#plus the obligatory adhd options

[breathmints1]

hi so i made one of thse deranged emotion charts or something!!

[purble-gaymer]

i need to talk about falspar before i explode

okay so here’s the guy we’re talking about plus information that will be important going forward:

number 1. he is genderfluid and uses any pronouns but primarily he/him

number 2. he is aro/pan (but he doesn't know the aro part for a while)

number 3. autism adhd and a healthy dose of rejection sensitive dysphoria

without further ado, here is my lore dump

(also: warnings for child neglect and drug use)

for the sake of structuring my thoughts i'm gonna pull from a couple songs that have been fueling all this. i know it's cliche to have mother mother in character playlists but you have to trust me okay. because it's ball cap and touch up and the album they're from is dear to my heart

let's talk about astrals. in case you thought otherwise, this is going to be very headcanon-heavy so i'm opening with my hardest hitter and that's astral reproduction.

option 1: mitosis. can only be performed once due to the unstable nature of void creatures

option 2: random birth as a result of the random collision of light matter particles in space

in the case of option 2, the newborn usually just drifts around until they get caught in a planet's orbit and pulled to the ground. in the case of either option, they imprint on the first creature they see. only really a problem for option 2.

falspar here is option 2. he landed on mekkai before the whole planet became industrialized, which happened gradually during his time there. (additional note before i forget to put it anywhere: mekkai's vernacular is derivative of german because german is like 'the science language.' he grows up speaking both common and this yet-to-be-named vernacular.) when he's eventually found, he ends up in foster care because astrals live for a really long time and most species on mekkai aren't able to take care of someone for that long. he has no memory of whoever he may have imprinted on, but it never mattered to him that much.

(even if it's always felt like something was missing.)

so here's my first pull from ball cap:

I like the treetops 'Cause they're reaching just like me And I'm tied up in knots Like the brambles and the weeds

this stanza feels to me like it's from the perspective of a child. it feels like they're trying to fit in, or trying to understand why they struggle to fit in.

here's where some of that stuff i mentioned earlier comes in. all of it, actually, even if he didn't quite know all of it yet. 1, trans kid. astrals are born genderless and some ID otherwise later on. i imagine mekkai to be somewhat similar to human society, being so technologically advanced. something about colonialism and forcing the gender binary and now in the current day our young astral is very confused why everyone is trying to assign him an arbitrary label for something he doesn't have. of course it's too early for him to really question anything, but the confusion is always there.

2, welcome to my obligatory "you are aromantic" segment. wanna know how annoying it is to be aro in a romance-focused society? extremely! and that shit sticks with you forever unfortunately so you really have to try and unlearn it! this comes in more later and i'll talk about it then, but similar to point 1 there's the inkling that something is wrong, even if he doesn't know what just yet.

and 3, neurodivergent. here's where i insert my 'astrals are like cats' headcanon and tell you all astrals are autistic and there's nothing you can do to stop me. anyway, this is the bit that ties to this lyric the most at this point. yknow when you feel different and don't know why? or you do know why, and you're even more conscious about how you're just not like everyone around you? that's what this line is to me. reaching to understand your peers, but ultimately extending your arms and finding nothing in your grasp, just empty sky.

so, he starts not really fitting in anywhere. nowhere feels right. no one seems interested in him. he's loud, excitable, enthusiastic, but it seems to scare people off more than it invites them in. he moves between families a lot for the first few decades because, again, no one on mekkai is really equipped to deal with a kid who ages and matures ten times slower than the average person on the planet. this makes schooling especially bad--how do you even compensate for something like that? moving him up each year is far too fast, keeping him in the same grade for ten years is pointlessly excessive. it's complicated and he gets through it, but not without a lot of struggle. completing work always feels like a fight.

moving on: remember how awful it is being in your early to mid-teens? we're there now and all three things i mentioned before have only begun weighing on him more now that he's starting to understand them. societal pressure rolls around again! sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll being ostracized by your peers for not following the norm!

we can scratch that first one off the list because aro + terrified of emotional intimacy. the aro thing isn’t a problem but it is certainly confusing and he's like the equivalent of 16 at this point and has no fucking clue what any of that means. it sure as hell doesn't make him feel better about himself. second one's easy but we'll get to that in a moment. i only put the third one there for the joke but he probably does like rock. and the fourth is basically at the forefront of his thoughts the entire time.

this is about the time where he starts noticing things. a lot to do with his current family, mostly that...they don't really seem interested in him. no one ever has. he could never really make friends because they would all grow up and move on without him. his past family members cared about him, sure, but he always knew he would have to leave eventually, so he tried not to get attached. the longer he sits on this, the more sick of it he becomes. after a while he decides he's going to get someone's attention, whether it's good attention or not.

here's where the drugs come back. it's crazy what a little brain-altering substance can do. suddenly, you have no inhibitions, no fears, and falspar ends up with some friends for the first time. or at least, with people who don't find him unbearable to be around. he's not exactly close with any of them, but at least he's not alone, right?

here's another line that's relevant for this portion:

Oh, don't you know that beauty is only skin deep? Well, baby, baby, come on and skin me

his current state is a culmination of peer pressure, the weight of societal standards, and his refusal to really be vulnerable with anyone, only able to do so with great pain. this is a very confusing, very stressful period of one's life and everything that's happened up to this point is only making things worse.

but the drugs help. at least somewhat. he's able to talk to people. he can be normal for once. he goes along with his friends, and he's happy. at least, he's pretty sure he is. what starts as regular fun after-school activities starts to turn into some not-so-legal ones. but they're still pretty fun, he'll admit. the thrill practically gives him the same high as a smoke.

when his family hears, they aren't happy. falspar is, though. they start keeping a closer eye on him, making sure he gets home on time, and while he's still sneaking out with his friends from time to time, it's nice to know someone is wondering what he's doing.

it was nice for a while, at least. what he isn't ready for is after he became a legal adult, they asked him to leave. well, 'asked' is a gentle way to put it.

he manages to get ahold of a few closer friends who graduated recently and were living together in the next town over, and they invite him to stay with them. he's stressed at first, afraid of being a burden, finding a job as soon as possible to help out. after a few months, he gets more comfortable, and then...

freedom. for the first time, he doesn't feel...obligated to be one way or another. he works and helps around the house, and in the evening he and his friends hang out and smoke and play games and for once, he's happy. he really, really is, and the morning he wakes up and realizes it he decides it's time for a change. he cuts his hair and picks out a new name and he's finally started to understand himself.

i haven't said anything about touch up yet, so here's a bit from the bridge that i'm about to rip into:

I forget that I can remember when I was young, climbing up fences Scraping my knees, dirt on my cheeks Not one makeover queen bone in me

there's a stark contrast between falspar's younger self and who he becomes as he grows up. to address this stanza directly, there's the obliviousness that comes with being a child. there's no bigger picture, there's no pressure to be someone you're not, to pretend to be like the people around you for their approval. maybe something was off, but what did it matter? those problems seem so small now.

as he gets older, in comes the confusion, the isolation, the self-loathing. something was wrong, something, even if he didn't know exactly what, and it was excruciating. there had to be an answer, right? yet no matter how much he searched and fought, he could never find one.

and then, escaping all that, and being allowed to breathe freely. you have other problems now, sure, but all that weight is gone. somehow just the idea of being an 'adult' now opens up so many doors, and for the first time in, hell, maybe his entire life, falspar looks in the mirror and smiles back at the person he sees in it.

the repetition of the line "All my makeup, it has washed off" has two meanings in this context. the first, and more positive, being that he's able to do...anything, really. he can relax. unmask. he doesn't have to perform for anyone. he can remove the paint and be himself and for once he's not going to be forced to conform. it doesn't matter what other people think, you are alive, why shouldn't he be able to live authentically?

the second relates to his younger self again. this whole song feels like the buildup to a breakdown, eventually coming to a close with the constant repeat of "I need a touch up/give me the touch up," and one finally slam on the guitar, the exhausting aftermath playing out as it slowly fades to nothing. losing that mask is devastating, he can't be seen without it, he'll be cast out again, discarded, abandoned, and he can't let that happen, not now, not after everything. and once it's over, he's left alone, in the dark, too afraid to turn to anyone no matter how badly he wants to.

okay. this is getting really long and i'd love to add how he gets to the gsa here, but i think i've said enough. i'm done with the song analysis at this point, too, so i'll have to talk about it some other time.

YEESH feels good to get all that out of my system. if you've made it to the end of this, thank you so much for reading. it means a lot. can you tell i really really like this guy?