folklore is the pivot point between Taylor Swift the pop star and Taylor Swift the legend. Before folklore her career had been in an objective "decline", much in line with consumption changes in the industry, with her seeing slowly diminishing success with each successive single and album she'd released after 1989, and that trend halted and reversed with folklore. US pop radio was increasingly reluctant to engage with her singles unless they were perfectly suited to the zeitgeist of the time, like Delicate was in 2018. Her streaming numbers were not terrible, but she was consistently getting out-streamed by the top new names in the industry, much of which was due to her catalogue being absent from platforms which put her on the backfoot. If she had been following a normal pop star path, then that would've been fine and it would've the beginning of her fade from the A-list. Instead, she took a hard left turn and put out folklore. It did unexpectedly massive numbers (including setting the record for the most streamed female album in the first 24 hours, which she broke two more times after that), sure, but what made folklore different was the entire narrative surrounding it. Taylor was no longer just a 'pop star', she was an indie rocker, and for the first time in a very long time, she was at the center of the celebrity discussion because of her music, and not just as a very famous person taking swings at Kanye or jet-setting with Tom. The pitchfork-indie rock dad demographic, who are the ones in the position of deciding which music is legitimate art and not just "pop music" fawned over folklore, and shifted the narrative from 'Taylor makes pop songs' to 'Taylor makes good songs' in communities that would've never seen the light otherwise. Folklore gave Taylor a massive career-jolting shock, and it set her on the path she's currently following.
In the years since, Taylor has clawed her way back to the very very top of the music industry, and with each release she widens the gap between her and everyone below her. Yes, evermore and Fearless TV didn't have the most stellar numbers, they did continue to develop her career arc in an incredibly positive way. Evermore proved to everyone with a toe in the industry that folklore wasn't a fluke, that she was capable of making "artful" music that would satisfy both pretentious indie rockers and her own fans at the same time. Fearless TV proved that Scooter had royally fucked up in his calculus when buying Big Machine, and that Scott Borchetta had royally fucked up when he assumed Taylor's career had peaked and he'd made all the money there was. It proved to executives that the re-recording project could be a success and that she could convince people to seek out the new versions, which is something we take for granted now (just look at the daily streams of each original album versus its re-recording), but was not a guarantee back then. Plus, it was Fearless TV that really lit the match and set the fire under her back catalogue, and got tens of thousands of people who probably had never listened to the original Fearless to go back and listen to her other albums from that era. The numbers weren't huge then, but that was when casual fans and locals started to re-evaluate the depths of her back catalogue. Obviously, Red TV was another step in her career progression, where she proved that a re-recording could be more than just new versions of songs for people to stream in place of the originals. She turned Red TV into a full-fledged era with videos and talk shows, and that a re-recording was able to spawn a ten minute #1 hit that wasn't just driven by fan consumption. Red TV did also act as a catalyst for her massive catalogue growth, but it wasn't the start of it. Finally, Midnights and the Eras Tour have been the true peak of Taylor's career. She's outstreaming the next 4 most popular female acts on Spotify combined. She got an album debut so ludicrously large that it exceeded even the most optimistic of predictions by a significant degree. She was even able to repair her relationship with US radio and turned Anti-Hero into her biggest and most successful song on the Hot 100 since Shake It Off. Taylor can play the pop star game and get the pop star hits and have the pop star tour, but Taylor writes lyrics that appeal to indie rock dads, wields significant power on the indie/alt music charts, and is playing stadiums with crowds so big they're more in line the biggest rocker performances ever than they are with any other pop girl stadium tour. Taylor has moved so far beyond the pop star that she was at the start of the Lover era, thanks to the pivot that happened with folklore. She can be the pop star on the micro-scale, which is seen in how well Midnights is holding up as a current pop album, but she can also be the music legend on the macro-scale, as is seen by the 14 million+ people in line for her concert presale or the immense, immense popularity of her back catalogue that complements the demand for her new music. There's a reason people have started calling this Taylor/SwiftMania 😉
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Okay I’m about to fist fight a fucker over this so I’m just gonna make this into one big ol master post of basically everything I’ve been saying for the past few days into one big collective post
HOBIE BROWN IS NOT AN ADULT
STOP BEING CREEPY
More explanations under the cut
I’ve been complaining about this a lot and for people that don’t understand this situation essentially in an interview one of the directors said that an early concept of Hobie design was that he was supposed to be like the cooler older kid and as the example used for this he stated the ages 19/20
Because of this many people took it as still being canon which has led to a large bit of debate in the community between people about his age
The people who have taken this reference to the early concept as canon have started bashing people who ship Hobie with others in the group (mainly Miles and Pav which is important and which I will come back to later) as well as used this as an excuse to sexualize Hobie because hes an adult
A barely legal one which even if this was true is its own separate issue
However the issue with this specific take is that its wrong
For a variety of reasons
1) For starters people say that since the director said he was 19/20 it must be true however another director/creator of the film has stated that Hobies age is up for interpretation meaning he doesn’t have a specific set age
However, it is very clear based off of everything else that Hobie was still meant to be in the teenager range in terms of age
For starters the actual movie
Throughout the first half of the movie Hobie is referred to a couple times by both Gwen and Pav and later Miles
Every time he is talked about in this context it is always with the undertoned implication of him and Gwen supposedly having a romantic relationship with both Pav and Gwen treating it as a sort of thing that could potentially cause friction or other issues in regards to Miles and Gwens relationship
If Hobie really were 19/20 this would be, cannot stress this enough, incredibly weird and creepy on the writers part
Unlike Hobie Gwen does have a confirmed age and she IS a minor and the movie imply that she had a relationship with Hobie whether she actual did or not and treating it as a joke would be weird and out of place if he was an adult
Not to mention that a lot of people referred to Gwen, Hobie and Miles dynamic as a love triangle which again weird and gross and uncalled for if Hobie was an adult
2) The art books both in the english and Japanese translation refer to Hobie in a way that either implies hes a kid or outright uses terms that mean hes a child
In the English translation of the book Hobie is referred to as the cool slightly older boy the girls want to date
Meanwhile the Japanese translation literally spells it out
3) I’ve heard a variety of different deflect in regards to all the above mentioned stuff
“Hobie doesn’t look like a kid” people age differently. I’ve met kids in high school who were the same age as or younger than me with full ass beards and mustaches as well as people who are well into there 20 who look like they’re still 15 he simply just has a structured face
“He was bit at 16 in the comics and said he was spider-man for 3 years in the movie” We aren’t in the comics universe though and in this iteration Miles was bit at like 13 and Gwen at like 14 meaning that in actuality the kids are usually bitten really damn early and the actual facts are that we don’t know how old he was when he was bitten and since we very clearly aren’t in the comic universe as these movies are significantly different from the comics you can’t just go off of that
“Just because it was a concept doesn’t mean it was changed it could still have been kept” While it is true that yes sometimes things from first draft concepts are kept a lot of times they aren’t such as Hobies best friend Pavitr who was supposed to be 13 in his concept but very clearly isn’t in the movie (I don’t actually have solid evidence for that claim I just think it would be weird that they make comments about Pavs body and show him shirtless if he was still 13 in the final-) both Pav and Hobie had a shit ton of changes done to them alongside basically all of the main 4 (Hobie, Pavitr, Gwen and Miles), except for maybe Miles but he was already an established character, so using his concept as hard and fast evidence when he very clearly was changed a lot and everything else points toward him being a kid just doesn’t work
“He mentions going to a pub so he has to be at least 21” first Hobie is British and the legal age in Britain is 18 also you don’t have to be of legal drinking age to go into a pub you just have to be old enough to actual order drinks which doesn’t even account for the fact that this is also Hobie we’re talking about who would not give the slightest fucks about the legal drinking age “But they show him with a beer in his montage and they wouldn’t encourage that in an underage character” Hobies montage is so fast paced and colorful that I genuinely don’t even know if thats true because you can barely comprehend the stuff that happens in that scene the first time you see it and not to mention that he also flips off the cops in that montage so I don’t really think they were too concerned about encouraging certain behaviors or not since half of Hobies speech in that scene was about overthrowing governments saying ACAB
So in conclusion
Hobie doesn’t have a confirmed age but based off off all the information we are given he is probably actually closer to 16/17 as his age
Now as a side tangent something else I want to address is the inherent homophobia and racism undertones that came with the initial spreading of his false age
Because when people initially heard that age they’re first instinct wasn’t to jump at the actual movie for imply a ship with Hobie and Gwen but was instead to jump on the people shipping Hobie with Pav and Miles
Both other male characters who are also characters of color
Odd that the first though was the (honestly at that time) relatively new and unpopular gay poc ships (Yes I know the ships are more popular now they had BARELY any content at the time of the interview)
And I also want to address the sexualization of Hobie just in general
Lets say that Hobie was really 19 years old
That is barely a legal adult and the amount of edits and post I have seen making NSFW comments about him is genuinely uncomfortable coming from some of you ESPECIALLY as those peoples ages get farther and farther from 19 themselves
In general based off of the comments I have seen in regards to his age and in relation to the content made around Hobie it comes across more as people just wanting a way to either bash gay ships or sexualize him without coming across as a freak because “technically hes old enough”
Not to mention that because you’re all so angry at the preposterous notion of Hobie, HOBIE, being *gasp* gay you overlook the actual problematic ships like people shipping actual minor characters with actual confirmed adults such as Miles x Miguel a ship which I have seen a grand total of 2 people criticize because people were too focused grasping for straws so they could sexualize Hobie
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Hello!! Question about clone^2, what are the styles of Danny and Damian? Like day to day stuff for example. Does Danny buy Damian the traditional 8 yr old clothes (dinosaurs with sunglasses tees, stuff like that) or does Damian already have a style he likes? And Danny! I know that Sam gives Danny various punk hairstyles and that he prefers gender neutral stuff but outside of that what would Danny wear in general?
You don’t have to answer of course, but I’ll give you a thank you in advance!
- kindest regards, Gas Can
I LOVE GETTING ASKS NO WORRIES MY GUY. AS MY FAVORITE SAYING GOES 'THE QUICKEST WAY TO STARRY'S HEART IS THROUGH HER ASK BOX'.
And I love this question, this is a good one!! If damian's 8 then he's been around the fenton house for about a year or so. I can't see baby dames ever willingly wearing traditional child-like clothes, at least not in the beginning when he first arrives at the Fenton house. Which he'd be around 6-7.
Danny tells him (with the help of google translate) that he's going shopping to buy him new clothes sometime during Damian's early stay since the little man had been wearing the same clothes he arrived in for a while (which you can find here with the reblog of the colored version) and honestly he probably asks damian if he wants to come along to pick something out. he doesn't know the kid's style and it might be a bad idea because damian might make a run for it, but danny's caught him before at this point.
(plus he'll need help carrying bags - his hands are freshly injured and still smarting. they're not as bad as they will be in the future, but hand injuries hurt. consider it repayment for being the cause of it, damian)
And early Damian would choose clothes that remind him most of the league - so dark colors, more formal styles, think like how you'd imagine his original template to dress like, if you will. Danny is side-eyeing him in judgy bewilderment, but says nothing other than to complain about the price tag. Of which Damian has no idea what he's saying. He'd stick with those clothes until he has his little moment with Danny in the OPS Center where he finally tells him he's a clone (even though Danny already knows) and that he doesn't want to go back. After that he'd reluctantly and steadily start branching out.
So eight year old Damian, whose begun to chill out more and act more like a child his age would? I don't think he'd ever wear graphic t-shirts about kids shows, but I can see him wearing graphic tees of like, animal facts on it, animals, stars, etc etc, and then plain shirts in a variety of increasing color. I have this mental image that Danny buys Damian one of those joke shirts that says "bro I'm 8" / "this is what an awesome eight year old looks like" (with two thumbs pointing at itself) and Damian wears it to school a week later. Damian's variety of shirts increases the more comfortable he gets and the more he comes into his own identity.
Damian also, steadily, keeps stealing Danny's flannels even if they're almost comically large on him. They're comfy and he's embracing his role as baby brother (and also he really looks up to him because he understands, to an extent, of what danny's done for him). Danny and the Fentons start buying Damian his own after a while because, well, he can't keep taking Danny's.
And Danny! I'm so glad you mentioned Danny, my favorite GNC boy. I keep forgetting myself sometimes that I gave him long hair, even if it is my favorite thing about him. And honestly? Danny doesn't really do much with his hair if Sam isn't styling it. He usually lets it stay down on his head, and then pulls it back into a ponytail or a half-ponytail at school depending on what he's doing (gym vs a test).
He keeps it in a ponytail as phantom to keep it out of his face, and then when he's working on a Ghost Case he sometimes has it up in a (messy™) bun because the feeling of having his hair on his neck when its in a ponytail drives him nuts, especially when sleep deprived. Sam teaches him how to braid it back into a simple braid and its become a new fidget for him to braid his hair and then unbraid it. It's easier to keep off his face than a ponytail, so he sometimes braids it back when he's sneaking out as phantom. It happens more often once he gets skilled at it.
And danny's style! I know you probably only meant his hairstyle, but I also wanna talk about his aesthetic! He doesn't really put much into his appearance. Very teenager-y boy 'threw on the first thing i saw on a hanger/floor' type, but he kinda has a bit more of a casual, soft grungy-like look as an older teen. Just some hints of Sam's influence - and you know what, some of Tucker's as well because that's his best friend too.
(Off topic but 19yo Danny from my Childhood Friends Dead On Main au has a similar style that's a bit soft punk as well, and that is somewhat more intentional on CFAU Danny's part. Why make an au if I can't play dress up with my favorite character? :))
Mostly because I read a Spider-Man x DP fic that described Danny (from an outsider's pov) as looking kinda like a skater boy who listens to alt rock music and it's been my personal interpretation of him ever since. So he has band tees, flannels, graphic tees with jokes on them, shirts with astronomy facts on them, and idk if he'd ever buy ripped jeans but Sam has certainly bought him some and they fit so *shrugs* he wears them. And he has one or two of those denim jackets with the hoodie sewn inside it. And from Tucker he has a few turtlenecks because Tucker reads as a turtleneck-kinda guy, geek chic-ish.
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