DP Prompt: A Hero's Heart

(I don't have time to write this story so I'm putting this out there.) How Casper High got the rights to perform Disney's Hercules as a musical no one knew. That Dash Baxter wanted to play Zeus was a given. But what no one expected was for Danny Fenton to audition for Hercules. Mr. Lancer was skeptical, but saw a little of himself in the young man. He decided to test the boy, to see if his reedy voice could sing. No one was prepared for what happened next.

Danny stood onstage, and though he was not in costume, he sang with unbelievable heart.

I have often dreamed of a far off place Where a hero's welcome would be waiting for me Where the crowds would cheer, when they see my face And a voice keeps saying this is where I'm meant to be

I'll be there someday, I can go the distance I will find my way if I can be strong I know every mile would be worth my while When I go the distance, I'll be right where I belong

Down an unknown road to embrace my fate Though that road may wander, it will lead me to you And a thousand years would be worth the wait It might take a lifetime but somehow I'll see it through

And I won't look back, I can go the distance And I'll stay on track, no I won't accept defeat It's an uphill slope But I won't lose hope, 'til I go the distance And my journey is complete

But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part For a hero's strength is measured by his heart

Like a shooting star, I will go the distance I will search the world, I will face its harms I don't care how far, I can go the distance 'Til I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms

I will search the world, I will face its harms 'Til I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms

Sam cried as her boyfriend finished, his warm smile and teary eyes firmly on her. She felt undeserving of such an amazing, selfless, young man.

Surprisingly, she was not the only one moved to tears. Dash eyed Mr. Lancer incredulously.

"Teach, why are you crying? Fenturd isn't that good."

Mr. Lancer, who had been entrusted with Danny's secret prior to this, struggled to stop his sobs. His head snapped in the blond bully's direction, and he spoke firmly despite his emotion.

"Congratulations, Mr. Baxter, you have just failed Theater."

Michael and Leaf Pokemon but they've suddenly been isekai'd to Sylvarant oops

The template @frayed-symphony, @ciryze and I collectively put together.

...also uh 👉👈

there's this

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

boy in silly sitting positions compilation

I'm trying to update the Creativity sprite :]

the shenanigans in wedding impossible are fun and all, but impossible to truly enjoy because i cannot forget the high stakes behind them. it was bad enough when the premise was simply a contract marriage to cover up one man's secret, but now we have 'let me seduce my brother's fiance-soon-to-be-wife' thrown into a mix. jihan's actions are harmless on the surface, sinister beneath it. for all he says he cares about his brother, ajeong is right when she says he's not a very good brother (i mean, you could argue the same for dohan, which i will get into in a minute), because what brother makes a move on his brother's woman? it doesn't matter if there's no feelings yet, or if the marriage is fake - they've barely begun and they're already getting caught. and jihan and ajeong getting caught leads to dohan and ajeong getting caught out too, and so it always comes back to dohan's secret, his reason for trying to escape. i think starting off the drama we already know that dohan ultimately won't be able to keep his sexuality a secret, that it will somehow be forced out into the open, but with each episode, the stakes surrounding that reveal get higher and higher. the higher it gets, the more the fall hurts. the higher the walls, the more violently they crumble.

and, objectively, none of the characters are entirely without blame or flaws in the situation. dohan asking ajeong to marry him without consideration of the cost it could have on her (he's asking her to move to ny, lie to her family and his, possibly stall her career or risk losing it entirely, etc). ajeong lying about her career to dohan and acting as if she's rich and all that. for close friends, they are sometimes careless with one another, but we can also see them remedying that, rebuilding the gaps, such as when ajeong sincerely accepts his offer, and dohan calling her to check in. jihan's a much more volatile character. his character can be understandable when you think that he wants dohan to have happiness because he somehow thinks of himself as responsible for their mom dying, but what's the point in fighting for something for dohan that dohan doesn't even want? dohan has made it clear he doesn't want the company, but jihan has it set on him inheriting it, on marrying him off. he's not much different from their grandfather in that respect, although at least their grandfather agreed to let dohan marry ajeong instead of trying to break them apart like jihan's doing now. jihan's pushy and overbearing; dohan, in contrast, is perhaps too laidback. he doesn't seem to understand jihan's ambition or his struggles in the power balance, and he also left his brother alone with the wolves for five years. it's hard to really analyze the brother's that much, because we don't get that many scenes of just the two of them and have barely any backstory on how their relationship was like growing up (did dohan look out for jihan? what does he know that jihan doesn't, and vice versa? how was dohan's position in the family (we understand jihan is bottom rung)? etc).

still, when it gets down to the bone, the biggest blowback is on dohan, because he'll end up losing the one thing he wanted to protect. ajeong entered the game as an outsider, and she'll leave like one (or eventually be welcomed back into the family as jihan's wife at this point), although there will probably be considerable affect possibly on her career or public image as an actress. jihan could lose a lot, more so in standing, which he cares about, and public image as well. dohan gets outed to his family, and probably the greater public depending on how much comes to light (that reporter seems like he'll be an issue). so really, jihan and ajeong are playing a game and forgetting dohan is in the middle. and that's going to be a problem.

HELLO you teach elementary schoolers how to draw dragons?? 👀 that is the DREAM I used to teach my friends how to draw dragons during lunch in high school heheh

oh that is SO much fun HELL yes >:D

and yeah! i'm a part-time art teacher and as part of a program i'm in i go around to elementary schools and teach art workshops!! in the fall i taught them the basics of making comics and now that it's spring i'm teaching them how to draw dragons, somedays i wear my dragon button-up shirt and dragons socks too and it fucking rocks i feel like ms. frizzles cousin who's also gay

Song of Frosted Light ❄️🕊️

You know, thinking about the whole True Name business, usually in fantasy True Names and Names as Power come into play with the fae and deal making with supernatural creatures. Which is especially interesting in Tsubasa with Yuuko being a witch who makes Deals, some of which are fae deal type stuff. (Thinking about that ghost girl that got exorcised bc she requested for her house to not be scary anymore)

It's true it's a very similar pattern! If I had to guess I'd say that CLAMP weren't thinking of the fae, since that's pretty squarely European mythology whereas xxxHolic is a beautiful exploration of Japanese folklore, but it does highlight the similar traits that cultures tend to give the supernatural when they develop their understanding of the world around them. "Be careful of deals with supernatural beings because they have different morals than you" is a lovely thread that runs through both examples, as does the name thing, like you point out.

If anyone was studying folklore at university this would be a GREAT connective tissue to compare the two.

i think the most tragic thing in the byler fandom is that I have not seen any celebrity secret relationship aus 😔

watching good omens and the fact they simply superimposed a distant vague london skyline over one of the most recognisable streets in edinburgh is really making me laugh

great job lads i’m sure no one will notice

I've never been a "born in the wrong generation" type of guy because for So Many reasons I would be dead. Full stop like I would have died during childbirth I would have died of appendicitis age 8 and that's not even factoring in my queerness and neurodivergency and ultimately my mental health (carefully maintained thanks to support/modern advances in medicine and treatment). On Top Of That my hobbies include The Video Game and many such things that are of modern invention (adjacently: including The Device I'm typing this out on right now which has become my main avenue of communication to the outside world)

But I'm just saying that. It WOULD be nice. To exist in a world where fluorescent lighting doesn't exist and everything is possibly 99% less overstimulating all of the time forever.

c. martinus will see l. furius get up to give a speech to the roman people and cough and splutter through it and get freaked out when he looks at the crowd looking at him and be like ouhhhh.. i cant not fuck him

using picrew to figure out wtf luz looks like in the princess AU (i mean. she looks like luz. i'm trying to figure out hairstyle n clothes) and jumpscaring myself SO BAD upon choosing a low ponytail.

Ted Sarandos tries so hard to be like-able and relatable more than any other studio executive I've ever seen.

Like, look at this dude?

Don't you just want to punch him in the face?

And it gets worse...

He might look friendly and charismatic amongst these familiar faces, but at the end of the day, Ted is just another studio executive who is willing to cut costs wherever he can, in what he sees as loose ends capable of saving Netflix millions, but actually does in fact result in devastating repercussions for real people.

And yet still, I question his plan for all of this, as Ted is behind the company that has changed the way entertainment is consumed in the first place, with their company flourishing as a direct result of the 07-08 writer's strike. At first it was slow, but then it was full speed ahead, with Netflix starting a trend of streaming that upended the entire entertainment industry, essentially forcing everyone to follow suit. This has then brought us to a point where the conditions and compensation for workers do not at all match what is expected of them, because it is all based on an expired business model that no longer applies.

And yet, Ted has chosen the route as a CEO to create this friendly mask of familiarity amongst his talent and in the business as a whole, in a way that makes you want to trust him.

When new productions are coming out, he's in attendance making small talk and gushing in interviews about how important it is to tell all these stories, making it clear he's trying to convey that morality and this idea of doing the right thing, is important to him presumably.

But how can he call himself 'a union man', from 'a union family' and push this moral agenda, if he's going to continue to play one of the biggest roles in this strike, with the ability to solve it swiftly by just meeting the guilds demands, all the while tearing down that moral image entirely in the process by refusing to do so?

Because the thing is, this image of morality is him using human emotions that he knows make people fall in love with movies and TV in the first place. He knows that a lot of the support comes from people who give a fuck about human lives and people being treated fairly, especially now in 2023.

So, why in the hell would he expect the people he is presenting this morality to, as a cornerstone of their mission (manipulation tactic to distract from the true goal: exponential growth of profits...), to just sit by and be okay with the writers and actors and anyone and everyone on these movies/shows sets, to feel like they are being taken advantage of and abused because of his working conditions???

In the scenario Ted wins and the writers lose, Ted STILL loses, because this facade is now overshadowed by resentful workforce and an audience that is going to have a hard time getting behind trusting this company long term, eventually leading to their downfall.

You think people want to watch a show where we know the working conditions were awful, with them being on the cusp of changing that, only to be fucked over and have to go right back to those conditions?

The strike is a double edged sword at this point, but there's no denying these executives (esp charismatic Ted) would be much better off taking the -0.3 annual costs and calling it a day.

I guess it doesn't really matter though, because to Ted and all these other executives, the bottom line for investors will always be short term growth. They care about right now, not the future. If they can keep up the act that everything is going swell and convince their investors (and competitors) that profits went up this quarter and are projected to continue going up in the next one, they're doing their job. Even if that means burning to a crisp later on, so be it. It'll most likely be someone else's problem by then anyways...

Regardless, I look forward to seeing Ted succumbing to his inevitable fate of meeting the guilds demands, all while he himself has spent years building up and fostering this friendly image, encouraging this idea that morality is important to the end goal. Who would have thought Ted?? That your facade would contribute to backfiring in a strike for workers rights, supported heavily by the very public your company has spent the last decade providing content to, that supports that very same message?