#drop thinks

First of all THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! second, god. There's So Much to discuss and I don't want this to be too long so I'll share what initially comes to mind:

Terezi has an obsession with digging into the mind of another person and how it works, something that was partially born out of prudence due to the distance and lack of caregiving from her lusus. She wants to know how people tick, and how far she can reach into this. In my opinion, this is a reason why she's drawn towards people like Dave or Gamzee, due to how they frequently will play with outward personas. Karkat, on the other hand, is someone that she knows very, very well. We see how she plays him like a fiddle! And of course while she has a manipulative streak, at least to me, a lot of it comes across as her being genuinely comfortable with him in a way that it might be harder with others. She can mess and banter with him and find comfort in knowing how he'll react. And in a society where there's a chance that the state will cull if someone else doesn't, isn't that a form of freedom in of itself??

ALSO!! I think people can often neglect the Forbidden Love(tm) element of their dynamic. Terezi wants to be a legislacerator, a keeper of law and order in Alternia's empire. Karkat is marked as an aberration who will be executed or worse. And like sjfkldsfs obviously neither of them are stupid, both are very perceptive. And they're perceptive enough to know that the risks of their relationship entails, even just as a friendship. Terezi would be expected to turn him into the state, cull him herself, or risk punishment (death). It's implied that Terezi knew about his blood color, but gave him the space to be private despite her prodding anyway (perhaps to see what he was willing to open up about?)But here they are attracted to each other nonetheless!! The very act of love becomes a state of rebellion!!

When we first peek into John’s room, we see a lot of black and white with pops greens from the Sburb stuff and yellow from his magic chest. Most striking of all is  the view from his window, which is entirely illustrated in color. By highlighting Sburb’s green, readers instantly know that this game is at the forefront of John’s mind—which is to say that we as the reader know this is very important. However, I think there’s more that can be read into this though, in what we can learn about John’s behavior. Color isn’t just being used to highlight his interests, but also his inner desire for independence and freedom. Sburb offers an escape from the monotony of his life, along with whatever his outside his immediate neighborhood.

Note that all the houses are gray, too.

This desire is made most explicit on page 82 in one of the most defining moments of Act 1, “the streets are empty” et al. monologue. Written from John’s perspective, he all but says that he feels isolated and detached. Desolation is synonym for emptiness—very strong language is being used here!! Here, he’s projecting his feelings of isolation onto his neighborhood. He picks up on the emptiness of the streets, the spaces between houses, the utter absence of others. Everyone around is most likely tucked away in their houses, in the orderly lines of his neighborhood. From this, we can infer that John not only feels disconnected from community, but that he’s stifled by whatever is present here. 

The tragedy is that John doesn’t quite know how to express this, so he’s left feeling like something is missing. 

And we see this disconnect for ourselves as he sneaks around his house, avoiding being seen. Some notes and disclaimers on this though--John and Dad don’t have a BAD relationship any means; out of all the Beta Kids, the relationship he has with his guardian is by far the healthiest. To call their relationship dysfunctional undercuts the tragedy of John’s character imo. But as he turns one year older, as he grows into his own person, it’s clear that there’s some disconnect at play. Maybe it’s due to Dad’s insistence of indulging in all of John’s “interests”, clowns and cake? Too much attention from a person can become claustrophobic, especially when you’re at an age where you’re rapidly changing, anyway. These are interests that aren’t true to John’s identity, which increases the tension. Again, this isn’t to call Dad a bad parent—he’s a good parent! He's doing his best based on what he knows! There’s affection between him and John! This tension is pretty normal for someone at John’s current stage of development, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t an impact on his life. 

So what’s the opposite of being stuck? Movement. Freedom. Agency. All things associated with John’s aspect: Breath.

Even if he doesn’t have the words to to explicitly say this, Sburb offers freedom from the monotony of his life. Games are a popular form of escapism for a reason, due to how all-encompassing they are. But the twist here is that while Sburb offers a literal escape, it’s an escape that, ironically enough, makes the anxiety, abuse, trauma, and whatever else utterly inescapable for the player since the actual game constructs itself around such things. John’s struggle for freedom is about to made literal (more on this later).

We see this start in Act 2, when John’s fear of heights manifest as various game constructs, such as as the placement of his house on his planet. This suggests that though he desires he things, he’s afraid of what will happen if he steps too far outward and “fall.” 

While the layers of resentment Rose has towards Mom is insane and chunks of it is indeed projection, it’s also not particularly unfounded. Let’s look at how Jaspers’ death was handled as an example, which is likely a foundational moment of where these feelings stem from.

Here, Rose outright calls Jaspers’ resting place a “mockery.” And frankly, it kinda is!! Even though it’s miscommunication and misreading of intention, the whole tailored suit and mausoleum and funeral procession can be totally read as Mom not taking Rose’s very real pain (very real pain that Rose continually tries to ignore into adolescence) about the death of her cat seriously.  The whole thing is like. Camp, to tbh honest. And the irony of it all is that what’s actually happening is that Mom takes Rose’s pain to cartoonish levels of seriousness which loops back around to being utterly unserious. It reduces Rose’s grief into a game, a play at what a funeral “should” be. Why wouldn't that breed resentment!!

I remember being a little girl with my dolls and I were to ask my dad to play with me, he would get so SILLY with it. He never took how I wanted to play seriously, completely warping my intentions with it. As a terminally serious child, this would upset and frustrate me. It made me not want to play with him! I’m assuming that Rose was a terminally serious child, too. However, the difference between me and her is that my dad didn’t take what I wanted to do seriously while Mom Lalonde takes it too seriously. And of course Rose’s circumstances are far more grave given the context, but the point is that it’s upsetting for a child's wants/needs to be twisted into a whole different game. Or maybe it was never a game at all! Her resentment is understandable, especially given this is possibly one of, if not her FIRST brush with death.

In Act 3, we find out that the circumstances surrounding Jaspers’ death: he suddenly disappears, then washes ashore weeks later, having drowned. This would be shocking for anyone, but especially a child. This is a foundational part of Rose’s own anxieties surrounding water, which manifest  the geography of LOLAR. 

It’s easy to imagine Little Rose asking her Mom if they could have a funeral for her cat, but this ends up getting blown out of proportion. Just like every other thing Mom tries to indulge her with. Like the bronzed vacuum, like the 15,000 dollar frame for her drawing, like Maplehoof. Even if it stems out of a place from love, it’s too easy for her to read it as ultimately insincere

Thoughts on Act 1 are going to be truncated because my notes about them aren’t as detailed, but that’s a-okay. Let’s start with a mix and match of stuff before longer discussions!!