#this post is sAUR long i'm so fucking sorry

[simmonsized]

Hey Simon ;) so directors cut ;)) can you elaborate on the part where ;)))

;)

-xoxo ;))))

Blink LOL i know this is you!!!!

I think it's so funny that you will not just say The Car Scene like we both know you mean the car scene and i know you are extra silly about it but yes okay fine i will talk about The Car Scene.

==> The Car Scene, or as blink calls it "The Scary Self-Reflection Scene". aka, Chapter 45: temporal deadzone

I guess this has been on my mind a lot because of the way a lot of people have been talkin' to me more, which is cool, but also perhaps because people specifically have been talking to me about the guardians! Which is fine with me! I actually don't want anyone to stop ever tbh because it's one of my greatest joys in life.

But this does also mean talking about stuff and dealing with said stuff so that does lead us to The Car Scene.

it shouldn't take as long becaue we're just discussing this small bit but (<- note from future novie: this was a lie)

I feel like we need to get it out of the way now that Alpha Dave, David, was built (or I built him, no one is my boss etc) to be more of a reflection of Bro than he is of Dave, to a certain point.

David and Bro have the same starting point. They have very similar childhoods. They grew up with the same starting point, the same training and the same Prime Directive, which was to Prepare For the Game.

Both of them are built to be Guardians, or my take on guardians, and my take on guardians is that they follow a very strong baseline instinct to Protect and Take Care of their player, and tbh, ONLY their player.

I've said that all before but like. You know, building little guys out of sticks and wayward sentences and dreams, sometimes shit happens on the way lol!

So Alpha Session Dave Strider is a reflection of Beta Session Dirk Strider. He is a hero, or a child's concept of a hero, he is an adult, he had the same shit childhood and the same shit hand in life but never getting his kid, Dirk Strider, changed his direction. It changed the way he viewed the world, and it changed what he did with that view, and that life.

He never had Lil Cal, either. So things are different. You get what I'm saying here. They are two different people who were raised in very similar if not downright identical (to a point) circumstances.

Blah blah the beta session influenced the alpha session blah blah concurrent does not mean chronologically correct etc blah blah

The second part of this is how I write the guardians. Which is to say, I write them to be the amplification of the Kids' worst traits.

Dave is selfish, and cocksure, and self-conscious, and neurotic and jealous and tbh kind of an asshole. The way he talks to his friends is one thing but the way he talks to the trolls when he meets them is fucking atrocious lmao.

Basically I need people to understand that the concept of Dave "David" Strider, who Grew Up mostly alone, who became a Hollywood Darling, who was a film director and producer, who became a figurehead for a rebellion, whose only friend in the entire world was Rose Lalonde, is not going to be inherently kind, nor should he be.

Certainly not because of a kind of fandom perception that he should be a better guardian than Bro.

Now, IS he a better guardian than Bro?

I dunno, you tell me!

The bar is on the fucking floor, dude.

I'm just the author, I just work here, etc etc

But once again this is all baseline bullshit, you know.

I think Dirk says it in my fic (cringe) but the guardians represent some kind of like, not exactly a punishment but, "a representation of what we could have been like, were Skaia's scales tipped in the opposite direction." Or as Jake says, "Karmic Babysitters." lol

Forgive me for quoting myself here. Cringe behavior.

I said so in my little headcanon post about A!Dave, but he suffers from a 40+ year deterioration of his Guardian Instinct, only to be slammed back into the body (sort of) of a much younger version of himself, only 16 years out of practice at being Good, and he is lost in the woods.

So now we have a guy, who is not good but not bad, who is a hero but whom fate has grown to be sharp, and a little mean, bent sideways but not broken, and perhaps not as cowardly as his beta session counterpart, born out of necessity, rather than choice,

And we put him in a car with Young Dave.

The thing with Daves, right, is that they always view other Daves as simply being Themselves. I was coincidentally talking about this last night, but Dave doesn't have a very good track record for separation of the self.

Dirk says he takes responsibility for his splinters, but they are also all perceived to be separate people.

Dave views his other selves as Just Him, and thus, what happens to them doesn't matter.

Examples:

John worrying about upsetting Future Dave(now a sprite).

That time Dave dumped his own dead body out the window just so Jade wouldn't see "it." lmao

the way he talks about davesprite in general lmfao

Like. Dave treats other Daves like shit. This isn't a surprise. But he also views them as himself, at least when it's the most convenient for him.

So David isn't really thinking when he leans over Dave like that, he isn't thinking about anyone but himself, and his kid, in that moment, because Dave fucking be damned lol, he was Dave once, and he and Bro were never particularly kind to themselves, now were they?

And in that moment Alpha Dave is frustrated with himself, for not seeing what was up with Bro, for not being able to understand him, for not being able to get him as A Dirk, or not being Let In even though he wants to be, for not understanding his OWN Dirk, for failing so fucking terribly, in his eyes, in his timeline, that the only way for them to win at all was for Dirk to die. It's a lot of personal blame and frustration and that's all just fucking.

Poured out onto a version of himself that didn't do anything in that moment except, I s'pose, be a Dave and also literally be the one who killed Dirk. But whatever u know.

But it's also important to realize his behavior is not intentional. It's important to acknowledge how thoughtless Dave can be, and how he is once again, kind of a dick.

But for Dave.

For Dave, A!Dave is a whole other animal.

David takes everything Dave knew about himself and picked it up and started swinging it around by the ankles. He isn't a figment of the imagination of a lonely kid who needed a hero anymore, that Dirk always hoped for and looked up to. He's a very real dude with very real adult problems and very real adult circumstances, who has Seen Shit and Done Shit and overcome but never learned how to heal from a ton more shit.

Sometimes I think we forget that Dave's last interaction with an adult before Post-Canon was when he was thirteen. A lot of his interactions become colored by this I think. idk.

Anyway, so like, Dave's desire to Not be like Bro.

And to see a version of himself that is So Capable of Being Like Bro.

That shit is scary.

Dave is aware that he can be cruel, I think; I think he is obtuse, but intentionally so, and he is smart, and clever, but he is also capable of cruelty. His relationship with Rose and his tendency towards ignoring problems are examples of this.

But anyway yes! Having an adult who you already don't trust, who you already feel like is a Bad Version of you, through the observation of your own bad habits and traits magnified 10 times over, show that he is just as capable of all the things Bro is capable of? That can be just as fucking scary, without thinking about it?

That shit really fucks with a guy.

And then of course, because they're both Dave, once he deflates, it's all over.

The resentment stays, but he's Just Dave again, and the moment passes, and they move on, because neither of them are particularly good at talking when it's about something that matters, and probably never will be.

So!

That is The Car Scene.

Yes.

Expanded x10 but yes. Car scene. haha!

#blink i hope u are happy i got out of control sighs #blah blah alpha dave bullshit blah blah #the run and go fic #this post is sAUR long i'm so fucking sorry