parodeity | subnautica ic inbox 3.0;

[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.

Me bein' a blight is different from you bein' a blight.

[ since dirk juggles knives ]

And you literally never let hypocrisy slide.

You've probably tricked me into losin' track of some once or twice. [Dave is good at that.] It's the same because we both think the other is impossible to imagine as a blight. Except that I think Yuri thinks we're both a blight, but I'm not apologetic about that.

Yeah, I meant to ask what the fuck that was about?

[ and then he did not. even though he clearly had 0 issues making yuri's life a moderate hellzone.

he's aware just dropping everything else won't work but also he wants to know wtf the mermaid yuri shit was about ]

Why are you suddenly a mermaid. That sort of absurdly obvious lie is more my bag of tricks, not yours.

He asked some dumb question, don't remember what, and I made an off-hand comment about livin' in the middle of the ocean, at which point he accused me of being a mermaid. I said I wasn't, he was dubious of my denial, and somethin' else I said brought him back to basically sayin' he knew I was a mermaid all along.

That was when I decided to just go with it.

[He did his due diligence but his trolling impulses can only be so reigned in.]

Yeah ok, you held out longer than I would've.

[ LITERALLY HE WOULD HAVE JUST GONE "shit yes you got me im a mermaid" THE FIRST TIME, SO. ]

I cannot even remember all the bullshit I said to him but he told me too quick he wanted a straight answer so.

[ dave did...not give one? ]

I had a feelin' he would. I also knew that that would be the exact point at which he'd never get a straight answer.

Like, too quick as in said my name and demanded one off the bat. How could I not give him a hard time?

[ he is only human. and like godtier whatever ]

There's somethin' to be said for havin' mercy.

[Then why did Dirk send him to Dave.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject