#but i love the broadway musical for building upon that

[cosmicdreamgrl]

me after listening to the mean girls reboot soundtrack: please take it and kindly dispose of it in the trash, thank you

[sherbertilluminated]

Last night I was talking with my friends @teefigotem and @calypsopond about the pacing of the musical Les Miserables. I think Les Mis' libretto is one of the best foundations for a musical out there, but the first act has so much more plot and more iconic songs than the second, and I worry that top-heavy structure diminishes the ultimate impact of the uprising in the second act.

Caly and Maddy agreed that the 2012 film adaption had the right idea when it swapped the positions of "Do you Hear the People Sing" and "One day More." Transplanting the former to the beginning of Act 2 maintains the balance of revolutionary fervor (and iconic songs) between the two acts, and a serves as a payoff to the tension at the end of Act 1. While "Upon these Stones/Building the Barricade" begins Act 2 in the current libretto, it's high on exposition and low on enthusiasm. Since "Do You Hear the People Sing" has become an international revolutionary anthem, making it the opening of the uprising, rather than the prelude to it, builds on *ahem* that connection.

Just picture it: the audience returns to their seats, the orchestra hums with tension, and the lights go up on a somber street with a single voice—Enjolras, probably—singing. Students emerge from the set, workers join in, the turntable starts turning and it becomes clear that soon a barricade will be built in the street. The subsequent Marius/Eponine conversation that transitions into "On my Own" would still probably work here. In the span of fifteen minutes, the thesis statement of the revolting students turns into the reveal of the final barricade. It'd be pretty damn rousing, right?

The potential problem with this change is the lacuna it would leave behind. In the current structure of Les Miserables, "Do you Hear the People Sing" is an elaboration on Enjolras' claim that "they will come when we call!" and going directly from that rallying cry to a quiet romantic interlude flattens the rhetorical tension between romantic love and revolution "Red and Black" and makes Mairus seem a little silly (which, to be fair, he is. But Enjolras is not.) Although "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a little too bombastic for Act 1, before the uprising actually begins, there's still got to be some kind of transition. Something needs to foreshadow the violence to come. But what?

I proposed that the best transition would be a reprise of Stars. And that Eponine should get to sing it.

Since the Broadway premiere of the musical Les Miserables in 1987 and especially following the 2012 film adaptation, Eponine's character has been a locus for fandom attention and discourse. Because she's really compelling: despite being the daughter of the selfish, abusive Thenardier, she devotes her life to protecting Marius and ultimately sacrifices it for him. But the closest she ever gets to being understood is by the audience; even Marius, one of two people in the show to be kind to her (the other being Valjean), doesn't really understand the full extent of her devotion to him. And that devotion is powerful, whether as a proxy for audience members' own experiences with unrequited love or a representation of the bourgeousie's reliance on unacknowleged suffering. There's a lot going on with her in the musical. But there's even more to her in the Brick.

Unlike my esteemed Les Mis mutuals I'm definitely not informed enough to do original analysis, but I'm a big fan of the Javert/Eponine wolfdog theory. My introduction to it was with this post by @pilferingapples, although I don't know whether it originated somewhere else. The theory posits that Javert and Eponine, who are both compared to wolfish dogs for their ferocity and devotion to their idiosyncratic systems of morality, are character foils who represent the limited choices offered to people excluded from. I definitely don't know the op who suggested they trade methods of death (if anyone does, please let me know!) but that's also in the Brick. And while the musical adaptation doesn't preserve Hugo's canine/lupine symbolism, it keeps Eponine's one-sided committment to guarding Marius. And it keeps Javert's devotion to the institution of Law.

"Stars" is the hymn of that devotion. It's more sinister than Eponine's love for Marius, but in the grand scheme of things it's just as pathetic. Giving a short reprise of that song to Eponine not only explicates that parallel and gives new life to relatively-unused musical motif, it has the potential to tie together the action of the first act and add a new dimension to subsequent scenes.

Imagine if, instead of beginning "Do You Hear the People Sing" immediately after "Red and Black" or transitioning directly to the Rue Plumet, the scene changes to the outside of the ABC cafe. On the other side of the turntable/wall, Eponine is waiting. And worrying. She knows her father's going to rob a house tonight and that the girl Marius asked her to find lives there*. She can't let her father hurt him. She's smarter than him. She'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, she swears—not to God or the stars, as Javert does, but to herself. The promise is shocking, because the audience heard that melody two songs ago and are just now discovering there is another way to be. There is another vow that can be made.

While she's singing, the ABC society files out the door. Maybe some hand out pamphlets or chat with people on the street. If the production wants to emphasize Eponine and Gavroche secret sibling bond, maybe they interact a little. But no one pays her too much mind. No one ever does.

The last person to emerge is Marius, looking a bit shaken. The timeline of the students' plans has been unexpectedly accelerated, he says. In case it's his last chance—nevermind why, 'Ponine, don't worry about me—he needs to see her once. You've found her, haven't you? Could you show me? Please? For my sake?

Consumed by shame and dread and the sense that he'll probably do something really stupid if she doesn't tag along, she agrees. And the stage begins to turn into the Rue Plumet, where "In my Life" begins. The whole interaction would take maybe two minutes.

There are of course thematic objections to this plan. There's the argument that "Stars" ought to be a unique, distinct song like "Bring Him Home." But those motifs are reused in instrumental form after Javert's and the students' respective deaths, so I don't necessarily think they're scene- or character-specific. There's also the argument that the melody of "Stars" is altogether too rigid for Eponine's character. I think there are a couple moments that would work quite well with the emotion("and if they fall as Lucifer fell," for example) but if you really don't want Javert's and Eponine's motif to cross, the melody of "A Little Fall of Rain" ("and you/I will keep me/you safe") could work for this moment too.

There's also the argument that Eponine already gets "too much" attention in the musical adaptation and doesn't need. But I don't know if that's true either. She interacts with Marius in several short scenes, she's present for "A Heart Full of Love" and "One Day More," she goes on her errand to Valjean, sings "On my Own," goes back to the barricade and dies shortly after. She gets about as much stagetime as Cosette does, and a little less than Marius.

It's true that she stands out as a character, but that's because she's got such interesting writing and is so isolated in the narrative. And while it's important to keep her "on [her] own," for the plot, using shared motifs to emphasize her symbolic similarities with other characters might make her character fit more cohesively into Les Miserables' grander thematic narrative. It could even make "On my Own" that much more powerful if she has a little hope that saving Marius from her father might get him to like her, and subsequently understands that this is not happening. But there's a lot more to her than being Marius' rejected best friend** and this choice has the potential to make that clear onstage.

In conclusion: moving "Do You Hear the People Sing" to the start of Act 2 letting Eponine do a wolfdog reprise of "Stars" between "Red and Black" and "In my Life" would be sick as fuck and maybe resolve some pacing issues in the libretto.

*There is a moment in the show where she realizes that she and Cosette grew up together. I like it in concept but it's a little awkwardly-placed and integrating it into the unnamed Red and Black/In my Life transition song would be great. Overall, her interactions with Marius seem like afterthoughts in between the larger numbers, which isn't fair to either of them.

**And for the record: this not a post pitting her against Cosette! They are both good characters and I wish the best for both of them!

[gregrulzok]

What are your top 10 favorite media, like from books, anime/manga, movies, tv series, etc (if you feel like listing multiple) of all time? Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them....

Now THIIIIS is way different from asking me my favourite characters.

When it comes to characters, I tend to be heavily analytical and critical. When it comes to media... Well, you'll see. Whatever the case please note that these pieces of media being my favourite doesn't mean I necessarily recommend them. There's things I love with my whole heart that I wouldn't inflict upon my mortal enemy. You've been warned.

I'm also purposefully omitting some of my favourite pieces of media to shine a spotlight on ones I don't really get to talk about, or just want more people to know about (sorry, Berserk)

I'll try and keep these ones spoiler free, since I'm thinking of them more as recommendations! NSFW media will be marked with a *, but I won't go into anything explicit here. Please look up media mindfully and with discression, some of these may be triggering.

Thank you for the ask and I'm sorry for the ridiculous lengths of information you're about to witness !

Dungeon Meshi

Lets start with a safe one. A simple one. An expected one.

Yes, Dungeon Meshi IS that good.

Dungeon Meshi is a beautifully drawn manga that starts out slow, whimsical and almost slice-of-life-y, and then descents into utter madness so slowly and skillfully that by the time you blink you're in another dimension.

The world building in this series is second to none - everything makes sense and nothing is handwaved. The genuine and honest passion in the way the world feels alive is palpable, and despite its realism it never loses its magical feeling.

The characters are charming, lovable, realistic, and complex. Each of them have an inner world to tap into, each of them feels like a real person you could hold a conversation with and would WANT to hold a conversation with. Here I'll also proudly announce that we get zero (0) gratuitous fanservice, zero (0) characters who exist as a punchline, and guaranteed Sexy-Lamp Free !

The plot... Fuck, man. The plot is the most honest and bare faced look at some of the most nuanced subjects in the world (desire, ambition, love, death, survival, trauma, neurodivergence) wrapped up in a way that feels simple, grounded and real.

It also sincerely began to heal my relationship with food. I don't think I've ever seen the subjects of cooking, eating, health, weight and body diversity portrayed so well in such an empathetic, understanding and caring way in any piece of media. Body positivity is not so much a focus, but rather an undercurrent in the whole manga.

Whew ! With one objectively good piece of media out of the way, let's move on to something more unhinged, such as ...

Honestly I can't begin to imagine what kind of person WOULDN'T enjoy Dungeon Meshi. Do yourself a favour and read it.

Cats (1998)

Cats. The Broadway musical cats. One of the longest running musicals in the world, award winning, famously bashed and hated, recently revorked into a horrible film that was even more bashed and hated, the beautiful, glorious wonderful disaster of my heart - Cats.

Specifically, the 1998 film version.

...It's so hard for me to explain this one.

At some point, while watching Cats for the second time (for a reason I cannot explain), some neurons fired the wrong direction in my brain and now I have a pathological obsession, to the point where I can name each and every single Godforsaken cat in this show, including the ones that don't even appear in the credits.

Cats. What am I even supposed to say here, like, genuinely. It's cats.

Well, here's the thing - the choreography and acting direction in this fucking musical is genuinely breathtaking. It takes a few watches for it to fully click, but once it does, I sincerely believe that Cats is one of the most endlessly fascinating pieces of media to analyze. What you have to understand about Cats is that every single character (with very few exceptions) is on screen basically for the entire show. And so while you're watching the dancing in the foreground (which is beautiful on its own), every single cat in the background is just ... There. Moving, interacting, portraying characteristics that are never stated, never so much as focused on - but you can see them. You can see the kittens playing with each-other, you can see the elders gossiping, you can see small bits and gags you won't catch your first time, or second, or fifth. You can see how rowdy Tumblebrutus and Pouncival are, you can see how excitable Electra is, you can see the quiet dignity of Coricopat and Tantomile, the friendship between Jellylorum and Jennyanydots. There's always new little bits of background characterisation you can catch, pretty much regardless of how many times you've seen it.

In that way, Cats is feels the most alive, the most ever changing and evolving. I'm completely enraptured by it and if you do want to watch it, I recommend watching it as many times as you can stomach, because your first time through it'll glide right off you like water off a duck.

Chainsaw Man (Public Safety Arc)*

The first time I finished reading Chainsaw Man, I stared at my phone for a straight minute, then started sobbing. The next morning, I drank alcohol for the first time.

I wish that was a joke.

I'll admit I'm not up to date on the second arc of Chainsaw Man - it honestly got away from me a little and I'm not entirely sure I'll be finishing it.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the first arc is one of the most tightly written, beautiful, emotional stories I've ever read.

Sure, it's fun and funny. Sure, it's cool in it's action scenes. Sure, the art direction is absolutely breathtaking. Sure, the character design and worldbuilding are interesting and detailed.

But at its heart the core appeal of CSM, to me, is the way it speaks about trauma, abuse, assault, isolation, fear, and desire. Chainsaw Man is painfully down to earth in a gritty, real way, and while it is extremely dark, it's also uplifting and hopefull in a way a lot of dark media isn't.

Chainsaw Man makes you feel tiny, helpless in a massive world. Chainsaw Man puts you up against horrors both tangible and fantastical, and then it looks you in the eyes and says "Hey. You aren't weak. You aren't useless. The world is scary, the world is cruel, the world is harsh, but that doesn't mean you can't fight it. That doesn't mean there isn't hope".

I really don't know how else to describe it without going into spoilers. It's genuinely moving.

Arcane

Arcane is a beautiful tragedy that has no right being as impactful as it is for being a goddamn League of Legends adaptation, of all things.

The art direction in Arcane is absolutely insane - Taking a page from Into the SpiderVerse (which is another favourite of mine), it blends 3D animation with a 2D-esque art style and fully 2D effects to bring what I genuinely believe to be one of the best looking shows in the world to life. And that's not all !

Arcane is infinitely nuanced. Between it's multiple plots it introduces many, many characters, all of whom have their own wants, needs, goals, ambitions, fears, flaws and trauma, and it clashes them together beautifully. Nothing in Arcane feels like an afterthought to me, I think the most fantastic thing about it is how expertly it weaves all these different storylines together. Everything ties into something else, everything affects something else, the story changes based on every little movement of our main characters and by the time it unfolds you realize that there's nothing that could really be done to change it because EVERYTHING lead to this.

It's a tragedy in the best way possible.

Attack on Titan

I don't care what anyone says - Attack on Titan is one of the best Anime ever put on screen.

I am a person that grew up in a colonized, war-torn country. Part of our land is still occupied, and our occupants are currently seeking refuge in our city and acting like this is their vacation resort. My people have been marginalized, demonized, dismissed, our culture has been erased and we have been fed more propaganda than I can count.

And I say this because I think being in this situation lends me a pretty good perspective of what AoT is:

Propaganda. The first two seasons of Attack on Titan are literally an extended propaganda film, meant to trick and decieve the viewer into siding with the protagonists, and dismissing their enemies as mere monsters.

If I go any deeper into that statement, there will inevitably be spoilers, so I'll cap it off with this:

There are no easy answers in war. There are no heroes and no villains, there are no good guys and bad guys, and there are no winners. There is only deception, control, and death.

I've never seen a piece of fiction capture the true, real horror of war quite as well as Attack on Titan does.

Death Parade

Everybodyyyyyyy put your hands upppppp

Death Parade is the show I go to rewatch when I have nothing else to rewatch.

It is a soft, yet painful look at human nature. It's an exploration of what makes a person good or bad, and whether such things even exist. It brings into question the very nature of humanity, whether there's such a thing as being good or bad, whether our character is formed by our circumstances or our behaviour, and how those things should be judged. It asks what it means to have emotions, to have feelings, and how your own personal emotions and biased factor into how you assess other people - whether it's more unfair to judge someone objectively without empathy, or subjectively with your own narrow, biased worldview.

All of that wrapped in a beautiful aesthetic, and a somber, subtle love story. Not even necessarily a romantic one - just pure love.

Highly, highly recommend.

Oyasumi Punpun*

Oyasumi Punpun is the most direct, honest, unfiltered, unbiased look at a human being's psyche I've ever seen.

It's also one of the most triggering bits of media on here, so proceed with caution.

Oyasumi Punpun follows the life of a single boy from his childhood, through his adulthood. Every single hardship, every single setback, every victory, every memorable experience, is shown to us through the lense of his own eyes. His childhood innocence, his teenage cynicism, his adolescent hopelessness, his own naivete, his own trauma, his own biased colour the way we view the world around him.

It genuinely makes you feel like you are wearing his skin and living his life through him.

Its disturbing, uncomfortable, dark, scary, and it's funny, hopeful, and just plain bizarre.

Great Pretender

Alright, back to light-hearted things !!!

Great Pretender might be the funniest show I've ever seen, to me, personally. Its bright, saturated, expressive animation compliments the absolute insanity of this show perfectly.

The most basic premise is that Great Pretender is about two con artists desperately trying to out-con each-other, and then it all goes downhill from there. It sets up so much of its payoff in such tiny little ways that by the time I got to the end I'd be beating myself up for missing a completely innocuous detail like a characters fucking watch, because it was actually a hint towards the overall plotline.

Its clever, it's funny, it keeps you on your toes, and it can be genuinely heartfelt and delightfully homoerotic to boot !!

It's absolutely worth the watch. Please give us season two. Please. PLEASE.

Dark Heaven*

Dark Heaven is what I'd recommend to someone if they told me they liked reading BL.

As a gay man in an interracial relationship, I've yet to find a piece of media that is quite so open direct, brutal and honest about the kids of issues that gay people, people of color, and people in interracial relationships can face.

To that end - it's extremely triggering if you're sensitive to those particular topics, as well as some other things. I'd very much recommend looking up a list of triggers first if you want to read it because it does get very, very dark. (And very NSFW). (Right from chapter one)?

But yeah - Dark Heaven is a beautiful, engaging, and at times very fluffy and humorous romance between two men, that is heavily overlaid with real actual issues people face every day (and some people don't face every day, but are nonetheless very real). It's honest, soft, and uplifting where it needs to be, despite not sugarcoating absolutely anything. It also does us the wonderful favour of not fetishizing gay men, not playing into weird creepy stereotypes, and not turning their relationship into something to gawk at.

And now, the one, the only, the piece of media that captured my heart and soul and will never ever let go:

Warrior Cats

Fucking Warrior Cats.

I have read every single book in the series. The series with over 100 books (depending on how you count them). Every official piece of media, I have consumed.

I've been reading this book series since I was 11. I've loved, cherished, lived and breathed it. I keep up with them to this day. I recently completed a chronological re-read. I've made OCs. I've roleplayed it in person and online - in fact I've been a mod in a DeviantArt roleplay group.

I HAVE A GODDAMN EXCELL SPREADSHEET WHERE I ANALYZE THE STATISTICS OF THE WARRIOR CATS NAMING SYSTEM

"Oh wow, sounds like the series is really good" WRONG

Warrior Cats is one of the worst written series I've ever read. It's poorly paced, it's full of plotholes, most characters are pieces of cardboard with a furry coat. It's dumb, nonsensical, inconsistent, and infuriating. It preaches the worst lessons I've ever heard, it's full of nothing but wasted potential, and I could honestly count the number of books I'd consider to be genuinely good on both of my hands.

Out of a 100. I've read a fucking hundred of these. Send help.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I read them?

Because I'm autistic and my brain is holding me hostage.

Against my better judgement, I have such a deep and genuine love for this series, for the characters, for the content mostly created by the fans, for the world building.

And every single time one of these fucking cats dies, I end up tearing up.

I love Warrior Cats and you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

...

And that's IT !!!

Thank you again for the ask, and thanks if you read it this far !! You can really tell which ones of these I'm currently hyperfixated on haha.

Again please practice discression in looking these up - I have absolutely no triggers, and so don't think twice about consuming really dark and heavy pieces of media. This is also why I didn't just opt to put in my own trigger warnings - because I don't know everything that could be potentially triggering, and I don't want to give off the impression that you know everything you need to, in case i missed anything.

Be careful and be safe !

[wizardiest-wizard-of-oz]

if anyone wants I have a musicals playlist that's over 200 hours that has I think around 205 musicals here's an alphabetized list let me know if I'm missing any I should add (I don't like Andrew lloyd Webber musicals and I'm also not a huge fan of jukebox musicals more specifically mamma Mia) and if anyone wants a link please ask me

13

21 Chump Street

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

35MM

36 Questions

42nd Street

The Addams Family

Aida

Aladdin

Alice by Heart

Allegro

Amelie

Anastasia

Ani

Annie Get Your Gun

Annie

Anything Goes

Avenue Q

Back to the Future

Bat Boy

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Be More Chill

The Big One-Oh

Billy Elliot

Black Friday

Bombshell

Bonnie and Clyde

Book of Mormon

Brigadoon

Bring it On

Once More With Feeling (Buffy musical)

Bugsy Malone

Bye Bye Birdie

Cabaret

Camelot

Carousel

Carrie

Catch Me if You Can

A Catered Affair

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chess

Chicago

A Chorus Line

Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

The Colour Purple

Come From Away

Company

Crybaby

Curtains

Damn Yankees

Days of Wine and Roses

Dear Evan Hansen

Desperate Measures

Dog Man

Dreamgirls

Dreamland

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Drowsy Chaperone

Duolingo on Ice

Elegies

Epic (all released sagas)

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Falsettoland

Falsettos Revival

Firebringer

Flora the Red Menace

Follies

Fosse

Frankenstein

Frozen

Fun Home

Funny Girl

A Funny Thing Happened

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Grand Hotel

Grease

The Great American Trailer Park

Grey Gardens

Gutenberg

Guys and Dolls

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

G*psy

Hadestown (broadway)

Hadestown (off broadway)

Hairspray

Hair

Hamilton

Harmony

Heathers

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hello Dolly

Honk

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (this one is just for Patrick page)

How to Dance in Ohio

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the Green

In the Heights

Into the Woods

In Trousers

It Shoulda Been You

Jekyll and Hyde

Kimberly Akimo

The King and I

Kinky Boots

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Legally Blonde

Lempicka

Les Miserables (english and french)

The Lightning Thief

The Lion King

Little Do They Know

The Little Mermaid

A Little Night Music

Little Shop of Horrors (english and german)

Little Women

Lizard Boy

Love in Hate Nation

Love's Labours Lost

Mad Ones

Make Me a Song

Mame

A Man of No Importance

March of the Falsettos

Marguerite

Martin Guerre

Mary Poppins

Matilda

Mean Girls

Merrily We Roll Along

Miss Saigon

Monty Python's Spamalot

The Music Man

My Fair Lady

My Heart Says Go

My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (I only have one song because I'm waiting to watch it with my friend before adding more)

A New Brain

Newsies

New York, New York

Next to Normal

Nightmare Time

Nine

Octet

Oklahoma

Oliver

Once On This Island

Once Upon a Mattress

Only Murders in the Building (Death Rattle Dazzle)

The Pyjama Game

Parade

Pippin

The Prince of Egypt

Prodigal

The Producers

The Prom

Ragtime

Ride the Cyclone

The Rink

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Schmigadoon

Schmicago

Scottsburo Boys

Seussical

She Loves Me

Sherlock

Shrek

Shucked

Six

Smash

Some Like it Hot

Something Rotten

The Sound of Music

South Pacific

Spiderman Turn off the Dark

The Spitfire Grill

Spongebob

Spring Awakening

Starship

State Fair

Sunday in the Park with George

Superhero

Sweeney Todd

Sweet Charity

The Theory of Relativity

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Tick Tick Boom

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Trail to Oregon

Twisted

Urinetown

A VHS Christmas Carol

The Visit

Waitress

Wait Wait Don't Kill Me

West Side Story

Wicked

Water for Elephants

Wizard of Oz

The Wiz

Zombie Prom

Zorba

[keepmovinjunior]

Also, sorry for all the questions, but what made Wicked so good? I have a fear of movies, unfortunately, so I can't watch it myself.

all good, thank you for caring about my opinion!

i've liked wicked since i read the book and saw the broadway show over ten years ago (willemijn verkaik my beloved - if you don't know her and are into wicked, PLEASE look her up she's a fantastic elphaba) and i think a number of things made it work... i'll try and list them simply

it was one of the first of its kind, so, at that point, the trope was not tired (probably the first that got a lot of attention - the rewritten backstory of a villain in a popular, already existing story)

elphaba's (she's the green witch) character motivations, both in wicked and in the original wizard of oz, made sense to expand upon because they were arguably not born out of a thirst for power (this is up for interpretation but it's vague and strong enough to hold weight multiple ways), and also made for a more dynamic, even sympathetic, viewing of her backstory. in the original film, a house gets dropped on her sister and kills her. she literally spends the entire film just trying to get the slippers that her sister wore back for herself. it shows her as terrifying and unkind, of course, and she didn't treat dorothy well. but ... when you think about it, it kind of makes sense that she wanted those back? also, glinda is shown as meddling with those shoes, using dorothy. there's room there to interpret glinda as hmmm... perhaps savvy and politically motivated.... in a way that most often does not exist in other stories

the relationship between elphaba and glinda was very complex in wicked (and fell within a framework that could have fit given what we saw in the original work). having them had gone to school together and been past friends worked because it was clear in the original work that they knew each other well just by the way they talked to one another. also, this never gets talked about because their relationship was very heteronormative in the musical/film vs book, but in the original book, there is heavy, heavy subtext (even blatant text) that they were in love with each other. they even share a kiss before elphaba leaves her to go fight for political causes as an anarchist. that heartbreak, of losing elphie, fuels glinda to make her choices too. it's all a very dynamic story with very complex characters

the world of oz is rife for world building in a way most other worlds are not

at the time wicked came out as a broadway show, i think we as an audience were very starved (and even still are starved) for works with well written female leads having complicated relationships with each other. it brought something new and exciting to people.

[millenari]

If you’re up to more bitching about the broadway revival, what are your feelings on Jennyanydots’s number? Personally I was surprised with how much I didn’t mind the new stuff at the end (though I wouldn’t say I PREFER it) but I thought the choreo during the verses was… it irritated me. I don’t remember which boot(s) I watched but it felt like Jenny did a lot more sitting, less moving than I remember her doing in the ‘98 and in the older boots I’ve seen. In general I thought the new choreo took her out of her own number a bit, which is a real shame. Just interested to know what you think, would be happy to disagree haha.

hohohoh you're in for it now, anon. I could talk about revival!Jenny for a long, long time...

AND I WILL!

I hate it.

I don't love a lot of the revival changes, but with each song generally there's something I can be positive about? Yeah they removed the horndog parts of Tugger's song, but there's cute tuggoff and platoria dances. Yeah they made all those little changes to Macavity's song but at least they're small. Yeah they changed Misto's choreo, but at least it is admittedly exciting.

Jenny's song? Idk even the spots that aren't bad, I don't think I can point at any element of her new song and say that it isn't a downgrade.

I rewatched it just now, and I'd like to list the parts I do actually like for the sake of being fair:

Andy Huntington Jones? a very cute Munk

That bit with Misto & the little light on the floor which leads to him opening the boot

The Gumbie trio interacting with the 'mice' kittens

you're right, the end is pretty cool

That's it.

Like... let's go over what the '''original''' Jenny song does. Gumbie Cat, like a considerable number of songs in Cats, doesn't really contribute to the plot at all. Some songs do, like Misto's, but many don't. They only thing Jenny's song really 'does', arguably, is tell the audience what Munkustrap's idea of a Jellicle Choice looks like (given his lyrics at the beginning of the song).

So otherwise, all this song does is characterize Jenny.

Which the classic version does very efficiently, I think! The poem gives us an idea of her personality: she's lazy during the day and active during the night. She teaches the local varmints how to be 'upstanding' members of society. It's specifically mentioned she started a 'Beetle's Tattoo' (A tattoo is a military performance of stuff like marching bands, dancing, drill team, etc) so she has this association with a military-esque discipline. The song also talks about her and crocheting and knitting and baking, so she also has this homestead motherly vibe to her as well.

Her nature is two-fold: she's lazy but also hard-working. She's motherly but also militant. The song capitalizes on this dynamic: it starts out with a slow lullaby, and then transitions to an upbeat tune, and then goes back and forth between those two vibes until the Tattoo (aka the tap section) starts. The feeling of the music matches her personality. So does her costume change: at first she has a big floppy coat, then she switches into a flapper-like bodysuit.

The style of the Tattoo is tap, (as we all know lmao). Most songs in Cats build upon ballet, but Jenny uses tap, probably because it's a more ''''aggressive'''' (obv I use that word lightly) style of dance, unlike the flowing and effortless impression ballet tends to give. It matches the military vibe, it seems like something that might actually be in a real Tattoo, and it gives the actress the opportunity to characterize Jenny further by having her act like a little drill sergeant.

(And sometimes the tap battle is included here, which is also nice characterization. It's usually either Misto or a kitten who challenges Jenny, and I think it's hilarious that either A) Misto feels the need to clown on an old lady's tapping skills or B) Jenny rises to the occasion when a literal child tries to clown on her tapping skills. Either way, funny and defining.)

Despite ping-ponging back and forth, the song is well contained. Most of the props are made of garbage: the cockroaches are made from garbage bags, the mice masks are piping bags, the cockroaches hold spoons and forks, etc. The song also builds well: it goes as such.

Munk, alone, introduces Jenny

the Gumbie trio join in, we start ping-ponging

Jenny comes on stage

Jenny stumbles around stage a little as she wakes up

Music builds

Costume change from day Jenny to night Jenny, tone immediately changes.

Cockroaches start coming out

Cockroaches + Jenny dance together

(maybe insert tap battle here)

Music builds up, the Gumbie trio and Munk join in, big happy finale

Tugger interrupts

The revival... sort of follows this pattern. The way the Revival Gumbie was choreographed makes me think of this Blankenbuehler quote that annoyed me.

'mm yes in this play about a tribe theres a lot of tribal energy. in this play about Cats Dancing Together there's a lot of dancing in unison. lets get rid of some of that'

The Revival Gumbie takes forever to get everyone dancing together, and instead of growing momentum-- where characters keep joining the dance and it gets bigger and bigger (starting with just Munk, ending with everyone)-- it feels like a bunch of disjointed nonsense.

The beginning is mostly the same, except you're right, Jenny does do a lot of sitting there. (Also the Gumbie trio has that same thing that the Macavity song has, where they fiddled with their choreo and the changes don't do anything but also aren't that important either)

But the Revival starts to divert after that first section-- instead of the (nearly) full cast wearing cockroach costumes, three (3) characters are given 'beetle' costumes. (Which yeah, the poem mentions beetles, and yeah, the beetle costumes are made of hubcaps so it matches the garbage theme. But they look so unwieldy that the dancers can barely move, and honestly I didn't even realize they were supposed to be beetles until I saw someone on here mention it.)

But yeah, Jenny and the beetles dance together for like 3 seconds, [I just went back to check how long it is exactly? 10 fuckin seconds.] and Jenny changes costumes. It's actually a pretty smooth costume change, because I'm always so busy looking at the hubcap beetles and being annoyed by them I forget to look at Jenny, but honestly classic Cats never really sought to hide/distract from the costume change here, and tbh I feel like that showy deliberate change is relevant to her dual nature? Whatever. Not a big deal.

But anyways so Jenny and the beetles start tapping. Oh, are we going to build on this momentum? Is someone else going to join in? No. That bigass broom prop comes flying in, the beetles go off stage (and probably rip off those huge costumes), and Jenny stops dancing. Then we spend like an honest thirty seconds playing with the broom and then playing with those basketball/soccerball props while pretty much 0 dancing happens on stage at all. Jenny mostly just wanders around during this section (& you're right, she definitely does less in this version).

Then there's the 'tick tock tap' section where that big clock prop in the background makes a bunch of tick-tock noises and Jenny dances to it. While everyone just kind of watches. Which is fine I guess.

The music BUILDS UP, EVERYONE COMES ON STAGE, OH BOY ARE WE FINALLY BUILDING SOME MOMENTUM?

No. Everyone dances for five seconds and then stands there and watches Jenny dance. Some cats are ? scrubbing the floor with brushes like cinderella ?

THE MUSIC BUILDS UP AGAIN EVERYONE IS GETTING IN A LINE OOH NOW THEY'RE SPREADING OUT ARE WE FINALLY GOING TO HAVE OUR BIG FINALE?

Nope pretty much everyone just stops dancing again to watch Jenny. Also Jerrie is breakdancing for some reason.

OKAY NOW EVERYONE IS DANCING TOGETHER! HOORAY! YAHOO!

Then like 15 seconds of dancing later the clock goes off, interrupting the finale, and the song ends.

Yay.

Where classic Gumbie builds up by adding more and more dancers over time, this one just kind of slaps everyone in there and then takes everyone out, a chunk of kittens will join, then leave, a prop will come in and then out, and the Tattoo element that the song was mostly made of is pretty much gone entirely. Instead of one unified piece of choreo, it feels like getting random crap shoved in your face over and over. 'Isn't this cool? Isn't THIS cool? How about this? Or this????'

Then you have the props: only a couple cats wear bug costumes and they don't translate well and look unwieldy. The clock, balls, (tooth?)brushes, and the broom are a disjointed assembly of props. Everything in the classic song characterizes Jenny. These items have nothing to do with her-- they're not even really things you'd find in a Junkyard. What does a clock have to do with Jenny's duality between her militant and motherly nature? What about the balls? With the cleaning stuff, you can at least say she makes the mice and bugs clean, but the poem doesn't mention her making them clean, it mentions 'music, crocheting and tatting', mentions turning them into boyscouts, mentions the Beetles' Tattoo, mentions baking for them, etc.

If the stuff like the balls and the broom were cool enough that I could forgive them being just slapped in there, that'd be one thing. But I got sick of the balls like 5 seconds after they came in, and the broom didn't really do anything for me. The clock wasn't that bad, but I don't know why they took out the Tattoo and instead added these elements. The Tattoo had to do with Jenny's nature, this shit doesn't.

I get why a lot of the tapping was removed, because they added a lot of hip hop and stuff in there and you can't really cast for people who can act, sing, dance ballet, dance tap, and dance hip hop, but regardless of how much tap they decided to use (which is a creative choice, I get it) it just doesn't feel good. It builds to nothing, most of the props say and do nothing interesting, there's big chunks of the song where no dancing happens at all, and there's even bigger chunks where Jenny is the only one dancing and everyone just watches her.

Right after that quote I mentioned earlier, Andy adds, "It’s like that circus in the second grade. It’s completely labor-intensive. You’re choreographing 20 numbers instead of one number."

And like. Yeah, Andy. You're right. This does kind of feel like a circus.

[justforbooks]

As the leader of the New York band Television, Tom Verlaine, who has died aged 73, was a key figure in the coterie of musicians – Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group – who made downtown Manhattan a laboratory of new sounds and new styles in the mid-1970s. Although each of those groups pursued a very different musical path, together their impact would shape what became known as the punk movement, while Television’s debut LP, Marquee Moon, released in 1977, would secure a place among the most admired and enduringly influential albums of its era.

In Smith’s recent publication, A Book of Days, she chooses a photograph from 1974 in which she and Verlaine, then lovers and occasional collaborators, are holding hands in a tableau of sweetly defiant thrift-store chic: a flimsy child-bride’s gown for her, a patchwork leather jerkin for him. But among the artfully distressed apparel, defiant haircuts and painfully skinny silhouettes of their milieu, none of those serving apprenticeships in CBGBs, Max’s Kansas City and other New York clubs showed more concern for the music itself than Verlaine.

“Attitude,” he once said, “will only take you so far, which for me is never far enough.” Instead the career of the visionary singer, songwriter and guitarist, including solo albums and appearances as well as various Television reunions, seemed to represent a constant quest for the perfect blend of musical eloquence and some form of spiritual elevation.

Fittingly for a man who appropriated his stage name from a great French symbolist poet, Verlaine wrote striking lyrics, such as the opening lines of Marquee Moon: “I remember how the darkness doubled / I recall lightning struck itself.” In another early song, Venus, he sang of how “Broadway looked so medieval” – a description both improbable and indelibly perceptive.

But it was his exploratory guitar solos that spoke of his early interest in, and deep knowledge of, the avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. Somehow he managed to find a language midway between the speaking-in-tongues improvisations of the saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler and the more functional styles of such rock’n’roll, R&B and surf-rock guitarists as James Burton, Steve Cropper and Dick Dale, as well as the expansive psychedelic guitar improvisations of Jerry Garcia and John Cipollina, and to make the result match his own era.

Verlaine’s tightly wound stage presence was compelling, but his personality – his cool reserve, fugitive manner and inherent suspicion of others’ motives – made him a figure of mystery, and worked against his chances of the mainstream success to which, in any case, he never seemed committed.

The son of Lillian and Victor Miller, he was born in Morriston, New Jersey, into a middle-class family who moved to Wilmington, Delaware, when he was six years old. After classical piano lessons, he switched to saxophone upon discovering jazz and then took up the guitar. At Sanford, a private school in Hockassin, Delaware, where he was a day pupil, he met a boarder from Kentucky named Richard Meyers, with whom he bonded over a love of poetry and a mutual desire to escape the confines of the establishment in which they found themselves. The first attempt ended with both being brought back after being arrested in Alabama for setting a building on fire.

They had made their separate ways to New York by 1971, where they teamed up again on the Lower East Side, changed their names to Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, scuffled for work and wrote poetry together under the nom-de-plume “Theresa Stern”. But Verlaine, working as a clerk at the Strand bookstore in the East Village, was determined to form a band. He taught Hell the rudiments of playing the bass guitar and together with the drummer Billy Ficca they performed as the Neon Boys before adding another guitarist, Richard Lloyd, and changing their name to Television in 1974.

Verlaine’s songs, the compositions of Hell (including the anthemic Blank Generation) and the soaring interplay between the two lead guitarists quickly earned them a following among New York’s scene makers. Endorsements came from David Bowie and Nicholas Ray, the director of Rebel Without a Cause, whose crisp epithet – “Four cats with a passion” – appeared on their promotional material. Smith, then beginning her rise to prominence, was another early supporter, and Verlaine played on her first single, a version of Hey Joe, in 1974.

Richard Hell, whose spiky hair and ripped T-shirts would inspire Malcolm McLaren’s styling of the Sex Pistols, had already been sacked by Verlaine on the grounds of heroin-induced unreliability by the time Television made their first single. A Verlaine song called Little Johnny Jewel, it was released in 1975 on a label created by their patron, Terry Ork. The following year they signed a deal with Elektra Records and began work on Marquee Moon. The album was co-produced by the studio engineer Andy Johns, who had worked with the Rolling Stones, Free and Led Zeppelin, and who helped Verlaine achieve the clarity of sound for which he was searching.

If the album’s sales were disappointing by the standards of the biggest rock bands of the time, their music was warmly received by the rock press in the US and Europe, and by audiences on their first tour of the UK, with Blondie as their support act. A second album, Adventure, made less impact and the band dissolved in 1978 after disagreements between Verlaine and Lloyd.

Verlaine’s eponymous first solo album was released in 1979, followed two years later by Dreamtime and then by several others, including Cover, completed in 1984 while he was briefly living in London. Two albums of instrumental pieces, Warm and Cool (1992) and Around (2006), showed his gift for creating tone poems inspired by film noir. In 1995 he appeared as a guest with Smith’s band on a US tour with Bob Dylan.

Television briefly reformed in 1992 to release a new self-titled album of the highest quality and toured occasionally both before and after the second departure of Lloyd, who was replaced from 2007 by Jimmy Rip. Their last appearances came in 2013.

🔔 Tom Verlaine (Thomas Miller), guitarist, singer and songwriter, born 13 December 1949; died 28 January 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[laiqualaurelote]

Rules: Post 10 of your favourite movies and tag 10 people! Thanks @glamorouspixels for the tag. I’ve actually been thinking about this of late because I’ve listening to Brett Goldstein’s podcast Films To Be Buried With. These are in the order I watched them:

1. Lord of the Rings

My favourite films of all time, based on my favourite book of all time. Also I consider them to be one very long 11.5h movie (yes, I refer to the extended editions).

2. Chicago

One of the first movie musical adaptations I ever saw, which left an indelible impression on me. To this day I could probably describe the Cell Block Tango scene shot by shot. Catherine Zeta-Jones! 

3. Once Upon A Time In Mexico

This bonkers finale to Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi trilogy has everything. It has Antonio Banderas as a brooding guitar-playing hitman. It has peak Johnny Depp in the era when it was not weird to have a Johnny Depp phase. It has Salma Hayek looking absolutely smoking. It has Enrique Iglesias, whose guitar has a flamethrower. It has Danny Trejo! Willem Dafoe! Eva Mendes! Mickey Rourke! all playing these absolutely unhinged roles. I adore it. 

4. Sin City

So there are two Rodriguez films on this list, but I don’t think I could do without either. Sin City is perhaps one of the best graphic novel screen adaptations of all time. I was obsessed with this film from quite possibly too young an age, especially with Rosario Dawson as a dominatrix with a machine gun. It’s utter pulp and I’m not sorry.

5. Brick

I maintain this high-school neo-noir with baby Joseph Gordon-Levitt is still Rian Johnson’s best film, and this is despite the fact it was so low-budget they had to fake a transition by pulling a garbage bag over the camera and then playing it in reverse. It also contains a scene with a chicken jug that will live in my heart forever.

6. Singing’ in the Rain

Do they make them like this any more? They do not. I can’t begin to pick what I love most about this - the hysterically funny script, the OT3 vibes, the fact that nearly every musical number is a colossal achievement of its own (Donald O’Connor running up the walls in Make ‘Em Laugh! The tap-dancing in Moses Supposes! Cyd Charisse in that green dress in Broadway Melody!) or even just the comic genius of Jean Hagen, which could sustain an entire film on its own.

7. Inception

This film managed somehow to be both a cinematic masterpiece and fandom catnip, which is rare. As an architecture/urbanism geek who also loves heists and devastatingly competent men in suits, I feel like this film was made for me. Also, Arthur/Eames! One of my all-time ships. 

8. 28 Days Later

Best second-generation zombie film, for my money - both stunningly shot and horrifying. The way the final mansion massacre is filmed while John Murphy’s soundtrack builds on that eerie four-note crescendo - chills. Also, young Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris! really the most beautiful zombie film ever. 

9. The Maltese Falcon

I dithered over whether to put this or The Big Sleep in the bracket of “classic book-to-film noir adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart” - I love them both equally - but went with this because it is, marginally, the better film (and the better book - Raymond Chandler could write the hell out of a novel but he could not tie up his plots). It also has the fantastic villain duo of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, as well as a young Elisha Cook Jr as the gunsel who gets played for a sap. That ending! “If they hang you, I’ll always remember you.” 

10. In the Mood for Love

This is, hands-down, the greatest film on this list. Definitely one of the greatest films ever made. Every single shot is a work of art. That iconic scene of Maggie Cheung buying noodles in a dark high-collared cheongsam, walking down a smoky alleyway swinging her tingkat to the strains of the plaintive violin of Shigeru Umebayashi’s theme, brushing past Tony Leung in his steam-rumpled suit - it gives me shivers. I’ll never be over the ending of this film. I’ll also never be normal about buying noodles.

So I’m not going to tag 10 people because I’m too tired but like talk about your favourite movies if you want to! 

[psalm22-6]

Source: the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 17 November 1989

WHERE were you in 1822? Not Paris I hope. Talk about inconveniences; pastry prices were sky high and you couldn't turn a corner without fear of running into ranting anarchists or soldiers' bayonets. [where do I begin....] Now, with the advent of hightech stage wizardry, France's turbulent in-between-revolutionary era can be taken in much more comfortably. With some effort, one can secure a seat at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, (8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. matinees Saturdays and Sundays), and see "Les Miserables," the blockbuster musical hit based on Victor Hugo's epic novel.

Who would have ever guessed that Hugo's 1200 page tale of vallantry [sic], combat, love, hate, and suffering would wind up a hit musical? Alain Boublil (author) and Claude-Michel Schonberg (composer), that's who. There's no denying that the story of "Les Miserables" has all the makings of grand theatre, but its long-windedness makes it no breeze for stage adaptation; kind of like setting the Bible.

Boulil and Schonberg scaled the work down to fit into 3VJ hours running time, and though various omissions and truncations might rattle purists, the musical stands on its own, matching at least the novel's grandeur. Directors and adapters John Caird and Travor [sic] Nunn put theatrical means to exhaustive and imaginative ends in this multi-tiered spectacle. 

In terms of the grand sweep and nuances also, production values are on target. The novel's ideologies are tucked smoothly into context and character, their themes developed skillfully within the confines of the musical's somewhat synoptic form. 

Surprisingly, the show's most oft used and effective technology is dirt simple. With a large rotating disc planted midstage, time and Paris' dank back streets whisk by seamlessly. The highlighted hide n' seek saga between protagonist Jean Valjean and his nemesis Inspector Javert is just one strata of Hugo's bigger-than-life story that make the rounds. Other plots and subplots unwind upon the lazy-susan treadmill, eclipsing each other from scene to scene as if in planetary orbits. 

Though the story is broken down to essentials, it remains far more engrossing and elaborate than the greater bulk of Broadway fare. Jean Valjean has just served 20 years on the chain gang for stealing a loaf of bread, and his return to the free world is painstakingly encumbered by his inmate markings, (evinced by a yellow ID card). After thwarted attempts at making a straight-laced go of it, he assumes a new identity and destroys his card. He then pops up in scene two as mayor of the town and a successful businessman, but alas, Javert is hot on the trail, and before long he is forced to give up his respected station. The chase snakes through city and countryside, touching on a panoramic assortment of societal ranks. Jean Valjean's encounters with street people and malcontent students adds breadth to the political context, keeps the audience abreast of the situation as unrest foments to rebellion. 

Schonberg's apt and catchy song settings with John Cameron's glitzy orchestral packaging are ingeniously woven into the show's dramatic and technical pacing. Schonberg supplies a dynamic spectrum of musical atmospheres that correspond effectively with the story's dramatic scheme; a trove of memorable songs beginning to end. The simple, folk/rock flavored ballads "I Dreamed a Dream" and "On My Own" have already gained signature status, and underline a good deal of the show's progress via assorted retreadings. Noble and forthright, the stately chaconne accompaniment of the former tune echos the visionary strength of France's downtrodden, while "On My Own" intimates vulnerability and longing, sounding not too unlike "Shall We Gather at the River." The action scenes and larger music builds are more the work of Cameron's instrumental episodes, which are at times intriguingly shaded by acoustic/synthetic mixes. 

A toast to Herbert Kretzmer's irresistable lyrics. The serious songs touch both persona feelings and greater concerns, and there's no shortage of laughs, either. Ribald rhymes and ruthless punning make "Master of the House" (later "Beggars at the Feast") and "Dog Eats Dog" hilarious foils to the story's grimmer moments. The songs are sung by M. & Mme. Thenardier (Gary Beach and Gina Ferrall), shameless skalleywags whose pure wretchedness give the show a breath of fresh air. 

You couldn't hope for a better cast ... for the most part. Rich Herbert gives an unusually winning portrayal of the ever-valiant Jean Valjean. Playing a saint is no picnic and Herbert wears his halo credibly. His physical presence is a given asset for the role, but he also brings dynamic acting ability and beautifully voiced arias. Richard Kinsey poses a menacing presence as Javert, Jean Valjean's pursuer; a real swine. With a booming bass voice that shoots up the spine like an aftershock, Kinsey looms relentlessly on the heels of our hero from beginning to near-end. Javert's final withdrawal from the chase, (we're talking terminal) features one of the show's most ingenious technical displays, a stunt that is perfectly suited to the character's formidable stature. 

With all the pieces artfully made and fit in place, there remains something to be desired in "Les Miserables." By virtue of the sheer magnitude of spectacle, gadgetry overwhelms humanity. Guts and glory are mere ingredients of the multi-tiered phenomena rather than the meat of it all wedged in between hardware and software like the ewoks in "Star Wars." The musical's emotional resonance is strategically planted into the scheme of things, designed so neatly and predictably that the stitches show. 

For tickets call (415) 474-3800

[jules-has-notes]

collaboration spotlight — Disney Playlist Sessions — Newsies

Continuing the celebration of Disney On Broadway's 20th anniversary, VoicePlay's talented arrangers put together a handful of songs for the North American touring cast of Newsies. These reimagined tunes span and mix genres in the guys' expect-the-unexpected fashion, and the talented cast members perform them beautifully.

These videos were filmed at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas during the week when the tour was performing there.

.

This song was a huge hit in 2015, and its exhuberent melody is a fantastic match for a group of young musical theater professionals. This is the most straightforward arrangement of the batch, but that doesn't make it any less fun.

Details:

title: Shut Up and Dance

performers: Dan DeLuca & the touring cast of Newsies

original performers: Walk the Moon

written by: Ben Berger, Eli Maiman, Ryan McMahon, Nicholas Petricca, Kevin Ray, & Sean Waugaman

arranged by: Layne Stein & Geoff Castellucci

release date: 26 March 2015

My favorite bits:

the rhythm being provided entirely by spoon playing, tap dancing, and a guy with a wooden box

those simple, solid backing harmonies

a quintuple pirouette in tap shoes, very impressive

Dan's flip up into falsetto during his quiet solo after the dance break

Trivia:

VoicePlay also arranged a portion of this song for themselves as part of their "Aca Top 10 – Summer Hits 2015" countdown.

.

Turning a classic wistful Disney ballad into a romantic duet could be a fairly simple task, so the VoicePlay boys decided to include a little twist. With the addition of a slightly faster, more jazzy rhythm, these actors made it endearingly flirty.

Details:

title: A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

performers: Dan DeLuca & Stephanie Styles

original performer: Ilene Woods as Cinderella in Disney's Cinderella (1950)

written by: Mack David, Al Hoffman & Jerry Livingston

arranged by: Layne Stein & Geoff Castellucci

release date: 2 April 2015

My favorite bits:

the swingy beat and surfer movie instrumentation

the little harmonizing moments as they pass the melody back and forth

Stephanie's incredible vibrato

Trivia:

VoicePlay had previously recorded a portion of this song as the opening segment of the Pumpkins, Poppins, and Sorcerers medley on their 2012 album of Disney music, "Once Upon an Ever After".

.

Within the show, this song is a rousing anthem for the newsies. This version adds a more feminine touch and a groovy beat that stands on its own.

Details:

title: Seize the Day

performers: Angela Grovey & the touring cast of Newsies

original performers: the cast of Newsies (2012)

written by: Alan Menken & Jack Feldman

arranged by: Layne Stein & Geoff Castellucci

release date: 9 April 2015

My favorite bits:

Angela building from soft and breathy to a big, bold belt

love a good bell chord, especially on a lyric like ♫ "one" ♫

the boys' synchronized scoops after the key change

and a bit of funky bass to round things out

Trivia:

VoicePlay included a brief excerpt of this song in their "aca-Disney" medley that they recorded as part of the kickoff to Disney On Broadway's 20th anniversary celebration.

.

The best mashups have a unifying theme, and this one definitely follows that rule, interweaving two hopeful, defiant songs by downtrodden residents of the Big Apple.

Details:

title: King of New York mashup

performers: Jacob Kemp & the touring cast of Newsies

original songs / performers: "King of New York" by the Broadway cast of Newsies (2012); "Why Should I Worry" by Billy Joel as Dodger in Oliver & Company (1988)

written by: "King of New York" by Alan Menken & Jack Feldman; "Why Should I Worry" by Dan Hartman & Charlie Midnight

arranged by: Layne Stein & Geoff Castellucci

release date: 16 April 2015

My favorite bits:

Jacob staying in that distinctive theatrical accent while singing

DeMarius's gritty high notes

those crunchy harmonies on ♫ "Why should I worry?" ♫

Trivia:

Like regular VoicePlay collaborator Deejay Young, DeMarius Copes went on to be a longtime member of the touring cast for Hamilton, with the Philip tour ensemble.

.

Extra:

As a bonus video for this series, castmember Zachary Sayle, who played Crutchie on the tour, recorded a performance of a song newly added to the show, "Letter from the Refuge".

[boricuacherry-blog]

The story goes that their love affair began the moment they laid eyes on one another, in the elevator of a swank Manhattan apartment building in 1947. A few weeks later, the writer and the young actor were driving to California on an adventure that would eventually lead to marriage.

There was one problem: Anais Nin, the prolific diarist who would become a feminist heroine, already was married. Rupert Pole, the actor who left New York to become a forest ranger - and eventually guardian of one of literature's most labyrinthine legacies - spent years pretending not to care that his wife was a bigamist.big Amistad.

"We had a wonderful, deep relationship," Pole, who was 16 years younger than Nin, told the Vancouver Sun years ago, "and that is what counted."

A music lover who played the guitar and viola, Pole studied at Harvard University and earned a degree in music in 1940.

According to Nin biographer Noel Riley Fitch, Pole had just completed a run on Broadway in "The Duchess of Malfi" and was working as a printer when he met Nin in the elevator, both headed to the same party. Pole, who was under the impression that she was divorced, asked her to go west with him. She told her husband Hugh Guiler, a banker, that she was going to help a friend drive to Las Vegas. That pretense was her first step toward bicoastal bigamy.

She accompanied Pole to Los Angeles, where he enrolled at UCLA to study forestry. After a year, he transferred to UC Berkely and lived with Nin in a San Francisco apartment. Upon graduation, he joined the forest service and was assigned to a station in the San Gabriel Mountains. Nin lived with Pole in a cabin in Sierra Madre where she scrubbed the floors, baby-sat the neighbors' children and was known as "Mrs. Anais Pole," though she and Rupert were not married.

Still legally Mrs. Guiler, Nin juggled both relationships by shuttling between the two coasts every few weeks. She told Guiler that she needed to spend time on the West Coast to escape the pressures of New York, and she told Pole that she had to go to New York on writing assignments.

Once, when Pole called her at the New York apartment she shared with Guiler, she convinced Guiler that Pole was a deranged admirer.

Both men apparently chose to believe her lies, which became so numerous that she wrote them down on index cards and locked them in a box so that she could keep her stories straight. She referred to the web of lies as her "trapeze."

She often said that her first marriage was an "imprisonment" and she was loathe to take on a second. When she finally married Pole in 1955, she said she had "exhausted all the defenses I could invent." The ceremony took place before a justice of the peace in the tiny Arizona town of Quartzsite.

She was Mrs. Pole for 11 years, until she grew too fearful of the legal consequences of having two husbands who claimed her as a dependent on their tax returns. Before invalidating their marriage in 1966, she told Pole about Guiler, explaining that she could not divorce the banker because of his decades of financial support.

After scrimping from his salary as a forest ranger and later a teacher, Pole built a small house in Silver Lake that he hoped would entice Anais to stay with him permanently in California.

Also Anais had a late-term abortion of a child with Henry Miller that she characterized as aa "stillbirth" in her first published diary.

Pole finally met Guiler a few years after Nin's death. They communicated periodically on a "friendly basis, or a mutual husband basis."

-Los Angeles Times

[danceismymuse]

Jake had come short. He was brought up in a sense of believing the only person you could count on was yourself. His mother had drilled it into his mind. To only count on your own abilities; I had to blame my dead beat father for it. My Mother wanted to control me, my future it was living in her own legacy. And I let her; why? Because it made her feel powerful. And once upon a time the only adult, the only person I trusted was her. But Jake had his eyes wide open now. It wasn’t a wild idea; it wasn’t a spur of a moment choice, he knew the risk he was taking. 

When he decided to walk away from Broadway; when he decided he wanted to partake in a new dream. One by fate had landed him in the same town; place as Ally. A lost love; the one person who he called his muse. Each dance, each movement he made on his terms was mused by her. Ally she smart, she was creative and his perfect dance partner. The love of his life and he was stupid enough to let slip away. But right now felt like the timing was on our side. I owed up to my mistakes, I formed my new dream that felt mine. And Ally she was here; she was witty enough to get her brothers to agree to help; despite their hate for me with good reason. Swallowing his own pride; his gaze ended on her; his eyes always found her in a crowded room. 

“ Thank you Ally.” Her support, her believe meant it all to me. Despite how I treated her; how I Chose fame over us; she was still here; and I felt her eyes on me as I glanced around the empty room; the ideas that formed. Her brothers were at the other end of the room. Occupied by the walls that dimed light; the walls that needed framing, and it was almost a blessing. To talk to her; to relieve the dreams we once had in each other. A new future one we could build together if we decided to. 

A play; a musical forming the dancing on my own was out of my element but a proactive run for me for the studio and I knew it would make Ally smile and that’s why I placed a gentle hand on her wrist that forced our hues to meet in the room of dark. “ Sounds perfect, I’ll be at the diner, and let’s hope you still don’t fight the need to throw a milkshake at my face.” A humor; a tease in his tone as he glanced at his handy work; the broken walls; He’d have his hands full but he supposed he could find the time for her always. The musical in play Grease a great choice but West Side Story held close to his heart; a sour expression on his lips as he echoed his thoughts. “ I have ideas for Greece, but Its a shame West Side Story is off the table for now.” A tease as simper ran along his lips; smiled for her. A touch that traced along her skin on her wrist as he aired out his reply. “ Yes but the kids are lucky to have you, a supporter of the art.” A hidden meaning she was my muse; even if I never said it.

@danceismymuse

{A smile remained nestled across my lips and my cheeks felt warm as I read Jake's text message reply} Stop it, Ally! Get it together! He's just going to breeze in and then breeze out again, so don't get attached. {I told myself as I silence my phone and then set it down onto my night stand; figuring I needed to get some sleep, since I had an early morning ahead of me} Stop thinking about Jake, and go to sleep. {I told myself once more before I shut off my light; burying my face into the fluff of my pillow before forcing my eyes to close. It took me awhile, but in time I managed to drift off to sleep. By the time the next morning came around, I got up, showered, and then worked on my outfit, hair, and make-up for the day. No sooner slipping my feet into a pair of shoes when I heard the buzzer going off through the intercom system of my apartment. Given the time, I knew it was my brothers letting me know they had arrived} Yes? {I called out through the intercom system; hearing the familiar sound of my one brother responding} "We're here. Meet us down at the truck, when you're ready!" {He called back, which prompted me to do the same} Be right down. {At that, I retrieved my purse, phone, and keys; quickly double checking to make sure I had unplugged all of my hair devices, before ultimately taking a leave from my apartment. Before long I was downstairs and outside my apartment building; greeting my big brothers with a smile as I approached them} Please be nice to him. {Deciding to just get the elephant in the room out of the way, right from the start, before we were all in the same room together. I saw my brothers both shoot me a look as if to say, "Doubtful," which prompted me to speak once more} Look, what's done is done. He knows he broke my heart, and he knows it was a mistake. He's trying here. He even said he understands if you both decide to kick his ass, which says a lot for him, since you know how much his appearance means to him. {I added playfully with a soft grin, before my expression grew a bit more serious again as I continued speaking} All I'm saying is, please just give him a chance. I promise you, he's changed for the better. {I assured them as my one brother made his way around to the driver's side of the truck, while my other brother opened the back, passenger's side door for me, so I could get into the vehicle. Once I was securely in my seat, my brother closed the truck door, and then got into the truck via the passenger's side door} "He's still a jerk, Ally. Once a jerk, always a jerk. The way I see it, his return here, and this extravagant and showy gesture of buying a studio isn't going to change that for me. If he really has changed, like you claim he has, then he's going to have to do a hell of a lot to prove that to me." {My oldest brother aired out before the other spoke up} "For your sake, we will be chill around him today, but to be clear, if he hurts you again, we /will/ kick his ass. I'd say a broken leg and nose combo would give him enough of an awakening of his pride, arrogance, and selfish choices." {I aired out a quiet breath in response as I leaned back in the back seat of the truck; knowing there wasn't anything more I could do or say to change their protective nature or way of thinking. I just hoped they would give Jake a chance, was all, since in my heart, I really did feel he had changed. I guess time would tell on all of that though} Okay, that's fair enough. {I eventually said as the truck continued down the road and toward the location of the dance studio}

[d-criss-news]

How Darren Criss Spends His Sundays

The performer enjoys rituals that are both old-school (park bench workouts) and New Age (cryotherapy treatments).

—

One would think, given his holiday album, “A Very Darren Crissmas,” that Darren Criss would be kind of obsessed with Christmas. This is not quite accurate, he said. “However, aside from the convenient, yet eye-rolling pun that is the title, it is a very me collection of songs.”

For example, the actor, singer and songwriter updated the second track of the recording, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” a 1953 novelty hit originally performed by a 10-year-old, with an almost hip-hop feel. “I don’t take myself too seriously,” he said.

He did, however, take home an Emmy for his visceral 2018 portrayal of Gianni Versace’s killer in Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” series. (The actor humbly described it as a “participation trophy.”)

But back to the music. Mr. Criss has developed and is starring in a cabaret version of “Crissmas,” currently running at Café Carlyle in Manhattan through Dec. 10. Afterward, he’ll take the show on the road, with stops in Morristown, N.J., on Dec. 11, Huntington, N.Y., on Dec. 15 and Ridgefield, Conn., on Dec. 16.

Mr. Criss, 35, along with his wife, Mia Criss, 37, a producer, and their 8-month-old daughter, Bluesy Belle, split their time between Los Angeles and Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan.

MATCHA, THEN FRISSON Never really drank coffee. Grew up in an Asian household drinking real, bitter Japanese matcha you’d be ill-advised to consume on an empty stomach. Not that sugary Starbucks stuff.

These days, however, being a new parent in my 30s, I have gotten into espresso. It’s helpful. Only a very specific type, though. Terrified of sounding pretentious here, but, yes, I only drink ristretto (“restricted” in Italian). This is just a shorter, more condensed shot of espresso. When we downsized to Hell’s Kitchen in October, we stumbled upon this cute, 47th Street coffee shop called Frisson. Felt pretentious asking, “Do you guys do a proper ristretto?” But these guys were like, “Of course!” Been going there ever since.

PRACTICALITIES First off, never in a million years did I think I’d live in Hell’s Kitchen. Mia and I have lived mainly downtown: Chelsea, the Village, Lower East Side. But, when she became pregnant, I started thinking, you know, since I’m doing Broadway shows roughly every other year, it’d make sense to be close to the theater.

BROADWAY ZONE Upon leaving my apartment, I encounter one of two genres of person: tourists or theater people. And they’re easy to tell apart. I run into colleagues: musicians, stage hands, directors. This sort of busybody theater world contained within a few block radius. Radii?

CRACKS You have to have a certain constitution for Hell’s Kitchen. Yes, there’s the crazies and the commercial hoo-ha, things many Manhattanites hate most. And yes, the neighborhood is dirty and smells a little weird. But I’m kind of invigorated by it. And I know where the cracks are.

COSMIC Plus, Mia and I love being able to walk to Cosmic Diner. Just your typical, no-frills greasy spoon. Don’t know if the pandemic changed it, or if I changed, but before this year, most of my memories at Cosmic were definitely between the hours of 3 and 7 a.m. Don’t think I’d ever been there during daylight. Eat some grease, to try to put a dent in your hangover, that’s my line. Not to say we’re hung over. We’re responsible parents. Obviously.

KEEP IT SIMPLE Big fitness guy. This is my first time living in a building with a gym; we’d always lived in older buildings. But my routine’s still: Give me an hour and a park bench, and I’m good. Run down Hudson River Park, maybe down near Little Island, which is so cute and gorgeous. Then I’ll box jump onto a bench. A box jump is a jump squat, except you’re leaping onto a higher surface. I love it.

FROZEN Of all the eye roll-y, New Age-y things you could make fun of a guy who works in Hollywood for, I’ve gotten really into cryotherapy. They’re often booked on Sundays, but I try to get in after the workout, feels like a full-body ice pack. Helps with inflammation. During our “American Buffalo” run on Broadway this year, Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and I would go and get some cryo done in between the matinee and evening shows. We were very much like theater homies. There’s a spot right on Central Park South called the Fuel Stop. You’re essentially standing in a fridge, inducing a sort of fight-or-flight response.

THE COLD CHAMBER When I first tried it, I was like, “Well, what do you do in there for those three or four minutes?” And the cryo guy was like, “Oh, we play music and dance around.” And I was like, “Oh, awesome. What would you recommend?” And, I’ll never forget this, the cryo guy said, “Daft Punk.” Of course! So, now I blast dance music and kind of two-step in the cold chamber. I like being in the chamber. When you walk out, all these endorphins are released. Though maybe it’s all a wild placebo, and in a few years scientists and bloggers will say everybody who did cryo back in the 2020s were suckers.

BEWITCHING HOUR But, let’s not forget the placebo effect is, nonetheless, an effect. And yes, being New Age-y again: I find blue light very destructive for sleep. So, if I really want to watch something, I have blue-light-blocking glasses. But, in general, I do less consuming at night, as it seems the next song or musical can only be written in the wee hours. Though my wife and I did just finish watching the new season of “Derry Girls.” Once Mia falls asleep, I’m out here in the living room with my guitar and piano. My brain is most active when everyone’s asleep.

THE TANK But, truth is you’re always writing, whether you like it or not. Input via sonic cues, always on. Ideas haunt you constantly. So, at night, it’s often less about coming up with lyrics and melodies than it is about organizing what’s already in the tank.

For example, my wacky Hippo riff was actually the result of walking around department stores for years, Christmas after Christmas, hearing that ’50s novelty song and saying to myself, “You know what’d be funny?” Then finally sitting up one night and doing it.

See the photos

[heliads]

hi, lisa!!! how are you?

i read your last wanda imagine and i just loved it so much, it was stuck in my head all day and then i decided to watch descendants at night and i had an idea, so i figured i could come to you! i hope you like it!

here's what i thought, reader is nat's daughter, just like in the other one because i loved it, but she's still in high school and so is wanda, they're like 17/18 and reader is a huge disney/musicals fan, she made everyone in the compound watch all disney movies with her, and when nat took her to a broadway show for the first time it was the best day of her life, she's that kind of girl

and wanda is reader's best friend who obviously ends up watching all her favorite movies, so one night they're watching descendants for the 1000000 time and reader keeps talking about the "did i mention" scene and how having someone singing to her like that is her biggest dream, how she'd immediately fall in love, and wanda is like "oh, so that's what i gotta do"

so about a week later there's a school game or something like that, reader in on the cheerleader team and all the avengers show up to see her, and wanda surprises her by doing the descendants scene and singing to her and they get together because who wouldn't be in love after that?

and then nat comes to them and she's like "that was the cutest thing i've ever seen" and wanda is all nervous "so we have you blessing?" and nat goes "oh defitely yes" and then gets all serious "but be careful, i'll be watching" and wanda immediately takes her hands off readers waist, i think it would be funny lol

well, that's it! i saw you saying that you like details, so i tried my best! hope you like it and thanks <3

i do love details, and i love this!! i would kill for descendants

masterlist

For once, everything in Wanda Maximoff’s life is going well. It’s late on a Saturday night in the Avengers complex, and she’s crowded into a couch that’s long since outlived its use-by date. The thing is threadbare, all but falling to pieces beneath Wanda’s fingers, but it’s somehow the most comfortable piece of furniture in the entirety of the building, so it stays.

There’s a movie playing on the TV screen in front of her, one of her favorites. Wanda could close her eyes and jam her hands over her ears, yet still be able to quote the script word for word until the end credits begin. Wanda’s a firm believer that this is the best way to watch a movie, where you can have a conversation the entire time and still know exactly what’s going on with the plot.

Her sentiment is clearly shared by the girl by Wanda’s side. Y/N L/N watches the characters race across the screen and sighs fondly.

“Listen, I don’t care what the movie critics think,” Y/N says, “Descendants is the pinnacle of film. I have literally never felt so satisfied in my entire life.”

Wanda laughs. “Didn’t you say the same thing last week about Teen Beach Movie?”

Y/N grins back at her. “Yeah, and I’ll say it next Saturday about High School Musical. I’m an easy person to please, Wanda. All I need are 2000s haircuts and terrible songs.”

Wanda snorts. “I thought you loved the songs, and now you’re calling them terrible?”

“Well,” Y/N says languidly, “I can admit that they’re not, say, the most lyrically gifted. They’re just fun, alright?”

Wanda leans back against the couch cushions, watching the light from the latest scene play upon the darkened ceiling. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Honestly, I feel like we as a society need to give Disney movies more credit. Even the other Avengers like them.”

Y/N giggles, remembering the past team movie nights they’ve shared. “How could I forget? I think Thor had a fundamental change in his personality when he saw Frozen, and I know for a fact that Tony hurried off to his lab for like a week after we played Big Hero Six for him.”

“Tony was actually onto something, I think,” Wanda says offhandedly, “I remember stopping by his lab one day and seeing all this stuff about medical assistance droids. I legitimately thought he was going to make himself a Baymax until Pepper said he couldn’t use that much plastic. Still, I can hardly blame him for wanting to make at least some part of that world real. These movies are my favorites.”

Y/N slumps back beside her, their heads almost inches apart. There’s a faraway look in Y/N’s eyes, making Wanda wonder if she’s here at all or picturing herself back in the scenes of Auradon Prep. “Same here, Wanda. Same here.”

She goes quiet for a moment, gaze still trained upon the ceiling. Wanda lets the voices from the TV fade into background static, using Y/N’s distraction as an excuse to stare at her as she’s been trying to avoid all night. Wanda knows the planes and curves of Y/N’s face like the back of her hand. Even if she tries to convince herself that she isn’t infatuated enough to stare like a lovesick fool, Wanda knows better. This night proves it.

It’s just, well, Wanda isn’t used to things being as good as this. It’s easy to pretend that her life has always been perfect when she’s trapped in perfect bubbles like this evening, when if you squint you could almost believe that Wanda’s a normal American teenager and they’re all just fine, no questions asked. If you close your eyes and let the music wash over you, Wanda is blessedly normal and there would be nothing to stop her from loving Y/N as she wishes she could.

The problems, of course, come once Wanda opens her eyes and remembers where she is again. She’s not on the picturesque isle of Auradon from Descendants, nor is she a fairy tale character. There are no morals to Wanda’s story, only the time-learned lesson that no matter how hard you try to fight for your cause, you’ll never win unless you cheat.

This, though? Tonight, lying side by side with the girl she likes? Wanda feels like she’s been winning for quite a while. She and Y/N are on the breakthrough of something, some confession, and they have been for a while. Their smiles mean a little more than they did when they met, they let their gazes linger when the other pretends to not pay attention. Words have been on the tip of Wanda’s tongue for a long time now, but she’s never confident enough to force them out.

It’s silly to hold herself back like this, Wanda knows it. There’s no way that Y/N doesn’t like her as much as Wanda likes Y/N, practically all of the other Avengers have made it their mission to tell Wanda this at some point or another. There are no consequences to asking Y/N out except in Wanda’s head, yet she keeps hesitating.

The slow realization that Wanda may spend the rest of her life always on the outskirts of this grand truth stings at her, so she turns her attention back to the movie in the hopes of regaining at least a little bit of her good mood. 

On the screen, Mal is with her best friend, Evie, in the stands of Auradon Prep’s field, watching Prince Ben come alive under a love spell. With the way Mal and Ben argue in the later movies, Wanda always thought Mal and Evie had far more chemistry as a couple, but then again, maybe that’s just Wanda projecting her own feelings onto the nearest characters.

Y/N sighs contentedly as she watches the next song start up. “I love this song. Wouldn’t it be fun to have someone do that sort of thing to you?”

Wanda arches her brow. “What, bewitch you with a love spell and force you through magic to sing your heart out to the entirety of the school about how you think your feelings are R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S?”

Y/N laughs, shoving Wanda in the shoulder with a casual move that makes Wanda’s heart flutter in her chest. “No, you cynic, I want somebody else to care about me enough to sing their heart out to the entirety of the school about how they think their love for me is R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S. I just think it would be fun, you know? So many people are afraid to be seen with an Avenger that they’d never do something like that for me.”

Y/N’s voice trails off at the end, and Wanda hums in agreement. That’s the nice thing about maintaining a secret identity, at least in the public sphere: if high school isn’t hard enough, having a ton of people realize that you’re an Avenger would make it even worse. All the same, the teen Avengers have already been cautioned about staying away from relationships with non-Avengers. The stakes are just too high if anyone were to find out or be in danger.

“Sure,” Wanda says contemplatively, “I can see it. Plus, being in a movie would be fun. I think I’d love to live in a TV world. It would just be great to have everything work out all the time. You know your plot twists would always resolve themselves, and nothing could hurt you, not really. You’d be in control all the time, even when you weren’t.”

Y/N nods. “Exactly. Guess having someone sing to me like that would be the closest I’d ever get to that sort of world. It would be fun, though.” She repeats.

There’s a soft look on Y/N’s face, like she’s homesick for something that has never even happened to her before. Y/N must really want to have a song like that, Wanda realizes, and then a sudden thought occurs to her and she’s done it, connected the dots, had her own lightbulb moment. Wanda knows how to ask Y/N out, the other girl has practically spelled it out for her: a song.

Wanda barely even notices Descendants end, she’s too distracted thinking about just how she’s going to get this to work. She’ll need the proper setting, obviously, a sports game at their shared high school, but that’s easy enough to arrange, they’re in the thick of the fall athletics season.

The plan comes to fruition about two weeks later. Y/N is on the cheer team at their high school, the result of yet another plan to pretend that she’s actually got a normal life, and Wanda has shown up with the other Avengers to watch her perform at a football game.

Wanda is never able to fully understand how it is that the entirety of the Avengers team can show up at public functions with only hooded jackets, baseball caps, and sunglasses and still never be recognized. It’s the most terrible disguise ever, yet it works every time. Maybe it’s because it makes absolutely no sense for Steve Rogers to be commenting on high school football with Tony Stark when you could just have a family reunion in town with relatives that look exactly the same as New York’s hometown heroes.

Regardless, it works just as it always does. Wanda doesn’t need a disguise because she’s a student here, and she guides the Avengers to a spot in the stands where they can see Y/N’s cheer team well. They don’t know about her plan, but they’re about to find out.

Wanda shoots a surreptitious glance over at them. She’s not worried about their reactions, only Natasha’s. See, Nat’s all but adopted Y/N ever since the other girl showed up at the Avengers complex. 

Natasha still tells the story fondly, how they all filed into what was then the Avengers Tower one day to find a preteen girl waiting for them in one of the meeting rooms. She’d had her hands folded on the table in front of her, the perfect picture of business casual were it not for the blood streaking her from head to toe.

Turns out young Y/N had been forced to fight her way there through a pack of HYDRA agents after her for her inhuman gifts, but the Avengers didn’t know that, only that there was a nine year old covered in gore who had broken into their building without setting off a single alarm. Natasha claims that she’d loved the girl from that day forward, and Wanda doesn’t dare doubt it.

Basically, Natasha is fiercely protective over Y/N due to her status as the other girl’s parent. Wanda doesn’t think Nat would have a problem with her asking Y/N out, but you never know. However, she’s too far into the plan to back out now. All she can do is hope it goes well.

Wanda makes her move at halftime. The cheer team performs their usual routine, and after they finish, pause for a few moments’ applause before the music shifts to a new tune. Y/N looks confused, probably because she’s never learned these steps. Wanda watches panic flare across her face for half a second before Wanda heads out of the rows of seats, casually switching places with Y/N to guide her friend back to the stands.

An instant later, Y/N recognizes the song as Wanda knew she would: “Did I Mention” from the Descendants soundtrack, the song Y/N was talking about how much she would love to witness for herself. Delight replaces shock on her face, and Y/N’s beaming at Wanda so broadly that Wanda doesn’t spare a second to think about stage fright.

With the other cheerleaders as her backup dancers (it took barely a few seconds to convince them to help Wanda out, they were all delighted to take part in this), Wanda begins to sing along to the song. She’s been practicing for ages, watching that clip from the movie over and over to make sure she knows every word and step by heart. In fact, she’d go so far as to say that she’d make a better Prince Ben at this point than Mitchell Hope himself.

Wanda ends the song triumphantly, feeling more powerful than she’s ever felt before. Magic be damned, this was real and it was everything. Wanda’s living her TV dreams without having to switch a single reality. It’s wonderful.

This feeling only grows when Wanda sees the look on Y/N’s face: pure joy, easy and simple. Wanda walks off of the field to Y/N’s side, and finally asks the question she’s been waiting on all this time.

“Y/N, will you go out with me?”

Y/N’s laughing even as she answers back. “Yes, yes. A thousand times yes. Wanda, this was amazing.”

Wanda’s cheeks hurt from the force of her grin. “It was worth it for someone as amazing as you.”

There’s a sound of someone clapping from the stands, distinguishable even from the mass of applause coming from the spectators. Wanda turns to see Natasha emerging from crowds, looking proud.

“That was nice, kid. Really nice. Honestly, it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Wanda feels her familiar panic creeping back over her. “Does this mean we have your blessing?”

Natasha snorts. “You’re not getting married already, right? Yeah, you do. You two are sweet together. Still, be careful. If you break Y/N’s heart, I will break you.”

Wanda has no doubt in that statement. Belatedly, she realizes that she’s been hugging Y/N, and she quickly takes her hands off of the other girl’s waist. Wanda is very appropriate when she needs to be, and right now, she needs to not be broken.

Still, Y/N’s smiling at her, and that erases the last of Wanda’s doubts. The song was right after all, wasn’t it? This is ridiculous. Ridiculously good, just like the movie said.

marvel tag list: @mionemymind, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx, @rogueanschel, @thatfangirl42, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @caswinchester2000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes

requested by @maximoffgxrl, i hope you enjoy!

[rebelsandtherest]

How do you think the Hamilton musical was received by the FACE family??

Hmmm interesting question. I'm going to do this pretty quickfire:

France: Gushed about the show to Alfred, despite its coverage of some tense times between them, but secretly was not fond of the portrayal of Lafayette. However, the stage version of his well-loved marquis grew on him exceptionally quickly (though he wouldn't admit it) and for months after seeing it he found himself bobbing his head along to the song stuck in his head, only to curse and stop when he realized it was from Hamilton. He has the album saved on Spotify but never tells a soul about it.

America: I mean, obviously he is a huge fan. He has the entire thing memorized within weeks. He was there when the first songs/bars were debuted at the White House at a state dinner. Everyone else thought it was a joke, portraying Hamilton as a hip hop enthusiast. Alfred thought it was the most genius thing he'd heard in decades. He sat up straight and listened, transfixed, and was a bit shocked when no one else at his table seemed to take it seriously. I say he has the whole thing memorized, but he actually doesn't. He has only seen and heard Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story once, ever in his life, which was on the day he saw it for the first time on Broadway. It drudged up centuries of loss for him and he spent the entire song trying to hide his ugly crying/stifled sobbing in the box seats. He's seen the show many, many times since, but has always walked out before the finale, to save his emotional sanity.

Canada: Overall loves it, adored the portrayal of George III, and agrees with Alfred that the application of hip hop was both innovative and a TON of fun. In the year or so after it hits it big, he occasionally finds himself drawn into a sing-along with Alfred as they cook, work on cars, build a new shed, etc. Alfred claims he can sing all the parts in one go, and Matt's heard him try, but it sounds less breathless and more intelligible if Matt jumps in as a second voice occasionally. Critiques Alfred's "hillbilly" French accent when he attempts to sing Lafayette's parts. When Matt saw it for the first time, in the middle of the theater, in the middle of the show, he texted Alfred: 'caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec' lol pretty sure that was me bro' . Smiled for like half an hour as he felt his phone buzzing with Alfred's enraged responses.

England: Everyone expects Arthur to detest the musical, not only because it is so unashamedly, patriotically American, but because he doesn't understand hip hop particularly well. However, Arthur is astonishingly, if understatedly complimentary upon seeing it on Broadway. Alfred eventually asked him point blank if it offended him in any way, and to Alfred's eternal surprise he said: "Your patriotism is tiring, of course, but put in such quick, witty verse, it's quite irresistible—don't look at me like that—he's a once-in-a-century lyricist—if not once-in-several-centuries." Later, when the show premiered on the West End, he would comment to friends that "the portrayal of King George is perhaps one of the funniest fucking things I've seen on stage in the last half century. I'd pay for tickets again just for that. I couldn't stand that man."

[franki-lew-yo]

The Romantic (2009, R, Gothic Fantasy/Horror), aka the most forgotten animated film in the world

What if I told you there was a movie under serious threat of becoming lost media with no clear reason as to WHY it's been lost other than no one has apparently watched it besides me and a few people on Reddit? What if I told you that movie wasn't half bad and would no doubt have some interest peeked if anyone DID know about it?

The name of that movie is The Romantic.

It was released in 2009 and it's Rated R for nudity and sex scenes [insert Robbie Rotten meme here], though none of it too graphic. It was a pet project created by animator Michael P. Heneghan, originally starting as a flash project for his animation class before he expanded it into a feature film. The film was inspired by movies such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but what I see every time I look at it is a touch of Jhonen Vasquez, Tim Burton, and Roman Dirge- the guy behind Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl. It's flash animation especially remind me of the puppet-rigged toons of the 2000s (again like Salad Fingers or Lenore). It's not bad, it's just not inherently 'feature film' quality flash, nor is it exceptionally artistic like Sita Sings the Blues in it's simplicity. Like, really, if you happen to find this thing it's not the worst animated project at all it's just amateur for a professional production. I've seen worse flash movies. Heck, if The Romantic were released in separate parts on youtube or Newgrounds as a series (ala Homestuck) I'm sure it would have been really successful and totally in it's element. But it wasn't.

Because next to no one has seen it and I'm lucky to have not only ever seen it when it was available for free but have also found it recently (hush hush, I ain't telling you how) I'm going to actually give you all a plot synopsis under the cut. There will be some details I leave out and I think I've spelled some characters names wrong. It's a bit of a surrealist film as well, so you might need some things explained.

Spoilers ahead:

The Romantic is set in an autumnal, surrealist world inhabited by humans and monsters and ruled by three gods; Po the goddess of love; Pik the god of Hate; and Pjorrc the god of time though Pjorrc was made to live inside a pumpkin moon as everything he touched rabidly aged and died.

((Tapestry art featuring the main three gods of the film.))

A young man (called “Romance” or “The Romantic” by the other characters) performs a bull sacrifice in order to summon Abbledepopa, the unseen creator of the other gods and ‘storyteller’ of the world. The sacrifice does not conjure Abbledepopa but, when Romance spares a monster that was ready to eat him, the monster tells him of a profit named Patience. Patience is a foul-mouthed dwarf living alone with an army of babies who points Romance in the direction of Po.

((Romance outside of Patience's house.))

Romance wants the god’s help because he has fallen out of love with his girlfriend. Po grants him his desire and restores his love only for Romance to return home and find his girlfriend with another man. Blinded by heartache and rage, Romance kills her. He then swears vengeance on the gods for ‘making’ him do it. In the midst of this vow, a corrupt prophet called Fat Daddy kills the queen of Vauxhaul (Romance's home) and her guards, and forges a new body for his newborn son with their bodies. Fat Daddy rallies the townsfolk behind him in supposedly finding the Queen’s murder into follow a new religion called "The Poetic End".

((Romance (right) besides the monster he spared at the beginning of the movie.))

Patience accompanies Romance on his quest and tells him to take Po’s mask, which hides her true face, once he kills her. Romance buys Po’s trust by weaving her a tapestry that tells her story: in the dawn of time Po and Pjorrc were in love. However, Pjorrc gradually became distant and Po became resentful when their daughter, Love, earned Po's original title as the god of romance and love.

In the present day, Romance sleeps with Po for over a year before finally killing her and taking her mask. He and Patience return to his home of Vauxhul only to be chased out by Fat Daddy’s personal army. They flee to Marshallton, the town nearest to the god Pik.

((Romance's hometown of Vauxhul. ))

The king of Marshallton, King Crookie, tells Romance of a prophecy he, Patience, Fat Daddy and all the gods are a part of and that the world is soon to change. Romance then fights and successfully kills Pik when he shows the god of hate his reflection in a mirror King Crookie gave him, but not before losing his hand to Pik.

When Romance comes down the mountain he learns from Patience that nine years have passed since his fight with Pik began. Patience reveals to Romance what Pik saw in the mirror that allowed Romance to take the killing blow; after Love had grown up and married, Po asked Pik to tell her where her husband was always running off to. Pik reluctantly revealed Pjorrc was disguising himself as a human and married a mortal woman. Po found Pjorrc and his pregnant second wife, forcing Pjorrc to leave his human family behind, but not before asking his wife to name their son “Patience”. In retaliation for his treachery, Po proceeded to sleep with fifty men and produce the fifty bastard children in Patience’s house.

((Fat Daddy, the main villain.))

Marshallton and the entire rest of the world has fallen to the rule of Fat Daddy, who captures Romance and Patience. Fat Daddy tortures Patience into telling him how to get to Pjorrc but is unable to convince Romance to take part in his ‘new world’ or give him Po’s mask. Romance and Patience escape and leave the village to be torn apart by the fifty babies Po had, now transformed into veracious monsters after Patience didn’t feed them for the past ten years. Romance confronts Patience when he realizes the latter is Pjorrc’s son. Patience calls Romance out on his mantra of vengeance and points out that all his decisions are his own, not the gods, and instructs him to seek Love herself in Po’s basement. Patience then attempts to confront Pjorrc but is cornered and killed by Fat Daddy before he can do so.

In Po’s basement, Romance finds Love nailed to a wall, her face torn off and half eaten by her deformed husband. Love tells Romance that Po ripped off her daughter’s face in rage over Pjorrc’s infidelity and Pjorrc did not intervene fast enough. Po then threw Love into her basement, turned Love’s husband into a monster, and wore her daughter’s face as a mask - which Romance had broken into pieces moments ago after Patience had shown him his face in King Crookie’s mirror. Romance then finds Pjorrc hanging himself. As he dies, Pjorrc tells Romance to take the hand Fat Daddy had cut off and sew it onto himself, which will in turn help Romance defeat Abbledepopa.

Romance traverses the wasteland and does not find Abbledepopa, but instead a golden loom. Having seen all the destruction he and others had caused, Romance sits upon the loom and accepts his fate as the new ‘storyteller’ of the world, as he begins weaving a new one...

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I mentioned before the animation quality of the film and why maybe that caused people to overlook it. The only other thing I could complain about on a technical level with The Romantic is it's sound design. Some of the voices and music is a little too quiet and so all these key details I had to go through the film a few times to really piece together. But that leads me to the thing I like about this movie and I'm sure others would to: the lore.

It's very hard to create a new fantasy world w it's own customs, religions, history and rules out of the blue as any YA Harry Potter/Hunger Games ripoff book could tell you. The Romantic is so unique in how it handles the pantheon and culture of these three gods and their kin; really only four or five characters throughout the entire story aren't connected to the gods or prophecy in some way, as there's the main three gods, Abbeldepappa, and the prophets Patience, Love and Fat Daddy, who make up your main cast besides Romance. There's a lot that's intentionally left unexplained and other info that must be explained, like Pjorrc and Po's marriage and Romance's feelings towards the gods, if we want to understand the former. The movie is paced pretty well and knows when to follow up on what, it's just that again some of those animation and editting shortcomings might make it hard to understand...but I don't think THAT hard. Look, if someone can enjoy Starchaser: The Legend of Orin or even better surrealist world-building films ((Fantastic Planet comes to mind)), then I say there's no reason The Romantic wouldn't have a following. There's no other way I can articulate why and what doesn't work about the story except just to recommend you watch it yourselves, but before I get into that I want to talk themes...because I love the themes and tone of The Romantic.

I revisited The Romantic a week before I made myself watch Centaurworld and The Owl House for the first time...and what a week that was~! The Romantic has the vibe of those kinds of shows along with Adventure Time and Infinity Train ((so I hear, I haven't watched the latter)). It's surreal and you'll only marvel at 'woooah wut an acid trip' for so long before you get into the vibe of the universe. It also reminded me substantially of the Broadway musical Hadestown and not just because this movie is also a self-contained, somewhat self aware fable about the relationships between humans and gods - it's very raw in how the characters talk. It's very emotional and blunt in how kind and how cruel they can be, and it doesn't make excuses or really worships any one of them. Romance himself is the world's most likable Incel: he murders a woman he thought he needed to love and blames his emotions on the gods of those passions...except the gods AREN'T the manifestations of love, time, and hate - they simply dictate and oversee it in the lives of men. It's a dynamic I really like in religious works where Gods are powerful but not all knowing or puppet masters to everyone's design- they have morality too and there is only so much you can blame and get from them.

"You made your gods into excuses and your excuses into gods!"

-Patience. This here is a cool quote. I like this quote.

No matter what, The Romantic is not gonna be a film for everyone. We all have our tastes - I think I'm drawn to it and accepting because I've come to love these kind of worlds that used to keep me up at night - these trippy 70s inspired fantasy landscapes given a whole Avatar: The Last Airbender degree of worldbuilding and character worth. It also doesn't feel exploitive in it's violence, it's sexuality, it's grimmness - it doesn't feel like it's trying to hard or going over the top because it happens to be an adult animated film, something that I love in movies like 9 or Hair High but really turns me off in stuff like Sausage Party or Wizards. Whatever go watch The Romantic...

if you can.

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When I first saw this film in 2016 it was actually very accessible and was even uploaded to youtube by the creator himself. I don't know WHAT happened to Michael P. Heneghan, but simply put, the man's disappeared...like...REALLY disappeared.

Lookit his IMDB. He has The Romantic and a wapping two other projects to his name. His Twitter isn't very helpful either. He last updated in early 2020 and he says next to nothing about The Romantic. It's so odd that he would one day be happy with the film enough to host it on Vimeo and Youtube but then just cop out.

According to a Reddit user: "On Valentines Day 2011, Heneghan released the film for free online through all kinds of platforms including direct download, bittorrent, Vimeo, and even directly through Archive.org. He even joked about releasing a 300 gig uncompressed version.

I know I watched it on Vimeo probably as recently as 2016. Now I can't find it anywhere. The website is dead, the Vimeo video went private, even the archive.org version has been taken down. It really looks like he wanted to wipe it off the face of the internet. His newer website mentions it, but again, the Vimeo link is dead and even that website is closed for business."

It's weeeird. What happened Michael?

And yes, obviously, other people worked on the movie.

No - I can't find out anything about them either.

I'm betting on three theories at the moment: 1) this film is an SCP or some Candle Cove weirdness with only me and a handful of people ANYWHERE remembering it, 2) something weird is going on w Michael Heneghan and it involves too something about this film. It was a scam or a scheme or a hidden agenda weirdness, 3) Heneghan's doing okay he just doesn't like this film anymore and wants it hidden while he takes a break.

Look, I get it Michael! What was once our life's worth can become cringe as you improve as an artist - you're not the person making the stuff you were ten years ago...but you should still have the film kept alive somehow. Someway.

I'm seriously the only person to have ever made fan art of this movie on the internet. That just doesn't happen, and I don't think I like being in a fandom of one. The Romantic is a testament to the power of design and storytelling > animation quality itself. Too often I see people equate good animation with smooth animation, with a budget with squash and stretch. These animations are good but art is diverse and there's so many kinds of films out there, the value of the medium can't just be in one style/form. There's a lot of honestly wonderful pieces of art out there if you know where to look and you're willing to see where it leads you.

Don't let The Romantic be the most forgotten movie of all time. Reblog this post. Show it to your friends. PM the animation community reviewer people like Saberspark and someone who isn't Saberspark and smuggle them a copy.

Keep telling the story...