Stanley Uris - Tumblr Posts - Page 2

Tw: implied suicide, but no visuals

Fictional character death: Why do we care?

I’d be willing to bet a very large sum that you have watched a movie or TV show or read a book in which one of the characters met an untimely end. I would also wager that at least one of those deaths caused a significant emotional reaction. (cougheddiekaspbrackcoughstanleyuriscough) Did you cry? Did you leave the theatre with that hollow, sinking feeling in your chest? Did you immediately go on Tumblr and wail about your loss? These reactions are of course common, BUT! Have you ever wondered why? They are just fictional characters; someone made them up and decided their fate for an audience to experience, and yet their deaths feel deeply upsetting and real. IN THIS ESSAY I would like to explore what causes this emotional response, how different circumstances can result in different reactions, and what this says about human nature!

In order to fully understand why a fictional death affects us, one must understand why ACTUAL death scares us so much. I have considered this many times and tried to explain it to myself, here are some of my thoughts:

- We fear permanence and the unknown. (Cause like, beyond personal and religious beliefs, nobody actually knows what happens after we die. It’s not like you can just ASK a dead person). This is the most basic reason I guess- if someone dies they will never “be” in your presence again, which is obviously very upsetting. And we fear our own death because of course your earthly existence is over and you can’t experience life anymore, but also because it’s very hard to conceptualize or understand the lack of life and what that would mean for you when all you’ve ever known is living (obviously). And that’s scary!

- But isn’t it kinda weird that, say, when someone moves away, while we might be sad, but never have the same depth of pain as when somebody dies. I mean obviously that’s normal and reasonable, but when you really strip it down to a purely logical sense, it’s a little contradictory or at least fascinating that someone moving away could have exactly the same net end result from your bubble of existence as someone dying, yet we don’t get (or at least are less likely to get) that horrible sinking feeling or wake up and cry or whatever. This is more noticeable and a little less sociopathic sounding if you consider a scenario where don’t really know the person as well (for example if somebody in your school you didn’t know moved away you probably wouldn’t care, but if somebody in your school DIED you would most likely be upset or at least just feel weird or uneasy about it- although in that case I think it might come down more to a point of empathy and feeling bad not for yourself, but for the people who know the gone person. Again proving that humans have empathy. Hot damn. (I find it kind of sad that we need a thought experiment to prove that though)

Getting back to the fictional character thing, on the most surface level, logical sense, a reason to be sad when a character dies is that if they are dead, they can no longer have an active role in the story. You will no longer hear their “voice” in the story, they can no longer interact with the other characters, and all that jazz that made you fall in love with them in the first place.

So why is it that when characters die at the end of a narrative, we still have just as much of an emotional response? You aren’t technically missing out on anything, as the story is over, done, nothing else has been written about any of the characters- so why is it that we only mourn the ones that died in the story?

I guess people really do be having empathy!!! Sorry lord of the flies author, we aren’t all horrible savages that will turn our backs on each other the moment we’re taken away from society (probably). If I can be emotionally destroyed by a chunk of words on a page, alone in my room, with nobody watching or expecting anything of me, then certainly I, and a whole heck load of other people, can be ACTUALLY EMPATHETIC towards- and want what’s best for- other actual humans with real consciousness!

There are way too many things to talk about in this discussion and uhhhh I definitely can’t get to all of them. The point of fiction??? The fine line that differentiates logic and emotion, and why we end up using one or the other???????Human nature!!?!???? Someone help me. I don’t have time for this.

I’ve come to realize that writing this essay may be a coping mechanism for myself to try to objectively pick apart the emotions that fictional world cause me. But really, while I can try to rationalize it all to try to take away some of the pain (and no, I refuse to believe I’m being overly dramatic about a fictional universe), what really is the point of my ramblings? I don’t know! GOD. CAN I NOT JUST LET MYSELF EXPERIENCE THINGS?

It is nice to understand stuff though. I keep ending up with the question of what is the point, which is mildly distressing, but I mean what can you do. I guess I won’t stop asking myself questions any time soon. (I just hope I end up with more answers than questions as I progress through life!)

When Eddie finds the R+E on the kissing bridge: cue two pep talks

like or reblog if you save 💜

What if I said I'm crying

stanley is a people watcher

stanley uris is a quiet boy and he's always been the quietest of the losers

it's just something that runs in the uris family, they're very calm and quiet people with a lot of secrets and unspoken words. every time stanley talks more than he should or louder than he should he gets this "be quiet, it's inappropriate" look so stanley just behaves and observes

it's just easier to learn what dad's face looks like when he's silently angry so you don't get scolded, it's just easier to memorize mother's breathing rate when she's annoyed. stanley was a people watcher from a young age because he always had to predict his parents' moods

stanley is a people watcher and it's something that he hates about himself. he knows people too well

he just knows why bev's cheeks turn all red when she's looking at bill he just knows why ben's all sad when he sees bev and bill together he just knows when mike's smile is fake because he's sad and needs extra care he just knows why richie's smile fades when he sees eddie not laughing at his joke he just knows exactly what eddie looks like when he's just pretending to be disgusted by richie ("idiots") and he knows for sure that bill doesn't love him the way he loves bill

stanley is a people watcher and he hates it because no one watches him. because stan is a closed book and most people don't try to go deeper than what they see. they see that he's a calm and quiet boy just like his parents taught him to be and that's okay for everyone

that's why stanley prefer watching birds instead. who knows what's going on in those little minds?

IT🎈🤡

Reddie

Richie Tozier × Eddie Kaspbrak

"If we had five more minutes"

Richie Tozier × Art Is Dead by Bo Burnham

"Have you ever been to a birthday party for children

And one of the children won't stop screaming

'Cause he's just a little attention-attractor

When he grows up to be a comic or actor

He'll be rewarded for never maturing

For never understanding or learning

That every day can't be about him

There's other people, you selfish asshole!

I must be psychotic

I must be demented

To think that I'm worthy of all this attention"

"A self-centered artist

Self-obsessed artist

I am an artist

I am an artist

But I'm just a kid

I'm just a kid

I'm just a kid, kid

And maybe I'll grow out of it"

Richie Tozier × Eddie Kaspbrak

And when I was younger

I knew a boy and a boy

Best friends with each other

But always wished they were more

'Cause they loved one another

But never discovered

'Cause they were too afraid of what they'd say

Moved to different states

"God, I wish that you had thought this through

Before I went and fell in love with you"

**MY VIDEO**