parodeity | subnautica ic inbox 3.0;

I don't think that's growin' up.

[He doesn't put his hand out for Dave. He doesn't think it would be right to take right now. Not when everyone takes everything.]

This isn't exactly a thing I'm an expert on, since I didn't care about my past. But now, I don't like tellin' people about what happens between us. It doesn't seem like it's any of their business, so I don't. I'm fine with that. No one really needs to know that kind of thing, even if it were okay to share it. I never took up your offer about tellin' someone about your Bro for a reason.

It seems like the same logic applies here. If it feels like there's a gap between you and your friends because you didn't tell them and you feel like you want to bridge that gap, giving them that information makes sense as a choice for you. What I can't grasp is how you owe them that information just because you have it, and how that is just a demand of growin' up.

This isn't even really related to the warper thing at this point? I don't think you can argue that I'm bein' an idiot for that, no matter how you fancy it up. And that's the issue that's actually relevant so - I don't know. But for the record I never wanted to bridge a gap by sharin' shit like that. Not like how you mean. I told Rose because I needed her help and was out of choices and at least that I don't completely regret but I'm not sure at that point it was a choice so much as a necessity. Karkat and Jade deserved to know but it wasn't shit I told them for me so much as them I guess? And you got that bullshit dumped on you while I had a minor mental breakdown about, uh, my entire life.

[ which was his choice at least since dirk wasn't pressing it after dave originally said he didn't want to get into it but also good lord. ]

It's only ever been for that sort of understandin' in instances since then and only when - like with the rooms. Shit like that I guess at least I didn't have to do. I didn't know how else to explain without that stuff and at least I - wanted to?

But like I said: examples which do not match the actual thing.

They don't match the actual thing, but they're probably related in a weird, roundabout way.

[Dirk breathes in, holds his breath. Counts down and exhales through his nose. His fingers twist in the pillow.]

I'm tryin' to... work somethin' out. Words and ideas, mostly. [Problems he can't fix.] A lot of times you tell me things you don't want to. We both know that. Every time I've brought up concerns with that, you've indicated that it's something you appreciate and need, via the boss fight metaphor. In response, I've tried to encourage you to be honest with me. I also try to be honest in return. Neither of us are perfect at it, but at least I understood it to be our general intent.

You worry about hurtin' me with your feelings, but then you also worry about hurtin' me by not sharin' your feelings, and of course you would need to worry about hurtin' me by forcin' yourself to share things you don't want to. Did that make a trap? Something where you don't really have a choice in what you share.

There have been things I really didn't want to tell you or talk about, but it was - I don't know how you'd put it. Rebreakin' a bone that never healed right so it does. Things that - I absolutely hated for a portion of 'embittered they were...better after. That's still true.

[ the rest he doesn't know about. he's already told dirk that they trap one another but it's different than what bro did so dave can survive it. it's half a trap of his own creation. ]

I don't know. I don't feel like I have any choices when every choice hurts me and you and then I guess everyone else for the bargain price? I wish I didn't have any choices, it'd be...easier, then it wouldn't be my fault that every path ends with collateral damage just 'cause I was too stupid not to suck it up to start with. But then it goes to "couldn't do that anyway, suckin' it up hurts x y z also" and not suckin' it up does the same and changin' myself around to suit what's needed also is a no go and it's just - it's not even a trap it's just a maze and you're there forever, I guess.

Edited 2017-03-31 05:21 (UTC)

You're going to want to fight me on whose fault that is.

[Of course Dirk thinks it's himself. Of course Dave thinks it's him instead.]

There's no way out so you dissociated. Only way out was to get out of your own feelings.

It was the main factor, I guess. It's...it happens when there aren't options and I still need to keep movin'.

[ also: ]

I'd win the fight.

Neither of us would ever acknowledge each other as the winner of that fight.

[That's how they are.]

Why do you think giving information as debt is growin' up?

It's childish to care. Jesus, half the issues we've had could go back to me bein' - [ he almost says out of practice but he catches himself in time. ] just...it ain't a mature and reasonable approach to not tell people shit. Unless Rose does it I think since she's like emotionally well adjusted enough to get away with it.

[A pause.]

Was that change in phrasin' something you want me to let go?

It was a thing I didn't mean. [ or did mean, but - ] It would be a cruel thing to say and it's not true?

Your call.

[There's that expression on Dirk's face, open but calm, focused. He'll be able to handle it whatever Dave chooses.]

I don't want to say things to you that are like knives. I know I do sometimes without meanin' to, and if I catch it beforehand, I don't wanna.

[ he does not think that dirk would take "if i were better in practice with rolling with the punches" re: anything dirk did that throws him off well and for good reason. ]

[Well.]

That is definitely a top way of phrasing things that makes me want to know more, but okay. We can avoid stabbin' me at least for this. [He said it was Dave's call.]

The general point, I guess, is that you think that most of the issues we've had is because you aren't what you consider.... adult, I guess. Usually you just pick an especially demeaning way to call yourself deviating from the norms of social behaviour.

It's the same thing. [ not being normal or mature or stable or whatever. ] Also, I don't think you can throw shade about the last bit without bein' a hypoctrite.

There wasn't a point in this where I've denied my hypocrisy. They're not exactly the same thing. Maturity is more like the natural progression, which is linear. Deviation is an actual detour from the appropriate course, markin' something off of the linear progress implied by maturation.

Ok, I guess what I always mean when I say this shit is I should man up but I don't want to put it like that?

[That catches him off-guard.]

You mean that one takes precedence over thinkin' you're broken? That is, you're broken because you can't man up, is what you think.

They're kinda the same thing? I can't...do shit I should be able to, or not as easily as I should, and I should really be able to fuckin' do it anyway even when that's the case.

[ just get back up. ]

At some point I'm gonna have to just do shit anyway. It's, like. What you do?

[Dirk remembers a fight on a rooftop. Two fights. He remembers his fight with Dave and Terezi and how many times they brought him back to life. But Dave's fight with his Bro was different. He got up because he couldn't stay down until he was allowed.]

Maybe... you give yourself a break. The way you've been trainin' me to fight is a lot more helpful than the no-mercy style I used to use on myself.

[It's better than what Dave's brother did.]

I... [ look. ] It's easier to tell you to do a thing, you know it as well as I do that goes both ways. Especially when givin' myself a break means I'm still hurtin' other people. I hate it. I hate that I hurt you by existing.

You don't. [It's a reflex response and he knows as it comes out Dave won't believe it.] You don't—it isn't like that. Your existence does the opposite of hurt me. Obviously there's been pain, and yeah you've caused some for me like I've caused some for you. I don't see that as a function of your existence. Sometimes I think your existence is the real reward the game gave me for playin' it to the end.

That's a title that fits literally anyone else from your session and mine better, dude. [ he isn't sure if he's said anything similar to dirk before. he's thought it, but he can't accept it in return when all he does is cause a juggling act that seems to do more damage than it doesn't. ]

My plan was to not do anythin'? And maybe just. Stop learnin' new shit. If we get through this one and I just ostrich it up until I stop bein' all this [ gestures to himself ] then it's a moot point and no one has to angst.

I'm not going to veto your plan.

[Even slight gestures toward that have gone terribly. Dirk can learn.]

I'm going to argue your comment about anyone else being the reward. I came into the game with my friends and my baggage, and for six months we fucked ourselves up. Before you and me met, I was a wreck who had more or less decided on total isolation as the only acceptable response for being such a blight on on everyone I loved. Those were all stable factors, and all things being equal, change was unlikely.

The one thing the game gave me that allowed the break in that stasis was you. I don't discount Rose, Jade, and John's value, but they aren't the factor that changed everything for me. You were what I needed for the kind of personal emotional growth that the game was designed to give us through quests, and similarly you've been vital for my well-being now that we're out. You were necessary for freeing me from the prison I trapped myself in, and you've been vital in helping me learn to stop making those prisons and get out of them when I do. The only person who could possibly hold that title is you.

[ dave stares at dirk for a long time. he has arguments to the argument? roxy and jake and jane are all better rewards, and the ones that dirk belongs to in the sense that he's theirs and dave has a better claim on the dirk strider absolutely no one wants. dirk said he felt like he was juggling knives and hearts all the time and dave just thinks it would be better all around if he stopped existing and that weren't a thing, and he thinks he wants too much every time even when dirk is dumb enough to say he wants too little, and dirk says important and vital and dave's too-aware he's never going to be to any version of his brother what his friends managed to achieve with their guardians, and it's stupid unfair to put that on dirk so he can't, and at least dirk thinks all this shit even if dave doesn't think it's true. at least he believes in things that sound comforting, because dirk deserves that.

he wants to ask what dirk would do if he asked for help getting out of a prison, but he doesn't want to put that on dirk, either. he is always making himself into a burden and he doesn't even really have the right. ]

Okay. [ it's easier than trying to sort through the things he can't or won't or shouldn't say, and shit, it's all probably shit he should say and the thought makes dave tired.

he casts around for something to say, and what comes up is, rather than anything more relevant: ] You've never been a blight on anyone. I don't think anyone would agree with that.

[ an admonition about dirk putting himself down. yeah. figures. ]

[For a moment, Dirk thinks maybe it got through—a moment of silence, of quiet staring. For a moment Dirk thinks he's hit that shock-response where Dave realizes how important he is.

Then he knows that he didn't. And he accepts it, without giving in.]

That's a damn hypocritical comment from a dude who just mentally rejected my argument against him being a blight.

It's okay. You don't have to give me the counter-arguments. I was just not gonna let that level of hypocrisy slide when you just called me out like five minutes ago.

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