#obwat headcanons

[steampunkhobo]

I’ve seen OBWAT so many times and I still have no idea if Delmar is literate. Pete is, if just barely (Ay-more fee-dellis), and I imagine Everett would have to be to fudge being a lawyer but it really could go either way with Delmar. I fear Mississippi’s and 1930s literacy rates do not bode in his favor.

[steampunkhobo]

Delmar O’Donnell would absolutely LOVE goldfish crackers.

[steampunkhobo]

I try very deliberately to not let either of the boys be the "woman" in the relationship, especially with Delmar being the smaller and (outwardly) softer of the two. That said- I think Delmar would be very happy with a pretty dress. Get to wear soft and flowery things like he wouldn't with "men's" clothing, sitting nice and cool in the Mississippi heat (he would have terrible skirt etiquette lmao), fussing with the flouncy skirt- just look okay

Put him in a cloche hat and he'd be set!

Maybe I'm silly but this is real to me. Wonderful little guy.

[steampunkhobo]

Okay for those who do not understand why Delmar is attractive/don't quite see the prettiness of him, I'm gonna try and lay out the appeal- he would genuinely try so very hard to cook you breakfast while you were asleep and he would burn everything so you'd wake up to him standing at the foot of the bed like "honey..." and he would just feel so bad BUT! he would clean up the whole mess and go and get biscuits and he would be so embarrassed about the whole thing you wouldn't be able to be mad. This is the exact kind of man he is. Do I make myself clear

[steampunkhobo]

I don’t know the extent to which gossip rags existed in the 1930s and 40s but I would just kill to read the stuff they’d write about the soggy bottom boys. The lead singer is a fop, atheist, and home-wrecker (if you ask Waldrip), the backup performers are almost certainly sodomites and have no sense for public etiquette, the accompanist is a Black man existing in the world…it would be a spectacle if nothing else.

[steampunkhobo]

For every night Delmar and Pete had to sleep on the ground and bed down on rocks or louse-infested straw, another pillow and blanket gets added to their bed

[steampunkhobo]

With how much touching Delmar and Pete get up to on stage in that final gala scene, it stands to reason they could get away with a whole lot more.

The do-si-do and the kick line are cute, but really just the start- for dancing and cuteness. Stopping just short of actual slow dancing (and they get pretty damn close) they’d be twirling each other, trying to make sense of dipping…Delmar’s small enough for a bucket lift! (Or a princess carry, for those in the know.) And it’s all in good fun, nothing the audience will realize isn’t just for laughs, but it feels meaningful to them. Get to have people see and embrace them *almost* as they really are. The closest thing to “legitimacy” in the public eye they’ll ever get.

On a less sappy note, it’s terribly fun to get flirty on stage. Delmar’ll back his hips up a little farther when Pete’s standing behind him, Pete’ll take the opportunity while Delmar’s in front of him to brush his hand over the curve of Delmar’s hips (and maybe to pinch), Delmar’ll let the hand that’s already usually wrapped around Pete’s waist inch a little farther…from where the audience is sitting, they can’t notice a thing- and who’d question a few incidental touches? For stars like them?- but it makes the two of them crazy. Whether they make it home or have to duck off to the dressing rooms remains to be seen.

[steampunkhobo]

OBWAT Halloween headcanons

- Delmar loves Halloween. Though really, that just means he LOVES sweets. Like, more than children do. He always had a sweet tooth, but however many years living off grits and corn meal has just made it worse. He really likes the sticky stuff, gumdrops and taffy and bit o’ honey- they last so much longer. More bang for your buck. His absolute favorite are candied apples and he absolutely destroys his teeth every single time. He will not learn.

- Penny has her own qualms about the morality of the holiday, but playfulness always wins out. She takes a lot of pride in making costumes for the whole family instead of going “cheap” and “tacky.” The children do not pick their own costumes, a regular source of protests- Everett knows better to challenge her, though. He’ll wear what she tells him to wear.

- Performances from the Soggy Bottom Boys are in high demand on holidays, and despite insistence from Everett that he’s spending time with his family, people cannot take no for an answer. Since Tommy still hasn’t quite set down roots, he ends up playing the big parties, town hall and the like- which, in his favor, gets him a lot of credit with the locals, and a lot of attention from women. If he’s not settled in a year, it’s only because he’s too much of a ladies man.

- Everett is a really, really good campfire storyteller. He’s of course an excellent liar and exaggerator, almost by trade, and his experience with his daughters means he understands just how children tick. There’s no one he can’t spook by the end of the night, not the 11-year-old boys who think they’re too old for “kid stuff” or the children who seem a little too morbidly interested in the whole thing. No one gets scared more than their fair share, though- usually. The other two would never admit it, but his stories scare them, too.

- Pete likes the gross, weird candy. Give him a payday bar or red hots or those chalky candy cigarettes and he’s as happy as a clam. No one quite knows why- maybe it’s all Delmar allows him, maybe it’s all the sweetness he can handle anymore- whatever it is, the children (and Delmar) are just happy to have someone to trade away their wax lips for rock candy. He always passed out good candy.

- Despite their best efforts, Halloween can be really triggering for all of them. There’s only so many devil masks and nooses they can see before it gets to them- and for Pete, that number is one.

[steampunkhobo]

It’s so fun when your favorite characters from from the same culture you are (southern USA) cause you can just walk around and point at things in your house you think they would own.

Like come on. Delmar would be unable to resist these.

Pete would think this was peak comedy.

Maybe second to this cookie jar. (They would have had it in its former glory! Jealous)

The many boxes for your trifles- functionally these are more often junk drawers than jewelry boxes. And I know Delmar is always picking stuff up he found on the ground- rocks and feathers and snail shells. That’s what these are for (or a good cigar box!)

This and a little butter bell and they’re the picture of domesticity. Reckon Pete could learn to bake his own bread.

And no southern home is complete without a good walking stick. Full stop.

[steampunkhobo]

I have almost no free time to edit my fic or make (good) tumblr posts, but I’m literally thinking of Delmar and Pete 24/7, and I’ve been so exhausted lately I’ve had cuddling and sleeping on the brain. Spent the last 20 minutes before bed last night scrolling “1930s beds” on google images and collected ones I thought would suit them, so that’s what I have to offer today.

I think Delmar would be quite fond of something like this, though I don’t think Pete would have it in the least. I’ve always thought they’d have two bedrooms anyway, to give them at least some plausible deniability about sleeping in the same bed, and it’d probably end up being used as a guest room, so Delmar’ll get what he wants in the end. Pete’s no home decorator, and he won’t deny Delmar too much.

Can just imagine Everett having to sleep in here after a spat with Penny 😭

Something with a head and foot board immediately translates to cozy in my mind. Like I just know they’ve got 50 pillows propped up against that thing. Pete would be a fan of the more ornate and imperial ones, embossed with wood carvings and detailing and all. The man gets some splendor after some 12 years busting rocks. They absolutely must have the flat kind of headboard and not the table kind or they’d accumulate so many cups and mugs and I don’t think either of them would have the sense to move them before they got icky. And sadly it’d be harder to tackle or toss anyone onto the bed with a footboard. The edges of beds are valuable…

Broken immediately.

This is the platonic ideal of a bed to me. Big and cushy, proper quilts like they would have (and like everyone should), a little bit of height, harder to stub your toe on (this is not a trifle!) Delmar 100% would be smitten with just the potential of having a canopy, romantic like and good to hide under during scarier or more childish nights. And god, if ever there was a bed to gaze at your sleeping lover while sun streams in through the window in, this is it. I know “wedding bed” is not quite literal but if someone brought this bed into my home I would assume we were married. It’d be perfect for both, ah?

This is the kind of luxury they’d kill for, back when. Get all the nice things they couldn’t then.

[steampunkhobo]

I won’t write this (at least in the next ten years) because I try to keep my fics semi-grounded in reality/canon but I do think a Delmar/Pete baby acquisition fic would be. legendary. Like Delmar is definitely great at PLAYING with kids, and he’s so well-meaning, but I just don’t think he would have any idea what to do with a crying baby 😭 He would try! Sweet fella, he absolutely would try…I just don’t know that he would succeed. And Pete’d be twice as bad. I think he’d be terrified of children, period. Sitting on the farthest side of the room, not looking at the baby, who’s just…sitting in her bassinet. Absolutely the type to try and make small talk with a four month old. I like to think Penny would help them, but she has 7 of her own and she is not looking for an 8th. Plus, y’know, the whole two dads thing. Not favorable.

[steampunkhobo]

I know OBWAT is very loosely grounded in reality and there are better things to be spending my time on but I NEED to know if the soggy bottom boys would have been drafted for WWII. There were exemptions for married men, so no Everett, but the other three are still on the table. Tommy I fear most definitely would- nothing I can find would have exempted him. Delmar and Pete would have been 36 and 38 respectively, so young enough, and there was no law against homosexuals in the military until 1943. I tried to find out if felons were allowed at the time and could not get a straight answer. So.

Maybe they’d be exempted for being national treasures I dunno

[steampunkhobo]

So in the 1930s undershirts were still worn as a part of men’s underwear, right?

(They even show this in OBWAT)

Yet here’s Pete just. Fully tits out (forgive the pictures)

What I’m getting at is- do y’all think this was scandalous? Cause I can just see him popping off his shirt and poor Delmar getting all 😳 and memory banking it 😭 Everett rolling his eyes and mumbling something about him being backwards and uncivilized…it’s all just very funny to me

[steampunkhobo]

Pete would drink juice straight from the jug and put it back in the fridge. I’m sorry to be the one to have to share this.

[steampunkhobo]

At the risk of being cringe on main- I really like thinking about Pete getting to have nice things that he wouldn’t have before (besides Delmar lmao.) He was in jail for a long time and I think he deserves some softness. So here are some stuffed animals I think he would like! Year not withstanding.

He feels like he can see himself in this one. He has a lot of work he needs to do towards self-love and it’s easier to practice on something outside of himself. Soft and oversized, good for cuddling. Not as good as Delmar though.

He’s still scared of dogs, but these feel different- and they look too much like Delmar to pass up. It feels nice to think of Delmar, all soft and sweet and full of unconditional love.

Delmar learned how to make these and thinks they’re hilarious to tease Pete with. They made a couple’s set with each other’s old clothes (Pete’s came out wonky.)

The mane has a nice tactile sensation that helps with grounding- good for petting, which he’s always loved, and brushing, since both of them have hair much too short for it. Everett’s girls like to play with it when they come over.

He doesn’t care much for the ones he deems as *feminine* (which is usually arbitrary,) already ashamed enough to be keeping them in the first place, but one of Everett’s daughters gave this one to him and both he and Delmar cherish it. Sits on the mantle so the girls can still visit it.

This one reminds him of Delmar too- especially with how dazed it looks. The ears are nice to nuzzle against and hide behind, especially when there’s a thunderstorm/other triggers and he’s not quite himself. It usually takes him being not himself to get him to be so vulnerable- at least, early on.

The very first. He’d gotten it for Delmar, a known lover of tchotchkes and trifles, and Delmar had loved it, but Pete kept finding himself drawn to it. And it wasn’t that funny jealousy he got when things other than himself got Delmar’s affection, or love towards things he’s handled or that smell like him, he just wanted it. It took a while to realize he could just ask- that and his sense of pride was too strong.

[steampunkhobo]

After everything he’s gone through, Pete ends up with a substantial amount of trauma, and one of his biggest triggers is thunderstorms. It’s not quite as substantial as something like nooses or dogs, but at least those can be avoided, to a point. There is no getting away when thunder comes. It brings him back to that night he’d been captured, a night he doesn’t even want to think about, now that he’s safe and comfortable at home with Delmar, and all he can do is wait for it to be over, whether it’s minutes or hours.

Delmar understands, for the most part. Most of what they went through, they went through together, and he’s got hurt enough of his own. But there are things he didn’t go through, scars he didn’t leave with, and he doesn’t always know how best to help Pete. Pete doesn’t know too well himself, and when he does, he hates having to ask for it. It’s hell enough just admitting he’s scared.

They try, at least. Pete tries his best to breathe, to look at and listen to Delmar, to shut everything but him out of his head until he’s ready to take on more. Sometimes, when things are going better, he’s able to ask for help before he more or less has to be forced into taking it- though he still hates “burdening” Delmar. Sometimes he can handle touched, sometimes he needs it more than anything, and sometimes it makes things worse. Delmar’s figured out how to ask, and Pete’s getting better at communicating, hard as it is when he’s not himself. Whoever he is, Delmar’ll be there, talking him through it, holding him when he needs it, letting him be as small and scared as he needs to be, until he starts to feel steady again. And Delmar’ll put him to bed, singing him to sleep, rubbing his back like he knows he likes, holding out hope that things will be better for him when he wakes up. They can talk about it all afterwards.