The World Gives You So Much Pain And Here You Are Making Gold Out Of It — There Is Nothing Purer Than

david shrigley

Hey, what do you think about Medea? I know people portray her as a cruel witch but I think she never had someone besides her than her aunt; Circe. She really deserved to be happy, right?

This is the story of the wicked villain’s daughter who whispers in the hero’s ear and teaches him how to overcome every trial. Through her magic she transmutes the most insurmountable labor into triviality, she foils the villain’s pursuit so that her father cannot catch them in their flight.

(she chops her brother into pieces and casts the pieces to the sea, so that her father’s fleet must be hindered dredging up every bloody portion so that their king might bury his son)

She is wise, and she is good, and she is wonderful, filled with wonders, and the story never thinks to ask:

Why, with all her knowledge and her power, in all the years before the hero came, did she do nothing to curb her father’s wickedness?

---

When Medea excoriates Jason for his betrayal, he snaps back in retort:

“You exaggerate your favors,” he sneers. “Should I thank you? Did you act purposefully? Or was it not the shafts of Eros, as Aphrodite willed, that compelled you to save my life?”  

---

Medea loves her children dearly, and she kills them, and in that she is beyond compulsion.

---

We might ask instead what purpose Jason served in the story, if Medea and the Argonauts accomplished all his feats for him. Did Jason on his own slaughter the six-armed Gegenees? Did he know how to withstand the fiery breath of the Kolkhis Bulls? Did he know the dangers of sowing the dragon’s teeth, how to lull the sleepless dragon into sleep?

Could he have outplayed the sirens, killed the bronze man Talos on his own initiative?

What was the point of him, then?

(the answer is: it was his story)

---

When Medea returns to her home of Colchis many years later, after all the unpleasantness with Jason is well and done, she discovers her tyrannical father has been overthrown by his brother Perses, the new king.

Unfortunately for her, this is no happy ending. Perses hopes to purge her father’s bloodline and eliminate all other claimants to the throne.

So, she kills him.

(she is good at that, killing family)

It was said that when the Golden Fleece was removed from Colchis, so too would the king be removed from his throne. Medea returns, years later, and kills her uncle and restores her father to the throne, and the old wrong is finally set right.

.

The dead are all still dead, of course.

---

After Medea kills her brother, the gods demand she must be cleansed.

The Argo sails through storm and hellish steam and darkness, and finally docks at Circe’s island. Circe slits the throat of a piglet, stains their hands with its blood. The hearth fires blaze bright, and many cakes are brought out to be burnt as offerings to Zeus.

“There,” Circe says afterwards. “All done.”

Medea sits next to her on the polished chairs, looking at the thin dark line of pig’s blood still beneath her fingernails. “I don’t know that I can ever be cleansed of this.”

Her aunt smirks. “Too bad,” she says. “Ceremony’s over. You are.”

“I just -” she says, and looks towards the Argo where Jason is waiting, and feels her throat close up with emotion. “I feel like I’m going insane. I don’t know what I’ve done. I feel like I would do anything for him.” 

“The only morality in the world is love,” Circe says. “Everything else is mere ambition. Falling headlong into someone else’s story, and selfishly living out your own.”

“I helped kill him,” Medea says. “I killed my brother.”

“He was hunting you down. They would have killed you both, if they caught you.” Circe looks meditatively into the fire. “The gods have done worse, for worse reasons. Zeus, the Cleanser of Sins, once tried to devour his own daughter.”

They are silent for a time. The fire crackles cozily, and the burnt fragrance of cake hangs in the air. “I don’t deserve any of this,” Medea says.

“Ah, that’s the cruelty of it.” Circe sighs. “You are part mortal and part divine, a truth unto yourself, consequence unmoored from judgement.” She lays a hand over Medea’s. “You don’t deserve a damn thing.”

---

When Medea kills her children, she weeps.

(but she has wept before, and gone on to do more wickedness, and so tears are neither salve nor salvation)

After her children are dead, Helios sends down a golden chariot from the heavens to carry her away, to carry away with her the bodies of her children, so that she might bury them with her own two hands in Hera’s sacred grove, safe from any further indignity or harm.

(as a sign from the gods, this might be taken as approval)

---

This is how Medea’s story goes: Time passes and wounds slowly heal. She falls in love again, and has another child. She falls into old habits and once again tries to kill her lover’s son, but this time is unsuccessful. She is forced to flee, and at last returns to her father’s kingdom. She kills her uncle. More kinblood is shed.

Her son Medus grows up to take the throne, and he is so renowned in conquest that the Aryans rename themselves the Medes, in his and his mother’s name.

He is her darling son. She loves him dearly.  

.

This is a happy ending, perhaps.

Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.

— Meša Selimović

tender

Safety glasses off, motherfuckers*.

*HE REALLY SAID THAT HE REALLY DID I WAS LOSING MY DAMN MIND

i’m survivin

common misconceptions of greek or roman mythology

» Nike & Dike are two different gods. Nike is the goddess of victory & Dike is the goddess of justice

» Hades is the god of the underworld & Thanatos is the god of death

» Persephone isn’t just the queen of the underworld, she’s the goddess of spring

» There’s two goddesses named Thalia, one of the muses, and one of graces

» In Greek, a name like Hekate or Kassandra would be spelled with a K, but in other languages it can be spelled with a C

» In Roman Mythology, Apollo is still Apollo (there many be other wording to how it’s spelt, but it’s still Apollo)

» Hermes could fly without his sandals as they were simply symbols for him

» The definition of the twelve Olympians changes because multiple texts decipher other gods/goddesses as being apart of the twelve Olympians

» The titans were not ultimately bad gods, some would say they were nicer to humanity and never tried to destroy humanity (this idea was popularized by Percy Jackson), and the Olympians attacked first

» There is no “Pandora’s” box, Pandora, who is actually a woman created, actually opened the box after being gifted it on her wedding day

» Not many people worshiped Ares because he was majority of the time on the losing side & he was considered too violent and difficult to have on your side 

» At first Rome’s gods had no appearance until they absorbed more Greek Mythology

» The Trojan War is still being debated as actually happening, there has been debris found that could indicate that there was a siege to the city

» Male demigods tended to have higher-than-average ambition and physical powers, while female demigods (like Helen of Troy) only were gifted with exceptional beauty

»  Death gods were pretty laid back compared to other gods & the only person/god Hades ever killed was Asclepius, but only because Asclepius was bringing the dead back to life & disrupting the cycle of life

till the storm passes

PJO RAREPAIR WEEK (DAY 4): Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: Jason/Reyna (Jeyna)

Word Count: 1124

This fic is based on Seven by Taylor Swift. Shoutout to @exqviseit for the idea ily bestie. Also they aren't exactly seven here but the vibes are there and that's what's important

Jason could hear them. Even over the deafening rain pounding on his windows and the winds rattling the trees in the lawn, he could hear the yells from next door. The sounds of a man raising his voice and the slightly shriller voice of a girl shouting back at him.

From his bed, he could vaguely make out the outlines of Mr. Avila and Hylla next door, both of them moving around the living room of their home. He hoped they would stop. He knew Reyna would be up in her room, head buried in a pillow, and talking to herself to drown out the noise. But today, that might not be enough.

He knew the situation was bad in the Avila household. Ever since Mrs. Avila had left the family one fine day last summer, Mr. Avila had spiraled into drinking. Jason was more aware of this than he wanted to be, thanks to the many, many times his infuriating step mother had brought it up during dinner, as she tried to fill his father in on the “neighbourhood gossip”. Ever since then, Hylla had been getting into more fights with Mr. Avila, some of them lasting well into the night.

Jason would always know whenever they fought. Even if he couldn’t hear them through his window, he knew by the dark circles under Reyna’s eyes the next day at school that she hadn’t slept all night.

Sometimes, he wished he could just bring her home and have her stay with him. But he knew his parents would never agree to that. That didn’t stop him from dreaming of a day when both of them could get away from their families and run. Far away from the little neighbourhood they lived in, far from the identical houses with picket fences and manicured lawns to places he could genuinely be free.

He was startled from his train of thought by a loud sound near his window. He blinked twice, thinking he had imagined it, when it happened again. He slowly got up from his bed, making his way to the window, wondering if a bird had accidentally landed on the sill and was now trying to get in. As he looked out the glass, he saw a small figure standing right below him, absolutely drenched by the rain, throwing tiny stones.

Reyna.

Jason quickly pulled open his window and called out, “Hold on, I’ll open the door for you,” just as another stone flew up, narrowly missing his cheek.

His brain had already started thinking of ways he could open the main door and smuggle Reyna into his room without his parents hearing him, but before he could turn around, Reyna had started climbing on the lean birch next to his window.

He knew Reyna could handle herself, having seen her climb the trees around their neighbourhood multiple times, but the storm outside was relentless. He gnawed on his lip slightly, hoping that she wouldn’t fall from the thin branches and break her arm, but again, this was Reyna. In a matter of minutes, she had pushed herself through his window and now stood in his room, dripping water on the carpet.

“Hold on,” Jason whispered, opening up his cupboard and bringing out his favourite towel, an old blue one with superman logos, hoping it would bring a smile to her face. He handed it to Reyna, who accepted it with a muttered thanks. As she wiped away the water from her arms, Jason couldn’t help noticing the separate tracks of water from her eyes, very obviously not from the rain. He wanted to comfort her but he knew a single wrong step could frighten her more.

Jason made his way to the bed, pulled back the covers and sat down. Reyna followed, taking a seat next to him. The room was dead quiet for a few minutes.

Then Reyna slowly moved closer to him, tentatively laying her head on his shoulder. Jason gave a small smile before wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Jason could feel her steady breathing on his skin as she meddled with the ends of her hair.

He murmured, “You know you’re safe with me, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, letting out a small sigh. “It’s just... I bother you too much.”

Jason shook his head, exasperatedly. “Rey, you know you’re not a bother. You need to understand that..”

She lifted her head from his shoulder, looking into his eyes with that desolate look that made his heart clench painfully. She whispered, “Then why do they always treat me like one?”

In that moment, Jason was tempted to go over next door and yell at her family till his voice became hoarse but that wasn't what Reyna needed. He gazed at her face, lifting his hand to her face to push away a stray strand of hair, and said, “I don’t know Rey, but they must be insane to do that. God, you’re one of the best people I know. I just…” he paused, wiping away a tear trickling from Reyna’s eye, “I just want to run away from here with you. Like far far away, where we can just be ourselves.”

Reyna let out a shaky breath. “I’d like that as well. Just you and me.”

She paused and silence fell upon the room again, silence that filled the little spaces between their bodies. Jason cautiously lifted his hand from Reyna’s shoulder to her hair, lightly running his fingers through her hair. He felt her tense against his chest for a second, before relaxing again. They stayed like that for a timeless minute, just the both of them in his small room.

The silence was broken when Reyna murmured, “I wish they’d stop yelling...I don’t think I can take it anymore. Day after day of both of them losing their minds and breaking things. I just wish I could have a day where I can fall asleep in peace and wake up to a normal house.” She let out a small sigh. “But that’s too naïve to hope for.”

Jason grabbed her hand, holding it in his hands as his words came out in a frenzied mess. “It's not naïve and one day, you’ll have it, I swear!”

She gave him a small smile. “What if I want you there?”

“Then you’ll have me too.”

Reyna wrapped her arms around him as he held her as close as possible. “I love you, Jay,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.

“I love you too, Rey Rey,”

Later that night, as they sat next to each other, reading his comic books, she asked, “You’ll stay with me? Till the storm passes.?”

He smiled. “Till forever.”

She smiled back.

Omg would you look at that....a not angsty jeyna fanfic from me....Anyways please do reblog and comment it really does mean a lot.

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Ahh, my boys with their father❤❤❤

I’m not crying you’re crying

ethereal dreamscapes by maya beano