Give me the hot Elisabeth and Rebecca takes!

Sure thing! (Oh boy this turned out long.)

Elisabeth disclaimer: this is purely based on vibes. I have some knowledge of the historical background, but it’s not really my field of study.

Rebecca disclaimer: this is my field of study and I have very strong opinions on it, though I do not claim that I am always correct. I do however maintain that I could back up many of my claims if I had the time to do proper textual analysis and read secondary sources.

I genuinely think Elisabeth (the musical as it was written) is a masterpiece. The framing device, the way certain melodies mirror each other to foreshadow events or indicate character development — it’s amazing! Plus, the music is ridiculously good. 100/10. I love this musical.

Most stagings/recordings of Elisabeth since 2012 though? More than questionable. Levay/Kunze musicals in general appear to be following a pattern where the original production and a maybe one or two productions after it are full of nuance and complexity, only to have that complexity broken down and reduced over time. That is no fault of the musical itself, but a worrying trend of not trusting audience to be able to handle nuance and trying to make every element of a production more palatable and easier to handle. I hate it. Both the 1992 and the 2005 Wien productions have so much to recommend them (I can’t speak for the German productions but would humbly turn over the questions to more Elisabeth-versed mutuals like @fitzrove), but it all seems to be going downhill.

HOT TAKE: I think bringing on more and more “Broadway-sounding” performers to do both Elisabeth and Rebecca is a mistake. For me, Levay/Kunze shows have a very specific sound to them, a sound that fits into European musical theatre and makes sense for when and where they were created. Hiring almost exclusively people with a way more modern, belt-y sound is not a direction I personally like for these shows. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about any specific performers, it’s about trying to change the sound of these shows into something more akin to a big Broadway musical and that really doesn’t work for me. Both Elisabeth and Rebecca are so idiosyncratic in how they sound and how they’re written, trying to make them fit into a mould they don’t belong in does them a disservice. (Looking at you, VBW.)

Maybe not a hot take: but I love the 2005 Wien production of Elisabeth so much. It was my first exposure to the musical and remains my go-to cast album. It certainly has faults and I totally understand why people might gravitate towards different productions, but since I haven’t listened to the full 1992 Wien and 2001 Essen (?) productions yet, I can only compare it to 2012.

REBECCA HOT TAKE: Michael Kunze has stated that he views Rebecca as first and foremost a love story and I think he is WRONG. Daphne du Maurier herself would probably think he was wrong (seeing as she hated the story being described as a romance). This is a core problem with Rebecca das Musical. There are many things to love (Danny, Danny, Beatrice, and did I mention Danny?), but in my opinion, the whole “this is a great love story” angle does it a huge disservice. Let’s make it weirder! Let’s make it as bleak as it fucking is! (Probably not a crowd pleaser but let me have my fun).

Rebecca the musical could have done with some serious editing.

The Magdeburg production of Rebecca, which I am aware was not very accessible to a lot of people, might be one of the best productions of Rebecca ever. Kerstin Ibald absolutely knocked it out of the park with her Mrs Danvers and gave her all the nuance and emotion we so desperately crave. Her Danny is so broken, so lost. Patrick Stanke’s Maxim strikes the perfect balance between the haughty upperclass Englishman who takes kind of a fatherly tone with his young wive, and the haunted, jealous husband who absolutely did murder his first wife. Also in this production Maxim and Ich finally have some chemistry! This production’s Ich (Sibylle Lambrecht, I think) has such a great character arc and it is completely believable that she is into Maxim, even (or especially??) after his confession. Plus, the set design was amazing!!!

More Rebecca hot takes that I’ve definitely brought up before: I know we all like to write Ich as a repressed queer woman who ends up not being all that into Maxim, but honestly, she probably is very attracted to him. We can speculate about the why, but like, it is strongly implied that they have sex for the first time shortly after Maxim’s confession. She wants him.

I maintain and will die on this hill that making Danny sing “Ich liebte sie, doch sie hat mich verraten” is a mistake. I mean, yes please let Danny tell us she loved Rebecca, but come on. Danny doesn’t lose her faith in Rebecca. She doesn’t stop idolising Rebecca. Whatever her reasons for setting Manderley on fire may be it’s not that she thinks Rebecca betrayed her. I don’t even think Danny thinks highly enough of herself to even consider feeling betrayed by Rebecca. Rebecca is god to her.

I definitely have more, but this post is really long and I’m running out of steam… Hope you enjoyed!

Bonus 8: How met your mother (CSSR design by @qourmet!)

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Gideon at the end of Nona The Ninth strikes me as.. really odd. I know some people thought she's out of character because she's kinda mean - which I don't agree with - but honestly every time I get to that part I think: She's smarter than that.

I know fanon Gideon usually portrays her as a huge idiot and a goofball (fair enough for the most part) but she's also one hell of a skeptic and stubborn character that does NOT bend to authority easily. And let's remember The Unwanted Guest: We know that just by the nature of the Lyctor process Gideon must have picked up some stuff from Harrow as well, we even see it happen when she starts discussing basic necromancy at the end of Nona.

So, Gideon is now being sent to the ninth to kill Alecto, John's Cavalier, and take his place going forward, or at least this is what she says.

You see what I'm going at? She's smarter than that.

I am NOT saying she is acting out character by the way! But I think we don't give her motivations enough credit beyond being reckless because of grief. Gideon Nav who all her life has done nothing but hatch escape plans and NEARLY succeeded? Gideon Nav who is carrying part of Harrows soul? Gideon Nav WHO WATCHED THE EVENTS OF HARROW THE NINTH UNFOLD WITH HARROWS EYES?

I guess what I'm wondering is: What's her plan?

the tiniest snippets of triss and sabrina dancing

please say more about jilypad + diverging parenting styles... perhaps even a possible scenario >:) i imagine harry has very cunning tactics for using this to his advantage

helloooooo <3 thank u for this ask bc i love talking about these three and harry. i went looking thru the archives to find this post; my first foray into this side, and really, i’ve never looked back after that.

so i’ve talked ab this a bit before but i fully think that james was a very overprotective ‘mother hen’ type parent. i tend to read his behaviour in lily’s bday letter to sirius as being scared of his child on a broomstick and i fully, fully think he’ll never be able to let go of that as harry grows up. he’ll be anxious and suspicious and paranoid, and his first instant will always be to wrap harry up in cotton wool and hide him away. (i low-key connect this to his childhood as well; going from being spoiled and sheltered to dropped in the middle of a war, black & white thinking, living in extremes etc etc makes it v hard for him to be Normal about his child. as he shouldn’t be, really, but yeah) that’s why he thrives during the initial years; he never minds the hard parts of being a new parent, loves it in fact, and it makes it better that he can keep harry close to him at all times w/o coming off as a helicopter parent (not that the notion bothers him ofc).

it’s good, then, that he has two partners to even the scales, no? i think lily was the most…balanced out of the three. she had a relatively normal childhood, grew up in a working class family/neighbourhood and had to deal w adversity from a young age so she’s developed a nice, thick skin. she also has a sibling with whom she has a v rocky relationship so she knows that kids are, ykno, a bit unhinged. and a little bit of hardship is not a problem. i hc her as needing time to get used to parenthood, unlike james who stepped into it natural as breathing, or even sirius who loved harry on much on first sight that it made up for everything else. ofc lily loved her son, but it didn’t come w the same blinding intensity of her partners and made her feel really shitty in the beginning. but, i think she’d shine during his teen years actually, because she’s not overbearing or intense and becomes the quiet, calm strength that a hormonal, spotty teen boy would probably need.

and sirius <3 our poor baby falls in love with harry, perhaps even more quickly than james, with such startling speed that it shakes his entire foundation. he doesn’t regret it but he’s constantly discombobulated. i also imagine that…it takes him longer to settle into the role of parent, esp bc he’s not biologically one ykno? not like it matters to anyone, ofc, but it takes him a long time to truly accept his authority and place, to believe that he has just as much right as j&l to be there, to parent harry. this has the consequence of him always being more indulgent than the other two; after all, he considered himself a godfather before a parent and a lot of that thinking stayed. he lets harry get away with stuff the others might not (and the little mf figures this out later); some of it also comes from sirius seeing so much shit, and facing so much shit himself, that he rationalises a lot of stuff as ‘well, this isn’t the worst it can be, so what’s the harm’ (because his life has been such a roller coaster that he’s forgotten that not everyone’s like that, if that makes sense?)

its obviously not this clear cut but i imagine harry looks at it like this: if he needs unconditional love, he goes to james; rationality and logic, lily; acceptance and calm, sirius. when someone has to be beat up for hurting harry, james steps in. if he needs help burying a body, it’s sirius. dealing with some asshole boss/teacher/classmate’s mother who’s making harry’s life hell? lily. i can keep going but,,,u get the idea, right? this makes sense, i hope lol

i actually think harry’s first birthday is a great example. sirius pushes the boundaries by gifting lil harry a broom; james loses his mind running after him; lily places an industrial sticking charm on harry’s butt, leans back with a glass of wine, and enjoys the show. even as he grows up, lily and james act as the disciplinarian, and sirius is the emotional outlet. all of them fill in each other’s cracks so well, and it’s only when harry grows up that he realises how effortlessly they worked off each other to parent him.

also oh man o man. harry being cunning is,,,,,see, i’ve not considered it this far but it makes perfect sense. i think canon harry actually had so much manipulative energy and it’s often overlooked for his goofier traits but! this is the same dude who used his dead parents to trick slughorn into revealing sensitive info! imagine if that could be channelled into his jilypad interactions 😈

it’s like, it takes him a bit, because his three parents r so smooth, but once he realises that all of them have certain weak spots, he does NOT hesitate to exploit them. (it has the unintended consequence of truly strengthening the jilypad relationship into an unbreakable one bc one thing their kid taught them is to have ironclad communication going at all times so nothing they’ve said, or not said, is used against them). so like, he knows if he wants to sneak out to a party, it has to be sirius and in a specific way—‘i’ll be totally safe, papa, plus i really wanna see what it’s like and idk when it’ll get a chance to again’. if he widens his eyes to pitiful levels, pouts a little, and blinks faster than usual, then james is putty in his arms as long as he’s separated from the other two. divide and conquer becomes the main tool in harry’s arsenal, actually. lily’s the toughest nut to crack, purely bc she doesn’t run on emotions or irreverence, but harry soon learns that if he comes up with a solid, logical case that proves his argument has unbiased merit then he has a good chance of getting her to say yes. (this is good, bc u can arrange words in the correct order, but u can’t always control emotions)

so overall yeah, you’d think one kid + 3 parents would be an easy bet, but harry keeps them on their toes all the fkn time.

Atsushi for the ask game.

ATSUSHI HERE WE GO THANK YOU FOR HEARING MY PRAYERS

Favorite thing about them: HIS SELFISHNESS. It's so so delicious to explore. Can you imagine a protagonist that saves others not out of simple good will, but because of egoistic self-preservation motives? It just feels counterintuitive for me lmao, and I found it quite messed up when I first watched the anime, but now it's so compelling to explore. His whole “everything I do is in order to gain the right to live” is crazy fashinating. Because lol, that's entirely nonsensical to me! There's no such thing as “gaining the right to live”; all humans, every person in the world is inherently deserving of life. All. No exception. So there's no level of “weak” or “worthless” that would make you lose that right. The fact that's it's a vision so distant and absurd from mine, idk, it just makes it very compelling to explore? “What if there was a little fucked up guy who believed the right to live had to be earned” just sounds like a very interesting premise.

Least favorite thing about them: When I first watched the anime, I think I found him low-key annoying? I just... Don't do very well with self-deprecating people and people who complain a lot in general, I usually suffer in silence and tend to (wrongly) assume others should do the same (this probably makes me sound pretty mean, I swear I try to be understanding irl). However, it doesn't bother me as much anymore, I simply think it's more of a distinctive trait of the character that makes him multilayered and unique. As of now, I can't think of anything I don't like about him if not the fact that I wish he'd rely on Dazai and others in general a little less. I know that has to do with his lack of self-worth, so maybe it makes sense,, but as of now he feels kind of stuck. I just wish we'd see him grow more on that front.

Favorite line:

There may be better ones, but I really like the delivery of this one.

brOTP: KYOUKA AND ATSUSHI they make me go insane. Already talked about this in the Kyouka post but just to reiterate: in my headcanon Kyouka really is the only person Atsushi feels genuine, selfless affection towards. It's very sweet. They're siblings. Kyouka's happiness is really important for Atsushi. They really do have that feeling of people who got out of an abusive environment learning what normality is supposed to be like together. I also really like how they compensate for what the other lacks, be it decisiveness and coolhead for Atsushi and empathy and positivity for Kyouka. Although plenty shipping them romantically, I really like platonic sskk and atsulucy as well.

OTP: I really like sskk eheh. I think they're neat. There's a thousand and one reasons why I find them pretty great. They're objectively the only reason why I got invested in bsd as well as the only thing that has me keep up with the franchise to this day. Right now, I feel like the one thing I really appreciate about them is how you can be the worst person in the universe and still somehow be loveable to someone. I think it's sweet. I also find it very fun and enterataining to explore their various soulmatism antics. They're both very complex and multilayered characters with something deeply wrong with how their minds work that makes them very fun to analyze both by their own and in the complexity of their relationship. Their collective story arc and canon relationship progression is extremely engaging and nice to follow, too. I love dazatsu and atsulucy as well!! Both were ships I wasn't particularly invested when I read the manga for the first time, but really grew in me in the last six months or so. I really dig akuatsulucy as well!!

nOTP: Nothing?

Random headcanon: He really likes reading. There's some real meta-analysis to be made here I actually had written this is probably not the right place to talk about, but in a work that's all about literature, he's the character who reads.

Unpopular opinion: He's the hardest character to write / characterize. That's why people should probably go easier on other fans when they mischaracterize him. He's just very multifaceted and genuinely hard to get. I keep seeing people being like “Stop babyfying Atsushi he's an independent adult!!” then turn around to say “he can't be shipped with Dazai because there's too much unbalance of power :// [somewhat implying Atsushi can't make free decisions for himself]”, or “Stop making of Atsushi a soft baby who never did wrong in his life!!!” then turn around to say “Atsushi is the happy puppy of the agency who gets treats and pats from everyone ^^ ” like. At least to me, a lot of people's arguments sound self-contradictory all the time; but that doesn't mean people should stop having fun and characterize the characters as they like! Just, let's stop being mean to each other and try to be a little more accepting towards others' takes, shall we? And yes that also includes letting people find Atsushi annoying if they find him annoying (although like, I've NEVER found anyone call Atsushi annoying ever, so really, what remote fandom spaces is everyone visiting? Why are you looking for clothes (good takes) at the soup store (Tik/tok I assume?) ).

Song i associate with them: Common World Domination by Pinocchio-P, HIBANA by DECO*27, Ghost Rule by DECO*27, so on and so forth.

Favorite picture of them:

Favourite panel from the manga:

Favourite illustration: Look, there's too many beautiful illustrations, I can't chose. Here's a very good one though.

Favourite illustration in the anime art style:

But also:

Favourite Mayoi card:

Send me a character?

thought about professor caleb a little too hard. laying on the floor

Any g/t peeps here a fan of Baldur's Gate? Specifically Astarion? I'm wanting to write a borrower x Astarion fic but I'm wondering just how he would react to seeing a borrower. Would Astarion see them as food? Would he regard them the same as he regards gnomes, halflings, kobolds, etc? Or would he simply be fascinated by them?

I was wondering if you had thoughts about how Ice and Mav's politics don't fully align with their actions? There was a post where you said Ice's politics are more socially liberal than Mav's but Mav is also the one who goes out to La Jolla to hit on guys before Ice, and later again when he's broken up with Ice, but Ice only goes out with women out of fear for his honor or whatever. Same with their respective thoughts on feminism, with Mav's mild respect for Charlie (telling Ice not all women fit the stereotype) but later Ice is the one who sends Juno to Mav's Top Gun class without telling him she's a woman and Ice has a respectful friendship with Juno. I think you said Ice is vaguely on the ace-aro spectrum (demi-homoromantic) which is a sort of fascinating irony that he doesn't have the words for it whereas Mav is the one with the theories about Ice's sexuality. Though with their hypocrisies and inconsistencies this all just feeds into their characterizations of the fact that they keep divorcing their actions from their spoken words from their identities.

okay going to take this point by point

1. yes i have addressed their politics in relation to their actions before, so maybe read this post and this post before you read this one, just to see where my other thoughts line up

2. gay republicans and conservatives do exist (at the very least certainly republicans and conservatives who have gay sex in secret)

3. before maverick is a political actor he is a human being, and the characterization that we are primarily given for him is that he is impulsive and reckless and doesn’t think through his actions. As ive written about many times before—from a story construction standpoint, his thoughtlessness is his number one most important character trait. He is both thoughtlessly dangerous (his hero’s “fatal flaw;” he can’t stop himself from making bad decisions) and thoughtlessly brilliant (the navy’s best and most daring and heroic pilot). He does what he wants without thinking about it; and he makes excuses and hollow promises whenever that plan doesn’t work out (“I know better than that. It will never ever happen again;” [it happens again] “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.” [goose dies shortly thereafter]). His thoughtless impulsiveness overrides everything else. Maybe the act of having gay sex (to address your “he gets fucked in La Jolla before ice” point) is politically subversive, but for Maverick’s thoughtless character that we are shown in Top Gun, the most subversive possible thing would be to LABEL the gay sex and think through the consequences of it. To call a spade a spade and call himself gay or bi or queer or whatever. That would be the most subversive (and with mav, entirely unbelievable imo) possible thing. That takes conscious effort of thought, something maverick is near-incapable of doing. As long as he can get away with it without thinking about it, he’s politically in the clear, with regards to his character & character arc. If that makes sense. “Don’t think. Just do.” That’s literally his motto lmfao. He represents thoughtless action as an archetype; his politics come secondary to his desires

4. Their “respective thoughts on feminism” are divided into two camps: 1. “Professional as required by the law” and 2. “Sex pest mode.” They’re naval officers in the 1980s. Whether republican or democrat, that’s kind of par for the course. How men treat women can be a performance to other men. Any respect i made them show towards women had broader, more metatextual “need to move the conversation/story from A to B” reasoning behind it. See the first post I linked for much more on that.

5. i never said ice was on the ace/aro spectrum, or if i did i DEFINITELY meant it sarcastically. That could not be further from what i believe. This isn’t something I’ve ever discussed on this blog before, but a MASSIVE part of the philosophical discussion I’ve been trying to moderate within this project over the last year is the question— “do labels even work with characters under these very specific and extraordinarily extreme conditions and societal pressures?” It’s a question I took from my time studying early American history—the contexts of certain environments, and I would definitely count the elite officer ranks of the navy in the 90s and 2000s as one of these certain environments, simply Are Not Conducive to the easier (path of least resistance maybe) ways we civilians handle sexuality and friendship and trauma. There are so many variables and external and internal pressures within an environment like the upper ranks of career navy officers that sexual orientation labels lose all nuance and accuracy. I don’t think Ice (as i have written him) is gay. I don’t think he’s straight. I don’t think he’s bi. I think he’s an unlabelable product of too many variables for labels to have any effect on how he is perceived. Which, in our society built around labels and categories, is admittedly difficult to wrestle with. But doesn’t make it any less worth wrestling with.

6. Yes, ice and mav’s hypocrisy is the linchpin of the entire story.

They’re both trying to have their cake (“honor” and moral superiority based on the harmful traditional subjective morals arbitrated by elite navy officership) and eat it too (a fulfilling relationship with the love of their lives). & the point is that they cant. they have to settle for one.

i just realized the thing about this final leg of tour that we’re all picking up on, which is that it feels so much like it’s charging toward something. this truly doesn’t feel like mcr going gently into the night, it doesn’t feel like a peaceful or fond farewell. it feels like they’re hurtling toward a destination we cannot see yet

Spoilers for new season of TDP here but one weird thing after getting my wisdom teeth out is that I keep feeling like I’m going to cry over everything. Would you believe me if I said I actually physically burst into tears when

Callum and Rayla found out Amaya and Janai are engaged? 🥹🥹🥹 Actually broke down a little because they’re so sweet

anonymous said : Are your parents proud of all of your achievements? ( for Dr. Ratio )

      ⸻       the   dawn   rises   ,   redirecting   its   rays   from   captivating   lines   to   a   query   ,   recondite   in   its   scarcity.   closed   ,   his   tome   resigns   ,   providing   the   doctor   with   arrant   focus   ,   despite   the   address   being   a   trifling   matter   entirely.   one   ,   that   was   seldom   on   his   mind.

  ❝   they   are.   ❞   he   states   ,   as   if   it   were   gospel.   after   all   ,   what   child   —   what   prodigal   child   ,   was   not   revered   by   his   parents   ?   with   all   his   accolades   ,   all   his   accomplishments   ,   all   that   he   had   done.   why   would   there   not   be   admiration   intertwined   ?   ❝   ever   since   i   showed   promise   ,   they   have   always   been   relatively   proud.   ❞   for   the   likes   of   veritas   ratio   ,   a   detached   lilt   is   hardly   unusual.   even   if   it   involves   the   topic   of   family.

  but   his   eyes   harden   ,   losing   that   lustre   for   only   a   moment.   steering   pupils   to   stray   minutely   —   a   smidge   from   the   enquirer   ,   as   he   ruminates   silently.   until   recognition   scolds   to   yield   and   revert   to   rationality’s   path.   ❝   since   my   embarkation   ,   i   have   maintained   little   to   no   contact   with   them   ,   but   once   i   finish   my   work   here   ,   paying   a   visit   is   a   feasible   consideration.   ❞

  he   ponders   on   the   situation   he   envisions   ,   regarding   his   return   to   home.   an   endeavour   he   would   partake   in   ,   once   his   promise   was   fulfilled.   or   rather   ,   when   he   would   reclaim   his   birthright   ,   sworn   to   him.

  there   must   be   a   wrap   —   up   ,   however   ,   with   time   being   a   precious   and   limited   commodity.   ❝   do   not   be   dismayed   ,   being   away   from   family   for   a   prolonged   amount   of   time   is   a   common   ordeal   amongst   all   pioneers.   besides   ,   they   did   not   hesitate   to   enrol   me   once   the   letter   of   admission   was   delivered   to   our   doorstep.   ❞

  reinstated   ,   neutrality   restores   the   doctor   to   his   prior   impartial   countenance   ,   erasing   any   and   all   trace   of   so   —   called   tells.   ❝   you   could   argue   that   i   am   the   embodiment   of   their   lost   ambition.   ❞

At the beginning when the guys are just getting to know each other, Mike and Davy get into a fight (something silly and easily avoidable, but they don’t really know each other yet and they’re suddenly living in very close quarters, tensions are high). Mike loses his temper and starts yelling (he hasn’t learned to regulate his emotions yet and is used to yell or be yelled at). Davy (who’s the newest to the group and not used to being surrounded by this much testosterone (see: 3 sisters)) gets lowkey terrified since Mike is a lot bigger than him and is extremely scary when mad. Davy’s eyes start to water and he’s kinda frozen in fear and doesn’t know what to do (the others don’t step in because they’re also unsure and its the first big fight in the Pad) and begins to (unwantedly) regress. Mike notices this and is kinda like ‘oh shit’ and immediately calms down and is trying to apologise but it’s too late and Davy’s in tears. Mike has to comfort him and soothe him and from then on the rest is history.

AAAAH OH MY GOODNESS!!

Hiya!

I saw your SilRuggie post and I feel you on the "Silver and his many boyfriends" part.

Idk what it is about Silver but he's so... Shippable?

Like I ship SilVil, KalimSil and JadeSil which are kinda popular. But it's also stuff like RidSil and LeoSil (oh so much brainrot currently about LeoSil,) Which aren't as popular.

He's probably my most shipped character like... EVER.

(I may have gotten some ship names wrong)

IT’S THE CHEMISTRY IT’S THE WAY HE HAS CHEMISTRY WITH SO SOSOSO MUCH OF THE CAST!!! he’s so deeply just…good, and he cares so earnestly, and he has examples of interactions with almost fuckgng everyone at this point. like i can understand why someone would ship just abt any silver ship, i GET it, bc theres so much potential. i think i have like…3? that im neutral on? maybe?

also hearing u associate silvil with the kinda popular ones, im fuckign weak at the knees. that is incorrect but im pretending ur right bc it makes me oh so happy

All the younger spideys keep finding ways to annoy superior cuz they know he isn't going to do anything except verbally react in a way that's so old man core that it is funny to them. They frequently prank that loser and he genuinely thinks hes just struggling to keep up with Kids These Days </3 but also if they request him to do something he will try even if hes suspicious of it (because he has a soft spot for kids and if he doesn't they'll go running to Peter slandering him) and everytime it ends with him being hit with a Delicious Pie to the face