#| headcanon.

[mercymedic]

bsdm archetype

[destructivemindset]

gonna put this under a read more because it's long winded, and basically

warning for worship/religious beliefs!

basically i've been going back and forth for the past couple of weeks concerning dark's paganism. like i have the idea he's pagan, that's a solid headcanon for me. but also, i've been hesitant on the gods he'd worship, considering his chaotic, destructive and even murderous side.

and the conclusion i've come to, even with some research and a lot of googling, is that he does worship gods, complete with altars and rituals for purification. since he CAN'T do anything about his programming and urges, he makes do as best as he can with the control he does have.

dark probably has a couple of homes both in the real world and in the outernet (which is a whole entire sub-universe within the internet, and is virtually indistinguishable from the real world, but for digital beings). both homes have their fair share of altars for the gods he does pay homage to.

i primarily worship greek gods, so i don't know a whole lot about other cultures/gods, so i'm actively doing research. but for dark, he'd probably worship thanatos, hades and persephone, and hekate. hel, from the norse mythologies, and probably lucifer.

of course, he'd take this incredibly seriously. leaving offerings on the altars he has set up, routinely taking herbal baths/showers and reciting prayers to purify himself, and just keeping the gods in mind as he goes about his day. while lot of his behavior really isn't his fault, dark does lean into it, and he knows it'd be a huge offense to leave it and act completely unbothered by what he does.

dark is happily a villain. this doesn't change that he enjoys causing mayhem. but his views on unjustified murder are changing around slowly and gradually, and he's leaning on his gods and deities to help him suppress those particular urges so he can just enjoy the destruction without actually hurting people.

justified murder though, that's an entirely different story. if he's sent to kill someone who deserves it, he'll still perform his rituals, but he'll commit the crime with a smile on his face.

dark is evil, but sometimes even evil has standards.

[destructivemindset]

dark was created entirely for chosen. their creator intended for them to fight, for dark to take chosen out so he'd stop rampaging alan's computer, but dark's very tunnel-visioned and single-minded. his focus is zeroed in on chosen and everything chosen does, because that's his reason for existing, for living.

of course dark is going to be obsessed, in love, and everything. he wants to love chosen as much as he wants to kill him. dark's mind is constantly thinking about chosen, he orbits the other stick like his entire existence depends on it.

dark will never shake this obsession, he doesn't WANT to. chosen is his, his life, his heartbeat, his reason, everything.

he doesn't want it to ever change.

[destructivemindset]

dark values free will and the idea of choice more than anything else. part of that stems from not having much of it to begin with. when he was created, he was created and given programming that he can't fight off so easily.

granted, it was "destroy the chosen one", but given that his creator didn't know what he was doing when making four separate, SENTIENT stick figures, it's given dark a lot of destructive urges that he can't easily fight. while he leans into them most of the time, and even enjoys being an absolutely scourge of the universe, he still hates that he doesn't have much choice in the matter if he ever wanted to quit.

so being dragged into something he doesn't want to do, or being forced into an activity that he has no say over is not enraging, but panic inducing. because he values the little amount of free will he DOES have, dark doesn't like people forcing him away from what choices he CAN make for himself. he'll panic and lash out, do whatever he can to preserve his self worth and dignity.

he does not like being told what to do by anyone for any reason. he'll be far more comfortable with the choice being given to him. it keeps him far friendlier, too.

[destructivemindset]

dark is associated with spiders.

not in the literal sense that spiders crawl wherever he walks, nor will i actually reblog pictures of spiders, because i don't see him as a literal spider.

the trojan virus he created resembled a spider though. i like to think it's because he has a fascination with the arachnids, and likes seeing them whenever he's out and about.

in a way, i think this has dark favoring other entities who are associated with spiders or resemble spiders. i have yet to figure out the exact reason why he likes spiders so much, perhaps it's that they're seen as scary or bad by a lot of people, even if spiders actually aren't.

dark likes to play mind games though, so my guess is that he leans into the stereotype, especially with his own bots as a way of scaring people either away from him, or being loyal out of fear of him retaliating.

he's fully aware that spiders aren't inherently bad on their own, and that they can be quite beneficial too. though maybe he's using that aspect, too, as a way to gain people's trust.

[destructivemindset]

i mentioned it earlier but i actually do want to talk about dark's height more. inside someone's screen/monitor, he's fairly tiny, maybe an inch or just over an inch tall. he's a stick figure and wasn't meant to be very big in the first place. because of this, he doesn't have an accurate representation over how tall humans or similar beings actually are.

in trying to mimic their height, dark probably massively overestimates their height and ends up towering over them at first, or shrinking himself down to half their height. he's smart, but doesn't always have the common sense or a fair assessment over what standard height is, because that's not information he was created with.

dark is still learning about humans in general. it's one thing to do research and read countless wiki pages or surf social media sites, it's an entirely different game when he's actually trying to interact and mingle with them. which is why his actual height is so inconsistent, because dark doesn't actually know.

i feel like on average he's learned to settle around 6ft, since that is probably the one least likely to cause a huge ruckus.

y'know. aside from the fact that he's a stick figure with a rounded and hollowed out head.

[destructivemindset]

i feel like his canon counterpart would fall under one of the evil alignments, i'd assume neutral or chaotic evil. my own portrayal of dark, after some reflection, would be more chaotic neutral.

while he's still a dangerous threat and should not be messed with, he's not as prone to spontaneous murder sprees, not without good reason at the very least. he ultimately cares about himself for the most part, but he's also not above lending a hand if it serves him enough, and usually that payment is more what he finds amusing or beneficial.

dark is capable of performing decent acts, even heroic if it suits him, but that doesn't make him good, though it doesn't make him evil, either. he's very neutral, and stupidly chaotic about it.

not even he knows what he's going to do next, it's all just a roll of the dice.