[lovethatsoothes]

“To Make a Long Story Short”

Stephen Andrade’s wonderful pulp-style tribute to Clue (1985)

Prints and original artwork available at nineteeneightyeight.com or through @galleries1988 on Instagram :)

[mysticartist]

Thinking so hard about my own comparisons (that have been rotating in my brain like a horse) of Thjazi Fang to Odysseus from the various translations of the beginning line of the poem, where the speaker calls upon a Muse to tell them the story to tell to their audience.

Emily Wilson translated it as “a complicated man” and Robert Fagles translated it as “a man of many twists and turns.”

Much like Odysseus as a character, Thjazi Fang is complicated, not only because of his actions but because of the way his story is “translated” as it were by others who perceived his actions in their own perspectives. Odysseus’ story has been told for centuries by people with changing views and beliefs about his actions, and those changes have bled into how they translate it for the masses. I’d argue Thjazi is similar in that way, though we’re only viewing the beginning of this process since he passed away rather recently with his family still alive to tell their close translation of his story (though who knows if it’d be the same as Thjazi’s own.)

At the end of the day, as seen in the creation of the Kaedra, stories are all that’s left after we’re gone. And who knows what Thjazi’s story will look like at the end of all this? Who will be the one to tell it? Or, translate it?

(Most of this analysis is based on my own interpretation of the literary way Odysseus is treated in our culture but also was sparked by that comment during the Kaedra scene.)

[yujateaandpi]

Was driving with my grandmother and in broken English she says “no eyes… no nose… no face. Don’t trust.” To which I looked around wildly in search of this omen of ill portend.

Cybertruck. It was a cybertruck.

[honourablejester]

Just. In light of Kother’ai, and the ritual, and the anchors, and swords into ploughshares?

The raw scale of what has just happened is just … It’s incredible. They found an afterlife. They freed the dead. They reached out, through the power of courage and hope and stories and freedom, and they took back the lost afterlife of Azgra, and they freed their dead. The scale of …

We killed our gods. We freed ourselves in life, in this world. And now we’ve gone back, and we’ve freed the dead as well. They can’t have them. The gods. They can’t keep any of us captive anymore.

The sheer implication of this ritual. The raw scale of what they’ve done. Of what they’ve made possible.

And it can be done again. Thjazi was already working on at least two other collections of components. The ones involving the box and Termina didn’t work, they weren’t anchored. That ritual will have to be redone, freeing the halflings. And then the Stone of Nightsong. Freeing the elves. That one’s in progress. All we need are the right objects, and people … people willing to fight this fight. People willing to reach out and reclaim their dead, their afterlives, their hopes, their freedom. To cast off the last claims of the Shapers, and know true freedom, in all its glory and its terror.

Is this what we’re doing? Are we freeing …? Is this what we’re doing?

But. On the subject of those components already collected. On those potential rituals.

It looks like three components are needed per afterlife. The weapon that killed the god. A place of power of that god. And something that bridges life and death, this world and the afterlife of that god, usually a body part associated with a psychopomp of some kind.

And once they are gathered, those components need to be reshaped, to make them into anchors. Swords to ploughshares. They need to break free of their intended use, what the dead Shapers intended for them, and forged into something new and different, present in this world, for the benefit of people, not those who shaped them. And all the components of the ritual need to be transformed this way. Weapons becoming props, blood becoming murals, places of appeasement becoming the rallying grounds of freedom. Each component needs to be reshaped.

The Stone …

I think the Stone has already been transformed. It reacted to the ritual of Kother’ai. And it … I mean, of course it’s been transformed. After what happened with Occtis? How could it be anything but.

With all that we now know about Sylandri. How she viewed her ‘children’. What she wanted from them, demanded of them. To live only according to her design. To be only what she wanted them to be, and go only where she intended them to go, and nowhere else, and nothing else.

Occtis, in the afterlife, just before he grabbed the stone inside his own chest, and was torn apart between two paths, and was only rescued by an act, a miracle, of mortal magic. Just before that.

Occtis: “No, I’m not supposed to go there. Father. I don’t belong to you.”

Father. Mother. I don’t belong to you.

Yeah. I think the Stone has been transformed. No more a tool to guide wayward children to where they’re supposed to go. Now, in the first true miracle of this story, it’s become a tool to give someone a choice. Even beyond death. I think … I think it’s been transformed.

And for the other collection. The halfling artefacts.

Swords to ploughshares. Weapons that aren’t weapons anymore. Weapons that have chosen not to be weapons anymore. Weapons that have become people.

I think Bolaire is a component. I think he is. Or he’s at least a potential component.

It should be Termina. She was the one who dealt the fatal blow, the one who wore Rauwyn as she died. And it … it still could be Termina. It could. But she’s not there yet. Her latest conversation hammered that point home. Termina is still a weapon. All she wants is to be able to do it again, her greatest act, her greatest purpose. She is a weapon. She wants nothing more.

But Bolaire …

He’s still a weapon. He’s still a killer. He still clings to his identity as an object, a thing. He’s so hesitant to think of himself as a person. He’s not there yet. Not him either. He’s not there.

But he’s closer. He’s closer. And he has people, friends, reasons, that Termina doesn’t.

If there was another ritual. A different play, echoing that first and most terrible. What role would Bolaire, do we think, want to play?

But at the same time … Which is more powerful? To claim your personhood for yourself, and in doing so help to free others? Or to teach your family what personhood is. Could be. It might be him. But it could be Termina. Maybe he could save not just himself, but his family.

(It’s so gutwrenching that he didn’t get to witness it. Kother’ai. What a thing. What a thing. If only he could have seen).

This … What this did. This play, this ritual. What it’s done. It’s not hopeless. It’s not predetermined. We can change it, we can fix it. We can find what was stolen. We can bring our dead, our people, our families, back. Not to life, but … To freedom. To choice. To the world, to the Path, to the choice to be something more that what these tyrant gods demanded.

The gods don’t get to keep them. Us. We don’t belong to them. In life or in death. We belong to us.

I just. The raw scale of the thing. The implication. The meaning.

It’s not hopeless. Even in death, it’s not hopeless. Choice exists. Freedom exists. And with just a little help, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter who has laid claim to you, it can be found.

Holy fuck, what a story. Holy shit. What they’ve done. What a thing.

[ghostdexd]

i’m feeling not just vindicated but incredibly moved that we were right that Thjazi did have good intentions the entire time, he was doing the right thing, he was trying to help fix the problems with the world and with a little help from the people he cared about it worked, his plan worked

it’s so easy to be cynical and tell the story of a revolution that eats itself or a heroic character who is corrupted by power or a rebel who becomes the thing he once fought against but that wasn’t Thjazi and more importantly that isn’t this story

this is a story of hope, the world is dark and dangerous and there are powerful people doing terrible things and the story of oppression is long and painful but you can do something, you can say no, you can fight against a more powerful opponent with more resources than you and if you are smart and careful and if you stand up for what is right and true and good even when it is difficult then you can still beat them and you can win, you can tell the story of freedom and manifest it in the world, you can fix what is broken, and you truly cannot tell me there’s not allegory in this because there is and it goes both ways

[sailforalittle]

j. harrison ghee as hermes in hadestown

[toastyglow]

this isn't a project I work on super regularly but I was pleased with how the character acting turned out here and wanted to share

[whatrealbeautylookslike]

when the Fates say "no one has a name down here", they mean Persephone too

between intermission and epic iii, the only time her name is said is when she says it herself one time, in Our Lady of the Underground. the rest of the time, she's "my wife", "lover", "our lady". the only other person to recognize her identity is Orpheus, when he sings of her love. Hades is the only one who has a name because he is King, Foreman, Husband.

[theriverbeyond]

tbh I can't stop thinking about how i went into Hadestown being like "this is a tragic love story based on a greek myth I enjoy :)" and I came out the other side covered in blood being like "this is a thesis about how capitalism inevitably leads to both personal and global ruin, and so we are duty bound to resist it even as we lose, again and again and again. no matter how impossible it feels or how many times we fail and hit a wall and fall, we try again"

[technicallyaflower]

Working on a Song: The Lyrics of HADESTOWN, Anaïs Mitchell

[grimalditeuthis]

what they don't tell you about hadestown is that orpheus and eurydice are not the main characters. neither are persephone and hades. or hermes. or the fates. the main character is whoever in the band is playing the trombone because holy fuck

[mister-farenheit]

not to exaggerate but hal doubling over to have a silent fit of laughter before declaring “that old dried out husk can choke on filament” re: the photarch’s attempts to censor kother’ai might be the sexiest thing he’s ever done, actually

[opalgoddessoflife]

With the confirmation that King Gus is gay, we now have another contender for the funniest possible Julien Davinos political marriage candidate.

[juha-art]

To the hounds!

[tadfools]

Hey if you want Beacon and you don't have an account you have until the 22nd to use the discount code Feet to get it for free for a month and no this is not a joke

[thetangledsheet]

"You can't sustain a movement on fumes" should be a rudimentary statement to make within fiction in the context of resisting and reckoning with systemic excesses of power, but it is sadly an all too necessary statement regardless and thus I am glad at the vehemence with which the schemers table insist on it. Even the people who make immense sacrifices for social change and even those who do so bereft of choice should be collectively cared for to prevent the sort of attrition that was already foreshadowed with actors like Kaz in the early campaign. The ability to meet people where they're at and forming robust communities is often overlooked in spaces like On Here, where an all or nothing mentality is often promoted in terms of relationships to the dismantling of power structures, but it is absolutely crucial to anyone who wishes to make even the slightest difference on the ground. And the Schemers table, who have comparatively far more resources than those that they are protecting, are collectively poised to take on that responsibility together. I truly appreciate the care with which they arrange networks of aid and food and work that provide the possibility of dignified lives even outside the thumb of the Sundered Houses. So much ideology is invested into logistics and the masterful adaptation of that into the medium of actual play has to be commended in my opinion.

[mephistopheles]

midsummer: if the feudal strictness of your home kingdom can’t give you what you want, try going on an adventure guided by magical supernatural beings

macbeth: but not like that

hamlet: if you’re in a duplicitous violent world, your king and your peers and your girlfriend may lie to you, so only follow the advice of your steadfast best friend

othello: but not like that

as you like it: if you undergo a misfortune that causes you to hate your life in your city, give yourself a makeover and run away to the woods

timon of athens: but not like that

two gents: if you’re in love in italy, you can quickly and easily communicate important information via the verona postal service

romeo and juliet: but not like that