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"I knew Buck, and the only way you could get anything from him was to bully him. I guess that's why Dallas could handle him so easily, although Buck was in his mid-twenties and Dally was seventeen.”

I’m sorry but Ponyboy must have looked like such a pathetic wet cat in that moment. A fourteen-year-old kid who’s small for his age, shivering and soaking wet in a threadbare sweatshirt, probably looking terrified and white as a sheet. I’m sure he looked like a real bully. Buck probably felt sorry for him.

This lends even more credence to the fandom headcanon of “Buck isn’t really bullied by Dally, he just has a soft spot for him.”

Buck was probably like, “::sigh:: it’s Dally’s buddies, tryin to act all tough like him, only these kids are even younger and scrawnier. Might as well turn this place into a goddamn orphanage, lord almighty.”

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Steve is so underrated. If you look beyond Pony’s negative framing of him and his prickly exterior (which is basically just him being a normal teenage boy), the facts of his life point to him being a really good person - a much better and more stable person than he’s given credit for being.

He balances school and a part time job. He’s been a ride-or-die best friend to Soda since grade school. He’s the only one with a steady girlfriend from start to finish, with no drama that we know of. His trouble with the law is fairly minor compared to a lot of his peers, and he doesn’t have any substance issues. All this despite having an abusive father and an unstable home life. He’s loyal and dependable and hardworking and clever and loving - in his own subtle, stealthy way.

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darry canonically checking over pony’s math homework is so sweet, but it’s so overlooked. like darry comes home every day after working long hours and he’ll still always stops to make sure pony’s homework is done correctly and thoroughly. if it’s not, he explains why it’s not, even if he’s a bit too harsh sometimes. he explains it in a way that makes sense to him, and he tries to adapt to pony’s learning style too. at the end of the day, darry still helps pony in any way he can despite his own exhaustion, and pony makes good marks in school, and darry watches him proudly.

they’re so sweet guys i can’t

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johnny "takes the spider outside and gently lets it go" cade vs dallas "shrieks and threatens to burn the house down" winston

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"i hate fics where-" then don't read them! hope this helps xx

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you need to understand that i have two sets of headcanons. there's the set of realistic headcanons based on my genuine reading of the show, and then there's me playing pretend with my dolls.

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hey so jordan just posted this and i think a lot of ppl need a reminder about what this song rly is.

“instead of tiki torches, they have flashlights. the violence socs exhibit is inspired by real life events where people were killed.” read that again for me yeah?

like we can have fun and make aus and headcanons and all that but. don’t forget where shit comes from. okay? thanks.

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darry is a d1 ragebaiter and pony falls for it every time. like he’ll ignore ponyboy asking him something about when dinner’s gonna be ready for like fifteen minutes, and pony’s getting louder and louder until he’s practically screaming in his face and darry just looks over with this bored expression all “you don’t have to shout, pone. i heard you the first time” and pony’s over here screeching about “IF YOU HEARD ME WHY DIDNT YOU ANSWER” and darry just shrugs and mumbles something about “i just didn’t feel like it.” or darry does something annoying like..i dunno chewing too loud and pony asks him to stop, darry only starts to do it louder because telling darry to stop doing something annoying ALWAYS works in your favor…uh huh. however, darry’s most favorite thing to do though is to call pony the wrong age. or he introduces him to people as “my baby brother”. pony’s over here growling like a dog because “i ain’t a baby, darry wouldja stop introducin’ me to your coworkers like that 😡”. and ‘I’M NOT TWELVE GODDAMNIT IM FOURTEEN!”. and darry just shrugs and smirks, ruffling his hair and telling him “eh, could’ve had me fooled. y’know, with your height ‘n all” and pony gets SO pissed.

darry loves pony to bits and would travel to the ends of the earth to make him happy…but god, is it funny to see pony get mad sometimes.

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That adds a whole new layer to the lyric “the greasers crossed a line” when it was literally the Socs.

hm. there’s something about bob physically drawing a line for two-bit to step up to at the drive-in and then later when dally’s being assaulted by the cop he says “ask the socs why the line got crossed”.

this is a drawn line created by the socs, their rules so their choice of punishment (jumping two-bit, pointing the finger at all greasers so that dally gets jumped by that cop)

mind you two-bit only ever stepped up to the socs’ line. he didn’t cross it physically in that scene, bob did when he went to run at two himself. and yet who gets punished anyway. the line only gets crossed by johnny and pony at the fountain because bob crossed his own first.

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darry who terrifies almost every person he’s near. his nickname back in high school was “brutus”. he wasn’t quite top dog material—he was still a greaser. but he was a hulking, 6’2’’ mountain of muscles with resting bitch face so bad he could scare a black bear, on the football team, was well liked around school….he was a pretty intimidating guy. he kbew that soda and pony got picked on at school quite a bit—sodapop for being dubbed “the dumb kid” and ponyboy for being a little more eccentric and artsy. that along with being greasers, it made them easy targets. darry wouldn’t tolerate that though. he scared every single bully off, has broken more noses than he could count after school hours so they technically couldn’t suspend him, has busted his knuckles for the sake of his brothers…sure, he was boy of the year. he was genuinely a nice kid who had a lot of ambition and was respected by both greasers and socs alike. but deep down, he knew there was no way he was going to make it to college due to his financial situation. he didn’t value that much at all. he was feared by many of the worst bullies at school. they knew better than to target pony and soda. not if they valued their teeth and pretty faces.

however, outside of that, darry is gentle with his brothers. he play wrestles with them when they need to let some steam off. he welcomes them into his room with open arms to snuggle if they’ve had a nightmare and really need him. yeah, he’s stern, but he cares more than words can even say. he would let them play with his toys when they were younger, read his comic books…he’d give them piggyback rides around the yard when they wanted him to. he would help sodapop with his homework and would calm him down when he got really frustrated. he would try to draw with ponyboy in order to connect more with ponyboy. he could be a jerk sometimes—all older brothers can be jerks sometimes. but when push comes to shove, he’s gentle with them. they need him now more than ever, and he’d be damned if he let them think he didn’t love them. even if he grew gruffer in the past months, he still tries to be gentle.

darry goes from black bear at school to teddy bear with his brothers in an instant.

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Two-Bit: “we should all use code names. You will address me as Eagle One. Kathy: code name ‘Been There Done That.’ Marcia: code name ‘Currently Doin That.’ Cherry: code name ‘It Happened Once in a Dream.’ Soda: code name ‘If I Had to Pick A Dude.’ Darry: code name…..Eagle Two.”

Darry: “oh thank god.”

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them! ☀️

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I’m imagining Ponyboy doing various kind, considerate things and generally being a sweetheart while drilling himself in mantras about how you should get tough and cold and mean and harden yourself to the world.

“Get tough and you don’t get hurt” ::picks up broken glass from his makeshift weapon and puts it in the trash::

“Don’t go sticking your neck out for anyone” ::returns shopping cart::

“Look mean so no one messes with you” ::walks an old lady across the street and blushes when she pinches his cheek and calls him such a nice young man::

“Don’t count on anyone but yourself” ::squeezes Darry’s hand while getting a shot at the doctor’s office::

“Never let anyone get too close to you” :: closeup on Ponyboy sitting in the dark, the shot widens to show that he’s squished between his brothers on the couch watching tv, his blank expression disappears as they all laugh at a funny scene::

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pony loving his brothers so much is everything to me. they call him baby and honey and tuck him in and carry him and make sure his okay and check his grades and share a bed with him. they all love each other so much.

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Dally and Johnny as parallels to Darry and Soda, with Ponyboy as the youngest of both trios.

Darry/Dally: the eldest, who Pony starts out disliking and considers cold and hard and unfeeling. He’s blind to their love for him despite the great lengths they go to for him, because they show love through actions and aren’t good at expressing their feelings. He thinks both of them only love the middle one of the trio. Both have uncharacteristic displays of emotion that stun Ponyboy, prompting him to consider their perspectives for the first time. Both scold him for not wearing a coat.

Soda/Johnny: the middle one who Pony adores to the point of idealization. Both are better at expressing feelings and emotional support in a way that Ponyboy responds to. Both are people around whom Pony feels like he can drop his guard and be himself. Both are sweethearts, but tougher than they appear. Neither are book-smart, and despite Pony’s affection for them, he’s kind of condescending about it. Pony starts out with a somewhat one dimensional view of both of them. Both try to get Pony to see the good in the eldest, and he doesn’t believe them at first, until he finally sees the truth of it for himself.

Their deaths can be seen as physical manifestations of Darry and Soda too. Pony realizes at the hospital that Darry’s greatest fear is losing him, and Dally gets himself killed because he loses the person he loves most. Johnny sacrifices his life saving others, much like Soda gives so much to his brothers at his own expense.

Dally and Johnny are a warning to Pony not to make the same mistakes with his brothers. Don’t wait until it’s too late before you repair your relationship with them, before you see them for who they really are; before you realize how much Darry loves you, before Soda sacrifices too much of himself. Don’t wait until it’s too late before you appreciate that against all odds, you and your brothers are all alive and together and love each other and have been given a second chance. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your story is all about death and grief. It’s about noticing what has risen from the ashes, making the most of what you have left, nurturing that which can still be brought back to life.

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what do you think cherry thought of bob’s parents and his relationship with them? i know in the book we get randy’s perspective but he probaby confided even more to her

He probably did confide more in Cherry, because it was more socially acceptable for a boy to talk about his feelings with his girlfriend than with his male friend. Randy’s assessment of Bob’s parents probably came from observing them over so many years rather than what Bob actually told him.

I imagine Cherry’s perspective was similar to Randy’s, that Bob’s parents are overly indulgent and neglectful. Probably a lot of Soc parents are like that, possibly including her own, although the book and movie don’t give us any insight into her parents. We know that she notices the unhealthy norms in Soc circles, even if she doesn’t know how to fully break from it herself, so she would probably notice the dysfunction in Bob’s family.

I don’t think Bob would say “I wish my parents would say no to me.” I think that he felt that way, but it’s unlikely he was even consciously aware of it, and even if he was he never would have said something like that out loud. He probably bragged about it. “My folks never say no to me, I can get away with anything!” But maybe he would tell Cherry little things like “as long as I make them look good, they don’t care what I do” or “sometimes I wonder if the only reason they never get mad at me is cuz the booze and pills they take keep them too happy.”

Cherry would see the effect of Bob’s parents on him, and that would contribute to her empathy for him, and/or her making excuses for his behavior, depending on how you see it.

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dallas and darrel as jack (dallas) and david (darrel) is now stuck in my head

Sorry but Dally is not a strike leader 😆 he goes to the strike rallies and picks the pockets of the more well-to-do onlookers.