#analysis confession

so i was just rewatching the beginning part of iiiv ep 2 cuz im using it for something, and i noticed a lot about poppy's behaviors that i don't really see anyone talk about...? i hadn't even registered it myself, but their expressions and the way they speak during their introduction scene is very interesting to me

like, i often see headcanons of poppy being very young and very explicitly new to the world (not being able to read/write, not understanding social nuances, not knowing how to take care of themself, etc)

and i think these hcs are super super cute, but it never occured to me before just how deftly all the content of their introduction scene refutes this perception of them. they're characterized very clearly, but also very subtly, and i think this characterization was so overlooked because of the general excitement of the scene

but poppy is WAYYY more intelligent & competent than i see recognized in the fandom---it kind of reminds me of lightbulb's intelligence being ignored because she's very goofy, but for poppy it's ignored because they're new to the society/world, and people tend to assume that their youth = inexperience

rewatching that opening scene in ep2, i noticed that their intelligence is clear in a lot of ways---most notably them fixing up bot so quickly, but also in the way they talk about it (they literally mention a soldering iron offhandedly)

they definitely possess good linguistic skills & are even pretty charismatic/animated (no pun intended) with their storytelling skills, considering the way they begin to tell the story of where they came from

and, in the same shot (and continuing throughout the scene!) they express a strong sense of cognitive empathy (not just being able to infer what others may be feeling from their cues, but understanding them---'thinking' alongside the 'feeling') with offering to show the islanders where they came out of the ground, seemingly immediately understanding that people were uncomfortable with *specifically* them being present

+ sense of humor (joking with test tube), danger (dodging toilet, not completely just instinctual as they made a verbal exclamation acknowledging it), and guilt (their expression after being held down/restrained by paintbrush...they looked so sad -m-")

they also already knew how to read, write, and spell!! they clearly needed to be able to read & spell in order to participate in that episode's challenge (seeing as cabby helped spikey, but poppy apparently didn't need any help), and they have written on their own vote cards in each elimination ceremony they've been in (with rather nice handwriting as well!)

it's interesting to me how they seem to have formed all of these more complex cognitive abilities without any prior social interaction, even including literal social constructs like names and soldering irons ("nobody's ever called me anything before, but i thought poppy would be a good name for me...") and although it's obvious that these were written in mostly for simplicity's sake because we don't want to spend the whole season teaching poppy how to read or whatever, it was still a conscious choice by the writers to make poppy more capable than they needed to be---they did choose to highlight the issues box has gained from spending so long in mephone's void

so they went out of their way to both acknowledge that poppy has about the same competence & intelligence as a fully mature object, and that poppy had been living alone until they showed up at the island

side note: we don't know how long they'd been living on their own or where, though, and i REALLY hope we learn later on!! but we do know that it was long enough for them to make themself their own hairband, even if we don't know exactly how long it took for them to progress developmentally... but we CAN infer from their behavior, physical appearance (specifically height), and the way the others act toward them that their mental and physical development has probably just about completed by now, making them effectively an adult in ii's world

BIG GRAIN OF SALT we don't know how or even if objects actually age in ii's universe, BUT we can take poppy as a sign that it's probably very fast---they've been alive for at least a week and at most a year

anyway oops i kinda went off from my original topic here which was that poppy is way more capable & smart than most people in the fandom assume they are!!! i do really like hcs/stories with poppy being super new/inexperienced with the world, but i fear that people will start to take that as their actual canon state and ignore that they're definitely pretty much fully grown!! I LOVE POPPY!!! yay thats it