[welp, this is sort of taking a turn he wasn't expecting at all — so basically, it's pretty much exactly like how this entire thread has been going for him. and before he can really give an answer, the blanket's draped over his shoulders, like they're two dorks at summer space camp, holing up under a blanket way past lights out and telling ghost stories. or reading a book. or listening to music.]
[is that what this is? some sort of space camp? is he, one day, going to go back home, memories of this whole experience in tow, and be that one ghost kid who keeps bringing up "that one time at space camp..." and. oh god. god, Dave, please stop thinking for a goddamn second for once in your life.]
[this was his idea; he did ask to stay. and he's always sort of found it a bit brisk inside anyway, as a kid hailing from hot-as-fuck Texas, and from a quest planet that was literally made of lava. so, even though he's a bit surprised by the gesture, he maybe also finds himself more surprised with the fact that he's pretty cool with it. well, warmed, more literally. shit, let's be space camp dorks.]
[and Dave realizes, after his train of thought careens off into god-knows where, pauses at a station that makes terrible '90s movies references, and slowly lurches back to reality, that Ryuji asked him a question. right. all right, something new to focus on sounds good. he is all about the focus.]
Define embarrassing. [because that's what he's chosen to focus on, apparently, leaning closer so he can get a better look at the watch. aside from him. he knows he's embarrassing.]
[It wouldn't be so bad, either way. A salute to Salute Your Shorts; hell, Ryuji even has the nerf guns to go along with it, and there was always a game of capture the flag that could've erupted in the midst of these super serious adults who were busy drinking and/or lamenting their existence in general. Sad, then, to use that as a metaphor for any of this exchange, since camp in general is supposed to ephemeral. You go for a few weeks, have some fun, tell stories, do some arts and crafts, and then head back to school in a few weeks. That line of thinking doesn't come to Ryuji, though- he lives too much in the present to think about what's going to happen in a nebulous future of events that haven't come to pass yet. He doesn't even know what he's going to eat for breakfast tomorrow, let alone trying to figure out or triangulate the exact moment of their departure from this station.
Unless, of course, this really is a permanent kind of thing. It's a dangerous thought- being here for the rest of his life. Two months in, everything becomes a little bit too much of a routine. Eventually, he'll have known his new friends here as long as he's known his friends from home, and that... wow, that's a pretty weird thing to come across.
But presently, Ryuji is trying not to think too much about how close Dave is like this. It would be way, way too goddamn easy to just do the Movie Date Thing where he reaches around and lays an arm around his shoulder- which, honestly, is something Ryuji would do anyway, any time, any place. But the added context here makes their positions all the more apparent and meaningful in ways that he doesn't really comprehend how to handle. So he doesn't. He gives up trying to stop being flustered. It's not worth it to ruin how simple and easy this really should be.
Hey, earth (??? this isn't earth), to Dave. What are you thinking about up there? Ryuji turns his face to see the other, smiling contentedly. And as his thoughts accelerate at a speed of r/s2 (references per second squared), Ryuji waves the watch a little bit to ensure that he's still looking.
Oh. There he is.]
I mean. Y'know. Catchy pop tunes! Themes to anime. [He scrolls by the theme song to Ponyo and raises an eyebrow.] Like this one. [He laughs, catching himself. Oh man, does he need to see his love for mecha anime theme songs too? That's pretty damning.]
[and living in the present is something he'd been so adamant about doing for this long, even if he instinctively comes back to thoughts about the past or the future, or if the world has a funny habit of reminding him he's got the weight of time on his shoulders.]
[but as hard as it is to admit, none of that actually matters here, who knows how many light years or universes away from the broken session he'd left behind. if he'd been a different Dave, maybe, he would have gotten the message already: none of that, nothing that happens in the alpha timeline, is his business anymore. it's time to move on.]
[if there's only one thing that Ryuji could do for him, it's help get that message across to him. shed that particular set of baggage and really live in the moment, and be at peace with that. and, sitting there, watching Ryuji scroll through the more embarrassing parts of his playlist, it feels an awful lot like Dave is getting there. shitty space station camp with its shitty space-issued blankets, toilet ghosts, regular old ghosts and everything.]
[huh. maybe he can actually pull off the Dave of Guy look after all.]
That one. Got it.
[naturally, he's going to reach over and hit play on that Ponyo song. he's never heard it before, and has no idea what could be so embarrassing about it — and he's starting to feel comfortable enough in this situation to start being obnoxious again.]
Edited (dont mind me changing up dialogue ) 2018-07-04 04:15 (UTC)
[Just like that, it changes over into a subsection of strings rising in a campy melody, veering in contrast stark from any of the songs played before it. Ryuji tries to keep his face straight throughout it as it starts to chug along, a young girl's voice singing absurdly about a fish child with a big, round belly. Admittedly, he loved this movie, but he couldn't really understand why. Mostly, it was just cute. He was only 9 or 10 when it came out, and there's a story attached to it that's equally reminiscent of a childhood that's also pretty... tonally shifted from the person he was today.
He'll sing along, though. His voice isn't horrible, but it definitely isn't great either. And about half a verse in, he can't do this anymore, and he gives up, laughing at himself and how horrible it is.]
I saw this movie when I was a kid. It's about a magic fish who meets a boy and decides to become human, but all this shit goes down and makes it really hard. [He's practically talking over the song now, but it's a good story, and maybe Dave wouldn't mind hearing it?] Her dad doesn't want her to, though, and enlists her mom in helping keep her in fish form. So he gives the boy a test, that if he can pass, the fish girl can become a human. But she'll lose all her magic. And her mom asks the boy if he can love Ponyo whether she's a fish or not and he tells her that he does.
[The explanation outlives the song, and it goes quiet for a second as Ryuji finishes the story.]
And he kisses her and she turns into a human. Anyway, I dunno if it's still like... a good movie, or I just really enjoyed going to the theater with my mom and getting so sick from eating an entire tub of popcorn. Either way, it was pretty rad.
[this is the guy who outcheesed a literal cheese shop, in Dave's own words — you'd think he'd be used to Ryuji's antics, like busting out into goofy songs about fish, even if the guy can't keep a straight face to save his life.]
[actually, he is. which is why that outburst is met only with a bit of a smirk.]
Oh, so he was dating a fish. Got it.
[Dave...]
That doesn't really sound all that embarrassing to me. I mean — no, eating popcorn until you puke is pretty embarrassing.
But, I always figured having dumb songs like this one handy just meant you have a thought you really like attached to it. Kinda like looking into the past without having to deal with the bullshit of actually going there. I've got weird stuff in my library for the same reason.
[that might seem oddly sentimental. but that's always been how important music is to him — it's both something he loves and, when times were unbearably bad, a way to remember times that weren't.]
[You asked for it, Dave. If you're going to dismantle one of his childhood faves, you're grabbing the bull by its horns, and that bull is the treasure trove of absolutely shitty puns that he could drop at any moment.
He pushes his lips to the side and bunches up his cheek when Dave admits to him being embarrassing. He knows he is. He said he is. It didn't have to be a spoken affirmation.]
I have a sensitive stomach, okay?
[Which is kind of ridiculous since he lived off a diet of konbeni and fast food fixes; the lap of luxury that's precisely provided by a single mom who worked two jobs and was rarely home long enough to cook dinner for the both of them. At least he learned some basic cooking skills out of the deal. He's not (totally) useless.
And to get out of this vicious cycle of Disney-esque ditties, he presses play down on a rock song from his home language- Clock Strikes by One Ok Rock.]
I uh... get what you mean. Sometimes the opposite's true though, too. There are songs you just can't listen to anymore 'cause it reminds you of times that you don't wanna remember... [He's not about to ruin the mood here, but generally speaking, it was nice to listen to music to drown out the sounds of his father screaming at his mother. There were just some things he couldn't listen to anymore because he wasn't in that state of being any longer and looking back, it's not comforting as much as it was just sad. But he won't delete those songs from his library either.]
But. Yeah. It's kinda cool. You make a little house for all these good things you attach to the stuff that makes you feel good. Something you can decorate just by yourself and live in for a while when you're down and surround yourself in good vibes.
[Yeah, they're absolutely on the same page with that.]
[i'm gonna throw another charlie brown drawing at you for that pun i stg]
[he doesn't really have anything to say to that, though. it's true that he's used music as something of a means of escape, building a place to be surrounded by good vibes, attaching himself to something he loves to forget everything he hated about his life back home. but after a while, the fact that a song is meant to play that role becomes attached to it, too, which is souring in its own way.]
[maybe that's just another reason why he spends so much time remixing everything.]
[Dave stretches his legs out, sinking just slightly against the wall. he's not upset; if anything, he's relaxing, finding a comfort in the fact that there's just one more idea they both seem to value, one more thing they've got in common. and, he's just listening.]
Thanks, by the way. For letting me listen. [embarrassing shit and all. you can tell a lot about a person from the music they keep handy. even the Ponyo song carried a lot of meaning that was easily gleaned.]
Might be biased over here, but I'm thinking you got one of the best ghost gifts so far, easily. It even edges out the monkey pajamas.
You're thankin' me? [A small turn of his lips upward in response to that- he thought it was pretty obvious that there didn't need to be thank yous or your welcomes to this sort of thing, but he'll allow it. Hell, he'll even knock shoulders with Dave to reinforce the sarcasm here. It's no big deal. Or maybe it is kind of a deal, indeterminate in size, but Ryuji's chill enough with... whatever this is, really. It's just a Saturday night (every night's a weekend here), almost like he was back in Tokyo in his little cramped bedroom. The familiarity of everything here makes the artificial walls feel less cold and lifeless.
He lets out a throaty hnn..., a vestige of his own native language used when you're basically agreeing with something, but the economy of words needed to do so was strong enough to be conveyed by a sound rather than a spoken something instead. He gets to thinking about home for a moment, and rather than the normal levels of homesickness that it implies, he starts wondering some hypotheticals. If Dave were back there, and he was, and if they had known each other, what would this look like? Would it be different? Would they have gotten close like this or was everything just perpetuated by the situational morass that the terminal had to offer? Would he be trying to stifle down the way he feels about him?
He lets his head lean up against the wall behind him. Even in simple things there are layers of complexity if you go deeper into the things that make them up. But might as well talk about it rather than play around with the idea of talking about it.]
You think you'd ever... uh. Wanna see Tokyo one day? I mean. Like. Hypothetically speaking. I know it's kinda dumb to think gettin' off this station's happenin' anytime soon. But I'd wanna take you to an arcade. Or maybe one of those music halls where DJ's spin music live time.
[it's a big deal to him, at least — but, he receives that message behind the shoulder bump, and just barely refrains from returning with an equally sarcastically reinforced elbow to the ribs. yeah, yeah, he gets it!]
[hypotheticals aren't a bad thing to throw out there, though, not when reality isn't much of a picnic. at least, the scenario laid out on the floor between them is pretty nice. it's lots better than the one running through Dave's head for a minute or two.]
[how would this even work? how could he even explain the effort it'd take to meet outside the confines of this space station? "here, Ryuji, just go down for a nap, and if the stars and stupidfuck whimsies of space-time align, if the horrorterrors even allow for someone not playing Sburb to have a dream bubble, you'll pop up in the exact corner of Paradox Space where I am. and then, I'll have to wait for you to realize that you're just dreaming. and then, I dunno, guess we'll go apeshit until you wake up."]
[would he even buy that? moreover, would Ryuji even be willing to go through that effort for him?]
[best not to think about it right now.]
Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing it. I'm interested in trying ramen that isn't just the packets you pull out of the toilet.
[Who knows? A .0000001% chance is still better than a zero sum game, but dreams are pretty fickle. How fucking depressing it would be to realize that if they left this station, the only chance they'd be able to do this sort of thing would have to be in the simulated environment of a dreamscape? And even then, of course hypothetically speaking, what would make Ryuji believe that it was actually happening and that it wasn't some sort of wish fulfillment going on. You can't project consciousness into a dream, it would just be a reflection of what he thought would happen- or so he'd believe.
Better to just deal with easier what-ifs, then. Without space time paradoxes, or the unlikelihood of whether or not it would be feasible; forget about logistics. Just things he'd like to show Dave, places he'd take him. Some giant ceramic cow in front of a cheese shop. Yoyogi Park. Shinjuku. Hell, Roppongi, if he wanted to jeer at the hoity toity ins and outs of the spendthrifts of the ridiculously luxurious.
Or just his favorite ramen shop, a little hole in the wall that he discovered and brought his whole track team to, filling out every seat of the bar as they slurped down hot noodles until their throats burned in a competitive streak of who could be fastest on the circuit and in the dining room. The comment gets a rise out of him as he looks over at Dave. Changes the song to something worse, more embarrassing; an anime theme song, because why the hell not? He gets to get the 360 experience of Ryuji Sakamoto after all.]
The good stuff. You know, where there's this little old lady at the back of the shop who hasn't washed her sauce pot in decades and that's where they make the bone broth! [Somehow that's sanitary... somehow- like the heat is always kept at such a high point that it never allows bacteria to seep in.] It'd be fun. Or... you know, there's this train ride you take and you try out all the curries of the local areas you stop. I ain't really ever been out in the country much, so it'd be new for the both of us!
[Oh, right, language. He laughs- it'd be funny to try and watch him interact with people. Almost as bad as his own interaction back in the states on his trip to Hawaii.]
Eh, I'd teach you some stuff. And the stuff you don't know? Don't worry, your boy's gotchu.
[he has to admit, the idea of visiting a bunch of (apple?) curry shops out in the middle of Nowhere, Japan, sounds pretty appealing. maybe they'd be like some of the barbecue spots in Houston, homemade and intimate, where your order was called out to the chefs in the form of an underhanded insult, and after you were done stuffing yourself with barbecue, there was a bowl of Blue Bell waiting so you could hurt yourself just a little more. it's the true Texas experience.]
[also, Dave bungles English badly enough on his own that he'd have an absolutely terrible time communicating with non-native speakers. though, maybe that's exactly why Ryuji finds the idea so funny.]
[... heh. bung.]
All right, but I'll be leaving wholly dissatisfied if I don't know every single rude word by the time the visit's over.
Anyway, trains weren't really a big thing in Houston — at least, I never knew anybody who used 'em. Most people just drove themselves everywhere.
[that is to say, he's never been on one before. there's a wealth of hypotheticals there, experiences that'll probably never happen, but it's kind of nice to talk about them anyway. sort of like mutually imagining that they're somewhere much better than the only options they actually have, with the added bonus of being there together.]
[Dear god, you can't go around as a foreigner in Tokyo spitting out insults like that and not either--
Wait. He's not Japanese. They'd probably laugh and think it was hilarious. Hell, Ryuji kind of wants to hear him rip out a meaty surprise of "YOU!" in that rude way that gets peoples' attention.]
Yeah. Goes without sayin'. You'd probably pick up half the bad shit from me alone anyway. [He didn't just earn the nickname "vulgar boy" ending phrases in politeness, he almost always used informal contexts, even when talking to people that should've been shown respect. But he doesn't have respect for people in the world who don't respect him, and it was kind of... cringe worthy sometimes, to be honest.
And maybe because it's Dave and he doesn't care as much what his mind is getting at around him, but he can't contain himself, nor his smile for very long. Yeah, he'd ride a train in Houston. Even eat some green eggs and ham if it came down to it. Shit, doing it with Dave would probably be 80% of the fun anyway. But there's a burning question he (with much cultural insensitivity) he has first---]
[he'd do it without hesitation, too, going off only his lack of context for the situation and also probably Ryuji's reassurances that it'd be funny. and it would be — there's not a whole lot that sounds better than the idea of wreaking havoc in a brand new city, especially alongside someone he likes.]
[what they're doing right now is pretty high up there on the list, too, though. embarrassing anime intro themes and all.]
[anyway, guess i'm buying this getup for Dave next. it can live in the cupboard with the monkey pajamas, never to be worn by their respective owners, right up until they do actually wear them. and it will be good.]
[Dave's expression is as flat and serious as ever, and with all the air of someone who's about to drop a few sentences that's a mix of both truth and complete bullshit. can Ryuji spot his tell? it's the way the corners of his mouth upturn the tiniest, tiniest fraction.]
Absolutely. There may, in fact, even be tens of them. Someone's gotta wrangle all the emus.
[Wow, Dave is actually going to be a dude at the dude ranch. And lord knows, maybe both those horrible outfits will end up burning down in a ring of fire that even Cash himself wouldn't pine lyrically over. (Ryuji would probably think he looks cute like that though, not even going to lie.)
Does he fall for it? Hell yeah, he does. At least at first. He has no idea how big Houston actually is, but he reckons it's somewhere between a one horse saloon like in those old timey macaroni westerns and a sprawling metropolis. Look, this is the kid who thought LA was the capital, leave it up to his imagination and he's bound to mess it up. His mouth goes open wide. Cowboys are real, huh? That's pretty damn awesome.
Wait a second. This seems fishy.]
You're really gonna think I'd fall for that? C'mon, there's gotta be more than tens of them if there are that many emus just wanderin' around the place.
[Is he playing with Dave back or is he being sincere? Who knows. It works both ways.]
[the humor is in the ambiguity. and that's exactly the way he likes it.]
Okay, fine, there's twenties of them. And that's at the absolute maximum.
[you know what they say about the dude ranches. it's a little wild and a little strange, when you make your home out on the range — because there's whole herds of emus out there, apparently.]
[this is getting kind of silly. Dave didn't really hear much of the last song, either, but even as a kid who is pretty much obsessed with hearing new music, he doesn't seem all that bothered by it.]
[I can't believe we've gone both Salute Your Shorts and Hey Dude directions in the span of one thread, but those man-eating emus out there, man, you better watch out for them. Tune in next week for an episode of Dave Explains It All.]
Yeah, I mean... any more and you'd have warring clans of ho-downs and rodeo shows, and then Houston-chan would probably fall off into the ocean from the thunderous quakes of all the square dancing going down.
[He'll hit play on the next song, and then leave it up to shuffle to decide his fate from here on out. Considering the fact that Ryuji doesn't have the slightest clue what square dancing actually looks like, he just assumes it's a deadly art form that he was never meant to learn or capture the essence of. He'll stick to his whipping and his nae-nae'ing, which is probably close. Or something like that.]
[they're good references, Bront!! but that last one isn't really inaccurate, either; Dave's basically just the 2000s version of Sam, minus the polite part.]
Toss a few hootenannies in there and you've more or less got an accurate picture of how it'd go.
[rest in peace, Houston-chan. drowned in the Gulf of Goofy Jokes About Texas Stereotypes.]
If we're talking hypotheticals, though, I wouldn't mind showing you some of the places where I used to like hanging out. Not just Houston.
He has no idea what Dave is going on about, which, okay, that's definitely not something that has ever happened before, right? Accurate pictures be damned.]
Tch. 'Wouldn't mind~', and here I was practically about to shove your ass into an arcade and win you one of those dumb overstuffed radish toys that everyone is always obsessed with.
[He's smiling though, clearly a lack of intentional hurt behind his tone, and he's curious. What sort of places is he talking about? He doesn't have the greatest picture of Dave's home, hell, as of right now it's just rife with cliches that he's seen in movies or something like that, and even then... did he mean places that he wound up after he started playing his game? There's so much Ryuji wants to know about him, and only if he had the mental wherewithal to compile a list of sorts, instead of just spitballing questions whenever they popped up.]
[it is taking everything Dave has in him to not laugh at the hootin' nannies. because he does, in fact, know one. and, it's not really working; he raises the shades with the back of his hand to palm at his eyes, then just sort of holds his hand over his mouth in that way someone does when they're stifling their laughter.]
[you win this round, Sakamoto.]
They're hooting and competitive knitting, obviously. Makin' stuffed radishes for you to win in a round of DDR, or whatever.
Anyway, there's a record shop back in Houston that I really always liked. There's always my planet, too, if you're a fan of endless miles of lava, gears, and those crocodiles I mentioned earlier.
[maybe ... not the whole of his apartment, if they were to hypothetically visit, but just his room. that's safe, right? even if he'd sort of had a nervous breakdown last time he was in there, it's still very much a reflection of who he is. or who he always sort of wanted to be.]
[plus, the toilet that's still sitting there would be amusingly relevant. Dave would say that's just where he gets all his great ideas.]
I'd really want you to meet my friends, too, though. I keep getting the feeling that y'all would like each other.
[This a seriously buck wild conversation, but Ryuji's gotten close enough to know that a planet made out of lava, gears, and particularly yappy crocodiles is probably just another every day occurrence. No big deal. He'd like to visit that too, honestly. Stand at the edge of the planet and throw a ring into the molten abyss, feel accomplishment at completing this horribly nerdy cliche, and call it a day. Any place that's not the station sounds pretty damn chill to be in, even if that chill place is a nice and balmy fire wasteland.]
Like the type of place that sells LPs? Sounds cool. The best part about that is always flippin' through and seein' all the cover art. They got more room, so they can really go all out. [A steady Jazz resurgence all over Tokyo in the past decade has turned some of those old record stores into a hipster paradise, but there were definitely some hole-in-the-wall type places that still existed where it didn't feel like its style was eternally cramped by salarymen coming in and grabbing stuff up to try and hitch onto the bandwagon.
The toilet would be all types of amusing though. Why did the shitter have such significance to all things Dave and Ryuji? This wasn't supposed to happen, I swear.]
Yeah, you think so? Shit, I'd have to make a good impression. Make sure I cut this mop off, clean up my jumpsuit, shower a little extra hard. [Joking, really, he probably wouldn't do any of that.] You've met like, half my friends already. I uh. I hope you like 'em. They're all good peeps.
[that's fair enough — Ryuji could make the nerdy gesture standing next to Dave, whose last name is Strider, and who wields snapped swords for a living, thereby also making him a walking Lord of the Rings reference. it all works on multiple levels.]
Yeah. [that's an answer to both questions. Dave's music library is largely digital, on account of not always having the extra change to spend on physical records, but he did always enjoy at least browsing.]
[and yeah, he does like Ryuji's friends — and in this yarn of what-ifs they're spinning, he can't help but wonder how meeting everyone he knows would actually go down. his friends are a huge mess of very strong personalities, but ... that doesn't really seem too far off from what he knows about the Phantom Thieves, either.]
Wouldn't worry too much about making a good first impression, though. They'll probably think you're weird, but that's pretty much the one qualifying trait they're looking for in friendship. You'd fit right in.
You're gonna have to meet the mayor, too. [Dave's favorite thing about Sburb ever.]
[It's strangely intimidating to want to ingratiate yourself to a group of friends that he's never met; moreso that they're Dave's friends. Sure, he always has a little bit of well hidden anxiety in him that keeps him constantly moving and shifting between his feet to keep occupied, but Ryuji would want to hang with them, too. He knows how deeply influenced by his own friends he's become- Makoto got him to study more, Ren got him to open up, Haru showed him that not everything that looks delicate is- the list goes on and on; he's curious to see what watermarks Dave's friends left on him too. He already has a pretty high opinion of him, so he can imagine they're also equally great people to be around. Again, just swimming around in a sea of hypotheticals here, it was equally likely and unlikely that something like that could even happen.]
I like how you just low key called me weird. [He doesn't let him off the hook on that one, though. It's kind of true though, isn't it? Ryuji can't really be that offended. He's spent so long being around the same people, that it always felt like he was just being himself. The more people he meets on the station, the more he sees that he's an exception to the rule, not the norm. Sometimes Ryuji forgets how much of a complete loner he was for the years that led up to starting the Phantom Thieves.]
Oh yeah. You mentioned that guy before. [And here he was, putting 2 and 2 together a little bit more.] I'm gettin' the sense that we're not talkin' about the mayor of Houston.
Right, he's the mayor of Can Town. I tried to build a Reverie annex a few times, but someone kept cleaning it up.
[that ... hm. that probably doesn't make any goddamn sense out of context. then again, when has anything Dave ever said made sense out of context?]
[he falls silent for a minute, just listening to whatever's playing. letting the rhythm resonate. he's a lot more relaxed than he figures he ought to be, considering not too long ago they were both navigating probably the most awkward attempt at flirting that has ever been witnessed in this particular patch of space. maybe that's just how safe of a thing music is to him. Dave sort of feels like he could fall asleep right there on the floor.]
I haven't told you much of anything about the meteor, huh.
[or try to talk about himself a bit more. it isn't that he hasn't wanted to, he's just so hilariously bad at it — afraid of acknowledging a lot of it, rather. maybe he can figure out something more to say than jokes about hollering grandmas or emu ranches.]
Dave, I have no effin' clue what the hell you're sayin'.
[Yeah, pretty much right on the nose with that assumption there. And he's perfectly fine with ragging on him about it, comfortable in his own way of being fond of the bullshit that he runs with.
It is kind of cool, though. If Dave were a jigsaw puzzle, Ryuji gets a little piece every now and then, and sometimes the parts fit on opposite ends of the greater picture. And if Dave is worried that the jumbled up image that comes out of that is one that he doesn't like, this loser over here would protest that to the very end. There hasn't been a single thing between them that Ryuji didn't find himself liking more and more as time went on, and god, he's doomed to live out his days with these awkward feelings that he just doesn't know how to act on.
But, that's not what's on his mind at the moment as music wafts between their shared space. Mostly, just curiosity.]
Nah, not really. [Head up against the wall, his tone shifts a little more away from joking.] Tell me about it.
[it might be starting to sound like this mayor doesn't actually have the credentials Dave is building him up with. which is flat-out wrong, of course; the guy has a sash that says mayor on it — what other credentials do you even need?]
If I'm gonna get into Can Town itself, and ... everything else, though, I guess I'd need to start toward the beginning.
[and he's already turning the details over and over in his head, anxiously trying to sort through which ones were "safe" to share, while almost desperately wishing he were strong enough to also share the ones that weren't. Ryuji had already confided in him plenty of times, and he keeps getting the sense that it'd be perfectly fine to do the same. he wants to, even. he doesn't want to keep Ryuji at an arm's length like he does almost everybody else.]
[which. whoa. there's a hell of a feeling.]
[when Dave finally does start talking, it's still pretty curated, but it also just starts spilling out, like leaving a mug under running water until it fills and overflows, like he's really, really been wanting to try talking about this for a while.]
Well — okay, just puttin' a disclaimer here that I'm basically the worst person to try to explain any of this. Time's my thing, not sorting out the largely pointless fuckin' whimsies of Paradox Space and anybody who gets subjected to it.
I've told you the goal of playing Sburb before. But to make an incredibly stupid story short, we didn't win. ["they never got that far," he'd said earlier. they were never meant to. there were much larger forces than a single session at play, as largely important as perpetuating existence is to begin with.]
So, like you do with any video game when it's obvious you're not gonna make it to the end, we reset it. Started a new session, with new rules, new quests, new — [god, even just saying this feels like he's edging dangerously close to something really sensitive.] — new players. But, the game restarted pretty far from where we were at the time.
[there's a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, wondering if he's messing something up by disclosing all of this. but it's too late now, he's already talking, and he's not really capable of stopping.]
It took three years to get there. It was me, my sister, Terezi and a couple of other trolls in a lab that honestly wasn't too much different than this place, on a meteor hurtling through space.
[he's circling back around to something much safer now.] Anyway, that's where the mayor and Can Town was, too. Kinda had to make your own fun, y'know?
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[is that what this is? some sort of space camp? is he, one day, going to go back home, memories of this whole experience in tow, and be that one ghost kid who keeps bringing up "that one time at space camp..." and. oh god. god, Dave, please stop thinking for a goddamn second for once in your life.]
[this was his idea; he did ask to stay. and he's always sort of found it a bit brisk inside anyway, as a kid hailing from hot-as-fuck Texas, and from a quest planet that was literally made of lava. so, even though he's a bit surprised by the gesture, he maybe also finds himself more surprised with the fact that he's pretty cool with it. well, warmed, more literally. shit, let's be space camp dorks.]
[and Dave realizes, after his train of thought careens off into god-knows where, pauses at a station that makes terrible '90s movies references, and slowly lurches back to reality, that Ryuji asked him a question. right. all right, something new to focus on sounds good. he is all about the focus.]
Define embarrassing. [because that's what he's chosen to focus on, apparently, leaning closer so he can get a better look at the watch. aside from him. he knows he's embarrassing.]
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Unless, of course, this really is a permanent kind of thing. It's a dangerous thought- being here for the rest of his life. Two months in, everything becomes a little bit too much of a routine. Eventually, he'll have known his new friends here as long as he's known his friends from home, and that... wow, that's a pretty weird thing to come across.
But presently, Ryuji is trying not to think too much about how close Dave is like this. It would be way, way too goddamn easy to just do the Movie Date Thing where he reaches around and lays an arm around his shoulder- which, honestly, is something Ryuji would do anyway, any time, any place. But the added context here makes their positions all the more apparent and meaningful in ways that he doesn't really comprehend how to handle. So he doesn't. He gives up trying to stop being flustered. It's not worth it to ruin how simple and easy this really should be.
Hey, earth (??? this isn't earth), to Dave. What are you thinking about up there? Ryuji turns his face to see the other, smiling contentedly. And as his thoughts accelerate at a speed of r/s2 (references per second squared), Ryuji waves the watch a little bit to ensure that he's still looking.
Oh. There he is.]
I mean. Y'know. Catchy pop tunes! Themes to anime. [He scrolls by the theme song to Ponyo and raises an eyebrow.] Like this one. [He laughs, catching himself. Oh man, does he need to see his love for mecha anime theme songs too? That's pretty damning.]
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[but as hard as it is to admit, none of that actually matters here, who knows how many light years or universes away from the broken session he'd left behind. if he'd been a different Dave, maybe, he would have gotten the message already: none of that, nothing that happens in the alpha timeline, is his business anymore. it's time to move on.]
[if there's only one thing that Ryuji could do for him, it's help get that message across to him. shed that particular set of baggage and really live in the moment, and be at peace with that. and, sitting there, watching Ryuji scroll through the more embarrassing parts of his playlist, it feels an awful lot like Dave is getting there. shitty space station camp with its shitty space-issued blankets, toilet ghosts, regular old ghosts and everything.]
[huh. maybe he can actually pull off the Dave of Guy look after all.]
That one. Got it.
[naturally, he's going to reach over and hit play on that Ponyo song. he's never heard it before, and has no idea what could be so embarrassing about it — and he's starting to feel comfortable enough in this situation to start being obnoxious again.]
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He'll sing along, though. His voice isn't horrible, but it definitely isn't great either. And about half a verse in, he can't do this anymore, and he gives up, laughing at himself and how horrible it is.]
I saw this movie when I was a kid. It's about a magic fish who meets a boy and decides to become human, but all this shit goes down and makes it really hard. [He's practically talking over the song now, but it's a good story, and maybe Dave wouldn't mind hearing it?] Her dad doesn't want her to, though, and enlists her mom in helping keep her in fish form. So he gives the boy a test, that if he can pass, the fish girl can become a human. But she'll lose all her magic. And her mom asks the boy if he can love Ponyo whether she's a fish or not and he tells her that he does.
[The explanation outlives the song, and it goes quiet for a second as Ryuji finishes the story.]
And he kisses her and she turns into a human. Anyway, I dunno if it's still like... a good movie, or I just really enjoyed going to the theater with my mom and getting so sick from eating an entire tub of popcorn. Either way, it was pretty rad.
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[actually, he is. which is why that outburst is met only with a bit of a smirk.]
Oh, so he was dating a fish. Got it.
[Dave...]
That doesn't really sound all that embarrassing to me. I mean — no, eating popcorn until you puke is pretty embarrassing.
But, I always figured having dumb songs like this one handy just meant you have a thought you really like attached to it. Kinda like looking into the past without having to deal with the bullshit of actually going there. I've got weird stuff in my library for the same reason.
[that might seem oddly sentimental. but that's always been how important music is to him — it's both something he loves and, when times were unbearably bad, a way to remember times that weren't.]
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[You asked for it, Dave. If you're going to dismantle one of his childhood faves, you're grabbing the bull by its horns, and that bull is the treasure trove of absolutely shitty puns that he could drop at any moment.
He pushes his lips to the side and bunches up his cheek when Dave admits to him being embarrassing. He knows he is. He said he is. It didn't have to be a spoken affirmation.]
I have a sensitive stomach, okay?
[Which is kind of ridiculous since he lived off a diet of konbeni and fast food fixes; the lap of luxury that's precisely provided by a single mom who worked two jobs and was rarely home long enough to cook dinner for the both of them. At least he learned some basic cooking skills out of the deal. He's not (totally) useless.
And to get out of this vicious cycle of Disney-esque ditties, he presses play down on a rock song from his home language- Clock Strikes by One Ok Rock.]
I uh... get what you mean. Sometimes the opposite's true though, too. There are songs you just can't listen to anymore 'cause it reminds you of times that you don't wanna remember... [He's not about to ruin the mood here, but generally speaking, it was nice to listen to music to drown out the sounds of his father screaming at his mother. There were just some things he couldn't listen to anymore because he wasn't in that state of being any longer and looking back, it's not comforting as much as it was just sad. But he won't delete those songs from his library either.]
But. Yeah. It's kinda cool. You make a little house for all these good things you attach to the stuff that makes you feel good. Something you can decorate just by yourself and live in for a while when you're down and surround yourself in good vibes.
[Yeah, they're absolutely on the same page with that.]
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[he doesn't really have anything to say to that, though. it's true that he's used music as something of a means of escape, building a place to be surrounded by good vibes, attaching himself to something he loves to forget everything he hated about his life back home. but after a while, the fact that a song is meant to play that role becomes attached to it, too, which is souring in its own way.]
[maybe that's just another reason why he spends so much time remixing everything.]
[Dave stretches his legs out, sinking just slightly against the wall. he's not upset; if anything, he's relaxing, finding a comfort in the fact that there's just one more idea they both seem to value, one more thing they've got in common. and, he's just listening.]
Thanks, by the way. For letting me listen. [embarrassing shit and all. you can tell a lot about a person from the music they keep handy. even the Ponyo song carried a lot of meaning that was easily gleaned.]
Might be biased over here, but I'm thinking you got one of the best ghost gifts so far, easily. It even edges out the monkey pajamas.
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He lets out a throaty hnn..., a vestige of his own native language used when you're basically agreeing with something, but the economy of words needed to do so was strong enough to be conveyed by a sound rather than a spoken something instead. He gets to thinking about home for a moment, and rather than the normal levels of homesickness that it implies, he starts wondering some hypotheticals. If Dave were back there, and he was, and if they had known each other, what would this look like? Would it be different? Would they have gotten close like this or was everything just perpetuated by the situational morass that the terminal had to offer? Would he be trying to stifle down the way he feels about him?
He lets his head lean up against the wall behind him. Even in simple things there are layers of complexity if you go deeper into the things that make them up. But might as well talk about it rather than play around with the idea of talking about it.]
You think you'd ever... uh. Wanna see Tokyo one day? I mean. Like. Hypothetically speaking. I know it's kinda dumb to think gettin' off this station's happenin' anytime soon. But I'd wanna take you to an arcade. Or maybe one of those music halls where DJ's spin music live time.
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[hypotheticals aren't a bad thing to throw out there, though, not when reality isn't much of a picnic. at least, the scenario laid out on the floor between them is pretty nice. it's lots better than the one running through Dave's head for a minute or two.]
[how would this even work? how could he even explain the effort it'd take to meet outside the confines of this space station? "here, Ryuji, just go down for a nap, and if the stars and stupidfuck whimsies of space-time align, if the horrorterrors even allow for someone not playing Sburb to have a dream bubble, you'll pop up in the exact corner of Paradox Space where I am. and then, I'll have to wait for you to realize that you're just dreaming. and then, I dunno, guess we'll go apeshit until you wake up."]
[would he even buy that? moreover, would Ryuji even be willing to go through that effort for him?]
[best not to think about it right now.]
Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing it. I'm interested in trying ramen that isn't just the packets you pull out of the toilet.
Don't know a word of Japanese though.
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Better to just deal with easier what-ifs, then. Without space time paradoxes, or the unlikelihood of whether or not it would be feasible; forget about logistics. Just things he'd like to show Dave, places he'd take him. Some giant ceramic cow in front of a cheese shop. Yoyogi Park. Shinjuku. Hell, Roppongi, if he wanted to jeer at the hoity toity ins and outs of the spendthrifts of the ridiculously luxurious.
Or just his favorite ramen shop, a little hole in the wall that he discovered and brought his whole track team to, filling out every seat of the bar as they slurped down hot noodles until their throats burned in a competitive streak of who could be fastest on the circuit and in the dining room. The comment gets a rise out of him as he looks over at Dave. Changes the song to something worse, more embarrassing; an anime theme song, because why the hell not? He gets to get the 360 experience of Ryuji Sakamoto after all.]
The good stuff. You know, where there's this little old lady at the back of the shop who hasn't washed her sauce pot in decades and that's where they make the bone broth! [Somehow that's sanitary... somehow- like the heat is always kept at such a high point that it never allows bacteria to seep in.] It'd be fun. Or... you know, there's this train ride you take and you try out all the curries of the local areas you stop. I ain't really ever been out in the country much, so it'd be new for the both of us!
[Oh, right, language. He laughs- it'd be funny to try and watch him interact with people. Almost as bad as his own interaction back in the states on his trip to Hawaii.]
Eh, I'd teach you some stuff. And the stuff you don't know? Don't worry, your boy's gotchu.
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[also, Dave bungles English badly enough on his own that he'd have an absolutely terrible time communicating with non-native speakers. though, maybe that's exactly why Ryuji finds the idea so funny.]
[... heh. bung.]
All right, but I'll be leaving wholly dissatisfied if I don't know every single rude word by the time the visit's over.
Anyway, trains weren't really a big thing in Houston — at least, I never knew anybody who used 'em. Most people just drove themselves everywhere.
[that is to say, he's never been on one before. there's a wealth of hypotheticals there, experiences that'll probably never happen, but it's kind of nice to talk about them anyway. sort of like mutually imagining that they're somewhere much better than the only options they actually have, with the added bonus of being there together.]
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Wait. He's not Japanese. They'd probably laugh and think it was hilarious. Hell, Ryuji kind of wants to hear him rip out a meaty surprise of "YOU!" in that rude way that gets peoples' attention.]
Yeah. Goes without sayin'. You'd probably pick up half the bad shit from me alone anyway. [He didn't just earn the nickname "vulgar boy" ending phrases in politeness, he almost always used informal contexts, even when talking to people that should've been shown respect. But he doesn't have respect for people in the world who don't respect him, and it was kind of... cringe worthy sometimes, to be honest.
And maybe because it's Dave and he doesn't care as much what his mind is getting at around him, but he can't contain himself, nor his smile for very long. Yeah, he'd ride a train in Houston. Even eat some green eggs and ham if it came down to it. Shit, doing it with Dave would probably be 80% of the fun anyway. But there's a burning question he (with much cultural insensitivity) he has first---]
Are there uh. Cowboys in Houston?
[Are you a cowboy Dave?]
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[what they're doing right now is pretty high up there on the list, too, though. embarrassing anime intro themes and all.]
[anyway, guess i'm buying this getup for Dave next. it can live in the cupboard with the monkey pajamas, never to be worn by their respective owners, right up until they do actually wear them. and it will be good.]
[Dave's expression is as flat and serious as ever, and with all the air of someone who's about to drop a few sentences that's a mix of both truth and complete bullshit. can Ryuji spot his tell? it's the way the corners of his mouth upturn the tiniest, tiniest fraction.]
Absolutely. There may, in fact, even be tens of them. Someone's gotta wrangle all the emus.
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Does he fall for it? Hell yeah, he does. At least at first. He has no idea how big Houston actually is, but he reckons it's somewhere between a one horse saloon like in those old timey macaroni westerns and a sprawling metropolis. Look, this is the kid who thought LA was the capital, leave it up to his imagination and he's bound to mess it up. His mouth goes open wide. Cowboys are real, huh? That's pretty damn awesome.
Wait a second. This seems fishy.]
You're really gonna think I'd fall for that? C'mon, there's gotta be more than tens of them if there are that many emus just wanderin' around the place.
[Is he playing with Dave back or is he being sincere? Who knows. It works both ways.]
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Okay, fine, there's twenties of them. And that's at the absolute maximum.
[you know what they say about the dude ranches. it's a little wild and a little strange, when you make your home out on the range — because there's whole herds of emus out there, apparently.]
[this is getting kind of silly. Dave didn't really hear much of the last song, either, but even as a kid who is pretty much obsessed with hearing new music, he doesn't seem all that bothered by it.]
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Yeah, I mean... any more and you'd have warring clans of ho-downs and rodeo shows, and then Houston-chan would probably fall off into the ocean from the thunderous quakes of all the square dancing going down.
[He'll hit play on the next song, and then leave it up to shuffle to decide his fate from here on out. Considering the fact that Ryuji doesn't have the slightest clue what square dancing actually looks like, he just assumes it's a deadly art form that he was never meant to learn or capture the essence of. He'll stick to his whipping and his nae-nae'ing, which is probably close. Or something like that.]
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Toss a few hootenannies in there and you've more or less got an accurate picture of how it'd go.
[rest in peace, Houston-chan. drowned in the Gulf of Goofy Jokes About Texas Stereotypes.]
If we're talking hypotheticals, though, I wouldn't mind showing you some of the places where I used to like hanging out. Not just Houston.
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[And why do they hoot?
He has no idea what Dave is going on about, which, okay, that's definitely not something that has ever happened before, right? Accurate pictures be damned.]
Tch. 'Wouldn't mind~', and here I was practically about to shove your ass into an arcade and win you one of those dumb overstuffed radish toys that everyone is always obsessed with.
[He's smiling though, clearly a lack of intentional hurt behind his tone, and he's curious. What sort of places is he talking about? He doesn't have the greatest picture of Dave's home, hell, as of right now it's just rife with cliches that he's seen in movies or something like that, and even then... did he mean places that he wound up after he started playing his game? There's so much Ryuji wants to know about him, and only if he had the mental wherewithal to compile a list of sorts, instead of just spitballing questions whenever they popped up.]
Yeah? Liiiike?
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[you win this round, Sakamoto.]
They're hooting and competitive knitting, obviously. Makin' stuffed radishes for you to win in a round of DDR, or whatever.
Anyway, there's a record shop back in Houston that I really always liked. There's always my planet, too, if you're a fan of endless miles of lava, gears, and those crocodiles I mentioned earlier.
[maybe ... not the whole of his apartment, if they were to hypothetically visit, but just his room. that's safe, right? even if he'd sort of had a nervous breakdown last time he was in there, it's still very much a reflection of who he is. or who he always sort of wanted to be.]
[plus, the toilet that's still sitting there would be amusingly relevant. Dave would say that's just where he gets all his great ideas.]
I'd really want you to meet my friends, too, though. I keep getting the feeling that y'all would like each other.
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Like the type of place that sells LPs? Sounds cool. The best part about that is always flippin' through and seein' all the cover art. They got more room, so they can really go all out. [A steady Jazz resurgence all over Tokyo in the past decade has turned some of those old record stores into a hipster paradise, but there were definitely some hole-in-the-wall type places that still existed where it didn't feel like its style was eternally cramped by salarymen coming in and grabbing stuff up to try and hitch onto the bandwagon.
The toilet would be all types of amusing though. Why did the shitter have such significance to all things Dave and Ryuji? This wasn't supposed to happen, I swear.]
Yeah, you think so? Shit, I'd have to make a good impression. Make sure I cut this mop off, clean up my jumpsuit, shower a little extra hard. [Joking, really, he probably wouldn't do any of that.] You've met like, half my friends already. I uh. I hope you like 'em. They're all good peeps.
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Yeah. [that's an answer to both questions. Dave's music library is largely digital, on account of not always having the extra change to spend on physical records, but he did always enjoy at least browsing.]
[and yeah, he does like Ryuji's friends — and in this yarn of what-ifs they're spinning, he can't help but wonder how meeting everyone he knows would actually go down. his friends are a huge mess of very strong personalities, but ... that doesn't really seem too far off from what he knows about the Phantom Thieves, either.]
Wouldn't worry too much about making a good first impression, though. They'll probably think you're weird, but that's pretty much the one qualifying trait they're looking for in friendship. You'd fit right in.
You're gonna have to meet the mayor, too. [Dave's favorite thing about Sburb ever.]
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I like how you just low key called me weird. [He doesn't let him off the hook on that one, though. It's kind of true though, isn't it? Ryuji can't really be that offended. He's spent so long being around the same people, that it always felt like he was just being himself. The more people he meets on the station, the more he sees that he's an exception to the rule, not the norm. Sometimes Ryuji forgets how much of a complete loner he was for the years that led up to starting the Phantom Thieves.]
Oh yeah. You mentioned that guy before. [And here he was, putting 2 and 2 together a little bit more.] I'm gettin' the sense that we're not talkin' about the mayor of Houston.
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[that ... hm. that probably doesn't make any goddamn sense out of context. then again, when has anything Dave ever said made sense out of context?]
[he falls silent for a minute, just listening to whatever's playing. letting the rhythm resonate. he's a lot more relaxed than he figures he ought to be, considering not too long ago they were both navigating probably the most awkward attempt at flirting that has ever been witnessed in this particular patch of space. maybe that's just how safe of a thing music is to him. Dave sort of feels like he could fall asleep right there on the floor.]
I haven't told you much of anything about the meteor, huh.
[or try to talk about himself a bit more. it isn't that he hasn't wanted to, he's just so hilariously bad at it — afraid of acknowledging a lot of it, rather. maybe he can figure out something more to say than jokes about hollering grandmas or emu ranches.]
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[Yeah, pretty much right on the nose with that assumption there. And he's perfectly fine with ragging on him about it, comfortable in his own way of being fond of the bullshit that he runs with.
It is kind of cool, though. If Dave were a jigsaw puzzle, Ryuji gets a little piece every now and then, and sometimes the parts fit on opposite ends of the greater picture. And if Dave is worried that the jumbled up image that comes out of that is one that he doesn't like, this loser over here would protest that to the very end. There hasn't been a single thing between them that Ryuji didn't find himself liking more and more as time went on, and god, he's doomed to live out his days with these awkward feelings that he just doesn't know how to act on.
But, that's not what's on his mind at the moment as music wafts between their shared space. Mostly, just curiosity.]
Nah, not really. [Head up against the wall, his tone shifts a little more away from joking.] Tell me about it.
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[it might be starting to sound like this mayor doesn't actually have the credentials Dave is building him up with. which is flat-out wrong, of course; the guy has a sash that says mayor on it — what other credentials do you even need?]
If I'm gonna get into Can Town itself, and ... everything else, though, I guess I'd need to start toward the beginning.
[and he's already turning the details over and over in his head, anxiously trying to sort through which ones were "safe" to share, while almost desperately wishing he were strong enough to also share the ones that weren't. Ryuji had already confided in him plenty of times, and he keeps getting the sense that it'd be perfectly fine to do the same. he wants to, even. he doesn't want to keep Ryuji at an arm's length like he does almost everybody else.]
[which. whoa. there's a hell of a feeling.]
[when Dave finally does start talking, it's still pretty curated, but it also just starts spilling out, like leaving a mug under running water until it fills and overflows, like he's really, really been wanting to try talking about this for a while.]
Well — okay, just puttin' a disclaimer here that I'm basically the worst person to try to explain any of this. Time's my thing, not sorting out the largely pointless fuckin' whimsies of Paradox Space and anybody who gets subjected to it.
I've told you the goal of playing Sburb before. But to make an incredibly stupid story short, we didn't win. ["they never got that far," he'd said earlier. they were never meant to. there were much larger forces than a single session at play, as largely important as perpetuating existence is to begin with.]
So, like you do with any video game when it's obvious you're not gonna make it to the end, we reset it. Started a new session, with new rules, new quests, new — [god, even just saying this feels like he's edging dangerously close to something really sensitive.] — new players. But, the game restarted pretty far from where we were at the time.
[there's a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, wondering if he's messing something up by disclosing all of this. but it's too late now, he's already talking, and he's not really capable of stopping.]
It took three years to get there. It was me, my sister, Terezi and a couple of other trolls in a lab that honestly wasn't too much different than this place, on a meteor hurtling through space.
[he's circling back around to something much safer now.] Anyway, that's where the mayor and Can Town was, too. Kinda had to make your own fun, y'know?
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