millennial-medusa

[millennial-medusa]

You’ve been hit by 🔪

You’ve been struck by 🔪

A Roman Senator 🔪🔪🔪

[millennial-medusa]

Chant

Eurydice: Please work so we can survive the winter

Orpheus:

[millennial-medusa]

if we’re mutuals, and I don’t care whether we’ve been mutuals for twelve (12) minutes or three (3) years, you can send me a message any time about any thing. family life is shit? bitch, tell me about it and even if I can’t help, I can listen. struggling with mental illness and feel like you can’t talk to anyone? talk to me. literally. you always can. saw a cute cat? SEND THAT BITCH MY WAY

[millennial-medusa]

Calypso’s island is magical. It supplies every possible demand Odysseus might have for food, drink, clothing, sex, companionship or conversation. He has only to pay over the coin of his self. His entire self. Calypso wants Odysseus body and soul. She wants everything about him. Physical, moral, and verbal. She wants the work of art that he has made of his own human being. And she wants it for all time. She promises to immortalize him.

When he rejects the transaction she’s baffled. Why would anyone choose to abandon a consumer paradise where he could live forever with a ravishing divinity? Odysseus’s answer is: “I know you’re a goddess and bigger and better looking than my wife, for you are deathless and ageless while she is a mere mortal, and yet, I prefer Penelope and what I really long for is the day of my return.” Odysseus’s answer sets up a calculus. He measures the infinite days and infinite pleasures of Calypso against the single day of his homecoming and the mortal attractions of his wife. The infinite comes up lacking.

Neither Odysseus nor Homer ever tells us exactly what the infinite lacks. That is, we never get an objective description of Penelope. We do not know if she is dark or fair. Odysseus no where itemizes the qualities that make her more desirable than a goddess. What becomes clear in the final stages of the poem however as husband and wife engage in a so called recognition scene that extends from Book XVII where Odysseus shows up in disguise at Penelope’s house to Book XXIII where she falls weeping in his arms and calls his name is that these two people are a match for each other in wits and ambiguity.

We watch Her throughout the six books seduce him by the simple tactic of never letting him know what she’s thinking. She dangles herself. She dangles the prospect of homecoming before him in a series of tantalizing interactions. She gives him clothing, a meal, a bath, a bed in the courtyard and several deep conversations without ever letting on whether she’s recognized him or not. Scholars still disagree on where exactly in the poem she decides Odysseus is Odysseus and she should welcome him home. Penelope’s power is the power of a meaning withheld.

—Anne Carson on the distinction between selling and selling out

[millennial-medusa]

yup more baseball annabeth

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i woke up at the middle of the night thinking “annabeth in baseball getup” when i realized i know nothing about baseball, but here we are

[millennial-medusa]

I recently read the book Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks and one of the most interesting chapters to me was The Memory of Greek Battle by Juan Sebastian de Vivo. De Vivo argues that the simple wearing of a typical Corinthian helmet would have greatly influenced the way a hoplite would have experienced a battle, since the helmet severely limited his point of view and his hearing.

This again reminded me how differently people from ancient times experienced the world around them. This not only goes for battle but for every day life, too.

I like to call it “Imagining the past with my senses”. I close my eyes and try to imagine what I would see, what I would hear, what I would smell.

It might sound simple, but it isn’t. If I were at the Athenian agora, for example, I would see houses and shops and temple and people. But what if I looked more closely? I might see that the houses’ walls are not naked but covered in graffiti. I would see Thracian slaves covered with tattoos, like on this vase. If it was night, I would be able to see a sky without light pollution.

I would hear people talking, yes, but it would still be much quieter than today. If I went to a public sacrifice, I would hear the women cry out when the animal is killed. This cry is called ululation and it sounds like this. Nowadays it is probably mostly associated with Middle Eastern cultures, but it was very common in Ancient Greece, too.

I would also be very used to the smell of animal blood. I would smell the sweat of the people around me and the flames of the sacrificial fire.

This, of course, is still no accurate representation of what it would have been like to live as an Ancient Greek. It’s impossible to know that. But imagining it this way might just bring us a little bit closer.

 PS: Here is another short but great video on that topic, if someone is interested

[millennial-medusa]

Hello friends, just to let y’all know I’ve been moving back to college for the past few days and it’s been pretty hectic, so that’s why I haven’t been on here much!! As soon as life settles back down I’ll get right back to writing (I have too many ideas for the baseball au to stop now), and I will try to answer your messages when I can :)

[millennial-medusa]

“My face was burning.

- Oh, so now it’s my fault we met medusa?

Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said:

- It’s just a photo, Annabeth, what’s the harm?”

-The Lightining Thief-

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“my dad lives in macedonia, i live in the moment”

— alexander the great, probably (via venuselectrificata)

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if you were wondering about ancient greek for ‘then perish’, iliad book 21 line 106 θάνε καὶ σύ (lit. die you also). achilles says it.

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Sugar Sugar Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Honey honey, hold me baby, a-ha, honey honey

Piper’s dad is out of the country and she has an empty mansion to babysit and some friends to give her some company.

There were a lot of reasons why Piper didn’t like living in Los Angeles and why she moved out of the city in the first chance she had: the traffic, the rich and snobby people who lived in her neighborhood in Malibu, and the constant rush the city had were some of the reasons, but laying on a float in her dad’s pool without a care in world? That was one of the pros LA had.

“I could get used to this,” Annabeth said next to her.

“You say that every single time and yet you’re the first one to pack your bags and be ready to go,” Piper said and Annabeth only grunted in response.

Piper’s dad was out of the country filming a new movie in Europe and Piper usually spent a weekend at his place when he was out to make sure everything was okay in the house. Sometimes her friends would come and stay with her, Leo had stayed so often during their teenage years he pretty much had his own room there, but this time she had only asked Annabeth to come with her. Her friend had been in a sea of confusion after her birthday thanks to a certain dark-haired boy. Annabeth had been over analyzing every single thing related to Percy and it had been driving her and Piper crazy, so Piper had forced her to come with her to her dad’s for the weekend. “No boy talk, just us enjoying the sun and eating until we feel sick while watching movies in my dad’s home theater, boy drama can wait for a few days.” Piper had told Annabeth.

“Easy for you to say.” Annabeth had mumbled while packing. “You and Jason are still in the honeymoon stage.”

“We should do this more often,” Piper fixed her sunglasses and dropped her hands to touch the water.

“Relax by the pool? Our community pool is filled with kids.”

“No, not that.” Piper splashed some water towards her friend, making her laugh. “Us hanging out.”

“We live together.”

“Yeah and like Leo is there ninety percent of the time or Jason is there or I am at Jason’s or you are hanging out with Percy.”

“You said this was a Percy-free weekend, why are you bring him up?”

Piper ignored her. “It’s been a while since it’s been only you and me.”

Annabeth was quite for a while. “It has been, hasn’t it?”

“We had so many plans about traveling the world after college and we only went to New York for your birthday last year.”

“There was also that Sequoia trip,” Annabeth said.

“With the bear trying to eat us?”

“The bear was so far away and it was minding its own business, we were never at risk of being killed by him.”

“We were so close to dying,” Piper said and Annabeth kicked her, almost knocking her off her float. “YOU ASSHOLE !” Piper yelled while Annabeth laughed, she tried to push her off her float but Annabeth avoided her.

Keep reading on AO3

[millennial-medusa]

percy: breathes

me:

[millennial-medusa]

barely made it! happy anniversary to you two, as well. ;)

[millennial-medusa]

Okay but Successful off Ariana Grande’s new album is SUCH an Annabeth song 

[millennial-medusa]

Thank you @pompeythegreatsuggestions for this post.

[millennial-medusa]

no offense but like…..reblog the fics you like. there is nothing more discouraging than having people read your fic without leaving kudos or any form of response. comment if you like it! send them a message! use the tags to talk about how you liked it! share the work so that others can read it too!

too often fic writers deal with people hounding them for updates, but never any feedback. end the cycle. reblog the fics you like. talk about them. share them.