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good--merits-accumulated · 1 year ago

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truly truly Neil Charlie Todd triumvirate is king please share any thoughts you have on them

OH BOY ANON YOU HAVE OPENED A CAN OF WORMS.

I. OPENING THESIS?

Basically, here’s my abstract for this whole thing:

(Les Misérables, trans. Isabel F. Hapgood)

And having put this down, I’ll ask you to overlook it, lol. Or treat it as a very loose guide! (If you haven’t any idea what the context of this refers to, here’s a quick rundown: a chief is a leader and someone who people rally behind. A guide is an enthusiast about all things and an advocate for progress, someone who checks the rampant idealism of the chief. The centre is warm, loyal, and acts almost as a mini-Sun for the chief and guide to orbit around, to stop them shooting off on their own wild trajectories.) In the interest of complete transparency, reading Les Mis at a young age had this irreparable effect on me where I now have to think of every triumvirate as a chief/guide/centre dynamic, but I don’t think this model applies 1:1 towards Neil/Charlie/Todd. Instead, I think of them a little as composites, interplaying with each other – Charlie as a guide who would much rather be a chief, Neil as a chief who works better as a guide, and Todd as a centre who’s never given the grace to grow into that role. Let’s go!

II. CHARLIE AS THE CHIEF-GUIDE

Charlie is like if rowdiness was a Guy. He’s big, he’s brash, he’s the instigator and he’s the captain and he’s the shameless one and he’s a side character! I have always found this very interesting whenever I watch DPS; despite Charlie’s main character-ness he is secondary, and doesn’t even get his own sideplot in the same way that Knox (for example) does. He’s a born leader who by virtue of the trappings of his story is relegated to supporting others, although you can so, so clearly see him fighting for space in the story. He gets pushed into being a guide almost by default; only the trait of enthusiasm really applies here. If Neil wasn’t there he’d be the leader of their group, no question. And the thing about Charlie is that he gets things done. He’s the one pushing the most for the re-creation of the Dead Poets Society after Neil, he’s caustic about things that are in his way (“Well, why don’t you stay home?”), people follow him! See Knox running after him, asking to be taught:

Charlie is the man of action – the telephone stunt is the biggest incident of that. And the way the boys gather around him afterwards as he regales them is chief-like; here he is acting as the chief, because this is around the same time that Neil’s chief role starts to slip away from him. But more of that later.

The big thing is that Charlie never gets to really assume that role of chief, because Neil is always there. I talked earlier about how he pushes for the re-creation of the Society; well, Neil is the one who finds Keating’s old annual and reads it aloud to them. Charlie is the one cutting down the guys’ concerns about sneaking out after school: Neil is the one who suggests it – more than suggests it! Almost commands it, in a way that leaves little room for debate:

(Note that in this section, it’s Charlie who does the arguing for Neil, who doesn’t speak except to lay down the law and then ask who’s coming. Real king and knight energy.)

Charlie never quite manages to edge into centre stage. You can sort of see how there might be resentment there – perhaps there would have been if they had gone on uninterrupted. But then of course Neil dies, and Charlie assumes the chief role by default, but it’s no longer glorious or something he can covet. But he does it anyway; he wakes up Todd, he breaks the news to him, very, very gently, he wipes Todd’s mouth with snow when he vomits and tells the others to leave him alone. But by this point, Charlie going into the chief role he’s so good at isn’t enough to stop the splintering of their group or his own expulsion.

III. NEIL AS THE GUIDE-CHIEF

Part of Neil’s tragedy is that he would be good at the things his father wants him to do! He’s a wonderful all-rounder, he's the perfect all-American specimen, there’s no doubt in my mind he would have been a great doctor – except he wouldn’t, because the enthusiasm and the motivation would have been lacking entirely. (As someone who just did a shit ton of medical school interviews, yeah, they would have sniffed this guy out really fast. Or maybe they wouldn't… not sure how stringent they were in the ‘50s.) He would have been technically great. But being able to do something doesn’t mean you should; these are the things that Mr. Perry conflates and which Neil is never able to verbalise to him, except in a way in which he thinks he’ll understand:

In this scene, when he talks to him post-performance it’s not “I enjoyed it”, but a very simple, “I was really good”. And despite this concession of terms he says it when his father can't hear, because he knows he would never relent, oh God.

Actually, a lot of what I wanted to say about Neil has already been said in Charlie’s section. (The summary is basically that you must imagine me offstage with a megaphone as the movie plays, yelling, “YOU TWO NEED TO SWITCH PLACES, FUCKOS”.) Neil is a good leader, but that doesn’t mean he likes being one, or that he should be one! He has a few characteristics of a guide – he’s enthusiastic about everything, he has this boundless kind of delight in the things he loves (not idealism; that’s slightly different). But this is honestly where the model falls apart. I don’t think that Neil would make a great guide either, logic not being his forte; the irony is that the role of the triumvirate he most fits IS the chief, it’s just that that’s what kills him. The responsibility that comes with being someone who “speaks and people listen” isn’t good for him – this dichotomy of having “control” over the friendship group/no control over his personal life is terrible. He does get to lose the chief role, but it’s not in a way that is good for him; instead this manifests in a loss of control that happens very very quickly, which just makes him reach for ways in which he can control his own life. And besides, stepping outside of a leadership role with a great deal of responsibility and losing control over the course of your own life are two very different things. I just think that he should get to go offstage for a little bit and rest, with zero expectations on him ever. (Also there’s something here about how he gets to play Puck – a side character who has major effects on the story but doesn’t have to actually put his skin in the game. This is what I think Neil should get to do In Real Life.)

IV. TODD AS THE PROTO-CENTRE

One thing about Todd is that in my mind, I always imagine him as much redder than he actually is in the movie. I don’t mean I imagine him to blush more often – I mean ruddier, more flushed. Going back to the Les Mis quote – in my mind he does “possess all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance”! Todd is a catalyst like Keating in a way that Keating isn’t; this is never explicit at all but he has always felt to me like someone who inspires others by their presence. He’s such a wonderful, calming, grounding influence. Even when he talks to Neil and they have that non-argument he tempers Neil and reminds him what’s at stake without looking down on him. And when he realises how serious he is, he goes with it and supports him to the best of his ability – he says “Oh, Neil, Neil, you’re crazy” but it’s fond, he’s overjoyed for him. And you can see similar behaviour perhaps to a lesser extent with Charlie in the way particularly he calls him Nuwanda after his request, which is taken as ridiculous by other characters:

And even after Neil’s death he does so, refusing to go back to normal:

But the reason I’ve put “proto-” for a prefix is because these are all singular occasions. The thing is that I think Todd could be that brilliant, grounding, assured man, a lighthouse of a man, almost. But he isn’t – he clearly isn’t – at the beginning of the movie he is shy and diffident and the non-argument I mentioned early does go a little sour, because while he speaks from a place of concern and love, his anxiety manifests in the conversation and makes him a little less tactful than he might have been otherwise. If things had gone on better than they went, and if Todd had been allowed to grow and develop more and without worry, he really, really would have blossomed into this kind of centre, this very steady man who would have reminded Neil of the consequences of his actions and made Charlie care about the consequences of his. But he doesn’t get to do that – by the time he grows and becomes more confident it’s too late, the worst has already happened.

V. SUMMARY

I’m so sorry, anon, this is a prodigious answer to what was a very simple ask, but you hit on the subject I have Very Strong Feelings About. Not to toot my own fanfic horn, but there’s an excerpt from the fair folk AU which I think sums this up pretty well:

TL;DR: Charlie gets pushed into a secondary position which doesn’t suit him; Neil gets pushed into a leadership position which suits him, but he hates; Todd is willing to step into that secondary position as a behind-the-scenes supporter, but never actually gets that opportunity. Hence the tragedy. Hence the taking of lives. Hence how many fucking tears I have shed over this movie, Jesus.

(I had a lot of fun writing this – thank you for giving me a reason to!)

#anon oh my god i'm like. brewing some tea for you right now and sitting you down. thank you so much for asking the question #and giving me an excuse to word-vomit for a while #ask #dead poets society #dps #charlie dalton #neil perry #todd anderson #dps fandom #dead poets fandom #also: neither here nor there but i have a pet headcanon where the triumvirate rent a flat together after uni #and each have their own studies with todd's in the middle #the walls are very thin so that sometimes neil and charlie will have solid long arguments through them #and sometimes todd will interject and/or mediate #god i love him #if the argument gets heated neil or charlie will actually go into todd's room to yell through the wall closer #instead of leaving him alone. he finds this all intensely amusing #tristan writes

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aparticularbandit · 8 months ago

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Housekeeping

Summary: Yui shouldn't be at Hope's Peak, but she is.

Which means she can learn how to clean with Chisa.

Or something like that.

For DR WLWeek 2024: Prompt Six: Happy Ending.

Fic Rating: T.

AO3

next fic

Hope’s Peak Academy.

A shining bastion of hope to the masses.

A school that seeks out its students based on a thinly defined concept they call Talent.

Unfortunately, the Talent they seek is not always what the student wants to do or be known for, but the prestige of being at such an academy, where every student goes on to fame and fortune and stability, at the very least, can be so appealing. More appealing than pursuing whatever they want when they want it. Besides, it’s just a few short years, and then—

Likely a lifetime of being locked into whatever their Talent is – whatever brought them to Hope’s Peak in the first place.

(So a bit like college, only with significantly less choice.)

Not that Yui Samidare is here for any of that.

If Yui’d told her parents she’d been scouted, they would have pressed her for those very reasons – fame, fortune, stability – but she doesn’t talk to them more often than not. They don’t know her day-to-day life; they don’t know her life at all. They wouldn’t understand. She wants to be – no, she is – a detective, but she would never be scouted for that. Even before meeting Kyoko, she knew that. She’s not great, but she’s trying, and for every person she helps, the world is a little bit brighter. A little bit more hopeful.

Yui Samidare seeds more hope in the world just through her simple acts of dedicated kindness than Hope’s Peak ever will through its desperate desire for control.

But we’re not talking about that.

(Not right now, anyway.)

We’re talking about Detective Yui Samidare, the Ultimate Leaper, who changed her mind on accepting the invitation to join Hope’s Peak not because she wanted fame or fortune or a possible future Olympics grab – leg strength she might have, but she’s not an athlete by any means – but because Kyoko’s father is here, because Kyoko’s father is choosing this stupid school over his daughter, and because Kyoko didn’t ask her to do any investigative work, but Yui’s going to do it anyway. She’s entangled with the Kirigiri family enough; why not go this one step further? It’s not like she’s going to die, or anything.

Yui Samidare, who stands in front of Hope’s Peak, shifts the strap of the backpack she’s wearing that none of the other students are, and presses forward.

Some Time Later.

Yui plops down on her mattress, arms splayed to either side of her, and lets out a huge huff as she stares up at her popcorn ceiling, backpack sliding down to the floor beside her bed. Hope’s Peak is both exactly what she thought it would be and nothing like she thought it would be. She’d imagined intensive classes covering everything under the sun, but there’s nothing of the sort, just free reign to do whatever she wants as long as she passes her exams – and they aren’t exams in the normal school sense of the word, just attempts to gauge improvement in her skill.

Her skill is leaping. How do you test improvement in that? Just jumping higher? Potentially making friends with one of the other Ultimates in athletics to…to what, exactly? Study the effects of leg strength under….

Ugh, she doesn’t even care.

Then the knock comes at her door, followed by the cheery call of “Housekeeping!”

This, at least, is almost exactly as Yui expected, but more so. As she pushes herself out of bed, she considers her belief that each class at Hope’s Peak must be tightknit, that in a school with so few students, everyone must know everyone else, even if only in passing. They recognize each other in the hallways – when they use hallways – and they’re familiar enough that unless someone keeps entirely to themselves (as Yui suspects Kyoko will do when she, too, is a student here (and she doesn’t even consider that Kyoko won’t be here (the idea that Lico might doesn’t even cross her mind)))—

Unless someone keeps to themselves, they’ll be so entrenched with everyone that they’ll naturally have friends, rivals, family.

And even if they do keep to themselves, it’s frequently on the students themselves to make sure that their dorms and meals and everything are perfect, provided there’s an Ultimate to cover that.

Which is why—

“Yukizome-senpai,” Yui says with a tired smile on her face as she opens her door. “I’m fine, really, you don’t need to—”

Chisa Yukizome, a girl who might be brighter than the sun itself, reaches up and boops the tip of Yui’s nose. “I know!” She props one hand on her hip, the other carrying a tub full of cleaning supplies. A peacock feather duster sticks its head just above her back, one thin white ribbon crossing her chest to hold it in place. “But you athletes tend to have the smelliest rooms.” She pokes her head into the room and sniffs twice.

“I’m not an athlete,” Yui says, wriggling her nose. “I’m just unnaturally good at jumping.” She glances over her shoulder to her desk, which is covered with papers related to her primary case. Sure, sure, she’s paired up with Kyoko once or twice since becoming a student here, but the Black Challenges seem to have quieted down (worrisome, but she doesn’t want to think about that right now) and Kyoko seems to be doing just fine on her own. Her primary case, of course, is focused instead on Kyoko’s father. Something at Hope’s Peak made him choose to stay here instead of with Kyoko; it has to be pretty big because she can’t imagine just leaving Kyoko behind.

But Yui can’t talk about any of that with Kyoko.

And she can’t talk about any of that with Chisa either.

“Unnaturally good doesn’t lead to being an Ultimate,” Chisa remarks. She places a hand on Yui’s arm and gently moves her to one side. “Besides,” she continues, “cleaning everyone’s dorm is kind of my thing.” After she sets the tub down on the floor in Yui’s room, she holds a timer aloft – just like the sort a coach might. “I’m speed-running things today. Hope I can beat my best score!”

“Ah.”

Yui glances over her shoulder, spins on one heel, and then faces Chisa again – or her back, while Chisa levels her hands on her hips and scans Yui’s not that dirty room. Disorganized and a bit chaotic, yes, but not dirty. (It’s impossible to have a dirty room here, in her opinion. Chisa’s around so frequently that she doesn’t have time for anything really gross to build up. Not! That it would!) Her lips press together. “Yukizome-senpai, you…want to speed-run cleaning my dorm?”

“Mmhm!” Chisa gives a firm nod. “How’d you like the organizing last time?”

“It was okay, I guess.” Yui rubs the back of her neck and lets the door shut behind her with a gentle click. To be quite honest, she hadn’t really needed everything organized, but it was interesting to see how Chisa’d chosen to arrange things. She moves to her desk and starts compiling all of her papers together. “Yukizome-senpai, do you really need to—”

“Chisa.”

“Hm?”

Chisa reaches over and places a hand on Yui’s back. “Chisa, please. We’re all friends here.”

Are we?

But Yui blushes anyway and nods once as she stuffs her papers into a drawer without thinking too much about it. “Why don’t I…why don’t I help you?”

“With cleaning?” Chisa’s eyes widen. Then her head tilts to one side. “That could cut my time down. But it could make it worse, since you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Then it’s a learning curve.” Yui pops her knuckles and turns to Chisa, forcing the blush down (and failing) as she meets her eyes with a determined gaze. “But with my leg strength and my jumping ability, maybe I’ll have an easier time getting stuff higher up than you do!”

Chisa holds her gaze, but her expression sours. “Are you saying I’m short.”

“No!” Yui shakes her head frantically, hands out as a defense. “Not at all! I—”

“Just kidding!” Chisa pats Yui’s arm with enough force that it really doesn’t feel like she was kidding. Then she pulls out a pair of heavy duty gloves and hands them to Yui with a grin so menacing that it makes Yui reconsider her words. “Let me show you how to help!”

More Time Later.

Chisa clicks the top of the timer and reads the numbers as it stops. Then she pulls a notebook from within her apron, flips to a page in the very middle, and examines it. Her brow furrows. She pencils something on the page and then snaps the notebook shut.

“How’d we do?” Yui asks, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. (She’d learned a while back not to use the back of her hand while she’s cleaning; that’s a good way to transfer something from it to her eyes, which only makes the stinging worse. Unbearable, even. The first time, she thought she was going to die. Chisa bought her a pair of goggles after that, but Yui refuses to wear them. She might be a lot of things, but she’s not a Goggle Girl.)

((Also the goggles look really weird over her glasses. She doesn’t want to look weird around Chisa.))

“Shaved off thirty seconds!” Chisa taps the notebook with her pencil and then tucks both back into her apron. “We still haven’t beaten my top score—”

Yui groans. “Don’t mention it.” She tucks her cleaning towel half into her pocket.

Chisa removes one of her gloves and pats Yui’s back. “It’s our best score together yet.”

“Yeah, I thought I had some time save dusting the ceiling if I jumped just right—“ Yui cuts herself off and flushes. She sounds like a housekeeper. She sounds like Chisa.

That said, there are benefits to helping Chisa clean. It’s relaxing. It helps stretch her legs after she’s spent a long session pretending that she’ll improve her leg strength when really she would rather be investigating. Even more importantly, it’s likely that Chisa cleans some of the other rooms, too – not just the dorms, but the classrooms or other rooms where important information for Yui’s investigation might be found – and if Yui gets good enough at helping Chisa for her to take her with her, then maybe she’ll pick up on something that she wouldn’t be able to get to on her own.

(Or could, maybe, but that would involve jumping through open windows and shoving them even more open to propel herself in, and Yui…doesn’t want to do anything strictly speaking illegal while she investigates. Getting expelled would defeat the whole purpose of being here, after all.)

As they gather their things (something which is insistently not included in the speed-run cleaning, since it’s technically speaking not part of the cleaning), Yui asks, “How are things with you and Munakata-senpai? He asked you out yet?”

“Nope!” Chisa answers cheerily, either not noticing the blush that spreads across Yui’s cheeks as she asks or pretending she doesn’t. “It’ll probably take him a few months. He’s the sort who wants to get everything just perfect first. All that control, you know?”

Yui shrugs. She doesn’t know, if she’s really honest, since she hasn’t spent much time with the Ultimate Student Council President. She’s seen him in the halls now and then, and she certainly knows who he is, but he’s never really appealed to her. Something about him just throws her off. (Not to mention that his friend – Sakakura – makes her uncomfortable in a way she can’t put her finger on. Like he’s the sort of punch first, ask questions later sort of person. And that doesn’t sit well with her.)

Then Chisa turns to her, one finger up between them. “That means you still can. Get your foot in the door! It’d be fun.”

“W-what?” The blush that had been fading from Yui’s cheeks grows bright all at once, and she can feel her short hair standing all on edge. “Me? Ask you out?”

“Sure!” Chisa beams with that smile that’s brighter than the sun, her hands clasped behind her back as she leans forward. “I spend more time with you than I do with him anyway, and if it doesn’t work out, we’re still friends. Dates don’t have to be a bunch of pressure! And they definitely don’t have to be perfect.”

Yui licks her lips, and before she even realizes what she’s saying, she asks, “So why don’t you ask me out, then? Seems like you have some ideas.”

She wants to turn away. She wants to be focused on taking her gloves off – that cold snap of the plastic as they come off and drop into the tub with the rest of her cleaning things – instead of standing here facing Chisa. She wants to be looking anywhere else but at Chisa’s face, but she can’t avert her eyes.

(She thinks she can’t breathe, but here she is, standing still, breathing like she doesn’t have any other choice.)

“I’d say I’m not that kind of girl, but….” Chisa’s voice trails off. She hums. “Alright! Let’s go on a date!”

Yui startles. “That’s not a question!”

Chisa meets her eyes and steps closer. “Were you going to say no?”

Now Yui looks away, unable to maintain the contact. She’s sure her whole face is red, sure the tips of her ears are. “No.” Then she tugs her lower lip between her teeth and asks, unable to look up, “Would you have?”

“No.” Chisa reaches out and takes Yui’s hand, but it kind of sucks because they still have those stupid cleaning gloves on. (She still feels the squeeze anyway.) “Why would I ask when I already know your answer?”

Yui glances up, resisting the urge to push her fingers through her hair. Chisa’s expression is warm and inviting. “I guess…I guess you wouldn’t.” Her brow furrows. “You’re good with kids, right?” (She doesn’t know why she’s asking. She can’t imagine that Chisa isn’t.)

But Chisa shrugs. “Depends on the kid.” She leans closer. “Why? You have one?” Then she holds up a hand and steps back. “Not a conversation for now. A conversation for later.” She takes a deep breath and holds up the timer again. “We’ve got to get to the next room; once we’ve gotten good times for all of the rooms, we’ll have to go straight through all of them and once and time that—“

“Ugh.” Yui knocks into her. “If I’d known this is how you were going to be—”

“—you would have helped anyway. Just to keep me from going through your stuff.” Chisa grins. “Now, c’mon! The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can plan our date.”

Yui blushes again, and she can’t get a word out for the next three rooms.

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