#it's so so silly and the overacting is so joyful.

[icarus-n-flames]

So I’ve had this idea for a fanfic that 100% happened because I was scrolling on TikTok and the video I will link below popped up. At first I was very much “eh not the target audience because it’s not relevant to me” BUT THEN I REALIZED THAT CHARLES IS THOUGH. So I immediately scrolled back to watch it and take notes for his sake.

Anyway the fic would happen just the same; Charles is bored, possibly scrolling on a phone Crystal provided them using like a stylus or whatever. (Trust me when I tell you I doubt ghosts could touch an iPhone screen even if they focus really hard because I have seen alive people unable to touch on a touch screen) So then much like me he comes across that TikTok and for a moment he’s like swiping cuz eh not his thing, but it sticks in his brain all of a sudden. “I’m going to tell you the easiest way to tell if you have platonic or romantic feelings for someone” and, well, now he’s curious because hell is coming to mind and he hasn’t been able puzzle out exactly what Edwin is to him even in the last year or two.

He watches, attention rapt and potentially more studious than he has been his whole life. Charles has a moment where he considers how silly this is. They’re dead, it’s not like they’re able to get married. Right? Then he thinks about it and honestly, Edwin is old fashioned so maybe he’d want to and marriage isn’t always just a mortal thing he supposed…and there are other ghosts and beings that might steal Edwin’s heart. He does as she says, his overactive imagination sending him in a tailspin because he first imagines Edwin marrying Monty but it just doesn’t really feel right. Then he imagines cat king and the feeling that causes him makes him very quickly decided NO. One more try but honestly he’s in the bargaining stage of denial. He starts to wonder if maybe he just has a bit of internalized homophobia or something. Yeh totally…but then he thinks about it more and he thinks about Edwin confessing to someone at the alter with a blissful, happy expression and not one marred with fear. He sees his eyes shining with joyful, shed tears and when his voice catches it’s just not the same. He’s giving his heart to someone on the happiest day of his afterlife and promising them eternity in a safe, beautiful place and if Charles had any insides they’d be twisting themselves in knots.

….. and well that’s where I’ll stop for now. I’m still trying to find their voices so hey if anyone wants to wholesale yoink this idea pls just link me the fic cuz boy I need it now.

[lupizora]

Phantom Scars

Of all the fics I wanted to post as my first in this fandom, this little character study was an unexpected last-minute addition. Tbh it's more of a headcanon I developed while watching the series because I still can't get over how often Touma loses his arm and it just grows back, no problem! Also, after finishing it the other day, NT Volume 22R owns my entire heart. So, the aftermath we didn't get to see managed to sneak in there at the end haha.

Genre: Angst

Pairing: None

Rating: T 

Word Count: 1116

Summary: People tend to forget that because you can't see the physical evidence of a wound, it doesn't mean there isn't any emotional scarring left behind.

Misfortune.

Bad luck.

Curse.

Kamijou Touma had called many things the ability receding in his right arm during the half-year worth of memories he had. Sometimes he wondered if the person he had been before losing his memories had used different words or had different emotions. His heart refused those thoughts when all sorts of calamities occurred to him every other day.

Not everything related to Imagine Breaker was unlucky. It had also assisted him in saving a lot of people from their personal tragedies, even the entire world once or twice too. He couldn’t renounce or deny it for existing. It remained a part of him, literally and figuratively, whether he wanted it or not.

But there was one thing Touma wished to be different—the fact his right fist didn’t leave any proof behind. Neither of his feats in the battlefield’s aftermath, neither any marks on his body. He had been hurt in his many misadventures or assignments; broken bones, bleeding guts, even losing his entire arm a bunch of times. Thanks to Academy City’s superior doctors, there were no consequences or evidence left behind to prove it all. The only saving grace he had been allowed in this life.

And yet, late at night, when the freeloaders in his dorm were sound asleep, he’d look in the mirror and wonder: Was any of it real?

In less than half a year, Touma had faced against desperate Magicians and power-hungry Espers alike. He had been present when worldwide organizations clashed to the point of wars. He had seen the world disappear in a flash of light and return in a clap of thunder. But he carried no scars to speak off these events. As if they were nothing more than elaborative daydreams, figments of a teenager’s overactive imagination. Recognition wasn’t the goal or the end destination. It would probably bring even more trouble than his ten minutes of glory would accomplish. 

He just wanted his sanity to latch onto something tangible. Having nothing to prove his claims, how was he certain it ever happened?

Memories could be finicky things. Touma knew that more than anyone, being a certified amnesiac and all. So, unless he stuck his head into an MRI scanner, none would ever notice the damaged neurons crisscrossing like fried computer circuits over the soft tissue that mapped his brain. Touma had made sure the people closest to him wouldn’t. After all, he wasn’t some kind of kintsugi pottery for others to put on display. Just an ordinary high school boy—one everyone could find anywhere in Japan—with an unusual right hand.

Touma opened his eyes to several people standing in a circle around him. Friends, acquaintances, former adversaries turned allies; all were sharing similarly concerned expressions. It didn’t stop them from resting their hands in their preferred weapons. As if they were still wary of an attack. No one could blame them; he certainly didn’t. Every person in this room had survived a war, only to get roped into another—so soon and so suddenly—that most were still unaware why it transpired in the first place. They all looked worse for wear, even those that had been on the offensive.

The destruction he and the other had caused in the ballroom flashed before Touma’s eyes. Taking into account only the fights he’d been part of in this skirmish, the damage to the surrounding area was leagues away from his meager budget.

I really hope they don’t make me pay for all this. But then again, my misfortune is— He stopped. His right hand returning to him meant it would restart canceling his good fortune. Instead of dread settling on him like a wet blanket, Touma was joyful. Yeah, my luck is so bad, it might as well happen.

Everyone continued to stare; the tension so thick, someone could cut it with a butter knife.

“What’s with this gloomy atmosphere?” Touma asked with an awkward smile. “If my heart wasn’t beating so loudly, I’d think this is my funeral.”

No one laughed at this poor attempt of a joke. But several shoulders relaxed, and some breathed out a sigh of relief.

“So, it’s safe to assume you’re back to normal?”

“Yup.” Touma clenched his fist. “Everything is here, human skin and all.”

“Wait! These wounds!” Index forced his fingers open again. Cracks painted thunder shapes from the base of his fingernails to his wrist. They didn’t hurt, so he hadn’t paid them much attention. But the silver-haired girl, gripping at his arm like a lifeline, had tears in her emerald eyes. “We can’t heal them now. They are going to scar!”

Maybe the blood loss was responsible, but Touma’s heart felt lighter. If only for a moment, another wish he may have willed into existence had come true. Unlike the one he had just laid to rest; this wasn’t a weight that would bother anyone.

Still, something compelled him to reassure the sobbing girl in front of him. “Don’t be silly, Index. It’s gonna be alright,” Touma said. “This is nothing a couple of bandages can’t fix. And it just so happens I know someone—”

Another girl, the one whose appearance he could never recall, entered his thoughts like a bullet train. Touma turned his head. Those near the ballroom’s busted entrance noticed his expression and stepped aside to clear the view. No one had collapsed in a pool of their own blood there.

“She is safe. The Royal Nurses accompanied her to the hospital.”

“That’s—” His knees buckled— “great.”

Letting go of Index’s hand, Touma collapsed to the floor under their collective cries. Everyone took a step forward, but there was no need to worry. Somehow, he had managed to land in the least damaged area with no glass or wood shards around. It seemed like Lady Luck was smiling his way for a little longer.

Touma waved wobbly to reassure them. “It’s fine,” he said. “I just need to lie down for a moment.”

“But! You should see the doctor too,” Index whimpered. “We need to get you to a normal bed.”

“I don’t want to.” Stretching against the carpet, Touma settled into a comfier position that didn’t pull at his wounds. “That’s too much trouble for Mr. Kamijou right now.”

“Really…” Index’s puffy fairytale dress rustled as she kneeled next to him. “You’re are so immature sometimes.”

“Pot,” he mumbled. “Kettle.”

Index didn’t try to bite off his head. Maybe she didn’t pick on the taunt. Maybe it was pity or even mercy. Whatever it was, Touma didn’t care as he drifted into a well-deserved rest. Such a peaceful moment had been a long time coming, after all.

[londontheatre]

“How the [expletive] hell do you review that?” a fellow audience member asked as we made our way out of the New Wimbledon Theatre. Previous productions of Spamalot have been reviewed before, of course, but I found her comment strangely comforting, given the anarchic nature of the evening’s proceedings, in which it became difficult, particularly in the second half, to tell what was scripted, what was improvised humour, and what was simply unintended humour that a closely-knit cast went along with and made the most of.

I do not consider myself a fan of the Monty Python series, and so do not approach this show with rose-tinted glasses. I have seen this show before, however, and my previous encounters with Spamalot have both been in the same venue as this touring production. At the end of May 2010 I attended a production starring Marcus Brigstocke, the comedian and satirist, and Jodie Prenger, who had won a BBC Television series to cast someone to play Nancy in a West End revival of Oliver!. Just over a year later, Phill Jupitus starred as King Arthur.

Here, in 2017, Bob Harms performs the lead role with considerable aplomb, though the powerhouse vocals are the preserve of the Lady of the Lake (Sarah Harlington). She growls a tad too much for my liking, overdoing it, but then Spamalot as a whole is a bit overdone. Take, for instance, ‘I’m All Alone’, a late number in Act Two, where the point about King Arthur having psychological it’s-lonely-at-the-top feelings despite being physically surrounded by the knights of the round table and his trusty assistant Patsy (Rhys Owen) is hammered home until the punchline is in danger of outlasting its welcome.

It is, for the most part, very silly, and as ever, the Python humour doesn’t suit everyone. It works well on stage, fully embracing the concept of theatre as a form of escapism. Yes, I am thinking especially of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’. The choreography (Ashley Nottingham) suits the silliness brilliantly, with occasional solo flourishes that left the audience audibly gasping – in a good way, I hasten to add. In its elaborate putdowns, the script (Eric Idle) demonstrates imaginative vocabulary. On the other hand, the show feels somewhat smug and, taken at face value, the show’s conclusion as various storylines are resolved in order to serve up a happy and joyful musical theatre ending is not wholly convincing.

But I doth protest too much. If the narrative elements of Monty Python and the Holy Grail are all crammed in to this show – horse riders with no visible horse, the Knights Who Say ‘Ni!’, the ever-defiant Black Knight, and so on – there is some originality in the musical numbers, with much to be enjoyed in the satirical number ‘The Song That Goes Like This’. It’s both a tribute and a parody of the sort of majestic love songs found in Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals that require performers to “overact like hell”.

[See image gallery at http://ift.tt/1FpwFUw]

There are topical references too, which I could attempt to list, but this would, I think, prove too much of a spoiler. Suffice to say that there is a determined effort to include some current affairs in the narrative, in a manner bettered only by seasonal pantos. All things considered, it’s great fun: short and sharp and entertaining.

Review by Chris Omaweng

Funnier than the black death! Lovingly ripped off from the hugely successful 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Spamalot is a riotous comedy full of misfit knights, killer rabbits, dancing nuns and ferocious Frenchmen. Join King Arthur as he travels with his hapless Knights of the Round Table on a divine mission to locate the illusive Holy Grail – with uproarious consequences.

Winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best New Musical the hilarious Spamalot was written by Python legend Eric Idle, with a fantastic score co-written by John DuPrez including Always Look On The Bright Side of Life.

Produced by the award winning Selladoor Productions – producers of Footloose, American Idiot, Avenue Q and Little Shop of Horrors and Mercury Theatre Colchester, this brand new UK tour of Spamalot will have audiences rolling in the aisles.

Spamalot New Wimbledon Theatre Booking to 25th November 2017

http://ift.tt/2hWjuZz London Theatre 1