utilizes it

Still wearing the leggings until right when the humans arrive, when porrim gives him the sweater

arc: learning to listen to his friends instead of speaking over them, not be misogynistic and ableist, quadrant stuff, recognize some of the group don’t care about hemospectrum, learn to accept help from others (and hopefully get the rest of them there) (dirk helps with most of it)

meulin:

trollhandle: catalysislAficionado (CA)

catalysis - a catalyst is something that provokes significant change or action, referring to her matchmaking

aficionado - she loves doing it

very invested in the love lives of the kids and tries to help them out with their crushes even if it has no chance of happening

idk i think she’s just taking them like barbies and smooshing their heads together

has a tendency to view others as characters rather than real people

causes problems through incompetence/obliviousness to others’ feelings

besties/eventual moirails with roxy

this catgirl can fit so many repressed emotions in her

arc: get away from kurloz (roxy), learn boundaries (also roxy?)

meenah:

trollhandle: (CC)

feels connected to jane after going through her timeline, for reasons she doesn’t understand (yet)

tries to get jane to do dangerous stuff because she thinks it’ll make her a stronger player

constantly jumps around the timeline because she’s looking for exciting things to do

godtier

arc: meenah really cares about her friends but they all have strained relationships because she spent so long bullying them to make them stronger at the game, so a good place for her arc would be her becoming a good leader but not through like dictatorship and telling them what to do or whatever, but just by learning to better utilize how she cares and lead by supporting them. not feeling the need to steal things and gain power or something

aranea:

trollhandle: ????Avicularia (GA)

avicularia - genus of spiders, specifically tarantulas. idk i thought it sounded cool

godtier

mastermind behind the dirkjake kiss

talks to the kids about classpects but like in a calliope way where it’s a little too literal

pushing jake hard to level up since pages are a “weaker class” (in the same vein of vriska with tavros and also john)

while vriska tries to learn a lot about the game so she can cheat to the end, aranea learns a lot about the game so she can know everything and make the best plan to win.

latula:

trollhandle: calibratingGriptape (CG)

calibrating - parallels terezi’s handle

griptape - grip tape is the material on top of a skateboard

prompted to give dirk relationship advice after seeing the dirkjake kiss. she thought it was very cool

even though kankri “took her place” as dirk’s guide, she still ends up helping dirk more because kankri kind of sucks at it

has a lot of thoughts about being pushed out by kankri but is trying not to show it (rad girl facade, etc)

arc: stop putting on the rad girl persona and be herself

porrim:

Trollhandle: antevortianGirl (AG)

antevorta - roman goddess of childbirth and prophecy

girl - #girl

serves as roxy’s guide/patron troll during the game. helps her with actual game stuff as opposed to meulin who helps her with interpersonal stuff

arc: stop infantalizing everyone below her on hemospectrum, something something matriorb

damara

trollhandle: (AA)

maybe talks to jane about how jake keeps telling her about their relationship and asking for advice, is just like “yeah, it sucks huh”

maybe drops the LE stuff during the alpha session? still causing problems on purpose though

not very invested in the kids, mostly causing problems on the meteor

she gets knocked out before she can doom the timeline, porrim (shes her main friend and also mom stuff) carries her to the door with the group. damara wakes up already locked in the meteor. maybe scratch messages her and tells her she failed and is also like really creepy like always. and then she watches jane stuff and is just like. yeah no this is the worst

jane and damara parallels. they are there

arc: recognize that others have gone through same stuff as her (jane), reject le, tell rufioh to knock it off (probably remain friends after that)(roxy helps), doesn’t have to forgive everyone else for their treatment of her if she doesn’t want to

rufioh:

trollhandle: (TA)

something something dirkjake parallels

dude’s a mess

mituna:

trollhandle: (AT)

actually stands up to cronus

still dubiously godtier

kurloz

trollhandle: (CT)

the stuff kurloz is involved in relates to see no evil (mituna) hear no evil (meulin) speak no evil (kurloz) but according to fridgestuck theres a fourth that's sometimes smell no evil (latula).

also caused cronus’s rejection of magic and belief in the prophecy

meulin and mituna friendship arc

something something kurloz is in charge of black ships and the conflict resolution quadrant is a black ship and kurloz is actively sabotaging them and maybe this is why they can't fix any of their problems at some point we gotta figure out what to do with him

roxy probably suspects somethings up with him (close to meulin and would recognize that she seems forgetful after seeing him, batterwitch), would probably be frustrated that meulin doesn’t believe her but would find ways to keep her away from him

crisis of faith when interacting with humans, leads to him ditching clown religion. no idea where that goes from there

someone figures out the mind control and other stuff, meulin, mituna, and cronus can decide if they forgive him or not

cronus

trollhandle: (AC)

roxy has a conversation with cronus, its bad

he literally JUST dropped the wizard act within the last year or so, so seeing her wizard stuff he probably makes fun of her or something

hates jake because he’s the hero of hope that might take over his place in the prophecies he felt entitled to

jake messes with him about human culture like the “telling caliborn what gay means” thing

leads to him losing ALL hope, leading to mituna fight

cronus hits on all of them and brings up the fact he is humankin a lot

gets the idea to be humankin from watching the timelines, was probably still doing the wizard thing until that moment, or had picked up a different persona in the session and switched to human then

arc: downward spiral from hopelessness (jake), become somewhat less of an asshole

beta humans

stuck in a void session for 6 years

in communication with the cherubs

egbert:

sprite:

 pre-retcon: ?? + ??

post-retcon: meulin + dirksprite (after reunion)

acting like there are no problems while actively looking at many problems

june realization at some point

rose:

sprite:

pre-retcon: ?? + ??

post-retcon: roxy + frigglishsprite (after reunion)

having a crisis about relevance

is painfully aware that this session is basically set up to make them lose their minds

drinking arc (mom’s alcohol in house)

dave:

sprite: crow + doomed dave

plays with time loops a little but realizes he’s making eternity even longer so stops unless necessary

still does a lot of reflection about bro since he'd still be around people who care about him

coming out: rose knows pre-game but they probably never officially told each other. maybe he tells her in like year 1 or 2. but he doesn't come out to the others until he's like 17 at least probably. davesprite too

at some point he grows out his hair really long, but it’s totally not to look like nic cage so a certain someone who loves nic cage might be interested who would do that

(crushing big time on egbert)

jade:

sprite: bec + dream jade

happy to be around her friends and not trapped on an island, but she is also super frustrated that it isn't like what she saw in her dreams

first one to snap after keeping her frustration bottled up. after that, rose sets a rule that they have to be honest to avoid more of that. (obviously they don’t stick to that very well)

i guess she godtiers at some point to be dog

cherubs

calliope:

friendly to all of them

probably just similar to how she was to the alphas

(she probably still has to die 🙁)

they will save her

caliborn:

jeers dave the most

is upset that he is not like alpha male

kickstarts dave’s de-masculinity stuff

asks dave for art of his friends

dave just changes the colors of the making this happen picture

platonically hates all of them. if he does the "you're attractive and ugly" thing like with jane, that's at jade

egbert really hates his art

similar to the alphas, mostly focuses on the boys and avoids/is creepy to the girls. probably pissed about june stuff cus he sucks