homestuckfanfictionhelp:

Looks to me like you want some tips on writing one CRONUS AMPORA, eh? Well, let’s see what I can do. 

Like most of the dancestors, Cronus’s appearance in the comic doesn’t last long. With somewhere around one-hundred-and-thirty lines of dialogue and only two actual appearances (in the second Meenah walkaround and the big Halloween face-off), we’re not given much to go on. In this guide, I’ll cover the basics, and leave the rest up to you.

• Cronus’s Personality
• How Cronus Interacts with Others
• Two Things People Forget About Cronus
• How Cronus Speaks
• Writing Cronus in Prose (i.e. How to Write a Stutter)
• Two 1950’s Lingo Dictionaries

I hope you’re ready to get with it, cats, ‘cause we’re about to really grill this royal-blooded radioactive subterranean. (See “Slang of the 1950’s” for translation)

Cronus’s Personality

First off, I just want to get a few misconceptions about Cronus out of the way. Cronus isn’t a rapist, he isn’t a homewrecker, he isn’t abusive. Rather, he’s just a whiny teenager who wants attention, and goes about getting it by being kind of a douche. I’m not saying Cronus is some kind of misinterpreted, upstanding “nice guy”, but he certainly isn’t as horrible as some people make him out to be.

We’ll start with the most obvious aspect of Cronus’s character: his obsession with 1950’s greasers. 

Toward the end of the second walkaround, Meenah teases him about the fact that he views Trolls as “aliens”. That is, rather than view humans as the strange, otherworldly species, he considers his own race unusual. This is the one thing he is (initially) unwilling to whine about, only doing so after Meenah leaves and he and Kanri are alone. For someone like Cronus, who will readily launch into a self-pitying tirade when anyone so much as looks at him, this is an interesting thing to note. Why?

Because it shows that, yes, Cronus is capable of having genuine feeling. Growing up is hard—it’s hard and nobody understands. That’s the Ampora motto, isn’t it? Well, dear old Cronus takes that and runs with it. He’s the amped-up, extreme version of the teenage desire to be accepted by the people around him. He goes about seeking acceptance in an absolutely horrible way (i.e. desperate flirting), but his “humankin”—as Kankri puts it—is one of the few things about himself that might actually be genuine.

Cronus is, essentially, a blank slate. He’s desperate’s desperate for attention, and will do almost anything to get it. What does that mean? Well, it means that he’s perfectly willing to change himself as the person he’s flirting with at the time changes. Areana, in her description of Cronus, describes him as having a “lack of character”, saying that “perhaps someone talked him out of his beliefs” in reference to the reality of magic. He’s weak-willed and a little bit spineless, easily swayed by convincing words—but the upside to this is that nothing really phases him. That is, if he’s rejected, he just sort of shrugs and moves on. As much as he laments his own bad luck, most of it is for show. He doesn’t even put up a fight when Meenah destroys his ancestral weapon of choice, Ahab’s Crosshairs.

The only thing he makes some half-assed effort not to talk about is his desire to be human. 

This loops back to his obsession with greasers. In researching stuff for this guide, I came across a sociology essay on the 1950’s greaser subculture. And, because I am a huge nerd, I read through the entire thing. I brings up an interesting point, actually—and, when connected to Cronus’s infatuation with greasers, you can see where I’m coming from on this interpretation of Cronus. Here’s the excerpt that caught my eye:

The sub-culture Greasers unfortunately were stereotyped and categorized as reckless, dangerous, and rebellious juveniles, when in fact the purpose of their formation was for pure teenage fun. Our youth is often told they should know their place… I then question how can we expect mature behavior from our youth when we constantly remind them of their “place”? Youth sub-cultures are developed because it allows our youth to have a place of their own. The term place, goes beyond physical location when discussing youth, but symbolically place is used as a representation as to where the adolescent belongs in this imbalanced social hierarchy. (source)

TL;DR: Greasers are characterized by their “bad boy” images, when the whole thing basically started as just a group of guys trying to have some fun and fit in with like-minded peers.

Now, there are a few bad personality points that I have to point out, because they’re pretty important parts of his character, too. 

Cronus is a hypocrite. Yeah. He displays this oh-so-wonderful quality on more than one occasion, but the best example pops up when he’s talking to Meenah in their first conversation:

Basically, he emphasizes the fact that he doesn’t care about the hemospectrum or social by highlighting his royalty. Forced humility. You could argue this point two ways, though—first, because he’s talking to Meenah, the Empress Apparent of Beforus. She’s high on the social status, so it might make sense for him to label his blood color under the “pros of dating Cronus” column when interacting with her. We’ve also seen that Meenah isn’t as quick to judge people by their class as some people assume, though, so he tones the statement down to make it seem like he doesn’t care. Reverse psychology, whether it was intended that way or not. Even so, he brings up his desire for violence against the lower classes a few times, most notably when talking with Mituna. 

When Meenah finds his Sea Dweller Bling in a chest, though, we’re basically told that he does think class is important:

He’s also the master of sympathy milking. Or, at least, he tries to be. Rolling off the quote from above, I’m just going to drop this little gem here:

Yeah, Cronus, you probably shouldn’t—but that doesn’t stop you from doing it, anyway! Admittedly, though, he does stop talking about his issues after he says this, but the point still stands. And, later on, when talking to Mituna, he admits to attempted feeling manipulation.

How Cronus Interacts with Others

We were getting dangerously close to this topic at the end of that last one, so this is probably as good a time as any to switch over. 

Like I said before, I think it’s important to emphasize the points that Cronus is not a rapist, not a homewrecker, and not abusive. The last part has essentially been covered (i.e. Cronus is basically too spineless to be abusive), but I’ll hit on at least one of the other two in this section.

In the walkaround, we only see Cronus interact with three people: Meenah, Mituna, and Kankri. Later on, we do get six lines of dialogue between him and Eridan, but that’s something I’ll touch on a bit later. For now, let’s take a look at some of his longer encounters. 

It’s no secret that Cronus is a shameless flirt. He’ll do it with almost anyone he comes across, even his dancestor. Meenah, like Feferi was for Eridan, is his most notable flush-crush, but it’s been hinted that he has feelings for Latula, as well. One very important thing to note, though, is that he respects boundries. That is, Trolls romance has four quadrants, and he doesn’t try to butt in and ruin the relationship a troll has with someone in another quadrant. Basically, Cronus Ampora is not a homewrecker. 

Mituna, our lovely little brain-damaged Heir of Doom, has two of his four quadrants filled—Latula is his matesprit, and Kurloz is his moirail. That in mind, he goes for the only single-troll quadrant left: spades. 

He adjusts his flirting accordingly, accommodating the relationship expectations of a black romance. Basically: sheer, unbridled hate. 

Cronus gets a lot of back-talk from the fandom about the way he treats Mituna, but, let’s face it—kismesisstude is a weird thing. What might seem totally unacceptable and horrible and evil and mean behavior to us is probably perfectly acceptable in troll culture. (I reference here the fact that Gamzee and Terezi were/are kismesises, and that he was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive to the point where she basically gave up on everything.)

Cronus mocks Mituna’s disabilities, calls Latula’s love for him into question, degrades his intelligence, accuses him of being insincere, and blames him for the fact that Meenah disappears at one point toward the end of the walkaround. He tells Mituna he has no purpose, and that he would have been better off dead even when they were on their home world—that is, before Mituna gave himself brain damage. 

And it all boils down to some pretty hardcore black-rom flirting.

Mituna, for his part, doesn’t reciprocate—seen in the fact that he just apologizes a bunch of times and sort of stands around, taking the verbal slams. Poor kid might not even be capable of handling a kismesis anymore because of his condition, but that’s a topic for some other essay. Because Mituna doesn’t flirt back, though, Cronus doesn’t go far as to physically mess with him. Yeah, he has his hand on Mituna’s shoulder for part of their conversation and doesn’t remove it when asked, but he emphasizes (in his own, very douchy way) that it’s a totally platonic “bro” thing. We can infer that it was meant to be a sexual advance, but, once he gets that Mituna isn’t going to take the bait, he backs off. 

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Cronus does the same thing with Kanrki. That is, it’s a well-known fact that Kankri is celibate. He has no filled quadrants because he doesn’t want any of them filled, and Cronus respects that. Kanrki is, along with Seahorse Dad, the only character he doesn’t flirt with. At all. They just sort of have a friendly, enlightening conversation about Cronus’s ongoing identity crisis. 

Rather than jump on the attention Kankri gives him when jumping into his conversation with Meenah, Cronus is genuinely surprised.

It’s kind of funny, actually—I have a theory that there would be some weird, pale love triangle between Kanrki, Cronus, and Porrim if Kankri wasn’t so strictly celibate. At the very least, Kankri is probably Cronus’s only friend. 

Two Things People Forget About Cronus

• Cronus doesn’t smoke.

In the conversation he has with Meenah (and later Kankri), Meenah teases him about his greaser get up, insulting his “slicked hair and that dumb little wand in your mouth”. He basically tells her that he has a cigarette all the time for appearance purposes, only—just to look cool.

He’s trying to emulate the human douchebags as much as possible, but he doesn’t actually go so far as to do it. We can safely assume that he wouldn’t do drugs, either, if he were presented with them. Easily pressured into it? Yeah, probably. But his first inclination wouldn’t be to get high. 

• Cronus is pretty smart. 

Alternatively: Cronus really knows his shit about music. In an earlier conversation with Meenah, he tries to explain his latest musical escapades—but he doesn’t say “yeah, I tried messing with the bass” or “yeah, I changed the pitch”. Instead, he talks about the mechanics of the music, itself. 

And his music isn’t just for show, either—he actually does do it. We’re even presented with the titles of a few tracks for proof. Some notable gems include: “lunar lust”, “aquasex renegade”, “less pale more pail”, “giwve him another look”, “under your fins all along”, “vwe put the us in royals flushed”, and, my personal favorite: “punkin party in sea hipsters vwater apocalypse” (which, incidentally, sounds awfully familiar to Roxy’s theme: Pumpkin Party in Sea Hitler’s Water Apocalypse). Just sayin’. 

How Cronus Speaks

I’ve seen this debated on two points: that his typing quirk is random because he can’t tell “w”s and “v”s apart, versus the assumption that there is reason to it—but it’s just kind of weird. 

I, personally, agree with the second point, because Cronus isn’t stupid—he can tell the difference. He just has a stutter, and that makes pronunciation hard. This Cronus RP Guide explains it really well, so I’m going to just paste in what it says:

Cronus’ quirk is actually extremely simple, and easy to remember and use. The only real thought you need to apply is where the w is in the word.

Every word that starts with w is vw. Every single time. 
No matter where a v is, it’s vw. Every v is vw.
If a w is in the second half of a sentence, it’s wv.

When it comes to words where the w is in the dead middle because there’s an odd number of letters, I usually use wv, since it doesn’t come up as often, but you can do whatever you want.

*It’s worth noting that he appears to have trouble saying more than three words starting with vw in a row. This is implying that he talks fairly fast, meaning that if he’s speaking with lots of vw words, hes probably going to slip up. 

Aside from his wv’s, Cronus speaks rather normally. He doesn’t use any consistent capitalization, and, when he does, it is only for single words in their entirety. Capital B’s are replaced with the number 8 (ex: “8ROKEN”). He does use ending punctuation, but no exclamation points—and he uses commas rather frequently. In terms of length, he’s perfectly capable of babbling, but only when his conversation partner is particularly quiet. Otherwise, he speaks in average-lengthed sentences. 

How This Madness Translates into Prose Dialogue

When each of the trolls are introduced, we’re given a bit of background on their typing quirk and how it works. Because Cronus doesn’t have an introduction page we don’t have that luxury. His quirk, though, is similar enough to Eridan’s that we can go back and look at his introduction page:

Remeber that, while Eridan chops off his “ing”s and replaces some smaller words with other things, Cronus does not! He speaks in with almost perfect pronunciation, aside from his stutter. Yes, his stutter—because that’s essentially what a “wwavy soundin accent” boils down to. This can probably also be caused by Cronus’s tendancy to talk fast, as mentioned above.

Writing a stutter can be kind of hard, though, because it can break up the flow of dialogue and be hard for readers to “hear” in their heads as they go through your story. There are two kinds of “stutters”, in general: stutters, and stammers. Stutters usually happen within words, and are broken off by hyphens and repeating letters. Stammers, on the other hand, are broken with commas and usually involve the repetition of whole words. For Cronus, we’ll be focusing on a little bit of both—and, most specifically, w’s and v’s. 

For words beginning and/or ending with w’s, writing Cronus in dialogue should be fairly easy. Just set off the first or last letter with a hyphenated duplicate. 

“W-well, isn’t this a surprise?” He sneers, stooping low, hands on his knees as he looks you over. His stutter—something that would otherwise seem stupid—doesn’t do a thing to detract from how frightening he looks in that moment. 

Don’t overwork your stutter, though. One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is that a good writer should show, not tell. You don’t even have to include the extra “w” if you don’t want to—you can imply it with context clues. 

“Well, isn’t this a surprise?” He sneers, stooping low, hands on his knees as he looks you over. He trips over his w’s, you notice, but the stutter—something that would otherwise seem stupid—doesn’t do a thing to detract from how frightening he looks in that moment. 

Things get a little tricky when you’re faced with multiple w/v’s, or words with w/v’s in the middle. As a general rule, I would try to avoid those at all costs (reword your sentence! switch up your syntax! go open an thesaurus!), but, if it’s absolutely necessary, there are a few things you can do. 

“C’mon,” Cronus sighs from below, and you can practically see him rolling his eyes, despite the darkness. “Just low-wer yourself down, already.”

or

“C’mon,” Cronus sighs from below, and you can practically see him rolling his eyes, despite the darkness. “Just low— lower yourself down, already.”

It’s really up to you how you want to approach it. I ended up speaking all of that dialogue out loud each way, just so see which sounded better to me. If you’re interested in further reading, here are two resources you can check out that describe stutter-writing in better detail.

Two 1950’s Lingo Dictionaries

Because, at some point or another, you’re going to need a bit of slang. We can’t forget that dear ol’ Cronus calls people “cat” unironically, so it’s bound to come up eventually. Just remember not to go too overboard with it! And context clues to definitions are important. Both are PDF files, by the way.

• Slang of the 1950’s
• 1950’s Slang: A Guide to the Casual Language of the Fabulous Fifties

So… yep! That’s pretty much it! I hope this helps, and please let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong! Thanks for reading!