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rosabell14 · 5 months ago

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The hunters of Artemis, Reyna, and Asexuality in Riordan's writing

I kinda started thinking about this since Reyna became a hunter. I could never articulate why I hated this Choice. I was asexual after all. Shouldn't I be happy about this rep? We Ace people barely get any after all. Then I realized that it's because I just didn't like the hunters as ace representation. And I didn't need to be grateful for mediocrity.

You want to know why the hunters of Artemis suck in general? And as Ace rep specifically? Because Riordan did not write them with that mindset.

Like people are so busy hailing this man as the king of representation in literature(blegh) that they forgot how heteronormative and white(sometimes racist) the original series was. Y'all really think this man was thinking about writing asexuals in the year 2007? Get real. What Riordan was doing was a white man trying to write feminism and failing (there's a reason most of his female characterization of female characters boils down to tough "not like other girls" characters who are dicks to the boys around them yet also to the girls around them if they're jealous)

Now onto the hunters.

The hunters when first presented in TTC are not a group of asexuals but rather religious celibates. Fantasy Pegan nuns if you may. The first problem arises when their ages are brought up.

"Then the archers came from the woods. They were girls, about a dozen of them. The youngest was maybe ten. The oldest, about fourteen..."

Remember, before ToA gave us Emmie and Jo, the hunters WERE all young girls. Now why in the world are they so young? Especially when in the actual myths, the hunters could come from any age whatsoever? Well the reason is a doozy.

"Are you surprised by my age?" she asked.

"Uh… a little."

"I could appear as a grown woman, or a blazing fire, or anything else I want, but this is what I prefer. This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray."

"Go astray?" I asked.

"Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves."

Hooo boy. What a way to phrase it. Going astray. Losing themselves. This kinda confirms that the reason why Artemis goes after young girls specifically is because she only wants girls who have yet to finish puberty. Girls have yet to discover their own sexuality. Now I'm not a representative of Asexuals everywhere, but I'm pretty sure most of us don't discover our sexuality at the age of ten. Let alone have the maturity to decide to become celibates about it. And let me reiterate: celibacy is not sexuality. Sure asexual people CAN choose to be celibates but it's not the same thing at all. In fact Zoe and Thalia are big cases for this. Both of them had liked men before(herakles and luke) but joined for their own reasons. Thalia to escape the prophecy and Zoe out of heartbreak. Hell, Bianca herself is mostly swayed by the idea of having no responsibility and a new family.

Now Rick does another thing that goes against the myths. The exclusion of make hunters. Artemis frequently hung around or taught male hunters who respected her. Daphnis, Scamandrius, freaking Hippolytus whom Artemis greatly cared about. Oh but we need to come up with bullshit reasons why Nico can't just join the hunt with his sisters so the hunters of Artemis are all: Ewww men. Also note how at no point does Riordan mention people who fall in love with women.

Now the next point is the oath itself. Artemis says this:

"What oath?" I said.

"To forswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. "To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally."

When I tell you that Emmy and Joe were retcons . Rick was freaking INSISTENT on the hunters being kids. Also note the three points: to never fall in love, to never get married, to stay a maiden.

I mean I think I don't need to explain why obsessing over the virginity of young girls is creepy. Does Riordan think girls older than fourteen can't keep it in their pants? And let me be adamant here Riordan only cares about the virginity Clause here. He mentions falling in love and marriage because he sees them inherently intertwined with sex.

Now onto the wording of the oath itself:

'I pledge myself to the goddess Artemis. I turn my back on the company of men, accept eternal maidenhood, and join the Hunt.'

I mean you might be able to interpret men here as mankind and therefore excluding women as well. But I have many reasons to believe that Riordan didn't even CONSIDER women as a possibility(someone inform this man that lesbians existed smh 😞). Also note that falling in love is not mentioned in the actual oath but maidenhood is.

Now onto the next big issue. Percy Jackson's Greek gods and its chapter on Artemis. It basically confirms all of my problems.

"IT’S NOT THAT ARTEMIS HATED ALL MEN, just most of them. From the moment she was born, she knew one critical fact: Guys are kinda gross."

No mention of girls. In this chapter Percy(Rick) brings up Artemis' disdain for dudes over and over again.

“Let me be a maiden forever, Father,” Artemis said, twirling her finger in Zeus’s beard. “I never want to get married.---- But you can grant me a bunch of followers: ocean nymphs, river nymphs, wood nymphs—what the heck, how about mortal girls, too? Any girls who want to join me can become my followers, as long as they remain maidens like me. They should probably make the decision when they’re about nine years old, before they get interested in boys, because after that, they’ll be all distracted and of no use to me.”

Yikes yikes yikes. Ladies and gentlemen the age has been lowered to 9. Freaking 9. Also I guess girls older than that don't need Artemis' protection then? (the real problem is that older/married girls should be out of Artemis's jurisdiction and under the protection of other gods like Hera, Hestia, and Ares. But Hestia is barely there. Hera is terrible and the Amazons also suck)

Now when I tell you that Artemis' big point was about virginity, I mean it. This actually has mythological evidence.

The myths actually DO mention what happens when female hunters fall in love. Rhodopis and Euthynicus were two hunters who offended Aphrodite by choosing a chaste life so she had Eros make them fall in love. However note that they weren't booted out of the hunters for falling in love, but rather after having sex in a cave. THAT was what Artemis took offense to.

Another myth is the story of Aura. A huntress who offended Artemis by comparing their breasts(Greek mythology am I right?). Saying that her breast were better than Artemis' because they were smaller and hey maybe that means that Artemis isn't actually a maiden. Artemis punishes her by making her lose her VIRGINITY. She goes to nemesis for revenge. Nemesis goes to Eros who makes Dionysus fall in love with Aura and when Aura refuses his advances he ties her up and... Yeah you can guess where I'm going with this.

But hey! Those myths aren't in the Greek gods book. You know which myth is? The myth of C(K)allisto. And this one angers me so much I want to chew on the drywall.

The way Riordan writes it. Zeus turns himself into Artemis, brings Kallisto's guards down with the disguise, gets close to her and then when Kallisto REJECTS Artemis' supposed advances, forces himself on her. I need to say this again. Kallisto does not fall in love, she isn't seduced, she does not break her oath. But we still need a reason for her to be yeeted out of the hunters so her lack of maidenhood it is

“You were my favorite,” Artemis said. “If you had come to me immediately, I could have helped you. I would have found you a rich, handsome husband and let you settle into a new life in the city of your choice. I would have allowed you to retire from the Hunt with honor. You could have gone in peace. Zeus’s assault was not your fault.”

Kallisto sobbed. “But I didn’t want to lose you! I wanted to stay!”

Artemis felt like her heart was breaking, but she couldn’t show it. She had rules about her followers. She couldn’t allow those rules to be broken, not even by her best friend. “Kallisto, your crime was keeping the secret from me. You dishonored me, and your sisters of the Hunt, by not being honest. You defiled our company of maidens when you were not a maiden yourself. That I cannot forgive.”

I want to slap this man so hard he flies to the opposite side of the universe. We are not here to blame victims of assault guys! Except we are! But with extra steps. If you get attacked, it's not your fault, but If you are too scared to admit the truth then you deserve to lose your only safe space and turn into a bear. Oh nooooo Kallisto DEFILED Artemis' company by being an icky non virgin. The moment you lose your virginity even if it's not your fault you get punished. But not because I'm gross but because YOU lied. How terrible! And he expects us to feel for ARTEMIS???

But rosabell! This is how things go in the myths. What was uncle Rick (bleghhhh) supposed to do? I don't know... Choose a different version of the story? There are versions were Zeus/Hera are the ones who transform Kallisto into a bear. There are versions where Kallisto actively CHOOSES to sleep with Artemis. Granted it's still assault because she's being lied to but at least then, she'd have a degree of autonomy in the events. At least Artemis could rightfully accuse her of breaking her oath. But noooo, Riordan doesn't know lesbians exist. He actively makes Zeus into a canonical Ra*ist. Why is he on the throne again?

(the fact that this book came out AFTER HoH y'all 😭)

Once again, Riordan sees maidenhood(virginity)/love/marriage as intertwined. This is NOT what being on the aroace spectrum means. You can fall in love but not have sex. You can have sex but not fall in love. You can have sex AND still be an asexual. You can be married and still be a "maiden". Riordan doesn't get to claim to be such a progressive ally for retconning the hunters in 2017, TEN years after he first introduced the hunters because he suddenly remembered that lesbians exist.

Or more like because he doesn't know what to do with his female characters. The hunters more than anything are Riordan's heroine dumping ground. If you don't want it put them in relationships, either kill them(Bianca whose main purpose is to die) or make them eternal virgins(the hunters, Rachel). The fact that some people genuinely think that Calypso should have joined the hunters astound me. Girl suffered for years because of the gods and you all think that the best thing outside of Leo for her(not that I like Caleo) is to become a servant to the gods? Because you can't perceive a female character doing anything else if she's not in a relationship. Like with Thalia, this at least made sense on a strategic level because she didn't want to reach sixteen. Oh but we also don't know what else to do with her so she needs to want to be a hunter after the war is over so we give her a half-assed argument with Luke and now she can be all: wah wah Zoe you were totally right about boys. And the cherry on the cake is that she doesn't even get to be in the final confrontation with Luke or say goodbye to him because of a freaking STATUE. And after pjo her personality becomes Zoe 2.0 and her and Jason get ONE measly meeting.

When I first spoke of not liking Renya joining the hunters this is what I mean. Riordan had so many options with Reyna. Why did she have to leave her esteemed position which she worked so hard for? Two boys rejected her? Why couldn't she go reconnect with her sister more then? She could have joined the Amazons. But nooo Riordan was so allergic to the fans asking him wether she could be Bi or a lesbian. For the stupidest reasons too? Oh Reyna being a lesbian would come off as stereotypical because she got rejected by two guys beforehand! My dude, do you think people don't say the same thing about us who are on the aroace spectrum? That we say we are aro/ace because we got rejected before? Come up with a better excuse next time.

My brother in Christ couldn't even allow Reyna to talk about her sexuality and whatnot. It couldn't even be fully about her. No. He had to turn Reyna into his own mouthpiece admonishing the EVILLLL fans who may have shipped Thalia and Renya. He literally had her say the word "shipping". How cringe can you get? And then he had the audacity to admonish the fans by saying: Why does a strong friendship always have to progress to romance?

It's a sentiment I agree with but coming from this man, it's extremely hypocritical? I don't know Richard maybe because YOU are obsessed with shipping? No character can escape your shipping hands unless they're eternal virgins or dead. You literally turned the Argo2 into Noah's ark2. So much attention focused on shipping that the seven barely felt like friends.

Why does Reyna need to join the hunters? She can choose to not relationship without having to become a servant to female Peter pan.

This is actually a really adequate metaphor when you consider that Emmie and Jo say that they have not met Artemis in YEARS and Apollo mentions that the two of them were lucky she let them LIVE. god can you imagine joining Artemis when you are 9? At an age when you have still not finished maturimg cognitively and therefore shouldn't be trusted on taking a freaking celibacy vow(were you even given the talk yet that age) and after 70 years you decide you want to leave? If you're lucky Artemis will part with you on good terms but SIKES every person you probably knew before joining is now dead. Where is THAT angsty Bianca fic?

Speaking of Bianca. How she was handled also angers me. In another post, I've already talked about how the hunters barely gave her adequate information before letting her join.

How Zoe was the main reason for her death. Zoe KNEW that at least 2 people might die in the quest she was given and yet she decided to bring the least experienced girl to the quest and couldn't even watch her properly.

But you know what else pisses me off? The fact that THEY should have been the one to tell Nico about his sister's death. I've always hated how Chiron made Percy the CHILD tell Nico the other CHILD about his sister dying. But more than anyone, it should have been the hunters' responsibility. Bianca was THEIR responsibility. She died in a quest to save Artemis. The least they could do was tell her remaining family of her fate. The Doylist reason of course is that we need to kickstart Nico and Percy's complicated relationship and have Percy discover that Nico is a son of Hades. But in universe, the fact that they immediately fuck off from the camp upon regrouping makes them come off as extremely selfish. We don't even know if Bianca was given a funeral by them or not. We see Artemis being upset about Zoe but we never see her react to the news of losing Bianca.

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enyalios-shrine · 1 year ago

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𝘼𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 101

Hi! I’m Raven (or Ray), and I’ve been an Ares devotee for almost five years now. You want to start worshiping him? Great! Despite what today’s media makes of him - which I will talk about a lot in this post - , he’s actually a very caring, gentle and (dare I say) beginner-friendly deity! In general, a great choice! (Also, this is inspired by another post I saw but forgot to save - so, credits for the idea goes to that person) So, let's get started.

WHO IS ARES? - MODERN MISCONCEPTIONS

Since I’m assuming you already know the broad strokes of who he is (Greek god of war, bloodshed, violent and so forth), this section will be about some of the misconceptions most people have of Him. If you’ve ever consumed any Greek mythology-related media, I’m sure you’ve seen the following caricature: beefy, misogynistic, violent, stupid jerk, rude and always looking for a fight. While, yes, He IS violent (He's the god of war, afterall), that's far from all He has to offer.

Did you know Ares is actually historically a major feminist? That’s probably the first thing to get demystified about Him when you talk to an Ares devotee or worshiper, so I’m not really saying ground-breaking news here, but since a fair amount of people don’t know about it, I thought it was a fair mention. So, let’s get into the actual myths and proofs for this claim:

Ares was the father of and supported the Amazons in battle, a group of female-only warriors and hunters.

He’s one of the only male deities in Greek mythology to not have sexually harassed or raped someone. Yes, even other deities viewed as “nice” such as Apollo and Hermes have done so (I don’t mean any disrespect for those deities here - I’m also an Apollo devotee).

Ares was held in trial for the murder of Halirrhotius, a son of Poseidon, after he raped one of Ares’ daughters, Alkippe. He was acquited of murder by the gods. Remember, back in ancient Greece, women didn’t have ANY rights - raping one was not considered a crime or even frowned upon as far as I'm aware.

One of His epithets is “Ares Gynaikothoina", which means "feasted by women". During a war between the Tegeans and the Spartans, the women of Tegea defended the city from a invasion led by the Spartan king Charilaus. After arming themselves, they defeated the Spartans following an ambush. Among the prisoners was the Spartan king himself. In commemoration, they would hold a feast in honor of Ares, to which only women were invited.

All in all, Ares is protective, just, and encouraging of His children as well as worshipers and devotees. He’s not the piece of shit jock most people think of when you mention His name. Please stop doing my man this dishonor, He deserves so much better.

BASIC INFO

His Roman counterpart is Mars. He’s the son of Zeus and Hera, and his consourt is Aphrodite (even though they’re not officially married). His divine children are Phobos and Deimos (twin daimones/personified spirits of panic and terror, respectively), Harmonia (goddess of harmony and concord), Antero (erote/god of requited love) and Eros (erote/god of carnal love), all which he had with Aphrodite, as well as Drakon of Thebes (a giant serpent), which he apparently had by himself.

As for hero children; Cycnus (a bloody-thirsty men who was murdered by Herakles), Diomedes of Thrace (who had man-eating horses for some reason), Thrax (who founded Thrace), Oenomaus (Greek king of Pisa), and the Amazons (female warriors and hunters as mentioned above).

His symbols and associations are: spears, swords, helmets, armour, dogs, chariots, shields, The Chariot & The Emperor tarot cards, etc.

FESTIVALS AND DAYS

Tuesdays are holy to Ares and are ruled by the planet Mars (again, his Roman counterpart), which means they’re associated with action, energy, strength, and courage, as well as the color red.

As for festivals, He was typically honored with special rites in times of war or just before battles. There were also two annual festivals: one in the town of Geronthrae in ancient Laconia, celebrated only by men, and one in Tagea in Arcadia, celebrated only by women, where His "feasted by women" epithet came from. There's hardly any info on exact dates (from the Attic calendar or not) or info about any other festivals.

SACRED ANIMALS

Serpents

Dogs

Vultures

Woodpecker

Barn owls

Eagle owls

SACRED PLANTS

There’s no plant, flower or tree traditionally associated with Ares, unfortunately, so I’m gonna give a list of my UPG’s. Now, I’m not a witch, so I don’t know about the magical properties of the plants I’m about to list (if you’re a witch and were looking for something like that, my bad). However, I am a florist and have a special interest in floriography, so I assign them to Him based on vibe, meaning, etc.

Amaryllis (Means “Pride”)

Basil (Means “Hate”)

Water hemlock (Means “Death”)

Snapdragon (Means “Presumption”, but I think he just likes the way it looks)

Poppy (Means “Eternal sleep”, but has a long history with wars, being the first kind of flora to start growing in abandoned battlefields that were previously considered infertile)

Nettle (Means “Cruelty”)

Magnolia (Means “Dignity”)

Yarrow (Means “Cure for a broken heart”, and is said to have been used by Achilles to heal his men on the battlefield, which is why the scientific name is “Achillea”)

Ginger (Associated with “Heat”)

Pepper, spices, etc (idk he just gives the vibes)

OFFERINGS & DEVOTIONAL ACTS

Honestly, the only slander Ares should be getting is that He likes edgy teenage boy things. That being said, here's some ideas/suggestions, first for devotional acts and then offerings:

Workout or do any kind of physical activity

Take care of your mental and physical health

Stand up for yourseld and what you believe in

Learn about past wars, battles, and riots

Do things that make you feel badass/brave/empowered

Go to a protest

Work on managing your anger (especially for my fellow BPD havers)

Pet a dog

Honor His children and Aphrodite

For offerings; any kind of meat, especially red

Anything sharp (cool knives or daggers, broken glass, etc)

Bones!!

Halloween decor (I personally have those fake plastic snakes, spiders, and a skull on His altar)

Black coffee, the stronger the better

Any alcohol, but especially whiskey

Anything spicy

WHY WORSHIP ARES? - A PERSONAL RANT

Living in an extremely physically abusive household, I had to know and be acostumed to violence from a very young age. That violence left with many things - BPD and C-PTSD, to name a few - but mostly importantly, it left me only being able to feel one thing: anger.

I was angry at everything. Angry at the world for allowing me to have to live through such a horrible situation, angry at my mom for not standing up for me, angry at my abuser, even angry at myself for not ever trying to fight back or protect myself (though now I realize that was completely out of the question. I was only 8, what could I have done against a man in his 30's that was three times my size?).

That anger didn't go away after I got away from my abuser. If anything, it grew worse. I'd yell, break everything around me, say horrible things to the people I loved - I was a totally different person. I could barely recognize myself. I was an empty shell, filled with absolutely nothing else than the purest form of resentment and wrath, things that had been brewing inside of me since I was a child. I never had the choice to become anything else.

Ares understands violence. He's the god of it. He knows when it's justifiable and when it's not, when it serves a purpose and when it's out of pure malice. He helped me realize that instead of trying to fight against my anger out of the shame it made me feel, I had to embrace it - become one with it. It's a part of me, at the end of the day. I just had to figure out how to control it instead of letting it control me.

He embraced me when I was too disgusted with this ugly side of me to even look in a mirror. I was scared of myself - he wasn't. He's seen worse. I never had someone accept me and all my flaws before, god or otherwise.

That's why it's so upsetting to see the modern depictions so many people have of him. Someone so understanding and loving being defined by the worst parts of Himself, just like I used to do with myself in the past.

Ares is the god of war, war is not the god of Ares.

#hellenic pagan #hellenic polytheism #ares #ares devotee #ares devotion #ares worshiper #ares worship #hellenic polytheist #my posts

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bugwolfsstuff · 1 month ago

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One headcanon that I will take to my grave of the three children of Zeus that chose immortality (Herakles, Thalia and Dionysus)

Is that none of them truly wanted immortality they just didn't want to die

Thalia with being next in line of the prophecy would of either killed her or killed everyone else so she had to choose the hunters and give it to Percy

Dionysus with being a son of Zeus AND a part of Cadmus's (and Harmonia's) family line made him doomed from the start so he had to become a god

Herakles with being a son of Zeus and the whole poison shirt thing had his choices of dying painfully and slowly (?) or becoming a god, so he had to become a god

Hell 2 of those likely didn't get a choice

#but the whole defying his fate with Dio has consequences for his kids in at least one of my wips #Hera had PERSONAL beef with Dio and Herakles in myth tho #like girl calm down they already half dead #it's like she skipped Hermes and divided all her anger out on Dio and Herakles #Like she had beef with them EVEN BEFORE THEY WERE BORN #pjo #pjo spoilers #rrverse #pjo Dionysus #Dionysus pjo #pjo Hercules #Hercules pjo #Thalia Grace #pjo headcanons #pjo headcanon

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tylermileslockett · 11 months ago

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ARGONAUTICA : Lemnos, Giants, and the Doliones

Book 1 continues with Appollonius giving us the backstory of the Women of Lemnos, and how they murdered their husbands (and all boys) due to the men lusting over their captured slave-girls from raids. In this way, Aphrodite exacted revenge on the men neglecting her honors. When the argonauts appear on shore, the Lemnos women, “put on the armor of war and rushed out of the gates of Myrine on to the shore like bacchants who devour raw flesh,” (Hunter). The herald Aithalides, son of Hermes and gifted with unperishing memory, is sent forth to ease relations. After a council, the Lemnian women agree to welcome the argonauts into their city. And Jason leads the men inside, holding a spear gifted by the warrior-heroine Atalanta, and wearing a brilliant purple cloak gifted by Athena with a lengthy description of the embroidered designs. After some days of revelry, Herakles, still residing at the ship, chastises the men for getting distracted from their mission, and the Argonauts disembark from Lemnos.

Next, the men arrive at the island of the Doliones, where king Kyzikos honors them with a royal feast. THe next day at the ship, Herakles and others encounter the “children of the earth:” six-armed giants who attack them by hurling rocks, but are cut down by Heracles arrows and other argonauts spears and arrows.

After disembarking, they sail across the sea all day, but shifting winds blow them backwards to moor on an island in the night. The argonauts are attacked by armored warriors who think the travelers to be invaders. After a fierce battle, the terrible error is realized at first light; King Kyzikos and his men lay slaughtered. These attackers were the same Doliones that had received them in honor the previous day.

Thanks for looking and reading! If you share this image ill defend you from any 6-armed giants! Xoxo 🤟😁❤️🏛

Please support my kickstarter Greek Gods and Heroes" coming early 2024. https://kickstarter.com/projects/tylermileslockett/lockett-illustrated-greek-gods-and-heroes……

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evol-astraea · 5 months ago

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After playing Jade Shadows my brain is like, better elaborating all the things in it and...???

Man, I am a sucker for the little details.

Like the choice given at the end of the quest, for instance. Why those two options specifically?

(Spoilers under the Read More break. For those who haven't had the chance to play the quest yet!)

Both names for the small one tie straight to the overall Stalker's theme! He's a hunter, or at least - at this point of the story, I suppose - he used to be one.

Anyways. Orion, from the namesake constellation. Named after a skilled hunter, said to have superhuman strength (in some versions of the story, he's a giant) from Greek and Roman mythology. Again, depending on the versions, it's either Zeus/Jupiter or Artemis/Diana the one placing him among the stars upon his death. He's often depicted with a club (which however is more generally a symbol for another hero, Herakles). Though other interpretations show him wielding a bow.

And then we have Sirius. In real life, it is the brightest star in the night sky found in the Canis Major (Greater Dog) constellation as its Alpha. Infact, another name for it is Alpha Canis Majoris. There are several dogs which played important roles in Greek mythology. However, if we stick by Orion's story, this group of star could represent one of his hunting dogs (the other being the nearby Canis Minor constellation, the Lesser Dog). Indeed, a loyal and trusted companion to the sky's most famous hunter to bring along!

Whatever your opinion about Jade Shadows is, I find these small bits a really nice touch. :D

#warframe #jade shadows #jade shadow spoilers #this little thing at the end was the icing on the cake #and I LOVED it #(biased I'm a huge mythology and space nerd)#*edited for better clarity #I haven't slept and it shows x.x

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epistrefei · 7 months ago

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HERE is what i have done so far of the timeline (below the cut bc its SO long)

mentions of war, violence, SA, radical religion, drugs, etc

1674 BC - Artemis & Apollo are born to Zeus and Leto. Hera forbids Leto from giving birth on land or water, but the free-floating island of Delos disobeys, allowing her to give birth there. This subsequently roots the island in that place.

Artemis was born first, as it was nighttime, and then acted as a midwife to Leto to deliver Apollo secondly due to his patronage of the sun.

1674 BC - Leto takes Artemis and Apollo to Lycia to bathe and drink from a spring there. The peasants prevent this by stirring up the muddy water and Leto turns them into frogs out of anger.

1674 BC - Zeus kidnaps Apollo and Artemis from Delos to fight Python.

1673 BC - Artemis first hunts at Agrae of Athens after her arrival from Delos.

1673 BC - The cult of Artemis, "Artemis Agoraea", is born in Olympia. The tradition of making a slaughter sacrifice to the Goddess is originated.

1664 BC - First Olympic games

1654 BC - Pandora opens a jar gifted to her and suffers the consequences

1650 BC - The River God Alpheus is in love with Artemis but realizes that he cannot have her heart. When Artemis and her companions at Letronoi go to Alpheus, she becomes suspicious and covers her face with mud to hide from him.

1648 BC - Alpheus attempts to rape Artemis' attendant Arethusa. Artemis takes pity on her and saves her, turning her into a spring in the temple of Artemis Alphaea in Letrini, where the Goddess and her retinue drink.

1630 BC - Bouphagos thinks of raping Artemis. She reads his thoughts and strikes him down at Mount Pholoe.

1628 BC - the Titans attempt to gain power once more but are defeated by the Gods. Atlas is punished by being made to carry the sky. Typhon is defeated and trapped under Mount Etna, a volcano.

1460 BC - Zeus sends a flood to destroy all of mankind after Lycaeon outrages the Gods. Deucalion and his family escape after Prometheus tells them to build an Ark.

1420 BC - Persephone is abducted by Hades.

1415 BC - Artemis saves the infant Atalanta from dying of exposure after her father abandoned her. She sent a female bear to nurse the baby and was then raised by hunters. Atalanta participated in the Calydonian boar hunt and drew first blood, thus winning the hide. She later hung it up in a sacred grove at Tegea as a dedication to Artemis.

1365 BC - Perseus is born.

1363 BC - Apollo and Coronis, Princess of Thessaly, fall in love and become pregnant. While Apollo was away, Coronis began an affair with a mortal man named Ischys. Artemis kills Coronis for this insult against her brother, and Asclepius is born from the dead mother's womb.

1350 BC - Daphnis, a young boy of Hermes, is accepted as a follower of Artemis. He often accompanied her hunting and entertained her with pastoral songs and playing the pan pipes.

1344 BC - Pegasus is born from Medusa's blood after Perseus slays her.

1300 BC - Niobe boasts that she is a better mother than Leto, as she has seven daughters and seven sons in comparison to Leto's Apollo and Artemis. Artemis uses her arrows to kill all of Niobe's daughters while Apollo uses his to kill all of her sons. Their father Amphion, upon seeing his children dead, was struck down by Apollo after swearing revenge. Niobe fled back to Mount Sipylus and was turned to stone. Water poured from her petrified complexion unceasingly.

1286 BC - Herakles is born.

1284 BC - Artemis and Britomartis become lovers, the latter being a hunting Goddess worshipped primarily in Crete. It is rather short-lived, as Britomartis transforms into another aspect of herself known as Aphaea, losing her memories in the process.

1283 BC - Artemis kills Adonis, Aphrodite's mortal consort, for slaying one of her favorite hunters, Hippolytus.

1271 BC - Theseus is born.

1270 BC - All of Greece is plagued by earthquakes and famine.

1268 BC - Broteus, a famous hunter, refuses to honour Artemis and boasts that nothing can harm him—even fire. Artemis drives him mad and causes him to walk into fire on a pyre as a sacrifice , thus ending his life.

1258-1246 BC - The Labours of Herakles take place.

1252 BC - Theseus kills the Minotaur at the center of the labyrinth built by Daedalus.

1246 BC - the birth of Achilles.

1246 BC - The voyage of Jason and the Argonauts.

1245 BC - Orpheus tries to rescue Eurydice.

1243 BC - Actaeon, a hunting companion of Artemis, finds Artemis naked while bathing in her sacred spring and attempts to force himself upon her. Artemis says that he is welcome to share his tale of seeing her in such bareness—if he can manage to share it at all, and she turns him into a stag while setting his own hunting dogs into a frenzy, tearing him apart and consuming him.

1232 BC - The twin sons of Poseidon and Iphimedeia, Otos and Ephialtes (thus known as the Aloadae), grew enormously from a young age. They were aggressive and skilled hunters that could not be killed except by each other. They boasted that as soon as they grew tall enough to reach the heavens, they would take Hera and Artemis as wives. All of the Gods feared them except for Artemis—she turned into a deer and leapt in between them, causing them to throw their spears at one another and resulting in their deaths.

1226 BC - Herakles dies and becomes a God after the Oracle of Dodona predicted such 15 months before.

1215 BC - Agamemnon restored as king of Mycanae.

1210 BC - Orion, a close friend and hunting companion of Artemis, is accidentally killed by her when Apollo deceives her with an archery competition. Fearing that she would fall in love with Orion and marry him, thus breaking her vow, he challenges Artemis while Orion is swimming far away in the sea. He wagers that she cannot shoot the "small dot" in the sea—Artemis, eager to prove being the better archer, shoots and kills him. She placed Orion among the stars in her grief.

1206 BC - Theseus is killed.

1193-1183 BC - the siege of Troy. Artemis halts the winds blowing the Greek ships, stranding the fleet in Aulis after King Agamemnon kills her sacred deer. Artemis demands the sacrifice of his daughter Iphegenia as compensation, however she saves the girl just as she is about to be burnt at the altar and leaves a deer in her place. She brings Iphegenia to Tauris where she led the priests for worship to Artemis.

Artemis supports the Trojans in the war and lures Hera into battle. However, Hera holds her and beats her with her own bow, causing the Goddess to flee to Zeus in angry tears while Leto followed with her bow and arrow.

1190 BC - Artemis stops an invasion of the Amazons at Pyrrichos in Laconia.

1188 BC - Chione, beloved by Hermes and Apollo, says she is more beautiful than Artemis for making two Gods fall in love with her. Artemis promptly shoots off her tongue, thus muting her, as Hermes and Apollo protect her from Artemis' full wrath.

1183-1173 BC - The Odyssey.

1183 BC - In the Odyssey, Artemis descends from a peak and travels along the ridges of Mount Erymanthos that was sacred only to the Mistress of the animals. When the Goddess became wrathful, she would send Erymanthian boar to lay waste to the fields. Artemis brought immediate death with her golden arrows. In the Iliad, Hera stresses the wild and darker side of her character and accuses her of being "a lioness between women".

1180 BC - In the Iliad, Artemis kills the daughter of Bellerophon after he angers the Gods by attempting to fly Pegasus to Mount Olympus.

1160 BC - Zeus' gigantic son Tityos attempts to rape Leto. She called to her children for help, and Artemis and Apollo were quick to rain their arrows down upon him, killing the giant.

1100 BC - Callisto, a beautiful nymph, is the second in command of Artemis' retinue. She pursues her Lady for quite some time, having fallen in love with her, and eventually they begin a secretive relationship. Zeus comes to Callisto in the form of Artemis and seduces her, thus making her pregnant. This greatly angers Hera who turns Callisto into a great bear, which Artemis mistakenly shoots and kills. In her grief, she transforms Callisto and her unborn son into the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

1101-1150 BC - the Iron Age/dark age of Greece begins, humans and the Gods distance themselves from one another.

880 BC - Homer writes his poems.

600 BC - Classical antiquity begins. Ancient Greece is characterized here until 600 AD.

500-499 BC - Artemis engages in a brief but intense relationship with the archaic poetess Sappho while masquerading as a huntress on the island of Lesbos. She often brought Sappho's family bounty in exchange for coin, as they were one of the wealthy in Mytilene.

509 BC - The beginning of the Roman Republic which overthrew the Roman Kingdom. This is the era of classical Roman civilization. During this period, Rome expanded to rule over the Mediterranean.

493 BC - Artemis is venerated by the great general Themistocles and builds a temple in her honour as well as a statue. This births the epithet Artemis Aristobule, meaning the best advisor.

490 BC - the Persians are defeated.

447 BC - The Parthenon is built.

440 BC - Herotodos writes his stories.

332 BC - Alexander III conquers Egypt.

330 BC - Alexander III conquers Persia.

146 BC - Greece is annexed by the Roman Republic during the Battle of Corinth.

51 BC - Cleopatra rules Egypt.

50-40 BC - Artemis travels between Egypt and the Roman Republic guised as a diplomat alongside her sister Athene.

44 BC - Julius Caesar is murdered shortly after being named dictator for life.

30 BC - Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius commit suicide.

27 BC - End of the Roman Republic marked by Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra's defeat at the battle of Actium in 31 BC. The granting of the Senate's powers to Octavian as Augustus effectively made him Emperor and ended the Republic.

Beginning of the Roman Empire.

16 AD - Laphria, a festival in honour of Artemis, is observed every year in Patras where a sanctuary of Artemis Laphria is located on the acropolis. This festival is unique to Patras and included many animal sacrifices as well as fruit from trees.

14 AD - Death of Augustus Caesar.

37 AD - Death of Emperor Tiberius.

41 AD- Emperor Caligula is assassinated.

54 AD - Emperor Claudius dies and Nero succeeds.

68 AD - Nero commits suicide.

79 AD - the destruction of Pompeii due to Mount Vesuvius' eruption. The Gods quarrel over their involvement. Artemis and Apollon attempt to save as many children as possible and largely fail without assistance.

106-117 AD - the Roman Empire at its largest. The Gods are primarily worshipped as their Roman counterparts. Artemis is known as Diana.

126 AD - Hadrian completes the Roman pantheon.

393 AD - The Pythia, Oracle of Delphi, gives her last prophecy to Emperor Theodosius I: "Tell the King that my hall has fallen to the ground. Phoibos no longer has his house, nor his mantic bay, nor his prophetic spring; the water has dried up."

380 AD - Christianity is declared heretical.

395 AD - The Roman Empire splits into the West Roman Empire and the East Roman Empire.

476 AD - the end of classical antiquity and Ancient History.

The West Roman Empire collapses.

The Middle Ages begin, also known as the Dark Ages due to very little being recorded.

1204 AD - The East Roman Empire collapses and is divided into Greek and Latin realms.

1261 AD - Constantinople and the East Roman Empire recovers, although only has regional power, the rest of the territories annexed by the Ottoman Empire.

Christianity is widespread and the Gods are no longer worshipped as widely. They lose power and influence and retire to the shadows before modern history.

1450 AD - The early Modern Era is characterized until 1750 AD. Marked by those such as Leonardo Da Vinci, William Shakespeare, Johann Sebastian Bach, etc.

1453 AD - The East Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) collapses. Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Empire, which is succeeded by most Mediterranean countries as we know them today.

1650 AD - The Age of Reason characterized until 1800 AD.

1800 AD. - The Modern Era characterized until present day.

1820 AD - Fatigued by internal discord within his family, the Greek pantheon, and his immortality, Zeus steps down as King of Olympus. He retires to the mortal plane and breaks contact with all of the Gods, becoming reclusive.

1822 AD - After a brief power struggle, Hera maintains her title as Queen of Olympus, although assumes a leadership role among the Gods.

1823 AD - Apollo distances himself from Artemis and Leto and becomes recluse.

1853 AD - Most of the Greek pantheon have deserted Olympus and either seek isolation or solace in hedonism. Some even try to live among mortals.

1854 AD - Artemis sequesters herself among the wilderness and travels as a pelt merchant and huntress through Northern Canada.

1870 AD - In America, Artemis travels by horseback as a merchant for some years. She spends much time exacting petty revenge on men who cross her path or mistreat their wives and children.

1900 AD - Ares and Apollo begin collaborating to bring about the end of times and start attempting to recruit other Gods to their cause. They abandon their duties.

1911 AD - Dionysos complains of frequent nonsensical visions that are not contributed to drugs.

#lore #ooc #tw violence #tw SA #tw religion #tw drugs

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camleecomics · 10 months ago

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Concept art for the legendary hero, Herakles, and his beloved companion, Iolaus.

Designing and drawing these two was a lot of fun. For my take on Herakles’ iconic lion skin I wanted the head of the lion to be really big and I didn’t want it to drape over his head or shoulder as it’s often depicted. I got the idea to drape it over his chest from Spider-Man villain, Kraven the hunter, who wears a vest with a lion’s face. I also wanted the lion’s mane to drape over his back like a cape to really hammer home those superhero vibes.

#leon x lykos #heracles #iolaus #greek mythology #sketches #cartoon #cartoonist #herakles

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mask131 · 2 years ago

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Green spring: Pan

PAN

Category: Greek mythology

I) Who is Pan?

Pan is one of the most famous, and weirdest, gods of the Greek mythology.

Pan is defined, first and foremost, by two things. One, he is a god of nature and wild lands: he protects the shepherds and their flocks, while also offering hunters their bounty. He is found in the forests, the meadows and the grottos ; he is the spirit of the fields, the groves and the glens. He is the patron of Arcadia, the Greek region that gave birth to the “Arcadian myth”, this idea of a peaceful, beautiful, idealized pastoral region (though the real-life Arcadia was a very mountainous area of Greece deemed “primitive” and backwards by the other Greeks). Two, he has a very unique appearance among the gods, being half-human and half-goat. He is usually depicted as a bearded man with the legs (or whole lower body), horns and ears of a goat. If this description sounds familiar, it is because it also fits the entire species of supernatural beings known in Greek mythology as the satyrs. The satyrs, the goat-men, were thought of as the friends and companions of Pan. The closeness between the god Pan and the satyr species led to Pan, from a singular entity, evolving through time into a “multiplicity”. For example the late Greek author Nonnus wrote in his “Dionysiaca” that Pan had twelve children, identical to him and who were all also known as “Pan”. Now, this is a very late addition to the Greek poetic canon, and is doesn’t seem to have been a widespread belief – but Nonnus does rely on the fact that the satyrs as a whole were commonly known as “little Pans” (Paniskoi), to distinguish them from the ��great Pan”, the god proper.

When it comes to Greek literature, we actually do not have much information about Pan. When it comes to archeological study we have lots of things to say – we have lot of info about his cult, rites, offerings, worship, temples… But as a character? In poetry and hymns and Ancient Greek texts? Things are less clear… Most of the tales and legends surrounding Pan actually come from Rome (and from Pan’s assimilation there with the god Faunus), not from Greece. The Greeks themselves seem to have quite confused by this god: all the archeological clues and elements point out to Pan’s cult beginning and appearing in Arcadia (a Greek region) and YET the Greek historians couldn’t admit that Pan came from their own culture and country, and rather believed he must have been an Egyptian god brought over…

The legend of Pan’s birth is the best representation of the mystery and bizarreness of Pan – because unlike other gods or characters of Greek mythology, there was never one predominant or major narrative with Pan. We just have a LOT of various different birth stories. The three oldest stories we have about his birth, all Greek in origin, are contradictory. On one side, the Homeric Hymn to Pan claims that he was born when Hermes seduced the “daughter of Dryops”, an Arcadian woman. Pan was a “marvelous” child, noisy, merry and constantly laughing – but his goat’s hooves and horns frightened humans. His Arcadian family abandoned Pan as a baby in the wilds, but Hermes saved the baby, and brought him to Olympus, where he amused all of the gods (especially Dionysos) and he was thus called “Pan”, meaning “all”, because he delighted “all” of the gods (We’ll return to that later). On the other side, there is the “Histories” of Herodotus, which highlight how Pan is one of the “three youngest Greek gods”, alongside Herakles and Dionysos – born out of an affair between Hermes and Penelope (yes, Odysseus’ Penelope), though Herodotus adds that it is unclear if Pan was a mortal man who was divinized after his death, or if the son of Penelope was actually a perfectly regular human man living after or around the Trojan War, and who was named after an older figure, the REAL divine Pan. And the third story comes from Epimenides – we do not have Epimenides’ actual text, but other sources mentions his record of Pan’s birth, which seems to predate chronologically the other two sources I mentioned before, and in Epimenides’ story Pan was the child born out of the affair between Zeus and Callisto (the huntress of Artemis).

These three stories are from the BC era, but if we jump to the second century of our current era, we suddenly have tons of new stories about Pan’s birth popping out. One story keeps Pan as a marriage born out of Penelope’s unfaithfulness, but with Antinous this time (one of the “hundred suitors”) – after giving birth to the shameful child she fled to a mountain to hide it, and it is where Hermes found and took it to become a god. Another story rather keeps Pan as one of Zeus’ numerous illegitimate children, but this time born out of a nymph called Thymbris. A third story mentions a nymph of Arcadia named Sinoe as a mother, with no specific father. Pindar made Pan the son of Apollo and Penelope, Theocritus rather claimed Pan was the child of Odysseus, commentators of Virgil claimed Pan was born of an orgy Penelope had when she slept with ALL of the “hundred suitors” in her palace (hence his name meaning “all”…). As you can see, the stories of Pan’s birth are varied, numerous and contradictory.

There is also another branch of texts that rather go with the idea that there wasn’t one Pan, but two “Pans”, hence why there are so many tales about his birth. It is the theory that for example Aeschylus had, during “Classical” Greece: he distinguished the “younger Pan”, son of Zeus and twin of Arcas (a legendary hunter-king of Arcadia), and the “older Pan”, a son of Kronos (and thus on equal footing with first-generation Olympians). Apollodorus also had the idea of dual Pans, though he claimed that the “younger Pan” was the son of Hermes and Penelope everybody talked about, while the “older Pan” was rather the son of Zeus and a nymph called Hybris (yes, like the flaw “hybris/hubris”), and that this “old Pan” was the mentor of Apollo during the god’s youth. And finally, we have Nonnus’ own late poetic inventions, in which he claims that the two Pans were identical twins, both born of Hermes, but yet birthed by two different mothers. One was Pan god of the hunters – he was called Agreus, had the power of prophecy and was an expert at killing beasts. The second was Pan god of the shepherds – he was called Nomios, was a talented musician, and the son of Penelope (not Odysseus’ wife this time, but a nymph with the same name).

II) Pan’s hobbies: sex and music

Rivaling his numerous birth tales, are Pan’s love tales. Pan was either depicted as a lustful deity constantly running after women, who in return were terrified by his ugly and frightening appearance (which makes him closer to the satyrs), either as an actually swell guy, great seducer, horned Casanova, who however had a bunch of tragic and unfortunate love stories.

In the versions where the nymph Echo isn’t madly in love with Narcissus, her love story will rather go to Pan. For example one story claims she had rejected the love of all men who sought after her, and this angered the lecherous Pan, who in a mad and lustful rage, tore Echo to pieces. Gaia, the earth, absorbing the body parts of the nymph within her, only left her voice behind – which formed the “echo” we know today. An alternate version rather depicts Pan and Echo’s story as a consensual love, which gave birth to two daughters, Iambe and Iynx.

Beyond Echo, Pan was also known to have loved the nymph Pitys, and once again we have two different versions. In the short version, Pitys turned herself into a pine tree to avoid the lust of the goat-god. In the longer version, Pan and Boreas (the North Wind) were fighting over Pitys’ love: Boreas uprooted all the trees to impress her with his strength, but Pan merely laughed to seduce her, and she chose to love him for his merriness. Boreas, angry, then threw the nymph off a cliff, and Gaia turned her into a pine tree. Virgil, the Roman poet, added a story about Pan seducing Semele (goddess of the moon), through some tricks with a sheep’s skin – but people think Virgil was simply rewriting the Greek story of Endymion and Selene. Hyginus also evoked a love story Pan had with the nymph Eupheme (the nurse of the nine Muses), a love story which later gave birth to a son named Crotos.

Pan’s second passion, beyond nymphs, was music. And his love for nymphs AND music shows up in the tale of Syrinx. Syrinx was a wood nymph of Arcadia that Pan tried to seduce. She wanted none of it, and fled from him, but he followed her everywhere she went. So she turned herself into a reed to escape him – and whenever the wind blew through them, the sadness of the harassed nymph could be heard as a plaintive melody. Pan then took the reeds, cut them into seven pieces, and created a musical instrument he named after his beloved Syrinx. The “syrinx”, aka “Pan’s Flute”. Now, let’s think about it… the story of a poor innocent nymph harassed by a rapist god and that has to turn herself into a plant? Yep, that’s an Ovid story, fully Roman one. But to be fair, Ovid did not invent Pan’s connection to the “pan’s flute” – the Greeks did consider that Pan had invented the instrument known as the “syrinx”, and they believed that he regularly played it in the wildlands where he dwelled. In the “Hymn to Pan”, a very ancient Greek text, there is a description of Pan playing “rustic music” in the evening, after the hunt – a sweet and low melody which made the nymphs dance in the woods. Just like the other satyrs, Pan was often depicted as a dancer and musician n the retinue of Dionysos – for as I said, he was a joyful, merry creature of laugh and music. But he was still a dangerous being whose mad lust could tear girls to piece… Beautiful but wild, just like nature.

There is also a story tied to Pan concerning Daphnis, a Sicilian shepherd who invented pastoral poetry. The legend said that Pan taught Daphnis how to play the “pan-pipes”, making him the first human wielder of the Pan’s flute – and apparently Daphnis was also Pan’s lover during his time with him. [Though we do not have exact texts for that – the sources here are Christian criticism and mockery of pagan tales]. The Romans heavily reinforced Pan’s connection to music by rewriting the myth of Apollo and Marsyas – you know, how a satyr tried to challenge the god of music in a music contest? Well, the Romans like Hyginus or Ovid, rewrote the myth by replacing the humble satyr Marsyas with the god Pan (no need to tell you, the whole “the loser is flayed alive” thing was removed). Fun fact: it is in this Roman narrative that we find the famous story of “how Midas got his donkey ears”, as a punishment for preferring Pan’s music over Apollo’s.

III) Pan’s interventions

Pan could literally be called the “god of the deus ex machina”, because in a lot of legends he just pops up when someone needs something, and then disappears. For example, according to Pausanias, when Demeter, both angry at Poseidon’s raping her and Persephone’s disappearance, removed herself from the world and made the earth wither away, she hid herself in a grotto where no god would find her. No god… except Pan, who hunted her down, found her, and then reported her secret location to Zeus. A not Greek, but Roman story this time (from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass) claims that, when Psyche wandered the world grieving the loss of her lover, Cupid/Eros, she met Pan (who was at the time all lovey-dovey with the nymph Echo). Pan then comforted Psyche, talked her out of her suicide projects, and advised her to give love one more chance.

Mind you, not all of Pan’s “interventions” were as peaceful and subtle as these ones. You see, the Greeks considered Pan the god of panic. The very word “panic” comes from the Greek “panikon”, which was created after Pan’s name. It was believed that Pan randomly appeared to those that wandered the forests and the woods – and his weird appearance would terrify people, sending them into a “panic”. Other tales rather speak of how he likes to take a nap during the hottest hours of the day, and if someone ever woke him up, he would pursue them in a mad anger – again, sending them into “pure panic”. When Nonnus described Dionysos’ expedition in India, he wrote that Pan, who was a companion of the wine-god at the time, used shadows ad echoes to terrify an army that was attacking them, invoking “strange voices coming out of nowhere” to make them flee in terror.

A fourth story, this time a historical anecdote from Greek historians, told of how Athens was attacked by the Persians, and a message was sent to Sparta to ask for help. The Spartans said they couldn’t help until the ten-day religious ritual they had just started was over – so the Athenian messenger returned empty-handed and depressed to the city. On his way back, the Athenian crossed the mountains of Arcadia, and there met Pan, who randomly promised to help the Athenians. He did it by spreading fear and terror among the Persian troops. Athens was victorious, and thanked Pan with a special cult in his honor. I can even talk of a last story that claims Pan helped Zeus during the Titanomachy! This legend claims that when the Titans attacked Olympus, Pan brought terror in their heart with his powerful voice, and either made them flee or frightened them enough that the Olympians could easily defeat them. As you can see, this legend is tied to the concept of the “older Pan” – not a Pan born out of Hermes or out of Zeus’ affairs, but a Pan either born out of Cronos, or born out of Amalthea, the same goat that nursed baby Zeus, thus making him the “foster brother” of Zeus…

So… A peaceful musician and good Samaritan, that is also a dreadful monster causing bursts of terror and irrational fears. A shameful son rejected by humanity, and yet the merry-maker of the gods. Beloved and repelled by the nymphs. One god and yet many characters. A hunter and a shepherd all at once: Pan is a god of contrasts and contradiction, a deity with an unusual loose canon in Greek mythology. His very name became a heavy subject of debate and reinterpretation.

Nowadays, experts at linguistics claim that “Pan” comes from an archaic Arcadian word that meant “nature”, “growth” or “rustic”, something along those lines, clearly identifying Pan as a rural god. But for most of the Greeks of the Classic era, “Pan” sounded too much like their own word “pan”, which meant “all”. So they found various stories to explain why the god was called “All” – ranging from him being the “son of all” fathered by a hundred men, to him being the “jester of all” by amusing all of the Olympian gods. [Note however that Pan was never depicted on Olympus, expect for this one birth story of his – he was usually depicted hanging out with nymphs and satyrs on earth, and the only gods he interacted with are earth-roaming gods like Dionysos or Demeter]. But with time, Greek philosophers decided to take “Pan” literally, and considered Pan to be the “god of all”, the spirit of the very universe, the all-encompassing world personified inside this entity uniting in himself all the opposite sides of nature. Charm and ugliness, peace and wrath, human and animal…

- - - - - - -

Having reached this point in the post, I need to bring another piece of the puzzle into this whole Pan mystery… Aegipan. A name that literally means “Goat-Pan”, and yet can be so much more…

Aegipan is a character of Greek mythology of late origin. In terms of Greek stories, he is only described by “late” Greek authors. We first have him mentioned by Eratosthenes (Greek author of the 3rd to 2nd century BC) – there Aegipan is said to have been the father of Pan, and that he was actually half-goat and half-fish, “just like Pan his son”… So already we have a departure from the usual Pan depiction. Next Greek author on the list is Pseudo-Apollodorus, where in his Bibliotheca he talks of a legend according to which, when the monster Typhon stole Zeus’ sinews, Hermes and Aegipan teamed up to retrieve them – they stole there from the cave where Typhon had placed it, a grotto kept by a monster known as “Delphyne”, before giving them back to Zeus. We also got several Greek art pieces depicting Aegipan as a half-goat half-fish creature – the beast that would later become the Capricorn of the Zodiac. The other tales concerning Aegipan are all Roman in origin: Hyginus claims that Aegipan was a son of Zeus and a woman named Aega (though variations evoke Apollo as a father), and that somehow he was transferred into the stars (hence his position as the Capricorn constellation). Plutarch rather claimed that Aegipan was an alternate name or identity for the Roman god Silvanus – and that he was born out of an incestuous relationship between a daughter and her father… As for Pliny the Elder he did not consider the Aegipan a singular entity, but an entire species of satyr humanoid living in the wildlands of Libya… Overall people debated back then (and still do) about what Aegipan is. For some he was a satyr-like creature like Pan, for others he was like the Capricorn sign half goat half fish. For some he was distinct from Pan, either his son or father. For others Aegipan was just another name, or another form of Pan (there are various retelling of the Typhon’s myth where it is Pan that teams up with Hermes, and Aegipan is just treated as an epithet). Hyginus notably told of a legend claiming that Aegipan was merely the Egyptian form of Pan, that the god took when Typhon arrived in Greece – in fear, Pan fled by jumping into the Nile and turning into the “water goat” we know today. This is all very confusing. In fact the story about Pan being the “foster brother” of Zeus born out of Amalthea? It was originally Aegipan’s story. (But of course if Aegipan is Pan all along, then it was always Pan’s story…).

… And of course, I have to talk about the famous part with Pan’s legend. The “Pan is dead” story. The late, late Greek historian Plutarch told in one of his works of a legend according to which Pan was the “only god that died”. He said that under the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberus, a sailor heard during one of his travels a mysterious voice from the shores of the island of Praxi. The mysterious voice travelling above the waves called the sailor by his name, and told him to announce at his next stop that the “great god Pan is dead”. The sailor did, which thoroughly depressed everybody, and so the news spread of the “god Pan” being somehow dead. Plutarch wrote this story in a treaty entirely called “On the obsolescence of oracles” – which as you can guess it a treaty going against superstitions, outdated rituals and many un-philosophical aspects of religion. And as the Roman Empire became the first Christian empire, you can guess that Plutarch’s story was HEAVILY reused by the first Christians as a way to rejoice at the “death” of the old, pagan gods and falsely divine “demons”. As I want to point out, this story is not part of the Greek or Roman religious canon – it was a historical anecdote, from late Greece/full Roman times, that was taken back heavily by the early Christians, and then was heavily talked about, debated and reinterpreted by various authors of modernity, from Rabelais to Chesterton, passing by Robert Graves and John Milton.

Overall, one could easily argue that Pan isn’t dead, thanks to the HUGE cultural legacy he brought with him, and how he is still a VERY relevant figure today. He got a huge popularity in literature around the 19th and early 20th century – from Machen’s “The Great God Pan” which would become proto-Lovecraftian literature, to his appearance as the “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” from The Wind in the Willows, passing by his inspiration for the famous “Peter Pan”… He got heavily used and talked about by Christianity throughout the centuries, as he was heralded as a demon, a form of the devil, another name for Satan, and soon became THE archetypal depiction of the forces of Hell (this is because of Christians’ association of Pan with Satan that now the devil and demons are seen as having horns and hooves). And of course, neo-paganism (especially Wicca-style movements) “revived” Pan as the omnipresent and singular male “Horned God”, that was also the secret “god of the witches” people mistook as Satan…

#green spring #greek mythology #greek gods #pan #aegipan

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rosabell14 · 6 months ago

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@achillesmonochrome Ohoho are you ready for the hunters of Artemis rant? Because I am.

You want to know why the hunters of Artemis suck in general? And as Ace rep specifically? Because Riordan did not write them with that mindset.

Now onto the hunters. The writers when first presented in TTC are not a group of asexuals but rather religious celibates. Fantasy Pegan nuns if you may. The first problem arises when their ages are brought up.

"Then the archers came from the woods. They were girls, about a dozen of them. The youngest was maybe ten. The oldest, about fourteen..."

"Are you surprised by my age?" she asked.

"Uh… a little."

"Go astray?" I asked.

"Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves."

Hooo boy. What a way to phrase it. Going astray. Losing themselves. This kinda confirms that the reason why Artemis goes after young girls specifically is because she only wants girls who have yet to finish puberty. Girls have yet to discover their own sexuality. Now I'm not a representative of Asexuals everywhere, but I'm pretty sure most of us don't discover our sexuality at the age of ten. Let alone have the maturity to decide to becomes celibates about it. And let me reiterate: celibacy is not sexuality. Sure asexual people CAN choose to be celibates but it's not the same thing at all. In fact Zoe and Thalia are big cases for this. Both of them having liked men before(herakles and luke) but joined for their own reasons. Thalia to escape the prophecy and Zoe out of heartbreak. Hell, Bianca herself is mostly swayed by the idea of having no responsibility and a new family.

Now the next point is the oath itself. Artemis says this:

"What oath?" I said.

"To foreswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. "To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally."

When I tell you that Emmy and Joe where retcons . Rick was freaking INSISTENT on the hunters being kids. Also note the three points: to never fall in love, to never get married, to stay a maiden.

Now onto the wording of the oath itself:

'I pledge myself to the goddess Artemis. I turn my back on the company of men, accept eternal maidenhood, and join the Hunt.'

Now onto the next big issue. Percy Jackson's Greek gods and its chapter on Artemis. It basically confirms all of my problems.

"IT’S NOT THAT ARTEMIS HATED ALL MEN, just most of them. From the moment she was born, she knew one critical fact: Guys are kinda gross."

No mention of girls. In this chapter Percy(Rick) brings up Artemis' disdain for dudes over and over again.

Yikes yikes yikes. Ladies and gentlemen the age has been lowered to 9. Freaking 9. Also I guess girls older than that don't need Artemis' protection then?

(the real problem is that older/married girls should be out of Artemis's jurisdiction and under the protection of other gods. Like Hera, Hestia, and Ares. But Hestia is barely there. Hera is terrible and the Amazons also suck)

Now when I tell you that Artemis' big point was about virginity, I mean it. This actually has mythological evidence.

But hey! Those myths aren't in the Greek gods book. You know which myth is? The myth of C(K)allisto. And this one angers me so much I want to chew on the drywall.

Kallisto sobbed. “But I didn’t want to lose you! I wanted to stay!”

(the fact that this book came out AFTER HoH y'all 😭)

Why does Reyna need to join the hunters? She can choose to not relationship without having to become a servant to female Peter pan.

Speaking of Bianca. How she was handled also angers me. I've already talked about how the hunters barely gave her adequate information before letting her join. How Zoe was the main reason for her death. But you know what else pisses me off? The fact that THEY should have been the one to tell Nico about his sister's death. I've always hated how Chiron made Percy the CHILD tell Nico the other CHILD about his sister dying. But more than anyone, it should have been the hunters' responsibility. Bianca was THEIR responsibility. She died in a quest to save Artemis. The least they could do was tell her remaining family of her fate. The Doylist reason of course is that we need to kickstart Nico and Percy's complicated relationship and have Percy discover that Nico is a son of Hades. But in universe, the fact that they immediately fuck off from the camp upon regrouping makes them come off as extremely selfish.

"oh, i hate bianca!! she left nico!!"

no. nonononono. you don't get it. how would YOU feel if all your life, you've been nothing but an older sibling?? nothing but a caretaker?? bianca yearned to feel part of something, to be needed and wanted. she didn't 'abandon' nico, she abandoned herself just to take care of him for so many years and when they finally found shelter (camp half-blood) she made the decision to finally do something for herself. let my baby rest, she didn't do anything wrong and i will go through hell defending her!!!!

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astrit-e · 2 years ago

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I like the information on the celestial realm. Seems interesting especially the place for the constellations 😁 (can't wait for the comic 😍). But, do each group has a leader? For example is Herakles the leader of his constellation group? 🤔🤔

Yes and No. I refer to the ones that live together as 'houses'. Not families. The ones that do not live together are referred to as nothing since there is nothing. However, in Astronomy, the constellations are divided into groups and referred to as families according to Menzel's list (an astronomer). In my story, the ones that are not in a "house", don't refer to themselves as families since they don't live together or are family. This is more of a human concept and ideal like in real life.

Zodiac House- Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. Leo is the leader.

Perseus Family- Cassiopeia, Cetus, Andromeda, Perseus, Pegasus, and Cetus (a monster sent to devour Andromeda). Auriga, Lacerta, and Triangulum were also included in Menzel's list. This constellation family do not all live together and thus there is no leader.

Hercules Family- Hercules, Sagitta, Aquila, Lyra, Cygnus, Vulpecula, Hydra, Sextans, Crater, Corvus, Ophiuchus, Serpens, Scutum, Centaurus, Lupus, Corona Australis, Ara, Triangulum Australe, and Crux. This constellation family do not all live together and thus there is no leader.

Orion House- Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Lepus, and Monoceros, located opposite Hercules. Based on Greek mythology, this constellation group shows Orion the hunter, and his two dogs chasing the hare (Lepus). For completeness, Menzel added the unicorn (Monoceros). Orion is the leader. Monoceros does not live with them.

Ursa Major House- The Ursa Major Family includes 10 northern constellations in the vicinity of Ursa Major: Ursa Major itself, Ursa Minor, Draco, Canes Venatici, Boötes, Coma Berenices, Corona Borealis, Camelopardalis, Lynx, and Leo Minor. The eponymous constellation Ursa Major contains the famous Big Dipper. Ursa Major is the leader. However, Bootes does not live with them and Leo minor is missing.

Heavenly Waters House- The Heavenly Waters draw from the Mesopotamian tradition associating the dim area between Sagittarius and Orion with the god Ea and the Waters of the Abyss. Aquarius and Capricornus, derived from Mesopotamian constellations, would have been natural members had they not already been assigned to the Zodiac group. Instead, Menzel expanded the area and included several disparate constellations, most associated with water in some form: Delphinus, Equuleus, Eridanus, Piscis Austrinus, Carina, Puppis, Vela, Pyxis, and Columba. Carina, Puppis, and Vela historically formed part of the former constellation Argo Navis, which in Greek tradition represented the ship of Jason. Eridanus is the leader

Bayer Family- The Bayer Family collects several southern constellations first introduced by Petrus Plancius on several celestial globes in the late 16th century, based on astronomical observations by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. The constellations were primarily named for exotic animals reported in the travel journals of that period and were copied in Johann Bayer's influential celestial atlas Uranometria in 1603. The group includes Hydrus, Dorado, Volans, Apus, Pavo, Grus, Phoenix, Tucana, Indus, Chamaeleon, and Musca. Bayer labeled Musca as "Apis" (the Bee), but over time it was renamed. The Bayer Family circles the south celestial pole, forming an irregular contiguous band. Because these constellations are located in the far southern sky, their stars were not visible to the ancient Greeks and Romans. This constellation family do not all live together and thus there is no leader.

La Caille Family- The La Caille Family comprises 12 of the 13 constellations introduced by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1756 to represent scientific instruments, together with Mensa, which commemorates Table Mountain ("Mons Mensa") in South Africa, where he set up his telescope. The group includes Norma, Circinus, Telescopium, Microscopium, Sculptor, Fornax, Caelum, Horologium, Octans, Mensa, Reticulum, Pictor, and Antlia. These dim constellations are scattered throughout the far southern sky, and their stars were mostly not visible to the ancient Greeks and Romans. (Menzel assigned Pyxis, the remaining Lacaille instrument, to the Heavenly Waters group.) This constellation family do not all live together and thus there is no leader.

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jeannereames · 3 years ago

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Is is true that Alexander used to perform dressed as the goddess Artemis? And, if it is, why do you think he did that?

Finally getting to this question. I wanted to double check some things before tackling it.

First, the story of Alexander dressing up as gods comes to us from Ephippos (Athen. 537e-538b). Ephippos of Olynthos was a hostile source, writing On the Death and Burial of Alexander and Hephaistion, which survives only in fragments. He was Greek, not Macedonian, and from the town Philip had razed to the ground in 348. He was probably a contemporary of Alexander, but if the Ephippos mentioned in Arrian is the same guy, he was left behind in Egypt as a superintendent when Alexander left—so he was not hanging out at his court. IOW, his reports are not from a long-term courtier. At most, Ephippos visited Babylon.

Anyway, I wanted to give a little context for who this person is, and that we cannot trust he knew what he was talking about, or had seen any of it first-hand.

Second, remember that Macedonian kings weren’t just military and political leaders, they were also religious symbols and the high priest for their people, required to conduct specific rites related to the health of the kingdom. For instance, he made a libation when leaving or returning to the capital city (whether just Aigai or also Pella is not clear), leaving the bounds of Macedonia, crossing certain rivers, regular morning sacrifices (ATG was still doing them when he could do nothing else prior to his death), etc. Spartans kings had similar roles, as did the elected “king” in other Greek city-states. When kingship ended in S. Greece, the religious role he had filled remained critical, and so they began electing a king by lot each year! We also know that the elected “basileus” (king) of Athens played dress-up as Dionysos at the Anthesteria, where he had sex (?) with his wife (as Ariadne)—although not in front of a crowd! LOL. But the idea of a king performing as a god at a religious rite is common enough. (Similar roles were required of ANE kings.)

We’re told that Alexander dressed up as Hermes, Artemis, Herakles, Dionysos, and Zeus-Ammon. Who they are is significant: especially Hermes, Herakles, and Dionysos, all of whom were important deities in the region, with connections to the Solar Deities (Dionysos) and The Rider, or Hero the Horseman (Herakles/Hermes/even Artemis, as hunters). And, of course, Macedonian kings were descendants of Zeus via Herakles. A lot is made of Alexander as the New Achilles, and he does seem to have courted that at points—but folks, there is TWICE as much about Alexander and Herakles in the sources. In the Hellenistic period, Macedonia had a huge cult to Herakles Kynegnidas, Herakles the Hunter, which almost certainly was older yet. (There was also some sort of office for young men as “hunters” but we have absolutely NO clue what they did, as it doesn’t seem to be actual hunting. Local police force has been suggested.) The Rider below:

We hear a bit about Thracian royal role-playing via Theopompus (Athen. 12.531e-532a), who also doesn’t seem to understand what he witnessed (and likely didn’t care) where a king, as Dionysos, performed a sexual rite with an earth mother figure. Kings as Riders or other divine figures is backed up by some iconographic royal representations. (Check out the work of Thracian scholars Fol and Marazov for more on Thracian religion.)

As noted, the deities Alexander is accused as “dressing up as” have significant connections with The Rider and, of course, Dionysos…also venerated in Macedonia and connected with the kingship. Coin of Alexander I with The Rider below

So almost certainly Ephippos didn’t know what he was talking about, and/or his source didn’t. Instead, it gets used as more proof of Alexander’s growing hubris as an Oriental Tyrant.™ SO many of our Alexander texts have moralizing overtones typical of Greek historiography that we have to be super-duper careful with their assessments of Alexander’s motivations. (Anytime you read something about his corruption by those Evil Oriental/Persian Ways, roll your eyes and move on.) Want a perfect example? Check out Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead 12: a conversation between dead-Philip and dead-Alexander. Obviously fictional, certainly satire, and rife with anti-Asian bias.

Anyway, even without the moralizing, it’s possible that whoever originally observed whatever Alexander was doing simply didn’t understand it. This isn’t uncommon even in the same religion. If you were raised Southern Baptist and attend mass with your Catholic buddy, you likely won’t have a clue what’s going on half the time—never mind if you attend an Orthodox Shabbat service. Worshiping (basically) the same gods does not equate to the same rites. Greek religion was not homogenous, and all sorts of regional differences existed.

As noted with the Anthesteria, a “king” dressing up as Dionysos isn’t even alien to Athens.

If you’d like to read more about this in particular, let me recommend “Thracian and Macedonian Kingship” chapter 22, section 4 (Ideology and Religion, 344-48) by William Greenwalt in A Companion to Ancient Thrace, Julia Valeva, Emil Nankov, Denver Graninger, eds.

#The Rider #Thracian Religion #Thracian Rider #Macedonian Religion #Alexander the Great #Herakles #Hercules #Dionysos #kings dressing up as gods #Macedonian king as priest #Herakles the Hunter #Its religion not megalomania #William Greenwalt #asks

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holly-natnicole · 2 months ago

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@rubyfa Firstly, awesome that you're writing a trans Percy fanfic!! I headcanon her as a trans gal too!! *gives a thumbs-up*

Secondly, Ártemis/Diana isn't homophobic!! She has a strict "no romance and no sex" policy. Gender nonbinary people, trans girls, trans ladies, cis ladies, cis girls, cis boys, even cis men (e.g. Hippolytus and Orion) are all welcome in the Hunt as long as they don't date nor have any type of sexual interactions with anyone at all. Hemithea (sometimes called Emmie for short) and Josephine (sometimes called Jo for short) were Hunters 'til they fell in love with each other and so Artemis removed the blessing, turning them from immortal back to mortal which meant they aged normally from that moment onwards. The Hunters still visit them sometimes many decades after they left the Hunt. No-one hates Emmie and Jo for getting married or anything.

Thirdly, Artemis' and Zoë's androphobia/misandry comes from trauma. Zeus betrayed Artemis and a Hunter of hers named Callisto, Herakles betrayed Zoë. They don't 100% hate guys. It's more of a "prove to me that you can be trusted" thing. (To be clear, I'm not saying it's morally right or anything; assuming the worst of someone solely coz of their masculine appearance is morally wrong. I'm simply explaining why Artemis and Zoë look down on dudes.)

Important riordanverse question. I've yet to fully read toa so this might be explained there but did Emmie and Josephine leave the hunters cause they wanted to do other things or cause Artemis is anti relationship/homophobic on top of her androphobia?

#alex's thoughts #hunters of artemis #artemis #artemis pjo #pjo artemis #pjo zoe #zoe pjo #toa josephine #josephine #hemithea #zoë nightshade #zoe nightshade

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davidluongart · 2 years ago

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The Awakening of Adonis 🌹🏛❤️‍🔥

Based on the original John William Waterhouse’s painting in 1899, but added more cultural flavors to these mythological figures. (As Aphrodite’s birthplace is in the island of Cyprus, where the cultures of Ancient Greece, Egypt & Mesopotamia met and intertwined within the threads of history. While Adonis was once a shepherd god in the religion of earlier Mesopotamia and later, a mortal hunter and lover in Greek myths, who stealing hearts of Aphrodite, Persephone and Herakles.)

#ancient greek #aphrodite #venus #my art #adonis #john william waterhouse

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the-winters-prince · 6 months ago

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You know these myths where gods fall in love with mortals and they disguise themselves as animals to seduce the object of their affections? I could imagine that Lleu, who had been told tales of the greek heroes as a good-night story ever since he was little, thought in his hero worship that Medraut's skill with the bow was out of this world and his big brother must have been a demi-god birthed by a hunterer goddess who had seduced his father during a feast. If he recontextualized the adultery of Artos/ the rape of Artos as a fairy tale story where his father had caught the eyes of a goddess, then he could defend him against himself. Artos' never sinned, everything he did had been god's plan. Medraut is not tainted by his bastard status. Just like Herakles and Perseus it elevates him over the others and he is destined for great things.

I wonder what Lleu really thought when he was told Morgause was Medraut's mom. Yeah the first thing he points out is that it was incest but that was a knee-jerk reaction. I want to know how he digested it afterwards. Since he admires Medraut so much he might have though his mysterious mother would be a noble women as well.

Headcanon time: He's the type to build up images of others in his head. When it's broken he can quickly fix it up or adjust it and bounce back but there's nothing he can do to justify the fact that his dad fucked his sister like how there was nothing he could adjust or fix when he thought Medraut hated him for real, just went and accepted he'd die by his hands.

#consequently the shock is so much bigger when he is told who Medraut's mother is #the winter prince #headcanons

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sunder-the-gold · 3 years ago

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Can any of my FGO-playing Followers help me brainstorm a fan Servant for fun?

The Record of Ragnarok manga got me wondering about a more “accurate” version of Adam (First Man, Grand Father of Humanity) as a super-human being.

Here’s my thoughts, and I’d like to hear yours.

Suffer the Children

As with RoR’s Adam, this Adam prioritizes his children (all of humanity) above all else, and would gladly fight any beast, demon, or god to the death to defend them, to the point of striking harder against targets bearing the “Threat to Humanity” quality, and having some ability to protect his descendants when fighting alongside them.

But his love for his children is a big reason why Adam hasn’t appeared before, especially in Grail Wars or Lost Belts. Just as Adam did not kill his son Cain after Cain murdered Abel, Adam cannot bring himself to fight any of his descendants, much less to side with one faction and condemn another, or even just to stand back and watch them fight each other as a Ruler. So, if Adam is even physically capable of attacking humans, he would at least suffer a damage penalty when striking at them.

For this purpose, I would furthermore introduce a new quality called “Child of Man”, which applies equally to fully-human characters, demi-gods, and even beings artificially created by humanity such as Frankenstein’s Monster and Voyager. (Divine spirits merely borrowing shapes from humans, like Ishtar, are probably exempt from Adam’s mercy.)

Grand Father

But by the same token, Adam radiates an authority over all of his descendants, such that even demi-gods like Gilgamesh face some kind of damage penalty when attacking him.

When summoned as an Assassin, Adam gains a Skill that supersedes Presence Concealment like Jack the Ripper's Information Erasure does, though Adam's Class Skill combines his authority to demand humans not see him together with his perfectly medium appearance to transition from "beautifully ideal" to "unremarkably average". The higher someone's Divinity, the less this skill affects them.

When summoned as a Ruler, Adam’s rank in True Name Discernment, when used against other humans, is second only to Eve’s.

One Treasure: God-Given Tunic — Garment of First Sacrifice

“The price of sin is death.” When the first humans broke the law, God made the first animal sacrifice on their behalf to buy their pardon, and from the animal’s hide God fashioned tunics to signify their cleansing, cover their nakedness, and protect their flesh from violence.

Adam and Eve wore these tunics until the day they died, relying upon their divine protection as they fought demons and beasts to keep their children safe, until humanity had grown too numerous for anyone but God to protect or destroy.

Later worn by Nimrod and Esau. Wearing the clothes gave Nimrod great success as a hunter and warrior, but it could not protect him from a prophecy that he would killed by a child of Abraham.

This defensive Noble Phantasm is inferior to Avalon, particularly in that it does not extend life-span, but it ought to be comparable to Herakles' Nemean Lion Hide.

Where the Nemean Lion Hide protected one from all man-made weapons, the Garments of First Sacrifice need only protect against all beasts and monsters and demons, but not from other humans or divine beings. With no protection from other humans, Nimrod had no special protection from Esau.

Pioneer of Human Crafts

Adam and Eve first explored human capabilities and passed their knowledge down to their children and descendants. Therefore, they possess all knowledge and skills discovered by humanity, similar to how Gilgamesh possesses a prototype of every device made by humanity.

No version of Adam or Eve can access humanity’s manufactured treasures in the same way, because they did not horde the products of their own hands or those of their children. They kept their God-given tunics to themselves, but everything they personally made, they gave away freely to their children so their children could defend and enrich themselves.

Nevertheless, Adam has the authority to use any physical Noble Phantasm made by human hands, even those whose skills equaled that of the gods. But Divine weapons made by Emiya Shirou's Reality Marble would not become exceptions to this rule.

Adam best expresses his craftsmanship when summoned as a Caster.

Unified Language

I don’t fully know what the Unified Language can do, but that one antagonist in Kara no Kyoukai would pale in comparison to the man who spoke that language first. Whatever these abilities, Adam would express them most strongly as a Caster or as a Ruler (especially together with a Ruler’s ability to discern true names), though Eve would be more adept.

Namer of Beasts

Whether by actual history or mere legend, Adam possesses special authority over beasts as the man who first named them all. Whatever form this authority takes (such as resistance to their attacks or bonus damage against them), he expresses it most strongly as a Ruler or Rider, and it supersedes the Riding Skill.

The effect is weaker against phantasmal or demi-god beasts.

Eve did not name the beasts herself, but she was born directly from Adam’s flesh, and so shares equally in his authority over the beasts.

"Earth"

Here’s where I take a stab at cosmological mechanics I don’t really understand.

Adam’s birth ushered in the emergence of the human-derived World Texture, along with Alaya and the Counter Force. When Adam sinned, all of these things became destined to die, and be reborn.

“Adam” doesn’t just mean “Human” and “Humankind”, but also “Earth”, for the flesh of the first humans’ bodies was made from the earth. The first humans’ collective sin cursed both them and the Earth (the human world) to death, with their deaths returning their bodies to the earth (Gaia) from which they were made, and with a prophecy of the Earth itself dying after humanity’s bodies are resurrected from its soil.

Adam’s personal sin further estranged him from the Earth (Gaia), turning it into his adversary. For the rest of his life, instead of freely providing him food, the soil would produce thorns and thistles against him, and he would need to struggle to cultivate food from it. The struggle between the earth and humanity began, with the birth of the “world texture of humanity”. God blessed and commanded Man to assert dominion over the earth.

#fate #type moon #adam #adam and eve

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dandy-writes · 4 years ago

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hey! if you’re taking requests - readers first kiss, with crowley ? ❤️ tysm

AN: hello!! this was really sweet to write, thank you for sending your request! hope you enjoy :]

Y/N sat alone in a dimly lit and drably furnished room. The clock, illuminated by the dancing light of a selection of candles spread across the table, read 11:47 P.M. “Et ad congregandum…” With a sigh, the hunter lit a match as they began to recite in Latin. “Eos coram me.” When they’d finished, they dropped the match into a metal bowl at the center of the table, surrounded by carefully-drawn sigils. It was filled with a mix of herbs and fruits, and when it caught fire the scent rushed up into the air in a smoky sweetness. Y/N coughed a little, then closed their eyes.

“Why, hello, darling.”

Upon reopening them, they found themselves caught between feelings of satisfaction and regret. Before them stood the demon king himself; Crowley. Immaculately dressed as per usual, he glanced around the room before his gaze finally settled at the floor below, where a devil’s trap had been painted. He tsked. “Really, love, you should know by now that those things don’t tend to hold me for very long.”

“That’s alright, I won’t take up too much of your time.”

He smiled. “No? We’d better get right to business, then.”

They shifted a little in their seat. “Herakles’ Club. You know of it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know it’s location?”

“I might. What do you and the boys need it for?” He paused, putting up a hand. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know.”

Y/N shot him a look and began to speak.

“Say, where are the boys, anyhow?” Crowley continued before they had a chance to, taking a step towards them. “Unusual of them to ask you to dirty your hands like this.”

“Well…” They swallowed. “They’re at the bunker.”

He looked at them for a moment, face expressionless. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’? ‘Oh’ what?” They questioned.

The demon continued his advance in drawn-out strides, a grin spreading across his face as he did so. He stopped right at the edge of the devil’s trap and leaned forwards. “They don’t know you’re doing this.”

They unfolded their hands and glanced away. “Crowley--”

“My, my, my… You know, I never thought the little hunter would venture very far from the nest, but clearly I was mistaken.” He cocked his head. “Tell me, darling. What prompted this act of rebellion?”

“I’m not rebelling against them, I’m just giving them help when they’re too stubborn to see that they need it.” They snapped. Crowley raised his eyebrows, an unspoken request for Y/N to elaborate. With a sigh, they did. “Sam and Dean refuse to work with you.” They glared at him. “I mean, it’s no wonder why, but they’re not acknowledging the fact that without outside assistance, we don’t have any workable leads. And you’re the best help we have access to at the moment.”

“I see,” He said. There was a glimmer in his eyes that worried Y/N. “So, strictly professional.”

“Yes.”

He hummed, biting the inside of his mouth softly in contemplation. Finally, he returned his focus to the hunter. “Well, luckily for you, I’m willing to lend a hand. Granted, not without a little something in return.”

Y/N rolled their eyes. “Of course.”

“First, let me out of this devil’s trap.”

They eyed him for a moment, then in one swift movement stood up and took their knife from its holster. Cautiously, they knelt besides the trap and chipped away a line in its outer ring, then stood back up. However, when they did, it was immediately clear that Crowley was gone. Narrowing their eyes, they turned around, walking right into something solid and warm.

“Careful, love. I thought you hunters were supposed to be aware of your surroundings?” The demon teased, placing a hand on their upper arm to help them steady themselves. They immediately shook it off and scowled.

“Just cut to the chase, Crowley. What do you want?”

“A favor.”

“No.” He frowned at their response. “Who do you take me for? ‘A favor’ is far too vague for my liking,” They crossed their arms and backed away. “I’ll only take it with the condition that it can’t involve my betraying the boys, or otherwise acting against them. Alright?”

“You must be the life of the party.”

“Is this a deal or not?”

“Fine,” He began to close the distance Y/N had just put between them, but they stood their ground as he approached. “It’s a deal. Now…” He trailed his eyes over their face. “Shall we seal it?” Hesitantly, they nodded. Crowley brought his hand up to cup their cheek, and began to lean in, but Y/N ducked their head away. He furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” They said quickly, turning back to face him. “Sorry. You can, um...” They gestured vaguely.

“It’s clearly not ‘nothing’,” He replied. His tone was unusually soft as he continued. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

Their eyes widened slightly. It was rare to hear Crowley actually call them by name. “I, um…” They looked down at their hands. “I’ve never done it. Before.”

For a few seconds, there was an awful silence. But then they felt the hand on their face caress it softly. “You’ve never kissed someone before?” They shook their head, face flushed. “Really? Someone as gorgeous as you?”

“Shut up,” They laughed a little and smacked his arm. “I just, I don’t know. I never got the chance.”

“Well, love,” He traced his hand over their jaw and under their chin, directing their gaze back to meet his. “I will relish being your first kiss, if you’ll have me.”

They bit their lip. “I mean, I don’t -- I don’t know what to do.” “Just follow my lead, darling. Alright?” His smile, for once, didn’t seem to hold any trace of malice. Comforted by this, they nodded. “Good.” He muttered as he moved to kiss them. It was a tender moment, more tender than Y/N thought possible for a demon. They rested their hands on his suit lapels as he placed his other hand on their lower back. It didn’t last for nearly as long as Y/N would have liked, almost painfully evident to Crowley by the way they followed after him when he pulled away. He ran his hand through their hair and exhaled. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, pet.”

They blinked and nodded. “Yeah, um. You too.”

“I’ll be in contact with you regarding Herakles’ Club. And don’t worry, I’ll be discreet. Wouldn’t want the boys to know about our little rendezvous.” He smirked and placed a kiss upon their temple. “Until next time.”

Y/N closed their eyes in an attempt to savor the moment, but when they opened them they were alone once more.

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