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whatever
EPISODE 1: meeting
EPISODE 2: the latvian mob
EPISODE 3: a concussion
EPISODE 4: bench talk
EPISODE 5: break-in
[ what would someone following the number connected to dave strider notice during recon? well.
dave strider, thirteen, gangly and edging on getting taller but way too skinny, angular and bony in a way that says he could stand to eat more food more often. he constantly wears shades. he equally constantly wears long-sleeved shirts and jeans in the houston heat. dave is too careful to ever let that shirt ride up enough to show what's underneath, and he never lets his shades get jostled off his face in public.
the kid has more of an online presence than his brother. he runs a webcomic with an avant garde sense of style and some truly disturbing strips that occasionally seem to correspond with times his number has come up; he sells shit on the site sometimes, t-shirts or book compilations or keychains. the money isn't saved but tends to get spent on groceries. he trolls internet forms at random but does seem to speak regularly to at least three other kids, and has for at least three years. these conversations are all mostly superficial even though the kids are close. the deepest he ever gets in them is with rose lalonde, who lives in new york. sometimes they talk about his dreams.
to each of them he only has positive things to say about his brother, whom he idolizes.
the other half of his computer use seems to go to online school, which dave does all right on. he only occasionally misses deadlines, but more frequently turns shit in ahead of time. he participates haphazardly on the forums as required, but aside from an odd sense of humor and a decent grasp on the subjects, he doesn't say anything worth reading.
following dave in person is harder. he doesn't leave the apartment often except to go to the store, or occasionally the library. he has hung out in the park once or twice but always goes home the second his cellphone buzzes with a text. his interactions with other people are limited; he's polite and casually friendly and charming to the grocery store employees and the librarian, and he doesn't turn people away when they talk to him exactly, but he never discusses anything of note and always excuses himself pretty quickly. dave doesn't like to be touched and doesn't let it happen, never needing to flinch back because he moves faster than that, and doesn't let himself get in the position where someone will try to touch him.
at the store he gets apple juice and bread and peanut butter. or junk food that keeps longer, kept at the back of his closet. nothing he has to refrigerate or heat up. at the library he gets art and film books or photography collections or comics or shit like my teacher is an alien or animorphs or pretty much anything. he doesn't usually check them out to go back home, unless it's a thing for school. when he signs his name on anything it's a careful angular scrawl and he likes to do it in red - dave always keeps a red pen in his pockets. at the park he tends to sit on a bench with good sightlines and sometimes he'll feed birds bits of torn bread and sometimes he'll scroll through shit on his phone (tumblr, random sites, pesterchum) but mostly he just kind of sits there and listens to music.
he downloads a lot of music. sometimes he mixes up new shit and uploads it, sending it to his friends or occasionally just keeping it to himself. dave maintains some social media accounts but is weird about them. there are disjointed quotes or phrases and oddly angled pictures and he seems to treat them like some sort of joke only he gets, but he's almost dedicated to them like he doesn't seem to be to a lot of shit. there's a blog he used to update but doesn't any longer about tony hawk and other things and every glimpse into his mind through his words is unclear and a little off.
a lot of the time he seems to be in the apartment alone. he isn't always, despite appearances, and he knows it. there's a ton of surveillance equipment inside the apartment and dave treats the cameras and recording devices with a casual weariness and wariness. his brother is constantly monitoring both dave and the equipment; fucking with that would probably be a bad idea for anyone paying attention, but it might be possible to jack some of those frequencies, if you're careful.
inside the apartment he mostly stays in his room. when he comes out he's nervous and cautious but nothing ever shows on his face. even in the sanctity of his own room this is true; dave doesn't emote when he can help it and even when he jumps when a trap goes off, his expression doesn't change an iota. when he speaks his voice is low and too-texan, but he doesn't usually unless he's outside of the apartment and has to. there is no point, since his brother seems disinterested in speaking to the kid. he rambles in his interactions with other people online but in person always cuts them short, seemingly uncomfortable with talking for too long.
the one activity that takes up most of his time, however, is training. at any hour of the day or night dave might be called to the roof. bro owns the entire building, and no one has ever called in anything about the striders. if they have, it was taken care of quickly and quietly and nothing ever got to the people who might have done something with it. bro watches everything and this is how things go: dave goes up the stairs with a sword in hand and once he's at the top it starts and then it keeps going until it's over. sometimes it goes on past that. it can take hours on end or only a few minutes, and there isn't any way to predict which it's going to be. eventually dave's left alone and he lies on the roof for a bit until he picks himself up and goes back inside the apartment. he patches himself up quickly and efficiently and doesn't complain at all. the most he has ever done is inform john egbert he got his ass kicked, and john assumed dave was exaggerating like dave always does.
here's another thing to notice: dave strider is used to being watched. he's paranoid about it, trying to read from every tiny clue in his life what will happen next and coming up blank. so when there's an extra pair of eyes he notices after a few hours, and he doesn't like the feeling. he picks himself up off the roof and ignores a broken wrist and too many cuts to count and probably a few cracked ribs in order to lean over the edge of the railing, eyes scanning surrounding buildings with a tense little frown.
it's pointless to tell bro. it might be bro. is he supposed to confront the change or ignore it? it's impossible to tell when bro wants him to roll with something or dig his heels in, and if he can't figure it out quick before the inscrutable time limit runs out, bro will probably be disappointed. and also maybe mad? it's hard to tell if bro ever gets mad or anything else at all, but dave would like to avoid that eventuality and measure up, so...
so.
right.
he can't spot who might be watching him but he didn't expect to. he can never spot bro in the apartment, either. so maybe he needs to change the location? maybe this is counter-surveillance training. it's not the usual so it has to be something else, after all. he's too tired to think it through but that doesn't really matter because there's probably a time limit and he shouldn't be too tired for it so he can't be.
the next day dave will completely disregard his usual daily schedule and leave the apartment. his injuries are taken care of even if he's oddly careful about his wrist, a makeshift brace involving a wrist watch making it casual. dave can always make his walk seem easy and relaxed no matter what he's hiding. he doesn't go to any of his usual locations. instead he goes to the movie theater, wastes precious grocery money on a ticket for a random action movie, and immediately ditches through an emergency exit in the theater once he's zipped in.
he loiters around out of sight to see if he can catch anyone coming out after him.
there are a dozen other little trips and traps like that planned if his simple first-ditch effort doesn't work as he zigzags around the city with absolutely no gameplan, testing the waters to see what comes up. there's no possibility of waiting for probably-bro to explain himself, because bro doesn't do explanations. so. time to figure out the rules as best he can and hope it's what he's supposed to be doing.
the lack of any ominous texts to his phone is either encouraging or terrifying. dave can't be fucked to figure out which it is, exactly. ]
EPISODE 2: the latvian mob
EPISODE 3: a concussion
EPISODE 4: bench talk
EPISODE 5: break-in
[ what would someone following the number connected to dave strider notice during recon? well.
dave strider, thirteen, gangly and edging on getting taller but way too skinny, angular and bony in a way that says he could stand to eat more food more often. he constantly wears shades. he equally constantly wears long-sleeved shirts and jeans in the houston heat. dave is too careful to ever let that shirt ride up enough to show what's underneath, and he never lets his shades get jostled off his face in public.
the kid has more of an online presence than his brother. he runs a webcomic with an avant garde sense of style and some truly disturbing strips that occasionally seem to correspond with times his number has come up; he sells shit on the site sometimes, t-shirts or book compilations or keychains. the money isn't saved but tends to get spent on groceries. he trolls internet forms at random but does seem to speak regularly to at least three other kids, and has for at least three years. these conversations are all mostly superficial even though the kids are close. the deepest he ever gets in them is with rose lalonde, who lives in new york. sometimes they talk about his dreams.
to each of them he only has positive things to say about his brother, whom he idolizes.
the other half of his computer use seems to go to online school, which dave does all right on. he only occasionally misses deadlines, but more frequently turns shit in ahead of time. he participates haphazardly on the forums as required, but aside from an odd sense of humor and a decent grasp on the subjects, he doesn't say anything worth reading.
following dave in person is harder. he doesn't leave the apartment often except to go to the store, or occasionally the library. he has hung out in the park once or twice but always goes home the second his cellphone buzzes with a text. his interactions with other people are limited; he's polite and casually friendly and charming to the grocery store employees and the librarian, and he doesn't turn people away when they talk to him exactly, but he never discusses anything of note and always excuses himself pretty quickly. dave doesn't like to be touched and doesn't let it happen, never needing to flinch back because he moves faster than that, and doesn't let himself get in the position where someone will try to touch him.
at the store he gets apple juice and bread and peanut butter. or junk food that keeps longer, kept at the back of his closet. nothing he has to refrigerate or heat up. at the library he gets art and film books or photography collections or comics or shit like my teacher is an alien or animorphs or pretty much anything. he doesn't usually check them out to go back home, unless it's a thing for school. when he signs his name on anything it's a careful angular scrawl and he likes to do it in red - dave always keeps a red pen in his pockets. at the park he tends to sit on a bench with good sightlines and sometimes he'll feed birds bits of torn bread and sometimes he'll scroll through shit on his phone (tumblr, random sites, pesterchum) but mostly he just kind of sits there and listens to music.
he downloads a lot of music. sometimes he mixes up new shit and uploads it, sending it to his friends or occasionally just keeping it to himself. dave maintains some social media accounts but is weird about them. there are disjointed quotes or phrases and oddly angled pictures and he seems to treat them like some sort of joke only he gets, but he's almost dedicated to them like he doesn't seem to be to a lot of shit. there's a blog he used to update but doesn't any longer about tony hawk and other things and every glimpse into his mind through his words is unclear and a little off.
a lot of the time he seems to be in the apartment alone. he isn't always, despite appearances, and he knows it. there's a ton of surveillance equipment inside the apartment and dave treats the cameras and recording devices with a casual weariness and wariness. his brother is constantly monitoring both dave and the equipment; fucking with that would probably be a bad idea for anyone paying attention, but it might be possible to jack some of those frequencies, if you're careful.
inside the apartment he mostly stays in his room. when he comes out he's nervous and cautious but nothing ever shows on his face. even in the sanctity of his own room this is true; dave doesn't emote when he can help it and even when he jumps when a trap goes off, his expression doesn't change an iota. when he speaks his voice is low and too-texan, but he doesn't usually unless he's outside of the apartment and has to. there is no point, since his brother seems disinterested in speaking to the kid. he rambles in his interactions with other people online but in person always cuts them short, seemingly uncomfortable with talking for too long.
the one activity that takes up most of his time, however, is training. at any hour of the day or night dave might be called to the roof. bro owns the entire building, and no one has ever called in anything about the striders. if they have, it was taken care of quickly and quietly and nothing ever got to the people who might have done something with it. bro watches everything and this is how things go: dave goes up the stairs with a sword in hand and once he's at the top it starts and then it keeps going until it's over. sometimes it goes on past that. it can take hours on end or only a few minutes, and there isn't any way to predict which it's going to be. eventually dave's left alone and he lies on the roof for a bit until he picks himself up and goes back inside the apartment. he patches himself up quickly and efficiently and doesn't complain at all. the most he has ever done is inform john egbert he got his ass kicked, and john assumed dave was exaggerating like dave always does.
here's another thing to notice: dave strider is used to being watched. he's paranoid about it, trying to read from every tiny clue in his life what will happen next and coming up blank. so when there's an extra pair of eyes he notices after a few hours, and he doesn't like the feeling. he picks himself up off the roof and ignores a broken wrist and too many cuts to count and probably a few cracked ribs in order to lean over the edge of the railing, eyes scanning surrounding buildings with a tense little frown.
it's pointless to tell bro. it might be bro. is he supposed to confront the change or ignore it? it's impossible to tell when bro wants him to roll with something or dig his heels in, and if he can't figure it out quick before the inscrutable time limit runs out, bro will probably be disappointed. and also maybe mad? it's hard to tell if bro ever gets mad or anything else at all, but dave would like to avoid that eventuality and measure up, so...
so.
right.
he can't spot who might be watching him but he didn't expect to. he can never spot bro in the apartment, either. so maybe he needs to change the location? maybe this is counter-surveillance training. it's not the usual so it has to be something else, after all. he's too tired to think it through but that doesn't really matter because there's probably a time limit and he shouldn't be too tired for it so he can't be.
the next day dave will completely disregard his usual daily schedule and leave the apartment. his injuries are taken care of even if he's oddly careful about his wrist, a makeshift brace involving a wrist watch making it casual. dave can always make his walk seem easy and relaxed no matter what he's hiding. he doesn't go to any of his usual locations. instead he goes to the movie theater, wastes precious grocery money on a ticket for a random action movie, and immediately ditches through an emergency exit in the theater once he's zipped in.
he loiters around out of sight to see if he can catch anyone coming out after him.
there are a dozen other little trips and traps like that planned if his simple first-ditch effort doesn't work as he zigzags around the city with absolutely no gameplan, testing the waters to see what comes up. there's no possibility of waiting for probably-bro to explain himself, because bro doesn't do explanations. so. time to figure out the rules as best he can and hope it's what he's supposed to be doing.
the lack of any ominous texts to his phone is either encouraging or terrifying. dave can't be fucked to figure out which it is, exactly. ]
no subject
[He did not read it? He assumed it PRETTY EASILY THERE]
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[ at least........he's still talking to dirk Despite this? ]
And I don't see why chill backstories can't be a thing. Or just a chill continuum.
[ a show where nothing bad ever happened to anyone ever and nothing bad continues to not happen to anyone ever. forever. ]
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[This seems stupid, and Dirk is going to vocalize that with his tone.]
That's the slice of life genre. The modern preoccupation with tragic backstories really derives from the Romantic tradition of history-motivated individuality. While the concept of a backstory wasn't exactly foreign to premodern times, the sort of psychological realism that demands past trauma to motivate current action derives from that tradition, especially in its Gothic modes. It was combined with the obsession with accurate depiction of the human mind that happened in the 19th century and entered into comics when there was an interest in 'elevating' the genre by creating a psychological reality for its characters.
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[ also. that sure was a lot of words. ]
I dunno if the slice of life genre is even what I'm talkin' about. Like - the dumb day to day misunderstandings are better, but like. I mean a chill continuum where people just don't get angry or sad or worried or whatever. Mom and Dad are happy and don't work all the time. They don't constantly bicker or forget birthdays or whatever else happens in sitcoms or the kinda genre you're talkin' about. The kids don't really fight. They just kinda exist and do their own thing and that's ok. Sometimes they go and be chill in different locations but there's not any stress. I'd watch that kind of show, or read that kinda comic. But I don't think it's really a thing?
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[Look he. Is a nerd, still, honestly. He's still Dirk.]
I didn't mean sitcoms, I meant things like that Aria manga. Wasn't there famously pretty much just peacefulness and chill in that?
[He isn't Allowed to know Dave has a thing about manga. Even though he's pretty sure he knows]
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[ which really is all his time when bro hasn't requested dave get his ass to the roof? ]
Does your cop friend know about me?
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She knows that I got you dragged into things and made the Latvian mob want you dead. She doesn't know your number came up before.
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[ how much trouble is dirk in that's always a fun topic ]
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[And now, he will die for his sins.]
...And also escaping by breakin' through an apartment building. Which would be how she found out that I had a teen with me in the first place.
[Reports of a man in an ugly tank top and a teenaged boy breaking through an apartment building are notable and Jane immediately assumed it was Dirk.]
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[ like. that was illegal but surely he can't get into trouble for it if the lady isn't arresting dirk? because while dave has zero doubts bro can handle Jane he is...less than sure he wants his brother to be alerted to any wrongdoing. it might inconvenience his brother? ]
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[honestly, the biggest proof that Jane doesn't know who Bro is.
although she'd then want to arrest him but]
She might want to take you away from me and put you somewhere safe, but I'll tell her I'm the safest place around at the moment.
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Ok. The place they're meeting up is just over there. Not a maid cafe but it is a cafe?
[ is dirk morally opposed to all cafes or just maid cafes ]
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[Imagine how much deader Jane would want him, aside from his own moral qualms. Dirk follows Dave over to this non-maid cafe with his eyes alert for Suspicious Characters. He has basically clocked everyone around and how armed/dangerous they are out of habit. It occurs to him that Dave must do the exact same thing.]
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Maids aren't really that weird. [ HE LIVES...IN THE SMUPPET PALACE. ] You should get somethin' to eat.
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[The smuppet palace IS NOT NORMAL. Dirk would like Dave to be aware of this, please???
Anyway in this case Dave has to come with him to the cafe counter? Dirk orders orange juice, a panini, and some cookies.] What are you gettin', Dave? [Obviously Dave should get something to eat too?
Dirk knows how things are with Dave. Dirk, for his part, will not actually eat the panini. He is ordering a larger meal to encourage Dave to do the same.]
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[ HE'S PRETTY SURE although don't quote him on that.
uh. shit. he should probably get something to blend. despite dirk ordering a larger meal, dave ends up asking for a grilled cheese and a water. egbert liked grilled cheese, and the state of the strider kitchen pretty much meant dave had never really had one. may as well live it up!
that's like the cheapest sandwich he could get, though. ]
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[So that they can position themselves to be nosy eavesdroppers/observers.
Dirk would tell Dave he can order AJ but that's probably Being Creepy so he'll resist? Honestly a grilled cheese sandwich is better than what this kid usually eats. Maybe he'll manage to get him to take some cookies home.]
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[ they are. green lantern fanatics? the group near the back with shirts and shit is a good guess. dave will meander towards a booth with a good line of sight within hearing for dirk to get his creep on at, with the bonus of slotting dave himself with a wall to his back ]
Do you only work in Texas?
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[Casually noted like all the rest of his positive feedback has been.]
We work exclusively in Houston.
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he clears his throat. ]
So what happens to the people not in Houston?
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Why? You indicated it was a government...whatever. Why isn't there a damn task force or anythin'?
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