#Between an opera and a melodrama

[maimoncat]

what's up, fellow gatta cenerentola musical stan?

Doing well, hell yeah!

Only got to watch the show in full recently. I started watching it with my mum a month ago, but then had to watch the last two acts on my own.

I adore the music, my dad would sometimes listen to NCCP's pieces himself, and I love all the different folk tale versions De Simone added to the story!

Also watching this made me re-appreciate the 2017 movie.

[indelen]

I love the fact that the two loves of Lucy's life are posh angel baby Lockwood and sewer rat Skull. Truly women contain multitudes.

[id: two black ink drawings of skull's ghost (Lockwood and Co books). one is a full body drawing of him standing and looking away, his hands are in pockets. the other one is a close up of his face, he's looking down at something with a smirk./end id]

favourite dead bastard sketches

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Undetered.

Continuation of Unrequited.

Pairing: Arlecchino x Reader x Furina (Genshin).

Word Count: 1.1k.

TW: Obnoxious Sapphic Pining, Lesbian Melodrama, and Spoilers for the Fontaine Story Quest. Live Dove: Tender and Sweet.

Truly, you were fortunate to have such a persistent suitor.

And, truly, Arlecchino was lucky to be so desperately in love with someone who so often left their windows unlocked.

Lady Furina – or, rather, Miss Furina now – might not have had the limitless means of an archon, but her manor was still sizable enough to leave convenient gaps between patrolling guards. Vaulting the stone gate was child’s play, climbing to the second floor a task that would’ve been easily passed off to one of her less capable subordinates, remaining unseen as she worked a dagger between the glass pane and its wooden frame until the mechanism gave and she could slip into your bedroom an art she’d perfected over decades of careful practice. She never expected to use her talents for a matter so personal, but still, expertise couldn’t be denied.

Although Furina’s burdens weren’t quite as heavy as an opera star as they’d been as an archon, you still took care of her affairs dutifully – ever the loyal companion despite your favored idol having been proved false. Even now, in the dead of night, you were chained to your desk, your fingertips stained with ink and your quill abused to the point of dullness. It took a moment for you to take notice of the draft, to straighten your back and glance blearily in her direction, but whatever exhaustion stole your attention from her seemed to disappear the moment you met her eyes. You scrambled to rise, to call for your guards, but she was already closing the distance between you, already trapping you against the edge of your desk, an arm caging you in on either side. Too breathless to spare a proper greeting, she took your hand in her own and held it to her chest. If she had a heartbeat, you might’ve been able to hear it racing. “My love, my light,” You opened your mouth, undoubtedly preparing one of the dismissive platitudes you so often offered her, but just this once, she refused herself the pleasure that was listening to your voice. Time was precious, tonight, and she couldn’t afford to be so indulgent. “I’m leaving for Snezhnaya at dawn, and I will only dare to ask this once—” She paused, forced herself to breath. “Come with me.”

Your eyes remained wide and horrified. “Lord Arlecchino.” And then, after a short lapse, “You’re in my bedroom.”

“If you must serve a god,” she went on, unfazed by your shock. “Then serve me. I know you think you’ve found a purpose in Furina, but there is nothing in the world she can give you that I can’t. There’s nothing she does for you that I’m not willing to.” She raised your hand to her mouth, her lips grazing over your knuckles. “You don’t have to love me. All I ask is to be able to pretend you might, one day.”

It was your turn to manage a ragged inhale, now, to draw yourself out of her hold with a quick shake of your head, a dry swallow. “You can’t—” You started towards the door, then thought better of it, taking to pacing as you glared daggers towards the carpeting. “You cannot be here. You have to leave, and you have to make sure no one sees you.”

“I’m not afraid of a few guards,” she cut in. “If I had to fight a thousand men for your hand, I’d draw my sword without a second thought.”

“You don’t understand. She thinks I don’t know, but—” You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “She writes these— these fictions, and if she finds that you’ve broken into her estate in the middle of the night wearing—” You gestured vaguely to her, or more specifically, to the pitch-black bodysuit she usually wore to her less scrupulous encounters. “—that, I’ll have to travel far past Snezhnaya before I ever hear the end of it.”

With an airy chuckle, she found her way back to your side. As gently as she could, she took you by the arm, and when you failed to protest, drew you into a delicate embrace. “What are you afraid of, dear?”

You slackened against her chest. “I… I honestly don’t know how to explain it,” you admitted. “It’s just, ever since you first came to Fontaine, she’s been inf—”

This time, you were interrupted by the door to your bedroom slamming open, your mistress appearing above the threshold – already posed with one hand on her waist and the other curled around the handle of a mahogany cane, her eyes shut and her smile wide. “Teyvat’s brightest star has returned!” She declared herself with a turn on her heel – a dramatic flourish worthy of a retired archon. “You would not believe how well rehearsal went, there’s already a—”

Her eyes flickered op, and whatever she meant to tell you died on her tongue as her gaze fell onto Arlecchino. Immediately, you wrenched yourself out of Arlecchino’s arms, rushing towards Furina. “My lady, it’s not—"

“Save your excuses.” Her voice was low, her tone steely. Furina posed no threat to you, much less to her, but Arlecchino still had to temper the urge to step in front of you – if only out of some long buried, sickeningly knightly instinct. “I can see what’s going on.”

A beat passed in silence, then another. Ultimately, Arlecchino took it upon herself to break it. “…you can?”

“For exactly what it is.” She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, gasping sharply. “My greatest foe, here to use my closest confidant against me. I will not allow it! Whatever you plan to do with them – let me take their place. No matter what you plan to take – my mind, my soul, my body, I insist that you take it from me!”

Her rambling went on, but Arlecchino diverted her attention, sparing you a glance out of the corner of her eye. “She’s got a bit of a crush,” you whispered, smiling apologetically. “This is just how she behaves when she’s nervous.”

Arlecchino’s looked back to Furina. Upon closer examination, her cheeks were flushed, her movements erratic. As she described the torture she would go through for your sake in truly graphic and well-imagined detail, Arlecchino cleared her throat. “With as little respect as possible,” she cut in. “You’re not the one I’m here for, Furina.” She took up your hand, intertwining her fingers with your own and falling to one knee. You pursed your lips, but didn’t protest, content to let the gesture stand – if only for the sake of your mistress. “It’s your confidant who has my heart, despite how callous the hands I’ve entrusted it to may be.”

“But, my lady, my loyalty is with you.” For the first time, Arlecchino watched your expression wither. Your worry – not for your mistress’ safety, but purely for her happiness – would’ve been touching, if her selfishness hadn’t been the cause of your concern. “And… my love, as well. If you’d care to accept it.”

It was a pitiful confession, pale in comparison to even the meekest of hers, but it seemed to be enough. Furina took a moment to examine you, to evaluate Arlecchino where she kneeled. Slowly, she straightened herself, squaring her shoulders. “If that’s the case,” she began, finally, taking on an air that could be easily mistaken for dignified. “Then as the former sovereign of your nation and the mistress of this estate…”

She raised a hand, a near radiant grin painting itself across her lips as she encompassed you both in one sweeping gesture.

“I demand a threeway!”

[forthegothicheroine]

In the thirties and forties, the heyday of the "woman's film," it was as regular an item in studio production as the crime melodrama or the Western. Like any routine genre, it was subject to its highs and lows, and ranged from films that adhered safely to the formulae of escapist fantasy, films that were subversive only "between the lines" and in retrospect, and the rare few that used the conventions to undermine them. At the lowest level, as soap opera, the "woman's film" fills a masturbatory need, it is soft-core emotional porn for the frustrated housewife. The weepies are founded on a mock-Aristotelian and politically conservative aesthetic whereby women spectators are moved, not by pity and fear but by self-pity and tears, to accept, rather than reject, their lot. That there should be a need and an audience for such an opiate suggests an unholy amount of real misery. And that a term like "woman's film" can be summarily used to dismiss certain films, with no further need on the part of the critic to make distinctions and explore the genre, suggests some of the reasons for this misery.

Molly Haskell, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: ก่อนดอกไม้…บาน / 花开有时颓靡无声 / Meet You at the Blossom

Meet You at the Blossom is a 2024 joint Thai/Chinese adaptation of a Chinese danmei novel. Marketing itself as an "uncensored BL," it tells the love story of the world's dumbest boy and the absolute psychopath he has the (mis)fortune to fall for.

Note that "uncensored" doesn't mean you're going to see somebody's little blossom or anything like that. It just means that the love story is textual and canonical. These boys declare their love for one another. They hold hands. They smooch. They have soft, unfocused scenes where one of them climbs on top of the other and then everything fades to black. They are two boys and they are in love ... and sure, one of them thinks the other is a girl for longer than is probably reasonable, but what relationship doesn't have its share of misunderstandings?

This twelve-episode drama is a bodice-ripping melodrama with a bottom-barrel Harlequin novel plot. It is the most soap opera I've seen something that isn't a soap opera be. If you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing, you are absolutely going to enjoy this sort of thing. If you're not ... well, it might still hook you anyway. Here's five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. Perfect toxic yaoi sludge

Do you only consume media about healthy relationships between consenting equals, where people have conversations and are always honest about their feelings? Great. Turn this off immediately.

Meet You at the Blossom is the show for people who yearn for the days of Kizuna. People who still think longingly about Zetsuai 1989. People who will not be convinced that Tokyo Babylon is anything but peak romance. People who have seen Gravitation more than once and of their own volition. People who have looked the trashiest yaoi out there dead in the eye and shouted BRING ME MORE.

I keep using the word "yaoi" because that's what it is. It's a gay relationship begun under false premises, consummated under sketchy circumstances, longed for despite serious reasons to stay broken up, and then all somehow worked out in the end. I have described the main pairing as, what if Wen Kexing fell in love with a labradoodle? Carried out to its logical conclusion, this relationship would be good for neither Wen Kexing nor the labradoodle. But for the purposes of a catastrophically badly paced twelve-episode series, it's all the dramatic fuel you need.

Nothing about their relationship is ever reliably safe, sane, or consensual -- and that's the fun of it! Look, the first time they fuck (in episode two!) is under the influence of sex pollen, and they come out the other side of it awkward but definitely not traumatized. I've seen people say they wish the show had treated the noncon bits with more gravity, which ... look, there's no noncon here. Actual noncon-wanters would be sorely disappointed by what this show offers. There's some impaired judgment and overblown irrational jealousy and aggressively pinning one's very drunk partner to the bed, but it's that kind of perfectly okay force fantasy that works in fiction, because in fiction everyone's okay with it. You know they're okay with it. The writer wrote it so they're okay with it. Everybody is getting exactly what they want.

This is a drama about people having Big Feelings that would be terrifying in real life, but are fun as hell onscreen. So you are promising me right now that if you watch this, you will not overthink it, because overthinking this show is like being that raccoon that failed at washing a piece of cotton candy. Don't try to clean up this delicate sugary mess. Eat it dirty.

2. Some fascinating faces

This is going to sound like such a backhanded compliment, but I swear it's not: There are some really interesting-looking people in this show! I can't swear this is because of the Thai production elements, but I have to assume that the different cultural beauty standards at work at least somewhat influenced the casting choices.

A thing about c-dramas is, the majority of the under-40 male actors look like their base model came off of one of the dozen or so approved production lines at the Pretty Boy Factory. While I enjoy these production lines, combine it with my natural touch of faceblindness, and I've had some hilarious moments where I have been certain two characters were played the same person, when they were in fact very much not.

This show is full of a bunch of actors you'd be hard-pressed to mistake for anyone else. There's like one guy who's conventionally c-drama handsome, while everyone else brings a lot more variety to the table than you tend to find in productions like this.

Li Le, when he's all done up as Zongzheng Huaien, is strikingly beautiful in a way that reminds me of old film starlets who maybe should've stopped about one nose job ago. I've seen pictures of him when he's dressed like a regular modern boy, and he's lovely, sure. But with the hair and the outfits and the constant haughty ice-cold stares he's leveling at people, the final look is stunning. And then he smiles and it's just the cutest goofy grin! Anyway, there's a whole big deal about Huaien's parentage, when the obvious answer is that the fey folk dropped him off and said, good luck with this one.

Meanwhile, Wang Yunkai, who plays Jin Xiaobao, has perfectly plump, kissable lips and a wide, soft nose that together with his giant eyes give him the perfect air of an innocent bisexual dumbass currently in the process of figuring out the whole "bisexual" part. He's so cute and cuddleable that you feel extra-bad when you see him in pain, which works for the show, because he spends a lot of the back half of the series being in both emotional and physical pain, as per conventions of the genre.

As for the rest of the cast, there's...

store-brand Huang Youming!

pouty Thai princess!

slimy kite dude and his terrible 'stache!

these precious dipshits!

...and a couple guys I just straight-up can't find pictures of, even though they're important named characters, because this may be the first thing they've been in? Look, this is not a show of well-known names, nor is it something that's probably to launch any careers to prominence. I'm not even going to say this is a show where everybody looks like everyday average people, because no! They obviously do not! They are very attractive people! They are just attractive according to a set of criteria you do not often see on Chinese television, and I think that's great.

3. You don't have to say NO HOMO every time you touch another dude

Really, truly, the greatest thing about an overtly BL property is how touchy men can be -- and not even the romantic pairings! Loyal servants get to hug their masters! Coworkers get to fall asleep in a two-man puppy pile! Childhood besties get to wrap comforting arms around one another! Brothers in arms get to catch their fallen comrades! Friends get to tearfully bid farewell to one another before leaving on journeys! Cousins get to embrace to the point one of the cousins really wishes they would stop!

Mostly it's that once you've removed the fear that gay shit might get your show censored, you can have your male characters engage in a perfectly regular amount of human physical contact.

Like, one of my favorite funny things about c-dramas is the amount of wrist-gripping that happens, as though dragging someone else along by their wrist is a real-life thing that happens often, or even at all. It's the perfect example of how paranoia about depicting physical intimacy leads to substitutes that are just bizarre. We can't possibly have these two people hold hands! So let's make up another gesture and pretend it's a thing people do voluntarily and (more importantly) heterosexually!

But when you've already outright put the YEP, IT'S GAY sign on your production, that paranoia vanishes. What are the censors going to do, get mad at the part where two friends are sleeping tangled up with one another? Three minutes ago there was a scene where one guy kissed another on the mouth! Let those boys snooze!

Alas that the scenes that are supposed to be sexy come across as mostly awkward -- largely because those two leads don't really seem all that keen on sticking their tongues down each other's throats, which, you know, I get; it'd be weird if I had to kiss my coworkers. But what they are good at is snuggling. I almost wish -- and keep in mind this is me saying this -- they'd cut the scenes that were trying to be horny and leaned more into the tender, playful moments they get together. Those are the ones that made me squeal happily and kick my little feet.

I have to mention this one: There is a little cheek kiss that I absolutely love. (I can't find a screencap of it, and my own attempts at screenshotting it were hilariously unproductive, but it gets played as part of gay flashbacks pretty much once an episode, so you can't miss it.) Huaien is being menacing in an attempt to be offputting, and Xiaobao is stubbornly refusing to be anything but charmed by it, and as soon as Huaien turns his head, Xiaobao takes advantage of the moment and plants a quick little mwah! on Huaien's cheek.

And it's SO GOOD. I said out loud, in that moment, do you know how many shows would be improved if one guy could just give another guy a little kissie on his cheek? It should be like how getting a PG-13 rating allows your movie one "fuck," but instead every c-drama gets one moment where a guy gives another guy a little peck. Not even on the lips! Like how Aragorn gets to give Boromir a farewell forehead kiss. Sometimes a scene just calls for a little kissie! Sometimes everything would be better if a guy could just kiss the homies!

You're thinking now of all the places you'd use your single little kissie in various dramas, aren't you? Yeah, so am I.

4. side pairs side pairs side pairs~

Yeah, main couple, true love, happily ever after, whatever. SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS [banging rhythmically on table]

You know the genre, so you know there's always going to be That One Guy that threatens to steal the pure-hearted one away from the psycho by being handsome, rich, well-intentioned, and generally emotionally stable. You also know it's not going to work, because no matter how much healthier that relationship would be, it's not the tasty toxic flavor we're going for here. Anyway, sorry, Su Yin, but you never left the childhoodbestfriendzone.

That bratty prince wants to fuck his cousin so bad. His cousin is not going to fuck him, not because of cousin status, but because the bratty prince needs to be tossed out the nearest window and not let back in until he can legally drink.

I was ready to ship Jin Xiaobao's two little guard buddies -- but no! The littler of the two guard buddies has his own love interest who shows up later in the show, and I'm so upset that there's not more of these two, because that's an unexpectedly hot setup. I'll say no more; you should enjoy this one as it happens.

Now, do not presume that this is a Kinnporsche deal, where fiction has created a magical world in which every man is at least a Kinsey 2. There are still straight men in this show (and a few men who clearly think they're straight but have not yet gotten the memo) who experience varying degrees of befuddlement about the homo drama happening around them. Most characters are at least casually anti-gay, but in sort of the same way you might expect a big cattle-ranching family to react if their son started dating a vegan -- it's not unthinkable or illegal, but, like, why?

There needs to be a word for a gentler state than homophobia. Something like homobefuddlement, a social condition where falling in love with another guy is about on the level of getting a face tattoo or naming your child Optimus Prime. There's nothing stopping you, but you know somebody's roasting your ass on Ancient Chinese Fantasy Reddit.

5. A budget of three dollars and a ham sandwich

I am firmly on record as being charmed by productions that make do with skimpy resources, and Meet You at the Blossom's resources are skimpy as heck. I highly suspect this is one of those situations where if they'd known it was going get the attention that it has, they might've put more money into it from the start -- but they didn't, so they didn't.

I keep coming back to "soap opera" as a description, because that's about the production level you should be picturing here. If you played this on a TV with motion smoothing enabled, the effect would be complete. Everything is done to the cheapest possible degree. Characters legitimately toss smoke bombs and disappear like they're anime ninjas, probably because renting a fog machine has got to be way less expensive than the rigs for wirework. That's the type of shoestring budget we're talking here.

The greenscreen is Not Good, my friends. I mean, not that you expected it to be, but however far you've lowered your expectations already, lower them more.

They got to borrow a brothel set for like half an hour. It's the most people you see in a single room at the same time, and it represents drunkenness by spraying raspberry soda over all the lights.

If I had a nickel for every time Huaien is in some terrible predicament that seems impossible for him to get out of, and then he shows up somewhere else like two scenes later, and we never find out exactly how he got out of that terrible predicament, I would have multiple nickels in my pocket, is all I'm saying.

You know, if my wigs/beards and wig/beard glue were that bad, I would simply refrain from frequent, intense close-ups of the parts where people's fake hair joins to their faces. And if my actors all had that much foundation caked on them, I would probably refrain from close-ups, period. But that's just me.

Actually, no, there's something else about the wigs: They're styled so badly that it actually wraps around (ha ha) to being charming. I'm used to wig situations where the topknots are combed tight and oiled into place within an inch of their lives. But here, everybody who has an updo has kind of a messy one? Especially little Jinbao, where you can see the ends of his ponytail stick out the back in a scruffy fashion, giving him the vibe of a little ragamuffin who's never learned how to do up his hair quite right.

There's a plot, sort of. It's basically the thinnest possible series of excuses for the action in the show to happen, told in occasional five-minute bursts of exposition given by characters you forgot about between now and the last time they appeared. Don't worry if you can't keep track of which prince is which, or who is whose dad. Man, there's even a "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" near the end that's played up as some big shock, and I was like, have we met this dude before? I think pretty much every time the grownups started talking, we stopped paying attention. Look, I know this is based on a novel I haven't read, and I'm sure the plot comes off better when it's all packed together in a couple of pages of dialogue you can skip without consequence on your way to the boy-kissing, but in the show it just comes off as perfunctory and clunky. From what I've seen, people who've read the book tend to be way more into the intricacies of the narrative, but I haven't, so I'm not.

(Wait, in the novel, Jin Xiaobao is supposed to be fat? Well, now I feel I've been robbed! ...Eh, it's fine, I'm not sad to skip a sequence where the side benefit of trauma is that you get skinny.)

All this, to me, is charming. If you demand higher production values from your entertainment, this will not be what you want. If cozying up with some low-budget tomfooloery with a big heart feels like comfort food to you, you are among friends here.

And speaking of friends, let me strongly recommend that you watch this with some, if you can, because there are parts that are just begging to get riffed on. I would not have had a tenth as much fun watching it alone as I did goofing my way through it with my wife. It is a show that is only improved by the jokes you make about it along the way. It has no dignity, nor are you obligated to treat it as though it does. Cuddle up with your buddies, grab your favorite snacks, and sharpen your shadiest claws.

Want to meet this show somewhere?

It's conveniently up in a lot of places! Pick your poison:

GagaOOLala

WeTV

iQIYI

Viki

YouTube

Look, I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back row: This is not a serious, thoughtful portrayal of healthy relationship dynamics. If you expect it to be, you will be sorely disappointed. It is a tale of a bunch of dudes (and, like, two women) whose emotional volume knobs are stuck at eleven and emotional intelligence doesn't go above a two. Go into it knowing what you're getting into, and you might just have yourself a pretty good time.

Get that little kissie!

[smoooothoperator]

What Was I Made For?

19: Melodrama

childhood enemies, forced proximity, accidental pregnancy, enemies to lovers (👀)

Warnings: Melanie.

a/n: Welcome back!!!! Don't get used to have chapter too frecuently because next week I'll start the opera season... Anyway!! Hope you like the chapter

if you want to play a game and ask things about Dafne

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Every way of feedback is very welcomed

Melanie Cooper.

It all started when I installed Raya more than a year ago.

I wasn't doing it consciously, it happened one night I was at a party. I was bored and making a profile was faster than I thought , and soon I started swiping to the left and right, getting matches and ignoring them immediately.

I didn't notice that everyone I gave a like looked like Dafne. Brunette and blue eyes. I was in denial, not wanting to accept that I actually still had feelings for her.  That night, I was too drunk, watching how Dafne came with her boyfriend to the FIA gala of 2023.

Melanie wasn't the first, but she was definitely the last. 

I talked for the first time with Melanie in the summer of 2024. I needed someone to spend my summer break with, to keep my mind busy and forget about cars and Dafne. I needed to keep myself busy between the legs of someone else.

Looking back, I realize how immature it was, trying to fill the whole with someone else, anyone else.

When I first met Melanie in the summer of 2024, she seemed like the perfect distraction. We started spending more time together, especially when I learned she also lived in Monaco. But what began as a casual fling quickly turned into something that consumed my daily life.

I bought her things whenever she asked me, ignoring that voice in the back of my head warning me about what I was doing.

I saw her taking pictures of me. Posting pictures with me. Recording videos near me. And I always ignored it.

I only wanted her to forget Dafne.

Until everything exploded in my face.

The moment Melanie and Dafne met, I couldn't handle things anymore. In that moment, I opened my eyes and saw how reality was going.

I started noticing the extravagant gifts Melanie would request. My family’s disapproval grew louder with every visit, their cold stares and whispered remarks impossible to ignore. And then there were the little things, like how Melanie, somehow, began wearing the same perfume Dafne used or how she tried to mimic Dafne’s laugh. It was unsettling, to say the least.

I started to see the truth. I accepted my feelings. 

But then, that day happened. And everything went down.

Instead of ending things with her, I brought her to a race. Instead of asking her to stay in the hotel while I went to dinner with my family and Dafne's, I let her come. Instead of going to my room where Melanie was, I went to Dafne's. 

I  had heard rumors about Melanie seeing other men, but I pushed them aside, pretending not to care. I was too caught up in my own denial to face the truth. But the morning I saw her with a random guy in the bed of my room, it made my blood boil. 

But what made me hate her was when I saw her placing my phone on the table and watching how she used it. She found out my passcode. She looked at my phone. She wrote a text pretending to be me.

That moment, when I saw the text messages, I knew that I made a big mistake that night of 2023. 

f1_gossip

liked by 19.261 

f1_gossip Oh, oh! Do you guys remember her? She was Charles Leclerc’s “girlfriend” during summer break and the first races after the break. The first time she was seen with him was on Monza.

Melanie Cooper, 25 years old, is a British influencer of TikTok. She recently posted an announcement revealing that Charles and her broke up during the winter break because she discovered that he cheated on her with Dafne. But the most shocking thing she confessed is that she is pregnant, and with his baby!

But… Is it true? The last time she was seen with Charles was exactly the first time she was in the paddock, in Monza. And after that, she disappeared, and Charles stopped following her on Instagram. Charles wasn't seen with another girl.

And on the other side, Dafne dated the actor Sebastian Stan for some months before she ended things in December.

What do you guys think about this? We read you!

view all comments 

fewawifan Charles on his playboy era was the worst thing that could ever happen… Who knows how many girls he knocked up

dafneismymom I hope Dafne is okay, she doesn't deserve this… 

melanieclothes they are made for each other. Two cheaters.  dafneismymom melanieclothes no one asked your opinion. You follow a gold digger melanieclothes and you don't?

sharlperceval I went to the Monza GP and Melanie only wanted his money… I saw her grabbing his phone countless times, probably buying herself things.

Everything around me started to disappear.

It felt like my life was collapsing, piece by piece, as if every hard-won victory was crumbling before my eyes.

The moment Melanie walked in, with her hand holding her belly, I felt the first card falling. Then, when she said that the baby was mine, I felt another two. But the moment Dafne looked at me, with panic and confusion in her eyes, I felt the whole castle falling. 

The world went silent. All I could see was Dafne, limp in my arms, and Melanie’s menacing figure over us.

“What the hell do you want?” I frowned, holding Dafne close to my chest, kneeling on the ground and looking up at Melanie. 

“What do I want?” she laughed. “You know what's funny, Charles? Your so-called girlfriend humiliated me, she talked shit about me!”

“So what, does that give you any right to come here and lie? To hurt my family?” I frowned. “How do you even know where we were?”

She laughed, her hand never left her belly. Our friends and family were quiet. Dafne's sisters were kneeling next to her, holding her hand and trying to wake her up. But Melanie… That smile and gaze was giving me shivers.

“You are not as subtle as you think you are” she laughed. “Your location was on my phone, and let's not talk about all those times you talked shit about her family and how you used to spend summer in this place…”

“Don't” I groaned. “Stop fucking lying. She's lying!”

I looked around, swallowing thickly. How my mother looks at me, how her parents look at me. Disappointed.

“Are you even pregnant?” Erica frowned. 

“What? Of course I am!” she exclaimed with a high pitched voice, holding her belly tight.

I looked at her, swallowing thickly. I slept with her, maybe too many times that I would like to admit. But it was always with protection.

“Is it even mine?” I frowned. “You were the one who cheated on me, Melanie”

“Me?!” she gasped, looking at my friends and then at me again. “How dare you?! I was loyal to you! I loved you!”

“Don't make me laugh” I frowned. “You were the one that used me, that spent my money. You stole my phone to write a text for me! An important text!”

“I did you a favor!” she exclaimed, ironically. 

“You ruined me!” I screamed, not noticing Dafne waking up, moving in my arms. “Because of you I was demanded. Because of you, my own team lost respect towards me. Because of you, I lost myself”

She clenched her fists, looking at me.

“You were never meant to be anything more,” I said, my voice breaking. “I used you to escape my own misery, to forget Dafne. But you turned that into something twisted, something that only drained me.”

“Charles…”

I flinched when I heard Dafne's weak voice, and the only thing I could do was hold her tighter, not wanting her to get hurt, not wanting Melanie to touch her.

“I want a parental test” I frowned, looking at Melanie. “Because I highly doubt that the baby you are carrying is mine. Probably is from one of the many guys you slept with while you were stealing my money”

“It's yours” Melanie groaned. “It's yours! It's your baby!”

“Leave. Now” I whispered, my voice trembling as I cradled Dafne closer. I finally met Melanie’s gaze, cold and unyielding. “You’re not welcome here, not near my family.”

I saw Violet and Kika walking towards her, making sure she got away and back to her car. Meanwhile, the rest of our friends stayed there in silence.

“Are you okay?” I whisper, tucking away the hair from Dafne's face. “I'm sorry. This… This is not fair”

“Is it true?” Her voice was barely audible, a fragile thread of hope or despair.

“It’s not mine,” I whispered, desperate to convince her, to hold onto the life we had planned. “Please, Dafne, you have to believe me.

She didn't say anything, only looked around and tried to get up with her sister's help, completely ignoring me and avoiding my eyes.

“Thank you all for coming” she said, smiling weakly to our friends and family. “I… I think I need to rest. Eh… Yeah. It was so lovely having you here”

I saw her walk away, in silence, with her hand on her belly. I tried to follow her, to hold her hand and see if she was alright, but my feet felt like they were glued to the ground.

“I…” I swallowed thickly, looking at my mother and brothers, at Pierre. 

“I know you, Charles” Pierre sighed. “I…”

“Please, you have to believe me” I whisper, begging. “That kid is not mine. Melanie, she…”

“It's fake” Violet said, walking towards Lando and hugging him. “I'm pretty sure it's a fake belly. She was holding it all the time, like not wanting it to fall or whatever. And when she got in her car it moved higher”

“You believe me?” I mumble, feeling a lump on my throat. 

“I do” Kika nodded. “I saw that too. I started suspecting it when she never pulled her hand away from her belly. And if she was pregnant, she should be at least a month more than Dafne. And it doesn't look that big”

“Then you should pressure her with the parental test” my brother Lorenzo sighed. “I don't know what happened between you, but she still wants more from you. Pressure her, and then set a lawsuit”

I swallowed thickly and nodded, looking at the house. Dafne's room has the light on, she's probably there, getting ready for bed.

“I think it's our cue to leave” her mother smiled weakly, walking towards me and hugging me. “I'm so happy for you two, really. And I'm sure you'll find a way to fix this”

“Yeah…” I sighed. “Thank you”

I watched how my family and hers walked away, probably going to stay the night in Dafne's parents house.

“This is not how I wanted to end the day” I sighed, smiling weakly at Lando and Pierre.

“It's not your fault, mate” Lando sighed 

“It partially is” I sighed. “I was the one who brought her into my life. If I knew she was this crazy, I would definitely have ignored her…”

“But you can't change the past” Violet sighed. “Just… Fix it. You have a chance of fixing and ending things with her”

“Yeah…” I sighed, looking at the window of Dafne's bedroom. “Oh, eh… Your rooms are ready. There are two free rooms in the first floor and another in the second one”

“Thank you” they all smiled.

When Dafne and I planned this day, we wanted our friends to stay the night, to spend the next day together before the season started. But now with this new drama, I highly doubt that tomorrow will be a happy day.

“I’ll clean up,” I muttered, staring blankly at the scattered remnants of what was supposed to be a perfect day. 

But Lando’s hand on my shoulder pulled me back.

“Hey, no” Oscar smiled. “We will. You can go talk with Dafne and make sure she's alright”

“What? No” I frowned. 

“It wasn't a suggestion” Lando laughed. “Go with her, okay?”

I smiled weakly and nodded, hugging them and just giving them indications for where they can put the things in the kitchen.

Her door was locked. And she never did that.

“Dafne… Can we talk, please?” I sighed, resting my forehead against the wood of the door.

“No”

“Come on… Let me just explain? She left, I promise”

I heard her groan and get out of her bed, walking towards the door and unlocking it. She had her mascara running down her cheeks and her eyes red, and it made my heart clench.

“Oh, love…” I exhaled slowly, stepping closer to her and wrapping my arms around her.

“Is it yours?” she mumbled. “You…”

“It’s not” I whisper. “I swear, Dafne. I… I always used protection with her. The last time I slept with her was before the Monza race. That was months ago. There’s no way the baby is mine.”

She took a deep breath and hugged me back, making me sigh relieved and hug her tighter.

“I need to know” she whispered. “Why? Why were you with her?”

I sighed and walked inside her room, closing the door with my foot. I sat in bed with her on my lap and I could only look up at her while my hands rubbed her belly with soft circles.

“Is it true what she said? That you dated girls that looked like me?” she whispered. 

“Ah… Yeah” I sighed, resting my head on her chest and closing my eyes. “Yeah… It was a way of… I don't know. A way of making my stupid self think that you were with me. That we never hated each other”

She didn't say anything, just placed a hand on my neck and rubbed it softly. I could feel our son kicking on my hand, making me rub her belly more.

“Melanie was just a summer fling,” I whispered. “She was a distraction, someone I thought I could keep at a distance. But I underestimated her. I let her into my life, and she took advantage of that, making things even more complicated between us.”

“Why?” she whispered, playing with my hair.

I took a deep breath and looked up at her, watching how she was biting her lip.

“The next morning after we slept together…” I sighed, rubbing her belly. “I found out that she stole my phone. She was with another guy in my room and spent my money on room service. Then, when I went back home, I found her there. She reserved a private jet, pretending to be me, and went to my home”

“What?” she gasped softly. 

“She… She probably talked with the receptionist and asked for a key, saying that she wanted to give me a surprise” I said, rolling my eyes. “The thing is… When you asked Fred that you wanted me to make a public apology, she texted Fred that I wouldn't do it. She, again, pretended to be me, Dafne”

I saw her taking a deep breath and somehow her features relaxed. I saw her face relaxing, understanding everything.

“If I knew that you wanted me to apologize in public I would have done that” I whispered, holding her hands and kissing them. “God, I would have gone to your apartment and begged you to forgive me, kneeling in front of you if it was necessary while every media recorded me. But… It was too late. When I went back to Maranello after that, everyone stopped talking to me. And you did everything to not find me there. So I just accepted it, I accepted my fate”

“Oh, Charles…” she mumbled, cupping my cheek with her hand. “I… I never knew…”

“And I never wanted you to know” I whispered, watching how little tears started to roll down her cheek. “Please don't cry”

“No, it's…” she sighed, whipping away her tears. “It's too much. The hormones, this new drama, our day ruined…”

“Hey, it's not ruined” I smiled weakly. “Our friends are here. We can still plan something to end it better, okay?”

She sighed and nodded, pressing a kiss on my forehead that made my heart melt. She hugged me, resting her head on my shoulder and sighing.

“First I think I need you to give me a foot massage” she whispered, making me chuckle while I rubbed her back. “The shoes I used today really hurt me…”

“Everything for you, my love” I whisper, kissing her cheek. 

She chuckled softly, sitting on the bed and placing her feet on my lap. I looked at her with a soft smile while I rubbed her feet, just how we saw in a video not long ago.

I would do anything to keep her happy. Anything. 

“Charlie” she whispered, shaking her feet and making me get out of my trance. “Let's make a statement”

“What?” I frowned. 

“Y-yeah… About what happened today” she smiled weakly, moving slowly to hold my hands. “I… When I came to my room I looked at my phone. And I think the reason why Melanie did this was to have her minute of fame. She was in every magazine, every gossip page… Media is even talking shit about you. I think you have to talk about this. We have to talk about this, tell the truth”

I sighed and nodded, wrapping my arm around her. I rubbed her arm softly, kissing the top of her head.

“I feel that the start of the season will be full of questions about this…” I sighed. “About you and the pregnancy, about us together, and now about this whole new drama with Melanie”

“But we can do it, Charles” she whispered, cupping my cheek and making me look at her. “We can do this together. I… God, we wasted so much time acting like idiots, hating each other”

“Yeah” I sighed.

“But now we have things to take care of” she smiled, rubbing my cheekbone with her thumb and pressing a soft kiss on my lips. “We have a son now”

“I will need you by my side, Dafne…” I sighed. “I feel it's too much, actually”

Dafne sighed and nodded, gently pulling me to lay on the bed next to her. She moved to get comfortable, resting her head on my shoulder while I wrapped my arm around her. She rubbed my chest with her hand, making me take a deep breath while I tried to relax.

“Step by step” she whispered. “What do you want to do first?”

I hesitated, feeling the weight of everything that had happened.

“That God damned parental test” I groaned, frustrated by the situation we were forced into.

“Okay, then…” she sighed. “We can call a lawyer. Because if she refuses to take the test, we can pressure her. Then, you can demand her for defamation and… Other things if you want to”

“I don't have proof for that” I sighed. “Yes, she used my money to buy herself things, and pretended to be me… But I don't have proof for that”

“We'll find a way” she sighed, cuddling me. 

“Yeah” I sighed. 

“And then after the test…” she sighed, looking at me.

“I want to find a house” I said. “For us. I want a place I can call home, where Dorian can grow up. Somewhere we can make our family grow”

“You want more kids?” she whispered, and somehow her hand on my chest stopped moving. “You…”

“Dafne” I smile weakly, holding her hand. “I… God, you are the one. You were always the one. And I want to marry you someday. I… I wish our kid had my surname, just like you. I wish you were my wife”

She sat on the bed and it made my heart stop for a moment. She's not smiling, not even looking at me.

“Step by step” she mumbled. “Just… Step by step”

“Y-yeah”

I looked at her getting up from the bed slowly, and even though I find that cute because the struggles of the pregnancy are already showing, I couldn't help but feel like an idiot.

Telling her that I want her to have my surname, that I want her to be my wife. How could I say something like that?

“Let's go downstairs” she sighed. “I want to cuddle that little puppy”

“Sure” I smiled, getting up and holding her hand. “Just… Forget about the last thing I said, please”

She offered me a weak smile, her eyes reflecting a mix of sadness and resolve. She stepped closer, her breath shaky as she kissed me softly, a gesture that felt like a fragile truce.

“Step by step” she repeated. “Talk to me about that once Dorian is in our arms, okay?”

“W-what? Are you… Are you sure?” I frowned, confused.

“I am” she nodded, pecking my lips. “It's our fate. Since we were little, you and I were destined to be together”

Watching her walk away, my heart swelled with a mix of love and gratitude. No matter the obstacles, I knew I’d do anything for her. She’s always been the one.

taglist

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[cod-dump]

Made myself nearly cry in the shower thinking about this and I need to inflict it on someone else :)

Simon's mum loved soap operas. Particularly long running ones like EastEnders or Hollyoaks. They may be over dramatic, but they helped her cope with her husband's abuse and she made friends with a couple of like-minded fans of the show. Sometimes those friends would invite her over to watch said soaps. Just to get her out of the house for a couple of hours. They became a life-line for her.

When her and the rest of the family died, Simon stayed away from their graves for a good couple of years, the guilt of their (from his perspective) blood on his hands haunted him. But he still did little things to try and stay connected to them: always giving bills to the homeless drug-addicts on the street corners for Tommy, pressing beautiful flowers he found on missions for Beth, collecting small toys for Joseph. For his mum, he started watching her soaps.

He was never interested in them as a child; they were too dramatic and moody for a child, but being an adult now, he saw the appeal in them. He would get caught up in the melodrama and even browse a couple of forums for the shows if he had the time. And as soon as he started going back to his family's graves, he would catch his mum up on her soaps and introduced her to new ones if he thought she would like them.

Now here where I started crying.

Johnny: Are you sure, Simon? I don't have to go up to the graves if you don't want me to. Simon: I do want you too, but I need to go alone first, yeah? I just- I'll wave you over once I'm done and then I can introduce ya.

Johnny nodded and let go of Simon's hand. Simon walked over and did his usual greetings to the stones, leaving his mother for last. He sat down cross legged facing her name and sighed.

Simon: Fucking hell, mum. You would not believe what has happened on EastEnders since I last saw ya.

Simon winded on and on about what had happened over that past year. Twists and reveals and complicated plot lines filled the air around the stone. He started to wind down his recap and reached out to touch the stone. His fingers weaving between the embossed letters of her name.

Simon: I hope you don't mind, mum, but I've found a new Soap.

A knowing smirk melted onto his face behind his mask.

Simon: He's just for me though. I think you'll like him. Not as cheesy as the ones you like, but I know you'd love him.

Simon turns to look at Johnny. He's looking up to the cloudy sky with a handful of flowers that Johnny insisted they stop and pick up. I don't want to leave a bad first impression. What were their favorites? Simon whistled to get his attention. Johnny spooked and gripped tighter on the flower stems. His attention came fully to Simon. Simon waved him over.

Simon: I know you'll like him, because I love him.

And if she were still alive, Mum Riley would say that was the cheesiest romantic line she had ever heard.

Oh MY GOD-

I fucking adore this 😭

[maraschinocheri]

Happy 39th birthday to the London production of Les Misérables (which officially opened on 8 October 1985 at the Barbican Theatre, though previews began at the end of September)! By way of celebrations, scans from the 1985/86 / 1986/87 Royal Shakespeare Company Yearbook, which honoured the success of the Barbican production and its transfer to the Palace Theatre by making Colm Wilkinson and Michael Ball during 'Bring Him Home' its cover stars. The annual RSC Yearbook summarised productions in all of the company's (at the time five) theatres and on tour with production photography and critical commentary from newspapers and other media. Text from the pages above is under the cut below, with bracketed extra information to clarify some references.

Not since Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd back in 1979 has there been a score which soared out of the pit with the blazing theatricality of Les Misérables, and to those of my tabloid colleagues already in print with feeble and fainthearted objections to the show, I have but this to say: remember the demon barber. Sweeney, too, we were once told; was too dark, too savage, too downbeat a theme for a musical. Six years on, that show has won more awards and been acclaimed to more opera houses than any other in the entire history of the American musical. Les Misérables, in a brilliantly intelligent staging by Trevor Nunn and John Caird, will achieve a similar kind of long-term success …

[The Times’/Punch’s Sheridan] Morley went on. ‘… The greatness of Les Misérables is that it starts out, like Sweeney and Peter Grimes, to redefine the limits of music theatre. Like them it is through sung, and like them it tackles universal themes of social and domestic happiness in terms of individual despair.’

[The Financial Times’ Michael] Coveney talked of the allying of ‘Nickleby*-style qualities of ensemble presentation to a piece that really does deserve the label ‘rock opera’, occupying brand new ground somewhere between Verdi and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was not, he thought, a company celebration like Nickleby, ‘but an appreciation of those values along with the musical experience gathered by the team (Trevor Nunn, John Caird and David Hersey) on Cats and Starlight Express.’ To that extent, he went on, the show was an important one, ‘bridging gaps between musical and opera, and subjecting rock musicians to RSC tutelage while last year’s Clarence [in the RSC 1984 production of Richard III], Roger Allam, is unveiled in the role of Javert as an outstanding performer in the musical idiom.’

[*The RSC's landmark 1980 production of an adaption of Charles Dickens’ The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby]

[The Guardian’s Michael] Billington posited that if you fillet any great nineteenth-century novel, ‘you are left with melodrama.’ Les Misérables, he said, jointly produced by the RSC and Cameron Mackintosh at the Barbican, becomes exactly ‘high class melodrama.’ It was staged ‘with breathtaking panache by Trevor Nunn and John Caird. It is impeccably designed by John Napier. It has a lively score by Claude-Michel Schönberg. But it is three-and-a-half hours of fine middlebrow entertainment rather than great art.’ Billington claimed to have ‘conned’ the novel sufficiently ‘to realise that it is a towering masterpiece about social injustice, redemption through love and the power of Providence.’ What the musical offered, he went on, ‘is the hurtling story of Jean Valjean, the paroled prisoner who becomes a provincial mayor, who is relentlessly pursued by the policeman Javert and who achieves heroic feats of self-sacrifice at the 1832 Paris uprising. What you don’t get is the background of moral conflict that makes this more than a classy adventure story.’ In this he thought, Hugo’s novel was infinitely more dramatic than the musical.

[The Times’ Irving] Wardle spoke of the temptation in such circumstances for anyone who has read the novel ‘to quarrel with any adaptation for its omissions and liberties instead of judging the adaptation on its own merits.’ In this instance, he maintained, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg had done a capable gutting job. ‘They present a clear outline of the epic contest between Jean Valjean, the saintly ex-convict, and his implacable pursuer Javert: including Valjean’s defeated attempt to save the wretched Fantine, and his life-long devotion to her daughter, Cosette, only to lose her to a young love, Marius, amid the Paris barricades of 1832.’

The adapters had cut corners with boldness and ingenuity, Wardle believed, and had found fresh situations where Hugo’s are theatrically unworkable. They had also preserved the essential sense that Valjean and Javert are two of a kind, belonging, as Hugo puts it, to the ‘two classes of men whom society keeps at arms length: those who prey on it and those who protect it.’

Coveney maintained that the organization and placement of the continuously revolving stage was ‘beyond praise’, with John Napier’s design doing as much honour to Hugo’s Paris as he lavished on Dickens’s London [in Nickleby]: ‘Two huge trucks rumble on and form a barricaded wall which, just as Hugo describes, seems to contain a city in itself, a fantastic jumble of chairs, barrels, planks and people, a teeming segment of a revolutionary catacomb.’

This alternative society, Coveney said, was presented without sentiment ‘as indeed are its urchin sentinels, the daughter of Thenardier (a devastating waif performance by Frances Ruffelle) and Gavroche … sweetly and surely sung by an admirable child actor and just when you feel the production is slipping by allowing a [writer of Oliver] Lionel Bart-ish point number, he is shot full of bullets and left to sing plaintively on the wrong side of the barricade.’

The music, [The Sunday Times’ John] Peter though, ‘has a fresh, astringent lyricism and a powerful, ballad-like drive: number after number makes robust contributions to character and drama.’ The best performances, in Peter’s opinion, came from Alun Armstrong and Susan Jane Tanner as the ‘horrible Thenardiers', Patti LuPone (Fantine) and Frances Ruffelle (Eponine). But this was, he pointed out, ‘essentially a company musical rather than a star vehicle. If it transfers to the West End where its masterful theatricality would outshine almost anything else on offer, it might show people that success in this genre doesn’t depend solely on expensive star turns.’ The transfer to the Palace, of course, came swiftly after the Barbican opening.

[The Observer’s Michael] Ratcliffe described Schönberg’s score as ‘all tinselly arpeggios, stabbing staccato, pile-driving trumpets and thinly-disguised hymns.’ In polite terms he said, it was ‘electric, trailing a range of references from high-tech Bizet and Massenet to the air-time acceptable, and Celtic Fringe Folk.’

Some scenes, said Coveney, go straight into operatic form, ‘for example the apprehension by Javert of Valjean at Fantine’s deathbed, or a beautiful garden trio for young lovers in Valjean’s garden hideaway.’ There was also a ‘startling thematic echo of Rigoletto as Valjean ponders the son he might have had.’ Colm Wilkinson’s Valjean was in Coveney’s opinion ‘a remarkable study in impassive acquisition of self-knowledge … He [has] particularly fine and lyrical use of his upper register. Above all he transmits palpable goodness without sounding like a prig or a boar [bore?].’ [The Sunday’s Telegraph’s Francis] King thought Wilkinson not only sang the role with eloquence ‘but – far more difficult – brings out the essential goodness of a much-wronged man.’ The outstanding voice of the evening in King’s opinion, was that of Patti LuPone as Fantine.

The band under the stage and the musical direction of Martin Koch include some rumbling brass premonitions of disaster as well as some very fine work on synthesizers, brass and strings. The score also underpins such exciting production movements as the arrival of the barricade, the suicidal leap (done by the bridge flying up as Mr Allam free falls on the spot) and the descent to the sewers with lots of dry ice and naked banks of light not equalled in impact since Mr Hersey did something similar in Evita.

In short, this is an intriguing and most enjoyable musical, fully justifying the mixing of commercial resources with RSC talent and personnel, even if not all that many RSC actors are involved.* Being now acquainted with the demands of the score, I see why that should be so. [Morley]

[* The RSC members who appeared in the Barbican production were Roger Allam, Alun Armstrong, and Susan Jane Tanner. Other RSC members at this time joined Les Mis in later companies, among them David Delve, who would replace Alun Armstrong as Thenardier.]

[chthonic-cassandra]

what vampire musicals are there? asking bc of the tag meme you posted a few days(?) ago where you said it was pretty accurate aside from no vampire musicals... i know wildhorn dracula, but what else? (and which are good?)

Thank you for asking a question which allows me to indulge myself by recounting all this. The question of "good," however, is rather fraught, and I ask everyone to remember that these opinions are just my own.

The (probably) first, and the only one to achieve significant success, was Jim Steinman's Tanz der Vampire/Dance of the Vampires, first stage in 1997. Tanz was an adaptation of Roman Polanski's comedic vampire movie The Fearless Vampire Killers, and features "Total Eclipse of the Heart," a song Steinman always intended to be about vampires. Tonally, the musical veers wildly between the broad comedy of the source film and something approaching sincerity and the comedy sections have never really worked for me, but it's certainly the most musically sophisticated of the vampire musicals and at its best, like in the major ballad sung by the lead vampire character about the loves he has killed (here sung by original cast Steve Barton, and here by Drew Sarich, who is in all the major vampire musicals and who we shall have more to say about anon) it's spectacular gothy camp glory.

Tanz was incredibly popular in Austria, where it was first staged, and then throughout Europe and in Japan. However, when it was brought to Broadway it was drastically rewritten, partly at the behest of Michael Crawford, starring in the show and anxious about changes in his body and being compared to his career-making performance in Phantom of the Opera. The comedy was foregrounded and the show was constantly being rewritten, to the point that the actors didn't know how their parts might change performance to performance. I didn't see the Broadway production, but it is accounted by all to be a colossal failure. The show remains popular worldwide to this day, but has not received another major staging in North America.

Next comes the Frank Wildhorn Dracula the Muiscal, which I know you know about, but as it is vital to this narrative I must give some explanation. Wildhorn is a sort of mid-tier musical theater composer, known for melodrama and period pieces. After the popular (though not critical) success of his Jekyll & Hyde musical (1997 on Broadway) he co-wrote Dracula with lyricist Don Black, premiering on Broadway on 2004.

While I maintain that Dracula the Musical has been unjustly maligned by comparison with some other works of musical theater, it is admittedly a mess, and the Broadway production, which was, despite highly publicized special effects, shockingly static, did it no favors. It tries to do far too many things, combining sections of relatively close novel adaptation (Christopher Hampton's book is often quietly strong) with a messily shoehorned Dracula/Mina romance. The score is variable, ranging, even just in Dracula's material, from the rousing "Life After Life" as Dracula welcomes the transformed Lucy, to his cringe-inducing "The Longer I Live". (I still think almost all of the music and lyrics are better than those of Les Miserables but then again I think most things are better than the Les Miserables musical.) The Broadway production had a reasonably strong cast, including Melissa Errico as Mina and Kelli O'Hara as Lucy, but it failed nearly as badly as the American version of Tanz had, if not quite so dramatically.

Wildhorn subsequently brought DtM to Europe, where it enjoyed significantly more success, first in a stripped down modern production in St. Gallen starring Drew Sarich and then in Vienna where the role of Van Helsing was expanded for popular star Uwe Kröger. It's continued to be performed in Europe and Asia, and in some USA community theaters.

Next up was Elton John's Lestat in 2007. One would expect that this musical would have been wonderfully over-the-top glam rock, but somehow Lestat ended up being one of the most staid things I have ever seen. Filled with forgettable music (even if we all do want to see Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson doing "Embrace It". It was further brought down by a lackluster performance of the title character by Hugh Panaro, previously known for his mediocre (sorry Panaro fans!) turn in Phantom. It was enlivened slightly by Carolee Carmello as Gabrielle earning one of the show's only Tony nominations and Drew Sarich (there he is again!) playing a decidedly not book accurate but very entertaining Armand. It also involved a Buddhist monk Marius de Romanus, but I constantly question whether this was a fever dream of mine. Lestat was yet another failure on Broadway and, as far as I can tell, has had no real subsequent afterlife, though I've been wondering if that might change with the IwtV show (and Sam Reid's evident enjoyment of the musical!).

Those are the major vampire musicals, for what they are! But there are also some others which never got even this level of attention, including:

Two dueling French-language Dracula musicals with almost the exact same name, Dracula - L'amour plus fort que la mort and Dracula - Entre l'amour et la mort

A Nosferatu musical which is a strong contender for the worst lyrics I have ever heard but also entertains me

another mysterious Dracula musical made in the UK with songs of wildly varying qualities, but containing the only Mina hero ballad with which I am familiar

There are also edge cases like Bat Boy and Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I would not call vampire musicals but someone else might.

Anyway! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share some of the truly disproportionate amount of information I have about this topic in my head. I hope this brought some entertainment.

[kryptonbabe]

The absence of the superego psychological structure in JSA bronze age comics, an observation

One thing that makes reading the JSA revival run from 1976 such an interesting experience is just how much of their inner thoughts they are willing to share with each other. The members of this team will express the most intense feelings of despair, anger and every other emotion without thinking twice, it makes for a very intense reading experience. These people are on the edge and they will let you know about their intrusive thoughts, deep feelings and desires, the drama is always through the roof, and I didn't even include Power Girl's exchanges with Superman and Wildcat (I'm saving these for another post)

In Freudian psychology we have:

(...) the id is the impulsive part of your personality that is driven by pleasure and repulsed by pain, the superego is the judgmental and morally correct part of your personality, and the ego is the conscious part of your personality that mediates between the id and the superego and makes decisions.

And I can only think of the challenge the JSA team of this time would present for these definitions, because they seem unburdened by the superego aspect of their mind, just saying what their id demands, particularly when it comes to sharing their feelings. And that is not to say these characters don't have interesting inner lives, it's just that they're very transparent about their feelings and it's absolutely appealing to witness such a dynamic

This particular style of writing reminds me of what Chris Claremont was also doing with the Uncanny X-Men at Marvel (All-Star Comics revival and Claremont's X-Men were published only 6 months apart), which might just be an example of how the writing trends of superhero comic books were changing with the times. The difference is: the X-men heroes were younger and less experienced while the JSA characters are jaded, they share a common history of decades with each other and their foes, this leaves a lot of room for drama and conflict (not to put these books against each other they're just different and I love both). Honestly I'm a melodrama fan, I have an appreciation for this soap opera style of comic book narrative and I'm glad there's so much good material to get into. There's a reason why the JSA characters are still popular to this day

From All-Star Comics (1976 revival), collected in Only legends live forever TPB (2019). Written by: Gerry Conway & Paul Levitz. Art by Keith Giffen & Wally Wood

[open-hearth-rpg]

I first heard Eric Farmer and Eli Kurtz on their great Jianghu Hustle podcast, analyzing drama and combat in a variety of martial arts films. For Hearts of Wulin I asked them to write the chapter on describing fights and combats. Now they have built on what their experience with martial arts films and stage combat to create a new game, Sword Opera. It is now on Kickstarter.

Here's the pitch:

Sword Opera is a new tabletop RPG of melodrama and violence for 2-6 players over 2-6 hours. You play as high-powered paragons balancing their own ambitions and their loyalty to a Circle of allies who seek to dominate a wondrous underworld that you build as you play. Paragons make big, bold decisions and deal with whatever triumphs, setbacks, and crises follow in their wake.

Gameplay is inspired by Blades in the Dark, with d6 dice pools and a heavy focus on the relationships between individual characters and the factions they belong to. A paragon's pursuit of their goals and principles both drives the narrative forward and fuels their character advancement. We play to find out if our Circle can thrive in a world full of danger: rival Circles, determined nemeses, forbidden romances, fatal flaws, imminent peril, and the tension between desire and duty.

It's The Three Musketeers meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's John Wick meets Fast and Furious. It's swords... meet opera!

You can find the campaign here.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Decay

hello everyone we're back!!! sorry it took me so long, i had to rattle this one around in my head for a while to get it on straight (heh)

this is my first time really writing leon's perspective so i hope it sounds okay!!!! i also hope it doesn't come off too mia bashing, that's not my intention at all, i just think what with leon's past with sherry he'd have a hard time reconciling mia's choices against his own priorities etc.

also rose sweetie i'm so sorry i'm giving you so many dysfunctional adult/parental figures i swear once ethan recovers a little more he'll be the other emotionally competent person here

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

Warnings: talk about infidelity, previous character death (it's ethan so he's fine now but still oof)

Pairings: mithan, lethan, winterfield

Word Count: 3799

They talked about Mia's new job, about how much they missed each other, about how proud they were of Rose. All the things normal couples would talk about. Then Ethan had sighed. "Mia," he says in a quiet voice, and Mia's mouth twitches. "Yes, Ethan?" "It's no use."

Out of all the things Leon expected from Chris’s call, suddenly being privy to what has to be the weirdest talk between husband and wife was not one of them. And yet, here he is, sitting in a sterile interrogation room with a buzzing light, a former bioterrorist, and a living mold colony assuming the shape of a former systems engineer.

Life is strange sometimes. He’s learned how to roll with the punches.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ethan had said when he came to escort him from his room—room, Chris had stressed, not a cell, even though it felt a whole lot like a cell and he’s pretty sure Ethan thought of it like that too—“I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit me while I try and talk to my…ex-wife? Former wife? Widow?”

Leon had snorted. “Are you kidding me? I’m missing my favorite soap opera, the least you could do is make up for it with your familial melodrama.”

He didn’t mention that he was the only person other than Chris himself who had the required clearance to be there, and even Chris-Emotional-Constipation-Redfield knew that was a bad idea. So, here they were.

At first, it'd just been a little bit awkward, watching Ethan so visibly relax when Mia came in. Mia too—like watching a soldier reunite with his wife after a long deployment in one of those videos with a slow love song playing in the background. Only this time they couldn't touch, separated by a sheet of bullet-proof glass, and talking through phones that made everyone sound like they were doing really bad Darth Vader impressions. They talked about Mia's new job, about how much they missed each other, about how proud they were of Rose. All the things normal couples would talk about.

Then Ethan had sighed.

"Mia," he says in a quiet voice, and Mia's mouth twitches.

"Yes, Ethan?"

"It's no use."

Her brow furrows for a split second before she forces a light laugh. "What's no use?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Her hand clenches and she drops it out of sight. "I really don't, Ethan."

"Yes, you do."

What's making this so much worse is that Ethan isn't angry. Leon's gaze flicks between them as Mia clearly wrestles with the words on the tip of her tongue but Ethan's just…sitting there. Then again, the man's died, what, three times at this point? It's not that surprising that nothing fazes him, but still…

"I mean, I don't know what I'm going to tell people," Mia says, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a brusque jerk of her chin, "I can't exactly explain Rose's father magically reappearing."

Ethan doesn't respond for a moment. She seems to take that as clearance to keep talking.

"I guess I could say you—woke up from a coma, or something, but everyone thinks you're dead. You've been gone for sixteen years, Ethan, it's not—it's not something we can just shrug off."

"'We?'"

"Yes, of course, 'we'," she huffs in a laugh, even as panic starts to cloud her eyes, "what are you talking about?"

Another pause. Then he sighs again. The sound rattles through the shitty phone. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

"About what?"

"About me. About Rose."

Mia swallows. "Ethan, I—"

"Did you know the whole time? Ever since Dulvey? Or did you figure it out along the way and just—keep it to yourself?"

Her hand trembles slightly on the phone. She tries to force back that light expression but Leon watches it begin to crack as they both stare at her. Her gaze darts to him a few times—what the fuck does she expect him to do?

"I felt you die," she whispers and yeah, okay, even Leon's chest lurches at that, "when—when Jack killed you, I felt it. And—and everything was so blurry, so hard to see through—through Eveline's mess that I thought—I thought I might've been remembering it wrong, or something else had happened, or it was just—just another one of her mind games but—"

She chokes on a sob and Ethan's fingers twitch toward the glass, the phone pressed tightly to his ear.

"—but then you were back. And—and you were just you and I thought—I thought it'd be over."

"And Rose?" Mia nods, her eyes squeezed shut as Ethan breathes out a curse. "That's why the pregnancy was so bad, wasn't it? You were—you were trying to fight the mold?"

"Don't blame yourself," Mia's saying as soon as Ethan's sentence finishes, reaching out to put her hand on the glass. After a moment, Ethan's hand presses back. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Rose's either, she—she's beautiful. Our baby girl…"

Something in Ethan's expression twitches. His hand slowly leaves the glass. A moment later, Mia's does too. They sit there in silence for a few moments before Ethan pinches the bridge of his nose. "I wish you would've told me."

Mia scoffs. "What good would it have done?"

"I would've known." The first hint of irritation flickers behind Ethan's words and Leon has a bad feeling about how the rest of this conversation is going to go. "I could've—I could've done something."

"What could you have done? Told Chris? He'd have us locked up like this years earlier," she says, gesturing around, "and then what? Would we have taken Rose, gone on the run?"

"Mia—"

"There was nothing you could've done, Ethan," and she says it like she's trying to be kind, but Ethan's shoulders keep getting tenser and tenser.

"It's funny."

"What is?"

"That's what people said when you went missing."

Mia goes still. Leon fights the urge to shift in his chair. Yep. Bad feeling. Here we go.

"They said there wasn't anything I could've done," Ethan continues, his voice still low, "that I was beating myself up for nothing. That you were gone, there wasn't anything I could do about it, that I should go ahead and try and move on as best I could with my life. What was left of it anyway. Then I got an email from you."

"Ethan…"

"And you know what, Mia? Turns out there was something I could do. There was a whole hell of a lot I could do."

"You died, Ethan!"

"Yeah. I did. Then I came back. And I did a pretty good job about that."

More than pretty good, Leon wants to add, but he holds his tongue.

"Do you ever think about what might've happened if you just told me? Before all this had to happen?"

"I don't want to talk about this, Ethan."

"You never want to talk about it. Any of it. That's the whole goddamn problem, Mia. You were at that farm for three years. I died. And you wanted to just move on as if nothing happened. But we couldn't. I couldn't. That wasn't fair."

Mia's fist clenches. Her face twists up. Leon takes a deep breath and holds it. "You have no idea what I went through there, Ethan. No idea."

"Because you never told me! I would've been there for you—"

"You couldn't have been! You would never understand!"

"What the hell are you talking about? I was there! I got infected too—Mia, you—"

"You were never supposed to be there!"

The room rings with her panting breaths. Both of their knuckles are white around the phones.

"You were never supposed to find out," she manages, "you were—it wasn't supposed to be like this. God, Ethan, you were supposed to be safe."

An old, old anger flares in Leon's chest. He takes a deep breath, tries to swallow it, but Ethan's talking again and he frantically tunes back in.

"—think was going to happen, Mia? It wasn't just going to be that easy, something was bound to happen at some point. Did you think I—didn't you trust me?"

"Of course I trusted you, Ethan."

"Really? Because it doesn't feel like it. You kept secrets from me, big secrets, Mia, you don't do that with someone you trust."

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, honey, no, I'm actually not babysitting this time, I'm escorting an experimental bioweapon across international waters? Don't come looking for me?'"

"Jesus Christ, Mia—"

"See? You wouldn't have understood!"

"I died for you, Mia!"

Mia's eyes widen. Ethan's chest heaves with the force of his shout. He makes himself take a deep breath and Leon forces himself to relax. Shit, this is so not his forte…

"I died for you," he says again, quieter this time. "I died and I came back for you. And I tried to be there for you, the whole time, like I was supposed to be, and you—you—"

Oh, God, no, don't let Ethan start crying. He has no idea what the fuck he's supposed to do if Ethan starts crying.

"You were my wife," and all three of them wince at the past tense, "was it so wrong for me to want you to be there for me?"

"I tried to be—"

"You didn't." Ethan doesn't even sound mad anymore, just exhausted. "You were too busy trying to keep the truth about me and Rose from me, from Chris, from everyone. Like if you pretended hard enough, everything would be okay. God, Mia, it was like—it was like you were the one who'd died."

Her face twists. "Is that why you went to Chris?"

Oh. Oh, God, oh, fuck. Give Leon an island full of bioweapons and trigger-happy mercenaries any day, do not make him deal with emotions involving Christopher fucking Redfield.

"What?"

"Don't play coy with me now, Ethan," Mia says, voice hardening, "did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

"Mia, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you and Chris were acting more like the married couple by the end of things than you and I were."

Then, something truly terrifying happens: Ethan Winters laughs.

It's not humorous. It's not happy. It's bordering on manic and utterly, utterly cold in a way that feels wrong for a person so fundamentally warm and it rings in Leon's ears. Even Mia looks shaken by it.

"You think I what, seduced Chris Redfield with my tragic bioweapon ass because you and I were fighting all the time? That's what you think happened?"

"Ethan—"

"Let's get one thing crystal goddamn clear: I never cheated on you. Not when you were missing, not when we were stuck in the compound, not once in Romania or any other hell hole the two of us got shoved in. I turned to Chris because I was fucking scared, Mia, and he was supposed to be keeping us safe, not because he made me feel wanted. The only person who's made me feel wanted in the past—well, I don't know how many years it's been now, but that's Karl fucking Heisenberg and he only wanted me to get to Rose so he could use her to kill Mother Miranda. You can accuse me of a lot of things, Mia, and I'll let you, but I was never unfaithful."

"That's not what I meant, Ethan," Mia tries, but Ethan's already shaking his head.

"It's exactly what you meant, Mia. You think you're the only one who noticed things changing? You wanna know how I knew something was wrong that day? Miranda kissed me. And you hadn't wanted to touch me in months."

Leon can't stop himself from shifting. That's—holy fuck, that's sad in a whole new way. Seriously. He won't even ask for a gun, give him a knife and a virus outbreak, not—not whatever the fuck this is turning into.

Even though part of him really wants to put his hand on Ethan's shoulder right now.

"Chris was your friend," Mia says quietly—shit, he got lost in thought again— "and he was…it seemed like it was so easy for you to…to talk to him."

"I wanted to talk to you, but it…it felt like we were always fighting whenever I tried. Chris was—" he huffs— "he wasn't my friend, but he was…there."

Now both Mia's and Leon's brows twitch. "He was, Ethan, he was your friend—"

"No, no, he wasn't. He made that very clear."

Mia's gaze flicks to Leon's—he'd been half hoping they'd forgotten he was there, to be honest—and he just remembers the day he'd met Ethan Winters, before everything went to shit. Finding him alone on the mats, weeping, like he'd—

Well, like he'd just had his heart broken.

Some of that must show on his face because Mia's expression hardens with a distant anger—one he's worn himself from time to time, thank you, Chris—before it deliberately softens again. "I'm sorry, Ethan. I'm so sorry. For everything."

"I know. I'm sorry too."

She shakes her head. They sit in silence for a few more moments. "Where…where do we go from here?"

Ethan sighs. "Well, I think it's back to being poked and prodded by scientists for me. I'm not letting them take Rose away from me again."

"I don't think Chris'll let that happen."

"Yeah, let's hope so." There's a pause, then he huffs a laugh. A real one this time. "I was just thinking: Rose said once that she wouldn't let anyone try and stop us from talking 'cause I was her emotional support mold dad—"

Mia laughs at that too. Even Leon manages to crack a smile.

"—and now I'm imagining her explaining that to Chris with a straight face—"

"—and him not knowing what that means?" Mia finishes. "You know, sometimes she says things—the kids and their slang, I can't keep up anymore."

"Oh, I gave up trying. Now I just embarrass her with how bad I am at using it."

They laugh again, and Leon is going to get whiplash with how back and forth the emotions are here. Judging by the way Mia's smile is slowly growing sadder, she is too.

"How did we get here," she asks, mostly rhetorical, "how did it end up like this? We were…we were happy, weren't we?"

"We were," Ethan says, just as softly, "I was happy, Mia."

"Why can't we be happy again?"

"It's like the vows said: 'till death do us part."

Mia laughs, though it's through a sob, and Ethan does too. Now they're both just looking at each other, and then Ethan murmurs I love you, and Mia says I love you too, and—

"Alright," the BSAA guard at the door says, "that's time."

Mia stands up, smiling at Ethan, nodding at Leon, and leaves through the door. Ethan doesn't move until the door closes again, sagging in the chair with his head in his hands. Leon glances up, seeing another BSAA guard approaching their side of the door and holds up a hand. The guard pauses.

Ethan takes several deep breaths, each a little steadier than the last, before he pushes himself up with a tired smile.

"So," he says, "better than your soap opera?"

"Hell of a lot more interesting, that's for sure." He jerks his head toward the door. "You need another minute, or…?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks for being here."

Leon swallows. "No problem."

The guard steps away as soon as they're out into the hall. They walk for a few minutes before Ethan says, "Leon? Is it okay if we go outside for a second?"

"Sure. This way." They go to one of the little courtyards in the middle of the compound and Ethan immediately sits down on one of the benches, head tipped back like he hasn't seen the sun since…well, yeah, no, actually that makes sense. "You wanna just…sit here for a bit?"

"Yeah, if that's cool with you."

"I've got nowhere else to be."

And see, now, here's the problem: Leon would love to try and forget about everything he just heard. It isn't any of his business, hell, it's probably so far not his business that he shouldn't have been there in the first place, but now…now he's kind of emotionally invested.

This is why he just watches crappy soap operas that he doesn't tell anyone else about.

"What?"

"Huh?"

Ethan smiles blandly at him. "You're…kind of staring at me."

Shit. "Sorry. Just…lost in thought."

He chuckles. "You can ask if you want to."

"It's your business."

"Yeah, well, you just got a front row seat to the season three finale without being there for seasons one and two, so, you can ask." He shifts, leaning back against the bench more. "Figured it's the least I can do."

Leon frowns but puts a pin in that one. He may be slightly better at this whole having-emotions thing than Chris, but he's under no delusions that he's good at it. "How'd the two of you meet?"

Ethan lights up like it's goddamn Christmas when he tells the story and it sounds like every single rom-com in the world. Boy meets girl, they have a few sweet dates, there's a funny story here and there about office parties that don't go completely according to plan, and then they get married. Leon's chest clenches as he listens and yeah, maybe he didn't fully grasp the scope of what Chris meant when he said that Ethan was a good man, that he didn't deserve it—because no one ever deserves the type of shit Ethan's been through, but holy fuck, this man's like a goddamn golden retriever.

"Why didn't you leave?"

Shit. Way to fucking go, Kennedy.

Ethan tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"When you got to the Baker Farm and you realized it was…"

"Fucked up?"

"Yeah."

And just like that, he deflates, something dark washing over his expression. "I couldn't. I couldn't leave, not when I knew Mia was there."

And the thing is, he gets it. He's about to tell Ethan how much he gets it when Ethan shakes his head and looks up at him with this self-deprecating smile.

"Pathetic, right?"

"You're not pathetic, Ethan. You're a damn good man."

"Careful, you say things like that too much, I might start to believe you."

See, now, that's the other thing. And judging by the way Ethan's suddenly avoiding his gaze, he's gonna guess that frown he'd tried to keep off his face made it there anyway.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize, it's okay." He looks away, shifting to knock their legs together. "So. Karl Heisenberg, huh?"

If he was hoping for a way to break the dull mood, he failed. Miserably. "Everything in that village hated me. The lycans wanted to eat me, Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters hated me because I was a stupid manthing—" Leon tries not to snort at that— "Beneviento and Moreau were—and the Duke, I don't even know what the fuck his deal was, but he wasn't—the point is, only Heisenberg actually talked to me like a person for half a second. And as soon as I told him Rose wasn't a weapon, I was gone. It shouldn't even have meant anything, but Mia was dead—or so I thought, and Chris had been the one to shoot her and take Rose from me—and Rose was in pieces and I—"

"Hey, hey," Leon says, his hand on Ethan's shoulder before he realizes what he's doing, "hey, Ethan…"

Ethan bows his head, taking a deep breath. When he lifts his head again, his eyes are wet, and there's a lump in Leon's throat. "Is it wrong that I still love her?"

Well. Remember that shit he said about not being prepared for this?

"Sorry," he mumbles a second later, "you—you really don't have to answer that."

"How much has Chris told you about me?"

Ethan glances at him. "Not much."

"Has he ever mentioned Sherry Birkin?"

Ethan shakes his head, a furrow between his brows and suddenly Leon's telling him about Sherry. About wanting to be a cop in Raccoon City, about finding Claire—"Wait, Chris has a sister?"—and Sherry, and making a deal to keep her safe. Ethan listens, concern and sympathy engraved into his expression, reaching out to put a hand on Leon's shoulder when it takes him a second to get the words out, and he has no idea what the fuck he's doing or why he's telling Ethan this when he should be the one comforting the other man, and before he knows it he's talking to Ethan like they're old friends, and he doesn't know what's going on and all he knows is that Ethan Winters is a fucking unicorn.

"I'm sorry," he says, and there's not a trace of that weird curling in his gut that he normally gets when people tell him that, "that really sucks, buddy."

He blows out a short breath. "Yeah, I guess it does."

They sit in silence for a while. The wind is cool, not cold. The sun passes behind a few clouds and re-emerges.

"I've never told anyone all of that," he says suddenly, "not really."

"Well, I promise I'm good at keeping secrets." Leon huffs a laugh. "Hey, Leon?"

"Yeah?"

"I know this is weird, and it's—I'm not expecting you to say yes, okay, but…do you think we could be friends?"

Leon turns to look at him. Ethan just smiles back, a little awkward, but painfully earnest. He tries for a smile and finds it comes rather easily. "Yeah, Ethan. We can be friends."

That smile turns genuine so quickly it makes his head spin. He tips his head back to enjoy the sunshine again, a weight falling off his shoulders and Leon can't help but stare. In the back of his mind, he can't help but wonder what Mia Winters was thinking, even though he knows that's a dangerous road to walk down—one he's steered Chris away from a number of times too. But he looks at Ethan and all he can see is another blond trying to keep a child safe and…well, he's never been a saint.

"Ethan?"

"Yeah?"

"I won't let them take Rose away from you either."

Ethan looks at him, eyes wide, and nods. "Thank you, Leon."

He can't say much of anything else, so he just nods back. Then Ethan's looking over his shoulder like he's expecting someone to come out and sure enough, jogging over is Rose with Chris trailing behind her. Ethan stands up and catches her in an exuberant hug, spinning her around until she laughs. He catches Chris's eye over their shoulders and nods.

Fuck it. He's in.

[lurkingshan]

10 Things I Love About Khun Chai

I did it, y’all. I watched my first lakorn, and let me tell you, I had a fucking fantastic time doing it. Now that’s not a blanket endorsement of the genre, because I understand Khun Chai aka To Sir, With Love is pretty unique, particularly in that it’s a period queer love story with a happy ending. But as a different kind of Thai drama than any I’d previously seen, it was truly a great watch.

It has some flaws, sure. It’s a soap opera, so melodrama, repetitive story beats, overdramatic acting, and slow pacing are par for the course. If you go in understanding that, you’ll be fine. And the episodes are long af but don’t be shy about increasing the playback speed - I watched a lot of it at 1.5x and it was perfectly smooth. Now that I’ve finished it, I think the time investment was totally worth it (@bengiyo my final rec - worth going back to finish! It worked better for me when I broke it up in chunks of 2-3 episodes at a time).

Without further ado, the top ten reasons I loved it:

1. TIAN MY BELOVED

Look at him. Just look at his beautiful traumatized face!! I hold that it’s impossible to watch this entire show and not come out absolutely loving this man. He is so believably flawed but at his core he is good. He is generous. He is loyal. He is brave. And he looks very good in a three piece suit.

Honestly I could do a whole top ten list just about Tian but let’s move on and give some love to the rest of the show.

2. Did I mention this is a PERIOD ROMANCE??!! Something we get so precious little of in bl. I asked @absolutebl a while back if they knew of any other Thai period bls, and this was the entire list. So good thing it’s excellent!

The show is set in the 1930s and 40s in Japanese-occupied Thailand, and it centers on a powerful Thai-Chinese family (currently leading a cooperative partnership of five families) and the power struggle over who will be the heir (Succession, but make it Asian and queer). The show digs into really interesting family structure, politics, and class struggle stuff.

3. The brotherly bond is unmatched and undefeated. The plot centers on two brothers, Tian and Yang, who love each other so much, like I cannot emphasize enough how willing these brothers are to protect and die for each other. If someone was shooting at them they would both try to dive in front of the bullet. Their bond is so touching and provides an emotional through line when the plot gets wacky.

4. The classic soap opera plots are truly brilliant, all your favorite tropes are here. This show has everything - family secrets, nefarious schemes, murderous maids, mystical poisons, faen fatales, even sex pollen! As I believe @ginnymoonbeam put it at one point - everything is happening so much all the time. It’s truly a delightful romp, especially after the halfway point when the plot machinations really kick into high gear.

5. The queer love story is the main romance and emotional heart of the show. There are actually two romances in this show - each of the brothers gets a love interest. And both of them are lovely. But rather than the typical move where a het drama features a queer side pairing, here the entire story is driven by Tian’s sexual identity, the burden placed on him to keep it a secret, and how increasingly impossible that becomes once he meets Jiu. Over the course of this show, we get to watch Tian fall in love and finally live his truth and see how that changes him. It’s truly beautiful, and the romance between Tian and Jiu is so sweet (and a bit racier than I expected - the show does not shy away from the sexual aspect of this relationship). The romance between Yang and Pin is also very sweet - they are adorable tbh - but entirely secondary.

6. Every frame of this show is absolutely gorgeous. The scenery is lush, the costumes are beautiful, the tailoring is impeccable, the hair and makeup never misses. It’s truly a feast for the eyes.

7. There are so many good female characters in this show, y’all! Tian and Yang have not one but 4 or 5 different mother figures. They are all flawed, complex, and a little nuts. They get up to so much trouble and drive a lot of the plot with their scheming, hijinks, and prolific wielding of murderous sparkle dust (don’t ask, you have to see it to understand). Pin, Tian’s would be fiancé turned sister-in-law, is a total sweetheart, but she’s also smart and fierce with a steel core and not afraid to tell her man when he’s being stupid. There’s even a lady boss at the head of one of the five families.

8. Relatedly, there is so much complex family drama in this show, and so many interesting dysfunctional parental relationships. @waitmyturtles you will have a field day when you finally get to watch this. Both brothers have fraught relationships with their various parent figures, for very different reasons. The various relationships and resentments that form between the wives and the sons in a polygamous family unit (did I mention that yet? there are three wives in the mix here and the brothers have different biological moms) are absolutely fascinating.

9. The resolution to the succession plot and ultimate defeat of the Big Bad was so satisfying. I won’t get into spoiler territory, but let me just say that the characters went through a lot together and to see the way they ultimately had to come together and let go of their baggage to survive was very cool. It felt earned.

10. IT ENDS WITH A BIG OLD HEAP OF GAY DOMESTIC BLISS!!! I will get into spoiler territory here because you deserve to know that if you put in the time to watch this show you will be rewarded with a very happy couple forming a family unit and living peacefully on their own terms. I was so pleased with this ending, I can’t even tell you. The final scenes made me cry real tears, I was so touched. And they even put a literal rainbow in the sky at the end. A literal rainbow! Come on!

Watch it, friends! It’s worth your time.

[horse-girl-anthy]

Between the Soap Opera and the Fairy Tale: Sex, Death, and Ikuhara

essay below the cut.

I've never actually played Silent Hill, but one way or another, many years ago, I came across a clip from one of the people who worked on it (I've since tried to locate this interview but have not been successful). I remember him saying something like "when you look into what troubles people, you find that they are preoccupied with sex and death. and so in order to affect them, we play on these themes of sex and death."

this isn't exactly rocket science. your average soap opera writer has it down. what differentiates soap operas from Silent Hill is how they incorporate sex and death into their narratives.

in Ikuhara works, sex and death are often used as short-hands; because people react to them on a visceral level, they can be used to get viewers' attention--and because they hold so much symbolic weight, they can be used to communicate any number of things to the audience. I don't think art has to play on eros and thanatos to be compelling; however, it can certainly help to do so. Ikuhara is particularly interested in eros.

consider this exange from the Ikuhara/Saito episode 38 commentary:

Saito: He'd say, "Make sure you design it so you can tell where the breast is positioned." He'd also say, "Make sure you design it so you can see the outline of the butt." And "Design it so the armpits are visible." He made a lot of various, very typically boyish requests, but I learned a lot from it. He repeatedly bothered me about where the buttons should be. He instructed me that "The buttons have to be positioned exactly at the top of the breasts!" (laughter) Ikuhara: Makes sense. Learned a lot, right? Saito: Yes, I did. Mori: Are you always trying to work in this type of erotic undertone? Ikuhara: Yes, well... if it doesn't have that kind of stuff... it's not very interesting! Either I'm doing it to make it interesting or maybe I just wanted to see that.

Ikuhara doesn't deny that he may "just want to see" eroticism. titillation may be done for its own sake, used for humor or aesthetic purposes. however, a surface-level glance at his works reveals certain patterns in how sex is employed narratively.

this was originally going to be an essay on sexual predators in Ikuhara. he has a lot of them. I started writing it, but it came out a bit too thin for my tastes. I compared the various characters and their motivations for committing sexual harm and came to the conclusion that Ikuhara works avoid the myth that lust is the primary motivator of such behavior. Mitsuko is an example of a sexually motivated predator, but she's pretty much alone in that; the other characters are driven by a variety of factors, with lust low on their list of priorities.

rather than go through and describe each characters' motives, I thought it would be more interesting to explain how their predation is used metaphorically. in YKA particularly, it's difficult to claim that the bears are committing sexual assault; they are attacking and eating prey. while sexuality is caught up in that metaphor, so are other things. however, even in RGU and Penguindrum, sexual predation is used to allegorize other aspects of human behavior.

I've been thinking about this for a while, sparked by this passage from Enokido's privacy files:

We did not go into depicting what Touga’s parents obtained by going as far as selling their son. We would like you to think of it as a kind of metaphor. 

I'm not trying to deny that textually, Touga is sold into sexual slavery by his parents. it's worthwhile to depict such extreme examples of abuse, because they do happen. but why are they so common in fiction? there's the soap-opera instinct towards melodrama, but I think these things can strike a chord with a wide audience because of their metaphoric power. a son, exploited by his parents. humans can exploit each other in all kinds of ways, blatant and subtle.

in this way, Ikuhara works are more fairy tale than soap opera. fairy tales sublimate the darkness of childhood into narrative. returning to the matter of death, it may be employed in a soap opera manner--Himari's illness has shades of this--but generally, death is used to strike at the heart of the audience, in an existential rather than melodramatic way. the death of Utena's parents, first mentioned in the light-hearted opening narration, is reframed in episode 9 as a life-changing crisis. death may be metaphorical--social death, spiritual death--but it is also very real. perhaps the most central question of human existence is how we are to live in the face of death, and Ikuhara works are all the more powerful for facing that question head on.

[moirtre]

do the members have backstory’s ? if they do what are they ?

yes they do! here's a very very quick rundown, i'm not sure if i'll do a little drabble series on their family dynamics but here's their backstories so they're out there!

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             NAIRA LIESE CHRISTIANSEN.

naira is a norweigian singer and actress born to norweigian investment banker, jesper christiansen and his wife, former miss universe, dauenphen prempree on december 2, 1993. naira was raised alongside her older brother, lukas, between her parents' two native countries. though most of her schooling took place at the top private schools in oslo, naira has publicly acknowledged chiang mai, thailand as her true hometown.

hailing from a very well-off family, naira was forced to grow up quicker than most. notably, the others often voice their irritation with naira's composure as it is quite unclear what she thinks or feels at any given moment. this trait is attributed to her mother who suffered through years of racial abuse at the hands of the european media without the defense of her husband or his family.

naira's interest in music never truly took off until she was in high school. after coming across a video of apricus culture soloist allison nam in 2008, naira grew fond of the korean music industry, secretly convincing her older brother to take her to auditions while in chaing mai. after being accepted into several companies, naira decided to join gemini entertainment's trainee program in 2010, hoping later to be matched with apricus.

after training for three years, naira was the fifth member chosen for letalis' final lineup. despite being offered the leader position, naira turned it down claiming, "she wasn't ready to be tied to the group's reputation." currently, naira is a SUB VOCALIST and official VISUAL of the group, occasionally taking part in thai and norweigian-language melodramas and soap operas under her birth name.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             MELANIE BAE.

melanie is an australian singer-songwriter born in brisbane on june 12, 1994. her parents, jason and marissa, are working-class korean-australians who raised melanie and her older sister, madison, quite comfortably along the australian west coast. melanie is very close to her family who all frequently appear on her social media and are always acknowledged in her album dedications.

the two bae sisters found a love for performing quite early on with melanie following in her sister's footsteps participating in dance competitions across the country. though madison would give up dance to pursue a fashion design degree in europe after graduating from high school in 2008, melanie would continue to work towards what she planned to be a professional career in dance.

while at a mall with friends, melanie would be approached by an apricus culture talent scout who persuaded her to audition for the company in july of 2010. during her time as a trainee, melanie would be given several opportunities to stir up attention for the company's planned girl group. after being featured on a title track for soloist, lastdraw, in 2013, apricus would announce melanie as the central member of their upcoming girl group, letalis.

as the MAIN VOCALIST, LEAD DANCER, CENTER, and FACE of letalis, melanie is without a doubt the group's most popular member. finding success as a global ambassador for vivienne westwood in addition to popular appearances on korean variety shows and a stellar solo career, melanie is easily the modern face of apricus culture following allison nam's retirement in 2018.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             YANG YEEUN.

better known by her stage name, juniper, yang yeeun is a south korean singer born in suwon on december 11, 1994 to yang dae and eom youngmi. raised alongside her brothers, hyunwoo and sanghun, the three yang siblings were encouraged to engage in creative pursuits from a young age. their mother, youngmi, specifically made sure to throw her full support behind her childrens' dreams, regardless of the strain it would often place on the family's finances.

ultimately, those financial strains would eventually lead to an episode of psychosis in juniper's father who was institutionalized in 2007. being unable to work for an extended period of time forced the family to move in with juniper's grandparents who lived just outside of seoul that same year.

the move proved to be especially tough on juniper's younger brother, sanghun, who experienced extensive bullying at his new school. despite this, sanghun would go on to audition for gemini entertainment in 2007 before being matched to apricus culture. seeing sanghun's success as a trainee prompted juniper to try her luck and audition for the company in late 2008. during the audition however, juniper proved too shy to sing and was instead chosen to debut as a model under apricus in 2011.

while she earned money modeling to help support her family, juniper would continue to receive vocal and dance lessons. following sanghun's debut as a soloist under the stage name ophion in 2011, juniper would make her way through the trainee ranks to be the final member picked for letalis' final lineup. famously, juniper claims she was chosen to join letalis on the condition that she accept the role of leader.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             EMIYA UENO.

better known by her stage name, emmy, emiya ueno is a japanese singer born in okayama on may 25, 1995 to kisho ueno and himeko chiura. raised as an only child, the marital strife between kisho and himeko would eventually force the parents to send emmy off to a prep boarding school in bristol, england while they endured a toxic divorce in japan. kisho would later be granted custody of a six-year-old emmy in 2001 after himeko failed to appear in court and forfeited her maternal rights.

after kisho arrived in england, he would go on to raise emmy as a single parent while working as an archeologist. emmy had an extremely happy childhood, made possible by her incredibly supportive father who made it a point to encourage emmy to dream as big as possible. kisho would go on to marry emmy's stepfather, otis matthews, in 2015. together, kisho and otis would adopt emmy's stepsiblings, sasha and travis.

emmy quickly found comfort in the spotlight after being scouted by a talent agent who managed to secure emmy a role in several west end productions as an ensemble member during her teenage years. her big break finally arrived in 2011 after being invited to debut in a short-lived j-pop girl group, x-sys. the group was active for less than a year before their company would go bankrupt. after their contracts were bought out by apricus culture, emmy would be chosen as the second member to debut in letalis.

currently, emmy is the MAIN RAPPER, MAIN DANCER, and SUB VOCALIST of the girl group. in addition to her roles in the group, emmy is an acclaimed solo rapper in japan, occasionally taking on dramatic stage roles in both japan and england.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             SOHN NARYUN.

naryun is a south korean singer-songwriter and producer born in daegu on september 1, 1995 to famed prima ballerina min kyunghee and her husband, professional soccer player sohn namkyu. alongside her older sister, narim, and twin sister, narae, the sohn sisters were expected to follow in their mother's poised footsteps. being placed in prestigious ballet conservatories from young ages, the girls quickly proved themselves to be worthy of their mother's reputation.

despite their immense talent, naryun and narae were often subjected to demeaning comparisons where naryun was often left trailing behind her twin sister. early on, it became evident that despite naryun obvious greater affinity for the art, narae would be shown favoritism by the instructors at their conservatory and later at their company.

naryun's distaste for the favoritism shown for her sister over her and narae's general distaste for ballet in general led to a divide between the twins that would last until narae announced her decision to forefeit her position as principal dancer at the korean national ballet. following her twin sister's lead, naryun would give up her position as well in 2012 out of solidarity.

finding herself lost without direction, naryun was approached by apricus culture ceo at the time jeong karin in a bid to bring legitimacy to apricus' trainee program. naryun agreed to train, initially believing it to be a short break to allow her to gain perspective. she soon fell in love with the prospect of becoming an idol and was the third member to be announced for letalis' final lineup in 2013.

currently, naryun is the group's MAIN DANCER and LEAD VOCALIST. despite efforts to separate herself from her time as a principal dancer for the korean national ballet, naryun cannot escape the shadow of disappointment that industry snobs continue to cast upon her. regardless, she has found immense success as a producer and solo artist as well as the opening of her own pilates studio in collaboration with former apricus ceo, jeong karin in 2022.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             JADEN KIM.

better known by her stage name, jiseo, jaden kim is an american idol born in san diego on january 14, 1996 to siwoo kim and andrea jeong. raised as an only child, jiseo was notably incredibly shy growing up. her parents, worrying their daughter would be socially stunted by her bashfulness, would take initiative to enroll her in choir lessons hoping it would draw her out of her shell.

falling in love with being on stage, jiseo would go on to beg her parents for violin lessons, landing her a firm position on a children's orchestra by age 12. as she continued to grow out of her shell, jiseo would begin to seek the approval of older, more reckless upperclassmen. after being escorted home in a cop car after her 15th birthday, jiseo's parents decided to send her to live with her grandparents in gwangju for the summer.

while in gwangju, jiseo was exposed to k-pop by her cousins who found a way to persuade her to join them in auditioning for apricus culture in 2011. though her parents were unsure if they were ready to part with their only child, they would support the structure provided by the trainee atmosphere, hoping it would settle their daughter's learned tendencies. though it did nothing but increase her reckless decisions after finding a solid friend group through avos' ian, jiseo would be a successful trainee.

after being chosen to debut in letalis, jiseo would assume the LEAD RAPPER and SUB VOCALIST positions upon the group's debut in 2013. currently, jiseo also promotes as a solo artist under the stage name, oisa.

 ‎ ‎ ┉       *       ﹙ㅤʬ              ›             MIN HERI.

heri is a south korean singer, songwriter, and producer born in seoul, south korea on november 19, 1996 to choi haeun and min kyungjae. raised alongside her younger brother, junyoung, heri was always a positive, bright child.

often the smartest child in the room, heri's parents would eventually realize that her brilliant mind needed more stimulation than the books they stocked in her room. through the recommendation of a teacher, they would decide to enroll heri in acting and piano lesson, hoping she'd grow attached to one of the two to keep her busy.

landing lead roles in school plays soon proved to be too easy to 10-year-old heri who craved another challenge. after being encouraged by her drama teacher, heri found entertainment in poem writing, submitting her work to local contests anonymously. her writing soon caught the attention of hayden beom, a member of apricus culture boy group, nyx in 2009. the company later tracked down the young 13-year-old who was later invited to join the company as trainee in hopes of developing her as a singer-songwriter.

although heri was initially planned to debut as a soloist, the company decided to she would be better suited for a group environment, allowing her time to gain better confidence in the industry. as the sixth member chosen for letalis, heri is the group's LEAD VOCALIST and second VISUAL. though heri has decided to take a more understated role as a producer and songwriter under the name CARRÉ, she is the most credited member of the groups and has been acknowledged for her work outside of the group by the recording academy.

[thefloatingstone]

Between Shojo and Shonen anime/manga, which one would you say is more dependent lazy trope usage?

My kneejerk response is shounen without a fucking doubt because the mos popular shounen series all have almost the exact same story beats and even the main character usually follows the same broad personality type. Whereas in the 70s and 80s especially shoujo could be whatever it wanted, from space opera to psychological horror to Historical French melodrama.

However BECAUSE Shounen is the big money maker, a lot of manga which would have been under the "shoujo" umbrella a few decades ago are now inexplicably being published by Shounen magazines and are getting labelled as "shounen" as a result. (Angus Magus Bride is labelled a shounen for some fucked up reason that makes no sense to me).

Whereas Shoujo, because it doesn't make as much money as shounen, has been left to languish in recent times, and has boiled down to being nothing but "romance focused". Which is a fucking shame as the subgenre has really eroded away over the years.