#i feel like new quooper fics are coming out a lot more frequently now

[secondhandskootur]

Headcanons I have about the shark dudes

After briefly sharing with one of my mutuals some backstory lore for a Jaws au I'm working on, I got asked to share some of my character headcanons:

Honestly, I have so many headcanons for these guys (particularly Quint and Hooper), that if I listed every single one I think I'd have an entire novel, and we'd be here for ages, so I'm just going to list the ones that I think are the most interesting or... relevant, I suppose? Instead of just re-blogging the other post again, I decided to make a separate post. Some of my headcanons might be kinda far-reaching/out-of-character, and it's a bit all-over the place because I didn't bother to make it sound nice, but fuck it we ball so I'm sharing this anyway. I'll start with Brody first since he's the one I have the least headcanons about.

Martin Brody:

While I wouldn't say that Brody is "normal" — everybody is unique and quirky in their own way — he's certainly the most conventional out of the the big 3, doing things and living in a way that is generally socially accepted. He typically acts as the straight man (no pun intended) when Quint and Hooper decide to go off the rails, and is definitely the most laid-back. In most situations, at least.

He's a genuinely nice guy who doesn't like to offend or hurt people. Somewhat of a people pleaser, but he does put his foot down if he feels that he needs to. Brody isn't really afraid of confrontations per se, but he definitely doesn't like them either. He's mostly a goody-two-shoes. Mostly. He's actually kinda slutty lol. I mean have you seen those form-fitting turtlenecks got dayum.

He's an avid reader. The man is a total bookworm and in his free time, he actually really enjoys sitting down with a good book. Brody will read pretty much anything and he can do it quick. Like, this guy can finish a 1,000+ page book front-to-back in less than a day if given the opportunity. He really enjoys horror/murder mysteries as well as detective fiction like Sherlock Holmes.

Brody also writes his own stories (usually short stories), and he's damn good at it. They're beautifully written. Ellen occasionally encourages him to get a few of them published but every time she does, he's just like "nah" because he's scared to do it.

He has crippling anxiety. I can't explain how I know this, but I know this.

Brody is an only child. From time-to-time, he'll watch Michael and Sean interact with each other and be like, "Ooohhhh so this is how siblings interact." It's a bit foreign to him, to say the least.

Matt Hooper:

Hooper is very intense. He can either be the biggest sweetheart or the biggest bitch, and there is no in-between. I personally think that his sassy, bratty "take-no-shit" attitude is a defense mechanism. He got bullied and harassed a lot growing up and in college so he's developed a spitfire personality as a result.

He's pretty witty and has a comeback for just about everything.

He's definitely kinda cocky and arrogant, albeit in a slightly different way than Quint. He's insanely smart and skilled, and he knows it. And it gets a little to his head sometimes. Quint knocks him down a few pegs though.

Hooper's pretty bad at hiding his emotions in most situations and he has the worst poker face. 99.9% of the time, you can tell how he's feeling just by looking at him. He's better about expressing his feelings and communicating than Quint is, but that really isn't saying much. When he does feel like he's about to cry, he usually tries to run away and isolate himself because he hates being seen crying. He 100% ugly cries, too.

He isn't at Brody levels of bookwormery, but he definitely likes reading (I'll just go ahead and say right now that I think all of the big 3 like reading). He mostly reads scientific books/documents, especially relating to oceanography & marine biology, and stuff about sharks.

Hooper will collect just about any shark-related item. Or anything to do with sea animals. Sharks are his absolute favorite but he loves all of 'em.

I've seen this one floating around a bit on Tumblr so I know I'm not alone in thinking this, but honestly I get so much trans guy energy off of him that I just like to imagine him being trans. (Yes, I realise that he canonically isn't trans. But then again, Quint canonically dies and I ignored that shit too.)

He has one (1) older brother. No siblings other than that. He actually does have a brother in the book, but it's never actually specified whether or not he has siblings in the film.

I also think that a lot (though maybe not all) of his family members are artsy hippie types, and that he's a bit artsy himself. I haven't exactly decided which yet, but I think he either draws 60s/70s style cartoons or paints really weird abstract shit as a fun little hobby. So far I'm leaning more towards the 'toons.

Hooper doesn't come from a family of seafarers. Rather, he had either a neighbor or family friend who was a seasoned captain. He would hear stories about the sea and being on boats and genuinely became interested in it, so he was taught at a young age about seamanship and sailing. He picked up on it pretty quickly because he was so hyper fixated on it.

Hooper is a hippie, counter-culture type. He loves tacky/vintage clothing in general and stuff that isn't mainstream. He absolutely fucks with bell bottoms. He would totally love those ugly collared grandma sweaters that frequently get sold on Depop, too.

Quint:

Quint really likes fucking with people because he thinks it's funny. He 100% enjoys gaslighting, and he has a knack for making stuff up on the go. He'll tell people the dumbest shit imaginable — with the straightest face and most serious tone — and actually get them to believe it most of the time.

More on the "fucking with people" thing, whenever people do come over (very rare), he goes out of his way to make them moderately uncomfortable. Not by harassing them or anything, but in a "He owns exactly 37 copies of Moby Dick that are the exact same edition with the exact same cover and he stacked them in a really weird horrendous way right before you came over, and other subtle ways to be deranged" type of uncomfortable. Don't worry though, he also owns another, 38th copy of Moby Dick that's a different edition with a different cover just for variety! (I actually made a post a couple of days ago about another headcanon that kinda goes in line with this).

He's pretty cocky and arrogant (tbf, that's actually canon lol). Not to the point of being a complete narc or anything, but enough where he can be a dick about it. He's a very experienced fisherman with a lot of skills up his sleeve and it does get just a wee bit to his head. Luckily Hooper is there to knock him down a few pegs.

Quint's also much, much smarter than he lets on. Maybe not as smart as Hooper, but pretty damn smart. Unfortunately, he does sometimes let his arrogance cloud his judgement a bit (again- Hooper keeps him in check. And vise versa).

Speaking of skills, he has so many hidden talents that he just. Does not tell people about. Ever. And then they get whiplash when they find out that he's actually really fucking good at [insert thing here]. For starters, he loves drawing. He's definitely more of a pen and ink type of guy, but he does work with watercolor and oil paint sometimes. He also likes etching and scrimshawing, and can absolutely whip-up some badass, Gustave Doré type stuff. He dabbles in pretty much any kind of craftsman/handyman thing, especially if it involves wood. Also he plays several different stringed instruments and the piano. Seafaring and shark hunting is still his main thing, but he finds a new hobby to try every few years because he gets bored after a while and gets good at the new hobbies stupidly quickly.

In contrast to Hooper, Quint is usually pretty good at hiding his emotions unless he's really pissed off. He's got a good poker face and half the time you'd have no idea how he's feeling. He's also notoriously bad at communicating and expressing his feelings. He's very much a "walk it off" kind of guy and would rather bottle it up, but that doesn't always work.

Most of the deranged shit he does is actually a bit to keep people away. On the highly unlikely chance that he does warm up to you, he'll actually let you get to know him, and he'll take the time to get to know you. That weird Moby Dick book stack? He does like Moby Dick, but the whole stack of them is just to weird out unwanted guests who he's hoping will end up leaving early. He'll show you his bookshelf with other stuff he likes reading. He'll let you see the stuff he's working on, tell you what his latest hobby is, and he might even open up to you about how he's feeling and be vulnerable with you. Might. Point is, he'll actually let you in. To an extent. He's still a grump, though; that's just his nature.

He's very much a recluse. Aside from Hooper (and the occasional hangout with Brody where they sit and crack open a beer and choose not to say a got damn thing), he actually doesn't really talk to people much and doesn't really go out anywhere when he's on shore.

Quint is surprisingly good with kids. Although he doesn't have any of his own — nor does he want to have any — he did grow up with a lot of siblings. I'm not sure exactly how many, but I wanna say he had at least 6 or 7. He was one of the oldest, but not not the oldest, and therefore was expected to help look after the younger ones.

More on his family, he was born into a long line of sailors and was pretty much learning about seafaring and sailing since he could walk. He was raised in a Christian, conservative household. He was also relatively poor and had a rough childhood. Quint's estranged from his family and has been since at least the USS Indianapolis. Most of them don't even know if he's alive.