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Buck: “I’m thinkin about firing you.”

Dally: “you’ve fired me twice already tonight. I’m impervious.”

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Ponyboy who insists that Darry doesn’t love him even though he does, vs Johnny who insists that his parents love him even though they don’t.

(And Dally who tries to open both of their eyes. Dally who tries to tell Pony that Darry cares, and tries to tell Johnny that his parents don’t)

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a thing in RRB i also love as a detail is that the socs are singing one part, and the greasers are singing another EXCEPT darrel is singing the socs part too which i feel like must be a parto where pony was at mentally that darrel was also against him

Yes, I’ve seen people point that out!

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Things in the musical that I love. I’m sure everyone already pointed all of these out like a year ago, but whatever.

1) GGAH ends on a gospel sound, because its philosophy is literally their gospel

2) “great expectations” is in a major key, and “grave revelations” is in a minor key

3) ICTTYAL, “suddenly it seems…” it sounds like the next line will be the final line. Like the verse should end, “suddenly it seems, I could talk to you all night.” But then Cherry adds one more line. Then another. “I could talk to you for hours. But these hours go like minutes.” It mimics a conversation where you keep thinking of little things to add on just because you don’t want it to end. The song is drawn out like their conversation. Like their conversation, the verse should end but it doesn’t.

4) RRB sounds like one of those “legend of an outlaw” folk ballads

5) RRB does that thing I love when musical act one finales do, and when they do it well: it brings back multiple musical and lyrical motifs/leitmotifs from throughout act one and re-contextualizes them in the current circumstances. “You’re a greaser now and you ain’t goin’ back,” playful and prideful and celebratory in GGAH, now an ominous verdict. It seemed like a game before, but now shit just got real. (Of course it was never a game, that’s the point). There’s no coming back from this. “This town is a dead end road, let’s leave it behind let’s just get up a go,” is twisted from a fantasy into something they’re forced to do.

6) “little brother” and “stay gold” both end on unresolved notes. Two unresolved, unfinished lives. For Dallas it’s chaotic, a high note because he dies screaming. For Johnny it’s a more peaceful, premeditated choice to pass his final message onto Ponyboy, for Ponyboy to carry it forward in a way Johnny can’t. Both lives are cut short, but both live on through Ponyboy. Ponyboy picks up where their melodies left off, and finishes their stories.

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Dally is that person who lives in New York for a short period of time, and then constantly reminds everyone of that fact at every opportunity forever.

He’s that person who comes back saying he’s “from New York” even though he lived there for three years, with a New York accent he claims is natural even though it’s obviously affected, uses New York slang to show off but pretends it just slipped out, “right I forgot, you don’t know what that means, that’s what they call it in New York,” who drops “when I was in New York……” into conversations as much as humanly possible.

It drives the gang crazy.

“I’m from New York.” “He’s from here.”

“Spent mosta my life in New York.” “Three years outta seventeen, that’s most?”

“I still ain’t used to how quiet it is here in Tulsa.” “You. Are. From. Here.”

(Bonus from canon: “Man, I thought New York was the only place to end up in a murder rap.” “Dally, we are in crisis. We just killed someone. Can you find another place to casually slip in your New York cred?”)

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Dally (barges into the Curtis house covered in blood): “it’s like New York out there.”

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Darry: “this problem won’t be solved by casual revelations that you spent time in New York.”

Dally: “ok, if you’re gonna get all Upper East Side about this, I think we’re done.”

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I’m so glad the musical cut the backstory of Sandy being a Soc. The current Broadway version doesn’t mention any details about her, which is preferable to that, but I wish they explicitly stated that Sandy was a greaser like she is in the book.

It’s so important for Soda’s character that the girl he considered the love of his life, the girl he fantasized about marrying, the girl he whispered about in bed to his brother, was a greaser girl.

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do you think it is purposeful or interesting that paul specifically says “our hands are clean” whereas darrel in ritfr yells about his hands “how old they look and torn up they are” like just a continuing separation of paul and darrel and just socs and greasers in general

Oooh that’s a good parallel. Hands as a symbol for the amount of labor a person has done, so Darry’s hands are rough and torn from manual labor, whereas the Socs’ hands are soft and unblemished. Greasers literally “get their hands dirty” in ways the Socs don’t.

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high school darry based off of this post by @curtis-brothers-hug

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The backdrop of the shocking, dramatic deaths in the story are the mundane, gradual deaths that just haven’t happened yet.

Two-Bit is an alcoholic at eighteen. He’s one of the gang who “survives,” but he’s dying in the background the entire time, and will most likely continue to do so.

Tim and Curly Shepard will be in and out of jail until they die, whether it’s at eighteen or eighty.

Sandy is a different kind of prisoner, shipped off to serve her own version of a life sentence without parole; and dies a different kind of death, showing no signs of life once she’s gone via the unopened letter.

It’s not just about death, but about the different forms of death. Physical death vs non-physical death. Death in the foreground vs death in the background. Death that’s noticed vs death that goes unnoticed. Dramatic death vs everyday, ordinary, banal death. Death of “heroes” and “hoods” vs death of ordinary people who don’t gain the notoriety for any label. Sudden, instant death vs prolonged, incremental death that worms its way into habits and lifestyles so insidiously that it supplants and then becomes day-to-day life. Death that has happened, and death still yet to come.

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Bob: “you’re wearing protective goggles to destroy my car?!”

Steve (wearing goggles while smashing Bob’s mustang with a baseball bat): “SAFETY FIRST!”

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High school Darry in his football letterman jacket with his hair greased.

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Listen idk who’s actually had a close friend die and just sat staring at their belongings but let me tell you some stories hit different

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something i think about a lot in the outsiders is how in the book it’s said that sandy goes to live with her grandma in florida iirc and how that’s such a common coverup for a girl being pregnant and being sent to a maternity home

like. i don’t know that this was intentional but also my family has a personal history with these things so i think abt it a lot. my grandma who got pregnant in the late 60s as a teenager was sent to one of those homes for unwed mothers. it was really messy and i’m not gonna go into that BUT there’s a non zero chance that this has happened to sandy in my head

idk if a lot of people remember/know about these, but i know from my family’s experience…it was so restrictive. you werent really allowed to write or call to your family, my grandma got sent to an out of state one so that her dad or my grandpa couldn’t find her, and the plan was to have a baby there and then come home. a lot of girls there are coerced into giving up their baby for adoption, my grandma said that you weren’t really supposed to make friends with the other girls because once you had the baby you’d probably never see each other again

a common cover for a girl disappearing for months at a time was that someone was spending some time with an out of town aunt or other family member

i’m not saying that this is what happened to sandy but i am saying that i do find it a little more heartbreaking for sodapop in this scenario. canonically he was writing to her and we see one envelope return unopened. it’s totally possible that he wrote to her at her real grandmas house, but sandy never got it. to him, it looks like she just doesn’t care (which if she does or not is a different story) when in reality it’s her grandma just returning the letter.

i also find this compelling because soda is so often looked at as like. almost a perfectly reliable narrator(side character? whatever) because in Ponyboy’s eyes, he is. but the same way darry isn’t as mean in reality, i think it’s really compelling that sodas biggest “fault” is thinking sandy just hates him. his biggest “fault” is his loyalty and it makes him blind to reality

cheating on him is like. there’s a lot of people that think it’s a heinous crime but sodapop was willing to marry her whether it was his baby or not. i think sodapop would feel so awful for believing a lie about her if this all was true. for believing that sandy was just that mean

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Ponyboy gets into trouble at school and Darry is brought in to meet with the principal. Pony is fuming the entire time, sitting beside Darry opposite the principal’s desk, watching his big brother play “responsible grownup” while he’s cast as “troublemaking kid who’s gonna be in even more trouble once they get home.” “Yessir, I’ll see to it that Ponyboy doesn’t get into this kind of trouble again. Thank you for your time, Sir. Sorry for the bother. Ponyboy - don’t you have something to say?” As if that whole routine wasn’t enough, as soon as they leave, Darry has the nerve to scold him even more. And ground him. Like he’s Dad! Which he ain’t!

Pony is still sullen the next day at school when he passes the teachers lounge and hears the name “Darrel Curtis.” He can’t help but skid to a halt and listen.

“……sits in my office pretending he’s some sorta model citizen when everyone knows he’s nothing but a delinquent like the rest of them.”

“Mm hm, it’s no wonder Ponyboy acts like he does. Look at what a bad influence he’s got at home.”

“Tried to pretend like he was really gonna ground his brother or something. Probably took the kid out for a beer after.”

“Well if you ask me, Darrel Curtis always did try to fool people into thinking he was better than the east side. Even back when he went here. Just because he played a little football.”

“He’s not foolin anyone. Those east side hoodlums are all the same.”

Ponyboy is still standing outside the door, frozen, jaw hung open, eyes smarting. Then he’s fuming again. But this time it’s for a very different reason.

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Darry: “Pony got bullied at school today.”

Gang: “-beat the tar outta them!” “-I’ll start the car-“ “-they’ll be sorry-“

Darry: “no no, best thing you can do with bullies is ignore them.”

Gang (various reactions): “????” “😤” “🙄”

Darry: “then you sneak into their house at 4 am. Which statistically speaking is the hour people are least prepared to defend themselves.” (Dally: “correct.”) “Once you’re standing over them, as they sleep in their bed…….you start to beat them. With a thick, heavy, rope…..soaked in red paint. Pummeling them. Over. And over. Until they wake, confusing the paint for their own blood. When they beg you to stop, you laugh. As loud as you can. For as long as you can. And then………………you start to beat them again.”

Gang: “…………………..”

Darry: “welp, guess I better call Pony’s teacher and get all the details. Yes hello, may I please speak to Mrs Miller? Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. My name is Darrel Curtis, and I’m the concerned guardian of one of the students in your honors class……….”