Bestie. How dare you leave “do not mock the life preserver…” in the tags.

@onewingedsparrow

Taylor Tomlinson, Look At You (2022) Netflix special

Soon after you begin your quest, you encounter another man in a similar situation. You decide to join forces, as two mortal men stand a better chance at punching Zeus than one.

Two villages over, you encounter a woman who had relations with Zeus and was left with a highly aggressive half-boar half-man offspring. She too feels your anger and offers to join your quest.

By the time you reach Mount Olympus, you’ve amassed a large and formidable army of cuckolded/ravished mortals, demigods with daddy issues, mythical creatures with scores to settle, and a seamstress who you’re pretty sure is Hera in disguise.

Zeus never stood a chance.

What I find best about this scenario is that the original wife probably expected to be murdered for her infidelity at worst or have her relationship with her husband ruined as he grew to resent her baby, at best.

Instead this man looked at his beloved and said, “who did it?”

And she replied “Zeus,” accepting he probably wouldn’t believe her.

And then he sighed, strapped his sandals back on and said, “I’ll be back before the baby is born.”

“Where are you-?”

“The lord of the sky came into my house, molested my wife in my bed and ate my food. I am going to settle the score.”

“Darling, he’ll kill you.”

“He may try, if he would like.”

You’re so right, that IS the best part.

I’m personally caught up on the seamstress.

“The pathway up Olympus is guarded by dozens of traps and perils strong enough to thwart even the Titans. How are we going to get past all of…” the shepherd boy with golden eagle feathers gestured uselessly at the slopes above them, particularly the herd of eight-legged goats snorting fire.

“There’s a way around,” Yiorgos said, though he was not specifically asked. But he had been the first to begin the march on Olympus, and so felt obligated to take the lead whenever possible, “In the stories there’‘s always a way around whatever obstacles the Gods place in our way.”

He hadn’t meant the words to come out as a question, but they had that lilt to them none-the-less. And even though he hadn’t meant it to be a question, much less a question directed at anyone specific, it was directed at one all the same. Just as the eagle-feathered shepherd boy’s had.

“Way I heard it,” a woman’s voice said. Rough with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a backwoods accent, and with the depth of a farmer’s wife who straps cattle to her back to carry to market, “there’s a back path. Hidden behind an invisible door that only one key in the world can open.”  Everyone’s eyes had turned to the broad older woman in heavy shawl sitting amidst supplies in the foremost cart. “Least, that’s what my grand-mammy always told me.” she added after a moment of dozens of eyes on her.

“Oh, we were so foolish!” That was Lydia, a lithe waif of a woman, many months pregnant, sitting opposite the seamstress in the wagon. “Of course there’d be a.. a quest. They’d keep such a key in the depths of Tartarus or in the golden chariot of Apollo, or, or-”

“Or”, the older woman cut her off in a voice both firm, but much gentler than she used on anyone else, “he’s like all husbands and has been promising to move the key someplace better for the past three thousand years but hasn’t gotten around to it.”  She gestured vaguely to the hillside, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under, say, that bush right over there.”

It was. Of course. And everyone in the caravan agreed that it had been a very lucky and wise guess from the nameless woman and for the upteenth time since she first sat herself down in the front wagon and announced she was coming along with no further explanation, each and every last member very purposefully gave no further thought to the matter.

Okay, but this actually has been done as a graphic novel–it’s called ‘Epicurus the Sage’, and it came out back in 1991. It was written by Bill Messner-Loebs, and drawn by Sam Kieth, and it looks a little something like this:

The first volume is about Epicurus helping to save the Earth from eternal winter by brokering a compromise between Demeter and Hades regarding his wife Persephone (who’s a lot more into the relationship than she’s traditionally depicted, but the second one is about him finding the many mortal paramours of Zeus and confronting him about the damage his infidelity has caused to them. It’s very funny, it’s got a ton of great jokes about Greek philosophy and Greek myth (they defeat the Hundred-Eyed Argus who never sleeps by convincing Plato to explain his ideal republic to it until it finally nods off) and it really deserves more attention.

you have no idea what you are in for

There is nothing moral or ethical about tormenting a person with dementia and the fact that this has to be said is astounding

People like this are more upset they never got the chance to be bullies and abusers than anything else and just can't wait to have the chance to hold power against the vulnerable

also uhhhhhh elder abuse is just as bad as child abuse??? that's a vulnerable person who cannot defend themself and who doesn't even remember why you are doing that. did no one ever teach you "an eye for an eye leaves the world blind"?? Jesus fuck

When my mother in law, who was a complex, intelligent person but a terrible mother, developed dementia, we took care of her as well as she could possibly be taken care of, not for her sake but for the sake of the voice in my husband's head that would echo her words to him in childhood. We can tell that voice, "he was a better son than she ever was a mother"

Interestingly the more she declined, the better she was to him. It doesn't negate the harm she did when he was a kid, but he walked away from her death knowing he'd done his best.

It helped that we inherited a fair amount of money from her but it wasn't why we did it.

This does not mean you are obligated to take care of people who were awful to you, but breaking the cycle on purpose is good, whatever that looks like.

Human beings deserve care, even if we don't like them. No one deserves abuse.

And if a chance for compassion and seeing the complexity of a person and finding some peace in their old age is possible, that is better for you in the long run than holding your fury longer than you need it.

We could have made her miserable. She probably deserved him walking away. But he deserves knowing that he is so much better a person, as both a parent and a child, than she ever knew how to be.

i think any time you form a sentence that looks like "... you get no human rights" you should stop and think real hard about what you just said and whether you have understood what the concept of a human right is.