#THE MOUSE OF THE OPERA

[ineffablekink]

Phandom alert! 🚨

A brand new comic version of The Phantom of The Opera will be published in Italian Disney comic magazine Topolino from January 1st! It’s a weekly magazine so the story will stretch over a few weeks.

My daughter is obsessed with both Disney and Phantom so she is deliriously happy at the moment. I will keep you updated once the story gets published.

Now let’s bet - will it be mouse-centric or duck-centric? I’m a big Ducktales fan so I hope for the latter 👀

[princess-ibri]

What if Disney have phantom of the opera,the werewolf,literature of pride and prejudice,

So Disney does/did have a couple of Phantoms already!

The most famous one currently is the vile ghost of Henry Ravenswood, the eponymous phantom of Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris.

His wiki reads as such: Henry Ravenswood was a transatlantic American man born in 1795. In 1849 Henry established the Big Thunder Mining Company and the town of Thunder Mesa near Big Thunder Mountain after finding gold there and stealing the land from the Shoshone indigenous peoples.

He moved into a grand manor on the highest hill overlooking the town alongside his wife, Martha, and his daughter, Mélanie, whom he was overly protective of. Henry was an obsessive and disciplinarian who believed no man was ever good enough for his Mélanie, and any would-be suitor who believed otherwise perished at his hands

When Ravenswood passed, he was reborn as the malevolent Phantom - a deranged skeletal figure who haunted his old manor.

The day of Mélanie’s wedding, he lured her groom into the attic and violently hung him from the rafters. When Mélanie refused to believe her groom would abandon her so she stayed behind the mansion, waiting for him to return. The Phantom tormented her till the end her days, mocking her for her devotion. After Mélanie's own demise, he continued to torment her and the manor became home to many infernal spirits summoned by their resident clairvoyant.

A thoroughly rotten figure as you can see.

Beyond him though, Disney once had a walk about character in the parks based on the Lon Chaney version of the character

The musical was honored in the French pavilion at Epcot in 2020

And there’s a “roastie-toastie” popcorn machine by the Haunted Mansion that features him as well x)

As for werewolves, the painting called “The Arsonist” in the Haunted Mansion was originally meant to shift and reveal him as a werewolf, so there’s definitely an interesting story going on there!

And finally, per Pride and Prejudice, turns out there’s a children’s picture book of Mickey Mouse and Friends of just that xD

[mouserik]

He's here! The Phantom of the Operaaa

Enjoy his set-up for now, it will be updated eventually :]

[a-wins-a-win]

thinking about “never spoken always heard” as a direct parallel to See Me —

Peter literally never gets to speak it but he knows, and Claire knows, that she’s hearing it anyway. Which is why her deflection hurts so much I think, because she is, however unintentionally, reinforcing this idea that Peter isn’t allowed to come out on his own terms & that his sexuality reflects badly onto those around him.*

*specifically Claire & Jason, arguments to be made for Matt if we do a more intense breakdown of Matt’s immediate disappearance in Are You There?

[hydropyro]

Past the point of no return

[grinchwrapsupreme]

book runs based on tv shows are usually mediocre at best, like star trek, torchwood, doctor who, etc etc, but i would give anything to get a book run of the BBC Ghosts hotel i need to know what shenanigans those guys get up to in there

[mewzie1999]

some blinkies of different song lyrics! how we kill stars by shaka ponk, true trans soul rebel by against me!, history sticks to your feet by modest mouse, die tonight live forever by innerpartysystem, sorceress girl (cover) by pk1, and zydrate anatomy from repo! the genetic opera

[frevandrest]

Blérancourt drama: Thérèse Gellé's mother attacks National Guard and tells them to fuck off

I was going through Monar and I found about an incident from 1790 Blérancourt, involving SJ's arch-enemy (from the village), Gellé. Or, more precisely, his wife, Thérèse's mother. It's a small thing but it's sending me so much. Background: Gellé doesn't want to serve in the National Guard because he is a royalist. So a delegation is sent (possibly/probably) by Saint-Just himself to check why he is neglecting his duties.

Monar writes (Google translated; emphasis mine):

At nine o'clock, under the command of Captain Clay-Lefebvre, four men of the National Guard, a cook, a carpenter, a white tanner, and a day laborer, presented themselves with the letter before the Gellé's house. If the social status of the delegation, which was unquestionably quite low in the eyes of a wealthy Notabein, was intended as a provocation, it achieved its goal: Mrs. Gellé stepped out and immediately indulged in such indelicate words against the guardsmen that the expressions in question were only indicated by the first letter in each case in the protocol that was later drawn up. She [...] continued to shout at the National Guardsmen: que son mari la [la garde] monterait pas, n'étant pas fait pour se trouver avec des bandes de canailles, de coquins et de geux comme eux et ceux qui composaient leur f... milice. [her husband won't stand guard, as he was not the kind to find himself among groups of scoundrels, rascals and bandits like them and those who make up their f...(probably "foutu" so "fucking") militia] - translation by @robespapier Having already thrown ashes at the speechless, she finally picked up a stick to strike a blow at the captain, who flinched and drew his rapier.

It ended up with Gellé and his brother appearing and the delegation went back. But! A detailed report was made about the incident by SJ's best friend Victor Thuiller. Which was later used as a proof of Gellé's anti-revolutionary behaviour.

This hilarious (?) anecdote is just one of the many (many many) instances of Blérancourt bickering and drama early in the Revolution. There were a lot of tensions, often at the Gellé vs SJ front (well, royalist vs revolutionary front), and it's so, so interesting to me. I need to make a list of all the incidents and research them in more depth.

But seriously? SJ had a LOT of practice with political bickering before he got to the Convention. But also, since this is a village of 2.5 600 people, it also reads like a total soap opera.

[snoopierdass]

[lilgrimmapple]

A commission for PureAngelDragon713

~***~

Emily © PureAngelDragon713

Basil © Disney

Art © Lilgrimmapple

[sinful-delight-77]

LMAO HERE’S ALL MY FICTIONAL CRUSHES (in no particular order):

Reiji Sakamaki

Shu Sakamaki

Subaru Sakamaki

Yuma Mukami

Yui Komori

Mitsuri Kanroji

Tengen Uzui

Obanai Iguro

Muzan Kibutsuji

Howl Pendragon

Jareth

Negaduck/Jim starling

Draculaura

Kieran Valentine

Zuko

Erik Destler

Montgomery Gator

William Afton

Sylus

Zayne

Bloody Painter

Mr Crawling

Mr Silvair

Striker

Cardan Greenbriar

Jude Duarte

Hua Cheng

Xie Lian

He Xuan

Shen Qingqiu

Luo Binghe

Zade Meadows

Adeline Riley

Jacks

Kenji Kishimoto

[tinyirnfistforever]

It's a public domain cartoon set to a soundbyte from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

[random-meme-bot]

Fun fact, the opera from Mickey, Donald, and Goofy: The Three Musketeers is based on the real opera "The Pirates of Penzance" who premiered the 31 of December of 1897, this does not only mean that the opera in the movie is an anachronism, it also means that.

THE OPERA IS TOMORROW NIGHT!!!

Also yes, every single part from that text is based on real facts.

[a-wins-a-win]

wanna talk about sex (but we're not allowed)

potentially controversial b;apo take, but hey, why not -- there are many more things i would've liked to say, but they didn't really fit neatly into the main thesis i was working under ;

the merit of considering Jason and Ivy's sex during 'One' as a depiction of assault, drawing parallels to Spring Awakening

To preface; I acknowledge that I am not using 1:1 examples. Since both b;apo and Spring Awakening are stage shows, there is so much of the atmosphere that is created through lighting and blocking and the subtleties in the way that each of the characters are played against one another, there’s no way to make a definitive blanket statement. That said, I was personally inspired by the production of b;apo I got the absolute pleasure of seeing live last year. Not only did we have the Ivy ever, but the team made an, in my opinion, super brilliant choice when it came to 'One'. They cut the “it was cute” line from Jason when Ivy’s apologising, and they really played up a visceral discomfort and overwhelm, culminating in Jason pacing up and down beside the bed while Ivy tells him he is “all [she] need[s]”, and it’s at that point that he concedes before focus shifts across to Peter trying to call his mother on the phone.     

Right off the bat, I think we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the gender dynamics at play when drawing these parallels, especially when gender as a concept intersects so much with the way sexuality is understood and explored by the characters in both b;apo & Spring Awakening. In particular I want to touch on the fact that - at least to my perception - Jason’s fully realised masculinity functions almost as a barrier to his emotions within the context of the story overall, but also when it comes to the meta context of his decision to have sex with Ivy. Because Jason is presented as this sporty, conventionally hot, outgoing guy who is popular with women, and because he is the one who is delivering most of these innuendos during 'You & I', I think there is a subconscious bias towards seeing him as someone who wouldn’t have sex with anyone he didn’t want to. And while generally a fair assessment, I think this subconscious bias is what leads people to unfairly assign amounts of blame when it comes to an analysis of his and Ivy’s relationship. Of course, 'One' and 'I Believe' don’t serve as exactly 1:1 examples even without the gender factors, given the time periods in which both shows were written and set, but I think both explore the idea of a grey area when it comes to sex as the crux of complicated relationships, both shows have running themes of dubious consent and religion, and most obviously both instances result in a pregnancy. 

Where it gets interesting to me is where the lines start to blur — yes, Wendla “let [Melchior] love [her]”, and Jason made Ivy “make [him] promise […] ‘I love you’” — but the contexts of both shows paint Wendla and Jason as confused and uncertain. Both Melchior and Ivy know, or believe they know, within themselves that both parties want to have sex. And while they may be correct on the subconscious level, this belief and expectation that they are holding dismisses the material reality of the situations. It’s not that Wendla wants to have sex with Melchior, it’s that she wants to know about sex, wants to understand why she has this physical attraction to him, not necessarily act upon it. It’s not that Jason wants to have sex with Ivy - it’s that he wants to want to and doesn’t have the safety to express that in any other way than simply going through with it. Where this is often acknowledged in the Spring Awakening context, I find that analysis of Jason and Ivy’s interactions in One don’t dig quite so deep. 

Which is not to say that Ivy or Melchior are terrible people - it is more so to say that they are both characters who struggle with appropriately communicating, and understanding other people’s communications, about sex and sexuality. Where Ivy likens pursuing Jason to “such a game of hide-and-seek”, Jason only ever takes their sex as something deep and important. Where Melchior has been “playing with [Wendla] in [his] fantasies”, Wendla “only wanted to be close to him”. Despite Ivy and Melchior’s knowledge on and experience of the subject, it manifests more so an intellectualisation of the act of sex itself, as opposed to a genuine understanding of the ramifications on a personal level - especially for people like Jason and Wendla who don’t have the same experiences or beliefs as they do.

Melchior knows that the way the adults in their lives address sex and sexuality - or don’t address it, as the case may be - isn’t productive, and because of this perceives himself as the ultimate authority on the subject. I think that this belief is what leads to the implicit forcefulness of his interaction with Wendla in the hayloft. He knows what’s happening, and because he is armed with a preconceived idea of what Wendla must be feeling, “defending [herself], until finally [she] surrender[s] and feel[s] heaven break over [her]”, he isn’t receptive to her hesitation. Rather, he interprets it as a necessary part of the experience. He knows that Wendla wants it to happen - but he also knows that she doesn’t comprehend that it means sex yet. And because they are both so present in the moment, “hearing [each other’s] heart beat”, Melchior falls back on his belief that the truest understanding of sex and that kind of physical pleasure can only come through lived experience - such as when he all but teaches Moritz about how to masturbate during 'Touch Me'. Even when productions of Spring Awakening do revise the dialogue to include a verbal ‘yes’ from Wendla, the presentation is still that of an assault, intense and hazy hounding and coercion.   

Ivy knows why boys are nice to her - “I know them, and what they’re after” - and when she stacks this belief up against the fact that Jason is nice to her despite his loyalty to and care for Nadia, it makes sense that she would assume that he wants to have sex with her, it makes sense that she wouldn’t put any thought into the subtleties of Jason’s responses to her or the hesitation in his questions about her “want[ing him] to kiss [her]”. What’s very interesting to look at in regards to Ivy and her character is this dichotomy she has in her head. She knows that “[...] boys will be boys [...]”, and on some level has the same expectations for Jason, teasing him about “see[ing] what [he’s] staring at” on her birthday. Even so, she believes that it’s different, because she loves him in a way that “[she’s] never felt [...] before”, she has the notion in her head that Jason “want[s her] just like [she] want[s him]”, because he kissed her on her birthday when she asked. I would argue that it is because of her conviction in her belief that Jason does want her that she does put such a pressure on him in the moment of 'One' - “If you like me, kiss me, don’t stop”. 

It is also important to acknowledge Ivy as a victim - while no abuse is heavily implied or stated outright in b;apo, there is an understanding that Ivy is a girl who has been sexualised for a long time, and that is of course going to skew her view of and relationship with sex as an activity and the role that she is expected to play within that. I don’t mean to detract from that fact at all by drawing out comparisons to her and Melchior, and acknowledging Jason’s own victim status as it parallels Wendla’s.   

There is also something to be said for how both Wendla and Jason’s loss or lack of functional autonomy contributes to their deaths. Both of them are characters burdened by conflicting expectations - Wendla is expected by her mother to still be young and naive, while simultaneously expected to know better, and Jason is expected by his father to “keep the McConnell flame burning”, an expectation competing with the one held by Peter that he cannot stay closeted forever. However, Wendla’s mothers expectations of her don’t conflict directly with Melchior’s expectations of her in the way that Mr McConnell’s conflict with Peter’s - in a way, Mrs Bergmann’s expectation that Wendla is still young enough to follow blindly what she’s been told is the expectation that leads to the pregnancy in the first place. Melchior is explicitly more knowledgeable about the mechanics of what they are doing in the hayloft, and as such holds a power over Wendla by being able to lean into those expectations that if another person knows more they ought to be listened to. Similarly, it is Ivy’s assumption or expectation being that Jason does truly want to have sex with her that snowballs into the conflicts as presented in Promise, and ultimately b;apo’s “story ends in total damage” at least in part as a result of these expectations being enforced.  

To summarise, I believe that because Ivy and Melchior are so sure of their own wanting, their own  understanding, and their own emotions, they end up projecting that onto Jason and Wendla respectively, turning them into vessels for sexual gratification and somewhat diminishing their personhood in the moment. 

There are of course many other parallels that could be drawn, many other configurations of characters to compare and contrast in regards to b;apo and Spring Awakening, and even on this topic specifically I think there is a lot of room for different takes and interpretations - I simply wanted to throw my hat in the ring, so to speak, when it comes to breaking down and analyzing Jason and Ivy’s relationship.

[dimsunstuff]

Cunning little Fox

Close-ups:

The Cunning Little Vixen was my childhood and when I found this rendition by the Finnish National Opera I absolutely had to draw Fox in that costume, and then of course Misha had to be there as well.

These are the costumes I used for inspiration, designed by Klaus Haapaniemi.

[ocs: Misha and Fox, Wayward Heirs]

[animatejournal]

Mighty Mouse: A Soapy Opera Director: Connie Rasinski Studio: Terrytoons | USA, 1952