Daedalus(Worm SI)

[HorizonTheTransient]

Elevator Pitch: He's not like other SIs. Bad things happen to him regularly. People don't like him and think he's a weird asshole. He is me, circa four years ago, and he's just had the worst day of his life.

First and foremost, let's get the thread rules out in the open:

Spoiler: Thread Rules

Spoiler: Firm rules

1) The usage of racial slurs is completely and totally forbidden, as is the usage of "faggot," "retard," and "tranny." There is some academic value in discussing the usage of these words, however, said discussions almost certainly will not happen here in this thread, and outside of those discussions, usage of these words is nothing but offensive.

2) Going off-topic is not inherently a problem; conversations naturally go on tangents all the time, and said tangents can often be quite entertaining and even enlightening. However, if the conversation starts getting toxic, it becomes a problem. If you think the conversation is getting toxic, feel free to suggest putting a moratorium on the topic. If someone else agrees to the suggestion, then the moratorium is now official, and continuing the argument is forbidden.

3) When posting as part of an argument, make sure you refresh the page before hitting "post," just in case a moratorium was placed on said argument. If a moratorium was placed on said argument, further posts on the subject are automatically off-topic and will be infracted as normal.

4) This is not the thread for discussing Genius: The Transgression outside the context of this story. If you want a stat block for something in the story, you can ask for that. If you want to suggest a possible course of action based on the rules, that is fine and dandy. If you want advice for running your own Genius game, this is the wrong thread for that. If you want to start an argument about the quality of Genius as a game, this is really the wrong thread for that.

Spoiler: Soft suggestions

1) I do this for fun, not because of some nebulous desire to improve my craft.

2) The author has two personality disorders from the Dramatic cluster, and handles criticism the way a vase handles a sledgehammer. For the sake of everyone, please try to avoid starting arguments with the author, and present any criticisms you have in as inoffensive and diplomatic a way as you can manage. You don't have to sugarcoat anything, or list something you liked alongside the problems you perceived, but it's better if your criticism is framed as a suggestion rather than a complaint.

3) The author also has a long history of ignoring or mocking complaints about canon-compliance. If you are about to contribute to this tradition, consider this alternative: Don't.

4) Just complaining is incredibly unproductive. Try to rephrase what you have so that it doesn't come across as a complaint, if you want it to be taken into account.

5) While I cannot speak for every author, I can speak for myself, and my favorite kind of comment is the long sort, so if you want to but you're not sure how it would be received, go right on ahead and write your long, long comment. Seriously, my ideal comment is basically a fuckin' book report. Other, shorter ones that are just "hey I saw this joke, that was fuckin' hilarious" or something like that are also appreciated, but a book report would make my whole week.

Spoiler: Discord Server

Yes, there is a Discord server. It's actually a pretty happenin' place, and I'm glad I set it up. If you want in on that, here's the link. Fair warning: the server is not Spacebattles, and I will ban you if I personally don't like you. I try to be a friendly, welcoming person, so you probably won't get banned(I've only banned, like, four people ever), but all the same, at least try to be a likeable person on the server.

Spoiler: FAQ

Q: Is this one of those SIs where the protagonist knows about Worm and all that?

A: Nope! The protagonist is simply very heavily based on me as of three-odd years ago, with the same(well, mostly the same) name and background and personality. He has never in his life known a world that wasn't Earth Bet. He doesn't know Alexandria's secret identity. He doesn't know who Thomas Calvert is. He doesn't know what Scion really is.

Q: Is this one of those fics that starts with a Lung fight?

A: No, I promise.

Q: Why Genius: The Transgression?

A: That's a complicated question, and if you ask me on Discord, I'll tell you pretty much whatever you want to know, but for the time being I'm going to go with the answer "I like it."

Q: Where is Brockton Bay?

A: Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Q: Why New Jersey? Isn't it up in New Hampshire?

A: Well, to start with, Brockton Bay is a city made up by a guy from Vancouver that is, for the most part, kinda based on Vancouver. It isn't anywhere. It's made up. But, if we take as true that Brockton Bay is a former shipping hub with a big tourism industry and a growing tech industry... that's New Jersey. I just described New Jersey. Like, especially with the Boardwalk- one of the first and best-known boardwalks in America is in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Plus, do you really think the Neo-Nazi capital of America would be in New Hampshire? The Neo-Nazi capital of New Hampshire wouldn't be in New Hampshire!

Q: Hey, hang on, are you just going to be shitting on New Jersey? And/or New Hampshire?

A: Well, not just shitting on New Jersey, but yeah, I plan on making a few jokes at the expense of New Jersey. A big reason for picking New Jersey is because I can get details about New Jersey wrong and absolutely nobody will call me on it because that would require admitting to living in New Jersey, which is, while not the most shameful thing anyone's admitted to in one of my threads, is certainly up there.

Q: What... what is the most shameful thing someone's admitted to in one of your threads?

A: Trust me on this, you're better off not knowing.

Q: What about New Hampshire?

A: What about New Hampshire?

On a side note, the protagonist's Tinker powers are based on Genius: The Transgression, but it's not something I'm going to foreground. It's just serving as a framework.

Now, with all that out of the way, let's get rolling.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Chapter 1: A Piece Of Work


"Hey man, what's up?"

"What do you want?" I said wearily, not looking up from my laptop. Today was Tuesday, March 22nd. Five days ago was the worst day of my life. In the time between then and now, I'd been unable to sleep at night, only managing to snatch hour-long naps every now and then- which is to say, I was getting maybe two hours of sleep a day.

"Whoa, what's wrong?" Rory asked. "You okay?"

"Rory, it's been a while since I've paid any attention to you, but surely you're not that fucking dumb," I said, my shoulders rising. Can't this fucker take a goddamn hint? "It is lunchtime, and I am in the library. What part of that makes you think I want company?"

"Aw, c'mon, I thought we were friends!" Rory said, proving that he cannot, in fact, take a hint.

"I didn't," I said flatly, continuing to not look at him. "Look, just 'cause we were on the same little league baseball team ten years ago doesn't mean we're friends."

"Hey, c'mon, that's not the only-"

Time to get direct. "I'm going to kick your fucking ass if you don't go away."

"Whoa, what crawled up your ass and died?"

"Well, you see, I was sitting here, minding my own business, when some asshole I barely know comes out of nowhere to demand my time and attention, and refused to leave when I told him to. And now he's acting like I'm the one being unreasonable here for wanting to be left alone and being a little mean about that fact. And all you need to do, to solve this problem for me, is to shut up and go away!"

"...Fine, whatever, be that way," Rory said, finally walking away.

"Fucking asshole," I muttered under my breath as he left the library, returning my full attention to the equations before me, tweaking a constant to see what result the computer would vomit out. It was so close to working properly...

---

"Hey, so," Dennis began.

"Hm?" I asked, not looking up from the worksheet. We were in history class, and our teacher was... less than enthusiastic. Which was, frankly, for the best; if he were more active, he might've gotten on my case about not taking notes.

It's nothing against you, bud, I just don't take notes. Never have. Never needed to.

"Rory- you know him, right?" Ah, right, Dennis is talking to me. Where did I know him from, again? Early elementary school, but was he actually in my kindergarten class or did I just see a lot of him?

"From a distance, yes," I said. I think he was in the same class as me. Him and Rory, too. Rory was a bit of an odd duck, from what I recalled, being a full year older than everyone else in the class. Why his parents did that to him, I have no goddamn idea, but they did, and he'd enjoyed a big lead in athletics...

...up until everyone started hitting puberty, and an age difference of a year stopped being such an advantage.

Poor him.

"Fuckin' threw a goddamn tantrum about you at lunch," Dennis continued. "The fuck did you do to him?"

"I was in the library, trying to get some shit done, and he rolls up demanding my attention, and gets real pissy when I tell him to take a hike," I said. "Don't know why he was talking to me, it's not exactly like we're friends."

"Heh, 'magine it was probably pretty surprising to see that meathead in the library," Dennis said.

"You watch your step, there, I met you through little league, too," I said, cracking the tiniest grin ever. It occurred to me that I didn't know if Dennis was aware of my deadpan humor, or if he thought I was just an asshole. Well, even more of an asshole.

He probably knew, though. It's been, what, twelve years? Not twelve years of constantly talking to each other, but. We knew of each other. Wouldn't be surprised if he knew me better than I knew him. Apparently, when you've been a huge weirdo from day one with a voice that carries like a freight train, your reputation starts preceding you just a bit.

Not always a useful one, though. I've never exactly been popular.

Dennis snorted, putting a hand to his chest, feigning offense. "Moi? A meathead jock? Excuse you, but I am one hundred percent purebred nerd."

"Says the guy who has friends," I said.

"Hey now, nerds can have friends," Dennis said. "I mean, you do, don't you?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but... not anymore," I said, my chest starting to ache. I'd looked it up; apparently it was the fault of something called the vagus nerve, and feeling like someone had threaded a marlinspike with a rosebush and quilted your ribcage was a common manifestation of emotional pain. "I mean, I don't hate you or nothin', it's just we're not much more than friendly acquaintances, see? We don't go out of our way to hang out, we just, y'know. We can hold a conversation if we're sitting at the same table in a class or whatever." Hopefully I wasn't alienating, like, one of the few normal people who might give a shit what happens to me!

"And also we've known each other since kindergarten," Dennis said. Aha, so it was kindergarten! "But that ain't the point- what's wrong? What happened?"

"Don't wanna talk about it," I said, the pain flaring up.

"Aw, c'mon-"

"I said no, Dennis. Quit prying." On the other hand, alienated people ask me a lot less awkward questions.

"Alright, alright..."

"Oh, and tell Rory that I know he put you up to this," I said, taking a shot in the dark. I wasn't actually sure if this was the case; it just seemed like it might be, and if I was wrong... well, maybe Dennis would convince himself that Rory had subtly manipulated him or something? Fucked if I know. "I wasn't born yesterday, y'know. Tell him I don't give a shit what he wants from me, I just want him to get off my back and leave me alone." In truth, I was curious... but also, I didn't particularly like Rory, and it's entirely possible he was just trying to butter me up before asking me for help with his math homework.

Shoulda just come out and asked outright instead of pissing me off like he did. I still would've told him no, but I wouldn't've been as impolite as I was.

"Alright, alright, no need to bite my head off." Dennis paused. "Think I know why you suddenly don't have friends anymore."

"Go fuck yourself."

---

When I got home, I went straight to my room, where I fully intended to stay for the rest of the day, barring the occasional bathroom break. It had been my routine for a while; if my parents didn't see me, they couldn't pester me about school. It would've been unwelcome at the best of times, but right now was, I think could be said without exaggeration, the worst week I've ever had.

I briefly considered the prospect of talking to them about it, then shook my head. Sixteen years, and I'd yet to find a situation where bringing them into it made anything better.

I pulled my laptop out of my backpack, setting it on top my bed, and laid down in front of it. The laptop was still, to an extent, new to me, and unlike the usual sort, the part that sat flat on whatever surface it was on wasn't filled with things that made a ton of heat. My last laptop had kind of, uh...

Melted.

Yeah, I'd been an idiot at the time. But hey, now that problem is gone, and I'm less stupid. Especially as of late; maybe it was just the fact I no longer had anything better to do or to think about, or maybe I was, in fact, actually getting sharper, but what used to be bizarre and incomprehensible mathematics was quickly becoming second nature. I wasn't even focusing on mathematics, it was just a component of the real goal.

See, it turns out origami, the art of folding paper, involves geometry when you're trying to invent your own patterns. Specifically a geometric concept called circle packing. The reason why is because, put simply, a flap or protrusion of paper(which can then be sculpted into a variety of interesting shapes without much thought) has a footprint that approximates a circle. The radius of the circle determines the length of the flap, and so, if you know how long all the flaps need to be, then you can determine the necessary radius of the circles, and then, from there, it's just a matter of fitting all the circles into a square.

And that, I've taught my computer how to do, because frankly doing it by hand is fucking tedious. I also let it handle the process of drawing lines between the circles- in both senses of 'between,' meaning 'lines connecting the center of one circle to another circle' and also 'lines tangent to the circles.'

I hit the compile button on my latest refined shape, and got back up, walking over to the corner of my room where I'd stuck the big-ass roll of yellow paper I'd bought from Walmart. Originally, it'd been for a phoenix(a very complicated one, that I couldn't make out of a standard 8.5" square), but after I'd made the one, I didn't feel like making more phoenixes, and so now everything I made was just yellow now.

I began to unroll and measure out a new sheet from the main roll. This one would be four feet wide(because, well, that's just how long the roll is) by thirty two feet long, and it would be, uh...

Difficult to work with, shall we say. Considering that, you know. My room was a ten foot square.

I carefully, using my fancy new paper-cutting jig(a few two-by-twos combined with a boxcutter), cut the sheet on a square, even line at thirty two feet, and rolled it all up into another tube, fastening it with a length of twine so it wouldn't unroll and flop everywhere. I glanced at the screen, and grinned. It was done compiling. Let's see, how much tape and fishing line is this going to take...

...ah. Well, not too bad. It's not like those are exactly expensive materials. The estimated folding time of six hours, though...

...well, it's not like I've got anything better to do with my time anymore, now is it?

---

It was midnight when I finished. I stuck my hand into the socket, flexing it, and the main portion expanded outward from its compressed state. Fully unfurled, it was a ten foot... tentacle, I think is an appropriate word, made of paper and actuated by strategically-placed fishing line. I could reach clear across the room and grab stuff off the bookshelf in the other corner, and with a bit of dexterity, I could even select a particular book, slipping the claw-like fingers between the densely-packed books to pinch just one.

"Can't fucking take this from me," I muttered, grinning. "I make shit, and ain't nobody can take that from me."

I yawned, muttering a curse as I did so, before checking the clock. Yep, midnight. After... what, six, seven hours of hyperfocus? Yeah, I think I should get some sleep.

---

Five minutes later I got back up and started making another origami tentacle, because the other option was stewing in self-recrimination and regret. Why think about those things when I can instead think about origami, and how I caught a lot of shit in middle school once I let slip that I was the one who loaned the math teacher a DVD of an origami documentary.

I still don't know what they were complaining about. Seriously, did you actually want to do math that day? No you didn't. Shut up and be grateful I tricked them into playing a movie in class.

I grunted as I noticed a pressure behind my eyes, and paused, trying to clear my head. It'd been happening a lot, lately, and I had no idea what it was. Sleep deprivation? Post-traumatic stress disorder? No goddamn clue. Maybe I was coming down with an entirely mundane infectious-pathogen-based disease. What the hell is the proper, technical term for those? Fuck, wish I'd paid more attention in Intro Biomed.

The pressure subsided, but picked back up as I began working on the second tentacle. Seriously, what the hell was going on?

Then the floodgates broke, and I felt like an idiot, even as inspiration and manic energy surged through me like a tsunami. Of course. That's what it is.

A horrible, traumatizing day, followed by a monomaniacal coping mechanism hepped up on metaphysical steroids?

I'd have to thank Kr- no, it's Dex, now. I'd have to thank Dex for what he did to me. Oh, it hurt like hell, still, but this?

I think I can overlook that pain for this.

...Once I get the second tentacle finished. I still don't think I'm gonna be able to get to sleep.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Chapter 2: Lucky Break


Did you know that World War One was the first war in recorded human history where more people died of bullets than bacteria?

I'm not sure if I know that, either- it sounds about right, yeah, but I'm not a historian, and I don't care enough to go look up statistics. It doesn't matter, anyhow. The important part isn't even World War One, specifically. It's that surviving the fight itself, only to die from your injuries later on, is a very, very well-known phenomenon.

So, when I had to decide between building Tinkertech armor and a Tinkertech medical device, I picked the medicine, thanked whoever was responsible for New Jersey's strict gun laws, and snuck out early in the night, thanking my parents' old age for their early bedtime, and also cape shit to give me a reason to be out of the house while they fuck.

Stupid thin walls.

Anyhow, right now it was about two hours to midnight, and I was out in the Docks, looking for trouble. Barely. I wasn't entirely sure why I was out here, honestly; the superhero paradigm of patrolling never really seemed like it would be particularly effective to me. To an extent... I just wanted the chance to stretch my legs.

Not that I was literally doing much of that, considering the four Tinkertech robo-tentacles mounted on my back that were carrying me across the rooftops, as I kept my head on a swivel and thanked whoever was listening that I could build night vision goggles.

Night vision goggles that could also, to varying degrees, read minds. Tinkertech was such delightful bullshit, really.

For the most part, the degree was "reading moods and surface thoughts." Rather than merely hoping I stumbled across crimes in progress, I could also stumble across people going out with the intention of doing crimes.

I thought very briefly about Twilight, and Edward Cullen, and how he'd lurked the streets as a mind-reading vigilante, then remembered that if I was biting off anyone's shtick, it was very obviously Dr. Octopus, because I have four robot tentacles strapped to my back and that's, y'know, kinda fuckin' distinctive. Also, I'm pretty sure that Edward Cullen is far too popular with teenage girls for me to resemble him, what with how I'm a greasy virgin with no friends.

Hm. Made myself sad again. I suppose that's what happens when you think about Twilight.

I shook my head to clear it, and moved into the area of the Docks commonly referred to as 'Chinatown' despite the fact that the majority of its population was Japanese. When Kyushu sank, most of its residents had managed to evacuate in time, but that just raised a new problem: where the hell were they all going to live?

A lot of the ten million people who lived there decided that the answer was "still in Japan, obviously," because there were still three other perfectly serviceable major islands to live on. They would strain and buckle, but they would survive, and life would go on. But not all of them stayed in Japan. As Leviathan was going around sinking islands left and right, a great many islanders were leaving their homelands behind preemptively to live somewhere else, and the Japanese were no exception. And that brought them to the American Mid-Atlantic and New England, where the climate most resembled their homeland.

And that, incidentally, is why the population was nearly one third East Asian despite the American East Coast being the most geographically inconvenient place on Earth to get to if you're starting in East Asia. And that is how we got enough East Asian people in one place that the second-biggest criminal organization in town was the Azn Bad Boyz, an ethnic gang consisting of a melting pot of East Asian people, controlled by a guy who has fought Leviathan one-on-one for hours and lived to tell the tale.

And even that wasn't enough to stop people from making fun of the name, or abbreviate it to "ABB" when they were trying to be serious.

I skulked around on the rooftops, hoping and praying that the oft-repeated factoid of "people rarely look up" was actually true and not just made up by a bunch of morons who don't know what they're talking about, because thinking about it, humans descended from forest-dwellers who absolutely knew better than to not look up, and-

Oh hey there's four young men with guns, who are thinking about how they're going to go collect protection money from a local businessman. Finally, something to do!

Okay. They're members of the ABB, they're going out to collect protection money from business owners who aren't particularly thrilled about the prospect and in fact consider this to be extortion... How do I resolve this problem? How do I keep these young men from harassing innocent people for as long as I can? I suppose I can do this the legal way, which is to arrest them, because proving that they were carrying guns without licenses(very illegal in Jersey) would probably be pretty easy in a court of law.

Alright, cool. Nice. I can just tie 'em up and call the cops, and I don't strictly need to break anyone's legs.

I started following them, and waited until they clustered around the mouth of an alleyway as one of them took a piss.

Perfect.

"Gentlemen," I said, swooping into the alleyway and grabbing the pisser by the neck with one of my tentacles, simultaneously stealing the gun from where it was hidden at his waistband. I pointed the gun at the other three, two of whom turned around to see what was happening, and one of whom just immediately cut and run. Him, I'd grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with another tentacle, dragging him back to me. "All four of you are under arrest for unlicensed concealed carry. Hands up."

"Hold up, I know my rights," one of them said. "The fuck makes you think I've got a gun, huh?"

"I can fucking see it, dipshit," I said, pointing at the handle sticking out of his waistband.

"You can't prove that's a gun."

I punched him in the throat with one of the free tentacles, and then yanked the gun out.

"Wow, it's a gun," I said flatly, reaching into a pocket and pulling out some zip ties. Handcuffs were expensive, and what's worse, they were actually less secure than zip ties were. Did you know that pretty much every fucking handcuff in the world uses the same key, and that it is not even slightly difficult to make a functioning facsimile of said key in two seconds with a paperclip? "What an unmitigated shock and surprise. And you seemed so trustworthy, too."

I began zip-tying their hands(behind their backs, never tie someone's hands in the front) with the tentacles, and with my normal human hands, I called 911, letting them know I had a gaggle of armed dipshits waiting to be picked up.

"Thank you, hero, but I will take this from here," a voice said from behind me, causing me to whirl around.

Before me, stalking out of the darkness, came Oni Lee, one of the two capes the ABB had. He was dressed like a stereotypical ninja, or an actual Japanese theatrical stagehand, and with that in mind, I was able to identify his mask as having been originally made for Noh, a form of theater that heavily relied on masks. If I didn't know that he wasn't much one for high-concept wankiness, I'd speculate that he was going for a theater theme.

Well, it's either his personality or the katana at his hip and the gun in his hands that's telling me that.

The fact that I could read his mind and tell that he fully intended to murder me if I didn't run also helped tell me that.

Oni Lee's power was fairly straightforward: he could teleport, and when he did, he left behind a clone that could act independently for a few seconds. Much like most straightforward powers, it was devastatingly effective, and he was very hard to properly win a fight against. You only lost or sent him running.

"I must ask- how old is that sword?" I asked, as he raised his pistol to point at me. He was smart, keeping a distance of twenty feet or so. Supposedly that was the distance a man could sprint and stab in the time it took for the other guy to pull his gun and shoot.

"Hm? Perhaps a few years," Lee said. "I'm afraid you will not have the honor of dying to an heirloom, should you continue to stand in my path. Besides, only a fool fights at close quarters when attacking from range is available."

"True," I said. "But then, I suppose I was hoping you were a fool, at least of that variety."

"Yes, yes, you Europeans seem to think we are all chest-thumping samurai obsessed with honor and katanas," Lee said, rolling his entire head along with his eyes. "As useful as your idiocy is sometimes, it still gets very annoy-"

He stopped talking and started shooting, the shots going wide(and hitting someone's window or storefront) as I shot upwards. The first thing to learn from housecats is that pretty much no predator has a plan for its prey launching itself straight upwards.

I got onto the roof, then took aim with the gun I still had, and shot out the two light bulbs in the alleyway. It was nearly midnight, and with the lights gone, it was genuinely dark in that alleyway.

"Tell me, little ninja," I said loudly from my perch on the rooftop. "Can you see in the dark? Because I can."

He filled with rage, resolving to kill me just for the sake of it, which I found amusing. Then he teleported up onto the edge of the roof with me, which I didn't.

"Much brighter on the roofs, wouldn't you agree?" he asked, holstering his gun and drawing his katana as I hastily scuttled back. "Don't want to risk collateral damage, you see. After all, I do live here."

I tried to shoot him, and discovered that my gun had jammed, an empty shell caught in the action.

"My oh my, I'm going to have to have a talk with them about proper weapon maintenance," Lee said, before flinching and ducking out of the way as I threw the gun at him. "Cute." I shouldn't have done that. Could've cleared the jam, but instead I just immediately reacted by throwing a heavy object at him.

Okay, whatever, fine. He has a sword? I have six arms, and four of them are fifteen feet long. Let's fucking do this. I shot a pair of tentacles at him, and a quick flick of the sword nicked one, sending it veering wildly off course, and severed the other one.

"...Did you make these out of paper?" Lee said before crumbling to dust. Shit. Where's the real o-

I hissed and fell forward as he slashed the back of my legs.

"Pitiful," Lee said flatly, pinning me down with a firm knee to the back, right between my shoulders. I mentally flicked on the healing device, fixing my legs, and scowled under my mask. "Any last words?"

"Dipshit," I said, before slamming him in the side of the neck with one of my still-intact tentacles, knocking him off of my back. I got up to my feet in half a second, pressing the attack and driving him towards where the gun had landed; it was matte black, and would be hard for him to see in the dark, but against the mottled grey of the rooftop concrete, it stood out to me like a sore thumb.

"You cannot win this," Lee said from behind me as I tenta-punched his clone into ash, taking another slash at me that I blocked with another sacrificial tentacle. "You are running out of arms, and you cannot meaningfully hurt me with them."

"Don't need to," I said, discreetly scooping up the gun with a tentacle and clearing the jam. Didn't want him to get spooked or nothing.

"A waiting game, then? Only the police are coming; I can take a few police officers," he said, appearing in front of me and slashing me across the stomach. I fell over on my back, the tentacle with the gun pulling it into my hand, just in time for the tentacle to get lopped off by his sword. "Oh dear, it seems you've run out of arms."

I shot him three times in the gut in quick succession. He dropped his katana, before falling over.

"No I didn't," I said, before getting up and kicking him in the face hard enough to crack his mask, my stomach wound already healing. He'd live... but he was down, and he'd stay down.

All that was left was to wait for the cops.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Chapter 3: Reaching Out


Being me didn't come with many benefits. In fact, for the most part, I'm of the opinion that it kinda sucks ass. But it did have some.

Right now, I was typing away on my laptop, not actually paying attention to the lecture, and yet, because I was one of the four or five kids in the classroom of thirty who actually, actively answered questions in-class, the teachers just kinda shrugged and let me get away with it.

Besides, it's not like I was bothering anyone with this. I'm nowhere near the most disruptive student these teachers have to deal with. I keep hearing about how Arcadia is the "nice" high school in this town, but, well, it's still, fundamentally, a high school. Some things are unavoidable when you shove a thousand or so teenagers into a concrete box and force them to sit still for eight hours a day, no matter how rich their parents are.

And the dirty secret, here?

I wasn't working on anything.

That's right, no programmatical tinkertech, no mad sciencey computronics, nothin'. What I'd made felt, right now, like enough, and I should instead be trying to work out some other aspect of my cape identity.

Like figuring out my cape name.

Obviously, as a Tinker who wanted to lean into the mad science angle- because it's cool and fuck you- I was stuck on the format of Doctor something, but I wasn't sure what that something should be. There's a name I was using for a character in a story I was working on, Doc Bell, but frankly it just doesn't fit me. I had a lot of names from there to recycle, in fact, but most of them are just, like... normal-people names.

Well, except for Apollo, but he doesn't count. He started as a cousin from a branch of the family known for being bizarre, before his brothers got scrapped and he got reworked into just David's brother. Then there was the stuff with Artemis introduced because I suddenly had a lot of gay and trans friends and I wanted to kind of explore that sort of thing but honestly that ended up being kind of tasteless, not least of which because the only genderfluid character was a huge prick for no reas-

The bell rang, shaking me from my thoughts. and I folded up my laptop, stowing it in my backpack, and got up, heading for the door.

"Hey, Joe, you got a minute?" someone asked, standing behind me. I'd just gotten out of second period, next was lunch, followed by third...

"No," I said flatly, not turning around and continuing to walk.

I got all the way to the library without being further bothered, and was a little surprised. I wasn't used to people respecting my boundaries like that. Then I got myself set up at a table and checked my email, and sighed.

FROM: Dean Stansfield([email protected])
SUBJECT: We Need To Talk

The long and short of it is, we've noticed your very sudden withdrawal from socializing, and Rory in particular is worried about what that means. Are you okay?

I sighed again, before typing up a reply.

SUBJECT: no we don't

I would like to be left alone for the time being. I'm not about to go supervillain or school shooter or whatever the hell you're worried about. I'm just an asocial nerd withdrawing after getting burned. I'm no more a danger to the people around me than any other unlikeable nerd in this building.

I then tabbed over to my research tab, which at the moment was the Wikipedia page for Gnosticism. I wasn't entirely certain of the ethics of pilfering a real-ass religion I've never practiced for a cape name, but I just sorta shrugged it off, reasoning that the Gnostics, being drawn primarily from the Christian faith, didn't really constitute an oppressed minority, and therefore this was f-

Oh for fuck's sake Dean, quit interrupting my internal monologue.

SUBJECT: Clearly we do

I wasn't worried about those things you mentioned until you just mentioned them, actually. I was more worried about you, specifically, because we used to be friends. On that note, what happened there? I legitimately cannot remember.

SUBJECT: Clearly we do(2)

It was years and years and years ago. We lived next door to each other, remember? Then you moved once your dad made it big with the lumber stuff, which was before either of us were in school. And then we didn't really see each other much in school.

SUBJECT: Clearly we do(3)

Oh, right, now it's coming back to me. Lord. That was years and years and years ago. How do you remember these things? Also, do you mind if we continue this conversation in person?

SUBJECT: Clearly we do(4)

1) I just have a good memory. 2) Fine, but only if you A. can keep a secret, and B. are good with names.

SUBJECT: Clearly we do(5)

joe did you get a girl pregnant. what happened.

SUBJECT: Clearly we do(6)

You take one good look at me and tell me any girl has ever been that desperate.

I tabbed back over to the wikipedia page for gnosticism, and managed to get in a single paragraph of reading before Dean finished the one-minute walk between the cafeteria and the library.

"The hell are you talking about, you look fine," Dean said as he sat down across the table from me.

"Okay, look might've been the wrong word," I said. "It's more my personality that's the perfect contraceptive."

"Well, for that, the trick is not being an asshole to your friends," Dean said.

"Are you talking about Rory?" I asked. "Because what I said to him about us not being friends is entirely true- we aren't. The last time I'd talked to him before Tuesday was two years ago."

"Ah."

"Anyhow, none of that's germane to the name stuff," I said.

"Right, right," Dean said, nodding. "What, precisely, is the great secret?"

"Considering that my voice tends to carry, I think maybe we should have this conversation someplace a little more private than the library," I said.

"Ah, right. Hrm... Okay, idea."

---

Dean closed the bathroom door, and I inhaled deeply.

"I'm a Tinker," I said. "My first night out was less than twenty four hours ago, and during that night out, I kicked Oni Lee's ass."

"...I'll be damned," Dean muttered. "What're the odds?"

"In Brockton Bay in particular? About one in seven thousand, two hundred," I said. "Unless you're about to tell me you're a cape too, in which case, about one in fifty two million."

"Mm. Should've expected you'd be a smart one. That's one of the things I hear about you." Dean paused. "The, uh. The other things are that you're a weird, creepy asshole."

"Love you too, bud," I said flatly. "Anyhow, now that we've established what I am, I think my need for a name is eminently obvious."

"Yes, yes, I understand now," Dean said. "I'm not entirely sure how to help, though. I mean, obviously... Kid Win is taken. And also was never a particularly good name to begin with."

"Yep," I said. There was still the question of whether or not he actually was a cape(I think I remember hearing that he's dating some public cape or whoever), and if he was, which one. Not that I was likely to know which one; I haven't been thorough in my study of the heroes in town. "I'm stuck between Doctor something, and some sort of old forge-god or creator deity."

"Eurgh. Please don't," Dean muttered. "Do you know how many Hephaestuses and Vulcans I, personally, have run into in my two years of being a professional hero?"

"At least one of each," I said. "But yeah, I about expected that. How many Yaldabaoths?"

"There's the one guy in the Fallen," Dean said. "You know, the endbringer cultists?"

"Ah. So what you're saying is I have to kill him and eat his heart in order to claim the name for myself."

"What the fuck is wrong with you."

"According to my therapist, mainly histrionic personality disorder."

"Right, moving on," Dean said. "Names from mythology that don't belong to deities are fair game, without being nearly so pretentious. How about... Dvalin?"

"I'm a little iffy on being a white guy with a Norse cape name in this town," I said, pulling out my phone to check wikipedia. "Cause, y'know."

"Right, right. Also, Dvalin is a dwarf, and you're fairly tall. How about... Hrm... Wayland?"

"Not familiar... google's turning up nothing."

"Old English smith-god. Uh... Daedalus?"

"...Huh. Icarus' dad... wings of wax and feathers..." I frowned, furrowing my brow as I skimmed the article. "...Yeah, I think I can work with that. Daedalus. I like it."

"Nice." He drummed his fingers on the his thigh. "So, uh... any chance you're going to join the Wards, or..."

"The hell do I look like, a fucking cop?" I asked. "Absolutely not."

"Hey now," Dean began.

"Uncle Sam can suck the farts out of my ass with a straw. I ain't joining the Wards for anything less than all the money in the world."

"Alright, alright, fine," Dean said. "Hrm... How about this, old friend; it's been a long while since I've properly seen you. Are you free this afternoon to get reacquainted?"

---Author's Notes---
And we reach the end of the first chunk of story. I've got stuff written up to Chapter 5, but I'm gonna hold off on posting it for now, because this feels like enough "meat" for now.
Also, in case you didn't read the opening post, part of the premise is that this is a more unvarnished account of how much of an unlikeable prick I really was in High School. It seemed like a perfect counter to the usual criticisms of SIs where everyone likes them; instead, everyone thinks he's a weird asshole, and every bit of kindness he's received on-screen so far has been out of pity and also worry that he's going to blow up the school or something.

 

[Kolarthecool]

"In Brockton Bay in particular? About one in seven thousand, two hundred," I said. "Unless you're about to tell me you're a cape too, in which case, about one in fifty two million."

Click to shrink...

"Eurgh. Please don't," Dean muttered. "Do you know how many Hephaestuses and Vulcans I, personally, have run into in my two years of being a professional hero?"

Click to shrink...

Wait, what? Am I missing something here? Why would Dean go and out himself like that? Seems a bit of a stretch for the professional even if Joe did it it first, even then the guy could be lying.

Also why would Joe out himself to some one he admits he hasn't been friends with for years? Especially after all the 'subtle' angst about being burned and betrayed?

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Wait, what? Am I missing something here? Why would Dean go and out himself like that? Seems a bit of a stretch for the professional even if Joe did it it first, even then the guy could be lying.

Click to shrink...

Dean's trying to build trust here so that he can recruit this fresh new cape to the Wards, For Great Justice. Sharing this secret with him seemed like a good way to do that.

Also why would Joe out himself to some one he admits he hasn't been friends with for years? Especially after all the 'subtle' angst about being burned and betrayed?

Click to shrink...

Because Dean approached him the right way, and he's currently, on some level, desperate to make new friends. He's just... really bad at it.

 

[Synergy]

Having been an unlikeable a-hole in high school, your characters are always a weird mix of relatable and cringey that keeps drawing me back. Especially when you bring in the “you really should have realized you weren’t a cishet by now” angle.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Having been an unlikeable a-hole in high school, your characters are always a weird mix of relatable and cringey that keeps drawing me back. Especially when you bring in the “you really should have realized you weren’t a cishet by now” angle.

Click to shrink...

me, in high school, surrounded by gay and trans kids, knowing explicitly and outright that gay and trans kids clump together consciously and unconsciously and that i belong there somehow: hrm... maybe... the answer is... i like men?

(the joke is that i do not like men even slightly and this should be evident from my writing)

 

[Synergy]

(the joke is that i do not like men even slightly and this should be evident from my writing)

Click to shrink...

Even as a mostly gay man, this is pretty understandable.

 

[Kolarthecool]

Dean's trying to build trust here so that he can recruit this fresh new cape to the Wards, For Great Justice. Sharing this secret with him seemed like a good way to do that.

Click to shrink...

Alright, that's fair. It just seems a bit rushed though. He was concerned about this kid being antisocial and stuff beforehand. Building trust is good but he didn't even try to confirm that Joe is a hero first. Also what threw mist is Joe's complete lack of reaction to this reveal, they just gloss over it and keep talking.

Because Dean approached him the right way, and he's currently, on some level, desperate to make new friends. He's just... really bad at it.

Click to shrink...

That's fair too, just that again, it feels rushed. Reaching out is one thing, revealing yourself as a Cape given the whole 'forced recruitment' this is a stretch. Especially since he's a Tinker. I guess I'm just ragging on teen you for lacking caution.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Alright, that's fair. It just seems a bit rushed though. He was concerned about this kid being antisocial and stuff beforehand. Building trust is good but he didn't even try to confirm that Joe is a hero first. Also what threw mist is Joe's complete lack of reaction to this reveal, they just gloss over it and keep talking.

Click to shrink...

That's because Dean being a cape is about Dean and not Joe, and therefore he doesn't really give a shit.

That's fair too, just that again, it feels rushed. Reaching out is one thing, revealing yourself as a Cape given the whole 'forced recruitment' this is a stretch. Especially since he's a Tinker. I guess I'm just ragging on teen you for lacking caution.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's fair. If it helps, I have a diagnosis for Histrionic Personality Disorder, and this sort of "rushing into any sort of relationship at all" is a primary symptom thereof. It's something that'll get explicated upon later, as we get into the why of Joe Norman being a huge asshole.

 

[TMTM™]

A: Well, to start with, Brockton Bay is a city made up by a guy from Vancouver that is, for the most part, kinda based on Vancouver. It isn't anywhere. It's made up. But, if we take as true that Brockton Bay is a former shipping hub with a big tourism industry and a growing tech industry... that's New Jersey. I just described New Jersey. Like, especially with the Boardwalk- one of the first and best-known boardwalks in America is in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Plus, do you really think the Neo-Nazi capital of America would be in New Hampshire? The Neo-Nazi capital of New Hampshire wouldn't be in New Hampshire!

Click to shrink...

Wasn't Brockton generally referred to (or at least implied) as being pretty close to Boston? New Jersey is a solid 6 hours or so away from Boston, while New Hampshire is one hour away. It could easily just be a fictional New Hampshire city based on New Jersey.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Wasn't Brockton generally referred to (or at least implied) as being pretty close to Boston? New Jersey is a solid 6 hours or so away from Boston, while New Hampshire is one hour away. It could easily just be a fictional New Hampshire city based on New Jersey.

Click to shrink...

Probably, but... we're just never going to get a real city that matches every description Wildbow gave of Brockton Bay. Because it isn't a real city. It was made up.

By a Canadian.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Chapter 4: Free-Wheeling


"Hey Mom, I'm gonna be out... pretty much all day," I said. "Ran into Dean Stansfield- you remember the Stansfields, they used to live next door? Yeah, ran into Dean, and he was pretty insistent on hanging out, catching up on old times, and introducing me to some friends."

"Oh, okay," Mom said. "When are you gonna be back?"

"Uh... Honestly? No idea," I said. "But, hey, it's Friday, so..." I trailed off, glancing at Dean. "It should be safe. Neither of us are all that crazy, y'know. So... Seeya whenever I get back?"

I hung up, pocketing my phone, and glanced at Dean and Victoria, his girlfriend who was, in fact, a local cape with an open identity. I felt like I remembered her from somewhere, but it was escaping me at the moment.

"So, what's next?" I asked.

"You two know each other?" Victoria asked, ignoring me and focusing on Dean.

"Knew, once upon a time," Dean said. "I barely remember it, unfortunately, but I do remember that he was my very first friend."

"And now you talk about me in the third person from five feet away," I said flatly. "Great. Really feelin' included here, guys."

"Sorry," Dean said. "And I really did just want to catch up on old times. No cape things just yet."

"In that case, bringing your girlfriend along is pretty counterproductive," I said. "Someone's gonna third-wheel, and that's going to become a problem for everyone. Especially if I third-wheel, because then I'm going to quietly excuse myself and go home to sulk, and then we're back to Rory having a bug up his ass about whether or not I'm gonna go supervillain or whatever because apparently there is no other outcome for a sad teenager with no friends."

"What, you?" Victoria asked, folding her arms and snorting. "Buddy, I've met you. You couldn't go supervillain if someone burned down your house and killed your dog."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Remember in fifth grade, when I broke your nose and you apologized to me?"

"...that's where I know you from," I said. "Fuck, I knew I remembered you from somewhere. Anyhow, no, you didn't actually break my nose, you just gave me a nosebleed in gym class because I wasn't paying attention and I took a basketball to the face. It was a genuine accident, and I apologized the day after because you said you got in trouble for it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Joe," Dean said, grinning. "I am loving this conversation."

"Oh, are you enjoying bringing up embarrassing childhood incidents?" I asked. "Then I'm sure you won't mind me talking about the time your dad gave you a junior carpentry set and then you chased me around your house with the saw."

"Well now hang on-" he began.

"What do you mean by 'junior carpentry set?'" Vicky asked. "Was it, like, cheap plastic, or..."

"No, it was fully functional metal tools," I said. "Dean was just a demon of a child. Deanmon."

"Go fuck yourself," Dean said.

"I was going to, but then you decided we were going to hang out," I said.

"Your turn, motherfucker," Vicky said. "Remember in fifth grade, you got into a weeks-long fight with our teacher over a math problem?"

"Man, fuck that guy, I was right," I said.

"What happened?" Dean asked.

"I forget the details," Vicky admitted. "Just that I got the answer the teacher wanted, and I was assigned to help Joe get it, and he told me I was only right on accident."

"It wasn't just you, it was you and Alia, remember?" I asked. "Alia, that Pakistani girl who was very sensitive about her last name being Butt?"

"Oh yeah, I remember her. You were kind of a jerk to her."

"Yeah, I was a jerk to a lot of people who didn't deserve it," I said. "Anyhow, the problem in question was, we were given the floorplan of a fictitious house, drawn on a grid, with every angle being an increment of 45 degrees. We had to figure out, from that, the square footage of the house... and as an added complication, the grid wasn't in feet. It was in yards. Well, I decided the sensible thing to do was to first convert all the measurements in yards to measurements in feet, because I wanted square feet at the end. My teacher, however, apparently used a slightly different order of operations, and he also was a wrong moron who sucked at math, and so he figured out the square yardage of the floorplan, and then converted it to square feet... by multiplying it by three.

"And when I tried to explain to him that there were nine square feet in a yard, instead of only three, he told me that I was overthinking it, as if that's a thing that can happen in math. And when he decided to make me, an angry child who knew damn well that he was right, into someone else's problem... Yeah I was probably a little rude. I remember I tried not to be, because I knew that I was dealing with other children and it wasn't their fault, but, well. Clearly it didn't work."

"So I was wrong, I could totally buy you being a supervillain," Vicky said. "Lord Geometry or some bullshit."

"Well, on that cheery note," I muttered, opening the trunk of my car. I didn't bother parking in Arcadia's parking lot, and instead parked on the street in the neighborhood near the school, and walked the rest of the way. We were in a sleepy little culdesac, pretty much alone, and nobody was around to witness what happened next.

"Oh my god you're Doctor Octopus," Vicky whispered as the fully-repaired tentacle rig climbed out of the trunk and secured itself to my back. "Dean you didn't tell me you lived next door to Doctor Octopus. Why would you keep this from me."

"Are you okay?" I asked. "Are you having an episode or something?"

"She's a big fan of Spider-Man comics," Dean said, as Vicky tried to grab one of the tentacles to examine it, looking disappointed as I yanked it out of her reach.

"Oh, okay, that's much more innocent than what I was thinking," I said. "I was worried she had a tentacle fetish and was going to try to borrow it for sexual reasons."

"Eww, dude, don't make this gross," Vicky said, shuddering. "I just like Spider-Man."

"Damn," I muttered. "Do you know anyone who does? Because if so-"

"Let's just move on before I'm obligated to kick your ass."

"Fair enough."

---

"...and then he lopped off my last tentacle and said, 'looks like you ran out of arms,'" I said. "So then I shot him in the stomach a few times, and said, 'no I didn't.'"

"Damn, dude," Vicky said. We were sitting on a rooftop somewhere downtown, eating greasy burgers from a local joint called Bob's, which everyone called Fugly Bob's, but not to Bob's face, because he was a nice guy and we didn't want to hurt his feelings. She then turned to face Dean. "See, this is why we need to relax gun laws, or at least make exceptions for superheroes."

"You do realize that Joe is a teenager and an independent vigilante, and the fact that he, personally, seems responsible doesn't change the fact that he's the worst sort of person to trust with a firearm, right?" Dean said.

"Again, Dean, I am right here," I said.

"Sorry," he said in a voice that indicated he wasn't sorry at all.

"Anyhow-"

"And besides, the fact that it escalated like this is anomalous," Dean continued, as though I hadn't been talking. "Most of the time, cape fights are brief, inconclusive skirmishes. Nobody's quite willing to put their neck on the line, or go in for the kill. Fundamentally, we're not soldiers, and we don't think like them, either."

"And maybe that's a bad thing," Vicky said. "Or at least, maybe we could stand to be a little more like him. Laser-focused on his goal, no matter the personal cost."

"Well the thing is-"

"He's a Tinker with a healing device implanted in himself," Dean said, barrelling over me. "The 'personal cost' is that, in the moment, it hurt, and according to him, he has an unusually high pain threshold, so even that was barely a factor."

I gave up on trying to contribute to the conversation.

"It's the principle of the thing."

I polished off the rest of my burger as they argued and bickered, never addressing or acknowledging me, and leaned back, closing my eyes. I thought about Rory, and our encounter in the library. Part of me had wondered, at the time, if I'd closed off an important, life-changing road to building a group of friends that might even last longer than a few years, but now that I'd found what was technically a "group" of friends, I was reminded of the problems I had with the last group, and the group before that. It was always like this. I was always the one being ignored and left out, the perpetual hanger-on.

Hell, my family wasn't any different; as the youngest by a margin of nearly a decade, any family dinner saw my sisters and parents talking to each other and ignoring me completely. Literally the only person I'd call family who made any effort at all to include me in the larger discussion was Sam's mom, and that was one fucking time. And, well. To a degree, I wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't actually done it for my sake, and had instead just done it because of a conviction that nobody at the table should be looking bored.

I sighed, letting their words wash over me, and wondered if this was it, if I was well and truly condemned to be a perpetual third-wheel to everyone ever. Then I wondered why this was it- clearly there's people to whom this doesn't happen. Why me? Am I stuck like this? Forever doomed to be little more than an anthropomorphic TV, ignored when there's conversation to be had and only listened to when I was telling a story?

I wondered if I could get away with asking Vicky to leave. Probably not. When a man loves a woman, he'll turn his back on his best friend if he puts her down, or so the song goes. And I'm not Dean's best friend, I'm just some guy. He'd be pretty peeved that I objected to her presence, thinking I was trying to drive a wedge between them so I could have him to myself, or that I was making him choose between us.

Then I remembered the other thing I said, earlier, and mentally called my tentacle rig over to me.

"Alright, I'm out, you two enjoy your Friday evening," I said as I stood up, the robot appendages securely strapping themselves to my back.

"Wait, what?" Dean asked, suddenly remembering I was here. "Wait, hang on-"

"Nah," I said, walking toward the edge of the building.

"You were my ride over here!"

"Not my goddamn problem," I said, about to jump. "You can fucking walk."

---Author's Notes---
Every single anecdote I've brought up here is something that has actually happened to me, except for one. Anyone care to guess which one?

 

[Darkandus]

I'm guessing apologising for getting hit in the nose.

 

[PatrickDiomedes]

I'm guessing the saw thing.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

It was the apology, yeah. Nobody's ever gotten in trouble for hitting me in the face with a basketball.

 

[SpectralOrange]

Ahhhhhh yeaaaaaahh!
New HorizonTheTransient fic! Time to go down the rabbit hole of great characters and their wonderfully horrible lives. Seriously, nit many people write such fun characters, and absolutely no one has ever made me as invested in Vicky's character.

Can't wait to see how this all this all turns out.

 

[Zedred]

Yeah alright, this is fucking beautifull, like i think this is the first time i relate so much to a character.

 

[Azeroth]

Great story so far .... but where is the SI factored? ... its just an oc character ..

Sorry for bad english .. it isnt my first or second language

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Great story so far .... but where is the SI factored? ... its just an oc character ..

Sorry for bad english .. it isnt my first or second language

Click to shrink...

It's alright, don't sweat it.

The protagonist is my Self Insert. He's who I used to be in High School. I'm a transgender woman, which is probably what's throwing you off.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

The Cutting Room Floor, for those unfamiliar, is where I post stuff that I ended up cutting out of the story and replacing with other stuff. Usually, it's because what I made first wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, but sometimes it's because it led in a plot direction I didn't like, or it fucked with the pacing. So instead of just letting all that good stuff go to waste, I'm posting it here for y'all to enjoy, separated a little from the rest of the story.

So, y'know. What happens next isn't "canon."





New chat request from Victoria Dallon([email protected])
SUBJECT: you okay?

Vicky: youre not, like. going out to hunt lung or hookwolf or whatever, right?

Joe: It's amazing how, now that I've got superpowers, suddenly people care about how I'm doing. How novel.

Joe: And no, I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'm at home, grumbling about why the hell I'm the fucking. Designated universal third-wheel, in every group social encounter I ever have.

Joe: And also upgrading my tentacles, but that's not entirely relevant.

Vicky: yeah in retrospect it was probably a bad idea to look at a guy whose trigger event involved social isolation and then make him third-wheel our date night. sorry.

Vicky: also, what do you mean, upgrading?

Joe: Oh no it was a bad idea even before it happened. I said as much out loud, directly. "Why did you bring your girlfriend, someone is going to third-wheel, and if it's me then I'm going to leave, go home, and sulk." Must've slipped y'all's minds on account it wasn't me telling a funny story, and that's apparently the only time people pay attention to what I'm saying.

Joe: Re: upgrading, I'm making them faster and generally better for locomotion. Right now I'm limited to about as fast as I can run on foot, which is cool and all but could be better. Also, making 'em so they can cling to the side of buildings and run up walls and shit.

Vicky: hey now i also pay attention to you when you talk about cape shit, especially tinkertech.

Joe: Yes, I'm aware of your robot tentacle fetish. You can stop bringing this up.

Vicky: quit being gross, dude, i just like spider-man comics.

Joe: The word 'fetish' doesn't necessitate a sexual context. It just means 'fixation' or 'obsession.' Or are you trying to argue that your interest in my robot tentacles is merely cursory?

Vicky: okay i think ive spotted your problem: while youre absolutely sad and sympathetic, you are also fucking obnoxious

Joe: Yeah, that's fair. The problem goes away if you stop asking about the tentacles, though.

Vicky: im pretty sure you can be fucking obnoxious about more stuff than just tentacles

Joe: Okay yes but it'll be a different, more tolerable sort of obnoxious. Like, "loudly insisting that a can of soda is technically a sandwich" sort of obnoxious, not. "Makes everything unnecessarily sexual" obnoxious.

Vicky: wh

Vicky: how is a can of soda a sandwich?????

Joe: Oh, You Know :3

Joe: Also, why is it you emailing me, and not Dean?

Vicky: oh lmao he said we should give you some space and wait a few days but im smart enough to know that ignoring you even more isnt going to solve the problem that youre mad at us for ignoring you

Joe: Why is your boyfriend such a dumbass

Vicky: himbo

Joe: Oh don't say that.

Joe: Also, isn't a himbo supposed to be more obviously dumb as fuck? Dean seems less "I thought melancholy was a fruit" and more "I make bad decisions based on faulty reasoning."

Vicky: oh im sorry for the disrespect dr. himbo

Joe: That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me

Vicky: oh i can get meaner- this conversation is reminding me exactly why we didnt become or stay friends after fifth grade

Joe: That's not mean, that's a fair and accurate assessment of my character. Also I think part of it was that I laughed really loudly when your sister nailed you in the face with a kickball during that weird-ass inter-class kickball tournament all the fifth grade teachers did.

Vicky: oh joy, someone ELSE who remembers that.

Vicky: amy alone wasnt insufferable enough about it.

Vicky: hey so question

Joe: Ask.

Vicky: whatre you gonna do now, vis-a-vis dean

Joe: Insist very firmly that he doesn't invite other people along next time. But not RULING OUT a next time.

Vicky: aight cool, ill let him know when the sabbath is over and hes allowed to use electronics again

Joe: Isn't that Sunday?

Vicky: no, saturday. and saturday, according to the jewish people, starts when the sun sets on friday.

Vicky: anyhow theres a harry potter marathon on, so im gonna fuck off now and go watch that

Joe: Snape kills Dumbledore.

---

I closed the window with my mind, glad that I'd developed telepathy tech enough to let me talk a load of nonsense without having to open my mouth or type on a keyboard. My hands were already quite busy as it was, wrangling a gaggle of ornery tentacles.

Okay yes my mind was in the gutter, and that was absolutely a huge factor in why I didn't have friends anymore. I should definitely be working on that.

But also, it is very good for a cheap laugh.

Also, I'm a mentally ill teenager who is inescapably horny with no good outlet for it. That tends to produce some problems.

I sighed, returning my full attention to the robot arms I strapped to my back and used to interact with the world by proxy. Hardly a subtle metaphor, was it? My best conversations always happen through the written word, rather than out loud. And who I seem to actually be is apparently hugely repellant, so my best strategy for making friends is to keep them far from that core.

Only problem is- what's that beeping noise?

Oh. Another message.

---

Vicky: nevermind im mad about harry potter now and i need to tell someone or ill explode

Joe: Are you mad about how Dumbledore was announced to be gay AFTER the books were published instead of making him gay in the text, revealing it as a transparent attempt at getting Progressive Cred without alienating those sweet, green homophobe dollars?

Vicky: i wasnt before but i am now

Joe: Are you mad about how Severus Snape was a huge abusive asshole to tons of random children and yet we're expected to sympathize with him because he got friendzoned by a girl who he called a slur?

Vicky: look theres a lot in harry potter to be mad about

Vicky: but right now i wanna talk about somethign trivial

Joe: somethign

Vicky: what are you a cop? fuck off

Vicky: anyhow yknow how these fuckers get assignments like "write ten inches of parchment on werewolves" or whatever and it seems like this big ordeal but then you remember that, like

Vicky: an ordinary sheet of paper is eleven inches long

Vicky: and so its, like. oh boo hoo. you have to write a one-page essay.

Vicky: on unlined paper

Vicky: about magic

Vicky: fucking shitheads. why did hermione put up with them.

Joe: Sometimes she didn't.

Vicky: god ron was such a shithead. why did hermione pick him. hes awful.

Joe: Himbo.

Vicky: how dare you turn my own words against me

Joe: :3c

Vicky: ugh dont do that. it feels like a math teacher using emoticons

Joe: Are you telling me I type like a math teacher

Vicky: that is exactly what i am telling you and it is TRUE.

Joe: Now THAT is the meanest thing you've ever said to me.

Vicky: it is the TRUTH and i will not be SILENCED.

Vicky: also fuck snape. and dumbledore too actually. shitty bitches.

Joe: Hopefully not literally. Dumbledore is gay, and Snape is transparently a metaphor for that one sadboi Nazi kid who never showers.

Joe: Also Snape would probably try to involve potions and it would be really creepy.

Vicky: i am going to gouge out my eyes

Vicky: actually no im going to gouge out YOUR eyes

Vicky: why are you such a bastard!!!

Joe: It's just who I am.

Vicky: can you be someone else for like five minutes

Joe: rude :c

Vicky: >:/

Joe: Which movie are you watching?

Vicky: goblet of fire

Vicky: hey actually. idea. wanna hang out tomorrow or somethin?

Joe: If you let me talk long enough, I will end up sharing uncomfortably personal details about myself and my life. That's just how it goes.

Vicky: oh cool i was worried getting that out of you would be hard

Vicky: oh shit brb the plots happening. bungledong is about to yell calmly.

---

I looked away from the screen, grinning a little. Okay. I think I can live with this.

 

[Zeushobbit]

bungledong

Click to shrink...

Well. That's a new one for me.

Must add it to my list of more accurate names for Dumbledore.

 

[HorizonTheTransient]

Chapter 5: Spilled Guts


New chat request from Victoria Dallon([email protected])
SUBJECT: you okay?

Vicky: youre not like. going out to hunt lung or hookwolf or whatever right

Joe: No, I'm playing with stray cats. I lied about going home, I suppose. I meant to but then I heard something that sounded like a kitten behind a dumpster so now I'm feeding them tuna out of my hand so they will associate human hands with being fed.

Vicky: are you pulling my fucking leg here

Joe: Attached kittens.jpg

Vicky: oh theyre so babby

Vicky: anyhow what the hell is the matter with you

Joe: I made myself clear to begin with: if I was made to third-wheel, which I'm led to believe means being ignored by the other two people present while they talk to each other for an extended period, then I would leave.

Joe: And then I was and then I did.

Vicky: see while i respect that as being perfectly fair i also recognize that youre kinda being a dick here

Joe: It's not, really. It's not like you can't fly or anything. Or Dean doesn't have money for a taxi.

Joe: Also is Dean present? Tell him he's a shithead and that next time his first and only attempt to make me stay shouldn't be "but you were my ride home" because that just makes it all about him.

Vicky: okay theres a lot of blame to go around here i get that

Joe: Except at you. You did nothing wrong.

Vicky: i read that out loud and dean started screaming

Joe: :3c

Vicky: eugh dont do that its like if my math teacher said nyah out loud

Joe: Rude. Anyhow, how is what I did a dick move?

Vicky: well theres the part where instead of talking about your problem like a reasonable person you just stood up and left and then told dean to fuck himself

Joe: I told him he could walk home and said fuck in the process.

Vicky: your hair isnt long enough yet for you to split ends like that

Joe: Don't make me laugh, it's scaring the kittens.

Joe: Also, I *did* talk about the problem. I predicted it and described it along with a solution, ahead of time. And then I got ignored. Because that's what always happens. I always come last, stuck as a perpetual hanger-on in every group setting. Every goddamn time.

Joe: And so I've got three options: try to get y'all to stop doing that(hahahahaha I've tried that and it doesn't work); put up with it and be miserable and lonely even with other people sitting right there; or just take my car and go home, because at least at home, I've got better things to do than be ignored.

Joe: I picked option 3 because while being alone might not always be fun, it's not as actively miserable as being actively ignored is.

Vicky: hm

Vicky: so have you talked to a therapist about this

Joe: I have. According to her I have histrionic personality disorder.

Joe: Which has no known pharmaceutical treatment, and is believed to take decades to fully get rid of.

Joe: Which, as far as I know, is therapist-speak for "yeah you're stuck with this for the rest of your life."

Vicky: can you give me the sparknotes on what hpd is

Joe: Attention Whore Syndrome.

Vicky: i see

Vicky: okay google tells me that the relevant symptom here is that youre uncomfortable with situations where you are not the center of attention

Joe: Yep, that's about right. Listening to someone else talk is fine, if sometimes a little boring(but, y'know, that's life). Being ignored aggravates the hell out of that to the point of being genuinely painful, however.

Vicky: see it seems like while yes being ignored is the problem the real root of the problem is that you want everyone to be paying attention to you at all times

Joe: Not at all times. Just when I'm socializing.

Vicky: thats still kinda unreasonable

Joe: wow its almost like im mentally ill you fucking dipshit

Joe: you idiot

Joe: you absolute goddamn buffoon

Joe: im gonna kick your ass so hard the bones in your spine will pop out of your mouth one-by-one like a pez dispenser.

Vicky: do you mind if i steal that one

Joe: Yeah go on ahead.

Vicky: anyhow i guess i should probably ask now and get this out of the way

Vicky: what the fuck was your trigger event

Vicky: what made you like this

Joe: Well, it wasn't just the trigger event. That shit's been building up my whole life. But I'll tell you anyways. It's not quite a microcosm of my life- this time, what happened to me is something I really did have coming to me- but it's close enough.

Vicky: are you still there or is this just a long message youre typing

Joe: So, around a year and a half or so ago, I met a dude in my World History class. Had a sorta punk/goth aesthetic going on- black fingerless gloves, jean vest, black beanie, facial piercings that I think are called "spiderbites" or something like that? Not important. We sat next to each other, and since it was also third block- yknow, when us plebs have lunch while everyone else bails for their internships or whatever, but thats a ramble for another time- we ended up sitting together at lunch and talking, and became friends.

Joe: Also, shut up for three minutes. Don't interrupt.

Joe: Anyhow, through him, I went from "gay people exist but I have no personal experience with them or deep understanding beyond the basics" to "oh hey all of my friends are gay and trans and I feel more at home here than I ever have with anyone, and I'm understanding this shit now, and hey maybe this sense of belonging is because I'm one of them?" I wasn't sure how, though- it'd all been pretty abstract to me for a while. I... think I might be bisexual? With just, like. Weird standards for men. Definitely some weird gender fuckshit going on though, I'm less and less attached to the idea of being a boy as time goes on. Never been too attached to in the first place but now I know there's alternatives, like just straight-up not having a gender at all.

Joe: Anyhow. While I'm figuring out who and what the fuck I really am, Gothboi(who will remain anonymous because as mad as I am I'm not outing him to anyone) and I became good friends, with the explicit understanding that we'd come to each other with emotional problems and whatnot. I made good on that a few times- helping him soothe his nerves to the point where he could ask a girl out, helping him formulate a plan of attack for explaining to his little sister some of the unconventional parts of their family, and at one point, shortly after his mother miscarried and everything was going to shit, driving to his house in the middle of the night and leaving a few hundred dollars in cash(which was everything I had at the time; my parents feed me and keep a roof over my head, but I don't get an allowance) under the doormat to help pay rent and keep them from getting evicted.

Joe: Unfortunately, it was something of a one-way street.

Joe: When it was my problems, he didn't really have time or attention for them. Especially not when they were with his girlfriend, who was kind of a huge dick to me. You know those tiny cute white girls who are utter demons because they're so tiny and cute that they get away with it, who are so personally offended when they meet someone who has no interest in tolerating their bullshit? Yeah that was his girlfriend.

Joe: Then things got worse. I got the wrong kind of comfortable.

Joe: If you tab over to the symptoms list for HPD, I'd love it if you could try to guess which of them constitutes "the wrong kind of comfortable."

Vicky: is it "tends to view relationships as deeper than they actually are"

Vicky: which is why you are pouring out your heart and soul to me

Vicky: someone you barely know

Joe: No.

Vicky: is it "inappropriately sexually provocative, flirtatious, or seductive behavior and dress"

Joe: Yep.

Vicky: oh lord

Joe: Nobody liked that, and I started getting ignored. Which exacerbated the problem. Which made them try even harder to squeeze me out. Until finally, eight days ago, we finally hit our breaking point, and I pretty much.

Joe: Broke.

Joe: So yeah that's how I ended up with no friends, severe PTSD, a flared-up personality disorder, and superpowers.

Joe: And why I'm not too eager to insert myself into any already-existing social group.

Joe: Once bitten, twice shy, yeah?

Joe: Except I'm an overly-trusting dumbass so it's taken me, like, a half-dozen bites from friends and family before I finally fucking wised up, and even that won't last long once someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing tries to recruit me.

Joe: But for the meantime, I'm burnt out on dealing with more than one person at a time, and right now, I'm burnt out on even solo social interaction, so I'm gonna stop responding, tie my shirt into a makeshift cat carrier, and take this cat and her kittens to the shelter. Then I'm probably gonna actually go home, and dick around on the internet for several hours. Iunno.

Vicky: okay uh

Vicky: have fun with that i guess

---Author's Notes---
And finally, an explanation for just why the hell he's like this.
Now we can move into how he gets better, because I'm not writing a fic with an intentionally awful protagonist the whole way through.

 

[Big Iron Boi]

>pouring out your heart and soul to people you barely know
>nerd and social outcast
>attention seeking
Wow OP did you look into my life or something for inspiration I could sue you for stalking me you know