#it's gonna be the choir it's gonna be the choir it's gonna be the choir it's gon-

[theoslochild]

Ever wonder what this would be like if it were a full alternate ending? No? Well.. science explores all possibilities 🤷‍♂️:

“Stop that! This will not contribute to the betterment of science! Why would you even think to do that? Are you as mentally unstable as that moron made you out to be?”

“I, for one, already found you relentlessly unorthodox but this is a new low.. and that’s saying a lot, I’d almost be impressed by your shire creativity if it weren’t so clearly a product of cognitive damage..”

“You should consider yourself lucky you’re not testing for Black Mesa or you’d be covered in broken glass right now! Last time I heard they can’t even make a casserole, let alone Propulsion Gel Surprise™️”

“You know, I can feel what you’re doing, I’m connected to the facility’s power supply, including all the appliances and-“

*Chell stops and starts to leave*

“What? Where are you going?! Hey! I wasn’t surprised you couldn’t wrap your little brain around the previous test but now you can’t even finish your own vulgar distractions? You didn’t even let me finish! I was going to tell you all about how lacklustre your performance was! You know what? Get out !!”

*Fast forward to Chell on the elevator, the turret choir begins to sing*

“perché mi hai lasciato sull'orlo del baratro, stronza? Sono una mamma single di, tipo, cinque figli se conti gli uccelli. Ho bisogno di tutto il sollievo che posso ottenere qui, sei così fottutamente egoista.. Ti amo comunque haha”

(Chell thinks) - “Heheh.. she’s so down bad she’s gonna freak when I come back in 4 years.. 😈”

You could ask me why I spent the 20 minutes I spent to make this, but for the sake of my own head i’ll say it was a test of cognitive function, or something like that.. in which case, by GlaDOS’ criteria I’d probably be viable for neurotoxin therapy.. (credit and apologies to @icantseehelp for the original post)

portal 2 summary

[jesncin]

Spirit World, Ride the Cyclone and Death. A weird comparative analysis

Gonna combine my musical nerd and cape comics fixation together for a rambling meta thought. I've been reflecting on how taboo the topic of death is in media after getting into Ride The Cyclone (highly recommend watching the slime tutorial and Waiting in the Wings' documentary on it) but also contrasting that musical with how Spirit World handled similar topics.

Both stories cover characters whose lives were cut short from a tragic circumstance, but while Cyclone directly talks frankly about how each character uniquely grieves over their lost life (and eventually accepts death)- Spirit World uses death as largely an aesthetic to a generic fantasy superhero adventure.

[spoilers for Ride the Cyclone and Spirit World]

Spirit World is about non-binary, half dead half living Envoy Xanthe Zhou, as they go into the Spirit World with John Constantine to rescue Cassandra Cain Batgirl. They eventually go toe to toe with the spirit of a bitter dead poet.

Ride the Cyclone is about 6 choir teenagers who die in a roller coaster accident in their small town. In the afterlife, they are given the chance to vote which one of them they believe should be resurrected.

For Spirit World, do we even know how Xanthe feels about being "half dead"? What does that even mean? They died as (what looks like) a 3 year old, and have clearly aged 15 more years since then. So they can age? Do they need to eat or drink (they're seen with a drink in a Pride comic)? Xanthe keeps mentioning they're half dead and half living, but the comic doesn't seem to want to discuss what that means. How would Xanthe feel that they were essentially given a job as an Envoy the minute they died as a very young child? Was this even a choice?

We've already covered the numerous plot holes in Xanthe Zhou's poorly thought out backstory so I won't go over that again. But honestly apart from the thematically loose "the dead shouldn't be forgotten" moral, a lot of how death is presented in Spirit World feels so superficial. When Xanthe is formally introduced as this cool character with a giant sword hanging around a gravesite, fighting all these hopping vampire creatures... this scene would play out the same if you swapped the setting with a forest and zombies as bad guys.

The Spirit World is less an afterlife for the spirits to move onto and more an MMORPG setting for our superheroes to travel across and fight generic evil beings and encounter eviler, bigger, boss battles at the end. Then there's the poet clout villain whose problems are just easily solved by Xanthe promising to remember her. I've already covered what a lost opportunity thematically this character was in my last Xanthe essay, but this time I want to contrast her with Ride the Cyclone's Jane Doe. I also want to compare Xanthe with Noel Gruber afterwards.

Ride the Cyclone's musical numbers follow each character performing a song reflecting their wishes, and musings on life (this sounds depressing but the musical handles all this with comedy and wit), hoping to prove themselves as worthy of a second chance at life. Of the characters, Jane Doe is the mysterious odd one out. The accident decapitated her, leaving her to enter the after life with no memories and the people of the living unable to identify her.

You might see where I'm going with this. So in Spirit World, Wan Yujing was this famous poet mourned by an entire empire. She only goes monster mode when a handwave-y "time erodes all" happens in the Spirit World and she is eventually forgotten- so she becomes desperate to demand to be reincarnated by the Jade Court. Because her clout ran out. Again, I already made the critique in my previous essay that this villain would better link to our protagonist if she was a queer poet whose poetry was being purposefully straight washed as an act of queer historical erasure. But I want to bring up how truly unsympathetic this villain is. She gets Shakespeare levels of clout but still demands more because she isn't getting reincarnated fast enough. Xanthe promises that as an immortal "half dead half living" person that they will remember Wan Yujing, so she too can be immortal in some way.

I think about all the Jane Doe-s in the Spirit World who don't get to be famous poets that have Empires remembering who they were. People who died anonymously without a past. In Cyclone, the main character chooses Jane Doe as the person who should be brought back to life. Our cast of teens come to terms with the fact that while it's tragic that their lives ended shortly, they conclude "to say that if one dies young, they die needlessly... that is to discount the years we had. We had a life, she didn't. That's my vote." Since Jane Doe has no memory of who she is, it's only fair that she is given that second chance.

I get that Spirit World is choosing these "larger than life" characters as villains, but it's at the expense of their own supposed themes. Of all the people to die and face off our hero as the villain, a character who's essentially an influencer but somehow has an entire empire forget about her anyway feels thematically hollow.

Modern Superhero comics are suffering from a specific problem right now; they're not really about anything. Characters don't feel like people with interior lives informed by the context of who they are. Class, race and bigotry are only touched upon as lightly as possible. Queer characters are now Pride ads with no personhood or flaws. They punch gentrified crime and fight for no one in particular. Even recent adapted media such as My Adventures with Superman and Caped Crusader follow this. Superman fights white-washed xenophobia, while Batman fights gentrified, white-washed classicism. It's why comics like Superman Smashes the Klan, Catwoman Lonely City and Alan Scott Green Lantern stand out so much. It's been a while since these characters talked about anything that matters. Don't get me wrong, slop that's about nothing exists in every industry. But when these characters and worlds historically used to have more bite- it's especially obvious.

If I could be playfully conspiracy theory-like for a second; I believe Xanthe Zhou was pitched so that DC Comics can buff out their Pride Anthology or AAPI anthology with a new younger character. The company will give this character one limited series, but that's it. Xanthe will appear in the larger DC universe whenever big magic plots happen, but that's it. Maybe they'll get a YA graphic novel. I would love to be proven wrong, but the problems with Xanthe are baked in the dough.

Because they don't feel like a person, Xanthe feels more like an industry planted Pride ad. They're designed to be the most palatable and marketable image of Asian androgyny. They literally have no flaws to grow out of, and their backstory makes no sense. They weren't built to be a sustainable solo character.

So I want to contrast Xanthe Zhou against Noel Gruber from Ride the Cyclone. Because they're both queer characters whose lives were cut short at a young age.

In a dramatic lament, Noel Gruber expresses how if he had a chance to live, he'd want to live the horrible cinematic messy life of a French sex worker woman in post-war France. He struggled as the only gay boy in a small town and never got to kiss a boy before he died. It's a look into a queer life that could've been lived, one with all the messy texture and self destruction Noel couldn't have but desires. We get to see how death and queerness intersect into rich, unflattering, gender-messy themes. "I want to be that fucked up girl." Noel sings.

But what's Xanthe's deal? They died as a 3 year old, got brought back, avoided their family at all costs for 15 years, and then had a transphobic confrontation with their family when they're invited to dinner way later. If Xanthe grew up in a transphobic household, how did they ever figure out they were non-binary when they were 3? Could they even verbalize it? Or did they instead figure out their queerness after they died? But how is that possible when they already held a level of familiar resentment towards their family's transphobia as if they've had several fights about it? It's hard to picture a 3 year old having multiple heated debates about gender with their parents for this level of resentment to make any sense.

Details aside, how does Xanthe's queerness intersect with themes of death and grief? Well, it just doesn't. This scene ends with Xanthe's sister telling them that she bothered remembering them even though their parents moved on from their death (which makes no sense since the parents wanted to have dinner with a random 18 year old they correctly assumed was their long dead "daughter" but whatever). Honestly, the only reason queerness exists in this family drama is so that Xanthe has a tense relationship with their family. The story would be exactly the same if Xanthe was a troublemaker that brought shame to their family. Who they are isn't specific to whatever grief exists in the comic.

When people give the critique that modern Superhero comics aren't about anything anymore, we usually think of these comics as "lacking political bite and commentary". We don't often think of something like Death to be political. And even though it is in many ways, it's also a social taboo to talk about. Death is an uncomfortable thing to confront, even in the safety of fiction. It's what made Ride the Cyclone such a difficult stage musical to market.

So how does a modern mainstream comic like Spirit World fit into that? It just sits there in this non-committal way. Yes, this is a story about a trans teenager who died, but only in a cool Superhero Origin Way, not in any way that would make readers uncomfortable. Bury Your Gays is a stereotype after all, so we can't talk about how queer people feel about death. We don't get to know how Xanthe feels about death as a non-binary Asian American. Especially if it's messy. It's the reason why Wan Yujing's character can never commentate on themes of historical queer erasure. God forbid superhero comics be about something.

I think about how, in the original Hellblazer run from the 80s, John Constantine had an elderly gay friend who was diagnosed with AIDS but was killed by a homophobic hate group. The comic openly talks about the sheer amount of gay people dying of the epidemic, a looming threat that informs John's queer life. It's such a culture shock, to contrast these early comics with how John Constantine is written in Spirit World. A character stripped of his own queer history and is at the mercy of incessant slutty bi jokes. Where is the desire to talk about how death informs a queer person's life? The mourning of a lost generation to the AIDS crisis? Something John lived through?

How about how any of this intersects with being an Asian American queer person? Queer people of color are often erased or purposefully excluded from queer history and communities. As a Queer Asian American, what does it mean to have identities that are often perceived to be in conflict with each other? Would your queer Asian ancestors even be remembered? Cultural differences with how you'd mourn your communities? But answering any of these questions means an uncomfortable conversation for Spirit World. For Xanthe. It threatens to be about something.

Which makes it all the more silly that, of the two stories, a musical about teenagers dying from a rollercoaster malfunction is more willing to have that uncomfortable conversation. You should ride the Cyclone.

[jame7t]

knowing there was going to be a general grievous Star Wars movie & it got canned years ago & now “the mandalorian and grogu” is gonna be the next theatrical Star Wars movie makes me wanna pume. I want to see general grevious as the wolf of Wall Street not Dave Filoni’s Infinity War.

[redzombie]

something silly to decompress my brain

[loadingbones]

Almost finished the cosplay 🫰🏻 thought this part was gonna be hard but it was v relaxing to do :3

Not accurate at all because whatever the Choir has going on is far too complicated for me - so I went for the vibes ✨

[pzyii]

RPG update, santana pov, and it’s immediately ansgty

[xieliancore]

merry hualian christmas!!!

[proudsnackeezowner]

Hey by the way I NEVER STOPPED THINKING ABOUT THIS and I have more lyrics to shove in your face. THE DAN AND GEORGE MICHEAL PARALLELS ARE RENT FREE BUZZING AROUND IN MY HEAD AT ALL TIMES.

Look ill try not to do a full essay level breakdown but the line:

"All we have to do now is take these lies and make them true somehow" is so deeply related to how dans coming out took the assumptions and speculations being thrown around and said YES. But it's MINE and IM CHOSING TO TELL YOU. Take these lies, make them true.

ALSO: "All we have to see is that I don't belong to you, and you don't belong to me" is about dans relationship to his fans. This is so crazy to me because it applies so well.

Next one:

"What a kick, just a buddy and me. We had every big shot goodtime band on the run, boy. We were living in a fantasy". About how he and phil blew up, and basically were at the peak of their careers. Tatinof time, big boom of britcrew and yt in general, their most "successful" time. They were making a killing! No one coukd compete with their level of popularity! Just a a buddy and me, every big shot on the run, we were living in a fantasy. It's almost too on the nose.

Then the next one, the real kicker:

"But today, the way I play the game has got to change, oh yeah. Now I'm gonna get myself happy." DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING HERE. He literally could not continue being online anymore! He needed to live authentically. The game has got to change.

I won't circle back and breakdown that old post. But I definitely could. But I won't. And I won't add more but. BUT THE BRIDGE TOO. LISTEN TO IT. And we won't talk about the "freedom" chants the choir does during the chorus bc that's self explanatory. ANYWAY no one else cares about George micheal but you should ! Because he's great and super cool but also because the dan parallel is insane.

Ok fine I'll contribute to the #phan movement and ramble !!! Time to talk my obscure phannie shit

Freedom '90 by George micheal is so thematically similar to Basically I'm Gay. This has been a thought in my head for a long time (I'm a big George micheal fan lol) and no one will understand this reference BUT LISTEN TO THE SONG AND YOU WILL UNDERSTANDDD

Oh for context, freedom '90 was basically George micheals coming out song duh :)) and it SLAPPPSSS HARD

[pippeebottom]

this is my last of three comfy cubz until after we move at the end of the month 😖

[yeetushaitus]

classicaloid sketch dump!! did these during class also lizst birthday drawing is coming eventually.... planned to finish it like on her birthday ofc but oopsie im lazy

also bonus sketch by my friend <3333

[w3apon0fchoice]

i kinda know what you’re talking about😭

we have a boy in our choir class (he’s the only one) and that’s like the gayest thing you can do as a man. like wdym you’re gonna SING in a group full of GIRLS??

Sneak peek at possible evil plans.

[wuntrum]

so scary being at the movie theater and being shown a long trailer for a movie you're excited for (and have been purposefully ignoring the trailer for so you can go in blind)

[fruitcupsnack]

woah !

okay i am sorry i just leave and come back after a while hehe

Theres a huge time difference between them so if things look different that is why gaaahhhh!!

[tacobellabeanburrito]

Thinking of… Ace Attorney choir Au. Maybe Band Au as well.

Phoenix? Obvious tenor. Theatre kid and art kid? TENOR.

Y’all would think Miles would be the tenor, but nope, he’s an obvious baritone/bass. More baritone than anything but he can hit those low notes.

Larry? I want him to be a bass sooo badly but no, he’s either a baritone or just straight tenor. LITERALLY STRAIGHTEST TENOR TO EVER TENOR. Everyone always assumes he’s gay and he gets worked up about it.

Maya is a mezzo-soprano, obvi. I wanted her to be an alto or straight soprano but I don’t really think it fit her. People’s vocal parts literally fit what they look like. She is a mezzo.

FRANZISKA IS AN ALTO. End of story.

Klavier is such a tenor it’s not even funny. He wants to be a baritone/bass sooo badly. But he has like, one of those really strong tenor voices. There’s no way he hasn’t sung Santa Fe.

Apollo is a baritone… That’s it.

ATHENA. ATHENA. WHAT IS ATHENA. Brother I really can’t decide. Has the tenacity of an alto but the mostly bubbly personality of a soprano. I’ll stick her as mezzo for now.

PEARL? SOPRANO. TRUCY? MEZZO-SOPRANO. Need I say anymore?

Gumshoe is an obvious bass. Lots of basses are himbos and he’s no exception.

As much as I want Kristoph to be a tenor because he thinks he’s so insufferably above everyone else, I have to pick him as a bass. Nobody expects it, they all expect him to be a tenor. He has a beautiful bass voice.

SIMON IS A BASS. FULL BASS. Nothing more to add.

Dahlia is a soprano and Iris is at least a mezzo-soprano or alto. Dahlia’s one of those really bitchy sopranos who never takes a mezzo-soprano part. Iris always bears the brunt of the mezzo-soprano/second work because Dahlia makes her.

Small edit to add the Investigations Crew…

Lang is at least a baritone/bass. I can’t imagine him not being one like come on.

Kay is an alto. Full alto. TRUE ALTO.

Sebastian is a tenor. No, I will NOT take criticism.

Ema is an alto. No question about it.

I think I got mostly everyone? Those are the main ones in the choir. Some of them are in band, orchestra or guard (Miles is in band, Maya is in guard and Kristoph is in orchestra)

The teachers would be, yk, the usuals. Idk Von Karma can be the principal. Lana is the orchestra director, Mia is the choir director and Diego is the band director. Idk, Ray and Justine are still there too. Raymond is baritone and Justine is an alto.

MIA AND LANA ARE OBVIOUS ALTOS. DIEGO IS ALSO AN OBVIOUS BASS.

[peoplesprincessgeorge]

You guys know that families of F1 drivers are gonna have social media even if they don't have an account, right? Like they can still see the content. I'm all for keeping fans and athletes seperate but that shit has long sailed. They know, their families know, their friends know and their team knows.

[blue-lollipops-and-ice-clouds]

(Source - the amazing Vore_11 once more)