“Roxy starts off INCREDIBLY passive aggressive and manipulates the Jakestakes quite a bit for her personal benefit, even as she pretends not to” I don’t necessarily disagree but I am curious as to what you’re referring to. Do you have a post on this subject you could link me to?

I actually don’t, I’ve tackled writing one before but it just didn’t come together in my head. But its together now so here we go, I’m making it now JUST FOR YOU.

I really love Roxy and this isn’t me trying to shit on her, to be clear. What I’m describing is something Roxy addresses and feels regretful about herself, as she describes to Jake.

But honestly becoming aware of how rough Dirk gets it from everyone made watching the most common fandom takes on him pretty much insufferable to me, so I do want to use this as an opportunity to knock some more dents into the terrible “Dirk was an aloof, cold manipulator who lacked Heart” fandom metanarrative.

Because frankly the shit he gets from Roxy puts into perspective that in canon, Dirk is a deeply loving and self-sacrificing boy with the patience of a goddamn saint and the self-loathing of a particularly repressed catholic, so let’s run through the greatest hits.

Let’s start at the Trickster arc, where Dirk plainly expresses his awareness of the behavior Roxy was describing above.

By this point in the narrative, Roxy’s feelings for Dirk are an open secret that goes unspoken since Dirk and Jake are dating during the 6 months of the session, but Trickster Mode dredges it all back up instantly.

Now let’s go back to the start.

Right in the pesterlog where Roxy asks Dirk to think about what it’d be like if they had kids together, she quickly alternates between being dramatically despondent (gotta wonder why this doesn’t get mentioned the way it does when Eridan does it to Feferi, btw) and outright aggressively disappointed in Dirk because of his sexuality.

This is Roxy being really forcefully clear that Dirk is gay, and that his gayness is a huge fucking drag for her. And we really have to point out that Roxy is the only actual friend Dirk has who he’s even out to at this point in the story!
Jane is completely clueless, and the only other person who knows is Hal, who is the manifest opposite of healthy emotional support.

When we see Dirk and Jake talk at 13, Jake alternates between reacting sharply negatively when Dirk so much as mentions the word gay and avoiding the subject entirely when Dirk tries to talk about gayness.

So like, sure Dirk’s emotional constipation has a lot to do with trying to live up to ideals of masculinity, but then again it’s not that Dirk doesn’t try to talk to anyone about his honest feelings? It’s that everywhere he could turn he’s met with some combination of disapproval, defensiveness, ignorance and/or disinterest.

It’s a pretty shit environment to be a gay guy in, honestly! And Roxy’s in the best position to understand and empathize with what Dirk’s going through, which means I’m inclined to hold her a bit more responsible than Jane and Jake.

Speaking of those two, this is also the period when Roxy A) Wants to stop everyone from playing Sburb at all, and B) starts playing matchmaker for Jane and Jake. And her feelings for Dirk put a bit of an edge on her actions, because sure, I’m sure a real part of her just wants Jane to have a fair shot…

But then again, if Jane and Jake hook up, that means Dirk’s got nobody but her, doesn’t it? Even when Dirk is denying any possible future for them outside of Sburb, Roxy questions the fact, still holding out that Dirk will get ‘ungay for a while’, as she puts it to Calliope.

Meanwhile, she passes the time by alternating between flirtlarping with Hal, a cybernetic 13 year old Dirk (Dirk feels deeply conflicted about having created) and switching back to flirting at him when he asks her to stop.

She even outright complains that Dirk isn’t more like the AR, pressuring him to act more like he used to before he started really becoming aware of his sexuality, or at least before he stopped wanting to own it honestly. In other words, Dirk is being pressured to feign interest in Roxy, with his own AI doppleganger being held over his head as a “superior” verison of himself.

Hal is fully aware Roxy is doing this, btw, and he uses it to further manipulate and guilt-trip Dirk as a way to lash out due to his own issues. And we know that on some level, it works, because when he talks to Jane on the quest crypts he comes clean about the fact that he actually DID feel guilty that he couldn’t just be into girls and give Roxy what she wanted.

All of this plays into every aspect of how Dirk relates to himself and the people around him–He feels guilty for not wanting Roxy, he feels guilty for viewing Jane as competition, he feels guilty for making Hal and subjecting him to his torturous existence, he feels guilty seeing Hal act out a warped, juvenile, toxic version of his own affections for Jake..

And he’s confused into conflating Hal’s agency with his own and taking responsibility for all of this as indicative of his own personal failures without ever considering the faults of anybody else except Hal, who he perceives less as his own person and more as a particularly damning extension of himself.

It is not a wonder that Dirk feels innately fucked up and toxic by the end of Homestuck!

But it IS kind of infuriating that so much of the fandom takes his description of himself at face value, because most of what he feels guilty for isn’t actually his fault. Like, christ, Dirk confesses he felt guilty about Roxy not long after Trickster Roxy sexually assaults him. That’s what this scene is! It is a non-consensual act of sexually charged contact! This is literally on the level of Crockertier Jane delivering her sex slavery speech to Jake.

But nobody really talks about it that way here, because Dirk’s whole thing is taking everything stoically on the chin and holding nobody responsible for anything bad that happens but himself. This panel is basically the epitome of that.

He thinks about punching Roxy to defend himself, given an opportunity to be a “man of action” for like, maybe literally the first time in this session and solve a problem head on, but he doesn’t. Because ultimately, he can’t bring himself to consciously hurt Roxy, and his desperate need to be a Good Person simply outweighs his desire to be left alone.

Anyway it all works out in the end, and Roxy correctly deduces she ended up messing with Dirk’s head, so I’m glad they presumably worked through all that stuff on Earth C. I just wanted to try to impress what a rough ride this was for Dirk with regards to how he was treated over his sexuality specifically, since I think it’s gone so under-discussed in the fandom.

Now Dirk is happy with his boyfriend Jake and his best friends Roxy, Jane and Callie, and he’s got a cool brother who loves him, and he has everything he deserves and more which means all is right in the world.

Roxy is in a way better, healthier, happier place too, with anywhere between one loving snake girlfriend and two girlfriends+maybe an eventual boyfriend if she and John ever decide to do the dating thing.

The sky’s the limit and she’s got all the romantic attention she could want, which is what she deserves because she’s a gem and a treasure who does her best by her friends even if she fucks up sometimes.

Homestuck is good. The end.

Besides being excellent analytical work (Brows Held High is excellent) and a poignant look into a fascinating piece of art produced by the AIDS crisis, BLUE is also a weirdly fascinating look into the color Blue as it relates to the Void aspect, as experienced by a random artist with no relationship to Homestuck. Odd, but true.

callmearcturus:

i don’t really go in for unpopular opinions and hot takes, but there is one that i am reluctant to share, one i really think will cause real backlash, one that will make you all dive for a fainting couch in dismay

Keep reading

I love persona so much and also atlus has failed me every step of the way so I hate it

jackietplease:

hogwartshousespersonality:

afatblackfairy:

wetheurban:

HOW TO HELP TORTURED GAY MEN IN CHECHNYA

We can’t allow this to continue. A petition has also been launched by change.org and signed by tens of thousands of people.

It demands a full investigation of all the facts and unlawful repression in Chechnya of the LGBT population and calls for punishment for the ‘guilty parties’ and the end to the practice of extra-judicial violence.

You can sign that here.

Instagram.com/WeTheUrban

Can y’all share this please???

Guys, we’re sorry this is not Harry Potter related but we couldn’t let it pass. This is important, it deserves attention and this is the biggest plataform we have.

We urge you to not ignore this. You can make a difference and your help matters. Please, guys, this can’t keep going on.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, my soul is broken right now. As an empathetic human being, so is my heart.

We must support each other, who else will? Please share this

cummymonster:

doppios-epitaph:

Everytime you reblog this picture, an homophobe gets kicked from a custom match.

My username is good for this situation

whatis2plus2:

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular – but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place – when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.