#conversations with the betrayer

[jellisdraws]

Some more worldbuilding drabble from the Eldritch Soul Campaign.

“Yes, it was ended by my hand. I killed it, and buried its bones where none would find them. But still,dead gods can dream.”

“What do you mean?”

“To you a god is a pinnacle, a will made manifest at the highest order. A god has gone beyond what limits you can conceive. A god has ascended beyond the realm of reason. Possible and impossible no longer matter. Probable and improbable matter infinitely more. Fate. Chance. The odds. The choices. The gods you know, the ones you choose and the ones who choose champions among you; they have made of themselves masks that you see yourselves reflected in. You find them worthy of worship because they are paragons of power. They are the pinnacle of devotion to a concept. An ideal. You grant them power through your loyalty, through the deeds you work in their names, in the prayers you send to them, in how you expand and protect their influence.”

“When a god dies, does it cease? does it fade back into the world in the cycle of eternal change? No. A god exists beyond mortality and even in its putrifying flesh can be found miracles. Prayers are made by the creatures who find sustenance in the body of a being they have never known alive. A clergy and a congregation rise among the carrion who claim the body of a fallen deity. The maggots and worms that arise to decay it become the new body of the fallen power. Divinity finds it’s home in each of them. An expression of alien will more alien to us for its passage beyond death. It is not undead. It has no need. Just as it had no need to play the games of the gods you know. It seeks no supplication, demands no prayer. It is greater, it is beyond and it is encompassing all. In its dreams, it waits. It asks not to be understood, it’s means and it’s motives are so far beyond our understanding as to not matter at all. It dreams. And the world quakes. It dreams and the world changes. When it acts, when it’s will is once again made manifest, the rot will spread, and all will be consumed.”

- Conversations with the Betrayer

[heybiji]

That causes Dande’s resolve to soften somewhat...

[fullscoreshenanigans]

(The Promised Neverland Art Book World)

Ah yes, one of my favorite genres of baby full score trio pictures: Isabella being openly affectionate toward Emma and Norman in front of Ray while being hands off with him.

(Chapter 2 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 165 | Chapter 170 | Chapter 177)

[watchyourbuck]

thinking about tiny buck today. how alone he must've felt, how useless without even knowing why. how he thought he had to hurt himself to get their attention and love bc nothing else he ever did was good enough to earn it. how he must've thought he was stupid and untalented. how he must've thought maddie was abandoning him. how he had to spell out to his parents to love him anyway, bc in his head he had to be loved despite of who he was, and not because of who he was. how he must've laid awake at night wondering how long their care would last; what else could he do that would be bad enough to feel safe. how he must've come to the conclusion that he didn't matter. that his life wasn't worth it. that finding himself wasn't important. how all of that carried out to his adult self. how he covered it with sex and recklessness. how he was careless with his life. bc thats all he ever knew. everyone else mattered but him. how he thought eddie was going to take chris away from him bc he couldnt fight off a natural disaster. how he thought he had to be perfect yet never believed he could be. how he constantly said that firefighting was everything he had. that he was nothing outside of it. how to this day he sometimes thinks he doesn't deserve things. how there must be a tiny version of himself in his heart, still waiting for his parents to come home and tell him he's loved unconditionally. only to be disappointed every day. margaret and phillip buckley i will never forgive you.

[arriettyspin]

Funniest criticism of ghostflower I've ever seen - "it's unhealthy as it will make many kids think that it's okay to fall in love with someone from another universe"(???)

[madbard]

I wonder if Odysseus will feel uncomfortable about Athena and Telemachus’ friendship at first. Imagine getting home after decades of hardship, only to discover that your son has befriended the person who abandoned you.

After everything they went through together, and everything they went through after parting, would he be glad that Telemachus had some level of guidance? Or would he hate the idea of that cold-blooded goddess of war, the one who abandoned him to misery for choosing not to kill, having any influence over the life of his son?

[gingermintpepper]

hi I love your tags so so much! they were so sweet and so interesting and creative and the whole Aphrodite type of beauty thing sounds really interesting do you have any articles and recommendations to read further into it??

-hogoflight

Hello my fine feathered (I am assuming possession of feathers if you are, indeed, capable of flight) @hogoflight! I'm always always happy to hear that people appreciate my frenzied rambling in the tags :D! I have a lot of articles and recommendations :D!! Ancient Greek notions of beauty and representations of it in their art and sculptures is a pretty well studied topic! There isn't any way for us now to know definitively what the beauty standard was (it varied widely from region to region and culture to culture after all) but here are a couple of my favourite reads about Aphrodite and what her representations tell us about idealised beauty!

Probably the most empirically extensive one I can list is Krönström's thesis which compares statues of Aphrodite and literary text referring to both the goddess and mortal women to determine physical ideals for women in five specific eras of Grecian antiquity. Including measurements of the statues there are many descriptions of Aphrodite as 'curvy' with a 'voluptuous figure' and with 'ample buttocks and bosom'.

"When the beauty traits are described in the texts, they are never extreme or anything that could not be found in normal people just that they are more beautiful in every aspect. Furthermore, the sculptures’ physical forms look healthy, they are tall and have distinct curves. Great examples of this are the Knida sculpture and de Milo (the Melian) sculpture."

Of course, these images are still idealised, and there was still a concept such as 'too fat' or 'too skinny' found in written records (and this thesis even includes analysis of pornographic writings and descriptions of the fashion and stylings of pubic hair of women from different regions!!) but from an interpretational standpoint? There is absolutely no reason why these can't refer to a fuller figure. Height was also a very important factor after all and over the course of many eras, it seems like being well proportioned in addition to the length and appearance of one's hair were the most important factors (and, like Apollo, greater beauty was given to those with curlier hair)

Mireille M. Lee's 'Other Ways of Seeing' essay which talks about the forgotten female viewers of Knidian Aphrodite which is also extremely illuminating on how Aphroditic sexuality and sensuality was perceived totally differently from the well documented male voyeuristic gaze (which was overly preoccupied with the statue's nakedness and therefore over-sensationalised the statue's physical appearance) vs women's perspective on the statue which is more centered on the beauty of simplicity in Aphrodite's garment and decoration and in her power and ability to captivate both in her finery and without it. I think it's especially useful in exploring the importance of finery, jewellry and adornment in representations of Aphroditic beauty.

"Some of the small-scale copies are heavily jeweled, especially those from the eastern Mediterranean, for example the Hellenistic gilded terracotta statuette in the Çanakkale Museum (Fig. 5) in which the goddess wears, in addition to the armband on her (right) arm, the following: a necklace with multiple pendants; cross-bands extending over both shoulders and hips, with a cascading pendant in the center; a coiled snake armband on the left arm and another snake on her left thigh, and a twisted anklet on her right leg. (The left leg has been restored, and might also have featured an anklet.)"

"Jewelry is especially associated with Aphrodite in Greek literature. As seen above, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess adorns herself with gold jewelry, dress-pins, and earrings in the shape of flowers (162–3)..."

Finally, and to me, the most important one in the argument for an interpretation of Hyacinthus as fat, beautiful and fundamentally Aphroditic comes from Brilmayer's brilliant brilliant thesis done on Aphrodite's work and influence in Archaic Greek Poetry which does away with all of that masculine preoccupation with physical proportion, measurement and bodily ideals for a focus on a Sapphic Aphroditic ideal centered in clothing, ornamentation and, most importantly cunning as symbols of Aphrodite and ultimately a feminine idealised form of beauty. This paper also discusses Pandora and Helen in these terms and it is just kind of a wonderful read tbh.

"Combining Homeric and Hesiodic elements with her own ideas, she [Sappho] alters the way female beauty is viewed. For example, the Homeric war chariot – a symbol of male, military prowess - comes to symbolise the totality of Aphrodite’s power uniting in itself male and female qualities. Having addressed the concept of beauty directly, Sappho then concludes that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. With the help of Helen of Troy and her beloved Anaktoria, Sappho sets out to reinvent the concept of female beauty as a godlike, subjective quality that may be expressed in many ways, yet remains inspired by Aphrodite."

The conclusion to all of this of course is that Aphroditic ideal beauty is much more fluid compared to its stricter Apolline masculine standard. The nuances and understandings of both are of course, constantly being studied, analysed and scrutinised but really, if Dionysus who was both bearded and clean shorn, effeminate, birthed and rebirthed (and twice gestated!) and strongly associated with vegetation can be popularly portrayed as fat and handsome, why can't Hyacinthus?!

[likesdoodling]

Here's some more wild crossover stuff, I was originally gonna post this with the other Techno and Maedhros thing, but I didn't feel like waiting till I'd finished both of them >:D

Just as an interesting comparison exercise,

Murder. Very competent fighting-wise. The colour red. Betrayal. Small children. Bad circumstances. Prison. Friend who saves you from said 'prisoner' status 3 months or 30 yrs later- (both multiples of 3 funnily enough~>:D) Dislike of authority? (or was that more Feanor? eh. Governments, Valar, eh. same thing-)

That's all I can think of rn

:D

[ninicaise]

damen & laurent are so iconic i think because as the tumblr expectations demand they Do share 2 single braincells where one of them is for pining & being horny and the other one is the most powerful braincell in the universe and it's for being the smartest most competent people in the five entire kingdoms. and that is inherently a very interesting combination

[rosemaryreality]

So...

holy shit this conversation, i have. so many thoughts.

i'm like, 80% sonic is gonna face some kind of betrayal from either dread or nine

[envolvenuances]

This one gives a general summary of the importance of women in the fight for the idependence of Mozambique

And for a more present context

[aliferous-ly]

guys the ranchers crumbs the CRUMBS GUYS

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[ohbo-ohno]

need more fantasy romance where the love interest betrays the main character but they still end up together 😔

[comma-souptra]

Jesus Christ Superstar (2000) you will always be famous in my heart for the depiction of Judas’ betrayal… “must you betray me with a kiss” putting the emphasis not on the betrayal (which always had to happen) but on the method of identifying Jesus… when I CATCH YOU! Jesus looking to Judas’ lips while Judas tries to express something anything to him before the guards grab them. Judas’ hand to his lips after he and Jesus are torn apart I am so sane about this.

There is something just sooo dramatic about how this delivery differs from so many other JCS productions which focus on “must you betray me with a kiss” as one unit collectively in the line, while 2000 separates it into “must you betray me <with a kiss>”… why in this horrible but predetermined moment must you be so painstakingly human WHAT IF I EXPLODED

[alagaesia-headcanons]

Eragon and Nasuada are both well loved characters with a lot of good qualities, but they also have some serious flaws and make some grave mistakes. For example, I feel they're objectionable treatment of Murtagh has been discussed relatively often. However, I think they need Way More criticism for how utterly negligent they were in preparing for the confrontation with Galbatorix. Without the outside benefit of genre awareness, it's so egregious how they almost never even try to come up with a plan to kill him. I feel like it springs from inexperience, being overwhelmed, and arrogance, but it's so severe because the ramifications extend to countless lives beyond their own. And no matter the reasons for it, neither of them ever then acknowledge this failing and amend for its consequences, and that is inexcusable. The fact that the first and only plan they ever had to defeat Galbatorix (which immediately fails btw), Eragon came up with hours before the final battle is honestly sickening. Considering their war is justified by a moral basis, the Varden's ethics, specifically in their leaders are all but non-existent.

Why???!!!! It feels like they take no responsibility for their allies! Their concern for them is vague at best and doesn't inform their actions. It's as if they believe that because these people willingly joined their cause knowing they could die, they as leaders are free of blame for anything that happens to them, which is a naive and indulgent misconception. Their decisions still determine those people's fates! And in regards to the eventual fight against Galbatorix, that potential fate they're taking a chance with should they lose is all their allies being slaughtered, down to the very last man. For a start. But Eragon and Nasuada are too young to shoulder that weight as their stations demand and too arrogant to admit their inability, so they just leave it by the wayside.