the dead poets during finals week: a very appropriate headcanon
author's note: HEY BESTIES LOOK WHO FINALLY DECIDED TO WRITE ANOTHER HC!!!! i'm on a semi-hiatus because of school but thanksgiving break is coming up (and now that i've learned the actual origins of thanksgiving jesus CHRIST do i feel no bueno for celebrating it) so I will have more time for writing and stuff! i'll get chapter one of my laurie fic up on my @nightofthelivingdreamer account and possibly start writing house md hc's? how do we feel about those? anyways, ENJOY, i missed you all <3
neil: okay so we know neil, happy sweet adorable ball of sunshine that is always a joy to be around...but we also know neil's father. neil's dad expects SO MUCH out of neil grade wise that neil literally becomes an autonomous drone during finals week. he is running on coffee and spite and no he's not going to suddenly stop talking to everyone (especially todd), but he's not going to be the most outgoing person ever. occasionally he'll make comments like "i would much rather be stabbed in the eye with a butter knife than be studying this right now" and make everyone laugh. after finals are over? all that happy adrenaline that he suppressed for a whole WEEK comes rushing back and TADA HAPPY NEIL IS BACK AND HE HAS TO MAKE UP A WHOLE WEEK OF FESTIVITIES.
todd: todd is stressed <3 he, like neil, has the whole parent factor going on, but that stress really comes from himself. he remembers how well his brother did on finals n stuff that he's set himself up to a very high standard. and yeah, it's stressful. he's more quiet than usual (and charlie's like wh i didn't even know that was possible) and more reserved, and is more often found in the library, studying alone rather than with the group, but he has this system where he studies for like half an hour and then spends ten minutes writing poetry, and it kinda works for him? like his brain is so active that the poetry kinda turns out to be alright? it's a weird byproduct of the stress but he's not complaing :)
meeks: oh god meeks is like a war veteran who has seen SO MANY FINALS in his days that he is 100% prepared three months in advance and has a big ol master plan about how he's going to get amazing grades on EVERY SINGLE DAMN TEST. he's got together a study group for each subject, as well as a schedule for when they all meet. with the groups he's more vocal, asking questions and helping as many people that he can, and when studying alone he becomes so focused and concentrated that the poets would have to say his name a couple times really loudly before he even noticed someone else was in the room.
cameron: see cameron is like meeks, but wayyyyyy more stressed. he's the same amount of prepared but thinks he's way less prepared, which causes him to go into a cautious scramble trying to be way more prepared than he is, even though he's already prepared well enough. i feel like his parents would say the same thing mine do, which is "you're either overprepared or you're not prepared", which literally inflicts terror on me as it would richard. so he is in a frantic state of study study study study that he will not be out of for at least a solid two days after finals are over.
pitts: pitts is so zen about this shit. sure, he's a bit stressed, but so is everyone else. he's normalized the stress and realized that everyone else is just as terrified as him, and that literally makes all the difference. he tags along to meeks' study groups, but he's less vocal. he works on stuff on his own, but he's not super mega focused on it. he's just going with the flow and using whatever study techniques have worked for him in the past, and you know what? it works! he gets high B's and low A's on all of his finals and feels good about it! after finals he doesn't have some outpouring of relief or energy, because he just kinda...chilled through the entire process, and now he can continue to do that but in all other aspects of life. anyways that's why pitts is my favorite thank you for coming to my ted talk MOVING ON
charlie: do i...do i have to explain. seriously. sir charles doesn't give a flying fuck what the school board has to say about him and his learning experiences, especially not when the come in the form of a lil NUMBER. he thinks the whole system is arbitrary and treats it as such. he sits in on study groups but he's wearing sunglasses and playing bongos the entire time. and if someone asks him what he's doing or tells him to stop, he tells them that he's "contacting higher beings and humbly asking them to bestow their infinite knowledge on him for the test". and does this work? this bitch passes everything with the BARE MINIMUM. and when i say BARE MINIMUM, i mean BARE MINIMUM. the minimum is so bare that if he had forgotten to put his NAME on any of the tests he would have failed them. but is he mad about it? absolutely not, that is a cause that must be celebrated. he's truly shown "how dumb can i be without being not smart?" and all of its limitations. everyone's oddly proud of him. so am i.
knox: oh god this bitch is so stressed. he is SO STRESSED. and he never learned how to manage that type of stress so now he is stressed all the time and cannot do a thing to stop it. he's studying but he's not really retaining the information? he's really studying to study. of course the other poets see this and yogi master pitts takes knox under his wing to show him that study does not always equal stress. knox does not understand. knox sits in the back of the study groups pitts dragged him to with his knees tucked up to his chest, frantically trying to figure out whats going on. he ends up getting decent grades, but the mental trauma he has just gone through allows him approximately no relief. it's very "hey, how did finals go, knox?" "leave me alone don't say that word i will k word everyone in this room." typa beat.
chris: chris studies by helping other people study. its her thing. and everyone at the school knows this by now, so it's like every day that a sobbing freshman comes to her, asking for her help, and chris literally cannot stop herself from spontaneously becoming a teacher in every class in order to help them. before she knows it she has a line of younger (and older) students asking her for help. she barely gets time to study for her own finals, but she studied so hard for everyone else's that she passes all of her own with flying colors. stan mom chris because i love her more than words can say honestly.
ginny: ginny is probably most comparable to meeks in that she has seen it all when it comes to studying. she's just a lot more intense. she's a font of random knowledge that never really goes away, so when studying, she focuses mostly on jamming every bit of knowledge into her head because she knows it'll stay there. this results in a lot of pacing and muttering to herself, as well as giant stacks of flashcards for every subject. it sorta looks like a cult ritual, but it works so well that chris starts telling all the kids she's helping to study about it, and suddenly the halls are filled with kids holding stacks of flashcards in their hands, muttering as they walk. it is actually terrifying but the school average goes up, so no one really questions it.
chet: okay we know my man chet does everything with his reputation in mind. he's got football to worry about and blah blah blah basically he has to pretend that he doesn't give a shit about these finals. but omg guys...he does. he cares so much. he is being tutored by chris and ginny in every subject there is. he has flashcards falling out of his backpack. and he will not STOP until he can understand what the hell is going on in chemistry class. he passes with a range of A's and maybe one B (most likely chemistry) and he is SO PROUD. and every time one of his football buddies asks how he did, he probably says something like "yeah, i flunked every single one." and gets cheered on, but inside he is SO PROUD OF HOW HE DID and that's really all i need in life love u chet <3
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