#yeeeeppp haha nervous laugh

[desertsfic]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) wanna share those onions?

(in reference to me saying i have a lot of "onions" which are like opinions, but better, and often times, have layers (y'know, an ogre, perhaps) about alpha dave and his opinions on bro)

Yes, PC, I will share my onions with you. ONCE!!!!!!!!

Okay to start I want to apologize because I'm going to talk about their personalities again. A lot probably. And also apologize to you because we are buddies so I'm going to try to sound less ???? idk i never actually sound academic just slightly unhinged but because we're friends I am going to sound slightly MORE unhinged than usual because i feel weird talking about this lol (WARNING: i'm talking about abuse again who is surprised but also apologies.)

ANYWAY.

TO START: We can refresh and go over the Dave vs Dave vs Bro debate if you want but there is also the Director's Cut on Ch 45 which i feel like covers a lot of the way that the Guardians tend towards thinking of their counterparts as themselves and therefore (at the beginning) have a tendency to treat them as Less-Than-People lol.

NOW.

I mean I think it is pretty clear at first that Dave (we're just going to call him Dave here sorry but assume i mean A!Dave unless i say otherwise) really truly just points right at him and goes "This is Dirk."

He doesn't super know what that means yet like he's got that funky instinct there's a jam in the radio signal in his brain but he knows, the way a guardian is supposed to, that This is Dirk.

but he also perceives him as a threat. I think that is my second favorite thing about their relationship. There is a mutual "oh this dude would fucking eviscerate me huh" between them.

Fortunate for us, then, that Dave is slightly deranged, high on life, and more than a little determined to make Bro his new friend.

I think that there is probably a point where Dave gave up his Hollywood glamor, his persona, his facade, because he did not need it anymore, or he only put it on for special occasions, but I think it's an easy routine for him to slip into, and I think that seeing Bro here, this fucked up concept of Bro-Dude-Irony-And-The-Sincerity-Beneath-It he is so perplexed and somehow jealous he's just like

oh my god he's ridiculous

oh my god i HAVE to know more i think this man might be insane

We're not getting into Dave's Oedipal complex. The jokes write themselves, I am merely the pen through which they flow.

I do think that finding out that Bro died is something like a gut-punch to him. Like there is always going to be a part of him that screams "Failure" at the aspect of his kid (no matter how big, shitty, and disconnected from him) dying, and the fact that Bro is three years younger than he should be in 2012 will always be a reminder of that.

Moving on.

For the sake of this becoming googly doc length, Fairly quickly he finds out that this dude is not just A Dirk but is in fact kind of fucked up. Like, varying levels of fucked up depending on the day but still fucked up. But he doesn't want to admit that he's off because that would mean admitting that Rose is right and he IS in over his head, and it makes it more frustrating and honestly a little heartbreaking the more he gets to know Bro, and when he finds out about the way beta session Dave was raised, in Ch 43.

So okay.

Here is where I sound like a dick.

Here is where I think I might get in trouble with people but like.

I think a lot of people expect Dave to go off on Bro about this, or like, beat him up or some shit idk. I've seen all sorts of things get said but you know the thing is,

The thing is we don't really know much about how Bro and Alpha Dave grew up? and at least in this case, and it's kind of hard to explain because i'm not excusing it but i'm not sure we can rule out the concept that the relationship between Dirk and a!Dave would have been, if Dave had raised Dirk, complicated after all. Would Dave have trained Dirk to use a sword? he didn't have Cal so surely even if he had it wouldn't have been that bad but at the same time what makes teaching someone to use their Strife Specibus "okay" vs "not okay"? Whatever Mom and Rose had going on was a fucking nightmare, and beyond John and Dad fighting with shaving cream and cake, everything else looks??? super fucking bad lol

Anyway so I guess I do wonder to a point, what he would think, in that scenario

but we are not in that scenario

the scenario we are in is that a survivor of a hostile alien takeover (though can we call him a survivor if he died?) is confronted with the fact that the alternate version of someone he considers to be his kid, abused a kid version of him, was cruel and unkind and unforgiving in all aspects of their relationship.

But that's a hard fucking thing to grasp. That's a hard concept to tackle because at this point, we have a dude who has watched people die, who has killed people, who hasn't even SEEN a kid due to the condesce and all her weird shit I guess idk i don't remember canon, whatever, in YEARS, probably, so what does it mean to him that a kid who he doesn't even know beyond his own point of reference, himself, suffered at the hands of a Dirk?

Like, how do you grapple with that? Does he have the right to be mad? IS he mad? does it make him angry? or does it make him pity them both, to a point. Is he angry, but frustrated, beyond that, because it's so fucking obvious that both of them are miserable, and later, when he pushes Bro over it, and Bro basically says he doesn't WANT to do it again but that he would do whatever was necessary for the timeline, does THAT make him mad not because Bro is excusing his behavior but because he won't even fucking admit that he actively chose a decision that hurt himself the most??

I don't even know if he'd be protective over Dave or DS for it. Tbh I don't really think so. Neither of them particularly like him, and it's clear at this point, to Dave, that they are both hanging their little hopes on the Get Bro Better program lol. I don't even think A!Dave WOULD do anything unless possibly DIRK asked him to. because. waves hand at complicated Dave vs Dave bullshit. Like, Dave's happiness fully hinges on Dirk's happiness. If Dirk wanted him to do something, he would. but he doesn't. So he never will.

Shittily, to quote myself, "Bro Strider is not a good man, or wasn’t a good man, but for whatever fucked up reason, your kid cannot rest until he learns to redeem himself. However long that takes."

Idk. it's complicated. I think a part of him really resents Bro for it, because he DID have the an opportunity to grow up with Dave, something he never had, he never even got the CHOICE, and he fucked it up so irreparably that none of them will be able to take it back, not ever ever ever. He had the opportunity to love his kid and be loved by his kid and he fucked it up. It's not FAIR. None of what Sburb handed them was FAIR but Bro made the worst choice and it impacted them both so fucking bad that it rippled through the timeline, and now Dave has to deal with Dirk feeling responsible for something he didn't even DO. it's just. a lot.

What would beating up Bro accomplish? Killing him? Nothing, because he thinks he deserves it, because it's what he wants, because it's the easier way out.

I don't feel like I need to outright spell out that Lil Cal is basically an allegory for substance abuse in this scenario but. I also won't let us excuse Bro's actions as "Not Him" because of something as flimsy as "mind control" lol.

The whole point is that Bro is a Dirk, and he is a Dirk in the most extreme way (this is all part 2 stuff but like. C'mon. it's relevant, i know you know that). He is a version of Dirk who was bent cruel and believed so much more in fulfilling his own vision that he didn't stop think about the consequences. Or maybe he did, maybe he didn't care. We don't know. It's a lot. It's a whole lot all the time.

So where does that leave us? Where does that leave them?

Basically, I don't think David in this scenario has any right at all to properly judge Bro like some kind of fucking, court room drama. I just don't see that in the cards, man.

I do think that from Dave's perspective there is a level of "we have both done bad things for a purpose we assumed was greater" which is not necessarily healthy, but unfortunately rings true, a certain amount. He sees the similarities between them. That is part of the reason they get along so well, I think. There is a level of understanding that they are not who they used to be, or are trying to be different now, and more than that Dave, fucked up as it is, believes in him. and I think Bro needs this weird, semi-uncomplicated relationship with a Dave who he has not hurt before, who knows he's fucked up, but wants to be around him anyway, but without all the baggage.

It's not perfect, of course, and they still run into a lot of infuriating walls of horseshit, but I do think that Dave genuinely likes him, and believes he can be better, too, if he just puts in some serious fucking effort for once, jesus christ.

So that is just like. The bare minimum of my onions on their relationship. yes.

#LITERALLY could write an essay but this is like. #the basic shit #i'm posting this late enough i hope no one sees it i'm sorry #cw child abuse discussions and such #bro strider makes my life very complicated all the time haha #the run and go fic #yeeeeppp haha nervous laugh