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#in dhmis they all came back

joonboree · 7 months

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Happy 1 year DHMIS TV

I'd been thinking a lot about when I watched the first 5 minutes of the first TV episode of 'Don't hug me I'm Scared'. I had a lot of thoughts while watching it and after so I wanted to write them somewhere. This has been sitting in my drafts for some time I thought I'd post it for the one year mark.

Spoilers I guess mainly for the end of the web series and the first 5 mins of the TV one.

So the show premiered on a Friday I was pretty annoyed with this because I'd just had two days off and was back at work early that day. On top of that it was originally supposed to premier during my holiday from work but pushed back for major national event reasons.

I turned on my TV and the All 4 app to get a look, and there it was! Hmm.. but there was no episode about an evil Key like there was in the leaked pilot. Since I didn't have time to watch an episode I thought I would watch the first 5 minutes.

The first thing to come on:🎵'There's three of us, just three of us'.🎵 That was so funny to me considering the pilot had them living in a neighborhood with other characters it really felt like putting their foot down about executive meddling.

'There is no one else! It's just three of them!'

The episode starts

'Oh look it's morning'

'Looks like we stayed up all night talking again'

*All stare into space implying that's what they've been doing all night.*

So my first short-lived theory is that Red guy turned the simulation back on to hang with his buds again.

The part where the suitcase guy shows up was so funny!

'Hey why does he get breakfast?'

*business bag gobbles his breakfast while clickity clacking on the plate.*

Meanwhile I'm thinking yes! it seems to be keeping the mood from the web seires. I love this! Funniest thing ever! Also when the suitcase stood on the floor I saw the can of duck behind him on a shelf. A nice Easter egg or some lore who knows?

On the black board it says 'war hero'. I was wondering if this was to do with the 'Duck as a war vet' theory, though they were being vague and not referencing Duck directly. When Red guy went on about not wanting to work I thought it was because he knew what having a job was like so just wanted to do nothing with his friends inside the simulation.

The Unemployed Brendan scene was great but I turned it off after because it was about at the 5 minute mark. Right when I did duck sang his bit about wanting to be a soldier. Pretty funny how it seemed to be another even closer reference to the war vet theory.

Thinking about it later I was feeling kind of mushy about these characters, getting to get new lines and new situations after all this time when many of us believed that the whole thing had been abandoned.

One year on I feel like we're in that situation again. Will our boys ever come back from hiatus?

#dhmis #dont hug me im scared #the tv series #dhmis tv series #dhmis shitpost #this show made me obsessed with these characters after just being a casual fan of the web series #journal time #HMV came back to Ireland just in time to sell DHMIS shirts to me personally lol #im determined to get all 5 patterns #posted a day late because I was fully convinced it came out on the 28th

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gnomeniche · 8 months

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i should probably post about the storyboards bc i’m obsessed. i get why they changed stuff for the final (most of the dialogue they changed is superfluous because it reiterates ideas brought up earlier / overexplains a little of the fun ambiguity that sticks in your mind, like them actively pointing out it’s uncertain which duck was killed) but seeing the old version is so interesting. i love seeing what changed and what stayed the same

also i love this part. sure it’s pretty on the nose wrt the themes of the show but bc of that i KNOW if it HAD been in the show i would have gone nuts over this line every time i watched it

“it’s terrible where he is” “everything has to go back to its proper place” just like the main three’s situation…

also the line about putting everything back in its proper place helps reinforce that feeling of lesley as a fucked up kindergarten teacher + am intrigued by storyboards explicitly saying that lesley played out the whole series up to now in the dollhouse and the more blatant implication that she is not the one in charge + the idea that lesley came up here with others before.

that last one gives me the vibe of one of my many possible theories about what she represents which is like… she is partially representative of a kid who watched children’s edutainment shows like the one dhmis takes place in and is stuck in her vision of her childhood. someone who used to live on a lower floor (a child who watched the show and thought of the charas as friends) but went up (grew up) but is always looking back at an imagined “better past” that wasn’t actually that good. i need to make a proper post about my idea of toxic nostalgia in dhmis though so i’ll keep that in my pocket for later

other notes:

the rundown of them having Zero idea what their interests Are in the jobs song storyboards is so cool. i’m right that the show-world dictates that they are not really supposed to have a sense of their own identity besides what roles they play. no idea of what they like and want for themselves. but even if that’s how they’re supposed to be, as they exist for longer they gain their own preferences and desires. i want duck to collect buttons though let him have his buttons

i understand why they made red guy more annoyed about the jobs song in the final product and i love my sulky best friend but also it’s funny to see him actually get verses and all of them are on the theme of I Would Like To Sit Somewhere Quiet And Decompress. me too red guy

instead of unemployed brendon we could have had dead-end job kelvin…

the funeral scene dialogue being almost identical to the final scene is great. already perfect no notes

#am.txt #dhmis analysis #dhmis

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stars-n-spice · 2 months

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THOUGHTS ON S3 EP 04:

Spoilers under the cut!

Cannot promise that these thoughts are coherent/in order of the episode and its happenings-

Cannot get ENOUGH of the Crosshair and Omega dynamic; it's so sweet and fucking hilarious - they are so siblings

When the Captain guy called Cross her dad :(

Also Crosshair is a fucking natural at looking out after Omega (which shouldn't be surprising, he's a clone so he's got the paternal gene Jango seemed to pass down to all of them)

Couldn't get enough of Crosshair in this episode though

87% of this episode is just Crosshair folding his arms and that took me out

Also tell me why even with that toilet seat looking aaa Crosshair still looked fucking good in that disguise? Like,, I was giggling and twirling my hair every time he was on screen then came to the realization okay maybe I have a mask kink

Have I mentioned how much I love Omega and Crosshair?

Also have I mentioned how much I hate Hemlock??

Fuck when the Captain figured it out,, ugh,, I was so sure he was stupid like the rest of the Imperials tend to be

Ehehe when Crosshair clicked his tongue-

Shit man,, i'm loving Cross more and more FUCK

lmao all the British accents had me dead, felt like I was watching a DHMIS episode

"But my skills are being wasted" <- fUCK. That just,, ugh with his shaky hands,,, I know that's fucking him over oh my gods

When they freed all the animals I was so happy, fucking love when shows/movies have a scene like that

Cannot get over how flawlessly Crosshair and Omega work together, even if Crosshair complains about it and whatnot, it's like he never left and I just love that

Hemlock being so close on their tail is TERRIFYING man

Immediately started crying the second I realized we were getting a reunion in this episode

Crosshair dissuading Omega from meeting up with Hunter and Wrecker :(

THE FACT THAT OMEGA KEEPS SAYING LIKE "I need to get into contact with Hunter and Wrecker" and NEVER mentions Echo fucking HURTS

She knows he left :(

Okay but when they landed and saw the Marauder, fucking waterworks man

Then when the door stayed empty for a bit I got fucking scared, but then Wrecker came in and I was on the floor crying

The fact that we got a reunion so early in the season though SCARES ME man

I was afraid that Omega was going to be taken away for a 3rd time, but in front of Crosshair but now it seems like it's going to be in front of ALL of them again and that's going to make Hunter snap

THE REUNION HUGS :((

I cried so hard I nearly threw up

Had to physically force myself to stop crying because I did not want to throw up my breakfast of coffee

BUT THEY'RE BACK TOGETHER :(((( (more or less)

the fact that they didn't know the reunion reactions of Crosshair UGH

Not buying that Wrecker didn't immediately run up to hug him

Wrecker and Hunter both looked upset over seeing Crosshair and if they have a fight/argument in the next episode I'm fucking done

BUT THEY'RE BACK TOGETHER!!

I cannot wait to see Hunter and Wrecker's reactions to Batcher

These episodes leave me happy for like 3 minutes and then the dread and frustration creeps in

Man.

Good episode though. I love Crosshair and Omega.

#tbb #tbb s3 #tbb spoilers #the bad batch #clone force 99 #the bad batch spoilers #tbb crosshair #tbb omega #tbb hunter #tbb wrecker

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lovesick-fanfics · 1 year

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Hello! Whenever you have time, could you write a dhmis quick fic where reader just appears one day? And then there's just 4 of them. Maybe at first they would think that they are another teacher and try to get them to teach something and they do it "wrong"(by not singing so the guys get confused about it)? Sorry if it makes no sense, I'm bad at explaining

I wrote it a bit differently I hope that’s okay!

DHMIS x reader (platonic) where reader just shows up one day!

Where are you….?

“Look! Something’s over there!”

Why does everything feel fuzzy…?

“Not something, someone.”

Huh….?

“Do you think they is-they are dead?”

Who….?

You blink a few times and realize you’ve been sitting slouched in front of a… very pink house, and there are three… things walking up to you.

“Hey there! Are you going to teach us something?” The small yellow one said.

“Yeah! Aren’t you teachers supposed to appear and tell us what to do?” The green one added.

“Um… where am I?” You asked these strange creatures while you started to stand.

They all looked at you in varying degrees of confusion. They all looked at each-other before the green one spoke,

“Well you are here silly! Just like us!”

“Yeah, but where is here?”

“It’s certainly not over there!”

“But where-”

“Are you going to teach us something or what?” The red one cut you off bluntly.

“Teach you?” You said, “teach you what?”

The green one scoffed, “you teach us anything! The last one came and taught us about eating healthy. You guys normally teach us through song!”

“You must be a silly teacha’ if you can’t remember what you teach!” The yellow one added, “maybe you here to teach us about where we are!”

“Uh. Okay.

🎶 I might not know where we are, but at least I’m here with you. 🎶

🎶here is here, and there is there… and we are here with each other.🎶

…. 🎶we are here together, even if we don’t know where….🎶

🎶we might not be anywhere, but at least I’m here with you!🎶

🎶We might not know where the road goes,

or what’s over the hill.🎶

🎶we are somewhere that is true, but at least we’re here together…”🎶

🎶I am here with you, you, and you,

And you are here with me!🎶

🎶here is somewhere in some place, and we are here, it’s true.🎶

🎶Here is here and there is there, 🎶

🎶and we are here together…🎶

🎶And we are here together….🎶”

The yellow one starts clapping, “that was a good song!”

“Yeah. And nothing weird happened…?”

“Are you really a teacher? You don’t have the same… qualities as the others”

“No…? I’m just here with you, I don’t know where here is, like I said in my song”

“also I’d like to add that that was all ad-libbed.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I made it up as I went.”

“Oh! Okay!”

“It’s getting late, we should go. Good bye”

They all turned away and started towards the pink house, not waiting for you to follow. The yellow one turns back, probably expecting you to be gone, and stops walking.

“What are you doing?”

“Yeah! The show’s about to start!”

“They’re still there, the teacha’”

“Aren’t you going to disappear, or something?”

“Huh? No? I don’t have anywhere to go”

“Oh”

“Hey! Maybe you can stay with us!”

“What are you saying?!? There’s only three chairs and beds and there are four of us! There’s no way for all of us to live here! They just need to go away!”

Seemingly right as the green one said that you could see the house get slightly bigger, and in front of the door a chair appeared.

“Uh. Well that’s new”

“Oh wow! You must have done that just to get at me, huh teacher?!”

“N-no!! I had no say in this!”

“Well I guess there’s room for you now, come on, we’ve probably missed half the show already”

As the red one dragged the new chair in and the rest of you followed, you realized something.

You might not know where you are, but at least the company seems nice.

#red guy x reader #duck guy x reader #yellow guy x reader #dhmis x reader #platonic dhmis x reader #I really hope you like this!#idk if the song makes rhythmic sense but I do have a melody for it…#I needed to create something and this was a nice thing!#💖Lovesick’s fanfics💖#💝platonic💝#💓one shots💓

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the-last-quest · 8 days

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Shadow was tired.

He just needed to wait until morning.

He just needed to not look at the mass in the center of the room.

(Sonic dhmis au)

[1456 words]

Tw: Major Character Death, brief description of injuries (it’s mostly left to imagination)

Shadow was tired

Kneeling on the tiled floor of the kitchen it was taking every bit of him to not close his eyes. To not let himself succumb to the cool release of sleep.

Or death.

Whichever came first.

Today’s lesson had been a brutal one, though Shadow supposes most of the lessons were brutal.

It started when he and Tails were cooking lunch, when the kid had accidentally nicked himself with the knife. Of course that caused a lesson to start. The teacher, this time taking the form of a talking knife block, preached to them all the joys of kitchen safety. Which then, of course, led to the two of them having to dodge multiple sharp kitchen utensils.

Shadow didn’t come out of that unscathed. He took a hit from a knife that was clearly aiming to take out Tails. At the time it was worth it to him, saving the fox from the pain from the blade. The large gash on his side bearable as long as he saved the kid from death at that moment.

Now though he wished he let Tails die then.

Gritting his teeth Shadow pushed himself off of the floor. Shooting pain emerged from his wound, but he bore through it. He’d handled worse before, not joking when he said lessons were brutal. He just had to leave the kitchen. If Shadow was going to bleed out he wasn’t going to do it with that looking straight at him.

The lesson didn’t end with the knives. They never ended with the knives. With Tails being the one who started the lesson the teacher’s attention was solely on the fox, and with Shadow already injured there wasn’t much he could do to protect the boy. He doesn’t know if he should be happy that the lesson ended at the blender before the teacher even acknowledged the overheating oven.

Using the wall for support Shadow kept his eyes glued to the ground as he made his way out of the kitchen. He didn’t want to see what remained of the fox again. It was bad enough the first time, as he watched the unfolding of the lesson, not being able to do anything about it.

As Shadow was just about to reach the doorframe, just about to leave the chaos forsaken room he stopped. He could feel the eyes on him, watching him as he left it all alone. He couldn’t do that, as much as he wanted to leave and wait until morning, to have his memories of this day fade into a dull ache in the back of his mind. He just couldn’t leave. Sighing he mentally prepared himself, turning to look at the center of the kitchen.

Shadow couldn’t call it a body, refusing to even think of the life the mass used to hold. The only thing that remained intact was the head. It was a cruel joke he supposed, something the teacher did to ensure the lesson stuck.

Blue eyes seemed to haunt Shadow.

First it was Maria on the Ark. Even with his memories of the outside world growing fuzzy he still remembered his sister and her eyes. He remembered the wonder they held when she looked down at the Earth, the love that he left when she looked at him, the pain as her life faded away.

Now it was a different pair of eyes, but to him they meant the same thing. The eyes that at first marveled at the new world they found themselves in, before either of them knew what it held in store, the eyes that constantly sought him out for some semblance of stability after they figured it out, the eyes that he had to watch constantly fade because he couldn’t save him.

That's how they were now, a brilliant blue faded to a dull gray.

Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. Swiping them away angrily, Shadow growled at himself. He shouldn’t feel like this. He knew this was going to happen. He knew that by the end of the day one, or both of them would end up dead. He’s been through this enough times by now that he knows he can’t change anything. He knows that he can’t save anyone.

So why does he feel like this? Why does he feel a paralyzing helplessness whenever one of those damn teachers comes to life? Why does he feel so guilt ridden over something he knows he has no control of because he himself is a victim? Why does he feel the same way he did back on the Ark?

Shadow sinks down against the wall, as those same questions swirl through his mind. Over and over again. The same questions never relenting. He knows the answer to them. He knows why, but he can’t bring himself to admit it. If he does things would change. It would just give them more ways to inflict pain and there was no way that he would ever give them that opportunity.

Right now though there’s nothing they can do. The lesson for the day was done, the sun having already set below the horizon. Morning needs to come again.

Knowing this Shadow gives up. He allows the tears to flow down his cheeks. His sobs irritated his already sore throat, his heaving breaths causing even more pain to spout from his wound. He doesn’t care though nobody is watching him, the only eyes open right now are ones that don’t matter.

Those eyes aren’t seeing anything. They won’t think he’s weak because he failed to protect someone. They won't remember it in the morning when they seek him out for comfort. Right now he can let everything out. He can fall apart and by morning he’ll be put back together again.

He cries until his lungs give up on him, when the blood loss finally makes itself apparent. He opens his eyes and finds the other ones staring back at him. He knows his will look the same soon.

Shadow lets himself drift off, the night finally winning.

~~~~~~~~

Somewhere, up above, gloved hands pick up two figures out of a small model kitchen.

They take care to fix them up, the fox figure having more repairs needed than usual, while the hedgehog only had a scratch.

Placing the figures into a model bedroom, the hands making sure to tuck the fox into bed. It’s the least they can do.

Sighing they begin to turn the crank.

The model house spins around while distant piano notes play a repeating tune.

It’s morning once again.

~~~~~~~~

Shadow was in his bed again. A small bit of light shining through his eyelids told him it was still early, the sun's rays just peeking over the horizon.

Taking a deep breath he let himself enjoy the moment. The peace that came with the early morning the only time he could find himself getting the closest to a semblance of relaxation. He knew the silence wouldn’t last forever so he took this time to enjoy it.

As if right on que soft footsteps made their way over to Shadow’s bed. Without opening his eyes he lifted the blanket, inviting Tails in. The bed dipped as the kid crawled under the blanket, curling up against the hedgehog, gripping onto his dark fur as if his life depended on it. As if Shadow could save it.

Lowering his arm, Shadow pulled Tails closer. He doesn’t know for whose benefit it was, they both needed it.

Time continued to pass as they lay together, the sun coming up over the horizon, the alarm ready to go off in any moment.

Tails shrunk into him, shaking as it drew nearer for them to leave the comfort of the bed. The kid didn’t cry though. He hadn’t cried in a long time. Shadow doesn’t think that’s a good thing.

Running his fingers through yellow fur Shadow tried to calm the fox, even though his anxiety was also rising. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened yesterday but he knows it was bad seeing that Tails sought him out this morning.

Today he’s going to make sure he takes the brunt of the lesson. He’s made this vow before, but this time he’s going to try harder, to draw the focus of the teachers towards him.

Because deep down, even if he would never admit it, Shadow cared for Tails. He cares for the kid that is stuck in this eternal torment with him. Even though it will kill him, Shadow will try his hardest to protect him.

Tails was his brother now and he’d be damned if he had to watch another sibling die in front of him.

#me writing for my au???#it’s more likely than you think #had this idea for a little while and decided to get it down on before it faded away lol #anyways #they’re both totally okay at the end guys 👍 nothing to worry about #they’re totally not in a loop where they only rely on each other #and totally don’t worry about the mysterious hands I’m sure they can’t do anything to change the current situation #it’s just one happy family :)#anyways (x2)#this was my first time writing for shadow and to make that harder on myself I decided to write him in the middle of extreme mental torment #idk what to tag man I’m just real long at this point #sonic the hedgehog #tails the fox #miles tails prower #sonic tails #shadow the hedgehog #ark siblings #sonic dhmis au #tw major character death #tw injury #❄︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♒︎♋︎⬧︎ ♑︎□︎■︎♏︎ □︎■︎ ●︎□︎■︎♑︎ ♏︎■︎□︎◆︎♑︎♒︎ ●︎♏︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❍︎ ♑︎□︎#-. --- - / -.-- . - / .... . -.. --. . .... .. --.#.. / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / .... .- ...- . / -- ..- -.-. .... / -- --- .-. . / .--. .-.. .- -. -. . -..

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wackysach · 2 years

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wow.

i’m going to try and keep this to a one time thing because i really, really do not like getting like this, but i’m starting to think that i’m not the only one who’s saddened by the direction this fandom has taken.

the constant back and forth, the aggressive behaviour, the tracing, the stealing, the vague shade throwing in tags, the useless bickering over headcanons, which mind you are headcanons for a reason.

i am just so very disappointed.

i truly cannot believe i’m watching the very fandom that i’ve fallen so deeply in love with, which from day one has celebrated the creative works and thrived off of the different opinions and theories of others, no matter how silly or “cringe” they were, being torn apart simply because people cannot understand and accept that others. are. different.

i really wanted to believe that the tension in the beginning was just a usual side effect that came with the sudden explosion in a small fandom, and that it would all eventually wash over. and i want to keep believing that it will, because by god do i want the thought that this will keep continuing to be proven wrong, but this is just sorry.

maybe this is because i’m still fairly new to the tumblr side of the fandom that i don’t get exposed to this side of things very often but i really don’t know what to say anymore.

DHMIS has always been about open interpretation, the creators themselves have stressed this multiple times. there is no “wrong” and there is no “right” to things. in fact, the creators WANT us to have fun coming up with our own little stories and ideas, not fight over who gets to be mr. smarty pants because they're “more in the right.”

there’s nothing wrong with having your own personal interpretations and disagreeing with others’. there is, however, an issue when you deliberately start hurting and harassing other people (yes. people. living, breathing people with lives and feelings) over them.

seriously guys, this is supposed to be fun.

not... whatever this is that’s going on.

#dhmis

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hotpinkboots · 2 years

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ℝ𝕖𝕕 𝔾𝕦𝕪 x Reader Fluff Headcanons~

I've been married to Red ever since the original DHMIS episodes came out. Literally have had an obsession all these years, and there isn't enough going around, so I'm sharing him :D

~Enjoy~

★★★★

ℝ𝕖𝕕 𝔾𝕦𝕪

★★★★

~He's literally the most chill guy ever. If you need to sit around and relax, he's your man.

~He does get bored, though, and will want to go places every once in a while....Just somewhere besides the house....

~Red is a little bit shy (which makes him even MORE awkward) when he realizes he kind of, sort of, just a little bit, but not really (translation: a lot, a huge amount, really does), likes you.

~Hugs make him practically malfunction, and he'd usually rather not be touched, but he'll make an acception for you.

~You can give him lil' side hugs if he's doing something.

~Sometimes he'll wrap his arm around you and give you a little shoulder pat in response.

~Now, if you can get him to give you a full on hug, you'll feel like an ✨ANGEL✨

~References aside though, full on hugs from him are rare. He doesn't even realize you like them so much. He feels like a big plushie to you.

~If you caught him pulling his yarn i mean hair back for a moment, you'd certainly catch a glimpse of his teeth. He won't have any idea why you just wolf-whistled at him. (Based off of the first time I saw his teeth 👀)

~Sometimes he'll give you a treat and move his hair so he can kiss your neck. Those TEETH 👀👀👀👀....He'd have to be real damn comfortable with you to do that!

~Red tends to fidget around when you try playing with his "hair". Gives him chills! Not that he doesn't like it, he's not used to it.

~Ruffles your hair around in return to mess with you. No, getting him to stop is not an option.

~Sometimes he'll greet you with a big ol' head pat.

~He enjoys it even more if you dislike it.

~He will also poke at you to get your attention.

~Even when you answer, he'll still poke you a few more times. Y'know. Just to make sure that you're listening.

~Tell him he looks like a smart boy in his outfit.

~A few compliments that make him wildly flustered are calling him dapper, a gentleman, handsome, cute, ect.

~You can also affectionately call him a mop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GODDDDD I LOVE HIM 🤓😭

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join my Chat/Roleplay Server! Here, you'll get updates on my videogame/fanfiction, make friends, and meet new roleplay buddies!:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Love, PinkBoots

#dhmis #red guy #red guy dhmis #don't hug me im scared #red guy x reader #reader insert #x reader #dhmis fanfic #fanfic #red guy dont hug me im scared #red guy fluff

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theneighborhoodwatch · 9 months

Note

As a palette cleanser for when you’re done studying, what are some of your favorite works of horror besides Welcome Home?

it's hard for me to articulate what makes a work of horror my Favorite, so i just racked my brain for the ones i tend to come back to the most often, and i came up with these. i tried to include official links only, but some of these can easily be found Elsewhere online (hint hint) and others don't have any official english localizations. i've also included a brief summary and content warnings for each one - be warned that some of these are A Lot.

don't hug me i'm scared: (channel 4 series) episodic surreal horror comedy about three puppets sharing a very normal house, learning very normal lessons from the designated "teacher" of each episode, and navigating their very normal world. content warnings include: unreality and gore. like, at least once an episode, there is gore. lbr if you're a fan of welcome home then you at least have a passing knowledge of dhmis.

sex house: a parody of early 2010s reality tv, centering around six contestants being invited to the titular house for one thing and one thing only - sex. they will have sex. the network won't stand for anything less. content warnings include: sexual coercion/extortion, one dubiously consensual sex scene between two people with an extreme age gap, pregnancy, animal death, brief but on-screen gore, drugging, death/near-death situations as a result of negligence, and one instance of Questionable asexual representation that might have just been a diversion (i really cannot tell.) also there's a scene in episode 4 where a character draws muhammad on their forehead so that they can't be filmed and i still have no idea how to feel about it.

porkin across america: a former daytime talk show host embarks on his latest venture, a food tourism show in which he samples the best pork-themed dishes every state in the U.S. has to offer. but can he see his quest through to the end while also outrunning the harsher realities of life and reality TV? signs point to no. content warnings include: gore, body horror, two instances of offscreen but audible animal death, a brief instance of drug abuse, and some casual racism on the part of the host in order to establish him as Every Unlikable American Food Tourist (this gets dropped early on.)

i want to hold aono-kun so badly i could die: two teens attempt to forge the perfect relationship with one another - an effort that is somewhat hampered by the fact that they come from less-than-perfect families. also, one of them is a ghost. content warnings include: explicit sexual content, gore, body horror, suicide, graphic suicide attempt, death, child death, animal death, and pretty much every kind of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, neglect, etc.) in the context of both familial and romantic relationships.

devotion: a screenwriter in 1980s taiwan awakens one evening to find himself in his living room, now dark and decrepit, and attempts to navigate the ever-shifting layout of his apartment in order to look for his daughter. content warnings include: gore, domestic abuse, ableism, some flashing/jumpscares, [potential spoilers from this point forward] religious abuse, cults, and child death.

slay the princess: a visual novel (albeit a demo for now) about a princess locked away in a cabin, and the narrator who really, really wants you to kill her (for perfectly altruistic reasons, i'm sure.) but who is she? what does she look like? does she seem like the kind of person who could bring about the end of the world like the narrator insists? that all depends on how you see her - literally. content warnings include: black tabby games was kind enough to provide content warnings themselves!

the wolf house: a stop-motion film presented as a propaganda piece for a cult heavily based on colonia dignidad, following a young woman who flees in order to escape her punishment for letting three pigs escape, and ends up taking refuge in an abandoned house in the woods with two pigs (unrelated to the first three.) i honestly have a hard time describing it beyond that - i would say it's worth watching for the animation alone, but i think the story it presents as well as the historical context really elevated it for me, to the point where i don't think i would have the same appreciation for it otherwise. content warnings include: body horror, references to nazi/white supremacist ideology, cults, religious abuse, and possible allusions to child sexual abuse.

also, i didn't include works from either of these people because if i listed Every work of horror they had a hand in that i liked then this post would be 200 miles long, but i really like alan resnick and jordan peele's horror work. i was almost going to include what happens next, but that isn't really horror so much as it is a new age thriller-drama thing, and i couldn't really find a way to summarize it more succinctly than just relaying the events of the comic so far in full. good thing each title card comes with content warnings.

#anonymous #ask #this isn't a complete list but hopefully it's a robust enough selection if you were looking for recommendations #FUCK I FORGOT TO INCLUDE BE KIND MY NEIGHBOR. eh you can find that one on silver sprocket pretty easy anyways #also includes content warnings upfront. which is helpful #i also have a BUNCH of horror novels i wanna get my hands on but i. haven't. yet.

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inbarfink · 8 months

Text

Okay so there’s a lot of DHMIS fans out there who try to rank or analyze the Teachers and which ones are worse and which are better, and I thought I might as well throw my own proverbial hat in the proverbial ring and give my own take on the matter.

I’m going to go over all of the (central) Teachers in the DHMIS Web Show + DHMIS TV Show and give my own read of how ‘bad’ they are. I’ll be looking primarily at their focus episode where they actually act as teachers. I know a lot of the Webshow teachers came back in a much more chill and friendly role in the TV Show, but for me the things they did while they were acting as teachers is more important than how they act on their ‘off hours’ (if those even count as the same people in the same continuity)

And obviously, this is going to be a very personal sort of reading, very much based on my interpretation of DHMIS and its themes.

So let’s start with the Teacher who started it all! Sketchbook!

So I am gonna… try and start with the pros. So, before Sketchbook comes into the scene, our Trio was just sitting very, very still around the breakfast table. As per the creators’ own word, this is meant to show that our trio lacks creativity. So, learning how to Get Creative is a lesson that, in general terms, our trio could use to learn. Plus, not all of her lessons are that bad. Like, imagining silly faces on oranges, seeing images in clouds, using hair to express oneself - that’s all… alright I guess. And she can sometimes be entertaining and engaging to our trio, even including the not-easily-impressed Red Guy!

Sketchbook: Now, when you stare at the clouds in the sky, don't you find it exciting? Red, Duck, and Yellow Guy: No. Sketchbook: Come on, take another look! Yellow Guy: Oh wait! Together: I can see a hat! I can see a cat! I can see a man with a baseball bat! Together: I can see a dog! I can see a frog! I can see a ladder leaning on a log!

But, as we all know, the devil’s in the details. Alongside her kinda-alright lessons in creative thinking, she hides a pretty strong overcontrolling tendencies.

She has no way to engage her students when they go ‘off-script’ by not being immediately impressed with her lesson - outside of just vaguely telling them they’re ‘not thinking right’ -

Duck Guy: I don't see what you mean. Sketchbook: 'Cause you're not thinking creatively!

Or just ignoring their words entirely.

Sketchbook: I use my hair to express myself! Red Guy: That sounds really boring. Sketchbook: I use my hair to express myself!

And she clearly has a pretty strong idea of what is ‘good’ or ‘correct’ creativity. Making her shut Yellow Guy’s creative expressions down if he’s ‘doing it wrong’ according to her inexplicable restrictive standards.

And, well, this seems to be the Point where my opinion diverges quite a bit from that of the majority of the fandom… But, I’ve seen people say that the Sketchbook’s ‘never be creative again’ line proves that she might not be that evil, cause, well, look at all the horrifying shit the trio did while they were Creative! Not wanting this to happen is a perfectly understandable and moral position! And shows that she can actually be a responsible and moral teacher!

Well…that’s not my interpretation.

Yeah, the Creative scene is creepy and gross. But… I dunno if it represents something truly harmful and evil going on. Yeah they were using organs as decorations and baked that awful meat cake but… but while that gore is Gross, there’s not really the implication that they killed or harmed something to get it, you know?

I think the Creative scene is not just our characters ‘going CRAAAZY’, I think it’s more like… both literally and metaphorically, the characters are being Creative in those kinda weird and off-beat ways. Expressing their creativity and feelings in messy and odd ways found in art pieces much like… well, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared itself.

That awful gore cake is almost a perfect metaphor for DHMIS, actually. A pleasant childish facade revealing an inner layer of gore and horror.

They’re just making art that’s maybe a little gross. And maybe a little scary. And maybe a little too raw and visceral for themselves to handle. But that’s not inherently a bad thing. You know, even if it is pretty messy and they are kinda emotionally rattled from their own creative expressions, that might be something they would need a guiding hand in channeling in healthy and better ways…

But certainly not just “well, don’t you ever do this again”.

Now let's all agree to never be creative again.

For me this is just an extension of pouring oil all over Yellow’s Clown Painting. The Trio is still Doing Creativity Wrong by the Sketchbook’s standards - and she has decided they are doing it so Wrong that they shouldn’t be Creative ever again. It’s basically equivalent to some sort of hypothetical art teacher who watches DHMIS and goes “this is so creepy! I don’t think the people who made this should make art ever again!”. I think it’s clear why this kind of person would be a bad teacher when it comes to teaching art or anything to do with creativity!

Well, look at the time, looks like we should move on to...

Tony the Talking Clock! Okay, so I think… Pretty much all of the pros I was giving the Sketchbook are lessened with Tony. It certainly feels like there is an escalation with the Badness of the teachers going on. While one can argue that the trio needed to learn about the basics of Creativity - just not from a person like the Sketchbook - I think it’s harder to make the same argument about Tony’s very basic Time lesson. Like, before he shows up Red Guy and Duck just make a super-generic comment about time -

Red Guy: Come on, guys, stop mucking around. We only have five minutes until our show is on. Duck Guy: It's not enough time!

And if you just compare the way the trio participate in Tony’s song versus Sketchbook’s song….

Sketchbook: I see a silly face! Yellow Guy: Wow! Sketchbook: Walking along and smiling at me! Duck Guy: I don't see what you mean. Sketchbook: 'Cause you're not thinking creatively!

Yellow Guy: This tree that is old, has circles inside! Tony: This tree that is older has shriveled and died. Duck Guy: The apple that's fresh is ripe to the core!

They don’t really appear confused by the concept of time or surprised by Tony’s explanation of time. Red Guy asks one question (“And then what happened after the olden days?”) but that just might be out of politeness. It all seems to be stuff that they already understand about time. And he was doing this while the trio had other things planned.

But we don't really want to, we're going to miss our show.

And he just whisked them away on a musical adventure repeating ideas they already knew. So even if he didn’t do all of the Bad Shit that he did, he’d still be wasting their time.

But of course, we can’t forget about all the Bad Shit he does!

First and foremost, he’s got the same Issues as Sketchbook with his students going ‘off-script’, but he is even less patient. Almost immediately resorting to name-calling and violence.

Don't be STUPID, friends!

There's a time and a place for mucking around!

And in addition to just being a very simplistic view of Time, his lesson also contains some stuff that’s closer to straight-up inaccuracies. Namely his overly-romanticized presentation of both the past and the future.

And once they start actually questioning the lesson, and asking questions more advanced than he was prepared too, at first he deflects in a similar manner to the Sketchbook -

Duck Guy: But when did it start? Yellow Guy: And when will it stop? Tony: Time is important and I am a clock.

But then he quickly resorts to shutting them down with his loud beeping, until their ears bleed. Just a more indirect form of violence. It’s clear that his idea of ‘teaching’ is not one that encourages actual curiosity about the world, it’s just about following and repeating his points. And while the Sketchbook had a similar worldview, she never seemed to have more than Words and Oil to shut her students down, Tony has Time on his hands.

Namely the infamous final scene of the episode, where the group withers away and dies.

Here, there is no doubt that what is happening is harmful and is causing them suffering, and while Tony denies it, the Trio seems to believe that he is responsible for it. Considering the amount of seeming-reality-warping he was capable of during the rest of his musical number, it’s not that implausible.

It’s unclear WHY he did that, I think it’s most likely yet another way to punish them for not respecting him and his lesson, and for asking questions they shouldn’t. It’s also possible he just has a sadistic streak and tormenting them was always his goal, but considering how much his Control Freak aspect was emphasized during the rest of the episode, I am kinda leaning towards the former option.

Also in general “teacher bad because they are a control freak who ties too much of their ego into being smarter than their students” is more compelling to me than “teacher bad because they love cruelty”

Oh! did I just mention... LOVE?

And now, Shrignold (and the rest of the Love Cult!)

Okay, so let’s cut to the chase here. The thing about Shrignold is that he’s literally a cult recruiter. And that fact invariably corrupts any sort of ‘positive’ I could possibly say about him.

Like, yeah, Yellow Guy was very emotionally distressed and in need of a pick-me-up and Shrignold’s lesson seems to be comforting him - at least at first. But that’s less of a matter of his Lesson having some useful elements as it is a matter of Shrignold finding an emotionally vulnerable and isolated person to prey on - because he’s a cult recruiter.

And yeah, some of Shringnold’s initial explanations of love weren’t all bad and they only turned restrictive and Weird later. But that’s because his whole strategy is to sell Yellow Guy on Love as a general concept representing happiness and togetherness -

But you know it doesn't have to be; I hate you, you hate me. Cause even though we're different, it doesn't make a difference and we can live in harmony. I know you don't know who I am, but maybe I can hold your hand and together we can understand about love!

Shrignold: To love each other is to care, to be kind… Flower: …and to share! Rabbit: I love my friend, so I give them a hug! Purple Guy: I made this for you cause I love you so much! Beaver: I love my pet cause he's a crab.

And once he is committed to the idea that he needs Love to be happy, that is when Shrignold starts to conflate that general concept of Love with a more restrictive one and start shoving Heteronormativity down the child’s throat. Because he’s a cult recruiter.

Shrignold: No, no, no, that's not how it's done. You must save your love for your special one! Yellow Guy: My special one? Unicorn: Everyone has a special one.

Beaver: He's made for her… Unicorn: …and she's made for him! Rabbit: And that's the way it's always been. Beaver: And it's perfect. Purple Guy: And it's pure. Shrignold: And it's protected with a ring. Tree: That's the way that old love goes. Unicorn: Like a flower it grows and grows! Purple Guy: And it's forever. Flower: And forever.

And yeah, Shrignold is one of the only teachers who never loses his temper with the students, even when they’re doing something that is ‘wrong’ in his eyes. But that’s because he is trying to Lovebomb Yellow Guy in every meaning of the word. Because he’s a cult recruiter.

There’s a level where I’m, like, ‘well does that make him that textually different from all the other Teachers in the show?” I mean, you can very well argue that Sketchbook didn’t have a ‘few decent points in her lesson before it turned sinister’ - she was just trying to make them follow her ideas of creativity by getting them excited about the idea of being Creative in general and then narrowing the focus into just the creative expressions that she liked.

Buuut… this is still more obviously textually what’s going on when it comes to Shrignold. And the fact that he seems to be intentionally trying to isolate Yellow Guy from his friends and preying on him when he’s especially emotionally vulnerable, trying to manipulate his emotions and decide for him what's he feeling and why

Yellow Guy: But what is love, is it in the sky? Cloud: No it's a feeling, deep inside. Yellow Guy: Because I'm hungry? Shrignold: No, you're lonely. I can see it in your eyes.

Just gives him that extra edge of Sinister. Tony might be more obviously violent, but something about Shrignold and his friends’ passive-aggressive manipulation of Yellow Guy that feels even more dangerous.

So yeah, Shrignold’s lesson was self-contradictory and nonsensical, he keeps reinforcing obviously wrong falsehoods about relationships and emotions, he condescends to his student when he’s just trying to apply his lesson. But most importantly, he’s a cult recruiter.

And also probably homophobic.

I don't have a clever segway this time but anyway, here's...

Colin the Computer!

So while ‘Creativity’ and ‘Love’ featured the characters arguably needing to learn the Lesson (just not specifically from these terrible teachers) and ‘Time’ featured the characters just kinda minding their own business before being pulled into a totally unnecessary lesson - ‘Computers’ add a new wrinkle in the situation. In this episode, the characters are explicitly unquestionably interested in learning - just not about the subject the teacher has come to teach.

If you wanna talk about DHMIS as a metaphor for an education system that forces children to conform and recite information mindlessly while punishing their genuine curiosity - you really can’t find a better example. The Trio was practically seeking a lesson this time, but their will was overridden because that is not what they were supposed to learn.

And with the fact that they were robbed from learning about the world in favor of computers could be a metaphor for people isolating themselves from the ‘real world’ by focusing on technology. Or, to go more in line with the themes of DHMIS and how I interpret them - a metaphor for the internet and digital culture spreading misinformation and thus distorting one’s understanding of the world.

And not only is Colin taking the Trio away from a topic they actually sincerely want to learn about - his lesson is about as uselessly overly-simplistic as Tony’s. Like Red Guy said, they already have a computer - and it actually seems a bit more advanced than Colin is.

So it’s probable that they actually know all about the Wonders of Computers. The vibe I get from Colin’s song is that Duck and Yellow Guy are kinda dazzled by Colin’s bells and whistles, but Red Guy’s bored reaction is the correct one - there really is nothing new to learn here.

If anything, Colin is limiting their information of the digital world by shoving them into this infinite feedback loop of doing the same three things over and over again. Rather than the countless other things you could do in the digital world (including, you know, learning more about the world).

Colin also tends to ignore questions that are Inconvenient for him to acknowledge, constantly talks over his students…

Red Guy: Oh, maybe you could help us answer this question. "What is the biggest thing--" Colin: Clever! I'm very clevery guy. Yellow Guy: Wow!

…and there is his infamous freakout.

The notable thing for me is that just before that moment he himself already got all up in the personal space of his students. He’s a hypocrite, he thinks that he’s allowed to do whatever he wants to the Trio but they should respect him. Just another variation of that egotistical prideful streak that Tony also showed.

Also, I feel like a lot of people tend to kinda gloss over his bombardment of questions just before that freakout.

Colin: Great! Great news! Now before we begin our journey, I need to get some information from you! What's your name? Where do you live? What do you like to eat?

But to me this is clearly, like, a reference to websites collecting data from their users to sell to advertisers and suchlike. Colin is trying to pull the trio into using him more and more so he could spy on them and sell their data or whatever is the DHMISverse equivalent of that is.

But his big episode climax breakdown by the end is… a bit complicated. Like I said, I think the climax of ‘Creativity’ is both caused by our protagonists and is mostly benign - while the climaxes of Eps 2 + 3 are under the control of the teachers (Tony sped up time to punish his Students, Shrignold is a cult recruiter). But with ‘Computers’… I think what’s going on is Colin’s fault but not necessarily under Colin’s control.

Like, what’s happening here is that the digital world is getting overloaded due to Colin’s endless and repetitive lesson, right? He wanted to keep them in his digital world as much as possible, and when keeping their attention constantly focused on his digital wonders became too much for him - he started to glitch. It’s his fault, since it’s driven by his own ego and control-freak nature (and desire to harvest their data), and I don’t know if he’s necessarily feeling bad about that - but it is distinctive from Tony actively and knowingly punishing them.

(Also I know some people say that he intentionally caused Red Guy’s head to explode somehow and killed him at the end but considering he is unscathed in the next two episodes I am choosing to read it as Red Guy simply having his mind metaphorically blown)

So while Colin (at least Webshow Continuity Colin) is absolutely a Bastard, this is the first case where it is hard for me to say there is an escalation in the Terribleness of the teachers?? Maybe it’s just my personal biases talking? like, is spreading misinformation to manipulate you to join a cult better or worse than spreading misinformation to manipulate you into spending all your time on social media so he can monitor, harvest and sell your data? I can at least see the argument that the latter is worse?

And I do think the intention is to continue the escalation, considering that up next is…

Lamb Chop and the Rest of the Healthy Band!

Okay, so, I think it’s pretty clear by now that I’m doing this list with an attempt to prioritize actually evaluating the Teachers as teachers. You know, how bad their lessons are, how mean they are to the students, who much their behavior discourages actual curiousity or creative thinking… But, well, with these guys - there’s kind of a big elephant in the room about it.

Like, yes, their lesson is basically self-contradictory nonsense, they do nothing but ignore and override their students’ words and desire, and they don’t even seem particularly good at the ‘entertainment’ part of ‘edutainment’ - their song does nothing but annoy and distress the puppets for the most part. I mean, the circumstances around the song are probably a bigger factor but it certainly doesn’t help it’s so disjointed and chaotic.

But all of this feels kinda small potatoes (small potatoes make your teeth go gray!) against the fact they had one of their students killed and force-fed to another!

And unlike the thing with Tony, this doesn’t seem like a punishment for misbehaving (at least not on their specific lesson), it seems like Duck was doomed to die since the episode began.

It feels more like the Healthy Band was sent here to distract the puppets from Red’s disappearance and Duck’s oncoming demise over any attempt in education, even a very misinformed and misguided one.

But also, yeah, their level of education is quite bad and the way they treat their students even when they’re not killing them is very shitty. It's just kinda the culmination of all of the badness we already seen so I don't really have anything new to say about that.

Don’t murder your own students. That’s bad.

Anyways!

Lamp!

Lamp might be a bit harder to judge, because despite ‘officially’ being the main Teacher in Ep 6, he basically has like, a total of a scene-and-a-half to really show off his lesson. But… even in this scene-and-a-half he really demonstrates that he is a terrible teacher.

Much like the Healthy Band, he totally ignores and overrides his students… urn, student’s adamant refusal to join in on his lesson. Which is espacially obvious this time as Yellow is just TERRIFIED through the whole lesson.

And similar to Tony, he punishes Yellow for ‘misbehaving’ in a terribly cruel manner.

And there’s one more thing unique to him, and that is that the subject of his lesson is even more ludicrous than normal.

How can you be sleepy if you don't know how to have dreams?

It’s not something like ‘what are dreams’, but specifically ‘how to have dreams’. There were already a few lessons in DHMIS that seemed to teach the students stuff they already knew (or at the very least, stuff that they knew more/as much about as the teachers did) but now we’re really moving into the territory of things no one needs to learn. Just another way to demonstrate the continued degradation of the teachers even with Lamp's limited screentime and also this time no one gets murdered.

And now, let’s pull the plug on the Webshow Teachers…

And start up the TV Teachers with…

Briefcase! Again, I will start with whatever pros I can find… I think you can argue the Trio at least needed some sort of lesson about jobs? In the sense that Duck at least wanted to do something with his time - and also Yellow thought his welch was a ‘Job’. So I think that the Trio could probably use a lesson about what jobs are, just you know… not from this asshole.

Because while Briefcase isn’t as actively punishing or hostile as some of the DHMIS Web Teachers, he is incredibly misleading - first presenting an idealized version of the working world…

you can be anything you want to do It's totally up to you

Presenting work as a wonderland of infinite choices, including artistic pursuits…

But also publicly shaming his own brother for trying to chase his own career aspirations because they’re not successful at the moment.

And then trapping our Three of Us in a drab, unrewarding and utterly superfluous job.

He might not be as big of a jerk as some of the Webshow Teachers but he’s certainly pretty condescending - and he adds a new wrinkle into the wide tapestry of Teacher Awfulness: he is intentionally misleading.

Like, okay. This is kind of up for interpretation. But to me it feels like most of the teachers we’ve seen so far are true believers in their bullshit. Maybe not the Healthy Band or Lamp due to just how incoherent their lessons are and how much they’re seemingly motivated to just distract/punish their students. But even with them I’m not sure, the forces behind them might be more actively malicious, but the Teachers themselves could be just warped enough that they believe they make sense.

But this isn’t the vibe I get from Briefcase. I mean, there’s his blatant broad-daylight hypocrisy with Unemployed Brendon. And… he seems to be fully aware that he’s trapping them in Peterson's and Sons and Friends Bits & Parts Limited - doing the exact opposite of what his song says by forcing them into one of the least desirable workplaces he has access to. I feel like he must know that his song is just a way to entice suckers to give their life to the Capitalism Machine.

Like, y’know, maybe in his mind it was “it’s for their own good, they need to have jobs! Any jobs! And that’s the only one they’re good for!” but he certainly doesn’t believe ‘you can be anything you want to be’.

Especially when all that’s needed to get them back home is for him to finish his song, and yet he instead watches over quietly in disguise until Duck accidentally uncovers him. So while he might not be directly responsible for everything that happened to the trio over the factor, he’s at the very least complicit in it.

Was he planning to wait until they all retire before finishing his song? Was he planning to have them all die from old age at Petersons? Did he pull them out due to Yellow’s workplace accident or just because Duck ruined his cover?

Not to mention the way he pulled them into and back from that Time Hole proves his general emotional callousness, especially when you consider the effect this whole thing had on Yellow Guy.

My hand... My child...

Nor does it seem like he cares about his pound being lodged in Duck’s eye, which reinforces the idea he would’ve just let Yellow Guy bleed out and die in his retirement party if Duck hadn’t forced him out.

Speaking of Death…

Coffin

So Coffin’s the guy who really starts the trend of DHMIS TV Teachers being… different from their Webshow Equivalents. Both in the sense that they tend to be less actively and obviously malicious and in the sense that they tend to suffer some sort of Terrible Fate - this, combined with the main trio themselves proving they are capable of some Fucked Up Shit, make them more sympathetic to the audience. For a lot of people, folks like Coffin are actually pretty decent teachers.

My opinion is… a bit more complicated. Now, it is true that he showed up offering an important and necessary service to the trio - he’s basically a funeral director who got summoned because someone died. While he can be a bit of a jerk and that’s Bad-

This level of jerkiness is, like, the maximum he reaches when even Duck pees inside him. Compared to basically every other teacher and even our protagonists, that makes him remarkably even-tempered. Even the more seemingly-fucked-up stuff he did - like removing Duck’s organs and y’know, sealing him underground forever while he’s still conscious - seem to be pretty normal for Dead people in this bizarre world.

So yeah, I do generally agree that Coffin is not nearly as bad the teachers we’ve had before and he certainly did not deserve to get pissed in and then die, but…

The important thing to remember, from my perspective, is that Coffin isn’t just a Funeral Director. He’s still supposed to be a teacher, who teaches the trio about death. And judging him from this metric, he did an abysmal job. Literally all of the troubles in this episode; from Red and Yellow’s emotional anguish, their shitty treatment of Stain Edwards to, again, poor Coffin himself getting pissed in and smashed to bits - those all stem from the same root cause. Which is that our Main Trio just doesn’t know shit about dealing with Death.

Out of the Three of Them, Red Guy seems to be the only one who’s mostly aware of what Death even means and even then only from the perspective of the deceased - he had absolutely no idea how to deal with the grief of losing Duck. TEACHING the Trio about Death IS supposed to be Coffin's responsibility. And instead of making sure they actually understand what is going on, he pretty much immediately roped them into the excitement of preparing for the Big Day, Big Day - leading to pretty much every conflict in the episode.

Plus, the funeral he arranged (the part of his job he seemed to actually put effort into), had a bunch of inaccuracies (most notably the David Blunder)... And he might be the one responsible for sending the mourners to the house with the Make a New Friend Kit. All of these - seeing Duck being memorialized inaccurately, and having all of these super-performative grief forced on him, and then being pushed to explicitly move on and replace Duck as quickly as possible… Although it seems they were done with some good intentions, all of these pretty much exacerbated Yellow Guy’s Issues with dealing with his grief - in addition to never really having the permanence of Death explained to him before the event.

I mean, you have to make some consideration towards the fact that the Puppets themselves were not really able to admit that they didn’t really understand Death - so it’s not like Coffin was willfully ignoring requests for knowledge from his students. He didn’t know that they didn’t know! But I also feel like it is his responsibility as their teacher to take the initiative and make sure they understand the material he is teaching. (and of course, the Puppets not taking the initiative to ask questions themselves is pretty understandable when their educational environment has a history of punishing questions).

Coffin is a pretty interesting anomaly in the continuum of DHMIS Teachers. Because a lot of the time the Teachers are, implicitly or explicitly, redundant at best. Telling the Trio about things they already know in a way that is condescending, or overly simplistic, or just filled with inaccuracies even the Trio can spot. Coffin, however, is here to teach the Trio about something they legitimately don’t know and should probably know about - but he just fails to divulge that basic information that our main characters need. I think you can read it as, like, a statement about the way our society stigmatizes the discussion about Death. Especially with all the performative inaccurate mourning and then the quick push to move on (in this case by literally replacing Duck).

But whatever he was motivated by a desire to avoid actually discussing the ramifications of Death, or it was literally just a goofy misunderstanding and he thought the Trio knew what they were getting themselves into - I still feel like it was his responsibility and his failure that caused all of the troubles. I mean, it still puts him pretty high in the ranking as far as DHMIS Teacher Quality goes just cause the bar is so low - and it still doesn’t mean he deserved the Duck Piss. But this is why I don’t feel 100% comfortable with calling him a ‘Good Teacher’.

Lily and Todney!

Now with these two, the Terribleness is a lot more clear-cut. Lily and Todney are a pretty classic example of what I was talking about just before in the Coffin entry. The Trio already had a pretty good understanding of the ACTUAL concept of Family at the start of the episode.

Sure, we're not technically a family, but we live together and we have the same lawyer and it works for us.

They didn’t need a lesson about that. And Lily and Todney were less ‘teaching’ them as much as trying to ingrain in them arbitrary nuclear standards for ‘Family’ in their heads. ‘Your idea of ‘Family’ is Wrong, we are here to teach you how Wrong you are’ is their thing, basically.

They are also pretty condescending to the puppets, put them in many uncomfortable situations, and do the Classic DHMIS Teacher Move of being deflective and avoidant when one of their students calls them out on their bullshit.

Faulbchdt... That's not a word! That's right, isn't it, Lily? Family is much more than just a word!

They punish their students for failing to follow rules they have not actually properly established to them before they ‘broke’ them (see: the Mother's Piece debacle).

They also, like, ate a fellow Teacher???

All of these are pretty standard practice for DHMIS Teachers by now (I guess not the Teacher-Cannibalism), the thing that makes Lily and Todney notable is the way they try and exploit our puppets. Their main motivation is explictly not just to 'educate' the trio/make them think the 'right' things.

The reason why they try to reinforce the idea that the trio is doing family Wrong and only the twins can teach them how to do it Right is because they have something to gain out of it. On the micro-scale you can see it in the Family Tree sequence. Where Lily and Todney’s, um, roommate (relative?) is literally sustained by the blood of Red Guy - which was given willingly because Red Guy bought into L&T’s constant insinuations that he needs to be with his ‘real’ biological family in order to belong.

But more obviously, there’s the whole scheme of turning Yellow Guy into their new mother. In fact, if you watch the episode closely, it’s pretty clear they had their eyes on him from very early on.

So this whole ‘lesson’, with all of its nonsense arbitrary morals and rules, was nothing but a ploy to get the Trio into their house and isolate Yellow Guy from his friends.

But the interesting thing for me is the motivation. On some level, Lily and Todney might be the most sympathetic Teachers we’ve had - because we actually know for certain what motivates them. And that’s desperation.

Lily and Todney are HUNGRY. It’s implied that it’s not actually an uncommon occurrence in that family, since it's also mentioned in the home movie that they made before Mother was gone.

Despite having a bigger house than the Trio, it seems like this family is really financially struggling to keep themselves fed. And the Grolton Chicken Family Discount seems to be the only affordable food option they have. I mean, it doesn’t justify, y’know, driving the trio apart with their nonsense or drinking Red Guy’s blood or kidnapping Yellow Guy. They would definitely be a lot more sympathetic if they just stole food from the trio’s kitchen or something. But it gives them some sort of non-abstract material reason to do what they do where most teachers seem to do the same or worse purely out of a sense of ego, or a warped ideology, or just plain sadism.

Plus, there is the factor of the terms and conditions of the Family Discount themselves. Where, like, either Grolton’s Chicken refuses to give a Family Discount to any Group of People that is not a “Real Family” as defined by having a ‘dad’ and a ‘mom - or Lily and Todney are simply under the false impression that the Family Discount require that they’ll be a ‘Real Family’. So either there is a restaurant out there reinforcing this restrictive idea of family through financial discrimination. Or Lily and Todney have this concept of ‘family’ so deeply ingrained in them that they can see no other way.

Even with their ulterior motive to get the trio to listen to them, they probably actually believe only Real Families can open Family Packs. A lot of teachers seem to be True Believers in the nonsense they enforce, but Lily and Todney are our first example where the implication is that this ideology harms them just as much as it does the puppets. Either BECAUSE of that deluded belief or because there's a more influential organization that is also enforcing it. It’s a much bigger social system, and Lily and Todney are just cogs bringing it along to the next victim.

I mean, at the end of the day, I am trying to judge their value as teachers to the Puppets. And while this aspect makes them maybe a bit more sympathetic, it doesn’t make them any better as Teachers. This is just a new interesting flavor of Teacher-Badness - where they are directly harmed by the values they try to enforce and harm our trio with. Just one more link in a chain of harm, kinda reminds me of the way our trio treated Stain, actually. A new Wrinkle to consider when thinking of the teachers’ awfulness, I suppose.

And speaking on things that are Wrinkly, it is time for…

Warren the Eagle!

So the thing about Warren is, the lesson he has to teach our Trio was actually a necessary one. While all Three of Them care about each other, their friendship is also really dysfunctional for a variety of reasons - as you can see in this very episode’s ending.

So yeah, a lesson about how to ‘be better best friends’ would be something they needed, and especially on that day when they were so mean to Yellow Guy! And most of the lessons he has to teach them make good points! It’s just that Warren is the worst person who could deliver them. Like, leaving aside he’s a negative hole of charisma and talent the trio just does not want to listen to. He’s also a huge-ass hypocrite!

The lessons he says are actually good friendship advice (presumably just parroted verbatim from the ‘Okay Stop! learning materials) - but he himself fails to follow them even on the most basic level. For him, these are lessons he needs to Teach others, not anything he needs to learn from himself. He only interacts with them when they can be an Excuse for his own shitiness. They’re just slogans to repeat without actually understanding them himself. (Which is extra sad cause Warren IS primarily motivated by his lonliness. If HE could learn how to be a Better Best Friend, that would benfit him more than anything!)

Much like many other Teachers on DHMIS, this also feels like a reflection of problems in Real Life Early Childhood Education. How often are children taught basic concepts such as friendship, honesty, respect or kindness by parents, teachers and other authority figures - who utterly fail to actually follow these same ‘basic childhood lessons’ themselves and especially towards their own students? How many children are taught 'kindness' by the unkind?

So while Warren being an obnoxious and toxic person who shows no remorse as he destroys Yellow Guy’s mind for the sake of his own ego and self-satisfaction and, y’know, turned into a giant monster is bad enough if he was simply the puppets’ peer - the fact that he is also supposed to be ‘teaching’ an actually important lesson to them, kinda makes it worse? Because now they all know that Warren sucks, it’s also a lot easier for them to just ignore everything he told them. To just process them as empty slogans like Warren himself did, and therefore…

Anyways!

Choo-Choo!

This one’s another kinda Complicated one, and much like Lily and Todney, a rare case where we might need to consider Outside Factors when evaluating the character - so let’s take this one at a time.

First, while there is not much Wrong in his lesson - it’s unclear how necessary it is. While the puppets didn’t know much about, like, travel and driving a car - all of those are things that Red Guy taught himself on his own while Choo-Choo was kinda MIA. Choo-Choo’s own lesson was mainly just about listing various kinds of vehicles and transportations methods and I think the Trio are at least aware of what a bicycle is. So it’s probably yet another case of a Teacher giving them a lesson so simplistic and condescending it’s totally unnecessary.

Yeah, he came as a reaction to a Need one of the Puppets had, but in the sense he seems to be here as a way to try and passively placate Red Guy’s dreams of escape by offering him a faux ‘trip to the outside’ that actually never leaves their living room. It’s kinda like the Healthy Band maybe, although at least Choo-Choo isn’t distracting them from anything terrible well at least not anything more terrible than the general background terribleness of their existence.

And while he’s certainly not the worst Teacher we’ve had so far, he’s got a rather short temper, he tends to hit his students, even if it seems to be mostly by accident, but not always… And he often fails to engage with the actual questions his students ask of him…

Now, that’s the whole thing of Outside Factors. Because all of these issues with Choo-Choo’s teaching methods aren’t really Flaws In His Personality, as much as it is just… him being old and not-in-very-good-health. He’s not really ignoring or dismissing his students’ questions, he just legit has a problem hearing them properly. And he seems to be straining himself very much to the point of pain and death just to give them that lesson - which makes him easier to read as genuinely, if misguidedly, invested in Educating the Youth.

Plus, while he’s got a bit of a temper, it never really gets beyond ‘exasperated gruffness’ - not even when the trio hijack his own body to go on their little escape plan and drink all of his oil and force-fed him raisins and cigarettes -which would certainly be a justified point for someone to get angry!

And then there is the fact that he’s yet another Teacher who ends up dead due to the Actions of of the Students, so a lot like Coffin, that automatically makes him more sympathetic. (I think the Students actually killed Choo-Choo like three different times in that episode). I can totally see why he’s considered, at least, one of the ‘least evil’ teachers.

But… Well, while he might be one of the better-intentioned and least villainous teachers out there - he’s still not very good at his job? If you want to talk about how good the Teachers function as actual Edutainment for their students… yeah, Choo-Choo is not very good. We’ve certainly seen worse teachers, but his interactions with the students are generally unpleasant, the contents of his lesson are probably entirely redundant, he can't really engage with the students, and - you know- he DIED mid-lesson. Which is generally considered a downside.

I mean, Choo-Choo can’t help but be Sick and Old, I don’t want to blame him for that… There are people who can manage to be good teachers while being Sick and/or Old. The important factor here is that… while on some level it might seem admirable that he’s pushing himself despite his health - that just kinda made things worse both for everyone involved! If Choo-Choo toned things down a bit to make the lesson plan more accommodating to his own health problems (as in, take Duck's advice and Stop Morphing), that would’ve led to a more pleasant experience for both his students and himself (as in: he wouldn't have died!)

The question, I guess, is why did he feel the need to physically push himself like that? I know for a lot of people, Choo-Choo’s whole vibe reminded them of elderly and/or sick people who are forced to work and unable to retire due to financial pressures or other kinda crappy job conditions. I noticed the parallels too and it’s possible Choo-Choo is going through the anthropomorphic puppet train equivalent of this dire situation. On the other hand, part of Choo-Choo jerkish behavior is constant denial and insecurity about his own health problems. Being super-defensive about them even when his students bring them up with genuine concern.

Yellow Guy: Is that supposed to…? Choo Choo: Doesn't matter.

Duck: Can you stop morphing? Yellow Guy: Yeah! Stop morphing! Choo Choo: I'm not morphing, you're morphing!

Which of course, reminds me of the General Vibe of insecurity and condescension coming from a lot of the DHMIS teachers - clearly having their ego harmed by being outsmarted by their students or even just being asked questions they are not sure about. You know, it’s this mindset of ‘I’m the teacher and you’re the students, therefore you must Respect everything that I say because I’m always right and if you disagree with me you are Wrong’. And I think Choo-Choo’s defensiveness might come from that same source? That it is embarrassing if you have to admit your students are actually right about something, even when this thing is literally threatening your life and health.

It might be a balance of both of these. Maybe Choo-Choo has been forced into Teaching by, like, Lesley’s lackluster pension fund for her inanimate-object-nightmare-puppet-teachers or something but ALSO he feels too proud to admit any of this in front of his students or even ‘tone down’ the physical intensity of his lesson-plan once called out on his health problems by his students of all people!

Much like Coffin, Choo-Choo is sympathetic because his flaws cause mostly problems (and death) for himself. I think more so in Choo-Choo’s case since he didn’t even cause a lot of anguish for other people. His sense of pride over his students only harmed himself - in the worst possible way.

Farther complicating the issue is the fact that Red Guy was literally encouraging all of this! While Yellow Guy and Duck were clearly worried about Choo-Choo's health, Red Guy was goading him to keep going!

Yellow Guy: Maybe you should have a sit-down. Red Guy: No, don't sit down.

I dunno if that makes Choo-Choo's death Red Guy's fault (I mean this FIRST death after the song, the other two are absolutely Red Guy's fault) - I think it's likely things would've gone just the same with Choo-Choo's personal pride even if Red Guy was on Team Stop Morphing. But this moment seems so intentful and calculated (I mean, even YELLOW GUY noticed that Choo-Choo is not doing well) - that it feels even harsher than Yellow Guy smashing Coffin in his grief. Maybe Red Guy was just that hopeful that the song will eventually actually take them Elsewhere that he was willing to risk that guy's health. Maybe he was already considering hijacking his corpse?

And unlike with Coffin's death, I can't say this was caused by the problems in Choo-Choo's lesson. So it's not even a teacher's flaws coming back at him. I mean, I GUESS that was caused by the fact this supposed song about Transport wasn't actually going anywhere which was agitating Red Guy - but REALLY, Red Guy is more motivated by larger-scale wider issues about how he's trapped within the Format and thus he is THAT desperate to have a chance to escape, not anything to do with Choo-Choo individually.

I guess that's actually something you can connect with Choo-Choo's 'old teacher unable to retire' coding. Both Choo-Choo's problems as a teacher and the way Red Guy treated him are caused by wider-scale and more powerful systemic issues inflicted on them, which then reflect back on the way the act during the lesson.

Electracey

So good ol’ Electracey the Meter is generally regarded as one of the best Teachers in the whole show and that is… a pretty accurate assessment. But it’s also kinda grading on a curve, y’know? Being the Best Teacher on DHMIS is a pretty low bar to clear. So I am going to go over her problems - because I think they are often overlooked - but I do want to emphasize that, yes, while she is far from perfect, she is also the Best One we’ve had so far!

First things first, her lesson is entirely necessary and important. The Trio legit did not know what Electricity was and why it was important before she showed up.

Duck: I always assumed it was some kind of natural phenomenon, some sort of weather or something. Electracey: No, what about the lamps, and the lights, and the plug-in blanket? Red Guy: Uh… magic? Some kind… Like a spell?

And she obviously excels in the Entertainment Part of Education.

And just genuinely seem nice and cordial towards her students, which is a welcome change of pace!

She’s not even very angry when Duck steals her batteries and leaves her almost to die.

But while all of these are true, it is important to remember that she still has some Issues. For a starter, she seems to not have a Full Grasp of the Mortality of Organic Beings.

AND, like a lot of other teachers, she kinda Struggles when her students go off-screen:

"Now tell me, could you make a phone call on a phone that was just made out of rocks and soil?" "No, probably not" "Go on, try it!" "N- Why?" "Try it!"

Which honestly kinda reminds me, of, well

"I use my hair to express myself!"

And the most important thing is… there is another Point to her Lesson outside of ‘electricity is useful and you should pay your bills’. Electracey doesn’t just believe Electric Devices are cool, she believes they are superior to non-electric-devices.

"Soon everything in the home will be plugged-in and part of the electric family!"

Which is a pretty Dubious message to send to the impressionable puppets.

Now, Electracey’s saving grace is what happens when the students actually start following her lesson - as a combination of their newfound excitement for electricity and trying to distract themselves from Yellow Guy being Smart now, Red Guy and Duck do indeed start making sure everything in the house is ‘plugged in and part of the electric family'. Filling it with useless and gimmicky Smart Gadgets.

And Electracey, through her low-power shitty-battery gaze does actually try and warn them this is not a good idea.

(And it was not a good idea, obviously)

So while some of her lines are a bit ominous, maybe she at least didn’t want them to go that far, and that’s something, at least. Or maybe it was only a problem specifically because it was overloading the power on herself and the house?

Like I said, definitely the Best Teacher we’ve had so far, but she’s still far from flawless…

The big thing I am thinking about is the general fandom assessment that the TV Show had Better Teachers in general compared to the Web Show. It is true, but I think it’s important to consider why it is like this.

First and foremost, it’s because the Webshow had a clear element of escalation in the awfulness that the TV Show does not have. The difference in quality between the two Teacher Groups would’ve been a lot less clear cut if we had to compare all the TV Teachers just with Notebook, for example.

In addition , I think part of the reason the Badness of the TV Teachers is a lot more subdued has less to do with a change in tone and more to do with a change in the format. The longer, more character-driven narrative of the show allows for a more subtle and complex exploration of what makes the Teachers terrible - as well as having to explore a more diverse range of motivations and reasons for their terribleness.

Again, this is a very personal look at DHMIS Teachers, I would be happy to hear your perspectives on the matter assuming anyone made it this far into the post.

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sillysadduck · 1 year

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This theory doesn't work anymore, at all, but I remember years ago when the webseries wasn't done, a popular (I think?) Theory was that dhmis was just the real world through a child's eyes.

And that everything was so terrible because everything is worse in their brains, getting scolded for making a wrong decision and not being creative enough would be the end of the world for a kid. Because that's the worse thing that has happened to them, so it's the same as everyone dying and everything exploding, for them. Red left without a goodbye, to find another job, but in "the child's" aka Yellow's perspective Red just dissappeared and his head exploded in glitter and he died and never came back.

Im just being nostalgic, this doesn't make any sense now I'm aware but I like remembering the original theories since my original human AU was made around that theory back in I think 2015? I used to be a hard believer of that theory but with Lesley, the book, with the real world existing in dhmis and everything it just doesn't work anymore, I just felt like sharing with the new ones <3

#dhmis #don't hug me i'm scared

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donnie-woomy · 26 days

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Silly headcanons until I pass out:

Zero loves prosciutto, so much so that it’s becoming a problem and X has to hide them from him.

Colonel and Iris argued once about having uno. She said it came free with his Xbox but he says he has the oldest Xbox known to man.

Alia watches DHMIS (don’t hug me I’m scared) and she kins red guy.

Omega actually captured Ciel once, but immediately brought her back to Zero after his arm was bitten off.

Zero and X FORKED before Zero went to sleep and the mother elf was created. At least we know why Fefnir is red lol.

There was a lot of holes on the walls in the resistance base and Zero asked Ciel what happened, then he saw wall dust all over her lips and face and the realization hit him.

#megaman x #rockman x #megaman zero #rockman zero #headcanon #last headcanon be like: DID YOU EAT THE F***ING WALLS?!#she’s hungry ok?!#she hasn’t had her daily marshmallows in three whole minutes

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gnomeniche · 2 years

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i'm thinking so hard about the dhmis trio's characterizations and how interesting i find all of them. let's start by framing this discussion with a quote from this interview

i want to talk about them in terms of their surface levels and their hidden depths. you can see the roles that they're supposed to play on the in-universe "show world", but then you dig deeper and you find something more real.

...

yellow? plays the role of the innocently stupid one who's always the butt of the joke and can't see that his friends are jerks.

but we find out that he's the one with the most awareness of their situation and that his knowledge was literally taken from him. and he knows full well that his friends are jerks! throughout the show that is made clear. and even after he's functioning at full power and he admits that he thinks his friends are trying to control him, he still loves them enough to bring the book back to them so that they can all escape. he's shown to be genuinely kind, not just unwittingly innocent. and even when he's at low power he displays some memory of their situation, but he just can't express it.

red? plays the role of the chill and laid-back one who's always handy with a sarcastic comment and doesn't care very much.

but we find that he cares quite a bit about many things. he seems to have a rather sensitive heart, is prone to existential dread, and is distressed by the nonsense of their world. he wants so strongly; he wants something better, something more gentle and more sincere and more real than all this. he wants to feel comfortable somewhere but can't quite find that in either this life or any other. he's curious and imaginative but repressing it due to arbitrary standards, whether it's by the show world's rules or social rules (original 6's "real world" and new 3's illusion of a family).

duck? plays the role of the the high-strung, fussy one with an overinflated ego, dramatic emotions, and a sharp tongue.

but we see that, even if he can be cruel, he finds comfort in being with his friends and loves their daily life together. he sees them as a family! he can't just be by himself, and he genuinely doesn't want them to be separated. and pedantic as he is, he seems blind to the inconsistent nature of their reality. it's only when the status quo of their daily life is disrupted that he really freaks out, like when yellow goes off-script in 6 or when red disappears in the original series' 5. but this also makes him grounded in who he is; he just does not assimilate into new roles as well as the other two, and as dramatic as he is, he's often the most stable.

...

and it's their inner traits that lead to their downfalls, when they do occur. yellow's love leads him to go back downstairs and lose his memory over and over and over again. red's curiosity for more strands him outside of his world with no way back in besides intervention from a higher level, in both the original and new series. duck's stability makes him unable to deal with some lessons and thus liable to be violently removed or changed (perhaps this is why he seems to be so often replaced?), in both the original and new series.

and they all have their deeper personalities masked by the roles they must play in this tv-show-world. yellow's is most easy to see, because he is literally forced to lose all memory and return to his role as lovable idiot, but the abrupt shift in demeanor that red and duck experienced in 6 when a ray of stage light came back into the dark is also notable, as was red's sudden reset from desperate in 5 to apathetic in 6, right after the group came too close to knowing what was going on.

and on a level wider than the individual characters... you can see it with the undercutting of any almost-sincere moments by gags. you can see it in how full of holes their memories are. there are moments where their selves beneath the roles shine through anyway, but the status quo is always god. nobody can grow or change or be anything other than what they are supposed to be. and that's the tragedy of it

#dhmis #dhmis red guy #dhmis yellow guy #dhmis duck #dhmis theory #not really this is more of a character analysis. but #it's 'dhmis is a tragedy' hours with am #am.txt #dhmis analysis

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eldritch-muppetshow · 2 years

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spoilers for the new dhmis series under the cut. i apologize for the length, i just have a lot of thoughts

is it just me, or does the friendship episode feel like a callback/parallel to the love episode of the original series? i made this point in a discord convo w a friend but i’m just gonna repost it here and elaborate on it.

1. a seemingly trustworthy figure that claims to be looking out for yellow guy’s well-being during a period of conflict with his friends, but turns out to want to use him for their own gain

2. the motif of characters calling an entity a bird when that’s not the case (“eagle”/“little baby pigeon”)

3. the bright and colorful fantasy worlds that are initially presented as a sort of haven/respite for yellow that quickly take a turn for the dark/disturbing when said seemingly-trustworthy figure shows up in it

4. the use of the “pesky bee” line when duck (intentionally or otherwise) kills the lingering result of the figure and yellow’s encounter

and while shrignold and company are never directly referenced in the new series to my knowledge, warren seems to actively be trying (and of course failing) to invoke what easily came to shrignold; shrignold had his followers’ and yellow guy’s respect and was clearly in a position of power within the love cult, but warren can’t even get imaginary people to respect or like him and it’s pretty much stated that the “okay, stop” kicked him out for one reason or another.

there’s also the factor that shrignold was able to carry out his lesson because yellow was alone and there wasn’t another outside perspective around to call his teachings out as bullshit. yellow’s friends look for him and initially see him flying through the air, but remain unconcerned, don’t see his encounter with the love cult, don’t intervene (and depending on how you interpret their appearance in the background toward the end of the song, they may have even been in on it!), and presumably remain unaware it happened for the rest of the series.

by contrast, yellow initially isn’t alone with warren, and the three (plus colin) team up to verbally tear him and his teachings to shreds. and even when warren does get yellow alone (technically the brain friends are there with them too, but still), duck and red do their best to get yellow out of that space and back with them. of course, that’s kind of offset by the fact that their friendship/family relationship/whatever you classify them as is still dysfunctional— and to be clear, i don’t necessarily blame web series!duck and red for not intervening shrignold’s lesson, their cameo in the song could mean a lot of things and it’s entirely possible that they couldn’t have helped anyway— but i feel like it’s worth mentioning.

i’m not really sure how to conclude this other than saying that as of the time i’m writing this, i can’t really hate warren as a character— as a person, he absolutely sucks, but i do find him kind of interesting because with this angle in mind, he’s essentially a shitty knockoff of shrignold and both the other characters and narrative tear him apart for it. it’s entirely possible that these parallels are all one big coincidence and warren is meant to be taken at face value, but with the amount of callbacks to the original series present in this new one, i find that kind of a stretch. of course, this is all just my take on it, and i plan to watch both the love episode and the friendship episode back-to-back at some point to see if there are more specific/blatant examples than what i cited here.

tldr; warren is wannabe shrignold and the friendship episode is “episode 3 but if someone called the love cult out on their bullshit”

#dhmis #dhmis spoilers #cult tw #ask to tag.#don’t hug me i’m scared

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