#mj's vocals

[sbrown82]

Don’t NOBODY “woo hoo” like Michael Jackson!!!

[flowerakatsuka]

✨💙 beneath the lanterns, we’ll meet 💙✨

weiward romance has been stuck in my head all day and i've really been wanting to redraw one of the frames from it w/ kara's m.league fit...

[queen-daya]

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I thought this could be fun and we could start a post of what we got for Christmas! So I’ll go first and tag some people. No pressure if you don’t want too!

1. I got lots of candy!

2. I got new hoop earrings and a tshirt of my fave singer (and the group he’s in)

3. I got this green cargo jacket and my first pair of converse shoes

4. I got the Black Dahlia Necklace that MJ gets from Peter and hopefully I’m getting this adorable Spideychelle loungefly! I haven’t been able to get the bag yet but hopefully my mom found it and it’ll be here soon!!!!

Tagging: @accidental-spice @aintinacage @kanerallels @aeterna-auroral-avenger @dragonrider9905 @indoraptorgirlwind @cyphers-and-sunspots @igotthisaccountunderduress @miinsie and anyone else that wants to join in. Again no pressure but I’d love to see what you all got for Christmas if you are willing to share!

[mjj-nostalgia]

you know, I admittedly don't listen to Man In The Mirror as often as I certainly should, but MAN -

Whenever I hear it, Michael's vocals sound so majestic. Like it gets me every time. I'm like YOU BETTER SING!!!!

And don't get me started on when he sings words like "reeeealiiiiiyyyze"

Incredible.

[oopey-doopey]

I like stories about Peter as a civilian and him coming of age but I can’t stand the way his personal relationships are portrayed especially the romantic ones and certainly his relationship with Mary Jane. 

Even before the current run and all its character assignations, MJ has always confused me when it came to her loving Peter as Peter and as Spider-Man. It was implied and then explicitly stated for a brief while that she knew he was Spider-Man even before they started dating. She understood the responsibilities he had and seemed to sympathize with how much he had to sacrifice personally to be Spider-Man.

And then when they start dating she constantly gets fed up with his heroics. Not just worrying about him, I’m not getting on her for that, but like not having time for his personal life or his guilt complex, which she knows he struggles with. I would deem this justified if she didn’t know his idenity as Spider-Man but she did. She practically always has and it was a key part of their relationship and why things worked at first. It creates this idea that she wants him to change for her or even tone down his heroics which is again is something that causes him mental anguish and he struggles working through.

Peter isn’t innocent. He has a horrible work-life balance that hurts even those who know but Mary Jane is pitched as his match made in heave, his soul-mate. The on-again off-again nature of their relationship, often triggered by MJ, makes her seem like she had this romanticized version of being the superhero’s girl, like Lois Lane and Superman, only to realize this is real life (for them) and not that. 

She’s loyal but not much of a partner; A lover, a companion but she fails to provide that true support in understanding. Her patience frequently comes with ultimatums and I can’t fathom why the writers or editorial writes her like this for drama when it would much more enthralling to have her disdain and resentment come from her husband's almost dying everyday rather than not having time for her.

[transgender-catboy]

I woke up again...

It's 4:50am, you get a groggy tag ramble while I try to pass out again

Uh. Tags are waayy more intense than usual. Sorry folks! (Like. Seriously, they're bad, look away)

[skybluelatte]

Happy Birthday MJ!!! 💜🦊💜

[muerteface]

are we just ignoring the prospect of gwen and hobie jamming together

[cathymee]

ok crazy how gary valenciano actually started out in the 80s as well and was already dubbed the mj of the philippines by that time. literally rose to fame by '82-83 just as mj began soaring to new heights of stardom

[leapinarmadillo]

Tabloid Junkie is cunty asf i'm sorry but someone has to say it

[sbrown82]

The way Michael used to carry this whole damn group! 🥴🤣

[flowerakatsuka]

hey, guys, have you heard of this new utau? i think he's called a kusoloid?

[webslinger-edu]

webslinger official placement chart

mj: bass and lead vocals

peter: drums and vocals

liz allan: guitar

harry osborn: guitar and tech

gwen: backup vocals and keyboard (can play acoustic guitar and subs for liz occasionally)

betty brant: sound mixer, treasurer, and tech

[bengiyo]

The Uncertain Melancholy of Our Youth

I’ve been sorting out how I feel about the end of Our Youth, and I’ve yet to arrive at something concrete that I want to say. I’ve been reading reactions from others to see if someone else could vocalize what I’m feeling, and in the process realized I wanted to talk about Our Dating Sim again. 

Like many others, I’m left with a feeling of melancholy from this show. I feel a lot like @small-dark-and-delicious in that I think this ending felt very realistic for them, because Minase has never had friends he can count on, especially the “bespectacled demon” (@chicademartinica). I find myself empathizing a lot with @asiandramas-takeover about how bleak the future feels for them.

With this series overall, I’m a bit frustrated thematically. I was glad to have @wen-kexing-apologist offering insights about the manhwa while we were watching, because, like @worm-priest, I don’t think we did much with the different kinds of people theme. 

However, I am left with some genuinely warm feelings for the characters and the actors. I loved mj’s post reflecting on how Hirukawa connects for people who dread becoming like their parents (@forcebook). Like @memiaatanonymous, I really enjoyed Motojima Junsei in this; I especially loved the way he managed his physicality and expressions when Minase had to flee Hirukawa’s house before the dad began beating Hirukawa again. 

I also agree with @delasaria-blog that Minase in the special does a lot to close out this story; I don’t think I’d feel as positively as I do at the end of this without the effectiveness of the special episode. The implied growth of these two into a relatively stable couple (@incandescentflower) worked well for, especially because Minase was left with separation anxiety (@lurkingshan). I also really liked the way the show approached a closeted couple’s feelings about marriage as an inevitability (@jemmo).

I think it was @theside-b comparing this to the disappointment I know I felt at the end of Love is Better the Second Time Around that got me thinking about Our Dating Sim. In that show, we spend the majority of our time in the present with Shin Ki Tae pursuing Lee Wan again after Lee Wan abandoned him at the end of high school. Our journey with them is about how Lee Wan hurt Ki Tae and himself, and the consequences of Lee Wan's decision. We focus there on how Lee Wan has to grapple with the fact that Ki Tae was open to his feelings.

I think most of why I’m feeling a bit unfulfilled by this project is that I had hoped we’d spend more time in the present. The opening sequence had me waiting in anticipation for their eventual reunion and reconciliation. I had hoped we’d spend the bulk of the show on that, like in Our Dating Sim, rather than on the events leading to their separation. I think I set myself up for this because I brought too much of that to the table. 

Reflecting on what the show did or didn’t do, I don’t think there was much for me to gain from seeing Hirukawa and Minase’s separate montages, though I think it would have been interesting to see Minase getting lonelier and see where he and Hirukawa lost touch over the phone incident. I personally feel like I’d have liked to see more of them getting back together and rebuilding trust, because I felt myself pulling away from this show as it spiraled over Hirukawa’s life getting worse in the middle. There was almost a really great moment of Minase trying to step forward and use his voice only to be silenced by the adults and friends in his life. 

Final Verdict: 8, Recommended With Reservations. I’m not sure how I will feel about this show in the long term, and I want to thank everyone linked above for sharing their thoughts, and all the gifmakers included for their creations. There is a useful kind of melancholy here that I personally enjoy as a person who absolutely loved All of Us Strangers (2023) last year. I am always the type who, even though I know we’re seeing marked improvement in many categories, cannot erase the scars I carry from what I survived. I struggle to find a solid coherent thought I feel coming from this one, and I hope to read more compelling reflections in the weeks to come.