my name is [Lime]

but it’s teenagers we’re talking about here. so the chain of logic goes, if they’re not together—which of course they aren’t this is all just for fun guys you don’t really believe they’re gay, do you, the vday video was a prank—then they’re probably not gay, and are in fact straight, and will end up with women and kids and a dog and a white picket fence like oh so many unfortunate YA protagonists in epilogues (the primary books fans had read atp, lbr)

so there was a whole cottage industry built around this emotional tension of fans caring so, so much about dan and phil now (back then), but “knowing” that it could never last because eventually they would move on to have the traditional signifiers of a happy life. youtube was seen as childish, no one knew if it was even possible for it to be sustainable for more than one, two, five years; dan and phil were of course straight so they would want to settle down with susan from the shop, and all the fun the teenagers were having was given an ambiguous, dramatic end point.

Hmmm OKAY yes I think I have a few more:

- "Luca come here. Let me see. Open your fucking mouth, kid. Okay yeah, he's bleeding, tell them to give that fucker double, Ilya--"

- "Yeah so like...you eat the food with your hands. No forks. No, they give you this bread. Yeah it's good. Kind of spicy."

- "Hey buddy. Nah, not much. Jackie and the kids good? That's good. Surprised you're not part of the scrum. Yeah he told me he was gonna try to fight you tonight."

- "Ha, no, stay there. I don't wanna hear it. No, I don't want you to whisper it either. Save it for the power play."

- "Can you do this with your pinky? Yeah. Huh, maybe it's because I've broken mine. Hey, Bood, can you do this with your pinky? Huh. Chouinard--tap Chouinard--hey, try to do this--"

- "That ref fucking hates me and you know why--you fucking KNOW why--no I will not calm down!"

- "Yeah it was nice, but I don't think we'll go back. I dunno. It rained the whole time and Ilya said it made him feel homesick. No, like, for Russia. Yeah. Big sad Slavic eyes the whole time. And he's, y'know. My guy. When he's sad, I'm sad. Nah, that's not sappy, that's just marriage, man."

- "Hey, did you know that the point of hockey is actually to keep your blades on the ice? Yeah it helps. You can't go as far skating on your nose."

- "Aw shit, buddy, did he get you? Did my husband use his big stick to put you on your back? Aw man, bud, I dunno. Sounds kind of gay."

- "No, it's fine, not broken. Don't fuss. I'll tell you what I said later. No, later. Uh-huh. You get it. Eyes on the game, Rozanov."

- "Aw, fuck, he threw a blade. Oh you are not serious. Why is he crawling. COME ON, THIS IS WHAT WE LEARNED THE POWER PULLS FOR--"

- "Oh, kiss cam. You know, I asked them not to--helmet, Ilya. I said you could kiss my helme--mmm. Fine."

- "Say that again about my fucking family, motherfucker! Say that shit again! I'm not gonna let you fuckers play like that anymore!"

And thus Mary living is because she actually learned from the trauma instead of repeating it over and over again, something only she only had the chance to learn due to the system caring about her as a white child enough to save her. But also she routinely has her control over situations stripped away from her as well, such as the end of the movie and both when her mother imprisoned her in their home and when she’s taken from her by force. Mary is given safety, comfortableness, but not control or agency or importance. Because while she is white she is also just a woman, a still life in someone else’s show until she’s deemed important enough to be rescued and put in a new sparkly cage.

They are both doomed in spite of who they are and because of it. There is no winning for them. At the end, they are still consumed by the systems in which they dedicated themselves, whether that be the backrooms itself or the medical field or greater kinds of oppression.

Calling Kane Parsons' Backrooms an 'adaptation of a 4chan post' is so wildly insane given that the movie has virtually nothing to do with the original post whatsoever other than it serving as vague inspiration. Like atleast half of the negative reviews it gets is because it isn't the 'real backrooms' that the internet made up and that Kane is sticking to his story and his vision and not adding in 'Level 666: the spooky level!' Or some lame shit some random wiki cooked up

They did not turn a 4chan post into a movie, they turned a hugely popular internet webseries into a movie and it did crazy at the box office

Its also very much arthouse, not only is it subversive as a film, taking an internet web series and turning into a full scale production, but it also subverted the industry by giving a 20 year old a theatrical release (something that filmbros are still refusing that he actually did, and are insisting that theres a real, older, proper director behind the scenes because no way a 20 year old could direct a movie, apparently)

Me the second half of the backrooms: