weak; mcduke

author's notes

Welcome to my humble fanfic :D

Please read these notes!

Trigger Warnings; Self harm, depression, suicide, attempted murder, (mildly censored) strong language, homophobic slurs, anorexia/bulimia, bullying, verbal and physical abuse, suggestive content, lots of gay stuff.

Lowercase intended.

I make a ton of references to a variety of vines, dead memes, other musicals and songs I like. I also play around with foreshadowing ;)

PLEASE DON'T JUDGE THIS BOOK BY ITS POORLY-MADE COVER (Picture was taken by me and edited using PicsArt)

Even after I publish chapters I will still be revising. (PLEASE feel free to give me opinions on chapter quality!!)

This story has been inspired by a multitude of Tumblr posts, annotations on Genius Lyrics and songs.

Additional note: Before anyone gets angry over this, I've changed a few things around;

- This is a half-modern AU, meaning things like smartphones exist. However, it still takes place in the time period Heathers does.

- This story was NOT written to give Heather Duke or any other character sympathy. It's an AU/headcanon I've worked a few months on formulating.

- I'm not sure if this fanfiction counts as an AU or headcanon. (Pretty sure a headcanon but I have no idea)

- A few non-canon characters have been included (Duke's family, mainly).

- Duke and Martha were still friends (though at a later age), I just chose not to add a chapter showing that because I found it unimportant to this particular fanfiction.

I didn't specify what "issues" Heather McNamara has because I don't want to make an uneducated mistake whilst describing the symptoms. Though, if any curious reader wants to know, she (most likely) gets panic attacks from anxiety, some form of depression and perhaps a light strain of autism. She also has a number of muscle problems.

Please don't say any people are "out of character". If they are, it was done on purpose.

This is my first fanfiction. Constructive criticism of any sort is strongly encouraged, but unnecessary hate will not be permitted.

Duke usually refers to McNamara as "Heather" and Chandler as "Chandler" because she feels more intimacy with McNamara.

If you don't agree with any ships included in this story, don't read it. (Chansaw, Kram, Mcduke, Mcnasawyer)

On the subject of songs being written:

This story doesn't exist in a dimension where everyone randomly bursts out into songs that somehow fit with music coming from nowhere. I try to take certain lines from the lyrics and incorporate them into actual dialogue. The only exceptions to this rule are "Blue" because it makes sense that two drunk guys would be singing about.. ya know (just without the music), and "Shine A Light (Reprise)" (since it's a figment of McNamara's imagination).

Grammar:

I still need improvement on my grammar and spelling skills, so please, feel free to politely correct my grammar.

Duke's "weak" complex:

The concept I formulated is non-canon. However, it was mainly inspired by the movie, in a certain scene where Heather Duke says, "Look, Martha couldn't take the heat, so she got out of the kitchen. Just think of what a better place this world would be if every (?) followed her queue." I found that statement rather disturbing and a clue is to what might actually be going through her head.

The timeline I base the later events of this story is this one:

DISCLAIMER: I DID NOT MAKE THIS TIMELINE (can't find the original poster, but it belongs to them). Sorry the images are so huge. Wattpad hates me ;w;

(Candy store- 3 weeks after Veronica joins the Heathers, Fight for Me is the same day) (2 days before Big Fun/Candy Store Reprise/Freeze Your Brain)