Little Lambda

Rachel | Classicist | I have a Substack too

[littlelambda]

Tomorrow I'll relax. Tomorrow I'll do laundry. Tomorrow I'll sort my clothes. Tomorrow I'll watch those videos. Tomorrow I'll catch up on my favorite show. Tomorrow I'll finally watch that new show. Tomorrow I'll watch that recommended movie. Tomorrow I'll read all those books. Tomorrow I'll draft that essay. Tomorrow I'll continue my fiction WIP. Tomorrow I'll learn to draw. Tomorrow I'll play the cello again. Tomorrow I'll curate some pinterest boards. Tomorrow I'll go through old jewelry. Tomorrow I'll clean my room. Tomorrow I'll bake a cake. Tomorrow I'll bake cookies. Tomorrow I'll bake vatrushkas. Tomorrow I'll cook some pot stickers. Tomorrow I'll bake brownies. Tomorrow I'll cook pasta with homemade sauce. Tomorrow I'll bake a new recipe I've never tried before. Tomorrow I'll go grocery shopping. Tomorrow I'll gas up my car. Tomorrow I'll scroll social media. Tomorrow I'll catch up with friends. Tomorrow I'll sort my items to trash/donate/sell piles in preparation for moving. Tomorrow I'll figure out school bills. Tomorrow I'll figure out my car's settings with my father. Tomorrow I'll hang out with my brother. Tomorrow I'll hang out with my sister. Tomorrow I'll hang out with my other sister. Tomorrow I'll hang out with my other other sister. Tomorrow I'll talk with my mother. Tomorrow I'll call my friend. Tomorrow I'll make plans for my next day off. Tomorrow I'll queue up some tumblr posts. Tomorrow I'll plan my substack posts. Tomorrow I'll write poetry. Tomorrow I'll do character work. Tomorrow I'll world-build. Tomorrow I'll listen to the new album. Tomorrow I'll listen to the old album. Tomorrow I'll find a new artists. Tomorrow I'll catch up on my "need to listen" playlist. Tomorrow I'll catch up on my favorite youtubers. Tomorrow I'll catch up on the latest stupid drama. Tomorrow I'll play video games. Tomorrow I'll.... Tomorrow I'll... I-

Tomorrow.

[littlelambda]

I should have known better than to try to PLAN what Ill talk about next. Ive started like, three/four new articles and its the busy season at my job so I dont have time to research for or write any of them.

[littlelambda]

"why make a substack?" i ask myself... well you see, i have conversations with myself in the car driving to work. And sometimes I pause and realize im onto something. So I write my ideas down and now i must Do Something With Them or Perish.

[littlelambda]

one of my fascinations in the past year has been the situation/drama with milo winter / the age of scorpius, and ive been tossing around the idea of perhaps making an article about the drama since substack is a better website to post longer-form content. Even better than here on tumblr, which is by far the best social media I've come across in terms of word count per post. The issue is that even with my estimates, it'd have to be a series of articles rather than just one and I don't want to push substack to the word count limit multiple times, nor do I have (yet) a clean way to organize all the different angles to tackle this.

Also. as interesting as the drama is, a part of me does feel like that would be kicking a dead horse. And, as far as I can tell, but the community there seems to be less focused on this sort of "drama explained" stuff. So, unless I have a wider, more general and philosophical lesson I can talk about using TAOS/M.W. as an example, I don't see the point.

But where else can I post my rambles... maybe that's an issue when I manage to finish draft one lol

[littlelambda]

Achilles as Prophetic Victim & Perpetrator

Achilles as Prophetic Victim & Perpetrator

The Role of Prophecy in the Iliad & Achilles's Character Arc

Achilles's entire character arc revolves his mother's prophecy about his two choices in life and death. How does Prophecy affect him and the narrative, and how does his choices and personality affect them in return?

_

Hello! My name is Rachel and I'm trying out substack as a place to post articles/essays! I'm a Classicist, so I figured it would be fitting that my first article would be about Greek Myth.

Thank you if you decide to read!

[littlelambda]

Honestly trying to learn about how to earn money from substack makes my head swim. Like, do I just give stripe my personal bank information? I read online that someone can essentially steal money from you via charge-backs. Do I make a separate bank account, for business? I don't know if I want to deal with that. Do I need an LLC? Do I need to register as a small business? What are their fees? This is also making me think about taxes...

Should I just make a Ko-Fi account? PayPal? Venmo? Maybe I'll just cross that bridge when I get subscribers...

[thetiredprometheus]

Myth hot take: 90% of romanticised claims about Hades and Persephone are actually just Amor and Psyche

Persephone had an abusive home life

No, she had a very loving mother and friends. You know who didn't have a good life? Psyche, who's sisters were constantly jealous and who's parents were literally going to sacrifice her

Hades didn't want to kidnap her, he was ordered to by Zeus

No, he had permission from Zeus. Not the same thing. You know who was ordered to do something terrible by his superior (his mom)? Amor. And the kidnapping was actually against Venus' specific orders to do worse things.

Demeter was a controlling mother

No. But Venus was.

Persephone was scared of Hades at first, but over time she fell in love with him

Maybe, but as far as I recall (correct me if I'm wrong btw) there is no actual source that says that. But that actually happened to Psyche

Persephone actually wandered into the underworld of her own free will

No, that story comes from a children's book written in the 70s. You know who made her way into the underworld (while mortal and pregnant btw!)? Psyche

Hades is the best husband, he never cheated on Persephone

Yes he did, twice: Leukos and Minthe. Twice is still miles better than most gods, but its two times more than Amor cheated on Psyche (once again, correct me if I'm wrong)

[unfinishedname]

The next time I see someone romanticize the myth of Persephone I’m going to lose it. So just to try and hammer it into people, here’s a counter to every argument I’ve seen.

1. No, there is no Ancient Greek source depicting it as anything but an unwilling abduction. She is a victim of kidnapping (and implicitly in the Homeric hymn marital rape) and there is little to no wiggle room.

2. She did not eventually fall in love with him. Why do people think it’s feminist to imply a woman needs to reciprocate her abuser’s feelings in order to gain autonomy?? There is no literary source for this. The only thing that reminds one of this is an Orphic hymn where she curses Minthe for sleeping with Hades, which a) is not usually treated as a canonical source of Greek mythology, just the traditions within orphism b) is not proof she was in love with him. If you were abducted and abused and then on top of that your abuser humiliates you and defiles your bed what would you do??

3. Demeter wasn’t a helicopter mother she was a woman and a parent defending and protecting her daughter and her right to autonomy.

4. This is like the weirdest one but people claiming that abduction was normal in Ancient Greece, and thus Hades was not rapist nor a kidnapper but a man of his time. ?? So no, abduction wasn’t a part of the marriage ceremony in Ancient Greece. according to some sources, in ancient Sparta they staged abductions after the wedding preparations were finished, which the bride was aware and ready for. But it was an act, not an actual abduction.

5. “But myths change over time it’s okay!!” Persephone and Demeter belongs to the body of mythology of the ancient Greeks. Ancient Greece, which does not longer exist. Any retelling told after the fact has no validity.

6. “But why does it matter??” Mythology does not exist in a vacuum. Myths like Persephone’s are reflections of their time. In Ancient Greece, marriage represented a death sentence for women and girls, and mothers were expected to never see their daughters again after the wedding. This is probably why the myth emerged, because Demeter is a woman who says no, I will not lead my daughter to the slaughter, I will not let her go, I will not go quietly. She fights against the men who took her daughter away from her, who robbed Persephone of her agency and freedom, and she wins. She gets her daughter back, and Persephone gets to walk in the sun again. Erasing this in favor of some grand sexual awakening away from the chafing claws of motherhood is not only dumb, but disrespectful to the women and girls of Ancient Greece who are the faces of this myth.

The story isn’t about Persephone transcending girlhood and becoming a woman. It’s about her being sold and bought by the men around her and saved by the women around her. It is an empowerment myth, except their power doesn’t hinge on men’s whims. And in all likely hood mothers and daughters took comfort in this story. It does matter, because it is a part of a cultural narrative.

Say it with me, sexual power is not the only power women can hold!!!

[littlelambda]

I wanted to list out a few ideas of articles I could post on my substack. Some of these are going to be based on old university essays, while others are ideas I've been tossing around in my head for a while-

Historical Trojan War

Homeric Question

Prophecy in the Iliad (?)

High Middle Ages & Literature (maybe focusing on Arthurian Legend? I'm not a Medievalist or Arthurian Historian...)

Mithraisim

Modern Myth Retelling (maybe specifically focusing on The Homeric Hymn to Demeter)

Diary entries to record reading the Iliad (as a way to encourage me to sit down a reread it?)

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Honestly I can handle feminist myth retellings, particularly those centered around redeeming female villains. There's some clunkers out there, but every trend has that. What I can't handle is the the horde of backlash videos insisting these characters can't possibly be misogynistic stereotypes, as though the misogyny of the cultures and people telling these stories had no influence on them at all.

[littlelambda]

Introducing: Myself

Hello! Let me explain what I'm doing here.

I began a Substack account because I figured it'd be a nice way to post some old essays and random articles for fun online. They will mostly focus on my Classicist background, but I also plan on branching out.

This is just an introduction post and link to my account. I'm still figuring out the website, tbh. I thought having some social media linked to that account directly would be a good idea, for promotion or whatever? So, I also plan on looking into websites like Threads & Bluesky.

But yeah, my name is Rachel and I'll be posting things related to Classical Antiquity here, and whatever else I find interesting that may or may not be related to a possible article about it.

My main tag for original posts will be: "talkativelambda"

[lovedthestars-toofondly]

for this year's Halloween pumpkin I was seized by the vision of a Minoan octopus vase type motif and it wouldn't let me go until 202 individually carved suckers later