#I thought they were like a Greek chorus

[wearepaladin]

If you do end up writing that scene about your RT, please share it with us!

Orphic Hymn 64 to Nomos (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) : "Hymn to Nomos (Law). The holy king of gods and men I call, heavenly Nomos, the righteous seal of all: the seal which stamps whatever the earth contains, and all concealed within the liquid plains: stable, and starry, of harmonious frame, preserving laws eternally the same. Thy all-composing power in heaven appears, connects its frame, and props the starry spheres; and unjust envy shakes with dreadful sound, tossed by thy arm in giddy whirls around. 'Tis thine the life of mortals to defend, and crown existence with a blessed end; for thy command alone, of all that lives, order and rule to every dwelling goes. Ever observant of the upright mind, and of just actions the companion kind. Foe to the lawless, with avenging ire, their steps involving in destruction dire. Come, blest, abundant power, whom all reverse, by all desired, with favouring mind draw near; give me through life on thee to fix my sight, and never forsake the equal paths of right."

It always begins and ends with numbers. In a material universe, there are laws written unto the foundation of everything, from the most ancient stars to the machinery of atoms, the edicts that dictate the fundament are written eternal. In this place absent of meaning, walls of metal and the hollow men who loomed over the lost and the damned, did Thane Solcar fortify her mind with numbers, the digits providing rhythm, the equations lyrics, and solutions a chorus.

Estimated population of the Imperium between (10 to the 15th power) and (10 to the 24th power).

Thane Solcar had been someone small as opposed to negligible value in the Imperium of Man. The younger daughter of a minor nobility, an off shoot of some distant ancestor of greater significance whose wayward progeny had used their inheritance to separate from the greater dynasty to find their own way as a merchant noble making their travails among the stars. Not content to settle into a sedentary life upon anyone one location in the Empire of Humanity, they had been wayfarers upon the void. And her parents had ensured she'd never lacked the respect in the machine spirits and their codices on the proper maintenance and direction, and she had taken well to it, learning keenly and adapting what could be safely learned for one technically not part of the Followers of the Omnissiah, but like any of the voidborn, their ship was the world, the galaxy distant compared to the great emptiness that fills it. And the reliance upon the Light that allowed one to navigate it.

Tithe requires 1,000-4,000 subjects daily. In a single year, 365,000 to 1,460,000 are brought to Holy Terra. They are brought...

The Astronomican, the Light that spanned across the Imperium, allowing The Imperium to exist, was known to any Voidborn who bothered to use their ears. The need to have it and the Navis Nobiliti, who alone could used that Light as a point of reference across the infinite. Thane knew the Navis were psyker mutants, and thus not trusted by many of the ground walkers, but the necessity of them, both in the immediate wellbeing of her family's fortunes and mankind as a whole, went a long way to smothering the hatred that Thane was told she should feel for such beings. What use was hate for something that you needed to live? This thought process proved beneficial, a passive acceptance of the need of psykers. It helped when she learned that she herself was one.

...before the Astronomican, and aid in its care, under the gaze of His Divine Majesty. This has been the case for the last 10,000 years. Therefore...

It began innocently enough. Thane thought she heard choruses outside the hull and tried to imitate them, trying to find harmony, and Things began listen to and object to the harmony. The discordance (Chaos) overtook so much, and only the harmonies that sought brought a notion of defense even as ice began to freeze her surroundings. The Caretakers of the Black Ships thus found her, lost in the harmonies and the numbers she mumbled like a shield, even as everything else was lost. ...those brought to the Astronomican in the history of the Imperium thus number between 3 to 8 billion depending on the consistency of those provided by the Black Ships. But....where do they go, the numbers of people, they need somewhere to go...where are...

Thus it had been for the days of the journey on Black Ship, the vessels whose purpose was to find and transport the Tithe, the psykers the Imperium could provide. That the Imperium needed. She could not trust her newfound senses, but Thane had been using the far more trusted sense of her ears, and listened to what little the guardians on the ship had said. She knew they were going to the homeworld of mankind, to serve The God Emperor in some way related to the Astronomican. Unknown to her, two women observed her briefly as they studied Thane and the other Psyker prisoners. They spoke with their hands, having long ago made an oath of silence. (This one?) (Too weak willed. Mumbling throughout the journey, insane due to what happened to her kinsmen aboard the ship we found her. She will serve the God-Emperor by providing him the kindling He needs) And with that, her fate decided, they walked by, moving on to determine fate of the next imprisoned, and Thane Solcar was sentenced by the servants of The Emperor. And that should have been the end of it. -----

The Golden Throne is often invoked by the denizens of the Imperium of man, nearly as synonymous as their empire and the god they are devoted to as the emblem of the Aquila, the icon of their empire. But the Throne itself is often less depicted beyond a simple chair that the iconography of the Emperor at rest. In truth, it is more than that. Housed in the holy mountain that had once been known as Everest as a sign of human pride or Chomolungma for those who'd been born under her shadow and thus knew her as Mother of the world, the Mountain had been hollowed long ago, and it was here and among the sister mountains that the Imperial Palace resided, respledent with a majesty that silenced the past natural beauty in favor of the crafted golden glory of the relatively recent Imperium of Man. It was here, that Thane Solcar was brought, her newfound senses blinding her to any notion of Imperial Opulence, as the Light of the Astronomican burned so brightly, making even the sun seem a distant comparison to the Light that crowned this world. And beneath that crown sat Him, The Emperor. She could not see Him, hidden away in a labyrinth of gold, iron, and stone, but as she was laid out among the rows upon rows of other Tithed, she could feel Him, like a crystaline spike that all reality seemed to twist through. One by one, then multitude by multitude, she watched as the Tithed became part of that light, their souls as bright as myriad stars, were taken, absorbed, added ot the conflagration that was Him. Death, she realized. Death was what awaited those sacrficed before Him on Earth. With comprehension did not rouse panic, not yet, but as she hummed her harmonies, her soul beginning to be dragged into the cosmic bonfire that was Soul of the Master of Mankind, she dared something that some would consider blasphemy as her soul made contact with the Emperor.

Why?

The Light overtook her, and Annihilation or Consumption did not claim her. Instead she Saw, her single question answered in the form of a galaxy long burning. Thane Solcar saw the galaxy burning over a period of fifteen thousand years and humanity and xenos alike lost to that conflagration. Once great nations and dreams forever lost, be it to Man's own Folly, the machinations of dark powers from within and without reality, or the simple cruelties of fate. She saw the Emperor's dream of uniting mankind after the Long Night, a belief in the destiny of her species, their species, for He spoke to her now in a way that rendered others to embers, a fire she was now, and yet still herself.

She saw the events leading to the Great Crusade, the Crusade itself and the endless wars that followed, of Heresy, of Conquest, of Glory and Purpose. She saw why He had decided the neccessity of it all, paid in blood and lives uncountable.

And yet she counted. It pained her to, counting not only the psykers given to bonfire that was the Astronomican, but those lost to war and pogrom, genocide, betrayal, and hatred. So much hatred. She saw the nations that had been rebuilding before the Emperor had forced Compliance, and how many could have built back the lost empires and federation of humanity, not as a single beast with a emperor deified, either in faith or reason, but the lost cultures and hopes of peoples across countless worlds. She counted them all, considered them all, and this, more than anything, became a new flame that burned bright in her chest, the lost harmonies finding a home within Thane Solcar.

Thane looked at the Emperor, what remained of the man upon a dying throne. And named him Demiurge, master of much but not all, wise but flawed, alive but dead. More hollow god then broken man. She left the mythology he'd created with the Imperium as its spiritual demesne, and took her own faith with her, seeking Nomos elsewhere. Thus she was found, strange and heretical notions buried deep, alone alive among thousands given in blood and spiritual sacrifice, the mark of the Aquila branded in gold upon her brow. The sanctity of the Emperor, it was decided, and all the better for it. A Rogue trader house, distant ancestor of the Solcars, had been seeking this one errant psyker. Perhaps there she could be made to serve the Emperor and all His great works.

#rogue trader #warhammer 40k #long post #thane solcar von valancius #nomos

[lambsouvlaki]

For the Hell of it 4 - Pillion

Character: Jason Todd x civilian! Fem!oc

Rating and Warnings: G, mention of vomit, mention of past abuse.

Word Count: 1,292

Summary: Jason takes Andy on his bike for the first time.

Masterlist

Jason laughed at her. Andy did not care. 

“It’s not ‘doing movies wrong’,” she replied with her chin lifted up while she held the door out of the movie theatre open for him. “It’s a passive activity, you can’t do it wrong.”

“You’re doing this one wrong, who sees Mission Impossible for the plot?” 

“What were you here for then?”

“The stunts, obviously.” He buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket and strolled beside her out into the warm afternoon. They both blinked at the brightness. “That’s the whole marketing campaign. Most dangerous stunt ever attempted by a human. Don’t know how they’re judging that exactly, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen youtube videos of Nightwing pulling stupider tricks two hundred feet over concrete pavement.”

“How would they know that anyway?” she said. “‘By a human’. What, are they DNA testing the crew?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “We’d know if Tom Cruise was a Metahuman.”

“Yeah, but what if the stunt coordinator was prescient and just never told anyone. Maybe the guy who checks the ropes and harnesses got that job because he’s got the power of tensile strength detection.”

Jason snorted a laugh. “They walk among us, doing safety checks?”

“Metas gotta pay the rent too.” She suddenly wished she’d kept her stupid mouth shut. “I assume.” 

Jason didn’t seem to notice, frowning at the tinted windows of the Italian restaurant they usually went to after catching a movie. They weren’t dates, of course, because they’d agreed they weren’t dating. They were just hanging out.

She followed his eyes to the windows but couldn’t make out anything more than vague movement through the glass.

He stepped ahead of her and pushed open the door, putting himself between her and the interior. She heard glass smashing and a lot of yelling before she saw a large man in a chef’s jacket punch a man in a suit in the stomach. He threw up spaghetti and red sauce all over the floor. 

She made a face and stepped back outside, chased by the acrid stench and a chorus of yells. Jason let the door swing shut again. 

“I’m suddenly not hungry for pasta,” he groused. 

She sighed. How quintessentially Gotham. Or maybe just Crime Alley. “There’s that Greek place on the next block?”

“I had Greek food for lunch.” He looked at her with his eyes slightly narrowed. His scheming face, she called it. “How do you feel about Afghan food? There’s a great place in the Narrows.” 

“I’m not walking to the Narrows.” 

He jerked his head at his bike, parked in front of the theatre. “It’s a quick ride. And I can drop you home afterwards.”

“Oh, okay. Sure, let’s try that then.” She followed him towards the gleaming black motorbike that she was honestly a little surprised nobody had tried to steal. She paused awkwardly a couple of feet away while he got his gloves out of his back pocket. 

“I’ve never ridden pillion before. You have to tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

Jason sent her a curious look. “You’ve ridden a bike yourself?”

“Curse your attention to detail.”

He laughed. It was a warm and loud sound, and all too rare. She counted anything more than a snort as a win. 

“Never ridden pillion.” He swung a leg over the bike and patted the seat behind him. “Come on, daylight’s burning and I’m hungry.” 

She hopped up behind him, straddling the seat. It was a far more… close seating arrangement than she’d thought about in advance. Jason was tall and broad, she couldn’t see anything except his back from this position. He was so warm too, even without actually touching him. She could feel her cheeks warming a little and hoped he didn’t notice. She didn’t know where to put her hands. 

“Try to keep your leg away from the exhaust, it’ll get hot. Like that, perfect,” he said, pulling her knee slightly forward. “Now hands on my waist and try not to lean too much with the corners.”

She settled into the seat more comfortably and placed her hands on his waist. She could feel his rib cage expanding with each breath. “Like that?”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled his helmet on. “There’s gonna be a test at the end.” 

“Is the test Not Falling Off?” 

“I promise to circle round and scrape you off the road if you do. After a kebab or two.” 

“Asshole,” she said, but it was drowned out by the sudden roar of the bike. She knew he was smiling under the black helmet, she could sense it.

The bike vibrated between her legs much more than she expected, like some kind of angry beast. He wheeled it round, and then took off from the curb with a smooth acceleration. The force of the burst of speed startled her anyway and she leaned into him with a yelp. She cured around his back as they moved faster and faster, giving up on embarrassment. 

The cold air whipped past, a kaleidoscope of sounds and smells rushing by, but she was safe in the lee of his figure. He was so big and stable, it felt like wrapping herself around a column. A warm, breathing column. He smelled like leather conditioner and something smooth and earthy she couldn’t name. She tried not to lean out too much as he took corners, and found herself moving with him. It was such a tactile experience, overwhelming physical in a way she was unused to.

She shocked herself with how much she was into it. She leaned her cheek against his back. The leather of his jacket was soft. Before she met him she would have been shocked to think she’d gotten onto some man’s bike to go wherever he decided they were going. 

After the last time… in her darkest, loneliest moments she didn’t think she was ever going to trust anyone ever again. Certainly not a man, let alone one so intimidating. But she didn’t feel threatened by Jason, not in the least. 

She felt safer around him than she had in a long time. 

“Okay?” he called over his shoulder as they slowed to a stop at some lights.

“Okay!” 

She wondered if her instincts were leading her astray. She wasn’t stupid, she had seen his discoloured and ripped up knuckles, the scars lining his arms. He didn’t habitually find the exit in every room he entered due to a fear of a fire suddenly breaking out. Private security, he said his job was. In Gotham that could mean a number of things, some of them were even legal. The 200 something pounds of man between her legs was very dangerous. 

But he treated her so carefully, so gently. Like a little bird in his large hands, delicate heartbeat fluttering a mile a minute. 

Her pride raged at just how much she liked it. She hadn’t fought so hard to be in control of her life just to gamble with it now. She held on like a limpet as they pulled away from the lights. 

No. Bad Andy. Remember the last time you put your trust in someone you thought you knew? 

But Jason was nothing like Kieran. Kieran, insecure little insect, who needed someone to hold down just to reassure himself he was a man. Jason didn’t need any reassurances. He knew he was dangerous and spent more time making people feel comfortable and safe than trying to throw his weight around. 

When she was looking, that was. Just because he wasn’t the type of snake she’d encountered before didn’t mean he wasn’t going to turn around and bite her anyway. She didn’t know. He could be an all new variety of bad news. She held on a little tighter. 

City streets flashed by, and then they were shooting across the bridge, nothing but water and sky around them, dyed magnificent red in the sunset.

It didn’t matter of course. Because they weren’t dating.

Next >>

#jason todd #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd x oc #jason todd x reader #red hood x oc #red hood #bike rides #and angsting #slow burn #fluff #For the Hell of it #my fanfic

[dappydaffer]

WW Normal Album Analysis (pt. 4(?)) 💜

Back at it again, people!

I've been wanting to do this again for a while, since I haven't in actual months. And since @interfacefox 's request won, here I am again because even after almost a year of liking Will's music, my fixation refuses to cease.

If you know what's going on, then you know my whole normal album theory, but if not, here's a link to my last few posts where I analyzed the normal album and puked my thoughts out for people to see:

- Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733190401716027392/this-rant-im-about-to-go-on-will-probably-not?source=share

- Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733737259322474496/ww-normal-album-analysis-pt-2?source=share

- Part 3: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/734550698381950976/ww-normal-album-analysis-pt-3?source=share

• • • • • • • • • •

I'm not only doing this because of interface, but this is a song I have been itching to do for a while, despite how lengthy/complex it seems, and the song I'm going to be analyzing is...

Black Box Warrior

(I am, however, splitting this up into parts. This shit is waaaay too much for me to analyze in one sitting, so you get the chorus and first (maybe couple) of verses for now-)

• • • • • • • • • •

Although I've heard the song was simply just a challenge for Will lyrically and musically, there is a theory I strongly believe about this song, and that it's an allusion/reference to the illegal human experimentation program, MKUltra, which started in 1953, and continued until 1973. The experiment itself was run and designed by the CIA and its sole purpose was to test means of psychological torture, effects of drugs, and even brainwashing in order to force confessions out of people.

(I mean, hell, even the title is a spinoff name of the experiment itself - "OKULTRA-")

(Read more about it here, it is genuinely interesting as hell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra)

• • • • • • • • • •

In bits and pieces throughout the song, starting with the first verse, the lyrics have convinced me the song is either a doctor describing the horrid side effects a now-deceased patient endured due to the means of getting confessions out of them, or an unknown narrator is making it seem like the victim/patient's side effects was this nonsensical, psychedelic adventure, when it reality, it was far much worse.

Lyrics that either allude to the side effects or hint at this possibility at all within the first verse and chorus include:

"Trojan Horse'd his blood brain barrier and raised the LD-50.."

I belive the trojan horse invading the "brain barrier" is a metaphor relating to the obliviousness of this particular victim, or MKUltra patients in general, to the psychologically damaging actions being inflicted on them, and the effects they are yet to bring on them. The trojan horse tale tells of greek invaders successfully tricking the Trojans into letting them in, making it seem as if a giant wooden horse were a gift. The victim could also be seeing, or being told so by doctors inflicting them, that these experiments are for the greater good, when it really is just a heap of psychological torture and abuse in disguise, slowly and surely going to attack and seep in once it gets past the patient's defenses. Instead of immeadiately attacking, I believe that's where the LD-50 part of the metaphor kicks in. LD-50 is a term that refers to the amount of chemicals given, which causes 50% of the deaths in a group of test animals (usually before releasing the chemical to public) - Not only does this imply that patients are simply just treated like disposable test objects before they officially solidify these means of interrogation/testing as part of the criminal justice system, but it also shows that once the patient's defenses are downed/weakened, the LD-50 (lethal dose) can be further pushed to see how far the testing can go until the patient confesses or succumbs to the side-effects of the torture.

"- the Black Box Warrior, He skipped this town and headed straight down history-"

While I'm certain black box could be a reference to something else, I believe it not only refers to how CIA Director, Richard Helm ordered evidence of the project to be destroyed before the public was informed about it in 1975, but also alludes to how it adds confidentiality to the patient being referred to and personifies him as a stastistic or another case to destroy and rid of in the eyes of those in charge. Him "heading straight down history" could also be an allusion to how he simply just forgotten and/or killed off so easily and quickly, joining others who passed, and waiting for new patients to join him who will only get treated the same as he did, due to the abuse and effects inflicted by doctors.

"Roman candles at both ends in his synapses"

Burning both ends of the candle is a common phrase that exaggerates or tells that oneself is overworking or doing too much or burning themselves out, etc. Whilst synapses are spaces between cells that transmit nervous impulse (correct me if I am wrong). The patient in question having roman candles at both ends of their synapses is what I believe to be physical sensory overload or the "LD-50 being raised" far too high to the point of his nervous system going haywire. LSD was a common psychoactive drug used in MKUltra and when one takes LSD, the nervous system can be/is heavily effected (depending on how heavy the dosage) and from what science can conclude; since synapses, a part of the nervous system, facillitate communication between neurons via transmission of signals in neurotransmitter forms, and therefore play vital roles in the brain functioning properly (perception, memory, emotions, etc.), burning metaphorical roman candles at the ends of this patients' synapses implies that a scary, damn near lethal dose of LSD has been injected into the patient by doctors working for MKUltra.

"Shields himself from reason in a Kevlar baby-blue Tuxedo"

I believe here the song is panning to the doctor and a 3rd person point of view of what his intentions/thoughts are. Scrubs that doctors wear are typically a shade of "baby-blue," and kevlar is a material commonly used in bullet proof vests. With the doctor wearing a metaphorical baby-blue bulletproof vest, it could symbolize that the doctor may have a heart to at least barely acknowledge that what he is doing is wrong, however, it is his job to do so for the project, therefore he may be rationalizing and hiding behind his status as a doctor (hence the tuxedo metaphor, as I view tuxedos as a sign of high social/financial status) in order to dodge the bullet of actual reason (hence, the kevlar reference).

"If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now / There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down"

This piece of the chorus really feels like a "ride or die" statement towards the alleged patient. The song (or what I assume is the doctor) almost mockingly, or non-chalantly tells the patient that despite everything he has been put through, it wasn't enough to kill him and even though they have far enough pushed him past his physical and mental limit, he (the doctor) almost encourages this patient to continue on and comply with their experiments. This really shines a light on how little regard the higher ups of this program beared for the victims that were unfortunately involved. As for "looking up or looking down," I believe it is the doctor still telling the patient to continue on, until he dies, and either looks "up" to heaven, or "down" at hell. There truly is no more going back. The patient has to keep pushing and not only burn both ends of his synapses with the aforementioned metaphorical roman candles, he has to burn himself out physically and mentally until his body gives into the effects of the torture and LSD.

• • • • • • • • • •

Thank you for coming to my TED talk....holy shit, that took way too long-

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this, and if you have your own Black Box Warrior/Normal Album/Will Wood theory, I'd love to hear them.

I promise I will add more to this analysis with a part 2, however, I may do other WW songs in between that time =)

• • • • • • • • • •

#my hands are in agony #the brainrot is real #will wood #will wood and the tapeworms #the normal album #black box warrior #will wood analysis #“is this shit enough proof for you?” #dappy rants #music analysis

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Enjoy the doc! Look forward to your takes.

Thanks anon.

My main thought is how little of substance there was in the documentary. While we hadn't seen all the specific footage, we'd seen footage that was like what was included. While we hadn't heard the specific stories, we'd heard stories like those that were included.

It was very charming and endearing and I thoroughly enjoyed it and there were odd glimpses of something slightly different. But it was a very controlled, very boundaried view of his life. One storytelling choice that really interested me was that Louis' family, his managers, Oli and even Nizam (a little bit) all act as almost a greek chorus - emphasising the key points, saying the things Louis doesn't want to say, talking about the things Louis doesn't want to talk about.

Otherwise I was most interested in the spaces and gaps. Perhaps most starkly (and again not new, but very pointed) was the huge numbers of rainbow flags at every gig - that were very clearly present, very clearly a huge part of fan culture, very actively documented - and never commented on acknowledged in any way.

To me it was super interesting to see Louis take control of his story and tell a complete and coherent story of his life. I think it will be effective, both now and when it's on a streaming platform and acts as a key way in. It's also a really good advertisment for Louis' tour - literally they put up dates at the end of the credits. There was some light booing where I was - given that he hasn't announce New Zealand dates yet.

#I was also interested in the music choices #very little of Walls recordings were used #although the songs were used in live material #and as the movie went on #recordings from Faith in the Future were a bigger and bigger part #I thought that was really interesting because of what it suggested about Louis' relationship with Sony #who own the rights to Walls #But it also worked with the narrative of the song and him coming into his own voice

[chromatic-lamina]

I see a lot of people saying that doflamingo would eventually get out of jail for the final war or join the cross guild or just cuz crocodile did 

But it would really make me mad if he did ? Oda made a whole drama about law having to wait 13 years and to end what cora couldn’t  and he almost died doing it 

i see no point of him coming back but im sure if oda wanted him he will make up a point

But What do you think?

Ah, I'm in two minds about this. If I dive deeply into the angst and what Law is worth, then yes, Doflamingo should stay behind bars. I thought the other day that a final reflection of how Law is not the same as Doflamingo is that he didn't kill him (although he tried, dammit! Haha). Part of growth in One Piece is being strong enough to face your (potential) adversaries too though, maybe?

Shanks vs Kaidou, Garp vs Roger (or Rocks?), Big Mom vs Kaidou, Whitebeard vs Oden, etc. Law and Kid just took down Big Mom, and Law fortunately escaped Blackbeard. Maybe he's strong enough to face Doflamingo now, but also maybe he doesn't want to (and maybe he's not).

Doflamingo still has a role to play, given his prison cameos, his pithy quotes, and the seraphim! He's often acted as the One Piece chorus in a Greek drama sense. I also like batshit crazy Doflamingo from a humorous perspective (like, following that other thread looping through One Piece), so part of me would like to see the chaos that he & the Cross Guild could try an make, especially given Doflamingo's words with Croc at Marineford, and the way the shichibukai were far from sane.

For him to get a government release would be some seriously evil shit. But for him to somehow escape would make things interesting. Oda redeemed Buggy, and Croc to a degree. So I don't see him beyond having a role for Doflamingo to play in the future. Sorry, nonny, I'd love to see him come back into the fray, but also definitely do not want a replay of Dressrosa or the events (Including 13 years before) leading up to it. If he's totally redeemed though, I'd be disappointed, but Oda can usually pull off semi-redemptions.

I haven't thought it through 100%, so my thoughts aren't set in stone!

#one piece #trafalgar law #donquixote doflamingo #one piece spoilers #one piece manga spoilers #one piece egghead arc spoilers #one piece wano arc spoilers #anon ask #chromasks #chromanswers #chromalami

[leporellian]

thinking about masks in rigoletto. (haha! you thought i was over my Rigoletto Delusions but i WASN'T!) i think that masks have a really cool ability to sort of punctuate this opera and tell us a bit about how this work... you know, works. (that and lighting! these things are connected! but we'll get to that later.)

so we all know that the courtiers don masks, particularly when abducting gilda (but it's not Uncommon for them to be wearing masks in the opening scene either).

what's really interesting though about the use of masks in this scene is that, if we were to remove the masks from the scene entirely, the scene would still work plotwise. it's noted rigoletto isn't able to figure out who the courtiers are at first because it's too dark to see, and not because of the masks. (he figures out who they are within like 10 seconds.) and when rigoletto is blindfolded, it's not the mask the courtiers give him keeping him from being able to see what the courtiers actually are up to, but the blindfold around his eyes and ears. (as for how a blindfold is apparently able to muff his ears in... well, that's the magic of opera.)

but the masks are clearly important enough that they're mentioned in the libretto, (which is interesting because operas only really announce clothing items in the libretto if they're very important), and rigoletto asks for a mask when he participates in the courtiers' scheme. so that begs the question, why the hell are they all in masks anyway?

well, there's a few reasons. the first (more obvious) one deals with rigoletto himself and the show's pitch-accurate representations of external and internalized ableism. you know, the whole idea of rigoletto putting on a mask around other people, the concept of masking when it comes to disability, et cetera... and i think that's a fine point but i don't think it's the only point, because it answers why rigoletto gets a mask at this point but it doesn't answer the courtiers having them because the courtiers explicitly do not deal with ableism themselves.

that isn't to say i think that bit should be discarded, because it shouldn't. but there's other things going on here.

here's what i think is going on:

1- the masks render all of the courtiers into one character- there's productions where the courtiers all wear different masks, sure, but for the most part, productions give all the courters the same kind of mask. while we understand the courtiers as primarily one entity up to this point, given how rigoletto speaks of them and their function as a chorus, there are still some specific courtiers we regard as distinct: marullo, borsa, ceprano. by having all these characters literally wear the same face, we understand them as all having the same goal and mind. (which becomes really interesting because the three noted courtiers still retain their personalities even when the court operates as a hivemind. borsa asserts leadership and bosses the others around, ceprano urges the others to kill rigoletto on sight, and marullo treats rigoletto much the same way a high school social butterfly treats a special ed class. there's a lot of layers going on here and it's fascinating- and somewhat disturbing- how readily all these characters mold into one, showing all the different sides of the discrimination this society perpetuates.) in some ways, the courtiers are the greek chorus of this show.

2- the masks obscure the courtiers as people- one thing that's very important to note is that the duke of mantua himself is not really a person. literally he's a human, yes. but compare the nuance many characters in this opera are given to him; he's a flat archetype, a demonstration of an idea. the duke is the personification of what this society values, and the system of the court itself. the most nuance he's given is at the top of act two, and even then, that's just a big tomcat wondering where the mouse he bats at went. even if the murder for hire scheme of act 3 hadn't failed horrendously, rigoletto still wouldn't have won; the duke could be dead in the bag and some other courtier- probably borsa, from what we see- would have risen up and taken his place. that all in mind, if the courtiers are all masked, the audience no longer really sees them as people; they cannot emote (and the masks are often distinctly non-human looking). with the masks, the courtiers look a lot like the duke they stand under.

3- the masks tell us who rigoletto can understand, and who he cannot- ultimately, the courtiers prey upon rigoletto's inability to fully grasp them. rigoletto is totally out of his league with them not only from a physical ability perspective, but also in terms of social understanding. the courtiers are able to pick up on the nuance of a situation immediately, while rigoletto in their social setting is like a swerving uneven top. (look at the scene with monterone- the courtiers poke and prod at first, but they know when to shut up. rigoletto, meanwhile, high off of (some of) the courtiers previously enjoying his insult comedy, keeps going unaware of how much the dynamic has changed, and that's why monterone goes after him specifically.) the mask is the ultimate representation of this: it lacks emotion entirely, with no way to tell what the mask-wearer wants by just looking at it. rigoletto gets a mask too when the courtiers are pretending as though he is allowed into their world, but it's blindfolded and holed up unlike theirs; even then rigoletto is left unable to see what it is the courtiers are actually doing. (am i saying that rigoletto is meant to be a metaphor for autism? no. but am i saying rigoletto could be interpreted with that lens? well, if the shoe fits...)

4- the masks show a denominator of the society in rigoletto: concealment and conformity is valued- i don't think i have to explain this one too much beyond noting that the masks appear to be a status symbol.

SO, WITH ALL THAT IN MIND, you might think- 'hey, wait a minute- you said this was about lighting!' and it's also about that.

look at the common denominator in depictions of the duet between rigoletto and sparafucile.

notice something in common? the scene is shadowy and dark, and sparafucile always wears a cloak (which, like the masks, are specifically noted in the libretto). you COULD argue this is because sparafucile is a shadowy, morally dark character and assassins in media of this time wore cloaks like that, but i think that's just the surface level.

sparafucile is attempting to conceal himself- just as the courtiers do. sparafucile understands he's an outsider, but he also wants to have some kind of place in society- hence his service-providing. he's trying and stumbling to follow the societal rules the courtiers exemplify. but even though he's concealing himself, he doesn't have a mask; he's just in shadow. rigoletto can see him, even if we as an audience can't see him well. and that's because rigoletto and sparafucile understand one another and share the same social language. this also humanizes sparafucile- sure, he looks scary, but he's just a person in a way the courtiers... aren't.

and that's the difference between rigoletto and the courtiers versus rigoletto and sparafucile. the courtiers are part of something rigoletto will never be. they are a different species. but sparafucile is just like rigoletto... and is only different because of the different ways in which rigoletto and sparafucile ultimately attempt (and fail to) find 'purpose' in the society around them.

interestingly, the one rigoletto i found where sparafucile is masked is the operavox animated short film, which also cuts a lot of the more sympathetic aspects of the character for time and to simplify the story. here sparafucile is a member of the same oppressive society as the courtiers (as seen when he and maddalena look down on rigoletto getting kicked around by monterone), and so he dons a mask too.

finally, as a side note, vegas rigoletto is a dramaturgical mess but i LOVE that the masks for the courtiers there look doglike:

i don't like the weird ancient egypt thing this production has got going on (setting the whole thing in vegas certainly was a choice) but the choice of making the masks doglike is genius. for one, it serves the courtiers perfectly; with the symbolism of guard dogs and pack mentality. but also, when they put the mask on rigoletto... it kind of shows what they take him for: an animal, a dog to play at and tease.

anyway. idk. Masks in Rigoletto everyone

#rigoletto #opera tag #rambles

[popculturebuffet]

Little Retrospective of Horrors: The Musicals (Monthly Muppets Madness) (Comission for Emma Fici)

Welcome back all you strange and intresting plants to both my little retrospective of horrors AND monthly muppet madness my (usually) monthly look at anything muppet related. And after a blood apptizer or the original corman film, you can find that review HERE, i'ts time to get to the chunks of fileted dentist main course with the stage musical and one of my all time favorite films, it's 1986 film adaptation.

Originally I was going to do the stage version seperate... but when I sat down to watch the best visual and audio quality one I could find on youtube, the 2008 production from the American Musical Theater of San Jose which you can find HERE if your curious.. I found out that in addition to being a great movie on it's own.. LIttle Shop of Horrors is an EXCELLENT adaptation: While there are changes to make it work better as a film, cut songs for time and some changes in Seymours character we'll get to, most of the dialogue and music is exactly as it was in the stage play. At it's core the film is simply the musical as it's best self, taking all the great parts of it, trimming a bit of fat and giving us some knockout performances in the lead rolls. The film has some issues, we'll get to that like everything else... but on the whole even looking past my nostalgia.. it's still just a complete joy to watch and a love letter to the original

So i'll mainly be looking at the movie, but still covering the stage play here and there including the cut songs.

Good then let's dive into the giant man eating plant under the cut and see how it still talks, moves, sings and busts our balls after all this time.

Ya Never Know:

Little Shop of Horrors was the second collab and the brekaout one for the duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin, a lyrcist and composer respectfully. It's , to my shock this very musical that caught Disney's eye, leading to the two composing songs for The Little Mermaid, Oliver and Company, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and of all things Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue, which I covered this 420. Sadly Ashman passed away in 1991, same year I was born, of AIDS, never seeing the finished Beauty and the Beast. His lost is a tragic one and i'ts sad a voice was robbed from us too soon by a disease that might of had better treatment had the goverment not been homophobic idiots. Menken is still working for Disney to this day, often returning for the unecessary live action remakes. Hey if it gets a certified legend a paycheck, at least some good comes out of those.

At any rate, back then the two were theater writers, whose previous show, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, hadn't done well. Wanting a fun project, Ashman thought back to an old play of his about a plant that had a magnetisim about it, a cult of personality.. and then realized it was a ripoff of beloved film from his teen years, Little Shop of Horrors. He pitched the idea to Menken who after seeing the film was absolutely in love, with it's 60's setting giving him plenty of inspiration.

"Howard and I work fairly quickly once we have the handle on what we’re doing. But we did go through a long period of outlines and song styles that we discarded. I decided that I wanted the musical approach to come from some early 1960s music—the girl group sound. It has a very dark, menacing ring. You can almost hear whips and chains in the background. There were two ponytailed teenagers in the movie and we decided to turn them into a black trio that functions as a Greek chorus, commenting on the action.”

Ashman added in the same interview

“People who see our show say, ‘It’s just like the movie.’ It really isn’t. The movie falls apart in the middle and has a weak ending. We added the S&M romance between Audrey and the sadistic dentist. We dropped the character who eats carnations and got rid of Seymour’s mother, who had an iron lung and bitched about everything. Most important of all—the bodies fed to the plant in the movie were accidental deaths, like a bum who is hit by a train. In our version, the deaths are planned by Seymour and he kills off some very important characters. I think our show has a more coherent structure. Once the musical was finished, a major problem was to find someone who could play Audrey II, the malevolent plant that reduces the cast to a minimum.”

This tightend up but still rediculous show was put on at the two's regular theater, the WPA (which they joked stood for "We put on anything). It was soon a success and much like Audrey II grew, and grew and grew, with the play being a sizeable hit with critical acclaim, paticuarlly for it's puppet. Said puppet was done by Martin Robinson, a seasame street vetran who'd play snuffleupaguss, and did a great job making nit really seem alive.

Some Fun Now:

One of the plays producers, David Geffen saw the Film's Potetial, and wanted to make a film adaptation, and got some pretty big names attached: both Martin "Old Genius Yells at Cloud" Scorcse and John "Multiple Murders" Landis were attached at one point, the former wanting to shoot it in 3D

Geffen then offered the film to an at the time rookie director, but one who'd still more than proven himself. Frank Oz. Muppet Maestro extrodinare, co-director of the Dark Crystal who was just coming off Muppets Take Manhattan. Oz turned it down at first as he didn't really have a cinematic approach to it. Once it came to him though he quickly agreed. They had a script.. but Oz wisely noticed it was stage bound.

This is important as some musical adaptations fall flat simply because of staging: for instance a good chunk of the flack the adaptation of in to the woods got.. was that it was shot and staged like a play.. despite being you know a movie. It probably also didn't help it was shot like someone took a baseball bat to all their lighting rigs.

So Oz's first priority being "take this already great script and simply make it cinematic" is one of the very first great things I can point out about the film. Having now seen both while the Stage PLay is excellent as is, Oz takes what's there and elevates it: While most of the action's still in the titular shop, the shop itself is now split level and most musical numbers are taken beyond one of the plays three locations to really make them pop with Skid Row now being a giant crowd number to show how desperate things are, Da Doo being a full flashback that's ironically presented like a stage play, Dentist being mostly set in Orin's office and on the back of his bike, and Suddenly Seymour being taken to a back alley. All simple touches but ones that make the numbers feel a bit more alive and keeps the setting from feeling clostrophobic: we still spend most of the picture in the plant shop but unlike the musical or original film, you don't start to FEEL it. Giffen and Ashman liked what he had and thus we were off to the races.

Casting wise there dosen't seem to have been a lot of drama. The only real bit I got form the interview I used is that Cyndi Lauper was considered for audrey, and while she would've been great i'm sure, I wholly agree with Oz that Ellen Green, who originated the role, was perfect. I can't imagine anyone else in the roll.

A Strange and Interesting Plant:

That brings us to the puppetry and if anything proves this has muppet blood it's the team Frank Oz assembled: To design it he brought on Lyle Conway, the designer for Dark Crystal, to make it he brought on the team from Labyrinth and to move it he brought back Robinson and added Brian Henson. I can't overstate how much Oz was the right man for the job based on this alone: someone else COUDL'VE done it but the effects wouldn't of been nearly as perfect without a team of this level and someone to put it together of Frank's level. It's far from the only reason this film is good, but it's certainly one of the highest.

I can't gush enoguh about the plant puppets: it looks real, the rubbery nature of it resembling the texture of a rubbery plant in real life, the lips being perfect to open and emote and usually resting in a mildly unesettling smile, perfect for the smug manipulator Twoey is.

Something I hadn't really taken note of before but Oz pointed out was the baby versions designed, with it's flowers resembling a bonet, a nice touch to show how harmless it looks at first.. which helps sell the message: just because something or someone LOOKS harmless dosen't mean they can't be dangerous in the right circumstances.

It only gets better with each phase and I notice how Twoey looks creepier at each phase... being fairly mundane in it's first two, a bit unerving when we get to "I can talk and I can move" , and truly terrifying in it's last few phases, with it's teeth growing and growing each time as it's powers grow.

As for getting it to move right that took a trick I"m STILL impressed by and still looks near seamless: so when playing the dailies back, Oz noticed tooey didn't quite move right. It was a bit slow.. but he noticed when rewinding or fast forwarding it Toey moved just as it should. So he had a bit of a bonkers idea: have the actors move slower in scenes with the plant as a puppet, so they could speed up the footage. And to his credit while many a director would just run with this and tell the actors to get over it, especially at the time.. oz genuinely worried about the problems this faced and was sympathetic in pitching it. And to their credit... everyone was game. They saw it as a fun challenge.

Otherwise productoin seemed to go fine... with two big exceptions. The first was after test screenings, the studios wanted to replace Levi Stubbs with Rodney Dangerfield to make the plant less scary

Look I love Rappin Rodney. He's the best. He gave us one of the greatest lines in all of cinema

He's dearly missed.. but while he CAN sing, unsuprisingly, he's just not a good fit for this role. Audrey II is a tempting force, a manipulator, a smooth talker, and Rodney is none of those things. A schemer yes, a loveable everyman yes, a rap god, yes. But he was not Audrey II, Levi Stubbs was and i'm so damn greatful this abomination didn't happen, as hilarious as it would've been.

There was ANOTHER problem with test audiences, one i'm sure you all know and if not your going to... but that's best saved for when we get to the end. For now with all the behind the scenes behind us, for now, let's take a look at the events that started on the 21st day of the month september, in a decade not too long before our own, when the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to it's very existence. And this terrifying enemy suddenly surfaced, as such enemies often do,

In The Seemingly Most Innocent and Unlikely of Places.

We open the film with our title track.. and the stage show too but i'll just be saying "the film" for simplicites sake, though i'll still be covering where the versions diverge, unique stuff to both etc.

The title track is a decent , fun number to introduce it, done over a black screen on stage and in front of Mushniks in the movie.

Regardless of versoin it's sang by Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon, a trio of black singers and local teens who serve as our greek chorus. Their treatment is also one of the bigger diffrences between the stage and screen versions: on stage the three interact with the cast more and are more actual characters, getting a whole number with Seymour we'll get to and trying to get rid of Orin.

In the musical while two of their scenes interacting with the main cast remain, Mushnik shoing them away and the trio recommending Audrey date Seymour, their role as a greek chorus is emphasised, with the three appearing in more places and costumes, like on a roof in evening gowns for "Some fun now' in the dentist office for "Dentist!", in the florist at night for "Suppertime", and in an office in "The Meek Shall Inheret".

I prefer the film version. While they still had to have them as characters.. .after act 1 of the play they mostly vanish aside from chorus bits. This not only gives them more to do, but helps create a nice little question mark: are these three showing up everywhere, is it in the characters heads, artistic lisense, are they magic? We really don't know and I like it that way. The scenes of them as real people are still there.

Tichia Arnold, Michelle Weeks, and Tisha Campbell do a phenominal job in the roll and have a hell of a vocal range. They aren't given as much as the rest of the cast and it is a shame three of the only black performers in the cast aren't given as much to do in this version, but they still make the most of what screentime they have. Fun fact, Arnold and Campbell would later go on to both be on the sitcom Martin. I've never watched Martin, I never really want to, but I figured it was worth pointing out.

It's once we actually get inside the shop, Mushnik's Skid Row Florists that we meet our three leads: Mr Mushnik, the shop's owner played by character actor Vincent Gardenia, shrill voiced and gold hearted Audrey played by Ellen Greene as previously noted and my boy, the man the myth and the legend, Rick Moranis as Seymour Krelborne, Mushnik's hired hand, adopted son in all but legal papers, and hopless nerdy klutz.

The trio are perfectly cast.. granted that goes for everyone. Gardenia is hilariously shouty as the hammy Mushnik, being a worthy sucessor to the original film's equally hammy highlight. Mushnik is made a bit more of a dick here, as instead of being mad at Seymour for simply being really bad at his job he abuses someone whose just a tad clumsy, who he adopted and he basically treats as an indentured servant. He's also bumped down from Deutragonist to main cast.

Audrey gets a huge glow up going from a pretty forgetable character, to a tragically heartbroken one, a woman who assumes, very wrongly, she deserves the abuse her dentist boyfriend Orin gives her. Granted I don't like how Ashman seems to think BDSM is the same as domestic abuse, but Oz does a good job in the film downplaying the bdsm part, instead making it clear Orin is just a sadistic bastard. More on him later. Greene plays audrey perfectly: she has a goofy, perfectly doofy voice for adurey.. but she portrays it with such sincerty and heart. Audrey is a genuinely kind person: you can see why Seymour falls for her even if she can't see it. Audrey is someone who, as I relate to all too easily, hates themselves and sees their not worth it. We also get some nicely sex positive messaging with her, especailly for the 80's: while the bdsm mentions have aged like Ragu on a sidewalk, especially after 50 shades of grey ALSO didn't get what BDSM was and linked it to abuse, the internalized misogny audrey has, that just because she was a stripper (as is heavily implied) once and likes to dress how she pleases she's unworthy.. when really she's fine as is and fine as who she is. It's Orin who deserves to die.

Finally we have Seymour himself, played by the man, the myth, the boy, Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis slaps. He was an icon of the 80's and while he had to leave to raise his kids, he left at the height of his game. Moranis was the nerd of the 80's so he was perfectly cast. What this film also shows off , and thus i've always known about, but dosen't get shown off in say ghostbusters or other awesome roles.. is the fact that Moranis can sing. Moranis has a gorgeous voice, as does most of the cast here, and perfectly captures this version of seymour: someone who like Audrey, dose'nt think much of themselves but wants more for themselves, they just don't see a way out of where they are.

And where they are is DOWNTOWN, aka skid row, one of the best numbers of the musical. While it's decent enough in the original stage, Oz takes it up a notch, making it a giant, impactful crowd number, taking us all around as we hear just how hard it is for the people of skid row and how hopless it is.. and how much both Audrey and Seymour want to escape it despite the odds being against them. it's a beautiful I want song and one of the best, backed by Beatrice Reading's beautiful belting to open the song. A true masterpiece

So after that number we get a fun time passing montage, as with each shot we see it pass... and eventually see Mushnik throw up his hands and give up. They haven't sold anything all day, and he's going to close down the place.

Seymour however has a solution: they need a hook, an attraction. IT's him rather than Dick Miller who has the idea here which honestly... is just plain smart. While they sadly cut the Dick Miller Flower Eating guy out of the musical versions, I get he was suplerflous and he gets a perfect succesor in a moment and it makes way more sense for Seymour to just present the idea of his strange and intresting plant himself.

Seymour brings it up, the Audrey II. Audrey is flattered, Mushnik thinks the idea that this will work is laughable but figures why not... and then a weird man enters. This weird man is played by future comedy legend Christopher Guest of Waiting For Guffman and Best in Show Fame. I.. I can't understate how much I loved this guy even before finding out he was christopher guest a few years ago: his weirdly hammy way of talking, his suit, the way he says "what a stragne and intresting plant" you have to see him for yourself sometime. I also love how he titls his head when everyone says "twice as many"

As for how Seymour got it that leads us to Da-Do, a fun doo wop exposition number that in the movie is turned from just Seymour telling us in frame, to a neatly staged bit that looks like a play in construction. He buys it from Chang (Da-Do), a chinese botnist who sells him weird and intresting plants. Chang didn't make this one though, as TO-TAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN! (ding), leads to the plant beaming in and while neither man knows how it got there, Chang sells it to Seymour anyway for a dollar nintey five.

The strange man almost walks bout but then comes back to buy a dozen roses , then TWICE AS MANY, TWICE AS MANY? (Twice as many?), leading to a flood of new customers and the florist being saved

Problem is Tooey isn't feeling so good Mr. Krelbourne, so Seymour's forced to spend the night trying to fix it. It's then we get another banger, Grow for Me. Spoiler: this entire soundtrack is fucking great in both versions, but especially the film. Oz shows his smart framing again here, having the number in the basement rather than the main area, giving us a bit of breathing room. The number is really just rick singing to the plant while moving around but his awesome and sincre vocals and the hilarious lyrics make it a joy.

When Seymour asks "whaddya want from me blood"... Tooey's response is...

So he opens a vein and the plant grows for him, leading to Seymour getting an interview on the radio

In both versions the interview is off screen, with us only seeing it through Mushnik and the trio (in the stage) and audrey (in the film) listening. What the film adds is a nice extra bit of Seymour actually going to the station. The station bit is really there for one and only one reason: so we can get a John Candy cameo. And frankly every film while he was alive should've been mandated to have a john candy cameo

John Candy is a comedy legend who died too young. He also has a history with Moranis, as the two were on the awesome sketch show SCTV in the 80's, so it was likely an easy ask to get Candy on here. The two also once did a song together on SCTV. It is also not necessary to this review but i'd be doing a diservice if I didn't play it for ya

Even when the man is trying NOT to play good he slaps. if anything the fact he can sing well enough to sing awkwardly on purpose and still have it not HURT to listen to and be funny.. god I love this man.

Anyways John plays Wink Wilkin, a local DJ whose really just there for John Candy to show how hilariously awkawrd it is when a dj does a bit while someone's standing right there watching it. He's also on the Blu Ray cover for some reason

This SCTV character is not vincent gardenia, what are you doing.

Anyways in the stage version Seymour coming back from the interview, after failing to give the adress, leads to "Ya Never Know", our first cut number.... KINDA.

See while the other three cut numbers are entirely gone from the musical, Ya Never Know was simply remixed into "Some Fun Now", taking the last part of Ya Never Know and making it into a slightly diffrent song. This change is for the better as while Ya Never Know rocks, it tightens up the pacing and instead of a random mid day musical number, we get a later juxtopistion of the fun and upbeat "Ya never know" with Seymour giving more and more blood to Toey.

Before we get to Some Fun Now though we have another number as the trio ask Audrey what the heck she sees in Orin. And what I do like is that while most people around Audrey tell her to "Just leave"... the film and stage show make it clear that it isn't that easy. It's honestly a great depection of abuse: while the idea that most victims have low self esteem isn't great, the idea that their abuser chips away at that and exploits that is very clear in how Orin treats her and how Audrey sees herself. Not only that, we get a very VALID reason why she dosen't leave him "If he does this when he likes me imagine what he'd do if I left?". The only people Audrey has in her corner are a kind nerd she dosen't want to see horribly mangled and an old man who would certainly try. No one would protect her if she left, so she can't. It's a horrible and tragic circumstance and a shockingly frank depection of abuse in what's otherwise a pretty light musical, and a hint that this musical.. isn't nearly as light as it appears on the surface.

So all Audrey can do is dream of a house somewhere that's green, leading to our next number. And as a kid.. I hated this one. It was long, it went on forever and I didn't really find the jokes that funny. oh hahaha 12 inches was a big screen.

As an adult... it's heartbreaking. Audrey is so trapped in her situation all she can do is pine for a future she thinks she can only dream about, one she feels deep down she and Seymour will never have and will never live to see. The last part's true depending on the ending, which makes it hurt that much more: knowing what's comign for her, knowing what twisted version of her dream she gets.. it hurts. It tangibly hurts.

Outside of being beautiful, well crafted sad, this sequence also brings an element I really didn't notice before to the foreground: captalisim. The film really takes the screws to our society, how some barely scrape by and can only dream and how some can ONLY get ahead through sheer luck. Seymour only found Audrey II because of a freak TO-TAL E-CLIPSE OF THE SUN! (ding). When your poor.. the world just wants to keep you that way and while working your way out IS an option.. it may not always work out. Mushnik has a nice flower shop for what he can get.. but it's dying simply because he can't afford a place not on skid row, where few people can really afford what he sells. And as the film goes on we see sometimes the way out... will eat you alive in the process.

Anyways, captalizim aside, I also love the designwork here. I used not to register just how much work it must've been to make this sort of thing but OZ and co really went out of their way to make some truly neat sets that feel unreal and plastic. So while it's still not a song I go back to a lot, it's one I apricate a lot more.

So we then get Orin.. and to my shock his intro's a bit diffrent in the stage play. Him riding up on his motorbike while singing on a purposefully crappy green screen is so awesome I hadn't thought "Well yes Jake but that's impossible to do on stage. ". Instead he talks with the Trio a bit. As you can probably guess... I prefer the film version, and once again it's less nostalgia or familiarity and more just showmanship. It's not really a fair contest as Frank made sure this was as film friendly as possible, so each number is him going all out while on stage it's just like any stage musical: it's what you can do on a stage. Dosen't make it any less awesome, my hatchetfield reviews should make that clear, it's just hard to compare to what OZ pulled off.

At any rate Dentist! is one of the most iconic numbers of the film and that's thanks in addition to Menkin's perfect 50's greaser ditty, to the charisma of one Steve Martin. Like Moranis I shoudln't have ot introduce steve martin who at 78 is not only still acting and has never quite stopped, he's also currently starring in the popular Only Murders in the Building with fellow SCTV alum Martin Short. I'd love for Rick or Ellen to pop up on there frankly even if I don't watch the show.

At any rate, Dentist is a gloriously hammy, surpisingly dark ditty about just what a monster orin is and how since "his temprament's wrong for preisthood and teaching would suit him still less" his mother recommended he become a dennnntttiiist and he'll be a sucess. And he is.. somehow. 1960's I suppose. The film gleefully outlines him as a hamm over the top villian, not just from shooting puppies with a bb gun and poimsning guppies when he was done but from little things Martin adlibed, with Orin just flat out socking his nurse in the face and tearing the head off a doll. It's so over the top it's hilarious and the song is so damn catchy and well done you can't help but sing along once you know the words. Add on the fact Steve Martin does a shockingly good elvis and you have one of the most perfect musical numbers and most hilariously over the top villian songs there is.

We soon meet Orin properly and what I love is that while Steve Martin gleefully hams it up with orin most of the time... he tones it down just enough when audrey enters. It's best shown when he meets Seymour. With Seymour he's flashy, happy to see him and recommends he get out of skid row asap. With Audrey.. he's quitely meancing, getting snippy when she dosen't add DDS to his name and snapping at her when she dosen't. But what makes it work.. is that it's kept realistic. Yes Orin is a greaser dentist about to be eaten by a plant, yes he's a bit goofy.. but the actual effect of his abuse and how he does it is played creepily real. He dosen't hit her in front of Seymour, with us only knowing he does because orin keeps leaving bruises, but it's very clear he has a tight control over her and Seymour's deeply uncomfortable the whole time, unable to actually DO anything to stop the guy despite knowing Audrey going off with him will only result in more pain for the poor woman.

Before Seymour can get an out for that we have to go back to the stage for one of the most suplerflous subplots i've seen in some time: So Mushnik is terrified Seymour is going to leave him and take the money and run, so he tries to adopt him. A 25 year old baby boy. Or 30 if you go by the movie which cut this out. We do get a great number out of it "Mushink and Son", where Mushnik tries to convince Seymour who mostly disagrees because he can see the lines but then Mushnik holds his breath for too long and Seymour agrees to become his son. It's entirely stupid and I love it, but I can see why i'ts cut. As a joke it's fine, hilarious and the number is fun. As part of the plot.. it goes nowhere. The florist shop is renamed Mushnik and Sons Skid Row Florist.. and that's it. It has no impact on Mushnik's later demise, the plot or anything but making Seymour feel on top of the world, which he already was. It's a nothing plot point only likely kept in all future versions because otherwise Mushnik's actor dosen't get a song.

So we get back to the main plot from that cul de sac and Seymour has a bit of an issue: while he could feed Twoey himself fine, he's not only tapped from previous feeings.. but Twoey is HUNGRY.. and with a loud whimpering feed me, Seymour finds out his plant can talk, he can move his trap he can demand more food.

With this Audrey's voice actor joins the party, Levi Stubbs. Stubbs was a member of 60's vocal quartet the Four Tops, a vetran singer who to my suprise was one of the inspirations for Hall and Oates. And their STILL active, switching out members as they go. They were such a big deal that Stubbs had to get the rest of the group's permission for this but thankfully he did.

Stubbs is a standout, perfectly nailing Twoey's character, maniuplative, smooth, and sinister. He can slip from threatning to tempting in an instant. One minute he'll be talking up Seymour the other he'll be telling him "does this look inanimate to you punk?" or telling him "Must be blood, must be fresh" one of my faviorite line deliveries from Stubbs as it's just so damn creepy. It underlines what Twoey needs.. someone to die for it. And a line Seymour isn't ready to cross.

So to push him over it we get the best song in the film, Feed Me (Gonna Get It), it's the first of THREE villian songs for Twoey in the film, two in the play, and it's the most iconic, outlining what this plant is right away: A deadly force.. but also a smooth manipulator, offering Seymour WHATEVER it takes to get him some lunch. The iconic "Would you like a cadilaic car, or a guest shot on jack par, how about a date with Hedy Lamar you gonna get it?". The I don't know bridge also nicely shows that Seymour. .isn't sold... this is a lot to ask and it's a high price tag. He sees the dollar signs.. but also sees the blood stains he'll have to clean out.. and the blood he can't ever scrub off his concious.

WE then get my faviorite part of the movie period. Twoey loudly belts out "a lotta folks dessserrrveee to die" a deftly manipulative line: after all it's a bit easier to muder if the person is bad right? One less scumbag right? or rather.. one lest dentist as in both versions Orin hits audrey where Seymour can see it and thus we get one of the best duets there's ever been as the two sing together. a one, a two IF YOU WANT A RATIONALE, IT ISN'T VERY HARD TO SEE NO NO NO, STOP AND THINK IT OVER PAL! THE GUY SURE LOOKS LIKE PLANT FOOD TO ME, THE GUY SURE LOOKS LIKE PLANT FOOD TO ME!

Now (It's Just the Gas0

So Seymour goes to GO GET IT. Cue the dentist office. And the movie adds something back the stage musical took out. While most of it's characters were either excised for serving no real purpose (Seymour's Mom, Dick Miller, The Sex Worker, the Mourning Lady, the Cops), or changed up (The two teeny boopers becoming the trio), Oz saw fit to bring one cut back: the dental mascochist, Arthur Denton in this version.

For this cameo Oz once again casted a big name, this time on purpose: Bill Murray, asshole and comedy legend. Look recent reveals like.. dangling a teenager over a garbage can and rampant sexual harassment may not have me liking him as a person, and it's certainly hurt films I love such as Meatballs. But as usual with these sort of assholes.. I HAVE to give credit where it's due. Murray is, as usual fucking hilaroius, nicely playing off Martin, a pairing we really haven't gotten outside of this one scene, with Orin being disgusted since Denton gets turned on. And like Nichelson Murray has this hijlarious jolly energy, though his is a bit more over the top fitting his style.

Anyways Seymour goes in for his checkup, which like the original film, Orin plans to take WAY too far and fuck up his mouth, giving Seymour ANOTHER reason to want the man dead. And it's there things change... as in both versions the same event happens, if slightly diffrently. It's been shown before this in Dentist! that Orin is addicited to Nitrious Oxide, having made up his own special gas mask to endulge, a weird bubble helmet in the stage and a simplier one on screen that's still JUST goofy enough. Problem is ... the thing works a bit too well and Orin snaps off the knob... just as, in the film at least, Seymour points a gun at him.

HIs death is utterly horrifying in both versions. I like the films as Martin does a fantastic job selling orin is dying and the horror that he's dying as he's laughing, coughing wildly between laughs. I also LOVE the exchange they have, something original to the film that sums things up perfectly

Orin: What'd I ever do to you?! Seymour: It's not what you did to me.. it's what you did to her. Orin: Who? (it dawns on him as the lights start to go out) Oh... her.

It's a simple moment but it shows in one last bit.. Orin realizes why his grave was dug.

The stage version of Orin dies the same way.. but it's extra unerving.. as he SINGS while it happens. Our penultimate cut number, Now (It's Just the Gas). I get why this one was cut: while the others were either reformatted or simply too suplerflous to live.. this one would've been fine. Here's the best live version I could find on it's own. Jake Gyllehal is seymour for some reason

As you can see it's a nice mix... it's horrifying.. and really puts Seymour in a moment of truth: he COULD save Orin... but he ultimately can't bring himself to. This change is also big as it adds more moral greyness to Seymour: BOTH let the man die, but Seymour in the musical thinks it over more. Let's it set in more.

WHile I prefer the theater version... I still love both scenes and for what it adds to Seymour: it's forever a question of "did he let orin die on purpose or simply got too nervous to decide and the time ran out?" In both versions the guy simply.. can't pull the trigger.. but is letting Orin die a horrible death any better? is it REALLY Seymour's right to kill the guy? It makes the world better.. but was that his call? I like that the musical dosen't really answer these questions. Seymour feels GUILT.. but for what, for wanting audrey and clearing the way or for killing someone? For how orin died? All that's clear is there's no blood on his hands.

After this we get a stunning scene of Seymour feeding Audrey II. The stage version is excellent, with shadowed lighting as seymour throws the parts in. I really love the OZ version though, as he throws in a jazzy instrumental of mean grene mother from outer space... and some horrifying laughter as Seymour throws him parts wrapped up. Originally the parts were NOT wrapped up but the MPAA took issue with this.

Can't imagine why.

So with this we enter act 2 and finally get past our last cut full song, Closed for Renovations. It's cute and it exists, that's about it.

So the store's doing better, Seymour's star's rising and he only has nightmares from guilt every OTHER night.

He's not the only one as Audrey has a jolt of guilt from Orin's death. How varies, with the movie version talking to the cops and the musical version getting a far more heartbreaking jolt: Seymour wearing a jacket like his to try and impress her.. only for the ptsd and guilt to get to her. Audrey WANTED him gone.. and thus fears this is her fault. Seymour, who knows exactly who made him plant food comforts her.

This leads to one of the shows best numbers and one of it's signatures. It's also one of the few that's really not that diffrent between versions: Oz simply adds a sunset for a nice cinematic touch. IT's a tender, genuine romantic ballad between Audrey and Seymour finally confessing to one another and confriming their better than their brains give them credit for. Can relate. It's tender, well done and REALLY shows off Greene and Moranis' vocal range. The two REALLY hit the high notes, ESPECIALLY Greene. While Somewhere That's Green let her show off a little this is a whole damn parade of her vocal talents. It's nice, warm.. and very sad given what's about to happen in 2/3 versions of this story.

Though what happens next no matter the version isn't exactly chipper as Mr. Mushink confronts Seymour. And this.. is one of the biggest changed scenes in the whole musical and those changes are deeply important. In both Mushnik has figured out he killed orin the film version saw Seymour hacking and slashing up the corpse, the musical version got a call seymour had a bag there and saw red spots on the linoleium.

While those are still similar enough what seperates the Mushniks is intent: despite his earlier greed, Gravis GENUINELY wants to help Seymour in the play, begging him to come tell the cops his side and part of him clearly not beliving Seymour did it or if he did, he had a good reason.

The film version.. is the utter bastard we're used to. He holds Seymour at gunpoint and offers to let Seymour run away if he gives him the plant.. framing it as helping but really just wanting the money. One is a suprise show of decency.. the other is exactly what you'd expect, but with Garendia still giving Mushnik a nice tinge of clear horror at what his surrogate son has done. Either way it drives home how far Seymour's sunk, with Audrey before this showing the consequences. He killed a man..a nd he dosen't get to walk away.

Or does he? After all Twoey would prefer the more manipulatable person and thus sings to Seymour to feed Mushnik to him What I like is no matter the version, it's ambigious if Audrey II is actually communicating with Seymour.. or it's simply the Audrey II in his head. Mushink dosen't HEAR Audrey II but is that artistic license or is what's about to happen all seymour?

Well how MUCH it's Seymour depends on the version and it's something that hurts the original ending of the film: In the play.. Seymour is fully responsible. Twoey's talking him into it sure.. but Seymour tells Mushnik to look into the plant for the money. Which is stupid, and a nice takeaway from the original film, sure, but he still actively lead Mushnik there.

In contrast in the film... Seymour's at gunpoint, nervous and reluctantly backs him up to tooey, and is geninely unsure of how to tell him how to care, drawing it out.. and once again making it hard to tell if Seymour simply got nervous and Twoey took advantage or Semyour led him.

It's a key part of the film version; Seymour's guilt is way more ambiguous, which makes him more sympathetic. It's hard to tell how much is just making the wrong decision under pressure, and how much is intetnional. He also shows way more guilt.

Where Do I Sign?

What dosen't help is that both versions of the film cut out something important, the bridge of "The Meek Shall Inheret". The Meek Shall Inheret is a number I love, as Seymour's fame rises.. but as shown by Moranis' deft acting, it's eating him alive as the guilt is. And the bridge makes this clear.. but also makes him once and for all acountable.

Now did Oz go a bit TOO hard on adapting this bit? Fuck yes. I don't even know exactly what i'm looking at. There's a good bit or too like the bleeding painting of mushnik.

What's important is the singing and my GOD does moranis fucking kill it. This is easily his best vocal performance in the film..a nd it got left to the soundtrack. A real shame even if I do GET cuting this goofy version, if not you know, simply reshooting it. You don't NEED Audrey hugging a plant. Or plant seymour.. or most of this. The vines are a nice touch tho.

What's needed.. is Seymour's moment of weakness. WIth Orin, he simply acted too slowly and let a bad person die by his own hubris. With Mushnik, it was a moment of weakness or a moment of stress. Both left men dead and both aren't something he can walk back and will always carry with him.

The question is.... does Seymour give into the plant or fight back, does he KILL the beast before it grows and loose everything to do the right thing or selfishly give in? IT's the latter.. that seals Seymour's fate. That little last speck of insecurity and self hatred, that tiny voice that convinces him Audrey loved him for the plant and not who he is. And that's.. how Audrey II wins.

And leaving that out meant he couldn't POSSIBLY win. Which brings us to our finales.

Schrodinger's Audrey

The leadup is the same: with his guilt spiraling , Seymour asks Audrey to run away with him and get married, leaving Audrey II behind. The stage version.. runs on plot contrivance. Up to this point it's well plotted and the actual tragic finale is a heartbreaker.. but how we get there is

Okay so Seymour talks to Audrey about running away.. IN FRONT OF TWOEY. The one person he shoudln't. And it's not like the play dosen't have an alleyway set or they can't just dim the lights so it's implied he's not in the shop. I get the final plant puppet is MASSIVE but you COULD hide it. even just have Seymour throw a sheet over him.

Then while he's getting Twoey some sirloin, Audrey comes by because she can't sleep. That's it. The entire tragic ending.. happens because of stupidity and concidence. And seymor's hubris and weak spine, but the fact the last 15 minutes happen because of this just. .baffles me. The play is so good otherwise, honest, and the rest of the ending is great. But this one part just.. astounds me in both how flimsy it is and how it's never been re-written. WHy wouldn't you?

So Twoey tricks Audrey into getting him some water. She's nervous and senses something's off... but sadly not before Twoey eats her alive. And it's with that action the ending snaps back into the quality of the rest of the show, as Seymour comes in to save her.. but it's too late. His actions have had a consequence and his refusal to try and kill Tooey while he still could... cost him the only good thing in his life that didn't come with strings attached and never had. Audrey, selfless and kind as always, asks to be fed to the plant, not realizing what Seymour has become or what he's done and simply wanting to be with him somewhere tha'ts green. And to their credit while Twoey is a monster... in both this version and the film, he let's Seymour gently place her inside, honoring her sacrifice.

Seymour is left a mess after this, and only snaps out of his suicidal spiral when a salesman offers to make MORE Audrey II's... and thus Seymour gets the picture: The plant wants to conquer the world.As brilliantly put in the film in one of my faviorite parts in the whole thing.

Seymour: Every household in america, thousands of ya eating, that's what you had in mind all along isn't it?

Seymour: We're not talking about one Hungry Plant Here, we're talking about world conquest

Audrey II: And I wanna thankkkkkk youuuuuuu

It sells that this is SEYMOUR'S fault.. and in the play at least.. it's too late. He made the wrong choice... and it's too late to save the world.. or himself. Despite every attempt, despite going into the plant to kill it.. Seymour dies. THe plant gets sold to every supermarket in the world... and as "Don't Feed the Plants" plays, we learn everyday jerks like Seymour bought the deal. The world is doomed... and evne if the chorus tells us "we still have a chance" it dosen't seem likely.

And this ending.. is fantastic. It's a well needed aseop: that ANYONE can do horrible things with the right motivation. It's probably less shocking nowadays in the true crime boom built off that premise, but even then most people watching that stuff think "Naht hat isn't me". The point of the show is ... no it could be. Seymour isn't a HORRIBLE person, he isn't pure evil... but he still let two people die horrible deaths because it was easy and backed down from the hard path... and paid the price. Actions have consequences, and doing horrible things to get ahead just isn't worth it. It's not worth loosing your soul to feed the plant.

So that leads us to the film which infamously has TWO endings. The original was a variant of this one, the other something diffrent Both start the same way though: Frank fixes one of the few problems with the play by.. not having Seymour be a complete putz. He makes the plans to flee where he thinks Tooey isn't watching, in the Alley, and tries to sneak out, then does the sirloin thing as a compromise, clearly planning to leave after that. And rather than hapinstance.. it's Twoey that kicks off the finale. Seymour's going to renege on their deal? Well that's just fine.. then he's no longer of use.. and neither is Audrey. So he calls her over and reveals himself, with a truly nice shot from her apartment across the street as we see the plant grinning. She's certainly feeling uneasy.. but her kindness and trusting nature make it easy to see why she tries to feed the plant some water when asked.... and ends up lunch.

This is where the two endings split. A Schrodinger's Audrey if you will: She's not alive OR dead despite the obvious implications towards the latter while being eaten.. i'ts only when she's pulled out can you tell which ending you have: if her wedding dress is clean, it's the theatrical cut, if it's blood i'ts the original.

So before we talk about the different endings, you have to ask

Most films have test screenings: these are a way for studios to see if they have a hit on their hands or arbitrarily bury a movie, gage audience reactions, see what might need to be cut or what needs to be reshot. These aren't a bad thing entirely as sometimes testing can really help a film.

In this case it did and it didn't. The film was a cinch to get raitings for most of it... laughter, hollering. It was a crowd pleaser... until we get here. Until they kill Audrey then Seymour. Hearts are broken and the bad guys win.. and no one was happy with them getting only 16 percent liking it. Oz suggested another test.. and same result.

So while he wasn't happy about it, as the original ending had a lot of expensive puppets, minitures and fit more aseop wise.. he changed it so the film would get released.

It was then.. that the original ending was lost. All frank had was a black and white workprint which he DID put on the dvd.. till Giffen told him to take it off and said "Oh we'll just put the color one on" now where did I put it..

Yeah he didn't have it and it still frustrates me the ending was mostly lost. Thankfully a fan happened to have the original print and it was restored in 2013, but for most of my life the theatrical ending WAS the ending. I only saw the original one in a lifestream someone was doing around halloween and in the janky workprint.

So on paper it'd be obvious with ending is better: The original, the director's intended vision. But it's just.. not that simple. The hard truth is , as much as I love this film NEITHER ending completely works. Both are good.. but neither COMPLETELY fit the film Oz made

The original is , as said, close to the plays: Audrey is pulled out and Ellen green acts her heart out as she asks to be fed to the plant. If ther'es one big tragedy to this ending not getting in it's that Greene didn't get her oscar for this scene. God damn.

So Seymour decides to unalive himself out of guilt, only to meet the sales guy, realize tooey's plan and go to stop him. We also get one line that isn't in the thetrical cut "Your a monster and so am I" it shows tha tunlike the musical.. Seymour has realized their both monsters.. but only one is getting out of here. He has to do the right thing even if he dies.

He tries his best as we get one of the best numbers int he musical, my clossseeee second faviorite mean green mother from outer space as Audrey II talks about how badass he is in one long, awesome villian song, one of the best in existance. He easily beats Seymour. Ashman and Menkin made this for the film, to get nominated for best original song, which worked. They lost somehow but hey, points for trying. MGMFOS is a banger, and one of the musicals best in any medium, nad i'm glad stage productions added it in as damn is it fun. IT's also a puppetry feast as the giant final puppet moves, grooves and has little backups. it's a truly awesome musical moment and a spectcale for the eys, a deserving finale

And it's also... why this ending dosen't quite work. In the play Seymour goes down swinging and while still likeable, wasn't the best person by the end. His death went down easier. Movie Seymour showed WAY more visable guilt, being wracked with it and while he tried to dodge it it was clear it was eating him alive... and without that bridge, without that one moment of weakness... he comes off less as someone who willingly sold out to twoey after the two murders, and more as somone whose swept up in the tide of all he ever wanted but desperate to escape it as he knows the price tag is caked in blood. And as bad as he was.. some of that blood was his father figures.

As a result a 3 minute musical number where Seymour is humilaited AFTER the guy nearly killed himself AFTER having to give up the love of his life, knowing it was all his fault she's dead... is a bit much. It's karmic overkill. Seymour dosen't deserve to walk off scott free, he has to live with what he's done. But OZ both made Seymour way more sympathetic.. and then piled on way more punishment. I'm again not saying Seymour deserves to get the hell out of this unscathed, he let two horrible things happen and needs to stop the monster he created. But this was overkill

It dosen't help that after Seymour's death, and the plants taking over... the ending drags on for a WHILE. The director's cut does have GREAT puppet and miniture work that's just outright wasted in the theatrical cut, cool shots of the plants taking over the world. It's neat stuff. But it's also not edited like it probably would hav ebeen had it been propertly released, so it's about 30% good content and 70% the plants fucking shit up while laughing a lot. It's cool at first but after a while you just want it to end. And the end of Audrey II bursting through the screen is awesome but I GET why the test audiences hated this: It's not just the bad guy winning, that's a horror staple, i'ts that he basically rubs your nose in it for 15 minutes. The ending isn't terrible and I do get why people prefer it, as THEMATICALLY it's better.. but I wish we could get a cut with it edited down. otherwise while still a LOT of overkill for seymour, it'd flow way better.

So that means the focus group ending is 100% better right?

Yeah while I like the theatical cut ending a touch more... it's far from perfect. It's not bad: Seymour rescues Audrey, realizes what's going on from Jim Belushi (And we get the iconic line "IF you two kids would just stop singing for a minute"), and goes to confront the plant one on one to atone for what he's done. It helps that while we don't get the great your a monster and so am I line, we do get Seymour going in. He COULD run from the thing.. but he knows running is what got him into this. being passive, not helping anyone when he could. It's only actoin that will get him out

Mean Green Mother works WAY better as a villianous last stand than as a victory lap. It's still boastful, still awesome and Seymour is still outmatched.. but it works better when it's not "Someone whose genuinely trying to atone for horrible things getting battered" and more "A hero barely surviving against the beast he created. " Context helps.

It's HOW Twoey goes out that makes this kinda weak, as is Seymour just.. getting away from it. Feed the plants and you can escape the consequences of your actions! You can just bluescreen them to death and get your somewhere tha'ts green..e ven if it comes with a strange and inresting plant.

Thematically the ending dosen't QUITE work, changing it more to "accepting personal responsiblitY" than "your actoins have consequences and you can't just avoid them less they destroy you". But honestly.. it dosen't hurt the film bad enough. The changes to Seymour mean we root for him more. We're probably not supposed to, but Rick Moranis is just too damn likeable and sympaathetic and portrays the guilt too well. But the new aseop "When you do a bad thing, you need to own up to and face it not run away from it or claim you could've done nothing" DOES really hit in an age where many a person will deny they did anything when their ugly past takes root. Seymour did fuck up, but he coudln't exactly tell the cops, and while it took a push risked his life to undo his mistake. Again it's far from perfect, but for an ending that had to be made on the fly it works well and for the film Frank Oz made.. it works perfectly.

So that's Little Shop of horrors... and as should be obvious.. I love both vresions. The movie more, ending issues and all. It has phenominal performances, wonderful numbers and top notch effects. If you haven't seen it and this hasn't convinced you, I don't know what else I could possibly say except.. thanks for reading.

Next Time: We finish this retrospective with the piece of little shop history we all like to forget.

#little shop of horrors #halloween #ellen greene #rick moranis #steve martin #vincent gardenia #audrey II #seymour krelborn #horror #musicals #musical theater

[steve0discusses]

Ep 45 Part 1: Wife Gone, Miss Wife

Hey y’all, been a while! I fully blame this last unexpected haitus on Tears of the Kingdom. Also a billion other life things I won’t go into because 👏 I 👏 Want 👏 To 👏 Talk 👏 About 👏 Dead 👏 Wife 👏 !

Like damn, we’re coming back for just...a wild episode. Remember how a few episodes ago we finally united Seto with his long lost wife card? (and I had to check my notes and um...it was actually last episode if you count Kaiba, and only Ep 39 if you count Egyptian Seto. So uh...6 episodes.)

Remember that moment? Anyway, she dies this episode.

Yeah. Like. Damn. That quick huh? Knowing Yugioh’s track record with wifeys we’re pretty lucky she’s been on screen even that long before she went the Valon route and just full on died from one brush of cards with Joey.

Speaking of Joey, we last left the gang fumbling through a series of puzzles to unlock the pharaoh’s name. Bakura, disguised as Tristan, ran head first in there and threw off any semblance of a disguise and y’all, lets see how long it takes the guys to realize this isn’t Tristan.

Inside of this glowing door is a room with absolutely no light in it, which, don’t worry about it. That’s just a thing we do in art when we don’t want to draw a background--blow it out with light.

(Read more under the cut)

MAN I have questions about the support bricks on the wall, but for now we’ll ignore that and look at the even more confounding giant bricks on the ground.

faced with a wall of Egyptian text on this pair of ancient Egyptian sunglasses they drew on the floor, it is lucky that Bakura cursed Tristan’s bean or else they would have never gotten past this room.

They’re zooming right by the fact that their friend is reading ancient Egyptian. A friend who is best known for 1.) Being a student janitor because he failed to become class president, 2.) being head of a “melons” club, and 3.) punching god-strengthed villains in the face when he should know better. A god which definitely didn’t get pissed as hell and immediately possess his bean earlier today.

So he levels with Yugi, using the biggest most simple baby words that Bakura knows, and they still talk right completely round each other.

Hey remember in Season Zero when that effed up thing happened and we all assumed it would never show up in this remake? (and by we I mean me)

It freakin showed up. My audible gasp when this show remembered that Yugi cursed um ALL of his friends. Like and he just straight up told them? Just like this?

Like at the start of this arc he and Pharaoh did have a chat about how Yugi didn’t have friends before he came along, but I thought they were gonna glaze over it! But nah, he just laid it out there that the past few years were all because Yugi got bored between class and wanted a buddy.

The implications of “hey we would not be friends if I didn’t curse your ass” is already pretty deep. But doing it within a brain puzzle that you followed your friend into, despite the fact you could literally die doing this, and realizing...the only reason you’re in this puzzle to begin with is because you were cursed 2-3 years ago...

...this is the Yugioh I never thought would come back. This season, man! This season goes so freakin fast and so freakin hard through things that like...this could be a whole episode in another show.

But, this is Yugioh, so we’re gonna put a pin in that.

Because it’s time to go back to Seto Kaiba’s past life and his nearly dead stranger friend that we have collectively decided is his wife, and by “we” I mean literally everyone on this show but Aknadin.

Aknadin sure doesn’t know what a “wife” is, but he sure as hell knows what it ain’t.

Kissara runs towards Seto in this huge, empty boss arena that I would avoid like the plague in any video game.

And speaking of based, Seto Kaiba shows up. Because this episode wasn’t unhinged enough yet. Seto Kaiba is here to be the greek chorus of his own wife’s death.

He’s noticed. He’s noticed this is weird.

It’s a different storyboarder this season, but this storyboarder is still dropping some great frames. Look at this Seto they gave us, just snooping behind a pillar. New PFP just dropped (that is if anyone was even still using twitter which like, my life has been extremely blessed ever since I left it, we should all leave it together.)

So anyway she farts out a Blue Eyes on turn one, and Seto just kind of seethes from behind a pillar while trying to parse just anything that is going on.

Aknadin decides to shove her (well, her dragon...spirit...thing) into the rock tablet during the card shenanigans that followed. I, at first thought it was with an Orichalcos, and I got very excited about how complicated this season was going to get before I realized it wasn’t lime green.

I do not fully understand the card shenanigans at play here, it was not covered in my education playing through Yugioh Duel Masters (Master Duel) but it doesn’t matter because of the power of...love? or whatever the hell vibes are going on between these two goobers. They, with their vague as hell energy, will stand together against whatever life throws at them.

And by that, I mean literally dying 5 seconds afterwards

Seto Kaiba behind a pillar watched this go down, confused by whether he should feel anything at all by this random series of events between a girl he had half a conversation with, and a guy who looks like him except with guns the size of barrels.

Seto, filled with the pure anger of his wifey’s revenge, also immediately biffed it in solidarity.

Seto still remained behind the pillar, because why interrupt this? I mean yeah he looks like yourself and that girl absolutely died but eh...he’s gonna stay behind the pillar. Maybe if he had a duel disk he’d have thrown a couple cards and done some property damage. but as you can see, there are not helicopters or cranes to do property damage with.

So instead he remains behind the pillar, which they didn’t draw here in this next frame.

And on the back of a horse, in gallops Pharaoh.

I live for these popcorn moments in TV, where we’re like “hey, what if we just threw these characters in a weird blender and see how they reacted?” and this episode is just--everyone ends up in this one random spot and they all collectively are like like “what? The hell is happening?”

And we will see more of that next update.

As usual, here is the link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

Next post will go up like tomorrow probably, but, may my post after that not take 2 months to make, lmao, I swear guys we are going to finish Season 5!

#YGO #Yugioh #Yu-Gi-Oh #recap #episode recap #long post #yami muto #seto kaiba #preist seto #?Was that the name? #yugi muto #bakura #Theif King Bakura #Season 5 #Episode 42 #Kissara #BEWD #SHE DEAD

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 38, 39, and the Epiparodos of Harrow the Ninth

Something that hasn't been made entirely clear to me about John's airless room: Mercy thought that Harrow wouldn't be able to survive in the airless room, but I remember John telling her that she didn't need to breathe way back when they were on the shuttle, and in the last chapter John is still offering to let her stay in his airless room with him when the Heralds come, so I'm a bit confused about whether or not this is actually a viable option for her, and if it is viable, why she isn't considering it at this point when she starts to believe she will really die

I'm blanking on an episode where Harrow hid under her bed waiting for Gideon the First. When was that?

This Cytherea episode sort of brings into question all of the other Cytherea episodes, and maybe she did hallucinate some or all of them. But Cytherea's body did disappear, and someone put Gideon the First in the incinerator, and there isn't really any good answer for who else that might have been

Does he mean that he failed her by failing to kill her all this time, or is he talking about something else?

And I also don't have any idea whose idea this could have been. I think everyone else on the Mithraeum has stepped in to save her from him at least once, Augustine and Mercy and Ianthe even helped her try to kill him once, it seems like if any of them had wanted to mercy-kill her they would have had ample opportunities to just let her die

I wonder if this is just because she is used to having experiences that she knows aren't real and is used to managing her reactions to them, or if it's at least partly because she's not quite a regular Lyctor anymore, so the Heralds have less of an effect on her?

The Epiparodos (apparently: the second appearance of the Greek Chorus) is interesting for being Ianthe POV, but I don't think it tells me anything I don't already know, except for maybe that Ianthe thinks about art a lot, which might explain why she likes Cyrus's nude paintings. We don't find out what she did, exactly, or what's in any of the unopened letters. It is impressive that Harrow did brain surgery on herself and maybe manually rewrote a bunch of her memories, and it seems to have worked out exactly the way she wanted it to, from what I can tell, I think her plans were only foiled by the existence of the Heralds

So, can you undo a blood ward by using the person's blood somehow? She's been using blood wards to protect herself from Gideon the First for a while now, if he could undo her wards using her blood, I think he probably had a decent opportunity to get some of her blood to do that, didn't he? Or does Harrow think a blood ward won't work for some other reason?

I just want to point out that I think this is the second time someone was entranced by Harrow's philtrum, this also happened in Gideon the Ninth and maybe it's just me but it seems like such an odd body part to wax lyrical about. Also my browser's spellchecker doesn't even know it's a real word

I'm not sure what she's referring to, here. To the issues she has with Naberius not dying willingly? That seems like the opposite of Harrow's problem. Is it about her losing her arm? Or leaving her sister behind?

She just meant that it was their duty to serve John now, right? I don't think there's any way she could have known about the resurrection beasts yet, especially since her plan specifically involved not dying

Ok, I guess I did learn one new thing: the secret to why Harrow's hair grew out so fast

You know, I thought all of their weird tension was mostly because of the kiss at the beginning of the book, but she is already thinking this (and already gazing lovingly at Harrow's philtrum) before that ever happens

I have no idea what this might be about. I think this might actually be the first time the word "queen" has ever even appeared in this story (and I don't think "king" has either, outside of "the King Undying"), the heads of the Houses don't ever seem to be referred to as kings or queens. We do have a duchess and a baron and princes and princesses, but since one of John's titles is "the King Undying" I would have assumed that other people being accorded the rank of king or queen would be considered sacriligious

Ok, something I saw, when I went back to the Dramatis Personae of Gideon the Ninth to find out how many European nobility terms that book used:

House of the Sewn Tongue? As in, the tongue-and-jaw necromancy Harrow did to Ianthe to prevent her from telling everyone about her brain surgery? That's important enough to the Ninth House to be one of the names that's commonly used for it?

Ok, I remembered that I have text search on the Nook app, so I went through and searched all of Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth for the word "queen" and all I found was

Gideon calling Harrow her "crepuscular queen" and so forth

Cytherea talking about being in "the queenhood of her power" (or not), which interestingly is quoted back later as "the queendom of my power" instead

Ianthe and Corona being described as "queenly" or "like a queen" a couple of times

And after that, the next appearance of "queen" is this appearance in Harrow the Ninth. So it's never been used remotely as an actual title before

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Scott Clarke is an NPC (I'm dead serious)

Scott does So Much (yes, I'll be capitalizing often in this post) for the story in season 1 and yet is developed more or less not at all. He's a side character. Do I expect to get to know him on the level I know Mike or Joyce? No. It's the fact that he does So Much and yet we know So Little that's odd. I know more about Vickie than I do about Scott despite how much more screentime AND impact Scott has had.

I’ve been looking at some Suspicious Behavior surrounding Scott, which I’m writing a separate post on. So in this post, I won’t be theorizing about anything we don’t know about him. I want to talk about the role he plays as we see it.

I had this thought and once I had it, I couldn’t get rid of it. See, my thought was, “Huh, Scott’s kind of like the chorus in a play.” And I keep thinking about that. The role of the chorus (historically...like Greek historically) is to provide information the audience needs that the actors cannot themselves give. Sometimes they offer commentary on what the actors are doing. Sometimes they offer foreshadowing. Sometimes they announce a tonal shift.

You know when you read a book and there’s a conversation like,

"Are you hungry?" "No, I’m good. I doubt I’ll ever feel truly hungry again now that I’ve lived through the Four Year Famine." "That’s true. Those were a hard four years after the Leprechaun Army of Willyfilly Forest turned all our crops to marshmallows, and when the marshmallows melted on the hottest day of the summer and ruined the soil etc. etc."

and you’re just sitting there like JFC nobody talks like this? The chorus makes it so you don’t have to listen to characters over explain things to each other in abominably unnatural ways. But they aren’t characters whose independent arcs are explored.

In season 2, Scott literally introduces us to Max and in doing so, also reveals to us that she is MADMAX. His first lesson is about the human brain, and he tells us that there are 100 billion cells inside working together as one. This foreshadows the hivemind. His second lesson is about Phineas Gage and how his behavior dramatically shifted after the rod incident. This foreshadows Will’s possession. His third lesson is about instinctual fear and this one is literally given as a voiceover on top of Mindflayer Will approaching the hot bath. It couldn’t be any clearer. Scott’s role in season 2 is very blatantly the Chorus role. He delivers information to the audience and that is all.

In season 1, it isn’t that he’s speaking TO us to provide us with the information we need, but that his EXISTENCE provides us with the information we need.

Example: Instead of suffering through something along these lines—

"The Heathkit is so cool. It’s amazing that it’s able to reach so much further than a regular radio."

—we have Scott teaching the boys about it because it’s just arrived. This is pretty much storytelling 101, basic Show Don’t Tell. But what has me stuck on it is that this is ALL Scott does. The only reason Scott needed to be in the woods searching for Will that first night was so that he could strike up a conversation resulting in the revelation that Hopper lost a daughter.

But here’s how I look at it: Scott’s like an NPC. He just appears while you’re on your important mission to communicate with Will and says, “I’ll give you the key to the Very Important Radio but first you have to do something!” and then you have to go to this assembly and there’s this minor bad guy you fight there and then you get to go use the radio. Or you’re on the Scour the Woods quest and NPC Scott pops up and says “I found this piece of cloth! Looks like it’s from the lab!” And you have to go on your Scour the Lab quest.

Scott Clarke is the true NPC of Stranger Things. There is one instance of Scott Not Furthering the Plot in season 1 and it’s when he’s at home, watching a movie with a ladyfriend (the biggest plot twist of season 1) before Dustin interrupts to make sure he doesn't get too comfortable and gets back to his job of Driving the Plot. So Scott tells him how to make a sensory deprivation tank.

I said that like a joke, but it’s actually so fascinating to me that we don’t just see Scott picking up the phone when Dustin calls, which would have been in line with everything else we’ve seen from him all season. This includes when Connie comes to wrangle the party’s identities out of him. We don’t see what he was doing before she arrives. We see her knock and only then do we see inside as he answers the door. But in this scene, we catch this brief glimpse of Scott’s life before Dustin interrupts and that interruption genuinely feels like it’s saying, “No, no, Mr. Clarke. You’ve misunderstood the assignment. You’re supposed to be helping, not relaxing.”

This happens again in season 3. We actually see inside his garage as he paints a little DnD figure while Joyce is knocking on the door before he hears her and gets up to greet her. It’s just a brief glimpse of his life outside of school. So what we know about Scott is that he likes science, he likes film, and he likes DnD. We actually already knew he liked DnD because he knew what the Vale of Shadows was in The Flea and the Acrobat and we could have guessed he liked film because he’s in charge of (and enthusiastic about) the AV Club. But what we know about Scott is, in short, his interests and that he cares about his students.

I think I need to take a moment to talk about why Scott is different from other side characters. Let’s keep on with season 1 for now. Barb is only in two episodes, but she’s developed enough that we see her emotions. We understand her worry that Nancy is outgrowing her. We see her frustrations as she’s dragged to a party where she doesn’t feel comfortable and then as Nancy abandons her. But ultimately, Barb IS the plot. She’s the instigator for Nancy’s journey. Similarly, Troy is the plot, serving as an obstacle for the boys. Tommy and Carol are antagonists to Nancy and Jonathan and offer Steve a self-growth arc. All of these side characters further the characterization of a protagonist. Scott only furthers the plot. (Don't @ me, I'm not implying he wasn't a great influence on the kids, I'm talking about what we see onscreen)

There are also side characters who don’t really do anything most of the time but maybe have a scene or two where they actually do something relevant. Like Holly. She’s just around most of the time, but then she notices the lights. Or Flo. She’s just at the office doing her job until she offers up some words about love and stupidity to Nancy.

No other side character consistently furthers the plot Every. Single. Time. they are on screen. And yet Scott is totally undeveloped. It’s his complete lack of independent journey combined with the way he appears solely to reveal information the protagonists require that makes him like an NPC. If he did not exist, the plot would halt. He is a destination the protagonists need to arrive at in order to achieve their goals. This is true of both seasons 1 and 3. In season 2, the plot actually would have been fine without him (I wouldn’t. I would not have been fine without Scott, FYI) but he was there to offer us foreshadowing and themes. His Chorus Era, as I am deeming it.

Season 2 also contains the only instance of Scott Not Furthering the Plot AT ALL in a scene. It’s at the Snow Ball. He’s briefly seen tacking up a banner and then again greeting Dustin. Nothing is revealed about him or his life through these moments, but they don’t serve the story in any way and frankly, that’s refreshing. Good for you, Scott. It isn’t like in seasons 1 and 3 where his peace is interrupted. Although, technically, Dustin still has to interact with Scott here in order to get into the Snow Ball.

I’m trying very hard to wrap this up without going into Theory Mode because I’m saving all that for my other post, but I feel like I just shat out a bunch of nonsense if there’s no Great Point I’m making. Conclusion: this character was written with a very specific purpose in mind. The writers made sure he was essential in every scene he is (has a speaking role) in except for one quick non-character-building interaction. And for a character so Important, he is left unusually underdeveloped. I don’t think this was an accident, that’s all. Scott Clarke for ST5.

#scott clarke #stranger things #I have no idea how to tag this one this is about to flop so hard #my dumbass post

[pb-dot]

WIP Character Introduction: Secundus Two

Happy WIP Wednesday y'all. Today I decided to go back to the character well for a spell. Today's character is one that is only introduced in the epilog of The Clockwork Boy, but considering how important I'm planning to make her later, I do believe it's time to share some fun facts about the second Clockman to be converted and the wild world of terrible ideas that happened to her.

Secundus Two is the Clockman that looks the part the least. Unlike her brethren, she keeps her blonde hair long, although it tends to get messy as she doesn't spend much time caring for it. Her clockwork body frame is also highly unusual. Thin and spindly in places, parts of her arms and legs bulge into drumlike cylinders at seemingly random intervals. Although it's not visible when she stands still, it doesn't take much movement for her to display her extra-flexible joints, which allows her to move in ways that are unusual or even uncanny for the average observer, and Two loves to indulge in this unnerving.

The work on Two started as soon as Creator learned the full possible extent of the degeneration of his fine motor skills. As such, he built Two more to be a servant and assistant to him, even including an ambitious but highly untested series of modifications that'd allow Two to expand her clockwork body and function as a mechanical exoskeleton to steady Creator's hands in the face of his worsening health. It did not take many dry runs to discover that it was difficult, bordering on impossible for Two to control these modifications properly, as there was no analog body control function she could map the new function to. Unfortunately for both Creator and Two, Creator both was and is a relentless taskmaster who brokes no challenge to his authority, and he resolved to make Two master these functions or break her in two trying.

At one point, Two broke, but not in the way Creator expected, or noticed right away. By the time she broke the arm of an assistant in Creator's workshop and the terrified journeyman told Creator his case wasn't the first, Creator started to realize his approach might have had unintended side effects.

Outwardly, Two seemed as normal as was expected of someone in her position, although signs of fracture were starting to show, odd perspectives, unusual requests, the odd spell of amplified emotion usually grief or rage. Creator soon abandoned the thought of bending Two to his will, although he could not find it in his heart to have her terminated like earlier failed experiments, whether this was part of some grander plan or merely a rare instance of soft-heartedness from the old man remains to be seen.

As such, Two exists as a kind of an organization of her own within the Clockmen. She technically responds to the authority of Creator, but her interpretation of her orders is often technically compliant but going against the spirit of the command. As such, Creator seldom trusts her with anything more prone to reinterpretation than relaying orders to her brethren. Two doesn't seem to mind, and it has in recent years had Creator thinking that she is playing some sort of long game on him.

Unlike One, Two never found comfort with her new numerical moniker, and eventually resolved to be called Secundus or Secundus Two. Given her strange position in the hierarchy of the Clockmen, her fellow Clockmen usually respects this decision. While Creator does emphatically not, he does not trust his position relative to his underlings to force the issue of her name with them.

Secundus Two is a bit of a wildcard in the story. Her role is initially as part sounding board for Creator, part unnerving court jester, but I plan for her to be more of a Greek chorus as the series develops, and as for her role in the finale, well, let's just say without spoiling she is highly relevant to both the circumstances and resolution of the climax.

If I'm going to be honest here, and I generally try to be, Secundus Two is probably the character in the plot I am the weariest of screwing up the writing of. Just the high concept of her mind being in tatters after being forced to try operating a body too alien for her brain to handle feels interesting and inspired by my own issues with dyspraxia, but also has the potential of getting kind of unsavory in what it says about humans and brains somehow, but I could not tell you exactly what angle I expect this problem to come from. If I could formulate exactly what about this bit that bothered me it'd perhaps be easier to avoid

It's also important for me to stick the landing with Two because she is slated to be, as mentioned earlier, very important for the conclusion of this whole tale. Her role as Independent on Account Of Being Too Weird To Subjugate is an interesting wrinkle to the strict authoritarianism of The Clockmen, and I intend to make the most out of it to get the endgame cooking, as well as a vector for commentary.

As for music inspiration, I do get a kind of She's A Big Boy energy from Secundus, and perhaps a touch of A Stranger I Remain from the Revengance soundtrack, as well as Narashite by Haru Nemuri and Carbon Dioxide by Fever Ray. Skunk by Thundersmack doesn't mirror her quite as perfectly, but the chaos of it certainly represents her just fine. The vibes for these tracks are all over the place, but that's just kind of how Secundus Two is.

tag list @ettawritesnstudies @mrbexwrites @teacupsandstarlight @anonymousfoz @wrenofthewords @sm-writes-chaos

If you want to be put on the Tag List for this project, please interact with my Tag List Post

#writing #writeblr #hearts in clockwork #the clockwork boy

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Ok I don’t know if this counts as a story concept or idea correctly but maybe something about Cassandra from the Iliad? Obsessed with her lately <3

First of all that ABSOLUTELY counts thank you I had a wonderful time writing this, secondly now I too am obsessed with her!!! thirdly this is less Iliad focused and slightly more Oresteia play focused and actually mostly just me making up lore, but I hope you enjoy it!!!

Remember when Cassandra stood outside Agamemnon’s palace, knowing her doom waited inside? Of course you do.  She was a slave by then and yet she still would not come down from the chariot, not until Clytemnestra stopped demanding it and went inside.  She screamed, then, at the walls, at the gods, at the chorus, yet she never asked why because she already knew: she knew of cruelty and selfishness, of how the gods had never loved mortals, or if they had it wasn’t in a way mortals could understand.  Instead she asked how, how they could do such a thing, how such evil could grow in their hearts and the souls of men.  She got no answer back, but she didn’t really need one.  How is perhaps the least important question to ask. 

Cassandra had made a mistake once – she had thought she loved a god, then realised she didn’t. Apollo hadn’t taken her change of mind lightly and so her oracles were never taken seriously again.  She screamed until her voice was gone that there were Greeks inside the horse, that the city was doomed, that her family would die before her eyes, but no one listened.  Troy fell, again.  Cassandra was ripped from the statue of Athena.  Ajax was punished for the sacrilege but his death brought no relief for the girl.  This is what is remembered.    

Cassandra was wry, bitter but no more than she deserved to be.  She was brave and hated that she had to be.  She was funny and honest and stubborn.  This is what is forgotten.    

(Cassandra likes wearing cable-knit sweaters.  Her ringlets, once blonde, now dyed dark, cover her eyes.  She plans meals.  She wraps her arms around her bare knees and misses her brothers, yes even Paris, even after all he brought down on them all, even after she was the first to see Hector’s battered flaccid body brought back within the city walls.  Sometimes she still cries herself to sleep.  She wishes she weren’t brave enough to let herself do it, but she is). 

Clytemnestra struck Cassandra down, her corpse crumpling beside Agamemnon’s.  She still did not ask how when she opened her eyes again in another doomed city.  She would never know how.  And she had no need to ask why, she could well understand.  Of course Apollo had not been done with her.  Of course she was cursed to be doomed again, and again, and again until the final city in the world freezes over and all that’s left is silence. 

(Cassandra writes emails to her landlord telling him about the mould and the way the gas isn’t starting up.  She grumbles to herself about the long walk to the bins outside, especially when the ground is frozen over). 

Some tragic girls live the same tragedy over and over again, you see.  They wouldn’t be themselves without their death, without the glance backwards or the closed up tomb.  But Cassandra was always a strange one, always special, always hovering between story subject and storyteller, and so she must live different dooms each time.  In a way, she supposes in idle moments when she’s prone to self-reflection, she always knew it would be this way.  Her bones told her so. 

“The ruins were built by giants,” someone told Cassandra later, much later (perhaps fatter perhaps taller perhaps different hair but still Cassandra) and she almost laughed.  To think a people she once knew could be so fully forgotten, she thought to herself as she browsed among the figs.  But “one day giants will tear down these walls too,” was all she said.  She still couldn’t help her prophecies, she had always tried to suppress them but somehow they slipped out.  People thought she was bad luck, or a curse, or not right in the head, or even just strange if well-meaning, she learnt not to care too much.  It didn’t matter what they thought, none of them ever believed her.  Years later the city was destroyed in a siege by a nation of great power, men called giants for the strength they wielded over the surrounding lands.  See? She’s learning.  When people are called witches she’s never accused of being one, her strange sayings just obtuse enough that no one ever connects her with the truth.  This is how she survives, even as she is killed every lifetime.  The gods don’t want this, they don’t want her to survive.  But she learns and she changes and that is what survival is.         

(Cassandra no longer fears the gods, she has learnt to trick and twist just as they do, she lives so many different lives just as they do, she knows what they are now.  Powerful people, but people nonetheless.  They can be caught and fooled and brought low.  Mankind stopped believing in the mountain so the gods walk among humanity now, slipping easily in among the masses, mostly unnoticed and unknown.  But Cassandra knows.  She believes in them, but she doesn’t let it matter.  The gods shudder in fear of this, and Cassandra sits on the floor in her kitchen and separates whites from darks). 

Cassandra died a thousand times in a thousand lost cities.  She still handed out her prophecies for all to hear, and still no one ever listened.  When she could, however, she did more than just soothsay.  No one else may believe her visions, but she did and she made plans.  One city fell in fire and she pulled a child from the flames, sent him to wander dazed down to the buildings left safe by the river.  Another was taken by the flood, and yet all of Cassandra’s family in that lifetime was safe at the top of a tower that would not fall.  “I will not watch my brothers die again,” she hissed, even as she was pulled beneath the churning waters herself.  Everything she did, she smiled sweetly at the gods and spat in their faces.  Prophesying little Cassandra, meant to die unchanged and unchanging.  As frozen in her story as tragic girls always are.  But people lived because of her and she wielded that like a sword.  You give a girl knowledge, what do you think she’s going to do with it? Really, the gods should have known better. 

(Cassandra reads in cafes when she has time.  She rubs her eyes a lot out of habit, and she’s recently started making up puns.  She’s angry, all tragic girls are angry, but she was always different, always special.  She doesn’t just know the story, she tells the story.  Even if no one listens, that will always mean something). 

Cassandra’s gonna get revenge one day.  She passes each day and each lifetime with vengeance thrumming in her chest and she never tells another soul.  The gods can see it coming, they’re afraid of it, they’re afraid of her.  Apollo made a mistake, you see, in bringing her back.  He let her twist a tale where she became something new and maybe no one else believes it but she believes it and that’s enough.  They can see it coming but they don’t know anything about it.  They don’t know how, or what or when.  They won’t figure it out until the day it happens.  They shake and tremble and quake in their ignorance. 

Oh, but Cassandra knows. 

#my writing #cassandra #christmas story asks #also this made me think of Cass your best girl Cass from batfam

[nausikaaa]

WIP Wednesday

oh hey, it's Wednesday, and i actually have a wip to share!

this is from my greek mythology wip. i now have 19,000 words written and edited! so here's some Briseis POV

A proper camp was quickly set up, as we wouldn’t be moving for the next few days. Helenus got a fire going and two tents were raised, one for him and one for Andromache and I. A soldier begrudgingly gave us some meat and I found herbs growing near the riverside, and Helenus turned out to be quite the cook, a talent he evidently also had no idea he possessed until he served us. It was the best meal I'd had in... well, a year, and I told him as much.

I was sweltering under my chlamys, as summer crept closer and the day's heat still lingered in the dusk, but my pregnancy was starting to make itself obvious and I still wasn't ready to tell anyone. Still, sitting around the fire on some rocks, conversation flowing between the Helenus and I easily, I felt good. Andromache occasionally chimed in with her own thoughts, and a warm, tingling feeling spread out from my chest whenever she spoke. Already, she seemed so much healthier. I saw determination in the set of her jaw, the fire reflecting in her eyes, and it made me proud.

the description Briseis gives of how she feels when Andromache talks kind of makes it sound like she's in love with her, but as i've written her, i've realised Briseis feels aromantic to me. of course, the ancient greeks didn't have the same views and language we do today to discuss sexuality, but spoiler: she never falls in love and has no desire to. her friendships and eventual children are what's important to her, and it's their happiness that gives her butterflies.

i tag @ileadacharmedlife @martsonmars @imagineacoolusername @confused-bi-queer @ic3-que3n @forabeatofadrum @tea-brigade @bazzybelle @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @theearlgreymage @aristocratic-otter @facewithoutheart @otherpeoplesheartachept-2 @whogaveyoupermission @shemakesmeforget @letraspal @larkral @artsyunderstudy @hushed-chorus @blackberrysummerblog @cutestkilla @fatalfangirl @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @ebbpettier and @prettygoododds

#andromache's child #wip wednesday #my writing

[pinkiepiebones]

do you perhaps have any more thoughts about copia getting teased by his students for his ghoul bf, back in his bishop days?? the mental image of copia bumbling around trying to keep said bfs identity a mystery is just soo cute

Copia set the chalk down in the tray beneath the blackboard and turned to face his students. "Any questions?"

Unsurprisingly, several hands shot up. The bishop sighed. Odds were good that the teenagers he was tasked with instructing were going to complain about his penmanship (chalkmanship?) again. It wasn't his fault writing on a chalkboard was so difficult. He pointed to one of the students. The student, Camilla, eagerly lowered her hand and asked,

"So who are you dating, Bishop?"

The small classroom rippled with giggles and murmurs. Copia felt a blush start to stain his cheeks so her turned his attention back to the board. "That is entirely irrelevant to the lesson."

"Totally relevant," a boy, Sebastian, said.

"You can tell us, we're your favourite class," another student, Maja, whined.

The blushing bishop erased some of his work and set about trying to tidy it up for readability.

"I heard he's with a ghoul" a girl said in a scandalised tone.

The chalk made an excruciating squeal as Copia dragged it down the board. He dropped it in the tray and again turned to face the hoard of teens.

"And where did you hear this, Miss Cassandra?" he asked in the particular tone someone uses when they are desperately trying to appear at ease when they are, in fact, not at ease. He attempted to casually lean back but only succeeded in rubbing his writing onto the back of his alb.

The other students had turned their bodies- a few turned their desks as well- to see Cassandra. She loudly chewed her bubble gum as she spoke. "Okay, so, like, you know Brother Casper, right? Well, he said that Sister Max and Sibling Violet said that they saw a ghoul leaving Bishop Copia's dormitory in the middle of the night last week!"

The students "ooh"ed like a hormonal Greek chorus and turned their attention back to their teacher.

"Ghouls run errands," Copia said dismissively. "I had an errand that needed running."

"That's what she said" someone in the back of the room muttered loud enough for the class to hear. More giggles filled the class. Usually, Copia would have shot a stern glare over his reading glasses across the room, bringing an immediate silence; today he wasn't wearing his glasses and was too nervous to glare.

Another student, Azoth, raised eir hand. "Bishop Copia, is it the broken ghoul that everyone calls 'Special'?" The class filled with noises of disbelief and laughter, but Azoth cleared eir throat and added, "not that I'm judging you, sir."

Copia fiddled with the inverted cross on his chest. "Would it get us back on track if I were to reveal to you all the identity of who I am dating?"

The students nodded enthusiastically.

"I am dating a new guy," Copia said. "You haven't met him before. He just came here from another church." He paused. "In Canada."

Several students were visibly anmoyed at this lack of a revelation. A few took notes, unsure as to whether or not this would be on the end of term exam. Cassandra rolled her eyes. "That's a really boring secret, Bishop."

Copia shrugged. "I never said I was interesting."

...

Later, Copia returned to his room with a stack of books from one of the libraries. Special was laying on the ceiling, listening to one of Copia's records.

"You're back! How was-" Special hopped down to the floor and watched Copia set the books down on his cramped little desk. "Whoa, did you students givr you homework? That's fucked up."

"No, Spesh, this is homework for you." Copia handed his ghoulfriend a book on anatomy, and one on Canadian history.

"I might have told the students I'm dating a human from Canada, so study up."

Special tossed the history book to the bed and, after willing away his thumb claw with a bit of glamour, thumbed through the anatomy book. After an anxious minute, he spoke.

"Didja tell the students I had a name, or do I get to make that up, too?"

#ghost bc #the band ghost #spooky ideas #fwiw the ruse fails almost immediately #special ghoul #cardinal copia

[gingerlilys]

TTPD Thoughts

First: The Bad

- tbh I was disappointed

- It was kinda boring; like she wrote out all these lyrics to write them and slapped a beat on it as an afterthought

- People like Taylor swift for two reasons: she’s an amazing lyricist and her songs are catchy. This album had neither. The lyrics sounded ai generated (don’t get me wrong some lyrics were great, but others not so much) and the beats were BORING; there was no variation (and before you go “oh it’s sonically cohesive” her other albums like folklore and reputation were sonically cohesive while also being interesting)

- It was more for her than the audience, they were good songs and you can tell they were her coping mechanisms but I don’t think I would listen to any of these just to listen to them

- At first I was ecstatic that it was a boy ke album, but now I think 31 songs was very much a bad decision. Rather than having a normal size rlly good album, she had a huge kinda meh album

- I have a love hate relationship with I Can Do It With A Broken Heart bc the song was devastating when you know the context and I relate to it a lot, but the lyrics sounded VERY ai generated

Now: The Good

- OMG ITS SO MARAUDERS CODED

- “The black dog” “Peter” “The prophecy” “you smoked then ate 7 bars of chocolate” It’s ok Taylor you can just say you’re Mskingbean89

- I loved Florida!!! and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me sm

- My tik tok favorites folder for Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, and Marauders has literally doubled in size since this album came out (and it only came out two days ago as of when I’m writing this) (Taylor swift works fast but editors work faster)

- I loved Cassandra bc I’m a Greek mythology nerd

- “I’m having his baby- no I’m not but you should see your faces” I loved that. It was hilarious

- I also rlly liked The Bolter, the chorus itched my brain and it also kinda reminds me of The Last Great American Dynasty or Mad Woman in a way I can’t explain

- The album was very much a feminine rage album and I’m here for it

Conclusion

I’ve got a love-hate relationship. I am very much a swiftie, but idk if this albums for me, and that’s ok bc people have different tastes. But I am very much looking forward to all the angsty edits that are going to come out of this.

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #marauders #atyd #all the young dudes

[leviackermanscleaningbuddy]

If the pack does end up having pups, what would you want to name them?

"Greg." Jeongin answers almost immediately, expression completely serious.

There is an instant chorus of vetoes.

"Absolutely not."

"Ew."

"Do you want to set him up to be a weird, socially introverted, high school science teacher?"

"That's gonna be a no from me."

"You can't be serious."

Jeongin grins and shrugs, an evil glint in his eye now. "I mean, hyung's name is Chris, how is Greg that different?"

Chan sputters beside you. "Hey, Chris is a perfectly, normal name!"

"Yah, show some respect for your elder, you menace." Minho reaches out, raising a hand as if to cuff the youngest on the back of the head, but lets Jeongin dodge it easily, as if it's just a warning. "Besides, Christopher grew up in Australia. You can't expect him to have a normal, solid name."

"Chris is a normal name!" Chan protests again, although you can see he's losing the will to fight against Jeongin and Minho's combined forces.

"Anyway, if (Y/N) and Lix are gonna carry our pups, then they get to pick the names." Changbin intervenes, and Chan shoots him a silent, grateful look. "It's only fair."

"No way." You wave your hands immediately. "I don't want all that pressure on me. Everyone has to help decide, even if we have to put it to a vote."

"Not to say that we all don't already have names that we like." Felix pipes up, smiling softly, eyes lit with an affectionate glow as he ponders the possibility of future pups.

"Yeah, Greg." Jeongin says again, but everyone dutifully ignores him this go around.

"Chris and Felix tend to like more Americanized, modern names just because of where and how they grew up." Changbin offers, glancing between the two, who are nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, it's definitely because of my upbringing." Chan adds. "I mean, my mom gave us all American birth names, rather than Korean ones and that was definitely a personal choice-Christopher, Hannah, Lucas-but we also had secondary Korean names, for when and if we came back or visited family. Does that make sense? Like Chan is my Korean name, but Chris is my given name."

"And my mom and dad did the same." Felix continues where Chan left off. "My sisters and I all have traditional names just because we grew up in Australia, which is much more Americanized than Korea-Rachel, Felix, Olivia-but were also given Korean names, just in case. Like Yongbok."

"I like Jack, for a boy." Chan shrugs, glancing between all of you, as you give him slight nods and approving smiles. "I dunno, I've just always liked it. And for a girl, Mae. I really like simple, short, easily pronounced names."

"Like Greg." Jeongin grumbles adamantly beneath his breath, and Minho moves in a flash to pinch his side.

"I'm like, one of those people who grew up wanting pups, I guess?" Felix muses thoughtfully, considering. "I read baby name books as a teenager for fun, which is odd, but it just made me happy, to think about the future?"

"He has so many baby name books." Hyunjin nods, looking equal parts exasperated and equal parts fond. "They take up the entire book case in our room."

"I love the name Jade, for a girl. It's pretty and precious and rare? And I'd hope it would make her feel like such." Felix blushes, and Minho slings a casual arm across his shoulders in a silent show of support. "And for a boy, I love Atlas. I totally got into Greek mythology hard core in my nerdy high school drama years. I know. Shocker." He laughs.

"Damn." Jisung rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "You guys make me feel unprepared. I've literally only ever thought about this enough to be like 'hm, yeah, I kinda don't hate the names Yonghoon and Lisa."

"It's fine." You shrug, offering him a smile. "Not everyone grew up inherently wanting pups, and that's completely cool."

"But you did." Chan offers glancing sidelong at you, with a slightly knowing crinkle to his eyes.

"Yeah." You laugh, blowing your breath out through your pursed lips as you think. "I didn't want pups when I was young, but then when I got to about middle school I think? I changed my mind, like, dramatically, and I've never been quite sure why. But I desperately wanted pups and a family and a pack from that moment on."

"Biology." Minho shrugs, as if it's that easy, and maybe it is.

Guess you'll never know.

"So that day-" You laugh again at the memory, thinking back. "I went home and I pulled out my diary from beneath my mattress, and I wrote down two names-one for a boy and one for a girl-and I promised myself I'd use them in the future, if I was ever lucky enough to get to have pups."

"Ah. I can picture it." Felix grins, eyes alight. "Cute."

"The names I picked were Chen and Huna."

"Damn. You had good taste as a middle schooler." Hyunjin remarks blithely, grinning at you, as you shoot him a wink.

"I like to think I was ahead of my time."

#skz #skz!Pack #skz!pack #ask the pack #askthepack #ask #reply #ot8 #skz!abo #poly!skz #alpha beta omega #alpha beta omega dynamics #inbox #my submissions #submission #anon #anonymous #sweet nonnie #pups #ot8 xyou #ot8 x reader #skz x you #skz x reader #stay #bang chan #lee know #seo changbin #han jisung #hwang hyunjin #yang jeongin