Someone said this to me months ago, and I keep meaning to blog about it and I keep squirreling.
I mean, first of all, a myth is just that. A myth. These creatures are not real….allegedly.
When I was in the first grade, we made paper mache dinosaurs. My classmate’s mother (who ended up being my art teacher in high school) would come and volunteer her time every quarter. She would bring all kinds of sht for us to do and make, which really made an impact on me.
I chose to make a purple Brachiosaurus with pink polka dots. I remember the teacher saying “no, dinosaurs were green.” My art teacher was like “no, this is good…we don’t know what color they were, so she can make the purple with pink polka dots one.”
So I did. I made it, and I got all kinds of shit about that, but whatever. Because now, scientists have started to theorize that not only did dinosaurs possibly have feathers, but they were probably….wait for it…COLORFUL. Suck on that, teacher.
Everyone who knows me is fully aware that I have been obsessed with Medusa specifically since I was a small child. I saw Clash of the Titans when HBO aired it in the eighties, and that was it for me.
I never saw Medusa as a scary monster, but the opposite. Even as a kid, I was like “so….this dude just rolled up on her island where she was alone and not fking bothering anyone was like lol, I’m here to take ur head? That’s bullsht.” Srs.
Unfortunately for young me, my peers did not share that sentiment. The lady who raised me was fking mortified when she found that I had “wasted good notebook paper” on ten pages of Medusa paper dolls. Which I drew during class while I listened to my teacher lecture about like, math or whatever.
I was quiet. Then when she left, I drew more.
Anyway, the older I got, the more I started thinking about all of these myths and fantasy creatures we have all grown to know and love. I decided I didn’t care for the designs, attributes, etc, and made my own. I wasn’t trying to do anything revolutionary or edgy for the sake of, I was just like “okay, why do elves all have to look like that? Can’t they be like, half tree or whatever and like have leaves for a face? Do unicorns have to be a horse, can they be like a person with a horn and like little praying mantis legs or whatever?”
Gorgons, obviously…are my favorite. I know there are accounts that state Medusa was a real queen, so I didn’t want to touch upon that, because that history belongs to a culture that isn’t mine. So, I decided to intertwine it with my heritage, which is French/Irish/Welsh/Scottish/English. Mostly French, of course.
The snakes for hair was the first to go – Gorgons are a serpentine race, but the snakes are a spectral extension of their energy/divine gift and appear as a crown of sorts. They’re not present all the time. No turning to stone, no like tail instead of legs, but I did keep the wings.
As for the wings, my Gorgons don’t just “fly” everywhere, because they don’t have to. They’ve gotten used to modern conveniences like cars, planes, etc, for long-distance travel or whatever, but they do still use the wings. Think in terms of Sérisse’s grandchildren/great grandchildren are about to dump an entire bucket of purple glitter paint into her massive saltwater pool and she has to get there before they fk her shit up.
So, obviously, she flies down from her second story balcony and intervenes. Usually too late, though. Mainly because she was too busy kissing her wife and ignoring:
“MéMère, we make yow pool puwple”
And
“MéMère, watch me dwop this gwittew in the shawwow end!”
Also, this going right over her head:
“Sérisse, Mes Bebes…the pool, they gonna put the paint in…non, Serisse, you hear what I saying? Non, non, I not saying I want paint pool, non, stop the kiss one moment, Sérisse….I telling you bebes dumping glitter in pool…right now…”
And no, the toddlers are not unsupervised at the pool, thank you very much. Their Grandmother Charlestre is out there with them, assisting them in destroying her Mamma’s property. Because when Sérisse gets flustered it’s funny, and this family pranks each other like no tomorrow.
So yeah, my imaginary friends look and behave how I want them to.
Because I do what I want.