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ROSE: Let me see if I got this right.
ROSE: Right before the game started, you took a nap in your hive and woke up as your dreamself on Prospit. You hung out there for a while, and eventually went back to your original body.
ROSE: Even though your hive was transported into Sgrub, you were too late to be spared by the Vast Glub. Rhyme unintended.
SOLLUX: d0nt tell me y0ure int0 rap t00
SOLLUX: 0ne rapping human was way t00 many already
SOLLUX: tw0 w0uld be insufferable
ROSE: Don’t worry, I would never stoop to his level.
ROSE: Later, Feferi traveled to your hive through the gate system and revived you.
ROSE: Your consciousness was then transferred to your Derse dreamself instead of the Prospit one you had previously inhabited, for some inane reason.
ROSE: You flew back to the place you died and continued playing Sgrub as normal, beating the game and hiding on the meteor in the Veil.
ROSE: Hours later, you and Eridan got so caught up in your hateflirting that he knocked you out.
SOLLUX: it was n0t hateflirting
ROSE: Sure.
ROSE: At that point, Jack Noir had already blown up your session’s Prospit, so your Prospit dreamself is out of the discussion entirely.
ROSE: Later that same hellish day, you overexerted yourself while hurtling the meteor toward the Green Sun and died.
ROSE: But that didn’t matter, because your ghost came flying in with Aradia almost immediately.
ROSE: A ghost which was able to leave the dreambubbles, and which was able to exist even while your body was awake and commandeering the meteor.
ROSE: Was your consciousness split between the two bodies? Actually, are you a Sollux from an alternate timeline than the other altogether?
SOLLUX: g0g i d0nt fucking kn0w
SOLLUX: my life is such a batshit duality ridden migraine 0f a thing t0 think ab0ut much less t0 try and rati0nalize like y0u are
ROSE: As a Seer of Light, that puts your life right down my alley.
ROSE: Let’s just move past those queries for now, so I can finish the basic outline.
ROSE: You decided to skip the meteor journey and travel the dreambubbles with Aradia.
ROSE: In the alpha session, Gamzee prototyped your corpse with Eridan to create the legendary Erisolsprite.
ROSE: Alright, this is the part I am completely in the dark about.
ROSE: You said this “sucked the ghost half out of your body?” What does that even begin to mean?
ROSE: Don’t answer that. I have an idea.
SOLLUX: sh00t
ROSE: For convenience’s sake, I’m going to call your Derse dreamself KO’D Sollux and your ghost body Ghost Sollux.
ROSE: Since an action taken on KO’D’s corpse affected Ghost, the two must be linked.
ROSE: This means that at some point, your consciousness must have been split between KO’D and Ghost. This fits your duality theme quite nicely.
ROSE: When you were KO’D, you woke up in the dreambubbles and then woke back up on the meteor. This means the split hadn’t occurred yet.
ROSE: And clearly, you were split before the Green Sun was created, as Ghost was talking to Aradia outside the Green Sun and KO’D was piloting the meteor toward it.
ROSE: It’s... difficult to pinpoint when or how the split occurred.
SOLLUX: finally hit a dead end huh
SOLLUX: dammit that was such a stupid unintenti0nal pun
SOLLUX: ugh if kk were here hed be all 0ver me ab0ut that
SOLLUX: anyway can i g0 n0w y0ur the0rizing is giving me a headache
ROSE: While you were pining –
SOLLUX: fuck 0ff
ROSE: – I discovered the central flaw in my reasoning.
ROSE: I completely forgot to factor in your eyesight.
SOLLUX: what d0es that have t0 d0 with anything rl
SOLLUX: i c0uld see then i c0uldnt end 0f st0ry
ROSE: That’s not entirely true.
ROSE: Let me explain. You were initially blinded when Eridan knocked you out, and by the time KO’D died and Ghost took over as the main version of you, he was somehow half-blinded.
ROSE: Perhaps finding the point on the timeline when that happened will help me with the split’s occurrence, seeing as those two events are both temporally undetermined within the same block of time.
ROSE: Dave and I met you and Aradia outside the Green Sun immediately following its creation. At the time, your eyes were two different colors.
ROSE: Now that I think about it, KO’D’s corpse had one black and one white eye as well. Both of you were half-blinded.
ROSE: And since changing something about KO’D seems to affect Ghost as well, the logical conclusion is that the event half-blinding KO’D half-blinded Ghost simultaneously.
ROSE: But what event could that have been? An event causing such turmoil to your body that it completely altered your state of vision? Well, half yo–oh!
ROSE: Moving the meteor. That must be what did it.
ROSE: Hold on. If KO’D moved the meteor, half-blinded himself, and then half-died... his consciousness would obviously have become Ghost.
ROSE: And then Ghost could fly out to the now created Green Sun with Aradia, meet up with Dave and I, and fly over to the meteor.
ROSE: Your consciousness... it never really split at all.
SOLLUX: heh
SOLLUX: heheh
SOLLUX: eheheheheheheh!
SOLLUX: that t00k y0u fuckin ages h0ly shit
ROSE: You intentionally left details out of your story to mislead me, didn’t you. Very funny.
SOLLUX: the funniest part is y0u didnt even ask me t0 clarify anything
SOLLUX: y0u c0uld have just said s0mething like
SOLLUX: s0llux w0uld y0u graci0usly impart a piece 0f y0ur wisd0m up0n me
SOLLUX: did y0u split y0ur brain in tw0 at any p0int in y0ur 0h s0 tragic timeline
SOLLUX: and if s0 c0uld y0u inf0rm me as t0 when exactly this might have been
SOLLUX: i w0uldnt have actually helped y0u but y0u didnt kn0w that
ROSE: I didn’t need you.
ROSE: Yes, it may have led me down some dead ends, but I eventually determined exactly how your tale plays out. The first half of it, at least.
ROSE: I hadn’t finished my train of thought yet. Don’t interrupt me next time.
SOLLUX: st0p making duality j0kes and ill c0nsider it
ROSE: According to your recent track record, that is an empty promise.
ROSE: Alright, back to how prototyping your corpse “sucked the ghost half out of your body.”
ROSE: To understand this, let me review the rules of ghosts and prototyping.
ROSE: When somebody dies, their consciousness is transferred to a ghost in the dreambubbles. If their corpse is prototyped, the ghost disappears and the person’s consciousness switches back to their sprite.
ROSE: If the sprite is destroyed, any ghosts involved reappear in the dreambubbles unharmed. Physically, at least.
ROSE: When your corpse was chucked into a kernelsprite, it only took the consciousness of the half of you — specifically you, standing in front of me — that was a ghost.
ROSE: That ghost half was sucked out of your body, and is now cohabiting a game construct with Eridan Ampora.
SOLLUX: g0g why d0 y0u keep bringing that up
ROSE: It’s an important part of the story. How could I not resummarize it each time it’s mentioned?
ROSE: That would be incomplete analysis of your arc, Sollux. Do you really want me to leave this endeavor unfinished?
SOLLUX: YES
ROSE: Too bad, I’m almost done.
ROSE: We’re in the home stretch, and I’m not slowing down.
ROSE: You were half dead and half alive, your corpse was prototyped with your dead half, and you are now fully alive.
ROSE: As your state of vision is linked to your mortality, the prototyping split that between your bodies as well. You lost your half-vision, and Erisolsprite now has a perfectly functional pair of eyes.
ROSE: Leaving you to adorn yourself with a chic pair of contrasting eyepatches.
SOLLUX: aradia gave them t0 me
SOLLUX: she was s0 excited i c0uldnt say n0
ROSE: Phew! I did it.
ROSE: Fuck, I think I gave myself a headache.
SOLLUX: n0w y0u can understand h0w i feel at all times
SOLLUX: welc0me t0 hell
ROSE: Bold of you to assume I don’t know exactly how it feels to sustain a headache for weeks on end.
SOLLUX: anyway if were d0ne with this i g0tta head 0ut
SOLLUX: havent checked in with aradia in a while and she cant exactly leave with0ut me
ROSE: Actually,
ROSE: ...nevermind.
SOLLUX: sigh
SOLLUX: y0u can c0me t00
ROSE: I - that isn’t what –
SOLLUX: and make it snappy im n0t waiting ar0und f0r y0u
SOLLUX: aradia
SOLLUX: aradia dammit where are y0u
ARADIA: im right here sollux
ROSE: Hold on –
ARADIA: rose! its been a while since we talked!
ARADIA: im so happy youre joining us for a while
ARADIA: were gonna have so much fun! :)
ROSE:
ROSE: Yes.
ROSE: Yes, we are. :)