#instant classic I think...

[darubyprincx]

if you put this guy and zedaphplays behind the same mic i wouldn't be able to tell who was talking

[sonic-adventure-3]

i really hope classic sonic gets to beat shadow’s ass, i truly hope beyond hope he gets pwned by an 11y/o

[carcarrot]

Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks discuss their upcoming show at the Hollywood Bowl for FLOOD Magazine (x)

[yugiohz]

what's an instan ramen brand that's good omg sorry forthis silly question im not in the ramen fandom

[wvldorf]

from the sky drop like confetti

[rayz-gamma]

(GURREN LAGANN MOVIES) = "Childhood's end" (2008) & "The lights in the sky are stars" (2009)

[br1ghtestlight]

dying on the cross for cheaty cheaty bang bang my favorite s13 episode and maybe one of my favorite bob's burgers episodes overall even though Nobody else likes it and it was a direct follow up to the highest rated episode of the show. its okay babygirl i got u

[winter-tospring]

Cowboy Carter's like...I don't know if I've ever heard anything more deeply American. So rooted in the landscape and the reality of the gritty sounds of the southern experience, I feel like. It just takes me there. And I don't love it, but it's not the point - no matter the opinion, it stands clearly as an effort to represent Americana and does so extremely well.

[lokittystuckinatree]

Help I have fallen down the rabbit hole of Loki/Wanda/Sylvie.

The God of Mischief, the Scarlet Witch, and the Enchantress? Partners in life and crime? Overpowered power throuple of the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse.

[cetra]

I just finished Alan Wake 2

Currently sitting through the credits

masterpiece.

The story, the survival horror gameplay, the horror in general, the characters, the performances, the soundtrack, the visuals & cinematography, the worldbuilding

the whole freaking thing!!!

masterpiece. that's all.

[bybdolan]

l love my mutuals on here but a lot of online swifties are quite literally unbearable to me..... Nobody is allowed to have a slightly negative/critical opinion of Taylor without 20+ people yelling at them or threatening them and it is a SHIT environment for music critics and actively harms that business lol

[grinchwrapsupreme]

nothing hits in a fic quite like a bi gideon mention

[bravevolunteer]

Who's your favorite animatronic in general?(That you love all or most forms of)

fnaf ask game

Who's your favorite animatronic in general?(That you love all or most forms of)

Ooohh definitely as a whole i like the foxy's ( mangle and ft foxy ... gay ass animatronics ), but i would also include the puppet, glamrock freddy, ... rancid british rabbit because unfortunately i am obsessed with his character in all forms, helpy beloved.... can you tell how biased i am yet LMAO

[songsfortimeandspace]

i just watched Hereditary for the first time and yeah it’s creepy but now that im Sitting With It the overwhelming feeling is just. sadness. reflecting on everything just makes me sad. no residual anxiety or anything that i usually get from a horror movie… just sad

[normiewizard]

lets all hold hands and watch do revenge again

[princesssarisa]

In the past I've shared other people's musings about the different interpretations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Namely, why Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, even though he knows it means he'll lose her forever. So many people seem to think they've found the one true explanation of the myth. But to me, the beauty of myths is that they have many possible meanings.

So I thought I would share a list of every interpretation I know, from every serious adaptation of the story and every analysis I've ever heard or read, of why Orpheus looks back.

One interpretation – advocated by Monteverdi's opera, for example – is that the backward glance represents excessive passion and a fatal lack of self-control. Orpheus loves Eurydice to such excess that he tries to defy the laws of nature by bringing her back from the dead, yet that very same passion dooms his quest fo fail, because he can't resist the temptation to look back at her.

He can also be seen as succumbing to that classic "tragic flaw" of hubris, excessive pride. Because his music and his love conquer the Underworld, it might be that he makes the mistake of thinking he's entirely above divine law, and fatally allows himself to break the one rule that Hades and Persephone set for him.

Then there are the versions where his flaw is his lack of faith, because he looks back out of doubt that Eurydice is really there. I think there are three possible interpretations of this scenario, which can each work alone or else co-exist with each other. From what I've read about Hadestown, it sounds as if it combines all three.

In one interpretation, he doubts Hades and Persephone's promise. Will they really give Eurydice back to him, or is it all a cruel trick? In this case, the message seems to be a warning to trust in the gods; if you doubt their blessings, you might lose them.

Another perspective is that he doubts Eurydice. Does she love him enough to follow him? In this case, the warning is that romantic love can't survive unless the lovers trust each other. I'm thinking of Moulin Rouge!, which is ostensibly based on the Orpheus myth, and which uses Christian's jealousy as its equivalent of Orpheus's fatal doubt and explicitly states "Where there is no trust, there is no love."

The third variation is that he doubts himself. Could his music really have the power to sway the Underworld? The message in this version would be that self-doubt can sabotage all our best efforts.

But all of the above interpretations revolve around the concept that Orpheus looks back because of a tragic flaw, which wasn't necessarily the view of Virgil, the earliest known recorder of the myth. Virgil wrote that Orpheus's backward glance was "A pardonable offense, if the spirits knew how to pardon."

In some versions, when the upper world comes into Orpheus's view, he thinks his journey is over. In this moment, he's so ecstatic and so eager to finally see Eurydice that he unthinkingly turns around an instant too soon, either just before he reaches the threshold or when he's already crossed it but Eurydice is still a few steps behind him. In this scenario, it isn't a personal flaw that makes him look back, but just a moment of passion-fueled carelessness, and the fact that it costs him Eurydice shows the pitilessness of the Underworld.

In other versions, concern for Eurydice makes him look back. Sometimes he looks back because the upward path is steep and rocky, and Eurydice is still limping from her snakebite, so he knows she must be struggling, in some versions he even hears her stumble, and he finally can't resist turning around to help her. Or more cruelly, in other versions – for example, in Gluck's opera – Eurydice doesn't know that Orpheus is forbidden to look back at her, and Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her. So she's distraught that her husband seems to be coldly ignoring her and begs him to look at her until he can't bear her anguish anymore.

These versions highlight the harshness of the Underworld's law, and Orpheus's failure to comply with it seems natural and even inevitable. The message here seems to be that death is pitiless and irreversible: a demigod hero might come close to conquering it, but through little or no fault of his own, he's bound to fail in the end.

Another interpretation I've read is that Orpheus's backward glance represents the nature of grief. We can't help but look back on our memories of our dead loved ones, even though it means feeling the pain of loss all over again.

Then there's the interpretation that Orpheus chooses his memory of Eurydice, represented by the backward glance, rather than a future with a living Eurydice. "The poet's choice," as Portrait of a Lady on Fire puts it. In this reading, Orpheus looks back because he realizes he would rather preserve his memory of their youthful, blissful love, just as it was when she died, than face a future of growing older, the difficulties of married life, and the possibility that their love will fade. That's the slightly more sympathetic version. In the version that makes Orpheus more egotistical, he prefers the idealized memory to the real woman because the memory is entirely his possession, in a way that a living wife with her own will could never be, and will never distract him from his music, but can only inspire it.

Then there are the modern feminist interpretations, also alluded to in Portrait of a Lady on Fire but seen in several female-authored adaptations of the myth too, where Eurydice provokes Orpheus into looking back because she wants to stay in the Underworld. The viewpoint kinder to Orpheus is that Eurydice also wants to preserve their love just as it was, youthful, passionate, and blissful, rather than subject it to the ravages of time and the hardships of life. The variation less sympathetic to Orpheus is that Euyridice was at peace in death, in some versions she drank from the river Lethe and doesn't even remember Orpheus, his attempt to take her back is selfish, and she prefers to be her own free woman than be bound to him forever and literally only live for his sake.

With that interpretation in mind, I'm surprised I've never read yet another variation. I can imagine a version where, as Orpheus walks up the path toward the living world, he realizes he's being selfish: Eurydice was happy and at peace in the Elysian Fields, she doesn't even remember him because she drank from Lethe, and she's only following him now because Hades and Persephone have forced her to do so. So he finally looks back out of selfless love, to let her go. Maybe I should write this retelling myself.

Are any of these interpretations – or any others – the "true" or "definitive" reason why Orpheus looks back? I don't think so at all. The fact that they all exist and can all ring true says something valuable about the nature of mythology.