hm. my phrasing wasnt the best in answering this ngl but i hope yall get what i mean, i'll try to clarify regardless tho
regardless of if he's actually straight or not, its. very odd to me that red repeatedly... well for a lack of better term Queerbaits his audience (aka his "btw im bi... well half of it anyway... the straight half that is" schtick)
if he does have internalized homophobia then that sucks. if hes just a straight man that really really doesnt wanna be seen as gay but still keeps saying hes bi for some reason before deconfirming it then it sucks for a different reason
and the thing that really gets me is that most of the time whenever he pulls this kinda thing is its entirely unprompted, he just brings it up all on his own
and the thing is i think its okay to be uncomfortable with being shipped esp since swagdoons is almost unavoidable on lstwt but the way he goes about it expressing that sentiment is very strange to me like. idk what his sexuality is (and tbh i dont care to know, we're not friends and i dont need his personal info) but regardless i think whatever is going on here is something that he needs to work on on his own
"nother one on the list of evidence for bisexual reddoons"
Nah he's just always been like this. Even in 2021 he still hit on men and I swear I haven't seen him say anything as remotely romantic about women as he has flirted with his guy friends. I think he's actually toned down his gayness but it's still in very catastrophically queer. Like he's not calling other guy's voices submissive but he *is* going to say that he'd gladly do sexual content with his 4 friends if it comes down to that and that he'd never exclude one of them! Somehow he's gayer I take it back
Sorry for speculating on his sexuality but I'm also not. Because there's no way he isn't queer in some way. That one TXTpost
lmao yeah the tags were a joke not sure if that came across right but anyway
i remember watching and sometimes rewatching outsiders vods and just going like “does this man know, does he know how incredibly queer he sounds every time he opens his mouth” it’s all a blur at this point it’s almost normal he’s worn me down
i think he definitely turned it down lol he’s just like taht frfr
this man is going to kill me honestly most out of pocket shit comes out of his mouth at all times
Since there's already 5 million reblogs on your Kab post, I'll just put my thoughts here:
'id love to see you make an essay of red that would be awesome i think'
Funnily enough I kind of suck at analyzing people. And I also can't write above 400 words or I die. I do like ranting about Red though, and while I'd probably like to make an essay of him, I think the fandom sidelines him Hard to an extent it makes me feel like I'm going fucking crazy. I would make it for the 2 people that care about Red's character as much as I do. He's such a weird boy!
'and honestly bpd-coded red makes sense to me at least from what i know of him and id certainly believe it coming from you'
To quote my work-in-progress doc he has very unstable relationships (especially his problem with rushing in on relationships on the idea of a person rather than who they actually are), has an extreme need for love and acceptance, and has a lot of abandonment issues. I also think that some of his actions can be read as him splitting on people (*especially* the Red-Kab altercation, The Mice divorce was extremely BPD coded for me). I think there's also other symptoms he displays like doubt about the future and feeling mistreated or victimized often but I think those are just the ones in broader strokes. The people want a queer man with many disorders and he delivers
this is all so real, the need for love with abandonment issues and the mice divorce being able to be read as splitting especially
we love a queer man with disorders and unstable relationships indeed, thank you for your service reddoons lifesteal <3
I see a lot of Will Wood songs as Red-coded (and half of it is because I just think C!Red would like that music) so I'm very curious on why you think a lot of Will Wood songs are Kab-coded especially Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!
okay so i dont actually listen to will wood that much so im just gonna list the songs that i Have listened to
warning this is really long like Really long, i may have forgotten stuff from past streams, i talk about several things such as mental illness in a symbolic sense rather than directly engaging with the message, and theres a bit of surface-level buddhism there as well
part 1 cause i exceeded the image limit lol
starting off with Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!
aside from the running theme of psychology which kab is Very fond of, kab has a recurring problem of doing something objectionable only to have her not remember it the next day whether genuinely (hashtag adhd) or as a manipulation tactic (deliberately acting as though she doesnt remember parts of her conversations with zam one moment only to mock him for it the next)
she also has a recurring problem of refusing to take the blame and directing it to something or someone else (mainly the accuser) for things she doesnt feel guilty doing that are objectively her fault (such as deliberately killing planet)
she had (possibly still has, still need to see what she does after the zam stream today) a desire for getting worse (being evil is not the same thing as getting worse btw, i would say before this stream going evil Was kab getting worse but after the stream today going evil is actually her getting better. i suppose i define getting worse as "doubling down" rather than any conventional sense of the word) which is something that she wanted to drag zam down with her as well after the consequences streams before she accepted the fact that she cares about him with her thoughts regarding him fitting the lyrics on these parts
the desire to get worse originates from her desire to prove something, to other ppl yes but mostly to herself -- she feels the need to get worse because she feels the need to protect herself but feels as if the only way to do so is by being the most untrustworthy and manipulative person on the server and she keeps feeling the need to hold onto it tightly despite the fact that it has ruined her reputation, her quality of life, and her relationships because she feels as though it (and clown) are the only things she truly has on the server
in this part the genius annotation explains my thoughts well
Laplace’s Angel (Hurt People? Hurt People!)
in this part i think it connects well with how she felt from the start of the server up to the box arc
the first two lines taken literally in regards to mane killing her, the red betrayal, and the woogie arguments and taken symbolically to represent her very intense trust issues that left her disconnected not only to her team but the rest of the players as well
the later two lines is in regards to how her relationship with team mice went, at first she felt as though she carried the team in many ways even when it was hard for her, even when she felt as though it wasnt worth it, she kept trucking on until she couldnt take it anymore and decided she was gonna betray as soon as all pretenses collapse and clown offers to ally with her. but when red betrayed her first? she collapsed and threw everything away: her relationships, her former goals, and even her interactions with the entire server
in these parts i think it fits with her initial thoughts about the server which was reinforced by mane and red killing her: everyone is evil, everyone sucks, this is normal and natural and there is no way around it and trying to go agaainst it by being tender and vulnerable will only hurt you so i should become the worst mfer out there so i can never be hurt ever again
karma and her relationship with revenge
its so funny how this one lyric is so isolated from the other verses and choruses cause i think that fits kabs character very well: she wants help desperately but shes far too alone and resistant to other ppl to truly ever receive some for the things she actually needs help with
this is her basically every yap session shes had with zam (esp the 4th part lol)
Cotard’s Solution (Anatta, Dukkha, Anicca)
starting with the title, im not buddhist and have forgotten basically everything i learned about it so this may not be as nuanced as id like but nonetheless its connected to why i associate it with kab
anatta - without self
dukkha - dissatisfaction brought about by desires and attachment
anicca - impermanence and eventual decay
in buddhism we are trapped in samsara aka the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth brought about by anicca and avidya (ignorance) which brings with it dukkha, to achieve nirvana or permanence/freedom from samsara you must realize anatta and relinquish all desire and attachment
in a lser context its very similar to the concept of the cycles and the worldenders but rather than trying to achieve anatta in order to reach nirvana they are instead trying to ensure that samsara keeps continuing, every apocalypse has been done with the knowledge that they can not only start over but that they Should start over, repeating the cycle all over again and actively denying nirvana because to acieve nirvana, emptiness, peace, goes against the very nature of lifesteal itself
in a kab context (i will be ignoring how she uses karma cause its far more rigid, reliant on one person, and material-based than the buddhist definition of karma is, the consequences naturally brought about by the server is a far better demonstration of karma while kabs definition of karma would far better fit the concept of social justice instead) she has a lot of trouble with impermanence and attachment, with a much stronger fear of death compared to a lot of other players and having such severe trust issues that it genuinely makes her fear making attachments as it could possibly be used against er in some way. she also has a lot of trouble with her sense of self: constantly denying what she wants, always throwing plots and selves at the wall to see which one wold stick, which one would give her what she wants, which ones would keep her safe, resulting in her often having wants that are severely incongruous to what she needs
not much to say from the cotards side of the title cause aside from her being one of the more paranoid and death-fearing members of the server she doesnt really have much of a "walking corpse" quality to her and i associate that part entirely with zam lol (honestly i associate this song with zam more in general as in he fits every line while kab doesnt fit certain verses lol)
i think this reflects her uncertainty with the server brought about by a visceral fear of death very well, she fears that doing the wrong thing will cause her to get punished, severely. the lost two lines in the first image in particular i think fit very well with her box arc
yet another part that i think summarizes her convos with zam lmao
Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer’s Prosopagnosia/Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to the Fusiform Gyrus)
capgras delusion - delusional misidentification, commonly comes in the form of believing that someone close to you has been replaced by an indentical copy, there have also been cases where patients believe that time has been warped in some manner, aggression is common towards the perceived replacement
prosopagnosia - a condition wherein you cant recognize faces/facial expressions
pareidolia - pattern recognition of familiar objects in unrelated items such as faces in stains
fusiform gyrus - a part of the frontal lobe with an unknown function that is directly linked to recognition
kab sees the current her in past zam and vice versa in addition to all the traits they already have in common. kab also constantly reminds zam of joker while zam constantly picks and prods at kab until she becomes honest with him. theres also the fact that kab constantly misinterprets zam and the fact that zam does not like it when ppl remind him of himself
due to the subject matter, the song has a running theme of fakery and replacement and indeed kab and zam are constantly questioning each other whether it be to gather information or to just figure out whats up with the other, trying to figure out what are the lies and what are the truths about the other with zam trying to remove kabs many masks and kab trying to reach deep withing zam, trying to find joker or whatever inner evil she seems to think he has
typical kab and zam behaviour honestly
Dr. Sunshine is Dead
honestly the whole song could be taken to metaphorically show kabs journey into adapting to lifesteals brutality
the song starts in media res with the singer character already having adjusted to the dark and fearful of sunshine but still unsure of themself, paranoid of shadows despite the fact that they were already in a dark room to begin with
which fits kabs character whos already used to "eviller" smps but has yet to experience the horror that is being on lifesteal so although she already had a natural suspicion of kindness she nonetheless tried to seek it out despite herself only to find that the other lsers were already, in her own words, "broken" and "bitter"
she constantly projects herself upon other ppl cause she sees the same patterns that shes done herself but with no context for why they act the way they do, assuming that its simply how the way they work whether by nature or nurture, which is reinforced not only by lifesteals very own reputation but also by the dramatic collapse of team mice -- an event that was theoretically avoidable but was realistically inevitable thanks to their backgrounds and personalities and already present lack of trust
i think this takes place after the mane and red killings
she doesnt want to be boxed in and yet does so to herself both literally by imprisoning herself into an an obsidian box that contain reminders of her past and not allowing herself to get out of the box unless she was absolutely alone, and unintentionally metaphorically by not only defining her goals in relationship to someone else (woogie, red, and zam, not yet mane cause shes still too scared at this point) and seemingly being so tunnelvisioned to her goal that she misses many meaningful interactions between herself and the other ppl on the server
this is after she left the box
zam wasnt there for her so she aligned herself with wemmbu and joined what would eventually become the california girls
despite the fact that she hates wemmbu, shes gained Some confidence from teaming with who is arguably the servers most wanted and has decided to fully give in to her malice, basically going on her own joker arc, assuming the worst of everyone according to her intuition, and denying both to others and herself the fact that deep down inside shes still as scared as she was the day that mane killed her
this is also when she starts moving mane up her list of priorities as hes not only the most active of his targets but hes also the one who keeps going after her
the same dilemma as the previous chorus except this time its fully metaphorical and intentional, she boxes other ppl in because its what she thinks is truth (her mind can only be changed if she was already unsure in the first place, otherwise she takes her knowledge as absolute truth), and she boxes herself in cause its what she wants-- or rather what she Thinks she wants, she wants to be evil but she still cares so when she starts targetting zam her facade starts to crumble
this is when kab keeps going after zam, finding that hes the only one left on the server who would not only listen to her but also not kill her
kab heavily relies on her psychological analysis, intelligence, and willingness to play dirty due to the fact that its her only real weapon and when youre in a server like lifesteal its very important that youd have Some way of arming yourself so she uses it as often as possible
shes become extremely cynical at this point and does not think she has anyone she can truly rely on except for clown... who hasnt logged on the server in months
she keeps going after zam cause really what else is there to do? shes a psychological analyzer and she cant do that if nobody is willing to listen to her and may even kill her so she goes after zam cause she wants to be evil but would be unable to deal with the consequences of going after someone more willing to kill than him
the whole time shes wearing not just one but several masks and yet zam manages to keep seeing past them so she unmasks her again and again and she doesnt like that and yet she got attached cause not only did he see past her and not only has he been relentlessly attacked by several ppl over and over again but hes also been Nice to her and it scares her cause Nice only means trouble so she tries to look for the evil within him: joker
and yet despite that he keeps managing to see past her and her mask crumbles more and more, and she becomes stuck in between her wants and needs, her desires and fears, her mask and her real self, she wants to be evil So badly but she cares and she cant help caring and she cant deny it anymore
shes unable to go back to who she once was
this is when she starts truly reevaluating herself, what she wants, and what she needs
she realizes that she does not know nearly enough about the server to have her methods work, at least to the same extent as the other smps shes been in and that she needs to do a reevalutaion
shes not trying to box herself in anymore, she realizes now that ultimately its not what she really wants so she decides she wants to try to bridge the gap made bwtween her mask and her true self with karma, a way to be the caring person she knows she is but still indulging in that malice she wants to foster and still heavily immersed in that ultimately bitter view of the server and way of living
despite everything shes still kab and shes still scared, whatever happens next happens next
