#just as dirk over thinks about how much he HATES himself -

[chessb0r3d]

i cracked the code.

[disguisedcheezed]

John really likes to annoy Dirk and see him irritated until Dirk genuinely smiles for once he gets SO MUCH CUTENEES AGRESSION he wants to punch objects to dust and eat it with an inner monologue repeating "KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM"

But for Dirk, he could detect when John is Not actually expressing the real emotions he's showing, until John Genuinely smiles after a crying session which Dirk DID NOT expect. He's getting cuteness agression but the calm way with his inner monologue saying "I'm in heaven." and he just wants to hold John in his arms forever.

> John looks so calm and smiley all the time but he's actually very violent and when he's very mad he would love to punch everything and make them explode to prevent himself from thinking about anything.

> Dirk looks destructive and intimidating but he's actually just a guy who likes to hold someone's hand and blush in anime.

[nekropsii]

What a about Caliborn makes him so cool in your opinion?

Go keep track of his progression as an artist alongside his development as a character and think about how these are intrinsically linked. Ponder the fact that he is both at his most obnoxious and at his most amateur when trying to ignore his unique style explicitly brought on by his canonical learning disability and mimic others rather than truly be himself. Consider how his explorations of art are genuinely cool, not a bad thing, and how we get some really neat multimedia stuff out of it.

Caliborn may be a shitty little teenage wretch but the way he is portrayed as an artist and as a disabled person is both really good and very real. It comes from a place of love. His learning disability is handled with a degree of gentle care that you would not really expect from Hussie. The place Caliborn's art style ends up in is so fucking sick and I actually unironically love it. The technique he uses is really interesting. It's intentionally reminiscent of an Etch-a-Sketch, and I'm a little obsessed with it.

This is so fucking good. I mean this seriously. He's right - that is some Pure Art Skill.

I just love the way art is employed as a necessary component of his character arc. It's so neat. You don't see visual cues that intricate too often. Usually it's just in character design, but watching his entire art style and even his medium of choice change several times over is fascinating. You can really tell Hussie had a lot of fun with him. He's also just really, really fucking funny. Just about every sentence that comes out of his mouth is Grade A Absolute Fucking Gold, and I'm honestly obsessed with his dynamic with Dirk. This may get me thrown to the wolves, but I personally think Dirk and Caliborn have way more chemistry than Dirk and Jake. Maybe that's because we actually see Dirk and Caliborn interact on screen... Lmao.

Necessary Topic: I don't know why people hate him so much. Like, I understand hating his misogyny and fatphobia, sure, but those are deliberate character points and not just Hussie-isms. I see people act like Caliborn is indicative of Hussie, as if Homestuck-era Hussie wasn't, like, famously really fucking good at writing female characters and absolutely not a misogynist. Caliborn's a parody of Homestuck Anti-Fans - which is a term we really ought to bring back, god, anti-fans are absolutely still a thing and good lord they're everywhere - who really were just shitty little bigoted haters. Calliope, the opposite side of his coin, was representative of, essentially, "the best kind of Homestuck fan" - an ultimately sweet young teen girl who willingly dedicates almost all of her time to this piece of fiction she loves so, so much, who draws a lot of fan art for the joy of it all, has OCs that don't fit any of the design conventions in Homestuck whom she pairs with the characters in it for innocent fun. Someone who has a lot of theories and analyses, writes a lot of fanfic, and is genuinely just having a lot of fun. Everyone loves Calliope. Even the characters in Homestuck love Calliope. They just think she's the cutest, sweetest little thing they ever did see. Caliborn was the worst kind. He sucks on purpose. No one likes him. He is a total nuisance to characters he is by all means trying to impress. I love them both.

It's also just funny that he's a canonical Intersex Transmasc who is probably Gay and this has, like, no relevance to anything about him, really. So no one really talks about it. Gender Hilarious, Gender Nefarious.

[borzoilover69]

Something that gets me everytime I think about the harlenglishes is how incredibly harsh they are on themselves, incredibly self critical. The simple fact that the majority of the fandom writes them off as silly little guys does a number on me.  I want you to take a look at these two pieces of text. Both of them are from where Jade and Jake are having a moment, and using proxies to voice their thoughts. Notice how they react to themself being upset. ( Jade is herself, Dirk is Jakes apparition of Dirk, aka BGD ) 

Jade and Jake put others over themselves and think they’re seeing the bigger picture when they’re not. They’re incredibly isolated kids trying to appear relatively normal. They’re incredibly judgmental, and therefore feel judged, and put up massive barriers and walls to hide it all from their friends and subsequently first time readers because they never directly mention or call attention to it!  They break down incredibly messily because they bottle it all up to deal with in private later!

Jake is so incredibly hard on himself, and so is Jade. They grit their teeth and smile because they feel incredibly selfish for having messy feeling moments. And the thing is, they can be incredibly selfish! They are looking out constantly for what’s best for everyone, and sometimes it’s not what the others think!  That’s what’s so tragic, is because when they do break down so messily, they beat themselves up for it. Look here: 

These are both screenshots of them telling, no, demanding that they toughen up and do what “needs to be done”. But finding themself unable to because they’re so overcome with emotion. It’s especially interesting in Jakes case because he uses his best friend as a proxy to do a mental fucking cartwheel and hype himself up but also to cut through his bullcrap with the one friend that he believes saw him truly, that he believed understood himself, which is why in part BGD is so uncomfy for him! Because it’s just the uncomfortable truths or thoughts he wouldn’t admit to himself in his own skin! Jake is a master of deception, and this is just one of his outlets!

I’m never getting over how terrible BGD was to Jake while he was breaking down, or how Jade yelled and screamed at herself when she was reincarnated as a sprite. A lot of people use BGD as a merit to point out that DirkJake is abusive, since he’s one of the splinters we see Jake actively talk to, but what they don’t get is that BGD is just Jake thinking to himself “What would Dirk think? What would Dirk say?” and believing it so truly that it can on instance become realities! Dirk isn’t really like this, he may be a bit clingy, but Jake acknowledges that in conversation with Roxy, and is moreso concerned rather than upset about it. In the prison cell with BGD, it’s just Jake berating himself under the guise of what his best friend on what he SHOULD do, versus what he wants to do. Because Jake questions himself constantly. 

Jake very much relies on social awareness even though he can be pretty bad at it. So if he believes his friends have an image of him, he will be daunted by how to live up to it, and if he believes his friends hate him, his thoughts and BGD will reflect that. Hes essentially created a remote echo chamber to amplify his own thoughts, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. 

The harlenglishes just can’t cope with knowing. They minimise their messy and not proper emotions to try and be the bigger person and do what’s right, even if it’s incredibly unhealthy, and it just ends up in a big knot of feeling incredibly overcome by emotions, and also incredibly frustrated they can’t live up to their own expectations and thus looping to fueling hte emotions. Jake is incredibly self aware and immensely critical for just being a kid. Jade is incredibly self aware and is hard on herself ever since her grandfather died and I think Jake was too in a way.

[trippinghearts]

thinking about ult dirk and as much as i hate to admit it i think i’m starting to see his perspective. i also think the writers did a shit job of explaining it in text

dirk was created for the purpose of winning the Game. alpha dave, a famous director and revolutionary, set aside his precious time and money to make sure dirk had the things he needed to live, even with centuries of time between them. he was important. he was supposed to be the Hero. he spent the first sixteen years of his life waiting for the Game to start. it was his purpose.

and then he got into the game and was greeted by a dead planet he couldn’t even breathe on unassisted. ruins and skeletons everywhere, the writings of a species waiting for a savior that never came for them. and he had to exist there for months. there was nothing for him to do. the battlefield wasn’t prototyped. there was no forge, no frogs. his session was dead and doomed from the very beginning. all of that waiting, only to be set up for failure by the very universe.

and he never did get to be the Hero. sure, they won the Game. but he didn’t actually do anything. the only reason their session was even winnable was because of the real Heroes. the thirteen-year-olds who flung a meteor into the farthest reaches of space, who sent a ship crashing through the literal Fourth Wall, who spent three years traveling to another reality so they could crash it and save everyone’s asses. the rest of the alpha kids did something. roxy created the matriorb that allowed the trolls to continue their species. jane was able to revive everyone who died. even jake took on the entire felt by himself.

and what did dirk do? he died. he didn’t take out any of the bosses. he stood there and he let dave kill him. dave is the one who killed the jacks. not dirk.

and in the end it didn’t even mean anything. his sacrifice didn’t even carry any weight because jane just brought him back to life. he couldn’t die knowing he had allowed the Heroes to win. he had to come back, knowing he didn’t really do anything at all.

then they got their reward. the new universe, which he couldn’t even help to create. he was heralded as a god despite his uselessness. plopped into this world where the sky was a little too blue, the sun was a little too bright, the world was a little too perfect. this reality just like his but shifted slightly to the left. it felt wrong. it felt twisted.

and now what? all his life he’d been waiting to play the Game and be the Hero. and now it was over. what came after that? get a job? buy a house, find a partner, settle down and pop out babies? grow old and eventually die having contributed nothing of meaning?

no. that can’t be it. he was supposed to be a Hero, damnit. this world is just- just mocking him. this isn’t how the story ends. he never got his time to shine. he never got his moment of glory. this wasn’t fair. none of this was fair.

if the universe wasn’t going to give it to him, then he’d just have to take it himself.

[the-meat-machine]

In Defense of Ultimate Dirk

I am going to be honest: I have a hard time understanding why people think Ultimate Dirk is out of character. Because if there is one character I can believe would willingly take on the role of the villain if he thought it meant saving everything he held dear, it's Dirk.

See, Ultimate Dirk isn't Dirk just randomly becoming a villain. He's not suddenly acting mean for no reason. It's not even that he was destined to be a villain (though Dirk believes he was, and that plays into it). Ultimate Dirk is Dirk deliberately playing up his own worst traits in order to make himself the villain because that's the only path forward he can see -- not just for himself, but for everyone.

The way I see it, in the post-canon, Dirk's growing powers make him uncomfortably aware of several massive problems.

Problem 1

Dirk is a fictional character. All of his friends are fictional characters. And the story he's from is over. Without more canon coming out, Dirk is convinced that everyone and everything he loves is doomed to a slow slide into irrelevance. They will fade out of the public consciousness. Everyone will forget about them. And outside of the minds of the creator and the audience, Dirk et al. have no existence. Without more stories about them, there is no more of them. In Dirk's view, the end of canon is tantamount to death -- and not just for him. For everyone he cares about. This is the fundamental problem driving Ultimate Dirk. Nothing could be more important than ensuring that his friends' stories get to continue.

Problem 2

Dirk's growing Heart powers mean he is becoming intimately familiar with his friends' internal lives. More familiar than anyone would reasonably want to be. More familiar than anyone can be while retaining their own sanity and their respect for their friends. Dirk sees all the ways they're failing to live up to their potential. In fact, he can't NOT see all their little flaws, all the mistakes they make, all the bad decisions they justify to themselves, all the ways they could be more than they are but fail to live up to. To someone like Dirk, who feels intensely driven to guide his friends toward self-improvement, this must be absolutely maddening.

Problem 3

Dirk knows that his splinters are a Problem. Ultimate Dirk is the sum total of all Dirks, and that means that his consciousness now includes such luminaries as Bro Strider, Doc Scratch, Lord English, and Lil Cal. Ultimate Dirk knows intimately what his influence has wrought on Paradox Space, and it's not great! Splinters of his have had a hand in pretty much every awful thing that happens in Homestuck and in particular have deeply harmed Dave, the person who is perhaps most important to him in the universe. And now those splinters are part of him. He understands how they thought, why they did what they did. There are parts of him that feel that they were justified, even as he hates himself for it, hates himself for everything that he feels that he is. Everything he can see is pointing to him fundamentally being a callous, sadistic puppeteer. He's drowning in his own dismal persona and can't see any way to escape from it.

(One thing I'd like to note here is that Dirk's abilities as a fully realized Ultimate Prince of Heart, though extremely powerful, still have limitations. In particular, he cannot see the future. He can see what other versions of himself became, but he cannot see what he is going to become. But I don't think he notices that there's actually nothing that destines him to have to repeat his splinters' mistakes. His powers make him feel as though he already knows everything there is to know about himself. They make him inclined to see the Self as an immutable whole. It doesn't occur to him that the actions of his splinters don't have to dictate what he becomes. It doesn't occur to him that he could change.)

The "Solution"

So. Here is what I think is going on with Ultimate Dirk:

Dirk needs there to be more Homestuck. He wants his friends to live up to their potential. Forcing them to do so would be villainous… but a new villain is exactly what the story needs in order to continue. So, why not kill two birds with one stone? He can embrace the villainy he thinks he's destined to fall into anyway, puppeteer his friends to drag them in the directions he thinks they should go, and thereby spark a conflict that will kick off new stories and make his friends into even greater heroes. Really, he has the power to save his friends from oblivion. What sort of dick would he be if he didn't?

And if the course Dirk is planning ends with his own Just death at Dave's hands, well, it's only what he deserves... isn't it?

[nintendont2502]

I think. there's so much potential with Ult Dirk and fanworks- specifically their meta nature

Like. Idk fanworks are usually created to try and 'fix' a perceived problem in canon (even if that problem is 'character x not getting enough screen time' or 'x and y not fucking' yk). Ult dirks whole thing is trying to fix canon and trying to maintain relevancy (there's a whole interesting side tangent there about ult dirk - a character focused on maintaining narrative relevancy as a source of power - being trapped in Homestuck's post canon, which not only isn't narratively relevant to the source but also isn't relevant to the fandom (and is in fact widely hated) and wasn't even finished - I'd love to believe that was done on purpose but that's just me trying to squeeze any scrap of meaning out of post canon I think)

ANYWAY fanworks are a pretty good way to gain relevancy methinks - unpopular characters/characters screwed over or ignored by the narrative usually flourish in fanworks, right? *But* there's the inherent trade off there - sure, you're gaining narrative relevancy, but it's in a narrative you have no control over. You as a character are being filtered through someone else's voice at best, and at worse there's a whole new version of yourself out there. And just. Fuck how do you think ult dirk - the ultimate version of the guy who had a crisis about different versions of himself outside of his control - would feel, knowing that after he finally united all splinters of himself into one, that's there's God knows how many versions of that version of himself - none of them under his control

If you want to make it really meta, I could almost imagine a version of Ult Dirk, realising he's trapped in a comic that - let's be real here - is never going to get finished, and that no one cares about (and new fans are explicitly discouraged from reading) and getting so desperate for narrative relevancy again that he embraces those fanon versions of himself, allowing himself to become watered down and diluted by the countless different interpretations of him written by the fans in order to maintain his power (or even his existence)

[clockworkcheetah]

oooohh headcanons 👀 i don't know how to do the symbols so excuse me while i just type the words haha

angry - dirk

family - farah

cooking - todd?

☠ - angry/violent headcanon dirk has a lot of repressed anger- this isnt even a hc its just like… very clearly there especially in s2 particularly in blackwing. hes more chirpy side isnt a facade or anything- its totally genuine the guy is happy, but he hasnt exactly dealt his trauma surrounding blackwing and the built up resentment of his robbed youth. he has two main ways of expressing anger- the louder, aggressive rage that usually comes out, like in blackwing. its bitchy and defiant and what he usually falls into, cause its a result of fear/lashing out and also some self-hate/pity too. (and hes pretty mean but in a weird way hes kinda aiming to piss off the other person- like that was his intention with todd 2x07- to push him away) the other anger is just the total opposite- its this cold quiet seething rage. its almost pure hatred in nature and its eerie. isnt seen too much because it takes a lot for him to get that, either that or hes just so Over Everything and theres Nothing Left to feel anymore

♥ - family headcanon i know this was in the show bible and probably is no longer a thing in the shows canon anymore, but i do like the idea that farah comes from a decently large family and has several siblings- all brothers. her family isnt the most openly affectionate, just isnt their style and eddie is the sibling farah is closest too although the family dynamics have always been a bit strained, especially with farah feeling like she has too prove herself whilst feeling out of place with her family sometimes. its not awful by any means- but there were hairline cracks yknow her new found family with dirk and todd is a very different dynamic, cause theyre pretty openly affectionate people. its weird and kinda overwhelming at times and intense (but hey, she likes intense)

♒ - cooking/food headcanon todd can cook- hes no masterchef, but he can cook and hes easily the best cook of the agency trio. he rarely cooks for himself though- basically lives on takeout or minimal effort meals like cereal or sandwiches. he cooked very regularly for amanda, especially when she was sick (her comment in 1x01 about eating healthy makes me think he was making her meals) but even before that i think he was cooking for her in their childhood too, when their parents were working late but didnt want their kids ordering takeout all the time he also enjoys it because it keeps his hands busy (i hc he fidgets with his hands a lot) and cooking for others means hes needed and he likes knowing hes needed

thanks for the ask! 💖

headcanon asks

[yanderes-galore]

Fandom : Homestuck

Character : Dave Strider

Pairing : Romantic

Description : Just some regular Headcanons with the coolest Boy

Love your writings! :D

- Eridan Anon

Sure! This focuses on my take of him in Homestuck, if something is off I'm so sorry :( I wasn't sure if I wrote him right so I researched what I could.

Happy late Birthday to Dave, I share the same extended zodiac sign as him and I love his character :)

Not fully edited, may have spelling mistakes.

Yandere! Dave Strider Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Delusional behavior, Overprotective behavior, Trauma (Dave's backstory primarily), Manipulation, Kidnapping, Violence/Death, Stalking, Secret picture taking, Forced relationship.

I feel Dave is one that both tries too hard around you yet also puts up facades.

More than anything he feels he should protect you and that he knows best.

The above trait is something he shares eerily with Dirk due to the trauma he suffered with Bro.

He greatly cares about you but at the same time appears distant at times.

Dave tends to make music for fun and for his friends, playing a cool persona despite being quite vulnerable due to his past.

He tends to go on long rants and talks to himself and is quite mature.

He jokes but can take things seriously when he needs to, he also tries to not abuse his time powers.

Yet it's shown he'd go back in time to prevent the demise of any of his friends since he cares a lot.

Dave originally appears like he doesn't care about you or your interests.

Although, in reality, Dave really enjoys you and listening to you talk.

He remembers every interest you have to bring up later, just to hear you speak about it.

Dave is easily influenced by you too.

He really does think you're cool and if you bring up the fact you like something... Dave does his best to find a gift that goes along with it.

He'd talk to you over Pesterchum and send gifts to you at times.

He often wants to ramble at you about various things, like he's venting.

He'd love it if you listened, honestly.

In a way Dave displays delusional behavior as he thinks he knows how to care for you.

Part of him is certainly projecting trauma.

Similar to how he wanted to protect Jade because he liked her, he feels he has to do the same with you.

You can tell Dave has care towards you through the music and gifts he sends.

It's all tuned to your likes and interests, showing he does listen to you despite the front he puts up.

Honestly, due to his past I can see Dave wanting your praise.

He would want to feel validated through you.

Being there for him is enough to make him attached.

As I said before, he is eerily like Dirk Strider in terms of yandere behavior.

Dave may manipulate you without really meaning it.

This is due to the delusional thought that he knows best.

He knows kidnapping you, isolating you, and being the only one around you is wrong.

But to him is seems like the right thing to do.

Seeing the mortality of his friends and himself certainly doesn't help such thoughts.

If you were in his session he would use his powers to protect you.

Still tries not to abuse them, yet he can't see himself going on without you.

If you were both Derse Dreamers, Dave would want to find you to just talk.

Dave seems like he'd get unintentionally clingy.

Subconsciously he wants to get closer up until he eventually gives in and isolates you.

He just feels comfortable with you, you're so much more welcoming than Bro was to him.

He hates to upset you but finds it necessary at times.

How else is he supposed to keep you safe with him?

Dave is skilled in photography.

Which obviously means he tries to take as many pictures as he can of you.

Everything from shared selfies to more... candid and secretive pictures.

He keeps them in either an album or a folder on his PC to look at.

They bring him comfort.

Dave often suppresses his emotions.

While he does feel bad when he makes you upset, he can't be so easily driven by emotion to let you go.

Which is ironic... as he allowed emotion to drive him to the point of isolating and kidnapping you.

Dave doesn't mind you speaking to the others for the most part.

But he isn't afraid to restrict it eventually.

Dave doesn't mean to be so possessive and protective at times.

He unfortunately can't help it.

You're just about the only one he can cling to.

This leads him to trying to form a romantic attraction towards you.

He just wants you all to himself... for the protection and comfort of both of you in his eyes.

Dave would try his best to be affectionate.

It's difficult for him as he doesn't understand at first.

However, if you showed him affection before things went downhill, then he'll do that.

Tight hugs, attempted kisses, stuff like that.

For the most part he feels comfortable with the fact you're safe.

He tells you that in his rambles.

Dave no doubt would make songs that represent the two of you in his mind.

He'd then play them while sitting beside you, just enjoying the moment while you plot ways to leave.

Overall... I feel yandere Dave means well... but that does not make what he's doing right.

Due to his background and experiences... he's so obsessed with protecting and impressing you he loses himself.

Leading to Dave often neglecting your own feelings in favor his own.

[weirdmageddon]

What are your thoughts on some people calling Dave a misogynist? Tbh the only point I can agree with is that at one point Dave believed that Jade was a liability and needed protection but I don't think that Dave was sexist.

I don't know if you quit doing Homestuck analyses so I apologize if this bugs you.

i really can’t in good faith hold that against him at that point in the comic. it’s not as simple as “character is misogynist” (unless it actually is like in caliborn’s case lmfao. but still, you ask where that comes from and really it boils down to he just hates his sister calliope and anyone like her. which means girls. but yeah thats still ends up having the same effect as misogyny and his character is a parody of misogynistic guys)

lil cal is misogynistic / macho since it’s got caliborn’s spirit and a bunch of other junk inside of it

lil cal influenced bro and his attitudes of “coolness = machoness = heroism”

dave was influenced by bro

bro died and eventually dave grew into his own person without that influence, throwing off those shackles of needing to quietly be the hardest motherfucker in the room

this is still one of the best shortform video essays on this aspect of dave’s character and really explains it well, drawing comparisons to the brothers in the devil may cry series which i found very helpful even though i never played them. i highly recommend watching

watch this next one too, since i felt like the one above ended too abruptly without a proper wrap up. lots of good stuff in here too

and also he definitely got over that with jade

keep in mind bro JUST died when he called her “probably more a liability if she got it in her head to take him down” like he was talking to terezi and face down on the pavement. so he didnt have those three years to rid himself of that influence yet

and also a thing i never hear people talk about is how he was wrong about ALL his friends here, not just jade, which is more interesting to me. john got mad enough to pass out and beat the shit out of caliborn. rose did an acrobatic fucking pirouette off the deep end and went to fight jack, and after dying to him, her dreamself actually went on the suicide mission to blow up the sun that she had planned (except she didnt expect her waking self to be dead, after that development she assumed this mission was just going to obliterate her forever). jack (bec) noir wouldn’t hurt jade and she ended up becoming the most OP of the four kids that she had to be kept tranquilized for pretty much all of act 6

tldr: dave isn’t a misogynist but is easily influenced by his environment and the people he’s surrounded by in order for himself to feel loved. also in the post-scratch universe, dave is actually a figure of moral integrity to dirk which is a cool way to flip it around to see the other side

[applestorms]

clawed my way through (some of) the epilogues and hs^2 again for dirkjake crumbs and i think there is a Genuine place for ultimate jake to fit into canon (or at the very least, lord jake english) since meat timeline jake never actually shows up visually in hs^2 and his final appearance in that timeline (minus a phone call or something w/ roxy? or was it kanaya fuck) is giving ult. dirk his spaceship and then proclaiming his undying love while desperately trying to get dirk to let him join him, to which dirk responds that he’ll “never let [jake] break [his] heart again” (ch39). agony.

two interesting things about the end of his arc in meat actually: for one thing, it’s kinda implied that along with giving dirk a spaceship, he also gave dave/karkat/roxy/kanaya/etc a spaceship to chase after him, so he’s at least taken some action to try to stop him. again though, we never see him after that point so like. the idea that he could just hope himself into becoming an ultimate self in the background is actually kind of a possibility?? like while the others try to chase dirk down, jake is figuring out how to brute force himself into ascension as a backup plan. second thing, dirk is very snarky in the narration about the fact that this dramatic goodbye he’s giving jake is the last time he’ll ever get to see him (jake see dirk, i mean) but ult. dirk also seems to lack power against alt. calliope when they fight over the narrative so jake ascending would actually pose a serious threat and might be able to override that, assuming dirk’s power over the narrative extends that far in the first place (thinking about that post talking about how narration is also a reflection of characters’ thoughts…)

candy timeline jake is also pretty interesting since he very notably starts being advised by BGD to be a kind of spy on the inside against jane’s. whole thing in that timeline. i actually completely cannot remember what jane does in the meat timeline, i think also some presidency bullshit, right?? that’s what the davekat thing was about??? but anyway BGD sounds pretty normal in all his dialogue, or normal for BGD at least, and is aware of both the game over timeline and ult. dirk’s bullshit enough to make fun of it so. idk maybe i’m just misunderstanding how ultimate selves work, but the fact that BGD wasn’t really “integrated” into ult. dirk feels significant to me, especially considering the fact that we can see caliborn/LE’s influence on ult. dirk so much (his narration in ch39 gives AR too, frankly, like the epilogues are obvs way more openly horny than hs proper but AR was always kinda like that too, especially about jake). hs^2 also ends super abruptly with some lore shit i skimmed half heartedly between calliope, roxy, and john again talking about his initial decision between candy and meat. that whole conversation pretty deliberately frames the decision between meat and candy as being parallel to terezi’s coin flip about whether or not to kill vriska, and roxycallie even tell john straight up that he needs to get vriska again to fix the story, perhaps assuming that’ll work again since it did when he was retconning the timeline? but imo, though maybe i’m biased cause i didn’t really review what vriska does post-canon again, it seems more fitting to me that jake would be the one to fix the bullshit timelines, considering 1. dirk is the one going bananas out of his fucking mind w/ control of the narrative, 2. thematically, pumpkins are the most logical, healthy alternative to meat and candy, fitting since caliborn explicitly aligns dirk and jake’s color scheme with them in the smut-drawing conversation and since (in the same breath) he establishes that he hates them and prefers meat/candy. but that’s getting into sherlock secret final episode levels of conspiracy, and i’m not sure i’m ready for that one

[davekat-sucks]

I voted for Bro in the “who is the worst poll” because I assumed it is who is the worst “person” not who is the worst character or who is the character we hate the most (I can’t stand Cronus or Calliope. If you would have put Ult. calliope I would have jumped on that shit.) I voted Bro because of things Dave said throughout the story. One being Dave seems too into incest.

And there was something Dave said during Act 6 to Dirk directly. One of them being the “he shouldn’t have been around children” line. Then they added to the epilogue that Dave had respect that Dirk choose to end his life because Dave saw it as Dirk not wanting to be the person Dave warned him he could become and John undoing that choice would deny Dirk “his personal autonomy.” Even though I mostly ignore what the epilogue chose to do, I still think it had some relation to the original story. There’s even more things in the story that make me think Dirk is a predator too but I don’t want to draw this out any more. I still think it’s a strong possibility (I’m like 80-90% sure of this) that part of the story is that Bro diddled Dave before he turned 13.

Interesting. People had always thought of Bro to be a pedo. There's even an implication he had used Dave in smut filming with his puppets. Nobody ever thinks Dirk would have much predator traits. Probably because he is the same age as Jake and the others. At best, his actions at best seem more destructive (fitting for the Prince of Heart) than predatory. Some may think Lil HAL fits more in line with the predatory nature since the AI was also there to help execute and orchestrate the plans, even behind Dirk's own back. Would have love to put in Calliope or Ultimate Calliope, but I doubt she would get any decent amount of high votes considering the fanbase still believes she reps the "good fandom". Some even don't mind Ult Calliope taking over Jade's body. That's how much they hate Jade in general too. So then, may I ask this question. Why did Bro slice the meteor in half to save Dave when he needed to enter the game? Was it really just a moment in the flash to make him look cool? To save himself? Would Dave have entered the game after the egg breaks when the meteor struck?

Secondly, how did Davesprite escaped from Jack Noir after Bec got prototyped? Bro got killed by Jack after said prototype. Davesprite got wounded, but managed to escape. How? The likely answer was that Bro was able to protect him, even if Davesprite had sustained injuries. Which follows up on this.... Why? Why did he save Davesprite? What reason did he have to if he's not technically his brother from this timeline? And if one says that Davesprite ran away after getting hurt to leave Bro behind, why isn't cowardice or something like vengeance mentioned from Davesprite in the narrative by the time he joins with John and Dave in the ship? There nothing that hints of this even with Davepetasprite^2. Remember. Everything from Act 1 to Act 5 pre-Cascade, happened all the same. From John not getting the other present in Dad's car, Vriska creating the inevitable Jack Noir, Dad and Mom still dying, Murderstuck... everything still happened the same in both pre and Post Retcon. So Bro doing stuff like slicing the meteor and fighting Jack happened regardless of Retcon. Some also see Dave being a bit unfair towards Dirk when they meet during that speech. Dave is basically telling Dirk that it is likely every version of his Bro would become a bad person no matter what. That even if he and Bro are offshoots from each other, a version of Dirk will become that monster. He does not know what life Dirk had trying to grow up alone and trying to base Alpha Bros' actions and personality through the ironic movies. We barely even know if Alpha Bro himself was a good person too. Alpha Bro knew about The Condesce's plans and actions to take over the world. But all that guy did was make movies with subliminal messages saying how bad Betty Crocker, made money off it, and then when shit really hit the fan, he finally decided to join with Alpha Rose Mom to kill ICP and then dying To Condesce. Doesn't it question on why didn't Alpha Dave Bro kill The Condesce sooner since people on Earth had already adored him for his movies? Was there reasons for him not being able to approach Sea Hitler as she is, even with his own training to be as stealthy and fast like how Bro was? It's not like The Condesce can mind control humans. It has been shown and stated that even something like Vriska's powers, she can't control humans. Was part of him making so much money was to secure Dirk a good living condition since he would be rich? That can't be because the world has gone to shit and Dirk had to defend himself from The Condesce's army. Maybe it's because I am on the side that doesn't think Bro was that much of an abuser and that anything within Act 6, especially by Post Retcon, is shit that I cannot take seriously. But it still makes me wonder about Bro's last appearance in the timeline as well as what Alpha Dave was like past his achievements and demise. And if Dave really need to go on like that to Dirk.

[spandexinspace]

But you shouldn't listen to her.

Sequel time. Sort of. Follow up to "Mother Says", will be edited a final time and uploaded to AO3 at a later date.

___________________________________________

At first Querl figures Lyle will come around soon enough and concede that the logic to his argument is sound despite its unfortunate trigger. That he’ll agree that Querl was right all along. It won’t be the clean, near-painless end Querl had imagined, not with his mind already burning with every treacherous thought it can conjure up, endlessly repeating every word from their last conversation, but it’ll be an end.

But what starts as a day stretches into two, then three. Querl doesn’t leave the lab, buries himself in work that’s not nearly advanced enough to keep him from thinking about other matters, the spectre of things to come always present in his mind. Though he doesn’t normally dream he refrains from sleeping, unsure and, as much as he hates to admit it, a little afraid of what could come of it.

On the fourth day he finally gives in to the itching curiosity and ventures out to the monitor board to check the team roster. It’s late enough in the evening that most of his teammates are preoccupied with other matters, leaving only Dirk to keep watch over the wide array of monitors in the room. He’s sitting with his back turned towards the door as Querl enters, as oblivious as ever. The main monitor shows that there are two away teams, a total of ten people including Lyle, with one seemingly being engaged in something planetside and the other being labelled as off-world. Usually that means they are operating outside of a named territory. Potentially very far away.

"How long has the off-world team been away?" Querl asks Dirk, who seems much more interested in figuring out at what angle his chair will tip over than actually monitoring anything.

"Two days, maybe? Shouldn't you know?" he says, craning his neck to look back at Querl.

"It’s not my job to keep track of other Legionnaires.”

“Like you’re not just keeping track of your sprock-buddy.” It would take so little effort to kick that chair out from under him and watch that smug face get wiped off his face. Or at least to use a force field to do it. But it would take even less effort for Dirk to retaliate — Querl wouldn’t put it past him to do that — and he would rather avoid the inconvenience that could introduce at a time like this.

“Did I ask for your opinion, Sun Boy?” Querl asks instead, settling for glaring at him, though Dirk seems infuriatingly unaffected by his odium.

“Oh sorry, mom, I thought we lived in a free country.”

“This isn’t a country. And don’t call me that!” Querl turns on his heel to leave, and if Dirk shouts something that sounds suspiciously like ‘sincerest apologies, mother’ after him he pretends he didn’t hear it. What a sprocking prick. As if any of this is any of his business in the first place.

Another three days crawl by in an excruciatingly slow fashion, every minute seeming to stretch out into hours of painful wait, filled to the brim with uneasy anticipation.

Gates drops by the lab at some point, ranting about one injustice or another. It’s not an effective distraction, few things really are when Querl’s mind is set on something, but it’s easy enough to let him ramble on, to only interject a question here and there. Gates doesn’t ask difficult, invasive questions and doesn’t concern himself with their biped drama. It’s a nice reprieve.

Other than Gates’ visit there are unusually few distractions. Some of his other teammates come by to ask their usual inane questions, but none linger. Luornu is thankfully also with the away team, removing her sometimes far too prying eyes and ideas of supposed siblinghood from his life. Her concern comes in waves, he suspects her different selves don’t quite agree on how much of a nass they should give about him, but when she’s determined to bother him she rarely just lets things go. Querl is thankful for the relief. He’ll have to confront the rest of them one day, but it seems easier to do that at another time.

Almost 170 hours pass before Lyle returns to the lab. Querl, finally buried deep enough in his work to almost block out every other thought and idea and how tired he should be, doesn’t notice him until he’s standing next to him, a dark spectre at the edge of his vision.

“Lyle,” he says, snapping up from the monitor in front of him, fumbling to pause the near-endless scroll of input of data on it.

“Yeah, hi, we need to talk. Preferably somewhere slightly more comfortable than right here.” Lyle smiles tightly. There’s a smear of something grey across his cheek and dark rings under his eyes, his entire presens radiating an unsettling energy. Querl squirms in his seat. An urge to reach out, to take his hands in his own and tell him that everything will be OK, almost overtakes the rational part of Querl’s mind, clashing against it like rough waves against a surge gate. It’s selfish, it won’t help him in the long run, he tells himself.

“Where would that be?” he asks instead, standing up.

“Living area of your quarters?” Querl nods deftly and lets Lyle lead the way from the lab to his adjacent quarters.

Well inside Lyle gingerly sits down on the small, dark-grey couch in the centre of the room, though not before having to move a stack of folded blueprints out of the way. The couch is not comfortable and as far as Querl knows hasn’t served as much more than extra storage space since that was confirmed, but he suspects that’s not the main reason why Lyle looks so uneasy, sitting there with his legs and arms crossed and a resolute expression on his face. Clearing and taking the seat on the other side of the couch Querl feels the unease envelop him too as he lingers on the far edge of the seat, as if ready to spring up at any moment. He looks towards Lyle, fidgeting with his flight ring as he waits for him to say something.

“I suppose hoping for you to start was too much to ask for.” Lyle sighs. “Are we still doing this?”

“This?” Querl asks, his mind running through at least a dozen ideas of what ‘this’ could entail. The conversation, the previous conversation, their acquaintanceship as a whole…

“You know exactly what I mean,” Lyle says, uncrossing his arms to gesture towards him. “Breaking up, taking your sprocking mother’s advice. This entire idiotic thing.”

“Why is me caring about you all of a sudden idiotic?”

“Because you’re framing it like you care about me, but you’re refusing to listen to what I’m actually saying! I’m not ready to give up on this, us, but you seem so damn intent on it all of a sudden.” Lyle doesn’t get it, he’s focusing on the wrong things again, acting like this whole thing is on Querl. As if it can not be true just because his mother brought it up.

“It’s not about what I want, it’s about what has the most beneficial outcome in the long run. And we have no evidence that this is it.” Surely Lyle, of all people, should be able to understand that.

“What kind of evidence could there be? Do you want to peer review our relationship? Perhaps create a control group and apply for a grant?”

“Be serious. Evidence that this kind of relationship can even have a favourable outcome in the first place. We’re not a common coupling, perhaps there’s a reason for that.”

“Oh? Could that reason be that there are like twelve Coluans living off-world and most of them are centuries older than you?” Lyle asks. Despite the edge of mockery in his voice he’s not wrong. Most Coluans aren’t cleared to go off-world until they’re a lot older than him, and most of them are taught to keep to themselves. He is, as he so often is, an anomaly in that regard. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t disprove the untested nature of their relationship.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Lyle falls quiet and Querl risks meeting his stare, dark and rimmed and looking almost as tired as he feels, swirling with something desperate. When Lyle speaks again it’s in a lower voice, devoid of the earlier edge.

“Querl, I love you. I’ve loved you for years and I knew what I was getting into when I started dating you,” he says. “This is absurd. I don’t need you to act like you’re saving me something.”

“What do you need?”

"I need you to trust me enough to talk to me about these things, and to trust my opinion over your mother’s. There's no point in us being together if you can't do that." Querl fumbles for words, his mind drowning in engulfing dark brown eyes and venomous thoughts he shouldn’t listen to, telling him he should just go along with it. He looks away.

“Discussing certain subjects could be hurt- or even harmful,” he says, biting back anything but the bare logic. His feelings don’t matter, won’t change the pain he’s capable of causing, he has to ignore them.

“And you think this isn’t hurtful?” Lyle’s voice rises again. “You think I’ve been having a great week of not feeling like shit because my relationship started falling apart out of nowhere?”

"It was not my intention to hurt you."

"Which is a great thought, but your intentions don’t mean nass if this is what you’re doing with them. You can't decide for yourself what will hurt me or what's good for me.” Lyle stops, breaths an uneven, shaky breath. “At least not, you know, with these things. That has to be a conversation."

“Being forced to make a decision could be more hurtful.” Querl grits his teeth, tries to keep himself focused, to ignore the ever increasing buzz of regret at the back of his mind threatening to spill forth the second he missteps. He needs to be better.

“Not being given a choice is always going to be more hurtful in the long run. You should know that.”

“I’ve never be-”

“In life, at large, not just relationships. Look at me!” Against his better judgement his eyes snap back to Lyle’s own. He’s drowning again. “There, great. Everything you’ve told me about your past makes it sound like you’ve been jerked around at every opportunity, did you like that? Was that fun for you?”

“It’s not the same,” he replies lamely, feeling his focus and resolve falter even as he’s saying it.

“Isn’t it? No one has ever tried to do something you hated because they thought it was helpful? Grief, Querl, this can’t be the first sprocking time you’ve ever had to think about this.”

“Maybe not,” he offers. A large part of his time on Colu feels like a blur these days, an indistinguishable mass of time that was never quite his. He’d hated it, he’d felt nothing, he’d lost himself in his work until he’d stopped feeling like he had to be an actual person too, shutting everything out except when he couldn’t. “But I… This is entirely different from what my life was before the Legion, even before the anomaly and my mother’s return,” he continues, his mouth dry. Before he’d felt so many things and known there was a future outside of the endless pursuit of trying to make up for the crimes of his ancestors. ”And this isn’t about me.”

“It is, though. You can’t tell me you’d be fine with me trying to dictate your life. That’s not what this is supposed to be about,” Lyle says, leaning forward, face hard-set.

“How am I supposed to know what this is about. It’s just... It’s just complicated.” Querl’s eyes sting and his pulse pounds in his ears.

“So complicated you don’t want to do it?” He should say yes, lie and finally cut them both loose.

“... No.”

“Great, then we’re still on the same page about that, at least. Incredible work, wanna talk about the actual issue now or should we keep arguing around it all night?”

“No, I suppose not.” Querl breaths in, trying to gather himself, his mind filled with the jagged pieces of his shattered resolve. “Do you find it acceptable to date someone who will not age at the same rate as you do, primarily physically but potentially also mentally?” he asks, mechanically, for a nauseating split second reminding himself of his mother and her script.

"Yeah, again, I'm not sure we'll be dating forever. Which isn't an indictment, relationships aren't meaningless or bad or a waste of time just because they don't last forever, but it does mean that it might not even be an issue in the first place,” Lyle says, nonchalant if not for the guarded set of his face. A mask good enough that most wouldn't see through it.

"And if it is?" Querl prompts.

"I don't know, it’s hard to say without knowing exactly how it’ll play out. I guess I might want kids someday and that could be hard for, well, several reasons. But I stopped planning that far ahead after what happened to Jac. I’d rather just let this take its course and see where it ends, but I need to know I can trust you to do that. What about you, are you fine with doing this?

"I-...” He hesitates. “I never thought I’d actually have a choice in the matter."

"But if you did?"

Querl shakes his head slowly, eyes faltering. Nights of sleeplessness and the receding heat of the argument start to overtake him, numbing both his body and mind. His head swims, filled with thoughts of years of not knowing and often not even caring what happened to him as a person. He has no idea what he wants. He wants Lyle, to reach out to him and feel his warm skin against his own and forget every stupid idea he’s ever had and the last week of trying to convince himself that he needs to do better. To give in to his own selfish, hungry desires.

Lyle pulls off his gloves and reaches for his hands, stopping just short of touching them.

"Can I?" he asks. Their eyes meet. Querl nods, then grasps Lyle’s hands himself. The touch of his hands, marked and scared by years of work beyond his age, is warm and familiar. Lyle rubs his thumbs over his knuckles.

"So, you don’t know and I don’t know. Kinda seems to me like we just have to find out for ourselves," he says with a softness Querl doesn’t deserve.

"I suppose so." He takes a breath, feels it burn in his throat. "I am sorry that I didn't talk to you first. And for making you feel bad. It was not my intention, but it wasn’t right."

"Thank you. I'm sorry for kinda blowing up at you."

"It may, perhaps, have been justified." Querl blinks, forcing back the stinging sensation in his eyes.

"Maybe so, but still. Friends?"

"Perhaps slightly more?" Querl asks, daring a half-hearted grin.

Lyle snorts.

"Fair, good, saves me from having to break into your room later," he says, amusement evident in his voice. The tension in Querl’s chest starts to dissolve, seeping out of him with every word.

"And why would you need to do that?"

"Well, it turns out most of my clean shirts are here now."

"And theft is easier than getting your laundry done?"

"Obviously."

Querl closes the gap between them, moving across the uncomfortable couch until he can lean into the curve of Lyle’s body and let the familiar warmth fully overtake him.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Me too.” Lyle lets go of one of his hands to wrap an arm around his waist, tugging him closer yet. “It hasn’t been great.”

“I’m sorry.” It seems so easy to say it now, so trivial to forget the heat of the previous moment now that it’s over.

“It’ll be alright. We’ll learn from it.”

“Yeah.” Querl leans his head on Lyle's shoulder, letting his hair cascade over his shoulder. He presses a quick, chaste kiss to his neck and wraps his own free arm around his waist, burying himself in his presence. “Am I selfish, for wanting this?” he asks, voice low.

“Am I selfish for wanting this?” Lyle asks in return, squeezing his hand.

“No.”

“Then there you go. It’s fine to want things.” Lyle lets go off his waist, lazily dragging his warm hand across Querl’s back until it comes to rest at the nape of his neck, his fingers softly intertwining themselves in the slightly too long hair there. A shudder travels down his spine. He hooks the hand at Lyle’s waist into his belt, the metal cold against his hand. Feeling Lyle against him, smelling the faint mix of his cologne, sweat and space travel, his strong arm resting against Querl’s back and the slight softness of his stomach against his knuckles, feels like home. Like he belongs there, despite what his mother or rationality might say.

He can’t even begin to imagine how much he would have missed this.

Lyle turns his head, nuzzling into Querl’s hair. "Still doesn’t make any sense how you can have such nice hair.”

"Inferior human hair follicles, hm?" he hums, not entirely sure if Lyle will hear him at all. His body suddenly feels heavy, like the last days' worry has finally started to settle over him. He blinks, each time slower than the last, having to fight just a little harder each time to open his eyes again.

"Nah, I think some cosmic force decided you have to be just as attractive as you're difficult to deal with."

"I'm not difficult," Querl says, stifling a yawn.

"Uhu, and you're also not falling asleep on me right now?"

"Sprock you," he says, pressing another kiss to Lyle’s neck.

"Love you too, though I need to shower off all the space dust if you've decided it's bed time."

Querl sighs and gives Lyle's neck one last kiss before he starts to unfold himself, not at all inclined to let go of any part of his partner or welcome the cold that settles over his skin when they’re not touching. He doesn’t want to let go of him again. Not now, perhaps not ever.

"You can join, if you want," Lyle offers, sounding just as tired as he feels. “I’ll even let you use some real shampoo.”

"I've already showered today and, as you may recall, last time I took you up on that offer we had anything but a quick shower." Querl clears his throat. He supposes that’s technically a lie. The actual shower was quick enough.

"Hm, yeah. Oh well, give me a few." Lyle stands up and stretches out his arms above his head, freezing halfway through the motion to glance back down at Querl. "You are OK with me sleeping here again, right?"

"Unequivocally.”

[borzoilover69]

I know that you've already kinda figured out why dirkjakers like LE jake but I want to offer a more mundane reason and that is the absolute power fantasy that this man offers. I hate epilogues with a passion that could burn universes but ult dirk? My bpd ass was in shambles (that's why I'll someday make an essay on why dirk strider homestuck has bpd and/or npd), having control over people, over narrative itself, and most importantly fucking desimating your ex who called you clingy that one time while simultaneously still being obsessed with him, I've never lived vicariously through a character so much in my life. He is a horrible person but I Get him. "What would you do with this power" he asked the audience, and I solemnly nodded bc I would do the same thing (probably). And I suspect power fantasy LE jake offers is the same for some people bc don't you want to go apeshit? Don't you want to stop (not very successfully) conforming and be weird and off-putting freely? Don't YOU want to desimate YOUR ex? Both ult dirk and ult jake are what audience wants them to be and I think the audience wants them to be powerful, insane and murderous bc we ourselves cannot be like that irl. Their relationship is cathartic, their actions are cathartic, it's like religion if you relate to the god from old testament. Or I'm projecting big time which is also a possibility

Everyone take notes because this anon is speaking cold true facts and this shit is getting carved into the walls. I agree with the Dirk Strider has BPD headcanon, I offer up to you the Jake has BPD too headcanon in return.

I like the idea of Jake going batshit insane. I think a lot of people do, after all if the ancestors were anything to go off of, Jake and Dirk are pretty nuts.

Also fun sort of related fact, really fond of Ultimate Jake, it's because it plays into the mythos of their Demiurges / Denizens and how important that is to their stories. (I'm getting autistic here). Yaldaboath (Dirks Denizen, Destroyer of Peace) is considered a false god, harbinger of chaos, and uses the light he inherits from his mother, Sophia (personification of light and wisdom) to try to rise above others, even if he is blind and is not as aware of the aeons as his mother is.

Jesus destroyed Yaldaboaths kingdom and thus, Yaldaboath had him crucified, made a martyr. But before his martyrdom could set in, Jesus ascended and returned to the world. In Gnosticism, they viewed Yaldaboath as evil, and that Jesus had to overcome him "by destroying the Jewish Temple with an Earthquake lifting the veil or Yaldabaoth’s curtain of illusion, by Jesus’ resurrection and rapture. "

Now, who do we have quite literally representing Jesus Christ himself? Okay, you're going to say Karkat, but do you know who *specifically* represents the place where Christ himself died and was made a martyr and the rapt- OK ITS JAKE ENGLISH OKAY ITS JAKE ENGLISH. And the sufferer BUT THATS NOT IMPORTANT.

There's quite a few parallels with Yaldaboath being one that wanted to be recognised as a god and in his jealous fury condemned a mortal god and Dirk Strider. There's quite a few parallels between Jesus Christ, Karkat, and Jake English, his rapture and ascension. There's an INSANE amount of parallels between Yaldaboath's mother, Sophia, and Rose Lalonde. Even down to Rose going grimdark, which Sophia DOES, after she loses her light, which is something i'll go on about in another ramble. Thematically, if we're following gnosticism, Jesus Christ, aka Jake English, is the one able to recognise and overcome Yaldaboaths illusion, aka Dirk Strider. It just makes SENSE.

[choctalksalot]

@tipsygnostalgy HELLO HI UH THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE VERSION. i snipped out some bits because im throwing down anxiety in.the ring even posting this. im frankly a little embarrassed i can't give everything tonight even what i have down as okay to upload is not my top form at all, im just really really excitedaaaa i'll probably reblog the lovers post with a complete version eventually, but for now this is the best thanks i can offer for the nigh lethal dose of dopamine you've shot into my skull.

apologies in advance for my verbosity it's chronic

im posting dirk's half first because i definitely talked too much on jake's. it's almost double the length. i think it's partially because ive chewed through dirk so much i can make it through a considerable amount of his sections without dissolving completely. and i'm impatient!

note: my interactions with philosophy are limited to the two month bonanza i spent when i was 14 which i barely remember due to my general memory issues because my philosophy teacher was shit at his job and i took matters into my own hands, and uh. dirkjake! and one character from one other fandom. yeah. i am a nerd who loves breaking shit down, i love information, and i love philosophy nonetheless but i am So unqualified to be doing any of this

entry 1:

can i scream? i'm screaming. out loud. in real life. holy two fucks and a half. what do i even say it's So Good. dirk could excuse his inadequacy with the minute comfort that the brother he idolizes is functionally perfect in a way he could never conceivably live up to be. everything is shattered when he meets a version of him who is on the same footing. Yes. i literally have a post typed up about it.

im copypasting a small segment here but it's so close to exactly what you said im almost unnerved. mostly excited tho i am SHAKING

the most devastating thing to know is that dave is just a guy. dave strider, 16 year old. human and flawed and still enough in ways dirk never could be. what he did for his team his friends the things dirk couldn't, he is made to serve and no matter how hard dirk tries he cannot live up to be the same because this is not his role.

words? words. that's so much many words.

this is not his class. he is doomed to be selfish, his thread is already in the tapestry and he falls right into the path no matter how much he fights it. what can be counted as him indirectly the plot was created at the service/detriment to himself (hal) and what is himself directly aiding his party is in fact orchestrated by other more helpful, more selfless people and he hates it so much.

YES IT'S EXACTLY THAT RIGHT THERE RIGHT RIGHT THERE dirk is so so So aware that he is selfish that he cannot help the people he cares about oh so deeply and the knowledge that dave on his own, after being hurt so much "more" than dirk direct abuse he was able to pull through, he was still enough. shit man !!!!!!!

funnily enough i think dirk might have been able to learned new skills to do with his classpect besides the passive narrative bend it has on everything he does to destroy. this is entirely theory but your classpect and your development with it helps you develop as a person. it's like a muscle if you think about it; the more you use it, the closer you get to its core, the more you learn to bend ithad he tried to use it (resisting the urge to say like dave did because that will stomp on the shattered pieces of my heart) i think he would have gotten a bit more control over his position in the narrative if it makes sense.

ironically, i think learning how to direct the destructice force his classpect gives him might have allowed him to get a hold on said narrative bending, and stop unintentionally wrecking shit. but doing Anything as a prince is the last thing dirk wants.

(god it's so tragic this theory is so tragic without it dirk was always doomed to the inevitable but with it he could have done better in his eyes nevermind that destruction of selves isn't always bad if you know how to direct it, see bgd @ aranea, but it literally requires him to take the path he's trying to hard to fight. you define how your classpect changes you. oh dirk.)

i think a lot about this if you can't tell

FUCK IM GETTING OFF TRACK. STOP OKAY CAN THE THEORIES FUCK.

[insert 2 paragraphs more of me screaming about the katana line hally lieu yeah]

entry 2:

HAL MY FAVOURITE KENTUCKY FRIED FUCKER HELLOOOO HELLO OOHOHOGO

god my old hyperfixation on deep learning models is coming back to bite me in the jungular. delightful slash gen

dirk does love his control mhmm mhmm god im gonna go dig up that picture my friend sent me once one sec

that's who he wants to be. so badly

he Hates not understanding shit prides himself on being the (im quite sure it's part of how he gauges his use. he has a very utilitarian view on it. being the one to pull the strings thus being useful by virtue of organizing their success. proceeds to eat gcatshit trying)

i think a part of why dirk insists so fucking much that hal is Not him and Not alive could be one of two 2 reasons, beyond the already tangled pumpkin patch of conflict.

1) not taking credit for hal's contributions. the fact that hal has served the team without dirk's direct orders + dirk's objective pride about being the puppetmaster, he wouldn't want this tied to him

i doubt this one honestly, it's incoherently explained on its own because it's really late but also it just there's a lot of holes in the logic here. the second one breaks my heart a little:

2) if he accepts hal to be sentient, he has to accept he has created a new conscious person. he cannot cling to any notion that he did help his friends, he created an intelligent AI and that tool he made in turn was used to aid and guide his friends. he is still in control here. he still helped, he built that bot and it helped.

right?

[cutoff point 2. im rushing. im so sorry ajsjaj]

entry 3:

killing me

"He likes emotion, he likes people, he just wants to be completely perfect when interacting with them so that he’ll never lose them." YES. YES. YES YES YES yes okay yes exactly Yes

this is one of the things i headbutt against in dirk fandom stuff a lot (even borzoi's take once i think correct me if im wrong) it's the fact that i think dirk likes people. he's been alone his whole life yet he delights in dialectics and dialogue, he's socially awkward and introverted but he's not socially averse. i am not gonna let myself run over the hills and far away with this tangent but i am hushdhsj AAAAA

what he doesn't like is feeling inadequate interacting with people. he doesn't like being inadequate in general he reflects on his flaws near constantly and the biting reminder of his alternate selves' sins in the back of his mind doesn't help, but with people he Cares About interacting with them he does not like not knowing what to do, he does not like being unable to navigate these situations. he likes being human and experiencing emotions and connection and he hates the fact that it requires error to the trials, he just wants to be entirely logical while still having a metaphorical right brain totally not a big thing to ask for ahshdhskjrh[explodes]

AHAAAAA SISYPHUS YYYES YES YRS EYSBEYDHHWHEHSHEHD FUCK YES oh man i am much more a theatrical literature person so this is ringing off bells in the wrong direction than intended but im reading reading reading chewing

"upon facing the question of the absurd in the fullest extent, one can either choose to kill themselves or make a ‘reply.’" hogh

two roads: become god, or kill yourself. jesus fuck that's a screwed up twitter thread if ive seen one. and of course he picks the secret third option: Both. absolute DiStri Moment™

fuckitweballkind that's joining my regular vocabulary holy shit your language is amazing

this feels like an extension of dirk's dilemma between subjective experience with objective control; coming to grapple with the unpredictability of his absurdist existence and his solution being to take control of the narrative entirely. i feel like there are a lot more dots i could connect here. i will sleep on this

[addition i feel is important even though it has minimal connection as of right Now:

roxykisser put out something about classpects and the ult self being the literal narrative very recently and how they tie into the narrative and it's That it's that. my take is partly influenced by past fandoms but it has always ruined me that in order to god tier, quite literally, you're killing the person you were before the embrace the narrative role. you the actor are giving up your freedom to the performance, and the closer you get to your classpect the more you embrace the narrative. in return, you gain more flexibility and control in said narrative, more ways to use your classpect. to become the ult self is to become the role. you kill the person, you become the role, but at the cost of your self, your mind may be driven by the consciousness of an amalgamation of every You, but your core is now your role.

im incorporating and altering this with my consumption]

really hope this is like at least mildly entertaining i have no idea what im doing but!!!! I Am So Abnormal About Everything i love this i love you i love love this so Much

[the-meat-machine]

what's your thoughts on most of caliborn's ships (like him with all/any of the alpha kids, his sister, the handmaid, etc) ((feel free to choose any of the ones you rarely talk about, I genuinely wanna hear your thoughts.))

oh heck yes let's see

dirk

i don't think i need to elaborate on how much i love this ship seeing as i'm currently writing a fucking novel about them. though i will mention that this is a ship that i ship in two totally different ways - "predictably, they make each other worse" and "against all odds, they make each other better". two delicious flavors with very different moods

jane

this could be a really fun kismesissitude! jane despises him, and for good reason - he's absolutely vile towards her. but honestly, i think it could be cathartic for her to have an acceptable target to take out all of her frustrations on

they'd have to be on an equal footing though, with jane able to get one over on caliborn at least as often as he triumphs over her. which might be kind of a tough sell, since caliborn is genuinely extremely threatening. he's on a whole other level from most characters in this story

(kind of a side note, but this power imbalance is an issue for most caliborn relationships unless you're looking for tragedy or whump where caliborn just straight-up slaughters the other person in the end. caliborn is a total idiot, but he is so damn effective at achieving his goals that it's basically impossible to get the better of him in the long term. he may lose individual battles, but he will never, ever lose the war. pretty much the only way i've found to resolve this in more light-hearted works is to change the rules of the game that caliborn has decided he's playing.)

jake

another fun one. i think that jake is one of the few people who could actually be capable of throwing caliborn off. i want to see caliborn baffled and infuriated by seeing this weenie accomplish the literally impossible with his bullshit hope powers. i want to see jake inspired to step up his game in order to show this cad who's boss! i want jake to either fucking hope caliborn into a better person, or cheerfully steamroll him while acting like it's nothing

jake absolutely has the capability to keep caliborn on the defensive buried somewhere deep inside him. now, can he believe in himself long enough to exercise it? who knows! (but… maybe caliborn wants him to believe in himself enough for that. maybe he wants to see what jake could do if he really let loose. maybe he wants to build him up into a worthy opponent. fuck i love pitch/pale vacillation.)

roxy

i... don't think i've ever seen this ship, actually. maybe not that surprising since they never actually talk to each other in canon. i'm not so sure about this one - roxy hates caliborn, but not in a sexy way, and it's all driven by her care for calliope. you could maybe go in some kinda dark direction where she's hunting him down to get revenge for calliope but starts kind of guiltily getting off on it? hm

john

i'm including this one mostly because i think it could be intriguing, but i haven't given it enough thought to really have a feel for their dynamic. my gut says it could be an interesting kismesissitude, though. give john something to focus on other than moping around all depressed. and his retcon powers pose a genuine threat to caliborn, so that's something

dave

please don't subject dave to caliborn

damara

this one i think is funny because damara worships lord english. she longs to serve him. but imagine her meeting caliborn and realizing that this wretched little shit is her god. holy shit would she be pissed. hilarious.

i also have an au where caliborn, damara, and meenah are "friends", by which i mean they're always hanging out together for some reason even though they all openly despise each other. fun dynamic

bro

this has the potential to be both hilarious and incredibly fucked up. bro meets the guy behind his best puppet bro. does he like cal as much when he's not plush? (no.) does he feel used? is he even capable of realizing that what he's feeling is "used"? didn't he want to be used? (...did he ever really stop to wonder what he was being used for, until now?)

also caliborn would just flat-out think bro is smokin' hot. the ideal man. it don't get better than this.

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and then, finally. the big one. the most important caliborn ship. yes, way more important than dirkuu:

calliope

yin and yang. two halves of a whole. they define each other. they need each other. they need each other to die. their relationship is foundational for both characters and they were absolutely both horny about it. this is canon i stg

very, very difficult to turn into a long-term relationship, however, because caliborn will always, always, truly and genuinely, want calliope dead, even as he craves her, even as he envies everything that she has and he never will have. the tragedy of their relationship is that they need each other, deeply and utterly, but they cannot both survive.

and in canon, caliborn wins! he achieves his biggest goal! he eliminates calliope for good! ...and then as lord english he spends untold eternities literally chasing her ghost. and he can tell himself it's because she's a threat to him, which of course she is. but... would he really have anything left to live for if she wasn't out there, somewhere, to be his white whale?