hashtagafreakingghost

christ
i mean dw its fine if you ask but
im not even sure where to fucking start
ummm
ok you know how you were cool with accepting that ms sandiegos either from a video game or comes from some alternate universe where the events of said game are totally real?

took me a few minutes to adjust to it but yeah I'm game
why?

becaaaause thats probably the easiest way to conceptualize my story
as part of a balls to the wall shithive insane computer game dreamed up by a dropout theoretical physics major who smoked too much crack
i probably wouldve talked about it more earlier but uh
its kind of a lot
and it seemed like you had enough on your mind at the time

oh
I did
I do
it's
really kind of complicated in a fucked up scarred for life kind of way but you probably figured that out when I showed up here hysterical
what I'm saying is yes
dropping those kinds of bombs on me then probably would've been an overload so like
thank you on that
but away from me and back to you
what kind of computer game are we talking here?

the kind that involves way too much space travel
and time travel
eh there was too much traveling period i guess

time and space travel?
oh boy
which do you want to start with first? the space travel's how you met karkat right?

yeah
well sort of
i wasnt kidding when i said trolls are just asshats on the internet because actually he and his crowd were riding us over pesterchum for a damn long time
thats our usual messaging client
but yes i met him in person about three years ago when rose and i got stuck traveling on the meteor his group had ended up on so space travel was definitely at play

on a meteor??
how did you end up on a meteor?
how could you TRAVEL on a meteor?

there was a laboratory on it for living space and shelter
but mostly
suspension of disbelief probably
man i should probably start from the beginning because that meteor isnt even relevant until like way late in the game

yeah okay
if we're going THIS much into sci-fi suspension of disbelief then
we should go chronologically
how does your story start?

april thirteenth 2009
its johns thirteenth birthday and goddamn hes so stoked to play this game hes supposed to get in the mail
its called SBURB
and what youre supposed to do is make sure all your friends have copies so you can play together in whats called a session
so its multiplayer but not massively so you know?
so obviously his coplayers are going to be me rose and jade but at first its just john and rose because im busy and jades
i dunno asleep or something probably
oh i guess i should mention none of us live remotely near each other
were strictly online friends at this point so the prospect of doing something together is relatively exciting

Karkat mentioned SBURB I think
alright so here's our setting
John and Rose are going to play this game
I assume what kind of game it is will be important to all of this going on

yeah
so the way it works is john is the first client player and rose is the first server
and when the two of them connect
rose now has the ability to see into johns house and manipulate stuff around him through her computer
and to build shit in there using "grist" which is raw material theyd get from john killing imps
you know kind of like the sims except for all the monster killing

monster killing
oh
you played a video game and it spawned a bunch of monsters
is that what i'm understanding

yeah
you know like your standard random encounter
kind of like here even minus pokeworlds catch and release mentality
i think i skipped a step though cause probably the imps didnt start swarming the place until rose had already gotten john into the medium
uh let me back up
ok so as johns server player rose can interact with and change his environment which frankly id have thought was more commentworthy than the monster stuff
and there are machines she can set up in there which are freebies and dont need any grist
so she does that and they fumble around like morons for a while but eventually they get the thing to work and it transports john and his house to another dimension called the incipisphere
which is good because a space meteor was about to pancake his ass

look i have
i have my freaking priorities alright i was GETTING to that jesus
okay
okay wow slow down
you and your friends
1) spawned swarms of monsters
2) somehow could alter reality like a sims game???
3) could jump to another dimension with the right equipment
4) A METEOR HEADING FOR THE EARTH

am i missing anything

[...she is definitely a little on edge.]

there were lots of meteors actually
and the swarms of monsters were more or less preexisting we just transported ourselves into the midst of them with said equipment
that clearer?

yes
wait
holy shit
sorry one second okay?

yeah sure

you ok

[He doesn't get a response for a few minutes.]

yeah
i mean
no?
but it's all
ongoing and i didn't expect to have a thing
the meteors did they

sorry i just need to
you said imps? they're small right? they don't have long arms or legs or sharp teeth and claws?
they were imps
they weren't that right

they were about half the size of your average thirteen year old
and really dumb looking
due to reasons a lot of them ended up with like clown hats and princess dresses and cat ears
will it help if i draw one then you can see how ridiculous and not scary they were

no i'm calming down
seriously

[...And the audio clicks on. Her voice is shaking but she does sound...not completely freaking out.]

I'm so sorry, Dave. I am such a mess, I've been trying to not do this, not here, n- not with anyone. I just- wanted to ask you questions and didn't think this would happen.

Hey, no. It's okay. Um.

[Why is he so painfully bad at this, Jesus. Welp.]

The, uh. Well, it's not the reason I talked to you, but. The thing you said when you got here, about expecting to still be covered in blood? That was something I could've said when I first woke up here, so. Believe me, I get it.

I can try to avoid talking about the thing that sets you off if I know what it is?

[Dave, it's called a trigger warning. Come on, didn't you ever listen to Kankrahahahahdkshgdkd yeah jk.]

I- I've been trying t-to just ignore it.

[A few soft murmurs in the background- from Pokémon, naturally.]

...But that's...n-not working, is it? [Just like what that card reading told her. She takes a deep breath.]

It's...monsters. [...] Well, and- saws, I'm n-no good with those anymore, but- Monsters, ha, i-it's so inconvenient here, right? I just- there were these...h-have you ever heard of a...a wendigo?

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