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old-skyguy · 3 months ago

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Look.

Ace Attorney fandom.

I know why people don't like Turnabout Bigtop. I am among the people who dislike Turnabout Bigtop.

But I GET why people like the case. I'm not going to be one of those annoying people who just blindly dump on it because I hate those mfs too.

Thing about Bigtop isn't that it sucks. Thing isn't the weird grooming stuff (though that is a huge part of it). It's not that it could've been good.

It's that - in my personal OPINION - it could have been *great*.

I think it had the potential to be one of the best third cases in the trilogy. It had everything; a fun and goofy setting fit for a pretty dang goofy lawyer game - where the environment itself had jokes and quips and one-liners and mishaps and tomfoolery written all over it, it had the previous case introducing a very interesting and important plotline that gave background for one of the more well-loved characters while also introducing an equally fucked up and lovable new one who was a child forced into a shit childhood of naivete in a CIRCUS with another character who was very naive and childish - whose interactions could have been funny and cute and reflective of said shit from the previous case (seriously she becomes such an important character in the 4th case, WHY would they not include her in this one for some character development? How did they fuck up letting a CHILD explore a CIRCUS?? That would have made the interactions flow MUCH better).

They had a pretty good, sympathetic killer imo, a morally dubious victim, an asshole of a client (who was pretty flat admittedly in-game, but I like his weird, topsy-turvy reasoning for it in the anime. Also, I think Max being kinda a dick would have bode well for the themes of Farewell since most of his clients up to this point have been like...nice? Not nice, but sympathetic, but him having to defend someone who's innocent but a prick would have shown him that just because someone is an asshole, doesn't mean they deserve to suffer for it and that they have the potential to grow as people, which is almost a complete foil to what Matt was. Ultimately, I would have loved the contrast of them as clients and I think it would have also served as character development for Phoenix, especially with his low-empathy tendencies).

They just didn't think that far ahead. They just didn't execute it well enough. They just decided to make three of the adult characters fight for the hand in marriage of a teenage girl. (Bat's part of the story was actually kinda good if he was just YOUNGER, I think him doing that for Regina would have been a stupid thing someone in the circus would do to impress their crush. Damn you Ace Attorney and your weird treatment of underage girls!!)

It just flopped and that's ok.

Even though it kinda sucked, it can still mean something to me.

Also I'm a Moe Curls apologist. I liked him, shut up.

#didn't care for the dialogue either.#DON'T GET ME STARTED ABOUT FRANZISKA DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T YOU DARE GET ME STARTED #THIS CASE WAS SO GOOD FOR HER DEVELOPMENT THAT'S NOT EVEN A “COULD HAVE” THING #sure she could've been fleshed out a bit more #but the stuff we get from our interactions with her in this case is GOOD. SHIT. It's just that this case is so hated that it's overshadowed #and yeah. i like Moe Curls. i think he's cool and he added some flair in an otherwise bleak case.#i think his whole unfunny clown schtick was very entertaining. it reminded me of this one shel silverstein poem i loved as a kid #clooney the clown.#tbh ive wanted to rewrite Bigtop for a while now #get a script together and all that. but im an amateur writer who's burnt out as shit and never posts anything writing related #except analysis i get way too excited and proud of. oh well #maybe someday.#also rq why does every other tripple-a game get really good in depth analysis video essays #with their complex literary themes talked about #but with Ace Attorney - a game about reading longer than most books - half the fans have the absolute most dogshit literacy comprehension #it's actually painful. ESPECIALLY with Franziska's character #anyway i'll stop.#ace attorney trilogy #ace attorney #ace attorney justice for all #turnabout big top #franziska von karma #phoenix wright #phoenix wright ace attorney #pearl fey #farewell my turnabout #moe curls #regina berry #ig ore if this is incomprehensible i did not proofread this.#i simply do not like how fran's only traits to somea these mfs is “annoying overemotional teenager haha grumpy whip lady”

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spooky-something · 8 months ago

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These playlists are gonna make me cry, I can't, they're so bad...

Don't you dare try to gaslight me, Victor would NOT listen to Will Wood, leave him out out this...

Like, for actual characterization, this one had it, a lot of these songs are actually on our own Frankenstein playlist...

Heavy on HAD...

#Spotify playlists are SO SO BAD #god awful #dude if we're gonna drag will wood into fucking gothic/classic literature it's only acceptable with Jekyll and Hyde #Only time I'll let it slide besides maybe two or three of his songs that actually work with Frankenstein (Main Character and Memento Mori)#They had MSI on one of the playlists too #so bad...#Also #Tbh Necromancin' Dancin' isn't really Frankenstein either unless we're thinking of just beginning Victor #and even then making evil and the message of the song seems a bit different from Victor #more movie Victor core #The Imagine Dragons took me out though #next you're gonna tell me Weezer is on there /hj #if you want anything done right do it yourself #frankenstein #victor frankenstein #gothic lit #classic literature #gothic literature #classic lit #mary shelley #the modern prometheus #I have a deep hatred against these playlists because they're so inaccurate #please dude if you're gonna do a playlist and insist your headcanons at least make sure they make SOME SENSE #I can't #the autism is gonna win today #Can you tell I'm very passionate about this because Frankenstein is my Spin??? /hj

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mirai-desu · 2 days ago

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The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective - how they did more than we give them credit for, and how fiction ignores the real women of history

To go off of this more knee-jerk of a post I made earlier, here's the proper write up as promised and yes I realize I basically wrote a university paper, whoops

tl;dr - Today's fiction writers are erasing over a century's worth of women's history in favor of the flawed Strong Woman 'not like the other girls' trope, and are creating artificial barriers between the romantic relationships in their works for no true historical reason, thus demeaning and undermining the actual female trailblazers in this field.

I had picked up The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge to do research for my own novel(s) I am writing. Had this non-fiction book come out a year prior, I would have picked up out of interest from my then favorite TV show, Miss Scarlet & The Duke. But things have massively changed with the series since then, and now here I am working on my project out of spite.

Every period drama has historical inaccuracies, and especially one that doesn't seem to have an actual historical advisor on the team that I'm aware of. As I began Lodge's book, I realized just exactly what a big problem Rachael New's TV show has (and tbh other authors/showrunners).

The first season of MSATD is set in 1882, and has the tagline "Victorian London's first female detective." However, this is far from the truth in so many respects.

Female detectives existed in Britain since at least the 1840s. As Lodge notes, the Victorians had no qualms in using that term, whether referring to amateurs or professionals. Besides private detectives, they were often employed by the police as "detective searchers." While they might have not been in the same rank and file as the actual officers of Scotland Yard and other forces across the UK, they existed. Female detectives were labeled as such in the newspapers, where many were given credit for nabbing criminals, and not necessarily their male counterpart who might have done the actual arrest.

But also.... they more often than not were married to, or were widows of, police officers! And they had children. While the upper class women of the time were not expected to have jobs at all (let alone when married), working class women definitely did, and worked alongside their husbands and families in shops, etc. And even at the police stations.

Detective searchers were named such because they did the frisking of female suspects, (and many had a keen eye for finding hidden pockets), and were also part of the questioning process. But they also logged injuries of female victims, tailed suspects, and were part of sting operations. They went undercover in a variety of cases, and many had long careers (one example is in the previous post).

The 1880s is a popular time period to set detective fiction because of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Likewise, there were plenty of female detective characters in both British and American fiction written in the decade itself. Their spunky heroines are likely where we today draw a lot of today's frame of reference versus actual history, which Lodge discusses (modern examples of the Victorian female detective are not mentioned in the book, alas). I readily read many recently published novel series about Victorian female detectives myself. I did point out in a post I made earlier this year of reading recommendations that these books do tend to see our lady detective get the guy (who isn't always a police officer). But what is a common thread in these modern novels, although the ones I linked handle it with better nuance, is that the lady detective is "not like the other girls."

RN had MSATD fall in line with this thought, but she turned up the ante. Strong women cannot be like other women. The first season (which likely had script advisors when A + E was still involved) was much more palatable, but fell into similar traps. In the series, Eliza was expected by society to just one day marry and "settle down", despite her father being a detective himself. We later learn in the S4 flashback, that her mother had come from some money, but as with various aspects of this show, it seemed like something they shoved in there after the fact, versus something planned all along. Even in the flashback, Henry tells her to choose life as a teacher or governess (i.e. work), if she's not going to marry. Considering that she was saddled with his debts when he died, she was going to have to work anyway.

Eliza becoming a private detective after Henry's death makes sense both in the show and historically—it was not really as much of an oddity as RN portrays it, since women were PIs (or "ladies of enquiry") even before 1882. Many worked for/with their husbands(!), or others had their own businesses, and especially by the 1890s. (I will point out that female PIs often had their names redacted in the newspaper articles, different from the detective searchers. They were however readily advertised by their agencies, but given that they did so much work undercover it was actually better to be a shadowy figure—even if it was just being themselves, as just being a woman helped them, since people didn't even suspect they were looking for info!). But RN also uses this set up as an obstacle for why Eliza cannot be together romantically with William, a Scotland Yard inspector, when according to history, it doesn't make any sense why she cannot.

William himself grew up in poverty, and was homeless as a teenager. So he would understand Eliza needing a job after her father died, but also he knows how she wants to be a detective soon after meeting her (thank you, flashback). (He also at one point dates Arabella, who owns her own restaurant. He has no issues with a woman having a job).

But also, William would have worked with women—detective searchers—even as a constable. But RN's version of Scotland Yard is men only. In fact, most of RN's version of Victorian London is male. Eliza has no female friends her age (unless we count Hattie, who only appeared for six episodes, and Eliza didn't even really like her, lbr— in fact, I could write a whole essay just on that...). But moreover, the show denies the existence of the roles that women did historically play in Victorian police work.

RN did have angles she could have taken to make her plot work, and use other barriers for both Eliza with her career, and with her relationship with William. For example, it could have been that Eliza really craved being an actual Scotland Yard inspector, and was fighting for the right to become one, highlighting the struggle of women trying to be seen as equal in the workforce. While we can use the scene in the flashback when Eliza angrily declares that it's not fair as evidence that she's jealous that William will get to be a police officer and she will not, what we see in "present time" and the bulk of the series is not necessarily that she wants to join the force, just that she wants them to hire her to prove she is better than the police. Henry no longer even works for the Scotland Yard at the time of his death, and she seems to want to follow in her father later footsteps of being a PI anyway. While she expresses to William that his life must be easier because he's a man, it's not, imho, a sign that she literally yearns for his job (which actually not portrayed as less stressful for him), as so much just reminding him of his male privilege. It's clear that she wanted "no master" and that would include a boss, so she'd likely not want to deal with the SY hierarchy. But perhaps we are supposed to glean that Eliza doesn't like the work that many female private detectives actually did—catch adulterers (divorce was also way more common back then that people realize too). That said, it seems more like Eliza wants more high profile cases for the money, and less so the adventure or the puzzle. And William on more that one occasion questions her motives, as it doesn't seem to be to help people.

(btw, the first female inspector with arresting power was in fact married to another police officer—although of course it was WWI allowed women to become proper members of the police, but I digress)

Another angle could have been perhaps having Eliza piss off someone (or muck something up) so badly that Scotland Yard was forbidden to work with her specifically, and could have been something William had to grapple with as well (mind you, I don't think Commissioner Fitzroy knows Eliza exists, and William's actual direct superior stopped appearing on screen after S2.)

Of course, RN could have gone with that both Henry and William were just too protective of Eliza, but she doesn't lean hard into that angle. I won't deny that the early episodes did portray William as misogynistic at times, but we don't really get the why, other than RN's desire to make him a "man of his times." However, this does not mesh well with what we know of his background, and what we literally see it in a flashback. As an "outsider" himself (as RN once called him), why would he conform to what society says about a woman? Just to fit in or hide his past? However, that's another thing that's historically inaccurate about MSATD—Scotland Yard had no issues hiring men who came from poorer backgrounds, or were Scottish (other tidbits I've picked up in my own research—I recommend Scotland Yard by Simon Read as a good place to start, btw).

Obviously as the show goes on, William has major character growth as he accepts Eliza's career, readily gives her cases, and turns to her for help (here's a slightly outdated meta I wrote on this; and uh this too). All of this made sense as good character development, implying that the way he was originally characterized was to make for an amazing narrative arc for both him as a character, and his relationship with Eliza. It's clear that he loves Eliza for who she is, and doesn't want to change her. 4x01 sees him both praise her abilities, but also accept her offer to restart their month dinners. And in the next episode, he invites her to a dinner that doesn't fall into their pattern and she accepts. Their jobs do not seemed to be a barrier in their slow process of furthering their relationship at that time.

Then William is gravely injured and they don't get to go on that dinner. Eliza sits by his bedside at the hospital, putting her career on hold for him as she's there everyday waiting for him to wake up, and then she takes him into her home for him to recuperate. William tells her that he's thinking about not going back to Scotland Yard when he'd healed, and there is more important things to life. It's not all about work; something RN has had him reiterate in more than a few episodes the seasons even before his brush with death.

Suddenly, then everything is turned on its head. This rant isn't about why Willam is no longer on the show (that would be 100 pages long) but it does factor heavily into "how did we get here?": because RN refused to see that she could have her leads together.

William claims as he leaves that it wouldn't work if he's at SY and Eliza's a private detective, which is not only not historically accurate, but also makes no sense in light of him literally saying he didn't want to work for Scotland Yard anymore (and tbh, having him go from one police force to another really is misunderstanding of trauma, but I digress). But the barrier simply did not exist, and even if it did, earlier in the episode, William implied he would be choosing Eliza over his career.

Lodge shares an example of a detective sergeant who retired from force early at age 41 ("They implied police work had broken his health," Lodge writes), and how he and his wife then started a private enquiry business together in 1895; she had already began working as a detective since 1891. And they had two children. The answer to RN's "problem" of what to do with Eliza and William was staring her in the face. And imho, would have been a fantastic arc for them as characters besides as a couple.

In the very first episode, Eliza states doesn’t want to be alone; what we thought it was foreshadowing, with him wiping the tear from her face, was really just RN playing into a trope, hoping that that would keep us glued to our seats. While William's development actually got somewhere, Eliza's own seems to cycle. Likely this cycle is just to keep the show ongoing—if they got together would somehow end both the tension and Eliza's career. And for a show that proudly calls itself feminist, that could not be allowed.

However, RN's whole argument that they cannot be together because of their jobs is false when the opposite was in fact true historically. And what that perpetuates is that woman who got married and had children in those days weren't aiding in and fighting for women's rights. That they weren't feminist.

Technically speaking, she could have just written that Eliza did not want those things in life. But her inconsistent characterization never makes it clear beyond that she thinks that marriage and babies would stop her career. However RN was never going to write it that Eliza was wholly against the idea of a true relationship with William, because that would have removed the "will they, won't they" aspect of the show that kept us watching.

RN then tripped herself up, and painted herself into a corner by having William's love for Eliza run too deep too quickly (in her opinion, not mine). And yet she refused to write a scene where Eliza actually expressed how she wasn't ready for those things, or that perhaps she never wanted them, even with him. Because RN knows the tension sells. It's not that she was actually writing a character who simply doesn't want to get married or have children; it's because she thought that allowing the two leads to actually be together would kill the show. And it's now all lead it down a path that might just kill it otherwise.

Suffice it to say, while I love these characters, MSATD undermining actual trailblazers, and twisting what their lives were actually to stop the show's central relationship, is actually distasteful. Ivy's "third way" that she describes in S3 would have very much obtainable for Eliza, and RN's twisted idea of what feminism is instead erases actual the feminist story of those who lived it. Eliza could have easily had it all with William, as many women did. The passage I linked from the book earlier is about a female detective who's career spanned 36 years. Her own daughter married a policeman herself, and her son was also involved in undercover work until he went into politics. And she still had her own career all the while.

But modern fiction is letting the real history get lost, because it doesn’t fit with our wrong preconceptions. No doubt the Victorian detective searchers and female private detectives faced sexism and misogyny. The former were definitely paid less than their male counterparts, for one. But they were also celebrated in the newspapers, and worked readily alongside the male officers and investigators. Both their highs and lows are worth learning about.

While maybe you could classify MSATD as leaning more into the almost historical fantasy of fiction given its inaccuracies, the funny thing is that it's trying to present itself as being fairly truthful in both its attitudes and general (albeit it budget) set pieces, clothing, etc. RN couches many her arguments in "well that's what it was like back then," when in reality it's clear she hasn't done much research. There's romanticizing history and there's choosing not to look into things simply because the truth does not fit our preconceived notions. RN set out to write a Strong Woman character, and then shoehorned her into a time period she thought would be the best to show a woman fighting the patriarchy... and then chose not to look into how woman actually fought the patriarchy back then.

Lodge offers this in her own conclusion: "What we want to be true creates action: the literary and theatrical appeal of detection is an important factor in the development of the profession. But to attend fully to women's history, we need to separate the desire for female ancestors of a particular kind to stand for and stand up for us in the past from our desire to know the truth. There is no ignoring the dramatic attractions of the story of female detection; this book is as much thrall to it as any. But to me the messy truth is more interesting than a varnished tale. These, our foremothers, led lives as complicated, conflicted and contradictory as our own. They were working things out as they went along, without the certainty of resolution or closure. That is the true business of detection."

I think anyone who fictionalizes this archetype needs to read to Lodge's book to understand who the true female detective trailblazers were and what it was truly like for them, instead of perpetuating the stereotype that the only feminist figures in historical were women who refused to do traditional feminine things. You could have a career and have a happy marriage and children, and those woman really did exist.

The point is having the choice, but also... being able to choose to have both. You did not have to choose one or other. If RN wanted it to be that Eliza never wanted children, and William did, that should have been the barrier between them. Not that she thinks cannot have a career and be married. RN invented historically inaccurate obstacles between them because she thinks that's what you need to make "good television" and keep the longevity of the series, but I don't think anyone complained that Nick and Nora were married in The Thin Man. The Moonlighting Curse was a self-fulling prophecy with MSATD, because RN refused to see what it was truly like for a real Victorian female detective, and choose to erase their triumphs and successes in order to fit her own flawed idea of feminism—likely all some allegory to her own time in show business. Never mind that she's married to her screenwriting partner and they have children. So why does she think that women who are strong can't have life partners?

It’s easy to dismiss comments critiquing RN as just being mad that she didn’t write what I wanted to happen, but her lack of historical awareness and choice to perpetuate myths just adds to her lack of consistent characterization for Eliza, her inability to actually plot out story arcs, and lack of a long game vision other than “keep this show on air as long as possible.” And I know I’m not the only one. We kept watching because of the premise and the potential that the first season promised us. And since William grew, surely Eliza would too. Even with her messy characterization, I loved and defended Eliza because I knew with the right writing, she could have been an amazing character.

But the problem is that RN has never truly cared about creating characters as so much having a TV show. It's interesting that she allowed William to actually have the actual true character arc of the show, to then act now like he’s worthless. RN doesn’t actually care about storytelling in the same way she doesn’t care actually about the true historical women who actually were Victorian female detectives. Unfortunately, that is the problem with show business—it’s just about making money and not actually telling stories. And frankly for a show that claims it is feminist... it has a lot to do to prove that it is. Simply the fact that RN is a woman herself doesn't cut it.

My criticism is coming from a place of love, but also heartbreak: I had believed in this show, and I had believed that it could have proved that we should be able to have both love in our lives and also a career. Feminism to me is about having that choice—and being able to have both if we want it. And it's amazing that in real life, so many Victorian women were allowed to have that actual choice, and that should not be erased.

#miss scarlet and the duke #sorry this is long af and sorry for any typos my brain is broken and my proofreading skills have left me #idk I miss my ship my blorbos and also my sanity but the academic in jumped out and here's.... this #please note I am staying away from S5 so if she's changing up Eliza's entire personality in order to be with the new guy #doesn't matter the damage is already done; she's already perpetuated too many false narratives #and from a writing standpoint Eliza doing a 180 after letting the love of her life go because she thinks she cannot have him #or else she cannot have a career is shit writing #tbh RN wants to be writing a procedural and was dumb and chose to make it a period drama #and clearly when A + E boarded they made sure she had the period drama tropes #but she doesn’t even anything about the history that’s inspiring her #also in before 'oh didn't Stuart want off the show?'#I don't have time to unpack it all but short version is that the answer is actually hiiiighly likely 'no'#and the head of MP's interview from this summer was rather telling - the TPTB 'decided he needed to leave'#and he was rooting for Wiliza so I mean (as I said I could write 100 pages on it)#he was definitely not like two very high profile cases of 'Man Wanted Off Period Drama' so (i'll stop while I'm ahead)#mirai's text posts

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larissa-the-scribe · 3 months ago

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🙏Jeanne

Prayers? Yes, please, she needs all of them that she can get adfasdf

Jokes aside, she's not really sure what her position on God or religion is, but she's read parts of the Bible, and has a tendency to try to pray when she is in trouble. Whether this leads her anywhere or not still remains to be seen....

#this isn't really a story about wrestling with faith #but also it kind of is #but also she's so caught up in every other problem that she doesn't know that faith has anything to do with anything #tbh I'm not sure how much I'll get into her faith struggles in this story #because I feel like that's something she realizes later (that she can't just keep ignoring the fact that prayers have been answered)#once she has time to reflect on stuff #but I don't know yet #it could go either way at this point #thanks for the ask!#oc ask game #scribe answers #ocs #my ocs #jeanne townford #CENCA archives #a four-dimensional plot

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bmpmp3 · 9 days ago

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post ankle-twisting clarity

#i slipped in the mudddddd the other day LOL i twisted my one ankle and scraped up my other knee #so the past few days ive just been kind of needing to waddle around.....#LUCKILY its healing well and fast <3 but yknow i was like #so stressed out over shit that doesnt matter in school. and like this is an awful unintentional habit i have but i will get like #overly stressed over shit and then i'll start getting SUPER careless with everything. and then i'll injure myself foolishly and Calm Down #happened last year with my foolish midnight woodcarving incident LOL its always november....#BUT yeah luckily this years foolish injury is a quick one at least!!#but yeah like genuinely i was so stressed out about all my fine arts major shit. teachers have been really getting on my case recently #my main professor said that it was a good thing people get so riled up with my work because it means its impactful #tbh i didnt believe her at all i thought she was just trying to placate me but then i listened closely to the things faculty say when #they look at my fucking. cartoon wolf drawing or something and i think. she might be right actually. people keep getting frustrated with me #because i think they see a lot of potential in me but i basically only have to drive to draw cartoon wolves etc HFKJSDHJVKRFEds #which is great for my ego. maybe too good for my ego. that my mark making and colour use etc is so evocative to these industry and #instutition people. but on the other hand i was told like thrice now that my work has no place in a gallery. which is fine although im not #totally sure how true that is. but also afterwards one time i was suggested to go into animation instead which is. um.#so its not out of nowhere i mean i did want to be an animator when i was like 10 but if you know anything about the current state of the #animation industry its like genuinely wild to tell someone who you've only seen 2 dimensional watercolour and acrylic painted #sketchy lined drawings from and who has said they cant do digital art anymore that they should get an animation degree?#brother they would kill me. i would be killed. i had an inkling but it really made me notice so clearly how limited the experiences my #faculty kind of have with certain industries. which is fine. or maybe not. for a professor LOL but yknow. but i was like huh. i guess i can #just kind of chill lol if i just keep doing things maybe something will come of it. i may not get as much help in my artistic development #rn as i would like. but its chill i think i'll figure it out if i just keep doing stuff <3 #doesnt really matter that my teachers dont know what to do with me. my kneeeee has a booboo so i am CHILLING out :)

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coriander-candlesticks · 5 months ago

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Introductions ✨✨

Hey! I'm Coriander. It's not what I go by in my other blogs on here but I want to keep things a bit more separate, at least at first. This is gonna be a long one (sorry) so I'm adding a cut.

I'm exploring Hellenic polytheism, and have only recently started, but it's something I've been considering, in a way, for over a year. I don't have a big, intense story that marks the beginning for me; I didn't necessarily feel a personal, spiritual connection to any of the deities from the time I was a young child in the way others describe, and I haven't had an intense experience that marked the beginning of my path.

I've always felt drawn to Greek mythology, though. I have a distinct memory of laying on my stomach on the floor of the school library in 3rd or 4th grade, reading a picture book about Hades and Persephone. It kept my attention the way others - even Egyptian mythology, another major interest - didn't. I, of course, had the classic queer kid experience of being super into the Percy Jackson series for a while, but my interest in it predated that. The specific deities I've been drawn to have changed somewhat as I've grown up, and they definitely shaped some of my interests. But delving into them again has helped me see connections that weren't explicitly connected to Greek mythology. I felt drawn to Athena growing up, for example, and my love of owls was definitely shaped by that. Even though that has settled into the background somewhat, that connection has persisted in things like my knitting and desires to dye yarn and learn how to weave (side note: I associate crochet more with Apollo, actually, despite it also being a fiber art). I felt connected to Artemis and Persephone as a kid, but that waned as I got older, discovered I was trans, and began my transition. I've felt connected to Hestia and her quiet hearth-keeping since I learned about her: I've always strived to make myself & my space safe and welcoming for others, and being told I succeeded in that is one of the best compliments I've received. But my interests in the morbid (ex Pompeii & the Paris catacombs), psychopomps, rocks & minerals, and keys weren't explicitly related to Hades. Some of the connections didn't click until I started to look into him more seriously about a year ago. I was an artist and had interests in writing, poetry, singing, and playing instruments long before it actually clicked that all of those fell into Apollo's domain, as I associated Athena far more with visual arts as a kid. I also didn't realize that he & Artemis cover diseases (another long-running interest) until very recently. The concept of xenia, too, was something I grew up with to some extent, even though no one called it that. My father modelled it to my siblings and I; I even learned about it within the context of ancient Greece at some point growing up and it stuck with me, despite not knowing the name.

I grew up Mormon, and was incredibly devout until college, when the pandemic forcibly separated me from that environment and I not only discovered that I was queer in several ways, but realized that the Church 1) wasn't safe to stay in and 2) wasn't actually true (which came later, when I started to get over my fear of reading "anti-Mormon literature"). During that period between those two realizations I got into tarot and using plants and crystals for their correspondences (two other interests growing up), as well as using rocks to ground myself. At that time, I considered myself a "liminal Mormon", and was reaching out to Heavenly Mother specifically via tarot. But as it set in that Mormonism specifically, and Christianity generally, wasn't for me, I got more and more interested in modern witchcraft separated from the belief system I was raised in.

It never quite felt right, though. The constant need for protections and doing something "the right way" lest things backfire and you invite the wrong thing into your home, or hurt yourself, or others, or or or, made my anxious & scrupulous brain go into overdrive. I wasn't even sure I believed in it spiritually, or if I was just interested in it from a mindfulness standpoint, and staring down the barrel of comically high piles of research without knowing where to start was exhausting. The concept of dual deities, the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, put a bad taste in my mouth (which bled over into Persephone for a while because she and Hades are often used to symbolize those archetypes- sorry Persephone). But, not wanting to listen too much to my discomfort (since part of it may have been, and probably was, prior conditioning), I pushed ahead and actually completed one ritual that had all of the steps - cleansing, representations of the four elements and directions, etc. - and was very carefully designed to leave room for growth and change. It represented the start of my path. I still have the jar I made during the ritual, though I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it.

Around that time, I was considering whether or not to work with deities- specifically Hades, as that was who I felt the most drawn to at the time. The idea interested me, but I wasn't sure if it was from an academic or spiritual angle. I'd really only seen deity work from a modern witchcraft/neo-pagan perspective which, again, didn't sit right with me. On top of that, I wasn't quite ready to let go of Christianity even though I already functionally had, and was terrified of doing something "wrong" and getting, for lack of a better term, sent to (figurative) hell. I decided to do a simple "yes/no" tarot pull and got about the clearest "no" you can get: a reversed Ace of Swords. So I decided to let it rest and that, if I ever felt drawn to it again, I could re-approach the topic.

So, for over a year, I didn't touch it. Continuing with witchcraft after the ritual didn't feel right, either, so my altar collected dust while I tried to sort out my spirituality (or lack thereof). I settled on "I don't know and that's okay" and left it at that, trusting that when the time came, and I had more energy and mental space, that I would be able to start looking into things again.

I never truly stopped thinking about the idea of deity work/worship, though. It was always in the back of my mind. I figured it was because of the way I was raised and tried to sever my idea of spirituality from how I was conditioned while I worked through my religious trauma, got on anxiety medication, and learned more about myself and how I interacted with the world (including that I have both ADHD and autism, something that surprised no one).

Recently I talked with a witchy friend about my thoughts on divinity and what is or isn't out there (neither of us were sure but we both felt like there was something), and that conversation gave me the button I needed to start looking into paganism again. I realized at work a week or two later that I could just look up the different paths of paganism (a term I'd recently heard that hadn't clicked before then) and see if there was one that did fit. The first site I found not only had a clear, concise explanation for belief systems I hadn't knowingly come across before, but it touched on Hellenic polytheism and gave a recommendation for someone to watch to learn more about it. And unlike the sharp knot in my chest that warned me away from attending BYU, and going on a mission, and delving further into modern witchcraft as I'd been introduced to it, learning about Hellenic polytheism felt right. It was heavy and grounding and like home. Many of the issues I'd had with other neo-pagan systems - the constant vigilance & protections & concerns over trickster spirits, for example - simply didn't exist there, or were approached very differently. I still had a mental block about it, though, and realized it was because of that tarot pull a year prior. So I did another one, and got a clear "Yes, jump right in. We're waiting for you". And that's where I've been since which, granted, hasn't been for very long. I've felt especially connected to Apollo and Aphrodite recently, who I believe reached out in a different tarot pull recently - using the same card, actually - which is interesting because while I've appreciated different ways Aphrodite has been depicted, I haven't felt very connected to her in a way I realized was her until recently. It makes sense, though- I got into my first relationship around the same time I did that ritual, and not only are we still together a year later, but a trinket I used to ground myself during those first few months is also pretty directly associated with her. I'm planning on adding it to her altar/shrine area as soon as I find it (it's also still amongst the moving wreckage).

But anyway, hi! If you read this far thank you for taking the time out of your day to do so. If anyone has recommendations for books or other educational resources, or discord servers/other online forum-esque communities, please feel free to share. I've been enjoying looking through the tags and getting a feel for the community here, too; hopefully I'm here to stay.

#one thing ive *really* appreciated is the “sin doesnt exist” thing. its something i realized i'd actually manage to mostly unlearn #by the time i was learning about cleanliness in a helpol context which was nice #in conclusion: im more sure of my spiritual path than i was several weeks ago which was nice #*is nice #and it's also nice having the space to try and let go of having to *know* what's going on in a cosmic/afterlife sense. i dont need to know #and that's *fine*. it's chill. its alright.#hellenic pagan #helpol #my post #coriander says #hellenic polytheism #hellenic polythiest #also: maybe hot take but i disagree w/ the concept of sex causing miasma. maybe in the sense of 'you should do more cleansing than usual #before making an offering' b/c yeah. its messy and there are bodily fluids involved. but it seems so wildly different #from the other causes of miasma & feels pretty purity culture-y tbh. maybe it #*it's just a holdover from the 'breaking the law of chastity is a sin next to murder' shit & i'll feel differently later. idk #christianity cw #mormonism cw #uh. i think that's it. lmk if i need to cw tag anything else but there's nothing glaringly obvious #*nothing else

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