Hii, I'm Sophie! This blog is mainly for sharing non/original art (tag for original is #my art), obsessing over fictional characters and stuff I like, and sometimes I also ramble lol
✨ What my soul is made of✨
aka my obsessions/interests
~ Anything related to ancient cultures (that's the subject of my studies hehe) and media inspired by it
~ Mythology, mainly (but not only) Greek and Roman, and hellenic polytheism (I'm a beginner helpol!)
~ Classic literature, especially romanticism, aestheticism and symbolism, and related art history
~ Classical music, ballet (my beloved <3), theatre and musicals
~ Vintage/old money aesthetics and related historical periods
~ Disney, Dreamworks and Studio Ghibli movies
~ Shoujo manga/anime
~ Drawing (both traditional and digital)
~ Translating (mainly classic literature)
~ Tarot reading (thanks to The Arcana)
~ Playing the piano, singing and dancing
(more under the cut!)
✨ List of favourites!✨
for further info about everything listed above
~ Ancient literature: The Iliad, Homeric Hymns, Sappho's poems, Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, The Bacchae, Catullus' poems, Vergil's Eclogues, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apuleius' Cupid and Psyche, Satyricon, Dialogue of the Gods
~ Classic literature: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sonnets, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Happy Prince and other tales, Death in Venice, Narcissus and Goldmund, Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddharta, Gertrud, Notre Dame de Paris, Les Misérables, Memoirs of Hadrian, Wuthering Heights
~ Movies: The Sound of Music, Romeo and Juliet (1968), Death in Venice, Ludwig (1973 and 2012), Nijinsky, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, The prince of Egypt, Howl's Moving Castle, Alexander, Little Women, Riot at the Rite, Tristan and Isolde, Fireworks
~ Classical composers (pieces would be too hard to choose from): Chopin, Mahler, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Wagner, Debussy
~ Ballets: absolutely ADORE them all - even the niche ones - so the list would be too long lol
~ Operas: Lohengrin, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Tristan und Isolde, Death in Venice
~ Musicals: Notre Dame de Paris, Romeo and Juliet (French and Italian version), Les Misérables
~ Historical figures (aka dead people who have taken up 90% of my brain at some point): Alexander the Great, Sappho, Antinous, Theodora, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Elizabeth of Austria, Fryderyk Chopin, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina
~ Anime/manga: Kaze to ki no uta, Lady Georgie, Rose of Versailles, Love through a prism
~ Videogames: Hades 1 & 2, The Arcana, Sultan's Game, Fields of Mistria, Romance Club, Love and Deepspace (and more I don't remember lmao🫠)
How do you feel about Alexander the Great and Hephaestion (sorry if I spelled that wrong, I'm not wearing my glasses and I can't tell of the e first or the a first looks right) relationship portrayal? Do you think they were lovers, or just friends? Do you agree with modern day interpretations?
And, more poetically, were they the real life versions of Achilles and Patroclus?
Love your blog! Always smile when I see your reposts.
Hi anon, oh my gosh thank you for the lovely question! And I'm so glad you enjoy my blog hehe 🥹🫶🏻
Personally, I think this discussion is pretty much the same as the Achilles-Patroclus one. For both cases, I believe that no modern terms are accurate enough to portray the kind of relationship these two pairs have, mostly because that kind of connection (in the way it's been described) is...sort of rare today?
In Greek you have the word philia, which many generally translate as 'friendship' or 'affection', but in this case I think it represents the exact type of dynamic between them as in two souls in one being, where they need to coexist, where one cannot be without the other. It's no wonder that in some sources Hephaestion is described as philalexandros ("he who loves Alexander", in a general sense, with the same root of the word philia - and even then you could translate the expression as both "friend of Alexander" and "lover of Alexander" and you'd technically be correct either way! That's how ambiguous it is lmao). There's also the source that has the two of them share the same identity, with Alexander saying (referring to Hephaestion): "You're not wrong [about calling Hephaestion by his own name]: for he, too, is Alexander."
As for modern portrayals, I really like how their dynamic is dealt with in the movie Alexander (which gives them so so many great parallels with Achilles and Patroclus) and Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy - their relationship is subtle, not always referred to with direct or explicit terms, yet very much tangible, raw and real.
Also yes, I would like to "poetically" believe that they're the real life version of Achilles and Patroclus, as I think the exact same things I've just said apply to the mythological pair as well.
In short, there's no "right" or "wrong" interpretation, it's just a matter of how we choose to apply our contemporary terminology to situations from the past. If I called them "friends" or "lovers" it would sorta be alright regardless, I just think neither of those terms perfectly encapsulates what we're actually talking about. That's pretty much it, hope it was clear enough :)
Saw your movie list, how do you feel about the dead poets society?
so i DID try to watch it at some point obviously (bc im aware it seems like something i would very much enjoy lol), stopped halfway through, not even sure why? definitely have to pick it up again tho!
Still trying to get out my old digital stuff that doesn’t really stand on its own, my Ballets Russes batch!
Spectre de la Rose, then some sketches from my dream visual novel about Nijinsky that will never happen (including a Karsavina portrait), then a Roerich and Fokine portrait from a collection of informative illustrations about Ballets Russes people that will never happen. And a Les Biches sketch
the horrors persist but so do books, art, hot chocolate, winter nights, the moon, the sea, the stars, sunsets, literature, libraries, cats, flowers, stories, love and the wistful feeling you get when you finally return home
"When I came there, at first no host of the Athenians was willing to receive me, as being abhorred of the gods. But those who took pity on me offered me hospitality at a table set apart, being in the same room… and that I might not be saddened by drinking apart from them, they filled a private cup for each man, and kept silent, so that I should not hear or speak to anyone while taking my meal." - orestes in iphegenia among the taurians
