fiat lux bitches

nightlyquotes:

“I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.”

— Franz Kafka, Letters To Felice

randomnoteforfuturereference:

It’s already common knowledge that the animation for ATSV is absolutely bonkers (with the first film already breaking ground). But learning this added info over Hobie’s animation is beyond nuts.

cant-get-no-worse:

haystarlight:

The idea of Messi retiring soon is funny to me because it’s basically this:

Argie people (sad old lady voice): this year, I lost my beloved husband

Messi (alive and well): STOP TELLING EVERYONE I’M DEAD!!

Argie people (crying): sometimes I still hear his voice

honestly atm rather the opposite like

Messi (do a kickflip) : I want to go to Miami to be with my family more, play with less tension, and not have the spotlights on me anymore.

Argie people (nodding) : Rigging the Mundial 2026 ahead of everyone 🤯 #ourcaptain #vamoseldiez

Messi (thoughtful) : Now that I’m approaching the end of my career…

Argie people (smiling) : Twenty-one and so mature 🥹

Messi : … I can confidently say I won everything in football. There’s nothing left—

Argie people :  —for now, obviously, summer holidays n all. Good rest. Then there’s the Copa, and the Finalissima, and then–

Messi : At 39, playing a Mundial isn’t very realistic, I don’t think I’m gonna be there. But obviously I’ll be cheering on the seleccion…

Argie people (feral) : We will drag his very CORPSE to the BENCH and let him ROT there–

aceofblueheart:

princesssarisa:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(via aidanchaser)

neerasrealm:

Anyway while Ireland is trending I want to say my post yesterday was prompted by a person telling me (AN IRISH PERSON) that I shouldn’t express that I hate the royals or call them colonists because they. Believed that the royals WEREN’T colonists and that “the commonwealth is a force for good”. I’m not fucking joking. So here’s a reminder THAT:

• The royals are colonists, even if they haven’t gone out and lead sieges against other people since the 17th century, they still live off of generational wealth obtained from colonisation
• They profit from colonisation even today
• Even if they aren’t in British parliament, they still have political power. For example the queen was exempt from over 160 laws, including anti-discrimination, police could not search her land without her express permission, and the fishing businesses she owned were exempt from standard inspections.
• The royals still privately own stolen art and cultural artefacts from colonised countries
• The royals do nothing but make themselves richer and suck up taxpayer money. Millions in the Uk are still in poverty while the royals throw extravagant celebrations
• Prince Andrew is a pedophile who should be in jail
• The British economy does not need the monarchy to survive. In fact if you got rid of them and charged people to tour the empty castles, you could make even more tourism money than is already made with the occupied palaces
• England has no right to own other countries such as Scotland and wales
• This picture of Kate Middleton was taken in 2012:

lewisrises:

stop blaming everyone for all of your problems. pick one sports team you hate and blame them for everything

(via alexalblondo)

benmclemore:

“We”, I say in reference to a sports team I’m not a part of. 

(via muncedes)

lizzibennet:

lizzibennet:

lizzibennet:

lizzibennet:

lizzibennet:

my mom’s been telling me my entire life she and my dad met at a bar which BOOOO BORING but today she just casually mentions actually she placed a fuckin ad in the newspaper saying she was ‘a single lady ready to meet the one’ and he was the first to call her and they dated over the phone for like three months before they met n she was like “i was already pretty much in love with him because i adored his laugh on the phone” ????? What kinda 90s romcom bullshit

btw the first time they met in person apparently was because my grandpa fuckin uhhh died? and my dad called my mom inconsolable and she went over to console him and literally just kinda ?? never left???? ehakdhskdhskfjdkdh this bitch’s been telling me they very casually met at a bar can you beLEAF no wonder me and my brother were born fuckin drama queens

me: so you placed an ad? in the newspaper? telling men who were interested in fathering children a beautiful woman to call you? like a person advertising property they want to sell?

my mom, pokerfaced: yes that is exactly what i did

me: mom.

mom: it’s not that different from tinder!

me: you know i read a fanfic once where that was the exact plot of how the two characters met. except it was set in the nineteenth century!!!

mom:

mom: bet you thought it was hot

me: NOT THE POINT

apparently. when they had their very first date my dad mentioned his daughter (my sister on his side) and my mom was like :( because she really wanted children and he just patted her hand and was like “don’t worry! we’ll have children of our own.” HDLSHDSKDHDK THE AUDACITY OF THIS MAN? ON THEIR FIRST DATE??? HELLO?

me: so dad what did you think about mom’s ad in the newspaper

my dad, curt: it was cool i guess.

me:

me: did you not think it was weird at all? why did you call her specifically and not anyone else?

dad: no it was common back then. idk i liked the font she chose for the ad

my mom, from the kitchen: it was standard issue from the paper for the ads to look like that

dad: oh… guess it was fate then :)

me:

dad:

mom:

me: did you feel that? did you feel the breeze that just passed?

dad: yeah?

me: that was because mom just melted in the kitchen

mom, from the kitchen, voice clearly a little choked: NO I DID NOT

(via thistherapylife)

queenwaker:

thepoisonroom:

loudly going “YOU’RE GOOD YOU’RE GOOD” to myself to ward off the memory of every embarrassing thing i’ve ever done

(via mlentertainment)