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Homestuck's 413 is today and it's almost 13 years to the day that I started watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica. So I thought it was finally time to do the director commentaries on my fic (link goes to AO3) a question of time featuring the crossover pairing of Akemi Homura/Dave Strider. Yes I write their names that way because the way their names are presented in their individual series trumps consistency.
Which is somehow related to the theme of this first part that will not quote the fic yet, despite being a director's commentary! But I think a bit of backstory is needed.
Specifically that my advice is not to get into a series through a fic featuring a crack crossover pairing.
That fic is clockwork tanrantella, though I caught it early enough on the Homestuck kink meme that I also saw the other fill, Walk With Me. But that'll be relevant later.
For today, my focus is on the fact that I was on the Homestuck kink meme when I knew nothing about Homestuck. Why? I was hoovering up all content I could about Akemi Homura cos she'd sunk into my brain. (Surprisingly, this is the topic of my second post.) I had to read all the Akemi Homura stuff, even if it had things I didn't know.
Dave Strider was that unknown at the time. Despite the haze of an obsession, Dave Strider was able to capture my attention the way that he'd caught Homura's attention in those fics. I wanted to know if the Dave Strider in these fics, especially clockwork, was the way he was portrayed in Homestuck itself. I was constantly looking for the coolkid, the time badass, the boy who thought his brother was a hero, but was going to lose him because wasn't that what happened to all mentors in the martial arts films?
I found him, but I don't know if I missed out on other things as a result.
I was slow about getting into Homestuck, the way that I'm slow about most things (see: TSwift friendship bracelets). I also don't have posts or fic publication dates to look at. But I'm pretty sure I got into Homestuck immediately after Cascade, since that was published 25 October 2011.
Which makes me wonder if I would have had a Jade bias, if I'd gone into the webcomic on its own, because I came away post Cascade thinking Jade was very bad ass. As was Rose. As was John. And Dave and also Davespite!! Basically I came away with a huge Beta kid bias, though that was all adjacent to playing degrees of separation from Dave. I lived for chat logs that had Dave in them.
I also suppose it was inevitable that I'd end up with a Terezi bias among the trolls, though Aradia was pretty cool too. But they all also had interactions with Dave in common.
That's when I came to another realisation. Even with the lens I'd donned, I realised that Dave talked to a lot of people. And even the people who didn't exactly talk back to him (like Jade when she was sleeping) he still talked to them. Even demanded attention from them. Davesprite was proof that Dave himself would do extreme things (like lose his individuality) for the people he cared for. So why was it that Dave in the Dave/Homura fics that I read only talked to Homura?
So I decided that when I finally wrote a Dave/Homura fic, Dave would talk to the other characters. Some even from Homestuck! He would definitely talk to Jade, and he should probably talk to Bro right? That's why I ended up with the character tags for my fic.
But Hussie had other plans for me, which are related to Homestuck as a webcomic series so I'll talk about them in this post. Specifically, he surprised me with the Game Over and Retcon. In Game Over, I was surprised to learn that Dave hadn't used his time powers since he got onto the meteor. I had no idea that he hated his time powers so much that he didn't even use them. And then he and Jade got killed, so that John had to pull his Retcon to get alive versions of them. Including a version of Dave that was even further from the version that I first encountered via fic. This wasn't the only time that Dave would change - he changed again in the Epilogues.
That was part of the reason why I decided to set the fic before the Homestuck Credits, but not the only reason. That's a story for another post, after I talk about Homura and PMMM in the next part.
Continued in Part 2 and more!!!
Or check out the fic commentary tag.
Which is somehow related to the theme of this first part that will not quote the fic yet, despite being a director's commentary! But I think a bit of backstory is needed.
Specifically that my advice is not to get into a series through a fic featuring a crack crossover pairing.
That fic is clockwork tanrantella, though I caught it early enough on the Homestuck kink meme that I also saw the other fill, Walk With Me. But that'll be relevant later.
For today, my focus is on the fact that I was on the Homestuck kink meme when I knew nothing about Homestuck. Why? I was hoovering up all content I could about Akemi Homura cos she'd sunk into my brain. (Surprisingly, this is the topic of my second post.) I had to read all the Akemi Homura stuff, even if it had things I didn't know.
Dave Strider was that unknown at the time. Despite the haze of an obsession, Dave Strider was able to capture my attention the way that he'd caught Homura's attention in those fics. I wanted to know if the Dave Strider in these fics, especially clockwork, was the way he was portrayed in Homestuck itself. I was constantly looking for the coolkid, the time badass, the boy who thought his brother was a hero, but was going to lose him because wasn't that what happened to all mentors in the martial arts films?
I found him, but I don't know if I missed out on other things as a result.
I was slow about getting into Homestuck, the way that I'm slow about most things (see: TSwift friendship bracelets). I also don't have posts or fic publication dates to look at. But I'm pretty sure I got into Homestuck immediately after Cascade, since that was published 25 October 2011.
Which makes me wonder if I would have had a Jade bias, if I'd gone into the webcomic on its own, because I came away post Cascade thinking Jade was very bad ass. As was Rose. As was John. And Dave and also Davespite!! Basically I came away with a huge Beta kid bias, though that was all adjacent to playing degrees of separation from Dave. I lived for chat logs that had Dave in them.
I also suppose it was inevitable that I'd end up with a Terezi bias among the trolls, though Aradia was pretty cool too. But they all also had interactions with Dave in common.
That's when I came to another realisation. Even with the lens I'd donned, I realised that Dave talked to a lot of people. And even the people who didn't exactly talk back to him (like Jade when she was sleeping) he still talked to them. Even demanded attention from them. Davesprite was proof that Dave himself would do extreme things (like lose his individuality) for the people he cared for. So why was it that Dave in the Dave/Homura fics that I read only talked to Homura?
So I decided that when I finally wrote a Dave/Homura fic, Dave would talk to the other characters. Some even from Homestuck! He would definitely talk to Jade, and he should probably talk to Bro right? That's why I ended up with the character tags for my fic.
But Hussie had other plans for me, which are related to Homestuck as a webcomic series so I'll talk about them in this post. Specifically, he surprised me with the Game Over and Retcon. In Game Over, I was surprised to learn that Dave hadn't used his time powers since he got onto the meteor. I had no idea that he hated his time powers so much that he didn't even use them. And then he and Jade got killed, so that John had to pull his Retcon to get alive versions of them. Including a version of Dave that was even further from the version that I first encountered via fic. This wasn't the only time that Dave would change - he changed again in the Epilogues.
That was part of the reason why I decided to set the fic before the Homestuck Credits, but not the only reason. That's a story for another post, after I talk about Homura and PMMM in the next part.
Continued in Part 2 and more!!!
Or check out the fic commentary tag.
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