#daisuke doesn't know how to show people the physicality of his curse; dark doesn't know how to show and bare his heart without growling

[dnangelic]

i've said some of this before but nobody's ever obligated to fall immediately over themselves at dark's feet. even so whether anybody including dark himself likes it or not, he is still, in fact, (in)famous. his pride and self-gloating isn't all just hot air. he has a LOT of influential power in canon and can send enormous crowds of people to locations just by putting his card out. fans want him, cops and detectives want him, the media goes hog wild and drops everything at the mention of dark mousy. for some examples a failed attempt at stealing a forgotten artwork in a museum that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere immediately resulted said artwork being moved, polished up, and barricaded behind 24893859 layers of security in an extremely high security building. this 2 page spread from the manga is real. in interactions, if you ever need a crowd for whatever reason, dark can generate one in an instant. he can seduce and ask for favors, he has the charisma check rights to almost always get his way or to get away with things when he tries. he can constantly make things happen around him by wielding his fame, he's the guy who can stuff restaurants and stages and block up streets or distract entire armies. alone. he's frustratingly, infuriatingly famous, which is why the other half of this equation is actually that frustration in particular.

he's lonely! he doesn't have any friends. there's nobody for him to ever rely on and to do things with except for himself and daisuke by default. he doesn't know how to behave without putting up a front most of the time, true intimacy or care directed towards him (generally, if only at first,) makes him deeply uncomfortable. he has no idea what it's like to be vulnerable (compared to daisuke, who's an open book and bleeding heart,) because in becoming an elusive celebrity-criminal symbol he no longer has the rights to present himself as an ordinary person. the rules of his life, his socializing on top of his weird pseudo-existence, have all ended up wired in a very subtly (but also very firmly) guarded way. the door to his (daisuke's!) heart is immensely heavy; his heart itself is dark and perpetually dissatisfied. he never gets any privacy and so anybody with him is going to lose a lot of that. if you're with dark for an extended period of time in public, people are constantly going to end up staring in your (his) direction or outright interrupting. strangers he's never met always know his name and want something from him and he actually does, in fact, try his best to give what he can to them: photographs and autographs and whatever else constitutes as 'fan-service,' minus interviews. he's a fad and has fanatics, but once the easy-come easy-go interest in him washes away, once his superficials are no longer alluring and appealing to individuals, he fades and vanishes immediately into nobody (but daisuke) and nothing (but daisuke!)

basically what i'm saying is only someone peering in from the outside who doesn't end up blinded by dark's theatrics can see really just how equally oppressive and isolating being him can be sometimes. he's "loved" and he's "loathed" but he's never known and rarely has any genuine, tethering connections, and he can't (readily!) be understood or ever have firm lines between himself and others, and this is something that causes him pain and loneliness too, that he always wishes he could somehow completely overcome but instead tries to stave away through his superficial (and generally flirtatious) behaviors. of course he's going to behave arrogantly and indulge in his popularity; his fame. it's real (as real and as close as something like him can get anyways) when the absolute rest of him (minus daisuke!!!!!!!) isn't!!

i think the only condition i have for people with muses who don't care to be influenced by dark's fame is to still, in some way, ultimately acknowledge it