Headcanon time!

[littleshopofhoruss]

Let's face it: The 'bots are not the most well-known characters of Homestuck canon. Why not fill in the gaps with our own ideas?

Please handle any disagreements respectfully, et cetera et cetera.

Comments

Cal's thoughts

[littleshopofhoruss]

Sawtooth was modeled after Dirk's Bro, which is why Dirk will never beat him in a rap-off.

Aradia was curvy, plus-sized, and generally gorgeous... But when Equius built Aradiabot, he made her skinny and closer to his standard of beauty. Needless to say, Aradia herself- who loved the way she looked- wasn't pleased and went back to her usual appearance when she got her tiger.

Dirk's robots and Hal all talk on a "secure" communication channel. It's actually pretty easily hacked and the other robots will occasionally pop in just to lurk or mess with everyone's heads.

Re: Cal's thoughts

[laughably_unimportant]

I totally agree with Sawtooth being created based on Dirk's Bro. And expanding on that, he was based on a very young Dirk's idea of like this mythic ancestral figure. So even if later in life Dirk is more about like, being a "realist" and viewing his brother with a whole salt shaker worth of salt, Sawtooth is like this snapshot of the mythic hero/older mentor figure/caretaker young Dirk thought his brother was. Which explains why Sawtooth is a badass in basically every conceivable way.

[theaspiebandit]

Lil' Seb's official designation for Jane is "Big Sis, or J_Crocker." But in the code he makes himself she's always referred to as "Mom"

There's an Aradia somewhere that was only red for Equius, just as there is an Aradia who is only black for him.

Brobot's emotions for Jake are a confusing morass of a mess, so he just pretends that he doesn't have the capability to feel at all. It works, for a given value of works.

That's all I got so far.

[laughably_unimportant]

Oh no baby seb no...

(by which I mean baby seb yes)

A long rambling essay that no one asked for...

[blueminuet]

Oh, boy. I have been waiting for this thread and I didn't even know it! (This is really long, and pretty much all about the Striderbots. I’m going to try to put this under a cut. Apparently cuts don't work when your commenting. I guess. Maybe I'm just tired? Idk. I am so sorry for this wall of text, omg.)

I completely agree with the headcanon that Dirk's bots have a "secure" network connection. Since all of them are based on humans/are built to heavily interact with humans, they mostly end up chatting about things that confuse them about humans, emotions, etc. (A lot like the tachikomas in Ghost in the Shell.) AR is of course the self-appointed expert in humans, being a direct download of Dirk. Squarewave has the most trouble with understanding stuff, but he tries really hard. (Though, maybe Lil Hal Jr. technically has more trouble. It's hard to say. His sentience is up for debate, but all the AIs let him continue being in the chat because they don't want to exclude him.)

Since Dirk identifies as male, so does AR. Squarewave and Sawtooth were both programed to be male and never had a problem with that. Lil Seb considers eirself gender neutral, as eir programing doesn't specify one way or the other, but doesn’t really care what others consider eir to be. Brobot was programed male, but thinks that human genders are dumb and irrelevant, so ey prefers neutral pronouns as well. It's hard to really tell what Lil Hal Jr. thinks about this subject, and when it does come up it normally turns into AR and Brobot bickering, using Lil Hal Jr. as a pawn in their debate more than anything else.

Lil Seb's personality in the chats appears to be the nicest of all of them, probably due to eir fondness for Jane and eir wish to emulate her. However, like Jane, ey can also be a force to be reckoned with when crossed.

Brobot is extremely opinionated in the chats, insisting on breaking away from "human-centric" thinking. (The rest of the AIs think ey's overcompensating for the lack of affection from Jake (which ey was programed to desire) but they are (mostly) polite enough not to bring it up.) AR, of course, is the one that pushes Brobot's buttons, though whether or not he actually disagrees with em or just disagrees for the reaction he gets is a mystery wrapped in layers and layers of ironies. (It very well may be both.)

Lil Seb normally referees the fighting between AR and Brobot (making a somewhat ashen trio), though Sawtooth sometimes does too if things get too out of hand. Sawtooth doesn’t normally say much of anything in the chats though, unless he has something important to add. But he’s almost always hanging out and listening.

Squarewave is very active in the chats, being very curious and inquisitive. He loves hearing stories from Lil Seb and Brobot (and any other robots that might end up joining in) about their adventures and being around people that aren’t Dirk and what the places they live in are like. AR makes fun of him for it (but secretly he kind of likes the stories too).

No one is allowed to make fun of Lil Hal Jr. No one. He’s like the little brother that all of them are protective of.

When Zillywave and Sawhoo were alchemized, they immediately got on the chat. Things got weird. Really weird. Afterwards, they all agreed to erase the logs and never speak of it again.

There’s an offshoot timeline somewhere in the confusing mess that is paradox space where all the tricksterbots were alchemized and even AR and Lil Hal Jr. were trickster-ified. They all got robo-matesprit-married and coded gazillions of babies. (You might say that’s not a real number. But it is. It’s a number they had to invent. To quantify how many babies they coded. They had to make a new number just for that.)

That’s about all I’ve got.

While you’re here, have my headcanon text styles:

Well, AR and Lil Hal Jr. have canon styles, so I guess it’s not headcanon, but here’s the code.

AR:
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #e00707;">

Lil Hal Jr:
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #f2a400;">

Brobot: I headcanon that ey speaks very much like a stereotypical robot character. Ey sometimes prefaces things with “OBSERVATION:” and “INQUIRY:” and things like that. Ey uses caps and Jake’s text color.
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #1f9400;">

Sawtooth: Very chill, of course. (I normally pattern his speech after Snoop Dogg when writing his dialogue.) Uses blue text, and generally follows Dirk’s punctuation, etc.
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #0715cd;">

Squarewave: We’ve technically seen his text and speech patterns in the comic, so I guess this isn’t really headcanon either. Red text.
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #ff0000;">

Lil Seb: I headcanon that ey speaks someone what mechanically, like Brobot, but is less formal about it. Still prefaces statements with “Inquiry:” and “Statement:” and things like that, but is less rigid in eir speech patterns. Uses Jane’s text color and typing style.
<span style="font: bold 1em Courier, monospace; color: #00d5f2;">

[laughably_unimportant]

mostly I come up with particular bot headcanons in response to particular story ideas!

But one general headcanon I came up with that I really like is that Dirk is awful about white as default, so in the event of any/all of the striderbots getting android or full human bodies, they'd all be white.

And like none of them would think to question it because they are based on Dirk and aren't self aware enough to recognize that they're all white when they don't have to be

until they're all humanized and it's a done deal
(extra hilarity if Dirk was literally the only white kid and now there's a bunch of lily ass strider bots running around)

(I also kind of like toying with Hal being the last to get humanized and deciding to give himself a more trollish body, kind of as an ironic fuck you to Dirk, "Wouldn't want to threaten your 'last man on earth' schtick now would I, Dirk" deal)