Homestuck Kids

The Homestuck Kids are the four main characters of Homestuck: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley.

Note
This article is about the similarities and differences between the main characters in Homestuck, and maintains the subtle feature in Problem Sleuth that was not as apparent: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nearly everything that exists and the actions done in the story are replicated differently through another character.

In general, similarities are seen when applying a particular filter over it.
 * John is straight-forward, with perhaps a prank of some sort being applied. He is generally absent-minded, and will often neglect the consequences of performing a hasty command.
 * Rose is fairly straight-forward, but she will be more secretive about it.
 * Dave is all about being cool through irony. Everything he has done or will do will be on that basis.
 * Jade is silly. In nearly every case Jade will do the exact opposite of what is to be expected through a silly manner.

Introductions and Habits
Each kid in Homestuck is introduced in a similar, albeit unique manner based on several factors. Along with this they each follow a type of progression as they inch nearer toward what could ultimately be called the actual game - when Sburb summons a Meteor to crash into their abode and presumably either destroy them or send them to The Medium.


 * Each kid is introduced by the player giving them a name.
 * John Egbert was never given a name before, and on his thirteenth birthday initially called Zoosmell Pooplord, but the game rejects it.
 * Rose Lalonde was to be named Flighty Broad (by Kanaya) but she doesn't like the sound of it.
 * Dave Strider was about to be given the name of Insufferable Prick, but he slices the naming box in half with a Ninja Sword before it finishes. He just doesn't have time for that kind of bullshit.
 * Jade Harley was assumed to be named Farmstink Buttlass, but she had foreseen this and had written a note correcting the player before she drifted off.
 * The kids are similar in stature and build, but are made to look different.
 * John has black messy hair, glasses, and a belt. His shirt has a picture of a Slimer-like creature called Green Slime Ghost on it. His overbite is also readily apparent.
 * Rose has feminine eyelashes, and a hair band. Her shirt has a picture of a Squiddle on it, defaced and made sinister by rubbing a coin on the mouth and eyes.
 * Dave has really rad hair and some Sunglasses. His shirt has a picture of a record on it. Obviously this is really cool. Through the Wayward Vagabond's screen, we see him with the same record on his shirt, though broken through the middle. This was later found to have been caused by Dave's Bro slicing the design in half, along with Lil Cal. How a sword can accomplish this is unknown. Maybe Bro's just that awesome.
 * Jade has buck teeth, large round glasses, colorful bands on her fingers to help her remember stuff, and long, straight black hair. Her shirt has a blue picture on it that shifts to reflect past, present, or future events; it was originally randomized, but now defaults to an image of Bec's head.
 * Interests play a large part of the individuality of the kid.
 * John's biggest interest is in pranks. He also likes computer games, programming, bad movies, and webcomics. He is a huge fan of Colonel Sassacre's and keeps his hefty tome in his Magic Chest.
 * Rose is largely interested in Lovecraftian horrors, or the "Zoologically Dubious". Her other hobbies include knitting, writing in her diary and dabbling in Psychoanalysis.
 * Dave is based on just being cool. He loves to do things that are ironic in nature, such as maintain a host of ironic websites and comic strips. He also has a darkroom and keeps things that are dead and preserved in odd ways.
 * Jade has many interests, the main one being horticulture. She also is interested in nostalgic cartoons, "fauna of an anthropomorphic persuasion," nuclear physics, and advanced technology. She also enjoys her fits of narcolepsy and her own precognitive abilities.
 * Each of the kids plays a different musical instrument and has a leitmotif.
 * John plays the piano. His musical theme is Showtime.
 * Rose plays the violin. Her musical theme is Aggrieve.
 * Dave likes to put out ill beats using mixing equipment. His musical theme is Beatdown.
 * Jade has an "eclectic" bass guitar in her bedroom. Her musical theme is Gardener/The Beginning of Something Really Excellent.
 * The kids are all given a color to denote their character. This color is shown predominately in their chats through Pesterchum. The color that their house is bathed in does not necessarily reflect this trait. Packages they send are colored with their color.
 * John's main color is blue. He sends a blue package to Dave containing some Sunglasses and sent Rose a knitting kit for her birthday. He also sent a gift to Jade, who, through some precognitively planned convolutions, sent it to her past self. It contained a Blue Slime Ghost t-shirt (explaining its appearance as a Wardrobified setting, and why Jade wears blue instead of green) and some Pumpkin seeds (intended to replace the ones that had been disappearing, but instead ironically sparking Jade's interest in gardening, which was the reason he sent the package in the first place).
 * Rose's main color is purple. She has a purple package ready for John, but she never sent it. John found it and took the bunny inside, then gently chaos dunked it back in.
 * Dave's main color is red. He sent a red package to John that contained a very special bunny.
 * Jade's main color is green. She sent a green package to John, but it fell into the endless void with Dad's car. It also contained the very same bunny.
 * Odd commands are given to the kids that involve indulging in animalistic behavior and then doing some bodily function on furniture.
 * John is given the command to squawk like an imbecile and then shit on his desk, which he resists despite the temptation. He's given a similar command later toward his mailbox.
 * Rose is told to writhe like a flagellum and then puke on her bed. She refuses outright.
 * Dave is pushed to bleat like a goat and then piss on his turntables. He considers bleating like a goat later for ironic purposes, and ironically spills apple juice on his turntables later despite saying he'd never let anything resembling pee get near them.
 * Jade is commanded to squeal like a piglet and fertilize her plants... and she obliges! While the command probably implied shitting on the plants, Jade took it in the literal sense.
 * Each kid lives in a different time zone.
 * John lives on the west coast.
 * Rose lives on the east coast, three hours ahead of John.
 * Dave uses central time, two hours ahead of John.
 * Jade lives on a Pacific island in UTC+12, four hours behind John. When it is 9 at her house, it is 4 at Rose's, 1 at John's, and 3 at Dave's, creating a 413.
 * Each Child appeared on a Meteor that impacted a site on earth.
 * John appeared after a meteor destroyed his family's joke shop called Prankster's Gambit. His Nanna was inside the store and therefore killed by the impact.
 * Rose's meteor has yet to be seen making impact, but it is alluded that her meteor destroyed a lake near a laboratory on the east coast of the United States. No aquatic life survived.
 * Dave's meteor destroyed Bro's favorite record shop. Yet Bro didn't find Dave until the next day.
 * Jade's meteor destroyed a Betty Crocker factory. Dad and Nanna were outside the Factory, which was owned by Grandpa.

Traits and Likenesses
After the introductions, subtle similarities occur between them as they go about their business. Typically, objects in their possession share the same generic notion, but are usually altered and different from the other kids' versions, and they never share a copy of that kind of item in their home.
 * The kids each own a computer. However, they all have different operating systems, web browsers (each named after mythological Greek figures), and programs.
 * John's computer's OS is similar to Windows XP. His web browser is Typheus, named after the last son of Gaia who attempted to destroy Zeus. The icon for Typheus is the same as the unspeakably hideous trophy at the ground level of Jade's home. His desktop is littered with various programming project files.
 * Rose's computer is similar to a Macintosh. Her web browser is Cetus, a Greek sea monster, daughter of Gaia and Pontus. Her elegantly wallpapered desktop is organized into three folders: 'leavings,' 'scraps,' and 'detritus.'
 * Dave's computer's OS is similar to Windows 7. His web browser is Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge who was the son of Zeus. His computer runs Pesterchum 7.0., a slightly upgraded version of 6.0 that the other two run. His desktop has three folders: 'Ill Beats,' 'Dope Rhymes. So Dope,' and 'Complete Bullshit.'
 * Jade's computer is completely different from anything in the real world, resembling computer interfaces from Minority Report. Her web browser is Echidna, the progenitor of all Greek mythological monsters and the offspring of Gaia. She uses Pesterchum Enamel ("Much shinier!") and has many friends in her Chumroll. She uses FreshJamz Media Player to play MP3s she and her friends make.
 * Along with a computer, each kid has a Pesterchum screen name related to their interests and/or personalities.
 * John's screen name is ectoBiologist. It hints at his interest in Ghostbusters and the paranormal. It used to be ghostyTrickster until he changed it to avoid the trolls. The term is actually used by Terezi to describe John right before John changes his screen name ("YOUR3 4 TOT4L D1SGR4C3 TO TH3 F13LD OF 3CTOB1OLOGY"). This gives him the idea for a new handle. She is referring either to the ectobiology that he would later do in the game, Sburb, or to his later chumhandle.
 * Rose's tentacleTherapist screen name shows her interest in eldritch horrors, psychoanalysis and wordplay.
 * Dave's turntechGodhead screen name indicates both his love for DJing and his large ego. Also a probable reference to Godhead Pickle Inspector.
 * Jade, gardenGnostic, has been shown to have uncanny insight in events that haven't happened yet and is interested in horticulture.
 * In addition to a computer, each kid has a portable way of communicating.
 * John has his father's PDA, and the Serious Business Goggles as a "nice hands-free communication solution."
 * Rose's laptop was portable, thanks to the hub acquired in the lab, and later combined the two with her hairband, making a Hubtopband. She calls it a "a convenient hands-free computing device."
 * Dave has his phone, but Alternate Timeline Dave combined it with his Sunglasses to form a new device, the iShades. It is currently unknown how pleasant a hands-free device it is.
 * Jade's computer is a laptop in a lunchbox - a Lunchtop. She made Lunchmuffs by combining her Lunchtop with earmuffs, Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles using her Lunchtop and Sooth Specs, and a Warm Fuzzy Squiddlejacket and Squiddlesneaks using her outfit, the Lunchtop, and one of her grandfather's furry trophies. Each of these is also a computer.
 * An item from Problem Sleuth appears in their room.
 * John's item is the Hammer. It serves as a normal hammer and as the weapon of choice for John and his Strife Specibus.
 * Rose's item is the Ink of Squid Pro Quo. Rose combines the bottle with gushers to make poisonous black gushers.
 * Dave's item is the fabled Sunglasses. He's currently wearing them in an ironic gesture.
 * Jade does not have the Pumpkin in her greenhouse. To suggest so would be foolish. There is, however, a nonfunctional plug-in window in her room.
 * Additionally, each kid owns a poster containing something about Problem Sleuth or related to it in a fashion.
 * John has the poster of Problem Sleuth being exceptionally hard boiled. He is the hero, after all. He also has the Problem Sleuth videogame.
 * Rose has a poster of Beasts, to support her interest in the Lovecraftian horrors.
 * Dave is in possession of posters of the Midnight Crew and The Felt which ironically, is not really a part of Problem Sleuth at all. He also has a poster of the pattern on DMK's head.
 * Jade possesses a book titled Problem Sooth which is a rather silly misinterpretation of Problem Sleuth. It shows the first page of Problem Sleuth wearing a turban instead of his signature hat.
 * It appears that the children in Homestuck each have an Associated Classical Element, evidenced by both their choice of web browser and the weather outside their house. This classical associated element seems to be reflected by a vice that their caretaker indulges in.
 * John's associated element is Wind. His web browser is Typheus, a reference to the hundred-headed serpent who was the father of the winds. Before being plunged into the meta-reality of Sburb, the weather outside his house was a light, breezy day. His planet, the Land of Wind and Shade, is filled with wind-blowing pipes. John's Dad frequently smokes.
 * Rose's associated element is Water. Her web browser is Cetus, the monstrous personification of the sea and various terrors held within. Her house was situated directly on top of a river was under a severe rainstorm. Her planet, the Land of Light and Rain, is almost entirely ocean, with many rainclouds. Rose's Mother has a drinking problem.
 * Dave's associated element is Fire. His browser is Hephaestus, the god of the forge. Wherever Dave lives, it is currently hot. So hot. This is ironic because Dave is so goddamn cool. His associated color is also Red, the color most commonly associated with fire and heat. Dave's Bro creates Puppet pornography with flamingly homoerotic overtones. His planet, the Land of Heat and Clockwork, is filled with lava.
 * Jade's associated element is Earth. Her browser is Echidna, the monster daughter of Gaia who lived in a cave. She lives on a remote, Pacific, volcanic atoll. A good portion of her residence consists of greenhouses as well. Her grandfather was seemingly stricken with wanderlust, or addicted to traveling the Earth. Alternatively, there is the fact that he was taxidermied, rather than being buried in the earth like a normal person. Also, Becquerel consumes radioactive materials which have come into contact with Rare Earth Elements.
 * The kids each have a planet associated with them in the Medium.
 * John's planet is the Land of Wind and Shade.
 * Rose's planet is the Land of Light and Rain.
 * Dave's planet is the Land of Heat and Clockwork.
 * Jade's planet is the Land of Frost and Frogs.
 * Each of the kids except for Jade has a poorly drawn picture hanging up on his or her fridge.
 * John drew an image of the Green Slime Ghost about one week before the story started. His Dad hung it up using a jester magnet.
 * Rose made a portrait of her late cat Jaspers, accompanied by a poem, when she was young. Her Mother purchased a $15,000 frame and had it welded to the freezer door. Thus began a constant battle of passive-aggressive one-upmanship.
 * Dave drew a picture of Sweet Bro which was hung on the fridge by a GameBro magnet (no doubt an ironic statement) until the magnet was dislodged by a shuriken.
 * Jade's fridge is tiny and portable, so she can't really hang up anything on it.
 * Each kid is also possibly represented by one of Jade's fingers due to the topmost colored strings, though there is no proof yet of anyone other than John.
 * The kids have a large doll loafing around in the home thanks to their authority figure. They make the best of these by customizing it to fit their interests. (These are used for prototyping the Kernelsprite.)
 * John's father gave a him a large harlequin for his birthday, which John equipped with his Fake Arms. This was his Tier One prototyping.
 * Rose's mother bought her a Pretty Princess doll which Rose turned into an Eldritch Princess by knitting a new head and tentacles for it. This was her Tier Two prototyping.
 * Bro's favorite puppet, Lil Cal, has been following Dave for a while. Other than deluding himself into thinking it is cool and not at all creepy, Dave has not done anything to change it. It was mangled viciously by Bro at the end of their confrontation. It was his Tier Two prototyping in an alternate timeline, though his Future Self was the Tier Two prototyping for the current timeline.
 * Jade's Granddad has four dolls set up in the grand foyer: a mummy dressed with a Napoleon styled hat, a knight wearing an expensive looking suit, a woman with a blue wig and a man with a head of a deer. Whether these were from Jade playing dress-up with them or they were like that from the start is unknown. Though John attempted to prototype with the blue-wigged woman, Vriska prevented this by putting him to sleep with her powers.
 * Each home has the remains of a beloved one preserved. (These presumably will each be used prototyping the Kernelsprite.)
 * John has his Grandmother's ashes preserved in an urn on his fireplace's mantle. This was his Tier Two prototyping.
 * Rose's pet cat Jaspers is in a mausoleum in her backyard. This was her Tier One prototyping.
 * Dave has an entire collection of deceased creatures, displayed proudly on a shelf in his bedroom. He also has the fresh corpse of a crow sitting on a nearby rooftop. Also, in Strife with his Bro, Lil Cal was maimed. The crow was used as his Tier One prototyping, and Lil Cal was used by Alternate Future Dave for Tier Two.
 * Jade has the stuffed remains of her grandfather as well as all of his various hunting trophies and decrepit mummies. Though Jade was planning to use her grandpa for prototyping, his remains were teleported into space by Becquerel.
 * Each kid seems to be treated slightly differently by the others, though all are well-disposed to each other.
 * John tends to get the most straightforward talking done to him, perhaps because of his thus far central role: however, the others seem to consider him sort of clueless on occasion.
 * Rose seems to inspire more thoughtful conversation, with the other three talking to her in a slightly more serious or respectful manner than with each other.
 * Dave apparently inspires some sort of assault on himself whenever he talks to John or Rose, with both poking fun at his interests and verbally challenging him in some way, to which he responds in kind. Jade, on the other hand, seems very impressed with him.
 * Jade is treated much more gently by the other kids in comparison to their interactions, suggesting that they may feel some compassion toward her.
 * Each kid has a weakness that sometimes blocks communication.
 * John sometimes often buries his PDA within his Sylladex or forcefully ejects it and is prone to being inundated with commands or questions from the Wayward Vagabond.
 * Rose has a limited lifespan on her laptop. She also often loses connection due to the inclement weather outside.
 * Dave is prone to bursting into rap. He goes on for long period of time and is difficult to interrupt. He also has a poor record for avoiding plush rumps and spongy proboscises.
 * Jade is narcoleptic. She'll fall asleep whenever exerting herself too much.
 * Once they gained access to alchemy, each kid created their own signature weapon(s):
 * John has The Pogo Hammer and the Telescopic Sassacrusher.
 * Rose has the needlewands and the Thorns of Oglogoth.
 * Dave has Caledscratch and the Snoop Dogg Snow Cone Machete.
 * Jade has Girl's Best Friend and the Green Sun Streetsweeper.
 * It seems that each of the kids has some sort of subconscious problem caused by their dream selves that manifests itself in them drawing on the walls of their room and forcing themselves not to see what they drew, with the scribblings having a strong relation to the story.
 * John drew harlequins on his wall. He initially thought that the imps did it.
 * Rose has written the word "MEOW" many times along her walls. When Dream Rose awakened, she found out that this establishes the relation between online handles and genetics.
 * Dave has the likenesses of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff (JPEG artifacts and all) on his.
 * Jade likely does not have this problem, as her dream self is already awake, but it's compensated with her silly nature.
 * All their Guardians (except Bec, who self-prototyped Jade's kernelsprite and could be considered dead in a sense) have died, 3 of them because of Jack Noir.

Actions and Reactions
As the kids are stumbling through their respective homes doing their daily tasks, each of them goes through a series of mix-ups and accidents that occur. They also react similarly to certain happenings that each kid encounters in their home.
 * Each kid suffers a trial with their Sylladex.
 * John suffers the most with his Sylladex, not even understanding how it works, and launches things constantly out his window. He also combines several objects together that clearly should not be combined and has to Captchalogue obscene amounts of useless items to get to items he needs.
 * Rose's Sylladex is a constant hassle. Notably easier to work with than the others, Rose can retrieve and Captchalogue items at will. The downside is that choosing an item may cause the others to break and crash to the floor.
 * Dave's Sylladex is the most powerful, albeit unwieldy. He is able to Captchalogue whatever he likes provided it doesn't cause a collision in his Sylladex in his Hash Function. He is easily able to retrieve items at will provided he uses a verb with the same Hash Function as the item. The trouble stems that the Hash Function recognizes any verb that comes from him and will HS 2254 (react) accordingly.
 * Jade's Sylladex is a composition of multiple Fetch Modi, all based on popular board games. The one she uses the most is Memory, and she's able to work with it easily due to her ability to predict where the two cards are that make up the item she Captchalogued. For fun, she decides to let the Player try, but they wind up deploying all her fruit.
 * They also modify their sylladices in some way.
 * John picks up the Queue modus and adds that to his Stack, allowing for a little more convenience. Eventually, he also gets the Array modus, which would have allowed him to simply get anything he wanted at any time, but he deemed that "boring" and quickly applied all 3 to his Modus Control Deck, giving him an array of Queuestacks, because "this is just the sort of needless complexity [he had] come to expect from [his] inventory management system."
 * Rose reconfigures her Tree so that she can grab any Leaf card, as well as turning off the "mystifying" auto-balance function.
 * Dave programs his Hash Map to use Scrabble Points function instead of the usual "Consonants = 2 Vowels = 1."
 * Jade gets bored of Memory, so she switches it up and tries out the Jenga modus; each item captchalogued splits into 3 blocks, which are then randomly placed in the tower. However, Jade proves to be a terrible Jenga player, so she quickly switches to Pictionary. To captchalogue an item, she must draw it. If the game thinks she drew something she doesn't have (such as a picture of Charles Dutton) it will provide a "ghost image," and the captcha code will appear on the card. Since many of her items are difficult to draw, this make for more "Sylladex trials."
 * The kids all have an authority figure that shares a similar, yet different taste than the kid. The kid also has an opinion on their authority figure that causes them to believe something about them that may not be true. This typically causes Strife between the two.
 * John's guardian is his Dad. Dad enjoys Harlequins and loves to pull pranks. John believes his Dad's doting on him is insincere and that the constant amount of Cake he is baking is made to spite him.
 * Rose's guardian is her Mother. Mother prefers conventional wizards and goes to great lengths to decorate her house with the most extravagant finger-wigglers known to man. Rose believes that her Mother is just using Cruel Irony to irritate her, but it's possible that Mother has more genuine empathy toward her daughter than Rose believes.
 * Dave's guardian is his Bro. Dave is not irritated toward his Bro's preference toward Puppets nor does he believe his Bro is doing something to annoy him, though he seems to be under the impression that his Bro's fondness for them is purely an ironic gesture, despite evidence to the contrary.
 * Jade lives with her Grandpa. Their confrontations have been known as intense and he is commonly considered a bit of a badass. He collects suits of armor, big game hunting trophies, and decrepit mummies, the latter two Jade doesn't like.
 * Jade's grandpa is a decoy; her pet Becquerel is her real Guardian. He is a loyal pet and a good friend who loves playing fetch with Jade. He can be a little overprotective and prohibits her from exploring the neighboring Frog Temple for her own safety.
 * Or the role of guardian is split between Becquerel and her grandfather- Becquerel doesn't have the same origin as the other guardians, so far as we've seen.
 * When first making it outside, a famous quote - or lyric - is thought of by the kid, but incorrectly attributed to the completely wrong person.
 * John Egbert gets the notion that his François de La Rochefoucauld quote was made by Walt Whitman.
 * Rose Lalonde feels that Charles Barkley is the one responsible for her quote when it was really T.S. Eliot.
 * Dave Strider thinks about Snoop Dogg lyrics but attributes them to John Keats.
 * Jade has been outside, but no such quote has appeared so far, possibly due to the fact that Jade lives in the middle of the ocean and thus is never exposed to a lot of the outside world. When she enters the Medium, however, a piece of a Shakespeare quote attached to a larger passage which describes her planet is attributed to Charles S. Dutton.
 * While playing Sburb, each kid's bed is moved, usually to their chagrin.
 * In order to save John from becoming a stain on his roof, Rose catches him with his bed. Earlier, when he attempted to make a fort out of his bed sheet, Rose got him focused at the task at hand by tossing it into the abyss.
 * In order to make room for the Totem Lathe, Dave drops Rose's bed into the inferno outside her home.
 * While trying to find a suitable spot for the Cruxtruder, Jade moves Dave's bed to the roof.
 * Jade is ejected from her bed while still sleeping in it by the explosion of her Dreambot at the end of Act 4.