Text; Pull Point Plot (Aged-Down Barnaby)

[prepairing]

[The attached ID reads Barnaby Brooks Jr. As a spokesman for a prominent energy drink brand, his name and face are splashed on all sorts of magazines and advertisements, and anyone who's been here for even a short amount of time might know him as a hero who's very public about his crime-fighting activities.

Generally speaking, it's rare for him to use text over the network. Of course, the message that follows doesn't exactly mesh with his usual image, either.]

I've got three questions. If you've got an answer for any of these, I want to hear from you.

#1: What do you know about this symbol?

#2: Who the hell is this?

#3: Do your numbers reflect the market's ACTUAL demand for heroes, or are you all just calling yourselves heroes because it's become the popular thing to do? At this rate, your characters are just going to overlap. Unless you've got a good hook, your odds of standing out or building a solid fanbase are pretty abysmal.

[You shouldn't need a 15-year-old kid telling you this, he irritably thinks to himself. And yet here we are.]

Comments

[khajidont]

Thanks for your faith

You doing okay BTW? I know this is kind of a weird place to just get thrown into at the best of times

[prepairing]

"Faith" might be a strong word, but sure.

I'm as okay as I can be, I guess. People are acting like this isn't going to be permanent, which is even weirder to think about.

I also made the mistake of googling myself.

[khajidont]

Ohhhh yeah never do that. We're kind of celebrities here which means that there are some seriously weird fans out there

What did you find?

[prepairing]

Nothing you wouldn’t find back home, actually. Hero TV has a very active, enthusiastic fanbase, so the art and fanfiction doesn’t shock me. I kind of expected that part.

The reason it was a mistake was because I couldn’t stop looking at everything once I’d started. My older self has moved on enough to build a life for himself here, but that’s not possible for me. Seeing it through pictures and magazine articles just made me angry.

[khajidont]

Oh. THAT kind of weird.

[That's a lot less easy to just shrug off with a joke.]

I know this might not make you feel any better but a lot of people have had to see stuff their other selves have done. Another version of me used to be here years ago. It's the kind of thing you can't think too hard.

As long as you're here, you're a different person from the future you

[prepairing]

Another version of you? Were they from the future or your past?

You're right about that. He's built an actual life for himself here. It's hard to imagine myself doing that.

[khajidont]

From the same time I think. Which just makes it weirder. He had his own friends and his own life which is really weird to think about.

But now I'm here and I made my own friends and my own life too.

[prepairing]

If you did it once before, then I guess it would be natural for you to do it again.

[khajidont]

Sure does.

Same thing goes for you.

[prepairing]

My future self had at least 10 years on me. He’d already gotten to the bottom of what we’ve been investigating, so of course he’d be able to move on and start a new life. For me, it’s easier said than done. There’s still so much I don’t know.

[khajidont]

And there's probably a lot your future self doesn't know too.

[oohhhh god, trauma babies. so many trauma babies.]

I'm not saying don't keep looking. Keep looking! But you can't give up on everything else while you look either

[prepairing]

[Were there things he still didn’t know, even over a decade later? That thought unsettles him…]

I’m not giving up on anything. I just have different priorities.

[khajidont]

But how can you say that when you don't even know what your other self's priorities were?

[prepairing]

You’re right, I don’t know for sure. But I’ll be REALLY disappointed in myself if my priorities haven’t changed at all by the time I’m in my late 20s.

[khajidont]

Well yeah they have to change some but some things stay the same too

You want to be a hero right?

[prepairing]

That's right. It's something I recently decided.

[khajidont]

Then you want to help people right? That's one thing that hasn't changed

[prepairing]

If it were simply a matter of wanting to help people, I'd probably just volunteer at a charity. There are a lot fewer barriers to something like that than hero work, where you actually have to convince people with money that you're marketable in order to get anywhere. I'm also not one of those people who thinks superheroics are the only thing NEXTs are good for.

[khajidont]

You say that but I'm pretty sure that charity workers do more soup kitchens than punching arsonists in the face. Kind of apples and oranges

[prepairing]

I'm saying that's not why I'm doing it, though. Don't misunderstand me, helping people is a hero's job, and I'm going to do that job to the best of my ability if I find someone to sponsor me. But I'm not some starry-eyed kid who fantasizes about using my powers to catch a bank robber and win some trophy. I don't need all that just to help someone.

[khajidont]

[wow aren't u a bucket of sunshine]

You might need it to do it legally. I don't know what the laws are like where you're from but it sure seems like a business wouldn't much like other people using their powers when they WON'T be making a profit off of it.

So what you're in it for the money?

[prepairing]

[The biggest bucket of sunshine. Sorry, Jaime. His older self will be pretty embarrassed about this, at least.]

It's a job in every sense of the word, so it would be silly to say the company's bottom line doesn't matter. That's the only way to do it legitimately, though.

I'm looking for someone. The police are useless, so I have to take matters into my own hands.

I don't care about the money.

[khajidont]

Why not do it vigilante style then?

[prepairing]

For one thing, I wouldn’t have access to the same resources as an official hero who works for the Justice Bureau. For another, the vigilante route leaves no room for mistakes since getting caught means getting arrested. I’d like to move on with my life once this is over with, and it’s kind of hard to do that behind bars.

Working from the inside is way more practical. There are personal reasons too, but that’s the gist of it.