( a Collection Of Summer Is Ending Starters Or Dialogue Prompts. adjust Phrasing As Necessary.) feel

I'm so tired of media portraying necromancers as evil emo/goth looking dudes that only wants to bring back people for a nefarious reason.

I really want to see a bubbly ray of sunshine that is always happy. Off putting joyous and easy going, friends with all kids in the village and always playing and encouraging pranks. If something goes wrong they brush it off as just an oops moment. Even when the harmless tree climbing game has a horrendous end.

The broken neck, the crying, the angst of the first encounter dead, nothing of this shake their smile. What do you mean he is gone? It's just a minor wound, using some of his magic and they will be as good as new! Even if the unnatural magic just chain the soul back to a nature bounded body. Even when no heartbeat is listed or warm is felt. Thus sending back to its mother a creature that will root in her arms.

But for them, the necromancer, if this moves it is still in friend shape.

Here’s my two frames from the recently released @unicornframes project

Go give it a watch if you can (linked on their acc), it turned out pretty fantastic!

im not waiting to see the whole event story its so cute and i love them

(rbs appreciated!)

A vampire alchemist who has created a synthetic human blood serum, not only to satisfy his hunger without hurting anyone, but to be able to donate blood.

A fae who only takes people’s names if they no longer want it and even helps them find a new one. She also guards nice humans from scams and takes people with nowhere else to go into the fae realm.

An elf so germaphobic he isolated himself in a castle that is magically kept pristine, with enchanted crystals creating purified air and visitors having to go through an intense regime of disinfectation before being able to enter.

A siren whose voice is so hurtful to the human ear that sailors will go out of their way to avoid getting anywhere close to her home.

A ghost that’s basically a disembodied soul attached to a sheet of cloth. It takes care of the old mansion it lives in and constantly forgets that it cannot go through solid objects.

A dragon that inhales fire and actively seeks to keep things from burning down. They also seek out hidden treasure to give to those in need and have scales that are really squishy.

A person who turns into a werewolf every night except during a full moon and is barely a functional human being throughout the day, only managing somewhat by drinking an excessive amount of coffee.

A succubus who is absolutely revolted by anything remotely sexual and feeds off of hugs, pats, cheek/forehead kisses, hand holding and cuddles instead.

A necromancer who’s going out of their way to seek out any dead souls rummaging on the Earth and talk them into going to the afterlife.

two-bees escapril prompts!

Happy almost April, friends!! In case you were unaware, April is National Poetry Month. It's actually my favorite month, for exactly that reason! Also because it's jazz month, my anniversary with Noelle (April 14th), and April 26th, which is my birthday, is ALSO Lesbian Day of Visibility!

If you're not familiar with Escapril, it was a poetry "challenge" thing on Instagram, starting in (I think) 2019, run by an account called @letsescapril. Escapril isn't officially running anymore starting this year, so a lot of different poetry accounts have taken it upon themselves to post new lists of prompts!

This is just a no-stress, fun thing encouraging people to write. I mean, I made these, and I'm sure even I won't be able to post every day. Don't pressure yourself to write every day if it's going to make it so you can't write at all! Also, feel free to respond to these with any kind of art you feel compelled to make- I'll be thrilled to witness your creations. Tag your posts with #twobeesescapril so we can all read your beautiful work!

Happy writing! <33

Apparently it’s #IzzyIsThriving day, so excuse me while I pause my mental health break to throw a tipsy doodle of a crew cuddle pile at you guys

and if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again

thinking about that post of people assuming ao3 has an algorithm and also about how bonkers persistent the view is that ao3 is social media lite. like with startling regularity I get comments saying something along the lines of "it's probably weird to comment on a fic this old--" no it isn't!!!! this is an archive I am literally just assuming you searched for a selection of specific tags or sorted by kudos or looked back on my pseud or any other number of completely normal ways to use an archive site ?? kill the tiktok ghost in your brain and comment on old stuff it's NOT weird

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.

to me in a modern au, falin and laios grow up in a tiny little country town, one of backwater areas where everyone knows everyone. their dads definitely the town preacher or something. half the food they eat is deer patties and rabbit stew from the game their dad caught. falin comes out to their parents for the first time when shes younger. their mom says she accepts her but openly complains about wanting grandkids one day and it makes falin sad but she doesnt comment on it. laios never once came out to their parents, but he and falin talked about it for hours after she came out and it opened up a little box that had been taped firmly shut in his brain. falin did not go to the hospital for falling and busting open her chin, which bothers laios to think about but falin only remembers how many popsicles their parents let her eat while she healed. falin and laios can both run on sharp gravel barefoot, from years of practice. falin used to feed stray cats and would hide them in their treehouse. do you understand my vision