cosmoooc | THE FORCED HONESTY/ASK ME ANYTHING MEME

[Is he ever anything but rude, Strider? He's even rude when he's trying to feelings jam(-ish) with you.]

So it's just the music?

[That's a little boring, but he did ask.]

A strife is some kind of fight, then?

It might have something to do with my role in the game, too.

[The Land of Heat and Clockwork comes to mind]

Yeah.

The game Crocker mentioned.

[It's not a question, he's just making a note that he knows. But...]

What's your role there?

[He's going to ask anyway. From what Crocker had said, it was complex.

And he's frowning a lot now.]

Your brother fought you? I trained with my sister, but I'd never fight her seriously enough to do lasting damage.

Knight of Time. I pretty much rolled the shittiest class available and now I'm the MC of the Butterfly Effect more or less. There's a huge record at the center of my planet.

[The device given to time players to act as a reset button if the game becomes unwinnable, but he doesn't know the details.]

We fight all the time. Only lasting damage that's done is to my pride.

[Which he'd normally never admit, but.]

[Well, the planet stuff is fairly confusing, but it doesn't seem like vital information to him. All he needs to note is that it sounds like Strider has a lot of weight on him back home too.

And that additional comment does not improve his opinion on your brother.]

Older siblings should care for the younger ones, not destroy their pride.

[He goes rigid, and he has to spend a moment to calm himself down before replying.]

Who says he doesn't care about me.

[He's considered it before. That Bro never really gave a shit about him, and that's why he's always so brutal in their strifes. But he doesn't want to face the possibility of that being the truth.]

The fact that you were terrified to approach his look-alike when you thought you'd screwed up. That you just admitted he's had lasting effects of your pride - which you seem to have a bare, barrel-scraping amount of, despite your false bravado.

[Excuse Shun while he critical hits the head of every nail he can think of right now.]

[Hahaha, shit. He just wants to run away from this conversation.]

I just... want him to be proud of me, instead of being such a colossal fuckup in front of him all the time.

And have you considered that the problem isn't entirely with you? You blame yourself for plenty that isn't your fault, or where the blame could be split.

[He's not going to talk like Strider isn't responsible at all, because he might be. He doesn't know the circumstances. But given what he's heard about this brother of his, he refuses to believe this is just an issue with one side of the relationship.]

But it's not like he's done anything wrong.

[He's just... always faster than Dave. Always stronger. Better at hiding his emotions.

Good at everything Dave's not, and that's no one's fault but Dave's.]

I just can't keep up with his pace.

You seem to idolise him. Of course you'd say that.

[From Shun's point of view, and what he's heard and seen, he's done plenty wrong.]

How old is he, compared to you? How many years of experience does he have over you? You're being illogical.

[Not that he can talk about being logical most of the time, but maybe don't mention that.]

[He tenses up.]

Does it matter. If he doesn't pull any his punches maybe it's because he treats me as an equal. It'd be worse if he didn't have any expectations of me.

Obviously. I'd say he's trying to replicate the battlefield somehow, but I don't know enough about him to be sure.

What I do know is that I've seen nothing here that even implies you're as incompetent as you claim.

[The flashstep powers are impressive, and he'd seen the fusion with Kotsu around during that last battle. That speed and skill certainly wasn't all her.]

You've never seen Bro in action.

I might as well be standing still when I'm measuring my speed up against his. He could kick my ass while casually sipping some tea and putting on a puppet act with his afterimage.

[Competence is all a matter of perspective.]

Then he's expecting you to be superhuman, or at least hypercompetent. But he wasn't born like that. He would've been like you at one point.

[Ignore Shun's own ridiculous, hypercompetent acrobatics and beating-down.]

I'm having a hard time imagining that.

[He hasn't seen Dirk in action, but he's heard enough.

And that was despite being nerfed.]

Strider, nobody is like that without constant practice. Thinking otherwise is just putting impossible, pointless expectations on yourself.

[Someone looks done with all your self-esteem destroying shit.]

Okay, look, all I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure our routine rooftop strife sessions count as constant practice, and they haven't exactly gotten me anywhere.

Depends how routine they are.

Have you ever been told what you're doing wrong or how to improve?

[Sometimes it could be figured out, sometimes it couldn't. But all the time, you needed someone else's eye to improve meaningfully. Muddling around alone only gets you so far, which is why he and Yuuto have been working through their powers here together.]

More routine than I ever wanted in my life.

No. Bro's not a real expressive guy if I hadn't made that obvious before. Not how he rolls.

Not much use having an eye on your improvement if you're never told how to. Even on the battlefield, I had others mentioning misplays or risks I'd taken unnecessarily, and I improved from that. You can't spoonfeed people, but giving them no information at all is just as bad.

[And is the behaviour of a real asshole, especially given the whole "he's your brother" part that Shun is still less than pleased about.]

[There's an uncomfortable silence while he tries to find some way to defend Bro's behavior.]

Some things can only be learned from experience. I'm used to it.

Sburb didn't exactly come with an instruction manual either.

I'm not saying they can't, but fighting is best learnt with both experience and help from comrades.

[Trust him, he knows.]

I assume Sburb is that universe-creating game of yours.

[Crocker did skim over how important it was in their dimension.]

Maybe he expected more from me.

[He was a Strider, for fuck's sake. He should have been able to pick up on these things on his own, without any guidance. It's not like Bro had any guidance. After all, Dave might have had Bro, but Bro didn't have any parents at all.]

Oh is that how she described it. I would've gone with universe-destroying.

There's only so much you can expect from anyone before it damages them.

[And from the sound of things, that's exactly what it's done to Strider. All these excuses aren't helping at all.]

The way she said it, I did guess it was destroying one to create another.

[He doesn't consider that any better, though. That's basically what Academia is trying to do back home.]

THE FORCED HONESTY/ASK ME ANYTHING MEME

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