#* // save.

[bandzboy]

(241028) seungkwan's instagram post

rough translation by wonujeononu on twitter

[punisheye]

Happy marriage!! ✨

(art c: @kirliq, don't use unless you're me or roo!)

[yaoist]

this was the funniest translation choice they could have made

[luvisia]

a gift from a kind person @brookefires in the official discord! ema got separated from roger during the trial and she's understandably a little upset given the circumstances

[gravesung]

cursed technique thoughts and prayers ideas since there's a new sorcerer oc on the brain

weaver? sees the weave of cursed energy and can pull on the threads to make things happen? something something red string of fate something something what is reality but threads woven something something ( might be fun to work into martial fighting — acrobat vibes?? )

head fuckery: dreams, warping perception of space/time, illusions. magnus archives vibes. liminality. eerie shit.

ghost contract — binding vows on steroids. shake their hand on any kind of agreement and you both get a mark on your body; if you break the agreement, not only do you get cursed by the laws of sorcery, but the user also . fucks with you somehow idk. this might be more fun to play with for a bastardly character tho lol (thanks blades in the dark for this inspo)

hyperattuned reason/logic? big brain deductive detective mode?? smth smth cursed energy up in ur neural business. domain expansion mind palace. access all of ur knowledge in a spatial format. makes lie detecting super easy. can maybe sense cursed energy residuals in a heightened way or smth

transmute cursed energy into elemental or electromagnetic energy? might lead into telekinesis orrrr temperature manipulation orrrrrr cool lightning shit. very versatile offensive ability but requires SHIT TONS of cursed energy to use. (imagine like. dancing sword or spiritual weapon vibes) <- might also be able to combine with the weaving idea into one thing

[yoakkemae]

🌟

[nectaric]

zeus & his family

its been a long time since i’ve talked about this, and i don’t even know if i’ve talked about it on this blog - but the time has come to address zeus’ opinions on his family, and how i have always envisioned their relationships.

on his siblings:

hestia is one of the most important people in zeus’ life, and he looks up to her immensely. he is protective of her to an extreme degree, and relies on her a lot for guidance (particularly when it comes to his own emotions). there have been times where this relationship has bordered on a little unhealthy but i think zeus has come to have a much more equal and loving relationship with her.

hades is complicated. in their youth, zeus admired and loved him a lot. as they grew older, and became separated due to duty, zeus’ struggle with his own trauma became apparent. he developed a loathing for hades born not out of spite but out of jealousy. part of him was envious of hades, of how removed he was, how he did not have to deal with the struggles of olympus or the pain that came with it. zeus was damaged and he saw hades so in control of it all (whether or not that was actually true) and it soured their relationship a lot, at no fault of hades. in modern times, i imagine the two have managed to overcome some of their troubles, but its a work in progress and zeus wants to make amends, even if he has a hard time.

poseidon, also complicated, but for different reasons. obviously, there was tension between them on account of zeus’ early days where he struggled to be a fair king, abused some of his power, and was generally a menace. then there’s the coup, where whatever trust they still had in each other was completed shattered. their relationship remained incredibly rocky for a long time, cordial at best and argumentative at worst. but following the coup, and his torture at the hands of typhoeus, zeus makes a very big effort to change. and i think somewhere down the line, they begin to mend. zeus loves his brother, even if poseidon pisses him off immensely.

demeter is one of his best friends, very much so in the only i’m allowed to make them miserable kind of way. their parting after the birth of persephone was initiated by demeter despite zeus’ own wishes, and they became good friends. zeus did what he could to provide for persephone while keeping his distance, and so they are pretty close. i like to imagine that they have a very classic sibling relationship, full of roasts w/ love and bonding over their mutual dissatisfaction at their childhood.

on his wife:

zeus loves her. despite everything they have been through, that he’s done to her and had done to him, he worships the ground she walks on. his affairs were not born out of spite or falling out of love with her, but oftentimes out of necessity or his rather impressive wealth of emotion. i like to imagine that they have reached some level of understanding and that she loves him too.

on his mother:

not much to say here other than zeus is a huge momma’s boy.

on his children:

zeus is not a perfect father. he is extremely flawed. he struggled for a long time with trauma, and paranoia, and fear. it made him emotionally distant, sometimes cruel. but zeus really does love his children - and as with the rest of his family, he has fought very hard since he chose to reform to make things right with them. he has attempted to admit to his mistakes and make them right. he has attempted to reconcile damaged relationships. it varies, of course, from child to child. he has a stronger relationship with children like athena, hermes, artemis, dionysus, eileithyia, or hebe. he has a more difficult relationship with apollo, ares, hephaestus, eris, or enyo.

he does not expect forgiveness, but he is going to keep trying to earn it with each of them, even if he struggles and fails sometimes.

regarding pjo kids: zeus loves them. zeus mourned them, sincerely, was inconsolable for ages when he lost both of them. he does what he can to protect them while remaining distant, because he has learned the hard way that involvement of any kind makes things so much worse for them. but i sort of refuse to subscribe to the idea that zeus has, at any point, been disinterested in their well-being nor that he ever intentionally tries to harm them.

tl;dr: zeus loves his family. that has always been the case, that will always be the case. he is flawed and he struggles and he has not always shown his love. he has hurt the people he cares about. but he is trying, desperately so, and is on his journey to make amends.

[epithetical]

2024 UPDATE (OFFICIAL)

Hey, everyone. Longtime no talk. Despite being weirdly active on this account, I haven't really made any textposts since high school. So I've decided to fix this by giving a gigantic update post about my very busy 2023. If you're new and don't know anything about me, or knew me as a teen and are wondering what I'm up to now: buckle up.

TL;DR:

Dropped out of art school. Released an award-nominated(???) dating sim, ValiDate. Killed the Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX. Conquered Jaw Explosion Disease. Hung out with some friends. (Also, a lot of NDA shit that I can’t talk about.)

ART-SCHOOL DROPOUT

From 2021 to 2022, I was attending a prestigious and overly-expensive art school for their (brand new!) game design program. When I first graduated from high school, this college was my dream choice, and coming off the success of my early game dev career, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to polish my skills while I kept working on the side. My first commercial game was still in development, but we were feeling comfortable, and I felt like getting greedy.

Pride before the fall. Full Icarus mode. You know how it goes.

The school itself was…alright. Satellite campus, mid-pandemic, hybrid learning. Close enough to commute comfortably, classes just long enough for masks to not give me a headache, and the handful of remote courses helped keep my medical problems at bay. Problems that the school was a little unequipped to help with, though the disability office did their best. I had to drop a class because my body, at the time, couldn’t handle eight hours of classes without some Crazy Side Effects. 

(Keep in mind that every class was, minimum, four hours. And I had to take at least five a semester. Each class also saw me make an entire game from scratch. My body was already at its limit.)

If you knew me in high school, you’re probably waiting for the shoe to drop: I was, famously, the worst at academics. Never did homework, rarely finished projects, slept through first period at least once a week. Surprise, though: I was fucking great at this. My GPA doubled. Turns out that going to school for a discipline you already have a career in, and are kinda obsessed with, kinda does wonders for you. Unfortunately, I picked the worst time to care about school, since my commercial game’s release was the same exact night that my five school games were due.

TL;DR, I didn’t sleep for a week, almost fucked both up, and got burnout so bad that I couldn’t do anything for a calendar year. So I dropped out! Now, about a year of job hunting later (the game’s industry is imploding right now, and the only studios that considered me were… questionable, to say the least), the expensive art school wants me back. So badly. Turns out the whole school is so broke and understaffed right now that they’re basically chomping at the bit for that tuition money. Got a week to decide. Jury’s still out.

VALIDATE POST-MORTEM

So, if you couldn’t tell from the above section, we released a game in 2022!  I was supposed to write a post-mortem for it, but… burnout from the above, combined with general “post-release depression,” and I didn’t feel like touching it. 

Part of me still doesn’t! 

Yet I kinda think the feeling of me not wanting to talk about ValiDate is still worth discussing, so here we go:

For those of you that aren’t aware, I was a head dev on ValiDate, a dating sim that released in 2022. Volume 1 (of 3) did, anyway.

Did a lot of music, did a lot of writing, created some characters people really care about, created some characters people really want to fuck, made a couple Tweets that my boss hated, got accused of being reverse racist a few times. It was truly one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. And, yes, we’re still working on Vol. 2 behind the scenes. 

That’s actually the reason why it’s kinda hard to talk about Vol. 1!

It was my first commercial game, my first publicly released game, and I think there’s always gonna be a… natural embarrassment toward your first “real” project. Combine that with my natural “if you stare at me for too long, I will kill myself” tendencies, and the game’s release was a special type of torture. It’s one thing to watch people play through a game that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into, knowing full well that they might hate it (or just misunderstand it), but shit gets so much worse when you know that you could have done better. 

It’s a very special kind of psychological torture to have creative decisions you feel were mistakes, things you half-assed because of burnout or deadlines, or things you did wrong because you just didn’t know any better! The embarrassment was overwhelming, so I just… dipped for a while. Didn’t watch gameplay or read reviews, didn’t do much of anything.

Took me a while to realize that me being embarrassed about the project isn’t because ValiDate was bad or anything. I was embarrassed because it was an incredible learning opportunity for me. The amount that I picked up on game design, community management, leadership, marketing, pitching, porting, etc. in two years is more than any school could teach you in four. Volume 1 was a game made by amateurs, still wet behind the ears, trying to build something from grassroots. 

But Volume 2 is a game-ass game. 

And having done all the work we have on Vol. 2 (which, while I can’t talk about it publicly, is a lot!), looking back at our first release feels like… revisiting your awkward middle school photos. Sometimes it’s hard to not feel contempt for who you were when your biggest struggle was becoming, but learning to choke down that shame? It taught me to feel grateful for the you of yesterday, who clawed their way through uncertainty so that you, today, can stand on sturdier ground. Growing up is embarrassing, and it turns out you keep doing it well into your twenties! Sucks. 

For the past few days, Dani and I have been watching a Twitch streamer play through Volume 1. We’ve been so deep in planning for the future that we figured, hey, may as well revisit the past. Detached from all that embarrassment of becoming, I gotta admit: we made a fun little dating sim. People like it. Hell, I like it. Sure, I know all of its flaws and shortcuts, and I have my fair share of critiques… but fact of the matter is, if I have a problem with something, I can just fix it. 

Admittedly, In the past, that attitude of mine has actually been more of a problem than a solution. “I can fix this myself!” is all fine and good when you’re a solo dev trying to throw something together, but it turns out taking on excess responsibility in a collaborative setting is a way to make shit suck for you and your team. During the Kickstarter demo era, I was literally on every team besides art. Writing, programming, music, I got my fingers in all those pies. It was fun to me, and more importantly, it was sustainable. 

Until it wasn’t.

Volume 1 coinciding with my tenure at [art school], using a (finicky and, frankly, shitty) new game engine, being much larger in scope, introducing minigames (which, surprise, I was team lead on)... I pretty much killed myself trying to get it all done. Honestly, I blame half of our day-one bugfixes on me specifically. Every single one of them was an oversight made because I was pulling the classic “I’m unmedicated so crunching is the only way I can feel alive” type shit. 

Except for the OST. That one sucked because art school sucks all the joy out of creating.

Happy to say that our workflow for Volume 2 has been much more sustainable for me, even if I’ve officially broken my “no art” rule for it. Yeah, turns out I’m finally making use of that animation major. Sucks.

Self reflection over. Except for one last note:

If you’ve followed ValiDate, played our demo, donated to the Kickstarter, replied to our Tweets, played our second demo, bought our game, or just talked about us to a friend… I am so, so grateful. Beyond what words could possibly describe. It’s been my dream for as long as I can remember become a game developer, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you guys. Vd8 wasn’t what I expected the cornerstone of my career to be, but honestly? I couldn’t have asked for a better one. We have Vriska in our game. How many people can possibly say that?

And to those of you still waiting for Volume 2:

You haven’t seen anything yet.

GAYMING AWARDS

Speaking of ValiDate… Did you hear we were nominated for some Gayming Awards last year? We were! 

Three other head Vd8 devs (Dani: Production, Alexis: Art, Cam: Code) flew out to beautiful New York City for the award show last March, which was actually our first time actually meeting up IRL. Really funny how I’ve known Dani since I was fifteen, but here we were, a decade later, finally meeting face to face. She’s so much taller in person. I’m still taller, but barely.

Meeting up with internet friends is one thing (and more on that later!), but meeting up with internet coworkers? It’s interesting. This was the first moment that ValiDate felt “real,” seeing as it was suddenly important enough to give us comp’d flights and a hotel room, but more than that: the people I’ve been working with for years exist? We’re all hanging out together? We’re wandering through Manhattan all day? We’re eating the most disgusting food at Junior’s in Times Square? We’re trying to figure out what this mystery liquid is? How much did this food cost again? (Seriously, my onion rings were 90% dough and 10% onion.)

While I won’t bore you with the minutiae—I think my friends would prefer the privacy anyway—the entire trip to NYC was fun, exhausting, and a dream-come-true.

Except for that goddamn award show. Jesus CHRIST, what a trainwreck.

No, I’m not saying that just because we lost. We did lose, though. (Personally, I was fine with it, but I also had to travel the least distance to get there. So…) I’m saying that because the entire Gayming Awards industrial complex was, uh, kinda busted this year?

So imagine, you’re us: bunch of twenty-somethings on your Sex and the City shit. Big award show tonight, formal attire. We’re talking high heels, long dresses, full suits, the whole nine yards. Now what do you do in Manhattan? Walk. Sure, we weren’t walking in formal attire the entire time, but it was still a good five blocks to the award center where—wait, what do you mean they relocated the ceremony? The hall they rented is closed for mysterious reasons? Where the hell are we doing the award show?

If you answered “the drag bar where the afterparty was supposed to take place,” congrats, here’s $20. Way further away from our hotel, which meant more walking, and also a way smaller venue with a lot less… formality, let’s say. But we’re young gay people, we don’t care about formalities, who gives a shit! As long as it can seat all of us, then—oh there’s no seating. Ohhhh. Oh! Okay.

I’ll admit, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There were a handful of couches, VIPs only. Realizing quickly that, oh shit, we’re VIPs, we managed to snag some front-seat couches before any of the pesky old people could. (We’re young! We deserve to sit! You’ve had your entire lives to sit, established games industry people! Let the new generation have a turn!) Unfortunately, when I got up to cash in my free-drink voucher, my seat was stolen by some white lady. 

So I sat on the floor.

March 2023. You, sitting at home, have decided to tune into the Gayming Awards “live” on Twitch, curious to see what Britain’s premiere gayming magazine had to say about, uh, esports. 

This is important to you. 

Fortunately, this year you’re watching a decently shot and scripted award show filmed in a (noticeably claustrophobic) little bar, complete with charming presenters (many of whom are local drag queens) and a myriad of corporate sponsors. You can hardly tell that the entire show was uprooted and moved hours prior!

Yet, for some reason, whenever the cameras cut to the audience… There’s some large man, right in front of the crowd, slumped down on the floor as if he’s bleeding out. With every award given, his clapping grows weaker. The more the camera cuts to him, the more life drains from his body, as if his existence itself is anathema to “gayming.”

Imagine, for a moment, that this man is nominated for an award. 

Imagine that he, after a lifetime of potassium deficiency, has been teetering on the edge of a Charlie Horse Reckoning for hours.

Imagine that the microsecond that his game’s name is called as a nominee, the Reckoning begins. 

Now imagine a world where he wins that award. 

A world where he is forced to stand—from his corpse’s rightful place on the ground!—in front of his peers and superiors, pretending as if he’s not afflicted with a life-ending muscle cramp.

So, yeah. I was pretty fine with losing.

Later, we ditched the “afterparty” to drink at Applebees. (Turns out “green tea shots” don’t have any green tea in ‘em?)

EULOGY FOR THE GOLDEN GIRLS TAKE MANHATTAN DX

Big announcement! I was a team lead on The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX, a certified Tumblr Gold™ fan-project (by the immortal Grawly) about the eponymous Gold Girls in a Persona-esque parody game! 

Slightly bigger announcement! The game got cancelled. Sorry.

Feels a little weird talking about this, since the year-ish I spent working on the game passed in the blink of an eye, and I’m not going to lie and say that I was an instrumental piece of the team or whatever. I was lucky enough to lead a very talented team, and to play with some very fun devtools, but the game was definitely more important to me than I was to it. (Grawly, if by some off-chance you’re reading this, please click off now. You can peek back in at the Jaw Explosion Disease subheader. I promise I’m very nice and respectful.)

I was in high school when I was first made aware of TGGTMDX. My friend group was very into Persona (in the pre-P5 days), and one of our favorite video subgenres was “videogame UI on top of sitcom scenes.” It didn’t take us long to stumble onto early-build footage of TGGTMDX on Tumblr, and what spawned was a years-long fascination. I’d even consider it one of my many… game dev awakenings? The idea that the only thing stopping me from making “American Persona”—one of my many white whales—was commitment to the bit. Just one of the many things that fueled my teenaged suicidal overconfidence.

Speaking of suicidal overconfidence, about a decade later, I was invited to work on the game! Coming fresh off ValiDate, I was desperate for a chance to make a real portfolio piece (visual novels, while popular, will never get you a job), and this sort of opportunity only presents itself once in a lifetime. Fulfilling a teenage dream while furthering your career? What could possibly go wrong!

That makes it seem like there was some explosive drama behind the scenes that ruined everything. Sorry to say that most game cancellations aren’t that exciting, and that this game’s death was by a thousand microscopic cuts. Most of which are not my place to talk about: this game wasn’t my baby, and cancelling it wasn’t my choice to make! Many people worked on this for much, much longer than I even knew how to code, and they deserve to have their feelings prioritized. Whenever that post mortem gets published, I’ll be the first to reblog it, trust me. 

Instead, I’d prefer to talk a little about this as being my first real “loss” as a game dev. Certainly not my first project to go under, and I’ve had my fair share of shelved prototypes, but something about this cancellation was… different. Working on your dream project is all fun and games until you feel partially responsible for it dying, y’know? It felt Sisyphean at a point, like trying to dig a hole in the sand with a pitchfork. I would work at the game, and work at the game, but nothing I did felt like it made a dent. 

Part of me knew I wasn’t giving it my all, between the school-based burnout (above), jaw explosion disease (below), and ValiDate (omnipresent), it’s not like I could’ve afforded to put more of myself into it. Besides, I was literally a team lead, half my job was telling other people what to do. But the spectre of “you’re not doing enough” was hard to shake. Even when all these other responsibilities ebbed and I could afford to give this game my all, the difference felt minimal. 

We spend a lot of time pitying Sisyphus for having to push that boulder uphill over and over, but none of us ask ourselves “could we even move that big fucking rock in the first place?” Apparently, I couldn’t.

I wasn’t the only one that felt that way, it turned out. In fact, pretty much all the friends I made on the project felt the same. If there’s any “real” reason why the project got cancelled, it’s that. No big falling out, Disney didn’t give us a cease and desist, no secret rebrand going on in the background. Just a bunch of lads getting sick of pushing a boulder. Hell, Grawly’s been doing it for a decade. Let him rest.

Not too much rest, though: we’re already working on a different game together (Date Knight: check it out if you haven’t!), and some of us ex-Golden Girls devs have some ideas for what else we can cook up. 

For money, this time.

JAW EXPLOSION DISEASE

Probably the biggest “development” of 2023 was my sudden horrible nerve pain in July, which started as a sinus infection on the left side of my face, and soon became a horrific jaw pain. Long after my sinus infection healed, the jaw pain remained, which is a pretty bad hand to draw when a considerable portion of your day is spent “talking,” or “eating.” So, for the back half of 2023, I didn’t do much of either.

Instead, I had to take a considerable amount of ibuprofen, visit one doctor, three dentists, two hospitals, and four oral surgeons to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. The dentists discovered an exposed nerve, caused by wisdom tooth removal complications (sick!), the oral surgeons went “okay, we can fix that,” got me all numbed up. But it turns out that my left jaw is immune to local anesthesia! Thinking this was an infection, they kept putting me on antibiotics over and over in the hopes that it’d suddenly work. Took a note from my childhood dentist explaining that, “no, he’s always been like this” to find a surgeon willing to put me all the way under. (And then, the first time they tried, I woke up in the middle anyway! I got a full refund on the copay, at least.) 

Ultimately, I found a very nice surgeon in December that treated me same-day, and did it perfectly, but the damage to my liver from all that ibuprofen was… bad. But it turns out that livers just… regenerate naturally? So, give it a few months, I’ll be at 100%. Hopefully.

OOMFCON

Hilariously, six months after we met up for the Gayming Awards, Dani and Alexis found their way back to NYC for a little combination meet-up/vacation we affectionately titled “Oomfcon 2023.” This time, with bonus friends! Our entire friend server, whose name I’ve been advised not to post publicly, had rented an AirBnB for anyone willing to drop everything and go to Brooklyn. 

It took about a year of planning (mostly by Alexis) to get us all out there, but Jesus Christ, it actually worked.

Admittedly I’m a bit hesitant to talk at length about “taking a vacation”—even though I’m already… from here?—but it really was the highlight of my year. First for actually happening, when most friend groups I’ve had would have written the idea off as a pipedream, but mostly for being a really good time. A lot of walking, a lot of talking, a lot of drinking, a lot of dining. (This was during Jaw Explosion Disease, so you can imagine how my body took most of that.)

To Dani, Alexis, Miles, Haven, Grim, Xtine, and Ty: thanks for coming up here! The city is a lot more boring without you guys in it. I promise to have less health issues when we do this again!

And to everyone else outside the groupchat that I met and bored with my job hunt stories: Nice meeting you guys! Sorry that fate decided every single one of you is forced to keep in touch with me. (And I didn’t even get the shitty corporate job!)

[bandzboy]

words by a palestinian stay on twitter

[visionkept]

Today's genshin adventures ft. @rukuan 💖 💖 💖 ! ! Some kaz.uyaka and k.azukomi ( with tomo seelee ) to heal the soul. A bonus of Arle and Nahida talking..

[pionas]

[aintashes]

daryl teapot

@painmon killjoy i'm in tears over this. i have so many questions. did you make this. did you. if you didn't, where did you even find this. did someone else make this, is this a legitimate thing you can buy, who did this, i'm holding my face in my hands,

[lucygraysboy]

@billysgirllol being her charming self 😒

[widowshill]

no one understands ds characters like @tortoisesshells.

[nectaric]

TOP 10 MOST SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN ZEUS' LIFE:

choose ten moments within your muses' life - moments that have impacted them the most - and explain why. moments can be good, bad, or both. tagging: you!

10. the life and death of metis. metis' significance in zeus' life is not to be understated. she taught him nearly everything he knows. he loved her, deeply, and her death at his hands was horrific and impacted him heavily. but their relationship was never healthy. it bordered on co-dependency, and zeus' infatuation with her was immature and toxic. for all his guilt, and suffering, and love for her - he can see now how much worse it could have gotten. he wishes he could undo it, but he is afraid to imagine how much more horrible he might have been to her if it had progressed any longer. 10/10 impactful but in a very convoluted way.

9. birth of dionysus (and death of semele). the love zeus possessed for semele was very different from the love he had for metis. it was strong, genuine, honest. it was born of respect and trust, which is difficult for him to do. he adored her, and it was because of this that he lost her. he was too trusting and too quick to act, throwing himself at her feet with reckless abandon. and he lost her. it was gruesome and graphic. and then, what he endured to keep dionysus alive (not just the physical trauma, but the emotional as well) is etched onto his brain. watching dionysus live only to then have to spend so much time away from him was equally difficult.

8. childhood pre-titanomachy. many of zeus' complexes, desires, and issues were born in this time. he grew up almost entirely alone, save for the rare visit from his mother or his grandmother's check-ins. he lived in isolation that was consuming, that made him long so desperately for a family it hurt. in this time, i also headcanon that he suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of gaia that became such an ingrained part of his life and identity that he took centuries to even recognize them as abuse. that isolation, and the suffering, and the childlike wonder that became tainted by sheer desperation for family really set him up for interesting and complicated relationships in the future.

7. gigantomachy. this is the first real threat zeus faces with his entire family on the line. the stakes feel higher, the danger more apparent, his worry even greater. he spreads himself a little too thin trying to ensure they're all safe - and in some cases, does not necessarily succeed. he's nearly too late before porphyrion assaults his wife. ares is captured. there are too many close calls, and though they are ultimately successful, there is another nagging problem. gaia, the one who raised him, the all powerful goddess who should have been on his side, has now turned on him. though zeus did not yet know exactly what the implications of that could be, it was a betrayal nonetheless.

6. the attempted coup. zeus had trust issues to begin with. he was paranoid, jaded, and cruel, and this is what drove his family to betray him. while this was a wake up call many years down the line, in the moment it only served to make zeus angrier and more paranoid. the act itself was difficult for him, being chained down and fearing for his throne and safety. but what it did to his trust in everyone around him was terrible, and he became even more guarded for a long time as a result.

5. marrying hera. she is the love of his life, the apple of his eye, the mother of his children, and he adores her. all of this is naturally very important, and its impact should not be ignored, but the other part of marrying hera that is very significant is that she is his equal. he had someone at his side to help rule the cosmos, and she filled those shoes perfectly. she has saved him from so much stress and solved so many problems, that he could not imagine ruling with anybody else at his side. true loves and incredible leaders!

4. titanomachy. ten years of war began when zeus was barely a teenager, and he was expected to lead, fight, and succeed in toppling an entire kingdom. it was daunting, to say the least, and was a grueling series of battles that left him and his family scarred. in this time though, zeus came to understand himself, his capabilities, and his desires. he found his first love. he reunited and bonded with family. he became a king, loathe as he was to do so. the entire period is so informative for zeus and who he is, that the only reason it isn't higher is because the other three are doozies.

3. dying in "titans 2". this is purely based in the world of roleplay and a thread with a friend, but at one point, the gods were unseated by an alliance of their worst enemies. zeus was killed, his soul banished to tartarus, during which time he experienced torture and isolation. though he was ultimately rescued, and assumed his throne after a very difficult war, such a tremendous loss weighed heavily on him. it is, ultimately, what i think drives zeus to step down at some point and drastically impacts his current mentality.

2. becoming king of the gods. i mean, naturally, this would change the course of anyone's life. zeus had been fighting for this moment since he was very young, and had been leading since he was a preteen. but this solidified not only that the war had been won, but that prophecy was true, that his hard work had paid off - and that he was up against an eternity in a very difficult position. being king completely changed his personality, his health, his relationships, and has been a world changing event as well.

1. defeated by typhoeus. in my canon for zeus, he faced off against typhoeus alone after much of his family fled in fear. he lost. typhoeus tortured him for weeks before hermes was able to assist in setting him free. zeus has genuinely never been the same sense - the mental, physical, and emotional toll of what he endured still sits heavy on his shoulders. it was also the spark that convinced zeus to become a better father, king, and person. it drastically changed the course of his life, and more than anything, is what has impacted him the most.