Safe little fandom

[the-caleb-widogast]

love watching c2 and whenever the nein don't know something, there's always a pattern that follows. first, they turn to the nerds (caleb and beau) and ask if they know it. then the nerds look at each other and wrack their heads to see if they do. if on the odd the chance they don't, the nerds make a trip to the nearest library and plan to barricade themselves in until they fill that gap in their knowledge. then they turn to the clerics (jester and cad) who then ask their gods. one talks to the wind and the other talks to a weasel. the guy talking to the wind is more successful at times. then they spend five more hours planning until fjord just decides to slam the red button. cinema.

[demilypyro]

*shuffling my playlist repeatedly* no obviously i dont wanna listen to that one right now. you moron. you fuckhead. come on. you can do better

[menoetiades-the-giver]

EDIT: PLEASE REBLOG THIS EVEN IF YOU DONT NEED IT IM DESPERATELY TRYING TO GET IT TO PPL WHO WANT IT 😭

NEXT TO NORMAL PROSHOT if you dont want to get a vpn with american servers or dont want to wait until cinema release or are worried pbs will take the it down once there is a cinema release heres the whole thing!!! i screen recording the whole thing in chunks and edited them together as seemlessly as possible so there shouldnt be any noticable interruptions. if i try to post this one more time on youtube they will hunt me down so spreading the file itself will have to suffice

[mahuhumaling]

all your incorrect opinions on West End's Next to Normal is your own undoing, i fear.

you think the mic placements are too revealing and tacky that it breaks you out of immersion? skill issue. it's not theatre's fault for being underfunded that they don't have the latest technology to get clear microphone packs with the best sound that doesn't get in the way of clothing and hair.

you think jamie parker sounds like kermit? skill issue. you just don't listen to enough diverse and nasal singing voices so you immediately think it's bad. pretty voices and good voices are mutually exclusive, love. and he was good. as a singer myself, he was outstanding.

you think the new direction and interpretation was overdramatic and didn't understand the original's dark and sardonic comedy? skill issue. you just don't understand that the milieu always influences artists and artworks so of course the 2020s' sensitivity to discussions and portrayals of mental health will be vastly different to the 2010's stigmatized perception of mental illnesses.

you think them making gabe a full-on ghost simplifies him and takes away his layers? skill issue. jack wolfe's gabe was never portrayed as just a ghost: in fact he admits himself that the base/foundation of his performance was that gabe is a narrative device but that he wanted him to feel real. (duh, because diana wants him to be real.) and why they made the choice of Gabe touching Natalie's hand is obviously because grief has wafted so much inside the Goodman house that it has now permanently affected Natalie, now that she's seen first-hand her mother attempt suicide and her father break down and fully accept grief.

[ofnailbatsandaxefives]

when the bass kicks in and you can't help but groove even though you know you're about to emotionally get your shit fucking wrecked

[nerdle-turdle]

Imagine going to your big piano recital that is supposed to get you into Yale, your parents don't show up, you have a breakdown on stage, you go home and find out that your mom attempted suicide, and then when you see her three weeks later she has forgotten you.

[legotwink08]

this is turning a little bit into a dan goodman stan account ?? which was not my intention but i'd just like to note how perfect this line from i've been is-

-because honestly i think it encapsulates the entire musical. the whole thing, the message, the point, the intention. the doctors lie, but it's not really lying, is it, when nobody actually knows the truth of it. diana is strung along, told the medicines will work, told the ECT will work, and none of it does. natalie is told her mother will be back to normal soon, but what even is normal, when you've lived like this, on the edge of a cliff, your whole life? gabe doesn't know either, and it's hurting him too, because real or not, the character that we get to know is experiencing the same things that the rest of the family is, if not to a harder degree, because he is inside her head. and dan, all he's been doing, all he can do, is hope and try his hardest to keep going, because he's been trying his hardest to understand, but the truth of it no one really knows. mental health is not given enough attention, and even when it is, still, the professionals don't always know the truth. fuck this fucking musical for making me weep AGAIN.

[mayoiayasep]

eleanor worthington-cox your natalie goodman is absolutely everything to meeeee

[alex-sondheimsversion]

“I’m gay” “I’m straight” “I’m trans”

Ok and I’m alive??? I’m alive??? I am so alive??? And I feed on the fear that’s behind your eyes??? And I need you to need me it’s no surprise??? I’m alive??? So alive??? I’m alive???

[laurencate-deactivated20250721]

One thing I think is beautiful about Next To Normal is how every character is so uniquely tragic, and yet they parallel each other so well (Diana to Dan and Gabe to Natalie).

Diana: So wrapped up in grieving that she hasn't been able to do much of anything else in the last seventeen years, including caring for her relationship with her daughter or husband.

Dan: So wrapped up in caring for Diana that he hasn't been able to do much of anything else in the last seventeen years, including grieving his son or caring for his relationship with his daughter.

Gabe: Has love and attention from his family, but would give it all up in an instant for the chance to just be a living teenager.

Natalie: Is, in all respects, a living teenager (has a boyfriend, hobbies, schoolwork, etc), but would give it all up in an instant for the chance to receive love and attention from her family.

They're all just so tragic, and I'll never get over them.

[giiyus]

i love the weather imagery in next to normal and how gabe is the only one to really mention how beautiful the world is in the beginning to show how he's not actually alive and there. it also shows that until diana and dan acknowledge gabe and begin to really grieve him, they will never know this perfect world gabe talks about and their and natalie's (by extension) lives will forever be clouded in sadness, even during what are supposed to be happy moments

but in the closing song, everyone sings the lyrics below to show that the goodmans are finally processing gabe's death and properly grieving, which will make everyone's lives a little less cloudy and sad and will allow them to eventually reach this equilibrium with gabe's sunny world

[maybenexttonormal]

wanna come over and watch the next to normal proshot but i pause every two seconds to point something out

[tswizzlespeaknow-deactivated202]

Next to Normal is what Dear Evan Hansen wishes it could be, and that’s coming from a die hard DEH fan

[wait-still-rendering]

It's so interesting watching next to normal as someone with bipolar 1 disorder. Just in that first song when Diana makes Gabe rush to his room because she knows Dan will be upset if he knows who she's been talking to. Then she talks about sleeping with Dan. And you might think, "That's a normal thing." I think Diana is in the middle of manic episode for three reasons: she's been staying up late for 7 nights, her libido, and the fact that she tells Natalie. When people with bipolar disorder are in a manic episode, their libido goes up. She's freely handing out advice because she feels great in the moment.

[dragonheroo]

"It only hurts when I cry"

She says, then proceeds to have tears in her eyes for the whole rest of the musical

[tinymusicalgeek]

#i took notes after watching n2n live and wrote "how does she have tears left"

[procrastinationaccount]

[reotheleo]

Can I just say, uh, I’m pretty sure noticing you’re asexual is harder than noticing you’re gay, straight, pan or otherwise. Like, I just read someone’s desciption of hitting puberty and, like, there’s nothing like that. There’s no sudden ‘boob’ moment, no sudden ‘fuck, I’d fuck that’ moment, not sudden anything. You just, like, plod on through life as usual going ‘oooh, that’s pretty, I’d like that hair’ or ‘oooooh, they’re nice, I’d like to be close to them’ but there’s no like, ‘oh, someone would want to fuck that but I don’t’, you know? You just- you don’t notice, you don’t realise everyone else has ‘had a moment’ but you haven’t, you just- keep going as you always have.

And then, much much later, you start to wonder why people are getting so caught up in drama for romance or sex, like, why bother? It’s not worth it, they’re not worth it, why are you doing stupid things for something that’s so- and then you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, start mentally over compensating. Like ‘uh, okay, um, who should I date? Who can I stand to date? Who could I stand to fuck?’ like- it’s not, it’s not something you want, but you want to fit in, to be normal.

Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re doing it.

Sometimes you don’t even know asexual’s a thing.

I dunno, I guess, I just feel like, uh, people should understand more?

idk sorry thank you for listening to me

[demiblocked]

Thank you for perfectly describing it.

[peregrinelight]

It’s way more difficult to notice the absence of something, especially when you’ve never had it in the first place??

It’s like being born without a nose and then being expected to understand what things smell like because everyone ELSE has a nose.

[moiracolleenodell]

TRUTH

[frankynstein]

Adding to this is the general consensus of “they’re just a late bloomer”. Not realising that not all plants produce flowers

[mikkeneko]

Sometimes you are not a “late bloomer.” Sometimes you were never meant to bloom in the first place. Sometimes you are, in fact, a fern.