WEEK ONE: SUNDAY, POST GROUP MEETING

[parodeity]

[ well, after That Meeting was over, dave would have hooked a hand on dirk's arm, said "a'ight, come with me" and dragged him off to an area where they can maybe be alone and have enough room for...whatever...the hell he dragged dirk off for.

dirk gets a measured look before dave crosses his arms - dropping dirk's - and says: ]

Ground rules for comin' with me into dangerous shit: you guard the rear, I'm on point. Solid?

[ before dirk can answer, he adds: ]

You're less familiar with weapons that ain't the damn katana. I'm more familiar with 'em. So, point's me. [ he's tense and hesitant when he continues with: ] ...And you guard my back. [ he's usually more than a little wary about having dirk at his back, so this is. probably progress? ]

Comments

[splinten]

[Okay, ten minutes is a long enough time for Dirk to start cycling and realize, slowly, that this isn't about him being a disappointment. Or it is, but not about a martial disappointment, exactly. It has begun to occur to him that maybe, in fact, this is about a dude who has no idea how to raise a child also having no idea how to teach that child combat in a way that leaves him with any self-esteem intact. Isn't that what he did to Jake, after all?

Well crap.]

Yeah. Uh... you're a better combatant than me, Dave. That's the impression I got from this Strife.

[parodeity]

But you're...you. [ untouchable. ] It took an unbeatable boss to do it?

[ and eventually it'd take two of those to take out dave, fighting to protect a corpse. ]

[splinten]

...To...?

[He doesn't. Understand.]

I'm not, like, a champion of martial prowess. I tried, and I think I'm pretty decent with a katana, but I'm definitely not the best there is.

[Quietly.]

That was always you.

[parodeity]

To take you - him - down. I've never won. Not once.

[ thirteen years and - ]

Never even a scratch.

[splinten]

[Right. Well. Okay. Dirk takes his bruised ego, and he sets it aside. It isn't important.]

In my honest opinion, you're a better combatant than I am. I don't know if you'd be better than him at this point, I don't know how I match up to him or anythin'. But I can tell that you're better than me.

We can go a few more rounds, if you want. That should make your advantage pretty clear.

[parodeity]

No. [ dave blinks, refocuses. ] This was about trainin' you, not provin' shit about what I can do.

[ because he was raised by bro and dave is like him in some ways, but not in this: he doesn't find any real enjoyment in proving a thing over and over again. he's not sure how to feel about the knowledge he can beat dirk, but that isn't the focus here, and can't be. ]

Run through one more time so I can be sure you got the blocks and strikes down, but not for...this.

[splinten]

Alright.

[Dirk actually is more bolder this time, now that he's sure Dave can disarm him. But Dave could still easily beat him, and will if he chooses to end it with a disarming. He has caught up pretty well otherwise.]

[parodeity]

[ he does not end it with disarming or beating dirk? he just says: ] That's enough.

[ and draws back, making sure dirk does indeed stop. ] Good work. You learn fast?

[splinten]

[Dirk stops when he is told, because he isn't fucking Bro up for just attacking kids.] Usually, yeah. [He doesn't add 'you know if you think that was fast.' He likes the praise though? It feels stupid to love it from someone two years younger, but it's still Dave.] I've always enjoyed learnin' new things.

[parodeity]

[ ok can't relate re: combat though he always makes himself so: ] I like learnin' new...artsy stuff. Or like...scholastic shit, when I get the time. I like math?

[splinten]

I had a ton of time to dick around, so I always taught myself whatever. What kinds of artsy things? And, like... We could talk math some time? It's always been a really enjoyable field.

[parodeity]

Music shit, mostly. But also...Photography. [ actual irony dirk's the one who got the camera. ] I dunno how well I'll be able to, like, talk math. I never did formal schoolin' really.

[splinten]

[that really is irony it made me laugh]

Neither did I, technically. I just looked up things like that infinite chocolate bar and kinda worked my way backwards into mathematics.

[parodeity]

I kinda did...whatever? Online?

[ shrugs. ]

Watched educational videos sometimes. Bill Nye's cool. [ yeah...clearly, bro was not huge into schooling. or...explaining much of anything, actually. ]

[splinten]

Bill Nye was awesome, and a damned hero. [There's the tone of speaking sadly of someone who died nobly for a cause.]

[parodeity]

...What. [ tbh i would have disowned you had you not made bill nye a rebellion hero tho ]

[splinten]

[You know I'd never fail to do that.]

Oh yeah, you wouldn't have known. He was a hero of the rebellion. He was a vocal activist against Guy Fieri's early rise to political influence, before changing his focus to trying to prevent the Condesce's flooding of the planet once Fieri's hold on the American judicial system became absolute. It's estimated that his early warning of her plans and his efforts to combat it gave the planet at least an extra decade of time.

[parodeity]

[ you know what dave can buy this ]

I hope he wore a bow tie the whole time.

[splinten]

'Course he did. He's Bill Nye.

[parodeity]

So...you like math?

[splinten]

Yeah, I think it's really awesome. Soothin', but also infinitely engaging for the different ways you can interact with mathematical problems. [Er. He coughs.] Not to, like, intellectualize it. It's just like... nice.

[parodeity]

I don't care if you do. [ uh, wait. that could sound bad. ] Intellectualize it. Rose does all the time.

[splinten]

[His heart stopped a beat. It takes a bit more to start up again.] Oh. Oh, okay. Cool.

[parodeity]

I've never minded here dissertations even if I give her shit about 'em.

[splinten]

I'd like to talk to her in terms of them. My friends are pretty tolerant of my dissertations, but they aren't always the most eager.

One of the great merits of mathematics, in my opinion, is the way it navigates between the complex and the simple through the idea of first principles. You can move from really basic concepts to increasingly complicated and even counterintuitive ideas, all while relying on those basic elements as grounding points. Yet it is also capable of opening up alternative routes for self-understanding, as you find in non-Euclidian geometry, and when you follow it along you often find that it's capable of negotiating the discrete and the continuous or the finite and the infinite, always by asking its practitioner to change their frame of reference and allow the logic to explain itself. It has a rigour to it that I find exciting, but it also has a beauty that I respect and find calming. By respecting it as it is, you can come to understand things that you might not have previously thought about as comprehensible.