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The Trail of the Jedi — Jude Watson / Revenge of the Sith — Matthew Stover / The Last One Standing — Jude Watson / ANDOR 1.12

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ENJOUÉ COLLECTIF Chateau Outfit if you want to support this blog consider donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

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canon character my beloved vs the same character but fanon version my fucking detested

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yikes, unfollowing now. was a huge fan of his opera. had no idea he kidnapped the lead soprano and threatened to kill her fiancé if she didn’t marry him

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also can i just say. i'm debating making a follow up elisabeth video essay to my first one (might not materialise, depends on if i have enough interesting stuff to say and not just ranting) and one central thing i'd want to talk about is like.

death and rudolf rant

Ever since about 2015, two complementary trends have existed re: Rudolf and Death in Elisabeth.

First, you have a whole league of Elisabeth productions that are obviously uncomfortable or reluctant to include any romantic or sexual undertones between them (various Hungarian prods, Brussels 2022, Netherlands 2025...), to the point that we get the honestly laughable "five feet apart cos they're not gay" original Schönbrunn concerts (2019-2024).

Secondly, you have fans online who are eager to jump to defend their favourite production for doing this, because it "makes sense in context" "actually works better this way" "it would distract from Elisabeth and Death" "maybe the actors weren't comfortable with it" etc etc. And like, I'm all for artistic freedom and different kinds of explorations of relationships within the show. Frankly, I don't want carbon copies of the original production either. BUT! Is it truly not suspicious to anyone else that every single production in existence is using its artistic freedom to do away with the blatant homoeroticism of the original show?!?

Back in the 90s and 00s, nonreplica productions were rather proud about the homoerotic elements! The Swedish Death in Karlstad actually thought they had invented the kiss (you can read about it on a fansite), and reports say that in Finland, it was like 10 seconds long (double that of the 03-05 Vienna revival). But today, the only reasons we have any Mayerling kisses at ALL are because

1) Two brand new homosexual Death+Rudolf actors had a stroke of genius in China and decided to just go for it in the last show of each city, because that's how they interpreted the relationship, and they somehow managed to persist until it became an official part of the blocking after the German transfer

2) Some productions are simply not such miserable cowards about it kskss. Lithuania has some of the lowest support ratings for LGBT rights in Europe and it's generally not common or comfortable to be out, but the Kaunas production has them kiss anyway (albeit kinda on the cheek, so you can interpret it in multiple ways).

Bffr, a watering-down like this would NEVER happen to a straight side relationship in a musical lmao. But somehow when it happens to a gay one (which renders Rudolf's tragic mirror story sideplot and his presence in the show kind of irrelevant. His whole point is to have a complex entangled relationship with Death, despair about protofascism, and then die), many people are just down with quietly accepting it??? Hello???

I'm not trying to say that my own preferred interpretation of the show and this relationship is the Most Progressive And Only Allowed One. But I'm also really done with the "oh it's okay that they didn't kiss in this production, it makes sense". Like, it only makes sense to you because they warped the story around it to fit it!!!! In nonreplica productions they can do whatever they want forever, why is everyone in their celibacy era!! Is it really more important to get ticket money and prestige from wealthy homophobes than it is to stay true to what sets this show apart from the rest? A crumb of representation, sir??!?!

And like. After the Schönbrunn tour ends, we have no guarantees that another prod will ever have the kiss (framed as a sexual/romantic-adjacent thing) again. I mean, maybe this has actually showed VBW that it's not so terrible for sales and we'll get it more again lol, but I'm really skeptical because of their track record.

TL;DR: I get annoyed when people excuse the erasure of representation with "but I like it erased/it's more subtle and complex this way" lol. And I'm worried that things aren't going to get better in future productions...

Also, a random adjacent rant:

People are really excited about androgyny returning to Death's character now because of Lukas being cast, but

1) that's a LOT of pressure to put on just one guy, no matter how great a job he's doing

2) other productions aren't doing this 🫣

3) while many rightly praise his performance and acting choices (I adore it too!), a LOT more people are just being constantly really weird about his appearance in both offline and online fandom spaces 😭 Like, he's lauded for being pretty and bringing androgyny back when that's kind of just. how his face and body look. that's not part of the acting, that's just the guy!!!!! and people who gush about how much his looks improve the Death characterisation often seem to have implicit biases that 'androgyny' equals white, tall, thin, young, "pretty", conventionally attractive, etc. Death casting in general seems to have a racial/colour-coded component to it, which is super sus to me🥲 like, just look at the Luchenis and the Deaths from the past 10+ years, and notice how the only performers allowed to double up as both were white men with brown hair lol. None of this is Lukas' fault, but it's just something that bothers me lol

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I’m so easily persuaded into a ship. All I need is one good piece of artwork and I’m like, yeah I see it. I approve.

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some of you have never had your notp be the most popular ship in the fandom and it shows

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I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”

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LOVE LOVE LOVE their wet puppy × hellhound dynamic

it's truly over for me. that "zeit" is gonna haunt me for the rest of time. the fully whispered "greif nach der macht"... the insane opt ups that keep on coming... nobody does it like them. hall of fame material

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just want to inform everyone that before the 'die zeit ist alt und müde' verse this man licked his lips. ok i see you...

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How can you homoerotically turn off a bomb...LIKE THEY COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT IN A HETEROSEXUAL WAY

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DAY 6: BEST FEMALE VILLAIN

jung seon-ah | the devil judge

— @whenthegoldrays december k-drama challenge

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the combination of an older, world-weary dilf working with a pretty young thing with round eyes and a puppy personality is so fucking elite. never change, homoerotic "bromance" dramas, never ever change

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If the ship doesn’t have high obsession & ‘ high codependency.. do I even want it?

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My favourite genre of gay people is "They didn't have bdsm sex onscreen but, bdsm elements are always lurking in the corner and haunting the narrative through thinly veiled visual metaphorical implication."

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Enough about favorite books. What’s a book you read and absolutely hated? The book you’ve got a bone to pick with.

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Kitsch!