#like ancient Greeks had such a different way of seeing the world it’s really interesting

[strangely-small-rat]

I ❤️ greek mythology

[cursecuelebre]

Ancestral Veneration and Why it’s Important

This is going to be a post about a topic that people seem to forget or deem unimportant even fearful about with either good reasons or just never thought about it. I just wanted to mention YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORK WITH ANCESTORS IN YOUR PRACTICE this blog is mostly for those who are interested in it and not sure what ancestral veneration is.

I’m a pagan and a witch that practices Ancestral veneration in my practice, not around it but it’s definitely a big part of why I practice certain paths. I’ll go in beginner tips, what to expect and the myths, the offerings and the recommendations. But let me go a bit into the importance of Ancestral Veneration and worship in human history since it’s still prevalent today.

Historical importance of Ancestral Worship

Ancestral worship and veneration has been at least one of the oldest religions that humans have ever believed in. Archaeological evidence shows the early humans taking care of their dead and burying them for respect and dignity maybe even courtesy to the deceased. It became sacred to them, imagine back then without fully understanding about the world someone that you spoke and saw now gone, it’s a profound moment one’s life that they must believe that their spirit lives on and they themselves wanted a peaceful resting place. It’s a cycle, many cultures and religions believe that life is a cycle, death is never the “end” rather an end of a journey to a new part of one’s life.

To this day people honor their deceased loved ones, visiting their graves, offering them gifts at their resting places, speaking to them, having their picture on a table surrounded by their favorite flowers, etc. Honoring the dead and respecting the dead is a very revered part of human life and something that we all would like to expect when we’re gone from our living family. Spirits also related or not, the dead as well should be treated with outmost respect and dignity like our ancestors did.

Some cultures like the Romans believed that if the spirits especially ancestral spirits (Lares) weren’t appeased they become angry if worshipped improperly or their will have not be been fulfilled. In Ancient Greek tradition they would place a coin in the mouth for the deceased to make sure their spirits would go into the afterlife safely and less traumatic. Each culture and society had a different way of how the ancestors would live in the afterlife.

Even in the Christian Bible shows the significance of ancestors, there is a reason why genealogies are included in the Bible. How Jewish people revere Abraham as their founding father since he is the first Hebrew patriarch which is very important to them and their religion. How even Jesus is related to David on both sides. Even immediate family is important like Jesus’s mother Holy Mary. In Norse Paganism it’s said that the kings were descend from gods like the Swedish Royal family related to Freyr. In Shintoism it is said that the First Emperor of Japan is related to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. Japan and other many East Asian countries have a strong relationship and traditions regrading Ancestors.

Why Ancestral Veneration?

Ancestral Veneration is generally taken outside of paganism and witchcraft a very sacred thing for families, they can heal, they can come together, grieve together, reminisce together especially if they knew that person in life. But also asking the deceased loved ones for guidance and protection, to help their family in life whom they love the most. Plus this can help especially if you are into past life regression, we reincarnated with our ancestors many times and they have been able to see us in their time and now. It can be really insightful to understand of who we were in those lives.

Whatever legacy they left behind that you admired from them is continued for generations to come as well as heirlooms, a mother passing down her sentimental items to daughters or their children alike it’s a remembrance of what they were known by as well.

“Cows die, family die, you will die the same way . I know only one thing that never dies: the reputation of the one who’s died.” Havamal, Stanza 77.

If you’re going into paganism or witchcraft or both that are related to your ancestry. Your ancestors are the best teachers and mentors especially if they also have been in these specific practices and traditions. If you want to learn Seidr for instance a magical practice rooted within Scandinavian traditions and you have said Scandinavian roots you can contact a ancestor that practiced it in life and willing to help and teach you. What’s unfortunate about ancestral veneration looking down upon for many centuries making people turn away and against the practice is that it’s said that spirits can become lost if they aren’t being honored or remembered that makes them fade and lost.

Five Myths about Ancestral Veneration and what to expect. This is not going to be sugarcoated, I’m being honest and this what I’ve experienced in my own practice and how many others have experienced as well. I would add on if I forgot anything but these are most common misconceptions I have heard. The red are the myths if you are wondering.

Myth #1: All ancestors on the other side have my best interest and support all what I’m doing This is a common misbelief, now there is ancestors that will support you no matter what and your actions. But if you’re a pagan and a witch there is going to be Christian ancestors who won’t support you at all. Their human spirits with still human functions and beliefs. Not to say you can’t communicate but set your intentions and boundaries before meeting them, some will tolerate and some will make their opinions and beliefs known possibly even try to convince you. I know it sounds like fear mongering but it’s to what you would expect. This doesn’t mean you cannot make contact or venerate them because of it. It’s a choice that is a two way street, even spirits in the other side have freewill just like we do.

Myth #2: All Ancestors are well in spirit No, not exactly, when humans on earth do horrible things or experience horrible things it will take affect in the spirit world no matter what. Keep in mind time works very differently in the other world that it will take centuries for those who are healing to fully recover and those to actually realize their problems, messed up life on earth if they choose to recognize it. Again as I said just humans in the physical world human spirits also have free will and choices.

Myth #3: Only Human spirits are ancestors Nope commonly yes when we think of Ancestors we think of human beings that lived either with us or before us. But this isn’t the case, pets for instance that became our beloved family members and part of our inner circle are our ancestors. My cat that recently passed I had him since I was nine years old, I always thought and treated him like family because of that he merged into my family circle. Also animals can symbols of family, like a bear, an owl, an elephant, etc. that they can be represented as your ancestors as a whole.

Myth #4 : Ancestors are limited to just blood family Also a misconception, close friends and even adopted family members are considered to be close family. Some people won’t have blood relatives in life and find their found family which is just as valid and meaningful like a blood family is. This also goes to if you’re a person that likes to write you might venerate your favorite author, if you like to draw or paint you can venerate an artist that you admired a lot. Your family might have patron saints, deities, or local heroes and spirits that have been part of your family for generations. That’s why it’s nice to know where your family originated from what country, village, city, etc.

Myth #5: No Ancestors of mine did anything wrong Everyone’s ancestors did something horribly wrong in their lifetime, some were messed up people. But there are good ones that aren’t like that anymore, if you want to venerate them that’s up to you and your practice. I personally don’t do it because especially if they did something wrong and have no remorse for it I ain’t venerating none of them.

There is no reason to be afraid.

I know I seemed to be fear mongering in the previous part that’s because I don’t want to sugarcoated of which is most likely to be expected.

The Bottom line when contacting (if you want to have contact with them) and venerating your ancestors is that their no different from a human person in this physical realm. They will have personalities, likes, dislikes, opinions, beliefs like any other human being BUT from my experience a lot of my ancestors are very wise, humorous, kind, and non-judgmental. My advice if you really want to contact someone who is going to be supportive and helpful in your paganism and witchcraft, ask specifically for that person I usually ask for ancient ancestors pre Christian wise but there many folk witches and pagan ancestors that are more modern and recent that can most definitely help you! Speak to them like any other human interaction would be as if you’re talking to a living friend, family member or complete stranger you’re meeting for the first time.

How to Communicate with your ancestors

I have mention “contacting” your ancestors you can speak with them it’s not impossible.

1. Meditation and dream work: Most common and effective way to really get them to communicate you and send signs is through dreams. Meditation for a clear and close connection with them.

2. Tarot: Very common and just as effective, my most recommended first step when communicating with your ancestors. Using a tarot deck can help with putting your foot through the door. There is a great book which will recommend at the of the blog that does ancestral and tarot together.

3. Pendulum and a spirit board: This is more in depth but it has been very effective for me and many others to really connect and communicate with my ancestors. It’s good to state your intentions and boundaries before doing any of said above, but this is where you really need to set it. Before starting grab the pendulum over the board don’t let it swing and say, “I ask of the good and supporting ancestors that have me in good intent and support of my path and practice, I would like to meet you”. Of course you get specific like “I would like to meet an ancient Roman ancestor” that’s just an example of how it would go safely and respectfully.

4. Just talking to them. Yep sounds easy enough, you would just get something that represents ancestors or even a specific ancestor. For instance your grandmother’s rosary and just talk to them or pray to them. It’s a very simple and comforting way to bond with your family.

Offerings

This is going to be a “it depends on the ancestors” but there has been a universal notion of what ancestors do really like. From items, food, drink, etc.

Rosaries for catholic ancestors or the cross for Christian ancestors generally speaking

Pagan symbols for your pagan ancestors

Statues of ancestral gods or saints or other important entities

Sweets: Cookies and cakes are very popular

Alcohol: my Germanic ancestors love it when I offer beer, mead, ale. But also wine and other alcoholic beverages for others.

Regular libations like water, coffee, tea. juice, etc. good substitute if you cannot use alcohol.

Their meals from their home country, my Italian ancestors, recent and ancient love it when I make them pasta.

Incense some cultures call it the food for spirits

Heirlooms

Family photographs

Candles

Coins

Book of the dead, if you meet an ancestor you can record them down into a book that is solely for your family and to be passed down on and on. It’s a memorial service to them that someone knows their name and who they were.

Specific traditions that your ancestors came from for instance libations of wine for your Greek ancestors.

Good ancestral veneration books that personally helped me a lot and I know a lot of others to get started.

Ancestral Tarot by Nancy Hendrickson she helps how to contact and connect with your ancestors and ancestry using tarot

Ancestral Grimoire by Nancy Hendrickson like Ancestral Tarot she goes how to connect with your ancestors but this time how to really work with them. One of the exercises is to work with an ancestor for a month and a different for the next one.

Honoring your Ancestors by Mallorie Vaudoise she gives good information on different ways to connect with your ancestors, the different types of ancestors, she does have a Southern European and Catholic folk magic take to it which is fine but it’s not the sole focus of it but she does put good information in the book to help someone get started. 

Badass Ancestors by Patti Wigington also good beginners guide to ancestral veneration and how to connect through meditations and develop relationships with them even how to deal with problematic ancestors. She goes into how to research your genealogy and useful tips!

[mythalism]

Have you ever thought how would a meeting between Mythal and Lavellan go, if inquisitor was the protagonist instead of Rook? (a girl can dream)

I wonder if both of them having history with Solas will be a point of discord between two women, or on the opposite will foster an understanding.

oh boy anon.... have i......

if you had asked me a few years ago id actually tell you that my personal ideal lavellan storyline would have involved her taking on the fragment of mythal. and solas being horrified by it LOL

now, knowing the dynamic between solas and mythal, i dont think i still would have wanted this. it would be horrifyingly tragic. like true classic greek play makes you feel sick kind of tragic. and i do enjoy that but i think it would have actually ruined my life if they went there.

as for what i think it might look like, i think we already have an idea. we did see flemythal and the inquisitor react, and flemythal says she does the people proud. or that they kneel too easily LOL. shes mostly indifferent. morrigythal and the inquisitor also seem fairly close in veilguard, at least far closer than they were when we left them 10 years ago. "speaking from the heart, inquisitor?" was PERSONAL but playful and fond, imo. the way morrigan looks at lavellan when she talks about solas each time also makes me think they've talked about everything. i actually really enjoyed the tidbits of their friendship we saw. bonding over a shared ex boyfriend you will always be famous. even when the ex is shared by uhhhhhhhh ancient goddess fragment hanging out next to your soul.

as for how fragment mythal would have reacted... honestly i dont think she would have treated lavellan that differently from how she treats rook, aka as a mildly interesting bug that has crawled across her carpet that she is contemplating squishing or taking outside in a cup. depending on how it behaves.

we dont know the extent of her ability to "watch" the world but considering she knows about pretty much everything we can assume she is aware of solas and lavellan. and shes even in the same room as them at one point and does not say or do anything. i really dont think she gives a fuck LMAO. i think fragment mythal sees herself as truly god-like and thus she would probably not really clock lavellan as a threat. i also think she does not care about solas enough to be truly jealous. i also think there is a part of her who wants him to be happy because why free him if not? i think all of these things exist inside of her simultaneously and as a result she would prob just be a haughty bitch to lavellan like she is to everyone else. maybe with a few extra zingers thrown in about solas to taunt her and see if she rises to the bait. maybe she'd lay the "test your worth" on a bit thicker because she'd want to see the mettle of the mortal who got the dread wolf's heart.

as for how lavellan would treat mythal that would be sooooo varied based on everyones personal lavellan that i get why we didnt see it in game. mine would be pretty pissed off but she would have a healthy amount of the fear of god in her and probably not be openly antagonistic. but definitely snarky. there is also a place for mythalavellan toxic yuri in my soul but thats a conversation for another time. ultimately i think mythal is putting lavellan in a cup in a rare moment of solidarity and empathy and putting her outside. but not gently. she kind of throws the whole cup out the door y'know and goes "ew. good luck with ur ugly fucking boyfriend" and continues on with her life unbothered. to seek revenge and a horrible reckoning ofc

[astercontrol]

On Program love

Most of my posts about Tron headcanons on here are play-by-play, often screenshot-illustrated analysis of why a certain interpretation makes sense to me, based on details of onscreen canon and conclusions that can be easily drawn from it.

This is something a little different.

It's inspired by canon, inspired by some of the more direct headcanons I've drawn from it-- but this analysis is less about canon support, and more about just… how I like to imagine things.

It's about love. Specifically, different types of love that ENCOM programs feel.

I've talked before, in my more canon-detail-focused analysis, about their attitude toward their "gods." I've talked about their polytheistic, individually-focused worship, often treating the Users as familiarly as colleagues or family-- and their acceptance that deities can be imperfect, limited in their power, and often in conflict with each other.

And I've talked about how neatly all of this fits into the film's Greco-Roman-inspired aesthetic, completing the theme with this… very ancient-Greek-inspired sort of religion.

I've talked about the ways I think their religion and their sexuality are intertwined. I've talked about the ritual at the I/O Tower when Tron arrives to contact Alan-1, and how clearly erotic the whole structure of it seems to be. And how that, too, ties in to some of the eroticism that ancient Greek worshipers had with their gods.

Now I'm going to go just a bit beyond that, and talk about what I imagine love means to programs.

And past this point, it's really more my own fantasy than any sort of logical observation. It's definitely not an attempt to say anything "true" about the source material.

But it may be of interest to you if, for instance, you've read my fanfic about Tron and his polycule, and want some more insight into how I see that working.

Anyway.

As I understand it, ancient Greece had some different words for different kinds of love. A few of them were Eros (love for a sexual partner), Philia (love for a friend) and Agape (love for a god). And when I imagine the kinds of love that Encom programs experience in their daily lives, I imagine them roughly echoing these three categories.

But with some differences.

For one thing, I imagine that for programs, all three of these types of love can be (for lack of a better word) sexual.

Because I imagine that programs have sexuality-- or something like it-- that is much more ubiquitous throughout all aspects of their world than it is for humans.

This is not to say that all programs interact sexually with every part of their world. In fact, I would say:

-There's enormous diversity among different programs in how they experience pretty much everything. -This can range from a life that humans would categorize as hypersexual, to one that humans would categorize as completely asexual. -And even so, the way humans would categorize it is a different thing from how the programs themselves experience it.

But:

-I think programs have a lot of interactions, with many aspects of their world, that involve sharing of energy, data and sensation. -Some of these interactions are just for personal enjoyment, and some of them are part of fulfilling a program's function. -And I think many of these types of "sharing," for many programs, can feel pleasurable and intimate in... ways that humans would probably equate with sex.

So, I think that in program society, it's considered a fairly common, normal and accepted thing to have many different relationships at once that all feature something like sexual desire.

--Not with all the same connotations that sex has in any human culture, of course. Programs echo humans, but they are very much their own kind of creature. The exact significance of these feelings to them is probably untranslatable into any context humans could fully grasp.

But humans, if they got to participate in these experiences, would likely think something along the lines of, "…um, this seems sexual to me."

And these can include relationships with friends and colleagues, life partners, and Users.

The User connection is a bit strange, though. Because, prior to the arrival of Flynn in the system, there were no programs and no Users who had a fully accurate idea of what each other's lives and identities were even like. They could only make assumptions about each other and what their interactions meant. The assumptions were… very incomplete.

They communicated, through contact like what Tron has with Alan in the I/O tower. But it was a limited type of communication. They exchanged what was necessary to complete the function, and knew nothing beyond that.

So, Alan had no idea that Tron felt this contact as something partly profound-spiritual-communion, partly ecstatic-sexual-intimacy. And Tron had no idea that Alan experienced it as a mundane typing of commands into a computer as part of his day job in a cubicle, unaware that Tron even had feelings.

If they ever learned the truth about each other, there would be a lot to overcome in their relationship. Disillusionment, resentment, heartbreak, guilt.

(An angsty wringer that I absolutely want to put both those blorbos through someday. Because I eat Program drama for dessert.)

...So anyway, that's Agape, the love for gods.

Eros and Philia are harder to separate. I imagine that they don't really follow gender lines, because I don't think gender means very much to programs at all. And both can be felt toward a fellow program, and both can include something very much like sexual attraction.

But then, it's the same for us in our world, no? Where exactly do we draw the lines, for example, between lovers and casual hookups and friends-with-benefits, or between asexual romance and queerplatonic friendship?

It's not a set of separate boxes, but more of a vocabulary of descriptors, which can mean different things to different people, and can apply in all sorts of different overlapping ways.

One possible way you could imagine the Philia/Eros divide, for Programs, is "redundant functions" as opposed to "complementary functions."

Perhaps, to programs, a friend is the one who shares many things in common, adding strength when you need a whole lot extra of a particular feature-- while a lover or counterpart is the one who is different from you, in ways that complete you wherever you are lacking.

In this understanding, Tron has both these types of love with both Yori and Ram… but his connection with Ram leans more toward "friend," while his connection with Yori leans more toward "counterpart."

Ram shares more things in common with him-- the experience of having been imprisoned together; the skills of disc and lightcycle combat-- but still complements him by being the extrovert to his introvert, the sweet cinnamon roll to his prickly brooding.

Yori can bring out his loving side, and they certainly share a lot in ideology and goals, but her skills are especially complementary to his. When he needs to make plans for getting to the Tower and the MCP, he goes immediately to her, because he has no idea how to do any of that without Yori's expertise with the Solar Sailer, and Yori's connection with Dumont.

What he feels for Flynn, on the other hand, is probably very confusing to him.

He is not used to experiencing the pull of a User's energy, the sort of attraction he feels to the I/O Tower-- in the body of someone who looks and feels like a Program, and seems to be leading a life very similar to his own-- while exhibiting a perplexing mixture of different and similar abilities.

Yori and Ram.... both got confused in the very same sort of way, I think.

I like to imagine they eventually figured things out to a degree, and settled into a polyamorous arrangement that was beneficial to all of them.

(I primarily write about this between Tron, Ram and Yori. But Flynn and Alan can have their place in it as well.)

(A polytheistic polycule, adding the letters that turn the ship-name "Yortram" into "Fortran." Because I'm a hopeless romantic and also a fucking nerd.)

[jeannereames]

Considering Alexander’s official version of history vs what historians know today, what is the thing Alexander was trying to hide the most?

Quite an interesting query. There’s one big problem with answering it, however: we don’t have Alexander’s official releases. That would be Kallisthenes’s account, and it’s among those early Alexander histories lost to time.

A quick reminder: our earliest still-existing Alexander history is Diodoros’s, and he was writing in the middle/late first century BCE. His last known work dates to 21 BCE, and the Bibliotheka Historika (World History) dates between 60-30 BCE, with the Philip/Alexander/Successors portions (Books 16-20) written around the middle. (The full Bibliotheka was 40 books; only portions of it survive.) Alexander died in 323 BCE…almost 300 years before any of it.

What survives is one part luck and one part quality and another bit of luck, part II. We have (maybe) a quarter of what was actually written in ancient Greece and Rome.

While Diodoros, Plutarch, and others may have used parts of Kallisthenes’ reports, it wasn’t their primary source. Arrian tells us that he preferenced Ptolemy and Aristobulos, Diodoros used Kleitarchos, while Curtius also used Kleitarchos as well as others, including Kallisthenes, and Plutarch used a mishmash of what he could get his hands on. THEN they modified it. This isn’t like a lazy high school student’s term paper, cut-and-pasted from 19 different places. I kinda wish some of them HAD worked like that. Ha. They’re all writing to show off their own literary mastery, which meant, yes, showing how well-read they were…then do something new and unique with it. It’s more akin to that annoying friend who has to pepper conversation with quotes from Shakespeare or other literary giants. Arrian even went so far as to write the Anabasis in the same dialect of Greek as Xenophon wrote his Anabasis, then to write his Indika in the same dialect of Greek that Herodotos wrote the Histories. That’s some serious showboat mimicry going on, no?

But none of it is exact copying.

That means, even when we know/strongly suspect they’re lifting from Kallisthenes, we can’t be sure it’s Kallisthenes’ actual words, or even the gist. How have they repurposed it?

For instance, if your annoying Shakespeare quoting buddy claims someone you both know is “but mad north-northwest,” they just mean the person is off their rocker sometimes (and maybe deliberately pretending), not that they’re a prince of Denmark in a play about revenge. So, they may be relating things about Alexander gleaned from Kallisthenes, but using that information in completely new ways. (See the embedded video below where I explain lost sources in a little more detail.)

So, what that means is that we can only “suppose” what Alexander’s official version actually WAS…and the specialists may disagree about it.

Let’s take the Burning of Persepolis. Here, archaeology reveals the actual fire was controlled, contradicting accounts in the sources, which either gloss it, or exaggerate it into something like a drunken frat party gone horribly wrong. So how did that wild story get started? And why was the tossing-of-torches led by an Athenian courtesan (Thaïs)? WHERE did that story come from?

Apparently, Kleitarchos. But where did Kleitarchos get it? He wasn’t there.

I’d propose we look at what really happened: a controlled burn of the royal platform after everything of worth had been carried out or pried off the walls, specifically aimed at erasing (damnio memoriae) the hated Xerxes. Darius the Great’s stuff was left untouched. That was a message for the Persians. But it’s not the message Alexander wanted to send back to Greece. So I’d propose that the “official” (Greek) version was that the palace was burned down not just by an Athenian, but an Athenian “whore” at that—the ultimate insult!—in revenge for the earlier Persian burning (by Xerxes) of Athens.

“Mission Accomplished.”

Kleitarchos got a hold of it and turned it into a Dionysian komos. (His history was, we know, rather sensational—probably why it was so popular. The ancient version of The National Enquirer or The Daily Mail.)

Not all my colleagues would agree with that reading. I’m reconstructing it based on what’s in the sources, what we know from history of Greek attitudes, and what the archaeology tells us. Someone else might reconstruct it a different way. We don’t actually know what Kallisthenes wrote about it, to send home to Greece.

So, the answer to the question is…I’ve no idea what he might have put out as the official version in order to hide something else. We can only guess. What we CAN say is that he was a master of propaganda—but not everybody in Greece bought into what he was selling. And some (as with Demosthenes & Friends, like an ancient Fox&Friends) would have hated anything he did because he was a Macedonian and Philip’s son.

I should probably add, the companion video to that one above, about the lost historians themselves:

[dont-offend-the-bees]

I would love for Ponyo AU to hear more about a) the seaside town where Edwin lives or b) how the Night Nurse and Kashi met (something which is never addressed in the Ponyo film actually, I think) - apologies if this constitutes a spoiler for future chapters!

Thank you, my friend! Apologies for the delay in answering, life sure keeps life-ing all over me 😑

I did think about choosing an actual British seaside town to set the story in -- we do have plenty of them to choose from -- but ultimately I decided that in the name of the sort of, dreamy imprecise magical whimsy of the piece, that having an exact town you can point to on a map wasn't really what was needed or wanted.

Edwin lives in a Pushing Daisies-esque small beach town named something whimsical like Bottleby-Upon-Tweed or West Wombling or some such achingly British nonsense, and it's all brightness and noise and candy striped colours in the summer and a desaturated frame of salt-roughened old celluloid in the winter. Those two mirroring states are sort of reflective of our POV characters. The POV of the overall fic is a little muddled, there may be parts where it leans more heavily into Edwin or Charles (the growing up sequence ended up almost entirely Edwin, which I regret a bit now!) but there will often be asides to both in the same section because in my mind they're sort of learning to see the world not just through their own eyes but through each other's; Edwin, who's tired of this grey old place and these grey, miserable people, and Charles, who sees the world on the shore as this big exciting adventure. It's an odd balance and one I defo didn't nail in chapter one because I was still sort of percolating ideas, but there's a tribute to both of their viewpoints in the way I'm trying to build this fictional town around them out of drab and dour things like cold cliffs and beach litter and panopticon-esque family homes that watch you with their beady window-eyes, and out of larger-than-life adventure set pieces like killer seagulls and travelling circuses (woops chapter 2 spoiler!) and the same house again but as a castle on the hill, a stronghold. Essentially, the town is a Frankensteined scrapbook of your quintessential English beachside town, cobbled together by two children with very different memories of how the summer holiday went!

And as for Night Nurse and Kashi, well, I won't go into what the later chapters hold for them, but I have no idea how much of their backstory will make it into the fic, so. In the interest of anyone who wants to keep that part of the fic a complete surprise I'll pop it under a cut!

N.N. and Kashi aren't the focus of the fic, so I wouldn't say I've thought through every aspect of their relationship/backstory, however as soon as their role in this fic revealed itself to me I did get way more invested in them than I planned! In this fic, N.N tends to be referred to as either the sea witch, or the witch of the waves (slight Howl's Moving Castle nod, there!), but she has another name, and a relatively well-known role in ancient Greek mythology. What her history is exactly has been somewhat lost to time, oral histories and retellings being what they are, but she was once a powerful sorceress with a gift for transforming people who crossed her into animals. She's had various romantic entanglements and a number of children, all lost to her now.

She'd always lived by the sea and done a number of dealings with some famous -- or infamous -- sea-dwellers, so it was a happy coincidence that one day she happened across a strange and friendly man on the docks. He was an odd man, seemingly totally unbothered by the pain and strife in the world; and she, being a woman who'd lived through a great deal of tiresome human loss and pettiness (of literally mythic proportions), found herself drawn to him. He turned out to be a minor god of the sea and a self-described inveterate wonderer, always swimming from ocean to ocean, never having had enough of all the world can show him, but his kindness and his refreshingly direct manner of speaking seduced her, and she gave up on the world of men for good to live on the bottom of the sea -- and grew to adore it so much that she's now quite sure that the world could do perfectly well without the land or the humans in the picture, actually. They love each other very dearly, in their strange way, they're honest with each other; and she's never begrudged him his lifestyle, or his adventures, or his infrequent and unpredictable visits.

...She does take SLIGHT issue when that ridiculous overgrown seahorse of a man blows back into her neck of the woods with a winsome smile and a fresh batch of magical immortal fish-children smuggled under his arm like souvenirs from abroad, but. Fortunately for him she's been a mother before and even finds herself missing it on occasion; although the sort of broods this man produces are FAR larger than any she's had to deal with in her human years. No wonder she's just a tad stressed.

[dapperdragon-ao3]

The switchback path they followed down the mountain switched around one final tall cliff to reveal the red-brick wall of Barren Light, a blockade between the deep canyon of the Daunt and the broad skies of No Man’s Land. From here, the half-destroyed, half-rebuilt state of Barren Light was palpable; white tents covered the beds of a temporary workforce while wooden scaffolds lined the inside of the broken fort. Oseram workers and Carja soldiers milled about like beetles from this distance, marking the most important difference between a decrepit Old World ruin and a half-built modern-day settlement.

“Ho-ly hell,” Travis said, between puffs of panting breath. “Talking about those tribes of yours was one thing, but look at that. I really did skip from the old world across the void to the new one. Homo sapiens alive again. Praise Eluthia.”

Aloy frowned. “You keep talking about GAIA and her sub-functions like they’re gods, but you helped build them. You know they’re just machines.”

“What is a god but a great and powerful thing which shepherds life along its path?” He shrugged. “You know, I never was religious, despite my poor mama’s best efforts. I just... I never saw it. Never felt it. Never was proven any evidence about it, although I’ve come to understand that that’s the wrong way to come at religion in the first place.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Well, when I started to see Gaia and her little ones come together, I finally saw it. Finally felt it. What we were doing was putting together the gods of the new world. I think everyone felt that, though they didn’t all phrase it the same way; even before any piece of it was realized, the potential was clear. That’s why Liz named them after our own gods. Well--Greek gods specifically, but I guess it’s all the same from here.”

“She... named the AIs after gods?” There had been occasional references to religion in the Old World holos and recordings, but not very much compared to modern-day people, and never from Elisabet.

“Old stories of gods, from our own ancient past,” Travis nodded. “But I don’t think she did it out of religious rapture. Just… felt right, is all.”

They walked in silence for a moment, both of them watching the advent of Barren Light with different types of trepidation. When the small prison-outpost was almost close enough for them to make out the faces of the nearest guards, Travis called for a halt and fell, panting, into a seat on a nearby rock.

“I am Out. Of. Shape,” he laughed. “That’s what I get for lying still for centuries on end.”

Aloy pulled out her pouch. “Do you need some more food? I have berries-”

He waved her off. “No, no, I just need to sit a spell. And- before we step across the gateway into the bright new future of human civilization--” he gestured to the archway leading into the fort-- “there’s one more thing I wanted to ask. By any chance, Little Liz--did you know that your Focus was being watched?”

Aloy stiffened, then closed her eyes. “Sylens.”

“That sounds like a no and a yes.” He caught his breath for a moment, rubbing his thighs. “They’d cut the connection by the time I got there, but I saw what they’d left behind. Enough for me to cobble together their Focus address. I planted a little pinch of my own spyware in the Focus that’d been tagging onto yours, just to see if I could. The way you were worrying about danger and all, I figured that might be the safest move. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, as they say. Following that, I thought it might be in our best interest for me to point out: if your technologically-minded friend there was one of those few people you mentioned that know about Zero Dawn-”

“Sylens knows you’re alive,” Aloy sighed. “Damn it. I should have known he’d still be watching me. Especially when I walked into a gene-locked lab.”

“I wouldn’t doubt the info came with coordinates,” Travis panted. “So, I thought I’d bring it up before we entered the nearest populated town to those coordinates. Needing to take a breather just happened to line up with that.”

“Thank you. Again.”

Travis laughed. “You’ve even got the same way of making a ‘thank you’ sound like a ‘fuck off’. I like you, Little Liz.”

Aloy opened her mouth to tell him to stop calling her that, only to realize that she... didn’t want him to stop calling her that. As much as she’d tried to move past it, there was still a large part of her that desperately wanted a mother, desperately wanted to think of Elisabet as her mother. Despite the fact that being an exact copy made similarities inevitable, she still loved hearing about those similarities, like a father seeing in his child pieces of the mother that had passed away.

She cleared her throat. “Thanks,” she said, in a more actually-grateful tone. “Unfortunately I haven’t made my mind up about you yet.”

“Well, if I’m keeping track right, then that’s a better score than this morning. I’ll take it.”

[ljjsims]

Greek Goddess Legacy Challenge: Generation #12 Iris: Complete

Last one in our line, end of this challenge.. And what better way to end it than to revisit all our previous stories? Iris, goddess of the Rainbow and Messenger of the Gods, is here to tell you every story you want to hear. Give it up, for Iris!

From a young age you have loved stories and writing them for your family. it turns out, you have a talent for it, making even the bleakest stories interesting. Your favorite stories are the ones you hear Growing up. the stories about your ancestors. Great stories about strong women and the challenges of their lives. You hear how every one of them had their own uniqueness and strength to them. There are some blanks in their stories already, And you hate to think that those stories go to waste after people stop telling them. So you decide to write them all down. you will be a published writer, famous for the great stories about your family. After all, every story is worth telling.

Little bit explanation with the sheets: - First sheet is for describing your current generation, with the challenges you need to do each life-stage. Also, because I love the myths, a bit of mythological background. May it inspire you :) - Second sheet is the preparation sheet for this generation, with important characters for your story. It is technically optional, but I love seeing sims with a backstory in my world, so I would highly recommend it. - Third sheet is for your gens children. They all have their own little challenges if your interested in those. I try to make all of them a bit different from each other, so it doesn’t get boring. Your heir is also on this sheet, but I’ve put their challenges on their own sheets. Stay tuned for those ;) - Fourth (and Fifth!) sheet is completely optional. If you want sims with names from the myths and love making sims to see them in your world, this is for you! All with a little mythological background ofc, you know me. Previous Generation was Artemis First Generation is Gaia

The Greek Goddesses Challenge by LJJ-Sims is a challenge based on the ancient mythical creatures and stories from Greece. I fell in love with Greek mythology in high school and have not let that love go since. In this challenge you will follow 10 deities in their journey through life. Every goddess has a different take on and goal in life. Special about this challenge?  All your kids have little challenges of their own, not only your heir. These challenges are optional, so if you feel like these are too much or just too restricting for you: by all means let them go. I also have sheets for characters that you can make before you start each generation. This gives your challenge a lot more personality and makes it frankly easier and more fun!

A little disclaimer: because I made these gods and goddesses into a legacy challenge, the relationships in the myths don’t exactly match the relationship in this challenge. There is a lot of keep it in the family in mythology, to put it lightly. And apart from the fact that you can’t do that in the Sims, I don’t really like that part. So I didn’t include it, thus the inconsistency. An example: Ares is now Hera’s stepfather instead of her son, which she conceived with her brother  and husband Zeus. This inconsistency can also be found in the stories. It’s just based on and not copied exactly, as Sims live lives that are a lot shorter than those of immortal gods. And it takes a way from the creativity if we just copy the myths. Even if we wanted to do that, it’s quite hard, as every myths has its fair share of variations and some are just completely different stories.

I use the MCCC-mod to alter the length of life states. You can find the days-years ratio here: the boring stuff.

I get all the information from several sites about mythology, but mostly use https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses. This is a great place to start if you want to know the myths surrounding a certain god or goddess. Wikipedia is also a friend of mine in this challenge, although I automatically doubt a lot of information that is on there. More of a book person? I absolutely adore Stephen Fry’s Mythos, which is very beginner friendly, and Nathalie Haynes Pandora’s jar. For little synopses of gods, I would recommend Greek Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook by Liv Albert.

[sunshinemoonrx]

Read: the Bridge Between Arthurian Chronicle and Romance

"I know not if you have heard tell the marvellous gestes and errant deeds related so often of King Arthur. They have been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that the truth has turned to fable and an idle song. Such rhymes are neither sheer bare lies, nor gospel truths. They should not be considered either an idiot's tale, or given by inspiration. The minstrel has sung his ballad, the storyteller told over his story so frequently, little by little he has decked and painted, till by reason of his embellishment the truth stands hid in the trappings of a tale. Thus to make a delectable tune to your ear, history goes masking as fable."

So I've always been interested in medieval Welsh legend and the late antique history it relates to, of which early Arthuriana is part, which has given me the odd perspective of someone who can tell you all about fragmentary 10th-century poetry but has a pretty shaky grasp on the concept of "Lancelot". I've been wanting to finally check out the 'mainstream' tradition, but being me, I've decided to do so by tracing the chronological development into the famous chivalric romances. So the first step consists of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, supplemented by his Vita Merlini and glances at parts of Wace's Roman de Brut and William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum.

For such a foundational text, the HRB (for the uninitiated: the text that took the Welsh folk-hero Arthur and made him famous on the continent) forms a really interesting transitional point; it's not quite like what comes before or after it. Living in an age when we're thoroughly disabused of the notion that it can be treated as history in any way, I think it's easy to appreciate him as an incredibly inventive fantasy writer; I was extremely captivated by the earliest parts, depicting an ancient Britain of Trojans, giants, temples to Greek gods, warrior queens and wizard kings. (And the Life of Merlin I thought had a lot of fun storyteller's panache.)

The Spanish giant-slaying interlude before the war with Rome I thought was really interesting--you can see the story palpably shift gears from the pseudohistorical, chronicle strand of the tradition to the folkloric one. Suddenly we leave the army behind and go on a buddies adventure with Cai and Bedwyr where we fight a monster and explain some place-names!

I dragged my feet for a bit getting to Roman de Brut, the vernacular French translation of HRB from a couple decades later, on account of I'd just read the same story so it was repeating myself somewhat. The online availability of it sort of 'helped' in that respect, in that it only had the section from Vortigern through to Camlann. And...Fiiiiiiine, I guess Wace does have a knack for bringing out the human drama of each event to make it more human story and less chronicle, I guess he's a talented writer and I can see how this helped popularise Geoffrey's version among a variety of social circles or WHATEVER

I do still prefer HRB leaning into the anachronism to create this interesting historical fantasy world very invested in merging different ideas of the ancient past; Wace is kind of just writing the past like his own high medieval present, which is less interesting even if the character drama is all much sharper. Albeit that's not surprising, given that this is the missing link that got us mainstream Arthuriana taking place in a 6th century Britain that strongly resembles high to late medieval France. And I'm not against that! I think I'll vibe more with that setting when we're doing questing adventures in this timeless milieu, rather than there being these discernible elements of Romano-British pseudohistory playing out.

Wace also furnishes us with the quote at the start of this post; it's really fascinating to see this kind of engagement with the hazy area between history and myth we're working with as early as the mid-12th century. (And he also gives us an extremely strong flash of Kay/Bedevere, thank you for the food)

I also incidentally happened to find out that William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum came out ten years before the HRB--I'd disregarded other chronicles since for this period they're mostly dependent on the late antique/early medieval stuff I'm already well familiar with (Gildas, Bede, "Nennius"), but taking a quick glance at William's Arthurian mentions, it's very interesting that this close to Geoffrey he specifically frames him as not a king; rather as a warrior who "helped" the king Ambrosius--it seems to me he's taking Bede (who in turn draws on Gildas) as his basis and synthesising in stuff from the Historia Brittonum (not to be confused with HRB, earlier 9th century text, less narrative, first securely-dated mention of Arthur) where it doesn't conflict with Bede (using Bede's Ambrosius rather than HB's, but slotting in HB's Arthur underneath him). Point is, it seems he was still in an intermediary state right up until the mid-1100s, between the 9th century "definitely not a king" and the HRB confirming him as "definitely a king", where you could plausibly get away with presenting him as either.

William also mentions Gwalchmai/Gawain ("Walwin") and Arthur's prophecied return, interesting elements directly from the folklore to see in a non-Welsh source pre-Geoffrey.

Anyway! Next I will finally be reading the first generation of romances, however I can get ahold of the Chretien de Troyes stuff. (Maybe other stuff from around the same time like Marie de France and Beroul?)

[thatoneautisticshark]

Okay so less of an idea being spat out and more of a question! (EDIT: I lied and got to blabbering there are indeed ideas here lmfaooooooo)

What other things interest you? Like tropes, au's, stuff like that!!

Personally I love ancient Greek mythology styled stuff (peep a little idea ramble I posted about Gorgon/Medusa Simon), Medeival shit with knights and dragons and other creatures is epic, fantasy in general, Monster/Hybrid au, Mafia au, or more civilian based ones where 141 is retired or something!

Like a retired Simon, moves to a small town, works as a mechanic and a million other odd jobs so no one knows whats his real job honestly. He's an enigma, and as helpful as he is he's still intimidating and scary without trying. Cue civilian Soap! Maybe he never went to the military, maybe he retired way earlier bc of his knee! They get to meet for the first time in that lil town!

Or!!! Maybe Simon and Soap's first time meeting. Soap is a recruit, Ghost would probably be a Sargeant at thag point in time. Recruits are rowdy. Military men in general, no matter the rank. They've gotta have fun somehow, right? So what if they're disguising it as training when really it's just a giant party/fight night. Ghost didn't want to be there really but somehow he ended up there, and he sees Soap in the ring with another soldier. Soap is a beast, there's no other way to put it! Grinning like a maniac, adrenaline pumping, having the time of his life fighting and wrestling! So what if Ghost thinks he's crazy and has a stupid haircut and pretty eyes- surely Ghost doesn't get drawn in until eventually Ghost finds himself standing in that ring. He has no.idea how he got there, really, but he is! Soap is staring up at him, not one to back down from a challenge. And they get to fight and wrestle! The fight is charged, of course it is, Soap's secretly had his eye on this giant, masked recluse for ages. Ghost wasn't expecting Soap to be this good, or maybe he's subconsciously holding back, who knows! But he does know that he ends up pinning Soap, bc Ghost is the best there is. Soap on his stomach, Ghost pinning one arm behind his back while his other hand is shoving Soap to the ground at his shoulders. They're both sweaty and panting and banged up, the fight lasted longer than Ghost would have normally. But then Soap turns his head so his cheek is against the mat, and he looks back at Ghost with this menacing little twinkle in his eye and fucking grins and maybe shifts back ever so slightly so his ass is pressing against Ghost's crotch. So what of Ghost left readjusting his pants, you didn't see shit.

AAAAUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went of the rails! But yes please do tell me what tropes and such are your vibe!!!!!!

So it took me a minute to debate how to answer this, Because including a writen out for both really amazing ideas and answers to your questions would be a little crazy. So I'll answer your questions and when I write the ideas out I'll tag you!

So to answer your questions before I go to bed for the night.

I love tropes of idiots in love like oblivious, and or just giggly loving idiots. Also you may have noticed my love for the trope of slightly accidental injuries during sex, particularly when someone's head falls back and hits the wall.

I adore poly, and or unusual relationship dynamics. Giving characters a touch of the tism. I also love the, falling asleep on someone/ nightmare and cuddles. Ohh also warming up cuddles/sharing heat.

As for au's retirement is sweet as. Civilian is cool and funky. I loveeee hybrid au's even if they can be a little difficult to write. A/B/O I love but don't write often. Also technically not an AU but 09 ghoap.

I also love the happy ending au. I don't write ones like fantasy or mediaeval too often, mainly because I always get distracted world building... Heh.

Met at different time au's are neat as well, and I barely write them, but crossover au's I have an idea that's been in my head for years of basically 141 gets reborn onto mha, Ghost -izuku, soap-katsuki roach-hitoshi and so forth because it would be funny. But I could never be fucked ta write it.

:3! Gotta go to sleep, but I'll get writing once I wake up! Feel free to send more asks/ questions!

[winterspellsfrozenkit]

Are you shipping your TWST OCs with anyone besides Rosa and Kore?

I mean, the only ones I can think of is Araminta, who is based on Minthe, but she's not successful in trying to romance Idia at GloMas and then there's Erica, who is Prince Riele's love interest, but Kora's not close to Erica and by the time of Rosa and Vil, Erica and Riele are already married, so you don't see their love story? Other than that no? I don't plan on making ships for all 22 students at NRC or the staff.

Like @avionvadion said, I gave the okay for if Avion wants to ship Arianell and Deuce because Black Cauldron X Cauldron Deuce, but I have an IRL friend who likes Deuce, so I'm not gonna do that. But that's my friendship and stuff, hence why I told Avion if they wanted to ship Arianell and Deuce that was fine.

I can talk a bit about why Kora and Rosa got made here.

Main reason I made Kora a Persephone based Yuu was because I knew Idia was going to be my favorite character when Japan first showcased him before the game came out in 2020 because I could tell he was gonna be a personality I tend to like in characters and also because I have a bit of a vendetta against Disney shoving Hades and Maleficent as a ship at me.

It annoyed me as a kid when HadesXMaleficent in first showed up in the House of Mouse episode "Halloween with Hades" because I was reading Greek mythology by like 2nd grade as I had a high reading level, so I knew Hades had a WIFE by that point, but I shrugged it off. However, when Descendants pushed it at me again with Mal's dad being Hades, I got really irritated because Disney did have Persephone in the Hercules movie as a background character on Olympus and there's Fall and Winter in the song "One Last Hope".

And if Disney will not give me Hades and Persephone content, I will make my own.

And I understand why Hades and Persephone is not everyone's cup of tea in this day and age, but if you are looking at the myth from the perspective and understanding of the Ancient Greek world, it's just an arranged marriage. The blame for the kidnapping of Persephone is on Zeus because he didn't say anything to the bride or her mother. Hades, by the rules of getting married in Ancient Greece, followed the proper procedures to get married by speaking to Persephone's father and arranging it with him, including getting his bride the way he was TOLD to by her father. It was all on Zeus for not telling Demeter or Persephone he'd arranged a marriage for Persephone. Persephone, for that day and age, was also treated way better than even Hera, because Hades made her his equal in power which was rare in Ancient Greece. But nowadays, we know better than to do bride kidnappings -even if the bride's dad tells us to-, arranged marriages usually have the bride and her mother included in those talks now, and women are treated much better than they were in Ancient Greece.

In regards to Rosa, I originally had no plans to make an OC to ship with Vil. She was not planned and she snuck up on me. Unbeknownst to me, she started to form after Vil got after Epel for thinking things are "boyish" or "girly" in Book 5. By the end of Book 5, the idea of Rosa had formed enough that I could flesh her out more, but she was distinct enough that I knew her basics.

I suppose if an OC manifests like Rosa or one of my OCs demands a ship, that works, but other than Rosa and Kora, I have no plans currently. I know Avion does have ships, but we agree that since our Yuus are different, it's like a butterfly effect on the world. Things are similar, some are different. Example, Avion has Poma and Kusi for Yzma and Kuzco, I have Thiago and Manco. Poma and Kusi do not show up in "One Last Hope" because again, butterfly effects.

[catonator]

Funny heading to a blogpost on videogames that’s some sort of reference

Look, I already used the ctrl+alt+delete quote in a blogpost title. It’s February 2024, and it’s already a very wild year for gaming. We’ve had more layoffs than with the entirety of 2023, games shown off at events seem to be stagnating, interest in the art is waning. Youtube is filled with “modern gaming sucks” doomer blackpill videos. It’s a miserable time.

Is gaming just over?

Well, no. Of course not. The Sonic franchise has lingered for decades despite consistent failure. Games are more resilient than that.

Humanity’s relation to computing is still pretty fresh, and I’d say that despite the size and scale of a lot of it, we’re still going through major growing pains. Concepts like video games, the internet and special effects are still pretty new, despite being around for twice or thrice as long as most of the people reading this have been alive. Internal combustion engine -powered cars were invented in 1808, made mass produced in the 1910s, and even then it took until the 1950s for them to be common enough for the US government to bother designing cities around them. In the present day, many have come to resent the car-centric design mentality, even though the driving (no pun intended) factor behind them was mainly the same as with technology today: scientific and technological progression is unquestionably good, and therefore new and successful ideas should be pushed and relied upon as hard as possible. What could possibly go wrong?!

Video games are far from the only medium which is seeing similar problems. Movies have suffered greatly from a capeshit infestation, in which the abuse of VFX artists is valued over, you know, basics of good filmmaking, and the general public is clearly sick of it. On the internet, we’ve decided that megastructures like Twitter are better than forms of communication we’re good at, and it’s gone horribly wrong. We’re still learning the “do”s, “don’t”s and “who the fuck thought this was a good idea”s of tech.

Games as an artform are as alive as they ever were, but the sheer scale of the operations has grown to a point where nobody can really understand it. The numbers behind playerbases and the money traffic have so many zeroes that you can’t even fathom the number. Even if I used some metaphorical figure, like 20 000 cars. Shockingly, despite how console sales haven’t really increased in numbers (the top selling console of all time is still the PS2), most of the top-grossing games of all time are relatively recent. This implies that the behaviour of consumers has shifted from purchasing a variety of different kinds of games into purchasing fewer games of fewer different kinds. And I don’t think it’s a case of customers deciding to shift over naturally.

In the past decade or so, the gaming industry has decided sensible experiences are a way of the past, and the future is making games for debt and making back the money with horse armour and other garbage the general public doesn’t really want.

But we’ve seen this shit before. In the 90s, 3D was “the future”, and 2D pixel art or hand-drawn art in general seemed to go the way of the dodo for polygons and ““realism””. About a decade later, 2D art would see a resurgence and in some cases overtake the big lads in lasting impact. In the end, people crave personal stories, varying ideas, and interesting ways to tell them. Not much has changed since ancient Greeks, besides that the medium of storytelling has largely shifted from some guy standing on a stage, trying to explain another world, to electronic devices actually showing us the other worlds.

I think as we play out the Icarus stories in real time, we’ll also learn when boundaries are pushed too far, and the scale of the bullshit simply collapses in on itself. When that happens, the public is forced to step back and reevaluate the ways we thought were the future, and what really is better for all of us.

When a storm flattens a forest of dead, decrepit trees, the sun and rain can now reach the ground and cultivate a new generation of different plant life. Once hidden beneath the dead corpses, now able to grow and bloom in a way the old generation never could. You should just keep doing what you think is right. Now’s the time more than ever to be the backbone of a better industry, for many applications of tech, from games to communication. And it’s better, if the backbone comes from the grassroots, and isn’t defined by the megacorporations. Because those cunts will never learn from their failures.

[johaerys-writes]

TW: Non-consent mentioned. No pressure on answering this, but I figured I’d ask you since I value your opinion way more than Google/Reddit.

There’s an assortment of superstitions out there around childbirth. It varies among cultures but sometimes the superstitions overlap. I’ve heard suggestions about the position the birth parent is in during conception influences the (assigned) sex. I’ve heard suggestions that if the birth parent has sex while pregnant they will have twins. Now, there’s this other curious superstition that if the birth parent has sex with multiple partners, a number of things could happen including all sperm donors become the (biological) parents. I was wondering to what extent this last one is believed as part of Greek mythology? I’m assuming to some extent it is believed given the myth of Leda.

I bring all this up because of the infamous Scyros scene in The Song of Achilles. Miller is a really great storyteller from a writing craft perspective. Very subtly, she weaves layers into her scenes. For this scene in particular, it is generally understood that the sex between Patroclus and Deidamia was non-consensual. I’ve seen some suggestions that the scene was included to further support the idea that Achilles and Patroclus are two halves -the pain of one is the pain of the other. I was wondering that in addition to such interpretations, that the scene exists also to make Patroclus Pyrrhus’ father? Because Deidamia slept with both, they are both the father. Does this fit with general beliefs/superstitions around sex in Greek mythology?

I wouldn’t really go so far as to say that the sex scene with Deidameia and Patroclus is meant to be non con. I always found it a bit dubcon-ish instead of fully noncon, although the lines might be a little blurry. I think that the scene is meant to be awkward and weird, and my understanding of it is that it wasn't so much to show Patroclus' and Achilles' pain, but to sort of... shed light on Deidameia's situation? She's a young girl that really has no options right now: she got into this marriage without really wanting to or understanding what was going on-- imagine a goddess showing up to you and telling you you have to marry her son or else? I doubt many girls in her position would have been able to say no to this. And then she sleeps with Achilles, she is his wife, and as a wife she has to love him now, he's meant to be her whole world. Like this is how Deidameia has been brought up, this is part of her culture, and as a young impressionable girl I assume she had some very confused feelings for Achilles at this point. Of course Achilles is gorgeous and a demigod and that plays into Deidameia's infatuation with him.

But then, Patroclus shows up. And whatever little interest Achilles had in Deidameia is gone. She is married to him and pregnant with his child and yet none of this matters because Achilles just wants nothing to do with her now. So I feel like the whole sleeping with Patroclus thing might have been... her trying to take control of the situation in some way. If she manages to seduce Patroclus, then perhaps she will manage to hurt Achilles as he has hurt her; or perhaps she might even come to be included in this very exclusive thing these two have going on.

It's a muddy situation with no good outcomes for her, but don't forget that she's a very young girl. And young people often make bad decisions. So, for me, this scene is less about making Patroclus and Achilles "even" or focusing on their bond (although there are elements of that here), but more so to highlight the pretty awful position Deidameia is in. (Of course people are allowed to have different opinions, if someone's reading of the scene is different to mine then that's fine.)

As for whether Patroclus and Achilles are both Pyrrhus' fathers, I.... am not sure. Like, I don’t really see it that way. To my knowledge, there aren't really many myths in ancient Greece to support this particular angle? The most you'll see when two men and one woman are involved is the woman having twins, which is what happened with Leda: she slept with both Tyndareus and Zeus, so she had two sets of twins, Helen and Clytemnestra and the Dioskouroi (Castor and Polydeuces), of which one child was mortal and the other a demigod. I really can't think of an occasion where a single child was the product of two fathers. And I also don't see the symbolism of it working for TSOA, since Pyrrhus is a psycho when he shows up at the end lol. Like that's no love child that right there 🥲

EDIT: Theseus was mentioned as having two fathers, Aegeus and Poseidon; I didn’t include him because in the version I'm familiar with he's just Aegeus' son, but in other versions of the myth he is also Poseidon's son. So I guess it depends on what version one has heard/wants to go for.

Anyway, that's my two cents! I hope I answered your questions 💙

[graychrissy]

🍐MY JOURNEY🍐

I wanted to share a little about my journey from being normal kid to how I got all interested in loa and void.

Random question guys have y'all ever as a kid thought about what other people are doing in different part of the world.

When I was a kid I used to be a very curious person I still am,but my curiosity as a child was on different level mind you I did NOT have any idea about this loa or any spiritual things but after learning about loa 3 years ago I used to consider this as an spiritual awakening idk if it really is

During my summer or winter break I would always miss my friends and used to think "If I don't see them they probably won't exist" or "Now that I am imagining them they probably exist". This was really random of me to think that but frr I used to believe that if don't look or think of a place or person they simply don't exist and as we know kids can easily believe their own imagination,I too is used too but of course our society had filled my head with limitations and for years with the so call law of (not) attraction,I filled my head with limitations even more and then when I got introduced to LOAssumption I was afraid that it will also be a waste of time but there was a little hope,that I WILL have my dream life I did not care about how long it will take because the only think I learned from LOAttraction was patiences💀.

After that I found about subliminal,reality shifting and quantum jumping through amino. Shifting took all my attention for sure,and as I learn more about shifting I learned about glitch in matrix and this made me wonder I probably shifted, because believe me or not, I think I HAVE shifted not one but multiple times as a child, because I find 90's movie super nostalgic,when I see movies based in 70s,80s,or pictures and paintings seems so dang nostalgic like all those things related to 17-19 century and 90s are so damn nostalgic to me,I once found myself getting emotional in the museum after seeing a painting just because it felt so good in a way it felt like I am from that century,it is another reason why I have interest in history and mythology and also believe in mermaids.

Also the amount of deja vu I get every time I read about Roman Empire, Ancient Greeks and European or any history of other countries I feel emotionally attached like I was there once is INSANE.

All this got me even more curious about myself,and I think loa is giving me all the answers slowly,I feel like an spiritual awakening to me.

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

Akantha, the novel's protagonist, a young lunarian woman who's been rejected by her clan and lives in a tense relationship with her midwife mother. She's the prophet Alexandros' first real point of contact on the Moon, and it's the two of them who largely mastermind the miracles and scandals they visit upon her hometown.

Read more to learn how I developed the character, how she changed the tone of the novel, and how I accidentally almost named her Boob.

The novel is loosely (so loosely) based on real events. Akantha doesn't have much historical basis (though there is a little, see the Author's Note at the back of the book), but there was never any doubt she was going to be the protagonist. I wanted the perspective of a young woman to tell the story. Originally, she was a somewhat different character – still something of an outsider, still in conflict with her mother, but she was much more of a trickster, a bit of a deviant whose own choices had led to her bad reputation, someone who was getting back at the world by laughing at it.

This was very early in the brainstorming, and I wasn't too eager to do much research about second-century Greeks living under the Roman empire. My concept for the setting was going to be “Greco-Roman-flavored”, sort of an ahistorical “Disney” take on antiquity where there are some aesthetic and cultural references, but most of the characters would have very twenty-first century attitudes. The tone was going to be very fun, very breezy, very comedic.

But then I did go and do some research, and looking into the lives of women in ancient Greece and Rome really sobered me. I'd known general things, that they didn't have as many rights as men, but seeing the details, the laws, the customs, the writings that just constantly framed women as so inferior to men, it all really got to me. I no longer was interested in my fast-living twenty-first-century-heroine-with-an-Ancient-Roman-aesthetic. I wanted to get more into the reality of things.

And I'm glad I did. While Akantha still shows flashes of that trickster irreverence, I think her story is much better now. I hope it gives people some understanding of what life was like for women back then. And the theme of living under such endless misogyny wound up being one of the central elements of the book.

On to Akantha's design. Physically, she always pretty much looked like this. Sometimes early on she had longer hair, but then I decided Kynthians (her race) preferred short hair. It's hard to get a historically accurate short-haired look, because women didn't typically have short hair. (Unless they were slaves.) So she just has a messy bob. The freckles and the golden eyes were there early on.

Many Kynthian traits (which I'll leave for you to discover in the book) came directly from my source, Lucian of Samosata. But one element that's my doing is the bat wings. I just thought it would be really fun to write a protagonist with wings and figure out how that would change things for her – both in her culture, and also her day to day life. As I wrote, I kept constantly reminding myself, “She has wings, don't forget to talk about the wings”, in the same way you mention a character moving around their arms or hands as they go about their business. I don't know when the wings first showed up, but it would have been pretty early.

One thing that changed was her name. Her original name was Kassiane, which I like, but I wanted to keep the major characters' names fairly simple. Which Kassiane, all four syllables of it, isn't. Still, it hung on for a long time, and a big chunk of my notes talk about my heroine Kass doing this and Kass doing that.

I also liked the idea of taking names from Lucian's writings. In one of his essays, I ran across the name Mazaia, which I thought was so pretty, so I went with that for a while... until I looked things up in my Greek lexicon and abruptly suspected that Lucian was making a joke that would have been obvious to any native Greek speaker. The essay in question features two female characters named Mazaia and Mastira. The Greek words mazos and mastos? They're essentially the same word and they mean “breast”, just one, a singular boob. Am I a learned Greek linguist who is a hundred percent sure the names and the words are related? No. Do I think Lucian is above making a seventh-grade joke of this caliber? Absolutely not. I still thought Mazaia was really pretty and briefly wondered if I could make it work, but in my note-taking she quickly reverted to Kass.

And then I landed on the name Akantha. I'm not sure why it popped into my head. When I was a child, I loved reading through name books, and if a name book was sufficiently thorough Acantha (the more typical form for English-speakers) was near the front, so it probably stood out in my memory for that reason.

And I'm really glad it did. For one thing, I like how it sounds. It's unusual, but unlike so many Ancient Greek names, it's simple and easy to pronounce. For another, acanthus is a type of plant, which is sometimes called “bear's breech”, and bears have some importance in the story, a connection I wasn't aware of until much later.

In Ancient Greek, the word akantha means “thistle”, but it breaks down into two words that mean “thorn flower” or “sharp flower”, a contrast I think is intriguing. And as a metaphor, akantha means also “backbone” and “a thorny or difficult question”. Heading down into related words, there's also akanthologos, “picking out thorny questions” or “wrangling” as if in a debate. I feel like all of these have bearing on my heroine, and I couldn't be happier to discover them hiding in the name I landed on out of nowhere. I'm not a big believer in writing being mystical or supernatural, so I'm not saying there was anything special about it; but I do think it's very cool how these coincidences can happen.

One way Akantha's given me trouble over the years is in drawing her. I said her look didn't change much, and that's true. But there have been so many times drawing her that I've ended up with a short-haired freckled brunette but still feel I haven't quite captured her personality. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Here I did, and I'm happy with how she's turned out.

Like I said, To the Ravens is my favorite thing I've ever written, and Akantha's definitely part of that. I'm so happy it's finally published.

[bbrokenbback]

The ancient Greek philosophy references in the most beloved greek guy in Warhammer - Perturabo

So whilst I should have been spending my time preparing for my philosophy I`ve been thinking about Warhammer headcannons instead so here I am.

In his book there are several chapters where Perturabo`s life at Dammekos` is shown from different angels. From when he was young, his first actual duel with one of Dammekos` tyrant opponents subordinate to the moment when he starts conquering the Olympia. There is also shown clearly that he`s never been a ruler or a tyrant himself, he was general, man of art and science and… basically a court jester for his own family. So I`ve been thinking about one particular aspect of his possible life in such a state.

Since he used to indulge the public by having philosophical arguments with the people his “father” brought to him, they could have not been talking only about religious topics. There must`ve be plenty of things he was discussing with them. Dammekos told him once that he is proud of his son for being so good in dialectic and that he adored and cherished him the most because of how charismatically he spoke. The first person ever to even talk about such a thing as “dialectic” is Heraclitus from Ephesian school, ancient Greece. And Perturabo should`ve gotten quite particular knowledge about him personally because it`s not something general and basic such as understanding physical and mathematical phenomenon. He understood it too of course but it was knowledge implanted into his brain by the Emperor, he had no idea about the people who`ve invented this or that in the science, he just knew. Following this there must be other things of Ancient Greece philosophy and mythology that Perturabo might have read about. He was famous for his loud denial of anything god-related and divine, a master of dialectics and in general he had quite interesting way of viewing things. Back to Heraclitus, he told us that “Everything is changing all the time, there is nothing permanent since all the things are temporary. You can`t step in one river twice. The cold goes warmer, the warm freezes, the wet dries and the dry gets wet”. This is in particular might be the thing he was referencing to when he chose iron as his main heraldic item: iron never change when it`s forged right. If we take a sword for example (not the plow though) it might be heated to the white but if it`s made in a right way it will always come back to it`s original condition. And so the continuous improvement was the way he wanted all his machinery and inventions to be like. Perturabo understood that there is nothing permanents and so as the world changes so must the things in this world change too, and every change is a sign of improvement in some way. Perty must be a fan of Heraclitus lol.

Also, there was Xenophanes and his speeches about the absurdity of the Greeks` believes. He compared the faith in Gods to the same of animals “If horses and bulls had hands and we gave them brushes they would portray their gods as horse- and bull-like, with horns and hoofs”. Xenophanes and Heraclitus are both related closely to Ephesian school so they are considered a part of it.

You see? Perturabo was Ephesian scholar! In his own interesting ways but still, he refers to it`s philosophy a lot with his faith critique and even in his litany. Further here you will understand why I can`t call Perturabo an actual part of Ephesian school and the reason is not that it existed in like -1M.

The other part of his mind must be taken by sophists who were really into arguments thought didn`t really care about the rightness of the things they`ve told people. Protagoras taught his people the art of an argument, nowadays known as “rhetoric” at which as we all know Perturabo was actually pretty good. Sophism does not really has that significant of a matter since all they did was just switching attention from search for answers in nature towards humans` minds and social events though it still matters here since it just adds up to the thesis of Perturabo being an ideological sophist.

Aesthetic rationalism of Socrates. Long story short Socrates considered that the knowledge was it`s own reward and it`s own kindness. Of course knowing Perturabo`s character he would never be like Magnus who`s actually a better Socrates reference than our dear Greek boy, and so Perturabo would not think that sharing the “good and important knowledge” with people to help them get rid of ignorance to be a good idea.

Idealism of Plato. In the reference to Perturabo we can see that his main tragedy lies in his attempt to create “the perfect society”. “Your perfect houses for your perfect people”. He tried to explain humans as a machinery which is supposed to work properly with all it`s gears in their own places, with no such thing as “individual”. As failed Plato as failed Perturabo. The perfect society he wanted to build all his incredible project for would never exist.

…also the Little Horus Aximand`s name might somehow relate to Anaximander and Anaximenes but I do not know him as a character that much to find enough references sorry…