#he has no moirail anymore but now he's desperate to have that connection again

[anachronistic-falsehood]

good god dreamstuck is driving me fucking crazy. i just thought "bloodswap dreamstuck" and i've been going crazy over cerulean alexis quakty bard of blood for the past ten minutes

[hskinhome]

Canon call for a trans Dirk Strider. I have a pretty complicated string of memories so I’m sorry if this is long.

I guess the easiest way to do this is to explain how our timeline worked? It was incredibly close to canon, with a game, trolls, all that. The only thing that made it weird was that it was like we were stuck in this time loop - not us, but versions of ourselves (for us kids, anyway, I’m not sure how it worked with the trolls). So, for instance: I was raised by a Dave who played the game, and therefore retained his Knight of Time powers. He was able to go back and forth between his time and mine, but still kept me ahead of anyone else. I don’t remember his reasoning. I met a Dave in the game as well, in dream bubbles. I then went on to raise a Dave who came in a meteor, and he went on to play the game after I died, rinse, repeat.

We didn’t quite win the game? It was more like the game rejected us halfway through, spit us back out into our normal lives, and expected us to be cool with that. Roxy and I got tossed back with Jake and Jane, so we were stuck having to adapt to civilization. We all kept our god tier powers, despite not being the gods of whatever universe was rebuilt.

I’m just gonna break more specific stuff down by people, if that’s cool? I’ll go by order of appearance in my life.

Hal - I made Hal when I was thirteen so that I could step away from my chats more easily, but he became self aware more quickly than I realized he would. My Alpha Bro (D) stepped in to find me piecing together a body from scraps I managed to find of metal and older computer parts that I dried and restored on the roof. It was all rudimentary, but he became more company than anyone else I really had. Other than D, he was the only physical being with me, and the single permanent one. We were overwhelmingly similar at first, but with his mind being connected to so much, his consciousness expanding faster than mine could at the time, he very quickly developed his own personality and sense of self. We had an antagonistic relationship, but we stayed close to each other.

Jake - I was dependent on Jake for most of my emotional functioning. I mirrored the way he experienced most things, leading to him attaching to me in the same way. I don’t remember how I got to the island with him, but I did, and he was the first person I wasn’t related to or that I had constructed that I could be close to. He hated Hal. The two of them would take strife sessions too far on a regular basis (forcing me to update a lot of Hal’s structure) and pretty constantly making a lot of tension. Jake started telling me that Hal was manipulative toward me. He frequently suggested that I shut Hal down, telling me that he was a part of me that I had abandoned in the year and a half since I created him, and that I should leave that version of myself in the past. I believed him, but I couldn’t shut Hal down. Jake and I started dating almost on accident - more like desperately trying to be close rather than dating. We both needed someone to be close to. I didn’t notice it then, but I wound up doing a lot of things for him - emotionally supporting his outbursts while internalizing all of my own (its what I was used to, for the most part). After a handful of months, he distanced himself from me rather suddenly, leaving me blindsided. We stayed awkward with each other for the rest of the game.

Roxy - Roxy admitted to having feelings for me before I told her I wasn’t a girl. She was my best friend after that, or at least the closest human equivalent to a moirail I could think of. I have my strongest memories with her - most of them being after the game. She was my biggest support system after everything that happened with Jake, and she took me in after the game. We lived together for a really long time, long enough for Dave and Rose to functionally be half-raised as brother and sister. I started developing problems with alcohol around age 20, and she was the first person to recognize it and help me in every way she could.

Jane - Jane and I became estranged in the same way Jake and I did after the game. She had too hard of a time dealing with the falling out between he and I, and couldn’t help but pick a side. I don’t blame her anymore - I realize now how she must’ve felt. My only solid memory of her is from after the game, when Dave was around nine and began making friends on the internet. When John’s name came up, I realized pretty quickly who that must be. Jane was alive, and I don’t remember exactly how their dynamic worked, but I messaged her and caught up after that.

Dave (in-game) - Meeting Dave was apparently what set me apart from other Dirks stuck in this timeline. I found him in dream bubbles, and through that, found out about how absolutely fucked up his Bro had been, and why. I torched Cal the first chance I got, and made sure I didn’t lose touch with Roxy after the game, so she could help me make sure I didn’t become what I could’ve been. I hope I didn’t.

Dave (post-game) - He was my kid. I was terrified of what I could’ve been to him, and I know in some ways I failed. My alcohol problems never fully went away. I dropped him with Rose and Roxy way too many nights, and I still knew that, inevitably, the game would get him, too. I tried to make him as ready as possible, without absolutely terrifying him. I never knew how to explain it to him. I still wouldn’t. I died when I was in my early 30’s, when he was thirteen. I loved him. A lot. But I understand if he doesn’t want to find me.

I have a handful of memories post-game, as well, which add some more context:

Immediately before the game ended, Jake told me that he loved me, but that he couldn’t stand to see what Hal was doing to me. He promised he’d try again if I agreed to cut Hal out of my life. I still couldn’t force myself to shut him down, so I backed all of his memories and program onto a hard drive, and gave the shades that he was conscious in to the Dave I met in-game. Jake didn’t try again. After the game, we hung out for a while, and even if it felt almost-romantic sometimes, it was obvious he didn’t actually want to be there. We went around two years in that weird limbo space, until Roxy finally caught on and intervened. She told Jake that he might want to take some space from us, and helped me re-build Hal’s body when we were eighteen. Once we brought Hal back with a newer, more lifelike body, he realized that he was still connected to the shades I had given to the in-game Dave. He was, essentially, able to open up communication between us and him, letting me see how his end of the timeline panned out, and the life of the version of me he raised.

Jake and I kept in and out of contact for several years, never quite making up, but still catching up with each other now and then. I processed a lot of what our relationship was as toxic, and he agreed. I think having Jade in his life made him mature. The last time we talked, we were on good terms. I’d be… open to talking to him again, though delicately.

I’m sorry about the length of this. I’ve been sitting on this for a while now, but I think I’m ready to try and find my friends again. I’m mostly trying to find Roxy or any of the three Daves I knew, but I’m also looking for anyone who has similar memories. I’m open to talking to Jake and Jane again.

Here’s hoping someone recognizes this. Message me @deitydoq or @die-stri.