mmk some post-canon rambling. for those who aren't familiar with the end of dnangel, daisuke's curse and the hikari's magic essentially gets undone causing the world (minus daisuke) to forget all about dark, leaving daisuke free to live his life and make his own choices as just himself without ever transforming into dark again. this does not stop my dai from carrying on both dark's memory and service as a phantom thief, however. for daisuke, keeping dark's memory and existence alive through himself only feels right, (the same way dark has been keeping the first, deceased niwa’s memory alive through himself,) and he's not afraid to admit at this point that stealing is fun and feels good for him; he's gained confidence. stipulations though!
< strict policy of stealing only what people 'can afford/wouldn't miss'. feelings of greedy jealousy or general avarice are exempt from this condition; he doesn't care how much someone values the monetary worth of something, only whether or not they truly, sentimentally appreciate and love it for what it is. that chaotic good has got to stay in place, meaning 'dark's' targets generally include hikari pieces that survived merely as ordinary (yet still very beautiful) artworks, the belongings of the corrupt or things stolen first from the innocent, artworks he thinks are beautiful being abandoned or abused, etc. if something legitimately precious is somehow stolen from someone, he'll give it back within a single night. these sorts of circumstances aside, daisuke very, very rarely if ever truly steals to satisfy his own materialistic desires rather than just indulging in the thrill.
< because the magic was undone post-canon 'dark' is basically just daisuke playing dress-up. he doesn't have wings anymore, though he still doesn't need them to jump and land twenty floors. the rest of dark's 'image' is carefully maintained: height, clothes, hair, voice and speech pattern, whatever. 'dark' will still speak like dark, though there's a subtle, albeit still very present difference in the way that post-canon 'dark' and my regular canon-verse dark talk, namely in regards to his own sentiments. their somewhat split and tenuously traded awkwardness has dissolved; dark's apathy, aggression, and general bad-at-true-intimacy assholery melts away into daisuke's warmth, who's likewise worked up enough confidence in himself to no longer be the anxious, nervous mess he usually is. at least while he's dark, he actually knows how to lie and navigate through conversations pretty well by now, and while he's not as blatantly flirty as dark was, he still has the role of a dreamy gentlemanly thief to play.
< canon daisuke is 14-15 and in middle school, post-canon is 17-18 and in highschool. he's in his last year and is about to go to university, for which he's hoping to get into for art. when he isn't stealing he's painting, and he's really putting his all into it whenever he's not doing something else (like spending time with a friend.) canonically he'd still be with riku as her boyfriend, but as far as my portrayal goes, daisuke is still single yet going to the occasional coffee shop date or buying flowers for someone. he's a little awkward around strong personalities, of course, because that's just him, but he's very much at a place that's comfortable even for his overflowing heart since he doesn't have to worry about the curse and its involuntary transformations anymore. wiz, argentine, towa, the other arts and dark himself haven't woken up or shaken off their stone yet, but daisuke's already grieved them all and continued to live and move on; whenever he starts to miss them, he puts his heart into something that he creates for them; thanks to them, whether or not he'll ever actually get to show them.
