im finally making time to sit down and write this post. it's very important to me that people get the fact that maxwell gotch does not lack whimsy. in fact he's fucking full of it. the reason why the rest of the crew (and many others) interprets max as whimsiless is two reasons: the inherent whimsy and wish he was born with was psychologically beaten out of him and he's on the autism spectrum. not even talking about the obvious part of longspot's anger and anti-mindset and the practicality of his brothers, max's hero, his grandfather, the man who made sure max didn't lose his sense of adventure entirely in adulthood, also limited it. the very first scene, "we stay on the ground." max was running around the ship and docks (like the nine year old he was) and cadswitch called him back and said "this is what we live for and why humanity's great but we stay on the ground." van asks max minutes later if he wants a tour and climb around on the ship and max says "no, im supposed to stay on the ground." not no i don't want to or no im scared to or no i already did it or whatever. it is no, he's not allowed to. and sure, cadswitch probably didn't it mean it that way and certainly not that strict, but to my second point, maxwell is one of the most blatant autistic-coded pcs on a dimension 20 season thus far. every single time the other players call him out for his thinking i follow his logic impeccably. he does not like when the villains break the rules that he made up in his head during battle. he asks people outright about comfrey because there is no legitimate reason to think random zoodians would be against them. when he flubs with the crew and they tell him it's a tone issue he genuinely does not hear a difference in his tone and theirs. he likes monty's books but does not see a reason to lie to him about the later ones. he only got interested about the ship's weapons when he heard there were boxing-themed weapons. growing up autistic means that when everyone else is figuring out how to be an adult you're figuring out how to be an adult and human. max had one person he looked up to and took his instructions on how to act from (subconsciously even). "we stay on the ground." that's a clear rule that's been given. you listen to those. max is so full of whimsy that it eventually conquered the rules he'd made up for himself on how to be a human. who started this season? who hijacked the zephyr from the investors to take it on one final adventure? who believed in zood without anyone's encouragement? who was the one who decided that comfrey was being found (and potentially rescued) even if it meant going to another world? and i don't think any of the original crew even knows this. max got olethra first and i think that they were approached by comfrey's granddaughter with a gotch and assumed it was the same arrangement. max came and got olethra. max asked pappy to follow with. max said "we're gonna find comfrey no matter what." max is not chasing his grandfather's legacy, he surpassed it a long fucking time ago. he is new to adventuring and he is learning. he does not realise when he does adventuring "wrong" but he is learning. "get whimsy, gotch" you would still be stuck in a failing toy shop in scrapsylvania without gotch's whimsy, marya. "get whimsy, gotch" you would still be terrified of the sea, your home, and your own body if it wasn't for gotch's whimsy, van. it does not present as you want it, expect it, or even can imagine it, but by god is that boy whimsical