victory_road | [text]

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hello, poke universe, i'm john egbert! or, general poke land, i guess... poke lands. i have a probably really dumb request but just stay with me here for now. come with me on this, uh, idiot journey.

so, i arrived here two days ago and i thought i knew what was going on. i have done pokemon before, i know how the game works. i even got nostalgic and replayed it four years ago so i'm not THAT out of practice. the thing is, i forgot that stuff that takes maybe ten minutes on the game boy would obviously take much longer in person?

basically, i bought some more snacks but i am still on route 29 with no sight of cherrygrove city and i am out of food. is there anything like a bike delivery service that i can order from because i am not finding it with a preliminary search. i can't afford much because there don't seem to be any people to fight on this route but it would be pretty stupid if i couldn't even make it to the first real city?

did they fix it here so you can ride the horse pokemon, incidentally, because i always thought it was weird that you had to get a bike instead of just putting on a special flame proof saddle and riding a ponyta. or non fire horses i guess because there are actually a lot of pokemon here i don't recognise and i guess a special flame proof saddle would cost the same as a bike anyway.

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Don't give me that. The question was pretty clear, were you just dead or not?

I know, it's a shitty hello, but there are some essential matters at stake.

dirk? ok, right, roxy did say you had "thoughts" and knew about all this.

yeah. lord english basically vored me to death? you probably know that though. was there a cool funeral? did terezi tell all of you my super cool last words in her eulogy? hehe.

[Fuck--!

It comes out of Dirk's mouth where John can't hear him, his voice loud like it never is. He says it again--almost as loud, just as furious, and it's raw both from his throat and from his anger. Then his ability to express any of it verbally breaks down and he just wants to--

He can't vent it physically, and he's hours away from a Pokecenter or a shower.

There's a really stupid, pitched-seas moment where he almost breaks in some other way, then settles for trying to punch a tree, which doesn't help at all but does leave its mark on both his hand and the tree. For lack of anything else to do, he punches the tree again--and again and again, just whaling on it until he finally runs out of breath (which he'd been holding) and skin on his knuckles. The ache under the raw meat of his hand is almost as bad as the sharpness of the air stinging the surface.

Fuck.

There is so much about this situation that he can't do anything about, and all of it is bad. John, alive. John, dead, and now no longer dead. John, here. Everything he worked for, everything he'd planned and done, she's ripping it apart. She's dismantling his authorship and... and what? Throwing it away? Taking whatever's inconvenient or too big a liability and discarding them here? Removing threats to her power. To her monopoly.

He feels like he's shaking, but looking at his own hand, he isn't. He feels winded, but he doesn't have any trouble breathing except through his nose. What the fuck can he do? Nothing. Right now, nothing. He takes a steadying breath, feels abruptly lightheaded, lets it out and then sits down because that didn't help.

Finally, for lack of a better solution, he looks back at the screen.

"Thoughts." He'd almost forgotten Roxy had said that.]

I didn't go to your funeral, because there wasn't one.

Terezi didn't stick around Earth C for long anyway. Why not is anyone's guess. Maybe she found something better to do.

[There's an almost equally long pause before John responds again.]

oh. ok.

are things at least...relevant and true or whatever now? did it work?

[That's...

...interesting.

An observation pumps the brakes on Dirk's ongoing mental breakdown, just once--nowhere near a stop, or even a substantial decrease in momentum, but it's something. Something to focus on, and he does, gladly.

He didn't expect John to care, still. His job done, his death final, his very existence rendered irrelevant. He hadn't not expected it, he guesses. John is kind of a sadsack, washed up excuse for a hero, but he's still a hero.

Okay. He can use this. He isn't entirely certain what his plan is, but he can use this, he just has to get John on his side.

He starts typing.]

True, essential, and relevant?

More or less. It did work, but we're not all the way there yet. We're on the way, though. I've been building on the groundwork you laid. Or I had been.

Now our success or failure depends entirely on whether or not I can get out of this miserable little dead-end pocket dimension.

Oh. By the way. There's a Jane here. You wanna talk about essential or relevant or true... she's none of them, so don't waste your time. Or do. See what you can get. But I don't recommend it.

rose didn't tell me she had you doing some stuff as well... i guess there's some stuff that needs to happen back on earth c?

[John hasn't spent much time talking to Dirk at all so he's not sure if he's usually this blunt. But it feels...bad. Uncomfy. He never really fully parsed what Rose was telling him about canon and reality but he's never really liked the idea that other versions of people aren't the same people anyway.

He types the first half of his response first and then sits there, reading and rereading Dirk's words on Jane. Is that what Rose thought when she sent John to bring her younger, alternate self to be vaporised? teen Dave's head to be bitten off? Jade to float off into a black hole? Did she think that they were irrelevant? A waste of time? Was it easier for John to think that as well? Was it the fact that he was treating them that way the reason they all died--did HE kill them? He thinks, and thinks, and finally ends up following his first couple of sentences with:] i don't think i'm any of those anymore so you probably shouldn't waste your time with me either.

Edited 2019-07-31 22:49 (UTC)

That's because Rose didn't know she had me on it. She knows now, of course.

She's doing fine, by the way.

As for you.... well, you'd be surprised. We're not gods any more, you may have noticed. A lot of shit is up in the air right now. But your very existence contains a lot of symbolic power. Think of yourself as emblematic of the story itself. There's a reason you're the only one Rose could have asked. Your juju powers were only part of it. Call this the third act, and your presence is the Chekhov's gun we might just need.

So I wouldn't rule out your essentiality or truth, even if your relevance has yet to be unpacked.

Edited 2019-08-01 20:20 (UTC)

uh ok, that is a lot to take in but let me try and get to it in order. it's a lot easier to parse all of you and rose's wordy nonsense when i can read it back, actually!

did making things authentic help her with her ultimate self thing? is that, like, easier when things are true? (also it seems pretty fishy to me that rose wouldn't know you were up to something but she did seem pretty sick so i am letting that slide for now...)

i would be surprised, actually, because i am dead? there is no way a living me has any effect on the story now. just find terezi when you get back and ask her for where she put my body or something if it's that important. i'm done. this me is just here to have a nice pokemon adventure and make some nice poke friends. you can shoot off my gun body for your third act without any of my involvement, and it will have to be without it because i'm dead!

Holy shit. You're oversimplifying so hard and so fast that were I a lesser man, I would have lost sight of the point already. My own carefully-crafted point, lost in a blur of dumbshit reductionist takes.

Both Rose's illness and her ascension were part of the fabric of something larger overall. Preserving the canon was necessary for that, and it was necessary for the continued authenticity of our reality. Her illness had a lot to do with a lot of things, including her limited awareness of how I was helping.

And yeah, you're dead. I know. We just had a whole conversation about it. And I fully intend to let you rest in peace once I'm out of here, I really do. But I'm talking about here and now, not in canon itself.

we can't all be like you and rose, dude. not everything needs to go on forever to still be correct. i'm glad to hear she is feeling better now, at least.

anyway, if your point was really carefully crafted, it would make sense? why don't you try again and actually tell me what you think i need to do here instead of being a jackass and insulting me for not literally reading your mind.

If everyone were like me and Rose, it would be an unmitigated disaster. Kind of like this conversation. Just stop trying to be Rose and jumping to conclusions like a trained dolphin through a hoop. Okay? Super.

My plan is still in the works. There's been a rift in this reality before, and if my understanding of the whats and whys is correct, there will be again. The details are suspect as hell, but there are people who knew it was coming and could predict both when and where.

That rift is what I need.

Obviously I didn't expect your appearance, so I don't have a specific job for you. Not yet. But if I can count on your cooperation, this will go a lot faster and the next attempt will be a lot more likely to be successful.

you can count on it as long as you aren't asking me to do anything too fucked up. i'm not going to agree to literally anything without any idea what it is. you do not have a blank check of my cooperation, ok?

also jane told me you were a rude fuck to her so what the hell is that about? i know she's not from earth c but aren't you guys pals? what the fuck.

This may come as something of a shock, but I don't really want to fucking talk about Jane right now. In fact, fuck Jane. You want me invest my time and energy into a lost duplicate of someone who doesn't know me any more just so I can make it infinitely harder when I bail on her at the first opportunity? You can tell her I said that, by the way. That's how little I care about her.

Besides, what's the alternative? I play nice, take advantage of her kindness, and then reveal myself by accident? Surprise, I'm not your friend.

No. I make it a personal policy not to lie to people's faces, John. Or behind their backs, for that matter.

So your request? Noted. All the fucked up duties go to me. That was in the fine print already, but I don't mind having it writ large. Good call, really. Fucked up shit is part and parcel of dealing with someone like me.

[haha what. No, but, seriously, what the fuck? Dave previously described Dirk as "a way less shitty bro" offhandedly to John, and he's super not seeing that right now. Like, he always thought Dave's Bro was a lame weirdo but apparently he also sucked, and that's what John's seeing right now, right here. John is tired, depressed, and he really wanted to just move on from all this but it looks like he has to keep dealing with bullshit. It figures.]

actually i think the thing you haven't considered here is that you're wrong. if being an ultimate self is about losing all the boundaries between you and the other yous then this jane is just as valid as any other jane. treating her like a fake version seems like a personal problem you are having to me!

you obviously think you are being really logical here but it doesn't seem like that from where i'm standing. it mostly seems like you are feeling sorry for yourself about a bunch of bad situations you put yourself in to.

so as it turns out i really don't want to help you unless you get over yourself because i don't actually trust you to not be doing this for some sort of fucked up self-flagellation reason. and that seems like a bad reason for me to start following your instructions.

Edited 2019-08-02 00:48 (UTC)

[Oh, so she told him. That's fine, really. It wasn't a secret. Not really. The real secrets are the ones he keeps in his head, and certainly not things he divulges to those not already in the know. Which excludes John and absolutely disqualifies Jane.

'Jane.'

The funny thing about it is, if John had just thought about this subject a little more, he might have tripped on the obvious. The part where Dirk is the way less shitty Bro to Dave Strider, and also the one where he is that exact same awful man--and his little doll, too.]

I warned you against trying to be Rose, John. This is why. You're going off half-cocked again, and this time without even a Chekhov to write your scene.

You got as far as 'reality isn't subjective,' but now you seem stuck on the hurdle of 'reality isn't objective,' since the belief in an objective truth is really the only condition under which your assertions make any sense. Unfortunately, it's equally untrue. The nature of reality is neither objective nor subjective, and is liable to the influence of any power capable of seeing beyond that dichotomy.

Which I mean literally. The power to observe reality as it is written is very rare. But here we are. I'll try to meet you on your level, though.

It seems to me that if I am the sum of all possible selves, which I am, then doesn't it stand to reason that I would know 'Jane' and the Ultimate Self a little better than you would?

actually, asshole, not even kind of whatever dumb crap you just said! i don't care what the big ULTIMATE REASON for things is, all i care about right now is that you think it's ok to make people feel bad for a Greater Purpose! so if i'm important for some secret symbolism reason that ONLY YOU CAN UNDERSTAND, WHAT A BIG SURPRISE MISTER GALAXY BRAIN, I AM SO SHOCKED ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW, then you don't have a choice.

either you stop being a douche or you don't get whatever weird story purpose i represent! it is as simple as that! i don't do favors for fuckasses! you can both objectively AND subjectively FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!

You're holding yourself hostage? Really? That's your plan?

No. Of course. I see what's happening here.

You're obviously still pretty upset and disoriented from your death. I can understand that. There's a certain nightmarish quality to your own termination when experienced phenomenologically. You could simplify it, easily. Use little words. They're just as likely to capture the experience as a desperate logorrhea. It's painful. It's scary. It might be argued that death, ultimately, is an event that cannot occur without the phenomenon of trauma. And trauma, it's known, leaves indelible marks upon the fabric of the mind. The literal topography of the brain is altered, the chemical pathways and electric impulses forever changed by what may only be seconds in time. You might think that a potential impermanence to the outcome would ameliorate the emotional ravages, but my experience is that it may actually be of little comfort in the aftermath.

And you didn't exactly go quickly. Did you? Did it help, having time to reflect upon your own death?

Right. In retrospect, it was pretty insensitive of me to intrude upon your post when you've barely had time to process your own tragedy.

I'll give you some time to think this over. Go hang out with Jane if that's what you need to do. We'll talk later.

what the fuck, dude!

who is trying to be rose now?!

[A long pause. John's calming down. It helps that Jane is there, telling him not to waste his time on this. (Even though she, too, is wasting her time on this.)]

i'm fine. i don't need a break to process anything and i'm not changing my mind. i don't want you to pretend to be friends with jane or lie about a bunch of stuff and i especially don't want you to psychoanalyse my death or whatever it was you were doing there?

this isn't some sort of hostage situation. that actually is not what i'm doing. all i am saying is you are super wrong about this, and jane is real and counts.

and if you don't even know that, why would i believe that you're right about what to do here?

[A lot to unpack there, and Dirk would ordinarily love to argue John into the ground, but...

Now that he's told John he's going to talk later and that hyperintensity of focus has broken, he suddenly wants nothing more than to not talk to anyone at all. He actually feels.... extremely. Extremely unwell?

Ugh.

Ugggh. Yeah. God. His fucking head. He feels disgusting. Time to call it.]

Later, John. All in good time.

wow ok.

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CW self-injury

Re: CW self-injury

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cw: gore

[Hussie Voice] Fuck Chekhov. I wanna talk about nonlinear storytelling.

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I'm the reason you know none of this but also you're stupid for not knowing it, by Dirk Strider

:B

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ok I give up, SYNCING IT UP NOW

This icon's keywords could NOT be any more appropriate

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CW: Death, mostly

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