#plains of ashford

[thescreenshotblog]

[charrior-of-ash]

Yahuk Thornheart in the Abbey Ruins, Plains of Ashford

(no worries, I will answer your asks for the challenge, just trying to find a moment to think about it ._.)

[charrior-of-ash]

haha, you are a professional paparazzo xD thanks!

was great to finally meet you! if you ever ever need help or company, you know whom to call :D

Met a cool Charr today, while leveling up a new OC.

Was nice to see you around @charrior-of-ash and your very handsome Man Yahuk ♥ ;v;

[downthetubes]

In Memoriam: Comics Writer and Editor Richard Ashford

Richard Ashford, who has died at the age of 70, was one of the unsung heroes of the British comics industry. Alan Woollcombe pays tribute

[measuredandslow]

Forgot to post this one! I don’t like the stripes, but you can’t win them all 😂

[achromant]

AND HERE WE ARE! My project for the gw2 'zine!

Featuring Baruhn, reflecting on his life so far, the challenges, the small sparks of joy, the horrors, loss and gain.

For clarification's sake; I did in fact plan to depict every stage of Baruhn's life, but uuh. File was already too big.

Might do a series of short comics (graphic novels?) though, because i fking love storytelling.

Let's look at my idiotic level of detail a bit, eh?

[Long Text Ahead]

Baruhn's story begins in the Plains of Ashford. An unsuccessful attempt to stem the tide of Ascalonian Ghosts leads to the demise of many year-long allies. Dozens of brave soldiers gave their life for a mere week of peace until the ghosts reformed. They always do. Soldiers don't.

Shaken in his faith in the Legions, the first seeds of doubt arise.

Until finally he found someone to trust with his pain. In a tavern at the edge of the Black Citadel, he gets to know this odd fellow, who is continuosly follow by the faint smell of sulfur. Although Baruhn knew where that path led, the warmth radiating from the old veteran in front of him was not only a physical, but an emotional one.

With the Three Legions busy with their internal quarrels, fighting over an empty promise, Baruhn took the first steps down a previously thought to be dark path.

Surprisingly, die Flame Legion was welcoming, their fires offered light and guidance, the embers igniting the skies like stars. Surely this was better than the cold metal over the Black Citadel.

Baruhn took to learning first, handling the small flames with ease after years of throwing fireballs at ghostly shapes. Then, he figured out how to teach, and that is where the real magic comes from. Nurturing a flame, protecting it from harsh winds, adding a bit of kindling and coal here and there. He even taught the more elusive ways of magic that wield smoke and ash.

Baruhn knew about the war, the countless lifes lost on the other side of the fence. But those were humans, and here he was among family.

That is, until he met Molly.

After a small recon mission that was assured not to be much of a hurdle, Baruhn found himself alone in a forest. The small fires he conjured for light and warmth only drew in the nearby villagers. Those with pitchforks and torches, with crude swords and a thirst for blood. He couldn't really bring himself to hate them, this was war after all. But at what cost are these battles to be won?

Trying to escape the villagers was a futile attempt. He sank to the ground, his own hot blood dousing the little flames beneath his weary head.

For some reason - maybe hope, maybe resignation - he forced open his heavy eyes, only to discover his wounds cleaned and bandaged with fragile white cloth. A small human girl, of all things in this damned forest, tried to help. Even in his weakened state, even with just one hand, Baruhn could have easily grabbed her and cracked her skull. But the only thing he did was listen. He listened to the ramblings of the small human, going on and on about faries made of leaves and gnomes of stone. She called him "bear".

When the villagers came, they saw the girl at his side. That was all it took for them to turn on her. She was to be executed like that beast that now slowly stepped in front of her. For the first time, Baruhn spoke to the girl. "close your eyes."

Fire roared, not red, not orange. not a warm, welcoming fire. Not one that belongs in a hearth, that thrives in the arms of a family. This was so much worse. This was years of inner conflict, of doubt, of closing his eyes on the other side of the fence. For the first time in his life, this was the only thing that he wanted to do, protect the little insignificant human behind him. Fire roared, and it burned wood and it burned flesh.

Baruhn picked up the little girl, she held tight to his horns, nestled in his mane. He ran for hours, years of military training finally useful. The little girl, Molly, lost her mother years ago. She burned in the fires of a war she tried to escape. "And your father? What about your family?", he asked between deep breaths. Molly was quiet for a while, then whispered, her voice barely audible, "My father burned today."

They stayed together, for quite a while. He protected her, and she, with her head full of stories, and a book full of dreams, protected him.

Things came, things went. Baruhn rejoined the High Legions, acting as a spy for Ash, keeping an eye on Iron and Blood.

Baruhn ultimately took on his role as Novice, then Archivist, then Commander. He helped during the struggles against Scarlet. A small flame here and there, some shrouding smoke, a well timed lightning strike. It was other people that finally defeated Scarlet, but he was always in the background, with all the small things at just the right time.

Mordremoth came, but with him new allies.

It was but a small tangent in the grand scheme of things. Watching the fragile sapling while waging war on the jungle itself.

Their relation was something more than friendship, something else than love. They were there for each other when they needed to be. Be it only to keep a flame burning or to banish the voices to the back of the head again, they walked the same path for a long time.

Tarir, the Egg. Aurene. A new flame entrusted to him, his to nurture, his to raise. A gamble, again. What if that little flame would some day devour the world? But Baruhn did, what he could do best. Teach.

Darker times came. Caudecus and the White Mantle. The raid on the Mursaat's prison. Then facing the last Mursaat himself.

Balthazar came, and in his wake a new kind of fire. A war, similar to the ones Baruhn had seen before, but still different. A war without a cause, war for war's sake. War against nature, against the world, like a child lashing out when there were none to help them up. Maybe Balthazar's flames were not too different from his.

After the festering swamp that Joko was, came the mountain, Kralkatorrik. Death was not a hindrance anymore, not for the Commander and his dragon. The story went as the story goes.

When it came to face the frost, the whispers, Jormag. Everything fell apart. Jormag pried into the deepest, darkest corners of Baruhn's life, dragged every doubt, small as it may have been, into the light. In the ice, every truth was warped, encased in whispers, in lies. It suffocated any hope and planted even darker seeds than anyone thought possible.

It was the spirit of the Raven that aided Baruhn. Even the black feathers of its wings were shimmering like rainbows in the moonlight.

A small piece stayed with him, just a fragment. Nevermore.

After that, the stars themselves. Astralaria.

So many stories that make a life, so many pieces. Every encounter, every step along the way is another fragment of the whole. People are made of other people, that is what it means to be alive.

[alaynestcnes]

joffrey and jon anti parallels makes me crazy in relation to jonsa : joffrey = king/prince who's secretly a bastard, jon = a bastard who's secretly a prince heir.

both have Uncle/dads(joffrey is literal😭) wrapped in secrecy plots, joffrey knows who his mother is jon does not. they both THINK they know who their father is but its false.

jon has close and complicated ties with his siblings/family, joffrey has complicated but distant almost non existent ties with his family.

Sansa dreams of marrying joffrey the "rightful dragon heir" at the beginning only to hate him and sansa doesn't think much of Jon earlier only later in the books does it hint at them getting closer

looking at all of this its impossible for me to think grrm wouldn't pull an irony stunt with jonsa, considering the ashford theory and them having reversal roles in sansa's beginning and end plot points

the joff/jon anti parallels are so special. like i will die on the hill that grrm is one of the great literary geniuses of our time because of the way he interlaces storylines, plays into stereotypes to subvert them, mirrors and plays with themes between all his characters. you could dedicate your life to analysing them (and people have) and still always have new things to discover and discuss.

the ‘prince who is really a bastard’ vs ‘bastard that is really a prince’ parallel is fun on its own. but when you add an extra lens of both their (real and potential) relationships with sansa it’s enough to make me feral.

i think it’s interesting how grrm really reinforces the joff/jon contrast (and positions sansa as a nexus within this contrast) when they both (essentially) deliver her a head. joff, her perfect fairytale prince, gives her her father’s head. jon, the prince hidden in plain sight, beheads janos slynt and answers her prayers. though this isn’t known to either of them, it’s an interesting connection that i find hard to believe was coincidental by grrm. the head joff gave her fractured her dreams and belief in songs/hope. maybe when she learns about the head jon (inadvertently) gave her, it will contrast again with joff, by reigniting a sense of hope and love….

it would be such a compelling way to bookend sansa’s romantic experience.

[ratasum]

Once upon a time, an awkward, naive, sheltered teenage asura made her way into the Plains of Ashford. Nothing's been the same in her life since.

(Qirri baby pics made possible by cheap ass starter gear, 250 transmutes, and selling a leggy to buy the perma hair kit.)

[vampiricsheep]

Poll 1 Results are in!

when accounting for level-based votes, low-level maguuma tied with orr, closely followed by low-level ascalon. Here are the map finalists; after this poll completes, I will chart a path for the winning option. If there are additional ties, I will make the tiebreaker decision.

For the sake of timeliness, this poll closes in 24 hours!

One more thing to keep in mind - the tour will take place on a Saturday afternoon or evening, so if you know you absolutely cannot attend, please refrain from voting to avoid skewing data. If I host another tour at a more amenable time, I'll do another poll for it!

[geddy-leesbian]

hey look it's all my Serrennedy fic (note that I did not come up with tags for the AU's until making this post, meaning I have to go back to retroactively tag the posts I've made, which is going to take a while because tumblr's search is hot garbage.)

and also due to tumblr's search being garbage, searching my blog for my tags won't give you shit, but if you click to search all of tumblr instead, every post will show up. idk man, that's just how it is.

RE2 AU

started as a one-shot and then spiraled into a whole RE2 AU. the only thing I've written where things pretty much go right for them 💖 Leon isn't a government agent, Luis is a stay at home dad, and Claire and Luis lovingly bully Leon together.

tag: 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒. 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆.

How Do You Talk To Girls? (2/3 chapters posted)

❝Don Juan, eh? Always thought of myself as more of a Don Quixote, but if the shoe fits… How about we try some practice anyway? I can talk to you like I'd talk to a girl, give you a first-hand demonstration.❞ OR Leon tries to learn how to pick up women from Luis, and instead has a bisexual awakening and picks up Luis. Task Failed Successfully.

“𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒂𝒏𝒈 𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝑰𝒎𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒖𝒅” (unpublished WIP)

Claire and Luis are getting married.

Something A Little More Plain

Not in the same continuity as the other two fics, but it is an RE2 AU, so I'm putting it here. Just really soft Luis being a dad to twins content. The only thing I've written about them that is just fluff and no angst.

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

Signals // Childhood Friend AU

playlist

tag: 【𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖽𝗈 𝗂𝗍𝗌 𝗁𝖾𝖺𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀. 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙫𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙜𝙤.】

𝑇𝘩𝜀 𝛥𝜋𝛼𝑙���𝑔 𝐾𝜄𝜕 (1988)

you move me, you move me. with your buildings and your eyes, autumn woods and winter skies. you call me, you call me.

»»————-💙————-««

somewhere out of a memory, of lighted streets on quiet nights… (1988)

»»————-💙————-««

ΠⴹⰞ Ⱎ⎕ᒥᒪᗪ ᎷᗅΠ (1988-2004)

he's old enough to know what’s right, but young enough not to choose it.

»»————-💙————-««

Digital Man // Open Secrets (2004) (1/? chapters posted)

Well I guess we all have these feelings we can’t leave unreconciled. Some of them burned on our ceilings, some of them learned as a child.

The things that we’re concealing will never let us grow. Time will do its healing, you’ve got to let it go.

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

BU2B (aka Leon Fucking Dies)

(2/3 chapters posted)

❝That Agent Kennedy is proving to be quite a thorn in my side, much like you. I need him to live long enough for him to appreciate his gift and go home and begin to spread it to the rest of the world, but he's starting to cause a little too much trouble. But still, it would be a shame to have to kill him. Such a 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 it would be. If only there was some distraction to keep him occupied and out of trouble… You 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 him, don't you?❞ ❝This isn't about him. Say whatever you want about 𝘮𝘦, but keep 𝘩𝘪𝘴 name out of your mouth.❞ ❝But you'll want to hear this: He's quite fond of you too. He doesn't want to admit it, but I've been in his head. He likes it when you tease him. He 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘴 you. You could send him on wild goose chases over and over, and he'd just keep following you, until time ran out.❞

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

𝐌𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫 (𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒓𝒆)

My very first Serrennedy fic,,, someday there will be a second chapter, but I have zero idea of when because I've been fighting demons tbh (by demons I mean various rough drafts because I can't figure out what the fuck to do with it. The ideas are there,,,,, but the execution is not 🫠)

Luis thinks he's a shitty person. Leon disagrees.

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

Other random stuff kicking around in my drafts (and feel free to ask about any of these because I love talking about them):

AU where Luis sabotages the Nemesis Project, gets caught, and sent to Rockfort Island.

Alfred Ashford notices that Luis was a child prodigy and thinks that's neat because he's a weirdo and Alexia was a child prodigy. So instead of being executed, Luis is forced to be his friend until Alexia wakes up from her cryo stasis thing. (And being his friend is not a good time, because he's a weirdo and threatens to get his sniper rifle and hunt down Luis for sport a lot.) Luis gets out when Claire does, and goes back to Valdelobos after to hide from Umbrella, meaning RE4 will still happen, although slightly different. Luis is much colder and very hesitant to help Leon, because trying to do the right thing previously got him sent to a concentration camp.

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

DON'T WALK AWAY

Songfic. While Leon and Ashley are waiting on a helicopter to come pick them up post-RE4, Luis tries to quietly slip away, because he thinks he's a shitty person who doesn't deserve to have Leon. Leon notices him trying to leave and says fuck that and argues with him, insisting that he will come with Leon.

❘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘🖤⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘❘

Don't have a title yet, but a little thing where Leon gets a call from Chris right after he gets back from Spain. Chris says the BSAA has been conducting their own investigation into what happened, and they found someone ex-Umbrella they had been trying to track down for years severely injured, but alive while searching the place, who claims to know Leon and that Leon would vouch that he's a good person now.

[truthandshadow]

Once exams are over I really want to try out the big inkle loom I got secondhand last year. I haven’t done anything with it because of school, but I really want to figure out the max weaving length on that loom because the seller didn’t know.

But. I find plain weave kind of boring and I don’t want to spend ages on a boring pattern. On the other hand if I do a more complex pattern it’ll take even longer to weave.

I always think those huge inkle floor looms are super cool in theory and they really expand the possibilities of what you can make with the resulting band, but I’d never want to use one because I wouldn’t want to work on the same pattern for so long.

My Ashford Inklette isn’t great for card weaving but I love it for inkle weaving because it’s so small and light. I typically use it sitting on my bed because it slides around on my desk without a pot gripper underneath.

[thescreenshotblog]

[konig-varorson]

Lost “Lore”: Creature Codex

Back during Guild Wars 2′s Beta Weekend Events in 2012, there was a system that would unfortunately get removed. One that players have since asked for time and time again. It was actually nicely implemented too, however, it had some major flaws.

The Creature Codex.

These were books bought from various NPCs throughout the game that talked about various factions and world bosses. In the betas, we only got to see those found in Queensdale, Wayfarer, and Plains of Ashford.

When used, you’d open up a brief cinematic that would cycle through three paragraphs and show off a model of the faction (or the world boss) in question, giving players a blurb text about the subject.

It wasn’t super fancy, but from what text was able to be recovered by players, it did add some stuff that is unique - for example, did you know that there are male harpies? I didn’t. For a few years, I had theorized that they mated with other races to reproduce as an all-female race, similar to asari from Mass Effect, since we see multiple events of harpies “flirting” with grawl, asura, and others.

One of the major failing factors was that each book of the creature codex, when used for the first time, would give the character a skill point (predecessor of the current hero point, which were given every time you leveled up or completed a skill challenge - now hero challenge). This made getting skill points obscenely easy, because codex books could also be put into the bank’s storage section (just like miniatures back in the day). This meant that you could find all the codexes on one character, open them, bank them, swap characters, and pull them from banks to get all those free easy skill points.

If memory serves me right, these skill points also served as skill challenges, meaning that it was instant progress on map completion as well.

I’m sure that’s not the only (or main) reason they were cut down. ArenaNet is very big on making features look pretty and function uniquely and well, so it’s possible these were cut because of how basic the cinematics look - a simple background, a model, and text that you can’t control isn’t very much to look at.

Still, here’s hoping that one day ArenaNet will make a proper codex function for all the Points of Interest, factions, species, and major characters out there.

[wilsons-journey]

Shoutout (and reminder to myself):

Talk more to NPCs.

Some highlights from Smokestead (Plains of Ashford.)

"Or kill something"

We talked about the "cute" game "Kill or get killed

It's such a wild bunch of Charr Cubs. I love them. But there is also this cute lil guy:

Kirt needs to be protected at any cost.

The Thwack-Warband, I remember someone else on Tumblr mentioned that. Still funny.

Wait, lemme write that down. Meat. Meat and ah yes Meat.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

My thoughts on Broadway's "Sweeney Todd"

A few days ago, my friend and I saw Sweeney Todd on Broadway, and I have a lot of thoughts about the production. I've been obsessed with this musical for years and have seen quite a few performances, so here's what I thought of this one.

Right away, it was amazing. The lighting added a lot to this production, and while the way the set was constructed was a bit unconventional (usually, there's a separate area of the stage sectioned off for the pie shop so two scenes can happen at once, but in this one, they had a bridge over the stage that some scenes took place on), I thought it was still effective. The orchestral arrangement was an interesting change (and even sounded like Shostakovich or Weill at times!), although I was disappointed to not hear the iconic factory whistle in the opening.

So, the acting. I'll go through each character/actor and what I thought of their performance, and how it impacted the overall show. "Sweeney Todd" is a play where every single action or bit of dialogue is important and culminates towards the conclusion, and so the way the characters are interpreted often offers a different angle on the play as a whole.

Josh Groban did an excellent job as Sweeney Todd, and I really appreciated that, since his voice is very melodic, he didn't try to replicate Len Cairou or George Hearn. Sweeney is a very complex character, and I've noticed that most actors who play him take on a different angle of his personality to focus on. Cairou focuses on the pensive, methodical side of the character, Hearn's Sweeney emphasizes madness and rage, and while I'm not a huge fan of Johnny Depp's performance in the movie adaptation, his Sweeney Todd focuses more on his melancholy side. Groban's Sweeney, by contrast, is sentimental. We see him express rage and impatience, two core aspects of Sweeney Todd, but where he's most effective are numbers like the "Johanna" reprise and "No Place Like London/The Barber and his Wife." Sentimentality isn't an emotion typically associated with the character of Sweeney Todd, but Groban's performance hammered in how critical it is to his character. After all, Sweeney Todd is haunted and motivated by his past- his love for his wife and daughter, and his hatred of the judge who tore them from him. This even allows for moments of tenderness- for example, during the "Johanna" reprise, Sweeney spares a man who comes into his barber shop, because he came with his wife. While this could be explained by him not wanting any witnesses, Groban's performance made this moment (forgive the pun) surprisingly cutting. Sweeney is hoping to be reunited with his daughter and is reminiscing about Lucy, and so the man who earlier declared that "we all deserve to die" is letting a young couple live. Groban's "Epiphany," probably the moment I examine the most when watching an actor play Sweeney Todd, was stunning. The insanity and anger wasn't as pronounced as Hearn's, perhaps, but with the way Groban played the character, it didn't need to be. His rage is mainly driven by grief more than madness, and it showed through his angular movements, the near-desperation mixed with fury during the "you, sir" sequence where he breaks the fourth wall, and of course, his emotional performance during the "and I'll never see Johanna"/"and my Lucy lies in ashes" sequences, which require a sudden, yet convincing, emotional shift that he pulled off masterfully.

Jeanna De Waal's Lovett was just plain fun. While I was curious to see how Annaleigh Ashford would have played her, De Waal pulled off a youthful Mrs. Lovett in a hilarious, flirty way. Angela Lansbury was perhaps the most iconic Lovett (although LuPone's performance was stunning as well), and was particularly notable for her dark comedy through the juxtaposition of being a matronly pie shop owner and an accomplice to murder and cannibalism. I feel like the "matronly" aspect of Mrs. Lovett is probably one of the most important facets of her character, which is why I tend to prefer performances by older actresses as Lovett to younger ones, but De Waal, like Groban, gave a unique performance, in her case using her youth to her advantage. Her Lovett was constantly flirting with Todd, which created some hilarious juxtaposition between their personalities, and she added a lot of energy to her comedic lines, especially during "A Little Priest," where her chemistry with Groban was a blast to watch. I do wish she had a bit more chemistry with Gaten Matrazzo as Toby, which would have made the ending scene hit harder emotionally, and her sinister side explored further. De Waal focused mostly on the comedy aspect of Mrs. Lovett, who at her core is a ruthless manipulator, so I understand she's an incredibly difficult character to pull off when balancing those two elements. Nonetheless, I thought her acting was really enjoyable to watch, although she was more effective in comedic scenes than dramatic ones.

I don't have a ton to say about Jordan Fisher's portrayal of Anthony; I liked his performance overall, but I felt he came across as slightly too mature, although maybe this came down to his voice. Anthony is a very idealistic and naïve character, meant to contrast with the cutthroat, conniving world of "Sweeney Todd." I didn't think I really got this with Fisher as much as with some other performances I've seen, but the maturity he gave to the character did pose an interesting angle in his scenes with Todd, as Groban's sentimentality meant an almost paternal dynamic between Todd and Anthony. This isn't an angle I see a lot, but it was definitely one I thought was really fascinating. His chemistry with Maria Bilbao as Johanna was good, and I felt he provided some grounding to her more neurotic portrayal.

I loved Bilbao's Johanna. Technical skill of singing "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" aside (which she nailed), I feel like a lot of productions miss the point of this number. "Green Finch" is to introduce Johanna and her trapped circumstances, yes, but I see too many productions that simply have it performed as a sad, pretty, virtuosic number, without saying too much about who Johanna is as a character, or the effects the circumstances she sings about have had on her. Betsy Joslyn's was unique in that she attempts to seem somewhat frazzled while singing it, but her purposefully-crossed eyes and overexaggerated vibrato risk coming across more as caricature than a sincere performance. Bilbao, however, is heartbreaking. Her Johanna is fighting to keep her wits together, evidently broken by living with an abusive father figure, and when she sings "teach me to be more adaptive," it almost seems like a prayer. (This also has the effect of making the following number, "Ah, Miss," darkly hilarious, as it implies Anthony was watching this random girl having a mental breakdown and immediately decided he was in love with her.) Her blocking was restricted and tense, almost making her look like a caged bird, and her facial expressions and gestures were cautious and restrained, bringing to mind a scared animal. This really brought home the essence of Johanna's character- while she's often played as a classic ingenue, Johanna is, in fact, a subversion of the archetype- a realistic portrayal of the mental strain a young girl locked away with a man like Turpin and kept from seeing the outside world would actually face. I honestly really like Johanna as a character because there's a lot more depth to her than is often portrayed, so it was really refreshing to see Bilbao apply this level of nuance to her.

Matrazzo's Toby was, of course, excellent. Toby is probably the character with the most variation across productions, as he can be portrayed as anywhere between a child to a young adult. Matrazzo shone particularly in two scenes- "Not While I'm Around" and the final monologue. Like "Green Finch," "Not While I'm Around" is a number that's frequently misinterpreted, with some performances portraying it as simply as an example of Toby's affection for and devotion to Mrs. Lovett. "Not While I'm Around," despite its lyrics, is not a sweet, tender number. In context, it's terrifying, and luckily, Matrazzo portrays this. His Toby is desperate, even frustrated. While it's not particularly dwelled on in the play, Toby has been mistreated by Pirelli, and so latches onto Mrs. Lovett, who he sees as a genuinely nurturing protective figure. However, not only is Lovett turning people into meat pies, she has no real love for Toby and is primarily focused on manipulating Todd, who, in turn, is also trying to use her for his own gain. However, from Toby's perspective, he's been abused, sees signs of abuse in Todd, and wants to prevent Mrs. Lovett, whom he genuinely loves, from meeting the same fate. Matrazzo's desperation puts this context largely into focus, adding to the suspense of the number. And in the final monologue, I got chills from the way he vacillated between a manic sing-songy tone and complete numbness, sometimes even normalcy. I've seen many productions where Toby keeps the "insane" tone throughout the monologue, but Matrazzo doesn't do that. When he says "you know, you shouldn't harm anyone," it's eerily straightforward and calm.

John Rapson (Beadle Bamford), Nicholas Christopher (Pirelli), and Ruthie Ann Miles (Lucy) were all fun to watch; I enjoyed how Rapson kept the character quirk of rolling his "R's," which not all Beadle Bamford actors do. His falsetto range was incredible, and his performance during "Parlor Songs" was both amusing and suspenseful. Christopher's Pirelli was good, but I felt he didn't place as much over-exaggeration in his lines as I would have liked to see, although I really enjoyed his facial expressions. And Miles' Lucy was absolutely haunting; I've seen a few productions where "Poor Thing" is portrayed through interpretive dance, and thought she especially stood out here, as her movements and blocking added a lot to her character.

Finally, Jamie Jackson as Judge Turpin was repulsive in the best possible way. His voice and delivery had me on edge, and I also couldn't get it out of my head that his facial expressions reminded me of Werner Krauss in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," which added a whole extra layer of creepiness. His Turpin felt incredibly realistic, like that creepy uncle or skeevy politician you always read about in the news, although he was surprisingly effective with comedic lines, especially the way he enthusiastically delivered the line "ah yes, women!" in "Pretty Women." He brought an air of discomfort to the stage every time he was on it, and the suspense in every scene between him and Groban was extremely palpable.

[measuredandslow]

Weaving lesson with Intern 1 turned into robot slides with Intern 1 😂