bleakDecember

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December…

[alinaastarkov]

I will cut out your bastard’s heart and eat it…

Who ever gets in the way of your happiness will meet my wrath…

[meseob]

“His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton’s throat as easily.”

“He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell…I want my bride back…I want my bride back…I want my bride back…”  (Jon, A Dance with Dragons)

[bleakdecember]

Why are Chinese gays so lesbians

[bleakdecember]

The Last Trial

God, you can now see your world: covered in ashes and fire! That's all you deserved — rule it in your own right. You made your path according to your wishes, And you failed just one trial: Compassion!

© The Lord of Nothing

[iloveflochandchifuyu]

Eren to his daughter: I love you, to 2000 years from now.

[bleakdecember]

The Best Eldest Sisters ✨

[bleakdecember]

AU, where the Eldian Empire is at the height of its power, and Fine Tybur is the beloved maid-of-honour and favourite of Her Majesty Frieda.

[bleakdecember]

Attack Titans and their Queens

From time immemorial holders of the Attack Titan had an inexplicable weakness for the heiresses of the royal family.

[ustimojan]

I’ve been dreaming lately, Feeling the night, Feeling it through. I’ve been crying baby, Bleeding my heart, Bleeding it blue.

( Gamine - Checkmate)

For my dear friend @bleakdecember. I love the atmosphere of noir detectives! So here we are. And (Spoiler for season 5) I’m really looking forward to a noir-style episode with Jack! 

[sargent-major-jane]

My ideal aesthetic is to combine the styles of Mary Poppins, Elizabeth Swan, Bilbo Baggins, Merida, Renfri, Tauriel, generic tough rocker chic, and The Ice Queen from Narnia in her battle armor. Let me live my best dark epic fantasy outlaw princess witch faerie knight pirate queen life.

[lustraluparum]

Hogwarst Houses as the types of sexual relations

Gryffindor

Impassioned and impatient hotties. Passion in their blood. They are moved by desires and feelings. If they have sex, then only out of love or for pleasure. They like to experiment in sex, for example, try BDSM and participate in orgies. Most of them are nymphomaniacs. Also Gryffindors dependent on emotions. Often they want something more than just sex.

Hufflepuff

Close friends. Perhaps a bit too close. They like to fool around and spend the night with each other. They also readily drink beer in pubs, and then they wake up in the same bed and have breakfast together, pretending it never happened. They’re friends with benefits, and they don’t mind that at all.

Ravenclaw

Brainy is the new sexy, ars amatoria, letting partner take the glasses off your face, kissing in the library, sex on the table or against the bookcase, inventiveness is the middle name, kama sutra is the desk book, strange postcoital conversations.

Slytherin

Long distance relationships, receiving love letters and burning them, surreptitiously holding hands under the table at the family dinner, sex is conservative and classical, mind dominates the heart, virgin until marriage and the marriage is strategic, have spouse or secret lover, sometimes both.

[scriptmyth]

Persephone, Kore, and the Brides of Hades

Persephone and Hades, and their relationship, is a story told and re-told. You might have heard that Persephone went willingly with Hades, or that she came to love him, or that she died, or that her name was originally Kore.

There are many versions of the story, and it’s hard to pin down the “original” version. So while the following version (and subsequent interpretations) may not be from the version you’re familiar with, it is based on the common elements of the ancient sources (such as Homeric hymns, Hesiod, and Ovid).

Who is Kore and how did she become Persephone?

Kore (also spelled Core) was a goddess of spring, growth, and bounty. Her name meant “maiden.” She was worshiped alongside her mother, Demeter, in the Eleusinian Mysteries. It is only after she has eaten the pomegranate seeds (which mean she must return to the Underworld) and emerged back into the land of the living that her name changed to Persephone (which means “she who brings doom” or “the chaos bringer” depending on who you talk to).

In most translations, and even many ancient sources, she is only ever referred to as Persephone. In the case of translations, it is likely that this is to reduce confusion. In ancient sources, it’s interesting that only some of them call her Kore prior to her abduction. This could be a case of two distinct goddesses with similar stories or domains of influence being combined into a single one, or it could simply be that by the time of the Homeric Hymn of Demeter (for example), the name of Kore had fallen out of common usage, leaving only her transformed name–Persephone.

Did Persephone go willingly with Hades?

While it makes for a more romantic story to envision Persephone running away with Hades, this appears to be a later variant. In Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the Orphic Gold Tablets (by Radcliffe G. Edmonds, III) Persephone is reported to be a guardian of the Underworld/challenger of those attempting to gain entrance to the Underworld; she completes this function without Hades. There are also further references to her being the sole (or supreme) ruler of the Underworld and though I have no original sources for it, there is a version in which Persephone wanders willingly down to the Underworld and becomes its Queen because of the pity she feels for the abandoned souls there. Again, with no mention of Hades.

Dating these versions is difficult. The ones reported by Edmonds are linked to the Eleusinian Mysteries (which would have come after the Hades/Persephone version), but that doesn’t mean they weren’t based on proto-versions of the myth, or even adopted from another culture with a similar story of how the goddess of the Underworld came to her position.

Did Persephone come to love Hades?

Once more, it is romantic to assume that Persephone and Hades came to have a mutually loving relationship, but the sad reality is that the pair are very rarely shown interacting with one another. In myths, such as that of Orpheus, they may appear together, but only interact with the hero of the myth.

It’s interesting to note that in southern Italy, their version claimed Persephone refused to leave the Underworld (as reported by Edmonds [see above], though no mention of Hades or her relationship to him).

Women at that time did not marry for love. Nor was it something that was expected to “blossom over time.” Marriage was a relationship of utility, specifically meant to increase the status, power, and wealth of the families of the two getting married. (A little silver lining, there are recovered love letters between husbands and wives, so that proves at least some of the couples in antiquity loved one another)

And right in the Hymn to Demeter, Demeter slams Hades directly to Persephone, calling him loathsome. Though it isn’t stated explicitly, I imagine such Hades-bashing would occur every time Persephone returned from the Underworld.

Metaphor for the Seasons

Most people can recognize that the myth is explaining why the seasons change. For a third of the year, Persephone is in the Underworld and nothing grows upon the earth. She returns and brings with her spring.

Interestingly, the Eleusinian Mysteries were broken into two parts. The Lesser Mysteries took place in the spring and purified participants for the September Greater Mysteries. Initiates were sworn to secrecy on the pain of death, so even though this appears to have been a ritual many aspired to take part in, there is little that is known about the specific ritual. We know that the Greater Mystery starts with initiates (aka the participants) walking from Athens to Eleusis, calling for Kore, before resting beside the well that Demeter supposedly paused at. They would rest by the well, fasting, until they drank a special beverage called kykeon (some scholars think it was psychotropic).

After, the initiates would descend into an underground theatre and the secret ritual took place. Scholars theorize that it may have involved a (symbolic) re-enactment of Persephone’s death and rebirth. One of my professors in university thought it might have involved watching a maiden lose her virginity, though given that some ‘testimonials’ from ancient sources (like Plato and Plutarch), it seems that initiates may have participated in the ritual (instead of simply watching)–which makes the logistics of my professor’s theory unpleasant.

But that the Greater Mysteries took place in September, rather than in the spring suggests a different way of looking at the cycle of seasons. It could be a promise that the coming winter will end, or it could be a promise that even in death people will be cared for (many people left with a changed world-view and no fear of death), or it could even be a celebration of the coming winter. We just don’t know for sure.

Metaphor for Marriage

Beneath the obvious metaphor for the seasons, is a metaphor for marriage.

It was a tradition for young maidens in ancient Greece to be ‘kidnapped’ prior to their wedding. It was a rite known as “hand on wrist” and was a symbolic kidnapping–part of the transfer of power from a maiden’s father to her husband. It primarily consisted of the groom taking the bride by the wrist and leading her to her new home.

Then there is the tradition of the stephane–a crown made of metal or flowers that maidens wore on their wedding day. And Persephone is almost always described as gathering flowers prior to the abduction.

While many flowers are named, I find it interesting that almost all of them are purple (with the only exceptions being a rose and a narcissus). The wedding dress of women were purple gowns, trimmed in gold, with a red veil covering their face. The colours of the flowers she was gathering.

Further, in ancient Greece, women had no say in who they married. A maiden’s kyrios (guardian, generally their father) would make the agreement with the husband-to-be (or his guardian if, for some reason, the betrothal was being made between two under-age people). The Hymn to Demeter (the primary source of this myth) states repeatedly that Zeus had given his permission to Hades. It was, as far as ancient Greeks would have been concerned, a completely legal marriage arrangement.

Now, there are several marriage rites that are not observed according to the Hymn to Demeter, such as Persephone dedicating a lock of hair, clothes, and toys to Artemis; or the ritual bathing the morning of the marriage; or her mother/mother-in-law carrying a torch as she’s escorted to her new home–though Demeter does wander around with lit torches after she can’t find Persephone–but the Hymn to Demeter doesn’t dwell on Persephone again until Zeus commands Hades to return Persephone.

And many of the other parts of the marriage rites involved symbolic deaths (and actual deaths…there were a lot of sacrifices). The connection between death and marriage was strong, and cannot be ignored when considering the story of Persephone and Hades.

Metaphor for Death

Finally, there is the strong possibility that the story is a metaphor for Persephone’s death. The Eleusinian Mysteries (as far as can be determined) culminate in a re-enactment of the death and rebirth of Persephone after all.

In ancient Greece, if a maiden died before marriage, her family would still observe many of the marriage rituals. She would be ritually bathed, dressed in clothes reminiscent of wedding attire, and proclaimed to be a ‘bride of Hades.’

Though unwed maidens were called ‘brides of Hades’ they were not expected or believed to supplant Persephone. For women at this time, their purpose in life was to marry and have children, thus by claiming the title of ‘bride of Hades,’ even those girls who died young would have achieved at least part of their life’s purpose. This was a narrative meant to ease the pain of losing a daughter.

So it would have been understood by ancient Greeks that Persephone being carried off to be the bride of Hades was an allusion to all the young women who died before they could marry.

And let’s not forget that whatever secret ritual was part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, initiates left with no fear of death. Plutarch (an initiate) wrote to his wife after his daughter’s death and declared “because of those sacred and faithful promises given in the mysteries…we hold it firmly for an undoubted truth that our soul is incorruptible and immortal. Let us behave ourselves accordingly" [source] which supports the idea that the story of Persephone was understood on some level to be the story of a maiden dying.

Final Thoughts

While there are many versions of this myth, and it continues to be a common one to be re-interpreted for the sake of a story, it’s good to know the origins and allusions. Understanding the original themes and motivations for a myth allows you to better adapt it to your writing/story needs.

[agwitow]

Because I still have strong feelings about people misunderstanding the myth of Hades and Persephone…

[ustimojan]

Do not be surprised - I just decided to lay out my old art, while painting a new one. I draw for a loooong time, you need to draw every eyelash, right?))0)00 (help me) The only thing I love about the Avengers is a relitenships of Wanda and Vision. I drew them in the style of the poster “The Shape of Water”. 2 variants of their deaths :“D And 2 infinity stones in titles. Also here is David and Amahl Farouk from Legion TV series (it is amazing!) This is of the last arts before I made an account here. Drawn on paper and scanned to make the color brighter. Actually, it dawned on me that it is better to paint and generally draw right away in digital - and here we go))

[bleakdecember]

Can we talk about David Bowie like an ideal fancast for Gellert Grindelwald?

[bleakdecember]

I see no difference

From the movie «Charodei»:

The summer would die away, the colds would set in, Under the snow the earth would wait for new spring, But l don’t need a world, you hear me, l’ll never need a world, A world, where we wouldn’t need each other.

© Leonid Derbenyov, «Imagine That»

[bleakdecember]

Okay, it's more beautiful

[bleakdecember]

The Mirror of Erised

This song was written as if about them.

But I look into your eyes — those empty mirrors, and try to find reflection. I know our love has gone long ago. In the world made of glass I seek to save our love. Do you hear me?

© Grigory Leps, «Mirrors»

[bleakdecember]

Part three of my «The Expanse» couples aesthetic. 3. Julie x Joe: The Noir Detective