HOMESTUCK ON THE RANGE, PART RIDICULOUS AUTHOR'S NOTES
Herpderp idk why I'm even posting this.
General Notes:
I find Sollux's lisp really hard to write. I apologize if I fucked up everywhere, but this shit is confusing. (Is every 's' now a 'th'? What about 'sh' sounds, or 'z' sounds written with an 's'? Am I just fucked, then? TELL ME, INTERNETS!)
Since I've already alienated myself by writing a small Western AU novel for a goddamn kink meme, I might as well dig myself in a little further; there is some light Sollux/Aradia subtext in this fic. There's subtext for other pairings, but it's all pretty damn light, and I'm not going to own up to any of that. You can make your own conclusions. And no, it isn't Dave/Terezi again. Unless you want it to be.
Historical accuracy is basically not even a thing anymore. My research was hit and miss, and whether or not I gave a shit about making a reference accurate generally corresponded to four things: how relevant the detail was to the plot, ease of internet access at that moment in time, whether or not whatever trivial joke I was making would still work if I made it accurate, and how much of a pain in the ass it would be to research and then change things around if my assumptions were wrong. Please don't message me to complain that canned foods did not exist in the late 1800's or anything like that, because I probably won't fix it. Actually, no; you can tell me about the little stuff and I might fix it, but bigger plot issues will not be revamped. Suspend your disbelief harder, dammit!
This fic takes place in the fully fictional city of Little Houston, somewhere in Texas, which was a state by that point in history. It's basically a settler's outpost on its way to becoming a ghost town. Dave, Rose, Bro Strider, and Aradia all grew up either in or around the town. Jade was left there by her Grandfather when she was about 15, after two years of traveling together.
Dave went to New York for about two months when he was seventeen before being run out of town for shenanigans. He made a killing in the New York Stock Market, but it wasn't enough to fully cover the cost of building his saloon; neither he nor his brother wanted to take up the family business of running the general store.
I fucked around with everyone's ages a lot. A lot. The main kids are around the same age (John and Rose are 18, almost 19, Dave is 19 going on 20, and Jade is 17 going on 18), but the trolls are more variable. Karkat and Sollux are both about 21, Nepeta is 16, Aradia is 22, and Equius (who... doesn't actually appear in this fic, but is mentioned in universe) is... older. Maybe about 30.
Troll Culture:
When I sat down to write this, it immediately developed a life of its own; notably, it became a srs bsns project as well as being a silly thing I poured a few dozen hours of my time into. Eventually an entire universe began to develop, and that included finding justifications for plopping trolls into Earth culture and having the human characters (i.e. John) behave as though it was natural to have them there.
After a few minutes of trying to figure out the Gordian knot of logistics, I eventually realized I was going to have to change a few things, which resulted in a number of notable asspulls on my part. Probably the biggest one was that trolls are native to Earth, a species that evolved alongside humans, more or less independently. They may have had a common ancestor somewhere back, accounting for the similar body plan, but the evolutionary paths diverged fairly radically. Trolls are also not nearly as common as humans; in the developing United States there is only one mother grub, located in Utah, and most of the troll population is located in the West, with a very small minority in larger eastern cities. This is mostly due to the fact that out of thousands of eggs laid every year, only a small percentage ever hatch, and a smaller fraction still survive to adulthood.
The matter of lusii also gave me a headache, due to my general unwillingness to shoehorn an entire population of mostly sentient monsters into a setting that was supposed to remain recognizable as 1870's America. This was probably the biggest change I made, and also the one that had the least presence in the actual story (though it will crop up in a couple of side stories based in this 'verse I have planned). Basically the term 'lusus' is very loose and applies to any guardian a young troll takes on after pupating and surviving the trials. It can be a wild animal, a human, or even, very rarely, another troll. These guardians can be of any age, and can be adopted at any time, though the parent-child type bond is hardly ever formed if the troll finds his or her lusus after about age seven (for instance, Equius became Nepeta's de facto lusus when he took her in from the wild at about age 13, but she regards him as a close friend rather than a brother or a father).
This brings me to the point of 'feral' trolls, probably the most notable difference in the actual fic. I'll admit, there was no real need in the plot for this change, but I felt like adding it gave detail about some of the minor character's lives and fleshed out the universe a bit, as well as fitting with the atmosphere of the story. Feral trolls are essentially trolls who grew up without a lusus, most often in the wild, and were essentially wild by the time they reached maturity. Depending on the circumstances, a troll can be more or less feral on a sliding scale-- trolls who never found a lusus, like Nepeta, may take years to learn how to function in society and never be able to get rid of some of their feral quirks entirely, whereas trolls who only lived in the wild for a year or two, like Sollux, might need only minimal prompting to rejoin society and exhibit little sign that they were ever feral to begin with.
I had some ideas about revised troll mating practices (which essentially changed nothing but got rid of the 'imperial drone' concept and included making pilgrimages to the mother grub's hive every few years to donate genetic material) but they're boring and have little impact on anything so fuck that.
The other thing I tinkered with in this fic was the weirdly spelled curse words. In Homestuck Dave (I'm pretty sure it was Dave, at least) was the one who started that trend and eventually spread it around to everyone else, but because Dave couldn't be an ironic hipster in this, instead of discarding the idea entirely, I moved it to be endemic to the trolls, as a way of emphasizing cultural differences between the trolls and humans. The rest of the trolls' words for Alternian things were retained as 'slang' referencing either parts of their culture or body parts or using words alternate to words in English (hoofbeast is interchangable with horse, for instance, and trolls may even use the English words in some cases). I'm going to state right here so that no one jumps on me for some reason-- trolls in this universe are not meant to correspond to any minority ethnic group of the time. They're their own minority group, coexisting beside humans, with their own practices. That's all.
Important Relationships:
To better understand what's going on, it might be helpful to know some of this background info. It's not necessary to your enjoyment of the fic at all, and is mostly here for my own reference when I'm writing offshoot stories, but here you go. These are mostly relationships that I didn't get a chance to expound upon in the fic.
*Karkat and Terezi were childhood nemisises. They always used to play 'sheriffs and outlaws'; Terezi was the sheriff, and Karkat was the outlaw. It stuck. Their rivalry might have grown into something more, but Karkat began his career and left town before anything could happen. Terezi has spent a lot of her career trying to prosecute him.
*Equius found Nepeta in the wild and took care of her for the first year of her rehabilitation; at a certain point she relapsed, attempted to run off, and was saved from a cattle stampede by Karkat, who took care of her afterward. Nepeta idolizes both Equius and Karkat, and legitimately sees nothing wrong with burglary and murder due to her involvement with Karkat and thinking that nothing he does can really be all that bad. She's less innocent than she seems, though.
*Karkat met Sollux about a year before the story starts. Sollux, having run out of stolen money for college, was attempting a heist at the same time as Karkat, and they teamed up and split their earnings. Finding that he was now wanted for grand theft, Sollux elected to follow Karkat back to Texas, where he spent his childhood, and joined their gang. Nepeta was scared of him at first because he 'smelled like a killer', but has since warmed up to him, seeing how close he and Karkat legitimately are.
*Karkat's gang originally consisted of him, Vriska, and Nepeta. During the time Karkat was off scoping out more easternly cities and meeting Sollux and things, Nepeta was left with Vriska. This was a mistake. When Karkat returned, Nepeta had a huge, healing wound across her chest; Vriska was kicked out of the gang immediately, and someone sent an 'anonymous' tip to Terezi. It is unknown whether Vriska is still alive, but it is widely assumed that she is not.
General Notes:
I find Sollux's lisp really hard to write. I apologize if I fucked up everywhere, but this shit is confusing. (Is every 's' now a 'th'? What about 'sh' sounds, or 'z' sounds written with an 's'? Am I just fucked, then? TELL ME, INTERNETS!)
Since I've already alienated myself by writing a small Western AU novel for a goddamn kink meme, I might as well dig myself in a little further; there is some light Sollux/Aradia subtext in this fic. There's subtext for other pairings, but it's all pretty damn light, and I'm not going to own up to any of that. You can make your own conclusions. And no, it isn't Dave/Terezi again. Unless you want it to be.
Historical accuracy is basically not even a thing anymore. My research was hit and miss, and whether or not I gave a shit about making a reference accurate generally corresponded to four things: how relevant the detail was to the plot, ease of internet access at that moment in time, whether or not whatever trivial joke I was making would still work if I made it accurate, and how much of a pain in the ass it would be to research and then change things around if my assumptions were wrong. Please don't message me to complain that canned foods did not exist in the late 1800's or anything like that, because I probably won't fix it. Actually, no; you can tell me about the little stuff and I might fix it, but bigger plot issues will not be revamped. Suspend your disbelief harder, dammit!
This fic takes place in the fully fictional city of Little Houston, somewhere in Texas, which was a state by that point in history. It's basically a settler's outpost on its way to becoming a ghost town. Dave, Rose, Bro Strider, and Aradia all grew up either in or around the town. Jade was left there by her Grandfather when she was about 15, after two years of traveling together.
Dave went to New York for about two months when he was seventeen before being run out of town for shenanigans. He made a killing in the New York Stock Market, but it wasn't enough to fully cover the cost of building his saloon; neither he nor his brother wanted to take up the family business of running the general store.
I fucked around with everyone's ages a lot. A lot. The main kids are around the same age (John and Rose are 18, almost 19, Dave is 19 going on 20, and Jade is 17 going on 18), but the trolls are more variable. Karkat and Sollux are both about 21, Nepeta is 16, Aradia is 22, and Equius (who... doesn't actually appear in this fic, but is mentioned in universe) is... older. Maybe about 30.
Troll Culture:
When I sat down to write this, it immediately developed a life of its own; notably, it became a srs bsns project as well as being a silly thing I poured a few dozen hours of my time into. Eventually an entire universe began to develop, and that included finding justifications for plopping trolls into Earth culture and having the human characters (i.e. John) behave as though it was natural to have them there.
After a few minutes of trying to figure out the Gordian knot of logistics, I eventually realized I was going to have to change a few things, which resulted in a number of notable asspulls on my part. Probably the biggest one was that trolls are native to Earth, a species that evolved alongside humans, more or less independently. They may have had a common ancestor somewhere back, accounting for the similar body plan, but the evolutionary paths diverged fairly radically. Trolls are also not nearly as common as humans; in the developing United States there is only one mother grub, located in Utah, and most of the troll population is located in the West, with a very small minority in larger eastern cities. This is mostly due to the fact that out of thousands of eggs laid every year, only a small percentage ever hatch, and a smaller fraction still survive to adulthood.
The matter of lusii also gave me a headache, due to my general unwillingness to shoehorn an entire population of mostly sentient monsters into a setting that was supposed to remain recognizable as 1870's America. This was probably the biggest change I made, and also the one that had the least presence in the actual story (though it will crop up in a couple of side stories based in this 'verse I have planned). Basically the term 'lusus' is very loose and applies to any guardian a young troll takes on after pupating and surviving the trials. It can be a wild animal, a human, or even, very rarely, another troll. These guardians can be of any age, and can be adopted at any time, though the parent-child type bond is hardly ever formed if the troll finds his or her lusus after about age seven (for instance, Equius became Nepeta's de facto lusus when he took her in from the wild at about age 13, but she regards him as a close friend rather than a brother or a father).
This brings me to the point of 'feral' trolls, probably the most notable difference in the actual fic. I'll admit, there was no real need in the plot for this change, but I felt like adding it gave detail about some of the minor character's lives and fleshed out the universe a bit, as well as fitting with the atmosphere of the story. Feral trolls are essentially trolls who grew up without a lusus, most often in the wild, and were essentially wild by the time they reached maturity. Depending on the circumstances, a troll can be more or less feral on a sliding scale-- trolls who never found a lusus, like Nepeta, may take years to learn how to function in society and never be able to get rid of some of their feral quirks entirely, whereas trolls who only lived in the wild for a year or two, like Sollux, might need only minimal prompting to rejoin society and exhibit little sign that they were ever feral to begin with.
I had some ideas about revised troll mating practices (which essentially changed nothing but got rid of the 'imperial drone' concept and included making pilgrimages to the mother grub's hive every few years to donate genetic material) but they're boring and have little impact on anything so fuck that.
The other thing I tinkered with in this fic was the weirdly spelled curse words. In Homestuck Dave (I'm pretty sure it was Dave, at least) was the one who started that trend and eventually spread it around to everyone else, but because Dave couldn't be an ironic hipster in this, instead of discarding the idea entirely, I moved it to be endemic to the trolls, as a way of emphasizing cultural differences between the trolls and humans. The rest of the trolls' words for Alternian things were retained as 'slang' referencing either parts of their culture or body parts or using words alternate to words in English (hoofbeast is interchangable with horse, for instance, and trolls may even use the English words in some cases). I'm going to state right here so that no one jumps on me for some reason-- trolls in this universe are not meant to correspond to any minority ethnic group of the time. They're their own minority group, coexisting beside humans, with their own practices. That's all.
Important Relationships:
To better understand what's going on, it might be helpful to know some of this background info. It's not necessary to your enjoyment of the fic at all, and is mostly here for my own reference when I'm writing offshoot stories, but here you go. These are mostly relationships that I didn't get a chance to expound upon in the fic.
*Karkat and Terezi were childhood nemisises. They always used to play 'sheriffs and outlaws'; Terezi was the sheriff, and Karkat was the outlaw. It stuck. Their rivalry might have grown into something more, but Karkat began his career and left town before anything could happen. Terezi has spent a lot of her career trying to prosecute him.
*Equius found Nepeta in the wild and took care of her for the first year of her rehabilitation; at a certain point she relapsed, attempted to run off, and was saved from a cattle stampede by Karkat, who took care of her afterward. Nepeta idolizes both Equius and Karkat, and legitimately sees nothing wrong with burglary and murder due to her involvement with Karkat and thinking that nothing he does can really be all that bad. She's less innocent than she seems, though.
*Karkat met Sollux about a year before the story starts. Sollux, having run out of stolen money for college, was attempting a heist at the same time as Karkat, and they teamed up and split their earnings. Finding that he was now wanted for grand theft, Sollux elected to follow Karkat back to Texas, where he spent his childhood, and joined their gang. Nepeta was scared of him at first because he 'smelled like a killer', but has since warmed up to him, seeing how close he and Karkat legitimately are.
*Karkat's gang originally consisted of him, Vriska, and Nepeta. During the time Karkat was off scoping out more easternly cities and meeting Sollux and things, Nepeta was left with Vriska. This was a mistake. When Karkat returned, Nepeta had a huge, healing wound across her chest; Vriska was kicked out of the gang immediately, and someone sent an 'anonymous' tip to Terezi. It is unknown whether Vriska is still alive, but it is widely assumed that she is not.