#like idk im not trying to be confrontational i guess im just more... baffled really....

[unproduciblesmackdown]

pondering a framework of Theme re: deh as like, the tension between having an idea of people that can be whatever you want it (them) to be, vs the realities of people that that idea doesn't cover, whether by conflicting w/the idea or being [more stuff you don't know]....from the aspect that doesn't really get taken up by audiences in how like, via the distance of Social Media you can be dealing w/those Ideas via what people choose to share to present an idea, and not see behind the scenes into the reality (which is like, this whole show could've happened with the [social media] component excised & replaced by other mediums/methods so it's not the most surprising that nobody's going "yeah my takeaway is that this wouldn't have happened if evan had been more offline & faced a book instead of facebook") to like Thee In-Person Relationships he's having

the whole story's focused on evan dealing w/the Ideas more so, putting in most of his effort on trying to offer Thee Idea of [whatever he thinks they want from him] to the murphys, and then to others beyond that via tcp, and then that all inevitably falling apart b/c reality didn't align is most of the runtime....the ending's always just kind of peak baffling b/c it's like, a Resolution sure is difficult when it's maybe more so been like Stuff Happening and then like, what does evan do to deal with The Realities instead of the Ideas....that would potentially be a whole second story from that point lol but he gets the (i guess first part of) resolution needed from like, confronting the supposed reality of himself (but still just an Alternate idea about himself in going like "im the guy who sucks plus i got depression") and this can be handled by his mom, who he also can handle realizing is admittedly not some Ideal of [the concept of The Mother] which is like, okay, except where do we go with that....here where they go from that is "not peacing out from each other's lives" but also like, "being in each other's life at all" is kind of just a peak basic premise of having any relationship, not the highest bar here or in & of itself a guarantee that now this is All He Needs, Really

meanwhile I Guess his second part of his resolution is meeting with zoe, i mean, It Is in that that's what the show offers as finale lol. but where zoe's kind of here to mostly talk about Ideas as still being helpful, including that i guess we can assume her life is fine Enough now just b/c her parents aren't going to divorce? like i think it would be better for everyone if they did, actually lol, but there seems to also be this [assumed shared assumptions w/the audience] aligning with Normality throughout of like, thee truly important, Necessary, Real relationships here are like, parent/child, parent/parent, [your dream soulmateship] as proto-[parent/parent] ideally surely, can i make it any more obvious what more can i say....for example iicth is agonizing to me lol like being hit with the details of evan's like Secret Joke Smile Bandplaying mini monologue is like oh my god lmfao. this is peak An Idea territory, like you're just making shit up about her but clearly in an Idealized way, and the song says nothing abt Why he likes her, personally, while for zoe it's just offering this contrasting idea to Her idea that idk connor hated her like skiing, or what all, and/or the possibility that there could've been a different dynamic....only us(tm) is back at it lol like yeah sure In Theory that evan shouldn't have to be on the defensive waiting to let people down but like, it's all downhill from there, like zoe should also be Able to say anything she likes about evan specifically, isolating yourselves & ignoring everything else = not great, actually. and it Could be examined like, i guess your just being a nervously polite someguy boyfriend who was supposedly separate Enough from all the stuff about connor was a nice enough distraction while it lasted....but i have no idea why zoe is still particularly fond of evan as The Idea Of The Romantic Ideal Of It All in the conclusion like, girl what. what did you guys ever talk about. the most like Interaction is that pre iicth moment, where also zoe's like grilling him about what classes his mom takes & where his dad is & why he doesn't appreciate being poor & is calling him weird & all which is still more interesting than the Non Interactions they will now proceed to have for the rest of the show lol

anyways it's just like, so far as we know All Evan's Needed for the year and a half has been his mom not hating him so much she wants to leave, and he's doing fine....like idk fine sure maybe but it's like, it's sure just like, the most important connections are "we held hands & That Status was magical regardless of like, being able to express the least Specific Thing we liked about each other, or talking about anything" and "at least my parents aren't divorcing, so things are good" and "at least my parent isn't disowning me, so things are good" like, i mean are they lol. maybe, but hardly a guarantee via these facts, and very like "yes you'll encounter conflicts w/your ideas of people that require effort, better focus that effort on the Peak Atomized Normal(tm) Relationships which are so most important that they're required, and so required that they're most important: nuclear family, and monogamous cishet lifelong romance as your path to nuclear family (the next generation)" like yeah man if you talked to zoe once ever maybe everything would be the same. what then? nonrhetorically.

and that also The Idea/ls vs The Realities of people, when it comes to Family, also only goes so far when the authority of Thee Parent is this foregone unalienable fact, so that the "yeah i'm not perfect" Fact of a parent's personhood doesn't have to translate into effort to do things differently (for the child) but rather means the child is supposed to lower expectations and just accept whatever negative experiences imparted by the parent, b/c also They're Your Parent so the child's required to have that Relationship just regardless of what the specifics of the relationship Actually Are. like how i guess dating is amazing & important b/c you sure were dating. cue heidi just cutting through an apparent breakdown of her actual relationship with evan with the aggressive I'm Your Mother, to be revisited when the murphys aren't your Family....and then concluded with kinda a [i'm your mother: nice mode] situation of like, guess you'd better Hope your parent/child relationship exists at all and is good enough, like you'd better hope your eventual romance exists at all and is good enough, both for forever, with these also being the only connections that can Really matter rather than like, what, peers you don't date? friends, acquaintances, strangers? log off & do family game night

anyways it's all like, not expecting or wanting deh to be like "any of this is all good or all bad," and that goes for like the [the actual person, beyond being able to be Known In Full] and [the ideas crafted to make enough sense of things along the way] and how too much Idea can be dehumanizing, but you also can't write everyone off as black boxes of the unknown so as to Never Get It Wrong if you even exist proximately to them....but it's like, if we're going like "hmm why do we feel so isolated" like i have some ideas and it's not "just call your mom" or anything. the deh finale doesn't have a character who gets to be like "what the hell" or suggest anything's still shitty so it's like, yeah great that there's (everyone needed it for / it's) Something, but we could even have some more things

[oflgtfol]

disclaimer: i personally dont care about shipping at all with these characters, but i know that other people do and so they can absolutely interpret things differently based on that, but these are how i interpret everything

i think arthur wasn’t jealous of lewis or vivi, but rather both of them, just for Being Together... he became the third wheel, and these two are his friends, they were a trio, it must’ve been very isolating and lonely to be suddenly left out of the loop like that

i don’t think he was jealous of lewis because he had a crush on vivi because he never seems to particularly show any feelings for vivi? the only evidence i can think of is him looking lonely in the backseat but like, that doesn’t really show anything about vivi in particular!

i don’t think he was jealous of vivi because he had a crush on lewis either because the spirit thing that possessed him in the cave was green for envy.. why would it lead him to kill his crush?? if anything it should’ve cause him to go and kill vivi. idk

i’ve seen a huge burst for lewis/arthur and that’s fine this isn’t a critique but idk i just.. i don’t really see it? so this point is mainly in response to some of the evidence they’ve been citing, not as an argument but just an alternate take... i’ve seen a lot of people say that if arthur liked vivi then after lewis died and vivi lost all memories of him then arthur should’ve made a move already but like... idk... maybe arthur is just a good person lol? like idk i feel like if you liked a girl and her boyfriend just died, the courteous thing to do would to NOT make a move on her... and when she lost her memories i feel like that’d be taking major advantage of her... and lewis was like, his FRIEND even if, in the situation of arthur actually liking vivi, he was jealous of him, he was still his friend?? so i feel like it’d be a major dick move to start dating your recently deceased friend’s girlfriend when she doesn’t even remember her recently deceased boyfriend.. lol

and then with lewis’s heart breaking at the end of hellbent.. again in response to the recent surge in popularity, but i dont think its because of lewis/arthur lol.. i mean like.. he just threw his friend off a cliff to die in the same way he himself died... i think any decent person would be upset at that. i think lewis’s heart broke because he just did something fucked up out of his own anger and resentment due to Being Murdered and he regretted it instantly as soon as it finally happened. plus arthur had said “lewis” right before, showing that he didn’t even know the ghost was lewis/he didn’t even know lewis was dead, and maybe that only registered after lewis dropped him, so it could’ve been the combination of the Revelation and Oh God What Have I Done..

i can honestly see all 3 ways, arthur having No Crush, a crush on vivi, and a crush on lewis.. i can see them all but personally, based off what we’ve seen thus far, the no crush one makes the most sense to me. i mean maybe over time once we see more character histories and interactions than any other take will make more sense to me but as of right now, idk. again, basing this off the recently popularity surge, but i could see lewis/arthur being cute but IDK it’s just, i’d need more canon stuff? we’ll see how it develops but as of right now its.. very tentative to me.. i can see where yall are coming from but i just. i dont think so. idk. plus a lot of the evidence you guys pull out are like. ok. i can see it. but also its just so much simpler to explain why this happened because they’re Good People (ie lewis’s heart breaking, arthur not dating vivi). the only way i could see these scenes being purposefully ship-based would be with future evidence pushing for the ship and then in HINDSIGHT i’d be like ahh ok, but at this point in time??? yeah idk i just dont see it

yall are free to feel how you want tho this is just how i feel... and i wanted to voice it because i see like NOBODY pointing these things out and its lowkey frustrating with those 2 scenes i mentioned... like....... some of yall act like its a Big Mystery... woah why did lewis’s heart break *gasp* like idk i thought it was simple.. he just threw arthur off a fucking cliff........... the only complications that should arise are from looking closer at these scenes and purposefully interpreting them for ships but idk some of yall act like “OMG why else would lewis’s heart break after throwing arthur off a cliff?” like IDK maybe because he just killed someone?????? whether or not he’s successful it’s still attempted murder in the same way he himself died????? and he’s obviously a good person so he’d be hit with instant regret whether or not he had feelings for the person he threw off a cliff???????