Player Information

Name: James
Personal Journal: vastexpletive
Age: 18
Contact Info: Email: [email protected]/[email protected]
AIM: itsasekrit1993
Plurk: floridiancheese
Other Characters Played: N/A

Character Information

Character Name: Bro Strider
Character Series: Homestuck
Character Age: 31
Character Gender: Male
Original Canon Homestuck
Canon Point: Just after entering the Medium
Background Link: Here is the MSPA Wiki Article on Bro, but I also have a writeup of events if this is not adequate enough.

Because Homestuck is a confusion mismash of time shenanigans and ectobiology, Bro Strider wasn't really born on earth, and was in fact created in an ecto lab by John Egbert. However, he did still grow up on earth (though he arrived via a meteor- again, Homestuck. Just Homestuck. That is the only explanation that will ever be needed.) and lead a semi... not really, but kind of, ordinary life in Texas. Ordinary in Bro's own way, considering he is the kind of person he is, as seen by his personality.

But then Dave crash landed on a meteor, destroying his favorite record shop. It can be speculated that Bro knew Dave was going to crash land there, given the fact that it's implied that the Guardians of the kid know about the game and have for the kids' whole lives. And also because he had a tiny pair of shades just like his ready to put on Dave. This is also likely because of the fact they were ectobiologically created and send back in time to earth. Additionally, the whole ectobiological aspect means that Bro is in fact Dave's biological father.

So after he got Dave home, he pretty much devoted his life to training Dave to be the best fighter he could be in preparation for Sburb. Even while Dave was still just a toddler, Bro strifed with him on the roof daily, using lil cal at first before moving on to using swords and strifing with him for real. Apart from Strifing, Bro's parenting methods are completely unorthodox and Dave ended up having a rather... unique upbringing. Let's just say that things like a pile of swords in the fridge are completely normal in the Strider household.

We don't see a lot of what happens between when he finds Dave and present day, but it can be surmised that aside from daily strifing and his unorthodox parenting, he did his absolute best to provide Dave with what he could. Considering the fact that Bro also happens to have a highly lucrative porn business based on smuppets, Dave never really went without anything he needed, nor was there much he wanted that he never got, either, if you really get down to it. That isn't to say he spoiled Dave, far from it, but he still made sure the kid was as happy as he could be, even if it didn't always work out like that.

Fast-forward to the day that Dave started sburb. When Dave lost his own copy of the game, Bro called him to the roof for a strife and they had a battle, which Dave ended up winning. Bro gave him his copy of the game anyway, before flying off on his rocket board. He's seen again a little while later when it's time for Dave to enter the Medium. When Dave had trouble, Bro was there to slice a meteor in half to buy him time in order to do what he needed to do to enter the game. Right after this happens, the Cruxite egg which Dave was trying to retrieve hatches, sending them into the Medium.

(That is the part where I am taking him from, but considering the fact not a whole lot happens with him beyond this point, I'm going to continue my writeup of events)

Bro pretty much disappears after that (Davesprite remarks that he's impossible to keep track of), but it's clear that he's always doing something or another to aid Dave and/or the kids' game session in general. When he's next seen, it's battling Jack Noir on a giant beat mesa. The two are evenly match for power, and Bro ends up absconding after plunging his sword into the beat mesa, initiating The Scratch. He uses the second gate above their house to reach John's house, where he takes back his rocket board.

He battles Jack Noir again in the Land of Wind and Shade, John's planet. He's joined by Davesprite, and the two of them battle Jack Noir together. Things are looking good and they're easily able to hold their ground against him at first. But then during the battle, Jade enters the Medium and due to the fact her sprite was prototyped with her dog, Jack Noir turned into Bec Noir and became infinitely more powerful. He was able to overcome the two of them after that, and ended up impaling Bro with his own sword, killing him as well as taking Lil Cal and Bro's shades.
Personality: Bro is the motherfucking apotheosis of Cool and Badass, rolling through life offering witty commentary, reacting inappropriately to most things and making flirtacious advances that are probably not wanted. He regards most things with a stoic air of impassiveness- and yes those two qualities are redundant and yet used together for irony and to show how completely unaffected he is by life. And while on the subject of irony, Bro Strider has so many levels, so many layers of irony that no one could ever hope to achieve in a hundred lifetimes, let alone the one tiny one they have. You just can not compete with him when it comes to subtle irony. His irony is so subtle that you may not even know he's being ironic.

At least, a lot of that is what he wants you to believe. Underneath the cool, badassness that he puts off is an actual human being buried there. He does react to things, but he's trained himself to do it in his head; he wears shades at all times because without them, he's more vulnerable. But even Bro has his limits, meaning his his facade is completely capable of crumbling if pushed beyond said limits. It may be hard to push him to those limits, but it really is possible. The one thing that is sure to set him off is if you mess with Dave, and if you mess with Dave, then you had better fucking prepare for a shitstorm. This is also true for if you threaten anyone he's close to, but Dave is the one who will earn you his true fury.

While the two's relationship might be seen as weird, unhealthy, and maybe even borderline abusive, Bro's actions are, in the end, to make Dave a better person. Toughening him up for the real world, making him stronger and preparing him for the shit life can throw at you. He may act like a complete and total douchebag, but he loves Dave, even though he doesn't show it through physical or verbal affection. At least, not often. On the rare occasion that he's feeling vulnerable, if shit's really fucked up, when he knows Dave needs to hear it, he'll give it to him. He is fully capable of giving Dave a hug and telling him that it is okay. Because in the end, no matter fucking what, they're family and he's got Dave's back.

When it comes to having Dave's back, when Dave's in danger or if he thinks Dave's been wronged in some way, his parental instincts pretty much kick into high gear. At least, in Bro's own twisted kind of way. This comes in the form of either fucking your shit up royally and beyond repair (usually via the tip of a sword), or just screwing with you mentally, with threats and smuppets- and raps- but more on those later. To get a sense of just how far Bro would go to protect Dave (and a sense of how much you should not mess with him), take note of how he cut a meteor in half in order to buy Dave time to get into the Medium in canon. He also ended up pretty much sacrificing his own life in order for Davesprite to get away during the battle in which Bro was killed. This goes to show that Bro loved Davesprite just as much as regular Dave, and that he was just as much the 'Real Dave' to Bro as, well, 'The Real Dave'. So now that we've covered their relationship when shit's bad, let's cover their relationship on a normal day.

In a way, they have a relationship that is like your typical sibling rivalry (disregarding the fact Bro is actually Dave's dad, shush.), only cranked up to eleven. Because that is the Strider way. Sarcastic antagonism rules the household, jabs that don't seem so affectionate but really are, and a whole lot of Strifing. Bro pushes Dave to the limit physically pretty much daily, training on the rooftop with swords to make Dave a better fighter, sharpen his senses and the like. And it's all, as stated above, because he's trying to make Dave a stronger, better person. However, it should be noted that Dave is certainly capable of pushing Bro's buttons, and while 95% of the time, Bro ignores it and lets it roll off his back, the truth of the matter is that he is fully capable of punishing Dave is harsh ways, depending on just how bad Dave's fucked up. When this happens, strifing can take on a whole new and dangerous meaning, being used for punishment rather than to benefit Dave.

But of course that doesn't come without guilt as well, because if he's pushed over the edge by Dave, it's highly likely he would regret his actions later when he's calmed down. Especially if he says something out of anger that he doesn't mean, or if he ended up hurting Dave too badly. Because that's one thing Bro doesn't actually do, he never lifts a finger against Dave out of anger if he can help it. Strifing is an entirely difference subject, as strifing is meant to toughen Dave up and prepare him for life, which is one of the reasons he doesn't see it as abusive, even though by all logic it really is, in a lot of ways.

And yeah, somewhere in the back of his mind he knows what a pretty crappy guardian he is, but he justifies it by telling himself he's done the best he can, given his circumstances. Even though sometimes he knows that he's fucked up, it's okay so long as Dave doesn't hate him. As long as Dave continues idolizing him, it's okay. And sometimes it's enough to convince him that just maybe he's actually doing a pretty good job- but only sometimes. But he does a good job at keeping the regret and guilt he feels over being such a shitty guardian bottled up, because if there's one thing that Bro is good at doing, it's bottling things up. As with any bottle though, if there's too much pressure, then it will inevitably explode. That isn't to say that Bro is a ticking time bomb just waiting to unleash a shitstorm of angst over being a shit parent, because he isn't. But that is to say that if pushed too far or he fucks up too hard, then the cap will fly off and his facade will crumble- he will 'lose his cool', to put it in Strider terms.

The two Striders may share an intense sibling rivalry and have the same sense of humour when it comes to certain things, but their personalities happen to be extremely different when it comes to a lot. Where Dave wants you to believe he's cool and collected, his temper is quick to flare and he takes offense more easily, whereas Bro takes things in stride(r), letting things blow over him him and strike back with a calm kind of douchebaggery that Dave can't manage. At least, most of the time. As previously stated, his calm can indeed be broken and when it is, he's capable of being just as hot-headed as Dave can be, if not moreso depending on just how angry he is. He can also be a tad immature when he's in an argument, tossing out insults and petty jabs rather than the eloquent smackdown that he can lay down during a rap.

Now speaking of those raps mentioned earlier, the dude can lay down some sick rhymes all the fucking best beats. He's got a way with words and metaphors that can leave you thinking for days until BAM you're staring into the fridge and suddenly a chill creeps down your spine as you suddenly realize what he meant. But he saves those for rap battles, because the average every day person cannot handle them- it is a proven fact that either their head will explode, or they will become a vegetable. Yes, that is an exaggeration, but he definitely is really good with metaphors and using words. Which leads to another part of Bro that not a lot of people might know, and one that he doesn't really tend to let on to.

Bro is a very intelligent person. He may not show it- and he has plenty of reasons for that, mainly the fact that being a nerd is totally not cool at all, and conflicts with the image he wants to project to people. Bro would rather be seen as a badass ninja-slash-puppetmaster rather than a booksmart nerd, and the two of those are contradictory. As such, he tends to hide the fact that he actually is smart. And he's not even smart in a common sense kind of way, he's actually booksmart because he's taken the time to become booksmart, though the fact of the matter is he's just naturally intelligent. His reasoning for this is that there's no use for stupidity in the world, and he isn't going to contribute to it by being an idiot.

This is a big part of why Bro has dedicated himself to swordsmanship (and also rap, but mostly swordsmanship). He wanted to be good at something, and if he can't actually be a decent human being without fucking that up, he's going to at least have some decent life skills. But of course he's Bro Strider, and instead of picking something that might get him somewhere in life, he picked the thing that would make him a complete and total badass. In fact, he believes his borderline Ninja skills gives him a PhD in Badassology. It may not be anything that means a lot in the grand scheme of things, but he at least feels like he's accomplished something. And that's another reason why he pushes Dave into Strifing, so he'll be good at something too.

Bro also carries around a puppet, Lil Cal. This puppet is hardly ever not thrown over his shoulder, and if it's not then you know something's wrong. He uses it during his rap battles to bring humiliation, as well as in physical combat when he's feeling particularly douchey. Because defeating people with a puppet is the ultimate form of humiliation. Because that's one thing Bro loves to do, humiliate people. Especially the people he dislikes, but also Dave on occasion just to toughen him up a little. But with Dave, it's not so much humiliation as just typical brotherly antagonism. With other people though? You can bet your ass he takes pleasure in laying down that kind of humiliation in a fight.

Bro is also the type of person who lurks in the shadows and waits for the best opportunity to present itself (and to say that Bro is silent and skilled enough to make a Ninja commit suicide out of inferiority would not be much of an exaggeration) before going in for the kill. The kill ranges anywhere from a literal sword to the gut, to a pouring rain of plush big-assed, phalic-nosed puppets. Along with knowing when best to strike, Bro also knows when the fuck to abscond, and he's good at doing this too; in canon, for example, he stabs his sword in the giant beat mesa he was fighting Jack Noir on to cover his escape, initiating The Scratch in the process.

And now we talk about the highly inappropriate side of Bro's personality. As said, he makes unwanted flirtacious advances, but he has no censor either. He doesn't think twice about making lewd sexual innuendos and dropping an f-bomb or similar in conversation- you know, typical sentence enhancers. But just because he makes inappropriate advances doesn't mean he's a total skeez-ball. He knows when to back off, he knows when he's actually not wanted, and the guy is no rapist. He may have a skewed sense of morality and right and wrong, but he's not the type of person to actually force himself on someone in an outright sexual way if they don't want it- which is to say that he may have a lot of kinks and fetishes (many of which you probably don't want to know about!), but noncon ain't one of them.

Bro also happens to collect the aforementioned puppets of big-assed, phalic-shaped variety, around which he has built a porn business- a highly successful one, judging by the fact that the Striders seem to have no trouble getting by financially. These are in fact a main source of torture for Dave, as Bro takes great pleasure in tormenting him with them, but obviously not in a malicious manner. Bro never actually does anything like that towards Dave in any kind of mean way- it's just his own screwed up form of brotherly antagonism. It's not just Dave that he trolls with his puppets, though. When he's feeling like a gigantic troll, he'll do it to just about anyone- and he also has names for all of his puppets. Sometimes he gets too attached to them; woe betide you if you ever mess with Mr. Pickles. or his family.

Despite all this, Bro certainly is capable of pulling himself together and having a serious conversation if the situation really calls for it, though even serious conversations with Bro are not your normal kind of serious conversations. Because he's Bro Strider and that's just how he rolls; if you can't take it, then you can pack your shit and hit the road. But no, in all seriousness Bro really can pull himself together and take things seriously. He may not like to, but he can cut out the irony and bullshit if necessary, or even if it's simply because he likes you- because that mask of irony is a facade that he can let down, if he feels comfortable enough, or if the moment calls for it. It's really hard to gain his trust enough for him to really act his true self around people, but when he's at that level of comfort with someone, there's a lot less irony and douchebaggery and a lot more of a tolerable human being.

Which leads to the final thing (except not really) about Bro, the one thing he doesn't want you to actually know about; he has a heart. He has a heart, and it can actually be as fragile as his ego sometimes. He genuinely does like a lot of people, even though he may not actually show it. If he ends up hurting someone, he actually feels bad about it and will make it up to them, somehow. It might be an unconventional way (because how do you do things normally?), but it would be genuine. Also, if you somehow manage to capture his heart? He is a complete and total romantic and will be willing to give you the world if you ask for it. Bro might claim that he's doing it in an ironic way, but the truth is he's really just a sap like that.

However the truth of the matter is, it's really hard to capture his interest like that, and even harder to keep his interest- or rather, keeping his interest is the problem. On the inside, Bro is an insecure person. He knows he's pretty fucked up, even though he doesn't do anything to change the fact that he is. If he's in love, then those insecurities are easy to manifest into feeling like he isn't good enough for the person he's with. Because he wants the best for them, and he is far from the best. There's a difference between believing he's the sexiest piece of ass in all of Texas (or the world, if you really want to examine how big his ego is) and believing he's actually worthy of being with long term. That's why he tends to only go for casual sex and one night stands, because with those there's no strings attached and there's no risk of heartbreak.

Another reason that it's so damn hard to capture his heart, commitment and insecurity aside, is that he actually has some pretty high standards to boot. This is of course hypocritical of him, because he doesn't feel good enough to date anyone he feels would be worth dating. But that is entirely beside the point. You might think he's attracted to big-breasted, easy girls (or big dicked, ab-licious kind of guys, since Bro doesn't care who the fuck he sleeps with and gender is not actually a thing he is concered with). You know, the type he usually has casual sex with. But the kind of person he would want to be commited to is someone far different than that. He prefers classy, intelligent people. A bit like himself, even though he hides that side of him deep under all those layers of irony. Oh and hotness is always a plus, which makes his standards that much higher. He might fuck the ones with big boobs and no standards, but he would never want to marry them.

Basically, Bro is a goddamn human being. He may try as hard as he possibly can to hide that fact, but it's simply impossible. He has too many feelings for that to ever be something he can do. His irony is a downright lie a lot of the time to cover up the fact that a lot of his actions are perfectly genuine. Countless times, he's blamed irony for things he's done when in reality they're nothing but real- and countless times, he's denied even to himself that this is true. Just as many times as his ironically genuine actions have paid off, they've also failed even more, because he's a man that just has a very skewed sense of what really is right and wrong. But he tries- fuck, does he try. Because deep down inside, he does want to be a good person, especially when it comes to Dave- Dave is actually the person who motivates him to be a better person, but Dave is also the one where he feels like he screws up the most. But it's alright. As long as he has his shades and he can keep a pokerface, people don't have to know these things.
Abilities:
-Fighting. Bro is skilled in the art of fighting in several forms, ranging from swordcraft to hand to hand. He can defend himself against almost anything, and in canon he was able to hold his own against one of the most powerful adversaries in the game. He was only defeated when said adversary achieved the powers of what can only be described as an omnipotent god.

-Flash Stepping. Bro can move fast, to the point that you can't even see him. He uses this to sneak up on people and to evade attacks.

-It ties in with the two above things, but Bro is capable of being extremely sneaky, a lot like a ninja. He uses it to get the drop on enemies as well as to keep an eye on Dave. Y'know, when he doesn't want him to know he's being a good guardian and having his back.

-Ventriloquism. He uses Lil Cal in his rap battles and he's pretty much a master ventriloquist, and he can throw his voice really well.

-Rapping! He is an amazing rapper and can use metaphors and words to make your brain explode. Not literally, but still. The dude is pretty fucking awesome at rapping.

-This is complete headcanon, but Bro is good at sewing. Someone has to make all of the porn puppets he has around the house, and the logical conclusion can be drawn that he himself is the one that makes them, considering he based a porn business around the smuppets. Any other sewing he might do in his spare time is purely for ironic purposes.

- Puppet Pornography. Self explanatory.
Sample Entry: Alrighty! I just want to note that a couple of the samples that I use are from an AU game, HOWEVER he is still very much the same person, as I changed nothing about him for this game except a few background details. But just in case, I'll add a few links from other RPs in case this is frowned upon.

Sample One
Sample two
Sample Three
Sample 4"