vellichor

Parker’s dresses over the seasons (part ½)

An 18 year old French Résistance fighter during the Liberation of Paris, August 19, 1944.

sixofcrowsnw challenge: take two ≡ favorite non-romantic relationships (brotp)

“Jesper Llewellyn Fahey, that is enough!” Colm roared. (…)

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT YES omg sorry i love this question i love my egyptian girls they are fantastic. so i think that the most well known egyptian ladies are cleopatra, nefertiti, hatshepsut, and then for the goddesses it’s mainly the likes of isis and maybe hathor and bastet? but the underrated women are incredible too

nitocris: one of my favourites. no one is quite sure whether she’s a myth or not, but ‘as the story goes’ nitocris’ brother was the pharaoh and was murdered julius caesar style by his trusted advisers. then nitocris prepared this huge banquet for all of them and then flooded the room with the fucking nile. apparently she then ran into a burning room so that she would be executed. she’s also rumored to be the last pharaoh of the sixth dynasty? unsure, but she’s so cool regardless.

tiye: okay, where is my gritty political film about the armana dynasty and their tumultuous rule? tiye is probably better known as the mother of akhenaten, or the mother in law of nefertiti. tiye was absolutely incredible, and is definitely my favourite of the women i mention here. she was incredibly smart and strong willed, and commanded the respect of foreign dignitaries so much, that they would do business through her and not her husband. she played a huge part in international relations and was the first queen to have her name signed on official acts. she was the fierce woman king who was greatly protective of her family. even when her son took the throne after his father, she still played a massive part in egyptian political life, and was depicted in paintings as still being a very active member of akhenaten and nefertiti’s family. she outlived her husband by several years and just continued being a badass till she died.

nut: the sky goddess. i just wanted to mention her b/c from a classicists point of view, she’s so interesting? in most other mythologies, the primordial sky deity is most often male, greek/roman have ouranos/uranus, maori have rangi, vidic has dyaus pita, celtic has latobius, even christianity has a god called ‘lord of the heavens’ it’s such an accepted part of mythology that there is a sky father and an earth mother. but then the egyptians give everyone the middle finger and make a sky ‘female’ and the earth ‘male’ which i just think is pretty cool.

sekhmet and serket: the lion goddess of war and the scorpion goddess of poison. i love these two because they are absolutely cut throat!! egypt had a thing for producing women who were the most dangerous things in the universe, and sekhmet is no exception. she was also the goddess of fire, and her breath created the desert. she was married to the god of healing which was said to balance her out, but she was still the most feared goddess. serket on the other hand was less feared. she was said to be a protector from the evil snake god apep because not only could she poison, but she could also cure poison, and was said to only sting ‘bad people’.

sobekneferu: the first #confirmed female pharaoh. there’s the possibility of nitocris ruling before her, but that’s not confirmed. she’s speculated to be the woman who adopted moses, though that’s not really clear either. what is clear, is that she was pretty cool, and furthered the conquests of her father. there were also several courts that claimed to be descended from her, most importantly the dragon court. sobekneferu started a practice in which the early kings were called dragons or ‘messiah’. in fact, the whole idea of a messiah and the idea of conception without sex actually started in egypt with isis giving birth to horus but that’s kinda off topic.

modern queens | hatshepsut

“this year has been the best egypt has seen in a long time,” senenmut sat near the head of the table with a clipboard in his hand. “not only have we risen to one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but our infrastructure and healthcare has grown to become recognised at an international level, and people are calling you the best leader this country has ever had.”

hatshepsut wasn’t listening. she was looking out the window of the skyscraper, her hands clasped behind her back. her city glistened beneath her, the lights swimming at the edge of her vision. “what will people remember me by when i’m dead, senenmut?” she asked.

senenmut paused, his confusion evident in the silence. “i assume it will be your numerous triumphs and successes, like i just listed. are, are you listening?”

“men have an awful history of erasing and destorying the triumphs of women to replace them with images of themselves. nothing i did was exclusively ‘marked’ with my image, simply because i never saw it necessary. the people know who i am, what i’m doing for them, and at the time, that was enough. but what i can not stand, what i can not bear to think about, is my monuments, my kingdom, being torn down and reclaimed by someone else. it makes me sick senenmut, sick to my stomach.”

“hatshepsut,” senenmut asked carefully, “is there something going on?”

modern queens | nefertiti

“this is dangerous, akhentaten,” nefertiti said, looking at her reflection in the mirror, “you have no idea how the people will react. you have been coddled and adored by the royal family, but you do not realise that not everyone shares the same passion for change as you.”

she watched him move behind her in the mirror, straightening his tie. “you think i shouldn’t do it?” his face was impartial.

“i never said that, and you know very well that i will support you no matter what,” she ran a hand down her neck, frowning absently at the sharp line of her collarbone. “i am just saying that we must tread carefully. never underestimate the power of the public, and the way that their affections can quickly switch from one ruler to the next. if you want to change the way things are, then above all, you need to be universally and unconditionally loved.”

“you spoke to my mother.”

with a small, knowing smile, nefertiti turned to face her husband. “and no one knows more about how to rule than her.”