#since she’s not meant to BE persephone she just has some of her qualities(?) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nysus-temple · 2 years

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Could you explain the whole poseidon-demeter-persephone thing you have? no offense i'm just curious about it!

*cracks knuckles* thank you anon, time to write a big ass paragraph.

I'm always glad to talk about my book since due to my studies I haven't been able to finish the last parts yet, neither finding a place to publish it, so everytime I can talk about it I'm more than glad !!

Origins:

Demeter and Poseidon are both nature gods, Demeter is the manifestation of earth nature and Poseidon of water nature. All gods care for living beings equally ( except, well, some ), but they all have their preferences wich is just like the humans, some prefer cats over dogs and the gods can think that way too. Demeter and Poseidon were like that too, Demeter couldn't stan animals and Poseidon didn't get what was so good about plants. That's how they started talking more together, it began as a discussion at first.

Poseidon is the one out of the first olimpians to be most likely a disaster, he isn't really good at putting emotions aside when logic is needed. Demeter is the other way around, she has ALWAYS put they well-being of all life forms first, never the feelings.

That was until Poseidon proposed to her.

She didn't want to get married ( not in a Hestia way, since she was ok being in a relationship ) because she just wasn't a fun of so many "contract" stuff, that's what she considered weddings to be like. Specially since Hera was the one behind all the marriage thingy and as much as she loves all her siblings, she never trusted that much the youngest ones. She loved spending time with Poseidon, she loved the fact that he was so careless.

❝ There was one day when he scared me jumping out of some bushes, and due to my... lack of trust, I suppose, I started running away to the point of turning myself into a horse to escape from him... your father, fearing his intentions ❞ said Demeter to her daughter, who was listening with a very unusual attention.

❝ You were running away... from my father... ❞ mumbled Persephone, shaking, ❝ that can only mean that I wasn't meant... to be born. ❞

The nature goddess got up from the ground surrounded by grass, resting a hand on a tree trunk.

❝ I haven't finished speaking, Persephone ❞ she complained, sighing ❝ he turned into a horse too and didn't stop chasing me until he caught me. ❞ she let out a laugh, shaking her head tiredly ❝ He grabbed my arm and said "I caught you!" and... and then he let me go, saying one last sentence before laughing out loud: "now it's your turn, try to catch me if you can!"

Persephone frowned, blinking more than once trying to find some logic in that story.

❝ What you're telling me is that dad... I mean, my father- he- was playing a child game with you all along? He wasn't trying to do any harm? But- the mortals said he... ! ❞

Demeter looked at her companion once more before laughing again.

❝ Oh my dear Poseidon, how much time has passed since you have last seen our precious daughter, who is just as distrustful as the goddess you once loved? ❞

The other woman didn't say a word, she just kept looking at her melancholic mother.

[ The ram that ate grapes ] - Chapter ??? - ( Not published yet)

Demeter was distrustful, Poseidon was naive.

Daughter:

Poseidon accepted Demeter's wish of not getting married and their relationship didn't have nor caused any troubles at all, wich was good news for deities in general, since they could keep up with their god condition without feeling any struggles with it.

They even had a child ! A child that the oracles said would be different from any other god that had been born before, news that meant they descendant would most likely inherit all the good qualities of the both nature deities. This made the king of the olimpians happy, Zeus, both the parents, Demeter and Poseidon, and even the queen of the heavens, Hera.

Except, the oracle who predicted all of this news, Hestia and the one who was listening to her in silent, Hades. But none of them said anything due to their lack of interactions with their familly, who was gonna listen anyway.

❝ That child... ❞ mumbled Hekate in the darkness, without letting any of the two gods see her, ❝ That damn Hestia was right again, the little one has horns... big ram horns... ❞

❝ She's not crying! She's not crying! ❞ screamed Demeter, holding her descendant while feeling extremelly anxious ❝ She can't die just after being born, I refuse! Poseidon call Eileithyia! ❞

❝ No, Demeter, pay attention! She is actually breathing, even if she is... being very silent with it ❞

❝ Have you gone absolutely insane?! but before she could keep complaining, the child moved a bit in her arms.

The nature goddess looked at the little girl with both confusion and fear, the creature was actually breathing, she had a heartbeat.

A very low and quiet one. No crying, no shaking, she was like a little doll.

❝ Her heart... is glowing a little ❞ said the father, who was still next to both of them ❝ Is this some kind of curse or whatever... we should go to Hekate, perhaps... ❞

But the mother hold his arm, shaking her head as a way of saying "no".

❝ She doesn't need anyone else, just us. ❞ she replied, letting out a sigh filled with desesperation.

Hekate smiled for herlself while she was walking away.

❝ Oh little sheep with horns, your glowing heart wishes to become the new Mother Gaia, but your body accepted its fate as a mortal being ❞ she kept mumbling until she had disappeared completely.

[ The ram that ate grapes ] - Chapter ??? - ( Not published yet)

The child grew up with her two parents only, without coming out of Demeter's realm. Poseidon visited them due to the condition of living in the sea and the little girl had only been told about the rest of the world by her mother, she never saw anything herself, not even his family of gods and goddesses.

That child was Persephone, a goddess... as her parents think, without any abilities at all. She was supposed to be born as an exceptional nature goddess due to her parents, but she wasn't, at least not as it was thought.

It's true, Persephone was able to create some little crops, not much at all compared to her mother, and interacted with living beings, but in a completely different way compared to her father, since she wasn't able to protect any animal Poseidon gave her, neither any plant. She ended all of them, just by looking at them.

So in the end, they went to ask Hekate for advice. But the goddess only replied with a simple sentence: "She's the weakest goddess to have ever been born, she can be compared to Hebe in that way, fragile and with no abilities that can be mentioned in a hymn." And then, before disappearing into the darkness as she always did, a last thing was said: "She has a spirit as strong as Mother Gaia's and a body weaker than a mortal's one."

Demeter only understood one thing: that her daughter couldn't be saved, that she was in the worst conditions ever. She never let her go out of the realm, not even interact with her father at some given point, afraid of her diying and loosing that precious inmortality all deities had.

Poseidon... well, he WAS going to ask Zeus for any advice, but ended up not doing it due to his own pride, thinking he wouldn't know anything better since he was the youngest Cronida. And before he could even think of asking Hades... his daughter was kidnapped by him.

Underworld:

Even after Zeus made an agreement between Demeter and Hades to who would keep Persephone at different points of the year, the girl who was in the middle still didn't say anything. Why should she? She couldn't feel fear when she was kidnapped, she couldn't feel sadness when she wasn't with her mother, she couldn't feel anger when she stopped seeing her father.

She just couldn't feel. Her glowing heart was beating slow, without making any noise at all. She didn't even feel a single emotion, good or bad, when the only serious fight happened between her parents, who never saw eachother again after that. It's not like she wanted to act that way, she just couldn't feel like doing anything at all.

"Please... smile once, just once, for your mother" Demeter kept saying to her daughter, who only shrugged and blinked as a response.

Persephone knew how much both of her parents sacrificed for her, but she still didn't feel like owning them anything, not even a simple smile or hug.

Everytime she had to go to the Underworld, with Hades it was the same. She didn't feel neither good or bad things towards him, no matter how hard he tried. She was a good queen in those terms, since no one was able to trick her like her husband had been once.

It's true, she was mentally a very strong goddess and phisically a extremelly weak one, if Hades wanted to... maybe she wouldn't still be here, at least not as we know her.

Hekate came to visit her many different times: "You indeed have a spirit as strong as Mother Gaia's and a body weaker than a mortal's one... oh! Little sheep with horns!"

But Persephone never knew how to react to that.

Demeter and Poseidon never saw eachother again until Zagreus, Persephone's son, was born. The first time ever they saw their daughter smiling, when she had the child in her arms, crying with rage, when he was kidnapped just like she had once been... showing emotions.

That time, they treated eachother as strangers, feeling akward to be both of them with Persephone at the same time, who was now, the one asking them to smile this time.

"Oh little sheep with horns..." Persephone could hear Hekate in the background, even if the goddess wasn't actually there.

"Flowers, fish and a little sheep..."

#ask #answer #PHEW #the ram that ate grapes #persephone #demeter #poseidon #original work

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antiloreolympus · 3 years

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Bunch of (Older) Asks [P.2]

1. This episode of LO was cartoonish - no pun intended. Minthe gave an Evil Character speech fr. Your target demographic cannot be over 18 if you are That Much on the nose.

2. I think one of the reasons that LO fans deny it’s flaws is because RS does not plan the episodes, just writes them as she goes. And i don’t remember clearly but i think there were some asks saying that RS steals from HxP fanfics and theories (which makes sense since she likes to control and see everything) and seeing how there are so many theory accounts of LO she probably views them all and steals the theory ideas, therefore giving LO fans a sense of righteousness. What is simply RS art laziness or her just simply not caring about the artwork anymore is taken by fans as a theory for what might happen, leaving RS with plenty of ideas and her fans happy that they saw “hidden clues”. An example would be that of the episode where Persephone is chasing Minthe and then turns her into a plant, the shape of the cape looks like the eyes that Persephone feels around her (although i believe that it’s just simply a coincidence) and the fact that her hair does not grow like crazy. We know that Persephones hair grows when she’s mad, sad etc etc and is even shown on the episode when she turns big and when she grown vines and starts hibernating because she’s on TV as a criminal (which she is). Now because RS forgot to draw Persephones hair longer when she was attacking Minthe, fans are speculating that Persephone now has her powers on control and is not shadowed over by “the feeling” anymore. While the next episode shows that Persephone can’t actually turn Minthe back into a nymph and saying that she can’t really control her powers. RS will probably find a way to incorporate that theory in the comic but who knows when

3. One thing that I hate in lore olympus is the treatment of minthe. I understand why people don't like her, but she's seen by all the characters as one dimensionally evil when she's not really commited a cardinal sin in my eyes? Like she's very obviously lower class, struggling with money, and she figures that seducing a musty rich slave owner is her best way to an easy life. damn bitch i'd do the same, she's also seen to be easily led by thetis, and damn if my boyfriend who i was already feeling insecure around (who's family called me the equivalent of trailer trash and he didnt stick up for me) told me he was dumping me for a NINETEEN year old??? I'd freak out too! She's not perfect, and she's said some awful things, but she's honestly pretty rational. She's also treated pretty awfully by the other gods on account of her being a nymph, and being shafted by persephone who is a literal heiress? She knows she needs hades so she doesn't die, and that persephone doesn't. I don't know, i understand why people don't like her and she's said some unforgivable things, but her actions? They make sense, and she's annoyingly portrayed as irredemable and evil.

4. i get it, minthe is obviously an antagonist, but i get no satisfaction in her death. she was a victim of hades' actions + him using his power over her to where him turning his attention to the next pretty thing he saw meant shed be homeless / in poverty. why would i root for a rich girl's split personality (so it CAN'T be her actually doing it! god forbid!) murdering a powerless nymph for actually standing up to a king and have it be "no you MUST respect the 1% or else ill kill you!" its gross!

5. LORE OLYMPUS WANTS WHAT HADESTOWN HAS

6. The confrontation between Minthe was drawn like a joke/meme when it was a pretty serious moment puts me off so much and the quality of the art was so stiff and underwhelming too. If this were made with the old art it wouldve looked alot better and expressive i think

7. LO would have flopped a long time ago if it didn't use greek mythology names as a crutch; the art style would have only carried a season minimum before people would start realizing how badly written it is...

8. ngl i follow a fucking homestuck RP blog with better greek mythology takes than LO

9. The biggest issue that makes me despise Lore Olympus is that pretty much every character falls into one of two groups: 1 Persephone cheer squad who can do no wrong and 2. Evil Meanies who don't like Persephone the cute uwu bean how dare you not love her, like girl....

10. Every comic or fanfic i’ve seen of HxP depicts Hades as this insecure, shy guy who doesn’t really know how to talk to women and like? Wtf.. how is one of the most powerful gods, the ruler of the underworld insecure?? I get that people love the whole -uwu shy powerful guy talks to main love interest and is a softie - but for what Hades is it doesn’t make any sense. And since so many people want to make gods relatable to mortals (which is dumb and so unachievable) a much better portrayal of Hades would be one of the quiet and fair guy. A confident god who knows what he’s doing and is aware of the power he has. An insecure god means that he’ll exploit everyone in his kingdom and our -soft boi- can’t do that. Hades is aware of his powers and the role he has, and has simply not found a goddess to his liking to be queen of the underworld. LO making Hades into this abused guy who has low self esteem is done in bad taste. I understand that people want to read and see things that seem familiar or that include them and whatnot, however gods are gods. They are not mortals. They don’t go by the same rules as us and do not process things the same as us.

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lo critical #lore olympus critical #anti lo art

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houseofsannae · 3 years

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A Fistful of Munny - Extended End Notes

Notes for A Fistful of Munny that don’t fit within the character limit under the cut!

Please, read the fic before reading this post

All right! Welcome to the extended notes, in which I go into excruciating detail over a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter, because I like the sound of my own voice!

Let’s start with some more broad stuff that didn’t make the exclusive end notes space. To do the Fistful of Dollars homage, I needed a place where I could have two villainous factions intersecting for Strelitzia to play against one another. After some brainstorming and asking for help from other people working on the Entwined in Trine Sorikai zine (and ultimately ignoring all their very good suggestions (Sorry, guys!)), I eventually realized that the Wasteland from Epic Mickey was a perfect place for this story, both in the sense of having mooks to destroy without Strels committing actual murder, and in the thematic sense of forgotten characters. There was just one issue.

I hadn’t played Epic Mickey.

And that is how I spent my summer, playing both Epic Mickey games. Both, because I was looking for a good location to set the story in in-world. Since the Wasteland is based on the Disney theme parks, I was hoping to find one based on Frontierland, their Western section. Such a location did exist – Disney Gulch – but only in the second game. Which meant I had to play Epic Mickey 2, as well. (The first one is a better game, but that’s not really the fault of the developers; they were not given the time they needed to make it as good as the first one. Here’s a video with trivia about the series that goes a little into the development.) I also needed to learn the Mad Doctor’s ultimate fate, since I wanted his Beetleworx/Blotworx to be one of the two villainous factions. In the game, depending on whether you chose the Paint (Paragon) or Thinner (Renegade) path, the Doc is either redeemed… or dead. Neither of which was helpful, so I had to invent.

But let’s talk about characters and why I picked them in order. The short version for why these choices, at least on the Final Fantasy side, is set-up for later. Obviously I can’t go into detail why. Before that, let’s talk about the Beanie Baby.

Chi is, as I hope you were able to guess, Strelitzia’s Chirithy. I’ve brought it up several times, but I personally do not like mascot characters. There are a few exceptions, but Chirithies are not one of them. Like I said, KHUx isn’t what happened in this AU, so you’ll have to wait for in-universe answers on why it’s a cat now. Out-of-universe reason is this was the only way I could make it palatable for myself. I arbitrarily decided on a gender for it because as a real cat, it would have a sex. Canonically Chirithies appear to be genderless, and in Japanese refer to themselves with the gender-neutral (but masculine-leaning) boku. I would’ve left Chi that way, save for the fact that he’s a completely normal cat now. (And before you ask, no, not every real cat that appears in KHΨ from this point on is a Chirithy.)

As for Strelitzia herself, it’s hard for me to pick up a character’s voice when they’re… not voiced. Intonation and cadence do a lot for me mimicking the way a character talks, so it’s a bit more difficult when they don’t technically speak. I tried for a mix between Sora and Kairi, while still keeping her defining character traits of being shy, but also impulsive.

You may notice that while she’s started remembering faces, if not names, the Player’s name and face still eludes her, despite her (canonical. Deal with it.) crush on them. There is a story reason for this, and will become clear once Luxu takes centre stage.

The name “Jane” was chosen with more consideration than just “Jane Doe” being the standard name in (at least my corner of) the English-speaking world for a woman of unknown identity. See, the Man With No Name actually has three names. In A Fistful of Dollars, he is referred to (by one character in one scene, once) as “Joe”. “Joan” might have been a more clear homage, but I figure Jane makes sense. And as you might guess, in the next fic, Strels will be going by a different name, still not her own. She’ll remember her name… eventually.

One might think I could’ve picked any old Cid, and one would be wrong for reasons I can’t explain yet. In fact, I can’t explain much of anything surrounding him yet. What I can say is no, Cidney Aurum is not dead, she’s just not related to Cid Sophiar in this fic verse. An unfortunate consequence of where I wanted to put each of them in the narrative; making them not be related was the only way it made any sense, geographically speaking.

Hyperion on the other hand, I can talk about. He’s one of the Gremlins in Epic Mickey, and… wait, first things first. Gremlins are from an abandoned Disney film based on a Roald Dahl book, itself based on the cryptids that supposedly haunted airplanes and caused them to malfunction, the earliest known written-down mention of the concept being from the 1920s. The film never got made, but the designs Disney would have used were adapted into a second printing of Dahl’s book, and they were later used in Epic Mickey. Hyperion is, like the publishing imprint that Disney owns, named after a street that Walt Disney used to live on. In-game, Hyperion is in Bog Easy (based on the Haunted Mansion), not Disney Gulch, but his name stuck out to me as being particularly fun, so I picked him instead of trying to figure out what Gremlins actually are in the Gulch (they have names in the files of Epic Mickey 2, but not in the actual game, so it would have been a hunt).

Regardless of where the setting ended up, for the second villainous faction, I was always going to plop down the good old Don. More things I can’t talk about. For everything FF7, know that I’m always going to be pulling from a mix of the original game, Remake, and Machinabridged. Hence, Corneo’s outfit is a mix of his original and Remake designs (which basically just means he’s wearing blue jeans instead of brown). I didn’t think bringing in his three lieutenants from Remake was necessary, especially since this was supposed to be a kind-of small operation.

Leslie is picked up and dropped from Remake pretty much unchanged. I needed someone to do the murders Strels couldn’t, and even if he’s not a complete asshole, he’s still mostly an asshole. Have we ever seen small, Materia-like balls used to cast magic before…?

Onto the fun bits, which is the Disney characters. We’ll start with Percy, who is from a Goofy short called “How to Ride a Horse”, from 1950. And that’s about it. The conceit in Wasteland is that all of the Toons there were basically actors, and they wound up in Wasteland if they were forgotten (that’s not exactly correct, but I’m generalizing). This is interesting, since two of the Toons in Epic Mickey are Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, both of whom… are residents of Disney Town in Kingdom Hearts, having shown up in Birth by Sleep. So that’s an interesting continuity snarl that I’m going to just ignore.

Persephone and Pluto, on the other hand, are from an earlier short called “The Goddess of Spring”, from 1934. It was one of the projects Disney tried as practice for Snow White. If you’re about to protest that his name should be Hades, not Pluto, then you’re going to need a time machine so you can tell them back in the 30s. The Goddess of Spring is a musical, in the sense that every single line is sung. Watch it for yourself. There’s a video with better quality floating around YouTube, but for some reason it’s the French dub. And that’s why both of them sing most of their lines. I tried matching the meter of their actual parts, but Persephone’s doesn’t actually follow a syllabic pattern that I could make out. I eventually gave up and just gave her the meter from the start of the short. Pluto’s was easier to manage (and more consistent).

The skeletons are Disney veterans, presumably the same ones from “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), but more specifically they’re mimicking what they did in “The Mad Doctor” (1933), the first appearance of our other villain. They’re fun.

The original Mad Doctor was supposedly named “Dr. XXX”, according to the name on his door. This was before the modern film rating system was put in place; it was a different time. In the original short, the Mad Doctor kidnaps Pluto (the dog) with the intent of cutting him in half and putting his front half on a chicken For Science!, and Mickey follows him to his castle to rescue the purloined pooch. The short wasn’t a musical in the same vein as “The Goddess of Spring”, but… the Mad Doctor’s only spoken lines were a song (aside from evil cackling). While I had already decided to do the “Toons that sang in their short can only communicate through song” with Persephone and Pluto before starting on Epic Mickey 2, I hilariously discovered that the game developers had done the exact same gag with the Mad Doctor, most of his lines in the game being sung. (In Epic Mickey there were no fully voiced lines, so he speaks as normally as anyone else does). Which made it easier to write his songs here, since I could just rewrite his songs from the game. I used to write alternate lyrics for songs back in high school, so this was an interesting trip back in time for me. They were stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, but it was worth it.

I believe that’s everything for the characters. Let’s talk about Keyblades.

It irks me that three people in KHUx have the same Keyblade. Ephemer, Skuld, and Strelitzia all have variations of Starlight. Now, in KHΨ, there is only one Starlight, and it belongs to Luxu, so I’m going to have to decide on different Keyblades for each of them. (Ephemer’s has already been decided, and I haven’t started brainstorming for Skuld yet. No I do not need suggestions, thank you). Pixie Petal bears a noted (by KHWiki) resemblance to one of Marluxia’s alternate scythes, so that tangential connection was enough for me. Both siblings have flower-themed Keyblades – it makes sense to me.

You might notice a few disparities in the magic. These are on purpose, and will eventually make sense. And that’s all I can say on that at the moment. ;)

Oh, yes, one important thing I probably should have said on the main notes: I’m not going for a realistic depiction of amnesia here. Anything I got right was entirely accidental, and I’m fairly certain there’s not much. There might be a story reason for why it works the way it does… and it might be the same reason why other people from KHUx have or had amnesia in the present day…

You know what’s funny? Although Orcuses look more impressive than Invisibles, their stats in Days are actually worse. I’m fairly sure that this is because the only time we see an Orcus, it’s actually an illusion cast over Xion so that Roxas will fight her to the death. There are no other stats for them (according to KHWiki), since they’ve never been used elsewhere.

A friendly reminder that Apprentice Xehanort invented the term “Heartless”, which was why Aqua didn’t know what to call them until Mickey told her. Thus, nobody from the era of the Keyblade War should know the term “Heartless” without being told by someone in present day. “Darkling” was the term they used instead. I’m fairly certain KHUx ignores the continuity on this (so why should we trust its continuity for anything else, hmm?)

I think that covers everything! Or at least everything I’m willing to share at this point. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I appreciate your dedication! ^_^

#kingdom hearts Ψ #fanfic #kingdom hearts #strelitzia #fic notes #a fistful of munny

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hollywoodx4 · 5 years

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You all asked for another set of my trash human Hadestown hot takes so.....

I think maybe I should just start from the beginning and go from there, and sprinkle some details in when I think about them. And since you’ve mentioned before that detail is a good thing, I’m going to try really hard to articulate the 500 versions of “I can’t” and ��She did that” and “UM” and “GIRL” Also as always, I apologize, but this is honestly a lot of Eva and Reeve heavy content. I love all of the cast, they are all so phenomenally talented and wonderful, but as usual my mind has chosen to hyper-focus on two things so this is what it is.)

(So. I’m thankful for this platform because before my notes were ALL “Um” and “Girl” and now you guys are motivating me to actually write what I’ve been thinking about non-stop all day on my one hour of sleep. So. Thank you! I went about labeling every song-and I actually end up having thoughts for every one, because I went back and listened through and wrote down what I could remember/the things I thought were relevant for the people that won’t be able to see it outside of the boot that literally everyone but me has at this point).

This is only act I. This is a loooooong hot take. This is a lot of Eva and Reeve specific commentary. This is just a lot of commentary. I think it’d be cool/beneficial/whatever to listen as you read? LOL thanks for coming to my actual, legitimate 5 page essay on Act I.

So. My overarching thought of the night (and, actually, I think I mentioned this when I was there two weeks ago too) is that Eva has been playing an incredibly soft Eurydice lately. Compared to when I was there for previews in April, or even back in August, it seems like each time I’ve gone back she just gets softer and softer, and it’s made me so incredibly happy to see her characterization grow. I do see Eurydice as someone who has been through a lot, and does have that tougher skin, and I think that Eva does a fantastic job in representing that in Any Way the Wind Blows. She keeps her voice strong and consistent, and has this look on her face that’s a cross between worry, wavering confidence, and just this tough shell of a girl who’s trying not to look like she’s given up. And this works so incredibly well when she meets Orpheus. Because I’m telling you, the flip in her demeanor happens in the most noticeably beautiful way during Wedding Song. But first, let’s talk about the fact that I’m not sure who decided that it’d be a good idea that Eva play with fire during this song, and aesthetically it’s just such a MOMENT to see Eurydice looking bored, head down on her arms on the table, eyes wide and uninterested/exhausted/hungry as she runs each of her fingers through the flame (and, at times, pauses to inspect the finger she’s just put into the fire, rub it against another finger or the table, and then begin her game again) I don’t know why this has become one of my favorite things about the staging but? I imagine this being something Eurydice just does sometimes to keep herself from thinking about how hungry she is, and it becomes a habit so that in the iteration where they both make it out of Hadestown and live happily ever after Eurydice just does this one time and makes poor Orpheus jump out of his skin worried that she’s somehow going to send herself back down by doing this. Because they still are walking on eggshells about the fact that they made it out and here she is playing with fire, LITERALLY. Okay, moving on....

So. What I like about Wedding Song live is that her speaking voice just. It’s a bit higher, softer. She still carries the teasing tone, but there’s just this incredulous lift in “is he always like this?” and a lot of laughter in “Oooh, he’s crazy.” and Reeve plays Orpheus so sweet and innocent that you can’t help but feel bad for this bumbling idiot stumbling over himself at this beautiful girl sitting there looking completely cool and collected. But. There’s a beautiful thing about the composition and balance Eva is able to maintain in that you can see that Eurydice is openly intrigued, but keeps herself guarded in a playful sort of way. Almost like she can’t keep herself guarded and wants to let her guard down. Her smile kills me over and over again during this scene. Again, Eva’s Eurydice has turned into quite the small, beautiful romantic and I just am so in love with everything that she has subtly changed and morphed, the girl is an absolute QUEEN.

Also, I can’t go any further without saying a big THANKS to Eva for making me cry the SECOND I heard her start to sing Any Way the Wind Blows and just continue that train all night long. What a fucking night.

Okay, so my favorite thing about Epic I is the sheer power that small boy Orpheus has in singing his la laas for the first time. I remember distinctly having the most goosebumps the first time I witnessed this back in April, and every single time it just. Leaves me breathless. And I think now that it’s been a few times, the goosebumps come from knowing how significant this melody will be throughout the show. But Reeve’s facial expressions as he sings them? Make you believe that la is the most important syllable in the dictionary. He closes his eyes and just feels the music and plays his guitar and he is just so phenomenally talented that WOW. Also my favorite small part of this song is that during my favorite line “with them the cycle of the seed and the sickle, etc.” he spins in circles while playing and singing and just. It’s the smallest amount of choreography that feels the most necessary, as if it’s Orpheus becoming so enraptured with the music that he has to move! And it’s in the middle of the tables that are in the “bar,” with the workers and Eurydice looking on and watching him tell this tale. It all feels so incredibly genuine-it makes you believe that Orpheus singing to the workers is something they’ve witnessed, almost something they look forward to when they come to the bar. I think it has to do with the fact that they’re all just watching him, intrigued but also settled in? As if this is routine, this is comfort, his songs are meant for them and for this little community he has. Even when he plays the first note of the Epic they’ve settled in and are sitting up watching him and listening intently. It gives his character a lot of soft power and dynamic without having to say anything, establishing him as an integral part of this life without so much as a word.

Uhhh Living it Up On Top is just my most favorite feel-good bop. Why? Because of the ensamble. Watching them dance is a blessing. It honestly feels like watching a fucking family reunion freestyle dance party every single time. You can physically see and feel how close this cast is; they make faces at each other, they laugh, and also this instrumental break included the Eva Noblezada booty drop which is EVERYTHING. And she also did a full leg extension kick this time which. Girl. Save some talent and cuteness for everyone else. I also find it extremely appropriate that during all of this kickass dancing and partying our boy Orpheus in all of his gangly, limbly qualities can be found sort of flitting around the stage, taking Persephone’s coat, then Eurydice’s, then putting things away and moving around giving out the cups to toast- like. It’s lowkey established in this scene that he’s 10/10 not the cool and effortless one in this relationship and is the cute small boy child. And I don’t know if that’s because I think that Eva’s really cool and charismatic and Reeve is a bit more shy in a crowd situation, but that’s 100% how this comes off to me/how I perceive the characterization and I’m here for it. And when the line “to the patroness of all of this, Persephone” came up Reeve was like 10 octaves higher than the cast recording, all squeaky and flustered. And then between that and his next line, he took a breath and smiled the big stupid baby Orpheus smile that makes him so charming-if you weren’t rooting for him before now you’re messed, but after the smile? And the high-toned, flustered rambling toast? Makes it impossible not to love him. (Also “to the world we dream about…” is my most favorite Hadestown quote so. I choked because every time I hear it, especially as genuine and sweet as Reeve says it as he looks out at the crowd, and then at the audience, is just. It makes you feel the reality that this show crosses with its messages and its story as a whole). And then after they drink their toast they all sputter and cough, and then the ending when they all sing “HOW ARE WE LIVING IT” it literally is so powerful and dynamic, I love this ensemble so fucking much. Their energy truly fuels the show. We are blessed.

OOOOHKAY CHILDREN BUCKLE UP FOR ME BEING DECEASED. Because All I’ve Ever Known? Um Eva, what the fuck? In a good way. In the way that the second she started singing I started crying immediately. Because I’ll say it again, she’s just become so soft and romantic that I can’t even handle it. The distinct memory I have from this song (where I literally almost hit my cousin because I went from heart-eyed staring with no breathing and my head in my hands like the stupid hopeless baby lesbian that I am to breathing everything in all at once and coughing a BIG cough of just. Literally just love.) During “You take me in your arms, and suddenly there’s sunlight all around me” Orpheus holds Eurydice with her back to him, and she opens her arms and sings about the sunlight. And I fucking SWEAR TO GOD the smile on her face. Like. Big, wide, eyes closed, you’d 100% fall in love with her the second you saw it too. I don’t know how you couldn’t. She just looks so incredibly happy and peaceful and this is the moment she completely drops her guard (although I’ll say that I believe a lot of it is dropped earlier along. But this moment is a transcendental experience) OH ALSO during the violin instrumental she literally does this like. Handstand split Over Reeve’s head that is so poetically beautiful (that entire choreography is, like. It really just makes the love feel so incredibly palpable, and the fact that this is the turning point of moments where suddenly there are NO MOMENTS where they’re not all over each other is just. It’s a moment.) And then they kiss and it’s flawless and I sob profusely at how beautifully done this entire choreography/moment/existence of two souls happens.

Way Down Hadestown also includes two of my favorite moments; Amber Gray dancing with her body at a 90 degree angle, head looking at the floor, and Orpheus and Eurydice peacing out and sitting to the side sharing a bar stool unable to keep themselves away from each other. Which. Is everything to the point where I literally told my cousin to watch them during this song. Because. His ear kisses (which. I hyperventilated about for like 3 paragraphs back in the beginning of October) are SO MUCH (so tender. So soft. The brushing back of the hair over her ears and the soft spoken words and the head on her head make me want to careen into an abyss and fall in love immediately) but I love them with all of my heart, he is so soft and gentle and it literally feels like such a moment being intruded upon that this is the way these two characters were meant to be played and I will accept nothing else. Also, Eva’s little minor chord, jazzy vocal moment during the last “way down under the GROOOOOOOUND is so beautifully done, I can’t believe she exists and just acts like it’s not a big deal that she can just. Be that good. And I also love the way that this moment is staged; Hades and Persephone are standing on the center turntable, and at those last few “way down, Hadestown, way down under the ground” after “kind of makes you wonder how it feels,” right when it kicks back into the faster tempo the turntable starts to descend. And there’s some fog, and they all stand and watch them go under the ground, and when Eurydice sings the last “way down under…she moves closer to the now hole in the ground and looks deeper, as if she’s so curious as to what is going on.

A Gathering Storm/Epic II I just like that in the OBC recording, Eurydice sounds kind of salty when she says “well, until someone brings the world back into tune, this is how it is.” But I think that it’s perceived more as a kind of matter-of-fact thing, as if watching Persephone descend has brought her back into her shell a little bit, set off some anxieties. She shrugs her shoulders and looks complacent, as if to tell him without as many words that she’s done this before, this is old news, this is going to happen. And when he says “he came for her too soon,” it’s rushed and quiet, but frantic, as if the entire weight of the situation immediately has been cast on his shoulders. And for the most part, that’s all I’ve got for him. The real superstar in this scene is the fucking imagery used to introduce the workers, and the symbolism of the workers AS THE WALL. So, when he says “With a million hands, he built a wall” the workers ascend from the center turntable in that really tight knit formation we’ve all seen pictures of and it’s just. Watching them in their uniforms come up as he’s talking about this big, brilliant wall and the workers begin to move in unison, then begin their chanting???? The lighting changes, the entire feel changes just based on the workers chanting and really having this ferociously unified choreography. And the most intense facial expressions ever. And they move from the center turntable to the outsides, and then fucking Hades and Persephone come up when the transition happens to Chant and it’s. All you need to completely transform a set is the lighting change, the workers, and the turntable. It’s the most incredible thing to witness this and feel like you’re in a completely different place.

Also, I just always feel for Eurydice in this moment. Because. She’s trying so hard to communicate with Orpheus, who’s standing at the bar stool they’d had their moment at during Way Down Hadestown writing this song, and you can see that she’s trying to be supportive but when she says “is he always like this?” it’s just. Exhaustion. And she says it so much more quiet and defeated than she does on the OBC. It’s heartbreaking. Because at the same point you’re watching Orpheus struggle to write this song, closing his eyes and tapping his feet and just trying to feel and let that feeling translate him into the rest of this song but it just won’t come, and you can see his growing frustration in his furrowed brow and his closed eyes. What I noticed is that during Eva’s little solos “Trying to trust that the song he’s working on is gonna shelter us…” / “I’m trying to believe that the song he’s working on is gonna harbor me from the wind” She hasn’t gone up on the last little phrase like she does on the OBC, which is one of the things I find to be so powerful on the OBC. And it’s still beautiful, but I’m wondering why she’s seemingly been choosing to go down instead of have that little moment of vocal power. OH ALSO. When she says “Give that back! It’s everything we have!” Her voice was BROKEN. And by that I mean she sounded so worried and devastated that. It just. Her voice was cracking as she pleaded for the fates to leave her alone and it was so immensely wonderful, but heartbreaking. Because as she struggles with the fates and their winds, and they rip her possessions from her one by one, she shrinks further into herself as she tries to buck up and continue fighting. But you can see as each thing gets taken (her backpack, her coat, etc) she grows more and more devastated and frightened. And then when they take her jacket, and she has nothing left, and she sings “SHEEEELTER US, HAAAARBOR ME!” She’s on her knees with her head in her hands, rocking back and forth and it is torturous to witness because you just want to cry for her. And Eva’s such a fucking powerhouse that you can feel the raw emotion, the fear and the devastation, and it just consumes. It’s amazing to be broken by Eva Noblezada over and over again, and that’s what she does this entire show. She is phenomenal.

Hey, Little Songbird is a song I don’t really have a lot of notes for. But the one note I do have is that Patrick Page makes everyone so in awe and also slightly frightened or incredibly woke (the amount of small whispers in the audience that compare him to a certain man of political power are to be expected, but always are significant) He also just. Skeeves me out so much in this song, and Eurydice is so broken already that it’s kind of like. She’s resigned and having trouble making sense out of anything that life has just thrown at her, and she keeps going to hold herself because she’s cold and hungry and tortured, and she just. Honestly, she makes the choice seem like one that Eurydice had to make because she looks so lost and hungry and upset and unable to hold herself up anymore that the choice doesn’t seem like a misguided one.

When the Chips are Down If I could have as much talent in my body as these girls have in their pinky finger I’d be set for life. Also, now’s a good time to mention that I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Jessie Shelton step in as a fate and it just. It was a wonderful experience, that girl is incredible. I saw her in August as Eurydice and she did a fantastic job (my only note back then had been that her chemistry with Reeve hadn’t been as strong, but I loved what she did with Eurydice-making her more badass and thick-skinned and over-it and also I genuinely don’t think that the Reeve-Eva chemistry can be matched.) But the flawless nature of these three souls singing together and just. Being the shit-eating-grin, fun to fuck you up, take no prisoners voices inside of your head? It just furthers the interpretation that they are the voices in your head amplified, because while they’re sort of doing their mockery of Eurydice/pushing her for her choice/etc. she covers her ears at one point they’re taunting her and it just. It feels to me as they’re pushing her around that they’re the personification of the battle inside of her heart as well, and she can’t escape the turmoil.

Gone, I’m Gone Me crying because I knew Wait for Me was coming so I was digging through my bag for my tissues and gently laying some on my cousin’s lap. (she hadn’t done a full listen-through of Hadestown before either, so I just. Gently prepared her for what was to come without saying a single word.

Wait for Me Okay, how detailed can I go? I don’t know how to fully capture the immense, all-encompassing, my heart is literally stopped inside of my chest but also full-on beating heavy as possible feeling. The second the first notes started the tears started pouring. I have such a fond memory of seeing this for the first time that every time afterward, I just. MY body kicks into this mode of complete and utter captivation. I’m also an empath so getting to experience a room full of people on the edge of their seats, dead silence, utter captivation and zero breath…..I will never forget this feeling. When I saw Hadestown back in April while it was still in previews, this song was given a 3 minute standing ovation….everyone was just struck and unable to handle the raw emotion. And it still rings true to this day-I was clutching my tissue with such force, watching the lights swing and the workers and their lamps through my tears. The most powerful moment is when the workers come out with their headlamps, and it gets dark-you wonder where you’re being transported to next. It’s a tethering atmosphere. And then, when they plug the lamps in and send them up? When the lamps begin swinging and their lights swing over the audience, casting this brilliant movement and shadow into the air? It holds so much mystery and hope and it gives off this incredible, indescribable power. And the power of the chorus singing along with him? It doesn’t feel like they’re the workers singing along. It feels like Orpheus’s love is so strong and so powerful that the workers are actually just his voice amplifying and exploding and CAREENING AND CREATING ALL OF THIS FUCKING POWER FROM HIS SONG AND HIS LOVE. And also, during the la la las around 1:40 on the OBC recording, when it gets soft and quiet, that’s when the lamps go up into the air, and there’s a rumbling and some fog and the set sort of opens up to reveal sections of bright lights that glow warm, and red. He’s opening the fucking stone wall with his song, people, and it’s the most brilliantly moving staging I have ever seen. Again, you don’t need one million props to captivate an audience. It’s the way the story is told and the music is composed and everything working together. I love this. I love that nothing distracts from the moment, that the las and the workers elevating his voice and the movement of the set and the lights and the fog all come together as one coherent set piece instead of parts of a working machine. It feels so natural that you believe that Orpheus is actually opening the wall with his voice. This piece of theatre is so transcendental that you forget that you’re not actually there. Props to Reeve Carney for existing because the way he performs this song is just so captivating and pure, and you can see the desperation in his eyes but you can also hear it in his voice; it’s more strained (not in a bad or unhealthy way at all, I just mean that it’s like. The culmination of his efforts from the Epic and how hard he was concentrating have elevated his power and he’s just fully unleashing it) You can physically see what I believe-that this strain, this hurt and this hope and this desperation are what lead him to opening the wall. He was able to do it because as he was singing, he was clearly just hurt and so damn determined that he just. He had this red-cheeked, hard-lipped expression while he sang and his body (which I lovingly describe as gangly and limbly) is just. In a power stance. Like. You fully believe in the power of this man during this song, he gives it everything and he is a good portion of the reason it carries its power so immensely through the audience. There’s not a dry eye in the house after. And what I love is the collective, disbelieving mumblings of “oh my god” or “wow” or “he’s incredible” that echo through the room as the applause happens (and lingers, and lingers, until Why We Build the Wall cues us to take a fucking breath) (and the subsequent chatter of people basically asking if what they just watched was real, unable to not mention it during intermission).

Why We Build the Wall This is another one of my all-time favorite Hadestown songs. It just hits so hard. And for a while in the very beginning, I wondered why they didn’t end Act I with Wait for Me. I understand now. I don’t think I fully appreciated this song during my first few listen-throughs, and possibly not even after the first time I saw it. I think that this song deserves to be there because while Wait for Me has a lot of emotional lift and power and just pure mass to it, Why We Build the Wall holds its power differently. It makes the audience kind of shift in their seats, come back to the world we are in, kind of step back from the beautiful show of powerful love and hope and dedication that is Wait for Me and remember that oh, this is what’s going on on the other side. This is the man that’s trying to take everything away from Orpheus. And Patrick Page is such a gently commanding presence during this song-he is strong, and powerful, but in a way that feels scarily easy to him; like he is so confident in his power that it translates to this easy, call-and-response conversation because he knows his workers have no choice but to answer him and to appease him. Also the workers? In this song? Are a sheer force of nature. They look to the audience as they respond to each phrase Hades sings with these set-in-stone, serious, hardened expressions that match each other, and are perfectly in-synch. That’s what terrifies me about the Workers, is that they are so in tune to each other that it truly is like watching a wall, or a well-oiled machine. They do such a beautiful job in creating this sense of unease that this song was absolutely meant to be the ending of act I; they drive you to tears and ferocious emotion with Wait for Me, but they keep you unsettled and uncomfortable and stirred by Why We Build the Wall. And that, my friends, is why this musical was nominated for and won so many Tony’s. Because of it’s ability to make you feel, to ponder and to talk and to interpret. This show is so unique, and wonderful, and full of incredible things that I am always just in awe of it every time I see it.

Carry-Over notes: I skipped around a lot of my notes from the night of the show just because I couldn’t fit the less articulate with my actual thoughts post-show. I listened to the entirety of Act I while doing this, and took notes to the best of my ability and what I could remember.

· Eva Noblezada is such a soft human being, she is a treasure to this earth and I fully support everything she’s done with Eurydice thus far; soft doesn’t mean weak, and she translates that really well to the way she chooses to carry her. She is a strong woman, but she is so fucking in love that she is also so soft and pure. But you still wouldn’t fuck her up ever

· A good chunk of my notes from that night are about how Reeve singing the la laas in Epic I is a transcending experience, and how his soft and genuine and gentle expression made me break down immediately, and it can be felt in your soul.

· I also mention about 100 times that Reeve is 10/10 the only boy who has my heart because he is so artistically passionate and just really really fucking good at what he does (and so, so soft especially in the Orphrydice moments and what I’m calling his making Orpheus canonically obsessed with kissing Eurydice’s ear/side of cheek/neck it is THE SOFTEST MOST PURE THING)

So sorry. This is the longest of ramblings. But you asked for details and honestly I’m really excited to be able to have these long ass notes to save and keep with my playbills to show in the future with my kids or the patrons of the Broadway themed café I want to open when I’m a mid 40s lesbian with a wife and maybe some adopted kids.

#hadestown #like #i mean you can read this #i know it's a LOT #but I have a lot of feelings on Hadestown and I'm actually glad you all suggested I do this #just know that I'm not writing another dissertation in November #my notes will go back to incoherent flailing

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fairskyabove · 6 years

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What's wrong with the edmonton version of hadestown?

i have a Lot to say so i’m putting a full list of all the changes under the cut but tl;dr: a lot of the most important moments of the show are different and it’s really unclear what the messages of the show even are now, and it’s honestly hard to imagine this version going anywhere near broadway

first a note about the cast. this is of course subject to opinion (and i’m only going on audio, i have no idea if the staging and visual acting would change my opinion at all), but i thought this cast was overall weaker than the nytw cast. tv and reeve didn’t seem to have much chemistry, and both were weaker than nabiyah and damon vocally. kingsley as hermes is very different, his voice doesn’t have the same raspy quality and doesn’t seem to carry the same weight as the narrator, it doesn’t feel like he has the same knowledge of the direction of the story. i like the expanded chorus and hades’s workers, and i like the new fates. amber and patrick seem like they’re pretty much carrying the show, they have amazing chemistry and both are really strong vocally. it’s definitely possible that the cast got more comfortable after this audio, since all i’ve heard is the second preview, but from what i did hear the nytw cast was much stronger.

this list is really long but i’m sure i missed some stuff, so this isn’t like Officially all the changes. also if you don’t read the whole thing i understand bc it’s a lot but the most important part is the part about promises so i would look at that if i were you! also a lot of this discussion came from conversation with maya @davey-jacobsofficial so this is not all my own thoughts! ok here’s a (mostly) comprehensive list of things that were changed:

a shortened and slightly changed version any way the wind blows was moved to after road to hell, which is a little jarring in the flow of the story. i liked any way the wind blows as a sort of prologue, setting the mood before we get into the story. it established the fates as having knowledge and control, and it felt a little dream-like before we got thrown into meeting the characters. it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me to move it after but anyways

road to hell:

some minor lyric changes in the beginning

hermes introduces orpheus and eurydice differently (orpheus is described as singing to himself on the tracks waiting for someone like eurydice)

any way the wind blows:

there’s a man singing with the fates on some lines, i’m not sure who it is or what the point is (might be orpheus, and the intent might be more clear with visuals)

sister’s gone/brother’s gone verse is changed to “wind comes up, ooh do you hear that sound? wind comes up, move to another town”

hermes comes in after this verse and narrates, he explains eurydice’s character a little and there’s a new part where she asks if anyone has a match and then grabs something from someone, probably meant to show us that she can fend for herself and add a litttle context for all i’ve ever known

come home with me:

initial dialogue is different, eurydice seems more aggressive/closed off, orpheus asks her to make a home right there, she says it’s in the middle of nowhere. he claims spring is coming any day, she says it’s late, they go into “a singer, is that what you are?” and then into the song normally

lyrics from there on are almost the same, a few words changed every once in a while

epic i is completely cut, which i don’t understand at all because it’s kind of important for people who don’t know persephone’s story, and makes the epics less of a recurring thing through the whole story, and it ruins the element of orpheus singing about persephone and hades each separately and then finally together in epic iii

livin’ it up on top:

nothing is changed except the last line of orpheus’s toast, which is changed to “to the world we dream about, and the one we live in now,” which kind of changes his whole world view. in the old version, he showed his idealism, believing they could live in a perfect world that they dream of, which fits with his act 1 characterization. in this version he’s just stating that they don’t live in the world they want to, there’s no optimism and it takes away the whole significance of his toast

all i’ve ever known

no changes

way down hadestown

no changes

wind theme

some new dialogue where eurydice sees everyone else leaving and wants to do the same, orpheus doesn’t want to leave his home, and says it’s her home too. short reprise of the “wind comes up” section from any way the wind blows

epic ii

no changes

chant

added line for eurydice before “all the pretty songs you sing ain’t gonna shelter us” where she is getting caught in the storm, singing about the wind surrounding her and how orpheus promised the wind would never change which would be great build up for promises if they hadn’t ruined it

small lyric change in between verses, orpheus sings “a mighty king, a mighty queen” and hermes sings “this year their fighting made/the mightiest storm you’ve ever seen”

after the next verse eurydice sings “love, can you hear me now/answer if you can somehow/orpheus in all my years/never seen a storm like this” and then back into the normal “now i see/all the pretty songs you sing ain’t gonna harbor me…”

right after that hermes sings “eurydice was a hungry young girl/she was no stranger to the wind/but she had not seen nothing/like the mighty storm she got caught in. only took a minute/but the wrath of the gods was in it”

persephone’s verse after this has some lyric changes, mostly talking about how she doesn’t recognize hades anymore as the man she married

hey, little songbird

a couple words changed here and there, hades’s last part is changed to “hey, little songbird, look all around you/see how the vipers and vultures surround you/they’ll take you down/they’ll pick you clean/if you stick around such a desperate scene/see, people get mean/when the chips are down”

when the chips are down

no changes

gone, i’m gone

no changes

wait for me

no changes

why we build the wall

tempo is slightly faster, not sure why

the larger chorus sounds good, it’s more powerful

no lyric changes

our lady of the underground

no changes. thank god for amber gray

way down hadestown ii

no changes

flowers

no changes and honestly i’m surprised they didn’t screw this up too

come home with me ii

they cut “are you always this confident?/when i look at you i am” which was significant wrt doubt comes in and the fact that orpheus loses his confidence because he can’t see eurydice (creds to maya on this one)

papers

no changes

nothing changes

no changes

if it’s true

added a section where hades’s workers repeat orpheus’s message, then orpheus directly addresses the workers like a rebel leader with some added lyrics (i actually like this part, it shows the workers taking an interest and makes hades’s dilemna clearer)

how long

no changes, amber and patrick are trying their best to save the show

chant ii

added section for the workers before hades enters, after hermes’s introduction, wondering what will happen to orpheus, workers sing small parts throughout the song

there are no other changes on the audio i have, but apparently a section was deleted for later performances

epic iii

no changes

lover’s desire

no changes

alright some big structural changes here. right after lover’s desire there’s a new section of dialogue where eurydice tells orpheus to take her home, and says everything he said in act 1 was true (about spring coming etc), pretty much the opposite of what she says at nytw. orpheus says not everything he said was true, he said the wind would never change, etc, he basically takes eurydice’s lines from the first verse of promises and they’re spoken instead of sung. orpheus says he can’t promise the wind won’t change, eurydice says “don’t [promise], just take me home.” orpheus launches into the second half of promises, starting with “i have no ring for your finger.” orpheus sings his verse, eurydice sings hers, then they have another new section of dialogue. they agree to leave, eurydice asks how, orpheus suggests that they walk. eurydice asks about hades, orpheus says hades won’t be able to tell them no, and he isn’t going back alone. they sing their duet verse.

this change is the one i have the biggest issue with. by changing the order of the songs, we lose the moment where hermes tells them they have to trust each other completely and they realize they don’t. we lose a really important part of eurydice’s character, that she was able to speak up and tell orpheus what’s wrong. in this version she has no complaints, he has to tell her that he he isn’t perfect and he couldn’t keep his promises while she acts like he has no flaws. it takes away her agency in the relationship and makes it seem like she got lost and ended up in hadestown and had to wait patiently for orpheus to come save her, when there is So Much More to it than that. we also lose the entire part where they discuss all the ways they’ve let each other down and how they promise to move forward and do better. we lose the resolution of the issues that have been haunting in their relationship since chant, where they both grow up and they both realize that they can’t have the perfect relationship they talked about in wedding song, but they love each other enough that they’re ok with a realistic relationship (maya’s point). we’ve lost the feeling of hopelessness they had at nytw, from the fact that eurydice had literally sold her soul and believed she would be stuck in hell forever. in this version they act like all of the sudden they can just walk out. ultimately what we have in this version is an empty resolution with no build up. all the tension is gone, they never acknowledge anything that’s wrong in their relationship. instead they make empty promises to be together forever despite the fact that they made those promises before, and in this version nothing has changed since then. in the old version, promises added to the heartbreak of doubt comes in, because there’s a moment of clarity between them and they trust each other, they’re ready to move forward just in time to lose each other forever. taking promises away changes the flow of the whole show and makes orpheus and eurydice’s relationship a lot emptier and less mature, taking away from the tragedy of their story. thanks for coming to my TED talk.

word to the wise

no changes

his kiss the riot

no changes

wait for me ii

still starts with hermes giving the good and bad news (same basic meaning, just with slightly different words)

eurydice asks why orpheus can’t look at her, hermes tells her it’s the gods testing them, connecting the “divide and conquer” method to the wall. hermes asks them if they trust each other and themselves. they say they do without any reflection on their relationship or honestly any proof that they even love each other but it’s fine

orpheus asks if it’s a trick, hermes says it’s a test. the song continues like normal from there and we all pretend this part of the show carries the same weight as it did before even though everything’s wrong

doubt comes in

some lyric changes for the fates. now instead of orpheus and the fates singing “where are you, where are you now” it’s just the fates singing “where is she, where is she now” which is cool when you think about it as them planting doubt in orpheus’s head

orpheus sings an added section about how he can see his future with eurydice, one of the fates responds that his story sounds the same as the day eurydice left him for hadestown, there’s some more back and forth along these lines

eurydice’s comfort has some lyric changes but it’s mostly along the same lines

it’s hard to hear what they say when orpheus turns around, but they 100% took out “you’re early/i missed you” which i don’t even see the point of. it took like 5 seconds of the show and fit so well with the situation, it contrasted the relationships between orpheus and eurydice and hades and persephone, and it showed so perfectly their relationship dynamic! going back to maya’s point from earlier, it was so perfect in showing how much orpheus relies on eurydice for his confidence and how he can’t succeed without her! but i guess we’re taking out all the development of their relationship so we can focus on other things

road to hell

this now starts with hermes saying “alright…” and then taking a deep breath and saying it again as if he needs a minute or he’s trying to calm the audience or something? which i feel like is kind of out of character for him. at nytw, he definitely showed emotion when things weren’t going well for orpheus and eurydice, but i felt like his vibe was more “it sucks but this is how the world is” which is one of the big discussions in the show (does the song “nothing changes” ring a bell?) and it makes more sense for a god who’s been around since the beginning of time and seen all the other greek myths and how they end. i don’t think he would be shocked or panicked or whatever kingsley is doing here. especially considering that he obviously knows the end of the story way the whole time, so he always knows where we’re headed (that’s the whole point of “it’s an old song/it’s a tragedy/we’re gonna sing it again/it’s a sad song but we sing it anyway”), so i don’t know what this choice is supposed to tell us.

there are some lyric changes beyond that, mostly saying “that’s how it goes/that’s how it is” which contradicts his opening but it’s mostly along the same lines. he literally sings “we know how it ends, but still we sing it again” so what was he doing??

there’s an added line at the end where eurydice sings between hermes’s lines “orpheus was a poor boy but he had a gift to give,” asking if anyone has a match and grabbing something from someone exactly like in road to hell which maya thought might be like a flashback? which seems like the most likely thing but i don’t really understand why they added it there, it doesn’t seem like it fits, if anything it should be a flashback to orpheus at the beginning. unless that’s when orpheus and eurydice first see each other or something that’s only visual and we can’t hear it

i raise my cup

no changes, but apparently they moved this song to after the curtain call after this audio was recorded, which is honestly just stupid

if you made it through this i’m very impressed. in conclusion the edmonton version is trash and i have no idea what the creative team is thinking.

#this is. much longer than i planned but here you go #also tell me what you think it you've listened to it #hadestown #hadestown edmonton #Anonymous #ask box #this one's mine

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saeneras · 7 years

Text

Persephone (Yakov Chernenkov x MC)

Game: Be My Princess

Warning: Slight mention of a sex scene along with some dark perspectives on that topic.

Summary: The first wife was murdered, The second wife committed suicide. What will be the fate of the King’s third bride?

Comments: Old idea I had in my head for like 5 years now. I mixed Yakov’s paid route, GREE route and Zain’s party route for this so some characters you may not recognise. George is from Zain’s route and Princess Natasha is Yakov’s older sister in GREE..

Once upon a time…..

In a land far far up North, wrapped lovingly in blankets of snow and ice were three countries. Sanctis, Sybil and Versuks. For years, the pastel petals in these country’s fields bowed their heads, covered in red. Men kissed their wives and children goodbye, only to never return again, their bodies reduced to nothing but fertiliser for the grass. Children waited for their fathers to return not knowing, they would sit and wait for the rest of their lives.

In these countries lived two princesses. Blue eyed, flaxen blonde snow maiden of the Chernenkov family of Sybil, Princess Natasha. Never be fooled by her gentle eyes and neat appearance fool you, behind them lay a fierceness for her country. Her sharp words and debates in parliament made her male colleagues who dared oppose her shake. Her cream two piece and carefully styled hair commanded authority. She may not have had the power of the Sybilian King or her younger brother but she her intelligence and head strong approach would make one think she did.

The dark eyes of the Versuks princess told another story. Ingrained in their culture, that the woman was a step below the man. Her dainty feet would never step through the threshold of their parliament. Her father and his generals were the ones who ran this country. It was no secret that the higher up in Versuks hated the Sybilians.

It is said that when good people are reborn, they were sent to live their lives in Sybil and Sanctis but the bad ones, the evil ones, the sinners, they were made to pay by being reborn into this hell known as Versuks. Sybilians and the Versukian people never liked each other. If one wore the colours of Sybil or their royal family you’d be glared at, mothers would turn off any song or TV show that was of Sybilian origin. God forbid you marry a Sybilian man or woman, daughters and sons were disowned and their children scorned. It wasn’t against the rules more like a silently enforced law.

General George and the rest of his men, entrusted by the princess’ father didn’t hide that they were on the side of the rebels and aided the slaughter of many innocent people of Sanctis and Sybil. Versuks was always on the lowest, the poorest, the dangerous land. When you thread on something weak over and over and over, one day it will fight back and the military of Versuks wanted that to be known while the poor little princesses hid in their cages of white and gold oblivious to the outside world.

Until the alliance…

Princess Natasha secured the country of Sanctis, by going the easy and old fashioned way. Marriage. The princess married a Sancti politician while the news gushed over her modest jewel neckline and the status of her accomplished husband.

The Versuks princess rolled her eyes at the news, of course she’d secure the smaller country, Natasha very well knew that she could never secure the Versukians by marriage. There was nothing she could do, First it began as whispers, maids forced to bring food to the cellars, spiteful laughs and comments about him being locked away, rumours that the Sybilians had spies in the castle. Poor little princess if only didn”t see the bones poking through his skin, behind bars, lying in the dark, dirty floor, playing with the mice like a mad man. “Siiiigggggn the alliance. Get my seal and crest” he slurred. “George will kill us all.” “Father we can’t give into the Sybilians!” “We’re better off in that young casanova’s hands than George’s my girl.”

How was a girl who grew up in a bubble supposed to do something so big? There was one way.

The princess lay there on Egyptian cotton sheets, pale hands cupping her naked rear and squeezing her breasts. Closing her eyes, she tried to still her racing heart. She agreed to be here, spread across George’s bed, she wanted his hands up and down to her nude body. Her father, her country, her people depended on the outcome of their unbridled tryst. The innocence she was about to lose meant nothing to her, it was all part of the job. Hearing his clothes drop to the floor, the bed dipped as the man with a snake like smirk hovered over her as she gave herself up to him.

While the General slept, she snooped about the room, finding the key and crest tucked away in the bookshelf. Quickly, she passed the items onto a servant who freed her father. By the time the General woke up, Versuks was secured.

Both Princess Natasha and Princess _____ used their power as women to secure their countries fate. Natasha by marriage and _____ by sex but the Sybilian Princess for years would always be seen as the “clean” one who “worked hard” and “paved the way.” Not the girl from Versuks.

——————————————————————————

“No.” she muttered ripping the plunging neckline off of her body. “I don’t want that dress!” Disgusting, no matter the hot showers and rubbing at her skin, she still felt as if maggots and flies were crawling up her flesh, wriggling and blossoming into flies, laying more eggs and birthing more larvae on her.

“Do you want to go to the ball looking like a grandmother?” her maid teased.

“I don’t want to go out there looking like a slut!” she shot back “You know what they say about me!”

The Whore of Versuks. General George’s supporters wasted no time painting her as a tempting seductress. The right wing media against the alliance vilified her, calling for her to be stripped of her to be stripped of her “HRH Princess________” title. People she never met came out to the news hating on her, people she knew said she slept her way through her father’s army.

“Let’s ignore that my time with George was my first.” she snorted before sighing.

If it wasn’t sexual, Traitor was hurled her way. “If she sold out our own general what will the bitch do next?” one old woman screamed at her TV once. Some other outlets painted her as a hero, who did what she could to free her father and her country. Her father came out in her defense but it didn’t stop the heavy backlash. The two most important things that came out of the situation. Her father and her country.

“Dad and my country. Dad and my country” she breathed as she continued to choose her dresses for the Alliance Ball, ignoring the invisible worms.

—————————————–

“Are you sure that you are ready to marry again?” a half teasing, half concerned tone in Sergei’s voice was about to give him a headache. The orchestra’s melodies filled the ballroom. His childhood friend, was always the mother hen of the pair, while he appreciated the fact that someone still cared for him, the King Vladimir was mildly irritated now.

“It’s almost two years since my last marriage ended. My kingdom has no heir.” His sapphire blue eyes, scanning the throes of women in the ballroom below, like a wolf; he was searching for his next meal. A woman, he could lay with and produce heirs, who would keep back in the shadows as the Queen of this cold country. Touted as a celebration of the treaty, it doubled as a hunting ground to find the next wife for the King.

“You don’t want a woman you love?”

The young King once believed in love. Betrothed to two beautiful wives. One he loved too late, the other he had been head over heels in love with but because of him, their lives ended earlier than it should have.

“When I love them, they leave. “ he thought sadly.

“My duty as the King comes first.” he said.

“My my, you’ve grown up.” Sergei laughed, internally he didn’t know if it was a good thing or bad. He missed the days when his friend acted like a ten year old despite not being that age for many years. Being the King of a new country, the duties, the wars, the enemies and two tragic marriages forced him to grow up.

But the King did not hear him as his eyes darkened, finding himself the perfect prey. Sergei’s green eyes followed his friend’s to below.

“Her?”

“Yes” The blonde admired the young woman’s brown hair brushing against her bare, creamy skin.

The King’s right hand man smirked and brushed his black hair carelessly. “Poor little beauty. When she discovers that this powerful, forceful and ruthless beast is up here planning to devour her.“

“ Do those qualities make unworthy of my kingdom? “

“ I’m not saying that just they do scare people away.”

If the smile just left those seemingly soft pink lips he would despise himself immensely but he found himself pushing those thoughts away. No, his kingdom was first. He had to have her no matter the cost.

“ But you are a passionate person hidden among there sir….she might enjoy that . Wait I recognize her! That’s the harlot of Versuks”

“The what….”

“She is the infamous seductress who double crossed General George into signing over that country. Afterwards, his followers and their media demonized her.I’m surprised she can show her face here.”

Yakov muttered closing his eyes. That would mean trouble. Of the three unified countries Versuks had been the most hostile worse, but did it matter now that he was lusting after one of their maidens? Especially one who helped him achieve what he wanted?

Yakov loved the two women buried beneath weeping angels out in the garden. King Vladimir however wanted nothing more than to press her against himself , to kiss her and worship her skin , he wanted to feel her hands tugging at his blonde hair.

“ You’re gonna have a tough time there.”

“ Versuks is under my command now whether they like it or not. They know what I am capable of. I am a King, anything I want, I get. And I want that woman as my Queen.”

#be my princess #voltage fanfic #voltage fic #voltage fandom #yakov chernenkov #otome

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welcometocaritas · 7 years

Text

oh wow look an update

Title: The Ghosts of What Happened

Chapter: 6

Characters: Marina Andrieski, Julia Wicker

Pairing: Julia/Marina

Fandom: The Magicians, Hannibal

Format: Multi-Chap

Summary:

Reynard’s gone. It’s the first thing she notices when they pop back into Marina’s apartment. The next is the body. Marina, sprawled unceremoniously in the center of the carpet, eyes closed, lips parted with blood.

links: A03, FF.Net

A/N: So I’m going to start this off by saying that I’m really, really sorry for how long it’s been since my last update. That’s really sucky of me and I apologize. But I do have a good excuse! Or in my mind a good excuse. Unfortunately, both my physical and mental health have taken a downturn this year and are continuing to get worse so updates still aren’t going to be regular (sorry!) but I’m going to try extra hard to get chapters out. Hospitals and doctor visits also sap a lot of the energy I would normally put towards writing so that’s a pain.

Fair warning, this chapter is extremely rough. I’ve only proofread it one and half times (as opposed to my usual anxiety ridden dozen) but I figured it was probably just best to get it out to you guys instead of keeping you waiting. Hopefully it’s not too disjointed either. I’ve had some problems with thinking coherently and memory these past couple of weeks and I know it’s affected my writing. It’s also been split in half. The second part will probably be up in a few days since I haven’t finished it. I thought that way you’d at least get something instead of waiting for me to finish it so I could post it as one chapter.

I’ve gotta say I’m disappointed with how the writers decided to let Reynard go. Whether or not Julia kills Reynard is entirely her choice. Whatever feels right for her is what's best. If she wants to kill him, she would be justified. If she doesn't want to, she would also be justified in that. But I hate that he is basically escaping unpunished. There is no evidence to show that Persephone will do anything to make him pay appropriately for his crimes or that she will even contain him. She’s had centuries to deal with Reynard. She knew what he was doing and she let it slide. Twice in the last forty years he’s gone on a rampage and yet she stood back and did nothing. She would have continued to do nothing if Julia hadn’t proved that she was about to kill him. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s willing to dispense justice. For all we know, he’s living it up wherever she’s taken him (probably not but we don’t KNOW that) What’s to say he doesn’t return to earth and start up all over again. Maybe not in Julia’s lifetime but somewhere down the line? Reynard needs to be eliminated, not just because of his crimes but because he’s a threat. A huge one. It also felt too much like how in real life rapists get off most of the time with barely a slap on the wrist, if even that. And what, it’s OK to kill Ember and Umber but not Reynard? They may have ruined people’s lives but they’re nowhere near as bad as Reynard. And it could be said that they were mirroring that, trying to be realistic or some such, and show Julia having to cope with what many survivors of rape go through everyday - the knowledge that their rapist is still out there and that there will be no justice for what they did to them. But I don’t think the writers were even considering that. I don’t think they’ve been thinking about the messages they send at all which, in my opinion, is one of the worst things you can do as a writer. What you put out into the world shapes it. There are consequences to what you write. You can do great harm as well as great good and it’s important to keep that in mind. (and of course there’s this post http://welcometocaritas.tumblr.com/post/159979289101/margopluchinsky-feel-free-to-disagree-but)

Paired with the fact that they took away Julia’s shade as punishment for getting an abortion - perhaps not the message they intended but one that came across nonetheless - I remain very disappointed in her storyline this season. They can’t even blame these things on sticking to the books. Reynard was killed in the books (by Kady) and there was no pregnancy or abortion to speak of.

Also, note that alcohol is not actually a good way to combat insomnia. It may help you fall into a deeper sleep and do so quickly but it can cause you to wake up more frequently and to feel less rested than before (this is a very simple overview of the consequences). However not everyone is aware of this and will use it to self medicate anyway. Not to mention, as someone who has insomnia, wakes up frequently and is tired all the time anyway, anything that will help get you to sleep that first time can seem like a miracle and if I drank I’m not sure I would care too much about said ‘consequences’ as long as it meant I wasn’t lying awake forever.

Little piece of trivia: I’ve planning for a while now to make Our Lady Underground Persephone and Reynard’s mother. It was supposed to be a surprise twist but apparently the writers had the same idea so ‘Surprise?’. My version of Reynard and Persephone and their motivations is going to be slightly different, though, as I’ve already constructed the story around that. So hopefully nobody minds that too much.

Anyway, I would just like to thank you all for being so patient with me and I really am sorry about the wait.

. . .

Darkness

noun

the state or quality of being dark

absence or deficiency of light

wickedness or evil

obscurity; concealment

lack of knowledge or enlightenment

lack of sight; blindness.

"Where can I go?

When the shadows are calling

Shadows are calling me

What can I do?

When it's pulling me under

Pulling me underneath . . . "

- Deep End by Ruelle

…

Marina has never been a heavy sleeper, not since those far off nights as child, and so she's awake almost the instant Julia shifts beside her. Clearing the fog from her mind, she is relieved to discover that, unlike the last two nights, a decent amount of space has managed to remain between them. Thank God. Small mercies really can't be appreciated enough.

It also means that Julia's not tossing and turning on top of her.

They're still holding hands, though.

Marina frowns as she feels the hand in hers clench. It's sweaty and hot, only further increasing an already powerful need to let go.

She doesn't.

She doesn't know why she doesn't.

Craning her head, she can just make out Julia's face in the darkness, twisted in discontent. Her lips move in frantic, silent words. Moonlight catches the faint shine on her cheeks.

Marina's face flushes with heat and she clenches her hands before she knows what she's doing - flinches when she again feels the soft skin pressed against her own.

A tear bleeds down the brunette's temple into her hair.

She makes a concentrated effort not to tense up, not to react. But fire licks at her insides, egging her on.

It boils her blood and she wants to lash out, to maim.

She hates him.

And if she ever gets the chance, she'll make sure he knows just how much.

She's not a sadist or particularly keen on torture - especially the kind that involves blood - but she wouldn't hesitate in making an exception for him.

Fire still building, she reaches out her free hand - the damaged one - and hesitantly rests it on Julia's cheek, wiping the wetness away.

The other woman's energy keens under her touch, she can feel the distraught static of it against her fingertips. Oddly enough, it seems to ease somewhat under her administrations, each stroke dampening the violent buzz to a weary hum.

Julia turns her face into her hand, skin too hot as it presses into her palm.

She doesn't want to let go.

She wants to let go more than anything.

Soundless murmurs against her skin, lips brushing with each syllable.

She has to focus to ensure that her rigidity doesn't extent to her fingers, that her nails don't dig into vulnerable flesh. Her heart pounds.

- the monsters are here. The monsters have come to get her. She can sense them hiding in the shadows of her room, watching, waiting. Any moment they will strike and devour her. Now that they 're no longer confined to her nightmares.

"Shh, it's okay, Abby Baby."

But her dad is here. Curled up beside her, arms wrapped around her sobbing frame - a shield. The monsters won 't dare attack while he's here. He'll keep them away.

He always does.

A rough hand soothes the tears from her faces and she buries her head in his chest, hiding from the shadows.

"You're safe. No-one's going to hurt you."

She believes him, even with the terror still thrumming in her blood, sharp and wretched.

She believes him.

There is nowhere safer than in her dad 's arms. Those arms, strong enough to toss her up into the air and catch her without a grunt, again and again until she's crying with laughter. Those arms that can operate a gun and a knife as easily as she does a pencil. What monster would dare touch him?

No, he 'll protect her. He would never let anything hurt her.

He 'll keep the monsters away -

Marina tears her hand away and releases her hold on Julia's - a tad too violently but the brunette doesn't stir.

Not sparing her a glance, she rolls over, curling her body inward, away from the risk of touch, of past, of feeling too much. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wills sleep to return, to push this into the forgotten hallways of memory.

It doesn't.

At three in the morning, she considers swiping a bottle of Irish whiskey from Julia's kitchen to help the process along. But that would only raise the risk of nightmares and she used Ανονείρευτος, the dreamless sleep spell, just last night - hardly worth wasting it on the few measly hours before it's time to get out of bed. So she gives up and retreats to the bathroom to run through her drills again. All of them this time. From the top.

She turns on the light. Not because she needs it - she's long since passed the stage where she needs to watch the sharp, intricate movements of her hands; the patterns are etched into her body, the height of muscle memory - but because the darkness is oppressive. It takes her back, to those nights as a child, shadows closing in-

It takes her back to gasping on the floor, vision fading as the blood pools-

Trapped in the dark, nothing but the illumination of a few meager lights that always, inevitably are swallowed by the shadows. The walls around her, tighter, closer every day. She tries not to feel them. Tries to sleep. When He's not there. But the thump of footsteps above her, creak of floorboards, and murmurs of voices, familiar and otherwise, keep her alert, keep her awake. Maybe one of them will find her. But does she want that? Yes. No. She's safe here (she will never be safe here), He'll protect her (is that what this is?). The people out there want to hurt her, bind her in chains and sink her to the bottom of the river (Witch! Murderer!). But the darkness chokes her, wraps around her just as tightly as those chains, and she-

Head screaming, bursting, a sickly smirk out of the corner of her gaze as she writhes, falls, gives into the black-

Nothing good has ever come of the dark.

"IŞIK!" Light bursts between her hands, stronger than any manmade flashbulb, the kind that would have hurt her eyes if she was still in darkness. She thinks of a basement and a time when she would have given anything for such light, and the energy that buzzes under her skin is familiar, a comfort. The only one she has.

She doesn't leave until Julia knocks on the door five hours later.

Of the two-hundred-and-fifty levels she once achieved to perfection, she only manages fourty-two.

When she steps out the door, there are cracks in the mirror again.

. . .

". . . Darkness is sinking

Darkness is sinking me . . . "

- Deep End by Ruelle

. . .

After she and Julia swap places in the bathroom, she unearths the disgusting remains of her clothes from their shoved place under the bed. She sets fire to them with a click of her fingers - thankfully, that's still one spell she can do without trouble. No denying that there's something cathartic about watching things burn. Maybe there's a closet pyromaniac inside her. Might be entertaining to have them come out more often. First order of business would be blowing up that TV - there's only so much 'Gilmore Girls' she can stand (about a minute and a half).

With Julia in the bathroom, now's her chance . . .

Lost in this train of thought, she forgets about the firealarm which promptly goes off with a piercing shriek the moment the smoke from her clothes reaches the ceiling - well at least it's operational. The problem's quickly solved with a wave of her hand, though not before a disheveled and partially dressed Julia bursts from the bathroom, wide-eyed and hands at the ready.

"Reynard?"

Of course - the wards around the house have that same migraine inducing scream when they've been triggered. Marina feels the slightest slither of guilt twist inside her as watches the other woman look around wildly, searching, equal parts eager and afraid. It's possibly the most animated she's seen her apart from when she stood seconds away from plunging a knife into Reynard and ending his miserable existence for good - if she ever gets her hands on Kady's boytoy . . .

"Fire alarm," she explains, tone blunt, expression unapologetic.

Julia's shoulders sag and it's hard to tell whether she's relieved or disappointed. Maybe both.

After that, they return to their respective corners of the apartment.

Martin - who failed to budge from his spot on the couch all through the disruption - leaps upon this new invention with glee and she and Julia spend the next few hours silencing the hell out of the alarm every time he sets it off.

Marina is never burning anything again. She'll be nursing this headache for days.

It turns out Julia does have some scarves tucked away in that closet of hers. She's surprised she missed them yesterday but supposes it's not entirely out of the realm of possibilities - even she can admit that she wasn't in the best frame of mind to go clothes hunting. She exchanges the turtleneck for a black sweater and a navy blue scarf. It wraps around her neck like a boa constrictor -

hands squeezing, air -

And she rips it off and retrieves the turtleneck again. She's had more than enough of scarves for this lifetime anyway.

When she gets some alone time in the kitchen, she starts collecting the ingredients she'll need, same as yesterday, only to find that there's not enough witch hazel left to make the healing paste. And she's not ready to leave the apartment and get some more. Not yet.

Right now, the wards surrounding them are the only thing protecting her from Reynard. True, it's unlikely that he'll find her if she steps outside them. After all, he probably thinks she's dead and he doesn't seem the type you'd run into at your local supermarket. But a needle of dread still pierces her at the prospect. She can't risk it.

Not since she's reverted to amateur level when it comes to magic. And even when she was at the top of her game, she was no match for him.

It's a truth she has to face as much as she hates it.

She is, for the first time in almost two years, humiliatingly (terrifyingly) weak.

And Reynard . . .

She was held captive by a cannibalistic serial killer for months, ever aware of how any minute shift in circumstance could lead to her being served up for next week's dinner party. There's very little that can scare her these days.

Reynard does.

He has all the power. All of it. And absolutely no qualms when it comes to using it.

He's not the first to try to destroy her. But he does happen to be the one with the most likelihood of succeeding.

Disgusted, she tosses the meager beginnings of her spell into the bin and stalks off. Julia watches her from the couch, gaze burning into her back as she retreats to the bedroom.

Dinner that night is, if possible, even more awkward. Maybe because it's the first time all day that they share more than a minute in the same room - Marina is nothing if not a master in the art of avoidance. Looking at Julia, even now, assaults her with sensations she's done her best to push down since last night - hot, sticky skin pressed against her own, too soft, too much; the race of her pulse as she squeezed the hand in hers; the familiar but foreign tightness in her chest, too tight; her father's hand against her cheek, the coarseness of his sweater against her face -

She clenches the fork in her hand.

Scavenging a plate and disappearing into the bedroom to eat would have been preferable but it would also have been pathetic. Then there's the fact that she has something she needs to discuss with Julia, something she's put off too long already.

- cooking with Martin is its own special circle of hell, one Dante conveniently forgot to mention (not his fault, he was fortunate enough to live in a time period that didn't include the asshole) and the kitchen knife is becoming harder and harder to pass up. It's true that she has a temper and whilst usually she can contain it with her iron control, Martin somehow knows all the right buttons to push (possibly he has a death wish).

He is determined to interrupt her calm wherever possible.

She wonders whether he was born this annoying or if its a curse he acquired with age. She pities his family and friends. Or family anyway. No way did Bubl é have friends.

"Did you not sleep well last night? You are looking a tad wane." The prospect seems to inspire in him an unpleasant mix of curiosity and delight. It's been a while since she's entertained such graphic fantasies of murder but for him she'll make an exception.

"I slept just fine." She pastes a smirk, the kind that used to make first year Brakebills students pee their pants. It's unsurprising but still disappointing that it doesn't have quite the same effect on him."How was your night, though? That couch must be murder."

Her attempt at deflection fails. He shrugs unconcernedly. "I've experienced far worse. It would of course be perfectly reasonable for you to be suffering nightmares after your ordeal with Reynard." He grins, all teeth, all predator.

His hands with the knife is so close to hers. Just a breath away. Her eyes flick to it as she forces the smirk to remain. "That may be true for you but I slept just fine."

He scrutinizes her, entirely too gleeful , entirely unbelieving. A cat, toying with a mouse.

She hates being the fucking mouse.

"I was unaware that peaceful sleep was so . . . loud."

Just a breath away . . .

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Julia chooses that moment to approach them, putting a stop to whatever crime scene was surely about to erupt.

Marina keeps the knife at the edges of her vision, anyway. Just in case -

Just thinking of the conversation she had with Martin yesterday is enough to make her murderous all over again. She's not sure who she wants to kill more. Him or Reynard.

It did, however, raise an important question.

"Did I . . . say anything?" she forces out, fiddling with her knife. A nervous habit she thought long since defeated.

"What do you mean?"

She grits her teeth. "The other night. When I was sleeping."

The second time she was in Port Haven, they had a shortage of beds and stuck her with a roommate. She was able to inform Marina that, because her luck really is that bad, she'd somehow developed the ability to sleep talk. When she asked her what she would say when she did, her roommate was evasive at best.

'Nothing really. Sometimes names. You mention your dad. Mostly you just cry.'

The last part has her stomach churning now and she has to put down her fork and avoid looking at her plate of food so as not to risk any further humiliation. It's fear of what she might have let slip in her unconscious state that has her raising a topic she would give anything to leave dead, though.

Remembering the nightmare she had, she can only imagine the kinds of things she might have said. None of them ease the wave of anxiety, swelling up inside of her. She might have told Julia the bare bones of what happened to her, or rather one of the things that happened to her - because she's lucky enough to have a colorful variety - but that was when she was assured she wouldn't actually remember any of it.

She's not ready for Julia to know her like that. She's not ready for anyone to.

There is a pause that drags on too long in which Julia watches her carefully. Marina can't pick apart what lurks in her gaze but her gut twists with unease. Whatever it is, she doesn't like it. There's something far too knowing there.

But whatever Julia might have heard, she doesn't know a damn thing.

No-one does.

"You uh . . ." Julia pauses, pushes the food around on her plate in thought. There were enough leftovers from her cooking last night to see them through dinner but she notices the other woman has done little more than pick at hers. She'll have to keep an eye on that. It'll do them no good if they finally get their hands on Reynard only for Julia to pass out before delivering the killing blow - however she's going to do that. Not to mention, magic becomes excessively tricky (read: nigh impossible) to wield when you're malnourished.

She can attest to that.

But back to the problem at hand. Ascertaining that Julia remains as oblivious about her life as ever.

She's stalling, that much is obvious. Uncertain on what the best course of action is, what answer would serve Marina best. That doesn't exactly bode well. "You mentioned your dad."

"Oh." Something in Marina shuts down. Her heart lingers on a beat too long, her blood freezes her in place. For a moment, only darkness fills her mind. No thought. No feeling.

Darkness.

The moment ends. "What about him?" She tries to sound nonchalant, unconcerned with the answer. More or less succeeds. Enough practice will do that.

Her heart skips, picks up to an urgent race. How much could sleepy mumbles really have revealed? Enough to trigger the memory of that moment when they were in Julia's mind, when Marina confessed far too much? Is such a thing even possible? She's not looking at her like she knows. Knows all the gory details of her life.

She's seen that look enough to recognize it in an instant.

Julia shrugs, looking up from her plate. "Nothing. Just called out to him, I guess."

The relief is so strong that she doesn't pause to inspect whether the other woman might be lying to her. She can't. "Right. That sounds about right." She thinks about throwing in something about the nightmare having been one of those generic memories of being lost in a shopping mall as a kid, terrified and desperate for her father to find her. But that might be too obvious. She's not the type to overshare and Julia knows that. Telling her the (false) details of her dream would probably encourage more suspicion rather than snuff it out.

Marina turns her attention instead to eating, finishing off the last few mouthfuls of pasta. They settle uneasily in her still twisting stomach.

Julia hesitates. "Are you and your dad close?"

Her mouth thins. She pastes a smile that should pass for halfway convincing. "Hardly. And he died a long time ago, anyway."

Julia trains her gaze back on her plate, stirring with a tad too much focus. "Oh. Yeah. Mine too."

It's a revelation of sorts and Marina offers a weak smile, not sure if she's grateful or uneasy by Julia's willingness to share this information with her. Then again, her dad's probably not the big elephant in the room that hers always seems to be. Their relationship probably wasn't quite that colorful.

Probably died from something mundane like cancer. Maybe a car accident.

Tragic but average.

She can't deny her interest. She has a particular thirst for unearthing people's vulnerabilities, turning them around in her head, inspecting for ways they can be used to her advantage. Weak points.

It's habit to do that again now and she has to struggle to put on the brakes and halt the process. Morality is somewhat elusive to her these days but there's something uneasy in her chest that tells her it wouldn't be right. At least, not for the time being. Not after the other night.

What Julia did for her.

Even through the anger and shame at being seen, there's a trickle of gratitude for her. For what she did. For not not bringing it up, even now when Marina herself has broached the subject. She doesn't have it in her to thank her. To shine a light on what happened, or to lay herself bare in that way ever again.

But she can resist the urge to delve into her weaknesses and carve weapons from what she finds there to use against her.

She can do that.

At least for now.

. . .

"The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you've gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I'd come to see that it was usually your best course of action." ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

. . .

So it's been almost a week since returning from Fillory, and she's no closer to figuring out a way to destroy Reynard - has actually gotten further away from that particular destination - or figuring out what's going on with Marina. Granted, the last is little more than a side project to keep her mind off how everything seems to be going-has gone to shit. It's not working very well.

Maybe because she's exhausted all of her information. There's nothing new to go on. All she has is a vague feeling of knowing something that she doesn't and the distorted murmurs caused by a nightmare.

There was a moment, during dinner, when Marina broached the subject with her, giving her the perfect opportunity to fish for clues. But she didn't. Quite the opposite, actually. She went so far as to deny knowledge of the little information she did have. To reassure Marina.

Because she saw it. The fear in her eyes. Skillfully hidden but by this point she likes to think she knows her well enough to detect those kind of irregularities in her demeanor. Fear at being seen, being known. Of whatever she wants hidden seeing the light.

And all the questions disappeared from her then. All the curiosity and thirst for distraction. None of it was important.

All that mattered in that moment was eliminating the fear in her eyes. She never wanted to see it there again.

(knew she would)

It's a relief to know that she cares. For a minute there, she began to doubt that she still could. That when Reynard hollowed her out, he did so completely, stealing away with her humanity on top of everything else.

But she still loves Quentin - the feeling is dulled, easily ignored, and she doesn't experience the guilt she knows she should for betraying him, instead she feels anger at his interference in the trap they set for Reynard, that he might have ruined the one chance she had to take him down, but he had warned her, and she had warned him right back, and it's all just a jumbled mess of confusion that most days doesn't even register. But she knows she loves him.

And she knows she cares whether Marina is hurt. Whether she's scared.

And it's a relief.

"I have something for you."

The voice startles her and she flinches, eyes almost wild, and glances around for the source. But it's just Marina, coming into her room, a handful of papers in hand. And she tries to relax, really she tries. But her body is rigid and her heart is too loud, too fast and the headache that's only just started to abate resurges with a vengeance.

Marina pauses in the doorway, expression inscrutable. Julia knows she sees, though.

She feels lightheaded. And it's only then she realizes that she's holding her breath.

She exhales, too harsh, too quick, and feels a rush of dizziness for the effort. But her muscle relax slightly as she pulls fresh oxygen into her lungs and the bite of her nails into her skin - she notices her hands have clenched into fists - distracts her from the pounding in her chest.

After a minute, she breathes a little easier, sees a little clearer.

Her head still hurts like a mother fucker.

"What time is it?" Because disorientation is starting to set in and she can't remember how long she's been sitting in here, on her bed, staring at the wall. Only that it's darker than she remembers and the scrape of her throat speaks of dehydration.

"Almost nine," Marina answers. She doesn't comment on Julia's freak reaction or her current confusion and for that she's grateful.

Nine. She's been in here for three hours. There's a book beside her on European folklore. It's from the days of FTB when they were looking for anything they could dig up on Our Lady Underground. She hoped it might offer some insight on Reynard for them now but there's not much to find.

French.

Fox.

Trickster.

Benevolent.

So basically just a bunch of crap.

She came in here to read it. But she couldn't concentrate. And then her thoughts got ahold of her. The rest is a blur.

She sighs and rubs her eyes, suddenly feeling her exhaustion. "Did you say you had something?"

Her heart picks up again but this time it's not fear that makes her sit at attention. It's hope. Or what she can manage of it. Maybe she's done it. Maybe she's found what Julia can't. An answer. A-

The other woman nods and comes further into the room, taking a seat on the bed. There's a near meter of space between them. She's not sure if it's for her benefit or Marina's. Possibly both. Either way, it's welcome.

"I wrote down the basic steps of that dreamless sleep spell," she says, drawing her attention to the papers in her hand. "Figured you might want it."

Her shock overcomes the familiar pangs of disappointment. She's surprised at the gesture. Though maybe she shouldn't be. "Thanks."

Marina scowls. "Please, like I want to go through the effort of casting that spell on you myself all the time. And this is hardly the first spell I've ever given you - which reminds me, we need to work on expanding your repertoire if you're serious about taking on Reynard."

That's true and she remembers days and nights hunched over binders and papers in the Safe House, Marina seated beside her, talking her through the process, correcting her errors and giving rare but useful advice.

Things were so much easier then.

It might even be nice, to return to some semblance of that. There are so many spells out there and it would be a lie to say she doesn't still hunger to get her hands on all of them. Marina, at least, has the knowledge to bring her just a little closer to that dream.

She doesn't comment on the Reynard part. Marina knows she's serious. They both are. There are some things that don't need to be voiced to be understood.

"Still," she insists. "I appreciate it."

And something falters in her gaze, just for a second, maybe even half, but Julia catches it. Even so, she's not sure what it is that she sees.

Last night, when Marina was in the shower, she unearthed her scarves from the chest she kept them in and scattered them in conspicuous - but not overly so - places in her closet. What she really wants to do is heal the other woman but knows the offer will only make Marina retreat further. Or lash out.

But Marina is still wearing that same damn turtleneck - the one she wore for her Brakebills exam and hasn't touched since - and she wonders if whether she should have been more obvious after all. It's not something she can ask about, though. Just another question to lock away inside her and ponder for answers.

She doesn't do well with unanswered questions.

That old thirst rears its head as she looks the pages over after Marina relinquishes them. She soaks in the feeling, the fire. How hard it once was to get her hands on even the barest traces of magic. It still feels a little like a drug every time she grasps some but it no longer controls her - that craving.

Well, no more than her caffeine addiction does.

Marina's writing is in block letters so as to be more legible - Julia has complained about her confusing scribble in the past - but it's the diagrams that hold her attention. Drawing after drawing of hand positions, surprisingly detailed and accurately, as well as sketches of what she should picture in her mind as she performs the spells.

They're good. Far exceeding anything Julia can create with a pen.

"Just . . ." Marina shifts. "Use it sparingly, okay? Or you might find yourself with some unpleasant side-effects."

"What kind of side-effects?" To be honest, Julia doesn't even care. Not really. If it'll get rid of the nightmares, if she can stop reliving that moment again and again, she doesn't care if it makes all her hair fall out.

Marina shrugs. "Oh, you know: paranoia, panic attacks, hallucinations. The usual. I knew one guy who started eating shit because he thought he was a dung beetle . . ."

Julia grimaces.

All of a sudden she's reluctant to take the spell but not so reluctant that she won't. She'd eat shit if it meant a break from the nightmares but she'd rather not have to.

"How often is too often?"

Marina considers the question for a moment. "It varies. I'd start with one night on, three nights off. See how that goes."

Sounds reasonable enough. Even a temporary reprieve is better than none.

"Thanks," she says and means it.

This wasn't something that she asked for. Marina didn't have to give it to her. Especially after the incident with Reynard. But she did this for her anyway. Even gone the extra mile and, instead of just showing Julia the spell, writing it out for her so that she can learn it in her own time. The pile of pages isn't thin - it would have taken a while to complete.

Thing about Marina is, for all her obvious protestations to the contrary, she does care.

- "Jesus, Julia, I wanna help." -

It's just a little harder to spot than with most. But when you see it, you see it.

And you can't close your eyes to it.

You're stuck with the knowledge, whether you want it or not.

(she's not sure she does)

It's a care, a kindness she's not sure she deserves after everything that's happened. As much as she wants to escape the nightmares a small part of her wonders if she has the right to. Maybe this is her punishment to bear. For summoning Reynard. For all the lives that he's destroyed. For betraying Quentin.

(he betrayed you too, he said he'd help you catch Reynard and instead he ruined what might have been your only chance to stop him)

Marina turns uncomfortable at the gratitude. "Yeah, well, it's more for my sake than yours. You keep kicking me in your sleep."

She doesn't know if that's true. James always said she slept like the dead, even when she was dreaming. But that could have changed. Nothing else has stayed the same, so why should that?

"Oh. Sorry." She feels something that might be guilt, or shame. It's hard to tell, weak as it is. It's an uncomfortable emotion whatever it is. But deserved - on top of feeding her to Reynard, she's also cutting into her sleep time.

"It's fine." Marina's response is terse and, if anything, she looks even more uncomfortable with the apology. Unbelievable. Before Reynard, she'd never even glimpsed a flicker of unease in the other woman. Now it seems to be happening far too much. It uneases her. Things have changed too much already. "I'm going to take a shower."

It's the regular excuse slash exit strategy that both of them have been employing, to various degrees of success. Sometimes you just need to run.

Julia nods, and lets her go.

. . .

"Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. Kindness that catches us by surprise brings out the best in our natures."

- Bob Kerrey

Işık (Turkish for 'light, sun’) is a spell used to create light in the books. It’s the hedge witch version of similar one taught at Brakebills and is the spell for Level 1 that hedges need to be able to demonstrate in order to be let into safe houses. The way they use levels is a lot more ambiguous on the show and I’ve decided to incorporate a lot more from the books when it comes to that and the world of hedge magicians. Mostly because I like the descriptions of it in the book and how it seems to be an organised, worldwide network operating right under the noses of ‘real magicians’ who for the most part don’t even know it exists. On the show, they seem more like crack houses that those at Brakebills are fully aware of (as evidenced by Elliot in the third episode). So I’m going for a mix of these two.

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this before but just in case Port Haven is the Psychiatric Facility they stuck Abigail in after her family was killed. I’ve got some theories about this - and how I’m not convinced it was entirely legal or was, at the very least, an abuse of power - but I’ll get into that another time.

There is also a reference here to the time Hannibal kept Abigail in his basement. I don’t think he kept her in there 24/7 - we know he took her out at least once to manipulate her into slashing the throat of her father’s corpse - but we do know from Word of God that she was kept in there. Seeing as, apparently, Beverly Katz saw her down there before Hannibal killed her. It was also dark enough down there that Beverly needed a torch to see at the time.

Note that alcohol is not actually a good way to combat insomnia. It may help you fall into a deeper sleep and do so quickly but it can cause you to wake up more frequently and to feel less rested than before (this is a very simple overview of the consequences). However not everyone is aware of this and will use it to self medicate anyway. Not to mention, as someone who has insomnia, wakes up frequently and is tired all the time anyway, anything that will help get you to sleep that first time can seem like a miracle and if I drank I’m not sure I would care too much about said ‘consequences’ as long as it meant I wasn’t lying awake forever.

Also, someone asked if Quentin would be coming into this and I can tell them that eventually he will because I think he’s a very important part of Julia’s life and that he will need to be involved in some way for Julia to fully heal. However, it won’t be for a long while. Right now, the story is very much just about Marina and Julia. Although, Kady will be coming into it to at some point, probably around part 3 (to give you some idea when that might be, we are currently about halfway through part 1 or just over that). Because I love Kady and I love her relationship with Julia and I need her in this story.

Also, if you’re interested, check out my Marina/Julia vids where I attempt to make people cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ_sTg5Y6Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl1MnbVCBtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-kNwZCE-3Y (a julia vid) I made a really bad intro trailer for this fic https://youtu.be/JrZNJh8crYI Say hi to me and we can cry about Marina and Julia together! Twitter: https://twitter.com/BonnieLextra

#the magicians #julia wicker #marina andrieski #julia x marina #kacey rohl #stella maeve #the ghosts of what happened #mypost #myfic

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