Too Many Striders: Black 2-A shenanigans redux

[fracturedsoul]

Characters: Dirk, closed to Black 2-A roommates (Dave, David, Daenerys) and anyone else with a reason to be there (mainly Jade and Jake, feel free to tag in if there's some reason your character would drop in though)
Format: Whatever
This log is: open to roommates
Location: Black 2-A

It's 10AM on Sunday morning, before the assembly, and if you've forgotten that Dirk Strider is a person who exists, then nobody could blame you, because he's been in the shower for the past two and a half hours.

Once Black dorm is completely out of hot water, he comes moseying back into 2-A, dressed in his Fortitude uniform with a towel wrapped around his hair. Feel free to complain, or, alternatively, to notice the shield symbol that is most definitely on the back of one hand even though the Players for the round haven't even been announced.

Comments

IN THIS REPLY. KIM TL;DRS IN BRIGHT RED

[knightime]

Because he's the knight of time. He doesn't quite work as linearly as he tries. Everything kind of just happens around him.

no
i went home
kind of
i guess a version of me is there and i just got all of whatever they experienced jammed into my noggin like santa and his sack of gifts
because im pretty sure im fourteen
theres no fucking way im not fourteen
ugh okay
let me start at the beginning
were playing sburb
my group
our session was doomed to fail
which is apparently actually normal except we did shit that also made our session ridiculously fucktarded
but we initiated the scratch and ollied the fuck out
your session is the result of our session being scratched
except theres a whole lot of ridiculous bullshit going on because
we were supposed to be scratched out of existence
but were headed towards your session
and your session is fucked up too because while ours was doomed
yours is null
which means your session can never be finished because your battlefield cant meet its fruition and were bringing ours to you instead
happy birthday btw
heres a battlefield and the reckoning
but sis is my sis
and apparently weve switched places
which means that sis was my guardian to me
but in this new session im the guardian
so it only makes sense that the sames gonna happen with you guys
your session is the result of whatever version of me initiated their scratch

Ugh. He's glad to finally figure out why these alternate stuff existed, but knowing was also very odd. Because, now he knows he's going to meet a younger version of Sis. And he can't remember why this bothers him so much. Why he doesn't remember where Sis is...

But he knows why other him would be awkward. Other him saw his Bro's dead body. That must be really awkward, holy shit.

[fracturedsoul]

Wow. On the one hand, Dirk's not going to deny that it's nice to have all of this information laid out for him. Answers a whole lot of questions. On the other, it just raises more questions, and it sure is a hell of a lot to dump on a guy all of a sudden.

Their session is doomed. He stares at the screen, not letting the slightest trace of emotion show on his face, but it chills him to read those words. But Dave and the others are going to fix that? With their fucktarded doomed battlefield? Except that's an alternate "Dirk is a girl" session. What about his session? The one he's already fucked up by killing his own waking self, which is what he's going to assume happened there because he doesn't think he could handle being a murderer, even of another him.

"Oh. Okay, cool," is all he says. "That explains a lot."

[knightime]

it explains absolutely jack shit
except
welp i guess this shit is still happening regardless of where i am
fuck
oh god fucking shit

Oh god damn it. If this is going on while he isn't there, but he's still there. That makes him an alternate timeline him. Either one who's Doomed to death or one who'll cease to exist.

Maybe he doesn't really want to go back anymore...

all i know is
apparently with your group
my group
and a bunch of trolls that still hadnt died
were going to win somehow

But Jack Noir is still alive. He's on their tail and they can't beat him yet at their level. What's going to happen? Jack Noir will kill them. Dave visibly winces. Shit. More memories he can't remember.

[fracturedsoul]

...Trolls. So, maybe what Feferi had to say wasn't all that outlandish. Still, Dirk is entirely sure that that won't go well when they all finally meet up in the game.

He sits down to consider what Dave is saying. As he does, he removes the towel from his hair and checks his reflection in the PDA screen. "When Jake hadn't noticed I'd gone missing I thought maybe time might have stopped back home. Either that or he might have been some alternate instance of my bro from a world where Rakuen hadn't found me and tossed me into its windowless white van. But if everything's still happening back where you come from, to the point where the you back home's memories can suddenly show up and break in and set up camp in your head..." Hm. He runs a hand through his hair.

"What's that make us? Are we splintered-off duplicates of ourselves? On the one hand, it's reassuring to hear that things aren't being fucked up by us being here..." Maybe that's what that corpse is, too. A duplicate of his waking self.

[knightime]

Let Dave tell you about the troll kids. And how ridiculously uncool they are and not as crazy shit as the Condesce is.

Dave is just staring down at his PDA screen. He won't look anywhere else.

they tell us we go back home
whether thats true or not
welp well find out eventually
what will probably happen is we just become whatever we were at that moment
kind of like
we were the same person so well eventually be that person
at least speaking in time loop form
if i make a stable time loop
that version of me will eventually be me anyways
so if you go back
you become that you that was doing whatever the fuck he was doing at that time

Still. He isn't sure how that worked with himself. While it seemed like anyone else don't exist. Davesprite was the evidence that it had existed at one point. But as a Doomed Dave...

They'd eventually die, making the timeline officially dead.

Shit, he's just going to not think about this. Considering he'll have to eventually die again...

[fracturedsoul]

That would be nice. All that stuff Dave told him about doomed timelines is hella fucking worrisome. If they could just go back and pick up where they left off and not be dead or anything, shit would that ever be nice.

"They said most of us would go home." He feels the need to be contrary. "Six of them didn't last time. Even then, that's assuming they're telling us the truth. Which, while a comforting thing to cling to, isn't a guarantee we have."

As calm as he sounds, he's not much better off than Dave in this regard. He's fifteen. He doesn't want to die or be trapped in an alternate universe forever. He just wants to go home and play this game and... hopefully win, somehow, now that he knows their session is fucked and its only hope lies in refugees from another fucked session.

[knightime]

they probably know more than we do
which isnt reassuring but
hey
we dont have anything to lose at this point

Dave actually looks up at him. Something just occurred to him.

well be the same age when we meet
i mean
other me
who will
oh fuck this shit
yeah well be the same age i think

That's a little strange to realize. If they're starting their session, and he still had two years left worth of traveling.

god damn three years is a long time to sit on a meteor doing jackshit and dream bubbles

[fracturedsoul]

Dirk notices Dave's head moving out of the corner of his eye and glances up, only moving his eyes behind his shades to read the message.

Oh, hey. That's something to think about. He wonders how much Dave will have changed by then. How he's going to react when he sees Dave in person, in the game, with all of his memories of Bro intact. Will Dirk even remember any of this? How is that going to work? And it won't be the same Dave, if there even is any Dave at all since Dirk is a guy and what if it doesn't happen the same way in his world. Way too many variables to juggle and consider. He barely knows where to start.

"Could be worse." Dirk would know, having spent the past fifteen years in the same apartment. "Okay, what are dream bubbles?"

[knightime]

Oh god damn. More game mechanics he rather not talk about.

theyre seriously what they sound like
although they work pretty weird
and all the dead people kind of just chillax in them now
you can visit them and usually they just replay memories that belong to various people
kind of like a huge ass hivemind in the form of bubbles
since we no longer have derse or prospit
we have the dream bubbles

[fracturedsoul]

"Oh." He'd been wondering what would happen next time Jane or Jake went to sleep. At least they would be okay. "Good to know the game's got a failsafe for that."

He rubs the back of his head as he thinks about what to say to all of this. "Fuck, bro, it's like I'm some little third-world hellhole with how many bombshells you just dropped on me."

[knightime]

Dave seems to be lost in thought for a second. He feels like there was more to the dreamselves, but he can't recall anything about it.

Shit, it probably has to do with whatever he got involved with. Oh well.

soz
i wasnt really expecting to get slapped with a years worth of time
and i cant even remember how i got to where i was
i guess somehow looking for jade
i ended up at a green sun
wow
that made less sense than usual
motherfuck

[fracturedsoul]

As little sense as that makes to read, Dirk gets the impression it makes even less sense for Dave. He should set Jake up for some fights, earn some raks, buy the kid a memory charm. He's insanely curious about that other session, even more so now that he knows there's apparently some connection with an alternate version of his own.

"Probably makes sense in context. Thanks for all the details, by the way."

[knightime]

no prob
i kind of just went crazy info dump on you anyways
ill probably eventually figure out what happened in between
who knows
im not really in a rush anyways

Dave really could have handed off his money to someone to buy the charms for him, but he just continued to buy things for everyone else instead.