#So There's This Greek Tragedy

[catilinas]

Hello! I’ve been looking through your terminal storytelling tag and the content consistently rocks, but what exactly does terminal storytelling mean?

hi! the phrasing of 'terminal storytelling' is borrowing (very extremely loosely) from rene girard's idea of sacrifice as 'terminal violence' ->

girard's theory of sacrifice has A Lot Going On but a key part is that the true act of 'sacrifice' is like. spontaneous violence, which is 'sacrificial' in that it ends an ongoing Cycle of violence. this could be though like. everyone involved being dead / violence so over the top that it puts an end to all future conflict. meanwhile the sacrificial ritual that might be what someone thinks of as 'sacrifice' is 'sacrificial' in that it is a substitution for this earlier act of violence, And in that it disguises the true nature of what sacrifice Is (terminal violence). or something.

but then if you get weirder and more into girard it's like. substitution and sacrifice are now the same thing. sexy takes on greek tragedy go here. is all representative Anything now sacrificial? probably not (although girard does have some insane and almost definitely wrong takes on the origin of language + undomesticatability of bears? idk). but i would say certain types of Narrative definitely Can be sacrificial In That they represent BadViolenceDon'tLikeThat in smaller / contained / controlled form e.g. ancient conspiracy narratives ->

(Victoria Emma Pagán, Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History)

like um. greek tragedy + sallust's bellum catilinae + every episode of scooby doo (ESPECIALLY every episode of scooby doo. girl help my monstrous double is being demystified) are all doing the exact same thing. to me.

anyWAY ok now ignore girard entirely. in a poem i have not read in full in plainwater anne carson writes 'who are they the storytellers who can put an end to stories' and it's like. what does it take for a story to tell itself once and then never Need to be told again. what does it take for a story to tell the definitive version of itself in a way that discourages any and all retellings / repetitions / sequels / whatever. if telling a story is like hashtag we are trapped in meanings that circulate like blood, what telling would act as Terminal Violence and just Stop forever?

or is that even possible! e.g. sorry i am always thinking about lucan but cicero (+ hirtius!) said that caesar's commentaries (incl. on the civil war) were written in a way that Deterred future authors from the same subject. caesar's bellum civile as Terminal Storytelling in that it positions itself as The Ultimate Account Of The Civil War (Don't Look Too Closely Btw) like ok maybeeee there was a civil war but caesar is In Control And He Fixed It so don't question his narrative ok. and to an extent it actually WORKED oh my god i hate the afterlife of caesar's commentaries almost as much as lucan, who dug up the corpse of the civil war and stuck it in a timeloop forever. unterminals your storytelling

there is some overlap in my tag w my tag for fate + being stuck inside tragic/narrative repetitions + stories left forever unfinished etc because imo you Do get stories that repeat forever More often than like. stories that self destruct at the end. and they also go together! you can try and figure out what makes storytelling terminal From stories / storytellers that are unable to stop.

but also hrgh stories that self destruct. antigone singing her own funeral lament. every single day i think about my friend ada's game meatspace ephemera (2021) that's made to be played once And Then It Self Destructs (Or Does It). literally perfect execution (haha) of the concept

[ozonecologne]

literally so funny that the only thing anyone will ever remember about supernatual in like 10 years+ is the gay angel/hunter dynamic that the network didn't even want to make real. that's your legacy. you're the destiel show. that's all you'll ever be. outside your own little bubble, that's all anyone ever refers to you as. when people bring up supernatural, destiel is the only association they have. i don't know anyone who knows anything else about it. phenomenal.

[inkyrainstorms]

[sunflowerius]

once again thinking about the parallels of Neil going into the Nest over Christmas break for Andrew and Orpheus going into the Underworld for Eurydice. hows your day going though.

[midwestgp]

of rubies and divinations

[literallyjusttoa]

The idea of a multi-page comic about Apollo checking on a young exiled Paris because Hecuba asked him too was beamed directly into my mind like a message from the lord. Sadly, I am but a humble neurodivergent cringfail loser, so the good lord will just have to deal with this probably staying in my head forever. Amen.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

psa that the day there are no jgy stans left on tumblr dot com is the day i am dead

but rest assured i'll go to my grave exactly as i lived: obnoxiously proclaiming to everyone within earshot how great lianfang-zun is. narratively, metaphorically, spiritually. sexually, too, like why limit myself. i like to keep my options open

[katerinaaqu]

Homer's Menelaus: Ah, I grieve for my best friend, the one who suffered more than any of us to the point I cannot sleep or eat! What accursed fate has befallen on that great man!

Eurypedes's Menelaus: Ah that blasted son of Sisiphus is a people pleaser addicted to the love of the crowd! He will do anything to give blood to please the mob! If he is onto us we're lost!

Like...Eurypedes my boy I love your writing on many aspects but...what the fuck? 😅😂

[huntingrays]

i have a personal headcanon that aphrodite actually shipped leo and jason and had plans for them but that hera got in the way of them by forcing jason and piper together. she wanted to dissuade them from being together, since she had very different plans for them and their love lives. so, she tried to be supportive of their relationship, hoping reverse psychology would work and piper wouldn’t want to continue the relationship after her absent mother that she hated approved of them. it didn’t work and she had to watch silently as another case of love and tragedy play out. she watched as her daughter dealt with the loss of her best friends and wondered if she could’ve done something more to stop it from happening or if this was meant to happen from the start and she was another pawn of fate

[cc-tens]

Explaining my specific hyperfixation to my friends that barely know anything about Star Wars or The Clone Wars is so embarrassing cause I'll be like

"So the Coruscant Guard are extremely tragic characters no matter how you spin them. Some people view them as emotionless, callous puppets of the Senate, forsaking their bonds of brotherhood with those who are fighting and dying on the front lines and instead heeding the beck and call of those who puppeteer the war. Some people believe that they are the "perfect" example of Kaminoan engineering, as they're the perfect soldiers willing to risk life and limb for the overall safety of the Republic with little thought of themselves or anyone else. Other people like myself view them as extremely tragic in the sense of them being examples of people scraping by, not the ones forsaking their brothers on the other side but are instead the ones who are forsaken by them. They scrape by for food and supplies, living in a hostile environment with people who view them as nothing more than government property; and yet they're the ones seen as safe and secure and a division ripples through the GAR who cannot see their brothers suffering not behind enemy lines but behind allied lines. How they must balance duty with also the oath of loyalty and love sworn by Clones as is coded in their very DNA; and yet they must march on, they must make the killing shots and the hard decisions and it is orchestrated all by those who have power over them and all that we know and yet they're the blame. No matter what they are they are tools."

And my friends are like "wow, they sound cool, can you show me the things that make people think this way about them?" And I have to say "no sorry, they have like 15 speaking lines and 30 minutes of screen time and this is all made up."

[thinkershipman]

SHAUNA SHIPMAN: AN ORESTEIA

[melodyartist-blog]

Favorite character from Greek mythology + favorite myth from Greek mythology?

It may not seem like it at all but my favorite character from Greek mythology is Heracles, in all of its iterations, (I think the Disney movie played a big role when I was a kid) but you don't see me drawing him as often as others since I still can't figure out his design. As for the myth... Well that's a hard question, I don't think I have one, but I do like the tragedies of Sophocles about Oedipus and of course Heracles by Euripides (still biased)

Plus I will tell you that for a while I was also obsessed with Heracle from record of Ragnarok, the pure definition of an himbo, what can I say, I see a big strong man with zero thoughts and I'm in😭

(the drawing are from 2022 don't mind them too much)

[ilions-end]

got bodied by clytemnestra in sophocles' electra coolly arguing that agamemnon must have had an easy time sacrificing iphigenia, because as her father "he felt less pain when he begot her than I did when I bore her". just like how aeschylus writes her, she's both so savage and so clinical; she has a way of brazenly introducing sexual themes into a conversation, plus she forces both me and electra to envision agamemnon cumming. who does it like her. honestly

[worddevourer]

I'm thinking about the absurdity of everything that happened to the Mighty Nein when they finally make it to Rosohna.

Like, imagine being the Essek for that.

Here's a group of adventurers. They have a surprising number of humans in their midst. That's a little suspicious considering the war with the Empire. After a few questions, they appear to be the world's most obvious and transparent spies. Like... Come on, they don't even really seem to know the region.

Well, whatever, guess they're gonna be treated appropriately-

Oh, that's a beacon. In a moment of stress, they proceed to pull out the most valuable relic of your people, which was stolen, or lost, and just... hand it back over to you.

You (as Essek), know about 95% of how they got their hands on it, because you've been keeping tabs on it because you're the one who handed it over in the first place. And here it is. In the throne room. They have no idea what it is, but they know the Bright Queen wants it, and they seem to earnestly want to make friends, and really would just like one of their members to get her husband back.

And the whole thing gets even stupider because you (that is to say Essek), decide that your best chance of keeping everything secure is to be the one who keeps an eye on them, and these dumbasses categorically refuse to stop trying to befriend you. You are specifically, actively trying to stop them from getting you caught and executed for treason, and they're like 'hey, you want to come over for dinner or something? We have a hot tub.'

[thefriendoforatioisdead]

You know what truly truly hurts me about this episode ? It's not just that she's dead, but it's the fact that she knew she was going to die. This 15 years old child realized that she had no vision about herself after the age of sixteen, so she drew the conclusion that she was probably going to die. She saw her sister living a beautiful life and she was happy about it. She didn't tell Wa anything because she knew it was useless to try and stop fate, and she didn't want to worry her for nothing. She tried everything to make her last day fantastic and she even had a vision on how she would die, but she lived through it, stayed happy. And then, this weird guy tried to strangle her and she had her vision about her birthday gift, and she felt all the weight lifting from her young shoulders, because now everything was going to go back to normal, and Wa would always always protect her, and she had her whole life in front of her.

But she was wrong, and she was not only murdered, but murdered brutally, alone, right before turning sixteen.

Not only did she have to mourn her own life for who knows how long, realizing that she would never be an adult, never see Wa becoming a lawyer, buying back their house, that she would never become an illustrator. Not only that immense pain that she carried alone, but the fact that in the sickest tragic irony, all this work she did on herself of acceptance got ripped away, and she let herself be relieved, and hope again (because she's such a positive person that hope would come back very easily and so strongly in her heart), only for it to be an illusion of just a few hours before meeting a terrible, unfair and cruel death.

WHY REVERSE 4 YOU ? WHY ? WHYYYYYYYYYY ?

[yea-baiyi]

i keep thinking about the odyssey i am THINKING about wei wuxian as odysseus. you were dead. its been years since you’ve seen your family. the child you left behind is almost a man. you wear a face they don’t recognise, you sneak in through the back door. the dog gives your identity away. the world knows it’s you when you draw your weapon. the person you love recognises you by the original symbol of your love—a secret that no one else in the world knows about, still, because they kept it safe for all these years. you get the chance to go back and despite everything, you found home waiting for you; he kept your place and raised your son and he was still there waiting for you when you got back. tell me o muse, about a complicated man i am extremely not okay