Yall Ever Realized After U Draw Smth It Looks Like Someone Else. WHY THE FUCK DID I DRAW MISA AMANE

Darry Curtis was always gay- the musical just makes it more obvious.

I know it was never Hinton’s INTENTION for any of her characters to be perceived as queer, she claims she didn’t write them that way, and that’s fine. In fact, I think reading The Outsiders as a group of straight men who have the bonds they do is actually a really great critique of toxic masculinity, in that we would see the contrast between their interactions one on one or alone with the group, compared to their macho, hyper masculine personas they showcase in public. HOWEVER, I think it’s incredibly hard to read it that way because Hinton accidentally and completely unintentionally made Darry Curtis one of the gayest characters in modern literature. It’s not far fetched. It’s not a stretch. I’m saying that if you have even a surface level understanding of subtext that it is obvious. Darry’s queerness is as open  in the novel as he is in his life- that is, it’s never said explicitly, but it’s VERY easy to see the signs. In fact, the way it’s threaded into the narrative but very talked around leads me to believe that even though Darry wasn’t out, it might have been an open secret within the gang- or at the very least they probably had some suspicions. 

For one, in the book Darry is never mentioned even once to have had a girlfriend, or even to have gone on dates, but we know he was popular and well liked. You can’t convince me that a handsome, popular football player, whose peers liked him enough to vote him Boy of The Year, didn’t have more than a few girls interested in him, but Pony’s narration never even alludes to Darry having been interested in one. For all he talks up Darry’s achievements, the scholarship he won, the future he could have had and everything he gave up, women/a girlfriend were never a part of it- which, given the time period and Darry’s reliance on hyper masculine social scripts, seems highly uncharacteristic unless there was a plausible explanation for his complete disinterest (ie. being gay). Now, examine this hyper masculinity a little further, and you can see it for what it is, a) a defence mechanism (because it separates him from stereotypes of what a gay men are like, so if he’s ‘manly’ enough no one will ever suspect or discover what he is) and b) the unfortunate complete opposite of that. Just like how hyper femininity characteristic to femme lesbians is off putting to men, the same is true to some degree about hyper masculine men being somewhat off putting to women. Not to the same degree, and probably not as obviously, but Darry’s  over the top masculinity might be the one thing effective in keeping (some) women away for reasons they can’t quite put their finger on. Point is, Darry was never a ladies man, to a degree that is very not heterosexual, especially for the time period.

So, now that we’ve established Darry’s complete disinterest in dating women,  his hypermasculine personality and it’s possible implications, let’s turn to other textual support for his queerness: his relationships with other male characters. I’m not talking about the gang- his interactions with all of them are very friendly/familial-  but he has a bond with Tim Shepard that is clear on the page but left largely unexplained (their weird eye contact and high mutual respect, the fact Tim was at their house once with no explanation), and his homoerotic run in/fight with Paul at the rumble. Both these relationships have plausible deniability- they’re not explicitly gay, but they’re also not NOT gay. Again, Hinton didn’t intentionally make Darry gay, but he very much is, and as far as closeted gay characters go, he’s a fairly well written one, because the subtext is very much THERE if you know what you’re looking for, but the queerness of his interactions is shrouded in this very real this COULD mean nothing characteristic of a lot of closeted queer interactions. 

Having said all this, I think the musical making Darry and Paul’s fight (somehow) even more charged and homoerotic than it is in the book was a wise choice, because a lot of the rest of the subtext was changed/missing from the musical adaptation. I’ve seen the ritfr analysis looking at the lyrics as they relate to Darry’s queerness, and I do think they follow the veiled/subtextual theme, but I don’t think they’re as explicitly gay as they’re touted to be. However, I do think the musical does a good job of highlighting Darry’s queerness given the medium they’re working with, and the actors do an amazing job portraying it without saying it outright, making it more obvious than it is on the page- but Darry was canonically gay in the book too, and let’s not pretend otherwise.

(Lmk if you want to see my analysis of the other Curtis’ queerness as it related to the book + musical).

im the boy in question wearing a skirt and eyeliner

remember in 2007 or 2008 when emo was at its peak and gay marriage wasn't legal and so we had boys in eyeliner and skirts making out with each other at the mall in protest. i think we need this again

wait but like... I wanted it homemade by Darrel Curtis himself 💔 *dramatic sigh*

can you make pizza? with peperoni and bacon pls

*sigh* I'll order one

YES OMG YESSSS

mexican steve randle you will forever mean everything to me 🥹

like just imagine him, disconnected from this part of himself, finally learning to be somewhat comfortable and showing the curtis gang his favorite foods, sayings, and bits of culture

steve teaching everyone how to make homemade pupusas and tamales, and some little things like fideo and rice become a common dinner side [these are just cause those are some of my favs my family makes]

steve makes migas for soda once and it turns into one of his favorite breakfast foods [me too soda, me too]

he teaches soda the little bits of spanish he knows and they call each other sweet things like "mi amor", "mi corazón", and "mi alma" [and stupid things like "tonto" and "puta"]

he slips up sometimes and says things like "ay dios mio" and "aye yai yai" out of pure exasperation [same], which then gets added to sodas vocabulary

he owns so many sarape blankets and keeps a few of his favorite ones at the curtis house, everybody loves them for their warmth and texture and prefers them when sleeping over

OH MY GOD TRES LECHES it becomes the second favorite cake to their classic chocolate <3

ill tag some ppl too just cause i think i should start doing that :3 @deim0sdread @n0rthern-star @tex-aintdeadyet

Something Ponyboy loves to do is make it sound like Darry is absolutely evil in front of other people who don't really know him.

Like, one of his track buddies will ask him if he wants to go to a party or something, and Ponyboy will be like "Sorry, I can't. If Darry finds out he's gonna fill the tub to the top with water and lock me in the bathroom until I drink it all. Again."

Obviously he's not dumb and he's careful who he does it around because he's not looking for social services to come knocking. Plus, most people already know that he's just joking based on how absurd the stuff he says is.

However, one night Darry burst into Pony's room and was like "Why the fuck are you telling people that I made you handwrite the entire Bible word-for-word because you didn't say grace before eating???"

Most interesting things tumblr has so far advertised to me:

anxiety reducing therapy fleshlight (I do not have a dick)

an app for reading the Torah (I am not jewish)

emotional support group for divorced men in a city I've never lived in (I'm not even married yet)

the alledged secrets of divination from cowrie shells in Sudanese culture (I have never been to Sudan, nor been particularly interested in divination)

Christian fashion streetwear (I am not a christian nor do I wear streetwear)

offers of online therapy for divorced men (where are they getting this??)

how to hire a dating coach (????)

mental health support for first responders (I am not a first responder, I dropped out of nursing school because I couldn't handle it)

a service to book your journey to Mecca (I am not muslim)

coaching for how to build your personal brand on OnlyFans (?!?!?!)

this is the kinda shit that got me giggling and kicking my feel whimsically

*gordon ramsey at a kink party voice* cockwarming? you call this warm? it's bloody burnt that thing is. you've cremated it, it's naught but fucking ashes! *turns around and sees a pup* for fucks sake there's animals in the kitchen too. he's got fucking paws and he could cook a cock better than you

bro your fat throbbing cock is so annoying distracting i'm trying to play roller coaster tycoon

Because Sandy never appears in the book and is only mentioned a handful of times, however significant those few times may be, it’s easy to forget that she was a big part of Soda’s life. She would have been a constant presence not only around him, but the Curtis family and the gang too.

She would have been at the Curtis house all the time; snuggling with Soda on the couch, invited by their parents to stay for dinner. She would bond with Mrs Curtis, who would tell her how much she loved having a girl in the house. Mr Curtis’ shouts of “that bedroom door better be open or I’m takin it off its hinges, Pepsi Cola,” would be a running joke. Darry and Ponyboy would see her all the time - at home, at the DX, at school with Soda and Steve and Evie. At the funeral. Sandy would have been the only regular feminine presence in the Curtis house after their mother died.

After she moves away, how many times does Pony see Soda on the couch and go, “hey, where’s Sand-“ or Darry making dinner, “is Sandy stayin for dinner or-“ before they hurriedly cut themselves off.

Sandy was another constant in all of their lives that was ripped away.

did you just cough on my open wound???

Early morning flight means early morning ramblings

I think Pony at one point or another definitely feels anxiety over Johnny’s last message to ‘stay gold’. Because he grows older and he’s still a greaser. And things happen to people like Mark and Bryon, and he wonders how he can stay gold with all this tragedy that seems to follow him.

And he goes to college, and maybe he drinks too much too fast. And as the world spins around him he wonders whether Johnny feels disappointed in him because how can being drunk be staying gold.

And of course Johnny wouldn’t think less of him, not with Two-Bit as one of his friends. But Johnny isn’t here and all Pony has left of him is the words he left behind. A promise to stay gold even though growing older makes him feel like the gold is slipping through his fingers. Dawn giving way to a day he’s not sure he can make it through.