#I feel like if Typhon taught them that power /= everything

[tavi-calypso]

I’m not dissing your reblog here, some FANTASTIC points! But I do personally feel like typhon really is a big part of the blame, you keep your children essentially trapped on this planet (that’s supposedly hidden from any other planet mind you) like you said that’s in no way shape or form a good place to raise them . And then filling their heads with these stories of vaults with tremendous power inside of them. (not calling him out on that, I mean. What else do you do to keep your children entertained on fucking neckrotafeyo.) I’m not saying that Typhon would’ve known what would’ve happened, (no one would’ve) but you keep them trapped on this planet, tell them stories of tremendous power, not telling them anything about how to navigate the world, (because even if they didn’t steal his ship they would’ve left eventually) said children escape, and like I said, have no idea how to navigate this world that’s 1000x bigger than anything they’ve experienced up to that point. Yeah, I kind of blame Typhon.

This isn’t a jab at your reblog, more so Typhon DeLeon. Lmao.

Just a Little bit..

[scratchface]

So if Yusaku = Atlas Then Takeru = Prometheus?

I’m a huge nerd for Greek mythology, so I hope you’re prepared for what you just unleashed, because I’ve thought about this too much.

Theories about Greek Mythos Allusions in Vrains

There were four notable second-generation Titans, all brothers: Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus. These four brothers and their father, Iapetus, are considered to be the progenitors of all life. Less notable are a couple of their cousins, including Astraeus and Perses.

Atlas “the enduring” was the leader of the Titan’s rebellion against Zeus after Zeus chopped up his dad Cronus. From Atlas, humans are said to have inherited strength, daring, and patience (which fits Yusaku perfectly); he also taught humans astrology/astronomy, navigation, and agriculture. Punished for his role in the war, Atlas was forced to take up the mantle of his father and uncles, who were the original four pillars of the heavens and the Titans of the West, North, East, and South. As the only remaining pillar, Atlas bears the burden of the sky all by himself. He now stands at the very end of the Earth, and is considered difficult to find/reach. 

Some sources claim the war between the Titans and the Gods lasted ten years. The record of the war, however, as in the poem detailing it, has been completely lost to history.

Prometheus is remembered for being the one to steal fire and give it to humans, but he was the Titan of forethought, not fire. Most importantly, he was considered clever and forward-thinking because he sided with the Gods over the Titans. Atlas, on the other hand, led the Titans against the Gods alongside Menoetius.

Menoetius is associated with rashness, wrath, pride, and might, and is doomed because of it. While Atlas is forced by the Gods to carry the sky, Menoetius was thrown into the darkness of Tartarus after being defeated by Zeus. It is said humans inherited his tendency for violence. (He has some kind of weird bromance with Hades after being stuck in the Underworld, but that’s probably not relevant)

So where I’m going with this? Takeru is Menoetius. Takeru is rash, he’s got a carefully smothered quick temper, and is the only character so far to be seen as a combat fighter. He sides with Yusaku when almost no one else does, but it crippled by his tendency to rush is head first. 

Humans inherited Prometheus’s cleverness, and Epimetheus’s foolishness/regretfulness. The two of them represent foresight and hindsight. Considering it’s Kogami that in canon was compared with Prometheus, and Ryoken is his successor, and Prometheus carries the “guilt” of a crime against Zeus, I think it’s fair to say Ryoken’s the one likened to Prometheus, in the eternally suffering benefactor of mankind kind of way. Ryoken may not be a Lost Kid, but he was heavily involved in the matter. That means very well that Epimetheus could be Spectre: the one that came to the side of Hanoi after, as Epimetheus mostly follows after Prometheus.

That leaves three other kids, for which there’s a couple different options, which won’t become clear until we know more about them and their respective Ignis.

Astraeus is associated with the wind and dusk, and all the zephyrs of Greek Myth are descended from him. Obviously, this is probably the child of the Wind Ignis. I think this is probably Jin, but Jin and Spectre could possibly be switched here.

Helios is the Titan of the sun. That’s…pretty self-explanatory. Hyperion could also fit, but these two are not always distinct entities from each other. Some stories say Helios allied with Zeus against the Titans, so that’s not a good sign for the child of the Light Ignis.

Perses is the Titan of destruction and peace. He’s pretty unknown too, but he was the father of Hecate. He was also the cause of droughts and a source of scorching heat, which is a tenuous connection to Earth. Mount Orthys was the base of the Titans, and when the Titans were defeated and banished, Gaea made Typhon, who would eventually become a mountain; so hey, there’s two options.  There’s Mylinus too, who was the Titan of an island and harvest, both earthy stuff. Sykeus is another option, as an Earth Titan/Giant that fled from the war and was hidden by his mother, Gaia, from Zeus. Gaia even gave him a fig tree. The Earth kid could really be any of these, even if he’s Spectre or Jin.

Pallas is pretty unremarkable besides being the Titan of warcraft and being, like, a goat or something, but he was married to Styx. As in, the Titan goddess of the River Styx, associated with water and oaths and hatred, and who also represents the boundary between the Earth and the Underworld. She, funnily enough, also sided with the Gods, and is possibly the only reason the Gods won, since she brought along her kids, including Victory/Nike. Alternatively, Clymene/Asia was an Oceanid (daughter of the ocean) and Titan of fame. She was the mother of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, and she was also the consort of Helios. Other promising candidates include Eurybia and Tethys, both sea Titan goddesses. All female Titans were either neutral or sided with Zeus in the war. Does that mean the Water Child will be siding against Yusaku? Who knows.

It seems to me that Yusaku is Atlas, but backwards. 

-Atlas fought against the Gods and ten years later was forced to carry the heavens on his back in eternal agony. Yusaku was forced to go through agony and carry a great burden, and then ten years later, started a war against Hanoi. 

-Same for Takeru: he’s Menoetius in reverse! Banished to the darkness, then ten years later comes back to join “Atlas” in his challenge to “the Gods”. 

-Spectre is the same, if he’s Epimetheus (Joins gods, makes new life, finds companionship in Pandora, gets punished). Get’s “punished”, finds companionship and a new life, joins Hanoi. 

-Same with Ryoken as Prometheus (Joins gods, betrays Zeus to save humanity) as he betrays his father to save the kids, then dedicates himself to serving the father he betrayed. 

If the story really is being told in reverse, it makes sense that Kogami, (as Zeus, the youngest of the gods and titans involved) exits early on. But that means, won’t the story end with Cronus in power?

There is another possibility. We may be misinterpreting Yusaku as Atlas, when Yusaku may actually be associated with Atlas’s father, and the original pillar of the West, Iapetos, Titan of mortality, life (as in, the progenitor of all mortal life!), and fate. Very little is known about him besides the fact that he was immensely powerful (you don’t have four sons as influential as he did without having some serious clout) and enough of a threat to the Gods that he was imprisoned in Tartarus right next to Cronus. There were three other pillars, all brothers, that together held the Sky/Ouranos still while the fifth brother, Cronus, castrated him and threw his genitals into the ocean, resulting in the birth of Aphrodite (Aphrodite Ourania, not Aphrodite Pandemos, if we want to make a distinction between the two). This version of Aphrodite is associated with homosexual love, spiritual love, and obviously the sea foam from which she was born, and is represented by a tortoise.

That would make six children of Ouranos linked to Ouranos’s fall from grace: five male, one female. The Titan of fate, the Titan of light, the Titan of intellect/stars/prophecy, the Titan of spring, the Titan of time/agriculture (an ongoing debate), and the deity of love. 

Iapetos, as the opposing pillar to Hyperion of the East and light, could be associated with darkness. Iapetos is considered by some scholars to be the “ender” of all things. He represents the end that ultimately awaits everything and everyone (even the sun), and therefore, is a pretty ominous dude. So, please, feel free to side-eye Yusaku hard for being associated with this guy and his son.

That said, the four pillars are super, super obscure, while Atlas is the most famous of all Titans, so I think the Atlas theory is the most likely. Plus, all four children of Iapetos are heavily associated with inevitability and self-destruction! Sounds a lot like Yusaku, Ryoken, and Spectre, huh? Takeru is probably going to be prone to the same tendencies.

But there’s another interpretation too. If we think of Ryoken as Heracles, the greatest of humanity, then Vrains might really be taking from the 12 labors. Atlas featured prominently in the 11th labor, and was tricked by Heracles into retrieving the sacred apples and once more taking up the sky. Other labors featured Cerberus (Akira), the Nemean Lion (possibly Takeru?), and many others. (Spectre could be the sacred tree, which Heracles has Atlas pluck the apples from? Weird.) This one seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but may be more valid later on when other characters come in. The main factor is Heracles deals a lot with guilt and redemption, which is Ryoken’s whole deal.

But I think the most telling part of all this is, in many tellings, Zeus/Heracles eventually forgave and released all the Titans from their sentences (including Prometheus, I.e. Prometheus Unbound), except Atlas, who must remain as the pillar of heaven for all time. Some of these stories suggest Atlas chooses to remain, as he alone can handle the burden of the heavens and keep the world safe. Good luck to Yusaku! He’s gonna need it!

[danvssomethingorother]

@thatvinypotato

Past: The moon 

It has been said many times that things are not always as they seem, and in the influence of the Moon this axiom is particularly true.  In the moonlight, things that are benevolent during the day can suddenly seem dangerous and malicious.  The very term "moonlight" is misleading because the Moon does not emit light of its own, it simply reflects the light of the Sun.  Some people even claim to see the face of a man on the Moon's cratered surface, though of course such a thing is impossible and only an illusion.  A lot of people who look for that face in the Moon know it could not be there, but they look nonetheless.

This card is one of the few Major Arcana with important animal symbolism, and with no human figures in the majority of cases.  The Rider-Waite card shows a wolf and a dog; two members of the same genus, but the first is wild and the second has been domesticated.  Both of them are shown howling at the Moon, however, and if a human were present in this scene he would probably be affected somehow too.  Regardless of your place in the hierarchy of society or of evolution, you are still susceptible to illusions and deception.  The Moon shines the same light down on everyone, though what you see when that light reaches your eyes depends on who you are, not on what you see.

In ancient religions the Moon deity was often a Goddess with ties to female fertility, because there was a visible correlation between the cycle of the Moon and the female menstrual cycle.  While this association is still valid, the Moon of the Tarot tends to deal with fertility of imagination rather than fertility of body.  The crayfish shown regularly on Moon cards is a sign of the emerging subconscious and its influence over the conscious mind, and for a mind closed to the messages of its subconscious, there can be a lot of illusion and deceptions to face.  You can no longer tell what is real and what is just a manifestation of your fears and desires.

The ordeal of the Moon is the last challenge posed by the Major Arcana, in which you must travel in the dark, not knowing for sure if your path is the right one.  There is no sunlight to guide you, no distant landmark in the hills to direct your steps, no one to travel alongside.  This is a journey that must be made alone, in darkness and without a map or a compass.  You must learn to rely on your own inner light to lead you along the true path. Any hesitation, any doubt, and that light will be extinguished forever.  But if you believe, your light will shine forever, as brightly as the sun that will inevitably rise once this night has passed.

The Moon's appearance in a reading almost always means that something is not as it appears to be, and that vigilance and perception will be necessary to find that which is hidden before it is too late.  In a generally good reading the Moon shows that not all is as wonderful as you would think.  You may be idealizing the sitatuion, and ignoring the fact that potential for failure exists among success.  A negative reading that includes the Moon often shows that you are letting your imagination run away with you, and that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.  In both cases you must open your eyes and see what it really going on.

This card can also show times when you are not sure of your destination, or even of the path you are travelling - but you travel nonetheless.  It's quite possible that you have lost your way, and are stumbling around in the dark. If you wait until the sun rises again the path may have changed and the opportunity could have been lost.  So what should you do?  The Moon is a card of intuition and psychic forces, so let go of your conscious mental blocks and let your intuition guide you.  Not only will the way forward be revealed, but in a lot of cases you will learn lessons about yourself that will be valuable in later journeys.

Present: The hierophant 

Spirit is the final leg of the triad that has been previously seen in the Empress and Emperor; the archetype of the spiritual world is the Hierophant. This is the card of beliefs, both religious and otherwise, though it does tend to focus on the religious and spiritual aspects because the Hierophant himself is often depicted as a holy man.  Indeed, in some decks this card is known as the Pope or High Priest.  But in actuality, a Hierophant is a person who holds 'forbidden' or 'secret' knowledge.  While this could easily apply to the clergy, it has far greater scope than this. In a way it could be said that (with apologies to Crowley) every man and every woman is a Hierophant.

The Hierophant can even stand for groups of more than one person, and in the majority of cases he is better represented by an institution than by a single person.  This is because his is the power of the group and the society, who change the world to fit their beliefs.  The same theme of control and change that first appeared with the Magician continues here in its fifth iteration; now there is still a well-defined leader, but the people do not follow him because they are ordered to.  They follow because they are part of the group. The main philosophies of the Hierophant are that there's no "I" in "team", and that the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.

Such a philosophy may seem unnecessarily restrictive but, as the Emperor has taught us, restriction leads to order.  The Hierophant is charged with the maintenance and propagation of tradition and conventional beliefs, and anyone who goes against these beliefs is shunned.  Balance and conformity are the goals of the Hierophant, and neither positive nor negative is emphasized - only tradition matters.  In extreme cases, this can indeed have very negative effects (as Galileo found out) but in most cases having some tradition to follow is beneficial.  The traditions and ceremonies of the church, which are particularly strong in this card, are a prime example of this.

On a more personal level, the Hierophant is also a teacher or a mentor.  One major role of a spiritual leader is to initiate others into the community and teach them the ways of the group.  Obviously one who holds the secrets and is entrusted with the traditions of the group is a prime candidate to teach them to others, and the Hierophant plays this role well.  Though his approach to teaching is one that centers on conformity and shuns individual expression for the moment, this can be helpful.  Only once the student has mastered the ways of the group can he or she properly decide whether to remain or leave.

When the Hierophant appears it will often be in the form of a teacher or a mentor, who instructs you in the ways of his particular belief in the hopes that you will join him.  Such teachers do not have to be of a spiritual or mystical background; an employer training a new employee in the operation of a business is as much a Hierophant as any religious teacher.  If your current situation seems to require more experience then you can call upon, be open to the presence of a teacher or mentor in your life.  But do not make the grave mistake of openly seeking such a teacher - as the old proverb says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

The Hierophant can also represent group activities and beliefs, and in either case, support of the establishment and respect for the rules are emphasized. So if you are planning something revolutionary, the repeated appearance of the Hierophant is a good sign to forget such action and go with the flow for the time being.  The traditional way of doing things must work most of the time, or else it wouldn't have been around long enough to become tradition! However, when an idea is proven wrong it is certainly time for a change. The true Hierophant is one who has a deep respect for his beliefs, but who will not blindly follow them to his own ruin.

Future: Wheel of Fortune  

The Wheel of Fortune is a type of energy that stands beyond the realm of our understanding and control.  Certainly you can experience its effects in life, like you feel the pull of gravity on your body.  But just as you can see the apple falling but not the gravity pulling on it, so too are the works of Fate and Destiny invisible to us.  Only their results can be seen, and even then, only when Destny itself decrees that the time is right for its effects to be manifested.  Unlike the majority of the Major Arcana, the Wheel of Fortune hovers in the clouds, showing that you can try to reach it, but that you can never fully understand it.

The wheel is an apt symbol for the forces of Destiny and Fate because it shows how everything is connected in a cycle; some might call it the circle of life.  Everything happens in cycles; we rise and fall just as a spot on the perimeter of a wheel travels from the highest point, through all the possible points on the wheel, and then back to the apex.  However changes will affect you depends on where you are on the wheel.  If you are at the top then any change could throw you off, but if you are the bottom then a change could start you back up to the top.  And for one person to rise another must fall - everyone is connected.

Destiny seems to strike without warning, but often its effects can be seen coming if you know where and how to look for them.  This is the principle of the Tarot and divinatory systems in general; to see things coming before they happen so you can prepare.  Obviously if you see a wheel with the Sphinx on the top, Typhon the snake on the left, and Hermanubis on the lower right, and you know which way the wheel is turning, you can tell where each of the three figures is going - and you can also tell where they've been.  Through careful extrapolation the effects of Destiny become less mysterious, and someday everyone may grasp this idea.

This cyclical structure of Fate is perhaps the only way to really understand how Fate manifests.  The conclusion of a situation is found in its beginning, just as the number 10 of the Wheel of Fortune reduces to 1 by the addition of its digits.  When you can realize that each beginning leads to an ending, and that each ending is both the results of one beginning and the freshly planted seed of another, then you will have grasped the essential notion of the Wheel of Fortune.  And once that notion is grasped, the universe opens up to you, because you are ready to learn all its wisdom.  The first hurdle has been passed and greater lessons lie ahead.

The appearance of the Wheel of Fortune shows that change is not only likely to happen, it is certain to happen, and soon.  The nature of that change and the effects it has really depend on how much you understand the concepts of Fate, and whether or not you can prepare for it.  Generally the change shown in the Wheel of Fortune is a dramatic change from the established order.  So if you have been scraping along for a while, expect big changes in your favor within a few days.  But if you've been feeling on top of the world for a long time, batten down the hatches and keep an eye out for storms - one is bound to hit you sooner or later.

No matter which way the Wheel of Fortune throws you, it's impossible to try and change it, so you might as well try to live with it.  If a crisis seems inevitable, recall that in every crisis lies opportunity.  When you've been swept in new direction, know that every path leads somewhere, even if you don't know where it is.  When times are bad, or when times are good, always keep in mind that they won't last forever.  Such events are just out of your control, and if you can accept that then the ride gets a lot easier.  If you struggle against the Wheel it will crush you.  So roll along with it!

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