Satyr culture is perfect. By which I mean it immensely sucks, and it says some very on-point things by virtue of sucking this incredibly bad. Like, it's kind of incredible they found a bunch of tropes and traits that hit that nexus of bizarrely homoerotic fascism Dirk exhibits all at once.

Like... first, the ancient grecoroman civilization fascination. Roman Empire: well known for being warmongering imperialists that a lot of dudebros see as the pinnacle of Western civilization, because they were just sooo manly the way they killed people and took over places and imposed dictator rule and subjugated the masses. Built off Greek civilization, which gets propped up as an enlightened civilization despite being gay as hell (which rules, it's just unexpected), and also abusing women and children (which is very expected, it just sucks).

That gets mixed in with lore jacked from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And that hits the same themes via a different route. It's a colorful show with an entirely female cast learning lessons about friendship. In a vacuum, the total opposite of conforming to masculinity. Friendship is Magic was well known for the massive male portion of its audience, though, who dominated fandom space for the show through the first half of its life. There were plenty of bronies who were exactly the kind of guy who, say, constantly thinks about the Roman Empire. For a time, there was a bizarrely misogynist atmosphere in a fanbase for a show aimed at girls. And what do you know, Dirk's horse species is basically just like the female-dominated ponies, but his horses are all beefy men.

Or, well, all men, at least. 'Cuz the third piece in the puzzle is Omegaverse dynamics. A true classic, comfortably preserving gender roles while cutting women entirely out of the picture. The brave vision of a world where being gay is as straight as possible. It's a real hat trick. Women, in fact, are an entirely different species! Courtesy of Rose, because if it was just Dirk there wouldn't even be women. But since there are, the satyrs get to still be misogynist in their big manbro culture, and as an added bonus it means they get to be racist at the same time.

The upshot of all this insightful commentary is that I adore everything about the satyrs that has to do with them being cute horse boys who enjoy each other's company even though I also hate their dumbass meritocracy and their weird cultural misogyracism. Even Swiss is pretty precious past his narcissism, and his tyrant complex, and his shitty taste in books, and his ingrained prejudices, and... Okay, he sucks. Mostly I wanna see him get put in the standard-issue Homestuck pear wiggler and see if it eventually shakes the stink off him or if he just dies. I'd be fine with either.