Mike has been paralleled to Brenner many times this season, including several times during his monologue itself (”you can fly”; mentioning again that she’s a “superhero”; “El, can you hear me?”/”Eleven, are you listening?”) as well as other scenes with “What did you do?”/”What have you done?” etc.
Since that’s the case, what do we make of this parallel?
So we have:
El in similar shots as Tabitha/the princess, appearing that she needs help (but this isn’t really the case--she’s fine on her own, so does El need Mike’s confession?)
Mike being paralleled to a father figure (Brenner) for the person in “danger,” while Suzie’s father and Tabitha are father-daughter
The moment at Suzie’s house is a distraction--so is Mike’s confession a distraction from the real solution happening in the background?
We are shown that Suzie’s father punishes her for lying, and El was upset that Mike lied to her about saying “I love you.” Do the parallel shots imply that the “performance” is the truth of Mike’s situation? Why did they go to the effort to film full flashback shots of Suzie’s confrontation with her father? (Not to mention Suzie’s line, “He wrenched a confession out of me...”)
“It looked genuine,” says the filmmaker. Meta reference?? Mike’s confession seems genuine at first glance...but maybe we’re meant to see that it’s not.
Let's talk about Voiceplay's cover of Hellfire from Hunchback of Notre Dame
youtube
I know they've done snippets of the song before, but this full length masterpiece of acting and vocal parts combined NEEDS to be talked about.
(For those of you who haven't seen it, GO WATCH IT)
This song is such a good choice for Geoff and for basses in general since the role of Frollo in the Hunchback musical was written for a bass and Patrick Page does spectacularly. The role is very dark and deals with mature and intense subjects like lust and desire and the character handles it very very poorly. But that's what makes him interesting. We love to hate Frollo, and giving him a low bass vocal part is perfectly suited for a character with such a dark and twisted character.
Layne has arranged the song perfectly, allowing Geoff to have all the time he needs to portray the character's thought process. The character turns from piety to fear of the monstrous feelings growing in him and what God will do to him should he sin, and then he gets angry and turns his blame on Esmeralda, claiming that she is to blame for his sinful thoughts. Geoff portrays Frollo's descent into obsession perfectly. Eli's intense rock belt is so powerful and lends to the song's intense tone. Cesar's breathy and frantic "It's not my fault!" perfectly displays Frollo's desperation as he fights his lust and then turns any blame away from himself by saying that he could never have fought this evil off when "if in God's plan he made the Devil so much stronger than a man".
Geoff's low notes are especially good and powerful in this song (thanks to Layne as I stated in my last Voiceplay post) and his acting make this probably my favorite Voiceplays song EVER. I have always loved Hunchback's music, and seeing Voiceplay perform this song so well has only made me love it more. And while the low notes do seem to bring Frollo closer and closer to Hellfire (or the Devil), Geoff's growly high notes also bring out Frollo's determination and ravid mannerism the song and the idea of Esmeralda has brought out in him. The high notes are unexpected, but anyone who saw the video knows they are insane and crazy and beautiful and a little scary.
while planning out an oc storyline, i started thinking about how a recurring facet of blitzø's character is his sexual attraction to moxxie and millie. that made me wonder– "well, is blitzø in love with moxxie and millie? what's up with that?"– but then i remembered that romantic and sexual preferences can differ. and then i also remembered that blitzø is canonly pansexual, which leaves his romanticism up for debate.
amongst blitzø's canon romantic interests are verosika and stolas. striker, fizzarolli, moxxie/millie are implied interests.
we know that blitzø was at fault for the breakup with verosika, but that story has such a limited narrative that we don't know if it was only blitzø's fault, or if he ever actually liked verosika at all.
stolitz is a bit more complicated than the former relationship, but it's only recently– in stolas's lowest moments– that blitzø starts to show some reciprocation of the emotional aspect of their relationship.
despite everything we know (and assume) blitzø has been through with verosika and stolas, he doesn't express much of a connection to them, does he? he feels estranged from them and estranges himself from them because of their status.
maybe personality and lifestyle have a larger part to play in blitzø's romaticism. still... just think about his emotional behavior around his 'friends' compared to those he's actually dating.
If you know what I am talking about then great, if you don't you should look into it. It is a great movie. It's about two crazy uncles raising their nephew. If you can see where this is going...
Maedhros and Maglor as the uncles.
Elrond as Walter.
Nothing else changes, well just the names of people.