bravoechoes

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sometimes movies make you feel sad or upset and that’s okay. sometimes it even means the movie is good because it happened on purpose. not everything is teletubbies

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TOM CRUISE as ETHAN HUNT in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT

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clenching my fists until my palms bleed when a colleague asks if I’ve seen that new tom cruise movie: yeah I thought it was neat

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“now if i get out with julia, we win. if i dont then uh… look, then she’s dead anyway, and so am i”

in my heart, i know he’s talking suicide. on a side note, watching luther’s expressions and reactions become graver and graver bc of ethan spiraling over julia’s kidnapping and torture is so fucking fascinating bc it’s like. he really did not sign up to become friends with some IMF grunt who hired him in 1996. but now it’s ten years later, and the mentally ill playboy is now a halfway decent man tryna be a halfway decent partner to a regular woman. this is not the ethan luther met, or the one he knew even six years ago. he’s not sleeping with recruits or fucking his students. he’s not sleeping with his boss’s wife. he’s actually growing into a decent human being, but being decent comes at a cost. luther is the true witness of the mission impossible films, cuz he knew ethan before and after he deliberately became a better man

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I think she also has a very instrumentalised relationship to her body but specifically in the context of having no autonomy or freedom. like she doesn’t have this massive burden of guilt that ethan does to keep working she just hates her job and can’t leave. so like her body is a weapon that she doesn’t really want to use but can’t do anything else with it. and so like intimacy is associated with transaction and getting things she wants and I think Ilsa would be like. sublimating that on some level into casual off-duty sex that she’s not “allowed” to have but it’s her own decision so it’s good actually. and she doesn’t even have to particularly enjoy it or even be treated well by whoever she’s fucking but it’s her being active in her own life so she still does it. I feel like she would be compelled to make a lot of “cut off your nose to spite your face” style impulsive and reckless decisions, very much geared towards proving to herself that she still has some scope of influence over her life + petty opposition to her employer when she can get away with it. but that also means that genuine intimacy and vulnerability are like the most horrifying thing ever because that’s just not allowed, every time she opens up she gets hurt (again compared to ethan whose vulnerability leads to other people getting hurt) and her whole life hurts so why would she willingly subject herself to that.

which is all to say I don’t think she would start crying if she got a hug I think she would be intensely uncomfortable and want to get out of it as soon as possible no matter how bad she actually wants it. which is why her specific relationship with ethan actually does feel very much in tune with this reading bc like neither of them are “allowed” to have a relationship so all the intimacy between them is pure fantasy/not ‘real’ so she can indulge in it because there’s no expectation it will ever be followed through on. ethan rejects her offer in rogue nation to run away together and that’s actually the whole basis of their relationship

what about ILSA’S sexual hangups and mental problems #feminism

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what about ILSA’S sexual hangups and mental problems #feminism

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So what I'm getting is,

The crew: wow you're pretty and sad and hot, can we pass you around the room and use you as the evening's entertainment?

Ethan, zeroing in on "use you" and getting immediately horny for this concept: be of use? 🥺 be a positive thing one last time? 🥺

PLEASE. He hears “use you” and it’s the first time he’s been hard in 20 years.

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the only downside to going to an academic conference with my best friend and having so much fun outside is that I have less time in my schedule to post about Ethan’s sexual hangups and mental problems

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he's bisexual he's suicidal he's widowed he's divorced he's dead he's suicidal again he's desperately in love with everyone he believes himself unworthy of human connection he does everything for everyone and nothing for himself he's in love with his tech guy he's in love with his other tech guy he's sixty-two he's naked he's got the tightest ass you've ever seen he's getting pegged by his straight wife he's using his body as payment. AND he's bisexual AND. he's suicidal

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Guy who is touch starved but emotionally repressed goading you into punching him for completely normal reasons

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you can always tell who the cishet people are in fandom bc they will see a character like ethan hunt and be like yeah that dude is an alpha. it always comes back to that one lotr post. what is he gonna do top you

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Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible

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I’m realising I need a more granular and specific ethan tagging system because like 90% of the posts on my blog are about him so a generic character tag is functionally useless as a filtering tool

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some fictional characters are haunted by the spectre of bisexuality looming over them like an existential threat to their core being but ethan is not one of those guys. he’s tortured by everything else

headcanoning Ethan as bisexual is great because that’s not even in his top 500 list of biggest problems to deal with

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(Okay okay I know your intention here was not to hear about all your followers’ complicated feelings toward benthan I’m SORRY I just need to get it off my chest)

I don’t ship it exactly in the sense that I think they want to have sex or even really spend much time together when they’re not working but I do mourn the fact that benji’s gotten wrekt™️ almost as badly and often as ethan has but that we never see ethan find out about it on screen. and I get why, benji hid that bullet wound on purpose for a reason and also for narrative purposes there just isn’t *time* for that. I get it. but secretly I yearned to see ethan holding back tears and trying to keep benji alive just once.

this is such a weird space to ship from I know please feel free to psychoanalyze me about it. godspeed <3

this is noble and true I think we all want to see ethan freak out about the injury and death of his friends as much as possible. tom cruise is really good at looking so scared and they should’ve made ethan look scared more. also I think there is a lot of benthan gas there bc benji would be like oh okay so NOW you want to touch me -> I should get stabbed and shot more often so ethan will touch me again. none of them are well <3

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it’s gonna be a really good posting day when the McQ spoilercast drops for final reckoning

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i love tfr bc now everyone's discussing how batshit fucked up ethan's life is and that's all ive ever wanted from mi fandom. love you guys.