silph_co | He's Going The Distance (Open)

Who: Dirk Strider, OTA
Where: Goldenrod Rocket Labs
When: Early March!
Summary: If you want to steal some Lapras, you must first.... build a giant robot?
Rating: PG-13 for cursing and Dirk-like behaviour

Dirk's presence in the Rocket labs is pretty much continuous lately. Two full time jobs and a fervent desire to be anywhere but in a shared dorm randomly generated Rocket personnel made his whereabouts something of a guarantee anyway, but with the successful integration of his (un)patented BroPro and PokeGear, he's gotten started working on something specific.

Something... big. Something mechanical, maybe even automechanical. Something with huge cameras for eyes and a head bigger than him.

This is... fine. It's got to be fine because he must have approval for it; he certainly couldn't hide it even if he wanted to.

Most everything is joined to some kind of concave sheet metal layer, and as days and weeks pass, his upper half sometimes disappears entirely into this as he progresses to affixing wires, hard soldering the panels, and occasionally just ripping everything apart and throwing it in big noisy heaps of twisted aluminium and wrenched steel.

It looks like... a turtle shell?

...

(Sometimes, you can even find him sleeping in there...)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'We.' Always 'we' lately, especially from Steven. Who seems to have delusions of familiarity, making this operation into some little touchy-feely found family ordeal...

A nicer word for Dirk's feelings about that is 'exhausting.'

"Nothing personal, you do have a point. Being able to weaponise the thing would be one hell of a statement. Just don't consider my schema an open forum. After I spent seven years stuck with Rumble In Da Pumpkin Patch because of a Chittr poll, I got a lot less interested in outside input on my projects."

It's almost like an apology, if you can get around the ironically flippant tone of loathing and resentment at the end.

"... I've been toying with the idea of trying to fit two smaller Pokemon, something like those paired festival battles last month."

"Yeah, no, I've said a bunch of times already: I'm not an engineer. I'm not even a programmer, really. I'm just a guy who likes giant robots."

Sure, he knows how basic coding structures should work, but that's only because his father is a programmer and sometimes you pick these things as you go. He does not, actually, know any programming languages. HTML doesn't count, that's mark-up language and anyone who was on the internet in the late 90s and early 2000s knows basic HTML anyway. All his STEM-based knowledge revolves around recording technology, shit he's picked up through science fiction and years of reading his dead uncle's pathology textbooks.

"Paired Pokemon, though... that could be cool with the right pair."

Edited 2020-03-16 20:01 (UTC)

Steven is obviously confused about the source of the conflict. Dirk recognises that much, at least. His ability to recognise that this might, just maybe, have something to do with his communication skills and strategies, however.... well, let's just say it's no wonder Steven is confused.

Dirk, of course, only shakes his head at him.

And then doesn't clarify jack.

"Yeah, the combination is either going to make or break us."

There, is that better? He said 'us.'

He regrets it already. He doesn't need Steven getting any more ideas. Fuck. How do you get someone off your back without encouraging whatever agenda they have? He doesn't need or want Steven to hate him, or think he hates him, he just... ugh. Fuck.

"I have half an idea, but half an idea ain't wholeass nothing."

Steven glances around, finds some junk that looks like it's not being used anymore, and takes a seat on it, leaning forward toward Dirk. "So talk it through with me. Pretend I'm a rubber duck and we're debugging a program. Maybe I can help. And if I can't, the act of explaining it might help you figure it out on your own." He shrugs. "And, you know, it's me. You know I'm not going to crit you on morality, just how feasible or smart it is and, you know, if it's a correct use of your resources."

See, talking strategy with Dirk? That was something he can do without worrying Dirk was going to bring all his stupid-ass presumptions and retrograde opinions into this shit.

Knowing about rubber duck debugging doesn't prevent Dirk's brain from instantaneously producing the entire Sesame Street song, complete with video and puppetted choreography.

Which is less distracting than you'd think, because this happens all the time in the free-association free-for-all of Dirk's metatextually liberated superconsciousness, where 'all' turns out to involve a lot of free agents.

He blinks, once.

Then he snorts, "You're going to judge me, huh."

He shakes his head again before tipping his head back and closing his eyes, the better to re-organise his recently-scattered thoughts.

"The limitations are... size, motility... and individual strategic purpose takes a back seat to synergism or coaction. Greninja is easy to place, with broad dually defensive capabilities, long range multipurpose offensive capabilities for a single target. Plus Surf and Whirlpool, which have their uses." He opens his eyes.

"Also, it's mine. Cannot understate the importance of having some fucking control over what's happening up there."

In case it wasn't obvious: he has secretly, privately been giving this a lot of thought, at least in the background of his mind.

The corners of his mouth turn down.

"What complements that, though."

"Only on practicality," Steven says, mildly. "Not on morality." He drums his fingers on his knee. "And... hm. I can think of two ways you could go with this. One of them, which I learned through my own double battles in Lavender, is to pair your damage-dealer with something that can inflict a lot of status effects. Another would be to target what you're likely to have to fight with its elemental weaknesses. Armin's primarily a water trainer, right? Do you have anything grass--or access to anything grass?"

Dirk takes no offense to the comment about his practicality--actually, Steven might have a point. He is.... not as adapted to this as he used to be. He likes to think of himself as flexible, as adaptable. And he is. He knows he is. He is nothing if not a polymath, a Renaissance man of the self, forged in his grand multiplicity from a postapocalypse where self-insufficiency was not an option.

He's also only ever shed limitations, not accrued them. The prosaic and the mundane, the pedestrian view, banal ground-hugging day-to-day life, and limits.

'Practical.'

"Yeah, there's the rub. Short version? No. Fermat's more of an in-your-face solution, and he and SIN together are like oil and water, but the oil rig's collapsed and the ocean is now on fire. Practically speaking, the only eldritch battle pet of choice I could pick out of my roster would be Peaches. You know, because she can just fucking Transform into any shit she sees. Which narrows my options back down to 'literally fucking anything.'"

Steven nods thoughtfully. "So," he says. "I don't have anything that Transforms. Would Peaches be able to use the other Pokemon's attacks? And-- would she be at the same level, so to say, as she would normally be when she's in their form or is she reduced down to their level? Because if she did keep her level and gained the other's attacks, she could copy my Charlotte, who's an electric type with a decent number of status moves. And her compound eyes make her very accurate."

"In order: yes, yes, and... let me guess, Charlotte's a spider."

It's not really a guess. Compound Eyes is an ability exclusive to a handful of Bug types, and as far as he knows, there's only one Bug type that's also Electric.

Also, Carly has one.

There's no possibly explaining his reluctance about spiders. He knows this. And it's irrational, because it's irrelevant. This is irrelevant.

Sigh.

"Maybe."

"I almost named her Shelob, but she was... kind of too cute for that," Steven admits. Look, it's the obvious name for a spider Pokemon.

"Well. Think about it. I'm sure someone else would let you copy theirs too if there's something else someone else has that would work better."

He's Going The Distance (Open)

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