But Forward is calling, and I cannot stay here

they/them. 21. Gay demon. Lover of language and Musical Theatre. Doing my best. Feel free to shoot me an ask, prompt, or message!

[longstoryshort-143]

the horrors persist but so do books, art, hot chocolate, winter nights, the moon, the sea, the stars, sunsets, literature, libraries, cats, flowers, stories, love and the wistful feeling you get when you finally return home

[kaslynspeaks]

no okay but persephone. when you listen to the soundtrack it's like she's a party girl she drinks and has fun but you guys dont understand because every single time she took a drink she grimaced. every single time. not once did she enjoy herself, because it wasn't her indulging in her wants it was her coping. and even!! even during livin it up on top when everyone takes a drink there's a moment of silence where they all look almost disgusted by it. none of them enjoy it it doesn't taste good to any of them yet still they drink it??

and then UGH okay because lady of the underground i was under the impression that she was interacting with the workers and whatnot like making the cracks in the wall that orpheus was about to break down but there's no one on stage. the only people on stage are the musicians, hermes, and persephone. none of the workers are there. she's singing to herself. do you understand do you get it?? especially with why do we build the wall right before that because I didn't realize persephone was in that song?? and the whole time she looks terrified. she Doesn't want to be here she Doesn't want to engage with this (my mom compared the song to being at a maga rally and she was 100% correct) but she does anyway, perhaps because she's forced to. and the look of heartbreak when eurydice appears; the way eurydice is confused and put off at first, but it doesn't take long for her to learn the words and join in????

eurydice and persephone is a whole other thing because I never realized how much of a relationship they had. like persephone is quick to be friendly with her, and eurydice is enthralled by that attention. but then during chant when persephone is singing about like the earth dying and people starving she's looking at eurydice walking by. she's looking at her and she looks heartbroken, she's reaching out to her but she can't reach her because she's not there. she watches as the fates strip eurydice of everything she has, and then that look of despair changes of one to fear as hades' eyes land on eurydice as he declares he'll find someone else who will be grateful. and I know that like flowers can be like an analogy for sa but I really felt it during that part. not so much in songbird vs rattlesnake? but definitely during the end of chant like AJHVSGDJAS.

and then like I said when eurydice enters the underworld persephone looks shaken. because she knows eurydice, and she knows orpheus, and- idk man. imagine being in hell and someone you know shows up, but you know they can't leave and you know they're soon to become a shell of who they once were. like. yeah

[kaslynspeaks]

@blueisconfused blue your tags mean everything to me by the way. like yes this exactly this you Understand you Get It

[jpinesart]

something i adore about hadestown is that it still meant something, y'know what i mean? like okay, no orpheus's song did not convince hades to give up his empire. hades' love for persephone isn't enough to deconstruct the machine he's built and has convinced himself that he needs in order to protect what he has. but he let them go. he saw the love eurydice and orpheus had for one another and it convinced him to let them try. orpheus may have turned around but they still walked, they almost made it. doubt set it but they were right there. that's further than anyone else can say. nobody else had made it that far. who's to say someone else can't make it a few steps further? persephone is able to leave the underworld and go home again when she needs to. spring has come again, if we're lucky autumn just might too. will this change be permanent? we don't know. but it's something. it doesn't knock down the wall but it's one brick out of it. and that means something. it wasn't all for nothing. it's a crack in the wall. there's a reason we keep singing this old song.

[phantomfandoms491]

Cannot possibly explain how feral I feel about the Hadestown proshot having so many shots that include the audience. Because they’re as much of a part of the story as Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone are. Because they are there watching however they’re powerless to do anything except watch because that’s just the way the story goes but they sing it anyways and and and

[jewfrogs]

the problem with autism is sometimes you want to do something (brave) but you need someone to gently walk you through each step so you know what will happen. and people don’t like doing that

[bobdylanslesbianlover]

i had to phone a taxi today, scary

[sga-owns-my-soul]

every time i see this post i think of that person who posted on reddit that they wanted to go to subway for the first time but they were scared they would say the wrong thing so someone gave them step by step instructions for the entire process and what all the choices would be and when they would ask what question and i just think

someone will

someone out there will see you and say "yes. the world is scary. but let me hold your hand and show you how to do it anyways"

everyone needs that someone, and everyone can be that someone

[warriorsdebt]

The subreddit r/explainlikeimscared is a surprisingly good resource for this. People are always very kind and thorough from what I've seen, and I spend a decent amount of time there giving walkthroughs and answering questions when I know the process.

[halfblackwolfdemon]

SHARING TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE OUT!

[luna-azzurra]

Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.

[borderlinereminders]

The other day, I asked my partner, “What are you doing?”

Simple question, right?

Except… he suddenly got defensive. His tone changed. I could feel tension building, and I had no idea why. So I took a breath and asked, “Wait, what did you hear me say?”

He paused, thought about it, and said, “I thought you meant ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Like you were mad I was being lazy.”

But that wasn’t what I meant at all. I’d genuinely just been curious.

And that moment reminded me how easily things can go sideways when we assume intent. Our brains, especially when we’ve had messy pasts, trauma, or relationship anxiety, tend to fill in the blanks with the worst possible meaning.

But that one question, “What did you hear me say?”, turned what could’ve been an argument into understanding.

It gave both of us a chance to clarify before our brains made up a story that wasn’t true. I was able to explain, and he was able to listen. Understanding what I meant changed his tension entirely.

Sometimes the fight isn’t about what was said. It’s about what was heard.

“What did you hear me say?” can defuse a storm before it starts.

[labelleizzy]

An excellent tool.

[armoreddragon]

Dragon muzzle mask in black, with Kelly green scales on the top.

Pulling this one out of the photo backlog, this one was from about a year ago.

Get your own at my Etsy shop!

[confield]

You cannot say that a top grossing artist is "feral" or making you "feral." You are listening to the Billboard Top 40. You are very domesticated.

[breadcunt]

Stupid ass take. The fame of the artist doesn't define how it makes you feel. Do you not see me go hogwild eating potatoes, easily one of the top 5 most well known vegetables

[confield]

We're like shooting stars you and I

[thekidsfromyestergay]

Happy pride month to all non-binary people who don't/can't medically transition yes you are allowed to call yourself trans yes you are allowed in trans spaces and if you do choose medical transition you are not "stealing resources" from "actual trans people" because you ARE an actual trans person

[shocotate]

I broke a ramune bottle to get the marble out for my dragon.

[wickedwonderlandd]

The dragons face never changes, but I still feel like he looks happier in the 2nd pic 🥺

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

The orb delights him

[hunter-rodrigez]

So I do 3D modeling and printing as a hobby, and a few weeks ago I designed wheel guards meant to prevent office chairs from running over cables and clothes... or your pet's tail.

I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.

Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.

So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.

Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.

Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵‍💫

Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.

Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.

I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.

[these-violet-delights-fic]

People love simple, extremely practical things. I hope you win!

[rlyehtaxidermist]

the only reliable, effective way of "protecting children" is education. but people don't want to hear that because they don't actually care about protecting children, they care about protecting a mythologised ideal of innocence

[juicemetal]

you can sync you and your boyfriends t shots, but at what cost?

[afronerdism]

The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.

[afronerdism]

To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.

The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.

White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.

So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”

At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.

White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.

[afronerdism]

TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about can’t be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Don’t come into academic circles and complain because everything hasn’t been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things aren’t accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.

[idiopathicsmile]

One of the puzzles of trying to write a modernized re-imagining of Much Ado About Nothing is that there's really nothing you can do about the name Dogberry. It's just kind of there.

[idiopathicsmile]

Like, Leonato is Lee or Leigh, that's easy. Antonio, there's half a dozen possibilities. Pedro and John you don't even have to wrestle with. But Dogberry. Dogberry resists streamlining or reinterpretation. Dogberry is what it is, and refuses to be anything else. I am stymied by the enigma that is Dogberry.

[goth-queen]