I like books and snowy owls :)

they/she/he   genderfluid bisexual atheist with religious trauma (read: family disappointment). i don't really care what ppl refer to me as     i'm also on AO3 btw maybe come check me out?

[majestic-salad]

Insane actually that until I saw Hadestown live I'd never heard anyone talk about the candle. The candle that is hope?? The candle that's THE LAST THING YOU SEE as the stage goes dark at the end of the show. The candle that the Fates blow out, that Eurydice relights at the start of every performance? Kept safe by Hermes until the story is told again? That candle???

Well personally I'M never going to stop thinking about it

[nedlittle]

people always talk about the doomed love timeloop when they talk about hadestown. look i love that shit as much as the next homosexual but can we please talk about the revolutionary politics. genuinely one of the best anticapitalist pieces of art of the 21st century. can we watch act 2 with our brains please

[nedlittle]

i have more thoughts on this. sorry.

in anaïs mitchell's own words, hadestown was conceived in the wake of the economic and climate devastation brought on by hurricane katrina. i don't think i need to belabour the concept of hades building a wall to keep the enemy out—explicitly and repeatedly named as poverty. nor do i feel the need to dumb down the environmental message. by hoarding capital for the sake of it, hades destroys the environment for the working class who he requires as fodder for (in the words of william blake) his "dark, satantic mills."

this message isn't particularly subtle, and it shouldn't be.

the vision orpheus presents with his song is not only one of ecological restoration with the seasons, but also community and egalitarian collectivization "if no one takes too much, there will always be enough."

in finishing his song, orpheus succeeds where eurydice cannot: not only setting the seasons right, but returning humanity to the anonymized workers by unionizing them.

i think that, as is the case with a lot of theatre, it's easy to anonymize the chorus. they're extra voices to round out a song or bodies used for the dance break. in hadestown, this anonymity is purposeful. whether above ground or below it, the chorus have been so thoroughly ground under hades' boot that they do not even have the luxury of individuality. their identity is reduced simply to workers.

the workers keep their heads and voices down because it is the only way they can survive, wretched as this existence is. they are not allowed to hold onto their old identities because voices that are too loud can be raised in protest and music. see field hollers, work songs, sea shanties—or chanties; it's no coincidence that two of the songs most explicitly about the toll this backbreaking labour takes on the body are called chants.

moreover, the work that they do—building a wall that will never be finished, extracting resources—isn't merely productive in the sense that it's furthering hades' capital. this form of labour is specifically punitive in a way that is meant to break their spirits. the workers "dig [their] own graves for a living." penal labour is destructive rather than productive. workers are given monotonous and repetitive tasks meant to punish them for a perceived wrongdoing. tasks like moving stones from one pile to another, turning crank machines, or walking on treadmills. the repetitive nature of these tasks was meant to break both body and spirit with no focus on rehabilitation because you are never getting out of prison. we see examples of this hard labour in victorian england, in chattel slavery, and around the world today.

it's easy to get swept up in the romance and forget that orpheus is responsible not only for bringing eurydice out of hell, but the workers as well. when threatened with a strike, hades (encouraged by the fates) breaks up the union. orpheus is separated from eurydice, yes, but also from his fellow workers. his impossible task is meant to break up his community, because community is harder to quell than individual rebels.

to quote mitchell again "it's a love story, but politics really is romantic." it's a sad song that we sing over and over again, not just in hopes that orpheus and eurydice will make it out of the underworld, but that we all will.

[olivegardenarchive]

hermes in hadestown is the exact opposite of an unreliable narrator. a tortured narrator. a little *too* reliable. incredibly aware of exactly what is happening at any given moment, vaguely spoiling it for you in the beginning, despairing every second of it. but ultimately motivated to continue to tell the story over and over and over with a smiling face for the sake of the audience, and for the sake of the characters themselves, singing it again to keep them alive. knowing how it will end, but singing it again so that the cycle may restart and eurydice may come back to life. enduring the misery of it all, over and over, holding the knowledge of what will come to pass but continuing anyway to see orpheus happy just one more time before it all goes down in flames again.

[hermesmoly]

Why is it always about Orpheus turning back foolishly and never about Eurydice following him out of the Underworld, likely knowing she was doomed. That Orpheus went all this way, singing the story of their love, hopeful that he will return her to the surface and finally build their life together— but they will not. She knows her Orpheus will turn back. And yet she still follows him, all the way to the top, because the simple pleasure of seeing his back again is enough for her. Isn’t that a foolish thing to do for love?

[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

[sweatermuppet]

so pro-abortion i forget people try to get pregnant on purpose

[perfectday1972]

[lettucemakar]

he's the lyricist of a generation

[chaesong-hwa]

the great divide is like what if you stayed and it haunted you and what if you left and it haunted you and what if you came back and it haunted you

[worsegamestoplayx]

Clove probably died thinking Cato would win the Games…

[worsegamestoplayx]

It’s a school night and I decided I want to do a Clato deep dive to prove they’re canon all while eating pineapples for dinner dessert :D

Okay so first of all it just makes sense, another pair of (unknown?)star-crossed lovers in the arena, the complete opposite of Everlark. The complete opposite but then again maybe more of a reflection, two survivor girls and two boys who’d do anything for their girl, one pair brutal and ferocious trained their entire lives for the Games and yet still lost, and the other dangerous in their own way and were thrown inside unwillingly, but made it back home together. Maybe it’s just me being delusional but TELL ME YOU DO NOT SEE THE PARALLELS.

Starting off, they were from the same district, and yes I know it’s a big district but there’s a chance that they knew each other before, maybe even trained together. Even if they didn’t they spent the weeks before the Games together, and seeing how close Katniss and Peeta grew during that time going from strangers to friends why not for Clato as well? And furthermore they had the Career alliance even after the Games started, so I think it’s valid that feelings developed.

Moving on to the Feast, and yes I will milk this scene and you can’t stop me

First of all, even Katniss immediately assumes that Cato is protecting Clove while she goes and attacks her(guard dog boyfriend behavior). And then when Katniss says Peeta’s out there hunting Cato, Clove kind of gets worried because she considers for a moment that Peeta might actually be out there, and since Cato doesn’t know about that he could be surprised if Peeta attacks him suddenly. I pray this makes sense

AND - this is one of my favorites - Clove says to Katniss, quote, “I promised Cato if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show.” HE LET HER HAVE KATNISS. Remember this is the monstrous boy who had it out for her the entire time, and he SPECIFICALLY said that he’d kill her, and nobody would interfere or they’d die too(it was implied). It was that important to him. AND HE LET CLOVE HAVE HER. IF THAT ISN’T LOVE IDK WHAT IS.

Later, Thresh comes and saves Katniss, Clove screams for Cato but he’s too far away, Thresh smashes her head with the rock, and then she’s dying(my poor girl 😭). And when Cato sees her on the ground it’s, quote, “ “Clove!” Cato’s voice is much nearer now, I can tell by the pain in it that he sees her on the ground.” The pain. Now we all know Suzanne’s writing is never a coincidence, and I think if they were merely allies or simple friends she wouldn’t describe his voice with pain. Maybe it would be like distress, or alarm, but usually pain is reserved for deeper things. Or maybe I’m delusional. You tell me.

Moving on: Cato finally reaches Clove, and he heads straight for her, ignoring Katniss and Thresh even though they’re within range to at least try to take down with a spear. And we know he’s extremely skilled with the spear, and before you say oh Katniss and Thresh were too far away by that point remember Katniss could hear him begging Clove to stay with him(my shaylas) so we know she was within range. He completely ignored her and Thresh(who might have been a bigger threat) to go to Clove even though he knew she was done for. And if he didn’t care about her A LOT he would have left her for a bit to try and get Katniss or Thresh, but no he WENT STRAIGHT TO HER AND IGNORED ALL ELSE 😭

Also it’s just so fucking sweet that he was begging her to stay with him, and we know Cato by this point he’s proud and he’s brutal and he don’t beg for anything, but he did for Clove… and showing emotion at this point in the Games, especially for a Career who’s only act was being cruel and sadistic and ready to win, was dangerous and could potentially hurt his chances with sponsors and might even get him in trouble with the Capitol, but he did it anyway. For Clove. Oh I can’t take this anymore

I’M NOT DONE YET

Oki so from here it’s slightly more delusional and minor BUT

Cato went after Thresh, not Katniss, and yes while we could argue that Thresh had the ‘thing he needed desperately’ wouldn’t it have been better to chase down Katniss first, before he could give Peeta the medicine and tend to her injuries, rather than get Thresh first and face the two of them after they had both recovered?? What if he was so blinded by vengeance that he missed that fact??(I know I’m going out on a limb here but THIS IS PLAUSIBLE RIGHT???) Also the fact that he did track him down in the rain in the thunderstorm and did not stop until he eventually did kill him like hello the dedication

Plus in the movies they lwk referenced Everlark and Clato because their interview outfits look kind of similar idk if I’m tripping for this one

LAST FACT: When Clove first screams for Cato before her death, Katniss is also confused as to why he’s so far away, and she makes a few guesses but we never learn the true reason. WHAT IF: the Capitol saw that Cato and Clove had the potential to become lovers and cast a threat to the og star-crossed lovers so when they saw Clove’s life in jeopardy they somehow held Cato back to stop him from saving her life??? I mean I’m probably being delusional but WHAT IF???

I think that’s about it thanks a lot if you made it this far, I will ship Clato for the rest of my life ✌️

[buttpoems]

[oliveespineapples]

I don’t know why we (the tumblr community) write posts like this (with so many specifying parentheses) whenever our collective wife (ao3) goes off to war (is unexpectedly down), but whatever the reason may be they make me giggle to myself every time

[homunculus-argument]

I'm not an asexual but I have to admit the thought of wanting sex badly enough to be willing to do with no protection is utterly alien to me. Like I know that contraceptives have not been accessible for most people for most of human history, but that really doesn't tip the scales here. People were still fucking all across those millenia, all the way between point A when someone connected the dots that fucking causes babies, and point B when someone figured out how to make it stop doing that. You don't have to go back that many generations to get to a point where everyone knew someone who had died in childbirth. And yet, these people fucked.

I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend the level of horny that would make someone think "I would rather suffer and die a horrifying painful death nine months from now, that will break all of my loved ones' hearts with grief they will never recover from, than endure one more second of not getting dicked down RIGHT NOW."

[between-stars-and-waves]

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

Posted on the noticeboard outside my uni lab.

[nootdraws]

My WIFE (ao3) has been SHOT (is down for maintenance) and is DEAD FOREVER (probably will be back up in a few hours)