#just ramblings and musings

[lilalexhorne]

They look like a pair of completely unserious private investigators who are taking your case only for it to end up inadvertently exposing some grand government conspiracy in between making a fool of themselves and having homoerotic tension and at the end of the movie they're both like "Oh yeah no your husband definitely cheated." before riding off into the sunset together in their vintage convertible.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[timethehobo]

Psst fellow Emmrichmancers, would yall be keen if I made more merch of him?

I mostly want to explore making other items, but just worry about having too many extras in stock. 🤔 Sticking to just him first cos I can’t possibly fund all the companions.

[comatosebunny09]

She’s beautiful. And despite how much you’ve tried to hate her, you just…can’t. Understandable why Sylus fell for her charms so quickly. She’s a sweetheart. And it’s infuriating. But—

“Hey,” you interject in a low tone. Stir the contents of your glass, projecting an air of boredom as the partygoers prattle on around you.

She blinks, all bright-eyed and straight-backed in the chair across. Mouth clamps shut, the last vestiges of her story vanishing in the air. Your lips quirk. God, you want to pat her head. Shove her in your pocket for safekeeping.

You motion for her to come closer with two fingers. Angle yourself closer until your breath stirs the pretty bangs adorning her forehead.

“You’re too pretty. Too nice. But you fit him, I guess,” a little forlornness creeping into your voice. “So I’ll bite.”

You ignore how your belly gnarls and twists as you sit back. Cross your legs, banishing those green-eyed monsters poking around in your head. Blame it on the champagne you’ve consumed, making your mind all fuzzy and your stomach feel weird.

“I’ll protect you or whatever,” you mumble before dumping the final contents of your flute down your throat. Fix her with a look that leaves no room for objection after you’ve placed the glass on the table, crossing your arms.

She can do nothing but smile nervously under your gaze, fidgeting with the straps of her dress, searching the tide of partygoers for a familiar shock of white.

Of course she didn’t ask. But it’s your duty to protect what belongs to him.

Any girl of Sylus’ is an temporary ally of yours, no matter how much it pains you to see him entangled with someone who isn't you.

[gaminegay]

"someone somewhere needs help with something and I'm not there to fix it, this makes me guilty of Bad Person disease" <- stupid thought I really need to stop having

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

Statistics of Apollo's Lovers

I was wondering just how unfortunate of a love-life our boy Apollo had, so - as one does - I did the research, math, and writing of said love-life.

such is the life of an adhd teen :)

In total, there are 59 people on this list. I have them separated into eight groups; Immortal, Immortal & Rejected, Lived, Died, Rejected & Died, Rejected & Cursed, Rejected & Lived, and who were Rejected by Apollo

Disclaimer: I am not a historian nor an expert in Greek Mythology, I am just a very invested nerd in Mythology, and in Apollo's mythology in general, and got curious about what his rap sheet actually looks like.

Sidenote: There will be some "lovers" not on this list. Reasons being;

No actual literary sources behind them

Said literary sources are dubious at best

Not enough information is given about the nature of their relationship to make an accurate take

So if somebody isn't on this list, it's because of one of those three reasons. Although there is still a chance I missed somebody! :)

Also, no RRverse lovers include in this list. Sorry my fellow ToA fans.

*I am currently missing about 4 other lovers, and will get them on here ASAP. Their inclusion, however, will not change the overall conclusion. 👍

(Edited 08/15/24 - ALL SECTIONS SOURCED)

Let's begin! :D

Immortal Lovers

Calliope: muse of epic poetry. Mother of Hymenaios and Ialemus (Pindar's 3rd Threnos) by Apollo.

Clio: muse of history

Erato: muse of love poetry

Euterpe: muse of music

Polyhymnia: muse of hymns/sacred poetry

Melpomene: muse of tragedy

Thalia: muse of comedy. Mother of the Corybantes (The Bibliotheca by Pseudo-Apollodorus) by Apollo.

Terpsichore: muse of dance

Urania: muse of astronomy

Boreas: the North Wind. The Boreads called Apollo "beloved of our sire" in Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica.

10 lovers total here.

9 Female, 1 Male

Immortal & Rejected

Hestia: goddess of the Hearth (Hymn to Aphrodite)

1 Interest. Female.

Lovers Who Lived:

Branchus: mortal shepherd, gifted prophecy (Conon's Narrations 33 & Callimachus's Iambus)

Rhoeo: mortal princess, eventually married an apprentice of Apollo (Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica 5.62 and Tzetzes on Lycophron 570)

Ourea: demigod daughter of Poseidon, dated Apollo during his punishment with Laomedon; had a son named Ileus, after the city of Troy (Hesiod's Catalogues of Women Fragment 83)

Evadne: nymph daughter of Poseidon, Apollo sent Eileithyia & (in some texts) the Fates to aid in their son's birth (Pindar's Olympian Ode 6)

Thero: great-granddaughter of Heracles, described as "beautiful as moonbeams" (Pausanias's Description of Greece 9)

Cyrene: mortal princess-turned-nymph queen, kick-ass lion wrangler, and mother of two of Apollo's sons - Aristaeus (a god) and Idmon (powerful seer) (Pindar's Pythian Ode 9.6 ff. and Nonnus's Dionysiaca and Callimachus's Hymn to Apollo 85)

Admetus: mortal king, took great care of Apollo during his second punishment, Apollo wingmanned him for Alcestis's hand - basically Apollo doted on him <3 (Callimachus's Hymn II to Apollo and Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 1.9.15 and Hyginus's Fabulae 50–51, and also written about by Ovid and Servius)

Hecuba: queen of Troy, together they had Troilus.

It was foretold that if Troilus lived to adulthood, Troy wouldn't fall - unfortunately, Achilles murdered Troilus in Apollo's temple. When the Achaeans burned Troy down, Apollo rescued Hecuba and brought her to safety in Lycia. (Stesichorus's Fr.108)

Hyrie/Thyrie: mortal. mothered a son by Apollo. Their son, Cycnus, attempted to kill himself after some shenanigans and his mother attempted the same. Apollo turned them into swans to save their lives. (Antoninus Liberalis's Metamorphoses 12 and Ovid's Metamorphoses 7.350)

Dryope: mortal. had a son named Amphissus with Apollo, who was a snake at the time. Later turned into a lotus flower, but it had nothing to do with Apollo so she's still on this list. (noncon; written by Ovid in Metamorphoses 8 CE/AD and later by Antoninus Liberalis in his own Metamorphoses sometime between 100-300 CE/AD)

Creusa: mortal queen. had a son named Ion with Apollo (Euripides's Ion). Please check out @my-name-is-apollo's post for more details because they make some good points about what's considered "rape" in Ancient Greece. I expand on this further at the end of the post.

Melia: Oceanid nymph. Had a son w/h Apollo named Tenerus. (Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 9.10.5–6)

Melia was said to be kidnapped, and her brother found her with Apollo. He set fire to Apollo's temple in an effort to get her back, but was killed. Melia and Apollo had two kids - but here's the interesting part. Melia was highly worshiped in Thebes, where her brother found her. She was an incredibly important figure in Thebes, especially when connected with Apollo. She and Apollo were essentially the parents of Thebes.

As I read over their story, it sounded like (to me, at least. it's okay if you think otherwise!) that Melia just absconded/eloped with Apollo.

Was kidnapping an equivalent to assault back then? Perhaps. But it's still debated on whenever or not that's true. However, one thing I've noticed reading up on these myths is that when Apollo does do something unsavory, the text says so.

It never says anything about Apollo doing anything to Melia. Her father and brother believe she was kidnapped, but, like mentioned previously, it seems far much more likely that she just ran off with her boyfriend or something.

But that's just my interpretation.

Moving on! :)

Iapis: a favorite lover. Apollo wanted to teach him prophecy, the lyre, ect. but Iapis just wanted to heal :) so Apollo taught him healing :) (Smith 1873, s.v. Iapis)

Aethusa: daughter of Poseidon & the Pleiad Alcyone. Mother of Linus and Eleuther. She is the great-great grandmother of Orpheus. (Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 3.10.1 and Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 9.20.2 and Suida, s.v. Homer's Of the Origin of Homer and Hesiod and their Contest, Fragment 1.314)

Acacallis: daughter of King Minos. there's a lot of variation on whether or not she had kids with Hermes or Apollo. Some say she had a kid with each. (Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Kydōnia (Κυδωνία and Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, 4.1492)

Chrysothemis: nymph queen who won the oldest contest of the Pythian Games - the singing of a hymn to Apollo. She had three daughters, and one of them is said to be Apollo's. (Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 10.7.2 and Hyginus's De Astronomica 2.25)

Corycia: naiad. had a son with Apollo. the Corycian Cave north of Delphi is named after her (Hyginus's Fabulae 161)

Leuconoe (also Choine or Philonis): daughter of Eosphorus, god of the planet Venus, and mother of the bard Philammon. (Hyginus's Fabulae 161) She was killed by Diana for her hubris.

Melaena (also Thyia or Kelaino): mother of Delphos, member of prophetic Thriae of Delphi. Priestess of Dionysus. (Herodotus's Histories 7.178.1)

Othreis: mothered Phager by Apollo, and later Meliteus by Zeus. (Antoninus Liberalis's Metamorphoses 13)

Stilbe: mother of Lapithus and Aineus by Apollo. (Diodorus Siculus's Library of History 4.69.1 and Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, 1.40 and Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, 1.948)

Syllis (possible same as Hyllis, granddaughter of Heracles): mothered Zeuxippus by Apollo. (Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 2.6.7)

Amphissa: Apollo seduced her in the form of a shepherd. They had a son named Agreus. (Ovid's Metamorphoses 6.103 and Hyginus's Fabulae 161)

(hey, has anybody else noticed that 'Apollo disguising himself' seems to only be a thing in Roman literature?)

Areia (or Deione): had a son named Miletus. Hid him in some smilax. Her father found him and named him. (Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 3.1.2)

Arsinoe: she and Apollo had a daughter named Eriopis. (Hesiod's Ehoiai 63 and Scholia ad Pindar's Pythian Ode 3.14)

Queen of Orkhomenos (no name is given): Mother of Trophonius (Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 9.37.5)

(my fellow ToA fans will recognize that name haha).

Hypermnestra: Either Apollo or her husband fathered her son Amphiaraus. (Hyginus's Fabulae 70)

(sidenote: @literallyjusttoa suggested that Apollo was dating both Hypermnestra and Oikles, and I, personally, like that headcannon)

Manto: Daughter of Tiresias. Apollo made her a priestess of Delphi. They had a son named Mopsus. When Apollo sent her to found an oracle elsewhere, he told her to marry the first man she saw outside of Delphi. That man turned out to be Rhacius, who brought her to Claros, where she founded the oracle of Apollo Clarios. (Apollodorus's Bibliotheca E6. 3)

Later, another man named Lampus attempted to assault her, but was killed by Apollo. She is also said to be a priestess who warned Niobe not to insult Leto, and to ask for forgiveness. Niobe did not. (Statius's Thebaid 7 and Ovid's Metamorphoses 6)

(Dante's Inferno places her in the eighth circle of hell, and let me just say- what the FUCK Dante! What did Manto ever do to you, huh??!! Don't do my girl dirty!!)

Parthenope: granddaughter of a river god. Mothered Lycomedes by Apollo (Pausanius's Descriptions of Greece 4.1)

Phthia: prophetess. called "beloved of Apollo". Mother three kings by him; Dorus, Laodocus, & Polypoetes (Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 1.7.6)

Procleia: Mother of Tenes, son of Apollo, who was killed by Achilles before the Trojan War. Daughter of King Laomedon, king of Troy. (Apollodorus's Epitome 3. 26)

Helenus: prince of Troy. Received from Apollo an ivory bow which he used to wound Achilles in the hand. (Photius's 'Bibliotheca excerpts')

Hippolytus of Sicyon: called "beloved of Apollo" in Plutarch's Life of Numa. I don't think this guy is the same as Hippolytus, son of Zeuxippus (son of Apollo), king of Sicyon Pausanias talks about in his Description of Greece. That would be a little weird taking the whole family tree into account - though it's never stopped other gods before. *shrug*

Psamathe: nereid, said to be the personification of the sand of the sea-shore. (Conon's Narrationes 19)

She and Apollo were lovers, but never had any kids. When another man assaulted her, she had a son and abandoned him.

(He was found by some shepherds dw - wait, he was then torn apart by dogs. Nevermind.)

Back to her, her father ordered for her to be executed and Apollo avenged her death by sending a plague onto Argos and refused to stop it until Psamathe and Phocus/Linus (her son) were properly given honors.

(I really like how even though Linus isn't Apollo's kid, and that Psamathe wanted nothing to do with the kid, Apollo still considered him worth avenging too <3 )

Okay, in a previous incarnation of this post, I said there was a version where she is raped by Apollo...however, I can't find any sources to back it up😅 Even her wiki page doesn't mention rape, and Theoi's excerpt of Paunasias's Descriptions of Greece about her doesn't either.

So where did I hear about this supposed version? (Don't shoot)

Youtube. A youtube video about Apollo. Yeah...

Lesson, kids! Don't trust youtube videos on mythology! Yes, even if they dedicated lots of time to it! They can still get things wrong! In fact, don't even take my word for it! Do your own research <3

Alright. 34 lovers here.

5 Male. 29 Female.

33 are 100% consensual. Creusa is questionable, depending on who's translating/which tradition you go with.

Lovers Who Died:

Hyacinthus*: mortal prince. we all know this one, right? Right? one and only true love turned into flower (okay that's my bias speaking but AM I WRONG?) (Plutarch's Life of Numa, 4.5; Philostratus the younger's Imagines; Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 1.3.3; Ovid's Metamorphoses 10.162–219; Bion's Poems 11; and various pieces of art)

Cyparissus: mortal. his DEER DIED and he asked Apollo to let him MOURN FOREVER so he was turned into a cypress tree (Ovid's Metamorphoses X 106ff)

Coronis: mortal princess. cheated on Apollo w/h Ischys, who in Fabulae was killed by Zeus. mother of Asclepius. killed by Artemis. (Pindar's Pythian Odes 3.5; Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 2.26.6; Hyginus's Fabulae 202; Ovid's Metamorphoses 2.536 and 2.596; Hyginus's De Astronomica 2.40; Isyllus's Hymn to Asclepius 128.37 ff.)

There is another version of Asclepius's birth given by Pausanias in Descriptions of Greece 2.26.1-7, where Coronis exposes him on a mountain and Apollo takes him in.

Adonis: yes, THAT Adonis. he's in this category because. well. he died. rip (Ptolemy Hephaestion's New History Book 5)

Phorbas: Okay so Apollo's lover Phorbas and another Phorbas sometimes get mashed together so this is what I was able to gather.

Plutarch's Life of Numa 4.5 and Hyginus's De Astronomia 2.14.5 cites Phorbas as Apollo's lover. The other Phorbas is said to be a rival to Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Personally, I separate the two because it makes more sense with Phorbas the lover's overall story.

Here it is: The island of Rhodes fell victim to a plague of dragons or serpents, and the oracle said to summon Phorbas for help. He defeated the infestation, and after he died, Apollo asked Zeus to place him in the stars, and so Phorbas became the constellation Serpentarius, also known more widely as Ophiuchus (a man holding a serpent).

FORGET ORION AND HIS ONE-OFF MENTION OF BEING DIANA'S LOVER HERE IS A CONSTELLATION TRAGIC LOVE STORY!!!!!

(*Hyacinthus was resurrected, as celebrated in the Hyacinthia festival in Sparta. Nonnus's Dionysiaca 19.102 and Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece 3.19.4 supports this belief as well.)

5 lovers.

4 Male. 1 Female. All consensual.

Sidenote: QUIT BURYING THE GAYS GREECE!!!!

Love-Interests Who Rejected & Died:

Daphne: do i nEED to say anything? Nymph. turned into tree to escape.

Daphne and Apollo actually go back a bit. Their story was used to explain why the laurel was so sacred to Apollo. It's in Delphi, Branchus planted laurel trees around the temple he built to Apollo, the laurel was even sacred to Apollo's historical forebearer Apulu, an Etruscan god! (I have sources to back this up :3 along with an Essay.)

Apollo & Daphne first originate from Phylarchus, but we do not have any of his work :( It's been lost to history...a moment of silence RIP. He was a contemporary in the 3rd century BC/BCE (first day of 300 BC/BCE and last day of 201 BC/BCE).

He was, however, cited as a source in Parthenius's Erotica Pathemata, written sometime in the 1 century AD/CE (sometime between 66 BC/BCE and the author's death in 14 AD/CE).

Then they show up again in Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece, written between 150 AD/CE and 170 AD/CE.

Hyginus wrote his Fabulae sometime before Ovid's because it's widely criticized to be his earliest work and Ovid wrote his Metamorphoses in 8 AD/CE.

The first two versions are roughly the same, and Ovid's shares similarities with the first in only the ending. Hyginus is basically like Ovid's but without Eros.

So in publication order, it's; Erotica Pathemata, Fabulae, Metamorphoses, then Descrip. of Greece.

In Erotica Pathemata, Daphne is the daughter of Amyclas and is being courted by Leucippus. She is not interested in any sort of romance. Leucippus disguises himself as a girl to get close to her, but his ruse is revealed when Apollo nudges Daphne and her attendants into taking a bath in the river. Leucippus is consequently killed.

Apollo then becomes interested and Daphne runs away, imploring Zeus that "she might be translated away from mortal sight", and is transformed into the laurel tree.

In Fabulae, Daphne's story is a bit more familiar. She's the daughter of Peneus, the river god, and Gaea is the one who transforms her into a laurel tree.

In Metamorphoses, Eros is added to the story and is the reason why Apollo is so enamored and Daphne is so repulsed.

(I would just like to say that in this version, it was 100% nonconsensual for both of them! And I don't mean with rape- Apollo never touches Daphne in any of these version. What I mean here is that Eros maliciously makes Apollo chase down a woman and makes sure Daphne would be repulsed by him. That is noncon behavior there on both sides.)

In Descriptions of Greece 10.7.8, Daphne is the daughter of Ladon and her and Apollo are only connected by way of why the laurel crown is the victory prize of the Pythian Games. However, in Descriptions of Greece 8.20.2-8.20.4, Daphne and Leucippus make an appearance here too, but Apollo is not the reason why they stop to take a swim and his ruse is revealed, resulting in his death.

Castalia: Nymph. turned into spring to escape.

First things first, Castalia was used to explain the existence of the Castalian Spring in Delphi. However, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the spring is already there when Apollo was born. So there's that to consider first.

Anyway, to escape Apollo's advances, Castalia transforms herself into a spring. (Lactantius Placidus's On Statius's Thebaid 1.698. This was written between Lactantius's lifespan of c. 350 – c. 400 AD/CE, placing it firmly in Roman times.)

2 Interests.

2 Female.

Love-Interests Who Rejected & Cursed

Cassandra: mortal princess. Received the gift of prophecy from Apollo. Due to a broken oath, she was then cursed. (Aeschylus's Agamemnon)

It is only in Roman-era tellings where Cassandra is cursed for not sleeping with Apollo, and there was no oath made (Hyginus & Pseudo-Apollodorus). In Agamemnon, it was done so because of the broken oath- not the refusing to sleep with Apollo thing.

The version where she gains prophetic abilities by way of a snake licking her ears is not part of Greco-Roman literature, but rather by an American poet.

Nevertheless, even after the curse Cassandra still loved Apollo, and called him "god most dear to me" in Eurpides's play The Trojan Women.

1 Interests.

1 Female.

Love-Interests Who Rejected & Lived

Sinope: mortal. there are two different version of her myth.

In Diodorus Siculus's Library of History 4.72.2 and Corinna's Frag. 654, Apollo "seizes" her and they have a son named Syrus.

In Apollonius's Argonautica  2.946-951 and Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica 5.109, it is Zeus who abducts her, but she gets him to promise her anything and requests to remain a virgin. He obliges. Later, Apollo and the river Halys both try to charm her, but fall for the same trick.

Library of History was written between 60-30 BC/BCE, Apollonius's Argonautica between 300 BC/BCE and 201 BC/BCE, and Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica between 70-96 AD/CE, making Apollonius's version the oldest and Valerius Flaccus's the youngest.

Marpessa: mortal princess, granddaughter of Ares. Idas, son of Poseidon, kidnapped her and Apollo caught up to them. Zeus had Marpessa chose between them, and she chose Idas, reasoning that she would eventually grow old and Apollo would tire of her. (Homer's The Iliad, 9.557 and Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 1.7.8–9)

Bolina: mortal. Apollo approached her and she flung herself off a cliff. He turned her into a nymph to save her life. (Pausanias's Description of Greece 7.23.4)

Ocroe/Okyrrhoe: nymph and daughter of a river god. asked a boatman to take her home after Apollo approached her. Apollo ended up turning the boat to stone and the seafarer into a fish. (Athenaeus's The Deipnosophists 7.283 E [citing The Founding of Naucratis by Apollonius Rhodius]. The Deipnosophists was written in the early 3rd century AD, between 201 AD and 300 AD)

Sibyl of Cumae: mortal seer. promised to date Apollo if she was given longevity as long as the amount of sand in her hand. he did, but she refused him. (Ovid's Metamorphoses 14)

5 Interests. All female.

Okyrrhoe's story is the only one with any iffy stuff, although, when something iffy does occur, the text usually says so outright.

Rejected by Apollo:

Clytie*: Oceanid nymph. turned into a heliotrope to gaze at the sun forever after the rejection.

1 Advance. Female.

(*Clytie's story was originally about her affection for Helios. [Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.192–270; Ovid used Greek sources about the etymology of the names involved, meaning Clytie and Helios go back to Greek times] As Apollo got superimposed over Helios's myths, people have assumed it is he who is the sun god in her myth and not Helios.)

In Conclusion...

59 people total, and 33 of them have Roman-Era roots with (as far as I know!! Don't take my word as gospel truth!!) no relation to Greece except by way of shared mythology.

Here's the list:

Rhoeo

Thero

Hyrie/Thyrie

Dryope

Melia

Aethusa

Acacallis

Chrysothemis

Corycia

Choine

Thyia

Othreis

Stilbe

Syllis

Amphissa

Areia

Queen of Orkhomenos

Hypermnestra

Manto

Parthenope

Phthia

Procleia

Helenus

Hippolytus of Sicyon

Psamathe

Cyparissus

Adonis

Phorbas

Castalia

Sinope

Bolina

Ocroe/Okyrrhoe

Sibyl of Cumae

Meaning, 56%- and really, it's more like 57%, because Clytie is not Apollo's lover at all- of the lovers listed on this post are not entirely Greek in origin (AS FAR AS I KNOW-)! That does not mean ofc that you have to ignore them. I, for one, really like the story of Rhoeo, and Manto, and Psamethe- I find their myths sweet (Rhoeo & Manto) and bittersweet (Psamethe).

Let's get to the calculations now, yeah?

59 people total (Includes Clytie)

48 Women (81%). 11 Men (19%).

19% were Immortal (Including Lovers & Rejected)

68% Lived (Including Lovers & Cursed & Rejected)

14% Died (Including Lovers & Rejected)

1% were Cursed

2% were Rejected by him

58 people total (Not Including Clytie)

47 Women (81%). 11 Men (19%).

19% were Immortal

69% Lived (Lovers & Cursed & Rejected)

12% Died (Lovers & Rejected)

in that 12%, one was apotheosized - Hyacinthus.

Meaning 10% died permanently, while 2% were resurrected.

2% were Cursed

0% were Rejected by him

Additionally, I left off three male lovers and two female lovers - Atymnius, Leucates, Cinyras, Hecate, & Acantha.

Atymnius has no references to being Apollo's lover, only to Zeus's son Sarpedon. (Wikipedia why do you even have him listed? You need sources smh)

Leucates is another male "lover" left off the rack - apparently he jumped off a cliff to avoid Apollo, but I couldn't find any mythological text to account for it- and no, OSP's wiki page is not a reliable source. There is a cliff named similarly to him where Aphrodite went (by Apollo's advice) to rid herself of her longing for Adonis after his death. Also Zeus uses it to rid himself of his love for Hera before he...well, commits adultery again. 🤷

Cinyras was a priest of Aphrodite on the island of Cyprus. He was also the island's king. Pindar calls him "beloved of Apollo" in his Pythian Ode. However, looking further into Cinyras's life throws a bit of a wrench into it. He's also cited to be a challenger to Apollo's skill, and either Apollo or Mars (Ares) kills him for his hubris.

(honestly, I kinda like the idea that Mars went into Big Brother Mode)

I did consider leaving him on the list, since technically you could argue it was a romance-gone-bad, but among every other source Cinyras is mentioned in, Pindar's the only one who puts a romantic label on him and Apollo.

Plus, he’s been described as a son of Apollo too, and I personally like that more lol

Hecate, the goddess of magic and crossroads, is said to be the mother of Scylla (like, the sea-monster) by Apollo, but Scylla's parentage is one of those "no specific parents" ones, so I left her off the list.

Acantha has absolutely no classical references. There's a plant like her name, but she's made-up, so she doesn't count. *stinkeyes the guy who invented her and claimed his “sources” were reliable when they really aren’t*

(Of course, I could be wrong about any of these. Again, I'm not an expert.)

With all this in mind, this means Apollo's love life actually isn't as tragic as media portrays it, and he isn't as bad as Zeus or Poseidon in the nonconsensual area.

Does he still have those kinds of myths? Yes, with Dryope and Creusa; though, we can discount Creusa because;

1) Depends on who's translating it; and

2) Ion is given different parentage in the Bibliotheca, which yes, came much after Ion, however Xuthus was traditionally considered to be Ion's father rather than Apollo. This means there was probably a different oral tradition on Ion's parentage that just wasn't written down as early as Euripides's was- in fact, it may even just be an invention of Euripides's.

(and honestly Apollo's characterization in Ion just doesn't quite match up with the rest of his appearances in the wider myths (in my opinion, at least))

So that leaves us with just Dryope, who comes from Ovid, a Roman poet, and Antoninus Liberalis, a late Greek one.

Now I'm not saying we should throw her out because of Ovid's whole "wrote the gods even more terribly to criticize Augustus" thing, but it is something to keep in mind. Political mechanics have been used to change myths before, and this is certainly one example of it.

Additionally, I have seen many people discard Dionysus's rapes in the Dionysiaca because of how late it was written, so this one can be given similar treatment if one choses too because of just how late Ovid and Antoninus Liberalis's work was.

You can, in fact, pick and chose if you wish, especially if it'll increase your enjoyment of literature. That's certainly what I do :)

So overall, I'd say Apollo has a rather clean relationship past. He's doing pretty damn good.

Also, I think we should all take note that even if Apollo had noncon myths, that doesn't reflect on the actual god. The Ancient Greeks did not see the myths as "canon" to their gods- in fact, some were not happy with the myths showing the gods in such a light.

That's something else to keep in mind. The gods of the myths are not the gods of Greece, and are more like parables or fables for the Ancient Greeks I'd say. Lessons on morality and such, and of course, warnings against hubris and the like.

This was quite the journey, and I really hope you all enjoyed reading and learning with me! This really makes me wonder- if Apollo's love life is this good, I wonder how misinformed we are on everyone else's? I have no plans on doing Zeus or Poseidon or anyone else (not for a LONG time lol, this took a lot of effort and research!), but if anyone has any idea, or gets inspired to do something like this for any other god, please tag me!! I'd love to see it! :D

And since this was on a previous reblog, here be a meme from a while ago:

[ID: Me Explaining Me. On the left is a girl with her hands up, fingers pinched together, like she's intensely explaining something. The text over her says "Me giving a detailed diatribe about Apollo's love life and how modern media has done him and his lovers dirty". On the right is the girl's mother, wrapped up to her chin in a blanket, with a look on her face that screams "I hear this all the time". The Mother is labeled "My family". /End ID]

suffers in I'm the only mythology nerd in the family

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The TTPD Deep Dive (Part ?)

It’s no secret that I have a lot of Thoughts about The Tortured Poets Department and it has lived rent-free in my head since it came out earlier this year. I’m absolutely blown away by how underneath the chaos, it’s actually an exceptionally cohesive story and is probably the closest to a concept album Taylor has ever done.

There are so many themes that have stood out to me over the last five months, and there’s one in particular that I think not only drives the entire album, but ties into previous albums to help deepen understanding of it.

This is it, my fangirl magnum opus, my months of posts consolidated into one place. This is also my disclaimer that this is just my interpretation of the album, and my summary of the story it tells, and I don’t pretend to have any special insight or authority. I’m not saying I’m correct at all, do not take any of this as fact, it’s just what it sounds like to me, and these are my silly not-so-little thoughts about it.

(Under a cut because it’s way too long and involves discussion many may not care for or be sick of.)

Come one, come all, it's happening again (I'm thinking too hard about Taylor music)

The overarching theme in TTPD to me is: Grief. If you’re looking at TTPD as a story being told (instead of just as someone’s real life), the inciting incident of TTPD is loss, and the grief from that loss is what drives the narrator’s actions and the fallout, as well as unpacks those complicated feelings and how they apply to the her life in general. By the end of the standard album, it’s also about recovering from that pain, moving on from it and learning from it.

The loss specifically is the loss of the dream of having a family (with one’s partner). One thing that is abundantly clear both on the top line and under the surface in TTPD is how Taylor (as a person and as narrator) longed not only to for marriage but specifically parenthood, and the fear and then realization of losing that chance absolutely wrecked her— which is why the next lover’s (the conman's) wooing worked so well, because it preyed on that yearning. Yet that loss also dovetails into the grief of many things: of youth, of idealism, of relationships, of ideas, even of self, which causes almost a deconstruction of a belief system to piece one’s life back together by the end.

THE CONTEXT

TTPD weaves in the topics of marriage and motherhood both explicitly and in the subtext, in various forms and scenarios. The cheating husband in “Fortnight.” The wedding ring line in “TTPD” the song. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.” All of “So Long, London.” Running away with her wild boy in “But Daddy I Love Him,” fantasizing about weddings and joking about babies. The imaginary rings in “Fresh Out The Slammer.” The cheating husband (again) and the friends who smell like weed or “little babies” in “Florida!!!” “You and I go from one kiss to getting married,” “Talking rings and talking cradles,” and “our field of dreams engulfed in fire” in “loml.” (And arguably: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”) “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short,” in “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.” They may not sound like much on their own, but they paint a picture about how the topics pervaded her thoughts and her writing, and in many cases express her desires, and her pain.

It’s something that goes back several albums when you pick up on context clues. You get the first hints on Reputation with “New Year’s Day,” and “you and me forevermore.” Then Lover is very forward with it: “Lover” is basically wedding vows, “Paper Rings” is very engagement-coded, “I Think He Knows” is cheeky but low-key “you better put a ring on it,” “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” has wedding/marriage imagery in the last verse. As a self-professed diaristic writer, it’s the type of stuff one presumably doesn’t put out there unless those conversations have already happened, and she was very excited about it at the time it was released.

Then the pandemic happens and folklore comes out, and while there is still happy love there (“invisible string”), there are also the first indications that something has happened to put a halt to whatever future she once dreamed of (“hoax,” “the lakes”) and that she’s trying to reassure herself and him that it can still happen even if she’s scared it might not (“peace”). Notably, as far as I can remember it’s the first time Taylor explicitly brings up the idea of family (with her partner) with “you know that I’d give you my wild, give you a child,” which stood out at the time because it’s so incredibly vulnerable, but it’s even more poignant when you really take in that the whole song is like a confession of her deepest worries, and this is her vowing to give him these things that she holds most sacred if he’ll let her. These are what she cherishes most dearly and wants to return in kind: her youth and commitment (my wild), the family she craves (a child), unconditional support (swing for the fences/sit in the trenches) and understanding/compassion (silence that only comes when two people know each other).

Evermore follows an even darker path, and suddenly the album explores relationships that end and grappling with loss. There are toxic relationships (“tolerate it”), dangerous marriages (“no body, no crime,” “ivy”), failing/broken relationships (“Coney Island,” “champagne problems,” “happiness,” “‘tis the damn season”), as well as grief (“Marjorie,” “evermore”). Even some of the happy songs have uncertainty in them: in “willow” she’s begging for him to take her lead, like she’s still trying to decipher him and ask him to commit; in “cowboy like me,” still a beautiful love song, she’s thinking, “this wasn’t supposed to work and we were supposed to bail on each other but we fell in love instead”; “evermore” is about the depths of severe depression (and more) with the love story being the one saving grace in her darkest hour. And it’s also notable that after all the “fiction” writing, shortly after this album she writes “Renegade” where she’s telling the subject: I’m ready to start the next phase of our life now, why aren’t you? Is it me you don’t want after all? It’s like there’s something telling her that this stall might not just be a stall.

Midnights is a jumble (in a good, but in hindsight, also sad way) with the “sleepless nights” concept, but it seems pretty clear now that the themes and events and relationships she was revisiting tied into a lot of what she was feeling in her present life. I wrote the cliff notes version awhile back, but she’s questioning so much of her life that’s reflected in past events and relationships. Am I actually always the problem? How did we lose sight of each other and what we had? We only seem to work when we block out everyone and everything else. Can we ever go back to when things were good? Why are you neglecting me? I once thought I was going to lose everything but you saved me in the nick of time, can that happen again? I chased my career, but did I give up my chance at having a family in the process? Nobody knows what I really suffer from behind closed doors and I’m all alone.

And so on, which in retrospect now that we have TTPD, is very much what she was grappling with in private while writing and releasing the album. The inspiration behind the songs may have been different events and muses, but regardless of their origins they all end up feeling too familiar, like she's seen this film before (ahem). We’re seeing her view of commitment change too, or rather how she writes about it: she’s not making the outright declarations of it like on Lover, or even the implied ones on folklore, nor is she talking of the dark side of it like evermore. For the most part it’s a return to the early days of some relationships, before things got hard, or the end of them when there was nothing left, and also pushing away the discussion of it altogether by the outside world. “Sweet Nothing” is a sweet slice of life, but even at that, it’s the peace of the home in conflict with the pressure of the outside world. Now that we have “You’re Losing Me,” which was written at the same time as the rest of the album, we can probably deduce that she was going back to the start because something happened that made her doubt the future.

THE SETUP

So much of Midnights directly ties into TTPD, and I said in the post I linked that it’s like Midnights is asking the questions that TTPD answers. But there’s one song in particular on Midnights that sticks out to me as being key in the broadest sense to understanding the state of mind that led to the events of TTPD, and that’s “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” because the way it expresses grief is reflected in the theme of mourning a life built and the dreams along with it that are never realized in TTPD. There are several instances in TTPD that are basically variations of: “every single thing to come has turned into ashes,” and that’s what makes her snap, and leaves her vulnerable to someone who promises her those things when she’s bereaved at losing them in the first place. (In other words: “the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling.”) The song tells a story about how that loss of hope colours one’s entire mindset, and in some ways is a bridge to TTPD to understand what such a low point feels like.

I think that that grief, and most importantly losing hope for an imagined future in its wake, is fundamental to understanding TTPD on so many levels: both the decline with one partner that kept her hanging on then led her such a dark path, and why she fell for the conman's apparent bullshitting because it offered an express pass to what she was losing with her partner. And I also feel like it plays a part into the ruminating she’s doing all over Midnights, trying to make sense of where she finds herself when she’s writing the album, which directly leads to “You’re Losing Me.” Loss permeates so many of the stories on Midnights: of lovers, of innocence, of youth, of faith, of control, of life’s work, etc. “BTTWS” is just one of the ways in which it is expressed so fully, capturing that deep depression and subsequent extinction of faith in something that once felt assured and very much wanted. (Which is also mentioned in her writing process in the “Depression” playlist on Apple Music.)

If you understand why that feeling of loss in general across so many parts of life is so important to Midnights, then it illuminates so much about the “narrative” in TTPD too. If on Midnights she’s wrestling with the seeds of grief and loss (on multiple fronts), TTPD is her reckoning with it in its full form. “So Long, London” is the song that is the most explicit about it: How much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy? Just how low did you think I’d go before I’d have to go be free? You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof. It’s the sequel to “You’re Losing Me.” It’s, the air is thick with loss and indecision, I know my pain is such an imposition, I’m getting tired even for a phoenix, all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, I’ve got nothing left to believe unless you’re choosing me, my heart won’t start anymore, but from the other side of the break.

This is highly speculative, but if you follow the thread about the topic and the relationship as told from Rep through TTPD, in broad strokes it goes: young love with a serious connection (Rep) -> growing up and making life plans (Lover) -> something happens that delays those plans or makes them grind to a halt (folklore) -> serious doubts arise and cause a loss of faith in their future (evermore) -> struggling with the loss of that future and trying to make sense of the problems in a last ditch attempt to save the relationship (Midnights) -> fallout from that grief after the blowup of the relationship (TTPD). Understanding that progression of events (through the music) explains not only the storytelling side of TTPD (e.g. the jump from the partner to the conman) but also how the experiences/muses blend in the music, and how the music that on the surface is about the short-term relationship is really driven by the destruction of the long-term one.

Following the music, it’s IMO implied that Taylor (the narrator) was holding out for marriage and family with her partner, for years, and it seems like it was at one point a shared dream until something happened to pump the brakes, and seemingly on her partner’s end. And extrapolating further, given how the sorrow expressed in former albums bleeds into TTPD, it sounds like a plan that had been concrete in some form before it had fallen apart, and losing something that once felt so tangible is what drives her in her grief to find any kind of respite from the pain. Which is why the situation with the conman becomes so appealing as the one with the partner splinters further and further.

(If everything you’ve once touched is sick with sadness and you don’t want to be sad anymore, what are you left to do?)

THE STORY

So (one part of) the story kind of sounds like this from the standard album: the relationship with her partner as well as his mental health slowly deteriorate and he withdraws emotionally (“London,” “Fresh Out The Slammer”) and physically (again, “London,” and “Guilty As Sin?”) and takes his resentment out on her (“London” and arguably “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” even though I don't want to get into muse speculation here). As she sinks deeper into her own depression as a result, the weight of the failing relationship starts feeling like a cage— or a noose (“London,” “Guilty”), but coming to terms with the loss of their life together and the future they’d dreamed of was killing her (again, “London,” but also “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”).

Enter the conman who she reconnects with at the very point where this is coming to a head (knowing that IRL she reconnected with him around the time Midnights was being worked on) , and if you read between the lines, she confides some deeply personal things to him (“Down Bad” and “hostile takes overs”/“encounters closer and closer,” “Smallest Man” and the entire sleeper cell spy imagery which is one of my favourite things and I could write a whole essay about the meaning of it, “loml” and “A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme”). Then after she’s confided these secrets to him, he insinuates himself back into her life (“Guilty,” “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man”) and sells her a dream that HE can give her all these things she hopes for (again, “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man,” “loml,” song “TTPD,” “Broken Heart”).

But the thing is, he only knows these are the things she wants because she’s revealed it to him, and presumably, told him that was what she was losing by staying with her partner. And instead of the normal response of, “that is really sad that your partner is not supporting you and you deserve to be treated better,” to a friend in growing distress, it seems like it was, “well I can give you all those things!!!! Right now!!!! Trust me!!!!” And worked on her until she believed it, and jumped at the chance at a precarious time in her life. And one thing I want to underscore is: Taylor has agency in the situation always, it’s not like she’s been kidnapped and brainwashed. (In fact, she implores on songs like “But Daddy” that SHE is in charge of her own choices, good or bad.) She chose to rekindle the friendship and then relationship, and she chose to eventually leave her long term relationship for another man, and she reiterates on the album that she owns this all. But it’s also: nothing exists in a vacuum, and she makes choices based on emotions and information she has at the time, which is why it gives so much whiplash.

THE ALBUM

When you look at it as, the situation with the conman only happens because of what happened with the partner first and that the appeal of the conman and the fantasy he sells her is a direct reaction to that, it makes the “swirliness” of the music make so much more sense. And for much of it, even many of the “conman” songs on the surface are really “partner” songs underneath.

Fortnight

A suburban gothic allegory about a broken marriage with a distant husband with a wandering eye, which makes the rekindled romance with the neighbor so appealing. She’s miserable caged in her stifling house because she’s been abandoned by her spouse, so the reappearance of this past love reignites the passion that’s dead at home.

TTPD

“So tell me, who else is gonna know me?” “I chose this cyclone with you.” I’m gonna kill myself if you ever leave. Everyone knows we’re crazy. She’s laying it out there that she’s already in a dangerous state of mind, and she’s actively putting herself in more danger by pursuing the conman. “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding,” spells this whole thing out so clearly: whether it’s an actual event (likely) or a metaphor for the promise he makes to her, the reason why it makes her heart explode is because it’s the thing she’s been waiting for forever with no movement, and here this person comes in and slips it on her finger in an instant like it’s nothing. (And eventually, as we’ll come to know, it is absolutely nothing to him.) You mean it could have been this easy this whole time?! (Well, no. Not until a certain other suitor makes his appearance later.) It feels like she’s finally getting everything she wanted in the blink of an eye! How lucky! How convenient! What was that about the get-love-quick scheme you say? (Unsaid: the reason why this feels so urgent is because there’s a sense that time is running out in so many aspects of her life and not just the obvious. Which reappears later on.)

Down Bad

“Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” sets the scene for this euphoric experience in the moment that starts to feel violating once the dust settles (which is then followed up in “Smallest Man” and the spy mission on her). The bridge spells out how he weaselled his way into her life, preyed upon (intentionally or not) her emotional state, sold her a dream and then vanished, without the benefit of hindsight yet we see later in the album.

The alien abduction metaphor is pretty brilliant, because it shows both how she was desperate to escape the place she found herself in, and how much it screwed her brain to then be left stranded when the affair was over. “[I loved your] hostile takeovers, encounters closer and closer,” is so evocative because it details how the situation came to be: his overtures under the guise of friendship blurred lines until he made her an offer that she eventually couldn’t refuse (hostile takeovers) as he infiltrated her life more and more intimately. The sad thing is that the song has parallels to how her relationship with the partner started too in earlier albums, in that they ran away to live in their own bubble (or planet) only for him to metaphorically abandon her as the years went on. (Oven, meet microwave.)

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Being continually emotionally broken down by a person who knows he’s hurting you but still acts the way he does. (The original voice memo version makes this even clearer and it’s rather heartbreaking.) “He saw forever so he smashed it up,” speaks to the loss of a future the person became scared of, and the original lyrics (“he saw forever so he blew it up”) somehow cut even deeper to me because it feels so much more intentional.

Also in the original version, “he was my best friend and that was the worst part,” also speaks not only to the loss of an entire partnership in the wake of this hurt, but also to the feelings of betrayal that the person you trust so deeply has the ability to hurt you in this way too, and how it’s a one-two punch of not only losing the relationship but also your closest confidant. (It’s like the sequel to “Renegade” and the missiles firing to me.) Again, there are shades of both/many situations in the song, pointing to an unfortunate pattern in some ways. The situation in “My Boy” is part of why she was so low, and why the “get love quick scheme” was so appealing later on. And it dovetails nicely into…

So Long, London

The most explicitly “partner” song that puts a coda on “You’re Losing Me,” and is Track 5 because it’s the emotional underpinning of how she got to where she was, and drives the events of the rest of the album. It spells everything out: He withdrew, she tried to fix it for both of them, eventually even that stopped working, he was oblivious to or minimized how badly she was suffering and his (in)actions couldn’t reassure her, he wouldn’t move forward on their future plans and stewed in his own struggles, she was spiralling out of control trying to hang on and ultimately felt like she was going to die if she didn’t leave.

But Daddy I Love Him

Like a direct reaction to “So Long, London” in that she breaks free from the death of one relationship and throws herself with reckless abandon to the next, fuck the haters. How dare you judge me, when the relationship you think I should have stayed in was killing me? (Dutiful daughter all the plans were laid. All you want is gray for me.) Fuck all of you, I’m going to choose whoever I want! (So what if I have a baby with HIM, huh?! I tried doing it the proper way and look where that got me so now we're back to square one) It’s again her imagining how wonderful and freeing this “wild boy” is going to be for her, and how wrong she’ll prove everyone. THIS TIME she definitely got it right. So what if she has to run away! So what if she scandalizes the whole town! They don’t know what she really wants or needs anyway! She’s the only one of her (hee-hee-hee) and she’s the only who gets to decides how this goes. (Because: she longs for control in a situation she’ll eventually realize she has little of it in, which we’ll find out is a recurring theme in her life.)

Fresh Out The Slammer

Also spells out what happened with the partner in the first verse and the pre-choruses, which is what makes the conman so appealing as the imagined jailbreak. The bitter loneliness vs. the sultry passion she builds up in her head as she awaits her release from prison is key to understanding the two sides of the story in the album. There’s this whole outlaw imagery (which is also carried through in “I Can Fix Him”), but it’s contrasted in the end with her and her reunited lover sitting on park swings like children with “imaginary rings” — because “Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake.” What’s at stake is lasting love and the promises that come with it (marriage/family) that are precious and time-sensitive. The imaginary rings are both a nod to the youthful dreams of her and her new/old lover, but also has a double meaning to me because those promises aren’t built on anything together; they're made up, intangible. (They’re no more concrete than the plans that went up in smoke with the partner.) Like with most of the conman situation, it’s all a fantasy in her head that has yet to happen, and as we find out later in the album, reality ends up leaving much to be desired.

Florida!!!

Broadly speaking, it’s running away from your problems and wanting to disappear from your life. (But again: the life she’s disappearing from is the cheating husband she may or may not be feeding to the swamp-- another miserable marriage.) What kind of flies under the radar though is the “I don’t want to exist,” line, which points to her dire state of mind that led her to fleeing to that metaphorical timeshare down in Destin. In many ways about cheating death.

Guilty As Sin

Yes it’s the “masturbation song,” but again the nuance is that she’s left to pleasure herself because her partner has abandoned her emotionally and even physically, i.e. “my boredom’s bone deep.” To be blunt: they aren’t even intimate anymore, so she starts fantasizing about the guy she used to have chemistry with who’s reentered her life and is making moves on her. And realizing that she’s now finding release in another man (albeit imaginary) breaks her even as it reinvigorates her because she finally understands that the relationship she’s in is effectively dead. (“Am I allowed to cry?”)

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me

This isn’t about relationships, but about society and its reaction to them in a general sense. But again, she’s left to stew in all this anger and hurt as she’s been abandoned at home, then abandoned by public opinion, and the public attack on her is part of the origin as well as the end of that story. The trauma inflicted upon her detailed in the song is the reason why she felt trapped in the first place, which led to the decisions she’s made and habits she’s leaned on ever since.

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

This is one of the few songs that is the most completely conman-coded, and shows when the delusion finally breaks at the end of the song. She spends the whole song being like, “no really, I alone can make him better! You’ll see! I know he’s gross, but he’s mine! It’ll be fine I swear! You don’t know anything! Uuuuuum hmm wait actually what the fuck—“

Loml

Oof. THE song. Again the surface reading is about the “conman” who comes in and sells her the lie, but the pain is because all the dreams she writes about are HER dreams and implied that they were the dreams she built with her partner that the conman sold back to her. I could do a deeper dive on this but most of the song is applicable to both relationships, which not only shows the “swirliness” of her writing, but also how they both ultimately did the same thing to her in different shades.

The bridge and the last chorus are kind of fundamental to understanding it all, and her ending it with “you’re the loss of my life” is about, among other things, how falling for this trap blew up the life she built and dreamed of for good. (I could talk about this one forever.) “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” to “Our field of dreams engulfed in fire” is a hell of a line and progression, and again, indicative of what the real driving force behind the whole album is. The shit-talking is because he took her dreams (of marriage and children) and hyped it back up to her tenfold whether in a moment of his own delusion or for more nefarious reasons — much like how the man prior kept promising these things but never followed through, which left her vulnerable to someone who appeared to offer them enthusiastically. The field of dreams isn’t just the one with the conman, it’s the one with the longterm relationship she’d built the dream with in the first place, because the conman’s actions are part of the reason the LTR went up in smoke. (Not the reason for the rift, but the consequence of the final break.) And THAT is why it’s the loss of her life, so completely.

When she says “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” IMO it’s not just the fake future that the conman lures her into, but also (and perhaps mainly) the once-real one she had with her partner and the loss of which that made her susceptible to falling for the con in the first place. There’s honestly so much between the lines in this song that covers every theme and speaks to the grief of seeing the life she imagined slip away, slowly by the first man then annihilated by the second.

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

The juxtaposition of “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short” and “He said he’d love me for all time, but that time was quite short” sums it up to me (and parallels “loml”), because they are two different situations, but they cut her just the same. In the first, “that life” IMO was the life they’d built with the dreams that went along with it and it was too short because he never followed through, and in the second, the “time” was quite short because it was the frenzy of the whirlwind romance that fizzled as quickly as it began. The life that was too short led to the time that was quite short.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

This is definitely THE conman song. The rage, the shame, the violation, it’s all in there. But the key to it is the bridge and the espionage imagery woven through it. A honeypot scheme is when spies target a mark and seduce them to gain their trust and their privileged information for their homeland. So her likening him to a sleeper cell spy who set her up just to mine her deepest secrets and use them against her is a heavy, loaded statement. And implied: that valuable information she unknowingly held were her longings of marriage and family (the aforementioned shit-talking about rings and cradles she never got to have), and more importantly, those dreams preceded him reentering her life and then beginning his mission on her.

The insinuation then is: she confesses these are her deepest wishes which are now seemingly unattainable in her current situation (e.g. with her partner) -> he convinces her HE will give them to her and make the dreams she pines for come true -> she falls for him and blows up her life to make it happen -> he gets what he wants (thrill of the chase/sex/the idea of her/whatever his intent was) -> he abandons her when he gets what he wants, or rather it isn’t what he wants or can handle -> she’s left a) all alone b) with dreams unfulfilled c) with no answers d) feeling used at having her most sacred wishes used against her.

Again, the song is unquestionably about the way the conman absolutely destroyed her, but he was able to do that because there was this thing she wanted more than anything, that was dying in her previous relationship, that he was able to prey upon to seduce her, then discarded her and her dreams as soon as it was inconvenient for him while absolutely hollowing her inside out. (And again: the devastating thing is that this also applies to other relationships she’s written about, in different ways.)

The Alchemy

Not about either the partner or the conman directly, but it (loosely) touches on her finding herself after the whole oven-to-microwave experience and opening herself up to life and love again. #GoodForHer

Clara Bow

This isn’t about the romantic relationships on the surface, but it is about how damaging the entertainment industry and public life are on women, and how women are only valued for their beauty as commodities until they can be discarded and destroyed in the process. Which I think plays into the circumstances that led her to make the decisions that she did years ago, and why she makes the ones she does now. (But also, being valued for physical traits and appeal for the male gaze brings us to…)

The Manuscript

The “original sin” that kicks off all of this. Again, at first light this isn’t about the partner or the conman, but the person it is about is the reason why she has made all the decisions she has ever since in relationships (and that’s Mr. Plaid Shirt Days from “All Too Well”). The realization that her first serious adult relationship is what cemented these patterns, and this view of herself and her worthiness in relationships, is profoundly sad. An older man who valued her for being so mature for her age and implying that the mature activities ahem associated with that were the performance benchmarks in her ability to carry a relationship, only to leave her, was earth shattering. She placed her faith in this person, but then the way he treated her changed her view of love and of herself.

She took his innuendo about “pushing strollers” as a sign of potential commitment, whereas he ultimately meant it as foreplay, and she was too young and naive to know the difference. So not only did she learn from that that this man (and men) didn’t view commitment and family the way she did and that it was something to be toyed with, but she also learned that her value to them among other things was sex. Imagine being an idealistic 20 year old and your boyfriend ten years your senior tells you, “if the sex is anywhere near as good as our dates have been, we’re going to be making babies before you know it,” (e.g. this is relationship is serious) and then he dumps you: does that imply that the sex was not in fact that good? (E.g. that you’re not worthy after all?)

No, obviously from this side of life, it’s because he was a commitment-phobic playboy, even if he did love her, but she couldn’t have known that at 20 and instead internalized that shame. But, it did send her on a path of how she approached sex and love and relationships for over a decade afterwards. And her coming to the realization that that first act of (perhaps unintentional) manipulation is what informed her actions thereafter helped her break the pattern. Her worth to men is not just sex, she has value and her hopes and dreams have value, she doesn’t have to change into a different person to please anyone, because if that is what they want, they won’t ever want her anyway.

It’s been described here on Tumblr by people more eloquent and astute than I as a song that encapsulates the album as this: one did it slow (partner), one did it fast (conman), and one did it first (first love)— and that is haunting. After years of men minimizing her dreams and desires, if not outright using them against her, she’s finally at the point where she can let it all go and move on for good. (There’s a whole other tangent about consent and shame and manipulation, but that’s an entirely different kind of discussion. But it is so devastatingly contrasted with “you said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die.”)

THE SUMMATION

This is just my interpretation of it, but in going through the standard album, it feels pretty clear how cohesive the album is about a story of love and loss and grief, then reckoning with what caused it all in the first place that set a person on this path. It’s a formative experience at a young age that was traumatic and led to certain coping mechanisms and a shaping of one’s self-perception, as well as the reaction to external pressures that try to dictate behaviours and influence how one feels one deserves out of love which makes it harder to know when one absolutely deserves more and better. And leaves one struggling to cope with loss when there isn’t anything else to hold onto. Then in light of one’s life blowing up, learning to find oneself in the aftermath all over again.

On another tangent that is somewhat related to the theme of loss, the way she writes about the two main muses on the standard album also ties into how the situations converged to create absolute carnage on her emotional and mental well-being. With one situation, she’s talking about a concrete life that crumbles under the weight of their struggles; with the other, the entire thing is a fantasy that she builds up in her head, and when it comes to fruition it falls far, far short.

If you look at the “microwave” (conman) relationship, you realize that almost everything she writes about it happens before it actually becomes reality, and it’s mostly her imagining how great it’ll be, but with few exceptions, when she writes about what actually occurred, it doesn’t even come close to living up to her expectations. “Fortnight” is an imagined future where she escapes to Florida and his touch finally starts her stalled engine (ahem). “TTPD” is perhaps the most positive retelling of their time together, but even that implies he was better off stoned and when he sobered up he succumbed to his demons all over again, and more importantly she conveys how she also is in extreme distress, barely concealed by the veneer of being infatuated with him. (E.g. saying to that she’ll kill herself if he ever leaves her — the implication is that she is absolutely serious about it when she “felt seen.”) And that the warning bells are going off in her head, but she feels like this person is the only one she can be with (because they’re equally fucked up and the chaos he brings into her life makes her feel alive when she felt so close to death).

“Down Bad” is the most explicit about being in love, but she’s also left completely confused and disoriented by him disappearing, wondering if any of it was real and the seeds of violation creep into her consciousness (“did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” “Waking up in blood.”). “But Daddy” is her imagining she can tell everyone to fuck off for telling her what to do with her life. “Fresh Out The Slammer” is her fantasizing about this man while feeling trapped in her relationship — but never in the song is she actually reunited with him; she’s using him as the projection of all the things she’ll make right after being wronged by her partner. “Guilty As Sin?” Is very obviously about her fantasizing about sleeping with him, but again it’s such a minefield for her because it hasn’t happened yet; they’ve only just reconnected. “I Can Fix Him” is the only song other than “TTPD” that shows them actually together, and it’s the one where she keeps saying, essentially, “I know he’s gross but I can rehabilitate him into an upstanding person, trust me,” until the mic drop at the end of the song where it finally hits her that no, she can’t, because this is who he is, not the person she’s built him up to be.

“Loml” is when it all comes crashing down, and the song emphasizes everything he did and told her, e.g. that she’s the love of his life, but she doesn’t return the sentiment in the song about their time together. Because now that it’s past tense, she knows it wasn’t actually love. (And says as much in the album epilogue poem.) “Broken Heart” is her reeling in the aftermath, but again, it’s “he said,” not “I loved.” And then there’s “The Smallest Man,” where she eviscerates him: he also pursued an idea of her but didn’t care much for the real her in front of him (who else is gonna know me?), he love bombed her only to hurt her (crushing her dreams), he was constantly stoned (and not just in the funny munchies kind of way), and he wasn’t even a good lover (despite the fantasy she’d created before). That last point is especially striking because she spent albums singing about the importance of and pleasure in (sexual) intimacy in the relationship with her partner (sometimes to both their own detriment) and how it was at times the only way they could connect, but in this case, the idea she hyped up and acted on in her head about this lover never panned out in practice. She spells it out in the epilogue: it wasn’t a love affair, it was a mutual manic phase.

In contrast, there’s a lot more tangible action in the “oven” (partner) parts of the album, showing how hard she tried to make the relationship work in real life instead of just in her head. All of “So Long, London” is her detailing how she tried to break through to him and support him, even when he rejected it and pushed her away, thinking she could carry them both until they ultimately sank, but she did it because she “loved this place for so long.” (The place? Not just the city, but the home and perhaps most importantly, him.) In “Slammer” she stayed with him even as things disintegrated for “one hour of sunshine.” (E.g. holding onto the rarer good times even as they were fewer and further between, hoping things would eventually turn around.) And like in “London,” she held on despite people in her life pleading with her that it was hurting her. (Which is also echoed in “Slammer.”) In “Guilty” her boredom is “bone deep” because the passion that once drove their relationship (and papered over their problems) has finally gone out too, so there’s nothing left to hold onto, leading to her fantasizing about the new suitor, which makes her realize her relationship has passed the point of no return. “Loml” is about the conman on the surface, but the undercurrent of all the things she says about him is that he was co-opting the dreams that she was clinging onto for dear life in the previous relationship, which is why the con is so painful; the field of dreams he sets ablaze isn’t just the fake painting he sold to her, but the original artifact (her life with her partner) too.

All the physical and emotional labour she puts into the relationship with her partner ends up reflected in the fantasizing she does in the one with the conman, which is why it is so confusing in the moment and so lethal when he leaves her without any answers. She wants to get married and start a family with her partner which keeps getting stalled; the conman mock-proposes which makes her think he’s immediately serious (“TTPD,” “loml”). She feels caged by having to hide with her partner and shrink herself; the conman promises he’ll stand by her side publicly and let her shine (“Smallest Man”). She sinks into a deep depression in her loneliness as the relationship with her partner careens off a cliff; the conman convinces her they’re meant for each other in a them-against-the-world way (“Down Bad”). The intimacy (in all senses of the word) in her relationship with her partner fizzles; the conman stokes the fire by sending her secret messages and reigniting passion (“Guilty”). She spent years trying to help her partner to no avail; the conman makes her think she has the power to reform him (“loml”). She feels misunderstood by her partner; the conman acts like he’s the (only) one who truly gets her (“TTPD,” “loml”).

In short: there’s nothing that the conman does or says that isn’t a direct response to what her partner did first, and it’s even worse because the conman knew how much her partner’s actions hurt her and he used that privileged information to paint a picture of what he could give her, but in doing so in some ways aimed at her heart with even deadlier accuracy. (I’ve likened it to him borrowing someone else’s life for his own joyride, until he crashes the rental car and flees the scene.) It’s why in the aftermath, the difference in emotions are so different: she feels nothing but rage and violation towards the conman for getting in her head and using her, whereas her feelings towards her partner are more complicated. There’s anger (at her lost youth and being taken for granted), but there’s also sorrow (at their lost life and future), disappointment (that he never could step up the way he’d promised or she’d needed), even compassion (towards his struggles) and a tiny measure of appreciation (for the good times they did share).

When you look at the bigger picture, the story the album paints is just so painfully normal. You have two people (Taylor and her partner) who once loved each other deeply, and despite warning signs early on telling them they have fundamentally different needs and ways of living their lives they fight like hell to make it work (the epilogue) until those warning signs become grenades that destroy their home (“My Boy,” “London,” “Slammer,” arguably “loml”). Having already been through at least one rough patch/break/breakup that she felt almost destroyed her (harkening back to Midnights on “You’re Losing Me,” “The Great War” and “Hits Different”), the final and fatal downward spiral of the relationship (“YLM,” “London”) and the grief over losing that future sends her into a tailspin, just at the time where a flame from the past (the conman) reenters her life and tells her all the things she’s been longing to hear and feel (“TTPD,” “Down Bad,” “Guilty,” “loml”) and, crucially, missing from the relationship that was once her entire life.

So in her panic, she falls prey to the (empty) promises of the past lover (“loml,” “Smallest Man”) and decides he’s actually what will save her from the free fall, because the alternative (that she will end up in a situation she doesn’t think she can survive) is too painful to bear. When she finally acts on these circumstances (leaves her partner/runs to the conman), she snaps, acting on pure emotion and adrenaline (“But Daddy”), but before she knows it, the new lover abandons her, and she’s left to reckon with the fallout of the episode and process everything that has happened (“Down Bad,” “loml”) — with the conman, with her partner, with the choices made in her adult life personally and professionally which leads her back to the moment she feels set her down that road at the start.

The TL;DR of this unintentionally long essay is that the reason the conman affair was so serious was precisely because it was meant to fulfill the promise of what was her life with her partner. To me, a large part of the story is that she projected that life onto the conman (or he projected her life back to her for his own purposes) because she wasn’t ready to deal with that massive grief and the life raft he offered felt like the only alternative to an even darker end. Whether the conman actually believed what he told her, or he went along with it or encouraged it because it served his purpose, we’ll never know, just like we’ll never know the finer details of what went on (nor should we). But no matter what, the album is just an extreme deep dive into all the ways grief can consume us, and whether it’s a long, drawn-out death or a sudden, inexplicable one, it can turn a person’s life into such a trainwreck that they act in ways unfathomable to even them, let alone the people around them. It can also unleash repressed trauma and mental illness that can crater your sense of self. And when those situations are compounded? It makes for a nearly impossible type of breakdown to unpack. (Which is why you might need a 31 song album to process it.)

[tetzoro]

once you take zoro’s virginity, he turns into a whole other monster entirely. whenever he feels even a little pent up, big strong hands will be gripping your hips and tugging you to the nearest secluded spot to unleash it all. each slow, delicious drag of his cock is only heightened by the passion that follows it — his hips unstoppable as they religiously snap against yours.

the only thing you can focus on is the deep rumble of his groans and surprisingly sultry murmurs of your name as the room all but closes in under the weight of his chest pushing against your back. to reduce such a strong and disciplined man into one who erratically pounds into you, devoid of all those thoughts as they’re replaced by how fucking good you feel wrapped around him, how soft you feel in his arms, and how he never ever wants to let go.

[romaritimeharbor]

good morning. i think we should talk about baizhu and changsheng's relationship more actually

do you think she feels guilt since she can't survive without being actively in a contract with someone, and that person has to be good-hearted otherwise the contract literally cannot proceed? do you think it eats away at her that she has to survive on the life force of the best people she can find? you think that fucks with her at all? do you guys think she looks at baizhu and feels guilt? you guys think she looks at him and just sees a kid more than anything else? do you guys think she has ever considered refusing to renew the contract with anyone going forward, even if it costs her own life and risks her being called selfish for letting her power die with her? do you think baizhu blames her at all, even if it's only in fleeting moments of weakness (he usually doesn't, but does sometimes, and even just the thought makes him feel bad because he knows she's also suffering in this cycle)?

[lilalexhorne]

I have still been thinking nonstop about these two getting on each other's nerves homoerotically. And also their height difference like goddamn... And also imagining Ray (Tim Key's character) wanting to win Paul (Jim Howick's character) instead if he wins their little archery match. Cause Ray thinks he still has a chance with him if the little man still harbors any of the feelings he did back when they were experimenting in college... And the whole friends to rivals to lovers thing they could've had going on has latched firmly onto my brain.

[playingwithstarsabove]

I'm happy that, even after ten years, Over the Garden Wall is still the go-to fall classic series for everyone that never lost it's charm to age.

[heilos]

Still coming to terms with the fact that this 5th video is going to be our longest video to date when it's done and I think that's pretty neat.

[barryroyco]

the reason i think i love hilson so much is that they aren’t what either of them pictured for themselves. house probably thought he’d end up with stacy. wilson definitely thought he’d have the white picket fence with a wife and little wilsons running around, growing old and dying with them all surrounding him with their love.

but at the end of it all… they had their chance. CHANCES. and every time, they blew it. sure, you could say house sabotaged him, but wilson always let him. and there was a reason for that.

the person you want when you’re dying isn’t the person you want when you’re living. because while they were living, they were fooling themselves into believing it wasn’t always going to be them in the end. and once the end confronted them, they dropped the act.

no, they’re not the perfect vision of a healthy relationship, platonic or otherwise. but they’re on equal footing, always. they crave it in each other, and they deserve each other. it’s messy, manipulative, and maybe a tad sadistic at times. but it’s a deeper, realer, more intense love than you see either of them experience in the show. doesn’t matter if it’s romantic, it’s there, it’s shown, it’s written, and it’s true.

it always had to be house and wilson. and they knew it too.

[gemmahale]

Started writing something about Dom Soap being a herding dog (if we insist on applying the dog metaphor to him.)

A hand on the small of your back, maybe your hand wrapped in his, at worst his hand on the small of your neck to guide and direct you. He doesn't need to nip at your heels to get you to go where you should.

A nip at your earlobe followed by a growl of "Behave yerself" just barely above the din. A soft kiss along your jawline to apologize; to anyone else it looks like he's telling you a secret, but you know it's a reminder that he is in charge and you'd best listen.

A pinch - maybe the inside of your thigh or arm, or the soft, cushiony part of your hip - when you step outside of pre-determined bounds. A reminder that he's here to protect you, even if you can't detect the threat yourself.

He's subtle in the way he displays dominance. He knows his job is to protect and keep you in line, and he intends to do at least that much. He'll showboat in other areas (and does). But this power exchange between the two of you is his.

....I lost the dog metaphor there a bit. Sorry not sorry. Yes, you'll probably see a lot of this in Museum Muse. Maybe Brix. Bite me. (I'll like it.)

[dilfsuzanneyk]

matt bellamy must have insane stamina and breath control because how is he singing these songs while running, jumping, attacking the equipment, attacking his band members etc etc

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

The differences in cultures and behaviors between different fandoms is so fascinating to me, I love just musing on the various differences

Back in my Warrior Cats phase on scratch there was barely an single fanart of canon characters, everything was original characters and original clans.

During my time in the Genshin Impact fandom people would play with the various canon character elements to make new characters but there wasn't quite the level of wholly divorced from canon stories there.

There was shipping tho! An absolutely unhinged amount of shipping. Every single character who wasn't a literal child had at least one, maybe two default/mainstream ship partners that most people shipped them with, then a handful of rarer ships as well

Then I moved to Dream SMP 'cus I heard that it had a lot of platonic relationships that were so popular that they made it into the top 100 ao3 ships multiple years in a row, and I was getting pretty romanced out by Genshin at that point so it seemed like a perfect choice.

And it was! Dream SMP had the best platonic relationship representation of any fandom I've been in before or since. But it has the dark flipside to it, where the reason was partially because the fans were freaking off the rails toxic and hostile to the mere suggestion that any character might ever be attracted to another

The Hermitcraft and Life Series are better with platonic relationships than Genshin Impact, but nowhere near as good as DSMP, with the return of a handful of mainstream ships, but not the pressure to have a ship for every single character

Then there's the fascinating ways MCYT fandoms had every characters' designs and even species up in the air and it's common place to just make any random guy part any random animal, which is incredible fun

But then OCs in the MCYT fandom are a whole other thing, as they tend to come most in the Warriors style where they come out of fanmade servers and tend to be fairly divorced from canon most of the time, only generally inspired by the setting

And now in the Magnus Archives fandom we've got the canon ships, with one specific one vastly dominating the whole fandom to even more extremes than any singular Genshin ship ever reached, which I've gathered is a pretty common experience in other fandoms but this has been my first time actually experiencing it first hand

And TMA has a similar thing with Warrior Cats where it works really well as a set of world building that can be shoved upon other fictional characters for some fun AUs, which was never really a thing with MCYT (though I think it kinda was with Genshin Impact, to a degree, where people would draw other characters in Genshin splash art style and assign them Visions and all that.)

Warriors is by far the most extreme of these, up with My Little Pony in terms of how you're almost guaranteed to see at least one fanart of the characters in any fandom drawn as warrior cats/ponies

And then there's the popular AU types! Genshin Impact was chock full of highschool AUs. Dream SMP had Foster Family AUs and Superhero AUs galore (especially with SBI), but it also had a smaller Humans Are Space Orcs / Alien AUs phenomen that I've not been able to find again in my other fandoms since. I never read enough Life Series and Hermitcraft fanfic to get a good grasp on their popular AUs, but various flavour of Modern AU with the characters assigned random jobs seemed common, and they had a lot of Superhero AUs spawned by HoTGuY. TMA is mostly everyone is happy AUs, like No Paranormal Nonsense AUs and Happily Ever After Post Canon AUs, but also a whole heckin' lot of Time Travel (usually fix-it fic) AUs, which is something I never really saw in the other fandoms

I don't have a good ending to this post as there's no real point to it, it's just me babbling about fandoms