#ts meta

But if Logan is also Orange, doesn’t that mean he gets two flowers? Why does Logan get two flowers when everyone else gets one, isn’t this whole series about balance? Shouldn’t there be, like, a flower that’s both blue and orange, or a blue one that reverses to be Orange on the back?

Why is Logan the only one who gets two colors? If the other sides went Dark would they change color too until we had a rainbow with way too many colors, and if not what makes Logan so special? Why does Logan get to be two Sides in one when Roman and Remus have to share Creativity?

Finally, there’s three ways the plotline could end: either it resolves with Logan reverting back to indigo and it turns out orange was never supposed to be part of the rainbow after all, Logan ends up integrating both colors and we have an orange-and-indigo flower in our rainbow, or he switches back and forth and we get a rainbow that can have indigo or orange but never both. Whichever way it goes, the rainbow is messed up.

There is Precedent for Sides Influencing/Acting Through Other Sides

Unlike the concept of one Side having two colors, the concept of Sides influencing each other, sometimes from offscreen, is one that has appeared several times throughout the series.

Most obviously, we have Janus, who can force the Sides to keep their mouths shut on certain topics, and did so episodes before he actually appeared.

We also have Virgil and Patton’s rooms which have a noticeable emotional effect on the other Sides. Virgil’s room even makes them take on aspects of Virgil’s appearance- the eyeshadow.

And finally, there are certain points where Remus actually talks through Roman. One that has been confirmed by the writers as foreshadowing Remus is this exchange:

Roman: May visions of sugarplums dance in your head... and hopefully not visions of your naked Aunt Patty.

Thomas: Okay! Thanks, Roman, for that unpleasant side comment.

Roman: Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from.

So yes, Sides can impact each other’s emotions and actions. With this in mind it makes perfect sense for Orange to have been impacting or tuning into Logan’s emotions in That Scene, especially if he and Logan have some sort of connection.

Another thing supporting the “outside influence” interpretation is...

The Lighting

A couple people have pointed out that the lighting during the scene where Logan loses control is distinctly orange, in a way it isn’t at any other part of the video:

Now if the lighting turned orange as Logan became increasingly angry/upset, I might think it was him projecting this orange aura. But that’s not what happens- the orange lighting starts at the beginning of the conversation with Remus, around 20:00, Logan only starts showing clear anger around a minute later at 21:00, and his orange-eyed outburst is another minute later, around 22:05. The lighting doesn’t change at all in these two minutes, despite Logan’s mood noticeably escalating.

That doesn’t say the orange lighting was because of Logan to me. That says that there was an outside influence in the room, an orange aura with a pervasive feeling of frustration or anger that Logan fell into more and more as he spoke with Remus, until he finally gave in and for an instant was under its control.

The End Card

This one is a bit more of a stretch, but I thought it still was worth mentioning. The endcard has a pair of glowing orange eyes, matching Logan’s eye glow when he lost his temper:

The thing is, a pair of eyes in black like this has a pretty clear implication: that the viewer is being watched from the shadows. This fits perfectly with an episode where Orange was lurking behind the scenes, influencing other Sides with his glowing eyes. It feels a little… messier, if Logan is Orange. Logan himself wouldn’t be watching us menacingly like that, he’s got too much on his mind from the previous scene. Is Orange staring at us from inside Logan or something? Did Logan subconsciously switch over to being Orange just to stare at us from the shadows? Maybe I’m overthinking this, but it just doesn’t make as much sense to me with the Orange!Logan interpretation.

The Cost is Too High

This one is less of a "why Logan isn't Orange" point and more of a "why Logan shouldn't be Orange" point. 

The introduction of a new Side opens up so much story potential. A new personality, a new character design and theme, new abilities, a new name, new interactions with all the other characters, new parts of Thomas to explore… it’s a veritable gold mine of content. 

The Orange!Logan theory sacrifices nearly all that for more Logan angst. 

Sure, the alter-ego thing would probably include some of that new content, but the Orange Side would still ultimately be a variation of Logan rather than a character in their own right. It would basically reduce the entire concept of the Orange Side to a plot device to get Logan development. And even if Orange was distinct enough as an entity to still get all the benefits of adding a new character, it would kinda defeat the point of having it be Logan in the first place. At that point you just have another character in Logan’s body, which is the worst of both worlds since you can’t even have him and Logan around at the same time.

And the thing is, you in no way need Logan as the Orange Side to get a fantastic Logan plotline with lots of Orange-related angst! He clearly has some sort of connection to Orange, and a plotline where Orange is related to him, or is influencing him through his bottled up anger, or any other situation where Orange throws him out of his comfort zone, would give Logan much of the same character development while also letting Orange exist as his own character and form unique relationships with others. 

there are the sides of you that are creative that think of fantastical solutions to your problems, whether good or bad, that try to take you to your dreams and desires. with roman, this is with disney-esque tales and hopes that keep thomas going and having a reason to things. with Remus, I think it may be using the intrusive thoughts to get Thomas to slow down when thomas is overwhelmed and wants to rest, which makes sense bc, at least with me, ik when I have an uptick of intrusive thoughts, it usually means i need to rest and relax so I'll be less overwhelmed and take care of myself.

and there is the side that is deceitful and cunning and mean and self-centered as a means towards approaching your problems with your self-preservation as the primary thing to uphold. unlike morals which may tell you to share what you have, this deceitful side of you acts selfishlessly to make sure that you are put first, no matter the cost. which is why I think any anger or wrath would come from Janus. anger as an emotion is often an expression of self-preservation. you feel anger when you know you've been hurt and you lash out in anger to protect yourself. janus has lashed out a fair amount for the small amount of episodes he's been in.

by now, it's also fairly agreed upon that Janus and patton are opposites/counters as well as roman and remus. with both pairings, it's seen that you need a healthy balance between those two sides, those two lines of thought, to not completely fall apart.

i am a firm believer that anxiety is the counter or parallel or opposite of logic. your logical thought processes get so messed up when you're anxious and scared, and logical thinking is often used as a tool to combat anxiety. this was explored between Virgil and Logan very early in the series. virgils anxiety causes cognitive distortions that weaken logans logical processes in being listened to. logans logical thoughts are able to tame Virgil's anxiety when it's too strong. i think Logan and Virgil balance each other out. those are the two who make a healthy balance together which has been discusses, albeit briefly, early on (remember the Yerkes Dodson curve?).

this is why I think that whatever the orange side, the seventh side, is, it won't be a counter to anyone in specific, and it won't be wrath/anger. right now, orange is showing up when Logan is weakened in someway. when janus kidnaps him in svs redux, orange only shows up after that. when Remus messes with Logan in today's wtit and logan is frustrated and out of it, only then did orange come through. we don't know if orange can control other sides as well, but if it's like janus at all, where janus tries to remove logan and his rationality from the problem solving, there's a reason it would focus on messing with logic & rationality to achieve it's goal of however it helps thomas.

because remember, all the sides do what they think is best for thomas. the sides are the manifestations of his different thought processes driven by different outlooks that all have an end goal of trying to solve thomas's problem in that way. but in the end, it is always up to thomas to choose which thought pattern he'll listen to. thomas chooses what he will do based on the persuasiveness of his different thought processes.

(for example, c!thomas comes across a wallet on the sidewalk. morally, he thinks the wallet should be turned in to the local authorities at all costs no matter what. his self preservation instincts tell him to take the cash and leave the wallet behind since the detour would waste his time. his anxiety tells him to leave it alone so he wont get framed for stealing. good creativity/roman would make him imagine a grand heroic prize for tracking down the owner of the wallet and personally delivering it, and bad creativity/remus might make c!thomas imagine finding and killing the wallets owner so he can take all the money. logical thought would say for c!thomas to return the wallet to local authorities if he has the time to do so, and if not, to leave it be. these are all just the different thoughts running through c!thomas's head which can then be personified as sides, and whichever action he does is attributed to the side who had the most persuasive line of thought, but none of these lines of thought are trying to hurt thomas, it's all different ways of protecting/helping him.)

so whatever orange is, needs logic and rationality to be a bit disrupted before being able to be persuasive enough to be listened to. this doesnt really seem like anger/wrath to me. someone can be rational and angry (ie. planning a revenge later rather than hurting someone now, passive aggression, etc.) which all feels more like Janus things to me, and I think you actually need to be rational to use your anger effectively. going ham on someone without thought will not have the same effect as thinking about the best places to hit without them getting you back. anger and logic don't need to keep each other in check like deceit and morality or logic and anxiety; rather, they need to work together. i dont think logan would be opposed to a side that represented anger at all. and orange would not destabilize logan so much if it were anger.

plus, Virgil is the only side that really represents an emotion. but I think people generally always have a sense of anxiety and fear in their problem solving, but anger/wrath isn't always there. for a quick issue like a lost wallet, i can see how these other sides of thought processes can exist, but i dont know what anger would tell Thomas to do there since anger is just an emotion.

Now, I have no idea what the plot for TUS is. I've tried to look it up, and yet as far as I know, (insert Joo Dee voice) There Is No Plot In The Ultimate Storytine, so I dont have any context for any of this lol.

the first lyrics are literally what happened with Virgil in season one, and then the whole wedding/callback ordeal

"You think you do the right thing But incidentally You find the whole world would prefer it Differently"

He tried to go by Thomas's or Patton's way, and when they turned out to be wrong, he was the one to reap many of the consequences (not all of them, just...a lot of them)

"You go from being fair To falling flat You see what's there You find you're at The wrong end of the stick"

and then the next lyrics just hurt

"And you're starting to feel sick Of when The story drops you hard Into the pavement"

He's so tired, you guys. He's inadvertently been the root of so many of their problems, and no doubt he blames himself for more! From the problems with Virgil, to aio, to the fiasco that was the nostalia episodes, then logic vs passion, and svs, and hhhhhhhh, he must think that he's so awful

"Even though you thought you knew what "To behave" meant But you find out you were thinking wrong And you wind up back where you belong And you try to get it right But instead it just comes back To bite you"

This is exactly what happened, you guys!!! He, because shunning Virgil had very bad consequences, he had an open mind with Janus! And when that was declared as Bad, he went to hating him, and now what? Everything is so much worse for him!!

"I never wanted to be the bad guy The Bad Guy The Bad Guy Never wanted to be the bad guy But that's just how the story goes..."

Literally the plot seems to be dead-set on him being in the wrong. Someone save him.

"It's a trip discovering You're not the hero"

*cough cough*

"You thought you were Augustus But you're Nero And you're playing on your violin"

Y'all remember the tale of how Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned?

"You might say it's just Your evil twin But it's not some villain clone No, it's you and you alone To blame"

*COUGH COUGH*

"I never wanted to be the bad guy The Bad Guy The Bad Guy Never wanted to be the bad guy But that's just how the story goes Bridge: And it goes And it goes And goes And goes Just like balloons Out of your hand"

He doesn't feel in control of...well, basically anything, right now. He basically had his Good Twin rights revoked, and he feels like they chose Janus over him, and then there's the troubles he's been having with Creating Content... he's not having a Fantabulous Friday rn

"The world looks up While you sink in the sand And you start to understand That it can't be erased If it's traced out in pen Though you scrub it again And again And again And again"

and god, he must think that no one cares, or that his grievious actions have made him unworthy of redemption. If three strikes means you're out, then he should be fuckin kicked out of the team by now, and, well... maybe he'll try to do it himself.