#YOU'RE WELCOME ANON

[marybeatriceofmodena]

What did Andrew Lloyd Webber do to make Patti Lupone upset? Sorry, saw your tags and i was curious

Oh.

Oh honey.

You sweet child.

Anyway, get ready for one of the most infamous showdowns in all musical theatre history, with the guy who writes the straightest musicals on Broadway (derogatory) and the one and only, the matriarch, the queen, two three-time Tony award winner Patti LuPone.

So, Andrew Lloyd Webber was basically kind of a boy genius in his prime - he met his future collaborator Tim Rice when they were 17 and 20 respectively, he wrote his first big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, at 22, with Tim Rice writing the lyrics. And it was kind of a big deal at the time because the topic was controversial (you know, the Passion with rock music), but also because Broadway wasn't that far off from its golden age and let's just say the music and style were very different from, say, My Fair Lady. Or The Sound of Music. Or Funny Girl. It was basically the Rent/Hamilton of its time. (Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was around at that time, he worked on West Side Story which was revolutionary in of itself, but he's kind of an oddball in this case. You'll understand why later.)

Their real follow up (I'm not counting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a variety of reasons) was a little musical called Evita, which you might know mainly because of a song called Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Or at least, your mom has probably heard it once at the very least. It's that song that's oversung from a musical while being out of context along with I Dreamed a Dream for Les Misérables. Or Memory from Cats.

Evita tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of an Argentinian dictator, who basically screws her way to the top and ends up becoming the mistress of Juan Peron and the most beloved woman in her country through guile and deceit. Yes, I know the historical accuracy is very much debated but I know jackshit about Argentina's history except the bare basics so don't come at me. It was first produced in the West End in London, with Elaine Paige in the role, but because of Equity issues, she couldn't reprise her role for the Broadway production. So a Julliard graduate who was mostly starring in David Mamet plays got the part instead, and that was Patti LuPone.

Patti... did not have a good time during Evita, because the part is basically the kind of score where you can tell the composer is used to writing male parts, but most female singers have a two-octave range (yes, you got Julie Andrews who used to have a three-octave range, and many others, but they're exceptions), so she struggled a lot. That being said, if you listen to live recordings of her, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it got a lot easier later on. But she had this to say:

"Evita was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."

This is from Patti's autobiography, which she wrote in 2007 - 8 years after shit with ALW went down. With all that said, she won a Tony Award for Evita, and she pretty much became a musical theatre household name from then on. She played Fantine in Les Misérables, Nancy in Oliver!, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Meanwhile, ALW's next big hits were Cats (I'm not even kidding, Cats was a hit), and, you guessed it, The Phantom of the Opera, which he wrote in part to showcase his then wife Sarah Brightman's triple threat talents.

So, you need to understand before I continue that ALW, from my perspective, has always had a bit of an inferiority complex. He's basically associated to writing these commercially successful musicals that show a big spectacle but aren't ultimately substantial. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do think that if he didn't have Hal Prince, Maria Bjornson, Charles Hart and Gillian Lynne backing him up for Phantom, it would have probably been a Rocky Horror Picture Show knockoff people would have forgotten about pretty quickly. This is what I mean:

Yep, that was Phantom before any of the people I mentioned above (and Michael Crawford) were really involved.

Remember how I said Stephen Sondheim was an oddball? The thing with him is that his musicals weren't always commercially successful, but in general, in part thanks to being Leonard Bernstein's protégé, he was generally pretty well-respected and it was considered that his work was bringing musicals to a whole other level. Without Sondheim, you wouldn't have Jonathan Larson, and you wouldn't have Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am convinced ALW is resentful of that, and when you stop and think about it for more than 10 seconds, it's so obvious he REALLY wants to be Sondheim or at least command the same level of respect, but that's a story for another day.

So, after Phantom, ALW had other musicals that followed that either got a meh reception or outright flopped. Then there was Sunset Boulevard, which is based on the movie of the same name with Gloria Swanson. Despite all of her griefs for Evita, Patti LuPone agreed to partake in the musical as Norma Desmond, for its production in London, with the promise that she would transfer to Broadway once that production would open. And overall, after a string of flops, Sunset was actually doing pretty well.

HOWEVER. One day, while reading the gossip column of a newspaper, Patti found out that contrary to what she was promised, Glenn Close, who was meanwhile starring as Norma in the Los Angeles production, was to play Norma on Broadway. That was a complete surprise for her since no one on the production team had bothered to tell her it was happening - and keep in mind that for the news to come up the way it did in a gossip column, it probably would have necessitated a delay of a few weeks between the producers and the newspaper, which would have given them plenty of time to break the news to Patti. And Patti kind of needed the leg up because she was pretty bitter that a) Madonna was cast in the Evita adaptation instead of her; b) they actually lowered the key to fit Madonna's voice range, and she still had to expand her own to be able to sing the (lowered) score. And trust me, Patti is mad about it to this day.

So of course, she trashed her dressing room, the cast and crew weren't even mad about it because they were as shocked and angered as she was by the news. Patti sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for breach of contract, namely for 1 MILLION DOLLARS (yup, those are the real numbers), won, used the money she got from the lawsuit to get a swimming pool, which she called (and I SHIT YOU NOT) the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. Since then, Webber is dead to her, to the point rumor has it she had part of a building blocked during an event so she could get out of it without coming across Webber, because she hates him so flipping much she doesn't even want to be in the same building as the guy.

(There's also drama that happened with Faye Dunaway who was supposed to replace Glenn Close after she went from Los Angeles to Broadway, except they abruptly closed the show down after Close left, but that's a story for another day)

So with all the bad press, and with ALW forced to pay 1 million dollars for Patti's lawsuit, that led Sunset's productions to close earlier than expected. ALW has stayed around since, with... mitigated output, so to say. The lowest point for a lot of people is Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom, which some people love, and that's fine, but it didn't do well with either critics nor fans of the original show, which ALW is EXTREMELY BUTTHURT ABOUT. And like, there are so many stories I could tell about LND alone, but I will share my own crack theory about it, since it does relate to the ask.

Anyway, buckle up.

So. There have been jokes going around for years that the Phantom in LND is basically ALW's self-insert, where he displays to the world that he's totally not over Sarah Brightman leaving him (in part because making Phantom kinda ruined their marriage lmao), despite, you know, having married since. (Aaaaaakward.) So LND basically becomes this really uncomfortable therapy session where a man writes a self-insert musical about how his ex-wife made a big mistake of leaving a sensitive artistic soul such as himself. The characters from Phantom who appear in LND are all more or less unrecognizable as a result, and one who gets it worse (in my humble opinion) is Meg Giry, who was basically Christine's sweet and loyal ballerina friend who basically went into the Phantom's lair on her own to save her friend despite the danger. In LND, she's basically a bitter hag (because ALW hates women, guess Patti was right about that), who really likes the swim and even has a stripping vaudeville number about it, written in universe by the Phantom, no less.

For comparison, here's Don Juan Triumphant (the Phantom's opera in the original):

And here's Bathing Beauty (the vaudeville number):

Yeah, so... do you see why people hate LND already?

And that's not the only thing with Meg! She's also pining for the Phantom to pay attention to her and threatens to drown the Phantom and Christine's secret love child when he makes it clear that he's gonna love Christine for EVA AND EVA.

So, with everything we learned today about ALW, would someone like him view someone like Patti LuPone as some sort of crazy, bitter diva who's obsessed with him for whatever reason? Absolutely. Would he be petty enough to insert Patti LuPone into his self-insert musical, which gave us the version of Meg Giry we got in LND? Of course. Why does Meg love to swim so much and why does she drag Gustave out ostensibly for a swim? Is it a dig at Patti's Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool? Maybe.

I kind of hope we find out one day if that theory is true. And maybe start a kickstarter so Patti can add this painting from the 2004 movie in her collection.

Fun fact: during the process of casting for the 2004 movie adaptation of POTO, ALW allegedly suggested Patti LuPone to play Carlotta... only for Joel Schumacher to have to awkwardly remind him that they were not on speaking terms. The idea was therefore promptly dropped.

[flodaya]

cant wait for Z to H I B E R N A T E in London this summer

[caleblandrybones]

smells u. wait are you 18

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

“[something] is really throwing my spaghetti at the wall these days” is a phrase I will think about forever. thank you

[leiascully]

OctoberFicFest Day 28: Ruin

This year I’m using these prompts from World Anvil.  

Weeds have grown up between the paving stones in his abandoned heart, and ivy twines through the ventricles and atria.  Wind moans through the valves, fluttering curtains worn to gossamer.  The fabric swells as if it’s remembering she heft of flesh.  It’s the closest thing he knows to ghosts.  His heart is such a ruin that even spirits don’t linger there.  All he has are empty rooms.  

How strange, when she walks in, her heels tap-tapping on the stones.  The wind wafts inquisitively around her.  Her foxy hair ruffles.  She is a live thing in a dead place.  The vitality of her is palpable.  There’s an aura around her, bold and gold.  Whatever she touches gasps, shivers, inhales.  What was dust rises and shimmers, taking form.  A man was made from clay before: why not dust?  Why not dust quickened by the brush of her hand and the breath from her lips? 

It hurts, rebuilding from rubble.  He is scuffed and scraped from it.  But the sting of it is real.  He didn’t ache when he was ruined.  A little pain is a small price to pay for his life.  His debt to her is too high to calculate.  She is terrible as an army with banners, and as delicate as a lily among the thorns.

He builds her a tower.  He builds her a home.

[wrestlezaynia]

I think you are amazing. I look at your blog several times a day for any new insight you might have on my current obsession of Sami and Kevin aka Zowens. Thanks for feeding me.

Several times a day, really? *Bursts into flames*

[leiawritesstories]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 any wip

*smirks*

My darling Evalin, 

She looks exactly like you. Your hair, your eyes, even your smile. Our Fireheart. Our princess. Our future. The little girl you held for such a short time before leaving us. 

Why did you have to go, my heart? 

 Why could the healers not save both of you? 

Why did we not know that you were ill until it was too late? 

Why am I left behind to raise our daughter without your gentle wisdom to guide me? 

[regalpotato]

would love to jump on your convo with that anon to say pike and una probably have known each other for so long ( i mean they did serve in USS Antares together for god knows how long ) and also they probably are the longest friendship and captain and xo on the star trek history?? maybe though i could be wrong.

Okay so, I've done some research.

All media-

Picard and Riker: 35 years

Kirk and Spock: 28 years

Pike and Una: 15+ years (unclear at this point)

Janeway and Chakotay: 12 years

Sisko and Kira: 6 years

Archer and T'Pol: 4 years

TV Shows only (as in, when the TV show ended, how long had they known each other)-

Pike and Una: 15+ years (+ how many years of SNW we get) 

Janeway and Chakotay: 7 years

Picard and Riker: 6 years

Sisko and Kira: 6 years

Kirk and Spock: 5 years

Archer and T'Pol: 4 years

Below the cut for a detailed explanation on time frames and why I changed it to TV Show only to make it 'fair' and prove our PikeUna agenda.

Starting with Strange New Worlds, coz that's the one we care about here:

Captain Pike took command of the USS Enterprise in 2250.

Strange New Worlds Season One takes place in 2259.

So that's already NINE YEARS they've known each other (okay, granted, we don't know for sure that Number One has been his First Officer the entire time, but until proven otherwise, that's what I'm headcanonning - The Cage takes place in 2254 so I doubt he'd have had a different first officer for a couple of years before getting Number One).

However, they also served on the USS Antares together.

According to his service history in the Discovery episode 'Brother', Pike has served on the USS Antares, the USS Chatelet, and the USS Aryabhatta before serving under April on the Enterprise (as April's First Officer).

In the Strange New Worlds episode Memento Mori, Number One wears a USS Antares pin.

Now we don't know for sure that they served together on the Antares. But we do know that Una was an ensign on the King Jr. So it's probably fair to say they were both Lieutenants on the Antares together.

So they've probably known each other for 15+ years? Even if they weren't close until she became his First Officer (that's still 9ish years).

Now, let's look at the other Captains and First Officers. As far as I'm aware, they all met when the first officer became their first officer - season 1 of the relevant TV show.

Picard and Riker: 35 years

TNG is set 2364-2370. This is 6 years.

However, there's also the TNG movies. Nemesis (the last TNG movie) is set in 2379.

This is a time of 15 years. However, then there are the events of Star Trek: Picard, where Riker and Picard are still friends. This is set in 2399. This would be a timeframe of 35 years.

Janeway and Chakotay: 12 years

Voyager is set 2371-2378. This is 7 years.

However, they still know each other in the events of Star Trek Prodigy which takes place in 2383. This is a time of 12 years.

Sisko and Kira: 6 years

Deep Space Nine takes place over 6 years between 2369- 2375.

Archer and T'Pol: 4 years

Enterprise takes place over 4 years between 2151-2155.

Kirk and Spock: 28 years

Kirk is assigned captaincy of the Enterprise in 2265. Their 5 year mission obviously takes the time to 2270. Which is 5 years.

However, there's all the movies, up until they're quite old. The last movie, Star Trek VI, takes place in 2293. This is 28 years.

HOWEVER, this isn't exactly a fair way to look at it, since some of these (Kirk and Spock, and Picard and Riker) have movies/tv shows set into the characters older ages. Where as Strange New Worlds is set in the middle of Pike and Una's careers.

I'm not sure how you'd make it fair. If you take it from season 1 of the shows, then Pike and Una win by a very large margin. By the time Pike and Una reach old age (LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU ABOUT PIKE'S ACCIDENT) they'll probably have known each other the longest out of all the captains and XOs.

[maxsix]

I also enjoyed the big San gifs. Thank you for your service to our community.

I am God's strongest soldier. I've been staring at San in photoshop for an excruciating amount of time today. Worth it.

[degradedkai]

It's date anon, again. Prepare for updates because this is your fault (thank you).

We have plans to get married (joke, we met like 2ish weeks ago) specifically in Argentina or Italy or scottland. She reminds me to take my binder off at night. I remind her she signed up for me doing weird shit. It's perfect.

How dare you do this to me (thank you very much Mx.Kai, I owe you my life (': )

i want ALL the updates are you kidding me?? i'm so invested in you two now

this is. the softest fucking shit i have EVER heard. i have tears in my eyes. y'all need to get married and invite me to the wedding!! i'll write you a fanfic and read it as my toast/speech thing

[abitofafatass]

PAGE TWO OF PORNHUB wheeze

"Well its certainly not on the home page."

[davincsoo]

I'm mostly surprised at audiences need to pick one poor defenseless angel and one monster from hell. Also I agree that a lot of testimony so far makes Heard look bad, and the relationship looks mutually toxic and violent. Whether one side systematically abused the other is hard for me te tell, especially without fully analysing everything in the trial. That being said, the purposefull misconstruction of evidence in this case is so frustrating, bc that way you cant draw your own conclusions without a full 5-day deep dive (which I wont do). Take for example the often quoted "I too am a victim of dv" quote, where Heard clearly uses "man" as in "oh man" and is talking about a "fair fight", which to me sounds like a wildly different context than what it's presented as. And on the other side you have Heards team presenting pictures of a passed out/sleeping Depp like it means he's abusive and selfies of Heard's injuries that seem incongruent with her story? Also the apparent selectiveness of Heard's audios strikes me as odd. But again, I don't think I could get a fullish understanding without doing a week long deep dive, and I wont.

I guess I also dont see why one of the two has to be "the abuser". I understand that "mutual abuse" isn't possible, but where I'm from the law does acknowledge such a thing as a "violent domestic situation", where both partners basically bring out the worst in each other and can even be forbidden from living together, but neither is inherently more to blame or in power. They were both doing drugs and seem to be thrill-seeking personalities, why can't it have been that kind of mutually destructive situation?

Also re: the Paul Bettany texts. Look, I get venting. Fuck I've joked about about burning all men at the stake with girlfriends over far less violent incidents. I've joked about "accidents" befalling annoying professors right before exams. Whatever, I get that. But you cannot tell me talking/joking about then having s'x with your ex's dead body is not indicative of a concerning mindset. Like come on.

Anyway sorry for the jumbled thoughts, I just wanted to try and get my thoughts on this in order and out there. Thank you for providing a space to do that.

[daily-odile]

time loops going on for years scare the hell out of me to the point i cant get into ISAT, but i am very attracted to odile, so thank you for running this blog so i get to stare at her without playing/watching the game <3

luckily for us odile's too good to get stuck in a timeloop

funnier a6se version:

[merakiui]

Hi malleus begger here again (maybe i can be 🐉anon). I just saw damsel and I NEEEED THAT MALLEUS FIC!! Maybe the dragon in the movie was able to have one other child and that one is malleus. He helped his mother get vengeance for his siblings death, until yuu fell into the cave and he fell madly in love. Then it's malleus obsessed while hunting you down to keep you safe from his mother and you running away because big scary dragon. Maybe he takes his humanoid form to trick you into thinking you've been saved by some prince charming but its just him finally getting what he wants. Don't mind the horns and fangs and glowing green eyes, he's your savior here to take you away. Maybe its his first breeding season and you are just so tempting. Idk please excuse my obsessed babble.

AAAA YES YES OTL running away from two big, scary dragons!!!! >_< but one of them doesn't want to hurt you hehe. Maybe Malleus convinces his mother to spare you and now that you're no longer a sacrifice you can live happily in the caves with him as his mate. Malleus who doesn't want to scare or hurt you any more than you've already been, so he keeps his human form when he's working you open on his fingers to prepare you for his cock. You cry and squirm, but he shushes you gently and promises you you're safe here. Those dreadful humans betrayed you and for that it is inexcusable. He'll be sure to make them all pay for acting so callous towards you!

Mama Draconia warms up to you once she truly gets to know you. It's been a few months and you're pleasantly plump with Malleus's child, so soft and sweet. She can't wait to welcome the little one into the world. You've tried to escape a few times, but it's impossible to get past a dragon when you're so tiny and they have such great hearing. ;;; Malleus fawns over you, so happy to have you here with him. He loves you very much. <3

There is no kingdom for you to return to, for it's been reduced to ash.

[bixels]

So i have a small nicpic i wanted to share with you about your interpretation of spike in the au and i want to make two things clear before i talk

1) i havent watch the series for a little while as of now so i might be misnterpreting a aspect of this chatacter that might have never been there and only apeared in fan content and personal interpretation (since that whats been keeping me on the fandom)

2) this is not a big problem about the au i matured enough to not get angry at a interpretation of a fictional charater

Now here i go

I feel spike being the same race as the rest of his familie makes him lose a part of his character that might have not been central but was still something interesting about him and is the idea of not mayhering how diferent he looked from his adoptive family (and his cominty as a whole) he was he was still seen as part of it

Again this isnt a big problem with the au as a whole its just a small nicpic that i have about the au and its not going to make me hate the au

This was just my opinion that i wanted to share and im interested to know your opinion about what i said

I understand this criticism and agree that having Simon/Spike be a different race than Thea could speak to their relationship in the original show.

My reasoning for designing them both to be African American is this. I believe Simon's adoption is enough to explore the feelings of separation and exclusion he may have with Thea and her family. The original show doesn't bring up Twilight and Spike's racial differences much because they originally didn't consider Spike to be a part of Twilight's family. As far as I know, there's no moment where someone says, "Wow! You're telling me you're related to Twilight Sparkle? But you look nothing alike!" because Spike was more so Twilights... familiar than anything.

Later episodes that explore their familial dynamic poses the conflict through Spike's adoption. There's one episode where Spike's "biological father" returns, and Spike accuses Twilight of not being his real family, which breaks her heart. There's another that delves deep into Spike's feelings of exclusion from Twilight and Shining Armor's siblinghood. Basically, in discussions of family dynamics, the show places more emphasis on Spike's identity as an adopted sibling rather than a dragon.

I really do believe a multiracial family would be good representation, but the racial dynamics would not be something I'd be interested in getting into. That's not to say I find real multiracial families problematic or uninteresting or unappealing or unimportant. I just wouldn't be interested in having to explain in-text that Simon (non-black) and Thea (black) are related over and over; it would grow tedious. It adds an extra level of writing complication and opens up racial discourse (discourse that I feel is unrelated to their relationship in the original show) that I don't want to concern myself with, especially because I have no experience in navigating such discourse.

[starflungwaddledee]

A little off topic but do I spy tail feathers on gk in the last panel?

thank you for noticing thank you for noticing thank you for n oticing thanky nyou f

yes, you most certainly do!

voilà!

he's had them in every picture of him i've posted, but they're not always easy to see! i was really wondering when someone would notice!

it is a swallow-like tail! when you have big ol' wings i figure that having a rudder helps significantly with manoeuvrability. here's some sketches where you can see it a little more clearly.

and an extra bonus; with all those feathers he's obviously gotta have a way to preen them...