If I could, I think I would devour you

Suppliant my children's murderer to implore, And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore

- mom i’m tired

and mahmoud darwish said ‘and if happiness should surprise you again, do not mention its previous betrayal.

fawzul himaya hareed (@milodrama) reimagining shame, on writing and being seen (link to substack) \\ @allsadnshit \\ alyse leah angélique des francs on lirr train \\ sam sax xenotransplantation (via @cloudswamp) \\ liana finck

Myths were created with certain intents- to explain creation, why some things in nature were the way they were, reinforce the rules of obeying your father (which is why Persephone stays with hades, because Zeus, the deadbeat dad of the century but still her father, gave her away) and honouring the gods. That’s the reason why the Greeks made the myths. And the myths aren’t meant to be bedtime stories either, they show the cruelty of the time (not that the Greeks found this particularly wrong, they just needed a good way to explain spring).

Needing Persephone to be strong through her love and freedom erases or implies that by just surviving as a woman in this situation (or in most situations, esp in Ancient Greece) she was not already strong. 

In theory, I am fine with modern retellings. Culture and stories adapt. 

The issue with the Persephone myth is that the story is not adapted to give Persephone freedom, but to relieve Hades of wrongdoing. Sometimes I feel it’s intentional in the retelling, sometimes I feel it’s more subconscious. 

People like the aesthetic of the relationship, they like love, and they like male protagonists (we’re so used to putting ourselves in the shoes of men it’s only natural that we gravitate to their characters and try to defend them). Hades is made pitiable in retellings. Persephone is made into his girlfriend who wants to unlock his trauma and take care of him. This is a common trope in media, powerful yet broken or sad men being tended by younger and kinder women (off the top of my head think 50 Shades of Grey). People focus on his trauma, even make up trauma for him, and sweep the trauma of the women in the original story under the carpet. See? Hades isn’t bad! He’s misunderstood and abused by his brothers and is a kind and gentle man. Look! He didn’t kidnap her! She loved him and they planned it, or maybe he did but it was accidental. Notice! Hades is not abuser! In fact, Persephone is the boss of him, and takes care of him like a strong and good (and stereotypical) wife!

If the story was really about giving strength to women, then Demeter wouldn’t be constantly written as a one dimensional obsessive mother. In the myth Persephone begs for her mother to save her, because the Greek men of myth are scary and usually violent rapists (Demeter is even raped herself by Poseiden while looking for Persephone). Turning a story’s villain(s) from an abusive father and husband as well as a hoard of onlookers (like Helios) who do nothing to save a young woman from abduction as she screams out for aid, into an overprotective mother is not a change that’s empowering, but one that is sexist and wrong.

I haven’t seen an adaptation, or at least a popular one, that makes the story about a mother and daughter having to be clever, smart, and secretly powerful in order to return to each other after being forced apart by men who find their needs for sex, for women, for dowery, for anything and everything more important. A retelling like that would give strength to women. Maybe Minthe could be rewritten as something else than just another jealous bitch, or as Persephone’s secret girlfriend who tries to relieve her from Hades’s constant need and attention, or as literally anything else. 

Joan of arc is a very popular figure in media so her image is subject to a lot of bending. Sometimes it’s very subtle, and other times it’s very apparent. There’s no official pictures or paintings of her that survived from her time, but there are several trial transcripts that describe her, as well as first hand reports and letters from those who worked beside her that do the same.

The general consensus within these that I found on her appearance was that Joan was pretty short and stocky. Her eyes were far apart, and somewhat large, her hair was black/dark brown and close cut, and she had a fairly common looking face. Multiple people report that she had a red birthmark behind her left ear and a low but sweet voice. A surprising amount is written about her physical strength despite her small stature. I would suggest you read De Boulainvilliers’ (Chamberlain to Charles VII) letters, among others. He knew her first hand and goes into a lot of depth about her appearance and aura.

A big part of her rebranding is making her seem older, more feminine, paler, and blonder. Due to color/racism as well as light representing purity, renditions of her make her whiter (she was a poor farmer from mid/south France which means she was on the darker side of white complexions) to show holiness. People also make her more feminine due to stigma against women who “don’t look like women” and to lean into her Virgin Mary esk aura.