#you are my main source of inspiration
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When you have so much anxiety you want to throw up, so obviously that inspires you to create.
#thank you funny tummy#you are my main source of inspiration#who needs beta readers when you’ve got butterflies#things be going on in my life and I’m just yeah#that’s shit#how do I apply these emotions to a creative platform so I don’t explode#8/10 I don’t create anything meaningful#which actually is pretty good if it wasn’t for the fact I don’t finish anything I produce#and YES I am hiding in the tags#because you can’t perceive me as much here#HEHE#mal out
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HIII!!! thanku all so much for 400 followers, my heart's genuinely pounding 🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️ and!!! I forgot to do an event for 300 followers last month, sooo!!! would u guys be interested in sort of a song prompt writing event??
OK THANKU AGAIN, STAY SAFE AND TAKE CARE OF URSELVES PLS, ILY ALL MWAH<3
#ily all so much thanku so much for all the love these past few months 🫶🏻#I'm genuinely so thankful for all of you AHHHHHH#also I find songs/music as my main source of inspiration for writing so!!! here we are!!!
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Had a dream that I got home really late and I was sneaking in because I didn't want to wake my roommate (note: currently, I don't have a roommate). But I wasn't quiet enough, and so I woke my roommate up who happened to be Rom from DS9, but, inexplicably, he had a nasty-gross mullet that was so, so nineties on top of his massive Ferengi head.
Rom said it wasn't my fault for waking him up because he has Ferengi hearing so I literally couldn't be quiet enough to not wake him, and then he started talking about Wayne's World, the movie. I have no idea why.
I haven't seen that movie for years, and I couldn't even tell you what the movie is about, but in my dream Rom was really, really into it, and was kinda excited that I woke him up so he'd have someone to talk to about Wayne's World.
Anyway, here's my rendition of what my Rommate looked like:
#rom#not actual st trek art#just practicing drawing and having my strange nighttime visions be a source of inspiration but you all get to see#if I had a nickel for every time I had a deep space nine themed dream where the main thing i remember is one of the characters having a#bonkers hair style I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it is weird that its happened twice#however if i had a nickel for every star trek dream ive had id have almost a dollar at this point#my star trek dreams are getting out of hand#I've had too many dreams where Im watching with my parents and then some wild gay shit happens and they both think its the best episode eve#r
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Stumbles down your chimney
ahhhhhh hello, you must be that Santa Claus i hear so much about. welcome to my home. here we have my two christmas trees so i can max out on presents. you understand. i'm on the good list, don't even double check. if you know what's good for you Santa.
#ask#spatialapprentice#sorry these are images i made a few years ago. i think i have the source files for these but i didnt want to get out of bed#i just grabbed them and put them through imgflip#i tend to do that a lot actually. though it makes me laugh regardless so maybe its fine.#welcome to my stinking house. my home.#the background environments are from mystery case files ravenhearst. an older find the hidden object game#its appearently on steam and i gotta buy it at some point. i love its environments.#its probably one of the main reasons i imagine boes house to be so messy#and is definitely the biggest inspiration as to how his house looks. besides the mess.#weirdly enough i also associate limbo with pajama sam 1's darkness environments#its got such nice colours. all over the place.#also ignore boes randomly swapping tooth gap. hes only got the one on his left side.#anyway i hope you found the ask silly :) thank you for tha ask!!#boe#boe tai marrow#my characters
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Btw I love all of your Aron content 🥰
Thank you for your service 🫡 -💰
aweeeee :(( thank you for reading it and engaging in it! it means a lot to me !!!! <333
#to all of you on here!! i would be nothing without you#my main inspiration sources <33 love you all#sorry for an extreme lack of paul content these days#i will try to be back :(#asks!#anon!#value anon!#💰!
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Continuing the thought process from my last pole I put out, I'm very curious
#ive for sure read like 30+ fics in a day before#like as an averge too#I will steamroll through a 400k word fic in a single sitting if I have the time (ie. I dont work that day)#honestly Ill do it in a day even if I do work#my boss hates me#i have no hobbies#you dont even get it this has been my one and only coping mechanism since I was 11#this is how I stay sane fr#birds rambles#fanfic#ao3#fanfiction#archive of our own#media#fandom#reading#polls#poll#fanfiction: my main source of both joy and inspiration#writing
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Is there a song or songs that are not Sonic songs but you relate them to the Chaotix?
Songs for the Chaotix individually or the team I don't have, but I do have songs I relate to the Chaotix siblings (Espio, Charmy, Cream) and Vectilla
For the siblings the main ones that come to mind are Brother by Kodaline and To the Sky by Owl City (the latter mostly because of that one art I made which was inspired by that song dfghjhgfd)
And when I wanna get into the Vectilla mood I listen to either Everything by Michael Bublé or My Muse from Owl City
#rechi answers#fr when I listened to My Muse the first time I was like yup this is a Vectilla song dfghjhgf#also Brother is the main source of inspiration for my New Chaotix AU so take that as you will :0
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Help My Family Survive and Find Safety in Gaza
Dear friends and merciful people
Imagine losing everything that is dear to you in one day. This is the harsh reality that my family is facing in Gaza. I am is Hasan Alserr, and I communicate with you with a heart full of pain and a desperate call for help.
On July 28, 2024, my world crashed when my mother and sister were tragically killed during an attack on the tent displaced in the safe areas of Muwasi Khan Yunis, as the Israeli occupation claims. Our family of seven has been destroyed - my father, my only sister four brothers. Now, we are only five people, struggling to survive under horrific conditions.
Donate Here:
Our home has been completely demolished and homeless. In addition, my father has the only source of income that supports us, as we have been displaced several times, and every transition strips us of stability and hope. One day the walls were safe, leaving the survivors' family in a temporary tent, holding on to hope amid their broken dreams.
We desperately need your support to survive and eventually evacuate from Gaza. Your donations will provide basic supplies, help us secure safer living conditions, and help evacuate efforts. Every contribution, no matter how small, will make a big difference in our battle for survival.
Your donation and sharing of our story will greatly help us build our lives, provide the necessary protection for all of us, and provide the main necessities of life, including food, treatment, and basics.
Thank you for your kindness and standing with us during this critical time.
With sincere appreciation,
Hasan Alserr,
I attach these photos and videos to you, because they convey my story more realistically.
To follow up on what happens first to my family, on Instagram, @hasanalserr or X (Twitter) @hassanalserr7
Donate here
@nabulsi @ibtisams-blog @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @vakarians-babe @7amaspayrollmanager @fairuzfan @fallahifag @sayruq @humanvoreture @kaapstadgirly @sar-soor @dimonds456-art @plomegranate @commissions4aid-international @nabulsi @soon-palestine @communitythings @palestinegenocide @vakarian-shepard @ghost-and-a-half @7amaspayrollmanager @kaapstadgirly @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @marnotrawstw-o @toughknit @flower-tea-fairies @feluka @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @vivisection-gf @communistchameleon @troythecatfish @the-bastard-king @4ft10tvlandfangirl @the-bastard-king
#Gaza #free palestine #palestinian genocide #save palestine #palabras #i stand with palestine #gaza #free gaza #gaza strip #star wars #football #footgoddess #goals #help #donita donata #$h tumblr #x twitter #instagram #architect #tumblr milestone #architecture#music#muslim #muscle #makeup #menswear #stray kids #love #love quotes #self love #Art #Artwork #ArtOfTheDay #ArtistOnTumblr #Illustration #Photography #PhotoOfTheDay #PhotographyLovers #TumblrPhotography #Fashion #OOTD (Outfit Of The Day) #Style #FashionBlog #StreetStyle #Writing #WritersOfTumblr #Poetry #Storytelling #Music #MusicLovers #NewMusic #MusicRecommendation #MusicBlog #Travel #TravelPhotography #Wanderlust #TravelBlog #Explore #Lifestyle #LifeStyleBlogger #DailyLife #Inspiration #SelfCare #Quotes #Inspiration #QuoteOfTheDay #Wisdom #LifeQuotes #Memes #Funny #MemeOfTheDay #Humor #InternetCulture #Food #Foodie #FoodPor #Recipe #FoodPhotography#Fitness, #Workout #FitnessMotivation #HealthyLiving, #FitLife#Books, #BookRecommendations #Reading, #BookLover #Bibliophile #DIY #Crafts #Handmade #DIYProjects #Crafty#Gaming #Gamer #VideoGames #GameOn #GamingCommunity #Animals #Pets #CuteAnimals #AnimalLovers #PetPhotography #Nature #NaturePhotography #Outdoors #NatureLovers #NatureWalk #Technology #Tech #TechNews #Gadgets #Innovation #MentalHealth #SelfCare #MentalHealthAwareness #Wellness #Mindfulness #Aesthetic #TumblrAesthetic #VisualArt #AestheticBlog #Artistic
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Since my other Nether worldbuilding post was received pretty well... I'm back on my bullshit!
This time featuring zoning and biomes of the Neath: Lore below cut
Nether (noun): the formidable hellscape straddling the boundery between the Fragments of the Overworld and Death's Realms.
Derived from Beneath -> Neath -> Neth -> Nether.
The Nether is most easily accessable through outer regions of the nether, regions that are comparatively closed-off, and lacking in biodiversity compared to the Deep Nether where most Neath civilizations are centered.
The Neth is divided into three primary zones, distinguished by altitude and general climates.
The Calfactory Zone: the largest and most icon of the three, the Calfactory zone is blisteringly hot and bone-dry, it's most prominent features are its abundant seas and lakes of magma, and the massive Supermagmas atriums that are common above the magma. In the largest of these atriums, the ceiling may be so high above as to be completely invisible from the ground, obscured by an ever present smog of toxic vapor and minerals formed in the self-generated micro-climates that are generated from the rising heat of the lava that begins to cool at a higher altitude.
In the Basalt Deltas and other biomes around the edges of these lakes, massive pillars of rock and crystals bulwark the more-visible ceiling.
The most common of this zone’s biomes is the Crimson woods, home to hearty thermal-philic fungi and plants that grow on the minerals and vapors of the lakes. Many are carnivorous in their lack of access to water or sunlight, and these forests contain many sub-biomes and ecosystems of flourishing life.
The Wastes are perhaps the most desolate regions of the Neath, irradiated deserts of red-rock, brimstone, and sharp sand. Even the vast majority of nether-folk avoid these deserts due to the leftover radiation that rots and destroys anything that waits too long. The only forms of life are particularly robust lichens and bacteria that are happy to sit by the pools of boiling pools of sulfur and mud and toxic sludge that dot the landscape. Growing within the rocks themselves are colonies of amorphous fungus, called geocorpus molds that get their spores into cracks in the soft netherack and slowly feed on it, a delicacy in nether cuisine.
The Temperate Zone: Cradled in the heights of the Neath’s atriums and sat bellow the roof is the temperate zones, the rising heat of the zone below begins to cool and forming distinct weather patterns in this zone and leaving it, while still sweltering, a cooler though much more humid climate.
The main biome are the luminescent warped-fungal rainforests that collect the high-rising minerals and odd moisture from the lakes. Liquid is actually precent here, though if it’s not safely filtered through the innards of the various plants and fungi, this water is usually aggressively corrosive, and it is best to shelter from the acidic precipitation to avoid chemical burns. The nether folk and ender local to these rainforests are suited to deal with these conditions and the ender especially do not have trouble with the extreme pH of the water here like they would in the overworld. The zone is lit almost exclusively by the biolumincense of the organisms there and have often been described as false-stars.
In the Deep Nether, the ceiling may give way, allowing one to pass onto the plateaus of the Nether Roof and the yawning void above. The bedrock of the nether roof is jagged and layered in huge slabs, sometimes broken up my mazes of pillar-like structures and shallow, thermal pools of crystal-clear liquid. The kind you don't want to touch of course. fogs may hang low to the ground, but when its clear, or above the fog, the entire universe seems to spill out into the sky. The nether roof was culturally significant and a source of much knowledge and inspiration in the early days, but I'll get more into that in a later post 0.0
The Rime Zone: Plunge deep enough and one might find themselves bellow the lava beds. Here, where the heat can't quite penetrate, the temperatures will drop rapidly to sub-zero.
Namely, the Rime Zone is made up of the soul valleys, flat steppes of cinder and clotted sand, you can imagine it almost with the blindness effect, a fog that pools by your feet, and a heavier darkness hanging from the sky, it feels massive and endless and claustrophobic all at once. Frost collects as crystals on the irradiated, soul-soaked barrens, and the bones of the massive nether wyrms lie fossilized, breaking up the landscape. The sands are also split with patches of crazing on the ground and vents of blue fire that spills out and sets the sand ablaze.
These same wryms can be found sometimes, ancient things that dig through sand and soft rocks and the magma lakes, far and few between and treated with both fear and reverence.
And in the deepest pits of the Neath are the glowing frozen lakes that are colloquially and rightfully called the Gates to Death, glowing blue from beneath their surfaces. Indeed, any further down and you pass into limbo, the edge of Death's Realms.
Extra Notes??:
Soul sand/soil is tread on carefully or not at all, is one form of remnants from the apocolyspe. Like the general radiated rubble present through the Nether, it's a fault of nuclear fallout. Unlike other areas of radiation, its also been infused with the souls of those who didn't survive the joining of worlds.
This infused quality is also precent in Nether Debris, resulting in a material that takes magic particularly well.
Iron cannot be found in dense veins and crystals like gold or quartz in the nether, but it's a pretty rich mineral a lot of netherack, giving it its ruddy coloring.
Sorry for this massive rant that no one asked for. If you have questions please feel free to send an ask, I may not have an answer yet but I'll certainly come up with one if I can.
I'm also hoping to do a pass on my headcanons about history and culture in the Nether and then we might start talking about character headcanons since this is also an actual AU.
If you read this far, here's some notes on striders and ghast
#minecraft#minecraft worldbuilding#Minecraft lore#speculative worldbuilding#minecraft nether#the nether#dreamingverse au#my art
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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
#greek mythology#medusa#gorgon#athena#gorgons#poseidon#neptune#minerva#ovid#rape in mythology#greek monsters#roman mythology
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New pinned post! Hello, I'm a non-binary artist (ArtVaris) and I love to draw and design characters - my main sources of inspiration include nature, stories, and myths, to name a few. I also love music and have a cat, who is just the sweetest and makes sure I remember to take enough breaks. For commissions, you can check ✦ My Ko-fi comms ✦ For art prints, you can check my ✦ InPrnt ✦ All my other socials: ✦ Bluesky ✦ Twitter ✦ Instagram ✦ Cara ✦
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Another Wall Mounted Landline Telephone (+ Fire Sprinkler box)
Okay, in all seriousness; the “Fire Prevention System Utility Panel” / the sprinkler box is a real eyesore. Because EA didn't consider the fact that people have aesthetic standards and due to how revolting the fire box looks; people go out of their way to HIDE it in their builds!
That’s why I made this item which looks more like a telephone and is inspired by The earlier Sims’ games’ burglar alarms and real life security systems.
I also made a second decorative version that functions as a very dim light source. You can have both files in-game at the same time
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This download has 2 files: 📞 File number 1: Utility System/Fire Sprinkler box Functions as an alternative to the in-game fire sprinkler box. This is not a default replacement.
Picture provided at the end of the post for size comparison as well. The new alarm is a bit smaller and less of an eyesore. 😅 📞 File number 2: Wall-Lamp This is only decorative. Produces a dim light.
You CAN have both files-in game at the same time.
Both come with Custom Catalog Thumbnails for further clarity
7 swatches (all swatches are different variations of black, white and gray)
Both files are Compatible with each other (meaning: you can have both files in game at the same time)
Both files are base game compatible
Comes with 3 slots to place small items on top of the telephone
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Download Links ⤵️ ✦ Ko-fi (Free) ✦ Patreon (Free) ✦
Follow me on Patreon and/or Ko-fi for free if you want access to new CC before I post them on tumblr!
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Background/Personal Notes: What inspired this object is The Sims 2 in general with its security system against burglars and its old-school telephones (Gotta appreciate the nostalgia!) BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY: the main reason i created this telephone as an alternative is THE GOD AWFUL FIRE SPRINKILER BOX! IT’S SO HIDEOUS! So I started off making this purely as a second option for the Sprinkelr box but soon decided to also make a lamp. LIKE, I TOOK PERSONAL OFFENSE TO HOW UGLY THE SPRIMKLER IS. Also, i currently can't spell the word sprinklier because I’m pissed off and NO i won't fix my spelling because i’m javing a moment. 😅
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★ T.O.U. ★ Questions? Ask here! ★ Ko-fi ★ Patreon ★
#sims 4 custom content#Sims 4 CC#ts4 custom content#ts4cc#s4mm#sims 4 maxis match#sims 4 maxis match cc#ts4 maxis match#Simblr#ts4 download#CCfinds#cc finds#sims 4 cc finds#s4cc#mintyjinx#sims 4 Retro#sims 4 furniture#ts4 furniture#sims 4 electronics
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not even going to lie. a lot of my inspiration for this came from the bloodborne boss mergo's wetnurse.
working on the eldritch!SQQ fic, and procrastinated by making a moodboard for it
#this is literally the only boss in the whole of bloodborne that i managed to oneshot#and i did it by accident#my playstyle just happened to be exactly what they recommend you do for the fight#ie. have big dodging game and play keep away when she goes into her dark phase with doubles#te talks#what i've got planned for sqq has a lot of differences#but you can definitely see the main source inspiration#its like#yeah take her and then add a good bit of charon from hades' aesthetic#with the gold jewelry#purple smoke#and pale grey skin#still get mergo's faceless look tho
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what if I don’t want a reboot
What if all the characters are literally as fine as they are and significantly changing their background would change them from the characters we love
#no I am not saying what series this is about#just something I’m seeing a lot of ‘fan reboots’ about#and lots of them are going so far that they’re really just your OCs reskinned at that point#luna rambles#it’s okay to recognise that sometimes your fan stories or designs are so far removed from the main source#that you may as well just make something new!#and quote the old material as inspiration#I’m making this in the confidence that very very few people will see this post#cause I have no right to tell people what to do#and obviously they’re not creating for me so it’s not my business#it’s just#sometimes the only thing left is the fricking clothing colour scheme
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I see we're talking about XP!
@thydungeongal and @imsobadatnicknames2 have interesting posts up, and now it's my turn to throw my thoughts out there. SO. I think of XP as the game itself offering you a little bribe. Do the things the game wantss you to be doing, and the game gives you an XP to say thank you. Get enough XP, and you're reward is greater a permanent bump in power, meaning greater ability to exert your will over the world and therefore greater agency. (Systems like Fate Points, Willpower, Inspiration etc work the same, except the increased agency is a temporary one-time thing, not permanent, so at times I'll lump them in).
So. Let's talk about a few different systems and how they handle this.
Let's start at the very begining (a very good place to begin). In the very early editions of D&D - back when Elf was a class - you got XP for treasure. Every gold coin you got out of a dungeon (or equivallent value of other treasure) was 1 XP. This worked well; the game wanted you to go into a dungeon and explore it for treasure, while trying not to die. If you succeeded, you got XP, which made you better at doing that so you could do it again in a more dangerous dungeon. And because treasure is XP, and treasure weighs you down, getting it out is a meaningful activity. Hell, many of these games measure weight and encumbrance on a scale of 'how many coins' to drive this home. It was a good loop. Early D&D has many faults (like the weird racism in the MM) but the xp system is something it absolutely nailed.
Next up, let's look at classic vampire the masquerade. At the end of each session, you get 1 xp just for being there, and then another if your character learned something, if you portrayed your character well, and if your character was 'heroic'. So, what's classic VtM rewarding? Ultimately, it rewards the player for being the kind of player the game wants. If you get into character, engage with the game world, and act like an interesting protagonist, you get rewarded for it. It's a bit fuzzy, and at the GM's discretion, but its very up-front with what it wants to incentivise. It was the 90s, they were still working out how to be a narrative-driven game, but you can see where they were going with it.
OK, now lets look at something a bit weirder; monsterhearts. The main source of XP here will be Moves. Rather than a bolted-on rewards mechanic, each game mechanic you engage with might grant you xp. You can use your strings on another PC to bribe them with XP when you want them to do something. Lots of abilities just give you an XP for doing a thing, such as a Ghost ability that gives you XP for spying on somebody, or aa Fae ability that gives other players XP when they promise you things. Here, XP is baked into the game, but its very up front about being a bribe. Act the way the game wants, or go along with other players' machinations, and you get rewarded for it. And, critically, XP is just one part of a wider game-economy of incentives and metacurrencies; it links in with strings and harm and +1forward in interesting and intricate ways that push the game forward. Monsterhearts is a well designed game, and you should study it.
Finally, let's look at how D&D 5e does it, as a What Not To Do! We have two different options. The first is XP for combat. When you use violence to defeat something, you get XP for it. Under this option, the only way to mechanically improve your character is by killing things. So, we can conclude that D&D is a game that wants you to engage in constant violence. The other option is 'milestone XP'. IE: you level up at the GM's whim, when they feel like it. What does this reward? Fucking nothing. Or, at best, you're rewarded for following the railroad and reaching pre-planned plot moments in a pre-scripted story. You either have no agency in the matter, or are rewarded for subsuming your agency to the will of the GM. (This pattern continues with inspiration rewards, which are given 'when the GM is entertained by you'. Fucking dire.) "Oh!" the 5e fandom says "But a good GM can write a list of achievements that will trigger milestone XP". And yes, they can, but that's not how the text of the game presents it. That's a house rule. That's the GM doing game design to add a new, better, mechanic to the game to fix its failings. Is it any wonder, then, that the 5e fandom puts so mucn weight on the GM's shoulders, and has such a weird semi-antagonistic relationship between GM and player? Is it any wonder that absolutely brutal railroading (and the resulting backlash of disruptive play) is so rife over there? Look at how the incentive structures are built? It's either killing forever or GM-as-god-king! Anyway, yeah. Consider what you reward with XP, because that will become what your game wants. And if you're hacking a game, one of the most efficient hacks is to change what you get XP for and suddenly the game will pivot to something very different.
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genuine question: why do you say that zionists engage in holocaust revisionism and denial? I've seen a few posts of yours talking about this but I don't think I fully understand what you mean. Thanks in advance
so much of the history american politicians are obliquely referencing when they compare palestinians to nazis is COMPLETELY incorrect and they are obscuring americas enthusiastic support for the nazis and apathy towards the jews, both before they entered the war, during, and after the war. before 1941 there was a lot of support from american politicians for nazis. they were reported on very favorably for years, major american industrialists and businessmen worked with nazis, people were unsure what side of the war the us would join on, the american public in fact generally blamed jews for antisemitic persecution and didnt want to allow in jewish refugees. there were pro nazi rallies in madison square garden with thousands of people. henry ford got a medal from hitler. during the war americans didnt believe a genocide was taking place, 'reputable news sources' questioned jewish eyewitnesses and death tolls. during the war american companies made millions off of the holocaust. after the war the us government protected high ranking nazi officials and put them in the american government. american politicians historically love nazis, they protected nazi war criminals, and they fund european neo nazis today. jewish holocaust surivors lived in displaced persons camps for years mistreated by american troops after the war. the holocaust was not even in public consciousness until decades afterwards, this entire culture of responsibility or whatever is completely superimposed retrospectively. every time that they try to invoke some memory of the holocaust to justify what they are doing in gaza its a shameful and cynical lie because america never cared, they love nazis and they have always allowed genocide to happen. ken burns did a documentary on this called the us and the holocaust thats really good
also the book Hitlers American Friends and this book
and zionists continue to make the insane claim that hitler didnt want to kill all the jews until palestinians convinced him even though this is just softcore holocaust denial about germanys central role in it. also this is not my main point, but the allied bombing of german civilians in dresden was in fact a controversial action, so the way that senate guy is talking about it is historically crazy. and bombing an industrialized fascist nation with a modern army like nazi germany is not remotely comparable to bombing a literal ghetto like gaza which can only fight using asymmetrical guerrilla warfare
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