My good buddy @friendlytroll went off on Twitter and, speaking as someone who deeply adored Calvin and Hobbes and considers it a major part of his childhood, this speaks to me deeply…
Oh I stand by this so hard. Calvin is a baby anarchist socialist who makes weird art stuff constantly! Why would, in a *fictional fanfic ass concept*, why would you *remove* so much of what made it so whimsical and fun? Being a kid doesn’t make you more imaginative and free and whimsical until it gets sucked out of you by puberty! WE JUST GET CRUSHED BY CAPITALISIM OR SOCIOLOGICAL SPHERES.
And leave Susie out of this grim Compulsory Heterosexual Deathmatch bullshit! I want exhausted med school Susie! Stressed Susie taking the bar exam!! Her and calvin as old friends who drink hard cider and watch dumb godzilla films or soap operas!
*I demand nothing less*.
Especially since the whole point in Hobbes was that his reality is left crazy ambiguous. Like, he gets washed in the washing machine, but Calvin always ends up with scratches and bruises that wouldn’t happen just running around and bashing into stuff when they roughhouse. Hobbes does stuff Calvin doesn’t know about until it happens, but Calvin’s totally willing to accept that nobody else sees him as alive.
What about a Calvin whose so hard to live with he gets a single in the dorms at college because his roommates keep begging to be transferred somewhere else. A Calvin whose making a webcomic or writing a novel, Space operas or Superheroes or Secret Societies, still having the adventures that were so real to him when he was the one enacting them.
A Calvin who still brings Hobbes with him wherever he can manage, but since he acts so matter of fact nobody cares, he’s just the guy with a stuffed tiger poking out of his backpack. A Calvin and Hobbes who know that nobody else can see Hobbes for who he truly is and have learned to adapt. Calvin has a bluetooth or a headset plugged into his phone for when they talk, no roughhousing in public, and when he gets back to the dorm after classes no tackling until the door’s closed behind him.
A Calvin whose thankful for his single because he and Hobbes can talk and think through memories of adventures and see what they can and can’t incorporate into the plot, and best of all, they can play. They can argue, they can roughhouse, they can act like the fourteen years it’s been since they first met because of that Tunafish sandwich really hasn’t been very long at all.
All the tired nights full of existential horror because he’s wasting his time here, he’d rather have a day job and make art instead of having textbook after textbook shoved under his nose. All the arguments over plot points that if anyone listed in to it would sound like he was having a very aggravated skype call with someone unknown. That one time at a protest gone wrong a rubber bullet tore right through his backpack and ripped a hole in Hobbes’ knee. All the bad stuff is a lot less scary when you’ve got a man eating tiger crammed into your tiny dorm bed with you every night.
bongdanceking 