I think it’s demonstrable that Dirk is good at picking up on the true nature of his friends–he gets at the “Heart” of them so to speak. Dirk knows Jake is smart and aware and playing dumb when it’s convenient to him. He intuits Jane will come around on her own terms, through her own experience, and prefers not to alienate her in the meantime. So on.
Where I think Dirk struggles is in knowing how to react to people’s feelings, where his own romantic feelings and guilt tangle him up to the point that he decides the best approach is to completely bottle everything up. Dirk actually takes pretty much no action on anything because he pretty much thinks he’s poison no matter what he thinks to do, as I read him.
But yeah as long as it doesn’t DIRECTLY INVOLVE Dirk where he’s given to the most self-crucifying, self-loathing interpretation of everything possible, Dirk is pretty insightful about his friend’s feelings. He’s no Karkat but emotions do sort of come with the domain of Heart. Once Dirk and Jake talk out their issues with each other and Dirk’s view of Jake isn’t overwhelmingly colored by childhood trauma, self-loathing, and anxiety this is particularly true of Jake, since Jake relies on Dirk for pretty much everything and Dirk has crafted a personality out of trying to be helpful to Jake.
I dunno if I specifically write Dirk as good at figuring out how people are feeling, though. I mostly only write Dirk in the context of the Alphas and the Alphas know how the others are feeling because they all desperately love each other and are each other’s entire worlds for years. Then there’s Dave, who Dirk got to know pretty damn fast and loved just as intensely, and Karkat, who Dirk has an astounding amount of similarities with when you get right down to it.
Yo, yall, I saw someone in the cherubplay tag asking about a guide for this and I like to think I’m pretty good at Dirk roleplaying, so let’s go.
I was going to try and keep this away from most “fanon vs. canon” stuff, but as a heads up, with both Striders it’s fairly impossible to avoid talking about that because they put up such fronts that get read as their actual character. (More on that in a sec.)
While on the one hand you have the misreadings of Dirk that result in desperate, clingy, whiny “looking for doms” bed starfish, on the other hand, you have the suave, domineering, puppeteer Dirks who control literally everything their friends do, are always in control, and definitely never panic in a bad situation. While both of those misreadings are bad, I’d actually argue the second is more OOC than the first, and this is a post about why.
Anyway, this is gonna be a really long post because I like talking about Dirk and his complexes way too much, so hit the readmore.
Dirk might not be a Knight, but he has all the same hallmarks as Dave of desperately armoring himself in “being cool” to avoid letting people see the raw underbelly underneath. If you come out of Homestuck reading that Dirk believes he’s the best thing since sliced bread, then … well, then he fooled you. You saw his front, accepted that for all he is, and moved on, and somewhere, the metafictional concept of Dirk probably let out a sigh of relief and wiped sweat off his forehead.
I’m reblogging this specifically because I think it’s relevant that Dirk acting as a Knight is objectively correct? Like, not just in terms of his characterization echoing Dave’s–in the sense that Dirk actively tries to roleplay a Knight throughout his narrative, in his emulating Alpha Dave.
So I think it’s pretty cool that someone picked up on this element of his characterization now that I think it’s like…a literal, explicit game mechanic, consistent not just in Dirk but throughout all of Homestuck (and Hiveswap, considering what we’ve seen up until now).
Classes are cool, y’all. Also Dirk Strider owns and I love and will protect him.
sdKGNgkngkn EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS WHERE DO I START. DIRK MAKING GAMES. THE GAMES BEING SHITTY BUT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT ALL THE STUFF JAKE LIKES. JAKES *FACES* THOSE FACES I’M IN LOVE
It IS bang to the elephant, Jake. Dirkjake is canon and im in nirvana
Ok this is legitimately like, my favorite Dirkjake fan content I’ve ever seen. It’s actually set post-canon and follows up on the characters issues that we know and understand and they’re interacting in new ways but they feel believable given what we’ve seen before and and and
God it’s so cute??? Hang on I have to scream more in Part 2
Haha yeah I was being kind of flippant and facetious in the ask I think you’re referencing. I only want to start conversations, not impose a new understanding, so I’m happy to talk things out and debate views!
Tl;dr Jake wanted Dirk the whole time, he wants Dirk selfishly because he views Dirk has his protector and bodyguard and because Dirk helps him with whatever he wants help with, and he knowingly manipulated Jane into denying her feelings for him despite knowing otherwise for a fact because Roxy told him that she had feelings for him.
All of this is literally textual and in the comic.
Reading Jake as passive is the only reason anyone thinks DirkJake is ambiguous instead of one of the most mutual and passionate gay romances in all fiction, and it’s based on nothing but misinformation.
I’ve written so much about this it’s not funny, but feel free to read any of my various arguments on the subject and debate particular points if you want to follow up on something in particular.
Karkat: the reason there’s any people who think Karkat was turned into a joke and was never effective in the plot at all is because he almost always exerts his impact by “Allowing” his aspect, and thus ends up pretty effective all told despite not being aware of what he’s doing!
Tavros: reading Tavros as passive ignores the fact that Tavros fights and resists Vriska’s will every step of the way throughout his abuse, and is pretty capable about knowing who to get to help him in stopping her.
It ignores that the one time Tavros almost used his powers he was acting under his own agency, and that he quite expressly and dramatically is unwilling to do things the way Vriska wills them on him.
On Vriska’s end, ignoring that Pages inspire others to act for their own benefit paves over the element of her character that genuinely perceived herself as trying to help him, which is a textual element that complicates our view of her.
Obviously none of that is to say Tavros asked for it, or that any of what Vriska did is justified. But the way their wills play off each other is more complex than just “she bullies him and he’s a pushover”.
Tavros is NOT a pushover. He’s overpowered by force, but he tries fucking hard to resist his abuse. And Vriska doesn’t exactly just hate Tavros–there’s an element of her behavior genuinely rooted in a desire to help in the context of the fucked up world she grew up in.
But more than anything reading Pages as passive ignores Tavros’ motivation for raising the ghost army and turns it into “oh he ended up helping Vriska to her benefit in the end and that’s…his character arc?”
Which isn’t what that scene is at all. That scene is Tavros getting what he personally wanted to have closure for himself and move on from Vriska for good. Tavros healed. He moved on. He got a pretty gentle sort of revenge because Tavros is ultimately a kindhearted and gentle boy, but he used the ghosts specifically to aid his desire to own the fuck out of Vriska and then moved the hell on.
Reading Pages this way means that Tavros’ arc wasn’t written for the purpose of making a depthless joke of an abuse victim, which means you can understand Vriska’s character complexly without having to prioritize her over her victim.
I sure as hell wouldn’t call it, like, a perfectly handled narrative, but it does make it substantially better and make Tavros ’ ending a lot more satisfying. Also gives me more hope both Vriska and Tavros will be treated well with whatever on earth happens in the epilogue.
Homestuck was, if not good, at least only kind of shitty instead of dramatically in your face blatant abuse mockery shitty all along. Tavros is definitely treated as jokes, but he’s also given actual closure re:his abuse arc, that actually makes sense given who he is as a person. And understanding that means Vriska’s character was handled with more care, too.
Please let me boast about my lock screen because I got consent.
Soooooo cute and cool dirkjake lock screen!!!! by @honesk1
I am translating HS into Japanese with hone-san. On the way I had hone-san show me an unpublished illustrations. Every picture is really wonderful, and I adopt one of them in my lock screen.
It’s so amazing!!!
oohhhhhh my god oh my god oh my god this is incredible and i’m living
thanks strilonde jam server for helping me forge this blade of power and also @oceanboydirk specifically for writing most of it in the first place
Flying through Storytelling 