Using Motifs To Create Thematic Depth.

Anne Sexton, from a letter featured in Anne Sexton; A Self-Portrait In Letters

new idea struck me like an erratic butterfly what am i to do

Reblog to give a trans person a fresh and perfectly ripe mango wait huh

It's the wikipedia image??? How big could it be

What

Huh???

Hey OP, by any chance can you give us some sources to look at?

a quick psa to anyone recently getting into greek mythology and is a victim of tumblr and/or tiktok misconceptions:

-there is no shame in being introduced to mytholgy from something like percy jackson, epic the musical or anything like that, but keep in mind that actual myths are going to be VERY different from modern retellings

-the myth of medusa you probably know (her being a victim of poseidon and being cursed by athena) isn't 100% accurate to GREEK mythology (look up ovid)

-there is no version of persephone's abduction in which persephone willingly stays with hades, that's a tumblr invention (look up homeric hymn to demeter)

-as much as i would like it, no, cerberus' name does not mean "spot" (probably a misunderstanding from this wikipedia article)

-zeus isn't the only god who does terrible things to women, your fav male god probably has done the same

-on that note, your fav greek hero has probably done some heinous shit as well

-gods are more complicated than simply being "god of [insert thing]", many titles overlap between gods and some may even change depending on where they were worshipped

-also, apollo and artemis being the gods of the sun and the moon isn't 100% accurate, their main aspects as deities originally were music and the hunt

-titans and gods aren't two wholly different concepts, titan is just the word used to decribe the generation of gods before the olympians

-hector isn't the villain some people make him out to be

-hephaestus WAS married to aphrodite. they divorced. yes, divorce was a thing in ancient greece. hephaestus' wife is aglaia

-ancient greek society didn't have the same concepts of sexuality that we have now, it's incorrect to describe virgin goddesses like artemis and athena as lesbians, BUT it's also not wholly accurate to describe them as aromantic/asexual, it's more complex than that

-you can never fully understand certain myths if you don't understand the societal context in which they were told

-myths have lots and lots of retellings, there isn't one singular "canon", but we can try to distinguish between older and newer versions and bewteen greek and roman versions

-most of what you know about sparta is probably incorrect

-reading/waching retellings is not a substitute to reading the original myths, read the iliad! read the odyssey! i know they may seem intimidating, but they're much more entertaining than you may think

greek mythology is so complex and interesting, don't go into it with preconcieved notions! try to be open to learn!

beep >:3

Boop! Hello there <3

Me leaving comments on fics.

Can we please appreciate Odysseus being a silent stalker in the shadows, taking out suitors with his bow, not deigning to speak to them as he takes them out one by one

until some of them go "we have to strike him in the darkness too! we know the halls of this palace! the odds can be tilted!"

and Odysseus, built this palace with his very hands, has to step out of the shadows like "are you this fucking stupid"

I have two, but my retellings are like hadestown in which they use Greek mythology as a mode of storytelling to explore themes of ptsd and trauma and how that affects individuals (and those they love) and for the other themes of identity and love and trying to figure out who you are in a world that tries to tell you who you are.

I’m very excited to finish them :>

in my opinion, many modern greek retellings/stories inspired by greek mythology don't fail because they're inaccurate. they fail because they have nothing new to say.

i don't mind changes to the original myths, as long as they make sense and they have a narrative purpose! i understand that making changes is sometimes necessary to convey a certain narrative, especially to modern audiences.

is epic the musical mythologically accurate? hell no! but the changes serve to tell a specific story and to convey a certain message. also, epic the musical is self aware about its "inaccuracies". and the music just bangs.

is hadestown accurate? no! does it make the change that I always dread, removing the kidnapping from the hades/persephone myth? yeah. but hadestown is barely about them, and it uses greek mythology as a "narrative frame" to tell a certain story. it has a point. it has a message.

what are stories like lore olympus trying to say? what is the messagge of the hundredth persephone/hades retelling? what are we supposed to take from them? "don't listen to your mother she's a bitch"? "mothers are irrational and you should forsake her for a man"? very feminist.

why are we still doing the medusa "feminist" retellings? it's BEEN done. too many times. and they're ALL the same. it's a worse crime than being bad: they are boring.

i'm tired of retellings that are just "what if this very famous story was THE OPPOSITE and the protagonist was an ASSHOLE the whole time and the villain was MISUNDERSTOOD and the real VICTIM" okay but why. why would that be the case. what's the point of the story you want to tell. or do you just want to use shock value.

of course, i dislike retellings that are so different from the myth that they go AGAINST the spirit/message of the original, because in that case what's even the point of retelling the myth? just tell an original story. but i would take stabbed poseidon and capitalist hades any day over the same basic story of medusa being a girlboss or demeter being bad because of... reasons?

tl;dr: stop being unoriginal and tell a good story. or at least an entertaining one. i beg you

Writing is just aggressively whispering “Suffer.” at fictional people and then crying about it like it wasn’t your fault.

hiiiii

i should be banned from posting after 10pm. bad things happen in the evening when i am given free reign of the tumblr. Doing psychological warfare on my mutuals enjoy the mess that is. Me.