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lukolabrainrot · 2 months

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That Damn Polaroid™ (and Some Thoughts on the Events in April/InStyle Stunt)

This polaroid... Nicola, Nicola, Nicola 😂

This polaroid still gets me today. Like, yes, this was for PR to some extent, BUT this was also SUCH a public statement. We know N has her phone ALL THE TIME. And (from what we know) the picture was on her phone for WEEKS (MONTHS technically). L appeared fine too with it being there (at least from what we know in the interviews where they talked about it). And that wasn't just like a cutesy little picture of two friends/coworkers. It was a 🔥/powerful pic. And as I mentioned here, N uses pictures as a way of communicating with others. And her excuse that she just "didn't have any pockets at the time", so she put the photo there (and proceeded to keep it there for MONTHS) 🙄 Sure Jan... So, with all of this context, I'm first going to talk about some of my thoughts on what was going on between L/A between the end of February to beginning of April, what was going on between L/N in April up until the Italy stops (including thoughts on the InStyle Stunt), and then at the end I will talk about my thoughts on WHY N had that photo on her phone for such a long time and the deeper meaning it might have had then just promoting the show.

Heads up, this is going to be a longg post...

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I think this post from @newghlan pretty much sums up what I think was going on between L/A during end of February to early April. There was MAJOR flirty energy between L/N during the VDay event and BAFTAs. I talked a little bit here about how there was a very brief clip from the BAFTAs where they look like they got caught when they were embracing each other. I highly recommend checking out the video if you haven't already, because the noverbal cues speak VOLUMES. And it's just interesting that they would look like they got caught at this public event? It read to me that for SOME reason, they did not want that small clip to be captured and put out to the public 🤔

My theories are that by the BAFTAs, A was NOT happy about L/N's chemistry and connection. Maybeee L promised to redirect his attention to A, which is why L wasn't seen at/didn't go to the Big Mood premiere, and why L took A to LA with him and agreed to the InStyle Stunt to appease her. I've never doubted that L has probably had feelings for A (although I still think it was/is fairly casual), but like tbh, I'm CERTAIN his feelings for N are SO MUCH DEEPER. So when those feelings came flooding back when they did reshoots in December 2023, and then had to proceed right into working on promotion in January (which I think just made all the feelings stronger), I feel like he probably had some guilt because he was TRYING to explore his relationship with A. BUT L was reconnecting with N, and I think emotionally, that's where his heart is at. And A noticed this, so she was upset (which honestly, is understandable imo- some of A's actions though because of these feelings she was having I definitely don't agree with). I think L was unsure though about going there again with N, and so he wanted to prove to A (and SPECIFICALLY to himself) that A was the one he wanted to be with. So he focuses his energies on A, agrees to the InStyle Stunt so she gets SOME kind of public acknowledgement (which was a BIG goal of hers in the relationship), and tries to distance some from N. That didn't reallyyyy work though, and then we got what we did for the rest of the tour between L/N.

Before I get to my thoughts on April between L/N, I want to list some specific timeline things around the InStyle Stunt:

L does the InStyle interview (in LA I believe?) near the end of March (so that's when L/A were in LA)

A posts the LA photos on her IG on April 7th and April 14th (and L likes these posts)- I believe she has since deleted another set of these LA photos, so idk what date she posted those photos (sometime in early April though I believe)

The InStyle article comes out on April 29th (with the accompanying Polaroid pics that prove A was in LA with him- this also confirmed that L had coordinated these photos with A to acknowledge (without publicly acknowledging) that he and A were an item)

L posts the non-polaroid photos from the InStyle article on his IG on April 29th (and N likes the post and comments (on April 29) "Yess dude!!")

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April/Early May Between L/N

L/N attend the Bridgerton Season 3 London Photocall on April 12 (which is where the photo above was taken AND where the infamous polaroid was taken). Earlier that day (I believe), L/N also did a series of interviews for the show, and those interviews had some SERIOUS flirty/sexual energy to them (including one of L's (not so subtle) butt pinches with N). I would highly recommend rewatching those interviews if you haven't. If anyone has the links to these particular interviews (N is wearing the same necklace, and L the same tank top and jacket that they are wearing in the picture above), please link them in the comments below.

L/N are at events in Bowral, Australia from April 21-23

L/N in Milan May 9 (with the interviews where they are disconnected and likely beefing)

L/N in Verona May 10 (and they are all cutesy with each other and seem back on the same page)

So here are my thoughts (and why the InStyle Stunt/article might have come into play as to why they had been beefing in Milan):

As I mentioned, I think L was TRYING to distance himself some from N in March and refocus his attention on A. However, I think that pull with N was still really strong, and BTS they were still having to see each other and communicate in order to prepare for their upcoming promotional events. My guess is that all this sexual/flirty tension was building up between them BTS in March, which is why they were soooo unhinged in those interviews before the London Photocall on April 12. I also think early April is when L was starting to realize that his feelings for N were coming back full force, and was maybeeee getting a little green light from N that the feelings were reciprocated (but they weren't actually addressing it because I think they were scared/nervous). However, I think they continue flirting with each other in April (maybe secretly through messaging, and also when they were in person).

Note: We also have to remember that L gave those polaroids to InStyle (most likely) at the end of March when he did the interview. Therefore, the InStyle Stunt was set in motion by that point. I've been wondering though recently, if he had known what was going to happen between him and N in April and early May, if he might not have gone along/set up the InStyle stunt 🤔 Just some thoughts I've been having...

Then we get to the Bowral events near the end of April (BEFORE the InStyle article comes out though, confirming L had coordinated this with A), and it seems pretty obvious to me that L is trying to test the water with N and see how she's feeling about them (they are both being a little publicly flirty, but L much more so imo (N still seems to have a lot of her walls up in public)). It makes sense L might be hesitant to open himself back up to N when, as I talked about here, I think he got his heart broken a little by N. However, I think N was starting to open herself up to the possibility of really trying with L (because I think she has ALSO loved him for a while, but just was never in the place to really commit to the relationship for various reasons). I think she was finally feeling though that she was ready to give this relationship a serious shot, but knew L was kind of in a relationship. I think N was under the impression though that it wasn't super serious, so I think she was hopeful she and L might be able to figure it out.

A lot of people have been commenting that the InStyle Stunt/article wouldn't have upset N because she would have already known about it because of the pictures A posted in early April. I disagree. Now, we obviously don't know 100% if N knew that L was going to add those polaroids to the article. Tbh, we also don't 100% know if she even knew about the pictures that A posted of the LA trip (because I don't get the sense N exerts a whole lot of energy and time following what A does). Yes, N commented and liked L's post on April 29 related to the InStyle article. However, that does not confirm that she had already read the article. And she wasn't going to unlike and remove her comment, because fans would have noticed and flipped out. I am more inclined to believe that she really wasn't aware that this was all going to go down, mainly because I think L didn't want N to know/was trying to be sneaky about it. I think once N figured it all out after the article came out, the thing she was most upset by was how this article proved L had coordinated with A to indirectly publicly announce that they were an item (while L was continually putting out to the press at that point that he was single). Therefore, I think N was pi**ed because she didn't want this to impact their tour/her (their) public image. And secondly, I think she was upset because of the feelings she was having for him, and how flirty he had been with her the last few months. I think it all caught N off gaurd, and her walls went WAY back up. And we have to remember that this all happened just a few days before the Milan event, so I think that energy between them just spilled over and resulted in their very disconnected nonverbal cues in Milan.

I talked a little bit more about my thoughts on Italy here, but I think after L/N got back on the same page emotionally, it was pretty much game over emotionally with A for L. His heart wasn't really in it anymore (and tbh, I don't think it ever really was). Also, I've said this multiple times, but Italy is when N starts posting the "boyfriend pics" of L (which L obviously agreed to). Personally, I think N (and indirectly L) were sending a message to a certain someone 🤔 But just a theory... I have also already talked about it here and here on my theories on why L was never going to be able to publicly untangle himself from A for a while, regardless of what was going on BTS with L/N.

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What Could be the Deeper Meaning Behind the Polaroid?

So, my point with everything is this. I think early April was a MAJOR turning point for N in terms of her feelings/emotions for L. Here are my thoughts (outside of PR) on why N put THAT Polaroid on her phone from the London Photcall event on April 12 (and for MONTHS):

First, we need to acknowledge that L obviously approved of this photo being on her phone (or at least was complicit to it), which I think speaks VOLUMES about where L was at emotionally with N at the time (and where L WASN'T at emotionally with A). This confirms to me that things just weren't that serious with A, even if he was TRYING to refocus his attention on A. L's heart was still with N.

N wanted people to know that they were a unit through this experience, and that N truly loves him and their friendship/connection. She wanted to share to the world how special he AND their experience on Bridgerton is to her.

I think she put that SPECIFIC picture on her phone because her feelings were STARTING to change for L around this event/that general time period. I think N was starting to see L in a bit of a new light (in a positive way), and was seeing some real potential between them.

Lastly, I think one of the reasons she kept the photo on her phone for so long (outside of the PR), is because her walls were starting to come down, things were getting more serious between her and L, and she was happy (and she wanted the public to know 😉). And L/N could kind of hide behind this unspoken public narrative that it was just for "PR" (which I NEVER bought).

Now yes, she has since changed the polaroid. However, we have NO idea what the photo is of now (or if she is consistently changing it out/or completely changed her phone case). She knows our obsession with the Polaroid though, so I think she likes to tease us about it. She knows what she is doing 😉 That OG polaroid though during the PR tour had a MUCH deeper meaning than just promoting the show, and was a significant public statement about her relationship with L. Just my theory though...

#just my thoughts #lukola theories #timelines #InStyle Stunt #that damn polaroid 😂#a picture is worth a thousand words #April was a MAJOR turning point for N me thinks 🤔#What I wouldn't give to know EXACTLY WHY N had that polaroid on her phone for the whole world to see 😂😅

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prettyoddfever · 2 months

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re: the Fever-era stage gay routines

I'm integrating a previous post into this one so I can cover all of the pre-split years and everything in one place. Again, I'm iffy on the term "stage gay" but idk how else to describe it so here we go.

So Brendon said this quote in 2018: "For our first headline tour I would go up to Ryan our guitar player, and like kiss him on the neck or kiss him on the mouth and he would be so mad. I was like, I just want to kiss you bro."

Ignoring all history & precedent of the way that Brendon tends to exaggerate for effect and often goes for the general idea & how he feels at the moment when looking back rather than actual specific facts... he's still talking about the band's first headlining tour in April 2006. And yeah, that's the only season where I think this quote MIGHT be plausible. If the situation actually played out exactly as Brendon says, then of course that's not ok. But you still can't project that scenario onto literally every part of the Fever era or form your entire perception of a whole era (or an entire work relationship) off of one single interview quote from years later. That's going to leave you with an incredibly distorted understanding of the band's dynamics with each other & fans, Ryan's input and stage presence, and what's actually going on in the pictures you're looking at. Like people are clearly missing so much context if they're able to look at a picture of the IWSNT mic-sharing from summer 2006 and think that it was one-sided sexual harassment (or some kind of actual Ryden thing).

THE EARLY MONTHS

So the guys weren’t super close onstage in late 2005… they were mostly trying to figure out how to even be onstage lol. They watched the bands they were touring with and learned as they went. You could almost see little pieces of each band’s influence show up for a while. Brendon totally modeled himself after Jason Vena in early fall 2005, and then he had clearly been watching William Beckett closely in early 2006 (that influence carried on throughout the year). It was also interesting to watch Brendon navigate what he thought fans wanted or expected when he was an 18-year-old boy thrown into an international spotlight with girls (and boys) screaming “f— me!” at him (one example). It really looked like he learned to play into a role (this is included). And I mean that in terms of being a popular frontman. That’s not even taking into consideration the actual way that Brendon needed to adopt a persona onstage throughout the whole Fever era. Look at the type of songs he had to sing. Both Brendon & Ryan talked a lot in 2005-2006 about how Brendon needed to get into a character onstage to deliver the risque lyrics.

The types of halfhearted moves that Brendon started to make on Ryan by the end of the Truckstops & Statelines tour looked like he was just following the example of bands he’d been watching on tour. Brendon started making bigger moves on Ryan in April once P!ATD had to step up their game for their first headlining tour (which happened 8 months after they played their first show ever). That UK tour had some shows that were bigger than the first half of the summer tour in North America. There were times in 2006 when I felt like P!ATD was more of a UK band than American partially because of how intense the frenzy was over there.

Brendon was still testing different stage personas and figuring things out during this season, and the band still felt like 4 separate guys trying to find their footing. They were talented & good, but there was absolutely a huge shift in the band itself once Jon arrived in May. They finally felt like a strong united group. They went back to their practice space for a while in May to figure out the details of what they wanted their band to be like onstage, rehearse with their two new touring musicians + Lucent Dossier, and re-learn updated versions of their songs. The last half of the Fever era was polished and very intentional... they felt like a different band by June in many ways.

THE SUMMER TOUR

I thought this seemed like the picture that really got the Ryden craze going in summer 2006 (before fans had totally decided on the “Ryden” name – some were saying “Bryan”). It was taken a few days into the summer tour:

There were a ton of new fans arriving during the summer tour, so that picture formed some first impressions. By this summer many fans would basically only ask people to describe the moments when Ryan & Brendon came near each other at a show and every look they shared. People who went to shows would mention how at different points they saw one of the four guys suppress a laugh when the crowd would positively scream if Brendon & Ryan came within two feet of each other.

The Panic guys were well aware of what their fans wanted and what was being said online (for better or worse). Yes, they got annoyed during the last half of the year when fans took things too far or were focused more on Ryden stuff than the music, but it seemed like they also wanted to have fun with a fanbase that they were being increasingly distanced from as they became more & more famous. There were quite a few stories of Brendon and Ryan playing up the Ryden angle at meet & greets throughout the last half of 2006 to make fans laugh or freak out (and Ryan initiated some of that, so it wasn’t purely Brendon). There's more in this post.

The point is that the shows in this tour were very intentional and felt more like watching a theater show than the type of band who interacted with their audience (which was a huge fan complaint this season tbh). Ryan was more confident & comfortable onstage with his new makeup, was actively engaging in mic sharing and playing into what the crowds obviously wanted to see, and seemed like he was largely in control of how the shows would go even if he still sometimes shied away from attention in general onstage.

Ryan & Brendon did continue some of their antics at random international shows in August & October, but it kind of seemed to depend on the audience. Those shows were also a different vibe from the national tours.

NOTHING RHYMES WITH CIRCUS

This season was on a whole other level, so here's a separate post that goes into important detail!!

^^^ seriously, please read.

The creepy leering character that Brendon was playing during the NRWC tour is obviously not his actual personality, nor his typical onstage character for the whole Fever era (although I did see hints of it return during the 2008 Halloween show when Brendon was in his vampire costume lol).

AFTER THE FEVER ERA

The band played a handful of regular shows in 2007 like any other band. They wore jeans and dropped the stage gay & makeup because those elements were part of the Fever-era shows and that era was done now.

Ryan did try to instigate parts of their former routine at the first show in 2007 before the band had found their new direction, though.

Brendon kissed Ryan on the cheek at Bamboozle 2007 when wishing him a happy birthday.

The Pretty. Odd. era was completely different on so many levels. Ryan & Jon largely ran those shows and the new music didn’t require a dramatic frontman in an entertainer/narrator role anymore. Ryan was WAY more confident onstage and would often stroll over to mess with Brendon or share his mic. Ryan was the one who often instigated any interaction. Jon even slapped Brendon’s butt at some shows. A lot of fans would claim that Ryan kissed Brendon’s cheek, but in hindsight I think it’s more likely that he was whispering to Brendon and knew that fans would get overly excited. Also, the moment where Brendon kissed Ryan’s cheek before Mad as Rabbits at Glastonbury was definitely not the norm.

ABOUT THE ROUTINE "RYDEN" MOMENTS IN 2008 (not on the same level as 2006, but still pandering to what fans wanted).

COMMON FEVER ERA MOMENTS

a few examples...

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MISC. THOUGHTS

The point of this post is to show that the endless pictures that some people might share of "Ryden" moments or "Brendon sexually harassing Ryan" are often like the same points of the same songs on different nights, or just taken out of context of the actual Fever era. To be clear, I’m not attempting to excuse/explain every single thing Brendon ever did in this post, or attempting to speak for Ryan... idk what he was comfortable with or everything that went down between them.

However, I do think that people who assume Brendon forced Ryan into anything (in any aspect of the band) don’t understand their work relationship or the pre-split band’s dynamics & who had the power. That band was waaaay different than the one that Brendon had in later years. Back then he wasn’t really in a position to pressure Ryan into anything creatively-speaking (more info here). Ryan was shy in interviews, but he was in no way a pushover within the band… and to assume something like that kind of discredits his massive contributions. With the amount of control that Ryan had, I just really don’t think he would have let something so prominent get worked into the shows if he wasn’t ok with it in the first place (let alone instigate it himself sometimes).

Ryan talked a lot in the pre-split years about how he really wanted to challenge fans, push boundaries, do something different, shake things up, and keep experimenting instead of settling into a rut of what was comfortable/familiar. In a Danish interview in October 2006 he said "we do not want to be a safe band, neither with our songs nor our shows."

I thought the stage gay element seemed to loosely fit into those goals & ideas. But at the same time, I don't think it was ever that defined. It felt like it was just a random fun thing & wasn't that deep. Spin asked Ryan if he and Brendon were toying with the idea of bisexuality, which was a bit annoying because their antics obviously weren't that legit or a Serious Statement. I liked Ryan's answer:

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artist-issues · 3 months

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idk anything about 21 pilots, but you talk about them a lot and they seem cool!! Who are they and what are they about and where do i get started in their music 😁

GIRL

These kinds of questions make me so happy. People who know me in real life organically ask me to talk about movies and stuff sometimes, but never bands, and when they find out I like twenty one pilots, never them 😂

Anyway,

Twenty one pilots is a roughly 15 year-old band led by Tyler Joseph, who used to be an intern at Five14 Church (New Albany Church) in Columbus, Ohio, and a rising basketball star in his schooling. Then, my understanding is, he taught himself how to play piano, got interested in/wrote songs during his senior year of high school, and then eventually dropped out of college to pursue making music full time. The band is named after a play by Arthur Miller called “All My Sons.” Tyler Joseph studied it in school—he was inspired by the plot of having to make a hard decision that ultimately costs lives…and you can hear through all the songs the sense of urgency, and the way the lead singer is convinced that every single choice you make can have dire consequences.

At the start of the band, it had him and two other members. Their first album is called “Twenty One Pilots,” and it has sick album art that everybody loves:

The band played local shows (like in literal houses and backyards and stuff) and were mostly performing songs from this album. My favorite twenty one pilots song is on this album: it’s called Addict With a Pen.

(Specifically, my favorite is this version of him performing it live several years after its release, which I saw after returning from the camp where I got saved.)

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In those early years, twenty one pilots performed songs off of Self-Titled. But they also did a few that Tyler Joseph wrote independently, the ones not featured on the album.

One of the songs that he wrote that isn’t on this album was written when he was in high school before he had a band. It’s called “Save.” He probably recorded it in the early 2000s, but if I don’t have my years mixed up, I didn’t hear that song until I was 14-turning-15 in the year 2011. And it, along with another song of his called “Clear,” played with it, was the first song I ever heard by twenty one pilots. I heard it the week I gave my life to Christ. Save is a gut-scream song about the need to be saved. It’s hard to listen to. But in the context I heard it in, I needed to be hearing the idea of “needing salvation” in that extreme and real of a voice. So I love it.

Clear is about Tyler Joseph’s struggle with trying to figure out if it’s better to get people thinking with cryptic lyrics about their need for a savior—OR should he just come out and say, “I’m a Christian, I believe Jesus Christ is what you need, please believe in Him like I did?” He winds up settling on the first option (sometimes I wish he hadn’t) and “telling the audience what he can,” and not pushing it on them when they “let him know when they’ve had enough.”

Clear planted the germs in my brain that led to me considering art, and then storytelling as a tool to deliver hard truth “under the eyes of watchful dragons.” He talks about the concept of Romans 7 using the philosophy of disguising his words, like in Clear, in this interview, which, when I saw the part at about 9 minutes, made me start paying attention to Tyler Joseph as a person instead of just listening to his music.

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Anyway. Back to the band.

One of these independent songs, NOT on the original album of the band, was called “Time to Say Goodbye,” and it has a pretty intense ‘cycle of knowing you’re messed up (like really messed up. suicide attempt and purposeless darkness levels of messed up) -> unable to fix it on your own -> trying anyway -> failing -> driven to accept Christ’s ability to kill the old you so you can live for something bigger than your messed-up self’ concept in the lyrics.

That whole progression, the “Romans 7 Progression,” I think of it as, winds up being one of the strongest recurring themes in every album afterward.

But I bring it up because the legend is, when performing that song, Time to Say Goodbye, at a little venue, Josh Dun, who already had some experience drumming in a different Christian band, saw twenty one pilots for the first time. And he thought the song and Tyler were brilliant. The current drummer of the band introduced him to Tyler, and when everybody in the band except Tyler quit, Josh Dun quit his job with no fallback plan and became the drummer of twenty one pilots. Since then, they have been a two-man band.

They have their own genre, because they’re both self-taught, and one of the identifying factors of the band is that both Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph are intensely opposed to giving in to the draw of “Fame” or “Success.” They stubbornly insist that they just make music they like. Whatever, that’s not unique, lots of bands are punk rock and go “fight the power, we don’t care what anybody thinks, etc.”

But then you listen to Tyler Joseph adding screamo and ukulele and rap over…like, church-piano, and you hear him say things like, “I just rap because I needed to fit a lot of words in, and also my brother likes fast rap.” and you go, “oh. They meant it. They don’t know how any of this works and they just do what they like.”

Especially in their early stuff.

I “got into” twenty one pilots in the year 2011. That’s the same year they signed to a record label. They produced what I think is their best album, “Vessel,” (nobody agrees with me.)

I could break down every song on the album but nobody wants that and nobody would read it, so I’ll just say; it has deeper exploration of the band’s same themes:

Be Introspective - All the time, the lead singer is writing lyrics that urgently explore the dark corners of his own fear, doubt, and insecurity—and then he flips it around and begs his listeners to be introspective, too, because “there’s something you desperately need.” It’s this idea of not running from your emotions, but letting them drive you to what you need. (He’s never clear about what that is, though, beyond the general word “faith.”)

Focus on Your Purpose - They insist that being introspective should lead to picking what you believe, and living it out to make the most of your time.

What Music Should Be For - The lyrics are all about how music should be used to fight darkness, because it can be exorcism of your inner demons, and a rallying cry to gather around and show you that you’re not the only person who has demons. With that in mind, the band is consistently opposed to “heartless,” “mindless” music that’s just there to make you dance or indulge.

Peace Wins, Fear Loses - This theme is where they usually get closest to their Christian roots. The pattern, like I said, is the Romans 7 Cycle: I’m afraid of who I am because the digger I deep, the darker and crazier I am…but I don’t have to act on that fear. I can just throw myself at the mercy of…._____ which brings peace. Peace wins, fear loses. (After signing to the record label, Tyler Joseph went full-on into the idea in Clear of never saying point-blank that Jesus is the answer. He hints and alludes. But from that moment on, he disguises Biblical principles in zombie-and-darkness metaphors. And he hasn’t stopped doing that since 2011.)

Doubt - A recurring theme that actually has nothing to do with the audience is “doubt.” Tyler Joseph exorcises his issues with not being able to physically see God, and doubting His existence (usually because of a lack of feeling), or doubting His ability to wash Tyler clean, in his songs. All the time. Just…constantly. He sings about it so often. Which, on the one hand, is cool, because many Christian artists sing about the resolve to have faith in the face of doubt. They don’t sing so much about the feeling and the addiction to doubt that comes with doubt. If that makes sense. But on the other hand, that’s not cool—because when you only talk about the fact that you have doubts, but you don’t ever resolve them, then what you’re doing is you’re constantly rolling around in the problem without ever introducing the solution.

It’s worth noting that I think their very best song of all time is on this album, and it’s “Holding Onto You.”

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It’s their full Romans 7 Cycle in a way that addresses doubt, too. The imagery is everything I love about twenty one pilots, which I would sum up as:

“Use dark imagery to prove how defeatable darkness can be.”

I like that kind of imagery for the same reasons I like Halloween.

People started noticing the band, mainstream, worldwide, in 2015, though. When they released “Blurryface.”

They did it in such a cool way. The band loves giving their fans a sense of “uncovering” what they’re doing next. That gives the fans a sense of ownership—like they’re a part of what the band is creating. And, it makes them want to investigate the concepts in the songs—which is one step closer to examining what they believe. Organically.

Anyway. They accomplished this before Blurryface, is I remember correctly, by making a Twitter account for this mysterious character. They’d livestream Tyler and Josh from the perspective of an unseen, loudly breathing third person. Or the feed would just be a dark shot of the woods. No explanations. At one point I think I remember “he” even started “hacking” popular fans’ accounts and making posts in-character. He always spells things in all caps, with words misspelled or smashed together. And he’d tease new songs that would be on the new album.

And then, BAM, Blurryface the album drops, and it’s a smash hit. Every single song. The band had never seen that level of success before, and all of it is very ironic, because the album concept is this: “Tyler Joseph puts a name to his Insecurities, who want him dead, and battles them.”

So the whole “album cycle,” and all through tour, Tyler Joseph wears inky black paint on his hands and throat, because anxiety gives him the feeling of suffocating. Red is also the signature color of the character representing his dark side, his insecurity: “Blurryface.”

Twenty one pilots have been very intentionally deciding what shirts they wear and what visuals they use from the beginning. Josh was always wearing something alien-associated, and Tyler was always something undead, for example. But this was a whole other level of performance art. During concerts, Tyler Joseph would start out wearing his black paint thick around his neck and hands. But as the live show went on, naturally because of sweat, the paint would get thinner and thinner. So by the end of the show, the feeling is that “Blurryface” has been defeated.

I made a huge post about ranking the Blurryface songs, if you ever have nothing to do for an absurd amount of time and feel like listening to the songs. But those songs are what most people know twenty one pilots by.

Then they took an intensely long hiatus, (I mean. One year of no public appearances.) after the success of Blurryface. I remember wondering if they were ever going to make music again, and thinking “maybe they’re the perfect band” because in my high-school-entering-college opinion, they’d never written a bad song or done anything remotely uncool or worth hating from 2009-2016, so if they never made music again they’d have gone out on top. Plus, at that point, Tyler had married, and, feeling a Christian kinship with him, I had a vague biased opinion that maybe he’d want to settle in with his family and quit the fame game.

But NO. They weren’t done! In 2018, the fans discovered this hidden website associated with the band, and you could read letters written by a new character named Clancy. They were about this whole new world Tyler Joseph created, called “Trench,” which consequently became the name of their next album. This was a full-blown concept album. It was a deeper exploration, not of the Romans 7 Cycle that always made me love their lyrics…but more like an exploration of “how do suicidal thoughts and self-focus captivate you, and what lies do they use…and can you ever really escape them?”

There was also a much tighter focus on suicide being the big idealogical villain, the antithesis, of the band. “Stay alive” and the topic of suicide were always discussed in the rest of the band’s songs. But the momentum of this album seemed very, very specifically targeted at the issue this time. There’s a whole song dedicated to it called Neon Gravestones in the smack middle of the album.

Which is great. I’m glad. It’s awesome. But it’s like…”what’s the answer?” Way back in “Time to Say Goodbye,” the answer is “replace physical life-taking with spiritual self-sacrifice and rebirth.” But Trench, and its whole concept, was specifically engineered to leave you with no clear answer to the problem presented.

Worst of all, Tyler Joseph mentioned, in his vague noncommittal way, that this album saw him flirting with the idea of “a world with no God” and “loss of faith.” But he never really said he wasn’t a Christian anymore, and songs like Morph seem to suggest the opposite.

Anyway. The album’s excellent “story,” with its notes of Shawshank Redemption and The Village and 1984 ended on a cliffhanger. The character Clancy kept trying to escape with the help of a rebellion, and kept getting captured, but he always had this sort of confused resolve to “keep going.”

The next album was weird. They flipped all of their usual imagery on it’s head, from marketing style choices to the literal clothes they wore to tiny things, like whether or not Tyler was standing on Josh’s left or Josh’s right in promotional material. And all of that was intentional. Which is why I’m obsessed with them.

I love this album because I love them and their intentionality. I don’t love it for any other reason; there’s nothing about this album that is “twenty one pilots” aside from what I just said; they are doing all of that reverse-psychology stuff intentionally. In-story, this is still a continuation of Trench; the idea is that Clancy has been captured and the whole album is propaganda from the villains. So that’s neat. But anyone who didn’t know that, and just remembered twenty one pilots from Stressed Out and punk rock were like, “what happened to twenty one pilots? What’s wrong with them?”

The album does this thing that they used to do a lot as like a meta-nod at music—they would make songs with upbeat melodies and happy sounds, but the lyrics would be about insecurity and darkness and doubt. They did that on purpose. But Scaled and Icy took that tongue-in-cheek style and made it the whole album. Plus, it released during COVID. So on top of all the chaos going on in the world, this band that usually releases music that slaps you upside the head and says, “THINK. THINK ABOUT HOW SELF-CONTRADICTORY YOU ARE. THINK ABOUT THE DARKNESS AND HOW TO GET OUT OF IT.” suddenly releases an album that’s more like, “Hey everything is fiiiine.”

This album is pretty godless. But again, this was also the album that has nothing to do with anything serious or real—on purpose—except in a reverse-psychology way. It was all on purpose.

Fast-forward to today. Clancy just released. It’s supposed to be the end of this “story” that started with Blurryface overtly, and the concepts that started in Vessel. Musically, concept-wise, it’s a return to form. They do that thing where they switch up the tempo when you’re not expecting it. You can’t pin it down to any one genre. There’s deep, dark imagery. And the story is back, not with hidden clues, but with in-your-face costumes and a music video for every song.

But the problem is, it won’t end. They said this was the end, and I thought, “if anything forces an artist to use clarity, it’s the end of a story. You have to commit to an ending. You have to say what you believe.” And that’s all I’ve been wishing would happen since 2017, when I started feeling less like “I relate to those dark thoughts and doubts,” and more like, “I’m worried about them.” Because clarity denotes security in what you believe. And the whole “battle” has been against insecurity. And to that extent, doubt.

It’s not happening, though. They released the last music video, and it really looks like the end of the story is, “and the cycle continues.” Now, there’s been hints that they’ll end the story after tour season, maybe by releasing an additional single, or some wishful thinkers are even saying “DELUXE ALBUM!!” But for now, it’s another cliffhanger-maybe-unsatisfying-ending.

The further away they’ve gotten from releasing the song “Clear,” the further away the focus seems to get from “darkness is defeatable.” And they left “it’s defeatable specifically by God” in the rear view mirror first.

And the thing is…I worry about that. Because it really looks like he’s just playing the field. That he started off with the intent to share Christ with people very genuinely, through the gift he was given in writing and music and even the gift he was given in struggling through darkness. And his strategy was, “I’ll use art to help people trust me, and then I’ll share what I’ve learned about the Truth (Jesus.)” But then…I mean, from the outside, it looks like they got popular. And they got popular by talking about their struggles. So how do I know he hasn’t just slipped into a cycle of doubting, then instead of letting brokenness and doubt drive him back to Christ, and pull others along with him, he sits in brokenness and doubt because he’s relying on the people who relate? He’s choosing to lean on crowds of people who feel the same way he does, cheering his songs back at him, as his support, when he used to lean on Christ?

And now he can’t even see his way back to what looked like (to me) the original intent—he says things like “I don’t think I’ll ever come out and say, ‘hey I found the answers, here they are, follow me,” in interviews. He skirts. He says, “stay alive, find your purpose, decide what you believe,” but he doesn’t say “here’s why you should stay alive, here’s what your purpose is, here’s what’s worth believing in, here’s where genuine life comes from.”

So now he gets to tell all his original (and several largely Christian) fans, “I haven’t abandoned Christ, I just struggle with doubt and I don’t want to alienate my friends (the point of the song Heathens.)” But he turns right around and says to his non-believing fan base, “I’m not telling you what to believe—in fact, maybe I’m not even sure of what I believe.”

And at some point, that stops being genuine. I think. I don’t think he’s reached the point where he’s not genuine yet. I don’t believe that of Tyler Joseph. I think he’s still not sure he wants to sing, with all the conviction it would take, about how Jesus is the ONLY way, when he himself feels like he struggles so much with doubt. How do you lead people where you’re imperfectly going? He has a handle on not committing suicide. So he leads them there, as far as he can. But…still. There’s life beyond this life. There’s EITHER life or death beyond this death. At some point, does he believe that, or not? Is he going to keep using his gift to supply bandaids to cannonball wounds, or not?

But I have basically been a nervous wreck whenever I think about them, the backing soundtrack of my growing years, since 2017.

I have enormous amounts of respect and this familial loyalty-feeling for both Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun (Tyler more so, because of his impact on me through his individually-released songs when I was in high school and then up through college.) I look at them on like, MTV and junk and have the same familiar, adoring, well-wishing feeling I did when a friend I knew went on to be moderately famous.

And all that to say, I love them, I don’t think any other band can do what they do or has done what they’ve done, and they’re my unmatched favorite. But I can acknowledge that there’s something that might be rotting in there, now. Something that didn’t used to be this way. And you just can’t keep going so long, claiming you’re talking about hope, without standing up for the Source of Hope. That’s all probably way more than you wanted to know. But thank you for letting me vent it all, even if you didn’t get to the bottom!

#twenty one pilots #top #tøp #Tyler Joseph #stressed out #music #my favorite band #the favorite band #five14 church #Columbus Ohio #bands #Clancy #meta #analysis #band history #Josh dun #Joshua William dun #Christianity #faith

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stormblessed95 · 8 months

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https://x.com/kmgoogiemini/status/1750998991217590499?s=46

How do these people lie so much and honestly believe their ship is real Stormy? How many things are even correct here? As far as i can tell the only correct thing is that Jk said Tae listened to Seven first. Everything else is either a straight up lie, mistranslation or something taken out of context. These are the things that taekookers believe to be true and somehow jikookers are the jokers?

Let's just do some super quick fact checks and correcting misinformation with links to proof to backup all my sources here:

"Jungkook said I want to join the special forces"

True! (comes from the last live before military service)

"Jungkook said Taehyung is my safe space"

False! Jungkook said that Tae was his common ground (comes from festa 2020 profiles is where they mistranslated that one from)

"Jungkook said my relationship with Taehyung is not for the cameras"

False! Made up by shippers in 2014, Proof here

"Jungkook said that the first person to hear the song Seven was Taehyung"

True! From Seven Spotify Interview

"Jungkook is the first person to hear Taehyungs album and record it in his house"

True! JK was the first to hear some of Tae's songs. And Tae did record A singular song at JKs house/studio. The whole album though wasn't mentioned specifically (but that might still be true) and only one song was recorded at JKs place I believe. Comes from JKs live and Tae's You Quiz interview

"Jungkook has a song he always sings to Taehyung"

False! I think they just made that up. I did a little searching anyway, lol but yeah no....

"The members said Taekook will never separate"

False! The members made a fortune teller joke where one said "so you guys can never be apart then?" As a silly joke about the color shirts they were wearing. Proof here

"the members said that if you want JK, call Taehyung (and vice versa) because they are always together."

False! The only thing said about JK was that he didn't like answering his phone and basically never did. Everything else was made up. From MBTI labs

"They went together to show the movie and were wearing identical clothes with strong lesbian expressions about their relationship."

(lmfao what) Sort of true.... (?) They did go to the movie premiere together! And Tae wore an Morrissey/Oscar Wilde shirt (openly gay and put on trial for being gay) and JK wore a jacket with scripture about two men being jailed for their practices and one of which many people believe to be gay/queer coded and a shirt with references to Taylor Meed's poetry (openly gay and wrote for a gay newspaper). Idk what the rest of that was about though lol

"Taekook in a luxury hotel dancing RUN BTS together and spending the night!"

True, they were in a luxury hotel and danced RUN BTS!

And also False, they spent the night. No one knows, we just saw them do a TikTok dance. They made the rest up lol maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Can't make facts outta assumptions though!

Taekooks picture from their date that jokers said was OT7 but boom turned out to only be a date

False! Boom.... Was an OT7 dinner.... Lol Proof Here

And Bam that Tae raised and the photos he posted

True since Tae DID post a cute photo of him with baby Bam and made a joke about raising him. As did every BTS member with Yeotan.... Lmfao False due to weird exaggeration though

Taekook and their seven dance together

True! Tae danced Seven with JK on his encore stage!

youtube

Jimin said: Tae and JK love forever

True! He wrote their names in a heart in the sand in BV1 and that's the quote he said (sorta)

Jimin said Tae and JK share their music and everything and do not share it with the members.

False! I cannot prove a negative but the lack of proof of this quote anywhere ever should be enough. Lol they made this one up. Should've stuck with the tangible evidence that they shared their music with each other in these latest albums first instead of trying to take it one step too far and starting to lie lol

"they are the two closest members and they have special trips and a lot of real dates and like to spend all their time together and they like to stay up all night and watch the sunrise together and they share everything."

False! Lmao the more you read the more it becomes like fanfiction rather than evidence based facts

"Jungkook said he didn't know Jimin's number and hasn't seen him in weeks and months."

False! JK said he couldn't remember a GC nickname, he also mentioned during a different live that he didn't have Jins number saved. And JK clearly had been seeing Jimin at various points as they were signing up for buddy service in the military which takes a lot of prep time.... Lol but he still never said that, but he did say "I miss you" a lot, but that's not "I haven't seen him in weeks and months" lol Proof about the numbers here

"Jungkook will always choose Taehyung to spend private time with, a true relationship"

False! Wasnt said anywhere by anyone, just an opinion from a shipper lol

"Your ship is 0 without the company and the cameras and this is the truth, and in the solo era Jungkook spends all his time with Taehyung"

False! They spent lots of time together, but this is just a shipper fighting other shippers.... No facts, no ship or friendship in BTS will ever be zero either

And just more of that shipper fighting nonsense to finish it off. Sucks since they started off relatively strong with Taekook appreciation only to just degrade into shipper bullshit.

Anyway, this was fun. I wouldn't mind more true/false games in the future 🤣🤣🤣

#taekook #jikook #shipping discourse #ship wars are dumb #correcting misinformation

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mrghostrat · 8 months

Text

i appreciate all the kindness for my uni rejection, and anyone going through the same thing should def read through my replies if they need similar comfort. there’s a lot of “ATAR isn’t everything!” comments tho, which made me realise i haven’t actually talked much about my goals, so i wanted to share a little context.

i’m 30 (on the 17th). i took a gap year after high school and i went to uni at 19. i even dropped out a semester before graduating to pursue the one thing that was making me happy (my first original comic) during a really bad depression (undiagnosed adhd burnout). i got the last units and graduated a year later, a bachelor of game design.

haven’t used my degree once. i went into comics and freelance rather than games. but i also loved that degree and would do it all again, it was absolutely worth it.

i’ve been freelance and self sufficient for 6-7 years, and it’s fun and i’m proud of the things i’ve made, but i’m so tired. i’m specifically tired of having to work 7 different angles to make up one sufficient salary, and even if it ends up being temporary, i’d give anything for a 9-5. have someone else in charge for once.

got to the end of my rope last year and sat down to figure out what i like and what i’m good at. a Life Plan, yknow. i’ve always had an interest in teaching, helping, connecting like that. figured out degrees and became really invested in this new trajectory i pictured my life going on. i was also tired of waiting, because every time i wanted to move back to the city from this tiny town we’re in, somethings come up or delayed it. so zita helped me figure out how we could get the ball rolling and break our lease 3 months early, so we could move back to melbourne and i could start my degree this year. we looked for (and found) an apartment specifically on the side of the city that would be closest to my campus.

i hope that gives a lil context as to why i’m so devastated right now. the last 5 months have been me revving up to start this new chapter at the end of feb and one little email said nah.

the degree i wanted to do was a double degree, secondary education (hons) and a BA of fine arts. i was equally excited for both, because i never got to do a lot of actual art learning in my last degree, and the BA would give me all of that— life drawing, sculpting, painting, wood/metal/jewellery working, digital, fuckin everything. but it was the less important of the pair, when it comes to getting myself a job as an art teacher, because i already have the art experience. it was just a fun bonus, and the education degree was the one i NEEDED.

in nov i had to travel to melbourne to present a portfolio and interview for the BA. they showed me around the studio too, and i fell a little bit in love. i got the acceptance email in december, but i still didn’t have an offer for the education degree. another reason why i’m so discombobulated— i technically have an invitation, but it’s for the less important degree that would just be a money sink. do i go to uni anyway?? or just ignore this invitation and move on?

my state recently made education/teaching degrees free as a way of encouraging more teacher jobs. i learnt about this after i decided i wanted to pursue teaching, so it was just a fun lil bonus that i wouldn’t be adding to my student debt. apparently not, bc i didn’t think about how every teenager and their dog would apply for teaching degrees so they could get straight into uni without any debt. so, even tho i’m a graduate and i’m not relying on school scores, i was one in a million, likely just numbers on a page, and didn’t get in.

there could be other paths. i could start the BA and add the Edu degree later? i could reapply for mid year intake. i could… idk, most of what i could do requires emailing Monash and asking wtf, because i have no idea what’s actually possible and will need someone to lay it out for me.

still feels like i’ve run into a brick wall though. little bit shut down. more sad, not quite angry, but suddenly really spiteful for some reason— like “oh, you don’t want me? okay fuck you then, i won’t ever teach.” so stupid. just a bit fragile rn

#ghost scribbles

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eazy-peazy54 · 3 months

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ugh THANK YOU for making that will wood fandom post. okay this ask is gonna be super long and i’m really sorry to vent in your inbox but anyway. i heard about will on tumblr several years ago right after the normal album dropped but before he “blew up” (using that term loosely lol) and i’ve steadily watched his fanbase become more and more unbearable. for context i’m in my mid 20s, so unfortunately quite a bit older than a large portion of his current fans.

it’s really disappointing to me to see how strangely and unhealthily young people interact with media they like. i won’t waste time reiterating what you already said very well, but i will add something about the opposite end of the weird fan spectrum. so you basically called out some of the very public manic obsession that his younger fans display, but then there’s the other fans who do literally the opposite (to an obnoxious degree) where they say he’s literally just some guy etc. and like. i’m totally on board with the just some guy movement like yes let’s please acknowledge that artists are just people who happen to create something that you enjoy (especially small artists like will who aren’t even “famous” like he’s a niche indie artist that gained some recognition for a viral song but there are some kids out here treating him like a c-list celebrity like??) HOWEVER i do not understand why they have to act like any sort of emotional attachment to him or his work is toxic fan behavior. there’s absolutely no balance and it’s exhausting.

i personally feel like i and some of his older fans (older in age and duration i.e. mid 20s and/or been a fan since before early-mid 2021? i feel like that’s when he went viral) naturally engage in a more sane way. i personally am incredibly attached to his music, it means a lot to me, i listen to it a ton, and i also enjoy will as a person; i very much admire the brain, the mind, the person behind the art. i think he’s funny, intelligent, interesting, not to mention one of the most talented musicians / artists in general that i’ve ever come across. i like listening to him in interviews and on his podcast. and i think i manage all of that in a healthy and respectful way. i don’t think it’s difficult. but for some reason there are some fans who probably wouldn’t like the second part of that. they take “separate the art from the artist” way too far. “Do Not Have An Opinion About This Human You Perv”. it’s annoying. calling him pretty or attractive or whatever also gets met with some very weird reactions. “HE’S JUST A GUY” yes most of us are, in fact, just a guy™️ (gender neutral). saying he’s cute is not sexual harassment.

another thing that actually pisses me off so much is these fans describing and categorizing him based on their and their mutuals very specific demographic. “white teenage transmasc audhd neurodivergent mentally ill queer etc. etc. etc.” music. that is such a limited and myopic generalization. first of all, he had fans way before you, your age group is not his target demographic, nor is it his core demographic, on top of that he’s explicitly stated he doesn’t want people your age listening to him. he’s not for you. second, it absolutely makes sense that mentally ill people gravitate towards him given that he himself is severely mentally ill, so this part of the description pisses me off the least, but still, he’s also a recovering/recovered alcoholic, but i don’t see people saying he makes music for addicts? idk.

next is the queer bit. yeah gay people like him. i get it. he’s a queer safe space and that’s cool and i appreciate it but i feel like it’s still narrowing the categorization. he also has a lot of neurodivergent fans and i understand why. i think my main issue is just a combination of all of these very specific descriptors you know? like yeah he has fans that fit all of this but when you lump all of it together to describe his music and the entirety of his fandom then it becomes too much. whatever. anyway. the one that makes me the most mad is the white thing. i hate it when music that isn’t inherently racial is divided by race. it’s alienating and divisive and exclusionary and unnecessary. there are plenty of fans of color and there would probably be even more if some of y’all didn’t insist on generalizing his music based on your own limited experience. i think that’s sort of a microcosm of what a lot of poc talk about on here, about being shoved out of fandom spaces? like imagine you’re an adult queer black guy and you keep hearing about this will wood person who makes really cool music so you go to give it a try and find a bunch of 14yos calling him white preteen transmasc music. super off putting. even as someone who actually does fall into a couple (not all) of the demographics they talk about i know i would absolutely not be a fan now if i’d discovered him later than i did. which makes me sad. anyway. sorry this is definitely getting very long and rambly so i’m sorry about that i just have a lot of opinions about this fanbase.

oh my god this put everything i missed into words THANK YOU 😭

I completely agree with everything you just said!!! Honestly the whole big point with my essay was to just say "hey guys, don't be weird about this, and be respectful because there is a real person behind the screen!"

everyone who goes too far with the "HES JUST A GUY" thing isn't helping. its like. yeah, hes just a guy, but that doesn't mean i cant have any sort of attachment to his music whatsoever??? some people's idea of treating people like real people is really just treating them worse than how they were being treated before 😭

The people who are policing the fandom too much aren't helping either, its getting really exhausting to keep seeing posts saying "oh he looks really good in this photo!" and seeing like 200 replies being like "STOP SEXUALIZING YOU CREEP!!!!" (although there are people who actually do sexualize him, (which is really gross and weird) but i digress,)

music based fandoms are usually very,,, eh.. but honestly most of the fandom isn't bad, its just the people who take things to the extremes (in both directions) who are kind of making it a bit more awkward.

i think the fandom, and his music as a whole shouldn't just be narrowed down to "gay neurodivergent weirdo music," but it should just be like. "music for cool people" or hell, just fuckin "music"

#THIS PERSON GETS IT 🗣#will wood #will wood and the tapeworms #wwatt #litwtc #life in the world to come #peazy's yapping #asks :3

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slayerkitty · 11 months

Text

Narrative Frameworks in Only Friends

So here we are, the finale of Only Friends and not a framework in sight. Would the last half of the show worked better in some respects if we had the frameworks come back? Would we understand more about why Boston's friends hate him? (Did they ever like him? Ray seemed to, but Mew and Cheum...)

I wish we had gotten more frameworks toward the end. I wish the voiceovers had come back for the last episode if nothing else, because I would have wanted one from each character. It would have maybe solved some of the narrative issues (re: Boston).

I also wanted to thank everyone who liked, reblogged, commented or otherwise interacted with me and these posts on a weekly basis. Your feedback, discussions and general love made watching Only Friends an amazing experience each week and reminded me why I love being in fandoms.

Shoutout to the amazing members of the Ephemerality Squad who made this ride fun and thought provoking: @lurkingshan, @waitmyturtles, @wen-kexing-apologist, @chickenstrangers, @ranchthoughts, @twig-tea, @clara-maybe-ontheroad, @distant-screaming, @thatgirl4815, @elizabethsebestianhedgehog

I've gone back and added things to earlier episodes that weren't there before, so make sure to read through the whole list! Please let me know if I missed anything - I will edit this post based on suggestions.

Frameworks:

1. Voiceovers: gives the audience specific insight into a characters thoughts and feelings; also a great way to provide exposition. It’s more of an audio than visual framework, as we don’t always see the character doing the voice-over because it plays over other scenes.

2. “Talking Heads”: The characters talk directly to the camera, interview/documentary style. We get to see exactly how they feel about a given moment because they are reacting to it at that time. Audio and visual. Homage to Love8009 (per P'Jojo).

3. Social Media (ft The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook): Not as insightful as the other two frameworks but does give context and a way for interaction, commentary, and exposition on a given plot. Visual. Probable homage to Together With Me, one of the first spicy BLs starring our kings, MaxTul.

(Side Note: I was re-watching some scenes from Never Let me Go and realized P'Jojo uses yellow text on the screen in it too. So maybe he just likes the yellow text or maybe it means something, idk, idk.)

Episode 1

Framework: Voiceover

Title: What’s Your Role in a Bar?

Narrator: Mew

Visual Moment: Yellow title cards listing everyone’s “roles” as well as the month and days of the week

End Credit Shot: Mew sitting on the floor in front of his fish tank

Episode 2

Framework: Talking Heads

Title: M.F.M. My Favorite Man

Narrator: Everyone

Visual Moment: The talking heads scenes; SandRay smoke kiss; Boston's dark room; Photo Boston takes of Nick post sex; Photo of RayMew from wakeboarding

Audible Moment: The songs Ray plays during his scenes with Sand

End Credit Shot: Ray driving

Episode 3

Framework: Social Media (Twitter and Instagram)

Title: What Am I to You?

Narrator: Nick and Boston

Audible Moment: The thunder rumbling ominously over everyone's bad decisions, Nick listening to the TopBoston sex audio

Visual Moment: Top's Instagram (with all of Boston's comments); Photo strip of TopBoston from their hookup in the photo booth; Photo of the Fab Four in Boston's room; Nick watching TopBoston have sex; Photo of RayMew kissing

End Credit Shot: Nick listening to TopBoston sex audio

Episode 4

Framework: Voiceover

Title: Emergency Contact

Narrator: Ray

Visual Moment: The flashback of RayMew is in 4:3 ratio (meaning it looks like recorded footage versus a memory); yellow text onscreen indicates flashback

Audible Moment: TopMew at the silent disco (both moments of silence but also them singing); SandRay listening to music at the record store

End Credit Shot: Ray driving (repeat from episode 2)

Episode 5:

Framework: Voiceover

Title: The Extra Hour

Narrator: Sand

Visual Moment: Intro and Outro are animated; black and white (made me think of the Take on Me MV by A-ha but I’m open to suggestions on what this might be referring to), "Ray o'clock/Alone o'clock" appearing onscreen in white letters (not yellow!); TopMew going Instagram official; The blind dining scene

End Credit Shot: Sand driving his motorcycle

Episode 6:

Framework: None

Title: Happy Fucking Birthday

Narrator: None

Audible Moment: Ray listens to the TopBoston sex audio; Mew plays the TopBoston sex audio for Top

Visual Moment: Top draws Mew sleeping/gives Mew a book of drawings he did of Mew; BostonNick selfies

End Credit Shot: Top in his bathtub alone looking angsty

Episode 7:

Framework: None

Title: After Effect

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: Mew setting the drawing on fire; Boston’s sex tape; the “super zooms”

End Credit Shot: Mew sitting on the floor in front of his fish tank (repeat from episode 1)

Episode 8:

Framework: None

Title: Save Me

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: Facebook party invite/everyone’s reactions to the invite; Everyone’s costumes at the party

End Credit Shot: Boston looking angsty at the hostel

Episode 9:

Framework: None

Title: The Return

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: Boston’s photo of Atom; Top recording SandRay kissing;

End Credit Shot: Top in his bathtub alone looking angsty (repeat from episode 6)

Episode 10:

Framework: None

Title: Redemption

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: The “I will never leave you”/“I will never love you” neon sign; Boston’s photos of Atom; Nick’s photo as Boston’s lock screen; Boeing’s Instagram

End Credit Shot: Ray driving (repeat from episode 2 and episode 4)

Episode 11:

Framework: None

Title: Move On Move In

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: Boston taking pics of NickAtom

End Credit Shot: Sand driving his motorcycle (repeat from episode 5)

Episode 12:

Framework: None

Title: Begin Again

Narrator: None

Visual Moment: Yellow letters indicating the date (NYE); Framed photo of Nick; Framed photo of the Fab Four at the hostel; Mix's entrance; Begin Again montage of SandRay; Hostel sign "Only Friends Stay"

Audible Moment: Begin Again montage of SandRay

End Credit Shot: Outtakes/BTS

Tagging @sandrayy by request

Apologies to anyone I forgot!

#only friends the series #only friends meta #thai bl #ephemerality squad #only friends is over and I don't know what my emotions are doing

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chaos0pikachu · 5 months

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Hi Pika, I don't know if you've been following gmmtv's take over of wabi sabi, I just want to ask you: given that so many companies are part of TBLC which is like a Thai BL content association, do you have any idea why gmmtv isn't a part of it? BOC, DMD, Star Hunter, Copy A Bangkok, Channel 3 are all part of it, I'm just wondering why gmmtv isn't even thought it's the biggest bl company? Wabi Sabi was/is a part of it. (idk exactly)

I can't emphasize enough that I am NOT an expert on this snaps lmao so anything I say that isn't like a direct link to an article or further reading source is speculation on my part. You're a sweetheart Anon but I just wanna let you know that like if you wanna know about the American publishing or entertainment industry but I don't wanna present myself as like ~an expert~ when my ass ain't ya know?

So my short answer is fuck if I know lol I hadn't even heard of the TBLC till this ask

For folks interested in it, here's the livestream they hosted for it (it's 45ish minutes) and it doesn't have subs though. But it seems to be connected to Thailand's soft power committee, here's an article on that:

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who chairs the committee, tasked deputy chairwoman Paetongtarn Shinawatra with leading two national initiatives: One Family One Soft Power (OFOS) and the Thailand Creative Content Agency (THACCA). The goal of the initiatives is skills training to create 20 million jobs that will generate annual income of 4 trillion baht. OFOS and THACCA will be implemented in three phases: First, to boost human resources, 20 million children, adults, and seniors in under village and community funds will get free training in fields such as food, Muay Thai, arts, performance, singing, design, fashion, e-sports, and more, free of charge.

For folks who may not know, soft power is a term coined by political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. in his article Soft Power published by Foreign Policy magazine.

"In the 1980s, political scientist Joseph Nye Jr. coined the term soft power, defining it as a country’s ability to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure. In practice, that process entails countries projecting their values, ideals, and culture across borders to foster goodwill and strengthen partnerships." (source)

Soft power is a form of governmental influence internationally, and works conjunction with "hard power".

Examples of "soft power" are the American space program, athletes performing at the Olympics, and on the media side, military propaganda films like Captain Marvel, (yes I consider Captain Marvel a military propaganda film the film opens with a freaking air force ad lmao).

You see other countries using similar tactics as well, for every Top Gun there's China's Wolf Warrior 2 or Hidden Blade. For South Korea, BTS and k-pop is most definitely used as a source of soft power. This is just something governments do.

Okay so like, gmmtv and BL we've been hearing for a minute now that BL and GL are part of the Thai governments plans for soft power.

Mile and Apo have spoken about this specifically when promoting Man Suang and here's a recent video of them working in conjunction with the government on Shine:

(source)

Even Mew's talked about Thailand's soft power in interviews before (context, Mew was the first Thai musician to break into the American Billboard charts):

(source)

It's not just BL either, Idol Factory's Freen and Becky of The Gap fame got in on this too:

So like, it sounds like this meeting/committee in general is just an extension of the Thai governments plans for expanding their soft power which includes how to better support this now highly in demand industry (BL/GL shows) b/c the government sees its international value.

I can only assume that like, gmmtv feels it doesn't need~ government support as a production company? They're the biggest BL studio in the game and have an annoying stranglehold on territories like America and Latin America already. It doesn't really matter what the quality of the shows even are, gmmtv have that sweet parasocial grip on audiences.

[my forever frustrations with gmmtv and how they sell idols and parasocial relationships not BL/GL shows is a totally different post so lemme stop]

Other companies don't really have that same hold on international audiences. At least not consistently? And the biggest concern is funding.

I think anyone with eyeballs can see Kinnporsche is the best well produced BL that's come out of Thailand (argue with the wall) in terms of overall technical quality. But that level of quality is expensive, the CGI in The Sign is freaking expensive, The Next Prince's pilot is so obviously pricey as all fuck you can tell the studio is banking on it selling.

Which is why studios like Idol Factory, Domandi or BOC only come out with a one or two shows a year in comparison to gmmtv's like 16. They need funding, not just for filming the show but also marketing. Filmmaking is hella expensive.

[I'm not talking about whether y'all liked this show or that show, I'm talking about technical quality, shows like Kinnporsche, The Sign, Pit Babe are all better on a technical level than stuff like 1000 Stars, Only Friends or Cooking Crush.]

Why didn't gmmtv attend the event or participate, baby I legit do not know. I can't answer that with any sort of certainty only their execs could answer that, I can only guess.

And my best guess is b/c the company feels confident they're fine on their own. They don't need funding assistance, nor assistance reaching an international market (tho maybe some assistance in getting their contracts straight hope Ossan's Love doesn't face the same distribution issues as Cherry Magic lmao).

For more information on the event itself I really liked this post on reddit that I felt broke everything down very well.

Anyway sorry this got so long Anon but I hope it at least provided some interesting information!

#chaos pikachu speaks #asks #anon ask #gmmtv #be on cloud #thai bl

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coredrill · 6 months

Text

this post is not abt bravern but it Is abt my Bravern Feelings

i miss this show so much already SOBS. i did enlist another g roup of irl friends to watch it w me though and we are starting tomorrow so yay :] and also beware the rewatch posts

[guy who has said that i'm glad i watched this live every week voice] i'm rly glad i watched this live, but this time its bc. i think there is something so truly and genuinely special abt the way that the theories abt bravern himself evolved week to week.........like at first everyone was like Well maybe he's an evil alien who is gonna Kill isami. and then everyone was like Well maybe he's a death drive and isami is his lulu. and THEN everyone was like Well there's still some knuth in there so. but none of that was the case!!! none of that was true!!! it was literally just this one guy and all of the love he has and Absolutely Sucks Shit at expressing!!!!!!! and i just. idk. that hits me rly hard that maybe it was percieved as sinister at first just cause it was a little Off but in the end it was something really really sweet :] it also just feels like yet another way of the show doing its "we know audiences aren't willing to accept optimism at face value these days" schtick like they mentioned in that one interview and just. showing how bravern himself evolves in the eyes of the viewer. it's rly special to me :]

i know bravern speaking german in ep2 was a nod to the translator he uses on superbia later but. what if someone loved you so much they became german (if i ever mention kyouji again in a bravern context just fucking shoot me)

WILD to watch the finale and then see the isami hate train take off FKSJDHFJ cause i feel like i adored him so much in that ep LMAO. my guy really felt every emotion known to man in the span of 22 minutes and then started makin gup new ones. he's very human!!! and i love that abt him!!!!

although some takes. i'm ngl. i know we joke abt subtext and cowards but it becomes less funny when the subtext that is there is missed LMAO

sorry to keep bringing up ep4 but i think its SO interesting how like. the way that bravern seems to helps isami out emotionally in that ep actually ends up not helping him in the long run aswell? like getting to know all those ppl care abt him is good ofc but it also feeds Directly into his hangups in ep5. and i remember being a little confused as to Why that was the case on first watch cause ep4 was So abt his beef w lulu (FLSDKJFH) but w the smith being a human again thing in the end it makes. so much more sense!!!!! i can't wait to rewatch the show w it still fresh in my mind and find even more!!!!!!

and omg the beef with lulu. literally nothing is funnier to me than "we are gonna have one Rival Fight in this show and that position is gonna be filled by isami and smith's fucking KID" SOBS. LIKE. it kills me FKSLDJFHL. though i will say again that i think it is So fucking special that in ep10 lulu specifically calls out isami taking care of her after smith dies and it apparently happens to such a degree that like. he is worth her time traveling back to save independently aswell? even though there was no way that he "took care of her" for more than a couple days? which i think just says so much abt isami in the sense that like. at no point before ep6-7ish in his arc would he have even entertained that idea. uwu

i think i said this before but ikd if i included the screenshot but. the fact that while bravern is dying he sees THAT SAME FUCKING PICTURE is just evidence that men do not take enough photos i think

there is literally Nothing more onbrand for bravern than the fucking. "ep13 abema listing" (if anyone who has not heard abt that sees this. it was just a rebroadcast of ep12 mislabeled) sending everyone into a tizzy regarding like. Secret Episode Question Mark except half of everyone being convinced its an april fools joke and the other half being convinced that the april fools joke is that we didn't expect it. and then it turns out to not be interntional atall and the real april fools joke is Fry Pan. SOBS

Crunchyroll I Am Begging You If You Dub This Please Dub The Songs Too Oh My God (<- delusional)

anyways!!!!!!!!!!! again i know recency bias is the killa but god. i really loved this show a lot!!!! it might be an alltime fave story for me in general!!!!!! even if it's not it was a really special experiance and story on the whole and i'm just really really happy i get to carry it in my heart forever :]

#a: bravern #bravern spoilers #t.bbbb

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cru5h-cascades · 1 month

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Chapter 2: Cru5h Beefs With a Fictional Teacher Man

Spoiler shield! If you haven't played through chapter 2 in its entirety play the chapter and come back afterwards! If you have, then feel free to keep reading I guess.

So, chapter 2... let's hop to it!

The reason why the bag detail wasn't released to the public was so that nobody would try copying the crimes and make it harder for the murders to be solved. Personally I don't see the point in that since there was also the detail of the bags being old. Who'd go out of their way to get some old bags to replicate these murders? Surely that sort of distinct detail would help differentiate the actual murders from the copycat ones... right?

There was a suspect for the OG murders! But he went missing. Kinda weird we didn't get a name reveal or anything if this could be vital info for the case.

Missing Man and Missing Boy/Kuze's brother are two different entities. It's unknown if Kuze's brother is dead or not or if he has anything to do with the murders from 18 years ago but after his disappearance the murders stopped for some reason. I don't have much else to say here besides the fact that that's kinda weird.

First mention of paranormal activity not involving the funny bag man! For context, somebody called a cab for [insert protagonist name here], but it's never specified who. Just another detail I wanted to point out.

Also in the cab scene it's mentioned that a motorcycle was in the area of Eisuke's murder. I have my doubts that whoever was riding that thing is responsible for the murder since apparently that motorcycle was there like every night and I doubt Eisuke frequently visited the pump station to sulk around over there.

Prior to the murder, Eisuke seemed to have it all together, at least in front of others, anyways. Considering what his fam had to say about the night of his murder, some shit was definitely going on with him behind the scenes...

And now... cru5h goes on a rant about Fukuyama...

WE GOT TO SEE THIS MF'S FREAKINESS IN ACTION!!! TALKING ABOUT DEATH IN GENERAL/THE MURDER SPECIFICALLY(?) MAKES HIM GET WEIRD!!!! BRO ESPECIALLY GOT WEIRD WHEN ONE OF EISUKE'S FRIENDS GOT MENTIONED (Megumi? I forget her name. The one Eisuke may or may not have had a crush on or whatever)!!!

If Fukuyama had a meeting to go to then why did he take the time to get interviewed by Ayumi? And why did he up and leave mid-conversation only to come rushing back (in a scene that actually kinda startled me; I did not expect him to come back so fast lol)?

Fukuyama is in his 20s right now so he's defo not the OG killer. Copycat murder? Maybe? Or alternatively, what I think might be the case, PROXY FOR THE OG?? Idk he's just SO. DAMN. SUS. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

And that's everything new that I thought I should bring up. Of course some stuff might have been left out since it's just what we've known already from the website or whatever.

The Language of Flowers, the final part of the demo coming out next week on the 27th, most likely will have heavy focus of Emio's backstory (and not just the eggplant flowers specifically but that's probably gonna be mentioned as well) so WHOOO MORE SMILING MAN LORE!!!

#emio #emio the smiling man #famicom detective club #th1nking out l0ud

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gemsofgreece · 1 year

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any pronunciation tips when pronouncing greek names? any common errors i should avoid? trying to impress a very important greek teacher in an interview and hoping to convince them that im competent enough to start studying the language! any other general tips would be super appreciated hahah x

You didn’t tell me what kind of studies it is (classical studies, modern studies, just linguistics, generally Greek culture and history studies) to be more precise but I believe I can give some tips anyway!

Use modern Greek pronunciation for any instance of speaking Greek to them, including addressing them. Even if you go for classical studies, outside the classroom you should use modern pronunciation to earn their attention.

If you are going to speak any basic Greek with them, you should definitely apply plural of politeness. Greet them with a “Ya sas” or a “Hérete” or a “Kaliméra sas” if it’s morning or “Kalispéra sas” if it’s afternoon. Always with plural of politeness. In the language that you are going to do most of the talk, use please and thank you and all forms of polite talk when it’s necessary within the context. These things are valued in Greek academic communication.

Address them with the word κύριος / κυρία + their surname. Kírie + Surname, if it’s a man, Kiría + Surname, if it’s a woman. You don’t have to address them after every answer or anything, just in the beginning and whenever it feels like it makes sense to do it. And plural of politeness. Please note that they may not apply plural of politeness to you, they may not call you mr or mrs and they might call you with your first name. All this is totally normal in Greek dialogue etiquette, you are the student, the younger person, and they can address you informally. THIS DOES NOT MEAN you can drop the plural of politeness. No matter how they talk to you (I mean unless they would insult you or something LOL) you have to use the plural. You can drop it ONLY if they explicitly tell you to do so which I doubt they will but anyway. And even if you drop the plural, you will still address them Kírie / Kiría + Surname unless they also tell you to call them by their first name which I also doubt and then you will STILL have to address them as Kírie / Kiría + First Name. Don’t drop the Kírie / Kiría under any circumstances. Unless they also tell you specifically to do that but the chances are very very slim.

Go in there with a pleasant but serious demeanour, you know, like in a typical interview. Depending on how they are, you can follow along their demeanour but always be one step more reserved. So if they are serious, you stay serious. If they are relaxed and humorous, you can loosen up as well but do remain a little more serious than them.

If they take note of you speaking Greek (regardless of how well or bad you do), you can smile reservedly and be like “Yes I am trying, I am really hoping / looking forward to learn more / improve”. But don’t make light of it, like “hehehe I am speaking Greek… opaaaa!” . Show you are interested in it seriously, academically.

I am pretty sure the professor will value much more your genuine interest to study the Greek language or culture, rather than any technical mistakes you might make. Show a contained mix of fascination and focus to them and you will win them over, I am sure! But don’t go in there like “idk the alphabet looked cool” XD

You can of course add how it might be very aesthetically appealing to you or having some practical significance for you to learn the language. But keep this supplemental and focus on scientific fascination and Greek’s academic / cultural impact.

I think I got the ultimate trick to impress them. Whatever they ask you about why you want to take these studies, push modern Greek culture in your answer or, even better, talk about how it fascinates you to explore the continuation or evolution of Greek culture / language / history through ancient, medieval and modern times. Talk about the special case of Greek being so well attested, giving us a window to explore cultural evolution in big spans of time with more precision. If these are modern Greek studies, definitely do not talk about how you love Greek mythology or ancient philosophy. I mean, it’s not bad to say that, it just won’t make the difference you hope for to the professor. Show that you value all eras of Greek history / linguistics and if it’s modern studies, then do emphasise on the modern era and maybe talk about exploring the impact of Byzantine / medieval in modern history and literature and culture. Maybe talk about how perhaps you were exposed to Modern Greek history and culture and realised how overlooked / under appreciated it is and how, I don’t know, it could prove to be impactful in certain ways. I mean, use the one of these that applies best to you and work around your answer, I am just giving you some ideas! But the point is, don’t focus on classical Greece or Greek mythology. Express an interest for the civilisation / linguistics throughout time, talk about exploring continuation, evolution and impact and I believe you got them :)

To summarise, be serious, focused and pleasant. Show respect and interest in all Greek linguistics / culture / history without discrimination. Talk about continuation. If they ask you if you have some niche interest about it, definitely choose something less known, more overlooked like something from medieval or modern times. Don’t stress over potential mistakes you might make. Use polite language.

And success is imminent 😁

Καλή επιτυχία!

#Greek #Greek language #Greece #Greek studies #linguistics #anon #ask

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fatestayyuri · 1 year

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FINALLY FINISHED WARD ARC 1

thoughts under the readmore

You can say a lot about wildbow but you can't say he isn't making Choices. Actually i can say that i'm pretty sure most of this is the grim cowardice of not actually examining his biases and just writing "what comes naturally" to a liberal poisoned by toxic yuri discourse.

God, where do i even begin? how about the thing that first stuck out to me, and also the 6 other people i for some reason ushered into this Stupid Fucking Journey: the prose. the prose is bad. it's really, really bad. it stretches longer than it should and lacks the earnest charm of like. all of the VN authors i read almost entirely because it drips with flecks of irony-poisoned Marvel Ooze.The mean thing to say is that he definitely writes like he writes WAY more than he reads; the more cynical analysis i've gotten from his other work is that he's gotten into a very comfortable rut. words and descriptions drag, there's a general roughness of typos pointed out in comments untouched, and on the whole it reeks (and requires me to put on the prerequisite filters) of sloppy translation.

But that's just one facet of the writing; I am a big proponent of roughness adding to the emotional resonance of the work. I uh. The actual happenings are... certainly something, alright. It's impossible for me i think to read this outside of the context of wildbow's Amy Dallon Brain Poisoning, where the recent interviews colour my perception of his work (insisting Victoria is not a cop) for the worse. I am also unlike Wildbow Not A Liberal? so the whole spiel about Justice and Punitive Measures flies over my head. It's a bit weird since I do think the specific unreliable narrator of Victoria is a fascinating mindset to read through, and her trauma relating to her sister is rather elegantly depicted at times.

The problem is that these depictions are in fact, ruined, by my knowledge of this work as Wildbow's Hit Piece on a 17 year old lesbian. Like, i cannot stress enough how much it all falls flat considering this is Victoria's Cop Pain shown to show us that actually Amy Dallon is irredeemable. maybe if i had read worm first? idk that might make me less sympathetic to this

Oh, right! the racism! one of the ways victoria's cop brain manifests is in weird word choices like "urban" and "troublemakers" / "mischief" but like. i'm not actually sure wildbow is aware of the character he is writing, or the territory he is in? the general feel of this is one where If this was done with intentionality and a materialistic analysis of the world it could be really good! unfortunately it's written by a liberal so like. it's not.

^ why. why. why. why.

i think the way that our book club is going (where everyone reads exactly (1) of wildbow's novel) is showing me the true breadth of wildbow's uh. Beliefset? worldview? worrying tendency for race science? anyways.

I feel like there's a skeleton for a really compelling story here. I genuinely like some of the depictions of trauma, the way that parental dynamics chafe, of being treated as a burden as a patient, of being laden with a really fucked up punitive mindset. I just wish like, it wasn't these characters, and it wasn't this writer.

#ward lb

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honeydewtreacle · 9 months

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Okay, I just went over the iceberg and I have found or heard of a large majority of the stuff on there. My main question is how did you discover all of this stuff he's been in?

My other question are as follows

What is "why don't we say..."?

Do you have any information on Everything is Fine? I wasn't able to find much at all besides a basic premise.

What is Love NY?

Did you find a video of him singing the national anthem? I read about it and an article from the SoR days, but I didn't find footage.

I know about everything on the third tire except "Megan"? UNLESS IT'S THAT MEGAN!!? In that case, we good 👍😳👀

Is On Your Marc the show he and Drew created that is going to show (I believe) off Broadway starting early next year ? The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers?

Wasn't able to find much on Slow Children either, so if you have any, that'd be awesome!

What is "I could use a drink" BTS? I know about Drew's show, but the BTS I'm not sure about.

BROdway? I searched it up and could find nothing.

Last I guess is how on earth did you find that Collage staging of Hair he did? That's a deep cut!

One thing to suggest be put on there if you want to add anything is Twilight in Manchego. I just found it today. Idk if you've already discovered it, but in case you haven't it's something he did in 2008 I believe. If you Google it, it should pop up. There are a few videos on YouTube and there's a Facebook page.

So happy to answer!! I found most of this just by watching interviews, he's mentioned a lot of the stuff he's done offhandedly, not all of it of course. Others I found just by googling around, theres this site that has extended credits which is helpful. But really a lot of this isn't too difficult to find, I have "I must know everything about this topic" hyperfixations if that gives any more context.

And I'll say right off the bat that I found out about Twilight in Manchego like a few days after I made the ice berg, so I'd definitely put it on there now. Another thing I'd probably add now would be the reading he did for Book of Mormon.

Okay, now onto that list!

- I meant "How come no one says.." the song by Brett Ryback, that's my bad, I consistently get the song name wrong for some reason. I added it to the list because Alex has sung it four times (thats been recorded [1, 2, 3, 4] CW for wildly ableist language) and I'm like 99.9999% sure its the song he references in this interview and I found that a bit amusing.

- For both Everything is Fine and Slow Children, I only know what Alex has said in interviews. I don't have specific links, nor the time to rewatch a bunch of stuff right now, but I believe he talks about both of them briefly in this podcast with Drew if I'm remembering correctly. (I'm super sorry if I'm wrong!!)

- Love, NY was a show he did a reading for at the New World Stages, here's a playlist of the some the performance. He plays a character named Benjamin (Benji).

- No!! I never found a national anthem video, drives me up a damn wall honestly, you'd think something like that would be documented but I've had zero luck finding anything.

- I definitely mean that Megan yes. I thought it'd be funny.

- Kinda! On Your Marc is the documentary they did about the show. It was screened at a few conventions from what I know. It's listed on Alex's imdb.

- There's this fun article about the recording of the album, including a video which is broken in the article (had to check their Flickr to find it) so here's that.

- It's just a YouTube video! But it's a bit hard to search because of the pun, so here's that.

- I found it because F mentioned it in this show, I thought it was hilarious and I immediately had to find it.

Thank you for asking!! I will answer the other one soon, but I'm out right now. ^v^

#brightyberg #alex brightman #brighty

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cowgurrrl · 9 months

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idk if you've seen any of them but W magazine has some great celebrity interviews, they're pretty chill and fun. sometimes it'll feature two random celebs together and idk! the idea of rockstar!joel and actress!reader being cute in those types of interviews is ADORABLE to think about. like them in any interviews together is cute but specific ones like these i LIVE for. ( i adore this couple SO MUCH!!!)

https://youtu.be/2Hls8pQuLgM?si=lJ-tfeKAmZn156aU

here's a recent one for context lol

Omg yes i have seen those!!

I think they would work around rockstar!joel and actress!reader schedules SO HARD because they want to interview them together so bad and when it finally works out they’re like YES this is how I imagine it going (because I’m too lazy to write out a whole thing but I love this dynamic)

Interviewer: What was the first thing you ever booked?

Joel: I think it was a gig at a little dive bar back in Austin. I was probably… sixteen? Seventeen, maybe.

Reader: Did you get paid?

Joel: I think they gave us one free beer each and I promised to not tell my mom.

Reader: So, we’ll be getting a call from your mother the second this airs.

Joel: Probably.

Interviewer: What about you? What was your first gig?

Reader: I played Mary in a Nativity scene at school and I was most definitely not paid.

Joel: I didn’t know that!

Reader: Yes, you did! We talked about it during Sammy’s first Christmas.

Joel: Okay, that doesn’t count ‘cause we were sleep deprived.

Reader: Then, how come I remember it?

Joel: ‘Cause you’re a world better than me.

Reader: Mhm.

Interviewer: Who was your cinematic crush?

Joel: Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. Without a doubt.

Reader: I had a crush on Russell Hammond in Almost Famous.

Joel: Really?!

Reader: Yeah! I don’t know what it was. I just think I liked the whole guitarist thing…

Joel: D’you just realize somethin’ bout yourself?

Reader: Maybe, just a little bit.

Interviewer: What’s your karaoke song?

Reader: Dancing Queen by ABBA because I can be bad but everyone will still be excited.

Joel: I don’t have one.

Reader: Yes, you do!

Joel: What is it?

Reader: Piano Man by Billy Joel. He has two drinks and he thinks he’s The piano man.

Joel: ‘Cause I am.

Reader: It’s that or something country like Johnny Cash or Loretta Lynn.

Joel: Oh, that is true.

Reader: And the kids hate it.

Joel: They pretend to hate it because I’m their dad and they refuse to admit I’m cool.

Interviewer: What movie always makes you cry?

Reader: Steel Magnolias.

Joel: The Beginning of the End.

Reader: Joel, you can’t say my movie!

Joel: Why not? It makes me cry.

Reader: Because… ethics or whatever.

Joel: Is it unethical to say I like my wife’s movies?

Reader: No, it’s just-

Joel: You just don’t like it when I compliment your work in public because it makes you blush.

Reader: That’s not true!

Joel: It is and it’s really cute even when you pretend like you hate it.

Reader: There are just so many other movies.

Joel: Not ones that my wife is in.

Reader: I’ve already decided to keep you. You don’t have to butter me up all the time.

Joel: Little extra love never hurt.

Interviewer: What are you secretly good at?

Reader: Joel’s a really good cook.

Joel: I’m an okay cook.

Reader: Stop. Don’t get modest on me now, cowboy. He made an amazing three course meal and dessert for our anniversary last year. All from scratch, too.

Joel: She is really good at fixing things around the house like the other day, Sophia put a hole in one of our walls and I didn’t even notice you fixed it.

Reader: Somebody’s gotta use all the tools in the garage.

Interviewer: Where was your first kiss?

Joel: Under the bleachers at a football game.

Reader: On stage for a high school production of The Music Man.

Joel: That had to be weird.

Reader: Oh, yeah. Half the entire theatre department was there. It was awful!

(This ended up being SO long but it was so fun and yes these questions ARE directly from the video suck my dick (lovingly))

#one for the money two for the show #rockstar!joel x actress!reader #oftm family #Joel Miller au #tlou au #the last of us au

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