#dirk.pdf

[nekropsii]

ok, but dirk is only attracted to men. like obvs he doesn't like IDing as gay because he's 16 & trying to be super masc, but he is in fact not into girls

Hey, quick question. What time portal did you fall out of? Why are you here in the year of our lord 2023 honest to god saying that if a man isn’t immediately attracted to the women around him, that means he isn’t attracted to women at all?

This is so painfully 2005. Dirk never once says he isn’t attracted to women. He just isn’t attracted to Roxy, because he sees her as a sister. Maybe he isn’t into Jane because she isn’t his type. We literally don’t know that. The only person to ever say he isn’t into women is Roxy, who said that because he kept turning down her advances… Which is… You know… A bad thing to do? Did you guys forget that calling someone gay because they aren’t accepting your advances is a common move that douchebags make to meter their own feelings of rejection? Are you, like, so afraid to admit that Roxy might’ve done something wrong that you started participating in the literal homophobic tactics of forcing a label on someone that they expressly said they don’t want or identify with?

Look man, I like Roxy. She’s one of my favorite characters. And I’m a gay man myself. But if Dirk says he doesn’t identify as gay, then he isn’t gay. The same logic applies to real people. Even if Dirk is only shown to be attracted to men, that doesn’t make him gay, because he actively rejects that label. You can’t just decide that he’s canonically gay and expressly identifies as such just because a drunk girl that wouldn’t stop riding his ass about dating her called him gay so she’d feel less like she’s losing something. Come on now.

[nekropsii]

"Hal is more interesting than Dirk" i didnt noticed that b4 voting but ur so right !!

My main opinion on Dirk is that Dirk does not function as a standalone character. There needs to be a secondary character for him to respond to for him to not fall totally flat. Sometimes that character is Hal, sometimes it's Roxy, sometimes it's Caliborn, sometimes it's Jane, so on and so forth.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's completely fine to have a character that works best as part of a dynamic... But that is not a limitation that Hal has, and Hal has a lot more going on with his character than "Suicidal Queer Teen". I don't have much interest in Suicidal Queer Teen. That was me. There's not even really an interesting twist on it, he's kinda just a regular Suicidal Queer Teen. Hal's got a lot of baked in philosophical questions about what it means to be human, though, and that's something I can actually work with.

Dirk not functioning very well as a standalone character also means that a lot of explorations of him as a character are more or less explorations of his relationships, typically with Jake, almost always romantic. Dirk being a Suicidal Queer Teen means that when an exploration is standalone, it's often bordering on fetishistic in its portrayal of queer suffering and poor mental health. Either way, the vibe is always downright voyeuristic, and I'm just not much of a fan. Voyeurism is a strong theme with the Striders, stemming from their ties to the Saw franchise. I don't mind that, that's intentional within the confines of the writing of the comic itself... But when fans are doing it by way of their fan material being like that, it's not an act serving a grand narrative purpose, because we are real people and not a part of the arcs of the Striders, nor are we set up as extradiegetic elements helping to carry the overarching themes of their characters. We are just human beings doing voyeurism through the means of fiction.

Again, Hal works as a standalone, so he doesn't really have this issue. Not in the same way Dirk does.

[nekropsii]

Hey, guys? I really hope you're all aware that Dirk isn't actually gay. He never once said he's gay. He's unlabeled. The only time he got identified as gay was when Roxy was forcing that label on him and he actively rejected it. DIrk is not gay. He does not identify as gay. I don't think it's respectful to continuously insist that he is. I see even the most hardcore of Dirk fans get this wrong constantly. Dirk is not gay.

[nekropsii]

Sorry if this is out of the blue, but what do you think of the whole "Heart players deal with their splinters"? To me, it doesn't really make sense?

I keep seeing it in classpecting posts (which are years old tbf) and imo, splinters are a Dirk thing, not a Heart thing.

I mean, if Heart is the aspect of the True Self, then it makes sense for Dirk as a Prince to destroy it and have multiple selves. But Nepeta, for example, never struggles with this? Nor Meulin?

The only other self Nepeta has is her role-playing persona, which she doesn't really struggle with, and her Dream Self which I think was awake on Prospit before the start of the game.

Unless you count Fefetasprite and Davepetasprite, and she seems happy as both.

I feel like sometimes fans only look at Dirk to define Heart and forget that Nepeta also was a Heart player, or that Dirk had a Destroyer class.

What the hell?

Yeah, this is absolutely a problem caused by what I like to call “Strider Bias”. Dirk is very, very frequently used as the sole reference for analysis of Heart as an Aspect, with complete disregard for the fact that he is a Prince. It’s such an issue within Classpect Analysis that even the Official Extended Zodiac Site fucked this up.

Splinters are a Dirk only problem, stemming from his specific manifestation of him being a Prince of Heart. This is because Heart is the Aspect of the True Self, and Prince is a Destructive Class. He expresses this by fragmenting his soul- or his self- into “Splinters” and scattering them elsewhere. This is not something that other Heart players have to deal with, because the nature of their relationship with Heart is not inherently Destructive. Destruction of Heart is needed for Splintering. That is in the very nature and title of the ability.

Earnestly, Spriting does not count towards Splintering unless what was put within the Sprite… Was ALREADY a Splinter. Davepetasprite^2 and Fefetasprite are not Splinters of Nepeta. They’re just Sprites that happen to have Nepeta in them, who happens to be a Heart player. No one’s saying Erisolsprite is a Splinter of Sollux or Eridan, nor that Davesprite is a Splinter of Dave or the crow. That side of the argument falls apart when you consider that the Heartbound aren’t the only people that get Sprited.

Same for the Roleplaying example. The Heartbound aren’t the only people that Roleplay. Nepeta’s roleplaying has to do with her being a Rogue of Heart. That’s a Redistribution class. She’s just putting her soul into a character for a while as a means of earnest self expression. She gets her friends to do it with her, yes, but none of it has to do with Splintering. It’s not Destructive. You need Destruction to form Splinters.

[nekropsii]

Brief nitpic about the striders is when people give them strong Texan accents 💀 they’re from HOUSTON!! There’s literally so many diverse areas of the city which result in unique accent combos!! Dave is just Some Kid who grew up in the industrial housing area and I think a lot of ppl forget that accents depend on who you’re around, not just where you are

Yeah, Dave's accent probably isn't too terribly strong. It's definitely there, but it's not cowboy thick. No one comments on it, and the most we get as far as implication that he has one is that he says "Y'all" when speaking aloud. He doesn't use it over text, but he does use it in verbal conversation. Strictly in verbal conversation.

Dirk, meanwhile, wouldn't really have one at all, he lives alone in the middle of the ocean with no real concept of regional accent. Or a region at all. At most, his accent is a hodgepodge of whatever he's heard from any media he's consumed, and flat out mispronunciation. His sense of prosody probably sucks. But regardless, you can't have a Texan accent without... Texas, you know? Or at least a Texas equivalent.

[nekropsii]

Admittedly one part of this question is outside your wheelhouse but as the main Alpha Trolls Guy I follow, what would you say is the purpose of the parallels between Horuss and Rufioh on the one hand and Dirk and Jake on the other? Esp since it was Rufioh, the Jake-figure, who was decapitated. Is it just an “All things come round again” example of Paradox Space doing its thing, or to show that Dirk and Jake wouldn’t last under the circumstances of the void session, or?

I swear to God I don't mean this to sound mean, but... I don't think there's any profound "purpose", because I don't think they parallel in any profound way at all. Similarities between the two are incredibly surface level, and I'm not really of the opinion that Dirk and Jake own the themes/motifs "being paralleled" or anything.

Typically the explanation for DirkJake/RufUss paralleling each other is that they're both Gay Relationships that have Communication Issues, and there's something in there relating to Decapitation. That's... It, though? Sure, that's a parallel in the technical sense, but there's nothing deep to it. Plenty of other things in Homestuck share one of those traits, and it doesn't really mean much. Hell, I'd attribute Horuss and Rufioh being a gay relationship with communication problems to Hussie genuinely just not handling gay relationships and characters all that well, rather than them being some god-tier writer.

I couldn't tell you the purpose because I'm not even sure if it was intentional. Everything else about them is so vastly different that I'm inclined to believe any similarities weren't intended. To me, it's purely a consequence of them having been written by the same author.

[nekropsii]

Theres something to be said about the connection between saw and strider, especially in themes of self harm, voyeurism, sexuality, self image, and the nature of small interactions having big consequences. idk if u wanna say it I just feel like you get what I mean.

YOU UNDERSTAND. YOU UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY.

Saw is one of my favorite movies ever. It was my first hyperfixation. And let me tell you, I don’t think you can earnestly fully understand the Striders without watching Saw. ESPECIALLY Dave. It’s so intrinsic to their characters it’s terrifying.

A lot of people tend to skip out on watching Saw for the sake of the Striders because they think it’s just a gore fest with no breaks- I assure you it’s not. Saw (2004) is an intensely psychological indie horror film and it’s a brilliant fucking movie. There’s a damn good fucking reason why it was an absolute pop culture phenomenon in the 2000’s.

Also, the Cherubs are a blatant Saw reference, with their room straight up transparently being the Bathroom Trap, and Dave is an Adam parallel. Ok? Ok. Thanks.

[nekropsii]

I hate homestuck 2 so fucking much I genuinely hate it like nothing else Jane and dirk were victims of LE/HIC and it really spits in the fucking face of that fact. Like oh my god they were groomed 16 year olds thats the whole POINT theyre not SUPERVILLAINS. If you td me homestuck 2 was written by caliborn himself id fucking believe you. God its so fucking bad.

Honestly, this is doing Caliborn a disservice. At least when Caliborn writes retellings, it’s fucking hilarious in it’s awfulness. He isn’t exactly known as a writer of what I like to call misery porn.

Agreed on the victimhood aspect, though. It’s so cruel to Dirk and Jane as characters for no particular reason. I know with Dirk in particular it felt like such a huge slap in the face to make him a villain- after all, his entire function as a character was… You know, being deathly afraid of becoming a bad person? Fighting against becoming anything like Bro? Ult!Dirk is exhibiting Vriska behavior with his fear of irrelevance. Not Dirk behavior. I think Dirk would want nothing more than to just have a quiet existence. From my knowledge, anyway. Then again, I’m no expert on ult!Dirk or Dirk in general, that’s more @falsehood-rising’s job. (Give him a follow.)

Jane, too… Poor fucking Jane… She didn’t deserve the treatment she got. She’s literally just a normal teenage girl who’s been through some shit and was forcefully fed propaganda her whole life. I don’t know why they made her basically just a racist republican turbovillain. It’s such a far fall from grace for her. Why is she a confed… :(