#my favorite musical ever!

[thehumanwiki]

I’m not going to be normal about this movie in the slightest :D

Wicked (2024) dir. Jon M. Chu

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

when the first thing your long lost husband does with his son is brutally murder over 100 people

it’s gonna take a while to clean up

[tuba-david]

Odysseus in Just A Man: how could i hurt you?

Odysseus in Monster:

[tomatoart]

coffee cheetos chicken

[rubywingsracing]

I present to you my most ambitious project yet:

I love yall the mostest so you get it firstest 🥰

[ricky-mortis]

I heard that Corey Dorris sang Show Stopping Number at Innit- so I present: Corey!Hidgens

[guest-1-2-3]

when the piece of media explores themes of humanity versus monstrosity. on one hand, it’s “how far can I go before I am just as monstrous as those I deem my enemies? the further i go the more certain i am that i’ve crossed a line. am I even human anymore?” and on the other hand it’s “was the monster always a monster? what makes it evil, what makes it inhuman? what has it done that i fear it?”

in both cases it is “i am looking at the creature I am fighting and i see a mirror of myself. was i always this way? was it always this way?”

[jooyeonsblr]

iNSTEAD! ༒︎ jooyeon

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

hey rags! idk if anyone’s actually asked this yet but what kind of music do u listen to :3? (angel anon)

"Now I wish the circus had my walkman... I knew quite a lot of good songs!"

[purple-raspberries]

HAHAHAHAA!!! Finally! The piece inspired by “Entomologist” by GHOST

Unglitched text and textless versions underneath ⬇️⬇️

[raspbrrytea]

Mr. Hozier :)

3 hrs. Reference under cut

source: https://youtu.be/_b9SwnSqQz4?feature=shared

[huntseric]

I am the Prophet, with the answers you seek.

[elguritch-art]

My crops are flourishing, my skin is clear, my sight is enhanced, life is great, all thanks to playing one very very tired vampire cowboy who's not being paid at all to put up with bullshit weekly ❤️🥰

Virgil Lawrence | He/Him | 212 Years Old | Ex-Sabbat Brujah Vampire

Session/Image Context below:

Mans got Blood Bonded to a really powerful Tzimisce and got forced piercings by their fleshcrafting as part of a community service deal. He wanted to kill them soooooo bad.

babysitting duty for the baby sabbat brujah so she doesnt attack another party member :/

dude hes not being paid enough or at all to deal with another party member's toxic ex that keeps firebombing the coterie’s domains

At least he gets to go to daysleep with his horse for company, shit sucks in boston right now

[rin-solo]

I love. LOVE. Get In the Water

It's one of the objectively best songs in the musical; I will die on this hill.

Poseidon was always, despite being pretty much the main antagonist of EPIC, a really underdeveloped character in my opinion. He just needed a little more nuance and the fact that one (+ kind of one more) song managed to add so much to his characterization pretty much exclusively through subtext and implications is incredibly impressive writing. Because it did!

At the start he's yet again playing games with Odysseus, the way he did in Ruthlessness. In both songs he could kill him easily at any point, yet he chooses not to for the sake of playing games. In Ruthlessness, this becomes his own hubris as it leads to Odysseus escaping.

If you listen closely, at the start of GITW he already sounds slightly different. He's still trying to keep up this "God of Ruthlessness" front that he's so proud of, but he's no longer more or less carefree the way he was in Ruthlessness. He's been obsessing over this feud for ten years, and even if he would never admit it, it's actually clear just from his voice that he really is tired of it too. Not in the sense of it emotionally draining him the way it probably does Odysseus, but in the sense that it's a bother, a loose end in his life, a book that he finally wants to slam shut.

But he still has a reputation to uphold, and he still cannot close this book until Odysseus is dead, so he keeps up the game. Instead of just killing him, he's taunting him to kill himself. He might associate the idea of just striking him down with a sort of loss, like then he'd have to his hands dirty. Then he's rambling about killing his people, his family. He's provoking Odysseus on purpose, likely trying to get him to snap back, to hate him and fear him the way that Poseidon would think any mortal who has consumed this much of his time should. In his eyes, Odysseus deserves nothing less than to curse him with his last breath as his "darkest moment", the god who became the bane of his life.

And Odysseus replies, of all things, with ... sympathy.

Honestly, I don't blame Poseidon for being speechless for three full seconds. He literally just threatened to gauge Telemachus' eyes out the way Odysseus did with Polyphemus, and this absolute madlad of a man replies with an acknowledgement that he (might have) caused Poseidon pain too.

Now, I don't really think Poseidon was particularly hurt over Polyphemus' loss or hurting in any way in that moment. But just the fact that Odysseus acknowledges that he might be hurting too is probably something Poseidon hasn't heard in ... who knows how long? His family is the Olympians. I don't think I have to say more.

It's actually more of a genuine apology than Odysseus' explanation in Ruthlessness ... Now he doesn't say "sorry" because he's still not sorry for hurting Polyphemus, since he still needed to do that in order to escape. But he expresses regret over the pain he caused in a more genuine way than ever.

I am convinced that Poseidon is utterly unfamiliar with sympathy or mercy. He's lived by his "Ruthlessness is mercy" motto for centuries, and he doesn't know anything else. No one would try to teach him something different. The other gods all live by this logic, even if he's the most vocal about it considering he seems to have made it his whole personality. Mortals wouldn't dare to question Poseidon in the first place. And barely anyone would be willing to treat someone with kindness who is in turn treating everyone around them with ruthlessness.

It's very likely that Poseidon hasn't encountered anyone like this until Odysseus. Ruthlessness is simply how he treats people, and also how he expects to be treated back. The fact that Odysseus doesn't, the fact that instead of hating or fearing or cursing him he acknowledges that they have both hurt each other and that it doesn't lead anywhere to still pursue vengeance must have triggered Poseidon in an unprecedented way.

To him, this was probably the most outrageous thing Odysseus could have said in that moment. And it throws him off so much that he is genuinely speechless, and then simply replies, "I can't." ... his most genuine-sounding line in the whole musical.

I cannot stress enough how much it threw me off to hear this line; in the best way imaginable, it doesn't sound like Poseidon. It sounds almost vulnerable. Almost human. Because he is genuinely at a loss so much that he forgets to put up his "wrathful god" facade for just one second. Standing ovation to Steven Rodriguez for his whole performance, but especially this part.

And then Odysseus goes all out, to say something even more outrageous: "Maybe you could learn to forgive?"

... Which is when Poseidon snaps.

Kind of understandable, honestly. There's this mortal whom he has likely fantasized about seeing pleading, hate-filled, and terrified, cowering before him, for ten years now ... telling him that he ought to learn something. Even hijacking his own motif and his instrument in order to turn it on its head, "defile" it if you will.

This f*cking mortal pr*ck took his own "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" catchphrase and turned it into forgiveness ... Of course, Poseidon is no longer hesitating, of course he is no longer concerned with getting his hands dirty or not. He yells "DIE!" and unleashes his ultimate move (which is really overkill for simply killing a mortal if you think about it) ... But he does it anyway because this time he genuinely means it.

This simple exchange (my favorite moment in the whole musical, actually) tells us so much about both of these characters that it makes me want to skitter and squeal in excitement.

Here is Odysseus—the very same one whom Poseidon specifically tried to teach ruthlessness—becoming the first person in a long time to offer him sympathy despite how Poseidon himself showed him nothing but ruthlessness. And then one song later, here is Odysseus showing him the consequences of not accepting said sympathy.

Six Hundred Strike and what Odysseus does to Poseidon would've not hit the same, in my opinion, if he hadn't made this offer, if he hadn't given Poseidon this way out, even if no one watching genuinely expected it to work (probably not even Odysseus himself.)

Six Hundred Strike is not Odysseus exacting vengeance. If GITW proved anything about Odysseus it's that he does not want vengeance. He wants all of the hatred and pain to be over, to the point where he is willing to let go of, and I am inclined to say forgive, Poseidon for what he's done to him. Six Hundred Strike is simply Odysseus teaching him this lesson that Poseidon couldn't have learned in any other way, because he has proven in GITW that he genuinely does not speak any language besides that of ruthlessness.

It's just the perfect representation of how Odysseus has now finally learned the balance between mercy and ruthlessness, which seems to be the core theme of the musical: Both have their time and place, one simply has to be willing to act in both ways and know when to use either. No one extreme is the solution. I am genuinely exhilarated that Odysseus finally seemed to have figured out that it's been both all along.

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice in Chains

[hysterical-cats]

hello gongeous