#Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters

[words-and-coffee]

You smell of death. Everything about you  is an endless goodbye

Nikita Gill, Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monster - Demeter To Hades (A Mother's Fury)

[supitsgdo]

Book review: Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill

Rating: 5⭐️

Do you know when you start a book and instantly fell in love? Yape. That happened to me. I fell in love with the way Nikita expressed their sentiments. I was captured by the poems. I don't usually read poetry because it's kind of difficult for me to understand. But in this book, I felt everything. It was beautiful. And I indulge myself and bought the hardcover and I was really surprised with the illustrations!!! They are amazing!!!!!!

Quotes:

“What good is it to be the leader of a legendary tribe of women who do not bow and do not break, if the myth still ends this way? With the same message every time: ‘You are powerful. You are revered.’ But still you will meet your end at the hands of men.”

“Maybe that's why you demonised them, turned them into monsters, because you think monsters are easier to understand than women who say no to you.”

“If a woman does not fit the shape of what you think a woman should, if a woman is not obedient, does not see things the way you do, if a woman is too independent to need anything more than herself, does she automatically become a threat filled with such terror to you?”

“And when the burning inside your chest claws, insults you as forgotten, hideous, unloved every single night, you learn how to create iron, then a sword, and challenge those demons to a fight.”

“Why be a half-finished poem in some forgotten poet’s story, when one can be an odyssey in and of herself, part magic, part villain, part Goddess, part lover.”

[shisasan]

Nikita Gill, “The Moon Goddess” from Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters

[petaltexturedskies]

You prefer books to people. You are quiet. Always in contemplation,

Nikita Gill, Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths & Monsters

[duckprintspress]

Read Our Favorite Queer Poems for World Poetry Day!

Happy World Poetry Day! Poetry is a gorgeous, versatile, evocative medium, and we’re delighted to share some of our favorite queer poems with y’all. Note that some of the links below are to the poem’s full text, others to the source book; we did our best to provide useful links, but sometimes finding the link for a specific poem out of a collection is challenging. The contributors to this list are: Rascal Hartley, Sebastian Marie, YF Ollwell, Meera S., Shannon and an anonymous contributor.

If Amram’s Son by anonymous from The Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain by Judah Alharizi

someone will remember us, I say, even in a different time from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho

How to Watch Your Brother Die: A narrative poem by Michael Lassell

Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill

The Torso by Robert Duncan

Many Loves by Allen Ginsberg

If Your Heart Is Burning: Selected Poems and Artwork by Felix Vanasse

The Inn of Dreams by Olive Custance

I Want A President by Zoe Leonard

The Humbled Heart by Siegfried Sassoon

Jesus at the Gay Bar by Jay Hulme

The giver (for Berdis) by James Baldwin

I Watch Her Eat the Apple by Natalie Diaz

Wanna chat queer poetry and books? Come, join the Book Lover’s Discord server!

Can’t get enough poetry? Check out our post from two years ago for poetry month, with Tiktok recordings of us reading a few of our favorites, and last year’s roundtable chat!

[ayarosenweiss]

Poison Tree

King Hannibal-Hades and his partner Queen Persephone-Will, rulers of the underworld, sent to deliver divine and righteous punishment to mortals on earth 🦌🗡

For Mono @monoisbored 💕

As part of the Spring Digital Gift Exchange on @folieadeuxserver #FADserver

❌️please NO repost or remove credits

❌️No N/F/T or A/I allowed

Lovely poem below the cut!

I sensed you before I saw you.

The sugar flavour of meadow wrapped

nectar in the air, and my eyes searched

for its source, your face the essence

of what I had been waiting for

all those cold and lonely years

my family had made me the guardian

of Elysian and hell, until you stepped

into my world like a galaxy bursting

in front of an astronomer’s telescope.

Tell me, with all those speckles

on your skin did anyone tell you that

you are a constellation, waiting to be loved

and explored? Did the bumbling River-Gods

who tried to court you ever understand

that you were destined for so much more?

I saw you, Spring Goddess, restless in your loneliness,

pulling at crimson flowers to watch them die,

wondering if immortality was worth anything

if you were powerless to have any control

over your fate or your destiny. Come now,

tell the truth. I saw you rattle at the invisible

chains of smother, of boredom, of too

much comfort.

Let me give you the challenges

you need: the mastery over

your own fortunes

and the legacy of a queen.

Allow me the privilege to be the darkness

behind your shining star, become the queen

of my kingdom of dead and show those who did not

understand you for the Goddess you really are.

—Hades to Persephone 

from Great Goddesses: Life Lessons From Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill

[casthecryptid]

From Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill

[starsforpupils]

Nights filled with worship, holding each other like a prayer unspoken,

Nikita Gill, from "Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths & Monsters,"

[theharpermovieblog]

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

I re-watched Clash Of The Titans (1981)

In 2010 they made an unremarkable, unmemorable remake of this film, full of bland CGI effects. Fuck that movie. Here's the original 1981 version.

Perseus, son of Zeus and a mortal woman, must defeat mythical monsters and the satyr Calibos in order to marry his beloved Andromeda.

Ray Harryhausen's stop motion special effects are an endlessly interesting piece of talent and film history. Dated in some respects, but full of the charm and wonderment that fantasy cinema is all about. That's why, when you ask me why I prefer the old version of this film to the newer soulless CGI laden trash heap, the answer is simply, because I like film not budgets and technology.

The 1981 version of Clash Of The Titans is the last flicker of an era of films, most of which involved Ray Harryhausen's effects. Films about classical myths and fables, Gods and Goddesses, a hero's journey and lots of claymation monsters. The best of these films are usually considered to be The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. The former coming out in 1958 and the latter in 1963. That means Clash of the Titans is, on average, twenty years older than both films. But, despite it's '81 release, Titans has more in common with those older films than anything made in its era. Making it dated in style.

It's actually beautiful to see stop motion so heavily used in the 1980's. It was certainly still used in films at the time, but not in the heavy way it is here. What's so fantastic to me about it's use here, is that it still works so well. Yes, it's not all perfect and it's obviously fake, but I'd argue it's just somehow more magical than CGI is ever going to be. It's incredibly human and beautifully flawed.

It's 2023 and we're all still so glad to see a director of any film use practical effects over CGI, because seeing the work that went into something and the winking trickery on screen is part of the fun.

(I wanna be clear that CGI does have its place and that I do see it as an artform, so don't come at me lol. But, it's overuse over every other time tested style, is ruining filmmaking a bit.)

Clash of the Titans isn't perfect. You could blame the original myth for that. Greek and Roman mythology isn't exactly deeply written and is more about life lessons and spectacle than character growth or development. But, this fact doesn't really distract from my ability to enjoy this movie. I'm here for the pompous stage style acting, the story or heroes and monsters, those fun special effects. I'm here because I love Ray Harryhausen's work and believe he should be celebrated for what he gave to cinema. I'm here because I love movies.

I honestly don't know how you could not like this one, unless you really hate cheesy fun movies.

There's a really great cast, fine direction, some interesting sets and shots, good pacing, Maggie Smith looking pretty hot, etc...

Watch this with your kids, and if your kids don't like it, get new kids.

[words-and-coffee]

seek no homes in other people’s chests,

Nikita Gill, Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters - Advice From Hestia to Girls

[adrasteiax]

Something she cannot name inside her still feels missing.

Nikita Gill, from Aphrodite, After in “Great Goddesses: Life Lessons From Myths And Monsters”

[wedarkacademia]

“Maybe that's why you demonised them, turned them into monsters, because you think monsters are easier to understand than women who say no to you.” ― Nikita Gill, Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters

[petaltexturedskies]

Love can never die, not completely. There were too many romantics, too many poets, too many places where lovers could meet and kisses could be shared. There is still love to be found here. It just needs someone to whisper it back to life. This is spell work. It is time-consuming, full of errors… but it is not impossible.

Nikita Gill, from Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths & Monsters

[shewhotellsstories]

“Triton has his mother’s patience and his father’s eyes. But his sense of duty and honour is his own. He shows this by being the kind of man his mother raised as opposed to the man his father refused to bring up.”

-NIkita Gill, Great Goddesses: Life Lessons From Myths and Monsters

This line reminded me of Ursa, Zuko, and Ozai. A big part of Zuko’s story is being torn between being his mother’s son or his father’s son. With Iroh’s influence and the part of him that’s just him somewhere in between. 

[subsole]

Conversations Between Hermes & Dionysus - Nikita Gill

‘Are you lonely?’

‘Never. Are you?’

‘Without her? Always.’

Ariadne was everything he did not merit but everything he needed. Graceful till the end, dancing joy into his life, the only one who knew how to bring the truest of smiles to his face, not even his maenads knew how to do that. She was not beautiful but she was grounded and she carried the look of someone who had known sorrow and thus knew kindness. There was something so human about her. Something that called to the crimson in his blood that mixed with the ichor.

When she was killed, he did everything a God shouldn’t. He reacted with the rage of a man. He shouted curses at his own father, he ripped open a hole in the ground, descended into the underworld, fought Thanatos, almost wrestled Hades to the ground and demanded her back.

[cupofteajones]

Quote of the Day - August 10, 2021

Quote of the Day – August 10, 2021