okayophelia: Archetypes | THE TRICKSTER See him hiding in plain sight, with charm and flair, smoking your cigarettes and drinking all the rum, promising you the moon with one face and stealing your immortal soul and your pocketwatch with the other. The trickster more often than not cannot be understood, merely guessed at, for he wears many masks and takes delight in playing the fool to make greater fools of others. He is a black hole at the centre of the story with many reflecting facets, a blind spot in the hero’s vision, sucking up all the love and light and truth and turning them into shining rupturing distractions. He is a gateway to transformation and the underworld, with chaos at his right hand and death at his left, and a terrible whimsy in between. Change is the song he sings, and chaos the ruin that he wreaks. Like a particularly toothsome shark, he will never stop moving onward. He cannot abide any absolute or rule, will rattle at the cages of authorities until they come tumbling down. He likes to watch worlds crashing and burning and whirling like a whizzing firecracker with them. He has no care for good or evil, no need for the usual vices and virtues of humanity. Where others see fate and patterns, morality and honour, gods and righteousness, he sees only lies stretched over mayhem, and plays with them like a child playing cat’s cradle. Lies are his mother tongue, and with them he shapes and reshapes himself and the world to his liking. He may be destructive or merry, precise or bacchanalian, dealing out death or candy or all at once, but he is never, ever tame. He has no means but chaos, no plan but disorder, no motive but winning whatever fickle game he is playing against the universe, and so may be left standing alone in a burning wreckage that he never intended to create. (He will probably laugh for the flames anyway). He charms, he whittles at wills, he holds up a mirror to your soul and will twist your mind until everything you see is so warped you will trust only him to speak the truth. And the truth he will speak; only just enough truth to fit his purpose best. He is not a guide; though he may become one by chance or boredom. Humanity is a fascination for him; an ongoing project. He may hate, or he may love, but only in strange ways unbound from traditional emotion, from right or respect or truth, but in creeping, crawling, manic ways that burn and turn the object of his love inside out; that sends them howling mad into the abyss until they destroy themselves or come out the other side burned clean, like earth scorched and made fertile to grow things not seen ever before.  What he desires above all else is to be free, free to pursue his pleasures in all their caprice and recklessness through the playground of the world. Yet often, in the end, he is bound for his crimes against nature. He will always rise again. Change is his game. Examples: The Devil, Hannibal, Jack Sparrow, Tyler Durden, Loki (when he’s not trying to rule the world), Robin Goodfellow, Iago, Prometheus, Howl Jenkins, the Doctor, Alice Morgan, Moriarty, Anansi, Coyote, The Joker. High-res

okayophelia:

Archetypes | THE TRICKSTER

See him hiding in plain sight, with charm and flair, smoking your cigarettes and drinking all the rum, promising you the moon with one face and stealing your immortal soul and your pocketwatch with the other. The trickster more often than not cannot be understood, merely guessed at, for he wears many masks and takes delight in playing the fool to make greater fools of others. He is a black hole at the centre of the story with many reflecting facets, a blind spot in the hero’s vision, sucking up all the love and light and truth and turning them into shining rupturing distractions. He is a gateway to transformation and the underworld, with chaos at his right hand and death at his left, and a terrible whimsy in between. Change is the song he sings, and chaos the ruin that he wreaks. Like a particularly toothsome shark, he will never stop moving onward.

He cannot abide any absolute or rule, will rattle at the cages of authorities until they come tumbling down. He likes to watch worlds crashing and burning and whirling like a whizzing firecracker with them. He has no care for good or evil, no need for the usual vices and virtues of humanity. Where others see fate and patterns, morality and honour, gods and righteousness, he sees only lies stretched over mayhem, and plays with them like a child playing cat’s cradle. Lies are his mother tongue, and with them he shapes and reshapes himself and the world to his liking. He may be destructive or merry, precise or bacchanalian, dealing out death or candy or all at once, but he is never, ever tame. He has no means but chaos, no plan but disorder, no motive but winning whatever fickle game he is playing against the universe, and so may be left standing alone in a burning wreckage that he never intended to create. (He will probably laugh for the flames anyway).

He charms, he whittles at wills, he holds up a mirror to your soul and will twist your mind until everything you see is so warped you will trust only him to speak the truth. And the truth he will speak; only just enough truth to fit his purpose best. He is not a guide; though he may become one by chance or boredom. Humanity is a fascination for him; an ongoing project. He may hate, or he may love, but only in strange ways unbound from traditional emotion, from right or respect or truth, but in creeping, crawling, manic ways that burn and turn the object of his love inside out; that sends them howling mad into the abyss until they destroy themselves or come out the other side burned clean, like earth scorched and made fertile to grow things not seen ever before. 

What he desires above all else is to be free, free to pursue his pleasures in all their caprice and recklessness through the playground of the world. Yet often, in the end, he is bound for his crimes against nature. He will always rise again. Change is his game.

Examples: The Devil, Hannibal, Jack Sparrow, Tyler Durden, Loki (when he’s not trying to rule the world), Robin Goodfellow, Iago, Prometheus, Howl Jenkins, the Doctor, Alice Morgan, Moriarty, Anansi, Coyote, The Joker.

(via itsonlypretendingtobeachandelier)

Reblogged from okayophelia
} Date Posted: 4 days ago

The Importance of Being Earnest

  • Jack: How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins, when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
  • Algernon: Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
  • Jack: I say it's perfectly heartless you're eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
  • Algernon: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.
Reblogged from dangerouslymauve
} Date Posted: 1 week ago
the-library-and-step-on-it: FROM THE VAULTS: Greek Mythology Reworked Ulysses, James Joyce She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free. The Secret History, Donna Tartt It’s a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood I picture the gods, diddling around on Olympus, wallowing in the nectar and ambrosia and the aroma of burning bones and fat, mischievous as a pack of ten-year-olds with a sick cat to play with and a lot of time on their hands. ‘Which prayer shall we answer today?’ they ask one another. ‘Let’s cast the dice! Hope for this one, despair for that one, and while we’re at it, let’s destroy the life of that woman over there by having sex with her in the form of a crayfish!’ I think they pull a lot of their pranks because they’re bored. The Early Poems, Alfred Lord Tennyson It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew Endymion, John Keats Until, from the horizon’s vaulted side, There shot a golden splendour far and wide,Spangling those million poutings of the brine With quivering ore: ‘twas even an awful shine From the exaltation of Apollo’s bow; A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller “Name one hero who was happy.” I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. “You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. “I can’t.” “I know. They never let you be famous AND happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.”

the-library-and-step-on-it:

FROM THE VAULTS:

Greek Mythology Reworked

Ulysses, James Joyce

She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

It’s a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves?

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood

I picture the gods, diddling around on Olympus, wallowing in the nectar and ambrosia and the aroma of burning bones and fat, mischievous as a pack of ten-year-olds with a sick cat to play with and a lot of time on their hands. ‘Which prayer shall we answer today?’ they ask one another. ‘Let’s cast the dice! Hope for this one, despair for that one, and while we’re at it, let’s destroy the life of that woman over there by having sex with her in the form of a crayfish!’ I think they pull a lot of their pranks because they’re bored.

The Early Poems, Alfred Lord Tennyson

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Endymion, John Keats

Until, from the horizon’s vaulted side, 
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine 
With quivering ore: ‘twas even an awful shine 
From the exaltation of Apollo’s bow; 
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

“Name one hero who was happy.” 
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. 
“You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. 
“I can’t.” 
“I know. They never let you be famous AND happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” 
“Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. 
“I’m going to be the first.”

(via henryclervals)

Reblogged from the-library-and-step-on-it
} Date Posted: 1 week ago

Sometimes

nedhepburn:

when I start a book and then put it aside for a while, I think that the characters within it are stuck doing whatever they were doing where I stopped reading. 

I’ve left one poor man stuck in the desert for six weeks, is what I’m trying to tell you. 

Reblogged from nedhepburn
} Date Posted: 1 week ago