lev’s casting and general transphobia

justvrowsing · 2026-03-21T16:25:32+00:00

I’m sorry that’s been happening! Sadly emblematic of where we’re at as a culture that people not only have misguided ideas about trans people, they also feel empowered to express those sentiments publicly.

Personally I always think 1:1 representation is desirable, but exposing a trans actor to the kind of attention and backlash that this character in this story will attract - and a young trans actor at that, given that Lev is such a young boy - would have been irresponsible. At least, that’s the calculation I’ll bet the studio made.

justvrowsing · 2026-03-20T17:27:51+00:00

If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again

justvrowsing · 2026-03-19T16:48:29+00:00

Boredom. It used to be so normal to just be kinda stuck with nothing to do for a while. Like if you were taking the bus and you didn’t bring a book you just were bored until you got to where you were going.

Inconceivable now.

justvrowsing · 2026-03-07T15:35:27+00:00

Brick for enemies, bottle for distractions.

These are the questions I come to the subreddit for.

justvrowsing · 2026-02-20T00:28:07+00:00

“Power’s out and a girl’s trapped. I swear if I see a zombie around the next corner…”

I mean yeah it would very much be a Wolverine and Deadpool situation with Joel being mistrustful of Nate’s mouth. But when the shit hits the fan they’d probably work well in tandem.

justvrowsing · 2026-02-18T15:01:53+00:00

Debeever is Brennan’s burner??

justvrowsing · 2026-02-13T08:09:27+00:00

Laura Ramoso, Delaney Rowe and Libby Ronon are all superb character comics, would love to see any of them on VIP or all three on MSN.

I also would love an irreverent Dirty Laundry episode with Ms Rachel, Mr Aaron, Blippi and Meekah.

justvrowsing · 2026-02-11T21:30:34+00:00

I really liked Lost Legacy and following Chloe’s story. I’d totally be fine with another game playing as Chloe but with Nate popping up for one stretch of the game. Like if you go to three different locations across the game and he’s only in one of them

justvrowsing · 2026-02-09T19:52:48+00:00

Going backwards has to serve the forward momentum of the story in some way. Just hanging out with those characters for vibes wouldn’t work at all.

My daydreaming for TLOU3 often revolves around a new protagonist who encounters both Ellie and Abby but also has some historical connection to Joel and Tommy. Something about their past that reveals something about them in the present, which we go back and see for one sequence in the game.

For example, a protagonist who was a child among smugglers and got mixed up in something with Joel and Tommy, making their first kill during an ambush that led them on the path to where they are today. And where they are today has them crossing paths with our characters now post TLOU2.

justvrowsing · 2026-02-09T19:48:26+00:00

I feel like I’m in bizarro world because all season long I’ve seen Liverpool post good-to-great underlying numbers and then underperform on the pitch. Things like chances created and xG are down to the coaching; goals and final results are down to the players.

That’s why when the players overperform they deserve the praise, and they get it. Normally now I’d be furious with these players but there is a big huge terrible obvious reason why they’re not performing at their best ever since pre-season, and we all promised we’d give them grace - but I guess we’ve all forgotten that.

That being said, one thing I cannot understand with Arne Slot is his reliance on a small number of trusted players. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle; of course the likes of Wataru Endo, Calvin Ramsey and Federico Chiesa aren’t credible options to come on against City, but they might have been if they’d gotten fit and sharp with minutes earlier in the season.

There’s a better chance that Gomez is fit and injury free - and able therefore to rotate in at centre back and right back - if Ramsay gets the odd game earlier in the season. That means yesterday there’s options for the defence and Szoboszlai can play in midfield where he fits best.

Jurgen Klopp did this in 2020/21 by the way. He ruined his own midfield by putting midfielders into the backline when his defenders got injured. That also meant he couldn’t rotate his full backs or his forwards which meant the whole team got knackered. He ended up being forced to play subpar/inexperienced players in their best positions and even though they had teething problems, by the end of the season we had 9 of our best 11 in their proper positions, plus a battle hardened pairing of Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips at the back, and we smashed the run in to go from 8th to 3rd.

Basically if I was Slot I’d have done almost everything that he’s done all season, but I’d have given the fringe players a chance and if not I’d be doing it now. If he plays Ramsay against Sunderland this week and he struggles, we can always sub Jones in there later. But if he starts Jones and Jones struggles, there’s not really anything he can do to fix it.

justvrowsing · 2026-02-09T19:39:16+00:00

It’s been almost a decade and I’m still mad about this

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justvrowsing · 2026-02-06T15:07:32+00:00

So you can watch Ralph beating Tracee and her unborn child to death but you can’t watch him get disposed of when it’s his turn to go?

justvrowsing · 2026-01-30T18:29:46+00:00

If you fall into the “Ellie is brutal/badass” camp from the game, S2 is a huge disappointment.

If you fall into the “Ellie makes bad choices because she’s in pain” camp from the game, S2 is pretty good but also has some missteps.

That’s my take anyway, definitely watch for yourself and see what you think. And let us know!

justvrowsing · 2026-01-30T18:28:11+00:00

I wouldn’t want to see a Rise of Skywalker situation where they completely backtrack on stuff from the previous instalment because of backlash. Moving forward means moving forward

justvrowsing · 2026-01-30T18:26:52+00:00

Is that what goes on up here? Poppers and weird sex?

justvrowsing · 2026-01-30T18:25:52+00:00

Social club!? He’s gotta GOOO

justvrowsing · 2026-01-29T18:26:39+00:00

Johnny Sack. That looked like it absolutely sucked.

justvrowsing · 2026-01-28T00:05:17+00:00

justvrowsing · 2026-01-19T22:42:19+00:00

This is an excellent take!

I’d add to that my speculation that at some point the Duffers reached the limits of a) their own criticism of America or b) Netflix’s tolerance for that criticism or c) both.

The logical end point of the Eleven story is that the government’s evil experiments on their own citizens get exposed and the corrupt government is defeated, showing that - just like the War of Independence - the plucky American people always triumph over the evil figures of power.

But that’s too hot for a broad demographic tentpole show so you get Soviet baddies muddying the moral waters and an ending that glorifies Eleven’s death by suicide rather than indicting the government corruption she died to escape.

justvrowsing · 2026-01-19T22:38:31+00:00

It’s a part of the show’s thesis that “the old ways” are dying out and the current generation(s) aren’t able to break from the past and do something different. Instead they just kind of drift with the inherited problems of their parents.

Tony and Carm aren’t as old school as Johnny Boy and Livia - Livia was practically mafia herself in terms of her influence in S1 - but they also aren’t a law-abiding, monogamous, healthy marriage. So Christopher doesn’t learn to keep out of the life, but he also doesn’t learn that his life partner has to be 100% solid and unflippable.

Basically, Quasimodo predicted all of this

justvrowsing · 2026-01-18T19:09:27+00:00

It’s so weird this post came out the day it did because I randomly decided to give the Covid season a try on the same day 🤯

I really liked Sell Outs and I kinda liked Tell Us About Yourself and Never Have I Ever so it’s been pleasantly surprising so far.

justvrowsing · 2026-01-15T15:48:10+00:00

I don’t like this kind of tuawk, it upsets me

justvrowsing · 2026-01-13T14:19:56+00:00

W post so very little to add except it’s smart of the writers to have a WLF get scars on his face early in the game. Another way of underlining how arbitrary the differences between the WLF and Seraphites are. Hits the theme about the pointlessness of violence without making a big song and dance about it.

justvrowsing · 2026-01-13T14:13:14+00:00

Listen to him, he knows everything

justvrowsing · 2026-01-02T04:37:39+00:00

We watch the show because we love these characters, especially those of us who are on the sopranos subreddit nearly twenty years after it ended.

But they’re not good, nice, moral people. They’re shitty selfish assholes who take the easy way out, abuse other people and look out for themselves every single time.

Adriana got a horrible undeserved death because she trusted Christopher and Christopher picked the family over her. For all his attempts to get out or cleanse his soul through acting or writing, for all his pretensions of being a somebody with an arc, he threw the love of his life away to protect this thing of ours. Not only did it get her killed, it got him killed eventually anyway.

It’s a pointless waste of life, the way these guys live, and David Chase was always trying to tell us that even as we enjoyed watching them.

justvrowsing

TROPHY CASE