#blatherings

[bytalosthiscantbehappening]

I’m begging you pog community does anyone have an image of a John F Kennedy pog that says “dead” on one side and “alive” on the other—I swear I saw one and now I can’t find it and I need to show it to my roommate

[lachrimaestro]

Sigh. It's happened. I've reached fuddy-duddy stage. I watched a Grammy recap and realized I recognized virtually none of the music. The music I DID recognize (Tracy Chapman's Fast Car), I was like... why did the world need a straight whiteboy's take on this song with no change to the arrangement? I'm very old.

[opendoorlorien]

........................................i miss kaze fire emblem

[luminoustico]

Come next week, Britain will have had three prime ministers in the space of one year. All without a general election. Jesus fucking Christ.

[tboyboytoy]

my first ask and it's not even smutty it's just sugar d*ddy spam

[retrogamingblog2]

[partlysmith]

"pokemon are kinda weird when you think about it"

"digimon lines are pure chaos and make no sense"

monster rancher: "here's a normal ass ape wearing sunglasses that can only be obtained from a specific Billy Joel CD"

[jaytalking]

... What if Pariah Dark was a giant kinda like other extremely powerful ghosts in the series? Sorry I just can't stop thinking about the image of a giant castle and Danny waking up in a giant bed because the Crown sensed his distress at being possibly vulnerable with his parents around and spirited him away automatically to what is now his Lair as he was sleeping. Immense confusion some hilarity and a bit of sadness.... Just how I like it.

[jollymalt]

timmy and tommy!

[bytalosthiscantbehappening]

See how well pinterest knows you! Search 'fashion', 'pantone', 'mood', and 'food'; and save the first photo that comes up!

Tagged by @seamusharper — WE GOT THE SAME MOOD? I feel like I only really vibe with the fashion and the food.

I tag @pericci @arcanesouls @tyrantwaffles and uhh @neeksknocks 👀

[lachrimaestro]

I seem to have The Sadness™ tonight, and I'm not sure why. I'm working until the wee hours, as per usual. I'm more or less firing on all cylinders but there's a place inside where the hollow happens. It's been a while.

Maybe it's from not working for two weeks. That's something that hasn't happened in years and I suppose I've always harbored suspicions that if I stopped and didn't completely fill my days with responsibility I might have to come to terms with some dissatisfaction about the way I curate my existence.

I drove some 8500 km (5,500 miles) in those two weeks. Constant movement serves to keep the suspicions at bay as well of course. I caught glimpses of myself, and things I repress, and the ways of behaving that seem like they belong to years gone by.

In the grand scheme I don't have much to be sad about, but I hope it's the right grand scheme, if that makes sense.

[opendoorlorien]

me after 6 billion yrs and Kaze and/or Saizo dont have an alt in FEH yet

[luminoustico]

Boy, diving back into the Twilight universe – even just for ironic funsies – when 30 and politically aware, it's fucking creepy! The stupidity of Meyer's worldbuilding doesn't even register when the story devolves from "YA paranormal romance" to "mothers must die for their babies".

[boxingcleverrr]

Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.

Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.

But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.

The Abduction is The Thing.

Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.

Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.

It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.

I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!

It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.

"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.

And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.

They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.

Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.

That's how it went.

I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:

This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!

Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.

[g4yr4t]

being bisexual rules!

[retrogamingblog2]