Oh man as soon as I clicked the link to the comic that inspired you I could tell it would be a good one and I was super hype to see your take on the idea - and you just blew it outta the park like holy shit everything I didn’t know I needed in an angst fic omg
As a long time phic reader the first walker bit almost felt like a Cori Pits callback - the way Danny is completely traumatized and the cell is described and the relief that someone came back for him and the loneliness ahhh
And and then the way the mystery builds and It’s like is Danny pushing things outta his mind bc he needs to or is this a drawback of the duplicates diyeing??
And the way I read it, are Vlad and Danny using complete different methods of duplication? Like maybe your intention goes into it and Vlad intends for the duplicates to be expendable minions - but Danny would never have considered that, and essentially tried making a copy of himself as best he could
Anyway those are the things my mind considered while reading bc I cannot focus on just one thing but my main point here is I liked the fic thank you it was a lovely surprise!!
> As a long time phic reader the first walker bit almost felt like a Cori Pits callback
Like, no this doesn't take place in the same AU as Pits. but i can't NOT make a reference to Danny spending an extended period of time as Walker's prisoner without my brain going "Pits Pits Pits Pits" and tbh I kind of assume everyone else is thinking the same
>It’s like is Danny pushing things outta his mind bc he needs to or is this a drawback of the duplicates dying??
oh I LIKE that ambiguity. I wrote with the intention of the first one, but the idea that the actual death of the duplicates has an impact on Danny's awareness of himselves is chilling
>are Vlad and Danny using complete different methods of duplication?
here's the thing - their duplication method is exactly the same. The one and only difference is in their attitudes to their duplicate selves.
Vlad does not worry the way Danny does about which self he is when he duplicates. HE is standing there in front of Danny talking, so HE is Vlad. He's enough of a narcissist to be satisfied with that answer. It would take tapping deep into empathy to consider what any lost duplicate may be going through, and it's not worth his attention or energy.
And importantly at the point in the fic that Vlad and Danny talk, Danny had already decided to save one of his selves from Walker's prison. He's whole again with that self. And so Danny deeply understands the terror of being left behind, in a way Vlad does not, because all the Vlad in front of Danny is no part the Vlads who were ever left behind.
>I liked the fic thank you it was a lovely surprise!!
