i’ve been manning the “JAKE ENGLISH’S HOPE POWERS WILL DEFINITELY ENABLE CANON TRANSFORMATION MAGIC ON EARTH C, THUS USHERING IN A GOLDEN ERA OF JAKE BEING ABLE TO TURN INTO A NA’VI AND AN ENTIRE EARTH C FURRY DEMOGRAPHIC” station basically since i started this channel
whens it gonna happen! im waiting for you hussie plz begin my life!!
oh yes, extremely. i’ve been quite open about this
this entire online endeavor on my part is just a long ploy to build enough fandom clout to influence the fandom such that, through whatever combination of fraymotifs are necessary to justify it, furry tf is canonically established as an easily accessible and popular service on Earth C.
this will create a vibrant and canonical demographic of literal furries on the planet, probably leading to the founding of the fifth and final Furry Kingdom. I’m sure we can all agree this is the only point at which Earth C can be declared a true utopia.
One thing I really like about Homestuck is its treatment of furries. Like, not just that it has them, and celebrates them being who they are and drawing strength from it, though it undoubtedly does that, but also its sheer variety of characters who can all be plausibly described as furries, yet are completely different from each other in their approach to furrydom.
For starters, let’s look at Jade. Jade thinks that dogs and wolves are really rad, and kinda wants to be one. She admires their powerful sense of smell, their powerful bodies, their soft fur. She thinks they’re beautiful, and shows a deep affection for her pet/guardian Bequerel. She does not show any particular interest in fursuits, because she doesn’t want to dress up as a dog, she wants to be a dog, and a fursuit would allow her to mimic almost none of the qualities she so admires. For Jade, furrydom seems to be above all about the power trip. Indeed, when she ascends to doghood, her transformed state has very limited animal traits, just a pair of ears really, but in return she gains access to the animal traits she most admires, like an absurdly powerful sense of smell, soft furry ears, and the ability to channel the unfettered energies of an incomprehensibly vast extradimensional ball of fire. Just like dogs do.
Nepeta, on the other hand, never shows all that much sign of wanting to be a cat. She loves cats, she roleplays as one on the internet, she wields cat claws as a weapon, she hunts wild beasts and dresses up in their pelts. She does all these things, and she clearly enjoys them, but shows no sign of Jade’s desire for transformation, and doesn’t go on about how great they are. Animals are just a part of life for her, and while she loves them she doesn’t place them on any kind of pedestal.
Then there’s Equius, with his, er, fine art and his, let’s say sweaty reaction to it. Something something the only transformation he desires is for one of his adored and beloved sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet musclebeasts to step on him, killing him instantly.
Judging by the pictures in his apartment, Dirk has a strong interest in fursuits and related gear, and probably some kind of desire to either be or be with either some sort of anthropomorphic animal, or a dude in a fursuit, or both, or all four. Hard to tell, he keeps a bit quiet about that side of himself, regarding it as embarrassing.
Rose has a squid girl desktop background. There’s probably something to that, given how incredibly ridiculously gay she is (she has arguably flirted with every single girl she’s ever met who wasn’t her mother, for one). She also seems to be really into becoming a catgirl, though like Dirk, the non-catgirl version of herself rejects this as embarrassing.
Jake isn’t into furrydom in your traditional sense (afaik) but he shows a strong interest in the Na’Vi from long-forgotten blockbuster hit Avatar, fantasizing about being one and about being with one, not to mention dressing up as one.
There’s a staggering number of different approaches to the same basic concept on display, a dazzling variety of ways to interpret a single basic notion, a notion known as Furry.
And that’s without mentioning Calliope, Cronus, Horuss, Meulin, Dave, Vriska, or Terezi.
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 a lie, 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.
Dirk looked up from his book to see Jake’s smiling face
before him. Of course, with a Jake
smile, he never knew quite what to expect, but at least he was happy. Dirk thumbed down his page to save it, then
set it aside.
“What’s up?”
“Well, I’ve been working a bit on a bit of a… project. A
project that I know you have quite a bit of experience with yourself. I was hoping you’d do your boyfriend a little
favor and help him out?”
Dirk had to stifle a smile, but the truth was he was
curious. What could Jake need? Robotic help? Philosophy help? Sunglasses
help? Dirk was pretty good at all of those.
He noticed for the first time that Jake was holding something behind his
back, not even bothering to be subtle.
“What do you need, Jake?” He motioned to whatever Jake was
holding. “No need to hide it.”
Jake looked flustered for a moment, before taking a piece of
paper from behind his back and handing it to Dirk. “You have the know-how about this sort of
thing, I figured you’d know the best approach.”
Dirk was a little confused as to why Jake was being so vague
until he looked at the paper. On it was
a very crudely drawn picture, apparently done with colored pencils, of an anthropomorphic
wolf. The wolf was wearing a pair of
glasses, glowing slightly, and had a very familiar hairstyle on the top of its
head. The word “Hopefoot” was scribbled
in the margins of the page.
Dirk looked up at Jake with a face more stoic than he had
ever mustered before.
“No.”
“Aww, come on, Dirk!”
“No.”
“Look,” Jake said, folding his arms and pouting. “I’ve seen
the stuff you hide in your desk. You are
a veritable pro in the regard of human-like depictions of critters.”
Dirk’s façade broke slightly as he blushed. “That is private
material! And you’re not understanding, it’s much more than just that. It’s artistic! Why are we talking about this?”
“Dirk, you’re being ridiculous. This is not some big stinkin’ thing here.”
“It’s embarrassing and I’d just as soon drop it.”
Dirk made a big show of handing the paper back to Jake, but
faltered when he saw Jake’s face fall.
Jake sighed. “I know it’s silly, but I was just hoping it
could be this silly thing we did together. Please, Dirk?”
The Prince of Heart’s heart, of course, melted. He was being as dick and he knew it. Time to make amends. He fished a mechanical pencil out of his
shorts and clicked it. Jake perked up.
“I suppose I could help you with the design a bit. C’mere
and tell me what you were thinking.”
Dirk patted the seat on the couch next to him. Jake grinned. He made his way next to his boyfriend and sidled right up.
“So I was thinking he’d also have a horse for a boyfriend?”
“Now you’re speaking my language.”
My bud @revolutionaryduelist has a birthday today, and I figured the best gift I could give him was a bit of self-indulgent fluff. Happy 24th, man.
(I swear I’m not a furry.)
h…how…..how can life be this good?
this is so cute. i’m blessed & crying i love these silly nerd boys
Flying through Storytelling 