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misc writing and blog posts :) 

[ilions-end]

the one time the aeneid shows aeneas and ascanius talking together, aeneas kisses his son "through his helmet". the familial love is literally obstructed by the divinely ordained war aeneas never wanted to wage! and in book one we see aeneas pleading with aphrodite to just once come to him as a mother and hold him instead of a distant goddess in disguise telling him what to do. consider the loneliness of aeneas who is isolated both from his parent and as a parent himself.

like even hector was able to take off his helmet to hug his son, you know?

[cithaerons]

From his fever in Brundisium he visits like the wavering in bronze scratched grave-bound across its gods and heroes, the worried wick of a face still breathing light. Ceaseless as a vow, he is muttering the thread of elisions and emendations spinning ever finer, down to the last minute’s snap. He will reach its harsh caesura between the swell of the Adriatic and the setting Pleiades, his books unburnt, immortal, incomplete. He stands at your shoulder like a shade in a mist of marshes, carrying the torch for every maker who would have glimpsed just one more line ahead.

– Sonya Taaffe, Sibylline

[unfortunately-dogmatic]

Don’t you know?

The house of Atreus is haunted. The house is the ghost, the corpse, the cauldron full of food. Pick up the fork, the axe, the libation, kill your son/daughter/husband/mother, end the story and close the doors- burn the house with the house still inside. The girl picks herself up off the rock and walks home. Don’t you know? The house of Atreus is haunted.

They clasp their hands in agreement- the affair, the siblings, the house and the story. Co-conspirators all, agreeing to pen it to paper. How long did the shoulder roast, the woman-king weave, the sister weep. How could this time be spent without some of it

S e e p i n g into the packed earth

The ground was red before the scarlet tapestries were laid out in unison; the story told before it was played out. Are we not gods flipping the chapters of time? Asking ourselves what we’d murder for a bit of interest. Salivating slurring and spurring onwards that untouchable gory horror, the home of those ancient Achaeans.

Didn’t you know? The house of Atreus is haunted.

[redshield-writes]

Another scifi story with a very experimental POV. This one is a bit…angrier? in tone than the last two. But! It felt good to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it. It’s a bit longer than the others as well, so make sure you have the time! Warnings for grief, loss, and a very loyal starship.

QUERY: Where is my pilot?

QUERY: Where is my pilot?

QUERY_ALL: Where is my pilot?

>_Your pilot is dead. You have been called as a witness in their posthumous corporate trial. You will answer the Board’s questions without hesitation or omission.

ERROR: I don’t understand. My pilot is good. They would never have need to stand trial.

SUGGEST: Reassessment of trial’s necessity.

>_Overruled. You will answer the Board’s questions.

Keep reading

[iphisesque]

why is this written like one of those 90s/00s "where are they now" movie endings. don't you forget about me ass epilogue

[iphisesque]

*cicero voice* my client caelius was absolved. king ptolemy was restored on the throne of alexandria. remember how atratinus had tried to let his father off those bribery charges? well it backfired, and he was found guilty. clodia disappeared from the roman scene, since her image was forever tainted by my scalding diss against her. and me? *chuckles and puts on sunglasses* well, I'm still alive... and looking for my next case *drives away on a motorbike as the camera pans out and "don't you forget about me" starts playing*

[unfortunately-dogmatic]

nanowrimo progress!!! Day 5, but I only realized it was november on the third, so I think I’m not doing too bad. 

[thoodleoo]

i make fun of pliny the elder a lot but i DO have to give him credit for this certified good take about poor people not even being able to afford vegetables

[iphisesque]

we’re studying the bacchae as our classic set text right and we’re studying the hellenistic era as far as actual lit class goes so sometimes my friends are like “so semele had four sisters, agave, autonoe and ino” and i get to be like yeah and get ready for this crossover. ino was the one who sent phrixus and helle away on the golden ram in the argonautica. and they lose their shit

[leonardcohenofficial]

lisa peterson and denis o’hare, an iliad

[en-theos]

Demeter being a goddess of harvest and bounty and food in general being the only one who eats a bit of Pelops when he's served to all the gods...the goddess of food being the only one to consume human flesh...demeter feeding on human hunger and human fulfillment alike...

[ancient-rome-au]

[fateology]

“Leonidas at Thermopylae”, Jacques-Louis David + “Dulce et Decorum Est”, Wilfred Owen

[trucywright]

you ever think about how aeneas is a completely different person after leaving the underworld? up until that point, he constantly was delaying his fate, he didn’t want to do what was being asked of him (he threatened to stay and die in troy until the gods sent another sign, he wanted to stay in carthage until the gods told him to leave, etc). he was always resisting, but after going to the underworld… he does everything he’s told. that hesitation is gone.

but not only the hesitation. what makes aeneas aeneas, at least for the first half of the epic, is gone. the aeneas who sees a greek soldier abandoned on an island and lets him come along despite the treachery of the trojan horse and the destruction of troy… is not the same aeneas who threatens to burn down a town or who looks at a man, begging on his knees, and kills him out of rage and grief.

aeneas went into the underworld. Aeneas, the founder of rome, came out. 

[catilinas]

[en-theos]

“Some participants must have confused purification with having a nice swim, as in 339 BC a prospective initiate was eaten by a shark.”

Tries to get initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, gets eaten by shark. Can’t have shit in athens

[classicslesbianopinions]

Persephone adaptation this, Persephone adaptation that

I'm gonna write a version of the Hymn to Demeter where Demeter has a gun

[en-theos]

hmmmm hmmmm i know we are all helen apologists in this chili’s tonight but sometimes i become an evil helen apologist in the same way we’re medea and clytemnestra apologists. helen did go to troy voluntarily because well. she is half goddess and she plays by divine rules. Helen as a demigoddess does not have the same avenues of achieving kleos open to her as the heroes so. Helen bewitches every man of relevance in greece and binds them to her helen launches a thousand ships in her honour helen watches them all die at her feet helen immortalizes them but only through her she is the one weaving their myths together. helen challenges the horse what is the horse but wood and nails helen bewitches the one she hurt the most helen comes home again, which is probably the most impressive feat of all.