#plus this is like right after stay alive reprise like what

[applecider13]

me when i’m watching hamilton and this song/scene starts:

[tech-sapphy]

hi dndads fans

…okay y’all here’s how oakworthy can still win-

---

Normal was sobbing. 

His son was sobbing over the body of this other kid, holding tightly onto him. A kid who Sparrow had only ever heard about in passing.

Sparrow wasn’t stupid, he knew his son… and he knew that look. It's not just grief.

Plus, it doesn’t take a genius to piece it all together after hearing that kid’s parting words.

Seeing a kid who was his son’s age lying on the ground, cold, pale, and unmoving… for a split second he almost pictured Normal in his place. It hit him, now, just how wrong it was to ever let his kids get dragged into this mess he created. He couldn’t undo all the trauma that was done to them. Their kids were too deeply implicated now. He knew that he and the guys wouldn’t be able to fix all of this on their own.

… But Sparrow could still fix something.

And when he saw his son put his head to this kid’s chest, clearly trying to hear a heartbeat, something, anything? And saw the way that Normal only cried more as the seconds passed?

It was a nearly instantaneous decision on Sparrow’s part. Thank everything he still had a couple spell slots left.

He didn't notice normal glare at him, nor did he notice the way it shifted into shock when Sparrow put a hand on Hermie’s shoulder and cast revivify.

——

He was breathing. 

Hermie was breathing and the color was returning to his face.

Sighs and looks of relief from Scary, Linc, and Taylor were loud and evident, and Normal felt his dad putting a hand on his shoulder and felt a little better. But all of it was an afterthought. Nothing else mattered as he now had the energy to pull Hermie into a hug. A gentle one, considering how weak he was, but a hug nonetheless. One where he could feel and hear Hermie breathing.

It’d be too awkward to put his head on his chest again now that he was conscious, as tempting as it was, so Normal settled for putting his head in the crook of his shoulder, feeling his pulse and listening to the sound of his breathing.

He had one spell slot left, and his dad’s healing is what gave him the dredges of strength he needed to cast cure wounds on hermie. Normal felt him start to breathe a little more steadily. He felt Hermie's head moving around slightly, probably trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe it was selfish for him to still be holding onto him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was alive. 

Would it be nice to know if he actually meant what he said? If they could kiss and have this trauma all go away? Yeah. But after seeing Hermie lying cold and dead in his arms, Normal would take whatever he could get, as long as he was okay. 

So he started to move away from the hug and gently set Hermie down.

But then he caught a glance of a smirk-adjacent smile on Hermie’s face, right before Normal felt Hermie's arms wrap around him and pull him back in.

He felt a hand on the back of his head, and then heard a whisper; meant only for the two of them to hear.

"We have seriously gotta stop meeting like this."

Normal broke out into laughter, crinkling his eyes shut. Of course he’d bring this back.

When he opened his eyes again, his heart started racing even more. They’re so close together. It’d be so easy to put a hand on his cheek, and just lean in a little more.

He doesn’t want to hesitate anymore.

It looks like Hermie doesn’t either.

It only takes a slight move forward for them to finally meet in a kiss. Just like a musical reprise. They had gone through literal hell and back and finally found a way back to each other.

It was messy, they were covered in blood and surrounded by hellfire for a little while back there… 

But at this point, that mess was starting to feel like home. 

Maybe Hermie would, too.

——

That night, Normal was tossing and turning.

Finally back in San Dimas, he was in his own bed. But he couldn’t sleep.

He knew Hermie was alive and fine, staying over with Taylor for now, but… all he could see and think about was his slumped over, cold body. 

Yeah, he wasn’t sleeping tonight. Unless-

He plucked his phone from his nightstand. No notifications, but for once, he didn’t care that there wasn’t anyone reaching out to him. Because he was going to do it himself.

hermie 🎭💕

hermie!! are you awake?

He stared, waiting for a response. 

…

Maybe he shouldn’t have reached out at all. of course Hermie was sleeping, or maybe he wasn’t, after everything, and yeah, they kissed, but maybe he wanted to be alone after everything, oh god he was being clingy again, why couldn’t he just-

Of course

Oh. okay. So he probably wasn’t angry at him, even if he did wake him up. That's good. 

Now he just has to figure out how to ask him if he can come over without it sounding weird. Maybe when he has reassurance that he really is still alive, normal will finally be able to rest a little. 

can’t sleep :(

After all of -that-, who possibly could?

can i come over?

darn it, he couldn't help it, he just had to ask. quickly, he sent a clarifying text.

if you're okay with it!!! i just wanna see you and make sure you’re okay!! 

Well, I'm texting you, so clearly I'm okay.

But maybe I want to see you too

That was all the affirmative Normal needed. He grabbed his jacket which had his house keys already in the pocket, glad Taylor’s house was within walking distance.

be there in five!!

Door will be unlocked. I’ll be there.

Or maybe I won’t. You’ll have to come here to see.

—

Normal rushed over, antsy and anxious, only to pause at the front door.

He hadn’t thought this far ahead- what was he supposed to do?

Definitely not ring the doorbell. Knock? No, Taylor's a light sleeper. 

Uhh…. 

He would go throw rocks at Hermie's window, if only he knew which window was his.

He was starting to write out a text to Hermie letting him know he was there, but the door opened while he was writing it.

Hermie, looking bedraggled and tired, was smiling. it wasn’t a grin or a smirk. A smile. A small one, but it looked genuine, and he held the door open to invite him in. 

Hermie's smile was infectious, and he grabbed Normal’s hand, leading him to sit down on the couch.

Normal resisted every urge to just hug him right then and there, instead holding out his arms as a gesture.

Hermie must’ve been exhausted, because he fell into Normal’s arms immediately. 

As they cuddled up together, Normal leaning back on the arm of the couch so Hermie had more room to comfortably lay down, he finally gathered his nerves. Hermie wanted him there, after all, so… he liked him. it was mutual.

“Can I listen to your heartbeat?”

Silence. Normal’s nerves twisted back together.

‘Oh no, that’s stupid, That must be weird, you can say no if you want, I’m sorry Hermie, I know you’re having a hard time, I don’t want you to feel like-‘

Hermie just looked up at him and pointed upstairs.

“Shush, you’re getting loud. They’re still asleep.”

Normal’s heart dropped a little. 

“Right, sorry-”

“And stop apologizing.” Hermie said as he scooted back up, holding out his arms to Normal. An invitation of his own.

It would’ve been embarrassing how quickly Normal hugged him, if not for the pure relief he felt hearing the steady rhythm of his heartbeat again. He was alive, and here, and alright.

That's what gave him the strength to lean back into the arm of the couch and pull Hermie back into a position where he was laying down in Normal’s arms. As a reassurance.

“I’m sorry-”

“I told you to stop apologiziiiing.” Hermie sang in his little sing-song cadence. Normal let him, but continued with his apology regardless.

“I’m sorry for letting that happen to you, Hermie. I promise, I'll notice you next time. And I won't let that happen again.”

Silence, again. 

…Hermie hugged him tighter. 

“Well, well, well. A true knight, you are.”

Normal caught a little waver in his voice when he said that. He smiled, happy that Hermie liked him back and that he was helping Hermie by being there. In a surge of affection, he kissed him on the forehead.

“For you? Always.”

—

And if Cassandra found them asleep on the couch in the morning, cuddled close together?

Well, considering everything Taylor had told her about what went down yesterday… that was no one else’s business. She just put a blanket over them before leaving.

[hermits-that-craft]

Chapter 50 - Arc 2 - Two Deaths In The Server, Reprise

AO3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/23509375/chapters/63621574 TW - DEATH, BLOOD, TORTURE, SCREAMING

“Scar is here.” Princess’ voice is strained, her body shaking as a bruise blooms on her cheek.

“Yes. The mage came.”

“You said-” Princess’ voice shakes, two voices saying the same thing at the same time, one deep and unsettling and the other far too high pitched to be natural. “You said you would leave him alone!”

“Princess, get a hold of yourself.” Night snaps, anger mixing with tiredness as they struggle not to lash out at her again. “He came out of his own free will. He can suffer the consequences. I have not done anything to him.”

“You knocked him out.”

“He committed regicide. You know what the difference between your father and King Silas is, Stress?” Night growls, Stress flinching away from the angry god. “Your father wasn’t murdered by his son.”

---

Impulse doesn’t struggle in Night’s arms as Night drags them to a small cell, the smell of blood trading for the smell of mildew and mold. The cuts on his back sting and tears well up in his eyes, trying desperately not to cry.

He thinks of Tango, of Zedaph. They’re both safe. The trade was equal, his freedom for theirs. It still hurts, Void it still hurts. He would give almost anything to leave, to feel safe, to feel whole again. To see the crinkles in Tango’s eyes when he smiles or the way Zedaph’s shoulders shake when he tries to hide that he’s laughing. He’d do anything to see them again, to be able to hold them, to be able to be held. To see someone not hurting - not hurting him. To see a face without rage.

Impulse saves his strength. He doesn’t struggle like he knows Ren did, like he could hear False doing. He lets Night drag him to a room, to a cell containing Scar, who flinches away from Night though he cannot move away. Night drops Impulse on the floor, walking out of the room. 

Scar tries to walk to Impulse, the large metal squares forcing Scar to stay in one place, unable to move. He struggles, and Impulse can see the flashes of bright blue and gold magic in his eyes, the smell of electricity and fire fills the room, but nothing happens. A cut rests on Scar’s face, dangerously close to his left eye. The burn on Scar’s shoulder is bleeding, cut open by someone cruel, possibly Night or 

Stress wouldn’t, would she?

Scar’s shoulders shake, his eyes filled with guilt. He mumbles something, an apology to someone Impulse can't see. An apology to someone lost. Someone who could come back, but likely won’t. Doc won’t come back himself, and neither will Ren. Even if they are freed, even if Night is killed and gone forever, they won’t come back themselves. No one will leave this place, this base, the same. Not Impulse, not Scar, not False, not Stress, not Mumbo. No one will leave this place the same.

But they will leave this place.

Impulse stands, his legs shaking, and he forces himself to walk over to Scar, pulling a small hairpin out of his hair, focusing on the lock on Scar’s handcuffs. He forces the lock open, spending too long on the lock. Night could find them. Night could come back.

“We need to hurry, can you do that magic thing you did back there?”

“I don’t know how to. I lost control.” Scar looks at the ground. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is all my fault if it wasn’t for me none of this wold have happened.”

“Scar, you didn’t invite Night here.” Impulse pulls the mage into a hug, smiling kindly. “This isn’t your fault.”

“If I was the one who died instead of Silas, Doc would still be Doc.” Scar mumbles to himself.

“Don’t you dare say anything like that ever again.” Impulse says, taking Scar by the shoulders. “Silas was a bastard, one who doesn’t deserve to have his name spoken again. We’re getting out. We’re leaving right now, and you and I are going to get everyone out, Scar. I swear it. We’re going to be okay.”

Scar nods, watching Impulse with wide eyes as Impulse rips some of his shirt off, wrapping it around his fists before he punches at the door, breaking the wood just outside the door handle. Impulse opens the door through the hole, offering his hand to Scar. Scar takes his hand, and with a squeeze of their hands the two men run. 

They run through the endless halls and rooms, past dead ends and screams. They stumble over the wreckage that Scar left after he grew vines in the room. Scar’s lungs scream and beg for a pause, and Impulse’s legs burn as though they were dunked into lava, but the two men don’t stop, they can’t stop, fleeing from the room, from Night, from pain. To pause is to die, to run is to live.

Scar stops, making eye contact with Observer as they near the door. The fake Mumbo glares at them, picking up a sword and Impulse pulls Scar through the door, his legs and lungs screaming. 

The two men flee through the jungle, fear gripping at their hearts. They will die here if they are caught.

And they won’t come back.

---

Iskall watches as everyone comes into the main room, everyone yawning and bleary eyed, though none more than Grian, Builder and Rose. Builder sits down, putting his head into his arms and shutting his eyes. Grian stands in a corner, his eyes watching the door like a hawk, though he relaxes more as the door shuts behind Xisuma. Rose sits by a window, staring out into the distance, twisting her wedding ring around her finger as one hand rests on her stomach. Iskall almost envies her - her wife is dead, at least she knows that Protector isn’t going to hurt anymore.

He wishes he could say the same about Stress. He wishes that Stress had the freedom of death, because then he would know that his girlfriend isn’t hurting - isn’t in pain.

Cub brings a bowl of soup to Rose as Cleo, Bdubs, Etho and Keralis try to make a plan, Wels flinching everytime the gesture towards him. Etho gestures to Iskall a few times, saying something about him needing to get used to his new arm before he can fight.

Iskall agrees, though he wont say anything about it. He won’t admit that he’s punched things, broken cups and bowls trying to get used to how the arm works. 

Etho said his arm doesn’t hurt anymore, which is a plus.

Iskall taps his foot, the plan frustrating him more by the minute. Storming Night’s base? Giving Mumbo the opportunity to trap it, with the help of Beef? Not a chance, not if the hermits want to win. It irks him, it’s too risky. They might free some hermits, but the losses will be huge, and Night can permakill. It doesn’t matter how much favour Cleo has with Amari - Hermits will die because of this plan.

Iskall stands up, his chair scratching against the wooden floor. Heads snap towards him, surprise written on everyone’s faces.

“This plan isn’t going to work and too many people will die because of it.” Iskall says plainly, a monotone voice falling out of his lips. “Don’t bother protesting - Let me give you some advice I learnt from being an assassin. Lure your victims out. Don’t walk into a trap.”

“Well, do you have a plan?” Cleo looks at him hopefully, “Cause I’m up for suggestions.”

“The saying is down for suggestions, Cleo.” Joe puts in kindly.

“We trap the nether out of the shopping district. Everyone prepares to fight, no matter how skilled they are at fighting. Anyone with admin history at all needs to reset everyone’s spawn to the spawn island. A small party - maximum three people, goes to free the captured. The rest of us fight. The rest of us prepare. Anyone with allies off of the server invites them in. Builder, are there any other gods that could help us?”

Builder blinks a few times, shocked that he was called on. “Amari, Althea and Ella could help out.”

“Amari I know, but Althea and Ella?”

“You know how the jungle has a god?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Bdubs snaps, glaring at Builder. “I’m not going through that again.”

“No, you aren’t. Althea is the mushroom island goddess, Ella is her twin, the mushroom plains goddess. They’re both my daughters.”

“Grian isn’t our only cousin on your side?” Evil Xisuma asks quietly, and surprise flashes in Builder’s eyes.

“You’re the missing sons?” Builder mumbles, but before anything can be done, a buzz echoes through the room, people’s faces turning white. No one wants to read it, no one wants to see if they’ve lost someone.

Iskall sets his jaw, taking a deep breath in. He picks up his communicator, ready to read it.

TheNight sent (2) attachment(s) TheNight: I’ve heard about the nHo TheNight: Pity you have to lose two more to the jungle. You all know the consequences of running now.

Iskall’s eyes wander over the attachments, bile rising in his throat. He shakily sits down, handing his communicator to Cleo. He hears her screams through panicked thoughts, he barely hears the other hermits shouting, barely see’s Grian’s eyes flash red or Zedaph crying in Tango’s arms. The images won’t leave his mind.

Impulse and Scar, lying in a thick, bloodied copse vines. Their backs torn open, ribcage exposed. The bones aren’t pure white, stained a light pink with the blood.  Their bodies are magles, vines tearing Scar’s arms from his torso and strangling him. Their bodies - because Iskall can’t imagine that the two men are still alive - are coated in blood and dirt. Bones stick through Impulse’s leg, a vine exiting the back of his head.

Iskall is going to kill Night.

[aion-rsa]

Hamilton: Ranking Every Song from the Soundtrack

https://ift.tt/2YTCryx

Imagine the experience of being one of the first individuals to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s now-classic Hamilton: An American Musical live. 

The first thing you notice is the spartan, largely empty stage. Then as Leslie Odom Jr. takes the stage as Aaron Burr followed by Miranda’s Hamilton, you realize that this production about America’s founding fathers is made up almost exclusively of People of Color. That’s a lot to take in from the start. At a certain point, however, you’re bound to realize that the play is about 40 minutes in and The. Music. Has. Not. Stopped. 

In addition to its many ingenious quirks and hooks, Hamilton is truly a musical musical. Miranda’s book and lyrics about one of the country’s most colorful and impressive founders has a lot of ground to cover. And it does so at a musical sprint with almost no expository time-wasting in-between.

As such, the Hamilton soundtrack is a staggeringly impressive piece of recent culture. At 46 tracks spread out over nearly two and a half hours, this album closely replicates the experience of a show most could never get a ticket to live. A passionate, thriving Hamilton fandom rose up out of that soundtrack and it continues through to this day.

Now, with Hamilton about to be more accessible than ever by joining Disney+, we decided to rank all 46 of those tracks.

46. Hurricane

The hurricane that ravaged Alexander Hamilton’s Caribbean island home of St. Croix was a crucial part of his life and led to him securing passage to the United States. But the song “Hurricane” uses the storm late in the play as a tortured metaphor for his turbulent public life. It’s undoubtedly the least energetic and weakest full song on the Hamilton soundtrack.

45. Farmer Refuted

“Farmer Refuted” does well to capture a young Hamilton’s rhetorical brilliance early on in the play but doesn’t hold up well against other, more fully crafted tunes. Hercules Mulligan mumbling “tear this dude apart” is certainly a soundtrack highlight though. 

44. The Story of Tonight (Reprise)

What would any Broadway musical soundtrack be without a reprise or two? “The Story of Tonight (Reprise)” is certainly fun. But, ultimately, tales of Hamilton’s legendary horniness would have been better suited with a full song. 

43. Schuyler Defeated

Just about every line of dialogue in Hamilton is sung… including heavily expository moments like Burr defeating Hamilton’s father-in-law in a local election. The subject matter and lack of true musical gusto makes “Schuyler Defeated” one of the least essential tracks in the show.

42. We Know

It’s a testament to how strong the Hamilton soundtrack is that a song like “We Know” could appear this low on the list. This account of Jefferson and company informing Hamilton of what they know is quite good; it just pales in comparison to the song in which they uncover Hamilton’s misdeeds. 

41. It’s Quiet Uptown

This is sure to be a controversial spot on the list for this much-loved ballad. “It’s Quiet Uptown” is indeed composed quite beautifully. It also features lyrics that seem to be almost impatient in nature – as though the song is trying to rush the Hamiltons through the grieving process to get back on with the show. 

40. Take a Break

Part of the miracle of Hamilton is how the soundtrack is able to turn rather mundane concepts and events in Hamilton’s life into rousing, larger-than-life musical numbers. “Take a Break” is charged with dramatizing the notion that Hamilton simply works too much with a sweetly melancholic melody. It does quite a good job in this regard but naturally can’t compete with some of the more bombastic songs on the list. 

39. Stay Alive

Set in the brutal dredge of the Revolutionary War, “Stay Alive” is a song about desperation. And between its urgent piano rhythm and panicky Miranda vocals, it does quite a good job of capturing the appropriate mood. It also feels like one long middle with no compelling introduction or conclusion. 

38. Best of Wives and Best of Women

Talk about “the calm before the storm.” “Best of Wives and Best of Women” captures one last quiet moment between Alexander and Eliza before Aaron Burr canonizes his one-time friend to the $10 bill. It’s brief, lovely, and effective. 

37. The Adams Administration

Hamilton wisely surmises that the best way to introduce audiences to new eras of its title character’s life story is through the narration of the man who killed him in Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.). Odom Jr.’s real flare for showmanship turns what could be throw-away intros into truly excellent material. It also features a hilarious nod to Sherman Edwards’ 1776 musical when Hamilton says, “Sit down, John” and then adds a colorful, “you fat motherf***er!”

36. A Winter’s Ball

Again: Burr’s monologues are always a welcome presence in these tracks. And in “A Winter’s Ball,” he does some of his best work by setting up Burr and Hamilton’s prowess… “with the ladiessssss!”

35. Meet Me Inside

Despite a brief running time, “Meet Me Inside” is able to establish George Washington’s general bona fides and Hamilton’s daddy issues in equal measure. 

34. Your Obedient Servant

“Your Obedient Servant” is Hamilton’s loving ode to passive aggression. In just two minutes and thirty seconds, you’ll believe that two grown men could somehow neg themselves into a duel via letter-writing. 

33. The Reynolds Pamphlet

You know that old adage of “he could read out of a phonebook and it would be interesting?” Well Hamilton basically does that with “The Reynolds Pamphlet.” The ominous music injects real import into the simple act of writing that would upend the Hamilton family’s lives. 

32. That Would Be Enough

Eliza’s refrain of “look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now” recurs at the beginning of “That Would Be Enough” in a truly touching way. This song is a real tonal whiplash from the revolutionary battles and duels that precede it, but it is ultimately strong enough to bring the focus back to Alexander and Eliza and not just the hectic world they inhabit. 

31. The Story of Tonight

“The Story of Tonight” is both a clever drinking song among bros and a subtle setup for the show’s larger theme of one’s story being told after they’re gone. The song is both affecting and effective, just a little too short to stand out and make big waves on our list. 

30. Blow Us All Away

“Blow Us All Away” is a fun, jaunty little ditty from Anthony Ramos’ Philip Hamilton. It rather ingeniously incorporates the young Philip’s own musical motif before ending in tragedy. 

29. Stay Alive (Reprise)

It’s hard for any song to emotionally contend with the death of a child in under two minutes but “Stay Alive (Reprise)” does a shockingly good job. There’s a real sense of urgency to the music before it settles in for poor Philip to say his final words. 

28. Burn

Musically, “Burn” is not one of the better ballads in Hamilton. Lyrically, however, its power is hard to deny. Phillipa Soo does a remarkable job communicating Eliza’s pain at her husband’s betrayal. More impressive is how she communicates the only way to work through that pain, which is through burning all of his personal correspondences and writings to her. 

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27. The Election of 1800

Hamilton is the rare musical where one character can sing “can we get back to politics please?” and the audience’s response is “hell yeah!”. The show is uncommonly good at dramatizing boring political processes, and “The Election of 1800” is no exception. The song builds up to a pseudo-reprisal of “Washington on Your Side” in a shockingly effective and cathartic way. 

26. History Has Its Eyes on You

“History Has Its Eyes on You” is a powerful recurring phrase through the entirety of Hamilton. Each and every time the concept comes up in a song, it truly stands out. Strangely though, the song that bears its name is only in the middle of the pack in terms of the show’s numbers. Perhaps it’s because it occurs near the middle of the first act, before we can properly appreciate its heady themes? 

25. Aaron Burr, Sir

One of Hamilton’s most charming traits is how readily it acknowledges what an annoying pain in the ass its lead character can be at times. “Aaron Burr, Sir” is literally the second song of the entire musical and helps establish its playful tone as much as the bombastic opening number establishes a deadly serious one. 

24. Guns and Ships

Ballads are nice. “I want” songs are nice. Recurring motifs are nice. But sometimes you need a song that just goes hard. Thanks to “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman” that’s what “Guns and Ships” delivers. Lafayette actor Daveed Diggs faces an enormous challenge in Act One by filling out the character’s growth in bits and pieces. “Guns and Ships” is the reward, where a fully unleashed (and English-fluent) Lafayette makes it very clear what hell he has in store for the British army. 

23. Washington on Your Side

Thomas Jefferson is such a dynamo of a presence in Hamilton that one could be forgiven for forgetting how infrequently he turns up. Jefferson (and Daveed Diggs) is operating at an absurdly high capacity in “Washington on Your Side.” Meanwhile the music has a ball keeping up with the increasingly incensed backroom scheming of Jefferson and his “Southern motherfucking Democratic-Republicans!”

22. Right Hand Man

Thirty-two thousand troops in New York Harbor. That’s uh… that’s a lot. While the second act of Hamilton has to work a little harder to capture the drama of the inner-workings of a fledgling government, the first act is able to absolutely breeze through some truly epic and exciting songs covering the Revolutionary War. “Right Hand Man” is one such ditty that really captures the frenetic urgency of a bunch of up-jumped wannabe philosophers trying to topple the world’s most powerful empire. 

21. The Schuyler Sisters

Honestly, “The Schuyler Sisters” deserve better than its placement on this list. It’s just that everything that comes after is such a banger, that it’s hard to justify moving up the dynamic introduction of Angelicaaaa, Elizzzaaaaa… and Peggy.

20. Ten Duel Commandments

Imagine how insane you would sound in circa 1998 explaining that there would one day be a musical about the founding fathers that uses the framework of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments” to describe the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Then imagine how insane you would sound when explaining that it was great. “Ten Duel Commandments” doesn’t cover the “big” duel of Hamilton. It’s a teaser for what’s to come. Thankfully it’s a hell of a good teaser. 

19. Cabinet Battle #2

Hamilton’s two cabinet battles run the risk of being the cringiest part of the show. Every concept has its stylistic limit, and a rap battle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson should absolutely fly past that limit. Somehow, however, the novelty works and the creativity of Miranda’s writing shines through. 

18. Cabinet Battle #1

The two Cabinet Battles are pretty interchangeable on the list. #1 gets the nod because of “we know who’s really doing the planting.”

17. What Comes Next

The trilogy of King George III songs is some of the most purely joyful songwriting on the Hamilton soundtrack. We can dive into the specifics of what really works about the songs in a later entry. For now, know that “What Comes Next” falls the lowest on our list due to featuring only one round of “da-da-da’s.”

16. I Know Him

“I Know Him” also features only one burst of “da-da-da’s.” But it still gets the nod over “What Comes Next” for King George III calling John Adams “that little guy who spoke to me.” 

15. Dear Theodosia

Perhaps more so than any other character in Hamilton, Aaron Burr works best on his own. The character (and the man he was based on) plays things close to the vest by design. It’s only through his musical soliloquies that we get a real sense of the guy. That’s what makes “Dear Theodosia” so powerful in particular. Burr wants the same thing for his daughter that Hamilton wants for his son: “Some day you’ll blow us all away.”

14. One Last Time

George Washington owned slaves. Yeah yeah, you can bandy around the usual “bUt He ReLeAsEd ThEm AlL lAtEr In LiFe” all you want. At the end of the day, it’s an inescapable fact for the country to confront. It’s a hard thing for Hamilton, however,  a show realistic about America’s flaws but still reverential to its founding story, to deal with. Hamilton presents the George Washington of American mythos for the most part and he strikes an undeniably impressive and imposing figure. To that end, “One Last Time” is one of the most unexpectedly moving songs in the show. Washington is committing one of the most important and selfless acts in American history by stepping aside. Yet there’s a real sense of sadness as the cast chants “George Washington’s going hooo-ooo-ooome.”

13. Non-Stop

“Non-Stop” is an extremely atypical choice for an Act-ender. Hamilton could have just as easily chosen to wrap up Act One with the rebels’ victory over Great Britain. Instead it takes a moment to process that then deftly sets up the rest of its story with “Non-Stop,” which is simply a song about Hamilton’s insane work ethic. The key to the track’s success is how relentless it is, as if it were trying to keep up with and mimic the title character’s pace. Then there are all the usual exciting Act-ending reprisals and recurring motifs to boot. 

12. Say No To This

Just as was the case in Hamilton’s life, Maria Reynolds has only a brief role in the show, but her influence casts quite a long shadow. “Say No To This” is a real showcase for both Miranda and Maria actress Jasmine Cephas Jones. This is a devastatingly catchy jazzy number about marital infidelity…. as all songs about marital infidelity should be. 

11. Alexander Hamilton

“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore / And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot / In the Caribbean by providence impoverished / In squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” our narrator Aaron Burr asks in Hamilton’s superb opening number. A play with so many moving parts, and such a high-concept needs an indelible opening track to convince audiences that the madness that is about to follow is worth waiting for. “Alexander Hamilton” is more than up to the task. This is an exhilarating starter that introduces its audience to all the important characters, themes, and sounds of the show. It also has its lead character spell out his full name in a rap, which somehow ends up being awesome and endearing rather than corny. 

10. Wait for It

Just like the rest of us, Burr is the main character of his own story. And the show allows him to tell that story in songs like “Wait For It.” “Wait For It” is an exciting, downright explosive bit of songwriting. It’s every bit the “I want” song for Burr that “My Shot” is to Hamilton. And just like Burr and Hamilton are two sides of the same coin, so too are these two songs. Burr is alone once again in this powerful number. And he uses that privacy as an excuse to loudly… LOUDLY exclaim his modus operandi. He comes from a similar background as Hamilton and he wants mostly the same things as Hamilton. The difference between the two of them is that Burr is willing to wait for it all.

9.  The Room Where it Happens

Bless this musical for having a song as brilliant  as “The Room Where it Happens” only just being able to crack the top 10. There are hundreds of musicals in which “The Room Where it Happens” would be far and away the standout number. For Hamilton, it’s ninth. “The Room Where It Happens” is another example of the show taking a seemingly bland topic (backroom deal-making) and turning it into something transcendently entertaining for its audience and something transcendently illustrative for its characters. This is the song where the borders between Aaron Burr: Narrator and Aaron Burr: Vengeance-Seeker come down.  Burr starts off as a patient observer of what kind of nefarious negotiations go into the building of a country before his frustration slowly builds into the recognition that he needs to be in the room where it happens. 

8. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

Truly there is no more fitting ending to Hamilton than “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” At its core, this is a play not only about legacy but about the fungible nature of legacy. Alexander Hamilton is gone and we know his story lives on. But who will tell that story? Like any good closing number, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” knows the importance of bringing back many of the play’s core concepts and characters. And none of those are more important than Eliza’s assertion that she is ready “to write herself back into the narrative.” In the end, it’s not the revolutions or the pamphlets but the love. And that’s how one finds oneself in the absurd position of crying over the guy on the $10 bill.

7. What’d I Miss?

Lin-Manuel Miranda has described Thomas Jefferson as the show’s Bugs Bunny. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the ludicrously jaunty track that opens up Hamilton’s Act Two. There might not be a more joyful or outright hilarious three minutes in any of the soundtrack’s 46 songs. After several years spent living it up in France, Daveed Diggs’s TJ returns to the United States. The rest of his fellow revolutionaries have moved on to R&B and rap, but Jefferson is still stuck in full on jazz mode. “What’d I Miss” serves as the perfect introduction to a crucial character and the themes of the show’s second half. 

6. The World Was Wide Enough

If “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” is designed to make the audience cry, then “The World Was Wide Enough” exists to make them gasp. This penultimate song is a truly stunning piece of work. This is a sprawling performance that brings back “The 10 Duel Commandments” in expected yet still emotional fashion. Then at the play’s climactic moment, it cuts out the music entirely to make room for Hamilton’s internal monologue – his one last ride through all the pages he won’t write. Finally it covers the grim aftermath of Burr and Hamilton’s duel as the survivor grapples with what he has done. There is a lot packed into these five minutes of song and each moment is more compelling than the last. 

5. You’ll Be Back

If absolutely nothing else in Hamilton worked – if the characterizations were off, if the costumes were too simple, if the “Founding Fathers rapping” concept couldn’t be executed – the play’s two and a half hours all still would have been worth it for this one, tremendously goofy song. King George III (portrayed by Jonathan Groff in the original Broadway production) pops up three times throughout the show to deliver pointed little reminders to the American colonists about how good they used to have it. The first time around is by far the best, in large part because it’s so charmingly unexpected and weird. By the time King George III gets to the “da-da-da” section of his breakup song with America, it’s hard to imagine anyone resisting the song… or the show’s charms. 

4. My Shot

While “You’ll Be Back” may go down as the most enduring karaoke song from Hamilton, “My Shot” is almost certainly the play’s most recognizable and iconic tune. Every musical needs an “I want” song in which its lead articulates what they want out of this whole endeavor. Rarely are those “I wants” as passionate and thrilling as “My Shot.” This was reportedly the song that Miranda took the longest to write and it’s clear now to see why. Not only is “My Shot” lyrically and musically intricate, but it does the majority of play’s heavy lifting in establishing Hamilton as a character. Just about everything we need to know about Alexander Hamilton and what drives him is introduced here. And the work put into “My Shot” makes all of its recurring themes and concepts hit so much harder in the songs to come. 

3. Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)

In many ways, “Yorktown” benefits from the precedent that earlier songs like “My Shot” established. This is a song that puts energetic renditions of previous lines like “I’m not throwing away my shot” and “I imagine death so much it feels like a memory” to grand use. But for as much as “Yorktown” deftly invokes Hamilton’s past, what makes this song truly special is how solely focused it is on the present. To put it quite simply: “Yorktown” goes hard. It is fast, harsh, chaotic, and thrilling. This is the song that captures the moment that American troops defeated the British empire and “the world turned upside down.” It’s to the song’s immense credit that the music and lyrics capture the enormity of the moment. Also, there’s “stealing the show” and then there’s what Hercules Mulligan (Okieriete Onaodowan) does here in “Yorktown.” We’re in the shit now, and Hercules is loving it. 

2. Helpless

“Helpless” might be pound for pound the best musical moment in all of Hamilton. It’s a simple, seemingly effortless love song that, even removed from the context of the show, would sound beautiful coming out of anyone’s car radio on a lovely summer day. Within the context of the show, it’s even better. It acts as a rare moment of celebration for all the characters involved before the Revolutionary War really gets churning and before a young America needs capable young Americans to guide it. What makes “Helpless” truly great, however, is the song that follows it…

1. Satisfied

Wait, wait… why is Angelica saying “rewind?” Why do we need to rewind? We had such a lovely night! The transition between “Helpless” and “Satisfied” is Hamilton’s greatest magic trick. The former presents a night of unambiguous love and celebration. Then the latter arrives to teach us that there is no such thing as “unambiguous” in Hamilton. In a truly remarkable performance, Angelica Schuyler (Renée Elise Goldsberry) teaches us what really happened the night Hamilton met the Schuyler sisters. Angelica will never be satisfied, and it’s because she’s “a girl in a world in which (her) only job is to marry rich.” Hamilton and Eliza’s story is a love story. But it’s also a story of Angelica’s loss. “Satisfied” imbues the musical with a sense of subtle melancholy that it never quite shakes through to the very end. “Satisfied” is the emotional lynchpin of Hamilton, and as such also its very best song. 

The post Hamilton: Ranking Every Song from the Soundtrack appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[twdmusicboxmystery]

Mailbag Fan Question and Oh the Possibilities!

Okay, this came out the week before the finale aired but I never got around to posting about it. There’s the obvious suspicious stuff, which I’ll point out, but doing research on the details, I also found some interesting connections.

So part of the Mailbag Fan Question post for the finale was, “What happened to the remaining hospital staff at Grady Memorial?”

Let's appreciate the fact that I don't think this came from a TD-er. It probably came from someone in the GA, which means we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed the oddity of Grady being left standing and what to know what’s up.

Why include this in the fan mailbag right before the finale? Obviously we didn’t see Grady in the finale or anything about it. So why put this here? They get thousands of fan questions and generally only include the ones that are asked the most or are super relevant to the upcoming episode. And of course thy don’t reveal any spoilers. So again, why have this question?

You could argue it’s to remind us of Grady's unfinished story line. Between this and all the suspicious tweets the Grady actors have written over the years, it’s obvious Grady will become relevant again at some point. That alone doesn’t prove we’re right about Beth being alive, but let’s be real. She was the ONLY character that had a meaningful arc at Grady. The ONLY one privy to all the things going on there or who learned anything meaningful from it. If Grady is going to become relevant again, then Beth is going to become relevant again.

But again, why give us a Grady Update now? Again, the actors have tweeted things out over all the seasons, so why is AMC choosing this moment, this finale to post this?

Obviously we can’t say for sure, but I think it’s just more proof of how close she is. They post this before a finale that had Alone parallels, a blond walker who got an icicle in the eye, Christmas themes, and Daryl staring at Beth’s picture. Not at all what I would call a coincidence. I’m thinking more and more that we’ll see her early in S10 (kinda like we saw Morgan early in S5). I think all of this points to that. While we may have a long hiatus ahead of us, I think we’ll see Beth in the next handful of episodes which, in the scope of the show, really isn’t far away at all.

Now let’s look at the answers. First, let me credit those in my group who hashed all this out for us. They include @frangipanilove, @bethgreeneprevails, @thegloriouscollectorlady, and @wdway. This is a collection of their thoughts and mine.

First of all, it says that the Grady people perform an apocalyptic musical. Do you really think “music” is a coincidence? Even putting Beth aside, the last episode the Grady staff were in is called Coda, which is a musical term. But we can't really put aside Beth because she was the songbird on the show. The only one who literally sang.

They also say the musical is called Mammalton. I would've known that reference but luckily other people in my group did. It's a play on the show, Hamilton which is a famous off-Broadway musical. More on that in a minute.

Then it says Mammalton is the story of mammals taking over and forming their own democracy following the collapse of society. That strikes me as pretty much exactly what was happening at Grady. Society collapsed and this group of people was trying to create a new society on all their own. Of course, it was extremely flawed and not much of a democracy, but still. So perhaps this is a way of saying that Grady is still standing, and that maybe it created a better society after TF family left. Hmm. Wonder who could be leading that.

I also had the thought that it might be a play on the word, Slabtown. Even though Mammalton is a play on the name, Hamilton, it sounds a little like “Mammaltown.” In a way, that might give some insight in the title, Slabtown. If the “town” part simply represents a particular society, then Slabtown signified that this society bread only death, rather than hope, and was a subtle clue to Beth’s fate in 5x08.

Then there's the songs that are mentioned. "Stay Alive," "The Dead Commandments," and "The Gory of Tonight (reprise)." These, too, are plays on titles of songs from the musical Hamilton. The songs from the play are called, “Stay Alive,” “The Ten Duel Commandments,” and “The Story of Tonight.” 

Come on now. Stay Alive? Can we get any more obvious than that? The Dead Commandments. Obviously, it's a biblical reference to the Ten Commandments, but remember that we saw pictures of baby Moses and the burning bush on Father Gabriel's wall in Strangers. You know, right before we saw Beth on the Grady story line?

And it strikes me as a progression. Moses was separated from his true people and family as a baby. The same thing happened to Beth back in S5. She became separated from TF. Now we have reference to the Ten Commandments. Moses didn’t bring the Ten Commandments to his people until years later (*ahem* time jump *ahem*) after he’d reunited with his real family. So seeing Baby Moses pictures in 5x02 foreshadowed Beth’s separation from TF, and Ten Commandments referenced before the finale may foreshadow…her return.

The Story of Tonight has less obvious ties to TD, but the “gory” part is obviously a general TWD theme. I did look into what the song is about and it’s about revolution and fighting for what you believe in, even when it’s not by far the easiest thing to do. So it works well with TWD.

So this “Grady Update” would be super suspicious just with what I’ve said so far, right? But naturally, there’s more. As I looked into the musical Hamilton, something else occurred to me. Another connection between this and something else AMC put out this season.

They’ve used two real paintings as part of their promotion this season. There’s this Thanksgiving picture, and then this Crossing of the Delaware picture. In both cases, they superimposed TWD characters onto the faces in the picture. I’m going to reference the Crossing the Delaware picture today. 

Our group has discussed it back and forth quite a bit and tried to read TD stuff into it. We’ve been moderately successful. But reading through the plot of Hamilton, the musical, I made a huge connection.  

So, a little background for those who aren’t familiar. This painting depicts a famous event during the American Revolution, when George Washington crossed the Delaware River (an extremely dangerous crossing) on Christmas Eve and surprised his enemies at dawn. It was a major victory because they took the enemy's camp while the enemy were still asleep and half drunk on Christmas wine and were able to completely overtake the camp without a single loss of American life. I think a few of the enemy were killed, but not many. It's a very famous story.

In my group, we found this interesting anyway because of the Christmas references here, the river (water) and of course the founding fathers suggest DC. And of course in the finale, TF did cross a river, albeit a frozen one.

So what does this have to do with this mailbag fan question?

Well, the plot of the musical Hamilton is basically about Alexander Hamilton. It's a play that tells the story of his life through true historical events and the eyes of other founding fathers, who are all part of the play. I connected it to the painting of George Washington, because during the famous Crossing of the Delaware, Alexander Hamilton was Washington's aid-de-camp, which means he was Washington’s right-hand man.

So this reference to the musical Hamilton and the picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve are connected.

Reading through the plot of Hamilton in more detail, there’s a few suspicious things. Rick’s face is the one on George Washington’s in the picture, right? Well, if Hamilton was Washington’s right hand man, who does Hamilton represent in this analogy? You’d think it would be Daryl because Daryl has always been Rick’s right hand guy. In short, it’s not. Hamilton is Beth. Let me explain why.

1. Hamilton isn’t actually present in the famous painting. Most of the others in the boat with Washington don’t represent real historical figures. They’re more like composites of people involved in the American Revolution in some way. Many of them have varied cultural clothing to represent different countries and factions who took part. So Hamilton, though he was there historically, is not actually represented in this famous painting. (Beth is not there with TF right now.) Plus, Daryl’s face is on another character in the boat, (the one near the front) which specifically is NOT Hamilton, so Daryl can’t be Hamilton.

2. Reading through the synopsis of the play, there’s a whole section about a man named Charles Lee who is granted a command by George Washington, but turns out to be a terrible field commander. After Washington fires him, Lee goes on a tirade against Washington, claiming that he’s an unfit leader. Hamilton wants to challenge this man on Washington's behalf, but things get complicated. I was just thinking that sounds an awful lot like what happened at Grady with Dawn and Capt. Hansen. Unfit leaders, challenges, duels? Major parallels there.

3. When Hamilton dies near the end of the play, he’s shot in a duel. He ends up in musket duel with someone he truly doesn’t want to kill. So when they turn and fire at one another, he misses on purpose (kinda like Beth stabbing Dawn when she must have know that wouldn’t kill her) and is in turn shot himself (just like Beth.) Interestingly, the final musical number in the play is called, “Who lives, who dies, Who Tells Your Story.”

In short, I think it’s safe to say that Beth = Hamilton in this scenario, which makes even more sense because Hamilton was used to answer a question about Grady. If the musical is about Hamilton’s lives and battles, then applied to Grady, it pretty much has to mean Hamilton = Beth.

So the short of this is that both these things—the Grady Update and the Crossing of the Delaware picture—point to Beth’s imminent return.

The long of it is that this has me spinning in tons of directions. It’s all just conjecture and head canons and predictions I have absolutely no way of verifying right now, but I can’t help myself. Given that Hamilton is Washington’s right hand man (Rick in the picture) and that I’ve always compared the Dawn/Hanson dynamic to a Beth/Rick dynamic (details HERE) and the fact that Grady was practically part of Rick’s hallucination right before he disappeared… 

And then there’s THIS POST I made a million years ago about how this shot from Coda shows that Rick, Daryl and Beth will be on similar leadership levels…

I’m just thinking more and more that it makes sense that Rick and Beth will end up in the same place. That would make all their parallels make perfect sense. And while I 100% think she’ll be a leader in her own right, wouldn’t it be super cool if she met up with Rick and sort of stepped into Daryl’s shoes as Rick’s right hand person for a while? That would REALLY put her and Daryl on the same level, wouldn’t it?

Not to mention…Legs? Beth? Red Machete? Rick?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Okay, okay. Again, this is all conjecture and my imagination is running away with me. Just wanted to point all this out because I think they’ve give us some heavy foreshadowing here and even if I’m not interpreting it entirely correctly, it’s super-important for S10. Thoughts?

[stairset]

So admittedly I'm not sure EXACTLY what I'd do differently if I rewrote tlj, bc there's so many problems and lots of stuff to consider that it'd take forever to rewrite everything. But I do have some very messy miscellaneous ideas:

-Instead of starting off right at the second where tfa ended, skip ahead like, maybe a month or two? I dunno like a time skip that's fairly short, but long enough that both sides could plausibly be able to regroup and regather their forces after the losses they suffered from in the last film.

-Rey's been training with Luke and learned a few things but not a ton. Finn woke from his coma a while ago but still needs to get his back injury looked at regularly.

-Finn and Poe regularly talk to Rey and they give each other updates on how they're doing throughout the movie. This way we can have like, actual character interactions despite our trio being light-years apart.

-Like in the film, a fight between the Resistance and FO fleets towards the beginning results in some heavy casualties for our heroes. However these casualties are not the result of Poe being ooc and doing dumb shit for no reason.

-Poe's main character arc is still learning to step up and lead, but this time in a way that actually makes sense for his character. Maybe he beats himself up for losing so many people bc he's lost someone important to him before, and he has to accept that no leader can save everyone. Accept what you can't change and have the courage to change the things you can. Or something else like that. Just something that does his character justice.

-Paige doesn't have to die. Like I never expected her to have a big role bc there's so many characters to keep track of, but I'm sick of this franchise killing woc right after introducing them so let's say Paige just gets seriously injured. Enough to motivate Rose.

-Somehow Rose and Finn meet but in this version she has a consistent personality and they actually become friends and she doesn't taze him or talk down to him.

-I haven't thought of EXACTLY what I'd do with Rose's arc so if anyone has any ideas feel free to add on.

-The tracking the Resistance through hyperspace thing can stay bc it is interesting in concept, but there has to be a little more to it. Maybe the Resistance is trying to figure out how the FO is even getting all this super advanced tech and how to beat it.

-Finn doesn't know everything but he does know the FO has funding from many corrupt new Republic senators and other officials. So Leia sends Finn, Poe and Rose (plus BB-8 and 3PO bc 3PO needs something to do) to Canto Bight, which is actually designed well in this version.

-While they're doing that, Leia and Ackbar lead the Resistance fleet to the Crait base with the FO fleet hot on their tail, hoping to send a distress signal to their allies.

-At Canto Bight they meet up with Lando who was already on a separate undercover mission for Leia. He helps them get the I they need from some skeezy rich bastards who help the FO and tags along with them.

-Rose is the hacker bc it simplifies things a bit.

-They don't spend nearly as long on Canto Bight. Instead, sneaking around Snoke's ship takes up the bulk of their half of the plot. The animal subplot is taken out entirely bc it's pointless. They come for Lando and the info and go.

-Meanwhile with the force stuff:

-Snoke telling Kylo to stop acting like Vader didn't make sense. He should want Kylo to act MORE like Vader to make sure he stays away from the light and shit or something.

-Snoke takes Kylo to Vader's old castle on Mustafar to complete his training as he said he would in tfa, and the Knights of Ren tag along bc they seem cool and ignoring them in favor of the lobster guards was a mistake.

-Mustafar is not only significant to Kylo's family's history, but also canonically was once the sight of a sith temple, a perfect place to complete Kylo's training. Plus as a bonus it connects the prequels and R1 to the sequels in a natural way.

-Kylo's Mustafar training serves as a parallel to Luke training Rey on Ach-To.

-Luke actually teaches Rey some cool shit insteas of just being grumpy and wasting precious screentime with pointless crap, and they have a meaningful relationship.

-Instead of just giving up and going to Ach-To to die, Luke instead came for Important Plot Reasons.

-Basically, we learn that Snoke is an ancient and powerful dark side weilder, far more powerful and more sinister than even the Sith themselves. The very first Jedi knights formed the group to stop Snoke, and during the battle they gave him his injuries, severely weakening him, and imprisoned him in the unknown regions of space.

-Through the force, Snoke witnessed the history of the Star Wars galaxy as we know it unfold. The centuries of war between the Jedi and the Sith. The near destruction of the Sith. The creation of the rule of two that allowed the Sith to rise again and get their revenge. The Clone Wars. The creation of Darth Vader. The fall of the Republic and the Jedi. The rise of the Empire. The Rebellion. Snoke watched it all from behind the scenes, waiting for the right moment to return.

-His opportunity came with the end of the Galactic Civil War. The New Republic exiled the remnants of the Empire to the unknown regions, where they ran into Snoke and he somehow convinced them that he had the power to help them restore their precious Empire.

-So we now know Snoke's backstory, but his exact plan isn't revealed just yet. There are hints, but save the big reveal for episode 9.

-Luke didn't go looking for the first Jedi temple for no reason. He went in hopes of learning about Snoke, and more importantly, how he was defeated the first time to give an idea of how to stop him now. Unfortunately, he hasn't figured that part out yet.

-Make no mistake, Luke may not be bitter and hopeless here but he's not without his own problems. That crap with him almost killing Kylo doesn't happen, but he does beat himself up for not saving Kylo. He was so sure that if Vader could be turned than so could Ben. But the sad fact is that you can't save someone unless they want to be saved, and Ben didn't want to.

-And the big one: Somehow, maybe through that weird force mirror or something like that, Rey and Luke discover that they are in fact father and daughter. Because like it or not that's very obviously what tfa was hinting at. And like it or not, her being his daughter adds more weight to everything. Rey finally concludes her arc of finding her family. And through Luke's training she becomes the worthy successor to the Skywalker bloodline that Kylo failed to be.

-As for how she ended up on Jakku, why Luke, Leia and Han didn't recognize her sooner, etc. That I haven't thought of a good answer to yet, but I'm sure something plausible could be figured out if given enough thought. Maybe Snoke wanted to make her his apprentice but Kylo was jealous and somehow tricked everyone into thinking he killed her and left her on Jakku to die? Or something? Idk. Again, feel free to give ur ideas.

-Back to the Resistance plot. So while all the force shit is happening, Finn and co. have been undercover on Snoke's ship to not only destroy the hyperspace tracker, but hopefully find a way to stop the FO's whole flow of supplies from their sympathizers.

-Since Snoke is away on Mustafar training Kylo, Hux is in charge of the Supremacy. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take him and Phasma long to discover that they had intruders, and they've been onto them the whole time, adding tension for our heroes to hurry the hell up.

-Finn runs into a small group of his old friends and former squadmates from his stormtrooper days, and discovers that his defection inspired them, and they've been secretly sabotaging the FO in small ways.

-So these defectors take the heroes to some important database or something where they can get the information they need.

-While there, Finn also ends up finding a big secret in the FO's database, who his parents were and where he was born.

-For who his parents are, there's lots of interesting paths to take, maybe they're members of the New Republic, or royalty, or Mandalorians, or force sensitives, or something else interesting. Either way, it's possible they could still be alive, leaving things open for them to play a role in episode 9.

-Back to force stuff again, Yoda ghost can stay but only if Anakin and Obi-wan are there too, with Hayden and Ewan reprising their roles of course. I don't know what exactly they'd do, as long as it's plot relevant and more interesting than what we got lol. Also Anakin and Kylo especially have to have some sort of conversation.

-Maybe Anakin tells Kylo how he turned back to the light, and tells him that if he truly wishes to finish what he started, then he should too. Kylo decides that the great Darth Vader he looked up to all this time is weak, and he destroys his helmet, deciding to do things his own way.

-Kylo somehow finds out where Luke and Rey are, maybe through a force vision or something. Instead of telling Snoke, he goes himself with the Knights of Ren as backup, believing he can capture them himself and prove himself.

-So we get Rey and Luke (plus Chewie and R2) vs Kylo and the Knights of Ren on Ach-To. After the epic battle, Luke eventually surrenders himself if it'll get Kylo to spare the others. Luke is only doing this because at this point he has yet to accept that he can't save Ben, and is attempting to save him by doing the same thing he did with Vader, but tragically it won't work out so well this time.

-So Luke is taken back to Snoke's ship where Snoke plans to finally destroy him, and the Jedi with him, thus eliminating the biggest threat to his plans. Rey, Chewie and R2 stage a rescue mission.

-They somehow manage to rescue Luke, and he finally realizes that his nephew is gone for good and he must accept this.

-Meanwhile, Finn, Rose, Poe and Lando got the info they needed, but have been caught, and like the film, Phasma attempts to have them executed.

-3PO and BB-8 find the defected stormtroopers who rescue our heroes right before they can be executed, resulting in a huge chaotic battle of stormtroopers vs stormtroopers.

-During the chaos, Rey, Luke, Chewie and end up in the same hangar and all the heroes meet up.

-Finn has his climactic battle with Phasma, only here it's a little longer with more buildup, thus making it more intense and satisfying. Also that bit where he reveals that she shut the shields down stays bc it was so cool.

-During the course of the film, there are many hints dropped at force sensitive Finn. These finally pay off during his fight with Phasma where she knocks him down and attempts to stab him with her spear. He throws his hands up and accidentally force pushes her back, giving him the upper hand he needs to defeat his powerful opponent.

-So after a short but epic fight Phasma is killed, and our heroes all gather in the Falcon and meet up with Leia and the rest of the Resistance on Crait.

-At long last, Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose, Luke, Leia, Lando, Chewie, R2, 3PO and BB-8 are all united, the hyperspace tracker has been sabotaged, and they have information on how the FO gets their resources which they can possibly use to beat them in the next film.

-Celebrations are short lived however, as the FO fleet followed the Resistance fleet to Crait, and the fight is far from over.

-During the space battle, our heroes, like in the film, board the shuttles to the planet below, and Ackbar stays behind to pull off the epic sacrifice that helps them get down there safely.

-Like the film, they send out the distress signal to their allies.

-As everyone is preparing for the coming battle, Finn and Rey have A Moment and kiss.

-So Kylo and Hux lead the assault on the Resistance base. The battle of Crait is epic and intense with all our heroes using their combined skills and abilities to fight their attackers.

-Like in the film, the Resistance is eventually overpowered and pinned down, and Luke walks out to distract Kylo to buy them time, only this time it's the real Luke with Rey by his side.

-Luke and Rey have another epic duel with Kylo and his Knights of Ren, but this time things go a little different. The distress signal pays off, and the remnants of the New Republic fleet (possibly led by an older Hera Syndulla, not required but it'd be awesome) arrive to help the Resistance.

-Our heroes manage to escape Crait, and now have the Republic fleet aiding them. Luke has reunited with his sister, and comforts her over Han's death. Lando promotes our newer heroes for their actions, the defected stormtroopers join the Resistance/Republic, maybe Paige wakes up and has a small moment with Rose, and Finn and Rey are set to become the first of the next generation of Jedi, and to uphold Luke's legacy when Kylo couldn't. However, Snoke, Kylo, Hux and their army are still out there, and we have yet to learn what Snoke is planning or how to stop it, leaving plenty of things open for the final chapter of the saga.

As stated before this is all just random ideas, and there's probably some stuff I forgot to mention bc there's a lot to think and talk about with this film, so if anyone wants to add anything go right ahead.

[lost-in-fandoms1999]

Things as a Theatre Kid I have done or said: Hamilton Edition

(This all took places during the month of set building ,regular rehearsals, and Hell week rehearsals for Avenue Q: High School Edition)

While eating dinner in the choir room. We were all talking about Hamilton, and one of my friends was really good at My Shot he knew all the words by heart. So as he sang, one friend recorded us all as two other friends of mine and myself were the ensemble.

Friend: You can rap Satisfied but not Guns and Ships?

Me: It's the freaking fastest song in the show and on Broadway dude! Plus I don't rap that much!

Friend: Isn't he amazing! (This was the girlfriend of the guy I mentioned who sang My Shot)

Me: The man is non-stop! *Que all of us busting out laughing*

Friend: I wonder if Jefferson really did wear a purple outfit like that...

Me: He had his own unique personal style of dress...And he was dramatic, so I don't doubt it.

Me: So get this...I live on a street called Jefferson.

Friend: Don't tell me the street next to yours is called Hamilton or Madison!

Me: No...It's called Washington.

Friend: ...

Me: Hamilton doesn't seem to have Washington on his side anymore, but Jefferson does though!

Friend: ...Why do you do this to me?

Me: Because we are Theatre Kids and Hamilton Trash.

Friend: Touché Mon Ami.

Me: Lafayette much?

Friend: Hey, sing Burn again.

Me: Why? I just sang it five minutes ago.

Friend: ...

Me: ...

Friend: I thought it was recording, but it wasn't.

Me: Oh my god!

*Proceed to run after her as she records the moment she runs for her life from me*

*Stay Alive (Reprise) Plays*

Me: *curls up into a fetal position*

Friend: Oh no...

Me: WHHHHHYYYYY!?!?!?

Friend: There there Sam.

*Pats my head*

Me: Ready to go get food before we finish set building up for tonight?

Friend: I have ten dollars which is enough for Cook Out let's go.

Me: 🎵The ten-dollar founding father without a father

Got a lot farther by working a lot harder

By being a lot smarter By being a self-starter

By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter🎵

Friend: ...I signed myself up for that didn't I?

Me: Yes, yes you did.

*Two of my friends and I sing and dance the Schuyler Sisters while one guy sings as Burr.*

Theatre Teacher: You all are obsessed with Hamitlon more than I am.

*Opening Night, 20 mintues until curtain*

Friend: Hey, I'm charging my phone can you tell me what time it is?

Me: 🎵 What time is it? Show time

Show time, show time🎵

Friend: For frick sake I should have seen that coming!

Me: 😂

Friend: I know some French.

Me: Really? Oh wait just a-

Friend: 🎵 Oui oui, mon ami, je m’appelle Lafayette

The Lancelot of the revolutionary set

I came from afar just to say bonsoir

Tell the king casse-toi

Who’s the best, c’est moi🎵

Me: 😑

Friend: Revenge!

Me: *Laying on my back on the stage staring into space*

Friend: Sam?

Me: I think I'm gonna die before we finish this damn apartment set.

Friend: You could say...

Me: Don't say it.

Friend: That you may not live to see our glory.

Me: *rolls over onto stomach groaning*

Friend: 😂

Friend: So I saw this quiz thing for Hamilton characters. I should have taken a screen shot but I forgot to cause I busted out laughing for a solid fifteen minutes. I knew all your favorite things and could answer the questions for you like you would have.

Me: And?

Friend: You got Hamilton and I got Burr!

Me: ...Yeah that sounds about right.

Friend: But I shoot you!

Me: 🎵I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory

When’s it gonna get me?

In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me?

If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be?

Is it like a beat without a melody?🎵

Friend: Oh my god I am so done.

Me: I really do write like I'm running out of time.

Friend: STAP!

Me: No way cause I am not throwing away my shot!

Friend: Talk less

Me: What?

Friend: Smile more

Me: Ha

Friend: Don’t let them know what you're against or what you're for

Me: You can't be serious?

Friend: I am serious or I will find this quiz take it again and make myself get another person other than Burr!

Me: Well if you get Jefferson we are gonna have a problem.

Friend: I won't!

*Finds the quiz, I take it and get Hamilton. She takes it.*

Me: So who did you get?

Friend: ...Jefferson

Me: Ha!

[aka-willow]

Tonight

gif

Words: 1078

Characters: Willow Wren, Marty Fields, Kate Gray, Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Annabel Carson

Prompt/Tag:

“Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry.”

47. “I can think of a million places I’d rather be right now.”

Summary: MSST’s Theater Department has its opening night of Heathers

Timeline: November 2015

Song: Seventeen (Reprise) - Heathers

A/N: leave a comment down below if you wanna make predictions where this is going idk

—————————————————————————–

Opening night of Heathers at MSST came faster than I ever expected and suddenly we were only an hour from showtime, and I was sweating bullets under my tunic sweater. I knew it would be even hotter under the stage lights, after Kate had talked us into being a part of the ensemble, but I couldn’t take it off.

On top of it, my wound from the fight earlier in the week still hurt, even though it had already mostly healed. I had hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar, but it seemed that the puffy pink stripe across my stomach was there to stay. Guess I’ll add that to the bucket list. Been shot? Check. Knifed? Check.

“How are you feeling?” Peter asked, seeing me backstage as I headed to the sound booth, my backpack slung over my shoulder, filled with all my notes and cues. He was looking down at my stomach and I crossed my arms over it.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s basically good as new. You?”

Peter glanced out of the side of the curtain at the audience gathering. “Wow. That’s a lot of people.”

“Hey, just one song,” I said. “Doing it for Kate.”

“Right. Do it for Kate.” He sighed.

“Are you sure you’re good?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, shrugging the question off. “Just a lot on my plate right now. Stressed, you know?”

“How’s your uh…”

“Better.”

“Right. Okay.”

We went our separate ways as the stage manager did a time check and I went to settle into the booth, trying not to psych myself out about being on stage. It’s fine. You’re fine. That SHIELD thing was weeks ago at this point and they never followed up. So, you’re in the clear on that. Plus, any other incident like the bank, or any of the scientists you busted would have been tracked back to you at this point if they were able to. Just relax. Enjoy the holiday season. One year free from the Facility.

After the incident with Leo Scotts, I made a vow to not take on any more Facility scientists until after Christmas, giving me a month and a half to just relax and get the rest of my life under control. And I know I said I would stop last time, but this time I really meant it.

“God,” I whispered to myself as I sat down in the sound booth, before the other techie arrived. “Let’s just calm down. Hey, and worst-case scenario, if things get bad, boom, powers. Razzle and dazzle them, babey. Let’s see a big green man stop a Willow loaded up on Dunkin’.”

The show started and I watched from the sound booth, carefully adjusting the sound, and keeping an eye on the levels. I scanned the audience to see if there was anyone I knew, but it was too dark to tell. My mind drifted as I started imagining what I could do if—like—some enemy showed up to the performance and I had to fight them right here. God that would be cool. I could go all… what’s that movie Marty’s dad was watching? Rambo.

Also, it would ruin your life.

As the end of the show approached, I left the final cues to the other techie in the booth and cut through the school hallways to backstage, where Marty, Kate, Ned, and Peter were already waiting.

“Oh, God,” Marty whispered. “Annabel is out there and she’s definitely going to film this.”

“Hey, look,” Ned said. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore—”

“One song,” Kate pleaded. “It’s the last song. It’s fun. You guys did fine in rehearsal.” I exchanged a look with the others, taking a deep breath. I couldn’t remember the last time I was this nervous, not even in all my other activities this past fall. I can think of a million places I’d rather be right now. My hands were shaking, and I clenched them at my sides as the curtain moved slightly. Was that me?

“Okay, guys, we’re on,” someone else backstage said.

I walked out between Marty and Kate, the stage lights blazing down on us and the audience just a dark mass beyond the stage. The music started playing and it was so loud, but I wanted to enjoy this moment, really enjoy it, because it was something I could never have imagined doing a year ago. The if no one loves me now, someday somebody will hit different this time, and I shut my eyes for just a second and embraced the moment, like I was saving a screenshot in my head. When I opened my eyes, I glanced at Marty and he was grinning as the music picked up and the others started dancing.

By the end, I was jumping around with the others and when the show ended and the lights when up in the house, I embraced my friends, still laughing as the applause started. I scanned the audience and saw Annabel, as well as Ethan sitting way in the back. Oh God, there’s Aunt May and she’s filming this.

One show down. We did it. We made it. You’re still alive.

My gaze wandered to the very back of the auditorium, and my eyes locked on a face that felt familiar as they said something to the people sitting with them. Who is that?

In the chaos as we exited the stage and went out to greet friends and family, I searched the faces of the crowd again, for a moment losing myself in the same paranoia I always found myself lost in. “Hey,” said Marty, catching up to me. “Almost lost you there!” He read the expression on my face almost immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly.

“Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry.” He said it half as a joke, but I knew he was serious.

I took a breath and tried to calm myself. “Nothing, really. I just thought I saw a classmate. We good.”

Annabel ran over and embraced Marty in a hug, taking him by surprise. “Nice job!” she said. “You, too, Willow.”

“Thanks, Annabel,” I said, still searching the crowd. God, I must really be seeing things at this point. That SHIELD stuff was weeks ago. No one’s surveilling your fucking high school play, Willow.

“Hey!” Kate yelled over to us. “We’re going to Denny’s! Coming?”

And all roads lead to Denny’s. This normal shit rocks.

[bublp0pr]

UF mother knows best

Just had another one! Should’ve really just linked it to my other post... but one came before breakfast and this one is coming after it haha. 

Mother knows best (Tangled) UnderFell Toriel trying to manipulate Frisk into staying in the ruins.

You want to go outside? Why, my child! Look at you, as fragile as a flower. Still a little sapling, just a sprout You know why we stay here in the ruins! *(I know but-) That's right, to keep you safe and sound, dear. Guess, I always knew this day was coming. Knew that soon you'd want to leave the nest. Soon, but not yet! *(But-) Shh! Trust me, pet Mother knows best.

Mother knows best, listen to your mother, It's a scary world out there. Mother knows best, one way or another, Something will go wrong, I swear! Ruffians and thugs, the royal guard, puzzles animals and kings, buttercup poisoning! *(No!) Yes! *(But-)  Also large monsters, men with pointy teeth, and Stop, no more, you'll just upset me!

Mother's right here, mother will protect you. Darling, here's what I suggest. Skip the drama, Stay with mama Mother knows best!

Mother knows best, Take it from your mumsy On your own, you won't survive. Sloppy, underdressed, immature, clumsy Please, they'll eat you up alive! Gullible, naive, positively grubby Ditzy and a bit, well, hmm, vague. Plus, I believe gettin' kinda chubby I'm just saying 'cause I love you. Mother understands, mother's here to help you All I have is one request!

My child? *(Yes?) Don't ever ask to leave the ruins again. *(Yes, mother.) I love you very much, dear. *(I love you more.) I love you most.

Don't forget it, you'll regret it... Mother knows best.

You can also add in the reprise when Frisk continues insisting anyway...

Mother knows best reprise (Tangled) Frisk has snuck downstairs and faces UnderFell Toriel at the door. She scolds them for being a bad child and they argue they can teach the monsters to be their friends.

*(I think i they can learn to like me...) Like you? Please my child, that’s demented! This is why you never should have left. Dear, this whole ‘pacifism’ that you’ve invented Just proves you’re too naive to go there.

Why would they spare you? Come on now - really! Look at you, you think that they’re afraid? Don’t be a dummy, come with mummy! Mother-

*(No!) No? Oh, I see how it is.

Frisk knows best, my child’s so mature now! Such a clever grown up kid. Frisk knows best, fine, if you’re so sure now, Go ahead and fight me too!

This is what it’s like! Don’t let flowers deceive you! Come attack me, watch and see! Trust me my dear (snap) that’s how fast you’ll die dear I won’t say i told you so!

No, my child know’s best! So if we’re all such softies, go and put it to the test!

If you’re dying, don’t come crying! Mother knows best!

[citizenscreen]

Darren McGavin‘s agents called him to say that ABC had purchased the rights to a yet-to-be-published book called The Kolchak Papers. The script by Richard Matheson was in its early stages and McGavin was the intended star of the would-be movie. “ListenABC,” McGavin’s representative said, “it’s this crazy story about a reporter and some kind of monster in Vegas. You don’t want to do this.” (McGavin) Darren McGavin read the script then gave it to his wife to see if she agreed with him. The consensus was, “it’s terrific.”

The NIght Stalker aired on ABC on January 11, 1972. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and produced by Dan Curtis, best known at the time for Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker became ABC’s highest rated original TV movie and the most widely viewed TV movie to date. The movie did so well, in fact, that it was released as a theatrical vehicle abroad. One thing we can say about audiences in 1972 is that they had fabulous taste because The Night Stalker is indeed terrific.

  If you’re a fan of horror or a fan of film noir The Night Stalker will grab you from the opening scene. “This is a story about the greatest manhunt in history,” we hear Carl Kolchak’s voice say over a tape recorder, “Judge for yourself the story’s believability.” Kolchak is an investigative reporter and the crimes he mentions in the opening are the work of a vampire. We learn this in flashback with definitive film noir style as he retells the incredible story. If you think this can’t happen where you live Kolchak will prove you wrong despite what the authorities might say or how hard the powers that be try to deny the story, which inevitably happens.

As this story goes – there are a series of murders plaguing the Las Vegas strip. All of the victims have had their bodies drained of blood. The suspect’s true identity is discovered by the authorities as one Janos Skorzeny who’s been suspected of blood-draining murders in the past. They even corner Skorzeny when he attempts to rob a hospital of its blood shooting him several times without effect. But there’s no mention of vampirism until Carl Kolchak researches vampire lore and puts the pieces together. Skorzeny has super human strength, he is able to outrun cars and motorcycles, he has the taste for blood thing and so on. Despite these facts, however, Kolchak’s editor, Anthony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) thinks that the existence of a vampire is ridiculous. Vincenzo is often exasperated by Kolchak who never plays by the rules. The two have great chemistry and forge a dependable friendship in between bouts of shouting, which make for enjoyable exchanges at every turn.

Lo and behold after many arguments and suspension of duties, Kolchak is able to convince the police that the perpetrator is a vampire and along with FBI agent, Bernie Jenks (played by Ralph Meeker) he goes to Skorzeny’s lair to destroy him. Kolchak is able to put a stake through Skorzeny’s heart as he’d read it’s the sure-fire way to kill that particular type of monster. This happens after a fierce battle during which several other vampire rules are proven true. For instance, Skorzeny is repelled by a cross and is afraid of sunlight, just as we thought he’d be. By the way, the music by Bob Cobert in The Night Stalker is great as was the case with so many made-for-TV movies of the 1970s, but particularly noteworthy during the final fight scene is that some of the music from House of Dark Shadows (1970) was used.

Luckily for Kolchak he had a credible witness at hand during his destruction of the vampire and yet – adding insult to injury – he is arrested for murder. There is nothing the authorities will do to quell the story of a vampire loose in Vegas. And when Kolchak’s full story appears in the papers it is a different, falsified account of the happenings, which is why our hero is an embittered man telling a tale of deceit as well as murder. Kolchak tells a cautionary tale where the people’s right to know is way down the list of priorities for those who hold all the power.

Darren McGavin delivers such an unforgettable portrayal of Carl Kolchak that he alone is enough of a reason to watch this movie and its descendents. Kolchak is unrelenting in his pursuit of a breaking story. He gets “in” with the beat cops, bribes any and all players who can give him information and is funny as all heck. His voiceovers as the story progresses are a definite plus if you like that sort of thing – and I do. Not only is it reminiscent of noir, it’s a terrific storytelling technique that helps move the pace along and tells us a lot about the character.

Fans of horror might find a bit of camp where the monster element is concerned in The Night Stalker, but if you’re a fan of classics the camp just adds to the enjoyment. Kolchak even mentions Lugosi at one point putting to rest any doubt you may have about who was/is the definitive vampire in popular culture. Barry Atwater plays Skorzeny with flair adding the requisite growls and hisses to the proceedings following is some famous footsteps.

Also in the cast is Carol Lynley who plays Kolchak’s girlfriend, Gail Foster. Charles McGraw plays to type as the Police Chief, Larry Linville of M*A*S*H fame plays a doctor and the great Elisha Cook, Jr. shows up in a small role. Another special treat for classic fans is the appearance of Ralph Meeker. Interestingly – to further the film noir ties in The Night Stalker, which really is more noir than it is horror – both McGavin and Meeker have played Mickey Spillane’s fictional detective Mike Hammer. Meeker played Hammer in Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and McGavin in Mike Hammer the TV series (1958-19959).

  Given the success of The Night Stalker it’s no surprise that Carl Kolchak would be back for another dangerous investigation. Our tenacious, imperfect hero turns in another memorable round with a supernatural villain in The Night Strangler, which originally aired on ABC on January 16, 1973. Dan Curtis takes the helm for this vehicle and delivers another quick-paced, humor-laced movie with a terrific lot of players including Wally Cox, Jo Ann Pflug, Scott Brady, John Carradine, Al Lewis of The Munsters fame with the ultimate treat being Margaret Hamilton who plays a professor who’s an expert on elixirs. Back for another turn from the first movie are film noir elements and Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo.

Although he vowed never to mention the vampire story to anyone ever again after the last outing we see Kolchak trying to convince people of the story when The Night Strangler opens. Having been fired from the Vegas paper after the vampire fiasco, our investigative journalist finds himself in Seattle, Washington. Luckily, Vincenzo is in Seattle as well and hires Kolchak to cover a series of murders. This time the victims are exotic dancers who have been strangled with such incredible force that their necks are crushed. Also, each victim has had some of her blood removed with a syringe and each has traces of rotted flesh on her neck.

With the help of a historian/researcher (Wally Cox), Kolchak discovers that similar rash of killings have occurred every 21 years since 1889 with the series lasting 18 days each time. Recognizing that time is of the essence Kolchak presses the authorities to act, but as was the case in The Night Stalker, no one but Kolchak is eager to make the details of the murders public and they drag their feet. That’s especially true when Kolchak tells the police that the murderer is 144-year-old Civil War surgeon, Dr. Richard Malcolm (played by TV favorite Richard Anderson) who is killing to get his hands on the blood needed for his elixir of life, a youth potion that lasts 21 years at a time. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it’s true!

Needless to say Carl Kolchak gets his man and the scoop. But once again he is fired along with Vincenzo because no one wants Seattle to know the murders were being committed by a corpse so the real story is once again suppressed. Those frustrations are expected, but we get another enjoyable final battle in this entry. This time Kolchak fights the should-be-long-dead Dr. Malcolm in a lost, Civil War-era city that lies hidden underneath Seattle. Malcolm lives, hides and performs his experiments in the hidden city, which is reminiscent of The Phantom of the Opera story and is just as sinister.

The Night Strangler proved almost as popular as its predecessor garnering strong ratings and eventually prompting ABC to order a TV series in lieu of a third movie, which was in the works. The third movie was to be set in New York as we see Kolchak and Vincenzo discussing at the end of The Night Strangler after they’re both fired in Seattle. Instead, the TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, features both McGavin and Oakland reprising their roles working for the Chicago Independent News Service. The premise for the series stayed close to the movies in that Kolchak seemed to have a talent for attracting crimes involving the supernatural to include werewolves, zombies and many other creatures of the night.

  In the series Kolchak always has a hard time convincing Vincenzo that the criminals are not products of his imagination, but rather living (more or less), breathing creatures. Those exchanges between the two where Vincenzo loses his temper and Kolchak does what he wants anyway are favorite scenes of mine. Also enjoyable are the villains in the episode, which naturally come from classic stories. The first episode of the series features Jack the Ripper who is alive and well and back to his old tricks.

Although Kolchak: The Night Stalker aired for only one season, from 1974 to 1975 on ABC, it is highly recommended viewing. Many of the enjoyable elements of the movies make the transition to TV and far outshine what you may find on network TV today with few exceptions. Another short-lived series, Night Stalker was given a shot in 2005 with Stuart Townsend taking over the Kolchak role.

♦

I intended this post to be my submission to the Movie of the Week Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Cafe, but alas I am quite late to the party. I didn’t want to ignore Kolchak completely, however, so I offer this as encouragement to the event, its host and Carl Kolchak all of which should not be ignored!

  Movie of the Week: THE NIGHT STALKER and THE NIGHT STRANGLER Darren McGavin's agents called him to say that ABC had purchased the rights to a yet-to-be-published book called 

[raystart]

Dave Nelson: On Making Design Front and Center at Microsoft

When you think of design-driven software companies, Microsoft won’t likely be the first that comes to mind. You might want to reassess your biases, though, because it turns out that Microsoft has been picking up some of the best design talent in the game for several years now, and its design-forward attitude shows no signs of abating.

Dave Nelson, Microsoft’s principal creative director, is one of the design team’s brightest stars and is a key player in this seismic shift. Training in calligraphy at the age of 12 made Nelson realize that he would one day work in design. He studied under former students of luminaries Paul Rand and Katherine McCoy, receiving a rigorous design foundation before breaking into the commercial world. Nelson has been a catalyst for change at Microsoft by adopting a small and agile team model that not only forces designers and developers to collaborate, but also requires that every team member interact directly with customers in the field so they can witness how their products work in the real world.

By moving toward these small customer-centric teams, Microsoft has been changing the way it approaches product development. Having learned from past mistakes, the team has also reprised its design system Metro; it recently announced the launch of its successor, Fluent, which it created with the intention of adapting to today’s world, including the introduction of 2-D and 3-D capabilities for AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) interaction.

99U Contributing Editor Dave Benton recently sat down with Nelson to find out why curiosity is the number one prerequisite for his staff, how the small-team model works within a big company with such a global reach, and why the team’s ultimate goal is bona fide, possibly-quantifiable user love.  

When did you realize design was in your blood?

I always knew I wanted to be a designer. My grandmother got me into calligraphy in middle school, and it got me hooked on the graphic quality of type in communication. This led to the idea of advertising and commercial design, and then I knew I wanted to go to design school. My academic design career in college was extremely rigorous and very traditional. One of my teachers studied under Paul Rand and the other studied under Katherine McCoy.

You started your career as a Flash developer and designer. How has that influenced what you did later?

I stumbled into the Flash thing out of curiosity. In fact, curiosity is probably the one thing that has tied my career together. Insatiable levels of curiosity are key to me and my teams. Stepping into something you don’t know and trying something new – that’s important to me. When I got into Flash, it was a real do-it-yourself time in digital design. Through Flash I built a strong technical understanding that I now use on a daily basis. I learned how to push design with code, and gained the ability to talk to more technical people and bridge the gap between ideas and execution. Look at Charles Eames: He had to sit down with manufacturers to see how far they could bend plywood. Great print designers work the same way. Flash really helped me to fully understand materials and how to flex things as much as possible. I got interested in type and image and motion, but the kinetic quality of Flash is what drew me in. It allowed me to make things come alive and get rich feedback from screens, which were traditionally hard to interact with.

Do you feel that in-house designers are getting their seat at the table, whereas agency designers are still left outside?

When you’re a hired gun, you just have a piece of the journey and don’t have the same skin in the game to fully see a product through. When you build something and stay on track to make sure a product works the way it should, you are earning your seat at the table. Design has typically sat closer to the top of the iceberg, but we are now deep into the bottom, as there is a lot involved in making a successful product at scale: It’s the long game. A designer from an ad agency has their metaphorical muscles built as a sprinter, but here you have to slow down and work out that the impact of what you do today will come several months down the line. You have to be a marathon runner to work on product.

What are the unique issues and opportunities of designing for three-plus billion people?

Tactically, my team struggles with the localization of interfaces. It’s hard enough to describe a great experience in English on one platform. Mix two different platforms and multiply it by hundreds of languages – these are our current struggles. We need to make sure we are designing with a very focused perspective while keeping a universal one at the same time. Most recently I have been working with non–information workers. This forced us to get out of our comfort zone and hang out with people. We spent a lot of time trying to learn about people who don’t stand in front of a computer all day long.

We are talking about the front-line workforce that doesn’t sit in an office; we call them desk-less workers. These are the baristas in a coffee shop, construction workers, health care industry workers. People who are on the go and working from multiple locations and are on their feet all day long. People interacting human to human. So you are building experiences to connect people and bring them closer together while they are working to be happier and healthier and more focused on what they are doing at work.

Finding the balance to go broad enough and serve the needs of lots of people is always a challenge. You have to find the balance of designing for a human versus designing for a system of people. Take the coffee shop barista. You are looking at a system: a group of people working together. We are essentially working on solving for the hive and how people work together collectively. It means you can have a huge level of impact on how you are changing the workforce. This is a sector that has been ignored to date, and much of their work is done on paper, so I also get excited about the potential reduction of waste. We are going to be able to reduce a lot of paperwork globally. One of our pilot customers became an early fan because the scheduling tools we built for her team have taken away 25 percent of the time she spent on creating schedules.

What is the biggest change you have seen at Microsoft in the five years you have worked there? 

When I first came in, the design team was ahead of its time. The team of inspiring designers here at Microsoft was one of the drivers of why I came here. We have worked through three phases of design as a company.  Phase one was “design as a service,” and it predated me. It focused on icon development and interfaces. Phase two was “design as a discipline.” This is the place where we started building studios and stronger thought leadership in the groups. Phase three is now. We’ve realized engineering and planning can’t do this alone, and so design is now at the center of the product teams. This has been a big shift!

Design used to sit in this ivory tower and yell at everyone to make things better, but now we are in this new state where we situate ourselves at the core of the product teams. We are all after the same end goal, and we are closing the gaps between concept and code. The second big change Microsoft learned from Windows 8 was to become more agile and more precise around how to execute. We’ve learned to push things out even if they aren’t perfect. Perfect is a good striving point, but it’s impossible to get to. Sometimes you have to just put it out there and get feedback so you can iterate. Embracing change is one of the core tenets of our culture. We promote the growth mind-set and try new things without being afraid to fail.

With the expansion of design and the growing recognition of its importance at Microsoft, how has that affected the company’s product and culture? 

A common focus for designers is the human condition. It’s about humans and experiences and finding ways to make things better. It’s about people. At Microsoft, our focus has been to make a difference in people’s lives. Our approach is different now as we start seeing successes from the inside out. We are starting to elevate discussions by looking at how we can get the computer to be more human-literate rather than making people more computer-literate. We are at the forefront of artificial intelligence, and the amount of data we are able to gather is really opening up a lot of opportunities to have products less in your face, and to have interactions that have no interface.

There is a global design trend focused on functionality and clarity. How has Microsoft recognized and adapted to this?

We think about systems in a couple of different ways. Metro was our first step into building a design language, but early on we saw the disconnect in the seams between our products. Each product group had its own aesthetic and process, but many of our products cross over. We really wanted to connect and build a more fluid system that could interact across the board. We also wanted to increase our efficiency – this was the drive behind Metro.

We quickly learned that Metro was hard to do, and that it required a graphic designer to make a Metro design feel right. We saw the need for increased flexibility and began planning Fluent, which started in Windows. Additionally, we had a need for a 2-D and a 3-D version of Windows. Are there ways that design patterns can affect the how data is presented? How do we interrupt people at the right times? These are some of the things we are looking at with Fluent.

We moved translating from 2-D to 3-D but we’re also looking at how these things fit in across time. We also have the rise of 0-D. There are new technologies, and we are pushing the boundaries of what they can do. Voice is now commonplace with features like Siri and Alexa. We have engineering systems that can recognize human voices, and bots are getting more intelligent. More conversational UI is becoming a reality at the consumer level. We are excited to see how voice-activated computing gets into this. We need to build more intelligent human systems that can adapt to you and become smart. Take scheduling a meeting with someone: It’s tedious and requires a lot of time and effort and human management. These are things that our systems should be able to do for us to some degree. Computers have caught up in a way that allows us to reimagine productivity.

How hard is it to manage one universal design language across Microsoft’s hundreds of product teams and rollout cycles? 

I think it’s impossible. Metro had all these guidelines and examples and lots of instructions, but it was easy to break and hard to police. I feel we’ve now embraced the fluidity and have more guidelines than laws. When you look at third-party developers, you see it clearly. Everybody has the same grid system in all the work we do. And we have one centralized icon group and put all our icons into a single font, which stops people from creating new icons for everything; it gets updated every two to three weeks. It’s a continual process that involves continual communication.

Users now expect consistent experiences across devices and in the cloud. How does this affect how you approach product development?

The cloud is our foundational starting point; knowing that devices are connected at all times is a given in all our planning and all our work. We also tend to look at the substrate – our central intelligence system. It’s a document graph. The cloud enables connectivity, but we have a level of intelligence and network connection that we follow through with. When we get to product planning and building, we all start with a core infrastructure built specifically for us that feels like Microsoft. But we also exist in worlds that aren’t Windows, and have products that have to live and breathe in IOS and Android, which are two very different platforms. How do we maintain our systems, and how do we fit into these platforms? We want to be really good guests at a party!

The common foundation is the thing that connects the dots. Each product then gets its own living layer that is specific to that product and allows it to shine specific to its audience. You start with the device and you go from there. Context is one of the principles we think about, and building systems that are contextually aware. The data and experience may be different, but everything comes down to that end touchpoint.  

You work on a small team unit at Microsoft. How does the size of a team affect product? 

We’ve grown the team from scratch over the last two years. Today we have an approximately 50-person centralized product team. It’s a mix of product, design, research, engineering, and marketing. About 15 of our people are working on design research. We had one or two researchers and one designer two years ago. What’s unique to us is that we are based in Silicon Valley, which is not Microsoft. Hotmail is really the only thing that was run autonomously here. Everything else here has been more of a technical center of excellence rather than product.

We have a program we’ve been running for a while called Compass, which was the catalyst that built our team. It might be one of the first design-driven products Microsoft has ever built. It’s a consumer advisory board, and we meet with our large-scale enterprise customers on a periodic basis and show them some of the work we are doing.

Two years ago we ended up finding an accidental insight through some of these customers, as they have a larger audience base than the typical IT business. We saw that the audiences we hadn’t talked to were actually larger than the audiences we had talked to. This led to a huge business insight and allowed us to prototype a few things out with a light tech team, and this in turn led to a pilot. They wanted to drive the way they were running their processes internally, so we promised a two-month-turnaround pilot, which involved us onboarding a small engineering team to get there. Luckily our campus doesn’t focus on a lot of other things, so it allowed us to get a team together to work on this tight timeline. We were scrappy and sent some engineers on-site directly to get the networks set up – essentially a “white glove” delivery of a really rough project. The engineers saw firsthand the range of emotions that real people had while working with their product. They saw the setup, the trepidation of trying to get in, the pain points, and the joy. The engineers were very energized by the experience. This became the central turning point for our culture today. Now every single person in the team has gone on-site and spent time with our early customers. This had never happened before at Microsoft. The change in perspective for engineers and other personnel has been huge. It has now become a regular part of our process to send people out into the field to spend time with customers and work through things with them, and it has put people at the forefront of our processes.

How has working in the field affected how you work on projects? 

We are now at the point of trying to find ways to measure user love. Utility is at the core of what we look at, and we had real people to talk to this time. Usability is the next component, and seeing people with different experiences use the product was useful. There’s no way to measure how much someone loves your product, so we are trying to measure the foundational leverage we have across our products. By having a small team, we were able to interact better with real people, but it also affected the way our teams interacted internally in a positive way. We are also running a program I’ve been calling the “Love Project,” where we are scientifically trying to find ways to quantify what user and customer love is, and how it drives usage and productivity. It’s exciting putting some science behind it.