==> An unmitigated disaster.

INTRO

Your name is Dirk Strider.

Your chapter begins halfway through a very long story. You are 16 years old, and you are about to join an adventure that spans across multiple universes and several years of your life.

You were born (sort of), on December 3rd, 2409, several centuries after Earth was conquered and flooded by a genocidal, sea-dwelling alien overlord, spitefully dubbed the Batterwitch.

Humanity has long since been driven extinct before your quite literal meteoric arrival. You and one of your best friends, Roxy Lalonde, are all that's left. Unfortunately, there's no small amount of oceanic distance between you both in this post-apocalyptic Earth, and you have spent your entire life alone on a concrete-and-steel island, stranded atop of the last apartment complex somehow left standing in the submerged remains of what was once Houston, Texas. The apartment belonged to the man you call your Bro, a Hollywood celebrity and hero who died fighting during the rebellion against the batterwitch all those centuries ago and whose genetics you share.

However, thanks to time-wimey alien communications technology gifted to you all and a reality-bending video game called SBURB, you, Roxy, and your cross-temporal, antediluvian best friends Jane Crocker and Jake English have the opportunity to play a dangerous game, meet your long-deceased guardians, become literal gods, and carve out a new universe -- and new future -- for yourselves.

You just have to make sure you survive it all, including the teenage drama.

PERSONALITY

A self-styled cool dude, Dirk generally maintains an aloof, stoic, and independent facade born out of both the highest echelons of irony and a distinct lack of any upbringing whatsoever, modeling himself after his bro. He tends to be direct and to-the-point in conversation, but peppers his speech with rad allusions and off the handle extended metaphors.

Known by his friends to be relentless (and sometimes reckless) when focused on a challenge, he tends to get carried away with his projects, especially where said friends are concerned.

Dirk always seems to be stuck in his own head. Despite his physical and cerebral strengths, he juggles self-loathing and a need for approval with anxiety, guilt, and insecurity in his relationships; believing that he is intrinsically lacking as a person and that his natural tendencies would be wholly destructive to those around him. He second-guesses his own thoughts and actions at every turn, and initially struggles with opening up to or relying on others.

He usually doesn't have his shit as together as he'd like it to seem, especially when plans begin to fall apart.

As literally the only people who've made up his world, he cares for his best friends deeply, and would die for them.

INTERESTS

Holy shit, Dirk loves puppets. In a different life, he dreamed he would start up his own puppet empire. This is probably in large part due to the fact that his de-facto "guardian" and best friend growing up was Lil Cal, a puppet. Lil Cal is the shit.

Close runners-up are philosophy, history, and drawing: he's spent most of his free time consuming both the essays of ancient scholars and contemporary pop-culture (read: anime), including his bro's own life's work, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. He enjoys drawing on his tablet as one of his more casual hobbies.

He has a strange aesthetic appreciation for horses, particularly ponies.

Thanks to the technology available, he is pretty well-versed in robotics, and built robot companions to challenge in rap battles. He also regularly engages in deadly fights against his own creations, and has created and sent robots to Jake and Jane to "help" and protect them.

SKILLS

Dirk is foremost a strong, athletic fighter, and specializes in sword-fighting with his "unbreakable" katana as well as shadow-quick flashstepping.

He knows his way around robots, and at 13 years old even created an AI clone of his own brain. However, he has explained that this skill is more a result of living in a future with advanced technology than anything especially genius, and for the AI project, may have had some additional aid from his best bro's subconscious power of Hope to help it succeed.

He is a decent strategist, though he tends to overcomplicate things. He claims to be a multitasking master, but may be overestimating his abilities.

As a Prince of Heart, he is able to destroy the soul itself. He accidentally splinters his own heart into separate entities, without conscious knowledge of doing so.

WIKI ENTRY ⪢

PROHAIRESIS

Will.

What can overpower a motive except another motive, and that alone?

And what can overpower a desire or aversion except another desire or aversion?