#Aaaaaaaaa I Love Them, AAAAAAA :^)

#Aaaaaaaaa i love them, AAAAAAA :^)

You can tell I was too lazy to make a Phineus design lol

Audio from berleezy

If you're only drawing what you find attractive on a basic level, you're missing out on a core lesson visual art teaches both artist and viewer. All forms can be beautiful and all forms can be grotesque.

Importantly, the human body's forms can be, through visual art moreso than in real life where they are connected to a person, exalted. Through art you can show the beauty in any body's forms. And that, even if the person interacting with the art doesn't consciously recognize it, can have a positive effect on how they experience the image of their own or other people's bodies. It can be freeing, empowering.

I see it a lot with people who will only draw pretty anime men, people who will only draw portraits of attractive women, and try to explain it as "this is what I enjoy looking at, these are the forms I like and find attractive, so that's what I enjoy drawing." Again, you're missing out on that lesson, that ability to see the inherent beauty of everything. You're missing out on the lesson that a visual attraction and the recognition of beauty doesn't even need to be sexual, or romantic, or align with your sexuality and your aesthetic preferences as to the appearance of a potential romantic partner. You can learn to admire a human body in the way you admire a sunset.

need people to stop "uwu baby boy"-ing Polites

that man killed people

Homer, the entire Iliad:

I’m fine with taking creative liberties in adaptions but shifting the blame for Astyanax’s murder to Zeus instead of Odysseus (or at least Neoptolemus) has been disastrous to Trojan war discussions, bc now dumb ppl who have never read the Iliad or Odyssey or watched any adaptations of the Trojan women will think that big mean Zeus pressured poor boy dad Odysseus into killing Astyanax. As if Zeus didn’t favour Hector and was hesitant to destroy Troy.

Not to be a hater (again) but I’ve just realized that a lot of tropes used to make Medusa a tragic feminist figure accidentally circle back to being misogynistic, for example:

- Medusa being a priestess of Athena not only was this never stated by any Ancient Greek literature or even by Ovid (it’s a modernish invention) but Ovid straight up contradicts it, he says that she had many suitors meaning she was eligible to be married and was never a virgin priestess. It low key falls into the trap of making a victim of sexual violence as pure, innocent and unsexual as possible, which having suitors just wouldn’t allow, so she is made into a priestess.

- Athena was actually helping her bc girl power yeah… no. Women don’t always support women, trying whitewash what Minerva/Athena did isn’t feminist, especially if you turn around and villainize Perseus when Athena literally helped him kill Medusa.

- Medusa’s design being beautiful I’ve talked about this before but it’s really gross how a lot of Medusa designs that use her tragic backstory also really sexualize and prettify her, which goes against the whole point of challenging your audience to sympathize with a monster, bc you won’t challenge your audience if you ask them to sympathize with a pretty lady with snake makeup and hair at all. It’s also pretty unfair how a male monsters in mythology are allowed to stay monstrous and ugly while Medusa needs to remain beautiful even after Athena “cursed” her.

- Medusa being isolated which is especially frustrating to me bc she has her sisters who loved her deeply and mourned her death, but it also overshadows Danae’s story, who was actually forcibly isolated by those in power (even if you go with the version where she was locked up with her nurse she still couldn’t interact with her friends and family) and victim blamed and used by powerful men. Adding unnecessary tragedy and sexual assault to an already tragic story is something writers still do now unfortunately.

Btw you can still make sympathetic portrayals of Medusa, just don’t fall into any of these pls