#also fun fact the name Cerberus translates to spot

[moonypears-blog]

Sofia absolutely would befriend Cerberus lol

Absolutely. She'd sit there all happy petting him, and would ask Cedric to conjure some big dog treats for him. Meanwhile Cedric is stood a mile behind her, watching in pure horror as his daughter pets a giant, potentially hungry, three headed dog with teeth the size of his forearm.

[bigskydreaming]

You like Riordanverse? Have you ever considered Batkids demigod au? Or just headcanons? Like each of them having one godly parent? I think Athena could probably claim all of them if she wanted to..

Ironically, my fondness for the Riordanverse is precisely why I’ve never been that tempted to write fic for it and likely never will be. Whether with original fic or fanfic, I pretty much just write the things I want to read….but that don’t exist outside me writing them. 

With fanfic, the end result of that is I basically am just inspired to write content where I see like….wasted potential, IMO. Books or comics or shows where there’s enough in the source material to capture my imagination and draw me to particular characters…..but beyond that, the source material is leaving a ton of stuff untouched or making a bunch of narrative choices that I’m just not engaged by.

So the thing about the Riordan books, is I like what’s actually on the page and don’t have any real specific…’gaps’ in the narrative that I feel a need to fill in or change or alter with different takes. They give me what I’m looking for from them so I just enjoy them as a reader rather than being inspired as a content creator.  And similarly, like, if I want to read or follow in my head a story using the Riordanverse or its premise…there’s more books to come in the already existing series, so I just don’t really feel that itch with that particular universe. I love mythology stuff in general, so I’d be more likely to write or imagine a fanfic that comes up with my own spin on mixing mythological elements with the Batfam, that I haven’t seen yet (something I actually did a lot of with Teen Wolf content I wrote)….rather than apply an existing mythological premise like Riordan’s to them.

So I just haven’t put much thought into even headcanons along those lines, and am not super likely to, because one other thing is one of the little angles about the Riordan books that I really really liked, was that like…..Percy isn’t the son of who you’d expect the main character of a series of Greek mythology books to be, y’know? Like, if you had to guess at the start who Percy’s dad would turn out to be, having no clues as to which specific god it might be…..most people would be likely to assume Zeus, or maybe Apollo. Poseidon seems like a fairly random choice….and that’s what made it work so well for me. Because it made Percy feel just that much more like a real character who just happened to be the main character of these books, rather than a character who’d been basically engineered to be the ideal protagonist of these books.

My point there being for me personally, it just wouldn’t work to try and make headcanons about which godly parent matches each Batkid most ideally, based on their divine attributes and the Batkid’s characterization. Its counter-intuitive to one of the things that really sucked me in most……so I could totally headcanon that Dick makes sense as a son of Zeus or Apollo or Helios or Hermes, because of his love of all things flying….but that wouldn’t really feel like a Riordan premise to me, y’know? 

So if I were to do that ever, it would be more likely that I’d just pick totally random gods to be each Batkid’s divine parent, and then from there headcanon how that affects the Batkid in question and how that ends up working into their existing characterization. Make the character and how this affected them grow out of the choice, rather than make the choice grow out of the character and who would be best/most affected by which god.

*Shrugs* But of course, once I do that, I’m kinda likely to just end up growing a whole story anyway, only it wouldn’t be one I’d ever feel a ton of motivation towards because like….its not really a story I NEED to see play out. Even just thinking about it, I end up diverted by stray thoughts like……okay, just as an example, totally spitballing here, but like, I just randomly tried picking a god to be Dick’s divine parent that would be somewhat different and not the most obvious or preferred choice, and thought okay what if Hephaestus were Dick’s biological father. 

Except then my brain does this thing where before I can even START thinking about how that would weave into Dick’s existing characterization or lead to new stories, I’m like okay, but Riordan already did ‘character finds out they’re the son of a god’, what ELSE could I do with a story about Dick and also Hephaestus. 

And then I’m off and running with like, okay, so because the Greek gods exist in the DC universe and the Titans because of Donna have even interacted with them a fair amount, what if Hephaestus is murdered and nobody knows by whom, so the Greek gods call upon Donna to recruit her friend, a detective even they respect, to solve the mystery. And so Dick is brought to Olympus to investigate, but in the process of searching through Hephaestus’ forge for clues, he ends up finding this mysterious trinket he feels drawn to and pockets, and in doing so, ends up with Hephaestus’ like, essence kinda imprinting on him….because the Divine Artificer had been the one to craft weapons that could kill even gods like him, so he of all the gods would most certainly be aware of the fact that there are things that could kill even them….making him the most likely to also craft a solution to even that particular problem, and thus design something that could help him cheat death, even if killed by a god-killing weapon. Hence the seemingly innocuous trinket that actually acted as kinda a godly flash drive to download his divinity and memories and self into a new vessel should his old one end up destroyed.

WHICH THEN, instead of exploring how Dick might be affected by having Hephaestus for a biological father or how having some of his divine attributes might explain certain traits or skills of Dick’s or complement them……which is still a story I’ve seen versions of already with Percy and Jason and the other main characters of the Riordan books….this premise lets me explore what if those divine attributes or whatever are instead kinda imposed upon Dick as he already is? What kind of internal struggle would result from that, given Dick’s fierce independence, and what kind of balance could be struck from Hephaestus’ divine nature as a craftsman and artificer like….possibly finding an outlet through Dick’s natural problem-solving instincts and existing detective/investigative talents….and so rather than ending up changing Dick, Dick’s own nature acts as a kind of filter that changes how Hephaestus’ vast array of attributes are focused, and in what ways.

And then plus you also get to have the whole “Dick drawing upon Hephaestus’ memories to try and solve what’s now weirdly in a way his own murder” thing, and that’s always just fun, y’know? LOL.

But yeah, that’s how my brain works and so even though its not what you were looking for, hopefully it was still of interest to you.

Also, just as a throwaway, another reason I’d probably always have trouble headcanoning any of the Batkids as having a godly parent based just on archetypes, is that like….they kinda already do. LOL. Given that Bruce has at many times over the decades been paralleled with Hades, and occupying the same place in the JLA pantheon as Hades occupies within the Olympian pantheon. Much like Clark is kind of Zeus, king of the heavens, and Arthur of course is Poseidon, and the Flashes have always been modeled after Hermes, and the Green Lanterns are Hephaestus and so on. So my mind kinda already flashes to ‘well, Dick’s dad is already like, the dark, brooding god of the Underworld, Judge of Souls and ultimate arbiter of justice, god of wealth and riches, with a helm that lets him vanish into shadows and pass unseen, and also not as dour as the hype would have you believe because he’s all of those things while also still being the kind of dork who would have a dog named Spot Ace the Bathound.

(The joke there is because Cerberus is just the Latinized form of the Greek word Kerberos, one translation of which is believed to possibly be ‘spotted.’ Aka Hades had a monstrous three-headed dog of legend, that actually the giant dork named Spot. Remind you of anyone?)

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

One Punch Man 13 (S2 Ep 1) | Afterlost 1 | RobiHachi 1 | Kimetsu no Yaiba 2 - 3 | BSD 25 - 26 (S3 Eps 1 - 2) | King of Prism - Shiny 7 Stars 1 | Shield Hero 14 - 16 | Double Decker! EX 3 | Sarazanmai 2

The shows that have made it this season will be getting their tags...soon. Because I fell behind early in the season, trying to read ahead is nastier than it really should be...

Update: I forgot to roll out the tags...! Sorry about that.

One Punch Man 2 1

This season’s name…sounds counterintuitive, to say the least.

I love how Genos is carrying a box of hijiki (which looks like hair) and Saitama’s wearing a shirt that says “hair” (in kanji) all over it. It’s funny for a bald man and his “work of modern art”.

I never knew Genos was so blunt. Maybe because the last season was a good 2 – 3 years ago…and was by Madhouse and Shingo Natsume, and so this feels slightly different.

Oh, Sonic…! I didn’t realise how much I missed you! (Not to mention, you look hot with the off-the-shoulder shirt, y’know?)

“Enoki” is a type of mushroom.

Oh, Garou!...Oh wait, there isn’t much more of the episode left, is there…?

Afterlost 1

Oh great…this is the second time the subs don’t work on my device of choice. Then again, it seems to be a problem with the ad blocker and not the video…Okay, fiddling with the ad blocker worked.

Let’s play Spot the Main Character Amongst All the CGI Guys! Yay! (obviously sarcastic)

Without the volume…this OP is, to not put it lightly, s***.

Shoumetsu means “extinction”, not “lost”.

And the reward for Jankiest CGI this season belongs to…

Okay…this is stupid…if it f**ks up even more, I’m out of here!

I know the horned owl is your mascot, but that doesn’t mean you needed a real owl.

Waittttttttt…how did the scientists know Yuki’s father was responsible for this stuff anyway?

I feel like Takuya was shoehorned in. I mean, there’s a better example of this character type in Naofumi (Shield Hero).

This guy’s name, as we know it, is Geek. Wow (sarcastic). Also, I find it funny Takuya has a “ta” on his licence plate.

“…she’s just a package.” - Welp, you don’t get any more blatant than that for female denigration! I think Anime Feminist had a field day with this one.

Come to think of it, I saw some helmets back at Geek’s place but Takuya never seems to use one…

You had one job, Takuya…*sigh*

I swear I said a few previews ago I don’t like 1st person cam…no one ever listens to me, do they???

Not dis shitto agen!

Okay, enough complaining. It seems Yu-no wasn’t bad enough, so they had to produce something like the Chaos Dragon and Seisen Cerberus of old…

RobiHachi 1

It’s Takamatsu being Takamatsu again. Also… I forgot to mention this earlier, but…Taiga Umatani seems to be related to Kurari Umatani (who is credited for Boueibu), so…I wonder if it’s a collective writer’s name for Studio Comet, like Izumi Todo for Toei? The only thing that goes against that is the fact “Kurari” existed during the Diomedea days of Boueibu. Also Isekandar seems to be related to Yamato’s Iscandar (which Takamatsu seems to like, based on the fact he once used Matsumoto metres as a shorthand for being in space). If you don’t understand, Yamato’s endgoal contains a place called Iscandar and that’s by Leiji Matsumoto.

Okayyyyy…what are these rabbit creatures…? But yes, it does smack of Boueibu simply because the episode layout’s the same.

Hmm…? So Robby seems be En (the do-nothing life) in spirit, but Kinshiro in background, but also he runs away from his fortune. “Hmm” indeed.

Oh! That’s what this string of misfortunes reminds me of! The monsters of the day from Boueibu.

Acrymalide.

Hatchi is a Kinshiro in looks but an Atsushi by being a goody-goody.

Hmm…they actually bother to show girls now…apparently Takamatsu went to a boys-only school, which is why his original works focus on dudes (as in, you can pick out when Takamatsu is adapting someone else’s work because it has a heavier focus on girls as supporting characters).

Mechs and spaceships are probably two of the only ways I accept CGI…and you, Takamatsu sir, have just done it (the latter)!

Aw! Lookit his (Hatchi’s) face light up like a Beppu’s! It’s cute!

Hatchi getting out the hatch…lame, but still somewhat effectve on me (because that’s my wordplay game you’re playing, Takamatsu…!).

LOL, it’s a transforming mech. It seems my words from a few comments earlier were basically foretelling the future.

Kimetsu no Yaiba 2

Yikes, “Sakonji Urokodaki” has a lot of strokes…

My Little Sister Lives For Headpats…hey wait, don’t all anime kid sisters do that(?)

For some reason, I know the “Don’t Lose Your Way” meme from Kill la Kill and yet I’ve never…watched KlK…?(!)

I swore that was Giyu (it’s the haircut, I swear), but it’s a random demon…

When all you have is a hatchet…use your head. (LOL)

Ooh, nice eyecatch!

This is really black comedy, in a sense. (I remember this demon fight from the manga which is why I say that.)

Hmm…this wispy stuff wasn’t in the manga.

Come to think of it, I don’t know how Tanjiro got his scar…

If you squint really hard, you can see CGI Urokodaki and Tanjiro…

He probably has no footsteps because of his shoes. Or the fact he’s a ninja. Were there ninja in the Taisho era…? Update: Tanjiro has the same kind of shoes…oops.

Come to think of it, Daisuke from DN Angel had to dodge traps every day before he became Dark…(thinking of this because I reread the first volume of DN Angel recently)

Oh! Manga panel preview! That’s quite fun, really.

Kimetsu no Yaiba 3

I just really like how Tanjiro’s eyes grew larger with what was clearly resolution before he closed the door.

Why do the non-descript hunters look like Giyu too…?

I’ve never seen KnY so comedic…and that’s coming from someone who thought the Head Demon fight from last episode was funny.

Welp, this is…kinda interesting (<- says a fan of Touken Ranbu).

This letter writing…it reminds me of Kekkai Sensen somewhat.

This realistic water…it’s beautiful, but it looks like it came straight out of Niagara Falls. Is that…too realistic for anime?

“No matter…”

It’s a fox version of Speed of Sound Sonic! Then again, the real Sonic is around this season and probably won’t be happy about that comparison…

Is “that guy”…Giyu? Or the demon who slaughtered Tanjiro’s family?

Spider lilies! I didn’t mention it last time, but the symbolism of the spider lily makes the ED real cool.

Bungou Stray Dogs 26

I’v read the wiki page for Chuuya enough to know the next few eps involve the LN Fifteen, so even though I haven’t read a translation of the source material, I know some of the ins and outs of it already.

Ooh! Kitty! (If you’re a manga reader, you’ll know the cat’s significance.)

I think at this point in time, all viewers are used to Dazai’s bulls*** by now.

Is it just me…or did Bones use CGI for the city? It actually looks kind of good…! Sasuga Bones!

I have a fic that predates Fifteen and could be set in the same period (the fic’s vague enough that it could’ve been them at 15, 18 or even 12)…and basically the only thing I got wrong was the fact Chuuya doesn’t have his hat (because I wrote Chuuya as having his hat in the fic). Also, the banter is tenser than I imagined it, but that’s subjective and something only I, the fic writer, can compare.

I wonder who the yellow-tinted Ability holder is…? Update: That’s Randou. Spoke too soon.

There was a box in the subs…I wonder what symbol that might’ve been.

“…closest to the explosion.”

BSD 3 2

Oh, so that’s what Randou was for! I see now.

Chuuya may be OP, but he’s one heck of a fun character…also, he’s not as OP as Saitama, so…yeah.

Oh, the ED from last time is the OP. I should’ve known.

I like the almost storybook-style of this episode!

I thought Dazai was faking releasing the hostages…I was wrong.

Face-stealing aliens return! (They were around last ep too, I think, but they were harder to see then.)

Again, watch for the cat!

Well, with only one suspect (or 3, if you count the Sheep kids), it was quite easy to figure out one of them was behind it. I kind of suspected Randou, anyway, considering what I’ve learnt from all the mysteries I’ve read.

Because I was watching this episode with the volume down low (so I could hear the OP and ED), the volume really did work wonders for the plot this ep…!

King of Prism – Shiny 7 Stars 1

This is the final debut of the season, so basically how this and Shield Hero perform will decide what will stay and what will go. Oh, yeah…apparently this is the companion to a movie, but the movie and TV series have slightly different content.

This dude’s (the one at the very start’s) so grumpy.

…welp, I didn’t expect it to be that much CGI.

This chunk of exposition…makes me feel like I missed something. It was probably in the previous movies, come to think of it…

Basically, this is…uh, Makura no Danshi or Room Mate all over again??? I’m noping out of here…! Bye!

Shield Hero 14

I’m putting this on the chopping block…just so you know.

…uh, age gap romance? It’s hard to tell at this stage, but they (Filo and Melty) sure act like it is romance.

Welp, this survived the chopping block. “Raphtalia backstory” is a good enough reason to stick around for, isn’t it?

Double Decker! EX 3 (FINAL)

I always miss the OP when I’m not watching Double Decker, but I miss the ED even more…

I can’t believe they tried to get away with a Spirited Away parody…!

I can’t believe I get to see Dr Apple all buttered up like this…

I love how Kirill is censoring himself. (At least he can prove he’s not a girl, unlike Valery/Milla, whose entire shtick is the confusion between genders.)

Oh! I think I know the answer to the case already! It was Kirill’s soap, so Doug is the “killer”. But then…why is it Derick, of all people???

LOL, the angles were so reminiscent of Detective Conan…

Underwear-stealing sextuplets…? Why does that kind of sound like Osomatsu-san…?

Ahh…I really am going to miss this ED. See you next time!

Shield Hero 15

I never thought Raphtalia would be so angry…that’s Naofumi’s job.

Okay…it’s the age-old question: do demis listen with their animal ears or their human ears? Do they even have human ears??? (That’s 2 questions, isn’t it…?)

Uh…CGI dinosaur, much?

Shield Hero 16

…and of course, the Queen is a loli. Of course (<-sarcastic).

“Why’d I even have to feed this KFC farm?” – LOL, but I wonder what it sounded like in Japanese…? (i.e. I didn’t listen to it and when I try to do that, there’s always something over the top of it…)

Sarazanmai 2

I wonder if I’ll ever get used to watching Ikuhara on a weekly basis…?

Kappamaki…geddit?

Wait…y’mean, Keppi’s breath smells like cucumbers? Uh…okay, TMI.

Enta’s Japanese house kind of looks like the one in Mawaru Penguindrum.

Wait…why does the Japanese word for “Fish Buffet” (Osakanazanmai) end in –zanmai? Does that mean Sarazanmai is…Dish Buffet?! (LOL)

Notably, one of the signs said “Union” in katakana. It must be an English play on words…y’know, trade union and union = connecting with each other? I’m surprisingly enjoying myself a lot with Sarazanmai, by the way. I didn’t think I would, but I am!

I think that might be Irohassu water. Or Dasani. I saw both those brands in Japan, but I don’t remember which had the green flowers.

Oh…my goodness! Nekoyama (Cat Mountain) Mokichi (written with kanji for “hair” and “luck”). It’s a Boueibu monster! Frick, I’m laughing too hard!

It’s very small and very thin, but the word next to the cat in the eyecatch is neko.

“…Meow God!” – It’s a pun on “Oh, My God!” but with a “meow” in it. It’s pretty forced, but it does get the nuance of the joke across…

Why the heck did the subbers choose “herb” as the word for weed in this? “Weed” is sufficient, right? Right…?

Well…if that spurt of water wasn’t symbolic…I don’t know what is.

The title translates better as “…but I want to steal”. Y’know, add a little force into it.

The two As and the “sara” below it seem to make a zombie face, huh?

Ooh, that ending…

[theultimateratbastard]

also fun fact they named their dog spot. 

Cerberus-Spot

it translates

I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry.

Is OP aware that oh so many books exist on this subject?

And that almost universally the ones authored by people with doctorates in classicism and mythology disagree with OP?

Including the… epic hymn that first told this story? You know what’s in that original source material… right?

Abducted, yes. Demeter mourned? Definitely. Rape, no.

So here’s some info on Ancient Greek wedding traditions which (oh my stars and garters!!) included abducting the bride. With the father’s permission, which Hades got before he took her away.

Here’s a whole book on the subject of Ancient Greek wedding custom and its conflation with funeral rites. (Which sounds a bit like Hades and Persephone to anyone who’s ever dabbled in things like explication and context)

Here’s a link to another book that talks about Persephone’s rise to power as a result of her willingly eating the pomegranate seeds.

Oh shit!!

Here’s a whole bunch of myths and hymns that talk about her Queen of the Underworld badassery!!

Holy pug tacos Batman!!

Here’s another book about the myth focusing on the seasonal religious and liminal rites. WHICH TAKE PLACE IN THE DRY SUMMER (not the fucking winter), which you know if you read a book.Way to go, OP!

All these fucking books!  What could anyone possibly do with them all?!?!?!?! Do you eat books to absorb their powers instead of read them?

A better guess would be that you got into a moral panic over the name of a certain Renaissance statue and maybe after reading three pages of Edith Hamilton or the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article. And then used that to castigate and demean not only the people who actually take their limited time to create gorgeous art but also to denigrate modern day worshippers of Persephone and Hades?

Maybe next time, you stringy piece of over-boiled okra, you might want to take your own advice and pick up a book, instead of reducing the feared and respected Queen of the Underworld who held power equal to or in many interpretations GREATER than her husband into a meaningless pastiche of female disenfranchisement that you seemingly plucked from your own ass.