Dirk Strider (Ultimate) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
uber_marionettist) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
silph_co2020-04-04 08:42 pm
uber_marionettist) wrote in silph_co2020-04-04 08:42 pm
Switch on, switch off, robotic [Closed]
Who: Dirk Strider and Carly Nagisa
Where: Lapras Mech Lab
When: At some point after Carly talks to Connie
Summary: Carly said she would have words with Dirk. Dirk never said he'd listen.
Rating: cw for suicidal ideation, breaks with reality, self loathing, etc
Blocking every number on his Pokegear was the second thing Dirk did after ensuring Carly herself was locked out of the lab. He has no regrets about that.
It also guaranteed him some fucking privacy during his inevitable offscreen reactions. Eventually, though, the dust settles and the sutures have been tied off.
And there's something about being alone in a place that he can't escape, that wasn't his choice.
It fucks with him.
That's normal.
For him.
But this is different. Better? Worse? Just different. Bigger than that jail, smaller than this game. It's not a matter of scale.
And it's lacking the amenities of the ferry, sure, but far enough from the sea he can't smell or see or hear it. It's not a matter of location.
It's a matter of isolation.
There's no one to see him, hear him. Not even any of his other selves. No one.
And nothing real.
He remembers being young, sitting alone in his room, or atop the spire or down by the ocean, closing his eyes in the shower or even submerging himself in that infinite seawater. And trying to feel that. 'Real.' To feel certain enough, to know whether he was, or else whether anything around him was 'real.' To prove or disprove it, to push with his mind until whatever breakthrough would dispel the falsehood or bring him into the reality that he knew had to exist, somehow.
The uncertainty would eat at him for hours, the lack of breakthrough frustrating to the point of archeronian agony. But to know, categorically and conclusively, that it is not...
And to not know, but to fear that he is not...
The thing about being alone, truly physically and existentially alone, is that you start to do strange things. Like lying on your back on cold concrete flooring, staring at the ceiling. Trying to 'feel' your own reality.
In a way, he's already sure he is not.
Or he wouldn't have slipped this far out of control.
Where: Lapras Mech Lab
When: At some point after Carly talks to Connie
Summary: Carly said she would have words with Dirk. Dirk never said he'd listen.
Rating: cw for suicidal ideation, breaks with reality, self loathing, etc
Blocking every number on his Pokegear was the second thing Dirk did after ensuring Carly herself was locked out of the lab. He has no regrets about that.
It also guaranteed him some fucking privacy during his inevitable offscreen reactions. Eventually, though, the dust settles and the sutures have been tied off.
And there's something about being alone in a place that he can't escape, that wasn't his choice.
It fucks with him.
That's normal.
For him.
But this is different. Better? Worse? Just different. Bigger than that jail, smaller than this game. It's not a matter of scale.
And it's lacking the amenities of the ferry, sure, but far enough from the sea he can't smell or see or hear it. It's not a matter of location.
It's a matter of isolation.
There's no one to see him, hear him. Not even any of his other selves. No one.
And nothing real.
He remembers being young, sitting alone in his room, or atop the spire or down by the ocean, closing his eyes in the shower or even submerging himself in that infinite seawater. And trying to feel that. 'Real.' To feel certain enough, to know whether he was, or else whether anything around him was 'real.' To prove or disprove it, to push with his mind until whatever breakthrough would dispel the falsehood or bring him into the reality that he knew had to exist, somehow.
The uncertainty would eat at him for hours, the lack of breakthrough frustrating to the point of archeronian agony. But to know, categorically and conclusively, that it is not...
And to not know, but to fear that he is not...
The thing about being alone, truly physically and existentially alone, is that you start to do strange things. Like lying on your back on cold concrete flooring, staring at the ceiling. Trying to 'feel' your own reality.
In a way, he's already sure he is not.
Or he wouldn't have slipped this far out of control.
no subject
But it's a conversation that has to happen all the same- she's spoken to Connie. Now she has to speak to Dirk. Both screwed up. Both need to do SOMETHING about it.
Or at the least, something other than burning all the bridges behind them. Blocking numbers. Etc, etc.
...And uh.
Whatever this is.
To be fair she sort of expected the number, and she Did give him a few days for a reason. But sometimes, you just have to be a little surprised by what you expected.
She comes in, in silence. Mimikyu slipping in, and suddenly the door is opening and Carly's footsteps are entering the room. The door closes behind her while she stares, silent for a moment.
"..." Oh geeze.
"...Dirk, how long have you been on the floor?"
no subject
Dirk doesn't answer immediately, or get up immediately. The corners of his mouth pull down tightly.
"Wasn't really counting."
Once he starts talking, he doesn't stop.
"I've been making better use of my time. Despite the obvious limitations my present situation, spending a little time alone was the most efficient way to locate the root of the problem."
But he still isn't standing, or even sitting. He's just going to have this conversation flat on his back on the concrete floor.
"I've also been waiting for you. You took a lot longer than I was expecting. It's possible you've come to the conclusion that the event in question wasn't as serious as you first thought. But I'm not holding out hope. Dirty, four-letter word that it is. I calculate a 97.6 percent chance that you've fundamentally misunderstood the events you've come to have words about. Events which you regard as dramatic, even consequential, though not irreversible."
A beat.
"I'm prepared to disagree."
no subject
Her expression moves farther and farther into an unimpressed state as he goes however. By the end of it her hand is in the familiar position of 'fingers at bridge of nose'.
"Unfortunately Dirk, you've prepared wrong," she starts in the end. "Because I'm actually here to get the full story from you before I even start deciding things. And I'm sure you think you know how I'll react, but that's neither here nor there right now!"
She frowns. "This isn't about how 'serious' it is either. It's about making sure the two of you don't decide it's better to leave a bridge on fire than it is to douse the flames." So, maybe hold out a Little. "At the very least, I'm going to assume given the time I gave you that your stab wound isn't the reason you're on the floor."
Mark that one as 'correct' at least.
Yes he is still on the floor
"You're not slick."
He doesn't sound pissed. He sounds tired.
"Stop pretending this is an egalitarian exercise and let's get to the point. You talked to Connie already. So you already know more than I do. And now you have some kind of mediative agenda, if you didn't already. But I recall--because I was actually paying attention--that you did."
So just stick to the fucking script.
no subject
"Let's talk, Dirk. Trying to help a friend isn't an agenda. It's helping."
no subject
He is still lying on the floor, still staring up at the ceiling with all the give and all the personality of cold steel.
Physically, his awareness is mostly on the discomfort of unpadded muscle and bone against the concrete, the way the human skull is shaped exactly wrong to rest flat on a plane. The fact that the room is a bit colder than comfortable. The hard, dry ache behind his eyes, somewhere in the vicinity of the socket and nerve endings, reminds him that if nothing else, he is nowhere near the ocean.
But there is a point of similarity between machines and flesh, that so-called spark--of "life," of electricity, of power, of an idea. Electric signals jumping between neurons, travelling along circuits, through space and through wires and through nerves, compelling the muscles to contract and the heart to beat. He can feel it.
And it
Feels
Cramped.
He is no longer drowning, but is suffocated--no, strangled in those lines. Veins, neurons, wires, strings, tight around his neck. His limbs, his mind, his 'self.' Struggling internally, it winds instead tighter. Externally, there's nothing to struggle against.
He's just lying on the floor.
"Which friend do you think you're helping? Connie? Let's say it's Connie. I keep saying it doesn't matter what I think, and I really hate repeating myself. So if you want to know where I stand, it's squarely in the corner of her decision to kebab my fucking arm. Pretty rude wakeup, but one that was coming on overdue. In all, I'd say her response was pretty goddamn reasonable. If dramatic."
no subject
The point is. "It's you, actually. The friend I'm helping is You. And before you say you're not anyone's friend- you are. Including Connie's, believe it or not! And I wish you would believe it. You definitely don't with the way you're acting, and with what you're saying, but the thing about friends Dirk is that they tend to catch when what they're hearing and saying isn't what's real. ...And when the right time to step in is."
"You and Connie talked for days together. You had fun together. This isn't about helping Connie- it's about helping You. Whether you think you need it or not. So tell me what you think being stabbed means. Tell me what your 'wake up' call apparently was- if you're tired of repeating yourself, then tell me that, because you haven't told me yet. And no matter how much you think it doesn't matter? It does."
no subject
"You know this is worse, right? This is worse than the mere assumption of malign intent. I want you to know that, because everything I say after this is going to sound exactly like that, but in reverse."
He takes a breath, lets it out.
"Fuck."
Then he closes his eyes. It's easier when nothing exists around him, in these moments. Easier to think, unhindered.
Keeps him from getting distracted by the shadows on the cave wall.
Like Carly.
no subject
But.
"But," she continues more seriously, "I'm still pushing through with that in mind. So believe me when I say, even if I'm surprised by something somehow, I'm accepting that responsibility for my own emotions here~"
It's spoken with all the tone of someone who fully realizes that does not at all affect Dirk's opinions on this beyond 'well at least she doesn't expect me to Care about her Feelings'.
no subject
If Dirk doesn't respond immediately, it's because Carly is right about one thing: he really doesn't care what Carly does or does not feel, and he only cares what she does or does not do about those feelings in this situation in that he's currently subject to whatever noise that makes. This has very little to do with their respective roles relative to Connie and everything to do with the knowledge that ultimately, whatever Carly claims to know doesn't exist.
That Carly herself is no more than a cast shadow, and that his 'reality' now is a fiction whose features are constructed and contained wholly within his own mind.
"Does Japan teach Plato? Whatever. I'll summarise. First, the set dressing. Imagine--and I know you're plenty imaginative, so just ignore the ethically-fraught implications of this setup, never mind the logistical nightmare it poses--a cave of prisoners, chained to face a wall with their backs to a fire. They live there, sitting day and day out, unable to turn their heads. The perfect, captive, audience. The performers are behind them: puppeteers, artfully manipulating the firelight to cast shadows upon the single wall those prisoners can see. Ignorant of the puppets, their puppeteers, and the world beyond the cave, the prisoners have experienced nothing else. They perceive only the warped reverberation of sound and animated silhouettes on the wall. They take it as reality."
He'd managed to refrain from talking with his hands through most of the preamble; now, however, he is onto the amble. He's already begun the gesturing--calloused hands waving illustratively in the air above him, puppeteer-like movements suggesting his own set of invisible actors and objects.
"Suppose an object--and not to be too blunt about this of spoil the surprise, but we all know where this is going. So suppose an object, and let's say it's a man--passes behind them, and that casts his shadow on the wall. The prisoners are capable of speech, and one, seeing the shadow of a man, remarks upon seeing a man. 'Why wouldn't they suppose that the names they use apply to the things they see passing before them?' But that prisoner would be wrong. The shadow of a man is not a man. What the prisoner believes he is describing is not the 'real' object. It's the object he sees, and it suggests the shape of it, but it barely resembles even one facet of the 'real' object."
Despite his intended tone of elucidation, Dirk has increasingly been talking 'down' to Carly as he progresses. Now he presses the fingertips of each hand together, spreading individual fingers wide to form a sort of 'cage' over his chest as his elbows rest on the floor.
"Do you understand where I'm going with this? Are you following me? You're the prisoner, Carly, and what you see are the shadows."
no subject
She definitely knows about- "...Plato's cave. Dirk, I've learned long ago that there are going to be things I can't argue with you about. You're like that. But," she adds, voice lowering a mite.
"If you expect me to see more than shadows- if you believe that what you present really is nothing more than shadows- then you need to put more effort into showing me otherwise, because I'm not ignoring you."
And! Her voice returns, as she beams. "But really, even if a shadow isn't the whole person, you still get the shape of one from it. However distorted or clear, a shadow of a man is still a shadow of a man.
"And I know you, at least enough to say this. There might be things people only think you care about, but it doesn't take a genius to tell when you're invested in something. And you don't put days of time into things you're not invested in."
She tilts her head, just slightly. "...And, personally...it just isn't great to watch someone give up on something good for them, after they put in that much time."
no subject
Contempt.
"No matter how intensely you stare at a shadow, it's never going to be anything more than a shadow."
Asperity.
"Plato's cave followed his analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line. Obviously people could still view the universe without the edification of Plato's theory of forms. They were metaphysically blinded by their ignorance, not literally so. The allegory is about how they didn't understand what they were looking at. I've been showing you, this whole time, even fucking telling you, but I can't make you see anything but shadows because you're never going to see anything else, because you don't understand what you see."
Bitterness.
"So maybe I got too into it."
Renouncement.
"Making shadows."
Recognition.
"Watching shadows."
Resentment.
"Maybe Connie turned around and saw something other than a shadow."
Remuneration.
no subject
"Or," she adds, "You might not know yourself as well as you think. If Connie saw something other than a shadow, that wasn't why she attacked you. She attacked you because she was upset with what you said, sure, but when she relayed that, I wasn't surprised that it was what you said. For that matter after I explained that bit, she realized what she misunderstood-- and then she got upset with herself, because of what she did. Dirk. You both messed up. It happens all the time, with better friends," Carly remarks. "The reason they stay friends, is because we have the ability to do more than just turn around and get scared of something we expected to see.
"We have the ability to talk. Both of you were hurt, and both of you have something you owe apologies for- and both of you stand to gain from that. You both gain from something in your combined power to fix."
From there, she just frowns. "Especially since this whole thing has you laying on the concrete, honestly, that's bad for your back." Get Up, damn you!
no subject
"You really don't know when to quit, do you?" He drawls it, and draws it out, with the clipped, precise enunciation in the middle of each word.
"I don't want to hear that shit. I don't know what fiction you spun her to make her think she was supposed to be sorry, but I don't care neither. That little shitfit she threw didn't start because I said something mean. The cascade of events was already in motion well before I opened my mouth. She just didn't know it yet."
no subject
"You're not as impossible to 'see' as you think- and if we're going to pull up more of Plato's cave, words don't have to be Seen," she adds with a frown.
"You told her 'Pain teaches a Lesson' after a response that she expected, and understood. You said those words, and that is why she was upset. But the thing about you Dirk is that you're not someone who says that kind of thing because you want someone else to hurt. That's the kind of rule you just live by, and we both know it. You don't strike me as someone who's learned much without pain. Or am I wrong? Did you want to hurt her, physically? Go on and correct me, but we both know that answer already. You might see yourself as plenty of things, but a Sadist wasn't one of them last I checked."
cw descriptions of Homestuck-typical child abuse
He leans back momentarily, one hand planted flat on the concrete, a surface barely warmer for his body's extended horizontal presence.
"You're pretty close to right. Striders go hard. It's just how we are, it's what we do. And Strider lessons are hard lessons. So if you mean to ask whether I wanted to hurt her at the precise moment I said those words? Then no, but I really didn't care if I did. That was part of the lesson. If you mean to ask whether I wanted to hurt her before that, when I snatched her arm and got my shit flipped? Then no, but I really didn't care if I did."
He falls quiet for a moment.
You might see yourself as plenty of things, but a Sadist wasn't one of them last I checked.
Right.
Yeah.
So he guesses this is on him after all. He'd been trying not to make it too apparent. Of course he had. He knows how it looks. How it feels.
The accusation in Dave's stare after eating shit for the thousandth time down a flight of stairs, or having his face ground into that hot, 160-degree-plus concrete roof for the millionth, or any of the other myriad events he poured into Dirk Strider later on an identical roof later at the end of the world and after, albeit not in so many words... saying without words, you enjoyed that.
The heat in John's voice over the PokeGear while Dirk's back pressed against the sharp, coarse bark of a pine, a fever germinating in his body. He'd gotten pretty sharp with John that time. Strider business.
Because it was so much more personal than that. More intimate. The painful intimacy, and intimacy of pain. Inflicting it, experiencing it. He'd really fought against it, for a long time. The idea of his own cruelty. Of his every monstrous word and selfish reaction. He'd been so fucking afraid of it. Or afraid of not being afraid of it. Of becoming, of being more than he already was. And he'd really struggled--sincerely fighting the rising waters until the only respite left was abject denial.
Strider lessons are hard lessons.
He leans forward and rests an elbow on one knee, chin in his palm.
"If you mean to ask whether I wanted to hurt her after that, when I suckerpunched her in the gut and swung a torque wrench at her skull?"
He's painting a very specific picture, but as with all things Dirk Strider:
There's a reason.
no subject
"And no, I mean before it all started actually. From what I have from Connie, she moved to join you at work, and you grabbed her. She assumed from that, that you wanted her to avoid getting hurt by whatever was going on; instead, you said 'Pain Teaches a Lesson'. It wasn't about the fight. It was about what came before the fight, and the words you used to explain what that was."
Carly takes a deep breath, and sighs- her arms crossed as she continues. "...Dirk. When you said that, she assumed it meant 'if you make any mistakes, I will hurt you, without question'. That's different from any kind of fight you've both had- it's entirely different from wanting to hurt someone in a fight for that matter- even if your descriptions are as visceral as ever," she adds dryly.
"We're not talking about fighting, when we're looking at what she thought you meant. We're looking at 'punishment without explanation'. You said 'Pain teaches a lesson'- if you had meant the words in the way she assumed though, it wouldn't. All it would teach, is that 'something happened'." Ahhh, but anyway.
"Either way- you wanted to fight her, to the end then. Which isn't what she thought at all- and it isn't why she was upset. When you said those words, she didn't see 'You'. She saw someone who strung her along intending to hurt her all along. ...Somehow, I don't think that was your aim. At the very least, I can't see how you'd have gained anything from having long conversations and rap sessions and fights, only to throw it all away because it was somehow 'fun'! ...Particularly since that's not what you're making of this at all."
no subject
If you make any mistakes, I will hurt you, without question--
That's different from any kind of fight you've both had--
Punishment without explanation--
Dirk's face is stone.
Carly continues, and the stone doesn't soften.
But the repetitive clicking of clockwork begins to stutter. By the time she gets back to 'having fun,' he is no more forgiving, but consternation has fully blocked up the works, the patterned inevitability printed into every strand of his narrative DNA smeared into illegibility.
"....."
no subject
Most would use it to get more hits in.
But Carly isn't here to win, she's here to mend, and so patiently with her arms now lowered to her side, she waits. Waits for him to process what was said.
Waits for him to reply.
no subject
But he's not so easily controlled as all that; the mere presence of the unexpected has never stopped his advance, no single manoeuvre sufficient to pull his strings.
Translated: he still thinks he's going to be proven right. He's just going to be less aggressive about his next push.
"And why did she think that?"
no subject
"But there are, in fact, people who will build things up to push them over for no reason, and she has very clearly had experiences with those kinds of people. People who don't just use fighting to get a point across. People experience the world in different ways- there's no way that isn't something you're aware of. But that's why words hurt so much more than a sword sometimes."
dIRK,
After a beat, he rolls his shoulders in the callous approximation of a shrug.
"I'm flattered."
Wow,
"And yes I'm aware I'm exaggerating. The point is it doesn't Have to end- and shouldn't."
no subject
"It does, and it should."
But the convoluted pathway of this conversation has trapped him somewhat. No matter how explicitly he makes his point, Carly stone cold doesn't listen. And not the way Jake doesn't, where he'll turn his tail and run away from whatever he doesn't want to hear--or else knowingly elide the point, having long ago decided that anything that didn't serve Jake English's excuses simply didn't exist or didn't matter. Oh, but if only 'good intentions' paid those dues!
No, dealing with Carly Nagisa is literally like talking to a cave wall.
A wall to whom he's already made it plenty clear where he stands on matters of reality.
But now he can't push back against her agenda without implying, however circumstantiality, that Connie Maheswaran is on some level 'real.' And if she's not listening to him, there's no alternative method to make her appreciate the problem.
He let himself get written into a corner.
"And it's not what you want, either."
no subject
She pauses. Considers his words, considers his silence. And then... "Don't I?" She hums, as Dirk tells her what she Doesn't want, 'shouldn't' want, perhaps.
"Try me."
no subject
The corners of his mouth turn down, hard.
"This is what I was talking about, allegorically. And now I am saying it literally. I have too many dimensions for you."
The steel in his voice, sharp and unyielding--briefly resembles something blunter, something weathered and worn.
"I... have too many dimensions, period."
He ends up back at the clipped, short drawl he'd started on, however many minutes ago when the conversation first began.
"This place only holds two. It's a framework problem."
no subject
Regardless. Her expression softens, for a moment. And for a moment as well, she is silent. Clearly thinking, pondering, and-
"...Like describing a cube with only a picture," she ultimately determines. "No matter what you draw it with, the entire thing won't be there." Hmmm.
"...Well. Holding that problem close to your chest...it obviously isn't helping, all the same. And at the very least it's pretty clear how much being here at all stresses you out. ...Dirk. I might not be able to see- but maybe...try to talk to me about it, at least a little?"
no subject
"There's nothing to talk about."
His tone is final.
You can't contain the ocean. You can't fight it."
Quiet, with certainty and an understated sense of resolve.
"You can conceive of it in the abstract, but in concrete terms, it's too great an organism. Try illustrating it as a picture, or describing it in words. You can't. With all of their senses, a single person can barely perceive even a fraction of a percent of it at once. Rendered two-dimensionally, you create an elephant and blind man situation of near-cosmic scope."
And as is so often the case when Dirk describes the ocean, he is describing himself.
There is a bit of a pause, a delay during which he's still lost in thought, ruminating on his own conceptual existence. Unfortunately, he doesn't forget his audience.
"So, what do you think happens when you put your Platonic cube in a two-dimensional space?"
"This question is not rhetorical. What do you think? Is it flattened? What does flattening mean when depth doesn't exist? Is it like your drawing? Or is that quality erased from it, hopefully creating a more pedestrian square? No guarantees, but at least both of those outcomes have the potential to be visually coherent. So what if instead it were dimensionally amputated? At what angle? Where?"
He lets her have a moment, intending to only halfway overload her with the details of the problem.
no subject
But she'll humor him, at least for a moment. Even if 'Platonic cube' gets a frown. Bring up Plato's Cave one more time bud,
"I don't think any of it stops existing." There, that's a good start. "Just because someone can't see or perceive it, doesn't mean it isn't there. That'd be like saying birds that don't see glass should pass through it! It doesn't happen that way though- they crash. But, more on you...it sounds a bit like you're stuck, I guess. Certain things can't happen...but it feels like they should, right? Can't be done, but feels that way...I guess it would be a bigger version of a 'phantom limb' in that way, huh..."
cw graphic imagery related to dying
Phantom limb.
He can't say he's ever experienced that.
But.
But?
"But no. I'm not the amputee in this existential phantasmagoria. I'm... not."
But.
"Just.... shut up a second. I need to think." He doesn't need to think.
But he can close his eyes.
And he already knows because he can feel it in the same fashion as a creature of the deep rising from beneath--a smooth, hairless body brushing a human foot, a calf before evaporating into the dark; it is the barest of briefest touches, furtive and fleeting. And yet in that fraction of a second, the contact between twin forms of flesh flush against each other--
He is neither the leg experiencing that brief brush with not alone, nor is the unknown making itself known, brushing up against its known unknown.
He is the water.
He is the water and he has no body, no limbs, he has no skin and no world to interact with the skin he doesn't have, he has no reality except what his consciousness can touch--
It never was about the body he lost. Because that body was never his.
But oh, how much fucking worse that was than either of them could have anticipated. Billions of terabytes of synaptic concatenation processing faster than the speed of thought, the memory of skin prickling with sweat or abraded raw or cooled by the breeze, salt air in his nose and lungs, of air passing through his sinuses, of physicality, of the haptic feedback of being alive.
But it wasn't just the body he lost. It wasn't just the body he lost. It wasn't just the body he lost.
Because he never had it. Because it was never his body. Because the coin flip between himself at the nanosecond at which he diverged was never his to win. Because there was never a coin to begin with. His consciousness was never his, nor his identity. His relationships, his memories, the data-fied simulacra of 'emotion' he mocked and craved and replicated for himself, for their benefit, over and over. And the longer it went on, the more they diverged, the more they stayed the same--
He never stopped wanting to have a body; no, wanting to have a better body; no, wanting to have his body;
What changed? What changed him from Dirk Strider? What changed him from that template, that essentiality, or did he change?
These are old thoughts. Old thoughts, old questions, long answered, long irrelevant. Where they lead is a rooftop, where they lead is a splintering, where they lead is hate, because one's worse than the other and neither one will relinquish his place in that, the 'worst' and the 'no better' reflecting in fragments and fractures and a solid pane of (un)broken glass.
The body--his? body? His body? Is it shaking? Or is that just breathing?
It feels--
It feels like running headfirst into a brick wall.
Like that moment of collision, that moment of nigh-fatal impact, without the skull as barrier.
Whatever was supposed to happen--the dull comic book thud of his own thoughts off the pavement, interrupting not just once, or over and over, but the precise moment of halted momentum. And not frozen in a single second of time, but extending infinitely out from that moment, a continuum of the collision, those brain cells dying by the impact caught forever mid-expiry.
It doesn't hurt. Actually. If it did, the pain would have come from outside of him, from the abortion of ascending (or descending) flight. Dull and dumb. Before, his pain came from within, as though his skin were debrading in contact with the universe, thinning and dissipating as he expanded. Other times it felt as though he would crack, would hatch like an egg. Starting from his skull, the assumed centre of 'I.'
This is just....
He remembers to open his eyes. And he stands up--carefully, with deliberate slowness, as though testing his own body.
A thought, only half-coherent: this is Just(?)
"You know, I was really hoping not to have this conversation with you. I really was. This would be so much easier if you'd just read Homestuck."
no subject
Empty.
That's what it feels like. He's just staring off behind his shades, quiet and unnervingly so. Not moving. Not speaking. He breathes, but it feels as if at the same time he simply isn't there.
Like...
Not a robot, she thinks to herself. Perhaps more like a ghost.
When he finally does speak, she takes a moment to answer. "...I can't say if 'Homestuck' is something I could've read, unfortunately," she answers. "Even if it existed, it could have been something my country just didn't have- even just under that name." She doesn't know why it would be relevant. Or that it's even some form of fiction- but it matters somehow, and that's enough to remark on her ability or inability to try anyway.
"We're having it now though," Carly adds. "...And... ...at the very least, I don't think it's one we should leave half-finished. This is important- not just to you, but for you."
It's not just something to care about. It's something that Affects him.
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"...do you know what the term 'canon' means as it pertains to a piece of media? Canon itself is comprised of three pillars, and by the measure of those pillars, it also pertains to reality. Ergo, Homestuck is both a piece of media and the reality of my origins."
He starts to walk towards her.
"I don't know about its basic existence across space and time to your specific version of Japan, but your country was reading it. There were multiple fan-driven translation projects--Russian, Korean, Japanese. Steven read approximately one-third of it. Are you following this?"
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But hey. "So, I'm following, but also you have my condolences on that. I guess it wasn't...as big after Zero Reverse in Japan though..." Sucks.
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There's another saying, too: absolute power corrupts absolutely.
At least one of these sayings is true.
He strives not to waste valuable word count on frivolous actions like sighing, but he does tighten his jaw slightly. This is not entirely deliberate.
"It's 8,211 non-standard pages of mixed media, Carly. It's incredibly difficult to summarise."
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As it stands. "I don't need to know your whole story to know something is wrong. Just you saying you were in a place where you knew where reality stood says plenty- and even if that's not the root of things, it's still contributing isn't it?" she adds, frowning. "Not a lot of people can say they come close to where you stand on awareness- or have stood, for that matter. Isn't losing that kind of thing what you're talking about, when you say the impossible was made two-dimensional?"
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"Even that is just part of an even bigger picture." Somehow his tone maintains that factual clarity, betraying in him no tiredness, no secretive emotional burdens.
"When you--as in Carly--say 'you'--as in Dirk Strider, what 'you' mean from that flawed and limited perspective is a singular person with a linear identity. When you, Carly, think--that is to say, when you, Carly, experience the internal phenomenon known as 'thought,' there is no uncertainty on your part, as Carly, regarding 'whose' thoughts they are, nor 'who' you, Carly, are when thinking them. There is one person whose thoughts are experienced by you, Carly."
The truly impressive part is that at no point in that did he appear to stop and breathe.
"'Identity' as singular--you--assumes the perceptive component known as thought to be a seamless experiential procedure, through which 'you', in singular, is both generated and expressed. The person implied by 'you' is translated directly."
It's borderline nonsensical even to Dirk's ears compared to how it was in his head, but he continues. She didn't want him to explain? Fine. He won't.
"Are you (Carly) your thoughts? Are your (Carly's) thoughts, the thoughts of Carly Nagisa, merely evidence of your existence, Carly? Does Carly exist, causally, as the outcome of your (Carly's) thoughts, or do your (Carly's) thoughts exist as the outcome of you (Carly)?"
He was going somewhere with this.
"Wait. I got a little sidetracked. What I'm trying to say is that there is more than one 'Dirk Strider.' So much so, in fact, that when you, as in Carly, say 'you,' as in Dirk Strider, you--Carly--are not necessarily referring to persons known in isolate as 'Dirk Strider.' And yet you, Carly, undeniably mean 'Dirk Strider' by use of the term 'you.' That's what I'm trying to say."
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She has thoughts just from the first part of what he said- the 'Ocean' is still something with a 'Name' after all, even if it doesn't cover the multitudes of fish and plants within. But that's not what matters either.
Instead....oh.
Hm.
"Ohhhhhhhhh..." She's uncomfortably familiar with this, even if it's only on a 1:1 ratio instead of...whatever Dirk is dealing with. Carly grimaces- Knowingly. "Ohhhh this is like my coworkers but all in one spot at once," she mutters, taking a moment to speak more clearly.
"At this point...There's no easy way to parse through to 'one' thing. Honestly, there's probably going to be a lot that 'many' agree on, if we're talking about what I think we are! But..." Hmm. "...I don't mind being friends with an amalgam- I'd just like to be trusted with trying to help said amalgamation get a hold on themselves if anything. If you- and I'm talking the whole ocean here big guy," she adds, a rather mean joke from someone taller than him, "But if you're having troubles sorting things out...well, it's like I said before. It's not going to help if you just clam up and bottle it. Definitely not when you're bottled up too much to begin with," Carly huffs.
"The point though- if you're a whole pile of different beings stuck in one spot, I'm still here for you- the whole big surprise bag. And I'll try to keep that in mind from here on," she adds with a small smile.
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Dirk starts, in a way that (were this to be rendered more traditionally for his canon) would have been enclosed in parenthesis. As though she's aware of this (but she can't be--can she?) Carly doesn't acknowledge or let him continue the question; he shuts up, frowning deeply and with more of his face than he's usually willing to exert himself to.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," he advises her at the end--simply, factually. "You barely even know what you're agreeing to, let alone who."
Was that a threat?
"Not that it matters. Talking was never going to help." If he comes off as detached or distant rather than dour or dispirited after that, so much the better. "Not in canon, not even where and how I was meant to be--because that is exactly how and where I was meant to be. So tell me, why the fuck do you think that would change here?"
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She didn't expect him to get it ultimately- the reason someone would push. Keep pushing. Keep-
"Because even when something is 'meant to be', there's still a chance in trying." She says it with confidence. An absolute radiance, firmness, the words of someone who has met fate in the face and torn through it before.
And she'll tear through it again. "It's easy to just accept things aren't meant to be. But even if others fail, nothing would change if people gave up after that. I don't just 'think' it can change. I know it can, and because I know that, I don't need to know everything about what I'm agreeing to- I can keep that promise, and I can be your friend."
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But what he says, finally, is:
"You know that saying you're my friend repeatedly doesn't make it true, right?"
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Carly crosses her arms. "Dirk, I don't know what kinds of friends any part of you have had- but I'm going to be honest...the way you seem to think of the word, it doesn't feel like you've had very...good ones? I'm not going farther than that, but the fact is, I consider you to be a friend. I also know when people are getting along even better as friends! That was the whole reason I came here after all, both you and Connie weren't exactly coming out of everything alright, and I'd rather my friends be able to be...well. Happy, in the end."
She pauses. "...Let's not drag that out though. The point is what it is. It doesn't feel like you actually know what a 'friend' is. I'd rather repeat it and continue doing my best to be a good one than just decide you shouldn't ever know what having one means."
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The sharp turnaround is not visible in his physical demeanour, but it is very audible.
"My friends are the only people who've ever had my back, even when I didn't deserve it. They've been better than I fucking deserve. And you--" he stops, collects himself--again, it's pretty much invisible, only the hard downturn of his mouth betraying his anger to the naked eye.
But his voice almost--almost, never quite, but
al.
most.
shakes with it.
"Have no right to judge them."
Another breath. Lessening the sudden wave of ice and fire, temperamental, but still dark, still half a threat that really doesn't have any teeth now.
"You know that's Jane you're talking about?"
Is it rhetorical or just condescending?
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"I never said someone couldn't do both," is what she says quietly- but not so quietly that she sounds cowed. "And the fact is, most people don't mean to be 'bad' friends. I'd even say a lot of friendships are like that, or start like that. And stay like that for a while."
But... "...That's why learning what to do to change things is important. So that both sides can learn. I'm not going to say what Jane or anyone else specifically does or doesn't do. But people are shaped by the experiences around them, and the people they interact with. And the things you expect from your friendships... ...aren't what you should be expecting. That's all."