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earlyspringtranscendence · 1 year

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ok i made this post already but tumblr ate it and also it started to get far more in depth than i intended so perhaps it is good i’m redoing it with better formatting. anyway is anyone else deeply unwell about mjf and dax harwood meeting in the ring again for what (iirc, but my brain don’t work too good) is essentially the first time since the pinnacle break up or is it just me. it’s about the devotion. it’s about changing when a beloved can’t change alongside you. and THEN it’s about a whole lot of twitter drama

i think what has always gotten to me about max and dax (and specifically them, though mjftr in general is of course a large part of this and also something i’m crazy about) is how during the pinnacle days dax was part of mjf’s family and max was part of his. ftr stood in a position of higher standing than wardlow, sure, but their relative normalcy in the friendship they had with max is what made him so utterly devoted to them in a way that is truly painful to see especially now when comparing it to the whole mjf + adam cole tag team.

something that stuck out to me in that bit where they’re playing video games is when max says he’s never played multiplayer cause he’s never had friends, but the pinnacle was like... beyond anything he’s been a part of since. i think what has come closest before adam was the specific twitter relationship btwn mjf and bestsmileinthebusiness lee moriarty (remember when they were firmly flirting with each other on twit? god those were the days) but then i’m also sensitive about the pinnacle so this is like besides the point

anyway, there wasn’t dead much going on with ftr in the pinnacle and part of that is of course their recent arrival to aew and them coming into their own as wrestlers with more creative freedom than they had been afforded before. they were cast as heels because that’s what they had always been and as such is what the audience expected and what made the transition go along smoothly, but as always with wrestling you gotta pick and choose where the line btwn kayfabe and reality lies and for now i’m gonna focus all my attention on the fictional because while all that is interesting from an irl perspective, it’s got fuck all to do with the emotions i’m feeling towards these crazy kids

regardless, when max has a new friend he will do anything to keep that friend. the only line he has never crossed in friendship is the one where he trusts the other person. an interesting dichotomy in the character of mjf to me has always been how easily he subjugates himself and humiliates himself (in the eyes of toxic masculinity, ykwim) to please one of his baser instincts (winning, saving face, love) and it’s something he did with ftr a lot by the end

i’ve been thinking about that one interview he did with barstool where ftr come in at the end and it’s awkward because it’s in the stage of separation before the eventual breakup. cash is all smiles and happy to be there, max is praising them both like nothing else and dax is... starting to get a little bit annoyed. he’s bothered. something’s rubbing him just a little bit wrong.

(this already is like sending me into a spiral but thats neither here nor there)

(cash is pointing at max here btw, i couldn’t get the screenie quite right)

this subtle thing is so important to me. cash’s persona during this period (and for the most part it still is) is so like laid back. he follows whatever dax wants to do but only because he’s sort of just good with whatever. even in this video there’s an element of refereeing or messenger boy-ing he’s doing between his friend and his other half that’s so dynamic to watch. (also it doesn’t hurt that the angle of the camera cuts off dax’s eyes so you only see his slightly defensive seeming posture towards max. it’s something i’m reading too deeply into by far but it’s something that does, like, enhance this experience for me)

(yt subtitles are wrong, he said heat not hate but like. whatevs) in this bit dax thinks brandon’s talking abt dax towards himself and he’s quick to interject, but when it’s clarified he’s talking about mjf there’s a considering look and a bit of a grimace. anyone else going crazy or is it just me

DAX SAYS THIS SO QUICKLY. HE SNAPS TO THIS SO QUICKLY. I’M CRAZY ABOUT THIS DYNAMIC

ok we have to move on from this because i still have so much to cover

i wanna talk about the second part of my motivation for caring so deeply about these two and that’s the ‘changing and being spitting mad a beloved isn’t changing alongside you’. beloved may have been a big word, i’ll allow for that, but please do recall that ftr are the ones who loudly proclaims that mjf is their family in pinnacle promos

thank you cash for making me absolutely insane i appreciate it now onto dax

i refuse to be normal about them.

anyway this disgust that ftr started showing once the pinnacle fell apart (and, crucially, punk became their bezzie) because they started turning face (due in part to the wardlow sitch, the other part, you guessed it, punk) and max couldn’t follow them there is in such dire opposition to this that it feels real. like i’m a mark and all but like it feels really genuine. the (learned) masculine inclination to turn to anger rather than sadness when someone disappoints you.

then max, you know, left us hanging for a veritable fucking age and in the meantime this all happened (bear in mind that more than this happened this was just what i could bear to actually reblog bc i’m not joking i’m like genuinely very unwell about this group it made me feel like so upset when it happened so you know. this isn’t the absolute worst of the worst it’s just what i could bear):

(ngl i thought i had a little more than just this post saved but they were talking supreme shit and i guess my fragile self wasn’t having it. good on me for knowing boundaries. anyway you get the idea tho, this was all happening and there was general mjf smacktalk all while mjf couldn’t respond to it because he was on his little getaway getting built as fuck)

and this:

(post found here, idk what this is from originally) you see what i mean too though about cash being this benevolent, laid back bystander and dax being angry. what’s that sentiment about being angry because you care?

what this all boils down to at long last after many paragraphs of me making very little points is this: next saturday at collision mjf is going to be doing his shit with adam cole and ftr is going to be husbands as all get, but i don’t care about any of that in the face of this final showdown between dax and max, even if i know, in my brain and my heart, that none of this will even be all that relevant to the story anymore. pour one out.

(and also final disclaimer i’ve never actually heard of any like shoot nonsense btwn these two and i’m Preddy sure this is all just part of the narrative, but i could be wrong. if anything btwn them is real well that’s none of my business and they shouldn’t have put it on the internet then. i mean im mostly kidding but if it’s real obviously disregard this reading of that situation)

#ftr #dax harwood #mjf #mjftr #sorry about all this. it's just that i have problems in my brain.

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