[ okay well i'm not describing how to set up a dark room because that would be boring? but dave probably hands dirk the cat at the portions where he has to like. do stuff. and also i assume wiz and squarewave follow like dumb puppies and Do Not Help. so this process probably takes like up to an hour with all assorted parties involved.
the magister is probably even involved because tower aqueducts? god.
when he Finally sets stuff up, though: ]
Ok, we need to use up a roll of film for this. There's one in here already?
[ he'll want to see dirk do it once, though, so he can walk through it like that. without much warning, dave simply takes a picture of dirk and macklemeow before adding a step to his usual photo-taking process. which is always digital, so he usually just checks the shot before taking more; this time he winds the film thing over so he can take a new shot, almost absently. it's a bit of a rusty movement because it's been three years, but he hasn't forgotten how this kind of camera works.
it gets smoother after the second or third shot. he's just going to take them of, like. the robots. dirk. the cat. the magister. obviously no dave photos unless dirk stops him to take one, but that's pretty par for the course; he isn't in a lot of the photographs they have in scrapbooks because generally dave plays photographer. ]
[This time, Dirk gets away with it. Dirk is watching him work with the same attentiveness he gives to Strife-lessons or, you know, playing with a cat. He can't really figure out the cameraman part of it from this but he can at least study the motions and the way Dave interacts with camera and composition.]
[ look. he figures dirk's sense of composition is going to wildly differ from his? and that part doesn't so much matter as the hows. it doesn't occur to him dirk needs lessons in specific on camera use because dirk can see him using it and that's enough sometimes.
after he gets through the film, he stops. ]
Okay. Now we just have to put macklemeow in...well, a penned area, I don't want him in the dark room.
[ THERE ARE CHEMICALS IN THERE. ]
The rapbots can watch him.
[ he...doesn't want them in the dark room either, they're distracting though he loves them. ]
[ which will be. well he will leave the lights on until dirk gets inside, at which point he will flip them off and make sure no light is coming in through the door? ]
[He does come back a short while later. And then it's hello darkness my old friend.]
Cool.
[Like. It's a dark room. He knew this was coming. It isn't like he lacks the battle training to know where Dave is and where everything else in the room is. And yet, Dirk is a loser.]
Come over to the table. [ dirk had two seconds of light to see where everything was. and...like...however long set up took. so this should be easy. he saw where dave was and should be able to come over to him. ] We'll have you unload the film and get it on the reel. This's the part that you don't want any light in. We could do it with a hoodie or like, a bag or some shit if it was made proper, but s'long as the lights and shit are off in here we should be fine. Hold out your hands.
[Immediately complies? Stands over to where Dave is and does not bump into anything, holds out his hands. He's quiet but it's less Flashstep Menace quiet and more Attentive Listening quiet, like he often gets during Strife while he's taking it in.]
[ dave reaches out to take dirk's left hand and leads his fingers over to the film advance lever. he pushes it in to show how it won't advance, and starts to explain. ]
That's how you tell if you hit the end of the film, though you can count how much you have left and you an check the number of things on the camera itself, which I guess you know 'cause you built it. Wasn't sure how much of an explanation you needed 'cause of that. [ but he may as well walk him through it. ] When you do, you go up here for the film release, but you have to make sure it's all wound into the canister. This is the rewind crank. You have to do it up like this [ again he just kind of moves dirk's hands so dirk can do the thing ] until you feel the film go in all the way. That winds it up in the canister in there so you can remove the film without exposin' it to light. Doesn't matter super much when we're already in the dark, but.
[ he doesn't explain the next part but shows dirk by touch how to pop the back of the camera, assuming dirk knew how to do that. ]
You have to be careful when you take shots because if you forget to do the film advance you can double-shoot on the same strip and it fucks it up. Which can be a cool effect, but isn't what we're goin' for. Now that you have the canister you have to load onto the reel. Pop the top like this.
[ again with the rearranging dirk's hands since he can't just. show him. in the dark. he could have sacrificed ruined film for this or something if he had any, but he's pretty sure dirk can figure this out even if they don't have the lights on. ]
Only touch the edges of the film if you can help it. Feel that uneven edge there? That's the film leader, we're gonna trim that with scissors up to...here. Cut. We need it even to get it on the reel. Get the film out of the canister first, though, and we'll cut off the other end, it oughtta be taped to the spool or whatever. There. Ok, feel the reel here - there's a place to slot in the film. Just feed in a few inches - there. Now you twist the sides of it like this and it'll spool the rest on. When you hit the end it's ready to go in the tank.
[ he goes on like this for a while, low-voiced and calm. he explains how to go through development step by step and does not offer to speed up the times between things except once or twice; it isn't until they've hit the end that he flips on the lights and starts unwinding the film. it gets cut up into even strips, maybe five panels a slice, and then he lays them out on the table. ]
Ok, pick one.
[ dozens of tiny film reel negatives of any combination of dirk and macklemore and the magister and the rabbitrays and squarewave and wiz, all taken from angles that appealed to dave, moving quick to get through the film. there's a close-up of the kitten dozing in dirk's arms, a shot of the rapbots doing their thing to entertain the kitten, a shot of dirk glancing off to the side when they were trying to get his opinion on something.
they need to pick one negative to fuck around with to actually go to print. ]
[Dave is always a good teacher. Dirk understands a lot from construction and research but he likes to listen to Dave's explanations and follow along. He likes to learn from Dave. Even in the dark, he can follow, movements rather than images coming to be memorized.
He blinks a little as the light comes on, but his eyes adjust. Eventually, he looks over all the different pictures. On instinct he scans for one with Dave but of course there are none: Dave was the cameraman. Instead, he points to one of Macklemeow.]
[ he pulls it out and hands it to dirk, then flicks the lights back off. this time he will turn on the low red light that won't fuck with things, though. ]
You need to feed it into the enlarger over here. It'll project the image down onto the board, you find out what kinda crop you want like that. Pull it up like this or down like that - see? Then when you have it, you're gonna expose a sheet of photo-paper to the light and it'll get filtered out by this, see? Then we just chemical-bath the photo through a series of steps I'll walk you through.
[ he won't warn dirk about the times of anything as they go, but starts to just give gentle instructions and let dirk do the work as he leans against the desk and watches. it's possible to over-expose the paper if you don't time things right, or to soak the paper in one chemical bath or another for too long. sometimes you can see a mistake before you get to the end of the process, but even if that happens dave will just keep sliding them through to the end. he doesn't expect perfection and won't seem bothered by a lack of it; this is art, and that means something different. ]
[Not being warned about the times means there are definitely mistakes. He kinda lowkey freaks out about it? Dave said it's okay to make mistakes but he fucked up and while he doesn't say anything on the subject his shoulders do get tense and he keeps asking Dave how he can correct things. But Dave gets him through to the end.]
[ like, he tells dirk around what times things should soak but doesn't tell him when they're up like he normally would do, an annoying walking and talking timer. instead, when they're done he flicks the lights on and snags the photo from the final bath, water. he should do it with tongs or something but he just grabs the edges and then hangs it up to dry, tilting his head to the side as he looks at it.
some of the sharp lines have gone indistinct and blurred, but macklemeow can still be seen. it's the kind of effect dave remembers fucking around with sort-of-on-purpose, except it hadn't been the first few times. ]
You let it dry and ta-da: one black-and-white. It's more or less the same but with a few different steps and chemicals and film and whatnot for color, although you can add some later like old-school photographs if you're really into it.
[ there are things you can do to compensate for some mistakes, but a lot of the time, you hit the end and it isn't quite what you wanted, and that's...well, sometimes really fucking annoying, but mostly okay.
he leans against dirk without putting any of his weight on him, just kind of knocking their arms and shoulders together as he examines the photograph. ]
Just look at it for a few seconds, dude. It's not what you were shootin' for, but that doesn't mean it ain't cool.
[Dirk is being used for a resting place without actually being used as a resting place. It at least makes him relax a little.]
I don't know if I was shootin' for anythin' in particular.
[He just wanted to be good at it. And now Macklemeow is fuzzier than he's supposed to be. Dirk reaches for the hand near his, where Dave's leaning against him.]
When I said it would be good for you, [ dave begins, letting dirk take his hand without protest ] I meant that this is...I used to think of it as a kind of safe mistake. I guess I also told myself that I did 'em on purpose at first, but that wasn't true. It just took me a long fuckin' time to teach myself to do it proper and get through all the ins and outs of it. But I also learned that sometimes the mistakes made pretty cool shit, and if I'd just done it properly the first time around, I wouldn't have learned how to do those things, either. There's technically one proper way to do things, but it may not always be the way to go.
[ he's not sure if it will make sense to dirk, or if dirk will ever be able to feel like that about anything, but dave tries to stumble through the idea anyway. ]
[Dirk listens. Dirk always listens to everything Dave says, as best as he can, even the nonsense. Sometimes he doesn't follow or sometimes he disagrees, but always, Dave deserves that he'll listen.
He understands, he thinks, what Dave is saying. Dave's Bro made everything a mistake and made every mistake painful. Dave could never live up to what he was supposed to reach, he was a kid, he was never given a chance. But mistakes here were okay. They weren't just acceptable, they could be beneficial. The accidental became art.]
...Can I try it again? Takin' the picture this time.
Yeah, sure. You know how to load the film, I assume?
[ and where to grab more. ]
Just frame 'em however you want. [ he won't give the warning about advancing the film after every shot since he already gave it. (he fucked up that way too once or twice when getting into the zone of taking shots, or sometimes advanced without needing to, losing track of what he'd done.) ]
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no subject
the magister is probably even involved because tower aqueducts? god.
when he Finally sets stuff up, though: ]
Ok, we need to use up a roll of film for this. There's one in here already?
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Yeah. I can also send you a manual I made for how to make new film.
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[ he'll want to see dirk do it once, though, so he can walk through it like that. without much warning, dave simply takes a picture of dirk and macklemeow before adding a step to his usual photo-taking process. which is always digital, so he usually just checks the shot before taking more; this time he winds the film thing over so he can take a new shot, almost absently. it's a bit of a rusty movement because it's been three years, but he hasn't forgotten how this kind of camera works.
it gets smoother after the second or third shot. he's just going to take them of, like. the robots. dirk. the cat. the magister. obviously no dave photos unless dirk stops him to take one, but that's pretty par for the course; he isn't in a lot of the photographs they have in scrapbooks because generally dave plays photographer. ]
no subject
no subject
after he gets through the film, he stops. ]
Okay. Now we just have to put macklemeow in...well, a penned area, I don't want him in the dark room.
[ THERE ARE CHEMICALS IN THERE. ]
The rapbots can watch him.
[ he...doesn't want them in the dark room either, they're distracting though he loves them. ]
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[At least he has practice herding rapbots. It means he can trick them into helping him pen out an area for Macklmeow to hang out in.]
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[ which will be. well he will leave the lights on until dirk gets inside, at which point he will flip them off and make sure no light is coming in through the door? ]
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Cool.
[Like. It's a dark room. He knew this was coming. It isn't like he lacks the battle training to know where Dave is and where everything else in the room is. And yet, Dirk is a loser.]
Now what?
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That's how you tell if you hit the end of the film, though you can count how much you have left and you an check the number of things on the camera itself, which I guess you know 'cause you built it. Wasn't sure how much of an explanation you needed 'cause of that. [ but he may as well walk him through it. ] When you do, you go up here for the film release, but you have to make sure it's all wound into the canister. This is the rewind crank. You have to do it up like this [ again he just kind of moves dirk's hands so dirk can do the thing ] until you feel the film go in all the way. That winds it up in the canister in there so you can remove the film without exposin' it to light. Doesn't matter super much when we're already in the dark, but.
[ he doesn't explain the next part but shows dirk by touch how to pop the back of the camera, assuming dirk knew how to do that. ]
You have to be careful when you take shots because if you forget to do the film advance you can double-shoot on the same strip and it fucks it up. Which can be a cool effect, but isn't what we're goin' for. Now that you have the canister you have to load onto the reel. Pop the top like this.
[ again with the rearranging dirk's hands since he can't just. show him. in the dark. he could have sacrificed ruined film for this or something if he had any, but he's pretty sure dirk can figure this out even if they don't have the lights on. ]
Only touch the edges of the film if you can help it. Feel that uneven edge there? That's the film leader, we're gonna trim that with scissors up to...here. Cut. We need it even to get it on the reel. Get the film out of the canister first, though, and we'll cut off the other end, it oughtta be taped to the spool or whatever. There. Ok, feel the reel here - there's a place to slot in the film. Just feed in a few inches - there. Now you twist the sides of it like this and it'll spool the rest on. When you hit the end it's ready to go in the tank.
[ he goes on like this for a while, low-voiced and calm. he explains how to go through development step by step and does not offer to speed up the times between things except once or twice; it isn't until they've hit the end that he flips on the lights and starts unwinding the film. it gets cut up into even strips, maybe five panels a slice, and then he lays them out on the table. ]
Ok, pick one.
[ dozens of tiny film reel negatives of any combination of dirk and macklemore and the magister and the rabbitrays and squarewave and wiz, all taken from angles that appealed to dave, moving quick to get through the film. there's a close-up of the kitten dozing in dirk's arms, a shot of the rapbots doing their thing to entertain the kitten, a shot of dirk glancing off to the side when they were trying to get his opinion on something.
they need to pick one negative to fuck around with to actually go to print. ]
no subject
He blinks a little as the light comes on, but his eyes adjust. Eventually, he looks over all the different pictures. On instinct he scans for one with Dave but of course there are none: Dave was the cameraman. Instead, he points to one of Macklemeow.]
For the new addition. Baby's First Hijink.
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[ he pulls it out and hands it to dirk, then flicks the lights back off. this time he will turn on the low red light that won't fuck with things, though. ]
You need to feed it into the enlarger over here. It'll project the image down onto the board, you find out what kinda crop you want like that. Pull it up like this or down like that - see? Then when you have it, you're gonna expose a sheet of photo-paper to the light and it'll get filtered out by this, see? Then we just chemical-bath the photo through a series of steps I'll walk you through.
[ he won't warn dirk about the times of anything as they go, but starts to just give gentle instructions and let dirk do the work as he leans against the desk and watches. it's possible to over-expose the paper if you don't time things right, or to soak the paper in one chemical bath or another for too long. sometimes you can see a mistake before you get to the end of the process, but even if that happens dave will just keep sliding them through to the end. he doesn't expect perfection and won't seem bothered by a lack of it; this is art, and that means something different. ]
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And then?
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some of the sharp lines have gone indistinct and blurred, but macklemeow can still be seen. it's the kind of effect dave remembers fucking around with sort-of-on-purpose, except it hadn't been the first few times. ]
You let it dry and ta-da: one black-and-white. It's more or less the same but with a few different steps and chemicals and film and whatnot for color, although you can add some later like old-school photographs if you're really into it.
[ there are things you can do to compensate for some mistakes, but a lot of the time, you hit the end and it isn't quite what you wanted, and that's...well, sometimes really fucking annoying, but mostly okay.
he leans against dirk without putting any of his weight on him, just kind of knocking their arms and shoulders together as he examines the photograph. ]
Just look at it for a few seconds, dude. It's not what you were shootin' for, but that doesn't mean it ain't cool.
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I don't know if I was shootin' for anythin' in particular.
[He just wanted to be good at it. And now Macklemeow is fuzzier than he's supposed to be. Dirk reaches for the hand near his, where Dave's leaning against him.]
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[ he's not sure if it will make sense to dirk, or if dirk will ever be able to feel like that about anything, but dave tries to stumble through the idea anyway. ]
It's okay.
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He understands, he thinks, what Dave is saying. Dave's Bro made everything a mistake and made every mistake painful. Dave could never live up to what he was supposed to reach, he was a kid, he was never given a chance. But mistakes here were okay. They weren't just acceptable, they could be beneficial. The accidental became art.]
...Can I try it again? Takin' the picture this time.
no subject
[ and where to grab more. ]
Just frame 'em however you want. [ he won't give the warning about advancing the film after every shot since he already gave it. (he fucked up that way too once or twice when getting into the zone of taking shots, or sometimes advanced without needing to, losing track of what he'd done.) ]