hello! you can call me bookworm, i use she/her pronouns, it’s a pleasure to have you here! :D
FREE PALESTINE!!!!!
fandoms… the enola holmes mysteries ~ keeper of the lost cities ~ wicked ~ wings of fire ~ a treachery of swans/ab poranek books ~ epic the musical ~ dc (mostly superman 2025 and supergirl 2026, but also probably some batfam + wonder woman) ~ caesar the musical/the tragedy of julius caesar ~ the half of it ~ nimona ~ peanuts ~ my little pony (mostly g4 but i vibe with all of em!!!) ~ ever after high ~ pjo ~ the hunger games ~ the summer i turned pretty ~ the next step ~ kpop demon hunters ~ six the musical ~ mcyt (pow creations, hobbit hills. you guys should talk to me about hobbit hills i REALLY like hobbit hills) ~ bridgerton
links… my art blog ~ my writing blog ~ my evil blog ~ my linh song rp blog ~ my kenric fathdon rp blog ~ my ao3 ~ my quotev ~ dividers
my tags… #bookworm gets an ask: when i get an ask ~ #bookworm spews nonsense and #bookworm screams into the void: my og posts ~ #beloved moots <3 and #mutual chaos: all things mutuals (though the first is more my ‘general’ moot tag, while the second is when we get into mayhem) ~ #world’s biggest shakespeare hater is for bitching and moaning about shakespeare, feel free to block it lol ~ there are a few others, but i'm sure you’ll figure ‘em out :D
im reading… the wonderful wizard of oz by l frank baum ~ the inheritance cycle: eragon by christopher paolini ~ the book of bill by alex hirsch ~ the iron widow by xiran jay zhao ~ gwen & art are not in love by lex croucher
my tbr… the iron widow series by xiran jay zhao ~ the shadow and bone series by leigh bardugo ~ the song of achilles by madeleine miller ~ anne of green gables by l m montgomery ~ cece rios and the desert of souls by kaela rivera ~ south is the sea by emily rath ~ to all the boys: always & forever by jenny han ~ ik it seems like a lot but i’d LOVE to see your recommendations!
header is from brookella’s finale of hobbit hills smp + the lyrics in my bio are from storm song and brutus’ prayer, both from the caesar the musical ep by grace yurchuk <33
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
I maintain that the best summation of my feminist beliefs are that men and women are not fundamentally different. There are a few quantifiable differences if you average out every woman and every man, but they are not qualitative. And most of them are socially constructed, and would be fixed if we started treating men and women the same. Neither is inherently smarter, neither is inherently kinder, neither is inherently more stoic or stronger or angrier or softer. Everyone is obsessed with the differences between women and men, with finding them and creating them and distancing themselves from the "other half". It's fucked up
scottcleo as pearl's parents is a recurring theme throughout the life series. the three of them have spent multiple seasons entertwined with eachother to the point of familial closeness. they acknowledge it openly in wild life—a phenomenon that precedes the grigem daughtering incident of past life, and parallels it very closely. both situations are initiated and maintained by a characterization of pearl as the rebellious, troublemaking daughter in need of parental guidance, but the former far outweighs the latter in terms of canonical basis.
the scott/cleo/pearl trio starts in last life, establishing them as a stable, mutually beneficial dynamic. throughout the season, scott takes charge and makes almost all of the decisions, with pearl rarely if ever questioning his leadership. it's all very seamless and free of conflict, including cleo's entry into the dynamic. cleo, unlike pearl (and most other people), is able to assert themself socially as scott's equal, which puts them above pearl by default in the pecking order.
when the trio officially reunites as allies in the later episodes of double life, their relationship is significantly more fraught. the power dynamic becomes more pronounced as a result. pearl has been victimized by scott and cleo all season, but she's in need of allies and a place to belong, so they get to hold it over her head. they characterize themselves as generously taking in a wild thing in need of taming. pearl offers significantly more pushback this time around, but she's limited by the implicit social dynamic at play. with no other options for alliances, pearl is dependent on scott and cleo, and they repeatedly take advantage of that fact to control her behavior.
the fallout of double life takes two seasons of estrangement before they properly reunite—in real life, first, before wild life. this is where they acknowledge their tendency to group together time and time again. (and also where cleo calls pearl mom. this isn't really relevant to this post i just had to mention it)
finally, in wild life, the dynamic is openly acknowledged. it's treated as a running joke, with a basis in reality that remains unaddressed. in lml and sl, pearl starts to emerge as a team leader in her own right, but once she's back with scott and cleo, she returns to following over leading. she leans in to the misbehaving child archetype, this time for fun and with much fear of abandonment. both of them talk down to her and treat her like an unruly child, but they also care for her in a way they certainly didn't the first time.
the wl dynamic softens that of the dl one, which is why it comes with an overt acknowledgment of the familial parallels—to describe what happened in dl as familial would also inarguably be to portray it as abusive. which is what i'm doing here, to be clear. only once it's more palatable is it recognized for what it is. but scott and cleo have occupied these roles in pearl's life for a long time, especially given their unwavering cross-season partnership that takes priority to either of their relationships with pearl (and in fact predates her presence in the series).
it's been said a thousand times but "male loneliness epidemic" is just our entire generation's loneliness PANdemic. it's just the crisis of capitalism. almost all young people these days are lonely and depressed because of the crisis and decay of the system we live under and tbh the centering of "male loneliness" in this discussion is embarrassing but also a really understandable consequence of sexism & this current stage of culture war . "Oh won't someone think of the young men" oh won't someone think about class consciousness lol
What do you mean by the women from epic the musical was poorly handled? Can you explain? I’m interested bc I thought that too
ho boy, let's see.
there's definitely a general feminist critique to be had about how few women are in the musical and how small their parts are. obviously i realize the musical primarily follows the leading man and his male crew because that's just how the odyssey works. but it's still a conversation worth having, especially since there are ways to make the existing female characters better. the decision to base this on the odyssey is still a choice.
i don't have much to say about most of the monsters/goddesses. aeolus and scylla are fine. circe is okay, and she actually gets a few songs. personally i think god games should just be cut entirely; it's just athena justifying everything odysseus has done. hera is fine. i don't like how athena stops talking to aphrodite once ares shows up; the line that convinces her is "tell your lover that a broken heart can mend," which is directed at ares.
not mentioning anticlea until she's already dead means her death doesn't really have the weight it should. he's desperate to get back to penelope and telemachus, so it just feels like he forgot about his mom, which makes that tragedy feel a little unearned. he should be just as concerned to get back to her as he is the other two, which means he should mention her whenever he sings about them in the first act. then it would actually matter more when we find out she's dead.
the rest is under a read more because i wrote a lot about athena, and because i need to give a trigger warning for sexual assault for my other points.
athena is clearly the strongest female character and is positioned to be a foil to odysseus. that being said, i didn't really follow her shift in philosophy - going back to look at the lyrics it's because she blames herself for teaching him to be cruel? the goodbye at the start is weird - she's mad at him for not being ruthless, but really the problem is that he's arrogant - which is still something she could chastise him for. idk. either way i don't think her evolution was explored well at all - she basically just changes her mind because she misses him, not because she has actually seen anything to suggest mercy is good. and it's weird that she's only at the beginning, in the wisdom saga, and at the very end. her stuff isn't terrible, but it needs to be better distributed throughout the musical so there can be an evolution. give her one more song towards the end of act one, break up the wisdom saga so her story feels like it's part of the musical instead of a weird distraction in the middle, and actually show us why she starts to think mercy is good. as is her character is too reliant on odysseus in a way that really hurts that the story. bringing up telemachus earlier and exploring that relationship, or penelope and ithica, gives you a chance for athena to see something that helps her change her mind. (i have more to say about her story but that's just about fixing the plot. i think i've made my point here.
okay trigger warning for real.
calypso is really weirdly done. she has one song where she's pressuring him to be with her, and then a song where she refuses to apologize for "unrequited love" or something. odysseus is upset with her and struggling with ptsd in the first song, and then says he loves her in the second. it feels like the musical wants you to have an overall favorable impression of her. there's a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a case of sexual assault in the fandom posts i've seen, but i don't think that's something the musical is discussing. if anything, it takes the stance that it isn't, at least in this version, and that calypso is just some sad girl who wants to be loved. that being said, i've seen some pretty disgusting hatred directed towards calypso in those posts - not clear if it's for the original version, this one, or if there's any difference. either way, the musical needs to decide if calypso is bad/problematic or if she's good/misunderstood, and both of her songs need rewriting. (there's also something to be said about her being the only visibly black female character, but i don't know much about the actual actors for the musical so i'll leave this be for now. but that did stick out to me while watching the animatics.)
i have very mixed opinions about the sirens. the imagery of a group of men standing over and brutalizing a group of women as they beg for their lives was pretty heavy. i don't hate it - it very much sells the idea that the men have become monsters. however, it really bothers me that it basically just. happens. and then we move on. odysseus agonizes over so many choices, but this one seems like it was easy for him, and he doesn't suffer any guilt over it. no one challenges it. so overall it just comes off as a reason to brutalize women, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. i wish we'd at least get pushback from some of the crew so there's at least some conversation about how maybe this isn't 100% justified. instead, the only mention of the sirens is in god games, where... apollo gives a half-hearted argument about how the sirens sing catchy songs. the other gods at least have a point. and with all of this, athena's retort just feels very victim-blame-y to me. overall, i think there's a way to keep the stuff with the sirens in - but there needs to be more delicacy in how the whole thing is handled.
and finally, penelope. she's probably the worst-written female character in the musical. she exists to 1) be odysseus's motivation/prize, and 2) assure odysseus that he's actually a good person and sure, every terrible thing he did was totally fine, no issue. her first song, which isn't until the last saga, just 1) tells us she's sad, and 2) gives us odyssey plot. the challenge doesn't really do anything to the musical's plot, so you might as well cut it. and her only other song is the finale, where she assures odysseus she loves him and never doubted him and she has no qualms over anything he did because she's a Strong Woman so she still loves him unconditionally. also the bit about the bed is confusing. it's clearly only in there because of the odyssey, and it makes no sense for the musical. penelope has no character in this musical.
(i acknowledge this is a bit hypocritical, but i would actually cut the actual penelope out of the musical. the mentions and cameos of odysseus's idea of her, and the bit with the sirens, can stay, but actual penelope never shows up. i would lean into the idea of her being his prize in a way that leaves you a little unsettled. but also i think odysseus should be the bad guy in the end, so.)
and finally, i hate the decision to introduce the threat of the suitors gang-raping penelope. we already know the suitors aren't great. they're demanding penelope marry one of them. they beat up the kid. there's no need to evoke such a graphic image; i felt sick the first time i heard it, and i don't even have experience with/trauma related to sexual assault. the only point of this song is to justify odysseus slaughtering the suitors, because actually they're all terrible, horrible people. which again just weakens the idea that odyssseus is some kind of monster, because this very intentionally makes him look like a hero. between the decision to downplay the idea of circe or calypso sexually assaulting odysseus (both interpretations popular in what fandom posts i have seen) alongside the brutal violence perpetrated against the sirens and the intentional addition of a whole song about gang-raping penelope, the musical has an uncomfortable focus on violence against women. it's gratuitous and serves no purpose.
