Well. I greatly appreciate the guy at work who's into me 1) catching me when I tripped and almost fell and 2) not copping a feel while he did 😂 My head remains uncracked and boobs ungroped, and after the creepo earlier who tried to crawl into my car with me, someone being a decent human being is a nice change.
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In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.
Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.
Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.
And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.
And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.
All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.
Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.
The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?
The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.
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one of the reasons i hate generative AI is that i have a chronic injury that makes me unable to write by hand for longer than a few sentences and therefore i need a keyboard in order to write essays for classes, and i’m a bit worried that professors won’t allow me to type essays as a result of potential AI use, even though i have a perfectly valid medical reason to need a keyboard. i’ve seen a few posts online saying that the only way to prevent students from relying on AI is to make them write by hand, and while i understand the sentiment and don’t even necessarily disagree with the general point, the matter of accessibility still needs to be addressed somehow, and it’s just a bit frustrating on a personal level as someone who has had to fight with teachers and professors in order for my needs to be met even before the era of chatgpt
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OK AND ANOTHER THING
I have to give credit to Amen and Evthys’s enemies to lovers plot and Amen’s character. How many times have I read “it’s enemies to lovers” and it’s just two people who sorta hated each other but now it’s fine. How many times have I read “he’s brooding and bad and has done horrible things” but he also saves kittens from trees and helps orphans in his spare time?
Like she pulled no punches. Amen wants to kill Evthys, he thinks about it often. Evthys knows he will kill her, knows and loves him almost against her will anyway. They know what they are, they know they’re destined for tragedy but they can’t help themselves. That is what enemies to lovers should be.
And the follow through with Amen. She told us the man is a monster and the man is in fact a monster. He doesn’t have a heart of gold, he doesn’t secretly help orphans or donate money in his spare time. He is a hunter, a killer, and he does not pretend or act otherwise. He tortures and he kills and he isn’t kind about it even when she asks him to be. There’s no way to excuse his actions and there shouldn’t be. There should be no “but it’s ok because” — it’s not ok, it’s fucked, and that’s the point.
Their relationship is fucked, but it’s what enemies to lovers is supposed to be. He’s what a morally gray character is supposed to be. These are not supposed to be happy or kind things. In scn they’re not sugar coated in any way and that’s part of what makes it just so freaking good.
If you hate Amen, good you’re supposed to. If you love Amen anyway, good you’re supposed to. That’s the trap and tragedy of enemies to lovers—it’s a car crash you can’t look away from, because no matter how bad it gets you’re always hoping they survive. You’re always hoping that somehow all of this will end and they’ll be happy, no matter how unlikely that is.
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