#i have so many drafts for didude but i wrote them ages ago so its a case of knowing what i still agree with and what ive changed

[consumed-by-fandom]

DIDude ramblings warning im being silly again.

P2’s a bit of an unwilling participant when it comes to the events of Postal 1. For most of their life all he’s tried to do is help P1, whether thats protecting him, standing up for him, getting him to socialise and making friends, the usual stuff you’d do as a kid/teen. And later on in the years he helps get them a job etc. it’s never fully clear to P1 what P2 is so he always gets confused on how he’s suddenly able to function without having to stammer his way through apology after apology for things that weren’t his fault. P2 tries to let him know he’s doing it all, but he’s never fully listened to because P1 still thinks he’s a demon.

He doesn’t care at first, he even finds it funny. But when it starts getting in the way of being listened to, and he’s never really thanked for what he does, it gets to him and he acts out in retaliation. Cuz to him P1’s just ignoring him and pretending he doesn’t exist and refusing to accept him despite him trying to help, so he instead goes along with the title of being some malevolent force. Lots of nasty arguments, judgement and picking apart every single flaw P1 has. Because that gets him to listen, when he’s not being nice. That has an effect.

When 1997 comes around and P1’s at his worst, he doesn’t try to talk him out of his mental spiral into paranoia and what his brain is tricking him into seeing. He just keeps taunting and pushing him, and when the massacre does happen he sees it as a confirmation that he was right and P1 was wrong. And it makes him feel good.

What doesn’t make him feel good is seeing the person he cares for most slowly degrade and become a former shell of himself. That scares him to his core, and what makes him try to get P1 to realise that what they’re doing isn’t right and that they’re heading towards a very bad end. He doesn’t succeed, of course, and so his only option left is to just keep him safe at any cost and try to enjoy the remaining few days they have left. Forces himself to enjoy it, even if he really doesn’t.

When he’s eventually left alone and forced to live as himself he just represses everything he went through, and even when P1 comes back years later they never really talk about it. It makes him feel awful thinking back because he was so immature to P1 that he only made things worse instead of just trying to get through to him. They do talk it out at some point but even then its something that hangs around in the back of his mind as something he’s still capable of falling back into, just how flawed he truly is.

I like to think his “regret nothing” mindset is just a positive mantra that gets him through each day and allows him to see the joy in a world full of shit, but I also like to see it as a rule of sorts he has to follow. Because if he did have regrets (and he DEFINITELY does) they would eat him alive. His definition of acceptance is never actually what acceptance is. He thinks its “this exists/happened and I’m acknowledging it” and not “this exists/happened and thats okay, I’m willing to use this as a way to become a better person and heal”

Dude’s system basically works as both a way to survive and cope with their trauma, but also as a way to accept everything the Dudes are without shame or hatred. Yeah, they’re violent assholes with a lot of issues, but they’ll never be able to improve themselves if they don’t accept that’s who they are and learn to love the good parts of themselves too.