#will be back with a full essay over their growth and how

[nemoys]

Crashes in WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN KAVETHAM ARE FINALLY MARRIED AS SHIT?-?:! WDYM THEY ACTUALLY HAVE RELATIONSHIP GROWTH?2!5' THE RETHESISIFICATION FOR THESE TWO ARE REAL YALL

#genshin impact #genshin impact leaks #4.6 leaks #kaveh #alhaitham #haikaveh #kavetham #will be back with a full essay over their growth and how #badly ive been praying for this #sobs my fic was real who knew #im so happy ahhhhh

[dragonmuse]

Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal

(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)

“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death

…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.

On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.

So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!

For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.

That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.

So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.

Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.

Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.

The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.

And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.

Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.

Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?

He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.

But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!

Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.

Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.

There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.

We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.

Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.

Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.

Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.

And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal? Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.

Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.

To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!

The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.

And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?

(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)

Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.

Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.

And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.

He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).

Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).

And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.

In a rom com.

This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.

Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).

The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.

That is not a kind show.

Season two is not a kind season.

It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.

I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.

No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.

Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.

Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!

Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.

Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #the strangest message sent #and no idea if it was on purpose #I kind of think it wasn't somehow #but boy howedy did it come across

[sevensoulmates]

Buddie 7x01 Meta

Okay! Finally, I was able to watch the full episode uninterrupted and have had a couple days to gather my thoughts. Quite simply this episode was fucking fantastic. My meta does sometimes include some spec, so if that's not your thing feel free to ignore those parts. Those of you who follow me know I write long ass essays, so fair warning for a long meta under the cut. ((Also idk how to make gifs, so enjoy my shitty screenshots)).

First, I love to see Buck and Eddie back at it again in their natural element being partners on a scene.

This was very obviously a call back to season 2, even down to the positioning, having Buck watch Eddie be competent in defusing a bomb. Buck has complete faith in Eddie's abilities, it's the fighter pilot whom he distrusts. In the end, they narrowly avoid getting blown up, just like they did in 2x01. This one scene re-establishes the Buck/Eddie work dynamic and shows how they inherently trust each other on and off the field.

Next, we get a scene of Buck and Eddie getting dressed in the locker room. Notably, Buck is fully dressed and Eddie is without his shirt until halfway through the scene. Buck also keeps his eyes on Eddie's naked torso pretty much through the whole shirtless section. This is another blatant callback to season 2x01 when Buck's first introduction to Eddie is when he's shirtless. This draws attention specifically to Eddie's physical attractiveness and how that affects Buck. This scene is odd to have with Eddie half-naked if we're then gonna make comments later on about "sexual tension" with friends, no?

In the same scene we are reintroduced to Buck and Eddie's separate love lives. Eddie is just now learning that Buck and Natalia broke up, and gives an odd facial expression that looks far too much like vindication. We know from the graveyard scene in 6x17 that Eddie wasn't really a fan of Buck's relationship with Natalia (I don't think there's ever been a relationship Buck's had where Eddie has legitimately been happy about it, which is weird if they're just friends, right?) so to him, this was always coming down the road. He seems proud that Buck was able to end it this easily.

Meanwhile, Eddie's going on a "not-date" with Marisol to chaperone Christopher's date with Penny. It's telling to me that Eddie doesn't classify this as a date with Marisol, but Buck does. Buck considers being at home watching Christopher as a date, and yet he seemingly doesn't classify all the times he's been over at Eddie's hanging out with just him and Chris to be a date? To me, this shows the first big disconnect in Buck/Eddie's brains that the show will likely dismantle this season: what is classified as platonic and what is classified as romantic, and which gender is allowed to be in each category. We'll come back to this when we get to the next scene.

Eddie is very supportive of Buck breaking up with Natalia. He doesn't say it directly to his face, but it's implied that Buck really lost himself when he was with Natalia, hence Eddie's "Welcome back to the land of the living". While Buck did struggle with figuring out his life purpose at the end of season 6, he falsely prescribed that purpose to Natalia. Thankfully, this was rectified here. This also shows significant growth for Buck from his last relationship with Taylor Kelly. Buck was able to identify issues in his relationship quicker and was able to cut the relationship short when he realized it was no longer healthy to maintain for him. I am extremely proud of Buck in this moment, as is Eddie, which is the first of two big moments in this episode where Buck and Eddie really showcase their pride in the other's personal growth. "You were missed" is such a simple yet perfect line for Eddie to give to Buck. To show Buck that Eddie has always seen him, and will always see him, even through personal lows, and will still remain by his side when they come out the other side. I really love this showcase of unconditional love here.

The next time we see Buck and Eddie, the chaperone date has already passed. Eddie and Marisol are seen watching Chris and Penny from behind the wall, but it's highkey awkward to watch and the focus of this scene is really not Eddie/Marisol but rather Chris and Penny and Eddie relaying this info to Buck. I first want to point out that we don't actually get to see Eddie/Marisol's first date, we don't see any subsequential dates, and the first time we DO see her, in an episode meant to be establishing couples, she's so blink-and-you'll-miss-it that I had to try 3 times to get this screenshot because it went by so fast. It's never a good sign when we don't actually get to see the beginnings of a non-established relationship.

Additionally, Eddie/Marisol's relationship is framed WITHIN Eddie recounting the night to BUCK. The important Eddie relationship we're supposed to be paying attention to in this scene is not Eddie/Marisol but Eddie and Buck's. It's not important for us to see Eddie and Marisol hanging out, but it IS important for us to see Eddie TELLING Buck about the night. That isn't insignificant. This means the show is clearly placing far more importance on Eddie/Buck than on Marisol, and for a pointed reason to be revealed hopefully later this season.

This is the only line that Marisol has in the entire episode. This being the one line she has is interesting because it's a callback to Eddie's arc last season ie. "Eddie has no game with women". Christopher makes a pointed comment about it in 6x18. And of course, it's a callback to Performance Anxiety 6x14 where Eddie was being pressured about dating women and 6x17 Love Is In The Air where he once again pressures himself into dating women until he finally settles on Marisol. It's an interesting call back to have, considering this scene could have been considered Eddie successfully dating a woman. And of course this ties into later in this episode where we get the "turning women off" comment, which I'll talk more about later.

Eddie goes on to tell Buck that he didn't really see any difference between Christopher hanging out with his male friends vs hanging out with his female friends. This is drawing attention to two things. The first is a call-back to Buck and Eddie's previous scene where we saw that Buck and Eddie have two different ideas of what constitutes "a date" when it's with a man versus a woman. Buck thinks that an at-home date with Marisol to watch Chris counts as a date, Eddie doesn't. Yet Buck doesn't consider his own at-home "hang-outs" with Eddie and Chris to be a date despite them being far more frequent and more meaningful than what we just saw with Marisol. Eddie also doesn't see it that way. This line is an indicator that both Buck and Eddie have blinders on currently when it comes to their interactions with each other, interactions which very much COULD be considered a date (including the later mentioned "underlying sexual tension") if they had done the same thing with a woman. They're just unable to recognize the truth of it at the moment, and this is clearly demonstrated when Eddie can't tell the difference between Chris having his date with his male friends vs. female. My prediction is that this will become more defined for Eddie by the end of the season or leading into next season.

But it's very interesting that this idea of not being able to recognize the possibility of romance except for the heteronormative options is coming into play now because there's really only one gay way to subvert that.

Which is then doubled down by Buck in the very next scene.

This is blatantly not a true statement. Buck is not only assuming Chris's sexuality, but he's assuming the same would be the case in general, which is not true. Buck knows many queer people, but at the same time, every queer person he knows canonically falls more into the gay-lesbian binary, and not really anywhere in the middle (ie. bi/pan people). It's an oddly heteronormative statement coming from Buck, who is known to be very open-minded and also researches a shit ton? So why are we being shown that Buck has this sort of narrow-mindedness specifically when it comes to the possibility of people being bisexual?

(Spec) Firstly, I think this is to set up for a bisexual Buck arc. It's showing that Buck actually 1.) hasn't ever been with a man before so this is not just a casual bi reveal and 2.) that he's never actually considered it a possibility to have sexual tension with a man before. This is what we in writing call "the character's fundamental misbelief" and it is brought in specifically to be challenged, and I'm near-positive it will be at some point in the season.

Secondly, On the surface, this statement is telling the audience that obviously Christopher would only have tension with his female friends, right? (sarcasm). But what's interesting is that this statement is purposefully gender-neutral. It leaves the real meaning up to the audience to decide. Why? Because this part of the conversation is not really about Christopher. On the surface, yes, but beneath that, this line and the line before it are about Eddie and Buck's relationship with each other. Buck's not out here talking about Christopher having sexual tension with people, and even Eddie recognizes that it's weird to talk about in relation to their child. He's still in the nest for christ's sake! These lines are in relation to Buck and Eddie's friendship and how both of them are blind to the fact that it very much IS possible to have sexual tension with your female AND male friends.

And this is where the gender-neutrality of that phrase gets extra interesting. Because as we've seen before, Buck and (more prominently) Eddie often lack chemistry with their female love interests. It's up for debate, but the general consensus was that most people did not feel any chemistry between Buck/Natalia, and Eddie/Ana or Eddie/Marisol. What's fascinating is that Buck has had chemistry with some of his female love interests, but Eddie hasn't had any since Shannon (and this is not an endorsement of Eddie/Shannon's romantic relationship. I'm not getting into the extreme nuances of that right now.) Some argue Eddie's had chemistry with Felisa or Vanessa, but they aren't the ones Eddie's dating right now, are they? So Eddie, unlike Buck with his female LI's, hasn't really had any sexual tension with Ana or Marisol. The only person that (most) people agree Eddie has had sexual tension with is Buck. And we had a scene with them earlier with Buck watching a half-naked Eddie change too. So in this case, the line might also be a reference to Eddie having chemistry with men, but not really with any of his female LI's. I think the purposeful vagueness here though was a very telling choice on Tim's part.

Additionally, the use of the word "underlying". Underlying implies that the sexual tension isn't overt, but rather is something that lingers unspoken. Under the surface. Subtextual, if you will. Of course, it's possible to have subtextual sexual tension between an M/F pairing. But placing it in the context of this scene, where Buck is being weirdly heteronormative, it feels contradictory. If Buck believes that he (and Chris by proxy) can only have sexual tension with a female friend, why is it something that is hidden under the surface? If anything, due to heteronormativity, the sexual tension between a boy and girl should be plain as day for anyone to see, on the surface, very much textual and with no room for interpretation (ie. "He was a boy, she was a girl, could I make it any more obvious?"). But let's flip this around. With queer pairings and couplings, there's a huge history of their sexual tension and romance only being able to live and breathe in the subtext. This line being spoken between two men that many people for years have pointed out are heavily queer-coded and have a romantically-coded "bro" relationship with each other that so far has only been able to exist in subtext? Tim, you're not sly. I see right through you.

After that, Eddie tells Buck about Christopher seeing 5 girls at the same time. Everyone's shocked and Eddie insinuates that Christopher didn't get this from him. By pointing out that Buck is a reformed playboy (I personally disagree with aspects of this statement but that's neither here nor there), Eddie is implying that Christopher may potentially be getting this trait from Buck. Which is an interesting thing to say to someone if they're not already heavily involved in the process of raising your child. Eddie claims that he's a "nester", which in my mind means someone who is very paternal/maternal, or constantly trying to build the home or the family. ((Sidebar: I googled nesting and apparently it's ALSO a term used in both polyamorous spaces and was later separately coined as a term referring to "where men treat women like they’re in a relationship, but they expect those women to know that it will never lead to real one." I don't interpret this line to mean either of those other definitions, I just think it's interesting that this is what popped up when I googled Nesting)).

Eddie then says he "married the first girl he dated" and Buck instantly volleys back with "think you mean slept with", which is EXTREMELY telling of a few things. First, I want to point out, that I don't believe this is Buck denouncing or disrespecting Shannon's important role in Eddie or Chris's life, but rather recontextualizing it.

We got clarification last season that Eddie fell into his relationship with Shannon almost in the same way that he fell into one with Ana and Marisol. It was heavily implied that Shannon was the pursuer, the one who made their relationship happen. Not Eddie. While Eddie was a little less passive with Ana and Marisol, being the one to ask both of them out, he still exhibits extreme passivity in the furthering of each of these relationships, preferring to "stick it out" rather than actually end it when it's not working. This is the exact same thing he did with Shannon. It's interesting that Buck argues that Eddie married the first girl he slept with rather than the first girl he dated.

Dating someone implies you really genuinely want to form a deep romantic relationship with someone (ie. call back to Buck's line to Maddie "at least when I date someone, I date them"), whereas sleeping with someone does not have to immediately mean wanting to be with them romantically. To me, this implies that while Eddie might've deeply loved Shannon as a friend and eventual mother of his child later and had sexual chemistry with her, the reason why he stayed with her is not because he wanted to continue dating her or being with her because he was IN LOVE with HER but rather because they slept together. And what came about from sleeping with her? A fucking traumatic teen pregnancy.

Both Buck AND Eddie recognize that in this scene (which is huge, especially for Eddie). I'm kinda blown away honestly. It's extremely important for the audience to see that while Eddie did, does and will always love Shannon, it is NOT romantic love, and may have not ever been. Which is FINE. They were literal teenagers for god's sake.

This is once again a recurring theme in Buck and Eddie's story in this episode. Defining what is considered romantic and what is considered platonic AND the possibility of redefining those distinctions years later. And it's interesting that in this case with Shannon, a woman, it's finally being acknowledged that it might not have been as romantic as Eddie may have believed for all these years.

Eddie then asks Buck to be the one to talk to Christopher about his relationship indiscretions. We see Eddie making the active choice to bring Buck deeper into the co-parenting role that's already been established in seasons 2-6. Right after Eddie talks about being a nester, a home-builder, he brings Buck deeper into his family in a parental role. To me, this scene doesn't imply that Eddie can't do it, or that it's out of his wheelhouse, but rather because he feels like Christopher might relate to Buck more about this. But even more so, it shows that Eddie inherently trusts Buck to be the one to talk to Christopher about this, because he's seen how Buck has grown over the years.

Eddie doesn't want Christopher to continue making bad choices in life and he tries to convey this to Buck, but Buck, with his own self-esteem issues, assumes that Eddie doesn't want Christopher to end up like Buck. Which is fascinating because Buck's made it a huge point throughout the series to show that he's grown past his sleeping-around phase (which was never about disrespecting or using women, it was always about Buck's own desire for love and connection that he felt he could only get through sex). And yet with this line, we see that Buck still doesn't realize how far he's come. He still feels like he isn't worth emulating or being someone to look up to. But Eddie does. Eddie sees and loves Buck to his core, and so he points it out to Buck that no, Buck actually didn't become that person, and that Buck is, in fact, worthy of being the one to parent Christopher in this situation. Once again, this is a great moment of showing how these two are able to see past their facades to the truth of each other's issues and provide strength, reassurance, and clarity to each other, as an ideal life partner would be able to do.

Then we get to see this amazing scene of Eddie talking down a panicking woman using his own unique "jello" methods. This coping mechanism tool he walks her through really does sound like something a therapist might teach their patient. Eddie not only is able to admit to having panic attacks but he's able to do it in front of strangers and his team alike with no shame (even a bit of pride at the end). This scene, which could've gotten very awkward very fast, ended up becoming a very sweet, serene moment where we also get to see that love reflected on Buck's face just how proud he is of how far Eddie has come. This episode made a point to show Buck and Eddie recognizing the other's growth and their pride in the other, as well as demonstrate how both are able to be there for the other emotionally in their times of need.

What's interesting is that this is all stuff that we've seen before. Buck and Eddie have been each other's emotional pillars for many years now. This is just a re-establishing episode. We know that this season their relationship is going to be shifting, growing, and showing a new side to it. So I'm intrigued to see how that will manifest given that we have already seen in one episode how Buck and Eddie are each other's closest person. Some might argue that this episode actually frames them to be closer and more emotionally supportive of each other than two of the other canonically romantic couples on the show.

Bathena are shown to be having marital problems in this episode, with Athena worrying she and Bobby might not actually have that much in common outside of the chaos. Madney is shown with pre-martial problems, with Chimney unnecessarily worrying he and Maddie's spark might fizzle out over the years and they might grow to resent each other. I'm not saying either of these relationship problems is really accurate, but it's just interesting to look at in comparison to how Buck and Eddie were framed in this episode, despite not being in a canonical romantic relationship at the moment.

This exchange absolutely took me the fuck out. Because this line did not need to be there. Even for the giggles. It could've even been a line of Buck being sincere and saying that he's proud of Eddie or something. Instead, we get this. "I've never seen a man turn a woman off with such skill". This line connected with the line from Marisol are both callbacks to Eddie's series-long issue with dating women. We get this in conjunction with Buck pointing out that Eddie doesn't really date these women he's in relationships with. He's just with them due to circumstances. Even if the circumstances are of his own making (which could be a symptom of compulsory heterosexuality). Eddie has never once talked about dating women like he's actually attracted to women. I'm so sorry. AND combined with the line where Buck and Eddie actually acknowledge that Eddie wasn't really with Shannon because he wanted to be with her but because of the family they accidentally created. All of this in ONE episode leading up to this line where it's heavily implied that Eddie's skill is his inability to turn women on, and to actually be able to turn them all the way off. And I'm just going to say it, but this line HEAVILY implies queerness. This is the kind of line you'd expect someone to say to a gay man or someone who doesn't actually want the sexual attention of a woman. This, again, in conjunction with Eddie not being able to tell the difference between a date with a woman vs. a man, is all too pointed.

This line alone in a vacuum could maybe not mean queerness, but alongside the whole rest of the episode where beat after beat after beat implies that Eddie has in fact NEVER been in a relationship with a woman 100% of his own active desire for her as a person and not just for what she can provide to his or his son's life?

This points to a very particular direction with Eddie that I'm expecting to see him fight against really hard this season. I would not be surprised if he ends up holding onto Marisol as the last shreds of perceived "normalcy" (ie. heterosexuality) are being threatened. Hopefully, he'll be able to reconcile the truth by the end of the season or going into season 8.

God this is so long and we haven't even gotten to the buddifer scene yet. This part will be a bit more condensed because I'm not really analyzing Chris as a character here or his relationship with Shannon. Maybe I will later.

I'm really loving seeing Christopher become his own person this season. But what really fascinates me here is Chris as a parallel to both Buck and Eddie. Christopher's abandonment trauma is starting to manifest in him through his choices with his love life. The same thing happened with Buck and with Eddie individually. Buck's trauma growing up informed his choices of sleeping around and seeking love from a myriad of individuals who didn't necessarily have his best interest at heart. Eddie's trauma manifested in him being so self-sacrificing that he can't ever choose a relationship for himself, but it always has to be in service of someone else or in pursuit of a perceived "Normal" standard.

In this case with Chris, his trauma is manifesting in a way more similar to Buck's, which is another reason why it's so perfect to see Buck being the one to discuss this with Chris, even though they don't necessarily delve too deep into it. There's no question Buck sees his own issues reflected in Chris. This has been true since 4x08 Breaking Point when Chris runs to Buck's house and confides in Buck his worries about people leaving him. Chris demonstrates a similar issue that Buck and Eddie both hold individually. That being the notion that "it doesn't matter what I do, or how good of a person I am, or how good of a partner I am, I am not worth staying for."

But the difference here is that Eddie and Buck, like the amazing co-parents they are, recognize the problem and take steps to address Christopher's trauma in a way that gives Chris autonomy and isn't condescending or out to make Christopher feel bad about making mistakes. The Buckley parents and the Diaz parents both failed Buck and Eddie in these ways because they blamed their children, never actually took the time to see the underlying issues let alone address them, and made them feel like everything was their fault, even going so far as to actively put their children down over and over and over again. Eddie and Buck get the beautiful chance to break the cycle here with Chris and get to be the parents that they never had.

It was so amazing to watch this episode with Buck and Eddie being supportive partners to each other and supportive parents to Christopher. It was an episode of growth just as much as it was an episode of reintroduction to a new audience. It was also extremely telling of what the future conflicts and themes will likely continue to be for Buck and Eddie for the rest of this season. I'm so excited to see what the rest of this season brings! And thank you from the bottom of my heart, ABC.

#911 abc #911 meta #buddie #buddie meta #buck meta #eddie meta #911 #911 spoilers #911 analysis #buddie analysis #damn this was long as fuck #thank you to anyone who actually sat here and read all this #I will likely do one for episode 2 once I get back from my trip #this episode was fucking amazing #and it's only the beginning of the season

[firelxdykatara]

I too ship Zutara and think they should have been canon. Although for me it's important to know how such a rewrite would go down. I tried to think, and I'm lost.

After Mai betrayed Azula for him, will he just go "sorry, not interested"? He isn't obligated to date her because of this, but her redemption hinges on Zuko and I don't see it being satisfying if he ends up rejecting her after this.

I thought the solution would be to rewrite her arc in boiling rock to make her have a moral realization, but then the problem with Maiko is practically solved. Their relationship wasn't salvaged by her redemption because last time they talked, Mai still didn't understand what's wrong with the Fire Nation and only changed because she loved Zuko. So how do you make it both satisfying & logical?

With Kataang the problem is the Chakras. The problem with the original (in my opinion) is that after he opened his chakra, letting go of his attachment to Katara, he's still attached (forcing a kiss on eip). Should TCoD get rewritten so that Azula shoots him before he opens it? Then why wouldn't he just open it later? Maybe the chakra would be locked so he feels as though he doesn't need to overcome his attachment just yet. In that situation, how would his chakra even unlock? The stone thing felt like nonsense, so how would I do it?

So yeah I have no idea how to approach this. How would you? (Thanks)

I've been rotating this ask in the back of my head like a rotisserie chicken for a few days--it's interesting because I don't generally stop to think like, how would I write them out of these relationships, I either ignore the relationships completely (which isn't hard, they were barely footnotes in the cartoon) or play a little bit with jealous exes or something. Thinking about like, In A Perfect World where Bryke wasn't in charge of ATLA post-canon (because if zutara had been canon, you can be sure they would've made us regret it) is interesting, and I do have thoughts on how I'd handle their relationships in a rewrite.

(this got long, so the rest is beneath the cut)

Assuming you mostly want to keep canon intact, I think maiko would be the easiest to work around, given how little relevance their relationship has in canon. The problem with maiko as an endgame ship is that it was not set up that way--if it had been, it would not have begun entirely off-screen and their whole relationship would not have been a study in misery and utter inability to connect emotionally. His relationship with Mai was there to showcase just how much he had changed and how little he fit into the life he had been so sure he wanted more than anything since his banishment. It worked very well to highlight Zuko's growth--how that contrasted to Mai's lack of it and why she could not understand him even at his most open and vulnerable--and did not work nearly so well when she was shoved back with him in the epilogue, after he'd quite literally forgotten her existence (he never mentions her again after Boiling Rock, not even to say a word of mourning, considering he'd have every reason to believe she was killed for defying his sister).

I don't think you can fix this by giving Mai some moral realization, because there simply is no room for it. As @araeph says in the essay I linked:

As a character, Mai is very useful to the story during Zuko’s return, because she represents everything that Zuko gains by sticking by his father. A girl who cares about him; the ability to indulge her; the authority he has over others at the palace; we see it all in his interactions with Mai. But this makes Mai a tether to a life he has long outgrown. Her function is not to advance Zuko’s character development, but to obstruct it, which also unfortunately means that Mai gaining a full understanding of Zuko’s trials would be disadvantageous to the story. If she knew everything about him and still wanted him to stay, it would give Zuko more cause than he should have to remain in the Fire Nation, but if she knew and encouraged him to leave and join the Avatar, it would rob Zuko of the triumph of making this decision on his own. In other words, there are good narrative reasons for keeping Mai in the dark; it just doesn’t make their relationship any stronger.

The seeds of a genuine redemption arc (one that includes some sort of moral realization and change to her moral framework) for Mai would have to have been planted far earlier than five episodes from the end of the series, but doing so would have of necessity detracted from Zuko's own character arc and the realizations that he makes despite his attachment to Mai (or more specifically to their relationship, which I feel like he was clinging to more out of a sense of abject loneliness he couldn't shake rather than genuine feelings and emotional connection).

So, in my mind, since we're tackling this with an eye towards getting rid of maiko with the fewest ripples to the overall story anyway, the easiest way to do this would be make one slight change to the end of the Boiling Rock two-parter--have Ty Lee (who had always been the least gung-ho of the trio about bowing to Azula's whims and had to be textually threatened into joining her in the first place) save Zuko's life, and then have Mai (who showed the most genuine affection for Ty Lee anyway) save Ty Lee. I love Zuko more than I fear you always fell flat for me as some epic declaration of love, anyway, since a) Zuko is not around to hear it, and b) unlike Ty Lee, she never showed much fear of Azula to begin with, so it wasn't a very high bar to clear. It was a cool line that was entirely unearned, and I don't think it would be missed, there would be some cute mailee crumbs this way, and a throwaway line of getting them released from the prison after the war ended could wrap up their presence in the story pretty nicely.

Now, kataang is a little trickier, if only because the last leg of Aang's character arc is almost completely derailed by his refusal to let go of his possessive attachment to Katara, to the point where he never naturally reopens his chakras, he has to have the Rock of Destiny hit him in just the right place, and the deus ex lionturtle there to give him a way out of having to make a hard moral choice. (I've maintained for years that if you work the final act of your main character's overall arc in such a way that it could have been solved by one good session with a chiropractor, something got fucked along the way.)

The thing about Aang's chakras is that, narratively, his whole thing with Guru Pathik and leaving his training early to save his friends was basically his version of Luke running away from his training with Yoda on Degobah because of his Force vision, only to find out that his friends were in the process of rescuing themselves and then losing his hand because he hadn't completed the most crucial part of his training. What's missing, therefore, from the last act of Aang's character arc, is the return.

See, in Star Wars, Luke pretty explicitly makes the wrong choice when he chooses to prioritize saving his friends over attaining enlightenment and fully mastering the Force. It was the only choice he could have made, but it was still the wrong one--because, like Aang, his friends did not actually need him to save them, he actually almost makes it harder for them to get away by requiring them to save him because, like Aang, he loses a battle in a very critical way. This was a lesson he desperately needed to learn, and it is clear he has learned it by the time he makes it back to Degobah and witnesses the end of Yoda's life, his own enlightenment having already been reached.

But Aang never goes back to the Guru.

And the text refuses to allow us to sit with the fact that he made the wrong choice in prioritizing his attachment to Katara over his ability to master the Avatar State. He is actually narratively vindicated about it, because the plot bends itself into a pretzel so that he doesn't have to spend any time during the last book trying to reopen his chakras and regain access to the Avatar State, handed both in the final battle with no excess effort on his part, and handed the girl into the bargain. (The girl who never even wanted him, so far as we can tell from all the lack of cues she gave him that she actually returned his feelings.)

And I think this could have been solved with a few scattered scenes. Let Katara actually have some agency in her own romantic relationship (or lack thereof), insofar as noticing Aang's advances and clueing the audience in to how she actually feels. Let Aang struggle with the fact that he can't reach the Avatar State, that his mastery of the elements is in limbo because he can't access his full power, rather than ignoring all of this until the end of the show. If we're trying to keep the shape of the last season roughly the same, let Katara confront Aang about the invasion kiss.

This would have been the perfect time to establish that Katara actually does feel some type of way about Aang prior to the epilogue, and it could have saved us from the exceedingly cringey EIP kiss that Aang never apologized for. How it comes across now, of course, is that Katara basically pretends it never even happened, to the point where she doesn't even know what Aang is talking about during EIP until he reminds her--the death knell for any shot their relationship had at looking requited, because I can tell you, as someone who's been a teenage girl, if someone I had conflicted but burgeoning romantic feelings for had kissed me, I would not have completely forgotten about it only a few weeks later--and we never get any indication as to what she actually felt about the kiss (which was not mutual, despite what Aang's dialogue in the EIP scene implies) except for the fact that she looked away and frowned afterwards. (A change mandated by Bryke, who wanted to leave her feelings completely ambiguous; the original storyboards had her smiling to herself.)

So, with an eye towards wrapping up Aang's puppy love crush and establishing Katara's distinct lack of romantic feelings for him, have her talk to him about the kiss. A good frame of reference for this would be Meng's conversation with Aang in "The Fortuneteller", where she finally realizes that he doesn't like her in the same way she likes him. Katara and Aang's conversation about the invasion kiss could be a callback to this, with Aang having some important realizations--that just because Katara doesn't share his feelings doesn't mean she loves him any less, and just because he can't have her the way he wanted doesn't mean he has to love her any less, that she doesn't belong to him but that's ok, because she's still his family and they'll always have each other's backs. Which could have functioned well in helping him take another step towards unblocking his chakras. Going back to the Guru directly may not have worked, since by this point in the story we're hurtling towards the final confrontation and Sozin's Comet, but let Aang reflect on what the Guru told him with new understanding granted him by his experiences throughout the first half of the season.

To keep the stakes high and up the suspense, obviously, he shouldn't have fully unlocked his chakras and the AS before the final fight, but the seeds could be planted--little moments like a talk with Katara about the invasion kiss, maybe a little more empathy and understanding from him about why Katara needs closure in TSR, etc--and then, during the final fight, rather than hand him all the answers on a silver platter, have him almost lose. He still can't go full Avatar, he's out of time, he still doesn't know exactly what to do about Ozai given his own pacifism and desire to preserve that part of his culture--he tries to fight but he's pretty quickly overpowered. Idk how I would've animated this, and maybe it wouldn't have looked as cool for the final fight, but the true climax of the finale was the Zuko and Azula agni kai anyway, so it hardly matters--I'm picturing him doing the rock-shield thing and going into a brief meditative state, where he finally achieves the enlightenment necessary to unlock the AS on his own, no rock of chiropracty necessary. And at this point, I'd give Ozai a Disney Death, since leaving him alive causes more problems than it solves and it's not necessary for Aang to kill him for him to die--they're fighting on a mountain ffs--but if you don't want to change that part then him figuring out energy bending as part of becoming a fully realized Avatar would at least feel more earned than the lionturtle just handing it to him. (And that could've been foreshadowed better by seeding the idea for it earlier in the season.)

After all of that, particularly if you up the emotions during the agni kai and have Zuko and Katara kiss there (or something less explicitly romantic but still tender, like a brief forehead touch), it'd feel pretty natural to have a just friends ending for Aang and Katara. Maybe a brief, slightly awkward but ultimately amiable conversation if Zuko and Katara had a ~thing at their final fight, and then the final shot of the series could be the gaang all together, maybe zutara holding hands or Katara resting her head on his shoulder or something, but since they already kissed there wouldn't feel like a need to end the whole show on romance, something which I've always felt missed the point of the series.

And then, y'know, after that, the world's your oyster! This is how I'd do it if I were trying to keep the bulk of the final season intact. Of course, breaking it all down to its component pieces and rebuilding from the ground up is also an option, but that'd probably be a longer post lol.

#zutara #atla #m.aiko salt #k.ataang salt #atla canon rewrite #hey albert kim if you're taking notes on how to do season 3 of the LA................ #Anonymous #asked

[ichinoue]

I just finished watching bleach, and I'm not much of a shipper, as in I didn't care for the ships. But ichihime just didn't make sense to me, I have no problem with renruki but ichihime just didn't do it. So like I'm genuinely curious as to how they stuck out for people like you who absolutely adore it, I've also seen alot of hate towards it so once again I'm curious. Is there any reason that you personally always loved the ship? Be it their chemistry? Or interactions?I don't know I just want to see the appeal

Well, for starters, if you've only watched the anime, I think that can definitely taint your perception of IH because the animators butchered it so much compared to how it actually is in the manga, especially in the early arcs. I made a post on the very first IH moment in the anime vs. the manga here although it's pretty old so the links I used as references are probably broken now. But I definitely recommend reading the manga to get a true sense of what their dynamic is like!

Honestly it's hard to sum up why I love this ship so much without pulling out a bunch of manga pages and turning this into a full blown essay of things I've already said a million times before (but I'll attach a bunch of links to some of those posts below lol).

But I just love the sweetness of IchiHime. The mutual respect. The selfless care and consideration they have for each other. How dorky they are together. The way they make each other better, and stronger. The way Orihime can pull so many passionate, emotional reactions out of Ichigo--the way he softens around her, the blind rage when his enemies use her to taunt him, the way he flies off the handle in a panic when he thinks she's in danger, the depression he fell into when she was gone, the relief he feels when he realizes she's okay. The puppy dog eyes he gives her. The way everyone else kicks him in the head or punches him to lift his spirits, but Orihime--she only has to use gentle words. The vow to protect, the rising up from the dead to keep that vow. Not even death could keep them apart. Orihime wanting to love Ichigo in every lifetime she lives, she would choose him every single time. And yet she never expected him to love her back--he just did. All on his own. He was pining for her, they were pining for each other. It was mutual long before they even knew it.

And I think Kubo did so well writing for the IchiHime relationship. It's got cute, heartfelt moments, angsty teenager moments, silly, comedic relief moments, and dramatic, life-or-death moments. You can see their development from one arc to the next, see the clear-cut changes and growth in their dynamic from beginning to end. They never stopped changing, and growing closer over time. Which created a nice, long slow-burn for me to sink my teeth into over the course of Bleach's 15 year run.

Anyway, here's some links of posts that explain different aspects that I love about this pairing:

I have an extremely long masterpost about IchiHime here, which mostly goes into detail about why I think it was obvious for canon, but it covers almost every single IH moment in detail and my love for the pairing and reasons for shipping it are pretty much woven into the fabric of this post lol.

The chemistry of IchiHime.

My top 3 favorite IchiHime moments.

Masterpost of moments where Ichigo and Orihime protect each other.

IchiHime implications of the lust arc.

Ichigo being teased about Orihime.

Ichigo's vow to protect Orihime.

Ichigo and Orihime's growing feelings for each other.

Orihime consistently being singled out to target Ichigo's heart.

Orihime loving Ichigo's kindness.

Ichigo being receptive to Orihime's feelings.

And these are some posts made by other people that I like:

A post about Ichigo's feelings for Orihime.

This one is an image post that basically combines almost every single IchiHime moment from the first to last chapter, as a visual reference.

A response my friend gave when asked the reasons that they ship IchiHime that I wholeheartedly agree with.

And another list of reasons.

I also just really love this post.

#IchiHime #fav

[peppermintsparker]

tonight (is gonna be the loneliest)

summary -- in which you're in love with peter parker, only he's not in love with you. warnings -- fucking angst on top of angst. mentions character death (uncle ben and r's father), tiny not even bad explicit language, peter parker is lowkey an asshole in this authors note -- inspired by the lonelist by maneskin. proof read a little, not edited. gif not mine.

You had grown up next door to Peter Parker, he had been your best friend since the two of you were six years old and it hadn’t changed over the years. If you went digging through attics or basements, you’d find hundreds of pictures documenting two children growing up side-by-side into teenagers. The growth charts in the houses were faded now, but you could still make out initials and numbers, and smiley faces. A childhood spent so closely together, families practically weaved together. Peter Parker was part of you.

You’re not sure where along the line you’d fallen in love with him. Maybe as a ten year old when you’d finally learnt how to do the bunny loops to tie your shoelaces by yourself, and Peter spun the two of you around in circles in celebration. Maybe as a thirteen year old when you’d had your heart broken and Peter sat up with you all night to dry your tears. Or, maybe as a sixteen year old when you noticed the way he started looking at Gwen Stacey and you realised that Peter Parker was a boy you couldn’t have.

Now seniors at Midtown High School, you knew things were about to change drastically. Life revolved around homework, college applications, extra credit work, serious boyfriends, and making the most out of a school year that would be drawing to a close soon. Gone were the days of paper planes, skinned knees, hanging upside down until the two of you were red in the face. And, you’d be lying if you said it didn’t tear you up inside.

“Are you coming over tomorrow, Pete?” You asked on the walk home, sharing an earbud as you listened to the Peter + Y/n playlist, carefully curated over the years. The backpack you had since freshman year, splitting at the seams, was full of textbooks and homework, and you knew if you didn’t get it started tonight it was highly likely you’d procrastinate.

“Can’t, sorry bub.” Peter was nice enough to sound apologetic, and it hadn’t been the answer you’d been expecting. In the twelve years of friendship, you’d never not spent a Saturday together and it hurt you a little to know Peter was suddenly unavailable. “I can come over on Sunday though? We’ll start our assignment together.”

You shrugged in response, taking out the earbud as you reached your front steps. A quick goodbye was said before you ran up them and through the heavy front door, ignoring the way your backpack knocked against your back with enough force to leave bruises. Peter followed, stopping when the door slammed shut without enough time for him to slip through. Unsure if you wanted time alone or not, the boy decided it was perhaps better to leave you for now; he’d see you on Sunday.

Saturday was an incredibly boring day, for you anyway. You spent most of the day in a too-big sweater and some pj shorts, hunched over your desk as you worked through an English class essay. It felt weird not being with Peter, like something was missing and you wondered what he was doing. You wondered if he was lonely, wondered if Peter was doing anything even remotely close to exciting. You’d ask tomorrow, you decided.

Sunday rolled around, and you sat on the stairs outside your front door waiting for him to turn up, but he never did. Peter Parker, for all his lateness when it came to school, was never late for you. He had sworn against being late after he was five minutes late to your ninth birthday party, quite by accident, only to turn up and discover that nobody had come anyway; you’d been most hurt at the thought of Peter not being there.

“Come on love, dinner’s ready.” Your mom called you inside at 5pm, tea towel draped across her shoulder. You were silent as you stood and followed her, holding in all the heartbreak you were sure you’d cry into your pillow that night anyway. Peter had shown up during dinner, looking apologetic and peaky, and your mom served him some dinner and you had to pretend that his actions hadn’t cut deep inside.

Peter left after dinner, citing that his Aunt May needed help with something, and when you rounded the table for a hug, Peter didn’t stay long enough to give you the chance. Despite the action being unnecessary, you walked him to the front door and as it closed behind him, you collapsed onto the stair behind you and let yourself cry. Nothing needed to be said, the actions were enough, Peter Parker no longer saw you as a friend.

You took to ignoring him at school after that, much to his confusion. When his Uncle Ben passed away, you took Aunt May some condolence flowers and some prepared meals. “Mom said you’re welcome over anytime, which you know anyway.” You explained into a hug, feeling your own tears burn at your eyes. “She knows how you’re feeling, and said you don’t have to grieve alone. You’re not alone, Aunt May.”

A sympathetic smile sent in Peter’s direction before you stepped out of the Parker residence, unsure if you’d ever step back inside once again. Things had changed even more after that, Peter had become obsessed with avenging his Uncle’s death, fuelled by the need to catch his killer, and it was obvious that he didn’t have time for silly friendships anymore. Even if Peter Parker was still the biggest part of you.

When the seventh anniversary of your fathers passing rolled around, you found yourself crying in the arms of Aunt May. Your mom had gone to visit her mother in law for the weekend; her health had been declining in recent months, and having no other children, your mom figured it was only right for her to spend some time with her. You promised you’d be fine alone, said the Parkers were right next door if you needed them. And you did, more than ever. But where Peter failed, Aunt May succeeded.

“He should be here,” you wailed, tears coming thick and fast as you felt yourself breaking down. Peter had been there for every anniversary, every first since, and when you cried for your father, Peter had been the one to hold your hand, encouraging you to let it all out. “Peter should be here. Why isn’t he here? What could be more important?”

You’d fallen asleep on their couch that night, cheeks sticky from tears and throat raw from crying so hard. Eleven am saw you waking up to the sound of May lecturing Peter, “she needed you. You weren’t there when she needed you the most. Where were you, Peter? Where were you because you sure as hell weren’t here when it mattered the most?”

You had left when Peter Parker mumbled out that he was with Gwen Stacy; didn’t stay long enough for the apologies that you didn’t think you’d get to hear. But when Gwen’s father passed away, and Peter withdrew himself from the girl, Peter climbed through your window begging forgiveness.

“I waited for you that Sunday, and you didn’t come,” you cried, grateful your mom had been working a night shift at the local hospital. Peter could feel his heart crack at your tears, wanting to console you but moving felt impossible. “You came for dinner, and didn’t even hug me goodbye. You never leave without hugging me! And you weren’t there. When I needed you the most, you weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter practically stumbled over his words, unsure if you’d believe him. He hoped you would, but he’d been such an awful friend to you lately that he wasn’t sure if you’d forgive him. Not that he’d blame you if you chose not to. “Believe me bub, I’m so so sorry. God, if I could turn back time I would, I’d spend every single second with you instead of with Gwen. I’d have held you whilst you cried instead of kissing Gwen. Believe me, I would have.”

Bile rose in your throat at the statement, and you swallowed it back down. You’d been in love with Peter for years now, he’d always been part of you. Twelve years of friendship; shared skinned knees, hanging upside down until you were red in the face, a silly marriage pact, tears, laughter. Peter had been your awkward first kiss aged fourteen when you worried that nobody would ever want to kiss you. You were so in love with your best friend, and wishful thinking had you hoping he loved you too.

“I love you,” you blurted out, unable to stop yourself. “I’ve loved you for longer than I think I can remember. Maybe I started loving you when we were ten and you twirled me around after I learnt to tie my shoelaces alone. Or maybe it started at thirteen when you stayed with me all night to dry my tears after that jerk broke my heart. Maybe at fourteen after you were my first kiss when I worried nobody would kiss me. It was confirmed at sixteen though, when you started looking at Gwen Stacy differently and I knew you were a boy that would never be mine.”

There, it was all out in the open now. A confession you could never take back, words you never thought you’d spill. Peter looked lost for words, opening and closing his mouth eerily like a fish as he tried to think of something to say. The right thing to say. The thing you wished he’d say more than anything: I love you too.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Instead, he turned and left your house. Leaving you alone for the last time ever.

Peter Parker will always be the saddest part of you. The part of you that would never be yours.

#tasm!peter parker x reader #tasm!peter parker x you #the amazing spiderman x reader #the amazing spiderman x you #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #tasm!peter parker x you angst #tasm!peter parker x reader angst #tasm!peter parker angst #peter parker angst #the amazing spiderman #peach writes

[rose-tinted-vision]

ReoNagi/NagiReo shower thoughts: a short essay

[manga spoilers ahead, the usual]

Disclaimer: These are just my own opinions on the ship.

The ReoNagi ship at its foundation is actually a "marriage of convenience/fwb-to-lovers" trope, if you think about it...

Or rather, it's the equivalent exchange meme: Reo gets to utilize Nagi's football skills and Nagi gets a convenient life with someone taking care of all his needs.

Although Nagi realises pretty early on how Reo essentially manipulates others around him to reach his goals (even back in school), and likely himself as well, but he lets himself get manipulated.

(It's shown in episode Nagi that Reo utilized methods like that "3rd meal trading" to maintain the harmony in Team V, to avoid turning out like Barou's team).

Or rather, allows himself to be manipulated because it benefits him in the end too, anyway: it's a somewhat mutually beneficial relationship playing to both of their individual strengths.

Though on Nagis end it may also have something to do with what Nagi says about Reo being the only person to be interested in "a slacker like me".

Whereas on Reo's end, given how he says everything back in the Mikage corporation is boring, and the way he latches onto Nagi, calling him his treasure, I'd say that Nagi probably symbolises his goal. Attaining something that can't be bought with money. Something beyond even the Mikage corporation.

Of course, their relationship evolves over the course of blue lock, in the sense that Reo is content with what they have, is alright with continuing as they are, but Nagi is partially influenced/caught up in the competitiveness of their environment and knows that he can play at a higher level, so he chooses to leave Reo.

Even though he's breaking their promise of staying together till the end, from his point of view, his growth also benefits Reo in the end, so he chooses that path. Nagi is more practical than emotional, and probably decided that the end result is worth it.

And this choice shakes up their relationship, of course. Like I've mentioned in this post: the miscommunication troupe is the very core of their relationship.

Because their relationship is also relatively new, no matter how well they work together. They've only been playing football together for about six months, of course Reo doesn't understand why Nagi would up and leave, because the other didn't tell him, and Nagi assumes that Reo understands his actions.

And suddenly their relationship is not so mutually beneficial anymore: Reo thinks that Nagi has abandoned him, so he avoids him, and Nagi doesn't have anyone fussing over him anymore.

Reo gets messed up by the emotional whiplash of his best friend leaving him and calling him a pain in the ass (derogatory), and Nagi has to look after himself.

Essentially, they're learning how to be less codependent on each other. Reo in the emotional sense, and Nagi in the practical sense of it all. Because Reo was kind of putting all his eggs in one basket (basket being Nagi here), who doesn't realise the weight he was holding.

Then Nagi throws a reverse-uno and asks Reo for his help in football. Kind of like a full-circle moment, also seems like Nagi's way of holding out an olive branch.

Though the above panels do show that

Nagi and Reo's goals are still unaligned

While Reo's goals shifted slightly from "winning the world cup" to "making Nagi the best in the world", Nagi's always been going along with Reos whims, and only just started thinking for himself.

In chapter 207 Nagi says he's been playing so far with the goal of "beating Isagi", he doesn't really have the ambition to be the "world's #1", keeping with his consistent theme of just wanting to slack.

And it's obvious that they both want to fall back to their old dynamics (a safety net), but they've both changed: Nagi has somewhat developed his "ego", and a hunger to defeat others, Reo has learnt how to fight by himself (though he doesn't want to). Thus their dynamics would inevitably change, too.

So this begs the question: are they still "mutually beneficial"? Do they have to be to maintain their relationship?

(Though it's my hope that Reo understands where Nagi is coming from now after that exchange they had on the field. I'm not as confident in Nagi understanding Reo's outburst, but. Maybe him thanking Reo for introducing him to football is a start).

#episode nagi #blue lock #bllk #reonagi #nagi seishiro #reo mikage #nagireo #spoilers #tbh early stages reonagi is like a marriage of convenience thing #now that i think about it #fr i hope they talk tho #reonagi analysis #reonagi brainrot hours

[starlit1daydream]

so i finally did it: flowey the flower's classpect & asriel dreemurr

obligatory disclaimer that this post will include massive spoilers for undertale and undertale yellow.

let's get the obvious out of the way first - what is flowey's ASPECT? this is something that i feel is pretty obvious, he's a very clear-cut doom player.

he deals with inevitability and predestination, has a very nihilistic and cynical worldview based on his soulless perception of the world and the repetitions he's gone through, and he's associated a lot with some very morbid and edgy imagery. in particular, i think it's his manipulations with fate and inevitability that solidify him as a player of doom (save states and such). it's for this same reason that i believe sans is a doom player, but that's for another essay.

what's his class? well, let's get into how flowey experiences doom.

flowey's existence, from the very moment of his creation, has been defined by doom. an inability to die or cessate his own existence that leads to a plethora of lives full to the brim with death, experiments with predestination and a general morbid curiosity. flowey does things until he's exhausted every single possible outcome of the situation, and then he moves on to the next until he's sucked all novelty and nuance out of it, effortlessly manipulating doom and making it bend to his whim.

a lot of people would be quick to place him as a witch because of this, but personally i think that flowey's absolute will and dominion places him at an even higher tier.

flowey isn't a witch, he is a lord of doom. he holds absolute control over the aspect of doom, exhibiting full control over inevitability and decay in every facet.

let's just look at some of the things flowey does. he subjects clover to countless resets and deaths at his hand for his own amusement, sets up the denizens of the underground like little dolls for him to play with until they break apart, all the while plotting to grasp more control and seize true dominion. he's a textbook lord, endlessly determined and power-hungry as he lets nothing stand in the way of his goal (acquisition of the SOULs). much in the same way, we see caliborn's quest for power leaving similar destruction in its wake and he holds the same determination, hell, they're even associated with the same laugh soundbyte! the similarities are all there, and the stunted mental development definitely shows for both of them given they're a kid who never properly got the chance to grow up.

in fact, it's the link to caliborn that brings me to my next point. what of asriel?

simple. in the same way the caliborn has his calliope, the muse of space, flowey has his asriel, the muse of life. this may sound contradictory to the asriel we see in the finale of undertale, but i propose that this is an asriel still under the throes of the inversion that brings flowey his classpect.

their true classpect has always been the muse of life, it's merely that flowey's soulless state brings about an inversion that is only 'fixed', if you will, after asriel is brought back to normality.

the real asriel is much like a muse. he is tender, emotional, caring, perhaps a little weak-willed or timid at times. he is the narrative's driving force but in a wholly passive manner. throughout the whole game asriel is the inspiration that hangs over the plot (throughout BOTH games in fact, his role in deltarune very much cements his role as a muse) but we never see him until the final hour. much like a muse, he has become his aspect for the sake of the narrative. life, of course, represents growth, affluence, the natural energy of all things, and uses both baking and plant-life as symbolism. consider what asriel and chara used for their plot, and what flowey is now, and those two symbols make a lot more sense.

so, though asriel and flowey have two separate classpects by technicality, they are still the same person and it's a inversion similar to that people say rose underwent during her descent into 'grimdarkness', going from a seer of light to a witch of void.

now, this is a controversial statement to make because a lot of homestuck fans question the validity of the 'inversion' argument, saying that it's never explicitly stated in canon and to that i say that homestuck is quite possibly the poster child for 'death of the author'. i want you to bear in mind this is my personal view on the subject and homestuck's fanbase has never been one to agree on any concrete interpretations of the classpect system.

that's all from me. until next time, tumblr.

#undertale #undertale yellow #flowey #flowey the flower #asriel dreemurr #homestuck #homestuck analysis #classpect #classpecting #homestuck classpect #lord of doom #muse of life #doom aspect #life aspect #lord class #muse class

[lazlolullaby]

Terry's place in the "modern" Batfam, or rather, his incompatibility, an essay

TL;DR: some JLU episode "Epilogue" discourse is missing some at the time context.

Also, if anyone tries to redo the same story: "Amanda Waller, why do you think the ideal of Batman is going to die? Have you seen his imitators? Have you seen his actual proteges? The dining room full of his kids???"

It was technically one of Terry's Birthdays this year. (either June 27th or August 18th of 2023/2024, yes i love you DC and you're inability to commit) and I've been thinking. His canonical DCAU origin.

Amanda Waller and her Cadmus Project "Batman Beyond" and her big fandom-enraging decision of making a "Son of Batman" to carry out the Batman name.

Maybe it was because "the only assistant that can deal with his job and his intense boss" relationship was actually kind of nice and different from the sidekick thing. and the JLU episode "Epilogue" took that concept and tainted it by saying "he had to be Batman, it's in his blood".

But the text of the episode genuinely refutes that and it just makes it...tonally messy and bittersweet? idk i ain't mad which is why I've picked at this tangled ball of yarn to get at this story.

Maybe it's not the making an heir to the Bat was enraging, as you realize, Cassandra Cain was introduced in 1999, the literal incarnation of Scary Fighter with Soft Side. Damian Wayne was retooled in 2006 and we all love a little Murder Child getting Growth, and Duke Thomas from 2013 is shaping up to be a great all rounder for the title of both Scary and Great Detective.

Even skipping Dick being Batman for a year and it sticking, the other Robins could wear the cowl as well. Maybe it was something else?

Currently, in the Modern!or Comics!DC, Terry is redundant because of all of the Batfam that have been introduced before and after him. And because of Fandom Telephone Fanon, it's hard to interpret older canon as fairly.

With how the Batman Beyond story is structured, Bruce has to be isolated, old and alone in order to trust Terry with the cowl. It's an escapist fantasy and it's a redemption for both of them. It's implied that the Justice League is not as strong as it used to be. The Age of Heroes is over. there was a "near apocalypse of '09"

Especially looking at Wayne Family Adventures, it's hard to imagine all of the Batfam just goes their own ways and doesn't check in.

Terry's origin and start as Batman is fundamentally incompatible with modern canon. It does not work with the concept of the "Batfamily" and even the "extended Batfamily".

Because of that we have to step back in time to 1999 where Terry was created and we also have to completely disregard the comics. Because he was created specifically for the streamlined DCAU.

At this point in the DCAU, the New Adventures of Batman wrapped up. There's Nightwing, Barbara Gordon (only Batgirl, not Oracle, even though the incident that put her in a wheelchair was written in 1988, the DCAU didn't adapt it), Tim Drake (who was combined with Jason Todd, taking over his outfit and backstory). that have been in the BatFamily. Three people who could try to take the cowl.

And then we get into the incident from the Return of the Joker, which was alluded to in series but never actually described. Where the Batfam Blows Up. and Bruce just carries on and isolates himself from Everyone.

Yeah, making a new incarnation of Batman sounds like a pretty good option at this point.

What I'm trying to say. the "Batman Beyond" project, at the time both in universe and out of it, made sense. but like all "future worlds", time catches up and eventually surpasses it.

#batman beyond #dcau #terry mcginnis #batfam #dc batman #batman analysis #meta #lazlo's lulls #batman beyond is a good snapshot of the end of the 90s #all future universes are good snapshots of what the present is #what they worry about where it's going #also Terry is Alfred fight me

[mahayanapilgrim]

Meditation is a profound practice that offers a multitude of physical, mental, and emotional benefits. Central to its effectiveness is the establishment of the right meditation posture. In this essay, we will explore the significance of maintaining the correct meditation posture and provide clear guidelines on how to achieve it.

The Importance of the Right Meditation Posture

1. Physical Comfort:

- The right posture ensures physical comfort during meditation. It allows you to sit for extended periods without experiencing discomfort or pain, allowing you to focus on your practice.

2. Alignment of Energy:

- Proper posture aligns the body's energy channels, such as the chakras in yoga and Ayurvedic traditions. This alignment facilitates the flow of vital energy (prana or chi), enhancing your meditation experience.

3. Spinal Health:

- Maintaining a straight spine supports spinal health. Slouching or improper posture can lead to back problems over time. A straight spine encourages good posture habits in daily life.

4. Mental Focus:

- A steady and balanced posture aids in mental focus. When your body is aligned, your mind is less distracted by physical discomfort, allowing you to dive deeper into meditation.

5. Breath Awareness:

- The right posture facilitates natural and unrestricted breathing. Deep, relaxed breaths are essential in many meditation techniques, as they help calm the mind and reduce stress.

How to Achieve the Right Meditation Posture

1. Choose Your Seating:

- Select a comfortable cushion or chair. It's crucial to find a balance between comfort and stability.

2. Sit Cross-Legged or on a Chair:

- If sitting on the floor, choose a cross-legged position (e.g., half-lotus or full-lotus) or sit in a kneeling posture (seiza). On a chair, keep your feet flat on the ground.

3. Straighten Your Spine:

- Imagine a string pulling you up from the crown of your head. Keep your spine straight but not rigid.

4. Relax Your Shoulders:

- Roll your shoulders back and down, creating an open chest. This opens up your airways and promotes relaxed breathing.

5. Place Your Hands:

- Rest your hands gently on your lap or knees, palms up or down, depending on tradition and comfort.

6. Align Your Head:

- Tuck in your chin slightly to align your head with your spine. Keep your gaze soft, looking downward or straight ahead.

7. Maintain Comfort:

- Adjust your posture as needed for comfort. You should feel stable and relaxed.

Conclusion

The right meditation posture is more than just a physical arrangement; it's a gateway to the profound benefits of meditation. By aligning your body correctly, you pave the way for mental clarity, spiritual growth, and enhanced well-being. The physical, mental, and spiritual advantages of proper posture make it an essential element of any meditation practice. So, sit comfortably, align your body, and embark on a journey to inner peace and self-discovery through the transformative practice of meditation.

#buddha #buddhism #buddhist #dharma #sangha #mahayana #zen #milarepa #tibetan buddhism #thich nhat hanh #padmasambhava #Guru Rinpoche #avalokitesvara #Amitabha #Shantideva #Dzogchen #Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche #dalai lama #Longchenpa #mahasiddha #meditation #vajrapani #vajrasattva #Bodhisattva #medicine buddha #manjushri #mahamudra #maha siddha saraha #four noble truths

[wartakes]

"What Should It Look Like?" Part IV: Special Operations Forces (OLD ESSAY)

This essay was originally posted on May 24th, 2023, is my most recent "old" essay which means we are fully up to speed over here on my content!

This essay is the latest entry in the "What Should It Look Like?" series - which I may still have a few to do on but we'll see. In this one, I unleash a rant against special operations forces that I've mostly held in for years and finally let out full force. This is another one that got a very specific type of guy on Twitter annoyed.

(Full essay below the cut).

Oh boy here I go ranting again.

Fair warning, this is a dense one. For real. But that’s because this is one I’ve wanted to cover for a long time and have a lot of thoughts about. A lot.

Yes my guys, gals, and non-binary pals, we’re finally talking about the United States’ Special Operations Forces (SOF), those tacticool, high-speed, low-drag, routinely accused of war crimes special snowflakes that have destroyed the minds of so many middle and high school ages boys that ever owned an Xbox and played a single Call of Duty game after 2007.

I’m not going to waste a lot of time here in the intro because, as I’ve already said, I have a lot of thoughts on SOF both in terms of what they’ve become today and what role they play in the scenario we’ve thought of for this series of essays. Suffice to say up front, I think SOF are useful and necessary in a military context, but they have a myriad of problems of varying kinds. I’m going to outline some of those problems, and things I’d try to do differently in building a force for the mildly better future we envision and then employing them in said future.

First, we’re going to talk about the issue of “bloat” and uncontrolled growth in the SOF community. After that, we’ll talk about SOF being directed to missions that are out of the scope of what they should be doing (and also may just be straight up unwinnable). Finally, I’ll talk about the big elephant in the room, which is the toxic culture that is evident inside of SOF units and the SOF community as a whole. As usual, I’ll try to tie it all together in the conclusion and leave you with some closing thoughts for both today and for a (hopefully) better future.

Without further adieu then, let’s dive right into this!

A bad case of the bloats I struggled with which of the issues with the SOF community I wanted to address first, because the more I thought about them, the more I realized it was a never ending loop of each of them feeding into one another to keep this disaster factory going. Ultimately, I decided I just had to pick one to start with, and I decided the issue of bloat would be the best point – not just because of how it feeds and is fed by the other issues (and I will call back to this throughout the essay), but because of the effect it then has on the rest of the Joint Force outside of SOF.

Before we get any further, I really want to drive home the scale of the bloat that the SOF community has experience over the past two decades or so in change. According to the IISS Military Balance for 2001, at the start of that year – prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11th and a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States Armed Forces consisted of 2,568,300 total personnel (1,367,700 active and another 1,200,600 reserve and National Guard).

Of those 2,568,300 troops, the collective SOF forces of the United States – under the auspices of United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or just SOCOM – yes, like the video game), made up 42,920 of those troops across all branches of the military (28,620 active and another 14,300 in the reserves and National Guard – yes, there are National Guard special forces; and they’re based in Utah; be very afraid). I’ll apologize now for throwing a bunch of numbers at you – trust me, I’m not a numbers guy either – but there’s a point to this.

Jumping forward to the present, this year’s Military Balance has the total US Armed Forces pegged at active duty US Armed Forces at 2,177,050 personnel (1,359,600 active – just about 8,000 personnel fewer than it was in 2001, and 817,450 reserve and National Guard – over 395,000 fewer than it was in 2001). This amount is just over 391,000 troops smaller than it was in 2001 with the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War in the rear-view mirror and the Global War on Terror not yet initiated.

However, while the military as a whole has shrunk, the SOF community has grown – and by no small amount. In 2023, SOCOM clocks in with 65,800 total troops (which is larger than a good portion of the other armed forces in the globe). The Military Balance unfortunately stopped breaking down between active and National Guard/reserve forces in SOCOM at some point, so I don’t know what the exact proportions are (you can assume the majority of them are active), but even with that breakdown we can see how much each branch of the military’s special group of very special boys who are special has grown over the past twenty years. Compared to 25,900 total active and National Guard/reserve troops in 2001, Army SOF now have 35,000 – about 9,000 more; Navy SOF have almost doubled, going from 5,400 active and reserve in 2001 to 10,500 today; Air Force SOF have grown by over 5,000 troops, going from 11,620 in 2001 to 16,800 today; and finally, the Marines – who didn’t even technically have a SOF component in 2001, now have 3,500 Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) troops at their disposal.

So, by the numbers, while the military has shrunk overall since its GWOT era peak, and now that the active force is closer to the size it was when the GWOT started – and the reserve and National Guard even smaller – SOF forces have grown larger and remain larger.

This growth hasn’t been limited to personnel either. The SOF slice of the budget pie has also increased dramatically over the course of the GWOT. In 2001, prior to the beginning of the GWOT and prior to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the budget for SOCOM was $2.3 billion USD. By about twenty years later, in 2020, that budget had ballooned to $13.7 billion USD – an almost six fold increase in funding. But again, its not just about the number itself, but the percentage. In 2001, the US defense budget was just shy of $332 billion USD, making SOCOM’s budget about .07% of the entire defense budget. By 2020, the defense budget had risen to $778.4 billion – having risen to new heights, fallen, and then rising again in the late 2010s going into the 2020s to even greater heights. SOCOM’s budget had increased to be close to 1.8% of the entire defense budget – and increase of well over a full percentage point.

Now, I don’t want you to get it twisted and think me saying the military as a whole not being bloated and enormous with both people and money is a good thing. I think it was right for the military to shrink back down as we backed away from things we shouldn’t have even been doing to begin with. The problem now is that while the military has shrunk, SOF hasn’t shrunk with them after the growth they experienced during the GWOT. Proportionally, they’re taking up way more billets (and funding) than they were at the start of the GWOT, prior to 9/11.

But you might ask, “ok War Takes, but why does this matter?” That’s not a stupid question to ask for those with only passing familiarity with the military. It matters because SOF is not only not as relevant to the threats that the United States and others primarily face, but at the same time are taking up resources that could be directed to forces and capabilities that are better suited to deter and if necessary combat those threats. This is especially true as long as they remain optimized for and stuck in the mindset of low intensity conflict, COIN, and CT being their lodestars (as I will get to in more depth in the next section).

SOF are what the military wanted more of when the main thing it was worried about – to the detriment of almost all other issues – was running around in the “Sandbox” for long periods of time, humping through the hills and doing Zero Dark Thirty shit while wearing far too many pouches and overpriced sunglasses – and again, I cannot stress this enough – they were being central to a mission that I don’t think we should have been doing in the first place and was a massive waste of time, money, lives, with consequences we will be grappling with forever. Today – and in our theoretical scenario – the primary threat is from large, peer and near-peer adversaries with significant conventional military forces.

Again, while SOF still have a role to play in conflicts against these kinds of adversaries, the bigger and more consequential role is going to be played by other forces. Every troop, dollar, moment of attention, and ounce of effort that is applied to SOF over what it should be, is one one that could (and should) be applied to more effective areas. This includes not only combat arms such as air-and-missile defenses, long-range artillery – including both tube and missile, maneuver forces like infantry and armor, and etc., but also the capacity needed for the critical work of the rear echelon in logistics, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, transportation, and more. It doesn’t help that a by-product of SOF’s rampant expansion over the past two decades is a great deal of redundancy and overlap between missions as their unique capabilities fade away and they all basically turn into pale imitations of one another running around in the Middle East spitting dip and comparing beards. SOF still have a role to play today and in the future – just as they did in the past – but that role is different and I would argue doesn’t necessitate the numbers they still maintain. At the same time, they remain largely stove-piped off from one another and in competition with one another (which can be made even worse by toxic culture, which I will get to in the third section).

We don’t need theoretical cases to understand the effects that a bloated SOF force can have on the rest of the Joint Force, a we’ve had them from watching it pivot from counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency to preparing for the potential of great power conflict. Numerous capabilities were divested of during the GWOT in the interest of being able to continue feeding meat into the grinder in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. After 2005, the Army had only two active-duty short-range air defense (SHORAD) battalions on hand, with the rest being in the National Guard; the Army not only didn’t keep pace with the development in air and missile threats growing throughout the world, but then had to work rapidly to reconstitute its SHORAD capabilities following the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Likewise, the Army also divested itself of reconnaissance helicopters during this period after several failed attempts at replacing the aging OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, believing the job could be done by a mix of drones and AH-64D Apache Longbows (spoiler alert: they were wrong, and now they’re having to spend time, money, and effort, on belatedly finding an OH-58 replacement).

Now, admittedly, it is unfair to put these examples squarely at the feet of SOF and only SOF. SOF just happens to be the most obvious one to blame in this case – out of many who share blame – for the questionable allocation of resources that resulted from poor decisions that were made in the interest of unwinnable wars that we shouldn’t have embarked upon to begin with. SOF, by virtue of its bloat – or lack thereof – is the ideal example of how overcompensating in one area can hurts others, and how those poor choices can come back to haunt you and cost you more blood, sweat, and tears later. That is something we’ll need to keep in mind for our own scenario and hypothetical force.

At the end of the day, SOF, by premise, are meant to be elite. There’s not meant to be many of them, because they’re selected to be the best of the best – not only physically, but mentally, intellectually, and so on. So, I posit to you, in that case: if that’s supposed to be so, why are there so fucking many of them? I mean sure, they’re still a small fraction of the entire joint force, but I can hardly look at 65,000 people and think that each and every one of them are a special snowflake. I see someone on Twitter with 65,000 followers, I don’t think that each and every one of those followers is a fucking savant. That was neither here nor there, I admit, but just something I wanted to get off my chest before we wrapped up talking about bloat (strap yourself in because there’s more rants there that one came from).

“Hey, what’s my mission again?”

Another question you may be asking yourself at this point is, “War Takes, why did SOF get so big to begin with?” Well, the short answer is: “9/11.” The long answer is still “9/11” but with more detail. However, 9/11 and the GWOT didn’t just make SOF grow to its current bloated size, but it also twisted the mission of SOF away from its original purpose (and the purpose it would be best suited for in our scenario) – which was both fed by and fed into the bloat I just described (like I said, all this stuff has been working in one big feedback loop or series of loops).

Once again we’ll need to start from basics because before I can talk about SOF getting away from what it was designed to do, we need to talk about what that even was.

US SOF can point to a number of various ad hoc units through military history as being part of their lineage, such as various units and organizations from World War II like the Office of Strategic Services, the joint US-Canadian First Special Service Force, US Navy Underwater Demolition Teams, and more. But as the units we know today like the Green Berets and the Navy SEALs were officially founded in the 1950s and 1960s against the backdrop of the Cold War, their primary purpose from the beginning was to engage in unconventional warfare (UW).

Much has been written on UW – some of it good, some of it bad; some of it about right, some of it very wrong. By the Department of Defense’s own definition, UW is “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.” More simply put: UW is support to guerrillas, insurgents, or resistance fighters (however you prefer to style them). Those fighters are meant to be the core focus of UW, according to US. Army Special Operations Command’s own UW Pocket Guide from 2016. With that in mind, the platonic ideal of UW is a covert campaign to enable local peoples under hostile occupation or a tyrannical regime to have the means to fight back against that occupier or tyrant and free themselves. This very concept is reflected in the Green Beret’s Latin motto: De oppresso liber (“to free from oppression” or “to liberate the oppressed.”)

For those of you who are students of history and are familiar with some of the regimes supported by – or governments toppled by – the United States over the course of the Cold War, I’m sure you’re making a face right now after having read that last paragraph. Completely understandable. I’m asking you to bear with me some, because I think this concept of UW is one of those ones that isn’t necessarily flawed in its own right but has been twisted and misused or just paid lip service to or just ignored. Like so many things I study in this field – like the very concept of the military itself – while coming from a Left perspective and considering concepts like UW and others, I often think of the apocryphal quote attributed to Gandhi when he was asked what he thought of ‘Western Civilization’ – the answer being: “I think it would be a good idea.”

Indeed, early US SOF themselves immediately strayed from their supposed doctrinal mission with the advent of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. The use of SOF in Vietnam would largely be characterized by engaging in counter-insurgency (COIN) activity, rather than actual UW. There was an attempt made early on, at least, to stick to doctrine. One of the earliest missions of the Navy SEALs in Vietnam were attempting to undertake true UW in North Vietnam, working to train locals to rise up against the government in Hanoi (this, of course, failed – and we proceeded to learn nothing from it, nor think hard on maybe whether those whole ‘Vietnam’ thing was worth the effort if it was that hard to recruit people to fight against the North Vietnamese government). Use of SOF in Vietnam quickly descended into direct-action missions attempting to take out specific targets such as arms caches, senior leadership of the Vietcong, enemy bases or outposts, and etc. I’m sure these all things that I’m sure won’t sound familiar at all to any veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan – and consequently, it may surprise any of them to realize that we did not, in fact, win the Vietnam War.

SOF very early on fell into the COIN trap. As I’ve elaborated on at length before, I see COIN as losing game over 90% of the time. Fighting an insurgency is a recipe for either defeat, or eternal war with no end – never victory. When their initial attempts at UW in Vietnam failed, the US military seemed to fall back on the old standby of just trying to kill its way out of a problem. SOF were not really acting as they were supposed to, but instead were largely just doing covert, highly specialized versions of the missions that a conventional force would do: close with and destroy the enemy. Now, that’s one thing against a conventional force. I should make it clear that some of these direct action missions – as well as other missions like intelligence gathering and recon, that were also undertaken by SOF in Vietnam – are perfectly valid missions for SOF in the UW context. But, in the grand scheme of things with COIN – where you’re already essentially fighting a losing war, it’s just pissing in the wind. That may win you battles in COIN, but when you’re fighting “the birthrate of a nation” (as journalist David Halberstam put it in regards to Vietnam), it will never win you the war.

With the American withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s and the eventual unification of the country under the North, the US military – and the SOF community – decided collectively to put that whole ugly mess behind them and go back to what they had been doing beforehand: preparing for the possibility of fighting World War III in Central Europe (or barring that, a smaller, regional conventional conflict, somewhere else in the world). This meant a return to form for US SOF in the 1970s and 80s. A prime example of this is the US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group. In the event of war in Europe, the group’s primary mission would have been to organize partisan and resistance activity either in territory occupied by advancing Warsaw Pact forces, or within the territories of Warsaw Pact nations themselves, and conduct “stay-behind” direct action against occupying forces as they pushed into NATO territory. If this had all come to pass (and assuming the war didn’t go nuclear, which was not guaranteed per say, but still way more likely than you want it to be), it would have been a UW mission in the truest sense. This was also when counter-terrorism (CT) started to become a mission-set, with the rise of political terrorism of various stripes in the 1970s. But at this point, terrorism was still a niche issue that necessitated a niche response, and not something that the entirety of SOF was notional geared towards, being left to specialized CT units like the Army’s secretive 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (AKA: Delta Force) and the now infamous Navy SEAL Team Six (now known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU).

That’s not to say there weren’t some backsliding to old, bad habits. SOF relapsed back into its old Vietnam way of doing things – and gave us a glimpse of the future – under the Reagan administration when the Green Berets were deployed to El Salvador while it was in the midst of its civil war. While there, SOF once again where in the business of anti-communist COIN, and in doing so helped to facilitate right-wing government death squads that visited horrific carnage and slaughter on El Salvador’s citizens – including the infamous El Mozote massacre, in which the US-backed Salvadorian Army killed almost 1,000 civilians in and around the village of El Mozote, and which the US government then shamelessly lied through its teeth about. More than 75,000 Salvadorians were killed over twelve years of civil war, most of them by the military. Thirty years later, the country isn’t much better, off, sliding back into authoritarian rule under its feckless and petty tech-bro President and probable future dictator Nayib Bukele. As for the Green Berets and other US advisors that were there, these atrocities were so bad, that not the official publication of everyone’s favorite right-wing coffee company – Black Rifle Coffee – can bring itself to gloss over the fact that it all actually happened under US watch and can’t disguise feeling vaguely uncomfortable about it (though their cop out answer is that the advisors “hands were tied” – you know, you guys didn’t have to be there right?).

Ironically, the same war that would see SOF get back into its true wheelhouse would also be the one that spark the beginning of SOF’s second and more drastic straying away from its core purpose. That of course, was the War in Afghanistan and the GWOT in general, which actually started with a true UW mission. As popularized by the film “Twelve Strong”, the beginning of the US military involvement in Afghanistan was the deployment of Green Berets – alongside CIA operatives – into Afghanistan in 2001 to support the Northern Alliance and other Afghan resistance fighters in their fight against the Taliban government. In this sense, it may be the one real success story of the entire Afghan War. It’s easy to forget that – unlike in Iraq – US conventional forces did not do the brunt of the initial fighting on the ground when the war first started. When Kabul fell (the 2001 version not the 2021 remix), it fell to Northern Alliance fighters (fighting with Green Berets). In many ways, this initial success could be seen as the post-Cold War high point for the Green Berets in undertaking the traditional SOF mission of UW, a high that hasn’t been reached again since.

If you know me and have read my work by now, you know I have decidedly mixed feelings on the legacy of the War in Afghanistan. I ultimately think we shouldn’t have been there (and in fact, didn’t have to be there, as the Taliban were prepared to hand over Bin Laden, our main reason for going in). But if we had to go in, it would have better to have left on a high note after this point (and after it became obvious Bin Laden was no longer there) and then let Afghanistan figure out its own affairs internally. To put it more simply: we should have left as soon as the UW mission was accomplished and the circumstances changed. The Taliban was – and still is – an objectively evil and terrible government and supporting forces to overthrow was a moral move in my book. But what would proceed to happen in Afghanistan – and soon, in Iraq – over the next twenty years would very quickly taint anything moral and just that we had initially accomplished. It would also very quickly and drastically stray from the standard UW mission for SOF and lead us to the issues we now have.

As mission creep quickly set in with Afghanistan and an anti-terrorism focused UW mission quickly grew and morphed into occupation and state building, the mission of SOF quickly got away from UW as, well, there wasn’t a UW conflict to fight. We had become the occupiers that the populace very quickly got sick of within a few years and wanted to get rid of. Like wise, as the GWOT continued to ramp up from 2001 on, hunting down terrorists and attempting to dismantle terrorist groups and cells also became the primary concern of the military and of SOF, with CT and COIN melding into one unholy combination where they were basically the same thing to the military.

Once again confronted with COIN and unable to accept my thesis that it is – most of the time – unwinnable, SOF fell back on the same reaction as they did in Vietnam: trying to kill the problem away. SOF were once again essentially doing the same tasks infantry would do, only more special, more sneaky, with better toys, and etc. No matter how you dress it up though, they were doing the same job as any other grunt stuck in a pointless COIN war: killing insurgents with the hope eventually there will be no more; destroying their weapons caches with the hope they’ll stop getting new ones; destroying their outposts while hoping they wont’ just set up a new one a few miles away; etc. When that didn’t win the war immediately, the reaction was often just to throw even more SOF at the problem – leading to the bloat mentioned before. In all fairness, not all of this was SOF’s fault – when you’re a command or policymaker and have these really cool looking hammer that everyone thinks is great and special, you’ll want to smash every nail you can think of with it. This constant operational tempo, in addition to putting SOF up on a pedestal as the most special boys in the COIN fight, and with other factors, would also contribute to developing a rancid internal culture with horrific results both for those SOF interacted with and for its own members (which I will be addressing in the next section).

I could spend a long time going on about the use of SOF in Afghanistan – as I always say: “that could be an article in and of itself.” But there’s other things I want to cover, so what I want to talk about now is the cautionary tale of getting sucked into circumstances like that and pushing SOF into missions they shouldn’t be doing (or that no one should really be doing). This is especially relevant as the US military is now working to reorient its SOF back towards the missions they were founded to do in the first place, as great power competition increases and the possibility of war with a peer or near peer adversary becomes something that is actually plausible. Because of those twenty years of baggage, it’s not an easy job. After twenty years of GWOT, SOF operators are literally struggling to understand or feel comfortable performing the very mission that was their original justification and purpose and pining for the door-kicking they’ve been doing the past twenty years, feeling like that if they aren’t kicking down a door or clearing a room every few hours they aren’t doing their jobs right. God only knows how long it will take them to get over this – if they’re even capable of doing so in their current form (I would argue they can’t and would go further but I’ll save that for the conclusion). But don’t feel too sympathetic to a lot of them, however, because we’re going to use those institutional issues as a segway into the third main pillar of the issues of modern US SOF – which is their toxic culture and the depths to which it goes.

The Men Who Just Really Love Doing Crimes. I should clarify from the start of this section, that I am well aware that US SOF have always had issues with culture and professionalism. One need only look at some of the stories from the Vietnam War to realize that SOF has long had issues. But even then, I would argue those were not as widespread, deep seated, and batshit insane as what we have seen and are still seeing in the SOF community in terms of legal, ethical, and moral violations after twenty years of COIN and CT as part of the GWOT in the Middle East and around the globe.

All of this goes hand-in-hand with the bloat SOF experience after the start of the GWOT. As discussed earlier, in the effort to show progress in the GWOT, SOF became the go-to weapon of choice for the US government in tracking down and capturing or killing high-value terrorist targets. They increasingly became the most lionized, hyped up, and obsessed over part of the US military in an era where the average troop was already put up on a pedestal, seen as the solution to any possible problem a policymaker may encounter in national security. At the same time, as the US was pulled deeper into the quagmire of Afghanistan and Iraq and key terrorist leaders like Bin Laden remained elusive, pressure mounted to show results in all of the various “forever wars” America had found itself entangled in.

All these factors combined – and more – no doubt went to the heads of numerous SOF operators and leeched throughout the community. This was seen especially in Afghanistan, where by the 2010s US SOF had developed a reputation for a “shoot first, ask later” attitude towards their mission – at the expense of Afghan civilian lives. But this attitude went beyond simply having an itchy trigger finger, to allegations of outright unlawful killings (i.e. murder) and torture. Having been put on a pedestal and told how important they were, results being expected of them, and being told that they were doing God’s work, SOF seemed to take an attitude that the ends justified the means and that they were right in going to extreme ends outside of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) to accomplish their mission. According to one SOF expose by Rolling Stone, a Green Beret writing to the author from federal prison (where he was incarcerated for smuggling 50 kilos of coke into Florida onboard a military aircraft), as long as the mission they were assigned was accomplished and everything was kept hush hush, SOF seemed to have free reign to go to whatever lengths necessary in the course of their duties.

This mindset was no doubt fueled by a sense of impunity, seeing that US SOF have only seldom faced any consequences for allegations of abuses and war crimes. In the rare occasions that investigations have been mounted or charges have been filed by the military, its even rarer that anyone actually is convicted or faces consequences for their actions. An extensive investigation of the ethics and culture of US SOF that was undertaken in 2020 found “no systemic ethics problems.” When Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher was put on trial for murdering a captured ISIS fighter, he was acquitted; and after being convicted of a lesser crime of posing with a dead body in violation of the laws of armed conflict, he was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump. In the few cases where punishments are doled out and actually stick, they’re usually relatively minor and done extraordinarily quietly, with the military and the government not wanting to draw any extra attention to the matter. In other cases, the government and the military have straight-up attempted to cover up any acts of wrongdoing. The standard that has been set for SOF over the past twenty years of Forever War is that you’ll likely never be punished for egregious acts, and if you are punished it’ll probably be a slap on the wrist at the most.

The impunity doesn’t just end with acts against civilians and enemy combatants in foreign countries, however. SOF have also developed a culture of violence and heavy handedness against other service members. The past two decades of GWOT are littered with stories of other US service members being sexually assaulted, hazed, and murdered, with the accused or suspected perpetrators being SOF operators – the previously linked article from Rolling Stone just barely scratches the surface of some of these instances on just one post, Fort Bragg (home of Joint Special Operations Command). This violence isn’t limited to being against those outside the SOF community, but occurs within it as well. A famous recent case is the murder of a Green Beret while deployed to Africa, having been killed by Navy SEALs and MARSOC operators during a hazing gone wrong (oh by the way the Navy SEAL sentenced for involuntary manslaughter in that case got his conviction thrown out). In some cases, SOF operators just decide to randomly visit acts of violence on people they don’t even know. The culture of impunity and superiority has developed to the point that its not just that SOF think they’re better than the rest of the military, but that the rest of the military is either an obstacle or a threat that must be dealt with – especially when their privileges and impunity are threatened by them. Despite their notional image as the best of the best, defending America’s values and interests, they seem to have little qualms about harming other Americans when push comes to shove. Even when they’re not murdering and torturing, SOF’s culture of impunity has led them to a point where they can’t stop committing crimes in general. Whether its smuggling drugs or embezzling official funds, SOF operators have been socialized to think they are entitled to it all.

In many ways, the culture of SOF operators has become akin to that of modern law enforcement in America – in that they act more like a cult or an organized crime group or gang (or all of the above) rather than as a professional military unit with good order and discipline. Strict group-think is enforced, with new ideas that break the mold or challenge the status quo are quickly shot down and those who suggested them are ostracized or punished. An “us versus them” mentality is imposed where those not in the cult or the gang are at best disdained or at worst outright hated or targeted. When the cult is under threat, all its members are expected to close ranks to defend it and any members who may be under attack – and God help you if you speak out. And even if you aren’t party to whatever transgressions that have been visited on someone else by the gang, and you largely go about your business trying to do no harm, you’re still part of the problem simply by not speaking out and doing anything about or taking part in a code of silence to cover for other’s wrongdoings. (By the way, this is not to say that these problems don’t exist anywhere else in the US military, but that they are particularity potent in the SOF community. You could really envision the SOF community as being a concentrate – if you will – of all the problems the military as a whole experiences, heightened to their logical extreme).

How do you even begin to tackle this problem? Well, I think as things stand now you can’t. Part of this is there being too much damage to SOF as it exists now to “save” it (and I will talk about this momentarily in the conclusion, like I said earlier), but also needs other issues to be fixed. You need stronger and more consistent oversight of the military in general and SOF in particular from elected officials who are actually going to dig deep, ask probing questions, and demand results – and will need to have a strong moral compass on the issues at hand. You’ll need a top brass in the military that will also have zero tolerance for such behavior and other shitty behavior in general, won’t be afraid of the military getting a black eye or bad press for calling attention to bad behavior, and will rigorously act to deal with bad behavior and crimes of various kinds and dole out actual punishments. Finally, you’ll need a military justice system that actually delivers – well, justice, for the accused and isn’t biased or rigged to produce certain results or simply to protect the interests and appearance of the military. I just mentioned three things that could all be essays in their own right (and likely will be at some point if I can ever get around to them – I’m very tired ok), so clearly this is an issue that goes beyond just SOF and requires sea changes in how our country works, not just how our military or SOF works (something I have pointed out as being necessary in the past). If SOF in our hypothetical better future and scenario are to function without descending back into a toxic culture of murder and cruelty, than these issues will all need to be fixed alongside one another going forward.

De Oppresso Liber (but for real this time)

Ok, so, this is the part where I remember that I’m supposed to be writing about how I would do things differently in this hypothetical future and scenario we’ve crafted for this series. But before I get into that, I want to speak about the here and now – knowing that what I say here and now will make little difference but I want to get it off my chest anyway.

As things stand now, I think that SOF as currently constituted in the US military are essentially un-reformable (and this is not a new opinion of mine). I think the rot has gone on for too long and goes too deep for it to be salvaged. This – again – is similar to my views on law enforcement; I am a police abolitionist in that I think some form of law enforcement or public safety needs to exist in society, but that I think the current system is beyond fixing and needs to be knocked down and started fresh from a completely blank slate with new ideas and new people in order to work. In that sense, I am a SOF-abolitionist in that while I think SOF should exist in the military – both as it exists now and as I’d like it to exist – the slate has to be wiped clean and it has to be started over fresh and new with new people and concepts and rules and oversight.

But ok, if we did wipe that slate clean and started over, how would we want them to be? As I said earlier, a lot of changes need to happen alongside one another – both in the military and in our society. But if we’re assuming the political changes we’d like to see have already happened in the United States and we’re focused more on the military problem now, the answers to the main problems I’ve outlined are self-evident (to an extent) in the problems themselves.

First, we need to have discussions need to be had about how many SOF is enough, and how much funding is really needed, without just letting the community bloat to an extreme size and throwing money at it with no accountability. There also need to be questions asked about how many different types of units we need – does every single branch of the military need to have its own unique SOF unit? My inclination is to say “no” and there would need to be studies done on what types of units we really do need to avoid not only a redo of bloat, but to avoid redundancy and overlap. If a new SOF unit needs to be justified, it needs to have a truly unique argument as to why it uniquely needs to exist. If there’s any of the things I’m listing I think could actually happen under the current system, its at least this one – as there seems to be conversations going in the halls of power regarding potential significant cuts to SOF as I finish writing this essay. So, there’s that I guess (though I imagine this will quickly turn into a political culture war issue in Congress and elsewhere with a revolving door of retired generals making their way to hearings to defend their special snowflake boys to Greg Steube and a similar coterie of very big dumb Republican guys, so don’t hold your breath).

Second, the missions SOF are assigned need to be ones that are actually militarily relevant and useful to the grand strategy we’re adhering to (and also are actually militarily achievable – unlike COIN and CT). Over all of this, thirdly, the SOF community also needs to be subject to oversight with actual teeth to it and those who violate rules, procedures, and established laws (both US military law and the LOAC), need to held accountable for their actions in a meaningful way. This is by no means an all-inclusive list, but just the major issues that come to mind reflecting on everything I’ve dumped on you for the past then pages or so in change.

While all of these issues are important, as a defense analysts I am most interested in the missions angle – not simply because I want to make sure its addressed how SOF fit in to the scenario we’ve established before, but because it also ties in to the other issues in that circular feedback loop I described from the onset. In our scenario of coming to the aid of an ally that is under attack by a strong conventional adversary and is being invaded, what would SOF be doing?

In our scenario, SOF would likely be the first troops of ours on the ground to assist our ally, before any substantial conventional ground forces are able to arrive in strength. To that end, their initial goal would be the same as any and naval firepower that is being directed to the region as the invasion is underway: to slow down and hopefully stall the enemy advance until those aforementioned conventional ground forces can arrive and concentrate and counter-attack. This would be in close conjunction with allied forces on the ground – likely including their own SOF, if they have any. Much like US SOF planned to do in Central Europe if the balloon went up during the Cold War, they’d blow bridges, collapse tunnels, and undertake harassing actions to slow the enemy down as their forces moved forward onto allied soil.

While our forces prepared for a counter-offensive to liberate occupied allied territory, that’s when SOF would really go to work, undertaking the mission that was always meant to be their primary responsibility: unconventional warfare. SOF would infiltrate behind enemy lines and work to establish an insurgency against the occupying forces – or support ones that have already cropped up. SOF would train and advise these forces, directing them on where and how to strike in order to make the biggest impact on the occupation, fighting alongside them in the process. It would be a return to form for SOF, fighting in support of insurgents fighting for their rights and freedoms, rather than engaging in a COIN campaign (and forcing the enemy to engage in such an ultimately hopeless endeavor themselves). The goal here is to continue weakening the enemy, drawing away forces and effort to fight the insurgents and lowering enemy morale and effectiveness, while making the coming conventional counter-offensive more effective and faster from having worn down and worn out the enemy internally. Once conventional forces press forward and link up with the insurgents, they may be able to link up with those conventional forces to press on and assist them – following Mao’s own theories on insurgency and guerrilla warfare, with the guerrillas gradually growing into the final phase of conventional warfare.

Additionally, aside from shooting people or even training other people to shoot people, SOF would play a critical role as eyes and ears quietly observing enemy movements and activities. In an age of satellites, drones, and other technical means of intelligence gathering, you often still can’t beat a soldier on the ground to give you an eyes-on account of what’s going on and to catch nuance that a long-range camera just can’t get you. To get back to the shooting while still staying in the intel gathering mold, SOF could also embark on moire aggressive intelligence gathering or snatching operations to get key info that not even satellites or drones can get eyes on, further demonstrating their importance in a highly technical age of warfare.

All in all, SOF would play an important role in the scenario we’re thinking of. That’s something that anyone on the Left that still thinks that armed conflict is sometimes sadly necessary will have to get comfortable with. This is a big assumption on my part, based mostly on vibes and what I see in discussions online, but I get the impression that among a Left that already has a dim view of the military, the dimmest and darkest possible view is that of SOF and its operators. Again, given the transgressions I outlined earlier in this essay, I don’t’ think that’s a view without reason by any means. But that’s why I wanted to talk about all the systemic issues with SOF to show its just one thing that’s led them to what they currently are, and to demonstrate just how far they’ve strayed from the purpose they were meant to have originally. If reoriented on that original purpose, and utilized in service of ideology and motives that were not inherently imperialistic, SOF do have an important role to play. This is especially true if in this better world we imagine that we still wish to support those seeking their own liberation (I should surely hope so or I wouldn’t even bother writing this shit), without getting drawn into the moral and military deathtrap of regime change and occupation and COIN. Deploying SOF to train, advise, and equip insurgents fighting for better lives in their homeland is the way to avoid stumbling into our own versions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically, we always want to make sure that the only role we play in any insurgent, is being on the side of the insurgents than as the COIN practitioners (assuming the insurgents aren’t pieces of shit and genuinely want a better future for their people and aren’t just batshit insane).

On that note, I think I’ve said just about all I can think to say on this subject for now and my brain is starting to run on empty. Out of all the essays in the series, I think that this one was the one I was both most excited for and the most dreading to write for a long time because of how intellectually and emotionally dense a subject it is. In all honesty, for how much I’m glad I’ve broached this subject, I’m happy to put this one in my rear-view mirror and move on to greener pastures now that I’ve said my piece. As with everything I write, I hope it at least promotes some introspection and some useful discussions and debate.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know if this is the end of the “What Should It Look Like” series or not. I think I was maybe planning on doing another one at some point specifically on the Reserves and National Guard and the role that they should play and how they should be different, so I’ll probably get to that at some point. I may switch things up for the next essay though and do something different, depending on what strikes my fancy at the time or what’s in the news by the end of the Summer. Now that I’m doing fewer of these a year, I don’t want to make every single one a “What Should It Look Like” until its all done, so I want to try and keep it fresh for you all. For now though, thanks for your patience as I move to a new schedule and space these further out. I’m juggling a lot in my life and not having to do these every month has made it a lot easier, so I appreciate all of your understanding.

Until next time, as always, stay safe out there and keep on keeping on. I’m going to go enjoy Memorial Day weekend and stuff my face with burgers and beer. Peace.

#essay #War Takes #War Takes Essay #leftism #leftist #socialism #democratic socialism #international relations #IR #national security #national defense #international security #foreign policy #foreign affairs #military intervention #war #special operations forces #SOF #special forces #delta force #green berets #navy SEALs #MARSOC #SOCOM #force planning #force development

[spiritualdirections]

Ethan Hawke is directing a biopic of Flannery O'Connor called Wildcat. In the linked article, he takes to the pages of Vanity Fair to explain why.

His daughter Maya had discovered O'Connor's journals, rekindling Hawkes own interest in her that dated back to his youth, and together they started talking about making a movie. Then 2020 happened, and people tried to cancel O'Connor as being racist. Hawke got worried, until he started reading:

'I called Maya to talk over whether we should make this film. Is there a place in today’s cultural climate to tell the story of an American genius who also displayed abhorrent prejudices? What was O’Connor’s fundamental attitude toward people of color? Did the master provocateur’s tongue obscure her views or reveal them? 'Turns out, scholars have been examining O’Connor’s relationship to race since the 1970s. Alice Walker movingly describes O’Connor’s legacy in her essay “Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O’Connor,” written 45 years ago. '“Essential O’Connor is not about racism at all,” Walker writes, “which is why it is so refreshing, coming, as it does, out of such a racial culture. If it can be said to be ‘about’ anything, then it is ‘about’ prophets and prophecy, ‘about’ revelation, and ‘about’ the impact of supernatural grace on human beings who don’t have a chance of spiritual growth without it. … She destroyed the last vestiges of sentimentality in white Southern writing; she caused white women to look ridiculous on pedestals, and she approached her black characters — as a mature artist — with unusual humility and restraint. She also cast spells and worked magic with the written word. The magic, the wit, and the mystery of Flannery O’Connor I know I will always love.” 'In a 2001 New Yorker piece subtitled “Flannery O’Connor on Race and Religion in the Unreconstructed South,” cultural critic Hilton Als wrote, “Race and faith and their attendant hierarchies and delusions are O’Connor’s great theme. … But readings of this American master often overlook the originality and honesty of her portrayal of Southern whiteness. Or, rather, Southern whiteness as it chafed under its biggest cultural influence — Southern blackness. It’s remarkable to consider that O’Connor started writing … just a decade after Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind.’ O’Connor’s most profound gift was her ability to describe impartially the bourgeoisie she was born into, to depict with humor and without judgment her rapidly crumbling social order.”

He and his daughter covered similar territory in their interview with the LA Times.

"In the last few years, there’s been a re-examination of O’Connor around issues of race in light of how she wrote about it privately when she was young. How did you grapple with presenting a nuanced depiction of her views of race and how they evolved in her life and work? "Ethan Hawke: Hopefully the movie answers that. This is a young person who grew up in the Jim Crow South, and that is her reality. I sometimes think when people are angry with Flannery O’Connor, what they mean is, “I am angry with America.” Because she is a great American artist and full of all the sin that that implies. There’s a great scholar who calls her a “recovering racist.” And America is in recovery from racism. "Linney: Some of America. "Ethan Hawke: Flannery doesn’t write about oppressed people. She doesn’t imagine that she knows what their experiences are. She knows white hypocrisy. And she writes about it because she knows it, meaning she lived it. She’s a part of it. She comes up from it. But if we don’t look at that, as a culture, we can’t see it around us, because it’s still here. "She was allergic to virtue signaling, which makes people really uncomfortable. My favorite line that we put in the movie was: 'The truth doesn’t change according to your ability to stomach it.'”

I'm not sure which is more interesting--that he chose to make this movie about a Catholic writer, or that he thinks the American people are able to make a complex judgment about complex people even when charges of racism have been made.

#wildcat movie #ethan hawke #maya hawke #racism #flannery o'connor

[seishun-emergency]

on tsukasa and don quixote, (transcribed from my insane discord rambles so apologies if it isn't coherent yet. i plan on writing a full essay about leo + tsukasa + don quixote allegories once i'm done rereading checkmate). under a readmore bc this got longer than i expected and . no one wants 3 paragraphs of don quixote analysis

tsukasa compares himself to don quixote and the windmills. screenshot not found bc i'm . so past that point now and i was reading at 1 am last night that's why i didnt write it then. basically, the windmills is one of don quixote's first (+ most iconic) 'quests' on his journey to become a knight wherein he thinks these giant windmills are many-armed giants, tries to fight them, and gets. horrifically injured because these are windmills and not actually mythical beasts. also he's an old man that kind of sucks at being a knight. the point of the windmills is that don quixote's warped perception of reality due to his archaic values causes him to act foolishly and get physically harmed as a result with nothing to show for it

it's a good use of that allegory in context!! like REALLY good i need to think about it more but. it's a good way to represent what tsukasa is talking about in that passage, which is how he clings to the archaic values of high society in a way that makes tori pity him. not entirely a 1:1 because tsukasa IS approved by the society around him but its within a bubble and i think the point is that the way tori chooses to live in transgressing those norms and values calls to attention how tsukasa can be foolish and blind to a version of reality + his own desires in the quest to adhere to these archaic values and get the apprival of the people around him. it's a good use of it. approved from your local guy who likes don quixote a bit too much

the other thing that i liked about it (and this is why i said i need to reread checkmate) is that it also positions tsukasa similarly to leo, the person who gets allegorized as don quixote in checkmate. considering this is in requiem (aka . The knights succession story and where tsukasa shows proof of his maturity and growth as well as literally takes over the position of king that used to belong to leo) it's . smartly done. really smartly done. i really want to review my old thoughts on checkmate + don quixote and how they stack up now because the. second book of don quixote as it relates to leo could be interestingly applied to tsukasa as well (especially with the running theme of maturing/realism/growing up that surrounds the repayfes stories and the disenchantment/disillusionment/"maturing" that don quixote goes through in the second half of the book) but i don't have enough to say from that lens as of right now. tune back in for an essay in like two months i guess

anyways. if you read all this i hope u had fun. i regrettably care a lot about don quixote

#leo composes #leo's library #leo tsukinaga #tsukasa suou #knights and don quixote #ummm. really normal about don quixote i promise

[fatummortem]

Meet the Mun

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ(ꜱ) ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ?

Erm.. Let's see... Just skip to a muse lol.

Rosie, a friend suggested her some twenty years ago for this elite comic book RP guild. She's the only one I kept from that time. I never heard of her before that & when I read her I remember saying 'she's such an angsty little shit. I love her.'. Her background is like casebook 'what happens if you have a poor support system' in a way.

Ryouta (daken/fang canonly), well he's that guilty pleasure villain everyone enjoys reading about for me I suppose. In another way I get curious about nurture vs nature. Which is something intertwined with his chara i think. (it's a dark past) What inspired me to write him, well he had a slow progression away from his villainess nature you could say. And I am a sucker for growth. It was his appearance's in All New Wolverine that made me go 'oh i'm going to write him'.

Somnus somehow turns stabby villains into teddy bears and i thought it was hilarious.

Bobby, well I wanted a silly gay polyamorous muse & I had been itching to write him for awhile but at the same time wanted to write with a Bobby more so held off. Gave in about a year back i think?

Malicia, well she's pretty AU of one of my favourite comic charas growing up. And well I'm a tad nervous writing her main verse so I just did something with a twist for fun.

TJ I've written a few times over the years. Normally when a friend has me going 'Hell yeah!'. One time I believe a friend was making a Blink (the bestie). This time around I started talking to a few friends about her & then got to talking with Armin about her relationship with her dad. A similar thing happened with Billy. I ended up bringing him back after talking with a friend who writes his twin Tommy. As for originally, I sadly do not recall.

Cloud, well as I said i'm a sucker for growth & his story is full of it. I also enjoy picking apart ways people display or write PTSD & show how it can be displayed in society or be a danger creatively. I also have PTSD, which can range on my reactions to things depending on my environment. So in a way it's one of the ways I learn about myself. Though his mental state has more of a twist to it as he has the lifestream & Jenova influences. Which can come across as confusing as it can seem similar to different forms of DID.

I also have a disability involving memory and memory issues brought on from trauma. So it kinda pulled me in more, I normally don't write muses that are popular to write or I lose the want to write them quickly. Which is not the case with Cloud, he's my rule or norm breaker. (might be why I'm not writing Tifa or Zack tho I'll be honest)

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ?

Erm *nibbles pen* flat out don't like? Random bits of rage filling arguments. Thought that's mostly when Anons do it. Mainly for the fact it doesn't go anywhere. I prefer my angst long lasting & with the ability to have a back & forth.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ?

There's a lot of things. Slow burns. Small bits of seriousness that leads to progression of a relationship (friendship or ship). Crack seriousness (threads where you have to squint to see the crack), Smut (picky with that), Angsty pain, healthy ships, snarky *jazz hands* ships, Silly friend/fam moments. etc...

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ?

^_^; So I have the habit, of writing detailed notes & accumulate data (websites, youtube videos, games/comics what have you). I normally write detailed dossiers but lately they turn into 10+ page essays so I've been slapping on wiki pages. Clouds is mostly how his mental state is, how it works & alters along with a lot of lore on locations and Materia to help myself & it's mostly jumbled quick notes with no flow. yeah i just went 'i'll put this over here for later'.

But I basically bury myself within a segment of lore to work it through my head a few times. Then I try to see if I can make it fit into how I feel I'd like to write the muse. Comics can be a bit tricky because there's no mainline writer or books get canceled, one writer makes what another put in place meaningless.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ɪɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ?

Both! it really depends on my mood, if i'm into the music if my muse wants to jam so on so forth...

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴘʟɪᴇꜱ ᴏʀ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?

Both! It depends. For close connections or like someone that might be someone mine knows I can ask peeps questions to get an idea of a same flow or idea going. Other times I'll wing it entirely while some i'll just give a brief info dump and ask if someone down for it. Then there's plotting while the thread is being written just to throw out ideas or okay things. There's also the excitement of eating popcorn just because I'm wondering if it'll turn tortuously cute or like a thriller in the next few goes depending on what's going on. xD

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ?

I love ships ^_^ especially when ya talk hcs or just build upon things slowly. I have a weakness for slow burns ^_^;

ᴡʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀʟɪᴀꜱ/ɴᴀᴍᴇ?

I'm Glow, lovely to meetcha. ^_^

ᴀɢᴇ?

My siblings went to see ET in the movie theatre when I was born.

ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ?

June 18th.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ(ꜱ)?

The shade black, any shade of purple tho normally lavander, any shade of blue, a few shades of red.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢ(ꜱ)?

It actually alters over time so it's hard to tell. Currently have 'let it snow' stuck in my head if that counts.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Uh, went with a friend to see Elementals awhile back

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Murder Drones or Hazbin Hotel? Kiddo is heavily into them right now & I try to get into her fandoms

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴏɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ?

the Alexa at work has the habit of throwing on death metal when I'm there so idek.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ?

Mmmmm, Gumbo but not that northern watered down gumbo the Cajun one where you wheeze and shove bread in your mouth after a few spoonful's. ohhhh homemade Cheesecake with pralines crushed into the bottom layer & drizzled over the top. Mongolian grill with crab & steam mixed heavily with veggies & my own sauce cocktail. Red beans & rice but not the cheap ass sausage, ya need the good stuff or it tastes wrong. Slow cooked in a way where the-- ya shouldn't ask a cook about food.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ?

Rainy Summers

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ?

I doo~ Does it count if most of them aren't around anymore? I have a few here abouts too.

Tagged by: @lastflowerpetal

Tagging: I never know who's been tagged already, so if you wish to just tag me in it so I can take a gander. ^_^

#!!!! #thankies ^_^ #mun stuff #dash games #mun meme

[mysticalskunk]

I can't believe I have not written properly something since fall although I had many ideas swirling in my head and no idea where to put them and at this point there is too much going on in my brain (because I was busy with irl stuff to actually write something down and now there is a million of ideas that i don't know where to start)

then i worked on the rocky and doubling analysis but ended up becoming a writing block because words failed and I seriously cannot believe that the solution to that was:

Brain: hey remember that ghost show you started but had to drop because you got busy? we should watch it again

Me, knowing full well that I tend to be all over the place with everything and shouldn't just start a new show when I still have rabbits, rocky, other analysis and a lot of roleplay drafts in going: Absolutely, good idea!

And that was the funniest mistake because now I cannot focus on everything else. It got me my writing energy back but like. head empty only ghost show.

Listen I did not expect the show to grow on me that much? I love the main characters? I love their dynamic? I love the character growth??? I thought it was just gonna be funny haha but it's genuinely super fun and super sad to wach? It's my new comfort show? Scratch beat Hawkbit and XR as favorite characters how did that even happen

I could write a whole essay on Scratch's character growth for each episode and the worst part is I roleplay Molly. I told myself after XR no more main characters because there is a lot going on with them but!! I love Molly???? I never loved a main character as much as I do with Molly and Scratch?? Please out of all the new shows on tv this one was so far the best i cannot put the immense joy i feel watching this show into words i wouldn't even know where to start this is why i dislike analyzing main characters they have a lot of things going on but I love??? these two???

#also molly has a lot of makini energy they would be friends #and also there a goats in this show #molly had to train a goat once

[thedaytheworldburned]

Ghost Girls and Superpowers: BTS, HYBE, and the Past, Present and Future of TOMORROW X TOGETHER

My uni semester is over, and y’all know what this means. 

Unhinged essays thousands of words long rather than actually contributing to TXT’s theory landscape.

Um... anyway.

This is a follow-up from this post about BTS’s military enlistment and my hopes for TXT. Because some people say that HYBE is only BTS, and some people say that it’s more than BTS, but both arguments have truth to them, in my opinion. 

In this post;

The history of BigHit and HYBE

The growth of BTS - how and why?

TXT’s debut and the growth of BTS’s baby brothers

The hope of 2020 and the failures that followed it 

The management and growth of BTS after the English Trilogy

The management of HYBE’s other groups

BTS’s enlistment and what it means - an analysis

The future of TXT, Le Sserafim, and HYBE’s other groups

Conclusion

Sources

A brief and educational analysis of my sources

So sit back and get your eyeballs ready to read. It’s gonna be a long one. But PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU, feel free to skip the sections you find boring and just read the sections you’re interested in. Not everyone is interested in the management and advertising of the kpop industry the same way I am *crying noises*.

HYBE have ramped up efforts in recent years to reduce the portion of their profit that comes from BTS. But their efforts have only been partially successful - a reduction from an insane 98% to a still massive 60%. So will this be enough to keep the company going after the loss of the group in 2023? Well, I think not, and that’s exactly why I made the original post and this essay. So here is how and why HYBE has failed in the past few years.

Sorry @twentythirteez​. It doesn’t contain as much TXT as you maybe hoped it would...

But on the bright side, I hit a new word record! This one is 10k words.

Oh dear, what am I doing to myself?

Full insanity analysis below the line.

Curses, Scandals, and HipHop: The Origins and History of BigHit and HYBE

BigHit was founded by Bang PD in 2005, and initially managed groups under or with other companies, such as 2AM. They debuted their first girl group, GLAM in 2012, who are known for being the origins of ‘BigHit’s Girl Group Curse’ and one of the biggest and earliest scandals in the kpop industry, which resulted in a member being jailed. For further information on this scandal, and the girl group curse, see Ploopy’s video on the subject. 

The disbandment of GLAM, and the loss of other artists like 2AM and 8Eight was a big issue, and the company had very little money and even less influence in the industry - only a few talented trainees and producers.

Hitman Bang had one plan left - BTS. He had signed the first member, our hero RM, in 2010, and the group had debuted in 2013 with a hiphop image influenced by RM and Suga’s time as underground rappers, and Jhope’s dance past. BTS had mediocre popularity as a group outside of the Big 3, and the company was so poor that there are rumours that the members and staff had to use their own cars and clothes as MV props. I have not been able to confirm these rumours, nor identify which MVs are of concern - it seems that ‘War of Hormone’, ‘DOPE’ and ‘NO’ are considered the most likely.

But BigHit and Hitman Bang marketed BTS well, and BTS worked very hard, resulting in, after considerable struggle, the growth of the group and the collection of a VERY dedicated and loyal fandom. 

BTS became worldwide superstars, which left BigHit, and our pal Hitman Bang, with some very big concerns. BTS made up about 98% of BigHit’s revenue in 2018, which resulted in a ticking time bomb - would BigHit be able to diversify so that the company didn’t collapse when BTS were called for their mandatory military service in 2020? At this point there was no guarantee that BTS would be exempt, and BigHit had to plan for the worst-case scenario.

And so, the great expansion began. Hitman Bang worked on expanding BTS’s storyline, which had been a huge pull for their fandom. This was done through acquiring Source Music, and their girl group Gfriend, whose storyline had been planned in connection to BTS, and the wonderously planned TOMORROW X TOGETHER, whose concept, from the first 3 release albums even down to the debut date and relationships with BTS members, had been planned in advance. They additionally debuted ENHYPEN under Source Music and acquired Pledis, with NU’EST, SEVENTEEN, and fromis9. These efforts lowered BTS’s contributions slightly - to around 87% of total revenue in 2020. 

But that still wasn’t enough. And so begun the creation of HYBE - acquiring companies, growing their groups, and gaining resources and property became very key and VERY OBVIOUS focuses of the company. This included efforts in Japan and America, and, of course, the eternal struggle to make BTS bigger continued, especially with the release of their three English singles, which were, again, very obviously aimed at (naïve) hopes of a Grammy win. 

The company rebranded as ‘HYBE’ in 2021 and continued its growth, along with attempts to break the Girl Group Curse with Le Sserafim and NewJeans. These efforts... well, I personally consider them a failure, although certainly less so than previous groups like GLAM and Gfriend. 

And where are we now? BTS have just announced their military service and hiatus, yet still account for 60-65% of HYBE’s revenue. HYBE stands in the balance, and the question remains - have they grown enough to survive after the loss of BTS? Or have they failed? Well I think so, but let’s look at how and why.

Burn the Stage: The Growth of BTS 

Now, let’s take a closer look at the superstars themselves: BTS.

They debuted in 2013 with a hiphop concept and mediocre success at the beginning of the 3rd generation of kpop. The members, as fitting of the time, had far less training, and less skills, than modern group members. But they had passion and talent, and their hard work paid off, as they became a large group in the 2015 period and only continued to grow. By 2017 they had cemented themselves in the global, and especially American, market, and were winning awards which had only ever gone to American artists. By 2019, they were on top of the world, and in 2020 and 2021 they got bigger than any artist has really ever been... except for the Beatles. But even that is arguable. 

So how did they get there, and why was it BTS that became this big? Why not TWICE, or EXO, or even a group like SEVENTEEN? All of these groups are big, but nowhere near the same level. And why? Well, let’s just say that BTS had the right message, in the right place, at the right time and with the right management. And that combined to do the impossible. So, in no particular order, here are some contributing factors;

Their storyline and album structure - BTS’s albums are arranged in a very careful way. They show the progression the members went through - school, youth, that odd in-between period, fear, self-acceptance and love, then self-reflection and legacy. This album structure is easy to follow and many of their fans followed this progression with them over almost 10 years. Additionally, their storyline, which was one of the first major storylines in kpop and which is complex and with a lot of depth, was a huge factor to them gaining fans. People were interested in the storyline and where it would go - and more importantly, the story and message of pain, love and growth that it told. After TXT and Gfriend’s storylines became connected to the BTS one, it brought in even more fans, although it did peter out a lot after ‘FAKE LOVE.’

Their message - BTS have always sent a message of being confident in yourself and healing after suffering, but their message became especially amplified with YNWA and the Love Yourself series, which followed a progression of fear and hate to self-love, and which was accompanied by global speeches and charity fundraisers. As an anonymous person on the internet said; ‘BTS’s have so much power that they can get millions of self-loathing teens to scream that they love themselves.’ And yeah, this is a big thing. Many people say that BTS saved them, and it isn’t hard to see why they have made such a big impact on so many people. Their music is a source of comfort and confidence for many, and they go through the five stages of grief with the listener, while also guiding them out the other side. It’s a powerful message that few groups had at the time and that even fewer executed well, so it’s no wonder it made BTS stand above the rest and gain fans outside of their typical music market - many older fans cite this message as a key aspect of them becoming an ARMY. Additionally, the exploration of psychology, and the concept of things like Persona, Shadow, Self, and Ego, brings a lot of interest to the group - it’s just another thing that adds to their uniqueness.

Their management and marketing - From 2013-2020, BTS’s marketing was top tier. I’m saying gold-star, 100/10 levels of epic. BigHit always marketed them as a group portraying the feelings of the youth, which was supported by BTS taking part in the production and writing of their own music. As they became more popular, they continued on this journey of growth which captured people’s hearts and minds. And, the whole time, BigHit was not only marketing them worldwide, but was also ensuring the members built the most intense parasocial relationship with their fans to ever exist. Bon voyage, In the SOOP, vLives and a million other snippets of content gave a very curated, but outwardly organic, look into their lives. This made the fans feel like we personally knew the members, and, of course, made them more likely to stream. When you know more about someone, you generally care more about them and their future, and you’re more likely to move towards making that come true. And in this case, ARMY felt (and still feel) as if they have a personal relationship with the members, and thus will work till the ends of the world to help them succeed. It’s one of the reasons they were able to grow so big - because much of the fanbase is so dedicated, they’ll do anything possible to make BTS succeed - thus, they win almost every voting or streaming-based award they’ve ever been nominated for. I’ll also note that this parasocial relationship, and the emphasis the group and company have put on marketing it, is something that we see with all of the most popular celebrities to have existed. One Direction, The Beatles, Justin Beiber and more - they’ve all had very intense paarsocial relationships that have been furthered by marketing some succeeded fans who got to meet and be friends with their stars, so that we can all have hope too, of one day marrying Jungkook. Wow. That said though, BTS’s parasocial relationship is much more dramatic and goes far further than all of the other artists mentioned, and possibly more than any other artist ever.

Their dance skills and hard work + talent - There’s no denying that BTS are both very talented, and great dancers. But it’s not just that. They work hard to improve, and we see them improve. Their routines are mesmerizing and synchronized, at a time when most groups didn’t have either of these things, and they were likely a key part in the dance-heavy focus that 4th gen developed. They showed that one thing you definitely need to succeed in the industry is an eye-catching, or at least trendy, dance.

Their variety and variety shows - They showed their variety through appearances and interviews, and through their content itself (the albums and MVs and their different concepts). The beginning of Run BTS, their reality show (not to be confused with ‘Run’ by BTS or ‘Run BTS’ by BTS) in 2015 was the literal beginning of an era. The show showed the charms of the individual members and their chemistry as a group, and gained them much popularity as memes and clips circulated. They seemed happy to embarrass themselves, and this brought them down to earth and was endearing to a lot of people. And, of course, the show was just generally very entertaining. After this, we saw a lot of other groups creating their own reality shows. These shows had always been a great way to showcase the personalities and charms of the groups and members, but BigHit and BTS created their own, which did all of these things to an even greater extent. And thus, the memes were born, BTS feeling like your best buddies rather than celebrities was born, and everyone had a great time. I guess.

Content content content - BTS put out, and always have put out, absurd quantities of content, and even more so in the past than now. Concerts and world tours, Run BTS, other shows like in the SOOP and Bon Voyage, constant vLives and weverse chats, social media posts, albums and on and on and on it goes. Now, this is something that lots of kpop groups do, but BTS, as always, took it to another level. The extreme quantities of content they put out was their primary tool to creating these parasocial relationships - you could literally watch BTS 24 hours a day if you wanted to, every facet of their lives that has ever been seen by another human being. And this amount of content, this personal and to this extent, just isn’t something that a lot of other kpop artists, or any other artists or celebrities in general, do. 

Their personality and uniqueness - These were best shown off through Run BTS. Sure, it’s inaccurate to reduce the members to one personality trait each, but for most of their careers, and as they were growing, this was what defined them as a group, individuals, and brand. Smart, mature or maybe not, tired tsundere, ball of sunshine, libra, weird, and strong baby. This is an essential aspect of popular boy bands and has been since their inception, but, interestingly, it isn’t a HUGE aspect of the kpop industry. Just in the same way that kpop was made from the best aspects of Western pop and j-idol music to be more successful, it seems that BTS and HYBE combined the best aspects of the k-idol industry and Western pop (as always, noting that I use ‘Western’ and ‘The West’ VERY loosely) to become more successful. These personality traits are something you see in a group like One Direction, and less so in groups like TXT and ATEEZ, for instance. And, speaking of One Direction:

The disbandment of One Direction - One Direction were well known for having one of the most loyal and dedicated fandoms ever. The fandom was one of the reasons I never became a fan of them, despite liking some of their message and music. And honestly, I’m glad I wasn’t a fan, because the fallout was insane. One Direction went on ‘infinite hiatus’ and then... disbanded? I guess. And their fandom, millions and millions of mostly teen girls who had latched onto a group with a positive message to help them cope with the harsh world and the way it treats women, were turned out onto the street, as such. So they needed to find something else that they could enjoy, and which would tell them that it’s okay to be a girl and enjoy things. Side note: the One Direction fandom certainly had a large number of fans who were not teenage girls, and it is inaccurate and unhelpful to stereotype the fandom as only made up of teenage girls. It had many older fans who were primarily there for the message and community provided, and also a large queer population. And, gee, this group of people sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Mostly teenage girls, but with a large portion of older people and queer people? Holy moly, if that isn’t BTS’s fandom?! A lot of One Direction’s fandom felt abandoned and were on the verge of trauma, and they gravitated towards the closest equivalent - BTS. And when I say this, keep in mind that this only ended up being a small portion of BTS’s fandom. Everything about them brought people of all sorts in, but the disbandment/hiatus of One Direction was definitely a big influx.

And these and many other factors combined to make BTS as successful as they are today. It wasn’t necessarily that the rest of the industry did less, or worse, it was just that BTS did more, and what they did, they did very well. There are more talented and more skilled groups, but BTS had the right strategies at the right times, and a little bit of luck, to pull them through.

Cats and Time Travel: The Debut of TOMORROW X TOGETHER

TXT were originally conceived around 2017, during the height of BTS’s storyline. And it’s a good thing that Hitman Bang had plans, because BTS’s success (and portion of the company’s revenue) only grew from that point onwards. Later, in 2018, the group’s concept and lineup were solidified, and a Harry Potter concept fitting debut date of 04/03/2019 (9 3/4) was set. We were introduced to the five members and their charms, and many ARMY were curious to see where this new boy group, the first after BTS, would go. 

And they debuted, with the absolute masterpiece that is ‘CROWN.’ And thus followed the memes:

Trust ARMY to make a meme like this. TXT got their first music show win after a week, a feat which had taken their brother group over 2 years, a show of the immense support they had from ARMY and non-ARMY alike. Their fandom grew, and so did they. A big draw of TXT was their incredibly well-produced songs and MVs, and their top-tier dance skills, pulling off tough teamwork-based choreographies from debut. They also had the clear beginnings of a complex storyline through the ‘Nap of a Star’ MV, and there were hints that their storyline would tie in with BTS’s, through the ideas of time travel, superpowers, and self-acceptance and love. 

TXT’s next two albums, THE DREAM CHAPTER: MAGIC and ETERNITY showcased their versatility in executing many concepts, and maintained the many established layers of their concept; magic and time travel, Harry Potter, friendship, BTS, and, even more BTS - self-love and becoming a voice of the youth. This really cemented the cohesion of TXT and BTS as individual groups, and also of the connected nature of their storyline. Since BigHit had also acquired Source Music around this time, their girl group, Gfriend, was also involved in the storyline, and heavily rumoured to be the ghost girl seen in TXT’s MVs. 

In 2020, BigHit was going strong. They had survived the initial hit of the pandemic, and their groups, both part of the storyline and not, were thriving. They had bought more companies in preparation for BTS’s impending military service in December, and debuted their new vampire-themed boy group, ENHYPEN, which would begin a second storyline universe separate from the BTS one, with a teased werewolf group (now known as the Japanese &TEAM).

BTS was on top of the world, TXT and Gfriend were thriving, and BigHit was as prepared as they could be for December 4th and Jin’s 28th birthday.

The BTS Law and American Awards: 2020 and the Grammys

Jin approached 28, and BTS only grew stronger, an ARMY with them. Everyone was in anticipation - would the South Korean government break their own unofficial policies and give BTS a military exemption? Or would BTS become part of the literal ARMY? The fans were literally ready to single-handedly unify Korea, if need be.

A few days before Jin’s birthday, the South Korean government passed a law which became known as ‘The BTS Law’ - allowing certain celebrities, including idols, who had achieved certain milestones of spreading Korean culture worldwide, to postpone their military service for 2 years. All of the members of BTS qualified, as they had been given awards of cultural merit previously. It was disappointing for ARMY who hoped for a full exemption, but it gave everyone, and especially BigHit, some hope. They now had two whole years to build their portfolio as a company, so that their name didn’t remain synonymous with BTS, and, more importantly, to show the government that the best option was to give BTS a full exemption. 

Going into 2021, BigHit were on top of the world, literally, and some fans who didn’t quite understand the importance of influence in the industry even said that BigHit was the single biggest and best company. 

BTS had released their first all-English song ‘Dynamite’ in August of 2020, as a gift to the fans, but also, not so subtly, an attempt to push further into the American market. BTS had achieved every award under the sun available to them, but there was one thing that would take them from being, in the eyes of the American public, the obsession of silly teenage girls, to a serious pop group with a crucial message relevant to their generation. 

BTS needed a Grammy. 

And thus began the ‘English Trilogy’ - started with ‘Dynamite,’ then followed by the questionable ‘Butter’ and the even more questionable ‘Permission to Dance.’ All in English, and all in the place of the Korean album that so many fans desperately wanted. 

When ‘Dynamite’ failed to achieve it’s Grammy win, despite a landmark nomination and record-breaking success, instead of giving up, like many fans had, BTS and BigHit continued onwards. There are so many layers and concerns to the issue, so let’s consider a few perspectives.

The Grammys and their prejudice - It’s a pretty well-known fact that the Grammys discriminate primarily against three categories of music/artists - non-white artists, non-English music, and pop music in general. BTS fits all of these categories - thus, their chances of winning were instantly low, no matter how good or popular their song would be. The Grammys are an old institution, run by the kind of old white men who hate all of the things listed above. As sad and undeserved as it was, there was no way even a song as groundbreaking as ‘Dynamite’ would win. And if ‘Dynamite’ had no chance, ‘Butter’ and ‘Permission to Dance’ may as well have not been made, for all the chance in the world they had.

Does Dynamite even deserve to win? - Well, in my opinion, no. And this is an opinion shared by many ARMY, kpop fans, and music fans in general. And it’s not because ‘Dynamite’ is a bad song. It’s because it is one of BTS’s songs least deserving of a Grammy. A common contender I saw, which absolutely deserves to win every award ever created, was ‘Black Swan.’ It isn’t my style of music, but the artistry, effort, passion and emotion that went into the creation of ‘Black Swan’ makes it a piece of modern art. BTS’s work and message would be far better represented with a Grammy for ‘Black Swan’ than ‘Dynamite.’ But, of course, ‘Black Swan’ was in Korean, and not a title track, so not even a contender to be nominated. ‘Dynamite’ was important and started trends left and right - and, of course, it was exactly what the world needed at that time. But it just isn’t the best, or even a good, representation of BTS and their work.

Trying to be Western - This was an argument that was put against BTS after the release of so many English songs. They had previously said that they wouldn’t make any English music, and fans found this weird. But I think that the issue is less BTS, and more what the general public of the world, but especially America (the biggest music industry in the world) views as ‘legitimate music’. No non-English song has been commonly played on radios in the US (and other English-speaking countries like Australia and England) other than when it was a meme. Think ‘Gangnam Style’ or ‘Despacito.’ Did anyone care about those songs other than that they were both memes and the former had an older fat guy presumably making advances towards a hot young woman? And don’t we find making fun of fat people funny, huh, America? Because fat people aren’t real people with feelings and creativity, they’re just stupid and worthless, right, America? Hmm... So we must think from the perspective of BTS and BigHit. They want a Grammy, because they want to be seen as legitimate and hard-working artists worldwide, and because Suga said he wants one, and if Suga wants something we’d better get it for him. But they know the Grammys are racist and prejudiced, and so they only have one option - try to fit in with the most popular songs - the most boring, white, English songs to ever be created. Because no one cares about someone like Taylor Swift’s hard work or the depth of her lyricism - it’s the boring-ass catchy songs which will be successful. And thus, they need to make these songs, with American producers, in the hopes of getting a Grammy.

Does BTS even need a Grammy? And why so many trashy attempts to win? - Well, to be successful - no, they don’t need one. But we all knew this. The fact of the matter is that the South Korean government heavily considers international achievements - such as winning an Olympic medal or a World Cup - when assessing people for military exemption. The Grammy may just have been another award for many of the artists who were nominated and won, but by failing to win the Gramm, BTS were very possibly sentenced to military service. If they had won, it’s incredibly likely that they would have been granted an exemption. The pop landscape moves quickly, and the Grammy for BTS was likely a matter of life or death for their group. Sure, it was something they wanted, but it could have been the difference between a long-lasting legacy and the rapid death of the group. And that is likely why they and BigHit pushed so hard to win it.

So, in conclusion, the Grammys suck, and their attempts to use BTS to gain viewers in later years were both very obvious and only cemented their fate as a dying and increasingly less-respected award show. 

Fandoms and World (Read: American) Tours: The Fallout of the English Trilogy

So what’s the situation with BigHit/HYBE in 2021? BTS had been given a new lease on life, and a chance to prove to the government why they should be given a military exemption. They had failed to get their Grammy, so it seemed the only other option was to get as popular, and as rich, as possible. 

So what did HYBE, who had been managing BTS next to perfectly for years, do? The same company that gave their artists a near scandal-free life for 8 years, who helped them develop their talents to become commonly regarded as the next biggest thing since the Beatles, and the face of the kpop industry?

Well, they went on... a world tour???

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with a world tour. It built hype and allowed the group to have interviews and appear on American stages and shows. But the government gave them a military postponement so that they could continue to grow, and the fact of the matter is that a world tour doesn’t grow the group that much. A world tour, with expensive concert seats and hype that only really comes from already being interested in a group, doesn’t really appeal to those outside of the fandom. So they didn’t really gain a lot of new fans - or, at least, not as many as they gained through new albums and the like. 

BTS still grew, but, to me and to many others, they didn’t make the most of these few years. We felt that they would best use the two years of borrowed time they had to release many new songs and, as I seem to keep saying like a broken record, continue to grow exponentially. But they didn’t. They went over a year without releasing a Korean album, and when PROOF came, it was VERY underwhelming. An anthology album?!?!?!? Sure, I understand it’s importance in their journey as a group, and it’s meaning as a reflection of their past and future. But the album only had 3 new songs, and the most interesting of the 3 CDs - the 3rd one, wasn’t even available on Spotify. And even then, it was only interesting  because it contained some new demo tracks, not even new songs. PROOF was expensive and lacking in new content, and its importance could only be seen by the group, the company, and a few ARMY. If BTS had been releasing several new albums over these two years, PROOF would have been a fitting send-off to the members just before their military service. But as it stood, their first Korean album in almost two years, it was disappointing. And I think this, and BTS and HYBE’s seeming obsession with becoming top American artists rather than Korean, turned off a lot of people. 

Of course, BTS are not trying to be American, and they never have tried. But in appealing to the largest music market in the world, it seems that they have forgotten a little about the rest of the world. 

And perhaps BTS’s lack of growth through only appealing to pre-existing members of their fandom would be fine for HYBE, if the other artists under the company grew.

PunkRock and Angels: HYBE’s forgotten groups

With the comeback of Brave Girls in 2021 and the debut of groups like Aespa and Ive, the post-BTS Law period became dominated by girl groups. And yet, boy groups still remain arguably more popular, and with far fewer barriers to success. At the start of this era, HYPE had two other major groups under their belt: TXT, and ENHYPEN. Gfriend had been mysteriously lost to the HYBE girl group curse, and SEVENTEEN, as a self-produced group, needed little management to stay successful (that said, HYBE still manages them badly and doesn’t use their talents and skills to their fullest extents).

So what did they do? They faded ENHYPEN’s iconic vampire concept and music style to a generic ‘bad boy against the world’ concept, and the group’s subsequent releases were barely discussed against the backdrop of girl groups with badass or generally sophisticated concepts. ENHYPEN have had two comebacks in the past year, with ‘Future Perfect’ and ‘Blessed-Cursed,’ both of which were forgettable in the sea of other comebacks. 

A similar thing can be said for TXT. TXT’s success skyrocketed from the moment of their debut, initially propelled by ARMY and later by those who had discovered the group for their own merits. This growth continued through THE CHAOS CHAPTER, which heralded in their new punk rock concept to go with the darker segment of the storyline they had just entered. This was an important part of their concept - switching mood to reflect the current portion of their non-linear storyline we would explore. But after two albums with the same concept in a row, some fans, including and especially myself, became worried that they would never switch from this concept, no matter what the storyline dictated. We hung on in anticipation and waited.

And waited, and waited and waited. One of TXT’s strengths had been relatively regular comebacks with hints leading into the next album, but we waited nine long months for Minsode 2, during which time TXT seemed to do... nothing? They had a concert in October of 2021, and their Weverse concert for New Years and their fansign for their third anniversary in March, but these were all paid contents that a relatively small portion of the fandom had access to. There was no continuation to the storyline and well-produced music that so many people had been attracted to. 

I wrote this 7000 word monstrosity of an article about why TXT are in the best position in kpop in January of 2022. And at the time, it was very true and I genuinely believed it. But, although I leave the essay up as it is still important and has good points, I no longer believe that TXT are in the best place in kpop. One of the main factors riding on this essay was that TXT would continue to produce content on a regular or semi-regular basis, and especially to continue their storyline in another song that was on top of the industry, like Blue Hour or LOVESONG. But when Minisode 2 came, it was too little too late, and, although it continued the storyline, the title track ‘Good Boy Gone Bad’ was underwhelming as a song, a choreography, and, most importantly, a title track. The choreo was satisfying and portrayed the lyrics of the song well, but lacked the teamwork and unique formations we expected from a TXT choreography. The major complaint with the song was that it was kind of cringey, especially the repetitive, droning ‘good boy gone bad’ in the chorus - was there nothing else you could say here? You only want a one-phrase chorus for your first title track after nine months? For real?

‘Good Boy Gone Bad’ became more of a meme than anything else, which is perfectly fine in theory - songs that are memes are played often and get exposure, which in turn often brings at least some fans to a group. But meme songs are best when the song itself is memey. ‘Good Boy Gone Bad’, a genuine exploration of the aftereffects of an abusive and codependent relationship and the emotional, physical, and mental symptoms it leaves, should not have been capable of being memed in any way. And yet, the ridiculous poor choices that riddled the chorus made it one. It was well-known for all the wrong reasons. And while it was well known that a group called TXT had a funny song called ‘Good Boy Gone Bad,’ the comeback itself barely made a splash in the wider industry. Looking back, the only reason I cared about it was because I was a MOA anyway, and because TXT had a world tour coming up. If I hadn’t been a MOA, I couldn’t have cared less about this song, even with its interesting additions to the storyline and meaningful lyrics.

So let’s elaborate on why TXT are no longer in the best position in the industry;

Long hiatus - The pop industry moves quickly, and the kpop industry even more so. You need to stay on top of things. There’s a reason groups like Everglow and Blackpink are becoming less popular - few releases means fewer new fans and old fans become bored. You don’t grow as a group and so fans are less emotionally invested. Yes, kpop is much more than just music, but without new music you aren’t really a kpop group, and fans WILL drift away.

Focus on fans only - As I said in the BTS section, world tours are great. They brings fans closer to the group and they bring the group and company lots of money. But they only appeal to current fans. They don’t bring in (many) new fans and they don’t grow the group. Additionally, Minisode 2 was an album that didn’t appeal to the current mainstream trends, and instead focused on the specific subset of fans who had been following the storyline and would go to the effort of reading and understanding the lyrics. 

Bad title track - As I said above, not many people liked ‘Good Boy Gone Bad.’ The concept was interesting, the music good and the lyrics great, except for the chorus which was the biggest letdown I’ve seen in a TXT title track since ‘LOSER=LOVER.’ TXT title tracks are going downhill and I don’t want to see where they go next.

Storyline muddling - At their debut, TXT had a pretty solid and well-realised storyline - they were children who had grown up on the Magic Island that had featured in both BTS and Gfriend’s storyline, and thus had powers, but also curses. They mirrored BTS’s storyline (think V fighting his Dad and Beomgyu fighting his Dad), and they had themes of self-love, belonging, youth, and friendship, just like their older brothers. And then LOVESONG and LOSER=LOVER came around, and we got hints of the old storyline, but also something new about some boys falling in love and becoming part of a codependent relationship. But this was different, unlike what we were used to, and a little confusing, honestly. And then the HYBE webtoon was released, which brought TXT and their storyline into the real world? Which was something that seemed quite incompatible with what they had previously been. So now they have three storylines, or more, or less maybe, and they’re all a bit muddled up and, like ENHYPEN, HYBE doesn’t seem to know what they want to do with TXT and their storyline. There have been changes and recons and the confusion of it all has destroyed one of the best things TXT had going for them - a compelling, cohesive, and complex storyline and concept. I even made a post talking about how TXT’s storyline seems to have DID.

America tour or world tour? - Why would you have a world tour, which already appeals to very few people (only fans who can afford the concert) and then only go to America, a small portion of your fans which are a small portion of the population to begin with? It’s a bad choice and the management of TXT’s world tour has been criticised extensively, from the very small locations to Kai getting a nosebleed.

HYBE’s obsession with BTS - TXT were once marketed as their own group with their own talents, but, after the BTS Law, HYBE seemed to, bizarrely considering they were going to go to the military, only focus on BTS. The marketing for TXT and ENHYPEN faded into oblivion, and, other than a few new groups like Le Sserafim, it seemed that BTS had become synonymouis with HYBE once again, and that TXT and ENHYPEN were comparatively ignored.

Concerns for another hiatus - It’s been four months since TXT released Minisode 2, and I am genuinely concerned that we are going to see another 3/4-yr hiatus. Of course, they are on tour and shouldn’t be overworked, but, as I keep saying, tours don’t bring in new fans, and their progress as a group stagnates as long as they are on tour without releasing a new album. There have been no hints of the next era of TXT, and, while it’s possible a teaser will drop tomorrow, especially after such an uncharacteristic hiatus, I am concerned that it will happen again.

And nothing to carry them - TXT may not be releasing albums, but they are still releasing contents - vLives, TO DO, and other Youtube shorts and behind-the-scenes. But this content isn’t of the type that will bring in new fans. No-one watches vLives unless they’re a fan of the group, and the same with behind the scenes contents on Youtube. TO DO could work - after all, a lot of people got into BTS and SEVENTEEN because of their variety shows, right? SEVENTEEN even have an entire second fandom dedicated to their variety show. But the fact of the matter is that SEVENTEEN and BTS both have fun group dynamics which keep the audience entertained, whether they know the group or not. And this is how they bring in new fans. TXT have a fun group dynamic, but not nearly to the extent that the above two groups do, and TO DO just isn’t that fun out of context, or as a non-fan. It isn’t even that fun to many fans like myself. So when they aren’t putting out albums, TXT have nothing to maintain a steady stream of people becoming new fans. And this is a problem in a fast-paced industry.

It didn’t help ENHYPEN and TXT’s cases that the remnants of HYBE’s attentions that weren’t on BTS were on their new girl groups - post-IZ*ONE Le Sserafim and the oddly-named New Jeans. Both of which have had run-ins with the HYBE girl group curse, but which, as 4th gen becomes the generation of girl groups, have had more mainstream popularity and acknowledgement than their older brother groups. Both groups have also been, in my opinion, badly managed (Le Sserafim more than the latter), but have still managed to make a splash and succeed. While I see general kpop fans talking about and checking out their songs, the same doesn’t happen for TXT and ENHYPEN. 

HYBE’s other groups have been forgotten (literally, in the case of NU’EST), but they may need to become more noticed, after a recent event which made headlines across the world.

The Army vs the ARMY: The Military Enlistment of BTS

After the BTS Law in 2020, HYBE had been in many talks with the South Korean government in hopes of winning exemption for BTS. But their hopes were in vain, and no further exemption or postponement had been agreed upon by October 2022. So, on the 17th October, after their free concert in Busan, HYBE released a statement saying that, after his solo promotions in October, Jin, the eldest member of BTS, who would turn 30 in December, would apply to cancel his military extension, and would enlist when he receives his enlistment notice. This sent ARMY, and the world, into a mini panic, with tears, laughter and articles upon articles and tweets upon tweets being shed.

There were many interesting details about this. The announcement was made after BTS’s free concert, which, may legitimately be the last concert BTS ever holds. Jin said this was so he could have a happy concert with the fans, rather than seeing them all sad. Additionally, it sugests that HYBE’s discussions with the Korean government had either fallen through or were foreseen to be falling through. This likely caused the company and members to take events into their own hands. 

There are other implications and common points of discussion which I think could be important to note/discuss/be aware of;

Arguments for and against BTS’s military service - The biggest argument against BTS’s enlistment is the huge impact they have on the South Korean economy - they reportedly contribute about 0.5-0.7% of the GDP. This is yes, a very tiny portion. But most of the largest contributors are huge companies like Samsung. The fact that a single group can contribute this much to the economy - enough to actually show up as a notable percentage - shows how insane their monetary power is. However, the greatest argument for them enlisting was that military enlistment is so engrained in Korean culture (on both sides of the DMZ), that the group would likely be shunned by a good portion of the South Korean population if they either didn’t enlist or got an exemption. This was seen in the early 2000s with singer Steve Yoo, who, when he tried to avoid his military service by becoming an American citizen, was exiled from Korea. His reputation was so stained by this that he went from being one of the most liked singers to one of the most hated, and many in the general public still believe he should never be allowed back in the country as long as he lives, despite him getting down on his hands and knees in an official plea  to the government. BTS getting an exemption would not have been nearly as bad for their reputation, but still likely would have reduced their favour and popularity in Korea.

Jin’s character - Jin has stated many times that he sees military service as his duty as a Korean citizen, and that he would go as soon as he was called. He has never expressed a wish to not serve, and ARMY are divided between those who wanted to let him go and do what he sees as his duty, vs those who want BTS to have an exemption, no matter the wishes of the members. Jin has established himself as a generally responsible and mature person, and somewhat traditional in his beliefs in duty to serve his country. HYBE’s announcement specifying that JIn himself applied to cancel his extension was honestly a very good idea for BTS’s image in the public. These actions are directly in line with the character that Jin has created, and so maintains his integrity as a celebrity. This additionally proves that BTS are not trying to ‘become American’ and head away from ‘their Korean roots,’ as they prioritise their country and duty to their country over the wishes of the international fans and music industry. This statement was the absolute best way that BTS and HYBE could maintain their reptutation. That said though, HYBE hasn’t really had a good reputation lately. At least BTS still do...

What was even the point of the extension? - My legitimate belief is that the government gave the group the extension to then see whether it was worth giving them an exemption. As discussed above, HYBE, through their trashy management of the group in 2021 and 22, showed the government that it was best for everyone to make BTS do their service, and to save face among the Korean public.

But what about President Moon? - When BTS were given an extension on their date to enlist in the military in 2020, President Moon (Moon Jae-in) was the president of South Korea. President Moon has often expressed his love for BTS, including presenting them with Awards of Cultural Merit - the exact awards which allowed them to delay their service. But President Moon was replaced as President in May 2022 by the conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, who was president at the time HYBE was having talks about exemption with the government. I don’t think it is a big step to assume that BTS would have been much likely to receive an exemption if President Moon, or the democratic party, were still in power at that time. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they would have received an exemption either way, but with President Moon and the democratic party, it is entirely possible that BTS would have had a lower-grade exemption, such as a reduction in the term they need to serve, as the democratic party, backed by who would be the ex-President Moon, would have emphasised the cultural and economic merit of BTS, rather than the military service emphasised by the conservative party. It likely wouldn’t have made a big difference, but is still interesting to consider.

Who said ‘f u’ to who - the government, or BTS? - When discussing the enlistment with non-kpop friends, one said something I had never considered - ‘so BTS said ‘f u’ to the Korean government?’ And my initial reaction to that was ‘wtf definitely not, that would assume that BTS has any power over the government’. I have since discussed the possibility with some kpop friends, and have reached a more well-rounded perspective. Both BTS and the government said ‘f u’ to each other - but the government certainly had the upper hand in this situation. Let’s go step-by-step. If we assume BTS said ‘f u’ to the government, it is because Jin and the members enlisted on their own terms, rather than those of the government, and essentially sent the message that they wouldn’t be holding onto the possibility of exemption, because they don’t need it to succeed and have a legacy! But if we look at the government saying ‘f u’ to BTS, it’s because they’re the party in power and they have the ability to give or revoke the hope of military service as they see fit, taking control of the phenomenon that is BTS and dangling military service over their heads like a carrot on a stick. Giving BTS an uncertain future is the ‘f u,’ showing that they are still the ones in charge. But both of these are partially the case. The government did hold military enlistment like a carrot on a stick, but more for HYBE, who desperately chased it and the financial security BTS gave them. The government said ‘f u’ to HYBE, and BTS kind of said ‘f u’ to both of them. But BTS’s ‘f u’ is a very small, pathetic one, because an ‘f u’ assumes that the ‘f uing’ party have made a decision that makes the other party lose out, or puts them in an inconvenient situation. And BTS, a relatively small part of Korean culture and economy, just don’t have the power to ‘f u’ the government. The government wins if BTS enlists and they win if BTS doesn’t enlist. BTS picked the option that was slightly less convenient for the government, which is where their tiny ‘f u’ comes from, but the government maintains power, which is where their massive one comes from. They both were annoying each other, but pretending that BTS has any cultural or economic power over the government is just wrong.

The future of BTS - will they survive the military? - I don’t think so. As I said earlier, the pop industry moves incredibly quickly, and the kpop industry even more so. Yeah, BTS will only be gone for 2-3 years, but in that time the third gen will likely have become completely irrelevant. Very few groups that have been interrupted by military service have been able to continue, and none of them have large mainstream popularity. As close as it gets are probably SHINee and EXO, both of which continue and are loved and iconic, but which have both seriously faded in popularity since their service. ARMY are used to ridiculous quantities of content from BTS, and this three-year gap won’t sustain a fandom so used to content content and more content. I think BTS will keep their promise of coming back in 2025, but that their popularity will be drastically reduced. They just won’t be the current hot thing anymore, in an industry that thrives off the next current hot thing. In their statement about BTS’s service, HYBE referenced their latest title track ‘Yet To Come,’ and how it is a mark of how the best of BTS is still yet to come. But this is wistful thinking on HYBE’s part. In my opinion, the best of BTS had already passed by the time the song came out - they were still getting more popular and were still the most popular group on the planet, sure, but they weren’t experiencing the exponential growth of 2017-2019. The lull in albums just didn’t do much for them, and with the approaching knowledge of military service, I feel like a lot of ARMY started looking for other groups in preparation. Especially those who had been Directioners didn’t want to be thrust into the world without a main group again. Things just aren’t looking up for BTS. And it has nothing to do with their immense talents and skills, but instead as they are a product of the industry they are a part of. 

Implications for HYBE - Well, BTS may be a much smaller percentage of HYBE’s revenue than they used to be, but 65% is still a lot. Le Sserafim and NewJeans have been pretty successful, and with the girl group popularity of fourth gen I think HYBE will push them more. As much as I hope that this means TXT and ENHYPEN get more funding and are pushed more as groups, I just don’t think this is going to happen. HYBE will continue to expand rather than develop what they already have. And this is pretty sad, but it’s what they’ve been doing since BTS became popular. And because of this, HYBE has become more of a corporation and less of ‘artists and music for healing.’ They’re losing a large portion of their income partially because they weren’t managing them well. This is either the end of HYBE as a company people respect, or the start of their turnaround, where they manage groups fairly and the groups go up in popularity as one, not in competition to each other. 

The enlistment of BTS will have a big effect on the music industry and especially kpop - that’s for sure. But the effect that it will have on both HYBE and BTS themselves depends on a multitude of factors both in and outside of their control. So I am, in a way, morbidly curious to see where this all goes.

Scandals, Minors, and the sleeping star: The future of TXT, ENHYPEN, Le Sserafim, NewJeans and more.

I don’t see Le Sserafim and NewJeans being anything other than successful in the future. NewJeans have brought a refreshing and (possibly too) youthful spin to y2k and retro concepts, Le Sserafim only have two releases and both of them have been iconic hits, and both groups somehow managed to survive their scandals, at the expense of Garam’s career and a bunch of album sales. As I’ve said several times, from 2021, girl groups have ruled the 4th gen, and Le Sserafim and NewJeans can only really go up (unless HYBE manages them to levels of bad that have only been seen in CLC and Exo). 

I think ENHYPEN will continue in the same direction - somewhat popular and growing, but slowly. They have quite a niche music genre and concept, like Dreamcatcher, so I think they’ll stay how they are. Same with the soon-to-debut &TEAM, Japanese brother group and werewolves to ENHYPEN’s vampires.

ENHYPEN’s management has been a little dodgy from the start, and their concept is very fragmented. They started off as creepy vampire orphans. Great, so that brings in all the people who love the non-sexual vampire stories. And then they have ‘Drunk-Dazed,’ bringing in the fans of unconventional noise music, and sticking with the superpowered vampire theme. But ‘Fever’ comes with that, and, as iconic as it was, it rubbed many people the wrong way as a sexual choreography in a group that was almost half minors. And the recent group of ‘Tamed-Dashed,’ ‘Blessed-Cursed’ and ‘Pass the Mic’ have alienated almost all of the fans I previously mentioned. No more explicit vampire storyline, other than in the webtoon which you need to actively research to understand. No more noise music, just the usual pop summer songs and whatever the very questionable ‘Blessed-Cursed’ was. If you like the Gothic stuff, it’s gone. If you like them being niche, it’s gone. If you were holding on for the werewolves, you still have a while to wait. And if you were a very weird person who sexualised the minors in the group, well, it ain’t as easy anymore. ENHYPEN seem to have a similar problem to Kep1er - although they have solidified an identity as a group of people, their musical identity is all over the place. And their concept doesn’t even call for it, like TXT’s does. I hope that with the debut of &TEAM, ENHYPEN’s storyline and management will turn a new page. They may be niche, but HYBE could still make a lot more money from them and their fans to make up for BTS’s gap. 

SEVENTEEN are largely self-managed and produced. They have their own small group of staff that stick with them, and their success is largely self-made. They’ve had a few dodgy releases in recent years, like ‘Rock With You’ and ‘Ready to Love,’ which have been more of a product of them overworking themselves than any bad management on HYBE’s part. And just as their questionable releases weren’t dictated by the bad management of HYBE, SEVENTEEN’s success won’t be caused by good management by HYBE. I think that SEVENTEEN’S success will continue and grow. Many CARATs criticise their decision to move towards more mainstream pop music in recent years, but I think that the SEVENTEEN heart and soul is still there. We shouldn’t be looking for ‘the next BTS,’ because every group is unique and they are themselves, but if there was to be a ‘next BTS,’ I don’t think it would be Stray Kids or ATEEZ or anyone else - it would be SEVENTEEN (although SKZ have a pretty good shot). SEVENTEEN are also currently under HYBE, so an easy transition. They have well-made self-produced music, two factors ARMY find important, and they have strong, complex choreos, and manage to have both popular and meaningful music. They also have a similar vibe to BTS, as they are both third gen groups, and they have English speakers which gives them a wider audience. But most of all, SEVENTEEN have variety. They are the only group I’ve seen so far that actually surpasses BTS in variety skills. And this is very evident by their second fandom, Cubic. BTS’s variety skills and the unique roles of each member were crucial to their success, and SEVENTEEN’s popularity has skyrocketed because of GOING SEVENTEEN. The members don’t quite fit 2D single character traits like the members of BTS, but you could still push them into small groups if you wanted, and if you want to go deeper, they all appear clearly as complex human beings. They are each bias-worthy, which is crucial, and they have similar levels of popularity. Additionally, SEVENTEEN are a group for all - everyone will find something they like.

The moral of the story is that SEVENTEEN will be fine. Until next year when Scoups’ military service comes up.... Cry with me, y’all.

And finally we come to the heroes (?) of the story, who are so heroic they’ve barely been mentioned... whoops. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, who have recently been managed in a less than great way by HYBE. They’ve lost, or at least had complicated and confused, many of the things that made me place them as ‘the best position in kpop right now’ in my essay. They’ve lost the versatility, the mainstream appeal, the serious nature of their storyline, the well-produced title tracks, the variety skills and the appearances on many shows which gained them popularity. TXT only appear in the public consciousness now through memes, which, yes, is the case for a lot of groups. But TXT never tried to be memes, or even to be funny. Their very serious content just couldn’t be taken seriously because of how HYBE managed and marketed them. And then this world tour came, only focusing on fans and with a tiny number of available seats compared to the actual number of fans. I feel that a lot of problems with TXT came from HYBE’s fear of reality shows after BTS were mistreated on them. And yes, TXT constantly being compared to BTS wasn’t and isn’t good - but I feel that if they went on more reality shows and showed the variety that was peaking through at the beginning of their career, they would reach and thus gain more fans. They don’t have the fanbase and the strong message that BTS did, so they can’t follow the same route, as they have been doing. Or, perhaps we could consider they are going in reverse from BTS? From dark to light concepts, from light to dark. But either way, their musical identity has become exactly what it shouldn’t have - obfuscated and overshadowed by that of BTS. TXT are far from the worst example of HYBE, or any other company, poorly managing a group, and an argument could be made that they aren’t being poorly managed, since their numbers continue to grow. But they haven’t experienced the same growth as they once did, and their lack of an impact in the larger industry is not a good sign. It is this lack of an impact that made me want them to be better managed, and to write this essay. More people should hear about your comeback than just members of your own fandom and a few people who watch music shows live on a weekly basis. 

Conclusions

BigHit started with the slogan ‘music and artist for healing,’ and their initial success with BTS reflected this well. But they started to get greedy and fearful, and started to both acquire companies and groups and neglect these companies and groups in hopes of supporting themselves and the sinking ship BTS would leave them in when they went to the military. There have been many victims of this, notably Gfriend. But I am concerned that other groups will fall to HYBE’s newfound greed - especially TXT and ENHYPEN. HYBE no longer embody their motto - while the artists continue to heal, the company is becoming less and less viewed in the public eye as a cool group of artists and producers, and more and more like the corporations whose level it has tried to pull itself up to. Now that BTS are going to the military, the future of HYBE and its groups hangs in the balance - will they be able to pull their act together and make a splash in the industry again, or will they fall apart and forever be known as a company synonymous with ‘BTS’? Let’s just say that I don’t have high hopes for any artists under the company other than Le Sserafim and NewJeans, and maybe SEVENTEEN for the next year before they too suffer the ongoing effects of the Korean War. It’s sad, but this is just the nature of such a harsh and competitive industry - people become greedy, no matter how good their intentions are (we even saw this with BTS’s attempts to gain a Grammy), and, in the end, the fast-paced kpop industry consumes all.

Anyway, stan ‘Can’t We Just leave The Monster Alive?’

Sources

Zeimba, H. (2022) ‘BigHit Entertainment’s Transformation to Influential HYBE, 2022 Overview,’ KWorld Now.

‘HYBE's Cursed History with Girl Groups - From Glam to New Jeans’ by Ploopy678 on YouTube, 2022

Shapiro, A. (2021) ‘BTS Made $200 Million With Hybe. Now Ariana Grande And Justin Bieber Are Cashing In On Scooter Braun’s Deal.’ Forbes

Yoon, S. (2022) ‘HYBE ≠ BTS after big investments in diversification,‘ Korea JoongAng Daily & The New York Times

Peoples, G. (2022) ‘HYBE Revenue Up 31% But Losing BTS Will Squeeze Margins in 2023.’ BillboardPro

‘Will BTS Survive with ONLY 3 Members? BTS Military Plan (2021 Updated!)’ by Rice Squad on YouTube, 2020

A Brief Analysis of my Sources

Disclaimer that my references above are not accurate to any referencing style in particular, since they have been changed for Tumblr’s formats, and that they are in order of appearance, not alphabetical order, as they should be.

Ayo here again comes my obsession with sources. I will discuss them in the order they appear in my source list, which is also the order they appear in the essay (although I haven’t given specific reference points). My points of discussion mostly include why I chose these sources and why it was okay for me to use them in this context (this context being a non-professional internet essay). Unfortunately, I can’t show examples of sources I discarded and explain why as I have... you know, discarded them and don’t remember where I got them from.

A disclaimer that I did use Wikipedia for this essay (gasp). I do not condone the use of Wikipedia for academic or professional essays of any level (school, undergraduate, post grad and so on). Wikipedia is only acceptable when cross-referencing well-known facts across multiple sources. In this case, I sued Wikipedia for my ‘history of BigHit/HYBE’ section, as all events mentioned are well-known facts and thus cannot be obfuscated by Wikipedia. However, I did not feel comfortable using Wikipedia for the more specific or subjective elements of this essay, which is why they aren’t my only source and weren’t really used past the first section.

The rest of my analysis may sound repetitive but is still important.

Zeimba, H. (2022) ‘BigHit Entertainment’s Transformation to Influential HYBE, 2022 Overview,’ KWorld Now.

This was largely used for basic facts, same as Wikipedia. It is a semi-professional article seemingly written by someone who does this full-time and is invested in HYBE and BTS. Thus, it was okay to use for recent and basic facts.

‘HYBE's Cursed History with Girl Groups - From Glam to New Jeans’ by Ploopy678 on YouTube, 2022

Ploopy does this professionally (aka is paid to tell the facts/her perspective). This makes her more reliable. Additionally, she makes her research and sources public for Patreons, and clearly puts effort into and ensures integrity of her sources. I wouldn’t use her for an academic essay that wasn’t about fan reactions, but for my purposes here, her work is appropriate, valid, and relevant.

Shapiro, A. (2021) ‘BTS Made $200 Million With Hybe. Now Ariana Grande And Justin Bieber Are Cashing In On Scooter Braun’s Deal.’ Forbes

This is another professional source on what is generally considered a professional and reliable business website, Forbes. I only used this source as a backup to verify some of my economic facts. Also I did some research, and I am pretty sure the person who wrote this IS NOT Ben Shapiro’s cousin/sister, so my conscience is clear?

Yoon, S. (2022) ‘HYBE ≠ BTS after big investments in diversification,‘ Korea JoongAng Daily & The New York Times

This source has questionable professionality, but I feel that it being in association with the New York Times is a good sign. I used this one for stats on BTS’s portion of HYBE’s income. Since the source is recent, it gives recent information, which is useful for an essay like this, since my essays become outdated quickly in the world of kpop (crying over the TXT one). I would not have used this source if this essay was in any way professional, but, since it isn’t, it’s all good.

Peoples, G. (2022) ‘HYBE Revenue Up 31% But Losing BTS Will Squeeze Margins in 2023.’ BillboardPro

This was another professional article, from a professional site/organisation which is known both for its relevance to the music industry, and for being accessible to and less discriminatory against kpop groups than most international organisations. It’s overall a reliable site for economic music-related news, and, as it is both recent, and written by an actual person, rather than an organisation, I feel fine using it for this essay.

‘Will BTS Survive with ONLY 3 Members? BTS Military Plan (2021 Updated!)’ by Rice Squad on YouTube, 2020

This one has questionable professionality, but is still made by a group of people dedicated to their content creation and who prioritise Asian voices (I believe the creators are mostly South Asian?). The video is extensively researched, and makes sources available. It also is pretty recent, and was updated when new information was made available to the creators. I would not be surprised if a new video was uploaded by the creators after the news of BTS’s enlistment. This video has a lot of content, including the history of enlistment and several possibilities for BTS. It’s a video that initially prompted my interest in the topic of BTS’s enlistment, and is useful for an essay like this.

Source Conclusions

Always look for professional sources, when you can. Someone who is paid to make news content is usually more likely to put effort into that content than someone who isn’t. Although that has changed with the advent of the internet. 

If you read this far, thank you. I really appreciate your efforts and attention. I would really appreciate if you could reblog or like this post to show that you read it - and thank you again! <3

#txt #tomorrow x together #bts #army #moa #hybe #bighit #le sserafim #essay #one direction #enhypen #newjeans #&team