this is the highest quality i could find the scene in sadly. i tried my best to do it properly lol correct me if i’m wrong on anything. or on any words i missed but i really did try to get them all.

the other page is way too hard for me to read with the quality this video is in :-((

It's of course integral to Solomon's primary character conflict that he is struggling with his sexuality and performance of masculinity, which has led to his social isolation and unhealthy behaviors, and one obvious manifestation here is Sol's obsession with Not Danny Phantom (a teenage cartoon character) bleeding into his decision to pick up a teenager (not explicit what bday Balthy's celebrating, but I don't think any of the characters are thinking about it) who he could've just abandoned, and get very close to him. But it's interesting to think about where the Danny Phantom/anime obsession comes from and how it relates to his relationship with his abusive father. There's a psychosexual undercurrent in Sol's relationship with his father, and Beaver's aggressive attempts to "make a man" out of him. It's clear that Beaver recognizes that Sol isn't straight or "masculine" enough, starting since childhood it seems, and his attempts to "fix" Sol I would characterize as sexual abuse. Beaver has introduced Sol to pornographic videos featuring himself, seemingly early enough that Sol considers this normalized, and references his "catchphrase" from his stint in porn acting as positive reinforcement in his interactions with his son. He and his buddy Supes are quick to try and pressure Supes' gf into sexual contact with Sol, which they relent when she clearly isn't into it, but this is followed by Beaver grabbing Sol by the genitals aggressively, then laughing it off as a "joke", which Sol is pressured to also laugh off. All this is indicative of a longer history of similar behavior (I guess the timeline puts this before Sol was 13 years old) and thus colors what Sol considers to be "normative" sexuality, as well as producing a degree of sexual fixation on his father. (I've noticed Sol also brings his father up when sexting with "Terra", in a line on screen where he mentions being "hot for teacher". Dark!) This is, however, very off-putting to others when expressed (as it is to Taylor), which runs a direct line through his struggles with sexuality and "failed" masculinity, and his experience of psychosexual abuse, and his broader social alienation.

So where does Danny Phantom come in (I'm just gonna treat it like it's literally Danny Phantom, it's clear the filmmakers mean for it to literally be Danny Phantom, I think this is a reference to supermarket shooter Randy Stair?)

I think it's pretty clear that Solomon's obsession with Danny Phantom is on account of the character having been a sexual awakening for him at a young age, but due to the shame and abuse directed at his sexuality (which one has to assume started around the same time/was likely motivated in part by Beaver noticing his fixation on him), he is unable to express as much and just compartmentalizes it as a fictional character he "really likes" for no specific reason. I think it's pretty normal for children to have sexual awakenings on account of cartoon and other children's show characters. We have a distinct social conception of "age appropriate" sexuality in fiction that we see in the romantic leads of Disney films and the like, and a lot of media aimed at pubescent age groups is deliberate in its appeal towards that. That said, it's expected for kids to grow out of this as they age, and find new "age appropriate" subjects for their sexual attraction. Solomon, however, has a stunted sexuality on account of his abuse, and was never able to fully examine and internalize his attraction to Danny Phantom as attraction to boys in general, and thus remains fixated on a high school aged cartoon character instead of finding "age appropriate" subjects as he's grown older.

Interestingly, Sol still owns a Pride flag (amongst his Nazi paraphernalia and "Don't Tread On Me" flag) which he describes as a "past phase" he has since discarded. Given the timeline of the film puts him at about 20 years old, he was likely a teenager/still in high school during his out of the closet "phase". Given his father's absenteeism, one has to wonder if this was at a time when he could explore his identity with more support, which was rescinded with his father coming back into his life for a period, and thus any open gay/bi identification was discarded in an effort to gain his father's approval. I'll also make a side note of Danny Phantom in real life having a somewhat significant fanbase amongst the Queer Youth (I can't say why, I didn't have cable tv growing up), so one can imagine Sol would've been able to find plenty of openly-queer (as far as the internet is concerned) peers in his teen years when engaging with the show online, which may have encouraged his "out phase".

With all the above characterization in mind (and Taylor's comments that he's always talking abt finding cartoon characters hot), it's somewhat easy to imagine that Sol spends some of his time looking up Danny Phantom pornography (and other hentai, if his room decor is any indication: the specter of goonerism haunts the set dressing) and not being shy about bringing it up. I figure this was probably a habit he started young, after he was introduced to pornography in general by his father, and he probably doesn't think much about "why" he continues looking at hentai of a high school aged character as an adult. Solomon is pretty emotionally stunted and acts childish in general, which one could chalk up to his history of abuse/neglect, and the fact he's still living in the same trailer he grew up in, so I think he identifies with Danny Phantom more than he fetishizes his youth, and probably doesn't think anything has changed much with what his habits reflect about him now that he's 20 years old. Not to mention, whatever internet platforms he's finding it on have presumably contributed to the normalization of sexualizing the character in his mind. If he ever does think about it, he probably compartmentalizes it as not "really" child pornography (and maybe not "really" gay at that) if it's just a cartoon. I'll also point out that some of the anime characters on his walls are wearing schoolgirl uniforms, and the generic shirtless anime twink he has over his computer looks like he could be a high school aged character too (ambiguous). And then the water gets a bit murkier when he starts getting involved with an actual high schooler...

I think it's interesting to look at the above in a similar context to the school shooting content of the film, in that Solomon is engrossing himself in fantasy scenarios as a reaction to his real-world alienation and general dissatisfaction with his lot in life, and Balthazar entering his life brings these fantasies to a head with reality. Balthy is under the impression that he's in Texas to stop a Real school shooter, and he wants to see action. Balthy also made his way to Texas after sexting with said "school shooter" (under false pretenses). I don't know that Solomon would've otherwise been forward about propositioning a boy for sex (though there is a sexual element in the shock meme he first sends to "troll" Balthy), but here is a teenager he sent a dick pic to online (under false pretenses), who flew all the way from New York City to be his "friend". And this teenager's "friendship" with him is predicated on his school shooter fantasies. Everything else is falling down in his life, meanwhile his fantasies are coming true whether he likes it or not.

As a side note: while it's ambiguous, I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption that Balthy is celebrating his 18th bday during the film, but proving the "legality" of the scenario is less of interest to me than the more general social implications (and even if Balthy was """barely legal""", he would've still been sexting with Sol while underage). Are Sol's intentions "predatory"? That's a grey area. Do the other people in his life assume best intentions in his relationship with Balthy? Absolutely not. He's already treated like a sick fuck for his (transparently sexual) Danny Phantom obsession, and here he is with a conspicuously high school aged boy following him around all of a sudden. Certainly nothing about this scenario will improve his social alienation, and yet this is the only person beyond his house-bound grandmother who's ever expressed an interest in him, so he can't bring himself to reject Balthazar outright.

Taylor, at the gas station, clearly recognizes the sexual undertones in Sol and Balthy's relationship, as Sol has been a bit too vocal about his Danny Phantom interest in the past, and calls it out in an effort to get him to leave. When the two of them meet up with Beaver and Supes at the bar, there's a lot of puzzling by the two of them over what exactly Balthy's relationship with Sol is. This colors their challenges towards Solomon's masculinity, and how quickly Balthy's presence (as an underage-looking boy from New York who seems a little too close to Sol) causes the situation to deteriorate. It's kind of an interesting choice that this film never gets into explicit hate crime-ing or throwing around homophobic slurs, which I think works in its favor, but I think it's clear homophobia is an underlying motivation throughout the whole scene (especially when Beaver seems like the kind of person to characterize all gay people as child predators, and probably would not have the same reaction to Sol carting a conspicuously high school aged girl around).

I think Balthy's motivations are interesting here too, in that he seems to have an abstract idea that he can "seduce" Solomon into doing what he wants, and then doesn't know how to respond when Sol actually engages with this. This first time we see this of course is when Balthy is catfishing Sol, wherein his first instinct to get close to him after getting blocked is to immediately initiate sexual roleplay, but doesn't know how to respond when pushed, and turns to ai assistance. Later, when they're outside the school and Balthy tries his hand at aiming the rifle at the janitor, he sounds like he's trying to push buttons he thinks Sol wants pushed when he asks if he wants him to shoot. This scene is followed by Eleanor revealing to Sol that Balthy has a sexual fixation on gun violence, the two of them popping pills and going shooting again, which Balthy gets a little too into, and then Sol trying to bring up their sexting history again, which Balthy responds to by bringing up Beaver rather than engage directly. There's very much a dark parallel here in their relationship to one another, where Balthy wants gun violence out of Sol, and is trying to use sex to get it, while Sol wants sex out of Balthy, and is trying to use gun violence to get it. And certainly the most romantically framed scene in the film is earlier when Sol is teaching Balthy to shoot, synthesizing the two desires...

It's kind of ambiguous whether Balthy is categorically "into boys" at all, but it's also ambiguous whether he's categorically "into girls" either. His interest in Eleanor seems more to be about what she represents, as someone with a serious take on the zeitgeist that would receive positive attention online (though not so much irl), than in her as a person. He is able to do okay with her through mirroring, but when left to his own devices fumbles horribly at reading the appropriate social cues and scares her off. He doesn't actually care enough about her to understand why she doesn't respond well to his "interests" (meanwhile she thinks she's about to get Benny's Video-d), and treats her more as a prize to be won. Similarly, he doesn't pick up on the PA girl flirting with him at the end, because she doesn't represent anything he wants, while he's still hung up on clawing for Eleanor's attention despite her complete disengagement from him. This outlook is colored more by misogyny than romantic or sexual attraction (although this is also an attempt to perform masculinity "correctly", rather than a rejection of sexuality), and that same misogyny is present in his decision to make an ai dupe of his mother's voice without her consent to use in sexting with a stranger. This isn't a decision made out of explicit Oedipal desire (although it's still A Choice, especially when he continues playing with the voice dupe later), but one that was made just because it was convenient. She was the first available woman he could use for his ends and he didn't think much farther than that, how she might feel if she ever found out never crossed his mind. His interest in Solomon, therefore, is more about what he represents, and how Balthy can use him for his ends, than it is about any interest in Sol as an individual, which we can see in the way he perks up when Sol leans into his "school shooter" performance early on. By the end, however, Balthy has no qualms about dropping him once he realizes Sol isn't the twisted fucking psychopath he pretends to be.

There's also an interesting parallel drawn between Balthazar performatively imitating another "cryfluencer" who made a video about child sexual abuse in an attempt to make his life coach look bad, and Solomon actually having experienced childhood sexual abuse, but downplaying it as normalized. (I really dislike that people online seem to have turned this scene into a meme, but I digress.) To Balthy (and perhaps to the "cryfluencer"), this is just a fantasy concept to be weaponized, but when faced with the reality of someone actually struggling with the experience, he is disgusted and calls him pathetic. Sol, meanwhile, doesn't recognize his father's treatment of him as sexual abuse, nor does he identify his attraction to a high schooler as "pedophilic". All he knows is that he's angry and alienated and his attempts to find connection only alienate him further. And even after he thinks he's finally found a friend he can connect to over the things that have only served to isolate him before, Balthy eventually turns on him like everyone else.

I don't think the film is necessarily "excusing" Solomon's behavior as much as it's just painting a tragic portrait of contemporary chudism. This kinda behavior doesn't spring out of nowhere, and its origins are typically a lot more complicated than what is easily commodifiable for the internet, and I think the film does a lot of things right in exploring where it comes from with nuance. I think it also brings up a lot of complicated questions, that it isn't so interested in answering outright as it is in letting you, the audience, stew on them. "Anime-obsessed edgy right-wing loner" is an easily recognizable stereotype, but what do those traits reveal about someone like that? How might the compartmentalization of "it doesn't count if it's a cartoon/a meme/a fantasy" affect someone's willingness to engage in behaviors they would otherwise avoid, whether genuinely harmful, as in the sexual exploitation of children or valorization of gun violence, or simply counter to their worldview, as in same-sex attraction for example, or attraction to trans people (I think the right-wing's obsession with "femboys" runs parallel here: a sex object it simultaneously "isn't gay" to be attracted to, while also under no obligation to affirm her trans womanhood), or to people of color, etc? At what point does clinging to childhood interests go from "age appropriate" to "creepy"? At what point does antisocial behavior go from a symptom of a rough life to something actively harmful? Lots to unpack here, lots of thoughts rotating in my brain...