#dave's terrible horrible no good very bad groundhog day

[antialiasis]

Groundhog Dave, the 16k-word Morphic time loop extra, is finally up on TCoD. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have seen me intermittently talk about it. Long story short, Dave is trapped in a time loop on the day of chapter 13, and we explore how he responds and unravels.

Content warnings: This is a whump fic. It features some strong violence including gun violence, suicide and suicidal thoughts, brief vomiting, a deluge of strong and demeaning language, consumption of alcohol, heavy emotional distress, existential horror, and a whole lot of children dying.

Some rambling below the cut about how it came to be and my favorite bits in it.

The first inkling of this story was when I saw someone in the Groundhog Day tag on Tumblr writing a Newsies time loop fanfic titled Groundhog Dave. I have never seen Newsies and have no idea who that Dave is, but I think of Morphic Dave every time I see the name, so instantly I pictured Dave in a time loop on the day of chapter 13, and I could not stop intermittently thinking about it. Eventually, I started writing it.

I don't remember the process of beginning to write it super well, but I remember waiting for a coach at Port Authority with Negrek after seeing the actual Groundhog Day musical and typing up the bit in the third iteration where Dave rages at God on my phone, which was definitely one of the earliest bits I thought of. I know that for a while, what I had written up in the document was the first four iterations and a bit: the original, the one that more or less spawns the Dave and Mia Discuss Family AU, the one where he snaps and gets himself killed, the one where he wakes up after that and decides he can experiment and figure this out, and the summary of his next few goes. I know the document was stuck there for a while, with intermittent tinkering and vague ideas but nothing really in the way of writing progress. On August 12th 2021, I posted in the Thousand Roads Discord about how I'd just written an entire NaNo day's worth of Groundhog Dave, and I'm quite sure there I was referring to the scene where Dave is at the hospital, fails to shoot himself to end the loop, and talks with Cheryl. In 2023, I started doing regular sprints working on it (thanks, Negrek), which was what finally got me past the finish line; before that, the document stood at about 8500 words, while it ended up at about 16500 (though with some bits and notes at the bottom).

The actual ending went through a series of iterations as I was working on it. My first idea for an ending for it was just a cruel, "He does finally fix everything and all the kids live, and then he goes to bed and wakes up in the canon timeline, because he cannot have nice things." This wasn't a super satisfying idea, of course, by itself. I went back and forth through various possibilities from there over the story's development time. At one point or another I considered different variations on whether he does manage to stay in a Better Timeline or whether he ends up back in the canon one at the end, how exactly the loop ends up breaking (initially I was genuinely thinking the loop would break one way or another once nobody dies and the Character Development would have to be leading up towards that, but later I realized it was actually tastier if he does manage it and the loop just keeps going anyway; the precise nature of the Character Development involved was also a bit back and forth), and whether the whole thing would be completely unexplained in the vein of Groundhog Day itself or if I would make more ambiguous use of Lucy's recurring penchant for being involved with bizarre supernatural happenings in non-canon extras.

I'm pretty satisfied with what I did end up with, at any rate. My first inkling of the Lucy thing was just sort of ending with ambiguous Lucy, and I wasn't sure that would really work, but it felt a lot more appropriate to actually do that once Lucy tied more into his overall character development - the couple of early iterations where he takes things out on her specifically as if it's her fault or she should have intervened, his general guilt about actually using her to intervene, the repeated conversations in the car where she manages to confront him at the right moment with why he's so mean, him managing to choose to let go and not be an ass to her in the final scene. I'm also pleased with what I landed on with the several different things happening for the first time in the final iteration: him actually mustering the ability to articulate how much he needs the kids for his life to be worth anything, and affirming that he'll keep doing it even if he'll never get to live in the good timelines, and being forced to confront the ways in which he's been cruel and unpleasant to the kids despite how much they mean to him and choose not to, and finally being able to express an honest vulnerable emotion to Jean, accept her offer for emotional support and ask her to stay up with him because he needs that. Something just feels a lot stronger to me about it with a greater degree of ambiguity about the end of the loop, no one single obvious switch that's the thing like someone was dutifully waiting for him to just say this one magic word. (Similarly, what exactly Lucy did in fact have to do with this, if anything, had to be ambiguous. The loop cannot be a concrete phenomenon with a clear singular cause, or it would have just felt wrong. I have realized I have strong feelings on when fiction should be deliberately ambiguous, not because there is a concrete truth that the author is arbitrarily concealing to force you to guess, but because one way or another establishing any concrete truth would detract or distract from the story being told.)

Some little things I enjoy in this story:

Dave's increasingly frazzled awakenings in the first few loops just really tickle me.

Him knocking on the door, then realizing Cheryl heard his sky-rant and just immediately turning around to go on an ill-advised suicide mission to the church rather than have to try to explain that to her amuses me greatly. What a timeline.

My favorite bit of said suicide mission is actually the bit where he's lying there dying and manages to spend that time being restlessly, angrily impatient about how long it's taking and grasping hard for some sense of satisfaction in having killed this stranger, without ever managing it. The most pathetic possible suicidal rampage of revenge.

The hospital bathroom scene is still my favorite scene in the whole thing. It presses my particular whump buttons extremely hard, and it's just extremely representative of Dave and his problems, him mercilessly bullying himself and Cheryl trying very genuinely to reach out to him and let him know he's not alone while he compulsively rejects it, adamant that he doesn't need anyone or anything even though he's acutely suffering, resenting her for it and shooting back at her efforts with pointless, uncalled-for sarcasm. It also has some of my very favorite lines: "There was a knock on the door and he lowered the gun quickly, like a kid caught playing with something he shouldn't," "What the actual fuck did she think he was doing in here," "Still there?" answered irritably with, "There's only one door. Do the math," when he came so, so close to not in fact still being there. So fond of it.

The offhand unelaborated upon mention that Dave has at one point or another read enough to not bungle a suicide by gunshot is extremely some precise button that I have.

I'm also deeply fond of the iteration where Gabriel dies. Dave tries so hard to force himself to decide he can live with that and just decidedly does not succeed. I enjoy him sitting there irritably thinking maybe they should have just done this in the first place when the others attempt to safely reach the police, silently pretty much convinced that would have been a better idea and thinking all this could have been avoided (but without actually consciously admitting to having been wrong, of course), only to immediately go, "He'd always known this was a bad idea. Why'd he even fucking let them?" when the consequences come knocking. You fucking let them because you thought it was probably a good idea at the time, Dave.

I really enjoy how much Dave cares about the kids, can't not care about the kids, while most of the kids have a hard time grasping how much he cares because he's so persistently Like That. Loved to write the multiple times Jack viciously accuses him of not caring about Gabriel, and the way Dave's idea of disabusing him of the notion is just to be an asshole to him, because he's incapable of expressing sincere emotional sentiment. Lucy, similarly, keeps probing him about what he's going to do if the loop doesn't stop, and he just keeps answering in evasive, defensive irritation as if she's challenging him somehow, until he finally manages to realize that no, she was worried that if his efforts wouldn't end the loop he might just stop bothering. (Only then he's finally been driven far enough to actually manage a smidge of emotional honesty.)

Similar recurring horrible dramatic irony I enjoyed: Dave hates Jean's evolved form so, so horribly much when it's just a hypothetical manifestation of Something Horrible Happening To Her that he's trying to stop and not what his daughter really looks like. One of the things that only quite felt right when I'd finally landed back on him ending up in the canon timeline was that he then actually has to confront the cruelty of that with himself and affirm his unconditional love for her, instead of being 'rewarded' with the cuter, unevolved Jean.

I always get a kick out of how relatively easily Dave in nonsenscial situations just slides from adamant atheism into antitheism without a pause. He's perfectly genuine about thinking God doesn't exist, of course, but there is a level on which he kind of wants him to, just so he can face him and walk backwards into Hell, and as a result you get these situations where he sort of entertains the idea far more easily than he rationally should given his priors. The yelling at God about why he isn't curing malaria instead of whatever this is is pretty unique to the very particular mental state he's in on that iteration, but the multiple times he offhandedly thinks maybe this is literally Hell are total nonsense in his professed belief system but nonetheless a place where his mind is just inclined to go.

Meanwhile, I also enjoy the bit where Mia gets him to contemplate that he might be experiencing proof that souls exist - but he's less willing to entertain that in the same way because it doesn't have the same emotional valence for him, so it's not something that properly occurred to him before that, and then he just throws up his hands and moves on.

Thanks if you read it! I would love to hear any thoughts on it.

[antialiasis]

Meta asks 2, 3 and 15

I already did 2! (Although I should add Groundhog Dave, that’s also a thing I want to be writing, as is the Detective Pikachu one-shot I had planned out)

What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Hahaha, the first thing that comes to mind is... a bit from Groundhog Dave. But I am arsed to write the context! I swear!

The next thing to come to mind is a post-TQftL scene about Robin visiting May, but that too suffers less from needing context that I am unarsed to write and more from me having too many other things to do.

Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Titles and summaries are both hard but I think I am significantly worse at titles. Usually I cheat by just pulling out a relevant word and slapping that on. Like, my goddamn one-shot about Butterfree is just called “Butterfree”, and my other one-shot about Curse is called “Curse”. You don’t get any less creative than that.

[antialiasis]

And with that, the Quest for the Legends commentary is a wrap. Read this final entry for another character who came very close to getting the axe, the cut scene about the fixing of Volcaryu, me somehow forgetting about the people who died, some closure for everyone, and my thirteen-year-old self's amazing epilogue plans.

Thanks to everyone who's followed this commentary with me! I've enjoyed doing this a lot, but now I need a good break.

So how about that next revision? Well, it's not happening now - I've got a lot of other things I'd like to do with my new free time for the moment. I certainly still want to return to it, but I can't tell you when that would be. I expect writing-wise I'd first be going for the sorely-needed rewrite of Morphic, and possibly Scyther spin-offs (even more sorely needed). Also there's this Detective Pikachu the game one-shot that I'd planned out and want to finish. And Groundhog Dave.

But we'll see! I still have a tremendous love for this story. If I do that rewrite of chapter 76 I'll let you know. Thank you all for reading!

[antialiasis]

Wait...you didn't want to write about horrible things happening till Dave before the dnd game?

Of course, but there is such a rich new variety of horrible things that can happen to him in a fantasy setting! And the D&D game happened to give rise to this exquisite AU that’s just 80% pure Dave torture and 20% moving the underlying plot along bits that already happened in canon, so I don’t even really need to think about or do more than summarize that other boring 20%. It’s perfect. That’s why it’s so distracting.

[antialiasis]

Dave and Jean Discuss Birthdays

Dave still hadn’t recovered from the last time he’d gotten a strange card in the mail when he got another.

This time, it was a birthday card, decorated with cheery, colorful balloons, a large blue “10”, and the words “WHO’S A BIRTHDAY BOY?”

“Hey, Jean?” he called, and she came bouncing out of her room. “I think this has got to be a late card for you. Guess the girl ones were sold out.”

“Ooooh!” Jean grinned from ear to ear, showing tiny sharp canines. “Is there a present?”

“Doesn’t… doesn’t look like it. I guess maybe there’s money inside?” Dave opened the card; nothing fell out. “Nope.”

Jean pouted as he looked at the card again.

“Wait, what.”

It… was it even for Jean? It read:

Happy birthday, everyone!

- God

P.S. To Dave: Sorry about the Groundhog Day thing.

Groundwhat? “God”? A memory stirred. Oh, no. It was the fucking kids with the fruit basket again, wasn’t it? The ones who thought signing things “God” was some kind of hilarious way to fuck with him, like he’d just read that and his head would explode like a bad sci-fi robot confronted with a logical paradox. It says it’s written by God, so it has to be true, because God’s word is infallible! Checkmate, atheists! Jesus Christ. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Why were their parents letting them run amok bothering the neighbors? Jean wouldn’t do that. (Or, at least, he was pretty sure.)

“Everyone?” Jean said, looking over his shoulder. “You mean they sent that card to lots of people? Do they all have the same birthday as me?”

“I… I don’t know, Jean, maybe it wasn’t for you after all. I mean, it’s more than a month late, and it says boy on it.”

“But it has a P.S. to you, so it didn’t go to the wrong house. And it’s not your birthday.”

“Look, I think it’s just somebody’s weird-ass prank. I shouldn’t have called you in here before reading it. Sorry about these assholes.”

“And what’s a groundhog?”

“Somebody hogging all the ground? I don’t know. It’s a prank. They probably just made up a word.”

“Is there a day where people try to hog all the ground?”

“No. No, Jean, that’s not… Groundhog Day is not a thing.”

Slowly, Jean’s face lit up. “It sounds fun! I want to play Groundhog! Look, all the floor is mine and you can’t step on it!”

She ran excited circles around the couch. Dave groaned. She kicked his feet, shouting “Groundhog, groundhog!”, until he put them up on the coffee table.

“But Dad,” she said when she’d gotten tired and plomped down onto the sofa, “you made us all at once, right? Why don’t we all have the same birthday?”

He sighed. “Well, it’s not as simple as just waving a magic wand and there you are. We put you together over a period of time, along with a bunch of other embryos that didn’t make it. And then you developed differently, like you still do. So Mia took a shorter time to gestate than you, for example, just like she’s growing up faster than you now. That’s why her birthday is earlier.”

Jean considered it. “Gabriel’s birthday is first, though.”

Dave scratched his scalp. “Yeah. He was pretty fucking special. It was hard to define when to even consider him born. Brian decided to call it the thirteenth because it was his favorite number.”

“Then do you think maybe all of us got a card like that?” she asked. “If they wanted to give us all a card, and posted them all at the same time, maybe it wouldn’t be anyone’s real birthday but they’d still be happy to get it.”

“That’d be nice, but I’m pretty sure this was just some kids down the hall playing a prank. They don’t know where the others live. Or at least I fucking hope not.”

Dave wasn’t sure which was worse, finding out the others all had gotten cards, or Jean’s ensuing months-long obsession with declaring it to be Groundhog Day at random intervals.

[antialiasis]

What I should be doing: working on my actual dailies, TQftL, finishing the fifth movie review revamp for TCoD, making progress on reviewing

What I am doing: torturing Dave, watching as he takes it out on a functional eight-year-old