#modern day myth

[1introvertedsage]

… and then, what if another came in. Who was ready for this?

I’ve known I’m supposed to meet someone in particular… now that I’m here. I’ve met more people in these few short months than I have in the last 9 years. Even what’s been told to me was a ‘red herring’… which is an entire story itself. But none of them have been this person. I feel like I’ll know when we cross paths… but I like to know everything I can ahead of time. And nothing is more difficult for me than waiting.

My life plays out like a modern day myth and feels more and more like a game.

[bugwolfsstuff]

*shakes you* Listen to me LISTEN TO ME

ZEUS IS NOT JUST A FUCKBOY

HE HAS MORE TO HIM THAN HIS SEX LIFE

HE IS MORE THAN JUST THE KING THAT CHEATS

HE IS THE GOD OF HOSPITALITY, JUSTICE, WEATHER, DESTINY

PLEASE STOP MAKING HIM AN ABUSIVE FATHER LET HIM BE KIND FOR AT LEAST A MOMENT

PLEASE

HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AS MANY CHILDREN AS POSEIDON

PLEASE GIVE US ONE MEDIA THAT DOESN'T MAKE HIM CRUEL

[gingermintpepper]

What’s the significance of each color in Ancient Greece? So green is the only neutral color and it represents mostly natural and earthy things, thank you for telling me that part !! Anyway, as for my Hyacinthus design’s hair being brown, it’s due to the combination of it being a fairly common interpretation of his appearance and also because I find I like how it looks with his skin tone and the purple of his eyes.

Okay, firstly; thank you so much for answering my question too!

Admittedly you can't beat out good, old fashioned colour theory so that's completely fair haha! I still think it's very interesting that brown became the common interpretation of his features so I'm always glad to hear other people's view on it <3

With respect to what colours meant or symbolised in Ancient Greece, it's a super fascinating topic because the Ancient Greeks had a very different perception of colour than how a lot of people - and in this case I'll generalise and say english-speaking people - perceive colour. In a lot of languages, especially older ones, colour wasn't just a way to describe the physical perceptional reality of an observable object (that is, the light reflecting off the object that gives it its perceived hue - the way we perceive colour now) but colour was also used to describe the way in which the people experienced the world. A really good way to think about it is now, if you wanted to distinguish between two types of blue, you would instinctively make a distinction between their shades ("This blue is darker/lighter!") whereas these older people would distinguish based on things in their present, shared world that best matched what they were being asked to describe ("This blue is like the sky/the sea!")

That's an important concept to keep in mind because ancient greek was very unique in that, in addition to this concept of colour being completely intertwined with physical objects (and therefore also acquiring the properties of these objects in the minds of the people), the ancient greeks also did not particularly care about distinguishing between different colour hues (that is, differences in specific individual colour) but rather they were entirely focused on a colour's value - that is, whether it was considered light or dark.

Taking all of this into consideration, the question 'what is the significance of the different colours in Ancient Greece' is a bit of a tricky one to answer because unlike say, Ancient Egyptian which has very clear colours (red, white, green), very clear physical objects that give those colours their property (the desert sand, the sun, people's skin) and very clear symbolic meanings that arose from the natures ascribed to those physical objects due to their influence on the people's lives (hostility, power, new life), Ancient Greece's colours and the perception of those colours was much more abstract and poetic, contingent on their understandings and perceptions of things like light and dark, the sense of touch or taste (sweet and bitter/wet and dry) and what quality was ascribed to the object whose colour is being perceived. Colour was a matter of cosmology, of philosophy and there were many different schools of thought on it from Empedocles' physicalist theories to Anaxagoras' realist theories.

All of this is to say, take the meanings I outlined in this handy-dandy table with a tablespoon of salt! These are based on my understanding of the language used to describe things in classical writings that have survived and my own bias towards Empedocles' physicalist theory of colour and the nature of colour which I also think is very useful for people into greek mythology as a whole due to it making clear links between various gods creating things from mixtures of the four basic elements of nature and the colours that are the result of these mixtures.

I hope this helps even a little and I very much encourage you to do some research into different Greek schools of thought when it comes to colour and the perception of colour as well as how colour affects/reflects the innate nature of all things!

(Also, slight extra note, I left out Kokkinos (scarlet/blood-red) from the table because I didn't really think it was relevant for this outline despite it definitely being an ancient colour. It's a bit difficult to find examples of it with the kind of descriptors Empedocles outlines and I don't want to make assumptions based on third hand knowledge on the greek concept of the nature of things. I'd like to believe it was addressed in more detail in Empedocles' original document - only a fragment of the original some two thousand lines have survived after all - it is confirmed that Empedocles spoke on the recipe for blood and flesh, an equal mixture of all four elements as opposed to bones' four parts fire, two parts earth and two parts water (which is why bones shine white, there's more fire than earth or water) - and I don't want to conject or make assumptions.

I also left out Erythros or basic/primary red according to Plato's list of basic colours because that seemed to have specifically been preferred by Egyptian Greeks according to linguistic data. If I opened up that can of worms with respect to the shared Egyptian-Greek colour language including the way the Greeks like many early peoples did not culturally perceive blue until the invention of Egypt's blue dyes then I would be writing forever and you would never get an actual clear answer about Greek colour symbolism separate and apart from Egyptian cultural influence lmfao. )

A few of the documents that helped me consolidate this information include Sassi's 2022 Philosophical Theories of Colour in Ancient Greek Thought and Ierodiakonou's Empedocles on Colour and Colour Vision. There are also a fair few translations and discussions of the fragments of Empedocles' On Nature still floating about - my copy is a somewhat archaic volume of Leonard's 1908 translation but I never went out searching for updated interpretations and translations of the text since its constantly referenced in perceptional philosophy papers LOL

Anyway, yeah, hope this helps! :D

[radlymona]

How it feels to see these two different types of comments of my Greece legalised same sex marriage post:

[mochinomnoms]

ARENT TADPOLES,,,like, a solid dark green color,,

wait are eels even green i uhm apologies late night rambling

🇫🇷

I thought that tadpoles were translucent and turn color when they get bigger like eels do. But Imma be honest, I only know as much as I do about morays because I hyperfixate hard and idk much about frogs.

When I get really interested in something I become google for it aksdalkjsdkl

[daughterofzeus-the-novel]

I know some of classicsblr dislikes the way Madeline Miller modernized the Illiad for Song of Achilles but I loved Circe and I'm really liking this one so far

[amphibifish]

it would be funny if i named my modern au heim heinrick only because i had a coworker named that and when i first glanced over his name i sincerely thought his name was heimdall

[apollos-boyfriend]

my roommate is the strongest person alive for sitting through my like half an hour rant about greco roman mythology modernizations and the rampant misconceptions that have been spread in the recent years, partially from people unwilling to accept that no actually, these myths were Not originally feminist scripture that got rewritten by the man, they just really fucking hated women back then

[mmmthornton]

Disco Elysium: You are in a world on the edge of the end. The revolution has been fought and lost. There is a hole in existence itself that is getting bigger. If you tune in, you can hear the sigh of creatures as they fade into extinction. They hate you for what you've done. They love you for having tried. There is nothing you can do. There is still work to do. You are all going to die. You have to find the truth behind one man's death. It is pointless, and it is necessary. Some shit-for-brains take on Tumblr.com: Its so stupid how Americans think they can relate to this story lol cultural appropriation much?

[roetrolls]

Multitrack drifting those old men and also the Minotaur

[rivilu]

I dont really believe in afterlife as a place, but if one exists im finding the Roman fucker that adapted the Medusa story and pummeling him to death a second time

[kirbyddd]

remembering this video i watched about the history of Mario 3 that ended with sentimental music and text saying "Shigeru Miyamoto is considered one of the greatest game designers of all time"

[raspberry-beret]

Mythology Weekend - Liễu Hạnh

In Vietnamese mythology, Liễu Hạnh was a daughter of the Jade Emperor and was temporarily exiled to Earth after breaking a jade bowl. Living among humans, she developed a strong affection for them and chose to return to provide protection to those who needed it. Liễu Hạnh's became a symbol of female empancipation and empowerment as she was able to move freely between realms and chose to marry for love in her myths. Worship of Liễu Hạnh was forbidden in the early years of the North Vietnamese Communist regime but her followers have since grown again.

[velvetbunniie-archive]

alright, that’s it. taking all fairy tale and greek retellings from authors until they learn how to actually do a good retelling that recontextualizes without sanitizing everything to make for a “good”, “healthy”, “clean”, “modern love story” that strips the story of its main point.

[sotiriabellou]

previous post is so correct and true it should get an award actually.i am so unbelievably tired or most modern greek myth retellings because few of them actually transform the stories into anything actually meaningful or thought-provoking but there is nothing that unnerves me more than the persephone retelling that depicts her and hades as couple goals like it genuinely repulses me because how do you take a tale that is literally about a powerful god kidnapping a young girl and keeping her away from her mother.there is absolutely nothing romantic about that no matter what way you twist it and i would even go as far to say romanticising this myth in particular borders into mafia boss kidnaps you and falls in love🥵😈type wattpad fanfiction territory or at its worst dismisses and romanticises sexual violence against women and girls.demeters divine wrath and grief being so strong it causes the shifting of the earth's seasons is the only cool part of that entire myth to me and it truly shows maternal love and protection.

[dandthegods]

I’ve written almost 38k words worth of mythology focused short stories

About 20k or more to go