#lol they didn’t understand that they were the target audience

[valewritessss]

I have a little question. What kind of crack do anti annabeth people do? And where can I get some? Because holy shit only drugs can make me this ignorant of a character's personality. I have anti annabeth tags blocked and people who are anti annabeth blocked too. But I went on that tag for shits and giggles and a little bit of rage bait. It worked. I'm fuming now

I was wondering the same thing. Idk what makes a person be so wrong and so stubborn to remain so wrong. Anytime someone disses annabeth too much for my liking they get blocked bc I don’t even want to know

[klspacecadet]

aita in this ao3 comment thread

I don’t think it’s needed but for context this is a transmasc pwp that doesnt use afab language

Also if nobody tells me otherwise I’m gonna continue to think I absolutely ate them up at the end, so if you disagree I’d appreciate an explanation :)

comment exchange under the cut

me I’m so confused can someone please explain what keith’s anatomy actually looks like for context I missed the trans tags before reading this and spent the entirety of the fic violently confused as to what is going on (im trans) I appreciate the usage of gender neutral language but esp bc I didn’t realize he was trans here I just. don’t know whats going on??????? help me please I was like, “is this referencing foreskin….? does this person not know what a dick looks like? is keith intersex or something? uhhh” before I decided to go and check the tags and the comments and realized lol

them what about this made you feel like it was appropriate to comment?

me it was a genuine question?? Excuse me for being confused and wanting to be able to visualize the fic better, especially as a fellow trans person...

them your phrasing is really rude, intentional or not. I’m using language that describe mine and other trans men’s real life bodies. if you don’t get it, that’s fine, you’re not the target audience - but it’s not my job to explain it to you. leaving a comment about how it’s so confusing and weird is not the way to ask a genuine question, especially one about trans genitalia. yes, even if you’re also trans. I feel like that’s common sense. please gain some.

me I’m sorry if my phrasing came off as rude, I didn’t indend for it to be seen that way and I generally struggle with tone and phrasing. I commented my confusion over the vague phrasing and lack of description that might otherwise be inherent, and I merely wished to express my lack of understanding and willingness to learn more, which honestly isn’t that common on the internet. If this were about a real person’s body and a real person’s identity, I understand why more reservation and politeness would be necessary; however, since I’m commenting on something fictional that you wrote and posted for anyone to see, asking questions about your word usage and the body of a fictional character, I don’t think it’s justified to feel like I need to walk on eggshells when expressing this. Also, when I called it confusing, I felt it was implied that I was referring to your usage of vague descriptive terminology that nobody outside of your circle would be able to comprehend and picture, especially when they didn’t realize it was a trans fic at first. I also never said anything about it being weird, I actually said the opposite so idk where you got that from. I hope you have a good day and get off your high horse, I don’t see what reason you had to be so aggressive in response to someone asking a question, especially when most would probably jump to insults and hate. Hopefully from now on you no longer feel attacked when someone asks for clarification on your work, and you gain the ability to hold a respectful conversation without jumping to insults like “gain some common sense.” also idk why you responded in the first place instead of just deleting my comment and moving on if you felt it was so rude— I feel like that’s common sense nowadays, but perhaps you were looking for an argument. Good luck on your journey to kindness and hope you have a good rest of your day! :)

[delyth88]

First thoughts on Loki S2 Ep 2

*Spoilers ahead*

Well, that was not quite as exciting as episode 1, but it was still a solid episode. And my biggest fear (that Loki’s characterisation would revert to his Season 1 version) didn’t happen.  So I consider this a win! 😊

The scenes before the opening credits were the most fun. And Loki was powerful, menacing, and intelligent, and used his magic, and all was excellent!  I particularly liked the shot where he’s walking down the alley towards the camera after blowing Brad off his feet.  (It’s kinda creepy how much  it feels like this whole sequence was targeted at people like me lol! Like someone took Season 1!Loki and purposely tweaked a few things here and there to address my main concerns.)

I like that we got to see more of OB and also Casey.  Though I wasn’t quite sure if it was intended as a gag or not that they kept finding reasons to reference or show OB. I know it’s just the fact that this is a separate show that was developed after S1, but it did make me giggle how much they suddenly need OB when they never needed him for anything in the first season. 😊 But I like him, so that’s all good.

I thought it was adorable that Casey is a TVA geek and is fanboying over meeting OB.

I hadn’t really been looking forward to Sylvie and Loki meeting again (beyond curiosity at how it would go down), but it wasn’t too bad. I prefer them at each other’s throats than down each other’s throats. *shrug* I was surprised though at just how unhappy Sylvie was to see Loki.  I guess I’d assumed she’d fought him at the end of time because she believed she was right and her cause was too important, but that she would have preferred not to have had to hurt Loki to achieve it.  So would have been perhaps feeling more guilty than angry, but clearly not!  I have to assume Loki disagreeing with her felt like much more of a betrayal, and she’s kept those embers warm for however long she’s been in 1982.  Or was it that Loki shows up working for the TVA again after everything they went through?

The first scene with Brad in the cell where he was getting under everyone’s skin was weird.  I felt like Loki has had time to come to terms with the events on the sacred timeline and what happens to Frigga etc, and certainly the audience has been encouraged to move quickly past that, so it felt strange that we were expected to believe that a few taunts would get under Loki’s skin so badly.  I’m still not sure if we were supposed to assume he was acting, or if his reaction was real.

And then the fake out scene in the cell with Brad was interesting. I don’t think I as the audience was in the right place for this to work well.  I feel like at this point the audience is not going to be likely to believe that Loki is going to so quickly murder someone. Or is that more likely to work well for a casual audience?  That I really can’t tell. Lol! So if it’s being played with the understanding the audience is in on the plan (to some degree, but maybe not 100% certain) then what were we supposed to make of it? I feel like it needed more build up to be believable – perhaps over several episodes.  I’m trying to think of a time when Loki has been shown hurting someone in a calm and methodical manner, and I’m coming up short.  All the things we’ve seen have been in the heat of battle or in extreme emotional distress or manipulation. I would have preferred a battle of wits, or Loki somehow using words and intelligence to outsmart his opponent.  This just didn’t sit quite so well with me (although I’ll take this over bumbling idiot any day). I guess it would have taken a lot of backstory to develop a situation where Loki would outsmart Brad and they didn’t have the time for that.  I’d hardly call it mischief though.

I didn’t like the way the reference to the events of Avengers in the little heart to heart over suspicious pie. I would have preferred that to have been touched on more obliquely, rather than in such a straight up light-hearted way.  And I think I was still just a little weirded out about the previous scene and both Loki and Mobius’ reactions to Brad.

The wider plot about trying to stop the destruction of the branched timelines seemed to come and go so quickly that I didn’t have the time to take in the gravity of the situation before the audience was asked to feel with so strongly as B15, Sylvie and everyone else at the TVA.  There were long lingering shots of people being sad that I wasn’t feeling the matching emotion for right then.  But perhaps I shouldn’t have watched this so late at night.  :p  I’ll have to give this another watch later on and see how it lands.

So it seems that the adventure in Episode 1 did manage to fix Loki’s time slipping problem.  So now I’m confused, because I’m sure there were shots in the trailer of this that we didn’t see in Ep 1.  Can anyone confirm?

So all in all, I still liked the episode, but it wasn’t as strong as the first one. And now that we've found Sylvie I curious to see where this is going to go.

Tagging a few folk: @sparklegemstone @scintillatingshortgirl19 @iamanartichoke, @pinkpondofasgard, @projectprotectloki @ladyofthestayingpower

[dojae-huh]

im more a fan of doyoung than of jaehyun so i’ll mostly talk about him.

as for music itself, it’s a really good, cohesive album. it tells a story, it’s not a collection of random songs in random order. to me the stand out tracks are from little wave, dallas love field and lost in california. my least favorite is warmth. i wish the track with taeyeon was a more intense, emotional song. beginning isn’t the best track on the album but it’s a perfect opening and it’s nice to see doyoung’s first official song writing effort get so much love. little light had to grow on me and i think the fanchant helps it a lot. overall, i’m glad doyoung didn’t go the mellow and safe ballad route that many people expected from him. i think youth is a strong first step to building a full fledged artistic identity. i’m still not bored of it, and i listen to it nearly daily.

it was a step away from doyoung’s idol persona towards an indie rock band frontman. i understand why his album isn’t very popular among international kpop fans - they (we?) were never the target audience. as a kpop release it lacked choreography, interesting visuals, cinematic mv. but it was really well received by domestic audience, non-kpop fans.

the most memorable contents were the documentary, dingo live where he did snippets of each song from the album, dingo storytime where he meets the fan. judging by how often i see people on kforums and ktwt say they got into doyoung during his solo era i guess they were effective. it was nothing innovative but there were quite a lot of viral moments - the open air showcase, the complicated fanchant, meeting the fan, lovesome festival, cute interactions with kiss of life girls at a radio show, hanging out with seventeen backstage. i liked the muk2u episode with mark and johnny as well.

i think that rather than showing new sides, doyoung confirmed things i always thought about him. i find his hard work and ambition inspiring. he really craves recognition. he wants his music to touch the hearts of many people. overall, i’m a satisfied customer. i feel like doyoung gained new confidence and improved as a performer and i’m looking forward to his future work. i’d like to see him do some jazz and a dreamy, ethereal sound. maybe have a more interesting mv.

i’m not really into rnb and i didn’t love jh’s lab releases so i didn’t have high expectations that i’d love his solo. and i didn’t. smoke was quite forgettable. my favorite bsides were completely because of the piano and can’t get you. i don’t really have strong opinions about other songs. i haven’t yet had time to check out much of jh’s promo contents but i get the impression that he wanted to show who he is as a person, something he hasn’t really had opportunity to do before. i watched his lmj service and i remember thinking that he’s a really awkward guy, lol. he chose some popular programs to appear on, it will be interesting to see if it’ll result in domestic fandom growth in the long term.

Firstly, I wholeheartedly agree with your last paragraph about Doyoung. For me as well there were no new surprising sides (maybe a reminder about some of his traits I see rarely or tend to forget), rather, the idea of his character I had became sharper, in a better focus.

I also agree that the three song you listed (From little wave, Dallas love field and Lost in california) are, probably, the strongest tracks on the album. Maybe not something new (my friend dismissed LinC as american sound copycat, heh), but with its own bright character that can leave an impression without understanding the lyrics. FLW is not in a genre I like, however, it makes me like it because of a powerful charge it has.

Never expected a ballad album from Doyoung. I really think this idea came from the fans who joined recently.

You know, after reading an overview of LSM's musician/producer/visionary history, it really sinked how musically backwards SK was and continue to be. Yes, k-pop is something bright and fresh for the world, however, in the country itself it is a subgenre that not many people listen to. It's not just that Doyoung deviated from his idol image (hard to digest for old fans), he couldn't go all out with a new sound if he wanted gp to like him. DY Track and the NCT jazz medley for the concert showed he is interested in even more creative things as a musician and a vocalist. I think now that he proved to himself the public approves of his ideas, he will be brave enough to go further towards creating his own distinctive sound.

Could you list which moments and ideas caught the most attention among knetizens? What worked best?

[xx-slug-xx]

lol they are talking me about my post regarding sexual fantasies not equating real life sexual desires ;)

I’m sorry, but I’m baffled by the fact that people lack critical thinking skills so much that they cannot understand that I was explicitly talking about fantasy in the sexual context. That’s why the deffiniton of fantasy I my post is the same as sexual fantasy. That is the deffiniton I am useing in the context of the post, not that fantasy only means something sexual. I cannot believe I have to make sure that’s clear, holy shit I didn’t think it was necessary either given context clues. I did not mention other types of fantasy’s in the original post because I just didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t relevant to me at the time. I did discuss other sorts of fantasies in reblogs of the post though.

And I stand by my point that, yes, if someone tells someone that their sexual fantasy’s equal real life desires 100% of the time, it is absolutely queerphobic. If I need to explain why, for the second time, I would be more than happy to.

They are correct, fantasies are normal, everyone has them. Aces can even have sexual fantasies without actually wanting to have sex irl. That’s the point of my post. The fact that they were unable to understand that I made a post that supports their claims tells me that literacy is dead smh.

The fact that they call my pinned “questionable” is proof to me that they have no clue what they are talking about. At the very least, I really don’t see why my pinned would be questionable. Is it because I’m proship? Prokink? Do I support the very things that make them feel yucky and they don’t understand that yucky mess doesn’t mean the same as bad? Who knows. Smh this person wasn’t my target audience I guess :/

I feel like peoples critical thinking skills have gone down the drain tbh

Also, the only reason I’m being at all mean to op is because they made some kinda nasty comments towards me, gave me a deffiniton for “fantasy” as if I don’t know what that word means, made this vague post about me, and blocked me so I couldn’t reply or do anything. I’m just being petty in the face of pettiness basically. I will not be giving out any name and if y’all find it, don’t engage, I’m mostly just complaining lol especially when they could have just ignored me if I bothered them so much. Or like, idk, asked me directly to clear things up since it seems like they misunderstood my post completely :/

[pissfizz]

Thoughts on the new miraculous movie as someone who has never consumed any miraculous media before

Firstly, those songs were awful and really detracted from the plot. Like they were distracting and annoying and most were bad and the better ones were just alright, and they all kind of got in the way of the plot which is really annoying. But oh well.

Secondly, it has occurred to me that I have no idea what age range the target audience for this franchise is. It appears to be aimed a lot younger than I initially thought, which excuses some of the jokes and the incredibly on the nose messaging.

The jokes ranged from awful to painful but in a humorous way (some of those cat noir puns hurt but got a laugh out of me). Overall what you’d expect from kids media though so it’s not too bad. Very much disliked the fart jokes regardless though.

And to be honest. I can see why adrien has such a massive fan base I really started to like him over the course of the movie. He’s fun and sad and I like him. Marienette however. She was kind of annoying but idk if that’s because of the songs and the fact I didn’t really like her voice or because of her character. I’d have to watch the show to determine that one.

The plot itself was incredibly on the nose and the pacing was a little weird. I don’t have much issue with the plot though, since it is targeted to a young audience, but it also suffered a bit from the way kids movies nowadays tend to talk down to their audience and think they’re too stupid to understand something if it’s not said outright. That was a bit annoying, but otherwise it was solid I think. The pacing definitely could’ve used a bit of work, and I don’t know how I felt about the ending and Gabriel hawkmoth guy being defeated so easily.

The visuals however. Spectacular. Beautiful. Amazing. Every shot was so incredibly beautiful it was insane. Definitely carried the movie, it looked so good…

Ofc I must say a special shoutout to cat noirs bell because it made me laugh many times.

Now I must say something about other miraculous media: how the fuck does this fit in. I went in thinking it was a prequel but like. Is it not?? Is it like entirely separate and just speedran the entire fucking show or something?? I’m incredibly confused by that aspect I’m ngl. I have very many questions about that but I don’t know if I wanna put myself through the entire show lol. I was so stressed out by the love square in just this hour and a half long movie I can’t imagine sitting through like six seasons or however many there are. Y’all who did are the real ones you guys impress me that must take some incredible stamina.

Overall, I liked it. It was a fun movie and the visuals were so so stunning and I really liked adrien and thought his and marienettes relationship was actually pretty cute. Hated the fact that is was a musical like it’d be different if the songs were actually good but. They aren’t. I may be being a bit over critical for a kids movie but I know kids movies can be better it’s happened time and again so I have no qualms about it. But yeah the visuals carried, the songs and the pacing dragged it down immensely (unfortunately those two things go hand in hand). But yeah. A pretty alright movie and made me a bit more intrigued about the show. Idk if I’ll ever watch it but I’m certainly intrigued, that’s for sure.

[alarrytale]

I hope critics still aren’t having a go at Taylor!! The movie came out over a month ago lol.

Also, Taylor’s acting in the coming out scenes, the argument scene with Ellen and then with Henry was amazing.

Hi!

No, i don't think they still are. I haven't seen it at least. Also film critics mean nothing. Half of them were straight males who didn’t even want to try to understand the importance of the movie and that it is a romcom, not a drama, with a young female target audience. His good looks is working against him being taken seriously as an actor. People were rightfully dragging them on twitter for it.

Those scenes were my favourites too! I also loved his flirting with Miguel in the café and the pouty face, stuck in the supply closet with your enemy/childhood crush scene!

[pop-pop-pop-popculture]

‘The Little Mermaid’ Review

The title was unamusing. I like what’s on the poster, and I don’t understand why it wasn’t in the film.

The acting felt dull from some people throughout the film, especially when it comes to tone in voice and facial expressions.

Daveed’s Jamaican accent wasn’t as dramatic and deep as Samuel’s, but I could still tolerate it.

Halle nailed “Part of Your World”, and one thing I loved alongside her singing was the emotion and, in some parts, her facial expression, especially towards the end where Ariel was getting more upset that she couldn’t bring her dreams to life. Way to go, Halle!

I love how we heard Ariel’s thoughts in “For The First Time” and then she realized she couldn’t speak after Prince Eric asked her what her name was.

Physical appearance-wise, I still wish a 20 year-old with blue eyes (and pale skin) was casted as Eric, but Jonah was good.

Speaking of him, why did most everyone have a British accent?

I was unimpressed with “Under the Sea” vocally and visually. It was more extra and vibrant in the animated film, and in this film it just felt meh to me. However, I did like how Ariel joined in towards the end.

I enjoyed Melissa’s portrayal of Ursula. 

“Poor Unfortunate Souls” gets a 7/10 from me.

In the live-action version, Ursula made Ariel forget that she had to make Eric fall in love with (and then kiss) her within three days, which I really, really liked. And so, because of that, Ariel and Eric’s likeness for each other was authentic and not rushed. They were (and are) so cute together!

Once Eric realized he had something in common with Ariel, that was when a bond began to form as well as feelings. No romance yet, in my opinion.

I love how Eric was still worried about Ariel even while under Ursula’s spell during the day he was supposed to announce his engagement.

The scene where Ariel and Eric are in his study room and they’re going over a map together.

Jessica [Alexander] as Vanessa. Oh my God... . That maniacal laugh...! She was barely in the film (obviously), but I loved every second.

Ariel helping Max into the boat after the shipwreck.

“The Scuttlebutt” was not terrible or good, but actually kind of fun and ...cute. A little cringe and dumb too, lol, but it’s not as bad as people say or think it is. Keep in mind, however, that the target audience for this film IS children, so props to my man for knowing his target audience.

Eric collected things from under water to put in his study room whereas Ariel collected things that fell from above water to put in her underwater tunnel...room...thing. They’re nerds, and I love it.

“Les Poissons” was not in the film, and I was low-key looking forward to that scene! So, I’m going to debunk an ongoing rumor right now: Lin-Manuel Miranda is NOT Chef Louis, because the chef wasn’t even in the movie.

Speaking of Miranda, I’m honestly surprised he didn’t make a cameo. I bet that was hard for him to resist since this is his favorite Disney film, but, with all due respect, I’m happy he resisted (if the temptation was even there).

Grimsby kicking the ring away because he ships Eric and Ariel. And I can’t can’t stan him for that.

Ariel telling Eric what her name is through the constellations. Brilliant idea! And then him saying it was ‘written in the stars’.

The CGI wasn’t that bad...

I don’t know why, but I didn’t think the scene where Ursula becomes ginormous and comes out of the water prior to getting a hold of King Triton’s triton was going to make it in the film, but it did, and I was impressed with the scene. I only say that because another villain who had a dramatic change towards the end was Jafar, who turned into a ginormous cobra before his battle with Aladdin. Well, that didn’t happen in the live-action film, and it was the only scene I was looking forward to!

Lack of emotion in tone from most everyone (except Jessica who portrayed Vanessa).

Ursula had some comedic lines, but it was genuine than forced. Melissa did not disappoint.

I wish “Daughters of Triton” was in the film :( ‘And presenting the distinguished court composer, Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian!’ [off-key kazoo plays while he comes out, and nobody is clapping or cheering 😂]

King Triton telling Ariel “You shouldn’t have had to given up for your voice for me to hear you.” That was so sweet! However, she was trying to talk to him about this more than once beforehand, but he kept getting mad and interrupting her...

*IMDb shows “You shouldn’t have to give up your voice to be heard.”, so maybe that was it. Sorry!*

I didn’t like that Flounder and Scuttle joined in on “Kiss the Girl”. Also, a lot of sea creatures joined sang with Sebastian in the animated film (after all, he is a music composer), but in the live-action version, it was only Sebastian, Scuttle and Flounder.

Compared to the animated film, visually, I was unimpressed with “Kiss the Girl”.

Jodi Benson made a cameo!!!!

The last scene post-Ursula’s defeat didn’t make me cry out loud, but I was definitely crying on the inside. It was so sweet!

Overall, I give the film a 8/10 despite the bland acting and lack of facial expressions and tone in voice from most everyone (except Jessica and, to an extent, Melissa). However, if you do not take the original, animated film into consideration and do not compare it to the live-action, then I give this a 10/10.

• June 4, 2023 •

[thedevilsrain]

Ya as a Jew the Nazi shit in From Eroica with Love is very uncomfortable, with what I’ve read so far it’s not….the worst, but i would much prefer it if Aoike didn’t include that nazi shit at all (and I’m pretty sure canonically Klaus’s father was a Nazi officer sooooo -_-)

In my opinion if goyim are gonna include nazis (or Nazi analogues) in their story then they must be able to write a full page essay on why their bad and include that in the story, even if it’s just a throwaway line. Idk man I’d like to enjoy my gay led zep art thief manga without being reminded that their r ppl out their who want me dead :/

Ya sry if that got too tense ;^;

-🪺

oh i absolutely feel the same way 💀💀

like why even make klaus come from a military background in the first place, thats already making it 10 times more uncomfortable considering the series takes place in the 80s, and his father would have been an adult in the 1940s. like just make his dad be a conservative or something

the whole thing with his father is. to me. a plot hole the size of the sun, and i'm putting my whole analysis under the cut, because it's quite long, and its hard to talk about

so pretty early in the series, in ''dramatic spring'' specifically, theres this uncomfortable moment where eberbach is called a nazi, and he corrects (and threatens) the american who does it, adding that his dad was in the national defense army

so yknow. okay, fine, that's settled, thank god. you can judge me for this, but i'm not going to bother to looking that army up - as a writer, i think, you should be able to tell your audience "hey my character and his family arent fucking nazis"

and then after this, theres more than one instance where eberbach punches nazis - to show that, deep down, he surpasses the bare minimum to be a normal person

(from "glass target")

BUT then. comes the kicker. and i was reading this chapter yesterday so i might still be processing it from how wild it was

edit: forgot to mention lol, this chapter is "seven days in september", part 3

mischa the bear cub, who hates the major's guts (understandable), and has literally called him a nazi TO HIS FACE (no comment), decides that their final showdown will be in el alamein - one of the first battles in the war where the germans lost

he even makes a comment that, eberbach's dad being a tank commander himself, would be ashamed of this battle ever being brought up

and then you think ha! well mischa surely youre about to get your ass handed to you (personally i like him), because the major's dad was in the national defense army, and not, in fact, a nazi

but then the author COMPLETELY backtracks herself (and i'll dig into this deeper). and when eberbach, nazi puncher extraordinaire, sees that mischa lured him into el aIamein, not only is he ashamed, but he talks about it like it and its commander like its a tale of lost glory, instead of being a tale of, yknow, a nazi commander losing the war

(the gag with james is funny though)

he literally says it hurt his pride! he doesnt even bring up anything about being compared to nazis!

and then as if this chapter didnt give 15 consecutive blows to my stomach (and klaus' likeability), mischa was actually right - not only was eberbach's dad ashamed by the (nazi) loss in eI aIamein, klaus has constantly heard about this story since he was a child. eberbach's father, national defense army, was embarrassed and ashamed by the nazi loss in eI aIamein. eberbach, nazi puncher, got his pride hurt because he was reminded of how the nazis lost one of their first battles. end of chapter.

but, heres an honest conclusion, from yours truly. i might be mean

while i think this chapter is... mostly, fine (i really dislike when eberbach becomes much more important than dorian in arcs, because dorian really is a lifesaver), this chapter, "seven days in september" part 3, is absolutely the worst of the series

at best, it is utterly embarrasing to do research this flimsy, and not know what 'the germans' were really doing in the north of africa in ww2, and at worst, its almost ahistorical or apolitical. notice that in most of these screencraps, and i doubt this was just a thing the translators did, its always "the germans" "the german tanks" and "the story of The General". there is literally no mention of the word 'nazi' in this chapter, even when, at least now in 2023, most of us know what ''the allies'' were doing to fight ''the germans'' in the north of africa

but, to ge back to the characters, i cant stress enough how just appaled i am at how apolitical this is, how its simply a matter of 'eberbach is embarrassed cause germans lost a battle here', and not, well, what the text says

the worst part is that like, it REALLY did not have to be like this. this could have easily been another cringe (but understandable, given how openly conservative eberbach is) scene of mischa comparing him to the lowest of the low, and then eberbach saying "ha! i'm not. fuck you"

but, for some reason i literally could not understand, aoike went with this. she went with this, and i'm 100% putting the blame all on her, because i cant tell you how easy it is to NOT make your main action hero be a nazi. because she knows how easy it is - she's done it more than once

honestly, for my own sanity, and for the sake of this character and even the series as a whole, i'm going to be completely erasing this horrible chapter from my mind and pretend it doesnt exist - i Of Course dont expect this of everyone, but to me this chapter is so out of nowhere, filled with such a big a plot hole, that i think it's easier to pretend it doesn't exist, rather than try and justify it. and i would never try to justify something like this

thats it from gio with love byeeeeeeee

[moonmoonfairy]

I wrote the following as a comment to a YouTube video reacting to video about shipping in K-pop relating to BTS. The comments on this video have since been turned off and I spent a long time writing it and thought I should share it where someone else might enjoy reading it. It comes off as very Intro to Shipping 101 because they genuinely did not understand why someone might ship, so tumblr users wouldn’t be the target audience for this post but oh well lol. Warning: this became a LONG comment which practically grew into an essay about shipping culture with a lot of gray areas, if you’re looking for black and white opinions about what is right and wrong, you will not find it here. I do offer my opinions on the subject, but who am I really? I’m just offering a look into different perspectives. With that out of the way, let’s get into it. 

I think there is some nuance to the shipping conversation as there is a spectrum of experiences with it. BTS is the first fandom I’ve been a part of where there was Real People Shipping (RPS), every time I had seen shipping before becoming an army was with fictional characters from books, tv shows, and movies. With young people reading less, and media literacy on the decline, I have noticed an uptick in the amount of RPS. Not that it didn’t exist before, but it certainly feels more common now with reality shows, musicians, costars, and YouTubers posting more of their private lives and/or using fanservice as a form of promotion (or this could also possibly be another case of the internet making things that were once more hidden/niche more visible, but I digress). I think the majority of shippers are teenagers and young adults who have yet to experience a romantic relationship in real life using shipping as an outlet for figuring out their blossoming sexualities. Women and queer folks especially have their sexuality stigmatized by society, it can feel safer for them to project their feelings onto someone else that is unobtainable. For straight girls, if both of the people they’re shipping are male, it can feel even safer because then they are equals (in many places it can feel like there is an inherent power imbalance between men and women because of societal norms) and because of heteronormativity, male/male ships can feel less likely to be true and therefore non threatening for those that self insert themselves into these ideas. I think this is normal and most people that do this grow out of it and feel embarrassed about it as they do. I don’t think it’s wrong for them to do this, it is certainly safer than exploring their sexualities in real life especially if they aren’t ready, and although I would prefer they do this with fictional characters, that isn’t a realistic expectation with how young people are consuming media. 

It can become dangerous when they head into conspiracy theory territory. As can be seen in the comments of many army spaces, these shippers are often mocked and othered which only strengthens their bond as a group, which can be very cult like. People prone to falling for conspiracy theories are generally a bit gullible and at their core just want to be special. They feel special for seeing what others don’t, and it provides them a community that makes them feel even more special and seen. In the case of Taekook or Jikook (and most musician based RPS) they have a ‘bad guy’ like ‘the company’ or just generally ‘homophobia’ they get to blame and try and fight for justice, they get to play the hero. I do not think these shippers are the majority, they are just the loudest, because they can’t think they are wrong or they will have wasted a lot of time and energy and essentially made a fool of themselves over nothing. You will most likely not be able to convince these types of shippers that their ship isn’t real unless you have an understanding of psychology and/or cult deprogramming. I would like to point out that I do not think Taekook and Jikook shippers are the only shippers behaving like this, I am just using them as an example, and I am aware of other shippers behaving this way. [ETA: I would like to point out that I initially only listed Taekook shippers in this section because when I first started following BTS they were THE conspiracy theory shippers, and Jikook shippers were generally viewed as more rational and casual, but since chapter 2 and the decrease in content, I’ve noticed a lot of Jikook shippers going down the conspiracy theory road so I amended it to more accurately reflect the current shipping trends.]

My biggest issue with these conversations against this type of shipping, which can be seen in your video, is that it is almost always rooted in homophobia. Another type of shipper is a queer person who sees themselves in someone they admire. From what I’ve seen, a lot of the time these shippers as the most casual. They say things like, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they came out, but I also don’t expect it,” sometimes they see themselves and how they behave with their partners in how some of the members interact. I think what gets lost here is the difference in cultural norms. What may be interpreted as romantic interest in one person’s thinking, turns out to be something straight guy friends do in South Korea (SK). 

There are two sides of the coin here in shipping in K-pop, fanservice, and how it’s interpreted. The first side of this coin is that everything really is just platonic. ‘Shipping’ as a term in SK means enjoying two of the members chemistry as friends, it isn’t romantic. Heteronormativity is stronger there because SK as a country is more conservative. It is playful for them and as fans we do enjoy it, it can just get misunderstood in different countries. Something that gets lost in these discussions about shipping, is that most of the time, casual shipping is just silly and fun. It’s fun to see two people being cute and genuinely enjoying each other’s company. This is a big part of why BTS is so popular.

We cannot disregard the fact that fanservice IS apart of the job in K-pop. A lot of people get upset when this is pointed out, shippers or not. It does not actually undermine their relationships to point this out because two things can be true at once. They can be close and good friends, and be playfully flirty on stage as fanservice. There are those who take it too far and shout fanservice at every interaction between certain members and that is annoying, but they are often stuck in those cult like thought circles, and again shaming these people will not convince them otherwise.

The second side of that coin is: gay people do exist everywhere in the world, maybe it’s not crazy to think one or more of the members might be queer. Something that bothers me is the argument that the members would be disgusted to be shipped with each other. First of all, they expect it because it is common in K-pop, and often feed into it. The members know that they are shipped and continue to behave in ways they know will be enjoyed in this way. An anecdote here: growing up I had a best friend that people often questioned whether or not we were together. We were not bothered when people thought this about us, we were not disgusted, we thought it was funny and often played into it because we knew what our relationship was to each other. I really want people who say the members would be disgusted that they’re shipped together to ask themselves: What if two of them are together or even just one of the members are queer, and they see millions of people saying that it’s disgusting. How would that make them feel? Although, if any of them are queer, they’re likely used to seeing this kind of thinking, but still, it probably sucks to constantly be faced with the fact that you’ll feel trapped in the closet forever. I think it best not to assume either way, straight or queer. We always see, “you shouldn’t assume,” targeted at those that discuss the possibility of one of the members being queer, but then those same people assume that they’re straight. 

If one of them is queer, they are closeted in a conservative country which can be very scary. If they are queer they are not obligated to out themselves and be a queer icon. Not just their lives would be affected by their coming out, the company, the other members, any other brands they work with, and their families and friends could be affected. With this in mind it is understandable why someone might want to stay closeted. The reason not to ship real life people should be that they are real people who deserve privacy, dignity, and respect, not because two guys together is “disgusting.” One or more of them could be queer, they could all be straight, maybe one of them is ace. Unless they tell us, we won’t know for sure, and people maybe shouldn’t go digging to try and put a label on them that they aren’t willing to put on themselves, but with how people view celebrities and their right to privacy, this type of speculation isn’t going to go away and it is quite frankly unrealistic to think that it could.

As a somewhat unrelated final point targeted more generally at homophobia in army spaces: BTS are artists, their art, music, videos, photos, and words are going to be speculated about, and people are going to dissect and discuss and relate to them in any number of ways. People want to connect with other people. No one person’s lived experience is universal, but we still seek to relate ourselves and our experiences to others so we don’t feel so alone. One of the biggest ways we do that is through media and art. I don’t think any of the BTS members would be upset if a queer army related to a lyric, or song, etc. I think they’d be glad that that army felt seen. Even if none of the members are queer, I think they have shown themselves to at the very least be allies.

If you read all of that, wow, you’re amazing, and I appreciate you. I hope it made sense and I hope you have a lovely day 💜

[hazbinbabbling4ever]

Sorry to put discourse on people’s dashes, but this actually interests me because I’ve always been fascinated by fandom history, so long rant and personal experiences from the fandom of yore under the cut.

It’s easy to forget how it was in the fandom/on the internet 20 years ago, or maybe people weren’t even alive in that time (I know I was a child back in 2002), but fandom even from just 10-15 years ago was VASTLY different. People didn’t have access to authors like here on tumblr, authors didn’t know fandom spaces at all because they didn’t have access/weren’t invited in fandom spaces for obvious reasons (accessibility, general internet stranger danger distrust, etc.). They had no idea what slash even was, probably. Also, the word slash actually reminded me of my first experiences with fanfiction in fandom, and in general my first approach with queer media/rep as a teen questioning my identity. In the 2000s we didn’t have many gay characters in mainstream media: the ones we had were either super stereotypical and always doomed to be unhappy or just outright homophobic caricatures. So if we queers wanted some general rep, we had to go to fandom to find them: my first forage into queer stories was slash fiction, and I’m sorry to say it was mind boggling to me how most of it seemed to be either explicit fanfictions written by hetero women for other hetero women (basically lesbian p**n but in reverse), or yaoi, which had A LOT of problematics like the romanticization of ra** and other unsavory things, that were passed as romance. For a queer teenager like me, who was questioning their identity, finding only this content was a huge put off. I only wish we had all the rep we have now. This is to mean, that in light of this all, I understand why an author who doesn’t even know what fanfiction is, could find slash mind boggling. It sure did boggle my mind how I could only find nice and cute romances in the hetero mainstream media (or even in fanfiction), and all the queer romances were choke full of toxic traits and problematic story lines or always sad and stereotyped, both in mainstream media and fanfiction. Which, for the most part, was even worse (it was made by adults for adults, mostly, so I understand why I was grossed out at the time, but still... Having basically no queer rep in mainstream media sucked, and turning to fanfiction and seeing how it was mostly written by hetero people treating queer romance as a literary device to write their specific fetishistic p**n felt very weird... Like having allies but they fetishize you in the process. Guess that’s how lesbians felt by having visibility only when fetishized by horny hetero dudes). Sorry for the rambling but in conclusion, I was a woman, so I didn’t even feel like directly targeted by all the slash fiction (which had another huge problematic, the complete lack of female queer couples, as it was mostly hetero women writing about men, and even if you had queer women writing the stories, they still focused on men), I can only imagine how gay or bi men felt at being represented in fandom only as a weird fetish category for hetero women. At the same time, I was subconsciously searching for any kind of queer content, even if it wasn’t the rep I might have wanted (queer romances with women/female presenting people), but beggars can’t be choosers I guess. It was kind of a mess, and it’s oodles better now: you’ve still got the hetero women writing about m/m p**n, and that’s fine if it works for them, but fanfiction has a lot more queer people writing and it has improved vastly over the years, thanks to actual queers bringing their experiences into the fandom. I felt like an idiot for not liking most of the explicit/implied slash fanfiction I read, or the toxic tropes, or not liking yaoi (got called homophobic more than once for pointing out that lol) specifically, NOW I know most fanfiction just lacked the queer perspective/wasn’t intended for queer audiences anyways. Now we have fandoms like good omens, where you can play and write with the characters and make them women or female presenting or whatever, and it still boggles my mind how far we’ve come, that even an author wants to incorporate queer rep into his successful show. I guess that in a sense, I still find slash fiction mindboggling, albeit with a different meaning now lol.

Hello!! I have a question about the ending of s2 ep6 (loved the season by the way!!)

What lead you to making Crowley kiss aziraphale? In the past i recall you mentioning that you felt unsure to stray too far from the original material or say anything new about their relationship without Terry Pratchett being here so i wonder what caused you to change your mind? Not complaining, just curious :)

I said I wasn't going to change anything about the nature of their relationship in the first book, and I didn't. I know what Terry and I had planned for the sequel, though.

[celebritynewsinusa]

Selena Gomez's Defiant Stance Post-VMAs: Rising Above Viral Moments

Selena Gomez's memorable moments during the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards not only sent social media into a frenzy but also sparked a resolve in the pop singer. The Internet is no stranger to creating memes, and Gomez, unfortunately, became its target post-VMAs.

Viral Moments at VMAs

The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, witnessed a string of high-profile attendees, vibrant performances, and unexpected moments during this year's VMAs. Amidst all the glam and glitz, Selena Gomez's reactions to some of the night's events caught the public eye. Confusion was evident on Gomez's face during Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” performance, a deliberate stage malfunction that seemed to take many by surprise. Social media platforms, especially the platform X (previously known as Twitter), were flooded with reactions. "Selena’s face during Olivia’s performance says it all," quipped one user.

Gomez’s Clarity on the Situations

Being a seasoned artist in the entertainment world, Gomez didn’t shy away from clarifying the context behind her reactions. Responding to comments on a BuzzFeed Celeb Instagram post, she mentioned a loud noise during Rodrigo’s act that startled her. Moreover, during the nomination reading for the Best R&B category, her subtle reaction to Chris Brown’s name drew attention. Addressing the buzz around it on an iHeartRadio AU Instagram post, she casually penned, “Who cares lol.”

The Shadows of Past Controversies

Chris Brown, whose name was associated with the R&B category, has seen his share of the limelight not only for his music but also for past controversies. His arrest in 2009 for assaulting Rihanna made international headlines, and his tumultuous relationship with the pop star has been a topic of discussion multiple times.

A Night of Triumphs for Gomez

Despite the minor hiccups and discussions surrounding her reactions, Gomez had reasons to celebrate. Bagging the VMA trophy for Best Afrobeats for her collaboration with Rema on “Calm Down” was a moment of honor. She took the opportunity to thank her collaborator, Rema, and expressed her gratitude towards her fans and the love from Nigeria. Furthermore, this isn't Gomez’s first tryst with a VMA win. In 2013, she was awarded Best Pop Video for her chartbuster "Come and Get It".

Candid Moments with Taylor Swift

Beyond the stage and awards, the VMAs also saw Gomez sharing a light-hearted moment with close friend Taylor Swift. Gomez's Instagram Story featured a playful comparison of their looks for the evening, which was endearing for many fans. Swift, exuding her 'Reputation' era vibes in a black Versace dress, made history with her own set of awards, proving once again her indomitable presence in the music industry. In conclusion, while the VMAs of 2023 will be remembered for various reasons, Gomez's declaration of "I will never be a meme again" reminds us of the double-edged sword that fame can be. It's an invitation for us, the audience, to be more empathetic and understanding towards the celebrities we love.   Read the full article

[viviennevivisection]

Session 28 - “Breaking the News” - 3/5/23

-We’re doing something a little different to start this session -- a scene for the audience! 

-A home office, a TV, flipping through channels. Landing on the evening news (Channel 3). THERE’S A BIRD PERSON? K. Roberts -- the news anchor. Topics of interest: rising oceans levels, mobile phone location services saving a life, pollen (?), someone from KT coming to be interviewed

-Also Porcia Eaton (a bug bear) is reporting live from Corsica 

-Calling the ambulance is what gave us away -- since they couldn’t reach the town 

-There’s a whole load of arcane investigators (pigs) trying to figure out what happened 

-They tried to call me back after the ambulance couldn’t get in and we were plane shifted (lol) 

-A voice is heard from off camera: “Dinner, my love?” 

-The person watching recorded the news broadcast

-This is almost certainly Fleur and Holloway 

-Oran is not sure if it’s back (?) (The town, maybe?) → if this the case, we were, Naomi plane shifted the town back last sesh 

-The soul trees are still here 

-The pools are in fact all connected, built on ley line hot spots. Asking if Oran can teach Naomi how to use them so we can fast travel 

-They did in fact use the pools to do the “baptisms” → separate the target’s divinity, their impulsive side, the “in tune” side → feed it to the Cor and allow them to be controlled 

-The Bestowing was the reunion of the two sides, a brutal ritual… the other selves were usually hungry 

-Come on, ritual sacrifice! 

-Whitmer sourced these sacrifices 

-The malevolent force (feeling of being watched, quicksand, etc) is gone 

-Our teleportation back didn’t feel as intense (not shifting planes)

-Asking about the fangs

-The [goal of the Collection was to study and document the] evolution of religion over time in order to figure out ascension

-Re: Coranimas, the body became less of an expression and more literal. People started to view vampires as being “afflicted” with a sickness 

-And vampirism at its core was “stealing” the body of others

-In the past, there was a change toward powerful, “supernatural” creatures

-They were welcome and living among the general population until they were not 

-When attitudes changed toward them, they fled and claimed The Wild Lands 

-Oran somehow did/does not know about Naomi’s formative Wild Lands Trip (seems it was an off-book decision) 

-Naomi asked Oran to crack the cipher on his diary and he…didn’t want to (which is understandable lol) 

-Oran is #confirmed a druid 

-There is now knowledge that Oran cannot access following the death of the Cor 

-Oran is the direct bloodline descendant of a powerful druidic circle 

-Whitmer had a huge research focus on druids and druidic rituals 

-Why aasimar, then? → theorized to be needed for ascension, a concentration of the divine 

-All of the Coralogia had their own offices, Whitmer’s is magically protected 

-Naomi gave Oran his diary back 

-The sigil on Whitmer’s office recognized her touch but will murder anyone else 

-Naomi can recall the Cor souls ?? 

-She crushed a flower from the Grove in her hands, as the petals fall they disappear before hitting the ground 

-The energy coalesces into a dark figure, looks similar to Dark Cass? 

-This figure touches the door and it explodes 

-They’re still there…everybody that was in the Cor. I just know they’re there anew -- the people who should have been dead → I think Naomi said this 

-The spell was conjuration and divine in nature

-The Hive Mind still exists just not in the form of the Cor? Not tied to the elder brain, but tied to the Grove 

-A shared roots system 

-Cass picked the lock on Whitmer’s office (I think this is the first lock we’ve ever picked?? It’s not -- the first was Mira’s bedroom. This is the second) 

-The room is similar to Oran’s office -- however, the room is uncharacteristically messy. This is the office of a very desperate person 

-Lots of work stuff -- resumes from prospects, ungraded papers from undergrads (focus on history and religion) 

-Stuff about druids 

-She had a list of papers to check on a visit to Aurora 

-A study from a student, 25-30 years ago (this is almost certainly Ellie) 

-”Sources of the Divine” 

-Also researching the auroras 

-The supernova? 

-VE called the library -- every single one of these papers are in the “special collection” and can only be accessed in person 

-Cass is looking for secret shit 

-Whitmer has a record of high performing students that dropped out recently 

-A record of Corsican citizens along with key secrets that could be used for blackmail 

-The Golden Angels have a special mark and more information than most other people 

-Rebecca Horn (the GA before Naomi) → Miles Horn. She was very bright and had an extremely protective and intelligent father 

-Whitmer’s personal journal → she was trying to identify for the deal was made with

-Cass’ research is certainly here 

-During the Cor fight, Cass tried to reach Corcillum and got Sonos -- he didn’t go anywhere, he was just changed 

-Sonos on the TV? 

-Whitmer has no love for TC, saw them as a necessary evil

-Everything they found about arcane tech got handed to TC 

-An ascension arms race 

-Whitmer had a specific TC contact: Alestra Haldia → we have her email 

-Whitmer has a laptop 

-The TC emails are all encrypted, use a lot of coded language 

-Most recent email is from about a week ago, regarding Rylar’s position 

-Regularly met up in person to speak (at Silver Echoes Park) 

-DN has known who N has been praying to this whole time 

DN: “It’s us, it’s always been us. What do you mean?”

-DN is typing on Whitmer’s laptop?  

-When N asked for help she saw DN? But she wasn’t TRYING to…? 

-VE cast magic circle, and Cass casted legend lore from the scroll (from like session 2) focusing on Saetus 

-Cass’ magic is present, the dusty violet motes 

-At first, nothing seems to happen. We notice that the ceiling fan has stopped. We feel an unnatural stillness. Oran, in the doorway, is frozen. A ball of light. The feeling of magical pressure. Twisting and turning. Standing in a vast, limitless space, like outer space. Surrounded by stars. As we look at them, they start to move, rearrange themselves into constellations that turn into actual images and scenes. 

1) Several figures. Different time periods. Dissolving and reforming into the next. We don’t recognize any of them, until the last one. Helen Smith. She extends a hand. (This is the evolution of the hosts of Saetus). 

2) Zoom into a town. Woodvale! A very long time ago. A young Helen is drinking a sodie with her besties. 

3) HS at the church is Woodvale -- Ms. Moody is not there. HS’ mom is there. She is participating in service. 

4) The old one room school -- HS is furiously taking notes. Seems very studious. She drew a perfect sigil and then was able to cast the flame cantrip 

5) She’s traveling through the forest, using her flame cantrip as a torch. She stumbles upon a green, glowing stone (DIR). She is proud. 

6) An unfamiliar lab area -- Helen is there, tinkering with a device (the tech seems old to us). A professor is passing out graded assignments. Helen has failed. 

7) A dorm room. HS is at a desk, ruminating on the failing grade. Looking desolate. She’s writing a letter home. She has the DIR with her. It’s late at night. A hand has reached out to her, it is writing something for her. The stars blink out until we’re back in the empty space. 

8) (This last one was a peripheral image, we had to specifically spot it) Cass casting a spell outside WV -- at the bluffs. She has casted detect magic and we see DN push N off a cliff. (This was the moment where Cass was able to burn two spell slots, a more significant moment than we thought before.) 

-We’re back in this empty void space for a long time. Whatever this is…is significant. Darkness. Two points of light opposite from one another moving toward us

-Helen in her current state, she feels…different. This LOOKS like Helen Smith. The lights moving, we can’t quite comprehend them. We rationalize it as hands reaching out, like in the Woodvale mines. That is how we can understand it. The hands reach out and touch, but they are cupping something between them, protecting it. We are the thing being protected. 

-A blinding light of an explosion as the lights connect 

-The hands touching again 

-Most of them are the same as the last time, but Cass is shaking hands with Norman 

-Helen standing there smiling after our eyes readjust -- feels outside of the spell. That was really her! No problems there, I assume 

-We’re back in the office 

-The hand at the desk that was writing for HS, it was writing the designs for the first computer 

-There are a lot of parallels between Helen Smith and Cass 

-The shifting images of people at the beginning were like hosts than warlocks 

-Heading back to the Pritchard home 

-The news is right outside 

-The cops are blaming protestors, because of course they are (they specifically named The Vanguard (lol) and other eco-conscious groups) → we spoke with him for a period. Stupid, taking credit for saving everyone, obviously being fed what to say. We kind of caught him out in this. 

-We tried to lay low in terms of being on camera, didn’t give an interview but EXTREMELY snooped 

-We got a business card for the news people 

-Cass has disguised herself as the cop, using the Mira necklace to mimic his voice. Telling Porcia (the bug bear) that there has been a development in the case -- trying to get it record (they’re not live any more) 

-Cass as the cop said the cause of the disturbance was caused by a glitch in the Sonos program -- asking people to turn it off

Porcia: “What are you doing? you know we can’t fucking air that.”

Cass, disguised: “Do you ever feel bad about what we do?” 

Porcia: “No. 🙂”

-She’s an icon, idc 

-Calling an emergency town hall to…update everyone 

-Ezra locked their parents in their bedroom once they came back to themselves 

-Ellie did a quick check up on Leah, Ezra, and Adrien (who was a little shell shocked) 

-Adrien’s internal ley system was fully in tact, Leah and Ezra were still the same (Naomi is still in possession of their dark selves) 

-Naomi confronting her parents

N: “I assume all the work you did to stay in their good graces was so you could still speak once I was dead.” (To Cyrus) 

N: “Tell me everything.” 

-Johanna didn’t know 

-Cyrus lied straight to our faces

Johanna: “I remember. Now.”

-Cyrus looked to Leah to back up his bullshit, and she shot him down. Standing up to him. 

-Cyrus helped Whitmer source individuals to be fed to the Cor, and then stole their shit for the collection 

-Miles #confirmed was all but smunched (spared only to serve as an example) for trying to save Rebecca 

-Cyrus…is just a coward

-VE have a vial of ash from The Cor 

-Ellie told Naomi that E+L’s ley systems were still off, she returned their shadows back. Everyone is healed! 

-Ellie went to the bathroom to clean up before the meeting (we all looked like Hell). Pricked her finger on her fang, and dripped blood into the chalice. Trying to reach out to Vitalia. Suddenly feeling very aware of their breath, their heart beat. The air around them. The familiar static-like feeling. 

-The blood transformed into a red rose. Ellie whispered into it that she would help if asked

[thranduel]

we’ve had a heart-to-heart scene with karen and mike, joyce and will, jonathan and will but not nancy and mike…

i think the perfect thing would be a parallel to jonathan’s scene with will and how he told him he’ll always love him no matter what. it would be such a beautiful moment and it would be even more emotional because we don’t see scenes like that with nancy and mike. also, they’re both older and more mature now and they’ve experienced so many struggles so they’ll be able to understand each other more. back when they were young, they didn’t have anything in common and they just bickered all the time. it’ll also be nice to see something new and refreshing for once instead of the same old boring things. we’ll find out about mike’s struggles and his repressed feelings for will and why he has been acting a certain way for so long, and then nancy can be there to support him and tell him she loves him and that everything will be okay, just like jonathan did for will.

she can also remind him that they don’t have to live the same life as their parents. they don’t need to conform and get married and start a nuclear family like everyone else. it’s okay to be different and it’s okay to do things that people don’t expect. and obviously there’s nothing wrong with getting married and having kids if that’s what people truly want, but the sad truth is that so many people only do it because it’s expected of them and they feel automatically pressured into it, and then they don’t end up as happy as they could’ve been. that’s the big difference here. and that’s exactly what nancy and mike’s parents did, so obviously they don’t want to follow in their footsteps.

and the reason i love stranger things so much is because the target audience was always supposed to be people that are “different” or don’t fit into what society considers “the norm”. i mean, the show is literally called stranger things! and i think it’s great to see them calling out forced conformity and society’s expectations and having characters that just don’t fit in like everyone else. the quiet kids, the queer kids, the nerdy kids, the kids that have been outcasted and struggle to find a place where they belong. i love how it shows that it’s okay to be different and there’s always people out there that will love and accept you for who you are. will and robin have jonathan and steve who love and support them so much even if there’s people out there who don’t, el has a found family that took her in and cared for her after all the trauma she went through in the lab, eddie had hellfire club that loved him and admired him while the rest of society hated him and looked down on him, and many more things.

i just think it would be such a beautiful message and it would fit the theme of the show if we end up with a beautiful slowburn queer relationship between two of the main characters that have been best friends for most of their lives and understand each other better than anyone else. it would perfectly fit the queer slowburn childhood best friends to lovers trope AND the “it’s always been you” trope and i think that’s so incredibly beautiful. and no, i’m not saying “everything has to be gay” or “we can’t have straight couples” lol. that’s not the point. i just think that mike and will fit together better than anyone else and it would also make the most sense narratively, because it would explain mike’s behaviour and make him so much more loveable, realistic and people would actually understand him and what he’s been struggling with. also, will has been in love with mike from the very beginning and he has suffered every single season and has barely had a moment of happiness. he deserves to finally be with the boy he loves more than anything and i think mike deserves to be with the person he can be his true self around too. it would be one of the most beautiful and powerful endings to a show.

[prettyoddfever]

do you support brendon ?

Yes.

The yes/no answer isn’t as simple as it should be because the concept of “supporting Brendon” seems to be currently tied into a whole alternate reality that’s based on a whole mess of misunderstandings, rumors, lies, and other things that I don’t even know much about. I have next to no background info about events after 2010, so I can’t begin to pick out what might or might not be true. But the parts I’ve seen people talking about that do involve years I’m familiar with (anything before 2010) come from such a wildly misinformed alternate reality that the info basically only serves as a red flag to show how little those people actually know about the entire topic they’re speculating over. If their understanding of the pre-split band is so minimal that they truly believe some of the things they’re saying, then I’m not really inclined to trust their critical thinking skills about later years either lol. A lot of the other commentary I’ve seen about 2005-2009 basically just tells me that people are willing to take a topic they know next to nothing about, speculate over it in an echo chamber, feel validated because the internet appears to share their perspective, and then treat it like fact.

Some of the other current condemnation of Brendon seems to be coming from people who were born after 1991 and weren’t teenagers at the same time as Brendon. There’s a definite generational gap happening here in the perception of some events, so just bear with me while I go off on a tangent that might be relevant:

My generation is largely a product of the entertainment & culture we were fed at every angle.… not the masterminds of it. We were not born as inherently horrible people. The 2000s were fun at times and I’m nostalgic for a lot of aspects, but I also have to balance that nostalgia with the understanding that the culture was truly shitty in a lot of ways and pretty much only respected straight white cis men (but I feel like they were still harmed too in a strange way since they were taught a lot of toxic behaviors & mindsets). On a slightly related note: I went to film school for a year in 2008 and we were legit told that a Hollywood screenplay needed to have its target audience be “18-to-25-year-old white men.” None of my teachers were white (and very few were men), but that was still the rule… and my teachers acted like that was just how the world worked and you should roll with it if you wanted to have a job. I remember wondering if 18-to-25-year-old white men naturally wanted such a specific type of humor & content, or if Hollywood had taught them to want it in the first place. I went into more detail in this post too about how the culture in the early 2000s was toxic for teen girls and taught us to treat each other horribly.

Modern teen culture seems more individualistic than the teen culture that Brendon & I grew up in. These days people might view a comment that you make as a reflection of who you are, but back then it felt more like we mostly tried to conform to a handful of acceptable images and their expected norms. Your comments & actions gave away whether or not you were a poser... they were a reflection of how well you could fit into a specific group. Strangers, other kids at school, and corporations didn’t give a crap about you (and certainly not your “authentic self” lol). Based on conversations over the past decade with a lot of friends from all over the country, it felt like there was a small box of what was normal/acceptable in the early 2000s and most of us just tried to conform to that for the sake of not being bullied. I’d argue that the kids who went outside of that box of “normal” (ex: goth, emo, Avril Lavigne wannabes, etc) either still tried to conform to their group and were vicious about calling out posers, or else their identity was grounded in the fact that they were not conforming… which only reinforces how the overall culture was something that people were expected to generally conform to. (Ok side tangent: I don’t know how to categorize that large group of kids at every school who just wore colorful sneakers, flared jeans, some kind of unisex graphic tee that was probably for a band or from a school activity, hoodies, and maybe got chunky highlights in their hair but nothing too wild. They fit in but didn’t try too hard. Anyways, their personality or sense of humor usually still matched what was common/“normal”). In my own experience, it really wasn’t that hard to be popular back then (and thereby safe). You just wore the right clothes & hairstyle and adopted a personality & sense of humor that matched what people expected… and suppressed almost every aspect of yourself in the process lol. Nobody talked about mental health when I was in high school, but I’m positive that everyone I knew wasn’t as fine as we all pretended to be.

side note: when I talk about the “2000s” I’m mostly focusing on 2000-2006. I think the fashion, music, and culture in 2008 slowly shifts to feel more like the early 2010s. By 2008 tween magazines had also significantly cut back on the content that basically bullied female celebrities. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our culture started changing once sites like Tumblr & Twitter gained momentum throughout 2009 and people could access alternative views & ideas and converse with the world at large instead of the small bubble of people who already shared your interests on a specific forum. I don’t know how to phrase this, but there was a definite shift once ordinary people could direct the conversation online and could make their voices heard instead of just consuming the culture that was given to them. I’m not sure that teens these days fully grasp what the world was like before everyone was so connected… even just the concept of having internet and a cell phone in 2004 was very different from what that meant by 2007.

Teen culture was largely dictated to us by the media back then (in magazines, tv, MTV, movies, and other similar avenues that didn't have the ability for true dialogue or for their audience to have their voices heard regularly. There weren’t many decent books for teens, though, so we couldn’t even learn about diverse worldviews that way. Twilight eventually showed the publishing industry that young adults could be a very profitable niche, but it took many years to get the YA industry to what it is now. Also, the drama in YA books back then was like some white girl from a middle class family was anxious her classmates might discover she was “poor” and a poser, or whatever generic nonsense). Anyways, media showed us what to aspire to – we did not matter as individuals. These days there’s a much wider range of sources you can turn to for inspiration & ideas, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s some kind of overall homogeneous culture being dictated anymore. Social media has more power than a print magazine talking about last month’s events ever could (I know that algorithms mess with stuff and corporations buy out influencers etc, so I’m not saying that everything is perfect or trying to analyze anything on an intricate level here. I’m just pointing out how the channels that we get information through have expanded significantly since 2006… and I feel like that’s weakened the ability of the media & corporations to shape our culture or dictate what’s “normal” in the same way that they did in 2003. We have so many alternative options now and can easily see other ways of thinking or living… and sometimes just being able to actually see so many people who support a certain idea helps us critically examine our own understandings). Advertising also seems to have made a shift towards treating the individual more like an actual person (ex: the whole self-care trend). There’s also an amazing push for diversity & inclusion that celebrates the individual. There are so many aesthetics for your personal style, and people seem way more into authenticity and creating their own image via social media. So I think teens growing up in this culture might expect Brendon’s comments to be a reflection of his personal core values & authentic self, but I see them as a clear reflection of the culture he worked really hard to conform to. Obviously it’s still wrong to make those types of comments either way. But understanding where they come from & the motivation behind them can make a difference in how you view Brendon.

I really want to emphasize that some kids in my generation worked extra hard to conform for the sake of safety. There’s a strong push now to condemn bullying, but back then bullying was often treated as an unfortunate but inevitable part of society (and in my own experience, it felt like the bullies were almost celebrated… like many adults were proud of them for basically winning at life). My middle school certainly took a blame-the-victim approach or just didn’t care. It never even occurred to me to tell a teacher about the constant sexual harassment that many sophomore girls endured from the senior boys in our math class because it all seemed so completely normal to me. All of the schools I attended had pretty much the same advice about harassment & bullying: just ignore it… if you don’t give them the satisfaction of a response then they’ll move along (supposedly). Wearing a tshirt that says “it’s cool to be kind” in 2004 would have basically been like taping a target onto yourself and “asking for it,” but I’ve seen those shirts for sale in recent years (and felt a surge of terror for the poor child who might be caught in one before I remembered that things might be different now). Obviously bullying is still a problem today, but society’s overall attitude towards it has changed so much that I don’t know if today’s teens fully understand the environment that pushed a lot of us to try to fit in so hard. Some kids back then made it through high school just fine without changing much about themselves, but a lot of us learned to make ourselves the smallest target possible by fitting in with a group as much as we could. That applies to more than just high school, too. Marketing & the media basically thrived on creating a very narrow group of people who were “in” and then everyone else was a target to scorn or mock as they scrambled to pass for whatever was deemed acceptable that year.

The people I know in my own life who are having a harder time fully letting go of harmful ingrained behaviors & phrases are the kids who were bullied, didn’t have many friends in high school, were autistic, or for whatever other reason worked harder to practically memorize the social norms and “rules” of fitting in & being acceptable, or at least staying safe. It just seems obvious to me that Brendon would’ve been one of those kids. If you paid even the slightest attention to the pre-split band, you’d know that Brendon visibly strived to be likable and good enough. I have honestly never seen someone try so incredibly hard. He was almost desperate at times with his eagerness for acceptance & approval from the other guys in the band. Brendon also talked a lot about how he didn’t have many friends in high school… kids were generally not very kind to him. Brendon was “weird” with his ADHD and didn’t fit into what was considered normal. He tried hard to be funny. He also had the exact personality & mannerisms that my friends and I had even though he went to high school thousands of miles away from us. He was such a typical teen in 2005.

Any comment that Brendon might have made over a decade ago about wanting to rape a crowd would have sounded like a completely normal enthuastic/affectionate statement to anyone who was in high school in 2002-2005 (like Brendon). I’m not sure if people are trying to turn the cultural norms of a future decade into the status quo of the past or why they’re pointing out that moment, but obviously a comment like that wouldn’t be a literal statement (the fact that I even need to explain that feels so strange). Back then, screaming that you want to rape someone was largely a sign of affection. Running down the school hallway and yelling “Anna just raped me!” meant that she tackle-hugged you with affection. Yes, it’s a truly disgusting thing to say… but it’s not like a single one of us came up with that phrase on our own. We’re just a product of our generation. As another example, Brendon saying “I’m going to f— you, I don’t even care if you want it” to a crowd would be completely playing into what the crowds had largely screamed enthusiastically about for so many years. Again, I don’t see this as something like Brendon’s true thoughts coming out whatsoever… I see it as him stepping into a role onstage and playing into an image that he thought/knew people wanted.

I’ve seen some recent screenshots of people who have concluded that the only way that the “n-word” could possibly casually slip out of Brendon’s mouth is if he’s such a deep-rooted racist that his thoughts are just like that normally. And that kind of conclusion only reveals a staggering lack of understanding about the world that Brendon grew up in. People said the n-word all the time to be casually cool when I was in high school without thinking critically about what they were even saying. The motivation there came purely out of a desire to fit into the culture of that era (ex: Paris Hilton said it lots). I went to a high school that was like 98% white and kids would greet each other with “sup my n––“ all the time. Idk why everyone threw up gang signs for pictures either or tried to “talk ghetto” randomly (their phrase, not mine).  

update: let me make this clearer with an example. Brendon said the n-word while singing the lyrics to a song. Some people seem to think that the fact that he didn’t hesitate must automatically mean that he’s just SO racist that the word feels normal to him. You’re projecting current cultural norms onto Brendon when you assume that he grew up with the same conditioning you have. I’m not saying that Brendon shouldn’t be held to those norms! The effect of his action is the same regardless of the cause... but wow people are certainly misunderstanding the cause. When Brendon & I were teenagers it would’ve been completely normal to say that word and sing those lyrics. Right now the word is obviously wrong to say, so you’d currently expect someone to hesitate or avoid the word altogether. But that is literally the opposite of the world that Brendon grew up in.

Anything that people didn’t like back then was labelled “gay,” “homo,” or “retarded.” I remember a short season where some kids were saying “that’s so Asian” instead of “that’s so stupid.” I think one kid from my school just heard the phrase somewhere and other kids automatically repeated it without thinking so they could be cool & prove that they were still fitting in. Yes, it’s obviously a major form of privilege to be clueless that what you’re saying is racist and/or harmful and has an actual impact. The driving need to fit in, not expose yourself as a target, and just survive high school sadly wasn’t particularly conducive to questioning social norms back then. I’m glad that social pressure is shifting these days so that it’s cool to care, to speak up, or to examine how others are affected by our words & actions, but back then it was like the opposite.

Common phrases and the main culture’s sense of humor back then confused me because the racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally mean comments didn’t seem very funny to me, but I just figured that something was wrong with me… so I worked extra hard to learn when to laugh at the correct times so I would seem normal. A lot of the humor and popular phrases back then were just inherently cruel & harmful. It’s not like people were never aware of that fact either… it’s more like being incredibly mean was often supposed to be funny? And if you were hurt by it, then people acted like you just needed to grow a thicker skin and lighten up.

There are obviously SO many things wrong with the stuff I just mentioned, and the fact that “most people did it” doesn’t excuse anything or make it any more acceptable now. But it’s going to take time & patience to help some people in my generation unravel the truly messed up culture that permeated almost every aspect of our lives. For some people, it might take a bit longer to shake that learned “cool” armor and condition themselves to a new normal (especially if they’re still hanging around someone else who’s stuck in the past). Obviously some people are just racists who don’t want to change, but I believe (or hope) that most of my generation would’ve never done those sorts of things if we were privileged enough to grow up with today’s type of internet. Our society absolutely still has a long way to go, but I hope that today’s teens can balance that knowledge with the understanding that my generation started from a very different place than they started from. We’re not the ones who created the culture of the early 2000s. We were just kids who grew up pressured to conform to the narrow world we knew. Yes, that culture is truly disgusting and inexcusable in hindsight. So cancel that culture then and help people recover & grow past that. There’s enough hatred in the world already without you adding to that. It seems like some people are getting a sense of power out of creating a mob verdict these days and almost celebrating their attempts to destroy Brendon. It’s strange to see people treat others terribly in the name of supposedly crushing hateful behavior.

At the same time I know that ignorant comments harm a lot of people, and that shouldn’t be a secondary concern that’s less important than helping my generation learn/change/grow. So I don’t have any answers here. I’m not happy with the culture I was raised in and I don’t want to turn my back on people my age who are still working on shedding that. Obviously nothing is as clear-cut or simplistic as people might want to make it seem. By continuing to support people who might have harmed others, am I automatically discounting those who have been harmed? Can’t you help both sides heal and care about them both? I’m still figuring things out. Also, if I dropped everyone in my life who had seriously messed up, I would literally be alone because we are all flawed humans. It’s not like I’m tolerating unacceptable behavior out of some self-serving desire to never be alone, either… the point is that I care about those people, so I want to try to help them succeed in life if they’re willing (and if it’s safe). Forgiveness is not even remotely the same thing as dismissing someone’s actions btw. It’s seeing a human who is more than their mistakes, trying to understand that person, and choosing to love them & support them as they grow. But I respect other people who might choose differently.

What’s important to me is that Brendon genuinely seems like he wants to do better and truly cares about other people. He’s shown that over & over with his actions. You can unfollow or hate me for not canceling Brendon if you’d like, but I’m glad that I refused to turn on Ryan in 2009 and kept an open mind there (that whole situation is a bit similar). Hopefully I’ll feel the same way as I continue to support Brendon.

side tangent: I worry about Jon Walker sometimes. He’s been put on this pedestal of being a perfect guy who is unproblematic, so his current identity would just be wiped out if he does one thing wrong. Too many people seem to hold up a celebrity as some sort of god, place part of their identity in him, and then lash out when it turns out that he’s actually a flawed human who didn’t reflect the image that they wanted for themselves.

Some aspects of teen culture haven’t changed tbh. Kids are still waiting for you to screw up by breaking social norms so they can gang up on you and ostracize you. It’s awesome that the expected social norms are shifting towards normalizing kindness & inclusion instead of the negative stuff from the 2000s that was basically the opposite. But it’s truly strange the way that some people these days are acting like attacking & harassing a person who’s been deemed worthy of cancelling (or their fans) somehow makes them righteous. It’s still cowardly cyberbullying. I’m paraphrasing a friend here, but at least teens in my generation largely owned the fact that they were being mean. Cyberbullying was sometimes a bonding activity for teens in the 2000s and it seems like not much has changed in that regard. Obviously it’s perfectly ok to dislike someone… you are free to have whatever opinions you want about Brendon. But bonding with other people by bullying Brendon & his fans seems so toxic. Your common interest is literally hatred. And some people just seem overly excited to have an excuse to go full steam ahead with the hatred they seem to have been determined to aim at Brendon no matter what.

I don’t think Brendon’s silence over the past couple years is “deafening,” damning, or in any way strange. All four band members were trained by their PR team to stay silent and carry on through most rumors in 2006-2009. I know there’s a totally different situation in our culture now where people have way better access to celebrities online, but I still think it’s odd to expect Brendon to publicly acknowledge online rumors. That’s a dumb PR move that only draws further attention to what’s being said. It might feel like thousands of people are already talking about it, but that’s nothing compared to what media coverage of an actual statement would generate (ex: compare what fans were saying about Ryan’s possible cocaine picture in April 2009 to what countless people were talking about after Ryan actually addressed the cocaine picture from July 2009… the fact that it became “the cocaine picture” says enough. Ryan’s statement to MTV didn’t even matter to the fans who were convinced he was a drug addict whose life was spiraling out of control, but it certainly drew outside attention to the rumors about Ryan and what the fandom had been saying. I’d also argue that it contributed to some media perception of Ryan moving forward). Or look at how the Brent situation was just a fandom meltdown & normal news until it spun out of control with the band’s statements to the media and escalated into a total headache. Making a public statement on a large platform usually isn’t the best way to end rumors.

Brendon already did make a statement in November 2020, though. And I saw so many people brush that off. So would anyone even care what Brendon had to say or believe him if he bothered to further “break his silence”? Or would everyone just brush Brendon’s comments aside and say that they still know the “truth” no matter what? I mean, just look at how people currently treat the band’s split. All four guys (plus all of the people surrounding the band) made countless comments that all explained the exact same thing that fans had been observing for years at that point. The split made complete sense to me and was a reallllly long time coming, yet kids today seem to ignore basically everything about the irl band and would rather believe whatever drama they invent on their own. 

I don’t know how Brendon can even start to address some of the allegations when they’re so grounded in an alternate reality/perception of both him & the band. Is he supposed to sit down and give people a history lesson of the actual dynamics of the early band or culture in the 2000s?? If he didn’t spend literal hours explaining the basic history that people are clearly lacking, would they even believe his claims that something isn’t true, or would they just dismiss it because it conflicts with the reality that everyone in their bubble shares? It seems futile for him to even begin to craft any sort of statement. People have already shown that they are determined to hate Brendon & tear him apart no matter what. In early 2020 Brendon seemed like a puppet who was dancing around trying to placate the section of the internet that hates him, yet people still ignored his genuine attempts to do better, ignored whatever apologies or explanations he made on Twitch, and kept harassing him & his fans. He definitely couldn’t win then, so why would one more statement now make any difference? If you walk away from an abusive situation, that’s not suspicious or a sign of weakness on your part. I think it’s healthy that Brendon could distance himself from everything.

Also: if you can look back to 2011 for examples of things to cancel Brendon for, then why do other Decaydance band members get away with things they said & did in 2006-2008? It’s like that one girl who went to jail for downloading music from Limewire… it was weird that she got singled out and had to face extreme consequences for actions that a good chunk of her generation did too (except maybe that’s not the best analogy because most of us could spot that stealing music was wrong even if people still went ahead with it). It’s just so strange to see people act like Brendon is the antichrist while the rest of his peers are fine nbd. There also seems to be a double standard with how some fans treat Ryan vs Brendon now. They’ll work hard to justify anything Ryan’s done and point out how he’s been through a lot with people treating him like crap. That scenario should absolutely apply to Brendon too, yet those people hold him to an entirely different standard for some reason. A lot of the people I’ve seen who are very anti-Brendon seem to have a loose understanding of the band’s pre-split years. They also tend to act like they need to be against Brendon in order to support Ryan now as though those two are somehow connected in a strange sort of seesaw where you’re automatically raising one side by lowering the other. Ryan and Brendon are very different, separate people who are both flawed humans. It’s totally possible to support them both.

Some of the perceptions people currently have of the band in 2005-2009 essentially take away Ryan’s agency, turn him into a passive victim, erase his creative vision & goals, infantilize him, and basically ignore him and what he actually wanted. You’re not doing Ryan any favors by erasing him & replacing him with your own creation. When you try to claim that Ryan left P!ATD because Brendon was some kind of horrible person, then you erase the real people, years of context, and basically do yourself an injustice because you’re so absorbed in an alternate reality that you’re missing out on knowing about the real-life band. I understand that people are more likely to be invested in a storyline that they connect with emotionally, so reality might seem less interesting in comparison to what they’re inventing through speculation with their friends… but you can’t actually rewrite history. Claiming that it’s “impossible to know everything” about the pre-split band also isn’t an excuse to validate whatever story you want to invent. These events did not happen that long ago lol... I wasn’t in high school during some kind of prehistoric culture that’s been lost to time. If you feel like there’s a mystery to solve about the early band, then that’s a problem with your knowledge... not the actual band. Most of the fake stories that people currently believe about pre-split Panic would never seem plausible if you had even the most basic understanding of the band during that time period (and the same thing goes for a lot of the current claims against younger Brendon... like if you had some basic context for those years then you’d just roll your eyes at how some teens today actually think that the “Lana Jade letter” was serious/real).

When I first got back into the fandom in 2020 I started to reconfigure my understanding of the early band to match what a couple fans were telling me since I hadn’t thought about P!ATD much in like a decade and it seemed smarter to trust people who had been in the fandom in recent years. For a few months in mid-2020 I was ready to believe anything about Brendon since the reality I remembered didn’t match up with the narratives I was being told. Then I slowly figured out that one of the girls I was talking to was a compulsive liar, the other girls meant well but were very misinformed, and the current fandom is basically a mess that I don’t want much to do with. So now I’m just using this account to focus on the early eras as I knew them. That doesn’t mean that I’m ignoring the post-split years because of any opinion about them (I don’t know them well enough to even form an opinion tbh). It’s rather depressing for me to look at current stuff & see how much the guys have aged because then I can really see how much of my life went by while I was sick for a decade. So my decision to keep my head mostly buried in 2005-2009 is just my method of coping right now... there is no statement there about the modern band or anything. I still support Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, & Jon as individual people and hope they’re doing well! I'm definitely curious to see whatever they might be working on, but I'm not particularly interested in getting too involved in the modern fandom right now.

[iwonderifthatisart]

Vee!! I saw Top Gun 2 yesterday and would love to hear your thoughts 😍😍

OKAY OMG. you probably weren’t expecting this much stuff, but you gave me a chance to talk about it so here goes.

first off, spoilers for top gun maverick, be warned.

So. lol. I'll preface this by saying that my thoughts on this absolutely arent objective in any way... i waited 3 (t h r e e) whole years for this movie to come out and honestly up until i was sitting in the movie theater i still thought they would push it out again, didnt feel real lmao

now a few of my thoughts, in no particular order:

i arrive at the cinema. i sit down. the lights go out. i lean over to my friend. i whisper: i hope they play Danger Zone. they HAVE to. my friend agrees. the movie starts, and lo and behold, the first notes of Danger Zone reach my ears. My crops are watered, my skin is clear. i look to my friend, we nod at each other. we turn back to the screen. we understand. we know this’ll be good.

Thought 1 flows neatly into Thought 2, which is that they knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. like, the main target audience for this movie were Dads™ and they hit the right balance between making it attractive in terms of nostalgia vs. new stuff. i think i saw a letterboxd review that phrased it like "having references to the original without being distracting" and that’s exactly what i felt like (see re: the Danger Zone example). And also: iconic homoerotic beach volleyball scene set to the tune of "playing with the boys"? turned into fun football scene on the beach set to New Music From Today (which was good, but the whole scene could've been gayer imo.)

sure. it's basically military propaganda, i know, we all know, it is known. It still looks cool as hell, i love people flying planes and say smart stuff and click a lot of buttons that look very complex and professional

AND that opening was so perfectly maverick i love it. he just HAD to push a little further

it was SO FUNNY at times! there were sincere (and at times cheesy) parts, but there were a few really funny moments that worked really well

rly liked all the new young pilots, though i expected them to focus a little more on them? but tbh it worked as it is, i didnt really felt like too much was missing (again, maybe a lil homoeroticism but you cant have everything)

Listen. Jennifer Connelly. Penny. Her character was... well. I liked her! But also. Well, she was a lil two dimensional, but idk? Or maybe its bc she was the love interest of Tom Cruise, who i really cant imagine in any kind of romantic relationship, no matter what movie he's in. I didnt really expect too much and i felt like it was done alright. it was solid.

(also... i kinda dont like tom cruise as a person, mainly bc of the whole scientology thing, but lets not get into that here. no negativity in this ask)

ofc ICEMAN!! RIP my man. Obviously wished he was in the movie more but *waves at the real life complications with Val Kilmer* still though, mav and ice texted throughout the movie and it was. so gay. like, i've read fanfiction that might have had these exact messages in them lmao

also. the whole thing about ice and mav? like we all expected there to be more of a rivalry, but they're just out here texting and chilling with each other. good for them.

"it was a nice moment, dont ruin it" lmao.

phoenix...loved her :) my girl :) also loved that they didn’t make a big deal out of ~oh shes a woman among men~ and she has to be the Strong Female Character, because that just falls flat 90% of the time

when they explained the mission to maverick and mentioned that there are still a few f14 tomcats there i was like *cocks checkovs gun* that'll come in handy later! and it did and i loved it!!

the scene where they had to fly the route in 2 mins 30 seconds and everybody’s like “thats impossible” and maverick is like “hold my beer” and does it in 2:15 and yeah i’m LIVING for that shit! call me a basic bitch i dont care!!

maverick and goose vs. maverick and rooster. we love cinematic paralles in this house

“talk to me dad” CRYING IN THE CLUB RIGHT NOW

so yeah. theres probably a lot more but i didnt want this to get so long slfksjlks.

i know its not a perfect movie, it has it’s flaws, but i enjoyed it so much! there were a lot of scenes and tropes that could’ve easily been super cliche but i thought they worked really well. or maybe i'm just biased.

please!! enlighten me with your own hot takes if you feel like it. id love to hear them <3