#even after my richard is dan's dad theory

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Desmond is my favorite character so like.. I just want someone else’s thoughts on his family and upbringing? Like, in one throw-away line he just mentions that his dad died when he was still pretty young and he then had to take care of three younger brothers (that we never meet??). Like, that’s gotta be rough, right? Idk I feel like we barely know anything about his life before Penny, so, thoughts?

thank you for this!

i love Desmond too <3 (he was in my top five until the miles fever overtook me some time ago. he fucked my heart and won’t leave)

yeah, desmond is an odd character in that we know very little about his background. heck, it’s so hard to even figure out how old he’s supposed to be! (i hc he’s 37 but who fucking knows) i mean we know a lot about his life but not a lot at the same time. basically fucker had a lot of jobs. anyways

yeah he mentions his dad died and he had to take care of his three little brothers. i think about that. also i swear in one ep he casually mentions to claire that his dad abandoned them?? but i can’t verify this, i might be misremembering but im SURE he mentioned his dad to claire once

interestingly, “my dad died so i had to take care of my sibs” kinda implies that his mum was dead too?? seems like des was Promoted To Parent at a young age

my brain is scattered so i gotta make a list to separate thoughts, here’s some headcanons about des’ background

obviously, he had to grow up real fast. i figure he had to take care of his little bros since he was a teenager

i’ve named his dad david because that’s des’ middle name. and i’ve named his brothers duncan, dominic and declan, in that order

he mentions in that same interview ur refering to that he did set design for the royal shakespeare company. this and his love of charles dickens are the sole basis for my “Theatre Kid Desmond” headcanon

okay so des’ actor is half scottish and half peruvian, so des is that too. so scottish dad, peruvian mum. i don’t have a name for her yet but spanish is her first language, so like she spoke with an accent and i like the idea that she taught her boys spanish too. but like also she died. i think she died when the hume boys were real young, like des is the one who remembers her the most clearly, cuz im picturing theres a decent age gap between des and his sibs. like fiiiive years between him and duncan? and so on?

i’ll think about it

he said to jack he wanted to be a doctor but he gave it up. so i can surmise that des wanted to be a doctor but then dad dies (or leaves?? INFORMATION PENDING) and des has to take care his little bros, so his schoolwork suffers for this because he’s concentration of on like, jobs and taking care of the house and like, basically being a parent. to your siblings, which can’t be easy! like theres a fundamental dynamic difference

for a show about sad people they didn’t go into des’ backstory a lot. i mean outside of his adult years

on a lighter note, i think des went thru Ugly Duckling Syndrome. in that as a teenager he was greasy as fuck, bad skin, and had unflattering hair, and he was awkward and kinda weird looking but post teens he turns Super Hot and i don’t think he fully realises how hot he turned out

he’s bi but didn’t realise it until some uh, experimentation in the army. he’s not ashamed of it (not much, not anymore) but its not something he talks about unless ur like, close to him

i cannot stress enough that des has some Real Nerd Potential hiding in that romance novel looking visage. he loves dickens, he worked in theatre circles, he wanted to be a doctor,,, bitch is Smort and little nerdy

much to think about

desmond’s younger brothers [handshakes] charlotte’s younger sisters

Characters Who Were Only Mentioned But I Wonder About Them

also fucking bless the people who managed to put des’ flashbacks in order on lostpedia because the timeline of des’ life was just something i could not glean myself from the show. because like, it’s always HIC, so i couldn’t tell whats what. still impossible to tell what age des is buuut we know him and penny were/are a thing for a really fucking long time. good for them! side note, they never actually confirm if penny is meant to be daniel’s older or younger sister in canon but she HAS to be his older sister because otherwise she’d be upsettingly young for how long she and des have been together. and also if she was the younger sib she would have been a teenager in the constant and thats no no no no BAD

i went on a penny tangent there but i was talking about that recently (somebody asked me if we know penny is older or younger than dan and my brain bluescreened so we Did Some Hard Thinking about that)

uhhhh anyways, those sure are some Thoughts

#lost headcanons #a lot of this is stuff i've mentioned before #but idc #i do need to think about desmond more #i hc des as 37 and penny as 33 #so i've always seen her as daniel's older sister #even after my richard is dan's dad theory #and only recently did it occur to me that they never make that clear in canon #but i cannot accept the idea of her being younger #like dan is 26 in present #and was 18 in the constant #so penny has to be the older sib or des is a Bad Person #that and even then they had this long history #and we know des had stuff going on BEFORE penny #so they didn't start dating as teens #they just didnt they were clearly adults #so yeah... also 33 makes her the same age as charlotte #and i have this hc that penny and charlotte knew each other at oxford #and also they were girlfriends :))) #sunnibits

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my “richard is daniel’s biological dad” theory is one of my oldest headcanons (it’s the third post on my lost headcanons tag, and it was made 4 years ago) and since i’ve just rewatched season 5, it’s fresh in my mind, so i wanna elaborate

warning: quite a bit of elaboration

in canon, daniel is the son of eloise hawking and charles widmore (and the half brother of penny widmore and the brother-in-law of desmond hume).

fun fact about me, i’ve studied genetics since i was a child. the x-men movies inspired me to do so. however, even people who are unread about the subject can see that daniel faraday doesn’t resemble any member of his family

ellie and charles have blue eyes. daniel has brown eyes. there’s a bunch of other differences but this is what stands out to me. this is what started my theory. i can forgive daniel being american, that’s something that can actually happen. and yes, a brown eyed child of two blue eyed parents can actually happen. it’s very rare, but possible. if i encountered this in real life, i’d assume that it’s a throwback from a brown eyed ancestor. HOWEVER, this is fiction. its different.

this is all due to casting choices being made a season before character choices (if daniel was cast right he’d be british, blue eyed, round faced and actually played by a 26 year old. however that means no jeremy davies and lemme tell you, good can be better than right. so we are to accept what we are given)

upon the discovery that ellie is an other, indeed she was the leader of the others, that meant she worked closely with richard alpert. richard is advisor to the other’s leader (on a side note, he also picks who becomes the leader)

it started as “richard is her advisor, he has brown eyes, a stronger jawline, and he’s attractive enough for ellie to want him so this makes sense”

seeing more of season 5 (in particular, the variable and follow the leader), it made more sense to me. richard and ellie get along better than ellie and charles. they come across like they care about each other. richard in particular, seems to genuinely respect her more than charles does. he’s also very protective

in canon, this protectiveness can be chalked up to ellie being pregnant. and in general, although morally eschew, richard is a rather nice person. and charles is consistently a very not nice person. however this makes this make more sense

by this point in time, charles has already had an affair, which resulted in penny. and at one point richard points out that charles and ellie love each other but have a... difficult relationship. it’s not unlikely that ellie would have an affair

now, richard. i’m aware of how much he loved his dead wife isabella. i’m not ignoring that and i choose to believe that richard was relationship-less and celibate for a reeeeally long time before he fell in love with ellie

what’s important to this is i see the affair as happening not just because of sex (richard would never), but out of romantic feelings too. also no, i don’t think richard picked ellie to be leader because of love. neither richard or ellie are perfect but i think he picked her honestly believing she’d be a good leader

oh another thing: i still like the idea of dan being penny’s half brother and des’ brother-in-law, so to have it both ways, i’ve decided that only ellie and richard will ever know about this, keeping everything intact. penny would still posthumously consider daniel her brother (in my mind, naming a daughter after him)

i don’t mean to be smug but this theory is better than canon. not just genetically but having thought about it, i realised it’s more interesting and has more depth

and there’s really no reason to not see it as the truth (besides the fact that if this theory was true, daniel would be biracial but played by a white guy. much like my trans!charlie headcanon, im asking you to take this with artistic license)

here’s more about what this theory would mean:

both of daniel’s parents watched daniel die

it’s a given that richard having children would lead to him having to watch them die, but not like this.... not like this. also the idea of a man who’s ageless and lived for so long, having a child who died young

i like the idea of when ellie realises she’s pregnant, and tells richard, she feels guilty and says sorry because she knows richard will have to see daniel die (the dramatic irony. it HURTS) and richard vehemently telling her not to be sorry because despite that, he’s happy this is happening

THEN TWO WEEKS LATER IT ALL GOES TO SHIT

imagine the tragedy of both of them burying daniel

rather than be made by two people who may of loved each other but barely liked each other, daniel would be made in a loving relationship

this theory makes a lot of scenes with richard and ellie feel very different, in a good way. richard being concerned for her being pregnant around radiation (YEAH THAT HAPPENED, my mum commented that no wonder daniel is fucked up) and even going so far as to knock her out so she wouldn’t be in danger. richard doesn’t get this protective of other leaders

on that note, this changes reaction shots from richard. richard’s reactions to this situation in the variable look totally different to me now. after dan says “i’m your son”, ellie looks shocked and richard looks at her with great surprise. stuff like that. and like, yeah that already makes sense, but i’m saying with this in mind, the context for all this has changed

and yeah, daniel saying “i’m your son” with both parents present

after dan’s death, charles and richard are looking him over and charles says “i don’t know why but he seems... familiar to me”. then richard looks at charles with big eyes. curiosity & shock, yes but perhaps also “uh oh”?

also that line makes more sense in this context, because as i’ve said, it’s not like daniel looks like ellie at all (besides being white)

this didn’t happen in the episode proper, but there’s a photo from the filming of this episode that shows richard caressing daniel’s face after he dies. please note that richard barely knows this person

what ellie did was wrong but this adds extra justification. ellie is the type of person who shoots a man in the back without asking questions first, because he was pointing a gun at richard. with this in mind, ellie wasn’t just protecting her trusted advisor, she was protecting her lover

there’s the irony that the classically beautiful richard + the fairly pretty ellie = ...daniel. who, i don’t mean to be unkind, isn’t conventionally attractive

dan and miles were friends and considering i ship miles/richard post-finale, that means miles is gonna unknowingly date his friend’s dad

the scene where daniel tells richard that he’s in love with charlotte becomes daniel unknowingly telling his father he’s in love. either way, richard relates to this whole thing due to aforementioned dead wife

on that note! even taking away my headcanon personality traits for them, richard and daniel do have some things in common. they’re both polite, kind and at times diplomatic (by which i mean, they both attempt to calm down their friend’s attitude problems). they’re both lost loved ones to tragedy. yes, i know LOST had a lost lenore problem, shut up. and despite both their friendly demeanours, they’re both done morally questionable things. also remove my shipping and they’re both still friends with miles (he is the salt to their sugars). so while dan was raised by ellie (very badly) i feel like some of the kinder aspects of him came from richard

not that being polite is genetic. in canon, dan has a nightcrawler situation where he’s a the good son of two shitty people. here i’ve... given him a good dad. whom he’ll never know is his dad. because that’s sad

also while they’re both smart, at the end of the day, they are ruled by their emotions over rational thinking. love being paramount. and they both eventually completely snap, leading to irrational and suicidal behaviour

i know richard didn’t raise him, i just thought it’d be nice to bring up what they have in common. (also i think richard visited when daniel was very young. and made several attempts to convince ellie to not go thru with it)

oh also it makes the scene where charles goes “he’s my son, too” unintentionally funny because i swear i thought “nah, you idiot”. and a theory that leads to charles being duped and not realising it is great

there’s def more but then i’m just writing fanfiction, so i covered the basics. i like this theory and with each person who agrees with it, i gain more power

if you bear this theory in mind, it honestly enhances any scene with richard & daniel, and richard & ellie, and richard & charles, etc etc

in conclusion, this is a family picture:

thank you for your time

#lost headcanons #this is something i've discussed with my friends #but never actually posted about #i just. make jokes about it #i went on for a really long time actually #and to think #this all started because jeremy davies has brown eyes

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Okay I HAVE to ask what your headcanons are for Sideways Verse science team!! We get such a small piece of their lives and I'm always up for knowing more haha

Okay, wow, thank you. I just gotta collect my thoughts.

Well, first of all, they all grew up with both parents, which resulted in them being happier people, I notice (uh… odd message there, LOST) but basically, they all have good relationships with their parents in this ‘verse.

But also can we just address that in LOST, every character ends up with two separate lives? And when they remember they have all the memories together?

That’s really trippy and merits thinking about.

Dan

Even richer than he was in life,  grew up in mansion. Lives in a modern penthouse as an adult. (And it looks, the way you’d imagine Dan-as-a-musicians’ penthouse would look, no matter which life: paper everywhere)

in this life Dan is less timid and more sure of himself. He wasn’t pressured all his life to do something he didn’t want to do, he played piano like he always wanted. And like, he’s great at it. Basically whatever Dan focuses his energy on, he becomes an expert on. That genius mind but with music

He’s on good terms with his alive and well ex-girlfriend Theresa, who’s a fellow musician. She plays cello. They’re still friends. 

Limbo Dan says in the show that he had a friend who’s a scientist, so I figure that science lingered within him all his life. He never actually pursued it but whenever he happened to meet a scientist he felt interested, it felt familiar… for some reason

this Dan is more openly a fan of Driveshaft. the exasperated but fond way Charles talks about Dan, tells me that Dan has been an… odd boy with weird music taste for a long time. quirky rich kid

He’s on speaking and phone call terms with his half-sister Penny. I like that because they never met in living life, so once again, limbo land provides chances for bonding that we never got irl. (holy shit, limbo verse is basically fanfiction… lost’s own personal fanfiction verse)

Char

She saw Dan staring at her at the museum (I imagine he was pretty obvious) and while she’d normally be creeped out or annoyed at guys staring at her, due to the soulmate thing, she’s strangely okay with it. Same thing happens when they meet and keep accidently meeting over and over after that, she feels this natural sort of connection and trust and she doesn’t understand why, it’s like they already know each other

SHE HAS A HAIRLESS CAT NAMED JEAN LUC

Her life is closer to her living life than Dan and Miles is. as in, she has the same job. But she had a dad and none of that island mess, so she wouldn’t have grown up being gaslighted by her mum

Miles

You know what I noticed about limbo Miles? He’s, like… nicer! Which makes sense, the reasons he put his walls up in life aren’t a problem here. Now, alive Miles isn’t exactly mean, he’s more snarky and bitchy. But recalling limbo Miles scenes, he’s far less so. he’s still quippy tho!

With both his parents, he wouldn’t have grown up poor and angry

Hell, he became a cop! (tho i like to imagine he still had a punk phase)

limbo Miles mentions having a girlfriend. I’m going to ignore this. Ooh, wait, unless it’s Naomi and they’re friends but they’re dating so Miles can be like, Naomi’s beard (i headcanon her as a lesbian)

He didn’t grow up with the burden of his powers in this life

All together now!

One way or another, they’re all linked by that musuem

Miles and Char are already friends in this life, which I love! Char meets Dan at the concert, then they run into each other a couple times after that (destiny, motherfuckers!) and this completes the trio.

And that’s even before they all remember

Dan and Char remember together, one day they’re having a friendly conversation (from their POV they just started dating) and Dan, absent mindedly pets Char’s hair. BOOM MEMORIES. they’re left standing there in shock for a moment… “My mother… shot me??” and Char just starts laughing and says “I die and you try to set off a hydrogen bomb?!” and she grabs Dan’s face and kisses him repeatedly, while happily calling him “stupid” in between kisses. Everybody is dead so something like that just comes across as absurd instead of incredibly immoral.

I’d like to point out… that Char slept with Sawyer on the first date. And Dan is Charlotte’s soulmate… and they love each other… sooo…

Miles remembers when he goes to Sawyer’s funeral (he disappeared), being surrounded by all those dead people, he starts hearing the voices again and remembers he’s felt this before and BOOM MEMORIES

He immediately calls Charlotte (since he has her number in his chunky early 2000s mobile phone) to like, freak out about it. She’s in her bed with Dan sleeping on her chest. She confirms, yes, they remember

(i just realised if that scene happened on TV, dan would have to have his hand on her tit for censoring purposes. dan’s tactile as heck so yes)

long story short, all end up staying at Char’s house. basically, most of the time I imagine this OT3, they’re living together in Char’s house. as poly roommates. now, how they get from 0 to 60 is beyond me

Miles died when he was 97, contrasting Dan and Char who died quite young. so when he remembers, he feels waaay more disorientated. Dan & Char are giddy with getting time together, meanwhile Miles is happy but kinda weirded out because now he has memories of a long life in his head

Dan, with all his scientist memories now, likes to scribble equations on Char’s bare body… like on her back or tummy. It tickles!

Basically at this point, it’s all adjusting to her lives together and general polyamory stuff… sigh, they make a great triple. like, that dynamic?

well, quadruple, because Miles finds RIchard at some point. and remember that I think they became a couple post-finale, and that they spent their lives together so Richard matters a lot. basically in my head, Miles bounces between Dan/Char/Miles and Richard/Miles (my theory that RIchard is Dan’s actual biological dad makes this a bit amusing. Miles has been married to and is fucking Dan’s dad. I imagine Miles, being the way he is, invites Richard to join their little love nest one day and Richard looks horrified and empathically refuses for reasons Miles doesn’t know)

they all move on together one day, after a long time. but that goes without saying. everybody has to move on at some point. it doesn’t matter when (there isn’t even a when in this world) just as long as it happens

#lost headcanons #basically all the headcanons i have about science team poly roommate AU can be transferred over to limbo land #and it actually makes a lot more sense #than a everybody lives au #pffft! #but yay fun #i think about this a lot so its nice to talk about it