#im rewatching and taking extensive notes and im noticing THINGS

[shedelulululu]

you're like having a kid i never wanted

That 30+ year old man is her son !!! she loves his annoying ass !!! she's treating his sleep deprivation and adhd with redbull first thing in the morning

[justalads]

c!niki and c!wilbur enjoyers. pspspspspspsps

alright guys so last night i rewatched pretty much all of the pogtopia arc. and this isn’t meant to be a big, important analysis post (it’s kind of incomprehensible), because my brain is fried from, you know. rewatching pretty much all of pogtopia. but i do have some stuff i’d like to say.

(this also just became a niki meta sorry i love her. i really just got emo about her during the second half of this and it got long. i have a lot of feelings about her and wilbur’s friendship.)

it’s a pretty general conclusion that wilbur’s real “downfall” began on october 8th, during the stream “who are you go away”. of course, his spiral and the process of him losing faith had begun much earlier, more around the end of the first war or during the election. but the big switch, so to say, was definitely here, when as wilbur walks back from schlatt’s announcement, he asks tommy if they’re the bad guys.

this entire scene was so interesting to me. wilbur here is a man who has lost hope, someone who is backed into a corner morally and has nothing left. he points out that they can never really reclaim l’manburg without forever tainting it, and that schlatt knows this. the entire half an hour or so before, schlatt has been taunting wilbur about losing that power. the emphasis of the festival on “democracy” is so clearly a barb thrown at wilbur, and it works.

wilbur’s “nothing left to lose” in this vod is a mirror to niki’s “you know what they say about a woman who has nothing left to lose”. this will not be the first time they mirror each other.

basically, wilbur’s angry. when schlatt announced the festival, wilbur realized that maybe it wasn’t a terrible thing. so once he worked around into the mindset of “we’re the bad guys”, he was able to justify saying he was going to blow up the nation with no remorse. he wants chaos! he wants no survivors!

does he do it? god no.

during the streams leading up to november 16th, wilbur is consistently scared. he goes back and forth on it, and makes multiple “conditions” that determine whether he’s going to do it or not, almost begging someone to stop him. he whispers to himself that he’s scared, that his hands are shaking, that he’s not sure if it’s the right thing to do. because despite what he says about “not caring about any of them”, the instant niki is threatened after tubbo’s death, wilbur walks up to schlatt and tells him that if he’s going to kill anyone it should be him. later, when quackity and tommy talk him down from pressing the button, he can’t press it because they’re there and he can’t bring himself to kill them as well.

but he has no problems with putting his own life at risk. he refuses to wear armor half the time, and actively places himself in harm’s way to save others. he still cares about everyone else, as much as he says he doesn’t. even when he does cause harm to others, during november 16th, he immediately begs phil to kill him. “look, they all want you to.” he can’t live with what he’s done, and how he’s hurt people, but he couldn’t allow manburg to continue.

the man is terrified and angry and he can’t win. and even as he tries to stuff himself into the mind of someone who doesn’t care, he cannot. when he finally does, he cannot live with being that person.

but the reason i rewatched this arc was to see niki’s point of view, especially after her statements during her last stream. i genuinely think that wilbur’s only betrayal of her was pressing the button, because he betrayed everyone. they might have known he was going to do it, but they had faith he wouldn’t.

wilbur cared a lot about niki. her life under schlatt was awful, wilbur hated that she was suffering, and the scene where wilbur plants himself directly in the center of the festival and tells schlatt to kill him instead hits pretty hard. he has the argument with schlatt, and then turns to niki and tells her to run. he then hits people and sprints away, trying to give her time to escape.

this is also when he asks her to join pogtopia, because now that schlatt has said he’d kill her, it’s a safer place for her.

so the man did care about her. niki is angry at the memory of him that she has. it’s been twisted by time and her own grief and paranoia.

in rewatching pogtopia, i realized that a lot of people hate the memory of wilbur. not him, and what he did. they think he didn’t care. and to quote hamilton (apologies):

“history obliteratesit paints me in all my mistakes”

does niki have a right to be mad at him? absolutely. he caused direct harm to her by blowing up l’manburg, once it was reclaimed. but she’s wrong that he never cared.

(an interesting note: wilbur only blows it up after techno starts fighting people outside. he hears it, and says “look, they’re fighting”. he didn’t re-initiate the conflict of the country. the fact that even after peace was won people were fighting just gave evidence to his belief that the entire country was corrupted.)

niki has been hurt a lot, and wilbur has things to answer for. but we as the audience know that her statements are just her perception. she is a character who acts on perceptions. the entire stream was in black and white. during doomsday, upon seeing wilbur log on (as ghostbur), niki has a panic attack and destroys her bakery, trying to rid herself of the pain of the memories. her lines during this stream are chilling, whispered repetitions that are a mirror of wilbur’s end.

(paraphrased, it was long and confusing but there are a few bits and this was the essence of it)

“wilbur is gone. this isn’t happening. he is dead. l’manburg is gone.”“it is real, i am real, he is real and he is dead.”“l’manburg is gone, i am real, i am l’manburg”.

(god. dude i could spend Months analyzing this one stream alone. there’s so much here.)

doesn’t that sound a bit like “my unfinished symphony”? wilbur and niki both attach their own self to the nation they fought for, and can see it as an extension of themself. they both destroy parts of it in acts of fear, attempting to save everyone else from what they’ve made.

what i pulled away from niki’s stream is that she’s not healing. i remember the chamber she locks herself in at night. i remember her refusal to eat. i remember how she was so angry at tommy, and she later realized that anger was misguided. niki genuinely believes that wilbur did not care about her, and that’s not surprising: when he died, she denied the fact that he was gone. she represses the things that she can’t handle, same as lots of other people. it is easier for her to pin her hurt on wilbur, because she needs somewhere to pin it. people feel more in control if they’re angry, not sad.

the song cc!niki said was for her character really emphasizes this. it’s a coping mechanism.

but even condemning wilbur won’t help, because she will still never get closure. niki cares about what others think of her, and so she can’t move on from someone hurting her. she can’t move on because she thinks he hated her. she is angry that he is back, but it is an opportunity for her to heal. she couldn’t heal when he was gone. she’s not the only one with a negative perception of wilbur, after all. he has one too. the two of them really need to talk.

i want niki to be healthy and safe. i want to see her heal so badly, and i do think it will happen. after wilbur died, his betrayal of her stayed with her, and it eventually became her memory of the betrayal that she hated, not the thing itself. it’s been months since it happened. niki wants to find an outlet for her hurt, because she wants to feel better. there’s a pattern i noticed: she only gets mad at people once she hasn’t seen the person themself for a while. and once she sees them and talks to them, and realizes that they care about her and don’t want to hurt her, she stops blaming them for it. she only hates her perception of them. example one? tommy.

man was in exile for a long time, and when he came back he “brought” fighting. that’s how niki saw it. but the fact that after she spent time with tommy (trying to kill him but. details, details) she forgave him because she saw it wasn’t his fault is a really good sign.

i genuinely think that speaking to wilbur will help niki, and it will also help wilbur. after all, they both hate wilbur. the entire perception of wilbur as some heartless, crazy manipulator needs to be shattered for both of their sakes. they both buy into it.

i want niki to know that others care about her, and that she has places she can feel safe. she hates that wilbur is invading the syndicate, because she’s scared of his memory hurting her. i don’t think wilbur will hurt her on purpose, because even though he sees himself as awful, he doesn’t hate her. he never did. usually, with people who have hurt someone else, i want them as far away from the person they hurt as possible. if wilbur does hurt niki i’ll probably cry. but again, it’s not him that hated her, or really him that hurt her in the way she thinks he did. when wilbur was dead, niki didn’t get any better. her memory of him festered and made her feel worse. that’s also why niki killing wilbur or hurting him somehow wouldn’t help her heal. i want wilbur to explain that he didn’t hate her. is wilbur even close to self aware enough to help niki? nah. this is going to take a Long time, and it’s going to hurt.

last thing i swear lol

during niki’s stream, she says that wilbur manipulated her. again, i watched pogtopia last night, and i’ve watched the rest of season one recently as well. i genuinely don’t see it. but i do think i know why she said it.

during season one, wilbur doesn’t manipulate niki. he doesn’t have a chance to later, he’s dead. so then, what is she talking about? of course it’s a perception, same as a lot of her other claims. i think she’s talking about how she cared for l’manburg.

niki joined the server as wilbur’s friend, to join his nation. she grew to care for l’manburg. she devoted herself to it, same as he did. but doomsday showed us that she hates that. in niki’s eyes, l’manburg only brought pain for people, and because she ties herself to it, she hates that she ever cared about it. she can’t allow herself to care for it, because it was used to hurt. so how does she cope with knowing that she once did? she pretends she didn’t.

if she can convince herself that it was wilbur who convinced her to care about l’manburg, she can avoid blaming herself for her own pain. and yeah, she shouldn’t blame herself for it. it’s not her fault. the entire situation is tragic and a little hopeless and once again really makes me hope that she recovers. l’manburg was ruined for her by others. schlatt, techno, dream, wilbur. again another place where she and wilbur are similar: they convince themselves they never cared about l’manburg because of the hurt it caused.

to summarize: wilbur’s going to get a shock soon. don’t know when, but probably the prison visit. something is going to shake his perception, the story is hurtling towards that. once he is able to take responsibility for what he did, and feel safe (because a lot of what he does now is out of fear of being alone or useless), then he and niki need to talk. niki needs something to get her out of her own head. she’s spiraling too. they are essential to each other’s recovery because of how much they meant (and mean) to each other.

anyways i miss early season one niki i liked it when she was happy :(

~ Lad 2

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Guess who just wrote a really long and detailed post in my notes app that I accidentally managed to delete. meeeeeeeee <3

So yeah, for better or for worse, heres a more condensed version of a very long post where I complain about 2000!Judas again that Ive written in like, two hours probably (I know that sounds like a lot but trust me, it isnt for me)

Basically, when I watched this version for the first time I thought the reason I didnt like this portrayal of Judas and thought he was really unsympathetic was because of the actor and some of the directorial choices made for his scenes. But then I rewatched it, paid closer attention and even made pretty detailed notes as I was watching like the nerd I am, and I realized that no, the direction is consistantly really good and does a great job at putting you in the characters head, which is a good way to get an audience to sympathize with a character, even for Judas' scenes. Heaven On Their Minds is a great example of this, here are the notes I took during the scene bc it took me days to write that original post that I deleted and I dont feel like rewriting stuff:

• At the start of Heaven On Their Minds: Judas singing directly at Jesus while theyre engulfed in blue but glowing orange before the apostles show up and the lighting changes to something more orange-y golden (signaling Judas snapping out of his thoughts about Jesus and back into reality) • At the end of Heaven On Their Minds: Judas stepping out of the warm golden light with Jesus and his apostles back into a cooler, blue-ish light to signify his disconnect with the others, wavering trust in Jesus

So, if its not the direction thats the issue, what is it? The actor? Well yeah, I think the actor is definitely the bigger issue for me here. idk if thats a hot take, I certainly dont think it should be. However, there are two big directorial choices that I have issues with, one thats very obvious and mostly concentrated in one scene and one thats a bit more 'spread out' so to speak and that I initially had some trouble pinpointing

The first and more obvious one is the Superstar scene. This song already has some tonal issues by virtue of being a funky disco song sandwiched between The Scene Where They Brutally Beat Jesus and The Scene Where They Brutally Crucify Jesus and having Judas be all smiley during it like hes happy about Jesus dying a slow and painful death only to get all sad at the very end when they actually start crucifying him does not help. Like at all. Its like they didnt get that Judas was meant to be like, frustrated during this song because it acts as an extension of his character throughout the musical, who was very frustrated with Jesus because he didnt understand him or why he did the things he did. Its also meant to be an expression of the audience's presumed feelings, since we, like Judas, just spent a long time with this guy and thought we kinda understood what his deal was only to then realize that no, we did not, actually.

Thats pretty much it, there is a similar weird kind of smugness and almost schadenfreude permeating the rest of this guy's performance as well, its just the most noticeable in that song

Now, Im gonna change the topic here for just a second because I think its necessary to talk about the costuming, specifically the colors of the clothes, to properly explain myself. Unlike the 2012 version, which did its own thing when it came to assigning colors to these characters, the 2000s version takes pretty much all the notable character colors from the 1973 movie. That means Jesus wears white, Herod also wears white which could be a way to visually connect them since Herod is referred to as king and seems to have some kind of special authority over jewish people even though he apparently doesnt have a lot of actual state power, kind of how Jesus is also hailed as king of sorts even though he obviously doesnt have any kind of stately power either ? idk, Im not analysing this further bc thats not what the post is about, Caiaphas, Annas and their three guys all wear black, Pilate wears purple (albeit a cooler tone than the 70s version thats closer to the purple the roman guards wore), Judas wears red and Mary wears red... in the 2000s version. She wears orange in the 70s movie

So, why would they change that when they otherwise changed very little about the costumes' colors? Im not gonna beat around the bush here, they were trying to emphasize the idea of Judas and Mary as foils and romantic rivals with Judas being the dark 'incorrect' "option" and Mary being totally morally good as a contrast. Think about it, Judas wears mostly black in this version with the red being closer to an accent color while Mary wears mostly red with black as an accent color, theyre wearing the same color scheme but inverted and Judas ended up with the darker and more menacing version of it (although I would argue its kinda hard to style the red-black combo as anything but edgy, vaguely threatening, vaguely sexy and seductive or a combination of any of those), Judas is a lot more physically aggressive towards Mary in this film which wasnt the case in the 1973 version (I havent rewatched the 2012 one yet and I dont remember a lot of the details but Im pretty sure he wasnt as physical in that version either), theres that weird bit right after I Dont Know How To Love Him where he inecplicably shows up to, idk, intimidate Mary? which then leads directly into Damned For All Time/Blood Money and the way its framed makes it seem like his betrayal was motivated by jealousy and some weird yandere-esque "If I cant have him, no one can" line of logic which is just weird. Like, I dont dislike this concept on the face of it, but they had no idea how to pull it off well

Actually, now that I think about it I feel like they work well enough as foils without any attempts to emphasize them as romantic rivals. Like, obviously Judas sings that little reprise of I Dont Know How To Love Him before his death but also his whole thing at the start of the musical was that he was turning away from Jesus while Mary's thing was that she was very close and loyal to him from beginning to end, like thats one of the things that Peter's Denial demonstrates right

Whatever, thats kind of it. I feel like thats a pretty abrupt ending to this but I dont care that much lol. In conclusion, although I love this movie for the direction and lighting I have a lot of shit to complain about, mostly relating to Judas and also this post ended up being a lot longer than expected, hope you enjoyed