#musings of a dark god

[the-muppet-joker]

i need your cock

Too bad I'm celibate now!

[arylleth]

it is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. if one is unaware of this, one falls into despair at the first onslaught of affection. simone weil, the love of god and affliction

[greatdenimbeast]

Diamond castle au- Mephiles as Lydia! The muse of Music, Tragedy and Eloquence

He’s a god, born on Olympus, chosen to be Apollos first muse, due to his prolific musical talents and understanding of tragic stories. Mephiles graciously accepted his position as well as his twin flutes

To him, to be a muse is to be the example, the authority, to have the final say over what people can and can’t do with their art, down to the style and expression.

Mortals were simple creatures, with fickle emotions that easily led them astray. They needed guidance, direction, the ability to create was gifted onto them and they needed to use that gift properly. (More accurately how he deemed it being used properly)

He was content in his care for the diamond castle and the way he ran things… but then Apollo chose another muse. A demigod. A descendant of an underworld god, gifted with full godhood in order to carry out his duties.

Mephiles wasn’t… fond of this decision, working with a mortal isn’t something he had ever foreseen and he didn’t think that this mortal would be capable of taking on these responsibilities. But he chose not to argue with the authority of lord Apollo and welcome the godling into his ranks as a fellow muse. He could be taught the proper ways after-all and, even when he was a mortal, the blood of a god still ran through his viens, this was about a century before Apollo introduces them to another chosen muse.

This one a pure mortal, not even a lick of godly blood in him and yet he was chosen.

Mephiles was completely baffled and infuriated by this decision but held his tongue, something that was hard to do when this… former-mortal was the most ungrateful one he’d ever seen, having as much snark as he had audacity as he clearly did not wish for this decision either

Everything Mephiles told him to do, he did the exact opposite! And if that wasn’t enough! He slacked in his duties! The mortals engaging in his art just did whatever they wanted and interpreted his aspects however they wanted and he just let them! In fact he actively encouraged it! Going down to the mortal realm, in mortal disguise to interact with them. And then, for some ungodly reason, the second muse (who had previously been butting heads with this new muse as well) followed his example!!! It was infuriating, especially when the two started to creating music, and doing whatever the heck they wanted with it! Starting to insist that he could lighten up cuz he didn’t actually have the authority on what people created

The final straw was when the two of them created music that in turn created a little godling (literally, they made a song an poof! Baby!) and the god Apollo proposed that the child train to be a muse

Mephilis wouldn’t stand for this anymore, they didn’t deserve to hold their positions so if they didn’t do things his then he’d take care of all the arts himself! But he knew he couldn’t exactly do anything, his fellow muses, though tainted by their former mortality, were just as powerful as he was. So he ventured down to Tartarus for something give an edge, he found the dark power he was looking for, as well as the dragon, iblis.

So he conspired to take over while tensions rose with the other two muses, what he needed was the instruments to have full control but for people to believe his authority he had to let those two ruin their own image to make him look better by comparison and ruining their harmony to make them more susceptible to his powers

But then Silver found out, told the other muses about him wanting to take over and they hid the castle and their instruments. The two muses tried to confront him and stop him but he quickly put a stop to that, they won’t be doing anything without his say so anytime soon… but the little apprentice got away, seemingly disappearing into thin air. Meph had a hunch that he knew the whereabouts but there was no sign of

His powers still only extended over his domain, so he still needed those instruments… but no matter, he was in charge and he was immortal, he had millennia to wait and there were only so many places that child could hide

[amali4m]

always the poet never the muse.

[nadsdraws]

God does not play dice with the universe... but Metatron does

[neverbesokind]

Oh my god it's The Alchemy day I have SO many thoughts about this song so I'm gonna try and condense them.

First of all, the song starts and ends with "This happens once every few lifetimes," which is a statement filled to the BRIM with irony, in my view. The entire album up to this point has been concerned with two romances, both of which Taylor states she felt were destined and fated and "storybook" in their own ways. The entirety of TTPD is exploring how these fated, destined, storybook romances could actually crumble, and with it, her faith and belief in the existence of fate and destiny and storybook love.

But THEN... almost at the end of the standard run of the album, Taylor states that she's getting back from recovering from this tragedy - "I'm back / The hospital was a drag / Worst sleep that I ever had". She gets back from the messy process of healing from the events described on the album, and despite everything finds herself falling in love again.

This is why the title is significant, too. Alchemy is the pseudoscience of making a material into something more valuable. And this reflects the emotional process of Taylor falling in love again - she felt like the past two tragedies took the shine off of everything, killed her belief that love could ever work. But then, despite everything, she falls in love again and the normal, even tragic world she lived in before is transformed into something golden.

And then the first line repeats again, to reflect the cyclical nature of what she has experienced. Obviously, "this" doesn't happen once every few lifetimes, it's happened twice before on the album and is happening again in this song. She's falling in love, she's finding something beautiful and fated, and she can't help but find it gorgeous and meaningful, even if she's been shown again and again that she might be proven wrong in the end. And it feels so special that even if it's obvious that it isn't a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it feels that rare and that precious.

In this song, love is the alchemy, the process of turning normalcy into meaning and beauty, and she can't help it.

[gingermintpepper]

I spent something like six and a half hours in the hospital today so day 6 of my challenge is being further postponed but, in the lieu of not doing any drawing, I did end up rereading Ovid's Metamorphoses in between waiting and I just wanted to offer some of my favourite underrated bits.

Cadmus and Harmonia's twin transformations into snakes is so gentle? Cadmus goes first, transformed mid plea for his wife to caress him one last time before his face is completely covered in scales, then he rests gently between her boobs and wraps around her neck and shoulders like a big snake gorget. Harmonia follows him shortly and the two snakes intertwine with each other before gently slithering off into the bushes and I love that actually mwah mwah mwah (I also appreciate the sweet irony of Cadmus who slew a snake for his glory becoming a snake, toothless and gentle in the last of his days)

Everything about Perseus was hilarious. Like, I'm sorry - I've never done a lot of reading into Perseus but I did always remember the banquet massacre and the Andromeda rescuing and like, bro I know it's not meant to be funny but Perseus is funny. I think it's his politeness honestly? He goes up to Atlas and is like "hello kind sir, may I please stay a night in your lands? I've travelled an awful long way and I am weary and hungry. If you only accept noble guests, rest assured, I am of noblest birth and have completed the noblest of deeds. 🥺" and Atlas takes one look at him, has a That's So Raven vision about the one time Themis gave him a prophecy about a son of Jove stealing his apples and then told Perseus to kick rocks. So Perseus, like the well adjusted and noble individual that he is, turns Atlas into a mountain with Medusa's head. This is how a great many of Perseus' stories unfold. It is actually hysterical.

I am going to give a special shoutout to Athis and Lycabas who were two young lovers in attendance at Perseus and Andromeda's blood wedding. Athis died first - a skilled archer who never got to shoot and was burnt and bludgeoned across the face with a wedding brazier. When Lycabas saw that his dear friend's beauty was ruined, he picked up the fight against Perseus himself in Athis' name and was slashed to strips by Perseus' sword. Lycabas managed to drag himself over to Athis in his last moments and died beside him, so I thought that was a particularly touching bit of beauty in the otherwise extremely tragic blood wedding.

No one can ever make me feel bad for Niobe. In a lot of the Greek accounts I've read and heard, because they tend to be much shorter or references in a wider narrative, it's hard to really grasp how insanely disrespectful she was to Leto (not that her boasting she should be the goddess of motherhood to the actual goddess of motherhood isn't worthy of death and destruction enough) but Ovid really did go the extra mile to dig it home how far down her throat this lady put her foot because even at her sons' seven way funeral she did not stop boasting about how she was still glorious. I did find it interesting that the seemingly innocuous detail of Apollo killing off the boys first and then Artemis killing the girls was kept cross-culturally, I assume it's because boys were more auspicious than girls in both cultures.

The detail of Athena bonking Arachne constantly with a wooden box and her being transformed into a spider because she begged to not be bonked to death. Also very interestingly, in Ovid's account, it's not a clear victory for Athena against Arachne - she gets flustered at the depictions of her relatives' affairs and rips the tapestry up - the judges didn't actually get a chance to opine. This is in contrast to the contest the Muses sang about where their representative Calliope unilaterally won against the daughters of Pierus.

The account of Apollo and Marsyas was much shorter than I remember it being. I recall it being touted as one of the more vicious and visceral tales in Metamorphoses' collection but it included neither the details of Marsyas' contest against Apollo, nor Apollo's feelings (or even any dialogue from him!) throughout his peeling of Marsyas' skin. Instead it is wholly focused on Marsyas - on describing the physical gore of his exposed veins and contracting muscles and the grief of the rustic crowd as they mourned his loss - which is curious indeed since the entire theme of the poems of Book 6 is divine punishment and it is otherwise filled with rather full accounts of these contests and insults.

Byblis and Caunus made me want to reread Euripedes' Hippolytus for the twelve thousandth time. Caunus made the right call of course but I also very much hoped he would have a huge big speech about incest being bad instead of just smacking the messenger.

And lastly, for now, Jove's speech as Hercules lay burning atop his death pyre where he addresses the host of his gods and goes "Man, wasn't Hercules a great guy? Look, there goes all his mortal attributes burning away in the fire, now he is all my son and surely we are all in agreement that any divine son of mine deserves a place on Olympus :)" was very endearing. I always feel quite bad for Deianira because she truly didn't mean any harm by her gift and I've always wished for an account of Heracles/Hercules' death from her perspective. There could scarcely be a thing more awful, especially given how long and drawn out and incredibly painful Hercules' death was.

Lowkey, I want to take a day and compare Ovid and Euripedes' Medeas. They're both very different women and they both handle their situations very differently. Partially for my own vindication - I adore Medea and Jason equally and since popular fiction cannot speak about Medea without flattening her or making Jason completely monstrous, this is just one of those things I'll have to do myself sometime.

[deardarlingdevil]

*hallucinating a Gothic romance with Raphael full of bodice-ripping, hair-pulling, and mindgames that would make ascended Astarion's romance seem like a healthy relationship in comparison*

[the-silver-peahen-residence]

*Kagefumi later after having breakfast felt a bit moody as he wanted some attention, remembering how bakugo barely reacted on purpose*

After breakfast, Bakugo was happy to see that breakfast went well. Before asking if he wanted something, he sees Kagefumi leave but wonders what was wrong. "????"

[duckysamlake]

let's play a game where we insert the ‘Rebirth’ CD into a car and go on multiple trips with a non-Alan Wake fan, and see how long they go before asking “how long does this song go for?”, or “didn't we just listen to this?”

[muwitch]

Random continuation of this post. “Death will not claim thee whilst I endure”.

[arylleth]

finally, a sin worth hurting for, a fervor, a sweet.

[iamnmbr3]

uh quora? you sure about that summary?

[mad-hunts]

pov: you're one of the people that sent me the prompt with the knife emoji to find barton standing over a dead body and he may or may not be thinking that when they do find him, he's looking a little bit like THIS

though, in reality, this is how he's actually looking:

LIKE WHY IS HE SUCH A MENACE AND ALSO WHY DID I MAKE THESE??? JSJSJ

[crymsinfox]

Oh what a power it is

To think, unbridled

And taste wildness!

To dream, and wake, bathed

In frothy morning light,

Home again, whole

To see familiar, worn faces

And recall briskly what has

Etched each loving crease

To understand keenly that

Wildness cannot exist

When you belong

To yourself.

[theimpossiblescheme]

Say what you will about the Cyrano movie (and one day I'll be able to in a halfway articulate manner), but I am still mildly obsessed with "Every Letter", and I think about this ending couplet all the time...

Your letters are drawings on me from above I know who you are and I know you are loved

Just... the idea of Cyrano and Christian receiving a letter in return from Roxanne and feeling their breath catch both with ecstasy and with bitter regret.

I know who you are...

But she can't. But she mustn't. But it would break her heart--she would never trust them again. But it wouldn't be fair to Christian. But Cyrano could never show his face again. But they already feel themselves burn under her gaze, and to meet it honestly without the armor of a soldier, of these letters, would scorch them until nothing remains. But the only true honor is to hide, even if they know it's really the coward's way out. But the only safety (if they were being brutally honest with themselves) is to hide.

... and I know you are loved.

But God, they wish they didn't have to.