#Dionysus maybe

[etakeh]

I have friends in Vegas this weekend.

My prayer for them is that they not miss any of their scheduled activities, they eat good food, and they don't get testy with each other because they're tired and overstimulated.

[itspercyintime]

Bless Hades and Dionysus for absolutely serving. I cannot believe Poseidon is out here in a plain ass button up when THESE are his brothers

[sol-thorne]

OLYMPIAN DESIIIIIGNS.

After all this time brainrotting on Greek mythology and the Iliad and all that stuff, I just HAD to draw consistent designs for the major gods. The first ten of them are finally done, and hopefully I don't have to name them, they should be pretty self explanatory. x)

I did a lot of research on symbols and iconography and shapes language, I'm kinda proud of those designs so far. Will use them in my doods. And can't wait to start working on the others (mainly Demeter, Hestia, Hades, Persephone and Hephaestus).

Update : Demeter, Hestia, Hephaestus, Hades and Persephone are done ! Updated lineup here.

[thevibrationofatoms]

Personal pet peeve: adaptations where Ariadne is scared or freaked out the first time she sees Dionysus' madness. I mean for one it feels kinda weird and gross but also you think Dionysus wouldn't marry someone who was 1000% down with all his faces?? you think the Lady who danced in the minotaurs labyrinth wouldn't be able to handle her hot malewife husband who goes feral every now and again??? boring!! it's just boring!

[pistashxo]

new dionysus art got me crawling out of my cave to finish this

prints

[vixenofthemist]

IF I HAVE TO PROCESS THE LEOPARD THONG THEN ARIADNE DOES TOO (AU) [click for better quality]

[sukibenders]

Is it just me or does the way Hera is portrayed in the PJO/HOO series feel out of touch? By that I mean, while it plays into the idea of Hera's relationship with her husband's children and ideals of family, it seems like Rick just took that and ran with it without actually wanting to dive into those aspects and develop them more (ngl, his writing for his female characters, especially the goddesses, could use some work even if I do enjoy them). The reason Hera is the way she is with her husband's children is because she can't punish him [Zeus] directly due to him being more powerful (and the last time she turned against didn't he literally hang her from the sky)? And even while I'm not justifying her actions, there's a method to them, so why would she go after other random demigods like Percy and Annabeth? Or at least in a way that was written better than her falling into a trope (I enjoy this series with my heart, but the criticism about how the gods are written holds some value that shouldn't just be ignored either). Like, I don't know, it just feels like there was more that could've been done with her character instead of just immediately writing her off as the cruel, cold-hearted, evil stepmother (a trope that's overplayed, especially when not even bothering to give them any depth). I could write ideas, but then we'd be here all day.

[lunian]

i found my WIPs to this old idea from my brain which doesnt actually remember much from PJO (read books 9 years ago lol), but since im a nerd to greek gods i wanted to finish some sillies with a trio kids of Hermes, Ares and Dionysus hehe

dont touch me with "canon" explanations and details, i just had fun

bonus to some time before camp:

[kebriones]

If you want can you draw Ariadne giving Dionysus a hug and a kiss on the cheek?

to boost our serotonin 😌

This is post-marriage.

[bugwolfsstuff]

I will never like or forgive Luke mostly because he is the reason Castor is never gonna see their dad again

Like its assumed that Dionysus had a good relationship with his kids.

And yeah Castor will have Pollux in the future but they're never gonna see their dad again.

They're dead and Dionysus is deathless

They're dead and never gets to see the parent they loved because Luke hated his parent

[godofstory]

ok so I saw this post on paintrest

and I thought "omg I need this" but for all my favorite sitcoms; so I went and wrote this

and you can read it and tell me if you like it or not;should i continue it or not?

[lesbianbanana]

genuinely how was Dakota born? Does Bacchus sometimes come to life while Dionysus is at chb and randomly go reproduce because he's not confined to Zeus' rules? Did Bacchus just think the kid into existence Athena style? Was he just really fucking drunk one time?

[mxlinoe]

Mollymauk and the Modern Dionysus

Something that has always driven me insane is the weird accuracy of mollymauk/lucien/kingsley’s story to that of Dionysus. Like, it’s a tired thing to equate Mollymauk to Dionysus - i’m sure everyone in the fandom at some point has done that - but i cannot stress enough how entirely accurate it actually is.

Lets start from the beginning: dionysus’s creation myth.

Parts of it vary here and there depending on who you ask but the story goes Zeus is having his nth affair with Semele. Hera finds out, but instead of just outright killing her, disguises herself as an old women. In disguise she speaks with Semele who reveals shes pregnant with Zeus’s child. Hera deceives Semele and tells her to ask Zeus to show his godly form “and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came when he was wooing Hera” (Apollod. 3.4.3). This means basically come to me as your godly form, and when zeus did “came to her bridal chamber in a chariot, with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt” (Apollod. 3.4.3) it fucking killed her. From there, Zeus sews the childs heart to his leg and months later Dionysus is born from Zeus. Theres another version of the story where Zeus impregnates Semele by giving her a liquid version of Dionysus’s heart?? “Liber, son of Jove and Proserpine, was dismembered by the Titans, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink” (Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 167). Keep in mind this constant idea of death.

Anyhow, where the story really varies is who ends up raising Dionysus. Obviously, Semele is dead, and Hera wants him dead so he can’t stay on Olympus. Apollodorus states that he’s raised by the king and queen of Thebes as a girl (keep this in mind). A whole other version of this story is Dionysus is the child of Zeus and Persephone. This gives him connections to the underworld, death, and rebirth. Another version of the myth has him raised by nymphs? It all jumps around and I can’t find concrete textual evidence for anything but what Apollodorus states.

That’s where the story pretty much stops varying. From this point on it’s agreed that Hera drove Dionysus mad to wander the world and he teaches people about wine while he wanders, then he gets back to Greece and yayyy hes on the pantheon. 

Second thing to look at: Madness

In Euripides’s ‘The Bacchae’, Dionysus returns to Thebes to learn that worship of him has been banned and to clear his mothers name. He returns with a group of “bacchants”. When he arrived in Thebes, Dionysus drove Semele’s sisters mad - and then they fled up Mt Cithaeron to worship him. In the meantime (still in disguise) Dionysus is arrested and begins to drive King Pentheus of Thebes mad. The funniest part about this is how EXTENSIVELY Dionysus is physically described: 

“Well, stranger, I see this body of yours is not unsuitable for women’s pleasure— that’s why you’ve come to Thebes. As for your hair, it’s long, which suggests that you’re no wrestler. It flows across your cheeks That’s most seductive. You’ve a white skin, too. You’ve looked after it, avoiding the sun’s rays by staying in the shade, while with your beauty you chase Aphrodite” (Euripides. Bacchae. 564-571) 

LIKE??? Anyway. He starts to drive Pentheus insane by tricking him, causing a fire, and an earthquake. He persuades Pentheus to go undercover IN DRAG to the maenads (the women driven crazy on the mountain). Dionysus knows that this will be his death, but Pentheus doesn’t. So he goes up the mountain and is promptly torn apart by the women who believe they’re actually tearing apart a mountain lion (because they’re also mad). 

There’s also a myth where Dionysus gets captured by pirates during his worldly travels because they think he’s so cute so he drives them mad and then turns them into dolphins. Dionysus also drove A king of Edonia in Thrake (north of Greece) mad and in this madness the king killed his family. Dionysus really enjoys driving people mad. Like, I lose count of how many times he’s driven mortals mad for disrespecting him.

Thirdly: historical evolutions and aesthetic

Dionysus is an ancient god, believed to be as old as wine itself (which was invented in 6000 BC). He’s gone through a good few aesthetic changes over the years, but my favorite and most important thing to note is that Dionysus once had horns. HORNS! Because of these aesthetic changes, he’s also sometimes split into three separate “eras” - Mycenaean, Orphic, and Hellenized. The first is the oldest known Dioysus, he’s depicted as an older, beared figure with horns. It seems he was more worshiped for his connections to the Underworld and e was associated with marriage, death, sacrifice, and sexuality over wine. Orphic (of Orphisim, from Orpheus) is a younger, androgynous figure with horns. Dionysus was a central figure in Orphism because of his connections to death and rebirth, which correlated with Orpheus going to the underworld (and also correlated with Orpheus being torn apart by the maenads). Hellenized Dionysus is the modern day one. He’s still androgynous but doesn’t have horns :(, and the main thing people cared about regarding him was being the god of wine.  

Dionysus is also half the time wearing women’s clothing. Here’s some quotes about Dionysus and how he dresses from Lucian’s “Dialogue of the Gods’:

“Well, Zeus, I should be ashamed if I had such a son; so effeminate, … tying up his hair in a ribbon, indeed! and spending most of his time among mad women, himself as much a woman as any of them;” 

“Anyhow, my dear, this wearer of ribbons, this woman among women…” 

I also want to mention that Dionysus is cited multiple times being. Uh. the bottom? The receiver? I have no other way to say this that is pg lol. I make this note not to sexualize but to highlight the fact that out of all male gods who had fellow male lovers, he is the only one to “fulfill” the “women’s role” in sex. The rest of them were doing it, but it was only being done to him. Everyone’s favorite myth is Dionysus and Prosymnus and the creation of the “toy”. In that myth he, yknow, does it to himself on Prosymnus’ grave. There’s also a quote that describes is androgyny as:

“Androgynos (androgynous) : [A word applied to] Dionysos, as one doing both active, male things and passive, female ones [in sexual intercourse].” (Suidas s.v. Androgynos)

So, finally, with everything I just said in mind, how does this related to the threeleafs? Let’s make a check list to see the amount of overlap!

Queerness? Check and check. Mollymauk is so aggressively bisexual and gender-nonconforming it hurts. I wish Molly lived longer so we could see more of the transness that totally was going to happen but alas, the dice rule. I know we don’t know where Molly lands in bed, but most people see him as a bottom anyway so I thought I’d include the facts above about Dionysus’s position in bed.

Madness? Check and check! Focusing on Lucien a little more here I sort of equate the “pattern” from the Somnovem to be akin to the madness Dionysus emposes upon people. Mostly because when you are driven mad by Dionysus you’re seen as a maenad - and when you’re exposed to the pattern by the Somnovem, you’ve got yourself an extra few eyes. 

Death and rebirth? Check and check and check and check and check and check!! Must I even spell it out for you? It is the MAIN part of the threeleafs! 

Three different “eras”? Check and check! I feel like I’m stretching the link here but I thought I’d mention it. The fact that there’s three versions of the same person in one body - that all each have a defining difference between the three of them - reminds me a lot of Dionysus. Lucien being the oldest and more associated with his madness. Mollymauk more associated with the parties (by the fandom mostly) and sexuality. Kinglsey closely associated with identity. It’s really interesting to me to see the shift in how important wine was to Dionysus’s characterization over the three “eras”.

Horns? CHECK AND CHECK. When I learned Dionysus once had horns I went so crazy. He had bull horns, and bulls were notoriously used in ritual sacrifice for Dionysus. Bulls and serpents are some of his sacred animals. While Mollymauk may not have bull horns, he definitely has a snake tattoo!

I’m sure there’s more things I could link between the two of them but these four are the main things that have been driving me absolutely insane for a few years. I know Taliesin said he was really inspired by mermaids but I have a really hard time believing that when there’s THIS MUCH STUFF that lines up between the characters and Dionysus. 

Soooo, that’s basically it. I’m sure I forgot something I wanted to say but whatever. Mollymauk was so right when he said “I am your god, long may I reign”.

[theatreofdionysus]

I've been thinking about making an altar when I go to college, but I have a lot of conflicting feelings. I love the idea because I'm very limited in what I can do right now, but once I move into my dorm I'll have much more freedom. But it'll also be very limited still because I'll likely have to hide it in a box to both sneak it out of my house and because I have no idea what kind of person I'll have as a roommate. I just feel very bad about both hiding it in a box as well as having things for three gods in one space instead of having distinct places for all of them.

[grumfield]

Theseus is gonna save horse ride a cowboy

had this idea where the minotaur is a literal cow boy and a longhorn, Theseus is a cowboy, and ariadne’s thread is a lasso lmao

[ayveuii]

can i offer this dio sketch