Player Name: Asher Personal Journal:asherdashery E-mail: ash (dot) sofman [at] gmail AIM/Plurk/Etc.:asherdashery, AIM: asherdashery Timezone: EST Current Characters in Route: Agent York | Red vs. Blue | ratherbelocky
DAVE: i just say things it is just like this force of nature no one can control or even try to, least of all me DAVE: we just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best
-- But I'll try to keep this short, since this app's already running long and I go over a lot of this in Strengths/Weaknesses.
If Mowgli were a feral child raised within internet bro-dude culture rather than in the jungle, he might have turned out to be a lot like Dave. Dave is a mouthy, self-aware, clever nineties kid whose entire worldview seems to run on memes and storytelling tropes, but he's also deeply loyal, blindingly insecure, and just a little bit self-martyring. That may not be surprising given that his canon title is the Knight of Time. For all his claims to cool irony (and god I hope that's the last time I have to use either of those words in this app), when the chips are down, what Dave shows is love and valor, not distance.
He buries his chivalrous core beneath a trash-heap of pop culture references and pithy commentary. Like many Homestuck characters, he likes to hear himself talk, and his favorite game is wordplay--he's a self-described rapper but is also strangely well-read, given that he's spent his life since he was thirteen on a literal space rock. He doesn't even need an audience to spit words at; Dave is perfectly content to talk to himself should no conversation partner be available. If that sounds a little lonely, well. Yeah. It is. As chill as he makes himself out to be with the state of his world, he's an apocalypse survivor, and isolation shapes a lot of how he interacts now with the world. With the living population of his immediate world reduced to six, and less than half of those six willing even to speak with him, he's internalized a lot of unhealthy ideas and doesn't even know how to verbalize what's bothering him.
Some of this stems back to his relationship with his late legal guardian, Bro. In another, less abysmal timeline, Dave admits that, given the way Bro alternately neglected and picked on him, he can only think that Bro actively hated taking care of him and thought of the exercise as an ironic (damn it) game. The neglect has made Dave weak to positive attention; he'd do most anything for anyone who indulges in his absurd meme games or shows interest in his interests. The attacks have made him expect antagonism as a matter of course, but he hates it; he'd rather avoid conflict and pain than engage, even if in the long run it hurts him. And he responds to genuine kindness like a light-starved flower turning to the sun. Also, because Bro was so emotionally unavailable, Dave gathered most of his ideas on How Things Work from movies, with, you know. About as much success as one might imagine he'd achieve.
Dave at this canonpoint hasn't even begun to unpack his feelings on the Bro Situation, and likely will still say that Bro was within an acceptable range of eccentricity for a parental figure. He's never had another model of behavior with which to compare Bro. After being orphaned and tossed into a little space can with a bunch of other traumatized teenagers, he has no idea what being cared for responsibly actually looks like--and he doesn't know how to show others he cares, either, except through stupid and often pointless acts of sacrifice that they never wanted from him.
Because he does care, profoundly, horrifically, about the people who do care about him. About anyone who pays attention to him, really. His friends, who really like him, who indulge his weird memes and share their interests with him, too, despite his professed Better Opinions, are the most important parts of Dave's life, and he's died for them repeatedly. He's generally encouraging to creepy strangers on the internet--or, well, willing to engage in conversation, anyway, as long as they're not actively harassing him and his. He believes that there's a right way to behave, and that adhering to that unstated code should make things come out all right--which means, when things go "wrong," his first instinct is to blame himself. The importance of the Time aspect in Homestuck doesn't help with the whole taking-responsibility-for-unavoidable-shit problem.
Basically, someone just come help this mess of a child, oh my god. He'll love you forever and will grow so much given a little time and care. You'll never meet a more loyal nerdy rap ninja.
Dave Strider | Homestuck | Reserved (1/3)
Name: Asher
Personal Journal:
E-mail: ash (dot) sofman [at] gmail
AIM/Plurk/Etc.:
Timezone: EST
Current Characters in Route: Agent York | Red vs. Blue |
Character
Name: Dave Strider
Series: Homestuck
Timeline: [S] Game Over
Canon Resource Links: Dave's entry on the MSPA Wiki
Personality:
DAVE: we just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best
-- But I'll try to keep this short, since this app's already running long and I go over a lot of this in Strengths/Weaknesses.
If Mowgli were a feral child raised within internet bro-dude culture rather than in the jungle, he might have turned out to be a lot like Dave. Dave is a mouthy, self-aware, clever nineties kid whose entire worldview seems to run on memes and storytelling tropes, but he's also deeply loyal, blindingly insecure, and just a little bit self-martyring. That may not be surprising given that his canon title is the Knight of Time. For all his claims to cool irony (and god I hope that's the last time I have to use either of those words in this app), when the chips are down, what Dave shows is love and valor, not distance.
He buries his chivalrous core beneath a trash-heap of pop culture references and pithy commentary. Like many Homestuck characters, he likes to hear himself talk, and his favorite game is wordplay--he's a self-described rapper but is also strangely well-read, given that he's spent his life since he was thirteen on a literal space rock. He doesn't even need an audience to spit words at; Dave is perfectly content to talk to himself should no conversation partner be available. If that sounds a little lonely, well. Yeah. It is. As chill as he makes himself out to be with the state of his world, he's an apocalypse survivor, and isolation shapes a lot of how he interacts now with the world. With the living population of his immediate world reduced to six, and less than half of those six willing even to speak with him, he's internalized a lot of unhealthy ideas and doesn't even know how to verbalize what's bothering him.
Some of this stems back to his relationship with his late legal guardian, Bro. In another, less abysmal timeline, Dave admits that, given the way Bro alternately neglected and picked on him, he can only think that Bro actively hated taking care of him and thought of the exercise as an ironic (damn it) game. The neglect has made Dave weak to positive attention; he'd do most anything for anyone who indulges in his absurd meme games or shows interest in his interests. The attacks have made him expect antagonism as a matter of course, but he hates it; he'd rather avoid conflict and pain than engage, even if in the long run it hurts him. And he responds to genuine kindness like a light-starved flower turning to the sun. Also, because Bro was so emotionally unavailable, Dave gathered most of his ideas on How Things Work from movies, with, you know. About as much success as one might imagine he'd achieve.
Dave at this canonpoint hasn't even begun to unpack his feelings on the Bro Situation, and likely will still say that Bro was within an acceptable range of eccentricity for a parental figure. He's never had another model of behavior with which to compare Bro. After being orphaned and tossed into a little space can with a bunch of other traumatized teenagers, he has no idea what being cared for responsibly actually looks like--and he doesn't know how to show others he cares, either, except through stupid and often pointless acts of sacrifice that they never wanted from him.
Because he does care, profoundly, horrifically, about the people who do care about him. About anyone who pays attention to him, really. His friends, who really like him, who indulge his weird memes and share their interests with him, too, despite his professed Better Opinions, are the most important parts of Dave's life, and he's died for them repeatedly. He's generally encouraging to creepy strangers on the internet--or, well, willing to engage in conversation, anyway, as long as they're not actively harassing him and his. He believes that there's a right way to behave, and that adhering to that unstated code should make things come out all right--which means, when things go "wrong," his first instinct is to blame himself. The importance of the Time aspect in Homestuck doesn't help with the whole taking-responsibility-for-unavoidable-shit problem.
Basically, someone just come help this mess of a child, oh my god. He'll love you forever and will grow so much given a little time and care. You'll never meet a more loyal nerdy rap ninja.