#Mestra

[softlyopulent-if]

Couldn't get off my mind that the MC would be touch-straved and deprived of kindness that they're quick to latch on to the people giving what they need. Top that with the nightmare that the people they love will disappear, just like Reina

How would the ROs deal with the MC who gets anxious when they're not with them/doesn't know where they are?

Aleksandar/Aleksandra: When they fall for the MC and learn of their situation before coming to live with them, it's very hard for them to find any fault in their attachment. Still, they have responsibilities and cannot be with the MC all the time. They will try to let them know where they’ll be each time they're apart. They’ll be more inclined to cut unimportant things short in favor of the MC as well.

Rhys/Rhea: They need space. They are the type to fly away if one holds on too tight. Though when they fall for the MC, it’ll be much harder to do that. They can't change their nature, however. They will make it clear that they need room to spread their wings, but they won't be going anywhere. It's one of the few times you can trust their word.

Calix/Calixta: They are similar to R in the fact that they need space. They like to be alone with their thoughts. They would be more willing to share those quiet moments with the MC after a while though.

Mestrn/Mestra: They are similarly touch starved. They will be with the MC as often as they can. Though, like A, they have responsibilities. They will give MC something of their own to keep around when they must be away.

[kitcatia]

I have a weird fascination with this character from greek mythology called Mestra of Thessaly. I think about her so often, but there's so little written about her. She is the shapeshifting daughter of King Erysichthon, the absolutely awful guy that killed Demeter's sacred tree and got punished with eternal hunger because of it. His story has been told many times (Overly Sarcastic Production's version of it is very good!) so I'll be focusing on her point of view this time around.

She got shapeshifting powers from Poseidon as a boon because he had taken her virginity. Yeah, it's a bit similar to Caeneus' story, but Caeneus chose to be turned into a guy, while Mestra just prayed for a way to escape from… okay I'll get there when I get there. I don't think it's ever stated in the original myths if it was consensual or not, so that's up to interpretation. He is often called "her lover", so I think it was not as violent as it could have been? I don't know, and that's up to the re-teller to choose if you want more or less abuse in her story.

So, after her father spent all the money of their kingdom to buy himself food, he tried to SELL HER AS A SLAVE FOR MORE MONEY. She ran away and shapeshifted into a man to escape the guy she was being sold to. Some versions say that she prayed to Poseidon in this moment to call in that favor he owed her and that's when she got her boon. There's something really interesting about ocean deities being tied to shapeshifting, maybe because of the volatility of water? If you look at a god like Proteus (who Mestra's powers are compared to) or to the Argonaut Periclymenus (grandson of Poseidon, also got this power as a boon), these connections really start to appear. But I digress.

SO, THIS GIRL HAS JUST GOTTEN MAGIC SHAPESHIFTING POWERS SHE COULD USE TO BECOME ANYTHING AND ANYONE SHE WANTED. And what does she do with that newfound freedom? She goes back to her father to be sold again and again. This part never fails to intrigue me. Mestra could have left, restarted her life as anything she could imagine, but she made the conscious decision to fly back to her father's house and submit herself to this cycle of being sold and then turning into different animals to escape each time. I think it's never explicitly stated if these later times she was sold were as a wife or as a slave.

Wanna hear something even weirder the myths ommit? They never tell us what happened to her after all that! They just go from saying: "and then mestra was sold again and again", to: "but Erysichthon's hunger was still too great so eventually he ate himself". And we never get closure on Mestra's story!

There are some fascinating articles about how much of an outlier Mestra is among the female shapeshifters of greek mythology, given she is the only one among them that is not a virgin and that succeeds in her attempts to use shapeshifting to escape marriage.

And in a random one-off line, Ovid says Mestra was "wife of deft Autolycus". This makes my brain spin so much. Like, Autolycus? The son of Hermes? The Thief King of Parnassus? That guy? Also one of the guys that we KNOW tried to "buy" Mestra as a wife was Sisyphus! He tried to get her to marry Glaucus, his son, but she ran away like she always did. So yeah, Autolycus and Mestra have one more thing in common which is pissing off Sisyphus. Good for them.

It's never stated HOW Autolycus and Mestra would come to know each other. We know he was very well-known and very hated all across Greece, so if things came to Erysichthon trying to sell/marry his daughter to THIS GUY, I think things were already starting to go to shit. Maybe his good fame was withering away and he no longer managed to arrange good marriages to his seemingly endless number of daughters. I think that technically, if the groom lost the bride, the responsibility was no longer on the father of the bride, so Erysichthon was not to be blamed for all the brides suspiciously disappearing right before the wedding night, but i think it still got him a bad reputation. As if his rep wasn't bad enough already.

So maybe Autolycus was the last option? Or maybe he wasn't the last option, but he somehow convinced Mestra to stay with him and actually marry him? I'm in purely fanfic zone now but I love the mental image of these two shapeshifters being an actually happy couple, stealing stuff and conning people all over Greece. She's even described as "fox-like" by some accounts, while Autolycus is The Wolf Himself, they even have a motif going on! I like to imagine a version of her story where she gets a happy ending, changes her name to Amphithea and becomes mother of Anticlea and grandmother of Odysseus.

Amphithea is like, mentioned in the Odyssey as Autolycus' wife and Odysseus' maternal grandmother, but we don't even know her PARENTAGE. That's why i have my crack theory that Amphithea IS Mestra using a new name to distance herself from her traumatic past.

OK, that's it for today, thank you for coming to my TedTalk!

things that feature Mestra that I like:

The Cannibal King's Daughter · | Lore & Legend: Halloween Special · Part II: kinda heavy and fucked up in some aspects, really heed the content warnings. but this version really explores mestra with more depth and i'm oh so glad it exists.

the man who ate himself by darkside_cookies on ao3: so far the only fic on Ao3 with Mestra as a protagonist. Gives her side of the story a lot of depth and genuinely fascinating psychological turmoil. Definitely worth a read.

Visibility by odiko_ptino: a fun fic where Dionysus organizes a gathering for all the characters of greek mythology that have, voluntarily or not, changed their sexes at some point, so Mestra gets a moment in the spotlight, and it's a very good moment. It's like ancient greek genderqueer support group and it's a delightful fic.

[mariamariamare]

20.12.22 ||| Colação de grau do mestrado em Química 2022.1

Finalmente, MESTRA!!!

[eugenionegro]

Screenplay MESTRA makes quarter-finalist in San Francisco International Screenwriting Competition

Screenplay MESTRA makes quarter-finalist in San Francisco International Screenwriting Competition

All of a sudden my screenplay MESTRA has come back as a quarter-finalist in the SFISC. Not sure what it means but it’s nice to get encouraging emails! It’s probably lame to post about this when readers haven’t read MESTRA but anyhow. I worked really hard on it, and as soon as it’s made into a movie, yall will be first to know. Meanwhile, DESPAIR PRIORITIES, the most personal thing I ever never…

[tortiefrancis]

Rio Grande do Sul History (Day 2)

Mestra Griô Sirley Amaro

PT: Mestra Griô Sirley Amaro /End PT

Disclaimers: Abya Yala is the name for the land known as "America" in the kuna language, adopted by other indigenous groups. Pindorama is the name of the coast of the land known as "Brazil" given by the tupi-guarani people, but also used to talk about the entirety of the modern country. I'll be using these terms throughout the posts.

ID: A photo of Sirley Amaro, an old black woman with dark medium tone skin and short, coily, white hair, wearing glasses, brown, patterned earrings, orange and yellow beaded necklaces and a turquoise shirt. She stands in a park on a sunny day, talking. /End ID

Sirley da Silva Amaro, known as Mestra Griô Sirley Amaro, was a woman born in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul in 1936, who worked for years disseminating black culture and history which she learned from her family, known, specially, for her work with dolls and "fuxicos" made with leftover fabric and telling stories to children in workshops in schools. She shared and preserved the memories and stories of the black people of south of Pindorama until her death in 2020.

ID: Photo of Sirley Amaro sitting and talking, surrounded by plants. She wears a long sleeved, red brown shirt, a white, red and blue patterned shirt over it, a long white necklace, white earrings and glasses. There's also a large drum next to her. /End ID

Though she was a story teller most of her life, she was only recognized as a 'Mestra Griô' in 2007. Griôs are people responsible for protecting and sharing the culture, history, memories and myths of their people in Western African culture, usually orally, either through music or story telling. In Pindorama, Mestres Griôs (Griô Masters) are incredibly important for the black community, and there has been a growing awareness of their importance in society in the last few years.

ID: Photo of a graffiti of Sirley Amaro smiling, next to a red and yellow drum, with the words "Kilombo Urbano" in brown next to her. /End ID

In life, she earned prizes and homages for her work, such as having a community library in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, named after her (previously named 'Biblioteca Comunitária do Quilombo do Sopapo'). After her death, Universidade Federal de Pelotas (Federal University of Pelotas), her birth town, gave her an honorary doctorates degree (Doutora Honoris Causa) for her life's work, being the first black woman in the university's history to receive such title.

Mestra Griô Sirley Amaro is loved and honored not only in her home state of Rio Grande do Sul, but the entire land of Pindorama as an artist, an educator and a symbol of black culture and resistance, specially in a region riffled with racism, misogyny and white supremacy such as the one she was born. She is honored in marches and academic works, but also in the memories of those she touched with her work.

Rio Grande do Sul flood funds:

Paybox/doare (Humanitarian help) . Apoia-se (Food) . Pix (RS Archives)

[dailybutterfly]

Butterfly #111: Common Mestra (Mestra amymone)

Image credits: 1, 2, 3

This butterfly has a wingspan of 35-50mm.

[kitcatia]

Okay so. The short of it is

In the Odyssey, Ody's grandmother and wife of autolycus is called "Amphithea" and we don't know anything about her. Most remarkably, we do not know her ascendency.

Ovid once mentions this lady Mestra as being Autolycus' wife, and we do know a lot more about Mestra. In the post above I go into it with more detail. But the short of this one is that she had a shitty father that upset demeter and got himself cursed with insatiable hunger. After selling everything he had to buy food, he attempted to sell her, but she called in a favor from Poseidon and he gave her the power of shape-shifting into any animal or any person. And with this gift she helped her dad get himself more money, until eventually his hunger was too great and he ate himself.

Point being, I think these two upset a LOT of people while they were receiving bride prices for brides that vanished from the wedding bed in the last second. So my wack headcanon is that when Mestra married Autolycus, she changed her name to amphithea to avoid attracting the ire of her old enemies.

I mean. It mostly worked. They still had some run-ins with Sisyphus but it mostly worked.

The tags got too long so I'll just put them in the post itself:

Ody's extended family is so wacky

His great-uncle Philammon was Apollo's son and hercules' music teacher

And the son of this great-uncle (Tamiris) is said to have been the first mortal man to be in love with another mortal man.

Tamiris dated Hyacinthus. Yes. That Hyacinthus. The boy had a type and the type was musicians.

I think Tamiris is said to have been in the same level of good as Orpheus so like. Yeah he was pretty great indeed.

Tamiris eventually boasted he was a better singer than the Muses and they blinded him for it. Some other versions say they made him mute.

I think this is one of the few instances of the muses fucking someone up over an insult

Okay but about Chione. Chione was riding the high of having scored both Apollo and Hermes in the same night so she boasted she was even prettier than Artemis

Artemis didn't like it and shot her in the tongue. Then Chione bled to death.

And Chione's dad Daedalion was super sad and tried to throw himself from a cliff but Apollo turned him into a hawk before he could do that

Also Daedalion and Ceyx were siblings. The guy from the story of Alcyone and Ceyx. They also get turned to birds.

Philammon and Autolycus were kids as this happened btw. I think they were raised by Chiron? Not sure though

I like to imagine Autolycus and Philammon took care of their birdified grandpa.

But yeah I think Autolycus would have extremely complicated feelings about Artemis.

OH and all of this is just on Ody's maternal side BTW. Granted his dad's side has a little less going on. Laertes was an Argonaut though. That's kind of cool.

I wonder how Mestra would have felt about what happened between Poseidon and Odysseus.

Doesnt matter how you interpret Mestra's and Poseidon's relationship was you can't deny he really help her a lot

Also i wonder if she'd resent Demeter.

Even if she rationally knew demeter was in the right to punish her father for his crimes

I don't know how she'd feel about all the pain and suffering the curse brought upon her and his kingdom.

That Anticlea cameo in the Underworld song kills me everytime because I always remember my version of Anticlea who gave up everything for the idealism of marriage and for her son. Anticlea ran to protect Odysseus from Artemis and still she died not knowing if her son came from war safe and sound or not.

[esqueletosgays]

THE SKELETON KEY (2005)

Director: Iain Softley Cinematography: Dan Mindel

[kansastan]

my mc, Caelan, for @softlyopulent-if.  I’m hype for him to start learning combat.  (ง'̀-'́)ง and tying his hair back and out of his face

[quatregats]

Per cert vaig acabar Incerta glòria ahir a la nit i ja tinc ganes de rellegir-lo. Mare meva quin llibràs.

[softlyopulent-if]

do you enjoy RO asks? if so, would you mind telling us how easily the ROs fall for puppydog-eyes when the MC wants something? (deep romance and/or crush stages hehe)

Aleksandar/Aleksandra: In deep romance, they would cave far too easily. Somehow, it would make them feel guilty for how they treated you in the past.

Rhys/Rhea: In deep romance, they'd find it amusing that you'd even consider using such tricks on them—anything you want is already yours.

Calix/Calixta: In deep romance, they would cave without realizing it. They just so happened to have it on them—whatever you may be asking for.

Mestrn/Mestra: In deep romance, they would humor you. But in actuality, all you had to do was smile for them.

[the-melting-world]

Had to make one of these for my pirate babe Adrenaline ✨

[mothxrsky]

OC Height Comparisons.

Left to right: Rehnsha Lanbatal, Broken Heaven, Schala Malea, Aether Intelligence Unit: Genesis, Anastasia Mestra, U'velkha, Yukiko Hotaru, Akali

[cenaindie]

Chave Mestra – Coração no Gelo https://cenaindie.com/album/chave-mestra-coracao-no-gelo/

[cubojorbr]

Dois grupos de Tambor de Crioula abrem o mês da Consciência Negra do CCVM

As duas apresentações têm entrada gratuita.

Abrindo os trabalhos do mês da Consciência Negra do Centro Cultural Vale Maranhão, receberemos os grupos de Tambor de Crioula de Santa Fé e Carinho de São Benedito. As apresentações acontecem, respectivamente, nos dias 7 e 14 de novembro, a partir das 19h, no Pátio Aberto do CCVM. Com mais de vinte anos de existência, o Tambor de Crioula de Santa Fé atua em diversas vertentes ao longo de sua…

[weaversoffate]

17 - madison beer

twenty-one, it should've been so fun / cherry ripe, i wish i had more time / this summer skin, it fades too quick somehow

a pearl - mitski

it's just that i fell in love with a war / and nobody told me it ended / and it left a pearl in my head / and i roll it around, every night, just to watch it glow

blood in the wine - aurora

a thirst for pleasure and war / a hunger we keep inside / we fell from sky with grace / and life gave us a sweeter taste

buzzcut season - lorde

i remember when your head caught flame / it kissed your scalp and caressed your brain / well, you laughed, baby, it's okay / it's buzzcut season, anyway

cassandra - florence + the machine

take me back / oh, drunken gods of slaughter / you know i've always been your favourite daughter

drawn to the blood - sufjan stevens

i’m drawn to the blood / the flight of a one-winged dove / how? how did this happen? / how? how did this happen?

easier than lying - halsey

whatever you give to me, from yourself, you take / well, if you're a hater, then hate the creator / it's in your image I'm made

eat your young - hozier

pull up the ladder when the flood comes / throw enough rope until the legs have swung / seven new ways that you can eat your young

GOLDWING - billie eilish

you're sacred and they're starved / and their art is gettin' dark / and there you are to tear apart / tear apart, tear apart, tear apart

heatwave - julien baker

biting a chain, free like a lame / oh, can you be healed? / scratch my knees on the gravel / say it's all part of the deal

love me wrong - allie x

i'll never be how you remember me / so i'd rather be in your memory

rage - rico nasty

they wanna know how it happened / salute me like i'm they captain / you bitches is not a challenge / i'm causing shit for a reaction, want action, i'm snappin'

ribs - lorde

you're the only friend i need / sharing beds like little kids / and laughing till our ribs get tough / but that will never be enough

salt in the wound - boygenius

but you take and you take / like silks up my sleeve / tied corner to corner, never ending / trick after trick, i make the magic / and you unrelentingly ask for the secret

shrike - hozier

i was housed by your warmth, thus transformed / by your grounded and giving and darkening scorn / remember me, love, when i'm reborn / as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

STFU! - rina sawayama

patience, overrated / if you want it, come and get it / that feeling, eating at my chest / rips me open, rips me open

under the table - fiona apple

kick me under the table all you want / (i would beg to disagree) / i won't shut up, i won't shut up / (but begging disagrees with me)

working for the knife - mitski

i always thought the choice was mine / and i was right, but i just chose wrong / i start the day lying and end with the truth / that i'm dying for the knife