#[and he's the ingenue in his own heart since he can't be on the stage]

[helldustedstories]

Moxxie has Opinions about most of A.ndrew L.loyd Webber's shows.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat -- He has most of the Coat of Many Colours memorized. It gets stuck in his head. "Close Every Door" is another good song, but overall, this one is kind of middling. Would he still go to see it if given the chance? Absolutely.

Jesus Christ Superstar -- Honestly? Kind of overrated. There are only a couple of songs that are super recognizable, and while that's not a requirement of a good musical, it's one that's hard to just sing along to and have fun with. Still, it's an interesting take on the story, but not his favourite of his work.

Evita -- There are some iconic songs in Evita, and if it's done right, it can be visually stunning. He likes both the original recording with M.andy P.atinkin and P.atti L.upone because they're iconic, as well as the version with A.ntonino B.anderas and M.adonna. Not his favourite, but it definitely has its time and place.

Tell Me On a Sunday / Song and Dance -- Other than the titular song and "Take That Look Off Your Face," this one is kind of forgettable. It might be better viewed in person, but it's not a fave.

Cats -- Okay, so Moxxie will be the first to admit that he probably shouldn't have suggested that Blitz start with Cats. It's one of those musicals that kind of grows on you the more you experience it, whether that's hearing it, seeing it live, or performing in it. (Sidenote for this one: Moxxie would love to be IN Cats.) It's pretty high up on his list, though it's one of those "wait no, you don't understand; let me explain the thought behind it" sort of things.

Starlight Express -- Honestly, part of the appeal of this one is the fact that the actors are on roller skates. But the fact that it tells the story of sentient trains makes it up there in the weirdness scale. Probably even weirder than Cats.

The Phantom of the Opera -- And here we have Moxxie's all-time favourite. He loves the story, the music, the spectacle. There is not anything about this show that Moxxie does not love. If he wants to be in Cats, he is desperate to be in Phantom. It almost doesn't matter what role, as long as he gets to participate. (He already knows he'll never be able to play Christine, which broke his heart when he first came to terms with that fact.)

Aspects of Love -- This is one of those shows that has some good tracks ("Love Changes Everything" and "Anything But Lonely" come to mind), but some of the subject matter is pretty uncomfortable, considering several of the 'love interests' are seventeen and fourteen, respectively, while the other person is a full-ass adult.

Sunset Boulevard -- A lesser-known gem, honestly. (Even if P.atti L.upone was 100% in the right to sue.) It tells a complete story, unlike a lot of his other musicals (probably partly because it was based on a film), and it has some good music. It's also one of A.LW's few musicals to star a mezzo-soprano, so it gets points for that, too.

Love Never Dies -- Oh boy, okay. This show is a hot mess. For starters, in the original cast recording R.aoul's voice is better than the P.hantom's, which really shouldn't happen. But the whole thing shouldn't exist. It completely ignores the ending of the original, bastardizes characters, and makes a mockery of the original. Yes, okay, some of the songs are pretty damn catchy ("Beauty Underneath," "Devil Take the Hindmost," and "Why Does She Love Me?" are the standouts to Moxxie), but A.LW's cat had the right idea in trying to delete the whole thing, to keep it from completion.

Cinderella -- Originally, when Moxxie heard that there was a new adaptation of Cinderella, he wasn't sure it was needed. But when he heard it was by A.ndrew L.loyd W.ebber, he had to check it out. And he's honestly glad he did. Sure, it's not the best show, but it's fun. (And the young woman who plays the title role in the original recording sounds a little like Stolas' kid...., or that could just be his imagination. Maybe it's just the accent.) The B.roadway version, though...., seems like it was a mess. And the cast and crew deserved better than what they got.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

*runs into stage at full speed and almost overshoots the mic, skidding back to be able to grab it* but do we realize that Nika form isn't gear 5??? I mean, besides the fact that we know that the technical term is "awakening". All the previous gears aren't so much unlocked by Luffy (besides the fact that both gears 4 depend on him """unlocking""" haki) but something he develops through his own ingenuity? Gear 1 is him manipulating his muscles into pumping his blood faster and more strongly through his body, increasing his power — he's not just making himself hotter through force of will. Gear 2 isn't him increasing his body mass (as a paramecia, he wouldn't have been able to do it, although now we know he's a zoan type), it's him literally blowing air into his body to inflate it. Same thing goes for boundman, a form reinforced by haki mixed with rubber, which is so impressive when you think about it. Snakeman is such incredible control over his body that he can change the direction of his punches several times. I cannot overstate that these aren't forms in the way Chopper's Points are forms — not that he didn't achieve four to five extra forms through ingenuity, too, with his medical knowledge, but there's a difference between unlocking them (they always existed, he just needed to discover them) and developing them. Ultimately, the rumble balls don't elongate his horns or arms or make his hair grow, they allow Chopper to will them to do that, in the same way that, once Luffy awakens his fruit, he can tap into it, even if it takes some effort.

That's why we can't compare "gear 5" with the other gears when it comes to the damage they are/might be doing to Luffy's body (post-time skip, they have little to no effect one him, so he might have become strong enough to handle them... in the same way he's strong enough to rip the mast out of the ship and carry it up a whale). With all his other gears, Luffy's forcing his body to do unnatural things and putting it under enormous strain (isn't blowing air into your bloodstream supposed to give you a heart attack???). Meanwhile, we should look at g5 like we do Chopper's kaiju form, or Doflamingo turning buildings into strings, or Katakuri turning everything into mochi — extremely draining, especially at first, but in the same way a muscle will struggle with a certain weight at first but get better once you've trained it. When he says, "beat loudly, heart!" or "hit that beat!", it's not in response to it stopping, but to it beating normally instead of *battery solo*, aka it's his way of activating his Nika form. It didn't actually kill him, and if it did, it would have been from exhaustion, not from, say, wearing his veins thin and overtaxing his heart because he's trying to push gallons at the speed he's usually circulating liters.

And since I'm talking about his Nika form — it's interesting that while he's using it, he seems to be less affected by haki? Like, being hit with haki by Sanji and Katakuri in Whole Cake Island made him loose a tooth, both times, when we know his bones have to be rubber too or the rest of it wouldn't work. Still, when hit by haki, they react like they're normal. Meanwhile, while it's clear that it causes him pain, he still reacts as if he was rubber, his face molding itself to Kaido's club. I have no idea what that means, I'm just bringing it up.

Also, since I believe that Luffy's gears are not zoan type forms, that means that he was scammed out of either a form or two — compare to Chopper who has his original reindeer form, a middle point (his usual form) and a "full human" form, which he could always access, even without his rumble balls (can you imagine Chopper awakening his df and turning into like. a dude), or Rob Lucci who has a human form, a beast form, and a halfway point (I'm more willing to consider his slimmer, faster point as a form, unlike Luffy's gears, because, while he uses a technique called Life Return to achieve it, that's just another words for extreme control of his body, meaning he's still willing it to happen, like how Chopper needs rumble balls to control his additional forms at first, but eventually develops enough control to access them on his own. Luffy, outside of Nika form, can't will his fist into becoming bigger, he has to blow air into it). Luffy only has his usual rubber form and his awakened Nika form. Again, compare to Lucci, whose awakened form isn't actually a full leopard (that's his beast form) but a powered-up version of his halfway point, Nika isn't the "full" form of Luffy's df (and that awakened zoan types don't become a fuller version of their model in general, and that Chopper's awakening is more likely to be a powered up version of Brain Point). So there's a chance Luffy has a full-human form (no rubber) and a depowered Nika form (rubber, white haired, but without a lot of his abilities like flying and turning other stuff into rubber).

Also, why can he, as a zoan type, turn other things into rubber, when that's supposed to be a paramecia and probably logia type thing? I mean, not that we're ever told that, directly, but I don't see Rob Lucci turning people and stuff into leopards— *yelps* *exits left, pursued by Kuma*