WylanCarstairs

Love stories, art & music 🌱 she/her, can't believe i'm an adult now

[witchlingcirce]

Either someone was taking the piss at the book store and decided to write inside the special edition of COLS, it included an annotated chapter by Cassie and I thought this was interesting

[bizmyth]

Some shitty memes inspired by my last post

Much meme potential here. Would love to see other people make some lol

Also a cute screenshot I caught when I was getting images for this

[beccadoodled]

it’s an old song….🌹

the hadestown > next to normal > shadow and bone (tv series) > six of crows duology pipeline IS REAL💔

but I want to thank the rabbit hole I fell down because now I’ve seen Kurt Elling’s hermes do a little dance with an umbrella AND I read possible the best fantasy duology I’VE EVER READ????? A win..I think?

[todd-pick-up-your-shit]

I saw some similarities

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

Wylan: Sorry for being in a bad mood, its just I made an itinerary in my head that I didn’t actually tell anyone about so no one is following it

[wylancarstairs]

oh my god, that's me. Except sometimes (wayy to often actually) i don't follow my itinerary either 😭

[cryptidstealingyourcreditcard]

headcanon that once jesper learns his power is helping his shooting skills, he re-learns how to shoot without his power helping at all. he says it’s in case something happens to his power and he needs to shoot, but really, it’s just a pride thing. he wants to be able to say he’s the best shooter in ketterdam without feeling like he’s cheating with his power’s advantage

[runasulienadanika]

love doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints

death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints

life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints

(it takes and it takes and it takes)

[c4ndyy08]

[to-be-a-dreamer]

I can’t stand that TikTok trend that’s like “just saw Hadestown and my boyfriend is walking the entire way back to the hotel without looking back at me to prove Orpheus was a chump” because not only do they not get the whole point of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth they also Were Not Paying Attention to the musical they just saw.

Hate people who see WSS as “just a Romeo and Juliet retelling”. Hate people who see Hadestown as “Just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling”.

Hate people who watch a musical that takes a classic story everyone knows and uses it to explore/critique our modern society and only see it as a funky retelling.

Not Getting The Point of WSS is one thing because it’s more subtle and it can be really easy to just see it as a modern R&J, especially if you don’t really know R&J.

How the fuck do you watch Hadestown and see it as just an O&E retelling? It is one of the most heavy-handed political musicals out there how are so many people missing the point?

Orpheus has to fail. Not because that’s how the Greek myth ends but because that’s the whole point of the message of Hadestown.

Social reform is hard. Changing the world is one of the most challenging things you can try to do. So often we see people try to make a difference in society, to change some kind of injustice in the world. And so often we see those people fail. It can feel so impossible to actually do some good in this fucked up world because we see these people who are smarter and stronger and more qualified than us fail over and over again.

Why do we even keep trying?

Because we have to.

Because one day, someone will try and they’ll succeed.

One day Orpheus won’t turn around.

One day the people of Hadestown will get to see someone escape and they’ll know they can escape too. Only then does the world get to change.

So we have to try. We have to keep singing the sad song, no matter how many times Orpheus turns around, because one day he won’t.

In the Greek myth, Orpheus fails because he loves Eurydice.

In Hadestown, Orpheus fails because we fail.

We try and we fail to make a difference. We try and we fail to change the world for the better. We try to see the world for what it could be and it keeps letting us down.

But we don’t give up. We don’t stop singing.

Hadestown is genuinely one of the best musicals ever. Full stop. This musical is one of the reasons i wish I was smarter because I would love to be able to do an entire thesis on this show and all the themes and messages in it. Some of them are subtle. Some of them aren’t.

It is not just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling. I am begging people to hear the real message.

Never stop trying to change the world.

One day we’ll make it out of Hadestown.

We just have to keep singing the song.

[worldsuspended]

"orpheus looked back out of love," "to love someone is to turn around" ...yes yes i hear you! all of that! HOWEVER...

i'm on the train that says, in hadestown's iteration, orpheus does not turn around because he loves eurydice, but because he has been corrupted by the hegemonic capitalist system.

consider the parallels between "wait for me" and "doubt comes in." in the latter, orpheus' melody fails to bring in a chorus or move stones or grow flowers like it did before. he repeats the. same. words. that the fates tried to break him with in the earlier song (who am i? where do i think i'm going? who am i? why am i all alone?), but back then the melody worked against them bc he still had innocence and hope. THEN he takes it a step further in the next verse and really internalizes his new experiences (who am i against him?...why would he let me win?) — & yeah he's really truly cooked atp :'(

(i read that the fates can represent the mass media and i'm so with that. they both praise and criticize the rulers, but always manipulate/bring down the poor. we know orpheus has lost when he listens to them.)

eurydice and orpheus switch places from beginning to finale with their arcs. she starts out cynical and then is the hopeful one, SHE raises up the backing vocals in "doubt comes in." he starts out optimistic, ends up cynical (last words before he turns: "i used to see the way the world could be, but now the way it is is all i see"). bc we need both optimism & a sense of reality to change the world.

hades knows he would turn around, but due to his doubt rather than his love. inside, he is sure that can not overcome his doubt for his love, and he sees this supposed inevitability take root in orpheus, too. but when the young couple full of promise dooms themselves, the older, jaded couple, seemingly hopeless, agrees to try again (they switch!).

"CAUSE HERE'S THE THING: to know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time...i learned that from a friend of mine." :'))

[cabeswatersedge]

why he turns back

At the start of the Hadestown, Orpheus is the optimist, who sees the world for how it could be. And Eurydice is the cynic, who sees the world as cruel and cold.

And they meet and fall in love. But love won’t feed you when you’re starving. And Eurydice has always had to look out for herself. She doesn’t believe that Orpheus’s song will save them, so she makes the deal with Hades.

And then Orpheus goes after her, but along the journey the cruelty of the world starts to chip away at him. The cruelty of a world where the woman he loves could suffer and be taken away. Where the fates taunt him and the darkness terrifies him and the winter winds chill him to the bone.

And by the time they’re able to leave Hades, their roles have reversed.

Eurydice has become the hopeful one: Orpheus came after her! The world isn’t as cold as she thought! They can leave together as long as Orpheus just believes in her! As long as he believes that she’ll follow!

And Orpheus has become disillusioned. Eurydice left him behind willingly. Hades was just toying with them, he’ll never let her go back home. And maybe she’s better off now than she was with him.

Eurydice learned to hope because of Orpheus. And Orpheus learned to doubt because of Eurydice.

And so she follows him.

And so he turns around.

[prose-n-scripts]

sunday orphydice sketch dump yay

[theatrekid-things]

in wait for me hermes says “they’ll truss you up in your sunday best and stuff your mouth with cotton” as a warning to orpheus. he is literally saying it will kill him (they dress the dead in their sunday best and stuff their mouths with cotton at their funerals) and he still goes to hadestown bc that’s how much he loves eurydice. ugh they make me sick

[oddandalarmingsexualfeelings]

jack wolfe really went into the n2n audition fangirling, already bought tickets, talked to anyone that would listen about how excited he was, all his interpretations of gabe, did NOT think he was going to be right for gabe, and got the role. thats dedication. this shows that you can go into things being a fangirl and it fucking works. go jack wolfe

[oddandalarmingsexualfeelings]

i love jack wolfe so much im sobbing

[melburnsart]

Jack Wolfe in Next to Normal

ref. by Shakira Taylor-Knight, insta

[oddandalarmingsexualfeelings]

part two of songs from next to normal for the crows because i haven't made enough dead matthias jokes (i'm laughing but it isn't funny) (it's hurting me today)

kaz - i dreamed a dance

inej - superboy and the invisible girl

jesper - who's crazy/my psychopharmacologist and i

wylan - perfect for you

matthias - i'm alive (reprise)

nina - he's not here