#i've reached the point of slightly more comprehensible thoughts . as u might be able to see here

[ratcandy]

Anyway while rummaging through the ONE tags and a few critiques, I’ve noticed a lot of debate over what Stone’s whole deal was given the ending of the show and. Well I want to speculate a little

Going to be referring to Stone as he/they because the wiki is telling me it's he/him but they/them feels Better to me . I get to gender the Stone.

also this post will be Long. Forewarning you!!!

I don’t think Stone is evil, first of all. I saw at least one proposal that Stone was acting out of some form of malice,, and I reeeeaaallly doubt it; the character we see is frantic and anxious, without any hints toward some darker intentions or. Idk, conniving? Attitude? it just doesn’t make sense with what we are shown of Stone. Granted we aren’t shown much but u know

Unless you want to count Liam’s wonky ass hallucination thing with Stone going like “you think you understand, don’t you?” Or whatever — but I count that Even Less since that was. Again. Wonky Liam hallucination or somethin, not Stone’s actual character

Cool idea for an au though I’ll say that much!

now I ALSO don’t think Stone was totally in the right either, but it's one of those situations where he was going to be some form of Wrong no matter what he did.

In my interpretation of Stone’s abilities, they could see the past and all possible futures with the past/present in mind. From what I've seen in the tags, this is a popular headcanon, which is great because if I was alone in this interp I think I would explode

When put into the Plane, I think he saw two things: The ending we got and an alternative. Or perhaps multiple alternatives depending on smaller factors. And I think whatever alternative(s) he saw were either of equal suffering or worse, meaning he was put into a situation of picking between evils.

For example, say he sees a future where Liam doesn’t involve himself with trying to stop Airy and just tries to reintegrate into society after being eliminated. This leaves Airy to continue ONE, perhaps even running through a full, “smooth” competition with no more or few additions, meaning a winner is chosen and everyone else eventually gets to go home. But then this allows Airy to keep going into a season three, maybe four — and it becomes a trolley problem.

Leave these contestants stuck forever and stop it at season 2 as a means to minimize future suffering, or just allow it to run its course.

The issue lies in that. This really should not have been Stone’s decision to make. He's - intentionally or not - playing God with lives that he should not be allowed to Play God with. but at the same time, he likely was aware of his limited time and didn’t see a future where he could communicate everything to the contestants before his elimination (let alone let them debate on it). So it’s…. Yeah. Literally a trolley problem. Let the trolley hit 5 people or flip the lever so it only hits 1.

anyway My point is this. This gives Stone reasoning for his actions and makes his role in the show more understandable. He doesn't just send Liam on a wild goose chase ending in failure/hopelessness for no reason; he does it because in his eyes, the other options were worse.

Yeah, he led them all to a bad ending, but we don't know what he could have seen in the alternatives. Especially if Airy's season 3 was the same regardless, in which local lantern yoinks the got damn loved ones of this group into the next round of hellworld. Not only would there then be compounded suffering on the group we already have, but suffering for those characters, and I EMPHASIZE that one of the season 3 contestants was going to be Charlie's MOM. So like. Um....

And since this show LOVES to fuck around with human mentality and rationality, I think it makes sense to include the world’s most fucked up trolley problem in the middle, even if not made abundantly clear to us.

I also like the addition to this idea that Stone just wrote as much as possible on those sticky notes, regardless of if they would end up used or not, explaining why some (like the 5) still don't make sense afterwards. They wrote everything they thought could help lead into one or a few futures, and at that point, it was up to Liam/Bryce to go from there with what they were given.

AKA Stone doesn't see just one, unchangeable, solid future, and he can't predict exactly which one will come to fruition. He can only nudge the people around him in directions he thinks are most favorable.

And for all we know, the smallest thing could have fucked up his entire plan and led us to the ending we got to. Amelia not giving him the sticky notes (why would he go for them if he thought she'd never give them to him in any possible future?) could have been what forced him to hide the sticky notes in Liam, and when that leads to his elimination, he just panics in that last minute to write out the last helpful thing he can -- The votes are fake.

now why he decided to write each letter on an individual sticky note is beyond me but idk maybe there's a butterfly effect SOMEWHERE in that nonsense shdgKJDSHG

anyway. yea. That's all. I am thinking about Stone