Okay, this one merits a small explanation, so I’m going to briefly interrupt your update arts for a sec. I chose the first time Dave has to chuck his doomed self’s dead body out of his apartment.
I chose this for a variety of reasons that are not always immediately apparent. Firstly, this is the moment where Dave realizes that any missteps he takes in time travel will result in his own death. Not just “doomed Daves” because really, any one of those doomed Daves could be (was/is) him, and his current iteration could experience first-hand the cold claws of death if he’s not the single “alpha Dave.” Dave is the only character that has the constant reminder that if he screws up, if he fails, it is not only dangerous, but terminal—the only other player we really see effected by this is Aradia, who isn’t really bothered by it due to the fact that she is already dead. Everyone else faces death, but it’s not constantly looming over their shoulders.
Secondly, a lot of people see Dave as having either a huge fear of death or suicidal tendencies, but I read it a bit differently. I mean, basically he’s resigned to possible death at any simple miscalculation, but he goes through it anyway. And he’s also aware that if he does fail and die, another Dave will take his place—in other words, that Dave dies unglorified, discarded. A failure, and nothing else—no one will miss him, since there is another to take his place. That’s kind of heavy, even if that person replacing you is still you, because at the same time, it’s not you (Davesprite has this going on sometimes). Dave does everything knowing he could die at any time, unsung and forgotten, yet does it anyway. I’d consider worth taking into account.
But it would mess you up some. I think part of Dave’s issue with not viewing himself as a hero in comparison to the other kids stems from the fact that he knows iterations of himself will die. He thinks it’s partially his role to perish so that others can live—which is why he wasn’t too happy with Rose’s suicide mission. But he’s also not completely comfortable with the thought of his own eventual demise looming on the horizon, so he feels guilty when he can’t go through with it or when the thought of self-sacrifice to the highest degree makes him afraid. That conflict appears when Terezi tricks him to face his quest bed—I think a lot of people don’t quite realize what he was being asked to do. Not only would he have to literally kill another version of himself, but that version would go on to become god tier, the “hero”—meaning that, most likely, that version would be the alpha Dave. Or, in other words, the left-over Dave—the one doing the killing—would be a doomed Dave. Killing the other Dave would mean that the non-god tier Dave essentially committed suicide for the sake of the mission. The difference between that and the Tumor suicide-mission is that with the Tumor, at least someone is being saved—Dave dies a “hero,” true to his mission, and not just as a tool of progress, forgotten under the glory of another.
That’s some pretty heavy shit for a 13-year-old, no matter how cool he is. So, this art is for all the dead Daves, discarded and ignored. Maybe not as immediately jarring and tear-inducing as some of the other deaths, but kind of romantically tragic. That’s pretty sad, imo.
*cough* Yes, sorry for the wall of text. That’s the psychology major in me having a field-day.