Thattaboy, Spengs. Traumatizing your peers from an early age. I love it.
[He really does love it. Venkman hates that Egon's childhood was the way that it was, but it's always a bit of a comfort to hear that he was able to protect himself, in his own way.
Venkman takes Egon's hand gladly, squeezing it for a moment. His expression darkens for a moment at the mention of his other self, before turning thoughtful.]
I dunno. I mean, it's hard to look back on your own life and pinpoint what decisions might've set your personality in stone one way or the other. We were both carny kids, both frat brothers, both psych students, both professors, both Ghostbusters, right? So all the important steps are there.
[He taps his plate idly with his empty fork, drawing back on years of work in the psychology field.]
Early childhood's where a lot of shit happens. Know you said that his sounds similar to mine, but could be that his parental situation was different from me. Maybe my- his dad was around more often, or his version of my ma wasn't in the hospital so much. Or the other way around- maybe Dad never bothered comin' home at all, or Mom died earlier than she did for me.
College, too. Maybe he got further into the frat bro lifestyle than I did, or he kept going with football for longer than I did. Or vice versa, again.
[Venkman pauses, taking another sip of his drink. He narrows his eyes.]
Like... there was that time I got drunk at a party and yelled at a bunch of people to leave you alone- the, uh, night we kissed for the first time, Spengs.
I know that after that, I kinda started to pull away from the fraternity guys and stopped caring as much about my image. More about you and Ray. Sure, I still kept up appearances- dated women, tried to act like your average red-blooded American jock- especially since it was even more important, now, to keep you safe- but I distanced myself more and more from those kinda people. Could be that he had the opposite reaction- played it up twice as hard and went too far?
no subject
[He really does love it. Venkman hates that Egon's childhood was the way that it was, but it's always a bit of a comfort to hear that he was able to protect himself, in his own way.
Venkman takes Egon's hand gladly, squeezing it for a moment. His expression darkens for a moment at the mention of his other self, before turning thoughtful.]
I dunno. I mean, it's hard to look back on your own life and pinpoint what decisions might've set your personality in stone one way or the other. We were both carny kids, both frat brothers, both psych students, both professors, both Ghostbusters, right? So all the important steps are there.
[He taps his plate idly with his empty fork, drawing back on years of work in the psychology field.]
Early childhood's where a lot of shit happens. Know you said that his sounds similar to mine, but could be that his parental situation was different from me. Maybe my- his dad was around more often, or his version of my ma wasn't in the hospital so much. Or the other way around- maybe Dad never bothered comin' home at all, or Mom died earlier than she did for me.
College, too. Maybe he got further into the frat bro lifestyle than I did, or he kept going with football for longer than I did. Or vice versa, again.
[Venkman pauses, taking another sip of his drink. He narrows his eyes.]
Like... there was that time I got drunk at a party and yelled at a bunch of people to leave you alone- the, uh, night we kissed for the first time, Spengs.
I know that after that, I kinda started to pull away from the fraternity guys and stopped caring as much about my image. More about you and Ray. Sure, I still kept up appearances- dated women, tried to act like your average red-blooded American jock- especially since it was even more important, now, to keep you safe- but I distanced myself more and more from those kinda people. Could be that he had the opposite reaction- played it up twice as hard and went too far?