i honestly don’t give a flying fuck if a fetus is alive or not, if it’s a human or not, if abortion is “technically murder” or not. i don’t owe anyone else acces to or authority over MY WOMB. even to save a life. it’s the same reason you can’t force someone to donate a kidney to a person in desperate need of a transplant, because it’s your body, so it’s your choice. what will it take to get that through y’all’s thick fuckin skulls

Logan Sanders

I’m worried (shocker, I know) about Logan’s mental health. I fear that Logan is showing symptoms of one of the many kinds of depression (the one I’ve had, the one my mother had, and so on) and this is where people jump and yell at me that being part of Thomas, Logan is physically unable to be depressed because he is an imaginary trait that was made up for and by Thomas to understand and analyze everyday problems. I gotcha, I know. Cool, let’s move on.

Logic, Morality, Creativity, and Anxiety are the four main traits that make up our dear beloved Thomas Sanders and everyone is directly connected and affected by the other. As videos progress you can see Roman (Creativity) thinking more and more in logical and schemed ways or you can see Logan (Logic) and Patton (Morality) starting to see eye to eye and understand each other. So, I bet your first thought when I said ‘depression’ was “oh oh how is Trini going to connect it to be Virge’s fault, she better not touch my precious lil’ anxious baby” and please sit back. Anxiety hates depression. Depression in most cases means losing the ability to find a purpose even in the most mundane things (like opening a window, or getting out of bed); Anxiety hates it, because he can’t do his job nor can he get the host to do something. Depression is the earplugs, and anxiety is the noise being blocked. So, no, this isn’t Virgil’s (Anxiety) doing… but keep him in your mind, he’ll come back later.

Now that that is cleared up, let me tell you why I fear Logan is started to develop some mental health problems. It has been stated previously, and multiple times too, that Logan is actually considered ‘the least liked character/trait’ as Virgil once mentioned. He is constantly being told to shut up or that he makes no sense. His words are ignored or overviewed, his random bits of facts are frowned upon… The list goes on and on. (I personally love Logan (as much as I love all the sides) because he is an awful lot like my brother). All these things have been said straight to his face and since then, I couldn’t help but noticing that he has been trying a little harder for attention, molded his mannerisms to fit the others, and doesn’t speak as much. I mean, yeah, this could be because FanderTeam (I’m calling Thomas, Joan, Talyn, and whoever helps in the videos, that from now on) has simply changed writing styles or something else, but let’s imagine the characters were real. Logan is often getting his voice drowned by someone else’s, stopped with mean remark’s, and part of me feels that the sides haven’t really let that all because Patton can’t let go of one person completely yet (that may be just me, but meh)… and to be honest, depression hits the mind before the heart.

Say Thomas gets depressed (no need to say to what extent, depression is depression), this would affect Logan before anyone else. Virgil would notice something weird, suddenly all the over thinking has been taken away from his shoulders without a reason. Roman would have problems with coming up with ideas and Patton would be having trouble to decide what to feel (like a pregnant woman in the middle of a mood swing) (also, keep them in mind too). We all know Thomas, a selfless man who we have to basically spam so he takes a break without feeling bad, so I’m going to think that his traits will take the full blow in order for Thomas to receive as little as possible. We know for sure that the traits feel what they represent; in Accepting Anxiety, Part 2/2: Can Anxiety Be Good time mark 9:15, Virgil feels anxious about revealing his name, and earlier in the same video we can see Patton experiencing the full emotional spectrum at the same time and being overwhelmed by it. So what if this overthinking, this overload of information of possible and not possible futures, become too much for Logan to handle? What if Logan just… stops?

For Virgil, it was a decision to duck (quack) out. He felt like he was stopping Thomas from being ‘normal’ and decided “Nope. Ain’t gonna stop ya no more”. The mind, on the other hand, will never see this as an option, it will see it as if it was bound to happen. Another step in the staircase. Logan wouldn’t personally choose; Logan would think that this was supposed to happen. His mind wouldn’t be like “what if I didn’t duck (quack quack) out?”, his mind would be “what next?”. If this ever happens, it wouldn’t be as easy as it was to bring Virgil back to the Debate/Panel. And without Logan, without the mind, all the other traits and Thomas would be directly impacted by the missing trait.

 Let’s see how does this impact the other traits because I can almost hear you saying ‘They wouldn’t be impacted that much’:

Before I list the things, let me make it clear that they would be impacted. For example, in Accepting Anxiety, Part 1/2: Excepting Anxiety time mark 2:37 Logan begins to lose his ability to formulate eloquent and concise phrases, at the time mark 4:42 (or almost all video to be honest) Roman’s already short temper shortens, and at the time mark 5:19 Patton no longer feels compelled to keep trying as he quickly gives up in calling Virgil to the living room even though we have a full video of him trying to convince the others that growing up is fun. Also, near the end of the first part of this two-part video, Logan mentions that no one is actually worried but confused. So, yes, the traits affect directly each other.

Now onto the impacts that we would see hypothetically if Logan clocked out.

Virgil

While he would be the less affected as he himself is a logic-based trait much like Logan. It is shown that Logan and Virgil share more similarities than Virgil does with the other two. In Accepting Anxiety, Part 2/2: Can Anxiety Be Good? At the time mark 5:12, Logan shows signs of overthinking without purposefully doing it much like it happens to Virgil (being Anxiety an all). Also, Virgil much like Logan, is the embodiment of ‘what if’; Virgil gives countless ‘what if’s and Logan gets rid of the non-realistic or improbable ones. Without Logan, Virgil would be left with a handful of ‘what if’s and have no proper idea of what to do with them instead of planting them in Thomas’s brain (which can only lead to bad and worse). Logan is also in charge of appointments, schedules, and routines. Without the neck-tied man, Thomas wouldn’t even think about the importance of making a doctor’s appoint at least once a year or why he cannot miss the scheduled meeting with his landlord. Anxiety would be panicking but Thomas wouldn’t know how to react to the panicking. Mess Fest at its greatest.

 Roman

On a daily basis Roman comes up with ideas, it is basically what decides what are you going to do that day if you haven’t prepared anything beforehand. But, being Creativity, those ideas come easily and fast. Some doable, some not really. If Logan wasn’t there, these ideas would never be organized or schemed in order to make them happen. No Logan, no productivity. Also, Roman would have the weakest memory out of the three, thoughts and ideas taking over his brain within seconds. The ideas would not only be weak as he wouldn’t spend too much time thinking on just one idea before jumping to another, but they would also be weak since logic wouldn’t be applied to it and they would be fantastic (as fantasy, not amazing) and nonsensical. Whether or not Roman would ever admit to it, Logan brings his ideas to life by properly presenting the idea to Thomas with ways to do it and things to add to it; Roman gives the idea, Logan gives the idea a body.

 Patton

Now, of course, what would the heart miss if the mind, its nemesis, went missing? Well, a lot. Logan, even with his poor social skills, is the one conducting the conversations depending on what the others say. Logan acts as a moderator, as we have seen previously with each time that Patton is getting too emotional and Logan (rather rudely if we’re sincere) tells him to get his act together (in other words) and gets to pass Patton’s ideas in an orderly fashion so Thomas can do what Patton wanted. Also, besides that, Patton is at the core of most of Thomas’s feeling like said in Moving On, Part 1/2: Exploring Nostalgia meaning he could be feeling two at the same time; now, he knows what exactly he’s feeling because he logically eliminated the other options. He’d know he’s feeling a good or a bad emotion but wouldn’t know whether he’s feeling zealous or simply excited because there would be no logical method to compare the two. This would mean Thomas would be in a constant tiring mood swing and wouldn’t be able to properly social which would make Patton feel bad and start going through the emotional spectrum all over again.

 And that is scratching the surface only! Overall, by losing Logan, Thomas and the other traits would lose the way of making things work. Said before in the videos multiple times, listening only to one trait is disastrous but we were shown with this two-part video that not listening at all would give you the same end. This was an excellent show of how, no matter who you think is the leader between the traits, every trait that stands in that circle of debate is equivalent to the other. No one is stronger than the other. Without one, they would all fall. If one took control, the others would lose sight on what’s important and become overwhelmed with their own problems (much like what happens when Logan, Patton, and Roman spend too much time in Virgil’s corner). But this isn’t the end, my friend, no… Just you hold one because now comes all the hypothetical ideas that have been plaguing my mind about what would happen if Logan had indeed depression.

 Let me start with rooms. We’ve seen Virgil’s room as the dark corner, with things Thomas fears and hates, and at the moment it is clear that Virgil thinks of himself as ‘the bad guy’. He knows that the group doesn’t really like him that much as he mentions in Accepting Anxiety, Part 2/2: Can Anxiety Be Good? Time mark 2:25 when he says “Well, it didn’t seem that I was wanted. You all made that pretty clear anytime I showed up.” So his room is dark, gloomy, the embodiment of what you don’t want. Then in Moving On, Part 1/2: Exploring Nostalgia, time mark 8:27, we see Patton’s room which is instantly described as ‘Nostalgia Nirvana’; the difference between ‘nostalgia’ and ‘reminiscence’ is that nostalgia is the feeling of homesickness and wanting the past to come back while reminiscing is simply looking back. In the same two-part video, it’s shown that Patton himself was feeling homesick for those happy moments. So what if the rooms were made or shifted regarding the trait’s feeling? Now that Virgil is happier and more accepted into the group, would his room not be as bad as it was? And now that Patton has somewhat understood that lingering in the past isn’t as great as it sounds, would his room be less nostalgic and more reminiscent? Now, think about this but in Logan’s (also Roman’s but that is another theory for later) room.

He’s the teacher so we can basically expect either a studio or a library, both are very ‘learning’ based. Saying that my theory of the rooms changing according to the trait’s mental state and that Logan is getting a mental health problem, would his room be affected too? We all know our beloved teacher; wears a neck-tie because serious people wear neck-tie (Growing Up, time mark 5:14), has flash cards to help him learn the modern slang (My NEGATIVE Thinking), and immediately points out the educational stuff in Patton’s room in the first part of the Moving On two-part video. This is enough information to assure me that Logan’s room is most likely to be an educational environment. But like said before, depression starts by losing the ability to find the purpose of mundane activities like cleaning up. So, say that Logan is indeed suffering from this, would his usually pristine (because let’s be honest, Logan has some kind of OCD or something) room also reflect the feeling of being unnecessary? Would his room be messy because he can’t find the purpose of cleaning it anymore much like the purpose of backing up his points with weird studies like he did in the past but we don’t see anymore? Would everything be dusty and dark because why open the curtains if he’s going to close them at night or why clean the dust if it’s going to come back?

 Besides rooms, there’s another thing that worries me. We’ve seen everyone connect with each other. Virgil mentions that he actually likes Patton (Accepting Anxiety, Part 2/2: Can Anxiety Be Good? Time mark 2:26, “Except you Patton, you’re a funny guy”) and Roman has always had this connection with Patton since they both share the feeling of ‘love’, being Thomas’s romantic side and feelings side, and we also see Roman and Virgil kind of connect (even though they play devil’s advocate constantly) to find the best suitable solution for both. Sure, the two hate each other, but they’re trying. Logan doesn’t have these connections with anyone, not on that scale at least. With Roman, he has seen eye to eye and called it ‘temporal alliance’. With Patton, Logan has only gone as far as understanding his points without necessarily agree with him. And with Virgil, yes they do have the strongest bond between the four by far, but it’s in a quiet scale. In Moving On, Part 1/2: Exploring Nostalgia time mark 14:09, Virgil and Logan have this quiet conversation between the two. Now, to have this kind of conversations, one must have a strong bond between two people… But it’s not acknowledged, which would lead to –in case Logan started thinking his friendships in the group– Logan not realizing it’s even there. Logan would see himself as the odd one out. And what was it that pushed Virgil over the limit to clock out? Oh, yeah, not fitting in and being the odd one out.

The mind works differently from the heart. The heart feels something and expresses, the mind feels something and tries to understand it. Now, going back to what I said about my brother being like Logan. I’m older than my brother, I watched him grow up and develop similar things that I see now on Logan… Too much information getting jumbled up in his brain, for the longest time we thought he had a speech problem and it was actually that he thought faster than he talked. What if Logan is the same? Patton, Roman, and Virgil are emotion-based. If Thomas is happy, Patton is happy, Roman creates happy worlds, and Virgil wouldn’t be overworking and stressing. If Thomas is sad, Patton is sad, Roman creates gloomy worlds, and Virgil would be going over thoughts of seventh grade. Yes, I know I said Virgil is a logic-based trait, but he is also emotion-based since he can control some of Thomas’s feelings such as nervousness (as Roman explains near the end of the second part in Accepting Anxiety). Virgil is a mix between the two. Patton and Roman are emotion-based. Logan is logic-based. That’s why we see Logan and Virgil understanding what the other means easier and why we see Logan having trouble to understand what Patton means. Logan thinks a certain way that no one else in the group thinks, and that alienates him from the others because he can’t express himself in a way the others do. In My NEGATIVE Thinking time mark 11:44, he compliments Virgil which sends the darker trait spiraling into confusion. Despite the constant nasty remarks from the group at that point, Logan had been the one who called Virgil the least names. In Logan’s mind, this showed that he didn’t really mind Virgil’s company while to everyone else it seemed that Logan simply didn’t want to engage in childish fights. His mind works differently from the others which leads to distraught which leads to things like in Fitting In (Hogwarts Houses!), time mark 5:34, Logan exclaims “Listen, I’m just doing my best here, you guys!” after he gets insulted for not understanding something that feelings and creativity understood instantly. Emotions and Mind run in two very different wavelengths, hardly ever connecting which leads to Logan having trouble to understand the other traits’ words and them having trouble to understand his.

     Now, the last thing I want to say before finishing up. I’m going to say four different phrases, one said on a video and then I’m going to guess who you thought of as you read the phrase.

1.     “I’ve always aimed to protect you.”

2.     “I’ve always aimed to guide you.”

3.     “I’ve always aimed to help you.”

4.     “I’ve always aimed to make you happy.”

 Who is who? Well, let me tell you. The first one is the one said in the video Accepting Anxiety, Part 2/2: Can Anxiety Be Good? At the time mark 3:55 by Virgil. I’m going to guess what you thought each phrase belonged to. Number two would be Patton’s, as a father and morality, his intentions are to guide you through life. Number three would be Logan’s, as the knowledge database, his intentions would be to help you sort through problems in life. And the last one would be Roman, whose intentions would directly be aimed to following dreams and chase happiness. Virgil’s is pretty obvious and stated in the actual video that Anxiety has more than one job and that includes fear, reflexes, better memory… What happens when you’re constantly being told that your job is useless, that you are useless, whether it’s a joke or not? You start believing it, it becomes our reality. They said that Virgil’s presence was unwanted with every time they went “Ah, Anxiety, what are you doing here?!”, what has also been said to be unwanted or ignored? Logan’s words. Just think about it.

     But that’s it. Well, that’s the stuff I can actually put into words. The rest are ideas that I don’t have enough evidence to base them off… Also, I have no idea what I’m trying to do with this, am I trying to convince you that Logan needs appreciation? I don’t know. I’m just here to express my concern about @thatsthat24 ‘s characters. Thank you for sticking with me ‘til the end of my 3 a.m. psychoanalyzing of fictional characters that I should probably spend less time thinking about… Thank you so much for your time and until next time.

           Trini, your classic nerd!