#lovelythoughts

CW: mentions of drugs and alcohol abuse

Listen guys, Steve Randle gets a lot of hate in this fandom and as much as it pains me, it's valid. Everyone has their own interpretation of the source material, and fandom is supposed to be fun, so it is absolutely valid and ok to hate or love any character you want. You can hate Steve for many reasons or for no reason at all! This is fandom! That's ok! The story is for you interpret and love and play with and hate on to your hearts content. HOWEVER, to say that Steve Randle isn't an important character to the novel is simply not true, and to say that he hates Ponyboy requires ignoring or downplaying some pretty key moments of the book. This is especially true for those of you who love Dally but hate Steve, because Steve gets a lot of hate for being kind of a dickhead (which lbr, a lot of seventeen years old are, especially to their friend's little siblings) while Dally gets less for doing a lot worse (harassing Cherry, jumping kids, etc). This isn't to say that either character is better- they're both great, nuanced characters who have done bad things, but the fandoms attitudes towards them when they share a lot of characteristics is really telling. Even Ponyboy's narration about them is pretty similar- Pony doesn't particularly like Steve, and he was canonically scared of Dally, but they're both members of his gang and he doesn't hate either of them. You don't have to like Steve as a character, just like you don't have to like Dally or Darry or Tim Shepard or even Ponyboy, but he is important- and he doesn't hate Ponyboy, nor does Ponyboy hate him.

A really important moment in the book is when Ponyboy and Johnny defend Dally after he harasses Cherry and Marcia.

"Dally's okay," Johnny said defensively, and I nodded. You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you're a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don't stickup for them, stick together, make like brothers, it isn't a gang any more. It's a pack. A snarling, distrustful, bickering pack like the Socs in their social clubs or the street gangs in New York or the wolves in the timber."

This line here is super important. Pony and Johnny were willing to defend Dally after he sexually harrassed Cherry and Marcia- soc girls who they clearly liked and were intimidated by- in the name of being a good friend, because that is what's important to them and their gang. If they're willing to do it in this context for Dally, you'd best believe they'd do the same for Steve, and him for them. Steve can and will rag on Ponyboy within the gang, but he'd never dream of bad mouthing him to anyone else. Dependability is important to the gang, and Steve would never publicly shit talk Pony, and vice verca. Regardless of their squabbles within the gang, at the end of the day they've got each others backs. They're buddies. We see evidence of this at the end of the book, when Pony grabs the bottle and threatens the socs with it.

"You really would have used that bottle, wouldn't you?" Two-Bit had been watching from the storedoorway. "Steve and me were backing you, but I guess we didn't need to. You'd have really cut them up, huh?"

The important thing here is that along with Two-bit, Steve was backing Ponyboy, no questions asked. Sure most of it boils down to Pony being a member of the gang and that deep rooted loyalty to one another, but the context for this scene is that Ponyboy was sitting on Steve's car waiting for Steve and Two to stop flirting with some girls. The three of them were hanging out- without Darry, without Sodapop. It's their school lunch break. We know Ponyboy has middle class friend's at school, or that he could've spent time in the school library. It was a deliberate choice to hang out with Two and Steve. He wasn't forced into it. Canonically, Steve and Ponyboy hang out. Never alone, but they're decent enough friends to hang out together in a group. Doesn't everyone have friends like that? I do. This isn't the only textual instance either where they hang out without the entire gang being present. Early on, Pony offhandedly mentions that sometimes Steve and Soda will buy him pop and teach him about cars if he hangs around the DX.

"I had walked down to the DX station to get a bottle of pop and to see Steve and Soda, because they'll always buy me a couple of bottles and let me help work on the cars."

He could've just said Soda's name here but he didn't. Steve buys Pony pepsi and teaches him about cars, even though he gets annoyed with him when Soda invites him to hang around with them too often. And honestly, who wouldn't? I'd be annoyed if my best friend always invited her little brother along with us, even if I liked the kid. Wouldn't you?

Now, we do need to address the elephant in the room. I'm talking of course, about this quote;

"I'd never tell Soda, because he really likes Steve a lot, but sometimes I can't stand Steve Randle. I mean it. Sometimes I hate him."

I feel like very often people forget the context this quote comes from, and so it's magnitude is blown way out of proportion. Ponyboy has just been jumped and then immediately scolded by his brother who constantly makes him feel foolish and unwanted. He's already scared, embarassed, and defensive and then Steve goes and makes him feel even more unwanted. Of course he wants to lash out. Of COURSE he feels like he hates Steve in that moment. I did even reading it. But Ponyboy doesn't truly hate Steve. This moment is PEAK fourteen year old having a rough night energy, it's not truly representative of Steve as a character or of Ponyboy's feelings towards him. In truth, Steve actually kind of likes Ponyboy and is at very least protective over him. This is evidence by the previous quotes, but also when Ponyboy comes back from Windrixville, and is worried about the state placing him in foster care;

"'No, [Ponyboy said] 'they ain't goin' to put us in a boys' home.' 'Don't worry about it,' Steve said, cocksure that he and Sodapop could handle anything that came up. 'They don't do things like that to heroes.'"

-Does that thing where he kind of dances/shimmies to music unconsciously. Steve made fun of him for it once, and ever since Darry’s tried to tone it down, but never really succeeds. (Steve never bugged him about it again because Sodapop got so mad at him for it)

-Doesn’t laugh often but when he does it’s the kind of laugh that’s completely contagious. Surprisingly Ponyboy’s sarcasm and Johnny’s dry quips end up making him laugh more than any of the rest of the gang’s bawdy or situational humour

-Makes the best scalloped potatoes known to man. Both Soda and Ponyboy practically beg him to make them for their birthdays or special occasions

-Ponyboy went with him to the gym once after windrixville when they were trying to find an activity to bond over and it ended with Ponyboy attempting to keep up with him and Darry having to practically carry him to the car. They decided Darry would teach Pony to drive as a bonding activity instead

-Was up for a promotion to foreman at his job that would have had a decent pay raise and didn’t tell Soda or Ponyboy about it. He made it to the final round of interviews but ultimately didn’t get it and was SUPER crushed. (Same Darry, same)

-His eye twitches when he’s pissed off but trying not to show it

-Sometimes when Ponyboy is out with friends or goes to bed early, Darry and Soda will have a mini conference where they discuss whether they think he’s doing ok because Darry is terrified of messing Pony up and needs the reassurance he’s doing a good job as guardian

-Taught Pony to shave and it was actually a really emotional time for him because their dad had taught both him and Soda how but wasn’t there to teach Ponyboy. It hurt even more because Ponyboy was so excited about the fact he finally HAD enough facial hair to need to shave and Darry was kind of punched in the chest remembering that Ponyboy is only fourteen, and that he’d had so much less time with their parents than he himself had.

-Doesn’t talk about the gang or his brothers at work. Not because he’s ashamed of being greasy or anything (a lot of guys on his work crew are east side guys) but because work is his only escape from being a leader/grown up and having to take care of everyone. In fact, he’s one of the youngest full time guys on the crew, and because of that he gets a lot of ‘shut up and listen to your elders’ kind of jokes from the guys in their thirties and forties, which he finds ironically funny on good days, and gets lowkey pissed off about on bad ones

-Has skipped meals when money is tight so that his brothers have enough food

-Didn’t regret fighting Paul at the rumble even though they’d been good friends in high school, because after the Curtis parents died Paul told him to let Pony and Soda go into care and to look out for himself and not ‘kids who aren’t your problem Darry’ and Darry never forgave him for it

-The gang and his brothers think he doesn’t have time for girls, and he doesn’t, not really, but he goes to the same diner during his lunch break each day to flirt with one of the waitresses there- a girl he went to high school with who was also meant for bigger things but got stuck in Tulsa just like him.     (listen I’m multiship trash who also has a soft spot for tarry but this idea lives rent free in my head ok)

-His way of dealing with issues when he’s unsure is to just ask himself what his dad would do and if he doesn’t know what his dad would do he panics