You’re an ancient Greek man coming home from 4 months of war to find your wife 3 months pregnant. Now you’ve embarked on a solemn quest: to punch Zeus in the face.
Soon after you begin your quest, you encounter another man in a similar situation. You decide to join forces, as two mortal men stand a better chance at punching Zeus than one.
Two villages over, you encounter a woman who had relations with Zeus and was left with a highly aggressive half-boar half-man offspring. She too feels your anger and offers to join your quest.
By the time you reach Mount Olympus, you’ve amassed a large and formidable army of cuckolded/ravished mortals, demigods with daddy issues, mythical creatures with scores to settle, and a seamstress who you’re pretty sure is Hera in disguise.
Zeus never stood a chance.
What I find best about this scenario is that the original wife probably expected to be murdered for her infidelity at worst or have her relationship with her husband ruined as he grew to resent her baby, at best.
Instead this man looked at his beloved and said, “who did it?”
And she replied “Zeus,” accepting he probably wouldn’t believe her.
And then he sighed, strapped his sandals back on and said, “I’ll be back before the baby is born.”
“Where are you-?”
“The lord of the sky came into my house, molested my wife in my bed and ate my food. I am going to settle the score.”
“Darling, he’ll kill you.”
“He may try, if he would like.”
You’re so right, that IS the best part.
I’m personally caught up on the seamstress.
“The pathway up Olympus is guarded by dozens of traps and perils strong enough to thwart even the Titans. How are we going to get past all of…” the shepherd boy with golden eagle feathers gestured uselessly at the slopes above them, particularly the herd of eight-legged goats snorting fire.
“There’s a way around,” Yiorgos said, though he was not specifically asked. But he had been the first to begin the march on Olympus, and so felt obligated to take the lead whenever possible, “In the stories there’‘s always a way around whatever obstacles the Gods place in our way.”
He hadn’t meant the words to come out as a question, but they had that lilt to them none-the-less. And even though he hadn’t meant it to be a question, much less a question directed at anyone specific, it was directed at one all the same. Just as the eagle-feathered shepherd boy’s had.
“Way I heard it,” a woman’s voice said. Rough with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a backwoods accent, and with the depth of a farmer’s wife who straps cattle to her back to carry to market, “there’s a back path. Hidden behind an invisible door that only one key in the world can open.” Everyone’s eyes had turned to the broad older woman in heavy shawl sitting amidst supplies in the foremost cart. “Least, that’s what my grand-mammy always told me.” she added after a moment of dozens of eyes on her.
“Oh, we were so foolish!” That was Lydia, a lithe waif of a woman, many months pregnant, sitting opposite the seamstress in the wagon. “Of course there’d be a.. a quest. They’d keep such a key in the depths of Tartarus or in the golden chariot of Apollo, or, or-”
“Or”, the older woman cut her off in a voice both firm, but much gentler than she used on anyone else, “he’s like all husbands and has been promising to move the key someplace better for the past three thousand years but hasn’t gotten around to it.” She gestured vaguely to the hillside, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under, say, that bush right over there.”
It was. Of course. And everyone in the caravan agreed that it had been a very lucky and wise guess from the nameless woman and for the upteenth time since she first sat herself down in the front wagon and announced she was coming along with no further explanation, each and every last member very purposefully gave no further thought to the matter.
Please return us to a world where Notp and squick are used for a ship you don’t like instead of just making up a load of bullshit about how immoral it is or w/e lol
a short selection of concepts and phrases that used to be commonplace in fandom and we’d really benefit from making that a thing again:
NOTP: the opposite of an OTP (One True Pairing). It is a ship a fan strongly dislikes. The word is a portmanteau of ‘no’ and ‘OTP’ and thus is not a contraction of any particular phrase.
Squick: anything that is a deep-seated, visceral turn-off.
Squicks may be shared by many fans or be specific to one; one person’s kink may be another person’s squick.
YKINMKATO, or kink-tomato: Your Kink Is Not My Kink, And That’s Okay: used to indicate support for fannish diversity and to distinguish between disapproval or kink shaming and simply having different taste.
DLDR: Don’t Like, Don’t Read: a phrase used to warn against complaints about an aspect of fic or meta. A “live and let live” philosophy of fandom, which places the
responsability for avoiding content one doesn’t want to see on the side
of the fanwork consumer, rather that on the creator’s.
SALS: Ship And Let Ship: similar to the above specifically about shipping tastes.
YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary: a phrase used to acknowledge that any given individual’s personal opinion on the topic at hand may differ due to their own tastes, standards, values, experiences, etc.
As the OP points out, all of these crucially imply no moral judgment of what they’re designing.
(definitions lifted more or less wholesale from fanlore’s relevant pages)
bring the healthy fun back to fandom!
If ever a time comes when I don’t reblog this when it appears on my dash, assume I’m dead
I think the thing that drives me the most batshit about the medical fatphobia conversation is that the burden of proof feels so exactly backwards. Just from an obvious best practices standpoint???
Things like intentional malnourishment, intentionally incapacitating vital organs through surgery, denial of potentially lifesaving medical care until those things are done, etc.
Those are all pretty extreme. The kinds of things it feels like a “first do no harm” system should have a lot of solid evidence for before recommending or implementing them.
But they’re so bog standard and accepted and everyone from doctors to your own family will look at you like you’re a flat-earther when you suggest maybe we shouldn’t be defaulting to that.
“We have proved there is an association between larger bodies and certain illnesses!”
Okay, have you proved the fat caused the illnesses?
“No.”
Have you proved people have better long term outcomes from losing weight?
“We can’t.”
Right. And why is that again?
“Well to measure that, we’d have to compare the health outcomes of three populations - thin people, fat people, and fat people who became thin through weight loss.”
So do that.
“But there actually are not enough people who became thin through weight loss and kept it off for us to do a long term study on how that impacts their health. The sample size is too small.”
So you can’t prove that changing fat people to thin people would change their health outcomes to those of thin people.
Because you can’t prove that fat people can become thin in the first place.
But you’re still telling them to do that as your primary prescription.
Even when the recommended and unproven methods to do so are potentially very dangerous.
“Yeah, but”
What if as a doctor I found out pale people get skin cancer more often than darker skin people, so to prevent skin cancer, started recommending tanning to my palest patients? Would that be good health care?
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what we’re doing.” Isn’t it though???
I’m dropping the bit. I’m losing my shit. I get so used to living in bizarro land but sometimes I just want to shake everyone. Calories are bad science! They are nearly meaningless! The BMI is bad science! It’s nearly meaningless! The presumptions made in weight loss studies are so bad!!! And we’ve known this for decades!!! And we just keep!!! Ruining lives!!! Why are we so invested in this clearly unfounded ideology about bodies???
yuuri tells us in the early episodes that while he tends to flub his jumps he’s capable of closing the gap with his program component scores. he tells us that he’s known for his spins and step sequences. this means that he doesn’t just have consistent level 4s on those technical elements he’s pretty much the best in the field. his pure skating skills are crazy, like think jason brown for a pre-series yuuri, his technical skills are absolutely on point.
and we have to question what he tells us about his jumps, too. yuuri’s favorite jump is the triple axel. axels. are. hard. it’s his favorite jump and commentators know it’s his favorite jump, which means this is… a generally consistent very good jump. axels are hard!!! he has the quad toe loop and can land the quad sal in practice, and in the span of just a few months yuuri is not only making the salchow consistent but he then adds the flip, the second hardest quad to land, and seems to master it in a month.
yeah that’s not someone who’s not technically skilled.
Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.
Word for today: wisdom of repugnance
The logical fallacy that because something disgusts you it must be bad
ALTthis is probably the funniest example of a tumblr user simply not reading the post theyre reblogging at all
I think a lot of people who don’t like Jiang Cheng forget about how Wei Wuxian actively and deliberately lied to him about his actions, repeatedly, and feel that somehow Jiang Cheng was supposed to be more “understanding” or put more blind faith and trust in his brother, even though he was being actively lied to. And even so! He kept trying to help him behind the scenes (wedding clothes? courtesy name for nephew? invited to 1 month party?).
I think people want him to be like Lan Xichen, with his complete unwavering trust in his brother/sworn brothers. “I’m sure he had his reasons!”
But I mean, we all saw how that worked out for Lan Xichen, didn’t we?
#I’m just tired of this oh jc was so unfair #was he? was he really? #he kept trying to reach out to wwx in so many ways #and yes his love language is salt #and yes he’s rough with his words #but he even tried to have a Real Feelings Talk at that banquet in qinghe #and wwx just goes meh you tell me to do something it makes me just not wanna do it #sorry that jc didn’t have access to open communication methods after responsibly going to therapy #sorry he didn’t have a bunch of self-help books to help him sort through his trauma so he could support his brother more #you know the one constantly pushing away said support and also refusing to communicate openly #interesting to think about how lxc would have handled it if lwj started pulling that shit tho (tags via @heavymetalchemist)
HONESTLY.
OKAY CAN SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THE FUCK YOU SHIP A PACKAGE OF COOKIES TO A FRIEND WHO LIVES IN NEW JERSEY, ONLY TO HAVE IT NOT GET THERE ON TIME BECAUSE IT SOMEHOW ENDED UP IN GUAM?
I JUST
GUAM?
IM CRYING REAL TEARS MAH DUDES THE COOKIES ARE IN GUAM
KATIE TRIED TO SEND US COOKIES OUTTA THE GOODNESS OF HER HEART AND JUST
“OHHHH THESE COOKIES WERE SUPPOSED TO GO TO NEW JERSEY, PHIL? I THOUGHT YOU SAID
12/27, 8:37PM CT
ITS STILL IN FUCKING GUAM
12/28, 12:18PM CT
THE COOKIES ARE IN HONOLULU GUYS THEY ***FINALLY LEFT GUAM***
12/28, 10:22PM CT
THE COOKIES ARE FINALLY ON THEIR WAY TO NEW JERSEY
GO COOKIES GO
@phantomrose96 @cupcakecreeper @homebeccer GET READY
lol i was looking through my history to find the tracking number page and
12/30, 12:39AM CT
@phantomrose96 @homebeccer @cupcakecreeper
holy fuCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS
THE COOKIES ARE ALMOST THERE
The saga of Katie’s Guam cookies is my Anime of the Season
THEY’VE ARRIIIIIIIIIIVVEEDDDDD THEY’RE ON THE FRONT DOORSTEP
COOKIES ACQUIRED
also as a bonus visual here’s a rough approximation of these cookies’ journey
how the FUCK did this blow up and get so many notes
SO FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES, @homebeccer @phantomrose96 @cupcakecreeper AND I WANTED TO KNOW HOW MUCH IT WOULD ACTUALLY COST THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO INTENTIONALLY SEND THESE COOKIES FROM TEXAS TO GUAM TO NEW JERSEY AND???????????????
AND
IT’S
IT’S
IT’S NOT AN OPTION IT’S NOT AN OPTION I CAN’T I-
I COULDN’T EVEN HAVE SENT THESE COOKIES TO GUAM EVEN IF I’D HAVE TRIED
Cant believe we uncovered the Guam Cookie glitch folks
Its not even an in-game feature
Oh my god it’s back
H O W
I’ve had this sort of thing happen.
At least it explained why the package took so long to get here.
I appreciate that they have an Entire Stamp for “Missent to Nepal”
No one said “hey let’s stop missending things to Nepal” they just said “let’s make a stamp for this” and called it a day.
I’m gonna get Missent to Guam tattooed on my arm in commemoration.
In the past I've shared other people's musings about the different interpretations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Namely, why Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, even though he knows it means he'll lose her forever. So many people seem to think they've found the one true explanation of the myth. But to me, the beauty of myths is that they have many possible meanings.
So I thought I would share a list of every interpretation I know, from every serious adaptation of the story and every analysis I've ever heard or read, of why Orpheus looks back.
One interpretation – advocated by Monteverdi's opera, for example – is that the backward glance represents excessive passion and a fatal lack of self-control. Orpheus loves Eurydice to such excess that he tries to defy the laws of nature by bringing her back from the dead, yet that very same passion dooms his quest fo fail, because he can't resist the temptation to look back at her.
He can also be seen as succumbing to that classic "tragic flaw" of hubris, excessive pride. Because his music and his love conquer the Underworld, it might be that he makes the mistake of thinking he's entirely above divine law, and fatally allows himself to break the one rule that Hades and Persephone set for him.
Then there are the versions where his flaw is his lack of faith, because he looks back out of doubt that Eurydice is really there. I think there are three possible interpretations of this scenario, which can each work alone or else co-exist with each other. From what I've read about Hadestown, it sounds as if it combines all three.
In one interpretation, he doubts Hades and Persephone's promise. Will they really give Eurydice back to him, or is it all a cruel trick? In this case, the message seems to be a warning to trust in the gods; if you doubt their blessings, you might lose them.
Another perspective is that he doubts Eurydice. Does she love him enough to follow him? In this case, the warning is that romantic love can't survive unless the lovers trust each other. I'm thinking of Moulin Rouge!, which is ostensibly based on the Orpheus myth, and which uses Christian's jealousy as its equivalent of Orpheus's fatal doubt and explicitly states "Where there is no trust, there is no love."
The third variation is that he doubts himself. Could his music really have the power to sway the Underworld? The message in this version would be that self-doubt can sabotage all our best efforts.
But all of the above interpretations revolve around the concept that Orpheus looks back because of a tragic flaw, which wasn't necessarily the view of Virgil, the earliest known recorder of the myth. Virgil wrote that Orpheus's backward glance was "A pardonable offense, if the spirits knew how to pardon."
In some versions, when the upper world comes into Orpheus's view, he thinks his journey is over. In this moment, he's so ecstatic and so eager to finally see Eurydice that he unthinkingly turns around an instant too soon, either just before he reaches the threshold or when he's already crossed it but Eurydice is still a few steps behind him. In this scenario, it isn't a personal flaw that makes him look back, but just a moment of passion-fueled carelessness, and the fact that it costs him Eurydice shows the pitilessness of the Underworld.
In other versions, concern for Eurydice makes him look back. Sometimes he looks back because the upward path is steep and rocky, and Eurydice is still limping from her snakebite, so he knows she must be struggling, in some versions he even hears her stumble, and he finally can't resist turning around to help her. Or more cruelly, in other versions – for example, in Gluck's opera – Eurydice doesn't know that Orpheus is forbidden to look back at her, and Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her. So she's distraught that her husband seems to be coldly ignoring her and begs him to look at her until he can't bear her anguish anymore.
These versions highlight the harshness of the Underworld's law, and Orpheus's failure to comply with it seems natural and even inevitable. The message here seems to be that death is pitiless and irreversible: a demigod hero might come close to conquering it, but through little or no fault of his own, he's bound to fail in the end.
Another interpretation I've read is that Orpheus's backward glance represents the nature of grief. We can't help but look back on our memories of our dead loved ones, even though it means feeling the pain of loss all over again.
Then there's the interpretation that Orpheus chooses his memory of Eurydice, represented by the backward glance, rather than a future with a living Eurydice. "The poet's choice," as Portrait of a Lady on Fire puts it. In this reading, Orpheus looks back because he realizes he would rather preserve his memory of their youthful, blissful love, just as it was when she died, than face a future of growing older, the difficulties of married life, and the possibility that their love will fade. That's the slightly more sympathetic version. In the version that makes Orpheus more egotistical, he prefers the idealized memory to the real woman because the memory is entirely his possession, in a way that a living wife with her own will could never be, and will never distract him from his music, but can only inspire it.
Then there are the modern feminist interpretations, also alluded to in Portrait of a Lady on Fire but seen in several female-authored adaptations of the myth too, where Eurydice provokes Orpheus into looking back because she wants to stay in the Underworld. The viewpoint kinder to Orpheus is that Eurydice also wants to preserve their love just as it was, youthful, passionate, and blissful, rather than subject it to the ravages of time and the hardships of life. The variation less sympathetic to Orpheus is that Euyridice was at peace in death, in some versions she drank from the river Lethe and doesn't even remember Orpheus, his attempt to take her back is selfish, and she prefers to be her own free woman than be bound to him forever and literally only live for his sake.
With that interpretation in mind, I'm surprised I've never read yet another variation. I can imagine a version where, as Orpheus walks up the path toward the living world, he realizes he's being selfish: Eurydice was happy and at peace in the Elysian Fields, she doesn't even remember him because she drank from Lethe, and she's only following him now because Hades and Persephone have forced her to do so. So he finally looks back out of selfless love, to let her go. Maybe I should write this retelling myself.
Are any of these interpretations – or any others – the "true" or "definitive" reason why Orpheus looks back? I don't think so at all. The fact that they all exist and can all ring true says something valuable about the nature of mythology.
for some reason, eddie munson has been hanging out at scoops. scoops ahoy, of all places.
robin isn't sure why he's here, but it seems when he shows up, her rich bitch of a coworker, steve harrington, seems to get real flustered.
how interesting.
she watches from the corner of her eye as steve strikes out with yet another girl, and as eddie scoffs in his direction. it's not harsh, though. more of a fond, knowing look, to which steve meets with his own matching expression.
it seems practices, casual, even. do eddie and steve know each other? outside of boring school hierarchies? are they friends?
the way they're interacting now sure seems like it.
she catches steve's eye, watching as a blush rises to his cheeks, before he ducks his head and wiggles his fingers in some sort of wave at her.
she scoffs and looks back to where eddie was, only to find that he'd moved on already. she pretends not to notice the disappointment on steve's face.
were they actually friends? it seems unlikely but, hey. who is she to judge, the dingus is actually pretty cool sometimes.
---
turns out, the king and the freak were much closer than robin once thought.
and cooler too.
though, that was physically speaking, because about thirty seconds ago, she'd walked in on them in the freezer. luckily, they were only kissing, still, it was a sight she'd never lose.
she power walked back to the break room. "oh my god." she whispered to herself as she sat at the table. "buckley! buck, hey. robin," there was eddie, he looked a bit flustered and the situation fully set in. "hey-"
"robin, you can't-" eddie heaved a breath, "you can't tell anyone, please," his tone was pleading, and his eyes were wide with fear. a concerned part of her wondered where steve was, if he was too ashamed to show his face. no, he wasn't like that.
"it's okay, i- uh. i have a crush on tammy thompson."
"wh- oh. that's great, good. good." eddie breathed. "i gotta go check on stevie." he told her, jerking a thumb towards the walk in.
how steve was still in there was beyond her, that little box was cold.
it was a few minutes before both boys emerged once more, tears frozen to steve's face as he walked out, shaking hands grasping at ring clad fingers.
he was scared. scared of her, robin realized.
"steve-"
"it's okay, robin. eddie told me," he sniffled, hands still shaking. "thanks for being cool about this, my dad would actually kill be if he found out, i- uh. yeah. thanks." he sighed, shoulders finally relaxing, falling away from his ears.
"of course, steve."
"tammy thompson, though?"
"i know, right?" eddie giggled from next to him, still holding steve in a comforting embrace, smiling as steve laughed.
robin scoffed, "what's wrong with tammy?"
"nothing," eddie said casually, while steve decided to forgo pleasantries, "she's a total dud." he scoffed. "she is not!" robin protested, mouth open in amused shock. "glad to see you're back to your bitchy self, sunshine," eddie laughed, watching their antics.
ridiculous.
---
i read @scoops-stevie 's recent post and was ✨inspired✨