#page 635

[pesterloglog]

Jake English, Dirk Strider

Page 633-636

JAKE: Fuck!!!

JAKE: Why did she have to go and build a moon laser!!!

JAKE: Why did she have to go and

JAKE: And SAY all that!!!

DIRK: It's not over.

DIRK: That moon laser doesn't mean shit.

JAKE: ...if theres no one to press the button?

DIRK: Boom.

DIRK: Or, you know.

DIRK: No boom.

JAKE: Her guard is down...

DIRK: And you have a gun.

JAKE: I have TWO guns.

DIRK: Let's be real, this wouldn't even be the first time you've thought of it.

JAKE: Its... an option.

DIRK: Or.

DIRK: You help her win the battle.

DIRK: Avoid baptizing the Earth with laser-fire.

DIRK: And she uses The Point, and the world doesn't end.

DIRK: Probably.

DIRK: Who the fuck knows.

JAKE: What should i do?

DIRK: I'm not gonna tell you.

JAKE: I already know youll want me to do whats heroic.

JAKE: But you wouldnt want me to kill jane either.

JAKE: Would you?

DIRK: Stop staring at me like I'm gonna tongue-kiss the answer into you, dude.

DIRK: You know what you need to do.

JAKE: But jane was right about me!

JAKE: I cant be trusted.

JAKE: I dont even like 99% of people.

DIRK: Then do it for one person.

DIRK: Aren't you tired of spreading yourself thin trying to believe in everything?

DIRK: Because it's looking pretty fuckin' likely that the future where Tavvy is happy and the future where Jane is alive don't coincide.

DIRK: You have to kill one for the other to survive.

JAKE: It sounds like youre gunning for her.

DIRK: It sounds like *you're* gunning for her.

DIRK: Say what you will about Dirk, but he always wanted you to be your best self.

DIRK: He pushed you hoping if he did it hard enough, you'd push back.

DIRK: That's a far cry from whatever neutered domestic purgatory Jane's offering you.

DIRK: Wasn't it nice to be believed in, man?

JAKE: Ugh.

JAKE: Can i make an honest query?

JAKE: Did i really kill him?

DIRK: Hm.

JAKE: I did, didnt i?

DIRK: Common sense says no.

JAKE: Cant you swing that one by your esoteric telepathic dirk connection?

DIRK: That's a tricky fuckin' wicket, man.

JAKE: Its "sticky wicket".

DIRK: It's nothing, because that's a stupid fucking phrase cooked up by fake people about a fake sport from a dead planet.

DIRK: Anyway, it's tricky because there's not really all that much of anything left of the big man.

DIRK: Not here, anyway.

JAKE: Oh, baloney!

JAKE: Thats not how this works. Youre the supernatural tsaheylu of our combined "steezes".

JAKE: This isnt my first ride in the rodeo, mister, I KNOW THE RHYTHM OF THIS BUCKING BRONCO.

JAKE: HES STILL HERE, DAMMIT!

DIRK: I'm sorry.

DIRK: He's gone, dude.

JAKE: OH FUCK OFF.

JAKE: YOU CHARLATAN.

DIRK: Yeah.

JAKE: HORSES ASS.

DIRK: Get it all out, man.

JAKE: YOU MALEVOLENT MASCULINE MALFEASANT.

DIRK: I know a crisp glass of personal culpability isn't what you ordered, but hey.

DIRK: It's better than relapsing.

JAKE: Im drunk right now.

DIRK: And that sucks, buddy.

DIRK: But I'm talking about the big show of "everything's fine now" kitchen table red undie dirty dancing you did.

JAKE: Oh, i forgot about that.

DIRK: You fuckin' wish you did.

DIRK: It'd be the only reasonable excuse you'd have for nipping this uncomfortable epiphany in the bud so you could slink back to following orders from Dirk.

JAKE: ...

JAKE: Gods hooks, i backflipped right into my old ways!

DIRK: Don't beat yourself up about it. It's a running theme with literally everybody we know.

DIRK: You all get caught up in these feeling jams, hugging it out in self-realizational bliss.

DIRK: Then, bam.

DIRK: Premature ejaculation.

DIRK: That passionate growth grind ends before it builds to anything actually satisfying.

JAKE: :(

JAKE: Are you saying i need to be red undies jake again?

DIRK: Absolutely the fuck not.

DIRK: Hands off the belt, buddy. You've graduated.

DIRK: You're fully dressed Jake now.

DIRK: Sitting on the sticky floor of a custodial closet, hidden away from anything certain and good in this world.

DIRK: Alone.

JAKE: This is scary! I dont like this.

DIRK: Fuck yeah it is. This is sweaty, achey, burning transformation, brother.

JAKE: I want to go back! I want to be the other guy again.

DIRK: You can't be the other guy anymore, Jake.

DIRK: We're sending him upstate to live on a beautiful farm, where they're gonna immediately drag him out back and put him out of his fucking misery.

DIRK: Remember when you told Egbert you wanted someone to hold you accountable?

JAKE: No.

DIRK: Well.

JAKE: Nooooooo.

DIRK: "Here's Johnny!"

JAKE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

JAKE: Oh...

JAKE: *sniff*

JAKE: Oh, dirk...

JAKE: Cripes, if there really is no magical component to all of this,

JAKE: if youre really gone,

JAKE: then i am simply a forty year old man... being led by the nose... by an imaginary friend.

JAKE: That is not cute.

DIRK: It's kind of cute.

JAKE: No!

JAKE: Its mental illness!

DIRK: It can be both.

DIRK: Look.

DIRK: What you need to do is stop sobbing into your own fucking arms and make a decision.

DIRK: Spying for the rebellion, running away... these were steps in the right direction, but they also had, y'know.

JAKE: Plausible deniability.

DIRK: They were deflections.

DIRK: And at the end of the day, that's what choosing Jane would be, too.

JAKE: Its odd, but...

JAKE: Shucks, i dont want to cut her down right before she makes this big turnaround.

JAKE: If shed decided to keep her promise...

JAKE: thatd be bitter fucking berries to live with.

DIRK: But?

JAKE: But she probably wont change, will she?

DIRK: Why in the fuck would she?

DIRK: She'll have won.

JAKE: But... i dont think she was meant to be this way. Do you?

DIRK: Like, was she born to be a wildly racist dictatorial cake boss?

JAKE: Ok, when you put it that way it sounds a bit bonkers.

JAKE: What i mean is...

JAKE: Take me, for example.

JAKE: I know its not my fault janey got a bit rough and tumble with our relationship. That fundamentally, i didnt deserve it.

JAKE: But that doesnt exactly make me a mensch by default, does it?

JAKE: In fact i worry there might be more of me thats, well... inherently bad than not.

JAKE: And thats why everything tends to get so furiously fucked all the time!

JAKE: Everyone is waiting around for this better version of me to pop up, but thats never going to happen.

JAKE: Because if it did, it wouldn't be me anymore.

DIRK: So, are you trapped being Mr. Pissy Pantyloos Loser Man no matter what?

JAKE: Sort of.

JAKE: What do you think?

DIRK: I don't know.

DIRK: Maybe?

JAKE: Oh...

DIRK: Who even gives a fuck?

DIRK: This is some big philosophical philandering you're trying out, and we didn't even finish elementary school.

DIRK: The best we've got to work with is whatever you gleaned from "My Dinner with Andre" and "Blade Runner."

DIRK: And you fell asleep during "Andre."

JAKE: Point taken.

DIRK: Here's what we do know: when you face our friends tomorrow, they're gonna be none-the-wiser about the insane masturbatory matrix bullet time battles you've been having with yourself in your own head.

DIRK: What will be real to them is what you DID.

DIRK: That's it.

DIRK: Show them you're trying.

DIRK: Or don't, and get left behind.

JAKE: Good god...

JAKE: This is the worst pep talk... ever.

DIRK: It's you, dude, what did you expect?

JAKE: True.

DIRK: Do you want to be left behind?

JAKE: No!

JAKE: I want to see tavvy grow up!

JAKE: I want to choose him!

JAKE: But i want to believe in jane too...

DIRK: Sigh.

JAKE: Listen.

JAKE: I never really understood all that much of the "doomed timeline" hoopla you cerebral types tend to gab on about.

JAKE: But... its nice to think that there might be countless janes somewhere out there who never stopped being happy.

JAKE: Baking, getting up to all manner of lighthearted mischiefs... true blue all around.

JAKE: When i think of her, thats whats real to me.

JAKE: What she is now, what these rotten unenviable circumstances have made of her, its all just...

DIRK: Happenstance.

JAKE: Is that stupid?

DIRK: Probably, but you're a god of Hope.

DIRK: You're a poster-child for making stupid shit feasible.

DIRK: And no one has the power to say what's true for every Jane.

DIRK: I'm sure if you asked a couple of them how they feel about labor camps and domestic violences, they'd hit you with a "Woah there, buster jones."

JAKE: "Thats not for me!"

DIRK: "No siree!"

JAKE: Hehehe.

JAKE: Exactly.

JAKE: If i can believe in those janes,

JAKE: i think i can let this one go.

DIRK: Extravagant hoops to stumble through just to keep believing, man.

DIRK: It's sneaky. I like it.

JAKE: Its decided then?

DIRK: Seems so.

DIRK: You can finally leave the closet.

JAKE: Har, har.

JAKE: Goofs aside, old buddy...

JAKE: I get the strange sense i wont be speaking with you again.

DIRK: You won't. Why would you?

DIRK: You're normal now.

JAKE: But-

DIRK: You don't need him.

JAKE: It feels good to pretend, though.

JAKE: To hold on a little while longer.

DIRK: Don't.

JAKE: Fine! Fine...

JAKE: Hope is the crummiest aspect of the lot, huh.

JAKE: I swear the only time its worth a lick more than delusions and hot air

JAKE: is if it really fucking hurts.

DIRK: Welcome to being a person, Jake English.

[sharry-arry-odd]

/I was not with her./ /I was not with her./ Oh Jesus God, God of Moses, Allah, dear Buddha, Zeus, Muir, Elvis, Christ... if any of you exist or ever existed or retain a shred of power in your dead gray hands... please let me die now. Now. Let the particle be detected and the gas released. Now. /I was not with her./

The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons

[thestoopgallants]

[rapidpixeladventure]

Action: Point to the odd feature in the distance with the birds flying around it and ask what it is.

{[ASK]: [”What is that in the distance?”]}

The strange object off in the distance disturbs you. The large flock of birds are still hovering around it and you can almost make out some sort of face looking back at you.

Oh.

Even from this distance you can tell that the Werewolf is astronomically large.

Cal sounds like they are about to burst into a cloud of stress. They are not wrong, a monster of that size could eat a [Rot Ice Horror] in one bite.

Normer sounds like they are trying very hard to be casual about the situation.At the very least the massive creature was killed before it got to Yexxies Harbor.

But that begs the question, how in the world could someone take the werewolf down?

You hope you never have to encounter a werewolf on your own.

[STATUS]

[QUESTS]

[MAP]

(discord server)

What Should We Do Now?

[specialagentartemis]

asdfghjkl VAARSUVIUS WHAT DID YOU JUST DO

VAARSUVIUS DID YOU JUST SELL YOUR SOUL TO A BUNCH OF DEMONS

WHILE THE FACT THAT YOU'RE DOING THIS TO SAVE YOUR MATE AND CHILDREN IS VERY SWEET AND NOBLE AND EVERYTHING I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK THAT THIS WILL END VERY VERY BADLY

V YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY JUST CUT OFF YOUR HEAD AND DO THAT

DIRK STRIDER DID THAT

IT WORKED FOR HIM

IN A SURPRISINGLY SIMILAR SITUATION

IT CAN WORK FOR YOU TOO

V YOU JUST WENT GRIMDARK DIDN'T YOU

NONONONONONONONO

WHY DO MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS KEEP DOING THIS TO ME

(Seriously, though, is this some sort of standard progression? Something goes wrong ==> realize what your team is doing isn't going to work ==> start spending all your time studying powerful dangerous scary Arcane Magics ==> begin unnerving rest of team with creepy magic obsession ==> make unholy pact with dark demonic things ==> achieve ultimate dark powers ==> GO GRIMDARK AND BREAK MY HEART)

(I'm now just crossing my fingers and hoping against hope that V turns out like Rose, in the end)

(That is, gets over it and goes back to being the purple-prosed snarker I know and love)

(Is this going to happen)

(I am legitimately afraid that it won't)

(It's just going to get worse isn't it)

...

VAARSUVIUS NOOOOOOOOOO

[kikkun]

OMG YES FINALLY CAUGHT UP LOLLL