#freaking ballet survival show!!! they want me dead i think

[scarefox]

Stage Fighter: 'DEVIL SWAN' | Swan - Miyeon ((G)I-DLE) ballet choreography

[monotonous-minutia]

same rules as last time, another topic.

Taking advantage of this one to ramble a little on something that’s been on my mind since I saw the ending of the 2006 Salzburg Idomeneo. Pardon my lit crit nerdiness. Also TW for discussions of mental illness and suicidal ideation (in the context of the opera).

Under the line because it got really long…if only I could find this much motivation for my philosophy papers.

At the end of this production, during the ballet music written to represent Idamante’s coronation, they used it as an opportunity to give us some adorable flirting with Idamante and Ilia after the big final chorus and everyone being happy and relieved. I loved that; this opera is so full of angst we don’t get much calm or sweetness aside from Ilia’s aria at the top of Act III (which is still kinda angsty) and the following duet with Idamante. So it was nice to see them finally relaxed and able to enjoy each other’s company without the looming crisis and heavy amounts of despair.

But then at the very very end we get this moment where they both come to an abrupt pause when Idamante sees the ax his father was going to use to kill him with for the sacrifice. Because Idomeneo is the epitome of Useless Tenor, he decided to just leave it lying around.

Idamante just stops in his tracks and stares at it. Ilia sees it too and then she immediately looks at Idamante to see his reaction, and he stares back at her for a minute. They both start to back away and Idamante looks back at the ax and puts his hands to his neck.

First time around this blindsided me and I started freaking out because I thought maybe someone was going to do something with the ax after all—both Elettra and Idomeneo were wandering around in the background at this point so there was a lot of possibility. Or maybe even Neptune. He did give Elettra a dagger, after all, presumably to encourage her to use it on herself. (Arbace in that moment proved himself to be the only tenor with half a brain cell and took it away from her.)

Thankfully nothing along those lines happened, but I was angry that the directors made my mind go there and upset that we couldn’t just give Idamante and Ilia the peaceful happy ending they so deserve by this point.

But the more I thought of it, I started to respect the decision to put that part in there. It does something that none of the other productions I’ve seen have done—it gives us a vivid look into Idamante’s mind in terms of his trauma, which would very likely occur after such a dramatic series of events. And it got me thinking.

Idamante is very clearly depressed in this piece. Pretty much every opera character ever talks frequently about their emotional pain and grief, but basically 50% of Idamante’s lines are about how sad he is about pretty much everything. Almost every time he exits the stage directions say he does so “sadly” or “in despair.” He talks about wandering aimlessly until he dies, seeing no purpose in his life.

He does have moment of happiness—when he thinks his father is coming home, when he finds out he’s alive, when he finds out Ilia loves him, and even when he realizes he’s going to have to die to save his people. But the first experience we have of Idamante is basically him telling Ilia that he wants to die. This is a sentiment he makes more than once throughout the course of the opera. 

In the beginning, he’s celebrating the end of the war and the fact that he can free the prisoners, and his father will be coming home soon. But he’s distracted by the fact that he’s in love with Ilia—whom he does not know loves him in return, because she hates his people on principle for being the enemies of her family (not that we can really blame her for that). She’s reluctant to show feelings for him. As we will learn, Idamante (following operatic convention) perceives the world in extremes; she’s cold towards him which makes him think she hates him. The war is over, his people are at peace, he’s making the executive decision to set the prisoners free so they can live in harmony with his people. Despite all this, he’s distracted by the despair he feels about his relationship (or lack thereof) with Ilia. A depressed mind can’t always find enough comfort in the good stuff to use it as motivation. And she apparently wants him dead. Being a people-pleaser, he offers to let that happen. He just wants to hear her ask it herself. Possibly because he secretly thinks she’s too nice to actually ask that. And if she’s in a place that she would, or even kill him herself, he’s in trouble anyway, so why stick around?

I’m not saying this is solid logic; it’s opera logic.

The second time he says he wants to die is right before his love duet with Ilia. By this point he’s been rejected by his father multiple times and he still thinks Ilia hates him. His people don’t need him, because the king has returned, and aside form that he’s being sent away anyway. He just found out there’s a terrible monster (which gets no other description) running around destroying things and Idomeneo isn’t doing anything about it. So he plans on going after it himself and notes that even if he does mange to kill it, he’s probably going to die in the process, and he’s okay with that because he feels no hope in his life.

Ilia finally tells him she doesn’t want him to die because she actually does love him. Don’t ask me why it took her so long to say this when she’d already asked Idomeneo to basically adopt her an entire act earlier.

Idamante finally feels like he has something to live for. His father might hate him, his kingdom may not need him, but if Ilia wants to be a part of his life, he has a purpose again. This joy does not last very long, though. Idomeneo, who seems to have a habit of coming when he’s not needed and staying away when he is, shows up and interrupts their duet so abruptly that every time the track ends on my mezzo playlist I get whiplash. Idomeneo is upset that Ilia loves Idamante, because that’s just one more person that’s going to be hurt when he sacrifices Idamante. Once again, however, he refrains from telling people what the heck is actually going on, preferring to leave them in the dark, which, if he paid any attention, makes people much more miserable than the truth would. So all Idamante hears is that not only does his father inexplicably hate him, he’s also forbidding him to be with the person he’s in love with.

By now Idamante’s basically experienced the full gamut. He’s been in and out of love with Elettra; he’s suffered the thought that Ilia hates him; he’s faced the joy of finding out that’s not the case; he’s been through the roller coaster of first thinking that his dad is finally coming home after then ten-year war, then despairing at his death, then a few hours later finding out he’s actually alive, only to have his father reject him upon their first reunion and several times after. Further, he just found out (or thinks he’s found out, because Idomeneo is terrible at describing things) that it’s his fault the gods are punishing his people and that this terrible monster is ravaging the city. Now his father is asking him to leave and never return. Idamante says that he’ll do that to please his father, but he’s probably just going to die along the way, and that truthfully that’s what he wants to happen at this point.

The only thing that finally makes Idamante happy is when he finds out that his father has to kill him. His joy is twofold. One, he finally knows why his father has been such a dick to him. Precious sunflower that he is, he thinks it’s totally okay that his father treated him that way because it was apparently out of love. Because repeatedly being rejected isn’t as bad when the person doing the rejecting is doing it because they don’t want to kill you. Even though said rejecting hurt worse than death and almost led to your death anyway. That’s the excuse Idomeneo has. Idamante is not only a victim of the gods, but of one of the most extreme cases of Disastrous Tenor Logic ever seen in opera.

The second part of his joy comes from the realization that he has the ability to save his people. He just managed to kill the terrible monster miraculously without dying, but he only saved himself because he found out his father needs to kill him. And now he’s bursting with joy because he can help his father gain peace of mind and protect his kingdom from the wrath of the gods. He spends the next several minutes forgiving Idomeneo for being an asshole and comforting him, despite the fact that he’s the one that’s going to die. The only value he sees in his life at this moment is the fact that it’s going to end.

If it weren’t for Ilia, who knows if Idamante would have survived, because Neptune sure took his time to intervene. But even after the love of his life rescues him, Idamante still wants to die. He finally has what he wants—the love of his father and the love of Ilia—but he’s still prepared to die because by this point he sees it as his destiny. Once again it falls on him to do the comforting. He tries to convince Ilia to let go, be happy, and let him die in peace. There is very little indication from Idamante that he’s sad about losing his life for its own sake. Only for the way it’s going to affect others.

People who are suicidal tend to think that the world would be a better place without them. Here that is literally the case: the chaos will only cease when Idamante is dead. So not only does Idamante spend the majority of this opera feeling hopeless and wanting to die because of that, he finds out that by dying he’s going to be more useful to the living than if he himself were to continue to live. The inaccurate assumption that the world is better off without him, brought on by his depression, has suddenly become reality. They couldn’t have chosen a better victim.

Then Neptune saves him and announces Idamante will be king (because it’s finally clicked that Idomeneo is doing a shit job) and that he’ll marry Ilia. Suddenly his life has purpose again. Suddenly, it’s not his death that would make people happy; it’s his life.

It’s opera seria so we want a happy ending, and usually we get a happy ending. Not so much with this production, though. The way these directors ended their Clemenza wasn’t my favorite—not nearly enough hugging—but it wasn’t specifically taking a step in a darker direction. It left us with some suspended angst, knowing it’s not possible, after the events of the opera, for things to go back to the way they were before, when people were happy.

This one, though, took things further. As described earlier, we get this eerie moment of Idamante stopping in his tracks and staring at the weapon that almost killed him. No one uses the ax. No one’s touching it. But the sight of it is enough to send him to a dark place.

At this point Idamante has faced, in a remarkably short amount of time, joy, despair, depression, elation, self-loathing, self-worth, suicidal ideation, and the desire to live. He’s basically felt the full spectrum of human emotion. And he’s faced death twice in the span of maybe an hour: at the hands of the terrible monster, and at the hands of his own father.

He was completely willing to lay down his life for the greater good, but an honorable death is still dying. Right now he’s dancing around with Ilia, celebrating life and love and joy, and then in an instant he’s faced with the memory of the fact that he almost died. Now that he has the ability to appreciate life, that concept is terrifying.

Before watching this moment, it had weirdly never occurred to me the lifelong impact that this series of events would have on Idamante. But looking back it seems kind of obvious that it would. In opera we’re used to people just dying, not getting rescued at the last minute. In most productions, Idomeneo is poised to make the final blow before Ilia intervenes. Idamante is certain these are his last seconds on earth, but suddenly the aren’t. He’s given a second chance to live again, but he’s still left with that feeling. That he was going to die. That his father was going to kill him.

So as much as I want them to just have a happy, carefree ending, that’s not realistic. As the Paris Clemenza pointed out, there’s no way things can go back to the way they were before. Idamante is king now (though he’s probably used to that, having basically run the place in his father’s absence anyway). He finally has Ilia’s love and permission to marry her. He finally has his father back, both physically (he’s here) and emotionally (he’s finally being nice again). His people are safe and will be protected. The war is over. The people are united. But the price of this was days (maybe weeks, depending on how the time span is portrayed) of despair, of the wish to die, and finally a near-death experience. This is a recipe for trauma. On the outside his life is now perfect; he has everything he wants. But the mental and emotional backlash is going to be brutal.

All this is to say…after thinking about it in this way, I actually really appreciate that the directors put this in. Yeah, I wish the opera could end on a happy note with some cute flirting and cuddles. But that would be minimizing the significance of the trauma for Idamante. I’ve always appreciated this opera for the way it emphasizes the intense emotions felt by Idamante (and the others, but mostly this kid) which are almost a commentary on mental illness. In some ways it shows us the same ultimatum we see in so many operas: love or death. “If I can’t have this person as my love, my only peace is in the grave.” How many times have we heard that (or some variant) coming from the mouths of operatic protagonists (and sometimes villains)? But this opera has always hit a little different for me. Maybe it’s because of how many times Idamante expresses this feeling, in various contexts. Maybe it’s because of the multiple facets of his life that impact his feelings. Or the complex web of relationships that add their own influence. Or the fact that he’s not making these comments to himself, as we see much of the time in opera, but flat-out stating them to the people in his life who have the power to make him feel better and literally save his life, but who for the longest time refuse to do so.

The ending of this production validates all of that by reminding us that Idamante’s problems are not easily swept away by the proclamations of a god. They’re still very real and very much a part of his life, and will be for some time—maybe forever.

He’s traumatized. Seeing the ax again triggered that trauma, and he’s left with the haunting truth that this trauma may never go away.

It’s honestly a really ingenious device and it just added so many layers to this concept for me.

Although…it would have been nice to see Idamante and Ilia hug before the lights go down.

[dearlydepartea--a]

paranormal verse.

 SUMMARY.  

true crime themes tw

At the age of two, I was adopted by Susanna and Ivan Darling. Susanna could not have children and Ivan wanted them. They were both busy people who cared for me in their own ways, but were much too invested in their personal lives to really give me the attention I wanted. Since I was usually in the company of nannies, I found myself growing more attached to them. And while my nannies were great and helped me grow into the woman I am today, they all eventually left me.

One nanny, in particular, had grown rather fond of me, and I her. Her name was Lucinda and she would read with me every night. A majority of the books were silly; mostly Dr. Seuss and Shell Silverstein. While others stuck with me and helped shape my adult life. Although the detectives in Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes were fictional, I found their search for answers admirable. I began to pretend to be those detectives and began to search for the hidden truths and secrets found in the lives of people around me.

My mother thought it was a waste of time and wasn’t having any of it. She tried to ignore it, at first. In her mind, if she got me to try new things – piano, ballet, fencing – I’d get over my newfound interest; but I didn’t. The more she tried to push me away from my new-found hobby, the more invested in it I became.

During this curious phase of my life, I discovered my father would throw away the letters my mother would give him in the mornings. I learned that my older brother pretended to be the son my father wanted him to be, instead of the cruel bully who smoked pot by the side of the house. Most importantly, I discovered my mother wasn’t the perfect wife and mother she presented herself to be in front of her friends. She was filled with secrets that ranged from one-night stands to having a son I didn’t know about. A son who had gone missing, whose body had yet to be found. With all this information in mind, I finally opened my eyes to the fact that the world was flawed and that everyone made mistakes.

When I was thirteen-years-old, my mother sent me away to a boarding school across state. She also fired Lucinda, which crushed me like nothing else had. I suddenly felt lost and more alone than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I never forgave my mother for Lucinda’s loss, either. I began to hate her and made the effort not to reply to her holiday cards. I wanted nothing to do with her.  I thought she was attempting to ruin my life.

During my stay at boarding school, I had picked up a few friends. The girls were my age, intelligent, and enjoyed my company – weird quirks and all.  Being around them, I learned they held their own secrets as well. Though I could easily tell their secrets to everyone, I didn’t. I trusted these girls. The girls I didn’t trust, however, I did reveal the secrets I learned about them and they weren’t very happy about it.

One group of girls, who called themselves ‘The Gems’, hated me. After they bullied a friend of mine, I snitched to our teacher that I had seen one of the girls smoking in the schoolyard. I assume she got into a lot of trouble because during one of the free days we were allowed to roam around town one of the bigger girls in that group had ganged up on me and put me over her back. She took me to a nearby cemetery where the rest of the girls were. They gave me a talking to and beat the shit out of me. When they left me, I learned something new about myself …I could see ghosts.

I’m not bullshiting, either. I was no ‘Long Island Medium’ pretending to see things for money. I could actually see what I assumed were ghosts. The first ghost I ever saw came to me in the cemetery I got beat up in and she was very kind to me. At first, I thought she was some random passerby who wanted to give me a helping hand. But when I reached out to her, my hand went right through her and I freaked the fuck out. I ran right out of that goddamn cemetery and I never looked back. My friends all assumed I looked as mortified as I did because of what had happened to me with The Gems. I let them believe that, too. I was too horrified and too embarrassed to tell them what I had seen. They would think I was crazy. More annoyingly, I’d be made a laughing stock.

After that day at the cemetery, I dedicated myself to my studies. I adored my friends, but I no longer could identify with them. I had seen a dead woman and I could no longer shake the image away. I had matured from the experience and hid in my books and studies, instead of putting myself out there as I had before. Until that day, I did not know what it was like to have a secret I did not want anyone to know. I had dedicated most of my life to discovering secrets, and now I was scared of someone finding out mine.

Due to my vigorous study sessions, I graduated a few years earlier than my classmates. Graduating was a freeing experience, but I continued to see and hear things. I knew it would be something I would never be able to get rid of, so I promised myself that I would not let my little gift get in the way of how I lived my life. This was why, when I studied at Columbia University, I made the effort to make friends and involve myself in school activities. I put in lots of effort to be social, while putting in even more effort to make my way into a career as a criminal psychiatrist.

After surviving my residency, I found myself working the emergency psych unit in New York. It was a lot of work. People were always in need of assistance. There were rarely ever any breaks because I was always on my feet. It was my job at the psych unit that made me realize how speaking with ghosts wasn’t as terrible as I was making it out to be. Some of the patients I saw would sometimes pass and I usually stopped what I was doing to try and communicate them. Like their living counterparts, they had secrets. The only difference now was that their secrets had the capability of helping them. I wound up helping a few of them, while a few others were stubborn and decided they didn’t need help, that they got a better kick out of fucking with me. And as much as I enjoyed my job at the emergency psych unit, I decided to change career paths in order to pursue a career as an fbi agent.

Working as an agent was exciting. Even when I was doing nothing much to do in the beginning, since i was learning. I felt much happier as a fbi agent than I did as a simple psychiatrist. However, I eventually got to combine my love of puzzles with the information I’d learned while studying psychiatry, along with forensics, to work on profiling criminals.

After about a year, I was given the opportunity to work on an interesting case with one of my colleagues. Her name was Rachel and she was beautiful in a Hitchcock blond sort of way. She was also incredibly good at her job, and for that I admired her. The case started out minor, as though it would be solved in a week or month’s time. But as we dove deeper into the case, we both began to notice things were more complicated than we assumed they’d  be.

The mutilated bodies of several of our missing victims had been found in various parts of Los Angeles. We assumed the killer would have gotten bored after six murders, but we discovered differently about a month later into our investigation. With one of the victims escaping, we learned we were biting more than we could chew. The news was surprising to both Rachel and I, and when we reported our findings we were told to let it go.

Obsessed with the case, I began to get bored. All I could think about was victims I had tried to find who were found in various parts of the city. I was furious that we weren’t given any answers. Even worse, I felt like the answers were hiding right under my nose. It was a stupid move on my part, but I used my spare time to dedicate myself to the case. From a good friend who took over the case, I discovered that there had been a new body.

I walked to the scene of the crime, claiming to one of my old colleagues that it was important for my work. Of course the crime scene was still as cluttered and messy as the others, and of course the body had been found somewhere out in the open. Like all the other bodies found, the parts of the victim I could see looked as though she was ready for a date – make-up perfectly kept, opposed to mascara stains, and well styled hair. Not only that, but when her home was searched, none of her technological devices were found. An important thing I noticed was the fact that I shared similar characteristics of these young women – I had brown hair, I was tall, and olive toned skin.

With this in mind, I continued my own investigation by putting myself  on dating apps and websites. In the process, I discovered the killer I had stupidly went in search of. Instead of the killer being a man, the killer was a woman. To make matters worse, this woman wasn’t some random woman who was bored and decided to go on a killing spree – this woman was Rachel. Since I had no back-up, Rachel showed me her true colors. I thought she was going to attack me like she attacked her other victims, but instead she shot me twice, leaving me to tumble down the stairs, before telling me to watch my back.

[malcolmbrights-a]

Claudia Daviau / Paranormal Bio

tw: death, crime themes, bullying, brief description of corpse, adultery

At the age of two, I was adopted by Susanna and Ivan Daviau. Susanna could not have children and Ivan wanted them. They were both busy people who cared for me in their own ways, but were much too invested in their personal lives to really give me the attention I wanted. Since I was usually in the company of nannies, I found myself growing more attached to them. And while my nannies were great and helped me grow into the woman I am today, they all eventually left me.

One nanny, in particular, had grown rather fond of me, and I her. Her name was Lucinda and she would read with me every night. A majority of the books were silly; mostly Dr. Seuss and Shell Silverstein. While others stuck with me and helped shape my adult life. Although the detectives in Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes were fictional, I found their search for answers admirable. I began to pretend to be those detectives and began to search for the hidden truths and secrets found in the lives of people around me.

My mother thought it was a waste of time and wasn’t having any of it. She tried to ignore it, at first. In her mind, if she got me to try new things – piano, ballet, fencing – I’d get over my newfound interest; but I didn’t. The more she tried to push me away from my new-found hobby, the more invested in it I became.

During this curious phase of my life, I discovered my father would throw away the letters my mother would give him in the mornings. I learned that my older brother pretended to be the son my father wanted him to be, instead of thhe bored guy who smoked pot by the side of the house. I learned that my sisters were flawed as well. Most importantly, I discovered my mother wasn’t the perfect wife and mother she presented herself to be in front of her friends. She was filled with secrets that ranged from one-night stands to having a son I didn’t know about. A son who had gone missing, whose body had yet to be found. With all this information in mind, I finally opened my eyes to the fact that the world was flawed and that everyone made mistakes.

When I was thirteen-years-old, my mother sent me away to a boarding school across state. She also fired Lucinda, which crushed me like nothing else had. I suddenly felt lost and more alone than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I never forgave my mother for Lucinda’s loss, either. I began to hate her and made the effort not to reply to her holiday cards. I wanted nothing to do with her.  I thought she was attempting to ruin my life.

During my stay at boarding school, I had picked up a few friends. The girls were my age, intelligent, and enjoyed my company – weird quirks and all.  Being around them, I learned they held their own secrets as well. Though I could easily tell their secrets to everyone, I didn’t. I trusted these girls. The girls I didn’t trust, however, I did reveal the secrets I learned about them and they weren’t very happy about it.

One group of girls, who called themselves ‘The Gems’, hated me. After they bullied a friend of mine, I snitched to our teacher that I had seen one of the girls smoking in the schoolyard. I assume she got into a lot of trouble because during one of the free days we were allowed to roam around town one of the bigger girls in that group had ganged up on me and put me over her back. She took me to a nearby cemetery where the rest of the girls were. They gave me a talking to and beat the shit out of me. When they left me, I learned something new about myself …I could see ghosts.

[title]What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. - Tana French, In the Woods[/title]

I’m not bullshiting, either. I was no ‘Long Island Medium’ pretending to see things for money. I could actually see what I assumed were ghosts. The first ghost I ever saw came to me in the cemetery I got beat up in and she was very kind to me. At first, I thought she was some random passerby who wanted to give me a helping hand. But when I reached out to her, my hand went right through her and I freaked the fuck out. I ran right out of that goddamn cemetery and I never looked back. My friends all assumed I looked as mortified as I did because of what had happened to me with The Gems. I let them believe that, too. I was too horrified and too embarrassed to tell them what I had seen. They would think I was crazy. More annoyingly, I’d be made a laughing stock.

After that day at the cemetery, I dedicated myself to my studies. I adored my friends, but I no longer could identify with them. I had seen a dead woman and I could no longer shake the image away. I had matured from the experience and hid in my books and studies, instead of putting myself out there as I had before. Until that day, I did not know what it was like to have a secret I did not want anyone to know. I had dedicated most of my life to discovering secrets, and now I was scared of someone finding out mine.

Due to my vigorous study sessions, I graduated a few years earlier than my classmates. Graduating was a freeing experience, but I continued to see and hear things. I knew it would be something I would never be able to get rid of, so I promised myself that I would not let my little gift get in the way of how I lived my life. This was why, when I studied at Columbia University, I made the effort to make friends and involve myself in school activities. I put in lots of effort to be social, while putting in even more effort to make my way into a career as a psychiatrist.

After surviving my residency, I found myself working the emergency psych unit in New York. It was a lot of work. People were always in need of assistance. There were rarely ever any breaks because I was always on my feet. It was my job at the psych unit that made me realize how speaking with ghosts wasn’t as terrible as I was making it out to be. Some of the patients I saw would sometimes pass and I usually stopped what I was doing to try and communicate them. Like their living counterparts, they had secrets. The only difference now was that their secrets had the capability of helping them. I wound up helping a few of them, while a few others were stubborn and decided they didn’t need help, that they got a better kick out of fucking with me. And as much as I enjoyed my job at the emergency psych unit, I decided to change career paths in order to pursue a career as a police officer.

Working as a police officer was exciting. Even when I was doing nothing but handing out tickets and telling party-goers to turn down their music, I was having the time of my life. I felt much happier as a police officer than I did as a psychiatrist. However, once I was given the shot to work as a homicide detective, I got to combine my love of puzzles with the information I’d learned while studying psychiatry.

After about a year, I was given the opportunity to work on an interesting case with one of my colleagues. Her name was Rachel and she was beautiful in a Hitchcock blond sort of way. She was also incredibly good at her job, and for that I admired her. The case started out minor, as though it would be solved in a week or month’s time. But as we dove deeper into the case, we both began to notice things were more complicated than we assumed they’d  be.

The mutilated bodies of several of our missing victims had been found in various parts of Los Angeles. We assumed the killer would have gotten bored after six murders, but we discovered differently about a month later into our investigation. With one of the victims escaping, we learned we were biting more than we could chew. The news was surprising to both Rachel and I, and when we reported our findings we were told to let it go.

Obsessed with the case, I began to get bored. All I could think about was victims I had tried to find who were found in various parts of the city. I was furious that we weren’t given any answers. Even worse, I felt like the answers were hiding right under my nose. It was a stupid move on my part, but I used my spare time to dedicate myself to the case. From a good friend who took over the case, I discovered that there had been a new body.

I walked to the scene of the crime, claiming to one of my old colleagues that it was important for my work. Of course the crime scene was still as cluttered and messy as the others, and of course, the body had been found somewhere out in the open. Like all the other bodies found, the parts of the victim I could see looked as though she was ready for a date – make-up perfectly kept, opposed to mascara stains, and well-styled hair. Not only that, but when her home was searched, none of her technological devices were found. An important thing I noticed was the fact that I shared similar characteristics of these young women – I had brown hair, I was tall, and olive toned skin.

With this in mind, I continued my own investigation by putting myself on dating apps and websites. In the process, I discovered the killer I had stupidly went in search of. Instead of the killer being a man, the killer was a woman. To make matters worse, this woman wasn’t some random woman who was bored and decided to go on a killing spree – this woman was Rachel. Since I had no back-up, Rachel showed me her true colors. I thought she was going to attack me like she attacked her other victims, but instead she shot me twice, leaving me to tumble down the stairs, before telling me to watch my back.

[shanastoryteller]

red sparrow rewritten

so i saw red sparrow yesterday, and it was … well, i didn’t love it. as someone who’s not normally too bothered by that type of thing, there was too much sexualized violence and gore for me to actually enjoy it, so

here’s how i would have done it:

we’ll keep the beginning. dominika is the prima ballerina, taking care of her ailing mother. she suffers a career ending injury, threatening her ability to care for her mother and herself.

her rich, connected uncle vanya makes her an offer. he’s been kind, but distant. he proves to her that the injury was no accident, and just like in the movie she goes to the ballet, and finds her coworkers who did this, and she beats them with her walking stick. she doesn’t kill them, but it’s close, oh so close, it’s more luck that they don’t die than anything else.

the movie had vanya want her, had him attracted to his niece, and her mother makes a comment about not liking the way he looked at her as a child. we’re going to take that out, because it’s unnecessary. it doesn’t add anything, doesn’t come up plot-wise, it’s only purpose was to make it extra clear that we Don’t Like Him and he’s a Creep. which we figure out, like, pretty damn quickly, we don’t need it. complicated people are more realistic, are more interesting than one dimensional villains. if there’s one thing this movie desperately needed, it was to stop beating a dead horse, and then trying to have sex with it.

so her vanya sees her for what she is: his niece. his dead brother’s daughter. he tried to be helpful after his brother’s death – he took her out to eat at nice restaurants, loving the way she pretended to be a little lady, and her serious eyes and serious mouth. but he’s busy, and he’s not good with kids. but she wants to be dancer, and she’d good, so he gets her the audition that gets her into the company, uses her too, brings his slimy political “friends” to watch his beautiful niece dance. she’s a perfect specimen of russian beauty, control, and skill, and he shows her off thusly.

he’s not a good person, doesn’t do good things. but he tries to be helpful. so he comes to her with the offer – sleep with this man and while he’s distracted switch his phone with one they’ve bugged, and he’ll see that she and her mother are taken care of. of course, he’s rich and connected enough to do that anyway, but he won’t do it for free – because he’s not a good person, and he doesn’t do good things.

she wants to refuse, but he pressures her, saying her mother will suffer if she doesn’t do it. so she agrees, and it sickens her, but she does it. then we get to the scene where the man starts to rape her (so unnecessary, so unneeded, she’d already “consented” to this, she would have slept with him, but the movie couldn’t let dominika go through anything un-traumatized). the movie had Boy Assassin come in and kill him while he was still on top of her, still inside her. he could have come in earlier, but waited until he was already fucking her.

yeah, no.

for all the sex and gore and death, dominika doesn’t kill anyone with her own two hands in this movie. which – give me a fucking break. we can rape this woman multiple times on screen, but having her kill someone? too much. are you trying to show she’s better than that, because guess what, she’s not. you have her beat two people bloody for ending her career, but killing the people who torture her and assault her is too far? fuck that.

he gets rough, too rough, and dominka decides fuck this. he’s an old man, she’s a freaking prima ballerina. do you have any idea how strong she has to be? she’s violent, we know that, and so she grabs the phone off the bedside table and beats him to death with it.

you want sexualized gore, fine, here’s how you can have it: by the time assassin boy comes through the window, dominka is sitting there in her slinky black lace underwear, chest heaving, covered in the blood of her would-be rapist while his corpse lays beside her.

and it’s a big deal, and no witnesses, so she’s once again offered the same choice: death, or sparrow school. but maybe it’s a little easier for us all to swallow if:

“your father was a sparrow,” vanya says, offering her a cigarette, watching her with eyes that are hard and sorry all at once. he’ll kill her, but he won’t like it. dominka wonders if that’s supposed to be some sort of comfort.

“my father is dead,” she says. she takes the cigarette, leaning forward so he can light it for her.

he shrugs. “death comes for us all. perhaps you will be like my dear brother, and serve your country for many years, and die for it, in a humiliating and painful way. perhaps you will live to a ripe old age, and die in your bed, in a humiliating and painful way.”

“perhaps i will die today, in a humiliating and painful way,” dominka finishes.

“you don’t have to,” he says, “there’s sparrow school. it didn’t break your father. i don’t think it will break you.”

there’s a third option. he could save her. but he won’t, he won’t stick his neck out for hers, not for free. she doesn’t want to die today. “alright,” she says, “i will be a sparrow.”

and sparrow school goes much the same – she’s still too smart, and stubborn. she refuses to strip and squirms at all the sex training. and she was almost raped, was assaulted, and that’s traumatic enough. but he didn’t get inside her before she killed him, and she clings to that, hardens herself around that.

so when her fellow student tries to rape her in the shower, she beats him off just the same way. but it’s not because of ptsd, its not her being retraumatized all over again.

it’s her drawing her line in the sand.

in sparrow school, in her missions, she will have to let men and women touch her. her body doesn’t belong to her, it belongs to the state. and she’ll do what she has to do – she’ll lie, she’ll kill, she’ll get on her knees and use her hands, her mouth, she’ll bend over and take it in the ass, but not this.

her pussy is belongs to her alone. they can take everything else, but not this. she wouldn’t let that old man have it, and she won’t let her country have it.

this attempted rape isn’t her breaking. it’s her figuring out where she stands, what her line is. they can kill her, but they can’t take this from her, she’ll kill herself first.

that’s when dominka flips, when she goes from good to great. her teacher tells her that she’s selfish, and to give her would-be rapist what he wants. she does the same thing as the movie, stripping and spreading her legs in front of the class and telling her almost rapist to fuck her, sneering and bored, and he can’t get it up, because he didn’t want sex, he wanted control, and she wasn’t going to let him have it.

now that she knows what she won’t give up, the rest of it is on the table, she doesn’t flinch or squirm away from it anymore. and her teacher is disapproving, because she won’t let anyone fuck her, gets around it while still succeeding, but this is how dominka survives, how she becomes the best.

she gets pulled out, and told to take this mission, to get the american cia operative nate nash to trust her and get him to tell her the name of the mole, of the traitor in their ranks. her uncle takes her to dinner, the same place he took her as a child, and says, “you don’t seem broken.”

“are you disappointed?” she asks, and she sips at her tea to hide her smile when he orders two of everything, just like when she was a little girl.

she’s not a little girl anymore, and her uncle is a horrible person. she wishes that meant she wasn’t fond of him, but it doesn’t.

“on the contrary,” he says, “i thought you would be well suited to this work. you’re good at it.”

“i’m good at everything,” she answers, because it’s true. she wanted to become a prima ballerina, so she did. she decided to become a sparrow, and so she did. less than a fifth of class is still there. still alive. the fact that it wasn’t her choice sours it a little, but not much. her circumstances forced her there, but her accomplishments got her here, out of sparrow school and into the her favorite restaurant as a child.

he tells her find the mole, and she’s free, she’ll have paid her debt to the state, and he’ll see to it that she and her mother will be taken care of, and she won’t have to work for them again, if she doesn’t want to.

he’s lying. dominika doesn’t want to do this work, but she doesn’t want a lot of things, so she smiles and nods, and wonders if there’s any way out of this life besides death.

so things go as they go, she meets nate nash, and he clocks her immediately, figures out who and what she is in five minutes, because he’s just that good. and dominka plays her game, with her uncle, with her sparrow roommate, with everyone.

she tries to play it with him, but it doesn’t work. nate cares about his mole, cares about people, cares about her. you can’t con an honest man, and she wonders how an honest man got himself tangled up in this work. it can’t be good for him.

so the only con left to her is not to have one, to be honest and open and see what he does.

in the movie, she asks if she can trust him, and then fucks him. it’s supposed to show how he’s healed her trauma, how all dominika needed to get over her rape was a good man, was to fall in love. but that’s bullshit, that’s not how trauma works.

but dominika wasn’t raped here. here, she’s asserted again and again that she doesn’t fuck, not like that, that it’s the one thing she won’t do. so when she has sex with nate, when she straddles him and kisses him and she’s the one who puts him inside her, it’s not about trauma. it’s about trust, and when we see her have sex with nate, we know she likes him, trusts him, as a person and not an agent. because dominka the agent doesn’t give her pussy away. but dominka the person is a person, who fucks people she likes, who likes sex on her terms, when it’s with someone she likes and trusts, and that’s nate.

you’re not stuck comparing her and nate to her and her rapist. you just get to appreciate the fact that dominika for the first time in maybe this whole movie is doing what she wants, is finding joy in something, in someone.

she plays the americans, and the russians, plays them all. it goes almost the same, except: when assassin boy kills her sparrow roommate, she doesn’t let him grab her, she flips him on his back holds a knife to his throat and says to go, that she’ll clean up his mess. we don’t have to see dominika forced over a naked woman in a bath of her own blood and a bag over her head. the american traitor chief of staff that dominika helps the americans find doesn’t get run over by a truck and killed thirty seconds later, because what’s the point of that, what did that achieve? nothing, it was just one more dead woman on screen. instead she goes home and is taken into custody, where she’ll be put on trial for her crimes.

the russians know someone betrayed them, and they think it’s dominika. she endures the torture, refuses to give in, and is released and sent back to find the name of the mole. she sleeps with nate again, because she wants to, and then the assassin boy comes in and tortures him, and she helps. and for a moment we wonder if we got everything wrong, if she is loyal to the russians, if she decided that all of her belonged to them. but she isn’t, and didn’t, and she kills assassin boy instead of knocking him out and contacts the embassy so her and nate are taken to the hospital.

so we end up in the same place, with the general we’ve seen throughout this movie looking at her and saying, “i’m the mole. i’m his source. you can turn me in and leave, run away from this life. or you can turn me in, and take my place. no one will doubt you, you’ll be able to do so much good.”

and she watches him with her serious eyes and serious mouth. he tells her of how he turned after they refused to let an American doctor saver his wife, after he saw how retched and awful this country was. she looks at him for a long moment, and says, “russia is good. we have the best ballet, and alcohol. my mother is a good woman, and she is russian. there are many good russians. you betray them all when you betray the government.”

his heart sinks. “they are not good people.”

and because this is an interesting movie about complicated people, and not blatant cold war era anti-russia propaganda, she laughs. “you think american government is made of good people? it has good people. it has bad people. so does ours. we are not so different. you are just angry. russian government killed your wife, so you want to kill it.”

“so you’ll turn me and go live a quiet life, i suppose,” he says. he thought he knew her. he was wrong. he can’t be too upset at that – she’s the best of them, after all.

“no,” she answers, “i am angry too. i will help the americans. i will take your place. americans like to think they are better, so they try to be, sometimes. russians know what we are, and do not hide from it. i will help. i will take your place. but i won’t do it for russia, or for america. i’ll do it for me.”

and she does. except, just like in the movie, my favorite part of it, she doesn’t turn the general in. instead she has carefully framed her uncle, always her plan from the beginning. she didn’t want to find the mole. she wanted to make it look like her uncle was the mole. he could have saved her, and instead he damned her.

“are you proud of me?” she asks, as they’re walking away from each other, her to the russians and he to the americans. and he can’t help but smile at her. because he’s twisted, and maybe she wasn’t before, but she is now.

her people shoot him before he can make it to the americans, and she doesn’t bother to turn around and look at him, she just runs.

she rises in rank, in esteem, she turned in her precious uncle, of course she can be trusted. she and the general are good friends, and it isn’t strange at all, both of them so trusted and powerful.

she thinks of nate often. it’s too dangerous for her to see him, it’s too much to risk. but they manage coded messages sometimes, and she daydreams of a world where she can have him, where they will live long lives and die together, in a way that’s neither painful nor humiliating.

it’s a pipe dream, but she’s done impossible things before. she doesn’t see why she can’t to them again.

[rosewoodprincess]

Okay so I rewatched LND and I feel like if a few things were changed, I would have accepted it as a more character fitting sequel. Due to it being the way it is, I see it as a more ‘what if under certain circumstances’ scenario. 

Madame Giry says they’ve helped Erik but I don’t believe that could have been the case. 

Erik escapes from the Opera house alone and I don’t believe he would seek out Madame Giry so soon after the whole ‘i nearly choked raoul to death but told him to take christine instead’ ordeal. I think he would have found a way into gathering the people that now work for him. his musical genius and manipulative skills would earn quite enough willing people and his general personality would have probably found a few more willing participants. A lot can change in 10 years. Furthermore, from what I saw, when Ramin sang as Phantom in LND OLC, he had no mask during ‘Devil take the hindmost’ (favourite song in LND), which would show his face holds no fear around the people he is around now. 

How do Madame Giry and Meg come into it? I had a small theory so I watched carefully this time around and compared to all the ballet in POTO, LND does not have much elaborate dancing when it comes to Meg’s performances. Yes, her voice has improved but her dancing doesn’t seem to be as good as before. One way it could work was that something caused her to stop being a professional dancer and, due to the sudden stop, the Phantom helped Madame Giry and Meg, therefore repaying his dept on being sneaked into the Opera House in Paris and having his secret kept for quite a long while, especially after having murdered a few innocent people. Also, it makes more sense than Erik accepting help after everything he did. 

Now, we have the set up of Coney Island, why do Raoul, Christine, and Gustave go there? (i have no idea if im spelling the kids name right but I really dont care). 

Oh Christine and Raoul do have problems. They do but not because Raoul grew to be an alcoholic that gambles all his money away to the point where his wife has to sing across the world to save them. Nah. Their problem is their lack of chemistry. Don’t get me wrong, they love each other, but I do think that sometimes, love just isnt enough. At the end of POTO, I do believe that Christine decided to follow her heart and go with Raoul but I also believe her soul longed for Erik. Maybe there wasn’t as much romance between them as between Raoul and Christine but that’s understandable. Erik WAS a monster. He killed without thinking about it and tried to force Christine to marry him (he didnt know what love felt like he only had Christine). Christine loved Raoul for the safety he promised and the romantic feelings between them. her heart belonged to Raoul. (the Love never dies and hearts can be broken lyrics made me think of this). She loved Erik for the connection they had through music. Raoul told her she doesnt have to sing, she can have that choice. He protected her. Erik told her to sing and sing and always dare to go beyond what she thought she was capable of. 

So yeah Christine and Raoul struggled and they decided that staying away from Paris and all their problems would do them do. spend some family time together (haha Erik comes to ruin Raouls day). Oh yeah also Gustave aint eriks idc what anyone says I dont believe Gustave is Erik’s son. I don’t believe Erik and Christine would have slept together. Not because ‘whoa he ugly’ but because I don’t believe that’s what their relationship in POTO was about. (to summarise, I doubt Erik would WANT to sleep with Christine (”but the point of no return!” yalls shout! “but be logical about the social standards and how Christine wouldnt have slept with someone she wasnt married to! and also Christine was Erik’s muse, first love, first person to not scream and laugh at his face when she saw it. I doubt their time together would be spent on anything other than singing in a boat about the phantom being there and how theres music in the middle of the night while normal people sleep). Anyway Gustave can be a talented lil prodigy have any of yall heard Christine sing in the main goddamn song?

Okay so theyre at the coney island and all goes fine and then Erik is like “hey those final moments in my ‘under the opera house’ home and those 10 years made me realise that I was a bit of a awful human being and i kinda changed but damn christine I still love you” and yeah he grew to be more compassionate. The last moment in POTO literally show him understanding that he cant achieve shit byt being a violent murderer. He isnt a good man, no. he takes advantage of Raoul questioning his relationship with Christine to challenge him to a duel- I mean a sing off that turns into a bet. At least hes trying. He wants to give Gustave all he creates because he couldnt give it to Christine. Also because he wants someone to sing his music and if Christine isnt very willing he might as well go for second best, her child. the rest seems pretty believable considering the above ideas. 

Madame Giry isnt bitter about Erik not giving them his music. She knows he cares about Christine. He made it clear that he loves her and Madame Giry is shocked at the humanity in him that she doesnt really care. Also Meg is more important to her than music. 

Now, why would Meg take Gustave and then threaten to kill herself? She didnt take Gustave to harm him, but she knew the main trio would pay attention if she took him. After 10 years of not seeing Christine and spending at least half of that time trying to get Erik to write music for her, she would grow jealous. not in a malicious way but in a ‘All I have in life is a mother and a freak show. Christine takes the main song from me and everyone pays more attention to her than me, the star’. I mean cmon who wouldnt be annoyed? She does thing to get attention from others. Maybe she just wanted to know what it was like to have a musical prodigy actually pay attention to you (”Not all of us can be like Christine” way to go Erik ruin the whole moment why dont ya).

Oh, Christine dying? nah. If anyone were to die, it would be Erik. Yes, he could have the happy ending with Christine but it would ruin things for Raoul, who still loves her. Anyway, if Christine dies, I doubt Erik would have it within him to go back to music with as much passion as before. He struggled without his muse, what if she were dead? Now, if Erik dies, Gustave would become the musical prodigy. He’s already everything that Erik could have wished for. Parental love (haha stab me right in the feels). Christine would grieve for Erik but she would have Raoul. Their love, having survived such heartbreak and so many struggles, would have grown stronger. No, it wouldnt be like it was before, but they would make it work. Christine’s soul would always long for Erik and his music but her heart loves Raoul. Also Raoul already went through so much lets give him a break yeah? he just wants a happy family because he has loved Christine since they were children. 

So if we were to accept someone dying, I say itd have to be the Phantom. If no death then maybe Christine and Raoul working things out between them but also Raoul accepting that Christine will always love Erik and maybe a happy end for Erik and Christine this time. 

anyway, thats how id go about changing some of LND key things but its just one way to go about it (better than original if you want it to work with POTO characterisation)