#or those posts like “things bro strider did that were abusive’’

[classpectpokerap]

that intermission was kinda sad because those kids looked at their guardians trying to be better and are like "What's your angle"

And it isn't even a change come from introspection and genuinely changing, their guardians got specifically replaced by different people.

God, the angst that's gonna cause them if they figure it out

there's a few big things about bro-coded that are worth noting.

one - obviously, this is operating under the thematic consequences of Act 1's reality. (really good post that informs a LOT of the philosophy of bro-coded, worth a read.) act 1's Earth is not a real place, it's not filled with real people. Early John, when Rose starts modifying his house, cannot give less of a shit about his sense of reality rapidly unravelling -- his sense of reality did not really exist as a coherent thing in the first place, because it's just a series of symbols, a series of ideas.

(click READ MORE, i. ended up writing a LOT)

part of that is that the guardians are ALSO just ideas, and not people. i can't find who said it, but there's a critique of act 6 that always stuck out to me. Bro Strider was never meant to be dave's biological father. he was meant to be a metaphor for the weird/aloof cool/shitty older brother that you don't see. he doesn't have a room, or a legal job, because it doesn't need to make sense -- he's dave's perception of a person.

like, the point that post was trying to make is that there were several evolutions of who/what bro was. there's the initial state, where he isn't a person -- he's an absent, aloof older brother, with hobbies you don't understand, who you worship nonetheless. then later in act 4 he becomes a cartoon ninjadad, throwing a baby across a roof in a way that i think was still not meant to be interpreted literally, but... it was a huge change. suddenly bro actually HAS an impact on dave's life. suddenly it matters what dave's home life is like.

then by act 6, all of these conflicting shades of bro coalesced under the rules of act 6's reality. and act 6's reality is very literal, y'know? you're meant to find tragedy in the alpha guardians. you're meant to mourn humanity on the alpha earth -- we spend SO much more time expounding upon humanity's fate on alpha earth than on beta earth. the boots-on-the-ground reality MATTERS, all of the sudden, and so Bro Strider coalesces into a really, really, really, REALLY shitty person.

and i think that that's compelling, if done right! it can be good. but you have to unpack those contradictions and layers.

bro strider was not, initially, a person.

and that's what bro-coded explores.

i think i forgot to use more numbers but whatever. yeah.

point two is basically just that the beta guardians aren't people. not in the way the alpha kids are, not in the way the alpha guardians are (since they're based on characters we spent 4k pages getting to know). and definitely not people on the level of Emma or Viri, who are real people from the real world. homestuck is a game of contrasts, and bro-coded is HUGELY interested in exploring those contrasts.

throwing all of those contradictory iterations of Bro (the ideatic Bro Strider, a post-game Dirk Strider, a real human being who's a dirk kinnie) into one body?

now you've got some interesting tension.

the other big part of this tension is that like. viri and emma are very much different kinds of homestuck fan, in the way that caliborn and calliope are, right? emma IS very much into that ideatic, early MSPA iteration of Homestuck's world. she likes bro strider because she likes that version of Homestuck, she liked it when he was in play because he was cool as shit and a fantastic symbol. she never really gave much thought to his abusive tendencies because she didn't consider the world under the lens of, like, realistic consequences that Act 6 applies. (this is NOT to say anything CLOSE to "all early homestuck fans are abusers" -- it's that Emma Specifically is letting a toxic closemindedness cloud her vision.)

and like, both girls have both perspectives inside of them! sure, viri's the kind of person who'd use blorbos in her narration unironically. she's huge on the alpha kids, and on thinking about shipping, and all the tumblr calliope stuff you'd associate with her. she thinks her understanding of rose would help her win her over. but it doesn't. because her worldview is also incomplete without Mom Lalonde, who IS that same exact extremely symbolic persona that Emma likes. and on the flipside, Emma's conscience is being driven by post-act-6 Dirk Strider, an Alpha Kid, a character TONS of people hate. viri loves Dirk, but Emma's indifferent... at least until it matters.

both girls have an act 1 guardian, barely a person, more of a symbol, in their heads. both girls have an act 6 strilonde, a fully realized character, an angst machine dialed up to 12, chattering away in their heads.

for all that emma's chapters are sharp and quick and cutting and focused, and viri's chapters are slower and meandering and talky and more sentimental...

emma and viri are two sides of the same person. it's a self insert.

emma and viri are both me.

in conclusion i kinda didn't answer your question and just talked about emma and viri forever asjlfdgsdghsdsg BUT it was fun to talk about some of my ideology stuff for bro-coded!!!!

[pesterloglog]

Jade Harley, Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider

Candy, page 5

JADE: did you hear that john left his house?

JADE: multiple days in a row even!

KARKAT: NO FUCKING WAY. THAT’S INCREDIBLE. I’VE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING.

KARKAT: SOMEONE LEAVING THEIR HOUSE? STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES.

JADE: karkat....

KARKAT: IS IT A SLOW NEWS DAY IN THE CONSORT KINGDOM OR SOMETHING?

JADE: im being serious dumpass

JADE: i was really worried about him!

KARKAT: I’M BEING SERIOUS TOO. I WAS ACTUALLY BEGINNING TO WONDER IF JOHN HAD DIED.

KARKAT: BUT WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT IT? IT’S NOT LIKE HE ANSWERS THE PHONE.

JADE: well if you CARE so much then maybe dont respond with sarcasm when i tell you that hes getting better!

DAVE: guys its not a competition we were all worried about john

JADE: were we??

JADE: whens the last time either of you tried to hang out with him?

KARKAT: WHEN’S THE LAST TIME EITHER OF US LEFT THE HIVE?

DAVE: yeah shut ins living in glass hives shouldnt throw uh

DAVE: actually if we lived in a glass hive way too much light would come in for karkats brutal photosensitivity issues

DAVE: so wed probably cover all the walls with like

DAVE: lots of curtains and sheets of thick fabric

DAVE: so i guess maybe we COULD throw stones?

DAVE: like kinda small ones so that the fabric could easily absorb the momentum

DAVE: also me and karkat would probably be too lazy to throw the stones that hard anyway

DAVE: so i think actually this scenario is pretty workable here

DAVE: it provides for a certain threshold of allowable minimum hypocrisy

JADE: dave this sucks

DAVE: no it doesnt

DAVE: im giving thoughtful and critical consideration to a cliche which is long past due

DAVE: a glass house with wall to wall curtains creates what im going to theorize as an incredibly important “self owning buffer”

DAVE: this is a huge breakthrough and also its fucking science

DAVE: you of all people should appreciate the work being done here

JADE: oh my GOD

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

DAVE: what are you even doing here with us

DAVE: dont you usually spend your weekends at 48 hour interspecies raves or doing arctic expeditions with jake or whatever

JADE: those two things are not always mutually exclusive hehe

KARKAT: UGH

JADE: im just enjoying my youth

JADE: you could be enjoying it too hehehehe

JADE: but seriously.... what do you two even do holed up in here together all the time?

KARKAT: OH I’M SORRY, HAVE YOU NOT SEEN DAVE’S ILL BEGOTTEN ART EMPIRE?

KARKAT: HE’S GOT HIS OPPOSABLE DIGITS STUCK IN SO MANY DOUBLE-STACKED HUSKLOAFS THAT EVEN I DON’T KNOW ALL HIS PEN NAMES.

JADE: ok so thats what dave does

JADE: what do YOU do??

KARKAT: I UH

JADE: sit around and play video games all day?

KARKAT: HEY! THAT’S NOT THE ONLY THING I DO! I’VE...

KARKAT: DONE LAUNDRY.

DAVE: once or twice

KARKAT: ALSO, WHAT HUMANS REFER TO AS “GROCERIES.”

KARKAT: I DO THE GROCERIES.

DAVE: thats not a fucking figure of speech man

DAVE: you dont do the groceries you go out and buy them

DAVE: and even then you dont actually do that

KARKAT: LIKE FUCK I MPHUMPHLE...

DAVE: he means that he uses the alchemizer in the basement sometimes

KARKAT: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

DAVE: oh and when hes in a bad mood hell go yell at trolls on the internet

DAVE: not like trolls as in the troll species i mean

DAVE: literal trolls who talk shit online

DAVE: i dunno a bunch of them could be actual trolls i guess

DAVE: but not strictly

KARKAT: DAVE!

KARKAT: DON’T FUCKING TELL HER ABOUT THAT.

DAVE: why not dude i think its cute

DAVE: hes on all the major political sites of course but he spends most of his time going after people who leave abusive comments on my sweet bro and hella jeff posts

DAVE: like hes got a whole complex network of burner accounts and sockpuppets on my homepage set up for every possible scenario

JADE: jesus christ....

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

KARKAT: STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS!

KARKAT: MY EXPLOITS ARE HEROIC. GO ABSOLUTELY FUCK YOURSELF.

DAVE: karkat shoosh

DAVE: im so proud of you

DAVE: couldnt have done better myself

DAVE: well i mean i definitely could have but i have better things to do with my time

KARKAT: THANK YOU DAVE. THAT WAS HEARTWARMING AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT EMBARRASSING. CONSIDER MY HONOR UNDENIABLY DEFENDED.

JADE: actually karkat its more like youre the one defending HIS honor

JADE: thats sooooo cute.... a knight whiteknighting for another knight

JADE: dave its like karkats your adorable little house husband!!!

DAVE: uhhhh

KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK IS A HUSBAND?

DAVE: er

JADE: a husband....

JADE: a husband is a little like what you both do already

JADE: only with....... certain “benefits” :)

KARKAT: WH... WHAT KIND OF BENEFITS

JADE: heheh dont play dumb karkat

DAVE: jade dude cmon

DAVE: leave him alone

JADE: if youre really that clueless.... i can show you....

JADE: OW!!!!

JADE: karkat what the HELL!

KARKAT: WHAT THE HELL??

KARKAT: YOU’RE SERIOUSLY ASKING *ME* WHAT THE *HELL*!?!?!?

KARKAT: JADE, YOU WERE TRYING TO CHOKE ME TO DEATH WITH YOUR WEIRD, SOFT HUMAN FINGERS! WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO? REACH INTO MY CHEST AND PULL OUT MY FUCKING PUMP BISCUIT FOR A MIDDAY SNACK?

KARKAT: IS THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE HALF BARKBEAST NOW?

JADE: NO!!!!!!

JADE: i was FLIRTING you dummy!

JADE: oh my GOD you two really are hopeless!

JADE: why do i even WASTE my TIME???

KARKAT: THAT’S A GOOD FUCKING QUESTION!

DAVE: so apropos of nothing

DAVE: just a cool segue into a completely different topic for no reason

DAVE: did you guys hear that jane was gonna run for high office

KARKAT: NO FUCKING WAY

JADE: oh wow

KARKAT: YOU MEAN...

DAVE: yep

DAVE: the fucking presidency of earth c

JADE: i mean shes been positioning her megacorp and stocks in a way that looked SUPER suspicious the last year or so, so id wondered about it

JADE: but i didnt think shed actually do it!

DAVE: nah she was totally gonna pull the trigger on it after all these years but decided against it at the last minute for some reason

KARKAT: THANK FUCKING GOD. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A COMPLETE DISASTER.

DAVE: i know right thats what i said when roxy told me

DAVE: especially for the economy

KARKAT: REALLY. THE ECONOMY. THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK IS BAD ABOUT IT?

DAVE: oh yeah and the troll thing is bad too i guess

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

KARKAT: NUMBER TWO, THE POTENTIAL GENOCIDE OF MY PEOPLE.

DAVE: ok wow

DAVE: lets like

DAVE: slow our roll here

DAVE: lets slow any roll that makes me seem more xenophobic than i am ok

KARKAT: WHATEVER YOU SAY, DAVE “NOT XENOPHOBIC” STRIDER.

DAVE: thats good

DAVE: lets keep using the phrase not xenophobic in sentences that contain my name

KARKAT: SURE MAN. THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE SOMETHING A XENOPHOBE SHITHEAD WOULD SAY AT ALL.

DAVE: look im not the bad guy here

DAVE: jane is

DAVE: or... was

DAVE: until she decided not to run for president

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

KARKAT: WHAT?

KARKAT: DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT, XENOPHOBE.

DAVE: no look

DAVE: ill be the first to say that jane is xenophobic as fuck

DAVE: im not

DAVE: like at ALL?

DAVE: but she is

KARKAT: OK DUDE

DAVE: but i dont think shed go so far as to commit genocide

DAVE: thats really exaggerating her faults

DAVE: like wed have to get pretty far away from the people we were when we started all this for that to be a viable outcome

JADE: hmmm

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby

JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time

KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

JADE: get fucked karkat

[prismadog]

Homestuck Headcanons Part 7

Almost to the last of the headcanons. There's one more post after this and then the Master Post.

Guardians’ Past/HCs

Due to years of Lil’ Cal’s influence and just being in the presence of evil incarnate, Bro suffers from insomnia and nightmares. The nightmares usually feature future Sburb events and Dave dying. This is one reason, as effed up as it is, that he “trains” Dave so hard.

Alpha John and Alpha Jade had a similar upbringing to Nanna and Grandpa, though, unlike those two, John and Jade stayed in touch even after Jade went into hiding.

Maybe Alpha Jade was the one to raise Alpha Dave and Alpha Rose. She found these two babies on one of her adventures and raised them on Hell Murder Island. And then, when they were old enough, they went off into the world to find their own adventure. Later, when Rose starts to write books and Dave starts making movies, they would take on the names "Strider" and "Lalonde" as a sort of penname so's to keep their private lives private. Alpha Jade would be proud of her albino babies. (god, I am getting so tired of having to type the word "alpha")

If Alpha Jade raised Alpha Dave and Alpha Rose, then she most definitely told Alpha John about them. Alpha John would be so happy/proud to have a niece and nephew and he would make sure to give them all the love (alongside giving his son all the love too) even though he couldn't really meet them due to them living on the island. Dad Crocker would know of them and care for them as well.

If Alpha Jade did raise them then after they left home, one of the first adventures the kids would go on would be to visit their Uncle John in Washington. They would get to know him as well as his son, Dad Crocker.

Dadbert (and by extention Dad Crocker) has the first name "Harry", named so because their respective parent (Nanna/Pop Pop) liked Harry Anderson's Wise Guy book.

Pre-Sburb

Mom Lalonde just wants to be BFFs with Rose, fangirling over the occult and wizards and whatnot, but every attempt at bonding ends up in being a silent passive-aggressive dispute.

Also, that room in the lab is definitely Mom Lalonde’s. She loves all those cutesy things and being surrounded by her mutant kitties.

If the Beta Guardians were friends and got together for holidays/birthdays/special occasions, Grandpa Harley would give guns as gifts to the other children, Bro would give out shitty anime swords, and Mom Lalonde would give everyone mutant kitties. Dad Egbert would be relatively okay with the kitties but would immediately get rid of the weapons.

Alongside the above headcanon, Bro and Grandpa Harley would get into heated arguments about which was better - guns or swords. Dad or Mom would have to play peacemaker.

Unlike Dirk, Bro can’t draw very well. He can draw some things, mostly patterns for his smuppets / puppets but other than that, he’s not good at art and he’s not interested in learning how.

Bro Strider definitely owns a shitty single-cab truck that’s full of smuppets, puppets, and random trash. However, there is one clean spot on the passenger side where Lil’ Cal, and sometimes Dave sits. (should he actually take Dave anywhere)

There is the rare occasion where Bro will break free of Lil’ Cal’s influence. When this happens, he regrets everything he’s done in raising Dave and he drinks himself into a stupor. He goes to Dave and bawls his eyes out and begs his forgiveness. He doesn’t remember much, if anything, by the morning and he returns to his usual cold, asshole, abusive self. One time, he almost gave Dave up so he could have a real childhood but Lil’ Cal got in the way and set him back on track.

A really young Dave accidentally called Bro “daddy” once. Bro secretly loved it but knew he couldn’t let it continue because he knew what would happen in the future. He didn’t want Dave getting attached only to have his heart break when his big brother eventually died - because he was definitely going to die.

[jolly-loui-s]

The irony of roleplaying as a wizard chapter 3 by Jolly Loui S

Fandom: Homestuck

Pairing: Davekat Dave x Karkat

words (chapters 3/?): 5??? words (was too lazy to count)

If you liked this work please drop a kudo on archiveofourown in the link below:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975734/chapters/53320204#workskin

link to chapter 2:

https://jolly-loui-s.tumblr.com/post/190382520016/the-irony-of-roleplaying-as-a-wizard-chapter-2-by

*Trigger warning, this shit is heavy* (you can skip to the end notes for a summary if you don't want to read it because it contains mention of child abuse and character dead)

Karkat stop basking in the presence of Jegus and be Dave=>

You are Dave, but not Dave in this moment. Instead you are Dave that takes place in another plane of existence. This Dave was lying on his bed. Sweat claimed his forehead as any other day because of the god unforgiven Texas heat. It was Summer and no matter how many times you tried the air conditioning remained broken. Because every time you think you finally cracked the code of basic mechanics a shadowy figure appears and the whole thing falls apart again. So, you just stopped trying. Instead you accepted your doom of being a human popsicle ad just met away all over your own bed. Because according to bro if you wanted to be cool that included the temperature. Striders didn’t become sweaty teenage boys and didn’t complain about such mundane thing as heat thus not needing air conditioning. Dave was just glad after the second time he fixed the air-condition and got the hint that bro was behind it that the guy hadn’t decide to knock sense in him again about how one must act to be a cool kid. After a while of just lying there Dave decided that he had to get up eventually. Not that bro was going to ask him about his whereabouts or anything because usually it was normal for Dave to never leave his room, but it was because he was getting hungry and the stash of his usual Doritos and AJ in the bottom of his closet was running low. And when Dave had managed to finally sneak into the bathroom the day before on his way there, he had witnessed the coffee table overflowing with newly bought and untouched snacks. Not just like one or three bags of chips but literally just a table full of them. So, he might as well try to hoard a few of them.

Dave walked towards his door carful not to make any sound as he equipped his sword. Turning the knob without making any sound and opening the door incase bro would hear him leaving his room because he wasn’t about to just get caught. In the distance Dave could hear the awful game music playing of tony Hawks title screen. Which meant that bro wasn’t in the living room because if he was, he would be playing games all day because the living room really wasn’t ever being used as anything else than a room where you would play games and eat snacks. Which might make it the only normal thing about the whole house if you ignored the disturbing amount of smuppets loitering around the room that is.

Right foot in front of the left Dave sneaked across the hallway and slowly sneaked a peak around the corner. Luckily the coffee table was still filled with unopened snacks. In way Dave should have know it to be odd. There had been multiple times before where there were still abandoned chips bags left on the table, but never had there been so many before just laying around ready for the taking.

Having decided that the coast was clear Dave walked over to the table and he didn’t stop himself from eyeing every possible hiding place and multiple cameras in the room. With utter caution Dave grabbed as many bags as he could and cringed at the loud noises the bags made when he picked them up. That was when he realized his mistake. A familiar noise of a zooming camera lens sounded from gods know where and Dave knew that he had been caught. Caught like an animal in a trap, because that was what he was. Of course, the big pile of bag had been to good to be true because it had all been a trap. It was like bro had known the exact moment when Dave had been running low on food and had granted him a very timely opportunity to get more. Dave cursed himself internally for falling for such a stupid thing and dropped everything he was holding to ready his sword and abscond the fuck out the living room.

For whatever god of luck what might have been on his side this day Dave managed to reach his room in time. In time for what? Because there had been nothing chasing behind him as the only noise in the room had been Dave and the tony hawk soundtrack playing in the background. No clashes of shitty anime swords or an angry bro behind him. Did Dave imagine it all. Was it just his paranoia playing a trick on him? Luckily before Dave would get to trying to question his sanity his previous question was quickly answered by a note sliding under his door. The note itself only consisted of one word, but Dave already knew what it said before even reading it “roof”. Dave’s whole body grew stiff as he saw it. He was scared but he didn’t show it, even admitting he was scared was something he wasn’t allowed to do. Because miraculously bro always found out when Dave did something wrong. And when Dave did do something wrong that note would appear. So instead Dave tightened his grip on his word and walked through the apartment and up towards the roof.

“Hello little man” You hated it, hated it more than anything in the world. There he was, Bro strider in all his glory sword in hand resting over his shoulder as he waited for your arrival.

“sup” Dave said trying not to let his fear show in his voice as he readied his sword as calmly as he could while not losing his cool.

“You know what you did wrong didn’t you” Bro asked, and you literally felt like you just shit yourself because ow god you were scared! Bro was looking at you with a piercing glance. You couldn’t see his eyes because of his triangular anime glasses, but you could feel it. That piercing hostility and murderous intent every time when you were about to get your ass beat.

“You didn’t listen to me” Bro continued taking one step forward. “You ungrateful brat, after everything I have done for you” bro took another step and you cursed at yourself internally when you took one step backwards in response. “You fucking betrayed my trust little man” bro was angry, he was angrier than his usual angry. Something was off. Bro wouldn’t get this angry just or Dave falling to one of his traps. Most of the time she would just silently get his ass beaten up bro wouldn’t normally be this vocal. And before you knew it, he was right in front of you. On impulse you closed your eyes, an honest beginner mistake really. You waited for a bit, but the blow never came. After a few seconds you finally dared to open your eyes and lowered your sword at the sight in front of you.

“Karkat” you said the name of the boy in front of you. It felt wrong to see him there. Amongst the darkest parts of your memories. Karkat was one of the few good things about your live and seeing the good standing next to the bad just felt like so many levels of wrong to your eyes. You knew what bro meant now, why he was so angry at you. Because you had gotten close to Karkat, too close. Like on one of those of Karkat’s romcoms cliché kind of close and bro was punishing you for it. You weren’t allowed to start feeling that way. The way you realized you had started feeling about Karkat. So, this was your punishment. Just when you where about to call out his name again you discovered that you were unable to open you mouth. No words would come out and you were frozen where you stood. Your body was unable to follow your commands leaving you stuck and only able to watch as a loud ringing echoed trough your ears. Watch as bro lifted up Karkat by the neck chocking him as he struggled for breath while calling out your name like it was all your fault that he was about to get killed. You wanted to, you really wanted to save him more than anything even if it meant disobeying you brother, but you couldn’t. Not because you physically couldn’t, but because of bro's consisted echoing voice in you head telling you what to do for you whole god dam live. You watched Karkat about to reach his final breaths when in swift movement bro finally let go and Karkat fell. Bro had dropped him, not to the floor but over the railing of the roof. Leaving Karkat’s body to free fall to his dead the stone-cold pavement below. That was also the moment when you realized that the loud ringing you had been hearing the whole time had been your own screaming. And when you woke up in the dead of the night the screaming was gone instead you were filled with a dreaded emptiness inside of you as if you were about to cry, but no matter how bad you wanted to cry you couldn’t because that was how empty you were feeling. It was a nightmare a bad dream. And you realized how much it scared you. It made you realize how much you had started caring about Karkat. And if anything, bad was ever to happened to him... You care about him more than anything. Because he was the best thing to ever happen to you. He understands you and is you best friend, and you know you can tell him anything even if you don’t. And after that realization you try to go back to sleep as an empty void continues to eat up your hart. Because you aren’t allowed to love him.

Notes:

So Summary: Dave had a bad dream about bro. Bro killed Karkat because dave was startig to fall in love with Karkat and bascicly Bro's abuse inprinted the thought in Dave's brain that he isn't allowed to fall in love with boy's. So he hides it all away because he isn't allowed to.

[ca1e70-deactivated]

a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:

name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity

im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 

i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)

whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)

ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS

i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 

the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 

im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 

i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 

i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.

talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)

every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 

one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)

theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 

he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.

i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 

im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 

hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.

ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.

the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 

he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 

THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY

[strider-headcanons-ahoy-blog]

Okay, so, a continuation of my last post, now focusing more on Bro in this AU. The two variations of him I’m working with are A) the version of him who is more canon-compliant and treated Dave poorly. Lil’ Cal was an influence and an issue, and I’m operating under the headcanon that Cal did affect Bro’s mental state. Not to the point of mind control, but to the point of heavy influence and possible disorientation. 

The other variation is B) a completely non-canon version of Bro who never abused Dave and did his damndest to be a good guardian, even if he may not have been the best or used the most orthodox methods at times. I’ll make a separate follow-up post for B, since this post is already huge enough as it is.

This is going to be less of a synopsis or in-depth investigation into Bro as a character and more my personal headcanon for how things could go in these situations, btw. Now, let’s play this shit on the nose and say version A is Meat and version B is Candy. (No epilogue content will be included in this post but I’m already taking pages out of Hussie’s book already, why stop now?)

With the MEAT route, Bro wakes up on Earth C minus Lil’ Cal and the influence that came with him. I personally think that Bro as a person already had the potential for cruelty and abusive behavior, given what we’ve seen of Dirk’s controlling, egotistical, and narcissistic nature in the comic. 

But Dirk also tried to keep those (and other) negative aspects of himself either toned down, in check, and generally acted with his friend’s best interest at Heart (wink nudge) for the most part. Bro, however, didn’t have the same damper on all of that, in no small part thanks to Cal exacerbating the issues. 

That being said, I don’t think Bro didn’t care for Dave. He IS still a Dirk, after all, and we know what sorts of extremes Dirk has gone to for the people he loves. But Bro’s love came out in extreme strictness and far too intense training. “Preparing” Dave so he could survive and getting lost in that focus to the point that it became an abusive extreme. 

(Okay enough character analysis, I said I wasn’t gonna get into that. On to the bullet point HCs.)

- Bro is not kind when he first comes back, and he’s extremely jumpy. Having Cal gone is both a blessing and a curse. No longer having that guiding, oppressive force in the back of his mind 24/7 leaves him feeling confused, aimless, unsure of what to do with himself, and his nerves are frayed. But in the same breath, he finds his sleep more restful, when his insomniac ass actually DOES sleep.

- Seeing both the younger Daves afraid of him brings up a whole mix of emotions. Anger, confusion, concern, grief that he can’t explain, shame, guilt. The defensive reactions of the other guardians and most of the kids only makes him more mixed up inside. He keeps his distance. 

- His memory is a bit blurry, a bit patchy, but it hasn’t failed him. It only takes a couple days of hard thinking and contemplation to piece together pretty much every reason why his kid (kids now, holy shit, he has two kids to- well, not take care of, and that burns at him) is afraid of him. Probably hates him. 

- He fucked up. He knows he fucked up. He hates that he fucked up so badly. He wishes he could take it back as much as a part of him insists that everything he did, he did so that Dave would survive the Game. A lot of inner conflict as his warped rationality starts to mend itself and clashes with beliefs he’s force fed himself (and been force fed) for much of his life. 

- Dirk approaches him first, for the sole purpose of telling Bro he’ll kill him if he goes anywhere near the Daves. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help Bro’s mental state much. Dirk Striders just don’t tend to get along with each other, after all. It doesn’t escalate into a fight, though. Bro tells Dirk he wasn’t planning on it before not so kindly telling the kid to piss off. Bro becomes more reclusive afterwards.

- Bro doesn’t go anywhere near the Daves. It’s Davesprite that goes near him, eventually. The kid is as scared as he is curious, and he sure as hell won’t admit it, but he is concerned. And he hates that he’s concerned, but. Well. Emotions are Frustrating and he wants to know why the most oppressive guy he’s ever met has suddenly stepped way off. 

- Talking to Bro is like getting water from a stone when you’re trying to open him up. It takes a lot of increasingly anxious prodding on Dave’s end before he manages to piece together a few things. Primarily that Bro has changed considerably, as much as he hasn’t, in part thanks to Cal’s absence. Dave think’s he’s hallucinating when Bro gives a slow, halting apology. An imperfect one, and not anything that would earn forgiveness by a long shot. But an actual, probably-not-ironic apology. 

- Davesprite is still pretty understandably nervous around Bro, but continues to seek him out now from time to time. Usually when it’s been a long time since Bro’s after image has hazarded his periphery. Bro doesn’t get why the kid would willingly go anywhere near him. After watching how the other guardians interact with the kids (from afar, naturally), it’s become even more starkly apparent to him how badly he fucked up with Dave. He doesn’t think he deserves Dave’s company, but he doesn’t chase him away either. They tend to sit on an out of the way park bench at night and drink sodas while they talk.

- Davesprite makes a habit of reporting all progress back to Dave. They’re keeping the meetings between themselves for now, for rightful fear of a shitstorm. Bro is in mild disbelief when both Daves show up for a meeting one night. Definitely uncomfortable, very cautious. He tries not to do any of the things he’s noticed that freak out Davesprite (raising his voice, going dead quiet + perfectly still, tapping his heel, etc) for both the kids’ sakes. 

- It becomes a more regular thing for both Daves to show up. They aren’t willing to forgive him, he definitely doesn’t expect them to (a part of him doesn’t even want it). The Daves don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and neither does Bro. They’re just kind of all. Going with it.

- Dirk nearly herniates when the Daves do finally tell him. Mostly wanting to know What The Hell they were going near that asshole for and checking that they’re both alright, they haven’t gotten into any strifes with him, right? Fuck, fuck, he’s gonna kill Bro again. The Daves manage to calm him down and do their best to explain (when they themselves don’t even fully understand what the hell’s going on). Dirk is still very suspicious and protective, but he loves and trusts his lil’ bros enough to not try and stop them. He may or may not tail them the next time he notices them sneaking out at night. Definitely doesn’t watch the meetings from within the trees like a creep. Definitely not. 

- Everyone is in major disbelief when the Daves actually allow (read: awkwardly kinda-sorta invite) Bro to join them for any kind of event. Bro is Extremely Uncomfortable the whole time, but he goes along with it because his kids asked, and that’s the sort of thing a. Good guardian does, right? Lots of side-eyes sent his way, but a miracle occurs and no fights break out. It’s a while before Bro’s invited to anything again, mostly because everyone had to recuperate after the first time. It’s a little less awkward the second time around. 

- Bro is still horrifically uncomfortable around groups of other people, but it slowly gets easier with time.He’s trying, honestly trying, to be better, even if he slips into bad habits or doesn’t know how sometimes. Mostly, he watches the other guardians and tries to learn, too prideful and awkward to just ask. 

- Mom-londe is the most likely to give him (unasked for but secretly appreciated) advice, even though she herself wasn’t guardian of the year. He plays it cool, but honestly appreciates it.

-  Bro’s still definitely not perfect, and what he did to Dave isn’t forgotten, or forgiven, but it seems like there’s something new to be built, maybe, in this new world.

[catgirldirk]

i have never, and will never, have any sympathy towards br* apologizers. @ all of you fans who create br* content and talk about how he deserves good in his life, or comfort, or whatever the fuck, you are apart of the problem. i dont know how to tell you that you should care about victims of abuse more than their abusers, man! like, c’mon!

br* CANONICALLY physically, emotionally, and sexually abused dave (although it can be argued that the only canon evidence points towards the physical part). dave suffered for years under his care, and even longer after that! dave has talked about his trauma and abuse and you all seem to just ignore that because, what? br* is hot? or??? i literally cant even come up with reasons to like him right now!

and, like, dont get me wrong, homestuck fans who like br* arent the only ones contributing to the normalization of child abuse. its a problem that goes beyond just media and its consumption, it goes beyond homestuck, beyond this fandom, the br* fans. but, man, you have to understand that it is people like br* apologists who are apart of the problem. i dont have the damn energy to really get into it, especially because im trusting the majority of you are smart enough to understand how fiction effects reality, but, bro... dude. my man, homie. come on.

literally how fucking braindead do you have to be to find an abuser sexy. how completely detached from reality do you have to be to think that a child abuser with no chance for redemption, ever, is a good person. this isnt even a “pro8lematic fave” thing, because you cant even argue that br* is a good character or “deserved better”. at least with vriska, shes a well written character and has redeeming qualities. at least with gamzee you can say that he was mind controlled, and you can say that he deserved better because h*ssie was just demonizing psychosis with him. at least with eridan he has some sympathetic qualities and he probably has potential to grow as a person. at least with dancestors you can argue that they were completely half assed and youre just reclaiming the characters. 

you cant do that with br*. he has zero redeeming qualities. you know what his most prominent trait is? hes a child abuser. he beat his kid, he exposed his kid to things that are sexual in nature, he neglected his kid. his only purpose in the plot was to traumatize dave, so dave could later acknowledge that, and to explain a lot of daves behavior and personality. 

and, one more point before i close out this post, dont compare br* to dirk. i shouldnt have to explain how they arent fucking alike. YES, dirk wouldve had the potential to become like him but you know what? he DIDNT, because he has friends that care about him and want to see him do well. he didnt, because the worst things he did happened when he was a teen, and he was able to learn and grow from those mistakes. he didnt, because he grew up in completely different circumstances from br*.  never, ever, compare br* to dirk strider, because they arent the fucking same.

tldr; STOP CREATING CONTENT OF BR* STRIDER! ALL YOU ARE DOING IS SHOWING VICTIMS OF CHILD ABUSE THAT YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEM! GROW SOME FUCKING BRAINCELLS, AND THEN MAYBE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS HARMFUL

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi Meat, p5 reaction

Meat Page 5.

We might be due another perspective switch - unless the plot stays with John until he's assembled all his friends.

When John goes to pick up Rose, it’ll probably be on LOLAR. Terezi might still be there, if she hasn’t gone clownhunting just yet.

If so, perhaps we’ll get to see whether Rose ‘n Terezi’s migraine was really due to the substance abuse + caleidoscopic colours of LOLAR + glitches… Or whether it was due to the GO timeline “supposed to” have gone differently, with John’s current retcon being the thing missing to happen. It takes a bit of effort, remembering what everyone was exactly up to on this part of the GO timeline and what would be a fortunate time for John to take it off the rails. For Kanaya, that might very well be the moment Jane set up her literal shop on LOFAF, selling her all those blood potions, for instance.

For Dirk, it might be before his conversation with Arquiusprite.

I'm getting the feeling that John might be jumping to exactly those moments in the scenes where the characters were at their lowest, self-esteem wise. Giving them a literal second breath. ;)

Not sure what we can expect from the ghost side of things though. I think they might not be duplicated, leading us to meet up with (Vriska) as we knew her, punk cut and all. Even though GO Terezi's ghost will be there with her too.

I'm half convinced Calliope will get copied somehow, but not entirely sure. The only 'real' duplicate Calliope had already, besides Alt Calliope, was her dreamself. He could snatch the body, but I was under the impression Caliborn consumed it in a literal sense to establish his dominance over the body.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me to that Andrew Hussie (the author avator) will make a comeback, probably a background cameo. I've only now realized that he's a literal ghost writer of his own story right now, in-canon. While outside of canon, he’s more becoming like Stan Lee, executive producing stories using characters he designed.

Anyway, let's start this up.

---

"The stands of the Cantown Memorial Arena" Okay, my first thought was this takes place on the meteor, but yeah, it's a building named presumably after the literal Cantown WV build in his station, back on Earth. Or the Exile Town that Bec Noir massacred. Though, does this indicate a perspective switch back to Roxy... Or is the CMA where Rumble in the Pumpkin Patch is recorded? Probably the latter, meaning the perspective is switching back to Dave! Uh, the alpha version, I guess I should call him? Post-canon, adult Dave?

"His shit eating was so brutal that no one, except maybe Jake, cares that he’s taking a phone call in the middle of a live broadcast." So, was it staged, or did Jake really get a power boost, coming into his role as the Page?

Also, I feel like if Karkat's run for president gets announced by Dave on live television, "and the crowd goes wild" will apply here.

"Dave takes a seat on the couch, right in Karkat’s butt groove." Okay, so he's not going just yet. ... Karkat's butt groove is available because the latter absconded the fuck out last we saw him, hahah.

"a piece of absolute garbage." Callback secured.

"DAVE: while the beatdown you just received was as thorough as it was humiliating im afraid as usual the solution to this problem should probably not involve your decapitation" While Dirk might be the one to keep this beaten dead horse of an in-joke going, Dave isn't going to be the one to cut its head off and end its misery. :P

"DAVE: jake just kicked your ass DAVE: thats really all there is to say on the matter" AWWWWW yessss, hahahahah. Dirk's laid down, on the ground, on his smartphone, just like Dave was after his beatdown by Bro. Awesome callback.

"DAVE: its really amazing how this meme we have going here continues to be exactly as funny as the day it was established DIRK: Isn’t it always though? DAVE: yeah" That's Strider Irony at its finest for you. You never can be entirely sure non-sincerity is what's taking place here.

" DAVE: how DID you get your ass kicked so bad DAVE: jake sucks and his raps are fucking awful" Oh, scratch that thing about his power level, then. ... The rapbots didn't join in to beat Dirk down, did they? ... Though I would like to see either them or their zilly versions again. :P

"

On the TV, Dirk makes an elegant hand sign that once might have represented solidarity with some ancient coastal rap group but now has been utterly divorced from its cultural context here on Earth C." Is it a sign associated with... the ICP? Yes, I guess whatever 'references' the kids make get picked up as divine decree...

"The camera pans away from him and over the crowd. It zooms in on a young crocodile wearing an oversized T-shirt with Jake’s highly marketable ass plastered over it and the phrase “Tally ho” written in big bubble letters." ... including stuff that was already dated when the gods were still actual kids. (By which I mean the phrase, not Jake's marketable ass.)

"DIRK: Holding back a little to achieve certain results doesn’t necessarily mean you’re participating in a farce or rigging the event. DIRK: We do this all the time. We hold back our thoughts, our true feelings, our full potential. We disguise how much we know about what and when, for many purposes. To ease relations, to let others behave naturally and make up their minds without undue intervention. To wait for the right moments to show our hands, to pick our battles. " Dirk is still overthinking things. :P He's also still a schemer, even though he's grown more mature. I think in this case, he might be trying to keep up Jake's taste for adventure and hone his skills? That might be related to the fact that he's one of the few in the know of what John is up to (also a thing he's withholding right now), and he might be trying to get Jake battle-ready in case he needs to be. ... In case he doesn't believe they'll stay irrelevant to the plot.

"DAVE: my dog you are full of some SHIT today arent you DIRK: Absolutely." It's a good thing Dave can see Dirk typing, otherwise I might have asked whether Dirk may have reinstated an autoresponder to answer when he's busy. :P

"DIRK: And when it comes to theater, there are just as many reasons for restraint. To build tension. To set the stage. To give the people someone to root against." Okay, that's actually kind of meta. Also, in-story, it might mean Dirk is deliberately trying to come off as weaker, to get people to boo at Jake so he can play hero?

"DAVE: i can see you on tv DAVE: theyre booing you dude" Okay, never mind.

"The excitable salamander manning the camera switches to a fish-eye lens for some unfathomable reason, giving the whole exchange an air of demented absurdity. Dirk’s sunglasses distort and stretch to dominate the entire screen." I'm all here for NPC races doing menial labor half-way competently. :P Also, I feel like there should be some sort of visual callback to that image of Dirk's sunglasses. Something to do with the black hole from Problem Sleuth expanding to suck the entire universe up, which was reflected in the Stiller shades, and the event in itself is being called back to now, in the Black Hole sucking up the Furthest Ring!

"JAKE: What about the agitated rabble? Theyre starting to throw things. DIRK: I don’t know. Do a dance or something. Sing a song. DIRK: They love anything you do. JAKE: Ummm. JAKE: Ok sounds stupid but ill try." Using Jake's charisma as crowd control? Dirk, you beautiful mastermind.

"Jake tips an imaginary hat toward center stage and begins doing the Charleston." Hah, right, this might be a callback to that other Page dancing old-time dances, hahah, Tavros after he assembled the ghost army.

"Just as Dirk predicted, the crowd immediately loses its shit, except for a single carapacian in the front row, who continues to glower at Dirk with an expression of absolute and total contempt." If Jack hadn't remained in the session, I would've designated this guy as his great-whatever-grandchild.

"DAVE: why do you want people to hate you so much DAVE: its fucked up DIRK: You’re reading way too much into it." I don't necessarily believe that.

"DIRK: If I wanted another round of embarrassingly indulgent and mutually masturbatory psychoanalysis, I would have called my daughter instead. DAVE: hm DAVE: do i need to point out how fucking weird what you just said was or can that start going without saying at this point" This. This is Homestuck. This entire exchange.

" DIRK: The point is, playing myself up as a villain figure in this hacky rap pageant has nothing to do with getting people to dislike me. Besides, everyone loves a good villain. When they boo, they don’t really mean it." That has me thinking of Thog, a villain from Order of the Stick, actually. But yeah, Caliborn, Condy and others were really good villains. Doesn't mean we didn't mean it when we cursed them, though.

"DIRK: I think you’d be surprised by how popular I actually am. DAVE: i dunno man" At some point, playing the villain stops being a role, if you're too thorough in antagonizing the crowd. Dirk may have gone overboard here - in his role in the pageant I mean, I don't think anyone loves their god any less. Just one more way to show that, victory state or not, their original issues still come into play and challenge them to grow.

"DIRK: The point is, this is much less about me, and more about providing a foil for Jake’s heroism and charisma. DIRK: It’s very important that his popularity continues to be cultivated, to maximize his political capital. DAVE: political capital" ... Oooooh! Thinking three steps ahead of everyone again, nice going Dirk! I think Dirk might even have foreseen Dave rallying Karkat to stand against Jane, but I wonder which side he'll be choosing!

" DAVE: what the fuck are... DAVE: ok how long have you known about the jane thing DAVE: i mean is this something you have been planning for like DAVE: a long time or DIRK: Planning is such an intense word." Oh, he's trying to pull the strings again, is he? What game is he playing then, what policies does he want to instate, if any? ... Is Dirk a supposed xenophone too, or just playing to the tune of the largest group of swing voters?

" DAVE: jane is a shitty candidate dude DAVE: shes going to be so shitty DIRK: I thought you’d feel that way." ... Pfff I just realized Dirk wasn't typing, since this was a phone call. He's saying this all out loud! Typing's the old way of conversation, we discarded it for the most part, everyone has their Gift of Gab now. Well, hopefully at least Dave's part isn't being recorded and broadcast.

"DIRK: I respectfully disagree. DAVE: i get shes a good friend of yours and all but even you have to admit how far up her own ass she is DIRK: Of course. I consider it to be among her best qualifications for the job." Dirk might just be thinking: a self-absorbed candidate won't notice being pulled around. Even though she's, you know, his dear friend and all, he's still planning on manipulating her. :/ Old habits and such.

"DAVE: christ DAVE: ok if nothing else have you at least taken into account the DEVASTATION to the economy this will cause???" Strider Irony(tm).

"DIRK: Dave, I think if you search your soul, you’ll come to the same conclusion I have. Jane is just what this planet needs. DIRK: We’ve all had our fun here, but it’s easy to overlook the fact that civilization on Earth C is hardly a sustainable proposition. DIRK: Just beneath the surface, it’s quite a dangerous and unstable place." Oh, cool, so Dirk was acting on the same things Dave noticed, just having drawn different conclusions. Guess there's more to playing god as a winner of Sburb than sitting on your butt all day long, huh?

"DAVE: i know that DAVE: which is why actually i think it would be cool to have a president that is good instead of bad DIRK: He’s not as great as you think. DAVE: what" See, I know Dirk'll say Karkat, but I kind of wish he'd say Obama. :P

"DAVE: who DAVE: obama?? DAVE: how dare you" XD PFFFFFffffhah, okay, should've seen that coming.

"DIRK: I’m happy for both of you, really. It’s nice that you encourage and support each other in this way. But you’re sending him on a fool’s errand which can only end badly." Like, I understand where Dirk's coming from, we know how unbalanced Karkat is at his worst. But Dirk's seems to be the conservatist route, while the current status quo is so unbalanced someone with at least a little liberal thinking should try changing policy, little by little. ... Okay now Homestuck has me doing political discourse. Hussieeeeeeee! ... Why am I now picturing a Homestuck AU about the climate change truant student marches of Europe?

"DAVE: wait DAVE: how do you even know hes entering the race DAVE: we like just decided this DIRK: A competent political operative has his ways. DIRK: Besides, it was always pretty obvious to me you’d react this way the moment the announcement was made." Okay, not ruling out entirely Dirk has something spying on Dave, but that would verge too much on what Bro would've done in his place. He probably just cold-mindedly assessed his potential response.

"DAVE: cause if youve already got jake on your side then i guess we might as well just fucking quit DIRK: I wouldn’t worry about that. DIRK: He and I don’t quite have the rapport we once did. DIRK: He’s “over me” and doesn’t spare opportunities to make ostentatious demonstration of this claim. DAVE: um DIRK: Basically he doesn’t like being told what to do. Especially not by me." Cool, okay, so... Jake is needy in his own way, in showing he can fend for himself, at least that's how Dirk sees it. Guess they still hang out a lot though, just no longer "like that". That must be a letdown for the shippers, but a boon for the people that felt betrayed at seeing Dirk & Jake back together in the Credits. I like that middle road, actually! And hey, the versions of Jake & Dirk in the New Game Plus timeline, or whatever we should call it, are still fair game!

"DIRK: So it’s fair to say as of now, he’s still fully in play. DIRK: Not that I should be encouraging you, really. DAVE: you are one doubletalking son of a bitch you know that DAVE: i cant tell if you dont want us to run or are reverse psychology mindfucking us into running" Very true, that. Why would he share the truth about Jake if he wants to win, unless he wants fair competition? Best not to dwell on it too long on this neverending stairway of hidden intentions, lest we fall down it.

" DAVE: not like i can just stand around and wait for president crocker to like DAVE: write fucking grammar laws into the constitution" Pfffff, yes, I had forgotten about Jane's grammar practices, hahah. Guess she has a good running mate in Dirk for that, at least, capitalization and everything in order when he's not rapping.

"DIRK: Sorry to cut this short, but diapers are starting to come down pretty hard right now, and some of them haven’t even had their babies removed. DAVE: what" what. I hope it's at least consort babies, they're arguably the most resilient, as semi-sapient animals.

"DIRK: That was a joke." Ah.

"Jake can’t help but watch the motion, raking his eyes over the muscles shifting beneath the skin of Dirk’s neck and arms.

There is something implacably magnificent about Dirk Strider, Jake thinks, untamed like a wild game beast of incredible size and strength." ... Well then! I didn't think the narration would offer us this view from the perspective of Jake, thought it would be reseverd for John! Not entirely sure how I feel about the privilege of seeing Jake pine for Dirk, though. :P At least it clarifies where the allure is in it, for him. It's an extension of his taste for adventure and his upbringing on an island full of terribly powerful beasts.

"Of course, their history together is never far from Jake’s mind, however many years it’s been since their last tussle of an amorous nature. The old dramas and triumphs in the days of Sburb. Dirk’s companionship has been taxing to the heart, to say the least, and yet he’s taught Jake so much—about combat, philosophy, life, love." Okay, that is just such a Jake thing to phrase it like this. I'm glad we get to see he's not so oblivious or un-elloquent in his mind as he presents himself to the outside world, consciously or not.

"But sometimes, despite their checkered and problematic past, Jakes wishes that he could seize Dirk by the proverbial horns and wrest him bodily into becoming a much more agreeable fellow." Heheh, so Jake actually would like to impose on Dirk some manners. At least with him it stays with desires, while Dirk really did try to impose on Jake when they were together.

"DIRK: How about you kick off the next round? DIRK: I bet this crowd will settle its shit right down the moment you drop the latest rhymes you’ve been tinkering with." This is going to be painful to read, isn't it? ... If we're going to read them at all. ... I swear, this might just lead into them having "the xest rapoff in the history of Earth C".

"Jake’s face lights up. He composes himself, adjusting a bow tie, although he is not wearing one, and making a vague gesture like he’s twirling one end of that mustache Dirk has not yet let him grow. Dirk lets him go with a gentle smile, like the sort you’d give to a dog for performing a trick adequately. Jake responds to the signal like an Olympic athlete hearing the starter pistol. He was born for this." All the best and worst aspects of Dirk & Jake as a couple are basically summarized here. I mean, Dirk is not even WITH Jake and vetoes some of his choices. Then again, Jake really does have TERRIBLE (but hilarious) taste in mannerisms.

"JAKE: Tally ho its me, jake mcgee! JAKE: Popping my pistols off, two shots and a kiss JAKE: My aim is tops, i never miss" ... I'm not disappointed, this really IS almost physically painful to read, as expected.

... Okay that was actually a very amazing rap. Well thought out, good use of the vocabulary, dated though it is. I liked "jake-eng's" and "jape-slings" in particular, especially since that was what Vriska dismissed him as, a joke, a jape.

"The crowd, as Dirk rightly predicted, has settled its shit right down. This is not due to any accidental brilliance on the part of Jake English, but rather due to an abashed but loyal brand of pity, the kind a devoted fan cannot help but feel when they see a beloved celebrity make an ass out of themselves during a live broadcast they have waited two and a half years in line to buy a ticket for." I think this might be Dirk's POV. Not everyone's tastes in rap are as dignified as his, after all. :P Consorts in particular might love this. Then again, we saw John embarass carapacians not too long ago, they're not immune to pitying people. But hey, on the brightside, maybe some of the audience <>'s Jake now. :P

"Dirk’s phone begins going off again." Unless it's something more ominous, this is probably Dave having the last quip.

"With a casual flick of his wrist, Dirk snaps out a bright red tranquilizer handgun and shoots Jake in the neck. Jake’s glasses crack when he hits the mat. A chorus of boos rises up from the crowd like groundwater. Dirk artfully dodges a bucket of obscene troll fluid to field yet another very important personal call." ... Did Dirk actually use a Crockertech tranquilizer on his co-god? What the hell, Dirk? Guess all is fair in the ring.

And I suppose it's not Dave then that is calling him this time, if he takes such drastic measures.

"DIRK: Yo Rose, what's up?" Oooh, if we get to see this, that would be early we get to see Rose again! Dirk and Rose'll probably be planning their next move now that John has left. (Which I take Rose to already know about, through her Seer powers, or a call with Roxy.) ... Maybe some of their plans only could have worked IF John left, if they wanted to regain some measure of relevance through them.

[panticwritten]

Jay on the Striders

Jay is one of my many para(me)s in my daydreams. The Striders are more paras pulled from Homestuck There are eight of them in the Cube. Two pre-scratch Daves. Two pre-scratch Dirks. Post-scratch Dave. Post-scratch Dirk. Davesprite. Hal, Dirk’s Auto Responder.

I think this is the first thing I’ve posted from Jay’s point of view, which is cool.

PSA: Jax is the certified Best, please be prepared for that.

So, I mostly wanted to write Jax and Dave interacting. Mostly Jax. And Jay accusing the (7/8 of the) Striders of being mother hens when uh. Yeah. Jay’s the oldest out of all us sibs, hahaha, so they’re kind of the ruler of mother hen land.

Word count: 3,838

TW:

Mentions of prior abuse

Fairly severe self-loathing

Loss of a family member

Casual references to character death

Abuse related anxiety

Humans will pack bond with anything.

Look at Roombas. They don’t even look like humans, not like an animal, no reason to think they might have feelings. They rove around, picking up crumbs. Round pieces of hardware, and still they—

We.

—have an urge to treat them as living things with feelings and emotions.

That said, my lab has always had its fair share of visitors when I let slip news of a new android, clone, or piece of machinery. Recently, a coarse scientist from another universe has been finding his way here. Connor comes to check in, now and then, looking through my new models. Sawyer and our other siblings sometimes come to see me.

Some days I wish they wouldn’t. Others, I wish they would visit more often.

Visitors come for help, occasionally. Sometimes, I’m the first stop, checking in before resorting to the magic so easily found in the Cube. Sometimes, I am the last resort. Most often, I’m called when they need discretion.

Mercenary clans asking for new equipment. I’ve had to keep a lock on that sort of work since Sawyer found out about the shackles. They were never meant to be used against us. I never intended that, but there were safeties in the design for that eventuality. The original human keeps a much closer eye on me now, likely flicking through the records in their Room as I work.

I smile at the thought, tightening a screw in Jax’s shoulder.

Sawyer likes to think they aren’t a busybody, that they don’t pry, but they watch people far more often than they let on. You can see my thoughts right now, can’t you, reading those journals?

But then, we’re a family and they mean well. I’m the last person in the Cube to critique anyone’s methods. Morally gray, the way Connor refers to it, is an understatement.

But, as I said, humans will pack bond with anything. Some more than others. There are a handful of people that will come just to talk to the various robotic projects I have.

Then there’s the Striders.

“So, I didn’t accidentally fuck them up or anything, right?” Dave asks. I’ve been around the block with this one enough to identify the anxiety under the soft chuckle he tacks onto the end of that. “Like, is their arm stuck like that forever? Wait, no, that’s dumb, I know, you can just replace the arm if it’s that bad, but—”

He cuts off when I glance over to see him turning a stray spring over in his hands. His face points toward Jax, though I can’t tell if he’s really looking at them through those sunglasses. I smile anyway, turning back to my patient.

Since the moment I acquired this space for my labs, it seems I’ve had at least one of them loitering at any given time. They latched onto the lab of an emotionally stunted clone, back when common talk was that I was torturing people back here. They certainly aren’t the only ones, but they’re the ones that feel the most like they belong. Like family.

Except one. The oldest one. The version of Dirk from the pre-scratch Earth within their universe clusters.

He used my servers, and I thought it was innocuous until I grew curious of what he was doing. I haven’t seen him in nearly a year, but that could be because I came so close to killing him the last time he was here. Even a prideful, abusive, antagonistic asshole knows when he’s not wanted in a home, it seems.

“What do you think, Jax?” I redirect his question as I delve deeper into their shoulder, probing for the broken connection. “Do you think you’ll live?”

“No, because I’m not alive, although I promise I know you’re being facetious,” they answer, the beginnings of what I know will be a long prattling loop. That should calm him down. They talk nearly as much as he does, and the flow of speech seems to help them both. “I will, however, be fine. I think it’s a few sections to the left, though. The broken line. I can almost feel it.”

A few weeks later, the others started hanging around. The first of the pleasant Striders to knock on my door was the post-scratch version of Dave.

I already knew D had to be a sweetheart underneath the layers he’d covered himself in, just based on my limited interaction with the other younger version of him outside of the lab. D’s slightly better adjusted than this one. Doesn’t try to cover it up when he shows emotion, vulnerability. Doesn’t jump at the gentle sighing of machinery in the labs.

Doesn’t break down if he topples a project or shatters a beaker. Though, that only happened once before he become comfortable enough in the lab to relax. He didn’t know how I would react, and I’m used to that.

Most of my siblings are the same way. Skittish, assuming that things will go badly because that’s how they were raised. I’d like to have more words with Dave’s ‘Bro,’ but I presume he knows I’m not a fan of his after I wiped all traces of his ‘work’ from the Cube.

I enjoy the three (four?) Daves’ presence more than I think I should. D asks about all of my projects when he stops by, lets me bounce things off of him when I hit a roadblock. Most of it is silence from him, or flat reminders of things I’ve already said, but it usually helps.

He’s the reason I managed to create the first real model of J355, named out of sentimentality and exhaustion. Well, him, the younger Dirk, and Hal. The earlier attempts were too buggy, overheated too much. We finally got the AI working, but I was so caught up in having a working AI I forgot what I needed the damn thing for.

“I still want to check the rest of your circuitry,” I murmur. “I don’t know what you get up to out there, but I’d rather take preventative measures than have you short out in the caves.”

“Shit, that could happen?” I don’t look at Dave, keeping as relaxed as possible. “How likely is that, do you think?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I tighten another screw, and Jax shifts uncomfortably. I think that one attaches to their neck, so it’ll likely be a little uncomfortable for a few days. “As long as we keep up with regular repairs they’ll be fine.”

“But if it does happen, just theoretically.” The nervous timbre to his voice has vanished, but the speed is faster, rhythm syncopated. Cover panic with cool affectations, it’s something we all do around here. “I just gotta ask how that would be handled. Like, middle of the caves. Dark, spooky, suddenly my source of light and my friend are both out of commission. Possibly in danger, doesn’t matter, I can handle it, but—”

1.2 couldn’t feel the way they did, not for the work we do. They had to either be capable of turning those feelings off or not having them at all. I was reminded of this when they first refused to complete a test on the clone group.

Not to mention the lingering glitches I couldn’t quite fix without tripping a hard reset. I nearly did, but D stopped me. I would have regretted it if I had gone through with it.

I had to start over.

I was as gentle as I could be when I told them that I couldn’t use them in the lab. They were still crushed. I still don’t know how many of their emotions are real versus simulation, the software was so buggy. At this point, it likely doesn’t matter.

“Dave?” He shuts up, and I hear him shift behind me. I tap a dented joint deep in Jax’s shoulder. I’ll worry about that when he isn’t here, when he can’t blame it on himself. It should keep until then. “You have the key to my lab, correct?”

“Wh—” I hear him shuffle behind me, then make an affirmative sound.

“So, even if that did happen it would be fine.” I withdraw and screw the panel shut, moving on to the next one while I scribble a note about the joint on a pad of paper. “You could bring them back here. No one would be mad at you. There’s nothing that could permanently destroy them, alright?”

“But…”

They befriended—surprise, surprise—another of the Striders, the sprite. They fell in with the lot of them, but those two are closer than I would have thought. J355 1.2 still visits me from time to time, and that makes me happier than I would ever admit to them.

Then D started working with the mercenaries, the Scouts. He doesn’t come by as often, though I’m not bothered. Everyone has responsibilities.

It was Hal, the young Dirk’s now-humanoid AI, that worked with me to create new algorithms for the next model. He never told me if he approved of the idea of creating a mid-level AI with a nearly suppressed emotional core, and I never asked. I just needed someone who would help me with the projects I would rather not share with the rest of the Cube.

Sawyer may be able to see them, and I may be willing to enact them, but I’m more than aware of how many of them look. Everyone knows I do questionable things, but I won’t parade it around. I know better than that.

I try a different tactic, stilling my hand in Jax’s back and leaning forward.

“Have you shown him your designs?” I ask them. I catch, this time, my voice rising into the cadence of a delighted parent. Connor, my siblings, and the other Striders would have a field day with that. Several field days.

Jax whirs, a whistling in the back of their throat that I’ve come to associate with excitement. “No, I haven’t! I should, though, shouldn’t I? That’s a friend thing, one of the ones I can do. Want to do.” They shift, slightly, but still again when their limp and exposed arm rattles against the table.

I place my instruments on the tray beside the table and tell them to wait a moment. Dave turns his head to track me as I walk away, but must look back because his words aren’t directed at me when he speaks.

“Designs?”

Jax simply whirs again, and I hear them bounce on their place on the table.

In the end, we created a lab hand that could follow instructions, but was intuitive enough to be more of an extension of myself than a tool. It was perfect. It had a low emotional bandwidth, low enough to do the work I needed done.

High enough to express that it felt like a part of the family. High enough to stop me from crossing the worst of the lines I dance around. I needed that, I think, something that knew everything and could still stand to be around me. Could keep me from making mistakes.

Then everything with Jordan happened. AA. The memories.

J-Negative.

I return to them with a thick stack of papers. Dave looks between the two of us, and I’m relieved to see intrigue overriding the Strider Mother Hen Instinct™ (I’m going to bar Sawyer from my lab the next time they manage to get me adopting their speech patterns) and his hero complex, exactly as planned.

“Which one’s the one you want next, the one on top? Or the bottom?”

They shake their head and beckon me closer. I oblige, dropping the stack on the table beside them.

“I could explain the organization system, but it would be boring and self-aggrandizing.” They shuffle through the papers with their working hand, and I can hear the smile in their gently undulating voice. “The latter would be an ego boost, the former would lower the coolness factor of this reveal.”

“By how much?” Dave chimes in, and I smile to myself, returning to my work. “Uncool enough that my B-”

My stomach turns over in the instant he pauses.

“That Dirk would shut it down?”

J-Negative got out of the cells. She was going to bring back Tchaikovsky. Or open another door. Any number of possibilities, really, most of which I’ve talked about with Hal.

It disguising itself as one of the more essential of the Sawyer siblings and hunting her down was one of the better outcomes. It making the choice, with Sawyer and I standing right there was a good outcome. If it had let go of her arm, she would have vanished. If it hadn’t pulled her into the short term memories, who knows what she could have done.

That’s what we tell ourselves, at least. Hal was almost as torn up about it as I was. Am.

Almost.

And the younger Dave’s started coming to the lab with Dirk more often. Maybe Hal told them to come, maybe the aforementioned mother hen instinct extended to me even back then. I don’t know.

We speculated what could have happened, how 2.16 could have made it. How it could have ended differently. None of it was good. None of it was acceptable. But it made it hurt a little less, knowing it really did make the right choice.

“Dave.” Jax says in a deadpan, distracting us both from his slip-of-the-tongue, but they evidently can’t suppress a rattle in their chest that nearly always comes as a precursor to laughter. Or, perhaps they do it on purpose. I can’t tell. “Dirk would be ecstatic to hear all about this radical shifting algorithm with which I rate my design priorities. You would be on a one way trip to a refreshing nap because your grasp on advanced mathematics and coding is tenuous at best.”

“Hang on just a—”

“Don’t even try to convince me of your hacking skills. There’s a reason Sollux programs our maps, not you.” They finally extract one of the more precisely detailed plans from the stack. “And this is, objectively, Fairly Advanced Shit compared to that.”

Dirk, on the other hand, deals with grief the same way I do and was more than willing to help me throw myself into my work. According to him, he wasn’t very close with 2.16, but he does live with Hal and Hal knew that I needed more healing than I had let on.

I tried uploading its programming to a new shell, but it wasn’t the same. It had all of 2.16’s memories leading up to that day, but it didn’t know exactly what happened other than that it had been destroyed.

But I knew. I knew.

So Dirk helped me change the algorithms. Sometimes Hal came, plugged himself into the server to look for inconsistencies and broken code. All three alpha Daves would come, the older one taking up his role as a sounding board for all of us, the younger ones making sure we didn’t run ourselves into the ground or take ourselves too seriously.

“Jax, be nice,” I chide. They pause to look back at me, brow raising into a smooth arc and clearly calling hypocrisy. “Nicer, at least.”

They disregard that, turning back to the still-waiting Strider. Both D and Dirk have made a point of telling me that they see more of his real smiles—smiles that he doesn’t try to hide when someone outside of his circle sees—since he started spending time with Jax. They seem good for each other.

“Alright, Dave, hold onto your shades or this might blow your mind.” They slowly unfold the paper, and Dave adjusts his sunglasses with a smirk. They pause before flipping the last fold, straightening up more. “Also, I think this will make you feel much better. About the possibility of me getting hurt, I mean. If me getting hurt was even remotely possible, considering I’m a literal robot. I’m not like Hal or V or (does AA count?) or, you know, any of the other sort of machines. I’m honest-to-god, homemade, artificial.”

They don’t sound like they’re going to stop any time soon, and Dave has gotten noticeably paler, so I flick the back of their neck. “Hey. Just show him.”

We did it, eventually, creating a hybrid of the two processors. At first, I thought 3.21 would be more like 2.16. They were cold in the beginning, in the new learning phase, until they met this Dave, the nervous one, and all of the best parts carried over from 1.2 started to come out.

They learned so fast. When I asked how they felt they were doing a month after they came online, they processed longer than I thought they would. They told me they felt loved, the same way you might tell someone it’s sunny outside, and returned to the 3DS I had given them not long before.

Which they had taken apart and put back together within an hour and were using it to make (what I found out later to be) a port to play the games faster, without taking up their hands.

Needless to say, I needed a few minutes to recover from that. The Striders agree that our being able to raise them to feel loved is not only mind-boggling but a massive relief. We all had dysfunctional childhoods, and that’s putting it mildly.

They lay the design on the table, Dave sliding from the counter to come look (and assist, since maneuvering a large sheet of paper is difficult with one hand). He runs gentle fingers over the blueprint, quiet next to Jax’s continued whirring.

I nudge them again. “Which one is it? I can’t see.”

“I drew it on the sixth. This month. Finished it at…” A buzz, while they find the archived information. “Six fifteen in the morning.”

I almost tell them that I still don’t know which one that is, but they continue.

“With the rose gold bolts. Darker synthetics with crow designs—tattoos—copper nails, amber eyes. Um.” They hum, and I grin when the image of it appears in my mind’s eye. “Shorter hair, I left the color to your discretion.”

They still wanted to do their duties in the lab, but by then I had more than enough smaller helpers around the place. I didn’t need them as much as I needed 2.16. Unlike their predecessors, I made them out of desperation rather than a necessity.

I was terrified of letting them leave the lab, knowing that it isn’t safe out there. Hell, 2.16 was right next to The Lounge, the safest place in the entire Cube complex, and it was destroyed. D talked me down when them asking to run around with the Striders practically threw me into a panic.

He came up with the idea of the designs. Total transparency. Real time downloads of their memories. If something happens and their body is destroyed or their local data is corrupted, I can reupload them into a new body. One they designed and picked out.

That soothed my nerves enough, though I still wasn’t completely at ease. They started exploring the Cube with a handful of others, improving the mapping systems. The young Dave’s been working on that with a group of friends ever since the Cube expanded a few years ago. The progress has increased exponentially with an android on their team.

“Think of it like this, Dave.” I see him look up in my peripherals, but I can finally see the broken connection. I try to keep my voice soothing. “This is a lot like your history with your time abilities. Mistakes lead to dead Daves. Dead Daves are awful, it’s traumatic when dead Daves happen, but they are far from the end of the world so long as we plan accordingly.”

I tug on the shifted connection, and it slips back into place. Jax’s arm tenses, a soft hum emitting from their shoulder as everything comes back online. Now, I watch Dave while I smooth Jax’s synthetic skin back over the mechanics on their back.

A carefully neutral expression stares back at me, and I smile in response.

“I know you worry about your friends, that you want to protect them,” I say slowly, carefully, while Jax flexes their fixed arm. They can handle the synthetics there, so I push my rolling chair to face the both of them. It’ll keep them distracted, from derailing me. Dave needs to hear this. “This is not something you have to carry on your shoulders. That’s my job. You don’t need to worry about breaking them.”

Eventually, they asked about 2.16’s memories, why it wasn’t around anymore. They asked to download the data.

I couldn’t say no. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

It was the first time I had the experience of hearing the grinding in their neck symbolizing tears they aren’t capable of shedding. A warped, crushing version of their excited whirring I had already become so used to.

They balance their time more evenly between home and friends now.

Dave looks back down at the blueprint. He traces more of it. He sniffs, his posture portraying indifference, but his profile allows me to see him blinking furiously behind his sunglasses.

Silence stands in the lab for awhile, Dave staring at the blueprint, Jax staring at Dave, me staring at both of them. I hold my breath, waiting. For Dave to say something. For Jax to break the silence. For either of them to move.

He looks back up at Jax, a brilliant grin lighting up his face.

“Can I see some more of these?” His voice breaks on the last word, but the flicker of disappointment I’m used to seeing from him doesn’t come. My heart swells at that, but neither of them are looking at me now.

Jax immediately jumps into action, sliding off of the table and rifling through the stack of prints. They pull another out and smooth it over the first. They lean over the table, explaining the design to Dave.

I take the opportunity to back out, letting them chatter on. They’ll be at it for bit, until Dave gets tired. Until Jax notices and makes him go back to the flat.

I don’t know when I started thinking of them as more of a child than a machine, or even a partner. Maybe it was when they first came home after trip into the In-Between had sheared a portion of their head off (this Dave wasn’t there, thank god, I can’t imagine how he would have reacted to that). It could have been when they came back from their first week in charge of the body on the outside with a they/them/theirs magnet fixed to their chest.

I know I was far, far gone by the time they sat me down and told me that their new name was Jax.

[bonk-water]

Dave Strider Memory Post

basically here is my post on memories if anyone has some memories that are the same, message me!! So basically, I was a trans boy Dave whose dead name was Daisy. I had my hair always in a bun and i dyed it red. I liked really obscure bands at the time and I used to draw to get my mind off things. I was really really close to Rose Lalonde. Bro used to severely abuse me to the point that CPS had gotten involved and that mom lalonde had gotten close to buying me a plane ticket to live with her and Rose but CPS wouldnt allow it so i was stuck with bro. i had severe anxiety and depression and my social skills were moderately okay but its not like i ever left the apartment. rose and mom would buy me a lot of stuff because bro never did, like clothes and food sometimes. ive been in the hospital more times than i could count because of bro. i didnt go to school cause bro never took me. #TW BIG MEMORY THING: If you are a rose and you remember this: "I'll never let you die. No matter how hard you try, I will never let you die because I will always be here. And i will MAKE sure you dont die." (words from Bro. If you truly are my rose you will know the situation those words went to) after that the game started and it tbh follows the who timeline and everything except that i grew really close to John and eventually we ended up together. Karkat was a major jerk in my timeline but when the game ended he leveled out drastically and became a close friend of mine. after the game. everyone kind of settled down in their own respectable places. me and john stayed together and we were happy. but because of my past experiences i severely relied on rose to help me through life and live it normally. i went to therapy for years. not only was rose my therapist but i had another as well. she wanted to make sure i was okay and i was fine with it. but living with the fact that youve died several times during a game where a lot of your friends died too and the fact that memories of your abuse would resurface all the time tbh got too much and i honestly killed myself. (forgot to mention i had a moderate crush on jade, and john knew. i was poly back then but i never persued her) now im here thats it those are my memories