One must imagine Prince Oliver happy

@wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj's between the lines sideblog. a celebration of media analysis, niche fandoms, and loving stories so so much

[lesbianfrump]

hi my name is malloy/romeo/juliet my main is @wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj and this is my blog in which i convince people that the 2022 off-broadway musical Between the Lines is so awesome forever <3

i genuinely believe between the lines despite its flaws is such a wonderfully crafted show and story; when i watched my high school's production i sobbed through most of act 2 and ever since then i've been obsessively picking apart my favourite aspects and how they contribute to the themes of existentialism, escapism and the nature of storytelling and fiction, and how those pertain to the queer experience. i've also read the original duology (the first one is just ok imo, the second is better but also bonkers) but i think the musical takes their story and themes and tightens them to an almost masterful degree all while changing and adding other compelling points to create a show in which there is so so much to treasure. i've never met anyone who gets it like i do, so instead i'm just making this blog to try to put together my thoughts and make sense of how much i love love love this musical !!

basically tl;dr if you’re a fan of musicals (giving a special mention to my other fav, alice by heart, which i consider somewhat similar in its coming of age fantasy romance escapism story) and books and fiction and fanfiction and love and friendship and life and stories and art and joy you should listen to between the lines. and follow this blog ? idk i'm not your mom

[clonerightsagenda]

Literary criticism terms I use on this blog despite making them up myself, much to the chagrin of anyone who does not have my back catalog memorized:

are we the baddies: SFF subgenre focused on agents of an imperial power realizing that and grappling with what to do next, in contrast to stories focusing on the scrappy rebels resisting said imperial power

I could fix him (the empire): SFF subgenre where the colonized subject being nice and/or sexy enough Ends Colonialism, frequently tied to the John President of Racism problem

librarian bait: books centered on the transformative life-changing power of books and libraries, cousin to books focused on the transformative life-changing power of storytelling and narrative in general

college brochure fiction: stories where the protagonist has an artfully arranged group of diverse friends who are as flat as paper and whose cultural backgrounds never come up meaningfully

the Dave Strider: character the fandom fixates on to the detriment of everything else, until the weight of that attention warps fanon and sometimes even canon around them. almost always male. it's happening to Gurathin from Murderbot right now

[clonerightsagenda]

#OP tell us more about the John President of Racism problem!

It hails from an immortal tumblr post by penultimate-step, except not immortal apparently because I get 'not found' when I try to go back to the original. So here's the text:

It's always disappointing when a series makes a big deal about societal and structural problems in it's setting, making readers think it has interesting things to say about the subject, only to then resolve the problems by fighting The CEO of Racism, John Racist, so that all of society's problems would then get better because they promoted a new CEO.

[hard-times-paramore]

Okay, real talk now. People love to tag male characters in posts about women, but this post is gonna take this seriously. Is there actually a canonically male character you believe is a trans woman? Or at least has made into a trans woman for a fanart or a fanfic? Excluding the ones canonically implied.

Sound off in the tags! Link to the fanart or fic if available. Do it. Give me the girls. Make more women.

[lesbianfrump]

frump is human as in he’s more human than dog but Also he’s human as in he’s Real and exists beyond how he was written, he’s more than words on a page, he is living and breathing and has a soul and contains multitudes and cannot be defined so plainly !!! frump is so human…

[lesbianfrump]

in the production of between the lines that exists #inmyhead, edgar in his first scene is dressed in a hoodie and sweats, a little reserved, and after the timeskip is explicitly non-masculine, maybe genderqueer, and has a very subtle bit more bounce in their step. and this all feels natural and delilah is all over them andddddddd. give me one million dollars

[lesbianfrump]

i have mixed feelings on the between the lines books but man. « i wish for a life with the person i love the most » went straight for the throat. cried like a baby when i first read that.

[acingthistest]

thinking about the between the lines musical because i just read the book (it was good btw), i want to hit edgar/oliver with the transfem beam

[changeling-droneco]

If you see this post you’re legally required to tell me at least one trans woman headcanons you have for a canonically male character, I never get to see transfem headcanons like that, give me them, and for equality of my own please know estrogen could have saved Insector Haga and Dinosaur Ryuzaki I will not elaborate, also Yuya.

[lesbianfrump]

i dont even ship delilah and jules that much lmao like they have their moments but their story being that of two queer friends finding each other is just so important to me separately from romance. MY gay delilah ship is delilah x oliver/edgar hit with the transgender beam

[lesbianfrump]

i love between the lines's core message so much i LOVE how it isn't as blunt and simple and dismissive as "you have to get out of the fairytale, you need to live in the real world". delilah, during the very first song, was going to drop it !! she was ashamed of her obsession with a children's book, she wanted to "get over it" and "stop being such a nerd", but being obsessed with a children's book and being a nerd isn't necessarily a bad thing !! later in act 1, her dependency on it does grow more unhealthy, but everyone around her couldn't help her with it because they couldn't understand in the first place why she couldn't bear to part with it : the extent of her internal and external struggles and how the book helped her cope in ways other people weren't able to do !!!! it was inside the book that she had to remember and realize for herself (with help from the mermaids) that she couldn't run away forever.

never does between the lines actually dismiss the book as immature and something to completely separate from. between the lines concludes with a resounding call to take control of your life and "say it in other words", but delilah could not have reached this conclusion without the fantasy she lived in. she was so, so miserable, and it was oliver who first helped her see her own worth and find her own confidence "i think my story needs heroic leads like me" "my perfect world was clearer when you brought it into view". another crucial thing is how her and oliver's separation is portrayed as sad ; because yes, there is grief in growing out of the stories that are important to you.

significantly, delilah doesnt even let go of the book entirely; she uses it as a jumping off point for her writing, writes fanfiction for it, uses it as inspiration for her own stories, talks to her friends about it, keeps it close to her. delilah never needed to "get over" being the weirdo who loved stories, she needed to learn to keep her head up instead of hiding behind them, and it was the stories themselves that got her to that point.

[lesbianfrump]

i love jules. im not very sure about the exact intention, how the musical wants you to perceive them, but i get them. i get that kind of queer kid. i see myself in that kind of queer kid. they’re “cool”. they’re a little pretentious, they think they’re above everyone else – to their credit, they’re correct about the shallowness of the popular kids. they like what they like. they’re weird, and they revel in their weirdness, in the way they stick out. they’re kind of cringe, and awkward. in that feeling of superiority there’s a loneliness. no one gets it like they do. no one gets them. it’s isolating, as much as it’s freeing. god i love jules.

[lesbianfrump]

janice having to stay in the closet to fit in with the rest of the group vs jules (and delilah) who r out here living their best queer lives… and if i cried forever

[lesbianfrump]

WHAT THE FUCK

in the cast recording, in the music, these are ensemble parts WHY in the libretto does it single out JANICE. GOD. do you think she's so afraid of her own deviance from the norm being found out that she's quick to label them as enemies to explicitly further separate herself from them. do you think she resents jules for how they can be openly and proudly queer while she's spent this whole time keeping it down and lying to herself. do you think in saying « blah blah blah » she's trying to drown out their words because she doesn't want to hear how it's possible to choose to be yourself without fear because she has already made her choice and is comfortable at the top and doesn't want to regret it. WAHH

[lesbianfrump]

just rewatched the allie mcandrews video for like the fifth time and i just noticed that JULES HAS A LAST NAME ??

quintero... jules quintero my best friend

[lesbianfrump]

youre fucking kidding me i forgot the troll literally references waiting for godot aka THE theatre of absurd play.

[antiloquist]

rb this and put your current earworm in the tags

i wanna find new music

[lesbianfrump]

the « delilah is delusional » kind of theories/jokes from ppl from my school who saw/were in the production is annoying because can you meaningfully engage with the magic of fiction and stories and fantasy and suspend your disbelief for one second without immediately dismissing any fantastical element as a delusion. did « just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not real » mean nothing to you

[lesbianfrump]

however, i do think that this lens of interpretation could actually have some merit from someone who has more experience and/or knowledge abt delusions, hallucinations, maladaptive daydreaming, etc, but i'm not that person so i don't think i could do it myself

[lesbianfrump]

the « delilah is delusional » kind of theories/jokes from ppl from my school who saw/were in the production is annoying because can you meaningfully engage with the magic of fiction and stories and fantasy and suspend your disbelief for one second without immediately dismissing any fantastical element as a delusion. did « just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not real » mean nothing to you