eternaldipshit

[eternaldipshit]

I found your blog through your fic and I just wanna say your fic is fresh as hell and I look forward to the next update (no pressure tho)

THANK YOU SO MUCH <3 i’m glad you’re enjoying it! ㅠㅠ i’ve never had my writing described as ‘fresh’ but that’s such a nice compliment i’m cry 

[eternaldipshit]

chap 7 aside

dave REALLY needs to learn how to compartmentalize. idk how long it’s gonna take him to stop freaking out so much, especially since every time i think about the situation i put him in, i’m like ‘yeah this seems about right’. so it’s gonna be rough for awhile, but regardless of that i think the internal monologue prose is escaping me sometimes. think i’m just allergic to brevity. but also dave’s feelings are Complicated. UGH.

i’m doing my best, in my own ‘i’m incapable of saying anything in less than twenty words’ way. still, i have a feeling this will be a chapter i come back to and edit later on to make it more coherent. expect that in like four years maybe.  

next: a lot of my scenes aren’t pre-planned. i never had a plan for dave to take pics of the puppets, but now it’s led to like 10k more words. i also hadn’t planned for that convo with john. this just goes to show how little actual control i have over this story. shit controls me, not the other way around. 

another thing: the movie nights thing is entirely made up, but could you imagine? rose would make them all watch shit like black and white french movies (not even because she likes them, but just to hear them all complain), jade would pick shit like zootopia and studio ghibli (tbh everyone but john looks forward to her nights the most), john would pick the obvious, and dave would pick horror movies, but not ones that would actively scare him, only ones that are kinda like horror movie parodies. like shaun of the dead. everyone has fun guessing the kill order. ahh, the possibilities.

THERE ARE STILL SO MANY THINGS THAT I WANT/NEED TO WRITE. THIS CHAPTER FELT LIKE FILLER, BUT UGH. every time i want to skip ahead in the story i find myself bemoaning lost opportunities for conversations or moments with dirk/dave. this means it’ll take fuckever to get to actual big plot developments, but i think it’ll be worth it. for me, at least. some of my favorite parts of homestuck were parts that involved literally just talking/interacting, after all. 

that being said, i have no idea when any of my bigger plot relevance things will happen. i have a VAGUE idea, but it can change at any time. story has a mind of its own, after all. shit’s fucking sentient. it can probably hear me talking about it. 

i wanted to write more from dirk’s persp, but dude’s literally just cleaning. what can ya do. luckily, more dirk next chapter. some might call it an abundance of dirk. dave would call it an overabundance, but his feelings on this matter are skewed. 

also i KEEP FORGETTING CHAPTER TITLES WHEN I POST. then i remember like 6 hours later and have to come up with one that at least somewhat fits. i am a mess at all times. 

and finally, i promise less meta antics in the future. clearly i had a power trip with this one. 

[eternaldipshit]

okay so one of the reasons i think i’m so good at writing dave is bc we have very similar patterns of writing - a lot of my socializing happens via text, and out of any homestuck character i resemble him the most when it comes to messaging. the next being karkat, bc i have a lot of rage and many words with which to express it. 

HOWEVER. i’m going through and editing the most recent chapter and i’m beginning to realize that i curse waaaaaay more than him. at least i think i do. at this point i use curse words like someone else uses ‘uhhhh’ in conversations. i see the word ‘fucking’ and it translates to ‘um’ in my head a lot of the times, so my brain skims over curses like they’re a fuckin ‘the’ or ‘an’ and i know dave curses more than the other kids, but given the fact that they curse more rarely than my three-year-old nephew, that isn’t saying much. 

so i’m working to get rid of some of his more sailor-esque lines. i’m sorry if it’s still excessive. also, i’m sure many people didn’t even notice it until reading this, and by me posting this i’ve brought attention to it and now you’ll never be able to unnotice it. OH WELL. been digging my own graves and sticking my foot in it since birth i ain’t about to stop now 

AND I KNOW NO ONE FOLLOWS THIS BLOG BUT NEW CHAPPIE SOOOOON i want to say that we actually progress in the story with this chapter but that’d be a fucking lie

[eternaldipshit]

chap 6 aside

getting back into writing this is actually... surprisingly a lot easier than i thought it’d be? and my god the RESPONSES! people who had been waiting months for updates commenting within the first few days of me updating! gives me ALL THE GOOD FEELS THANK YOU

a huge thing i’m struggling with rn is characterization. since i’ve been away from this fic and the homestuck fandom for awhile, i feel like i’m not doing as much justice to these characters as i was? but i might just be overblowing it??? guess we’ll find out!

also i felt kinda bad that my first chapter back wasn’t strider-centric, but i’m glad people didn’t have at least a vocal negative reaction to the jane-centric chapter. as i’ve mentioned before, i believe jane got done dirty in the epilogues. as someone mentioned in the comments, her character wasn’t really built-upon all that much in the main story, so this IS, i guess, more an interpretation of her character on my part than canon but cmon. MORE JANE LOVE. 

that being said i feel kinda bad bc i wanted to keep characterization as true to canon as poss and jane and jake are SO FUCKING HARD FOR ME TO WRITE? ALSO JOHN. AND JADE. PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE WHO ISN’T A STRILONDE. optimism? can’t relate. 

so i apologize for OOCness BUT AT THE SAME TIME

this fic is still LARGELY self-indulgent. i’m going to warn once again that it is going to move g l a c i a l l y  slow. like act 1 homestuck slow. except fucking slower. ffs we’re still on day two and we’re 60k (technically 70k bc my word doc) words in. it’s not so much a plot-propelled story as it is just literally seeing the days through the eyes of the striders. also i was not joking about pointless pesterlogs (fkn love writing pesterlogs), although up until now i think all of them had at least some bearing on the overarching plot? but i could be wrong 

also i have like scraps of potential future scenes written out and it helps to encourage me to keep going bc these scenes are HILARIOUS. i’m tempted to spoil some of them here on my tumblr (which i’ve yet to share on my ao3 account, but i’ll do it next update) since we might not get to them in the next ten years (or fucking ever) but i’ll hold off. FOR NOW. maybe. i have very poor impulse control. 

and the VERY LAST THING i will say! i wasn’t lying on ao3 when i said i didn’t expect anyone to read it, so the supportive comments i’m getting and the kudos and the bookmarks are all so crazy to me (in an amazing way obviously). every new comment in my inbox makes me smile and flail around like a buffoon istg. y’all are too fkn sweet to me and i have never in my life finished a story this long but i am going to do my best to stick with this!!!

love you all, and thanks for reading <3

[eternaldipshit]

idk why this is funny to me but i was looking at the tubtuh tags on ao3 and i was like ‘i would not read this’ 

[eternaldipshit]

chap 5 aside

okay so i just posted chapter five and idk how much i wanna address of what i’m feeling when no one even follows this blog but i want to get it all out before i forget

it’ll probably be reiterated in the next chapter notes if i remember but omfg i really showed my age by having to google ‘chef’s kiss’ after two people used it in comments like omfg i thought it was like a reference to another piece of media? that i was somehow unwittingly ripping off?? and then i saw what it actually was and i, for the first time, felt like an Actual Fucking Boomer

not that i’m THAT old but holy shit. i am so out of the loop these days. 

anyway the comments i’m getting are soooo fucking nice and i kind of want to respond to them but i’m so awkward and just really not into the whole socializing thing right now for reasons so just know that i’m reading and using them all as encouragement whenever i feel down on myself about this actual dumpster fire of a fic

so let’s see what else i wanna say about tubtuh before i forget uhh

so originally the plan was haha jk there was no plan but originally i had dave completely disenchanted with bro like just. idk. i was looking at it black and white, but after having a conversation with my father (who was psychologically abused as a child) i realized that this shit is A LOT more complicated. well to be fair to me i always knew dave’s relationship with bro was complicated af but i wasn’t giving it the proper depth that it should have. i think even after dave recognizes that he’s been abused and fully acknowledges it, he’ll still love his bro on some level. this is the guy he looked up to massively after all, who raised him, and who dave tried to emulate for a long ass time (though that might have been partially out of fear?). idk if i’ll ever do this complicated dynamic justice but i’m trying to make it as in-character as poss and i’m worried i’m fucking it up idk ughughugh

that wasn’t very coherent but moving on

i’m not good at writing dirk not only because he’s a hundred times smarter than me, but also because his character wasn’t as fleshed out as dave’s was (at least in my opinion) and part of the reason i was so excited about the epilogues was bc i wanted to see more of dirk finally after all these fucking years!!! and then the epilogues shot that hope in the head and shat on its corpse so i tossed that whole experience into an incinerator and tried my best with what was given before that. 

granted, some of his character was influenced by what all i read in that horrid piece of garbage - see: his breakdown in that last chapter. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again - my take on epilogue dirk was that his enhanced prince of heart powers exacerbated his underlying issues with megalomania and his need to be in control. i don’t consider it out of the realm of possibility. even if i fucking loathed it to hell and back, it can be justified. 

i also see it as a flaming pile of horseshit tho, so there’s that. if you want to see my unfiltered thoughts on the epilogue, i’m pretty sure it’s the first post i ever made on this blog lmao fuck the epilogues. 

uhhhhh another thing i’m worried about is... pretty much all the beta kids lmao. i don’t think i have any of their voices right. also don’t wanna spoil anything but i really... never shipped dirk/jake with the exception of when it was first introduced and i was actively thrilled for an actual gay couple in a piece of popular media (which was a way bigger deal back then than it is now) and then things progressed and i just... jake seems... aromantic to me? i don’t think he’s asexual, but he only ever entertained the idea of romance when he felt romantic intentions directed at him. also, in his relationship with dirk (what little we saw of it anyway), he didn’t seem super into dirk in like the romantic sense? idk. i mean i know dirk was overbearing af but jake’s heart just didn’t seem in it and after that i’m pretty sure he’s like ‘i think i’m not meant for romantic relationships’ but i’m too lazy to check.

and i know that’s going to be a point of contention bc a LOT of people ship jake/dirk. and that’s fine, i’m obvs not against people shipping it, i just don’t think i would ever succeed in writing a dynamic that i can’t fully get behind? but we’ll see. 

also? jane got done fucking DIRTY in the epilogues. her and jade were both characters that i initially despised mostly bc i had this thing before college where i hated other women for no reason if they were too girly and heyo now i’m fucking gay.

anyway i love jane and jade now and jade also got done dirty in the epilogues (budum TSSS sorry) and i intend to ignore the epilogues espesh with those two bc again, fuck the epilogues. 

and the LAST point i will make in this already egregiously long post is that i have no idea how long i’m going to write this story, if i’m ever going to finish it, or even the direction it’s going. the end goal, though, is a happy ending. because these kids have been through hell and they deserve it.

i lied. the last point i will make: fuck the fucking epilogues. 

[eternaldipshit]

but consider this: sports fans watch sport bc they can’t sport as well or they’re a fan of the team or just for funsies

writers read other people’s writing bc they can’t write as well or they’re a fan of the author or just for funsies

both sports fans and writers look at sport and writing respectively and think ‘i would love to do that’ and then don’t fucking do it

are we really so different

[eternaldipshit]

dave is such a big fucking dumb idiot and i can and will kill people for him

[eternaldipshit]

it’s been five years

when will carne vale stop triggering my fight or flight response

[eternaldipshit]

if anyone so much as whispers the words ‘epilogues’ around me they get to watch as i dissolve into a fit of frothing incandescent rage 

[eternaldipshit]

Dave: Stop panicking.

Panicking? What panicking? You’re the epitome of chill.

See? You wrestle your expression into a facsimile of its usual aloofness, kind of like a party trick. Not that it really matters, since Bro already saw it slip, but maybe it would quell some of his anger to see you were able to pull it back together so quickly.

Small-Bro’s brow furrows in confusion, and the grip on his sword goes lax. You’re not sure how yet, but this has got to be some sort of trick. Did he hire a creepily similar body-double off Craigslist to fuck with Dave? Did he clone himself? You wouldn’t put it past him. Either case indicates that this is not technically your Bro, which you find highly unlikely considering his reflexes and propensity to grab the nearest sharp object when startled. Somehow, this is your Bro. You just haven’t figured out the ‘how’ yet.

His lips part at the same time that your brain decides to continue to fuel this non-stop festival of idiocy and possibly secure your inevitable beating.

“Bro?” you both ask.

And really, what the fuck.

Be Not-Bro.

Go back.

Start over.

[eternaldipshit]

Dave: Calm down.

You don’t calm down.

In fact, you make a soft, garbled noise of distress that roughly translates to you drowning in your own brain juices that are probably seeping from your ears right now. Small-Bro startles and he’s up in the next second with a sword in one hand, holding up his slipping black pants in the other. You’d flinched into a ready stance by rote as soon as he moved, but he makes no other advance towards you.

Also, he is positively swimming in what was previously a well-fitting outfit.

And he looks as shocked to see you as you are to see him.

The two of you stare at each other like you’re in an old Western and the futon is the tumbleweed, except replace the guns with swords and replace the steely gazes with dumbfounded dropped jaws and then you have this clusterfuck of a mess and good lord you didn’t even know Bro’s face had that kind of range in emotion and it’s starting to freak you out. You say starting, but what you actually mean is that your heart is pounding a beat in your throat and your palms are sweating, knees weak, mom’s spaghetti and god dammit you have no idea what to do with this shit. Your whole survival—you mean, living, just living with your Bro is an exercise in learning his patterns, his tells, his moods. The guy’s never been predictable by any means, but you’ve gotten better and better at searching out the most subtle of changes to let you know what might be flying at your face longways in .5 seconds.

This. This is out of your range of practice. This is so far out of the range it’s wandered into the neighboring farm and started fucking their bull.

Looking at him is making your head hurt. Your thoughts are a jumble between not in years and yesterday, it’s not him and but it is, and he’s a good dude and he’s going to stab me. Your brain gets caught on isn’t your Bro but it is and wow here goes another line of circuitous thinking that makes no fucking sense damn you are on a roll and damn you are definitely not freaking out or scared in any way.

Wow, you sure did severely underestimate just how quick this day would plummet into shithole oblivion.

Dave: Stop panicking.

Go back.

Start over.

[eternaldipshit]

Be Dave.

You were already being Dave, but okay. You decide to take pity on the author and her incomprehensible wiles that only ever lead to awful jokes.

Ahem.

Your name is DAVE STRIDER.

First and most importantly, you are COOL. EXTREMELY COOL. Just THE MOST AWESOME DUDE IMAGINABLE and no amount of WEIRD PSEUDOTHERAPY from your SISTER will CONVINCE YOU OTHERWISE.

Wait, did you say sister?

You meant friend.

Thank fuck Rose isn’t here to catch that slip, she’d have a fucking field day. It’d be a whole ass romp in the field of notebooks that she’s filled with recordings of your fucked-up psyche. She’d lay a damn picnic down in the field, pat the blanket next to her all inviting, then discuss what it all means when you make constant sexual innuendos at someone right before referring to them as your sister.

…

You are currently IN YOUR ROOM where you were previously MESSAGING YOUR BEST BRO before you heard your ACTUAL BRO start swearing after a LOUD CRASH from what sounds like the LIVING ROOM.

You are DAVE STRIDER and you are FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.

Not solely due to the fact that the only time you’ve ever heard Bro so pissed off is when he’s either drunk or… nope, only when he’s drunk. Every other time he’s pissed off, which you’re pretty sure is always, he’s just silently pissed off. The loud, sober swearing is a new and different kind of terrifying, in that you have no idea what it means besides maybe multiple, painful strifes in your impending future.

Not that you’re scared, of course. Striders don’t feel fear.

They do, however, feel discombobulated. Especially when their quasi-abusive Bro just screamed ‘FUCK’ from the other room when he is most definitely sober and you, for some reason, have no memory of the past three years and god dammit you were trying not to think about it.

The coma lie memories part is probably definitely more terrifying – or it would be, if you had the capacity to feel even an iota of fear.

You “remember” everything, sure. You remember idle chats with friends, an unremarkable few birthdays, the usual beatdowns from your Bro, mixing music… But it’s all almost… nondescript to an eerie extent. There is no specific or out-of-ordinary thing you can call to mind about the past few years. Everything seemed far too… normal. Static. As if someone took a canvas of your life and just… filled in the blank spaces with what they thought fit best.

You remember making a sandwich yesterday as quietly as possible while your Bro snoozed on the futon, but you have no memory of what it was made of. You don’t remember the taste. Hell, you don’t even remember actually doing it, if that even makes sense (it doesn’t).

It’s not even just some weird existential crisis from the nightmare either. There is something in every fiber of your being that is just whispering wrong no wrong no over and over again and it sounds like the ticking of a clock, which you think should be significant but you can’t think why.

The absolute worst part of it all though, hands fucking down, is that ever since you woke up this morning from that godawful mindfuck, you’ve felt like half of you was missing. It was like someone came in overnight and just tore out half of what makes you who you are and now…

Now you have no idea what any of it means.

The longer you think about it, the more your head hurts, and the more backwards your thinking gets until you can’t think anything except ‘I remember everything but I don’t remember anything’ and isn’t that the most bass ackwards thing anyone’s ever done thought. Rose would definitely have a field day with that and why do you keep having weird brotherly thoughts towards Rose? Didn’t you have some strange sort of not-crush thing going on that manifested itself in antagonizing, incredibly embarrassing, kind of sexual chats? Why does even the mere thought of that make you want to gag now?

You hear Bro curse again - or maybe not a curse, but some sort of exhalation just occurred that you couldn’t really make out through the closed door. Hell, a normal person probably never would have picked it out through all the ambient noise of city life in an apartment building, but your ears are a fine-tuned instrument and the notes are Bro’s movements. That analogy didn’t make sense, but whatever, you’re Strider-discombobulated. Discomstriderlated.

Damn are you glad no one can hear your thoughts sometimes.

Anyway, you’ve never heard that sort of sound out of Bro, not even when you’re able to land a glancing blow on him during strifes. The man may as well be a goddamned mute with how much he verbalizes.

It’s probably, as always, some sort of test or trap. Still, you’d rather get the shit kicked out of you right now then deal with whatever the fuck your brain is doing, screaming at you like some sort of scorned she-witch. It’s rare that you actively seek confrontation with your Bro, and by rare you mean you’ve never done it. Usually, he kicks your ass enough that you never have to seek him out even if you wanted to… which you… guess is considerate?

You should really stop defending all his bullshit. He’s fucking abusive.

…

And where did that come from?

You go and retrieve the shitty sword you’d dropped next to your bed earlier.

Less thinky winky more strifey wifey.

You tense while you inch towards the door, sword in hand. You have years of practice keeping yourself as light-footed and silent as possible. Hell, you’re so acquainted with doors and the many ways of making them as noiseless as fucking possible that it’s—

Sad. It’s fucking sad, is what it is. You don’t even have a doorknob. You removed it yourself because those fuckers are noisy, and not even worth it. If Bro wanted in your room, it ain’t like a lock would stop him. You’re actually 90% sure he uses the air vents somehow, but you really don’t wanna know.

You stuffed a wad of socks in the hole to maintain some sort of semblance of privacy, and honestly what else are socks good for besides stuffing in vacant doorknob holes? If they have another purpose, you damn well don’t know what it is.

Especially considering how many extra pairs of socks you own. Bro makes it a point to get you a pair for every holiday, for the irony. Obviously, it’s hilarious. Your Bro is hilarious and the king of irony and definitely, in no way, abusive. You have no idea why that thought has even crossed your mind twice, possibly even thrice now! Haha!

Fuck.

Today fucking sucks.

You push open the door as slowly as humanly possible, even though Bro is making a veritable shitton of noise, by his standards. He’s mumbling to himself from the direction of the futon, not even bothering to keep it down, and now you’re starting to rethink this because maybe the dude’s finally fucking cracked. Who knows? Maybe insanity is fucking catching in the Strider household. Maybe this’ll finally be the day he just snaps and kills you.

What? What are you saying? Bro would never do that. Bro’s a dude. A guy. A real one. He would never intentionally harm you if it wasn’t for the specific purpose of making you even cooler, like him. You lied about being at the top of the arrow. That’s actually Bro. You are the one doing the toe sucking and ew ew ew gross gross stop that train of thought immediately.

The door is open far enough now that you can make out his shape, hunched over slightly on the futon and—

The first thing you notice is the flyaway anime hair.

He’s not wearing his hat. You can see the pointy edges of his shades, but the signature hat is nowhere to be found. The only time you’ve seen the dude without it is after showers, and even then, rarely.

But—that’s not even the weirdest shit what the fuck.

In your shock, you swing the door open wider, and Bro (Not-Bro?) doesn’t make any indication that he’s aware of your presence.

Okay, the dude is clearly your Bro, but he’s not. He’s—he’s—

He’s small.

His shoulders aren’t nearly as broad, his arms are half their usual size, and from your fairly shit vantage point he seems to be missing quite a few inches from his height. Not to even mention the hints of baby fat you spy in his cheeks from the side profile, and the fact that he’s actually frowning. He’s emoting, for fuck’s sake. The world has got to be ending. You’re pretty sure you’re having an aneurysm.

There’s something flickering on his glasses, some white and orange and red, but you can’t focus on that. You are way past focusing on anything. This has to be some sort of weird dream bubble and what the fuck is a dream bubble? Why did you even think that? Why is your Bro suddenly Small-Bro? Why do you have coma not-memories?!

Dave: Calm down.

Go back. 

Start over.

[eternaldipshit]

i hate the homestuck fandom i’ll be scrolling through posts and laughing my ass off at one and then the very next one i will burst into tears stop

[eternaldipshit]

Be Dave.

Go back.

Start over.

[eternaldipshit]

Dave: Commence ablutions.

Weird way to put it, but sure. 

You go about your day on auto-pilot, avoiding going into the living room where you know your Bro is probably sleeping. You move from one menial task to another, unable to shake the feeling of lack. You keep getting weird senses of wrong - like the feeling that you haven’t been here in years, despite knowing you’ve lived here your whole life. But as soon as that thought occurs to you, a counter-thought will pop up and say something along the lines of ‘but you haven’t’ even if there is no evidence to support it other than gut instinct and what the fuck is up with that ticking in your head?

Tick. Tock. 

Yeah, that one. 

The thoughts that aren’t yours but are and the memories that aren’t yours but are and that fucking goddamn stupid nightmare are making this day shape up to be something incredible. You can’t wait to see what other mind-numbingly insanity-inducing things are in store for you. Maybe your computer will BSOD, maybe your AJ will run out, maybe your Bro will kick you down another flight of stairs – who knows!

Tick. Tock. 

You can’t fucking wait. 

Until then, you’re going to distract yourself. You mix music, draw shitty art, surf the web, eat an entire bag of Doritos from your closet stockpile, and generally just do your best to not think until you see your buddy come online. 

You wonder how he’d feel if he found out you’re finally losing your goddamn marbles on his birthday. 

You figure he would not be very happy about it. 

Good thing he’s about as observant as a security camera with a blanket thrown over it.

Dave: Pester John already.

Go back.

Start over.

[eternaldipshit]

Dave: Wake up.

Bitch, what did you just say? 

You’re already awake, standing in the middle of your room with a sword in your hand, panting quietly while the sheet you use as a blanket drifts to the floor. You do a quick sweep of the room with your eyes, straining your ears for any sign of Bro. When there is none, you relax a little, falling back on the bed, dropping the sword, and taking time to stare down at your shaking fingers. You raise them to watch them vibrate with detached fascination, and realize that you feel… empty, like you’re a few critical pieces short of a full Dave Strider. 

Tick. Tock. 

You blame that whole existential crisis nightmare you just experienced and move on.

It’s around noon and it’s sweltering. Your AC unit must be busted again. Sweat coats you like a thin, protective layer of disgusting fear juices. Your hair clings to your forehead and you brush it away with a small scowl.

You need a shower.

You fucking hate nightmares. 

The more annoying part is that it didn’t even feel like one at first, but as per usual, your brain decided to psyche you out with a possible pleasant experience before positively fucking you raw. 

You spend an inordinate amount of time glaring at your legs because for some reason, without the stab of adrenaline, your whole body feels weak like you’ve just gone through a particularly vicious bout of the flu. Or like you had your ass handed to you thrice-diced by your beloved Bro. Either or. 

Except you remember neither of those things happening yesterday.

In fact, you don’t remember yesterday happening at all. 

Panic seizes your throat at that realization and you frown, tamping it down and focusing harder. 

No. You remember.  

You talked to John about the birthday present you sent him – a National Treasure boxset, but obviously he didn’t know that yet, unless the mail already came for him today. You talked to Jade about mixing a track together. You worked on a SBaHJ comic. Your Bro left around midnight for a gig and you fell asleep a few hours after. 

Tick. Tock. 

But… you don’t remember doing any of that. 

You remember it happening, but not doing it, and what the fuck are you even talking about right now Jesus Christ. That dream must have fucked you up more than you thought. You push a hand through your grody hair and then scrub at it viciously. It is way too early for this shit. 

You get up to take a shower.

Dave: Commence ablutions. 

Go back.

Start over.