Tag: dirk strider

Dirk Strider is made out of love, prince of my heart, i love him so much.

You didnt ask for this but you put Dirk and love in the same sentence and this is what i’ve been thinking about so lets go

Im gonna ramble about how much Dirk would love John Egbert and Jade Harley like, instantly, he did conceptually before he even met them but the instant they meet Dirk is permanently owned and has that many more people he’d happily die for because: Dirk loves Jane and Jake more than life itself, and John and Jade are…their kids basically. And early on Dirk cannot unsee that. 

The biggest treason this fandom has ever committed to my person is ignoring the fact that Dirk Strider would fucking melt himself to death even looking at John Egbert or Jade Harley and deconstructing all the little ways they’re like Jake and Jane and thinking about his typical self-loathing shit like “god those two would’ve been so happy together I’m such an ass for getting in the way look at them their kids are perfect they’re so good–”  

before Jake like puts his arm around Dirk’s shoulders and all thoughts immediately stop if they’re dating again, it’s probably a source of great angst for Dirk before they are and one of the bigger reasons he stays away. Maybe Jake and Jane will get the idea and be happy together. Someone write this for me thanks. 

Anyway that got too sad so back to Dirk’s relationship with the ectokids. 

Early on in Earth C John gets the impression Dirk hates him early on and pranks him pretty hard and often but while it kind of annoys Dirk when all his meticulously set up horsecam figurines get their heads swapped (and john breaks some of them in the process) he’s mostly just reminded that things with him and Jane are still awkward enough that he hasn’t gotten this from HER and he’s a torn up bag of “Fuck I miss her” and “Fuck I can’t believe how much I care about her goober ecto-son already” and NONE of this gets across his stoic demeanor so all john gets is that poker face. It takes them fucking forever to be actual friends and I’m not sure what does it but its probably the formidable teamwork of Jake and Dave who get sick of the awkwardness eventually. 

Meanwhile Dirk is 100% in awe of and terrified of disappointing Jade Harley who he A) cannot stop thinking about as JAKE’S GRANDMA and “OH GOD WHAT IF SHE DISSAPROVES WHAT IF I’M NOT GOOD ENOUGH WHAT IF-”- and B) Cannot stop thinking about as SO MUCH like Jane it kills him. She’s so no-nonsense and down to business and whenever he starts rambling too much about philosophy or some bullshit she just looks at him like … and he’s like “Ok I’ll shut up.”  The way Jade moves in a science lab is EXACTLY like Jane moves in a kitchen (or later, a business meeting) and Dirk knows because he learned the ins and outs of that movement by heart across so many video cam sessions growing up. Everything about Jade Harley destroys Dirk and he thinks she’s the fucking coolest and there’s basically no part of him that didn’t love her from the word go 

Dirk manages to work up the will to keep everyone else (but Jake) out of his private garage but not Jade, Dirk’s got all this futuretech practice and as SOON as Jade catches wind of this she’s like “Hey dirk! Alt!Callie handed me the secrets of the universe and basically i need a bigger workshop and better science can you help me out” and that’s basically his main project for the next two years is catching Jade up on 400 years of scientific progress (Jake tags along) and having to work on his weirdo animatronic shit that he was GOING to use his garage for originally in like, one of the cramped floors of Jake’s jungle globe instead

But it’s fine cause it makes Jade happy and getting to be helpful to Jade is like a dream come fucking true and Jake is so happy whenever he and Jade get to talking about some interesting intersection of philosophy and science or furries or whatever. The first time Jade gives him a friendly smack on the back Dirk jumps so hard he hits the roof.

Give Dirk Strider love thanks 

can you examine Dirk and Jane’s relationship? because I fucking love their friendship and you have a cool mind so I wanna maybe know any fleshed out thoughts you might have.

allow me to answer in screencap form 

image

Not here specifically, but only because I think it’s likely Dirk will show up in my Jane post which I’m…thinking is gonna be…the next thing I write? Possibly also the last thing for a while before I refocus on video editing and uh, you know. Making money from a job for a while. Capitalism 😦 

The tl;dr shortform version is Jane and Dirk fucking love each other and are also deeply jealous of each other and are also deeply guilty about being jealous of each other. It’s a mess. I love them. Dirk probably looks at John and Jade and fucking keels over and dies just from how much he sees Jake and Jane in them and loves them for it probably. 

Hey! I love love love what you write about Dirk, it really helps with finding his voice and understanding his character, and I’m glad someone’s doing the Good Work regarding Dirkjake. Do you think you could talk about Dirk and Bro sometime, and why they’re so different? You’re definitely one of the best HS analysts out there, and I’d love to read your thoughts on that.

This is a really nice message! I sort of already did write about this in Love, Faith and Fantasy–I think Dirk is fundamentally different because he loves his friends, defines himself by and strives to live up to Dave’s image, and is confronted with his own manipulative potential through the AR and is kind of terrified of becoming like that. If you haven’t read that one I don’t blame you cause it’s too fucking long and I’m currently in the process of editing and reuploading it.

I might write about Dirk more? But I’ve written about Dirk and Jake specifically a frankly overwhelming amount already, and I’d like to focus on fleshing out the roster of characters I’m writing about since my goal is really to talk about the entire story–Dirk and Jake are just a particular passion point for me. Probably the soonest I’ll revisit the subject is if Hiveswap brings any new information about Grandpa or Bro to light, which is something I’m kind of expecting frankly. 

olive-the-olive replied to your post “just my two cents but i still think that much of the divergence in…”

like i think more than one interpretation is viable here. obviously a “dirk is unambiguously terrible and evil” interpretation is like, boring and kinda stupid but like there’s a lot of compelling ways to read him that aren’t that.

Yup, I agree. My only issue is that more negative readings of Dirk–or at least, his relationship with Jake–are unfortunately more of the norm and Dirkjake should really be celebrated and valued just as much as, say, Davekat or Rosemary are. 

It isn’t, but the reason why has nothing to do with ambiguity or poor execution in the canon imo and everything to do with fanon developed narratives about him. 

Basically I’m not out to STOMP OUT more critical or negative interpretations of his character–I’m here to say there were flaws and great acts of love across the board with the alphas, including Dirk and Jake, and I want to see that celebrated in the fandom more because…it’s worth celebrating. that’s my angle here. 

swamp-wizard:

@revolutionaryduelist (in response to this post ftr but its long and theres enough long posts on my blog right now)

i mean, it is about making dirk soft and cute, because thats what i dont like, thats what ive been complaining about! you and i had been talking about dirks characterization for days (weve been doing it for months, honestly, i think the first time we critiqued each others posts was in fucking november?), and i figured we had pretty much reached a stalemate where neither of us is going to change our interpretation of dirk but we both have well-established arguments to defend them, so its ok. folks other than you and i didnt get involved until 1. you tried to call out jade over a joke about dirk being a stem major, and 2. i wrote a couple of posts (admittedly that sounded angrier than i actually was, because i really, sincerely am not offended or put off by Soft Dirk) about dirks appearance, specifically, and ended it by cracking a joke about the ongoing stem discourse which i guess was my bad for tying these two unrelated issues together, and now i guess its all tied up in a mess of miscommunication where were all using the phrase Soft Dirk to refer to different things and nobodys sure what anyone else is talking about

i think dirk is a lot more complex and morally grey than your reading of him gives him credit for, and you think that my reading of him as morally grey is miscrediting him with the actions of splinters he had no control over, but we have pretty much agreed to disagree at this point. its not my reading, but its a valid one, so its fine. when i started talking about Soft Dirk i was talking about how common it is for non-mlm to depict him as being conventionally attractive, and as a gay dude who is not conventionally attractive and who sees myself a lot in dirk character-ways, that id really like to see more art of dirk looking ugly and gross, because people with depression (hello!) often arent really able to take care of ourselves or keep up with our appearances. i want a gay dude with depression who is a more accurate depiction of gay dudes with depression. thats it, thats where im coming from on this matter, thats 100% of my feelings and motivations. which is why i got so wildly offended when people (specifically, non-mlm!) started saying Soft Dirk (which i defined as a feminine, conventionally attractive dirk) is more ethical or better than the alternative… you see where im coming from, right? you understand why i got so put off by this discourse, right?

im not going to debate on whether theres evidence of dirk being smug/elitist/a control freak in canon, because weve done it a hundred times already (i think there is, you think there isnt, and we both interpret exactly the same lines in wildly different ways). instead what im going to say is that posts about dirk being smug, including jades post about dirk being a stem major are, like…. jokes? they are jokes. sometimes people exaggerate characters traits for the sake of humor. like posts about rose shopping at hot topic and being a mallgoth even tho in canon all she does is wear a lot of black, or posts about jade wearing a fursuit and going to anthrocon even tho canonically shes a furry who hates fursuiting. theres definitely enough grounding for Smug Dirk for that reading to be valid (and theres enough grounding for Selfless Dirk for that reading to be valid too!) and thats why people make jokes about it

none of us are doing it because we hate dirk, i rip on him harder than anyone alive and i would fucking die for him, robbie and jade and everybody else who cracks these jokes does it because we fucking love dirk and almost always because we see ourselves in him and were being self-deprecating. we are gay (and, yes, some of are gay dudes, if that matters) and mentally ill and mean and gross and we dont take dirk seriously because we dont take ourselves seriously. that comic about jake calling dirk a dumpster and setting him on fire? was drawn by a dirkjake shipper! ive seen dozens of “i ship dirkjake but you have to admit that canonically it was abusive” posts. and yet youre trying to pin this discourse on dirkjohn people. the problem is insular, not from outside your clique; the call was coming from inside the house the whole time.

and one last note: wlw absolutely get a voice in discussions of homophobia, dude. theres a difference in how systemic homophobia affects us but accusing wlw of “talking over” you in discussions of homophobia, frankly, comes off as dismissive and tone-deaf. wlw get a say in what is homophobic and what isnt, wlw get to relate to gay male characters, and obviously this isnt a “wlw vs mlm” issue because im a gay dude and i disagree with you! youre more eager to ally yourself with self-identified cishet people who agree with you (im talking about the post you reblogged by ao3sburbanite, so as not to be accused of vagueblogging) while you accuse wlw and lesbians of homophobia (and i didnt want to make this an idpol issue since thats what i did yesterday and fucked up and hurt people but, like, youre the one accusing “wlw” of talking over you, dude).

Yeah I retracted the wlw thing, it was miswording on my part. The majority of people I’m vibing with about this is aren’t hetcis so I think that’s an assumption on your part, I reblogged one hetcis person at least one wlw and a trans dude and I know plenty of others. 

Anyway the fundamental issue is, again, not with you or your readings but with the fact that that reading is overwhelmingly the fandom status quo. If that’s what soft dirks represented to you, then it puts a lot into context from your pov. That’s not what it’s been about for the majority of people in the “soft dirk” camp insofar as there even is one. 

What there is is an appreciation for canon, and a deep sense of frustration at it going ignored. I would fucking love dissasociating grungy Dirk, like I said, and I know other people who would too. 

I just want it while the fandom is aware of other core traits of his character like A) Loving his friends desperately and bottling up any and all ways they hurt him because he sees them as perfect and B) being desperately in love with jake english who btw is just as fucked up and loves him back. 

That’s what the core issue is from this side, is the defamation of his character on a personality level, where his agency and behavior is fundamentally mixed with the AR’s and Bro’s in a way the canon simply doesn’t do. And your vision of Dirk is the default, it’s what most of the fandom sees which is why, you know, it’s nowhere near as popular as say…Davekat despite being ultimately every bit as mutual and healthy. 

I just think that’s sad, that’s all. That’s kinda my final word on all this in reblogs for rn, if only cause I don’t want to flood my dash with more of this stuff. 

just my two cents but i still think that much of the divergence in dirk interpretation comes down to how much stock we put in his opinion of himself, which tends to be pretty negative. like, the things his splinters and alt-selves do and say that aren’t really his choices or his words aren’t his fault, but he still thinks of them as his responsibility and reflective on who he is. it’s probably a heart thing. although i guess it does also bring up the subject of ultimate selves and all that.

Right like? Plenty of Homestuck characters take on outsize responsibility about stuff and conflate circumstance their own understandable mistakes with compromising their inherent worth as people. Nobody looks at Terezi’s speech about how she’s terrible for choosing to kill Vriska or Jake’s speech about how all his friends hate him and he deserves it and goes “Hmm yes this character reached a logical conclusion about themselves and reckoned with their flaws as people.” and leaves it at that? Only Dirk gets that treatment lmao. MAYBE Vriska in some circles–and Dirk doesn’t do an iota of the stuff Vriska does. 

oceanboydirk:

@revolutionaryduelist honestly if we put jake aside for a second and just talk about dirk, separately from being someone who fell in love with one of his best friends, dirk’s story is still an incredible narrative about what it’s like to be queer in a group of (perceived) straight people.* 

  • he’s emotionally isolated. jane doesn’t know he’s queer because he’s never brought it up to her. he can’t talk to roxy because she’s in love with him. he tried to talk to jake and jake shut him down. i can’t tell you the number of times where i wanted to talk about queerness and didn’t because i knew the people around me weren’t receptive. the number of times where i wanted to talk about queerness in a group of straight people and they didn’t want to hear it. the times that i spoke anyway and felt the group become uncomfortable and want me to stop talking. 
    • this is reflected in dirk’s physical isolation as well. he’s the loneliest person in the world. at least roxy had the carapacians, as shitty consolation as that may be. dirk has only ever had himself. 
  • speaking of dirk only ever having himself — dirk can only rely on himself as a product of his physical isolation. i’ve often felt the exact same way — because i’m trans. that being different from everyone around me meant i could trust no one. that people would (and they do) always let me down or not be there in a way that i needed. you know what? this feeling that i’m the only one around to look out for myself has made me a) distant and guarded with people and b) feel desperate to be in control of my environment and of myself. i’m speaking from personal experience, obviously, but i’m by far not the only one. 
  • “different from everyone else” now where have i heard dirk say that. oh, right. dirk thinks he’s toxic to the people around him. he thinks that his friends don’t understand his core issues (do straight and cis people ever truly understand? we can explain and they can be kind, they can sympathize, but i know i’ve never really made a cis person understand what it feels like to be me). dirk thinks he’s the poison element in his friendships. anyone remember being a teenager in a room full of people who were in some way vulnerable (discussing romance, changing clothes, etc.) and wondering if they would have let you be in the room if they knew what you’re really like? if they knew the truth about you, would they still like you? would they still trust you? would they be disgusted? would you lose everyone you ever loved if people knew what you truly are? 

there’s probably more detail but these are the things that stick out the most strongly to me. sorry to get so personal with you guys, it’s just that dirk is very important to me, as someone who is, at times, a queer boy. 

*note: obviously jake is not straight, but he pretends he is for some time. post-canon suggests jane is also queer. and, of course, roxy and calliope’s (and roxy and jane’s) story has always been very romantic. dirk is not actually in a group of straight people, but there was VERY likely a time when he thought he was. 

Right like Dirk’s experience growing up is explicitly and intensely a queer boy’s growing up, Dirk likens himself to an evil creator God and thinks he’s intrinsically evil and worthless because that’s how being queer growing up surrounded by heteronormativity makes you feel lmao. I grew up that way.

The takeaway to his narrative isn’t “Yeah you’re kinda intrinsically shit but you can grow up to be only Kinda shit and have all your friends only Kinda hate you!” It’s so much more uplifting and powerful than that and that that’s getting ignored by most fanon just SUCKS. 

since dirkcourse is going on god knows I gotta open my mouth

stormsbourne:

I’m not trying to vague here cause god knows I hate vagueing but I want to weigh in on the current dirkcourse so here’s this. it’s addressed at all the of the dirk tag and current discourse going around. 

(for reference in this post I am defining soft dirk as a dirk who has the narrative/artistic focus more on his softer or gentler traits, his love for his friends or his desperate crush on jake english, instead of his manipulative tendencies or his facade of assholishness or his need to try and be stoic 24/7. it dwells more on his intense feelings for other people and self-sacrificing over perceived elitism or snide condescension, both of which are traits that I feel dirk only plays up as part of his “coolguy” persona. the appearance part is mostly unrelated aside from some stuff about hypermasculinity we’ll get into in a second)

anyway if it’s longtime fandom cred we’re going for, here’s my experience, as someone who’s read homestuck since 2010:

it was impossible to escape abuser dirk. 

people posted shit in the dirk and dirkjake tags on the daily reminding you that if you didn’t “acknowledge” how abusive their relationship was, you were an apologist. trying to counter this argument got you angry posts from various people in the group perpetuating that. you got called an apologist. accused of shouting over survivors. in the rare cases that survivors spoke up and asked to please stop getting called apologist for shipping something fucking fictional between teenagers, they were told to stop shouting over minors. they were told they needed to stop defining their lives by their abuse. they were asked why they hadn’t grown up and gotten over it. they had campaigns and crusades and mocking group circlejerks going after them for expressing a view of dirk that didn’t align with popular fanon.

I wouldn’t say this is the popular reading of dirk anymore. but the only reason I’d say that’s true is because the people driving this, the people making sure everyone knew abuser dirk was “canon,” aren’t into homestuck much anymore, aside from one or two of them. but you have to understand, this shit was inescapable. big names in the fandom lexicon, like shelby, treated dirk’s abusiveness as an obvious fact. you couldn’t write dirk meta without either dancing franticallly around the subject or just disclaiming it at the beginning with “I know dirk is an abuser,” even if you didn’t agree with it. if you didn’t do these things, you were guaranteed asks and condescending vague posts or callouts about you disagreeing. 

and for that matter, the idea that it’s completely gone away isn’t even true. landofsomethingsomething didn’t even get into homestuck until last year and didn’t start writing fic until post act 7 and still got an ask demanding why she shipped dirkjake, couldn’t she see how unhealthy and bad it was? didn’t she care about the opinions of survivors? 

all of this is without touching on how big masculine semi-wolverine dirk was the more popular version in fanart (especially in het, but also in slash) and how usually he looked like a miniature bro, often older than the other characters. this is without talking about how people deliberately read in the worst to everything he said, pointing to his “let’s go raiding” line with jake and shouting about how manipulative that was or him breaking up with jake as proof he was trying to force jake to hook back up with him. this is without touching on how the phrase “strider manpain” became a blanket mocking phrase to make fun of anybody who cared about dirk or dave’s feelings – complete with mocking anybody who thought dave’s selfie shit was a semi-mental breakdown (which it was) or that dirk sitting on the edge of the roof was him contemplating suicide (which it sort of was, but to be technical, it was more suicide-plus-murder). 

artists left homestuck fandom because the discourse wore them out. several artists I personally FOLLOW deleted most of their dirkjake content because they didn’t want to deal with the discourse anymore and they were tired of being called apologist. one artist made a misstep with some of their art and got so bombarded by asks calling them an abuse apologist and rape supporter that they pretty much quit tumblr for weeks. several dirkjakes I know have expressed that during the 2011-2014 (or so, it depends) era they were outright afraid to participate in the fandom. even most of the popular dirkjake content producers (who I’m sure are on the list of “soft dirks”) bought into the dialogue that dirk was abusive. that’s without getting into how dudebros kicked it up, how dudebros talked about that andrew hussie only wrote dirkjake to mock slashers and “prove” to them that slash between two random dudes could never work. that’s without talking about how dudebros figured dirk, such a violent person, could only have black feelings for jake. that’s without talking about how dirk/uu people routinely either gave dirkjakes the runaround for “denying abuse” or talked about how dirk, as a gay dude, was OBVIOUSLY too hardcore and too kinky for a gentle cinnamon roll like jake. (and the “cinnamon roll jake” discourse is something I could write about 5 more posts about.)

it was inescapable.

look, I know fandom is gigantic and what you see depends on the following you curate, but keep in mind that applies both ways. just because you never saw it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. I’m sure there were corners of fandom where this dialogue wasn’t mainstream and softboy dirk was. but in a lot of the fandom, abusive hypermasculine wolverine sideburns dirk was the only thing we saw. asshole dirk was all we could find because if you didn’t do asshole dirk, you were Problematic.

kidgecko:

@revolutionaryduelist 

theres no evidence of dirk being an asshole. None. Theres no evidence of dirk being an asshole.

he literally sent a robot to beat up his crush and knocked him out cold and we all know how jake feels about that (extremely uncomfortable a la aranea and crockercorp jane’s treatment of him)

Oh good, we’re finally having a conversation. 

I’ve written essays extensively deconstructing these points, so let me do it again here in resume. I cover most of this in the single essay I did most recently but I also cover tons of it with more nuance across the other essays I’ve written on both Dirk and Jake, so I’ll post the Dirk ones here and hyperlink the rest of this with the latest one to back up my points. 

https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/horsin-around-dirk-as-physical-aggressor-cd0021bab6b8

https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/the-deep-blue-of-weird-plot-shit-dirk-as-romantic-predator-29ecec9f7a80

https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/pulling-the-strings-dirk-as-manipulative-puppetmaster-ba781ad33c2c

https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/tin-cans-dont-have-feelings-dirk-as-unfeeling-robot-b684925c674b

1) Roxy is not only an alcoholic, but actively sexually aggresses Dirk in practically all their conversations. Dirk is intensely charming and sweet about responding, and the quotes you just pulled referring to her are either him deflecting a romantic advance or trying to derail her pressuring him negatively about his Gayness or pointing out real ways her real alcohol problem is causing real issues. 

2) The “Jake needs to be more skeptical and you less so” is actually the closest Dirk comes to being an actual asshole to his friends, and it’s a blase comment he makes in passing. 

It’s also literally correct–Jane’s skepticism makes Roxy MISERABLE, which she literally talks to Dirk about herself, and Jake uses his beliefs to self-servingly and willfully ignore anything that’s too inconvenient for him to deal with, which hurts Dirk personally massively. 

3) Yeah Dirk is kind of full of himself and pretends to be aloof and hypercompetent to impress his friends. Dave also does that and no one is out here arguing he would be an elitist asshole as one of the main fandom tacks on his character. Also, Dirk grows out of this part. He’s not even being a jerk about his lessons, he’s excited to tutor and share information with his friends but he doesn’t downplay either Jane or Jake’s interests and intelligences.

4) Ahahahahahah see here it finally comes out. The Brobot thing wasn’t Dirk fucking trying to beat Jake up or coerce him into training and it makes no sense whatsoever to read it that way in canon. The Brobot was Dirk trying to set up a safe enviroment where Jake could live out his ADVENTURES stress free, which is literally Jake’s main interest. 

And Jake’s final word on the Brobot is that he thinks it’s EXCITING, not uncomfortable, and it’s something he says in confidence to Jane as opposed to when he’s engaging in social back and forth with the AR. It’s also something Jake appreciates about Dirk, because he goes on to prove he loves Dirk specifically as someone he believes in to keep him safe.

Even so, the Brobot is a fuck up, but it’s not DIRK’S fuck up–it’s a MUTUAL fuck up. Dirk didn’t get the idea that Jake would like going on a tough, challenging adventure from nowhere–it’s all Jake would ever talk about. If Dirk is this ruthless mastermind invested in training his friends to be ready, then why isn’t Jane’s guardian robot designed to train her? 

Hey check it out it’s almost like you’ve got all these ideas in your head about who Dirk is that have everything to do with the fandom narrative around him and nothing to do with the comic! And it’s almost like assigning Dirk all this outsize responsibility and agency reduces the complexity of what Roxy, Jane, Jake and the AR all do to make matters more complicated and hurtful for all of them! 

It’s almost like that’s exactly what I’m talking about 😀 

Feel free to retort these points, since I am as always invested in making sure I’m actually right in reading the canon this way. If you can prove I’m inherently misguided about this I’ll happily recant every position. 

Otherwise, this fandom narrative is subsuming one of the most heroic and positive depictions of gay romance and gay coming of age heroes ever put to fiction, and it’d be a good idea for a queer centric community to reconsider it’s approach. Or at least get the chance to.