hello frienderino

OH MY GOD okay I was wondering why Karkat’s rant felt slightly off and I just realised

it kinda sounds like a poem? like maybe… slam poetry??

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I retreat to my safe place, and yet the words. The stupid fucking prattle jockeying like rowdy barnbeasts up against the partitions of good fucking sense and the most basic of personal boundaries. The god damned blither of tactless nincompoops, how it continues to haunt my wretched ears. The words spill over the side of this enchanted metal frog discus, like a babbling spring in a mythical forest governed by a guild of gossip-hungry lobotomy hobbits. This deluge of words, leaked from the incontinent crevices of two brainless gushing yammertwats, it overfloweth, oh how it overfloweth, sogging my gray, practical pair of pants, the leggings of a simple man. A humble man. It then continues its downward trickle, dousing my unremarkable shirt, the serviceable garment of your average alternian “joe”, chilling the frail torso beneath, a pathetic duffel of meat wracked with heavy sobs, sobs caused by words, words which continue to drip. And sleuce. And spill. Threatening to drown me. Pledging to. Promising! And yet I will not drown. Why won’t I drown? Please let me drown. Let me drown so the words will be no more!

dirk’s someone who’s so preoccupied with the game plan. he forces people into doing things the way he wants because he thinks that he’s the one who sees the strings, the big picture. he’s absolutely convinced that its his way or the highway. it’s why he says he’ll control their session, why he lets hal mould his relationship with jake, etc etc. he thinks everything is down to him because he’s the only one who knows any better. it’s arrogant and self-sacrificing and dirk has this massive martyr complex that needs addressing, but it’s also him wanting to be the hero.

he wants to deal the killing blow. he wants to get the glory. he wants to live up to the last name he’s been given by a man who will never find out if he did or didn’t do him proud.

it’s why he attacks the condense on sight. he knows he won’t be able to beat her, but he can’t help but hope that he can catch her just right. get revenge for everything she’s ever done, make dirk strider the man that finally took down the batterwitch. in s: collide, it’s dirk and john that are shown to take the most damage – dirk is throwing himself into this fight with everything he has because he’s convinced himself that he has to be the one to win it, or all of this is for nothing.

but dirk’s not trained in the same way that dave is. dirk wasn’t brought up fighting against someone like bro. someone who was just as unwilling to lose as he is. he doesn’t dodge and feint at all the right times, doesn’t know when to pick his openings, can’t see an attack coming until it’s right in his face. so he takes the hard hits, and he dies and jane brings him back, and he thinks this is how it needs to be. no matter how much it hurts. he needs to do this.

and then he’s caught. he’s got a brilliant mind but even he knows there’s only one way out of this and no way he can pull it off himself. so he looks to dave, this kid who’s been dragged up by the scruff of his neck, who’s talented with a sword and brave enough to do what’s right, and he knows what he has to do. he has to give it up. he has to play for the team.

Despite alpha Dirk having a relatively grammatically correct typing quirk, both Bro and Dave maintain all-lowercase typing quirks akin to predom Calliope; coding both Striders as [Caliborn's] sexual mate.

Everyone knows that Bro raised Dave with strifes in the way he had to "prepare" Dave for SBurb; this culminates in both Striders strifing with Caliborn through his possession of Jack Noir, which we know is coded as erotic to cherubs. "Bro's" decision to prepare Dave for SBurb in the manner that he did cannot be separated from his relationship to Lil Cal.

It should also be noted that Caliborn is in "mating" form every time he strifes after his own strife with Yaldabaoth, as the unconditional immortality he is granted by destroying his judgement clock is the same kind of immortality cherubim are granted when performing their ritual mating duel (including the seizure-inducing flickering eyes and flames).

The sword Dave must use to kill the immortal Caliborn is also associated with cherubic sexuality — the name Caledfwlch is alternate of Caliborn's own name, and while this may at first cause you to associate it with Caliborn, it is actually associated with Calliope. An artefact with a warped name/identity to Caliborn's being able to defeat him is the same function as the power of Calliope and Caliborn's names upon each other (supposedly being able to put them to sleep if you speak their alternate's name), as well as a mating cherub being the only who is able to harm another mating cherub; this further associates the red-lettered, all-lowercase Dave as being Calliope's successor and sexual mate to Caliborn.

Although the puppet snuff involving Dave is broadly known as sexually exploitative regardless, at this point in the story Caliborn a. heavily associates himself with puppets through Lil Cal and The Felt, and b. is known to have an interest in "kid snuff". While Dave is not getting snuffed, the puppet snuff films Dave is forced to partake in can very easily be read as Caliborn creating autosnuff films (immediately related to his grooming of Dave to become his ultimate and deadly adversary in [s] Collide.)

(You notice that the grooming of the beta Strider family is most centric around Dave; I don't think Caliborn has an incredible amount of cherubic sexual interest in Dirk/Bro, despite Bro being coded as a similar kind of Wife to LE as Handmaid&HIC. Dirk&Bro are comfortable and calm with Caliborn's sexual interests which makes him a good candidate for grooming and direct satisfaction, but Caliborn wants to see someone squirm. Bro is groomed to be loving, placating, and submissive to Lil Cal as both Bro's father-figure and husband (a la the Goddess of Manga). Dave, while he attempts to be as stoic and unphased as Dirk/Bro, frequently fails at maintaining a calm and unbothered appearance (often while he thinks nobody is watching, but we know that Lil Cal is Always watching). Dave's natural inclination towards red and lowercase text, discomfort surrounding the things Caliborn enjoys, as well as shared time aspect make Dave a much better candidate to become a warped image of Caliborn/Calliope than Dirk. Dirk seemingly likes Caliborn, even wants him within Lil Cal. Caliborn doesn't want somebody who likes or legitimately wants him, at least not for the purposes of effectively replacing Calliope as a true adversary.)

This is a looser argument with a lot less support IMO than any of the above, but you could certainly argue that the enforced stoicism in the Strider household is a recreation of Calliope & Caliborn's pranksters gambit seemingly being primarily centric around getting the other to break from calm superiority into overwhelmed, exploding emotion. Although Caliborn's love for "games" isn't sexual, he very obviously uses the beta Strider family to fulfill his desire for them.

All the things off the top of my head... If you can think of anything else, please add

Dave knew that Jack would not hurt Jade, however from an objective standpoint, that move could still be considered fighting dirty by all definitions of the phrase. And I think that a lot of people, in favor of viewing him as some poor innocent cinnamon roll, forget that he’s actually REALLY SMART AND QUICK THINKING IN BATTLE, that’s what happens when you live with a guy like Bro. You learn to make split second choices in the heat of the moment. 

Thus, in combat, Dave is willing to make sacrifices and dirty fight as long as he knows it won’t hurt his friends. He makes an active effort to get all of the body, so even if Dirk’s death is somehow heroic, Jane can still resurrect him, assuring Dirk’s safety just like he was assured of Jade’s years ago.

Put this in contrast to Dirk. 

For all his big talk about the Greater Good, and all the other horseshit he pulled in an attempt to improve his friends, when the chips are down he can’t bring himself to do something that drastic. Even when completely assured of Roxy’s resurrection, he could not bring himself to kill her. I completely and utterly believe that if the roles were swapped, and it was Dave in Dirk’s position, Dirk would not be able to make that desperate move.

Dirk lived on a platform in the middle of the ocean completely alone, only ever fighting robots he himself built and drones sent by HIC, who knew that she needed him to get into the game and so never actually wanted to kill him. He studied things like combat and philosophy academically in isolation, and never had anything to test himself against. So, in the way of teenagers, he assumed and projected the idea he was super awesome, because he felt like he’d done the work to get there.

Dave learned combat from birth in a very, er, practical way. The kind of fighting he was trained to do would make him incredibly quick thinking and force him to notice, consider, and utilize any and all advantages in a fight. His deep love for his friends means that taking their safety into account isn’t even a question, but he’s not above using them in a fight if he knows it’s going to save them. I doubt Dave has ever read a combat strategy or practiced a kata in his life. Instead he had this (dangerous and abusive) hands on training that made him both extremely skilled and capable of on the spot problem solving in battle. Again, in the way of abused teenagers, Dave assumed he super sucked at everything and projected that idea he’d fail because Bro groomed him to believe he was never good enough.

Enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, slow burn romance — coming soon this winter, pre-order now!

Based on this post by @/OmensWorm on Twitter (I don’t know if they’re on tumblr)

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