peregrine mendicant #1 fan

I’ve always had this headcanon that Dirk is in some ways jealous of Dave, especially after the game. Jealous of the way he seems so great compared to Dirk, with a better life, a lot more friends, and easier to bounce off of and get along with by far, while Dirk struggles to form connections and understand tone cues due to his relatively isolated childhood. In both the alpha and beta universes, he's a hero in Dirks eyes, even if Dave doesn't consider himself one. A hero, that Dirk could never hope to achieve to be.

Dirk has always wanted to be a knight and Dave is a knight, he was “enough”. Where Dirk believed himself to have failed in a way to grant any real damage or order in his void session, Dave pulled a lot of hard work to make sure his counted. In a way it’s a jealousy covered by admiration. He admires Dave so much that he is essentially a pedestal to everything Dirk wants to be and subsequently cant be. The way he talks, the way he walks, all the friends he has that Dirk doesn’t really have. He doesn’t seem to have half the issues that Dirk himself perceives himself as happening.

The sort of jealousy that makes Dirk pick at himself. Because he knows it’s one sided. He knows it’s not good to feel like this, not healthy. Why does he feel so much dislike for Dave when he’s so great? Dave has been nothing but nice and accommodating to him. And that makes him in a sense hate himself more. Its a cycle of realising he dislikes his brother due to envy (in turn caused by how he puts him on a pedestal as a true "hero"), then questioning and lashing out at himself internally for harboring negative emotions towards Dave, beating himself about it because his self hatred confirms he can never be Dave, before listing all the reasons why Dave is great (and he isn't) and falling in this cycle all over.

I think he’d hate himself because he can’t find the end of the cycle. A snake that eats itself. Dirk can’t be him. Yet in some ways he wishes to be as great. But he can never be that great, because Dave is the top bar in his mind. Which leads to hate for how he thinks about it and how he’s again, doomed to be himself. And only himself.