Hello :) @fairlyjesslockhart - Tumblr Blog

I wanted to show you all this pie I made from scratch today :,)

Thank you to everyone be being so sweet about this! I was really excited and proud of it and all I got was an eye roll from my family, so you all really lifted my spirited.

katelyn-danger

It is morally correct to be horny on main.

If we really want to fight against this puritanical culture that seems to be hell-bent on running sex workers off the internet and banning pornography wherever they can find it, you have a moral duty to post hole on main. Doesn't have to be your own hole but you got to post it.

katelyn-danger

New copypasta just dropped

tamamita

Same guy

beelko

Reblog hole to destroy bloodlines and oppress Christians

lowpolycas

Reblog to have something lgbt happen to you this summer

beanytuesday

Pandora’s Blog

thesleepingdeer

@spiritspodcast

capricorn-0mnikorn

This is the literary criticism hill I have chosen to die on.

There has been a half-complete version of post on my Dreamwidth journal under a “Private” filter (my eyes only) here since 9 December, 2018, just waiting for me to get the energy and mental focus to write an essay outlining all the textual evidence in Act 4, scene 1 (Ophelia’s “madness” scene). But at this point, I don’t think the required energy for that will ever come – at least, not for the long essay format. So I’m just going to post my conspiracy theory Thesis Statement here:

Ophelia did not commit suicide – she was murdered. By Queen Gertrude (probably).

And I can’t help but wonder how this play would be taught and performed if this interpretation were the standard one Here’s a bit of a presentation by Shakespearean actor and scholar, Ben Crystal, on his interpretation of the “To be, or not to be?” soliloquy, and how he no longer thinks Hamlet was suicidal at that point in the play, either (though he was, earlier on): Ben Crystal talks about Original Pronunciation, 20 July 2017 (it’s at a point about 40 minutes in to the whole thing). So what if suicide is not a recurring theme of the play? How does that change things?

capricorn-0mnikorn

Reblogging myself already, because my brain won’t let go of it.

Just imagine how classroom discussions, and essays in literary academic journals would go if it were read that Ophelia did not break under the weight of a cruel world, but instead had to be eliminated because she knew too much, and was on the brink of inciting a rebellion against King Claudius (Yes, that’s actually alluded to in the text).

If, while the men of the play were scheming and faffing about, the play pivoted on the actions of a middle-aged woman on one side, and a teenage girl on the other.

athelind

Tell us more! Tell us more!

capricorn-0mnikorn

First off – my mistake: it’s Act 4 Scene 5, not scene one. And it opens thusly (lines that merit attention are bolded):

QUEEN GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her. Gentleman: She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN GERTRUDE: What would she have? Gentleman: She speaks much of her father; says she hears There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

A bit later, Ophelia comes in, singing. Not of flowers, yet, but alternating between a mourning song, and a very bawdy song that a young noble lady of sixteen years should not be singing in public, just in time for Claudius to hear her.

KING CLAUDIUS: Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA: Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this: [translation: You want to know what it means? I’ll tell you what it means!]

Sings To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes, And dupp’d the chamber-door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more. KING CLAUDIUS: Pretty Ophelia! OPHELIA: Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t: [Let me finish!] Sings By Gis and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie for shame! Young men will do’t, if they come to’t; By cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed. So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.

[So here’s a song about a woman having sex out of wedlock because a guy promised to repay her… and then he reneges on his promise because she had sex with him]

And then Ophelia exits, spouting seeming madness, and Claudius says to Horatio:

Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.

So Claudius suspects something – whether that’s a suicide watch, or to make sure she doesn’t inspire rebellion – isn’t explicitly stated in text. But in any case, Ophelia’s not alone.

Then, Leartes comes in, leading a mob of commoners, who are chanting that he should be king (see the comment of Gentleman, above). And we have this exchange:

Leartes: Where is my father?

Claudius: Dead.

Gertrude: But not by him.

That, right there, is a single line of iambic pentameter. Which means that Gertrude literally does not skip a beat to defend Claudius before thinking of protecting her own son.

And now Ophelia comes in and sings her “mad flower song.” This Wordpress article outlines the symbolism of each flower and herb (It also spells out specific actions by Ophelia which are not spelled out in the original). The meaning flies right over our heads, but audiences of the time would have grokked it immediately; There’s “Grief” and “remembrance;” there’s also “flattery” and “deceived lovers” and an herb commonly used to induce abortions…

And the next news we hear of Ophelia is that she’s “Drowned herself.” Who delivers this news? Queen Gertrude – with an overabundance of minute detail of the scene as it happened.

Finally, there’s the fact that Ophelia was being hastily buried in the churchyard – even though that was strictly forbidden for suicides. The younger gravedigger thinks that’s because Ophelia was a privileged noblewoman, and getting special treatment. The older gravedigger reminds him (and the audience) that not all people who die by drowning are at fault…

And then I realized that Hamlet had to have the murder plot revealed to him by the ghost of his father, because he was away at school, but Ophelia was there at court, the whole time, and could have seen everything going down. But who pays attention to teenage girls hanging around the edges, or worries about what they see or don’t see, amirite?

I do think Ophelia was having a mental breakdown, triggered by grief and shock. But I think it was more of the “loss of situational awareness” and “blind to the danger” variety, instead of “no longer have the will to live” variety.

And that’s my analysis. And I’m sticking with it.

athelind

Oh, this is splendid!

capricorn-0mnikorn

*bows*

Thank you.

And then there are these lines from Queen Gertrude, after she agrees to talk with Ophelia, and Horatio exits to go fetch her:

To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

I’ve always liked that line about spilling something because you’re trying too hard not to (because RELATABLE). But I only just now realized that Shakespeare was putting underlines and circles and arrows around the whole issue of the queen’s quilt (and active role in the whole scheme with Claudius), by making those lines a pair of rhyming couplets, when nothing else in that scene rhymes.

I think the common interpretation of Ophelia has been handed down to us by literary critics and theater directors, who have all been men, and idealized the manic pixie dream gilrl, so they’ve always cast Ophelia as the tragic and doomed version of that.

When really, she was the brightest candle in the chandelier – and had she lived, she might have led the revolution to put her brother on the throne – so she had to be snuffed out.

capricorn-0mnikorn

Okay – I’d like to post a CORRECTION to this paragraph, that I wrote, above:

I went back and reread that bit (which really should be included in the list of evidence that Hamlet is a black comedy – in the script, the two gravediggers are named “First Clown” and “Second Clown.”

Anyway, it’s the elder gravedigger who argues that Ophelia committed suicide, but in the process, reminds the audience that it shouldn’t be counted as such. I’ll just quote that bit:

Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes,–mark you that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

So, he’s arguing that because Ophelia went into the water, she must have committed suicide – but we, in the audience, who’ve just witnessed Ophelia’s madness just a few scenes earlier (even ignoring Queen Gertrude’s suspicious behavior), know that Ophelia did not “Wittingly” go into the water, because she was (at the very least) so lost in madness that she fell in accidentally.

Now, I’m not one of those people who stan Shakespeare in everything he wrote (a few of his plays are just hot messes), but here, I do agree that he’s at his peak, with what characters know which, (or should that be which know what?), and telling us the story of what happened, not through some Authorial voice on High, but many different limited points of view.

capricorn-0mnikorn

Reblogging to add a link to this post from @bisexual-evanhansen about re-imagining the “Get thee to a nunnery!” scene wherein Ophelia plays an active role in directing the “stage fight” between herself and Hamlet, and it’s played for laughs.

Because I really think it adds to my pile of evidence that Ophelia was murdered.

capricorn-0mnikorn

That warm, fuzzy feeling when a mutual reblogs a post that you were debating about whether to reblog, yourself.

(Instead, I opted to post something new, to put fresh thoughts in my brain)

But this still deserves to be signal boosted. ‘Cause Ophelia was done dirty. First, in-story, by Gertrude, and then, in the centuries after, when Literature teachers and theater directors shape how her story is interpreted.

prismatic-bell

As someone who first suggested Hamlet is not a tragedy in my tenth-grade English class (I didn’t know the phrase “black comedy” at the time but yeah, it totally is), I would agree with all this, and IN ADDITION:

I would suggest Ophelia’s murder didn’t start with the drowning, and that it wasn’t even entirely related to Laertes.

So first, we have her song about sex out of wedlock. It’s worth noting that much earlier in the play, when she and Laertes speak right before the “to thine own self be true” speech, there are hints that she herself is already “a maid no more,” at Hamlet’s hand. Now keep in mind the rest of the play takes place over the course of, at a minimum, several months, and:

If that’s true, and if perhaps Ophelia has a Little Problem, that little problem–legitimate or not–is heir to the throne.

So if it gets out that Claudius might have been responsible for the death of Hamlet, Sr–and Hamlet, Jr gives us plenty of reasons to be suspicious even before the ghost appears–then he’s almost certainly going to die at the hands of a mob. In which case Hamlet would ascend to the throne, but–oh, what’s this? Hamlet’s dead? Well, then the next in line is–

–a commoner’s child.

Yikes.

So Gertrude offers Ophelia some help with her Little Problem. All of the plants mentioned in the “mad flower song” could be used, in conjunction with each other, as abortifacients, but there’s one very important thing to note about them:

They have to be very, very precisely measured. Or they can cause sudden severe mood swings, hemorrhaging, excessive bleeding, disorientation, lack of focus, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, unconsciousness, and death.

You know. As might be implied by “singing small snatches of songs” and laying in a creek apparently unaware you’re doing so and unable to pull yourself out. And, as noted above, Gertrude knows one hell of a lot about this scene; as my high school English teacher pointed out, why didn’t anyone help Ophelia, if they could see her so damn well they could describe the whole thing?

#i’ve never read hamlet #everything i know about it comes from an episode of a podcast #this is super cool though #a very interesting way to look at it

cl3rks

Burn Notice. [S1.E1: Pilot.]

platypusisnotonfire

This is legitimately how I’ve broken into a thousand places like just act like you’re meant to be there and if someone actually ends up calling you out on it just be super confused

platypusisnotonfire

#I would be an excellent pentester and actually have considered it as a job many a time#when I was a kid (7-14ish) my grandmother was in the hospital a lot and I was a bored kid that no one was really watching#and we spent days and days at the hospital over the course of those years#so I’d wander around and it became a challenge to see where it could get into without gettting caught#and the answer is basically everywhere#like ther is no legit reason for an 11 year old to be in the morgue but I was tall for my age and I would carry a cup of coffee#and look irritated to be there like someone woke me up for this#and no one would question me#people would ask where are you headed and if you just exhaustedly point through a security door 97% of the time they will swipe their card#-and open it for you

I want to add that I don’t make a habit of this now that I am a law abiding adult, but recently I accidentally did this again. Having been used to having my run of hospitals and walking basically anywhere as a child, I was visiting a friend in the hospital just before covid and I was legitimately exhausted and carrying a coffee cup cuz it was like 5:30am or something dumb, and I went to leave and get to the bottom floor and i’m like “this is not the lobby” and I walked around for a bit and people kept holding doors for me so I traveled through many corridors, and nothing looked familiar, and then I realized every single door was a key card swipe and everyone had mag-stripe badges with varying security levels and I realized I had gotton onto a staff elevator with the staff, who had swiped their card to go down into a high-security area of the building, and people had just been letting me through all these security doors.

So then I had to out myself and be like “Um I accidentally broke into you high-security wing, please show me the door, I’m literally just trying to leave this hospital” and I had to get like searched and stuff.

And what was funny was that while I was blissfully walking around assuming I belonged, No one questioned ANYTHING and in fact, were violating protocols left and right to let me through, but the VERY SECOND I realized I was not where I was supposed to be and let that show on my face, like three people in the hall confronted me.

So the take away is, be confident that you belong, look exhausted and like you don’t want to be there, and carry a cup of coffee. It will open pretty much all doors.

@clutchkuza I feel like you need to hear this lol

i-am-corbin-dallas

No joke, Burn Notice is a great show. If you like Leverage, give Burn Notice a try (its available on Hulu and Prime iirc) and frfr, confidence and an excuse are all you need to get around places

disasterlarper

This works I accidentally broke into someone’s whole ass home a month or so ago and uhhh it went fine because I’m short white and VERY CONFUSED

echodrops

One time while I was in Rome, I was busy admiring the ruins and not paying attention to signage, got lost, and ended up in some kind of archaeological dig or restoration. Not knowing it was off-limits (having missed all signage, as previously stated), I started peeking around all the stone stuff, wandering off the path, and most importantly (to this story), poking around in a hole that had been dug into the ground. I was careful not to touch anything, but still, clearly (to anyone who wasn’t as oblivious as me) this was not a place a tourist was meant to be.

I finally attracted the notice of someone who was meant to be part of this restoration project when I came back up from the hole. He quickly came over to ask me, in Italian, what I’m sure were the very normal questions of “Who are you?”, “What are you doing here??”, etc.

Problem: I do not speak Italian.

My brain’s solution: Quick, what language do we speak that’s close?!

And that is how I wandered up out of a hole in a Roman ruin without warning and began speaking ancient Latin to an archaeologist.

This man’s face went through 15 different absolutely floored expressions in ten seconds, like you could physically see him going through the thought process of “Have I encountered a ghost from ancient Rome? No, ghosts aren’t real. But if ghosts not real, how Latin??? Fellow researcher??? Supposed to be here???”

So this is the story of how I was allowed to walk away without issue at all after blatantly trespassing upon the ruins of ancient Rome, because if you speak Latin, where else would you belong?

queerlyglittering

Both literally and figuratively:

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

transfemininomenon

the thing i want to know with prometheus is like, was it the same eagle each time or was it a few different ones? if it was the same one do you think they ever developed a rapport? like oh hey bill how it’s going, how’s the wife, yeah the liver’s just right there let’s get it over with, anyway- ow!- as i was saying how’s sally?

one day the eagle shows up with a few chicks and prometheus is like omg are those your kids?? and the eagle nods proudly & starts teaching them how to eat livers

headspace-hotel

Prometheus and the eagle are shown clocking in and clocking out like characters in a looney tunes cartoon

transfemininomenon

hi this just made me fucking Lose it thank you for your service

acosmodot

@spiritspodcast

ghostlypawn

musicalweek ★ day five - favourite costumes ↳ GABRIELLA SLADE | SIX THE MUSICAL

vcrcleaner

Extremely City white people are so fucking weird they see a pic of a deer and theyre like “its an Old God, tell me the wisdom of the trees Forest Lord … wow this is just like game of thrones” its a deer. Its a fucking stupid idiot animal it doesnt know shit

whenthebirdsareheardagain

Yes deer are dumb panicky dinguses in real life, but sometimes a picture will capture one looking all majestic and we just… want to believe…

whenthebirdsareheardagain

Case in point: this dude

Yes he got like that by being so hormonally addled that he tried to fight a tree. But try to tell me a forest god wouldn’t have big leafy antlers just like that if he were to take a physical form.

knivesandteeth

who says the old gods aren’t stupid animals who are so hormonally addled they’d try to fight a tree

mutedtempest

@librariansheart for your enjoyment

alexaloraetheris

Look, I’ve lived a good chunk of my childhood in a halfway abandoned mountain village in the middle of nowhere. Which meant wildlife galore whether you liked it or not.

And that meant sometimes we saw a deer in the middle of the road at midnight and the majestic motherfucker just stared us down until my mom shredded our tires to stop from hitting him. Once we stopped he did a little half-bow as if saying ‘You have not committed an act of godslayer this night. Your bloodline shall bear no curse of mine’, and walked away chill as you please.

The next day a neighbor told us a deer with fucking big antlers got tangled in his fence because it was trying to steal his grapes.

I went on a hike with another neighbor to collect yarrow for tea. A bear came out of the woods towards us, went on its hind legs and inquiringly roared. And he pushed me, tiny as I was back then, behind me out of sight and spread his jacket wide to make himself seem bigger than he already was. He let out a sound I had not known humans were capable of making. He and the bear looked at each other for a moment, and came to an understanding. The bear went down and walked away, respecting a powerful opponent protecting its young.

A week ago, there had been a bear that completely tore apart our trashcan and gorged itself on half-fermented apples we threw away. My cousin had to chase it away, drunk out of its tiny fucking mind, with an umbrella that made weird noises when opened. The bear ran for its life, crashed into our wall, fell on its ass, and scampered away.

I was playing on a swing once, all alone, and a fox came up to me, the most beautiful animal I had seen in my ten years of life. Thinking it wanted to pass, I stopped swinging and sat still not to spook it. But instead of passing, the fox circled the swing, found it wanting, and came to sit before me perfectly poised and looked me in the eye, and I could swear it wished to tell me something but I could not understand the language spoken before human time.

Then my mom came out of the nearby inn, shrieked at the fox and swung her purse to chase it away. The fox jumped, ran off and fell into a ditch, all notions of grace gone with the wind.

What I’m saying is: the old gods are absolutely idiot animals who embraced the life of constant sex and hedonism in return for losing their higher power. Whether or not they regret it, we’ll never know.

we-are-knight

@thegreenchapel

thegreenchapel-deactivated20211

Well the Old Gods are old. In the same way your grandparents are old. They’re a font of experience and wisdom, they’ve survived wars, famine, poverty–but they’re thwarted by a smartphone. The Great Stag understands “car” in the same way he understands “challenger.” He understands “fence” in the same way he understands “brambles” or “underbrush.” He can handle plant fiber in his way but metal might be a bit beyond him. The Old Gods understand their ways. The Great Stag can can give you the wisdom of being a stag, but humans aren’t stags, so not all of his wisdom applies to our experience. If you promise not to hunt in his forest for a year and a day, he’ll show the trails his herd uses so that you can get out of the woods faster. Maybe you’ll keep that memory, maybe you won’t. If you do remember, you are responsible for being a stewart.

Some believe the Old Gods are living gods. There’s no one single Mother Bear. It’s a title that gets passed on. The beings are inhabited by divine force much older and deeper than any human can imagine. Picture a pebble being thrown into a pond. Each new incarnation is like a new ripple expanding outward. If the Old Gods are living beings then they are limited and falliable. They make mistakes and are prone to embarrassment. Like we all are. Instead of merely venerating them, sympathize with them.

marlynnofmany

Behold, the rare sight of an Old God interacting with something new:

runcibility

Now hearing “In the air tonight” played on a church organ, thanks.

somecunttookmyurl

Listen my dudes Ancient Egypt existed for a really fuckass long time. Literally just Pharaonic civilization lasted 3,000 years. That’s not even including predynastic civilization and Roman rule. If you lump that in you’re looking at more like… 5,000 years. Like. If you want a comparison of how long that is: THE YEAR IS CURRENTLY 2018. TWO THOUSAND. TWO-THIRDS OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PHARAONIC CIVILIZATION HAVE HAPPENED SINCE THE ‘BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST’ We comparatively just entered the Third Intermediate Period. The Greeks will not take over for another 700~ years. Cleopatra will not be born until the year 2931.

It’s a really long time guys.

somecunttookmyurl

Anyway look. Listen. I sat my ass down and wrote out a timeline of “when shit happened if you started at 1AD” because I know backwards numbers are hard to process but here’s an abridged version. If the first Egyptian Pharaoh came to power in 1AD then…

300: step pyramid built 450: Great Pyramid at Giza built 815: Pepi II dies and civil war breaks out 950: Egypt re-unified 1350: Middle Kingdom ends 1450: New Kingdom begins 1520: Hatshepsut is on the throne 1650: Ahkenaten switches to monotheistic religion and builds a new city 1680: Tutankhamun dies 1720: Ramesses II ‘the great’ ascends to the throne 1740: World’s first peace treaty signed 1790: Ramesses II dies leaving way too many children 1920: Egypt breaks into 2 states again And now we get to ~~~~the future~~~~. If we started at 1AD all of this stuff hasn’t happened yet 2050: Briefly re-united as a single state 2180: Civil war 2250: Nubian kings take over 2335: Assyrian conquest 2665: Alexander the Great conquers Egypt 2930: Cleopatra VII born 2970: Cleopatra VII dies. Egypt falls to Rome. Fin.

And that’s just starting with the Pharaohs. If you wanted to start with Predynastic Egypt, you can go ahead and ADD ONE THOUSAND YEARS to all of those dates

somecunttookmyurl

I hate that this is still getting notes but that it’s getting notes *without the timeline addition* like c’mon, man. I had to do MATHS for this. I DID MATHS FOR YOU PEOPLE AND ALL I GOT WAS A BUNCH OF RACISTS

lonewolf23k

Who needs Atlantis when Ancient Egypt was basically the Precursor Civilization the Greeks and Romans lived in the shadow of?

satsuti

name a more iconic civilization i’ll wait

theleingod

You wanna know how much older Ancient Egypt was than Ancient Greece? To the Ancient Greeks, the events of the Iliad were back in the dim reaches of antiquity, so far back nobody really knew if they ever even happened.

To the Ancient Egyptians, the most likely timeframe for the events of the Iliad happened during a time period known as the “New Kingdom,” because it came after the Old and Middle Kingoms and the first two Intermediate Periods. That’s right: Back when the Greeks were having their foundational myths of heroes and gods, the Egyptians were in the middle of a “New Kingdom” and the pyramids were so old everyone had forgotten what they were even built for.

he-who-ships

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

finelythreadedsky

the myth of persephone is about the trauma of the separation of mothers and daughters by marriage and this is the hill i will die on

finelythreadedsky

To be clear I’m not against retellings that reinterpret the relationship between Hades and Persephone and present it as consensual and healthy– I do think there’s something incredibly powerful about looking at a story that’s been passed down to us through millennia about a girl being kidnapped and raped and saying “no. No, that’s not the kind of story I want to hear, that’s not the kind of story I want to tell, and that’s certainly not the kind of story I want my daughters to grow up on.” (Although I think it’s disappointing that these are now the only sorts of Persephone retellings we get, and at this point it’s really not a particularly revolutionary take, given how often it’s been done.)

But I also think we do a great disservice to the women of the ancient world by not remembering how this story, in that form, mirrored their very real pain. I’ve been thinking recently about how we can tell that women participated in the formation of their culture’s folklore because women’s trauma is embedded in it. (In Greek terms, the stories of Leto and Alcmene very clearly come out of women’s traumatic experiences with childbirth, and there are elements of women’s traumatic experiences of sexual assault embedded in, for example, the stories of Daphne or Callisto or Artemis and Actaeon) And the story of Persephone comes out of women’s experiences of being permanently separated from their mothers and daughters at marriage. (See also this post from @gardenvarietycrime.)

For an ancient woman sending her daughter off to be married, knowing that she will see her only rarely and that the odds of death in childbirth were high, Persephone meant something. For an ancient girl leaving her mother and her entire world for a man she may never have met knowing the same, Persephone meant something. I do think a lot of the conflation of death and marriage in the ancient world comes out of this: that a girl is dead to her mother and her family whether she leaves them to go to a husband’s house or the house of Hades. Maybe it’s a consolation to know that someone else has done this before you, to know that a goddess once lost her daughter and a goddess once lost her mother the same way you are losing yours. And that they survived it.

Essentially I think we need to remember that this myth (like all myths and all folklore) is not necessarily entirely the product of men, that women’s voices and women’s trauma remain embedded in it despite all of our written sources being men’s tellings of the story. And when we retell it we risk losing those voices if we are not careful and if we dismiss the myth as it survives today as solely men’s version of the story.

wordsmithic

This myth from my culture teaches us how strongly mothers love their children and how marriage without the consent of the daughter and the mother (generally the important female figures in the family) can bring catastrophy - because women had power and nothing is more powerful than the wrath of a wronged mother. OP’s take isn’t hypothetical. THIS IS HOW THE TALE IS INTERPRETED IN THE CULTURE. Millions of Greek women have been in arranged marriages and this has only stopped recently. This tale gave strength to my female ancestors and the trauma they had to endure. I won’t have any of “this is a myth made entirely for men“ bullshit.

(I don’t have any problem with the retellings, of course. People can get inspired by anything they want and they can write whatever they want).

heydeliah-deactivated20220520

Yes finally someone says it! To be frank. This is the version of the myth us Greeks are taught. The name of the myth is “Η αρπαγή της Περσεφόνης” which translates too “The kidnapping/taking of Pershephone.”

Arranged marriage where the daughter had to go miles away from her family (and would be lucky to see them once a year!) only started to stop at our grandparents time. Many of our grandparents are in arranged mariagges.

The taking of Pershephone is a myth about the strong bond of a mother and her daughter, and how she took power in her hands. And I am thankful to my mother and grandmothers for teaching it to me.

And this myth still affects today’s women!

It’s the custom in Greece to name your children after your parents. First children take the father’s parents name, and the second son and second daughter can be named after the mother’s parents.

But when my mother gave birth to me, the first daughet, she chose to name me after her mother because, and I quote: “I re-read an old mythology book when I was pregnant with you, and I remembered the myth of Demeter and Pershephone. And I thought that I didn’t have to sit do what the men want, because you are my daughet, and I want to honor my mother first.”

What I try to say is that, retalling can be nice, but the original myth was supposed to empower women. And it still does today.

lorelylantana

tI’ll always advocate for understanding the cultural context in which myths were created, but I’m also not surprised it evolved in the way it did. I would like to bring up a few points that I don’t often see addressed in conversations such as these. The first being that while it’s important to understand a myth’s origins, ultimately these stories have been about dealing with fears and issues present in their society of origin. The evolution of Demeter and Persephone’s story happened because some aspects of the myth don’t really translate into a modern world the way some of the more modern retellings do. I’m not saying arranged marriages have vanished off the face of the earth, but with modern technology and a different social climate contact between mothers and children have become much easier even half a world away. Thus, the fear of never seeing one’s daughter again after marriage isn’t quite as potent as it would have been in ancient times.

So the original myth, for many, became ‘obsolete’ for lack of a better term.

Furthermore, the Abduction of Persephone is an empowering story, but while it’s not made for men, it is very much made for the mother. There’s a reason why it’s called “The Hymn to Demeter”, it’s her story. Demeter’s the one who overcomes her trauma, her actions result in her reunion with Persephone. Persephone, who is every bit as traumatized as her mother, doesn’t quite get the triumph that Demeter does, and has just as much agency at the end of her tale than she had at the beginning, which is very little.

I’d also like to point out that most modern interpretations aren’t just an attempt to make the romance between Hades and Persephone more palatable. They’re depicting a very different form of trauma than the original, which is something that I don’t see acknowledged often in surrounding commentary. The main difference being that instead of having Demeter’s plight be the driving force of the narrative, Persephone herself is the focal point.

Most of these retellings that I’ve seen haven’t solely been about actually liking the person you’re married to, though it’s certainly a bonus, it’s been about choice. Persephone’s choice. This evolution sprung from a culture that’s very tired of the insistence that young women are helpless, and claiming the only merits these retellings have is how revolutionary they get is a bit of a disservice. Several, if not most, retellings will bring up and address Persephone’s own feeling of helplessness and desire to be heard. The original myth is about the conflicting wills of the mother and father, but the wishes of the daughter in question aren’t really addressed, and retellings reflect that.

It may be controversial to some, but the modern interpretations in which there is notable friction between Demeter and Persephone tackles concerns many children have about their parents undermining their attempts to grow up, and while I don’t think one version is more valid than the other, I think there’s a bit more nuance to the myth’s evolution than simply a pursuit of a better romance.

Again, the original myth and the message it sent is important, and should be remembered, I also really hope people understand that retelling the story is still very much about empowering women and looking into the side of the tale that hasn’t been explored as much in the original, and not just making Hades look better.

aflowerthatbloomsinadversity

@spiritspodcast

lesbiancloudtail

remember when percy jackson turned down becoming a god in favor of making the gods claim their children before they turn 13?? percy is camp half-blood’s union representative

harpersstupidmind

Zeus: yeah we can give you literally anything you want

Percy: Really? Then pay your fucking child support

yellow-sword

ok but like what if-

funnytwittertweets

andhumanslovedstories

I miss when everyone on my dash listened to Welcome to Night Vale so there’s be a good chance that on any ole day someone would reblog a quote that would grab me by the throat and forcibly ascend me to a higher plane where I understood myself and the universe better and with more kindness but also a little spook

andhumanslovedstories

“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present” are you kidding me this quote has propelled me through at least three emotional crises

willkill4pudding

“The desert seems vast, even endless. And yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow.” That quote literally got me through grieving my brother like WTNV goes HARD

barebitchinbodkin

A List of Some of My Favorite Quotes From This Insane Podcast:

"You are beautiful when you do beautiful things."

"The present tense of regret is indecision."

"We understand so much, but the sky behind those lights-- mostly void, partially stars-- that sky reminds us we don't understand even more."

"Be proud of your place in the Cosmos. It is small and yet it is."

"Believe in yourself. You are an ancient, absent god, discussed only rarely by literary scholars. So if you don't believe, no one will."

"Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you."

“Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. That’s what love is.”

"Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?"

"When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were – all stupid mistakes and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves."

"We are not history yet. We are happening now. How miraculous is that?"

"Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error."

"We have nothing to fear except ourselves. We are unholy, awful people."

"A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A basilisk."

"There's nothing under your bed. There's nothing in your closet. Nothing waits in every darkness. Nothing is the most terrifying thing of all."

"The night sky is ten miles wide, eight miles deep, and floats three miles up. Its favourite food is grape jelly. It wants to be a drummer."

"Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about."

"Ignorance might not actually be bliss, but it is certainly less work."

"And now, a special report. Crocodiles: Can they eat your children? *YES.*"

"Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry."

"As long as I’m reminding myself things, I’m a good person, worthy of love – both from myself and others."

"Guns don't kill people! It's impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it's a miracle!"

"Everything is exciting! Particularly existence. Existence is the most thrilling fact of all."

"There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window. A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world."

"You miss 100% of the bank robberies you don't commit."

"I like my coffee like I like my nights. Dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through. "

"A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale."

"And now, the weather."

I discovered this podcast at the beginning of high school, and let me tell you, it rewired my synapses.

Not only was it my first experience with positive LGBT representation, it was the show I clung to when everything else went to shit. Whatever was going on in my life, I knew I had this show in my corner, making me laugh, making me cry, making me feel okay about my place in the universe.

I owe the creators of this podcast more than I could express.

jessiesketches

say what you will about pirates of the caribbean but elizabeth swann started that movie being told ships were no place for women and ended it as the king of pirates and that’s pretty dope to me