Commission

SCREAMING AND CRYING WITH THE GERMAN VERSION OF "EMPTY CHAIRS AND EMPTY TABLES"

(THE WAY HE SAYS THEIR NAMES, ESPECIALLY GRANTAIRE, ENJOLRAS -oh my gosh my jaw dropped with Enjolras- AND COURFEYRAC)

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Link to the whole performance:

god Raoul just…loves Christine so much. Literally all he wants is for her to be happy and alive. Genuinely tragic that most of his Final Lair lines are hidden underneath the Erik/Christine harmonized argument, because he's out here saying lines like "for pity's sake, Christine say no! Don't throw your life away for my sake!" and "Why make her lie to you to save me?!” and "Christine, forgive me! Please forgive me! I did it all for you and all for nothing!” while being strangled to death.

Like...do you all realize that he was asking her to let him die so she could be free? He was literally willing to be tortured/killed by an obsessive stalker so that Christine could be free and happy. It's the only REAL personal desire he shows in the whole musical besides asking for her love: for Christine to be alive, healthy, and happy.

And his Big Duet with Christine backs this up! In "All I Ask of You," Christine tells Raoul that "all [she wants] is freedom/a world with no more night," implicitly rejecting Mr. "Music of the Night" and the terror he brings. And Raoul, because he loves her, swears to give that to Christine as best as he's able. The only things he asks of her in the entire song is to love him ("love me, that's all I ask of you" // "Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime") and let him allow her to feel safe and free ("let me be your shelter" // "let me be your freedom"). The entirety of "All I Ask of You" is just….*chef's kiss* honestly.

But of course words are cheap. All the sweet nothings in the world wouldn't prove his worth as a suitor if he wasn't willing to walk the walk. But he is. Raoul spends the rest of the musical proving what he told Christine in that song: that he really is the genuinely sweet, loyal, and protective man who would go to the ends of the earth for her, including being willing to sacrifice his own life so she can have both her freedom and a life without being trapped by the "night" (Erik).

Kind of crazy that so many people genuinely want Christine to end up with the man who groomed her, stalked her, harrassed and manipulated her, kidnapped her on two separate occasions, killed two of her coworkers, was going to force her to marry him against her will, tried to kill her fiancé while guilt-tripping her into thinking it would be her own fault (“buy his freedom with your love! Refuse me and you send your lover to his death!”), tried to kill her (with the chandelier), and generally made her life a living hell for at least a year instead. Lol. Hard pass.

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(EXCLUDING Les Miserables because I know dang well a lot of people would have picked it. It’s in between WSS and Sunday in my ranking, though)

- The poll is just for fun lol. No purpose <3

- Mostly in order

my boyfriend just asked me for a "review" of The Count of Monte Cristo and i had to send him this as a warning

google show me this guy wet and whimpering

#25 on Spotify wrapped says how 2025 is going to go. how's it going for you?

A well written character has a pull to them. This pull is sometimes so strong that their writer can't defy it.

Mercedes is such a character. She lived most of her life thinking that Edmond was dead, she made peace with it, she built a new life around her. Her son was the outlet for her love and her reason to live.

She didn't hide her grief, she gave it a form, made a monument to it, and entrusted it to her son, thus letting it go in a way, but never letting it be forgotten.

It was the portrait of a young woman of five or six and twenty, with a dark complexion, and light and lustrous eyes, veiled beneath long lashes. She wore the picturesque costume of the Catalan fisherwomen, a red and black bodice, and golden pins in her hair. She was looking at the sea, and her form was outlined on the blue ocean and sky.

This portrait that hang in Albert's room shows us the Mercedes that still waited, still hoped, and still grieved.

The fact that she externalised her feelings in this way, with Fernand being aware of it, shows the journey that she went through. The journey that was her beginning, but that wasn't her entire life.

As we meet her 24 years after she lost Edmond, she is a sensitive, noble figure, a devoted mother, a good wife, an enviable hostess. She has a life that she built for herself while Fernand was away, making his fortune through his ill-bringing ways.

Maybe she wasn't happy, but she was content.

The Count appearing was for her like seeing a vengeful spirit rising from his grave. She grieved, she mourned him, she revered him, but it wasn't enough. He returned like a vampire cursed by god.

All that she knew was that he didn't see a true friend in her. She tried to appease him, but he didn't budge. Why? The Count didn't know what trust is after being betrayed by humanity.

He befriended her son, but then he wanted to kill him. She thought it was because of her, and when she found out it wasn't the case, she felt like she broke the curse. She stopped the Count from destroying what she loved most - her son - and she gained peace.

Her main motivation from then on was leaving everything that she had because of Fernand behind. Only her son by her side, she was finally forgiven by the heavens and herself.

It's a dignified conclusion for a dignified character.

Why couldn't she return to Edmond? Because he was dead. She grieved, she mourned him, she revered him. The Count was but a ghost of a man she once loved, as distant from Edmond as she was distant from the young woman in her old portrait.

Twenty four years is a long time. She loved Edmond who was open to the world, eager, and full of love himself. Maybe now she could love his opposite version, but for that he would have to show that he himself trusted her. Where there's no will, there's no way.

It's okay to pine for their relationship, but pushing them into it would take too much as they pull their own way. The Count pulls to fulfilling his destiny, while Mercedes wants to find peace. They have no place in which they meet.

Sweeney Todd except that mrs. Lovett is buddies with one of the rats in the street and it’s like ratatouille

Please tell me i'm not as forgettable as your silence is making me feel.