#my school was actually pretty nice for a high school

[redrose10]

hii for the prompt game thing: how about 5, 5, and 55 or 60 with Yoongi! I just love how you write Yoongi, but it's up to you if you want to change the member!

I hope this is what you were looking for! I’m so sorry if it isn’t.

< Beauty and the Frog >

CEO Yoongi x Female Reader

Warnings: Swearing, cheating, very slightly suggestive, Yoongi is pretty mean in this one

CEO, Unrequited love

#55 “That’s not very nice.”

#60 “I fail to see how that is my problem.”

*******************************************************

You had known Yoongi since you were in elementary school. You had seen him around the building but the first time you really interacted with him was when you were partnered up together in your 8th grade biology class. You refused to dissect a frog and even after the teacher threatened you with an F and a trip to the principal’s office you stood your ground. Yoongi admired that and followed suit earning you both after school detentions. It brought you guys together and you were best friends from that moment on.

Freshman year was intense. Lots of changes and new stressful situations but you had Yoongi by your side so it made everything a little easier.

Tenth grade was better. You had gotten the hang of things and were able to navigate life. You and Yoongi were still best friends and stuck mostly to yourselves. Many rumors went around the school about you two but you always ignored them.

You were in the eleventh grade when you realized your crush on Yoongi. You hadn’t seen him for much of the summer because he went to stay with his grandparents in the countryside. When he walked into the school on the first day your mouth dropped open. He had grown a few inches taller. Most of the baby fat in his face had disappeared leaving him with a chiseled jawline. He had let his hair grow out and he seemed to have bought some new clothes with the money he had earned at his part time job. The first thing he did was walk towards you and wrap you in a hug giving you the first feeling of how much more muscular he had become while working on his grandparents farm. When he said your name his voice was considerably deeper than you remembered. You locked away your secret crush for the whole year not wanting to ruin anything between you two. The thought of loosing him forget was too much to handle.

Senior year of high school was flying by. Yoongi was captain of the basketball team. You took a position as the teams water girl after he begged you too just so guys could get to spend a little more time together. You had decided that after the final game of the season you were going to ask him to Prom. Your nerves were out of control as you waited for Yoongi to come out of the locker room but minutes and minutes went by. Every other member of the team had already left leaving you wondering what was going on. As you exited the school there were mumblings and whispers about two people hooking up in the parking lot. You felt a knot in your stomach as you walked outside only to see exactly what you had feared. Yoongi exiting the backseat of his car with his zipper down and his belt still undone and the head cheerleader following behind while still pulling her skirt back down. When Yoongi came walking over to you asking if you were ready to hit up your usual after game pizza place you declined telling him you weren’t feeling well. He offered to take you home and hang out there but you shook your head accepting a ride from Hoseok instead much to Yoongi’s disappointment. Yoongi went to prom with the cheerleader while you skipped it all together deciding to never let him know about your crush.

College was much of the same only you didn’t feel a soul crushing sense of sadness whenever Yoongi would bring a random woman back to your shared apartment. You had learned to accept it for what it was. The ones he actually dated hurt a little more than the one night stands but you got through it, even having a few romantic adventures of your own.

Graduation came and went and Yoongi started his own record label with some money he and received as an inheritance. You were so incredibly proud of him and excited to see him succeed as the CEO and Owner of his own business.

It took a few years but DTown Records slowly became one of the hottest companies in music while producing nearly every hit on the radio.

When things got too crazy Yoongi offered you a job. He wanted you to become be his Chief Operating Officer. At first you declined saying you didn’t know much about the music industry but Yoongi knew you had a degree in business and he trusted you. So eventually you gave in and became his partner.

It was a lot like the old times. The two of you spent countless hours together all the while your old crush was blossoming more and now to the point you started feeling like you loved him.

Then Yoongi introduced you to Mia, an up and coming artist he had met at some big industry event he had gone too. Immediately you didn’t like her. It wasn’t all jealousy. She just gave you bad vibes. She was a little too quick to use Yoongi’s credit card any time she wanted to purchase something. She was constantly flirting with other men when he wasn’t around. And she definitely did not like you. She had one too many glasses of wine or coffee “accidentally” spilled on you by her way more times than could happen accidentally. She was always conveniently having emergencies any time you and Yoongi tried hanging out. You also heard from Jin, Yoongi’s assistant, that one morning she was giving Yoongi reason after reason to fire you.

You tried to talk to Yoongi but he was having no part of it even going as far as you call you jealous and told you to grow up. A little crack formed in your relationship for a while until he announced his engagement to Mia. He looked so happy and so in love that you put on your best act and pretended to be happy for him even though you were devastated.

The night before the wedding you were laying in bed trying to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to watch the love of your life marry someone else when there was a knock at your door.

Since it was 3am you were nervous to answer it until you heard Yoongi on the other side. He greeted you with red eyes and sniffles before he broke down in your arms and sobbed.

Through his distress you learned that Mia was in her suite at the hotel so that they wouldn’t see each other the night before the wedding. He had snuck over to her with flowers and a song he’d written wanting to be romantic and surprise her. Only he was the one that was surprised when he found her naked riding some wannabe rapper as she moaned his name loudly into the air. The wedding was called off and Yoongi was devastated. You did your best to comfort him while forcing yourself not tell him you told him so.

Yoongi took a few weeks off to recover so you were in charge and things went smoothly. You were excited for his return only to be horrified at what you were met with.

The once happy and full of motivation Yoongi was replaced with the shell of man who was spiteful and outright mean. His heart melting gummy smile was replaced with a nonstop scowl. He fired people left and right and talked down to his employees. He wasn’t the Yoongi you’d known all these years. His broken heart had changed him to an unrecognizable person. But you still knew deep down that the Yoongi you knew was in there so you stuck around.

Bit by bit you snipped away at the barbed wire that surround him. His favorite coffee, lunch from his favorite Thai Restaurant. Tickets to see his favorite basketball team. Your secret fresh baked cookies that he had always loved.

One morning he came into work to find a brown stuffed poodle that looked exactly like the dog he had when he was in middle school. You saw the faintest hint of a smile at that one and you thought maybe you had finally got to him but then he took the toy and stuffed into the bottom drawer of his desk to be forgotten and started barking out orders to people in the office.

Then one morning Yoongi called you into his office, something he didn’t do much of any more.

“Y/N, I’m moving the headquarters for the label to LA.”, he said after you took a seat.

“Wh-What? You can’t do that.”

He scoffed, “It’s my company. I can and I am. I need to get out of this city and start new. I can’t stay here any more.”

“What about the employees here? What about me?”, you questioned.

“We’ll keep a small team here the rest we’ll have to let go and as for you…I want you to move to LA with me.”

Your mouth dropped open, “Yoongi that’s the other side of the world. I have family and friends here. My whole life is here. I can’t just pack up and move.”

“I understand Y/N. I can’t force you to go but I really want you to. I need you to come with me.”, he said barely above a whisper.

So you agreed. And within a couple weeks you were packed up and goodbyes were said and you were moved to Los Angeles. It was a difficult decision but you would do anything that Yoongi needed and/or wanted.

The company was doing incredibly well while making record profits. Things were also going great between you and Yoongi. You were closer than you had been in a while. Your feelings began blossoming fuller and fuller as time went on now that things didn’t seem so tense.

One afternoon you walked into Yoongi’s office. He was on the phone with someone so you took a seat to politely wait.

“Mmhm I’ll be there.

I know I know it’s been a while.

Yeah my flight leaves at noon.

I know babe I’m excited.”

You rolled your eyes hearing him use the pet name. He smiled when he noticed your reaction before quickly hanging up the phone.

“Going on a trip?”, you asked.

He looked nervous as he fidgeted with a pen, “Actually Y/N, that is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

You nodded letting him know you were listening.

He took a deep breath, “I’m moving back to Seoul.”

“What?!”, your mouth dropped open.”

He nodded, “I’ve been talking to someone, her name is Mae. We met at the Valentino show a couple months ago. She’s a model based out of Seoul so I’m going to move back there.”

You shook your head, “Yoongi I…you can’t move back. I gave up everything. I moved all the way to the other side of the world to follow you.”

He scoffed, “I didn’t force you to move here. You came here on your own Y/N. Just move back with me.”

“Yoongi I can’t just keep moving around the world whenever you have a new fuck buddy.”

He looked offended, “Mae is not a fuck buddy. I love her.”

You could feel tears begin to form, “You don’t love her Yoongi. You love that she puts out whenever you demand it. If she loved you she would come to you, not the other way around. Like I do. I’m always here for you. I do everything for you. I love you Yoongi.“

He stared at you for what felt like forever. Finally he slammed his laptop down, “I fail to see how that is my problem.“

His coldness shocked you. He had never spoken directly to you in that way. “That’s not very nice.”, you whispered through sniffles.

Yoongi softened at the sight of you realizing just how harsh he had been. He took a deep breath, “I’m sorry Y/N. I’m sorry for speaking to you that way. I’m also sorry that I don’t feel the same way about you.”, he packed up his things and headed towards the door, “I’m leaving for Seoul tomorrow. You can stay here and run this sector of the company or come back to Seoul. It’s up to you. I don’t really care.”

He walked through the door letting it close behind him.

He moved back to Seoul as he had said. Him and Mae got engaged three months later. They were married the following year and divorced by the next one.

You remained in your position as the COO through all of it, mostly because of the pay and travel perks, because your relationship with Yoongi had become strictly business after you confessed. You stayed in Seoul to run that location while he moved back to LA. It hurt for a while and it took a lot for you to move on from him.

But eventually you did.

And when Jungkook got down on one knee and proposed the first person you called was Yoongi. He didn’t answer. He never responded to the text either. He didn’t come to your engagement party. He declined the wedding invite. All you got was a generic card in the mail that you could tell had been filled out by Jin. Eventually you gave up and decided to put in your resignation because you and Jungkook were moving to New York. He didn’t contact you even then.

It wasn’t until almost three years later that you heard from him again. There was a package that arrived for you.

A card read, “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I wish you all nothing but happiness... I’m sorry I couldn’t be the one.- Min Yoongi.”

In the box was a stuffed animal. A wide smile formed on your face as you took the bright green frog with a pink bow on its head and placed it in the crib next to your sleeping daughter before joining Jungkook in the kitchen to finish up dinner.

[theintelligentfool]

i enjoyed high school! i had a lot of friends! some of them were even close! but holy SHIT . i can say, with full confidence now. HIGH SCHOOL SUCKS SHIT and im GLAD I DON'T GO THERE!!!

[stinkypeanutbutter]

this is how their next interaction is gonna be trust

[spaghett-onaplate]

sixth day at my new school and i didn't sit alone at lunch today 🥳🥳

[donaviolet]

High school just started this week. I think I would be considered as "your normal high school nerd girl but with a secret"

But my secret is that I am queer and have weird interests. Oh and I'm also a Shadow Wizard

[homingpigecns]

this is like a sadgirl pathetic post but this guy i met recently at work was like, very direct and polite in being interested in me and i've been feeling him out bc i literally do not know him well enough to have an opinion but i can't like. he is so normal and nice. hes like a nice normal guy. every time i text him he doesn't say anything weird and he's extremely nice. what the hell. he's literally so nice. WHY. does he like. me???? like what's wrong with him that he specifically is interested in me????

[saph-yells-into-the-void]

so uhh.. does kids on the slope get better after episode 5

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Don't blame me for creeping on the tags, but your high school had an art major for artists???

American schools don't do the major system, but mine had... a way to encourage people to pursue what they like.

You had your core curriculum, which was 42 credits (7 credits per semester possible, 56 credit max possibility if you graduated on time).

Study halls were 0 credits, and for me they were mandatory every semester (Latin was taught at one of the district's 2 high schools, and they'd bus the students back to their main school after, so you had to have a study hall to make up for being late), so my cap was 48 credits.

But those extra 14 credits you could fill by taking extra classes. Math, computer science, science, art, history, band, choir, woodworking, 4H, homebuilding, economics, language- even the phys ed nerds could take weightlifting and such.

So in a way, you could think of it as having a major, but it was just extra classes that you could take within whatever interested you.

[fingertipsmp3]

No one:

Me: does anyone want to hear what my sims family did today

[autisticlee]

If things for non-verbal communication helps you I'd say go for it. Others saying you're not suffering enough to make things easier for you aren't living your life. Do what helps you.

even if I did, the world around me isn't very accommodating. I know all people in my life wouldn't be accepting of it. I don't go out much or have many friends. don't talk where I volunteer but I told them on the form I signed up on that I wouldn't talk and they're surprisingly accepting of it. don't talk at work, but work with my mom so she talks for me basically. the times I would need it would be very hard to use. not sure if I could do it with phone calls or video calls. am known to not call back for important things because dont answer my phone and will try to email them instead and no one wants to answer emails. will beg them not to call in message. they leave voice mail saying they got my message so call them back..... have video calls with my therapist and don't know how i'd use it for that. could help for in person doctor appointments but doctors are so impatient and want me in and out fast, don't know if it would improve much. I already never get to say all I need and non verbal communications is slow. don't know how twitch chat would react, so might be the only viable option...people that know me might be weirded out but whatever. new people might make fun of a robot voice but whatever x2 if I make it part of my "thing" they can deal with it especially if I cam finish making a vtuber and make that their "voice" maybe.... would be hard when playing games having to stop to type and won't say things enough so kinda same problem.....hmmm. could maybe at least work for art streams? 🤔

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 204

Adjective: Halting

Noun: Bow

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Halting: slow and hesitant, especially through lack of confidence, or faltering

Bow: a knot tied with two loops and two loose ends, used especially for tying shoelaces and decorative ribbons; a decorative ribbon tied in a bow; a weapon for shooting arrows, typically made of a curved piece of wood whose ends are joined by a taut string; a bowman; a long, partially curved rod with horsehair stretched along its length, used for playing the violin and other stringed instruments; a single passage of a bow over the strings of a violin or other stringed instrument; a curved stroke forming part of a letter (e.g. b, p); a metal ring forming the handle of a key or pair of scissors; (North American) a side piece or lens frame of a pair of glasses; an act of bending the head or upper body as a sign of respect or greeting; the front end of a ship

[rosicheeks]

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to?

07: What did you last eat? (I bet it's goldfishies)

26: What are you craving right now? (I bet it's goldfishies)

31: Does somebody love you? (I do Princess)

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked?

2 - my parents 💖

7 - chocolate cake 🤭

26 - I’m not craving any food right now tbh. I’m craving love and financial stability and a comfy cozy house

31 - I hope so

40 - if skinny dipping counts then yes? Otherwise no lol

[spiderziege]

oh wait lol maybe the glass bead game Is treated like classic lit in germany, actually, given that Hesse is a german author. I’m American and I have yet to encounter anyone here who’s even heard of it, its a sad cold place to be a Hesse fan out here 😔

hi, yes, it's that hermann hesse :D i actually havent finished the glass bead game yet (i think im about halfway? but ive kinda had it on pause for a bit cause i was reading other stuff lol). it is classic lit here but tbh i havent met many people who've read it either... my favorite book of his is definitely narcissus & goldmund tho, and i've read siddhartha and demian as well

[prettyboysmlm]

don’t mind me, just bitching about my choir teacher

[phantom-z0ne]

Through the Looking Glass: 723 words written

Was pretty productive today! This is actually way funner to write than I thought. I did write more today, but it was a school assignment.

Last sentence(s) written:

Brooklynn scrubbed harder, brows knitted in thought. Did that mean she was her own blind spot? Why? Was that just how seeing the future worked? Did this happen to other seers?

[haljathefangirlcat]

#one thing I think it’s always important to think about when looking at ancient literature#and it’s evolution#is the fact that they are working with an array of knowledge and stories will never get to learn#they are being influenced by things lost to history#there are like 7-8 centuries between Hesiod and Ovid#it makes sense other versions or variations would pop up in that time#and these authors often did take artistic liberty with their material#people writing down these myths often had something to say with them#and that going to influence how they write it#like the anti authority (or really anti Caesar) themes in the metamorphoses#most myths have a bunch of variation#why would Medusa be an exception#anyways this was really good and interesting

The truth about Medusa and her rape... Mythology breakdown time!

With the recent release of the Percy Jackson television series, Tumblr is bursting with mythological posts, and the apparition of Medusa the Gorgon has been the object of numerous talks throughout this website… Including more and more spreading of misinformation, and more debates about what is the “true” version of Medusa’s backstory.

Already let us make that clear: the idea that Medusa was actually “blessed” or “gifted” by Athena her petrifying gaze/snake-hair curse is to my knowledge not at all part of the Antique world. I still do not know exactly where this comes from, but I am aware of no Greek or Roman texts that talked about this – so it seems definitively a modern invention. After all, the figure of Medusa and her entire myth has been taken part, reinterpreted and modified by numerous modern women, feminist activist, feminist movements or artists engaged in the topic of women’s life and social conditions – most notably Medusa becoming the “symbol of raped women’ wrath and fury”. It is an interesting reading and a fascinating update of the ancient texts, and it is a worthy take on its own time and context – but today we are not talking about the posterity, reinvention and continuity of Medusa as a myth and a symbol. I want to clarify some points about the ACTUAL myth or legend of Medusa – the original tale, as told by the Greeks and then by the Romans.

Most specifically the question: Was Medusa raped?

Step 1: Yes, but no.

The backstory of Medusa you will find very often today, ranging from mythology manuals (vulgarization manuals of course) to Youtube videos, goes as such: Medusa was a priestess of Athena who got raped by Poseidon while in Athena’s temple, and as a result of this, Athena punished Medusa by turning her into the monstrous Gorgon.

Some will go even further claiming Athena’s “curse” wasn’t a punishment but a “gift” or blessing – and again, I don’t know where this comes from and nobody seems to be able to give me any reliable source for that, so… Let’s put this out of there.

Now this backstory – famous and popular enough to get into Riodan’s book series for example – is partially true. There are some elements here very wrong – and by wrong I do mean wrong.

The story of Medusa being raped and turned into a monster due to being raped does indeed exist, and it is the most famous and widespread of all the Medusa stories, the one people remembered for the longest time and wrote and illustrated the most about. Hence why Medusa became in the 20th century this very important cultural symbol tied to rape and the abuse of women and victim-blaming. HOWEVER – the origin of this story is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the first century CE or so. Ovid? A Roman poet writing for Roman people. “Metamorphoses”? One of the two fundamental works of Roman literature and one of the two main texts of Roman mythology, alongside Virgil’s Aeneid. This is a purely Roman story belonging to the Roman culture – and not the Greek one. The story of Medusa’s rape does not have Greek precedents to my knowledge, Ovid introduced the element of rape – which is no surprise given Ovid turned half of the romances of Greek mythology into rapes. Note that, on top of all this, Ovid wasn’t even writing for religious purposes, nor was his text an actual mythological effort – he wrote it with pure literary intentions at heart. It is just a piece of poetry and literature taking inspiration from the legends of the Greek world, not some sort of sacred text.

Second big point: The legend I summarized above? It isn’t even the story Ovid wrote, since there are a lot of elements that do not come from Ovid’s retelling of the story (book fourth of the Metamorphoses). For example Ovid never said Medusa was a priestess of Athena – all he said was that she was raped in the temple of Athena. I shouldn’t even be writing Athena since again, this is a Roman text: we are speaking of Minerva here, and of Neptune, not of Athena or Poseidon. Similarly, Minerva’s curse did not involve the petrifying gaze – rather all Ovid wrote about was that Minerva turned Medusa’s hair into snakes, to “punish” her because her hair were very beautiful, and it was what made her have many suitors (none of which she wanted to marry apparently), and it is also implied it is what made Neptune fall in love (or rather fall in lust) with her. I guess it is from this detail that the reading of “Athena’s curse was a gift” comes from – even though this story also clearly does victim-blaming of rape here.

But what is very fascinating is that… we are not definitively sure Neptune raped Medusa in Ovid’s retelling. For sure, the terms used by Ovid in his fourth book of Metamorphoses are clear: this was an action of violating, sexually assaulting, of soiling and corrupting, we are talking about rape. But Ovid refers several other times to Medusa in his other books, sometimes adding details the fourth-book stories does not have (the sixth book for examples evokes how Neptune turned into a bird to seduce Medusa, which is completely absent from the fourth book’s retelling of Medusa’ curse). And in all those other mentions, the terms to designate the relationship between Medusa and Neptune are more ambiguous, evoking seduction and romance rather than physical or sexual assault. (It does not help that Ovid has an habit of constantly confusing consensual and non-consensual sex in his poems, meaning that a rape in one book can turn into a romance in another, or reversal)

But the latter fact makes more sense when you recall that the rape element was invented and added by Ovid. Before, yes Poseidon and Medusa loved each other, but it was a pure romance, or at least a consensual one-night. Heck, if we go back to the oldest records of the love between Poseidon and Medusa, back in Hesiod’s Theogony, we have descriptions of the two of them laying together in a beautiful, flowery meadow – a stereotypical scene of pastoral romances – with no mention of any brutality or violence of any sort. As a result, it makes sense the original “romantic” story would still “leak” or cast a shadow over Ovid’s reinvented and slightly-confused tale.

Step 2: So… no rape?

Well, if we go by Greek texts, no, apparently Medusa was not raped in Greek mythology, and only became a rape victim through Ovid.

The Ancient Greek texts all record Poseidon and Medusa sleeping with each other and having children, but no mention of rape. And the whole “curse of Athena” thing is not present in the oldest records – no temple of Athena soiling, no angry Athena cursing a poor girl… “No curse?” you say “But then how did Medusa got turned into a Gorgon”? Answer: she did not. She was born like that.

As I said before, the oldest record of Medusa’s romance but also of her family comes from Hesiod’s Theogony (Hesiod being one of the two “founding authors” of Greek mythology, alongside Homer – Homer did wrote several times about Medusa, but only as a disembodied head and as a monster already dead, so we don’t have any information about her life). And what do we learn? That Medusa is part of a set of three sisters known as the Gorgons – because oh yes, Ovid did not mention Medusa’s sister now did he? How did Medusa’s sisters ALSO got snake-hair or petrifying-gaze if only Medusa was cursed for sleeping with Neptune? Ovid does not give us any answer because again, it is an “adaptational plot hole”, and the people that try to adapt Ovid’s story have to deal with the slight problem of Stheno and Euryale needing to share their sister’s curse despite seemingly not being involved in the whole Neptune business. Anyway, back to the Greek text.

So, you have those three Gorgon sisters, and Medusa is said to be mortal while her sisters are not. Why is it such a big deal? Because Medusa wasn’t originally some random human or priestess. Oh no! Who were the Gorgons’ parents? Phorcys and Keto/Ceto, aka two sea-gods. Not just two sea-gods – two sea-gods of the ancient, primordial generation of sea-gods, the one that predated Poseidon, and that were cousins to the Titans, the sea-gods born of Gaia mating with Pontos.

So the Gorgons were “divine” of nature – and this is why Medusa being a mortal was considered to be a MASSIVE problem and handicap for her, an abnormal thing for the daughter of two deities. But let’s dig a bit further… Who were Phorcys and Ceto? Long story short: in Greek mythology, they were considered to be sea-equivalents of Typhon and Gaia. They were the parents of many monsters and many sea-horrors: Keto/Ceto herself had her name attributed and equated with any very large creature (like whales) or any terrifying monster (like dragons) from the sea. The Gorgons themselves was a trio of monsters, but their sisters, that directly act as their double in the myth of Perseus? The Graiai – the monstrous trio of old women sharing one eye and one tooth. Hesiod also drops the fact that Ladon (the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperids), and Echidna (the snake-woman that mated with Typhon and became known as the “mother of monsters”) were also children of Phorcys and Ceto, while other authors will add other monster-related characters such as Scylla (of Charybdis and Scylla fame), the sirens, or Thoosa (the mother of Polyphemus the cyclop). Medusa herself is technically a “mother of monsters” since she birthed both Pegasus the flying horse and Chrysaor, a giant. So here is something very important to get: Medusa, and the Gorgons, were part of a family of monsters. Couple that with the absence of any mention of curses in these ancient texts, and everything is clear.

Originally Medusa was not a woman cursed to become a monster: she was born a monster, part of a group of monster siblings, birthed by monster-creating deities, and she belonged to the world of the “primordial abominations from the sea”, and the pre-Olympian threats, the remnants of the primordial chaos. It is no surprise that the Gorgons were said to live at the edge of the very known world, in the last patch of land before the end of the universe – in the most inhuman, primitive and liminal area possible. They were full-on monsters!

Now you might ask why Poseidon would sleep with a horrible monster, especially when you recall that the Greeks loved to depict the Gorgons as truly bizarre and grotesque. It wasn’t just snake-hair and petrifying gaze: they had boar tusks, and metallic claws, and bloated eyes, and a long tongue that constantly hanged down their bearded chin, and very large heads – some very old depictions even show her with a female centaur body! In fact, the ancient texts imply that it wasn’t so much the Gorgon’s gaze or eyes that had the power to turn people into stone – but that rather the Gorgon was just so hideous and so terrifying to look at people froze in terror – and then literally turned into stone out of fear and disgust. We are talking Lovecraftian level of eldritch horror here. So why would Poseidon, an Olympian god, sleep with one of these horrors? Well… If you know your Poseidon it wouldn’t surprise you too much because Poseidon had a thing for monsters. As a sort of “dark double” of Zeus, whereas Zeus fell in love with beautiful princesses and noble queens and birthed great gods and brave heroes, Poseidon was more about getting freaky with all sorts of unusual and bizarre goddesses, and giving birth to bandits and monsters. A good chunk of the villains of Greek mythology were born out of Poseidon’s loins: Polyphemus, Antaios, Orion, Charybdis, the Aloads… And even his most benevolent offspring has freaky stuff about it – Proteus the shapeshifter or Triton half-man half-fish… So yes, Poseidon sleeping with an abominable Gorgon is not so much out of character.

Step 3: The missing link

Now that we established what Medusa started out as, and what she ended up as… We need to evoke the evolution from point Hesiod to point Ovid, because while people summarized the Medusa debate as “Sea-born monster VS raped and punished woman”, there is a third element needed to understand this whole situation…

Yes Ovid did invent the rape. But he did not invent the idea that Medusa had been cursed by Athena.

The “gorgoneion” – the visual and artistic motif of the Gorgon’s head – was, as I said, a grotesque and monstrous face used to invoke fright into the enemies or to repel any vile influence or wicked spirit by the principle of “What’s the best way to repel bad stuff? Badder stuff”. Your Gorgon was your gargoyle, with all the hideous traits I described before – represented in front (unlike all the other side-portraits of gods and heroes), with the face being very large and flat, a big tongue out of a tusked-mouth, snake-hair, bulging crazy eyes, sometimes a beard or scales… Pure monster. But then… from the fifth century BCE to the second century BCE we see a slow evolution of the “gorgoneion” in art. Slowly the grotesque elements disappear, and the Gorgon’s face becomes… a regular, human face. Even more: it even becomes a pretty woman’s face! But with snakes instead of hair. As such, the idea that Medusa was a gorgeous woman who just had snakes and cursed-eyes DOES come from Ancient Greece – and existed well before Ovid wrote his rape story.

But what was the reason behind this change?

Well, we have to look at the Roman era again. Ovid’s tale of Medusa being cursed for her rape at the hands of Neptune had to rival with another record collected by a Greek author Apollodorus, or Pseudo-Apollodorus, in his Bibliotheca. In this collection of Greek myths, Apollodorus writes that indeed, Medusa was cursed by Athena to have her beautiful hair that seduced everybody be turned into snakes… But it wasn’t because of any rape or forbidden romance, no. It was just because Medusa was a very vain woman who liked to brag about her beauty and hair – and had the foolish idea of saying her hair looked better than Athena’s. (If you recall tales such as Arachne’s or the Judgement of Paris, you will know that despite Athena being wise and clever, one of her main flaws is her vanity).

“Wait a minute,” you are going to tell me, “The Bibliotheca was created in the second century CE! Well after Greece became part of the Roman Empire, and after Ovid’s Metamorphoses became a huge success! It isn’t a true Greek myth, it is just Ovid’s tale being projected here…” And people did agree for a time… Until it was discovered, in the scholias placed around the texts of Apollonios of Rhodes, that an author of the fifth century BCE named Pherecyde HAD recorded in his time a version of Medusa’s legend where she had been cursed into becoming an ugly monster as punishment for her vanity. We apparently do not have the original text of Pherecyde, but the many scholias referring to this lost piece are very clear about this. This means that the story that Apollodorus recorded isn’t a “novelty”, but rather the latest record of an older tradition going back to the fifth century BCE… THE SAME CENTURY THAT THE GORGONEION STARTED LOSING THEIR GROTESQUE, and that the face of Medusa started becoming more human in art.

[EDIT: I also forgot to add that this evolution of Medusa is also proved by strange literary elements, such as Pindar's mention in a poem of his (around 490 BCE) of "fair-cheeked Medusa". A description which seems strange given how Medusa used to be depicted as the epitome of ugliness... But that makes sense if the "cursed beauty" version of the myth had been going around at the time!]

And thus it is all connected and explained. Ovid did invent the rape yes – but he did not invent the idea of Athena cursing Medusa. It pre-existed as the most “recent” and dominating legend in Ancient Greece, having overshadowed by Ovid’s time the oldest Hesiodic records of Medusa being born a monster. So what Ovid did wasn’t completely create a new story out of nowhere, but twist the Greek traditions of Athena cursing Medusa and Medusa having a relationship with Poseidon, so that the two legends would form one and same story. And this explains in retrospect why Ovid focuses so much on describing Medusa’s beautiful hair, and why Ovid’s Minerva would think turning her hair into snake would be a “punishment fit for the crime”: these are leftovers of the Greek tale where Medusa was punished for her boasting and her vanity.

CONCLUSION

Here is the simplified chronology of how Medusa’s evolution went.

A) Primitive Greek myths, Hesiodic tradition: Born a monster out of a family of sea-monsters and monstrous immortals. Is a grotesque, gargoylesque, eldritch abomination. Athena has only an indirect conflict with her, due to being Perseus’ “fairy godmother”. Has a lovely romance with Poseidon.

B) Slow evolution throughout Classical Greece and further: Medusa becomes a beautiful, human-looking girl that was cursed to have snake for hair and petrifying eyes, instead of being a Lovecraftian horror people could not gaze upon. Her conflict with Athena becomes direct, as it is Athena that cursed her due to being offended by her vain boasting. Her punishment is for her vanity and arrogant comparison to the goddess.

C) Ovid comes in: Medusa’s romance with Poseidon becomes a rape, and she is now punished for having been raped inside Athena’s temple.

[As a final note, I want to insist upon the fact that the story of Medusa being raped is not less "worthy" than any other version of the myth. Due to its enormous popularity, how it shaped the figure of Medusa throughout the centuries, and how it still survives today and echoes current-day problems, to try to deny the valid place of this story in the world of myths and legends would be foolish. HOWEVER it is important to place back things in their context, to recognize that it is not the ONLY tale of Medusa, that it was NOT part of Greek mythology, but rather of Roman legends - and let us all always remember this time Poseidon slept with a Lovecraftian horror because my guy is kinky.]

EDIT:

For illustration, I will place here visuals showing how the Ancient art evolved alongside Medusa's story.

Before the 5th century BCE: Medusa is a full-on monster

From the 5th century to the 2nd century BCE: A slow evolution as Medusa goes from a full-on monster to a human turned into a monster. As a result the two depictions of the grotesque and beautiful gorgoneion coexist.

Post 2nd century BCE: Medusa is now a human with snake hair, and just that