I was just thinking again of Idolish7 and I think that the reason that the theme of legacy and carrying on the baton or becoming something better was done SO well was because it they approached it from that old adage about "paying it forward." It's like....yes, they are rivals and competing and doing this for themselves, but like Otoharu said in one of the story parts, the past isn't worthless because it gives us something to build off of and perhaps surpass (and it's good inspiration, too). And you can see that in addition to just being idols and creating music and making their own kinds of art for themselves, they're also doing this out of love for something from the past. Mitsuki with Zero, Sogo with his uncle, Tamaki for Aya, Iori for his brother, Riku because of his family and Tenn, Tenn for his family/Kujo, Momo and Yuki for the old Re:vale and Banri, Minami and Nagi for Sakura, also even Aya for the families that abandoned her and the new ones that gave her something, etc. Even people like Torao and Yamato, who kind of entered the industry purely out of "selfish" desires have an arc where they received kindness and now just want to pass it on.
To sum it up, by treating the past with respect and real appreciation, they can surpass it without trying to undermine its real impact and beauty.
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what they didn’t tell you as a child is that you will spend your whole life trying to replicate the same unconditional happiness you so effortlessly experienced back then and that it will never quite feel the same no matter how hard you try
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listen. i know it's not 2014 anymore and i know it's just a throwaway line and that the russo brothers didnt intend for marvel action blockbuster captain america the winter soldier to become the tragic gay love story that never was but man. having steve say "it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience" in a conversation about romantic relationships right before the bucky reveal is so cruel. it's not just about steve and bucky obviously having the shared experience of being "out of time," it's the fact that they've both been stripped of their humanity in opposite directions. steve is a legend, he is an american hero and a national icon before he is a human being the same way that bucky is a weapon and a killing machine before he is a human being. steve knows that anyone who falls in love with him in the 21st century fell in love with captain america first, and that's just not him. but then the one person who knew him first and knew him best and loved him (not captain america, that little guy from brooklyn) so much he died for it is alive, impossibly. and it's a miracle because he's back and it's horrific because he's back under the worst possible circumstances. but to steve, the winter soldier is worth tearing the world apart for because he's always been bucky first. they find each other and suddenly they're human again. and maybe, despite it all, being "out of time" becomes a blessing, because in this century they'd finally be allowed to love each other the way they've always wanted to. like real people do.
like. no. the captain america trilogy isn't about two queer men traumatized and alienated by war and modern life rediscovering and reclaiming their humanity through their love for each other. but. i mean. it couldve been
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I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.
He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.
He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.
Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.
Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.
I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.
Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.
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