#i still dunno whether or nots its them going to the future and coming back or not...

[rabble-dabble]

CHOOSE: 

==>Dirk Strider

==>????????

==>????????

>Dirk Strider_

Your name is Dirk Strider. 

And you have a pretty awesome big brother. 

At least, you like to think so. He might not be around very much for most of the time you’re home, but when he is, he doesn’t disappoint you with the brotherly bonding he likes to do. Engaging in your interests, encouraging you to do the things you like to make, and even sharing nearly the same humor and potent irony that the both of you are pretty sure you’re the two funniest people to have lived, ever, in the history of living. 

From all the surfing on the internet, though, it’s sort of unexpected from a sibling conducted relationship. You’ve read all about them, and siblings are supposed to be supportive, and if not, the viral enemy of one’s childhood. Since you can’t really debate whether or not the enemy of your childhood was loneliness or the ideas you’ve thought about doing due to it - even once coming close to making an A.I. copy of yourself - you’re pretty sure you and he are in the clear here. Yup. Nothing ever uncool goes on between the Striders - why would it? You and he have reached an understanding that’s so unrivaled that you don’t ever think anyone could possibly beat it. As long as you don’t get yourself into trouble and he makes some time to come home and be the presence of adult you need, it doesn’t ever get weird. 

Well, only whenever you don’t find yourself breaking the rules.

It’s not like it was your fault. You did not ever have any intention in using the empty program that sat unfilled and unchummed on your desktop - you don’t even remember how it appeared there. You don’t quite remember having it downloaded or getting a particularly rancid virus. You like to keep your gear in top shape, thank you very much, because not only has your brother taught you the importance of being grateful even with the kind of provisions you have, but you learned the very hard way that being careless led to preciously lost save data on games you liked to play ironically. 

(Dave had to stay home for a week straight and binge cartoons for you to get out of that depressive episode.)

You liked following the rules though. The rules kept you safe, and kept you generally happy, and you really didn’t mind there being rules in the first place. They are obviously supposed to be there in the first place, and considering you are a kid who has no business in parenting yourself, the terms of the rules are pretty relaxed for as long as you didn’t have rules when you were first growing up. 

You think it makes it worse, though, that this was the first rule. Generally, the rule he was pretty series in making, especially if it came in first. 

“Number one, little dude: No hitting it up with digital strangers.”

And yet, the little chatbox had appeared before you like a forbidden last cookie at dinnertime, inciting years of worry and doubt and loneliness like the bitter aftertaste of an unproperly made microwave dinner.

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering timaeusTestified [TT]

UU: cheers!! hello lovely being.

UU: woUld you perhaps be interested in making a friend?

CHOOSE: 

==>Dirk Strider

==>Roxy Lalonde

==>????????

>Roxy Lalonde_

Your name is Roxy Lalonde. 

And you think your mom is the funniest mom ever.

Oh, no, not in humor. Your mom sucks at making good jokes. In fact, you don’t think except for her well constructed book series that was able to become a best seller, and you have every copy of stored under your bedframe, she cannot make a joke to save her life. You know this because you have heard her calls with Dirk’s older brother Dave Strider over the phone, attempting not to giggle lest you be heard, and the joke she tried executing fell flatter than the “ironic” fanfiction of MLP you have bore witness to Dirk’s easily crackable computer drive. She is, as best as you can really put, not funny at all.

Oh, but she’s a great mom. She’s the greatest mom ever! Granted, you’ve only ever had her as your only mom, but the time the two of you have had together has just been a-okay in your book. More than a-okay, really, because you finally have her with you, and you get to do a bunch of mom-daughter stuff that you used to daydream about after an exhausting day of feeding carapaces, petting mutated kitties and sipping on some fermented juices.

You don’t get to touch the juices anymore. She put a stop to that almost immediately - and although if irked you just a bit, because after all she had put that there to begin with - you thought long and hard about it. And you came to the conclusion that she was right about it, and, honestly, she was mom, so what were you going to do about it? Complain??

Why would you complain about finally having a mom??

So you think she’s pretty great. 

You can tell Dirk thinks the same about his brother, even if he doesn’t admit it as easily. Once upon a time, you thought Dirk had been a little bit of a snobbish guy who got too much into your biz and about everything you two did. But, really, with the help of your mom and Dirk’s bro, you understand now - he was only trying his best. And, in some way, you had been too. Neither of you were ever supposed to take care of yourselves like that.

But now you have Mom, and Dirk has Dave, and even though it’s really small, you couldn’t wish for anything more.

What more could you possibly wish for than Dirk, Dave and Mom??

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

UU: greetings, gracefully esteemed friend of dirk!!

UU: i was wondering if perhaps yoU woUld like to make acquaintances?

CHOOSE:

==>Dirk Strider

==>Roxy Lalonde

==>Jake English

>Jake English_

Your name is Jake English.

And your Mum...

Is the most infuriating person you have ever met!!!!

Granted, she is the only person you have ever met. In real life. Ever. And that is sort of her fault too!!!! She never let’s you go anywhere, and she never let’s you think about the outside world, and if you so much as look at skyscrapers or parks or places with snow for too long she get’s this weird, contorted look on her face and you’re subjected to another talk about how the “island is the safest home we have, the world is a dangerous place, don’t go expecting it to be cozy and gentle and soft, Jake,” and now you can’t even deal with all of her nonsense about a world you have never explored. 

And it’s not like you don’t think about it. Every night that you go to bed, you listen with an open hear close to the window frame in case of the first rumble of unnerving technology comes close. Every day you’re up and around the island, you have to see and worry and think about the creatures that live among you, thinking about how easy it could be for your Mum could become seriously injured and you would have no way of reaching an outside source of help. You think a lot about how the world could be, and how fun it might be, but how overrun with horrid things it could be too. Your Mum has certainly sealed that image permanently, if not since forever and also when you first watched your (first and only) horror movie. The house had been extra barricaded that summer.

But you’re not a little child to coddle over anymore. You’re not the little boy who easily runs into his mother’s arms in the first instance of danger. Not only are you not that young scampering lad anymore who would trip and scrap his knees and cry, but you don’t think that at least seeing what the world out there looks like would ever hurt you in the slightest.

You don’t even have to stay out there. You just want to see it. See the people, real people, moving along and living their lives and watch as the cars run closely and the chatter of a good evening rolls around and see the rush of life around. You want to see snow and your breath puff coldly into the air and ice forming naturally instead of a refrigerator. You want to see the long meadows and the empty fields where the land won’t suddenly end on the other side. You just want to see it, it is nearly your biggest dream, and you hate that your Mum won’t even let you use the web without regulating what you can and cannot see. 

You’re pretty cheesed about it. You love your Mum, but at this point, you’re itching to just go anywhere, anywhere, but stay here. 

You wish you could see just the world from anywhere but your home.

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering golgothasTerror [GT]

UU: hello fellow chUm!

You had sat there for around ten minutes staring at that message. 

UU: i hope yoU don’t mind, i’m not meaning to intrUde so brashly. i’m simply aboUnd looking for potential friends!

UU: so perhaps yoU woUld be tickled to become mine?

You had to look around and make sure Mum wasn’t near you. You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath until you let it out, and turned back towards the screen to assure that, yes, someone was able to message you. Even though Mum had blocked it and your ability to contact anyone yourself, someone had gotten through.

GT: Why, salutations!

GT: My name is jake!!

Your name is Jake English.

And, against all odds, you have made a friend.