Dirk Strider

If you have anything to say on the way I play Dirk, please let me know here! Comments are screened, IP logging is off, and anonymous is on.

OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Jamesy
Other characters: None!

IN CHARACTER
Name: Dirk Strider
Fandom: Homestuck
Canon point/AU: From the more recent updates, after having gone god tier and gotten teleported away by Jade.
Journal: brohoof
PB: Canon art, fanart and the like.
History: Here it is.

Presentation: Dirk Strider, paradoxical younger version of Bro Strider, brother-yet-actual-ectibiological-father to Dave Strider, as you find out from his intro, is a guy of many talents. Many, many talents. But before we get into what he's like as a person, let's talk about where he's from. Due to a mishap with the meteors when the scratch was initiated, Dirk was sent to the future along with Roxy. Because of this, Dirk had to raise himself from toddlerhood. He wasn't completely without help, though. His bro made sure to stockpile the house with a lifetime supply of soda and other stuff to help him out. Because of this, though, he's incredibly self sufficient. Speaking of his bro, Dirk really admires him in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to irony. The two of them have never met, but Dirk has learned all about him and his opinion of him is something akin to hero worship, though considerably more subdued than that. Dirk lives in Texas- or at least where Texas used to be. That part is a long story, but blame tyrannical fish aliens flooding the earth by melting the ice caps. Anyway, he lives in a high rise apartment in the middle of the ocean. He raised himself by living off of the supplies his bro left for him as well as fish from the ocean. He isn't completely alone, though. He has Lil Cal, a puppet that he claims is his best friend.

To start with, Dirk is an extremely intelligent person and it shows not only in conversation with him, but from his hobbies. He's able to build robots with ease, having built and programmed two for himself, with which he uses to rap. One of them, Squarewave, he's never lost a match to. The other, Sawtooth, is programmed to be unbeatable and thus Dirk has never been able to win a match against it. Rap-bots aren't the only types of robots that Dirk has built, and certainly not the most impressive. Brobot, the robotic version of himself that he built and send to Jake for sparring purposes is definitely impressive. But his biggest and also most intellectual feat would be Auto Responder, which he programmed at the age of 13, is a perfect digital replica of his personality, designed to talk like him, imitate him, and is by all counts a virtual version of him. Considering Dirk accomplished this at the age of thirteen and is now sixteen, it's safe to say he is pretty much a genius.

Dirk also builds robots with which he uses to spar physically with, himself. Dirk is without a doubt and amazing fighter, skilled in the art of swordsmanship, presumably by sparring with said robots that he created. He's capable of moving at extreme speeds and kicking all kinds of ass, probably best shown by the way he took down all of the drones that the Condesce sent to kill him with. Even though he had help from Sawtooth, he still managed to take his fair share of them with ease.

Unlike his pre-scratch younger brother, Dirk is much more laid back and manages to take things in stride. He isn't quick to anger and tends to have a lot of patience.When irritated, he doesn't really get angry so much as he comes off as more exasperated and short. He comes off as much more aloof than Dave, though to say he's uncaring or anything of that nature is completely untrue. It's clear that he cares for his friends very much, he just has a different way of showing it than most people. He can be manipulative, but it's never with malicious intent. Instead, he prefers to challenge his friends for their own personal development, such as when Jake needed uranium and he made Jake fight Brobot to earn it. Another reason he's manipulative is generally because he's just fucking smart and always has a plan and always wants to pull the strings so that nothing falls apart. Not that he doesn't have faith in his friends, he just knows how to get stuff done efficiently. Sarcasm is also another big trait of Dirk's, often employed lightheardedly for humour, though when irritated it takes on a more abrasive and condescending air. This is notably more apparent in conversations when he and Roxy are discussing is homosexuality.

As per Strider tradition as well as just like his pre-scratch alternate self, Dirk is obsessed with irony. Many of his interests could be passed off as ironic, though considering he claims that the upper echelons of irony always have a touch of sincerity, it's unclear just what Dirk sincerely likes, and what Dirk likes for ironic purposes. Puppets are also a thing that Dirk is into. Boy, he fucking loves puppets. His room is full of them, most of which are phallic in nature and it's alluded to that he makes pornography with them, the same as his pre-scratch self, only difference being that Dirk doesn't have a multi-million dollar porn business with them. Judging by the many horse themed posters all over his walls, it's clear that he has an interest in horses, as well as claiming to have a purely academic interest in My Little Pony. Except Rainbow Dash, whom he loves unironically. Of course even his friends don't really know much of this about him, because he keeps a lot of it to himself for various reasons, probably in that he just doesn't feel the need to.

As far as his friends go, interactions with them are extremely varied. First and foremost would be Jake, who it's revealed he has romantic feelings for. The two have a somewhat antagonistic relationship, in that Dirk makes fun of Jake's taste in movies a lot, as well as what can be taken as affectionate jabs at Jake overall. His interactions with Roxy and Jane are similar, though he tends to get exasperated with Roxy the most thanks to her near constant state of intoxication and the way she likes to flirt with his Auto Responder. Of all of them, he and Jane tend to have the more serious conversations and it's clear that he has a lot of respect for Jane and that they're both very good friends, even though he still tends to troll her with irony and his own brand of humour the same as everyone else.

Motivations: More recently Dirk's insecurities have been explored. During a conversation with Lil Hal, Dirk reveals just how much he hates himself and his 'dysmal persona' and his 'batshit thought processes', which are actual quotes from the boy himself. So it's safe to say there's a lot of inner demons there that he's got to overcome. He just doesn't quite know how to do that. After going trickster and then waking up on his quest bed, he and Jane have a talk and he pretty much admits how stupid he's been, and that he let his feelings get in the way and mess things up. Overall, he learns to take Jake off the insanely high pedestal he has him on and ultimately gets over him and grows a bit as a person, even if he still has a hard time with feelings and stuff and talking about them.

With all of that in mind, it's pretty safe to say that a lot of what motivates Dirk's actions is his desire to hide his insecurities and the faults he has. He tests his friends to make them better, maybe not necessarily to compensate for his own problems but definitely so that he can at least be a positive change somewhere for them. It's that, and also the fact that he knows they have a lot of potential and he wants to make sure they all live up to that. Also he's just a fairly manipulative person at heart, something he really can't help.

Dirk is the kind of person that wants to be the leader, to pull the strings like a puppet master, but in the end isn't really cut out for it because he doesn't know how to deal with people on a personal level like say, Jane or Roxy know how. He's calm and calculated and good at forming strategies in his head, but the actual leadership abilities are lost on him, as seen by how everything just sort of fell apart in the alpha session despite his promise to be the backseat leader for Jane and pull the strings. In reality, it's his own fault that it all fell apart the way it did, because of his feelings for Jake and his unwillingness to speak to Jane about them, causing a rift between everyone.

In the end though, he managed to admit to some of his own faults and weaknesses and call things off with Jake, as well as fix his relationship with Roxy. It just took a lot for it to finally happen and for him to face his own problems, rather than hiding behind his poker face and not confronting him like he should've long before.


SAMPLES
Thread:
Here
and
Here

Prose:
To say Dirk was pissed off would be an understatement. Considering that everything pretty much went to hell in a handbasket from his point of view back home, he didn't have the fucking time for whatever the hell this was. He needed to get back to their session and kick some ass and then meet back up with his friends, who surely needed him. But instead, here he was being pushed into a room and told to impress people he didn't care about so that he would have a better chance of surviving. It was bullshit. He didn't need the approval of anyone to survive, he could do damn fine on his own.

That didn't mean, however, that he was going to halfass this. He had every intention of impressing them to the best of his ability, and he was confident that he would impress them quite a bit. It was like a challenge, and Dirk didn't back down from a challenge once it was issued. So once in the room, he surveyed the area. They were clearly prepared for people of many skill sets, and he raised an eyebrow, wondering just who he was going to end up facing if he didn't find a way to get out of this predicament. His eyes flicked from the weapons to where the gamemakers sat. He could tell they were behind a forcefield, though, so it would be pointless to try anything. Even with his technological skill, he didn't think he would have enough time to attempt to disarm it before they subdued him.

He had no choice but to follow his instructions. With a roll of his eyes, he made his way forward to the nearest katana, picking it up with a skilled hand, shifting it from hand to hand to test it's weight and balance. It wasn't the same as his own at all, but it would suffice. Once he was sure it would work, he turned towards the training dummies. As fast as he could, he ran at one of them. A flurry of movement and slices later and the dummie crumbled into several different pieces, onto the floor, chopped in half like Dirk was the chef and the dummie was his vegetables. From there, he zipped to the left and slung his katana, slicing in half three other dummies in his path. At the end, he turned it into a roll and as he came upright, he sliced the sword through the air at another dummie, slicing it in half vertically.

Dirk felt like with that little show, he'd proven both his skill with a sword as well as his speed and agility. That would suffice, he thought. So with that, he tossed the sword on the ground with a loud metallic clang, and turned to the gamemakers. "The names Dirk fuckin' Strider, hope it was impressive enough for you." After that, he turned and made his way out of the room, not giving a fuck if they found him impressive or not.

What is your character scored: About an 8 or a 9?
In canon, Dirk has the power to flash step, which is literally moving so fast he can't be seen. Beyond that, his skills don't really dive much into the way of supernatural besides his splintered personality (which basically allowed him to control his dream self simultaneous to his waking self, as well as leave a small piece of himself in Jake English's subconscious, so it works sort of like that) as well as his god tier powers, which allow him to fly, among other things which haven't yet been explored quite yet. He probably won't use any of his powers other than flight and flash step if he has the ability to, since he himself doesn't really know much about his powers either, presumably, as he's just become god tier from his canon point and he would have other things to focus on besides testing them out in game.

Aside from those abilities, his normal skills include being extremely talented with a sword and fighting in general, as well as being able to build a wide array of robots. He's also good at rapping, though that won't really come in handy in regards to keeping himself alive. It's also obvious that he's good at basic survival, on account of he lives in a high rise apartment in the middle of the ocean, where food is scarce. It can be assumed he catches his own food because of that, and whatever else comes with living out there alone from the age of a toddler.

If you have any constructive criticism on how I play Dirk, then please let me know! Anon enabled and comments screened for your privacy!