#⋅ ▽ ° ─ bring out the greek chorus ; MUSIC

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Nevermore is a gothic tragedy. Part I: The Tragedy

This essay assumes that you've read the first season of Nevermore. If you haven't, you'll be eating spoilers.

First of all, a disclaimer: you won't find the term "Gothic tragedy" in theory books, because I just pulled it out of my sleeve. But it seemed appropriate to put it in those terms because, hey, beyond theoretical structuring, genres are also used as a guide to content, and that's kind of what I want to express with this.

Partly because I've noticed that I've called this comic a tragedy on more than one occasion, and talked at length about Lenore and Annabel as gothic characters, but never bothered to delve into these matters, and with the hiatus until (possibly) October, I think it's time to rectify that situation.

But also because I think there are a lot of things in this story that fall into place if you read it under the logic of those genres.

Originally, this was going to be a single essay, but it turns out it took over 2000 fucking words just to explain why it's a fucking tragedy, so I'm going to split this shit in two because I don't want to burn anyone's eyes out.

Tragedy and Types of Tragedy

This is the ridiculously abridged version because this is a really long story, if you want more information on the subject I highly recommend reading Aristotle's Poetics, Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy or watching this OSP video for a more proper introduction. If you're interested in Shakespearean tragedy, The Cambridge Shakespeare is a amazing compilation, and here's the essay that talks specifically about what the hell Shakespearean tragedy is.

Tragedy has been linked to the origins of theater as such, found in the festivals dedicated to Dionysus (if you want to know more about the cult of Dionysus, you can watch this video to start), where poetry contests were held, specifically of dithyrambs: lyric compositions dedicated specifically to Dionysus. This later led to the inclusion of an increasingly sophisticated chorus using masks. This was no longer poetry, but the first expressions of theater as we understand it in modern times, at least for Europe and the countries colonized by Europeans.

Nietzsche also points out that tragedy condenses within itself two opposing impulses represented in the gods Apollo and Dionysus, expressed in the terms "Apollonian" and "Dionysian": order, mathematics and music (understood by the Greeks as science) vs. party, debauchery and chaos. The clash between the beautiful and the grotesque (understanding that the "beautiful" can be disturbing and the "grotesque" can be strangely beautiful). This description is not entirely literal, of course, but it must be kept in mind that in order to have the fundamentals of a tragedy, one must have these two elements: order and chaos. A synchronized waltz between the rigid structures and the rupturing.

Yes, those two are enough.

Step by step, I think it is important to point out what are the transversal elements to tragedy - classical or Shakespearean - that are present in the comic.

The first important concept that appears on this page is Amarthia. The tragic mistake, the first domino that topples the whole stack, is the specific event that sets tragedy in motion, and we spectators of tragedy can only stare in horror at the situation, knowing that everything that follows will go terribly wrong.

At least as far as its protagonists are concerned, Annabel and Lenore's Amarthia has been said but not seen: the dinner party where Annabel will wear pearls, indicating to Lenore that she is in on the charade. From then on, every step they take will bring them closer to the fate we know: the arrival of both of them in Nevermore. This story ends with them both dead.

And if I had to point out the Amarthia of the comic's topicality, I would dare to say that this is it:

And this:

Annabel refuses to explain to Lenore why the plan has to be the way it is, while Lenore agrees to be part of it (the fact that she disagrees with the whole situation is a plus).

The interesting thing about this is that the roles are reversed: before, Annabel sealed the tragic fate of both of them by accepting Lenore's proposal, while in Nevermore, Lenore sealed the tragic fate of both of them by accepting Annabel's plan.

Another important term that comes up here is hybris. While it is true that hybris represents ego, this does not necessarily mean that the hero is self-centered in a personality sense; hybris is the tragic hero's (misguided, of course) belief that they can turn their terrible situation around. And, well…

That ends badly in tragedies. Very, very badly.

At this point, it is necessary to start pointing out the elements of each type of tragedy, because something interesting is happening: within the ancient walls of the purgatory that is Nevermore, a classical tragedy is taking place, while in the past, Annabel and Lenore were the protagonists of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Classical Tragedy

One thing to understand about classical tragedy is that these are stories of humanity versus divinity. The predestined fate that comes upon mortals at the hands of beings superior to them, even if those beings do not appear directly. The external forces superior to the characters do not intervene directly (at least not in most cases), but they put all the pieces in place for the tragic hero to fall headlong into his terrible fate "by their own hand". Yeah, that shit is so unfair.

In Nevermore, fate is represented by these two bastards: The Deans act as the ominous shadow of divinity that sets the rules of this battle royale. For all intents and purposes, this pair of bastards represents the tragic fate of the characters: only one will survive to have a second life. And there is (theoretically) no way to escape.

This is where we start to get into thorny issues. If I had to point out the classical tragedy that Nevermore most resembles, I think I'd get a smile out of Hadestown fans: Orpheo and Eurydice.

Okay, let's review: Orpheo is a highly talented musician who, after losing his beloved, goes to the underworld to find her. Hades and Persephone give him a chance to get her back if he doesn't turn around to see her until they leave the place, he does so at the last second, she returns to the underworld, and Orpheus spends the rest of his life in misery mourning her.

That's the thing, the story of Orpheo and Euridice is a tragedy for the most depressing reason of all: love. What seems like a generous gift from Hades and Persephone is actually a condemnation, because they ask Orpheus to do the one thing he could never do: stop looking at his beloved. In some versions of the story, he can't even hear her as they walk; will she really be her, or has he been tricked? Will she be frightened on this journey and he will not be there to comfort her? What if she has trouble on the road or an accident and Orpheus has left her behind? Orpheus loves Eurydice so much that he cannot save her under these circumstances because he cannot stop watching over her long enough to get her out of here.

Now let's go to Annabel and Lenore, the same thing is happening here, these two idiots love each other. It's probably the only thing they know for sure in this bullshit game. And for Annabel and Lenore, to love is to protect, it's to be the shield that will be there to defend their beloved in the face of adversity, she's been hurt in a terrible way and they will do anything to stop anyone from hurting her again.

But tragic fate, represented by the Deans, has set things in motion for this to quickly go to hell:

For Lenore to understand Annabel's actions, she would have to tell her that's why she's so afraid, why they shouldn't get attached to anyone, why she thinks it's necessary to pretend they don't remember each other. But Lenore can't be okay with Annabel carrying everything alone, because she sees how it hurts her, because Annabel is clearly hurting. She goes to great lengths to confide in Annabel, but she can't come up with a plausible explanation for all this crap either.

For Annabel, becoming a villain and enduring all this pain is slightly less horrible than dragging Lenore into the Deans' psychotic game. But Lenore just loves her too much to let her do that. Lenore could protect her if Annabel were by her side, so why does she keep leaving? She was hurt the first time, why do it to her a second time?

The feeling of not being heard, the frustration that the other just won't listen to her pleas and won't stop what she's doing to allow her to be cared for, runs through both of them because it's the exact same situation, "Why won't you let me do this for you?"

The answer is that Annabel and Lenore are asking the other to do the one thing she could never stop doing: stop trying to protect her. That's why they fight.

This relationship has become a power game that neither can win because they are both exactly the same. A tug-of-war that will only be resolved when something breaks. Hopefully not irreparably.

And speaking of the P-word, let's talk Shakespeare, people.

Shakespearean Tragedy

The good Bard took classical tragedy and brought it back, but changed enough elements of it that it had to be renamed because some of its fundamentals were rewritten. The most notorious of these is that while Shakespeare does not ignore the presence of higher forces or supernatural entities, the fundamental basis of Shakespearean tragedy is not the conflict between humanity and the Fates/Gods.

It is power.

Those who wield power, those who are corrupted by it, and those who crave it. These tragedies speak of moral corruption, the victims of power, and those who sink under the responsibility that power brings.

This is the reason why Shakespeare's tragic heroes belong to the nobility, come from opulent families, or hold important positions. In this case, we have as protagonists two women who were born in a cradle of gold: Lenore apparently comes from a family of old money, and while we do not know if Annabel also comes from a family of old money, we do know that there is no shortage of coins around here.

But status cannot protect Shakespeare's protagonists from the society in which they live, whose agency is sometimes literally represented by people with power. This puts them in a situation from which they cannot escape and which screws them from the start (in other cases the Shakespearean protagonist is the figure of power and seals his own fate). Here, the odds are stacked against them from the start because they are women and, as if that were not enough, lesbians.

I think it's no surprise to anyone that the Shakespearean tragedy most similar to Nevermore is Romeo and Juliet.

Let's review: Romeo and Juliet are two young people who meet at a party and fall madly in love. Their families hate each other, so they cannot be together. The two secretly marry, but after an argument Romeo kills a man and is banished, despite a plan hatched by a priest friend so they can run away together, things go terribly wrong and they both end up committing suicide.

This follows a similar logic to Orpheus and Eurydice: the tragedy here is that these two are in love. But where classical tragedy says, "They love each other so much they can't save themselves," Romeo and Juliet, like Annabel and Lenore, works with two layers of conflict.

The first is the social and political. These young people's families hate each other, so they can't be together. In the same way, Annabel and Lenore can't be together because they're both women.

This is also a reference to one of the central themes of Romeo and Juliet: the clash between tradition and modernity. I think if you squint hard enough, you can see the relationship between these two as Victorian conservatism and homophobia screwing up their lives in the same way that tradition screws up Romeo and Juliet's.

The other layer of the problem is the one that has to do with love: Romeo and Juliet love each other so much that they cannot live without each other. This is what drives them both to suicide, even when they are given the opportunity to continue their lives separately. They love each other so much that they cannot live without each other. Just as Annabel and Lenore desperately want to be together, this is what starts the engine of tragedy when circumstances prevent them from doing so.

Another thing it takes from Romeo and Juliet is the role of the parents as a representation of the power that oppresses the characters. In Romeo and Juliet, the Montague and Capulet lords pull the strings of their children's lives, and it is their resentment that creates the barrier between the lovers. In the case of Nevermore, Ira and Thaddeus are the personal jailers of their respective daughters: Ira wants to get Annabel into an arranged marriage by hook or by crook, and Thaddeus first gets Lenore a fiancé and then keeps her locked up in the fucking attic.

Finally, a tragedy that can be read as a reference to Nevermore, though more subtly, is Macbeth.

The plot is simple: a trio of witches tell Duke Macbeth that he and his descendants will one day be kings. This leads him to murder his cousin, King Duncan, and everything goes downhill from there, because Duncan's murder didn't even amuse the prince.

Yes, at first glance it doesn't seem to make much sense, but that's because it's referring to a specific moment. Specifically, the most discussed and controversial scene in the play: the dialog where Lady Macbeth and Macbeth discuss killing Duncan.

This scene has kept the Bard's fans arguing for centuries: is she manipulating her husband so that she can be queen, or is she just verbalizing Macbeth's wishes that he be allowed to commit the crime, and saying that she will support him in it? Impossible to know unless someone gets a working Ouija board.

This is the same logic that follows the flashback scene where Lenore talks to Annabel about the plan. The important thing here is that the comic decides that the answer is: it depends on who you ask.

Given Annabel's attitude toward Lenore, we can interpret that she does not think she was manipulated or anything. Lenore is not a devious woman who put things in her head, it was her knight in shining armor who came to save her from a marriage she didn't want. Yes, she may have had her doubts, but she definitely liked her chances, enough to accept them.

On the other hand, what this tells me is that Lenore thinks the opposite: that she convinced Annabel to be part of this hoax that ended with both of them dead. A crazy woman who dragged the only person she cared about into a dangerous game that cost them their lives, she considers herself as guilty as the perpetrating hand of the crime.

Conclusion

I think the first time I decided to do a review under this particular lens was when I started to notice where Annabel and Lenore's arcs seemed to be going.

On the one hand, given how things are going, it seems that Lenore has to start taking off the blindfold to realize that things aren't as simple as she thinks, and stop letting others make the hard decisions for her because it hurts everyone.

On Annabel's side, you have a character arc that seems to be aimed at being honest with other people, not letting her fears stop her from making risky decisions, and not dealing with all the bullshit herself.

If what I just said leaves a bad taste in your mouth, that's normal. Because it's fucking unfair.

That Lenore should be the one to stand firm - not out of guilt, but out of responsibility - for her actions feels like shit after everything the poor girl has been through. The same thing happens on Annabel's side, that she has to give in to a situation where it makes so much sense for her to shut down, where it makes sense, even without her background, for her to behave that way.

But that sense of injustice is one of the foundations of tragedies. The feeling that, in her situation, it is practically impossible to think that anything different could be done is the basis of catharsis: the pity felt for the character, the fear generated by identifying with their terrible situation.

The expiation of these emotions, which are produced in the spectator by the fall of the tragic hero.

Now, it is interesting to ask how the fall of Annabel and Lenore will be. The simple answer from a tragic point of view is death, a thing we know has already happened once, why not a second time? After all, that's what awaits tragic heroes. Unless you're Medea.

It's impossible to know how the comic will develop, but it seems to me that this is as far as the tragedy goes. For the next part, I want to talk about gothic novels, female vampires, the female writers of the period, and the last gothic. Believe me, buddies, there is no more obsessive romantic bond than that between a Poe protagonist and their dead bride.

[that-ari-blogger]

Of Course Orpheus Is Here

As I have analysed Stray Gods: The Role Playing Musical, my thesis has been that this is a story about change, choice, and family. This is why Persephone is a majour player, for example, because of the symbolism of that character and the associated themes of her story. But there is one character who is so iconic to these themes that he has become the poster child for the power of love in Ancient Greek mythology.

It would have been a crime to not include Orpheus in this story. Both because of the themes mentioned above, but also because it's a musical, and Orpheus was a bard. This character was handed to the writers on a silver platter. They didn't even have to change anything to make him fit.

But they did change Orpheus. Or rather, they did give their own take on the character.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Let's start simple. Who was Orpheus in the myth? I know that this may be obvious, but it's nice to have everyone on the same page and to cite some sources.

According to Britannica, Orpheus was a bard who traveled with the Argonauts to retrieve the golden fleece, and married Eurydice. After her death...

"Overcome with grief, Orpheus ventured himself to the land of the dead to attempt to bring Eurydice back to life."

Which didn't go well for him. He was told to not look back, but he did anyway, and she was gone forever. The story continues, but it's all about his dismemberment, so I'm going to stop here. Worldhistory.org backs up this story, with some added context about his brother being killed by Hercules, amongst other interesting things. I encourage you to read the articles for yourselves.

In Stray Gods, the audience is introduced to Orpheus indirectly. As in, the entire segment with Orpheus in it is a reference to the myth. Freddy, Grace's friend (and in some playthroughs, love interest) has been killed and Grace will descend to the underworld to get her back. Immediately, the parallels are obvious, and we haven't met the guy yet.

There is also the parallel between Orpheus and Persephone. Specifically, the entitlement. Both feel that they made their choice and deserve the reward almost as a payment. The opening of this song serves to remind the audience, or spell it out if they don't already know, Persephone's backstory and motivation in this musical.

This is Orpheus's introductory shot. He's standing on a cliff overlooking an empty kingdom. You want symbolism? Here it is. Everything in this man's life has led up to this, this is a life he has built for himself. Except that he hasn't built it, he's taken it from someone else and is completely unequipped to deal with it. Orpheus is not a good ruler; Orpheus is an extremely lonely man.

And yet he is surrounded by people, by fans, by a chorus. Why is he so lonely?

He's lonely because these are ghosts, both literally and figuratively. They aren't friends or companions or anything similar, they are empty adoration, and he knows. The masks they wear serve to drive this point even further, there is no individuality, they aren't people to him, they are subjects. Orpheus is trying to become like Hades.

"Someone's coming..."

"You better be ready,"

"A wolf if wating in the tune."

"He's a master of his craft"

"Someone's coming..."

"We have to take back..."

"I can feel them howling at the moon."

"What is mine."

Stray Gods does this a lot. Two characters singing over the top of each other. But instead of shouting to be heard, they instead swap between like they are each the backup singer for the other. This is my favourite example by far.

It serves to show off how similar the characters are, but also their conflict and differences. It's like an argument through lyrics.

And that drum. That drum that keeps moving. Steady, like a clock, beating over and over, relentlessly. The drum that punctuates their words.

Time has made enemies of these two, both victims of a cruel king, now bitterness has turned them against each other. And the ticking of that percussive clock keeps on going, as if it's enjoying tormenting them. Until all of a sudden, it is gone.

This is how you present a threat. Grace has so far been the one to control the music, the one to get answers. And now here is a man who can do the same thing.

Orpheus isn't the biggest danger to Grace at all, but the emotionally charged nature of this interaction, combined with how much fun he has doing exactly what she does, means that Orpheus is portrayed here as an outright villain. For the moment anyway.

This is a villain song. This is the cackling egomaniac explaining his plans to the audience, so they know to root against him, while simultaneously explaining how great he is. I couldn't help linking the "best that's ever been" line to Ratigan's World's Greatest Criminal Mind song from The Great Mouse detective. And like Ratigan, Orpheus is surrounded by sycophants who talk absolute bollocks to please him, because he is in command. Exhibit A:

"I haven't really sung a single word."

"No he hasn't even sung a single word."

The man has been singing for nearly three minutes straight at this point.

"What's your problem with Persephone?"

Finally, we understand some things. Why is Orpheus so bitter? Because the love of his life was taken from him, and he blames Persephone for not doing anything about it.

But take this line for example:

"And Persephone you stood right beside him and said what a shame."

Contrast that with this line from an earlier song.

"You abandoned me to a terrible fate... you know how far I bent before I snapped."

The second line is from Old Wounds, and it is Persephone accusing Apollo of abandoning her, now Orpheus accuses Persephone of the same thing. This isn't so much a literary parallel, but two literary lines layered on top of each other.

The point I am making is that Orpheus factors into this story as a warning. Choices have consequences, sure, but so does doing nothing. Apathy leads to complacency, and when victims lash out and the cause of their pain is unavailable, the people who could have acted and did nothing are easy targets.

The caveat is that this is metered by human perception, which doesn't always match reality. Orpheus has perceived Persephone's inaction as being complicit and hasn't recognised her pain. Meanwhile Persephone has done the same to Apollo. And Apollo has actually done this to himself, seeing his own inaction as a weakness, whether accurate or not.

Then there is the question of why Orpheus is so associated with rock. As in, it's fun, and this song is a genuine bop. But why was this choice made? He could have easily gone for more classical, memorial tone, or even sung a pop song. So why this? Other than because a ghost electric guitar is awesome.

"[Rock] has been a symbol of rebellion, youth, and freedom. Rock music has also been a symbol of social change. It has been used to voice the concerns of the oppressed and to challenge the status quo."

- Boysetsfire.net.

Essentially, rock is a genre about change or bringing about change. And what does Orpheus want to do? He wants to take revenge, to change his circumstances. He's been wating for this moment for years, and now he is ready.

But Orpheus is an incredibly static character, at least when he is introduced. He stews and can't move on past injuries. So, in my reading, this is what this song is, the rock here is to bring about the change in Orpheus and Persephone, in finally getting them to move on.

"If he's the victim, what am I?"

This is, in my opinion, the most revelatory part of this song and the musical as a whole. Its a lack of understanding of this basic fact: Pain is not exclusive. If one person is traumatised, that doesn't eliminate or minimise what someone else went through. Life isn't a game of who is suffering more. If you want to heal, you need to understand not just yourself, but those around you. You don't have to empathise, but seeing another victim as an opponent isn't helpful and actively harms people more.

And if pain isn't exclusive, neither is healing. It is our duty as human beings to be kind, and if someone needs help, to at least offer and be willing to give aid. We are a collaborative species. If two people are in pain, especially because of a single cause, then helping each other to heal is always an option.

That drum that I identified with time and trauma returns for most of the song, playing erratic rhythms in ways a music scholar could probably analyse with much more coherence than me. What I will say is when the two finally reconcile, they sing over each other again, but this time it's less of an argument and more of a conversation, and that drum is nowhere to be seen.

They can take this healing on their own terms, in their own time.

Final Thoughts:

I love this song, and I love that Orpheus was included here. I feel that this song is a really nuanced discussion of the effects of someone like this version of Hades. He's not here, he's dead, but his legacy remains, and that empty throne is still ruling over Orpheus and Persephone as if they are still his subjects. I hope my analysis expressed this nuance coherently.

Next week I am covering both Adrift Reprise and The Trial. So stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[eleventeeny]

An Analysis on the New Manson Era

Marilyn Manson is holding his first headlining show since 2019 tonight. The past few days have been pure bliss for Manson fans everywhere. We've gotten a new single, new music video, first stage appearance in 5 years, and soon the first headlining performance in 5 years.

In this post, I want to analyze what we've seen so far. I spoke on the new single a bit in my previous post. I spoke on the new single in my previous post, please check that out if you're interested.

Starting with the MM x NB teaser from May 2024, the costume designer has apparently confirmed that this video is part of a full music video that will be released at a later date.

Within this video, we see a ton of symbolism. In the opening alone, he holds or presents a few items that could have a specific meaning.

He first holds a book, however I'm not sure what this could represent, and I don't know what the book he's holding is either.

After, he holds a key which represents knowledge, strength and contempt, as well as having control.

The throne shown represents authority and the sword in front of the throne represents justice, but in Greek mythology it can also be a sign of vengeance.

The apple he holds represents wisdom or the forbidden fruit.

I noticed a lot of symbolism relating to the human body as well, for example the glass oxygen mask he holds to his face, or the costume he wears that represents the veins in the body.

Throughout this whole era, we've seen a lot of imagery with flowers. When we see this full image of Manson, we can see calla lilies. These flowers are poisonous if eaten and represent resurrection and rebirth. Behind him, we see a structure covered with white flowers which could be these same flowers, roses, and yellow birds.

At the end of the teaser, we hear the outro to As Sick as the Secrets Within: "Keep sleeping, I'll make you dream of me"

In the lyrics for As Sick as the Secrets Within, we get a bit of a reflection of the past few years for Manson, which is why the cover is an image of his reflection in a piece of a broken mirror.

"I built this cage we've been trapped in together, can't remember where I hid the keys" -- This could be about Manson starting problems and dragging others into it and then struggling to get them out of the mess he created. He is realizing that his actions have negatively affected himself and those around him.

"A reason for me, for me to get by became a need, a need to get high" -- Manson first started using drugs, like he says, to get by, but it became a need, an addiction.

"Then into a life that was no life at all" -- In his addiction, he was alive he wasn't truly living.

The chorus, to me, is about how your trauma and hurt can only control you as much as you let it. You can become your full self when you stop letting your problems take over you. The beast he mentions can be a representation of misery or the struggle to break pattern, and it tries to pull us back in and control us.

"Keep sleeping, I'll make you dream of me" -- Manson saying that even if you ignore him or turn a blind eye, he'll make you notice and hear him. He's always said that he doesn't care what you think of him as long as you think of him.

In the music video for As Sick as the Secrets Within, we see a lot of imagery with tentacles. This could just be a reference to Evan Rachel Wood's documentary, Phoenix Rising, which depicts Manson as a creature that uses his tentacles to bring her down. But these images could also serve as a very literal metaphor, symbolizing a strong, threatening force. He is a force to be reckoned with.

I noticed in the first image we see with the tentacles, it appears as the white part is the body of a woman and the black tentacles are reaching around the legs to get inside.

We see a lot of black and white imagery in this video, similar to the Say10 music video. Black represents evil and dark, white represents the good and purity. This picture could be an image of evil infiltrating good.

We also see a lot of red poppies in the opening. These signify hope for the future, but also remembrance. We also see a car in a field of these same poppies. It looks similar to the car JFK was assassinated in.

We see a skin-like sack entrapping Manson through the music video. It's covered in purple and red lines that look like veins. This could be a nod to his "wormboy" image he's used throughout his career. His arms are folded over his chest and he breathes through his mouth in an apparent struggle. He lays on a metal-like table, like an experiment.

Maybe this is the "skin" he refers to when saying there's a trick to get out of your skin. He's telling you that you can only be reborn by letting go of your trauma and secrets.

There's an image of a cross in front of a cross in front of a symbol on the wall made up by different papers with writings of suspected lyrics for the new album and a sort of spiral drawing. The papers appear to make up the shape of the image we see in the stage of his recent performance as well as other promotions.

An image of a triangle with a horizontal line through it flashes on the screen with a foggy background. This sign is the symbol for air in alchemy.

Manson waves around a key while saying "you're only as sick as the secrets within", he'sa saying he is no longer controlled by his secrets, he now has the key to break free.

The cup he drinks from causes a shift in the video. As he drinks, blood pours into the background. This may represent the wrath he will bring onto those who have hurt him.

He then breaks out of the yolk sac containing him, the birth of a new version of himself.

These last few years have been hard on him, but he came out on top, and he wants to show us that with this video and with this song.

[kyndaris]

Preaching to the Chorus

About three years ago, Troy Baker pitched the idea of a video game musical called Chorus. What struck me, beyond the fact it was asking for donations as it was a crowdfunded project, were the high profile voice actors taking part, the art style, the bringing on of composer Austin Wintory and that it was being developed by an Australian developer! Years later, there was almost no word or hint of the game and I feared the worst. For a good long while, I wondered if I had just imagined the game being announced. Until, of course, Summerfall Studios announced the upcoming release of Stray Gods in August 2023! Suddenly, we had a release date and songs to enjoy after years of what had felt like absolute silence.

Yes, Chorus had changed its name but it was still the same premise I was promised: an urban fantasy Greek-mythology inspired musical where I got to make decisions on where the songs went. Needless to say, I was excited!

Despite it releasing in August, I didn't get to play the game until much later in 2023 when I finally got a bit of a breather between all my lengthy video games sucking up most of my time (and the fact I work full-time and commit to writing my stories and watching endless TV shows to be up-to-date on whatever is popular). Well, no. That's a lie. I've put a few games on the back burner like Octopath Traveler II and Like a Dragon: Ishin! (they are totally going to be played soon, I promise!)

In any case, I purchased the game while it was on sale (a measly 20% or so) and then stepped into the shoes of Grace. And almost immediately connected with her feelings of being cast adrift. Like so many people who have graduated university, and who didn't immediately apply for graduate programs, she's a little lost and unsure of her direction in life. Enter Calliope.

After the two share a duet together, Grace returns to the apartment she shares with longtime best friend: Freddie. As she rests, there's a knock on the door and lo! Calliope staggers through clutching a ghastly wound. With her last breath, she passes on her eidolon (the soul? and memories of an Idol) before dying in poor traumatised Grace's arms.

As Grace, understandably, panics, at the sudden turn of events, Hermes steps through the front door and tells Grace she needs to meet the Chorus. Within moments, Grace is taken to an upscale office room where she is greeted by Apollo, Persephone, Aphrodite and Athena. Before Grace can get a word in edgewise, these Idols (as the Gods now call themselves - although it makes me wonder if other pantheons exist in this world created by Summerfall), decide to execute Grace for the crime of maybe-possibly killing Calliope. That is until Apollo protests.

And protest he must consider later plot points. Such as him divulging the prophecy leading to Calliope's murder!

Honestly, so much of the story could have been resolved if Apollo stopped being a sad boy and actually used some brains to more cleverly resolve Grace's predicament. Instead, we have Grace run around the city for a week in a bid to prove her innocence and figure out the truth behind Calliope's death.

But what a wonderful week it was as several Idols help out, from the fast-talking Pan to the scary Medusa (with a very cute monster voice from Anjali Bhimani). But who can forget, and forgive me as a I fan myself and swoon over, the dommy mummy: Persephone. The design! The voice! The attitude? Gosh, I just wanted Persephone to step all over me. And considering the height difference she had over Grace?

Just...

I'm just going to die in a corner over here now.

Anyways, diversion aside, the plot was serviceable. It wasn't the most mindblowing story to be told but I liked how it introduced us to many of the Greek Gods and mythological creatures hiding in America, whilst weaving it in the murder mystery plot at its core. While the game threw out new leads often, I didn't ever feel an urgency to solve the crime or fear I'd not be able to figure out the murderer. Sherlock Holmes, this is not.

Rather, no matter which scenes you may wish to complete first (and I always went back to the Underworld to chat up Persephone), I feel like the end-point is almost always the same with our villain being unmasked as the smiling cookie-giver!

From a gameplay perspective, Stray Gods doesn't offer much. It's pretty much a visual novel where the player selects dialogue options or the next part of the song they wish to sing. There's no walking around or exploring the wondrous set pieces you find yourself in. Nor is there any random clicking on background objects for some light commentary or to pocket away clues to be presented at some other time.

In fact, there's no real animation to the game either. Most of the characters are stills, changing their posture as the dialogue or songs demand. Like flipping through a comic book or going from pane to pane.

But what does make Stray Gods stand out are the songs. Yes, there are some where I felt like it faltered: Asterion and Hecate's song (with the volume turned way too low) and some of the weaker blue options in Challenging a Queen. To me, it just wasn't as melodic as they could be and sounded a little jarring. Still, these were glossed over by several other standout songs like The Throne and the Ritual.

Speaking of The Ritual, while I did feel for Aphrodite, I didn't much like her selfish actions of dying and passing her trauma onto another poor soul. Like, either go to therapy and work on your issues or just die permanently and stop inflicting someone else with your trauma! Forgetting is not the path forward. And maintaining the cycle of the next Aphrodite reawakening to your traumatic memories of the Second World War whilst your son, Eros, deals with the fallout is NOT healthy.

On a side note, I liked how the melody of Adrift was used in the background of the game and was also revisited during The Trial.

As for the actual singing, I'm still impressed by the singing of so many of the voice actors. I mean, I wasn't surprised by Troy Baker considering he was a musician before he was a voice actor. And Felicia Day...well, considering I'd stumbled upon her back in her The Guild days, knew she could sing because of the songs she released. And the fact she appeared in Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog alongside Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.

While I did like Laura Bailey, there were moments when I felt her vocals were just a little too raw and weren't able to hit the notes as well as could be. No shade on Laura, though. I love Laura Bailey! And she had a tough task with so many variations to sing!

Still, I did like her rapping. MORE LAURA BAILEY RAPPING PLEASE! Especially in the Challenging a Queen song.

But I do wonder what Stray Gods might have been like if we had actual Broadway actors brought in for the singing with stronger vocals and/ or melodies.

But I must say, my absolute favourite singer was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. How could I not? She voiced Persephone! And I so wanted to romance her!

In the end, though, I foiled my chances because I was trying to play in-character by asking myself 'What would Grace do?' in most situations, especially when she was down in the Underworld and was especially traumatised by her best friend's death.

So, yes. I obviously brought Freddie back and the two ended up getting together in one of the more wholesome relationships there is in the game. Because, if you ask me, Pan? He just shows up out of the blue and is all sneaky-sneaky. A girl with her head on her shoulders wouldn't immediately fall for him, even if his intentions were good.

And Apollo? I know my friend @mrsarmageddon likes a 'I-can-fix-him-sad-boy' but he was too set in his ways and a little too unwilling to be of any proper assistance until all his secrets had been unveiled.

As for Persephone, she's a very angry woman and also wouldn't have been a healthy choice considering her romance with CALLIOPE in the past. Still, I couldn't help but want her step on me.

I don't know what that says about me. I'm probably secretly a sub/ omega who just wants someone to take care of me.

But let's not dwell on what this revelation could be and instead talk about how Stray Gods pushed the gaming genre to try and be more inclusive in ways no-one had thought of before. Beyond that, I loved the characters. The narrative, while simplistic, was entertaining enough to pull me through my initial playthrough of six and a bit hours. So, it's not even all that long. Which is perfect when you're gainfully employed and have a ton of time-consuming hobbies.

The one major downside to me was the fact it didn't have a chapter select after the first playthrough. If it did have it, allowing me to skip ahead to say 'Act 3' to redo my conversation with Persephone so I could romance her, or skip to certain songs so I could try out different combinations or variations, it would have heightened the gaming experience for me. Instead, Stray Gods forced me to play through the entire game again just for the occasional tweaks I wanted to do in my playthrough.

And now, during The Game Awards 2023, there's been an announcement for ANOTHER musical game called Harmonium. And it features sign language! So, it's definitely something I want to keep an eye on!

YES! TO MORE VIDEO GAME MUSICALS!

But also, don't let it become too overly saturated. During the Game Awards, I couldn't help but notice more Souls-like battle systems, using Japan as a setting (for Western developers) and more mechs/ robots.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and admire the Queen of the Underworld a little bit more. For perfectly REASONABLE purposes.

[kibbits]

It’s been a while crocodile! How have you been? Keeping hydrated/medicated/fed I hope. Things been better lately for me. I got to ugly cry over the newest chapter of Epic the Musical and my Greek Mythology hyper fixation crossing in might as well been a train wreck.

I come with another question, What plays that the Bal!Boys have done or the kind of genre of plays that the Glamrocks would enjoy? (I just have this idea that maybe the boys when they’re on friendly terms with the others will do private shows after the pizza plex closes. So that way they can also enjoy the boy’s plays and bond with some of the kids coming out of the theater during the day because they can gush back and forth about the newest production.)

- ✨ Starry ✨

Starryyyy!!!!! I missed you!!! I've been thinking of you lately ahaha

I am, I am!! Need to drink more water but I've got some tea and snacks rn after spending the day outside in the sun! <33

Oooh!!! Adding it to The List! It's looking interesting!! And rip to double hyperfixation combo ghfglj I hope YOU'RE staying hydrated/medicated/well fed! Love when a piece of media makes me ugly-cry pff Oooh I got to rewatch Little Shop of Horror the other day!! Still amazing (Iiii am a deeentiiiist~)

Been pestered into working on a playlist for BaL!AU maybe : O It'll be my first playlist really

In typical Kibs fashion, answering your actual question under the readmore flkjgdk

I've thought about the first question for a while, actually! The answer changes every time pff I want to say maybe they used to do classics? But like. Fazbearified Classics. Like-- Fazbear™ Presents: Hamlet

...Except that the Glamrocks are busy doing their shows, so they had to slap cheap Glamrock costumes from the gift shop onto S.T.A.F.F. bots to play the roles dflkjldj Think the recent uuuh Wonka experience? whatever tf that was.

(God now I'm thinking about your hyperfixation and thinking of a S.T.A.F.F. bot greek chorus fjdjd)

They would absolutely do private shows! And encourage them to take part, too! For fun and also art/theatre therapy is a thing djdjd Also I'm gonna give genre/movies/plays examples, but I think for the renewal they often come up with their own plays! Like maybe they'll be given hamlet and it'll be a retelling instead of just. slapping the brand on it (Chica of the seaaaaa)

Anyway! I think that Monty is probably an obvious fan of action, comedy, maybe secretly a bit of romance and fairy tales? Not a fan of the classics though - or, like, not shakespearean for sure. Stories about misfits or monsters who end up loved is a sure way to get him emotional (he likes to play the big bad sometimes when they do a play together, it's fun when it's a role and not something that's slapped onto your reputation) (he would be a fan of Beauty and the Beast I think)

Roxy I think would like rock?? Like uuh I think she'd get into Little Shop or Horror or even Rocky Horror Picture show (i think her and Monty would get way into the music actually djdjd stomping along) She'd love things like Wicked too, I think. Her Chica and the celestial boys will have an 80s girls night sometimes fjfjf think Grease

Chica loves peppy, fun stories, like say Hairspray or Legally Blonde djdnd though she does love a sad story with a good ending. I think she would love anything soap opera like and get really into it pff Very gossipy and dramatic

Freddy is DEFINITELY a romantic, loves the classics, things like Singing in the Rain

Bonus: I think maybe after the massive improvement in the boys' uuuuh Suitability to Interact with Humans probably looks very promising to Fazbear Corporates. I think, maybe, the stage/theater can become a lucrative space to test bringing back more decomissioned bots... maybe a certain fox and bunny?

The boys cite the new revenue from the theater and the need for more main roles to get them to bring back Foxy at first (maybe even as something like Captain Hook??)

They're confined to the stage at first so even if something was 'wrong' they get minimal direct interaction with the actual humans until deemed safe/graduated from the theater. I think Foxy sticks around or maybe gets pirate cove back.

Bonnie's reveal kind of floors Freddy, oh boy (and of course they DO plan a dramatic reveal in a private show with Freddy, cause well they dont want Freddy to lose him twice so they work very hard to make sure everything is good to go/he won't be redecommissioned before revealing him at the climax of a play) They come up with an elaborate play for Bonnie, maybe something like Sleeping Beauty? (thanks Eyndr!) where they cast Freddy as the prince and he expects like. a S.T.A.F.F. bot in a wig, and instead he finds Bonnie trying not to laugh and snickering and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and he bursts into tears (static??) immediately.

Both stick around. I like to think that Bonnie doesn't actually want to rejoin the band at this point tho hell be close to Freddy Chica and Foxy. Maybe he even takes over the daycare himself? For some reason I see him as this mellow tired art teacher/caretaker when he comes back for good.

I see Foxy as helping work out the kids' energy and hes a bit of a gremlin himself, scurrying like a gremlin like Moon and very loud and dramatic acting. And also YN is well versed in LARPing so he gets a very very padded, not sharp/dangerous hook with the core still solid enough to actually be used as a prosthesis.

Anyway ye!!! Acting is good for all of them, either to work out emotions, or for fun, or to learn new tools for their own work (setting up a character so that they can be free to be themselves in their off time without worrying about the bleed-through/to help set up work/free time boundaries), and I think they end up putting up plays for each other even! Also, all the movie nights.

Thanks so much for the questions aa!

See ya later, alligator!! <33

[splanana-bitz]

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 =)

• • • • • • • • • •

[leynaeithnea]

Me ? Taking notes again to write this ask? You guessed it.

The ocean saga is 100% my favourite saga so I'm going to be insane about this actually.

12.Aeolus is literally perfect I'm obsessed with her and her little banter with Ody " let's play a game/ a game? / That's what I'm serving " YES MA'AM YOU ARE CERTAINLY SERVING. Again at this point we agree on everything because the part where Odysseus tries to stay awake has kept me awake for days , he is so pathetic he's hallucinating his family and he loves them so much and everything has changed BUT HE'S THE SAME YES HE'S THE SAAAME ( instant tears)

" They were within sight, his mom could have seen the ship" fatal blow , currently chocking on my blood and my tears.

Also yes , Poseidon's voice is majestic, after ruthlessness came out I was singing it so much my brother and sister had memorized it ( they don't even know English lol )

13.The chorus of po-sei-don is glorious and I sing it every single time very drammatically 'cause HOW COULD I NOT??? Again, agree with everything you said, this whole entire song makes me feral, Poseidon is so bitchy and mean and pissed and sarcastic I ADORE IT and whenever I sing it I make Ody's little "No" so defeated and terrified and "we're so fucked " because they so areeeee

You are the worst kind of good- moment lives in my mind rent free I also did some lettering for it because I HAD to get it out of my head somehow ( I failed , it's stuck on repeat in my brain )

" But noOoOo" is so iconic I can't put it into words I love Poseidon jansnsnns

First time I listened to ruthlessness the callback to just a man brought me to my knees Jorge is a criminal how does he get away with causing such pain to me specifically ??? We'll never know

Aaaand the callback to the convo with Polyphemus " I am your darkest moment " FLOORS ME EVERY TIME SIR WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES THAT HAUNT YOU IN THE FORM OF THE GOD OF THE SEA , WHAT DO YOU MEAN MERCY HAS A PRICE ( this whole thing about "you could have avoided all this had you just killed my son" brings me back to hours spent studying the Iliad for school and learning that in those books the idea was that you had to die a glorious death if you wanted to be remembered and live forever with honor in the stories that will be told about you. Being spared in combat and living after that is not living at all, becase you're now a disgrace and everyone will know you failed to be a hero ) ( but I don't know if this whole "moral code" applies to monsters like Polyphemus) ( living with the shame that some random puny Greeks overtook you must generally suck either way though)

also the part where Ody's desperately bargaining "Poseidon we meant to harm we only hurt him to disarm him PLEASE PLEASE UNDERSTAND please we took no pleasure in his pain we are at your mercy right now we can't do anything this is all up to you I can't do anything else for my crew other than try to make you understand we only wanted to escape PLEASE we are in your domain now we can't escape the literal sea PLEASE SHOW US THE MERCY WE SHOWED YOUR SON" and this whole part is quieter and gentler than the rest of the song,it's a plea, a small little desperate string of hope that maybe he'll understand, then a beat of silence and then DIE YOU'RE NAIVE AND HOPELESS DIE AKKSKDJSNNS

I may have gone a little insane with this one lol

As always no pressure but I eagerly await your take on the other sagas :))

( love for you and your friend that you acted out the whole musical , it seems neat and I think it would fix me hahah )

HEYO man theres one artwork of "im the same yes im the same" that im obssessed with, its sooo good

the idea was that you had to die a glorious death if you wanted to be remembered

All the men who died drowning + elpenor ------- :) :) :) yw

Despite it being an unpopular opinion Circe might actually be my least favorite saga so far,....probably because they werent as angsty as any of the other so far......i think theres a pattern here....anyway, its still GREAT so lets start 14. Puppeteer ODY REFUSING TO LISTEN TO EURY, I WONDER??? maybe he guesses???? MAYBE HE KNOWS? that it was Eury who opened the bag but he isn't ready to hear it yet???? the instrumentals in that is soo good tho, ALSO "a woman" "....what"

circes voice do be beautiful

and the storytelling of eury recalling the story while circes part is kind of a flashback like, is reallyyy nice

Also Ody being straight up ready to save his men help, that's only 8 songs or so before Syclla :")

15. Wouldn't you like

I knowwww why people are so hype about it, but admittedly it doesn't hit that hard for me. it's a good song! just not my favorites

but "someone who's not afraid to...send a message" is a sneaky way to make it obv who it is, very "high on shrooms" feels, and Odysseus singing the "OooooOoooOOOooOooH"s towards the end are reallyyy goodddd and the "dont thank me you very well may die"....perfect characterization of hermes, loved 16. Done For

Ody trying to sneak his way in like "did you do smth to them?" (knows 100% that she did) "you turned them into pigs" ODY YOURE SUCH A SLEEK---- SO OKAY WE ACTED THIS OUT RIGHT? WITH MY FRIEND? HAVING MY FRIEND BE CIRCE PLS??? OMG ....attractive mayhaps ody trying to lie about being a god "hermes gave it do you, didnt he?" ".....fine, yes, but- " ODY SIEGSE ~love lying characters, like, Neil, Ody, yeah...yeah Also circe going right into lust and Ody being like "??? wdym" (think sabout penelope) 17. There are other ways "BUuT itS been 12 LonG yeEArs" JORGE JORGE__--SLEGOSEJG lmaoosegseigjseg jk beautiful falcetto (high voice) of Jorge very seductive song, beautiful the reprise of just a man again.....but he refuses! good on you ody, bc otherwise you wouldve been dead, also THE DROP when Circe talks about the Underworld, esp with the distorted choir so cool, theres some animatics that portrayed those really neat too, might ramble about the animatics some other time also Circes last note(s) in the song are SO GOOODDDDD such vocal control

[kitsaystransrights]

Okay I’m starting a new series on here called “I just finished this game” where I gush about a game I just finished.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of musicals, visual novels, or Greek mythology, you NEED to play Stray Gods.

If you haven’t heard of it before, Stray Gods is a visual novel with branching story routes, but it has the twist of also being a musical! Many of the game’s major choices take place in the songs themselves, and the songs will actually changed based on your decisions! Each song has numerous different permutations based on around 3-5 choices in each one. I recommend checking out Challenging a Queen, one of the early game songs that’s relatively light on spoilers, to see how some of the choices really add some spice to the game and weave through the songs.

The game’s story just follows Grace, a 20-something girl who witnesses the death of Calliope, the Last Muse, and to make matters worse, she has inherited her powers and role. The Chorus, leaders of the remaining Greek gods (known as Idols), give Grace one week to prove her innocence before she is executed, and the line of Calliope is gone forever.

Accompanying her on this journey are a variety of gods, monsters, and her mortal (strictly platonic… strictly) roommate, Freddie. The cast of Stray Gods is easily its best aspect, full of lovable and complex characters, leaving you laughing a lot, sobbing sometimes, and sometimes not knowing who to trust. And when it’s backed up by a fantastic voice cast, and nearly every character getting their own song if not multiple, I’d be astounded if you managed to get through the game without getting attached to SOMEONE lol.

(For the record, my favorite characters are Freddie, Persephone, and Aphrodite hehe)

And of course, what’s a musical without its music? The soundtrack of Stray Gods is absolutely incredible, even beyond the incredible amount of work and dedication it took to integrate so many variations of all the songs in the game. Lots of variety with the genre, sometimes even changing in the middle of a song! If I haaad to pick a few favorites, I suppose it’d be The Ritual, Look Into Me, and If Only. I’m a sucker for the emotional songs, but Look Into Me is suuuuuch a banger, it feels so threatening and I LOVE it.

OKAY now I’m gonna gush about my favorite parts of the story and get all spoilery so if you don’t want to be spoiled, DON’T KEEP READING! Go play the game yourself! Iirc it’s on all current platforms. Enjoy :)

So HOLY SHIT APHRODITE’S SONG HIT ME LIKE A BRICK??? I love the moral dilemma her whole cycle of rebirth puts you in, deciding whether to honor her wishes and let her die again or to convince her to find peace in life rather than trying to forget. I tried SO HARD to save her without forcing her and she ended up passing on anyways.

Persephone’s character is also SOOOO well done here, the reinterpretation of her story where she kills Hades is a fantastic direction to take her character. She ended up being my main investigative partner for the game and I did NOT regret it. I almost ended up romancing her, and I definitely will on my next playthrough, but I didn’t this time because of…

Freddie!!! Freddie absolutely rules and is my favorite character in the whole game. Mortal Greek mythology nerd who is super gay and wears a cool hat, how could I NOT love her??? My heart was completely torn to shreds when she died, and even though I knew she had to be able to come back somehow because you could romance her, the fury it raised in me made me blaze through the last four hours of the game and finish it in one sitting XD.

And JEEZ the way they let you bring her back is so well done. It’s not outright good or bad, it’s complex! Freddie and Grace are both traumatized by her death and resurrection, and the fact that you went against Freddie’s wishes and passed the line of Calliope onto her just makes it even more interesting from a storytelling perspective. It’s part of what makes If Only one of my favorite songs in the game. And of course, I’m a sucker for stories of unrequited love like Freddie’s is for Grace and now I’m gonna feel so guilty romancing anyone else 😭. Freddie is so relatable istg.

Anyways uuuuuh that’s all I have to say, maybe I’ll do a full review on my YouTube? Thanks for checking this post out tho! Okay bye :)

[sassmill]

Absolutely nobody asked for this, but since it’s nearly October and I listen to these year round: here are some Halloween-y spooky musicals that aren’t Sweeney Todd or Addams Family or Beetlejuice. Lots of murder inbound, folks. The spectrum ranges from “this piece of art is integral to my soul” to “this is campy and fun and I sing it in my car a lot.”

1) Get Jack

To sum it up with lyrics, “he’s still most wanted, but we’ve been forgotten.” The Canonical Five women murdered by Jack the Ripper tell their stories (and then rise as specters from Hell to bring him down). Some serious guitar shredding and rock vocals on tracks like “Left Handed Wives” and “Agony in Red,” and hard-hitting emotional lyrics and performances on tracks like “Blood in Whitechapel” and “Forever Erased.” Plus, a cheeky narrator who may or may not be the Devil. Strikes the perfect balance between earned rage and overdue grieving for these victims that have been largely pushed by the wayside in the history books because of their gender and occupation—like the women of Six, they’re flipping the narrative to reclaim their own identities and agency in the story. These five women were more than just names in a rhyme.

2) Angelmakers: Songs for Female Serial Killers

This song cycle tells you its concept first thing—everyone deserves one song. Even those that have been condemned. Especially them. An examination of “feminine rage and radical empathy,” it makes no excuses for each of these eight women—these serial killers—but it dissects their lives and asks the audience to ponder: how has this world broken you down? How much have you held in? How often have you said sorry? How much have you sacrificed for peace of mind, and how much would you give to make the world bear the full brunt of your pain? It’s more than a concert or a song cycle, it is an elegy—a ritual, an offering for women we know and women we have been. We begin by acknowledging the rage we carry, the effort it takes to temper it, in “Stick the Key In.” We bear witness to the pain that the world has wrought in these women, we recognize that their circumstances are similar to so many others in the seven wildly cathartic punk rock devotionals—and I do feel that that is exactly what they are, because each song is “for” one of these women. And we end the cycle with a psalm of sorts, for all of us: “Will to Live.” It is explicitly unapologetic in the grace it grants these women, and in engaging with their trauma we can allow ourselves as women some grace as well: our pain is real, and our rage reverberates through the centuries because of this will to live despite those that try to break us because of how they’ve been broken. It gives you permission to hurt so that you can start to heal. If you listen to this one, make an evening out of it and listen to it all the way through—complete the cycle.

3)LIZZIE

Anybody who really knows me knows how close this show is to my heart. It takes the 1892 Borden ax murders and holds up a magnifying glass to the women at the center of it. Though the full history involves many, many players, this two act rock musical presents the story to us through just four: Lizzie and Emma, spinster sisters struggling under their father’s iron fist and their stepmother’s cold hearted scheming; Bridget, the family’s young Irish maid who sees and hears everything; and Alice, a neighbor and confidant who must weigh her desire to support the woman she loves against her conscience when she witnesses deceit. This work is a masterpiece of tension. In the days leading up to the murders, you can feel the stifling presence of the father and stepmother bearing down on all four women—and they aren’t physically present in the show at all. The women each play their own role in the drama they unfold—Bridget is our Greek chorus, Emma is puppet master, Alice is a light in the darkness, and Lizzie is the eye of the storm. Honestly, The Village Voice perfectly summed it up: “Lush tunes which retch sex, rage, dyke heat, misanthropy, and incest… Surreal glee and gallows humor… Finally, a rock musical you’d wanna mosh to.”

IMPORTANT: trigger warning for implications of sexual assault.

4) Lizzie Borden

Yes, there are two musicals about her. There’s also an opera by Jack Beeson and an Agnes DeMille ballet scored by Morton Gould, but that’s not why we’re here. As far as my suggestions on this list go, this 1998 treatment of the Borden murders is probably the most stylistically conventional for musical theatre (tying with Witches of Eastwick)—the weaving of dialogue with song, patter, and breadth of leitmotif call to mind Sondheim. Unlike LIZZIE, this show presents the full cast of characters involved in that fateful day and its aftermath in an inventive nonlinear fashion, splitting Lizzie into her younger self at some of its most chilling moments. The score is gorgeous, and I cannot properly stress how marvelously the leitmotifs pan out in the second act. Strikes a good balance between comedic, petty drama and the panic behind life altering tragedy—I guarantee you’ll be humming “Buttons” for at least a week after your heart stops pounding from the anxiety that builds with every measure of “So Easily.” Again, IMPORTANT: trigger warning for implied sexual assault.

5) Nevermore: the Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

Haunting and ominously playful, the show’s traveling acting troupe starts at Poe’s birth and follows his tragedies and triumphs up until the opening moments of the show—a framing device that I will always love, and it’s played off here deliciously. I don’t have a whole essay to write on this one and I have no idea how biographically accurate it is to his life, but I love listening through it on long drives—a lot of underscored dialogue, which I just happen to enjoy while driving. Maybe because I like podcasts. I don’t know. It doesn’t really warrant a trigger warning, but I can’t NOT mention that it does include his marriage to his 13 year old cousin—the dynamic portrayed is avuncular if anything, nothing predatory or unnerving, but. Yeah. Child cousin bride. Do with this what you will.

6) Ghost Quartet

Dave Malloy, my sweet, sweet baboo. I love this show so much. I talked about this show in the process portion of my thesis. And it’s really impossible to summarize the plot because it is stories inside of stories and it’s best listened to many, many times in the wind and rain. There are two sisters, an astronomer, and a bear. A soldier. A driver, a victim, a pusher, a photographer. The Fall of the House of Usher. Sheherazade, Dunyazad, and Shah Zaman. Thelonious Monk. Any kind of dead person, reincarnation, a classic murder ballad, and lots of whiskey. It’s intensely weird and equally wonderful. If you listen to the live recording from the McKittrick Hotel, dialogue is included! Better yet, Dave Malloy actually made the full production directed by Annie Tippe available to watch on his YouTube channel at the start of the pandemic.

7) The Witches of Eastwick

As far as I am concerned, John Updike doesn’t exist and the only versions of this story that matter are the movie and this musical. Three witches in a small Rhode Island town learn to be authentically themselves and enjoy their lives through some ill-advised fraternization with the devil himself (the egrets be damned). Local prophet has some tummy trouble. The “I want” songs are delicious and it is a personal goal of mine to perform “Words, Words, Words” without actually biting my tongue in the last verse. “Dirty Laundry” has all the petty 1960s housewife drama you could ask for. “I Wish I May” is a charming trio about fulfilling the dreams we had as children. “Dance with the Devil” is a straight banger. “Another Night at Darryl’s” is a lusty romp. Just, like, do yourself a favor and listen to this musical it’s so fun. John Updike stays in the penalty box for all eternity, though. I am never getting those hours of my life back.

8 ) Rebecca das Musical

Okay I KNOW that this one is literally in German but hear me out—the lovely fanbase have made so many YouTube videos of the soundtrack with English subtitles if you don’t speak German (I’m… getting there). The Daphne du Maurier novel is perfect, the Hitchcock film is perfect, and this musical is perfect. Even before I knew enough German to comprehend any of the words, I knew the storyline well enough that the music itself (it’s so expressive I swoon) made characters and plot points clear. Gothic romance that is incredibly questionable, murder, ambiguity, repressed lesbianism, scandal, a protagonist that literally doesn’t have a name—what’s not to love? Mrs. Danvers steals the show as is her god-given right, and if nothing else you should listen to the demo recording of the English language version of the title song “Rebecca” from the vanished Broadway production (whose death was just as tragic and mysterious as Rebecca de Winter’s). It’s unhinged and incredibly sapphic; everything Mrs. Danvers ought to be (Kristin Scott Thomas, I’m so sorry they gave you that sad excuse of a script you deserved so much better. When it was first released I said I liked the 2020 Netflix Rebecca but in retrospect… no). I don’t think I’m really capable of intelligent thought at this point in the list (it is now 1:26 am) but just know that I love this musical and it is helping me learn German. Why am I learning German? So I can listen to this musical. Why I am listening to this musical? So I can learn German. And the snake consumes its own tail. And I should probably go to sleep.

[hawaiian-tea]

if eurydice could see me now

song inspired by 'tear you apart' from she wants revenge

and of course, greek mythology

wrote this for napowrimo ☺️

eurydice, muse of mine

i'll take your hand, lead you to my time

let me bring you to this modern world

modern magic, modern love

if eurydice could see me now

look through my eyes, feel how i felt

well i think she'd be pretty proud

or pretty disappointed

just trying to keep it figurative

i write better now than i ever did

send them to tears with the first lyric

nymphs begging, me to risk it

(instrumental chorus)

i see you in parallel

eurydice please, show me hell

will you come up, if i come down

follow me, follow me

she still glitters like the swollen lips

skies of moons, a billion

im checking for a vision trick

to find out how to replicate it

oh muse i can't face you now

i would die, to bring you back

i play my lyre and don't believe the man

im not a fool, im just overwhelmed

blood pooling in the imprint you left

but i leave, there'll be no poets

i arise to the heart's music

i gave up, now i just make it

(instrumental chorus)

eurydice please, show me hell

I think she'll teach me pretty well

"..-dont help me you just help yourself"

she leaves me like a feeling

in modern hell

if eurydice could see me now

look through my eyes, feel how i felt

well i think she'd be pretty proud

or pretty disappointed

(3x with vocals in background and gets louder each time)

[raayllum]

some things I love about s4:

the ethereal effect on Zubeia's voice

Rayla doing a handstand in the dark and going WEEEEE!!!!

the fact that the only end credit in colour in the entire show is the trans flowers

the way Viren stops and thinks about what the best way to respond to Terry coming out to him is

the way the writers rewrote Terry's coming out scene according to GLAAD's advice

Terry caressing Viren's face as he's laying in his lap

the amount of times Amaya is referred to as Janai's wife

s4 is my best friend <3

a masterful show don't tell in having callum mostly process the trauma of rayla leaving by just shutting up / shutting down

ezran getting a chance to acknowledge his own hurt and anger

how soren's hair used to be parted one way in s1-s3 and is now parted the opposite way to signify just how much he's changed sides

sir sparklepuff's extra long fingers

the fact callum can't / doesn't say rayla or viren's names until she shows up post-4x02

how expressive stella is with both her big adorable eyes and all six of her little arms

bait's happy face in 4x07 about getting to help the team makes music. makes me think he loves to sit on ezran's chest and listen to / feel his boy humming or singing songs quietly

karim is a lil bitch but also cute, and consistently looks over confidently happy in scenes where he really shouldn't

the design of the six horns + the masks as both a statement on the nature of law and order but also makes me think of a greek chorus

how there are shots of harrow, viren, callum, and aaravos all standing in the same straight backed manner with their hands clasped together behind their backs

it wouldn't be a true season of tdp if rayla didn't have a breakdown, her one in 4x09 her biggest (or close) one yet, and one she basically goes through entirely on her own for the first time too, poor girl

callum being a petty bitch of "we're not going to talk about this" only to immediately bring it up again in the next scene they share together in the beginning of 4x04, like go off you sad king

ezran paralleling both his parents when he reaches down to offer his hand to rayla, also paralleling the way she helped him to his feet / out of the ice in 1x06

terry using nature terms like sapling and buck to describe himself is an adorable consistency

getting to see janai be badass with her crown but also soft and vulnerable in her various outfits this season

claudia and soren's entire reunion / discussion + the butterfly call back

[avissapiens]

Avis Abstractions #4: Gym Ambiance

 Apart from peak time when every human on earth seems to pack into your shitty little planet fitness, or the times the gym manager decided to blast that boring, trashy background music a little too loud; most gyms are really quiet places. It’s just the backing ambience of people getting their shit done. No one really chatters or makes too much noise for the most part. It’s part of the unspoken agreement of the place. You’ve bought into this social contract as well implicitly when you signed up. Not like you really had much of a choice. Being new to the gym meant you didn’t have any bros to shoot shit with. So you just get in, pop on your headphones and pump out your reps. Just going through the motions. It’s almost Zen. Really calm. A nagging voice in your head told you that Calm didn’t build 20 inch biceps. Make some noise. You try it a little but…no. That weight of social convention keeps you from making more than the slightest hiss as you breath out during a heavy set. As you rack your weight you hear the ping from the door and just thoughtlessly glance over to see who comes in. Your heart skips a beat and the whole atmosphere changes. The doors glide open and you see a Pack of about 5 absolute adonises. The kind of guys you never thought you’d ever see at your piddly little comercial gym Shoulders so broad they block the light from outside. Quads so big they sway as they walk. Clothes already straining over skin like they had the worlds best pump. Bodies so hard and sculpted that it seemed ridiculous that any of them needed the equipment in here. They were their own walking temples of Iron and steel. And at their head was an absolute god of a man. Brutal looking. A prime specimen of something almost surpassing humanity. You wondered if the God of Gainz forged his genes personally. Surely someone like that was a fucking Demi-god of some sort. Well no matter what he was, he carried himself and the others responded to him as the clear AMOG. Alpha male of the Group. This pack of dudes walks into the gym and everything stops. Their mere existence demands attention. You notice some people finish up their sets right quickly and make to the exit, scattering like animals before an earthquake. Others just sit and stare. Ogling and drooling like thralls transfixed. You even swore you heard one of the gym bunny chicks at the back doing stretches moan a little when she saw them. Her friends didn’t titter like they might have done normally. They understood the urge. Instead the lot of them just bashfully left the gym. Two of the studs gave them a wink and blew a kiss as they passed. AMOG wasted no time surveying his kingdom. His eyes locked in on a free bench. Your heart dropped a little. It was really close to you…whatever you’d just try to keep focused. Mind your business. Turn up your music a bit. That group tho, it was so surreal. AMOG walked silently to the bench. No words. Nothing. But his entourage did all the speaking for him. A veritable greek chorus of all the things you’d need to hear as an alpha about to crush a workout. Each bringing something different. An echo chamber of Brotherhood. Maybe that was the key to building a body like his. They were fucking wild animals, shrieking and hollering. You heard them loud and clear even through your headphones "Fuck yeah bro" 

"Get it bro!"

"Fucking come on man what are you a pussy?" “Last time you went for the 60s. I know you can do better” AMOG goes straight for the heaviest set of Dumbbells. Gripping them makes his forearms swell. He gets into position for a dumbbell bench press. Perfect form. Even under the pump cover he's wearing you can see the way his pecs bulge and swell. His crew stands and watches, surrounding him. Ready to support. Eager to congratulate. He starts cranking out reps. With every rep you can hear the way his breathing just cuts through the noise again. Loud. Clear. Hissing like a steam engine or some kind of ancient reptilian beast.  On purpose too. Just pure douchey ego that doesn't even try to keep quiet. He goes through his sets. In between his bros go about their own workouts. But when he is pumping iron, they drop everything and make him the center of attention. 

He seldom speaks. Just the occasionally “yeah” or “Nah bro” while the rest clamour around him. Barely connecting to each other. 

He’s like a King holding court. Very very loud court. “Man, I keep telling you Gymshark is done for. YoungLA is where it’s at. They’ve got such dope colours. You’d look so good in them bro!” “You remember that slut, Stacy, brah? Took her home last night. Her dad’s pretty cute too. Might have to pay another visit” “God I fucking hate this place. It’s so basic. Why do we keep coming to this planet-fitness bs. We should be going to the elite gyms where we can better ourselves!” “The pump is so good dude, fuuuuck. Feel em. Feel me!” In the last few reps the breathing turns to grunting. It sounds like some kind of beast. Deep. Primal. Vaguely erotic.. And it seems to push him further. Give him strength.

His entourage gets louder now, pushing him. practically begging him to go harder.

“Fuck yes you can do it” “Bro! BRO! BROOOO!” “PUSH IT, go! Harder Pussy!” “You’re a fucking god dude!” The grunts turn into an almost aroused yell. Just going super saiyan. Roaring like a beast. Veins bulging in his neck. Letting his power out as he destroys his muscles.

The weights drop to the ground so that even on the padded floor they echo through the whole gym.

Every exercise is like this. His entourage follows suit, although none of them seem to possess the power, the focus, the crazed drive of their AMOG. They keep up the constant stream of praise to their leader, like a flock of birds grooming and serenading a swimming crocodile. With every loop around the gym their noise seems to drive people off until it's just you and them. You've just been turning your music up louder and louder and trying to focus but each time they manage to top it.

With every new loop too it's like they're getting more and more vicious. More primal. All of them taken over by some kind of fugue state. A ritual led by their God the AMOG. All of the grunts turning into moans. All of the exclamations turning into more and more elicit cries

“Mmmfuck, let me carry your babies, dude!” “Bro you could have me or my bitches any day” “Lead us to victory, my god!” “Muscle master race. Fuck my cock’s leaking..” They roll up to a machine next to you and it's almost scary. Heat emanating from their bodies in waves. Muscles twitching beneath sweat shimmering skin. Veins throbbing and full to bursting. Hate and rage in their eyes. Possessed and transformed by proximity to this living legend of a man.

AMOG sets up and his lackeys load it to the highest level. He looks at them with contempt and spits his first actual words of the evening. "More. Get some plates and load it on." They scramble to obey. 10, 20, 30, 40kg. Piling on more weight than the machine was ever designed for. He sets up for the exercise and even you stop and watch.

He begins to strain and it looks like the weight might be too much for him.

He tugs and pulls. His face going red. Veins bulging from his neck. Roaring. Gnashing. Cursing. The chorus starts up from the other “Go Go GO!” “Do it. Fuck He’s gonna do it!” “Come on. No pain. No gain. Don’t be a fucking Loser!” “Mmmmfuckkk!!”

You see his gym shorts start to stain and leak with thick, viscous pre and then juicy globs of cum that just pulses like a stream hitting the fabric of his pants. The weights move and he screams "FUCKKK!" And gets in a single, perfect, muscle fiber destroying rep before letting the plates clatter back to the starting position.

"LETS GOOOOOO" he shouts and all his buds shout it with them as they go into a frenzy. The atmosphere is almost intoxicating and you feel the urge to scream with them. To join them. A yearning, longing wistfulness. But you restrain yourself…barely. AMOG doesn’t tho. He doesn’t restrain a thing. He turns and punches a hole in the sheer wall leaving a dent in it.  And then for extra measure, topples the machine, throwing it to the floor. He rips off his pump cover and basks in the glow of his own magnificence. Sweat dripping in rivers down every contour of his body.

The rest of his entourage kneels and you see in their eyes mingled lust, envy, submission. They have all finally gone silent. No more words are necessary. AMOG’s Heaving shoulders and heavy breath subside and he lets out a simple contented sigh. He turns to you and smirks. “Shit bro, sorry. Didn’t notice you there. You’re so quiet.” He reaches into his gym bag and throws a wad of cash to the ground in front of the broken machine “That should be enough for Avis to cover repairs.”

He turns and walks to the door. His gang follows like a procession of acolytes. Before he exits he turns and shouts to you in the back of the gym, pointing to the mess of jizz and sweat he’s left behind. “Yo, do me a favor derack my weights and clean up that stuff for me when you’re finished. Avis doesn’t mind a broken machine, but he keeps his shit clean in The Abyss”

The Model for this one is Lexx Little. Check him out. And If you want to support the creation of more hypnotic experiences and writing, then you can do so by subscribing to my Patreon, or to my Youtube channel. And if you want to interact more closely with me and my supportive community you can join my Discord server. And check out my file archive on my website.

[yibennianyaji]

In Defense of the Little Shop of Horrors Theatrical Cut

Few words are as dirty as the phrase “focus testing,” the process in which bewildered strangers representing various marketing demographics are ushered into the screening of an unreleased film and then battered with questions about their feelings. Alright, it’s a bit more involved than that, but it’s also a process well known for being used as a crutch by nervous studio executives (also known as The Man) to rein in artistic types who want to try out something that, God forbid, might fail. The fallacy of this system has been discussed in broader scope by more learned souls than I, so today let’s keep it simple. There is one case in which I remain in favor of the results of a focus group: the infamous edited ending of the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors.

For those not in the know, a brief history: Little Shop of Horrors is, at its basest roots, the story of a poor young man, Seymour Krelborn, who finds a mysterious plant that brings him a great deal of wealth, accomplishment, and the love of the girl he was pining for; trouble being that the plant feeds on blood, and as it gets bigger and the stakes get higher, Seymour has to resort to feeding it bodies. The story was originally a 1960 film born from the production house of gimmickry master Roger Corman, with the plant serving as a pretty heavy handed drug metaphor and Seymour as the only victim. In 1982 the story was adapted into an Off-Broadway musical with a score furnished by future Disney Renaissance composer Alan Menken, becoming a Greek tragedy rather than a morality play (a stroke of genius that no doubt has a great deal to do with the play’s enduring quality). That musical then became the basis for the 1986 film starring Rick Moranis and directed by Frank “he did things besides Muppetry?” Oz.

Now, the play ends with Seymour, his paramour Audrey, and eventually the entire planet being consumed by the ravening alien plant dubbed “Audrey II.” Seymour’s undone by his fatal flaw, there’s a Greek chorus, and the show ends on a direct address to the audience called “Don’t Feed the Plants.” It’s a metaphor, y’see. The film was initially shot with that ending as well, until focus groups declared that they hated it, and Oz was forced to go back and shoot a happier ending with Seymour and Audrey surviving (as well as a small Audrey II peeking up out of the idyllic garden). People have hated that ending ever since. But while it’s definitely sappy, perhaps unduly so, it’s still a better fit for the finished film than the original ending.

The first issue is one of medium, which is almost unfair to hold against the film. “Don’t Feed the Plants” is directed toward an audience assumed to be in the same room, and is almost always staged correspondingly (plant props falling on the audience or a giant puppet looming over the seats). It takes advantage of the intimacy of theatre as a medium in order to impress that last message as a plea by the dead characters, and that in-person bond with the actors is a huge part of making something like that work.

Oz tries, to his credit, making the final shot of the director’s cut involving Audrey II seeming to rip through the screen. But it’s simply not the same, and once the characters we’ve spent 90 minutes with are dead there’s no urgency or horror in seeing unnamed civilians overwhelmed by vines. Nor does it help that he cuts up the rhythm of the finale to twice its original length in order to have long, looooooong shots of giant plants rampaging through the city. And because it alters the stage convention of Seymour et al returning as plant buds to sing the final number, it doesn’t so much surge into its ending as it limps the remaining six minutes until the credits finally roll. Even Seymour’s death lacks punch on screen. While his stage counterpart died making a final run at the plant with an axe, screen Seymour is picked up and swallowed up with agonizing, passive slowness.

“Passive” is the word du jour when it comes to film Seymour. Rick Moranis’ performance is wonderfully sweet and endearing, and perhaps it’s because of that there are a dozen little cuts and tweaks centered around absolving his character of culpability. Stage Seymour’s arc is one that takes small but active steps toward his own damnation, thus making it a tragic but fitting end when he sacrifices himself trying to end what he started. Film Seymour might go through the same basic motions, but as film goers we’re used to sympathizing with people who do bad things for sympathetic reasons. And the film almost goes out of its way to make the overall tone sympathetic: the film death of sadistic dentist Orin ends with Seymour saying that “it was for her,” and Orin’s first confused and then non-repentant reply hammers home that this is a man better off dead; likewise, by having Seymour successfully pull the gun, it cuts away the staged version of Orin pitifully begging Seymour (in song!) for help.

Mushnik’s death is also given a semi-karmic edge in the film. While stage Mushnik is no saint, the script plays genuinely on the fact that he’s troubled by the implication of Seymour being a murderer (“just so my conscience can rest easy” is his last line before Audrey II starts up “Suppertime”). Film Mushnik, meanwhile, not only saw Seymour chop up Orin (rather than only suspecting it) but is perfectly fine with letting that fact slide in the name of blackmailing Seymour for the plant. And Seymour’s active hand is once again removed, having him babble in shock until Mushnik trips into the plant on his own (stage Seymour manipulates Mushnik into crawling right into Audrey II’s mouth). In both cases Seymour’s biggest sin is passivity, allowing bad things to happen for his own advancement but not actively taking part in them. Even “Feed Me” is restrained: one would think that the film would take advantage (as it does with other numbers like “Somewhere That’s Green”) on at least a cutaway or two when Seymour is indulging in his more selfish desires for fame. Instead, we stay in the room (which probably has something to do with that fantastic puppet), and Audrey II looms so large as to make Seymour seem like the helpless prop.

Much of this is helped along, in the stage show, by the three chorus girls (Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronette) who comment on the action of the play. Most of their numbers are cut or shortened to help with the film’s pacing, meaning that numbers like “You Never Know,” about Seymour becoming famous after his radio interview (and positively loaded with the toxic masculinity and capitalist success language that push him to his doom throughout the play), gets replaced with the functional but less subtext-heavy “Some Fun Now;” the reprise of the opening cautionary tale prior to the end of act I is gone; and, most importantly, “The Meek Shall Inherit” omits Seymour’s monologue.

“The Meek Shall Inherit” is the montage number wherein Seymour is deluged by contracts, fame, and fortune. The meat of it can still be seen in the film, though you’ll notice that Seymour mostly sits, silent and bewildered, as he has for much of the film. The full song, by contrast, includes an interlude where Seymour argues with himself about signing the contracts, knowing that agreeing to it will mean killing more people to keep Audrey II alive. But, afraid that Audrey won’t love him without his success, he makes the decision to go through with the agreements – it’s his last chance to back out, and instead he signs his metaphorical death warrant. The fact that we see him work through and make that decision is crucial as a turning point. It’s what makes the line “you’re a monster, and so am I” work, and it means that without it Seymour works only as a piteous and not a tragic figure.

In fact, the one active move film Seymour makes in distinction from stage Seymour is to take a stand after the arguably accidental murders, not only not making that damning decision about the contracts but instead vocally refusing to give Audrey II more human meat. He becomes a hero struggling to claw his way out of the pit he blundered into rather than a Shakespearean victim, and the needs of the third act correspondingly become different.

In particular, the film-only number “Bad” (no doubt written, as is common for film musicals, to have a shot at the Oscar’s Best Original Song category) only really works in a scenario where Seymour makes it out alive. It’s a grand eleven o’clock piece of gloating for Audrey II and a brutal, semi-slapstick gauntlet for Seymour as he tries to take the plant down. The effect of placing that sequence before Seymour’s death not only has a cruel effect on the tone (he’s not just eaten but humiliated first, and doesn’t even get that last active choice with the axe), but also results in Audrey II having two victory moments back to back – rather than the confrontation being focused on Seymour’s failing and then leading into the idea of The Plant as a bigger, more metaphorical threat to be presented to the audience.

But “Bad” does work as a final test that Seymour needs to go through to atone for what he’s done, accidentally or not. It works as the moment when he decides to overcome his sin of passivity and become an active hero. That feels, corny or no, like the story the film specifically is writing for its Seymour – not a tragic downfall but a transition from innocence to experience (so yes, even that gotcha moment with the bud works, as it ties well into the idea that Seymour might have to face up to his old sins in future). It wound up telling a different story, one that arguably lacks the brutal emotional punch of the stage show but meshes better with the film’s high concentration of weird comedic bits (looking at you, Bill Murray!). The front half is so loaded with goofy guest stars and tongue in cheek humor, so dialed back in letting Seymour be an actively flawed character, that ironically it’s the tragic end that winds up feeling like a cheat.

And besides, Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene are too damn cute for me to want anything but the best for them.

[kpodcast]

It's about the YEARNING

Hello and welcome back to Yeaji's immaculate vibes for Friday! Maybe it's because it's October, or maybe it's because I love this song, but it feels like it's time for some yearning. There's plenty of songs that have the feeling, but I think there's one song that stands above the rest.

I'm talking about "Higher" by A.C.E of course. If you haven't heard it, please do yourself a favor and listen to it!

There's a lot musically going on to give it the yearning, but that's more of a Tuesday post, don't you think? The point for today is that it's there. There's an aching feeling deep in this song.

If I remember right, "Higher" is about a mermaid who's planning to risk everything for love. And that is translated perfectly in the music.

This is the song you listen to while riding the bus home in the rain, staring out the window like you're part of a dramatic music video.

This is the song that you would use as a backdrop for a fanmade anime video (iykyk).

It's desperate. It's longing. It's hopeful. It's resigned. It's searching.

It's a love song. It's a breakup song.

It somehow brings every fleeting emotion you might experience in a romantic relationship and puts it into one song.

I have a hard time putting this into words because this song is just... it invokes such strong and dynamic feelings. The song itself is pretty fast, and the music is pushing (reaching? chasing? searching?) and yet it feels like a ballad - maybe because of those long notes in the chorus.

And when I didn't think I could get any more feelings, A.C.E did a live version that sent my heart soaring. It's softer. It has tight harmonies that emphasize the desperation of the music. The band is quieter, without the extra effects in the studio version.

Not to mention, there's something special about listening to live music - I think we can all agree on that. As for "Higher", this live performance, with the adlibs and harmonies, adds so much to the music. There's a rawness in their live vocals (this is also true of the music show stages btw).

Whenever this song comes on, I can't help but belt out the chorus (and I can never hold that note as long as A.C.E but oh well) and the lingering message of "you're in my heart, let's do it, let's do it again"

It almost feels like a tragedy, doesn't it? Like in the musical "Hadestown". Which, side-bar, is excellent. But that tells of the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, and it has this same message. It's a sad song, but we keep singing it. No matter how many times the story is retold, it ends the same.

And yet we keep singing it! We continue to tell the stories of Greek tragedies. We keep reading/watching Shakespeare's tragic plays. We listen to songs like "Higher" or "Glimpse of Us" and we feel the tragedy and the heartbreak.

It may end in tears, but we experience it together. And maybe that's why I like this song so much. Because we all experience this particular yearning together. We carry this longing and loss together.

[pocketramblr]

I know you won't be writing dozi and respect that but I read someone bringing up Greek Chorus and your tumblr seems like the designated place for dozi content so I hope you don't mind. See, I'm a dirt poor soul so the only way I get to experience videogames is via gameplay walkthroughs in youtube, which is how I came across the amazing "Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical" (10/10 would rec). And as soon as the concept of "eidolon" was introduced (aka the thing that makes someone a God) I just couldn't unsee the parallels with OFA and immediately started wondering just how that would fit into DOZI. As it turns out, I think it would do so quite naturally so long as the passing of an eidolon isn't the inciting incident for the AU's existence. With Izuku established as the class biggest weirdo and secretly entrenched in the OFA-AFO War path, it would open some really interesting avenues of exploration. Sure, some of the Gods plotlines may need to be reworked, since Zeus would need to be still around in some capacity or just very recently gone in order to be a grandpa, but it would still make for a solid scafolding for a plot. At least if we are going with the premise of AFO trying to avoid fighting his family as much as possible.

Let me elaborate; there's a lot going on but for the purposes of this story what you need to know is that Stray Gods is an urban fantasy murder mystery where in order to survive you need to prove to some worn down Greek Gods that you didn't murder their Last Muse in order to get her eidolon. Considering everything in PJO, BNHA, Stray Gods, and what we've seen so far of DOZI, there's so many ways to play this out but here's what I've come up with:

Far as I remember in PJO there's this undercurrent of the Gods depending on their demigods kids for strength and protection and I think that would be a lot more obvious with *these* gods. Maybe the eidolon vessels were always the norm or maybe the situation is new and yet another sign of the gods weakening but either way it's what's happening now. And one of the many lovely things about it is that, while the vessels do get Godly Power OFA-style and even bonus technical immortality, you could argue it is a very empty immortality for the vessel since they may as well be dead. It's not some violent take-over from a new consciousness but more like the powers are not the only thing that seeps through. Soon enough the memories overwhelm the host previous personality until whoever they were is replaced by a true embodiment of the god who chose them. A new vessel could be chosen from anywhere since amongst the demigods (which seems awkward to me) up to amongst completely random people with no previous knowledge of their world, it wouldn't matter since it would be completely up to the god and all demis are duty-bound to respect the choice. *writes while side-eying Knighteye* Another thing is, no matter how much of NOOB the chosen one may be they'd still carry a godly soul within them so they'd outrank even the most badass of demis and are therefore entitled to their protection and respect.

With AFO doing his best to play dead, these world-building changes could open a door for conflict from Inko's side of the family. Like, the eidolon's implications would only compound this Izuku's plentiful reasons to prefer humans to gods. And here he was, doing his best to be his own hero away from his family legacies and suddenly one of his friends gets dragged into the mess in one of the worst ways imaginable. Even if he wasn't a demi he'd still feel duty-bound to step-up as their knight in not-so-shinny red sneakers and it would probably serve as the emotional equivalent of his vigilante arc in this AU. With who his closest friends are in this AU I considered Kouda or Shinso for the role (blame their voice quirks) but surprisingly, I feel Ojiro would make the most sense. The whole reason the game's protagonist got involved in this mess was because a Muse took a liking to them when despite their obvious talent they were feeling stuck and therefore lost, and Ojiro is a criminally underrated badass who'd just like for people to actually acknowledge his skills. Imagine how it would feel like to suddenly be at the seeming center of everyone's radar because you are the main suspect of a murder and your friend's family is even scarier than anyone theorized so he's helping you survive it. But to all of that you can also add the fact that the godly power he was bestowed with was that of A Muse. If you were looking at it from a traditional POV thiss may as well be literal Divine Intervention claiming you are destined only to a supporting role, which may be especially grating coming from the family of that one friend who always stands out naturally. Honestly by the point he realizes how OP Muses can be he'd probably have plenty of cause to regret ever having wanted the attention in the first place.

On the other side, there's no way everyone wouldn't notice their funky little green bean turning into a brooding knight that's intensely invested in Ojiro's well-being. And, for all that he'd hate that someone he cares about must be stuck with an eidolon or die, the muse who died is a pudgy short queen with an affinity for pink so he'd probably want to see justice for her as well. The poor boy was already drowning in secrets without trying to navigate just how much he *can* reveal to save his friend while avoiding disappointing All Might or bringing down Divine Wrath upon them; but "serving" the gods is what he was born and trained for so that's just what he's got to deal with now. Something very fitting with the "Stray Gods" vibe of everyone having unfolding secrets and good intentions which often lead to terrible outcomes. This could be taken to some pretty heavy places, especially if the Furys plotline is kept. So all in all, it'd be really interesting stuff. Heck, I even have a PJO OC that I'm probably never gonna use but that may fit this AU surprisingly well in case anyone wants to adopt this premise.

Well I'm not writing dozi and I'm not writing sg:trm/dozi crossover (had never heard of stay gods before but I'll check it out!) but can I just thank you for sending me all this it was very fun to read. Like fun lore, but also ough the character choices. You said Ojiro and mmmm perfect yes I realized last night I had not been loving Ojiro content as much as I should. He's such a fun pick and this is such a fun (and sad but in a good way) twist of him and Izuku's friendship in dozi. A good helping of being careful what you wish for, friends refusing to let go of each other as life complicates and they change but well. Everything changes. They can change together. They can still be heroes and do good even as it looks different.

Anyway I love the idea and would happily read more about it, thank you for sharing it!

[fantasyandromancelover]

A possible story I may write.

Welcome to Hazbin City, a prosperous civilization with plenty of advanced technology and successful business and companies. There’s just one problem, it’s a blood-thirsty, hellhole of crime and corrupted officials. A cesspool where justice and morality is placed far behind greed and lust. In the mist of this chaotic city, there lives two teenagers ready to graduate high school and enter the real world.

Charlotte “Charlie” Morningstar, the daughter of a loving but irresponsible couple, who has spent her whole life taking care of herself and trying endure the terrible violence she sees almost everyday. And Alastor Devalcourt, an orphan of tragic circumstance, raised by his devoted and hard-working aunt, but is constantly abused by bullies and thugs.

Being childhood friends and next-door neighbors, Charlie and Alastor have always been close. Sharing a passion for music and performing, while confiding in each other their issues and dreams. His is wanting to get the hell out of this city and hers is wanting to somehow make Hazbin a better place.

A senior field trip to the lab of Dr. Pentious changes everything for these two. An accident with doctor’s device, results in Charlie using her knowledge on anatomy to save the life of an injured by stander and Alastor’s long, dormant mutant D.N.A is triggered by said accident, which grants him incredible powers.

While one decides to go into medical school and become a doctor, seeking to help others in a legal and non-violent way. The other becomes a ruthless vigilante, using his powers to take out criminals and low-lifes who thrive on the suffering of innocents.

A two-act AU of science, crime, villainy, justice, drama, romance, music, and fourth wall breaks. Yes there will be a sort of greek chorus who frequently interrupt the story in order to bring comic relief.

So what do you think? Should I write this