#(m)orpheus

[absorbing-misfortune]

@izzyfromdeadspace

Orpheus sighed shaking his head. "I know that I agreed to try and find you someone immortal and that could treat you well but don't you think this is dangerous?" He asked.

[future-crab]

“m/f romances are ALWAYS boring” - tell me you haven’t seen the part in Hadestown where Orpheus and Eurydice are reunited in the underworld and she launches herself into his arms and he lifts her up and spins her around and for one brief moment, no matter how many times you’ve heard the story before, you’re convinced that it will all work out this time

without telling me you haven’t seen it

[malinaa]

L’ESPRIT DE L’ESCALIER by CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

[walkman-cat]

kinda gay to be a detective etc. etc. you know how it is

[deathisjustthebeginning]

@izzyfromdeadspace

"Hey uh Izzy can we talk alone for a moment?" He muttered shyly with a sigh not even sure where to start when it came to talking to her.

[wanderways-official]

I’m returning to the Hadestown cast album, and falling in love again with how Mitchell and the leads make Orpheus and Eurydice known types but not stereotypes.

Orpheus is a dreamer. An optimist. A spacey artist. But that doesn’t make him stupid or a Pollyanna. That same honest air that feels vulnerable can also inspire a revolt—not just with fire but with hope.

Orpheus hopes and feels so much that stones weep and gods question their ways.

I love what they do with Eurydice. She’s *hungry*. As metonymy for trying to survive. But that doesn’t make her feral or easy or wild or furious. That makes her guarded.

Even in love, even happy, during a quiet spring, Eurydice is looking to feel safe. To be able to rest. For just a moment.

Seeing Hadestown was one of the more monumental, arresting moments of live theater I have seen.

When Orpheus sang and the stage itself split in seams of light, welcoming him to the underworld I gasped.

When the tragedy happened at the end, the theater wasn’t just silent, it was *breathless*. Heremes’ rough voice was this sole guide through our desperation. He had us eating out of his hand on every pause.

I think Hadestown taught me what tragedy was, classically & theatrically speaking. I’ve seen tons of plays with devastating endings that felt both avoidable and all too inescapable.

But with Orpheus, the journey, even the failure, is part of it. A cycle, but where repetition is hope, not defeat.

Why watch a play with a bad ending that you know is coming? Because maybe it doesn’t. It will, but.

But it’s a sad song. And we sing it anyway.

And given the play is about a world that’s heating up, where the people are hungry and chased by worsening weather, where the leaders are venal, capricious, standoffish, and often absent. Where hope is a luxury and also a weapon.

Well.

It’s something I’ve found myself singing.

[libraryleopard]

The take on Orpheus & Eurydice in Netflix’s Kaos reminds me a bit of this retelling by Catherynne M. Valente btw

[landwriter]

Saw some anon's headcannon about how Dream probably threatened a bunch of gods to make sure Orpheus was born healthy. What's your take on it? I personally love protective dad Dream and he IS overprotective, but in comics(I'm not sure if you've read them so I'm not gonna spoil anything) he always puts his function before his loved ones, and I don't know if he'd risk future diplomatic interactions or smth. What do you think?

the ask in question answered by @softest-punk.

Dream, as The Corinthian says, is ‘more than a god’ - he is apparently older and greater than gods - so I feel a bit, I don’t know, no threats or bribing needed. More sort of showing up, pointedly. His attention and presence is enough. I imagine Calliope, with her place among the Greek gods and goddesses, probably had healthy birth and blessings etc. pretty well covered, but I do see Dream as a fretting father-to-be. I imagine after the first few times showing up at whatever the supernatural equivalent is of the produce section of the neighbourhood grocery store just to aggressively lock eyes with any of the local deities whose functions concerned with Having Good Babies, Calliope probably got word and told him to cut it out. But he would fret, surely. He would. He is very, very ancient and as far as I know this is the first and only time he fathers a child.

He and by extension his realm must become shaped, in some ways, to his concern - he is the vessel of the entire unconsciousness, and I can see him, perhaps, during the first few months, going to Lucienne in a panic, after paying special attention to pregnant Dreamers - all those waking fears and hopes are already so complex! so wild! imagine if your only perception of them was those feelings too great and strange to be articulated while awake. “Can human children really come out as. A dozen frogs.” “No, my lord.” - “Is it true that if the unborn child is discontent, he will crawl out the mother’s mouth?” “No, my lord.” - “Lucienne, are you positive a child cannot stay in the womb forever? This is a surpassing frequent subject in the dreams of pregnant beings.” “Yes, my lord.”

The thing is, Dream does seem like he’d be rather the old-fashioned type about this, who would prefer to know nothing at all since he is Lord of Dreams, etc, etc, and has higher things to attend to, but the problem is he can’t really avoid the concept of it, so he is at once attempting to be distant and removed as usual, while having, on-tap, every single positive and negative feeling, every single great and horrific story, about pregnancy, about childbirth, about being a father.

I imagine, later in the pregnancy, his focus turns to dreams of children growing up, and who they become. I think he speaks to no one about this, but watches, over and over, the nightmares of parents whose children are born healthy, beautiful, and strong, whose children have great fates - as his surely will - and whose children disobey them, or fall in battle, or turn out to be cruel. I imagine he is haunted by stories of sons and their fathers. He will do better. He must. And all of it gets stored up and creates a feeling and a fear so great that it comes out the way it always does with parents: trying to exert agency over their child, and thus alienating them.

I think Dream, as a result of his function - not in spite of it - was fully unable to be At All Normal about both his imminent and then actual fatherhood. I think he must have had an eternity’s worth of hopes and expectations for his first son. I think that, among many reasons, is why Orpheus was his only son. I think whatever fears he has for subsequent romantic and intimate relationships, so well-represented in fanfic, would be leagues worse concerning the prospect of another child. I think whatever terrible lover and partner he thinks himself to be, he thinks far worse of his parenting. When your own stubbornness, your own propensity for Big Feelings, your own quickness to isolate yourself in grief - when these traits are carried on in your child, whether you recognize it at the time or not, and then Orpheus’ fate the result - how could he not? (But, of course, he does not blame Calliope for giving him her talent in music, or her fairness. So it goes.)

In the years after, he must have thought often on his old fears for Orpheus’ safe birth. How quaint his worries then would seem to him. A safe birth, when he could have been praying for a safe life.

[for reference - I haven't read the comics but I have seen Some Of The Panels Concerning Orpheus and the Orpheus Sandman wiki. One day I will set aside an entire day to weep and wail and gnash my teeth about the fact that was the task Dream mentioned to Hob, the task that Lady Johanna Constantine performed so 'admirably'. One day, I will set aside an entire day to think about how differently that conversation could have gone.]

[boygirlctommy]

i madeeee sillay new characters and i love them

[absorbing-misfortune]

@izzyfromdeadspace

Orpheus sighed shaking his head. "Look I know I said I would betray my boss to help you find your other but what if you meet them and they are a horrible person?" He asked.

[jianghuchild]

What if I was leading you out of the Underworld but I wasn't allowed to look back. And I got scared that I was being tricked and you weren't there at all. But what if I didn't look back, not because I had faith but because I didn't want to lose. Because I thought if it was between turning around to lose you and abandoning you in there, I'd rather keep my back turned. What if we passed the test but I didn't pass your test. I saved you but I was ready to leave you. Can we ever look each other in the eye again?

[malinaa]

[POINTS AT VALENTE’S L’ESPRIT DE L’ESCALIER] WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE WROTE A STORY WHERE ORPHEUS SUCCEEDS, WHERE HE DIDN’T TURN AROUND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE KNOWS THAT, BY DOING THAT, ORPHEUS IS NOT REALLY ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE IS NOT REALLY EURYDICE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE REMINDS US, AGAIN AND AGAIN, THE REASON WE KNOW ORPHEUS TRULY LOVES EURYDICE IS BECAUSE HE TURNS AROUND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN.

[broh3m3]

Bane Letter soon... I am not emotionally ready.

And his emote. One fear

..so pom and i read the 4th letter koteki we're in pain

[hoodie-prince-kid]

THERE'S AN IMPLICATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF PATROCLUS IN THIS GAME'S LORE AND ACHILLES REALLY SEEMS TO MISS HIM AND IT'S ALREADY TEARING ME APART DESPITE IT ONLY BEING MENTIONED TWICE SO FAR

[manuscriptsdontburn6]

Rainer Maria Rilke. Die Sonette an Orpheus. Frederick Ungar Publishing, New York.

No publication date is listed, but this edition was probably published in the 1930s-1940s based on the other books the publisher lists in the dust jacket.