#minaim-blog

[metvmorqhoses]

If this blog is still active, first off hello! I love your stuff with Artemis and Apollo. Second, where have you gotten your interpretation of them from? You said in older posts that you’ve done research on them. What have you read and where have you read it?

Oh, hello back! Let me start by saying that I truly appreciate your support and interest! This has always been (and with "always" I sadly mean literally, since classical times) mostly a niche topic, but so dear to my heart I'm always delighted to see people falling, well, prey to it (figuratively or less figuratively lol).

This said, I'm afraid your question has no simple, definite answer. As uncomplicated as it might sound, I'm afraid my interpretation is simply my own, formed over almost a lifetime. I've studied the Classics (especially ancient mythologies, in both official and unofficial settings) all my life. I actually still do - and daily. I'm mostly kept together by ancient terrors and obscure palpitating riddles, so, I admit, I might know a thing or two about topics not many other scholars find it fashionable to rave about.

So, disappointing as I'm sure I'm about to sound, there exists no actual text solely focused on the topic of the Divine Twins and their relationship seen under the lenses I usually talk about. I've actually always been tempted to write one myself for this precise reason.

The best advice I can give you is to actually start studying Greek Mythology for yourself (and compare it with other ancient religions, this part is crucial) and try to connect the dots for yourself.

Those are some great volumes to start: Gods and Heroes of the Greeks, Karl Kerényi / The Greek Myths, Robert Graves (Graves was a genius, but he gave more gravity to his own interpretations than to supported facts, so always read him with a grain of salt) / The Greeks and the Irrational, Dodds / The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas.

[eerna]

I just read your most recent post, and the tags. Why is all this smut stuff (that I guess is written for girls???) so freakishly violent? 😣😖

Fr I am Noooooot Interesteddddd in discussing it, it just makes me sad, but there's research and discussions about it already in existence if you're interested~

[inexplicably-spookified]

Hey not to be rude or press you, but did you get my second message for Omori? I was worried it may have been censored due to choice of words. It’s fine if you weren’t interested, I just wanted to hear your opinion on my thoughts. ♥️

.......i saw both the ones you sent and completely forgot to respond to either of them sorry LOL

copy-pasting the ask (and my response) in question under the readmore for the sake of keeping this all in one post (obligatory tw for suicide and omori spoilers):

minaim-blog

1d ago

minaim-blog asked:

You know what really sucks about the spoiler in Omori you gave me is? The entire plot point of the main character in Omori killing his sister could have easily worked with just like one change:

Instead of having the MC go, “Oh! I push my sister down the stairs and I covered it up with a fellow fuck boy by pretending she committed suicide! Lmao!”

They could have instead just had him “push her to suicide” I have that in quotes as the idea I have is that the two siblings get into a heated argument (it can about something dumb, hell, the dumber and more insignificant the better. They’re all teenagers anyway) and the brother ends the fight with something along the lines of, “Why don’t you just kill yourself!” And he’s surprised by how much this affects/shuts-up his sister.

Fast forward a bit later and we find out the sister took it to heart and killed herself. This catches everyone off guard, especially her brother, who is super fucked up by this. Cause, “she was so happy!” “She was so friendly!” “You never would have guessed she had problems”

Which would allow the main character to FEEL like he killed his sister, but then the moral of the story is getting over grief, caring about others, and self-forgiveness/being careful with your words.

That’s my two cents waking up at 900 am the next day about this shit writing, which I (think I) fixed in like five minutes. Thoughts? Am I a thot? 🤔

---------------------------------

tbh i think that's also a little too edgy but like, it is an improvement, although i think any 'rewrite' of the game that removes the whole 'sunny and basil staged mari's suicide' is automatically better

[eerna]

Tumblr probably wants you to use the new “community” tab for your book club. Not drive traffic off the site. Cause all websites are corpos these days.

I actually considered doing that, since everyone is on here already and it would be easiest not to switch websites, but the communities are just nooot organized in a way that would support a book club :( So really I did my best to stay on here, it's tumblr's fault!!

[metvmorqhoses]

I saw your original answer to my reply and wondered why you deleted it and responded with a much shorter and perhaps untrue response. I only say untrue as you said, "I find the concept and need of sharing spiritual beliefs outside ourselves one of the lowest aspects of human culture tbh." which could be true but I'm not sure you really believe it. If only because if people never shared their beliefs there would never be mythology. Part 2 coming.

Part 2: As for what captured my interest in your blog, I originally found it by searching up Apollo and Artemis relations, and found your input on the mythos interesting. You may publish my questions as you wish or reply to me via messenger. Either is fine. Peace for now.

*** *** ***

actually my two answers meant pretty much the same, i merely rephrased in a form that, after a bit of thought, felt truer to what i wanted to share. i now see that probably my second version could be easier to misunderstand and rather obscure, as short sentences often are.

you asked at the same time a really personal and a tragically hard philosophical question, moreover to someone who focused her studies precisely on those subjects and that is therefore inclined to delve deeper.

when you ask me about my "beliefs" or "religion", i am wildly tempted to ask you in return what "spiritual beliefs" and "religion" even are. what i intend for them is probably hardly similar to anything you might intend for them, as i think should happen to anyone with real spiritual sentiments anyway. how can you even begin to understand what i think, if we don't even agree about what we are talking about? a settled, static, scientific definition of human religious impulses to this day is yet to be found. in this field, scientifically speaking, everything is a matter of opinions, and on a personal level... well, obviously it should be even more so.

and so to answer you i both needed a dissertation and to do exactly what i truly dislike, wearing the intimate as a plume of the hat.

it's actually funny you mentioned mythology anyhow. you see, there's a huge difference between the making of a religion, the dynamism, the life of it (indeed a form of sharing, but fundamentally a process that, in my opinion, was principally an artistic act at its truest core), and in people ruminating on the same "artistic products that long ago somehow turned into something more and that belonged to someone else" over and over again, marrying a cookie-cutter version of them and obsessing over it, declaiming truths their different minds and cultures have twisted or anyway could hardly understand without scholar-level education (let alone feel, as something like that should be felt), ending up not even really knowing what their religions are even truly about, wearing them as badges of honor, fighting over them as one fights over a football match, weaponizing them to support agendas and propaganda... you know, the usual stuff.

at some point in history religions ceased to be a matter of that resided in the individual hearts of hearts, becoming an easily sold product for the multitudes. the majority of religions are a masses-ready to consume echoes of other people’s emotions and dreams - and those are intimate things, unspeakable and unsheareable, at least not as one can share a sentiment about a netflix show or the weather.

religion started to be so simplified in classical times and, funnily enough, those were the times in which also people actually began to question the existence of godhood (socrates, plato). but even they weren’t participating to their own religions anymore, they were merely retelling, and academically, what the ancients had created.

mythology, ancient religions (that actually are still our major religions today by the way), are believed to have started as stories, orally told. a creative act, that then became a higher form of art and maybe a higher form of sentiment. what came first, the art or the belief the art was true? what came first, the gods or the poetry about them? the religious sentiment or the artistic sentiment? the answer might appear simple, but we have evidence that it’s hardly so.

this is the anthropological dilemma and it serves me (along with this academic premise), to answer your question, because no, the sharing i was talking about wasn’t the artistic sharing of poetry on aoidoses’ lips, nor i am against artistic impulses and their consequential sharing (even if, as a writer, art often feels too personal to be shared precisely as faith is), or the making of spirituality in the cradle of human culture, i am not against the making of religions and therefore mythologies, i am against feasting over their remains, wearing their corpses. i am against the appropriation of emotions that are probably felt too easily and to shallowly by the most, because it’s easier than truly feel, and alone, facing bravely the existential dread that has followed us as a species since the beginning. i am against the influence that parents have on children regarding spiritual beliefs. i’m against wearing our own souls outside ourselves as flags, as labels. i am against the need to affirm ourselves stating our religious truths against the other, or only approving who share ours. the list goes on and on.

and yes, i do think that the world would have been better off (and still would be) if we had the social custom of not sharing such things, not sharing ourselves so much, too much i dare say, and automatically, to whomever asks. i do think it is “one of the lowest aspects of human culture”, this need of overexposure, the normalization of sharing a thing so personal as a spiritual belief. and as normally as one would share one’s age or nationality, discussing it with a bit of timidity and a bit of temper as one discusses politics. it’s not the same thing. i find it repulsive.

i definitely didn’t answer you with something untrue by any means. i wonder why you thought it in the first place tbh. i was perhaps just trying to avoid a dissertation on why i wasn’t going to answer you, a dissertation that actually turned out very incomplete and that means very little in the face of the vastness of what i think on the matter.

i hope i clarified your doubts.

[metvmorqhoses]

You certainly have clarified my doubts and I appreciate your honesty. I feel the world would be better if we were all true to ourselves and to others. But I can't come to believe the same way you do if only because I believe people are meant to live together and not alone (in terms of sharing beliefs and otherwise) but I find you perspective a welcome change to what can be a very plain and uninspired society. I look forward to further posts. Also, do you get many questions non-anonymously?

as you might have deduced by my previous essay, i sure love a good exchange of opinions. i'm glad you enjoy my little musings. and yes, i do receive quite a few, but they are largely outnumbered by the countless anons lol

[inexplicably-spookified]

"#because that's when i was a lot more open and interactive and we saw them more often#now i close myself off a lot and don't talk to many people so. hm." Why do you close yourself off now? As someone who does the same I know it is difficult to avoid doing but I've been told it is unhealthy. Be well.

i don’t wanna get too into it but while i’m working on being more open with my immediate family, for various reasons i’ve become a lot quieter and less eager to open up around my extended family/family friends/etc (nothing against them, we just don’t see them a lot anymore bc of life/travel distance/covid etc and i feel weird around them)

[eerna]

In Light of Percy Jackson and RR selling out, do you think you’d ever sell out for big Disney bucks?

See, that's the scary part. I want to believe I wouldn't, I hate Disney and think it is ruining the entertainment industry and I want it to disappear... but considering the grip they have even on A list Hollywood celebrities and the immense wealth that allowes them to buy everything in their path... I personally believe there is no way such wealth can leave you uncorrupted, even if you start out as the greatest person in the world, and I have no delusions about my own moral superiority when compared to the average person. Hence, I think the only reliable way I could avoid selling out to Disney would be to delete or burn any and all offers they make before even reading them

[eerna]

The thing about live action, and the amount of “slop” you see in general, is that it is quite literally a market of waste. I’ve watch a video recently about how the aim of Netflix is not produce the next big thing, but rather every piece of background noise. They literally aim to make something so bland and inoffensive and just good enough that people would rather let it play as background noise while they look at their phone or do chores than just turn it off.

That’s what the over abundance of this junk is for. A endless money printer that people can’t be bothered to turn off.

Yeah, I've seen a video essay on the same theme, and it's scary accurate T.T But big movies are meant to be watched in cinemas, where you can't really do "second screen" style stuff. So I truly think the reason the remakes are so stupid is because they take as little time as possible to write them, since they know nobody who is gonna pay for them truly cares about the quality of writing, as all their opinions and emotions have been previously established. It's much easier to market something that has an existing audience than convince people to get onto a new hype train

[eerna]

For the HTTYD post, you know the reason:

MONEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!!!!!!!

screaming crying I CANT BELIEVE PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND IT'S ALL CASHGRABS CREATED TO ROB THEM

[eerna]

I can find it kind of jarring how Americans assume so many things in other parts of the world. I say this as an American, but we aren’t a very worldly people. Also yay! Croatia! 🇭🇷

WOOO HRVATSKA 🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷 Idk much about it, but from my experience, it is a little true indeed. Older people from everywhere do it while younger are more flexible, but with Americans/British people it is more likely than not regardless of age! But I don't find it offensive (if they aren't bring directly offensive or rude), I've developed a fondness for it in a "hehe funny people in my phone" way. And if they weren't like that, maybe the toothpaste bucket event would have never happened, so

[eerna]

Congratulations on graduating! 🥳

Any plans now or just vibing for a bit now school is over?

Thanksss~ As soon as I get my diploma in order it is job hunting time! But first I chill for a couple weeks and catch my well deserved 2 Hadestown 2 flight

[eerna]

As an aspiring male writer, what’s your advice to make my writing not suck? What things should I avoid, what should I focus on?

Probably would want to write mostly fantasy novels, with some romance present, but not as a main focus. More so that the two characters would develop into who they need to be, which brings them together/closer. But the main focus of my stories would be on the individual characters. Thanks mate! 😎

I am not very well versed in academic level feminist discussions, or in any way shape or form educated in matters of creative writing, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer your questions. But if you're worried because of my earlier gender-focused criticism of RR, I can try rephrasing my thoughts a bit to make them more constructive!

Your goals in writing sound like the thing RR's author didn't have, which was looking at a romance as a partnership between two equally whole characters. His women are written as vessels of either sexual violence or adoration, their motivations and goals are very vague and their character arcs nonsensical. The men are granted clear roles in the story, as each other's foils and enemies and friends, but the women are always someone's girl and they change depending on what the story needs them to be. Sure, the female lead ends up the main ruler of the universe while the male lead is her supporter, but that doesn't mean anything because she was nothing but his love interest the rest of the time. She just gets granted an empty title to prove the writer is feminist without any clear character arcs that would make her success narratively satisfying.

In addition, you can tell he doesn't have very healthy views of gender dynamics because he created a world in which physical inequalities are gone and everyone is genetically enhanced to be the perfect candidate for whatever role they are to fulfill, eradicated sexism on a societal level so that women are viewed exactly the same as men, but he STILL uses "like a woman" as an insult and presents them as the "whores" in casual dialogue. So the society that is said to have equalized itself suddenly isn't equal at all when the main character has to call another man a little girl as an insult, or when women engage in premarital sex with men and get treated badly for it while their partners don't.

And then even if we ignore the female portion of his crimes, his writing style is very reflective of the "mansplaining" way of speaking. He is incapable of separating himself from his characters - the lead is supposed to be 16-18 years old from Mars, but he speaks like a 30-something Earthling weaned on modern politics, which the writer is. And this lead is presented as perfect: super hot, wise beyond his years, and capable of changing tides of a war with nothing but his words, which means he gives very very long monologues, and those monologues are all very on-the-nose and preachy. You can tell that this is all just an excuse for the writer to present his worldview, which he considers superior to everyone else's, through a mouthpiece, and the characters are all completely subjected to it.

Last and least because it's petty but you asked for specifically male identifiers, the worldbuilding is based on Ancient Rome, but a version of it that is clearly pulled from the typically male surface level obsession with the Roman Empire. I'm a woman and spent most of my childhood completely enamored with Rome - it was the only aspect of the book I liked - so I feel like I am allowed to criticize this approach to it. He only features the Roman pantheon/war/slavery aesthetic and doesn't care about any other aspect of their culture, which is what men usually approach history as. To use another dystopian YA novel as an example, The Hunger Games were also inspired by Rome, but they took inspiration from its philosophy on politics and crowd control, death and entertainment, and the American obsession with it. Now imagine if the only thing Panem had to say about Rome is that it named its army positions the same as they were in Caesar's time, worshipped their gods, and also they had slaves.

Anyway like I said I don't think I'm the correct person to instruct anyone on gender dynamics in creative writing. I'd recommend reading written works on the theme to truly get to the bottom of it. Happy writing!

[eerna]

From your “adult fan post” in the tags:

“Literally felt a shift when I neared 25”

This might be because I’m a boy but I did not feel that at all. The most I got recently (meaning last year and a half (I’m 29)) was feeling a little bit less depressed but that’s probably because I was doing stuff about it.

To be more precise: it's not only about seeing myself as an adult, at one point over the past few years I realized I don't think of myself as a "girl" anymore, but as a "woman", but I couldn't pinpoint when that shift happened. This shift, on the other hand, was pretty noticeable because yeah my priorities shifted, I got over some emotional issues, and I suddenly gained a will to like. Actively live. As in, to stop "floating" through life. If that makes sense. I imagine it's quite a different story when mental health is involved, I wish you all the best to keep getting better!

[eerna]

I missed something, how and why did you get banned? Aren’t you just a fanart and young adult novel blog?

I sent one too many links for my bad smut book club. Happens to everyone

[eerna]

I really haven’t been reading as much as I should be, but what are the types of books you’ll be reading in the book club? Are they “so bad it’s good”, raunchy stuff, or just general young adult fantasy novels? (If I join I’ll probably just listen to the audio books through Libby drive if I’m honest 😔)

Here's the info post! And why would listening through Libby be something that needs honesty?