I definitely do feel like Tom is often āotheredā, even unintentionally, by both his friends and the rest of the world, all due to his status as a deeply uncanny looking human/object hybrid. Unlike some other known individuals who fall into the same specific group like himself, Tom is STILL the odd one out even there.
Brickhead is essentially āfully passingā, as heās basically indistinguishable from other ānormal lookingā fully human beings. You can only really tell heās actually part-brick, due to him having the strange unnatural ability to suddenly transform his head into one, which is possibly on-command. Thus, Brickhead probably hasnāt been othered or mocked that severely for being a human/object hybrid, as all-in-all heās basically just an average looking guy!
Balloon Head Fred on the other hand is considered more of a āextremeā case, in which his body below the neck is fully physically human, but his head of course is a balloon with drawn-on features. While this sounds like this will make him easy pickings to mock and insult, it has the inverse effect, as people view him more as a sapient object, instead of a human/object hybrid. Thus, heās pretty much treated like all other sapient objects (relatively normally), just with the added bonus of having a humanoid body. Considering that he was fortunate enough to get a wife already, heās probably living life quite normally, with minimal attacks to his appearance.
Tom howeverā¦.. is unfortunately neither fully āpassingā or āextremeā enough, so he falls squarely into the uncanny valley. Not too human-enough nor not too object-enough. His body appears to be fully human, but his nearly perfectly spherical head, bizarrely tall and upright spiked hair, and those MASSIVE vacant solid black eye sockets have essentially betrayed his human appearance.
While he could āget overā his oddly shaped head and hair, the fact that his eyes are a technically massive surrealist biological nightmare will always haunt him so severely. No wonder he wished to have ānormalā eyes in ZA2, as it seems like his desire to pass off as a normal human being is still incredibly great. I wouldnāt be surprised if he is kinda looking forward to getting that visor in the future, as it would give SOME semblance of having visible eyes.
Eye contact of course is an incredibly important aspect of human socialization, so no wonder the average person is probably severely thrown off by Tom having two holes where his eyes should be. Itās incredibly hard for anyone to properly read his face, as the lack of eyes unfortunately makes it easy to misread his face and emotions, or even to see where his gaze is currently focused on. Even his own friends have mistaken his facial appearances at times, as theyāve long since relied on reading his body language and tone to do the heavy lifting. Of course, the irony being is that Tom tends to speak quite flatly and sardonically, making things even harder to process.
Compounded by the fact that both of his biological parents are sapient objects, and yet not himself, is just even more unfortunate for Tom, as he was essentially āotheredā at home as well. His childhood is quite warped, as his parents intended to take care of yet another sapient object, but instead now needed to raise a hybrid human/object being. The consequence of this of course is that Tom turned out somehow socially stunted, as he didnāt really have the proper at-home social structure needed to help him interact with fellow people. It had definitely gotten worse after the brutal death of his pineapple father, as through grief and shame (at not stopping the bear with the shotgun), has caused Tom to suppress his more extreme emotions down even further, which eventually gave way to his alcoholism.
Being raised in a sapient object oriented household had also had the effect of Tom gradually becoming romantically and sexually attracted to objects, mainly during his teen years. Weāve actually seen him be attracted to an old-school computer in the very first Christmas special, alongside him having the memory of dating a coconut during prom night in 25ftUTS. Unfortunately, the mere concept of identifying as that sexuality is something that even his fellow human/object hybrids seem to detest the idea of. Theyāre all already dealing with their own strange biological intricacies of being genetically split with an object, so why would any of them attempt to build a ārealā relationship with another object, even with ones that are fully inanimate?
Tom really doesnāt have ANYONE in which he can express his suppressed frustrations and shame with, in regard to him sorta loathing his abnormal appearance, alongside with his genuine desire to be with Susan. If he were to vent about it to either Brickhead or Balloon Head Fred, theyāll just tell him to shrug it off and deal with it, alongside telling him to go find a āreal personā to be in a relationship with.
The fact that he also has a deep emotional bond with his childhood Tomee Bear doesnāt quite help either, as most people, even his friends, will instead see him as being ātoo closeā towards a very old toy. None of them will ever really be able to comprehend how Tomee Bear is the closest thing to a brother-like figure that Tom has, one in which it never judges or insults him at all for either his abnormal appearance or for being objectum. His bond with Tomee Bear is incredibly deep, and he becomes deeply insulted whenever any of his friends teases him for āsleeping with a Teddy and carrying it around all of the timeā.
Even by Red Leaderās time and rule in the future, Tomās self-doubts and self-hatred towards his nature of being a uncanny looking hybrid being AND having so many complicated emotions towards inanimate objects still plague himā¦ā¦ well, at least now heās partnered up with Matt, whoās now at least aware of Tomās internalized struggles, and he does attempt to view things under Tomās incredibly unique perspective, in order to help be a better partnerā¦..
baratheonpilled
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
