If you haven’t read them already, I’ll say read my essays on Knight/Page as Butlers as well as the Steal/Serve essay, because I advance my arguments for Karkat there.
To “Allow” basically means to give permission or entitle X to act through you, “As if through the Will of the Aspect”. I describe it as the counterpart to “Exploit” in Class theory, which means “to make use of or harness”.
Karkat’s Blood impact usually come without him being directly cognizant of it, as if Blood were acting through him. If you don’t have the time to read those essays and see what i mean send me another ask and I’ll answer you tomorrow, but I really think it’s kind of redundant effort all things considered. I’m happy to answer any questions or counterarguments you have for those essays, too.
Haha yeah I was being kind of flippant and facetious in the ask I think you’re referencing. I only want to start conversations, not impose a new understanding, so I’m happy to talk things out and debate views!
Tl;dr Jake wanted Dirk the whole time, he wants Dirk selfishly because he views Dirk has his protector and bodyguard and because Dirk helps him with whatever he wants help with, and he knowingly manipulated Jane into denying her feelings for him despite knowing otherwise for a fact because Roxy told him that she had feelings for him.
All of this is literally textual and in the comic.
Reading Jake as passive is the only reason anyone thinks DirkJake is ambiguous instead of one of the most mutual and passionate gay romances in all fiction, and it’s based on nothing but misinformation.
I’ve written so much about this it’s not funny, but feel free to read any of my various arguments on the subject and debate particular points if you want to follow up on something in particular.
Karkat: the reason there’s any people who think Karkat was turned into a joke and was never effective in the plot at all is because he almost always exerts his impact by “Allowing” his aspect, and thus ends up pretty effective all told despite not being aware of what he’s doing!
Tavros: reading Tavros as passive ignores the fact that Tavros fights and resists Vriska’s will every step of the way throughout his abuse, and is pretty capable about knowing who to get to help him in stopping her.
It ignores that the one time Tavros almost used his powers he was acting under his own agency, and that he quite expressly and dramatically is unwilling to do things the way Vriska wills them on him.
On Vriska’s end, ignoring that Pages inspire others to act for their own benefit paves over the element of her character that genuinely perceived herself as trying to help him, which is a textual element that complicates our view of her.
Obviously none of that is to say Tavros asked for it, or that any of what Vriska did is justified. But the way their wills play off each other is more complex than just “she bullies him and he’s a pushover”.
Tavros is NOT a pushover. He’s overpowered by force, but he tries fucking hard to resist his abuse. And Vriska doesn’t exactly just hate Tavros–there’s an element of her behavior genuinely rooted in a desire to help in the context of the fucked up world she grew up in.
But more than anything reading Pages as passive ignores Tavros’ motivation for raising the ghost army and turns it into “oh he ended up helping Vriska to her benefit in the end and that’s…his character arc?”
Which isn’t what that scene is at all. That scene is Tavros getting what he personally wanted to have closure for himself and move on from Vriska for good. Tavros healed. He moved on. He got a pretty gentle sort of revenge because Tavros is ultimately a kindhearted and gentle boy, but he used the ghosts specifically to aid his desire to own the fuck out of Vriska and then moved the hell on.
Reading Pages this way means that Tavros’ arc wasn’t written for the purpose of making a depthless joke of an abuse victim, which means you can understand Vriska’s character complexly without having to prioritize her over her victim.
I sure as hell wouldn’t call it, like, a perfectly handled narrative, but it does make it substantially better and make Tavros ’ ending a lot more satisfying. Also gives me more hope both Vriska and Tavros will be treated well with whatever on earth happens in the epilogue.
Homestuck was, if not good, at least only kind of shitty instead of dramatically in your face blatant abuse mockery shitty all along. Tavros is definitely treated as jokes, but he’s also given actual closure re:his abuse arc, that actually makes sense given who he is as a person. And understanding that means Vriska’s character was handled with more care, too.
Here’s the second of the class essays, covering the Steal and Serve pair, the four classes that take up the middle of the spectrum:
Thief & Rogue and Page & Knight.
The next essay–on the Change & Know pair–is available in it’s entirety for my Patrons, so if you can spare me a buck a month you can get it and more content early if you decide you like it enough. Higher reward tiers will let you invite friends to the Discord so they can access this stuff and talk about it, too!
Feel free to @ me, reblog or send me an ask with your thoughts on these first two essays. There may be some things I can’t answer as they will be answered in later posts, but I might use those as inspiration for what teasers to release from sections of the next two essays over the course of the week.
You can also feel free to talk to me in the Hiveswap Discord where I moderate and cry about Homestuck. I’m very interested in seeing how my thoughts stand up to scrutiny, so don’t be shy!
i just woke up but what a good day to remember that dirkjake is canon and they got married in a small private ceremony surrounded by many robots and lizards
and that rose absolutely demands they let her plan a REAL wedding later
rose finds out about their private lizard wedding and sends them a handmade over the top Congratulations On Your Nuptials card and inside she’s just drawn a single hand flipping them off
karkat and rose forge a bond made under the harsh, terrible fires of “how do we make this wedding a celebration of our dweeby boy in-law fatherbrothers WITHOUT subjecting everyone to fucking puppets and na’vi”
Here’s the first teaser for one of the next essays, on the Steal and Serve classes! Just a little morsel on Knight’s relationship to Pages–or anyone they view as such.
You can access this essay early by hooking up with my Patreon–otherwise you’ll be able to read it on Thursday, when I post it here! You can also talk to me about it on the Hiveswap discord and on the r/Hiveswap subreddit. And here on Tumblr, obviously 😉
Definitely yes and it would probably result in pretty bad conflict, but if Jake gets told about the Bro stuff then he won’t. It IS possible that given time/centuries Dave will eventually be comfortable with wrestling and roughousing, but I doubt he’d be interested in full-blown sparring like Jake and Dirk like to do. I do think sparring is an interest Karkat could pick up provided Dirk and Jake were encouraging and patient about it though!
DirkKat for astraliminal’s birthday, because this is the part of the pairing that always hits me hardest when I think about it. I didn’t mean to go overkill but I started sketching and this happened. TuT Hope you like it, dear! Happy birthday!
You nailed a good part of it. I think Dirk and Dave are pretty well-charted by the canon, but basically I think Dirk would be inclined to look for Roxy in both Dave and Rose, which would be easy with Dave because he takes after Roxy hard anyway. So there’d be a lot of hangouts and the degree to which Dirk can satisfy Dave’s need for emotional openness probably relies on how much Dirk’s issues with the Alphas are sorted out, because Dirk uh…really really hates himself. Especially by canon endgame. Which brings us to Karkat.
I feel it somewhere in my heart that Karkat catches wind of the Alphas’ emotional turmoils through Dirk and immediately sets about fixing all of it because nu uh, fuck no, fuck that shit Karkat has dealt with ENOUGH romantic turmoil and he’s not having any of this bullshit teen drama in his ultimate reward. As a result Dirk immediately would die for Karkat on command even if he wasn’t already inclined to do so for Karkat being The One Dave Loves anyway. This is cool because Dirk and Karkat have a fucking lot in common!
There’s the being subjugated by the Condesce, the intense self-loathing and being convinced they destroyed relationships by the sheer nature of their beings, the intense and vicious arguments with versions of themselves…there’s a lot to bond over. It’s cute. I want more of that. All of this has the added bonus of making Dave basically the happiest fucker alive in the multiverse on top of Karkat and Dirk just being…really good influences on each other. Karkat can help Dirk out with relationships! Having the approval of physically hypercompetent Dirk could do a lot to reduce whatever angst about his own battle skill Karkat has left! There’s so much there ;_: I love them.
Where things get a lot MORE interesting is with Rose, almost entirely because seeing Roxy in her is…
going to be a lot harder.
On top of that, Rose is curious and inquisitive, like Dirk is. And she’s particularly interested in Dirk’s oddities. Traits she could really question and dig into:
Rose hasn’t really lost her interest in psychotherapy, I think–but Dave has definitely chilled out a lot and stopped trying so hard after he started dating Karkat. Like Terezi, Rose enjoys the hell out of a dude trying to be cool who has something to hide. Which makes Dirk “perfectly stoic, taciturn to the max about everything” Strider pretty much the perfect fucking target.
So early on there’s definitely a lot of Rose teasing Dirk and doing her psychoanalysis thing at him, which could make for some absolutely stunning dialogue. Probably a lot of calling him “Dad” or “Father”, too, god I love Rose Lalonde. And Dirk like, he sees himself in Rose a lot and that might make him more defensive and critical of her than most…but I think it’s more likely that what he sees of Roxy in her and what he knows from Rose’s history (she was effectively the closest thing he had to a Mother figure, too–it’s just not a legacy he chose to lay claim to) would force him to reckon with the fact that someone can have a lot of Dirk-like traits and still be fundamentally…you know. Good.
I think over the long haul Dirk and Dave would end up feeling like twin brothers to each other, balancing out the weird dad-son feels into something wholly unique. Same goes for Dirk and Rose, but Dirk would uniquely value Rose’s insight and he’d probably be likeliest to go to Rose for advice or counsel out of anybody…especially if they ever get to know each other well enough to figure out they share a proclivity for self-loathing and assuming outsize responsibility without relying on their friends.
Jake can make Dirk FEEL good about himself, but Rose could probably put into words exactly why he is objectively good, and Dirk would appreciate that. Rose, meanwhile, would appreciate someone who can keep her grounded in herself and her own strengths and flaws when she gets too wrapped in her own head to talk to people…even if I also think Dirk doing so would piss her off.
They’d be good for each other basically. And Dirk would get ripped on hard enough to actually break his stoic facade, which I think is a marvel we all wish to see.
[Author’s Note: This is a repost of Love, Faith and Fantasy–my piece on Jake and Dirk’s character arcs and the relevance of Knights and Pages in understanding them. I thought breaking it up into chunks would make the content more accessible, and give me room to flesh out each argument. Thus there will be some updates to the content. Hopefully this will mean more people can easily approach it!] [Pt. 2 – Faith and Fear] [Pt. 3 – Fearful Heart] [Pt. 4 – Noble] [Pt. 5 – As You Wish]
What I didn’t do is discuss the potential key verbs Knights and Pages might operate under–because I honestly didn’t have one I felt confident in. In the wake of discussing the piece with @theworstpersonintheworld (misleadingly named), he made a suggestion that struck me deeply, and once I started thinking about the story in those terms everything truly fell into place.
I think it will be useful in explaining the dynamic between Jake and Dirk as I see it, so I’d like to make the case for it here before we move forward.
The key verb for both Knights and Pages is ‘Serve’. This puts them in direct thematic opposition to Rogues and Thieves, who ‘Steal’, which lines up with those dual systems Sburb loves so much–after all, if Princes and Bards are ‘Destroy’ classes, it’s reasonable to assume there is also a ‘Create’ set, right?
Knights Serve their Aspect to others. Pages use their Aspect to Serve themselves. To establish this and contrast against Jake’s actions later, let’s see how this model applies to Dave, Karkat and Tavros. First, the Knights, and an outline of the different executions the Serve verb can take.
Serve can mean:
1. To provide, or give (a counterpoint to Take)
2. To provide service for
3. To own or defeat, in literal or rhetorical battle (in the colloquial ‘You Got Served’ sense).
Karkat does the same thing–often offering Pacts and Bonds to friends that he likes while simultaneously offering his services in helping them figure out relationship problems.
Davesprite comes back from the future and literally empowers not just Dave, but John by providing him Time in the form of a Hammer with Time powers.
Dave’s primary contribution to the Beta session is to run loops around the session, constantly gathering all relevant resources possible so that his friends don’t need to worry at all about limitations like money or access to weapons and can do whatever they feel like.
Essentially, Dave takes care of the minutiae. He provides a service to his friends–putting them in the best position possible to act out their own wills.
Karkat’s ultimate contribution to his session is similar–ultimately, Karkat’s main role was to maintain the bonds between all his friends. LIke Dave’s, Karkat’s nature affects every single other player, keeping them bound towards a common goal and thus bettering their odds of winning the game. (it’s worth noting I think Vriska’s view of Sburb is wrong here.)
This predisposition to giving service to others is also likely why Knights seem to end up helping out with Frog Breeding duties so often. This is essentially the most important game objective, and so helping the Space player in completing it is also helping every other player in step.
And then there’s this. There’s a colloquial definition of Serve that derives it’s use from the term “Get Served”, which Urban Dictionary defines as: To be completely owned or shown up by someone. Kinda like Dave does to us here–which Karkat also does, by the way, before going on a rant outlined by his ambitions and silhouetted with Blood colors.
To serve someone in this sense essentially means to defeat them in rhetorical or literal battle, explaining why Aradia describes Knights as a powerful Warrior class–one of the definitions this wordplay allows for is a class that uses its Aspect to deal devastating, embarrassing defeats.
Every time Karkat wins a confrontation in Homestuck, he does so by establishing a connection. You can argue Karkat’s aware he does this with Gamzee, but he doesn’t really parse it as doing a Knight of Blood thing. But with Clover he doesn’t realize what he’s doing at all! He thinks he just beat this green elf dude, but what actually happens is Clover wanted to enter a relationship with him.
What goes ignored is how unlikely a win this is–because Clover is so lucky, he straight up could not be defeated normally. Clover loses this fight not because he’s overpowered, but because he benefits even more than Karkat does. Clover is a horndog, and in his view there’s no better outcome to this fight than Getting Lucky. Karkat wins unawares, as if through the Will of Blood.
Contrast this with Jake’s win. Jake beats the felt, shocking Crowbar–but Crowbar doesn’t benefit from this at all. Jake does. Jake is the one who wants to be seen as an impressive adventuring hero, and by exposing Crowbar to an unforeseen possibility, he achieves that.
I’d like to posit a corollary attribute that I believe holds true for all Classes, as well. This one is not explicitly advanced textually, but I believe I can back it up. It takes place along a different axis. I posit that just as the classes affect their Aspect, so too they are affected BY their Aspect.
So in addition to the Active/Passive distinction, we could read both Knights and Pages as ones who are Served by their Aspect.
This is true of Dave, as he gets owned by his Bro in an explicitly time-consuming fight. And the trend continues as he then gets saved by his future selves over and over again throughout the session–being served in both senses:
In this sense, Dave also operates “As if through the Will of the Aspect”, even as he’s in control of his actual powers. He’s presented with stable time loops that he has to obey, and it’s kind of a loaded question whether any given Present Dave would have taken the same path had he not already been given the path to follow from his future selves.
Now, to contrast before we move on to the rest of this series, a few notes on Tavros:
Tavros’ main psychic abilities correspond to his Classpect–he’s able to move animals to serve his will, providing them direction. The reading that Pages inspire their Aspect in others isn’t totally off, in my view. What it misses is that Pages seem to inspire in others a desire to serve or help them. To benefit themselves somehow.
This doesn’t extend to just Vriska, though. Tavros inspires Kanaya and even Equius–who ordinarily wouldn’t help on account of the Hemospectrum–to provide him with robot legs, extending his freedom of motion, again a concept linked to Breath. This again benefits no one except Tavros.
And of course, this reading puts a whole new spin on Tavros’ final act in the story. If we’re reading Pages as intrinsically kind of selfish and self-motivated, then Tavros’ motivation here isn’t to provide a useful service to Vriska. It’s to do something so useful she can’t possibly deny it, so he can have the pleasure of owning her.
This is Vriska getting Served. This is an immutable fact that is being stated for the record. That it is genuinely helpful does not mean that Vriska getting fucking wrecked isn’t what is taking place here. Notably, Tavros immediately gives power over the army to Meenah, because he doesn’t give a shit about responsibility. Tavros had a goal, and the ghosts helped him achieve it.
A final note:
If this reading of Knights and Pages happens to bother you because it means that the Beta session has an uneven distribution of Active/Passive classes, consider the dynamics of both sessions:
In the beta session, Rose essentially takes and follows orders from the Horrorterrors and Doc Scratch, whilst also distributing orders to Dave and John (who each take further orders from troll girls and Jade).
All of this is ultimately in support of the plan Jade commits to herself, plans herself, and executes herself–taking Active control of the entire session in one fell swoop at the last instant.
In the Alpha session, all three Active players flounder and stifle themselves and each other with nothing meaningful to do and no way to receive substantial benefit.
Ultimately, it is the Passive player–Roxy–who rises above the constraints of her session and achieves more or less competence at understanding her role and powerset by the end of the session.
In the session that requires constant action and change, there’s Three passives to one Active. In the session that requires patience, introspection, and connecting with each other, the inverse is true. The incentives and natural skills of the players are set at odds in both cases, stacking the cards against them.
In fact, @arrghus makes an insightful point about these unbalanced sessions:
Namely, that this puts the kids in the exact same position as the Trolls’ Red and Blue teams–which ALSO have an uneven distribution of Passive/Active classes under this reading, only reaching equilibrium when added together.
This segment covered, we can move on to Jake, and how this reading of Pages reflects on him.
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Flying through Storytelling 