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)
victory_road2021-06-11 11:01 pm
uber_marionettist) wrote in victory_road2021-06-11 11:01 pm
Entry tags:
You Made That Up [CLOSED]
Who: Dirk Strider and Emet-selch
When: Mid-June... I'm forward dating this, shhhh.
Where: Rocket lab in Goldenrod
What: Dirk got a canon update to HS^2! You know what that means!He's a grandpa!
Warnings/Rating: PG-13 for swears, but it contains spoilers for and content from HS^2, so....
The transition between experiential realities is imperceptible until it's already happened. A lot like the movement from waking self to dream self, but with the key difference of choice, or lack thereof. Then again, when it came to matters of free will--did he ever really have it?
He becomes conscious first mostly of being warmer, and feeling something softer than bare cave rock under his ass. Also, he's lying down. He's... comfortable, actually. The lighting is different, he knows before he opens his eyes.
And when he opens them, everything shifts back into clarity of consciousness.
He starts to sit up, finds himself somewhat entangled with long, fleecy-soft limbs, and--
"Oh my God," he mumbles hazily, slipping his arms out of their looping bonds to press the heels of his hands into his eyes. The smuppet falls back to lie with its head on a pillow, smiling, nose pointing jauntily towards the ceiling. It's tucked in. He's in a bed. In the lab?
Emet's here.
Did Emet steal the fucking lab while he was out?
Emet tucked him in with the smuppet.
He doesn't have room to care about that right now, but somewhere in his brain he's already stored it and a hundred other things for later.
The full capacity of his brain is being taken up by a realer reality, which is expressed through his mouth in a barely-coherent grumble.
"....'mgonna need Hythlodaeus to find another one o' them GILF shirts in my size."
When: Mid-June... I'm forward dating this, shhhh.
Where: Rocket lab in Goldenrod
What: Dirk got a canon update to HS^2! You know what that means!
Warnings/Rating: PG-13 for swears, but it contains spoilers for and content from HS^2, so....
The transition between experiential realities is imperceptible until it's already happened. A lot like the movement from waking self to dream self, but with the key difference of choice, or lack thereof. Then again, when it came to matters of free will--did he ever really have it?
He becomes conscious first mostly of being warmer, and feeling something softer than bare cave rock under his ass. Also, he's lying down. He's... comfortable, actually. The lighting is different, he knows before he opens his eyes.
And when he opens them, everything shifts back into clarity of consciousness.
He starts to sit up, finds himself somewhat entangled with long, fleecy-soft limbs, and--
"Oh my God," he mumbles hazily, slipping his arms out of their looping bonds to press the heels of his hands into his eyes. The smuppet falls back to lie with its head on a pillow, smiling, nose pointing jauntily towards the ceiling. It's tucked in. He's in a bed. In the lab?
Emet's here.
Did Emet steal the fucking lab while he was out?
Emet tucked him in with the smuppet.
He doesn't have room to care about that right now, but somewhere in his brain he's already stored it and a hundred other things for later.
The full capacity of his brain is being taken up by a realer reality, which is expressed through his mouth in a barely-coherent grumble.
"....'mgonna need Hythlodaeus to find another one o' them GILF shirts in my size."
no subject
Knowing Emet, either is likely.
He does pause when he hears the shifting and speaking--the room being more or less silent otherwise--glancing over his half-moon glasses at Dirk with eyebrows raised. He could speak of the warm joy that stirs within his breast at the sight of him moving, quickly rise to his feet and close the yalm and a half of distance between them...instead, he stays still, sans quietly placing the building down, waiting for Dirk to speak again.
He does.
Emet's brow furrows, not that he isn't amused by the comment, but he also finds it perplexing.
"Did Dave make a fool of himself? I cannot well imagine how he might, given what I understand of your reality, and yet..." He stays seated as he talks, wishing to ascertain a modicum of an idea where Dirk might be emotionally. That grumbling could be telling, or not at all.
Such was that the way of Dirk.
cw nsfw.. ish
Over her? No. The other--no. No, he just... he was almost excited for a second. Relieved. Over Emet. Knowing that Emet would understand exactly what he was talking about, and without even the intention of using it to yank him around or undercut him. Knowing he had a sympathetic ear. Someone who'd give a shit about the shit that really mattered. He's suddenly painfully, acutely aware of a vacuum around himself, like a hollow carved out in space where the past three years' isolation is closing in around him--
The question almost knocks him for a loop.
"Dave? You think Dave--? How in the hell would--? No. No, this was Rose. Unascended. And.... Jade. You know, Dave's--his wife. She and Dave had two cocks, four fully-descended testes, and zero uteri between them, so she and Rose snuck off, and that's why Rose was lactating when she and Kanaya adopted that grub. It was the perfect crime against good taste, fidelity, and canonical integrity. Not to mention the various physical laws prohibiting non-intraspecific childbearing shenanigans."
If Emet is basing his estimates on speed and monotone of words spoken per minute, then Dirk's emotional state might best be described as 'agitated.' He's looking for his shades while he talks, his hands patting the pillows before he finds them--not that they're hard to find, but he's not the most fantastic multitasker, and the whiplash from Narrative to Nothingness has him groping blindly in more ways than one, has him flailing for purchase in a vacuum, has him feeling like the inside of his brain was just peeled like a grape.
Once claimed, he gets them on his face without anything more embarrassing than the initial fumble to find them--a performance that itself could pass for pique. He's got a lot on his fucking mind here.
"That shit don't even matter, though. Not the important part. I knew they had a hideous, overwrought soap opera building up, but it's even more doomed than I knew. That emotional piss-shower of a continuity is sprinkling liquid gold on everyone inside of it and no one installed a fucking drain for them to circle on their way down."
Is he breathing hard? No. Yes? Maybe he's not. Maybe he's just breathing normally and it feels more intense. Because of how much more limited he is. Like his pulse is either racing or hammering or maybe that's normal and he just can't fucking tell. How did he get used to this the first time? Didn't that take months? Rhetorical question. It definitely took months. Fuck. He doesn't want to go through that whole thing again--
no subject
If he were to know of the ache Dirk feels in his heart for his absence in those three years, he would be touched most deeply. Alas, all he is given is Dirk's agitated ramblings.
Listening and absorbing his words, body language, tone and speed as he goes on tells Emet far more than what's said. Honestly, he'd sooner believe Dirk might be afraid, than not. A theory he plans not to admit out loud, for both their sakes. Instead, he silently listens, nodding along to reassure that he is absorbing what he's imparting.
Truly it's the way Dirk's breathing that catches him most. How worked up he is about all of this, and how it feels like Dirk is admitting a betrayal, and he supposes that's not entirely wrong.
"I see." Is his simple reply once Dirk has finished. For but a beat of a moment he remains in his chair, attempting to assess whether he should remain, or if he should make his way over there. He chooses the latter.
Rising from his seat, the click of his boots are the only sound besides Dirk's breathing, until he squats down besides him, arms resting on his knees as his gaze scans over him. His heart tightens taking in the view of him, and without thought he reaches out to cup his cheek.
"It sounds like you've suffered quite a bit, my dear. Though it may serve as no true comfort to hear, I am glad to have you once again." He offers him a sympathetic smile favoring the left, "pray, speak these wounds to me, I shall listen. Tell me how this child may bring doom with their existence, what threat do they play towards your grand scheme?"
no subject
He truthfully wasn't entirely sure what kind of gesture he was going to be receiving, whether or not it would even get as far as physical contact. Maybe it was foolish of him to hedge his bets on that, but in a way he's glad it didn't go as far as pulling him into Emet's arms. He's not sure he could have withstood that. Not right now.
As it is, he lets Emet cup his face waits like that for a good, solid second--though he has, for the moment, stopped breathing entirely. Then, with an uncharacteristic slowness borne at least in part of reluctance in the face of urgency, he reaches up to take Emet's hand in his, turning it over and rotating his arm so he's got a firm grip on the other man.
"This means there are four of them, Emet. Four fucking kids. Two girls, two boys. Tavvy, Harry, Vrissy, and Yiffy. I went to the actual effort and got ahold of Hussie and the bastard spent five pages of dialogue log feigning ignorance to dodge the issue and mock me. The only worthwhile thing he said was copping to the truth in plain text that he can't control me. It was so fucking obvious. And here I am making an actual good-faith attempt to bring that shit back into the bare-bones orbit of minimally readable thematic compliance." He shuts his eyes, tightly. Collecting himself. Controlling himself, his breathing, his grip on Emet's hand.
There are a lot of ways that the past 'three years' drained him, taxed him and stretched him beyond any human's natural limit. He'd suppose it's lucky he's not a very natural human. Coming 'back' to this, though... to physical touch, to concern, to Emet... it feels unnatural, fucked up in all the worst and best ways he doesn't have the stamina to unpack again. The fact that he has to is a fucked up joke.
no subject
He was not worried that he had lost Dirk, his physical form remained after all, but who knew if that would persist or not?
"Hussie?" He whispers, more to himself than to Dirk. The creator of the work of fiction which details Dirk's own reality. Truly an odd meeting he's sure, but there's a level meta displacement when it comes to an author directly interacting with his creations, though it leaves the question of how much Dirk truly is this man's creation, and how much was he merely the object of this man's inspiration. The divide between storytelling and reality is distorted, and difficult to define. However, that Hussie would admit he lacks the ability to control Dirk clears up some of the bleariness of it, at least by Emet's measure.
"In mine own journey to right the wrongs of antiquity, much had I faced hurdle after hurdle, naysayers and fools who would challenge my duty—though none were insurmountable regardless of how direly compromised my schemes may have seemed at the time." As he speaks, it's in a lower, soft timbre. Perhaps an attempt to sound comforting and soft.
"It is merely prudent to remain steadfast in your convictions, and no errant whimsy of those unwilling or incapable of understanding the importance of the grand scale threat you are all facing will truly impede you. Set back some measure of progress? Certainly, but you are ever determined. A force I would name irrepressible."
Another emphatic squeeze and a soft smile, warmth in his gaze.
"Chaos and order are indeed contrasts—their whimsy and your schemes—but they need not conflict. When given more pawns to work with, we gain access to viable options we otherwise were without. More paths that which previously proved unassailable. You are a man with a brilliant mind, and while I fault you not for the worry that burdens your heart so, I do believe you will overcome this surprising turn of events."
Pulling that hand of Dirk's up with his own grasp of it, he places an affectionate kiss upon the back of it, his eyes closing as he does so. Moving the hand away just enough for him to speak, his breath hot against the chill of the room, his gaze meets with Dirk's features.
"How long has it been for you?"
no subject
But it is another thing entirely to hear Emet admit to obstacles and even setbacks which sometimes hurt and sometimes hindered, but never halted him. That sometimes worse outcomes could be seized as opportunities. And that about the encouraging press of Emet's fingers wrapped around his own, the way Emet squeezes his hand, as though to share his belief in Dirk, his confidence in him. It's been so long since anyone voluntarily even--wait, no it hasn't. Or it has, but only from his perspective.
Then Emet kisses his hand and it sends a sensation like a shiver up Dirk's spine. He tenses, sucks in his breath and holds it.
"In a meta sense, it was about a year between the publishing of the Epilogues and the first update of Homestuck^2, with a visual novel side jaunt in there that was a huge waste of my fucking time but I couldn't very well just ignore it.... but linearly, we spent three (personally productive) years on the Theseus before we found a planet that fit the specifications, and then it took exactly one update to catch the readers up and for Terezi to crash the goddamn ship into it. Which was unavoidable if we wanted to land, because Jake English knows less about functional ship design than he does--well, the bar's six feet fucking under to begin with, but he's still digging. Not to imply he's dead or buried--he's definitely not. In either timeline. But the ship's totalled, and everything important survived the inferno of its wreckage. So that part's done."
He takes his other hand and lays it on top of Emet's, a gesture somewhat meant to reflect the difference in reality between a man he made a fool of himself over back in canon and the one he's here with now, but also meant to ground him a bit. And maybe to savour, just a little, the fact that he has someone's hand to hold.
Holy fuck, what is this train of thought even doing. Shitting Christ, good thing there's no one to read this. Focus, man.
"Don't read anything into that. Wait. That wasn't meant for you. Forget I said that. Time. You were asking about time. So after HS^2 launched, only a few weeks elapsed for us on Deltritus, but things were progressing smoothly enough. Then she got cocky enough to break the seal and I seized the opportunity to catch a glimpse of that other timeline. I thought what I knew was hideous... and you know how sickeningly repulsive that is... but it's gotten so much worse. And with the advent of Yiffany, the competition it threatened to pose isn't laughable any more. And that's not even mentioning the thing Rose and Terezi have taken to--but anyway, that's three years and change."
Time isn't real, but it's sure a fucking pain in his ass anyhow to talk about. God. His head hurts. It's not just that he's cramming three years 'and change' into his head across the metamaterial of reality itself, but he's having an excruciatingly difficult time keeping all of his thoughts in one medium. Which is stupid because he only has the one medium, which is to say, the basic 'mortal' means of thought and speech and action, but that's exactly the problem, and it's not like he ever had a reasonable number of thoughts at a reasonable speed for one basic self to contain to begin with.
no subject
No improvements, at least, not in a personal sense. His duty is continuing apace, which in itself is good, but there is still that sentimental basis and worry for Dirk as an individual that makes his chest tighten ever so slightly.
Dirk's hand on his own is a shallow comfort, one he greedily indulges all the same, but it can only do so much when he well knows the depth of Dirk's own aching heart. Made all the more apparent by Dirk's rather obvious argument with himself over self narration that none but he is privy to. Perhaps that's why Emet offers him a kind and understanding smile.
"If you mind not my asking, why is it that this Yiffy poses a problem the other children do not? Is her presence truly so damning? I suppose I cannot help but wonder what it is about her that marks her as especially canonically volatile." His line of questioning is both for his own curiosity and understanding, but likewise to offer Dirk something to focus his thoughts on. He knows how jumbled his own thoughts were "returning" to this world, but he can only imagine the extent of the mental mess Dirk is facing with his connection to the very word of his reality, a thread of not merely thought, but something far deeper than that.
They are both connected to their own worlds in ways that mortals can barely understand. A link of empathy to the core of their very existence, one that Dirk might name otherwise, yet it fits such designation. The means of understanding that which none other can, of fully conceptualizing the laws and order of their existence and reality as it needs to be.
no subject
So fresh from the gravitational pull of canon, though, the difference between this experience of his ocean and the form inevitable is the span of a single second; it's short inhale of breath through his nose, his eyes closing for less than a heartbeat before he stands, his hands slipping out from Emet's without a word. If the narrative were still attuned to Dirk at all, any witness would surely experience a bit of a chill, maybe a nauseous twist to their stomach. Any traces of emotional affect lingering in his deadpan, ghostlike, are gone.
Now he shows the cold, domineering villain everyone knew he had inside of him.
He strides past, making a direct path to a white board, which he studies for half a second before wiping a clear section off it.
"Hope that wasn't important," he deadpans.
He takes up a marker and begins to draw a grid.
"There are three dominant tropes in the meta when it comes to 'the next generation.' The first of these is represented by Harry Anderson--let's call it 'the endgame ship.' Roxy was making big gooey eyes at John from pretty much the moment she saw him, creating a ship known as 'Roxygen.' This was quote 'validated' endquote by the apparent conclusion to the canon. End game. If the hypothetical outcome of any ship is represented by its progeny, then their sprog is the natural outcome of that."
As he talks, he draws. The top left square is occupied by a simple rendition of Harry Anderson's head, with each extended line leading to drawings of John and Roxy's heads, respectively.
"Then there's the adoption of a younger version of an existing character--either through reincarnation if that character kicked the bucket, or else magic or even time-specific shenanigans. Obviously, this is the adopted Vriska. Note that Kanaya and Rose are also an 'end game' ship... but because of species and attraction-related barriers, they're unable to reproduce. The perfect canidates. And Vriska was the perfect subject. The usual aim of this trope is to explore the hypothetical outcome of a character raised outside the specific experiences that were formative to their development... usually with the aim of a "better" life, one absent of whatever trauma or unfairness the author feels the character 'deserved better' than or which 'turned them bad' to begin with."
Vriska, Kanaya, and Rose occupy the top right.
"Third, there's the 'recombinant' trope, which does exactly what it says on the tin. What if the parents of these characters had a different kid? What would that look like? Or whatever. I don't really 'get it' myself, but that's how it goes. This is presumably all the more enticing when the characters who produced our known heroes are themselves a different version of themselves... and, in this case, never got to 'raise' the progeny they produced to begin with. Ergo, Tavvy. And as a bonus, his name and character pays tribute to another character that's died and who much of the fandom believes deserved better."
The bottom left: Jane, Jake, and Tavvy.
"So far, this is all exactly what I expected out of that timeline."
no subject
Finding himself so intrigued by the shift, he pays no mind to how Dirk's hands leave his, nor how Dirk erased notes he had jotted down on schematics for Rotomtek Death Claws. Instead, he adjusts himself to taking a seat where he was formerly squatting, keeping his eyes on Dirk as he explains.
The picture of a perfect student before his lecturer. Attentive, alert, receptive.
His brow furrows with contemplation when he mulls over what Dirk explains, and he understands that trope merely tranlates to "established cycle", and that Dirk is relying upon these unbroken cycles to carry his schemes forthwith due to their predictable nature.
However, as far as he can tell, this follows an already established precedent of there being four crucial children to carry out the events of whatever may come to pass. Which is why he isn't certain of Dirk's contempt with there being a fourth. He would assume this would have been considered by Dirk, but that he wouldn't...
"And with this fourth member superseding aught that was expected, there's the threat for it all to go awry..." He more says it to himself, than to Dirk. Bringing a hand to his chin as he contemplates why that may be, despite knowing Dirk will tell him in the next moment.
A simple beat passes and his gaze flicks from the unfocused drift from Dirk as he contemplated thus, back to Dirk properly. His eyebrows raising with implied intrigue as his hand lowers to rest on his lap.
"Pray continue."
no subject
He draws in her parents, then her.
"The improbability of her existence is her entire point. A secret character, introduced as an unexpected plot point... not to mention being the product of what's called a 'rarepair.' Even her name is about shock value. Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley."
He's begun pacing in front of the board, and there is no attempt to cover the disgust or contempt in his tone.
"Now I have direct competition, and it takes the form of the most dead-ended gimmicky character concept no one ever asked for." He stops pacing and draws Dave's head at the bottom corner of the board, triangulated with Rose and Jade. Then he turns away, capping the marker with a bit more force than is expressly warranted and tossing it over his shoulder at the board behind him without so much as a backwards glance for aim.
It lands perfectly in the tray.
"I can't prove Hussie is behind it, and he didn't admit to it, not in plain English, but he came close enough. I don't need him to, though. No one else could have pulled something like that off."
The corners of Dirk's mouth pull down into a nearly bracket-sharp scowl.
"Any questions?"
no subject
They were men bound by duty, and their individual fancies meant little in the face of what truly mattered. This he knew. This he accepted.
He beholds the chart and the details of it. Those little drawings, charming in their own right. But his gaze stays on the one of Dave for a few moments (after being amused by Dirk's accuracy with that marker), before it finds itself on Dirk once more.
"Aye."
A few questions do come to mind, though he holds off questioning Dirk why he wouldn't have contemplated what seems like a very obvious set up for a fourth child, even if the means of which are less so. That would not land well, and little did Dirk need such prodding in this state. No, instead he chooses something less potentially inflammatory.
"Do you believe Hussie is attempting to sabotage you? And to what consequence would such sabotaging earn him? Aside from halting you, that is."
Still he remains seated, allowing Dirk the floor and a sense of authority in this exchange. Honestly, from the sounds of it, he needs the feeling regardless of how fictitious it may truly be.
no subject
"Excellent question. The short answer is I don't fucking know. The long answer is that I know he wants the canon over and done with. He greenlighted this anyway, so there's some real conflict-of-interest going on that I don't see the point of, but it makes his end game pretty ambiguous. Saying that, he's got a real pain in the ass personality, so I'd be willing to believe it's just some kind of self-destructive impulse or need to fuck with me, but I really don't fucking know."
There's a pause, during which the tightness in Dirk's clenched jaw shifts, like he's biting back something bitter.
"That's all speculative. But I don't think I was his target with Yiffy."
cw: suicide talk
Not unlike how one might seek death through the blade of another. Instead of ending it all yourself, you allow others to make the decision for you, to bait their blade, though this would be of a more...creative and metaphorical sense of such a grim fate.
However, that would also guarantee the death of all whom exist within that world. That it would come to pass due to the disinterest of its creator...well, he supposes that isn't the most shocking turn of events he's ever heard, nor an uncommon one. It's interesting, to say the least, the direct effect this author has on the world in real time. That, not only is his role as scribe influences the perception of the events, but likewise directly alter their course in their own true reality.
The closest equivalent he can think of would be if Zodiark predated the ancients, dictating the laws of reality then, instead of rewriting them as He did. But furthermore, that not only the laws of reality would be within His grasp, but so too the very actions of every singular existence within. That worlds—nay, entire realities—would be subjected to the whims of a single being is troubling.
His thoughts drifting towards Hydaelyn isn't the least bit surprising for him, but there's a darkened look to him as he seems distracted by them.
"And whom do you believe was his intended?"
no subject
"I don't know.. If I knew the answer to that, I'd know what to do about it. Maybe it's all of us. Everyone, the whole world."
He wishes he'd kept the marker, just to have something to do with his hands. He can clench his fists, but it wouldn't really direct any of his energy. He can only loop so much of it back into his brain. There's nowhere else for it to go. No Narrative, no Self extended outside of this body. The sensation of being an ocean, poured into a bucket, endlessly, never overflowing but impossible to actually contain in a space so small, so limited. There's so much he needs to do, to know, to be, and none of it is actually present in or of him. He presses the heel of his hand, the leather of his glove, into his forehead.
"I know he wants to be done with it, but he's not done with us. It wouldn't be the first time he walked away mid-work. But he's got a whole project still unfinished. And he's not dropping it. Not with the Director and the rest involved. Jake Harley had two bio-kids with some woman off-screen and they've got their own presumably-doomed adventure with two lowblood Trolls. You know about the Troll Hythlodaeus deals to when I'm out of the house? That's where he's from, just a bit part from a lore expansion side story. This is what I mean, wheels within wheels. Not my wheels, but someone's got to mind them. And this bastard is messing around inside of the machine. He's making something, and it's absolute trash.... maybe I am his target. Maybe he's trying to overload it. Either he's trying to make it unmanageable for me, or he's testing me. Pushing me to break. Which he knows I don't do. It's his work that I don't. So does he want me to splinter? Does he want it out of my hands? Or does he want me to make it work?"
This conversation is brushing uncomfortably close to a topic rarely broached, even by Dirk himself: the implications, both meta and otherwise, of not only knowing your creator, but knowing you have one.
The faith of religion is a kind of agreement made with one's own cognitive and experiential existence. It's the exchange of ontological autharchy for spirituality, bartering the possibility of self-determination for the possibility of a bigger picture. No such agreement was ever made between Dirk and his reality, or its author. The bigger picture was already there; his consent was neither required nor possible. What he is, he was made to be. Who he is was neither self-determined nor negotiable; just as the Game demanded only a single, specifically executed and exacting outcome of him, so too did the meta.