#performance tax

[chernozemm]

finally bent and drew sth for @blairamok 's On Thin Ice AU!

i have near to no knowledge on figure skating but i like a motif and i like drawing gorgeous poses, hence: Crowley showing off with a slutty slutty cantilever

it would have to be cut and rearranged to fit a program, but i was imagining I Want You (She's So Heavy) for the music; something slow, tempting and sensual

#on thin ice au #crowley #good omens #anthony j crowley #figure skating au #look blair im sorry i know hes one for dynamic taxing performances and he has a permanently etched frown.....im just giving him a break #and giving him a languid winding performance to get a fucking break #myart

[pulsingvoid]

"She's been possessed by the devil." Again? "Oh, for fuck's sake."

#the things she had to DO. and she did them impeccably! PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME!!!! #apparently it was incredibly taxing and honestly it makes sense that after this she was like virginia woolf? no thank u. im doing. Dumbo #eva green #vanessa ives #penny dreadful #pennydreadfuledit #mine #horror #can you tell ive been on a steady diet of silent films for a month straight lol

[maxsix]

#txt #tomorrow x together #soobin #yeonjun #taehyun #i must have edited this in my sleep bc i completely forgot i had it #yeonjun is such a performer #so natural and so confident #soobin the back ? hybe you owe me Background Soobin tax #the hair flips are really in full force for this choreo

[countess-of-edessa]

maria khoreva: has been posting on Instagram about how she'll be performing at the YAGP New York gala for a while now, obviously not keeping it a secret at all and lots of ballet people have been discussing it

some stupid representative in albany: you kept this a SECRET from us so we couldn't protest because you were trying to sneak in the Russians under the radar how dare you they're representatives of Putin >:(

#well if they were real good people they would have lost everything in their lives to speak out against a tyrannical government and end up #changing nothing obviously #I guess some people think differently but yes I understand the Mariinsky is a state sponsored theatre and I understand not having the #theatre over here to perform as a company. but not allowing individual dancers over here to perform as individuals who happen to work #for the theater is so stupid to me #yes the state funds the theater. American tax dollars contribute to various arts funds here #I don't want to be called Biden's representative when I go to other countries for work #ok sounds good you first #2/3 of the 'Russian' dancers invited are May Nagahisa and Kimin Kim who are not even Russian #and trust me I literally wrote the book (thesis) on Russian ballet as propaganda I literally did do exactly that #I still find this moronic. No one is out here doing Spartak or the Red Poppy or Taras Bulba or anything like that #stupid stupid stupid

[rainbowinbeigeboots]

oh besties i’m 100% LOSING it rn because i got to give jodie my crochet tessa doll i made her 😭😭😭

#jodie comer #she’s literally an irl angel #the fact she had a quick convo w it h me about if i made the doll and made so much eye contact with me #happy birthday to me ommmggg #literally because it was wednesday and this is my personal bday gift #literally the fact she’s doing such a taxing performance and still doing signings??? iconic of her #prina facie #mine #emiie rambles

[burning--heart]

The Grinning Man is Not a Horror Show

this post brought to you by: my own personal experience trying to show this musical to people (which i have already talked about briefly) and also this post by castledock:

the mainstream media’s perception of LHQR is almost always “well I haven’t watched or read it but this guy looks scary so it must be a very disturbing and scary book/movie” and every time I go outside of my little circle of LHQR Appreciators it’s like being slapped in the face by Ableism

i’m spinning this off into my own post because the essay got Long and also it’s definitely about tgm and not lhqr. strap in y’all.

like, ok. you see the pictures online. the protagonist has a bloody bandage on his face, the lighting is moody, and the puppets are creepy i guess (but they are so charming once you see them in motion)…

i’ll be focusing on flesh-and-blood adult grinpayne and his face. does it cause him a lot of grief? yes. is it central to the show? absolutely. but are you meant to be scared or disturbed by it? no. if you were, then yeah. this would be a horror show, and a bitingly ableist one at that. but it’s not.

there is one single moment where we are made to see grinpayne’s face as horrifying, and even then it's... well. it’s not about his smile being grotesque. not really.

it happens when his frustration at being kept as a spectacle because of his face reaches a tipping point. he bites back. "i'm the stuff of your nightmares," he says, "i am the freak show! watch me smile!" it's not an empowering moment. he is gutting himself for his audience.

He removes his bandages and reveals his jaw - a huge nightmarish bloody grin. Horribly unhealed. Red. Raw. Glistening. It's there, and then it's gone. “Laughter" riff crashes in and the world tilts.

Above is the stage direction from the script. Note that the “Laughter” motif is identified by name.

We can see how this was executed onstage in Bristol: The reveal is accompanied by sickly green strobe light, Louis Maskell as Grinpayne snaps his head to the side, there's a brief blackout, we are jumpscared by a giant grinpayne puppet head in the same green strobe, blackout again, then it’s on to the characters' reactions.

It sounds horror on paper. it looks very horror in Bristol. and yet the characters react as though they've just seen heaven. what's up with that?

here lies one of the biggest challenges the grinning man has: its empathetic theme gets easily muddied by the reactions the other characters have to grinpayne. generally, when experiencing a story, we look to the characters within it for cues on how we should feel about its topics, and they guide us through it. this is especially true of media aimed at children. the grinning man is... not like that. the royals and the people of the fair see his face and they are instantly enlightened! with sudden clarity, you're him, and he is you!

the audience doesn’t get it. 

but i don't think we're supposed to.

Song lyrics like ‘you realise that you are him and he is you’ explain to us Grinpayne’s effect on his audiences, but we are never shown that experience nor are we invited to feel that experience ourselves. (Brendan Macdonald, Exeunt)

this reviewer was close, very close, but has jumped to conclusions and ended up shutting the door on the idea that makes the musical make sense. its true that we are told how the other characters see grinpayne, and we don't get to experience that for ourselves. but the thing is, while we are told one thing, we are actually being shown something entirely different.

characters in his audience look at grinpayne and we are told they have an earth-shattering revelation. we hear them explain it multiple times. despite this, their reaction is not what we feel. this is the part that's unintuitive.

here’s where we circle back to the face reveal. the dramatic imagery clashes with what the fictional audience is seeing and feeling. this is because we, the non-fictional audience, are not supposed to be putting ourselves in their shoes at all. the character we’re anchored to is grinpayne. and to him, this is not a triumph of self-discovery. the horror isn’t in his appearance, it’s in how people treat him because of it.

and when it comes to the characters’ revelations, it’s not really about grinpayne anyway. it’s about themselves and what they project onto him, whatever that is. grinpayne is a symbol to almost everyone, whether they see him as a gruesome face, a lord, or a god. they don't understand him when they look at his face.

the audience of the grinning man, unlike the characters within it, are provided the opportunity to connect with grinpayne on a deeper level. we get to dive into his head like nobody else. this is why “Labyrinth” is a big deal (this is also why them changing over half the lyrics to this song at the transfer is a big deal). this is why dea’s love for him is a big deal: she sees him for who he is, and has from the start.

we also get to see the “real” grinpayne (and even love him for who he is), but unlike the characters’ sudden (and shallow) enlightenment, our understanding of grinpayne is gradual, but truer because of it. it builds slowly and perhaps unnoticed throughout the show until you’re fully immersed; it’s something that you feel, not think. though, if i had to pick a moment, personally, it would be “when they are gazing at my grin / what is it that they see within?” from “Labyrinth” because that line knocks me on my ass to this day.

and. surprise! this deeper understanding is also why i think this show is a musical and not a straight play. nothing has the emotional capacity that music does. we aren’t just told the way grinpayne feels; his songs allow us to feel with him in a way that spoken word never could. that’s how we connect.

at the end of the day, this guy still has a bloody face. and some people are going to see this and assume that tgm is horror. but hopefully if they watched it they’d change their minds, because the grinning man shows us the most (and only truly) disturbing thing about grinpayne’s injury is the cruelty and misunderstanding he faces at the hands of a miserable world where “laughter is the best medicine.” and “I Am the Freak Show” may contain the moment with the strongest “horror” visuals in the show, at least in the original production, but it’s actually a crucial example of why tgm itself is not a horror show itself.

#the grinning man #grinpayne #burning thoughts #this is over 1k words btw #thanks for reading if you made it this far #also i specify bristol in this post not to differentiate it from london but to differentiate it from the script #aka everything brought onstage that is not present in the text. this is not a version differences post #also i didn’t want to mention it in the post since i don’t feel like digging for the source and it’s not super relevant to my point #but louis maskell Has said that “i am the freak show” is the most difficult and emotionally taxing part of the show for him to perform. #and no fucking wonder honestly. have you seen this guy’s energy during this number? it’s unbelievable. #peace and love. hope i made sense. goodnight <3

[professionalowl]

i am very fond of my professor as i am sure you all have picked up on at this point but if he keeps talking about my hypothetical doctorate i am going to hit him with my shoe

#i am a second year undergraduate. i barely even know what taxes are. #i don't need a five minute lecture about my future in academia i need to curl up in a ball and take a long nap and have a few free days #to do exploratory reading and figure out what i need to do NOW for my UNDERGRAD dissertation #aughgh. Augh this is such a stupid thing to feel bad about I should be ecstatic about it and I am but it's so. #it's not even really his fault i think he's earnestly trying to be encouraging it's just maybe too genuine rn #i love you. thank you for believing in me. shut the fuck upppppppppp #had this exchange on monday and it is genuinely stressing me out so much as if there isn't ENOUGH pressure #to perform well academically at this stupid ass university just generally now this specific guy thinks i am some kind of prodigy #academia is such a scam. god. like i'll do it but i'm going to be complaining about it the whole time #uni adventures

[bibleofficial]

ok actually ? based

#stream #yes it’s performative but slayyyy #now get them to increase taxes on corporations headass 🙄

[sunnixsunshine]

I took a three hour nap after work orientation and I’m still tired

#ash x goh x gary x misty and ashs tax benefits #please i love them so much lmao #watch as brock performs his ritual dance of eternal debt #this is all so dumb its 1 am #pokemon #pokemon fanart #gym leader brock #gym leader misty #trainer ash #trainer goh #gary oak #pikachu #team rocket #team rocket jessie #team rocket james #team rocket meowth #what IS ash goh and garry ship name DO they have a ship name?? pls i fucking love them

[parsleymusic]

the urge to respond to critique about portrayal of unpolitically correct attitudes or phrases or actions or whatever in regards to mental illness with "what if I told you that it's not my job to tell my readers that when my character says stuff like 'my binge eating disorder is not as bad as my brother's bipolar + PTSD combination; he has to win at something' that it's Bad and the Wrong Attitude to have when it's largely a tongue in cheek joke about living with mental illness and watching the people you love experience a different flavor that is also worse

#one of my characters tells another character that her grandmother committed suicide #and the critiquer said that I should have said died by suicide #because that is now the “correct” way to talk about suicide #and... I know that #I work in the psychology field #and i'm aware of how speech impacts perception #however #my character does not care about this distinction #and honestly neither do I #it doesn't matter to me whether or not you say “committed suicide” or “died by suicide” #and I have had someone close to me kill themselves #it fucking sucks but no amount of “died by suicide” takes away the reality of the action being performed by the person dying #imo it's a cheap trick that purports to discern the complexities of suicide in that people who do it aren't fully to blame for it #but it doesn't! that conversation needs to happen in full without shying away from the reality that the person did choose to die! #I just... I don't know #i want to portray life as it is not as we wish it to be and I'm not writing a message book about mental illness #also this critiquer comes from the YA space and this book is adult and I fear that the gearing towards YA generally meaning a more actively #condemning attitude towards “problematic” attitudes regarding characters that doesn't have to be present in adult fiction #dealing with someone else's mental illness for years and years is taxing and takes a toll on you and that's problematic sometimes #but you know what! everything is! #/this person had a lot of good things to say but there is something so blah about this in particular #“say die by suicide” #no #anyway

[rosalyn51]

On this Tax Day, I will be choosing you!

#matthew goode #a discovery of witches #matthew clairmont #adow #meme #love #eeaao #everything everywhere all at once #matthewgoode #henry talbot #downton abbey #downton abbey movie #matthewgoodeedit #freud's last session movie #book quotes #i will be choosing you #movie quotes #i'll do laundry and taxes with you #goode performance #matthew goode meme #eeaao meme #tax day #lovers #deborah harkness #all souls trilogy #shadow of night #all souls series

[rondocapri]

Idc idc deniss won gold as far as I’m concerned

#he gave two KNOCKOUT performances #with beautiful beautiful choreography #his elements were solid #and the ONLY reason he isn’t given a higher score is the small fed tax and I’m sick of this shit I really am #figure skating

[rpglesbian]

I wanna be at a shitty rock show SO bad rn

#AJJ I literally moved to your city please come home and do a local show #theyre performing downtown later this yr but theyre opening for bigger bands and I lov them but not enough for $80 tickets b4 tax

[justsmilingatnothing]

chrissy is a sonny angel girl, keeps an emotional support sonny on her, carries them in her empty purse next to her lip gloss, crochets them clothes when the catholic guilt becomes too much to bear, has too many of them, impulse buys even more, rinse and repeat.

eddie is a does not get it bf but loves seeing how silly his gf gets over her weird little babies while worrying about them watching him sleep, ends up assigning them criminal backgrounds to tease her with but she's so happy he's partcipating

#THEIR sonny's are doing tax evasion and impresonating public officials #this is def my princess performer chrissy and bounce house tech eddie once they fall in love and move in together #hellcheer #chrissy cunningham

[aq2003]

i am not going to lie. The eeaao sweep at the oscars does feel just a little bitter to me because half of the entire emotional crux of the movie was not awarded anything

#STEPHANIE HSU WAS ROBBED SO INCREDIBLY HARD IT IS UNREAL. #i will be honest her performance is what made me cry while watching the movie. joy's character is the one i immensely connected to #why would u award th tax lady over her. what happened . Fucking hello. #. h. #eeaao

[balteus]

i love krita as a concept but by god if it doesn't have several of the most brain dead stupid moronic idiotic fucking UI design decisions known to man

#why is your zoom by default only positive. morepver why the fuck does it work like that. why are your stabilizers not only painfully weak #but they're also insanely taxing on performance that already has no right being as bad as it is #like. i work on a cintiq i cannot be moving to my keyboard every 5 seconds what kind of digital artist do you think does that #i tried starting an animation project in it but godddd why are you like this