oldish essay-adjacent thing on my personal headcanons for the alpha kids genders which are heavily rooted in textual analysis
The nature of the alpha kids’ heavily intertwined story factors heavily into my understanding of their genders. They function as a group of characters very well in order to tell the story that Homestuck is telling, and a large part of that story, which is in no small part about queer coming-of-age, follows gender dynamics.
Jane and Jake go about gender dynamics differently than Dirk and Roxy. While all four of the alpha kids are somewhat obsessive about their relatively strict adherence to gender roles, this adherence means and does different things for each of them. When discussing what gender means to each of them, its important to discuss their general views of themselves, as what is expected of ones gender performance relies heavily on the other roles they expect to play in their lives.
Jane sees herself as “the normal one” in contrast to her friends’ crazy, wacky lives. This view of herself neglects the strangeness of the rest of her life, including her position as the heiress to Crocker Corp, which is the most important aspect of her identity. She has a clear motivation to follow female gender norms, trying to keep that aspect of normalcy, and her adherence to gender norms is illustrated in many things, especially her interactions with Jake. The most notable thing about Jane in regards to gender norms, however, is something which I will touch on later.
Jake tries to portray himself as some sort of dashing man of adventure, which is a role that is both inherently masculine and inherently extravagant, neither of which are things he can pull off particularly well. Notably, Jake has no male idols. The only people he shows any interest in emulating are women, such as Lara Croft and his grandma. He only talks about himself in direct correlation to male fictional characters when he is talking about them in relation to their female love interests.
He puts quite a bit of emphasis on portraying himself as a charismatic, gentlemanly man; and quite a bit of emphasis on his feelings that he can’t quite live up to what he wants to be. When he defends Jane and Roxy he always does so while stating that it is his duty as a gentleman, etc.
Jake is not particularly masculine, and he has quite a bit of resentment for himself because of this. He feels that his failure to “be a man” is just as much a principle failure as his perceived inability to be in a relationship and to pick up on social cues. He negatively compares himself to Dirk, who he views as someone who can perform masculinity capably, like it’s nothing, in a way that Jake can’t. This is illustrated in the behaviors of BGD, particularly when Jake is being accosted by crockertier Jane, when the version of Dirk that is built off of Jake’s interpretation of him tells Jake; “Dude, would you quit bawling already? Stand up like a man, and punch her in the face or something,” emphasizing Jake’s fear in the face of being sexually harassed and threatened as the failure of masculinity that Jake sees it as, and portraying this failure through the lens of Dirk’s perceived disappointment in him.
Upon entering the game, both Jake and Jane present notably less masculinely and femininely respectively. Most relevantly for Jake, he has the freedom of being able to wear literally anything he wants, due to the game’s alchemy mechanics, and most relevantly for Jane, she is away from the societal expectations of the Heiress. Jane changes her wardrobe from a frumpy (frankly ugly which is neither here nor there) midi skirt and t-shirt to a t-shirt and pants and a constant stick-on mustache, and Jake changes his wardrobe from a t-shirt, jacket, and baggy shorts to tighter shorts and vests and thigh garters.
Dirk and Roxy don’t have this same discomfort or inability or lack of true desire to perform gender roles; at least not in the same way. Don’t get me wrong, they still have difficulties and suffering in their lives caused by their adherence to gender roles, but these difficulties are much less characterized by a fundamental lack of connection.
Roxy’s adherence to female gender roles is illustrated in many things, but most notably her hypersexuality and desire for motherhood. These are things she feels she must have/perform because she is a girl, moreso than they are simply feminine things she enjoys, like pink and magic.
Roxy finds joy in a lot of traditionally masculine things and activities, but through a veneer of femininity, and in a manner which makes it clear there is no dissonance for her there, shes a gamer girl and a sexy hacker girl, which makes video games and coding feminine rather than masculine. Once she enters the game, the only wardrobe changes for her are nicer, cuter dresses.
Similarly to Roxy, Dirk’s strict adherence to masculine gender roles does hurt himself and others, but it is more his strict, obsessive adherence that hurts him than it is masculinity in the first place. This adherence to masculine gender roles involves a passive misogyny, just like it does for Jake. This passive misogyny and the strict adherence itself, alongside Dirk’s consistent personality quirks, leads him to be incapable of fully consciously recognizing and communicating when Roxy’s sexual harassment and eventual inebriated assault hurt him. Not only is she his close friend who he loves, but she is a girl and he is a guy, and to be hurt by her would be a failure on his part to be masculine. This also factors into his internalized homophobia; his refusal to refer to himself with the word gay is not because he has chosen to identify as unlabeled based on deep personal introspection, but because he doesn’t want to dissappoint or upset roxy, and because to be a man attracted to men is fine, but to be gay is to be a faggot, a failure of masculinity. This also factors into why he hates himself more because of his lack of attraction to women than because of his attraction to men, because his attraction to men means nothing about him, but his lack of attraction to women mean he can’t provide Roxy with what she wants.
When dirk enters the game, he makes some ugly ass clothes, but none of them any less masculine than his previous wardrobe.
because of all of these reasons and more! i only really covered all of their gender deals to the most baseline extent. i see jane and jake both as heavily repressed nonbinary people in a way where their genders are heavily influenced by their sexualities (lesbian and gay respectively) and dirk and roxy both as transgender teenagers who have already transitioned before the beginning of the comic. i think that not only does this fall really well into the alpha kids themes of past vs future but also just their struggles with identity as a whole
