So the first thing to note is that any gender can be any class. Hussie confirmed that girls can be Princes on twitter at some point, I don’t really have a link or anythin but I thought I’d point that out.
And in my view the gender restrictions were always canonically shaky in the first place. They were delivered by Calliope early in Act 6, and Calliope understands a lot about the game (I think she’s right about her descriptions of Active/Passive classes and I use her definitions as my own), but I don’t think Calliope understands very much about gender or identity by that point.
I mean, that’s a plot point! Calliope thinks she’s incapable of feeling red romance because of her species…even as she expresses profound fascination and interest in it. Calliope, like all the characters, is influenced by a status quo of heteronormativity and gender essentialism. What she says about how often any class is any gender reflects 2 things:
1) Her own views on gender and identity, which at this point are still limiting and self-restrictive in a way she explicitly grows out of just like every other character in the comic, given that she starts dating Roxy.
2) The patterns of the four sessions she has access to and draws sources from. Calliope doesn’t analyze all of Sburb–she analyzes Sburb in the context of Homestuck, just like we the audience do, and where the conclusion she draws is incorrect, it’s informed by a bias towards preestablished gender norms.
As for the specifics, there’s tons of ways trans/nonbinary people could interact with Sburb. Dream Selves are idealized selves so I guess trans people who find that powerful and gratifying there could be an element of transition to the transformation. God tier powers are reality warping enough to enable that kind of thing in dozens of ways, too.
Not that that’s necessary, obviously. Lots of trans people don’t want to transition and I suspect some people would consider it being presented that way kind of cheap. There’s also tons of ways to enable more honest gender expression through the Alchemy system. For instance, I read Jake as non-binary or genderfluid and I think he expresses that potential fairly well. So there’s that. There’s also people who read, say, Roxy and Dirk as trans–and since Calliope is at the mercy of her sources which are historical documents that track the mythologies of the players as they present them, there’s not really any way she’d know better.
I think Sburb is always best interpreted as expansively as possible while still holding to the existential philosophy that informs its game design. So the answer is anyone can be anything they feel called to, wherever they fall on the spectrum. Sburb is interested in having its players self-actualize, and that can happen in as many different ways as there are stories to tell–whether we’re talking about rises to heroism narratives, or coming of age and coming out narratives. (Coming out narratives are intrinsically heroic narratives anyway, in my view.)
You probably weren’t expecting an essay length answer to this question. So like let there be no doubt at all from this point onwards this is exactly the kind of content you can legitimately expect from this blog. This is who I am. I’m sorry.
Also, you’re welcome.
Yes, Dirk is a furry. And his relationship to furries shows us a lot about his parallels and similarities to one Rose Lalonde. Who is also a furry.
Let’s get into this.
Dirk is interested in furries to some extent, and finds the aesthetic appealing on some level. I mean, look at this. I can’t even count how many pictures of muscley horse dudes there are here. The dude isn’t exactly subtle. To quote Jake…
He dodges, and badly at that. To Dirk, swole bunny men represent something to hide–an interest he has that he cannot honestly incorporate into his cool, stoic, Above It All Persona. Not even through the hyper-sincere irony he tells Jane about. It’s something to hide, which means that at his core it’s something that matters to him.
And hey, you know who else is very much not shy about plastering her interests where anyone can see for her own pleasure?
As plenty of people have noted recently, there’s no heterosexual explanation for this. I’d already categorize this as falling into the spectrum of anthropomorphization we talk about as Furry–if you disagree that’s fine, though I do know furries who like this kind of thing. The point is that like Dirk, Rose knows what she likes, and like Dirk, Rose likes some weird shit.
On this side of the argument, though–showing that the characters like this furry stuff through their own characterization–Dirk gets a lot more content than Rose does. But Rose’s relationship with furry is confirmed much more intensely than Dirk’s on the other side of this argument: through their relationships to their Splinters.
In both cases, they’re happy to pretend that furry stuff doesn’t interest them at all, and part of their approach to doing so is either joking about others being interested in it or actively playing up their resentment for it. Either way, the implication they send is that they themselves are Not Interested.
This is alie, and is to be ruthlessly exploited for comedy, which Homestuck does magnificently well.
Both Dirk and Rose are very invested in seeming Above the kind of self-indulgent identity play that Furry tends to encompass. Intense sincerity of expression bothers to them even as it appeals, because the images they want to project to the people they care about is one of aloof, self-aware, competently critical collectedness. One could say it bothers BECAUSE it appeals.
Which is the exact reason Rose is so annoyed by Jasprose. Jasprose acts as Rose would without the self-awareness she uses to present only the carefully crafted persona she wants other people to see. Jasprose doesn’t think about what others think of her at all. Jasprose thinks in terms of self-indulgence.
A self-indulgence explicitly linked to their status as full-blown, unabashed Furries. Jasprose, by her very being, brings all of Rose’s hidden words and feelings to Light, not being shy at all about sharing them and indulging whatever desire is on her mind.
She mixes cat terminology with flirting, stressing her identity as someone who is a furry and loving every second of it. Davepeta even draws the distinction between her and Rose, noting that Jasprose owns who she is and acts more honestly about it.
But there are genuinely harmless ways that Arquis DOES reflect Dirk’s interest, and those are worth unpackaging. Specifically, there’s the way AR describes himself finally becoming happy.
And yeah someone could nibble with this wording and say well actually Equius likes horses so maybe its him and I actually couldn’t be less interested in trying to explain why Dirk’s character already incorporates an absolutely Furry level of enjoyment of horses so here’s his room again.
So basically Dirk and Rose are interested in furry stuff to some extent but won’t really admit it. They wouldn’t admit it to you if you asked them or anything.
I think this is really fascinating and that they share this particular nuance of characterization so completely is fantastic. Even Dirk’s double face palm and Rose’s pillow hiding feel really similar to me in the sentiment of mortified frustration it gets across.
And all this really stresses their similarities and makes Roxy’s line emphasizing how similar Rose and Dirk are hit home all the harder. I wanted to ramble about that for a while. God I love these kids what was I talking about again?
Oh yeah furries. So Rose and Dirk are both furries but neither of them would CALL themselves furries in public.
Yet. The thing is, this girl exists:
Give Jade like, one birthday party where she decides she wants everyone to have a furry party and draw up fursonas together, and we’re good to go. There’s pretty much no circumstances under which I doubt Jade’s power to get all her friends to stop hiding an interest they ALL KNOW DEEP DOWN they share with her but keep pushing away out of a dumb point of pride.
It’ll be great I promise someone write this fic ok thanks in advance. Anyway yeah give Jade like a year after they get to Earth C and she’ll get them all on the same page. By which I mean all, not just Dirk and Rose.
Jane’s actually the only main character who hasn’t expressed any interest in furries at any point in the story to my memory, and she’s already been willing to play around with trollsonas. Which means at some point in the context of eternity these kids are going to get the hell over themselves and draw some fursonas. And if they don’t, Jade will make sure they will.
So yeah. Every human kid in Homestuck is a furry. Also every living troll, and Callie. Probably all their subjects too frankly.
Davepeta would fucking adore Dave and try their best to help him grow and be chill and relax. I feel like Dave would be really weirded out by Davepeta though and maybe a little tiny bit jealous because Jade is with them at first and Dave doesn’t know how to let go of crushes but he’d get over it pretty fast and even if he didn’t Jade would make sure he did because. Davepeta is her datefriend and Dave isn’t allowed to be a jerk about it.
I don’t really think he would be though? It would be mostly just residual weirdness about Davesprite mingled with feeling slightly insecure that there’s now an even CHILLER MORE lax about masculinity version of him running around and what if Karkat likes them better they’re so chill and they just tell Jade about their feelings and flirt with John and oh god. Dave, Rose and Dirk might briefly bond over feeling uncomfortable with their sprite selves.
But Dave would get over it and eventually become pretty good bros with Davepeta I think and they’re probably have really good jams about Time travel and the nature of identity since they both get what it’s like and why it sucks but Davepeta would have a lot to offer there. Eventually I think Dave and Davepeta are literally just bros and Dave thinks of Davepeta less as a splinter and more as a bizzare sort of twin. Not even his weirdest twin sibling because Dirk exists.
Speaking of Dirk Davepeta adores him too??? Davepeta is over the Bro stuff, and they already hugged and made up with AR, who…actually did any of the kind of stuff that is similar to what Bro did, which Dirk did not do. So if that’s what you meant, I don’t see why Davepeta would have any reservations about Dirk. If anything they’re probably the best positioned character other than Dave and Jake to help Dirk like, work out his relationship to himself vs. his splinters and help him be happier with himself, and that’s likely what they’d try to do.
Dirk wouldn’t know how to handle Davepeta especially when Dave doesn’t like them but they’d work things out and also be chill bros I think.
Um. Is this abstract commentary on how much I like Homestuck? In any case it’s pretty nice and poetic I love this kind of writing. Keep it up anon but some grounding would be helpful in helping me discern what your message is about here.
You pretty much nailed any thought I could have. But oddly, we don’t actually see ANY of the strilonde’s echeladders–only the Prospit kids. Wonder what thats about, come to think of it.
Yeah, I mean. I guess it’s like any other kind of rep and different folks will vibe with different things? I have one aro friend who’s really big into Dirkjake and worried about erasin them over that, so I don’t think that’s all that’s at play for the people who like that reading of Jake! The way I see it, reading Jake as aro at this point doesn’t really give you that get out of jail free card anyway, since for all intents and purposes Dirk and Jake are…literally together. They’re living together, they have physical intimacy as in hugs and fights, and they seem to spend a ton of time together. In the Masterpiece Jake finally activates his Hope powers on his own explicitly to protect Dirk. He loves the guy.
Whether people want to think Jake parses that as best friend love at the exclusion of boyfriend love is kinda all the same to me, though I definitely lean towards…both best friend love AND boyfriend love. cuz im gay.
I will say though I think John (and Jane!) read just as compellingly aro if not moreso, at least to me.
Jake also likes dead shit, as a matter of fact! Preserved dead stuff is an area of interest Jake, Roxy and Dave all share–Jake likes taxidermy, Roxy likes lavish funerals, and Dave likes paleontology type stuff.
Maybe Jake and Dirk go on adventures plundering ruins and shit and find old artifacts and stuff to bring back to Dave or maybe he’s even convinced to tag along eventually if he ever feels like adventuring again (unlikely but hey! quantum infinity!).
Dave and Jake first and probably longest because I’ve been screaming about this for eons:
Dave and Jake come with a relationship built in if you think about it, and that relationship leads to not just Dave but also Dirk dying of embarrassment and also making Karkat and Jake instant bffs. Like. Dirk isn’t the only one with a SBAHJ tattoo and he’s not the only one who likes the movies, and yeah Jake likes every movie but he likes every movie PASSIONATELY and he adds every single word Dirk says about them and adds them to his pile of reasons to like the movies. Because they’re not just movies, they’re DIRK’S BRO’S movies, and Dirk’s Bro was a flipping HERO! And Jake knows EXACTLY how hard Dirk hero worshiped and looked up to Dave growing up, so considering how much Jake hero worships DIRK already…that rubbed off on him for sure.
So the instant Dave and Jake come into contact Dave is in for some incredibly flustered spiels about how cool he is and can Jake get an autograph and oh Dirk did you tell him about that stuff you said about the one really good part of moivie and and
This is good for Dave because it gets across how highly Dirk really thinks of him much better than Dirk’s stoic, matter-of-fact recital, which means Karkat is immediately won over because anything that makes Dave happy is good by him, and it also gives everyone the pleasure of watching Dirk be actually legitimately embarrassed by something which is great.
It’s also good for Jake because Dave seemed to have a similar particular admiration for Grandpa (just like I’m 100% sure one of Dirk’s reasons for taking an interest in robotics was being influenced by Grandma, sure as hell didn’t get it from Alpha Dave).
Kanaya loves Dirk and Jake but god she wishes they would let her dress them better. Dirk won’t stop tearing the arms off his shirts why. She finally makes progress by focusing on Jake alone and then having Jake help her influence Dirk.
I actually think Rose might underestimate Jake at first because she can be sort of smug and that might have her and Dirk come into conflict. More likely though is Jasprose is mean to Jake and Rose and Dirk commiserate over the pain of having an out of control splinter tormenting them. I know Jake would find her interesting and intimidating all at once and Rose would be very pleased with having another angle through which to interrogate Dirk. She’d try to pry into Jake but Jake is basically shameless and has nothing to hide.
Roxy and Karkat and Dirk all bond over a “Piss on the Condesce’s actual grave” party and spend two months talking about how fucking awful she was. Roxy tells Karkat about killing the Condesce and wins him over as hard as Dirk and Jake do.
Roxy and Kanaya were bros from the word matriorb but they like to team up to tease Rose sometimes and Rose is like how could you betray me like this…
Callie and Kanaya have a lot of fun learning Space powers together, too, not to mention bonding about their experiences with Sburb setting them apart from their culture. Roxy and Rose are delighted about this
I have more thoughts but that’s all for right now.
It is a quantum inevitability that in any timeline that Jake’s powers progress far enough to figure out how to shapeshift, Dirk Strider is confronted with the fact that his boyfriend has Literally turned himself into a real as fuck shitty space furry with a fakeness attribute of exactly 0%, who wants to turn him into a shitty space furry too and have spiritual intercourse with their hair tails or some such shit.
It is also a quantum inevitability that in every such timeline, Dirk Strider comes to the realization that he is in fact in love enough to do this, and the rest of his existence from then on is one of perpetually getting owned.
Flying through Storytelling 