Do I love the idea of Octavius and Jed finally get together and they try to be subtle about their relationship but fail so hard and everyone immediately knows? Yes yes I do.
Do I also love the idea that they aren’t actively trying to be subtle/hide it but because both their societies aren’t big on PDA there isn’t a real visible difference so they date for near a year before anyone figures it out? Yes, absolutely, I need more
Because, again, the Romans and the American West weren’t big on PDA at all, in fact it was considered quite scandalous in both societies. So when Jed and Octavius start dating, they aren’t all over each other, they aren’t cuddling during movie night, at most ever Jed will call Octavius ‘Spark’ and Octavius occasionally call him ‘carissime’. But because no one but the cowboys would know what calling someone your ‘spark’ means and no one- unless you spoke Latin- would know what ‘carissime’ means, on the outside, there is no visible difference.
What the difference is is now when they hang out one-on-one they call them dates, and on those dates is when they will do some romantic gestures, or hold hands, or kiss on cheeks, etc.
They aren’t actively trying to hide their relationship, they’re actually rather open. Like if you asked them, they would be like “yeah, we’re dating, we’re together” but no one ever does because the whole museum is just assuming that they’re both still just pining after each other because of things they do catch.
Like, Nick will catch how Jed looks at Octavius when he isn’t looking
And Ahk DOES know Latin, so he just assumes that Octavius is calling him this pet name/term of endearment in Latin purposefully so that Jed doesn’t catch on what he’s actually saying. (Jed is fully aware of what he’s he actually saying).
And it’s finally ‘revealed’ because they actually do some form of PDA in front of them (something like Jed learns how to say something sweet in Latin for Octavius and Octavius just goes ‘fuck it’ and kisses him, or Octavius tries to use cowboy lingo and Jed is like ‘he’s to cute to not do SOMETHING’) and everyone looses their shit and are like “Finally!” And Jed and Octavius are so confused “what do you mean ‘finally’ we’ve been together for a year”
hi, so apparently in the junior novelization of Natm 3, because of the tablet corrupting, Jed and Octavius just switch up their dialects in Pompeii? Like they straight (ha) up start talking like the other and- y'all it's so funny
They are just so fuckin confused they full on stop while running away from lava just to look at each other like 'tf?'
SOMEONE GIMME MULTI-LINGUAL JED AND OCTAVIUS PLEASE
I NEED IT.
JED AT THE VERY LEAST KNOWS SPANISH AND ENGLISH IF NOT ALSO MANDARIN BECAUSE OF THE RAILROAD. LIKE, Y’ALL, HE CANONICALLY ON SOME LEVEL ACTUALLY KNOWS SPANISH
“No comprendo, amigo!” HE SHOUTS THAT AT THE AUGUSTUS BUST. IS THE ACCENT SHIT? YES. BUT IM CHALKING THAT UP TO ACTORS CHOICE CAUSE GUESS WHAT. HE CONJUGATED IT FUCKIN CORRECTLY.
GIMME JED SPEAKING IN ENGLISH COMPLETELY NORMAL BUT THEN HIS BRAIN DECIDES TO FORGET THE WORD IN ENGLISH SO HE JUST STOPS FOR A MOMENT AND STARES AT NOTHING, SO HE JUST SAYS IT IN SPANISH AND OCTAVIUS JUST STARES AT HIM LIKE ‘…tf?’ BUT THEN THEY GO TO CARRY ON THE CONVERSATION AND LIKE HALF A BEAT LATER JED JUST SHOUTS THE WORD IN ENGLISH CAUSE HE REMEMBERS IT NOW. LIKE:
“I mean, I ain’t ever seen such a mess! Hell we even had to get a new… uh…”
“…”
“…”
“Jedediah?”
“…mesa…”
“…mesa?”
“I… can’t remember it in English right now… but I’m sure it’ll come back to me… uhm, anyways, yeah we had to get a new one of those, which sucks cause it was the only good one in that tavern! I ain’t ever seen such a brawl, I mean- TABLE!”
“Jupiter- Jedediah what the fu-”
“That’s the word! Table! Alright, we’re good now, as I was sayin-”
AND OCTAVIUS? DUDE IS A FUCKIN ROMAN GENERAL, SO NOT ONLY DOES HE KNOW LATIN, BUT HE IS ALSO LIKELY FLUENT IN GREEK. SO ENGLISH IS HIS FUCKIN THIRD LANGUAGE
SO YOUR TELLING ME, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ONE SINGLE MOMENT IN BOTH CANON CONTENT AND NON-CANON CONTENT WHERE OCTAVIUS FORGETS THE WORD IN ENGLISH SO HE COMES UP WITH SOME BATSHIT CRAZY SOUNDING DESCRIPTION OR MAKES A SOUND EFFECT AND JED JUST HAS TO TRY TO FUCKIN GUESS WHAT HE MEANS.
“Hey Octy, did ya see where lil’ Ted went?”
“Yeah he went on the- the um- the horse tornado.”
“…what?”
“You know, the horse tornado.”
“…do you mean the ‘Carousel’?”
“That’s the word! Yes, the Carousel, yes.”
OR
“He went on the… Jed how you say *makes helicopter noises*”
“…oh! Helicopter.”
“Yes! That.”
AND I WANT IT TO GET TO THE POINT WHERE JED STARTS GETTING IT FIRST TRY NO HESITATION WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS LIKE “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DID I JUST WITNESS, HOW DID YOU GET ‘PEN’ FROM HIM SAYING ‘BLEEDING INK STICK’”
And even better. I want Jed learning Latin for Octavius once he finds out English is his third language. Because if Octavius learned his first language, then he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do the same for Octavius.
I BEG OF THEE, PLEASE
(Edit: yes I know that Jedediah Strong Smith irl knew some/the basics of Latin lmao, what I meant by 'learn Latin' was work to become fluent in it like how Octavius is fluent in English, my bad for not explaining more clearly lol)
hey y’all, so I was just casually scrolling through the huskerdust tag on twitter and uh… apparently here’s an interview about the show where Viv talks about huskerdust and their development so… figure I’d post it here, enjoy (interview done by Kristen Maldonado)
It looks like she says more so imma hunt for that but uh…
⚠️Also, this post will talk about Abuse and SA, it is briefly mentioned a few times throughout the rest of this… whole long thingy I wrote⚠️
⚠️Also, brief mention of the scene where someone tried to drug Angel⚠️
Ok, I am just genuinely baffled at the people who somehow find a way to hate on 'Loser, Baby'.
Like, if you don't like Huskerdust that's fine... but 'Loser, Baby' is not overshadowing/brushing off Angel's SA. It's not victim blaming. And it's not Husk telling Angel to just shut up and get over it.
Like I've seen it so much, and you know what? Fuck it. Welcome to my TedTalk on why it's not all of those things.
For starters: Husk doesn't know about Angel's SA
When Angel has his vulnerable outburst (Side note, props to Blake I mean, they said 'take 5' he heard 'change lives') he talks about how he feels like he has to act the way he does to keep Valentino happy because he stupidly sold his soul to him. That he wants to get drugged up because that’s his escape. That he wants to be broken because maybe, just maybe Val will let him go. He wants to be free, but he can't and he has no one to blame but himself.
"What's the worst part of this hell, I can only blame myself" is literally the pre chorus to his song (Poison), and that is what he shares with Husk.
Not once does he bring up his abuse or SA. If he did, do you think a song would have even happened? Look how Husk reacted when someone tried to drug Angel's drink! Now that Husk actually genuinely cares about him? Dead. Dead. Valentino would be dead.
We as the audience know more than the other characters. We were given the insight of Angel's true trauma.l that he deals with on the daily. You can't get upset at a character for not knowing something they would have no way of knowing unless it was shared with them.
Moving onto the song itself, it's a song of empathy.
Allow me to explain.
Husk pinpoints perfectly what Angel is feeling in this moment:
"So things look bad, and your back's against the wall
Your whole existence seems fuckin' hopeless
You're feelin' filthy as a dive bar bathroom stall
Can't face the world sober and dopeless
You've lost your way, you think your life is wrecked"
When Husk starts singing, you can tell that Angel is expecting Husk to pull the whole "But that's not true! It's not hopeless! You're life's not wrecked!" and is very surprised when Husk doesn't.
Instead, Husks says "Yeah. You're right." And this is when a lot of the haters get angry- but hold on a second.
When someone is feeling all of those things, saying things like "That's not true! You'll be ok!" aren't helpful at all. That's brushing it off. Even if it may be true, that doesn't help anyone when they're feeling like hopeless, lost, losers.
Because that's sympathy, not empathy. Sympathy is feeling for someone, and trying to make them feel better. Empathy, is not trying to make them feel any certain way- better or worse- empathy is simply feeling with someone. And that's what Husk does.
During the first chorus, Husk is clearly teasing Angel a bit while doing so, but not without good reason. It's keeping Angel from closing back up again, he's being a little bit silly with him and teasing him. I mean, did you see the silly lil walk he did crossing in front of Angel? And Angel is super confused because he's like "how tf is this supposed to make me feel better??"
That's the thing. It's not. That's sympathy's job, not empathy's. Empathy just want's you to feel felt with, it doesn't want to tell you how to feel. And adding that bit of silliness gives Angel's vulnerability a chance to breathe and it prevents Angel from closing in on himself.
The next verse, pre-chorus, and chorus is when the empathy though really kicks in.
The next verse, is the first part of empathy: Sharing about a similar experience you went through.
In this verse, now that Angel is listening not just hearing, Husk shares that he has been gruesomely damaged. Calling back to what he shared literally seconds before the song. That he knows what it's like to sign away your soul, and constantly look back at it with huge amounts of regret. That knowing that moment is what turned him into the mess he is today, and that he has no one to blame but himself. Just like Angel.
Then in the pre-chorus where there's the whole:
"I sold my soul to a psychopathic freak
Haha! And you think that makes you unique?
Get outta here, man!"
That isn't Husk telling Angel to get over himself and this isn’t him undermining what Angel’s been through. That's him saying 'I did too, you're not alone’
And then the very simple word change from "you're" to "we're" in the chorus is SO FREAKING HUGE. Because Husk is essentially saying "You feel like a total loser right now. Ok. Then if what happened to you/what you went through makes you a loser, then I'm a loser too. Let's be loser's together." Instead of trying to make Angel stop feeling like he's a hopeless loser, he decides that he is too.
He meets Angel where he is.
Aka: ✨empathy✨
Angel finally feels seen, understood, felt with. All the goals of empathy. He no longer feels alone in what he is struggling with, which is HUGE! Especially for people going through/dealing with SA and abuse.
The bridge of the song, is also extremely important, because this is where they acknowledge the differences in what they're going through. Their root problem is the same, but how it messed up their lives and created the problems they deal with now are completely different
And that's around when the song begins to shift from just Husk showing empathy and comforting Angel, to them both finding comfort in each other.
Which you can clearly see by the chorus under the umbrella, where it's not just one of them singing the chorus, but it's both of them. Because they have found a place to go to and confide in, a place of comfort, with each other.
Like, I am genuinely concerned that people find this song toxic like... have- have you never experienced empathy before? Are you ok?
So yeah, to wrap this up, if you don’t like ‘Loser, Baby’ just because you don’t like the song in general? That’s fine (odd, but fine)
But if you hate it because it “undermines Angel’s experience and what he goes through” I…