from the top, in a new post cause the last one got too long. @ao3sburbanite @revolutionaryduelist
Alright, I’m noticing some discrepancies between what I think and what you’re pointing to so maybe its worth clearing those up.
womp womp
alright here we go sorry i took forever
Some really insightful shit about Rose and Damara vis a vis Scratch
Ok, that’s a genuine parallel I hadn’t noticed before and thanks for pointing it out to me cause that’s really cool and adds to their narrative. Good shit
It also…does nothing to counteract my point? Yes, you’re right, sometimes Homestuck’s parallelism is absolutely meaningful and important, I’m not denying that and never tried to. Other times it’s Homestuck using a series of shots because we know them and they look cool.
My point wasn’t “VISUAL PARALLELISM IS MEANINGLESS”, it was “Visual parallelism is one element that should be taken into context, and the context with Dirk and Jake’s relationship is incredibly intricate and complex.”
And speaking of visual parallelism…
(oh, and by the way – the fight we see during [s] prince of heart: rise up is the novice setting. folks tend to forget that, but roxy re-activated it beforehand, and jake confirms it again in his following pesterlog with jane.)
I keep hearing this like it’s some Devastating Argument every so often–
You realize this only undermines the idea that we should be taking the visual parallelism between this fight and Aradia/Vriska as directly symmetrical, right? On multiple levels.
1) If this is the novice setting, then it doesn’t show us the actual problem Jake says he has with the Brobot, which is it acting “Tender”. Unless the Brobot tearing out his Heart for Jake is in line with that, which…I would actually buy lmao. So the visual language of the comic is already slightly off-kilter from the language and writing setting it up.
2) Homestuck has always played fast and loose with slapstick violence in the context of fast-paced fight scenes, but it also telegraphs it pretty clearly when characters are being seriously *hurt*. When Aradia beats the shit out of Vriska, she’s drawing a shitload of blood. Jake’s fight with the Brobot comes with a bunch of funny gags and slapstick goofs.
It’s visually intense, I’ll definitely grant you that. And if you want to put it on Hussie for making it too intense then…sure? But we’re not meant to take this goofy slapstick the same way we’re meant to take the somewhat righteous revenge Aradia takes that leads to Vriska’s god tiering, and we’re not meant to take THAT the same way as a 30 year old man stomping down a 13 year old.
I’m preaching to the choir here, I know, my point is just: I really don’t think the graphic nature of the flash is as important as the visual signposting the comic uses for actual damage being done to someone. It’s easy enough to think Brobot was pulling punches through the simple fact that it doesn’t draw blood, and humans are a lot less fragile than trolls.
Which is important, because as for the context…
dirk sent jake the brobot to set jake up with dirks idea of an adventure scenario – a scenario which jake IMMEDIATELY rebuffed as soon as he learned what it entailed! and when dirk cant win him over (by arguing that it will “sharpen [his] combat skills”… Hmmm🤔🤔🤔), he changes the subject.
How on earth does Dirk’s idea of an adventure differ from any other? Adventures inherently constitute a goal which may be elusive, a dangerous journey (in this case, a controlled amount of danger), and surprises and setbacks. That’s what adventure is–they include uncertainty.
How would you have designed Dirk’s perfectly morally justifiable adventure scenario to challenge Jake with? How might an adventure be designed in a way Jake at 13, who does nothing but sit in his house scared of monsters, would be perfectly comfortable with? I seriously don’t see how Dirk could have accommodated Jake’s particular “idea” of adventure.
Because Jake’s entire thing is claiming to be down for LITERALLY ANY ADVENTURE, but he doesn’t actually do so out of fear of the monsters. My point isn’t that Dirk handled this perfectly–he didn’t–but that he wasn’t imposing some random idea onto Jake he got from nowhere. He got the idea from Jake, and what Jake continually said that he wanted.
They also typically include conflict and fighting, so yeah there’s A TRAINING ELEMENT involved here. It’s just not Dirk’s primary motivator. Dirk’s primary motivator is trying to give Jake what he thought Jake wanted…because Jake told him he wanted it, not because Dirk arbitrarily decided Jake SHOULD want it.
Jake rebuffed it immediately, yeah…but Dirk turning it off would also pose a danger to Jake’s life that Dirk would then have to contend with being responsible for, and at this point Jake has been pulling Dirk to and fro with flirting and anti-gay comments for quite a while. My point is, again, not that Dirk doesn’t fuck up–just that there’s no reason to think this is some cold, calculated manipulation Dirk is pulling off to get Jake to Accept His Methods.
It’s a gay boy disappointed that his romantic overture @ his best friend didn’t work out when he pinned a lot of hope on it, and tired of talking about it because the conversation had already been hurting his feelings quite a lot.
And again, that’s still pretty shitty! Just no more shitty than Jake’s lying and willful ignorance. And the alternative–turning the Brobot off–would be shitty and terrible too, with potentially far worse consequences than Jake being uncomfortable.
We don’t have any reason to think Dirk had control over the Brobot at this point, either–and even if he did, by the present day, AR would be able to veto him since AR is Dirk but…better at computers. And more ruthless and bitter.
Gee it’s almost like Dirk committing fundamentally innocent and well-intentioned fuck ups that nevertheless leave him and those he cares about with enormous consequences is something that happens often in his arc, and that leads to him hating himself even more than he’s already inclined to.
Not that that would make Jake’s abuse not abuse, but…
whos to say hes being honest here? the exchange you cite happens in the exact same pesterlog as where jake corners jane into a “do you like me y/n” scenario – a scene which YOU YOURSELF have characterized as jake being deliberately misleading and deceitful, because he already knows the answer!
you can be afraid of someone and still want them to protect you. its a very common abuse tactic.
Which would be important and matter if Jake literally ever once showed indication of being scared of Dirk. He doesn’t. Jake running away has everything to do with Jake wanting to avoid confrontation on all fronts for his own sake, he never once even mentions being scared of Dirk. Which brings me to…
We can say Jake is being honest here because of context and Jake’s continued actions providing how he actually feels.
At this point Jake has gotten what he wanted out of Jane–an admission of friendship and emotional unavailability–and confessed to something he was clearly and unambiguously nervous about–that he’s given serious thought to being with Dirk, which he literally worries will have Jane think he’s weird.
We can also assume Jake is being honest here because Jake goes on to be obnoxiously honest at Jane about all of Dirk’s myriad flaws for six months. And at no point during that does Jake ever mention anything whatsoever about feeling intimidated or scared of Dirk, certainly not physically.
He most complains about him talking too much and being clingy and needy and unable to relax and believe Jake actually wants to spend time with him. Basically if at any point it was established Jake actually was scared of Dirk, then yeah, I’d say there’s merit to questioning that line. There just isn’t.
I’d also say Jake being scared of the Brobot isn’t really that well-founded! Jake mostly voices frustration and impatience at having to waste his time, not discomfort at fighting the Brobot–and where there IS discomfort, it has to do with it being “Tender” and figuring out Dirk’s feelings and AR’s aggressive romantic propositioning.
Even beyond how he TALKS to people, Jake’s adventure through the island simply doesn’t have the sense of anxious tension that Dave’s wandering through his apartment does. Jake is mostly pretty blase about the whole thing, and when Brobot shows up he’s framed as happy to see it–where Dave is worked up and anxious and notably distressed and increasingly so literally from moment one.
jake concedes all of janes criticisms of the brobot, but defends it with this scrappy adventurer persona hes set up for himself that we KNOW is bullshit. “sometimes when i walk through the jungle im sweating bullets […] but its like every day is more of an adventure”. his eagerness to make excuses is startlingly reminiscent of daves defense of his bro from acts 2-3.
it’s interesting how you cut out the bit where Jake says he thinks the brobot is exciting here let me put that full quote here cause i like it:
GT: Which sometimes is annoying and sometimes when i walk through the jungle im sweating bullets wondering if its going to pounce on me outta nowhere.
GT: But theres actually something kind of exciting about that its like every day is more of an adventure.
Which matters because there is proof Jake is being honest here.
The key detail here is Jake’s language. Jake isn’t talking about his adventurer persona here, he’s talking about his own feelings. Jake is as obvious and transparent about his front as Dave or Karkat once you know what you’re looking for, it’s the difference between:
GT: I consider you to be a lovely lady of the highest caliber and i really think any gent worth his salt would be a huge bozo to let the chance to go steady with you slip through his fingers.
and
GT: I guess if it was going to go this way…
GT: I kinda pictured something different?
GT: There was stuff i wanted to say.
GT: To the real him i mean.
Jake is complicated, but he’s not any more inscrutable than Dirk. You can figure out what he actually means with some attention to detail.
jake does not like the kind of sneak-up-behind-you-and-snap-your-neck ninja bullshit dirk likes.
This stuff literally never happens in the comic. All the Brobot does is play fucking hide and seek and show itself when Jake needs to be saved from a goat monster. Dirk framed it that way–he’s not the best salesman–but we have no clue if the Brobot behaves this way ever, since it…never does. and in any case, everything I said above.
To whatever extent Jake was (understandably) put off, he grew into it. So it was a fuck up, but not one that did him serious harm–lasting or otherwise.
dirks insistence to roxy that jane will believe everything in due time, that they just have to wait (for dirk to open her up to the possibility of the fantastical truth) isnt doing anything to help.
i cant say that dirk being open and honest would have made jane instantly believe either, but his indirect puppetmaster bs (complete failure though it may be) sure as hell wasnt the right way to handle things. dirk had so much faith in his (totally nonexistent) ability to manipulate people into becoming their best selves that he completely ignored the healthiest and most obvious solution of “just be open with your emotions numbnuts”.
I don’t think Dirk tries to manipulate Jane into believing stuff at all, and I don’t think there’s any reason to think so. He literally tells Jake to do whatever he wants re: Jane, he just thinks she’ll think she’ll being fucked with. Which doesn’t exactly jive with this idea of Dirk as being this obsessive control freak:
TT: Jane is…
TT: No. I haven’t.
TT: I’ve dropped some hints and tested her willingness to believe something like this.
TT: It’s just not going to fly. It’s way too much drop on somebody all at once if they aren’t receptive.
GT: Hmm. True but it seems a shame to keep her out of the loop.
TT: Well, tell her whatever you want. She’ll likely think she’s being fucked with.
TT: Personally, I wouldn’t bother trying too hard to convince her. There’s no point in alienating her.
TT: Some day she’ll be ready to believe things.
Dirk doesn’t tell her stuff because he doesn’t want to alienate her. And even then, he uh…he does. He’s plenty open with his emotions. And he’s sweet about it, too:
TT: Jane, soon you’ll believe what I’ve told you.
TT: You’ll believe it all.
TT: It’s just a shame that believing will take something so coarse as seeing, for a girl as sharp as you.
TT: Critical thought can lead one to accept the unlikely, just as much as dismiss the impossible.
Dirk isn’t relying on manipulating Jane to get her to believe stuff. He’s relying on the simple fact that eventually Jane is going to have to face the facts of all their lives anyway, because she’ll have to play Sburb. He correctly deduces the core of Jane’s identity–just as he deduces Jake is smarter than he wants people to think he is–and picks up on the fact that Jane will believe things once she directly experiences them.
This is fundamentally accurate, since waking up on Skaia is when Jane starts immediately coming around. Even so, he literally goes out of his way to tell Jane he thinks she’s smart, and that she’ll believe the things he’s been telling her.
Dirk is pretty up front about lavishing his friends with praise and pointing out what he sees as things they do that are problems, but he doesn’t really do much about the latter. Where Dirk bottles shit up is concerning any way that their problems might directly hurt him, because Dirk is too busy hating himself to even consider begrudging any of his friends any actions they take.
if dirk wants jane to be less skeptical and more trusting, and dirk wouldnt be pleased to hear jane say she likes the auto-responder, isnt the natural conclusion to reach that dirk lets jane engage with the auto-responder under the pretense that its him, and is upset that she can tell the difference?
Given everything I pointed out above?
Literally no, since his primary issue with AR is always, consistently, that he hates Hal conflating their personalities. A conclusion that puts Dirk randomly at odds with his primary character dynamic thrust with AR in order to make him more manipulative is not the natural conclusion–it’s a possible one, but you’d have to prove it to me.
I might have missed one or two points but I think this covers the main stuff. I’ll take another look tomorrow and see if I have anything to add but i gotta get to bedz
Flying through Storytelling 