daydreaming-optimist

[daydreaming-optimist]

“This is the first time I’ve been scared. Scared you’ll change your mind. Scared I’ll screw it up. Aces, Cress, I’m terrified of you. Here’s the thing, you deserve better than some thief who’s going to end up in jail again. Everyone knows it. Even I know it. But you seem determined to believe I’m actually a decent guy who’s halfway worthy of you. So, what scares me most is that someday even you will realize that you can do better. Not to worry. I am a criminal mastermind, and I have a plan. First, get a legitimate job–check. Legally buy my ship–in progress. Prove that I’m hero material by helping Cinder save the world–oh, wait, I did that already. Oh, and I have to stop stealing things, but that’s probably a given. So I figure, by the time you realize how much I don’t deserve you…I might kind of deserve you.”

— Carswell Thorne (Winter by Marissa Meyer)

[daydreaming-optimist]

Snoopy my beloved

[daydreaming-optimist]

big fan of shakespeare villains who step onto the stage and immediately announce “I am here and I am evil. I am here to do mischief.” and then that’s exactly what they do for the next two hours. no other motive is ever explained. at the end they fail. kings

[daydreaming-optimist]

Ponyboy's entire inner monologue when he reunites with Darry and Sodapop in the hospital is probably one of the most emotional and important moments in the entire book.

It's not even just about his joy at the reunion and the mix of happiness and sadness he's feeling, but just about how his view of Darry has such a sudden shift. His thoughts going from how Darry didn't like him, how he had hit Ponyboy, driven him away from the home and yelled at him.

But his realization that Darry is crying, something he hadn't even done when their parents were killed, something Ponyboy hadn't seen him do in years. The expression on Darry's face in the hospital being the same expression that Darry had on his face when they were at their parents' funeral.

I think the most important part of this scene is that Darry does not move until Ponyboy does. He hangs back while Sodapop and Ponyboy have their reunion, and shrinks himself down to be as small and unintimidating as possible, not even meeting Ponyboy's eyes. He is being eaten alive by his guilt.

And Ponyboy's realization immediately just clicking in that moment, the realization that yes, Darry does care about him as much as he cares about Sodapop, he does love him more than anything. That Darry getting angry simply masked his worry because he's still working on the balance of being a brother and a father.

Darry's entire fear being boiled down to "I thought we lost you like we did Mom and Dad", to being so utterly terrified that he'd lose another family member in the same terrible way.

That being the moment when Ponyboy stops seeing just an unflinching, unloving brother, but starts seeing Darry for who he is, terrified to lose more of his family, desperate to keep everyone safe, believing in Ponyboy to the point of pushing him as far as he can go.

When Darry is hugging Ponyboy, and stroking his hair, and Ponyboy thinks, "I remembered how close he and Dad had been, and I wondered how I could ever have thought him hard and unfeeling.", it's such an heartbreakingly beautiful line, because Ponyboy finally, finally is allowing himself to love Darry, to love his big brother, get over his own fears of loss.

[daydreaming-optimist]

LITTLE WOMEN dir. Greta Gerwig (2019)

[daydreaming-optimist]

The outline, well, sometimes, do you miss us, us?

GRACIE ABRAMS performs US. The Secret of Us Tour — Sydney, Australia (Night 2) | May 3, 2025

[daydreaming-optimist]

cherry is such an interesting character to me. she knows bob gets violent and stays with him. she hates dallas winston but is scared to fall in love with him. she's too busy to watch sunsets. ponyboy can't tell apart when she's mad from when she's scared. she'll yell at the guy harrassing her and seem like she doesn’t care but then admit she was scared to a couple of kids she doesn’t know. she's too private a person to say what she means by "things are rough all over" to a random kid. she managed to actually care about her boyfriend's murderer.

cherry valance ily they could never make me hate you

[daydreaming-optimist]

album motifs: taylor swift (2006) + music

[daydreaming-optimist]

Honestly though, the scene in Incredibles where Dash gets called into the office for putting a tack on his teacher's chair gets 100x funnier when you consider that the teacher almost certainly knows what's going on with Dash.

I mean, he probably doesn't know that he has super speed specifically— "I don't know how he does it!"— but this guy is fully aware of the existence of supers.

This isn't a Harry Potter situation where the muggles don't even know that magic exists— supers were lauded public figures and a key part of the criminal justice system until just fifteen years ago. This dude was definitely an adult and probably already teaching at the time. He may have been expected to include lessons on supers and their role in society in the curriculum.

And while we don't know exactly how supers get their powers, Edna mentions in Incredibles 2 that "it's not unknown for supers to have more than one power when young", so Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack evidently weren't the first people to develop them as children.

This guy lives in a setting in which he knows— with 100% certainty— that there are people out there who are born with special powers that enable them to do impossible things. And, from observing Dash, he knows that what this kid seems to be doing shouldn't be possible for a normal kid.

He absolutely knows this boy has powers. It's the most logical explanation, and it makes perfect sense within the laws of the universe he lives in. He may think that the kid is teleporting the tacks onto his chair, or turning invisible, or shifting reality or whatever, but he knows that some sort of super power is at work here.

The problem is… he can't openly acknowledge it.

Now the supers are in hiding, normal civilians aren't allowed to know of their existence. Even if there is no formal law against it (and there might be a formal law against it), everyone who figures out that their coworker or friend or whatever is a super, and doesn't keep quiet about it, gets black-bagged by a government agency and has their memory erased. There's no way people aren't at least vaguely aware that it's best not to talk about who you think might be a super, because bad things happen to people who do.

When the Principal ushers Helen and Dash out of the room and starts trying to calm the teacher down, he's not doing it because he thinks he's crazy. He's doing it because he's just seen video evidence that this kid is a super, and is trying to keep his friend from being taken away for Re-Education.

Dash is fully exploiting the fact that people like him legally don't exist to pull pranks on his teacher, knowing that the guy can't actually call him out without getting his mind wiped.

[daydreaming-optimist]

"Oh my goodness. Everyone behave naturally. And whatever you do, do not appear overbearing."

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) Reuniting with Mr. Bingley

[daydreaming-optimist]

“he was just too damn good for growing old” is maybe one of the saddest lyrics

[daydreaming-optimist]

we are sleeping on alex joseph grayson as dally I fear. cannot stop thinking about this guy. vocals? phenomenal. stage presence? yes. it's the way he plays dally like he's 17 for me (which yes is book canon age but stick with me) - like what do you mean this kid is so idolized by johnny and ponyboy that he has to make a plan to keep them ahead of the cops and then when johnny is all "yeah no we're going back" he just doesn't know what else to do? i feel like others have played dally really frustrated in that scene but alex dally just seemed so desperate. the musical especially sets up this parallel between darrel and dally and the way alex does it makes you go right, these are both just kids trying to act like adults because there's nobody else. i'm sick about it.

[daydreaming-optimist]

my favourite little moment in the outsiders musical is when after everything pony finally sits at the table to eat with his brothers and darry has to get soda to serve the food bc he has to turn away to cry

[daydreaming-optimist]

one of my favorite and most underrated outsiders moments happens the morning after the brothers reunite in the hospital. darry tells ponyboy “if you smoke more than a pack today, I’ll skin you”, which is very very valid because his baby brother just survived a burning building and while he knows ponyboy is the heaviest smoker in the family he still wants him to watch it.

and ponyboy’s response, instead of being nervous or annoyed, is “if you carry more than a bundle of roofing at a time, soda and I’ll skin you”

prior to this moment, pony would have probably grumbled, ignored darry, or made some type of comment about how darry treats him different, but he snarks back. he teases darry, interacts with him in a way that sodapop would. the following line is “darry grinned, one of his rare grins”, not that he rolled his eyes and huffed, not that he frowned, but that he grinned, obviously happy that ponyboy feels comfortable enough to tease him, that he isn’t scared of him.

because that was always darry’s biggest fear once they saw each other again. the way he makes himself small, and doesn’t move until ponyboy moves to hug him in the hospital. he was scared that ponyboy was afraid of him. That line, of him skinning ponyboy, is his way of testing the waters. of seeing if they’re okay, if they can do that, if they’re allowed to joke about that sort of thing. ponyboy’s response tells darry that it can be joked about, that they’re on even footing and that there isn’t any fear.

and i think a lot of people forget that ponyboy decided to return home after running from the house. after he found johnny. he tells him that he wants to take a walk, and then he’ll probably be cooled off enough to go back home. ponyboy had EVERY intention of going back home that night, but then the socs showed up, and all bets were off. as angry as ponyboy was, he wanted to go back home and at least be with soda, and when the socs show up to jump the two, ponyboy wishes that darry and sodapop would show up searching for him, because they could fight together.

because as unreliable of a narrator as ponyboy is, as angry as he is at darry, he knew that when it came down to it, his big brother would not hesitate to protect him.

[daydreaming-optimist]

hearing Darry say "hey, little brother, your food's getting cold", not even five minutes after Dally's death, where he lamented about failing his own Little Brother.... it is such a goddamn gut punch

it is the perfect bookend to the parallels between Darry and dally that the musical sets up, from ggah, to their argument before titt, to this moment of Darry unkowingly echoing Dally's final words.

idk i just feel it is such smart writing. fresh off of the emotions of Little Brother, here comes Darry echoing that exact phrase to remind everyone just how much he cares about Ponyboy and how much he desperately wants to help him, just like Dally wanted for Johnny. and it hurts so much when you realize how similar Darry and Dally were, and what Dally's unfortunate ending was

[daydreaming-optimist]

Soda would let Ponyboy talk his ear off about his favorite books and movies if only to hold on to this childlike wonder that lights up his eyes and his smile that comes naturally, instead of the forced one he uses to try to convince his brothers that he’s fine after the year he’s had.

[daydreaming-optimist]

I didn’t choose this town, I dream of getting out