Aimée Maroux @aimee-maroux - Tumblr Blog

Poll Time!

Friends, I recently thought up a small series of erotic shorts about the (very gay) erotic adventures of a pudgy ancient Greek youth. Would anyone be interested in reading that? 🤔

Gay erotica of pudgy youth in ancient Greece FTW?

Stick to mythological figures, please

Write something contemporary instead

Yes, sounds cute and sexy

I don't care, I love everything you write

I don't care, I don't read anything you write

Voting ended onApr 30, 2024

Reblogs welcome 💖

#tagamemnon #greek myth #greek mythology #ancient Greece #historical fiction #writers on tumblr #tumblr polls #poll time #LGBTQ #LGBTQ reads #gay

odyver

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Remaining time: 3 days 19 hours

odyver

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Remaining time: 3 days 19 hours

odyver

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Remaining time: 3 days 19 hours

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

aimee-maroux

I am closer in age to your boss than the young people booing, but I went to see an exhibition earlier this year about superheroes and ancient heroes and gods, which is an interesting topic IMO. But they very obviously used AI. It was disclosed only in the last room where they displayed a comic that had been created with AI but the person I was with pointed out that the posters that had generic "superheroes" on them were likely also AI generated and I gave them a closer look and I concur.

And if you spot something like that it very quickly calls into question whether or not the texts were generated by AI as well. I caught several inaccuracies, actually, and one or two statements I find questionable but don't know for sure if they are incorrect or not. For example, I never heard or read that Athena is associated with the pear tree before but I can't rule it out completely. As for the obvious mistakes, Perseus did not ride Pegasos until the Renaissance or something. In ancient art and mythology it's Bellerophon. This would have been fine, actually, to point out but without context it's just plain wrong and this was done by a museum!

So please, no fucking AI in your museum, please. It makes me regret the money I spent on the entrance fee.

#museum visit #greek mythology #Perseus

azspot

“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”

— The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech

reading-writing-revolution

#anti AI

dilutedh2so4

Sappho’s Helen chooses for herself a role that belongs properly to the male warrior. She sails to Troy and leaves behind a house untended. But at the same time, her choice—to pursue what she desires—and the manner in which this choice is expressed undermine the very meaning of the Homeric hero’s code of honor. The paradoxical quality of Helen’s actions comes through strongly in the language of memory, once again. Sappho’s description of Helen’s lack of memory closely mirrors lines of the Iliad that speak to the importance of the warrior’s memory on the battlefield. Nestor at one point urges the Achaeans to “be men” and “remember” (15.662) each his children, wife, property, and parents.

Helen confounds these neat distinctions between domestic and heroic memory by violating the norms of each gender. She makes a parody out of Iliadic forms of remembering kin—the kind of memory valorized by both Nestor and Agenor—because, as a woman, she has no business sailing to Troy and not minding her child and parents. The similarity of Sappho’s phrasing to the Iliadic imperatives serves only to remind us of how the male model of remembering during battle is being perverted for a woman’s (Sappho’s and Helen’s) poetic purposes. In a different way, Helen also violates the Penelopean model of memory by escaping from husband and house, removing herself both physically and mnemonically from her situation as the wife of Menelaus. Helen does not remember according to either the male or the female paradigm, but in the process of transgressing these norms, she illuminates some of the complex interconnections between the arts of memory and poetry.

Melissa Mueller, Penelope and the Poetics of Remembering.

#Sappho #Helen of Sparta #Helen of Troy #Greek mythology

whatevstu

Hermes & Philonis

artwork based on a ych, don't know its original author though

#Hermes #Philonis #Hermes art #Greek mythology #Greek mythology art #cuteness

aliensundermybed

I love Achilles so much fight me

#Achilles #Hades Game #Hades fanart #Hades Supergiant

depsidase

#anti AI #versatile

fforsythiaaa

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

#writing #art

medusaspeach

Some of my designs for Hestia, Hera, Demeter, and Aphrodite.

Patreon ✨

#Hera #Hera art #Hestia #Hestia art #Demeter #Demeter art #Aphrodite #Aphrodite art #Greek mythology art #MedusasPeach #greek mythology

theodysseyofhomer

odysseus and penelope's slaves: a primer.

eurycleia: odysseus' childhood nurse, as well as telemachus'. her backstory is briefly mentioned (book 1): she is the daughter of ops, bought by odysseus' father laertes when she was young. specific mention is made that laertes never slept with her, in order to keep peace with his wife anticleia. (her name has the opposite meaning of odysseus' mother's.) at the time of the odyssey she is old, and among named slaves has probably been with the family the longest. she is the only character who recognizes odysseus unprompted (and he threatens to kill her about it). they trust her heavily throughout the plot to kill the suitors; afterward, she handpicks the other enslaved women who have slept with the suitors, so that odysseus can execute them. if i were to beg for one thing, it would be that you consider what living in close proximity to her owners for so long might do to her psychologically, and how her experience with laertes might skew her view of the "disloyal" women.

eurynome: another older woman who attends penelope (and eventually odysseus).

hippodameia and autonoe: two younger slave girls who attend penelope.

actoris: a slave penelope mentions once (book 23) as the only person besides her and odysseus who knows the secret of the olive tree bed, because she used to guard their room. actoris was given to penelope by her father. it's possible that she's already dead by the time of the odyssey, as she never appears in person.

the unnamed traitors to penelope: three times in the odyssey, we hear the story of penelope unweaving a shroud for laertes at night to hold off the suitors. two of those times the suitors tell it, and say that a female slave told them the truth of what was going on. later penelope tells the beggar-who-is-odysseus, and she says that they caught her in the act with the help of her slave girls.

dolius, his unnamed sons, and their unnamed mother: dolius is another slave given to penelope by her father (book 4). now an old man, he seems to look after odysseus' father laertes, who no longer lives in the main house. father of melantho, melanthius, and six other sons by a sicilian woman who also cares for laertes. it is unclear whether she is the mother of all dolius' children, or only the six sons present in the farmhouse. dolius' first and last appearance on page is in book 24, when he greets and kisses odysseus; in the text, he never learns that odysseus has executed two of his children.

melantho: the daughter of dolius, who penelope raised "like a daughter" and pampered (book 18), though clearly only to a point. she is sleeping with the suitor eurymachus (also book 18). the text doesn't offer insight into how she actually feels about eurymachus.* she has two scenes, and in both insults the beggar. both odysseus and penelope berate her and call her a dog. melantho is often assumed to be the one who betrayed penelope's weaving ruse to the suitors, but this is never stated in the odyssey.

[*EDIT: the translations i have read and have on hand to check (fagles, wilson, fitzgerald, lattimore) describe melantho variously as sleeping with eurymachus, making love to him, being his lover, or being his sweetheart. to me, these words indicated an action or a role rather than her internal feelings or state of mind. but there are also translations that say she loved him. the greek phrase in question is μισγέσκετο καὶ φιλέεσκεν—the former word seems undoubtedly sexual, and the latter derived from phileo, which also does, or can, denote love or affection. this is basically the extent to which i am able to discuss the greek, but as far as i can tell, both translations (sexual or non-sexual) are valid here. it's ambiguous.]

melanthius: the son of dolius and brother of melantho, a goatherd who sides (vehemently) with the suitors. it is said that eurymachus is his favorite (book 17). he insults the beggar and eumaeus multiple times as well. he is present for the bow contest, helping the suitors, and when the slaughter begins, he brings them armor and weapons. odysseus orders the two herdsman on his side to tie him up, hoist him into the rafters, and torture him. they leave him tied until after the fighting, when "the men" (presumably odysseus, telemachus, eumaeus, and philoetius) cut off his nose, ears, and genitals to feed to the dogs, then chop off his hands and feet.

the unnamed hanged women: twelve (out of fifty) enslaved women whom eurycleia handpicks for death, because they were sleeping with the suitors (according to her, book 22). all the enslaved women are hiding during the slaughter; afterward, eurycleia goes to them, calls the twelve, and brings them to odysseus, who has them clean up the corpses and blood. odysseus means to execute them with swords when they're done, but telemachus decides to hang them instead, specifically to deny them a clean death. melantho is presumed to be one of these twelve. like with her, the text offers no insight into how they feel about the suitors.

eumaeus: a swineherd with an extensive backstory told in book 15. his father ctesius was the king of syria, but his enslaved nurse ran away and took him with her, intending to sell him, when he was too young to know better. she died on the ship, and laertes bought him in ithaca. like melantho, he was brought up there by the queen, in proximity to odysseus' younger sister ctimene. when they were older, ctimene was married and eumaeus sent to the country. he is well-off enough to own a slave of his own. in the odyssey, eumaeus personally takes care of the beggar, tells him all about the situation in the palace, and tries to protect him from the suitors, though he is openly skeptical of anything the beggar has to say about odysseus. when telemachus returns to ithaca, it's eumaeus he goes to first, greeting him like a family member. odysseus finally trusts his identity to eumaeus right before he wins the bow contest. he promises to give him a wife, wealth, and a house near the palace (and freedom, implicitly? unsure). eumaeus participates in the slaughter, the torture of melanthius, and possibly the executions. if i were to beg for one thing regarding eumaeus, it would be to consider how often in ancient literature, the only enslaved characters who are portrayed with dignity or sympathy are those who were, at one point, nobility.

mesaulius: a slave who serves and cleans up after eumaeus. eumaeus traded for him while odysseus was away, with his own money (book 14).

philoetius: a cowherd and overseer. like eumaeus, he is kind to the beggar and expresses loyalty to odysseus. he says that he would have run away, except that he still holds out hope for odysseus' return. odysseus reveals himself to philoetius along with eumaeus and promises him the same things (wife, wealth, a house). also participates in the slaughter, torture, and executions.

medon: house slave who has become a favorite of the suitors, but reports on them to penelope (book 4). telemachus tells odysseus to spare him (along with phemius, the bard) due to medon caring for him when he was young. medon then comes out of hiding to corroborate this and profess his loyalty. toward the end, medon hears the people of ithaca assembling to avenge the suitors and tries to discourage them, saying that he personally saw a god helping odysseus.

-

a lot of other unnamed slaves are mentioned in passing. i love the passage in book 20 when odysseus overhears an enslaved woman grinding grain as she prays to zeus for relief from the suitors. to odysseus, this is an omen, but it's also a very human moment which has nothing to do with him. there are more like this; i couldn't include all of them.

i wrote this up because i see a lot of people who are more familiar with retellings of the odyssey than the epic itself getting interested in these characters, often without really understanding a) that they are enslaved and b) how they function in the odyssey. both those things are important to grasp, if you're going to question both the assumptions of the cultural world of the poem and many knee-jerk modern responses to it—including what is, or isn't, deemed suitable in a retelling.

#Odyssey #Greek Mythology