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| “ | How about it, Devil Scum? | „ |
| ~ Exer's favorite catchphrase, referring to The Party. |
Ryan Xavier "Exer" Cunningham is the secondary antagonist of the fanfic Stranger Things: Lifeless. He is the son of Laura and Phillip Cunningham and younger brother of Chrissy Cunningham. While only a pictured character in the original series, this fanfic expands that he is a religious fanatic who abused Chrissy alongside her family for her entire life. After Chrissy's death, he teams up with Jason and uses avenging Chrissy as an excuse to kill the party. His sadism is eventually noticed by Vecna, who decides to recruit the boy as one of his servants under the name of Vampire General Kas.
Biography[]
Exer was born on October 8th, 1969 to a wealthy religous family. Growing up, he was always more talented, which made him more favored by his parents than Chrissy. This caused Chrissy to become very insecure and develop multiple self-esteem issues, such as annorexia. This ended up working against her, however, as Exer slowly began to become sexually attracted to her new body. In 1983, he ended up getting drunk and raping his sister. While at first he felt guilt, after realizing his parents didn't do anything to stop it, he quickly retracted his supposed guilt and realized he could do whatever he wanted. Around this time, he began his career as a celebrity who preaches the word of god. He was popular at school among his classmates, who thought he was harmless.
He continued to sexually abuse Chrissy until her trauma made her a target to Vecna in 1986. When Jason Carver started blaming Eddie Munson for the murders, Exer most likely knew Eddie was innocent but decided to go along with the story anyway and frame the party as devils and hunt them alongside the Devils. While the others wanted to catch a killer, Exer seemingly was just using the riots as an excuse to hurt people without getting in trouble. He is also often trying to convince Jason that the Party is responsible for Chrissy's death when he is having doubts about himself. To further his control of Jason, he visits the hospital and murders Jason's grandpa, framing it on the party.
After the death of Patrick, he sees the boys corpse and sadistically smiles. He takes this opportunity to gain complete control of Jason and suggests the jocks go and buy weapons for a "Devil Hunt." The group eventually locates the Party in the Creel House. He watches from outside, viewing Jason as he confronts Lucas, smiling to himself as Jason attacks the boy. Outside, he sees Andy fighting Lucas's little sister, Erica. When Andy loses the fight, he insults him for losing to a "little monkey" like her and says he'll show him how it's done. He snaps Andy's neck and proceeds to chase after Erica, with the intentions of humiliating her for being associated with a demon. This fails, however, as when suddenly the gates open, he tries to run but gets pulled inside, where the remains of Vecna speak to him, offering him power. He accepts but on the condition he gets to kill demons.
Exer begins his murder spree starting with former members of the Hellfire Club. He then murders 7 other students for trying to stop him, claiming they must be tainted with demon blood. He is finally confronted by The Party. He overestimates himself and attacks them head-on but quickly gets crippled by Nancy, who shoots him. He then warns them about Vecna's plans to destroy the world but is killed by Will mid-sentence.
Personality[]
On the surface, Exer is a polite and charismatic man who is seen as the school's bible thumper. He is always smiling, which makes him well-liked among his peers at school (except for Jason who can somewhat see through his facade and his family who know who he really is.)
In actuality, Exer is an incredibly sadistic, perverted, racist, hypocritical, psychopathic and manipulative individual who gets off on hurting others to satiate his bloodlust. This is shown when he has an almost orgasmic reaction to Patrick's corpse. He also hopes to use Erica's unconscious body as an attempt to rape her in front of her brother Lucas to spite him. He believes that due to the good deeds he has done throughout his life, he has a God-given right to act however he wants.
He regularly refers to The Party as devils, using it as an insult. Whether he believes they are actual devils or just make this term up as an excuse to manipulate Jason and kill them is unclear. It is also worth mentioning that he hypocritically turns into a devil-like being to attack the party later. Despite his quick temper and borderline insanity, he is actually quite calculative and intelligent, as shown by how he quickly deduces the party's location and manipulates Jason into believing they are responsible for Chrissy's death.
He is incredibly abusive towards Chrissy, having been the cause of her anorexia and low self-esteem, which allowed Vecna to target her. While he does claim to care for her, this is more so viewing her as a sex object than a person. He is also very quick to move on from her death and takes no responsiblity for being the cause of her truama.
After being resurrected as Kas, he becomes even more violent and sadistic, as he immediately murders 11 of his classmates. He ends up enjoying his powers too much however, getting arrogant and underestimating the party, which gets him killed surprisingly quick.
Gallery[]
