APPLICATIONS | 2012; 01

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Dirk Strider | Homestuck

[artfulironicist]

Player nickname: Leah
Player DW: brb_evil
Way to contact you:
Email: malea.botor[at]gmail[dot]com
AIM: moralsremitted
Are you at least 15?: Y.
Current Characters: N/A

Character: Dirk Strider
Fandom: Homestuck
Character Notes:
History: The humans in Homestuck exist in two separate universes, the original one being the Beta Universe and the rebooted version of that universe being the Alpha Universe. This version of Dirk is from the Alpha.

The Beta Universe introduces us to four kids, John, Rose, Dave and Jade. They live in a universe similar to our own, except that it contains a good deal more gaming attributes as part of daily life, that nobody is surprised about. For instance, no-one just puts something in their pockets or a bag. They have a sylladex, an inventory that comes in a series of different varieties. Everyone has one they think of as the best, and you can have more than one equipped at once. Some of them are completely non-corporeal, and seem to exist in assort of hammerspace, whereas John’s Dad’s sylladex is his wallet. Items in the inventory go into cards. Dirk’s sylladex, later on, is revealed to be a ‘Tech-Hop’ sylladex, a grid wherein all columns have to rhyme, and all rows have to have the same theme. There is also a special, separate inventory for weapons, called the strife deck. In order to use specific items as weapons, they have to be allocated to a special strife card. You can’t just pick up a bat and swing it at someone, you have to have a card for BatKind. Dirk has a strife card for SwordKind, PuppetKind, and Fancy SantaKind.

The other effect these gaming attributes have on the story, is that no-one finds it odd that they are fully immersed in the central game of the story. All of the kids end up playing a game called S’Burb, in which the player that is server to another player’s client can move random crap around in the client’s house, and this is just completely ordinary.

Dave had an older brother, referred to only as Bro, who raised him after finding him as a baby in an asteroid crater. Through a series of complicated game mechanics, Bro is technically Dave’s dad, but he raises him basically like an older brother, with a lot of pranking, and training him in swordfighting. He never speaks in-story, but through Dave, and their small apartment, we learn that Bro is obsessed with puppets, irony and rap. Bro saves Dave a couple of times, including an incident where he cuts a meteor in half to buy Dave time, and later dies, trying to defeat the super-powerful accidental boss, Jack Noir. Thanks to their creation of Jack Noir, however, the kids are relying on a method called the Scratch which will hard reboot the game, and refashion it so that they can start from the beginning.

Refashioning it, however, ends up swapping the kids with their guardians, which now means that Bro is a 15 year old kid called Dirk whose older brother guardian is Dave. Or perhaps isn’t. At the moment, it’s still fairly ambiguous, but something has happened to both Dave and Rose in this alternate reality. They are possibly dead or replaced or something. Roxy, Rose’s daughter, refers to Rose as being “dead”, saying that she tried to convince Jane (John’s granddaughter) of this. However, both of them refer to their brother/mom in their intros as being someone alive. No matter what, it’s safe to assume that Dirk lives primarily alone, as either way, his brother is a famous Hollywood personality. Dirk is friends with the new set of kids, and is already attempting to plan a way for them to succeed in the game. He’s queer, and dislikes the term “gay”, as being outdated. Roxy still considers him off-limits, and he, like the two girls, has a massive crush on Jade’s grandson Jake. He has an extravagant plan to tell him about it within the game.

Like Bro, Dirk is into puppets, irony and rap, but he’s additionally into robots, artificial intelligence, horses, and probably the furry subculture. He built Jake a robot that looks like himself for him to spar with, in an attempt to train Jake to be a “killing machine”. He also designed an auto-responder using a captchalogue of his own brain so that he could have conversations with it. His dreamself (something which every player of S’burb has) is awake all the time, and he uses it to gather info about the game before it starts.

In the alternate reality, Betty Crocker controls the entire world.
Personality: Dirk is a clever kid, and as someone incredibly intelligent, somewhat overestimates his capabilities. He is invested in making sure he retains full control over every aspect of the game, enough so that the auto responder based on his own brain also wants to have full control, resulting in a good deal of plan bantering between the two of them. Dirk can’t do anything off the cuff, or unplanned, he has to be in control, and have it fully planned out, attempting to account for all the variables. For instance, he can’t just TELL Jake he has a crush on him, he has to have a huge scenario planned out, based on psychology, and situations he sees as arising within the game. This aspect of control also affects the way he deals with his own emotions. He never lets himself physically express them, because to him, that would imply he was somehow lesser.

According to Roxy, Dirk used to be more fun, and have more fun with things. My assumption would be he forced himself to do a lot of growing up, and taking on of responsibility once Dave died, or was replaced, or whatever happened to him. Perhaps that affected part of his tendency to plan, and his need for control: he doesn’t want to lose anyone else, and feels that if he’s planned for every possible eventuality, he can direct every situation. It’s reflected in his obsession with puppets and robotics, even if he believes strongly in the free will of his robotics, they are still both fields where ultimately, he is the one with control over them. He is not physically there, as Bro was for Dave, but providing Jake with the Brobot is his way of preparing him for anything. It fights against itself in his interactions with Jake and Jane. He wants Jake to be less gullible, so that he won’t just follow any directions, free will. But he wants Jane to be less gullible, putting a certain amount of control in the hands of others.

Dirk is incredibly lonely. His brother is gone, and he’s not exactly a very warm sort of person. I’m not aware of whether or not he actually attends school, but it’s safe to say he wouldn’t change a single aspect of himself in order to make himself easier to befriend. Not to mention he’s probably “that weird kid who carries around a puppet at school”. He created two robots to train off of and interact with, because his need for control ensures that he keeps himself somewhat distant from his internet friends. The one he has the closest bond with is Roxy, and he’s even started to cut himself off from her a bit. The only entity he seems to really feel like he can trust is his ventriloquist’s dummy, Lil’ Cal. He takes naps with him, and talks to him, asking for advice and telling him his secrets. His auto-responder is arguably someone he should be able to open up to, seeing as it’s “basically fucking him”, but fittingly, he hides what he’s thinking even from himself, cloaking it in irony, and a pretense of emotionlessness. So it’s, to a certain extent, self-created loneliness, but it’s not something he can fix without losing control, and possibly someone else close to him.

Dirk is actually very clever, and has apparently taught himself a lot of things, including robotics, ancient history and mythology, coding artificial intelligence, and apparently, a good deal of philosophy. He is at least probably familiar with Plato, in reference to his username, timaeusTestified: Timaeus being a Plato dialogue on the nature of humans and the physical world. His robots are complex enough for him to converse with, and hold rap battles, so he is obviously very successful at what he teaches himself to do. The only downside to this is that—paradoxically, considering that his game title is Prince of Heart—he over-cerebralises everything. He doesn’t let himself just choose or do things on instinct, he has to stop and think over it extensively.

Dirk likes to pretend it’s ‘for irony’ or that it’s him just being an inscrutable cool guy, but he validly loves campy nonsense. He has a poster of Rainbow Dash on his wall because she’s his favourite pony. He also loves adorable things, like the bunny robot he made for Jane, or the tiny pony he owns. He refers to smuppets as “a loveable sort of plush”, so he made them specifically to be cute to himself. He’s really just a massive dork, no matter how cool he pretends to be.

Additionally, he’s got some major fucking hero worship for his older brother. His walls are covered with posters of his brother’s movies and the actors in them, his television cycles through images of the same, and he has a plush toy of all three main characters. Jane thinks he’s jealous of his older brother’s success, but this seems at odds with his avid following of the entire epic saga of his brother versus Betty Crocker through his movies. Also, he has a tattoo of Hella Jeff on his right shoulder. He’s aware that his brother isn’t really his brother, and is instead related through ectobiology but he still thinks he’s awesome, even if he sees Lil Cal as more of a parental figure. His brother put a statue of Snoop Dog outside his room, blocking his door, and Dirk still hasn’t moved it, perhaps because it’s a memento of his brother before he died.
Other: Dirk’s game title, Prince, is apparently to do with destruction, possibly selfish destruction? But destruction, specifically, of “Heart”, which translates to “soul”. Which totally isn’t ominous at all.
Additional Links:

First Person (entry type):
I’m fully aware that last time I posted an entry, I left you all on the most tentered of hooks. That fabric’s not going fucking anywhere; you’re practically gonna be felted by the time I’m done with you.

Technically inaccurate analogies aside, I’m going to move right along to the most important topic I could possibly segue onto. Namely: that fucking adorable thing Snugglemuffin did just now. For those of you who are tragically unaware, Snugglemuffin is my miniature pony.

Snugglemuffin

God, she’s cute.

Anyway, while I was in the shower, taking care of my daily ablutions, Snugglemuffin managed to descend to the floor of my room off my desk without hurting herself, first off, because she’s the cleverest tiny pony in the world. Then she dragged all of my smuppets under the bed with her. When I came back and found her, she had already torn her way into the soft underbelly of one of the older smuppets with her teeth and was in the middle of it, nosing out the stuffing to make herself a comfy nest in the innermost section of her pile. It was hells of resourceful, and the most precious re-enactment of an alien chestburster I’ve ever seen. Especially when she looked right at me, poly-fill trailing from the corners of her muzzle, and whickered faintly. I think I’ll let her keep that one. She’s earned it.

Third Person: Jake English wants a sparring partner. He’s the sort of fellow who’d be a natural at the noble art of fisticuffs and/or wrassling, he’s explained, only dear him, he hasn’t exactly got a blasted human partner to make sense of the matter with.

Dirk Strider thinks Jake is adorable. Not to mention, he’s one of the only other kids Dirk knows who really gets why being, for all extents and purposes, guardianless, is a steaming pile of bullshit. The fox can only have so much fun in the fucking henhouse before he starts wishing maybe he could have a goddamn family dinner once in a while like a well-adjusted TV family kid. That metaphor got away from him, but the point stays the same. Jake’s pretty much alone. Like him. Like Roxy, but Roxy’s not a boy and that…just matters, ok. Jake’s so enthusiastic about everything, it’s almost like Dirk can live a little bit vicariously through him. Experience what it’s like to think every little thing is a new adventure without ever actually letting himself lose his handle on himself. Because if he lets himself go…fuck knows what will happen. Probably something disastrous as everything he’s been repressing for years explodes in one place, so it’s got to be Jake for now.

Back to the original point, which is Jake’s sparring partner. Dirk would love to fly out and wrestle with Jake, god, would he love to, but it’s not something he can do, not if he doesn’t want to endanger Jake. Not when his brother is basically jumping up and down shouting “LOOK AT ME” at the Batterwitch with every new move and moive of his. He can’t afford to draw any attention to Jake. Which leaves…well, he could send him a robot. Dirk’s made a few by now, he knows what he’s doing.

TT: What would you say to a strifebot? he types, and starts cycling through specs in his head. Something big? No, Jake-sized, yeah, he needs to build Jake up, make him unstoppable, just in case doing this actually does draw the BW’s attention. He can put cameras in it too, keep an eye on Jake, as firsthand as he possibly can without actually being there.

At which point, it occurs to him. Why not BE there? Why not build the robot to his specs exactly? Then he could accustom Jake subconsciously to his presence: make himself into Jake’s partner, kind of. Have the bot protect Jake when necessary so that Jake might end up thinking of DIRK as the protector. This is completely and totally an amazing idea.

GT: I would say that sounds absofrigginglutely fabulous! Jake responds, and Dirk almost smiles.

You’re going to make a robot that looks exactly like you, aren’t you. says the Auto Responder. Dirk chooses to ignore it.

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