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generalized-incompetence · 1 year

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“Hey, Dirk,” says Tina, sniggering, “you ever heard of this movie Goncharov?”

Dirk drops a stack of five plates.

“Oh, no,” he says.

(Read on AO3 here)

Tina runs for the nearest broom as Dirk runs for the nearest computer. By the time the plate shards are swept up, Dirk has opened about sixty tabs. “This can’t be happening,” he says, clicking on five more links. “It’s not possible.”

“Mm,” says Tina, “seems around you, just about anything’s possible.”

“But Goncharov,” says Dirk, desperately. “It doesn’t exist.”

“Well, duh,” Tina shrugs. “It’s an internet joke. Crowdsourcing a made-up movie. There’s a pret-ty hot love triangle, too - wanna see?”

“No!” says Dirk, flinging up his hands. “It does exist, it just - it shouldn’t. It can’t, not anymore. I already solved that one.”

Tina stops looking for fanart. “Wait,” she says, “Goncharov is a case?”

—

“The mind wipe,” Dirk announces, half an hour later, “has failed.”

Tina, Farah, and Todd blink at him. “What mind wipe?” says Todd finally.

“The Goncharov mind wipe,” says Dirk. “It’s wearing off. Oh, I told Thor it wouldn’t last!”

“Thor?” says Farah.

“Wearing off?” says Todd.

“Wait, so there’s real footage of the hot love triangle?” says Tina.

“Focus!” says Dirk. “This is important! Clearly, the repressed memories are already bleeding through - if this spreads, who knows what will happen!”

“Not us,” says Todd, “since you haven’t told us anything about it.”

Dirk glares at him. “It’s very simple,” he says. “Loki, god of mischief, weaseled his way into a theatrical re-release of Martin Scorsese’s most famous mafia movie, in an attempt to spread his mind-controlling message to a wider audience - and also possibly for a chance to star alongside famed actor Robert DeNiro, though I have to say, Loki’s acting chops were nowhere near as professional –”

“Loki is in Goncharov?” says Tina, bouncing up and down. “Who is he? Not Andrey? Oh - Katya?”

“Er,” says Dirk, “frozen… Steve?”

“Ice pick Joe?!” says Tina.

“Wait - back up,” says Farah, getting off the couch and heading for one of the six whiteboards scattered around the agency (Dirk refuses to erase any “essential records,” which includes Mona’s doodles, Farah’s grocery lists, Todd’s drunk-after-midnight song lyrics, and Dirk’s confusing string walls, so in lieu of reuse, they just keep buying more). “Mind-controlling message? About - what, exactly?”

“World domination,” says Dirk. “What else?”

“What, like, make way for our mythological Norse overlords?” says Todd.

“Todd,” says Dirk, “the art of mind control is that of subtle insinuation. The smallest nudge to a person’s most seemingly innocuous impulse might one day bring about Ragnarok itself. The pathways of the human brain are far beyond any of us to begin to fathom.”

Todd exchanges glances with Tina. “So…” he says.

“So “Make way for our mythological Norse overlords” was embedded in the credits, yes,” says Dirk.

Farah pauses halfway through busily scribbling a semi-coherent list of Dirk’s far-from-coherent retelling. “If it’s just the credits,” she says, “couldn’t you replace that segment? Instead of mind-wiping the entire human race?”

“Yeah, who watches the credits, anyway?” says Tina. “Farah, you don’t count, no one else cares about the back-up apprentice costume designer.”

“Yes, that was my suggestion,” says Dirk, “but I was, er, overruled. Thor doesn’t generally go in for half-measures, in my experience.”

“And how extensive is that experience?” says Tina.

“We’re getting off-track,” says Dirk quickly. “The important thing is, the mind-wipe wore off. And if everyone suddenly remembers Goncharov, they’ll also remember the credits. And if they remember the credits…”

“Make way for Loki,” says Todd gloomily.

Everyone stares at the whiteboard.

“Okay,” says Farah, clapping her hands together, “so all we have to do is find Thor, find the mind-wipe technology, debug the mind-wipe technology so it works this time, figure out how to deploy it correctly, and get Thor to mind-wipe the entire human race a second time, before everyone remembers Goncharov and Loki comes back. If he’s not back already.”

Everyone stares at Farah.

The doorbell rings, and then the door bursts open. “DIRK GENTLY!” roars a voice. “Hail and well met!”

—

“You broke the mind wipe box?” says Dirk, aghast.

Thor squirms on the couch. Thor is the only one on the couch, because he takes up most of the couch. Farah is still by the whiteboard, and Todd and Tina are standing by Dirk, completely failing not to stare.

“I didn’t break it!” Thor protests. “I simply - misplaced it. Onto a chair. Which I then sat on. Which was, honestly, far worse for me than for that box, given all the unpleasantly sharp components.”

Todd shakes his head and wishes Thor didn’t sound so much like Dirk, with a deeper voice and a slightly different accent. It’s hurting his brain. He tries and fails to stop looking at Thor’s bare arms. They take up an unfair amount of his field of view.

“Thor,” says Dirk, putting his hands on his hips, “we’ve talked about this. You must be more careful where you sit.”

“Again,” says Thor, “I did not know that hat was valuable.”

“It was cursed!” Dirk squawks.

“Can everyone focus!” says Farah. “Thor, do you have the box with you?”

Thor shifts slightly and pulls out a mangled cube. It looks like a movie prop that, well, someone has sat on. The translucent blue sides are faded and dusty, and wires are poking out of the middle.

“...Sorry,” says Thor.

Tina squints at the box. “You’re tellin’ me this thing is why I forgot the boat scene?” she says. “I dressed up as the boat scene for Halloween!”

“...You were a boat?” says Todd.

“I was six,” says Tina, “and in retrospect, the homoerotic overtones went way over my head. Cool costume, though.”

Farah, meanwhile, examines the box. “This isn’t too bad,” she says. “It should definitely be fixable. Probably. Almost certainly.”

“If only we still had Patrick’s lab,” Dirk sighs.

Farah’s eyes twitch sideways. “Well…” she says.

The door opens again. “Farah!” yells Lydia. “Have you heard of this movie Goncharov?”

—

“Of course I can fix it,” says Lydia.

Everyone sits forward on their respective couch, couch armrests, chairs, or, in Dirk’s case, table. “You can?” says Thor.

“Yeah,” Lydia shrugs. “This is all 80s tech - it’s built to last. These transistors are comically huge. If you want, I can swap it out for new stuff - might take a little longer, but it’d be, like, credit card sized.”

“Could you really?” says Dirk. “Is this one of those Boring Law things?”

“Whatever’s fastest,” says Farah, before Dirk can fall down another endless hole of knowledge he’ll forget till his next case. “Lydia, do you have everything you need here?”

“Yeah, it’s all at my bench. Give me a sec.”

Lydia takes off towards the workbench Farah set up two months into Lydia’s Belize stay, and the rest of them sit back to wait. Dirk hums something under his breath. Farah goes back to writing on the whiteboard.

“So,” says Tina to Thor, after a moment of silence, “did you two ever…”

“I’ll order a pizza,” says Todd, shooting up.

—

Todd barely gets back off the phone before Lydia returns with the repaired device.

“That’s it?” says Tina, frowning at the cube.

“It’s an ancient artifact of my people,” says Thor.

“Which you sat on,” says Dirk.

“Something I learned from my dad,” says Lydia, “is that sometimes the smallest things cause the most problems. Even when the tech is ancient. Maybe especially then.”

She sets the cube on the table and taps something on the side. A blue glow creeps up the sides. The cube begins to pulse faintly, seeming to draw space in around it. It’s mesmerizing, in an unsettling sort of way.

“...Yeah, I hate that,” says Tina.

Dirk shudders. “Thor, can you…” he says.

Thor places one large hand over the cube, cutting off the hypnotic light. “I shall need a higher vantage point,” he says. “Wait for my signal.” He’s out the door before anyone can say anything else, to possibly everyone’s relief. A second later, there’s a flash of lightning, and a resounding boom of thunder, and everyone jumps as though they’ve been shocked.

“Well!” says Dirk, shaking himself and standing up. “That was… a thing.”

“Wait - that’s it?” says Todd. “We met Thor, and now he’s just… gone?”

“Yes, that’s how he generally operates,” says Dirk over his shoulder. “It’s part of the reason we… well.”

“Part of the reason you what?” says Tina.

“Popcorn, anyone?” says Dirk.

“Popcorn?” says Farah. “Why?”

“Why, for the movie, of course,” says Dirk, then pauses. “Er. I think.”

“No, there was a movie,” says Todd. “Wasn’t there? Something about - um - shit.”

Tina props her legs up on the table. “Hey, Far,” she says, “what’s up with your handwriting today? That whiteboard’s a mess.”

Farah looks at the whiteboard, where a whole square of notes has gotten completely smudged. “...Huh,” she says. “Must’ve slipped.”

“Pizza’s here,” says Lydia from the doorway, where none of them heard a knock.

“Pizza!” exclaims Dirk, and everyone entirely forgets what they were ever worried about.

(And somewhere, deep underground, Loki sighs and logs offline, thwarted again from his latest and nearly successful plan to escape at last.)

#i am SO sorry everyone this came out of nowhere and i haven't proofread it At All and i know i'm like four months behind the bit but #i couldn't NOT write it in fact it wrote itself so. i know i am often like 'this is the stupidest thing i have ever written' but this is #ACTUALLY the stupidest thing i have ever written but it went in directions i Did Not Expect in its short length so i hope u enjoy it too <3 #dghda #dghda fic #dirk gently's holistic detective agency #dirk gently #todd brotzman #lydia spring #farah black #tina tevetino #goncharov #my fic #(also for the record this is Sandman Loki who's underground waiting for ragnarok except instead of getting his liver eaten he's #chilling on tumblr which may be an equal amt of torture idk.)

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elftwink · 24 days

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just saw a mildly irritating post that talked about seeing takes about how sdv is actually bourgeoisie or whatever (am not reblogging because the rest of the post was honestly kind of unrelated and i want to talk about this sdv claim w/o derailing the rest of it) as if that take popped out of the void when i know for a fact that that take specifically is a response to the much more common "stardew valley is actually a leftist anti-capitalist utopia" type takes, a thing that is even less true about stardew valley than claiming it's bourgeoisie

like. the double standard of making completely detached from reality statements about how left-wing the ideals of stardew are, and then claiming people making the opposite take are armchair activists like... you don't think claiming that you play sdv because it fits totally with your leftist values (rather than that you play it because it's cute and fun or any other thing you are probably actually choosing to play it based on) is a form of armchair activism? isnt it more weird to need everything in your life to perfectly align to your politics, not in the sense that you select your pastimes based on those politics, but that you select them based on non-political criteria & then insist to everyone that Actually This Is Based On My Politics even when we can all plainly see that it's not???

stardew valley is a little farming sim. whether you like to play it or not says nothing about your irl politics. but literally just by looking at what you do in the game, which is produce things so you can sell them to make more things, you guys cannot seriously be claiming THIS is your anti-capitalist utopia and get weirdly mad and project this sense of armchair activism onto people who point out that it just literally isn't. sdv is a lot of things, but anti-capitalist is so totally not one. and i have no interest in explaining the intricacies of how the sdv farmer could be capitalist when they throw joja out of town, because frankly i have seen other posts about that and i have yet to see anyone involved in arguing for #sdvleftistutopia demonstrate any understanding of like. well like even the most basic understanding of class dynamics or that the word bourgeoisie has a specific meaning that is distinct from 'rich person' or 'ceo of corporation'.

also everyone takes it wayyyy personal like saying that sdv isn't anti-capitalist somehow translates to saying anyone who plays sdv and is anti-capitalist is actually a FAKE LEFTIST BETRAYING THEIR VALUES which is just not what anyone is saying ever and acting like they are kills the conversation dead. the conversation that YOU STARTED by claiming sdv was leftist or whatever

inb4 anyone gets on my ass about letting people do what they want, i LOVE stardew valley. i have played more than 1000 hours of stardew valley. if pointing out that sdv is capitalist makes you shit your pants then actually i kind of think you are a fake fan. what was all this about the spreadsheets to maximize efficiency. just like think for even 20 seconds about what you do in the game and how it may actually clash with your irl politics and hope for the world and ultimately imo that will make you a much better leftist than insisting that everything you do is actually already leftist simply because it makes you feel nice and cozy. niceness and coziness are not correlated in any way with 'correct' politics and the sooner you internalize that without viewing it as an attack on the things in your life that are nice and cozy the less we will have to have stupid conversations like this

also last thought it's totally your prerogative to turn off your brain and not think about politics while gaming but if that's your position then don't get on tumblr dot com to claim these things are leftist (how would you know, your brain was off) and also when people kept their brains on (regardless of what their conclusion was about the internal politics of sdv, or for that matter any media) and are trying to talk about it to each other, don't annoyedly get on your high horse about how actually you shouldn't have to turn your brain on. you don't have to. stop talking to me about it if you won't though.

#good idea generator #might be a limited time post this is the stupidest hill to die on ever #but im not dying yet. im standing on this hill for sure rn but if someone comes to kill me for it i'll just leave #im just. we're not going to pretend that a swath of people are calling sdv problematic. i cant do that #when i KNOW what happened is a bunch of people specifically tried to claim it was anti-capitalist. when it just isnt #and then when other people were like no its not. oh NOW we can talk about how silly it is to read politics into a farming sim!!#'video game politics are so serious when i think they align with my values but when i dont everyone who is talking about them is silly #and how come they arent talking about Real Problems? why wasn't i talking about real problems you say uhm uhhhh well'#and nobody is even calling sdv problematic a bunch of people are claiming OTHER people are calling it problematic!!!#(also also to address the real problems point. i firmly believe you can care about multiple things at once #and because of that. some of those things will be less important than others. and you will still care about them #i think this is true for all people which is why no one ever says Real Problems #like that unless they are losing an internet debate. usually one that they started. whataboutism central)

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