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Thrice Upon a Time.

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When I first heard There Are Other Ways, I was a little disappointed by the fact that Circe didn’t successfully seduce Odysseus, considering the huge Greek Mythology nerd I am.

Bear with me.

Then, I played the saga, and that song, for my wonderful mother tonight. About halfway through, I gasped.

The story is accurate to the Homeric version: he confronts her (clandestinely at first), she fights back, he pulls the sword.

But she’s not afraid. Of course she isn’t.

Why would an immortal being, with the rage and power of commanding a million different beasts if her Plan A goes down, be afraid of a measly man with a flimsy toothpick to her throat, just because he ate a flower and said “Be afraid!”?

That’s right! She wouldn’t.

Because Jay didn’t submit to the blatant misogyny of the tale.

Read this article for incredible information, if you please. It changed the way I saw Circe’s story.

If Circe cowered, simply because a man held a sword to her throat, only then would she have seduced him (if we’re going ultra-canon with the storyline, which Jay isn’t), which would have, yet again, thrown off the balance of power.

Circe could give less of a shit about the sword, in the song. She thinks he’s pretty hot, and maybe she’s manipulating him into coming to bed with her so she can trick him, so she offers a tryst or two. Here, if you read the article, she is throwing off the nature of men and women by being the active sexual partner.

He refuses, too enamored with Penelope, and shuns his curiosity in her. You can hear how it pains him, it’s a struggle to say no. But he does. He’s strong, he’s no god, cheating on his wife for the sake of sex appeal. He’s just a man.

He begs. That’s the thing that got me. Not her, him.

“So I beg you, Circe, grant us mercy, and let us puppets leave~”

Then, Circe offers to help him — not because she’s restoring the nature of being submissive — but because she has empathy and compassion for the man. She helps him because he’s proved himself, to be weary, and faithful, and human. She knows the feeling of love.

So, yes. So many layers. Like an onion, worthy of making you cry.

1. Jay is spitting in the face of misogyny and gender roles, and having her help him because she empathizes. Because she’s in power.

2. It’s sort of a jab, if interpreted a certain way, at sexual assault. He says no, and he holds true to it. Even though everything is telling him to give in, to let it happen, he refuses, and remains as sure as he can be.

3. It shows how very human Odysseus is. Athena forgot it, and somehow held him to it. Even the men forget it. But he never does. There is only so much he can do.

This is my favorite saga so far.

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Penelope: Yeah, this shroud is taking me 20 years.

Suitors:

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It’s wild to me to see transvestigator conspiracy theories online that could be so easily explained by natural human variation. That woman has a deep voice? Yeah, sometimes they do. A woman has broad shoulders?? Maybe she plays rugby or hits the gym a fuckton. There’s a “bulge” in her tight pants?? Maybe her vulva is just fat. All the “markers” of trans woman that transvestigators use to harass any woman aren’t even things unique to trans women.

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I just woke up and somehow the only thought in my head was Jason Todd as an Etsy witch but he only sells ‘violent spells’ and instead of doing spell work he just personally goes out and beats the shit out of whoever you choose

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chelsea peretti’s opening monologue at the tenth annual tech crunchies

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Undead and Ghost Jason

Part two | Part one

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Series of “I’m Robin and being Robin gives me magic!”

Part 1 | Part 2?

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Garnets garnets garnets

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Fuck you, Neil Gaiman.

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Love the idea of Tim being the only one who can actually lie to Bruce, but have you considered Bruce who always knows Tim is lying and just… can’t get himself to do anything about it?

Hear me out, arguably these two are the most similar if you ignore certain concepts like being an orphan and (in most universes) seeing death at a young age. They are both raised in rich wealth in a big, lonely house (yes even with Alfred there he was still a teenage boy with no siblings or parents), both have critical thinking minds and insatiable curiosity and have reputations for being players and are both CEO’s and owners of massive companies.

So when Tim lies to Bruce, two things happen.

One, he can’t help but feel like a hypocrite because how many times did he lie to Alfred? Or even Dick and Clark? He’s still doing it! Bruce is a secret keeper and when you have someone who’s just as good at you at lying, in some ways better, it’s hard to feel confident in calling them out.

Two, he wants Tim to be more than him, to not be so bitter and lonely as he was because Tim had actual friends and half of his lies are for his friends or to spent time with them (even if that’s in the middle of a fight). When he sees Tim stare at him unflinching while he lies about stealing a bio weapon, all he sees is his little boy trying to cover that he was hanging out with his friends doing something naughty.

Bruce sees a cat giving him wide eyes and a little purr with claws still digging into his wrist and folds like a napkin.

He badly wants his son to be honest with him about things, but since he figures it out so quickly, he can convince himself Tim is telling him just in a… overly complicated and deceptive way!

When the others notice it drives them insane.

Then there’s the third reason, the one he can’t admit to himself, which is how guilty he feels for making Tim talk him out of suicide and murder at just thirteen years old.

The part of him that knows that Tim has still spent more time being a parent for Bruce than Bruce has for Tim.

The part of him that knows he’s failed all his kids, but he used Tim.

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One of the best writing advice I have gotten in all the months I have been writing is "if you can't go anywhere from a sentence, the problem isn't in you, it's in the last sentence." and I'm mad because it works so well and barely anyone talks about it. If you're stuck at a line, go back. Backspace those last two lines and write it from another angle or take it to some other route. You're stuck because you thought up to that exact sentence and nothing after that. Well, delete that sentence, make your brain think because the dead end is gone. It has worked wonders for me for so long it's unreal

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this website’s easy watch. *dangles a bunch of greek gods like keys*

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So wait are livestock guardian dogs to their flocks like… Clark Kent among the residents of Smallville? He’s been here since he was a baby, we all know him, and he’s… generally one-of-us shaped, uh, approximately. And then when something goes wrong he suddenly leaps into action and does some terrifying impossible shit none of us could do. And then comes back home and settles in like nothing happened and he’s one of us again.

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THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY MADE MY FUCKING DAY

BRO WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE HES ABOUT TO BURST INTO TEARS 😭😭😭

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Seriously though I imagine that Hobbits are like masters of the polite fiction. They clearly love to gossip and tell tales, but they also really love the idea of nothing actually disrupting their leisurely, quiet lives, so you figure when they decide that not talking about something is required to do that, nobody talks about it. They pick themselves a nice little delusion and by god they stick to it.

Like this other thought I had once was that there’s this Dwarf that used to come by and visit Bilbo, probably one of the many cousins and relations of Thorin’s Company. And he kind of falls in love with the Shire and is like “That’s it, I’m retiring here.”

A Dwarf. Living in the Shire.

People don’t emigrate to the Shire. It’s not done! Hobbits can move from one part of the Shire to another, but you don’t have something else entirely move to it from outside of it!

Except it would be abominably, beastly rude to actually tell him that. “No, you can’t live here”, what, are we animals? Beasts? Orcs? Plus, uh, he’s kind of fucking rich. Like, really rich. Like he just plunked down a good three times what a hill is actually worth because he says it has “good bones”.

So everyone decides, for the sake of the peace, for the sake of their own minds…

… he is a Hobbit.

Hairiest Hobbit you ever saw. With a weirdly deep hole. Yeah people have been in that sucker and it just keeps. Going. Down. A weird distance down. Lot of stonework. But that there is Mr. Talbin Ironnails the Hobbit. Mm-hmm. Oh, the beard’s just a bit of an eccentricity, don’t mind him.

Need some metalwork done? Why, you want ol’ Talbin! Best Hobbit you’ve ever seen with a hammer and tongs. Dwarf? No, no, who ever heard of a Dwarf living in the Shire! That’s just old Talbin! Bit on the tall side, but don’t be intimidated at all.

Oh dear, wolves you say? Well, let’s go ask ol’ Talbin if he can take care of it. Once took a wolf’s head clean off with what we’re very sure was a very fancy woodsman’s axe, what with the long metal haft and two heads. Must have a bit of Took in him, does ol’ Talbin. Explains why he’s so odd, eh? Eh?

Beer? Drink you under the table, ol’ Talbin will! Why, some say he has the constitution of a Dwarf, ha ha ha! HE’S NOT THOUGH.