I am actually. I am so emotional over the Salazar parents and I need to share this to tumblr too.
A lot of stories where the MC is adopted I feel. Either dismiss the biological parents and the impact they have on the kid's life, or makes them evil and abusive, framing the loss of the bio parents as a good thing, or at least something we shouldn't think about just look at this new family.
But Genrex doesn't do that. From the start, Rex wanted to find out more about his parents - it's one of his primary character motivations, next to helping people. He loves them, even though he doesn't know them.
And the more he finds out about them, the more he realizes they loved him. Rylander is consumed by guilt but as Rex's first connection to his pre-Event life, the first thing he does is hug him. And when he tells Rex about his parents, the two things Rex knows is that 1) they were scientists, and 2) that when he was in danger, they were desperate enough to use their secret, experimental technology to save him. Technology built from their desire to help the world, to save countless lives and end countless suffering.
And then. When he finds out that they were dead, he doesn't stop caring. It'd be so easy, too, to tie it up there - his parents were good people, he got his answer about them, the end. But they don't. He doesn't. Because the show is saying once again that they are his parents. He still calls them mom and dad, even as the show makes it clear Holiday and Six adopted Rex as their son. Even as the show even parallels Six and One with Rex and Six (and I will talk about that more later if I don't forget, trust me), to really drive home how much they're family. Rex even says he considers the two of them family, and later that he considers Noah, Claire and Annie family.
He has new family, the show tells us, but his old family still matters to him. He's upset that he never has the chance to meet his parents, that everything he hears about them, about his time with them, is secondhand knowledge. It tells us clearly that not only does Rex still love them, but that he still wants to know them. And everything we find out about them reinforces the love that they had for each other.
We see Abuela and the family in Mexico, who connect him to his birth family and tell him that he was so loved back then, and still is now. We see their office in Abysus through Rex's eyes. The picture of him and his dad on his desk. The drawing Rex drew, proudly pinned to the wall.
We see it in the familiarity of the drawing. That that robot, that build, was what Rex created when he was lost and scared and alone - that it was made to keep him safe. That it first appeared in his mind in a place he felt safe.
The show says, tenderly and softly, that the love is still there. That the fact these people died was nothing but a tragedy, that their love is a big part of what made Rex who he is today - that every molecule in his body is filled with their final gift to him. That every time he cures someone, every time he uses a build, every time he makes a machine - we see the love that they had for him.
And the way he quietly absorbs his father's face. The way he freezes and whispers "Mamá?" when he finds out Zag-Rs has their mother's voice. The fact that she even has her voice as a testament to Caesar's love, too - that it was meant to bring comfort and safety. The way Rex yells at Caesar when he finds out they have a family property, a connection to their past, the way he fights to protect it.
And, none of this takes away still from Six and Holiday being Rex's family too. None of this removes the work either set of parents did for him, the love either set has - the show says that it was unfair that the Salazar parents were lost. That Six and Holiday are not replacements, that they still love him as parents but play different roles in his life. They can not, and have no desire to, replace the Salazars. But Rex needs parents, he needs protectors, and so they will do what they can for him - at first out of necessity, to keep this kid they barely know safe, but then out of love. They aren't replacing what was lost, but are doing their best to do what Rex's bio parents would do. And they do mess up in it - they mess up in ways Rex's bio parents might not have. Six is clearly bad with showing affection, affection we saw the Salazars give Rex so easily, and Holiday is overworked and stressed constantly, sometimes breaking under the pressure and snapping at Rex and Six, things we never saw the Salazars do.
It's just. It's about how sometimes things will not be the same. They will be different. That doesn't mean the people you lost aren't still with you.
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i don't think kanan is good at being alone. he's someone that really greatly benefits from constantly being around other people.
he grew up in the jedi order, a whole community in the same building, he would always be around other younglings, and later on constantly with his master.
and then order 66 happens, and he's (understandably) not doing well, not helped by the fact that he's actually alone with his thoughts for the first time in his life. not that loneliness alone fucked him up but it cant have helped, and probably also created an association between being alone and literally the worst time in his life, being hunted and catastrophising that he'a going to die.
then he meets hera, and he's living in a tiny ship in close quarters with someone else, and he's not alone anymore. he sees hera's conviction to make change in the galaxy and it starts to pull him out of his alcoholism and his despondency and it makes him better. it reminds him that hey its not all terrible doom ahead of us, there are people who believe in a better world, and he wouldn't have reached that point on his own (considering a new dawn is like 7?? years after o66, he was coping he wasn't living). and then again with ezra, he grapples with inadequacy but he's not left to basically sit and brood about how much he sucks. it is partly out of necessity beacuse ezra is depending on him, but also that the expectation of him to do better does make him better, because he doesn't let himself fall into a deeper spiral and it pushes him into believing in himself, and that aids in his ability to actually do the thing and work on himself.
and after malachor, he distances himself. at the start of s3 hera talks to him like he's a stranger, almost, because he stopped opening up and stopped letting himself be part of a family and he made himself alone, and got so bad that bendu had to force an emotional realisation out of him. trauma can obviously manifest and affect people in different ways, and it is realistic that kanan is extremely emotionally affected by everything and doesn't just bounce back like nothing happened, but i do think its significant that when kanan's mental health is terrible the show makes it a point of telling us he's been isolating himself. he's deliberately separating himself from his family. it is a textbook sign of Not Doing Great, but i think it also reflects how well kanan copes when he's on his own. there are people who do perfectly fine or after prolonged periods of not really interacting with people, but i dont think that's kanan. when he's alone he's clouded, he gets lost in his emotions, and its important that other people are there; it reminds him what's important and what he's capable of.
basically i think when he gets left alone for too long it gets much easier for the self doubt to creep in, and he starts contemplating the hopelessness of existence, then he spends 5 minutes with hera and realises his last 2 days worth of brooding was decidedly Not Normal.
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Re: that last ask well now I wanna hear about Peter!! (Please 🥺)
Ah yes, peter, sweet sweet boy.
peter is so special and sweet and I do have many thoughts about him.
peter loves cuddles. this is probably not surprising, but he indeed loves to snuggle up and nuzzle into someone’s neck and hold their hands. lucky for him he has this group of super touchy-feely guys to give him all the snuggles he wants. He just loves his friends so much.
Peter and mike end up getting really close. I think that after The Devil and Peter Tork, pete starts getting some really bad nightmares, about hell, but also ones that feature things like the other monkees forgetting about him or not knowing he’s there or even ones where they’re not real and this gets him real deep (poor thing). I feel like as a kid he had a hard time holding onto friends (this is a little bit personal, apologies), and was picked on a lot for being “different” and “soft” and it gets to him (like in the wild monkees when the girl calls him a sissy and he gets particularly upset) and the idea that this group of people who love him and care for him aren’t really real can be a lot.
He often starts screaming or crying in his sleep and Mike starts to wake up and go over to his bed to stay with him and calm him down. Davy also sometimes wakes up (micky is a VERY deep sleeper, but he has woken up before and come over to help but he konked out pretty quickly) Usually it’s just peter and Mike and Mike trying to calm peter down, just holding him close and rubbing his back and hair and letting peter know he’s there and that he’s real. Mike doesn’t feel really good at talking, especially not at two in the morning, so that is usually the most he can do, and it does help peter, who loves pressure and soft snuggles. Mike also sometimes sings to him, quietly as to not wake up the others, and they do talk a bit, mike trying to get peter to tell him what the dreams were about but they’re sometimes too confusing or too much for peter, and peter can’t always talk at all afterwards, so if mike talks to him it tends to be soothing things in a soft voice or asking peter if he wants to be sung to.
despite mike’s help, pete has a very hard time getting enough sleep and sleeping through the night so sometimes mike has him take a lot of shorter naps during the day (usually downstairs with the rest of the group) but peter has a hard time going to bed at night, afraid of what nightmares he’s going to have, so he starts having some terrible panic attacks about going to bed. Mike starts just sleeping in peter’s bed every night (eventually they all just sleep in the same bed because what the hell, they’re snuggly, but not at first). But peter has a lot of trouble with bedtime for a while, and micky one night comes up with an idea that this is NOT ‘bedtime’! No no no! this is PILLOW time, and pillow time is special and different! and tells him all these stories about it and it makes peter laugh and gets him to be able to go to sleep for a while, safe with Mike, though he still tends to wake up from nightmares.
this is another self-projection thing, but during this time when peter is having terrible nightmares he starts having problems with bedwetting. He can’t help it, but it freaks him out even more. It starts almost right away and Mike also starts helping him through it, late at night getting poor, crying peter into the bathroom and putting on a shower for him. Mike brings his guitar in and plays some things sitting against the bathroom door so that peter knows he’s there. then i guess they fall asleep in mike’s bed and mike deals with the sheets in the morning and they just don’t tell the other guys because peter’s embarrassed about it. peter does NOT get scolded about it at all, that’s a must for me, just because i’ve had problems with that due to nightmares and waking up to someone yelling at you for being disgusting is not a helpful thing. So peter is definitely assured he’s not disgusting and it’s not his fault and he is treated like a person about it. I also think mike knows how to deal with it, assumedly having taken care of younger siblings (see when he talks about his family in Monkee Mother) so he is prepared to help peter out and doesn’t really sweat it. Yeah, that’s just a personal segment of this all.
okay so to me tv show-peter is autistic. real life peter tork was diagnosed with autism later in his life, but peter the character shows a lot of autistic traits in my opinion so that’s gonna factor into a lot of these next ideas.
he probably needs help with a lot of things, stuff like cutting his nails or remembering to brush his teeth (micky also has trouble with both of those and mike has a system now where they all brush their teeth at the same time and is usually good at figuring out when he needs to throw a nail clipper at micky as he’s been scratched multiple times during werewolf impressions and similar) but peter gets the help he needs because the boys all help him out!
(another little self-projecting thing) peter has trouble not spilling glasses of water so he has to be reminded a lot to use two hands when holding a glass. (this will forever be my struggle lol)
he’s also prone to meltdowns if he gets overstimulated. (it’s the sixties so autism is not really understood so i think peter is definitely not diagnosed and he doesn’t really know what these meltdowns are) Sometimes grocery stores are a lot for him and the other boys have to frantically figure out how to calm him down. if it happens at the grocery store usually one of them will go with peter to go sit in the car (a lot of times it’s mike, because grocery stores are also very overstimulating for him. dont tell mike, but he’s also autistic haha. but sometimes it’s not mike because putting davy and micky alone to do the shopping together is not always the best idea). Micky is not always the best at calming peter down because he sometimes can make it more overstimulating, but he figured out a good way to calm peter and get his brain thinking about other things by pointing to something and saying “peter what color is that car/sign/whatever” or, if there’s nothing all that interesting around asking peter what different animals say.
peter also gets bedtime stories read to him a lot. either that or they sing to him. sometimes mike will have peter and davy snuggled up on either side of him while micky sits and the end of the bed and sings and they often all do harmonies together. sometimes mike’ll figure out a new song right before bed and they all work it out together, running to get a guitar while micky drums out a beat on the bedframe saying “we’re really gonna make it big with this one guys!” and it’s so exciting. wholesome little rock band activities.
(this is not a headcanon and this post is already so long so i’m leaving random stuff out for maybe another time but i just have to put it into the world because when the monkees are little little cuties i go absolutely insane. you know in monkee mother when micky starts spoonfeeding pudding or something to peter, is that not the cutest fucking thing in the world?!???! micky is so older brother) okay, now back to our regularly scheduled programming of *shuffles cards* the rest of the random peter headcanons!
peter’s nickname is ‘peterbabe’ (said as all one word) sometimes elongated to ‘peterbaby’ and micky jokes that they should change his full name to ‘peterbabe tork’ because they just say it so darn often.
this is pretty obvious but peter loves flowers! hes a flower boy! he even grows daffodils! :) He brings flowers into the pad (micky is allergic to a lot of them unfortunately so he’s prone to sneezing fits) and he likes putting flowers in everyone’s hair (micky’s hair is particularly fun to put flowers in so peter tries extra hard to find ones he won’t sneeze over) as well as his own hair and he puts them along the windowsills too, which has made for some good photography.
I guess since this is so long i’ll finish it off with a little thought since it’s indeed christmas: in the christmas episode they all rag on peter about getting “bad” gifts and to me the only gift that’s not really working is the coat for davy cause it’s just too big. It was mikes fault for opening snow skis in july, and the chemistry set is actually a very thoughtful gift for science-loving micky, micky just had to go and DRINK whatever concoction he had made which is basically lab safety no no #1 and that is not peter’s fault. the writers pulled those “bad” gifts out of their asses. anyway.
AH! and a bonus because i forgot to include it in the davy post here’s a davy headcanon I hold dear that was from the monkees headcanon instagram account but is so wholesome that i need to bring it to everyone’s attention: davy falls asleep on the couch and often needs to be carried to bed. thank you.
And yes, davy’s “diagnosis” in 33 1/3 being “regression” on top of him literally dancing around dressed as a toddler in a baby’s bedroom can 100% support my idea that davy is baby real.
AND WITH THAT, thank you so much for the ask! these asks give me an excuse to just dump out my thoughts and I hope other people enjoy them despite how long and disorganized they are. sorry about that lol.
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