Me trying to explain Bandstand to anyone: A family isn't always your blood. It isn't just a mother and a father. Sometimes a family is a depressed bisexual war veteran, the widow of his best friend, an alcoholic double bass player who likes Shakespeare, a drummer with memory problems, a gay lawyer who likes checkered trousers, a divorced dad of two who has OCD and a trumpet player with anger issues.

Literally anyone else:...what?

One of the guys ever, actually!

Johnny Simpson edit

Manly advice (for men): show a little bra strap

I present, the most atrocious thing I have ever made,

Bandstand but it’s just the vine boom sound effect

(Tw for loud noises)

Kez needs a break from these two and their PDA. I also just realized I forgot to color in the rip in Ryan's jeans.

Warning for suggestive Wayne/Nick content (no nudity, just implications) because I don't want to put this directly on people's dashes but like. I had a brain blast.

Based off of other memes. If you know which ones, you know.

Posted to AO3 for the first time in ages. Check it out. :)

Made sure to get this out before pride month ended!!! Sorry for any potential errors.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48259609

o/ <- person waving

o7 <- person saluting

ol <- person raising hand

o1 <- person scratching head

\o> <- person stretching

THE EPILOGUE FOR BANDSTAND GOES OVER A SPAN OF AT LEAST FOUR YEARS? HELLO?

The beginning scene takes place a year after the events of the radio contest. We know Act One and the majority of Act Two (everything but the Epilogue) take place in 1945, so that means the Epilogue starts in '46 (see image below).

But we suddenly jump forward FOUR YEARS to not only when The Rainbow Room has opened again, but they've ALREADY PERFORMED THERE?

That's it. That's the post. The band is still together after, like, five+ years. This is fine. This didn't make me almost start crying out of happiness. (<- complete and utter sarcasm.)

The band is so happy together... Oh, they're such a found family...

Making designs for the DNB has unlocked something unstoppable in me. Fear me.

Based on this post.

The Donny Nova Band, featuring Julia Trojan!

Also featuring my headcanon designs for them. I feel weird drawing theater fan art most of the time (especially true with Bandstand) because to me, the characters just feel like... I dunno. Like, I look at them, and my brain goes "That's Just a Person". I single Bandstand out specifically because the acting is so damn natural in the show that it's REALLY difficult for me to look at the cast as characters.

So I've remedied the situation. By taking traits from both the Bway and National Tour versions of each of the characters, I was able to make versions of the characters that I feel comfortable doodling and thinking about. Rotating in my head. You know, the works. Anyways, enjoy the blorbos, and also have this background/foreground-less version for more accurate skintones/colors.

happy pride everyone

i know the 2017 tony’s was six years ago now but someone HAS to pay for all the incredulous crimes that were committed

do you ship Nick and Wayne? Or are they platonic soulmates to you? To me, they are roommates and divorced and engaged all at once.

I feel like I should've posted my answer to this before doing the huge post a day or two ago, but um...

I rotate the two of them in my head a lot. They're soulmates to me in every sense of the word. They're each other's best friends and confidantes. They're just... each other's Person, you know? With a capital P. They can get into arguments and bicker sometimes, but that's just due to their nature, and I think they'd always find a way to forgive one another because they understand what they go through every day and what they went through during the war.

They're just kinda puzzle pieces that fit together in a way that's hard to describe. :)

i love nick and wayne as much as the next person, but I cant see how anything could get going? Most people focus on wayne’s ocd or just him in general as the stump in the road, but nick’s trust issues are his most obvious trait in the show. He loves wayne, yes, but those are HARD to get over. He is EXTREMELY closed of, and in a similar (but different) way, wayne is too. How would it happen?

I've put a decent amount of thought into this, actually! I try to remain as close to canon with my fics and drabbles and whatnot, this is just a trait of mine I've carried with me for an incredibly long time.

Personally, I think that under normal circumstances, you are completely correct. Nick has incredibly prominent trust issues, and this is seen in pretty much everything about him- from his distant blocking on stage to his lines and, of course, his demeanor as a whole. However, we also see that for whatever reason, he just isn't like that around Wayne, and vice versa. This might have something to do with their connection before the DNB was formed, it might not. Since we don't know how they met or the circumstances surrounding it (though that possible double entendre from Nick in I Know a Guy is tempting to use as evidence), I'd like to focus on what we do know, because there is substance. I'll be using things from both the professional recording with Joey Pero and the other recording with Alex Bender for this, as I consider both Nicks canon.

Nick commands offers for Wayne to live with him. In the proshot, Nick handles the entire situation with a bit more of a mild-mannered temper. He starts off joking with the "I know how your wife falls to pieces" line, but as soon as Wayne starts to tell him the truth of the situation, the jokiness is gone and replaced with him genuinely listening to Wayne- we can see this when he nods after Wayne says "I guess she fell to pieces because of my schedule". He invites Wayne to continue, and isn't annoyed by Wayne not reciprocating the joking nature he was trying to go for. We see him take a moment to prepare himself to invite Wayne to stay with him, as he clenches his fist and makes a face, suggesting that it is hard for him to take a step like this and open both himself and his house up for another person. However difficult it is, though, he still takes that step. In the other recording with Alex Bender, Nick's character is much more brash. The joking line (same as before) is dripping with sarcasm, which makes the sudden flip to sincerity incredibly clear. When Wayne tells Nick the truth in this version, we see Nick slowly turn from facing away, to facing him. His volume drops significantly with "Shit Lieutenant, I'm sorry to hear that," and the look on his face emanates sincere sympathy for Wayne, despite the footage not being clear like the proshot. He genuinely feels bad for the man, and isn't annoyed or upset with him in any capacity for saying all of this. In fact, when he shouts, "Consider that an order", I don't think any of the anger behind that tone was aimed at Wayne- personally, I've interpreted it as Nick simultaneously being upset with the world while wanting him to have a stable living condition. He's upset, but not with Wayne. One last note on this scene: the flyers Nick takes from him at the end of the scene represent the way their dynamic shifts. In the beginning, Wayne is putting them up by himself. He has a small handful of them, while Nick has none, and we don't see any of the other guys putting them up or carrying them. We already know at this point (from Proud Riff) that he's carrying an immense amount of responsibility on his shoulders at any and all times. While struggling to make his OCD and PTSD work with his daily life/family, he's also doing three gigs other than the DNB. And considering that in 1945, the patriarchal, nuclear family was still a strong presence in most families, Wayne was undoubtedly dealing with stressors coming from his home life, his work life, and his own mind. When he moves out, he also has to worry about getting food every day, paying the hotel each night he stays, and there isn't a single doubt in my mind that he was in hell trying to stay clean while living at the hotel, because those things are so! Germy! When Nick takes those papers, though, we can see Wayne's hands stay where they are (or start to fidget, in the proshot), not knowing what to do with themselves. Nick's just taken a huge burden off of Wayne's shoulders, relieving him of some of the copious amounts of stress in his life at that point. Immediately after, too, Nick steers the situation back towards positivity, ending it with the maid joke (which I personally think he did with excellence). To summarize, they both have issues with trust and they both have their anguishes, but both of them put those aside and step out of their comfort zone. But that covers the One Scene. Oh my god I've been writing for an hour. (Also, side note! I'd like to add that Wayne must trust Nick to some degree emotionally, otherwise he probably wouldn't have gone into as much details about his situation as he did. As a veteran in 1945, opening up about situations like Wayne's would have been incredibly difficult, since men were expected to be tough and invulnerable; considering the amount of care towards historical accuracy that this show has... Well. Him showing that much vulnerability and then taking Nick up on his offer makes it difficult for me to fathom the idea that Wayne does not trust him to some degree.)

After that scene, their bond grows SIGNIFICANTLY faster than I would expect it to if they were wary of each other in the ways that they are wary of other people. Wayne is consistently wound-up and rigid around other people. In the proshot, I will admit that he is the same way when he and Nick have the small argument after Julia gives Welcome Home to Donny. In the other version? Hoh boy. The man picks up his suitcase, turns to Nick, and sits in one hip. You can see the fluidity of his movement as he does it, and I know it isn't much, but this is so incredibly important because he doesn't do this around anyone else. You're also, as a consequence of the fluidity, able to see that he isn't holding much tension in his body at all. For a man like Wayne, that is a feat. Without getting too much into it, I have issues with relaxing my body due to anxiety, even when I'm not feeling anxious- so for him to be able to turn to Nick, look him dead in the eye, and continue to have a spat with him while not tensing up or getting visibly nervous, is significant to me.

When looking at Wayne's character as a whole, we are given a lot to work with when it comes to how he deals with affection- particularly with being touched. He notoriously hates being touched, especially when under stress or otherwise upset. He yells "Don't touch me!" when Jimmy touches him right before Right This Way, and I've noticed several occasions throughout the show where Wayne moves away from Johnny because he was touched (the most prominent to me being during Breathe, where it happens in both versions of the show; it's harder to see in the proshot, but from the lines "I know this is worth all the sweat" to "Order out of chaos", we see Johnny approach Wayne, the shot cut away and make them go out of the frame, and when they're both seen again, Johnny's got his hands up, Wayne's making a motion as if he had just shrugged them away, and Wayne walks away from him. In the non-official recording, Johnny puts his hands on both of Wayne's shoulders and Wayne does a FULL body flinch and immediately walks away. But who does he never do this towards? Who does he not flinch away from a single time (I've tried to find a time he flinches away, trust me)? Nick. Don't get me wrong, I can only count the number of times Nick touches him on one hand, and it's primarily in the unofficial recording, but... Wayne is still Wayne regardless of the performance. First, we have the bit just before the conflict before Right This Way, when the DNB is getting their picture taken. Then we have A Band In New York City. In the beginning of the number of the unofficial recording, while on the train, Nick puts a hand on one of Wayne's shoulders, patting it, and leans in incredibly close to the side of his face. Wayne has this goofy grin on his face the entire time. Granted, Wayne seems much more comfortable with being touched during this number in particular, as pretty much everyone else sets their hands on his back/shoulder at some point, but the fact that he is so close and Wayne doesn't care seems to hint that Wayne is much more comfortable with him than everyone else. When Donny gets that close moments after Nick leaves and kisses Wayne on the head, obviously Wayne flinches, but you can see that just after Donny sets his hands on Wayne's shoulders, he snaps his head over to the side. This makes it seem like he's only really super comfortable with Nick touching him in the first place; if Nick is in front of him, who's behind him with their hands on his shoulders? I also would like to think that Donny knows how close they are and is just flat-out teasing Wayne. Why else would he have kissed him on the head? He knows Wayne doesn't like being touched and has already gotten better about respecting his space (this is shown in Breathe vs Right This Way), so what the hell is up with that? Lol. Also, the unofficial recording is leagues more fruity than the proshot (looks at Jimmy's coming out scene longingly). So take that opinion as you will.

All of this being said, yes. It would be INCREDIBLY hard for either of them to make any sort of move. I believe both of them would be worried about breaking the bond between them, just for different reasons. Nick, to me, would be afraid of losing the one person he has confidence in and knows better than anyone else, and Wayne doesn't want to go through the pain of losing someone he cares about a second time. They'd almost certainly have moments, considering how small apartments in big cities like Cleveland were in the 40s (I'd have to look at my research again, but they are TINY), but there would be brushing against each other, late nights on Fridays and Saturdays staying up and drinking with the radio going, sometimes catching the other glancing over, neither of them would care about being fully dressed with the other in their presence (they were in the military. Not scandalous in the least UNTIL they start to feel things for each other). Just a lot of little things that would make their feelings painfully grand. I think Nick would probably end up biting the bullet and would ask Wayne if they could do something together; it's safe and unassuming, and if Wayne doesn't feel anything romantically towards him, it can easily be spun into a platonic sense. Wayne would immediately catch on. Bastard's sharper than a tack. Their relationship would be slow and cautious, just like each of them is, but it would simultaneously feel natural for them. They wouldn't push the progression of things and would take them as they come, though both of them would be scared of screwing up for the first month/two months. Wayne especially would take his time to get used to being with Nick and would constantly check in and reassure him that if anything he said ever hurt him, he would always be willing to hear what he has to say and change for the better. Nick would think it's sweet but wouldn't do it. He knows Wayne doesn't mean any harm. Nick would be equally as anxious, because he KNOWS how abrasive he can be, but finds that as time goes on, living with Wayne is kind of mellowing him out. He's still firey, but most of his anxieties are assuaged firstly by the band, then quashed by Wayne being there. So bit by bit, things get easier, and he starts to warm up to the band and loosen up. This would make Wayne comfier, which would make him comfier... Just kind of a circle of feeling more comfortable with each other. This isn't to say that they depend on each other to feel relaxed and comfortable, but they do find great comfort in each other for multiple reasons. If that makes sense.

Sorry for such a long post, I've been writing this bit by bit by bit, and I love diving into the show to pick apart characters' actions and what they might mean. I should say that this is all completely up to interpretation! My interpretation of certain aspects of the show might be completely different from what other people might think, so please don't feel like I'm trying to force interpretations or anything on anyone! This is just what I think the show was going for. :)

Thank you for the question! Love answering stuff about the grumpy father figures.

what are your thoughts on Johnny Simpson. Any thoughts. All of your thoughts.

I have. Many thoughts on him. He's probably one of the more complex members of the band, in my mind. There are obviously the more apparent parts of his character, the stuff we see and hear on the surface, but I personally think that he's got a lot more going on under the surface.

I'm still working on my character study for him, as medical issues and brain injuries tend to have a lot of variation. To me, his back symptoms largely reflect high-grade spondylolisthesis, something that can be caused by car accidents and of which the surgical procedures (spinal fusion in this case) had high post-operation complaints according to an article I read based on a survey done in 1944. (Granted, the article was about a different physical disability, not spondylolisthesis, but the procedure itself is still spinal fusion). This, of course, gives him back pain, as well as making him more cautious when sitting and squatting down. He also tends to stand with a straight back and, interestingly enough, opts for bending at the knees rather than leaning over (something you can see when he's fixing Donny up during A Band in New York City). The only times we see him slouch a significant amount are when he's sitting (during Breathe, after First Steps First, etc.) Additionally, even when Donny is slouched over when turning the piano during Breathe, Johnny remains upright. I think that's neat. Furthermore, even when Johnny gets to his feet after the first section of Breathe, he gets up with a straight back, has to support himself with his hands, and does it much slower than Davy, who gets up in the same way (he's holding a flask, so it makes sense for him to get up this way). The pattern is the same after First Steps First when Julia leaves- straight back, both hands helping him up, and slowly.

As for his brain, I personally think that a coup-contrecoup injury fits best. It's caused from one's brain hitting the inside of the skull at various places, and this causes symptoms that reflect Johnny's behavior if his frontal and temporal lobes were the ones impacted by the Jeep crash. Coup-contrecoup injuries to those two places have symptoms such as memory loss (anterograde amnesia), difficulty concentrating, and dysarthria, or slowness of speech. I think Johnny is a BRILLIANT man when it comes to numbers, though, which would make sense considering that the parietal lobe is where calculations take place; it's just that he may have difficulty remembering numbers just as a lot of other things due to damage to the frontal lobe. Additionally, although the frontal lobe does have jurisdiction on music-related processes, it is entirely possible that the trauma only impacted the dominant part of his frontal lobe, as the non-dominant part of the brain is the one responsible for musical and creative endeavors.

As for his personality, I really, really do think it's interesting. Johnny goes through chronic pain day after day, and despite all of that, he is still an incredibly kind person. And not only that, but he's pretty quiet, relatively speaking. He tends to watch things happen, but pipes up when he has something important to say or a joke to tell. This could just be due to the show's writing, but I really do think it's a semi-intended part of his character. It's a little difficult for me to articulate, but there are moments in the show when other things will be going on and as opposed to talking with the other guys, Johnny will just be watching something else happening. One moment I noticed this happening was during Donny's phone call to Ms. Adams just before Everything Happens- while we can see the other guys in the background, talking, Johnny is simply standing and watching Donny. Waiting for an update on Julia, presumably, and this would make sense considering how good of friends Johnny and Julia seem to be. Davy and Nick join him, but only after Wayne and Jimmy break off to go and talk to the Lakewood Supper Club lady. There's the moment in Breathe, too, where he's watching Julia and Donny whilst leaning on the piano, but I figured I would bring up another point in the show for the sake of supporting my theory that he demonstrates quietness throughout the show. Again, of course he talks, and of course he makes jokes, but he does tend to just... watch things sometimes. And I think that's neat, because usually when I think of drumset players, they are loud as HELL, and it's kind of a common trope I see throughout media where the percussionist in a band will be the loud, rowdy one- something I think I've only seen broken with Kim from SPVTW.

I probably have a lot more to say about him, but I can't think of what it might be right now. If you'd like to know a few things I think about him specifically, feel free to ask! :) I'm just bad at thinking of stuff to say on a broad topic, even if it's just about one person/character.