I dunno where some people seem to have gotten the idea that Kenji doesn't like/care for Rio or smth because like. have ya'll actually gone through her social link???
like,,,
and it's at this point Rio's teammates and Yuko run and yell at him, Kenji panics and then runs off. When Yuko grumbles about Kenji comparing Rio to a bowl of ramen, Rio says this:
Ramen is his favourite thing in the world.
Kenji telling Rio he likes her "about as much as ramen" means that he likes about as much as his favourite thing in the world.
I think people also seem not to understand how things seem from Kenji's perspective.
To him, his childhood friend comes up to him and suddenly asks what he thinks of her, if he likes and how much which. is kind of a random thing to suddenly ask your friend that you've known since you were kids??? assuming they were like 5 or 6 when they met, that's basically a whole ass decade? Like it's clear in the way he speaks that he's confused and honestly I would be too???
Another thing to consider is that he and Rio where alone, Kenji likely said it the way he did bc he knew Rio, his childhood friend, would understand what he meant.
Like, I can get that he can sometimes come off as dense or insensitive but tbh I think he's just bad a picking up social cues? (oh he's just likely me for real- what do you mean i'm projecting?).
Like yeah sure Kenji very likely only sees her in a platonic sense (sorry Rio my heart goes out to you honey) but to outright assume he doesn't care about her is. raaggh.
(side note: in reload there's a dialogue from Kenji during the koromaru walks where he says "I mean, I keep telling them that we're just childhood friends, but they won't stop prying about it." and it is very likely he's talking about Rio bc this is 100% "my parents keep asking me if i'm dating my childhood friend that is also a girl" talk. Plus Kenji doesn't seem to be that close to many people so. interesting piece of info though ngl so I thought i'd mention it.)
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I know you're the Kyle expert, but I knew a guy who thought Stan would be an incel. Thoughts?
Hmmm. Idk, I've seen that float around and I don't really get it?? Like, I can sorta get it more than when people seriously say it about Kyle. Stan definitely seems to fall into more... Viewing girls sort of in that perhaps lightly internally sexist way than Kyle seems to, of having some sort of unintentional separation between boys and girls that makes him kind of view girls as very different types of people friendwise, if that makes sense. Like, say he was dating a guy- I don't think much would change in terms of the guy being an extremely close friend who's been elevated up an extra level to romantic. But Wendy isn't really like that. She's not Stan's friend outside of their relationship.
And okay, that's not to say Kyle is a bastion of anti sexism himself, ESPECIALLY noting earlier seasons, but Kyle doesn't really seem to act the same way Stan does when interacting with girls?? His early season sexism felt more innocent and childish, something he's definitely grown out of now. It was less built on this deep internalized toxic masculinity and more like the "eww cooties" ideas that happen a lot with young kids. Obviously division based on traits like sex is not good under any circumstance, but it doesn't seem to have carried on much in his modern view of girls. Nowadays Kyle just seems to view girls far more equally even when divided from them, and cares more about listening or hearing out where they're coming from and understanding their frustration with sexism, for example. While he doesn't really have many close female friends (and really none of the boys actually do besides Stan), his behavior doesn't really shift at all to trying to be gentlemen-y or something around women, denoting a very equal level view of them.
But, in Stan's defense, we see him interacting with the girls way more than Kyle, and I think him having dated Wendy, interacting with her friends, etc etc over the series gives us way more to work with in that area than we get to with the more or less far in between hints we're given with Kyle. One thing that I think may impact this for me is also kind of that the few times we HAVE seen Kyle's attraction to girls play out, putting aside Leslie bc oh boy was Kyle blindly simping there, he doesn't seem to be as quick to focus on like... I guess vaguely sexual aspects like the other boys, which leads to him just seeming to objectify women less (Not to say that being sexually attracted to someone is inherently objectifying, but there is more of an overlap with people who are drawn by looks and engagement in objectifying behavior).
And then there's how Kyle has reacted to being rejected, and I know the big one is Super Hard PCness that everyone likes to point out as Kyle being a "nice guy", but in actuality, he was extremely graceful in how their relationship ended, moreso than he needed to be with the horrible things Heidi said to him, and only flipped out after being bullied and teased and harassed by virtually the whole school, Cartman and Heidi especially. It was definitely not anger purely because he didn't get a girl he liked, it was anger that someone he'd trusted and tried to help so swiftly turned on him and humiliated him for no reason at all, that once again he was being put down by Cartman, and that everyone else treated him poorly as well, Stan included. There's also Rebecca who Kyle just... Kinda let go. Like, we don't really see much of his reaction but there's nothing to tell us Kyle was angry their relationship was broken off, so I'm counting it at least a little. There's Nichole too, who once again we don't really straight up see Kyle's reaction to her breaking up with him. But we do see how he treats her, how much he tries to find stuff they have in common to talk about, how his only anger of their relationship not working is Cartman's blatant racism and lies about him purposely made to sabotage any chances he does get with this girl that he likes. It's not anger towards whatever choice Nichole makes here, it's anger about Cartman's needless and morally egregious interference. I know this is a low bar to pass in whether a character is decent to women, but Kyle just repeatedly not behaving badly over his breakups is a big tell to me. So often we see male characters act like assholes just because a girl doesn't like them or a girl broke up with them or something. Even with Stan, in fact, we've seen this play out. I mean. He's pretty okay too but we did see him tell Wendy she was a bitch for dating someone else. This is from early seasons, that I wouldn't solely use as evidence Stan is a crazy sexist even now, but it plays a part in this conversation on whether or not you can more accurately call Stan Marsh the incel-ish one of the two.
Okay, but like. Why am I even talking so much about Kyle here when you're asking about Stan? Well, I honestly think that the duality of them as characters reinforces the ideas of what the other is like to the audience, and this leads into a LOT of the extremes the fandom will push them into (the fem/masc debate, the nerd/jock debate, etc etc) and likewise it does so here. When we see Kyle being kinda more normal around girls, even though it's rare we see him like that at all, it makes Stan seem all the more awkward when in reality, he kind of isn't that bad at all?? He's pretty normal with girls for a boy his age, though he could be a bit less of a dick sometimes. I do think he sometimes has this huge focus on looks, and that can be... Not great, but it's not to a horrible evil incel-ish degree by any means, and I'd argue for his age he's a pretty good guy to, say, Wendy- Not that he can't improve a LOT but Idk, his shittiness comes off more as "dumb little boy is sometimes a jerk to his friends" to me than "secretly hates and disrespects women".
But y'know, at the end of the day, Kyle and Stan are more alike than people think about many of these things, this being one of them. Whether or not Kyle or Stan are better with how they act to women is hard to say. I can see why people would be able to twist Kyle into being incel-ish even if I don't really personally think it's based accurately on the information we've been given. I can see even moreso how someone might be able to with Stan, and while I do think there's at least a bit more of a leg to stand on him having some issues with internalized sexism, I don't think it's accurate with the information we've been given either. Neither of them are really incel-ish to me.
Honestly, if they were dealing with the issue of not being able to find a partner, they'd probably mostly internalize it into self blame and feel bad about themselves but not really broadly blame other people. Stan might slump into a depression or put his focus elsewhere, Kyle, if wanting a partner badly enough (I don't think it's ever been his first priority and I doubt it ever will be) would make efforts to fix the problem by figuring out what's putting people off about himself and try to figure out how he can fix it rather than lashing out. (Also I already lightly touched on why I don't think Kyle would redo his actions in The List right here over not being able to get a girlfriend lol)
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Heather
Heather!
Heather mentioned collecting gel glitter pens. I think she’s into scrapbooking or stationery. She collects those fancy Japanese erasers in the shape of food and animals.
Heather definitely has a burn book. It’s very detailed and professional looking.
It's been a while since I've looked into any gen 1 characters....but I kinda liked her friend group with Lindsay and Beth. They go shopping a lot! Beth always has a cute animal eraser in her pocket for her lol.
Heather will never say no to karaoke night. Harold got into it after he begged her to sing some anime OP with her. They make….a surprisingly good duo.
Mentioning Heather and singing….one time Duncan’s vocalist got arrested and couldn't make a set last second. Heather somehow got roped into it and is now a backup vocalist.
Heather loves very intense horror films. The girl said her dreams are SAW but pastel…..you know some of her movies made even Gwen and Duncan’s stomachs flip.
Some of Heather’s other hobbies include dance, singing, fashion, and theater.
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