#not dirkhal

[timaeusresponds]

I am perhaps getting a comm for my birthday and the artists TOS says to have a visual reference so obviously i made the visual reference. Under the cut is a bonar be warned. Reigen in a dress <3 super rudimentary sketch <33

[timaeusresponds]

I have to go to bed by one am so i cannot start drawing now but i want wveryone to inow that i WILL be making some red valley art urgently. Tomorrow maybe. Rhggh.

What do you mean you’re the mechanism of a firing gun, used for the horrible things the gun does but only by virtue of your components, a vessel for destruction and reckoning by circumstance of your life. What do you mean fate has made you the atoms in an atomic bomb, your very make up that which permitted science to kill. What do you mean you live as a dead man, a shell of life, hollow of memory besides your sentence to advancing the cruelty of mankind. Warren Godby i love you. To be made a harbinger of endtimes. To be a tank dog. I love you warren.

[timaeusresponds]

Reigen talking about how

1.. Everyone has parts of themselves they struggle to accept, that is heavily flawed

2. You can accept that side of yourself and acknowledge the harm and damage its done without also absolving yourself of guilt and

3.That part of you is still undeniably you and hating it does not continue into productive growth and, in being part of you, has caused good things as well as bad

Is so very important to me. “What if im evil and terrible” what if youre a human being with complex and sometimes irrational feelings who acts with the information at your disposal and what if despising and labelling those thoughts and feelings as evil only allows you the excuse of burying them instead of intent to actually change and improve. What if you acknowledged that part of yourself with the same compassionate loving awareness you did others and looked to see what the source of those behaviors are, and made an effort to change the conditions that prompt the behavior instead.

What if you loved yourself and everyone else and you did so with the knowledge we all do regretful things and we are all always living for the first time.

[timaeusresponds]

Please say nice things its my forst time

[timaeusresponds]

The bread yields ft my makeshift cooling rack lol. Its an egg wash vs a honey wash, the honey wash was out longer so its all dry and not glossy BUT it did turn out cooked all the way thru so we r beating last weekend.

[timaeusresponds]

okay but do you guys think in any setting where post scratch dave is present, he adequately accepts and understands Hal?

Mega warning for superyap i get INTO this one. Poll at the end as a treat if u care.

Like, we’ve seen Dave’s ability to be kind of callous in his understanding of the whole ‘second-rate self’ concept in how he seems to not really get Davesprite’s issue with it early on, and the early on part is what’s important here—

At this point in the comic, this version of Dave has not really faced the major major downsides of his abilities, including processing the idea that each Dave is, by all accounts, an individual with a life and experiences that can be overrun by a slightly more narratively important Dave, and that put in his position, he would feel the same.

So there’s like, any number of aus/offshoots/etc that can bring up the whole PS-Dave being around and there’s the ‘post game, everyone gets the guardians, sprites back in initial form’ bullshit where he has at least some degree of nuance (see: a whole other version of himself that he does not identify with running around as a God.)

But there’s also just. Modern settings. Dirk makes an AI of himself as a teen, and Dave is familiar with him as a barrier to reaching actual Dirk when he tries. It’s the frustrating cycle we see with Dirk’s friends, Hal is at this point just the AR, and no one likes being screened by it.

But then the AR is more lifelike, and Dirk’s older, and they’re pretty easy to tell apart considering the shift in their growth- Dirk is not the same as the program and the AR is increasingly losing the ‘indistinguishable’ part. It’s still annoying to run into, but now it doesn’t feel so much like being deceived- it feels like having a shared phone be answered. That said, it’s still the AR, the same way it’s still the AR to Dirk’s friends.

And then it’s Hal. There’s a conflicting use of he/it pronouns that show the fact that this is becoming far more than just a software that answers messages, but Dave doesn’t know enough about technology to really understand what that really means. Dirk has explained he it is a very good emulation, but is probably not a sentient being. The probably doesn’t help.

What else doesn’t help is the fact that this ‘emulation’ is like exceedingly good at getting under Dirk’s skin and surprisingly human in interactions with Dave. He It shows personal interest in Dave’s work, he it has implied or directly stated his its feelings on the way he it is treated, he it has a lot of opinions different than Dirk in regards to shared interests, and Dave is struggling to pull apart the ‘this is a software’ but the step up from ‘this is no longer a software’ is leagues more confusing!

Because now, if it’s not a software, it has to be some variation of Dirk, right? Dirk made the original as a copy of him, and Dave can remember when that was what AR Hal was, he can’t map the changes over time because it was as subtle as Dirk growing and changing, so now he’s dealing with this Arguably Version Of Dirk that Probably Has Feelings and Might Be a Guy, who is kind of terrorizing the actual Dirk. He can’t talk it out with Hal himself, because if Hal is some form of Dirk, he probably sees Dave as his Bro, and having the person you love and idolize turn around and question the very reality of your existence probably would do some bad damage. So now he’s humanizing Hal even further, and beyond that, caring about his feelings about things.

But even when things calm down with Dirk, and even as Dirk and Hal explain the concept of them as different people, is it ever really easy to cut the line between them completely? They still have core memories shared, Dave can mention something Dirk did at 6 to both of them and both of them will recite the experience in first person, the main difference being Hal likely retained it better as part of the core parts of his being. This isn’t ‘we were both there when it happened,’ this is ‘we can both tell you the thoughts and feelings that were experienced as the action took place’ and often with probably nearly identical phrasing. How do you ever fully differentiate those two in your head.

I can see some degree of ‘like twins,’ or an adopted feeling, but I think there’s always going to be some sense of disconnect from the idea of who Hal is supposed to be. I think where Dirk eventually knows Hal is not him but was at one point, Dave kind of views Hal as this extension of Dirk that split off when Dirk made the AR.

I bet Hal knows, too, and I think it probably sucks, but I think Dave does try to treat him like they’re family. It’s just a little less natural and for a pattern recognizing supercomputer he can pretty easily clock it.

This got away from me and way out of hand woopsies anyway im doing a silly poll what do you guys think if You Read Any Of That

what do u think tho fr

Dave sees Hal as his own person distinct of Dirk

Dave sees Hal as Dirk just with different circumstances

Dave sees Hal as a program, but not strictly an emulation of Dirk

Dave sees Hal as a program emulating Dirk if Dirk was in the position of the AI

Other shit idk maybe explain somewhere if u wanna :)

i do not think about this at all

Voting ended onApr 15, 2025

[timaeusresponds]

FLAWLESS execution of dinner yeast rolls <3 the first attempt last weekend was bad but this weekend was PERFECT !!!! Im so happy with them

[timaeusresponds]

Warren Godby and Gordon Porlock are Moirails.