listening to stay gold ā> pain.
āļø he/him
āļø musical, book & movie enjoyer
āļø qpr pb&j truther
āļø technical theatre nerd
āļø here to shout into the void! and maybe to other people too :>
trying on a metaphor
šŖ¼
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
cherry valley forever
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Mike Driver
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shark vs the universe
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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@doomed-qpr
listening to stay gold ā> pain.
āļø he/him
āļø musical, book & movie enjoyer
āļø qpr pb&j truther
āļø technical theatre nerd
āļø here to shout into the void! and maybe to other people too :>
contrary to what ppl think i honestly truly do think johnny and pony wouldāve run away to their little far away from tulsa dreams given the right circumstances (ie. it was their choice, they werenāt driven away for any plethora of reasons) but i also think it wouldāve been johnny who had to initiate it, not pony, bc johnnys the strategy out of the two of them, and then pony kinda just follows him wherever he goes like a sad puppy
ok someone asked me to elaborate on my tags sooooo. hi. i think one of my biggest hot takes is the fact that ppl will go on and on about how johnnys ātoo infantilizedā and looked down upon and treated childishly by the fandom and like. yeah thatās definitely true to an extent, bro is def a lil rabid sometimes. but he IS NOT mentally developed the way most 16 year olds are and he DOES lack significant maturity that i think ppl just like breeze past. itās not a bad thing to acknowledge!!! he is extremely heavily traumatized and has been abused his entire life ā heās not just skittish and shy, heās genuinely neurologically hindered by his trauma and abuse. like yes he does obv deserve autonomy and respect, duh, but he does make rash, sharp, poor decisions in the same way a young child would without thinking things through bc theyāre literally not developed enough to understand real consequence - ie he stabs bob bc thatās what heās been taught to do out of adrenaline, he runs away because someone else tells him thatās the best course of action to take, he wants to turn himself in again without thinking through what would happen; he has trouble thinking for himself, he follows and follows and has serious trouble leading himself, he never speaks for himself, he has troubles with eating, he makes bad decisions, not out of rebellion, but out of the fact that he literally has mental hindrances. ponyboy isnāt entirely wrong for viewing him the way he does!! i agree in the book he def undercuts johnnys strength and intelligence - heās not dumb or weak or fragile - bc he views himself very skewed, but heās not entirely wrong either, bc johnny plain and simply is not developed to the point an average 16-almost-17 year old would be. he doesnāt dream bigger bc he doesnāt know to, he doesnāt run bc he doesnāt know to, he literally doesnāt know. i feel like i have more to say but iām getting tired of yapping sooo maybe ill rb again later lmfao
au where soda and johnny killed bob instead of pony and johnny but like you gotta hear me out for a minute (or more, this is a long one) cause itās also an au where ponyās a little younger, heās like ten or something and heās out here thinking heās oh so cool and big and tough now that heās finally hit double digits, but like heās ten and not even a quarter. heās still not allowed to walk home from school alone, not when his parents were still alive and not nowātwo-bit always walks his little sister home and ponyās just included in that now.
and so when he sneaks into the movie theaters heās really gotta sneak. he tells molly mathews to go ahead and leave at dismissal, heās staying after for⦠chess club, or something sheād have no idea about, to tell her brother heās gonna call for a ride later. and heāll get to see whatever he wants to see because heās small and quiet and nobody notices, and when he doesnāt call home for a ride later, heāll get jumped by the socs and theyāll scare him but it never really gets out of hand. not usually. they oughta be more careful, heās just a kid, and maybe when he got his neck cut up that one afternoon he shouldāve known it was a sign.
he tries not to cry ācause heās scared and only gets a little embarrassed when darry puts a bandaid on the cut, and he tries to steal a cigarette off dally but is caught like usualāāyou gotta be at least thirteen for that, kid.āāand he only stops to listen in for a minute when soda mentions theyāre going to the game tonight.
but steve says no kids allowed and pony whines and johnny says āaw, pony, youāll find something to do.ā and then dally brings up the drive-in, and ponyās eyes light up and he looks over to darry and practically begs his brother to let him go, and darry says alright. cause ponyās still a little kid and his fourth grade teacher doesnāt give homework on fridays, and as long as he stays with johnny and dally, and as long as the movies that are playing arenāt too grown-up, and as long as heās home before his curfew and so on. pony and darry get along just a little better here because that bigger age gapāten and a half years!āreally puts darry into always having been more of an authority figure in ponyās life. and if you canāt tell, this story isnāt supposed to be about them anyway, so itās fine.
the drive-in is fun. they sit behind a couple of girls and when johnny convinces dally to leave her alone, one of them asks if heās sodaās little brother and lets him talk and talk about whatever he wants, and her name is cherry valance and offers to buy pony a pepsi so of COURSE he takes her up on it. thereās a couple of socs milling around the concession stand and one of them calls cherry out asking why she bothers babysitting the little grease stain and she rolls her eyes and grabs his hand and pulls him into line with her and heās still yammering on about whateverās on his mind thinking āwow this cool teenager is listening to me!ā because none of his friendsāhis brothersā friends, reallyāare like that. well, they listen, johnny and soda specifically, but thereās something so different about when youāre a kid and somebody who you donāt see as being obligated to listen to you, does. like heās seeing thereās people out there like him, people who are older and wiser, and thatās justāitās nice. especially for a lonely kid like him.
anyway. so thereās a lot of whispering that night. dallas winston hitting on cherry valance, sheās hanging around with sodapop curtisā little brother, and two-bit mathews and that kid johnny cade they beat up last spring, and you know, itās gossip, itās like playing telephone. by the time it gets around to guys like bob and his friends, the storyās been twisted. and theyāre drunk. and angry, because cherry and marcia ditched them, and well. that confrontation during the walk home still happens. except maybe when cherry refuses to get in the car, she dumps bob then and there. they donāt even bother fighting. cherry tells bob heās insane. what does he think sheās doing, cheating on him? ponyās a little kid! she remembered hearing how his parents died. she had gone to school with his brother, you know? ponyboy seemed quiet. kinda sad. she was just being nice.
but thatās not really what bobās all worried about. ācause when cherry ditched him at the drive-in he and randy got wasted and headed to the football game and word on the street there was that as of that night, sodapop curtis is single again. bobās sober enough to remember the way girls talk about that kid and drunk enough to jump to conclusions ācause he knows even cherry isnāt immune to that charm. especially not later that night when one of his buddies who stuck around at the drive-in tells him they overheard cherry call soda a ādoll.ā and that she was hanging around his little brother.
and then. bob and the socs leave, with a threat or two thrown in the direction of the greasers, and two-bit and johnny walk the girls to a payphone to call for a ride, and then they walk pony home. they make sure he gets in the house all good, in the door before darry can even be worried. heāll tuck the kid in and pony will ask him to stay because sodaās not home yet, but heās older and as far as darryās concerned soda uses his head. he probably just went over to sandyās for the night. no big deal. two-bit goes home. johnny heads home but decides to wander the neighborhood for a bit because his parents are nuts and heās still spooked from the socs and all. and itās cold, you know, the gang will get on him about sleeping in the lot and soda and steve told him where the key is to the garage at the dx where they work on the cars, and their boss is nice, he turns a blind eye sometimes to johnny finding shelter for the night there every once in a blue moon. so he starts walking.
meanwhile, sodaās having the worst night of his life (well. second worst. his parents are dead.), heās a heartbroken fucking mess, walking home from the football game alone because steve and evie ditched basically right after the four of them got there and. you know. sandy is leaving for florida. leaving him. whether she wants to or not. whether he loves her or not. heās taking the long way home, walking all alone in the dark despite his better judgment because he knows darry will be mad at him but doesnāt really care. darry just worries, soda knows that. and honestly he thinks if he had to sit nowāin a car, or just go straight home, whateverāhe would go insane. so heās walking. and heās thinking about sandy, and how he can get her to stay. he could marry her. his kid or not, whether she asked to be in this situation or not, he loves her, and he thinks hopes dreams that she loves him too. and heās been hiding his momās engagement ring in one of the toolboxes because darry wanted to sell it when their parents died and pony wanted to bury it with them and soda was being selfish and never wanted to part with it. he was gonna use it one day. maybe that day is coming sooner than he thought. maybe things will be okay. so he keeps walking.
they meet in the parking lot. johnny fills soda in on the night heās had, mostly cause johnny jumped a mile when soda called his name, and nearly pulled his switchblade on him. ācanāt be any worse than mine,ā soda mutters, and then heās rooting around in his pocket to see if heās got any spare change ācause he figures johnnyās probably hungry and soda doesnāt like to take things from the dx conscience store without payingāhe works there, heād be stealing from his own paycheckāand thatās when the color drains from johnnyās face and soda follows his eyes to the road. a blue mustang pulls into the parking lot. itās packed with kids soda hasnāt seen since he dropped out of school last june. socs. and one of themās got three big, clunky rings made of probably pure gold. worth more than his mamaās engagement ring, thatās for damn sure.
and in the end soda doesnāt even know what they were fighting over. something about stealing bob sheldonās girl? trying to? soda doesnāt even know who the guy is dating. he hasnāt really spoken to any girls except sandy since they started dating, not like thatāother girls have tried talking to him, sure but they just arenāt her and even if they were like sandy, who cares? heās in loveāand heās a little lacking in the gossip department. thatās what happens when you drop out of high school and work full time at a gas station. again, at the present moment, the only girl he cares about is sandy. he wonders just how drunk bob isāhe can smell the alcohol on his breath a mile away. man, this is why soda doesnāt drink. he gets stuck in his emotions enough as it is; he doesnāt need help feeling. he doesnāt need help acting on it either.
and johnnyās there. his buddy, his friend, who started shaking in fear four months ago and hasnāt stopped since. thereās a cold look in johnnyās eyes and soda feels that familiar rush in his veins. sodaās a good fighter, you know. heās never lost, not really. not when it counted. but he canāt help but wonder if itās because heās never fought for his life before. it kinda feels like it now, but then again, everythingās tinged red, this feels normal. to him anyway. this is how heās always felt in a fight. adrenaline coursing through his veins like itās all he was meant for. like itās all heās good for. sometimes it feels like it is.
next thing soda knows, bobās foot is slamming into his bad kneeāthe one he permanently messed up years ago at the rodeo, because of course he did, everything he loves leaves him eventuallyāand it buckles. he crumples to the ground. something smells like gas. well, theyāre at a gas station, makes sense. the hose from the gas pump is being wrapped around his neck and he canāt breathe and people are laughing, and for some reason he thinks to himself in the moment, āman, i hope nobody lights a cigarette. that would suck.ā
he only blacks out for a few seconds but when reality washes over him, the socs are gone. all but one, in the ground. thereās blood and gasoline pooling around where sodaās kneeling next to the body.
body. oh god. soda wants to be sick but he thinks heāll choke again if he throws up. his neck and throat hurt real bad. come to think of it so do his knee and his head. johnny looks green and his hands are covered in blood. soās his knife. soās bob sheldon.
johnny grabs him and yanks him up and soda tries to scream but it hurts too much to even whisper. johnny says something about going to dallyās. they just run, or do the best they can ācause sodaās knee is killing him, until they get out towards buckās and soda wants to ask āwhatāre we gonna do, steal a horse and ride off into the unknown? you killed a guy, johnny!ā but he doesnāt because itās not gonna help at this point and soda knows that. he also knows johnny saved his life. he oughta be grateful.
dally agrees to get them the hell out of town, but not before soda demands some paper and a pen. heās gotta tell his brothers somethingāespecially cause now he doesnāt know if heāll ever see them again.
he doesnāt know anything. except that somebody died because of him and maybe also that thereās no way heāll ever get to marry sandy now. and maybe just maybe he can never go home again. and for a guy like soda, a person who staysāthatās the worst feeling in the world.
soda just wants his brothers. and for all he understands everybody, right now heās got no idea what to do with poor johnny cade.
seven hours later ponyboy is sitting on the living room couch with two-bit, eating cereal and chocolate cake (heās a growing boy!) and watching saturday morning cartoons while darry swears at the leaky faucet in the kitchen, and then steve crashes through the front door.
āthought you were working this morning?ā darry asks, not that interested, but more to make conversation and because heās tired of that stupid kitchen sink. and steve goes āwhereās soda?ā and darryās like, āsandyās, Iāll bet. he never came home last night.ā
except steve shakes his head. āheās definitely not at sandyās.ā āwhy not?ā āthey broke upāā everyone looks over, but steve barrels on. āyouāre sure you donāt know where he is?ā darry nods. he forgets about the sink. āwhatās going on?ā
āgot to work this morning, and the boss was standing out there, pissed as all hell. entire place was taped off. cops everywhere. i heard one of āem talking. somebody found a body last nightāā
pony spills his cereal bowl. darry doesnāt even notice. pony doesnāt either. neither of them breathe until:
āāsaid it was that soc kid. same one who cut up johnnyās face. bob sheldon.ā
and what the hell are these boys supposed to do now?
well @haljordangreenjedi reminded me there was more to this, so hereās a part 2!
i think everyone outsiders fan should listen to the magnus archives. not because itās at all similar. they are. quite different. tma is just good
to #me: ponyboy is the Web (āis it all predetermined am i playing a roleā!!!!) and End coded. he mixes the two up so much in his mind. everyone around him dies but was it all just going to happen anyway??? was it really in his control? also succumbs to the Spiral at some point i feel.
darry is so so scared of the Desolation. not necessarily in the fire sense. in the āeverything i love is being destroyedā sense. in the catastrophe sense.
soda fucking hates the Stranger get that shit AWAY. he knows people. he loves people. he cares about people. That is Not a Person.
i think every outsiders fan should listen to the magnus archives. not because itās at all similar. they are. quite different. tma is just good
I have something to say about Soda, and yāall are not going to like it. But I have to speak my truth.
I absolutely love that as a fandom weāre starting to humanize him and recognize his character for more than just a comedic bystander. But sometimes it feels like the pendulum now swings too far in the other direction, and some of these takes have turned him into a completely different character.
Yes, Soda is more than just his sweetness. Heās got anger and recklessness and grief, too. But exploring and developing that hidden depth shouldnāt be at the expense of his compassion and good-nature, which are still fundamental parts of his character. The sweetness doesnāt stop existing just because heās also capable of darkness. They can and should coexist: thatās the entire point of complexity.
I keep seeing posts that use Ponyboyās unreliable narration to argue away Sodaās sweetness, and Iāll be honest, it irritates me. Ponyboy is misguided, but heās not outright wrong about what he observes. Darry is hard and cold. Johnny is frightened and nervous. Dally is tough and mean. And Soda is reckless and compassionate. Ponyboy might miss the subtlety of motivation (Darry is harsh, but not because he hates his brother) but heās truthful about whatās externally obvious.
And yes, Ponyboy idolizes Soda, but the cause of his hero worship is rooted in Sodaās kindness towards him. If Darry were more emotionally present, Ponyboy would likely idolize him, too. But Ponyboyās hero worship doesnāt cause him to erase Sodaās flaws. In fact, he calls them out on multiple occasionsāSodaās recklessness, his academic failures, his inability to take anything seriously. Pony is even embarrassed by Soda when Cherry asks about him dropping out.
Similarly important to note is that Ponyboy isn't the only one who puts Soda on a golden pedestal. Darry is equally guilty of idealizing his brother, and it's because of the emotional labor Soda does for his family; not because Ponyboy has crafted a completely different version of his brother for the readers.
The fandom wants a complex Soda, and so do I. But complexity doesnāt equate darkness! His core traits don't need to be erased to prop up a version of the character thatās unrecognizably gritty and twisted. Soda is interesting because heās kind. Heās interesting because heās emotionally intelligent. Heās interesting because he listens. These things donāt make him perfect! Theyāre both his strength and his weakness.
Soda who lets himself be walked over. Soda who keeps the peace at the expense of voicing his honest opinion. Soda who hides pain with a manic glimmer in his eyes. Soda who holds it in until he canāt. Soda who explodes in grief or anger when pushed to his breaking point. Soda who canāt sit still. Soda who embraces his āstupidityā like a badge of honor to hide how much it hurts. Soda who nobody really knows, because he protects himself by focusing on others. Soda with a fear of abandonment. Glass child Sodapop. Beautiful and invisible. Slowly being killed by the pressure of a role heās not strong enough to perform.
And yes, he's also angry. He's also reckless. He's also easily distracted and can't sit still and likes to fight. But good characterization happens when you explore these traits within the context of the other ones. The gentleness and roughness are not mutually exclusive; they can and should go hand in hand.
Instead of āoh I bet Ponyboy is lying, Soda probably yells at him all the time,ā consider: what in Sodaās life would be hurtful enough to push him to yell at Ponyboy? Instead of āPonyboyās naive, I bet Soda drinks like crazy,ā consider: what deeper motivation might keep Soda from drinking?
That's complexity.
Of course everyone has a right to interpret the character differently. And I'm not arguing against headcanons and ausāI just wish we could recognize them as headcanons, instead of trying to twist canon into supporting our own personal characterization. The dark takes are certainly interesting, and fun to toss around. But please, don't discredit the rich depth of his canon characterization as "not gritty enough;" Soda doesn't have to drink, scream, or be Dally to be interesting.
Make him go feral, pleaseābut consider doing it in a way that makes sense for his character, and expands on who he is, instead of erasing it.
heres this little sketch of tiny little baby johnny and pony
has anyone made a outsiders / tma crossover or is that a piece of autism only for me
I'm gonna elaborate on this
Ponyboy's an avatar of the end ; being so connected to death and dreams, he can't escape the concept of people dying or dying himself. he's been touched by the desolation, losing his friends to the flames both physical and metaphorical. he's been victim to the eye, always judged and percieved like some monster because of the stuff in his hair and the people the papers associate him with.
Darry's an avatar of the buried, after being trapped into a town where there's nothing he can do but struggle with the financial and mental burden of the loss of his parents. he feels lost, he might even fall victim of the spiral.
Two-Bit may be a victim of the corruption, but he's an avatar of the vast. he's up in his head, always searching for something new ā something big. the shows on the television a distraction, keeping himself away from whatever dangerous mission he may be looking for.
Johnny and Dallas are avatars of the desolation ; but Johnny, he falls victim to the slaughter and the lonely. Dallas, is an avatar too of the hunt, always hungry for more. Always striving for more, never feeling fulfilled.
Soda is an avatar of the spiral, never ever quite being himself ā but knowing to put up a front when it's necessary. he stresses over dealing with the aggression at home every other night, dealing with the idea of having to mourn for his family and his friends because they shouldn't be dead in the first place. he's gonna drive himself mad one of these days.
steve, taking over avatar of the hunt just as much as dallas. but he falls victim to the web, being stuck with the asshole that is his father, feeling like he can never escape from this place without someone else because where else is he to go anyhow? either way, all he knows is that he is a rabid beast ready to either escape... or pounce on that deadbeat in the living room.
girl help i accidentally entered second person and i have no idea how to get out
when he was a kid soda was violently allergic to poison ivy but that Never Stopped Him from rolling around in the dirt, getting it all over himself, spreading it everywhere on his skin including his eyes (heās a chronic eye rubber), and then being miserable as fuck for the next 2-3 weeks because his eyes are pathetically swollen shut and he cannot stop scratching at his skin for the life of him
I js wanna say that even though I'm not Jewish I think Jewish outsiders hcs are SO interesting and smart and I read all your posts when they come across my dash, I don't post original Jewish hcs because I'm not Jewish I don't think I know the culture well enough and mainly I don't wanna like intrude in people's safe spaces but PLEASE KNOW YOUR JEWISH OUTSIDERS HEADCANONS HAVE SUPPORT FROM AT LEAST ONE NON-JEWISH PERSON
is this what heaven sounds like
Tumblr when it's March 15th
Happy Ides of March!!
all fandoms walk a notoriously fine line with trauma survivors and i feel like johnny cade is a good example of that. specifically, the often-seen portrayals of traumatized characters in ways that either romanticize their experiences or completely ignore their experiences (the latter of which is often done to favor another characterās journey).
i feel like the outsiders fandom (book, movie, and musical are lumped together here) at times leans heavily into the second one (minimization of trauma). now. i understand the fandom reversal of johnnyās role as being like. Not Innocent (and while i partially agree and think itās a based take sometimes) i feel like some people do kind of turn him into a character heās not by instilling a kind of confidence in him that he never had the opportunity to get. people tend to brush past the fact that he is, canonically, by far the quietest of the gang and RARELY talks. he is also, quote, āthe gangās pet.ā (while pony IS an unreliable narrator, many of his descriptions of johnny, especially toward the beginning, are just descriptions of his physical reactions to his surroundings as well as past events like johnny getting jumped.)
He gets nervous around strangers. heās hyper vigilantātwo-bit surprises him at the drive-in and he pretty much has a panic attack. heās 16 and has been borderline homeless for years. he has ptsd from a life of simultaneous abuse and neglect. heās afraid to take up space because his life is so inconsistent he never knows what his existence will be met withāwill it be ignored completely, or will it be met with an unforgiving hand? so he listens, and he watches, and he does hang around dally and the gang, but a big part of who he is comes from his upbringing - he tries as hard as possible to Not be noticed at all, because when he does, itās bad. i think he would like to be a more confident, ānormalā version of himself, but that person isnāt someone who he ever really had a chance to be.
just got to write about unreliable narration in the outsiders for a school assignment š«¶š«¶
side note having to full-name him every time was so funny. āi cannot let my teacher know i think about him enough to refer to him as pony.ā