#the dave and dirk convo was good where's the jade and jake equivalent please i would kill for that

[4lph4kidz]

(I have no idea if this sent twice, my laptop did a weird in the middle of it. Apologies if so)

Man, I feel like I get gaslit about Dirk every day. My main take is that Dirk's Big Two Most Memorable Conversations are the AR and Dave ones in LOTAK, and if you're thinking about those two conversations in a vacuum and nothing else with Dirk yeah, you're probably gonna go AR=Dirk=Bro and Dirk admits it, therefore Dirk=Ult!Dirk, but like. lol

and that the comic ENDS on the dave convo, and dirk never gets meaningfully challenged on his beliefs. jake is also crying in the corner that he's the worst and can't be trusted in relationships ever and should probably just go live in the mountains like a hermit forever, do i believe him? are we taking these as accurate self assessments, really? but because that's the tone the comic ends on........ that does feel like the end of their "arcs", those realisations. and that's what you tend to remember if you aren't trying to psychoanalyse those brats.

dirk and his splinters are like... staring at yourself in funhouse mirrors. that's you in the mirror, but it's not an accurate reflection. you still have that giant zit on your face though. it's not that big, but you might want to do something about it.

my favourite kanaya is bewildered kanaya on her first date with drunk rose. she was so gentle....

i lost my original response to this one so i think we're even anon, lmao

basically - i do agree with you, broadly speaking, about what kind of impression those scenes might leave people with, but that's not what i came away with at all. like, i like dirk's ending because it IS one of the better conclusions we get in homestuck, even if i think he's being way too harsh on himself ('i was a completely toxic element in his life from day one' is just objectively not a true statement no matter where you fall on the dirk/jake faildating debacle) i still take his fears about his worse capabilities seriously and really like the way those conversations go, because i think dirk being self-critical is pretty important to his arc and growth, despite his overly negative perspective on himself.

maybe it's cause i don't think he goes unchallenged after all - dave's presence in the scene has a lot to do with why i think it's ultimately a positive thing? yes dirk's fears about being a bad person are actually validated when he finds out yeah turns out he really COULD be that bad, but the person who was hurt most by all that is still very firm about not seeing them as the same person after all, and not holding him responsible for any of it. dave is able to find comfort in dirk being there, and dirk feels that maybe him hurting and being bad for people isn't an inevitability after all.

that said he is still overestimating himself/feeling like he needs to take responsibility for things he really shouldn't, and i fear that difficulty in changing that mindset may be the prince of heart's curse, but still. it's something that gets explored in enough depth for me to be more than happy with it as it is.

this is not the case with jake, who is not even slightly challenged on the conclusions he comes to... it's a shame but homestuck just did not have time during its concluding arcs to take his character seriously and attempt to resolve everything going on with him (in a self aware way, the comic pokes fun at itself for dropping the ball with him) and essentially reverts to the same old tactics/routine in order to press forward, while internalising all that negative shit about himself. that IS pointless, unconstructive self-hatred which is not meaningfully challenged. i still maintain jade and jake getting to talk about stuff wouldn't have wrapped up EVERYTHING, but it would have have provided a good deal better resolution for BOTH characters imo.

anyway either jake gets his resolution offscreen during act 7/the credits, or he gets no resolution at all... which i think is the version i prefer, weirdly. he's a character who has a really hard time facing up to problems so i do like the idea that it is going to take him a long time to work through all that stuff. ideally it happens when he's not in a story that (even jokingly) hates him.

and kanayaaaa TT_TT she is very sweet and gentle but that scene still kinda upsets me tbh. she's such a loving, romantic character who is so earnest about trying to be there for people and to see that go wrong in a way she can't really do anything about is so sad to me