Jake didn’t just want someone to tumble with, he wanted adventures. Which is what Dirk set out to provide. I’ve written several essays on this. I don’t feel theres any evidence Dirk was as motivated by imposing training on Jake as he was by trying to give Jake what Jake LOUDLY said he wanted.
If it was about training: Why not train Jane with lil seb, too? She was in as much danger as Jake, would also have to play the game, and was WAY less prepared than Jake was to begin with. So see, Dirk as this ruthless trainer figure just doesnt add up to me at all.
Also Jake likes the brobot, it’s AR he actually had a problem with and Dirk wasn’t in charge of AR.
Also Dirk likes smuppets but smuppets aren’t….nefarious? Theres nothing problematic about smuppets as long as they’re not forced on a child along with snuff films, they’re just silly vaguely phallic puppets he likes lol. Know who else likes smuppets? Jake and Grandpa. Pa’s keeping an absolutely huge one stuffed in the basement–its in the background.
Bro has one distinguishing interest from Dirk, and it’s also the evil nefarious one: SAW. There’s little reason to ascribe it anywhere but to Caliborn.
I used to think the question was unanswerable and I didnt think Cal had much influence on Bro at all.
I don’t think Dirk really demonstrates his proclivities, but AR certainly does, and is a good example of what Dirk is like when isolated and unable to connect to his friends, so I thought the isolation and self-destruction was enough to explain Bro’s descent.
Dirk has no interest in SAW, like Bro exhibits. SAW has always been Caliborn’s thing. So I think Cal’s influence was substantial. Finding out the specifics about that is part of what I’m interested in seeing in Hauntswitch, assuming Bro shows up.
Ah. Sorry for putting words in your mouth, if that’s what I did–I was kind of wired yesterday and I don’t remember my exact wording too well, so I’m worried I mighta come off that way. Kinda forgot this is a view people still have, honestly.
Suffice it to say, I feel you’re incorrect. AR was explicitly not acting with Dirk’s authorization, since AR explicitly screens/blocks all of Jake’s messages to Dirk after the very first one that Dirk reads. And Dirk wasn’t even able to keep up with the circumstances leaving up to Unite Synchronize–his entire narrative is him being overwhelmed by the amount of information he has to process and unable to keep up. It doesn’t make sense to attribute Unite Synchronize to anything but AR’s design, especially since Dirk lays the events squarely on AR’s shoulders–despite being inclined to assume responsibility and self-loathing for anything he perceives as his mistakes–and AR not only doesn’t deny it, but actively takes credit for it.
As for the Brobot, Dirk certainly did build it, but that’s not really comparable to what Vriska does, and it’s questionable how much it lines up with Dammek currently. Mainly because Dirk was explicitly trying to give Jake what Jake very loudly, very boldly said he wanted, and as it turns out Jake demonstrably likes the Brobot–it’s AR he was frustrated with in canon for the most part.
I wrote several essays on this already that can be found here, so you’re free to read that and agree/disagree at your pleasure. Regadless, I consider the “Dirk was abusive/toxic to Jake (and depending on who you ask, AR)” reading little more than bad, outdated fanon.
yes. the answer’s yes. Hiveswap has in fact already done this in the trailers.
I am talking, of course, about the sexy horse statue outside Grandpa’s manor. Some people immediately pointed to this as a random meta nod to Equius, which is really disappointing to me because there’s actually fleshed out canon lore behind it, which is so much more hilarious.
“Jade’s parental unit, as the Pattern Breaking parental unit, has a much larger variety of strange, off putting interests. Dad has FANCIFUL HARLEQUINS, Mom has EXSQUISITE WIZARDS, and Bro has RADICAL PUPPETS. Grandpa has not one, but FOUR such interests, of the same descriptive two word format. They’re all just as dumb though. One reason among several for this was to create an element of uncertainty over what kind of item Jade would prototype with . And by uncertainty, I mean misdirection, which is what I always mean by uncertainty.
Notice the colors of the lights in each room. Orange, pink, and cyan, corresponding with Dirk, Roxy, and Jane. The items have a loose correlation with the other three guardians too. Knights in that Dirk is a skilled swordsman. Roxy’s land is full of pyramids, Jane was grandpa’s long estranged blue lady. You see how the gears are always turning. Not only does everything mean something. It turns out everything means EVERYTHING. Now you know.”
–Andrew Hussie, Homestuck Book 3 Commentary
Hussie has confirmed that Grandpa’s INTERESTS reflect the Alphas.
Which means that if you use occam’s razor Grandpa’s interest in HORSES–
most reasonably has to do not with some random callout to a troll Jake never met and doesn’t care about, but with his memories of Dirk.
who is. you know. all about horses and muscley horse dudes. So yeah, Grandpa–and by association Jake–have been deliberately fleshed out further by the narrative, with the wrinkle that, given time, Grandpa took on Dirk’s interest in horses.
And he’s not even the version of Jake that dated Dirk, so…yeah. Whatever you think of their relationship, it’s a pretty powerful and funny look at their friendship.
Moving forward again – Dave post on the back burner. I found what I was looking for but it was stupid and gave me a headache. Here’s some loose speculation on some new stuff:
Openbound Part 3 had a couple weird things going on: the main one that stuck out to me was how Rufioh and Horuss each serve as analogues to both Dirk and Jake. Horuss is of course the horse guy oblivious to his partner’s reservations, but he also talks about resolving an identity crisis through loudly enforced traits of his personality, which seems like a commentary on Jake’s oft repeated love of ADVENTURE and FISTICUFFS. Rufioh is the passive dude who seems to attract everyone’s affections, but like Dirk, he the anime guy who gets decapitated and revived. Both are both.
So when when Rufioh is talking to girls and calling them ‘doll’ over and over, I get this weird overlaid image of Grandpa talking to the blue doll and Bro talking to Lil Cal. From the Grandpa view, retrieving Tinkerbull (Rufioh’s happy thought!) from Damara is a statement of the old man’s adversarial attitude towards the feminine? Rufioh berates Damara as though she’s directly responsible for his loss of happiness (she then reminds him of the actual cause, his unhappy relationship with Horuss).
Not sure if Horuss serves more as analogue for Bro or an analogue for the soul itself in that one, via the usage of horses we saw with Roxy. But at any rate, it seems like Damara is serving the Witch role of absorbing undeserved antagonism, a la Anthy.
Conversely, viewing Damara as a mouthpiece for Lil Cal is… flimsier and messier. Her hypersexuality could align with Cal directive to Gamzee (“kill them all”) and her particularly aggressive flirting with Horuss could be analogous to Cal’s sway over Bro? Or else his sway over the soul in general…
just chiming in to mention the Horruss:Dirk parallels have always seemed astonishingly weak to me. Jake’s behavior doesn’t really line up with Rufioh’s at all, but more importantly Horruss’ approach to conflict resolution (ignoring problems entirely and utterly nullifying the feelings of others) has a lot more in common with Jake’s treatment of Jane than with anything Dirk does.
the resorting to flattery to get/keep what they want and loudly talking about their own traits as self-assurance is also something Horruss and Jake have in common…along with Tavros. Seems like a pretty clear Page thing to me.
As for Dirk he’s keenly aware of Jake’s reservations–overblowing them into thinking Jake wants nothing to do with him without actually talking to Jake about them is the source of Dirk’s anxiety re: their relationship, which is honestly kind of the opposite of Jake and Horruss’ willful obliviousness.
the rest of this is pretty interesting, as usual. I hadn’t considered Witches as absorbing undeserved antagonism ubut i sure am now. i need to go lie down
so i think the setting of Earth C is MASSIVELY underrated, ok? like. jane and jake run corporations they presumably do genuine business through. i don’t think Earth C has a simply capitalist society. It’s more likely to have elements of capitalism but with universal basic income and a robust social safety net.
As such there’d be no need for work and all of Skaianet and Crockercorp’s staff would be volunteers, and why wouldn’t they volunteer? They’re companies run by the literal gods that created them and both of the heads have demonstrable market savvy in other lives or while being cyborgs.
Also they have literal magic superpowers they can use to create ideas out of nothing. It would be stupidly easy to make a killing by just selling stuff in that context. Both companies would probably have giveaways and all sorts of marketing campaigns.
Ultimately what I’m saying is, in Earth C, these companies would act something like Disney or Marvel in our U.S. society–as cultural powerhouses. They’d also be means to introduce any kind of product or memetic idea into the world’s culture a particular writer found valuable.
And the culture of Earth C’s world is somewhat malleable, as the Snapchats showed us. If bigotry still exists to some extent, then the kids potentially become sort of…Super-Liberals, with kindhearted values that will be listened to by all the adults around them.
That create art that will be paid mind through, and appreciated by the mainstream through like professional companies under their own name. And these are kids just starting to get a handle on superpowers with near limitless utility, meaning they’ll only get craftier and more capable over time.
It’s just such an irresistibly rich setting.
What I’m trying to get at, in the end, is that someday in just the couple-years gap between Act 7, Credits, and..whatever happens in the epilogue, it’s totally plausible that, like
Dirk like…accidentally distributed too good a memetic marketing scheme through the media arm of skaianet, and ended up creating a thriving smuppet porn industry that dominated the entertainment sector of…
the consorts.
You could even write compelling character drama around it.
Dave coming to grips with the stunning revelation that Dirk had delivered on the promise of raising a small flock of bots of hardcore soft plush aficionados, but his bots were…literally living and breathing and ADORABLE fucking amphibian idiots. All like, buying dicknose masks and smuppet ass strap-ons and shit.
And Dirk just now realizing this could be potentially uncomfortable for Dave and freaking out internally about it, already crafting plans to make Consorts think smuppets were gross as hell actually, already trying to figure out how to apologize–
Only for Dave to bust a gut laughing and think its the funniest thing ever. Because Dirk isn’t Bro, and this isn’t creepy or mean-spirited or malicious its just having fun with how objectively hilarious the premise is.
Oh also Jake gets them into wrestling. The consorts I mean. So the consorts are into wrestling with smuppet paraphernaliaon, specifically. In fact Jake used Skaianet to distribute Hope-produced magic sexy stamina-restoring jack off bro crystals to the consorts considerably surfer dudebro subdemographic. That’s a whole thing, too.
“You sold a magic crystal that restores amphibian sex vitality perpetually, with magic literally powered by two salamander bros engaged in the intense spiritual practice of gay smuppet wrestlewanking?” Karkat says, horrified at the sheer power Skaianet’s marketing arm wields. Jake is a powerful man.
Also shameless as hell. Dave has a freudian slip and suggests a human-troll version and everybody dies but Jake, who is grinning and being very loud about what a good idea that is in this diner.
Flying through Storytelling 