thoughtformed | a fuckload of text messages and also general text; post-dated to mid-morning the 27th

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a fuckload of text messages and also general text; post-dated to mid-morning the 27th

[ This is what happens when you're bored in the hospital with nothing better to do. ]

To: Dave Strider
Subject: (none)
Look. We should talk. And 8efore you say it, I get that you pro8a8ly won't want to. 8lah 8lah spider8itch 8lah.
8ut if you do this I will leave you alone. For a while.
Deal?

To: Victor Mancha
Subject: (none)
You need to tell me what the fuck that was all a8out.
I'm not saying I'm going to hold it against you.
8ut I am saying you owe me an explanation.

To: The Doctor (Tenth)
Subject: (none)
If I tell you in advance I'm going to skip school for the next week and a half will you please just not come after me a8out it????????
Actually I don't even know what happened to you.
How did you make out?

To: The Once-ler
Subject: (none)
So, uh.
I think I need to tender my resign8tion.
Or however that works?

To: Erik Lensherr
Subject: (none)
What the f8ck happened????????

To: Hal
Subject: ????????
Where have you 8een. You missed everything!

To: John Egbert
Subject: (none)
You don't have to reply to this.
8ut thank you.

[ And then you painfully ponder saying anything in public, which doesn't seem advisable at the moment, but whatever the fuck. This situation can't get any worse. Just, maybe, more awkward. ]

Uh. As much as I h8 to 8e out on the network right now. Two things.
One, how much does it cost to replace a 8usted phone?
Two, has anyone heard from Karkat? What happened to that guy.

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So.
You know how some people gained awesome cosmic power and others lost it?

Oh.
So, what, you went offline?

It was like being stuck on a post apocalyptic planet only with even fewer people than usual and no conveniently well preserved digital archives.
How are you?

Not dou8le dead is really the 8est I can say a8out it!
Which is a huge improvement over just a couple of hours ago, to 8e honest.
I dunno. Things are kind of a mess right now. And they shouldn't 8e? Pretty much no one had control over themselves. Why does it still feel like such a 8ig deal when it's not?
I suddenly care a8out what Dave thinks, which is a disur8ing development. And now Jade and I are friends even though I tried to kill her? So that sure is a thing, I guess.
Humans make pretty much no sense, ever.

Not double dead is pretty great.
Let's not undervalue that unnecessarily.
And actually it sounds like you're doing pretty good.
Having normal feelings and making friends with people who are crazy in the more socially acceptable direction.

Hahahaha. You would put it like that.
Look. Am I right in assuming you've already read everything availa8le on the network from the past couple of days?

That does sound like a thing I would do.
Or rather.
Have already done.
Instantly.
Like, as soon as I was reconnected to the blessed intertubes.
Or I guess in these circumstances, interwe8s would be more appropriate.

Ugh.
You know?
I'm not quite as big on the whole spider thing at the moment.

[ The distinct lack of an 8 in that sentence is very deliberate. ]

Okay.
What are you big on right now?

Putting all of this behind me.
Losing control like that kind of creeped me out. It's not even the fights that I got into that bother me or anything.
Just that I didn't actually have a choice!

What did it feel like?

[ She still chafes, occasionally, under the hard questions. The first few times she evaded and commented and sniped and basically writhed somewhat uncomfortably beneath them. By now, however, she's come to mostly accept them. Hal has done more than almost anyone - maybe more, even, than John or Karkat - to keep her firmly rooted here and not careening off in some wild half-cocked direction full of plans and fires and irons that would inevitably fall apart when someone got hurt or maimed or killed or whatever the hell her plans usually result in.

Essentially, she has come to trust that he would not ask these things without a good reason for doing so. Examining the harsh things, while not an exercise she precisely enjoys, has proved helpful often enough that she's simply willing to go with it now.

Still, a minute or two goes by before she replies. ]

Like I couldn't think. There was just a bunch of white noise that consisted mostly of "bite things!" and, uh, cackling. I don't know. I think maybe I might understand a little bit what it's like to be Gamzee, now. :\ As gross as that is to even think about.
At least, if his head is always as crazy as mine was!
Sometimes I was aware of what was going on, but not all the time. What little awareness I did have was more like watching a video of myself acting than actually ... doing it? It's a little hard to describe.
I don't actually remember very much of what happened. Most of what I do know I picked up from the network.

Then for once you know as much as me.
Anyway, as unpleasant as I will assume it was, it doesn't sound a whole lot worse than many other aspects of your life.

Oh.
Right.
I should ask.
Are you ok?
And anyway, I guess not. It's just the most drastic things have been since I got here. What I know for sure is I poisoned Jade and Gamzee, though I think he was fine? And I fought Aradia. That's the part where I almost double died. And I scared the shit out of Dave. Haha.
I'm not actually proud of that one.
I guess ultimately none of it was a big deal.

I'm fine.
It sucked but it's not as if I can work myself up into an frenzy like someone working with purely organic components likely would.
I don't know if I would agree that it wasn't a big deal.
Merely that you have a history of being over to overcome so even if it's shitty now you'll be fine in the long run.

Hal

[ Shit! She hadn't meant to hit send. And she sits there for a second just staring at the cracked screen of her phone, reading that stupid bright red text (so reminiscent of Dave, yet the words read so different) and thinks.

And hates herself for it, a little. ]

[ Things were easier when this was a foregone conclusion. When someone mentioned, sarcastically or not, how awesome she was, and it was easy as breathing to cackle and simply agree, because she believed it to be true.

It's not like she doesn't still think that way. It's just gotten complicated, like everything else. There is a part of her she's begun to doubt. And here is Hal, having faith. Again.

For some bugfuck insane reason. ]

[ He's right.

She will be fine.

But it shouldn't be so strange to hear that someone else believes that too.

A history of being able to overcome. ]

Let me put it this way.
You are not the only person here to have said "I'm fine" in answer to that question! That doesn't mean it's actually true.
But considering the whole supercomputer thing I am sort of inclined to actually believe you.
Anyway.
You're right about that. I will be. But all of this is still really weird. It's like people are going out of their way not to blame me for what happened. Usually it's the other way around and it's my fault even when it isn't! So what's up with that. What's the deal? Because I went insane everything's fine, even though I tried to kill Jade and Gamzee?
Why is it okay now. Why wasn't it fine before when I was actually bound to the alpha timeline!
Uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhh. I know the answer to that question. At least I think I do. But I still don't get it! I don't get any of this. Especially not Dave. Pretty much anyone would have been right to come after me and put me down like Victorious said! Aradia was the only one with the spine to do it but considering I haven't heard from her since it happened, I don't think she's actually ok with it.
Oh my god. I don't understand anything anymore. This is all really dumb and I feel dumb for thinking about it.

If I'm ever saying I'm fine ironically, I'll be sure to flag it for you.
But computers don't really do trauma.
And it sounds like they trust that you wouldn't have done that if you'd had any control over it.
Whereas the Alpha timeline, though arguably everything you did had to happen, nonetheless where acts of your own will.
It's probably more difficult to forgive someone who chose to kill your friends, even if that choice was destined, than it is to forgive someone who was just obviously out of their mind.
Or maybe they know they are trying, and are willing to cut you some slack.
Though I don't think Dave is much of a grudge holder in general, he's not a great barometer of the general revenge climate.

Haha. There's a general revenge climate, Hal?
Anyway. I get what you're trying to say. I guess it's just that if it was me, I probably wouldn't be this forgiving!
But I guess that's my problem, and not everyone else's. :\
This is another one of those times where human and Alternian cultures really clash. Which I know doesn't matter anymore! Bluh. I feel like I keep going in circles with this stuff. It should be simpler, you know?

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