PARASOCIALITE MANIFESTO
⚠️massive infodump ahead⚠️
i wrote all that forever ago when i was trying to figure out the dynamic (and after rewatching a stream of the beginner’s guide, feeling incredibly inspired to create a drawing of twitch as a parasocial figure and thought i needed someone on the “other end” so to speak). after writing vol 3, it just sorta fell into place. i was trying not to post too many drawings before it came out 🤭
my original idea was basically the clashing of “someone who doesn’t care about anything” and “someone who cares too much about everything,” which is still true but i really love the added parasocial aspect of it 😁😁😁 and i like opposites attract type of shit i guess
kik wouldn’t even think of twitch as anything more than a basic influencer type until after watching for a good while. at the start, he was only curious, and still held disdain for twitch’s streaming personality. but he likes it when twitch gets mad, so somehow he found himself continuing to watch old streams and new ones.
there’s also a sense of relatability all streamers have, and so for someone like kik, who doesn’t find most people relatable (or tries), it felt even more intense. the fact that twitch is genderfluid, has overlap in their sense of humor, and those random moments where you and the streamer are just… thinking the same thing in the moment, feels like a red strings of fate to kik. donating to get twitch to read her message gives her a major shot of dopamine lol.
things that kik originally disliked in twitch are now reasons why she’s soooooo amazing: workaholic -> talented, trying too hard -> cute. she agonizes over being so attached to someone she once pinned as a normie and over the possibility that she’s being creepy.
deep down kik is a social person, and used to talk to people all the time, only thru the window while rarely meeting anyone “irl.” since amino is the only other person kik cares abt now and they go periods of time isolating itself, welllllll ig kik gets a bit lonely.
from twitch’s perspective, she has been working hard and trying to fit in with the bigger sites as her platform basically became a major trend in recent years. she adores the sleekness and style of celebrity type sites (which is why she thinks yt and insta are attractive) and wants the attention too. just in her own, gamer way.
twitch gets easily swept up in the streamer/audience feedback loop, and hasn’t quite figured out how to create clear boundaries. she can tell right away that kik was a fan by meeting #2, but she kinda likes being showered with praise and attention and stuff like that. though she really hates it when kik makes assumptions about her based on their limited perspective.
i specified that this happened during their burnout era because it would be when they make the most irrational decisions. before then, they probably didn’t even remember kik’s existence or rejected him. it would take a while for twitch to actually see anything in kik, partially cuz he never talks about himself or his interests, and also cuz he’s just not their type (or so it seems??)
after the dust is settled, their true dynamic is kik still being mushy/touchy-feely and twitch being awkward about it bc normally she’s kinda adverse to that stuff and would rather it be a joke. especially around other people. kik would bother the fuck out of him in public and likes embarrassing him. this also compounds with kik being the antithesis to the image twitch likes/wants to achieve.
dont get me started with the eddsworld polycule thing. theyd all kill each other
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jake “hangman” seresin + 12, 21, 22?
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omg nonnie hello !!! <3<3 i so so love my boy jake tysm for the ask !!! <3 TW for mentions of child abuse so pls skip if ur not down for that! also this might get long im so sorry 😭 i just have a lot of Thoughts ok 😭
12. what's a headcanon you have for this character?
i know this is like, decently universal, but there are different versions of it, so i would like to spit out my version with the precursor that i have read a lot of versions of jake's shitty childhood and they are ALL valid and i love them all in their own way so i don't mean this to sound like im tryinna say my headcanon is the only correct way or anything lol.
i do in fact think jake had a really shitty childhood (no surprises im sure). i think for me, it falls somewhere in the realm of overly-critical, under-affectionate, duty-based, act-perfect-for-the-public sort of behavior. the kind of parents who married and had kids out of obligation, bc Thats Just What You Do, but didn't really WANT kids, per se. i think jake has older sisters, and he is absolutely the youngest. he has youngest child syndrome So Bad. he was surprisingly straight-laced, and serious, because he had to be. it's what dear old mom and dad expected. straight As, no fucking around. better not get in trouble, and pay for it if you do.
i think the household might have been just a little bit ~physically abusive~. jake probably got the brunt of it- i think that seresin sr. probably grew bolder with time, and had more frustrations and expectations to push onto a son than onto his daughters. jake would've stood up, too, and lept in front of anything for his sisters, regardless of their age difference or the fact that they probably tried to do the same for him. it was CERTAINLY verbally abusive. nothing's ever good enough, why do you say things like that? don't speak to your father that way. i don't know what you want *me* to do about, if you treated your father with respect he would do the same for you. i think jake's mother sided with her husband often, which is complex, because seresin sr. is an emotionally abusive, uptight asshole, and she's under his thumb too, but she was probably complicit in plenty of it. it's easy to learn to perpetuate something you've known for most of your adult life. she probably married young, and she doesn't know relationships to look any different. it doesn't excuse her behavior, but it does explain.
he learned to do a lot for himself, to be competent in areas that children his age usually aren't. to cook for himself (and his sisters) because no one else was going to do it, some nights, and he was sick of living off of cereal. his sisters teach him how to cover a bruise with makeup one fateful night-before-picture-day, and they regret it later when it becomes an excuse, and jake is able to step in front of them despite their begging him not to, because it's ok, i can fix it before school (so not what they meant jake but ok).
jake probably knew javy in high school, and javy managed to pry jake out of his hardass asshole exterior, just a little. jake is an asshole, because he's learned it's the only way to get attention from his parents (and so what if it's negative attention? he doesn't know the difference). javy is the first person to give jake positive attention and jake doesn't know what to do with it or how to accept it. sometimes when the fighting is very bad at home, jake runs to javy's for a while, but he always goes back home to take his punishment sooner than javy or javy's parents would like, because he is afraid of leaving his sisters alone at home for too long with his parents.
eventually, tho, they are old enough to escape, and that means that jake is right on their heels. they check in as often as they can and things are the worst they've ever been for the years between his next oldest sister's departure and the day he turns 18. but when he does, he and javy enlist together. jake tells his parents, against his wishes. somehow it is another thing for his father to be angry about. his mother cries and cries, as if she's ever cared for his well-being before. for the first time, jake hits his father back. all the way to annapolis, he sports a black eye covered by makeup, and prays to the God of the church he was forced to attend in a suit acting presentable each sunday but does not believe in, that seresin sr. is not somewhere in texas right now talking to the police, ruining jake's chance at true freedom before it's even begun.
he must not be, because nothing ever comes of it. jake does not speak to his parents again.
if like all of this ends up in a fic in like idk 6 months or something. dont @ me. akdhfdjfghfjf it probably will even tho i have a wip list a mile long help aaaaaa
21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?
i have only (publicly) written for jake once, in the first half of chapter twenty-one of time takes no prisoners (you'll see), so that is my ticket to answering this lol. just know that i plan to write plenty for jake in the future, i am just swamped with mav dad and brad brad wips atm lol
i think my favorite thing about writing for jake is walking that exact line between being an absolute asshole and being a normal person, and the way that jake is somehow both entirely self aware of it, and entirely oblivious to it at the same time. the contrast between the things he thinks in his pov, and the things he says aloud, are also everything. his pov is one of my favorites in this fandom (tho ofc i have loved every pov i have written so far !!!) bc he's just so.... him. so much sharp and so much snark but so much heart too, if you can get to it. so much unresolved and unacknowledged childhood trauma manifesting all over the place. rip to jake but it's everything for me as the author lol.
one thing that sucks about this as the author tho is needing to BE these things on some level to write them. like im supposed to be witty and charming in this google doc rn ??????? say sike 😭 i spend a lot of time staring at an empty page when i get to jake's dialogue bc i can internal monologue all day long but when he has to be witty out loud its OVER for me lol
22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?
I GUESS THIS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE. but i love the mav-accidentally-adopting-jake-kind-of trope. it is like. my FAVORITE genre of jake fic. its so multi layered too, because mav has had this fractured relationship with bradley for so long and is still struggling to fix it with him, and now here's jake, and why is jake gravitating to mav so much???? mav just does whatever comes natural in the moment, and i think it's like. kind of part of it, in a way. not a big one, but i think mav gets to interact in this way with jake and gets to A. remember how to do it, and B. remind himself that he is capable. and C. i think jake reminds mav of himself at that age and he has some inherent instinct trying to stop the crash that he sees coming. the idea of jake never having been shown like, just regular kindness or understanding from a parental-coded individual and respecting mav a lot in his career, and then after the mission its awkward bc its like oh shit. this is roosters dad basically???? thats fucking weird. and the next thing you know you are hanging out with roosters dad on the weekends when rooster is deployed and you are not ?????? what is going ON. WHY does he speak nicely to me. why does he praise certain things that i do. why does he listen attentively to things that i say. why does he keep trying to hug me when i am leaving. what is this strange interaction.
that being said, i think we all agree jake has some kind of unresolved childhood trauma, and i LOVE to see him have to face it, but sometimes it can just... go too far. i think something i don't like seeing happen to jake in fic is if he kind of.... gets his sharp edges rounded down??? or like, his claws filed away??? jake is a fully grown adult man, who HAS parents out there somewhere in some worlds, or HAD them in others, and he is bold and brash and sharp and quick-tongued. it's easy to reduce him to kind of an extreme position emotionally, and don't get me wrong. i love to put my blorbos in extreme emotional situations. but idk. i think with jake especially its hard to imagine him in a soft situation, and we have a tenancy to warp his character, or make him too teary, too honest, too direct, too sad. for me i feel like the sweet spot is right in the middle, trying to make sure he stays a little depressed and a little angry with himself all the time and a lot disillusioned, while still staying flippant and charming and evasive. it's easy to bend the character to fit the situation instead of the situation to fit the character, but it's important, i feel, to try and do the latter and not the former, with any character, but especially jake, in this fandom.
THANK U SO MUCH FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO RAMBLE NONNIE......i hope u enjoyed and i didnt bore u too much akdhdjdhfjf. i love jake and i love u. that is all. 💕
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