I think my favorite bad anti-dirkjake argument is when people go “Oh Brain Ghost Dirk/The Masterpiece happened in Another Timeline” because they genuinely seem to think it diminishes the weight it carries in the canon when actually
all they’re arguing is that Jake not only loves Dirk but loves him consistently, across multiple timelines, and demonstrates it by either:
A) choosing Dirk as his protector, which not only comes with gay romantic coding but also references a movie with philosophical undertones, reflecting both of their main interests
B) choosing to act as Dirk’s protector, which has also comes with gay romantic coding and especially connotations of jealous and protective love
or C) You know, literally decides to live with the guy and hold him close for pictures to their friends & family
Wow yeah you’re right all of this stuff happens across different timelines? Shit then I guess it makes sense to assume Jake doesn’t actually feel anything fo Dirk and it was one-sided, it’s not like the comic ever implies anything about what it means for relationships to survive timeline resets–
Oh. Oh right.
Anyway Dirkjake is canon thanks
Can we get an article on why Dirkjohn is terrible because I only discovered it yesterday and it makes me angry and upset for reasons I can’t vocalize.
‘No!’ I cry. ‘No, this is a wrong thing!’ but I can’t explain why.
I’ve been getting asks about this on and off over time and I’ve heard some suggestions that people have the wrong idea about where I stand on this, so I hope you don’t mind if I take your reblog to make my position clear.
The answer to your question is no, sorry.
I’m never going to write a big takedown of Dirkjohn, or really any other fanon ship, or fandom stuff in general, for a couple reasons. Like everything I write, those reasons got long, so I’ll put them under the cut:
Even with what I already have planned, the amount of writing and general Content I have slotted to produce is pretty much inexhaustible, and I only keep finding more interesting things to say about Homestuck along the way. So I could pretty much always be writing something better. That’s #1.
#2. I don’t like Dirkjohn, and I don’t particularly make that a secret. But it’s not like I have an axe to grind with the ship. It’s pretty ooc, which makes it uninteresting to me, and that’s pretty much it.
But not everyone ships or thinks that way and that’s…fine? Dirkjohn isn’t really hurting anyone the way your Gamrezi or Tavris or Dirkroxy ships are, and even really bad fan content doesn’t personally upset me unless it’s actually having broad cultural impact.
So even in the extremely specific and rarely considered realms of Things In Homestuck Fandom I Don’t Like, some lgbt people and minors playing around with an ooc ship is far from the top of the things that bother me.
I literally don’t talk about the stuff that TRULY pisses me off in public at all, because I have no way to not make it personal, and there’s a tiny bit of that on Tumblr, but most of it is elsewhere.
Which brings me to why I decided to write this.
Buckle up, because I’m gonna get really real. Trigger warnings for political stuff if that upsets you.
#3
Mainly, I’d never seriously write about Dirkjohn because I’m just not interested in writing anything in a spirit of negativity. It’s not enjoyable to me and I don’t particularly feel it’s where I shine.
It’s draining and depressing, because I just…don’t want to be engaging contentiously or judgmentally with groups largely made up of minors and other lgbt people.
I say this every so often but: there’s Nazis, guys. Like, actual fascists bigots that want to kill anyone who ships Dirkjohn or Dirkjake or Vrisrezi or Rosemary or Davekat, etc etc etc are in the white house.
Fandom shipping divisions feel pretty petty when you keep that in mind.
Some days the negativity and fear and despair and sheer sense of hopelessness I feel when I look at the state of the world pounds on me to the point I can’t make myself get out of bed.
Soon after November I saw a tweet from someone talking about how their every running thought now included the constant underlying Mantra: We’re doomed.
That’s upsettingly relatable to me. I haven’t stopped feeling that way yet, and I lost my job and pretty much my relationship in the process of figuring out how to live with it. I’m still figuring out–I’m sort of stable now, but my mental health is hanging at “Functionally Self-Sustaining” by pretty much the barest thread I have.
And this Homestuck stuff? All my writing and video making and arguing in favor of the comic? This is my way of fighting all of that. Both as a way of relieving that awful sense of doom and pressure, and, if I’m incredibly lucky, as a way of doing the same for others.
I want Homestuck–Progressive media in general, but Homestuck specifically–to be recognized as the cultural touchstone it deserves to be. Not just for LGBT people–though primarily for us, yes– but for progressives in general.
Homestuck brings something genuinely new to the table, and it’s still growing and evolving as an IP, and I want to bring that stuff to light and nurture the excitement that all of us still, on some level, feel for it. Because I think it deserves it. And because I want to see what comes next.
And like, I’m sure that’ll sound silly to some people, but it’s all I’ve got. I don’t particularly believe in God, and I certainly don’t believe in the system that put us here. I only really believe in art, and in people.
So I have to believe that if I try hard enough and I’m kind enough, something in this twisted culture where we’ve all been conditioned to hurt and judge each other and prize, above all else, the ability to Care The Least and be the Least Affected–a culture that absolutely rears it’s head in progressive circles even as we denounce it as an approach to politcs–will give.
Maybe we’ll learn how to actually be friends with each other. How to be kind.
The story of these kids rising out of impossible limitations and escaping an inherently authoritarian system that destroys them reminds me a lot about my own life and future prospects right now, and it gives me hope.
I want to pass that hope on, as much as possible. And if I can manage it, I want this silly comic that we all love to be something that binds us and brings us together, as a community. As a people.
And if we can do that, if we can stop tearing each other apart over mistakes and miswordings in the pursuit of an impossible degree of ideological purity, maybe we can make things better. Maybe we can ascend.
That’s impossible, maybe, and it might very well make me a fool to engage with this community with that motivation. But it’s who I am and why I’m here, and I’d rather be mocked for being hopeful than praised for being cynical.
As such, tearing into some ship I don’t like is never going to do nearly as much for my desires as talking about the near-infinite things about Homestuck that I DO like. Given the choice I will always, always opt for the latter.
So my genuine advice–and I really hope this doesn’t feel condescending–is if seeing any fandom content affects you negatively to the degree you wrote about there, well: I can relate, because yeah, same.
But I just blacklist it and talk about stuff I like instead. And that has done wonders for my mental health. I heartily suggest doing the same, and then devoting your energy to boosting and praising the stuff in the fandom that you DO like.
Again, I hope that doesn’t sound condescending. I wrote all this so that I’d stand a chance at coming off as sincere when I say that I don’t think my approach makes me better than anyone. It’s just the only way I, personally, manage to survive.
But I also think it’s the path to a healthier, more vibrant fandom. Whether or not people are shipping Dirkjohn doesn’t matter to me. What matters is making sure to speak up positively and kindly and with a sense of fun so that the fandom can develop a better understanding of Dirk, Jake, and the comic itself overall.
And what double matters is creating a culture interested in celebrating and creating more than criticizing, although there is definitely value to both.
the difference between the relationship fantasies portrayed by dirkjake and dirkjohn is that dirkjake shippers want a star-crossed soulmate and dirkjohn shippers like the idea of someone putting up with our miserable gay autistic depressed asses
what if i want a star-crossed soulmate who will put up with my miserable gay depressed ass. what then jay
@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?
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?
dirk: Your degree is pointless; your career will be obsolete in five years tops. You will never be able to do what I do. Have fun with your easy m
dirk’s, like, introductory description includes reference to him being a pop culture enthusiast and his main interests include philosophy and history , and his interest in “Stem” pretty much never shows its face in the comic outside of being the result of a handful of projects he worked on across his teenage years
It’s to the point that even Bro–who is the worst dirk possible–engages in art and makes comics and stuff far, far more than he ever engages in robotics. You’re thinking uncharitably of Jade or maybe Jake here, not Dirk. Or, you know, Caliborn who is the exact kind of annoying mra who would value “practical” skills over art so
nah
dirk is the person who wrote that reply
I’m a psychology major and media analyst who writes primarily about the ways stories affected me as a queer youth and informed my spirituality and worldview (including Homestuck among other things), and i’m pretty sure I literally couldn’t screw two things together if asked without hurting myself.
My main project right now is trying to make Homestuck accessible to incoming Hiveswap fans through the lens of spirituality and philosophy. Suffice it to say, I am not a STEM major. I can barely do basic math.
I care about Dirk as a character and as someone who relates to him and gets a lot out of queer mlm coming of age narratives, so like, dislike my opinion if you want but you could at least try to shut me down in a way that makes any sense. Dirk’s narrative is personal for me and I wish more people saw his character for the marvel it is, that’s all.
Flying through Storytelling 