Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2020 22:32:48 GMT
- - - - - better not to quench your thirst - O R I G I N "Persephone? Oh, yeah, it's an unusual name. My mom just loved the myth. I'll try to tell it as well as she does, but no promises... So Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, Goddess of harvests and fertility. She was a beautiful, naive little thing, who attracted all sorts of suitors, most notably Hades. Of course, Hades is the god of the Dead-- not death itself, common misconception! Anyhow, grumpy old antisocial Hades was so besotted with young Persephone, he practically melted at the sight of her. So he asks Demeter for her hand, and she tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck off. Of course this doesn't do, and Hades decides to kidnap her. Demeter was distraught to find her precious daughter missing, searching high and low for her. Eventually she heard of her fate, and though the other gods tried their best to convince her that it was a prestigious thing to be wed to Hades, she wouldn't hear of it. Grieving for her loss, she stopped her duties at once, which led to harvests failing, plants dying out, and eventually, widespread famine. This made it Zeus' problem, and he had to intervene between his former lover and his brother. Meanwhile, Persephone was spending her days crying endlessly, refusing to engage with Hades at all. Eventually, he managed to convince the weeping goddess to eat a few seeds from a pomegranate. Remember how I said she was a little naive? Well, she didn't know that this was a specific fruit to the Underworld, and by eating them she tied herself to it and, by extension, to Hades' side. She was stuck. However, with crops still dying and Demeter still raging, Zeus and Hades struck a deal. Persephone would stay with Hades for half the year, returning to Demeter for the second half-- when she would allow crops to grow and plants to flourish. Of course, this is meant to explain the changing seasons. There's a second meaning too, and it's this one my mom leaned towards....it's difficult to explain, but put simply, it explains the grief of a mother losing her daughter to marriage and a new family. Did you know that the mother-daughter bond has been proven to be the strongest emotional bond in nature? Well, my mom named me Persephone because she's been worried about losing me to a man since day 1. The older I get, the more I see why she worried." - - - - - better not to be the first one diving in - F A V O R I T E S - - - - - your brown eyes are my blue skies -
- - - - - let tonight pass us by - "Something about the Persephone myth that people often get wrong is her relationship with Hades. Okay sure, he kidnapped her and dragged her away from her mother, only to hold the Goddess of Spring in the Underworld, sans any daylight at all. That gets bad PR. But the truth is, after Persephone settled in and the agreement with her mom was made, she learned to love Hades, she unlocked a side of him no one knew was there. Unlike his philandering brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Hades worshipped the ground Persephone walked on, treating her as the Queen she rightfully was. In all of the incestuous, adulterous Pantheon, it's Persephone and Hades who have the truest relationship, the most enduring love. Besides, Demeter was overbearing anyhow - I know from experience how a rescue can be mistaken for an abduction." "Contrary to popular belief, I got my first acting break at home. For all my mom's fears of the outside world and what it would do to corrupt me, she never thought to look inside her own house, to view the man she married when I was ten through the same lens she viewed every other man through. Not wanting to upset her, I never told her the truth, never breathed a word of what was happening to anyone. Not the hot, beery breath on my neck, the fumbles, the whispered threats to stay silent. I kept it all to myself, forcing smiles at the breakfast table and keeping up my academic overachieving. I was lucky to have a great group of friends, they were my solace. Though I didn't tell them what was going on, I could stay at Emily's for sleepovers on weekends, could convince them to stay with me in the library while I studied. After years of avoidance they knew I didn't like going home but they assumed it was because my mom was so strict on me, so pushy academically. It was that perception that I think drew Tripp and I closer. At first we were friendly, of course, being part of the same group, but different - I was committed to school, nervous around weed, the Hermione of the group. It was so opposite to Tripp that I bemused him and he made me nervous, so whilst we got on, I wouldn't say we spent a lot of time one on one. That changed. As my stepfather's advances grew more frequent and severe, Tripp coincidentally showed more interest. We'd sit next to each other at the movies, he'd give me rides home, our constant texts grew to late night, long, whispered phone calls. He kept me going. He told me stories about Sylvie, masking his stress with humour. I told him about my mom, about how she nearly fainted when, years ago, a boy called asking to speak to me. It was pure escapism. I never wanted to be at home, not with him, but with Tripp on the end of the phone I could pretend I was somewhere else, that that had all been a dream. Things came to a head one night when Carl had been drinking excessively, even by his own standards. My mom was away and he had broken my bedroom door while I was out, pissed that I'd had a lock put on it. That encounter was one of the worst of my life, and though I still didn't say anything when I spoke to Tripp later on that night, he knew something was up. Without hanging up and without telling me what he was doing, he drove over at 4am when he then insisted on me packing a bag and coming with him. Turns out his increased interest wasn't coincidental. Tripp is one of the most emotionally intelligent people I've ever met, or at least, he was. He saved me, and though to this day my mom thinks he's the devil, I still think of him as my guardian angel. He's my Hades." - - - - - got you in the undertow - P E R C E P T I O N S public - smart, switched on, dedicated, educated, feminist, outspoken, egalitarian, politically savvy, politically engaged, loyal, honest, direct, dedicated, determined, sweet, reserved, composed, standoffish, opinionated, pushy, polite, self effacing, self inserting, sanctimonious, agenda wielding liberal. |
lex , bridget s , famous |