#I want to give Persephone her agency

[fallenoftheromaempire]

My favorite interpretation of the myth of Persephone is that it's not a story of abuse nor romance. Is the story of a woman that made her choices and had to face the concequences of them.

In my version she wasn't escaping from an evil mother, nor was she kidnapped from an horrible man.

She was a young woman who loved her mother but wished to be seen by her as as the grown adult she was and not the girl her mother wish to keep her as (hence her name being Kore wich means "Girl"). Her mother isn't suffocating her or mistreating her. But like parents often do, they wish to hold on to their babies a little longer and ignore that they are adults.

So when she meets Hades, she finds herself desired in a different way, a way that she didn't experience before since in her family. Finally she feels herself being treated her age, finally she feels like she is allowed to explore her desires and wants.

But she didn't tell her mother. Mind you she shouldn't have to ask for permission but at least give a warning could have been a good idea. But she had other things on her mind and she just didn't want to deal with her mother potentially telling her no and again forget that Persephone could make her decision. Maybe Demeter would have been like "Oh alright have fun dear!" but instead she never got to know that her daughter willingly left and like any good mother she freaked out.

When Zeus came down to tell his brother to give back the girl, Hades may have been completely compliant, maybe he was feeling bad about the whole misunderstanding, maybe he even planned to directly apologize to Demeter and then start to properly court Persephone and ask for her hand.

But again Persephone didn't talk to Hades about how she felt probably patronized by her mother making this whole big problem the SECOND she gets out of her side and feels embarrassed and upset. So out of spite she goes and eat the pomegranates. Personally the pomegranet id a symbol of sex, aka her and Hades hadn't even consumed the whole time that she had been down there. He doesn't give it to her, he doesn't shoves the seed in her mouth. She makes the choice or eating it, and she makes sure that it will be just enough to tie herself to him but enough to leave space to be able to come back (aka not get pregnant).

So now she is tied to a man that she doesn't know that well for half a year and the other half she can only be with her mother when in the surface. Because i know that Demeter will not let her out of her sight again. The trust between them is broken.

And in all of this Persephone get to taste freedom just for a little bit. Her and Hades will grow to love each other but maybe it could have been much more genuine and tender if they weren't forced to be together by a choice made on a wim.

She was not stupid or egoistic or a victim. She was a woman that wanted to make her own choices she made them and like the adult she is she faces the concequences.

[princesssarisa]

There seems to be a pendulum-swing going on in how people view the myth of Hades and Persephone.

The way I learned the myth in my childhood, and I assume the way most of us did, Hades was the villain. Persephone was happy aboveground with her mother, and just as miserable down in the Underworld as Demeter was to lose her. She was tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds, not knowing that they would bind her to Hades, and the ending was bittersweet, as she happily reunited with her mother for part of every year, but for the rest of the year was forced to go back to her loveless marriage in the bleak Underworld.

This was the standard version of the myth I was taught.

But then, in more recent years, a backlash rose against portraying Hades as evil. I suspect it really took off after 1997, in response to his villainous portrayal in Disney's Hercules. People argued that the ancient Greeks didn't view Hades as evil, they worshipped him like all the other gods, and that modern portrayals of an evil Hades tend to conflate him too much with the Christian Satan. They extended this argument to the story of Persephone too, pointing out that Hades truly loved Persephone, that he had her father Zeus's permission to marry her, that by all accounts he was the most faithful husband of all the gods, and that Persephone gained power in the Underworld: she became its revered queen.

There was also a feminist push to give Persephone more "agency" and avoid ending the story with her remaining unhappily married to her kidnapper.

This led to the rise of retellings that romanticized Hades and Persephone's marriage. They emphasized that Hades's love was true, portrayed Persephone as genuinely falling in love with him and coming into her own power through their marriage, and portrayed her as choosing to eat the pomegranate seeds because she wanted to stay. It also became popular for these retellings to vilify Demeter, portraying her as a controlling, possessive mother who needed to learn to let Persephone grow up and leave the nest.

But now there's backlash against those retellings. People are pointing out the ugly implications of romanticizing a kidnapping and forced marriage and victim-blaming the kidnapped girl's distraught mother. They're arguing that the story was always meant as a tragedy with Demeter as the heroine and Hades as the villain. That it reflects the forced separation of mothers and daughters through arranged marriage in ancient Greek culture, and/or that it's about death and the loss of a loved one, and of course that it explains the seasons and why part of the year is bleak, cold, and infertile.

Are any of these interpretations the one true meaning of the myth? I doubt it. But it's interesting to see the pendulum swing.

[genericpuff]

In your opinion what is wrong with the fertility goddess plot line?

Oh boy, can I go off about this LMAO

1.) The fact that it's used exclusively to make Persephone the most special character of all, straight up the Avatar. Unfortunately the way that it's done in LO also singlehandedly wipes out all of her integrity and agency because the only thing she's good for is being a battery and she only has value because she's the "chosen one". All of her value and importance is subsequently what she can offer men.

2.) The fact that fertility gods also exist in the Greek pantheon but because of Rachel's incessant need to make her self-insert the most powerful and sought after character, any goddesses/gods in the story that were fertility gods in the myths no longer have that trait (including Aphrodite, Hermes, and Artemis)

3.) The fact that Rachel made the same tired take of conflating fertility with hypersexuality. She's trying to write a story about "deconstructing purity culture" but then gives her character a trait that reduces her to being nothing more than a sexual object who's doomed to be desired by every guy who lays eyes on her whether she likes it or not.

Any of these things could have made for interesting topics - it could have been used to dispel the notion that women are just objects for sex, it could have been used as a cautionary tale about the expectations of one's birth, it could have been a statement about rejecting the status quo and living your life how you want to regardless of what boxes society puts you into based on your biology.

But nope, instead we get "she's the all powerful super goddess who's better than everyone and she's the chosen one and if you say no to her she'll fill your apartment with barn animals" ಠ_ಠ

[misscoolisback123]

Things I Would Change To "Lore Olympus"

1. Have Hades be in his early 20s and Persephone be 19.

2. Makes Hades a few inches taller than Persephone because this will make him look like a boyfriend/husband and not her dad.

3. Have characters from Greek mythology who are actually lgbt instead of making straight Greek Gods and Goddesses lgbt. The same goes for asexual characters as well.

4. Give Persephone agency

5. Have Demeter be a loving mother and not an overbearing helicopter parent

6. The wrath of Persephone being stress instead of a gift/curse

7. Hades never being a thing with Hera

8. Persephone choosing her own clothes

9. Have Persephone be held accountable for her actions

10. Make the romance between Hades and Persephone feel believable. So much so that you want to route for them. Also, no references to "Lolita." The 1997 remake screwed everything up about the book.

11. Make Persephone look like a young adult instead of a teenager and child or worse, a toddler

12. Let other characters be able to have emotions and not just Hades and Persephone.

[sea-owl]

You know I love reading and hearing different myths, I love seeing retellings of those myths but there is one myth in my personal opinion that is never done justice and frankly some opinions on it give me the ick.

That myth is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter aka the Abduction of Persephone.

Now I know these stories have been passed down for ages, often changed or differ from region to region, but a lot of people use the Homeric hymns as a source and a base for their retellings.

The Hymn to Demeter is a story of a mother's grief as her daughter was ripped away from her without her consent nor any warning from Persephone's absent father Zeus. Zeus, who during those times had more say over what happens to Persephone than Demeter who loved and raised her daughter.

In the Hymn, Demeter basically went to work and came home to find her daughter missing. She was then searching for her daughter for days with no answers until one of the other gods took pity and told Demeter that Persephone had been taken by Hades. She begged to have her daughter brought back to her, but when she was denied, Demeter went on strike, her grief too great. Without her doing her job, crops died, people starved, and the gods were not receiving offerings. In a time where Demeter should have been powerless, she instead took back that power and was able to see her daughter again for half a year.

Onto Persephone's side of the Hymn she doesn't really have a voice. Literally, she doesn't speak at all during the Hymn, and she is constantly confused and swaying back and forth on the line between daughter and wife. Which thinking about this now, I can see Persephone still playing this balancing game between her split times of the year she has with her mother and husband.

As for why I don't like many retellings of this myth is the fact that a lot of people want to raise up Hades and sometimes give Persephone more agency at the cost of demonizing Demeter and her grief. This often happens by turning Demeter into the controlling mother / mother in-law from hell. Girl was grieving her daughter being ripped away from her and y'all turned her into a monster.

I think there is a way to highlight a love story between Hades and Persephone and give Persephone more agency without demonizing Demeter, but it takes careful balancing act. One that probably involves holding Hades responsible for his part and putting some blame on Zeus, too.

[vaguely-concerned]

Happy Grace/Pan Vibes For The Soul

"How can I, with you in the way?"/"(Laughs) The floor is yours!"

First of all I'm honestly just so charmed by how genuinely delighted Pan seems to be at watching Grace finding her voice and learning to enjoy using her power, I think that's where I started to take a shine to him. (also seems quite central to his character/romance in general because it's a thing that recurs through their relationship -- he tells her "I'm enjoying it if you're enjoying it" straight out at one point and that's definitely always there in the subtext). He buys a music studio for her just in case she ever wants to return to making music again even when she's not the muse anymore just because he loves her singing and has seen it make her happy before, how is that not the sweetest goddamn thing in the world??? Pan and Oracle in shared first place as stans for Grace musically

For real though, 'I Can Teach You' is sooo... even when you don't join forces with him Pan teaches Grace so many things in that song, it's a thematic tutorial as well as a gameplay one in many ways. For me I think the most impactful subtexts are 'This is a tricky situation, change is here and it's difficult, but you have more control and agency here than you think' ("You're in control!" "It's your song!"), and this sense that, y'know... there can be joy and playfulness and discovery in setting out into the unknown, not just fear and uncertainty.

dude... I wanna be in cahoots with & sing playful duets with you for the rest of my life bro (amorous intent)

Pros: Hell yeah look at her go! 🥰

Cons: Uh-oh look at her go! 😬

I love that Grace can bring Pan's motif into 'Challenging A Queen' and be called the fuck out by Persephone btw. why u keepin' your guard up girl uwu

'you gave up the only thing worth having -- for your little mortal friend' he says, giving up everything for his little once-again-mortal friend literally the next day fhsdkjfhsad who are you fooling buddy? not even yourself at this point surely??? (dialogue for if you save Freddie by giving up the eidolon)

my observations on the grace/pan dynamic across the different personality traits (yes I've done a run of each romancing him I am normal about it):

Clever!Grace: Pan seems to set out to be a trickster mentor of sorts, and Clever!Grace flips the uno reverse card on him and goes ‘Not if I trickster mentor you first bitch be honest about your feelings or perish challenge engage’. Probably the most birds of a feather combination (and indeed it’s the Blue version of the soundtrack that shows off his romance — also his tie and glasses are on the cover for that one :) ). 

Charming!Grace: Performative puppy dog eyes-off whenever either of them wants to get their way. 🥺4🥺. Pan is provably a soft touch from the Charming option to find Persephone before Challenging A Queen so I feel he probably tends to buckle faster but it’s a close thing. Local trickster god completely disarmed by someone being nice to him.

Kickass!Grace: “Be real with me or Imma kick your ass”/”Promise? ;)”/"...>:)"

I am always thinking about the way he steps up in The Trial when romanced (and the way it's the only one where Athena is genuinely shocked and appalled fhskadj). there is something about him that's like... he keeps protesting against 'innocent' and he's probably right haha, but there is certainly an almost fundamental lack of any active malice there that he doesn't fully admit to himself or to grace until this moment. he is doing this for grace, but it is also a confession about something really deep in himself that seems to be very vulnerable for him in its sincerity -- that he really doesn't mean to or more importantly want to cause harm (I don't wanna dance/with blood on my hands). admitting to his own basically good heart finally seems to be the bigger, scarier thing for him, more than facing the prospect of dying. he's experiencing the mortifying ordeal of being known and I for one am so proud of him

"I'm just here for the dance"

the way he sings that just to her and completely changes the meaning of it from what he said with it before, from using it to keep her out to inviting her in...

also can you imagine how badly the kill bill sirens must be going off in Grace's head in all variations of this scene no matter who steps up, considering what happened to Freddie just days before....... oof!

*incensed whisper* are you fucking kidding me with this what am I supposed to do with myself here

love these too

I really like the visual repeats of crossing the pond to the tree and back as a metaphor for them getting closer (or rather, him letting her closer, it is very much His Space). he retreats back there towards the end of 'Share This Dance', and that's the point where Grace puts her foot down and essentially says 'no. you come meet me honestly in the middle this time or this isn't happening'. and in 'The Trial' he does and then some!

I meant what I sang. I'm not a good man. If Athena had taken me up on my offer, the Idols would have been better off But I can try to be better. You make me want to try.

fun fact: if you break up with him after The Trial (YEAH you can still break off the romances at that point! it's wild honestly fsjadk), Grace tells him he should try to be better ‘for himself’ not for her... and he calls that (i.e. himself) ‘not much of an incentive’. My guy don’t make me break out the ‘Have you tried therapy’ prompt again. He takes it very calmly and gracefully under the circumstances but he's also like. quietly resigned and subdued. I tried it once for Science and never will again but there you go I bring my knowledge to this altar of sadness lol

you see the thing is I would forgive him for just about anything too I understand why so many of the characters in-game can't stay mad at him for any length of time

he starts the game by asking her to take his hand and he ends it on asking her to take his hand (and she does)...

:') let's share this dance

[sigyn-fairy]

I don't understand anti-logyn. I mean I totally get it if people aren't interested in Sigyn as a character or figure. But I don't understand the dislike of the ship. All these claims that Sigyn is a OC self insert is such unnecessary hate. The insistence on saying self-insert too. If I write a fanfic or make fan art of a MCU version Gwen Stacy is it self-insert because I'm making her the way I think is cool and want to see her?

I see people claim the Angrboda is so much better, and the she has a personality unlike Sigyn. What!? The only thing known about Angrboda is that she was scary, that's it. That's not a personality, there's just as little info on Angrboda as there is on Sigyn. And the claim that logyn shippers are anti-angrboda. I've never seen that, at worst Sigyn fans are a little salty Angrboda gets respected in adaptation and Sigyn never does, but the sentiment is never that Angrboda is a bad character herself. If anything it's the other way around. Sigyn is always put down in favor of Angrboda.

Maybe you ship Loki with someone else. Maybe you don't want Loki shipped with anyone. Or maybe you're just put off by the over enthusiasm. But to hate such a small fraction of the fandom because they want a rewrite a concept they feel was poorly done is so unnecessary. We know Loki was a crappy husband in Marvel, but that doesn't make Sigyn irredeemable as a concept.

People adore Hades and Persephone as a concept. A relationship that could only be considered good in comparison to the rest of Greek mythology. But people romanticize the hell out of it regardless. The modernize, they give Persephone agency and she really has none in the original myth.

There will always be people that ship Gwen and Peter over MJ even though In the canon it will always end with Peter and MJ. That's fine that's their business if they like Gwen more. Let fans have their thing.

[nikiniluna]

Demeter and Persephone: The love between mother and child

The Return of Persephone painted by Frederic Leighton (1891)

Recently, the myth of Demeter and Persephone (AKA The Myth of The Seasons) was reinterpreted as “Hades and Persephone” and it’s being treated as a love story. The supposed purpose of this reinterpretation was to make it empowering to young girls by giving Persephone some agency. However this “agency” comes at the price of transforming Demeter into a controlling mother.

This purpose is kinda funny because, when I first read it at the age of 6, the myth wasn’t sugarcoated. When Hades took Persephone away, it was addressed as a kidnapping and made clear that Persephone screamed as she was being abducted. It was never expressed if Persephone loved Hades or not but it was shown that her being trapped in the underworld made her sad because she couldn’t see her own mother. The only thing omitted was the incest aspect of the myth (Persephone being a daughter of Zeus, making her Hades’ niece, and Demeter being Zeus’ and Hades’ sister). After I read it, I didn’t thought that Persephone’s situation was cool, I thought “It’s not fair! She misses her mom! She should be allowed to see her mother whenever she wants to!” And I also thought “Poor Demeter! She shouldn’t be forced to be apart from her daughter! Can’t they see she’s suffering?!”

The myth isn’t about romantic love, it is about the love between mother and daughter. The creation of the seasons was a way to show the sadness of the separation between mother and child and the happiness of the rencounter.

Calling Demeter a “controlling mother” is rather baffling considering the other gods involved in the myth. Zeus controlled Persephone by giving her to Hades without asking her consent, Hades controlled Persephone by kidnapping her and, depending of which version you read, EVEN Aphrodite controlled Persephone by making her son Eros shoot one of his love arrows on Hades for the simple reason that Aphrodite didn’t want another virgin goddess because that means she would lost influence over Persephone. Of all the gods, Demeter was the only one that really cared about Persephone, trying to give her daughter a life without drama.

When Demeter made the earth infertile in order to Zeus bring Persephone back, she wasn’t being narcissistic, she was showing the lengths a mother would go for the sake of her children. If it is for the well-being of her children, a mother would confront even the king of the gods!

Please don’t take this post as an attack to people that enjoys the reinterpretation of The Myth of The Seasons, however do keep in mind that Demeter is not a controlling and narcissistic mom. She’s protective at best.

And if you perhaps know a reinterpretation of the myth that doesn’t put Demeter in a bad light in order to make Hades look better, please leave a comment, I would love to see it.

I dedicate this post to my mother and to all the mother in world. Happy Mother’s Day!

[marshalcharge]

the unspoken dialogue of borrowed books

ava du mortain/female detective ; 3.1k words ; rated G (on ao3)

The Detective finds a crafty way to send a message and Ava lies rather expertly to herself about what it does to her. 

i had the absolute pleasure of writing for @dottiechan's detective persephone schulz as part of the @wayhavensecretsanta exchange! thank you so much for lending her to me ^^ i was super taken with your headcanon that posy pays attention to books that ava mentions so she can sneak them out of the library to read, and what that does to ava when she notices. where there are books involved, nate had to rear his head of course so i got to play with posy's romance option and bestie dynamics all in one. this was really such a joy to write, and i hope you enjoy reading it!!

--

The first time it happens, it’s the familiar, resonant scent that gives her away. Ava pauses a few steps into the inviting warmth of the Warehouse library with its crackling fire and array of antiques: polished rosewood and old ink and brocade rugs, and suspended above it all—a remnant of Persephone. Long brown hair and clear grey eyes; still Midwinter, imbued in the air after her leaving just like the mythos of her name. The smell of her blood is so pungent and enticing. Ava’s intention of asking Nate to cross reference a text on Gorgons by Agency request is lost to the furtive racing of her own pulse, the unneeded breath she expels from her lungs as it all washes over her; it’s entirely too human a reaction.

She folds her broad arms in front of her chest as though obscuring some unsavory part of herself from the light, and wets her lips, attempting to school her composure cool and impassive as she asks, though really more interrogates, “What did the Detective want? She was not on schedule to be here today.”  

She can hear Nate stooped somewhere behind the towering shelves, singing to himself in Farsi. He emerges at her question with a stack of worn leather tomes propped carefully on one arm, and a warm smile all too knowing for Ava’s liking. She feels slightly unmade under a benign scrutiny that’s known her every tell for hundreds of years, and privately laments, not for the first time, the doing away with armor a few centuries back - chiefly helmets with visors. Her complexion is too pale for this, every flush of color smeared across her cheeks like a rowan berry, blooming and ripened. It is testament to the accord of their longstanding friendship that it goes unremarked upon. Or maybe just a testament to Nate’s infinite resource of kindness. 

“She came to borrow a selection from the library,” he tells her, sounding very pleasant and good-natured as if to counter Ava’s stiff, broiling tension. Ever the contrast, ever the foil. “You’ve only just missed her, I’m afraid.” 

It is a strange thing to feel all at once so mournful and triumphant, and to keep either expression from crossing her features. 

“I’m surprised you let her walk out with it, unscathed. You can be rather territorial with your collection,” Ava says, and presses on glibly, before Nate can rise to the teasing glint in her eye, and not because of her urgent desire to know the purpose of Detective Schulz’s visit–-of course. She moves to take a faltering step forward. “Was it research related?”

“No, it was one of your books, actually. A, hm—curious choice really,” Nate says thoughtfully, teeth gliding over the bow of his full bottom lip. “That first edition of Dracula you picked up in Edinburgh years ago.” 

Ava absorbs this information in like a vapor, nostrils flaring, chest expanding, her own lips pursed into a thin line. She is no avid reader in the way Nate is, scouring shelves in pursuit of knowledge and fictitious escapism, but she will indulge every now and again with the great adventure tales throughout time; stories of heroes overcoming trials in the face of impossible odds. Swords and action and expedition and the like—for strategic purposes and not the fanciful cling to human interest that Nate ascribes to. Dracula had fallen outside of this boundary, and had only been purchased out of vigilance for a novel that had brought their kind under public scrutiny. If the humans were writing fabrications about them, even on a fictitious pretense, it paid to know what was being spread. It had been full of the expected drivel, Stoker polluting the minds of impressionable Victorian age readers, enough to make Ava pause and recite passages scornfully aloud to Nate, who had long finished it all in one sitting. She’d shelved the copy to be lost amidst his ever expanding collection. Over a century later, when it had come up in conversation with Persephone (a throw away line, really) she had never expected…never could have anticipated-– 

“Ava?” Concern twists a notch between Nate’s dark brows, and he shifts the slipping stack in his hands to sit upon his hip before closing the distance and wrapping a hand about her arm. “Forgive me, I really should have asked you first--only I didn’t think you would miss it. I’ve never known you to read a book more than once, and you’ve never looked on that one favorably. It does make sense, her interest, given what we are…” he trails off looking distracted, then clears his throat. “However embellished the telling. She did promise to take good care of it, and return it when she’s finished.”

“It’s alright,” Ava lies quickly before she comes across as too affected, squaring her shoulders and ordering her thoughts into strict line. “She is free to borrow whatever she likes. As a member of our team, this facility is for her use also.” 

Nate pierces her with one of his russet looks of open sincerity. “Home, Ava. This is our home now. And one I hope Posy feels comfortable sharing.” 

“You were always too prone to sentiment, my friend,” Ava chides, though it is said with an undercurrent of fondness and a returning smile. 

“I suppose that’s why the Agency paired us together. One of us has to be.” Nate’s soft, resonant chuckle fills the room, and despite the unease welling in her throat, Ava joins him, uncrossing her arms to aid in his failing feat of book juggling.

—-

And so Ava pretends she doesn’t know. She goes about her usual routine, scheduled down to the minute, and the genius of its design is that it gives her little chance to dwell on the connotations of the borrowed book too keenly. Of course, it could mean nothing. Or anything, or everything. It disturbs her, if she’s being entirely honest. 

When duty parses them together again, there isn’t more than the expected consequences of being in the same room, a rehearsed script by now–“Ava.” “Detective.”--followed by averted eyes and skittish movements and silent, glorious reveling when a touch is orchestrated between them just so. Persephone, collected and brazen as ever. Ava guarded, but sparing fleeting looks to the Detective’s bag like a wounded, arrow pierced hare, once, twice, more than a few times for a book shaped indentation or perhaps some vital organ carved from her belly because it feels like she’s taken a piece of her to study under a microscope. There is always the chastisement of herself afterwards for letting her eyes and hands and thoughts stray, this cycle as infinite as humanity’s death and rebirth. And that is all. 

The one true lapse in judgment she will admit to, in a clinical sort of way, like a disease of the blood—and even then only to the dark of her Spartan quarters—is when she makes the rounds on guard rotation one evening and lingers below Persephone’s window, wrapped up in her coat to watch the glow of lamp light snuff out after a long interim of waiting, and wonders with an unquenchable ache, what words did your eyes linger upon and did they make you think of me. 

Other than that, it has little effect on her. Ava considers the whole endeavor a great success.  

Until Dracula manifests on the shelf again in a week’s time, without notice or fanfare, as though placed by some invisible spectral hand. She has not been looking for it, she tells herself, had made frequent returns to the library to maintain security--check locks, monitor layouts; as she keeps vigil over all the rooms in their residence. And then for another week after the book’s reappearance, Ava will avoid the room as though the entire wing had been roped off and placed under strict quarantine. She will glare down anyone who brings up the fallacy in this behavior (and has already pinned Farah with her most taciturn scowl over supper). 

Ultimately, she is weak; at her age-it is foolish. She is old, far too old for such nonsense and repeats that notion to herself like a mantra when, during the guise of night while the three other vampires sleep in a rare feat of synchronization, muscle memory takes her through the Warehouse like she’s headed for the gallows, and all too soon, the book is clutched beneath her white-knuckled fingers. The library feels suddenly occupied by old ghosts. The Grandfather clock Nate had acquired in Bavaria cuts the air with accusatory ticks as she smooths a hand over the leather. If it chimes, she’ll smash it, and supplicate herself before Nate later. 

The years have been kinder to the novel than she’d anticipated. The gold cover is faded, the binding tattered slightly with age, but the red embossed letters declare the title boldly. She is only checking for damages. Yes, it makes sense to assess the state of so old an object after someone else has had their hands on it. She splays the book open in her palm. The flyleaf still bears Ava’s initials in Nate’s neat, narrow scrawl. He had insisted on the distinction–no one would ever guess him so possessive of his belongings. Had Persephone noticed? Did she think it had been Ava’s hand that penned it? And why did it, unfathomably, matter to her at all? Her thumb skims the pages, biting down something coiling in her gut that feels like the mounting anticipation before blood's warm ichor coats her tongue, while a part of her also knows that she is fated for disappointment.

She considers abandoning this ridiculous inspection alltogether when her finger catches a crease in the corner of an off-white page, dog-eared, nearly imperceptible. Flipping it open, she finds only the expected script. But when she runs her finger over the paper, sensitive skin traces the raised line of graphite beneath a single line. 

I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.

Ava’s stomach drops out from under her, a rug pulled beneath her feet.

It is something that’s easily dismissable. A stray marking, an absent-minded pencil strike that can be explained away. Surely nothing deliberate, nothing meant to convey a message, and even if, she will not entertain such a game.

The book is shut and hastily reshelved.

She makes it as far as her hand gripping the doorknob before the antique clock pierces the masoleum-like silence with a tolling note. The sound cuts the rigid crest of Ava's shoulders and sends her reeling back to the shelf, and then hastening to her room with preternatural speed, where she leaves the offending page open on the bed and paces an indentation into her floorboards. In this brief, fleeting lapse of sanity, she allows excitement to tingle the sensitive nerve endings in her hands. I am longing to be with you. And then embarassment overcomes it when the golden threads of dawn encroach across the white duvet of her bed to shine light on this absurd, irrational thing that she's done.

She should set fire to it. She should put a stop to all of this. Instead, she spirits the book into her ancient lockbox and tucks the words away to nestle inside her ancient ribcage.   

She will not ask Persephone what she thought of Stoker’s unflattering characterization of their kind. She will not bring this up ever again, any utterance or acknowledgement can only mean total defeat. 

But Ava has always been a woman of stringent results. And so no one can hold it against her when she puts this dialogue of theirs to the test. It is merely a matter of deduction, she tells herself, curiosity at play, a possibility to eliminate and not to evoke any more ridiculous and certainly non-existent stirrings.

There is no easy way to broach the subject of books into a conversation without sounding obvious, or otherwise doing a crude impersonation of Nate, who recites literary quotes like a clergyman with scripture--she had debated roping him into this, but, true to form, had almost immediately decided against that display of weakness.

And so Ava doesn't speak of it. Instead, she texts--and it takes her a long period of concentrated effort bent over her phone to compose a vague enough message that satisfies her, and even longer still, to muster up the courage to press send. 

'Detective.The Epic of Gilgamesh has insights into Sumerian mythology that might useful in your research of the supernatural.'

She immediately, of course, panics. Felled is her valor, not by ogres or demons or any manner of formidable creature, but by the simple technology that humans have developed to forgo the awkwardness of face-to-face communication. Thankfully, this dread is quickly put to rest by Persephone's almost instant reply. 

'OK'

How anticlimatic.

And thus, the pattern repeats. After a day, the mentioned book undergoes a period of truancy from the library and Ava sets her jaw tight as the passing time peels her raw. In due course, it reappears and when there is the assurance of no one in site, she decends upon it hungrily, soft with age and stooping at the spine. In all honesty, she can recall little of the plot, had only remembered Nate gifting it to her one innumerable anniversary or birthday or celebration, and drawing similarities between herself and the titular warrior-king.

After a brief inspection, Ava finds the dog-earred page. A single line in the whole expanse of the epic poem is emphasized with the same faint pencil trace as before. 

Hold my hands in yours, and we will not fear what hands like ours can do.

Something strange, and frightening shifts deep within Ava. She slams the book closed and with it under her arm, retreats.

—

“There are less complicated ways of going about this, you know.” 

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Posy blowing steam off her frothing mug and Nate with his long fingers circled around a cup of tea as they indulge in their routine of early morning caffeine and commiseration at Haley’s. It’s all for her benefit, of course; this outpouring of longing and frustration with Ava at its contradictory core. Nate and his even-tempered assurances and three hundred year insight into the enigma of a vampire, interpreting her without insinuating, or otherwise offering a sympathetic ear to Posy's venting. He is a master of consolation, and always seems to know exactly what she needs to hear after an encounter with those shadowed green eyes hunting the set line of her collar or her spine or her neck. 

And he has been an accomplice, these past few weeks, to Posy’s great interpersonal experiment. 

She hadn’t entered into this with any more intention than what it’d originally began as—taking a cursory interest in a book that Ava had mentioned off-handedly. And while Wayhaven’s Public Library system was sure to carry the typical selection of classic literature, the thrumming of her heart in her ears had drawn Posy to the Warehouse and to the library carefully maintained by Nate, and to the shelf he’d more than amenably directed her to housing Ava’s century old copy of Dracula. To the pages touched by Ava's fingers and the binding that had spread upon Ava's lap and the same words that Ava's eyes had glazed over dispassionately, words that had resonated, words that Posy had singled out--perhaps a bit precociously--and maybe with an expectation that the thorough inspection Ava passes over everything that crosses in and out of her peripheral would be rewarded. 

“I don’t think this is fun for her, but rather mildly tortuous,” Nate sighs like the weight of his three hundred years is finally catching up to him. “I’m worried you’ll underline a sentence that makes her break something in there. Or throw the book all together and do it damage.” The mere thought of that appears to cause him genuine distress, wrought all over his normally tempered features. 

“I’m surprised you let me scribble in them at all,” Posy says, hiding the amused press of her lips behind the rim of her drink.

“Yes, well, annotating is an age-old literary practice. And I’ll always encourage reading. And affections of the heart. And–they’re not my books.” His mouth twitches, then curves, as though falling victim to his own train of persuasion. “Really, this is good for her.”

“I thought you said it was torture.” 

The vampire pauses to take an indulgent sip of his tea, eyes fluttering shut briefly. “Sometimes the two pair rather nicely. Like gouda cheese and a Pinot noir.” 

“Flavor analogies too? You’re in rare form today, Nate. So she has been finding them?”

“Oh, yes. The other day, I pretended not to notice her stakeout of the Mesopotamian section. Ava has many, many wonderful gifts, and subtlety is not one of them. That text she sent is evidence enough. Though I do worry you’re running out of usable material. Her tastes are…limited and narrowing.” From a leather messenger bag hanging on his seat-back, Nate procures a thick hardcover book and slides the text on castle rampart sieging across the table. “While I’m of the mind that all literature has merit, I doubt there’s any poetry in this one--I think she may be challenging you.” 

Posy takes the book under palm, casting a scrutinizing gaze over it. In place of the medieval architechture that the cover depicts, she can see only Ava's wry hint of a pursed mouth smile, the shallow press of a dimple not quite formed. Your move, Detective. “There she goes underestimating me again," Posy says with resolve. "You'd think she would’ve learned better by now.”

“There is a saying about old habits. And Ava’s are as ancient and as difficult to kill as she is.” 

“Yes. But my blood is very mysteriously and magically undoing, or haven’t you heard? Even on an ancient, unbreakable spell like Ava Du Mortain.”

Nate laughs richly like the brush of a low bell, and reaches across the table to offer her forearm an obliging pat, hands warmed from the Earl Grey. “Of that, there has never been any doubt. You truly are something special, Posy. To our little family, and that includes Ava. However long and…arduous that confession might come to be."

“Thank you, Nate," she responds with affectionate sincerity flitting about her throat, and then intontes, all business, "Now then. I have impenetrable fortresses to compare to Commanding Agents--which isn’t sounding all that difficult right about now.”  

With that, Posy opens the book and delicately, fondly, traces the crisp signature of Ava’s initials with the wayward pad of her finger.

Nate doesn't have the heart to break the illusion and tell her he'd been the one to put them there--and really, he decides, no one is hurt by this omission. 

[forgedbondspod]

Alright y'all it's day 5! It's time for more talk of the gods and the wonderful people who voice them. This voice actor needs no introduction because I've talked about them so much, but I shall introduce them anyway! Today we're talking Aphrodite and the wonderful @totcoc0a

Aphrodite as you might already know is the goddess of love (among other things). In myths, Aphrodite is forcibly married off to Hephaestus in order to stop people from fighting over her. Aphrodite, however, isn't pleased with this arrangement and cheats on Hephaestus with Ares. I wanted to turn that story on its head and give them both more agency, similar to things that had been done with the myth of Hades and Persephone. Aph and Ares being friends who were forced into a marriage just made sense with this idea, giving them the ability to find other partners without adultery as they didn't actually want to be married. I also wanted to explore Aphrodite as demiromantic in this story. She's the goddess of love and is always pictured as desirable, but what of her desires? Her trying to create strong bonds before falling in love felt fitting to her as a character and was something that I hadn't seen explored before so I decided I'd do it myself.

As mentioned up top, Aphrodite is being played but the incredible Tatiana Gefter! I met Tot last year when she auditioned for my other show, @thefringespod. They fully knocked their audition out of the park and became the show's Marigold (another love goddess, I swear I'm not typecasting you Tot). When I started to turn this idea from a book idea to an audiodrama idea, I immediately started writing Aph with Tot's voice in mind. There is just something so magical about Tot's voice that I had to write another show for her and hope that she would say yes. And luckily for me, they did say yes. They're bringing such a life to Aphrodite and I can't wait for y'all to hear it.

In addition to being in both of my shows, you can hear Tot in her own show, @souloperatorpod which ripped my heart in half (it's incredibly good y'all) as well as The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio, WOE.BEGONE, Wake of Corrosion, and a bunch of other incredible shows because she's so talented

If you would like to support Tot's work in Forged Bonds along with the rest of our amazing cast, you can check out our crowdfunder on indiegogo!

And to Tot specifically: I'm not sure what higher power I believe in but I know for a fact it was a blessing to meet you. You are an incredible friend and a ridiculously talented voice actor and writer. I'm so fucking proud of you and cant believe how lucky I am to be your friend

[hollowtones]

Okay I wanted to clarify on the Hades thing as it’s the only Supergiant game I’ve played out of the ones you listed:

1. They went with one of the more favorable interpretations of the myth. Basically, Zeus did a dick move and left Hades and Persephone both in a place where if they did anything but what they did it would have started a divine war. Hades never asked Zeus to kidnap Persephone, and Persephone wasn’t mistreated when she got there.

2. As for the Zag romance point, Meg was never Zagreus’ sister. Nyx is not her mother, and the game implies that she and Zag had a thing before the events of the game. As for Thanatos, it’s a *little* weird, but the game always takes care to say that they were *childhood friends*, not raised as brothers. How that works precisely I have no idea, probably in some “kids don’t know what’s weird about their home life” way.

Anyway I don’t want to sound like I’m saying your feelings are wrong, I actually agree about the other stuff, I just noticed you said you didn’t remember it as well and as someone who is pretty deep into the lore I never really felt like any of it was handled poorly. Heck, Demeter is even Zeus’ step-sister (and older to imply they were never ‘siblings’) to remove the connotations of Zagreus’ parentage.

Anyway have a nice day and I’m sorry if I was rude.

My issue with Persephone wasn't how they contextualize her relationship with Hades (I thought it was fine from what I remember); my issue was I spent most of the game after meeting her thinking "I wish this character had more agency", which is at least in part What They Were Going For, I Think, but something about it still bugged me. I have not played this game in maybe a year so I don't remember specifics.

The game says Nyx is Meg's surrogate mother. It squirrels that away in the codex entries, and does not go into much other detail from what I remember. There's wiggle room to give these a more generous interpretation than how it felt to me, sure. It still feels weird to me.

It's okay if you have a different reading of a story than I did, or felt a different way about it. That's normal. You do not have to justify it to me. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm not really interested in getting multiple messages of multiple paragraphs from anonymous strangers over the course of a couple days about two specific plot points in a video game I otherwise loved that I haven't played in a year. I appreciate your politeness about this, I imagine you specifically haven't sent all five of these messages yourself, so this is not me singling out you personally, and I'm sorry if I sound kind of exasperated here. I hope you'll understand: when I post a quick sentence or two about my opinions on something, in a casual setting, having a bunch of people come up to me to then say "well actually, here's a longform response about how I felt about it, what do you think of that", as well-meaning as most of it was, feels weird and exhausting! I like talking my thoughts on things, which I guess is why I'm replying to this. It just feels disproportionate, y'know? It feels weird to post a quick thought and then have people respond as if I'd written an essay & make assumptions about things I did not say. You're not being rude, I'm just tired, bud. No more messages about this, please.

[allovesthings]

I was thinking of a Hades/Persephone retellings and as much as I appreciate that most of the times, it gives some agency to Persephone, it can also vilanize Demeter to make Hades look better. Especially considering that, in the original myth, she got her daughter stolen from her ?

I understand wanting to give Persephone more agency but maybe not at the expense of Demeter either who has a really good reason to be furious.

Or maybe i just want a retelling of the original myth with Demeter as the main character. I would like to see a mother destroying the world and creating seasons because her daughter was kidnapped and Zeus is doing absolutely nothing, thank you. 🙂

[genericpuff]

How to write (and draw) small female character without infantilization? I have small female oc that I like to draw in cute way (not in sexual and weird way) to relax my mind from my hectic life, but I'm afraid that people will accuse me for infantilization. What should I do?

I'm sorry for asking a weird question

Not a weird question at all ! Literally just draw them their own age lol Look up references for short women, do some life drawings, learn how the proportions differ from an average-height person and how people who are short still have distinguishable features that separate them from childlike proportions.

Infantilization isn't exclusively "cute small female" or even "sexy small female", it isn't even exclusive to height or body type - infantilization is a very specific pattern of taking characters and reducing them to babies with no character traits besides being helpless and needing another person to take care of them. This is why even Down to Earth has this issue even when its main FL isn't short and small, because the only trait its FL has is being a babyish archetype who solely relies on the guy who she gets stuck living with. And in LO's case, Rachel keeps morphing Persephone's size and body type to make her look like a literal child next to Hades and it's just... ew lol

Give them some agency and actual character traits that aren't reliant on whoever they're shipped with and you'll be fine. If you want to read a comic with short women (often hooking up with bigger people) go check out Alfie (*this is an 18+ comic) it nails it without ever reducing the short women to being babies or exaggerating the size differences to make them seem even smaller compared to their partners. They have agency and depth.

Hope that helps !!

[cantstayawaycani]

Can’t Stay Away’s Fic Rec Friday #1 (04.14.23) - She was Kore, she was Persephone by @salty-ironstrange-shipper

Title: She was Kore, she was Persephone (ao3)

Author(s): lucifersfavoritechild (ao3) | @salty-ironstrange-shipper (Tumblr)

Fandom(s): Black Panther Wakanda Forever

Pairing/Ship(s): Namor x Shuri

Type: AU Canon Divergent

Rating: Explicit

Status: Work In Progress

Updated: 04.10.23

Summary: Kore, the maiden, the girl, daughter to Demeter | Persephone, the goddess, the queen, wife to Hades | Namor comes to Wakanda looking to forge an alliance. When he meets Shuri, he changes the terms to give Wakanda everything they want — in exchange for Shuri's hand in marriage. While Ramonda refuses to even consider, Shuri can't help but be as drawn to Namor as he is to her. And the choices she makes will shape both their kingdoms in the time to come . . .

Why I Love It: So, there are always going to be the Hades/Persephone fics with a pairing like this. It’s just par for the course. 

What I love about this is that Shuri not only has agency/autonomy, she is level headed and practices diplomacy, and she is full of wonder and joy. Her mother is still alive, so she is not bitter with hatred towards Namor. She is still the curious, nerdy, charming young woman that is eager to explore a new world. Namor does not push, this is not dubious consent. Nor does he manipulate. He is just as awed and curious and charmed by her as she is of him. And he is honest, as he is wont to be. The union is natural, though there are obstacles.

Ramonda, in conjunction, is not written as a mean-spirited villain here (as she has been in a few Nashuri’s I’ve attempted to read), just a concerned and still grieving mother. What would you do if a 500 year old blood thirsty God asked you for your only remaining and youngest child’s hand in marriage? Shuri patiently, and respectfully reasons with her mother, asking for her independence and gaining it on her own terms. Shuri does this while acknowledging her mother's grief and anxiety around losing yet another child. And to the depth of the sea no less. And because of this, Ramonda comes to recognize her daughter as a woman with her own right to choose as she pleases, though it pains her. Reluctantly, albeit. But it's there. A mutual understanding and respect for one another.

The story is ongoing, but the writer proves that the union between Namor and Shuri is a good one, and strong. That it was the right thing to do. It has its obstacles, of course, a good drama needs conflict, but they are not no-win scenarios. And if the characters miscommunicate at times, they always find their way to the truth and express it with love and trust (so far). I would call this writing a healthy depiction of what Nashuri could look like outside of canon.

Give it a chance, go on the journey. Follow the author’s updates here on Tumblr.

She was Kore, she was Persephone

[sistervirtue]

if your "feminist retelling" of persephone and hades involves making demeter an insane control freak and abusive bitch i dont think its very feminist i think you just want a reason to downplay the fact persephone was abducted by giving her agency solely in the form of her desiring hades and noways else

[thaliajoy-blog]

The Persephone modern retelling & why I get it (unprompted mini essay at 8 am)

So there are people who don't like retelling of greek myths, especially the most recent trend of "feminist retellings" that have sprung up these past years with works like Madeline Miller's Circe and Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus. And there are some very understandable critiques of such works. The Persephone & Hades retellings are quite something in that regard ; it's been criticized for making a story about a girl being kidnapped & a grieving mother looking for her all over the earth into the story of a forbidden romance between complete opposites where the grieving mother becomes a "bitchy" helicopter parent and one of the main obstacles to the romance. So, was that kind of retelling, a sort of re-appropriation of the myth, a messy mistake ? Is it misogynistic ? Is it simply tasteless & bad ?

Well, the way I look at it, Persephone is kidnapped in the original myth, but never really escape the man who took her. She is forever bound to him as his wife, and must go to him each year for a certain amount of time. She goes back to her mother in the end but we know she's still "his". In a sense, Persephone is trapped in the paradoxical role of child (to Demeter, to whom she's "Kore", the maiden, and under whose protection she is originally), and wife (to Hades, a man she didn't choose). It's kind of an incomfortable in-between. So essentially...this myth doesn't have a happy ending, and Persephone is largely without agency, she is tricked at every turn. The people with real agency are Demeter and Hades, and the other gods involved in the quarrel. And in the end, Demeter loses something and Hades gains something. In short, women aren't really winning in this myth. They can only snatch a compromise from the people in power (Zeus & Hades, really), and that compromise is not a compensation at all for the wrongs done to them. There is a real power to the original myth, a solidarity between women, like with Hecate helping Demeter, but all that grief has quite the frustrating ending.

So, I guess that's how Hades turns into a boyfriend/lover rather than being a kidnapper who gets what he wanted in the end. The modern retellings need to spin things away from that pretty tragic ending, and give Persephone a happy ending. They need to refocus Persephone as well & give her more agency in what is happening. And they do that in part by tapping in the subtext of the story - the story of a girl who becomes a woman, who "eats the pomegranate" and divides her attention between her family and her lover. The story of a girl who "leaves the nest" and falls for/dates someone her parents disapprove of, leading to pretty memorable quarrels. It becomes a story of adolescent rebellion, of teenage girlhood. So like, this story is being reappropriated by people who express through it the experience of teenage girls, or of young women. And I get that, and that's why I don't really find this reframing misogynistic, even if Hades gets arguably white washed and Demeter loses her star role in favor of a much less flattering one - the parent. Since Persephone is the center, Demeter is the authority, and through the teenage lens, she's kind of guaranteed to be portrayed as overbearing and essentially an obstacle, if not an antagonist. Persephone can't really "emancipate" herself from Hades, or the myth is broken if she does, so in order to give her some agency she must emancipate herself from the other thing that defines her - girlhood, her role as "Kore", and her mother's protection. This twist on the myth kind of wants to cut the ties with childhood for good, and make Persephone embrace her role as the "Queen of the Underworld" a bit more, which gives her more importance and in some ways, more autonomy (especially since Hades is no longer an antagonist).