#I just strongly believe in them
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
jon-withnoh ¡ 7 months ago
Note
Give me the hot Elisabeth and Rebecca takes!
Sure thing! (Oh boy this turned out long.)
Elisabeth disclaimer: this is purely based on vibes. I have some knowledge of the historical background, but it’s not really my field of study.
Rebecca disclaimer: this is my field of study and I have very strong opinions on it, though I do not claim that I am always correct. I do however maintain that I could back up many of my claims if I had the time to do proper textual analysis and read secondary sources.
I genuinely think Elisabeth (the musical as it was written) is a masterpiece. The framing device, the way certain melodies mirror each other to foreshadow events or indicate character development — it’s amazing! Plus, the music is ridiculously good. 100/10. I love this musical.
Most stagings/recordings of Elisabeth since 2012 though? More than questionable. Levay/Kunze musicals in general appear to be following a pattern where the original production and a maybe one or two productions after it are full of nuance and complexity, only to have that complexity broken down and reduced over time. That is no fault of the musical itself, but a worrying trend of not trusting audience to be able to handle nuance and trying to make every element of a production more palatable and easier to handle. I hate it. Both the 1992 and the 2005 Wien productions have so much to recommend them (I can’t speak for the German productions but would humbly turn over the questions to more Elisabeth-versed mutuals like @fitzrove), but it all seems to be going downhill.
HOT TAKE: I think bringing on more and more “Broadway-sounding” performers to do both Elisabeth and Rebecca is a mistake. For me, Levay/Kunze shows have a very specific sound to them, a sound that fits into European musical theatre and makes sense for when and where they were created. Hiring almost exclusively people with a way more modern, belt-y sound is not a direction I personally like for these shows. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about any specific performers, it’s about trying to change the sound of these shows into something more akin to a big Broadway musical and that really doesn’t work for me. Both Elisabeth and Rebecca are so idiosyncratic in how they sound and how they’re written, trying to make them fit into a mould they don’t belong in does them a disservice. (Looking at you, VBW.)
Maybe not a hot take: but I love the 2005 Wien production of Elisabeth so much. It was my first exposure to the musical and remains my go-to cast album. It certainly has faults and I totally understand why people might gravitate towards different productions, but since I haven’t listened to the full 1992 Wien and 2001 Essen (?) productions yet, I can only compare it to 2012.
REBECCA HOT TAKE: Michael Kunze has stated that he views Rebecca as first and foremost a love story and I think he is WRONG. Daphne du Maurier herself would probably think he was wrong (seeing as she hated the story being described as a romance). This is a core problem with Rebecca das Musical. There are many things to love (Danny, Danny, Beatrice, and did I mention Danny?), but in my opinion, the whole “this is a great love story” angle does it a huge disservice. Let’s make it weirder! Let’s make it as bleak as it fucking is! (Probably not a crowd pleaser but let me have my fun).
Rebecca the musical could have done with some serious editing.
The Magdeburg production of Rebecca, which I am aware was not very accessible to a lot of people, might be one of the best productions of Rebecca ever. Kerstin Ibald absolutely knocked it out of the park with her Mrs Danvers and gave her all the nuance and emotion we so desperately crave. Her Danny is so broken, so lost. Patrick Stanke’s Maxim strikes the perfect balance between the haughty upperclass Englishman who takes kind of a fatherly tone with his young wive, and the haunted, jealous husband who absolutely did murder his first wife. Also in this production Maxim and Ich finally have some chemistry! This production’s Ich (Sibylle Lambrecht, I think) has such a great character arc and it is completely believable that she is into Maxim, even (or especially??) after his confession. Plus, the set design was amazing!!!
More Rebecca hot takes that I’ve definitely brought up before: I know we all like to write Ich as a repressed queer woman who ends up not being all that into Maxim, but honestly, she probably is very attracted to him. We can speculate about the why, but like, it is strongly implied that they have sex for the first time shortly after Maxim’s confession. She wants him.
I maintain and will die on this hill that making Danny sing “Ich liebte sie, doch sie hat mich verraten” is a mistake. I mean, yes please let Danny tell us she loved Rebecca, but come on. Danny doesn’t lose her faith in Rebecca. She doesn’t stop idolising Rebecca. Whatever her reasons for setting Manderley on fire may be it’s not that she thinks Rebecca betrayed her. I don’t even think Danny thinks highly enough of herself to even consider feeling betrayed by Rebecca. Rebecca is god to her.
I definitely have more, but this post is really long and I’m running out of steam… Hope you enjoyed!
48 notes ¡ View notes
poorly-drawn-mdzs ¡ 11 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
Bonus 8: How met your mother (CSSR design by @qourmet!)
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#cangse sanren#wei changze#jiang fengmian#It was important to me that WCZ had the hereditary mole. I will die on this hill.#I have been *waiting* for the day to finally arrive when I could finally make this comic. It's been marinating for months.#My mission is to redraw all of qour's character designs one day. They are just *that* good.#CSSR has the vibes of a wandering menace who shows up in towns like a stray cat arriving at a new doorstep for treats. 10/10.#While YZY strongly leads us to believe that JFM was in love with CSSR and that's his whole motivation behind taking wwx in-#-I do think this is (once again) rumour being presented as reality. It's the juicer story to tell after all.#It is still possible that he did love her! But I think that story undercuts the relationship he also had with WCZ.#Yall ever think about how JC and WWX parallel their fathers? How Wei Changze also left the Jiang Leader's side? I do.#Unlike JC though It is far more hilarious and plausible to imagine JFM begging to be CSSR and WCZ's third. You know he would.#My wild headcanon is that JFM and YZY are in a mlm and wlw arranged marriage situation. Deeply unhappy as partners. Better as friends.#they care for each other and I'll admit that there is a beautiful tragedy in them having romantic feelings for each other the whole time.#But I am also here for the gaffs. Let them be unfulfilled homosexuals together.#Meanwhile cssr and wcz are having incredible hetrosexual sex in a bisexual way that WILL leave him pregnant by the end of it.
3K notes ¡ View notes
Text
Gideon at the end of Nona The Ninth strikes me as.. really odd. I know some people thought she's out of character because she's kinda mean - which I don't agree with - but honestly every time I get to that part I think: She's smarter than that.
I know fanon Gideon usually portrays her as a huge idiot and a goofball (fair enough for the most part) but she's also one hell of a skeptic and stubborn character that does NOT bend to authority easily. And let's remember The Unwanted Guest: We know that just by the nature of the Lyctor process Gideon must have picked up some stuff from Harrow as well, we even see it happen when she starts discussing basic necromancy at the end of Nona.
So, Gideon is now being sent to the ninth to kill Alecto, John's Cavalier, and take his place going forward, or at least this is what she says.
You see what I'm going at? She's smarter than that.
I am NOT saying she is acting out character by the way! But I think we don't give her motivations enough credit beyond being reckless because of grief. Gideon Nav who all her life has done nothing but hatch escape plans and NEARLY succeeded? Gideon Nav who is carrying part of Harrows soul? Gideon Nav WHO WATCHED THE EVENTS OF HARROW THE NINTH UNFOLD WITH HARROWS EYES?
I guess what I'm wondering is: What's her plan?
598 notes ¡ View notes
lesbians4armand ¡ 1 month ago
Text
once again i really do think armand’s morality and view of his own morality is summed up by “i tried to be good, am i no good?” because he KNOWS he’s not, but he so desperately wants to be good in any way he can be, so that he can be desired. and this in turn means he is deep in denial about any bad he has done other than the deep seated feeling that he is simply “bad” as a vague concept and not the sum of his actions. anyway who’s up thinking normal thoughts about characters.
181 notes ¡ View notes
dykedvonte ¡ 24 days ago
Text
Honestly I see Jimmy's refusal to put Curly out of his misery less about his weird feelings of envy or his delusions but the fact Curly is all but stated to be a shield to Jimmy from his actions and people seeing the worst in him.
The only characters that Jimmy really interacts with one on one before the crash are Curly and Anya, two individuals he has wildly different relationships with. It's likely that Curly really did most of the talking between them as the pilots and the rest of the crew as staff. They didn't know of Jimmy's more reprehensible behaviors cause they never really had the chance to and Jimmy is subconsciously aware. If they had disliked him more than Anya would have told Swansea earlier or even Daisuke when things got really bad.
It's why he takes the immediate opportunity to blame Curly; He's the shield. He's saved Jimmy's ass more times than he can count and more times than Jimmy would ever admit. Even when he can't really do it anymore, he mentally shields himself from his own faults by putting Curly between them. Letting Curly die puts too much on him because he doesn't know how to function without a safety net.
In the end Curly only lives because Jimmy needs the idea that Curly will inevitably make things better to stay alive, meaning Curly has to live, no matter how much it pains him to do so.
#in short Jimmy doesnt only care about Curly#he only cares about the securtiy that Curly provides him#and i headcanon that the reason he tried to kill everyone is because he knew it was only a matter of time befor Curly realized this wasnt#somethgin benign Jimmy did that he could smooth over but somethign that Curly would repremand and condem him for and take his security away#like yes Curly did not react fast enough or strongly enough to what Anya told him but you could see him showing more concern over it as I d#understand the psychology behind people and more specifically men like Curly as he is hearing something horrible his friend did to someone#he cares about but has less of a bond with. he feels the need to protect his crew as people first and sadly Jimmy is still the person he wa#closest too yet I still think everything happened too fast for Curly to process as would you not grapple with the fact your closest friend#is a monster you must personally deal with? or that he did something so vile to someone else you have become protective over? Would you not#think of the relative power that friend holds and how if you approuch this wrong it could end badly for everyone? He had all these thoughts#but not enough time to think about them. Also how Jimmy was one of the main people in his personal life he felt a need to protect seeing as#he got him this job. Like imagine the one person you are really trying to make good is still bad after everythign and now you have to be th#hand of judgment youve shielded them from for so long like I do not think Curly handeled the initial situation with Anya correctly I dont#think it was the case of him not believing but not really knowing what to do and feel about it as a friend of both parties the captain and#guy going through his own shit and it says so much that he was dealing with all that so well compared to Jimmy who got everyone killed cuz#he thought being captain would be like sitting on the thrown and not emotionally mentally and physically taxing like I cant say Curly is th#best person due to his inaction but he is a good person doing the best with the knowledge and shitty resources he has cuz like also Id just#be terrified that my suicidal and nilihst bestie who clearly has an inferiority complex around me is the copilot who has access to the most#to the most important parts of the ship and the means to kill us all if he feels like him or his security are being threatened like#Anya and Curly just deserved better because they get put through the ringer like just put him in a class to teach him to be less trusting#anya mouthwashing#curly mouthwashing#captain curly#mouthwashing#mouthwashing game#mouthwashing curly#mouthwashing anya#mouthwashing jimmy#jimmy mouthwashing#mouthwashing spoilers
116 notes ¡ View notes
littlebittyhollowbugs ¡ 18 days ago
Text
Grimm/nightmare heart theory
Tumblr media
It's the Halloween season, so I thought it would be a good time to share my take on Hallownest's very own vampire clown nightmare demon, Grimm!
~
The nightmare heart is all that remains of an ancient god. In order to keep itself from completely fading from existence it made a contract with it's worshipper, Grimm.
Grimm gave his body up as host for the dying God, to keep it alive.
Basically he is the vessel of the heart. (This is stated in canon.) And gained immortality through means of the nightmare hearts ritual.
The flames which I would guess represent nightmares/fears or death (Sort of like essence which represents hopes or wishes, for nightmares rather than dreams) Feed the heart, and keep Grimms body growing and immortal.
Grimm is reincarnated into Grimmchild everytime the lantern is lit. With outside aide. Bugs who aide in the hearts perpetuation (such as Brumm) are forced to serve the heart for eternity. I imagine this would have eventually happened to little Ghost. (Had the endings not played out as they did.)
Why is he a circus troupe master? Because Grimm and his servants, a large group of especially peculiar bugs who travel the world, fit in best under the guise of being travelling circus performers. Basically it's their cover.
And maybe even before giving up his body to the nightmare heart Grimm was some sort of performing type.
Anyway Brumm's dialogue here and here
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Implies that it is truly the best outcome for Grimm for the ritual to end and for him to be separated from the heart. Not only for Brumm's sake but for his own.
(I did not do this in my game, because I love my Grimmchild too much but narratively this is the ultimately good ending for everyone.)
29 notes ¡ View notes
cerealbishh ¡ 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
the tiniest snippets of triss and sabrina dancing
196 notes ¡ View notes
notaplaceofhonour ¡ 4 months ago
Text
welp, time to take the “leftist podcast that’s most normal about jews” award away from knowledge fight 🙃
24 notes ¡ View notes
kyouka-supremacy ¡ 7 months ago
Note
Atsushi for the ask game.
ATSUSHI HERE WE GO THANK YOU FOR HEARING MY PRAYERS
Favorite thing about them: HIS SELFISHNESS. It's so so delicious to explore. Can you imagine a protagonist that saves others not out of simple good will, but because of egoistic self-preservation motives? It just feels counterintuitive for me lmao, and I found it quite messed up when I first watched the anime, but now it's so compelling to explore. His whole “everything I do is in order to gain the right to live” is crazy fashinating. Because lol, that's entirely nonsensical to me! There's no such thing as “gaining the right to live”; all humans, every person in the world is inherently deserving of life. All. No exception. So there's no level of “weak” or “worthless” that would make you lose that right. The fact that's it's a vision so distant and absurd from mine, idk, it just makes it very compelling to explore? “What if there was a little fucked up guy who believed the right to live had to be earned” just sounds like a very interesting premise.
Least favorite thing about them: When I first watched the anime, I think I found him low-key annoying? I just... Don't do very well with self-deprecating people and people who complain a lot in general, I usually suffer in silence and tend to (wrongly) assume others should do the same (this probably makes me sound pretty mean, I swear I try to be understanding irl). However, it doesn't bother me as much anymore, I simply think it's more of a distinctive trait of the character that makes him multilayered and unique. As of now, I can't think of anything I don't like about him if not the fact that I wish he'd rely on Dazai and others in general a little less. I know that has to do with his lack of self-worth, so maybe it makes sense,, but as of now he feels kind of stuck. I just wish we'd see him grow more on that front.
Favorite line:
Tumblr media
There may be better ones, but I really like the delivery of this one.
brOTP: KYOUKA AND ATSUSHI they make me go insane. Already talked about this in the Kyouka post but just to reiterate: in my headcanon Kyouka really is the only person Atsushi feels genuine, selfless affection towards. It's very sweet. They're siblings. Kyouka's happiness is really important for Atsushi. They really do have that feeling of people who got out of an abusive environment learning what normality is supposed to be like together. I also really like how they compensate for what the other lacks, be it decisiveness and coolhead for Atsushi and empathy and positivity for Kyouka. Although plenty shipping them romantically, I really like platonic sskk and atsulucy as well.
OTP: I really like sskk eheh. I think they're neat. There's a thousand and one reasons why I find them pretty great. They're objectively the only reason why I got invested in bsd as well as the only thing that has me keep up with the franchise to this day. Right now, I feel like the one thing I really appreciate about them is how you can be the worst person in the universe and still somehow be loveable to someone. I think it's sweet. I also find it very fun and enterataining to explore their various soulmatism antics. They're both very complex and multilayered characters with something deeply wrong with how their minds work that makes them very fun to analyze both by their own and in the complexity of their relationship. Their collective story arc and canon relationship progression is extremely engaging and nice to follow, too. I love dazatsu and atsulucy as well!! Both were ships I wasn't particularly invested when I read the manga for the first time, but really grew in me in the last six months or so. I really dig akuatsulucy as well!!
nOTP: Nothing?
Random headcanon: He really likes reading. There's some real meta-analysis to be made here I actually had written this is probably not the right place to talk about, but in a work that's all about literature, he's the character who reads.
Unpopular opinion: He's the hardest character to write / characterize. That's why people should probably go easier on other fans when they mischaracterize him. He's just very multifaceted and genuinely hard to get. I keep seeing people being like “Stop babyfying Atsushi he's an independent adult!!” then turn around to say “he can't be shipped with Dazai because there's too much unbalance of power :// [somewhat implying Atsushi can't make free decisions for himself]”, or “Stop making of Atsushi a soft baby who never did wrong in his life!!!” then turn around to say “Atsushi is the happy puppy of the agency who gets treats and pats from everyone ^^ ” like. At least to me, a lot of people's arguments sound self-contradictory all the time; but that doesn't mean people should stop having fun and characterize the characters as they like! Just, let's stop being mean to each other and try to be a little more accepting towards others' takes, shall we? And yes that also includes letting people find Atsushi annoying if they find him annoying (although like, I've NEVER found anyone call Atsushi annoying ever, so really, what remote fandom spaces is everyone visiting? Why are you looking for clothes (good takes) at the soup store (Tik/tok I assume?) ).
Song i associate with them: Common World Domination by Pinocchio-P, HIBANA by DECO*27, Ghost Rule by DECO*27, so on and so forth.
Favorite picture of them:
Favourite panel from the manga:
Tumblr media
Favourite illustration: Look, there's too many beautiful illustrations, I can't chose. Here's a very good one though.
Tumblr media
Favourite illustration in the anime art style:
Tumblr media
But also:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Favourite Mayoi card:
Tumblr media
Send me a character?
32 notes ¡ View notes
unopenablebox ¡ 4 months ago
Text
attempt to idly discuss concept of custom wedding vows with 🌸 ground to a halt after the realization that neither of us actually, like, wants to try to figure out what the fuck we'd be promising
can you do custom vows, but instead of vows to do stuff, it's just a list of the superbly good qualities of the other person in order to make it clear why any rational actor would agree that you should obviously plan to keep hanging out with them as long as possible
23 notes ¡ View notes
timidflowergirl ¡ 4 months ago
Text
Romeo Marius, Mercutio Courfeyrac, Benvolio Eponine, is this anything
22 notes ¡ View notes
padfootastic ¡ 1 year ago
Note
please say more about jilypad + diverging parenting styles... perhaps even a possible scenario >:) i imagine harry has very cunning tactics for using this to his advantage
helloooooo <3 thank u for this ask bc i love talking about these three and harry. i went looking thru the archives to find this post; my first foray into this side, and really, i’ve never looked back after that.
so i’ve talked ab this a bit before but i fully think that james was a very overprotective ‘mother hen’ type parent. i tend to read his behaviour in lily’s bday letter to sirius as being scared of his child on a broomstick and i fully, fully think he’ll never be able to let go of that as harry grows up. he’ll be anxious and suspicious and paranoid, and his first instant will always be to wrap harry up in cotton wool and hide him away. (i low-key connect this to his childhood as well; going from being spoiled and sheltered to dropped in the middle of a war, black & white thinking, living in extremes etc etc makes it v hard for him to be Normal about his child. as he shouldn’t be, really, but yeah) that’s why he thrives during the initial years; he never minds the hard parts of being a new parent, loves it in fact, and it makes it better that he can keep harry close to him at all times w/o coming off as a helicopter parent (not that the notion bothers him ofc).
it’s good, then, that he has two partners to even the scales, no? i think lily was the most…balanced out of the three. she had a relatively normal childhood, grew up in a working class family/neighbourhood and had to deal w adversity from a young age so she’s developed a nice, thick skin. she also has a sibling with whom she has a v rocky relationship so she knows that kids are, ykno, a bit unhinged. and a little bit of hardship is not a problem. i hc her as needing time to get used to parenthood, unlike james who stepped into it natural as breathing, or even sirius who loved harry on much on first sight that it made up for everything else. ofc lily loved her son, but it didn’t come w the same blinding intensity of her partners and made her feel really shitty in the beginning. but, i think she’d shine during his teen years actually, because she’s not overbearing or intense and becomes the quiet, calm strength that a hormonal, spotty teen boy would probably need.
and sirius <3 our poor baby falls in love with harry, perhaps even more quickly than james, with such startling speed that it shakes his entire foundation. he doesn’t regret it but he’s constantly discombobulated. i also imagine that…it takes him longer to settle into the role of parent, esp bc he’s not biologically one ykno? not like it matters to anyone, ofc, but it takes him a long time to truly accept his authority and place, to believe that he has just as much right as j&l to be there, to parent harry. this has the consequence of him always being more indulgent than the other two; after all, he considered himself a godfather before a parent and a lot of that thinking stayed. he lets harry get away with stuff the others might not (and the little mf figures this out later); some of it also comes from sirius seeing so much shit, and facing so much shit himself, that he rationalises a lot of stuff as ‘well, this isn’t the worst it can be, so what’s the harm’ (because his life has been such a roller coaster that he’s forgotten that not everyone’s like that, if that makes sense?)
its obviously not this clear cut but i imagine harry looks at it like this: if he needs unconditional love, he goes to james; rationality and logic, lily; acceptance and calm, sirius. when someone has to be beat up for hurting harry, james steps in. if he needs help burying a body, it’s sirius. dealing with some asshole boss/teacher/classmate’s mother who’s making harry’s life hell? lily. i can keep going but,,,u get the idea, right? this makes sense, i hope lol
i actually think harry’s first birthday is a great example. sirius pushes the boundaries by gifting lil harry a broom; james loses his mind running after him; lily places an industrial sticking charm on harry’s butt, leans back with a glass of wine, and enjoys the show. even as he grows up, lily and james act as the disciplinarian, and sirius is the emotional outlet. all of them fill in each other’s cracks so well, and it’s only when harry grows up that he realises how effortlessly they worked off each other to parent him.
also oh man o man. harry being cunning is,,,,,see, i’ve not considered it this far but it makes perfect sense. i think canon harry actually had so much manipulative energy and it’s often overlooked for his goofier traits but! this is the same dude who used his dead parents to trick slughorn into revealing sensitive info! imagine if that could be channelled into his jilypad interactions 😈
it’s like, it takes him a bit, because his three parents r so smooth, but once he realises that all of them have certain weak spots, he does NOT hesitate to exploit them. (it has the unintended consequence of truly strengthening the jilypad relationship into an unbreakable one bc one thing their kid taught them is to have ironclad communication going at all times so nothing they’ve said, or not said, is used against them). so like, he knows if he wants to sneak out to a party, it has to be sirius and in a specific way—‘i’ll be totally safe, papa, plus i really wanna see what it’s like and idk when it’ll get a chance to again’. if he widens his eyes to pitiful levels, pouts a little, and blinks faster than usual, then james is putty in his arms as long as he’s separated from the other two. divide and conquer becomes the main tool in harry’s arsenal, actually. lily’s the toughest nut to crack, purely bc she doesn’t run on emotions or irreverence, but harry soon learns that if he comes up with a solid, logical case that proves his argument has unbiased merit then he has a good chance of getting her to say yes. (this is good, bc u can arrange words in the correct order, but u can’t always control emotions)
so overall yeah, you’d think one kid + 3 parents would be an easy bet, but harry keeps them on their toes all the fkn time.
#sirius black#james potter#lily evans#jilypad#harry potter#i knew before i even started this that it would be ridiculously long lmao#i just cannot bring myself to shut up#wrt lily and harry’s baby years#i feel v v strongly ab motherhood not coming naturally to her#and becoming a very sore point for her. bc she sees james and sirius and she keeps blaming herself for being an unfeeling robot#when she’s not. she just thinks more logically than them and doesn’t feel as strongly. that doesn’t make her a bad mother#and no matter what j & s say a small part of always thinks like that. until the teen years. and suddenly the dynamics r reversed#bruh i think i need help it’s not even funny how not hinged i am for this trio lmao#there also! padfoot!#a while ago i wrote a lil thing. but i fully believe that whenever harry was emotionally distraught he’d actually go to padfoot#bc he needed someone to just. sit. and be there. while he’s processed emotions#and lily would be too ruthlessly logical and james would be fretting and trying to fix it and sirius would panic. just a little.#but padfoot is a warm comforting weight agains this side and he just lets him be. it’s grounding.#so harry always. without fail. does that#it’s actually 3.5 parents lmao#i do wonder what their parenting fights would about if any. hmmmm. my glasses are too rose tinted for me to consider it#a thought for another day#anyway. hope this endless rambling made sense! and that u liked it!#would love to hear ur thoughts too <3#pen’s notes#pen’s asks
84 notes ¡ View notes
wizardnuke ¡ 1 year ago
Text
thought about professor caleb a little too hard. laying on the floor
38 notes ¡ View notes
compacflt ¡ 1 year ago
Note
I was wondering if you had thoughts about how Ice and Mav's politics don't fully align with their actions? There was a post where you said Ice's politics are more socially liberal than Mav's but Mav is also the one who goes out to La Jolla to hit on guys before Ice, and later again when he's broken up with Ice, but Ice only goes out with women out of fear for his honor or whatever. Same with their respective thoughts on feminism, with Mav's mild respect for Charlie (telling Ice not all women fit the stereotype) but later Ice is the one who sends Juno to Mav's Top Gun class without telling him she's a woman and Ice has a respectful friendship with Juno. I think you said Ice is vaguely on the ace-aro spectrum (demi-homoromantic) which is a sort of fascinating irony that he doesn't have the words for it whereas Mav is the one with the theories about Ice's sexuality. Though with their hypocrisies and inconsistencies this all just feeds into their characterizations of the fact that they keep divorcing their actions from their spoken words from their identities.
okay going to take this point by point
1. yes i have addressed their politics in relation to their actions before, so maybe read this post and this post before you read this one, just to see where my other thoughts line up
2. gay republicans and conservatives do exist (at the very least certainly republicans and conservatives who have gay sex in secret)
3. before maverick is a political actor he is a human being, and the characterization that we are primarily given for him is that he is impulsive and reckless and doesn’t think through his actions. As ive written about many times before—from a story construction standpoint, his thoughtlessness is his number one most important character trait. He is both thoughtlessly dangerous (his hero’s “fatal flaw;” he can’t stop himself from making bad decisions) and thoughtlessly brilliant (the navy’s best and most daring and heroic pilot). He does what he wants without thinking about it; and he makes excuses and hollow promises whenever that plan doesn’t work out (“I know better than that. It will never ever happen again;” [it happens again] “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.” [goose dies shortly thereafter]). His thoughtless impulsiveness overrides everything else. Maybe the act of having gay sex (to address your “he gets fucked in La Jolla before ice” point) is politically subversive, but for Maverick’s thoughtless character that we are shown in Top Gun, the most subversive possible thing would be to LABEL the gay sex and think through the consequences of it. To call a spade a spade and call himself gay or bi or queer or whatever. That would be the most subversive (and with mav, entirely unbelievable imo) possible thing. That takes conscious effort of thought, something maverick is near-incapable of doing. As long as he can get away with it without thinking about it, he’s politically in the clear, with regards to his character & character arc. If that makes sense. “Don’t think. Just do.” That’s literally his motto lmfao. He represents thoughtless action as an archetype; his politics come secondary to his desires
4. Their “respective thoughts on feminism” are divided into two camps: 1. “Professional as required by the law” and 2. “Sex pest mode.” They’re naval officers in the 1980s. Whether republican or democrat, that’s kind of par for the course. How men treat women can be a performance to other men. Any respect i made them show towards women had broader, more metatextual “need to move the conversation/story from A to B” reasoning behind it. See the first post I linked for much more on that.
5. i never said ice was on the ace/aro spectrum, or if i did i DEFINITELY meant it sarcastically. That could not be further from what i believe. This isn’t something I’ve ever discussed on this blog before, but a MASSIVE part of the philosophical discussion I’ve been trying to moderate within this project over the last year is the question— “do labels even work with characters under these very specific and extraordinarily extreme conditions and societal pressures?” It’s a question I took from my time studying early American history—the contexts of certain environments, and I would definitely count the elite officer ranks of the navy in the 90s and 2000s as one of these certain environments, simply Are Not Conducive to the easier (path of least resistance maybe) ways we civilians handle sexuality and friendship and trauma. There are so many variables and external and internal pressures within an environment like the upper ranks of career navy officers that sexual orientation labels lose all nuance and accuracy. I don’t think Ice (as i have written him) is gay. I don’t think he’s straight. I don’t think he’s bi. I think he’s an unlabelable product of too many variables for labels to have any effect on how he is perceived. Which, in our society built around labels and categories, is admittedly difficult to wrestle with. But doesn’t make it any less worth wrestling with.
6. Yes, ice and mav’s hypocrisy is the linchpin of the entire story.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
They’re both trying to have their cake (“honor” and moral superiority based on the harmful traditional subjective morals arbitrated by elite navy officership) and eat it too (a fulfilling relationship with the love of their lives). & the point is that they cant. they have to settle for one.
#adam & eve can either stay in eden or eat from the tree of knowledge. but the moral authority told them not to eat; so they can’t have both#or—they can have both but they can’t ACKNOWLEDGE having both; they have to keep it a secret even from themselves. that way it’s not sin.#(the navy is ice/mav’s religious institution as i keep repeating)#re: ice and labels.#like i am both joking and not joking when i say he’s mavericksexual#simply because maverick represents both the guilt Ice must deal with re: the death of a friend#AND the recklessness that would inspire him to realize (in the actionable sense of the word) the full extent of his sexuality#no one else can do that. he and maverick were made for each other like that.#same thing where ice is the only one who can legitimize maverick in the eyes of their overbearing institution.#they’re made for each other in a way that imo transcends sexuality and labels.#I’m not going to touch the politics of ‘demi-‘ labels because i know people feel very strongly about it#and you come to me for Top Gun not necessarily my thoughts on modern identity politics#but suffice to say i don’t believe either ice or mav are demi anything.#they’re just guys. they’ve killed people and killed with each other and killed for each other. they don’t need labels. just let them be#tom iceman kazansky#pete maverick mitchell#top gun#icemav#top gun maverick#asks#edts notes#thanks for the ask! hope it isn’t coming off as aggressive or argumentative#* argumentative yes. you can argue with me.#but the labeling issue has been on my mind since DAY ONE & influenced much of how i wrote the story#human beings are so much more complex than most labels give us credit for
54 notes ¡ View notes
violentlydefending ¡ 3 months ago
Text
what the actual fuck is wrong with whoever it is running @/writing-prompt-s. why are they calling an actual palestinian blogger "shady" and using their massive platform on this site to accuse palestinian families and users of being bots and scammers?
16 notes ¡ View notes
tarantula-hawk-wasp ¡ 2 months ago
Text
Killing my coworker with psychic blasts bc he keeps complaining about rules about risk management of exposure to hazardous chemicals when THAT IS MY JOB like sorry I’m bossy about wearing gloves and informing collaborators about hazards like YES the exposure is low and would require a lifetime of contact to kill you BUT in a WORKPLACE you are RISKING long term exposure AND we are an institution!!!! We don’t want to be liable!!! People can lick mercury in their free time if they want but not under my watch! Not when it’s my responsibility!
7 notes ¡ View notes