I need to talk about Egon Spengler's fire pole. No, really.
In Ghostbusters Afterlife, Phoebe finds Egon's underground lab. There's a fire pole down to it.
So?
So, Egon hated using the firehouse fire pole.
In 1984's Ghostbusters, when we see Egon take the fire pole down for a bust, he is NOT comfortable on that thing. Sheer terror, might accurately describe the look on his face. Egon preferred the stairs.
It's Ray who loves the station fire pole.
Why even is there a barn lab fire pole? How would Egon exit the underground lab? Scooch up the pole? No. He probably couldn't climb a fire pole. Not at 70 years old. So, there has to be stairs or ladder down to the underground lab, though we never see them. Physics demand there must be another way in and out. Those stairs, would have been Egon's functional entrance/exit. The underground lab fire pole is structurally unnecessary. Why did Egon, while low on money and time, install it?
Because the fire pole is for someone else. Ray. Egon put it in because he liked to make Ray happy. And he hoped Ray was coming to help.
I think the pole, and the fact that Egon had multiple uniforms hanging ready in the locker, had more than one proton pack, and installed the gunner seat in Ecto1, all point to this- Egon never thought he'd face Gozer alone. This is why it ultimately takes a team to execute Egon's full entrapment vision, which does succeed and capture Gozer, but only when there's finally enough people on the team.
Egon never planned to be alone. He was doing his best but he knew he couldn't do it alone. He was always ready for Ray to believe him.
"We're ready to believe you." -The Ghostbusters
When Egon's mega Gozer trap fails at the beginning of Afterlife and he hides the Vinz Clortho trap in the floorboard puzzle box, who (besides Phoebe) was smart enough to unlock that puzzle? Ray Stantz.
Did Egon know Phoebe would come along? That she would be old enough in time? That she would be in Oklahoma? That she, a child, could handle the battle with Gozer? Perhaps he did.
Or did Egon believe that if he failed, Ray would come finish the job? The book stacks. The number code. The maps. Ray would have recognized everything in the livingroom of that old house, the moment he walked in. He would have recognized everything in the lab. He could have picked up where Egon left off. Only he never answered the call.
Still mad at Afterlife Ray.
Egon's fire pole is proof to me that he loved Ray Stantz, and was waiting on Ray to come, until the end.
As a costume designer and an Egon fre@k, it's interesting to me that Egon Spengler's clothes are 1940s, not 1980s. Younger viewers who didn't live through the 80s might not catch that his look is about 40 years older, because all the clothes are vintage and "old" to their eye.
It implies a lot about Spengler's backstory. They could be his Dad's suits and ties. All of the suits are very high quality. The sweater vests and overcoats, too. Perhaps his family once had money and lost it. Perhaps his father died young and Egon wears his suits to be close to him. Perhaps he idolizes the scientists of the 1940s like Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Perhaps Egon was a poor scholarship kid who got into the Ivy League on merit, and can't afford modern suits. Maybe it's how his mom dressed him in his childhood and he still dresses like that because, rules.
It emphasizes his Autism. We often dress for reasons other than fashion and trends. We look like people "born in the wrong time". We wear safe clothes, or "uniforms".
BTW: Ray's costume holds notes of the 1950s and he's still wearing the same flannels and black T-shirt 40 years later. Way to represent Autistic culture, Dan💛. I would kill for Ray's green wool coat and wide leg khaki's in GB1984.
-From the moment we meet Venkman, he is connected to telepathic investigation. Take the psychic testing opening scene in Ghostbusters (1984). Why is Peter's paranormal specialty psychic ability?
-Venkman communicates with Egon nonverbally, via eye contact and hand gestures. Perhaps some low level telepathy is involved, as well?
-Peter seems to respond to what Ray is thinking, several times, if mockingly. It's because he knows Ray so well he can anticipate what he'll say next, or is he reading Stantz's mind?
-He hates Peck immediately, before he even does anything. Has an uncanny knack for getting under Peck's skin and showing up just where Peck does not want him to be.
-Venkman knows at once that's not Dana in her body when Zuul answers the door.
-In 1989 Venkman hosts the World of the Psychic TV show.
-At the end of Afterlife, during the end credit scene with Dana, Venkman is "guessing" the psychic testing cards correctly.
-During the lab testing scene in Frozen Empire, where he knows Nadeem Razmaadi is not what he seems, and he provokes him into using hidden fire powers.
-Venkman has a way of showing up exactly when he's needed (but not wanted), such as the Ghostbusters 2 bookstore scene, when he shows up to bother Ray and immediately knows something is brewing between Ray and Egon that they don't want him in on. There is also Venkman's timely arrival at the end of Afterlife, and during the Firehouse showdown at the end of Frozen Empire.
So, do you think Venkman could have legit psychic abilities? Perhaps this is what drew him to study the paranormal.
This OOC moment in Ghostbusters Afterlife is vile to me.
Why have Ray say those hateful things about Egon? Egon would never have up and left him for no reason.
Unless... they were something more. Unless Ray and Egon were more than lab partners. Unless Egon had been keeping a secret from Ray that destroyed the trust between them. Unless Ray was still hurting and angry over something Big.
I still feel like Ray would have believed and helped Egon to the end. "We're ready to believe you," was their commercial after all. And Ray is the biggest Believer of the bunch. He's still in his Occult shop when Winston and Venkman have gone on to other careers.
(Side note: Why have Ray remember the Reagan years fondly? He was calling spoiled Reaganite upperclass kids "yuppie larva" in GB2 in 1989. Ray's a badass, a contrarian. An Occultist. A New Yorker. Come on, don't fuddyduddy my man.)
When I wrote Ghostbusters: Resurrection, I had to answer some questions for myself. Is Ray lying in this scene, in this phone conversation with Phoebe about Egon? If not lying, what is he omitting? Why did Egon really leave Ray? Why was Callie kept secret from the other Ghostbusters? Was she? How could Egon have a secret kid? Are we supposed to believe that in GB1 & GB2 our beloved Egon knows he has a daughter and just never mentions her? Could I figure out a way to make it work in canon and in character?
Do you remember Ray's line, in the first ten minutes of GB1, where he says to Peter that Pete and Egon have never been in the private sector and Ray has? What if during Ray's journey into corporate engineering, during their brief time apart, Egon dated Callie's mom for a short while?
Here's chapter 3 of my story, in which I answer some of these questions. It's a flashback scene, to 1995, the story of Ray and Egon's break up.
Ghostbusters: Resurrection.
Chapter 3
1995
The story Ray gave Phoebe over the phone when she'd called the old Ghostbusters' number from jail is not the whole story, of course. Ray isn't a great liar but he can leave a few things out of the truth.
Egon didn't just leave in 1995, Ray kicked him out. He hadn't quite meant to.
Ray had been so worried. And Egon wouldn't talk to him about it. His husband had always been intense, obsessive. But for the past two years, he had been beyond hyperfixated. Frantic. Scary.
Egon was working in the lab on something at night. Wouldn't sleep. Didn't always come home to their apartment. Had a lot more nonverbal episodes. Was refusing to eat actual meals. Scribbled in his notebook constantly. He was always preoccupied. Wouldn't go with Ray on the few ghost calls that still came in. When Egon did talk, it was about Shandor and Gozer and selenium again. It didn't seem to be wearing off, unlike other obsessive phases.
So one day, when Egon was teaching at Columbia, tenure being the only reason the increasingly erratic professor hadn't been fired yet, Ray didn't go to his bookshop for the day. Instead, he'd invaded Egon's privacy.
Egon had a locked desk drawer. It had always been locked and Ray had never seen him open it. Ray didn't think anything of it. He knew Egon so well, he thought, he really didn't care what Egon had in there. Spores, most likely.
A stressed and desperate Ray picked the desk drawer lock, looking for evidence of dementia or drugs or a brain tumor or something.
Ray found something all right. Callie.
Ray had been thrown for a loop when the drawer was full of pictures of a little blonde girl, growing into a teenager. Her drawings, a couple book reports, report cards and other kid stuff. Along with some coldly worded notes from Carole, Egon's ex girlfriend who he'd dated way back in 1981, during Ray's private sector period.
Ray went to the restroom and threw up. Then he came back to the desk and read it all.
When Egon came home, Ray hadn't even tried to hide what he'd been up to all day. He was red eyed and exhausted. Furious, sad and overwhelmed. Sitting in the living room with all the evidence spread across the sofa and coffee table.
Egon stepped inside, dropped his briefcase, and started frantically scooping it all up in his arms, his overcoat flapping like a cape behind him. He looked demented. Like a stranger.
"You're not even gonna say anything?!" Ray had yelled. "Well, you've kept quiet all this time, Spengler, I guess you might as well keep shutting me out!"
He knew Egon couldn't always talk, especially when things felt too intense. Ray never held it against him. He was just over the edge himself. In meltdown, sometimes Ray said exaggerated things he didn't quite mean.
"What the hell, Egon? You're a father!"
"No, I'm not," Egon shook his head, looking down, clutching the pictures of Callie to his chest.
"That is your kid," Ray's eyes darkened with rage at the denial. "Look at her fucking smile, Egon!"
"I do have a child. A daughter named Callie. I'm not her father. I'm nothing to her. She hates me," Egon sounded robotic. He went to his desk and reverently laid the pictures there. Began to sort them back into order.
"Egon, how long have you known about her?" Ray couldn't get his mind around this. Egon fathered a child and didn't tell him about it. How could that be the reality they were now occupying?
You'd have to know Egon very well to see how upset he was, how ashamed and scared. Ray did. He could tell Egon was cracking inside, despite his flat, calm voice as he said, "Since 1992. When she was 10, her mother, Carole, contacted me to request my medical history. Callie had autoimmune issues and they needed information. It was the only reason she ever even told me. I told Carole she could have everything she wanted to know, if she would just send me pictures. Let me learn about our daughter. She did, under the condition that I not contact Callie directly."
Egon's voice wavered, but he couldn't look at Ray, "Carole never stopped hating me for loving you instead of her, Ray. My little girl thinks I abandoned her and never cared about her."
"Three years! I can't believe you kept this from me for three years, Egon you jerk!" Ray would not let his empathy outweigh his outrage at the betrayal. Not yet. Not until it was too late. He had worked up a horrible head of steam that was exploding all over them both.
"Ray, it didn't- I just- Gozer is-" Spengler tried to find the words.
"Don't you dare mention Gozer at a time like this!" Ray slammed his fist on the desk, furious at Egon for bringing up the G word now. How dare he get back on that shit and change the subject!
"I didn't know how to tell you and then I'd kept quiet about it too long and I couldn't find a way. I just..." Egon broke. Finally he looked at Ray, tears streaming down his handsome face, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to keep her a secret this long. I didn't know what to do! I didn't know how it would change things between us if you knew! I'm so sorry!"
Ray glared back at him. "Not acceptable."
"Ray, I-"
"I need you to get out. I'm going to go get a hotel room or something. You better not be here when I get back in the morning," Ray had said, needing space suddenly to maintain his righteous outrage. Egon had done him deeply wrong and Ray was going to stay mad for at least a couple days this time. Nevermind that he already wanted to hold him and comfort him. Egon looked shattered. Ray would cave immediately if he didn't run away right now.
So Ray stormed out in a huff. Drove all the way to Winston's place over the state line. Stayed for two days. Cried a lot. Kept Winston and Tiyah up half the night talking it out. The third day, he called home but it just rang and rang. In a panic, he'd jumped back in his car and sped back to New York.
He'd found Egon and all of their old ghost busting equipment gone.
Ray had only wanted Egon to leave their apartment for a couple days, to give Ray space to process this astounding new information. Ray wanted time to reregulate and get some perspective. He hadn't meant that he'd wanted Egon gone for good. Not forever. Not like this.
But Egon had taken him literally and left. No one heard from him for two years.
Ray was heartbroken. He never recovered. Never dated anyone else. If Egon, his soulmate, the only person who'd ever truly known him, had deceived him that way, how could he trust anyone again? Stantz closed up. Hardened. Went through life mostly alone.
Until now.
Now Ray is living with a ghost husband in his apartment, an Egon who doesn't talk, who just fills the place with a silent, intelligent presence. It isn't all that different from when he was alive, actually. A looming, sentient force that quietly keeps Ray company while he bustles around the shop. It's familiar. Comfortable. Ray feels happier than he has in many long, lonely years.
Now Dr. Raymond Stantz just has to make amends to Callie, earn the trust of Phoebe and Trevor, and become a Scientist and Ghostbuster once more. Then, he'll save the world.
Ever notice characters can get away with doing the gayest stuff with their "bestie" character, just so long as they do one straight-ish thing, every once in awhile? If they show the audience they're also mildly interested in the "opposite sex", because of bi erasure, their obvious attraction to their best friend goes right over people's gaydar?
Spock and Kirk are the classic example, of course. They can literally weep for the other, grab each other and roll around, gaze longingly at each other, die for each other, grow old together...so long as they also quirk an eyebrow at a lady alien once in a while.
In Ghostbusters, just as long as Janine flirts with Egon twice, it's perfectly fine that Venkman flirts with Egon and Ray constantly. Meanwhile, Ray and Egon are full on science husbands. Please.
So many examples. LOTR, Samwise is forced to dance one jig with Rosie at a party, and then, "Sam loves Frodo like a brother." Sure, he does, bro. I clutch my bestie to my chest every night.
Just like in Star Wars, that single, little, pale smooch from Rose, obviously erased the desperate way Poe and Finn looked at each other exactly ONE MILLION TIMES before that kiss.
What about Maria in Captain Marvel? Before Carol Danvers was kidnapped by the Kree, she and Maria were obviously living a life and raising her little girl together. But they can't have been girlfriends, because Maria's a mom? Y'all. Maria Rambeau is bi. It was the 90s and Don't Ask Don't Tell, she doesn't say it aloud because if she did, she might not ever fly again.
Loki and Mobius can't be canon because Mobius is a Dad? Um. What? No. You're right, those two are completely chill and straight about each other, my bad.
Deadpool & Wolverine is perhaps the most recent, egregious example. The pitiful Vanessa/Wade handpat at the end, does not a straight Wade make, my friends, not when the whole dang movie is a say gex metaphor. That movie is Pan like the Multiverse Herself.
The first time I ever noticed this bi blindness was watching the animated movie, The Road to El Dorado. Ha! Anyone, else? (Note: that movie is colonizer propaganda trash. It does not pass the vibe check.) Miguel and Tulio are a couple. Full on. They are also attracted to Chel, because CHEL. Omg, Chel is so beautiful. Miguel and Tulio are wildly jealous, obsessed with each other, and every thing they do with Chel, is actually a performance for each other. (Justice for Chel.) My young mind could not handle the throuple vibes with that movie!
I am sure you can think of other examples.
Anyhoo. I love it and hate it. I thoroughly enjoy the amount of bi flirting that gets passed off as witty buddy banter by studio execs, I do. But. I don't know that I love getting away with it, because it also makes me feel invisible?
Romance writer discourse has been encouraging us to include in our mlm stories, the real life issues that effect men who love men. How do we in the mlm Ghostbusters fandom answer the call? (All puns intended.)
Now, where I live, we are facing a pivot point. Our right to love who we love, our right to basic human bodily autonomy, and our right to write and distribute fanfiction and erotica, are all being taken way. Project 2025 wants to criminalize and prosecute smut writers, did you know?
So, let's nerd out together real quick? Come with me, as I consider the Ghostbusters timeline in LGTBQAI+ history-
Until 1973 when it was removed from the DSM, bisexuality and homosexuality were considered a mental disorder. Ray would have been 21 and Egon would have been 29. That means, all through childhood, puberty, and early adulthood, Ray and Egon may have thought of themselves as mentally ill or medically disordered.
Or maybe not?
Maybe young Stantzler were hip to the work of our Autistic and bisexual forefather, the real life scientist Dr. Alfred Kinsey (a man who shared Egon's stature and hairdo, oddly enough), who collected and published incredible data on sexuality. Kinsey was wild and I feel like Egon would have loved his work.
Maybe Egon and Ray had access to gay and bi community in 70s and 80s New York City? There was a queer cultural awakening already decades underway. The actors, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, were both in touch with that. There were openly gay and bi people involved in SNL from the beginning. Whatever his political affiliation today, Dan made a beautiful speech as Elwood Blues in the Blues Brothers (1981) that I believe exemplified his belief that people should be free to love whoever they love.
In 1981, the first reports of AIDS (then called GRID) began to appear in New York medical circles, reported by the few doctors that would treat openly gay men. Ghostbusters takes place in 1984. Ghostbusters II is set at the boiling point of the international health crisis, 1989. Ray and Egon would have lost friends to the disease.
"Don't Ask Don't Tell" and other laws, banned openly gay people from serving in the US military. Military discrimination "ended" in 2011. Ray and Egon would have been 59 and 68.
Same sex marriage was not legalized in all 50 states until 2015. The characters would have been 63 and 72 years old. By then in real life, Harold Ramis, the actor behind Egon Spengler, did not live to see legal gay marriage across the US. He died the year before.
Until 2020, in the United States, people could legally be fired, refused service or care, for being LGTBQAI+, in more than half the 50 states. 2020 being the year of Ghostbusters Afterlife.
Many fans feel Egon and Ray are Autistic icons. Dan Aykroyd is Autistic. I am Autistic. The Disabled Marriage Equality Act has been in legislation since 2022, and as of this writing has not yet been passed and enforced. Ray and Egon would not have had any Autism or ADHD accomodations in their personal and professional lives. Unsupported and stigmatized neurodivergence would be a part of their story.
Further, I must quickly acknowledge this blog isn't even getting into what Winston Zeddemore faced as the only Black Ghostbuster during the Stop and Frisk period in New York history, or the dawn of the Crack Epidemic. Nor am I addressing Janine Melnitz's experience as the only woman. These are also issues for community consideration. For brevity's sake, I will stick to the LGTBQAI+ History, for now.
So, how do I personally handle these issues? I don't write Ray or Egon themselves as homophobic characters, but I do write some trauma from past homophobic encounters into their backstories. My versions of Winston and Peter don't give them hate for their crushes on each other, even though Peter says some homophobic quips in the movies. I think it's fun to let Peter Venkman evolve. He's become my favorite Stantzler shipper, actually.
Sometimes, in the name of pure fantasy fluff, I leave period typical homophobia, oppression, and politics out. Other times, I think fanfic is an excellent vessel to gently explore deeper issues, like human rights, history and trauma. Sometimes my stories are more obviously political. I always explore Neurodiverse Romantic Relationships and Neuroqueerness, either subtly or overtly.
How does it land with my readers? In the Ghostbusters fandom and others I write for, my pure fluff stories are WAY more popular.
Yes, there is a need for escapism. Especially during scary times.
But.
Do we see that escape and fantasy are privileges, and other writers/readers will never escape oppression, not even in their mental play spaces? Are we demanding that mlm characters and storylines reflect only our own privileged and oblivious reality? Are we fetishizing the gay and bi male body by removing reality and history from mlm romance?
As fic writers, we can choose to imagine a Ghostbusters universe without these issues, of course. But in 1980s reality, discrimination, repression and struggle would definitely have been part of the Stantzler love story. Public image for the Ghostbusters would have demanded secrecy. Ray and Egon would have been forced into the closet, professionally if not personally.
Perhaps, we few writers in this tiny Stantzler fandom, should consider these issues in our plot and world building?
Our silly little smut stories have power. That's why they want to take them away. So, I challenge us all, in all fandoms, to write as radically as we can, to be as loud and as sexy as we can, while we still can. Smut is subversive and political, by nature.
Just in case: Download and bank your favorite stories. Save them off your computer on a harddrive or zipdrive. Print 'em out and bind them.
Peter Venkman has a lifelong crush on Ray Stantz and it will always show up in my work.
Our sassy Venkman lives to flirt with Ray, especially in front of Egon. So, how come I never write them as an Egon/Ray/Peter throuple?
I do have a reason. (Of course, I do. Internal eyeroll at my obsessed self.)
I don't ship them because of Egon's intense, monotropic obsession with Ray, and his extreme sense of justice. Extreme, you say? Egon's the Ghostbuster who- builds a highly illegal proton accelerator to wear on his back, looks directly into the trap, suggests crossing the streams, keeps his child a secret, builds the gunner seat into Ecto1, fights the return of Gozer alone for 25 years.
Do not f with Spengs, is what I'm saying here. His protective instinct is unearthly. It literally continues after his body's death. Our man is Devoted.
We all know Peter's gonna Peter.
Basically, I fear that if they slept with him, when Peter inevitably hurt the tenderhearted Ray, Egon would stage a proton pack "accident" and murder Venkman's ass. Spike his coffee with deadly fungus. He'd be all- "Oops, Raymond, an escaped ghost threw Venkman off the firehouse roof. How unfortunate."
I think that because they truly love Peter, Ray and Egon don't sleep with him. That way, Venkman can be himself. Without the risk of deadly fungus spores in his spaghetti.
(Side note: It's this very aspect of Peter that draws him to Peck, by the way. They throw themselves at each other like grenades. Ray, Egon and Winston must have been so relieved between the Peckman divorces, when those two would be aimed at each other for a time. Imagine the science they got up to without Peck and Venks's botheration.)
We were in the middle of a giant life transition, therefore, I had to watch a Ghostbusters movie 3x a week. Watching GB1984 (my favorite) one night, I was making lust-tinged comments to my spouse about Egon and Ray, as I am want to do. Because I am AuDHD and watch all movies with a phone in my hand, I "jokingly" searched for Ray/Egon fics online...and then proceeded to read 300 fics over a very, very short time.
Then, we moved to a new city, in the dead of winter, knowing no one but each other. Nothing else to do, I started writing the stories I wanted to read. I wrote two novellas about Ray/Egon and a dozen short stories! And I started looking at the world through fan fic eyes- ships everywhere!! I wrote about Din/Luke, Finn/Poe, Loki/Mobius, Kirk/Spock, Carol/Monica, Han/Leia, Han/Lando, Rose/Rey, John/Sherlock, and Wade/Logan.
It's incredibly silly, but reading and writing these smutty little romances helped me through one of the most challenging years of my life. And it's helped me grow as a writer and creative. I'm still processing it.
I'm a hyper verbal AuDHDer with hyperfantasia. Meaning I talk about, think about, and imagine my special interests with an intensity that other people do not always enjoy. Especially as one of my special interests is a movie that came out in 1984, and my theory that two characters in it are secretly in love. 🤣👻♥️ To have a place to put this part of myself to work, has been great.
I wrote while I cooked, while I rode in the car or waited in line. I wrote when I shoulda been sleeping. Somehow, in a year, I wrote 362,726 words. (And Spouse proof read so many of them! Thank you!!!!) 86,000+ reads total, as of right now, every one of them = a joy in my heart. And a couple thousand people saved my stories to read again. I am so honored. I even did a Kinktober challenge, which will have to be it's own blog post, I learned so much.
It's a wild accomplishment, that I can't tell anyone in real life about. So I thought I'd share this milestone here with you. And say, thank you so very much for reading. You helped me make it through.
