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711ratdog · 2 months ago

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Reblogging to read later

HEADCANON DROP HI HELLO (ignore how i accidentally switched pete and josh's position i drew this in school without my phone okay. forgive me)

BILL !!

hes the level of white that his face gets actually red when hes rlly angry

worst acne out of all of the club plus probably has a bald spot on his head from how stressed out he is all the time

surprisingly his hair is the cleanest out of all of them because his mom forces him to take baths frequently (hates her for it) -> weirdly that does not stop him from smelling like shit so

has VERY bad myopia (short sighted)

absolutely awful posture. pack it up hunchback of notre dame

has very bad lactose intolerance but does NOT stop him

i like to think maybe it was his dad who introduced him to comics and nerdy stuff and they really bonded over that so he resents his mother a lot for "taking his dad away from him" when they had the divorce

NOT a reader at all, only reads books that dont have pictures on them if its for school, otherwise he does NOT touch that shit

has a surprisingly good singing voice but the talents wasted because he doesnt like music at all

very very VERY closeted bisexual would rather die than admit he feels a little something when looking at pretty men

has a habit of biting himself when he's frustrated

has arachnophobia so bad to the point it's actually funny. if u tell him theres a spider on his shoulder he will scream so loudly and freak out and not speak to u for a week when he realizes u were lying

his bones are really easy to break for some reason? shove him the tiniest bit hard he will break something when he falls on the ground

i feel like he'd have a peanut allergy. no i will not elaborate

judges really hard whenever someone gets a very complicated coffee order but cannot handle a singular sip of black coffee. spits it out immediately

brags about being the oldest of all of them when its like. him and josh are less than a month apart

very very low pain tolerance will be so dramatic over every tiny papercut

umm umm something something npd and ocd because oomf said so

last one of the club to grow facial hair

hates HATES pda but is so clingy in private its insane

chews on every pen or pencil he owns. beaver ass

has really really dry lips to the point his doctor told him to regularly put on chapstick but he never does it because he "feels gay" doing it, lips get cracked and bloody every time the weather gets a little dryer than usual

always wears long sleeved shirts or jackets over t-shirts because he hates how his arms look (theyre very skinny. bro cannot throw a hard hitting punch or lift a mildly heavy object for his life)

cannot peel any fruit. ever.

never got his drivers license. even in epilogue he has to take cabs everywhere

also epilogue i feel like he'd have a little bit of a drinking problem maybe

JOSH !!

very very greasy curly hair that has so much frizz. CANNOT be brushed dry ever or itll puff up ljke a pomeranian

probably started growing a neckbeard before any real facial hair but he gets self conscious about it so shaves it -> gives up shaving it in epilogue and his real beard started to grow

his weight isnt that much his fault its more of a genetic thing tbh -> tried working out to see if he lost weight once but when his fat didnt immediately turn into muscle in like. a week. he gave up

his mom probably got him to do piano or violin classes and when the club went to a recital to make fun of him they were like. a little impressed cuz he was not bad at all tbh -> probably tried to audition to school band or somethibg? but immediately shouted FUCK the second he got a note wrong and got kicked out

has some form of jaw misalignment? but never told his mom because he would rather die than be seen with braces

gamer headphone dent 💔

immediately asks any girl wearing a band shirt "name five songs" even if he doesnt know the band at all

owns a concerning amount of body pillows

secretly has a thing for mean assertive women

bpd maybe?

has VERY bad hyperopia (long-sightedness)

used to own hamsters and got so sad when they died he missed club meetings for like a week -> club genuinely thought it was a grandma or something not yoda 1 and yoda 2 (he'd name them that because he forgot which one was which and just named them the same thing)

has so many cousins and extended family its insane. he swears that if he hears "youve grown so much, last time i saw you you were a little baby!" he will LOSE IT

has freakishly good aim for some reason? like, the club wouldve gone to paintball or laser tag or something and bill would throw a tantrum over always getting shot by josh immediately

hates overly sweet things

PETE !!

very very hairy everywhere except on his head 😭 bro has a receding hairline at 17 someone save him (literally the only reason he wears the baseball cap all ghe time)

probably the first one to grow facial hair out of the club, brags about it so hard

tried piercing his ears by himself once but it got infected so he had to give up

rlly dark eyes and has the most beautiful luscious dark lashes youve ever seen (guido mista coded)

nose is very curved and downturned

MOLES MOLES SO MANY MOLES

kinda crooked teeth but his parents cant afford braces for him so

owns a bunch of exotic pets and used to prank the club with them until bill accidentally stepped on his pet spider and killed it or something

yk when u smell sweaty and bad and try putting deodorant on top to fix it but just ends up smelling like a mix of sweat and deodorant and its lowkey worse? yeah thats what pete smells like. all the time. and axe body spray

tried smoking one (1) time to look cool and regretted it so much. never again

probably unironically got scurvy once due to not brushing his teeth or eating any fruit and thought his gums bleeding meant he was turning into a zombie -> tried biting josh once to be funny and "turn him into a zombie too" but he bit too hard and it got infected (he felt SO bad)

really strong immune system from eating dirt as a kid? almost never gets sick -> when he does its really bad and the club lowkey thinks hes gonna die when it happens

if not working at sick mofo in epilogue i like to think he could've ended up working as a horror sfx artist

also could probably have been good at sports if he tried but he never did (plus hates jocks so)

surprisingly really knowledgeable about food and spices and stuff (maybe his mom taught him) but he HATES cooking so never does anything abiut it

watches gore and shit but would throw up immediately if he saw a major injury like that in real life

has freakishly good reflexes from his older brothers picking on him all the time

JERRY !!

THICK EYEBROWS !!!!!!!! KINDA HAS SIDEBURNS TOO !!!!!!!!!! im not normal

thin lips ..and eyebags …. plus kinda defined cheekbones make him look rlly tired all the time

hes really myopic but doesnt have glasses -> his eyes look closed all the time cuz hes always squinting trying to see 3 feet in front of him (plus his eyebrows furrow together when he does so thats why sometimes he looks like he has a unibrow) -> probably starts wearing contacts in epilogue

also literally only failed his driving test becayse of myopia SOMEONE GET THIS POOR BOY SOME GLASSES

had a tooth gap when he was younger (think that one flashback where theyre all kids) and had to wear braces for a while to fix it -> was relentlessly made fun of because of that by the club until bill got braces too and threatened to punch whoever made fun of braces again

weirdly good at finding out info about people …. stalker ass .!!!! has doxxed people he dislikes on forums occasionally -> stops doing that in epilogue but maybe finds himself accidentally stalking someones profile when on the internet and feels bad

waaayy taller than the rest of the club but has a shitty posture so he looks kinda on par with the others -> like 180cm but looks 175cm

best jawline out of all of them lowkey 😭

maybe a little unaware on physical boundaries and stuff … physical touchy guy

FRECKLES + hes probably the one wity tge least acne out of all of them cuz he would probably start picking at his pimples the minute they show up (does NOT wash his face though) -> acne scars in epilogue

greasy hair, probably washes it every 2 weeks (has rlly nice smelling shampoo when he does wash it though) -> washes his hair more frequently in epilogue (REALLY soft)

very blunt when he has strong opinions about something but otherwise has ZERO backbone. will immediately change his mind on something if he wants to impress someone

a sagittarius because he looks like he'd have a birthday in december plus weird al yankovic song your horoscope for today (listen to it right now.)

very clammy sweaty hands and HATES it, sensory nightmare, always fidgeting with the hem of his sweater to dry them out

autistic .!!! plus has rlly bad anxiety probably

and fomo. oh lord he has so much fomo -> probably one of the biggest reasons he still hangs out with the club tbh -> plus has really bad codependency and abandonment issues maybe? cannot do something by himself he has to have someone with him

gets his ears pierced in the epilogue and LOVES it, too scared to get more though because it was really painful

is a pretty good artist, could've become a professional easily but was more preoccupied with other stuff probably

owns a huge ginger main coone cat that bullies him around

low blood pressure

very skilled at calligraphy… most legible handwriting out of all of them

umm urrmm thats it i thinks .... i hope my vision is not too out of character .......,,,, Guh

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711ratdog · 4 months ago

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I could fix him, like actually fix him and make him better, my bf <3

Character Analysis of Josh Levy

Sorry if this is shit, idk how to word my feelings on Josh. Gonna go about each character very differently bc they're all complex in their own right and I have so many thoughts. Brain so full. He’s the most tragic of them all, super overlooked, misunderstood, and underrated. He’s someone who’s hard to analyze, since he’s so guarded. Plus I distance myself from him bc he's too real lol

I feel the most integral part of Josh's character is the fact that he's neurodivergent. He's always been very autistic-coded in writing, but it was also confirmed by Dorkin that he is somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum, which changes his character completely from just a gluttonous selfish loser to a cautionary tale of what can happen when autistic children get no resources or room to be "weird" in public.

When we first meet Josh, it's established that he's the laughing stock of the group. In the first meeting that we see, the rest of the club has managed to get all types of pop culture merchandise from all over the place, but Josh's are more childish, like Animaniacs and Flintstones. He also went the easiest route, basically relying on his mother if he wanted to get anything done. All in all, not very complex, and this gets him laughed at immediately.

He is only treated with respect when he has something the rest of the club values, and has to use it as leverage to get any kind of positive feedback. During open debate, he's almost sneered at by the rest of the group and doesn't even realize it, since he's loud and corny and laughs at his own jokes. When they play DnD, he's shown to be very insecure and terrible at decision-making, once again getting him endlessly shit on by Pete. And once his leverage is gone, he's mocked again, especially for falling for such an easy scam.

There is a lot to unpack there, very quickly. The story almost makes it easy to point and jab at someone like Josh, without looking much deeper than the surface. He's the Eltingville Club's personal Chris-Chan, or Tophia, or Daniel Larsen.

Josh Levy has a Binge Eating Disorder

Josh has bad eating habits, both in the comics and pilot. He's willing to eat stale Doritos from a trash can, is constantly shoving fast food in his face, and bulk buys food constantly for the collectibles, eating it all instead of throwing it away like his friends. It even leads to health problems and discomfort, like when he was eating nothing but Batman-shaped Mac and Cheese for days and had extreme bathroom issues. This is meant to show his gluttony, but even that represents the issue Josh has faced all his life - his problems being portrayed as his own fault and made into a gag. Being fat is not a moral failure, but everyone has always told Josh that it was.

Binge eating stems from somewhere. You aren't born with those habits, and there's a reason he feels stupid and ashamed every time he participates in it. Josh has always faced a lack of control and emotional support from everyone in his life, leading to him trying to find it in both escapism and food binges. It's also a sign of even bigger mental health issues, but no one steps in. His own family shows a lack of care or consideration for their son, along with enabling his habits by constantly buying more for him. He has very little say in his own life, but he does at least have a say in how he eats and the things that bring him joy, even if it's destroying him.

Enabling Parents

While I wouldn’t say Josh has good parents, they at least have some type of care for him, and he obviously comes from a family with money. His parents are very old, and his mother is sickly, which means that they probably can’t discipline him in the way that he needed as a child. Even when Josh was grounded, it was a very light punishment compared to what he did (literally vandalism) and it’s clear there aren’t many rules in his house.

They essentially allow Josh to do whatever he wants, and throw money at him constantly, but refuse to actually look at what he needs emotionally that is causing all these outbursts. They show very little care when Josh is distraught, don’t address his binge eating habits or obsessions or why he’s having dreams of his friends beating him to a pulp. They constantly buy him a bunch of junk food when they can see the impact it’s having on his health, or maybe they don’t pay enough attention to notice. With his mother being sick, it’s very likely that he didn’t get much attention, and tried to get it from everywhere else in his life. He’s emotionally neglected and physically spoiled, trying to use material possessions to fill that void.

Josh’s Autistic Traits

I’m going to have to make a bullet pointed list for this, since there’s so many instances that it’s hard to pinpoint all of it.

Emotional Outbursts/Emotional Impermanence - Josh has been shown on multiple occasions to feel things very strongly, and acts out because of how emotional he gets. Particularly, his anger often overwhelms him. It’s very common for people on the spectrum to lack the ability to regulate their emotions and self soothe in a typical fashion, which leads to meltdowns, and angry outbursts. Josh clearly has a hard time conveying what he’s thinking when he’s upset, often getting tripped up and desperate, like trying to explain himself during the trivia-off, and trying to set boundaries with the club about the fat jokes only to be met with laughter and ridicule. I firmly believe he’s had meltdowns multiple times on screen, and it’s not always just him throwing a tantrum. He’s also able to switch his emotions very quickly, going from fuming with anger to beaming with joy, as if he’d felt nothing else beforehand.

Social Obliviousness - Josh often doesn’t realize he’s the butt of the joke when it’s not spelled out for him. His friends don’t even want to be seen next to him at times, and he never really realizes the degree in which they hate him. He makes a fool out of himself constantly, but doesn’t realize how people perceive him OUTSIDE of being a fat nerd, and has no desire to know and no self-reflection. Once again, I feel that the dream he has about his friends beating him up until he bleeds is significant, because he asks himself “what could that possibly mean” when it is VERY obvious to the rest of the audience.

His Special Interests Shape His World - Josh isn’t shown to be the brightest in many aspects; in the pilot he’s prone to making mistakes, he often comments in the comics about how he comes to realizations far slower than the rest of his friends. But when it comes to his special interests like Star Wars, he’s a human encyclopedia. He knows the most out of the group about anything sci-fi and comic related, even trying to build an actual functional Iron-Man suit by himself (before lighting himself on fire, but that’s still knowledge and dedication). The way he calms down is literally sorting his figure into lines. He can’t take his mind off of it even in important situations, like in the pilot when he’s being screamed at by Bill’s mom but is still caught up in the DnD game. His job in the future is literally him trying to be a comic writer. He cannot function in the world without his special interests being involved, and since most people were very hostile towards him and his interests, this manifests in him being defensive and obsessive instead of forming a normal relationship with it.

Lack of Empathy - Josh is very rude, like everyone in the club. While his harassment of others isn’t an autistic trait, it does show that he has a hard time putting himself in other people’s shoes. Even when he does care about people, like his mother, or Bill not getting a chance to get a Star Wars figure because Josh keeps hoarding them, or Pete after the zombie walk, he can’t conceptualize how they feel if it doesn’t affect him. It may not even dawn on him, because of his social ineptitude.

Missing Social Cues - Josh isn’t the best in social situations; from the painful conversation with the many cashiers at fast food places, to the scene during DnD, in the comics, when Josh is confronted with a social interaction with a girl and completely falls apart. He’s awkward, he’s loud, and he has no idea he’s awkward and loud. He’s also very blunt, and sincere with his words, not realizing that other people can say something and mean another, like when he showed up to job interviews and talked about Godzilla, thinking the hiring manager was interested.

Black and White Thinking/Paranoia - Josh jumps to conclusions often. With him, it’s either something is the worst thing to ever exist, or it’s perfect and you’re not allowed to criticize it. He has a hard time understanding that grey area, and this also reflects on how he views other people. Unlike Bill or Pete who form their judgements of “normies” on trends they’ve noticed and behaviors they’ve watched from afar, Josh thinks they’re all inherently bad based on his own experiences being bullied. And he believes all nerds are inherently better because of his friend group and experiences. Seeing someone who’s both preppy and enjoys nerdy media would probably turn his entire world view upside down.

Disorganization/Executive Functioning Issues - Josh can’t care for himself on his own, and has a hard time in public places. In the pilot it’s more evident, during the DnD game when he’d been shown to drop everything, make poor decisions, be hyper focused on small issues and details while ignoring the big picture, which can reflect how he conducts himself in real life. Even just making himself a meal or going grocery shopping is hard for Josh, which can be partly caused by his parents babying him too much, and partly from lack of executive functioning skills.

The Lolcow-ification of Josh

Unfortunately it’s a big part of his character stereotype that this story takes place in the early 2000s, which means the general population is very hostile to both fat people AND autistic people. Being both means that anyone and everyone will find an excuse to shit on you, and it will be socially accepted to do so. So it’s not unreasonable to assume Josh has been socially outcasted since his birth. Social Isolation is scientifically the worst pain humans can go through as a social species - it manifests in the brain as physical pain. And being exposed to that pain your whole life leaves you traumatized.

I’m going to be a dork for a second and reference my favorite book; much like how Frankenstein’s monster was not born violent, but grew to be so after being rejected and betrayed by everyone he knew, Josh‘s positive traits slowly became overshadowed by his insecurity and defensiveness.

It’s rather heartbreaking, how hard it is to analyze Josh when he is so clearly defined by trauma. Especially since it’s a fact that no autistic person in our society has really gone without trauma. It’s hard to know the real Josh when he’s always on defense mode. His trauma is also heavily overlooked, both in the story and in reality. Since he is most likely undiagnosed, he probably sees it as his own fault.

Josh’s Positive Traits

When he’s so often looked down upon, I feel like it’s important to have a little segment all about the good things in Josh that’d hard to notice.

Creativity - Josh is actually very imaginative. From his desires to become a comic writer, to his eagerness during the costume contest, he’s shown a desire to create and is always full of ideas. Good ones? Maybe not. But full of ideas nonetheless.

Loyalty - Josh puts up with shit no one in the whole world should let slide. When Josh truly loves someone, like the club, he doesn’t leave them. It may be partially caused by his follower tendencies, but he’ll stick by and defend his friends in any situation. Even when he swears he’s leaving for good, like when he daydreams of shooting his friends in the head, or claims the end of the Eltingville Club in the pilot, he always comes back.

Attention to Detail/Ingenuity - Josh is the type to notice things no one else notices, which often comes in handy, like during the trivia-off and how he managed to make the stash of collectibles in toy stores for the club. It’s an important skill, especially when the rest of the club doesn’t pay as much attention is he does. He tends to take the long way when solving problems, so this attention to detail often means coming up with unique solutions to difficult problems.

Honesty - Josh says what he means, which is real as fuck. Saying he’s gonna piss his pants in excitement is not only humorously blunt but also goes to show that he’s not gonna hide what he thinks or how he feels for anyone. The type of friend you go to when you want someone to tell you how it is and not sugarcoat it.

——

Yeah that’s all I’ve got for now. Too many thoughts and too little words I may explode. I just wanna squish him

#the eltingville club #welcome to eltingville #eltingville club #eltingville josh #josh levy

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