#I listened to epic the musical “600 strike” while I was writing this if that tells you anything about where I'm going with this

[aro-in-danyl]

HP X HH AU - Alastor is Harry Potter and Voldemort is his Shadow

I've got a whole concept idea for how Alastor time-traveled to early 1910s New Orleans and how he trapped Tom Riddle as his shadow- but that's a separate post entirely. This is about what happens if they get de-aged in Hell following their retreat from Adam. Because I want to see the Hazbin crew's reaction to Harry and Tom.

----

When Adam slashed him with his guitar, it purified both Alastor and his shadow to an age when they were still innocent.

Alastor, Harry, to age 11 -- moments before he'd disintegrated Quirrell to death.

Voldemort, Tom, to age 10 -- days before he led his fellow orphans into a cave to torture them.

They awaken in a crumbling radio tower covered in blood and a broken radio staff clutched in Harry's hands.

Tom, being raised Catholic and carrying all the trauma that comes with being able to talk to snakes from a young age, is the most terrified.

Harry still hopped up on the adrenaline of facing his parent's murderer from what he believes is only minutes before, manages to hear the creaking of the radio tower and get them out before it fully collapses.

They wander Hell and quickly come across various demons, all of which have nefarious intentions. They try to escape but even with magic there's only so much 2 human children can do against demons until-

"HEY!" Something hits the back of a hellhound's head, knocking him out and giving Harry the chance to run to stand in front of Tom.

They both look warily at their savior: a tall heavy-set demon with imp-like horns and bat-wings. In his hand was the broken guitar he'd used to smash over the hellhound's head. He looked angry.

"BITCH! You owe me a new guitar!"

----

Adam sees these kids and assumes they're the reason he's in hell. That he has to save them and then he can return to heaven - how else would 2 human children who reminded him of his own just happen to wander into his path?

So he takes them in and re-learns what it means to be a father responsible and care have empathy for his descendants. He meets other sinners who are not the worst and it makes him feel guilty confused.

For 3 months, he tries to find a way to get these 2 children back to the human world. They're both so bright and kind but absolutely fucking traumatized. He's going to have to find them better parents when he takes them back because they were under no circumstances going back to whoever they were with before.

Everyday he's with them, the kids open up just a bit more. What does it say about their homelives that they feel more comfortable in Hell living with what they think is a demon? They have so much potential like Abel and capacity for goodness like Cain before he-.

He tries -oh god how he fucking tries- to get them out of this hell-hole, but eventually he has to man up and ask for help.

HA! Sike. No, he obviously was supposed to demand Lucifer send them back. After all, it must've been his fuck-up that got these kids stuck here so it was his responsibility to fix it. Not Adam's!

Yeah that sounded right.

He marches up to the Hazbin Hotel with the kids behind him he wasn't scared shut up and knocks on the door.

----

Lucifer contacts Ozzie to open a portal.

Problem #1 The moment Harry touches the tear in realities, he hits a brick-wall. Or at least what feels like one. The portal is nothing more than a 2-way mirror for him. He can see but not cross-over.

Problem #2 Lucifer takes a closer look and realizes that their souls are already marked for Hell. But they're full of holy energy even after 3 months.

Adam refuses to believe this and demands to talk with Heaven.

Problem #3 ...No one has heard from Heaven since the failed Extermination.

----

Adam stays at the Hotel since it's safer for the kids cheaper than renting his overpriced studio apartment that smells like piss and cheese. Niffty fucking hates him though, he hurt her favorite bad boy! He's not dead she would feel it but he's gone again because of him!

Over the next 3 months, the kids grow. Not normally though, every time they make even a minor sin, they age rapidly before Adam's eyes. Sometimes he swears their nails seem claw-like, their teeth sharper when they smile, and their eyes seem to glow when he's looking out of the corner of his eye.

They eventually get in contact with Emily who first informs them that Sir Pentious was redeemed. She then takes a look at the kids with Lucifer. They discover that the children had been de-aged to a period of innocence due to the holy-light that had flooded them.

Lucifer tells Adam it was likely his holy-light wave that sliced the hotel in half that did the deed. They must've gotten caught too close to the blast-radius.

They hypothesize from their rapid age growth and behavior, that sinning will eventually revert the children back to their original demon forms.

And Adam-

Adam, for once in his immortal life, refuses to give up on his children.

[littlelav107]

born to endlessly imagine every scenario relating to 600 strike forced to be updated on current events in order to write a good editorial 😔

@philosophicalpug thoughts on angst heaven in tags

@z1ish you said you liked the angst well guess what (tags)

@yumewayuki I managed to mix up x and y intercept but not this apparently

[liminalpsych]

So the EPIC: The Musical concept album is fully released and finished now. Ithaca Saga (the final saga) dropped on Christmas Day, and it's probably one of my favorites in the musical. Some of the most solid storytelling, and really consistently good music across the whole saga. I can't turn my writing brain off, though, and part of how I work on my own writing is dissecting what makes something work for me in media, and what doesn't work for me. So I figured I'd share instead of keeping it all bottled up. ;>

The Challenge: Beautiful, perfect, no notes. Anna Lea's vocals - incredible. "Though I never thought that these would be the lengths we'd go for love" hits so hard every time I hear it.

The only part that listeners seem to get confused on is "But I don't know how much longer I'll last since I saw that storm / And though it was so close to our kingdom, it was far from the norm / unless / Oh, could it be some kind of sign / that my world is all about to change" - many of the reactors I've seen spend a long while going "does she mean the storm from the Ocean Saga or the storm from 600 Strike? Does she think Odysseus is definitely dead or does she think he's maybe coming back soon?" - whereas I thought it was obvious that Penelope was talking about the 600 Strike storm, was hopeful that it was a sign that Odysseus was returning, and was buying him time to get back. Probably the right staging/animation/choreography would fix this confusion just fine.

Hold Them Down: Everything I hoped it would be and more (but that animatic by mircsy??? holy crap I did not expect that. incredible yet horrifying, as perhaps I should expect by now from mircsy). Appalling yet catchy villain song. Ayron Alexander's vocals are unfairly good. (I wasn't taken by surprise at the lyrics, I'd thoroughly spoiled myself with the demos.) Also that faltering cello at the beginning that seems to symbolize the failure to string the bow??? Brilliant. Jay's at his best when he's doing compositional/musical/instrumental storytelling, imho.

The brief, swift exposition of "don't you know the prince is not around / I heard he's on a diplomatic mission / and I heard today he comes back to town" works really well, I think, even if you don't know the Odyssey. Gives us a reference point in time, context, events. We don't have to linger on what he was doing, why, how long, etc; we don't have to follow the diplomatic mission; we just need to know he was gone and now he's coming back into town.

Lines that go unfairly hard: "break his pride, his trust, his faith, and his bones", "When the crown wonders where the prince is / Only the ocean and I will know", .....the entire sexual assault "hold them down" section but I'm not gonna quote it because holy crap it was also incredibly icky (but that's why it goes so hard, it was so effective at doing exactly that, while staying in the realm of allusions/imagery instead of explicitly stating it).

(I have been exercising such self-restraint at not engaging with people who are trying to use the Antinous depiction as fuel for Calypso discourse. So much self-restraint. I might have to rant about it on tumblr to avoid responding to people on other social media platforms. Engaging will not be productive and I need to continue to exercise this self restraint. aaa)

Odysseus was a wild ride, though probably the song most in need of revisions. So many callbacks that worked so well! The "O-DY-SSE-US" in the background mirroring PO LY PHE MUS? The lower register that I didn't realize Jay could even reach? Athena hints? Telemachus?? Scylla torches reference??? So good.

This song has some of the strongest and weakest lines in the whole saga. It could be easily solved by just scrapping the whole discussion of the weapons room door being unlocked. It's just confusing, everyone gets confused by it, it's unnecessary complication, I don't know why it needs to be emphasized so much. They find the weapons in the room where Odysseus hid them, no one comments on doors being locked or not because it's not important, Telemachus still shows up, fight ensues, song is now no longer 5 and a half minutes long, everything is improved.

Seriously. this line and its meter/scanning is just. bad. talky in a bad way. "I find it hard to believe that the sharpest of kings / Left his armory unlocked / So what?" ... Actually, you know what? They could even keep "Brothers, we've got company and he's made a grave mistake / Left the weapons room unlocked, and now they're ours to take" - like, I think that'll cover the whole "Telemachus unlocked the weapons room, not Odysseus" just fine. Mentioning it earlier, and mentioning Odysseus being sharp, just leads listeners to think it's a trap by Odysseus, and then because of that mental priming, it's really hard to pick up that the later line indicates that Telemachus left the door unlocked. (I didn't catch it until someone pointed it out, and then it seemed obvious afterwards.)

Strong lines: "I come back and find my palace desecrated, sacked like Troy", "In the heat of battle at the edge of the unknown", and ESPECIALLY "My mercy has long since drowned / It died to bring me home" like WHAT. what. that's so good. ("And as long as you're around / My family's fate is left unknown" is a little weaker, feels a little clunky, but I wouldn't know how to fix that one.)

I Can't Help But Wonder felt eerily like Dear Theodosia from Hamilton, though it was still very good in its own right. (Seriously though. Try singing "Dear Theodosia" while playing "I Can't Help But Wonder" - so many parallels and they overlap amusingly well.) Athena showing up was delightful. Loved the poignancy and bittersweetness. And was it just me, or did Athena's quickthought and piano sound almost... wounded? Limping, faltering? Heartbreaking. Again, Jorge's instrumental storytelling is so good.

Something about Odysseus's response to Athena bugs me. It's the delivery, maybe. I really like the approach of "Odysseus doesn't get to see a world where we don't have to live this way, he can't imagine it for himself, he's been through too much" and the long pause between Athena's verse and his response with the slow ticking. I looove that. I guess maybe I want the ache of it to be more emphasized on Odysseus's part. I think it really would just take a slight delivery difference to make it hit for me, which is a singing choice. Or an adjustment to that last pair of lines ("But I've got one endeavor / There's a girl I have to see") which just feels... not quite where it could be, I guess. (The A/B/A/B rhyme scheme with short lines sometimes feels amateurish and clunky to my ear, I think, especially if the phrasing feels a bit forced to make a rhyme.)

Could You Fall In Love With Me Again: Wonderful except for one clunky section, and I have a probably-controversial quibble with the end. Also, Gigi animatic in full color????? omg. So poetic to end with a Gigi animatic. I didn't recognize the style at first until Odysseus came on screen, because of the fully colored linework wtf. It was beautiful. And that swelling "Just A Man" instrumental reprise of specifically the section talking about the desire to go home?? aaaaa so good. I sing the lyrics every time even though it's an instrumental, I can't help myself: "I'm just a man / Who's trying to go home / Even after all the years away from what I've known / I'm just a man / Who's fighting for his life / Deep down I would trade the world to see my son and wife / I'm just a man".

The wedding bed / olive tree section... I was super excited when I heard the first line ("See that wedding bed"). I had thought for a bit there that we weren't going to get the olive tree reference, and I love that part of the original Odyssey. How outraged Odysseus is in the poem when Penelope asks him to move the bed. >D And he was just as outraged in the song! It was great - but the lyrics were... mm. It felt clunky. The line "How could you say this" could be cut entirely, the sentiment is shown just fine in the rest of the stanza and feels kind of forced/doesn't quite scan, he could just start with "I had built that wedding bed with my blood and sweat" - the rest of Odysseus' verse there is fine though.

Then Penelope's response of "Only my husband knew that / So I guess that makes him you" .... "so I guess"? really? ......it bothers me every time. EVERY TIME. It feels out of place, overly modern even for the modernization of EPIC, and it also weakens Penelope's (beautifully) impassioned response. Same vibe as "Dumbledore said calmly," you know? She's not guessing. She knows. "Only my husband knew that / Now I know that makes him you" maybe (I'm spitballing here, there's got to be something better. let Teagan at it, she's a stellar lyricist). Or, if the point is to prove to Odysseus that he's the same man, that he's not a monster / not an entirely different person than the man she fell in love with, then "Only my husband knew that / Don't you see that makes him you" could work to emphasize that point. But "I guess" does noooothing but undermine the tone.

This is probably just me (well, and a couple other people I listened to the musical with): I really. Really. Really feel like this song could have ended with "waiting, waiting... for you" + swell of Just A Man instrumental reprise. That felt like the end. It was a really good, solid end. I don't like the "how long has it been / 20 years / I love you" - we have reiterated that it's been 20 years so many times in this saga alone, they obviously love each other, that was shown beautifully in the entire "Would You Fall In Love With Me Again" song prior to this, they even said it - "I would fall in love with you over and over again" ... the afterword is extraneous and imho weakens the power of the ending. It feels like an afterthought. It feels tacked on and it feels inauthentically saccharine. Buuuuut in every reaction video I've seen, people seem to get extra emotional at it and seem to love it, so maybe I just have too little romance in me. ;)

...I actually do love this song, I think it's very strong, but that's why the above things stand out so much, because the rest of the song is so strong that they're jarring in contrast. Lines I think are incredible: "your smile torn", "left a trail of red on every island / as I traded friends like objects I could use", and of course "would you fall in love with me again, if you knew all I've done".

But overall, it was very satisfying, and I can't wait to see what the final version looks like after theater workshops and/or animation studio workshopping or... whatever form the final productions take.

...I should probably make multiple posts so I don't turn this into an even longer essay. Let's keep this one focused on Ithaca Saga and I'll post thoughts on the entire musical separately. (I might make one of these for each saga. We'll see how long the hyperfixation lasts.)

[its-your-girl-geekerella]

EPIC: The Vengeance Saga

I've procrastinated on this post for as long as I possibly could, but I'm here now! Let's get into it:

Not Sorry For Loving You. I love this song and I love Calypso, and you can't change my mind. I will not apologize. I'm not entirely sure why everyone hates her, but she is my smol child. The animatic cracked me up though, because while Calypso is sobbing and singing, Odysseus is hopping on his boat and sailing away like, "I'm just gonna go... yeah. Bye." It made him seem like a jerk, but it was also kinda funny.

Dangerous. It was a genuinely great song. The "Full Speed Ahead" callback showcasing Odysseus's loneliness was great, Hermes was great, the Winions were great. Everything was just great. There is literally nothing I could say about this song you haven't heard.

Charybdis. Honestly? This is the one song from EPIC that I would call truly "mid". Don't get me wrong, all of Jorge's work is epic (haha I'm so funny), but this one was slightly... less epic. Also, I'm more of a dialogue and emotions person, not really an action-enjoying one, so that may have contributed. I will say, however, that Odysseus's "NOOOO" was incredible and deeply relatable.

Get in the Water. Yes. Yes. And yes again. I had waited for this one for so long, and it did not disappoint. The dialogue between Poseidon and Ody? Chef's kiss. Immaculate writing, Jay. Poseidon's "I can't" really made it seem like he wasn't really that angry anymore, like this was something he put on his "to-do" list a few years back, and had to check off. But when Odysseus told him that he should "learn to forgive", implying that a mere MORTAL knew something more than a GOD, he got peeved. The character depth we see in this song is great, especially in comparison to the next song. Part of me does hope that aside from the finale, this is the last "dead people sing to Odysseus" we see for the rest of the show.

600 Strike. I know I said that I'm not super into action scenes, but this song SLAPS. HARD. The singing is so good, and the music really encapsulates the title of the show. When Ody says, "you're going to call of that storm", I got freaking SCARED. That last 1:40 of the song is my favorite part. The vocals are legit my favorite. And "next to my wife"????? WHO APPROVED THIS???? Jorge??? Are you OK???? Am I OK??? After listening to this last song, I literally went into an early-life crisis. I didn't talk to anyone, I ate some ice cream, and silently pondered to myself, "what just happened?" over and over again. I was fine two hours later, though😀

This Saga was everything I hoped it would be, and it was written really well. (Why am I surprised?) My two favorite songs were "Not Sorry For Loving You" and "600 Strike!"

My biggest "thing" with EPIC is that I want it to become a staged musical. I know that Jay at some point said that it may not work out like that, but then a few moths later he said that it could work, so I'm holding on to hope. After all, if EPIC never becomes a staged production, how are countless people supposed to play these characters we know and love? Don't be stingy, Mr. Jalapeno. /j

My largest concern with this Saga is that it would be the hardest to stage, especially with songs like "Charybdis" and "600 Strike". For example, the part where Poseidon drowns Odysseus. How to show Odysseus being drowned and the wind bag floating just above him and the dead people helping him WHILE still showing Poseidon above the water? I have some concepts, but it would still be really hard. Any ideas are welcome!