various cruelties

mostly here to post art, be opinionated, and dump hyperfixation content that will annoy my friends and family irl (( this blog is NOT spoiler free )) hyperfixation: idek rn

[cinewhore-deactivated20211003]

[abbtabulous]

I'm just rewatching fantasy high clips while drawing and Bill Seacaster makes me emotional because like what do you mean he said

I'd love you if your name was written nowhere. And if I had to choose between you, and all of the places that my name is written, I'd scrub it from this and every world for another day.

ARE YOU KIDDING?? IT MAKES ME TEAR UP EVERY TIME IT'S NOT OKAY!!!

[eggnogtoast]

trying to bed a knight like: *unbuttons your jupon* *unbuckles your cuirass* *unbuckles your gorget* *takes off your hauberk* *stops to catch my breath* *unbuttons your gambeson* *takes off your shirt*

[starspork]

We Raise Our Cups really fucks with me. It’s brutally hopeful. It’s a farewell to Orpheus. Sure. everyone knows that. but. its also a call to action.

Hadestown is not subtle in how it shows the power of revolutionaries, of love and hope and human compassion over that of the capitalist cycle of abuse. WRoC is talking about Orpheus. But it is also talking about every person with that revolutionary spirit.

Orpheus is all of us, and every person who stands against exploitation, is Orpheus. The theme is there, but it’s especially strong in Is It True, where he stands against the Fates themselves to challenge the world, only bolstered by the normal people that stood up and heard his words and showed him the power of words.

When Persephone asks where Orpheus is now, it is not entirely that she wonders where the man himself is, but also that she is pouring a drop to every person who holds his legacy and fights for the cause.

Then they praise the birds who sing in the night and the flowers that bloom in snow. A metaphor for those people who fight to make beauty in inhospitable places, who strive for good in darkness.

“To Orpheus, and all of us”

To Orpheus, to those who hold his spirit, to those who lead revolutions, and to those who follow him. The cycle of Orpheus and Eurydice is a love song. It is a tragedy. And yet we all know that one day. one time. they will make it out together. It is on that day, when an Orpheus finally manages to bring their Eurydice back, that the revolution succeeds, and the Shades get to follow their path out of Hades. And the mortals get to live free from the poverty and despair of their oppression.

We sing the song even though it is sad, because we know that spring will come and the world will go back in tune once they make it out together. And Hades can take the seasons, the food from our mouths, the fire from our stoves, every ounce of gold from the rivers, but what he cannot take, nor any other like him, is our songs and the cries of an impassioned heart. And may those songs inspire a thousand Orpheus’ to journey to defeat Hades. Because eventually one will win. It only takes one.

So let the song reach the next Orpheus, wherever they are wandering. Alone on this Earth. And let the song comfort them as they start the cycle again.

[sipping-ambrosia-wine]

another underrated facet of hadestown is the gender politics at play. i see a lot of talk around here on the climate and labour commentary but theres so much on gender too. the babygirlification of hades is so DIRE compared the reception the nytw hades would have gotten. hades is a misogynist who is possessive and controlling of his wife and takes impoverished mortal girls into indentured sexual servitude to spite her and incite jealousy then discard the mortals after. its a little less obvious in broadway but still clearly a predatory, sexually charged dynamic at play between him and eurydice. a poor, naive small town girl brought to the city by and older wealthy man to be his mistress is like. such a classic cautionary trope. his lyrics about women ("women come and women go/women are so seasonal" and "women, quicker than the asp/and always slipping from your grasp" come to mind), marriage ("if you wanna hold a woman son/hang a chain around her throat/made of many carat gold/shackle her from wrist to wrist/with sterling silver bracelets/fill her pockets full of stone/precious ones, diamonds/bind her with a golden band") and outright saying eurydice means nothing to him, that he only sought her out because she was vulnerable to the wealth and the trap of the gilded cage that persephone spurns him for. in the earlier versions theres lyrics about previous girls he abused and discarded, cinder[ella]s return to sweeping the ashes in the streets.

i love that hermes is now a gender blind casting and i think melanie la barrie could not have been a better casting but i genuinely think we can't have that for the rest of the cast save maybe the fates. persephone as a living woman with needs and feelings forced up on a pedestal by her husband and then cursed and spited for it when he himself falls short of reaching her and she strays from his desires. persephone who copes through pleasurable distractions and bitterness but never action until she's reminded of her power and agency by if it's true. hades, who copes from the emasculation and loneliness of his wife travelling for six months without him by turning to capitalism and industrialization. he chokes out and cuts down the parts of him they used to share. gentle death is gone and the dead do not rest but work. he keeps his head low and he keeps his back bending and refuses to look up or try to change himself or his marriage for the better out of fear that it has already left him. orpheus and eurydice, where they initially suffer due to promises made to each other of the heteropatriarchal romance. orpheus promised eurydice that he would take care of her, that he would be the provider with his music and the good times brought by it. he's working on his song, keeps his head low and does not look up while eurydice wastes away. eurydice was brought in by the naive idea that the song/love/marriage itself would change the world (not the people it effects or involves) and thought the hard times would have an end date and worked herself to the ground to support him in pursuit of an eternal rest brought by a better world less chained by hunger and instability. an eternal rest that she was promised again by hades and that she, again, fell for.

hadestown is a deliberately fluid and ambiguous show regarding the time and place but i dont think that ambiguity can be entirely extended to the politics and distinctly grounded social commentary. you cant divorce it from its commentary on feminism and sex work any more than climate, labor, or nationalism

[raeldazla]

Every time I have seen Hadestown - on stage or in the movie theater - people gasp when Orpheus turns around. I just love how it's so old and yet everyone is still always hoping that this time

[tbdagent]

yeah i just love it when a character is in an escapable torment nexus for a huge portion of their life and it defines every aspect of their existence forever. also whats cptsd

[mossytops]

Revenge for @theyganona on Art Fight! Had a lot of fun doing this painting and got carried away. I just love tieflings so much :,) I'm still on a glowy lighting kick but wanted to do something more ethereal. I'm pleased with how it turned out but there are still things I feel I need to work on.

[nylilcosmos]

Goddess of Rot ˖᯽ ݁˖

[rainrein]

love it when a location is evil. when a location fucking sucks. when intrinsically it is so bad and evil that it literally is in the air . this kinda works if its only something special can you imagine a parking lot being evil oooooh every time you park into me i subtly adjust my lines so that you're always slightly tilted

[eebie]

I just ate one

[eebie]

You can lie when you name things

[theyganona]

always gotta check w/ the pros first

[st-hedge]

I had this idea on my mind for months and somehow only just got around to painting it. Night sky Ranni

[neomedievalist]

[depsidase]

[theyganona]

“dOnT bRiNg yOuR sTrAiGhT bOyFrIeNd tO pRiDe”

okay well my former “straight boyfriend” is now my soon-to-be bisexual wife so how about you go back to dwelling in your mom’s basement while the rest of us have fun and build community and continue on the path of self discovery.

[hexjulia]

sometimes your distress does indicate you should stop and respect your limitations. at other times it's more of a baby aquatic mammal being introduced to water for the first time thing. Too bad the difference is so hard to tell.

[leonkennedysprostate]

"don't assign human morality to non human things" is so true except when it comes to printers. they know what they are, they understand dilemmas and ethics and morality. they choose to be how they are, they choose to be evil, at their very core they are rotten