no hard feelings, huh? 🏳️🌈🥡🦇❤️⭐🥡🏳️🌈 just a side blog for lb shit. meta, analysis, fanart, fic, etc. not an rp blog, but I'll play along with the bit if you bring it to my door. i don't offend easy, but if you're an asshole (terf, racist, fascist, etc) you can fuck right off, or risk getting your face eaten like those surf nazis.
(in which I have contrived a reason for David and Michael to actually TALK and, in David's case, stop LYING so much. Set after the beach massacre and Star's visit, but before Sam and the Frogs attack the cave. Movie versions in mind, but feel free to imagine whatever voices you prefer.)
*
“What did you want with me?”
“In the beginning?” David taps the ash off of his smoke, watches it disappear down the cliffside. “Just first blood for Star.”
Michael nods. Don't ask a question you don't already know the answer to, right? “That's what she said, yeah.”
A single eyebrow raised in what is, for a flicker of a moment, genuine surprise. “Really. She's pretty desperate to keep you on her side, isn't she.”
“She wants out.”
“I know.”
“So do I.”
“I know.” A pause, as David regards the cigarette in his hand, watches the flame eat it away in real-time. “Shame there's no way for that to happen.”
“A shame, huh?” Michael asks through a tight throat; he doesn't buy it, isn't hiding that fact. Never a vampire made that could feel regret. “I'm sure you feel really bad about it.”
“Feel bad? No. Could it have been a mistake?” A sharp inhale against the bluffside wind. When David speaks again, it's quiet enough that that wind just about swallows it up; if he had human ears, Michael could never have made it out. “I picked her because she was special. Doesn't mean she's actually cut out for this, and it's no fun watching her time run out. But the blood is a one way door, Michael. Even if you're stuck at the threshold for a while—only way out is through.”
Michael feels his stomach drop. He'd guessed, he'd assumed, but… “You're sure?”
“Feed or starve.” David flicks the remainder of the cigarette off the cliff, not bothering to watch it fall this time. “That's the only choice you get, but even that's fake. If you don't choose right, the blood will choose for you.”
A deep breath; Michael may not need it as often as before, but the salt air stings in his lungs and it's the best kind of burn. Down at the bottom of the bluff, the water crashes mindlessly against the shore. He remembers hearing somewhere that the ocean has killed more people than anything else—that it holds more graves than any cemetery.
The sea doesn't care. It doesn't hate you or love you, it just kills you because you're there, because you're in its way or you didn't have enough respect or it decided it loved your lungs the way air loves a vacuum. Nothing personal.
Anything—anyone—can be a killer, in the right situation.
David’s hair kicks around in the wind. He is a wave, a riptide, an undertow. He takes and doesn't care. He made the choice he made because there is no choice. And Michael is going to watch his own compassion and humanity burn up inside until all he'll know how to do is rip people's ankles out from under them, too. All he'll know how to do is take.
“The fuck was the point of last night, then?” he asks abruptly, explosively. If the choice would eventually make itself, why the spectacle, why the rush? Why not just let it happen when it happens?
David shrugs. “Tradition?” It's a garbage reason and Michael can tell he barely means it. “I don't know what you want me to tell you, Michael. First blood is… a lot. Better if it's a stranger, even better if it's an asshole.”
“One to talk.”
A sharp, wordless laugh.
Better if it's a stranger. Michael had not even considered the alternative, that his timer might run out when he's at the house, or… and oh fuck, what the fuck. “Are you telling me that you had a murder orgy in front of me to keep me from killing my family?”
“You would have been fucking unbearable with your kid brother's blood on your teeth.” David somehow manages to make it sound like he's been wronged, so very inconvenienced. “So. Yes. it was meant to be… enticing.”
“It was traumatizing.”
“All you can eat buffet,” David continues on, as if Michael hasn't said anything. “Like the smell of bread baking. Tell me, Michael: am I wrong?”
Michael actually does say nothing this time. The fuck can he say to that? He'd almost chewed his own knuckle off once the smell of blood hit the air. He'd never wanted anything so much—not anything.
The memory makes him feel flushed, feverish. Their faces are inches apart, and David doesn't seem to know any way to smile except with his teeth.
Then David breaks off, somehow making it feel like he's still in control, that he's not the one giving in. “Anyway. That's your life, now. No point sugar coating it.”
That's… fair, in a way. Michael watches a spot in the distance, a mote of something floating briefly into the path of the lighthouse’s beam—flaring and then dying as the light moves on. The new sharpness to his vision startles him sometimes; he'd caught himself reading Sam's comic book from across the living room the other day. “So you wanted her to eat me.”
“Mmhm.”
“And she wanted to eat me.”
David lifts one gloved hand into the air, wobbles it back and forth, noncommittal.
Can we talk about this? Please? Because I know it's been discussed before but I'm sorry, I just cannot with this scene, it is SO UNABASHEDLY SEXUAL.
And there are two different levels to it? There's the coding/metaphors, and then there is what is actually right there in the text. Blathering under the cut.
Like in terms of metaphors and interpretation, I've seen other posts discussing how the bottle exchange is a stand-in for oral sex, and I vibe with that--that style of bottle is inherently really phallic, sure, and there's so much lingering over, and sexualization of, the act of drinking from it. And like. The entire point of it, the entire goal, is to get Michael to take the blood into himself--to swallow down something of David's.* Like. This isn't even a metaphor, it's straightforward consumption of bodily fluids. "But it's just blood, not--" and this was the 80s, babes, people were terrified of blood and it was very much associated with sex. Vampiric blood drinking has always been about sex on some level, but never more so than in the 80s because of that extra layer of stigma and fear.
But then there's like. This other level, that emerges from how Keifer chose to play the scene and how the camera decided to frame it. He could have just handed Michael the bottle, bullied him into drinking it, used peer pressure because if there's something Michael responds to, it's peer pressure. That would have been in line with the hazing, with him agreeing to race them in the first place. He could have played it with more distance, an invitation to join the group at the level of the group. It would have worked fine.
Instead, it is this extremely intimate interaction. He drinks from the bottle himself first, with closed eyes and a shudder that can absolutely be read as sexual, and then opens his eyes and gazes up at Michael through his lashes like a textbook seduction act. Before offering the bottle that was just touching his lips--no plausible deniability there, Michael saw it happen. And the camera is so, so close to David's face. It's saying: No one else exists, no one else matters. Star and the rest of the boys are forgotten for these few seconds. He says "be one of us" but what he means is "join me." This isn't hazing, it isn't even really pressure exactly; the boys will start in with the chanting in a moment, but for now, there's no pushing. He has just constructed this charged, intimate situation and put out his hand to Michael to say "share this moment with me. watch me break a tiny bit, watch me let you see it, let me offer it to you and put your mouth where mine was and make me a part of you and join me."
That's not a metaphor. That's not coding. That's text. David deliberately chooses to inject that intimate, erotic charge into the exchange. You don't have to interpret that charge into existence, it's simply there. This is, IMO, the moment where David makes it bluntly clear that he wants Michael, that he wants him like that, and that if this kind of intimacy is appealing, there's more than just blood and brotherhood on offer.
*Yes of course Max's blood is in the bottle too, but I genuinely do not see David being willing to turn people for Max without sneaking some of his own into the mix in order to maintain SOME level of control. IMO, the level of mental fuckery he was able to get up to with Michael later on strongly implies that yes, his blood was in there too. And at the point this scene plays out, we have no reason to suspect it's anything but 100% his, so the implications still stand.
it’s about being queer it’s about surviving assault it’s about alienation and most of all it’s about how everyone who loved you before might not be able to even look at you now, no matter how many times you try to explain that you didn’t ask to die and you didn’t ask for that death to leave you only half-eaten when it got bored of you.
This is without even mentioning the broader metaphorical implications of disease and contagion; foreign invasion; colonial or imperial violence; interpersonal abuse; generational trauma; religious trauma; violent cultural assimilation; repressed or suppressed desire; the fear of no longer being able to recognise or relate to someone you love; and on and on and on.
Vampirism is a flexible metaphor that reflects the anxieties and desires of its age and its authors, and I love that for it!
Often when I first show people this movie, I get a reaction to this:
Something along the lines of "dude why are you randomly lifting in the middle of unpacking." And those same people, when we get here:
Ask "WHY WOULD YOU GO DOWN THERE THAT'S SO STUPID".
Because. Because they clearly have done this before, have survived, obviously have a plan on how to get back up, and most importantly, because Michael has good reason (as established in the introduction sequence above) to trust in his own upper body strength. The thing with the barbell was put there to show you that! It's visual storytelling! He sees scrawny ass Marko down there and his teenage brain says "if they can do it so can you, because you're so strong! Because you lift!"
And then ofc they're. You know. Vampires. But I do not blame Michael for failing to anticipate that wrinkle. If they had been normal guys, his logic would have been sound, and the backup to his reasoning is shown right in the first ten minutes.
Come on, you look like you should be in a silly movie about teenagers using time travel to get out of doing their homework. It's endearing. And ain't no one sees it coming when you rip their face off, which has to be fun.
Often when I first show people this movie, I get a reaction to this:
Something along the lines of "dude why are you randomly lifting in the middle of unpacking." And those same people, when we get here:
Ask "WHY WOULD YOU GO DOWN THERE THAT'S SO STUPID".
Because. Because they clearly have done this before, have survived, obviously have a plan on how to get back up, and most importantly, because Michael has good reason (as established in the introduction sequence above) to trust in his own upper body strength. The thing with the barbell was put there to show you that! It's visual storytelling! He sees scrawny ass Marko down there and his teenage brain says "if they can do it so can you, because you're so strong! Because you lift!"
And then ofc they're. You know. Vampires. But I do not blame Michael for failing to anticipate that wrinkle. If they had been normal guys, his logic would have been sound, and the backup to his reasoning is shown right in the first ten minutes.
Often when I first show people this movie, I get a reaction to this:
Something along the lines of "dude why are you randomly lifting in the middle of unpacking." And those same people, when we get here:
Ask "WHY WOULD YOU GO DOWN THERE THAT'S SO STUPID".
Because. Because they clearly have done this before, have survived, obviously have a plan on how to get back up, and most importantly, because Michael has good reason (as established in the introduction sequence above) to trust in his own upper body strength. The thing with the barbell was put there to show you that! It's visual storytelling! He sees scrawny ass Marko down there and his teenage brain says "if they can do it so can you, because you're so strong! Because you lift!"
And then ofc they're. You know. Vampires. But I do not blame Michael for failing to anticipate that wrinkle. If they had been normal guys, his logic would have been sound, and the backup to his reasoning is shown right in the first ten minutes.
Spoilers for the Lost Boys movie if you haven't seen it yet.
So I want to dissect this scene for a second, and play with a possible alternate interpretation. Because the most common read of this scene is that Star is talking to Michael of her own accord and David swoops in out of jealousy or possessiveness, and this is given as evidence that it's Star they're both after. Heteronormative nonsense in my queer vampire movie?! I think fucking not. I mean, I fully understand why this is the kneejerk interpretation, because I hold that that's what David wants everyone else to think is going on. But I don't think that's actually what's happening.
Consider the events. Star initiates a conversation with Michael, who she and David both saw and acknowledged the night before (with identical flirty grins, mind), but haven't actually been introduced to yet. He takes the bait and follows her.
Cut to David and the boys smoking and watching her. Not acting - not moving to intervene. Just watching. Supervising, almost. Waiting.
Then Michael introduces himself, and a few seconds later they ride in and start some shit with him that looks a lot like basic "jealous boyfriend" nonsense.
But oddly, Star seems defensive and almost confused - like she hadn't expected them to make a scene like this, didn't expect them to actually stop her from going off with Michael. That's weird! I think that's weird. But ok, David is firm and the guys all have a chuckle about what they perceive as Michael making a sad attempt to stand up to David's territoriality.
Thing is, and I will die on this hill: unlike in the musical, David and Star in the movie have no romantic or sexual chemistry whatsoever. These few lines, here? Are literally the only words they speak directly to each other the entire film. And when the boys get back to the cave later to find Michael in bed with Star, there are no fucks given! David never brings it up! His only concern at that point is getting Michael to kill. Star is not part of the equation. In that context, the sudden possessiveness in this scene here doesn't make a lot of sense, unless it's there to cover something else.
Secondly, there's this protracted watch and wait while Star works Michael over. Calm, expectant, cool with it. Almost like they're watching over her as she goes off to make her first kill--I know this is explicitly what she is doing in the musical version of this scene, but in the movie it's left up to interpretation. Still, not exactly a groundbreaking read, I know. That isn't what's interesting. What's interesting is that they interrupt her, when she's ready to do it. Finally. Which we KNOW was what David wanted out of Star and Michael at some point in the story, though we don't know exactly when that changed.
So then why the interruption? Why stop her when she's finally on the verge of taking the last leap? Jealousy? Over a girl you're probably not even fucking? Seriously, David?
Yeah, no. Take a step back and look at the whole picture, understanding what's going on in the background. By this point, Max had met Lucy the night before and likely already gave David the instructions re: Michael and Sam Emerson. But they're just names to him--Max hasn't even seen them yet, so there's not even a description to go with the names.
Now look at the timing between when Michael gives his name to Star and when they swing into action-- it's just about how long it might take for David to process "new kid in town named Michael, looks about 18, shit, this is the kid Max told me to turn", and decide that he doesn't want Max to tear him a new one tonight because he let Star kill the kid. It's about the only thing that could make him jeopardize her first kill, honestly - the threat of Max's anger.
So he interrupts. He ignores Star's confusion. He redirects the flow of the encounter, changes the entire trajectory of Michael's story in intersection with theirs, because he has to. (Still took a real risk in driving Michael up to the edge of the cliff, but he could have been thinking that he had to at least test the kid a little, and if he died doing a stupid on his bike that wouldn't ostensibly be on David, who of course wasn't anywhere near the cliff that night!) (I could type a whole essay on what changed the moment Michael punched him, but that's for another post.)
And yeah, he pretends that it's all just jealous boyfriend shit, because the others don't know about Max (or at very least, Star doesn't) and don't know why the plan is suddenly changing. And he can't explain that to them. But hey, it's David, he's unpredictable, you never know what he's gonna do next. So they roll with it, and it never gets examined any more closely.
[seriously though, those are exactly the same expressions and they are both flirty af. that was an acting choice on Keifer's part and I love him for it.]
This is a really inspired read of the film. I had always seen it that David was using Star to get Michael for himself, but when you backtrack knowing the ending, this makes a lot of sense. I still don’t know if I agree David would have let her kill Michael if not for Max. Honestly I had always bought into Star seeing Michael as her way out, not a feed. But more than one thing can be true simultaneously. And dynamics shift over time.
EDIT: i wanted to add, the possibility of David deducing he is THE Michael closed a plot hole for me, so thank you for that!!!
Also, is it possible that when Star said David wanted Michael to be her first, that she was talking about BEFORE David knew who he was? Before David gave him the blood? And Star just never knew plans had changed because David didn’t tell her? Possibilities.
He would have had to trust she wouldn’t follow through later. But maybe he suspected all along she didn’t have it in her? She protects Laddie from the Frogs and comes at Max with the lamp, but we don’t see much violence in her. I think, a conscious choice.
Especially since I read I believe in the making-of book that they filmed a version of her confronting Michael after the bonfire massacre, where she had the vamp contacts in, but they decided not to use it.
Makes you wonder if the dialogue in that version was different, too, because unless her eyes shifted back human first, this whole exchange would likely have vibed a lot differently with a visual reminder she was also half vampire (beyond her arriving through the window— something more tangibly othering).
I absolutely think that the whole "you were supposed to be my first" originates in this part of the film. I think it's a little bit "she knows the plan changed but doesn't know why" and "she's implying that plan is still in place to add fuel to Michael resenting David, because she's trying to keep him on her side in that moment and he's super teetering on an edge". Like she knows that she wasn't supposed to kill him the night before, that plan had long since changed, but he's standing there angry at her and claiming to be "just like David now" and she needs to pivot his anger off of her or she's going to lose the one chance she has to escape this. Like you said, multiple things can be true at once--you can genuinely care about someone and also be manipulating them a little out of panic or desperation.
On that note, I don't really think she was seeing Michael as a way out when they first met, simply because she knew nothing about him. Likewise while David was clearly as attracted to him as Star was in a superficial way - those grins, "okay yeah you've got good taste, I'd fuck him" - all that generally accomplishes with vampires is getting you eaten first. Vampires don't keep every pretty person they find; mostly it's just a target on your back, unless you turn out to be special. I don't know that David actually wanted Michael for more than a convenient way to tempt Star (initially) or an obligation to Max until the punch on the cliff. That's when everything shifted, imo.
Spoilers for the Lost Boys movie if you haven't seen it yet.
So I want to dissect this scene for a second, and play with a possible alternate interpretation. Because the most common read of this scene is that Star is talking to Michael of her own accord and David swoops in out of jealousy or possessiveness, and this is given as evidence that it's Star they're both after. Heteronormative nonsense in my queer vampire movie?! I think fucking not. I mean, I fully understand why this is the kneejerk interpretation, because I hold that that's what David wants everyone else to think is going on. But I don't think that's actually what's happening.
Consider the events. Star initiates a conversation with Michael, who she and David both saw and acknowledged the night before (with identical flirty grins, mind), but haven't actually been introduced to yet. He takes the bait and follows her.
Cut to David and the boys smoking and watching her. Not acting - not moving to intervene. Just watching. Supervising, almost. Waiting.
Then Michael introduces himself, and a few seconds later they ride in and start some shit with him that looks a lot like basic "jealous boyfriend" nonsense.
But oddly, Star seems defensive and almost confused - like she hadn't expected them to make a scene like this, didn't expect them to actually stop her from going off with Michael. That's weird! I think that's weird. But ok, David is firm and the guys all have a chuckle about what they perceive as Michael making a sad attempt to stand up to David's territoriality.
Thing is, and I will die on this hill: unlike in the musical, David and Star in the movie have no romantic or sexual chemistry whatsoever. These few lines, here? Are literally the only words they speak directly to each other the entire film. And when the boys get back to the cave later to find Michael in bed with Star, there are no fucks given! David never brings it up! His only concern at that point is getting Michael to kill. Star is not part of the equation. In that context, the sudden possessiveness in this scene here doesn't make a lot of sense, unless it's there to cover something else.
Secondly, there's this protracted watch and wait while Star works Michael over. Calm, expectant, cool with it. Almost like they're watching over her as she goes off to make her first kill--I know this is explicitly what she is doing in the musical version of this scene, but in the movie it's left up to interpretation. Still, not exactly a groundbreaking read, I know. That isn't what's interesting. What's interesting is that they interrupt her, when she's ready to do it. Finally. Which we KNOW was what David wanted out of Star and Michael at some point in the story, though we don't know exactly when that changed.
So then why the interruption? Why stop her when she's finally on the verge of taking the last leap? Jealousy? Over a girl you're probably not even fucking? Seriously, David?
Yeah, no. Take a step back and look at the whole picture, understanding what's going on in the background. By this point, Max had met Lucy the night before and likely already gave David the instructions re: Michael and Sam Emerson. But they're just names to him--Max hasn't even seen them yet, so there's not even a description to go with the names.
Now look at the timing between when Michael gives his name to Star and when they swing into action-- it's just about how long it might take for David to process "new kid in town named Michael, looks about 18, shit, this is the kid Max told me to turn", and decide that he doesn't want Max to tear him a new one tonight because he let Star kill the kid. It's about the only thing that could make him jeopardize her first kill, honestly - the threat of Max's anger.
So he interrupts. He ignores Star's confusion. He redirects the flow of the encounter, changes the entire trajectory of Michael's story in intersection with theirs, because he has to. (Still took a real risk in driving Michael up to the edge of the cliff, but he could have been thinking that he had to at least test the kid a little, and if he died doing a stupid on his bike that wouldn't ostensibly be on David, who of course wasn't anywhere near the cliff that night!) (I could type a whole essay on what changed the moment Michael punched him, but that's for another post.)
And yeah, he pretends that it's all just jealous boyfriend shit, because the others don't know about Max (or at very least, Star doesn't) and don't know why the plan is suddenly changing. And he can't explain that to them. But hey, it's David, he's unpredictable, you never know what he's gonna do next. So they roll with it, and it never gets examined any more closely.
[seriously though, those are exactly the same expressions and they are both flirty af. that was an acting choice on Keifer's part and I love him for it.]
Anyway I haven't actually seen the musical yet (live across the country, have tickets for front center mezz AA in October though, just have to get a flight to NY arranged) but I've been living vicariously through everyone here and it's been a trip. Your collective proficiency with stunning gifsets has been literally saving my soul. Just. So you know. There are quiet fans who you all are feeding without realizing it and we owe you our freshly thawed, cold dead 80s hearts.
Hello to a very new community and a very old community, it is a wonderful time to be alive
Made this side blog so I could vomit up all my lost boys meta and theories without pissing off my main blog followers with my newest/oldest hyperfixation. Old school movie fan (I was wearing a hand made David earring in 1996; he was basically my entire gender before I really understood what that meant) who is VERY EXCITED about the musical and the new wave of fans; I'm an "awesome, two cakes!" kind of creature. The more queer vampires and confused michaels living rent free in all our heads the better 🤍♥️⭐
