YMMV / Pretending to Be People

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Gerald Fingerson's apparent fondness for cashew chicken is an actual reference to a variant of cashew chicken from Springfield, Missouri, the home of the podcast creators. It differs from the original recipe in that it's deep-fried.
• Iron Woobie: Poor Clark Bishop. Where to begin? He:
  • Watches as his parents both horrifically die in a supernatural fire.
  • Gets drawn into his partners' illicit schemes.
  • Is forced to watch multiple children die. One of those, he himself is forced to kill.
  • Literally dies. Multiple times.
  • And in between the events of his childhood and the podcast, he's working a dead-end job in a dead-end town, with only TV dinners and Wheel of Fortune to keep him company.
• Jerkass Woobie: Keith Vigna has had a rough life. Does it justify his use of cocaine from the evidence lockup, his general disregard for others, or murdering two people in cold blood? Probably not.
• The Woobie: Drew Andrews. From being held hostage, to watching a supernatural horror unfold in front of him, to getting transplanted into another person's body, then getting held hostage, it's not easy being him.
• Too Dumb to Live: While stupid plans are mostly the purview of the player characters, a few NPCs show up on this list.
  • The Contention PD decides to march straight into Marvin Glass' compound, not once but twice. And this is after the first time gets them all killed.
  • Marvin Glass put one of the player characters in the body of an immensely-powerful mech, heavily armed the other two, and expected them to fight to the death, with the only thing between him and them being a surprisingly-breakable protective dome, an audience, and a window.
• Ugly Cute: Peter Deter, the miniature fish man in Marvin Glass' compound. He's a tiny dude with a huge fish head on a little body, but his innocent mannerisms and helpful persona make him adorable.