#bf and npmd just didnt do THAT for me

[charlottesweetly]

im so sad my TGWDLM hyperfixation just like faded lmao i have so many fic wips i WANT to finish I jusr !!!! have no motivation bc i can only write for stuff im fixating on apparently

[cryptiqish]

some quick thoughts on nerdy prudes must die

first off - this is 100% a return to form for starkid for me. tgwdlm was like. lighting in a bottle but i really, really am not a fan of black friday - so i dipped after that, and never really looked into nightmare time etc. as i'm not super into the hatchetfield eldritch lore stuff - honestly, i figured i was aging out of it. THAT SAID. holy shit. npmd is brilliant

every single goddamn song is a banger. every one. it's so rare for me to like everything at least to a little bit, but when i can interchange my entire top 5 you know it's brilliant. high school is killing me, nerdy prudes must die, dirty girl, hatchet town...all top tier starkid in general. up there w tgwdlm

angela giarratana and will branner steal this entire show. absolutely insane stuff from both of them. will in particular...oh man. it's his show and you just KNOW it

oh shit!!! oh fuck!!!! i didnt think thered be a skele'uhn here... im so fucking scared of skele'uhnz!!!

it's FUNNY

i <3 the weird anime nerd kid. rip king

jon's vocals and just. general range in this is amazing to see from tgwdlm

 i will say i wish this maintained the more straight slasher vibe of the first act all the way through but that’s just personal preference since i'm less into the overarching eldritch lore stuff as mentioned. with that in mind though, i didn't find the lords in black stuff as jarring as i thought i would (and the summoning's a banger) - so it works narratively. i think at the end of the day i prefer my standalone shows - not everything needs to be an extended universe - so i was pleasantly surprised at how relatively well this could function as its own thing.

following that - i think this is the closest starkid's gotten to like, off-broadway quality - with plot modifications i could 100% see it making the jump. the production quality - of both the musical itself and the proshot, is amazing - everything pops, it's incredibly polished and just looks brilliant (again, such a step up from BF.)

shoutout to the costume design in particular. top tier work again. ghost max looked crazy good.

for something that in actuality didn't get a lot of focus...can’t stop thinking about how the whole max jagerman grace chastity dynamic is like the absolute HARDEST thing to randomly come out of starkid. the implicit themes had absolutely no right to go that hard!!!! it’s a silly horror comedy!

devout repressed christian and a boy that thinks he’s god. and then she deals with the first sign of sexual attraction to him by killing him??

and then his ghost comes back for vengeance, viewing it as divine justice - and then she ends the musical enacting her own vengeful divine justice?? straight up with modified reprise of his song?? they’re one and the same?? the prayer motif???

“will you pray for me / when i’m gone / or is this the eternal dark without a dawn” and “who will pray for you / when your body’s gone” is like the rawest motif of all time and it’s in the same musical that has an ten minute long barbecue joke sequence unrelated to the plot

nothing sexier than the motif of killing god and god killing you, in general. i do think i loved this one because it played with a lot of my fave tropes and themes of horror - high school slasher, archetypes, coming back wrong, religion, all that

"the big game" kept cracking me up it's so dumb and yet

anyway this whole thing just felt like we've unlocked...i dunno, a new level of starkid?? i was blown away and i'm sure for those more invested in hatchetfield beyond tgwdlm it hit even more, but it's left me so excited to see what's next from them for the first time in years.