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inbox | timaeusTestified (deer country)
Dirk has set up a new autoresponder option known as Anti-Dirk. Anti-Dirk will speak on Dirk's behalf if Dirk is preoccupied elsewhere. Please clarify in your header if you would like to have Anti-Dirk respond to your character. This will provide a more candid interaction with Dirk. They will automatically get the following response to begin a conversation:
Hello. It seems you are trying to reach Dirk Strider. If you would like to get a quick idea of what he would say, I would be happy to help. I am ANTI-DIRK and will be able to provide answers based on his subconscious patterns of speech and emotions. How can I help you today?
no subject
As Dirk goes into more detail about the encounter, K's playing gradually trails off until he finally just leans forward over the keyboard and crosses his arms on top of the piano, then rests his chin on them. He watches Dirk on the Omni, happy to listen. ]
I'm glad you got to have that moment with him. [ And he's thinking Ult Dirk must have known what he was doing in choosing that exact memory to share with him.
Perhaps if you manipulate a conversation to imply it is for your own growth, he may more easily open up.
Only no manipulation had been required. Honesty did the trick, this time. The offer is met with a smile. ] I'd be game. It seems like an interesting concept.
[ He watches Dirk for several more moments in silence, thinking. Maybe it is a good time to ask. Not as part of a lightning round, but just because he'd like to know. ]
Can I ask about the significance of your glasses? I thought they were just your... thing, something you like to wear all the time. [ Until today, when Dirk took them off for him and he'd realised: ] They're more than that.
no subject
K was good at listening. Dirk had noticed before, but he was picking up on it more than ever. This wasn't really stuff Dirk tended to share, but, well. Apparently, there were more effective methods in achieving that than anticipated.
Dimly, Dirk realizes it might be because no one really ever asked him anything too seriously. It didn't help that Dirk had always been closed off and had spent years deflecting any attempts at getting to know him. He's quiet when K asks, though he doesn't seem surprised by the question. That one he has heard plenty before, so he responds with his usual:)
They're ironic. (Which was so stupid. Such bullshit. He leans back in his chair and adjusts said glasses. But it's clear he's actually working up to a more honest answer.)
A few reasons, I suppose. Practicality for one. It's bright as fuck in the smack dab of the ocean. I've got sensitive eyes. For another, they are cool as shit. Kamina was such a badass to me when I was growing up. I thought his shades were cool as hell. (Another simpler reason.)
Then I got older and I guess I realized how much control they gave me over a social situation. I realized how people depended on reading someone's eyes to know their next move in a fight or in a conversation. It makes it harder for people to keep up with you, to know what you're thinking, what you're feeling.
(So, basically. A security blanket.)
And eventually, they became part of me. Literally. I made a copy of my own brain and uploaded them into my glasses. Which was fuckin' dumb in the long run. Making an AI of yourself is a stupid choice. (But then as he's looking at the camera, the center of his glasses light up with two bright red circles.)
So, naturally, I did it again. Only this time I put a bit more sway over the creation and put my actual soul into it. (Literally. A few moments later, a text appeared on K's screen:)
Hi! I'm ANTI-Dirk!
(Dirk shakes his head and touches the side of his glasses. They go dark again.)
Sometimes I go on autopilot and I need a part of me to be around to make sure I can be contacted when shit hits the fan.
no subject
And he's right.
"Making an AI of yourself is a stupid choice."
Even when you are an AI, yourself? he wants to tease, but he's more interested in hearing the rest of Dirk's explanation. He doesn't interrupt.
The red circles β he realises he'd seen those before, briefly. Surprise registers on his face as his eyes shift from Dirk to the text that pops up on his screen, and then it all clicks. Dirk must have been communicating with his AI self, Anti-Dirk, before. ]
Clever. [ He's smiling as he opts to reply to the text, sending back: It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm K. Because of course he's going to be polite with Anti-Dirk. AI solidarity and all. ]
I noticed the lights, back at the Red. I wondered what that was about. You were communicating with him? Can he operate completely independently of you?
[ Maintaining control of a situation... He can't help being reminded of how concealing one's eyes relates to himself and his own kind. Eyes that can easily be scanned to confirm their identities, and bring up their entire recorded histories and service records. It's resulted in countless death sentences for his kind. Some of which he'd been ordered to carry out himself, something he isn't proud of. ]
When my kind are retired β the human-coined term for killing us β our eyes are usually what's provided as proof of retirement. [ It's a quiet, solemn explanation. ] It's where our external serial numbers are. [ And before Dirk might think to try and look for K's, he adds: ] On the underside.
no subject
The greeting to his AI makes Dirk grin. He knows Anti-Dirk is grinning too because they were one and the same, and there's a comfortable overlap of both sides of the souls feeling equally flattered by K. Dirk says 'thank you' almost the exact same time as Anti-Dirk sends over several smiley emotes.)
He functions through my subconscious, so, yes. He was designed with the purpose of replicating certain thoughts and feelings I typically have and processing them to create an organic conversational experience. (Dirk, holy shit, cool it with talking like the world's biggest nerd.)
He's both designed as an AI as much as he is a vessel for part of my soul. The end result is satisfying, I think. My dream self floats around here all the time, so I'm trying to maintain both halves of myself and figured Anti-Dirk would help with some of the delays. I'm kinda notorious for uh...What did my friends call it...
(It had been a while.)
I "zombie the fuck out" or whatever where I just kind of leave my mind and go to another, so the one me is just sort of staring off into space and not really with it. (Which he has done a few times around K now.) I've been trying to get better at it, but operating multiple bodies is a bitch.
(Oh. Dirk leans forward, as if he would really be able to see anything about K's eyes. It's grim, but he can understand the functionality.)
Why would your kind be retired? (...Wait.) That was insensitive of me to ask. Sorry. You don't have to answer. It just seems like...
(He stares at K, frowning.)
A waste.