hi I love your tags so so much! they were so sweet and so interesting and creative and the whole Aphrodite type of beauty thing sounds really interesting do you have any articles and recommendations to read further into it??
-hogoflight
Hello my fine feathered (I am assuming possession of feathers if you are, indeed, capable of flight) @hogoflight! I'm always always happy to hear that people appreciate my frenzied rambling in the tags :D! I have a lot of articles and recommendations :D!! Ancient Greek notions of beauty and representations of it in their art and sculptures is a pretty well studied topic! There isn't any way for us now to know definitively what the beauty standard was (it varied widely from region to region and culture to culture after all) but here are a couple of my favourite reads about Aphrodite and what her representations tell us about idealised beauty!
Probably the most empirically extensive one I can list is Krönström's thesis which compares statues of Aphrodite and literary text referring to both the goddess and mortal women to determine physical ideals for women in five specific eras of Grecian antiquity. Including measurements of the statues there are many descriptions of Aphrodite as 'curvy' with a 'voluptuous figure' and with 'ample buttocks and bosom'.
"When the beauty traits are
described in the texts, they are never extreme or anything that could not be found in normal
people just that they are more beautiful in every aspect. Furthermore, the sculptures’ physical
forms look healthy, they are tall and have distinct curves. Great examples of this are the Knida
sculpture and de Milo (the Melian) sculpture."
Of course, these images are still idealised, and there was still a concept such as 'too fat' or 'too skinny' found in written records (and this thesis even includes analysis of pornographic writings and descriptions of the fashion and stylings of pubic hair of women from different regions!!) but from an interpretational standpoint? There is absolutely no reason why these can't refer to a fuller figure. Height was also a very important factor after all and over the course of many eras, it seems like being well proportioned in addition to the length and appearance of one's hair were the most important factors (and, like Apollo, greater beauty was given to those with curlier hair)
Mireille M. Lee's 'Other Ways of Seeing' essay which talks about the forgotten female viewers of Knidian Aphrodite which is also extremely illuminating on how Aphroditic sexuality and sensuality was perceived totally differently from the well documented male voyeuristic gaze (which was overly preoccupied with the statue's nakedness and therefore over-sensationalised the statue's physical appearance) vs women's perspective on the statue which is more centered on the beauty of simplicity in Aphrodite's garment and decoration and in her power and ability to captivate both in her finery and without it. I think it's especially useful in exploring the importance of finery, jewellry and adornment in representations of Aphroditic beauty.
"Some of the small-scale copies are
heavily jeweled, especially those from the eastern Mediterranean, for example the Hellenistic gilded terracotta statuette in the Çanakkale Museum (Fig. 5) in which the goddess wears, in addition to the armband on her (right) arm, the following: a necklace with multiple pendants; cross-bands extending over both shoulders and hips, with a cascading pendant in the center; a coiled snake armband on the left arm and another snake on her left thigh, and a twisted anklet on her right leg. (The left leg has been restored, and might also have featured an anklet.)"
"Jewelry is especially associated with Aphrodite in Greek literature. As seen above, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess adorns herself with gold jewelry, dress-pins, and earrings in the shape of flowers (162–3)..."
Finally, and to me, the most important one in the argument for an interpretation of Hyacinthus as fat, beautiful and fundamentally Aphroditic comes from Brilmayer's brilliant brilliant thesis done on Aphrodite's work and influence in Archaic Greek Poetry which does away with all of that masculine preoccupation with physical proportion, measurement and bodily ideals for a focus on a Sapphic Aphroditic ideal centered in clothing, ornamentation and, most importantly cunning as symbols of Aphrodite and ultimately a feminine idealised form of beauty. This paper also discusses Pandora and Helen in these terms and it is just kind of a wonderful read tbh.
"Combining Homeric and Hesiodic elements
with her own ideas, she [Sappho] alters the way female beauty
is viewed. For example, the Homeric war chariot – a
symbol of male, military prowess - comes to
symbolise the totality of Aphrodite’s power uniting
in itself male and female qualities.
Having addressed the concept of beauty directly,
Sappho then concludes that beauty lies in the eye of
the beholder. With the help of Helen of Troy and her
beloved Anaktoria, Sappho sets out to reinvent the
concept of female beauty as a godlike, subjective
quality that may be expressed in many ways, yet
remains inspired by Aphrodite."
The conclusion to all of this of course is that Aphroditic ideal beauty is much more fluid compared to its stricter Apolline masculine standard. The nuances and understandings of both are of course, constantly being studied, analysed and scrutinised but really, if Dionysus who was both bearded and clean shorn, effeminate, birthed and rebirthed (and twice gestated!) and strongly associated with vegetation can be popularly portrayed as fat and handsome, why can't Hyacinthus?!
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Before I drop the actual ask I just wanna say if you had happened to sell your soul to like the devil or something to be able to write the way that you do (I wouldn’t be surprised, your bird!xiao stuff has me bawling my eyes out) then I would totally give you mine out of gratitude for producing such lovely works. Thank you for those!!
Anyways you can ignore this if it makes no sense or you simply don’t want to bother but I have an idea that I’d like you to consider that might be of some interest; I spent my 3am reading through the Shining Nikki Saga tag and it got me thinking about a creator from other similar games/medias. One that has been plaguing my thoughts in particular is a creator- especially Impostor!au- who’s from Honkai Impact 3rd.
A creator who’s a Herrscher, or maybe a Houkai beast or Pseudo-Herrscher the way that Benares is, or even just a standard Valkyrie.
But Just. A creator who isn’t helpless after their unfortunate isekai. They pull up in Teyvat, get attacked by the forces of whichever nation they land in, and their first reaction is “oh haha okay- TAKE THIS SUBSPACE LANCE DUMBASS‼️”
ohhh you understand
first off, i’m glad you liked what i’ve written! thank you very much for the compliment
secondly, that’s very interesting! warning that while i’ve dabbled in hi3, i never actually played it that much (not my style of gameplay). that being said the idea of being able to access those powers while you’re in an isekai has a lot of potential
(obligatory note that while the universes of hi3 and gi are connected, i will not be acknowledging this anywhere else in this post)
(note two: that would be interesting, though. fischl and fischl…)
in terms of hi3, my mind is going to the “kill them with kindness? WRONG, herrscher of the void 🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌” meme. this is all i have to offer.
lie. from my limited knowledge i remember a unit who’s abilities centered around painting- dude, the mech suits? good luck killing me when i am a literal transformer. swords don’t do shit against 4tons of steel.
in terms of other various medias, my mind goes to, as always, minecraft. isekai!creator with creative mode. ender pearls for quick getaways, invisibility potions, potions for speed and fire resistance (which will come in handy should they start to pull out witch trial pyres), flying if they’re in creative mode, fireworks and elytras..… honestly, depending how much of the base media you want to pull over into genshin, pretty much any other media would work. i’m also thinking of demon slayer (for the sole reason it has been discussed on this blog prior) and specifically giyu’s “dead calm” breathing, but any of the others will do. depends on the media and a bunch of semantics about lore, but i’m not going to get into that.
redirecting back to mhy games strictly because of star rail (was that out when i first got this ask? god knows but it’s here now), specifically ratio’s burst. imagine being a hunter, seeing a Suspicious Person about, and in response they simply. construct a building of stone and steel out of nowhere, sending it crashing down in front of your platoon. nobody’s hurt, thankfully, but the earthquake echoes.
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