parodeity | subnautica ic inbox 2.0;

No objections to either. It'd be interesting to see.

I'd give you the tour of LOTAK, but there wasn't much, and also you guys apparently managed to make it blow up, along with my apartment. [He wasn't there? He just knows that he no longer has a planet. Thanks, Lord Jacklish or whatever you're called.] The best I could give would be a memory tour.

[ he. blinks. ]

I forgot we could fuckin' do that for a few seconds. Uh. I guess next time we're out thataway we can do the dreamer guided tour shit?

[ A SHRUG. ]

Also we blew up so much shit in game I stopped keepin' track of what, exactly, got blown all to hell. Aside from knowin' my apartment is fine, since Jade had LOHAC with her.

[ he's not sure how he feels about that. he'd like some of his crap back but he would prefer to just let his apartment rot, otherwise? ]

I'd like that. It might be good practice for me on controlling the dreamscape.

[It'd be nice to see. They could wait, but at this point they do not know how long it will be until they can actually get through this.

It seems less positive that Dave's apartment is fine. Dirk has a ton of stuff he wants to get back from his and can't; Dave, from what Dirk saw, has much less to want to recover.]

Whenever you want, then.

[ they've only done the dream-tour thing twice, but it's getting more familiar and dirk's still the one person he's willing to start regularly offering that kind of bullshit to.

rather than his own surviving apartment, built clear off the planet to his gate, it's easier to talk about the other places that survived. ]

You should see Rose's place sometime. It's like, wizard central. Like holy fuckin' shit do Lalondes like wizards. And mausoleums? And cats. Did I mention wizards?

No, you did not mention wizards. [Dirk has that fondly amused thing going now. He often does when it comes to their Lalondes.] We have no place to comment on the carryover of interests but it's pretty entertaining. They really do love cats and wizards. And, for some reason, death memorialization. Derse can't be their excuse when neither of us ended up weirdly into that kind of thing.

[ he flips over a fleeting impression of that one huge wizard statue as seen from the height of a 13yo boy via telepathy. they all had to go through one another's lands and houses to reach the gates in succession, so he's seen it. there's a vague sense of "why the fuck not" re: the wizard. ]

They aren't into rap and the shit we're into, either. I guess it's a smaller closed paradox loop than "Derse".

[The amusement spikes. What a dumb, perfect thing.]

So the Lalondes get morbidity and we get the fine art of rap. It's kinda cool, in its way. I appreciate the larger family unit, but it's nice having these things to ourselves.

[Also Dirk is done with his current textbook so he goes and gets another THERE ARE SO MANY and that's just the math books]

[ dave's just going through them pretty easily now. sometimes he'll put a post it on the cover if the first few chapters are all new, but usually he's going case by case. ]

And music generally, and I guess - likin' to bullshit stuff? Not like lie, I mean, like - just talkin' about nothin' forever. And birds.

[ and a million things, pleasant and unpleasant, but even the bad things are kind of cool to share. dumb, but. ]

I like it, too.

Do birds count as an interest or as a Paradox Space cosmic haunting?

[He feels like they're a cosmic haunting. He feels like they did not choose birds, birds chose them.]

Probably more the latter. We can say our sense of humor is an interest, though. It would've been fun to like, be alive at the same time when the internet existed. You would've been a kickass troll.

[ on the internets ]

I basically missed out on my life calling. [Tragic.] It would've been hilarious to come up with theories on your comics and post 'em to the forums. Make up obscure references to people who didn't exist and explain the Nancho party as a parable of Calvanism.

Do you think people really have life callings? Like...obviously we were all fated to do what we did, but like, life callings how people usually talk about them. Like the things they feel like shit, this is it, this is why I was born - not just like the actual reason as accordin' to p space.

[ dave just mark your books holy shit ]

I don't know if people really have life callings, but yes, I have to assume that people feel like they have them. Those people probably doubt it now and then and in part exaggerate it into a greater state of perfect union than it might be, but it seems like a thing that would genuinely happen to some. One of the arguments against a capitalist society, as made by Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, is in fact that making people work to survive prevents them from working in the way that is most personally fulfilling. It then becomes in general a luxury that most can't afford.

[dave did just comment they share a love of talking bullshit.]

So you've never had that kinda moment of "this is what I'm meant for" outside of, like, the game constructs?

[ he did. it's still true. ]

I guess if nothin' else we're def putting into practice the whole socialism soul thing. I wonder if people are actually more satisfied or no? I mean, I think our personal views on the matter are kind of fucked since we're no kind of baseline, but like. The normal people who don't have bullshit? Your philosophers would love this fuckin' place.

My philosophers would go crazy over this place. Thoreau would probably come to tears.

[Dirk does think about it for a moment. While he's flipping through the book, he turns over all the ideas and tries to find the answer.]

I don't know. Outside of what the game made me exist for, it isn't something that's ever been on my mind. There are things I enjoy doing, but I wouldn't say that's the location of my purpose for living. That has its locus in people which some might consider overdone, but it's something I've come to accept about myself. It's difficult to find any particular feeling of a calling when I'm doing the same things I was doing for the sixteen years I was waiting for my life to start happenin'. They're just things I do for a better reason now, in a better situation.

What about you?

A dream come true, right?

[ he probably should have thought about his own answer before asking the question at all, but alas. it takes dave like an entire book to speak up. ]

Not really. Not in the way I asked. I don't know that I'll ever have that kind of moment? [ he's not normal enough, probably, to get to that point. ] There have been moments where I've thought that maybe everythin' was worth it or at least maybe there was a point to all of it, but that's not the same thing at all, not really. Maybe a shade of similar, but not the same.

[That's okay. Dirk has books and books go through through waiting. When Dave does talk, Dirk listens.]

Do you mind not having that?

[Dirk doesn't, and Dirk doesn't see why Dave needs one. Dirk thinks Dave deserves to be free of a 'purpose,' that if he ever finds one down the line it should be one of many. Dirk thinks Dave's only reason to be should be being.

But it occurs to Dirk that it could also be nice to have a purpose of one's own choosing after being given purposes by forces that don't care for you. So he doesn't know.]

No. I never wanted a purpose to start with, really.

[ or maybe he was tired of failing to have one, and he wanted to just...stop having the expectations. ]

Dave of Guy would be a perfectly adequate title. Not too interested in rackin' up others. [ for all that he reluctantly assigns himself responsibilities, he really doesn't enjoy having them. he just...automatically takes them. ]

But sometimes it's nice to assign a purpose to the meaningless shit in my life.

We're agreed to be purposeless slackers for the rest of eternity.

[The textbooks mark the irony of it, but of course Dirk is also sincere. They are good as they are.]

We're also agreed that it's fun to give purposes to meaningless things. Apparently. That must mean you're signing onto my Calvanist Nancho interpretation.

That's exactly what I meant.

[ or, well, he sideways meant maybe at least there's some good shit about his childhood if it means he can at least flipways understand shit about dirk and if it gives him perspective to help him elsewhere, but. somehow he doubts anyone wants to hear about that particular assigning-meaning experience, ever. ]

Although I can't confirm or deny the Calvanist Nancho agenda, of course. That would be tellin', and half the fun in comics is not tellin' people what the fuck you mean.

[It was gentle bait to offer Dave the chance to expand on 'meaningless shit in his life.' As usual, Dirk is an idiot for thinking 'gentle bait' is the appropriate way for getting Dave to say things. He thinks about it for a moment, and then, lightly, he shoves against Dave's shoulder on that other beanbag. It is obviously not going to unbalance Dave in the slightest.]

Pretty sure it ain't, bro.

[Exactly what Dave meant.

But that's okay. Dirk isn't going to insist on anything.]

Half the fun of reading is producing a proliferation of esoteric interpretations. Your comics are a veritable font of possibilities.

I'm not sure you'd agree.

[ it what he says by way of explanation, as he kicks dirk in the shin. or, well. taps dirk's shin with his foot, not remotely a kick, but it's the same fucking difference.

he tosses his latest finished book dirk's way, still content in the knowledge dirk can handle having stuff thrown at him. ]

We should get into some kinda series.

Sometimes I don't. I can still listen.

[Caught easily and traded over without hesitation.]

Like a tv show?

Or a comic. Somethin' convoluted and long-runnin' that neither of us ever seriously watched or read.

[ to trade dumb theories over. dave kind of feels like it could be entertaining. ]

I'd understand you worse, and maybe be a worse person, if none of it had ever happened.

[Of course it comes second, so it hits Dirk when he isn't even sure it'll happen. He is quiet a minute.]

Doctor Who.

[It is not in his usual ball-park but it has been running since 1963 and quite possibly it runs to the present day in URSULA's time. He doesn't know.]

Okay. I don't know how much I agree to that, especially the second one, but yeah. I get what you're thinking.

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