#techie crew

literally every single time i read this question i laugh out loud. it brightens my day EVERY time. HAHAHA.

anyway, i thought i would let the kiddos speak for themselves on this one:

God. And after all that sentimental stuff I just said? But okay. Fine. I’ll try.

Me -- I haven’t actually gone to prison, I’m making money and thus serve a purpose to society now, I’m not a performer

Asher -- he is patient and forgiving, even when he shouldn’t be

Dylan -- he is extremely loyal and way smarter than me

Dora -- she is actually going to be something in this world that matters

Jade -- she works way damn harder than anyone

Nate -- he is savvy and unapologetically himself

Jeff -- he is sane and knows when to mind his own business, but can deliver a killer burn

Dave -- he is perfect exactly the way he is and should never ever change

I already talked about the crew as a whole, and like I said my memory is shit. So I guess instead I’ll just say like, the first thing I think about when I think about them.

So for Asher I think about night. I think it’s because so much of the times we hung out in freshman and sophomore year were at night, like sometimes I’d get him to sneak out early sophomore year and we’d just go walk around and talk and stuff. Also because night kind of reminds me of him, too, how it’s kind of quiet and seemingly calm, but there could be a million and one things going on in the darkness that you don’t necessarily see. Makes sense, too, because he and Dylan are like day and night in that way -- Dylan being the sun for obvious reasons.

Dylan I think of two things -- Mr. Puff, and his ridiculously bright smile. Like I’m not much of a smiler, but Dylan’s is contagious. There’s just something about it that has a ripple effect. It’s no magical fix or anything, but I think I have always had a kind of appreciation for it.

With Dora, I think about her sneakers. The ones with all the doodles on them that are falling apart, not the newer ones Valerie gave her. I think I think that because of how familiar they feel, cause she wore them all the time for two years, but also because it kind of represents how she’s always in action -- stomping around the stage giving orders, tapping her foot waiting impatiently, stuff like that.

Jade I think about her eye roll. This is not because she’s a jackass, because she’s definitely one of the nicest of the crew, but just because it means something when she’s rolling her eyes, like you’ve really stepped in it. I saw plenty of that last year, and I know if Jade is getting pissy with me I’m probably taking things too far.

Jeff I think about the booth. He’s the person who has spent the most time with me in there, because of his specialization with lighting, so the two of us kind of have our own routine and communication. I just think about like, snide comments under our breath during run throughs, or complaining about the performers because we know they can’t hear us, or how sometimes Jeff will set up a game in his notebook, like hangman or the thing where you have to take turns drawing lines on a dotted chart and then you fill in as many boxes as you can, and we’ll just pass that back and forth without comment.

Nate’s laugh comes to mind first when I think of him. I think because it’s really pointed and distinct, like it’s kind of like a bark. And he laughs a lot, both because he’s laughing with us or because he’s being a little shit and is laughing at us. But we usually know he’s just being a dick.

Then for Dave, I think about laughter, but more my own / the others than him. Dave just has this crazy knack for saying the perfect thing, or more like the perfectly imperfect thing, and it always makes all of us crack up. He’s honestly like the only person I’ve ever met who can make me laugh even when I really don’t want to, and the crazy thing is he’s not even trying. That’s just how he is.

Okay, I’m exhausted. Being sentimental takes way too much energy.

you’re completely right, and if I may add, he learns the dance and does it whenever he gets the chance, much to the annoyance of the techies (and any performers who are around at the time, too)

character takeover - techie tots

Now it’s time to have some real fun. The techie tots are in the house, ready to take over, with some sick tunes to go with it. Come hang out and ask the hard-hitting questions!

Dave’s playlist

Jade’s playlist

Jeff’s playlist

Nate’s playlist

i can definitely talk about my fave crew of misfits! i’ll say i don’t think we’ll see much more detail about any of these family dynamics during ep runtimes, just because there’s already so much we’re trying to fit in and not enough time in the world (even tho yes we technically make the rules and can do whatever lol, but es and i do try to adhere to as realistic a tv structure as possible! it feels tighter structured that way)

so quickly i’ll just address dylan and asher, who are not as much mysteries as the other four techie tots just bc we’ve spent a little more time with them. i’m going to be exploring and introducing more of their family and those dynamics throughout the course of the dasher fic, so hopefully after a while they’ll feel as familiar as the rest of the front nine does in terms of their home lives. the short version is that asher is part of a nuclear family and is relatively well-off (they live comfortably, let’s say, given that his dad is an architect and his mom a tenured professor), and he gets along well with his sister lily. dylan lives with his dad and younger brother grant, and his mom passed away from cancer when he was about 6 - 7. his brother has resentment / a bit of a rivalry towards him that is pretty one-sided, but they do get along all things considered. dylan is very close with his dad. their family is firmly middle class and this doesn’t change until dylan starts bringing in substantial youtube coin at the end of high school.

jade is upper middle class and takes pride i think in leading a relatively average, calm life. she was raised by both parents, who are still together, and have a pretty stable marriage although they’re not the most romantic duo. this is where jade gets a lot of her realism from, not as prone towards romanticism or dreaminess even though she does like romance and would like to experience it one day (and can’t help but romanticize nigel). she is a middle child, with one older brother (ethan, 2 years older) and two younger brothers, jacob (3 years younder) and cody (6 years younger). this is part of why she is able to deal with the techie boys so well. overall she gets along very well with her family, and she’s lucky that her parents are highly supportive of her ambitions. her mother in particular loves her talents, because she’ll often make clothing items for her as gifts and then she can tell her friends when they ask about it that it’s “a one of a kind.” they’re definitely proud of her!

nate, as previously discussed, is low income. he lives with both parents but hardly sees his dad because he’s always out late working and exhausted when he gets home. he has two younger siblings, who he has a good relationship with but can often get sick of because of how often he’s asked to help babysit + entertain them when he’s a teenage boy and just wants to be doing whatever on his own time. so he’ll grumble a lot about his family, but he really does love them at the end of the day (despite mixed feelings about his dad, even though he knows how much he has to work isn’t his fault). because of having less disposable income, nate is the most money conscious of the techies for reasons other than being obsessive by nature (like asher). he in some ways thinks of himself as a hack in the aaa system (sort of like lucas, although not at all the same), because although he did have lots of interest in audio mixing and sound design and applied because of that, a major part of him applied to aaa just to see if he could get in and on scholarship. he never thought he actually would get in. although he’d never admit it, being admitted to aaa and meeting the techies was a very grounding and confidence-boosting moment in his life and helped put him on the right path for the future.

jeff is the second most secure financially of the techies after asher, though not too far ahead of jade. he is the youngest of three children, both already in college, though during S1 his sister was a senior at quincy high. his parents are arguably the most stable and truly romantic of all the techie parental units, giving him a realistic yet optimistic understanding of what a relationship is supposed to look like. his father has shares in a local community theater in brooklyn, and he’s highly involved in it, so jeff has been growing up around that world since he was a toddler. his siblings both had stints as actors in the local productions, and while jeff was never personally interested in performing, he loved hanging around the sets and observing the technicians. he started shadowing in the technician’s booth in middle school for extra credit + community service, but his mom noticed he had a real interest and knack for it, so it was her idea to research arts school and put him on track towards aaa. jeff is also the techie who has the best balance between aaa life and his former friends and community, as his main friend group is still predominantly his middle school friends which allows him a healthy detachment and outlet from the chaos of aaa that’s always ongoing.

dave, even to the rest of the techies, is a bit of a mystery. not in a purposeful way, like lucas, but simply because that’s how he is. he’s about dylan’s level of income, living with his mother in a cozy apartment in brooklyn. his parents are divorced, as they split when he was in elementary school, but the dynamic is amicable. his father was the more wealthy of the two, and his child support payments are what really keep the two of them afloat, but it never occurs to dave to grow bitter thinking about how he could give them more (as the other techies might be inclined to do). as far as dave is concerned, it is what it is. he spends weekends / vacations often with his dad in massachusetts where he now is settled down. although his home is far from the most lavish or exciting locale, the techie tots will hang out at his place relatively frequently, second to the orlandos as the go-to hangout spot. this is because there’s a den room that they can basically take over, and dave’s mom is usually home late because of work so they can kind of take run of the place. dave’s den is also the place the group of them will go if they wanna take some risks, like smoke weed now and then. although dave’s mom is still sort of distant from the group of them (not an agreed upon Group Dad, like randall orlando), she’s friendly with all of them and is always welcome to seeing them around when she comes home. dave’s presence at aaa is as much of a mystery as anything else -- he’s a great guitar player, and has always had a penchant for building and piecing things together, but no one can get a clear read on why he decided to apply to aaa, or what his application was like, or what he’s hoping to get out of the place. as dave once said, “sometimes, you just gotta go with it.”

yes, totally! one thing that i know i’m really grateful for in ambition (and that we’re really getting to appreciate to the fullest in s3) is this awesome, varied, fun, quirky, weird, delightful ensemble we have in the a class. like i would say that s3 has more exploration of the class as a whole as well as the individuals in it than anything else so far (which makes sense, i feel like the deeper a show goes into episodes the naturally more deep the background characters will become -- at least on shows that know how to utilize all of the tools they’ve been given in their toolkit). we started this a little bit with the techie crew in s2 and delving into them more closely, but we’re gonna do even more and with a wider scope in s3. super excited about it!

so yes, nate. nathaniel dean martinez. to answer your first point, no, him being on scholarship was never explicitly mentioned, i think we only ever canonically mention maya having one on screen. but each class has about 10 scholarships to give out (that including both the a and b class), and the notion of how scholarship works at aaa is something else that will be explored in s3.

nate is from the bronx, so just north of manhattan. it’s considered by the us census to be the most diverse area in the country, with high populations of african-americans, whites, and hispanic / latinxs. it also has a wide range of income level, but has some of the poorer districts in the country. according to my dear friend who is from the bronx, it really is its own identity and experience, and nate definitely matches and encapsulates that.

he lives with both his parents, but he has a better relationship with his mom because his dad is out so often working. he has two younger siblings, a brother about 4 years younger than him and a sister about 8 years younger. so there is a bit of an internal pressure there to make something of himself so he can support his family and siblings, even though he’d never admit it. in some ways, nate and maya have a lot of similarities despite how much they dislike each other -- both ace, both low income, both mainly living with their mothers, both using fashion and attitude to compensate for the materialism they want but don’t have...

this is also why nate is so particular about money. in “how the twinks saved christmas” (the dasher special), nate is the only techie who initially refuses to give his usual donation to help with putting the holiday party together. he only does after getting an “insurance fee” guarantee from asher, showing that he’s business savvy and pretty street smart.

i refer to nate affectionately as the “bulldog” of the techies, because he basically is. he’s obnoxious and flippant and will pick on all of them just for fun, but he also (usually) knows where the line is and knows how to keep the teasing truly playful and not step over the line. that said, he’s given up not trying to upset asher and jade, because they’re sensitive and get upset no matter what. however, if anyone else even so much as breathed wrong in the direction of his friends, he will attack faster than lightning. he’s extremely loyal, but his loyalty is also fickle -- as evidenced by how quickly he turned on isa when he perceived her actions as “wronging” the collective techie crew. he’s a bitch, but he’s their bitch, and he’ll defend them to the death.

additionally, nate is what i call “ace thotty” -- on the surface he seems like a total fuckboy in terms of the way he dresses, the fact that he likes to twerk, his behavior half the time... but he actually has literally zero interest in dating or sex. he’s one of three techies who are a-spec (the other two being dave and lucas, who is demisexual). but the thottiness is basically another angle on his obnoxious exterior Bit. he’s the reason that tracks like “sexy and i know it,” “talk dirty,” and “bootylicious” are on the techie playlist.

his interests include video gaming, basketball, skateboarding (often with dylan), and eating. he’s also really good at sound mixing and audio work, which is what he was admitted for as a student technician (and demonstrated by him creating the “singin’ in the rain” remix for his and isa’s project in 110). he wants to go into the business of music remixing, combining his interests in technology and business, even though he has no stuff to practice at home with.

of the a class, nate is closest to dave (arguably his best friend), dylan, and jeff. his least favorite classmates are sarah, maya, and formerly wyatt. nate never submitted to the aaac when it was in its prime, but if he had a better mobile device he probably would’ve gotten sucked into it (and found some of the posts people made hilarious). he’s more complex than meets the eye (as are most of the a class), but all in all he gives a little much needed grit to the techie crew, but in a way thats fun rather than depressing like lucadora.