Tumgik
#it's just... i think it would be less strange if stan culture wasn't a thing or at least more mild than it is now
honeyvenommusic · 1 month
Text
.
#the idol system is such a fascinating and scary thing to me#like hearing shit over the years it's like how does anyone survive it?#(i'm staying away from all the anti-blackness of kpop & their fandoms rn so just the system)#((that was more for me bc my brain wants to go in that direction bc hooooooo. it's the main reason i cannot vibe w more than a few songs#over the last almost 15 years cause like knowing.... anyway))#like i just got groundfloored w a group rn via jbrekkie shoutout michelle like literally their debut is 24 hrs from now i've rabbitholed#since i heard their snippet on her vid and like the way ppl talk about it already like... as an outsider it's like alriiiight here we goo#they're (mgmt) pipelining another group of ppl let's be sure to support it! streamstreamvote!! oo it looks like their taking the toy/doll#route w these girls super aesthetic let's goo. & like......????? and ppl are already rabid about it. it's wild. and like this is the system#this is it. they make groups and then tease and the people who follow the conglomerate see it and are waiting to#be fed another x amount of folks doing formations and looking cute/hot open wide and consume#(like ik some (or a lot) of those accnts are bots/plants to pad the release and gain traction against algos but like also real folks too)#like not to discredit their vocal work (&dancing though some (alot) of these grps are not nearly as lit w 'dancing' as folks hype em up to#be Frfr. good movers/formations/camera motion & body rolls do not a dancer/good choreo make) but it's really secondary for a lot of#folks atp it's so strange & fascinating. and like i dug the song that's why i'm here so no knock against that but just the factory of it al#it's so damn WILD to me. but at the same time let's be real here. same dish different kitchen for a lot of western pop#they're just more transparent about it and have streamlined finding their popstars & having the public be great w it#it's just... i think it would be less strange if stan culture wasn't a thing or at least more mild than it is now#if it wasn't blown up to this unfathomably massive ever-churning industry by people in literal droves#idk idk i have a lot of thoughts on kpop it's truly a very interesting thing and to have been aware of it and into it to#an extent a while before the sonic boom in the west is an incredibly wild thing to look back on#like i wanna follow this (mostly cause i wanna hear the whole song) but also v curious but also like man the system is bad for many#reasons & here's another batch on the conveyor belt. idk :/#like as long as the participants are happy and healthy and being actually taken care of and not advantage of then great but#yk. the music industry at large is horrible (and esp to women) so like. god ide wanna think about the disparities btwn girl & boy groups#(like to start are they not referred to as 'male groups' on the reg but 'girl groups' more often than 'female'? always w the infantalizing#like given girl group has way more ring than female group but the words still conjure up different things it's just how language works#but boy group idk if i've ever really heard someone use that? and there's been a long time battle w the reclamation of 'boy band'#like it's still dirty for a lot of folks but anyway v western context but there's a large fanbase here so many fans speak as such#this is what we call our own pop groups etc. and it's just interesting and sad idk anyway it's just... huuuhhh a lot.) ok gn lol
0 notes
Note
For the salty ask 1, 15 & 16.
Somehow, I completely missed this ask, I'm really sorry my fellow unknown someone.
Despite me posting a lot about Hetalia, I'm also into other fandoms, but I'm guessing it's for Hetalia, even if you aren't in it. I'm less opinionated about other fandoms, at least online.
What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* I don't get USUK (America x England) and I don't get SpUK. Those are the biggest ones, probably, although there's many others I just don't really care for.
15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show? There's these arcs called Chibitalia, as well as Boss Spain and Chibiromano, and a lot of the fandom really don't like them, because it's historically inaccurate to keep the Italy brothers young for literally two millennia, and it's also really weird when other nations around them get to grow up faster. But at the same time, I kinda think they're cute. I also have a lot of strange opinions on Assassin's Creed, such as the fact that the best game is Assassin's Creed Rogue, and you can pry that game out of my cold dead hands, assassin-turned-Templar Shay Patrick Cormac is the best protagonist that series ever had– [The Ezio stans kill me with counter-attack.]
16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? Paradoxically enough, also the Chibi-arcs. I like them, but I would've liked something else (such as a less bonkers aging process for the Italys) a lot more. Either that or the misunderstood onii-chan Chibitalia says to his peers – it's a cultural thing in Japan that the dub for some insane reason decided to keep. In Pathologic, I would let Clara have better side quests late game. Specifically, I would let her have something that wasn't the same three quests (that's basically just one quest in different flavours) on repeat for the last half of her route. Assassin's Creed has too many, I can't even begin to touch on this.
3 notes · View notes
spaceorphan18 · 2 years
Note
As much as I like Klaine,I am always upset over Chandler episode... first of all,that Kurt gave that dude his number,and secondly,it makes me sad that he spended more time texting him than his own bf. Also,were the texts he was sending back to Chandler flirty as well,or it was just Chandler's side? I mean,Blaine claimed that HIS texts to Sebastian were family friendly while being upset, which made me think if Kurt's to Chandler weren't,but rn I am just confused. It also made me ship them a bit less and now I am just sad. I would like to sweep Chandler incident under the rug though,but I am not really able to defend Kurt here.
Well, Nonny - I'm sorry this episode upsets you :(
I don't think that Kurt ultimately needs to be defended though? He wasn't in the right.
(As an aside - I find it strange that stan culture has gotten so extreme that its lost the ability to have objective discussions about a character in general. Good characters are varying shades of gray, and like humans, will fuck up every once in a while.)
I think it's alright to explain his actions -- he was feeling lonely, and sad that his boyfriend isn't engaging with him on various multiple levels (physically, words of affirmation) the way he had been.
But instead of actually talking to Blaine about it - he tries to gain that same kind of feeling from an outside source. And this is a wrong behavior, and there's nothing wrong with pointing that out.
There's a very key thing in the dialogue in their fight scene -
Blaine says -- You like this guy.
Kurt says -- I like the way he makes me feel.
Which is significant. He does not care about Chandler as a person. He just wants that adoration that Blaine had been giving him on a regular basis then promptly stopped while going through his own shit.
I doubt that Kurt's texts back were really that flirty back. Kurt was definitely trying to gain attention from Chandler, and encouraged him to continue with the compliments because he found it entertaining and affirming. But Kurt isn't, well, one to easily reciprocate those feelings. In fact - once he had Blaine's attention back, he dropped Chandler without even a second thought. (Which, eesh, sucks to be Chandler.)
Hopefully that helps clear things up a little?
It's totally okay if this episode just isn't for you -- or if you just don't like the character in an episode. But I think it helps when considering these kids are just kids, and are new in trying to figure out their feelings. Plus - this is a tv show where there's gotta be drama somewhere, otherwise it would be pretty boring. ;)
8 notes · View notes
citkats · 3 years
Text
Love, Victor and it's problems
Hello! First post here! I know this isn't a movie, instead of a show, but I feel like I have a few things I have the urge to spill out, so here it goes.
Tumblr media
I've watched both seasons of Love, Victor and finished the second one the day it came out, June 11. It's now June, 26 and I've let a few thoughts and problems I've had about the show sit in my brain for a while now but they're starting to get antsy. Is the show really that serious to pick it apart and point out its flaws? No, it's supposed to be a cute little show about a boy exploring his sexuality, and I know that. But man I can't help myself, what else am I suppose to do this summer anyway? So, that being said, let's get started!
Actually, before I start I just wanted to get out of the way that I am a queer girl myself, who is also a teenager, so that is the type of viewpoint I am watching this show through. Do with that what you will :D Now we can get started, here are the three main problems I had with the show;
i. The Writing
The writing of this show is... something else to say the least. It has its good moments for sure, but man is it hard to get through an episode without cringing once or twice. Now I am no writer myself, so I can't judge too hard, but I wish the show didn't try to fit in so many pop culture references and twitter lingo to try and appeal to teens. It's so obvious while watching that the writers themselves only have a vague idea on how to use it. There is a scene of the show that is going around on twitter, instagram and tiktok where a character says something along the lines of "We stan you!" and "We're all gay AF!" (link below for the whole video).
.... like... what? My god my body collapsed in on itself when I heard that. I think the writers maybe tried to make the line of "We're gay AF" as a cringy joke to show how oblivious the character was, but the line "We will forever stan you" shows how oblivious the writers are to the use of the word "stan", or at least that's how it came off the way the actor said it. The line is said with no implication that it's supposed to be cringy or something to laugh at. I don't know if the writers were aware at the time that this is something teenagers do not say about or to their friends unless they purposely want to sound out of touch. Someone in the replies even said "In real life that won't happen ever" and they're correct. This is just one instance where the writing feels shaky but there are many more sprinkled throughout the show. This probably is super nitpicky but it's just so prevalent in the show that I felt that I had to write about it.
ii. The Love Interests
Now on to another problem, The characters of Rahim & Benji. Let's start off with Benji. He serves as the love interest for the main character Victor, which is fine! It's great! Except it isn't because that's all Benji is... a love interest. He barely has any personality and the only three things I know about him are that he is gay, is in a band, and is a recovering alcoholic. With those three things, there is so much to do with his character. They mention in the show that his dad wasn't too happy when he came out, and brought him to a strip club in order to make him "straight". I thought maybe the show would show how his relationship with his dad has been damaged and how they're slowly trying to repair it, or maybe Benji doesn't want to forgive his dad and all! But no, the restaurant scene comes and everything seems fine like something as traumatic as your own father refusing to accept your sexuality and trying to convince you to be someone else never happened. If you're going to make your character go through something like that, it would be good to show its consequences, not to sweep it under the rug! In the first half of the season, if I remember correctly, we see almost every character in a different location doing their own storyline, except Benji, who only exists at school and in the coffee shop to show that he's Victor's boyfriend. I don't think there's a single scene where it's just Benji alone doing something that doesn't involve Victor. It isn't until the later episodes where he gets his own plotline, one that revolves around him being a recovering alcoholic and being 1 year sober. Now don't even get me started on this... the fact they waited a whole season and a half to get to this huge revelation?? This is a big part of Benji that he kept secret and they could do so much with it, but it ends up being just a plot device so that Victor can break up with him and end the season on a cliffhanger. It seems like every one of Benji's plot points is to benefit Victor in some way (all except for the band, but they also never expand on that either so :/). The other couples, for example, Lake & Felix, have their own problems and stuff they're going through, not just things to benefit their love interest story. I get that Victor is the main character, but if this show is about him discovering his sexuality, should his love interest be a huge part of that? Shouldn't there be more focused on his love interest rather on his best friend? I don't know that's just how I view it.
Rahim is Victor's second love interest who is introduced halfway through the second season in the episode called Sincerely Rahim. He, like Benji, the only purpose of his character is to serve as a love interest for Victor and create a love triangle that can end season 2 on a cliffhanger, just like season 1 did. The show cared even less about Rahim than they cared about Benji since they didn't even bother to show his coming-out scene. It sucks because he comes from a Muslim family and that coming out scene could've been really meaningful, for once showing a Muslim family being accepting of a gay son instead of shunning them, which is how the media normally portrays Muslim families.
Tumblr media
iii. The couple bias
Probably my biggest problem with this show is the clear bias to the straight couples compared to the main gay couple of the show. Like I said before, Benji being a shell of a character compared to everyone else, I don't think that's a coincidence. I am aware that there was at least one gay writer on the team, but they didn't seem to make up the majority. It's obvious the writers felt more comfortable writing straight characters and couples (eg, Victor and Mia as a couple for the majority of season one) which is fine, but if you're writing a show with a gay couple in it then get gay writers who will actually understand and have an easier more natural approach to them. This is why I think diversity in the writer's room is just as important as diversity on screen. You can put a gay character in your show but if they're written by a straight person it's not going to feel authentic and can easily fall into stereotypes. But that's a conversation for another time.
Some other small problems I had but weren't worth a whole section
-The lack of sapphic women. I think they might start a wlw plotline the next season with Lake but man.. took them two seasons in a show that's suppose to be a representation to even hint at a sapphic relationship.
-Benji's timeline for his alcoholism... if he's 16 now (junior) and been sober for a year... that means he entered rehab when he was 15... which means he's been drinking heavily since he was like 14, so much so they had to put him in rehab?? Are his parents really that neglectful? This why I am so confused about his parents because what his dad did to him was awful and yet when they show Benji's parents, his mother seems to adore him and they are both extremely welcoming to Victor. The only reason I see why he would start drinking at such a young age is that he felt bad because of his sexuality... but man, at 14 do you even understand what's going on enough to be like "this is bad I should drown my sorrows in booze".... idk such a strange timeline.
-They didn't keep up Rahim's texts to Victor, it was one and done. I get that it was supposed to be like continuity with what Simon did to Bram and then what Victor did to Simon but it felt so forced that I wish they didn't do it at all. Felt like they just left it hanging there.... ok I will admit it is really nitpicky and I'll stop now I promise!
So... that's it! I know this can come off as annoying or I'm giving huge pessimist vibes because of this but I swear me having long rants about how I feel about a show's problems is rare. Normally I like deconstructing the parts I did like rather than the parts I didn't. I do think this show is cute and serves its purpose of entertaining, and I don't hold anything against someone who enjoys it! I can easily see this being someone's comfort show, and that's completely fine. I also realize that I did dig into the writers quite a lot here, so I just want to make it clear that in no way am I questioning their talent (one is a new york times bestseller and two others have been nominated for Emmys). Hopefully, my posts in the future will be more positive but for now, I hope this deconstruction was decent!
0 notes