#i was trying to vaguely approximate whatever ben has

[mur-art]

It’s pretty much canon at this point that PA is Gov’s dad. What if in some kind of AU situation Gov and IDC were actual kids back in the day and PA actually had the opportunity to raise them like a normal dad? Anyway, here’s that AU... 

It’s still PA’s birthday here and that’s all that matters. 

Why is PA wearing glasses? Because my own OC versions of PA have always worn glasses so it’s kind of a habit at this point. Plus at least one east coast state needs glasses and I vote for PA. But only for reading. He’s an old-ass man after all.

[25centsoda]

Whistling Fic - SW

Fuck it, have the first part that I literally just finished, b/c I’m impatient XD

Backround, this is post-ESB and Luke is trying to find out more about the Jedi. This fic has actual plot, and angst, and such, but I literally just started it last night lmao so we’ll see how long it ends up and how long edits take. It’ll go on AO3 when it’s closer to finished.

.

The green powder exploded in his face and Luke stopped, coughing. Through the tears streaming down his face, he saw the Nightsister turn through the trees and vanish. He sank to one knee, doubled over. He couldn’t stop coughing. He couldn’t breathe.

Luke sneezed, and the coughing stopped abruptly.

He took a deep breath and tried to shout, “Hey!”

All that came out was a whistling noise that vaguely followed the shape of the word.

What?!

He put a hand to his chest and tried again.

“Tswuuuu. Tswu!”

No! What the hells!

He tried Huttesse. It came out as that same whistling noise; almost, but not quite understandable. The one Alderaani curse that Leia had taught him. Corellian. None of it worked.

Even Wookiee, shaky as his pronunciation had been last week when Chewie tried to teach him, came out as a whistle.

Kriffing hells.

Luke sighed. At least that came out normally.

Well, maybe this was what he got for trying to chase a Nightsister. It hadn’t been all that likely that they knew much about the Jedi, anyway…

He kicked a pile of rocks, and they clattered.

Why did the Empire have to destroy everything?

He kicked another pile over.

His home. Leia’s planet. Countless lives. Entire cultures. Anything that they thought didn’t “fit.”

A third pile fell to his foot.

Why couldn’t they just—

Something ensnared Luke in the Force, wrapping around his limbs like living vines. It squeezed, and his senses lit up like a live wire. He screamed, a high-pitched whistle.

The Force warped and bubbled, distorting into nonsense, like a view through warped glass. Luke barely registered it when he fell to the dirt, the scattered rocks digging into his side. The vines dug into his skin, piercing. His vision wavered in and out, unfocused.

All he knew was the pain, consuming and contorting him. The galaxy, once dimensional and full of life, was blurred and distorted. His head pounded and his fingers, near senseless, clawed at the dirt, trying to escape this feeling.

Only the sharp rocks digging into his sides grounded Luke to the present. Somewhere in the distance, a bird shrieked.

Time was liquid around him.

Leia…Han…Chewie…Wedge…

Would he get back to them? He should’ve brought R2…the little astromech could’ve called for help…

That kriffing bird wouldn’t stop shrieking. He flung a loose handful of dirt with an uncoordinated hand, but that did nothing. Probably didn’t get anywhere near the bird.

He lay in the dirt, writhing, for what felt like hours, the galaxy as distant as shelter in a sandstorm.

Gradually, slowly, the pain subsided, the metaphysical vines loosening around his body. Luke became aware that the shrieking was coming from him, and he closed his mouth. He groaned and rolled over, taking his cheek off the dirt. The air was heavy in his lungs, weighing him down.

His warped perspective of the Force darkened, like the moment when a sandstorm became thick enough to obscure the suns.

Luke tensed, squeezing his eyes shut. Futilely, he hoped that whatever it was would leave him alone, but with the luck he was having today? Not likely.

He didn’t feel like he could move, anyway; each limb felt like it had been shattered by the pressure, though he knew from experience that actual broken bones wouldn’t hurt like this. Ben and Yoda had never taught him about injuries in the Force. Luke couldn’t even begin to guess at the protocol.

Ksssh. Kosshh.

His eyes flew open and he rolled over unthinkingly. Pain ripped through his chest and Luke winced, then he caught sight of who had arrived.

Darth Vader.

“Oh, not you!” Luke tried to say, but all that came out was an irritated, whistled approximation.

Vader stopped short.

“Luke?”

“Tswu-uu.” Father. Luke whistled sharply, an attempted curse.

Had he blacked out? Was this a dream, or was his father actually here?

“You are hurt,” Vader said shortly.

No duh.

“I assume you ran afoul of a Nightsister?”

Luke whistled an affirmative, and laid back on the ground, looking up at the dark sky. The rocks were still digging into his flesh, now his back. It was uncomfortable now that he wasn’t distracted by whatever the hells that had been.

Vader’s hand twitched, and he straightened. Without warning, Luke was hauled upwards. He screamed, his body protesting the motion, but his father didn’t stop until Luke was clutched in his embrace.

“Young one, what have you done?” Vader demanded.

What do you mean, ‘what have I done’? A Nightsister cast a spell on me and I can’t kriffing speak!

Did Vader seriously expect an answer?

Luke glared up at his father and whistled as if it would come out as Basic, tearing into him. If Vader couldn’t understand him, why hold back?

“Tswu tswu tswuu tswu TSWUU!”

Vader sighed. “Never mind. I will find out later. Sleep, my son.”

Exhaustion overcame Luke, and consciousness slipped out of his fingers.

[luca-moreno]

operation: asteria

Uh. So this is only the most self-indulgent thing ever but let’s be honest, this is what we’re here for sooo  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Luca centric/sorta vague to leave room in the sandbox for other pov’s <3

FOLLOWS X 

 ---

It’s a tense walk back to the shuttle.

Gone was the easy humour and levity of their initial foray into the marketplace. Now they push through the crowds with terse expressions, eyes scanning every passing face for a potential threat. Luca feels the weight of the disc on him like an anchor, dragging him down with each step and further troubled by how uneasy Eva and the Captain had seemed.

Whoever this Vance guy was, he was trouble.

Luca knows it’s selfish when there’s something much more vital at stake but a large part of him is still trying to push down the crushing disappointment that he won’t be able to meet his own contact. He would have liked to have tugged on that thread that might one day lead him to his brother.

Maybe, if he had been paying more attention, he might have noticed the shadows behind them before the screaming started.

Eva flares blue instantly, but the heavy lurch of the suddenly panicked crowd knocks Luca out of range of her barrier. He loses sight of her briefly in the crush of frenzied bodies. It’s a struggle to stay on his feet as he’s shoved and jostled by the stampede. Isaac’s voice is curt but calm in his ear and Luca forces himself to focus on the hum of Eva and Ben’s biotics. He almost locates them when an explosive rush of heat and noise hits him like a shockwave and he’s suddenly lifted off his feet and hurled far into the dirt.

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence from the force of the impact, then a world of screaming sensation comes rushing back in. He blinks up at the fuzzy stars, ears ringing and filled with static along with the continual frustrating buzzing of his aids. He can't breathe through the smoke and charred dust in the air and he tastes blood in his mouth. He groans as he tries to roll over but his body feels too heavy and slow, like he’s moving under water.

A dark figure looms over him. Luca spies a flash of red along one arm and relief rushes though him despite the wall of flames at the figure’s back - relieved because the N7 stripe and the broad shoulders tell him it's the captain, and if Isaac is there, then Luca knows it’s gonna okay - right up until the front of Luca’s ajax armor is grabbed in a gloved fist and he’s lifted off the dirt.

No. Not the captain.... A face he doesn't recognize and Luca’s brain stutters in confusion but he can’t think through the darkness crowding in around the edges of his vision.

It swallows him whole.

--

It’s almost peaceful when Luca comes to but the silence gives way to a crackling static, cut off voices and a rhythmic pounding in his head.

He cracks one eye open, greeted by a wide, dark room and a handful of shadowy figures. His hands are bound behind his back and his first thought is the disc. 

They had to be after the disc.

He hasn’t been awake for long when one of the figures approaches him.

“Oi, the kid’s awake.”

“Good. Get him up.”

It’s the only warning Luca gets before a rough pair of hands hauls him upright. A barefaced turian looms into his field of vision. He can’t hear the clack of his mandibles, but Luca can make out what he’s trying to say. Barely.

“What?” Luca wheezes, staring blankly at the turian in front of him.

“Where’s the disc?”

“What?” he says again.  

The turian snarls something else and Luca tries to gesture to his head. It’s hard with his hands bound behind his back. “Wait, no. I… I can’t hear.”

Another figure approaches, human this time, and ugly as sin. Luca stares up at them from his position on the floor and tries not to let the quiver in his stomach show on his face. Razor squad, he realizes. They have to be. These must be the assholes that had been chasing Viz.

He tries to gesture to his head again, then makes a frustrated sound. “If you can undo… I can can fix... or… sign-”

There’s a long beat while the two mercs debate what to do but it’s a third voice that Luca can barely make out that has one of them reaching for his wrists. Luca uses the opportunity to press his thumb and ring finger together to activate a charge as soon as the merc makes contact. A flash of blue and white fizzles, crackling out from Luca’s gloved wrist and scrambling up the man’s arm. It spreads over his body as the merc gasps once then falls to the ground, convulsing. 

The others scramble back with a yelp.

“Shit, be careful!” one of them yells. “Little fucker might have more.”

The turian’s mandibles click in an alien approximation of a human sneer. “Any other surprises for us, kid?”

“Guess you’ll just have to come closer and find out, huh?” Luca flexes his wrist and tries for what he hopes is a cocky smile. 

It was that same lesson Kiosho had drummed into him on the wards when they were kids and strengthened by the time Isaac, Eva and even Ben had given him.

Be brave even you’re fucking terrified, because half the time, they won’t be able to tell the difference.  And after Yamamotto... well, Luca’s wasn’t going to be caught defenceless again.

Another human, a woman with a jaggered scar down one cheek and one eye milky white, lifts her weapon. Her voice is a sneer as she points it in Luca’s direction. “Or we could just put a bullet in your brain-“  

Luca freezes in place.

“Nah, big man would have our heads for that. He wants this one alive. And the disc. Better get him over here.”

They give Luca a wide berth but he’s conscious of the barrels of katanas, scimitars and claymores pointed at him.

A new figure approaches and Luca doesn’t need to skim his eyes over the red stripe to know who he is.

Jackson Vance.

This was the disgraced N7 that had made Eva react the way she had. There was more history there that Luca wasn’t privy to, but he knew Eva. There was more at play than whatever had been on his bastard’s file.

“Some piss poor judgement on the Alliance part here,” Vance says casually, crouching down to Luca’s level and eyeing him with a cold gaze. “A paladin, a fury and a goddamn fucking Cerberus phoenix and they gave the disc to you.”

Vance shakes his head as though bitterly disappointed as he climbs back to his feet. “Not much of a challenge.”

Luca jerks his chin at the man lying comatose on the ground nearby. 

“Your friend over there seems to be enjoying his nap. He might be sore in the morning. Although I can’t remember what my charge was set to, maybe he wont wake up, maybe the next one will be-”

The turian ventures closer, and his movement interrupts Luca’s train of thought. His wrist glows orange with the activated omnitool and it only takes a minute for Luca to realise the turian is scanning him. 

“He’s only got the one charge,” he informs Vance after a moment.

Vance’s expression doesn’t change. It’s cold like ice. “Then search him.”

“No!”

The remaining mercs descend on Luca without hesitation, plucking at his armor and rummaging through the pouches and compartments of his pockets. He knows they’ll find the disc but he kicks out anyway, fighting and thrashing where he could until the cold barrel of a gun presses against his temple and his blood turns cold.

Vance stares down at him. “I want to keep you alive, kid. But you’re testing my patience.”

“Yeah,” Luca swallows. “You’d be surprised how often I get tha- hey!”

They yank the scarf off from around his neck and throw it to the ground. “I just bought that,” he mutters but it’s not why his inside suddenly turn watery and his heart races. A three clawed hand tucks inside his breast plate and then withdraws the small case.

Damnit.

“You know they’re gonna find me, right?" Luca glares up at them as the mercs smirk amongst themselves and hold up the case in triumph. “The paladin, the fury… the phoenix. And when they do, you’re all going to be totally fucked.”

Vance leans down, close enough to Luca’s face he can feel his breath on his face. It’s uncomfortably close. “How was the paripo?”

The question throws Luca. “What?”

“The paripo. The local delicacy on a stick you and the fury were enjoying. How was it? I watched you all. Saw the way she looked at you. At him. She was always soft – so easy to manipulate. Doesn’t look like anything has changed. Give her enough rope and she’ll hang herself over and over again.”

“What the…” Luca breathes out before starting to shout. “Shut up! You don’t get to talk about her like that! You’ve got the disc, you got what you wanted so why don’t you just leave her alone-“

“Oh, the kid’s in love, huh? Cute,” one of the mercs chuckles from nearby.

“Shut up!” Luca tries to lunge but they hold him too tightly.

“Come on, Vance,” the turian snaps. “We got the disc, let’s put a round in this kid’s brain and get the fuck out of here. What more do you want?”

“I want the fury. But the phoenix will fetch us a nice bonus too. Not to mention the paladin’s ship currently in orbit.”

“Hey, man. No. What? No, I didn’t sign up for that shit. You’re fucking crazy.”

“Yeah, Vance, the disc is what we agreed to. Come on, let’s just get out of here and-“

It happens so fast Luca wouldn’t have known who fired if it wasn’t for the gun still smoking in Vance’s hand.

The merc’s blood pools on the floor, inching towards Luca’s boots as he tries to scramble back.

“You said she’ll find you?” Vance says mildly to Luca. “I’m counting on it, kid.”

[sincerelyreidburke]

The first Halloween party of college goes extremely successfully for Ben.

So successfully, in fact, that he doesn’t even get back to his room until approximately four in the morning. Unfortunately, his roommate is asleep, so he has nobody to rave to about the very very sexy girl from the basketball team he spent the wee hours of the morning with, but then again, Nando is a responsible citizen, and Ben doesn’t want to wake him so he can dish about a hookup. Instead, he sheds his costume, crawls into bed in his boxers, and waits until morning.

When morning comes, Nando wakes up first. Ben knows this because when he comes to, sometime around ten in the morning, with autumn light beaming into his eyes like a hangover laser through the window, Nando is not only already up, but already showered and dressed. He’s chilling on his bed typing on his phone, and smiling at his screen while he does it.

When Ben sits up in bed, blinking the light out of his eyes, Nando gives him a wave. “Hey, man.” He’s chipper, still grinning, and definitely not feeling the effect of last night the way Ben is.

Ben yawns, and stretches both arms to the ceiling. “‘Sup,” he gets out, after what feels like a prolonged, yawn-caused delay. He rubs out a crick in his neck, then, to Nando, says, “How long have you been up?”

Nando is typing on his phone again. “Like an hour?” he says, then shrugs. He sleeps his display, then puts the phone down on his chest. He’s still smiling. “What, uh… what time did you get in?”

Ben pretends like he has to think about it for a second. “Around four,” he remarks, after the consideration.

Nando lets off a vaguely impressed chuckle. “You don’t fuck around.”

“Actually,” Ben corrects, finger-gunning him, “that’s exactly what I was doing.”

Nando laughs. “I hate you so much.”

Ben winks at him. “Most people do.” He grabs his most recent half-finished water bottle from his bedside table, and downs the rest in one gulp— which definitely clears his head a little. From next to the bottle, he takes a blue scrunchie, and starts to tie up his hair while he looks again to Nando. He’s texting again, so Ben gives him a minute before he begins his dishing about Jess.

And he intends to tell him about Jess. Or at least to make an offhand comment about how he’s lost his basketball team virginity, to be funny. Nando may not be able to relate to his sentiments about girls, but when Ben comes back from a hookup, Nando usually asks where he was.

So he’s about to tell him. He waits for him to be off his phone before he does. But when Nando puts his phone down again, he folds his hands on his stomach, and he talks first.

“So, like,” he says, smiling at the ceiling, “not to jinx it?” It’s only right then that Ben realizes something might be up for him , and his next sentence confirms it. “But I’m pretty sure I met the cutest guy on this campus last night.”

Ben’s internal simp sensor rings off the hook. “Oh, did you?” he chirps. “Did you really? The cutest guy on this campus?” The doofy smile on Nando’s face is a fucking delight to behold, and so is the way it keeps widening as Ben makes fun of him. He can’t believe he didn’t notice this right off the bat. “You better start talking right fucking now, Seb,” he declares, and lowers his voice in his unparalleled glee to whisper, “Did you get lucky?”

“What? No!” Nando laughs, and shakes his head. He twists his hands where they’re resting on his stomach, and shrugs, with the simp smile lingering. “We just talked.”

“ We just talked ,” Ben mocks, and cackles, as he drums on his own pillow. “ Dude !” He wants to jump on his bed. Nando meeting a guy is good on its own, and even better when you consider the sheer amount of chirping this gives Ben ammunition for. “Who? When? At the party?”

“Yeah, at the party.” Nando ruffles a hand through his curls, then his smile widens. “He agreed to go on a date with me.”

“ What ?!” Ben very well may be waking up all their dorm neighbors, and he gives a literal negative amount of fucks about that. He slaps his pillow again. “You fucking casanova!”

Nando says nothing, but peeks at his phone, and keeps smiling when he goes to type again. “Jesus Christ,” Ben whispers, in his awe. “Are you texting him right now?”

Nando nods, and Ben yells into his pillow. His best friend, who got cheated on and dumped the third week of school, is a complete ball of mush over some guy right now. Ben could not be more fucking amped. And also he’s going to get details. ASAP.

“Who, who, who?” he says, as soon as Nando’s attention is away from his phone again. “Who is it? Do I know him? Do you have a picture?”

“I don’t think you know him,” Nando replies, “but, uh, yeah, I think I have a picture. Hold on.” He picks up his phone again, and Ben does his best not to vibrate out of his skin. While Nando surfs through his phone— not texting, this time— he announces, through his smile, “His name is Quinn.”

Nando looks about to melt, and Ben is going to combust over it. Wait until Remy gets a load of this. “Nanny’s fucking wheeling,” he shouts, for nobody to hear, and claps a couple times. “ Dude . You’re a fucking legend!”

Nando laughs. He taps something on his screen, then says, like it’s no big deal, “All I did was get his number.”

“And get him to agree to a date with you!” Ben cries. “All in the same night? That takes skill!”

Nando rolls his eyes, but doesn’t stop smiling. “Look who’s talking,” he says, and then announces, “I sent you his Instagram.”

“Oh, say less .” Ben leans to grab his phone from the nightstand, and grins a little when he opens Instagram to find a follow request from Jess. He accepts it, then clicks on the profile Nando sent him. It brings him to a quinn cooper🌈🌷🧏‍♂️ , whose bio informs Ben that he’s kiersey college ‘22 and GRTA , whatever that second part means. A few taps through an aesthetically coordinated profile in muted, warm colors land him on a post from September 24th, in which a ginger twink with a white scarf is smiling in the apple orchard next to a very pretty blonde girl dressed all in pink. “Ginger boy?” he asks Nando, who’s texting yet again.

“Yeah,” Nando says, and then smiles up from his phone. “He’s cute, right?”

Ben cackles again, and nearly falls off his mattress. “Dude, you’re fucking simping right now.”

“Stop!” Nando’s smile hasn’t faded. Ben takes a minute to look through other pictures on Quinn’s Instagram. His most recent post is from October 6th, and it’s a shot of a tree Ben recognizes as one outside the performing arts center, in peak foliage. it’s a lovely time of year🍂 , reads his caption. Other, older posts include a big cast photo from some kind of play, a bunch of tulips in a huge garden, and three cats on a sofa. “Wow,” Ben remarks, once he’s done stalking (for now). When he looks up at Nando, he has to shake himself out to keep from yelling again. “ Dude ,” he says, instead. “You’re in deep. I can see it on your face.”

Nando presses his cheek into his fist, like he’s trying to rub the blush out. “I had a good night,” he murmurs, smiling down at his downturned phone in his lap.

A ‘good night’ seems like an understatement.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Ben announces, and jumps out of bed. “I’m gonna get dressed,” he starts, sauntering to his closet to prove it. “And then,” he adds, looking over his shoulder once he yanks his KMH sweatshirt off a hanger, “you’re gonna buy me brunch.”

Nando laughs. “Whaaat? No fair,” he says, but he doesn’t seem too pressed about it.

“And then ,” Ben continues, while he pulls out a pair of jeans, “you’re gonna tell me all about your new ginger friend.”

He waits for Nando to protest, but he doesn’t. Instead, when Ben turns again, Nando is smiling all the same, with his arms folded all smugly.

“Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”

Ben is going to lose his mind. For the first time, things seem to be looking up for Nando in the love department. He’s still smiling at his phone, like a fucking simp ass.

Ben laughs as he gets dressed. Good for him .

Ben doesn’t know it, but years down the road, he’ll tell this story— among many others— at Nando’s wedding to this new ginger friend. For now, though, he’s getting brunch and a dishing session out of this. It’s going to be even better than the dishing session he expected.

That’s another win for the fucking boys .

[antialiasis]

Jesus Christ Superstar: all of my thoughts

Allll right, this will be me watching my way through Jesus Christ Superstar 2012 (the arena tour with Tim Minchin/Ben Forster) and rambling about e v e r y t h i n g as I go, prompted by me having a lot of thoughts approximately every two minutes while watching it on YouTube/rewatching it/listening to multiple other JCS productions in between. Unusually for me, there will be very little complaining. This production is not perfect but that's not really what I'm here to talk about right now, shush, let me just go on about why I love this musical, at incredible length.

(I will be talking both about particulars in this production and about JCS in general as a narrative, without explicitly distinguishing the two, but please rest assured I do know which is which. I am pretty hardcore, I have seen five different productions live (including the 2013 leg of the arena tour) as well as the movies, listened to a lot of different Gethsemanes, I know this show.)

(this will also jump wildly between deep intellectual analysis and just me shamelessly appreciating the whump content, please bear with me)

can I start off by saying I really love the band and instrumentation and arrangements in 2012

The JCS overture is really long but I love it and it's always fun to see exactly what they do with it when it's staged. This production goes with showing Jesus's followers as protesters clashing with police, following news headlines, and then, during the calm choral "betrayal leitmotif", they're all gathered around Jesus staring at him in the most ominous way - then, as the first notes of "Heaven On Their Minds" play, Jesus closes his eyes and shakes his head a little, as if snapping out of a thought - as if he just felt the coming of betrayal. Neat.

Anyway, "Heaven On Their Minds"! This is such a good song. When I first saw JCS, as my school's production in 2005, and it opened not with Jesus but with Judas, presenting these totally reasonable concerns that he has about Jesus, I was already so intrigued by where this was going. Judas is the actual protagonist of JCS; one of the main narrative things it's doing is telling these events largely from his point of view, imagining how what he did might be interpreted to be sympathetic and understandable. This is why he gets the opening number and the final proper song with the show's closing musings. If you put on JCS and treat it like it's a story about Jesus with Judas as a side character, you're doing it wrong.

The iconic opening riff of “Heaven On Their Minds” is what I’m calling the “Agony” motif in my musical motif chart, because the places it recurs are the moment Judas resolves to hang himself in “Judas’s Death” and... “The 39 Lashes”. Originally I connected it to Judas, but “The 39 Lashes” has nothing at all to do with Judas; instead, the one thing that connects these three occurrences of the motif is pain - which really rather underlines how painful it is when Judas’s mind clears and he sees what lies ahead.

So, Judas: he was one of Jesus's closest friends, and a real, true believer in what this movement was originally about: charity, compassion, noble ideals. But lately, he's seen it turn into more of a cult of personality around Jesus himself - you've begun to matter more than the things you say. Now they're all thinking Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God - and worse, it's like Jesus is starting to believe it himself.

(Tim Minchin does this little frustrated eyeroll on you really do believe this talk of God is true, and I love it. I know his vocal performance is not to everyone's taste, and I get why especially with the unwarranted autotuning on the official recording, but I just love his actual acting here, his expressions and body language, so much. I was watching him for most of the show when I saw this live, because I usually spend most of JCS looking for whether Judas is doing something interesting in the background, and it was choice. Unfortunately the editor for this official recording isn't quite as interested in what Judas is doing in the background as I am, alas, and there are a lot of bits where I'd like to get a better look at him but we don't, but there are still some very good reactions.)

So, the reason this is bad, this whole messiah thing, is not only that calling Jesus their king might rub the authorities the wrong way, but also that now they're all expecting Jesus to up and free them from Roman oppression. Which is just not a thing that he can do! Judas is worried if Jesus doesn't deliver his followers will turn against him (and they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong). He's worried if Jesus actually does try anything, or heaven forbid, his followers just do it on their own - Jesus's words are already being taken out of context and twisted to justify whatever the speaker feels like - if they step so much as a toe over the line, that'll be all the excuse the Romans need to regard the Jewish community as a whole as violent insurgents or a delusional cult and bring in the army. This movement used to be a beautiful thing, but it's become an existential threat with the potential to get them all killed. And - when Judas tries to voice these concerns, Jesus brushes them off. He won't listen. Things are spiraling out of control, and Jesus won't do anything about it.

(Note, by the way, that a big part of Judas's worries is worries about Jesus in particular getting hurt.)

(Judas is very focused here on the future, all these things looming on the horizon that could happen if things continue as they are - so when we transition abruptly into the upbeat "What's the Buzz?", where Jesus tries to get his followers to think less about the future and more about the here and now, for all that it feels like a musical and textual non-sequitur we're actually kind of staying on theme.)

Jesus hasn't been doing anything about things or listening to Judas, and is very focused on the here and now, because as it happens he knows (or at least believes) that in a few days he is going to be tortured and executed, and really he doesn't entirely know what's going to happen after that, and this is pretty terrifying and stressful and right now he's dealing with that by trying to not think about it.

Why are you obsessed with fighting times and fates you can't defy? He basically means this at this point. Why would you try to fight inevitable fates? That’s pointless; it’s not like Jesus would ever do that. You just don’t think about them. Jesus is fine. It’s fine. This is fine.

(Mary is the one person who’s actively helping Jesus take his mind off things and stay in the moment. Emotionally he really needs to just relax and think of nothing and be told everything's all right, and Mary's the person who provides that. She alone has tried to give me what I need right here and now. I contend that this is the main point of Mary's role in the first act of JCS, more than her infatuation with him.)

Buuuut of course Judas has no idea what's behind this. As far as he can tell Jesus is just kind of hypocritically wasting his time on hedonistic indulgence, like the whole Son of God thing's just gone to his head, and like everything else about the situation, it's concerning, and he tries to speak out about it, in “Strange Thing, Mystifying”...

...which prompts Jesus to lash out. There was a sort of frustration behind some of his lines in “What’s the Buzz”, but he still just seemed to be preaching a general philosophy of staying in the here and now. At Judas’s criticisms, though, he's defensive and confrontational, exhorting him to not throw stones... and he's not done: I'm amazed that men like you can be so shallow, thick and slow! There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go!

That's a total strange overreaction, especially since he starts out addressing Judas but then goes on to "There is not a man among you", when nobody else was saying anything, much less anything implying they don't care about Jesus. So, obviously, this isn't really about what Judas just said. What this is showing us is that Jesus has a lot of pent-up frustrations and concerns, too, and he's in a strangely delicate mood. It's kind of an odd sequence watching it for the first time; this lashout is weird! I thought it was weird when I first saw the show! But that’s the point. It’s here because it is weird, because Jesus is not as fine as he seems.

(This is what almost every song with Jesus in it in Act I is about. It's a series of incidents - many of them based on actual bits from the Bible - of Jesus lashing out unexpectedly and/or being strongly disillusioned with his followers and vaguely, bitterly alluding to his upcoming death. The weight of anticipating his own execution is taking a real psychological toll on him from the start, and this is all building towards where all those fears and doubts and worries and anger come out in "Gethsemane". It took me the longest time to properly notice this, that Jesus isn't just sort of being a drama queen out of nowhere here; these events are being presented like this to connect them into a cohesive speculative narrative that this was all just manifestations of Jesus's anxiety about the fact he believes he's going to die in a few days and he's not sure what he's really accomplished.)

While the apostles join together in a chorus of No, you're wrong! You're very wrong!, Judas silently pulls out a cigarette, because 2012 Judas smokes to calm his nerves and I love it. The nerves don't stop him rolling his eyes again in the background at Jesus's Not one of you!, though. (Jesus has probably been having these weird, oddly self-pitying lashouts for a little while now - it feels like a "this again" sort of eye-roll.)

Judas tries again to confront Jesus during "Everything's Alright", even more emphatic, but in a more sincere and genuine way - he really wants to get through to him. No, seriously, Jesus, why are you wasting expensive ointment on your feet and hair when the poor are starving - you know, the thing this movement was supposed to be about. Mary, probably a bit higher in emotional intelligence than Judas, can obviously tell that Jesus is just pretty stressed out right now and really needs some rest, and basically just tries to get Jesus to ignore him until he goes away - but Jesus responds to him anyway. Starts calm, but there's an oddly defeatist quality to what he's saying - there’ll always be poor people, we can't save them, look at the good things you've got... and then he launches into another bitter lashout: Think while you still have me, move while you still see me - you’ll be lost, you'll be so, so sorry, when I'm gone. Strike two on Jesus-is-not-as-fine-as-he-seems.

(Seriously, though, at this point it'd be reasonable to be pretty alarmed; from an outside perspective, these lines sound kind of suicidal. Perhaps that’s why Mary immediately steps in again to try to calm him down.)

Meanwhile, Judas silently backs off. What he takes away from these two confrontations is that Jesus isn't really happy either. He's not actually thrilled with his followers or what’s going on; he just seems to feel helpless and unable to change anything at all, and has apparently just resigned himself to it, instead of even trying to fix it.

I love how gloriously ominous the "Hosanna Superstar" bit of "This Jesus Must Die" is. It really makes this upcoming cheerful song sound like an omen of doom and horror, the way it feels to the Pharisees. It’s the same melody as “We need him crucified” in “Trial Before Pilate” - apt, since the crowd’s devotion to Jesus is the real problem that causes the Pharisees to believe they need to get him killed.

Thus, the Pharisees have basically the same concerns Judas does - Jesus's mass of fans is growing out of control, they're blasphemously insisting he's their king, and it's only a matter of time before this brings the wrath of the Romans down upon the entire Jewish nation. They only go a bit further by believing the only way to properly quash this movement is to put Jesus to death. (Which is kind of dubious - surely there's a danger that martyring him will just make people more devoted - but I appreciate that they, too, get basically sympathetic motivations. It’s the oppression of the Romans that’s the real enemy here; they only see Jesus as a real problem because of how the Romans might react.)

By "Hosanna", Jesus has recovered his usual composure and passion. This is the one Jesus song where he does genuinely seem to be doing all right, and in that way it serves as a good contrast to literally everything else in this musical. In it we see a glimpse of the preacher and activist that he’s been for these three years, almost bursting with glee as he tells the Pharisees they're not going to be quiet at all thank you very much. He preaches his message to the crowd: There is not one of you who cannot win the Kingdom - a kind, positive echo of yesterday's angry lashout. He loves this, and he still loves this movement. This is what it's all supposed to be about.

...only, of course, for some people to yell "Hey, J.C., J.C., won't you die for me!", and he turns his head, his smile fading just a little (I wish the camera stayed on him a little while longer here). But he recovers and carries on. Ha ha, yeah, he'd die for you.

Jesus's own rally leads directly into Simon's rave, full of adoring fans begging Jesus to touch and kiss them. Same enthusiasm, but more obviously a product of that cult of personality that Judas was worried about. And there in the middle of it is Simon, so bright-eyed and enthusiastic about the whole thing, telling him about how with his probably over 50,000 followers, he should add just a smidge of hatred towards the Romans, and you will rise to a greater power, we will win ourselves a home! He's one of those who want Jesus to be leading a violent revolution to free them.

I like how the first portion of "Poor Jerusalem" echoes a slow, somber version of the same melody as "Simon Zealotes" as Jesus laments, almost to himself, that none of them, nobody at all, understands power, or glory, or anything. This time Jesus isn't really angry, just kind of exhausted and contemplative. Nobody really seems to get his message; these poor misguided people won't get the revolution they're hoping for; Jerusalem itself is doomed. The city wouldn't be willing to do what's needed even if they knew.

To conquer death, you only have to die is one of my favorite lines. I’m an atheist, but as a kid I remember being taught at the Christian summer camp I went to that by dying himself, Jesus conquered death. That idea is twisted and presented the other way around here: to conquer death, you only have to die. Only. An darkly ironic presentation of it as if it were easy. It’s not as easy as Jesus would like it to be - but he truly believes that it’s what he must do.

"Pilate's Dream" has the same melody as the second half of “Poor Jerusalem” - because both Jesus and Pilate are contemplating an unsettling future that they have seen.

I do think it's a little wrong that 2012 Pilate chuckles at the end of "Pilate’s Dream”, though. The whole point of this song, as far as I can tell, is that he's unsettled by this dream, and it's probably part of why he's so reluctant to sentence Jesus to death later, so I think it's an incongruous choice to make it seem like he just sort of brushed it off as nonsense.

As I mentioned before, the arena tour staging includes Simon buying a gun during "The Temple", a really chilling detail that I liked a lot and that is in no way discernible in the official recording. Maybe the editor didn't notice, maybe it just wasn't very clear in the footage they got anyway, maybe it's some sort of ratings issue where showing a gun for a few seconds would just be too much (while the lengthy, brutal torture and execution scenes coming up are totally fine). Obviously it doesn't mean anything for the later narrative or anything (especially since the actual narrative is taking place in 33 AD and guns don't actually exist, regardless of the staging choices of any particular production), but it’s a nice way of using staging to lend further support to the overall point of how Jesus's followers variously fail to understand his teachings - it strengthens both Jesus’s and Judas’s concerns.

When Jesus and Judas arrive at the temple, they're arguing once again, though we don't know what about. Given the way Jesus is striding towards the doors and Judas is trying to hold him back, I imagine Judas is worried that doing something like running into the temple and breaking tables and screaming is the sort of attention-grabbing, polarizing stunt that'd be a really bad idea, and Jesus is upset and doesn't care.

(The bouncer doesn't let Judas in. I'm guessing Jesus tells him Judas is harassing him or something, within the staging-narrative where the temple is a nightclub that has a bouncer.)

So Jesus goes and smashes a table and yells at everyone to get out. This is probably where Jesus begins to alienate a lot of people, who were having a great time at the temple only for him to come in and have a breakdown at them.

(He's so angry, breathing hard, fists clenched after everyone's left. This isn't really about the temple either. He's really begun to realize how many of his followers don't get it at all, and he doesn't have time to fix that. He's been trying for so long and he's so tired.)

The leper bit makes a pretty similar point. Jesus wants to help all these people, and tries - but there are too many, and they're crowding him, and he's not going to be around to help them for much longer - so he desperately tells them to heal themselves, and they leave, probably thinking wow Jesus is kind of a jerk.

I'm sorry, I don't have anything to say about "I Don't Know How to Love Him", love ballads are pretty consistently my least favorite song in every musical, I like and appreciate Mary but my investment in this song pretty much begins and ends with its role in setting up the twisted reprise in "Judas's Death"

I enjoy the fourth-wall-leaning audacity of having the guitarist spotlighted on stage playing the solo before "Damned For All Time", and Judas is looking at him like "who are you, go away", and keeps looking evasively back at him while he's slowly getting the Pharisees' number out of his wallet and calling it. (It also helps show Judas feels pretty guilty and shameful about doing this, and works better for that than having extras on stage - if it were extras, we might expect that them witnessing this could actually mean something later, but when it's the guitarist, it's obvious he's just serving as an anonymous stand-in for a hypothetical random stranger who isn't literally part of the story.)

I like the shot of Judas looking into the security camera outside the Pharisees' building. (That’s decidedly not the same hairdo Tim Minchin has on stage, though.)

Judas opens his talk with the Pharisees, without even greeting them first, by frantically justifying himself, talking about how this is weird and hard for him but there was just nothing else he could do, he's not hoping for a reward or anything, he's been forced to do this, he's not a dirty traitor, please don't think that. He really doesn't want to be here. But here he is anyway, because Jesus can't control it like he did before - and furthermore I know that Jesus thinks so too, Jesus wouldn't mind that I'm here with you. He's seen Jesus over the past few days and he's pretty sure he has this figured out. Jesus can see just as well as he does where things are headed - it's just he's helpless to control it and doesn't know what to do about it. So this has to be done. He'd probably want Judas to bail him out of this, just get him arrested and the movement shut down, for everyone's sake. (Jesus is so self-sacrificing, after all.) Right? He'd be fine with this. Right? (Judas is fine.)

("Damned For All Time" is just Judas wildly word-vomiting trying to placate his own guilt and I love it. He's legitimately afraid of where things are headed if he doesn't do this, and thinks it has to ultimately be the right thing, but that doesn't make him feel any better about it.)

(I like how Caiaphas just sort of coolly listens to him ramble his head off like this while he sips his drink.)

Judas goes for a cigarette again (calming those nerves), and Annas helpfully lights it for him - prompting Judas's next ramble. Annas, you're a friend, a worldly man and wise - Caiaphas, my friend, I know you sympathize. It's not like he's selling Jesus out to anyone unreasonable. Annas is nice! We three, we get it, right? You get it. We're the people who can see when a difficult thing just has to be done, did I mention I HAVE to do this and this is not about money - only for Annas to tell him to cut it out with this blather and excuses and just give them the information they want. And also, they'll pay him handsomely!

I don't need your blood money! Judas says, then I don't want your blood money! Sometimes these lines are reversed, which sounds better - there's something more satisfying about the vowel in need than in want - but I think textually this original order is important. First he's sort of polite-ish-ly declining, saying no, he doesn't need any money, but then when they insist, he declines more firmly, that he doesn't want it either. (I love the way he shoves Annas's hand away.) It's so important to Judas's own principles that he came here because he thinks it's right, not because he wants payment; the idea of being paid makes it way worse.

...But then Caiaphas grabs the cigarette out of his mouth (leaving him a bit shaken with nothing to hold onto anymore) and goes well, you can give it to charity, or to the poor; they understand that's not why he's doing this, but they'd still like to pay him a fee. And that's the reason he ultimately does take the money: because just a few days earlier he was telling Jesus off for letting money be wasted when it could have gone to the poor. How could he do the same?

(Judas is not doing this for the money in this show. He is not being tempted by the money. He was not going to take the money until he was told he could give it to charity. One of the professional live productions I saw just did not understand this at all, and no. Judas is the protagonist! He is not here for the money! It's done right here, with the Pharisees just throwing the money at him after he names Gethsemane, and him not even reacting, just slowly picking it up afterwards. Tim Minchin gets Judas.)

I like to think the Well done, Judas / Good old Judas chorus is sort of the voice of the Divine Plan, such as it is, which he's now done his first part in.

"The Last Supper" has slowly become one of my favorite parts of the entire show, and I particularly enjoy it in this particular production.

Judas walks in and doesn't look at Jesus at all - can't quite bear to, at the moment. Jesus looks after him, knowing exactly what's going on... and that's when he starts in on The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends.

Jesus has a drink of the wine, which I like a lot. This definitely is a drinking sort of moment. I like the idea of him being a little inebriated in this scene.

For all you care, this wine could be my blood. For all you care, this bread could be my body. The end... This is my blood you drink, this is my body you eat. Judas reflexively rolls his eyes again - Jesus off on one of these weird sorts of rants yet again. (As with so much, I love that Jesus Christ Superstar takes this bit of the Bible and lets it just be a weird thing to say, recontextualizes it as an empty, halfhearted statement that he doesn't feel like his followers even care hours before his impending arrest, instead of treating it as something profound and meaningful. Again and again, Jesus is portrayed less as a noble profound religious figure and more as just a person haunted by mounting dread and anxiety, and I love it so much.)

Jesus sort of tries to make this into a nice, comforting thing, to ask them to remember him when they eat and drink - but it doesn't work. It's happening tonight, and here they all are, these people, his supposed followers, who don't understand a thing he's said, ever, and Jesus just breaks. I must be mad, thinking I'll be remembered! Yes, I must be out of my head! Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I'm dead! (Judas looks up vaguely, kind of concerned - Jesus, this is further than he usually goes.) One of you denies me, one of you betrays me! And that's when Judas really looks up. Jesus knows.

There's a pause, a commotion, and Jesus is going to just retreat and leave it at that - but no, then he keeps going. He calls out Peter specifically for being about to deny him three times, shoving him, and then yells about how one of my twelve chosen will leave to betray me! At which Judas finally stands up. Cut out the dramatics! You know very well who! It's obvious that somehow Jesus found out. (Maybe Judas thinks the guitarist might have told on him.)

Judas's surprised You want me to do it? when Jesus tells him to go do it delights me. Judas, I thought you knew that Jesus totally wanted you to do this. It's almost like you didn't really know that at all and just convinced yourself of that to feel better about it. (Obviously, though, Jesus clearly doesn't actually want it so much, does he, the way he's shouting.)

Judas tries to explain himself but Jesus doesn't care - he doesn’t want to hear about why one of his most trusted friends wants to betray him to the authorities, not when this has to happen and he can’t prevent it. Judas is really nervous and defensive and hurt by his hostility, declares he hates Jesus now. (You liar, you Judas! Jesus says, which is kind of hilarious and also - yeah, he's a liar, he doesn't hate Jesus at all.) You wanted me to do it? What if I just stayed here and ruined your ambition? Christ, you deserve it! Judas still kind of wants to just stay and cancel the whole thing, even if it's simply justified as petulant spite. But Jesus tells him to just go already; he just wants to get this over with, as quickly as possible, because it hurts.

Judas is near tears as he turns away to get his things. The apostles have no idea what's going on, singing, some of them trying to see if Judas is okay, which suggests they have no idea what they were even talking about - whatever this 'betrayal' is supposed to be, it doesn’t cross their minds that Judas is about to get Jesus arrested.

Judas trudges up the steps, batting them away, still on the verge of tears - only then he stops, his face changing. And he throws down his backpack and turns for one final confrontation with Jesus. You sad, pathetic man! Look what you've brought us to! Our ideals die around us, and all because of you! This is still about their ideals for him, after all. And yet, saddest of all, someone had to turn Jesus in - like a common criminal, he first says, but then, like a wounded animal, someone helpless to help themselves, who needs to be pitied and put out of their misery. Jesus could have done something. Jesus could have put a stop to this. Why does he have to do it? (Why does he have to do it?)

Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Why? Jesus does have a plan, of sorts, of course - it's just that this is all part of it. Judas doesn't believe Jesus is actually the Son of God, or that he could possibly have a "plan" that involves dying for some grand cosmic cause. As far as he can tell Jesus's actions are just bizarre and pathetic and self-defeating, and he's been saddled with the unfortunate, dirty job of saving Jesus from himself.

(Judas presumably still doesn't realize that the Pharisees plan to literally have him killed. I doubt he'd be doing this, or at least not in this way, if he knew.)

In the wake of this final confrontation, Mary hugs Peter, who Jesus just shoved and accused of denying him. She considers going to Jesus too, but Peter convinces her they'd probably best leave it alone. Peter himself seems to be considering going to Jesus, but then doesn't. Everyone dejectedly goes to sleep. Jesus is alone for tonight, his apostles alienated, his right-hand man gone as Jesus must wait for him to return with soldiers and set the dreaded end in motion. This must be the loneliest, most awful night of his life.

Jesus rubs his hand hard against a stair as the apostles are finishing their song - an agitated fidget that I am far more fond of than I should be. As he realizes they've all gone to sleep, he grips it instead, something to hold on to. Will no one stay awake with me? Peter, John, James? He just sounds broken and like he's about to cry. Which is good. He sings all of Gethsemane sounding like he's on the verge of tears and that's exactly how it should sound, do not at me.

(Please bear with me as I go on about this Gethsemane because it's my favorite one ever at this point, haters to the left)

See, when I first saw this production (I saw the official recording once before I realized it was still on and I could see it live), I didn't really like Ben Forster's Jesus for the first half! He seemed sort of over-the-top and I wasn't the biggest fan of his voice and all in all I was ehhh on him. But then he did "Gethsemane" and I just felt it to my core in a way I'd never felt it before, and it floored me. I've watched and listened to a lot of versions of this song. There are better singers who make it more pleasant to listen to - but they tend to be very dignified and Jesus-y about it, like this poised religious figure just having a brief moment of vulnerability and emotionality. Even the performances specifically praised for being emotional tend to be the ones that just make it really angry. And I've seen a lot of great ones of both varieties! But Ben Forster just makes it so raw and human. Like this terrified, exhausted, desperate human being who's spent the entire preceding hour of this play dreading this thing that's coming, his resolve finally faltering in this moment of agonizing solitude as his doubts and fears and frustrations finally come pouring out, how much he wants to call the whole thing off, begging to either not have to do this or at least be properly convinced why he should. It's what made me properly start to look at Jesus's character progression during this story in the first place and notice all the buildup about his fragile mental state that's always been there in the lyrics. This is the “Gethsemane” that made me really, truly care about Jesus.

he's rubbing the stair again at the beginning of the song, I'm sorry I love fidgets and nervous gestures you guys

I've never heard anyone emphasize three years the way Ben Forster does, and the desperation of it hits me in the heart. Weren't these three years enough?

Let's talk about You're far too keen on where and how, and not so hot on why, which is pretty key to this show’s interpretation of Jesus. He and the Almighty are definitively not the same entity here; Jesus knows or believes he knows a lot of things about how this is all going to play out, and even some of the future beyond that (in "Poor Jerusalem"), but he doesn't actually understand what his death is supposed to accomplish. He knows that he's going to be crucified and it's going to happen because Judas betrays him and so on and so on, and that this is all supposedly very important, and Jesus has been willing to accept that without question, but really he doesn't know the whys here and never has, and as much as he's just never questioned it anyway because of his absolute conviction that this is God’s plan, he can't not do so now, when he's going to have to suffer an agonizing death in the service of these inscrutable goals, not sometime in the vague far future but soon.

(Technically, for all we know, Jesus isn’t the Son of God. God doesn’t answer him; the song is a monologue. Jesus has suspiciously specific knowledge of the future but that’s about it as far as actual concrete evidence of his divinity goes in this show. But what matters is that he believes this is what God wills.)

His initial All right. I'll die. Just watch me die! is so spiteful, only for the following lines to just turn into this anguished scream, and it kills me

I love the way he collapses on the stairs, and just finally breaks down and starts crying, and there's that agitated rubbing of the stair again

The second three years is just exhausted and my heart still breaks for it. These have been a hard three years. Seems like ninety.

Why then am I scared to finish is probably my favorite line in this. He just sounds so broken and desperate and actually scared, and his body language is so tense and agitated and desperate; he's so angry at himself for being scared when this has been the plan all along and for some reason now he just can’t seem to go through with it.

And then he has that realization. What I started? ...What you started. I didn't start it! This isn't his plan. He's just a cog in God's machinery. It's a fixed, unavoidable fate, isn't it? And he finds a kind of desperate acceptance in just thinking of it that way - at least for a moment (before I change my mind!). But it's a spiteful acceptance. He's addressing God now. I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me, bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now! Because it's you who are doing this. It's your cross, you who are killing me. Note the contrast to earlier: Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, nail me to their tree. It's not actually the people who are responsible for any of this, even if they’ll technically be the ones to do the deed; it's God's plan, his cross, his crucifixion.

I love how he looks so tense standing there afterwards while the audience is applauding, because he's not actually waiting for applause, he's waiting for the soldiers to arrest him and set him on the path to his execution. Arms spread at first, in a come at me sort of way, but then he just clenches his fists at his sides, eyes closed, still waiting.

There he is. They're all asleep, the fools. Implying Judas wouldn't have just gone to sleep, if he'd been left there. AU where Jesus has literally anyone to comfort him, instead of standing there alone desperately pleading to God to not have him killed. Hnngh.

The kiss is just as it is in the Bible, of course. But there, it's presented as a sort of extra nasty element of this betrayal, that he'd be betrayed with a kiss. Here, it's more like Judas just wants to say goodbye, one last time, and does it in this kind of tender way.

And... Jesus breaks down crying, clings to him, pulls him into a hug. Because of course he does. The reminder that Judas still cares, memories of everything they've been through together, and the knowledge this is probably his last chance at some kind of comforting human contact? Of course he does. He just wants to not be alone, for a few seconds, before the end.

At first Judas just sort of lets him do it, but by the time the soldiers come along to separate them, Judas is clinging to Jesus, too. Ohh, my heart.

The apostles wake up at the commotion and are immediately on their feet to fight off the soldiers. There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go, Jesus said, a few days ago; now here they are, worrying for him, wanting to save him. But he has to stop them. He mustn't be saved, and they'd only get themselves hurt. Put away your sword - don't you see that it's all over? It was nice but now it's gone. That exhausted resignation.

Why are you obsessed with fighting? Stick to fishing from now on. He doesn't sound angry here - it's just kind of a gentle rebuke. He's touched that they tried. I like that he plays it that way; it'd be legit to make it angry, but in the context of how Jesus has spent a lot of time feeling like they don't really care at all and in this moment it finally becomes clearer to him that they do - not to mention that this is basically his final goodbye to them - it makes sense to let it be kind of tender.

From this point on, Jesus has to just quietly accept his fate. He's very silent, barely says anything - because now things just have to play out how they play out, and nothing he says will change anything, nor should change anything.

The reporters asking questions here (to the melody of "The Temple") are one of the relatively few major anachronisms baked into the actual lyrics as opposed to any particular production. They're not really reporters; it's kind of a representation of some of his previous followers watching this as a kind of spectacle, expecting him to make a dramatic escape or fight back, excited by what's happening (you'll just DIE in the high priest's house!), rather than sympathizing or caring. These are the people who are going to ultimately turn against him as a mob and pressure Pilate into crucifying him.

Caiaphas asks if Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus says That's what you say, yet another line based directly on the Bible. Growing up I always just found that kind of a silly thing for him to say - why won't he just stick to his story instead of suddenly acting like he never said such a thing? But it makes real sense here. Again, Jesus is resigned to his fate, to passively letting this happen. He's not going to deny it or try to get out of it, because he can't and mustn't. But he has no desire to speak up about how the rocks and stones will sing for him right now, or actively provoke them and give them more reasons to persecute him. He's just going to stand here and let things happen until it's over.

(also, he probably doesn't really feel so much like the Son of God right now)

Judas, thank you for the victim! Stay a while and you'll see him bleed! In this production, Caiaphas and Annas both say the last sentence together, but originally it's just Annas, which has always led me to feel that where Caiaphas is pure cold pragmatism and just believes this is what needs to be done for the sake of the nation, Annas is bit of a twisted son of a bitch. He's obviously intentionally twisting the knife here, because he thinks Judas's conflictedness about the whole thing is a bit pathetic and hilarious and likes to see him squirm.

(let me complain again about the editor not letting us see Judas's reaction to this line)

Peter's reluctance to throw his phone on the fire is a mood

also him threatening the homeless people with a broken bottle when they keep pressing him on whether he was with Jesus, before Mary takes it off him, is something I enjoy

Pilate and Christ probably takes place at Pilate’s gym in this staging to show Pilate hasn’t even made time for Jesus in an official capacity - he’s just being unexpectedly brought before him in his off time, hence why he’s particularly dismissive here.

Jesus barely looks at Pilate. Another dispassionate That's what you say.

How can someone in your state be so cool about his fate? An amazing thing, this silent king. Of course, Pilate doesn't understand any more than anyone else that Jesus being crucified is the plan. Again, Jesus is just letting this play out.

He does look up when Pilate declares he should go to Herod instead, though. It must be torture for him having this drawn out further. Poor Jesus, having to suffer through a comic relief number when he just wants to get this over with.

Jesus does look at Herod as he's making all these offers of letting him free if he'll just perform a miracle. It's got to be a tempting thought despite everything. But no, he must still sit there and let it happen.

"These results are for entertainment purposes only and do not reflect any real votes. The outcome is predetermined by the character of King Herod who clearly is going to find Jesus guilty of being a fraud otherwise it would be a very short Act 2." Going all the way with that fourth-wall-breaking.

the bit where they put the hood over Jesus's head sure hits some specific button I didn't realize I had

Judas there with his head buried in his hands in the background towards the end of "Could We Start Again Please" ohhhh

I feel like the usual implication with the abrupt opening of "Judas's Death" is that Judas has just been seeing Jesus being beaten, whereas here he's explicitly sitting there with the apostles contemplating what he's done and just gets up and freaks out when Caiaphas and Annas happen to walk by. I like him punching Caiaphas, but the way he just goes from zero to sixty there does feel a little weird. I don't care, though, Judas in the background during "Could We Start Again Please" is worth it.

For all that Judas is mortified by the way Jesus is being made an example of, he can also see the way his name will forever be associated with treachery, and none of his good intentions meant anything at all in the end. He’s wracked with guilt at what he’s done, but additionally all he can see in the future is being vilified and reviled, blamed for Jesus’s murder.

Ugh Annas kicking Judas while he's down he's such a bastard

Tim Minchin goes so all out on making "Judas's Death" just ugly anguished screaming and crying and I am so here for it.

Judas has never believed in the divinity of Jesus, but Jesus has some strange, intense, frightening quality that both Judas and Mary can feel, and just before his final breakdown, although Judas is telling himself that He's a man - he's just a man!, he seems to be starting to feel that that's not quite true: he starts to wonder if Jesus will leave him be after his death, and then right after the "I Don't Know How to Love Him" reprise is where his mental state takes a turn as he realizes God is behind all this, that perhaps the whole thing was planned.

The projecting images of Jesus' torment up onto the background screen as Judas is despairing is also very good - Jesus hasn't even been sentenced yet but he knows where this is headed and he sure is imagining it and feeling responsible for it.

Judas, like Jesus, concludes here that it's God who orchestrated all this and he never got a choice. In his case, though, it's serving as a way of running from his guilt. We got to hear all about his reasons for thinking this was the right thing to do, after all - it's not as if he was literally controlled into anything. He didn't realize he was dooming Jesus to a horrible death at the time, but he still did it of his own free will. And it isn't a real comfort - all it means is that in his final anguished moments he has someone to scream his despair at. You have murdered me!

(hang me from your tree)

the particular scream and sob that he does as he kicks the box out from under him hits my buttons very hard hhhh

Poor old Judas, so long, Judas, goes the Plan chorus. There's a pretty callous quality to that, appropriately enough for a very callous Plan involving a lot of suffering.

Please give my compliments to the sound designer who makes a point of turning on Jesus' microphone so we can hear his strained breathing before "Trial Before Pilate" begins

Jesus's resolve to say nothing of substance is breaking by this point, and he actually answers Pilate's "Where is your kingdom?" I have got no kingdom in this world, I'm through, through, through - there may be a kingdom for me somewhere, if I only knew. It's probably pretty hard to feel like he's headed for a triumphant resurrection right now, and the fact he's spilling those doubts to Pilate in a moment of frustrated honesty is pretty tragic.

(Some versions, including the 1973 movie, change this lyric to if you only knew. No! Bad! The whole point here is Jesus doubting it! If you want to change it you should not be putting on this show!)

Then he's a king? It’s what you say I am! I look for truth and find that I get damned! This frustration coming out here is so good.

Pilate's frustration is very good too - just dripping off every line. This mob of people insisting he sentence this harmless fool to death (one who reminds him uncomfortably of this dream that he had the other day), crowing about Caesar all of a sudden like they're oh so very concerned with protecting Caesar's authority.

As Jesus once again refuses to talk, there’s a brief mournful instrumental interlude before Look at your Jesus Christ - this is a slowed-down version of a bit of “Prescience”, the motif from “Pilate’s Dream”. He remembers that unsettling dream, consciously or unconsciously, and feels sympathy and pity for this strange man before him. After that is when he begins to argue that Jesus hasn’t committed any crime and there’s no reason to kill him.

can we appreciate that Webber and Rice went and made a song called "The 39 Lashes" that's literally just Pilate counting excruciatingly to 39 while Jesus screams in pain

can we also appreciate Jesus writhing on the floor after rolling down the stairs, Ben Forster really goes for it in acting out all this pain and torture and I love him for it

Why do you not speak when I have your life in my hands? asks Pilate, and Jesus just about musters the energy to say, You have nothing in your hands. Any power you have comes to you from far beyond - everything is fixed and you can't change it! He's kind of desperate to make Pilate understand this. Pilate keeps on trying to get Jesus to say something that'll let him release him, but that can't happen, because this must be so. Pilate needs to just play his part and get it over with, please get it over with.

And so, Pilate has to appease the mob and let him die, even though he doesn't want to at all, and tries to wash his hands of it. Much like in his dream, though, he'll in fact be remembered as the guy who sentenced Jesus to death. Clearly didn't wash your hands well enough, Pilate

It's such a delightfully bold creative decision to place an upbeat number like "Superstar" right here as Jesus is about to be crucified.

It's fascinating to see the differences in how this song in particular is staged; it's so abstract and disconnected that different directors really go nuts with it. Some productions, including the 2000 movie, imply Judas has come out of Hell to taunt him; the movie in particular makes a point of having Judas lazily, cruelly stand on the cross while Jesus is trying to carry it, grinning at his agony, surrounded by scantily clad demon women, though he has a moment of doubt and guilt as Jesus stares at him. (That movie generally posits Judas as not in control of his actions at all - so God is apparently basically just making him do this as part of his torture in Hell, which is delightfully twisted.) Others (including this one and the 1973 movie) have him among angels, as if he's descended from Heaven. In the 1973 movie Carl Anderson seems largely to just be singing it to himself - it cuts to Jesus carrying the cross a few times, but Judas isn't there.

Here, "Superstar" feels a bit like a delirious hallucination Jesus is experiencing. Judas descends on the stage lights that are about to form the cross (what an entrance) and performs the song surrounded by angels while Jesus is being affixed to the cross; they look at each other, but Judas doesn't really interact with him. There's definitely no taunting; Tim Minchin plays it in a very good-natured way, not even the kind of angry questioning of Carl Anderson in the 1973 movie. Effectively, despite the hallucinatory vibes, the way it comes across to me is Judas really is actually there in spirit, from a timeless afterlife, having had an eternity to think and come to terms with and understand what Jesus was doing - and finally just asking him some questions, without judgement. Is he what they say he is? What does he think about Buddha and Mohammed? Why didn't he choose a different time period where it would've been easier to spread his message? Did he know his death would inspire millions? It's all a sort of musing, fourth-wall-leaning modern perspective, not hostile, just curious.

Also this version just makes me happy because Judas seems happy and mentally at peace in the afterlife and who doesn't want that

Anyway, from that to Jesus crying on the cross. And I mean crying. Once again Ben Forster delivers the human suffering element of this story. "The Crucifixion" is a weird, weird song, chaotic and noisy and kind of offputting and tends to feel sort of inappropriate for the mood; in this production you don't even notice because the staging is so brutal. There's no cool symbolic dignity to this; Jesus is just crying and screaming and sobbing the whole time, yelling the disconnected final-words lines in an agonized, delirious haze. You actually believe you're watching a man dying in agony, God damn. It hurts and I love it.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? is the most gutwrenching line, of course. (And straight out of the Bible, lest we forget - I think it’s fascinating that in the likely oldest gospel of Mark as well as Matthew, this horrible, heartwrenching, human cry is all he says on the cross, while the gospels of John and Luke instead each feature their own disjoint sets of more profound-sounding sayings. It’s hard not to wonder if the other lines might be inventions by those gospels’ human authors or their sources, people who perhaps just didn’t want Jesus’s final words to be something so achingly desperate and vulnerable.) He's done all this to carry out God's great plan, and yet in this moment, in the middle of this nightmare of slow, unending agony, he feels certain that God has abandoned him and he's just dying, alone, pointlessly, for nothing. Ow, my empathetic heart.

You can hear him feeling death approaching at last and the relief he feels at that realization just before It is finished and Father, into your hands I commend my spirit

(it's easier to believe again when his suffering is finally, mercifully about to end)

Ben Forster also does a very good job not visibly breathing when he's playing a corpse. On this blog we appreciate the little things.

I've always found it pretty neat and interesting that Jesus Christ Superstar does not include the resurrection or any allusion to it at all; he just dies on the cross, they mourn and carry him away, and the show ends. Again, the only thing in this show that’s at all supernatural is that Jesus seems to know the future, and even that is fairly ambiguous. It's a story about human suffering, and it's a hugely compelling story without him rising from the dead at the end, which'd just kind of cheapen it. You can imagine that he did, but this ending invites you to contemplate that this story is just as meaningful if he did not.

In conclusion, Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my absolute favorite things and the 2012 arena tour is my baby

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[mylinlondon]

The OG Red City

The Medina (old city) of Marrakech is a labyrinth - dusty, spindly old roads that look like they haven’t changed in hundreds of years.  There is so much to look at: souks (shops) overspilling into the uneven cobblestones filled with goods like ceramics, spices, silk, hammam (Arab spa) towels, pastries, rugs, beautiful riads (house/hotels) tucked behind crumbling walls, and, ah yes, sometimes your life also flashes before your eyes, as electric bikes zoom full-speed past you in the most neck-breaking turns.

Marrakech is unlike any other destination we’ve visited in the past year. There’s a constant feeling of opposites in this city - pristine riads just behind a crumbling wall and broken door, the dusty markets contrasted to hammams and the islamic duty to keep yourself clean, overwhelrming chaos in the Jemaa El Fna and the tranquility of rooftop restaurants sitting under the stars. 

A little history:

Marrakech is towards the south-west of Morocco - the primary language is Arabic, since the Arabs arrived approximately 800 years ago, and the second language is French, as the Moors traveled up through Gibraltar and cultural exchange took place.  The indigenous group of this area were the Berber people, who were famous for living in the Atlas Mountains.  This was a tremendously wealthy area at one point, and you can see the evidence of it still in the tombs.  Which leads me to...

The Sights:

The city is extremely walkable, and we never used any public transportation. That said, be savvy - walk away from the pandemonium, get some maps or download off-line ones, and prepare ahead. As much as I love doing it, this is not a wandering aimlessly city. Almost all my travel friends use some sort of “favorite-ing” mechanism on the maps; I icon-code mine by food, places of interest, and where I’m staying.  

The following sights are by no means comprehensive, just the ones I researched and, in bold, the ones i recommend. Pictures are followed by corresponding description.

Jemaa El Fna - they say if you haven’t been to the legendary square in the evening, you’ve never been to Marrakech.  It’s overwhelming, a massive market filled with fruit, food, and little trinkets. you’ll see “snake charmers” and little monkeys, and if you even vaguely point a camera/phone in their handler’s directions, they will follow you aggressively until you tip them. I found this square rather touristy, and many of the shops were quite similar, but I suppose it was compulsory

Ben Yousef Madrasa - beautiful architecture at Marrakech's most prolific school. About $2 to get in per person. It won’t take you long to do, as you’re really just taking in the architecture, but we did discover some cool stuff like the boys dormitories upstairs, and how there are still pegs in the corner of the walls to climb up in to the little wooden second floor.

Maison de Photographie - amazing photographs taken by some of the very first photographers in the 1800s. The quality and vividness will shock you, and the familiarity will make you pensive. Pause at the rooftop terrasse for a light snack. it's quite romantic up there too, and you can see a panoramic view of the Medina- smoke rising from the ceramic workshops, the Koutoubia mosque, all surrounded by dripping greenery. The famous Koutoubia mosque is not on this list because it is not open to non-muslims.

Yves Saint Laurent Museum - YSL’s summer home was restored from the lush villa of famed artist Jacques Majorelle, and in Marrakech is the only house in the city not painted in the signature red. Definitely worth a visit to visit his full collection, sketches, personal items; If there is a man who really internalized his travels, it’s @ysl-fashion. His collections over 40 years were inspired by artists, craftsmanship, and cultures from all over the world.

Bypass the huge queue at the entrance of the Majorelle gardens and buy your 3-entry ticket from the Yves Saint Laurent Museum just 100 ft further down the street. The 3 entry gets you into YSL museum (highly recommend), Majorelle Gardens (also lovely), and the Berber Museum (interesting but small)

Other sites we did not see: 

Marrakech Museum - we did not go, but apparently the best feature is the architecture, which you can clearly see from outside, so no reason to go in, right?

The Tombs - we really wanted to go, and we hear they are fabulous. The two specific tombs are from rulers from 300 years ago and 100 years ago, and its here you can really see the wealth of this old empire

Definitely do a Hammam, which I will cover in another post.  It is essentially a Middle Eastern Spa, but it has a whole experience to it. We also did a viator trip into the Berber mountains, and it was our most exciting day....

Quads and Camels

This excursion took up a full day. I loved it for a few reasons: the delight of befriending my camel, conversing with local children while dining at a remote Berber kazbah, and the thrill of riding quads through the desert and into the mountains.  If you (like me) don't have enough days to do a proper atlas mountain hike or go to another village, this is a nice way to get out of the Medina.

A car will be arranged to pick you up at 9am at your riad, just don’t do what we did and get into the wrong van.  Apparently our pick-up location is a tourist hotspot, and groups of four aren’t exactly uncommon. We booked this excursion last minute, as you can tell we didn’t exactly pack appropriately.  You definitely want to keep the headscarf they give you on, as it shields you from the heat.  Long sleeves and pants are recommended. 

The Souks

The souks are a labyrinth, especially at night when throughways become dead-ends. Stuffed full with local silks, cashmere, leather goods, dried fruit, Moroccan cookies and spices, ceramics and metalwork, it’s a constant assault on your eyes, nose, and with the frequent near-miss with a motorcycle, body.

You can and will get lost in here. I can not emphasize enough to be sure to download an offline map, and be careful after evening prayer around 6:30pm as random paths are closed and you'll have lots of locals trying to show you the way out for a hearty tip.  Your best bet is to take an outer path after 7pm than to try to navigate the maze. We did figure out our way, but we were based in the northern end of the souks.  

I was not in the market for a rug, but that is of course what Morocco is known for. Just know, whatever it is you intend to buy, they will offer you easily 3-4x what the cost is, and you cannot possibly not haggle. Do your research on what you should be paying, and don't be afraid to walk away.  You can see lots of sites online that will show you what people were able to buy and for what price, so have an idea of what you're looking for before you go. 

In addition to the Souks, I found a few shops I adored.  They’re a bit pricier, but they all feature local artists and craftsmanship.  

33 Rue de Majorelle - right across from the Majorelle Gardens, everything in there is BEAUTIFUL but expensive.  I bought a pair of tassle earrings that my colleague told me looked like, when I decided a rug was out of my shopping range, I cut off the tassle ends and put it on my ears. In any case, I love them

Max & Jan - cool scarfs, leathers, and interesting assortment of weird things. I didn’t get anything from here, but it was fun just walking through the store

Riad de Vinci

HIGHLY recommend our Riad, I mean look how beautiful it is! It was at an optimal location too, just north of the Souks.  Our host was gracious and informative, and we dined on the rooftop every morning and on our last night and it was delicious.  We even befriended the host cat, Vinci, who was fat and mostly blind but if I held a bit of chicken tagine under his whiskeys he would nibble the meat gently out of my hand.

Most Riads will have breakfast provided to you in the morning, and can provide transfer from the airport (we paid 15 euro for all of us). The ride from the airport is no more than 25 mins, the morning we left it took us around 12 mins to get from the Medina to airport (granted, it was 4am).

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Where to eat

Tagine, tagine, tagine.  You can definitely get tagined out.  But it’s delicious, at least for a few days, and one of my best meals was a lamb tagine from our first lunch at Le Jardin.  Moroccan food is flavorful, rich, and has so many beautiful influences from French, Spanish, Arabic cultures. What is a tagine, you ask? It looks like a clay funnel casserole, and its essentially a tiny oven that you place IN the oven, usually filled with meats and spices. We had one nearly every meal.

My best meal: lamb tagine with almonds and apricots. 

We adored these little pastry stands scattered through the souks - our favorite is a tiny cart on Rue Amsafah, where the teenage girl gave us lots of samples and sold us entire boxes of cookies for $2. 

Terrase des Epices - beautiful rooftop, excellent food, good atmosphere. serves alcohol (many places don't). We came here twice, we liked it so much, and we bought most of our stuff from the souks in the courtyard downstairs

Le Jardin - our first meal, and as mentioned earlier makes an incredible lamb tagine. Lots of glamorous french people here

Nomad - also a beautiful rooftop, do this at night. portions are smaller compared to other restaurants but quite chic

Grand Cafe de la Poste - the only one I didn’t love, because 1) VERY expensive and 2) not at all Moroccan, you may as well have been in Paris. But still, if you’re in the new city area, a nice place to stop for a nibble

My best meal: lamb tagine with almonds and apricots. 

Dinner at Nomad with some London friends!

Tapped out - but coming later: 

What exactly do you do in a Hammam?

How to dress for Morocco 

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2019 | Pt III

I can’t fucking edit my post because this website is crap, so we get a part three even though there’s only two more months to 2019. But whatever, I’m not bitter or anything.

Reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read one hundred books this year (finished!), finish five video games (finished!), write something novel-length (not so much, does it count if I wrote a novel’s worth of short stories in October?) and write something original (technically done? don’t know if I want to count a snippet that didn’t even hit 1k). These last two goals CAN be combined (I might try NaNo this year, so we will see).

Part I: January-July Part II: August-October

MOVIES

November

The King

(V For Vendetta)

(Avengers: Endgame)

(Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas)

Frozen 2

(Winnie the Pooh)

Journey to the Sun

December

Klaus

(Aladdin: Return of Jafar)

Hotel Artemis

(The Santa Claus)

(Star Wars: A New Hope)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

(Love Actually)

BOOKS

November

The Gilded Wolves | Roshani Chokshi [Fin]

Words of Radiance | Brandon Sanderson [Fin]

Oathbringer | Brandon Sanderson

The Hating Game | Sally Thorne [Fin]

Again, But Better | Christine Riccio [Fin]

The Queen of Nothing | Holly Black [Fin]

North and South | Elizabeth Gaskell

December

Oathbringer | Brandon Sanderson [Fin]

Snow, Glass, Apples | Neil Gaiman, Colleen Doran [Fin]

North and South | Elizabeth Gaskell [Fin]

The Starless Sea | Erin Morgenstern [Fin]

There There | Tommy Orange [Fin]

The Secret Commonwealth | Philip Pullman

The Library of the Unwritten | A.J. Hackwith [Fin]

PODCASTS

November

The Penumbra Podcast s3, Eps 2-3

The Magnus Archives Eps 160

King Falls AM Eps 11-30

Adventure Zone Moonlighting Pt 1

(Zero Hours: When the Beat Drops)

December

The Magnus Archives Q&A

Outliers s1, ep 1

King Falls AM Eps 31-34

TV SHOWS

November

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural, s6

His Dark Materials, s1

She-Ra, s4

(Gargoyles, s1)

South Park

Rick & Morty, s4

Star vs the Forces of Evil s1, s2

The Flash, s4

The Dragon Prince, s4

The Mandalorian

Star Wars: Rebels, s1

December

His Dark Materials, s1

The Mandalorian

The Dragon Prince, s4

The Untamed

The Good Place, s3

The Witcher, s1***

The Great British Bake Off, s7

VIDEO GAMES

November

Assassin’s Creed: Origins (10 hours)

Death Stranding (10 hours)

Pokemon: Shield (20 hours)

December

Pokemon: Shield (20 hours)

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2 hours)

DELIGHTFUL FIC

November

The Sun Dog by ambiguously | Star Wars | Finn/Ren/Rey | 5k | Finn and Rey, with their semi-prisoner Kylo Ren, attempt to meet up with the Resistance on a planet that has been taken over by monsters.

Seeing Ghosts by blacktofade | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 4.5k | Ryan blames the entire thing on temporary insanity.

silver in our lungs by taywen | Spinning Silver | Miryem/The Staryk Lord | 3.6k | The marks had been with Miryem for as long as she could remember. 

sing all your questions to sleep by Wildehack (tyleet) | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jon | 1.5k | Jon, Martin, and Basira take a breath.

as ordinary things often do by lymricks | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 4k | Max is yelling out the window, “She means like, two weeks--” before they’re turning around the corner and--And Steve is standing on the front steps of Billy Hargrove’s house, keys jingling in his palm, thinking what the fuck?

on hairpins by Lirazel | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Gen | 3k | When the citizens of Attolia complain that the Thief of Eddis is a terrible influence on their queen, they have no way of knowing the truth of their own words.

the umbrella by Wildehack (tyleet) | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jon | 4.6k | "And to think—all of Jonah Magnus’ carefully laid plans, the centuries of scheming, the murders, the sacrifices, all of that work could have been completely undone if Martin Blackwood had gone back for an umbrella"

you got me begging, begging, i'm on my knees by plalligator | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 5k | (or, that struggle when you're a guard who's in love with your rulers and it turns out you would kind of like it if they bossed you around a little)

rumour has it by plalligator | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 1.5k | “Costis, what in the name of the gods happened? I have heard from five separate people that you have a secret sweetheart who you went to meet on your day off.”

Home Was A Dream by impertinence | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 3k | Lunch, a mysterious fruit, revelations, and sex. In that order.

Well Loved by SerenadeStrong (ninja_orange) | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 3.5k | Gen finally convinces Costis to sleep with his wife.

and so begins by romanoff | Marvel | Steve/Tony | 8k | After Tony's death, Steve is adrift. He carries Tony's body, and thinks: I never said thank you.

something more alive than silence by pageleaf | The Queen’s Thief | Costis/Attolia/Eugenides | 21k | It was a good thing that six months after the king had promised to halve the guard, he still hadn’t done it, because since then, there had been two attempts on the king’s life.

Covenant by liesmyth | Stormlight Archive | Kaladin/Adolin | 9k | Adolin had never imagined he’d meet his match like this, on the dusty streets of Sadeas’s warcamp - or that it would be a bridgeman of all people, defiance clear in his dark brown eyes.

How Do You Catch a Storm and Pull It Down? by liadan14 | Stormlight Archive | Kaladin/Adolin/Shallan | 4k | It takes Shallan approximately two months after the wedding to realize that she is an idiot.

Keep It In Your Sights Now by LuckyDiceKirby | Shades of Magic | 9k | Holland travels with Lila and Kell. Somewhere along the way, they reach an equilibrium.

waiting for the sunlight by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved | 18k | Sara had always known, growing up as both an only child and a princess, that she would likely not marry for love. 

Fifty Shades of Gold by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 21k | That’s his official position: he’s over Ricky Goldsworth.Shane’s unofficial position, regrettably, is that he’d rather be under Ricky Goldsworth.

(these things take time by sonhoedesrazao | Les Mis | Enjolras/Grantaire | 63k | He’s always wary of making assumptions; even more so when Grantaire is concerned. He knows he’s not the easiest person to deal with. People either like him or can’t stand him, and it’s easy to respond to those reactions, but Grantaire—Grantaire is hostile and mocking, Grantaire scorns his beliefs, and Grantaire stays.)

December

Begin the Begin, Over and Over by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 33k | Shane only agrees to be handcuffed to Ryan for a video because he can put up with anything for twenty-four hours. That’s the funny thing about time loops, though—they don’t always adhere to the parameters set by clickbait videos.

When I Fall to Rise by lc2l | Thor | Loki/Thor | 41k | Loki wakes up to ship alarms blaring, the air full of ash and Valkyrie saying she brought him back because she needs his help. She's captaining a small emergency vessel containing the last handful of Asgardians desperately looking for a place to call home. And she's having to do it sober.

From Orbit by astolat | Star Wars | Leia/Han/Luke | 4k | “You’ve got to quit doing this,” Han said.

Charioteer by petrichoral | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 14k | Captured in battle and stuck in the Mede capital, Costis has given up all hope of seeing his country again. But Eugenides has a habit of turning up where he's least expected.

ready if it happens with you by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 4k | It’s not a thing. Ryan’s just a little… touch-starved. Intimacy-starved.

I fancied you’d return the way you said by ambiguously | Star Wars | Reylo | 3k | No one else can see him. Rey is used to that.

i kill giants by diasterisms | Star Wars | Reylo | WIP | 7k | "Rey Skywalker?" There's a vaguely sardonic twist to the corner of his mouth. "Does that make you my cousin now?"

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

November

MARVEL/DC - Runnin

THE WITCHER | MAIN TRAILER | NETFLIX

(GoT) Daenerys Targaryen | Meant To Fall

Game of Thrones | Never Wanted to Leave

young god.. (multifandom)

Poison & Wine | Ben and Rey

Multifandom ][ Glitter & Gold

rules of nature [multifandom amv]

December

what's up danger [Death Stranding]

Kylo Ren || Destiny

star wars || blue monday

K[L]AUS | High Enough

2019 Movie Trailer Mashup

Reylo | My Love Will Never Die [tros spoilers] Rey & Ben

Reylo | Dusk Till Dawn [+TROS Spoilers]

REYLO || SOMEBODY TO DIE FOR (+tros)

Multifandom Mashup 2019

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

November

Frozen 2 Soundtrack

Les Mis Soundtrack

December

Spotify Unwrapped 2019

Reylo Playlist

POSTED FIC

November

open the walls, play with your dolls | Coraline | Coraline/Wybie | 2,886 words | Halloween at the Pink Palace is a lot like any other time of year.

December

yule gift #2 - 4,639 words [fin]

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

November

December

yule gift #1 - 1,267 words [unfinished]

yule gift #2 - 4,639 words [fin]

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

November

Havoc

December

Somebody to Die For - a Reylo playlist

[wahbegan]

A brief life history/biology of It

NERD ALERT posting this shit again since the trailer just dropped

The actual nature of IT: So It is an extradimensional entity, similar to H.P. Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones. It originated in something King refers to as “The Macroverse”, a sort of universe outside our universe. It is one of two opposing entities, It and “The Turtle”, a cosmic creator entity. Unlike The Turtle, Its only real biological imperative seems to be destruction. It’s implied that both entities were created by some sort of force/God more powerful than either, simply referred to as “The Other”, but that’s not elaborated on much. The most common theory is that The Dark Tower entity Gan and “The Other” are one and the same.

It is referred to as Pennywise and Bob Gray while in human form, and The Spider, Consumption (vs. The Turtle’s Creation), or The Deadlights in Its true form. The Deadlights seems to be an ambiguous term, and at various points is used to reference to Its true form, Its eyes, and the space outside the universe that It inhabits, it’s all kept kinda vague and intentionally hard to grasp.

Anyway, Its true form exists outside the universe and physically cannot be processed by human minds. Those who see Its true, undisguised form are immediately driven irrevocably insane or killed. The closest approximation Ben Hanscom can come to describing Its true form, which he briefly sort of catches a peripheral sense of, is “an endless, crawling hairy thing” made of “dead” orange light

Its motivation: As mentioned above, it seems to have been created as a force of consumption first and foremost. The “writhing,” lights that comprise the creature seem to be destructive in and of themselves, consuming whatever they come into contact with. It is deeply intelligent, however, and doesn’t run purely on instinct. It is shown to have a sadistic streak, although it probably isn’t sadism in the same sense we think of it. It sees humans strictly as prey animals and sources of amusement, believing them so vastly inferior to Itself as to be negligible. It claims to eat worlds and reality, a statement seemingly corroborated by the effect of The Deadlights on Its surroundings, but the only things It seems to go out of Its way to consume are human children , apparently Its main source of sustenance. It can eat any human, but It prefers Its food terrified. Once again, it’s unclear whether It really understands the full moral ramifications of this, It simply thinks of it as “salting the meat”. Therefore, It usually goes after children because they’re the easiest to scare. Based on what little we know about how It interacts with human beings, and The Dark Tower character Dandelo, whom Stephen King has confirmed is of the same species as It, we can assume that the entity is feeding on the emotion of fear itself as much as, if not more than, the actual flesh of Its prey.

Powers/abilities and weaknesses: In Its own realm and form, the Deadlights, it can be assumed to be nigh-omnipotent. However, in this universe, It is both empowered and limited by whatever physical form It takes. Its main power, of course, is shape-shifting, which It refers to at one point as “putting on airs” and is likened to wearing various masks. Its most common tactic is to appear to children as a clown (Pennywise) to lure them close enough to strike, before transforming into something said child is terrified of. Additionally, It (or at least the part of It that can manifest in our world) came to the land that later became Derry, Maine millions of years ago and seems to exert a certain amount of God-like control over the immediate area. Violent deaths and mysterious disappearances are quietly hushed up or swept under the rug, and the citizens are all apathetic to them for reasons they don’t fully understand themselves. Additionally, It can cause nasty hallucinations in Its targets and exert a level of psychological control over people. Now, as i said before, Its greatest strength (shape-shifting), is also Its ultimate weakness. Once It’s locked into a form, It has to abide by the “rules” of that form as dictated by the imagination the form was drawn from. When in werewolf form, for example, silver can severely injure It, enough to make It retreat. The only way to truly defeat It that we see is the Ritual of Chüd, a mystical battle of wills where the child’s imagination is essentially pitted against the creature. Just as childhood fears and trauma make It stronger, imaginative childhood beliefs and the bond between friends can weaken It. Yes, it’s all very Care Bear(TM) after-school special, but it fits in very well with the themes and message of the novel. 

Forms It takes: -Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Implied to be Its favorite form) -Corpses of Its victims’ loved ones in various states of mutilation and decay (also a reliable standby for It) -Two young drowned boys with orange pom pom fingertips -The Teenage Werewolf -The Mummy -Dracula (with razorblades for teeth and eyes resembling blood clots) -A giant bird (twice, once with a silver tongue with orange growths resembling pom poms on it, and once with several balloons tied to Its wings) -A swarm of flying, flesh-colored leeches -A school of orange piranhas -Jaws -The Creature From the Black Lagoon -The Crawling Eye -Syphilitic homeless man (the disease advanced past the point that he should be dead) -Bev’s abusive father -Frankenstein’s Monster -An 8-foot tall were-doberman -The Witch from Hansel and Gretel -A massive uncanny valley statue of Paul Bunyan (based on this real statue in Bangor, Maine)  -The moon with Pennywise’s clown-face, with ragged holes where the eyes should be -A gigantic, unnatural black spider. (Its “final form” the Losers face, this form is unique in that it isn’t drawn directly from the viewer’s imagination. It only appears this way in Its own lair, stating that It “does not dress at home.” It is not, however, an accurate depiction of Its appearance, but is instead the human mind trying to make sense of what it’s seeing without going insane. The Losers repeatedly state they can almost make out Its true form moving behind the image of the spider their brains have created, but don’t want to as they know what will happen. The second time they face the spider, it appears to be pregnant, indicative of Its state as about to reproduce. It’s not stated how exactly It does this beyond that It appears to lays eggs, but due to Its nature, i assume It reproduces asexually.

NOTE: No matter what form It takes, It usually retains some elements of Pennywise, usually the orange pom pom buttons on his clown suit in one form or another. This is probably because the orange pom poms themselves are reflections of the "baleful orange glow” of The Deadlights. There are often other cracks in Its masks, so to speak, clues pointing to Its true nature as not a natural part of this universe, such as Its defiance of conventional laws of physics (leaning so far out of a window that It should have been overtaken by gravity and fallen, holding balloons that float against the wind, etc.) and the fact that It never casts a shadow. 

Its life-cycle: It hibernates for about 27 years and then awakes, almost always coinciding with a horrific, brutal act of violence. It then preys on the town’s children for anywhere from 14 months to a few years before another tragedy or act of violence, which must be greater than or equal to the event that woke It up in terms of brutality, sates It and It goes back into hibernation. This is only interrupted once, during the First Ritual of Chüd. The second one is implied to kill It for good, or at least Its earthly manifestation, but it’s left ambiguous.

Its history (as known to the protagonists):  -Millions of years ago: It came to Earth in an event similar to an asteroid crash and began to exert control over Derry, influencing it and helping it grow as Its personal killing and feeding pen (At one point, the entity states that It created Derry “In Its image”). -1740: It awoke for unknown reasons and preyed upon the town’s children for 3 years, only going back into hibernation when the entire town of over 300 settlers disappeared without a trace. Local histories chalk the disappearance up to an Indian massacre, but only one building was burned, and no bodies were ever found. -1851: It awoke when a man poisoned his entire family and then committed suicide by ingesting a copious amount of Amanita phalloides, and went back into hibernation for unknown reasons -1879: A group of lumberjacks found the remains of another lumberjack camp that had been snowed in for the winter. All 9 of their bodies were in pieces. It’s unclear how directly It was involved with this atrocity, but judging by the timeline, one can assume the event awakened It. -1904: It awoke when a lumberjack massacred 4 men in a bar, in full view of all the patrons, who seemed strangely unaffected by the violence happening in front of them. The lumberjack was later lynched by crazed townsfolk, many of whom were present during the massacre and did nothing to stop it. It was present on the periphery of these events but took no direct part in them. -1906: It went back into hibernation after an ironworks exploded, killing 108 people, 88 of whom were children on an Easter Egg hunt. One of the victim’s heads was found several days later and several blocks away in a woman’s apple tree. -1929: It awoke when the infamous (in-universe) Bradley Gang were gunned down by a vigilante mob. It appeared and participated during the massacre as some sort of clown, though details of Its appearance varied depending on who was looking at It. Most notably, It always appeared to be wielding the same kind of gun that whoever was looking at It was holding.  -1930: It went back into hibernation after popular club The Black Spot was burned down by a white supremacist group with several people trapped inside. It appeared at the end of the event as a giant bird with balloons tied to Its wings, carrying away one of the white supremacists in Its talons. -1957-58: It awoke when Dorsey Corcoran was beaten to death by his abusive stepfather. There is no mention of It being present at the murder, and It has no confirmed kills for this cycle until several months afterwards. For these reasons, it’s not even 100% clear that this is what woke It up, but given the absence of any other inciting event and the stepfather’s behavior being consistent with other people who committed atrocities under Its influence, it’s generally assumed to be by fans. This cycle is the most fleshed out in the novel, during which It murdered several children including George Denbrough, Betty Ripsom, Dorsey’s older brother Eddie Corcoran, both Victor Criss and Reginald yes I said Reginald “Belch” Huggins, and Patrick Hockstetter. It was eventually forced back into early hibernation by the First Ritual of Chüd.  -1967: Interesting side event, It’s unknown to what degree or where It can manifest while in hibernation mode, but Richard Macklin, Dorsey’s stepfather and murderer, committed suicide in Falmouth, MA, leaving a note which simply read “I saw Eddie last night. He was dead.” Given Its proclivity towards taunting victims with dead loved ones, one could reasonably guess It appeared to Macklin and drove him to suicide. However, this behavior would be “out-of-cycle” and is never confirmed or elaborated on. -1984: It awakened after a young man, Adrian Mellon, was beaten nearly to death and thrown off a bridge in a homophobic hate crime. It was present as Pennywise at Mellon’s assault and began feeding on him in front of both his boyfriend and his attackers. It then went on one final killing spree before being defeated and seemingly killed by The Losers.

HOPE THIS HELPS any additional questions just ask

Oh yeah and uh here’s what i think personally is the best artistic depiction of what Its true form might be like