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People Break Down Which Clever Fan Theories They Completely Believe To Be True

When a piece of art or entertainment is sent out into the world, the world is going to consume it. And immediately, where that creation goes is largely out of the hands of the creator.

For an illustration, look no further than fan fiction and fan theories in chat rooms across the internet.


It seems that if you look hard enough, just about every story told has been probed and supplemented by a fanatical group of followers.

And although we usually can never know whether the creators approve or disapprove, sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes the theory is so compelling that we decide to believe it just for the heck of it.

AwkwardJeweler asked,

"What fan theory do you 100% accept as true?"

Many theories hinge on one character in particular.

Often based on an overlooked side character or an overlooked aspect of a main character, these theories imbue a once-minor piece of the fictional world with a whole new significance.

Secret Genius

"Kevin Malone, if not actually a genius, is certainly much smarter than he lets on in The Office. Clearly he's lazy, and gluttonous, and blah-blah-blah..."

"...but after the merger with Stamford, and its revealed that Martin had served time, Kevin realizes that he needs to give plausible deniability to any sort of financial maleficence that the accountants have been doing, and flanderizes himself in front of the camera."

"Occasionally he slips up and reveals himself to be something a math genius, and has to backtrack, and play it off as some kind of Food-based idiot savant."

"It's how he was able to afford ownership of the bar at the end of the series, I'm sure he made a bit just cashing in all those free drinks, but actually enough to buy a bar? I don't believe it."

-- Six_Foot_Dwarf

A Very Suave Red Herring 

"James Bond's primary purpose is to be a distraction to keep attention off the spies who actually spy. Villains and other spies know him, he rarely takes an alias, he makes his presence known early on and keeps messing up operations for the villains..."

"...but other spies have already infiltrated their ranks and work while Bond does as much visible damage as possible to keep the others safe."

-- BettyVonButtpants

More Office Lore

"My own theory that in The Office when Andy proposes to Angela the people playing his parents are different actors because they are literally actors."

"As in he hired them to pose as his 'perfect parents' because his own parents couldn't be bothered to come. The people in the season 9 episode Garden Party are his real parents, who clearly are di**s."

-- cant_Im_at_work

Tough Upbringing

"Ed from Ed Edd n' Eddy is mentally stunted, which is why he's one of the "dumber" characters in the show despite appearing older than the other two Eds (he's about as tall as Kevin and Rolf, who are some of the oldest kids in the cul-de-sac)."

"Also that his parents are abusive to him because of his mental handicap (literally removing the stairs when he was grounded), and his sister's attitude towards him is learned behavior from their parents."

"This is further reinforced by him living in the basement, having non-existent hygiene habits, and 'retreating' into obsession with TV and sci-fi comics.

"In fact, the other two Eds come from troubled homes as well, which is why they're social outcasts in the cul-de-sac. It's been heavily implied that Eddy's parents knew his older brother was physically abusive to him and let it happen."

"Meanwhile, Double D's parents spend zero time with him, and won't even directly communicate with their son, choosing instead to leave him notes for chores instead."

-- Kent_Knifen

Still a Witch 

"Glinda dropped Dorothy's house on the Wicked a Witch of the East, not the tornado, and uses her to gain control of Oz."

"One of the first things Glinda tells Dorothy is that SHE killed the witch. They praise her so she'll accept it, and when the Witch of the West comes along, who killed her sister? Dorothy."

"Glinda then puts the ruby slippers on Dorothy's feet but DOES NOT TELL HER THAT SHE CAN USE THEM TO GO HOME. Instead, she sends Dorothy to Oz in possession of objects that a witch would MURDER her for."

"Dorothy, being forced into a situation where her only salvation is Oz and her worst enemy is the queen inadvertently exposes the Wizard of Oz as a fraud AND murders the Witch of the West."

"Now, who's left to rule Oz? Glinda fu**in' witch of the north. She used Dorothy as an expendable pawn to gain control of Oz without having to leave her bubble. And when Dorothy is done upheaving the two biggest powers in Oz, Glinda sends her home and makes her think it was all a dream"

-- taz20075

Saboteur 

"The Empire Strikes Back: Admiral Ozzel is a rebel spy."

"Everything Ozzel does in his brief bits of screen time is to the detriment of the Empire. When the probe Droid finds the rebel shield generator, Ozzel tries to dismiss it as smugglers before Piet speaks out of turn and gets Vader involved."

"Later, Ozzel orders the fleet out of hyperspace too quickly, giving the rebels plenty of time to activate the aformentioned shield generator that Ozzel knew about."

"'Clumsy as he is stupid' or Rebel sympathizer who gave is life to give the Alliance as much time to evacuate their base as possible? I side on the latter."

-- JustafanIV

What Could She Possibly See in Bowser?

"Peach is totally into being kidnapped, no one who isn't doesn't have that little security" -- Time-Vault

"Even more than that, she's having an affair with Bowser but doesn't know how to leave Mario. Bowser isn't kidnapping her, she leaves with him."

"That's why every time she gets saved she's like 'oh yay, you saved me again.' " -- Good_Cop_Yes_Donut

Other fan theories are based on glimpsed connections between two fictional worlds that hail from different stories.

These ideas propose that two universes once assumed to be disparate are actually linked quite closely, and the linkage can suggest some pretty diabolical transitions.

Classism 

"The Jetsons and the Flintstones are living at the same time in a dystopian future where the 'haves' live above the clouds and the 'have nots' are stuck on a wasted Earth."

"The signs include that Flintstones celebrate things like Christmas and other holidays which doesn't make sense and The Great Gazoo alien appears in both series."

-- lowsodiummonkey

 Beware of Dancing 

"The town from Footloose is the same town from Tremors. The ban on dancing wasn't a puritanical attempt to control the youth."

"The town elders were aware of the graboid threat, and banned dancing out of the fear that it would cause rythmic vibrations waking up the creatures sleeping below the town."

"Kevin Bacon's character in Footloose stayed in the town, growing up to be his character in Tremors, at which point he has to try and contain the danger he inadvertently released."

-- CorporateNonperson

Lots of Talk About Warps

"Event Horizon is a prequel to the Warhammer 40k universe." -- FeasibleBeaver

"The writer, Phil Eisner, tweeted at one point that he plays 40K, so it was definitely an influence on the script. That's as good as canon for me." -- ch1burashka

"YES. It makes the movie so much more fun in my opinion, they probably show this movie to people to illustrate what happens when you go through the warp without a Gellar Shield." -- waywardhero

And last, some people are all about adding a new lens to experience the story through. They jump on a couple key details and fill in a few more.

The result is a brand new--and convincing--context through which we can experience the story we already know and love.

Evidence 

"The reason each It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode starts with a date and time is because they're all testifying against each other in court." -- BigDirtii

"If this isn't how the show ends I'll be disappointed" -- Jupigorg

"I really hope they see this" -- AndroidDoctorr

Letting Kids Run the Show

"Pokedex entries are written by young trainers. When a professor sends a bunch of ten year olds out into the world to document Pokemon, of course the "research" can't be expected to be professional in the least."

"This is how we end up with the creepy legends of ghost pokemon that might have been passed around as playground rumors, or impossible facts like macargo being hotter than the actual sun."

"There's no reason why out of all the Pokemon professors, one of them couldn't have revised their dex information and correct the tidbit about pidgeot breaking the speed of light or gardevoir creating black holes or blazikens jumping over 30 story buildings."

"It's likely they leave the kids to their own devices without bothering to fact check, and kids, being kids, are going to exaggerate."

-- cold_french_fry

Layers and Layers 

"The 'real world' in the Matrix movies is just another layer of the Matrix, designed specifically to appeal to people unwilling to conform to the normal Martrix."

"Humans in this outer Matrix have confirmation of their belief that something was wrong, and get to indulge in the fantasy of being a heroic freedom fighter against the faceless evil machines, thus choosing to accept this false reality."

"The anomaly of the One is that he's capable of rejecting both realities, which is the reason why he had powers in the real world."

-- Mikeavelli

Not of Sound Mind

"That Loki was controlled by the tesseract more than he let on."

"His eyes glowed multiple times and he shed a tear when Thor tried to talk sense into him."

-- ELW98

Where He Came From

"In Disney's Ratatouille, the old lady in the beginning of the movie living in the house next to the river is the food critic, Anton Ego's, mother."

"In the flashback scene where he eats the ratatouille you can see similarities of the house from the beginning, her face and I think the bridge."

-- Bev-Low

Just as Scary 

"I 100% believe the two men accompanying the woman in the original 'Blair Witch Project' planned and successfully executed a plan to murder her while they were deep in the woods."

"Too many factors point to good old fashion murder than a supernatural occurrence."

--ThatCoryGuy

Through Dog Eyes

"The monsters in Courage the Cowardly Dog are regular people but seem monstrous from Courage's perspective (since he's cowardly)."

"Also they live in the middle of nowhere because his owners never take him out so that's how he views the world."

-- DaRoosta321

The question that remains is how we're supposed to take these theories.

Are they to be compartmentalized, interpreted as less meaningul than the original source material?


The Absolute Weirdest Compliments People Have Ever Received

Reddit user callmejari asked: 'What's the weirdest compliment you have received?'

woman in black pants and red tank top
Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

Giving compliments is pretty easy, although most of us don't do it often enough.

Accepting compliments can be much harder.

Too many of us immediately shift into disclaimers to explain why we don't deserve the praise.

But we just need to say thank you—even if the compliment is a little odd.

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Woman standing alone in the rain
Neal E. Johnson on Unsplash

We can all agree that, as fun as it's supposed to be, the dating scene can be really, really hard.

Here's the secret: as hard as the dating scene can be to navigate, some of the trouble lies with us. We may not to be able to find a long-term partner or a date at all because of something that we're doing.

But when a friend is in this situation, it can be really hard to tell them the brutal truth about their dating history.

Redditor teekzer asked:

"What is causing your friend to remain single that you don't have the heart to tell them?"

Chasing Deadends

"He keeps hanging on to the past and spending all his time hanging out with ex-girlfriends who are unavailable, or women who like him but he doesn’t romantically like."

- SqueakySnapdragon

Baby Talk

"I always wondered why she couldn't get a date because she is gorgeous until I saw her flirting with someone."

"The first night they met, flirted, and swapped numbers. Then, she was immediately clingy, talking in a baby voice to him, and making baby noises."

- robocop_robocop

Body Odor

"I can smell them. Everyone can smell them."

- not-read-gud

"You should find a way to tell them, it might hurt but they'll appreciate it."

- iciclesnbdayclothes

The Nice Guy Mindset

"He really is not as nice of a person as he thinks he is."

- Rusti3dp

"The ones who claim this rarely are."

- SummerOfMayhem

Impossible Standards

"The people they like aren’t real. They are idealized, cartoonish caricatures. Now my friend himself has a lot to offer in my opinion, but he is looking for a person who doesn’t exist. Hard to find something that’s not there."

- Sufficient-Spell9935

"I have a friend who started dating his flatmate after being really into her for a while, and then after a week or two said something like, 'Dating you doesn't feel as good as I thought it would,' TO HER."

"He basically torpedoed his own potential relationship because of his own ideal fantasy, and to be honest, I don't know if he actually realized he'd created an unrealistic standard in his own head."

"He's been single for the last decade, his mental health has only got worse in the time I've known him despite therapy, and I think he's probably so detached from 'appropriate dating behavior' at this point that he could be single for the rest of his life."

- fish993

Questionable Humor

"Brother-in-law, not friend. But he makes the same jokes about poop and farts all the time. Like, constantly."

"Yes, some women like potty humor, but they usually also want it to be funny."

"He is also very negative; finds insult or something wrong with any situation."

- EatYourCheckers

Living in Fantasy Land

"He lies to himself about almost everything. He lives in fantasy land."

"He thinks he's in the gym five days a week, eats great, climbs mountains, goes camping, and makes loads of money."

"In reality, he's at the pub five days a week, over eats like s??t, went on one hike in January, can't hold a job, and lives paycheck to paycheck..."

"If you were to confront him with this reality, it wouldn't even get through to him."

- Fit_Yogurtcloset_291

Mismatched Attraction

"The type of guys she claims she likes isn't what she's actually attracted to."

"She keeps saying how much she loves shy introverted sensitive guys but when she finds one and dates him suddenly, she's like, 'He's not outgoing enough, doesn't speak his mind enough, and is too shy!'"

"I kind of think she has this 'I can fix him' syndrome and doesn't really acknowledge it. Like, she's attracted to the idea of a typical shy guy but thinks once they're in a relationship they'll suddenly be more open and turn into the guy she actually wants. That's not how it works!"

- Disig

Poor Self-Esteem

"She is so lovely. So kind, so generous, and so beautiful. But her crippling lack of self-esteem is so huge, it's visible from space, and her anxiety (and I'm 99% sure her undiagnosed ADHD) means that when she's at all nervous, she talks at 100 miles an hour in several directions at once."

"It's like being handed eight happy Labrador puppies to try and hold in your arms. I so badly want her to be happy and feel fulfilled but even I find it tiring sometimes."

- butwhatsmyname

The Negative Attitude

"I have two of these."

"One is the most talented, smartest, wonderful person I know and I wish I could pull the gremlins out of their brain so they could be happy."

"The other is self-fulfilling proficiency f**king up their life. He's not unlovable, or ugly, or uncared for, but walking through the world expecting rejection at all turns and living in a fog of negativity is what makes him unattractive to be around."

"So-and-so isn't hotter than you, that's not the reason they're getting more friends and lovers, but they are more positive and interested than you, and people are attracted to that company."

- cool_username_iguess

Just Pure Arrogance

"For my husband’s friend, it’s the selfish arrogance. I want what I want, and the subtext was that he never cared about what his girlfriend wanted."

"He would only go places he wanted to go, which never included her friends or family. He wanted to spend all his money on 'collectibles' related to sci-fi movies, DVDs, figurines etc."

"Engagement rings were a waste of money, investing, or buying a house ditto, no compromises were possible, he said NO, and no discussions were entertained."

"His opinion on every topic was the correct one, and he was not interested in your opinion, or listening to extra facts he did not know that might change his mind."

"He was once young and good-looking, and he thought he could find someone else when she walked when he was 32. They had dated for close to a decade. During the relationship, he had started to stack on the weight and losing his hair and he was not able to find a replacement."

"Now he is 49 and hasn’t had a girlfriend since. He still has not bought a house and they cost double what they did when they were dating, and his rent has tripled. He does have a copy of all his favorite movies in every format: VHS, DVD, AND BlueRay, a whole bedroom is dedicated to storing them, if you can get in there. His house is a hoarder's paradise."

"He says the reason no one wants him is because he is fat and bald, and it does not help, but it’s not the major turnoff."

"As for his ex, I don't really know what happened to her. She left all of us behind when they broke up. I did hear she got married, but no updates after that. She is a sweetheart, I wish all the good things for her."

- vicki153

Impossible to Move Forward

"Summarizing two types of my single friends:"

"Super successful, smart, funny, and good-looking. They also tend to go for folks who leave them on read for days. Their insecurities are their worst enemies and I think are the biggest factor of them chasing after partners who don’t want to be partners."

"Other friends don’t know how to commit to anything, including a job. It almost feels like a 'it’ll happen when it happens' type of ideology and so they don’t even try to make things happen? They act like things will happen on their own? So they’ll meet a person and then that’s it. Meet cute dead in the water."

- thunderkitty_

Too Desperate

"Desperation. From laughing way too hard at mediocre jokes to bringing up marriage on the first date, she reeks of it."

"We have all tried talking to her about it to no avail. The sad thing is that if she was just her regular funny, smart, relaxed self, then men would be falling over themselves trying to get her number."

- Julia_Sugarbaker123

A Want List

"Her standards are excessively too high. She brings nothing to a relationship. She's a walking contradiction, all of which is why she is single."

"I think it's great to have standards and high standards but hers is just a checklist of wants."

- Theunpolitical

Height Insecurities

"He’s convinced women won’t like him because he’s short. I keep telling him I know plenty of guys just as short as him in great relationships, I’ve dated guys as short as him in the past. He just refuses to believe it."

- MichaSound

"I dated a guy who was four feet, nine inches, and I'm five feet, four inches. He had such an amazing strong personality that you never noticed his height."

"I did find kissing standing up weird; the motions are so different when it's swapped."

"The relationship ended for other reasons than his height."

- lonelyronin1

Alternatively, Open to Feedback

"I had a friend who finally did just ask. He came up to the girls in our group and just let us have an open conversation. I'm sure it was awkward and uncomfortable for him, but we gently laid out some issues. He cut his hair, got some new clothes, and (the big one) started therapy."

"A couple of years later, guess who's got a wife and a wonderful child?"

- Stars-in-the-night

It's so disheartening to see the people we care about unable to have something that they would find so fulfilling like a long-term relationship.

But it's even worse when the reasons behind it are things they could work on, if we only had the guts to tell them or if they were open to hearing it.

Every now and again, we might experience something that makes us stop dead in our tracks or gives us the shivers.

More often than not, there is a logical explanation for what happened, often resulting in our laughing about it down the line.

An electrical power surge caused the lights to flicker, that haunting noise we heard was just a nearby car radio, or that unexplained cold blast of air was simply owing to our standing too close to the air conditioning vent.

But sometimes, we experience something we simply cannot explain, and still lie awake at night trying to figure it out.

Redditor GifGuyRob was curious to hear people's mystifying experiences to which they still can't offer an explanation, leading them to ask:

"What is the weirdest thing you have seen that you can’t really explain?"

Card Tricks... Without The Cards.

"I was hanging out on the sidewalk in front of a drugstore when some dude walked by, stopped, looked at me, and asked me to think of a card, any card."

"Then he said 'you’re picturing the five of clubs!'"

"I was amazed."

"That’s the card I was thinking of."

”'Holy sh*t, that’s right!' I said."

"The dude just winked and walked away."

"That’s the best magic trick I’ve ever seen, and it was some rando on the street that I never saw again."

"I have no clue how he did it, other than some form of subliminal planting of the image in my mind, but that’s unreliable."

"It was a card trick that involved no cards at all."

"That was the most inexplicable thing I’ve ever seen."- I_Framed_OJ

Cosmic Injustice...

"In a hospital, the nicer the patient, the worse the prognosis."

"If they work charities and are really polite, definitely aggressive cancer."

"If they are rude a**holes, they will live long no matter how sick they are."- Koorsboom

The Knocks Hospital GIF by feierSunGiphy

Paranormal Activity

"I once saw a clipboard fly off of the hook it hung on and land around 3 feet away."

"The room was totally still beforehand, no breeze or earthquake or anything."

"Just hanging up where it always was, then flung across the room for no reason at all."

"Most boring poltergeist ever."- Reiseoftheginger

Lucky Pennies...

"I was living in my last apartment back in the 90s."

"I walked down the hall, turned to go to the bathroom, and got hit in the back with a penny."

"Nobody else was in the apartment."- kmsc84

Wrong Floor...

"Family was on holiday at a resort in Vietnam."

"My sister and I took an elevator in the hotel and it stopped and opened up on the top floor, where nothing was built."

"Just bricks laying about, a wheelbarrow, no fence or wall around the edge of the building, and there was a single small tree growing out of the ground in front of the elevator doors a few feet out."

"There was also this impenetrable fog that was floating around, obscuring the sight of what would be the rest of the resort below and it was quite windy."

"We both agreed it was weird and looked dangerous to be up here - we clearly weren't meant to have access to the top floor since it wasn't fully constructed."

"We went back down to the ground floor and noticed that it was actually a sunny and clear day all round."

"We wondered where that fog and wind went to."

"So we decided to go back to the unfinished rooftop level to check again, but when we did it was perfectly fine and fully built."

"We couldn't explain it and couldn't find that half-built top floor again afterwards."- lifesnotperfect

Going Up 13Th Floor GIF by Taylor SwiftGiphy

Not-So-Little Piggy

"My friends and I flashed a powerful light across a river and saw what appeared to be an absolutely massive boar."

"It then stood up on its hind legs and it simply did not compute."

"Immediate fear everyone ran."

"I was a kid but I have a very good memory and several friends that are positive they saw it as well."

"Idk."- 444jxrdan444

Unexplained Exit

"I went from driving on one highway to another highway in pouring rain."

"Still headed in the right direction, and about 10 miles in total displacement."

"But I consciously chose one and was on it until I saw road signs telling me I was one the other."

"I just went numb."

"No loss of time or any other abnormality."

"If I didn’t have to actually make a distinct effort to choose the route I wanted, I can see how it might have been a simple mistake."

"But I was on the road I chose (geography etc) until I wasn’t."

"Like something picked me up and put me down instantaneously and I didn’t notice until how long?"- Stayvein

Creature Of The Night

"Actually, one that was recently solved thanks to the internet!"

"We used to have parakeets in an outside aviary."

"One night I was woken up by the budgies screaming and there was... some odd animal attacking it."

"It had a pointed, cone shaped head, no visible ears and a long tail that was not foxlike."

"But it wasn't a possum."

"It was thin and moved like a cat -- it jumped and moved lithely."

"I tapped on the sliding glass door and it stopped, cocked its head, and came over to look at me."

"We were looking eye-to-eye and for the life of me I still couldn't figure out a face."

"Now I was really into nature in my area, really into reading books and sh*t because I wanted to be a forest ranger, and I still couldn't identify this animal."

"Everyone who I told said it was a bad dream but it was real."

"Anyway, years later it was still the weirdest thing that happened to me."

"The internet had come along and I finally had my answer: I saw a Fisher!"

"It's a super rare animal in my area -- like 500 left, max."

"Kind of like a weasel, but heavier."

"They do have ears, btw."

"I assume it was hidden by fur."- Z0ooool

Cabin In The Woods

"When I was about 13 or 14 years old myself and two friends found a house in the middle of the woods that just didn't make sense."

"We were all neighbors, and along all three of our houses was a very large wooded area."

"It runs a few miles back and becomes a state forest."

"We had run around these woods plenty of times and even had areas we'd recognize as we went."

"This particular day we followed this ravine that was sometimes a stream, but was dry at this time."

"That part is important, because we followed that same ravine several times after that and never could find the house again."

"When I say the house didn't make sense, I mean it. It was a white trailer."

"I'd say a double-wide."

"There was white underpinning along the bottom."

"It was a poor country area, so that's not uncommon."

"But it was unusually clean."

"Like, brand new, perfectly white."

"But that's still not the weird part."

"It didn't have doors."

"Or windows."

"Or a driveway."

"We were in the middle of the woods."

"The entire walk through the woods is full of bushes, thorns, spiderwebs, bugs, vines, logs."

"Woods stuff."

"But this was a clearing of flat grass like someone mowed this area."

"We weren't afraid or anything while we were there."

"There really wasn't anything remarkable about it, and that's honestly what makes it so weird to think about to this day."

"We just walked around it for a bit, said it was kinda weird, and we went back on our adventure."

"Eventually we all just went home."

"I'm still friends with both of the other kids."

"We're in our 30s and I'm even going to a wedding for one of them this weekend."

"We've talked about it since, and the story still just doesn't add up."

"My parents still live in that house, and we spent years after that day exploring the woods all the time."

"Never found it again."- Lemonbeeee

Horror Home GIF by Knock At The CabinGiphy

Sometimes our eyes might be playing tricks on us.

Other times, we know for certain what we're seeing is real, but simply can't explain what we're seeing.

Either way, there is little more disconcerting in this world than uncertainty.