#AND CAN WE TALK ABOUT DAVE'S MOTIF??

[homestuckreplay]

homestuck updates: ‘a font of frighteningly accurate yet infuriatingly nonspecific information’

(page 836-842)

After toiling through the pain and emptiness of three days without new Homestuck pages, it’s great to check back in with our old friends: Rose, Dave and- wait. Someone’s missing.

IT HAS BEEN 179 PAGES SINCE JOHN EGBERT WAS SIGHTED.

Dave is engaged in his rooftop battle with Bro. John and Rose’s ‘STRIFE!’ pages were interactive, but Dave’s is not – a direct contrast to their haunting music pages, where Dave’s was interactive and John and Rose’s weren’t. Dave also has a multi-round strife, similar to John’s imp strife on pages 393, 397 and 400. Dave’s opponent (in round 1) is really Cal and not Bro, with Bro remaining a mysterious, aloof background figure seen mostly in silhouette – John and Rose both fought their guardians directly, but Bro prefers these stealth puppetmaster tactics.

In a final difference, where John and Rose each had four strife options, Dave has eight – possibly due to more previous strife experience. His are Aggrieve, Aggress, Abjure, Abstain, Abuse, Accuse, Assail and Assault. The first four he shares with Rose, but the final four haven’t been seen before. They’re still not seen today, because Bro slices through the options with a sword in a very familiar move – Dave did the same thing to the ‘Enter name’ box on p.310. Guess we know where he learned that trick. And it really highlights Bro’s level of control over Dave, and ability to restrict his actions.

The swirling red heat behind Dave looks like an eye, and was seen reflected in Dave’s glasses on page 665, which creates this unsettling idea of Dave being surveilled by some cosmic force. Lil Cal’s glassy blue eyes are always in focus, there’s the ‘eye’ of the record on Dave’s shirt, and I’m noting this eye motif for a character who both covers his eyes constantly, and is watched constantly (p.570).

The Jade and Rose dynamic is top tier, and every time there’s a Rose pesterlog her character voice gets stronger and I love the way she talks even more. I like when we see two characters side by side and have their environments contrasted, like the panel above. I also like that Rose thinks it’s cool to have a friend with predictive abilities. Rose has a healthy respect for powers mysterious and beyond her understanding (p.297) and believes in the zoologically dubious, and I like that she is so open to the supernatural (wizards excepted). It is very funny that she is basically banging on the village seer’s door at 4am like “hey can you predict something for me. Hey what’s the omen of today??” but I have never wanted Jade to be wrong about a prediction more than when she says they ‘won’t talk again for a pretty long time’.

So far Act 3 is both focusing on a character with established future knowledge, and foregrounding the theme of fate and predetermination in the narrative, which was only hinted at before. The act began with John’s nanna’s Sassacre prophecy and immediately switched to Jade, who knew in advance that she would be introduced. We examined the magic 8 ball and magic cue ball, reinforcing the potential of prophecy, and now we learn that Jade has predicted that all four characters will play ‘a game’ on John’s birthday, that ‘it all starts’ with John and Rose, and most curiously of all, that the apocalypse and race to not die in meteor collisions ‘will be fun!!!!!!’

But she also says that ‘dave is cool’ so I wonder. Does Jade’s opinions about her friends influence the predictions she makes – she already thinks Dave is cool and so believes he will come through, even though that may not be true? Or, do the things Jade predicts about her friends influence her opinion of them – she knows that Dave will come through in the future, which makes her see Dave as cool, even though he’s kind of a shithead now?

In her GameFAQs, Rose says, ‘In our instance of this dimension, there are four receptacles for divided kernels, not three. Does this mean we are “destined” to have a four player chain? How could the game “know” such a thing?’ (p.440). Interestingly, after Rose asks this question, the narrative cuts to her first conversation with Jade. Rose presumably does not know that Jade lives beside the frog statue, but that’s the clear missing link – Skaia has predictive power as well as creative power, and Jade and the game are harnessing the same force to ‘see’ this four player chain.

Which leads to a million more questions for another day. Today, Rose captchalogues her dead cat (typical goth behavior) and heads down into an ominous, green-glowing, radioactive mad science potion lab in a very visually cool moment.

> Rose: Forget about Sburb and get really into tarot reading.

[totentnz]

GOOD MORNING (now evening)

today i awoke and chose violence. i wanna talk a bit about the AU @bishicat and I have. ~inspired~ by the 5 songs, 3 outfits taggame!

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep [...] We will find you It's my own design It's my own remorse Help me to decide Help me make the Most of freedom and of pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world [...] There's a room where the light won't find you Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down When they do, I'll be right behind you I'm so glad we've almost made it So sad they had to fade it Everybody wants to rule the world [...] I can't stand this indecision Married with a lack of vision Everybody wants to rule the— Say that you'll never, never, never, never need it

name of the AU, basically it's about change, within oneself, within a friend group, within the world. and about accepting that change - or fighting against it. each member of the trio (or V³ as we like to call em) thinks their way of living is the right one. V(alerie) is hellbent on not backing down and staying right where she is V(incent) thinks getting away from the city and the people who hurt him is the best choice V(ivienne) wants more from life, money, fancy clothes and power

TOWNIE

There's a party and we're all going And we're all growing up Somebody's driving and he will be drinking And no one's going back 'Cause we've tried hungry and we've tried full and Nothing seems enough [...] I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat Though I don't know what I'm waiting for I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be

name of the pairing for V³ - the song is about growing up and changing. (AGAIN) bishi actually picked that one and i was on board right away, it was important to me that we pick a song we both like (the more rock-y feel of that song also helped lmao)

RYAN & DAVE

Ryan and Dave are rabble rousin', teenage cousins Difference is Dave has an off switch, and Ryan doesn't 20 years later now Dave behaves rank and file And Ryan's a burnt out adult, last gasp, wild child

guess what this one is about! CHANGE! (are you tired of it yet?) mostly it is about viv picking a different path than v though - one stayed exactly where she has always been while the other chose to change. ALSO in the music video they are DOGS and we love a dog motif

6:26 in the morning, didn't need alarm I couldn't sleep a wink, I'm betting my whole farm Left Dave's place at eight, just drove, didn't really talk I shook his hand and popped the door to make the walk Applied for admission at the detox shop Got to the door it said open, ten o'clock It's freezing out, no way that I can make it to ten Look back at my truck at my only real friend

some time ago we talked about viv helping v on her healing journey (girlie cannot catch a break from being a babysitter even after she got johnny a body LMAO) and even though v never ends up at rehab (maybe that will change) it still fits pretty well.

NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN

I'm taking a ride with my best friend I hope he never lets me down again He knows where he's taking me Taking me where I want to be I'm taking a ride with my best friend [...] We're flying high We're watching the world pass us by Never want to come down Never want to put my feet back down on the ground [...] See the stars, they're shining bright (never let me down) Everything's alright tonight (never let me down)

V³ had a pretty big fight at one point. viv was always going to leave for arasaka but v never understood or accepted it. they argued for hours and when vincent didn't chose her side, v stormed off to go on a weeklong bender. when she returned the flat was empty, both her siblings had left -and betrayed her. naturally, viv also felt betrayed by her childhood friend, all she asked for was support but instead she got called a traitor. i like to imagine this song plays on the radio one day after their reunion

THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT

When we were young, the future was so bright The old neighborhood was so alive And every kid on the whole damn street Was gonna make it big and not be beat

Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn The kids are grown up, but their lives are worn How can one little street swallow so many lives?

TO ME this is THE streetkid song but it hits hard especially in this universe. as i mentioned before V³ thinks they picked the right path, they aren't gonna be beat (and honestly vincent is the only one who succeeded). viv had a good run but then she got kicked from the corp, lost her newest best friend, DIED and now has a whole other person stuck in her skull. v was stubborn, was homeless for a bit and is overall in a bad way (but then again, that's the only way she knows how to live so it's not as bad TO HER)

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

THIS IS A BIG ONE SO BUCKLE IN FOLKS bishi and i had been talking about a personal quest for v and we ended up on this: one day they are driving somewhere while listening to the radio when a host teases a special treat! they have exclusive rights to the music of NC born and bred band Rotten! (yeah you guessed it! V's band) naturally this fills her with pure rage and viv knows this isn't going to end well (babysitting time!) v knows exactly who did this and is hellbent on rectifying this (there is more but yall are gonna have to wait for the day i decide to write it lmao) As Above, So Below is the name of the job! it is a song that v wrote but only she knows about it. while viv wasn't a band member she was there for it's founding and a few first concerts, she filmed a lot of it and even ran the merch stand a bit

I won't lie, it's quite temptin' Your handouts and your bones I won't lie, they're quite empty Your promises and your stones

If you sell, they'll buy Don't feel, just sign If you sell, they'll buy Don't think, stay blind

Give me the control Just sign on the dotted line Give me the control He whispered softly Give me the control You're crawling inside my mind Give me the control Don't you fight me?

As above, so below What you reap is what you sow What you give comes back three fold As above, so below

YES the song is about v not wanting to sign with a label and it is her final fuck you to the world of music. in reality that song is incredibly underproduced since by the time it was recorded the band had already broken up. v did ALL of it: singing, instruments, songwriting. editing magic made it come to life. depending on how it ends (yes there are multiple outcomes) viv will receive a shard with ALL of rotten's music, including THIS unreleased song and even some backstage footage from way back in the day when viv was still around.

See I've danced with the enemy We have secrets, no one knows Yeah, I've danced with my enemy I wore her skin and her clothes

honourable mention because this part is very viv coded

instead of outfits i present you! some soul crushing quotes! i hope you enjoy! :3c

[weaselishmcdiesel]

In my defense, the accidental lie has been going on for 4 years and each time I run into HS content I send it to this guy... which probably has worsened the lie, so like at this point I might as well go out with a bang

Also please please do give me more info on other characters you feel comfortable with, cuz we weren't sure what we were gonna play so we are doing 3 one-shots (Im DMing all 3, pain) before setting on one, so it might be a bit extra suspicious if only 1 homestuck npc shows up and I don't know enough about Nepeta to confidently make her show up 3 times and make it seem like she's my fav and I know all about her

This shit is so funny hshfjfjgjgj I do hope you manage to sneak by undetected if only so you can say you did such a good job pretending that you fooled a real fan XD and hopefully your friends a good sport

And sure! Maybe I can help strengthen those characters you say you know? They’re the more popular ones so I sorta know more about them than others.

I WROTE THIS IN MY NOTES APP THIS IS SUPER LONG ACTUALLY AND IM SO SORRY TRY TO SKIM IT <- was asked to talk about homestuck and thought was be able to keep it brief. Wasn’t.

Karkat - I was obsessed with him then and I’m obsessed with him now he’s a loud whining piece of shit with a pretty bad attitude. Mainly a character based on him would yell as their normal speaking volume, swear a LOT and also creatively, but is also hiding an insecurity. The thing about him is he has a mutant blood color that would get him killed on his planet- so he can’t let anyone find out, he can’t accidentally bleed or cry (tears are their blood color) in front of anyone. So maybe your character is also hiding something super important? He gets along best with people who don’t really take his bitching to heart since his bitching is his way of showing real concern- he does actually care about his friends no matter how many times he calls them idiots. Also is really interested in romance as a concept and likes romcoms. He uses dual sickles as a weapon- I figure you may want this information since they’re dnd characters.

Dave - Cool kid, sunglasses he never takes off, he raps and makes beats on his turntables. He’s obsessed with irony and sorta doesn’t know how to enjoy anything without being ironic about it? Enjoys frustrating people WITH his irony. I struggle with characterizing him bc I’ve consumed a lot of fanon, but maybe that will make your presentation of him more authentic XD? A safe bet is to make your character kinda deadpan in tone but still be able to crack jokes and act pretty silly. If given the opportunity to be the hero he will not take it, he rejects the idea that he should be anyone important. He fights with swords and has a tendency to break them- but still uses them anyway. He gets the power to time travel later on, and can stop a person in time too, dunno how you’d implement that tho.

Vriska - … very very tough for me to summarize her… but I can say that a character based off her has killed one friend, paralyzed one friend, and blinded one friend, but then feel little to no remorse about any of it because they believe they’re the main character and nothing bad will happen to them since it’s all part of their story (though, she blinded that one person because that person blew up her left arm and left eye BECAUSE vriska killed that one friend). Ahem. Got carried away. Your character just did some pretty bad shit that makes them seem untrustworthy. She’s very lucky tho- it’s part of her powers- so your character should be too. She has a spider motif but it only really manifests in her adoration for spiders and her way of typing, so you may not have to worry about that. She’s popularly called the “huge 8itch” if that helps. She fights by rolling die? And depending on how they land they’ll do more or less damage. I don’t really know the specifics? But her luck powers enable her to roll exactly what she wants every time

Rose - rose is also tough for me… she’s a writer and can use a lot of big words and constructs sorta needlessly complicated sentences but she’s got a lot of wit and loves being sarcastic. She’s.. gothy? Has an interest in the occult and occult myths and she’s also pretty fascinated by wizards but I think tries to be lowkey about it? She’s a very smart and clever person too- so much so that in fanon people tend to forget she’s also kinda silly. Sorry that’s all I can say ^^; she fights using a pair of knitting needles- eventually they can also conduct magic and do damage that way. The power she gets later on is- sorta like knowing the future? She can only know the GOOD outcome but she knows specifics so that she can tell her team how they can end up getting the good outcome- she’s the strategist of the group

John - the leader of the kids! suuuper cheery and has the ability to pretty much make friends with anyone. He ends up being naive tho and may not realize when someone is trying to take control of him. He’s very interested in pranks and overall being a silly goofster ✨ if it ever comes up under no circumstances will he eat baked confections. No cakes especially. He loooves Nicolas cage and ghostbusters and some other older movies I can’t remember- other characters just tend to say he likes bad movies but he adamantly believes they’re very good. So maybe your character can also defend something that may objectively be kinda bad? His iconic weapon class is hammers 💪💪 but he also gets wind powers later- he can summon tornados or even fade into air to travel in the wind and appear somewhere else

—

It may be helpful to point out for nepeta- she has a best friend who’s very concerned about her well-being, equius. He even so much as controls what she can and can’t do (kinda only about certain things that are super dangerous). I don’t really like him as a character, but your npc might be hesitant to do something before asking their best friend for permission. He’s a stickler and very no-nonsense and will likely deny anything too dangerous? But also he’s incredibly terrifyingly physically strong- so your pcs wouldn’t win a fair fight with him. He also sucks up to any royalty. If any pc is royalty he’ll do anything they say. A trademark of his is that he gets very sweaty very easily and also very much likes horses. Also he likes milk. Idk. Nepeta’s weapons are these retractable claw glove things- and equius WOULD use a bow and arrow but breaks every single bow he picks up because he can’t control his strength. Instead, he fights with his fists 👍

—

Very quick rundown of the main characters I haven’t mentioned yet-

TROLLS

(they’re all kinda friends but I point out their most important relationships, ones your pcs may ask about, they’re also ordered from lowest to highest class) kept these summaries vague so you can insert your npcs in their place?

Aradia - she’s dead don’t worry about her, if asked she was into roleplay, archaeology, and adventuring. friends with Terezi, dated sollux, killed by vriska if you need to know

Tavros - he’s the one who’s paralyzed from the waist down, he has no confidence whatsoever, likes the troll equivalent of Pokémon, has a bull motif, has lots of conflicting feelings about vriska (is constantly manipulated by her), and is friends with Gamzee. Attacks with a jousting spear

Sollux - likes coding and computers, has a red and blue and duality motif, speaks with a lisp, also likes bees a lot. Will not eat honey if asked tho, friends with karkat and hates Eridan. Dates Aradia and feferi. Attacks with his very strong telepathic powers, could kill him if he’s over exerted

Karkat - friends with sollux, kanaya, Jade, has a crush on Terezi but is normal about being friends with her, and is sorta chill with Gamzee and Eridan. Dates Dave but really really hated him to begin with so be careful, may say he hates Dave if asked- they date late into homestuck… would say he hates everyone if asked. Except kanaya

Nepeta - BEST friends with equius, kinda friends with Terezi? Roleplayed with her sometimes but terezi’s a little mean about it cant tell

Kanaya - she’s a very reliable friend, but fears she’s too meddlesome. interested in fashion and is also a vampire 👍 very good friends friends with karkat and dates rose (do not separate) Hates Gamzee and Eridan if asked. Attacks with a chainsaw that can also transform into lipstick

Terezi - LAWFUL whatever your character is theyre lawful. Loves dragons and she’s blind but she can smell/taste colors to the point where she can kinda see? She has something very complicated going on with vriska (she’s the one vriska blinded, but still sorta loves her as a friend). Attacks with a blade concealed in her walking stick

Vriska - she lost her left arm and eye but she gets a robot arm. Has something complicated with Tavros (kinda crushes on him kinda hates him) and Terezi, turned down a confession from Eridan (but he asks out everyone so it’s not that big a deal) but they were friends in the past

Equius - ehhhh I don’t like him idk he has a crush on Aradia and it’s weird, big thing about him is he makes robots idk. Brutally protective of nepeta- they’re best friends

Gamzee - stoner who’s (and I mean this literally) religiously devoted to clowns- wears face paint all the time and has clown horns everywhere for him to honk. Friends with tavros and karkat but everyone (but tavros) sorta treats him like a useless stoner when he’s just trying to be friendly (ahem. Until some crazy story stuff goes down but i won’t spoil it in case you read) should not be without his substance for too long or people will die not exaggerating. Attacks with clubs.

Eridan - classist royalty, fish guy pirate, interested in war and strategy, makes fish puns I think. Has a crush on Feferi but they’re supposed to be best friends. Used to be friends with vriska but confessed to her. Hates Sollux bc when Feferi stopped being best friends with Eridan, she went on to date Sollux. He’s rizzless. Completely rizzless. Attacks with a cool harpoon gun. Doesn’t believe in magic if asked.

Feferi - THE empress like she’s as royal as you can get, but she’s in waiting for when the current empress passes. she’s also a fish but she’s not classist- she cares a lot for people and animals and would abolish the ableist classist regime of the planet they live on if she had the power, until then she tends to aquatic animals n stuff (not afraid to kill people if necessary tho, she knows how to survive). Friends with Eridan but only to keep him from killing people, stops being friends him when there are no more people TO kill around. Dates Sollux later. Also makes fish puns. Attacks with a two pronged trident.

—

Wow this is getting so long I’m so sorry

THE KIDS

I won’t go into the alpha kids or the other set of 12 trolls bc I’m very rough with them and also they’re not as important?

Dave - raised by his older brother who taught him sword fighting but was also super neglectful as a gaurdian and traumatized him with puppets and constant sword training and pranks. All the kids are very good friends with each other so nothing of note there but he goes on to date karkat- if asked tho he canonically was kinda struggling with finding out he was gay, though if your PCs don’t want to deal with that then do what fanon does and ignore that (I also ignore it). He’s also technically siblings with rose but doesn’t share the mom TECHNICALLY. If asked he doesn’t have a mom unless you want me to go into the alpha kids OTL

John - has just a dad who cares about him very much. And if asked regards his late grandmother very fondly. He doesn’t go on to date anyone but he does kinda hate Terezi? Troll romance is complicated I shouldn’t explain it. He’s technically siblings..? With Jade? But they don’t share the grandparents or the dad.

Rose - dates kanaya I’m serious do not separate them. She has a mom who’s an alcoholic but has a pretty humorous oneupmanship going on between them. She’s technically siblings with Dave but doesn’t share the brother

Jade - ok. So. She was raised by an omnipotent dog. Her grandpa died when she was very young and her dog (bec) took care of her. She’s very cheery - even cheerier and sweeter than John but she will not take any shit she’s not naive like him. She’s interested in science and robots and botany she’s very good at growing plants but she lived all alone on an island for most of her life. She always had visions of the future growing up but was never creeped out by them, always staying optimistic. Her main weapon is a rifle- not sure how that translates in dnd? She later gets the power to manipulate space itself- make things massive or very tiny, she gets telepathy and can move objects around at near the speed of light, and can teleport. She also becomes part dog later. I’d say she’s lawful good? Probably easy bet. She’s friends with karkat, kinda friends with Feferi, in one universe she dated an alternate version of Dave- not the Dave your PCs would meet, so if asked I dont think she exactly had a crush on him- I believe they both said their feelings are complicated. Technically siblings with John but like I said don’t share the parents

—

Forever apologizing for the wall of text. I’m hoping that, having been a dm once myself, you were expecting a lot of info..? No matter what tho I didn’t write as much reading all of homestuck is worth XD

[the-firebird69]

Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin

And if you trace it down it doesn't make any sense still these two fight and he's fighting with all sorts of things and you can continue until discovered and it eventually happens occasionally and then the max will get dragged into it they're exposed right so they're exposed by Tommy f and the company who did it on purpose and it is a modis and motif that is sort of known but I'm talking about exposing the max and not just exposing some smaller group or concept and I mean totally and that has occurred but that was somebody to anticipating it and my mom was abused very badly and she is now and I might be from the other side but this stuff is torture and torture and it wouldn't tell my brother who probably gave up on life is not worth it maybe if he's alone he's not going to survive I don't think and Mom says maybe not and that's his attitude he's a ogre and it's because he's squished even though it is expanded he's like nutty now and she says it's been a long time since he was normal he was around me occasionally he was and start to be nice to Mom and cared then he became a tyrant because people are saying things about it and it was mean to me she says but he's very very brilliant and very deadly and he thinks it's him and you have to trace it all the way down the pseudo empire Tommy f the warlocks and exposed the max leading the foreigners in and it becomes a three-way between Giants and my son says it looks like he wants to be perched to fight us and that makes sense cuz he's always trying to fight him and that was Mom and the guy said that and we have to find his computers here's up on the planet are probably contained in a way but the ones down here aren't going nuts now this could be a problem if we disable all of them here they might activate there so people have to have meetings this is a very touchy subject

Zues Hera

It's kind of not a cop out but we do appreciate hearing it and we believe it's true we have the Intel and the data when we see it it's incredibly bad and he was sick and we pushed him too far and others would not in control and he may have done it to himself and we have heard of that happening it happens in the movie Lost in space and it's to the doctor and it's probably analogous to a friend here but that's the way Dave was or is he's still in tax he's not these burnt to a Christmas people he had a seatbelt on and he was trapped in the car and she did not and you can see her leg in the picture and yeah it's after the accident you don't sit with your leg on the floor and he says it was not dodi at the door. It was me and yes Mac. I know what I saw she was screwing around with him and what they're up to just to say they're gone and some people will know and they got burned and their mess and he says in the future they get put somewhere else right now they're in more than one place and I'm horrified this is so stupid someone's doing this and it might be Tommy f and he's using AI we have to know so we have to check the church and we have to check France and we have to check Egypt and we have to check it now it's pretty clever and he's been doing that but these people here right now cuz I have to do it and that's a problem and he's out of control still and it could be the computer doing it he says and of the computer has enough sensing to detect things and all the sudden I said this that is disgusting it could be and you could have plan to do it that way when you saw Peter's head and didn't look that bad and this is going to be gross these two people are nuts already and that's disgusting they'll never live it down even if they had it done it's like when our friends saw the guy who own that big facility was working at HMC when he was little he had a teeny weenie pencil dick instead of smaller and he didn't know what to do his Frozen your stories are part of what we're doing he wants me to stop talking too and publish

Mac Daddy

Olympus

[chrisrin]

the new ywdmp chapter. holy fuck.

[ottiliere]

what does dirk talk to his friends about in your au? i noticed in your Dave Strider Hatethoughts drawing dirk's orange pesterchum soliloquy is broken up by a small amount of pink text. is roxy his go-to person to talk to?

roxy... this post is going to focus on Roxy because it became a bit too long to include the other two.

since we have established the existence of carapacians in this au having evolved parallel to humans (working on a prospective biology workup for them right now... don't hold your breath though), we decided that Roxy would likely live in a carapacian community similar to canon. there is so much to say about a society with another sentient species coexisting within it, we have talked about it for hours and hours and I don't think it's reasonable to synopsize it all efficiently into one post... subcultures of all kinds do tend to congregate together, though, so just picture a congested little NYC carapacian neighborhood and now picture that Roxy grew up there. I imagine carapacians evaded "nuclear family" propaganda and have much more community-centered child rearing methods because of that (aligning nicely with both the bug and chess army motifs), so she was likely raised not just by parents but all her neighbors too. a human child raised by carapacians... not unheard of but certainly a bit novel. they would adore her, of course. along these lines not all carapacians are as sentient/smart as humans (deuce vs. slick) so I imagine as she enters her teens it'd be a lot similar to how one takes care of an elderly parent just beginning to enter the throes of dementia. a bit like how she has to feed her neighbors in canon and help them with little tasks and such, how she needs to help them escape the red miles... likely this impacts the way she thinks of dirk; I can only imagine growing up in an environment like that primes you to be something of an unthanked caretaker. practically a reflex for her.

I think it's important that Roxy is an equal kind of isolated from the world (or humanity) that Dirk is. this, in addition to the fact that just being in proximity to Dave by degree of separation of alpha rose would set dirk off so bad they could literally never be friends because of it (even though they would meet before the disillusionment kicks in; afterwards he wouldn't be able to tolerate it. it would be all he could think about. he is quite obsessive like that). and so on. the isolation itself is important because of the intrinsic parallels of dirk and roxy both living on the fringes of society (trailer park vs carapace slum). roxy, at least, had a community. she had a family. she had sentient beings who cared about her, even if they were a bit disconnected from human culture. regarding her schooling, if she's in a carapace community she'd go to the school they all go to, ergo there would be more carapaces in the student body than, say, a school in a yuppie district. her school would, likely, have a body of human students, but I don't think a lot of the other humans would've been carapacian adoptees like her. likely a bit alienated due to this fact. (aside regarding alpha rose: I think Roxy would've been a teen pregnancy given up at birth. not sure how she would've ended up with the carapacians though. a plot point for future rumination.)

regarding drinking habits: I think they know but she hides it well. and everyone is busy... no one specifically is doing on her or tending to her. their social standards for child rearing are different.

As an overview of their actual relationship, Roxy has the special privilege of being dirk's very first friend. I imagine that she and dirk met on IRC chats at a young age trolling. perhaps having a conversation larping as people who are freakishly interested in whatever topic of the channel they went on, saying increasingly ridiculous shit until they both get banned, at which point they add each other. this has to have been when they were around 10-11 (c. 2000-2002). Pre-4chan... she would have been present with him through it all. Almost 100% certainly the only person on the planet who knows the extent of what he went through (and what he is ACTIVELY going through at their moment of meeting). He is a pretty secretive guy even in the comic (ohh dirk hiding your plans and being elusive again are you -all of the alpha kids) but Roxy... I think it's a combination of the fact that they made contact just before dirk was edified to the fact that everything his guardian was doing to him wasn't the norm. she would've witnessed the aftermath of that, and was possibly even the one to explain it to him (bro obviously wouldn't sign the sex ed permission slip). I have a lot of thoughts about how this conversation would go, and I don't think it would really hit the same just factually talking about it here. perhaps deserving of its own... post... or fanfiction... or mspfa. to be decided.

Their relationship, to me, is... sweet, truly. A lot of Dirk's time spent on the library computers after school just talking to her for hours as one of the few things in his life he has to look forward to... I don't think he'll ever fully be able to be a "friend" to her in the traditional sense, but I genuinely feel that she would not be bothered by this since they've been around each other for so long. She knows that is just how he is, by which I mean that the way he comports himself in almost any interaction is so stunted that I think any other person raised under any other conditions would get very upset at his interpersonal and overly sarcastic/acerbic decorum. somehow something about her struck a sweet spot in him where he does care enough about her and actively likes her enough to enjoy her presence but he's also not compelled to throw his whole weight into her or spend all his time around her, etc. it's genuinely unusual for him. he probably will not find this balance with another person ever again in his life. he's too all or nothing.

I think the magic of the internet is that it enables these little types of connections... people who drastically change your life for the better out of a completely happenstance encounter. would dirk have tried to kill himself much earlier if he hadn't met her? it's likely.

as a side note... I'm not sure dirk could've befriended Roxy (or any of his friends, for that matter) if he had known them in real life. I think he is the kind of walking victimized man that is very hard to befriend because his behavior is genuinely so off-putting and rude. nobody with any shred of self-confidence, or self-worth, would tolerate being constantly put down over their interests, especially over a large swathe of years. if he's like this online, I can only imagine what he'd be act like in real life, especially combined with the disordered prosody that often comes after severe childhood abuse and subsequent disfigurement (metaphorically) of one's vagal tuning. (aside: remind me to write my polyvagal dirk post.) a bit rancid, really. i think, certainly, that he is aware of this, of how bad he is at interacting with people. he likely he brushes it off as something that he COULD be good at if he wanted to... but he doesn't. because he dislikes people oh so very much. why should he waste time on learning to be around the common populace? to make himself more tolerable? he's more superior while simultaneously being vastly inferior in a breathtaking display of self-deprecative cognitive dissonance fueled by the classic nihilist dilemma and his brain's only attempt at convincing itself he shouldn't jump off the nearest bridge.

along these lines, I do think roxy and dirk have had numerous incidents where they were remarkably shitty to each other. roxy w/ alcoholism and sexual harassment of course and dirk with his battery acid personality. like... that's just life. that's friendship, especially in preteen years. these are two kids who are affected to varying degrees by their respective upbringings and they WILL be stepping on each others' toes. that's what happens when you're a kid. it sucks and you suck and you take it out on each other because your brain isn't fully developed yet. doubly/TRIPLY so if you are severely traumatized and your brain subsequently wired itself to have very poor control over its emotional reactions... (having to do with messed up wiring between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, among other structures like the periaqueductal gray, which is responsible for freeze/flight defense patterns. I posted papers about this here before but here's one of them again.) which is what communication is for. neither of them have any other friends (at the start, at least), so I genuinely don't think either of them would've had the option that a lot of people tend to take nowadays of just abruptly ghosting after a conflict or ditching someone because they hold an opinion that clashes with one of yours. when stuff like this happens with dirk and roxy they would have no choice but to either 1) avoid the issue, leading to festering childish resentment until they 2) confront it poorly, with very pointed words and accusations and passive aggression as, again, children are wont to utilize due to inherent lack of maturity, until they can 3) confront it kind of okay style. picturing this progression occurring as they age and their brains grow a little more.

slightly related scenario as an aside, I keep pondering a scenario in which roxy meets jane and begins replying a little late to dirk on occasion (having simultaneous convos). when he finds out why he kind of spirals about being "replaced". could possibly be how he and jane meet, since roxy would attempt to diffuse the situation by sticking them in a group chat together or whatever the mid-2000s equivalent of that was. or just give him Jane's pesterchum handle. i keep forgetting that we can use pesterchum as a convenient anachronism avoidance measure. this would've been the perfect segue into a Jane segment but I think this is enough worldbuilding for one post. did I even answer your question... absolutely yes she is his go-to person to talk to. I think his friendships with Jane and Jake would not be as "deep" as theirs just by virtue of everything listed above. they've #beenthroughitall.

[nell-pointer]

DSMP CLASSPECTS CUZ  ITS 4/13 BABYYYY!!!!

I’ve seen some other people do these, and I thought I’d try my hand at it because sorting characters into things is like the most fun thing to do ever. I didn’t do all the characters, just a few of the ones I felt the most confident about (and some rapid fire ones at the end). This probably won’t make any sense if you don’t already understand classpects but I dont care so without further ado:

Dream - Knight of Heart: First off, Dream doesn’t get to have that many splinters and not have a heart aspects, secondly, I honestly feel like heart just fits him really well. Heart players are all about passion and the soul. Combine that with Knights who are notorious for hiding their true feelings behind a façade (or a mask lol) You get someone who pretends to be all logical, but is in reality ruled almost entirely by emotions.

Technoblade - Prince of Blood: There is no universe in which I don’t give Techno a blood aspect, while you could make an argument that breath would suit him much better, it just wouldn’t be right. 

So I went for a middle ground. The Prince class always mirror their opposing aspect. (that's why Dirk was logical despite being a heart player, Eridan was nihilistic despite being a hope player, and Kurloz was calm despite being a rage player) So It would make sense that Techno, as a Prince of Blood would share so many characteristics with the Breath aspect. Plus deep down its pretty obvious that Techno does long for a sense of community and friendship, even if he sometimes has a pretty bad way of going about it. 

Also, Prince of Blood literally translates to “One who destroys Unity” so.....

Tommy - Knight of Blood: Tommy may look like a Dave Strider kinnie, but hes got way more in common with Karkat. I don’t think this requires more explanation, but i’m a wordy bitch so I’m gonna keep going.

Blood has to do with bonds, attachments, unity, things like that, all of which are pretty much the core of Tommys whole character. And I’m going with knight because he puts up a front of an annoying raging child, but past the surface its clear he’s cares deeply for those around him. 

Tubbo - Rouge of Void: Tubbo is a character study in avoidance. Time and time again we see him sweep very important things under the rug, usually to make things easier or more comfortable for others. He lets things go because he wants to be the bigger person, because he wants to be a forgiving person. This is token rouge behavior, using your own aspect to help others, he will forgive pretty major things, or avoid talking about major things because he doesn’t want to cause conflict. But at the end of the day, all rouges struggle with giving too much of themselves away, and will almost always reach their breaking point. Also, major Roxy Lalonde vibes what can I say. 

Quackity - Witch of Mind: While I could go for the easy clap and say ‘oh, here's this morally ambiguous character that also happens to dabble in some occasional manipulation, lets go with thief’.... but I’m not that lazy. Plus I actually really like witch for him, witches are confident in their aspect and are always trying to test the bounds of it, and I think that works very well with Quackitys ambitious nature. He’s not evil, he’s cutthroat. 

And as for his aspect... again I could have gone the easy route and given him light because of the obvious luck motif, but in my opinion, the luck motif is really ALL he’s got in common with light. Other than that, nothing else about him stands out to me as belonging to a light player. Mind on the other hand, I think works very well. Mind players are logically driven and great critical thinkers. They are usually several steps ahead, and if that's not Quackity I don’t know what is.

Here are some rapid fire ones that I’m less sure of either because I don’t care that much or I know next to nothing about their lore I just get ‘vibes’ from them

Sapnap: Knight for sure, not totally sure of what maybe life tho

Karl: Bard of Light

Philza: Mage (or maybe sylph) of Doom (or maybe life)

Wilbur: Mage of Time

Fundy: Seer of something, not sure of what

Bad: Definite Rage player, even with my limited knowledge of the Eggpire I’m pretty confidant on this one. Class I got nothing for tho. 

Hannah: Witch of Life

Ranboo: Obvious Void player

Michael (not the pig): Seer of Doom seems a little too obvious but its all I got

George: I’m leaning towards Heir, maybe of Void

Aimsey: First clock says Sylph of Doom, could potentially change based on what he does moving forward. 

Puffy: Also probably a Sylph (damn meddlers)

Boomer: Based on the like two things I know about them, I’m thinking Rouge of Light

Slime: Heir of Heart

[autumnblogs]

Readthrough 2, Day 1: John Homestuck

Here we are again, April 13th.

I’m going to try, as much as I can, not to repeat myself in this liveblog, so if you haven’t already read my first liveblog, you’ll still likely be able to get something out of it if you are picking up with me on my second liveblog!

Time in Homestuck is extremely flexible, in keeping with the demands of a Narrative-first reality, and of course, the very first idea that we’re introduced to in the setting is this sort of reverse-causality situation, where John is not named until his 13th birthday, but has paradoxically always been John, much in the same way that Prospit and Derse and the Medium are all created at the moment a session begins, but have paradoxically always existed.

I have said this before, I’ll say it again: I really like this format for introductions, and I love the way that these introductions are structured. A big part of the reason Homestuck characters end up feeling kind of like real people, is that they are interested in lame stuff.

Abstract Behavioral Medium, now there’s a humdinger of a phrase. Abstraction is a recurring motif in Homestuck, what with the different levels of detail in drawing. Sprite Mode, which we’ve got here, is the base level of abstraction for people who exist in Homestuck, it seems. Hero Mode, which becomes prominent in Act 5 and Act 6, is a level of abstraction up from that, and ���Hussnasty” I think is the term for the level of abstraction up from that.

Being abstracted in Homestuck is associated with being dominated, under someone else’s thumb, subject to their will - Doc Scratch dominates Damara by abstracting her away from Hero Mode, and into Sprite Mode for example - and is also associated with a lower level of fidelity, authenticity, and “realness” - Hero Mode often becomes more prominent as the story becomes more serious, with more abstracted drawing styles associated with more comical, and less serious moments in general.

Sprite Mode as the base layer of abstraction suggests a level of cognitive distance between John and his reality, a feeling of haplessness, unseriousness, and lack of control. He is an abstraction of himself, layers removed from the Real Thing. It takes adventures that render him in Hero Mode and higher levels of fidelity to render him “More Authentic” - so maybe John’s idea of the real life is one of high stakes conflict. That fits with the cultural expectations of masculinity that HS is generally kind of interested in.

I told myself I was going to watch some of the Homestuck Reference Movies in between my last reread and this one, and I did not do so. Maybe I should watch the movies PARALLEL to my Homestuck Readings, see what’s up with them.

Homestuck has some interesting things to say about Race, but I’m not the most qualified to talk about it. I’ll talk when I think I actually have some interesting things to say, but I’m not as educated on it as I would like to be, and/or educating myself as much as I can, so I’m not going to talk about it at length unless I have something really interesting to say.

That said, I can also provide references: @mmmmalo​’s stuff about race is really good, and I might reblog some of it later. For now, if you want to peruse what they have to say about blackness, here is the link to the tag: https://mmmmalo.tumblr.com/tagged/race%20mapping/page/2

In any case, it’s interesting to see that the first Black President is referenced so early within Homestuck, especially considering its weird relationship with Obama, and in particular, Dave’s fascination with Obama. I think I’ll revisit my thoughts about Black People in Homestuck when we get to Her Imperious Condescension.

A monocle is a signifier that points to someone being a proper gentleman - wearing a monocle is part of the performance of gentlemanliness (much like cologne and aftershave are signifiers of dadliness, and part of the performance of dadliness).

The keyword abstraction appears again, ersatz, in the phrase Kind Abstratus. These kinds suggest that a big part of Abstraction is in Definition - in labeling things, watering them down to a set of easily identifiable characteristics so that they can be sorted into categories, distinct from each other.

American Cool Culture is really interesting to me, because like, if you look at the history of cool, it’s almost all African-American in origin, which is appropriate, since apparently the history of the concept begins in Africa, and only enters European culture with the Trans-atlantic Slave Trade.

In my last liveblog, I talked a little about how Dave Strider is kind of a poser, and I interpret him as a white-coded character who is adopting black mannerisms - peppering his dialogue with out of date AAVE, for example, which is probably reflective of Andrew’s understanding of it as well. As long as I’m thinking about Race in Homestuck though, it’s interesting to think of the Bros of Homestuck as white guys knowingly or unknowingly appropriating blackness.

I am almost certainly not the first person to note the resemblance between the present and the perfectly generic object, or rather that the Perfectly Generic Object is like the present - containing we know not what, but certainly something incredibly desirable, absent of features until it is opened.

I wonder if that tags Roxy, whose introduction to John is being buried under a pile of PGOs as being the Bunny - the gift inside the box. But John is also the bunny.

Makes me think of the Theosophic Notion that God created androgynous souls, which were then split into male and female, such that soulmates are people whose souls are the masculine and feminine halves of the original androgynous soul, such that the Bunny is a symbol of John, but also a symbol of John’s love interest - he names her Liv, after all, because of his celebrity crush on the disaster movie female romantic lead from Armageddon - so John and Roxy are As One.

Odd place to bring this up, but the use of the word Artifact to describe all the sundries that can be picked up and put in cards is interesting to me, and seems tied to the theme of abstraction we’ve got going here in the first act. Artifacts are the leftovers of bygone things - and since Homestuck is an end of the world story, of course, all of these items are artifacts in that sense.

But it also reminds me of the word artifact as in Compression Artifacts - the infidelities and ugliness produced by the compression of a picture into a smaller format for easier storage.

While John isn’t into Chick Flicks, the adventure movies that he’s into almost all have the romantic dynamic in them anyway. Karkat replicates and exaggerates John’s sublimated interest in Romcoms. What’s interesting about chick flicks, rom coms, is that while they’re nominally for women, almost all of them are written by men, men’s idea of what women are interested in, men’s idea of women, and their relationships with men.

The Strider’s relationship with the concept of ironic enjoyment recalls something I read recently, I can’t remember the reference, but it was about how Irony is inherently destructive, or at least, non-constructive, it can only criticize non-constructively.

While the Striders, and more to the point, Bro, may get enjoyment out of derogating things, even in a multi-layered way, this derogation ultimately doesn’t produce anything new, and the ironic enjoyment is usually just a cloak to mask genuine enjoyment.

While only ~ath gets any user throughout the comic, the other books also have cheeky pun titles that I only caught on literally this readthrough, because I glossed over them every other time. Dis* (Disasterisk), ^Cake (Carat/Carrot Cake).

Homestuck’s meteors are of course, couched in reference to Armageddon and Deep Impact specifically, but to American Disaster Movies more generally. Disaster Movies seem to be kind of a phenomenon tied to both Anthopogenic Natural Disaster - Climate Change, and pollution of the environment - and in some ways emerged because of the world status quo in which America was the global hegemon with no real contenders. There stopped being a lot of new disaster movies as soon as 9/11 happened. Strangely Homestuck, is almost completely uninterested in the War on Terror though, in spite of the ways in which it’s otherwise aggressively contemporary, and the preoccupation with the apocalypse, and disaster movies, might give a hint that, at least in this one respect, Homestuck is actually stuck about ten years in the past - a strange and achronistic blend of the late 90s, just a moment before that world DID end and the late thousands, with all the early Obama-Era stuff that implies.

That’s about all I got in me for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll pick up at Rose’s introduction.

[iamkidfish]

Why Shelby’s teeth works so well as a metaphor for her sexuality

I know this has been talked about a lot but I got sent an ask that made me have a Shelby breakdown so I just thought I’d add my two cents :’)

It’s pretty clear Shelby’s sexuality is linked with her teeth. She says that her flipper is something that holds back all this “ugliness”-referencing the expectations of her life, her internalized homophobia from her father, and the guilt she feels over Becca’s death. That’s a lot of emotional weight packed into a tiny little piece of plastic, but it makes sense.

1. Expectations/Performance: Very quickly into Shelby’s episode, we see how ‘fake’ she really is. (By fake, I mean conforming to the expectations her family and life has provided to her as a means of self-preservation and survival) The pageants, the boyfriend, her teeth are all ‘given’ to her as things she is expected to perform under or with but Shelby’s compliance is a double edged sword: it allows her a safety net (to play a ‘role’ in her family/community but still have these feelings for her best friend) but it’s also the rope that’s constricting her

Does Shelby even like pageants? We know she’s good at them but why did she start competing in the first place? Was it Dave, who saw some early signs of Shelby liking girls and forced her to participate in one of the most gendered things in existence? Or does Shelby put herself into that environment willingly, knowing how she feels about Becca (or girls in general) as a way to shove down her feelings?

We know Shelby is perceptive of these expectations because she lays them all out in her argument with Toni in episode: “I’m not just talking about pageant stuff”. The first time Shelby kisses Becca she’s in a pageant dress (another thing symbolizing her expectations); the first time she kisses Toni, they’re literally talking about expectations in Shelby’s life-”You’re free here Shelby, On an island a million miles away from whatever bullshit expectations and if you’re not taking advantage of that, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you”. Also important: both of these scenes/kisses have a fallout; the first being the marker on Shelby’s dress (and her father noticing the mark and the kiss) and then Shelby literally running away from Toni in the second scene (and running back to expectations/role she’s known her whole life).

It’s also important to note: Shelby’s line to Martha in the pilot “I do family, I do jesus, I do pageants.” those are the three things that are actually harming her/forcing her into these boxes. 

2. Dave Goodkind and internalized homophobia: Oh Dave...nothing like giving your kid years of trauma

Jokes aside, this is the most obvious connection between Shelby’s flipper and her sexuality. It’s mentioned in the show that Shelby first gets her fake teeth when she’s 11 and that’s a long time for her to link all of her insecurities and doubts and negative self-image to her retainer. I’m not completely sure but I think it can be easily interpreted that’s when Shelby realized she liked girls (or at least Becca)

Remember, Dave tells Shelby “God only does beautiful” after her parents initially say no to getting the permanent implants and I’m willing to bet that’s something he started to tell her when she first realized she needed the implants at 11.

It’s only until after Dave catches her kissing Becca that he starts to talk about “fixing” things

(Another important note: the scene where Shelby confronts her father about the kiss, he’s on the treadmill and in the very first scene we see of Shelby’s flashback, Dave is leading the cycling class. Exercise is another motif that is present during Shelby’s episode that relates back to the idea of image/appearance/expectations)

Dave tells Shelby “I still pray for everyone even if they don’t deserve it, even if they can’t be saved” and this is the first moment where it all crashes down. This is when his narrative changes and he changes what he’s telling Shelby to fit the narrative he has constructed.

So he decides to attack Shelby at her most vulnerable: the night she wins the pageant competition which, subsequently, is also the night she finds out that Becca has died. I’ve decided there is no way that Shelby’s parents (at least Dave) don’t know about Becca’s death. Other than the fact that they’re living in a small, conservative, religious Texas town, Shelby’s mom mentions Becca’s ‘mental health problems’, making it clear the news got out into the community, even if Becca’s parents tried to keep it under wraps.

Dave only mentions the possibility of Shelby getting permanents after the pageant competition, when he knows that Becca is dead, which is interesting to me. Obviously there could have been other times he mentioned it, but the writers’ specifically chose to include it in that scene, emphasizing the metaphor of Shelby’s sexuality being linked to her teeth. Dave is telling her “look, Becca’s death is your fault, the relationship that has been broken to the most extreme, these things are fixable. and you will be fixed.”

Again the metaphor is basically confirmed with the order of scenes in Shelby’s episode. Dave continues to push Shelby into getting the permanents, even after Shelby’s mother looks shocked and protests, saying “if it can be fixed, the pain is worth it”. I think in the very next interview scene Shelby tells Faber and Young that she had “very different plans” for the summer and she also has her flipper still (and it’s still cracked), signifying Dave’s plan for her conversion didn’t work. Assuming that’s how Gretchen marketed it to him for him to agree to send her.

I know there are also some theories around saying that Dave is also gay but went through some kind of conversion therapy, from the way he talks to Shelby, and with all the metaphor about the teeth being genetic-I couldn’t find the post but thought that was interesting to add. 

3. Guilt about Becca’s death

Oops this is getting long so I’ll make this short. 

But Shelby tells everyone that know one else knows about her flipper, except in the flashback scene where Shelby kisses Becca, Dave invites her to stay for dinner. Obviously this had a double meaning, but what’s important is that it’s casual and feels authentic, like it’s been happening for a long time. And why shouldn’t it, Becca and Shelby have been friends for years, of course Becca is going to eat dinner with Shelby’s family. So she has also seen Shelby’s flipper/knows about her teeth. 

There’s a lot to be said about the parallels of Toni and Becca both telling Shelby that they “see” her in someway but for me, the most important part is after Leah accuses Shelby of being the spy in ep 7. Both Toni and Becca, the only two people who Shelby has confided in her feelings with/kissed and know about her teeth, say that “see” her. 

Shelby tells Toni, it’s “just another reason to hate me, not that you need any more” connecting back to the conversation she had with Becca on the porch, and you realize that, through the connection, Shelby fully blames herself for Becca’s death and feels as if Becca hates her, because, she believes, Toni does too.

[professorchaos]

kenny is canonically time-bound. i keep seeing rogue of doom everywhere and does it fit? sure! would it make him a sort of foil to prince of life eric, mirroring tfbw? hella! but consider. all of the motifs are in order. meanwhile we never get enough blood-bound kyle

(please please share your classpect hcs im fucking starving)

i'm struggling so much anon because i haven't been into homestuck for (checks date) eleven. years. but!

i agree with kyle as blood very strongly (was literally just talking to mystewion about this). kenny as time... makes a lot of sense power-wise, and i think that she fits RIGHT in with canon time players (esp. aradia and dave), and tbh was always my immediate hc, but am also vaguely toying with the idea of her as a hope player??? give me like five hours so i can think about this more (lmao). i haven't thought about classes for either of them yet... classes are the hardest part huh. classpecters really my hat goes off to you i didn't appreciate how fucking hard this is

butters is giving me. NO END. of trouble. but i am thinking maybe she is rage-inclined, especially taking into account victor in post covid. as for class? i'm not sure. i've been tossing around the ideas of maid or mage (even though "mage of rage" sounds very very silly imo and maid is possibly, technically, a gender-locked class). i like that the bandages on the calves of the maid god tier outfit look similar to the bandages butters imagines professor chaos with and i think it would be interesting to see a trans player receive a class associated with the gender they haven't realised they are yet (though i kinda have a feeling that in canon it wouldn't really work that way).

i don't know about stan or eric yet i have not thought this far i am really just trying to sort out butters first because i feel like it should be the easiest for me bUT IT'S NOT THE EASIEST ANON IT REALLY ISN'T

[antialiasis]

Morphic: the Musical

The Thousand Roads forums have a fanfic music thread. While I don't really do those kinds of threads usually because I don't really listen to a very wide variety of music and generally have a hard time associating music that already exists with unrelated fiction, one of the questions in it is this:

Talk about what would happen if some Broadway hit-maker scooped up your fic and turned it into a script. What songs would be in it? Describe a dance number/dance battle?

And immediately, the musical analysis glint lit up in my eyes. This question was presumably intended in a lighthearted jokey sort of way - imagining some fight staged as a dance battle, a hypothetical Broadway hit-maker doing the adaptation. But that's not enough for me, say I! Musicals are a good and interesting medium for serious fiction that I care about and I am going to serious this up.

See, to me, the musical format has two major strengths as a narrative medium. The first is that it can explore the inner worlds of characters in a pretty unique way. Characters get to monologue in a sort of heightened, non-literal manner, intensified by music: we can learn what they're about, what makes them tick, what's going on in their heads in a particular moment, in a way that wouldn't really make sense presented as actual inner monologue in another medium. The music aspect itself then adds a layer to it that's impossible to replicate in any other.

The second strength of the musical format is that it's really good at highlighting recurring themes, parallels and contrasts. Reprise the same melody, the same lyric, a parallel but opposite lyric, and you've instantly connected two things together. Is there a character arc? You can highlight what has changed. Are there two characters going through something similar? You can draw that out. Is there a recurring theme throughout? Use a recurring lyric, a recurring melodic phrase! Nudge the viewer into forming connections! Delicious! And you can do subtler things on the music level itself - particular instruments with particular connotations, recurring motifs...

So naturally I decided I should think up what a musical adaptation of Morphic would be like. It'd be a fun exercise in putting all my thoughts on musical adaptations into practice, but also an interesting way to help sort out some of my thoughts about characters arcs, etc. for the actual Morphic rewrite. And in the process, I may have gone slightly overboard. I regret nothing.

(I'm about to spoil most of the fic here, if this wasn't obvious)

Morphic: the Musical - tracklist

(Note: this musical is not sung-through; there are regular non-musical sections with regular dialogue in between. Morphic would almost definitely not make for a good sung-through musical.)

Act I

[Intro song] (Brian)

A monologue by Brian at the TV studio as he tries to work through what to say, how to explain or justify any of this (which conveniently serves to exposit to the audience as well as introduce his character). He makes nervous false starts and cuts himself off, starting the verse over each time, and through these false starts we learn what's going on, that the press has been calling them Pokémorphs, that this was all Dave's idea, that alcohol was involved, that it was meant as a basis for further research, that there were never supposed to be *children*, that he doesn't know what he'd even do with a kid, that Dave roped him into going on this show because he couldn't.

[Dave song] (Dave)

This musical properly introduces us to Dave via Jane walking out on him followed by this song, wherein he contemplates chucking baby Jean out the window. It's a dark rock song with big emotional contrasts and raw lyrics that is almost definitely my favorite song in this musical in the hypothetical reality where it is an actual musical and I didn't write it, because I am me. Probably starts with a couple slower lines of desperate disbelief before launching into wild anger about fuck that fucking whore, followed by what I will be referring to as the everything-is-shit verse (please bear with me), just a general cynicism rant about why the world is a shitty place not worth living in, followed by him wildly fantasizing about killing his infant child. What a delightful human being that I adore. The song ends abruptly, he's standing there staring at her in his arms for a moment, then he silently goes to feed her. On the soundtrack you probably might think he just did it.

Fatherhood (Brian)

A montage song covering the timeskip, which probably reprises [Intro song]. Brian initially has no idea what to do with his new squirming horrorblob child and is convinced he will screw it up the way he tends to screw up everything. Makes a couple of false starts again, but then gains confidence as time passes as he genuinely bonds with Gabriel and legitimately thinks he's a pretty amazing kid. There's a repeated line along the lines of that Gabriel's a weird, weird kid, but he's his, initially in a tone of "oh god I'm responsible for him what do" but towards the end is said with pride and fondness.

[Villain song] (Isaac and Jacob)

A duet between the two brothers, exploring what makes them tick. Isaac is all about this heavy pressure and sense of responsibility, originally imposed by his father, that he continues to impose on himself. He's been appointed to take over leading the family/cult and was raised with that constantly in the back of his mind as his future, and he believes that they're God's true righteous people and he cannot go wrong. He has dreams with some regularity that he interprets as visions from God, as he has been encouraged to since childhood by his father. When he has one about murder, it frightens him but he sees it as basically a divinely-appointed mission.

Jacob privately doesn't really believe any of that. He is trapped in this cult and goes through the motions but is not actually driven by any of the things that are driving Isaac. He's fairly quiet for most of the song - as Isaac is going on about his vision, Jacob has a line here and there obliquely challenging it, but Isaac has an answer for everything, and he doesn't press it, instead moving seamlessly on to suggestions for how he should do it. Jacob gets a quiet variant of part of the everything-is-shit verse from [Dave song], expressing the same kind of cynicism in a more reproachful, apathetic way - all in his own head, of course.

Just Like My Hero (Jean and Will)

Jean sings about how she is just like her hero, Sarah Hooter! Starts off describing how they look the same, moves on from there to how she will torch anyone who's mean, etc., just like her hero. Halfway through, Will joins in, and it becomes a counterpoint duet: Jean may be immature and ridiculous, but he deeply wishes he was confident and adored and nothing would get to him, and he admires and envies that about her. His just like my hero has a bit more of an ironic vibe, he'd hardly properly call her his hero, but he looks up to her more than he'd normally admit nonetheless.

Storming the Castle (Jack and Gabriel)

Jack and Gabriel are playing a D&D game with their friends, arguing about the best course of action. Jack is eager to waltz into the bad guys' fortress, storm the castle, while Gabriel urges lying low, says they're too weak. Jack wants to take the leap and try it; Gabriel insists no, we're not taking the leap, it's stupid. "It's brave!" Jack counters. (In the end, Gabriel gives in and they go ahead with it, and it goes fine.)

Unique (Mia and Lucy)

Mia and Lucy play one of their games. The song is about how Lucy needs someone like Mia to challenge her and let her actually indulge her powers, which are otherwise unsettling to people and she's ashamed and self-conscious about them, while Mia needs someone like Lucy to get a real outlet for her hunter's instinct. The word the lyrics are built around is unique; by being the precise way they are, they are each the only person who can provide this for the other.

Mia doesn't sing. She speaks her lyrics in her usual monotone, not even rhythmically. They also don't rhyme. It's technically a duet but really it's just Lucy singing and Mia talking.

[Peter/Katherine song] (Peter and Katherine)

A counterpoint duet between the siblings, contrasting their experience as Pokémorphs. Peter can pretty easily hide that he's different and be treated mostly as a normal kid, and feels free in his privilege, not confined quite the way the others are, able to be a bit reckless and incautious. Katherine, meanwhile, has a very different experience, being extremely noticeably different, getting stared at, and struggling with basic activities, and feels a huge sense of responsibility weighing her down, worrying about Peter and grounding him and reining him in. There's a lyrical contrast involving something something bird freedom plant rooted down something.

Brian's Death (Isaac and Dave)

This is one of those mostly-instrumental pieces that they include on the soundtrack anyway, but Isaac gets a couple of sung nondiegetic lines in here, a sort of frantic excitement, realizing in a brief panic that he shot the wrong guy before rationalizing that God must have planned it this way.

Dave is probably also in there screaming and attempting to call the police, because I am always in favor of screaming and panicking on musical soundtracks.

The Funeral (Gabriel and Jack)

Begins with Gabriel at the church during the funeral, singing about his vague discomfort being there, but slowly becomes increasingly frantic and anxious, working up to a breakdown where he exits and finally manages to cry for his dad. There's a verse about little things, how they ordered pizza the night before he died, etc., culminating in the bit about him having been in the middle of this mystery novel and never getting to learn who did it; the verse trails off quietly there, backing instruments gone, as Gabriel breaks down. Jack follows to comfort him.

Act II

[Montage song] (everyone)

A montage of the days after the attack, where everyone gets a couple lines about how they're coping, scared and grieving.

Dave's lines are like, spoken slightly too desperate annoyance at having to do some work that Brian didn't get to finish, or rebuking somebody who asks how he's doing by saying he barely even knew Brian. He is not singing along with this kind of grief-porn bullshit, fuck you.

[Villain song II] (Isaac and Jacob)

The brothers come up with a new plan. Isaac is agitated, reprising some of his bits from the original villain song in a quicker, more frantic tempo, while Jacob picks up the slack, walking him through a new idea. Isaac takes to it with conviction and goes back to the original melody/tempo, talking again about his God-given purpose. Jacob does not join in with any of that, only with the bits about the actual plan.

The Kidnapping (instrumental)

I'm just going to say this is on the soundtrack too and contains panicked Gabriel noises because I want it to be.

Storming the Castle Reprise (Jack)

Jack tries to rally the others for a rescue mission, echoing the D&D game from Act I. The lines about storming the castle and taking the leap make a reappearance.

Just Like My Hero Reprise (Jean)

Jean, on the bus, miserably contemplates how she is unlike her hero. Again, it begins with a verse talking about how she looks - not a thing like Sarah Hooter anymore - but then moves on to how she's scared and pathetic and running away, unlike anything a hero would do.

Church Sequence (Will, Jack, Mia)

A single track, largely instrumental/dialogue/sound effects, with a couple of brief song snippets:

- Will reprises "Just Like My Hero" as he wills himself to go on. He is cut off mid-line as he is shot.

- Mia slits that guy's throat and she actually sings a few words, for the first and only time, before she is also cut off mid-line by a gunshot. The line is something about, like, warm blood in her face or the guy's satisfying death throes, reprising part of the melody of "Unique".

Strong (Gabriel)

Gabriel discovers his powers. Starts slowly, calling back to the bits from "Storming the Castle" about lying low, being weak. But as the song continues and he makes his discovery, the tempo builds, and he starts reprising Jack's bits instead: he is strong, taking the leap, storming the castle.

Perish Song (Lucy)

Another brief reprise of "Unique", distorted and deafening and terrifying, mourning her sister.

[In the Hospital] (Jack and Gabriel)

The two of them work out their feelings about what happened. Includes Jack going "It was stupid" (i.e. the rescue mission) and Gabriel responding "It was brave", echoing the bit where they said the opposite in "Storming the Castle". Jack blames himself for how it all turned out, feels stupid and weak, while Gabriel actually felt kind of awesome. (This is also calling back to their opposite bits of "Storming the Castle".) They end with a shared duet verse as they realize they've both got that same innate desire to fight and win. Possibly calls back to the weird, weird kid line from "Fatherhood".

Eulogy (Dave)

Dave's eulogy for Mia (which also touches on Will, but this is Mia's funeral). It reprises "Unique". There will never again be anyone like the two of them, two of the only truly unique people on this Earth. (And, while he doesn't say it straight out because hahahaha, he needed Mia, too).

Taking the Leap (Jack and Gabriel)

Jack's suicide attempt and his swirling inner turmoil as he tries to talk himself into taking the leap once again. Gabriel, of course, comes in with don't take that leap. Am I overusing this one line by putting it in like half the songs in this thing? Well, who's going to stop me.

[Peter/Katherine song reprise] (Peter and Katherine)

The two of them contemplate indefinite house arrest (in contrast to the freedom Peter's enjoyed most of his life) and Katherine's failure to stop all this (despite her sense of responsibility). In the end, they both find their own ways to accept the new state of things and support each other through this.

Finale (Dave and Jean)

After Dave breaks down on his couch and Jean comes in to ask what's wrong, Dave sings a reprise of the everything-is-shit verse, going over the many things he's angry about, because that is the only emotion involved here clearly. At the exact point where Dave's song originally went from there to fantasizing about throwing her off the balcony, Jean throws her arms around him and sniffles "It'll be okay, Dad," and after a stunned "What? Jean, I'm--", he continues with a slow, hesitant *inverted* reprise of the everything-is-shit verse, "Everything'll be fine", constructing a little fantasy reality for her (and himself) where everything turns out all right in the end. It's backed by, like, a simple, quiet, slower piano rendition of the original melody, and trails off at the end, never quite coming to a satisfying conclusion before he tells Jean she should go back to bed.

[winterscaptain]

directors commentary on mistletoe please!!!!

as promised - here it is! all the text of mistletoe is there, with my commentary in bold italics :)

“Merry Everything, Dave!” You accept a glass of champagne and a kiss from Rossi as you step into the house, and cross over to Emily by the dining room table to pick up a little snack. Aaron’s in the dining room with JJ, setting the table with the boys (who have been here since the early afternoon). He brought your food with his earlier in the day, and all of it is in the fridge waiting to go on the table.

Tonight is the big Christmas Eve dinner, and the rest of the festivities happen the day after Christmas, when the team and the kids get together to open their presents from each other. 

Crossing to the doorway with Emily, you linger at the edge of the kitchen. 

“Oh hell yeah!” Emily crows, looking up in response to JJ’s pointed look and grin - the mistletoe smiles down at you with its red bow, hanging from the doorway. She takes your face in one of her strong, gentle hands and plants a very real, very chaste kiss on your lips. You laugh and clink your champagne glass with hers. “Merry Christmas!” 

“Merry Christmas, Em.” 

This scene popped fully formed into my head the second I thought of a holiday fic. I was like “oh absolutely Emily is going to have a field day with this.” 

I originally had about seven different mini-scenes with different team members getting caught under the mistletoe, but I thought it best to stay focused in this really critical part of the story. I’ll include them in future fics, for sure!

+++

Jack runs up to you and you catch him when he jumps, swinging him in a circle. He’s almost too tall (and if anyone asks, he’s six, so he’s a big boy now), but you figure you should savor whatever you get while it lasts. He latches on to you and you let him hang off your hip as you walk back into the living room.

There’s nothing I love more than Jack just glomming onto Reader or any other team member. It’s like an instant hit of serotonin. 

 You perch with him on the edge of the sofa next to Derek, who’s entertaining Henry with a couple of excellent fire trucks. 

This little picture here was straight out of a hallmark movie. I wanted to go into more detail, but I felt like it got bogged down. Basically, Derek’s sitting on the end of the sofa, leaning against the arm, while Henry’s basically sitting on his feet playing with the trucks. He’s minding Henry, leaning down every once in a while. Reader comes and sits on the arm, leaning against Derek, Jack-in-lap. 

All in all, very cute. 

When you catch JJ’s eye, she grins and looks up. Lo and behold, a sprig of mistletoe is tracked to the ceiling over your head. Jack follows your gaze and looks at you with a little question in his eyes. 

In hushed tones, you explain. “So, Jack, there’s a tradition where if you land under mistletoe with someone,” you point at the little plants, scattered all over the arches, light fixtures, and random parts of the ceiling, “you give each other a kiss.”

He looks at you, wide eyed. 

“Because it’s you and me, you don’t have to kiss on the lips like the grown ups do. We can give each other a hug or kiss each other on the cheek or anything you want.”

He sits back in your arms, thinking. Finally deciding, “I want to do what the grown ups do.”

Of course. 

You smile at him and wait for him to come to you, which he does. He pecks you on the lips and immediately dissolves into giggles. You tuck him under your chin with a hand on the back of his head, rocking back and forth a little in your own laughter.  

Writing kids is one of my favorite things. There’s something so magical about how delighted they are by so much of the world around them. 

You look at Aaron over Jack’s head, finding him with a soft smile and beer in his hand. 

Don’t give yourself away. Your smile says. 

His eyes flicker up in an almost-eye roll and he takes a sip of his drink. I’m allowed to look at my kid. 

You give him that one, and it’s a good enough cover. 

The way I pictured this little tableau was completely in the third person, maybe from Emily or Dave’s POV? Like someone on the other side of the room just sees them staring at each other, clearly having a sub-social conversation and completely oblivious to the people around them.

It’s almost like the image of a duel. Reader’s on one side of the room with Jack, and Aaron is on the other side, leaning against something (maybe another couch, maybe a fireplace, idk. I always kind of picture Dave’s mansion as my childhood friend Maddie’s house. idk.) and it’s so clear they only have eyes for each other. 

It does, however, escape your notice that Dave and Emily have put their heads together, whispering. 

“They look a proper family, don’t they?” Dave asks. 

Emily nods. “I think they’ve been one for a while, they just don’t know it yet.”

“Give them a little credit. They might know something.”

Emily snorts, and Dave relents. 

“Alright, maybe that’s too much credit.”

The ongoing motif of the team trying to sus out if they’ve admitted their feelings to THEMSELVES - not even each other - is one of my favorite parts of this series. Aaron and Mom have them so thoroughly fooled without even trying, just by being repressed idiots who habitually steamroll their own feelings. 

+++

“Uh oh, Hotch.” JJ grins, her gaze flickering first to Will, then Emily. 

You look up and find mistletoe over your heads, hanging from the pot rack above the island. 

He looks at you, shrugs, and you kiss each other on the cheek like it’s nothing. 

He’s such a shit. 

This is the first moment of this fic that popped into my head. All I wanted was for them to play coy under the mistletoe and for Emily to tease them within an inch of their lives before they almost give themselves away. 

“Oh come on Hotch, you can do better than that. I did!” Emily smirks at him. “A real kiss. C’mon.”

For the sake of the game, you look up at him, playing at shyness, and say, “You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

He rolls his eyes and takes your face in his hands, pressing a soft, surprisingly deep, close-mouthed kiss to your lips. Looking up at Emily, he quirks an eyebrow. “Happy?”

There’s this little moment where they totally get lost in each other. I didn’t explicitly write it in, but it’s kind of in-between the lines. They have to remind themselves of the eyes watching them, because kissing each other has become so part of their life :’)

They were so deprived for so long that every time is like the first time. 

Her cheeks are pink and she feels like she’s just stepped over some kind of line, but doesn’t know what or where it is. She recovers. “Much better.” Hopping off the counter, she retreats to the living room, leaving you alone with Aaron in the kitchen. 

“I think you nearly killed her with that,” you say, picking up your glass of water from the counter. 

He shrugs. “We’ve done worse, don’t you think?”

Your mind wanders to the night before, and heat shoots through you. “But they don’t know about that.” 

Heated brown eyes look down at you, and you shift a little in your chair. “Yeah, but I do.” 

That was another line of dialogue that I was itching to include. I’d had it in the outtakes for ages, and was so excited to finally find a home for it. 

Before you can respond, Jack runs up to you and tugs on your shirt, calling your name until you kneel in front of him. 

“What’s up, bud?” 

“I have a secret question for you,” he says, very matter-of-fact. 

Your eyebrows raise and you lift him up onto the counter so you can meet his eye. “A secret question?”

He nods, cupping his hands around his mouth and whispering into your ear. “Are you and me and dad having another sleepover tonight?”

You look at Aaron for a second before placing your hands around your mouth to reply. “Maybe. We have to see how tired we are after the party. Can you ask your dad a little later?”

He nods, but your hands stay put - there’s more to say. His little hands reach for you, resting lightly around your wrists as he leans into you.

“Hey, I’m really proud of you for asking me in a secret way. I know you and your dad talked about how our sleepovers are something we keep special just for the three of us, and I really appreciate your mindfulness tonight.” You lean back and kiss his forehead. “Super proud of you, bug.”

Establishing the kinship between Reader and Jack is super important to me. Parental, yet with different boundaries than Jack has with Aaron. This was one of the more parent-child moments, where Aaron can really see that Reader is becoming someone Jack trusts, someone who fills a similar role to himself in Jack’s life. 

He grins at you and jumps off the counter, running back to the train he’s building with Henry - the annual ridiculous purchase from Uncle Rossi to keep the kids entertained while the adults actually enjoy Christmas Eve. 

“What was that about?”

“Your son is just like you, you know that?”

He takes a sip of his beer. “How so?”

“He’s good at keeping secrets.”

There was more to this, but I honestly can’t remember what I cut here. It might have been another kiss, but I figured it was too risky and careless, even for them, at this stage of the game. 

+++

You’re all called to dinner about an hour later, with Dave giving the first toast. Penelope, ever the saint, sits with Jack and Henry at the kids table behind you with her cup of spiked apple juice. 

Aaron sits across from you, with the excuse of keeping an eye on Jack, and you’ve already engaged in one ridiculous game of footsie under the table. 

“My friends, my family. Another year comes to a close and it only feels right to acknowledge how wonderful it is to have everyone back where they belong.” Dave looks at Emily, whose face warms, and Aaron, who offers a small smile. “Tonight, let us drink to our family, to forgiveness, and the year ahead.” He raises his glass. “Salut.”

“Hiding in Plain Sight” is one of my favorite tropes, and I engineered this dinner scene to capitalize on that as much as I could. 

This scene originally wasn’t in here at all, but I felt that the fic was too short, so I played around with a couple of things before I added this one. I love that canon gives us so much to play with by way of big family dinners, and I was excited to embrace an opportunity to put my own spin on it. 

There will be more of these in the future!

“Salut!” The rest of the table starts clinking glasses, and you smile widely at Aaron as the neck of his beer bottle taps against your champagne flute. He winks at you as you both drink. 

It really is a family affair - everyone reaches over one another and shouts to pass dishes and refills nearby glasses without being asked. Spencer, beside you, surprises you by resting his head on your shoulder between dinner and dessert. You wrap an arm around him and kiss the top of his head, happy to accept his rare show of affection. 

Emily stands, and you direct your attention to her as he makes another toast, talking about how much she loves all of you, how thankful she is to be home, and how she never once takes you for granted. 

Spencer doesn’t move from under your arm, but Derek extends his arm over the back of Spencer’s chair, and his thumb brushes against the back of your arm. You smile at him over Spencer’s head. 

I love a touchy-feely moment, you know?

When you look across the table at Aaron, he looks well and truly happy. 

+++

A sleeping Jack slumps against your chest and over your shoulder as you say your goodbyes. Aaron has both his and his son’s sport coats over his arm and some leftovers balanced in his palm. 

When kids absolutely crash on people they love, my heart melts. I just imagine a little wilted Jack completely draped over Reader - boneless and totally out cold. I almost added a scene of how he got there (he fell asleep on his dad on the couch, but dad had to help clean up because he’s Aaron, so Jack got shuffled over to Reader), but I couldn’t quite get the flow of the evening in all the right places, so it was cut. 

Derek kisses your cheek and wishes you a Merry Christmas and sweet dreams. Penelope kisses Jack’s forehead and presses a palm to your shoulder. You’re covered in love and kisses and wrapped in hugs on your way out the door. 

I call this The Greek Goodbye - but of course other cultures have this same phenomenon, where all the grown-ups put their coats and shoes on and still they stand around for thirty minutes saying goodbye and giving hugs and kisses and then everyone pours out on to the porch and they all stand around and talk some more and then someone finally gets in the car but they roll their window down etc. etc. etc. and suddenly its an hour and a half later and you haven’t actually left. 

When you finally make it out onto the porch, Aaron’s hand hovers over your back as you step down the stairs to his SUV in the driveway. You, of course, drove separately, and will have to pour Jack into his carseat before you can go on your way. 

You’re going to the same place, but the team doesn’t need to know that. 

Jack barely stirs as you pull the seat belt around him. You pull the coats from Aaron’s arm and tuck them under his head, gingerly shutting the door after making sure he’s all propped up. 

You turn toward Aaron, facing the house as you embrace. There are three heads looking at you (with about as much subtlety as a brick to the face) out the living room window. They think they’re slick, but they can’t see Aaron’s hand creep up the back of your shirt or his mouth as he whispers. “I’ll see you at home.” 

I didn’t really realize how heavily this implied that they moved in together?  What I tried to emphasize was the idea that home is wherever Aaron and Jack are, not necessarily the apartment itself. 

The commentary that got excited about the fact that they’re moving in together did inspire me to get them to move in together, so then there’s that. Just another way yall inspire me and change this story around little by little with every installment :)

+++

Jack wakes you both early the next morning and you’re dragged by the hand into the living room while Aaron trails behind you both.

Little kids opening presents is truly a nightmare for any parent (or parent’s significant other) trying to get some of that good good before starting the day. 

They were SOL this morning, but don’t worry - they get what they’re after eventually. They always do. 

“Alright, Jack. What did you ask for?”

His lips press together, and he takes in the reasonable stack of presents under the tree. “I asked for a few things, but I wanted to ask for something else.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” You sit next to him, your legs folded under you, and put your arm around his waist while he loops his arms around your shoulders. Aaron’s taken up residence on the couch behind you, a trash bag in his hand. 

So efficient. 

Jack whispers into your ear, and his words bring a little smile to your face. 

Nobody ask me what Jack actually asked for verbatim, because I have no idea. It was probably like “I want us all to be a family” or “i want you to live with us all the time” or something like that, but that’s only fast and loose with the idea of it. 

I let the implications do all the talking, here. 

“I think that’s something you need to ask your dad for, bud.” 

His brow wrinkles. You nod encouragingly, turning him around and sending him to a very confused Aaron. Jack climbs up on the couch, and Aaron’s arms automatically wrap around him as he leans into his father’s side. He whispers, presumably, the same thing he said to you, judging from the little smile that pulls at the corner of Aaron’s mouth. 

“Yeah, Jack. I think I can make that happen. Let’s talk about it some more tomorrow, yeah?” 

Jack grins and jumps back down to you, looking over at his dad. “Can I open presents, now?”

Aaron nods, giving Jack permission to immediately tear into the bigger boxes under the tree. You rise and cross back to Aaron. He offers you his arm as you sit and you loop yours through his, holding onto the sleeve of his shirt - long-sleeved, on account of the weather. 

Another Hallmark moment. This pose is always so cinematic to me, with one partner leaning on the other, arms looped, holding hands or holding onto the base partner’s clothes. Ugh. So cute. 

I sit like this with my mom all the time, so it’s kind of the default posture when I write two people who love each other sitting close together. 

“Did Jack tell you what else he wanted?”

Aaron tips his head to your shoulder, pressing a kiss to it before resting his temple against you. That’s enough of an answer for you. More cheating by not answering the question, Tali!! Nice!! Your cheek presses into his hair and you watch Jack unearth LEGO sets and a new bike helmet from his dad, and a new soccer ball with a practice net from you. He gets a couple more LEGO sets and a Wii game from his Aunt Jess. 

He’s thrilled with his haul, and he forces you both down to the floor to open your presents. 

From Jack, you get a framed photo. Jess took it while Aaron was in Pakistan and it’s one of your favorites. You’re both curled up in his bed wearing pajamas, reading a book together. His head rests under your chin, his arm around your waist as he falls asleep against you.

“Auntie Jess said you’d like that one and I picked the frame all by myself.” 

You smile up at him, opening your arms. He tucks into you and informs you it’s Dad’s turn. 

With your help, he put together a little scrapbook that covered the five months Aaron was away, as well as fun little photos of the two of them over the years. Aaron’s visibly affected, his right hand resting lightly over his mouth as he flips through the pages. 

The fact that we never actually got to see the home-life aftermath of Pakistan deSTROYED ME. So, I fixed it. 

His eyes are a little shiny when he looks at you first, then Jack. “Thanks, bud. I love it.” 

Jack smiles widely at him. “Look in the back!” 

In the back, indeed, is a new tie - royal blue, with tiny paisley detailing in white. You’re sure he has another one just like it in red, but narrow variety is the spice of life, right?

I got my dad ties for Christmas and his birthday for like...10 years straight. It’s wild that he pretended to like every single one. That’s love. 

Aaron opens his arms, and Jack scrambles off your lap and into his. They sit together for a minute, and you take the time to consolidate the rest of the presents. Four remain - two for you and two for Aaron. 

Jack shoves one of your gifts from Aaron at you, and you grin as you take it in your hands. It’s a little heavy, but fits neatly in your hands. You open it, and laugh out loud at what you find. 

A new ankle holster...you’re kidding. 

Shoutout to Kira for this gift idea!! @good-heavens-chris-evans

“Aaron, thank you!” 

He huffs a laugh. “It’ll fit your Baretta - I know your old one was a little loose since you changed over from the Glock.” 

You nod. “Very thoughtful. I love it.”

At Aaron’s prompting, Jack passes you the second box. This one is small, oblong, and thin. You carefully tear the paper, and find a smooth wooden box, beautiful on its own, inside. Squinting skeptically at Aaron, you open the lid. Its contents take your breath. A simple, stunning bracelet with little green stones twinkles at you, nestled in wrapping paper inside the box. 

The bracelet was a total fluke idea, and I just ran with it. I’m now ridiculously attached to it and it will become some kind of symbolic device as we move forward, I think. 

“I found it at a market in Pakistan - it’s from Turkey, originally,  and thought you’d like it,” I’m Greek, so it hurt me a lil to make the bracelet from Turkey. However, thousands of years of tense relations don’t undermine the quality of Turkish silver - that shit is unmatched. I’ll never own any myself, but I can admire it from afar.  he says. He reaches for the box and you hand it over, stunned into silence. Taking your wrist in his hand, he puts it on for you. The early-morning light through the window and the string lights from the tree reflect off of it. A little smile plays at his mouth. “To my knowledge, it’s handmade.” 

You take a shaky breath, still looking at it. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

He ducks his head, almost shy, and you transfer your attention to his presents to save him the scrutiny. Jack, still the designated distributor, pulls the larger of Aaron’s presents toward him. It’s a decent-sized box, and Aaron leaves it on the floor to unwrap, neatly folding the paper as he goes. 

It’s a new go bag, with about a million pockets, wheels on one side, and kevlar lining. It won’t ever tear or break or otherwise fail him. You found it after seeing the state of his bag upon his return from Pakistan - the poor thing was basically in shreds, and he’d been making do with a backpack and a dumb little duffle ever since. 

I spare a thought for Aaron’s go bag every time I watch It Takes a Village because my God does that thing see some use. 

So, just like the rest of it, I’ve fixed that, too. 

The second of the two gifts is much smaller, and almost embarrassingly sentimental. He opens it, slipping the ribbons off and neatly tearing at the tape lines. 

You see his sharp inhale before you hear it. He pats Jack’s shoulder, and the boy returns to your lap. His hands trace over the cover, opening it and reading the notes inside. The first, in blue pen, is his own handwriting. 

Miss Haley Brooks, 

Happy 25th Birthday, my darling. I figured it was high time you had a copy of my favorite novel. A selfish gift, sure, but at least I mailed it on time this year. 

Love you. Miss you. A. Hotch, 1995

In the original, these are all written in different fonts! Aaron’s was Architect’s Daughter, Haley’s was Dancing Script, and Reader’s wasn’t any different from the body text. 

Then, below it, in an elegant black scrawl: 

Happy Birthday, Newbie!

Hotch told me you were looking for new reading material for the plane, so I figured I’d give you both a book and a key to Hotch’s good side, all in one. 

Enjoy 25! I sure did. 

Good luck! Haley, 2007

Finally, a new note, dated December 25th, 2011. 

Aaron - 

Thought it was time for this to come home. Merry Christmas.

I love you. 

It’s the paperback copy of Catch-22 he gave Haley for her 25th birthday, when he was working for the US Attorney’s office in Washington D.C. and she was still in her Master’s program. You’d kept it all these years, simultaneously unable to part with it and waiting for the right opportunity to return it to Aaron. 

I think Catch-22 is such an Aaron book. It’s nothing I can really eloquently articulate, but the energy is very much Hotch to a T for me. 

This gift was EJ’s idea!! Thanks EJ!! @forgottenword

It was an ancient copy, and you suspected Aaron owned it long before he passed it on to Haley. 

Aaron’s still quiet. Jack’s still tucked into your lap.

“I didn’t know she gave it to you. I asked, and she told me she’d given it to a friend. Never thought to ask who.” His voice is quiet, almost reverent. He looks up at you, and you can definitely see the mist in his eyes now. “Thank you for this.” The book rises in his hand and he waves it a little before dropping it back in his lap. 

I also wanted to establish a little of Haley and Reader’s friendship here, however short-lived. I wanted the grief when we lost her to extend past Aaron and into their little family unit. I wanted to give Aaron someone who would understand the dynamics of Haley’s loss in a different way. 

You run your hands through Jack’s hair, your bracelet catching the light. 

+++

The rest of Christmas is fairly uneventful - you and Aaron handle breakfast with Jack, and Jessica stops by in the afternoon. You stop back at your house to make a couple of phone calls after dinner - touching base with the people you love where you can. 

When you return to the Hotchner apartment later that evening, Jack is already in bed. 

Aaron greets you with a kiss at the door and you spend a moment in his arms, your fingers resting lightly on his shoulders. The silence is peaceful, easy. 

He presses a series of kisses up your cheek and over your temple. You laugh, tucking into him to avoid the onslaught. 

Leaning back, you meet his eyes. “Good day?”

“Good day.” He smiles at you - one of those close-mouthed, squinty-eyed ones you love. “Ready for bed?”

This was one of those little moments for me. You know when people who love each other sometimes use really good, simple words to convey really big things? Yeah. That. 

There’s something on his mind, and you’re sure he’ll tell you once you get settled. You nod, letting him take you by the hand to the back bedroom. 

He shuts the door behind you and backs you into it, caging you in with his body. You kiss him, sucking lightly on his lower lip. His hands are everywhere, removing your clothes with a soft kind of reverence. 

There’s a sweetness when you fall into bed together, taking notes from the snow-laden night outside. It seems to be holding its breath - hushed and muted under a quiet sky. 

+++

He tosses you a pair of your pajama pants from the top drawer of his dresser after you shower and clean up (whether you re-dirtied yourselves in the shower is beside the point), and you settle into your learned rhythm. He gets into his pajamas while you brush your teeth, and then you switch. You inevitably land back in bed before he does, waiting for him as usual. 

More establishing the normalcy of their relationship!!! This was a super important addition to me - also added much later. It used to end at the section right before this, but I really wanted to show the way they operate together when nobody’s watching them and they’re safe at home. 

When he’s done in the bathroom, he throws himself on the bed beside you with a heavy sigh. 

“I can hear you thinking, Hotchner.” You roll toward him, tucking the covers up around your shoulders. 

He turns his head to look at you, lacing his fingers behind his head. There’s more going on behind his eyes than you originally thought, and you’d be nervous if you didn’t know better. “Did Jack tell you what else he wanted today?”

You nod, waiting on him. 

“What do you think?”

Scooting over, you curl up against him with your head on his chest. Even though he’s on top of the covers, he drops his arms, wrapping them around you. “I think he’s got the right idea.” 

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm.” 

He rolls over, and his lips are on yours before you can blink. With a surprised little noise, you smile against him and wind your fingers into his hair. It stays fairly slow, but that doesn’t stop the heat curling through your chest and belly. 

Haven’t you had enough? 

Never. Never. Never. 

You can’t help but enjoy him. He’s good at just about everything. “Aaron,” you whisper. Immediately, he pulls back, watching you with a knit brow. “What time is it?”

With a little laugh, he turns around to look at his bedside clock. “Just after one. Why?”

“Do you think we can remember the date?”

After I figured out they started dating on the 26th, I had to figure out how to fill the time between the evening of the 25th and the 26th. Initially, I was going to let them have this conversation over breakfast, but I also know these two never shut up when they’re in bed together, so it seemed as good a time as any. 

Also, I added some implied good-good grown-up time to fill the space between like...10pm and midnight. Sue me. 

You can tell he’s not exactly following, but he’s willing to hang in and figure it out. “December 26th? Yeah. Why?”

It’s ridiculous, but you feel suddenly shy. “I just think it’s an alright anniversary date, don’t you?”

Realization dawns on his face, and he attacks your lips again, unable to keep the smile out of his kisses. You laugh, throwing the covers off and climbing over him. You don’t really have an agenda, but the lack of contact after your romp was driving you nuts. He looks up at you, taking your face in his hands. “You wanna do this?”

You nod. “Yeah. I do.” 

“And you’re in it for the long haul with us, right?” You can see the nerves pulling at his brows, the latent insecurity creeping into his face. “Me and Jack?”

Say it with me, kids! Aaron is insecure about being an older, single dad and Reader must always reassure him at this point in their story. There’s more to come on that front, too. 

Soothing it as best you can, you reply. “Yeah. I’m in if you are, Aaron. For real. For you and Jack.” 

He takes a huge breath. With a start, you realize he’s not really able to speak. His lips press into a thin line, and for the third time that day, tears threaten at the corners of his eyes. 

Nothing shocks Aaron more than the idea that someone wants him, loves him, and wants to stay with him. Haley like...fucked him up. He’s also got some of that insecurity and doubt built into his character, so I like to thing even with Haley he didn’t feel good enough, or deserving. The way the divorce went down probably left him feeling like he was right all along. 

You drop down, laying yourself flush against him. “I love you, you big idiot.” 

Your ridiculous comment has the intended effect - he laughs a little. It’s watery, but he wraps his arms around you again and kisses the top of your head. “I love you so much.” 

“I’m so sorry it took me this long to make up my damn mind.” 

He shakes his head. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you did.” 

“I mean,” you continue, “I already kind of had my mind made up, but I was really scared it would become real real.” You tip your head up, propping your hands under your chin. “I forgive you for everything. I do. That’s really all I needed to figure out.” 

It’s also important to me to establish the way they fight and forgive each other - the push and pull of it. There’s a lot of that in life, and I wanted to demonstrate that as much as I could. 

One of the things I wanted to emphasize by keeping them in this kind of liminal state for a couple of months was the importance of trust. Reader didn’t completely trust Hotch when he got back from Pakistan, and that thought alone was super unnerving. So even the concept of a lack of trust deepened the problem itself, if that makes sense. (It’s one of those “if you have to ask” moments - like the very premise of the problem is actually the thing you have a problem with.) 

I have no idea if I’m making any sense at all lmao. 

He hauls you both up, and you find yourself straddling his lap with his hands laced together at your lower back. “Thank you.”

You frame his face with your hands, your fingers tracing over his cheekbones. Corrupting the silence of the moment seems wrong, and you’re afraid you’ll say something stupid if you open your mouth again. 

He leans forward, and you catch him, pressing your forehead against his. There are two words floating through his head, but they’re too much, too soon, too big. So, he settles for three. “I love you.” 

We picked up on what those two words were, right? It’s a big question, and it’ll happen eventually, but I wanted to lay the groundwork for how early on Hotch knew that he was done. It’s one of those Jim and Pam “I bought [the engagement ring] a week after we started dating.” 

He just knows. And that’s super cool. He won’t actually do it for another two years, but its super cool. 

+++

This scene was also a last minute addition because even with dinner, it still felt too short. 

The next afternoon, you pack up the car with Jack’s other present he gets to open with the family, as well as your present for Henry and another for Penelope. 

It’s tradition that you all draw names out of a hat for each other - there are far too many of you to get gifts for each other willy-nilly, so Aaron put a system in place after Penelope suggested it. That way, everyone gets one gift, and the kids get presents from all the grown ups. 

The kids are delighted, and the adults aren’t completely broke by the end of it. 

This is how we do Christmas presents in my family! There are so many cousins that we have to draw names or otherwise it gets ridiculous and people get offended lmao. 

Stepping back into Dave’s house for the second time in as many days, you were immediately bombarded by Henry, itching to get his hands on your present. 

“Alright, kiddo, you’ve got one here from me and one here from your Uncle Hotch, okay?”

He nods, taking both unwieldy boxes into his arms. On little legs, he trots over and places them under the tree. Aaron takes Jack’s and Penelope’s presents out of your hands and you snag Jack’s sleeve as he passes you, crouching beside him. 

“Remember what we talked about, right? We don’t want Henry to feel left out okay, so as far as he’s concerned, this is the first and only present you got from me this year, right?”

He nods, grinning. 

“Good boy.” You pat his shoulder, and he presses a lighting-quick kiss to your cheek before jetting off to the living room. 

It’s always fun to watch Jack and Henry open presents. They’re thrilled, and more than once Jack runs up to you to show off whatever he’s got. 

You’re on the arm of the couch beside Aaron, with Penelope on the floor at your feet and Derek in the chair next to you. Eventually, it’s time for the grown-ups to open their presents. 

Derek goes first, with a present from Spencer. Inside the beautifully-wrapped box (you suspect JJ’s handiwork) is a new pair of headphones. 

Penelope opens your present - a new feather-topped pen and a whimsical mug from a case in San Francisco a few months ago, as well as a new security key for her numerous external hard-drives. 

Emily gets a gorgeous maroon scarf from Penelope and gifts a new pistol grip and toolbox to Will, while JJ receives a bottle of her favorite expensive wine and a new set of frames for the photos on her desk from Aaron. 

JJ gets Aaron a new coffee maker for the apartment - he’s thrilled - and Spencer opens his first-edition copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from Dave with much fanfare. 

You open your box from Derek, and it’s a new set of fleece pajamas and a blanket for the plane. He leans into you, and you kiss the top of his head by way of thanks. 

Figuring out what to get everyone was a NIGHTMARE, but I am proud to say I did it all on my own!!!

The afternoon is full of leftovers and laughter. After much begging, the kids wiggle another Christmas movie out of their parents, and you settle in for the duration. 

Aaron covers you in a blanket as the sun sets, and you take the opportunity to gather Derek closer to you for the excuse to lean into Aaron. Under the blanket, you take his hand. His fingers pass back and forth over your knuckles. 

If anyone asks, your distraction is the result of the snow falling outside. 

+++

“No way!” Jack launches himself out of his chair and throws himself into his dad’s arms. “Really?”

“Really.” Aaron finds himself laughing as he looks over at you. “Is it okay if we all spend a little more time together, the three of us?” 

Jack whips his head around to look at you, and you move into the chair he previously occupied, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay having me around with your dad, bud?”

A grin breaks out across his face. “Yeah! It’s just what I asked for!” 

Aaron does a great job re-emphasizing the importance of keeping this just special for the three of you. Jack is completely on board - he completely understands that all the grown-ups are in each other’s business all the time, and sometimes it's nice to keep things to yourself for a little bit of peace. 

Discretion is no new concept to the Hotchner household, and for that, you’re grateful.

That concludes our director’s commentary! Up next, I have a request to do some commentary on Metanoia, so that one will be up sometime this weekend. 

[nikkiwriteswords]

Dave

A(n eventual) continuation of [x] and [x]. Part 3 of 3. So previously I said that the portraits in this barber shop scene follow a motif present from episode 1, where portraits are used to signify influence over or a parallel to the character in question.

Here, we can read the pictures behind Klaus as standards Reginald wishes Klaus would conform to: falling in line like Luther; emulating Five’s drive for self-improvement; facing his fears like Ben. But that said, I may have lied. Just a tiny bit. 

I do think the portraits read as a wall of Reginald’s expectations, but I think it says something about Klaus’s perception of himself more than his dear old dad’s. These men are standards that Klaus has set for himself, his drive and motivations.

Why else would Dave be placed front and centre next to Reginald?

This is why I suspect the barber shop scene – the colours and framing, the barber allegory, the set design, everything I’ve talked about so far – is only half a manifestation of Reginald’s A+ parenting, and half Klaus’s own desire to change. 

Of course, on some level Klaus has internalised Reginald’s criticisms as much as he’s rebelled against them: Luther is dear Papa’s “precious Number One”, his loyal soldier. Five is-was-is the genius, the one who has the most control over his powers, and who Klaus might envy or admire for that fact, even now. (A point I’d love to explore, because Klaus appears to seek Five’s approval at times- or at least looks to him for guidance.) 

What’s sad is, this implies there is some of Reginald in control of this space, regardless of who conjured it, and regardless of how far Klaus has tried to distance himself from his upbringing: Hargreeves has had a huge influence on the siblings’ lives and how they see each other.  

Each of Klaus’s relationships with these men says a lot about the circumstances that have brought Klaus to this point, but analysing them all right now would quite frankly take me forever.

However, I will point out that Klaus’s conversation with Ben preceding this scene is quite telling:

Klaus feels a certain amount of obligation to both Ben and Luther, and resents that they expect things of him because of his powers. It immediately follows a scene in which Luther chokes Klaus because he won’t use his powers on demand, echoing Reginald’s cut-throat motif: Luther is, in many ways, a stand-in for their father, a man who measured their worth by his own impossible standards.

Dave, though, is the one man in this line-up that Klaus is under no obligation to please. There are no rules for Dave’s approval, no expectations to meet. 

“He was the only person I ever loved more than myself.” God what bde to say that to your actual brother.

Look at that dividing line, splitting the portraits in half. (Sure, it’s just a wall panel - but since when has an accidental detail stopped me?) To the left we have Luther, Diego and Reginald - the men Klaus distances himself from, who try to exercise control over his life (for better or worse) and try to mould him into someone he isn’t. He kicks out against their authority and resists any effort to fall in line.  

By contrast on the right, we have Dave, Five and Ben - all people Klaus arguably strives to impress or gain the approval of, who accept Klaus in various degrees for who he is.

That’s why Dave’s portrait is here in the barber shop:

Admittedly all we see of Dave is Klaus’s romanticised memories. However, those memories drive Klaus to be a better person […] Dave becomes the purpose behind [Klaus] getting sober and accepting his powers. (Lifted from previous asks because I’m lazy, links below.)

He represents a turning point for Klaus’s character. Post-Vietnam Klaus is different, you can see it - full kudos to Robert Sheehan’s acting skills. Now Klaus can be the one in control. He gets to say how and why he uses his powers: he asks Five later in 1x09, “how did you know how to [do what you do]?” Where do I start?

Klaus is seriously trying to get sober for the first time in his life, and Dave is the impetus for that self-improvement.

(However, prior to this scene, it’s important to note that Klaus has the necessary desire to see Dave again, but no drive to seem him through withdrawal on his own.

Addiction is a powerful thing.)  So why meet Reginald here, and not Dave?

Quite frankly, why see Dave again so soon when he hasn’t had to work for it yet? To score the trifecta, this is not the meeting Klaus wants, but the one his character arc needs:

Conjuring Dave is, after all, a short-term goal, no matter how much Klaus might wish it to be his happy ever after. 

(Think about how he sees Dave on the floor of the club in place of a pill – implying Dave is just another escape from reality, another balm, another addiction to chase.) 

For that reason, it’s ultimately not Dave’s validation we’re invested in for Klaus, but his family’s. The barber shop scene affirms this. Dave’s presence is there, is the reason Klaus walks into that place, but he finds something else: recognition from Reginald. He finds out he has potential. He is handed responsibility. And baby blooms with it.

The part about being a disappointment, Klaus has heard before. But that potential? That’s new. That sticks. “You barely scratched the surface of what you were truly capable of.”

This is why the scene is so pivotal. It serves as a similar intervention as Diego in TDTWn’t, but instead of taking away Klaus’s choice, it gives Klaus what he truly craves: recognition. And for perhaps the first time ever, we see him start to take ownership of his powers, accepting a part of himself he never has before.

In saying this, though, that’s not to say Dave himself is not important. It’s because of Dave that we’re here. 

But eventually, Klaus will have to let him go too.

(Otherwise, he might just be replacing one addiction with another.)

[verilyruth]

Request/challenge: Some happy canon era Javid?

Jack knows that Davey doesn’t get a lot of time to himself. He’s constantly working or studying or taking care of his family. He sweeps aside his needs and desires for the sake of others. Jack wishes he could do something to help him see that he deserves to be taken care of too.

That’s why he’s been saving for the last three months. Every day, a quarter of his money went to the fund. Every night, he counts it again to make sure he has what he thinks he has.

It all started a few months before that when Davey began talking about the book he kept hearing about. Jack didn’t really understand any of the particulars of what he was talking about, but loved to hear Davey talk so he didn’t mind. He went on and on about motifs and themes and morals until Jack asked, “Have you read it already?” Davey shook his head sadly and told him that he was saving up for it, he just knew people who read it.

Jack sighs when he thinks about the next six weeks and how excited Davey was about it the whole time. Then he came to sell one morning and his demeanor was different. Sad, almost. When Jack asked, he put on a fake smile and said Les really needed a new coat that year.

Since then, Jack has been saving to buy Davey the book he hasn’t stopped talking about for almost five months. He times it just right and picks a day to give it to him a few weeks after Christmas and Chanukah, but a few weeks before his birthday so it can’t be misconstrued as a present for either one of those. It’s because Davey deserves it, not because it’s a special occasion or a holiday.

He climbs to the rooftop of the Jacobs’ tenement building, package in between his teeth, and peers over the top. Davey is there, as he normally is the evenings he has any time alone, and he’s reading an old book Jack has seen him read and reread a thousand times.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he says after he’s taken the package out of his mouth.

Davey startles, but smiles wide when they make eye contact.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Reading. Hi, Jacky. What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to have your company.”

Jack sits and pulls him into a quick kiss after he makes sure nobody else is around.

“I’m here to see you. I got you something.” He hands over the bundle of brown paper.

Davey looks at him quizzically with a half nervous, half excited smile.

“What’s this?”

“Open it and find out.”

Davey is careful about everything he does and though Jack loves that about him, he’s impatient and it’s agony to wait for him to unwrap it with such precision rather than rip it open.

Davey gasps and Jack can tell he’s seen the cover.

“Jack…”

“Surprise? That’s the one you wanted, right? Chopin?”

“Jacky,” he says the word like it’s sacred, “you…how did…you did this for me?”

“Course. Who else would I do it for?”

Davey throws his arms around Jack’s neck.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he says over and over.

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“It is.” He’s obviously mesmerized as he runs his hand over the cover. Then, with a frown, he looks back up at Jack. “I can’t accept this.”

His world shatters.

“What? Why not?” Is he too late? Did Davey already buy it? Is he not interested in it anymore?

“It’s too expensive.”

“Is it the one you wanted?”

He nods. “Yes. Yes, it’s perfect, Jacky.”

“Then it ain’t too expensive.”

“No, I can’t let you–”

“Dave, it’s my money. Let me spend it how I want, okay?” There must be something in his tone that indicates how serious he is, because Davey stops right away.

“Thank you,” he breathes. “What’s this for?”

Jack shrugs. “You deserve it and I want you to be happy.”

Davey leans over and captures his lips in a wonderful, warm kiss that melts the patches of ice around them and puts sensation back in Jack’s freezing body. He feels Davey grinning against his mouth.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, baby. Are you happy?”

“So, so happy. But for the record, you always make me happy.”

He kisses Davey’s temple. “Right back at ya, sweetheart.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“That ain’t possible. Now come on, read to me.”

“Really?” He looks so excited that Jack thinks he might explode, too overwhelmed by how adorable Davey is.

“Yes! I want to hear a little of this.”

Davey leans against him and Jack opens his legs in a v for him to sit between. Nobody ever comes up there except for them and Sarah, so he isn’t worried. Davey smiles as he settles in, Jack’s arms wrapped around his waist.

“Thank you, Jacky. Seriously, thank you.”

“You deserve the world, Davey. There’s nobody who works harder or does more than you do.”

“That’s not–”

“Shh. I don’t care. I love you and I want you to have things you want. One day, I’m gonna be rich and famous.”

Davey laughs at their ongoing joke slash fantasy about their future.

“Shush,” he orders, pretending to be serious. Davey obviously doesn’t buy it and keeps laughing until Jack silences him with another kiss.

“I’m gonna be rich and famous and you can buy as many books as you want. You’re gonna have the biggest library in the world and it’ll be in the mansion I buy for you.”

“For me? Where are you in all this?”

“I’m there with you, painting you as you read and wrapped around you at night.”

Davey turns and kisses his jaw.

“I like that idea.”

“Me too.”

“You know,” he says, voice thick, “this is the first book I’ve had that’s mine. The other books we have were my parents and now we share them and that’s great, I like sharing books but this…having a book of my own that isn’t a school book…”

“It’s the beginning of your library. Read it to me?”

Davey nods. “The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, Chapter One. ‘A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door…’”

[the-firebird69]

He didn't take to the talk very well but he heard it and he said these Mexicans Max are gaining he said they're not dating they're ahead of everybody including foreigners who are ahead of you and he started screaming how do you know that so it comes out later you guys have a lot of crap because you don't use it right and it's not the right stuff and he says this wow that's bad so yeah you don't have class eight shifts and it went out there like for example there's been a tax for like 3 months with most Tommy Allen trying to get back here or sometime s*** with millions of shifts and they go away in a few seconds well literally the battles are like 15 minutes long and they're gone it's like a huge mystery to people and then you like we're going to do the nukes. So you know it just doesn't work that way I don't know why you can't get it he says this you can sneak away at a time when people can't see you and what we say is tunnels are all monitored he goes office side thing so we don't want to see you're talking here you throw away everybody that's your problem you want to use see it you want to use even put up to it by the empire and you're just a sloth and it doesn't change talking to him doesn't change it his kids the same way if not worse and they have all the stuff it was a total waste of time for him to have anything same with bja they don't think this stupid crap about me it's just not do that so anyways let's play with your bikes say that I'm nothing and have a nice time before you die I don't care that's mostly trumps and I guess you're a child you can go screw you're terrible rebels focusing on me for everything is an idiot thing to do

So they just kind of thing when they move out or something happens to them and they're losers but this is the truth they're screw UPS and their losers and they're hoping for like a loose nuke to get loose because their own people aren't watching them which is ridiculous the max are playing the watchdog what is wrong with you guys ask him something that's true there are people are not stopping it it's Max they want a war to erupts between foreigners and us so that's what the motif is and that's them and yes sir kind of doing that and just kind of doing that too it's for some stupid s*** AI that doesn't work except for Dave Jesus Christ it's got a huge war machine and you guys are babies toddlers asking for handouts it's just like Dave to take advantage of a week homo. So they're starting to think about you they haven't everybody fight they're taking over ships they're kind of up there but they're not the sort of understanding something that Dave didn't like him because he's like him he said well he had disagreements with his kids and his kids were pretty Sharp but we know some of them beat him up a little and he had to put up with it so he didn't know what to do he came up with his robot stuff who sings the robot took his life in 97 and almost killed some of you it makes sense it's like let me leave the planet as like a partially burned head that makes sense in other words something happened to those in beds where they go now back to that s*** that's the other one

Thor Freya

Olympus

[hamliet]

Time to G(r)o(w)

So since I recently finished season 2 of The Umbrella Academy, let’s talk ships. Every sibling except for Five had some semblance of a love story this season, however it ended for the characters, that was instrumental in their development from children (last season) to adolescence (this season). All the relationships can be said to foil each other in certain ways, but in particular they seemed to be paired in how they ended:

Dave/Klaus and Jill/Ben, which end in disappointment;

Ray/Allison and Sissy/Vanya, which end bittersweet; and

Allison/Luther and Lila/Diego, which don’t end so much as they leave open the door to possibilities.

I. Dave and Klaus + Jill and Ben

On a surface level, both of these ships are linked and doomed by death and an illusion of who one person is.

It’s not so much that the person is “wrong” for any of these characters so much as it is that their perception of each other dooms these relationships. Klaus is fixated on a version of Dave he met in Vietnam, not on whom Dave is now. Even when Dave tries to connect with Klaus, going out of his way to apologize to Klaus for punching him and clearly seeing something attractive in him, Klaus ruins it by terrifying the kid because he can’t see Dave beyond Dave’s death. It’s reminiscent of Klaus’s flaws in being unable to let anything and anyone go, but he isn’t holding onto Dave so much as he’s holding on to losing Dave. Thus he’s unable to form a genuine connection with Dave in this timeline, though perhaps Dave will survive (who knows?), Klaus leaves this timeline under the impression that he’s unable to save Dave.

Similarly, Jill and Ben never get anywhere because Ben is, well, literally dead, but also because Jill has an incorrect idea of whom Ben is: she thinks he’s Klaus. But Ben truly wants to be known as Ben, insisting on telling her that he’s actually Ben, a ghost possessing Klaus, and that he’s a virgin. However, Jill doesn’t understand, because she just sees the ideal of Klaus as her cult leader. She’s eager to sleep with him, but it’s not Ben she wants to connect with. Ben, ironically, crushes on Jill because of the way she acts and the little behaviors she engages in—the real her, perhaps, but she can’t see the dead in the living. Ben can’t resurrect her from the cult, and she can’t resurrect him.

In the end, both Klaus and Ben need to stop focusing on the people they cannot save and focus on the ones they can. Only by letting go can they truly move forward. This is a motif in their relationship, which the show directly addresses. 

There’s an extent to which both Dave and Jill represent childlike versions of themselves, and how both Klaus and Ben go about addressing their love interest is childish: Klaus comes on too strong and freaks Dave out, and Ben pines for Jill despite never talking to her until they’re about to leave, because then whatever happens, he won’t have to think about the consequences of it. Jill in particular is a symbol for Ben’s desire to stay on earth, to live, to be unable to consider after (mirroring of course his inability to move on after death), while Klaus is too focused on after and not so much on meeting people in the present, allowing people to get to know him in the present. He doesn’t even want to get to know himself, as seen by him dulling his pain through drinking and drugs. 

However, by the end of the season, both have made important progress: Klaus is the first one to volunteer to help Vanya, inspiring his siblings to do so, and Ben moves into the afterlife. Ish. 

II. Ray and Allison + Sissy and Vanya

Both of these relationships are positive and end with mutual love acknowledged, but also an understanding that they cannot be together. On a surface level, both relationships explore systemic injustice rampant in the 1960s (racism for Allison and Ray; sexism, homophobia, and ableism for Vanya and Sissy). Thematically, they are connected by the need to struggle and the focus on self-actualization.

Allison sums up the overall message of these relationships in the end when she tells Ray that the struggle isn’t over. Both these relationships require both parties to fight to preserve them, and to fight for better futures, which is something Allison and Vanya both need to learn to do, rather than continuing to stagnate. They need to fight, and they need to trust themselves to be able to do so. Thus, the reconciliations between Ray and Allison and Vanya and Sissy are in essence symbolic of Allison and Vanya coming to terms with something about themselves.

Both Allison and Vanya hid parts of themselves both this season and the last, and in this season, they hide their powers particularly from Ray and Sissy, respectively. However, both use their powers in desperate moments to save loved ones: Allison to save Ray from a violent cop, Vanya to save Harlan after he drowns. Allison cannot forgive herself for using her power on her daughter, while Vanya struggles to move past causing the apocalypse.

However, even after seeing their powers at their worst, the women at their cruelest (the diner scene and the ending battle), both Ray and Sissy choose to love Allison and Vanya respectively anyways. 

Both Allison and Vanya beg their respective love interests to come with them to the future, to “be a family,” as Vanya says, but in the end Ray and Sissy are unable to leave their time. They have to continue the fight where they’re at, but both Ray and Sissy’s acceptance of Allison and Vanya clears the path for them to move on, to continue the struggles in their own time, because they showed Allison and Vanya that they do not have to fear who they are, nor their powers. Sissy is clear she simply can’t risk Harlan, and Ray delights in Allison’s power (not in a negative way). It’s the world they’re afraid of that makes them unable to come along, a world they need to struggle in. 

III. Allison and Luther + Lila and Diego

Both Allison/Luther and Lila/Diego are mutually loving, yet inhibited by fear and things unsaid, things that they start to overcome by the end of the season. Thus, these are the two relationships heading out of adolescence and into adulthood symbolically speaking.

Luther has never even kissed Allison, according to her, in two timelines now, though he rectifies it later on (sort of). He’s distraught when Allison turns out to be married, but he doesn’t actually ever make a move when Allison clearly desires love and intimacy. Luther’s inability to see past the role his father set out for him makes him his own worst enemy. He also struggles to be an adult, as shown in his horror at Allison’s marriage and the fact that she’s, well, his childhood crush. 

Diego isn’t much better. He might break the law and make it his goal to stop and even kill their father, while Luther stays loyal to him (at first), but he’s actually still very much living the life Reginald would have wanted for him: fighting crime. Just because Diego chooses his own missions doesn’t mean he’s not following his father’s script. Like Luther, Diego is actually a small boy hurting inside, which Lila directly calls him at one point and which the dinner scene, in which Diego reverts back to stuttering, reinforces.

However, both of these relationships lead to life in the end. Allison is essentially choking to death, and Luther uses CPR on her (thereby “kissing” her), restoring life to Allison. It reverses last season’s ending, when Luther saved Allison’s life but not her voice, and echoes Ray helping Allison heal and rediscover her voice. It tells Allison that even if she has to leave Ray to get back to her daughter Claire, there is a future, and Luther can help her breathe and get her voice back, too.

In the same scene, we have Lila and Diego confronting each other—actually, Lila confronts the entire Umbrella Academy. In Diego, she sees that she, too, has been a small child still huddling in a crawl-space and clinging to the woman who rescued her. He points out that she’s living the life the Handler wrote for her, but she’s now an adult and can make her own choices. When Diego tells her they can be her family, she believes him and takes him up on it—well, after they’re all dead and dying and before Five reverses the timeline. In the new timeline, Lila doesn’t accept this realization/offer just yet, but she does flee with a timecase, thereby taking the pen to her own story. Additionally, Diego insists they let her go, directly stating that this is because he loves her--an adult thing to do. In contrast with last season’s tragic relationship with Patch, Diego is able to acknowledge how he feels before it is too late, and Lila is able to bring that out of him with her unabashed way of asking for and going after what she wants. Lila having the briefcase and being one of the other superpower children makes it likely she will return, and therefore there is the notion of possibility in their relationship moving forward.