>Now where were you?
DIRK: Where was I. Let's see. A few more thoughts while I have your attention, I guess.
DIRK: I ask myself sometimes, yknow. Why was I given life?
DIRK: What I've learned over time is that I'm no more special than anybody else.
DIRK: "Youre special to me dirk!"
DIRK: Awww, thanks, Hand Puppet Jake! You're special to me too, because you're a splinter of Jake that diffuses my irrational ambient anxieties about losing Jake again!
DIRK: "That is some weird ass brain problem shit you have going on there dirk!" Thanks, Jake!
DIRK: Anyway, to get to the point that I was making, mirror-me and Hand Puppet Jake, "I'm listening!", I'm listening too.
DIRK: Being chosen for godhead status, even if a limited and largely ceremonial role, is not something I was really "meant" for any more than, I don't know, Ms. Paint or Marquesa Dappaswain di Gallavantie, the notorious crocodile duelist who everyone has been talking about lately.
DIRK: It is only through the convenience of reality's arbitrary contrivances that I am given form, though I suppose that is true even for those of us who were not born of the green slime. But still, we must temper the ego's impulse to pretentiousness.
DIRK: Prince. Brother. Father. People get lost in these words, but they are mere titles. Bits of ornament and fancy. They have no more veracity than we imbue them with.
DIRK: Dave taught me that one day a while back. "I remember that day! How you were bawling like a disencandied baby! Wahaha!" How embarrassing to recall, Jake!
DIRK: Not even sure that this world needs a prince. It could sure use its witches and seers, its rogues and muses, sylphs and Soothes. But princes? I got hella doubts, yo.
DIRK: The people can praise me by title as they congregate in their places of cosplay worship and say that I'm somebody special because I allegedly made some small contribution somewhere along the road to everyone's lives getting a little better.
DIRK: But that's just not what I am. I'm nobody's idol. I'm an artist. A scholar. A maker of things. An engineer.
DIRK: A *fun engineer*...
DIRK: Fungineer.
DIRK: Stoic glasses emoji.
DIRK: That's what I think that I was given life for.
DIRK: And that's what I want to be known for when I die, hopefully a long long time from now.
DIRK: Not as anybody special.
DIRK: Not as some slimeborn video game supergod.
DIRK: Just someone who made things that meant things to other people once in a while.
DIRK: You know?
DIRK: Anyway, thanks for the pep talk, me.
DIRK: And you too, Hand Puppet Jake. "Yesss!!!"
DIRK: I think I'll keep my katana in its sheath.
DIRK: Isn't that the thing about karate? That thing that Dave is always saying? The trick is never to use it?
DIRK: Wait. Karate? What am I talking about. Katanas aren't for karate. Karate is an unarmed fighting style. It's in the goddamn name. "Empty-hand". Man, that's embarrassing.
DIRK: Uhhh. Are we done here yet? Can we watch Jane get yanked through the--Wait, there's MORE stuff before that happens? Okay, but this better be good.
DIRK: Roll it.