#also his death is TRAGIC

[toa-character-tournament]

ROUND ONE BRACKET A

[coddda]

Everyone knows that Light and L matched each other's freak but I think their dynamic in the musical (the Japanese ver specifically) is underrated. Like it's not super different from canon but they just had this extra edge of Violence that we never quite saw from the more methodical and careful mindgames in canon death note and I think it's great. Like, yes, they did declare in canon that they will bring each other to justice, yes L says he wants to send Kira to his execution, but in the lyrics of the musical they both outright say multiple times that they just want to straight up Kill each other. It's direct the whole way through. There's more mutual contempt. This game is about nothing more than simply being the first one to Kill the Other (they actually use the word "殺し合い" (koroshiau) or "to kill each other" to describe their game (translated as "murderous ... game")).

(Sidenote but all those references about wanting to send each other to Hell?? Beautiful)

Yeah this is a battle of justice and ideals, yes that clash is a key part of their final confrontation at the end of the musical, but throughout their duets (or even songs like The Game Begins where they're singing by themselves) there's this near singleminded desire to just fucking End each other. It's fucking Raw and it's great.

Also THIS FUCKING SCENE?? THIS SCENE FROM SECRETS AND LIES. Iconic. Actually Insane. My jaw dropped. Light looks like a crazy bitch it's beautiful.

Um. Also. Obligatory Playing His Game (yknow the gay sex song) lines dump. It basically says everything I just said above in like 9 lines. You see what I mean right.

In canon they're playing a game of mental chess, trying to use everyone around them to finally catch the other as their end goal, but in the musical you really do feel like all they see is each other. They would probably beat each other to death with their fists if it came down to that. Idk they're just so excited and fired up about their little game in the musical and it's so unhinged and fun and special and I love it. It's like the writers for the musical decided to kick their murderous intent up a couple notches and the result is absolutely Beautiful.

I also think that the intensity of their rivalry in the beginning just makes the wind-down of The Way It Ends soo much better. It's such a good contrast to their previous duets where they try to sing over each other (Secrets and Lies & Stalemate) or with each other but basically at the top of their lungs (Playing His Game). It feels like there's both a quiet mutual understanding but also an underlying disappointment that the game is finally over. In canon, L's death Is instead the peak of their game, the moment he gets confirmation that Light is Kira is the exact same moment that he dies. In the jdrama it's almost sudden, how L dies, after the quiet moment has already passed. But in the musical L's death, ironically, Is the one quieter moment in their game. Their peak was the game itself. It was Secrets and Lies and Playing His Game. But the end of the game in the musical is not a victory, it's just (as L says) the end of everything they'd been wanting up until this point.

Uh. Fuck it. Clip from the Kenji Urai version because I just love his delivery here. His tone just goes so well with the silence and the sound of the clock ticking. You see what I mean right.

Their rivalry in the musical may have been more shortlived but like Damn they were really enjoying every second of it. They were truly insane about each other until the very end. (Like despite everything I just said about the ending it was still unhinged as fuck. Light Making L Shoot Him and then Making L Shoot Himself with L's Own Hand?? Holy shit man. What the fuck /pos)

Musical Light and L your game might've been shorter but you'll always be famous <33 Please never inflict what you had on anyone else ever please stay in hell forever thank you

[mochii-derogatory]

ive been watching the dog motif show... why is no one talking about this guy. isaac lahey come home from france,,,, sweet boy,,,, we miss you,,,

[syn0vial]

boba fett's childhood is such an untapped goldmine of uncanny existential horror, even before he loses his father.

like, imagine growing up never seeing another child except those that are identical to you—carbon copies in every way, except their heads are shaved, they're plugged into machines all day, and they never stay children for very long. the ones that survive turn into men who look like your father, but your father calls them cattle, cannon fodder.

you're a clone, too. you should be cattle like them, but your father doesn't call you those things. he says you're his real son and that he loves you.

your father loves you. this is what distinguishes you from the cattle and the canon fodder. your father loves you and that's what makes you a person.

and :) then :) he :) fucking :) dies :)

[earlgodwin]

"There is that final embrace that I think helps with letting his brother go in a way. Juan has been the one who drove Cesare to become what he is now, and I think Cesare is building walls around his heart. You do get colder and less sentimental when you take that path. He has to go on and he can't mourn him forever, especially since he's responsible for his death. He's not making excuses for what he is anymore, and what he wants to be. He ultimately feels that it's the right thing for himself. It's something that he focused on and I think he can control his mind into having no second thoughts. And that's the only way you can rule in that era, really." — FRANÇOIS ARNAUD

[gingermintpepper]

One of my biggest pet peeves is the assumption that something has to be sad for it to be tragic.

I've always been a big believer of the 'Apollo has an awful love life'/'Apollo is plain unlucky with love' line of thinking but it does bother me that the general reasoning for that statement is given to the concept of 'Apollo is somehow undesireable and thus rejected' (Cassandra/Daphne/Marpessa) or 'his lovers die young and thus their love is unfulfilled' (Cyparissus/Hyacinthus/Coronis). I personally think that's a very unfortunate way of looking at things - not only because it neglects the many perfectly cordial entanglements and affairs Apollo has had, both mortal and divine - but because it presents a very shallow interpretation of the concepts of love and loss and how loss affects people.

Apollo can still grieve lovers that have a long, healthy life. The inherent tragedy of an immortal who knows his lovers and children will die and cannot stop it does not stop being tragic simply because those lovers and children live long, fulfilled lives. The inherent tragedy of loss does not stop being tragic simply because someone knows better than to mourn something that was always going to end.

What is tragic is not that Apollo loves and loses but that loss itself follows him. Apollo does not love with the distance of an immortal, he does not have affairs and then leaves never to listen to their prayers again. He does not have offspring and then abandon them to their trials only to appear when it is time to lead them to their destinies. He raises his young, he protects the mothers of his children, he blesses the households that have his favour and multiplies their flocks that they may never go hungry. He educates his sons, he adorns his daughters and even in wrath he is quick to come to his senses and regret the punishments he doles out.

Apollo loves. And like mortals, there will always be some part of him that wishes to protect the objects of his affections. Apollo, however, is also an emissary of Fate. He knows that the fate of all mortal things is death. He knows that to love a mortal is to accept that eventually he will have to bury them. There is no illusion of forever, there is no fantasy where he fights against the nature of living things and shields his beloveds from death. Apollo loves and because of that love, he also accepts.

And that, while beautiful, is also tragic.

[danielsarmand]

do you think armand ever regrets it? not stepping out into the sun while he still could, i mean. when he dragged louis back inside and he was kicking and screaming and he wanted to leave... he thought he did it out of love, out of pity, out of mercy even, like the angel they used to paint him out to be would have. or maybe, surely, he didn't think that. maybe he just tried really hard to. but it was envy, wasn't it, that louis could still choose to get out of their shared hellscape and he couldn't. envy not of louis, specifically, but of all the young ones. of course he couldn't risk making fledglings—that would only mean subjecting himself to eventually look on as they left the curse he's stuck with. when making daniel he must have felt nothing but paralysing fear and existential dread. one thing is eventually losing the person you love to age and illness, one is giving them the power to end it all and leave him behind by choice. armand wouldn't make fledglings for a variety of reasons, but his crippling fear of abandonment has to take spot number one.

[bloomeng]

a lot of people are saying edward but i really hope it isn’t. i love edizzy of course but can we allow this man to have his own life outside of ed for one second. it’s what he deserves.

personally i like the idea of it being his mother.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

IM SO IN LOVE WITH VAMPIRES!! and boy do i love THE SUCKENING!! VERY excited to see the misadventures of sad wet cat, sharp angry cat, and the COOLEST cat i ever did see

[youngpettyqueen]

I need to talk about Julian's whole thing with Sloan in Extreme Measures cause it does actually make me feel a certain kind of rabid

Extreme Measures is a great episode for the Julian/Miles dynamic and has a lot of great moments with them but I think an underrated element of the episode is how it very plainly shows just how much the Dominion War has changed Julian, and how his morals have shifted into a much greyer area

Julian in this episode is very callous towards Sloan even as he's literally dying. he has no issues violating Sloan's mind, and when Sloan dies, the only reason he actually cares is because the answers and secrets Sloan has will die with him. truly cannot emphasize enough just how deeply Julian fucking hates Sloan, and sheer hatred isnt something we really see all that much from Julian, especially not to the degree he was with Sloan

even with that, though, Julian has never been like that with another patient. Julian doesnt let his personal feelings get in the way of being a doctor, and always treats his patients with the utmost care and his best work. Julian was willing to find a cure for the Jem'Hadar's addiction, simply because they asked for help, even if it meant potentially making them into a much bigger threat than they already were. Julian treated Tain in Camp 371. and, sure, Julian does treat Sloan, but he does so explicitly because Sloan has information they need, not because he has any care for Sloan's life

and I think that- his willingness to violate Sloan's mind to get what they need, and how he didn't particularly care that Sloan died- is a really bleak look at just how much the war has changed Julian and how much it's shifted his moral compass. throughout the war, Julian has been ordered time and time again to compromise his morals. add to that several traumatic events- multiple of which are orchestrated by Sloan- and a slide into deep depression, and it's no wonder he gets to a point where he can do the things he does in this episode

and I dont think it hits him until much later. I think one day, long after the war has ended and theyre still rebuilding everything that was broken, Julian lays awake at night and remembers how bad it got and what he became willing to do, and it makes him sick to his stomach

[b0nelessdoodles]

screw it i'm posting the other little chunk of this silly little au thing 'cause i want to and it might motivate me to idk clean it up and finish it yippee!

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I see a lot of discussion in the DR fandom on some characters that die early having "missed potential", and while I agree that definitely a few of them could have been written better or differently, part of me wonders if that missed potential is kind of the point? A character is shaping up to be something, so you get invested in their story, which then makes their early death all the more tragic. I mean, of course it's still a tough needle to thread to get it to land as tragic versus falling flat, and I'm not sure how closely some of these characters hit the mark. But I Do think some characters aren't actually "missed opportunities" and instead played their role in the plot how they were meant to, if maybe a little suboptimally.

[dent-de-leon]

Mollymauk kissing Lestera and holding her in his arms when he finds her body.

Caleb kissing Mollymauk on the forehead when his ressurrection ritual fails, when he thinks all his magic and faith and love wasn't enough to save Molly. When he thinks this is his last chance to hold him in his arms again and say goodbye.

Caleb returning a forehead kiss from a lifetime ago because it's all he has left to give, because if nothing else he wants to at least offer Molly's shattered soul a bit of that comfort and warmth he once gave to him. Caleb, who Molly sees as, "softness and light," saying goodbye to Molly with a kiss the way he once did with his first partner--

[skeletohn]

Falsettos has been breaking me for two years now but I just got around to watching the obc version and holy shit tears in my eyes

[book-lover85]

ok so the obvious parallel is Brant as Keefe and Jolie as Sophie

but what about the opposite

Sophie losing her sanity because Keefe died (or she thought he did)

Keefe being her moral compass, her only connection to some shred of sanity and goodness

his death being the final straw

Keefe calming down a Sophie who's not fully there

[jamesheathridge]

i firmly believe benson's killing was motivated by his own suicidal end goal but that also makes me wonder how the day would've ended if randy hadn't called the cops. benson absolutely didn't know the answer to this either. but i think especially with his explosive anger and self disgust after his run-in with shepherd he still wouldn't have ended the day alive