caughtinanetwork

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001

[The camera shows nothing but pavement, the edge of some wet fingers, and the ends of a really flashy red cape, fabric worn and water-heavy, trailing on the ground. Oh, and an adorable little white rabbit chomping down on the end of that cape.]

I don't get it. I don't freakin' get it at all. What--

OI!

[Suddenly the camera jerks and... goes flying. Seems Kamina, not knowing what it was, tossed it over his shoulder. It clatters against the coral, still recording for a few moments.]

Oi, lil' punk! Come here. I'll friggin' teach you to attack a guy from the rear when he ain't lookin'.

[Kamina dives for the rabbit, trying to catch it, and then the feed cuts.]

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No, the other thing. About not dying even if you're killed.

Ain't it obvious. Even if they die, they are still right here.

[Jabbing a thumb straight at his heart.]

[Maybe not as literal as he'd hoped, but the gesture and the words actually make him stop and think.]

... Hold on, I'm heading out there. And not to fight so keep your testosterone in your pants. I want to talk, alright?

Fine. Talking face to face is better than talking through something like this.

[Another eyeroll about that, don't tell a troll that face-to-face is better than through electronics. But he shuts his SFC off and heads out. It doesn't take him all that long, and spotting some self-important douche in a cape with blue hair isn't that hard once he hits the Plaza. From there he strides forward, wishing he were taller next to this specimen of human manliness, until he's within good range.]

Hey, asshole! I'm here now.

Heh, it's you. Thought you'd be taller. You shout a lot so you sound big.

[He is just grinning. Whatever. Real men don't carry grudges unless they are manly grudges.]

Shut up! I'm only 14 by your backwards earth calendar!

[He will never be tall, and he knows it.]

But that's not even what I came here to talk about.

Hehe, you're Simon's age then.

[Aww, where is his soul brother anyway.]

Fine, spill. What do you wanna talk about?

Simon? [Head tilt.] And who are you, anyway? You never told me your name.

[But right, talking. He straightens up a bit, then after a thought, pokes his thumb at his chest.]

That thing. And I guess your Brigade, too, but get to the point of that whole not being dead there thing. How does that fix it if you get killed anyway? And how is abandoning logic supposed to help, when everything I've been through has taught me that not stopping to think what you're doing is the best way to fuck it royally up the ass?

The name's Kamina. And Simon is my lil' bro, my soul-brother.

And as long as people remember you, as long as you lit the fire in their hearts and as long as you shared in their passion, you wouldn't die even if you got killed. As long as anyone remembers you, you ain't dead.

Though if it were me, I'd come back even if I got killed. Dying sounds freakin' boring.

[He's just grinning at that.]

And it's cool to think sometimes. But sometimes you just gotta kick through all that useless sitting around and thinking and just do what you gotta do. Don't think about what other people say is impossible or the rules or any shit like that. That's our way, that's the Dai-Gurren way!

Kamina? Seriously, Kamina? Figures that a big moron like you would have the most normal-sounding name I've heard yet from a human. I'm Karkat Vantas. But what do you mean, soul-brother? How's that different from the regular kind?

[Where Kamina grins, though, Karkat snorts.]

Death doesn't last around here, and there's not even enough to it to get bored.

[Now his arms fold up over his chest as he fixes the man with a look. Obstinate but appraising, not yet convinced.]

There are some rules out there that are a fat load of shit, and I've done things people would never think are possible if they hadn't happened. But that doesn't stop that sometimes, some things just can't be done. And if you don't think and just act, you're going to screw up. Don't tell me different, because I know it better than anyone.

Cause we're related by the soul, not by blood. Don't you have people like that?

[He just watches Karkat for a moment, before lifting a hand

and flicking him in the forehead.]

Stuuupid. If you don't believe you can do the impossible, of course it won't work.

I... guess? I've got two people who--Hey!

[He claps his hands over his forehead, and glares out and up at Kamina from underneath them.]

Impossible means impossible, you dense sack of turds. It means that even if you think it's going to work, it won't, because that's how reality works. And you talk like believing can just make things happen, which is the biggest, foulest smelling turd in there. Its stench reeks across the universes and across time. If belief was enough, things would be different than they are.

You're wrong. I've done tons of impossible things already so there.

Then they weren't impossible in the first place, idiot! Can't you understand simple linguistic definitions, or do I have to beat you bluntly over the head with a pile of dictionaries?

And you didn't address the other thing! Belief isn't enough.

Of course it ain't. You need belief and fighting spirit. Then you can do anything.

[Also what is a dictionary, but somehow that doesn't seem like the most important point of the conversation.]

Don't you get it? All this stuff you say is impossible... who says it's impossible? Who the hell got that kinda authority to decide what is impossible and not?

[He grumbles a little at that still, but it's a better answer than what he was getting.]

It's not who. If it was a person, I'd kick their ass with my own actions and show them. But it's more--it's written into how reality works. Sometimes things just can't happen, and that's how it is. Sometimes things just go the way they do, and you can't change it.

Things like what?

Like...

[He motions vaguely.]

Temporal predestination. Stable time loops versus doomed timelines. I couldn't ever be anything but the leader of my team, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't exist in the first place, since I'm the one who cloned myself into existence. Any other outcome - if I let someone else lead, if I refuse the job, if I gave up halfway - and the timeline would be doomed. Everyone including me would die, and that would be it. In other words, me not being the leader, or say, you not being the person you are in this moment, is effectively and impossibility, because all other options would lead to destruction.

Or say, if I made a different decision than I did. Every fuck up I've made is written into the code of timespace itself, and any deviancy screws us all over even harder, even if the decision would have fixed things in that moment.

And the things that are fucked up, they can't be undone. I can't go back to the planet I'm from and make it the way it was. Even if I went back to the Veil and picked up every last piece of the destroyed matriorb, it couldn't be put back together to save my species.

[STARE

and flicking his forehead again.]

[Karkat practically hisses like an angry cat as he swats up at Kamina's big muscly arms.]

Would you quit that?! That's not an answer!

Maybe if you stop talking about stuff that doesn't matter. You gotta face forward. That's the only way to live. Who cares about all that... time stuff? Just keep heading for the horizon, that's all there is to it. Why do you think you've got eyes there?

[Instead of flicking, this time he just prods Karkat's forehead, just between the brows.]

[Swat!]

If you keep doing that I'll bite your prong off.

But what does the fact that I possess a normal, functioning sense of vision have to do with any of this? And don't you tell me that stuff doesn't matter; that stuff is what's shaped the way things are now, who I am, what I'm doing, and why.

The reason people got eyes in the front of their heads is so they can always keep moving forward. So with each step they take, they can see that horizon coming closer, so they can see the backs of the others walking with them.

If we were supposed to care about all the shit that went wrong in the past, we would have eyes in the back of our heads. So stop worrying about that stuff. You made mistakes in the past? We all did. That's why you gotta keep moving forward. So you can make sure never to make those mistakes again.

[At that, Karkat's teeth bare incrementally. Something about this guy's attitude is just flat out annoying. It digs under his skin that he can just be so flat out positive about everything and how it's going to turn out. How can know that? How can he just be so sure when he's got nothing but hot blood and positive thinking to his name? But in the same space, not all of it is something to be dismissed - and that kind of works him up more.]

I already am moving forward. I am not some asshole stuck in the mud of his own incompetence, slopping it around instead of any meaningful progress. I am tracking that mud at my feet, but I'm fucking walking, and every look back at the path I've strode is to evaluate where I screwed up and how. There's purpose in that, douchewagon. I might not have eyes in the back of my head, but that's why we can turn around. We have brains for thinking. Those mistakes don't mean nothing. I'm responsible. It's not enough just to not repeat them, I have to set shit right somehow.

001

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[ACTION] I keep wanting to type Kanaya instead of Kamina

[ACTION] Kanaya needs a badass cape now.

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