okay heated rivalry question(s) for you.
shane hollander canonically watches a lot of movies. unclear how much he likes them, and unclear what type he gravitates toward
so my questions: does shane watch (a lot of) horror movies? does he like them? if yes, what does he like about watching them? what are his favourites? why?
ok so if I’m being honest with myself I don’t really think Shane is thinking that hard about the movies he watches, tbh. Probably he has normie taste, and just watches whatever’s new on the plane. He probably really liked Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy, yk? The blockbusters.
But listen! If this is my playground and I get to snap my fingers and make Shane a film bro, here’s what I’d do. In my world, he was a bit of a sensitive kid who was tormented by older boys who’d show him shit just to freak him out. Like most lurid, nasty, Martyrs (2008) Clockwork Orange (1971) type of movie. The first time he cried. After that he learned to shut the fuck up because that made it worse.
That doesn’t stop the torment, obviously, because they’re always working to reopen the first crack in his armor. I think they watch something with a big scary reputation which is actually more thinky than scary like the Exorcist and Shane is like huh. I feel something stirring within my chest. And then from there, whenever he can’t sleep at night or he’s freaking out about something, he self-soothes by thinking about being possessed by a demon that makes him piss and vomit and masturbate in front of the public and his mother. And then a kindly, tormented priest comes and exorcised the demon into himself and kills himself in front of Shane, and then Shane can go back to normal. And his mother still loves him and understands that the little episode wasn’t his fault.
the applications for this version of Shane’s feelings towards Ilya are left implicit as an exorcism for the reader.
