Not done actually! Dandy is on the money that dirks gay experience is uniquely isolating and targeted, I think, at least in a way that made him resonate more for me as a gay man than Dave and Karkat did. I don't think it's just about his internalized homophobia either--i think all his friends are passively or actively homophobic to him, and the baggage of that adds up.

Jane is the least actively so, hilariously because she's the one who expresses the most overt homophobia in her thoughts, but for most of her time knowing Dirk she literally assumes he's straight and going to get with Roxy. This is true until they're 16 and start the session.

Roxy's been aggressively flirting with him since they were 13, culminating with forcibly kissing him as a trickster. She also starts flirting with Hal as soon as he becomes available.

Hal himself, despite "being Dirk", sets himself apart as being better than Dirk specifically because he can give Roxy what she wants, ie: perform heterosexuality for her. He says Dirk hates that he can't do this himself, and we later learn he's right--Dirks final word on the whole situation is that he wishes he'd been able to just Be Straight for Roxy and give her what she wants.

Incidentally, in the same log in which Hal sets himself apart as being better due to proximity to straightness, he also switches his text color to red--putting himself in closer proximity to Dave, Dirks masculine ideal who is himself bisexual.

Then there's Jake. In their log as 13 year olds in Jake's memory, Dirk tries to make a playful joke about furries being gay and Jake misunderstands it as a pejorative, even insisting that Dirk SHOULD be using it pejoratively because he's "from Texas."

Later when they're 16, Jake tells Jane that he used to accidentally play with Dirks feelings by saying they would be a great match if he or Dirk were girls.

Obviously Jake doesn't actually think or feel these things by 16, but the point is those are the only impressions of Jake's view of the situation that Dirk really has to go on, which goes a long way to explain how neurotic and anxious he is about the whole affair.

That's *before* unite synchronize happens and Dirk fully internalizes his view of himself as a toxic manipulator who ruined Jake's life and their relationship--his near murder of Hal is in fact implied to be near murder suicide, because he's just as motivated by hatred for himself as a toxic, corruptive force on Jake's life and literally sitting hovering over a super tall skyscraper he could easily jump from.

And then trickster mode happens, which Dandy is right about--it IS the apex of this queer horror narrative that Dirk is growing up with.

Everyone shows up talking about having procreative her sex, the girls try to get Dirk to dance/perform for them and he doesn't, and then they *literally move on to ogling and groping Arquis, the Dirk splinter more willing to perform heterosexuality.*

Let's be clear: The girls are talking about leaving Dirk behind and excluding him in favor of Hal, because he's gay.

Jake is the saving grace here, having the presence of mind even through the manic high of trickster mode to tell the girls he's not down with the ditching Dirk plan, and trying to open up to Dirk about how bad he felt about leaving and their problems before *asking Dirk to marry him.*

Dirk turns him down, but it's still another beat proving Jake's love for Dirk is on some level considered and genuine. Still, it's a footnote in a narrative that largely consist of Dirk being made to feel like a failure or a problem to his friends because he's gay specifically.

The epilogues continue this--Candy Dirk doesn't just die because Meat Dirk needs to consolidate power, he also dies because Candy is filtered through John's heteronormative notions of the world and Callie's cherubic notions of hate-fueled and *procreative* sex. Dirk's nature has no place in any of that.

And what emerges to take his place? Gamzee, another destroyer and ambiguous possible Dirk splinter, once again defined by the willingness to perform heterosexuality that Dirk lacks.

By doing exactly that, Gamzee insinuates himself into the void in the Janedirkjake dynamic Dirk leaves behind, and the result is getting to see just how horrible life can be for Jake without Dirk around. Dirks pretty awful to him in Meat, but at least it's just a breakup/throwing down the gauntlet of leaving Jake behind and leaving it to Jake to decide if he'll follow.

Just wanted to throw my hat in here--Dirk is continually and consistently depicted in contrast to cherubic themes of sex as inherently procreative, and that's tied into the way he's alienated from his friends through his sexuality growing up.

That's not even to get into the insane levels of abuse of Hal's soul implied by Doc Scratch, or frankly Bro's by Lil Cal if you really think about it.

If Dirk is the current king of abusers, it's largely because he's cosmically victimized by Lord English and Caliborn, the true embodiment of evil/homophobia/misogyny in the comic and literally his and Jakes romantic stalker. Hurt people hurt people.