vulcns:

i get emotional when i think about seth and richie watching movies as kids and developing personas that they would later use when they’re robbing banks.

how it started when they were young as a way to deal with their father. a way to escape their life and dream about who they would be when they were older and free. they turned themselves into gunslingers and antiheroes as a way to survive. 

then they grew up and used these same personas as a way to navigate a world where they do violent, corrupt things. as a way of separating or dissociating themselves from the truth of their actions so they can go back to a motel room and shut off and just be fucking human again. this seems especially true for seth.

seth, who said that he studied all the great actors, how they have a way of looking believable. he keeps referencing that, to the guy running the liquor store and then to jacob fuller in the motel room. tells them that it’s their time in the spotlight, their time to shine. that if they do this right, they’ll walk away with their lives and one hell of a story. 

i can imagine seth telling himself the same thing. that he just has to get through this, do what it takes, stay in control, keep richie close, and then they’ll make it to el rey.

and even richie changes, physically trading his glasses for sunglasses when he walks into abilene with a big “good morning sweetheart” and he’s so much smoother during the robbery than he is with the girl at the liquor store. richie who referred to the hostages at the liquor store as “skirts,” who uses the roles, the language of those old movies in his own reality. 

like they’re following a script that they read as kids. how to be bank robbers. how to get rich and fat and die in the arms of a beautiful woman.