>Become conversant with the bro.
DIRK: Oh hell no.
DIRK: Don't be falling all in love with my Lil Bro, Jane.
DIRK: That way heartbreak lies.
JANE: Oh, believe me, while he and I have an interesting, unorthodox chemistry, I'm harboring no such delusions.
DIRK: "I'm not under any delusions," she said, as she talked to a little cool guy doll programmed with three simple voice lines to simulate conversation.
JANE: Okay, listen up, "dawg", if that IS your real name! >:B
DIRK: It so isn't.
JANE: This is clearly no cheap talky clockwork contrivance. I am so aware of your modus operandi by now that it, by which I mean my awareness, comfortably nestles itself in the crevice where nutso meets bananas!
JANE: (Hoo hoo, was that good? Did the flippancy of that little gibe afford it some irony pointage?)
DIRK: (It was pretty good. I like that you went from slightly stilted and grandiose speech to silly and quaint speech at the last second. That created a fun incongruity.)
JANE: (Thank you, Sensei!)
DIRK: (Stoic glasses emoji.)
JANE: Returning to the point that I was establishing... Your gambit was obvious to me from the moment you played it, dude!
DIRK: Oh?
JANE: You built a proxy to talk to me through and hid it behind drywall which was hidden behind several layers of the expected nostalgic puzzle shenanigans. The prize is both trivial and precious, and also a fun callback to established jokes and bits.
JANE: It also adds a personal, sincere, yet playfully barbed touch by taking one of my hetero things and making it about your gay stuff. Then it ties the ribbon by granting me indirect access to the actual you.
JANE: Irony is all about layers! Like an onion! Like dearest Lil Seb!
JANE: This shit is like a goshdarn... like a goshdarn image editing program, it has so many layers!
DIRK: Excellent. You've outlined the theory flawlessly. But show me that you grasp the concept at its deepest core.
DIRK: What was the silver vein of sincerity that I glazed the innards of my ironic goofs with, Jane? What is the essential meaning behind this cavalcade of semi-serious bemusements?
JANE: Psh. That's simple!
JANE: You wanted to talk to me, but you didn't want to be too direct about it because that would be weird. So you turned it into a weird, silly game.
DIRK: Holy shit. You *get* it.
DIRK: Fuck. Jane. I'm so proud of you. I want to ride this feeling forever. Can I be your new dad?
JANE: You kind of always have been. Ever since the fondly remembered day, so many years ago, when you offered to catch me in a big puppet butt as a metaphor for protecting me.
DIRK: That has to be one of the worst fucking possible ways of all time to establish surrogate fatherhood.
JANE: And anyway, Rose deserves a little bit of credit. For such a pathological talker, she is a surprisingly good listener and interpreter!
DIRK: Hell no. My credit. Your journeyman-tier grasp of irony? All mine.
JANE: Fine! Yielded! 8P
DIRK: Anyway, you found this device earlier than I expected.
DIRK: I'm a little. Uh. Busy here. I'm sure we'll talk bunches later, yeah?
DIRK: But really I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask you one thing.
DIRK: Did you greater than sign open note?
JANE: :B?
DIRK: This isn't the age of Paradox Space anymore, Jane.
DIRK: We can't trust our sylladexes to suss out the generic utility of all our random bullshit that we have.
DIRK: We're relying on nothin' but ourselves and our good goddamn horse sense.
DIRK: And the day is coming soon when our sense, our acumen, our unity, and our resolve will again be tested.
DIRK: In these exigent times, we sometimes will be forced to do the extremely obvious.
DIRK: By which I mean, "greater than sign open note."
JANE: Okay, fine! I'll take the advice about the note and stow my curiosity about your vague insinuations regarding some looming ordeal.
JANE: Only because I know you won't come out and say what you really mean, irony boy! You and Rose, I swear, all ironies and mysteries.
DIRK: Yup.
DIRK: Why the hell would I suck the fun uncertainty out of it by saying, "Jane, dude, I have actionable intelligence that says that we're 99% likely to be doublefucked six ways to Cetusday, here's the dossier."
DIRK: Besides, who knows? I could just be messin' with ya.
JANE: Ooh la la, so ironic! Look at me, I am Mister Irony himself, I am providing playful insinuations rather than honest answers, la dee dah.
JANE: Anyhoo, the darn note seemed pretty straightforward. It had a safe combination on it and it turned into a gun at one point and blew a hole in my face. Plain and simple!
JANE: How was I supposed to know there was an inner side!
DIRK: Layers, right?
DIRK: Layers.
JANE: Sigh. Fi-i-ine. Consider the lesson well in hand.
DIRK: I wouldn't settle for anything less.
JANE: Hey, before I let you go... Just a little point of curiosity, I suppose.
JANE: How did you get the thing into my drywall in the first place?
DIRK: Ninja shit.
JANE: Oh, well, I guess that perfectly explains everything...
JANE: ...
JANE: NOT!
JANE: [SCENE: An unassuming puzzle room, hour indeterminate. Holding a dumb toy in her hand, our protagonist JANE eyerolls so hard.]
DIRK: Touché.
DIRK: Anyway, I hate long goodbyes. Don't you?
DIRK: Arrivederci, Jane.