This idea has been festering in my brain for awhile, consistently.

(cw A LOT,,, IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT,,, TRAUMA)

I JUST

I love the idea, because Hetaoni is so angsty and i see so much opportunity in trapping my OCs in a death time loop haunted by an unidentified monster.

LIKE (I say as I pick up my green triangle and my red ball) I THINK DAVE AND ARTHUR fit the roles of America and England in Hetaoni very well. And by that, I mean I can see Arthur being a magic user and sacrificing his own health in order to save Dave, and Dave feeling helpless because of it.

also i want the monster to be Arthur's father, either metaphorically or literally his father as an eldritch horror. perhaps both.

I plan on making Bax Italy, i think, i think Bax fit's Italy's role the best. Especially with the memory thing, I mean, it would be good symbolism for how Bax struggles to process his trauma.

sorry this is very rambly, my ideas for this are still scattered.

I want to add in the rettam characters but I'm unsure if and how i should do so. I was originally thinking I should make the alien cast from rettam human for it, but i kinda wanna keep them as aliens. It's just more interesting and also is better for more interesting dynamics. Like, human d2 and d3 are harder to have a dynamic for than ceedekian d2 and d3.

And because of this, maybe the mansion exists in different places, at different times? i mean, it wouldn't be too odd since rettam takes place exactly 1000 years into the future. maybe the mansion only looks for victims every 1000 years in various locations.

Yaqba' and u'keb are also gonna be there, I haven't talked much about them though but they are both pretty major character's i'd say. ANYWAYS i'll add more later if i get anymore concrete ideas.

btw this is very self indulgent, I'm just doing this because I find it fun.

I know I say this a lot but Dave is really my favorite OC i've made.

is he the best writen? probably not

is he the most most interesting? probably not

but I hold him intensely dear to my heart.

I THINK FOR MULTIPLE REASONS

Dave is really my comfort character, mostly because I pushed many of my insecurities onto him which for some reason I love my insecurities on him but not always on myself? In a way Dave is the way I trick myself into self-love.

I think I made Dave like uhhh about a year ago now? or at least, started the version of Dave closest to what he is today. I remember before liking him was kind of an ironic thing, because ofc people kept making fun of him and the idea of him being my favorite was funny. but as I added more details to Dave and I gave him more traits similar to myself and people continued to mock him, I became very attached to him.

LIKE i had this whole phase where I would defend Dave no matter what because I felt everyone was being unfair to him, which to be fair it was. They weren't criticizing Dave the way he's meant to be criticized, aka attacking how he looks physically instead of his mentality/outlook on life. It got to the point i wrote a very angry rant in my notes app about the reasons why it wasn't okay to make fun of Dave's appearance.

I kinda got over that and I cut people out of my life who genuinely thought him being fat was some kind of immense flaw. 

IDK i guess I'm just very clingy tword his character now since I have been put in a situation of that kind of arthurian mentality where I'm like "people have tried to hurt you and I want to make sure that doesn't happen again" WHICH IS SWEET but sometimes a set back, ofc that would be if Dave was real, which he isn't. that's why this is an issue only Arthur deals with.

AND ITS WEIRD BC THIS ATTACHMENT TO DAVE HAS LITERALLY EFFECTED MY ENTIRETY OF WHAT I FIND ATTRACTIVE, LIKE, MOST OF THE STUFF I CURRENTLY FIND ATTRACTIVE I DID NOT FIND ATTRACTIVE UNTIL I BECAME ATTACHED TO DAVE

 IDK HOW TO ELABORATE ON IT like I like Dave for more reasons but I don't know why I have those reasons. Like I said, It's probably just a lot of built up attachment.

I love and hate Arthur sm, I could honestly rant about his character for hours on end. Which is good, because he's the main character of his comic.

CW IDK! a lot of shit, dead DAD do not eat.

LIKE idk he's just

I like the contrast character conflict. I tend to really adore morally gray characters, and I think Arthur is just one I can be proud of creation-wise. His whole character combats the concept of "Justification". Are his wrong doings "justified" or "excused" by his past? what does "justified" imply? 

A lot of the things Arthur does up until act II aren't clearly bad. He does some things that can make him come off as a bit of an asshole, and the way he does things are odd, but they aren't blatantly corrupt.

Both Arthur and Dave are kind of losing it in act II. Arthur is mourning the death of his late father, and not in the somber saddened way, in like the manic confused way. He's angry that even in death he feels his father has an unreasonable favoring for Bax, someone who isn't even connected to them by blood. Basically he goes into an internal panic as he desperately tries to gain the approval of his dead father. As the plot progresses into act II, Arthur starts to give into the
pressure of taking on the more negative traits of his father. 

What's ironic is that he inadvertently kind of makes his own messy fucked up attempt at what his perspective of his father and Bax's relationship mixed with his own relationship with his father but with Dave. What was originally Arthur acting as an older brother figure to Dave became him forcefully becoming more parental and controlling of Dave, a full grown man.

This is basically how Dave started becoming restless in his situation, while his situation initially wasn't good this was his tipping point. IT'S LIKE, DISTRESSING. SOMEONE HE TRUSTS IS STEADILY BECOMING SOMEONE HE DOESN'T FEEL COMFORTABLE AROUND, AND HE KNOWS ARTHUR DOESN'T WANT IT TO COME OFF THAT WAY BUT THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING.

and that ends in Dave finally leaving the house

after 5 years of never stepping foot outside

and Arthur just

completely loses his mind

he doesn't know what to do anymore

Arthur does NOT do well with losing control of things. the main thing he relies on is keeping everything in his life under control, and having something as major as Dave leave is devastating beyond belief.

NOT ONLY THAT because it's not just that he's lost control of something he felt he needed to, a constant in his life, he also lost the only thing that separated him from his father.

no mater how many traits Arthur takes on of his father, his affinity for Dave is something inherently against his father's wishes. His father literally hated Dave, he thought Dave was a disruption and a waste of Arthur's time (also his father's main reason was quite literally that Dave was too ugly/vapid, I won't elaborate why, but Arthur's father just couldn't stand to see Dave around his house I suppose. Also probably hated having a loud mouthed kid who could be a possible witness.). And now Dave is just GONE and there's this huge conflict in Arthur.

At the same time there's these two pulling forces: Arthur being pulled to be even more like his father due to Dave's absence, and Arthur's attachment and want for Dave to come back seperating him even further than what his father would have wanted him to be.

What I mean by that is, for a lot of my OC's, their main angst/problem is not just major events or intense situations, it's usually a slow build up of things and the main problem is that they're stuck.

I'm going to use Dave as an example here, (I was gonna use d2 too but Dave's example became too long)

     LIKE Dave isn't living a traumatizing life as of current in the story of down, he's gone through some trauma but that trauma isn't his main problem. His main problem is he's stuck in such a,,, draining situation? Like, Arthur cares about Dave, he make's sure Dave gets everything Dave wants, essentially enabling Dave. In this, both Dave and Arthur kind of build Dave his own willing prison. He doesn't leave, he doesn't talk to anyone in person other than Arthur, He doesn't work unless he want's too, etc etc. But what he's done is let Arthur and himself make him almost entirely dependent.

     This makes Dave stuck in suck a weird situation, where he feels drained and degraded by the life he lives, but he also can't bring himself to do much about it. The idea of independence after so long is daunting, not only would it be difficult but he doesn't want to feel the shame of not being able to take care of himself.

    He also would feel bad for Arthur, he knows Arthur has controlling behaviors, he knows that Arthur doesn't treat him as an equal, but He also knows what Arthur has gone through. He's stuck in this weird debate with himself thinking that Arthur's genuine care for him and Arthur's trauma excuse for how he acts tword him.

    Dave is somehow living a terrible life but also not, I mean, It's obviously not a good quality of life, but he's technically getting everything he could ever want. It's just far from what he needs, and he knows that internally.

Dave's main decision in the comic is "Am I willing to give this up and how am I going/ how would I even move on after this."

yk as much as I say I love Dave as a character I have to restate I don't think I could stand this man if he was real. at least act 1 Dave. I'm sorry, I'm just, not willing to hang out with a guy who- ykw I'm just not willing to hang out with a 4chan user. I mean, he's on the lesser end of 4chan users. I'd have to be at a similar level low point.

Like I imagine he's one of those guy's who says something reasonable in a thread and then ruins it by calling the person he's replying to several slurs "for good measure."

god i am SO fucking glad he has people in his life who aren't just 4chan users, I do not know how Merlin puts up with him.

I MEAN ig if I was in Merlin's position, I would also probably stay friends with Dave. That's kinda a blurry thing in their friendship. Like, how far is the fact a big reason Merlin is friends with Dave is because he's worried about him from the fact the one of the reasons Arthur keeps Dave in his house is because he's worried about him?

I mean, I feel like the clear line is that the main main reason Arthur keeps Dave in his house is because he's over controlling of everything in his life, from his work to his very limited personal relationships.

But it still asks the question if Merlin staying friends with Dave primarily because he's worried about him is a good or even healthy reason to stay friends with someone. I mean it's not the only reason they're friend's, but there's this blurry line where even Merlin isn't exactly sure if he's friend's with Dave for the right reasons. I mean its not a black and white thing, what Merlin is doing isn't necessarily bad or good in my opinion, it's just a bit thought provoking and is something that depends on the situation. I will say it has to be exhausting though, I think Merlin can pressure him a bit too much to try and help others.

I mean I said earlier, I'd also have to be at a low point to consider being friends with Dave, and Merlin kinda is. I mean, he's in a much better place than Dave, I just think Merlin is very emotionally vulnerable. He's a guy who's unemployed due to mental health issues trying to figure out how he can make a living that doesn't drain the life out of him, being stuck in his apartment apart from short outings or walks outside and going places with Bax. In a way he kinda relates to Dave, and as someone who's sometimes overly sympathetic he feels bad for the situation Dave is in and wants to help him out.

I mean, sometimes it can be frustrating, as Dave is,,, Dave, and I think Merlin knows he needs to give Dave space/stay away from him at times since Dave can just get, tiring, and unreasonable, and also a bit triggering? Unfortunately Dave has a disregard for people's feelings at times and is very defensive but I think Merlin helped him learn that he needs to work on that a bit leading up to act 2.

I'm glad it end's up working out though, I think in Dave's condition there was no real way to have an entirely healthy friendship with him. That's why him and Merlin only really connect in the later half of act 2 when Dave is finally away from Arthur and can begin to be independent.