#davey's thoughts

[cake-bread]

The Epilogue.

(one last DISCLAIMER: this is askblog for TBG Davey, not the actual Davey Wreden.)

I assume you have many questions - and after my response, you'll come up with even more. But I never planned to answer any of them.

I'm only telling a story.

Once TSPUD got announced, people have asked me if I'd remaster The Beginner's Guide. That question kept showing up, and I kept saying - 'Whats the point? The story is already finished.'

And then, I was asked again. And then, again.

And then - again.

At some point, I stopped responding. It was not due to being tired of repeating myself, but because I wasn't sure if the answer was still true. I felt there was nothing more to add, and enhancing the graphics would only take away from the experience. And yet, I knew there was so much more to the story.

I looked at all the game reviews, emails, and messages I could, realizing that this was it.

Feedback or The Cookie9 Phenomenon, if you want to call it that.

In a way, I suppose, I've always been my audience's Coda. The only thing that was different was no direct contact. After the enormous, very overwhelming response from the original TSP, I've been sparingly responding to any private feedback I've been receiving.

But the emails kept not changing. I do find the mails where I'm getting 'destroyed' or 'owned' very funny but that wasn't the case from the start.

So, I've wondered - how would these people react if they could see an effect of their own words? That it's not just something they spout into the ether but there's an actual person on the other side?

I wondered how could I bring this up without making a Skip Button Ultra Deluxe Edition. While games are interactive, you still have a barrier between you and the creator of the games.

Inspiration came randomly, during one panel I was listening to. Typically, a person would have a big speech followed by questions but that one particular instance was like 70% QnA. And at the end - I felt great! Maybe I couldn't give my own feedback in the sea of hands but there was something so charming about this being such a collaborative work. At the start, the performer said "you shape how the show will go" and even if it was obvious in that circumstance, to this day I remember it.

So, I've decided to make this askblog. But as I stated in it, in hidden clues - I'm fine at the moment! I'm happy where I stand as a creator and I had moved on from the past. That, however, wasn't always the case.

I'm lucky that I was mad enough to have many diaries throughout my life. I've written down so many of my reactions, thought processes and feelings, reading through My Files wasn't that much of an issue. And since I've already played as my past self once - I could do it again.

I will leave this askblog open but I won't respond to every message left for it as I've used to. I'll spare your time and write down some of the questions that you'll probably not get answers to:

"Was Coda ever real?", "Where the Twitter screenshot real and if so, what were Coda's thoughts and reaction to all of this?" "Were Coda's answer actually his?" or any other Coda-related questions like that,

"What are you working on now?", "Are you really fine?",

"What exactly inspired you in your life to do this now?", "Had a similar situation happened before?", "How did you deal with other Fake Codas?", "Will you one day answer our questions again?"

or anything TSP/TSPUD related,

because you're not entitled to someone's work or life.

And I won't light up your lampposts anymore.

Davey, out!

===

(Hi, it's me, @shinakazami1, the creator of this story. I'd like to thank everybody who spent their time to support this. I adore interacting with my own audience so this way of storytelling felt great thanks to you! My plan was to have something in the spirit of the original The Beginner's Guide in a form of an ask blog - small questions connected with themselves, telling a bigger yet short story that had already 'happened'. As Davey had said - you shape the way this could have gone. While the ending was predetermined from the start, Act 2 aka 'Coda's Askblog' was entirely up to you! For every post that you've asked Coda about something, I've already prepared a draft for the other blog. There were different versions of Coda and Davey planned. You've chosen Anxious Yet Assertive Davey and Angry but Weirdly Supportive Coda. I might talk about these more either in an edit of this post or on my Tumblr Blog, as I'd like to show a bit of a cut content :] While askblog Davey said he might not answer the questions mentioned - I might, so feel free to come and say your thoughts on this, your feedback, anything! I've myself been once again feeling stuck with creating, especially with drawing. But this project made me feel great, and it's all thanks to you. So thank you, Player. May we see each other another time. Toodle-pip!)

[david-please-stop-signed-coda]

Tumblr really is cool. I like the tagging system a lot.

But everything comes to an end at some point.

I'll see you in The Epilogue.

[rooshappy]

OKAY what if each Character had their own part of 'Santa Fe'? After the strike, Crutchie is taken away to the refuge and Jack seemingly disappears. Then the characters sing Santa Fe on their own- unaware that the others are singing their own versions: Jack: FOLKS! We finally got a headline 'Newsie's Crushed as Bulls Attack' Crutchie's callin' me, the kid's just too damn slow. Race (telling Katherine): Guy's are fighting, bleeding, falling. Thanks to good old captain Jack! Jack: Captain Jack just wants to close his eyes and GO! Crutchie: Let me go....! Far away Jack: Somewhere they won't never find me and tomorrow won't remind me of today. When the City's finally sleeping and the moon looks old and grey I'll get on a train that's bound for Santa Fe. Katherine: And I'm gone And I'm done Crutchie: No more running. Race: No more lying. No more fat old men denying me my pay! Crutchie: Just a moon so big and yellow Night turns right into day All: Dreams come true....yeah they do.... Santa Fe Crutchie: Where does it say you gotta live and die here? Race: Where does it say a guy can't catch a break? Katherine: Why should you only take what your given? Why should you spend your whole life living..... Crutchie: Trapped where there ain't no future Jack: Even at 17 Jack and Race: Breakin' your back for someone else's sake Katherine: If a life don't seem to suit you how 'bout a change of scene? Race: Far from these lousy headlines and the deadlines in between! Davey: Santa Fe.... Are you there? Do you swear you won't forget me.... If I found you would you let me come and stay? Crutchie: I ain't getting any younger and before my dying day.... Jack: I need space, I need fresh air Race: Let em' laugh in my face I don't care? All: SAVE MY PLACE, I'll be there. Just be real is all I'm askin' Not some painting in my head Because I'm dead if I can't count on you today I got nothing if I aint got Santa Fe.

[aceofspades-sml]

I am not sure why we are still having this conversation but um. I'm begging you to stop making Davey everybody's mom

[eggwishing]

short & stout rose And awkward and gangly dave >>>> i think rose would move with a ferocity like she could accidwntally bump her elbow onto the corner of a table and the table would crumble . dave posture’d be so rigid that he’d fall like a tree and shatter like glass from a light breeze

[shsl-fander]

Something I love about Javey is making them both think the other is out of their league. They both are convinced they couldn't possibly deserve one another and yet they're so in love.

Jack thinks Davey is smart and more sophisticated than him and has a real family so why would he want " a mess" like him when he could get so much better.

Davey thinks Jack is so confident and cool (and hot) and he admires how all the newsies easily listen to him. Jack is a natural born leader and has this energy to him that everyone likes. Davey can't imagine what its like to be like that and he thinks Jack would never want someone awkward like him.

And yet they match each other so perfectly and are exactly what the other needed. Davey needed to learn how to truly be himself and let go, hang out with the other newsies and become less uptight. Jack needed someone like Davey to understand him and talk to him logically and bring him down to earth instead of daydream land.

[we-are-inevitable]

am i in the frame from your point of view? // javid

"Katherine Pulitzer."

"David Jacobs," Katherine says, not even looking up from the Essential Journalism textbook she's currently hunched over. She looks like hell, her red curls all over the place, chunky-framed glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and she's wearing an old navy-colored hoodie that reads Trinity School on the front. Dead week has claimed another life, or something. David thinks she could use a break.

Which is why the next words that come out of his mouth, just three seconds after he very abruptly sat in front of her at her table in the library, are: "Remember how I told you I was swearing off men?"

This catches Katherine's attention, clearly, because she looks up at him, her blue ink pen falling limp to the table. "Oh, David, no. Who is it?"

"Look," He starts, defensive. He takes a breath as he pushes his own glasses up, absentmindedly dusting stray cat hair off his own plain black hoodie. "It's not my fault. I say I'm swearing off men, and suddenly my dream guy walks into my life. I'm dying."

"Who is it?" Katherine asks, shifting in her seat; she brings one knee to her chest and tucks the other foot underneath, folding herself like a pretzel in the uncomfortable wooden chairs of the library. "Do I know him? Do you know him? Or is it another barista?"

David rolls his eyes. "He's not a barista, I don't think," He says, then glances away for a fraction of a second; when he looks back, she already has a knowing look on her face. "And yeah. You know him."

Katherine raises a brow expectantly. "Who is it?"

And David regrets starting this conversation now, a little bit, because he doesn't want to admit it. He wanted to string her along a little. Wanted to tease it out, but she's looking at him like she'll strangle him at any moment if he doesn't tell her, and David knows his sister well enough to know that she only dates girls capable of violence. Katherine fits the bill.

Which is why, when he starts speaking again, he braces for impact before she can try anything. "You can't expect me not to fall in love with your hot friends, okay? It wasn't—"

"Oh my God!" She yells, a little too loud for the library's second floor. "You little slut! You like Jack?!"

"It's a pipe dream," He says immediately, throwing his hands out to his sides dramatically. "He's— okay, he's cute, alright? I can't help it!"

Katherine is grinning wildly at him now, textbook forgotten as she raps her hands against the wooden table. "You like Jack! I knew it! I knew you would like Jack!"

"Oh, please, no you did not," David says with a scoff.

"Uh, yes I did," She says, shooting him a look. "He's, like, exactly your type, Dee."

"I don't have a type."

"He's a goofy beefcake with brown eyes and muscles and curls, and he makes you laugh, and he listened to you talk about your mom's dog, and—"

And to her credit, she keeps listing off things, and to David's chagrin, she's not wrong.

When Katherine mentioned a party at her apartment, David was all for it. Despite his typical "I don't like people" front, David did enjoy the company of the six friends he could tolerate- Katherine, Charlie, Racer, Albert, Spot, and Sarah. Well, five friends, technically, since he's known Sarah since she was thirteen minutes old and he was, well, zero minutes old. Still. Six people.

And then Katherine said there would be a seventh.

A guy named Jack.

The lore there, she explained, is that all of them knew each other from community theater back in the day. Jack, Kath, Charlie, Race, Al and Spot- they've always ran in the same circles- outside of school, at least. Apparently, Kath's dad wasn't too happy that he was shelling out thousands of dollars for private school and she decided to make friends elsewhere, but there was really nothing he could do. Sarah was added to the group when she and Kath started dating in freshman year of college, and David was added not too long after that, but until now, Jack has just been... a story. A story about this funny guy with a megawatt smile and a heart of gold, who packed up and went to college in Santa Fe for college. He's been in town a few times since then, apparently, but David had never met the guy until Katherine's birthday party last weekend.

And he can't stop thinking about him.

Literally. David isn't an artist by any means, but thinking about this Jack Kelly guy- this 5'9 guy with with rich brown skin and bright eyes, with the laugh of a lion and a smile that made David want to throw up- has made David want to etch his "I go hiking in the mountains and bathe in the rivers" body in stone and write a symphony just to capture the sound of his voice singing Happy Birthday purposely off-key. It's maddening, and—

"Hellooo? Earth to David?"

David blinks, then groans and takes his glasses off, haphazardly dropping them in a clatter onto the wooden table as he rubs his eyes with the heels of his palm. "I'm fucked, Kath."

She cackles, loudly, like David's misery is the funniest shit she's ever seen. "Oh, you poor thing. Didn't he follow you on Instagram at the party?"

David responds with another guttural groan.

He can practically feels Katherine roll her eyes. "Okay, dumbass. Text him."

"He's your ex," David says, like this is a crucial detail, like she should hate the fact that David is into him on the basis of we used to date and it's fucked up that you're telling me how much you like my ex, like Katherine and Jack weren't lounging on top of each other all weekend, like they don't FaceTime every other day, like they're not as close as can be. "And he's in fucking New Mexico. I'm not getting attached."

"He's coming back next month, y'know," Katherine points out. She picks her pen back up, twirling it between her pointer and middle finger. "He's graduating a semester early. Next weekend, actually, and then he's moving back."

David finally removes his hands from his face. "You're shitting me."

"I'm not! I swear it." Katherine picks up her phone, and David watches as she swipes through her text messages before sliding the phone across the table. "See? He's moving back on the twenty-third. He's surprising Medda for Christmas."

"Oh, fuck," David frowns. "That's cute. He needs to stop being cute."

"He's moving in with Charlie, so, I mean," She shrugs, "you'll be seeing him a lot soon."

"You're making this worse."

"He has a job lined up already. School counselor for one of the middle schools."

"He likes kids?"

"Loves 'em."

"Fuck me," David sighs, rubbing his forehead as he slides the phone back to Katherine. "So, you're saying I have two weeks to get over him?"

"No, David," Katherine says, deadly serious despite the smirk on her face, "I'm saying you have two weeks until your future husband is permanently in your vicinity."

"He doesn't like me like that," David says, crossing his arms. "You're being a bad friend. You're completely feeding my delusions."

Katherine purses her lips and grabs her phone again, silent. David gulps as he leans forward, trying to watch her screen through her glasses; he can tell she's scrolling through her photos, but after a few moments, she stops. When she slides the phone back, David sees an image on the screen.

An image of a video from her birthday. Paused with David and Jack on screen. David's eyes are wide, and his mouth is open and his lips are quirked, and his eyebrows are raised and his hands are splayed in front of him, and he's obviously mid-sentence about something important (or not important; he doesn't remember much after his fourth drink, but remembers talking about Pokémon and Sabrina Carpenter and the fall of the Catholic church, so the possibilities are truly endless).

Despite the animated, ugly, passionate look on David's face, though, what draws his attention is Jack.

Jack, sitting sideways on the couch with his elbow on the back and his cheek resting against his palm. Jack, his other arm draped, barely holding his bottle of beer. Jack, his gaze soft, staring at David like he's completely enraptured in whatever the fuck he's saying.

David takes in a deep breath, slides the phone back to Katherine, and says, "I want him."

She just grins and responds, "You got two weeks, tiger. This is so happening."

[paper-bag-arts]

erm 1990s javid

[thepettymachine]

Davey is following in his mother's footsteps of joining the Medical career and moved out.

Bye Davey!!

[wrylu]

ANOTHER STILL WAKES THE DEEP FAN?? A RENNICK FAN?? YAYYYY!! A SWTD FAN THAT ALSO LIKES RDR2??? YESSSS I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME IN THIS FANDOM! AHH I LOVE YOUR ART SO MUCH!

OH MY GOD ?!?!?!?! ?! SWTD AND RDR2 FANS ASSEMBLE 🤝🤝 THIS ASK ACTUALLY HAS ME JUMPING FOR JOY YAAAYYYYYY HELLO FELLOW RENNICK FAN !!!!!AND THANK YOUU SO MUCH OOOMGG YOU'RE TOO SWEETIE ☹️☹️/POS

Here's a badly drawn rennick and a kitty rennick for you /Silly

[cake-bread]

Does loss ever get easier?

Losing a normal ballpit pen is so common, we don't even think about it. Losing a special pen gets us sad. Losing an ID gets us anxious.

Often, in the end, we move on from loss. But sometimes, years after, even a raindrop can make it all flow to the surface again.

Loss isn't getting easier or harder. It's there, even if we don't notice, all the time. It takes different forms, different names, different meanings.

And even if you find the same type of a ballpoint pen - you don't know if it's yours anymore.

[stargrist]

we back @homestucklineup

[honeyywoods]

“Y’ever heard of pirate glass?” Jack asked out of the blue, his drawing hand stilling as he set his charcoal down. Davey raised a curious brow, and thoughtlessly tilted the angle of his head as he did so. This drew a ‘tsk’ from Jack - ever the artist - and Davey rolled his eyes fondly before returning to his original position. “No,” Davey responded, watching with surprise as Jack retrieved his pastels. This was an exceedingly rare thing, Davey knew; Jack’s sketches were almost always exclusively charcoal. Nothing more than smudges of black on white, and yet so much more. Jack breathed such life into his drawings that they hardly needed color.

And yet.

Davey watched from the corner of his eye as Jack rifles through the box, pulling out several colors that he can’t quite see. “Why do you ask?” Davey inquired, his voice sounding strangely in the New York night. Even with the bustle of the city, the two of them seemed to be in another world where the only sound was the clattering of chalk.

Jack hummed as he shifted back, pastels in hand. “‘S neat stuff.” He said simply, starting in with one of the pastels - a pitch-dark shade, Davey could now tell. “When you look at it in the dark, or in most light, it looks just plain black or brown.” Jack continued, his hand making delicate, meticulous swipes across the paper. “Guess them pirates thought it helped keep the sun out o’ their booze or somethin’.” A chuckle, and when Davey looked over there was a sort of half-smile on Jack’s face, though his eyes were still trained on his drawing.

“But, if you get it in the right light, it’s anythin’ but plain. The color shines through.” Jack held up a bright spring green, something soft in his eyes that Davey couldn’t quite place. “Like a gemstone, y’know? Real pretty.” With that, Jack returned to the drawing, and the pair lapsed into quiet.

Chalk scratching paper, Jack’s soft, even breathing. Davey could stand to stay like this forever.

Davey isn’t sure how much time passed just like that, but eventually Jack stood up, tipped the chalk dust off of the drawing, and lingered awkwardly in his spot for a moment. A hand brushing over his braids, Jack turned his sketchbook around and extended it to Davey.

Oh. Oh.

Staring back at Davey was his own face - his own eyes. Davey was no art critic, but it was obvious that Jack had made the eyes the focal point. His eyes. They were bright golden-green, like new spring growth, with dark around the edges.

Davey knew that it shouldn’t have been so special. He saw his eyes regularly in the small mirror kept next to the bathtub, after all. But Jack had made them look…different. As though the lights of the city had turned them into something else entirely.

Pirate glass.

What a funny thing indeed. Such a fitting concept for Jack, who seemed to know everything about the seemingly most unusual matters. Davey was forced to wonder where Jack had learned of it - perhaps it was just another case of ‘improving the truth.’

Regardless, there was something to be said about Jack using such a comparison to communicate his thoughts about Davey’s eyes.

Real pretty played back in his head, and suddenly everything clicked neatly into place.

And even if pirate glass was just a Jack Kelly-certified method of skirting around the truth, Davey could think of worse ways to find out.

[uncertaininnit]

i decided to become a writer and so I started generating myself prompts and

this is just David walking into newsies square for the first time

[bijackkellys]

something about love and possession; something about jack who has never had anything that’s his to own and therefore can’t conceive of it; something about katherine who’s been given everything she’s ever asked for except for her agency and therefore doesn’t want to own anything but herself; something about davey who’s only ever owned just enough to leave him wanting

[loving-jack-kelly]

time loop fic where davey is trapped in a time loop and the only way to break it is to confess his feelings to jack directly and unambiguously but the fic is from jack's perspective so it's a perfectly normal day except davey is acting really weird and then gives the most confusing love confession ever because he doesn't know it'll break the loop so he's under the impression that this will all reset anyway