Wilt

[antgirl1]

*notices silence that's been going on for the last what? 5 days?*

Well, it's offical, only 35 days left (for today) for the Foster's movie, when last I checked was about over 100 days...how fast time flies, eh? What else that's Wilt-related can we talk about that'll last on the 35 remaining days?

[LaBlooGirl]

Originally Posted by Sparky

I *would* like to ask everyone to try and keep pairing discussions in their OWN, clearly-marked threads. Not everyone wants to read about pairings - and this is a "Wilt" thread, not a "Wilt and Frankie" thread. So please move that discussion to a new thread, guys. Perhaps the W/F posts can then be moved to it, as well.

(I know that wasn't what you were talking about CG, but I can't keep up with this particular thread and your comment just alerted me to this, that's all. I don't support *any* pairings, but they all may be discussed on this board as long as such duscussions are clearly marked.)

Therefore you need to erase all mentionings of Wilt/Frankie and any other pairing from EVERYBODY's thread, including PBL. If I can't even MENTION MacxBloo without it getting edited out (it wasn't even a pairing discussion, just a mention!), then do the right thing and edit out everyone's in every thread. You can't pick and choose, that isn't fair at all.

Oh and back on the topic of Wilt, I keep envisioning his creator with wounds similar to him. In fact, I think if the writers go with the "Wilt was made like his creator" theory, they will have this creator with the same injuries. I don't know why, but that keeps popping up in my head. I refer to GWH which is forthcoming, of course.

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by LaBlooGirl

Therefore you need to erase all mentionings of Wilt/Frankie and any other pairing from EVERYBODY's thread, including PBL. If I can't even MENTION MacxBloo without it getting edited out (it wasn't even a pairing discussion, just a mention!), then do the right thing and edit out everyone's in every thread. You can't pick and choose, that isn't fair at all.

It is NOT against my rules to make brief mentions of pairings in posts as you did, and what happened to you was innappropriate. It is only when a full-blown discussion breaks out that myself or mods are supposed to step in and ask people to move it to another thread. (Notice all I did in this thread was ask people to move it elsewhere, I did NOT edit or move anyone's posts myself.) I hope I have made this clear to my mods, and if this ever happens to you again Ami, let me know. Same goes for everyone else.

(Sorry for being OT. This post is NOT to be replied to.)

[InsaneFan]

*blinkblink* Arguements....*twitch*

So, anyone else think that maybe Wilt doesn't remember what happened to him? I mean, with all the injuries to his head, you might think he'd have some sorta memory loss...Sorry if someone's already brought this up and discussed it, I wouldn't know. I'm not on that much anymore, so, yeah...

[CG]

Back on subject.

Now I know I haven't been a welcome ray of sunshine in this thread and I'm sorry for that; but this is 'Wilt discussion' so here comes some Wilt discussion between myself and kageri which happened over AIM.

~*~

kageri: i'll be relieved when GWH is done with. not that i'm not looking forward to seeing it.
CG: It has a lot of expectations.
kageri: yeah, i think a lot of people will be at least a little disappointed
kageri: if it isn't as emotional as they want it to be
CG: Seriously.
CG: I think some are expecting like, violin solos or some poop like that
CG: Wilt in the snow.
CG: That kinda stuff.
kageri: sad Wilt in snow
CG: *cringes at mental image*
kageri: they seem to expect Wilt to cry and cut and so on, and for there to be stuff that isn't kid-friendly, which isn't a very reasonable expectation of a kid's show
CG: I think he'd at least cry. But not all out bawling. Wilt doesn't seem the type.
kageri: nope
kageri: he's a pretty good internalizer when it comes to emotion
CG: He doesn't seem to show his emotions as much as some. Always perky. Only in the 'extreme' cases does he get angry.
kageri: yep. maybe that's why I don't like him as much as the others, I tend to like characters that have a bratty/mean side
kageri: Eduardo's an exception
KAGERI: he's just awesome.
CG: That he is.
CG: When Eduardo gets sad, he bawls his eyes out. When he gets mad, he becomes this raging monster. When he gets scared, he's terrified. His emotions are out of proportion but he's a sweetheart non-the-less.
kageri: he wears his heart on his sleeve
CG: A very furry sleeve.

Wilt, meanwhile, barely shows any. I mean he shows his happiness and everything, but we've never seen him actually cry, or get mad at anyone. More like he's afraid to show his emotions.
kageri: yeah :S
kageri: he gets irritated but never shows it
CG: "Cut it out please!"
kageri: i dunno why -- everyone else in the show has shown anger and they're still pals
CG: Can't even get angry without adding a 'please' which is like his anchor to not get overly emotional.
kageri: that's a good point
CG: I'm making poins! :3
kageri: : DDDD
kageri: some people don't really consider that maybe that's just his personality
kageri: some people are just mild, i think
CG: I think Wilt's afraid or can't show emotions.
CG: Maybe he sees them if he does it, as a sign of weakness and a sign of weakness is what got him abandoned/hurt in the first place.
kageri: that sounds very likely.
CG: He's obviously got abandonment issues.
CG: He certainly didn't say 'is that okay' to Mac when he thought he'd abandoned Bloo.
kageri: oh yes.
CG: "Well well well, if it isn't Mister Mac Abandon Pants!"
kageri: xDDDDD
CG: Certainly hasn't used that tone since.
kageri: i hate to say it but i think that's the funniest thing wilt's ever said.
CG: lol
kageri: by which i mean it's the only funny thing he's said.
CG: He's not really comedic gold is he.
kageri: nah. maybe i just have a different sense of humor.
CG: In 'Bus the two of us' all he did was worry and lie his way through the episode.
kageri: yeah :[
kageri: i guess it wasn't really right of Mac to threaten him, though
kageri: with the "we're your friends aren't we?" angle
CG: Not threaten, more like . . blackmail.
kageri: he must know Wilt seems to have issues with that
kageri: yeah.
CG: A very mild case of it.
kageri: that's the word i was looking for.
CG: Everyone knows Wilt holds friendship and trust high on his priorities list.
CG: He strengthens those friendships by doing any and everything he can for everyone.
CG: If he feels he's let them down in anyway it makes him feel totally worthless all over again.
kageri: yeah. :S
CG: Hence why he went on that mission in 'Crime after Crime' to punish himself.
kageri: but doing things for people isn't what friendship is about.
CG: Especially so when Frankie told him off.

Exactly. But Wilt doesn't know that, or he forgot.
kageri: he's there for his friends, and is patient and understanding adn everything a friend should be. he just doesn't realize that the doing things for people all the time really isn't necessary.
CG: He's seen how easy friendships can end, how easily he was abandoned by his child. Feeling he let the child down, he vows to strengthen the bonds with people around him by being overly nice, the guy you go to, the guy who never ever lets you down. The guy you wouldn't want to leave behind again.
kageri: yeah. that's sad. :[
CG: It is.
kageri: like he thinks Bloo would hate him if he didn't keep getting him chips.
kageri: ok maybe Bloo isn't a good example
kageri: but i mean
CG: Yeah.
kageri: yeah
CG: It's there, the underlying feeling that if he didn't, Bloo would hate him.
CG: Thus, Bloo hating him would lead to Bloo not being his friend anymore.
kageri: that's a little disturbing.
kageri: poor wilt.
CG: And for Wilt, even loosing friendship with someone who always does taken advantage of him is a big deal.
kageri: he wants to be friends with everyone
CG: Even the mean people.

~*~

And that is that.

[LaBlooGirl]

Wow CG what an intense discussion there! ::sniff:: Poor Wiltie. WHATEVER happened to that sweet Imaginary, I just hope his creator IS a good person and has a good reason for not showing up at the picnic. And well, in the end, maybe one possibility is that Wilt will not find his creator and learn that he has all the friends he needs right there at Foster's, with people who obviously care for him. That would be a pretty satisfying end for me if it came down to it....

[kageri]

So just to clarify, guys, I don't hate Wilt or anything.

.....

....And I agree he'll learn that his real friends are at Foster's. Someone who abandons you isn't a friend, but the folks at Foster's are behind him through thick and thin. Awwww. Group hug!

[antgirl1]

The confort's never gonna end, isn't it? XD

And YES, it has high expectations, I even ranted about it. XDD

And I can agree with Insanefan, what if he doesn't show his disabilities because he doesn't REMEMBER that he HAS them? Like, when he got injured he got Amnesia, and thinks he was made this way, it'd make sence for him to not show any signs for disability. (by that I mean asking to self why he can't/thinking to self why he can't/just plain unable to do something without two arms/two eyes) It's possible. Possibly he doesn't KNOW what happened to him, or REMEMBER when or how it happened.

[pitbulllady]

Wilt's reluctance to show much emotion, beyond happiness, is actually VERY typical of an adult male in Western culture, ESPECIALLY one from the South, and at times Wilt does have a rather strong Louisiana Creole or South Carolina "Geechie" accent, whether it's because he's actually from one of those places, or because he was created based in part on someone who was, waits to be seen. Here in the South, especially among the African-American communities, people use the phrase "man-up" to describe what Wilt does: bite back on his emotions, especially by not crying or reacting strongly to negative things, but just internalizing the situation and moving on. It's no wonder that Southern males, both Black and White, have the highest incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and anurisms in the country. It would have been absolutely frightening if someone had put a blood pressure cuff on Wilt immediately following the events of "Bus The Two of Us"! Men, especially Southern men, are not supposed to cry, show excessive anger, act worried or get upset. They are supposed to be the ones that women and children(who are seen as weaker, of course)can turn to and depend on in times of a crisis. Yes, Wilt probably DOES think of crying as being "weak", "sissy", or "childish", and while he is not exactly the macho, tough-guy biker sort, he definately has this "jock" element to him, though he's a lot nicer and more discreet in how he deals with others. This whole demeanor seems to back up my theory that one of the primary reasons Wilt was created in the first place was not so much to be a playmate, as is the case with most IF's, but to serve as a surrogate/replacement father, and since he was to take the place of an adult human male, he naturally would be expected to act like one.

That leads me on to why Wilt is so afraid of upsetting others, which of course, his own anger would no doubt wind up doing, thus he cannot let himself show it, not much, anyway. Wilt no doubt has some pretty bad abandonment issues, but I don't think that is the whole story. I know it sounds "out there" and far-fetched, but many of my students insist that Wilt was at some time involved in some sort of illegal activity, whether he got involved in it for survival after his creator left him, or what. He might have confessed to the police after being stricken with a conscience, and paid a price for "snitching", resulting in the loss of his arm and eye(I still can hear that chilling recounting of gang retribution on a "snitch" as told to me by a student last year). Some of his more extreme behavior, such as his willingness to cover for Mac and Bloo when Bloo took the bus, in spite of knowing it was wrong and dangerous, and his fear of upsetting the "powers-that-be", or alienating those around him, could stem from that moreso than his being abandoned by his creator. I even have had one student suggest that perhaps Wilt's secrecy about his past might be due to him having been placed in some sort of witness protection program, due to his knowledge of some crime, and I've suggested myself that Wilt might not have always been this extreme Mr. Nice Guy, and that his apologizing, his not wanting to get involved in a conflict, or upset anyone, could be the results of him trying to atone for something REALLY bad he's done in the past. A person, like an animal(and I do consider the IF's to be "people", as I've said)will do whatever it takes to survive, and if Wilt found himself in a desparate enough situation following his abandonment, there is no telling to what depths he could have sunk to just to stay alive. That could very well have meant becoming involved with people that he knew he ought not associate with, and doing things he knew were VERY wrong, and justifying them at the time as a means of survival. Wilt has shown just how quickly he CAN become dangerously edgy in "Bus The Two of Us", and was probably much moreso in the past, after being recently abandoned and forced to make it on his own while dealing with that emotional blow.

pitbulllady

[kageri]

That makes sense, especially since Wilt is one of the only IFs in the house (or at least, one of the only significant ones) who is specifically supposed to be like a Western guy. Bloo's sort of like a child, Coco's a girl, and Eduardo.... is Eduardo. Wilt seems to be the only one who feels the "showing emotion is weakness" obligation since he's the only one who was created to be like someone who does.