#we never saw him really grieve ben's death and what we saw of dave's death was brief

[theseancekid]

real talk though, that one line in s3 about klaus feeling like an emptied-out, forgotten ice cream barrel at baskin-robbins is unironically my favorite dialogue of that entire season

[nikkiwriteswords]

Hi there, I just discovered your amazing metas! I’m curious now, since you mentioned previously that you think Klaus will eventually have to let Dave go, do you still think that after what we saw in season 2? And do you have any thoughts about Klaus and Dave’s possible story in season 3? (Since your season 2 prediction was scary accurate!!!)

Hi! It’s so nice of you to drop by 🥰 Thank you for the kind words! For reference, I think you’re mainly referring to this post  [x], is that right? Rereading it now, it does seem uncannily accurate, even to me 😂 The benefits of being vague.  I have to admit, I wasn’t as into season 2 of TUA as I was season 1. So that, combined perhaps with pandemic fatigue (for which this blog has been suffering greatly, I admit), means I haven’t got nearly as many headcanons or metas as I did for our favourite disaster fam the first time around.  Reflecting on my own words in the linked post, though, I can say this:

Whilst I would love to see Dave fleshed out more as a character, I don’t know what merit that would have for Klaus’s own development as things stand at the end of season 1.  

I was really pleased with the turn of events in Klaus and Dave’s storyline. I had not considered the age difference between Klaus and Dave, should the fam land - as they did - in the 1960s. That age difference, however, forced a new dynamic to emerge between Klaus and young Dave. It was not one of romance and shared experience, but almost one of mentor and mentee. This is actually something your comment made me realise! 

Klaus is very much the older, queer mentor in this dynamic. We could speculate that he awakened in Dave this hope that his own queer identity could be seen and validated. In turn, Klaus himself unwittingly takes on this mentor role that 1) parallels and highlights the satire of his messiah image throughout the season, and 2) places him in a position of authority akin to the one Reginald held over him as a child - he can make or break Dave in this moment, as I try to explain in the post you reblogged. 

However, to return to your question, I still think that Klaus will have to let Dave go. Crucially, though, that’s not to say that we won’t see Dave again in season 3. We might see an older Dave - perhaps the Dave of the season 2 timeline, who never meets Klaus and who perhaps lives through the Vietnam war; perhaps a Dave that remembers Klaus as just ‘that crazy hippie who gave me a gay awakening in 1963′; perhaps a Dave who meets Klaus in Vietnam anyway, and they fall in love a million new little ways - or we might see Klaus’s Dave again. But this young Dave was here, I think, precisely to teach Klaus how to let him go.  Klaus avoided trying to find Dave until he absolutely had to return to Texas. (A bit like avoiding an addiction maybe...? Yes, turns out I’m still on this parallel.) The, when he did return, Klaus tried real hard to convince young Dave not to enlist. Even if it meant they would never meet. But Dave went anyway. And Klaus has to live with that. He has to live with the fact that Dave walked away, and he has to live with the fact that he will always play a part in Dave’s death. He lost Dave, again. (Klaus and death walk hand in hand, after all.) Perhaps some things in life are just set in stone. (What was it Five said in season 1? He just had to find the constant version of himself to return to? A fixed point in time?) I think for Klaus, this season was very much about coming to terms with moving forward - the anxiety just before the first step; the pain of leaving the safety net you wrapped yourself in. Now, we might see him start to move on from the people who have propped him up for so long: Dave, and Ben.  So I think in season 3, we will see Klaus grapple more with this dissonance - that his version of Dave and Ben aren’t who Dave and Ben were/are as independent people. Sparrow Academy!Ben may in fact turn out to be all the dark parts of Umbrella!Ben that Klaus and the others refused to see, and for Klaus this may mean grappling with the two opposing images of Ben whilst also finally grieving for the loss of his brother. Alternatively, he may deal with this dissonance better than the other siblings, because this is similar to what he went through with young Dave in this second season.   As for Klaus and Dave’s story in season 3, I’m honestly not sure where we go from here. I don’t think we’ll get anything from Dave’s point of view. We still have yet to really get into his head, and he remains a character whose main purpose is to fuel Klaus’s character development. Therefore, as Klaus moves on from Dave and comes to accept his death, we may not see much more of Dave at all - flashback or otherwise. He will still be very much in Klaus’s mind, though. We may also need to learn to move on from Dave. That said, I would still love to see him again, and for their story to develop further. Until we know more plot details for season 3, however, the possibilities are simply too vast to start speculating with any accuracy. 

[mieczyhale]

mace im sorry i don't have coherent thoughts but i'm so just like,,, what was klaus this season. what was ben. the cult was pointless to klaus' character. the things that matter to klaus' character were ignored. the dave stuff was a lot of nothing. i felt like the possession thing shouldve been huge for ben and klaus' relationship but we're supposed to think klaus feeling violated is funny and inconsequential? ben going to the light was just shoved in at the end? i just---what???? who??

i’m on the same page as you, anony, especially in coherency lmfao

klaus this season was.. not totally bad, but i think most of that can be put on robert for his acting and how well he knows his own character bc the writers clearly didn’t know what was up (or maybe they did and playing him off this season as comedic relief, having him tossed to the side and mistreated, is going to play into s3 somehow. idk. i’m not writing off any possibility because overall the writers have done really really well with everything else so in my soul i feel like there has to be a reason they did what they did to him this season yknow??) for all the jokes they had him making and stuff, i think robert definitely played klaus the way we as fans know him - suffering constantly but unwilling to let anyone actually see that and if they do he’s gonna make it sound like a joke. he’s not gonna act serious because that leads to pain and he’s had more than enough of that. HOWEVER. i am genuinely so so pissed that he didn’t get to fight or really use his powers this season. and the part before ben sacrifices himself where klaus finally got up the courage to try and help, the fact that he didn’t succeed - that it wasn’t klaus who saved the day - is just... sldflksd GOD I HATE IT. oh and the scene towards the end where everyone gets shot and the one remaining swede kills the handler?? THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN KLAUS. he should have come back to life as he does, as is PART OF HIS POWERS, grabbed a gun that he knows how to use well - thank you vietnam - and he should have shot the bitch. but no. we didn’t even get that. vanya got klaus’s levitation and diego got klaus’s telekinesis and klaus got ??? a cowboy hat. which i mean looks good on him and he deserves it but it doesnt make up for *gestures at everything* and tbh even that was tainted because one of the siblings says “50$ if we leave him here” when klaus runs to grab the hat. seriously??!! SERIOUSLY??! it’s not funny, it’s just more of people not caring about klaus and thinking abandoning him is a fun joke to make ANYWAY. onto things you actually mentioned sdlkdsjf;ls i think the cult wasn’t pointless to his character necessarily, i think it did provide something, but it wasn’t used to its fullest extent. we got little things like klaus talking about it making him claustrophobic and making him feel like his skin is on fire, and his followers become something he cant escape even though he desperately wants too - it’s like having the ghosts all over again except he’s sober and these are live people who can touch him. but the show never actually out loud makes that comparison when they should have. i think it would have helped the cult thing seem less random. as for the dave thing.. i don’t think it was a lot of ‘nothing’ but again i think they could have definitely done more with it. it lets klaus see dave again, in a way, and it shows us more about both of them and the relationship they had. we learn more about dave, who he is, the kind of people he had around him and the environment he grew up in. it shows us that klaus and dave talked about all kinds of things, nothing was too mundane or unimportant. it shows us that three years after dave’s death klaus is still grieving and is still 100% in love. and it shows us that klaus isn’t always as selfish as people assume right alongside another hit to the face (oof unintentional wording) of just how much he loved dave. he wanted to save dave’s life so badly he made a fool of himself, put up with homophobia, took a hit to the face, and still kept trying to stop him from enlisting even though, per the last timeline, it would mean they’d never meet. klaus is willing to have dave never know him, is willing to handle that pain and heartbreak pretty much forever, as long as dave lives. my heart literally cannot handle it the possession thing. i haven’t stopped being angry and uncomfortable and disgusted by it since i saw it like 2 days ago now. that plot the writers really fucked up on it was a big thing for their relationship but not in any way that lead to growth or understanding or power control or ANYTHING. i love ben but i have so many fucking problems with him after watching s2 that i almost wanna take my love back tbh. the writers tried to make it seem like what ben was doing was okay - because he was angry and frustrated with klaus, because klaus wasn’t doing what he wanted, because klaus couldn’t stay sober, etc. like any of that makes possessing someone without their consent okay... or threatening to possess someone the moment their guard is down (leaving klaus paranoid and afraid to sleep).. or getting permission to possess someone and then refusing to leave (and its double garbage when diego encourages ben to continue possessing klaus. diego’s reason was gross and even if he hadnt given a reason he was still encouraging ben to not give klaus’s body back to him. which like.. im sure klaus can see and hear what’s going on. so he now is aware that his brother would rather have ben-wearing-klaus than actual klaus. the amount that would fucking hurt. a nyway) klaus never really got to talk about how it made him feel, not in any situation where anyone was listening. he never got to go off on ben for what he did, and what he was about to do, even though he had every right to. ben kind of knew how klaus felt about it but he showed very clearly that he didnt care. ben just did not fucking care about klaus this season. and it wasnt a ‘tough love’ thing like they tried to do in s1. it was just horrible and it hurt to watch. and i feel like s2 ben wouldnt have apologized to klaus even if he had been seriously confronted. we now know that klaus has this power. and we know that it can easily be abused by someone else. and i feel like that could tie into his ability to make the ghosts corporeal and such. it could definitely work as an interesting lead into exploring more of his many powers. and it could have worked as a way to bring ben and klaus closer without anyone getting hurt or violated. but.. for s2.. it wasnt used that way. it was used as a way to degrade and humiliate klaus. and they clearly wanted us to find it funny. it was one of the least funny things to happen all season. actually probably THE least funny thing. right along with nobody giving a shit when they thought klaus was having a seizure or OD-ing (both during their meeting with reginald and in the alley when they were supposed to meet up to use the briefcase five got from the handler), AND OF COURSE  nobody taking klaus seriously, paying attention to him, or caring about him (except for allison at some points) and ben finally going into the light at the end..  was kind of shoved in?? but i think what made it feel that way, for me at least, wasn’t so much the placement or timing of it but that it wasn’t really acknowledged afterwards?? it just.. happened, and we were all heartbroken, and on screen... nothing. it felt like a very sudden end to his storyline and yeah they could have done a little more to make it feel like a natural end for him thanks for the ask and sharing your thoughts on s2 with me~!! <3