Week Four

[stagemanagers]

[Last week, Gershwin High School Academy University saw its very first intentional murder! What a milestone! And right after Spongebob's No Murder party, too - that doesn't seem like it bodes very well for anybody's future.

You all wake up this morning with yet another new memory returned to you. You'll also find that the school's external doors have now unlocked. Congratulations! You're free! Unfortunately, you also seem to be entirely in the middle of nowhere. So maybe it's more of a symbolic victory.

Still, you should look around and do some investigation! Maybe you'll find a fun surprise.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

(( Be sure to submit your memory regains and your AC for this week! Hester's office hours and the merch booth also remain available! ))

Comments

[comeandfindme]

[ ...She snorts. ]

On the nose, isn't it?

[tellthestory]

[He snorts.]

Sure, I guess. It's descriptive!

[comeandfindme]

How many've those have even happened? ...They're a little lax on history in Whitetail.

[tellthestory]

Three.

[.....]

No...four. The Kennedy assassination is the climax of my show, and that's after they're supposed to get rid of me, so I didn't know about it 'til now. [...eh. He smiles, trying to be light-hearted about it.] Isn't that weird? But before that - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and then a bunch of failed attempts.

[comeandfindme]

[ She glances at him, a little concerned for a moment. But he's not making a big thing of it, so she won't either. ]

I didn't realize there were so many.

[tellthestory]

Mm-hmm. People forget about Garfield and McKinley, mostly. Really disappoints Leon sometimes - I'm not sure Charlie realizes.

[You know, normal regular people you can totally casually reference.]

No one shoots a president without wanting to be famous. Not always the main motivation, but it's in there.

[comeandfindme]

That'd make more sense than them thinking it'll, like...change anything. There's a whole system and institution, right? Why would just...one person change all of that?

[tellthestory]

It wouldn't. If anything, it usually does the opposite. Killing the president just makes him a martyr for whatever causes he might've had - usually his party gets way more done without him.

[It all seems obvious enough to the Balladeer. Even with people who might've had a point somewhere, like Leon "Eat the Rich" Czolgosz, it was just...violence for violence's sake, at the end of the day. Didn't change anything except to make the world a bit worse.]

Heck, Garfield's vice-president hated him, but after he died, the guy turned around and pushed through all of his civil reforms.

[comeandfindme]

He did?

[ This has officially become a history lesson. Much like with Salieri and his music lessons, Peregrine turns her attention to the Balladeer, though she does have to keep watching her deerskin. Is it almost done on this side...? Ah, yeah, time to flip it inside out. ]

Wow. You'd think that'd be a deterrent for like...a single person trying this.

[tellthestory]

[He's still talking as he sews this deer skin to a skirt, though once he finishes he's likely just gonna keep hanging out here.]

You'd think. But those guys...

[He's quiet for a moment, mulling over that last song. It was easier to parse when he was just reading it in a script, in the safety of a dorm with Benjamin and Angus two feet away.]

They feel like the world owes them something. Attention, fame, whatever. They should get what they want - and if they don't, someone's gotta pay for it. [...] I don't really know why the real Lee Harvey Oswald did it, though. I think his scene in the show was a metaphor. Probably about the same thing.

[comeandfindme]

...That one's the Kennedy guy, right? [ Even she knows that one! ] What'd his scene say...?

[ It's weird thinking about. He knows historical figures but...as represented by a play? A musical? Does that mean the historical figures are...fictional versions of them, or somehow...something else? Peregrine never thought she'd have to think about these sort of things outside a movie. ]

[tellthestory]

He was...going to kill himself, and they all went to see him. Booth, Giuseppe, all of them. They gave him the rifle, and said...

[The Balladeer's gaze goes a little unfocused as he recalls it. Though he only read that part once, it's easy to remember the words - maybe because it's still a part of his show, even if he wasn't there.]

"You think you can't connect. Connect to us." [His fingers curl absently in the front of his flannel.] "You think you're powerless. Empower us."

[comeandfindme]

[ Peregrine finishes getting her leather situated just in time to look at him, to watch the way he goes…distant. ]

Uh… Bal?

[tellthestory]

[At first, he doesn't quite seem to hear; he stares off into space for a beat longer, just enough to be a tad unnerving, before - ]

Hm? [He blinks several times, brow furrowing, and lets go of the death grip he'd started to have on the front of his shirt.] Uh - yeah, yeah. Sorry.

[What were they...oh. Right.]

Anyway, uh...obviously it didn't literally happen like that, in real life.

[comeandfindme]

[ Okay. Okay, that's...weird. But, maybe it's like...a narrator thing? Peregrine twitches her lips into the approximation of a momentary reassuring smile. ]

Right. Right, of course. That's something your...playwright, I guess? Uh, took liberties with.

[tellthestory]

Yeah, of course. The whole thing is - the rest is fairly historically accurate from what I know, but sometimes you have to stretch a little to make a good story.

[The Balladeer seems, perhaps, still a little unsettled, but it fades quickly as he keeps talking about something else.]

You know, half the song Charlie sings on his way to the gallows is something the real one wrote to be performed at his execution? They wouldn't do it for him back then.

[comeandfindme]

It's what? [ This is a good distraction! ] Wow, morbid much! You're serious, you're not pulling my leg?

[tellthestory]

I'm totally serious! [He grins, delighted by the reaction!] All the I am going to the Lordyyyy stuff - who would write that in this day and age?

[Yes, he totally did sing that line of it.]

[comeandfindme]

And he- your guy, he just took that, and he put it in the show? No one complained, no one...objected?

[tellthestory]

Stephen Sondheim! He's famous, he wrote - he did the lyrics for West Side Story! You know that one, right? Or Into the Woods?

[honestly Sweeney Todd is probably his most well-known work but ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha]

Anyway...I don't know much about the specific criticisms. But I doubt many people really noticed.

[comeandfindme]

Oh! Oh, it's that guy? Yeah— yeah, I've seen both the movies for those.

[ Shhhhh let's not acknowledge Sweeney Todd out of respect for Benji. ]

I'd think...if people knew it was based on real stuff, they'd do the research after, right? Like...if they liked it?

[ Peregrine just does not understand not being 110% into her hobbies. ]

[tellthestory]

You think people liked it that much?

[The Balladeer seems mildly surprised at the notion, though he's quick to reassure:]

I'm not saying I think it was bad, just - I don't know. I know it was sort of controversial, and I think it isn't one of his better-known works...but I couldn't tell you how I know that, exactly. [He shrugs.] That's all theatre critics anyway. I don't have any idea how regular people felt about it.

[comeandfindme]

I don't know, I've never heard of it!

[ Hm. Maybe that should say something. ]

I guess it makes sense some people didn't like it... It's kinda a weird premise. Still... You don't know anything about how your...audience felt? Can't you like... Isn't that a part of it? The narrator thing?

[tellthestory]

In the moment, a bit. But I only got to see them a couple times. And one of those was Booth's racism song.

[No one feels the same way about Charlie's thing as they do about John's!]

[comeandfindme]

...Racism song...?

[ does she. does she want to know. ]