#dirkcourse

[jacobhpb]

hot take

[timaeusachillean]

If you think Dirk strider is a put together person at all you are a fucking idiot and I'm hiring a deep web hit man to kill you

[utopianparadoxist]

bro showing up would be fuckin great because even though he is possibly brainwashed and definitely unfit for parenting he's still my favorite guardian? he's just so fascinatingly terrible. some things tho: dirk still has smuppets, so those aren't on bro, those just seem like a dirk thing. Saw's a cal thing probably yeah. but dirk also sends jake the strifebot, & yeah jake asked for someone to rumble with, but there's like this go hard or go home thing both dirk and bro show in "training" matters

Jake didn’t just want someone to tumble with, he wanted adventures. Which is what Dirk set out to provide. I’ve written several essays on this. I don’t feel theres any evidence Dirk was as motivated by imposing training on Jake as he was by trying to give Jake what Jake LOUDLY said he wanted. 

If it was about training: Why not train Jane with lil seb, too? She was in as much danger as Jake, would also have to play the game, and was WAY less prepared than Jake was to begin with. So see, Dirk as this ruthless trainer figure just doesnt add up to me at all. 

Also Jake likes the brobot, it’s AR he actually had a problem with and Dirk wasn’t in charge of AR.

Also Dirk likes smuppets but smuppets aren’t....nefarious? Theres nothing problematic about smuppets as long as they’re not forced on a child along with snuff films, they’re just silly vaguely phallic puppets he likes lol. Know who else likes smuppets? Jake and Grandpa. Pa’s keeping an absolutely huge one stuffed in the basement--its in the background.

Bro has one distinguishing interest from Dirk, and it’s also the evil nefarious one: SAW. There’s little reason to ascribe it anywhere but to Caliborn.

[utopianparadoxist]

no, i was thinking of dirk. he built brobot and everything AR did was done with dirks authorization

Ah. Sorry for putting words in your mouth, if that’s what I did–I was kind of wired yesterday and I don’t remember my exact wording too well, so I’m worried I mighta come off that way. Kinda forgot this is a view people still have, honestly. Suffice it to say, I feel you’re incorrect. AR was explicitly not acting with Dirk’s authorization, since AR explicitly screens/blocks all of Jake’s messages to Dirk after the very first one that Dirk reads. And Dirk wasn’t even able to keep up with the circumstances leaving up to Unite Synchronize–his entire narrative is him being overwhelmed by the amount of information he has to process and unable to keep up. It doesn’t make sense to attribute Unite Synchronize to anything but AR’s design, especially since Dirk lays the events squarely on AR’s shoulders–despite being inclined to assume responsibility and self-loathing for anything he perceives as his mistakes–and AR not only doesn’t deny it, but actively takes credit for it.

As for the Brobot, Dirk certainly did build it, but that’s not really comparable to what Vriska does, and it’s questionable how much it lines up with Dammek currently. Mainly because Dirk was explicitly trying to give Jake what Jake very loudly, very boldly said he wanted, and as it turns out Jake demonstrably likes the Brobot–it’s AR he was frustrated with in canon for the most part. 

I wrote several essays on this already that can be found here, so you’re free to read that and agree/disagree at your pleasure. Regadless, I consider the “Dirk was abusive/toxic to Jake (and depending on who you ask, AR)” reading little more than bad, outdated fanon. 

[utopianparadoxist]

This “Soft Dirk” bullshit being treated as people wanting to soften and Woobify Dirk is hilarious or it would be if it wasn’t heartbreaking

@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? 

Literally Dirk, is who. 

Dirk, who accepts Jake’s adventurer persona but never even acknowledges Jake thinking he’s dumb except to compliment him all the while giving him length intellectual diatribes he knows Jake will understand. 

Dirk, who practically does a backflip when Jane so much as MENTIONS an apprenticeship even as he talks about how serious and important he’s sure she considers her own craft. 

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? 

[utopianparadoxist]

the other day i saw someone claim that the fact that dirk "used the ar" with jake made him a bad friend because he was saying "jake wasnt worth the time" so, guys? answering machines are emotional abuse now

forgotten homestuck fact: Dirk didnt answer THE FIRST MESSAGE between Jake and the AR, immediately admitted to Jane he felt obligated to let AR run as long as possible, and then promptly went on to completely lose control of the session on every level imaginable and had all of Jake’s messages screened by the AR the entire time.

No, seriously. Even in the shower room when Dirk doesn’t answer, we see Jake’s text bubble. Dirk gets text bubbles every time he receives messages from characters during that entire section. Know who he never gets bubbles from again, fucking Jake, that’s right--and Hal even tells Jake “Dirk can’t hear you right now” just before Jake passes out after fighting the Brobot. 

[utopianparadoxist]

safersaviour replied to your post “This “Soft Dirk” bullshit being treated as people wanting to soften...”

I would argue strongly against, not all, but definitely most of this. Dirk's arc is about self-perception, identity, and the weaponisation of that. He is controlling, domineering and can come off as unfeeling (although he very much isn't). He definitely isn't looking for acceptance from his peers; when talking to Dave, he outright rejects Roxy and Jane's positive views of him

Well, we don’t disagree about what Dirk’s arc concerns. We just disagree on it’s focus and execution. Imo he rejects Roxy and Jane’s positive views of him specifically because he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of them, and it’s a core part of his and Jake’s romantic arc that Dirk values Jake’s belief in him, specifically. 

But I won’t ask you to read the extensive stuff I’ve written on the subject--you can if you want to, it’s in my tag.

Instead I’ll just ask: Can you give me one instance of Dirk being controlling or domineering? Pick whatever moment you find most grievous, and I’ll let you know where I’m coming from with it. If I find you make a compelling argument for why I should reconsider, I will. 

[dirknepz]

Dirk views gay as a slur discourse.