Five: I Married A Mannequin.

I'm a sucker for soft toonverse (though darktoonverse is also chefs kiss) and so I decided to draw them on a movie date. Lyds fell asleep though, and Beej can't help but be captivated by her, the simp.

The kind of mythology flex it is to be able to say "Hey! I'm a Real Alive Person and I was born and raised in mountain Πήλιο (Pelion), the actual mythical home of the Centaurs (and birthplace? If I'm not mistaken?)"

Because hey. I exist :)

And xenoi still think they're the rightful inheritors of Ancient Greek culture. Maddening to consider.

No bc back when I was reading Percy Jackson as a kid, I was so hurt to read the line where it said that the Greek Gods follow the path of "Πρόοδος" to the West and have "relocated to the US" or whatever. As a lil kid, my immediate reaction was

"WHY?! We're still here aren't we? Is Greece empty now? Is Olympos vacant? Why would Our Gods abandon us? What about the demigods born in Greece?"

It's a special kind of rage pain when you take into account ALL OF THE FUCKING STOLEN ANCIENT ARTIFACTS. That our culture often depicts them as being abducted. I've cried in frustration about this.

Haha, is that why everything's burning down? Because the Nyphes were (stolen?? again????) "relocated" and are no longer roaming the Greek forests? Is that why everything's flooding, because Poseidon is no longer here to regulate the Seas and Waters? Are we really Dying Off?

It's like plucking a beautiful flower from it's birthplace and trying to get it to get used to an environment it was not made to grow in. It's this level of absurdity. What the fuck.

That's why I'm a Greek Person studying Archaeology. We need more of us. Desperately.

My hands are shaking as I'm writing this and I'm slowly losing my mind about it :DDD

But to leave on a positive note. Hehe, mythology flex. I could have been born a Centaur if I really wanted to. Happily galloping away in the fields in the comfort of my own ignorance of our culture being ripped apart, dismembered and depicted as the gnarly bloody soulless mess the xenoi have made it be in mainstream media.

Ah, there's always next life. ^-^

I feel you, anon, and I've often felt the same as you. Our cultural heritage is rich and we are still here, a long line of people passing the Greek culture down. No matter what xenoi say, they will be eventually humbled by the truth if enough of us let the world know.

The PJO series did a big damage to us, matter how innocent it seems to the Westerners. If you check my #pjo and #rick riordan tags you'll see discussions about the books and of course the bigoted line "the gods abandoned Greece for the modern pillar of Western civilization, aka the US".

Hold on και καλή δύναμη!!!

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Hold on a sec

"all in all the Hellenic Republic as we know it today is a very recent concept in the large scheme of theings"

I hope you're talking about the Hellenic Republic as in the nation-state (and even then, it's not that recent), and not the people.

Because Greeks, as in, the people, didn't appear 200 years ago, nor did we conjure up an ethnic identity the moment we became a nation-state (200 years ago). We've held and preserved our ethnic identity for thousands of years. We've been Greeks for thousands of years.

"And is not a race because people of different backgrounds can have the Greek citizenship"

First of all, let's not confuse 'nationality' with 'ethnicity'. What you're talking about here is Nationality Law, which is a thing in a lot of countries, not exclusively in Greece.

Let's say I, a Greek person, became a Nigerian citizen through naturalisation. And someone decided to make a movie/show about the Yoruba deities. By your logic, some of the gods in this movie/show could very well look like me, a Greek person, or a Swedish person who is a Nigerian citizen, or a Chinese person who is a Nigerian citizen, and so on and so on.

Do you see the problem?

"And it's not the same as whitewashing"

Excuse me, your logic here; this wrong thing (whitewashing) has been happening for a while, therefore we will fight it by also doing the wrong thing (casting/designing other characters inaccurately).

How is that going to help anyone? Two wrongs don't make a right.

You say "there's not a finite amount of representation" but then you essentially say misrepresention is fine as long as it's at the expense of specific groups of people.

Your US-centric concept of race doesn't apply to every other region in the world.

When you force 'fake' diversity unto Greek mythology, not only are you erasing Greeks as an ethnic group, you're also ignoring mythologies from other cultures and of other ethnic groups, in the process.

And I find it tactless of you to police what we look like and what kind of representation befits us, in stories taken straight from our culture.

"But let's humor them for a moment"

I'd advise you not to make assumptions for a country and a people (and a culture) you're clearly not familiar with.

Once again I saw people complaining about making Greek mythology things with people who have dark skin, because they aren't "ethnically Greek". But they actually mean "racially Greek" because Ethnicity is not just skin color, it also refers to a shared culture, customs, traditions etc etc, but I digress

And before annoying people on tumblr start sending me hate messages accusing me of being racist against Greek people (again lol) for saying that is not bad for something Greek mythology related to have a couple of Dark skinned characters out of the majority light skinned characters (coughHadescough) allow me to explain

Now, Greek isn't actually a race, all in all the Hellenic Republic as we know it today is a very recent concept in the large scheme of theings. And is not a race because people of different backgrounds can have the Greek citizenship

But let's humor them for a moment

I went to Google images to search for the average Greek person and these are the results:

Now, we see here the so called "ethnically correct" way to look Greek

Light olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes

The way Greeks look, right?

Well

Surprise assholes, they are all Mexicans JAJAJAJA

And what does that mean? Are Mexicans stealing the Greek look? Are those people in Mexico stealing representation by looking like that? Wait, it's all Mexico? Always has been

No, but seriously. What does that means?

It means that Light olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes... It's a pretty common look everywhere

Yeah, even in South Africa you're going to find people looking like that

Now, mind you, not all Mexicans look like that, there are Indigenous people, Afro Mexicans, wHite Mexicans, Chinese Mexicans, etc etc

And I'm sure there are people in the Hellenic Republic that look different, with lighter skin, with darker skin, you know the drill

But that's the thing, you can't assign just one right way to look to a country, if you start assigning a race to a nationality you're on your way to create an ethnostate (which is bad mind you)

And people who complain about dark people taking away representation from them. Honey; Representation is not something that has a finite amount, if you don't like how some people make Patroclus dark skinned, you can always make your own version or support an artist that makes a representation you like instead of complaining about people who make him "not ethnically correct"

(Mind you, making Patroclus wHite isn't bad and has been done before)

Besides, making something culturally accurate about Greek culture doesn't have anything to do with race, as culture doesn't equal race

Like if somebody made something about Mexico and put Afro Mexicans or Chinese Mexicans in there, it's not taking anything away from me, because there's not a finite amount of representation

And it's not the same as whitewashing, as people complain about whitewashing because there are already A LOT of things with white people in it, and plus, complaining about whitewashing does next to nothing, as it's still happening (like how in the most recent adaptation of wuthering heights they choose a white actor for a character that's implied to be Romani)

BTW, I lied, in the picture above, two people are Greek actually and 2 are mexican (allegedly, I just found the pictures on Google, so who know where they're from really, they could be from anywhere lmao)

Farewell

I still feel like the movie slapped me in the face, so I decided to post a meme.

It didn’t help.

I had an epiphany

about Shrek 2.

And its groundbreaking character-development-foreshadowing.

We all remember ‘Accidentally in love’, the opening song, where our newlywed protagonists are having the time of their lives

There’s this lyric in the first verse:

How much longer will it take to cure this? Just to cure it, 'cause I can't ignore it if it's love (love) Makes me wanna turn around and face me

HMMMMM WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT 

OH I KNOW

Much later in the movie, when Shrek has turned human and is returning to the castle, determined to change for the woman he loves, and ‘Changes’ plays in the background

AND WE HEAR THIS:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes                                                                                      Turn and face the strange

AND THIS (although this verse isn’t in the movie but it’s still IN THE SONG):

Every time I thought I'd got it made It seemed the taste was not so sweet So I turned myself to face me But I've never caught a glimpse

I'm just saying

(my contribution to this poll)

'I’ll be the first person to call out when a person from an imperialist country is disrespectful against another culture’s traditions because this affects my everyday life.'

I see, thank you for sharing that. I repeat, however, I did not accuse you of xenophobia.

OP's post was harmless, including the tags. They were joking, they said so themselves. You're making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be.

There was an interview where Miller specifically said "I wanted to push back against Homer". That's probably what I remembered, and same logic applies. How can she compare her books to ancient writings?

As for which characters she simplified, well, I've already mentioned Patroclus. The women in 'The song of Achilles' are depicted negatively because they get in the way of Patrochilles. In general Miller sees the Gods as modern sociopaths and describes them as such. Why did Helios need to be a bad father, for example? Simply for protagonist Circe's backstory? In Circe, it often feels like all the male characters have to be abusive purely for Miller's 'feminist' narrative.

You keep forgetting what I wrote:

This isn't about all retellings being inherently bad.

Let me put it this way; I enjoy fanfiction. Fanfiction is essentially a form of retelling. But here's the thing; even in fanfiction, where you put the pre-existing characters in a story that diverges from canon, or even in an AU, the characters are still 'in character'. If their personalities are different, then what's the point? You might as well be reading about completely different characters.

'The idea that reimaginings are “bad writing” is restrictive of the medium and dismissive of plenty of great works'

I was refering to the characters' personalities. Not the entire idea of a retelling. So again, I'm not anti-art, and again, I feel you're twisting my words.

You said in your previous response 'I don’t care for misinformed reviews'. Well, I don't care for people who repeatedly distort my opinions. And I especially do not need to justify myself to them, since they will twist anything I say.

So Madeline Miller is writing a Persephone retelling. So let's make our bets about the book.

The winners will win this picture of a brick.

So let's make a bet.

A.) She will potray Demeter as an abusive mother, whaile the kidnapping will be ereased, and Hades will be baby boyfied.

B.) Hades will be potrayd as eveil incarnate, and Demeter will be potrayd as a poor poor blorbo (similar to how she potrayd Circe)

C.) Both will be potrayd as the worst. Demeter, and Hades will be potrayd as abusive, and Persephone will be potrayd as a poor poor girl who always has to suffer.

My bet is that it will be C.).

A gigantic three-headed Kokoni guarding the gates of the Underworld