#ITS THE SAME ACTOR????

[xieliancore]

worst cop in britain!

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship

[bayeis]

I haven't watched this show a day in my life

[whirlandco]

here’s how knockout-in-disguise can still win

[mothcrayon]

[finelythreadedsky]

JSTOR Wrapped: top ten JSTOR articles of 2023

Coo, Lyndsay. “A Tale of Two Sisters: Studies in Sophocles’ Tereus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 143, no. 2 (2013): 349–84.

Finglass, P. J. “A New Fragment of Sophocles’ ‘Tereus.’” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 200 (2016): 61–85.

Foxhall, Lin. “Pandora Unbound: A Feminist Critique of Foucault’s History of Sexuality.” In Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mark Golden and Peter Toohey, 167–82. Edinburgh University Press, 2003.

Garrison, Elise P. “Eurydice’s Final Exit to Suicide in the ‘Antigone.’” The Classical World 82, no. 6 (1989): 431–35.

Grethlein, Jonas. “Eine Anthropologie Des Essens: Der Essensstreit in Der ‘Ilias’ Und Die Erntemetapher in Il. 19, 221-224.” Hermes 133, no. 3 (2005): 257–79.

McClure, Laura. “Tokens of Identity: Gender and Recognition in Greek Tragedy.” Illinois Classical Studies 40, no. 2 (2015): 219–36.

Purves, Alex C.  “Wind and Time in Homeric Epic.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 140, no. 2 (2010): 323–50.

Richlin, Amy. “Gender and Rhetoric: Producing Manhood in the Schools.” In Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mark Golden and Peter Toohey, 202–20. Edinburgh University Press, 2003.

Rood, Naomi. “Four Silences in Sophocles’ ‘Trachiniae.’” Arethusa 43, no. 3 (2010): 345–64.

Zeitlin, Froma I. “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Oresteia.” Arethusa 11, no. 1/2 (1978): 149–84.

[deoidesign]

important distinction.

Testing a few different things with this one

[swallowtail-ageha]

Anyways today i replayed castle morne and i want to brainvomit a bit about it because i genuinely think its brilliant in both buildup and execution of themes, and especially as a way to denounce the supposed righteousness and the imperialism of the Golden Order so early in the game

(Putting a cut because holy moly its long. Also i apologize in advance for the run along sentences)

You first reach the weeping peninsula and the first npc you speak to is Irina. She is standing alone, without any weapon and blind, in the middle of a bunch of her family's garrison's corpses (and i think that the fact that the models used are the models of soldiers of godrick, whom thanks to Kenneth Height we know are particularly cruel to demihumans and the likes, is significant). As she herself says, she is being hunted down: her family's servants have rebelled and her father corageously stayed there to keep the postation and the home's ancestral sword, while she had been ambushed and her garrison died to save her.

And this is the perfect set up for people who are less genre savy and expect a more linear story, where the young girl and the kind father have been kicked out by the intrinsically evil, inhuman creatures that don't look human and don't seem to be very intelligent, and where the kind knight helps them to defeat the big bad leader of those creatures to take their castle back. Good ending!

Alas, it isn't like that. If you have already finished Kenneth's questline before, the whole setup feels weird. With the injustice that had been inflicted on the demihumans by the common soldiers, we already have the seed of doubt regarding the whole righteousness of the situation. As deformed and weird they might look like, demihumans, and therefore misbegottens too, are also people with thoughts and social structures and that maybe using them as mindless workforce is wrong.

Upon reaching the castle's walls, you are faced with a sword memorial, and if you read it you are smacked in the face with another revelation: the castle hasn't been built by irina's family and didn't actually belong to them, but instead has been taken by force by Godfrey's forces after he had slaughtered the previous clan that had it and even its last survivor who had made a desperate last stand in vengeance. Irina's whole narrative suddenly becomes even more shady.

Anyways, you finally enter Castle Morne, and the first sight you stumble upon is an horrific one: hundreds of corpses set in a pile on which several misbegottens are standing triumphantly. On the rampartarts household soldiers and other misbegotten are still fighting. Of course, again, if you take the whole narrative at face value, without reflecting on the sword memorial and Kenneth's questline, you might be still thinking that the whole situation was still black and white. However there are two, definitive moments that shatter that illusion, one more overt, the other less, but still as powerful

The first moment is finding Irina's father, Edgar, the castellan. One would think that, at least, you'd find him surrounded by corpses (i don't say in battle for obvious npc logistic reasons). And yet no. He is alone, sitting in a secluded place of the ramparts, with no signs of battle around.

Then he speaks: we learn respectively three things

-His main goal is to keep the castle (however he doesn't seem like he's done much fighting and only takes action once we go to kill the rebel leader ourselves. Fittingly enough, even fighting him as an invasor is extremely easy), but not because of any strategic importance or sentimental value. No. The reason why he's protecting it is to not permit that the heirloom of the caslte, the grafted blade greatsword, whom was forged by the Hero of Castle Morne as a tool of vengeance and has likely been kept around as a symbol of Godfrey's mightiness for having defeated him. The whole thing comes less as something about honor and more as something about simple vanity, or, better, about keeping intact the superiority of the Golden Order towards his opposers, something that cannot fall in the hands of such things as misbegotten (proof of that is also the ghost of the noble begging to not be eaten by them as he's nobility and doesnt want to get sullied by their lowlyness)

And

-That he is a Godrick loyalist and has been placed in the castle by him (therefore the idea that the family has been living there for long is rendered moot), and 3) that he is sickeningly racist towards misbegotten.

These two last points, now, have made your alarm bells ringing non stop. Maybe if this is the guy who is allied with a man who is known for his cruelty and maybe if he's so hostile against misbegotten, perhaps they had a good reason to rebel like that.

This brings us to the second moment:

After speaking with Edgar, you go in the back of the castle and reach the gaol section of the structure. As we can see, they are dirty, tight, and cramped. But most importantly, we find there a whip, which was specifically built as a way to torture and punish servants for their slightest disobedience. This is the final piece of the puzzle of *what* caused the misbegotten to rebel: not envy or any intrinsical evil, just the hellish condition that they were put in. One really can't blame them for organizing and revolting against their slavers.

You can see the leader of the revolt from afar, sitting in the grave of the hero's clan, having him too become the hero, for he in the name of vengeance for his species treatment started a rebellion.

But in the end, he'll have the same destiny as the Hero Of Morne.

You reach the Leonine Misbegotten and you kill him (perhaps even with the help of his slaveowner!) but the mood after the fight isn't triumphant. You stand alone, light rain is falling, the music is somber, in a massive graveyard dedicated to the one who lost his entire family to the golden order's imperialism, after killing his spiritual successor, perhaps even his descendant. You successfully put down a slave revolt for nothing, as the reason you did all of this, Irina, unbeknownst to you, has already been long dead by the time you take the castle back, killed by the same species whom her family exploited (The name of the site of grace of the graveyard, the Gravemoaning of Morne, really is fitting).

Her death prompts Edgar, the father, the lord of Castle Morne, the slave master, to start his own futile journey of revenge, becoming in the meanwhile too the Hero, bringing the story full circle

[neilien]

IT'S ME!🎵 YES IT'S ME!!🎶 I KNOW YOU WERE ALL WAITING FOR ME!!🎵🎶

[puppppppppy]

mascot

[kiyomitakada]

[shaking like a drowned chihuahua] hi everyone @whyamihereat4am introduced me to this video and i am going fucking insane. why is this the best video i have ever watched. did you all know about this already. how did it pick out the animatic i had in my brain and make it into real people. holy shit. i can't breathe just watch it please watch it immediately

[c-kiddo]

(about cr2 rewatch again) i litrally love tmn so much i will frow up. theyre so good. the cast are so good at embodying them. they dont sound like people trying to be characters sm of the time they sound like just (weirdo) real people it makes me crazy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[souporsaladnatural]

While I would love for misha collins to show up in the boys as a cameo, I know in my heart that eric kripke won't make the same mistake twice

[webbelzebub]

in universe I would imagine each actor playing a dozen people is just somewhere in the realm of similarity or family resemblance and not intended for them to all actually be identical. but I think Rudolph and max genuinely being near identical is very funny. you turn a corner and see max jagerman and think you're about to get your ass beaten then realize it's just the gay swede on his way to improv

[trashbag-usa]

it feels like a lot of people have given up on fully connecting ISWM/Engie Mark to the wider lore (aka WKM) since IRL Mark straight up told us he wasn't Actor.

but not only am i a stubborn son of a bitch, but yknow what Mark also said?

"Engineer Mark isn't Actor Mark, but Actor Mark just might be Engineer Mark."

so hear me out, y'all.

preamble; if you saw this in a yt comment section, no you didn't. (that was also me i didnt steal this i prommy-)

i have this entirely insane theory about iswm that Engineer Mark is actually Damien, but only sometimes.

the most obvious places i can spot him is in the abandoned ship with the candles ("captain needs their sleep" and whatnot), as Old Mark (specifically in the empty diner), and most definitely as the "Mark" we see as part of the finale, the one who realizes he was wrong.

Actor is allergic to admitting fault so I Don't Believe That's Him.

this explains the thematic focus on sleep and rest in these scenes, things told to Damien and told to US by DARK several times.

("Don't remember" anyone?)

speaking of Dark, it explains why he isn't there. we DO however see the suspiciously Darkiplier-esqe Ms. Whitacre, which it isn't controversial to say atp is CLEARLY Celine.

that is, until the universe does its final kablooey and Dark as we know him, Damien attributes and all, comes to take the warp-crystal.

and besides, think about it.

given Actor's whole goal in all this, as laid out in the Damien Project, do you REALLY think he would write a story in which all problems arise from HIS OWN NEGLIGENCE? NO!

that would make him a villain, and all he ever wants is to be portrayed as the hero, literally for eternity!

but you know what i think he would do? set up a farce for the most troublesome of his "co-stars".

you, the viewer, want genuine choices? you want to have some real control over the story? some responsibility? FINE.

everyone looks to you, but under your leadership everything goes wrong, no matter what. you don't know why, but you're actively villinized and the harder you try to go back and fix things, achieve an "ending" on your own, the more people HATE you. the more the thought that maybe there IS something wrong with you specifically will stick in your mind as a possibility.

all these options, but none of them "right", creating MORE suffering instead of fixing it just to find that ever elusive end.

damien wants control of the narrative? he wants his old friend, you, the District Attorney to be released from his eternal story and given back to him? FINE.

here's his role back in earnest, given the possibility to engage and choose instead of intrude and twist like usual.

(yes, i do think Damien/Engineer is genuinely going down his own hopeless path while we find our own. in one of the descriptions leading to the final "Hold On/Let Go" confrontation, it says "you're not the only one making choices. you're not alone, you never were".)

he is allowed to fight for the safety of others, side by side with his closest companion, just as they did when they were alive.

BUT, the twist is Damien becomes a genuine villain. in his quest to do the altruistic thing and help at all cost, he is personally responsible for the death of LITERALLY EVERYONE EVER.

this is a personal hell for someone like Damien, as seen from WKM, all he ever seemed to want was help others and guide them towards peace.

for his actions/leadership to fail so unthinkably catastrophically, seems like the exact hell a bitter Actor would want to subject his "old friend" to for meddling. :/

Actor sets the stage for a theatrical punishment game. Mayor and Attorney, together again, taking an impossibly long stay in a personally crafted hell for the horrendous crime of ever even thinking they'd be worthy of ✨️staring roles✨️.

Actor turns you two against each other, and once Damien is brough down to the depths of despair and you have finally learned that true responsibility can lead to catastrophic, painful results, we're brought back to our proper places.

you go to a proper ending, with the Engineer role now being played by Actor once and for all, and Damien once again becomes part of Darkiplier, pocketing the warp-crystal to plant on the box in Heist.

Engineer isn't Actor, it's a role he plays when it suits him and his goals, to make his enemies suffer. he's willing to be Damien's understudy, if only for this purpose.

but at the end of the journey, Actor becomes Engineer to take in the fruits of his labor. ..and maybe invite you to a Heist while he's at it.

BUT HEY, THAT'S JUST A

very long winded """theory""" that is pretty much only insane fanfiction-

[alyona11]

Ok time for my big Hadestown hot take and that’s that West End Hadestown doesn’t give you a 100% Hadestown experience. It’s still ridiculously good and 100% worth seeing, don’t get me wrong (I used my opportunity and saw it twice and will likely see it again if I’m in London), but it kinda made me realise a couple of things about OBC production that will always be my Roman Empire and make me deeply upset Broadway is too greedy to give us an OBC proshot.

So, here are some of my thoughts and reflections based on seeing Hadestown live on West End + seeing different versions (including London National theatre proshot) in boots. I think you can pretty solidly say that in Hadestown there are 2 main stories: Orpheus/Eurydice and Hades/Persephone. And even though arguably Orphedice is the main most important story, it my opinion it also wins from Hadesphone story being strong. Which works perfectly in OBC due to Amber Gray and Patrick Page delivering a very deep nuanced performances as their characters.

I think part of the success of Hadestown when it works on its fullest is how it creates a very deep emotional journey. And I feel that regardless which pair of Orpheus and Eurydice you have (if we take Broadway/tour/West End take on the characters) it’ll still work! Like you need to try really hard to mess up orphedice the way people wouldn’t root for Orpheus or wouldn’t empathise with Eurydice because they are so relatable and cute. You instantly love them, they are so so lovable. So orphedice part is one thing in Hadestown that imo works if not always then in 99% of the cases.

Hades and Persephone’s part of the story in the contrary is VERY hard to nail on 100%, in my opinion, and this is literally driving me crazy. Maybe seeing Amber Gray and Patrick page in professional recording awoken some feelings in me, I don’t know. I will state straight away that I also do enjoy other actors’ takes on characters and I do see some very interesting character moments there and there. However, I keep returning to the thought that Amber/Patrick’s characterisation works SO WELL for the main narrative. I’ll try to explain why I think so. Consider it my love letter to the OBC.

First and foremost, I feel like Hadesphone story has a very fine dynamic that the actors have to nail, so you would feel that: 1) these two still love each other; 2) these two are buried under their problems and see no way out, only a miracle (aka Orpheus and his song) can save their marriage.

And if the first one usually works at least due to Epic 3, the second one, imo, often (at least partially) falls victim to acting/directing choices which can cause troubles with point 1 as well. I think one big thing I’ve noticed is that often Persephone’s alcoholism gets forgotten in the acting performance. Like yeah sure her choreography includes drinking from a flask but in comparison to Amber you never get a feeling that she is absolutely wasted. Which, is in my opinion something that you should feel when you’re watching the show and something I was constantly forgetting about when I was watching the show on West End. I feel in Amber’s performance you can constantly see that her Persephone’s feel good attitude is a façade of a broken person who knows that her marriage is going to hell in front of her eyes yet she is too passive and hopeless to try to make an active change (well, she does try in Chant and nothing happens), so her only way is to chase the sense of normality that the “medicine” gives her. But when she is alone, if you get to catch a moment when people are not looking at her, you can see a deep sadness under her positive front and her memory of the old days when everything was more simple. Nevertheless, the main point that the lyrics literally say is that Persephone is blinded by the river of wine. And this is crucial to her character and her relationship with Hades because the story states that even though Hades is a problem and he is an active actor in creating more problems, he is not the only failure in this relationship. Persephone needs to be woken up from her apathy almost as much as Hades does and this is something that we see during If It’s True.

From Hades’ side I feel like it’s not a good decision to make him a total villain because when he is irredeemable you don’t feel like the whole “song that will fix the world” has any chance of working long term. I think Patrick nailed a deep antagonist very well. His Hades is weird and lowkey creepy and alien. He does objectively bad things but when you look at him you can’t stop thinking that he doesn’t operate in regular human logic or morality. When I look at him in Chant, it feels to me that his words about building stuff to impress Persephone are absolutely sincere, and I can absolutely see that his Hades doesn’t understand why she is so upset about it when his intentions are so so clear. Maybe it’s my vision but even before Epic 3 when he is so far gone and buried in his projects and messed up ideas I don’t have a single doubt that Persephone is a single motivator and goal of Patrick Hades’ life and that he literally doesn’t need any other being to care about. And tragically this fixation is what makes him blind to all other things he does even if those things ruin Persephone’s life (and other people’s but tbh I don’t think he cares).

I feel like by removing Persephone’s Chant 2 verse Hadestown created more problems for Hades and Persephone part of the story making it a much harder job for the actors to prove to the audience that Hades and Persephone have a chance to make their relationship work. Like I get that maybe it was a necessary things to do (even though I think the show is much better with it) but it made it so much harder to empathise with this particular part of the story unless the actors use the choices that work in the narrative. Because for example when I was watching the show on West End part of me was wondering “what is Persephone’s deal in all of that, what does she win by staying with Hades?” With the verse, and with Broadway Previews or London 2018 in particular this part was clear: Persephone still loves Hades and believes that he has the opportunity to change and become a better man he used to be. Without the verse, however, the actors should give you the same idea during the show which is a hard task considering Hades and Persephone have only 2 big conversations together (Chant and How Long). So apart from those songs there are only subtle mostly silent moments they get together through which the actors have to convey the same thought which is hella difficult and probably hardly will be appreciated by anyone apart from the people who sit closely.

So, maybe because in the actor combo I saw (Zachary and Lauren), I got a feeling that even though they were great separately, I didn’t feel much chemistry between them as a pair. I think, Persephone seemed pissed and tired of Hades all the time until How Long and I didn’t feel that she still believes in his willingness to change. And Zach Hades despite being entertaining, kinda gives the impression of Hades who has other options, he is not into Persephone enough. The only sparkle appears between the two in Epic III which is still cute but I’m not sure if it works just as well if that’s the first time you see the show? Also considering Zach Hades gives more malicious intent in His Kiss, The Riot it seems that he is not even slightly interested in Orpheus having any opportunity to succeed with his quest. Which is not bad, don’t get me wrong! But in comparison to Patrick who is deeply self projecting into Orpheus to the point where you could see that even though he doesn’t want to let him go, part of him does because it would prove he too could succeed in his challenge of waiting for Persephone, this take seems a bit lacking. And overall because of His Kiss, their promise in Wait For Me doesn’t seem as giving much hope that the story won’t repeat itself next Sunday. Which in its turn makes Orpheus’ sacrifice feel a bit… worthless. If on Broadway, when Orpheus turns, but spring comes again you feel like it is the start of something new: hopefully a kinder and softer time. On West End the show also wants you to feel it but when you think about Hades and Persephone you feel…less certainty that this sacrifice will have a long term effect?

I guess the creators wanted to concentrate on Orpheus and Eurydice more and forget about Hades and Persephone by making them more secondary story or maybe there was a lack of director’s involvement to give the cast some hints on how to make this particular part of the story work better, but it feels to me that in its current state the show works in its 85% power which is still great but once you know there is something missing you can’t stop thinking about it and wishing the show would give you those 15% you crave.