An Analysis of Alex Hill
Aka: "In Which Cyberjello Spends Too Many Words Projecting Onto One of His Favourite Characters"
If you're here from the SRS discord server, Hi! I noticed something neat about Alex, and because I either have nothing to say or way too much, I wrote this whole… thing about it. Enjoy!
On the other hand, if it's the future and you stumbled upon this post by chance and are still here because you like reading character analyses even when you know nothing about the character (like me), this is about Alex Hill. He's a main character from a webtoon called The Last Dimension, which you can read here (and should because it's great)! This pile of words contains some spoilers for the first and second seasons. Enjoy!
Alex is a pretty interesting character. Sometimes he's a massive jerk, and sometimes he feels really bad about having been a massive jerk. But 90% of the time he's a pretty chill dude (if a little insensitive) who doesn't seem to care about any particular issue. I've pointed out an example of this before; how in the span of a couple days he switched from harassing Phillip about not being normal, to telling him in no uncertain terms that his otherness didn't matter. At first I was a little mystified. It seemed weird for him to change his stance like that so quickly, yet at the same time it didn't feel out of character for him. So I thought about it a bit more, and then I had an epiphany.
Alex differs from the others in how he thinks. He doesn't worry about what could happen in the near future, like Fai does. He doesn't dwell on the implications behind pieces of information, like Phillip does. He's impulsive, quick to say whatever pops into his head, and rarely stops to consider the long-term consequences of his actions.
And gee, as a young fellow with ADHD who's only been medicated for less than ten years, that all sounds awfully familiar. And rereading TLD with that connection in mind has been quite interesting.
See, ADHD—or at least my particular flavour of it—does some interesting things with one's sense of importance. Past, present, and future are tossed aside in favour of a much simpler system: "Now" and "Not Now". Things that happen during "Not Now" are rarely factored into decisions made during "Now". Desires, ideas, and thoughts that happen "Now" are almost always a higher priority and given more immediate attention.
The most visible manifestation of this is impulsiveness: the moment at which you have an idea, something you could say or do, is Now. Anything else—be it a task you were just in the middle of doing, a favour somebody asked of you an hour ago that you should really get started on, or the possible future consequences of executing this idea—those are all Not Now, and therefore not important, in the unlikely event that they even come to mind.
And you can definitely see that impulsiveness in Alex whenever he says something he really, really shouldn't.
But impulsiveness isn't the only thing that the Now/Not Now dichotomy is responsible for. One of the clearest places I've also noticed it is in how he treats Phillip. Remember how he switches from jerk to friendly almost on a dime? Yeah, he actually does that a lot in season 1, doesn't he? In fact, I've gone and taken SIXTEEN FRICKING SCREENSHOTS BETWEEN EPISODES 2-15 AND I'M GOING TO GO THROUGH AND TALK ABOUT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS BECAUSE I'M INSANE!!!
To start off though, I'm going to say what should be obvious to anyone who's read TLD: Alex isn't a mean person at heart. He cares a lot about those around him, including Phillip.
Anyway, in Episode 2 he acts like an absolute jerk to Phillip:
Clearly not the best of friends, are they? Well, you could have fooled me, because 15 minutes later, Alex is cheering him on and then looking out for him as he bluntly tells Phillip to "shift into [his] normal self".
And he proves to be a pretty good person after this. He's genuinely worried about Fai when she nearly drowns, and he's pretty friendly, if a bit cranky. But eventually it becomes clear how bad their situation is and all of a sudden—
—he's back to being a jerk.
But then Fai calls him out on it, and the effect is immediate.
He feels bad. He knows what he just did wasn't right.
BUT THEN FIVE MINUTES LATER HE DOES IT AGAIN
Twice more this happens, where Alex is acting pretty friendly but then says something stupid, Fai tells him off, and he clearly feels bad immediately after—
—and then he acts like it never happened and he's genuinely friendly and nice again.
In fact, after that first day on Imash, he never says anything mean-spirited to or about Phillip again. Insensitive, sure, but not outright mean.
This isn't just Alex changing his opinion over the course of a couple days. This little flip-flop he does is a whole pattern that I'm going to go ahead and examine a little closer.
To start, let's compare the first two scenes I mentioned. In their room the Institute, Alex is frustrated that he has to share a room with Phillip. There's a good reason for him to not be upset; he does care about Phillip, and sharing a room with him would really help Phillip stay hidden. But Phillip's predicament—and more to the point, the effect it has on him that Alex perceives—currently rests in the far-off land of Not Now. Meanwhile in the land of Now, Alex doesn't get to be in a room with his other friends. Phillip's visible otherness is a painful reminder of the perceived betrayal from when he revealed his true form. To top it off, there's the background noise of Alex's frequent use as a guinea pig. There's a lot going on, and only one target to lash out at.
15 minutes later during the fall to Imash, all those things have entered Not Now. On the other hand, "I'm no longer falling to my doom thanks to Phillip" and "Fai and Anne are coming and are about to see Phillip" become Now. Looking out for Phillip is the Now Problem, sharing a room with him is a Not Now Problem.
But that's fairly normal, isn't it? Of course Alex is going to be nice to the person who just saved his life. Let's continue.
After they swim the shore, Alex is actually relatively friendly with Fai, in contrast to the name-calling and snarkery he used with her and Susi back at the Institute. Because Now, Fai isn't someone annoying trying to get in his way, she's just someone stuck here along with him.
Speaking of which, he doesn't seem all too concerned about what just happened. Annoyed, maybe, but not worried. After all, nothing bad is happening Now. But then Anne finds a tablet with an alien language on it, and the fact that they're not in Kansas anymore suddenly becomes a very big, very obvious Now Problem. Alex finally feels the true gravity of the situation, and lashes out at Phillip. (This provides a decent example of that impulsiveness again, where Alex's brain makes a connection and he acts on it Now.) Which brings me to my next observation, which is that Fai, by intervening, basically gives Alex the opportunity to realize when he's in the wrong.
Now, this part brings back a lot of memories from before I started taking medication for my ADHD. I used to tease my sister relentlessly. As Paranatural's Ed Burger puts it:
As I myself can testify, that bit about the reactions is the key here, ESPECIALLY when one has ADHD and that immediate reaction, the thing that happens Now, is practically the only thing that matters here. When I used to mess with my sister, I hated making her sad and felt awful wherever that happened. But angry? When she got angry and chased me around the house I thought was hilarious. It was that brief but very much Now moment of entertainment that motivated me. However, we've seen that Phillip doesn't give much of a reaction when bullied. He freezes up and then afterward, he disappears somewhere for half an hour to cry where no-one will see it:
And I believe that LACK of an immediate reaction is just as important. Alex has a lot of crap in his life to move him to take it out on Phillip. He doesn't need a reaction to do it, but the absence thereof means he never immediately sees how much Phillip suffers because of it. It never becomes apparent Now, when he's able to notice.
But then along comes Fai, who does react when he says something hurtful about somebody else. And it's her reaction that makes him stop and become able to realize that what he was doing. He genuinely feels bad because as I said earlier, he doesn't want to be mean, he's just never able to notice when he is.
There's one other things I want to point out about the Now/Not Now thing. When you have something that could happen or will happen in the future, something that could affect you in some way, it doesn't really seem real. It's not immediately affecting you, it's Not Now, so there's no need to worry. And I see this in Alex a LOT.
These are his thoughts about seeing a giant energy beam appear in the distance: "I'm tired; it's not a Now Problem, I don't feel like thinking about it right now." The reason I find this familiar is because it's exactly what my brain would tell me whenever I sat down to do homework with a far-off deadline.
And later, when Alex and Fai tell Phillip about Fai's bad vision about him, he very clearly isn't thinking about the contents of the vision itself; they're not happening Now, after all. He doesn't seem even a little worried about it, unlike Fai.
Now, I'm not going to outright say "Alex might canonically have ADHD" because I'm not a brain biologist who knows how to look for this stuff, nor do I know if this was intentional. (I'm also never been one to form headcanons, I typically stare at canon and go, "yup, that's pretty cool!") But I will say that I have ADHD, and I see a lot of myself in Alex, which is pretty neat.
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I am thrilled Alex has renewed his contract and is remaining on the grid for the foreseeable future.
It could have waited until tomorrow. It could have waited until after Imola.
Why have Logan's project come out just to have ONE single post about it on the grid? Alex has ELEVEN. Alex is a great driver and he deserves a spot but not only is it a big fuck you to Logan, it's a huge fuck you to the other drivers, legends, that Williams brought in for this.
It's a huge fuck you to Jenson Button, Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, and Jacques Villeneuve, several of whom were there in person to watch Logan do Lap of Legends.
What is the point in promoting the history of the team, the talents of the team, if you are going to throw it in a drawer all for one driver?
Monaco is next week. It's not as though there's a two week break again, it is next week. Announce it next week.
Like not only was it a huge project honoring the history of Williams, it was also a huge intersection of sport and technology.
If Williams wanted Alex so badly, why would they put Logan in the car? What was the point?
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Chaos Crew MASTERLIST
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ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ: ᴀʀᴛʜᴜʀᴛᴠ, ɢᴇᴏʀɢᴇ ᴄʟᴀʀᴋᴇʏ, ᴀʀᴛʜᴜʀ ʜɪʟʟ, ᴄʜʀɪꜱᴍᴅ, ᴀʟᴇx ᴇʟᴍꜱʟɪᴇ, ᴄᴀᴍ ᴋɪʀᴋʜᴀᴍ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛᴀʟɪᴀɴʙᴀᴄʜ!
☁️= fluff, 🔞= smut, 💢 = angst
REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!! Send litr anything in thru the inbox n i'll write it (or not)... No promises it'll be done any time soon tho :DD
Arthur ATV Frederick
☁️"Pub golf forfeit" - Chippo catches wind of your little YouTube crush on ArthurTV and decides to put you in a team with him to try and set you up- but when Harry, Chris and the rest of the boys do their best to embarrass you in front of your crush, how will the night really end as you fight the cameras, pints and awful pub gold forfeit cards... | ChrisMD half-sister!OC x ATV
💢☁️"Caught" - Months of sneaking around behind your brother's back with his best friend gets exposed as you and Arthur get a bit too careless and get yourselves CAUGHT...
📸Zesty University ATV
🔞"Submissive" - pwp (porn w/out plot), desperate, whiny, sub!Arthur x dom!reader
☁️Head Scritches" - Short 800 word blurb of Arthur just kinda realising that he likes the feeling of your hands between his hair a lot.
🔞"Locked In" - Xtra long 7.3k word smutshot set in S3 locked in house. Y/n is set the strenuous task of ignoring Arthur all day by Sugarlips - yet when Arthur realises this, he does everything in his power to break her... Will you successfully pass your challenge or succumb to Arthur's antics?
🔞"Eating Out HC's" - headcanons of what the Chaos crew would be like giving head
☁️"Return from Sri Lanka" -inspired by Chip's Sri Lanka vids w ATV, a hyper-fluff oneshot of what it's like for gf!reader, seeing Arthur after a whole week of being apart
"Harry Potter x Chaos Crew HC's" - what these goofies would be like in a Harry Potter/Hogwarts Alternate Universe ✨
🔞"SuperMilker3000" - don't be scared by the title. Silly lil 800 word drabble on using a toy w Arthur... taken from my ArthurTV NSFW alphabet that's currently in the works!
📸ATV getting zesty w G Clarkey in a Camden Bar
🔞"Same Time." - when stranded in a little village after a platform roulette with George Clarkey n ArthurTV leads to all three of you sharing a hotel room with one bed and loosened inhibitions... xtra long 6.1k wordcount and very smutty.
🔞"ArthurTV NSFW Alphabet"
📸ATV n G Clarkey Nasty Girl TikTok
🔞"Boxer" - In which Arthur has a certain predilection for the coach's daughter who is subsequently the first aid woman that drives him feral, especially after a boxing match whereby he's got a lot of pent up testosterone to take out...
Chris Chrismd Dixon
🔞"ChrisMD NSFW alphabet"
🔞"Threesome" - W2s x reader x ChrisMD in a post-pub drunken mess of horny brains and hard cocks
🔞"Eating Out HC's" - headcanons of what the Chaos crew would be like giving head
🔞"Piercings" - in which gf!reader gets nipple piercings as a surprise for Chris, which leaves Chris battling his inner demons and resisting all urges to pull or touch those sensitive buds to see you scream whilst he pounds you | part of [KINKTOBER]
"Harry Potter x Chaos Crew HC's" - what these goofies would be like in a Harry Potter/Hogwarts Alternate Universe ✨
☁️💢"Gone, Gone/iloveyou" - Sharing the sadness that comes with your best friend, first love, absolute world, leaving you <3 (tw: mildly cringe if u dont deep it)
☁️🔞"Señor Frogs HCs" - Inspired by Señor Frogs driving team getting their first podium: headcanons of what it'd be like returning to each of the drivers as gf!reader after each of their stints.
Cam Kirkham
<tbc!>
Arthur Hill
🔞"Eating Out HC's" - headcanons of what the Chaos crew would be like giving head
"Harry Potter x Chaos Crew HC's" - what these goofies would be like in a Harry Potter/Hogwarts Alternate Universe ✨
George Clarkey
🔞"Rodeo Ride" - Something about George riding that bull machine at the pub just looks so sinful, and the alcohol gives you an extra buzz of confidence when you're talking to him afterwards, leading to a good night with George...
☁️"Nights out" - Just a plain, fluffy cuddles n kisses style oneshot reflecting on what it'd be like when George came home after a night out- a huggy, touchy drunk bf ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
☁️"Christmas Imagines" - A note-form story of getting Christmas decorations out and celebrating alongside boyfriend!George... V fluffy and wholesome :)
☁️ "Snow!" - Friends to lovers, featuring ATV, ChrisMD, WillNE, Mia, Immallexx, Alice, Cam n Chloe all celebrating in the apartment when the snow starts covering the London streets which they race down to play in. Super fluffy G Clarkey x y/n festive Winter vibes
🔞"Eating Out HC's" - headcanons of what the Chaos crew would be like giving head
"Harry Potter x Chaos Crew HC's" - what these goofies would be like in a Harry Potter/Hogwarts Alternate Universe ✨
📸ATV getting zesty w G Clarkey in a Camden Bar
🔞"Same Time." - when stranded in a little village after a platform roulette with George Clarkey n ArthurTV leads to all three of you sharing a hotel room with one bed and loosened inhibitions... xtra long 6.1k wordcount and very smutty.
🔞"Hate Sex" - basically porn w/out plot, in which you hate George Clarkey yet somehow end up with him between your legs, fucking you like he's your worst enemy.
📸ATV n G Clarkey Nasty Girl TikTok
☁️"George Clarkey Crying HC's"
Isaac ItalianBach Smith
<tbc!>
ALL!! - silly little drabbles
"Chaos Crew as lawyers"
"Chaos Crew on a Roadtrip"
"Chaos Crew Cooking"
"Chaos Crew as good mornings"
"Do they kiss the homies goodnight?"
Cutesy lil platform roulette moments (1),(2),(3)
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