Dave Strider

Canon • Dubiously Canon

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For the alternate versions of this character, see Dave Strider (post-scratch) and Davesprite.

Dave Strider
“go apeshit i guess”
Introduction
First Appearance
Title	Knight of Time
Age	born: December 3rd, 1995 introduction: 13 Earth years Act 6 Intermission 2: 14 Earth years Act 6 Intermission 3: 15 Earth years Act 6 Intermission 5: 16 Earth years Credits: 20 Earth years
Screen name	turntechGodhead
Typing style	no capitalization UNLESS STRESSING OR EMPHASIZING, no punctuation except for occasional ellipsis, question marks, commas or exclamation points, and also sometimes uses asterisks to emphasize after adopting it from karkat
Strife specibi	bladekind, ½bladekind
Fetch modus	Hash Map
Relations	Dirk Strider - Adoptive older brother, genetic father Roxy Lalonde - Genetic mother Rose Lalonde - Genetic sister Davesprite - Alternate self, sprite Dirk's Bro - Post-scratch self
Live(s) in	A high-rise apartment in the big city. (Houston, Texas)
Planet	Land of Heat and Clockwork
Likes	Sick beats, phat rhymes, weird preserved dead things, irony
Hates	Puppets
Music	Upward Movement (Dave Owns) ♫ Beatdown (Strider Style) ♫ Beatdown Round 2 ♫ Atomyk Ebonpyre ♫ Versus ♫ Dupliblaze COMAGMA ♫ Time on My Side ♫ Sburban Reversal ♫ Derse Dreamers ♫ Temporary ♫ Red Disc ♫ Pendulum ♫ Coolkid ♫ Clockstopper ♫ Candles and Clockwork ♫ Candles and Clockwork (Alpha Version) ♫ Beatup ♫ Stride ♫ Beatdown DX ♫
Pesterlogs
Act 1 2 3 4 5/2 6 ▼ Act 1 John: Open message. John: Answer chum. John: Report progress to TG. [S] John: Check Pesterchum. John: Answer chums. Act 2 INDULGE THE DEVICE. BUT BE CURT WITH IT. THE GREEN TEXT WAS ATTRACTIVE. NOW... ==> Dave: Answer chum. Dave: Answer chum. THIS CHUM WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO. Rose: Pester John. ==> Dave: Pester Rose. Rose: Answer Dave. John: Answer your chums. ==> Act 3 ==> Jade: Pester Dave. ==> (2 pp.) Dave: Pester Rose. Dave: Answer. Dave: Install beta. Act 4 Dave: Pester Rose. Jade: Deploy cruxtruder in Dave's room. ==> Jade: Move Dave's bed to the roof. (2 pp.) ==> ==> (2 pp.) Dave: Kick that puppet out of the shower. ==> (2 pp.) Dave: Pester Jade. ==> Jade: Check unknown objects. (2 pp.) Jade: Send the code to Dave. (2 pp.) Rose: Answer Dave. Dave: Answer troll. Dave: Answer troll. John: Answer Dave. ==> (4 pp.) ==> Davesprite: Chill with Dave. John: Get pestered by Dave. John: Answer Dave. (3 pp.) Dave: Pester. (2 pp.) Dave: Chill with Davesprite. Dave: Get trolled by GC. Dave: Keep getting trolled by GC. Act 5 Act 2 John: Pester someone's server player's server... Dave: Answer. Terezi: Troll this awesome coolkid. Dave: Pester Terezi. (2 pp.) ==> (5 pp.) Dave: Answer Karkat. John and Dave: Respond to memo. Dave: Answer Gamzee. Dave: Answer Equius. (5 pp.) Dave: Answer Terezi. (2 pp.) Dave: Summon Davesprite. (3 pp.) Karkat: Open memo. Jade: Pester Dave. Jade: Answer Dave. (9 pp.) Dave: Answer Rose. (8 pp.) Dave: Pester Terezi. (8 pp.) shit. lets be santa (2 pp.) (?) Doomed Dave: Pester Terezi. Jade: Pester a Dave. Dave: Answer. (10 pp.) ==> (2 pp.) Dave: Answer. ==> (11 pp.) [o] ==> (5 pp.) [o] (9 pp.) [o] (3 pp.) [o] (5 pp.) I1 I2 A3 I3 I5 A6 ▼ Act 6 Intermission 1 [A6I1] ==> (7 pp.) Act 6 Intermission 2 [A6I2] ==> (26 pp.) [A6I2] ==> (5 pp.) [A6I2] ==> Act 6 Act 3 ==> (31 pp.) ==> (11 pp.) Act 6 Intermission 3 [A6I3] ==> (21 pp.) Act 6 Intermission 5 ACT 6 INTERMISSION 5 (11 pp.) [A6I5] ==> (5 pp.) [A6I5] ==> (3 pp.) I1 I2 I4 I5 Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1 [A6A6I1] ====> [A6A6I1] ====> [A6A6I1] ====> [A6A6I1 ====>] (22 pp.) [A6A6I1] ====> (5 pp.) [A6A6I1] ====> (3 pp.) [A6A6I1] ====> (2 pp.) [A6A6I1] ====> (3 pp.) [A6A6I1] ====> (3 pp.) Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2 [A6A6I2] ====> (3 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (4 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (5 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (6 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (2 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (4 pp.) [A6A6I2] ====> (2 pp.) Act 6 Act 6 Intermisson 4 [A6A6I4] ====> [A6A6I4] ====> Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5 [A6A6I5] ====> (6 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (4 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (7 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (6 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (4 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (6 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (3 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (31 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (5 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (2 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (2 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> [A6A6I5] ====> (5 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (4 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (9 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (5 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (6 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (8 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> (2 pp.) [A6A6I5] ====> [A6A6I5] ====> (15 pp.)

Dave Strider is one of the main characters in Homestuck, and the third kid to be introduced. He is obsessed with being cool, which manifests itself in his unceasing pursuit of new ironic depths. When the original name "Insufferable Prick" was about to be suggested, he slashed the entry box right in half with a Ninja Sword because he's just way too cool to put up with that kind of bullshit.

Dave's handle on Pesterchum 7.0 (an upgrade on John Egbert's Version 6.0) is “turntechGodhead”. He has Pesterchum Version 7.0 as opposed to John's 6.0. His eye and text color is red (#e00707).

His web browser of choice is Hephaestus.

Concept and creation

Of the four Beta kids, the template for Dave Strider's personality is most closely based on that of author Andrew Hussie; Dave's dialogue comes the most naturally to Hussie, with some of his early conversations having in fact been adapted from Hussie's own real life chat logs.^{[citation needed]} This similarity is most apparent in Dave's alleged creation of one of Hussie's own webcomics, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Hussie's authorial avatar frequently wearing the same outfits as Dave seemingly refers back to this. In this same vein, Dave's ectobiological father Dirk Strider also makes various references to Hussie's past works.

Of the four Beta kids, Dave is closely associated with the classical element of fire, introduced in the midst of a powerful heatwave and entering Sburb to be greeted by a fiery planet ruled over by a fire-headed denizen. Of the four card suits, Dave wore the heart, and of the Wayward Vagabond's items, his is the amber, which also appears as a variety of grist on his planet.

Also like Dirk, Dave's hair visually resembles the silhouette of a bird, reinforcing his psycho-symbolic association with crows in particular.

His hash map fetch modus was chosen by TheGentleman.^{[citation needed]}

Etymology

The name Dave Strider was first proposed by MSPA Forums user Doomish. After John was named according to the first suggestion and Rose Lalonde according to the second suggestion, Hussie's intention was to name Dave after the third four-letter name proposed; in his weariness, however, he missed that the third name suggested was actually "Chad Buskin". As such, his "secret true identity shall forever be known as Chad Buskin."

The name Strider is associated with Lord of the Rings character Aragorn, who used a legendary sword that was shattered into pieces and then forged again: a story beat which then became an integral part of Dave's own arc.

The turntech in Dave's chumhandle refers to his playing of turntables, while Godhead can both allude to his pure divine skill at using such technology and to the Godhead Pickle Inspector of Hussie's previous work Problem Sleuth.

Biography

Childhood

Dave rode a meteor to the Earth's surface atop the horse Maplehoof, who his adopted Bro - in fact his ectobiological father - would turn into a bib for the young Dave to wear as he made his first attempts to feed the junior coolkid via puppet.

Observing his newly-created universe, the troll Sollux Captor attempted to give young Dave the name INSUFFERABLE PRICK, but was barred from writing upon the boy's placronym before his important 13th birthday.

No doubt pushed by Jade's prophecies, Dave eventually came to be internet friends with fellow paradox clones John Egbert, Rose Lalonde and Jade Harley, and began to converse with them via Pesterchum.

Homestuck

Though he did have the game, Dave has no interest in Sburb and thought it was a total piece of shit, going so far as to blow off Rose and further antagonize John for wanting to play the game. However, this may just have been him making excuses so that he wouldn't have to admit he lost his Sburb beta discs in an incident involving a crow and a certain worthless piece of shit sword.

Nevertheless, Rose's pestering eventually wears him down, and he goes to retrieve Bro's copy of Sburb. The two have a duel on the roof of their apartment for no apparent reason beyond the awesomeness of it, and Bro's puppet, Lil Cal, is destroyed in the aftermath. Bro defeats Dave but lets him have the discs anyway before flying away on his rocket board. Dave is then able to connect to Rose, who was by that point in extreme peril by the fires threatening her home.

Shortly after Rose enters the Medium, Jade connects to him as his server. Jade prototypes Dave's sprite with the Rambunctious Crow he accidentally slew with a Sylladex mix-up. The two also investigate the functions of some Sburb equipment. He makes his entry item, an eggy-loking thign [sic], which is taken by his kernelsprite to a nest it had built out of shitty swords and soft puppet ass. When Dave attempts to reach the nest to break the artifact he is repulsed by the crowsprite, causing the meteor to come dangerously close to his apartment before it is sliced in two by Bro. It turns out that the artifact only needed time in order for it to hatch, sending Dave to the Medium.

Entry

In a doomed timeline which began shortly after his entry, Dave prototyped the sprite with Lil Cal as soon as he finished entering. However, since this new sprite was a useless guide and annoying as fuck (also because John and Jade were dead) this Dave goes back in time and prototypes the sprite with himself, becoming Davesprite. Because of Davesprite, Dave gets a lot of high-level gear early on.

After this event, Dave is able to trick John into giving him the code for Rose's journals (as John crashed briefly in her house). Soon after getting the genetic code “MEOW”, Dream Rose awakens Dream Dave's consciousness on Derse, forcing the waking Dave asleep. The two of them have a dance party.

While he was asleep, Jade built up his house. Upon waking Dave does lots of alchemization, including a copy of Rose's journals promptly lost when a Dersite agent stole them along with the copies of Sburb he used as a bookmark. He considers preventing this with time travel but noticed that one such Dave had tried that and died, so Alpha Dave decides against it. He soon enters his first Gate, transporting elsewhere on his planet, the Land of Heat and Clockwork.

He begins exploiting his time travel gear to the full, allowing him to establish time loops to bring about the events of his present and the time point's future. The loops must be stable and internally consistent, otherwise offshoot timelines ensue that can only be fixed with dead alternate Daves. He also talks extensively with Terezi Pyrope, forming a close bond through shitty cartooning. Initially he is hesitant to trust her but is reassured by his future self giving him a thumbs up.

Dave pulling out the Caledfwlch from the golden stone

Later, Dave obtains the Broken Caledfwlch. He falls asleep and observes the Furthest Ring for the first time, and talks to Dream Rose about her plan to destroy the Green Sun. He is seen manipulating the LOHACSE, and at some point a version of him splits off to become Coinflip Dave.

Alpha Dave, near the end of his time travel adventures

Dave claims to have performed enough time travel to have experienced three days' total playing Sburb, whereas the game itself linearly took just one day by the end. His shenanigans on the LOHAC stock exchange give him enough boonbucks to donate to a past Terezi who made her interested on the humans in first place. He gives the past version of himself the thumbs-up to trust her and then starts his own time adventures.

He eventually finds Bro's corpse on LOWAS, but decides he wasn't too upset over his death. Shortly after John's ascension, he travels to his own Quest Bed on Terezi's instruction to kill an alternate-timeline self. There, he struggles to come to terms with the notion and abandons it, despite the fact that this Dave would inevitably die anyway.

He then travels to the Land of Frost and Frogs, having witnessed in different points of his own timeline Jade's space-warping fight with a Uranium Imp. He contacts Jade and has her deploy an Intellibeam Laserstation in his house to allow him to duplicate his server disc to effectively become Jade's new server player in lieu of John, unable to continue the role. He deploys a heavily upgraded alchemiter to replace the equipment broken in Jade's entry to The Medium. Near the end of the timeline, he helps Jade collect frogs for breeding, speeding up the process through time travel. The two are attacked by Jack Noir and Dave is killed in the confront. Dave wakes up as his dream self and assists Rose on Derse in planning the destruction of the Green Sun. According to Karkat, Dave does not travel through time any further from this point until the scratch occurs where the trolls' feed cuts.

Dave, upon reaching god tier as the fully realized Knight of Time.

The Tumor is delivered to Derse's moon by Liv Tyler. Rose tricks Dave into staying on Derse to carry out the mission alone putting him to sleep, where he talked to her via a dream bubble. The Draconian Dignitary appears and stab him, prompting Dave to wake, fly off to the moon and dispatch him. As Rose and Dave fly to where the Green Sun should have been they find their Quest Beds inside the moon's core and stand on them as they set up The Tumor, which physically contained both the kids' and trolls' universes. As both universes end the Tumor explodes, creating the Green Sun instead of destroying it. Dave and Rose rise out of the sun ascended to god tier in the process.

The three-year journey

Dave travels with Rose, the surviving trolls, and the Wayward Vagabond on the trolls' meteor in a three-year trip to the Alpha session.

During his time on the trip he dates Terezi for a while, but breaks up when he finds about her kismesitude with Gamzee. In Openbound Dave makes some “dave_ebubbles”, quoting numerous things he's said in earlier Pesterlogs. He later witnesses Rose get drunk in preparation for her date, much to his embarrassment.

As the meteor reaches the new session, a mind-controlled Jade intercepts it and Dave ends in his planet with WV somehow. As he examines his old room he talks to himself out loud, commenting on old interests and memories. John briefly appears behind him, catching him off guard, and the two have a brief discussion where John reveals he knows what's going on, but has to leave before he can say anything else. Jade appears and convinces him upgrading his sword to be able to harm Lord English. This only “downgrades” his sword back to Caledfwlch to his annoyance.

They have a conversation about Dave not wanting to use time travel and Jade's relationship with Davesprite which ends in Jade pushing WV off of Dave's roof. Dave catches him and begins comforting him. These events are temporarily altered when John appears in the middle of them with the powers he got from Caliborn's juju. They talk about John's new abilities to change the alpha timeline and how they relate to time travel, with the conversation about Davesprite and WV being pushed off the cliff both averted. However this is restored when John's future self flashes back through time and takes John away before Dave notices him.

Dave later receives a message from Karkat to come into LOFAF, arriving in time to see Jade crushed under her house. Jack and PM appear, carrying Jade to her quest bed, and Dave runs after them to retrieve her corpse so Jane can revive her. Ultimately Dave fails and is killed by both Jack and PM, resulting in a Heroic death.

New Timeline

In the new timeline created by John's retcons Dave traveled on the trolls' meteor as well, but Vriska survived to the trip. Here he has developed a much better relationship with Karkat, most likely due to them not having conflict with Terezi (who seems to spend most of her time on the meteor with Vriska). They were known to be in some sort of relationship as implied by Rachel Whatpumpkin, and later in Terezi and Vriska's conversation.

Dave is seen with everyone else on the victory platform and after John and Roxy arrive he talks with most people there. When Vriska lets everyone choose who will fight which villain he and Terezi choose B2 Jack Noir, hoping it relates to his prophecy of being the one who defeats Lord English so he can put said prophecy to rest. Soon after Dirk is teleported to the victory platform, causing Dave and Dirk to finally meet.

The Striders go to LOTAK, and do not talk to each other until meeting Jasprosesprite^2; they have a brief awkward conversation, later having a much longer conversation about their respective upbringings. Not long after Terezi's arrival, both B2 Jack and Cyborg Spades Slick arrive. Dave, Dirk, and Terezi fight both Jacks to a near standstill, and they're left nearly defeated until Dirk is grasped in a chokehold by B2 Jack, and Spades Slick grabs hold of the latter. At Dirk's prompting, Dave uses the opportunity to behead both Jacks and Dirk in the process. Dave collects Dirk's head and body via time travel, then grabs Terezi, pulling them to safety as B2 Jack detonates.

Dave reconvenes with everyone else on the victory platform to revive Dirk and claim the Ultimate Reward. In Earth C, Dave publishes a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff book and he, Jade, Terezi, and Karkat appear to live together in the Troll Kingdom.

Caliborn's Masterpiece

Years in the future but not many, he and the Beta kids confront Caliborn but are sucked into the House-shaped Juju, supposedly trapped forever. It is implied that they are released when Vriska unleashes the Juju at Lord English during the events of Act 7.

Alternate Daves

All of these Daves were from alternate timelines which they went back to prevent, intentionally or not.

Davesprite/Alternate future Dave

Main article: Davesprite

This alternate Dave originated in a timeline where John was not stopped from going through his seventh gate and meeting Typheus, as a result John died and Jade failed to enter. This Dave prototyped Lil Cal as his tier 2 prototyping, creating Calsprite. After four months in this timeline investigating the game with an alternate Rose he traveled back in time to prevent John's premature entry of his seventh gate, and then prevented the creation of Calsprite by prototyping himself and thus becoming Davesprite.

Journal Dave

This Dave was the product of his attempt to travel back in time and stop the Draconian Dignitary from stealing his copies of Rose's journals. He was killed in his attempt, and upon seeing this Dave's corpse, Alpha Dave decided the Dignitary was too powerful to stop, thus avoiding making the events of his death the alpha timeline. His body is thrown out of the window into the lava of LOHAC to avoid freaking out Jade, but this didn't stop Dave himself briefly freaking out over having to dispose of his own corpse.

After his death he met up with other ghosts in the dream bubbles and was destroyed along with them when Lord English entered the bubble and shattered it.

Coinflip Dave

This Dave is the product of a coin flip by Terezi Pyrope, split off roughly around the time of one of his earlier temporal backtracks. In response to Dave's constant pestering over John's attainment of greater power, Terezi responded with an offer for a coin flip. Whereas Alpha Dave's choice was putting it off if the flip was "Bad Heads", this Dave made an opposite choice in his timeline, resulting in him briefly branching off to an alternate timeline before returning to the alpha one as a doomed timeline clone. Terezi revealed the existence of the god tiers to him and guided him to his Quest Bed, whereupon he fell asleep. Alpha Dave was later guided to the Quest Bed and told of this Dave's origins. Tired of Terezi's riddles and unable to face killing himself Alpha Dave left this Dave alone. Some time later he is killed by Jack Noir.

After death, this Dave met Aradia Megido through a dream bubble. She explained the mechanics of the dream bubbles to him, and the two discuss matters of time shenanigans and the nature of their roles as time players. Aradia took him on a tour of both their memories, where he witnessed the alpha Dave encountering Bro's corpse, and the two were visited by the also-deceased Tavros Nitram, who brought with him a gift of some truly unhealthy incendiaries. He later met up with various other ghosts but was destroyed along with them when Lord English entered the bubble and shattered it.

Personality and traits

Dave is introduced to readers as a "really cool dude", which is shown throughout the early acts of the story. He jeers at John's inability to set up his Sylladex's Fetch Modus when John asks him for help and berates John's interests constantly. But despite the indifferent front he puts up, Dave cares about his friends as shown when he goes back in time to save John. Through the conversations of Pesterchum and his own introduction, Dave already has his Strife Specibus set and he has one of the most advanced Sylladices available, giving him a huge advantage over the other three characters. Jade may be able to maximize the use of her Sylladex due to her precognitive abilities, but under normal circumstances it'd be close to entirely useless.

Dave is getting sick of puppets.

He uses profanity by far the most out of the four kids and has a tendency to speak using strange metaphors. Over the course of his time on the meteor, he appears to have developed the habit of talking to himself out loud. He said about this habit that “its like the most perfectly natural thing to do”. It can be assumed that he does it often, since he also stated that the others rip on him for talking to himself. This habit likely grew from his tendency to continue talking at length to his friends on Pesterchum long after they had left the conversation. He also tends to grumble sometimes, using long text in the process (for example, while talking with grimbark Jade). Another habit he developed is accidentally making Freudian slips, as on multiple occasions he has called both Janeand Roxyhot. Later on he also admitted himself that this is a habit.

Despite being the coolest thing since the Fluffer Nutter, Dave seems to be easily influenced by John. He has never removed John's gift, citing irony as the reason, and John's talk of the monster Howie Mandel stopped him from enjoying his apple juice. Also, it is important to note that Dave never feared his brother's puppets until John pointed out how unnerving they were. John occasionally pokes fun at his 'nerdy raps', indicating that while Dave may want to be cool (or think he is cool,) John doesn't look up to him as much as he would like. It may, perhaps, be the other way around. Or it might be that Dave is just an easily influenced person based on his inner desire to be super cool, but he has no problem keeping his distance with Rose.

His incredible coolness also enables him to stay level-headed when dealing with supernatural things, (like Sburb) incredible things (like meteors or time travel), or generally disconcerting things (like seeing his own corpse or talking about his dead friends). Puppets are one of the few things that seem to deter him. Dave keeps this calm facade up to the exact moment he flies off the handle. This has happened when something makes him look stupid, like being buried under a mountain of puppet dick or having crows invade his personal space.

Dave, despite all of his joking around seems to always take things generally seriously if needed, which also leads him to suppress any other emotion so they don't get in his way. Also later Dave expresses deep unwillingness to use his time powers because he doesn't want to abuse them which shows how mature Dave actually is.

Dave is a bit forgetful. He always loses his place in the latest MS Paint Adventure, sets several Sylladex traps, only to release them on himself moments later, completely forgets to pour out some apple juice for his homie, forgets all about his Timetables and thus, forgets he can go back in time, and even manages to forget his own intentions to forget something (though that one might be him being ironic again).

He also seems to have trouble facing his own mortality. He spent a good bit of time staring at the blood of his deceased time-traveling copy (even though he joked it away), and he couldn't reach god tier because “[H3 W4SN'T] 4BL3 TO F4C3 [H1S] D34TH.”

Underneath his cool facade he appears to be rather caring towards animals; he was visibly upset when he accidentally harmed a Rambunctious Crow and he may share Jade's interest in anthropomorphically persuaded fauna. However, this might just be one of his many ironic gestures. Regardless, his gift to Jade - a picture of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff as furries - seems pretty sincere.

Dave's dream self sleeps on Derse, in his room along with a dream Lil Cal. Notably, there are drawings of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff on the walls of his dream room. His dream self is said to have been awake all along without Dave's knowledge.

His interests are described as having a penchant for spinning out unbelievably ill jams with his turntables and mixing gear. He has passion to talk about bands that no one has ever heard of but him. He also has a more bizarre hobby of collecting weird dead things preserved in various ways. He is also an amateur photographer, and has his own makeshift darkroom (which is actually just his closet), and operates a number of ironically humorous blogs, websites and social networking profiles, including a webcomic called Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. At any moment he'll drop some phat rhymes on a mofo and obviously represent. When away from his desktop computer, he communicates using his iPhone.

At first, Dave emulated and respected his older brother. After John changed the timeline and Dave thought more about how he was treated, he began to despise Bro and recognize his behavior as abusive. He believes that Bro hated him, ruined the idea of being a hero, and that the challenges Bro set up to make him stronger, actually made Dave come to fear blood, danger, and the sound of metal hitting together. Before realizing this, Dave did not seem at all perturbed by his brother's habit of collecting puppets and, in fact, seemed to admire his brother's ventriloquist rap acts. However, he's mentioned to Rose that the puppets are starting to freak him out and that he's had dreams where Lil Cal speaks to him, causing him to wake up in a cold sweat. While Cal's speaking and attempted influence on Dave is probably due to the juju's being possessed by Caliborn, Gamzee, and Arquiusprite, the doll's appearance in Dave's dreams likely has to do with Cal's presence in Dave's dream tower.

He seems to know a lot about Captchaloguing and Fetch Modi. His current Fetch Modus is Hash Map, which is similar to John's and Rose's in that it is based on a type of data structure, though he later receives an unknown one from future Dave. He helped John with his Strife Specibus and Kind Abstratus. Despite this, Dave is prone to making occasional mistakes with his Modus, such as spilling apple juice on his turntables, firing his ninja sword at a rambunctious crow, and shooting many deadly shuriken at himself.

He apparently does not follow any religion, describing his belief that “pretty much all religions are wrong”, whether this was the case before his involvement in Sburb and ascension as a god, or caused by those events is unknown.

Relationships

John Egbert

Dave and John are best friends. Though they are shown to tease each other about practically everything, such as John's odd taste in movies and Dave's admiration of his brother, they do legitimately find each other to be cool, as evidenced by their birthday letters to each other, and enjoy one another's company. Dave refers to John as his “number 1 dude for approximately the majority of 13 years”, and missed him a great deal during his time on the Meteor.

Rose Lalonde

In the early acts Dave has been shown to be friendly with Rose but finding her rather exasperating and demanding. Their conversations tend to degenerate into showdowns between his ironic coolness and her grandiose eloquence. On other occasions he confided to her about his growing anxiety over puppets and flipped when Rose gave the impression that her elaborate dream suicide would be the more traditional kind. It has been suggested by Rose that Dave's desire to be the coolest is due to an inferiority complex, but despite her constant teasing of him, she seems to believe that he is genuinely cool, if not in the same way that he thinks he is. Before knowing that they were siblings, they flirted with each other on occasion. (Whether this was teasingly is somewhat debatable.)

Any conversation between him and Rose is completely saturated with sarcasm and irony, but they seem to enjoy trading barbs. Later, during their time on the meteor, they develop a more sibling-like relationship (since they are actually siblings), regularly teasing each other, particularly Rose teasing him about his odd habits. Dave seems to be concerned with Rose's past drinking habits as well.

Jade Harley

While Jade Harley's bubbly, emoticon-laden text might be thought to mark her as the traditional prey of the cool kid, Dave doesn't seem to mind it at all, even having tried to engage in her furry interests with her in the past, attempting to initiate a roleplay as his fursona Akwete Purrmusk. Conversely, Jade takes Dave's coolness at face value.

He is more gentle towards Jade, but can get exasperated with her silliness (especially when she is asleep). Dave seemed to be fond of Jade as he was constantly showering her with his music and often seemed to be seeking her attention (though Dave tends to seek out everyone's attention). It can be assumed that he significantly enjoys talking to her. However, he was occasionally annoyed by her inconvenient sleeping habits. During his time on LOHAC, Dave made sure to dispose of any dead Daves so as not to upset Jade, who was his server player. Later, the two worked together on LOFAF to stoke the forge midway through their session, which resulted in disaster when Bec Noir showed up and he died. Jade kissed him in order to awaken his dream self, and was successful. When they met again in the alpha session Dave was unnerved by her Grimbark development, unable to do anything but argue with her, and was shocked when she brought up the subject that he broke her heart, claiming that there was “no way [he] would do that to [her].” Dave still seems to care for Jade as he freaks out upon finding her dead on LOFAF, and chases after Bec Noir and PM in order to retrieve her body so Jane could revive her. Dave ultimately fights both of them at once and dies a heroic death trying to save her. Overall, Dave appreciates the relationship he has with Jade and cares quite a bit for her.

Bro

Dave's relationship with his Bro was complicated. While he seemed to admire his brother very much and aspired to become like him in many ways, Bro's puppet obsession freaked Dave out, especially with Lil Cal (although he's in denial about it at first). Also, Dave's upbringing, filled with Bro's unique mindgames, mentally traumatized him somewhat, all in part of both his training and Cal's possible influence on Bro. When Bro was introduced, he and Dave sparred on the roof of their building, showing that Bro took great care in developing Dave's martial abilities. Hussie has additionally likened these actions to abuse. During Dave's interactions with Dirk on LOTAK, it is confirmed he was physically and emotionally abused by his brother.

When Bro died while fighting Jack with Davesprite, Dave found him, and had contemplated taking Bro's sword, but then decided against it as a sign of respect for his brother, after realizing he could not remove it without drawing more blood. While speaking to Terezi, Dave denied that he loved Bro. The doomed alternate Dave from the opposite end of Terezi's coin flip later admits to Aradia that Bro's death saddened him, confirming that Dave did genuinely care for his brother in a respect.

He later described him as a “hyper-aggressive lunatic of a guardian” in the post-retcon B2 timeline, along with several instances of discomfort and complicated feelings in response to the idea of meeting Dirk, his Bro's post-scratch self, in person. When talking to Dirk, he also states he didn't particularly like his Bro and that he felt uncared for, and that it took him a long time to fully figure out how messed up his upbringing was. Because he compared Bro to a hero, Dave in turn never liked the idea of heroism. He does admit that under better conditions, he would've greatly admired his drive.

Karkat Vantas

At first, Dave has a dislike of Karkat, thinking of Karkat as the shouty romance-obsessed troll who likes things intentionally to bother him. Their dislike for each other increased when Karkat tried to split Terezi's time between them both with a grid, which dissolved into penis ouija and Karkat getting tangled in Dave's god tier cape. During the meteor's final approach towards the B2 session Dave is beginning to be treated like how Karkat used to treat Sollux. Later in their conversation, they are revealed to consider each other 'bros' or 'best friends'.

On the post-retcon meteor journey Dave and Karkat developed a much closer relationship. Rose mentions what sounds like penis ouija having turned from a violent tussle in pre-retcon to a giggly dick-drawing session post-retcon. It is also shown that they enter a romantic relationship, as insinuated by Hussie on his Twitter, as well as Vriska and Jasprosesprite^2. Vriska suggests that they had some sort of complicated romantic situation that vacillated between multiple quadrants, and Jasprose says to Nepetasprite that Karkat is “involved with someone else now in [the flushed] quadrant”. Interestingly, Davepetasprite^2 states that it “f33ls right still” to have a crush on Karkat to the surprise of the Dave part of them, and that the concept of having a crush on Karkat is not something they are internally conflicted about. Finally, in ipgd's Vine Hussie himself confirms it directly. Karkat's last line in the comic expresses concern to Dave, hoping that he is okay. On Earth C, they are both shown to continue spending quite a bit of time together, both in the Credits sequence and the snaps.

Terezi Pyrope

His patron troll is Terezi Pyrope. During their first conversation, he showed her his comic which was the predecessor to SBaHJ, which he considered to be too derivative of his Bro's stuff. Nevertheless, he considered Terezi just another troll, and acted vaguely hostile to her. He planned to forget her name just after their conversation, but he forgot to.

During their conversations in the Medium, they traded shitty comics, and Terezi guided him through his quest. During their final conversation from his perspective, he got angry at Terezi for intentionally creating a doomed copy of himself and putting him in a position to kill the copy. Though, after spending a year with her and the other trolls on the veil after the scratch, they seemed to become close friends, building a Can Town together. Though Dave never confirmed his relationship with Terezi was more than platonic, Karkat shows jealousy towards Dave for getting so much attention from Terezi, and claims that they are very obviously dating.

Later on, Terezi becomes upset after meeting Latula, feeling uncool in comparison. Karkat misunderstands and assumes the reason she is upset is because Dave had broken up with her, suggesting that the two may be in a relationship. In the wake of Terezi's kismesissitude with Gamzee being revealed Rose comments that she is unsure of how Dave would react to Terezi dating Gamzee "on the side", confirming that they were in a relationship. After finding out about the kismesissitude, Dave - already uncomfortable with the very concepts of quadrants and black romance - decided that he could not date Terezi while she was in another relationship and broke up with her.

As far as given information indicates, Dave and Terezi were not in any quadrant at any point in the post-retcon timeline; Terezi says that without Vriska around, she “WOULD H4V3 GOTT3N SUCK3D 1NTO SOM3 W31RD BULLSH1T W1TH” Dave and Karkat. However, they still seem to have developed a friendship during their time on the meteor, as evidenced by their conversations, and Terezi joining him in fighting B2 Jack Noir.

Wayward Vagabond

Dave seems to be very close with the WV, as he helps him to build a new Can Town with Terezi's aid. In the early Act 6 Act 6 Intermissions, Dave says such things as “you can always tell the mayor anything <3” and “i love you”, the second time being accompanied by a kiss on the forehead, showing his deep care for him, loving like one loves a brother or best friend.

Dirk Strider

The thought of meeting Bro's younger alternate universe self unnerves Dave so much that he asks Rose if they can slow down and fight Jack for a while, though he is completely okay with meeting John's, Rose's, or Jade's guardians, further highlighting their difficult relationship. He also feels nervous talking about Dirk, as shown when he tells Roxy “why dont we not talk about dirk” shortly after he is brought up. The first time Dave and Dirk interact (unless you count a heavily glitched pesterlog in the GAME OVER timeline, where neither was able to read the other's text) is forced and awkward, concluding with Dave saying he wishes they could fight soon. They later manage to break the ice and have a long conversation about their relationships to their respective alternate selves. Dave admits he's been projecting his negative feelings towards his Bro onto Dirk, even though he realizes that he is a different person. They eventually hug having resolved the initial tension. They then continue conversing, and Dave says that he is more comfortable sharing his inner thoughts with Dirk than he is with anyone else, even Karkat.

Dave also references to his encounters with Davesprite by asking Dirk "Why are we so fucking awesome" during the last round of lightning round, to which Dirk responds with Davesprite's line of "That's the best fucking question anybody ever asked."

Dave and Dirk make a plan during [S] Collide with a little prompting from the latter, and Dave decapitated Dirk (who was decapitated for the second time in-comic) without much reluctance. He later sees Dirk again and we see both Striders smiling (Dirk, for the first time noticeably) while being on the platform.

Roxy Lalonde

Dave has shown interest in meeting Roxy several times: the first time he saw her sleeping dream self in a dream bubble, he called her a “choice babe in pajamas”, not knowing she was his genetic parent until Rose told him some time later. He asks John what she likes, and remarks that he likes thinking of her as his mother, and that he likes the idea of having a mom instead of “a hyper-aggressive lunatic of an adult male guardian”. Dave gets along well with Roxy when he first talks to her, as they exchange "lightning rounds" of questions about each other, but finds many of the questions Roxy asks him rather personal, as he notes in his interactions with Dirk. Another possible mention of his relationship with Karkat is brought up when Roxy asks him if he's ever been in love, which he clearly doesn't want to discuss. He constantly refers to her as "mom" and he occasionally makes Freudian slips where he refers to Roxy as being hot, which seems to amuse Roxy. John has stated that they both have a “funny and snappy way of talking”.

Tavros Nitram

Early on he was trolled by Tavros. He has a low opinion of Tavros, considering him an awful rapper. Their first conversation resulted in Dave freaking Tavros out so much that the troll actually blocked the trollee. Another conversation involved Tavros trying to send some burns Dave's way, but seeming to make mistakes as he did so and Dave not really paying much attention to him. Later, Tavros was in a dream bubble with a doomed version of Dave, performed some 'sick fires' in his room and gave him some compliments, which Dave returns, though these were likely insincere on Dave's end as he then asks Aradia if this is his personal hell.

Kanaya Maryam

Dave first talked to Kanaya in act 4, in which he gave her deliberately bad advice for talking to Rose. He became friends with her during the three-year journey, and he was very courteous towards her, such as offering her coffee when he was about to make himself some and warning her about Rose being drunk. In Openbound, Dave expressed his desire to get to know her as well, which Kanaya thought was a good idea. Dave suggested that she shows him the Alternian art of slampoetry, which Kanaya thought was a bad idea.

Gamzee Makara

Dave has spoken to Gamzee twice: once months before the story began after Gamzee went insane, and once during his session before Gamzee did. In his first conversation with Gamzee, Gamzee had already gone insane and gave him threats Dave didn't understand; he was amused by how ridiculous Gamzee was and went so far as to call him “the best troll”, and they had a rap-off which was supposedly "one of the best rap-offs in the history of paradox space". He later refers to him as “the absurd juggalo one” when talking to Rose about the trolls, and says that it would be hilarious if someone had him as their patron troll.

On the pre-retcon meteor journey, Dave mentions that he only saw Gamzee once after the first day and that he never said one thing to him. He and Karkat agree that everything about Gamzee is ridiculous. However, Dave does seem to care about Gamzee at least more than Vriska does: at least enough that he feels bad about Gamzee being locked inside a fridge with some dead bodies, but still saying that he is “complete trash”.

Other characters

Dave and Nepeta Leijon have engaged in roleplay, leading Nepeta to know him by his fursona name “akwete purrmusk”.

Because of Terezi's influence he has a low opinion of Vriska but seems to be on good terms with her much later after the post-retcon meteor journey; when he talks to Dirk about Vriska, he notes that if you know her, something being a Vriska thing is all you need to say about anything she does.

He had a conversation with Equius in which they had a rap-off, which Dave found rather disturbing; he says that Equius is a “fuckin creepy dude”. Prior to Dirk's return to the session, Dave attempts to connect with Arquiusprite, only to quickly give up after realizing how completely different he is from the real Dirk.

Dave finds “johns hot mom” Jane Crocker to be attractive, but the fact that she is John's mom seems to be ever present in his mind.

He has spoken to Aradia Megido a few times, an alternate self of his having been guided through dream bubbles by her.

Gallery

Dave finding Bro's corpse.

Dave without glasses.

“sup.”

Merchandise

Dave is depicted on the "0: The Fool" card of the Homestuck Tarot Deck. He also appears on "XXI: The World" with the other Beta kids, and on "Two of Wands" and "Five of Wands" with most of the pre-act 6 cast.

Trivia

• Dave used dream bubbles to create a Twitter account called dave_ebubbles. It can be found here as well as in Openbound.
• Dave's desktop background is part of a panel from And It Don't Stop.
• Based upon his birthday, aspect, and lunar sway, Dave's Extended Zodiac sign is Sagiries, the Revolutionary.
• A candidate for US Senate named Dave Strider emerged in 2017, Google image search results presumably leading him to include references to Homestuck on his campaign blog.

See also

• Dave's house
• Dave's room
• Dave's outfits
• Dave's computers
• Dave's inventory

External links

• Dave's Blog