Latest Posts by timetobetraumatised - Page 12

If you're ever bored w far too much time on your hands, sit down, look up "Middle earth time line" and start reading. Click on whatever seems interesting. This will most definitely occupy you for a long while.

Which path should he choose?

The path of the warrior, the path of the scholar, or the path of the artist?

The myth of Dionysos (3)

For the previous posts, see here and here.

V) The cult of Dionysos : Outside the city, inside the city

Such a god apparently does not have his place in the Ancient Greek city. Séchan-Lévêque reminds us that his religion, at the same time joyful and wild, is centered around the “thiasus”, that is to say a gathering of male and female beings joining outside of any civic or familial setting. According to Euripides’ description and to the various visual depictions of Ancient Greece, all the cultural elements surrounding Dionysos are the very opposite of the rational organization of a State. His cult takes place on the countryside, in woods and mountains. It takes place at night. The participants wear an animal skins over their clothes (or replacing their chiton), their hair is wild or crowned by ivy or laurel, their belt is made of a snake or a baby leopard hangs from it ; in one hand they hold the thyrsus and in the other a small animal (hare or young fawn). The music played for Dionysos is strange: flutes, tympanum and castanets. His ceremonies are chaotic: wild dances, convulsions, exhausting races. His sacrifice is performed by ripping apart animals before eating their raw flesh. The thiasus could be made of men, but the most famous of all the thiasus is the female one, and its members are called the Menads, the Bacchants, the Thyads, the Bassarides… Ordinarily, women of Ancient Greece were locked up inside the gynaeceum, so to have them becoming wild and savage makes the cult of Dionysos a unique one, set apart by the official religious events of the city, since he breaks all urban religious rules. Similarly, the mysteries of Dionysos unite together men and women, citizens and slaves, which meant breaking apart the Ancient Greek social hierarchy.

And yet, this Dionysos that destroys the order of the city is greatly honored at Delphi, the domain of the Greekest of all gods, Apollo. The Pythia reminds the audience, in Aeschylus’ Eumenids, that she honors the nymphs over which rules Bromios and his Bacchants, with explicit references to the story of Pentheus. Every year, during the three months of winter, while Apollo leaves for Hyperborea, Dionysos replaces him. And every two years, the Thyads of Delphi and the Bacchants of Athens, holding torches, celebrate on mount Parnassus the son of Semele. In the adyton of Apollo’s temple, legends claimed Dionysos’ tomb could be found. The poets frequently exchanged the names and nicknames of the two deities: Aeschylus wrote in Bassarids of “Apollo with ivy, a bacchant and a seer”, while Euripides in Likymnion wrote of “Lord Bakchos, friend of the laurel, Pean-Apollon with the beautiful lyre”. As such, despite Nietzsche’s strict opposition between the god of harmonious restraint and the deity of savage drunkenness, the two gods are actually far from being polar opposites.

Dionysos also finds a home at Athens. We already saw several of the festivals in his honor there: Apaturia, Anthesteria, Oschophoria… But to those can be added the agrarian Dionysia, the the Lenaia, and especially the great Dionysia: during those, contests of dithyrambic, of tragedies and of comedies were held, gathering an audience coming from all four corners of Greece. Traditionally, the tragedy, the “tragodia”, is read as meaning “the song of the goat”, tragou-ôdè, since the goat was the animal traditionally sacrificed to the god. During the first day of the Great Dionysia, the statue of Dionysos was carried inside the “orchestra”, at the very heart of the city. And during the contests, a place of honor was kept for the priest of Dionysos. The marginal god clearly earned his place among men and Olympians.

Because, according to the Bacchants, inside the Dionysian chaos, there si a superior order, an “eukosmia” that unfortunately Pentheus fails to see, since he is a young tyrant filled with hubris. However the wise rulers of Athens did perceive and honor this superior order – unlike the Roman Senators that, in 186 BCE, harshly repressed any participations to the Bacchanals.

VI) Dionysos in service of political and religious doctrines: various uses

Multiple, complex, contradictory and shapeshifting: the god offered to the political and religious domains a very malleable material. For example, there are obvious links and mutual influences between the eastward journey of Dionysos and the eastward journey of Alexander. Alexander, just like his soldiers, and just like his historians, know of the story of the god’s travel to the East – the Dionysos of Euripides, in the Bacchants, said himself: “I left Lydia with his gold-fertile fields, I left the plains of Phrygia for the sun-burned plateaus of Persia, the walled cities of Bactrian, and the land of the Medes, frozen by winter ; and happy Arabia ; and finally all of Asia, laying by the salted waters…” Alexander took his army on the very steps of Dionysos. Of course, the Great was going to make the god the patron of his expedition, and as such Alexander was celebrated as the “new Dionysos” (a title that future rulers of Alexandria will also bear). The parallel grows stronger with the encounter by Alexander’s army of a town named Nysa, located near the mount Meros (a word that sounds similar to the Greek word for “thigh”) – the prince claimed the people of Nysa were descendants of the Greek people that Dionysos took with his on his own journey. However, in a complete circle, the adventure of Alexander the Great influenced greatly Dionysos’ own travels. India, for example, was never named in the tale of the Bacchants. But after the exploits of Alexander, Dionysos became the conqueror of India. Poets, painters and sculptors all depicted him taking part in this “war of India” that Euripides had never heard about. In the 5th century CE, this tale grew to enormous proportions thanks to Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, an epic in 48 chants, and where the Indian travel is described from chant 13 to 40.

Despite the recent doubts of some scholars, there is a possibility that Cesar and Augustus used for their political agenda the glory of this god celebrated everywhere in the oriental part of the Roman empire, and even in Rome itself – by both the Greco-Oriental population and the administrative elite of the Hellenism. Indeed, the assimilation between Dionysos and the Latium god Liber Pater had been done for a long time by now, and that despite some strong oppositions (such as the stern repression of the cult of Dionysos in 186). And the success of this religion was noticed by the political authorities. Servius commented what Virgil wrote in his Bucolics, about how Daphnis, on a “chariot pulled by Armenian tigers”, was the first to introduce the “thiasos of Bacchus”. Servius reminds his reader that in truth, it was Cesar that first brought the “mysteries of Liber Pater” to Rome – and as such behind the triumph of Daphnis, one reads as much the travels of Alexander as the exploits of Cesar… Two men that Augustus claims to be the heir of.

This “politic of Dionysos” knew its climax between the second and third century CE, through Hadrian the philhellenic, who demanded to be called the “new Dionysos”. In the same tradition as Alexander the Great, and as the many Hellenistic rulers, from Gallian (who, while leading a double fight against the Barbarians and the Christians, wanted to return to the Greek tradition) to Elagabalus (who had the habit of driving a chariot pulled by lions and tigers).

Dionysos was also used for philosophical and religious agendas. As such, the Orphics, reused in their beliefs the myth of the god’s murder by the Titans. Marcel Detienne wrote about how the myth of Dionysos was the perfect illustration for the main teaching of Orpheus: refrain from murder. In its double sense of 1) do not kill your fellow human being ; but also as 2) do not eat meat. On top of that, Dionysos’ resurrection echoed the belief in palingenesis of the disciples of Orpheus.

With this context, it makes sense that Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria or Firmicus Maternus, focused their attacks onto a myth that, for them, was a caricature of their beliefs and a parody of the sacraments of their own religion. Passion and Resurrection (Gregory of Nazianzus even used three hundred verses of the Bacchants in his Christus Patiem), Eucharist, and even the concept of Original Sin – because Dion Chrysostom wrote that mankind was born from the ashes of the Titans mixed with the earth. As such, humanity was part at the same time of the crime of the Titans, and of the divinity of Dionysos (who had been eaten by the Titans). The Christian attacks were also very strong because Orphism, through this myth, had brought to the cult of Dionysos the theology that it lacked (since in the Mysteries of Dionysos, the ritual had a larger and stronger place than the theory).

VII) A diversity of interpretations

In front of such a complex and elusive personality, it is impossible to give just one interpretation of the character of Dionysos. From the third millennium BCE to the fall of the Roman Empire, the god constantly played a role – his figure was constantly shaped by societies, governments and people. As such, the interpretations offered by mythologists allow us to better understand Dionysos, but they will never be complete or exhaustive. As much, all they can do is bring to light some key elements of his being.

While the mythologists of the early 20th century were prone to excesses, the interpretations of names such as Frazer, Farnell or Miss Harrison are still very interesting. Dionysos is first and foremost a vegetation god, a fecundity god, a chthonian god. Many of his ceremonies are rituals celebrating renewal. He is a god of plants; his emblem if the thyrsus, a branch or a reed stalk crowned by leaves of ivy/vine, or by a pine cone. All these plants play a important role in both the rites and the myth of Dionysos, even though from the 7th century BCE onward he specializes himself as the god of the grapevine and of wine. Dionysos is the lord of the tree. As we saw before, he is related to the Oriental mother-goddesses and to the Aegean world. His wife is Ariadne – who might have been during the Classical era a human, but that was once an Aegean goddess of vegetation. Dionysos is the master of both animal and human fecundity – his favorite companions, the satyrs, the donkeys, the goats, the bulls, are all depicted with a very large phallus. He went down into the Underworld to bring back his mother Semele, and he presides over the Anthesteria, which was a celebration of the dead. Zagreus was believed to have for a mother Persephone, and for a father either Zeus or Hades – and in fact, Zagreus was sometimes identified as being an alternate identity of Hades. This chthonian side of Dionysos was developed in his mysteries: the initiation, the purifications, the teaches of sacred formulas have for a main purpose to allow the dead to escape all the dangers that threaten their travel to the afterlife ; and ultimately, to allow them to find happiness in the Hades.

The Bacchic drunkenness and the possessios/trances of the Menads have also brought forward numerous psychological, psychoanalytical and ethnological commentaries. The dances of the Bacchants were compared to those of the whirling dervishes, of the Jewish Hasidim, of the Siberian shamans and of the American Shakers. This phenomenon was proven to have been widespread throughout all of the Antique Mediterranean world – and to still be existing today in a part of Africa. Séchan-Lévêque noted that the “delirium of the Bacchants” was in many ways similar to neuropathic manifestations. Convulsive and spasmodic movements, the body bending backwards, the neck being thrown around… Both also involve a feeling of depersonalization, the feeling of the self being invaded by an outside persona or entity. Psychanalysts saw a parallel between the mechanisms of the Dionysian possession and various concepts of child-psychanalysis: they claimed that the ritual of the god had a therapeutic effect. The Dionysos-Hades becomes a Dionsyso-Asclepios.

Another theory that should not be ignored is the theory of the “pharmakos”, or the theory of the “scape-goat”, that was popularized by Frazer and then by René Girard in his interpretation of Euripides’ play. The tragedy of the Bacchants presents itself at first like a ritual bacchanal. All differences are erased: all take part in the celebration, be them old or young, male or female, citizens or slaves. But the party goes wrong, violence arrives. The difference becomes an inversion: women perform martial activities, men disguise themselves into women. Human and animal worlds are confused for one another: the Bacchants rip apart of a herd of cow they mistake for men, Pentheus ties up a bull he thought was Dionysos, Agave murders Pentheus while seeing before her a lion. Pentheus, in his transvestite outfit, is a Carnival prince, a temporary king – as Jeanne Roux notes, he is at the same time the scape-goat carrying with him all the soiling and vices of the past year, and the sacrificial victim to open a new and clean year. The symbolism becomes even more obvious due to the fact that Pentheus, in his female disguise, climbs on top of a pine and falls from it. A. G. Bather, in The Problem of the Bacchae (Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1894), noted that in Russia, during Pentecost Thursday, there was a very similar ritual. Villagers had to cut down a young pine-tree and disguise it as a woman before bringing “her” to the village in great joy. Three days later, on Trinity Sunday, the wooden figure was taken out of the village and thrown in a body of water. In Euripides’ play, at the end of the party, the pine-tree is ripped away, the king is killed and torn apart: Pentheus is inflicted a diasparagmos (a dismemberment) by the hands of his own mother and of his aunts. Which in turn will become new scapegoats, as they will be banished from the city afterwar. A new order will rule over Thebes: as René Girard notes in La Violence et le sacré (Violence and the sacred), Dionysos is the god “of the successful lynching”. However we saw previously that Pentheus is the double of Dionysos. Just like his adversary/reflection, the god, in the myth of the Titans, also suffers a diasparagmos. As such there is an identification between the pine-tree that is uprooted, and Dionysos Dendritès, god of the trees. While in Euripides’ play the god appears as the organizer and the force behind the scapegoat ceremony, it is possible that in ancient times he used to be the victim of said ceremony.

Finally, numerous analogies bring Dionysos close to the “kouroi”, the novices that undergo initiation-trials. Pausanias describes how Cadmos placed Semele and young Dionysos in a chest that was thrown in the water and ended in Brasiai/Prasiai (a port of Laconia). This type of trial was also known by other great heroes – Perseus, Moises, Romulus. Just like the initiated ones of the three first classes of Ancient India (the dvija), Dionysos is “twice-born”. Just like Achilles, Herakles and Jason, who were all raised by the horse-man Chiron, Dionysos knew animal-men during his childhood: the goat-men that were the satyrs and the silenes ; but also wolf-men, such as Lycurgus (whose name means “He who acts as a wolf, from lukos “wolf” and “ergon”, action), or Athamas (that Apollodorus compares to a wolf). Just like Achilles that was disguised as a girl, just like Theseus that was mocked for his dress and braided hair, just like Herakles that had put on a dress before queen Omphalus, Dionysos knew the experience of the feminine cross-dressing. Just like Achilles, Melicertes, Herakles, Pelops and Jason, there is the trial of the cauldron – killed, dismembered and boiled, he was resurrected. (Jeanmaire wrote that it is a legend with a strong initiation symbolism, and that seems to answer to very archaic practices explaining or interpreting the dangers that threaten children and teenagers). Just like in African initiation rituals, the rhombus played a key part in his death-resurrection. Just like Pelops, whose homosexual loves for Poseidon have analogies with the initiation of young Cretans, Dionysos, with the mysterious Prosumnos, acts as the hero of an initiation-adventure. Just like Odysseus, Herakles, Orpheus, Theseus, Aeneas or Jason (the latter only through symbolism), he went into the Underworld. Finally, just like Theseus and Gilgamesh, he plunged in the water (and even twice) to escape Lycurgus and to find his mother in the Hades. All those trials are so many shapes of initiation rituals, of obligatory rites of passages allowing the teenager to leave the world of childhood and to join the world of adults.

As such, despite all the critical efforts to understand Dionysos’ personality, to bring an exhaustive interpretation including both his complexity and diversity, the god keeps escaping our minds, breaking our settings, removing the chains with which we would try to bind him. All the way until the end, he will stay elusive. So let us remember how, in both the Homeric hymn to Dionysos, and the Bacchants, Dionysos is always presented as the “un-binder”, as the “Eleuthereus”, the “Luaios”, the “Lusios”, the one that detaches, that sets free ; the god on who all ropes and all binds fall to the ground, the god who can escape any net without effort, the entity that can never be trapped because all those that think they caught him are in fact not even touching him.

What's in a death

Here’s an idea that makes me giggle. What about an AU where absolutely everyone in the Jedi Order faked their death at least twice.  It is practically a right of passage to die in your Padawan/Master/Grandpadawan/Extended Lineage’s arms then stroll in six months later with a captured criminal and a smoothie. 

It changes the grief. Everyone kind of treats the dead like they are on extended undercover assignments.  Like they still hold funerals because no one ever knows but everyone is really casual about death because there’s a 40% chance that person you watched die would pop back up (60% if the death was witnessed only non force sensitives, 95% if all that was found was a corpse) at some point in the future. The Jedi even have some kind of scoreboard for who was currently ‘dead’ that only the Jedi and Jedi adjacent(like the clones) know how to read. Things like how many times someone ‘came back to life’ or longest time ‘dead’ (The current record for longest time is Jon Antilles, who was declared dead for three decades before popping back up. No one, not even him, is quite sure that he wasn’t actually dead for part of that time. His life is weird.)

Of course they make sure to inform the Clones. It would be cruel not to make sure that the Clones didn’t know that this was something that happened around Jedi. They are the only non-Jedi that spend such a significant amount of time around the Jedi. 

Just picture the Rako Hardeen Arc. No one thinks to tell the Chancellor that the reason they are hesitant in having Obi Wan fake his death is because Dooku, as a former Jedi, knows not to trust a Jedi dying. They hold Obi Wan’s public funeral in front of the scoreboard.  So the entire time Mace Windu is giving a eulogy, the entire Jedi Order is watching the time ‘dead’ on Obi Wan’s entry tick upward.

Palpatine is watching eagerly, waiting for Anakin to be torn up about Obi Wan’s assisination so he can encourage him to take revenge. Except it doesn’t happen.  No one, including Anakin, appears to be grieving at all. This entire plan was supposed to get Anakin to kill his Master in a fit of revenge and. It. Just. Wasn’t working.

Anakin’s not even feeling abandoned or betrayed. How is Palpatine supposed to work with this?

i find it very funny that people keep saying that grian is going against his rebellion rule by working for the government (not necessarily incorrect) and that the dhp is going to incite a revolt because the dhp is Different from previous governing forces in that the only control grian is excising over the other hermits its annoying them as much as possible (which he does regardless).

like. hermits love corruption. they love running corrupted governments and then dismantling them violently for fun. the dhp isnt necessarily Not Corrupt, but its Not Not Corrupt either. grian gets no profits out of this. he tries to avoid doing his job in every way possible but he still ends up doing it. the dhp is just here to rectify any mistakes made during the initial hermit permit set up and help people with their permit problems.

the dhp is meant to be as soul sucking as possible, but it does still help in the end (if you can actually get grian to cooperate). He'll Do This For You, but he Won't Be Happy About It. his sole payment is how crazy it all drives you.

and while this is not NOT an unrevoltable offense (the hermits have certainly rebelled for less), this also doesnt show any outright corruption other than whatever you'd call a depressed looking man working customer service who hates you for making him do his job. which i dont think really counts. thats just what customer service does to you.

The fact that Tolkien realized he’d created inconsistency for LotR with the first published version of The Hobbit and then retconned it with the in universe explanation of “Bilbo is a liar,” is never going to stop being both equal parts brilliant and funny.

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

It's almost the Ides of March and you know what that means...

And of course, if we can get 10k votes on this, I will make the salad. Last year I didn't get to make it. Let's change that this year!

Night Watch is a damn rollercoaster how can a book about time travel where the main character at one point STOPS PART OF A RIOT USING HOT CHOCOLATE be the same book commenting on corruption within the police force (and the government?? Maybe?? There's been hints so far but I haven't finished it yet so imma leave that so a solid maybe) and the harmful effects (affects? No clue) that accepting it as the norm has on everyone else and the effects of poverty in such a good way???? Like what??? It's fucking amazing and I haven't even finished it yet

odysseus absolutely does present a threat to penelope if he perceives her as at all unfaithful, and i feel the unfairness of this, and i think people tend to undersell how much tension at least potentially exists between odysseus and penelope. but i'm also like. his reaction, all speculation aside, his actual reaction in the odyssey to her flirting with the suitors is delight, because he immediately ascertains that she is running a con. sorry that they're so in-sync in spite of the forces that try to drive a wedge between them, including their own misgiving hearts. sorry that they invented homophrosyne ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gosh I just love book Legolas. He's immortal. He's a teenager. Elrond picks him instead of Glorfindel because he's average and won't draw attention to the Fellowship. He's the comic relief guy and resident Little Shit, but he can also shoot a Nazgul out of the sky in the pitch black like a one-man elf anti-aircraft defense system. He wants everyone to know that he's, like, really old. He forgets the task at hand because he wants to look at trees. His greatest qualities are that he can become friends with anyone and his loyalty is unending. He shows up to Valinor a century late with Starbucks in hand and his dwarf bestie at his side. Iconic.

You Are Odysseus

So

I’m a teacher of Classical Civilisation that has taught the Odyssey for over a decade and studied pretty much every myth and story with Odysseus in it.. I think

and I’m writing an Interactive Fiction (choose your own path) version of the Odyssey, inspired by the Homeric phrase “he turned his great heart this way and that”, where you are Odysseus, allowing you to follow his decisions or make your own

and it already has 400 sections to it - written to emulate modern translations of the Odyssey, including the literary features of simile, formula, epithet, and the rest - and 21 different ways to die, and quite a lot of period and theme-appropriate alternatives

(and if I get time, the option to be Telemachus or Penelope, although that might have to wait because it’s already a monster)

and I’ve tested what I’ve made so far on my pupils, other Classics teachers, and some of the leading (and best-read) Greek Mythology podcasters and YouTubers, all of whom have universally loved it (yay!)

(EDIT: Oops and I presented on it at the Classical Association conference last year)

I’m trying to finish it this summer, but need a bit of encouragement to do so

EDIT: and I forgot to say that ideally I’m planning on it being a beautiful BOOK with an old-fashioned cover and lots of ribbons to mark your place ❤️ (ex-bookseller ofc)

so, please let me know if you’d like to know more!

(EDIT: or sign up here go get notified directly when it’s ready: https://ljenkinsonbrown.wordpress.com/you-are-odysseus-signup/ )

So. Drinking tea out of a bowl. Somehow tastes better than drinking it from a mug. Or maybe that's just the taste of pettiness that comes with doing something someone just told you not to do.... Guess we'll never know!

“In 1404, King Taejong fell from his horse during a hunting expedition. Embarrassed, looking to his left and right, he commanded, “Do not let the historian find out about this.” To his disappointment, the historian accompanying the hunting party included these words in the annals, in addition to a description of the king’s fall.“

LMFAOOOOOO rip to that guy

I cannot even begin to describe how uncomfortable looking at this makes me.

My latest project is a custom set of keyboard caps

Rebel Soldier: You survived Order 66?

Numerous Jedi:

I think we’re not fully utilising Dick’s potential for fuckery. This mean was raised in a circus. Surrounded by trapeze artists. And wild animals. What makes you think he has any regard for safety or self preservation?

So I like to think that sometimes, just sometimes there’s a switch that flips inside him and instead of being mature and practical about the system he lets his intrusive feral child win.

Two-face: Heads or tails little bird. Heads, I kill you. Tails, I surrender.

*flips coin*

Nightwing *throws his escrema stick and it hits the coin which lands in his palm*

Nightwing: Hey Harvey. If I flip it around in my hands I can change the outcome of this

Two-face: .. wait-

Nightwing *flipping his hand around with the coin inside* : Say why don’t we make it more interesting?

*takes out three more coins and puts them all in his palm before switching them around a bit*

Two-face: oh.. no..

*Red Hood and Red Robin watching in horror*

Red robin: .. should we.. should we stop him

Red hood *remembering when a villain knocked away Dick’s weapons and told him if he could draw blood without landing a hit on him he’d tell his army to stop and Dick didn’t wait a second before biting the fucker’s neck and taking a good chunk out of it*

Red hood: he’ll be fine.

in fics where luke gets plopped into the prequels i want every jedi within ten metres of him to think hes the weirdest jedi theyve ever seen. he has negative lightsaber form. he doesnt know what a kata is. he handstands when he meditates. his solution to sith is to try and have a chat. hes a political radical who keeps suggesting revolution. you ask him what the jedi code is and he says "kindness and compassion and helping those in need :) ". you ask how he used the force like that and he says some shit about how you are a luminous being limited only by your mind. the councils authority is just a suggestion. he is somehow the new favourite of both qui gon and yoda

do the last (4) jedi ever consult quinlan vos if they realize they don't know something lol? i think it'd be hilarious if they've struggled to piece together their remaining jedi knowledge for years with their varying levels of training and force ghost aid only to find out that there's been a temple-trained jedi master kicking around this entire time.

realistically they probably don't find out he's alive, but this idea's too good to pass up

(commission info // kofi support!)

Reblog for larger sample size whatever

Can we talk about how bizarre our experience with the new pjo series is

A tiny essay on how this series is special.

Like. We're all super hyped because we know this series intrinsically that we forget that we know this show intrinsically

How bizarre is that?? We don't merely get spoilers on our dashes from episodes we haven't watched yet, we know what will happen at the end, at the end of the next season, in eight years

It's hilarious! It's rediculous! It's like Neil Gaiman would start an open Google doc so we could all watch as he wrote the next Good Omens episode! Only EVEN MORE

"aw this scene will look so cute when they are a couple in college" when the show itself has not even HINTED AT A CRUSH

"damn too bad Luke's the bad guy" WE SAY 3 EPISODES ON

Think about it, people! This is a fandom experience with no ship wars! No headcannons we desperately hope don't collide with cannon! We know every. Single. Thing. That will happen.

And we still watch it.

I have a point with this. Remember how Marvel movies would be 👉this close👈 to murdering an actor over spoilers? There's a great post here somewhere on how that's because of the low quality of modern day superhero movies. It's supposed to be a quick hit, a rush of dopamine and special effects and one liners exploding into colour until you walk out of the cinema so dazed you only remember days later that the movie itself wasn't actually that good. These movies aren't built for rewatching, or becoming cult classics. It's fast food. Delicious for the moment, satisfying a certain itch, but not wholesome or precious.

And this. This beautiful series launched with the full knowledge that almost the ENTIRE FANBASE know exactly what was coming, every step. What are premier day spoilers against years of finished arcs.

And still, we watch. We love. We laugh and cry and post about it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is #hopepunk. They think we don't need beautiful, nurturing adaptations? That they've wrecked our mental health so bad we can't concentrate on smth unless the special effects are forcefully grabbing our attention? That older things get forgotten as quickly as Tick Tock trends? They were wrong. We love, and we care. Not everything bows to the rules of fast production capitalism. We aren't a predicted consumer statistic.

We love Percy Jackson.

We have all been talking about how bad Greek mythology representation the Disney "Hercules" movie is, but I want to stress out something very precise. An association shown in this movie that is often repeated in a lot of bad mythology works that show they do not know their source material.

I am talking about Disney-Hades' association with fire. Not only is it just the most anti-Hades thing to have him with a fiery temper - because Hades in Greek mythology was precisely an emotionless god, a stoic, hard, cold and shadowy figure, who only rarely got angry and only under exceptional cases (the two only cases where he got angry to my memory are the Persephone stuation, and the Asclepios one). But it also makes us believe that "fire" meant the same thing for Greeks as it means for us.

By that I mean: Hades as the god of the underworld can't be FURTHER away from the symbolism of fire in Ancient Greece. In Greek mythology, fire is life, action and emotion. It is the fire of the forge and of Hephaistos' crafting. It is the fire of Helios the sun. It is the fire of Hestia, the hearth of the home. It is the fire of Eros' passionate love. But one thing that is made clear in Greek mythology is that the underworld, and the realm of the dead, is a place with no fire, no warmth, no light. It is darkness and silence and coldness - the very antithesis of what life is supposed to be.

In fact, it isn't just a misrepresentation of Greek mythology - because a lot of Indo-European mythologies share this concept of the underworld as devoid of fire and light. From the Mesopotamian Underworld where the dead eat dust, to the cold and damp realm of the Norse Hel, in the ancient world fire was NOT associated with afterlife in a single way.

No need to tell you that Disney's Hades was actually more influenced by the Christian Devil than by the actual Greek figure of Hades - to the point that his early concept art has him in the traditional "red devil outfit with horns and a tail". And the heavy presence of fire in his character is a leftover of this very Christian take on the character - since he is supposed to be the "bad guy of the underworld", and so we jump on the "fiery hell" of the Christians.

There's no fire in the Greek Underworld - except for maybe the Phlegeton river, probably the only fire within Hades' realm - as the whole thing was that you became a "shadow" in the Underworld, and wandered for all eternity in the darkness, robbed of your voice and memories (unless some kind hero came with some blood to feed you). Well, its a tad bit more complicated than that but the idea stays - no fire in the underworld. Fire belongs to homes, to love, to forges, to the world of the living, not the one of the dead. Heck, according to the Prometheus myth, fire was originally from the realm of the IMMORTALS and the sole property of the gods of OLYMPOS! It was what made humanity closer to the gods (aka closer to immortality, aka further away from mortality). The idea can't be clearer: in Ancient Greece, fire was life.

anyone have a favorite myth? pls reblog with your favorite I'd love to hear some

I too need 20 years to complete any task. It's a problem. Send help.

Overcoming the slightest challenge of my day: “This is just like the Odyssey.”

Mines the same!!! It still let me use discord on a browser instead tho, it's only doing it on the app I have on my laptop

hi hello what the fuck

i copied an image and i got blocked!??!? what the fuck!?!?

so im going to be making an alt now, @timetobetraumatised , @myl0-mph , @l0s3rzz , @welpimherenowiguess.

ill send you guys a dm on tumblr with the account name

 West Toledo Branch Library

March 28th 1929  the West side of Toledo receives a charming public library

to get sources of materials for education and entertainment. 

The west Branch library sits off of Sylvania Ave in its cobblestone like brick 

and its charming design which Gerow and Conklin architectural firm was 

responsible for. 

The West Branch Location was such a beloved library that the neighborhood was eventually named Library Village. 

 Making the West Toledo branch thriving for over a 160 years to date.

The library eventually took on a remodel and expansion in 2001 and again closed the location for a year in 2013 for another expansion, this final expansion was completed by 2014 and this is the library you will see today. 

On the west wall sits a large fireplace,  The fireplace still stands even amongst the construction, In time we will soon learn there has been some unfamiliar activity in this particular area of the library.

Claims that were made said that their ticks bumps and odd sounds that come from this particular location in the library, and after talking with one of the locals who was in for a visit had mentioned they feel a bit uneasy when they sit in the area by the fireplace.  

The building is again nearing 160+ years old, 

Could it just be the aging of the building causing the odd noises or is something attached paranormal to this spot? 

Another claim which has been described as a ghost sighting.

A older gentleman was said to be seen walking through the library, the claims did not state which particular spot in the library the apparition was seen. 

It was just documented their was a sighting of a apperachian with a detail description of the entety 

The ghost-like figure was said to be in the form of a male who was dressed in the attire of 1930/1940s. 

 he was a librarian still lingering to offer help or maybe he was just a beloved patron of the library and felt the need to stay, 

Unfortunately this was the only sighting and claims I could find. 

I did Stop in the West Toledo branch library to see if I could hear or get a glimpse of either claims that were reported, unfortunately I did not experience any paranormal activity.

 I did enjoy the library and the staff was upbeat and more than happy to assist in anything needed. 

I recommend that you stop in and check out some items or just browse the place and its beautiful architecture. 

Maybe you will be lucky enough to get a glimpse or sound of the library hauntings.

Blessing of the Horse

Lord of horses, Tahvanus, a god that cleans the mangers out, over my herds keep watch, give fodder to my steeds, devoid of speech, devoid of strength, devoid of guilt, devoid of guile. The Finnish horse was the most valuable animal to ancient Finns. They are sturdy and very versatile which made them extremely useful. A person's horse was said to be the measure of their worth, and there are several songs and spells to protect the horses against dangers and threats.

Find me and my art elsewhere!      

OLD GODS - Artworks inspired by Finnish mythology and Folklore

Archaeologists Discover 3,000-Year-Old Priest’s Tomb in Peru

Archaeologists in northern Peru have unearthed a 3,000-year-old tomb which they believe might have honored an elite religious leader in the Andean country some three millennia ago.

Dubbed the “Priest of Pacopampa,” referring to the highland archaeological zone where the tomb was found, the priest was buried under six layers of ash mixed with black earth, with decorated ceramic bowls and seals indicating ancient ritual body paint used for people of elite standing, Peru’s culture ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Two seals were also found along the upper edges of the tomb, one with an anthropomorphic face looking east and another with a jaguar design facing west.

Project leader Yuji Seki said the large size of the tomb, nearly two meters (2.2 yards) in diameter and one meter (3.3 feet) deep, was “very peculiar,” as was the position of the body lying face down with one half of his body extended and feet crossed.

The body was also found with a bone shaped into a tupu, a large pin used by Andean Amerindians to hold cloaks and ponchos, which would have been used to hold a woman’s blanket, he added.

“Though this person is a man, the associations are very peculiar,” said Seki. “I think this was a leader in his time.”

The Pacopampa Archaeological Project has been working in the area since 2005, the ministry said, adding that rock layers indicate the priest, who would have been buried around 1,200 B.C., was some five centuries older than the tombs of the “Lady of Pacopampa” and the “Priests of the Serpent Jaguar of Pacopampa,” discovered in 2009 and 2015 respectively.

Last year’s find of the “Priest of the Pututos,” however, is believed to be older.

Not to say that the burning of the Library of Alexandria was in any way less tragic or devastating, but I'm kinda tired about the way it's all presented. Sure it was something horrible that Caesar did, but can we talk about a different thing that doesn't even get mentioned? Can we talk about Nalanda with its 9 million books that burnt for three entire months? Can we talk about the scope of this cruelty that the western world just seems to be ignorant of? It happened in the 1190s when invader Bakhtiar Khilji ordered the whole place be set on fire, enraged that Buddhist monks possessed more knowledge about medicine than his own doctors.

Ruins of Roman Emperor Nero's 'Theatre' Unearthed in Rome

Archaeologists in Rome think they may have found Nero's theater during a hotel excavation.

Archaeologists in Rome think they may have found the ruins of Nero's theater, a first-century imperial performance space that was widely described in ancient Roman texts but whose whereabouts had remained largely elusive.

The theater is named after Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, who served as Roman emperor from A.D. 54 to his death in 68. Officials are calling the discovery of the theater, located just east of Vatican City, "exceptional." It was likely where Nero rehearsed poetry and put on musical performances, according to ABC News.

More than a millennium after his death, Nero remains one of ancient Rome's most infamous rulers, accused of playing his fiddle while the city burned to the ground during an epic fire. While much has been written about the atrocities and poor governance that occurred under his leadership — he allegedly killed his own mother and two wives and lavishly and indulgently spent Rome's money — he's also remembered as a lover of music and the arts, leading him to offer public performances at his theater, an act that the elite usually didn't partake in. He was particularly fond of playing the cithara, a portable harp-like instrument with seven strings.

But when the powerful Praetorian Guard, the force in charge of protecting the emperor, withdrew their support of him, he reportedly took his own life, uttering "what an artist dies in me!"

Researchers unearthed a variety of artifacts scattered among the building's ruins. These included seven ornate medieval glass chalices, segments of bone used to carve out rosary beads, clay pots and urns, cooking vessels for baking bread, coins, combs constructed out of bone and numerous pieces of musical instruments. As for the remaining architectural elements of the theater itself, archaeologists unearthed marble columns and plaster decorated in gold leaf, according to ABC News.

"It is a superb dig, one that every archaeologist dreams of," Marzia Di Mento, the site's chief archaeologist, told reporters during a news conference, according to ABC News. "Being able to dig in this built-up, historically rich area is so rare."

The discovery came about as construction crews were working on reconfiguring Palazzo Della Rovere, a medieval palace, into a new luxury hotel, and was found buried beneath the structure's walled garden, according to The Associated Press.

Artifacts from the excavation will be put on display and added to a "city-run public databank to add to the wealth of information gathered over the years on life in Rome throughout the centuries," according to ABC News.

Archaeologists plan to rebury the theater once excavations wrap up.

By Jennifer Nalewicki.