seeing him up there...

I’ve never seen anyone find Kaylee’s letter until now and it’s so sad this poor girl and she’s the only one who HAS to die when all she wanted was to be free 🥺😭💔

you have to imagine there's a moment where he stops. frowns. tries to remember what cabin they're in (their names are familiar, he just can't place why or from where) until it hits him. then he checks the ledger in his drawer. sees the place where he scratched their names out. asks himself, of course, why anyone would be writing to them there at the camp, but mistakes happen, right? sure, mistakes happen. well-meaning relatives, probably, distant ones who didn't get the memo, it's no big deal...except when the next week rolls around and he picks up the next batch from the post office, there are two more letters addressed to them mixed in with the rest, and he has to wonder. he has to suspect...

only that's stupid. it's impossible. if something had happened, he'd know (wouldn't he?). yeah, he'd know. he'd know because bobby can't keep a secret, so if he'd seen anything, the whole county would've heard about it. and he'd know because jed already thinks he's a fuckup, so if he'd seen anything, he would've rubbed his nose in it. and he'd know because constance loves nothing more than starting a fight, so if she'd seen anything, her voice would still be echoing to this day, ringing to the tune of 'i told you so.' and he'd know because on the nights where things got too bad and too wild and too out of hand, him and caleb and kaylee woke up knowing the taste of blood and the weight of having done something bad, so if they'd done anything, there'd be some shadow of guilt. and he'd know because travis -

and you know that's when the pieces start to fall together. you know that's when it starts to make sense. the tourist car bobby mentioned scrapping, the one he's been keeping off the books at travis's request (he really can't keep a secret, can he?). the clothes missing from the kids' dressers back home, the ones that turned up missing when they packed their bags for camp (they were so confused, but figured they got lost in the wash). the food ma keeps catching him squirreling away ('like you think i'm blind, is that it? you think i don't SEE YOU taking it?!'). and you know he has a choice then, a choice he doesn't want to think too long on. he could call the parents. he could tell them their kids never showed up. he could tell them to start a search, to follow the roads they took, to ping their phones before it's too late.

or.

or.

he could put those letters in his safe room. he could pretend he never saw them. he could leave camp after dinner one night, promising the counselors he'll be back before lights-out, all smiles and pats on the back. he could follow his brother to the old station with his headlights off. he could get the jump on him. he could surprise him in the act. he could convince him to get rid of them. he could make the whole thing go away. what's the big deal, right? technically, they're already missing anyway.

Using free cam you I was able to see Kaylee Hackett’s facial model during the pool scene.

don’t get me started on ryan. scratch that i’m already started on ryan.

whenever people speak on ryan and they call him unreasonable for his behavior during the night i just have to wonder if they understand just how important the hacketts (specifically chris, caleb, ane kaylee)were to him. this isn’t me saying that people are wrong for disliking him, but holy moly.

ryan is close to chris and his kids. not like they see each other around camp and he’s been coming to camp and just decided to become a counselor, but like, they took a selfie together i can’t. even if we ignore the fact that he had to kill chris and the fact that the best ending is all three of them dead, there’s also the death of what is very obviously his safe space.

the dude has all sorts of stuff going on at home that’s very unsavory, and then the ONE place he’s been coming to for YEARS is suddenly ripped away from him because surprise surprise your favorite camp leader and your best friends have been lying to you for 6 years. wahoo!!

and then if that isn’t bad enough, even before laura pulls up he has to go find an infected nick and bring him back, cut dylan’s actual arm off or just watch dylan get attacked by a werewolf, and then find his best friend dead in the pool.

with all of this going on it seems like a no-brainer that ryan would be like “yeah okay cool werewolves exist let’s keep it pushing”, so i don’t necessarily blame people for being annoyed that he’s being difficult.

i propose the theory that ryan’s reluctance to accept werewolves has very little to do with him being intentionally obtuse. the guy listens to supernatural podcasts. the guy watched nick transform right in front of him. he’s not an idiot guys i swear.

i think it has everything to do with the fact that ryan accepting that nick is a werewolf means accepting that there are werewolves which means accepting that there have BEEN werewolves and chris didn’t tell him anything about it which is very obviously the hugest slap in the face that has ever slapped in the face. so yeah on the surface it seems like he’s being a turd just to be a turd but ryan was experiencing some Very Complicated Feelings ™️ and receiving absolutely zero grace for it.

this isn’t to say they all should have stopped and held hands with ryan and cried or anything, i don’t think there was time for that, but just, like, from his perspective that had to be terrible.

literally everyone else is just like “oh crap chris hackett is a werewolf that’s strange anyway let’s kill him” which is understandable because when you don’t have that connection and you’re really just worried about, like, not dying, you can deal with killing your camp leader.

but ryan did have that connection and again was not only dealing with the death of chris hackett as a person but the death of chris hackett as a concept (safe space, father figure, whatever whatever) which also meant the death of hackett’s quarry and his entire childhood pretty much.

ryan headcanons because i cannot resist:

- autistic, that is all.

- hit it off with kaitlyn because kaitlyn is very blunt and never made him guess how she was feeling

- the beef with jacob is 100% over something petty. could definitely see jacob saying something that rubbed ryan the wrong way and it just never got better

- is allergic to using his words. will fight you first. does not drag it out. will punch you in the face and leave.

- contrary to popular belief, he does not brood. he just has a resting brooding face and is very often thinking happy thoughts underneath. could hit someone with a mean glare while thinking about what he wants for dinner.

- he does, however, wear the “mysterious” label with pride. he’s not very open, and he likes it that way.

- very patient because of sarah

- gives decent advice, but will not sugarcoat anything.

Also I've been re-watching BNHA and Shigaraki is such a beloved character to me. Been obsessed with him since middle school.. 😌

for a particularly strong version of this kind of replacement: the word "bear" comes from a proto-Germanic word meaning "brown one" because there was a taboo against saying the animal's actual name. the taboo is gone but it was so strong in the past that we have no record of what the proto-Germanic word for "bear" even was.