hi yes back with another submission for the september challenge
May from & Juliet! (nobody is surprised im sure)
May is a non binary character. they genuinely mean the world to me. theyre fun, theyre happy, thryre colourful and bright but most importantly? complex. (well, as complex as you can get as one of 8 main characters in a 2 hour musical)
from their first scene, you might think they're just another gay best friend stereotype. but the amazing thing is is that theyre NOT!
May has their own story. they get a solo song about their experience with being trans, being non binary, and it's so beautiful.
theyre Juliet's best friend. theyre one of the first two main characters we see Juliet interact with and the love there is so CLEAR. they love each other so much, they love her so much!!
some actors do little things to show that theyre also close with Angelique which is just so cute to me, i love them all sooo much 💙💙
Reggie's Obligatory Actor Section: the actor ive selected for this is Jesse Dutlow! they were the May principal actor in the australian tour, and theyre a huge fan of the show too! (theyre travelling to GERMANY to see it, and im pretty sure they dont speak german)
Jesse's May is super confident, not particularly shy, very outgoing, and i love that! (although i ALSO love a shy May, i just love May)
Jesse has some FANTASTIC vocals. with May's love interest, one of their lines is really special, and i love the way Jesse says it!
the line is "you know im not a girl, right? because if thats what you think-" and Jesse says it in a way thats clearly like, nervous. and considering that ive mentioned that their May ISN'T really nervous, i feel like it shows their vulnerability in that moment. (and the love interest responds great, saying that it doesnt matter to him and that he just likes them)
sorry for the Jesse ramble, theyre a super good May actor and i love their portrayal of them a lot
like i said, May is a 'gay best friend' who gets a STORY. they get to be so much more than just that. they get to fall in love and fight for what they want and they get to sing about their life and i love them! i love that they get to do this!! (also ive met Jesse before and theyre like, literally one of the most lovely people on the planet)
i think ive rambled on long enough so here's some pictures of other Black May actors that i didn't talk about!
this isn't all of them but theyre all fantastic, genuinely Jaz Terry (the third one) is so amazing and one of her vocal choices for May's solo always has me screaming cause shes just so GOOD
tl:dr, i love May i love Jesse i love all May actors and i also love & Juliet
You sure do love it lol. That's good though. I'm happy to see that so many important roles, especially around Juliet, are other Black people. That outfit on the top right though!! I'm also glad to hear they're not another gay best friend stereotype. I feel like Black men specifically (ik this person is nonbinary) get tossed into that role in a way to... to make them more "acceptable"? I've mentioned it before that it feels like many people try to go the "feminine twink" route to make Black men less threatening and "more relatable" (without saying that), which really reveals how they feel about Black men as a whole. It's like they want the Sassy Black Bestie, but toss in some mode of queerness to sound "inclusive". So to hear that there's an actual nonbinary bestie played by an actual nonbinary actor whose identity isn't a token for story and cushion or laughingstock for viewers is a relief.
Hot Chocolate: The nonbinary best friend actually gets their own time to shine and character depth??? Hell yeah 🙌🏾🙌🏾. I'm sure we're all tired of that trope in general, but it also annoys me because it often leans into the magical Negro trope. We have lives, concerns, and personalities- we shouldn't have to remind y'all of that. Anyway to see the character get treated with such respect and genuine love is all we ask for. It's not that hard and I'm glad this musical achieves that 🔥🔥
my friend was wearing his pink floyd dark side of the moon shirt and we were making jokes about gay people and stuff and he (christian) said “at first there was one sex… then there were a lot of sexes” (negative connotation) and my other christian friend laughed so i pointed at the triangle and said “it represents the holy trinity. god invented the gays. thank you” and looked at them like i had just said the best statement in the world while they were like. what the
I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.
honestly your dpxdc clone au gives me life, its adorable as all hell and im a sucker for found family but with that being said, its so freaking hysterical to me that Danny is going full feral liminal menace at Wes any time hes near and Wes himself is still 100% into it the freak (affectionate) and thats not even pointing out the paralles it could possible create since danny and dames gives massive parallels to dick and damian and dick does have a thing for redheads.
yeesSSSSS! I was planning on hoarding this to myself but i can't not reply. and i'll be able to find this again with the clone^2 tag so win WIN. i'm so glad you are as delighted by this as me. It's so hilarious to me that Danny just becomes a complete freak whenever he spots Wes, and I'm the one who wrote it into existence. Like- like i don't know how to explain my vision in words but like, its like Danny sees Wes and immediately goes 'what can I do to make his day worse'. And then he goes and does it.
(honorary read more because i talk a lot)
He's relatively normal around his friends too, which makes him going full-fledged unhinged around Wes even funnier to me. Like, Danny will spout weird shit sometimes to Sam and Tucker, but usually its prefaced with him talking about patrol or there would be context before he said anything. With Wes? Though?? he will just. say anything, completely unprompted. Slings an arm around his shoulder like they've been buddies since primary school and then spits out a weird new fun fact he learned about the bodily anatomy while researching his latest cold case. All vaguely-threatening but utterly insane things to say as way to start a conversation.
And sometimes its not even that, he'll walk up to Wes and ask him if he saw the latest daytime fight between Phantom and Skulker. And then he'll say "yeah i missed it myself but I saw clips of it being posted online" and then watch Wes mentally explode him with his mind. or he'll disparage Phantom for having such a young partner with him, "Can you believe he'd let a kid fight ghosts with him? I'd never let my brother ghosthunt with me if I was Phantom."
All of this with such a deceptive look on his face but the most delighted, shit-eating gleam in his eyes. Wes is chewing glass and he wants to yell that he does let his brother fight ghosts with him. Also you told him yourself that nothing would've stopped your demonic (Wes' words) little brother from joining you.
Damian gets in on the fuckery occasionally, but since he's not around often with Wes about, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does between Wes and Danny. Sam and Tucker know he's screwing with him too, and both of them are a little wary about him being careless with his secret id. But he's been doing this since he was 14-ish and it hasn't backfired yet. So. They're not actively stopping him.
Danny walks back to his lunch table after terrorizing Wes and Tucker just asks him what he said, because Wes was about as red as a tomato when he walked away. Danny offhandedly sighs and innocently says he tried to have a conversation about Phantom with him. Wes didn't seem to like it all that much. Weird.
And yes, yes. Wes is totally into it and is slightly enraged about this fact, because not even he knows why he's into it. The freak (affectionate). Danny gives him this troublemaker smirk, and i did say smirk, and Wes doesn't know whether or not if he wants to smack him or kiss him. Or both. Like, yeah, pine, white boy, pine.
(And this is a dramatized image but I'm also highly entertained by the idea that Wes keeps getting routine dirty looks from various peers because they, too, have a crush on Fenton. Except Fenton doesn't talk to anyone else unless its his friends and sometimes Valerie, and Weston, the guy who keeps accusing him of being the local vigilante, is somehow routinely having conversations with him?? And BLOWING IT?? Like everyone else thinks he's fumbling so bad, and yet fenton keeps tALKING to him.)
And yes!! i'm always so pleased whenever someone brings up the parallels D+D have to Dick and Damian, because that was lowkey my intention when I was making the solo clone damian au. Although it was supposed to be more implied since I don't really know much about Damian and Dick other than they're very close and Dick was Damian's Batman for a year. And then of course the very smaller parallel (??) 'what if' between Bruce and Damian and D+D in clone^2 considering who they are both clones of.
And man this just makes me want to talk about when batfam meet D+D because I just want them to see D+D be so brotherly towards each other. Like I want them to see Bby Dames wearing his goofy fun fact shirts and stealing Danny's hoodies/flannels/etc and blatantly lying about it when Danny asks. Only for Danny to then throw him over his shoulder like Tadashi from BH3 and jump around.
And also. I do not know what Damian Wayne's (DW as I'll call him) stance on being called "Dami" is - the general consensus I've seen is that its usually used as a playful nickname in order to get a rise out of him, and he doesn't really like it.
But baby Dames being called that freely, and often, and its sometimes used to get a rise out of him but thats typically what nicknames do. Its used as easily as his full name is with the same amount of affection. And its like his main go-to nickname. "Dami" and "Dames" with the occasional "Bud/Buddy", "Squirt", "Little man", etc. Not once is he ever called 'demon-spawn'
(which i know is a fanon nickname but its a relatively popular nickname)
but yeah, uhhh. i think thats all of my thoughts on the matter. for now lmAO
i wonder how much longer the devils' lifespan is compared to a human. because the kings have been around for AGES when you take into account the fact that they were all full fledged adults with their countries well established by the time solomon first made contact with them. but also what's been messing me up about the longevity of their lives is the fact that the mc meets children! (from satan's bath card preview)
and from this conversation with sitri and ppyong devils are no longer being born because lilith, mother of all devils, has disappeared along with god and solomon. (ch3)
of course we know solomon is dead but the other two's existences are kinda up in the air at the moment. and with the fact that they all disappeared a long time ago its been. a few millenia which means any devil children have been babies and children for. a VERY long time from a humn perspective. and in that time many generations have sprung up between solomon's death and the mc being born. but also time passes differently in hell (likely slower from the fact that mc wasn't aware that the anniversary of their parents' death approached and passed (in ch4), as well as the fact that sitri says solomon spent a century in hell when solomon only made it to his 50s on earth (unles pretty busy has changed this for the story but i dont think they have)
with how all the devil's act you really would think that solomon disappeared just yesterday to them! thousands of years have passed on earth but theyre still heartbroken like they last spoke to him just last week! how short is the life span of a human to them. is it just like a blink and you're gone. are they aware of how limited their time with the mc is. because even with hell being so technologically avanced there's death every day. there is no cure for death. you will die and they still haven't even coped well with the death of a man that lived so long ago.
wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it
Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.
Hi, same ‘how can I make this about Striker’ anon from before. I dont know how to feel about the ‘Satan is Striker’s father theory’ because on 1 hand I guess it could work??? But also it just doesnt sit that right with me, like I feel like if Striker was literally half sin he’d act/be more powerful than he was shown to be so far. My numerous ideas for his backstory basically change by the daily because I think about him too much but I only gave credence to the ‘Striker’s half royalty’ idea once and even then I wrote it in a way where Striker didnt know about it/had zero idea that was the case to begin with.
Not to mention that him being half-royalty would technically be a way to dismiss his (very valid) arguments about the upper class but maybe thats just me imagining the worse case scenario. For all I know it could be the most well-executed plot point ever.
If Satan isn’t Striker’s father than once we actually see the Envy Ring we’re gonna get ‘Leviathan is Striker’s father’ theories instead because they’re both snake-based. If Striker IS half royalty, than I could imagine it to be some sort of goetia, maybe, but half deadly sin? Next Striker ep appearance would need to have him pull off the most insane shit ever that a imp cant do for me to consider it plausible
I’m responding to this so late but omg anon yes you’re so right.
I feel like the only way the twist of Striker being a half blueblood could work would be if he straight up didn’t know about it and/or if they suddenly give him more power and strength that we’ve never seen from any other imp, like you mentioned. But again regardless of him knowing or not, like you also said, it completely negates his entire character and everything Striker’s said up to this point about royals and how they treat those lower than them.
Which only continues to be validated to the point where Blitz is now echoing his sentiments in canon. So like ??? It wouldn’t make sense for the show to suddenly invalidate Striker’s points after directly paralleling his words with Blitz’s.
Striker’s entire existence is to be a dark reflection of Blitz anyway. They’re two sides of the same coin. Striker is who Blitz would be if he let himself drown in his sorrows and his grief. If he let his anger control him. If he let himself do things alone. For as much as Blitz pushes people away he cares too much about others to truly let himself be alone.
As far as we know - Striker has always been alone. Or at least we know he’s been alone since he lost everything. Which is honestly the big thing people are missing when they talk about the Striker is Satan’s son theory - the entire scene where Striker voices his grievances to Stolas about his experience with royals.
This is the scene that tells us everything. And if it was meant to foreshadow something as huge as Striker being a literal sin’s child then the dialogue choice and the BODY LANGUAGE of Striker during this monologue would be insanely different.
The emphasis this scene gives to his claims of having to live a hard life, losing everything, and being talked over. That is Striker talking about his experience.
His feelings. His loss. His anger.
He is SO angry. Too angry for it all to just be about being a bastard son.
I’ve watched, analyzed, and thought SO MUCH about this moment right before he cuts Stolas’ ropes.
The pure disgust and anger on his face. The way he shakes. His eye twitches. He grinds his teeth. He growls. He’s pissed.
This is insanely personal to him. This is part of him. This is who he is. This disdain runs through his veins. He’s made it part of his identity. He was so scorned that he just cannot let it go.
This is not just anger about a royal parent or a loss of status.
This is anger from a man who was failed by Hell’s system and has not healed from it. He has not allowed himself to heal and he refuses to.
This is Striker’s way of taking back control that he once lost.
And not even mentioning the fact that Striker’s canonically a WANTED MAN in TWO Rings.
Wrath (y’know Satan’s ring) AND Pride.
Considering royalty in this universe is all about status and reputation, you’d think a sin wouldn’t want their kid just having their face plastered everywhere like that?? Cuz it’s embarrassing?? Just wanted to point that out😭
guys i've decided that i'm gonna be the one to translate the canon dusttale fics. it's a responsibility that has long been overdue and as the mtt's strongest warrior i will be the one to take up this responsibility. since i need to read the dusttale fics to see what his REAL CANON personality is like so i can finish my horror character analysis i decided to just translate the fic myself anyways. i dont know a lick of korean but i'm sure some research and context clues can fix any errors that pop up and i think i'm well versed in dustlore enough to fill in any gaps from translating
Nice try. I mean if disliking stuff getting stolen, retooled and reposted out of context irreverently as an inferior version of itself makes me old then I'm embracing my new primordial status wholeheartedly.
Proposal: Peppino is a really caring S/O, friend, husband, what have you, but he's really oblivious when someone's interested. No matter how much Gustavo flirted, showed special attention and affection to Pep, our lovely protagonist dismissed it as as Gus being really nice (which to be honest, he is).
Rotating this in my brain bc i am still thinking of how to characterize him in this way so thank u 🧡 This is also why i havent tried to do any real shipping content w him (cause i wanna do more stuff w him and the bosses)😭
🤔🤔🤔 I feel like hes not exactly oblivious. He can read a room and take a hint, but hes a little dense (a little bit!!!!). His indifference/lack of a reaction comes off as being completely unaware but in reality, he is thinking of Other Pressing Matters. Like. When traveling through the gnome forest for deliveries, hes very aware of them being Weird and Friendlier than usual (which in the past, HAS actually translated to some level of flirting) but he doesnt want to look too deep into it bc the forest is Hot and its full of Bugs and it makes him Itchy and Sweaty and hes Tired from delivering everything ON FOOT bc his stupid scooter and car cant drive on fucking GRASS.
Like hes Aware but he doesnt pay it any mind. Two to three strangers being sweet with him? Yeah sure that makes sense i guess. He’ll entertain them :) But like, the MAJORITY of his customers in this forest being equally weird and friendly? Maybe gnomes are just Like That. Gustavo is clearly a weird and friendly little guy. Dont think too hard about it 😊👍🏾 Hes got other shit to worry about.
So honestly Gus would be in hell trying to woo this fuckin man 😭 Not because hes not trying hard enough, and not bc Pep is so completely oblivious, but bc in this specific instance, Peppino is just a man stressed about 40 different things all at once, and allocating ANY of that brain power to determine if his friend it flirting or being friendly when Gustavo is just known to be very friendly to everyone is a waste of his precious, LIMITED mental energy 😭