Tag: dirk strider

ao3sburbanite:

revolutionaryduelist:

eggylesbian:

you know it’s possible for dirk strider to be a sweet, sensitive boy who cares about and loves his friends more than anything and also kind of a huge asshole

Yes, which as you noted, Vriska pulls off. Ditto Terezi. If fandom didn’t respond to Dirkjake the way they do to Vrisrezi, I’d be fine with it so long as the Dirk and Jake they weren’t responding to were the ones actually depicted in canon. 

But it’s not. 

Point me to like a single time in the canon Dirk ever acts like a huge asshole.
I’ll wait. It doesn’t exist, but I’ll wait anyway, and when you inevitably pull something from Brain Ghost Dirk or AR I’ll explain how Dirk’s agency is not theirs and their words are not words that Dirk himself would say.

This would be way less of a problem if Dirkjake was given the weight in the fandom it deserves–but hey, it doesn’t. It is easily and by far the most overlooked and misunderstood canon ship, and all of the reasons why tie back to Dirkcourse. 

This image of Dirk being the fandom dominant one hurts mlm and people who could draw a much clearer and more empowering and positive narrative from Dirkjake by obfuscating and confusing their perceptions of it. That’s a problem, in my view, and I don’t really think I’m out of line in speaking out about it. 

I think there is one point where Dirk does act like an asshole, actually, although it’s incredibly brief.

Remember that at one point in the story, he considers destroying an independent, sentient copy of himself in what would be an act of outright murder.

He doesn’t do it, of course, and that’s what makes his character so good. He doesn’t kill the AR, but he could have, and easily. He actively chooses the path of not murdering someone who is a nuisance, a thorn in his side, and an imperfect reflection of himself. That choice is what makes him interesting. It’s what makes him not Bro Strider. It’s what makes him a good person.

It’s so telling of Dirk’s character that the only person he’s really capable of being a true asshole to is himself.

This is real lmao. 

This “Soft Dirk” bullshit being treated as people wanting to soften and Woobify Dirk is hilarious or it would be if it wasn’t heartbreaking

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko that’s p much it i either can’t remember or am blocked by everyone else.

Allow me to clarify the situation with Soft dirks and this whole discourse because a lot of you are profoundly misunderstanding it in your responses and I’m pretty tired of it. 

None of this is about making Dirk “soft” or “cute” and you don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on if you think otherwise. It’s not about weabooifying Dirk and stripping him of all flaws, either. 

Dirk still has severe issues in the “Soft Dirk” reading you’re claiming is about woobifying him. Dirk is still mentally ill, Dirk’s mistakes still hurt people (often WITHOUT his say in the matter which is the critical difference y’all keep ignoring), Dirk is still prone to hyper-isolating and closing himself off in unhealthy ways. 

This isn’t about making Dirk a hot anime boy, either! It has nothing the fuck to do with how pretty he is, the aesthetics of this branch of fanon are thoroughly secondary. I would personally fucking love greasy troll dissasociating Dirk if it’s your flavor, I want every brand of Dirk under the sun. 

Where you lose me is making Dirk malicious and elitist, superior-minded and holding friends to high standards. You lose me there because that Dirk doesn’t fucking exist in the story and he’s a fake lump of bullshit you assembled out of stray pieces of the AR and a couple of Brain Ghost Dirk lines–who is JAKE’S BRAIN, not Dirk himself. 

(You also lose me at the implication Dirk isn’t desperately, irreplaceably in love with Jake and vice versa which is well established and executed in the canon story we all claim to be fans of but w.e, I wouldn’t mind Dirkjohn if fandom at large actually understood and valued Dirkjake for what it is, a ship isn’t the problem here.)

The fucking perfect example of this is someone responding to the asshole STEM Dirk thing by saying Jade wouldn’t have been an asshole about STEM stuff because she would “tutor her friends” instead. You know who tutors his friends in the goddamn story we’re talking about? 

Literally Dirk, is who. 

Dirk, who accepts Jake’s adventurer persona but never even acknowledges Jake thinking he’s dumb except to compliment him all the while giving him length intellectual diatribes he knows Jake will understand. 

Dirk, who practically does a backflip when Jane so much as MENTIONS an apprenticeship even as he talks about how serious and important he’s sure she considers her own craft. 

THIS is what this fandom divide is, and this is why people are pissed about this asshole iteration of Dirk in fanon. It’s so prominent it drowns out the fandom’s ability to perceive Dirk as he ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THE COMIC, and the fact that it’s so pervasive is a problem for mlm people like me whether it’s convenient to your view or not. 

And yeah, you’re all being fucking assholes trying to reduce all of that to just people wanting Dirk to be a Sexy Pure Woobie. That’s not what anyone in this section of the culture is going for, and it’s reductive and boring to imply it is. 

People in your corner have literally called me–an mlm who relates deeply to Dirkjake as a queer narrative and hopes only that other queer mlm teens can find it as empowering as I do myself– names like this is fucking highschool for trying to point out that maybe this overly harsh interpretation of Dirk isn’t sourced in the canon but in a bunch of hyper-moralizing that self-generated years ago and mixed with a bunch of homophobic sentiment. 

Yes, that is villainizing. Yes, that is homophobia. The implications here are that Dirk is malicious and/or demanding (and thus a more acceptable target for violence and mockery, like with that particular piece of art where Jake likens him to a trash can and symbolically sets him on fire for example). 

The implications here are ALSO that Dirk is disattached enough from his emotions that he would be untouched by being treated cruelly or with mockery anyway. This literally leads to dehumanizing a gay character by removing his emotions and desire for acceptance from his peers, which are oh…just the core elements his entire character arc revolves around. 

Not even to get into how detrimental the whole air is to Dirkjake as one of the canon ships in the comic, or the perception of Hussie’s handling of lgbt relationships at large. 

I’m tagging every single person who’s been contributing to this particular train of discourse. Please for the love of god if you have a retort to this just reblog it or send me an ask. Don’t vague me. Don’t come back with another post out of nowhere that clearly answers sentiments I’ve been spreading but doesn’t give me an opening to respond. 

@ me or something I’m right here and perfectly willing to have a conversation and even if I HAD the follower count to sic on anyone I don’t think anyone is being fundamentally cruel or Problematic here, that just plain old is not where I’m coming from. What on earth do you have to lose? 

Either have a conversation with me about this like I’ve been begging for for months or do me a favor and stop talking over a queer dude about this depiction of queer dudes and mlm ships in fanon. ESPECIALLY if you’re wlw. I have a niche in this fandom too, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it be respected.

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko there’s a bunch of other people but I either don’t remember their names right or they have different mains or w.e cause I can’t @ them. Maybe I’m blocked by a few? Who the hell knows.

Wish I knew how to get this to the rest of the people I’ve interacted with about this. Information seems to get around in this circle of fandom so do me a favor and spread it around, I’m interested in hearing from everyone, including the people who have called me a geek. I really don’t care, I just want the conversation around Dirk in this fandom to evolve. 

Hoping to hear from you. I’m going to be reblogging posts from other people in this Dirk movement that will shed additional light on where we’re coming from. Maybe  you will actually read them, I hope? 

stares at the ceiling thinking about terezi and dirk’s parallel arcs 

wheres my fic of terezi and dirk connecting about their issues and talking about being in love w/ people they thought were uninterested for years

wheres the fic where terezi and dirk watch revolutionary girl utena and cry about juri arisugawa together

Can you nail down a definition of Soft Dirk bc I really agreed with your post and I would like to produce more like content

callmearcturus:

idk man the bitchy part of me wants to say “canon dirk” as in the guy who built robots to protect his friends, and who turns into a dork talking to the people he cares about, and who was a dummy and put himself in an impossible ethical situation and didn’t know how to ask for help, and who gets overwhelmed and stumbles but tries not to let people down.

the dirk who gets to be fallible and not damned for it, and who gets a rose tinted lens sometimes because he deserves a happy ending as much as anyone else

my dirk

#why does everyone want to make dirk be a Mean Gay#dont we have enough of that#isn’t it nice to have a boy who cares this intensely and have him be gay#like … calm down hes a good person

this is a thing that just struck me now, regarding Lands and their owners — you know how LOTAK’s krypton is sometimes said to symbolize dirk’s suffocating/toxic tendencies (since krypton is both narcotic and asphyxiant)? an argument can be made for the xenon on LOMAX symbolizing something about jake as well. xenon gas is actually a potent anaesthetic when inhaled, perhaps signifying jake’s thing for willfully feigning obliviousness as though he were drugged/sedated

ao3sburbanite:

revolutionaryduelist:

FUCK yeah that’s really goddamn legit and now I want to know if Jane’s and Roxy’s are as on point too because my guess is: probably 

Helium builds up pressure in balloons until they fucking pop??? fits with Jane at least somewhat. Hit me up if you think of any more 

Neon is used to illuminate – neon lights are bright and funky but also used to highlight important things? Could be a metaphor for Roxy showing everyone on her team the way (and also getting frustrated because it’s super obvious to her but they somehow don’t see it).

Helium is an easier one, I think. Inhaling helium makes your voice artificially high (and cheerful sounding and funny), but the effect wears off pretty fast. It’s only a facade of relentless cheerfulness, if you like.

Krypton is indeed an asphyxiant, but so are all of the noble gasses. Breathing them in displaces the oxygen in your lungs and you die, not because of a poison reacting chemically with your body, but because the ‘air’ you’re breathing can’t sustain you.

I wonder if this is related to the kids’ isolation, if they all feel suffocated by their own personalities and problems. Dirk’s world is the only one shown that requires gas masks, though, and the only one where a visitor is affected enough to need one, so it’s safe to assume that Dirk (at least in his own mind) has the biggest issues with his problems and feeling like he’s suffocating those around him.

Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with all of this. Wondering if anything else on Neon will pop up, but Helium definitely lines up with Jane’s behavior quite a lot as well. Wonder why I haven’t heard this stuff mentioned sooner, honestly?

swamp-wizard:

swamp-wizard:

im not saying that one depiction of dirk is more accurate than the other but i am saying that people who think dirk would be clean and put together and have a skincare routine have probably never lived with like, depression

actually wait lemme cut into this joke a lil deeper til its not a joke any more

lets talk about where that fanon of dirk as being super put-together and vain and fixated on his appearance comes from, because its not the fucking comic. we get one offhand sentence about how he doesnt want to mess up his hair, but its not even the primary reason why he chooses to wear a hat on his shirt instead of his head (they dont fit). never mind the fact that dirks hair has looked exactly the same since he popped out the ectobiology tube. and he spends a lot of time in the shower, but thats because hes fucking dissociating – dreamwalking on derse and zoning out in the waking world. hes the only one of the kids (alpha and beta) who doesnt alchemize a new wardrobe upon entering sburb – just those gaudy fucking shoes, and a gas mask out of necessity.

john styles his hair and alchemized a bunch of outfits, and both the lalondes wear makeup (not to mention roxys beehive would require LOTS of maintenance, were it not the hairstyle she was born with due to cartoon logic/symbolism). but nah… its dirk… the gay dude…. who is always read as being vain and fixated on his appearance… even when its at odds with everything else about his character

im not saying that fanfiction about dirk exfoliating is like, HOMOPHOBIC OPPRESSION, i dont give a shit about people who depict him that way. ive cracked those jokes before, cause theyre easy. its a stereotype but its pretty much the most harmless stereotype imaginable, and ill go to bat for feminine gay men regardless. but what im SAYING is that if you want to call out innocuous homophobia in dirk depictions, youre going to find it there, in the insistence that hes soft and good-looking and puts a lot of effort into how he looks, whereas theres literally no cultural affiliation between gay men and… say… just an example, just spitballing here… annoying stem majors

Sure, I’ll bite and jam about Dirk I’m not sleeping tonight anyway. 

I’m willing to agree, actually. I don’t super dig feminized super pretty put together Dirk–though I do think there’s elements of Dirk that care about his appearance because…Dirk spends his life in love with Jake and he’s worried Jake won’t like him cause he’s not a girl, which is untrue but it’s an idea Jake literally put in the guy’s head, and I derive great personal pleasure from the idea of Dirk realizing it’s bullshit and figuring out how to chill a little. 

If there’s one aspect of ~radical leftist~ Dirk as you put it I’d take issue with it’s the sideburns, and only because…it’s a visual signifier largely linked to Bro and usually indicates a conflation of the two, which makes me pretty uncomfortable! It skews towards 

You’re also essentially claiming I’m making a point I didn’t actually make about the STEM major thing btw.

There is no cultural affiliation between gay men and stem majors, no, and I never made that claim. There is a conflation of stem majors and elitist assholes, and it is uncomfortable that the only gay man in the comic is twisted into an elitist asshole when he actively strives and succeeds at not being one in the comic. Like, his struggle in striving not to do that and terror at becoming it is his defining character trait lmao. 

That that association is sourced in rhetoric that said gay man is pushy towards and Inherently Toxic to his friends (ALSO something that’s not from the fucking comic)–in ways largely linked to his gayness–doesn’t make it better. And that all of this reflects into the WAY humor surrounding Dirk is telling and interesting even if, no, I don’t think all or even most of it is intended cruelly. It still sets an overall image of what fandom thinks of Dirk.

It’s why I initially tried to broach this subject somewhat gently while still stating facts about a pretty meaningless joke in the context of all things. When questioned about it I even did my best to deescalate and clarify, but I honestly didn’t get the impression there was any point at which people were listening.

Which sucks! But whatever, it was a shitpost, not everyone is into Deep Homestuck Thought all the time, I get it. Still, this is cultural impact 101 we learn in sjw school or whatever isnt it? Jokes can have effects beyond what you intend for them when they reinforce cultural narratives? 

It’s not that hard to look back to 2013-2014 and realize there were legit homophobes and people caught up in moralizing mixed into the Dirkcourse crowd, and that the fact that we’ve made no great effort as a community to reevaluate popular views of Dirk could mean that many of the ideas they introduced could still carry through memetic culture. 

I think that’s worth considering, at the very least. It’s a version of homophobia that does a lot more damage to Dirk’s image than how pretty he likes to make himself, and I’ve seen and felt first hand how it affects the ability of lgbt mlm youth to find positive representation in him when it’s the dominating narrative. 

murdocsuccals replied to your post: geejaysmith replied to your post: stormsbourne:…

theres this one furry dude who makes uncomfortably puppetesqe fursuits and also actual puppets, both highly mechanized and made through strangely technological means, and he appears once every twoish years, explains how to like 3d print a fursuit or puppet or like how to animate a puppets eyes and ears using arduino a motion sensor. absolutely nobody acknowledges his (very detailed) tutorials and then he vanishes again and i think thats dirk

we finally found him everyone good job 

geejaysmith replied to your post: stormsbourne: hal-strider replied to…

Hey Dirk robots and engineering can be an outlet of creative expression and mechanistic creations can still be fine art

Roxy Paine and I think uh David Altmejd?? Are two names I can think of off the top of my head. And I suck at naming artists off the top of my head.

that’s a good point and there’s a middle ground here where Dirk uses his mechanics expertise to craft elaborate furry porn displays and ups the ante to full on explicit furry theatre plays powered entirely by uncomfortable real animatronics. Jake thinks its hot.

the debate here was really just about whether Dirk would be an elitist STEM major to his libarts friends which: lmao have you met Dirk “philosophically deconstructs SBAHJ” Strider

stormsbourne:

hal-strider replied to your post: dumb college/profession au/future shit

i talk about this all the time and everyones like noo dirk wouldnt do art :/ but he DOES do art ok we SEe HIM literally do it ;o;

JUSTICE FOR ARTIST DIRK!!! I think it’s because dirk is such a cerebral analytical person and he does admittedly have his robot thing, even though that’s not really dwelt on outside of it as a reflection of his identity issues (and I’ve long held that robots are just a futuristic outgrowth of puppets). dirk draws his shit for caliborn, owns a tablet, but even when caliborn isn’t harassing him to draw “porn” doodles stuff (like him kissing jake, dirk, please) and like I said in that post, even bro, whom I Do Not Like, has mentions of his interest in art.

Like I said I get where engineer/mechanics/robotics dirk comes from but it’s just not my jam. Dirk Strider is a sensitive soul who pretends to be too good for that shit because he’s afraid it makes him look weak! Therefore Dirk the artist who thinks he “should” major in something else. (Maybe the other alphas convince him to switch majors. Then he ends up happy, albeit he would sell his soul for 1 corn chip like most art majors.)