@Kayla It will soon be time to cut another version of the plugin and I want to be sure I’m serving your case. I’m thinking of adding a wpdc_join_discussion_link_html filter here
$link_html = '<div class="wpdc-join-discussion"><a class="wpdc-join-discussion-link" href="' . esc_url_raw( $discourse_permalink ) . '"' . $new_tab . '>' . esc_html( $link_text ) . '</a></div>';
$link_html = apply_filters( 'wpdc_join_discussion_link_html', $link_html, $comments_count, $post_id );
return $link_html;
This would perform the same role as the discourse_replies_html filter, but for the link html.
Does that work for you?