#“so tragic and narratively doomed.” / “you go fallen hero of heart!! you can do it!!”

[veveisveryuncool]

art trade with @starflungwaddledee :]]

been itching to draw morpho dee for a while actually, so he was super fun to experiment with! did a ton of metal and perspective practice, as well tinkering with a new rendering method :D

[ink-splotch]

hey, i'm seeing hamilton uk in a month and i'm super curious abt how terera's burr is different! could you explain a bit?

Oh goodness! Hm let me see if I can gather my thoughts here. So far, up until London, all the Burrs I've seen have fallen on a spectrum that goes from 1 (I am cool and collected and sleek and prepared and On Purpose and Lying In Wait; this comes naturally to me and until I met goddamn Hamilton I was sure it was the way to success. But he keeps winning so maybe I need to change my game plan??? You want fire, America?? I will BE fire. I will Light The Frickin Sky-- oh shit I fucked up) to 10 (there is a FIRE inside my heart, my ambition and my drive BURNS ME ALIVE, and I keep all that passion shoved and contained and shackled deep down inside my soul except when I'm at the height of the song Wait For It, when the audience gets the first glimpse of Me and it puts them on the thudding edges of their seats, because I think control, patience, grit, and determination is the way to success, even if I have to fight with myself to embody those things. I will wait. I will strive. I will survive everything thrown at me and I Will Win, using this inner, burning core of myself to drive me forward-- but Hamilton is on fire just like me, he doesn't hide any of it, he just goes, and he just Wins. How does that work? It's not fair and I'm angry about it? Well fine let ME finally release all the chains I've bound myself with -- oh shit I fucked up) Most Burrs fall somewhere along that spectrum, 1 to 10, either on fire within and finally letting go at Room Where It Happens, or full of a more icy drive and instead lighting themselves on fire at that moment. But Burr is sleek, controlled, purposeful, powerful, suave, ambitious-- the question generally is whether that is his nature, or an affect he puts on, something calm and controllable and purposeful in a life that's had so much random tragic chaos in it.But Terera? He walked on stage and it was like... Ok so this Burr definitely got stuffed into lockers and had his lunch money stolen at college. Dude, YOU kill a man?Odom Jr's voice is like melted butter, and Terera's has got this whine? Whine isn't quite the right word, he has a great voice, but I'm blanking on the word I want. His voice has Character. He's an anxious, slightly frazzled nerd. His Burr is doing his best, he's fairly content, he's not burning up on the inside with fire or with ice. He doesn't fit on the spectrum. /And it works/. I didn't expect it to. When he said "Theodosia, she's mine," in Wait For It, the audience /laughed/. When Odom does that line you're like DAMN, DUDE, YOU BOLD, but the audience laughed at Terera's anxious, twitchy Burr. But then by the end of the song, he's got you. I went into Wait For It going 'hmmmm um mr. Burr I am not sure how you are going to pull off the second act, you'll need to be like mad, and scary, and stuff? uh, I dunno,' but by the end of the song it was like, 'nope, nvm, I'll wait for it, yes sir, it'll come.'He's got it, okay, it's just a different Burr. He doesn't start from a place of undying ambition and change his methods, the way Odom (and most other Burrs) do. Odom knows what he wants and he Will Get It, and he loses himself because he takes a leaf out of Hamilton's book and dooms them both. It's a fall. Odom's Burr and Hamilton are both tragic heroes. Terera's Burr is a tragedy to, but it's... different. When Burr falls somewhere on the 1-10 where-does-your-chill-live spectrum, he and Hamilton are two opposing poles of the narrative. It's a story of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object, and it's captivating, mythic, breathtaking. Terera's Burr isn't Hamilton's equal and opposite. He's his friend. His story isn't mythic; it's the coming of age story of a kid Hamilton's age or so, who grows into the man who can pull the trigger in one bright instant of poor, bitter choice. He gets corrupted by the narrative, he gets sucked in, and you Feel for him, okay? It's like... when I hit the end of the story, with Terera's Burr, it still felt inescapable that /someone/ was gonna shoot Hamilton. It was always going to come to this. But there was nothing preordained or unchangeable about who-- Burr feels like the wrong kid in the wrong place. It's a different sort of heartbreaking. It makes it a way more human story, sort of? It almost genre shifts, sort of? Like as much as you can when the only change is an actor. It becomes a story about people, normal people, all tossed together in a little country, and all the unkindnesses they wreak upon each other if unchecked. I really like the unstoppable force/immoveable object throughline of Hamilton, and I missed it not being there in London. But damn if I'm not gonna call Terera astonishing and powerful, and the story he helped make there a damn good one. I just didn't realize how transformative a different Burr would be nor how well he would fit into the existing words while making them all ring different. They /laughed/ at "Theodosia, she's mine."I think Room Where it Happens is one of the big turning points-- I mean, for Burr, it IS his turning point. But for the spectrum Burrs it's where they change their METHODS-- decide to let lose their inner fire; or to emulate Hamilton, if their inner drive is all ice and determination or whatever. But Terera's Burr changes his /goal/ there. He realizes what he /wants/ or maybe /that/ he wants. I dunno, it's just different. It rang really different, all of it. But it's GOOD. Oh oh and also, at the beginning of Washington on Your Side, it's great (the Jefferson for this cast is spot on, Jason Pennycooke), Burr starts singing "wouldn't it be nice" etc and Jefferson just does this like offended triple take like-- 'who are you?? Why are you approaching the cool kids table? Why is this four talking to a ten??? Oh but wait I /do/ really want to vent about Alexander tho let's harmonize.' And as you watch, you can see Burr watching Jefferson and Madison carefully, jumping in a word late on lyrics, trying to learn the ropes and Be the Plotter He Wants to See in The World. I dunno, there was just a lot of stuff like that that really rang true and made sense. He was so much a character. He had so much more of an arc. It felt so much more like he was in a coming of age story, and that just really changes the whole feel. Let me know what you think, when you see it!

[starflungwaddledee]

aaaAAAAAA it's him it's my sad little guy!!!!!! WAAAUU i am so ecstatic about this!!

this is actually the first drawing of him done by somebody else and i'm so delighted to get to see him in someone else's style!! the pose!!! the perspective!! the detail!! the DRAMA...!!

art trade with @starflungwaddledee :]]

been itching to draw morpho dee for a while actually, so he was super fun to experiment with! did a ton of metal and perspective practice, as well tinkering with a new rendering method :D