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Relistening to the Hadestown soundtrack a lot recently and you know what. I think one of the biggest things that ultimately doomed Orpheus is he changed the shape of his song and his resistance to please Hades. He's "working on a song" that "isn't finished yet", but when he DOES finish it, who is the audience for that song? Not the people he's trying to free, but the God he's trying to take his lover back from.

Epic I is mostly about setting the scene if like, any audience members happened to NOT know the story of Orpheus/Euridyce, but it's still directly critical of Hades. Hades saw her, he wanted her, he fell in love with her because of how she moved in the sun, and the shape of his wanting necessities someone else's deprivation. So he took her where "the sun never shone on anyone", and the world was worse off until she won her 6 months of freedom.

Epic II is the most directly critical of Hades. He is "king of silver, king of gold", king of "everything glithering under the earth", and his capitalist hunger means that will never be enough. Epic II emphasizes Hades' jealousy that someone he wants could ever want to be somewhere else, even temporarily, his exploitation of workers, how the riches that he violently guards only exist because of "a million hands that are not his own".

But Epic III? Epic III is the story defanged. Hades fell in love. It takes away his agency and his responsibility in his own cruelty. It pays deference to him as king put quickly pivots to framing him as just "a poor boy", "afraid", versus a God. but he was always a God! Orpheus tries to reach him by appealing to Hades' view of himself -- a hard worker, laboring thanklessly for the woman he adores, the woman he fights for. He tries to reach him by helping Hades remember love. And it... doesn't work. It can't work.

Hades will never let him go. He will "let them try", but he rigs the game and lays the stakes, and more importantly by capitulating to Hades' rules and agreeing to play the game on Hades' terms and reshaping his song to please the very God he is trying to outsmart, Orpheus loses himself, and he loses the strength and resiliance needed to take Euridyce (and the other Workers!) home.

Something something about how art can be people power and resistance and revolution, but it is also so easy for that resistance to be taken and twisted away from us. It's so easy for that power to be freely given, by us, in some hopeful-hopeless attempt to win over people who will never, ever simply allow us to leave. And how that process systematically removes any real power our art and voices once had because when you play by their rules, you lose. "It's an old tale, it's a tragedy".

And I say all of this knowing that Hadestown itself is has now become a comercial product. Sure we sing it again and again and again, but can we take it back? Once we give it away. Can we take it back?

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I can finally unveil this personal project! My comic version of chapter one of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I finally managed to get to shortly after SOTR came out. This was a unique project for me that I've been working on, on and off, for the past year or so. Lots and lots of fun, although I did mess up in some parts (typesetting :') ) and the limited color pallette was a unique challenge. Rest of the chapter under the cut! Hope you enjoy :)

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One flesh, one end.

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Heaven help the poor children, these last shadows of the Ninth

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(Edit: you can get this as a print here: https://etsy.me/3AKa1sB )

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“And remember this. I’m not allowed to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you.”

“Truly?” I whisper.

“Truly,” says Cinna. He leans down and kisses me on the forehead. “Good luck, girl on fire.”

.

tfw ur reaped for a dystopian death match and ur only friend is ur mysterious stylist who is secretly preparing you to be the face of the revolution :/ (and you’re 16)

anyway! cinna is interesting and cool and morally gray! here are some more sketches of him under the cut

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when will volume 10 return from the war…

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Thinking about tbosas from the other perspective is so funny to me because imagine you’re Lucy Gray and the way you make a living is by singing and being a charming, charismatic performer. The people in your district love you, you have a nice family, sure your parents are dead but things aren’t so bad.

Then you get Reaped because your boyfriend cheated on you - so now you have to fight for your life in an arena.

When you get to the Capitol you’re met by a guy around your age who says his job is to take care of you in the arena, so you figure you should probably use some of those charms you live by on him so you have a better chance at survival. So you flirt with him a little, save his life etc. It works! He helps you! Now you’ve won the Hunger Games! You get to go home and see your family! Thank you random Capitol guy for your help, bye bye now.

And then you’re singing on stage, with your family who you literally killed people to see again, thrilled to be alive and this fuckin Capitol guy has followed you home.

Oh and also he’s a peacekeeper now so is legally allowed a gun.

And now he kind of won’t leave you alone - the charm worked too well and he’s obsessed with you. Brilliant. But you’re a survivor. So you let him get closer, just enough to feel safe. And as you get to know him better, maybe you’re thinking, hey this guy isn’t so bad, he’s kind of cute with his buzzcut and he seems to really like you, maybe this could be something. Also it might be useful to have a peacekeeper on side - everything in your district is about survival.

Things are going well, you write a song about him, he cries, your little cousin loves him.

And then he murders someone in front of you and you’re like oh shit he crazy. And THEN you realise that because of the person he murdered, the mayor is now out for your blood and you’re probably gonna die so you have to get out of there ASAP so you say bye to this guy and he INVITES HIMSELF TO YOUR ESCAPE PLAN and you have to be like “oh sure, that’s super news, would absolutely love to have you along with me, I’m so glad you asked.” So now you’re stuck with him again.

And THEN you’re in the middle of escaping and he fuckin tells you he’s murdered an extra person you didn’t know about and when you ask him who, he says his old self and now you’re thinking oh shit he CRAZY crazy. And THEN he finds the gun he used and you realise that if he destroys that evidence then you’re the only loose end and he has a kind of crazy look in his eye so you’re like, okay time to nip this in the bud, I’m outta here gotta go pick some katniss. So you run away from him and THEN he follows you again and fuckin shoots at you so you run FASTER and now you’ve disappeared and no one will ever find out what happened to you which drives him absolutely crazy for 60+ years.

Oh and also they’re going to erase all footage of your Games so no one will remember you and he’s going to become a tyrannical dictator who has personal beef with three different sixteen year olds from your district over the years, all because you hurt his feelings one time.

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they are puppy dogs

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"Her eyes opened. A small, astonished smile creased her mouth. The smile transformed her face into an affliction of beauty that Gideon had heretofore managed to ignore."

___

pool scene. literally the gayest shit i've ever read.

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💛🖤

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Brighter. Stronger.

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my goats

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Whiterose

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Inspired by my friend describing Iori as a little hater

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Grudge

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☆₊˚ YOU CAN DO IT がんばれ! ₊˚✩

💫 Prints | Tip

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30-Song Guess Your Age Quiz

Fwiw, they thought I was MANY years younger than I am. Just made me feel good all over. 😊