Mild ranting ahoy

They are there, always

Circling my head

clogging the mental hallways

stealing rest from my bed

 The giver of life,

who takes it away

through pointless strife

It belongs to her anyway

 The scion of a cycle

reaching above

Striking with poison and fire

He says its love

 The outsider, yet second wheel to the tricycle

concerned with his own plan

covers the story in clutching mire

What needs to move no longer can

 They aren't here, now

My head is alone

Empty hallways of bone

To a dragon, any woman who’s fashion is on point is a princess.

The voice in your dreams might be a friend.

The voice in your dreams might not be a friend.

The only way to know for sure if your prince/princess will save you is to survive as long as you can.

Money is completely pointless if unspent.

It’s impossible to make a profit through crafting and reselling unless you take advantage of someone.

Some folks just don’t know the value of what they have.

No one who appreciates the power they have discriminates based on gender, sexuality, or skin color.

You don’t get rewarded for tackling foes that do not challenge you, even if they started it.

A superior who doesn’t recognize or reward your excellence is working for the enemy.

Sometimes you need to say no to get the golden ending.

Some status debuffs are permanent.

When you push someone, they will push back.

Anyone can betray you, but not everyone will.

If there’s someone you like and they like you, go do a thing with them.

Friends are more tactically significant than lovers.

Six is the largest number of people that should do anything together at once.

Your odds of survival go up drastically if you make sure your friends are well equipped for the task at hand.

You are more successful if you’re realistic about what you can and can’t do with your items, skills, and special abilities.

It’s better to know a little about a lot of things than a lot about a few things.

Opposing and overthrowing the unjust is a duty for anyone with power.

Getting through a challenge without making a mistake requires having done it before.

Ultimate cosmic evil is not nearly so scary as that one guy who just will not accept that people should be good to each other.

It’s okay to just leave if your situation is not good for you.

You need to act in order to get what you want.

If a man touches you in a way you don’t want to be touched, it is moral to make him bleed.

Sometimes you need to sacrifice your pride to do the right thing.

The golden outcome of any quest involves letting both sides make their case to you.

Heather Duke: “I know what would be cool! I’ll pose in this window and wait for Veronica! I’ll look fantastic!”

*Ten minutes later*

Heather: “So that’s four students who asked me if I’m okay, and Courtney told me to stay in school. Where the hell is she?”

*Thirty minutes later*

Heather: “Thank God I forged this hall pass, or I’d be in some serious trouble right now. Okay, this pose is starting to hurt my hands and back. But I am committed now!”

*Thirty more minutes later*

Pictured: A yellow lacy hair bow, gift from the group’s Veronica. A yellow Best Friends bracelet, gift from the group’s Heather Chandler. And a bright yellow scrunchie, which I found on my own.

So, Heather McNamara, who I had the honor of cosplaying last weekend.

I adore Heather Mac. I absolutely adore her. She is literally me, and so significant for me personally.

I’m autistic, like she might be, and I often struggle with emotions and come at issues from angles like Rules instead of how people are feeling. I often go into little monologues that are very strange but which are meant as sincere compliments, and I tend to blurt out what’s actually on my mind when I feel comfortable.

You know, like Mac does during Candy Store - Guys pay the check and help you cheat? Really? Even in that song, that’s a bit on the nose.

Like Mac, I’ve been absolutely desperate to be loved and cared for, and like Mac that got me into trouble. Like her, I’ve done some pretty mean things because my friends needed me to, though at heart I’m not that mean. Sassy, yes, but not mean. Like Mac, a couple of times I’ve attached myself to the scariest person I could see in the hope they would protect me, or wound up entangled with someone toxic who I just thought was beautiful.

Like Mac, I’ve struggled with suicide - we float in a boat above a raging black ocean. Social isolation, controlling parents, controlling brother, abusive brother, or neglectful parents and an incredibly toxic school environment involving lots of people seeing you only as a fuck toy, the result is similar.

Of all the characters in Heathers, Mac is my favorite. Hands down, no questions asked. Because I see the most of me in her, even in her darkest moments - and the stuff she’s done that’s not so good I still see bits of me in.

So it was an honor to be her last weekend. It wasn’t just cosplaying at her, so many people recognized the five of us as Heathers + JD that I basically never dropped the character, though we were all a little nicer than our characters actually were.

So Heathers! I rewatched the movie and musical, and kind of cosplayed Heather McNamara at Tidewater Comic Con, which was an absolute BLAST.

Personally, Heather Mac is my most identified with character in either the movie or the musical, and you can read into that what you will. But this post is mostly about crossing Heathers and Harry Potter, so let’s go for it.

Veronica Sawyer would have been sorted into Slytherin House. Before you object that she’s not evil, remember that Slytherin is ambition and the willingness to do what is necessary to meet it. Veronica aspires to some rather lofty heights as far as colleges go, and has the grades to back it up. She aspires to be friends with Heather Chandler, not because she thinks good things about Chandler, but because it’s a manipulative move that will help keep her from being dunked on. She accomplishes this ambition to be close to Heather C through forgery and quick thinking, as well as placing the Heathers in her debt, however minor. Then she says almost exactly the right thing to say to egomaniacs - a Ravenclaw might know the right thing to say, but it would take a Slytherin to be sincere with it. Then when the Heathers make her over, she lords it over the other students, really proud of her success - and while I admit it feels fan-freaking-tastic to feel beautiful when you’ve spent your whole life convinced you’re ugly as sin, Veronica seems to take a bit too much pleasure in being the new royalty. In the movie, she aspires to go to college parties - and through her connection with Heather C, gets her wish. When JD murders Heather C (Spoilers), Veronica’s reaction is that she wants to not be in trouble for it, not that she needs to stop JD. After all, he’s providing something for her - happiness, joy, and for a Slytherin their personal happiness is pretty much the most important, Slytherins are the queens of self-esteem. So, again, using forgery and manipulation she avoids being suspected of murdering her best friend and worst enemy. Veronica goes on to fake the deaths of Kurt and Ram in a head-scratchingly complex gay suicide pack that any competent investigator should have seen through in three seconds. In the musical she then directly confronts JD, because her wishes have been flouted and it’s starting to come home to her how much danger she’s in because of her proximity to him. That it’s not just one semi-accidental death of one woman, that it’s going to be a murder spree, and it’ll end with her. In the movie, JD tries to gaslight her about what she was thinking and feeling, and Veronica has exactly no time for that shit - again, Slytherins tend to have very healthy senses of what they actually are feeling and saying.

It starts to come together from here - the tale of a Slytherin slowly realizing that she’s dating a psycho killer, and he’s gonna keep killing. Being a Slytherin doesn’t mean having no scruples - and even if it did, by killing, he is endangering her dreams, something she notes in the movie. When he comes to kill her and she’s faked her own death, the only thing for her to do at that point is to stop him - in the movie, the reason is ambiguous. She just kind of goes and stops him. Maybe it’s her moral compass speaking up. Maybe she realizes the only way to keep the fake suicide thing under wraps is to kill him. Maybe when he figures out she’s not dead, he’ll come back for her. And maybe she figures it’ll be a lot harder to get into Harvard if her high school explodes, her the only survivor. As far as constantly trying to defuse the bomb first goes, it’s strictly logical - she can deal with JD or not as she wills, but if that bomb explodes nothing she’s doing now will matter.