Those of you who remember being in the Homestuck fandom back in 2012 to 2013 will no doubt remember the old Tumblr post that went around claiming the four post-scratch kids were like the noble gases due to their supposed inability to form bonds with each other. All too often I’ve seen this ancient piece of fanon used to support the idea that the alpha kids are not as close a group of friends as the beta kids are, and that somehow this makes them less likeable or worth paying attention to as the Acts 1-5 faves the original Homestuck fans knew and loved.
However, I have a proposition for any still listening out here, one that could turn the concept of “alpha kids as noble gases” on its head. What if I told you that the initial premise was false, but the conclusion was true? Leaving aside the individual identifications of each kid with a particular gas, let us concern ourselves with the four as a group.
dirk plays pacifist and neutral, gets partway through geno and becomes too upset to continue. stresses himself out thinking he should finish it, but can’t because it makes him feel too bad about himself. he would accidentally kill toriel but not reset because he would be committed to following his choices through, i think. favorite character… i think he would lowkey really like alphys.
jake would do neutral to pacifist, definitely not geno. i could maybe see him resetting to save toriel if he thought of it. he would do a neutral route the first time and get some LV i think. not in the ruins because the toriel telling you not to guilt is real but later on, when things get more frustrating and you keep dying. his favorite character is undyne. OBVS undyne. but he would like all of them, especially papyrus and alphys i think. flowey might be a bit close to home for both him and dirk, remind them a bit of the AR.
roxy plays all the routes and does excellently. defeats geno sans with unfair ease. probably does one of those really irritating no-hit runs where she gets thru geno without ever taking damage. people are slightly horrified by her laughing at parts of geno but she doesn’t give a shit. her favorites are the temmies. :3 but i think she would like undyne a lot too tbh.
janey… jane would play neutral, then pacifist, and then be done, i think. unless she was pissed when she was playing, but i don’t think she has the patience for geno. i could see her doing a high LV neutral route out of frustration and then feeling a bit guilty about it after. her favorite would be toriel and she’s definitely rooting for toriel and asgore not to get back together.
dave plays the pacifist run where you dont have to reset fully after photoshop flowey on account of never having killed anyone, because he heard that you can do a route like that and chose to not be attacking if he didn’t have to. would figure out the dodging + saying fun things bit pretty quick and have too much fun with it. his favorites are all the most hilarious random encounter monsters, sans, and nabstablook. and he races the snails too many times.
rose plays neutral, then geno, then pacifist, just to be contrary. betrays herself by thinking muffet’s fangs are hot. actually disliked geno a lot but played it so she can talk loftily about its implications and dirk can’t do shit if he wants to debate with her because he flunked out of it. maybe her favorite is chara for the moral ambiguity and being influenced by the player’s decisions. (i generally subscribe to chara as the narrator theory.) also flowey. she would like flowey.
karkat plays with the temmie armor. lmao. he complains the whole way about encounters being too hard but stays pacifist. he virulently complains about all the characters, calls toriel the only sensible one, and secretly likes mettaton.
i dont know if i have enough solid opinions on the other characters… jade would love that you can throw the stick for the dogs. she and jake both pet lesser dog until the depths of the universe are plundered. terezi might like asriel, but her favorite part would the the color tile puzzle. if john tried geno he’d fail out when you have to kill the dogs. callie probably just watches others play with mild bemusement, and her favorite is alphys.
never forget that not only did dirk strider, upon being ordered to draw pornography of him and his friends, cheerfully agree before realizing caliborn would demand fairly tame imagery, he also expressed interest in reading callie’s fanfiction about them after confirming it was explicitly romantic, and upon being told that said fanfiction was deviant and possibly disgusting he literally said “but that only makes me want to read it more.” incredible. i love him. his palpable disappointment that caliborn didnt want him to draw himself and jake kissing followed immediately by him morosely dragging their scribbled renditions together for an illicit smooch regardless remains one of the most memorable moments in the entire billion word saga to me like he was ready. he was absolutely ready to send self drawn smut of him and jake to all his friends with the excuse of well an angry space alien made me do it, soooo
also never forget that roxy made the art of her and jake her goddamn phone background i love her
Flying through Storytelling 