#my dad was like

[classicschronicles]

Hi lovelies,

Last week I convinced my Dad to read the Iliad (well audio-book it but same thing). Every morning I get in the car for school and he launches the entire Spanish Inquisition on to me about whatever book he listened to the night before. He then just sits there in silence and questions why I took Classics. But after explaining the Iliad to my Dad every day, I’ve realised that it can be seriously confusing if you just pick it up with no context. So today I’m going to try and give the Cliff Notes version of the Iliad aetiology!

The ‘Iliad’ translates to the ‘Story of Ilium’ (Ilium being the contemporary name for Troy). The Iliad is a Greek epic written by the poet Homer, and the reason it is called an ‘epic’ is because it has certain defining features. An epic is a very large story that can be broken down into smaller books (in this case 24 books). It usually depicts or focuses on a journey or a large theme or event (so the journey of Achilles, the theme of war, or the event of the Trojan War). In traditional ancient epics the main character is a hero. *enter Achilles, stage left*

Achilles is the son of the Goddess sea nymph Thetis and the mortal king, Peleus. Initially Thetis was one of Zeus’ many loves but a prophecy that stated that the son of Thetis would be more powerful than his father led Zeus to marry Thetis off to Peleus (to ensure that this unborn son did not pose a threat to the king of the Gods).

As an apology to Thetis for making her marry a mortal man, Zeus throws Thetis and Peleus a huge, massive, over the top (basically Indian) wedding. Out of all the Gods and Goddesses only Eris, the Goddess of strife, is not invited. Which is understandable, because why would you want Strife at a wedding? Eris gatecrashes the wedding and holds up a golden apple and says that the apple belongs to the fairest of the goddesses. Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera all claim that the apple should be theirs. Zeus is too much of a pussy to chose which goddess the apple should go to and so he sends them to the Trojan Prince, Paris for judgment. This whole side myth, by the way, is called ‘The Judgement of Paris’

Okay so Paris, that’s a whole other story. Paris is the son of the Trojan King and Queen, Priam and Hecuba. Before his birth, Hecuba received a prophecy about her son too. Her prophecy stated that the child she would have would be a burning torch that set fire to Troy. After giving birth to the baby Paris, she left him on Mount Ida to die. However, he was adopted by a shepherd and brought up as his son. At some point he returns to Troy and reminds his mum that she left him on a mountain (although I don’t know how he knew that) and despite the prophecy Priam and Hecuba took him back in.

Back to the main plot. The three goddesses (Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera) go to Paris and ask him who is the fairest, each promising a gift if he chooses them. Athena says that she will bring him success in war, Hera says she will bring him political power, and Aphrodite promises him the most beautiful woman as his wife. For those amongst you already familiar with the story, I of course am referring to Helen of Sparta. Paris travels to Sparta on a diplomatic mission where the beautiful Helen is married to the most powerful of all the Greek kings- Menelaus. After the mission is complete, Menelaus leaves Sparta for some foreign business, leaving Helen to entertain the Trojans. It is at this point that Paris kidnaps Helen and takes her to Troy.

Now Helen is of course famed for being the most beautiful woman alive, but she was also a daughter of Zeus. When the time came for her to marry she had many suitors (such as Patroclus), but Menelaus was chosen. Odysseus suggested that all the unsuccessful suitors take a blood oath that if there ever came a time that Helen was in danger, they would all bring their men to protect her. That is why the armies of so many Greek kingdoms arrive in Troy (to fight alongside Menelaus and to save Helen). Fun fact! Achilles was never proposed as a suitor for Helen and so he wasn’t contractually obliged to be in Troy, he just went for the glory (and probably for Patroclus too). Oh and also because Odysseus told him that if he didn’t go he would look like a wimp.

The Iliad begins exactly one decade into the Trojan War (I’m not joking they have literally been there for ten whole years- I can’t make this shit up). When the poem takes off both sides are weary from war, but the Greek have just won a small battle victory- abducting two women- Chryseis and Briseis. And it is after the abduction of these two women that Book One takes place.

I’m not kidding, explaining this to my dad has been an entire Olympic Sport. I think me asking him to read it has just opened up the door to him questioning every single one of my life choices! But hopefully you all found that a lot more digestible. Hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend :)

~Z

#classical studies #classics #greek mythology #ancient rome #ancient greece #dark acamedia #roman mythology #hellenic deities #ancient world #history #homer’s iliad #the iliad #my dad was like #wtf is this #wtf is happening #my child is fine #patrochilles #paris #the aeneid

[myexmothoughts]

my parents solution to not liking gay people is to avoid them

#we’re on vacation currently and today was the pride parade/celebration in the city we’re in #we rode the subway #so many queer people. it was amazing (in my opinion) #anyway #my dad was like #‘if i had realized today was the gay pride parade we wouldn’t have taken the subway’ #exmo #exmormon #pimo #too bad he can’t avoid me or my older sibling haha #ALSO the way my parents when referring to pride month say ‘gay pride month’ #(or similar depending on what ‘gay pride’ thing they’re talking about) #every single time they say it #i think is kind of hilarious

[ocdhuacheng]

back home with my parents but now i dont know which box i packed my laptop and tablet charger in lmfao -_-

#Also when we were unpacking the car #my dad was like #’back in New York. Da greatest fucking city in the world’ completely unironically and despite the fact that we aren’t even in the city #He’s so fucking Italian it’s hilarious #.txt

[roimp]

oh how much I've missed staying up late on my laptop not worrying about anyone coming in anytime lmfao

#infact!!!!! #my dad was like #if you want stay up at night idc #so like #dad like kind of literally gave me permission right ajshsjdh #so yeah #gargi is keysmashing

[sheisbeautyweareworldass]

pspspspspsps louis can u announce next year's afhf location too pls 😅

#my dad was like #if u want to travel to another south american country next year you can. ur brohter will be 18 so he can with you+ #just decide it with some antecedence so we can start paying for it 👍 #and im so torn 😭😭 like what if i decide to travel to peru and three months before the festival louis announces it's going to be in chile #i cant plan a trip in 3 months so it's just a shot in the dark 😭😭😭 #yes this is me already sure it's going to be in latam everyone point out and laugh at me it's okay

[cactuseri]

collection

#seri.txt #these just made me laugh idk 😭 my mom and dad r also both like this #idk if someone’s posted these before but idc #seri’s hits

[mo-mode]

AU where Mr. D claiming to be Percy’s dad accidentally counts as Claiming according to Greek god law or whatever and now all the other gods legitimacy believe Percy is his son, but if Mr. D corrects it, he has to explain to Zeus why he pretended he was Percy’s dad so now he’s like “YEP ol’ Perry Johansson is MY child wowie just look at the little fry, you have your mother’s eyes. Please stop standing next to water or you will blow my cover”

Meanwhile Poseidon is just standing off to the side like “how on earth did I dodge THAT bullet”

#EVEN BETTER if Mr D tries to keep his cover by actually treating him like a son #Clarisse doesn’t mess with him cuz after the toilet fiasco Mr D is like “I will feed you to my cult young lady!! good job Peter :) #Percy is like “hey dad why can I control water “and Mr D is like …ever heard of that guy that turned it to wine?? #Mr D: PLEASE just help me I can’t keep it a secret for much longer Mr. Brunner: you told him his brother was JESUS??? #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson the lightning thief #dionysus #Mr D

[bananonbinary]

for ages i thought i didnt like drag because of internalized homophobia but it turned out i just don't like bright lights and loud music and really visually complicated things

spd is homophobic i guess is what im saying

#i fucking hate live shows of any sort #every time my dad dragged me to one as a little kid i was miserable the whole time #i like to consume things from a tiny rectangle on my computer screen and nothing bigger than that

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

#idk what to tag this #worldbuilding #writing fiction #historical fiction #fantasy #a real-life example: my dad (a pediatrician) was once entrusted with the care of a baby who was born with a rare condition #this was in a place without great hospital/medical access and anyway they were going to fly the baby over #and he specifically asked them to bring the mother and baby #they show up with baby and...the baby's uncle #and he was like. y'all. do you think I asked for the mom to come just for fun??? We don't have formula here. what is the baby going to eat?

[july-19th-club]

seriously have been thinking about this all night long. call me autistic but the fact that 90% of workplaces the point is not to get your work done and then be done doing it but to instead perform an elaborate social dance in which you find something to do even when you're done doing everything you need to do in order to show your fellow workers that you, too, are Working . because you are at Work . disgusting why cant we all agree that if there is no work immediately to be done. we just dont do anything

#i personally like to not be doing things constantly at all times. it stresses me out #i know there are ppl who thrive on cosntant activity #but me i like to chill out. #and the problem then becomes that i only ACTIVELY remember to do work and Find More Work To Do when im stressed #at the thought that others might want to see me working #if im ever relaxed i just dont look for stuff to do #catch 22 of modern work culture which permeates even ostensibly noncapitalist structures like public libraries #for instance: will it really kill anybody if the books get shelved by me now after a very busy day? #or shelved tomorrow morning by. well probably me since i'll be the one at the desk #not in the slightest #but it was work that wasnt being immediately done by me. therefore it was incorrect behavior #that i failed to identify because my instinct is to relax when not immediately presented with a Situation #this got me labeled as 'having no initiative' by my dad from a very early age #and even as an adult i still feel like im a child with no initiative

[krasnyel]

regular ascot-loving-mystery-solving family

#idk this idea just couldn’t leave my brian for like two days so i had to do something about it #philip is the other dad #knives out #glass onion #benoit blanc #scooby doo #fred jones #krasnyel post #fanart #artists on tumblr #digital aritst

[eternallovers65]

Ngl if I had a child with Poseidon, the God of the Seas, and had to pay swimming lessons for my son because he was scared of water, I'd be cursing Poseidon forever like you don't show up, don't pay child support and now you can't even help your actual ocean spawn to swin????

#like my girl sally a saint because you could see she wanted to tell him so bad he would be okay because hes poseidon son #dead beat dad indeed omd #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo tv show #percy jackson #poseidon

[thelostmoongazer]

Undivided attention

#if your subcribed to my patreon you would have seen this early #check pinned for my patreon if you want early access to stuff like this! #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk fanart #lmk sun wukong #lmk mk #moon art #digital #comic #long post #context to this is that i like dad!wukong head canons #and i like to think that wukong took care of mk for the first couple of years of his life before he dropped him on pigsy's doorstep

[soldrawss]

Watching and Dreaming doodles cause im 🥺🥰

#my art #toh #the owl house #toh hunter #toh willow #toh gus #toh darius #toh huntlow #huntlow #toh winter #the owl house spoilers #toh spoilers #toh season 3 #before you comment that gus already has a tattoo #i know #but i like my hc anyway let me live #and darius is very much hunters dad now i take no criticism or comments #and obviously im speechless at the huntlow i just love them so much

[elucubrare]

when i have to do the captchas that ask you to pick all squares that have, say, a bus in them, but the bus is broken up over different squares, my brain goes through a horrible detour of a mix between Wittgenstein's duckrabbit and Quine's gavagai: is a square that has the edge of a bus's mirror "a square with a bus"? surely it's a) a question of interpretation as to when a piece of a bus becomes enough of a bus to call it a bus and b) a question of idiolect, mediated through common usage, as to whether that detached bus part is a bus. this all takes about half a second. then i fuck up the captcha for unrelated reasons.

#posts for no one #why am i like this? well my dad....

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

#writeblr #warm up #this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru #but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist #ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school. #like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it. #was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes. #but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create'' #when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work #part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just #like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent. #speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r #ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week #this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice. #''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism #imagine if we said that about literally any other profession. #''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt? #u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky'' #we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY #''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''