#from his carrie 2: the rage parody musical

[dreamcatcherfication]

And Then The Earth Would Shatter

@nightingale6374 I tried not to do it again but I just had to

Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of I’m dying inside - today we have: I’ve Been Watching We Are The Tigers On Repeat And I’m Sobbing While Also Binging Bandstand On Playbill! 

Current Mood: T I R E D. But anyway, anon requested a dark secret being revealed after one of the queens’ shows! I thought I’d do a Jane-centric fic because I don’t have enough of those. Unfortunately, that also means Jane is hardest for me to write, so I apologize if she seems a little out of character. Regardless, I hope you enjoy! Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors, you can read the above section for my excuse.

Writing Masterpost

If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas. If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!

Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Original Prompts

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of beheading, implied disassociation

Big moments tended to start out normal, Jane realized. Every time there was a surprise in store, no one would be expecting it. That’s what made it a surprise, wasn’t it? The fact that before anything shocking happened, there was normal. The calm before the storm. 

The queens had just finished another evening show and were absolutely beat. Everyone was milling around the theatre, some of the queens even stagedooring. As for Jane, she was curled up in her dressing room chair, staring at her reflection in the mirror. It had been bothering her for a while, but today seemed worse than usual. Lately, during Anne’s song, Jane had been feeling a pit form in her stomach every time Anne shouted, “Oh my God guys, he’s actually going to chop my head off!”

Even though all of them brushed it off, they could see the small hint of fear in Anne’s eyes every time she spoke the words. It was eating Jane up from the inside out knowing that it was her fault. Yet still, she couldn’t say anything. She was known for being the silent one to the point where it was natural for her to hide everything - big and small. She never told the others that she was allergic to dogs, and she kept it hidden even when Anna and Kat would make her go with them to the dog park. That was something small, something inconsequential that no one had to know.

Then there were the bigger things. The things that haunted Jane everyday of her life. Her hollow eyes stared at the mirror, unblinking as white noise rang throughout her brain. It was the only way she could keep herself from thinking terrible thoughts. White noise and complete blankness was her only option. “Hi Jane,” she was broken out of her thoughtlessness by a voice at the dressing room door.

It was Cathy, of course it was, although a voice in the back of Jane’s mind told her there was more to it. That ‘Cathy’ was here for something more than to say hello. “Before you yell at me, I know it’s my fault.”

Cathy was understandably confused by Jane’s choice of greeting. “I wasn’t planning on yelling at you -”

“But you would have, I know,” Jane continued, her voice rising. “I know exactly what’s going to happen. You’ve been waiting for this moment, I know you have!”

When Jane’s voice got louder, the other queens slowly started filtering into the room to investigate. Aragon shot Cathy a questioning look, but Cathy could only shrug. She had only come to get changed out of her costume, but now Jane was having a full on breakdown. Anne had an arm around Kat as they walked into the room, the smiles on their faces fading slightly as they caught on to the atmosphere. Anna was standing in the doorway, silently watching everyone in order to make sure nothing went awry.

“Is everything alright, Jane?” Cathy asked, approaching the other queen. “No one is mad at you.”

“You will be,” she muttered, eyes breaking away from her reflection. “You’ll all hate me for it.”

Anne let go of Kat and moved next to Cathy. “What is ‘it’ Jane?”

All expression fell from Jane’s face as regret came over her. “Oh Anne, I’m so sorry.”

Unease started to build in Anne’s chest at Jane’s words. “What is it Jane?” she spoke more forcefully.

Like she had snapped her fingers, everything came tumbling out of Jane’s mouth, the dam breaking under the pressure of her guilt. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. But when Henry said he wanted to marry me, I knew it would be impossible for an annulment. I thought - it was only a possibility, I didn’t really mean it.” Every sentence was a stutter out of Jane’s mouth.

“Jane,” Anne’s lip was curling upwards into a snarl, “Tell me what you mean.”

“It was my idea for Henry to accuse you of adultery. I thought if you were convicted of a crime, it would give him reason to break the marriage. I didn’t think he would kill you, Anne! But it was because of me that all of this happened and - and I have to live with that everyday.”

Fire was raging behind Anne’s eyes. “Oh boohoo, you have to live with the trauma of causing somebody’s death. Well guess what, I have to live with the trauma of my beheading. Do you know what it’s like to wake up every night, clawing at your throat because you’re back on that chopping block? No, you don’t. All you know is the pleasures of being the King’s favorite.”

“Anne -” Jane tried to explain, but the queen was hearing none of it.

“I trusted you Jane. I learned to trust you and you didn’t even have the decency to trust me back. So don’t bother apologizing, I don’t want to hear it.” And then Anne stormed out of the room, her footsteps loud as she got far away from the dressing room.

The other four queens were in varying degrees of shock. Cathy was watching Jane with disappointment, her head subtly shaking. “The least you could have done was told one of us,” she whispered, and then exited the room, off to go track down the furious Anne.

Aragon’s hands were shaking, even when she tried to hold them still. She wasn’t focused on Jane, instead dealing with her own inner demons. “I need a moment to myself,” she confessed, before following Cathy out of the room and making her way towards a bathroom.

That left Anna and Kat with Jane. Kat immediately collapsed into her chair at Jane’s revelation, her eyes glazed over and faraway. Anna tried to get her to stand up, but Kat flinched away. Despite her momentarily catatonic state, Kat didn’t want to leave her spot. Anna decided to leave the girl be and moved over towards Jane. “Jane?” she spoke lightly, her voice steady and emotionless. “Are you alright?”

“Why aren’t you yelling at me,” Jane choked out, her eyes refusing to meet Anna’s.

Kneeling next to the other queen’s chair, Anna shrugged. “Maybe because I’m not mad. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with what you did,” Jane frowned and sunk further into her chair, “but I’m not going to yell at you for it. You seem to know your actions were wrong, so there’s no reason for me to lecture you. And you’re going to need someone on your side if things get bad.”

Jane glanced up, meeting Anna’s eyes. “You’re on my side?”

The German queen nodded, standing from her position next to Jane. “Yes, I am. And I’m going to help you make things right. Or better, at least.”

Ruefully, Jane picked at her shirt collar. “How am I supposed to do that? Anne will never forgive me for what I’ve done, no matter how much I regret it.”

“Anne’s angry, she’s betrayed,” Anna explained, “but she’ll forgive you. Maybe not today, maybe not for months to come, but she will. It’s your responsibility to earn her trust back. We’re going to do this one by one if we have to. Starting with Kat.” Anna pointed to the frozen girl next to Jane. 

The way Kat didn’t even respond to her name worried Jane, but she shoved it away in order to stand up and put herself in front of the girl. “Kat… I shouldn’t have kept that secret. Knowing what I did to Anne, knowing how it affects you. It was wrong of me. I should’ve said something and I’m sorry.”

Kat mumbled something, but it was too quiet to be heard. “What?” Anna prodded, putting a hand on Kat’s shoulder. The girl pushed it off and hid in her chair.

“You don’t have to say sorry to me,” Kat murmured. 

“I should,” Jane replied, moving her hand to Kat’s but then thinking better of it. “My mistake affects all of you, and I have to make up for that.”

Noncommittally, Kat’s eyes wandered the floor. “Apologize to Annie. Once she’s willing to forgive you, then you can apologize to me. She’s more important.”

Jane wanted to argue, but she knew Kat was right. Turning to face Anna, Jane hardened her face. “I’m going to go track down the others. You stay with her,” she spoke with resolve.

A small smile made its way onto Anna’s face as she nodded. “Do what you need to do Seymour.”

As Jane left the dressing room, she practically crashed into Aragon. The other queen seemed to have bags under her eyes that appeared out of nowhere, as well as sweat dripping from her forehead. “Catherine?” Jane questioned her friend.

“I would’ve done the same,” Aragon admitted, hanging her head in shame.

“What?”

It took all of her willpower to look up into Jane’s confused eyes. “Your idea for Henry to accuse Anne of adultery. If I was in your position, I would’ve done the same thing. And I hate myself for it.”

Jane grabbed her friend’s hand. “But you love Anne.”

“I didn’t back then. Neither did you, that’s why you did it. That’s why I would have done it,” Aragon huffed and clenched her fists. “That was a long time ago when we were pitted against each other.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have done it,” Jane scolded herself.

Her breaths were shaky, but Aragon tried to offer any consolation she could. “Don’t tell yourself off for things you did in the past. It’s done. Focus on the now. Isn’t that what modern life has taught us?” Without waiting for a response, Aragon left Jane and went into the dressing room where Kat and Anna were waiting.

Standing alone in the hallway, Jane took a moment to psych herself up. If she said anything wrong, anything that wasn’t 100% perfect, Anne would never forgive her. Maybe forgiveness wasn’t the goal. Maybe she was shooting for something else. But she needed to get this right. Gathering up all her courage, Jane started marching down the hall to where she knew Anne would be waiting.

When Jane reached the door to the rehearsal room, she was met with Cathy crossing her arms. “Jane,” she stated monotonously, “I don’t think it’s a good time.”

“It won’t ever be a good time,” Jane sighed, wringing her hands. “I made a mistake Cathy, I can say it a million times. But I need to talk to Anne.”

Maybe Jane was imagining it, but Cathy’s face morphed into one of respect as she stepped away from the door. “If you do anything wrong, she’ll never forgive you.”

“I know,” Jane said for what felt like the hundredth time. 

Inside the room, Anne was pacing furiously. She turned around when the door opened and shot Jane a glare. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. “What do you want? Come to tell me you planned to kill Elizabeth too?”

“No!” Jane gasped, putting her hands up. “I would never.”

“Yeah, well I’m not so sure anymore,” Anne hissed, digging her heels into the ground. “I forgave you, for everything that happened. You know, I probably would’ve forgiven you if you told me the truth from the start. But you had to lie and ruin everything.”

Jane looked at the ground and inhaled, preparing her words. “I’ve lost your trust. And I understand that. I hope that one day we can build it back -”

“Cut the bullshit,” Anne rolled her eyes. “I don’t want your premeditated, Oxford apology.”

Keeping her voice as steady as she possibly could, Jane answered, “You’re right.” There was a long pause between the two of them before Jane continued. “A lot happened in the past that we can’t change. I hate that I had a role to play in your death, but that’s the fact of it. So whether you like it or not, I’m going to do everything in my power to make this life better. I’ve already failed once by not telling you the truth. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for a second chance.”

At first, Anne seemed like she was going to reject the idea. Her eyes were narrowed as she glared at Jane, her nostrils flaring with malice. But she surprised Jane by saying, “We’ve already gotten second chances. What you want is a third chance.”

“Well then, I’d like to have a third chance Anne. Third time’s the charm?” Jane extended her hand as an olive branch. A hug didn’t seem quite right, but she wanted to offer something.

Anne watched the hand warily, her stance defensive. At Jane’s hopeful look, she gave in and grabbed her hand. “Last chance Seymour, make it count.”

----------------------------------------------

Tag List:

@radcowboyalmondtree @boleynhowards @annabanana2401 @babeebobo @dont-lose-your-queerhead @everything-insanity @mindless-pidgeon @i-wanna-dance-and-sing-six @thedemidisaster @its-totes-gods-will @thatbolxyngirl @thenameisnoone

[j-shute]

Creating a new edible: A Take a Stand/ Iron Man 2 tribute fic.

.

AN: Hey there, heard it was a certain handsome Foxxo’s Birthday yesterday, so I thought I’d write him something for it. This is an idea for a Take a Stand/ Iron Man 2 parody I’ve had for a while, so hope you enjoy it, and both your birthday and Christmas. Stay awesome ;)

.

Ceartais Bunker.

3.45 years after the Doom incident.

.

“I cannae believe this… I cannae believe this!”

All eyes looked on at Olivia, their helpless expressions doing nothing to sate the small mouse’s rage. Nobody knew what to say or how to act, or how on earth they would all get out of this unscathed. And then the two little rodent sized eyes landed on team member Alice Kirabito, the scarred and battle hardened bunny feeling a shiver of dread and fear flash through her. “Tell me,” Olivia said, closing her eyes and her paws scrunching up. “How could ya…”

“Olivia…” she tried to say back.

“I mean how could ya…”

“Please, madame…”

“I mean how could ya cope with these cravings!” she yelled out, before collapsing in on herself in a pile of hormonal angst. A few months ago she’d finally married her old boyfriend Blake, their love rekindled ever since she quit the superhero life. Not soon after came the news that she was pregnant, carrying baby rat-mouse hybrids, or her little rice as she called them. Sadly, while a mouse pregnancy was only twenty days, it seemed that every single high, low, swing, urge and craving felt in a longer term had been concentrated down into that short period.

“I ate taco’s,” Alice said, recounting her own pregnancy.

“And you don’t think I haven’t tried that!?” Olivia screamed out, her paws up and grasping into the air. “My boyfriend is the best chef in Zootopia, and not even he can cook what I want! He says that to get the right tastes, I’d be breaking the laws of food.”

“Listen, I know it is tough,” Alice offered again, “but I know you can stay strong.”

“I don’t think I can…” Olivia confessed, looking forward with a thousand-yard stare and shaking her head. Alice stepped back, looking at the others in the room before shaking her head. Her wife, noted surgeon, socialite and fellow vigilante Luna Wilde, shook hers too. So did team leader Kodi Jones, not even sure his skills at the mystic arts could mollify the insane sounding demands of his predecessor. The other team members: Clara Bloom, Robyn Wilde-Savage, Hannah Wilde-Savage and the AI Bella had no idea how to help. Heck, even their intern, Esso Reese, had no idea. Then again, she mainly worked for them so that they could monitor her mental health, all part of the special insanity plea that they’d helped organise for her after the whole Doom incident.

So, that night, the gang left Olivia with promises to try and think of things to help her out. She left and did her best to keep it together for her husband, putting on a pretty face even as her body demanded the impossible. It was all a bit taxing though so, next morning, she left early, wandering around the base’s labs and store rooms.

It was there that Bella noticed her. “Good Day Olivia,” it chirped, making her groan. “Given your current state, I have scanned through your archive and picked out something that might be of interest for you.”

“Right. Whatever,” she mumbled, hankering after whatever it was again. “Just hand it over.”

To her surprise a screen across the room fizzled to life and, to her shock, a foreign yet familiar face stared out. It was her father. Not Dave or Basil, no… Her old Pa Flaversham, taken so long ago by the villainous Dr Padraic Rattigan. Her turmoil was briefly ceased, cut through by the sad shock as the grandfather her babies would never know twiddle about on screen, talking about how he’d innovated here and there when practicing his hobby of designing toys. And then he looked forward and spoke to her. “Of course, everything’s possible if you put your mind to it,” he said. “And I think that’s true of you too, my dear Olivia.” He cracked a little smile. “I have a feeling that you’re going to be a special little mammal, one who won’t take no for an answer. One who will push through the wee laws that others say exist. One who’ll make the impossible possible. For that, I’ll always be proud of you, my little Olivia.”

Far in the future, Olivia cleared a tear from her eye before breathing in. “Bella,” she shouted, a sudden determination rising from within her.

“Affirmative.”

“Break out the hardware and cue the music, it’s time for a major remodellin’!”

Within minutes heavy rock was blaring out as a whole set of spare spitfire suits assembled. Each one grabbing a heavy sledgehammer, they swung it down on the concrete floor, soon following orders to do it in tune with the base line. Safety goggles on, Olivia marched along a table edge, surveying the work as dust filled the ever vibrating room. She then frowned. “I can do better than that.”

.

(1 minute later)

.

“CLEAR!” she shouted, before pushing down on a plunger. The whole bunker shook as the rough holes that had been hammered out were blasted open, a central ring of concrete falling through and crashing onto the floor below. The little mouse smiled, rubbing her hands with glee. “That’s how ya do it.”

With that done the mech’s were soon at work again, hauling out equipment and parts from old storage containers, running power lines and supercoolant tubes to where they needed to be and carrying her around so she could see it all. She was with them as they assembled a complex set of magnet arrays, alongside a glass vacuum sphere, an airlock system and several large tanks of compressed deuterium. It was as she held on to a shaking mech suit, busily breaking a new hole through the floor with an electric jackhammer, that Bella notified her of a knock on the door. “Miss Reese is here with the items you requested.”

Ordering her mech to stop and removing her ear defenders, she turned to see the lynx in question just finishing her mocking of Bella’s announcement. “Here’s your stuff,” she grunted, handing over a shopping bag before looking around, her head cocked as she tried to work out just what on earth was going on.

Olivia, having checked that a certain black wrapped item had been provided, laughed. “You have no idea what I’m up to, do you?”

“Yeah, I don’t,” she muttered, pausing as she saw a mech carry a crate to the hole, dropping it down into the arms of one below.

The mouse gave her a wink. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing this with everyone once it’s done.”

…

An hour later, the crazed creation was finally coming together. Out on a table, Olivia and one of the mechs were following a set of recipe books and mixing together some kind of batter. Despite the heavy music and the sound of other mechs working, she still heard someone coming down the steps, turning to see Kodi enter the room.

The wolf looked around, then up at the ceiling. “I heard you broke the floor.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “Honestly though, that was three hours ago. Where ya been?”

He looked down at her and shrugged. “You know, doing stuff,” he said, turning to give a nosy at the contents of some of her crates.

“Yeah, me too,” Olivia chirped, gesturing around. “I’m fixin’ that whole cravin’ problem, right here and now. I’m gonna be outta all our furry freak brothers fur for the rest of this pregnancy, as long as ya let me finish here of course.”

She smiled and looked over at the wolf, just as he peered into one of the crates and backed off in shock. In he leant again, pulling out a racoon sized thief’s cane, the ancient wooden shaft tipped with an angular bronze coloured hook, before looking her dead in the eyes. “Olivia. What’s this doing here?”

The mouse looked down at the item in his paws and couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, that’s it! That’s what I need for this. Take it over there.” One of his ears flopping down in confusion, Kodi complied, moving over until another spitfire mech held on to it with him. “Good, now right over there, there…”

He looked up at her sceptically. “You know what this is?”

“It’s exactly what I need to make this work,” she said, as her mech slid it under a large pipe like thing, levering it up between two large drums. “Now drop it.” It all sunk into position, the mech scanning it and giving Olivia a thumbs up. “Get in! Perfectly level! Anyway, as you can see I’m busy, so whatya need?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Goodbye. Hannah, Robyn and I are being reassigned. Director Winters wants us in Sahara square.”

“Fantastic, land of enchantment.”

His ears went down. “If that ‘mummy’ gets its way, yes.”

“Oooh, magic stuff?”

“Potentially,” he said, before giving one last look at her equipment. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, not that I’ll be needing it,” she said cheekily, as she turned up to shake his paw.

“Stay safe,” he said, turning and starting on his way out.

“Tchhh, of course I will!”

Kodi gave a sidelong glance to the cane. “Just be careful around any angry racoon-fox hybrids wanting their heirlooms back.”

Olivia gave the remark a grunt, before getting back to work.

.

“Initialising magnetic containment system.”

Olivia, black welding goggles covering her eyes, nodded, waving over one of her mech’s to turn a huge valve. It touched it before a loud clang rang out, several screws flying out onto neighbouring magnets as the machine jittered and stopped responding. The mouse frowned, before ordering over another mech. Keeping its distance, it gently picked up the crippled mech’s legs and lifted them up, using it as a lever to pull open the valve. Up in the vacuum chamber a purple glow began to form as the fusor came to life.

“Approaching maximum power.”

Pressing a large red button, Olivia rubbed her paws in glee as a set of super strong magnets began elevating a batter coated object out of the batter tub and up into the airlock at the base of the fusor. None of it was dripping, instead all held perfectly flat on all sides as the bottom door closed, air quickly pumped out. Then, it rose again into the fusor as the magnetic fields began interfering. Lights began dimming as more power was drawn while the equipment began shaking in place. There was a short spark, then a large one, then a larger one, a blast of lightning suddenly arcing out from one of the superconductors. Downstairs the emergency generator came on, the whole building rumbling, all while nuts and bolts began flying about in the coursing magnetic fields.

Most of the mechs held their positions or backed off, but the one that had first gripped the wheel was torn off, smashing into one of the superconductor banks as the emergency siren began going off. It got louder and louder and louder, the machines smoking and hissing with fire, and then…

It powered down, Olivia shrugging. “Tha’ was easy,” she said, moving her mech to the base of the fusor as what had gone inside dropped out. A rectangle covered in foamy, even, crispy batter, and with a smell that nobody had ever smelt before…

Except of course in the craving addled mind of the mouse looking at it now.

“Congratulations. You have created a new edible.”

Olivia licked her lips. “Cannae change the laws of cooking my ass. One plasma fried mars bar, served right up!”

[atlasllm]

The Scarlet Letter: The Musical Concepts

I can't believe I'm making more than one post about it but fsr my mind wasn't done either so

Also these aren't in complete order nor did I put everything on here but I'll try. Also there's quite a lot of Dimmesdale in this so buckle up

The first thing is Nathaniel Hawthorne coming in to address the audience about how god damn depressing the story is. I honestly haven't read The Custom House since my teacher didn't require it but yeah. Basically like the opening to the 2012 Lorax movie lmai

Opening number: Soiled Rose - in which Roger is escorted throughout Boston hearing rumors about the sinful adultress Hester Prynne, eventually revealing her holding babey Pearl with the A on her chest

The Scarlet Letter itself has its own song, basically preaching about the sinful Hester Prynne. Maybe the town surrounding Hester chants "adultery" in the background in whispers wufjwkk

I Swear: Roger asks Hester to reveal Pearl's uwu papa in the prison, which she refuses. I kinda like to imagine it as a mix of Hamilton's "We Know" and "Your Obedient Servant", with the song itself ending like "Do you swear?" "Yes, I swear" a la "A dot Ham" "A DOT BURR"

Fsr I'm imagining the song for like The Elf Child and The Minister that it's overall very tense where Hester grows increasingly angry over the couse of the song, eventually ending with Hester near screaming to Dimmesdale "If you care for me, you'll let me keep her! If you care for me, you'll let me love her! If you care for me, you'll let me care for her too!", then Dimmesdale has his own lil solo saying Hester should keep Pearl

I forgot what I titled this song but Roger's own version of "Hell To Your Doorstep" from The Count of Monte Cristo musical where Roger melodically screams in rage at whoever Pearl's father could be for soiling his Rose (aka Hester). The only calm part of the song is Roger introducing himself to Dimmesdale, with Roger describing himself as "Faust, but without the sinning, I swear" and Dimmesdale admitting he studied at Oxford. Then the song picks up again with Roger swearing he'll damn the person who fucked his wife

The Great Reverend Dimmesdale: Basically Dimmesdale's formal introduction in which the entire town sings praise for him, painting him as a saint. However Dimmesdale himself sings in the song too, but tries to contradict the town to no avail since no one is listening to him. Eventually the town accepts that he's the Great, Perfect, Saintly Reverend Dimmesdale, to which Dimmesdale screams in sorrow and hushes the entire town's singing (methaphorically though). The spotlights disappear except for Dimmesdale, and he sings a sad little chorus (or even a sermon) with a broken voice and his hand over his heart

I jokingly called this song Say Nay To This but it's basically Dimmesdale reminiscing on his night with Hester. He admits that he was stressed from studying 24/7, then all of a sudden a dedicated parishioner Hester Prynne comes to ask him for prayers or something since her husband has gone missing for 2 years now. They talk very tenderly towards one another then all of a sudden LORD TELL ME HOW TO SAY NO TO THIS I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SAY NO TO THIS THE SITUATION'S HELPLESS AND HER BODY'S SCREAMING HELL YES

A song basically showing that Roger and Dimmesdale are friends but the song ends with Roger pulling apart Dimmesdale's shirt (Dimmesdale seated on a prop chair with his back turned to the audience) and then laughing ecstatically that he's found the man

Two songs (or one big one) detailing Dimmesdale's torment, one part being a duet with Roger with Roger """unknowingly""" bringing up sin and adultery in Dimmesdale's prescence and Dimmesdale trying his best to avoid confessing in front of Roger. They sing their own chourses of secretly hating one another, with Dimmesdale's in particular getting more and more frantic and fearful and Roger's getting more ecstatic, rageful, and vengeful. The other part is Dimmesdale singing another broken song, with visions swirling all around him. At some point he takes his shirt off again to whip himself, another where he nearly tumbles to the ground after admitting he hasn't been eating due to his guilt. He cries for his parents being disappointed in him during the dream, angels and demons surrounding him, and eventually Hester and Pearl. Whoever is playing Pearl taps on Dimmesdale's chest. Maybe this leads up into The Minister's Vigil too maybe

Another song about Hester where the people sing to praise Hester, claiming The Scarlet Letter itself is "Able" rather than "Adultress" as Hester prances around the stage doing charity work

After confronting Roger for the first time and a song about Dimmesdale thinking he's beyond saving in the forest, there's a tender love song between them. This isn't in the book and neither is the Say Nay To This parody but cmon man, I'm just imagining them softly singing that idk Hester loves his soft face and Dimmesdale's always liked her hair

Maybe a song before the procession where Dimmesdale debates confessing at the ceremony but you never get to see his answer when he ends the song writing his sermon

I'm also imagining a short song about the procession itself where Hester sees Dimmesdale but doesn't recognize him, and metaphorically going up to him, caressing his face, his hair, hugging him, but still not recognizing him with his mind spacing out so heavily and so spiritually

This isn't a full song idea but I can imagine that Dimmesdale shows off his chest and takes off his shirt to the audience for once, but right before he pulls it open to reveal his scarlet letter all the lights go out, and you can hear the town gasp and scream before Dimmesdale falls into Hester's arms, the lights turning back on as Dimmesdale and Hester sing a sad little duet with only a sad piano playing. I'd rather have his last words match the ones in the book, but I can imagine his voice getting quieter as he whispers "I fear we violated our reverence for each other's soul... I fear it was vain to hope we could meet in heaven... I fear... I fear..." before dying. Hester screams in grief for Arthur and the song ends

Hester's final song is her continuing life without Dimmesdale, with despite her carrying on and saving all the people she couldn't, she still misses Arthur. Eventually she returns to Boston, her final actual lines being about how a new age will come where romance is built on mutual happiness. The last line of the musical itself is Hawthorne saying the "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules"

i really want a musical ;c;

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: Wrong in Different Ways

“An accurate memory of the past would be depressing, probably.” – David Lynch One of the best jokes in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks occurred when Agent Cooper and Sheriff Harry Truman, at the end of a long day of detective work, return to the Sheriff’s Office to find a mounted deer head laying on its side. The odd response from a minor character (“Oh, it fell down”) underlines a lot of the initial appeal of the series: A seemingly innocuous moment executed with comedic pacing and an absurdity designed to relieve the tension built up from a string of traumatic plot revelations. It’s weird, but not “too weird.” It’s, in today’s language, quirky. The first two seasons of Twin Peaks are full of these kinds of moments. We have the legendary “damn fine” cups of coffee. We have Major Briggs’s extraordinary wisdom. We have Cooper’s played-for-laughs lesson on the nation of Tibet and the mystic knowledge he draws from it. And, as the second season burrows into its bizarre middle and late periods, we get super strength, aliens, and Confederate soldier amnesia. It’s a show whose metaphysics hinge on a dwarf who speaks backwards. These bits have lingered on as a 25-years-running set of passwords. How there was “a fish in the percolator” or how the owls are “not what they seem” or how “it is happening again.” These phrases have been passed along, referenced, parodied, remixed, rebuilt, paid forward into other works that have absorbed the show’s legacy. This tone — humorous, mysterious, offbeat — has been perhaps the most visible product of the show’s brief initial run. Nearly every beloved television series of the intervening generation, from Lost to True Detective to even Glee, has at some point been described as “like Twin Peaks.” But, within these sometimes scattered ideas about what the series may or may not represent, there begs another question: What do we mean when we say something is “like Twin Peaks”? --- Animation: Korey Daunhauer Other things that are like Twin Peaks: Wind blowing through a stand of Douglas Fir. A traffic light changing from yellow to red in the darkness. A ceiling fan turning, frighteningly, forever. When Twin Peaks first aired, I was four years old. I remember sneaking into the living room to see my mom watching the show and, on other nights, hearing Angelo Badalamenti’s music lurking outside my bedroom door. I remember catching a glimpse of Cooper in the Sheriff’s station, his eyebrows up in fear, and hearing synthesizer chords hanging in our hallway, moments that made my mom “afraid.” I remember being up later than I should have been. I remember the lights being off. All mundane, average things somehow made wrong by what was on TV. This, for me, is what I think of as being “like” Twin Peaks. Because when you talk about Twin Peaks, you are also talking about much more than its plot. Because when you talk about Twin Peaks, you are also talking about much more than its plot. There is the TV series, its companion movie, and their various release formats throughout the year. There is the fandom that blossomed around these two pieces of media and their various tie-ins (books, cassettes, merchandising). There is the career of one of its creators and how this single storyworld may or may not speak for the entirety of their body of work. There are GIFs, memes, theme parties, Etsy art, and SXSW pop-up events. There is Log Lady cosplay. In all this, it’s easy to lose track of the show’s plot: the murder mystery of teenage Laura Palmer, the small-town homecoming queen whose private life was (like those owls) not what it seemed. Alongside its endearing cast and twilight-Borscht Belt sense of humor, it was this mystery that first lured a large network audience to the series’s first season. And, as the reasons for the killing became more elliptical and less grounded to Earth (though maybe more poetically drawing from the show’s interest in the earth and nature), many of those same fans moved on to other fictional universes. In the immediate clearing wrought by Twin Peaks, we got Northern Exposure — also a show “like Twin Peaks” that my mother watched at night, though one that made her less “afraid.” Offbeat, quirky. Weird, but not too weird. --- Animation: Korey Daunhauer Also like Twin Peaks: A poker chip. The sound of neon crackling through a bar sign. Rope tied around a wrist. I have a screencap on my desktop of James Hurley — the series’s sensitive bad boy, as opposed to its other criminal bad boys or its demon-possessed bad boys — sitting on a hilltop overlooking the breathtaking view of the mountains bordering the town of Twin Peaks, his motorcycle parked next to him. In the context of the show, James and his motorcycle are sort of a duo (a theme explored with great detail in his much-derided road trip in season 2). In another scene from the pilot, when James drives off from his uncle Ed’s “gas farm,” he slips on a pair of sunglasses before riding away, like it’s no big deal. For a series whose aesthetic can feel so unique, so precisely defined, much about Twin Peaks feels like an echo of something else. James prefigures Nicolas Cage’s words from David Lynch’s Peaks-contemporary feature film Wild At Heart, where he declares, wonderfully, that his snakeskin jacket is a “symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.” Hurley, in his leather jacket, on his hog, wearing these shades, wearing his square jaw handsomeness, speaks just as clearly, and ridiculously, and earnestly, to his belief in personal freedom. For a series whose aesthetic can feel so unique, so precisely defined, much about Twin Peaks feels like an echo of something else. Twin Peaks often feels like it is either making fun of something or being deadly sincere about that same thing, oftentimes both at once. Even from the beginning, the dialogue is corny (“Quit worryin’ and start screwin’, Mr. Touchdown”) and many of the jokes don’t “work” in the way one might like them to. This, of course, is also much of what is “like” Twin Peaks: the gap, similar to irony but something much weirder, between what we expect and what we get. It’s disarming. It makes one pause and wonder. It messes deeply with one’s bearing for what, if anything, we’re supposed to be taking seriously here — and why some of these things might be taken more seriously than others. Why do we allow some of this to resonate and not the rest? What does it say about us if we can’t totally “go there”? What will people think of me if I don’t get it? --- Animation: Korey Daunhauer Another example from Lynch’s pilot that is “like Twin Peaks”: the scene when Laura’s friends first learn of her death in the middle of class. When this discovery comes — illustrated, crushingly, by Laura’s empty desk — her best friend and confidant, Donna, is moved to an explosion of grief. This meme-ready image, of actress Lara Flynn Boyle’s head tilted back in despair, openly weeping, has become an icon of something core to the identity of the Twin Peaks universe: the intrusion of a deep sadness into “normal life.” Maybe more than any violence or supernatural evil, it is this quality — the stuff that brings us to tears — that both disrupts and defines life in Twin Peaks. There are few other television shows or films that allow its characters more frequent and intense displays of things so easily repressed, of actual crying, of more opportunities to react to trauma with not just inner pain but a pandemonium of feelings: terror, rage, screaming. How does James react in this same scene? James, stone-faced, snaps his pencil in half. It’s quirky, and it’s somehow placed at exactly the wrong moment, the timing completely off. Also in this scene, which feels equally “like Twin Peaks” despite its seemingly frivolous nature: a poster on the back wall of Abraham Lincoln. --- Animation: Korey Daunhauer A lot of what we remember about Twin Peaks now is environmental. The red curtains of the Black Lodge and the roadhouse stage, the zig-zag of black and white, tall trees filtered through fog. All of its objects. Rewatching the series, I tried to make a list of every “object” that felt important. Three episodes in, this list began to feel psychotic: ashtrays, gas pumps, jukeboxes (plural). I wrote the word “lumber” a dozen times. Everything — every “thing” — seemed to carry another meaning. Even the most basic details, after a few hours, vibrated differently. Each lamp felt ominous. Twin Peaks has hung around for almost three decades partially for this reason. The lasting mystery of the show is less in the question it was marketed under — “Who killed Laura Palmer?” — but in that question of what, exactly, we’re even seeing. Its audience returns to these episodes again and again, because something about them feels unfinished. That creeping feeling that something is not right here, that things have gone terribly, cosmically wrong — and that it still (as James puts it) “makes some kind of terrible sense.” The lasting mystery of the show is less in the question it was marketed under — “Who killed Laura Palmer?” — but in that question of what, exactly, we’re even seeing. That the series often asks you to largely throw away logic and to be swept up in its senses, “terrible” or otherwise, is also what has given the show its long life. Lynch and creative partner Mark Frost don’t seem interested in telling the story of Laura Palmer’s murder to “say” anything about her death, or about death in general. They tell this story because it feels a certain way. The haze of American upper-middle-class suburbia — caught temporally between the era of the show’s premiere, the 80s, and that of Lynch’s own childhood, the 50s — is used for a texture of banality, the “normal world” terrorized by the show’s supernatural forces. Like much of Lynch’s work, this resonates the deepest as a kind of dream place, perhaps his attempt to rebuild and remake the specifics of his own youth in order to reveal the sensations he felt buried in there. And yet: while Twin Peaks may not be the real world, it’s also not only fantasy. And it’s certainly not universal. It is a specific vision with precise references to an era its creators grew up in: neon diner signs, girls in sweater sets, sleazy rock & roll, wall-to-wall carpeting, cassette tapes, the highly stylized signifiers of a mid-century middle-class American culture. These references don’t belong to everybody, but they do belong to the person who dropped a teenager’s murder into the middle of them. They resonate not because they’re ours, but because we can tell they are somebody’s. Many of us might like the chance to revisit and rebuild our childhoods; Lynch just has the privilege of giving us his childhood back to us. Twin Peaks might not always ask you to think, but it always asks that you feel — deeply, confusingly, uncontrollably. Fitting for a story about spirit possession and a community unprepared to deal with it, when Twin Peaks works, it can seem like a thing that is being done to us, intruding in our own normal spaces, flipping them. Creeping down the hallway. Driving us to host costume parties. Still making us “afraid.” Twin Peaks’s power is that it makes things wrong, but it never makes them right again. The show just continues making them wrong in different ways. http://j.mp/2rc7ghY