Dave Strider
Aliases: Crow
Gender: Male
Pronouns: He/him
Birthday: December 3
First appeared: January 2012
Relationship Status: Single
Canon: Homestuck/Runawaystuck
Species: Human/Part human, part crow mutant
Leadership positions: none
Guild Membership: Slackers
Brief Overview
Dave is a member of the Starfall Collective stuck between two timelines; one is of the timeline represented in the main Homestuck storyline, the other is the AU storyline called Runawaystuck. Dave oscillates between these two timelines, or sometimes occupies both at once. He does not have any idea whether his memories are real or mentally created, and doesn't really care to pin it down.
Early Life
On the Main Timeline, Dave was a human teenager raised in the United States, in Texas, by his big brother Dirk Strider. Dave was subject to a lot of psychological games with Dirk, as well as physical 'training' meant to toughen him up--however, it just ended up traumatizing him. Dave repressed many of his emotional responses, going as far as wearing sunglasses constantly, partially to hide his red eyes and partially to keep his face from being read.
Dave went to public school but did not connect to his fellow classmates, and instead turned to the internet circa the late 2000's. He made friends with several other kids from around the country, namely John, Jade, and Rose. They chatted online and played games together--one being Sburb, a game that would prove to be extremely consequential and result in his dying, being brought back as a god, propogating an alternate universe, meeting aliens, and also sentient lizards for some reason, as well as encountering countless versions of himself in various states of alive-ness.
In the other timeline, Dave was born a half-crow mutant and given to the circus as a baby in the 1920's. In this timeline, he had crow's feet, wings, and claws with bird-like patches of scaly skin on his arms. He was abused and treated like an animal in the circus until he was freed by that timeline's version of his friend John, a human.
Divergence from canon
aside from the obvious differences, the details of the Runawaystuck timeline are vague and don't match up with established details of that story.
System Life
Dave is one of the collectivemates who have been here the longest. He has an interest in both 20's swing music and modern music, and has branched into electroswing on occasion. He fronted occasionally during high school and often during college, when he discovered that he had memories of the main Homestuck timeline.