#and of course apollo and artemis

[plazmataz]

i’ve been drawing again lately, this here is the god twins Gemini

[l-just-want-to-see]

pjo/hoo/toa + the cycle

The Lightning Thief / Growing Sideways, Noah Kahan / Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, Ilya Repin + Saturn Devouring His Son, Goya + Saturn, Rubens / The Blood of Olympus / The Family Jewels, MARINA / The Last Olympian / The Sea of Monsters / The Family Jewels / Orestes Pursued by the Furies, Bouguereau / The Hidden Oracle / Apollo and Marsyas, Manfredi / In The Blood, John Mayer / The Sea of Monsters / The Combat of Ares and Athena, Jacques Louis David / The Family Jewels / Mark of Athena / The Combat of Ares and Athena / The Lightning Thief / Family Line, Conan Gray / Cronos and Rhea, Schinkel / The Lightning Thief / The Blood of Olympus / In The Blood / The Last Olympian / Chronos and His Child, Romanelli / Desireé Dellagiacomo / The Lightning Thief / Family Line / The Fallen Angel, Alexandre Cabanel + The Last Day of Pompeii, Bryullov / The Blood of Olympus / The Outcast, Botticelli / Glass, Irony and God, Anna Carson / House of Hades / Family Line / The Last Olympian / The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper + Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Roman School + Minerva and Arachne, Houasse + Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love with Paris, Kauffmann / The Last Olympian / Hadestown / The Lightning Thief / apple, Charli xcx / The Last Olympian / I Would Leave Me If I Could, Halsey / The Sea of Monsters / ? / LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK, Lavery and Corrigan / The Last Olympian / Eat Your Young, Hozier / The Last Olympian / Orpheus and the Bacchantes, Lazzarini / The Blood of Olympus / Susan Smith, wych elm / Orpheus and the Bacchantes / The Burning Maze / ? / The Tyrant’s Tomb / Perseus Freeing Andromeda, Veronese / Abduction of Psyche, Bouguereau + Bacchus and Ariadne, Van Loo / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero

[guardianspirits13]

If I could choose one element of the Percy Jackson universe for Rick to elaborate on, it would without a doubt be the Hunters of Artemis.

What exactly do they hunt?

How often is Artemis with them?

What are the exact limits of their immortality?

Do they travel the world, or just the continental US?

How many of them are there?

Do any of them regret their decisions?

Can you choose to leave, or are you bound for life unless you fall in love?

What is Thalia and Reyna's dynamic like post ToA?

How long does it really take for Thalia to recover from Jason's death (if ever)?

There is SO MUCH untapped potential here I am kind of in disbelief that we got a standalone Solangelo novel before a spinoff with the Hunters? And with a whole Apollo centric spinoff series we don't get a single short story from Artemis's pov???

Come on my inner aroace lesbian child has been waiting for this 10+ years 😤

[aroaceleovaldez]

I have to wonder if Will being into space themed sci-fi specifically is like. A weird side effect of being an Apollo child. He's the sun god and the first major NASA expedition was called Apollo and now sometimes his kids get Space as a special interest. Doctor Who, Dune, and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are also probably up his alley.

I like this thought a LOT and am immediately incorporating it into my Will hcs.

[gingermintpepper]

I know everyone knows the story of Actaeon and how he met a terrible fate by stumbling upon Artemis bathing in her forest but did you know that Actaeon was Apollo's grandson? That his father was Aristaeus, lord of the bees and the rustic arts and his mother was Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus and princess of Thebes?

Did you know he was trained by Chiron? That he was considered a hunter so skilled his talent was considered divine, that he was his parents' only child and that he was loved?

Did you know the grief that consumed the household when word of Actaeon's fate reached them? That Cadmus cut his hair, that Harmonia wept and was disconsolate and that his parents... well, Autonoe walked the length of the forest, keeping a sharp eye out for her son, but all she saw were the scattered bones of a fawn. Aristaeus too, had heard his son was torn apart and so fruitlessly, foolishly searched for the bones of a man. (There was none to be found)

Did you know that it was Actaeon's ghost, unhappy and unburied, trapped on the earth, who leaned over his sleeping father and told him of his fate? "You will not find me as you knew me, gather me as a stag." And Aristaeus immediately woke his wife and told her the truth, and together they grieved all the night long.

(Did you know that this is why Aristaeus abandons Boeotia? He could not stand the sight of it and so he went to Ceos. And there he slayed the dog-star. And there he became a healing wind. All in the name of his only son, that foolish, beloved Actaeon.)

[lesbianbanana]

Hera's relationship with Apollo is something that should be studied, in this essay I-

[cienie-isengardu]

TEAM A TROY

picture #1: Apollo, Artemis, Ares & Aphrodite, the gods and goddesses supporting Troy

picture #2: angry Hera saying "all of you, GROUNDED!"

Other “Greek Mythology” arts:

Hestia’s oath

Hestia’s unwanted suitors

The logic of Ares

Zeus & Hera’s favorite child

Zeus about Hestia & Hades

Athena’s request: BONUS

Athena’s request

Epic Battle [3/3]: Confusion and support

Epic Battle [2/3]: The Dance

Epic Battle [1/3]: The Challenge

Hades & siblings

How to seduce Ares [3/3]: Success + bonus

How to seduce Ares [2/3]: Hebe’s advice

How to seduce Ares [1/3]: Failed attempt

Athena is not a morning person + bonus

Hera’s reaction after meeting Thanatos.

Hera meets Thanatos, the New Friend of Ares

A daily life of Hebe + bonus

Kid Eileithyia, kid Ares and very concerned Zeus & Hera

Athena & Aphrodite (on battlefield)

Ares and his sons: Deimos & Phobos

The Gods of War: Ares & Athena

Persephone’s reminder for Ares & Athena

[queerwordofgod]

for those of us who struggle with meditation or perhaps even journaling, you should know that some of the greatest understandings come from talking about it; when you are alone, walk around - maybe in your backyard or just in your room - and talk aloud about the divine, your questions about them or topics you wish to understand more. perhaps as though you are explaining your beliefs to someone who doesn't know anything about your faith. you will find yourself saying things you didn't know at all, but that you understand, immediately, to be true. this is the divine, sending you your answers.

[lesenbyan]

small domino "13yo me names an OC Cynthia", largest domino "Aki's Apollo back in the days of the Ancients"

[lilislegacy]

did anyone else ever find it odd how easily zeus offered percy godhood? and how it almost seemed like he secretly wanted percy to accept? well i did, and after thinking long and hard about it…

i don’t think percy understood what turning down godhood really meant

demigods do tasks for the gods because they don’t have to follow any rules. they aren’t controlled by anyone or anything. demigods are a strange hybrid - not god, not human. they are in between the laws of immortal and mortal. they are not supposed to exist. yet they do, which is what makes them so extraordinary.

percy is crazy powerful. of course, there’s the aspect of raw power. he has domain over air (storms/hurricanes), land (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions), and sea (monster waves, tsunamis, floods, basically anything that involves water.) he can control bodily fluids. he has super strength (with one hand, he held up an unconscious annabeth who was being pulled down by both arachne AND the forces of tartarus). he has super speed (he moves faster than bullets in TTC). no matter how badly you hurt him, he automatically heals and regenerates the second he touches water (an ability no other demigod has). he’s an extraordinary swordsman. very skilled in combat and warfare. he’s smart, and thinks of plans quickly. but he also has a great deal of social/poltcial power… i mean, he’s a leader and hero to both the greek and roman camps. if he says “attack,” all demigods, greek or roman, attack. no question. do you have any idea how threatening that is to the olympians? he’s also best friends and has an empathy link with the lord of the wild, which basically means all of nature is by his side too, including all land creatures. he’s also prince of horses, which means pegasi too (both of which are extremely useful in battle). and of course all sea creatures, including the mythical ones like krakens and leviathans. not to mention many of the gods really like him. hermes, hephaestus, athena, aphrodite, and dionysis have all gone out of their way to help him. artemis holds him in high regard, especially since he saved her. apollo literally considers him his friend! and poseidon - his dad, the god who is the biggest threat to zeus - is fiercely protective of him and cares about him a great deal. many minor gods also like him because he demanded them to be given more respect and for their kids to be welcomed at the camps.

percy unknowingly has more power, both physical and social/political, than anyone should ever have. he may have absolutely no idea, but it must scare the living daylights out of zeus. by accepting zeus’s offer to become a god, percy would have submitted himself to the control of zeus. zeus would be his king and ruler. zeus would then have complete control over him.

but percy said no. therefore, percy remains out of zeus’s control.

percy had no idea what he was doing. but thank the gods he made that choice. thank the gods he’s an incredible person. thank the gods percy jackson has no desire for power, because he has more of it than anyone should ever be able to have.

[trivialucifera]

(Possibly) nitpicking but some of those versions listed up there aren’t really accurate. There’s no version where Artemis asks Apollo to kill Orion. I double checked in case I had missed it, but it’s true. Apollo only appears in Hyginus’s telling. There’s also not one where she kills him for bothering the nymphs. Unless that nymph is Oupis? Probably thinking of her companions the Pleiades, but in that story Artemis (or Zeus) turns them into a constellation and doesn’t do anything to Orion.

There are lots of versions of Orion’s death though. There’s also one where he dies due to challenging Artemis to a discus match…somehow. And one where Artemis, with no personal connection to him at all, shoots him down for becoming Eos’s lover. Guess he was causing too much drama.

I think the romance story makes a bit more sense if you look at it as an extension of Hesiod’s/Ovid’s version of Orion. In those Artemis and Orion are companions on the hunt, friends. Ovid goes as far to say that Orion is her guardian and servant, when they are attacked by the scorpion Orion heroically takes the blow meant for Artemis and in reward she and Leto place him in the stars. ✨

Lastly, impressed that you brought up Janus. The connection between the two goes deep. Diana was somewhat his female counterpart. See, a difference between Diana and Artemis is that Diana was the goddess of boundaries and crossroads. Janus was the god of doorways, gates, beginnings and endings. Janus was two faced, Diana was three headed. I’ve seen him called her husband; I’ve also seen him called her son with Caelus. Janus was Diana even had a particular aspect called Jana/Iana that was specifically goddess of arches and doorways.

Don't you also tired about how people says that Apollo is a bad and cruel brother to Artemis for what "he did" with Orion? Even when that love story with Artemis and Orion happenned in the Astronomica by Higinus (a roman poet) and in the earlier versions of the myth Orion was killed by:

Gaea who sent the scorpion to kill him because he said that he could kill all the animals in Earth

Both (Artemis and Apollo) because the same thing with the animals but Gaea sent the twins to kill him and they sent the scorpion

Artemis because Orion tried to assault Oupis

Artemis because Orion tried to assault herself

Artemis because Orion was bothering her nymphs

Oh definitely! I was never on board with Orion being 'the only man Artemis ever loved' bullshit (that's Apollo ty).

I don't tend to discount the Roman myths, but since Hyginus's is VASTLY outnumbered by, as you said, these other five versions...I think we can ignore it.

*shakes Hyginus* WHY DID YOU DO THIS. WHY. YOU HAVE SINGLE-HANDEDLY CAUSED DIANA/ARTEMIS'S WHOLE CHARACTER TO BE REDUCED TO A STEREOTYPE.

like. okay, history time:

Diana, pre-being-mixed-with-Artemis-times, WAS married to Janus. So I may be able to excuse this IF Hyginus was referring to THIS Diana.

HOWMEVER. Hyginus is writing about post-conflation Diana/Artemis. Who was NOT married to ANYONE because Virgil describes her as pretty similar to Artemis - including being a virgin goddess.

This is clearly NOT the older Diana. So no, he's not making some sort of connection or something here.

And as for the 'omg Apollo is a TERRIBLE brother!' thing - YOU ARE SO RIGHT IT'S SO ANNOYING.

WHAT'S MORE IS THAT SAYING THAT IS HYPOCRITICAL BECAUSE ARTEMIS HAS KILLED AT LEAST TWO OF HIS LOVERS!

Coronis for cheating on him, and Chione for claiming to be prettier than her! Like. HELLO. so even if we DO go with the 'Apollo killed Orion so Diana won't marry him' thing, SHE STILL KILLED TWO OF HIS LOVERS TOO!

Calling him a terrible brother for that means she's DOUBLELY a bad sister.

Of course, I don't subscribe to either side of this😇 They are RIDE OR DIE for each other (as you pointed out in version 2 where Artemis asks Apollo to kill Orion). They buddy-copped Orion there, as they deserve too <3

[erythristicbones]

also figuring out more stuff for the JDK villains and going "yeah artie & apollo are like Team Rocket vibes, except one of them is actually an evil mastermind and doesn't want anyone, even their bosses, to know". the ideal way to tell the story is that you think they're the two most incompetent, low-level minions on the totem pole and then you realize Apollo has been orchestrating things from the beginning

[meteor752]

The Greek gods and how willing they are to fuck Odysseus (at least according to me)

Not doing all of them, there’s so many

Zeus: He most def would, but not because Ody is special. Like, it’s Zeus, the man would fuck anything as long as it’s breathing. I do think he’d enjoy the pleasure of messing with his older brother though, so he’s extra into it for that

Poseidon: Oh yes. He’d deny it if asked, but he wants to fuck him so badly

Hades: I think he’d fuck him mainly to see what all the hype is about. And to mess with Poseidon of course

Hera: Nah, she’s surprisingly loyal. Which like bitch why

Hestia: Asexual queen

Demeter: She has no idea who Odysseus is tbh. Don’t think she’d be too into it anyways

Apollo: Yeah! That’s not a good thing for Ody tho, as it never ends well for Apollo’s mortal lovers. Mans might be in danger

Artemis: Asexual lesbian queen

Athena: See with her, I don’t know. Their bond is strictly platonic, but I don’t think they’d be against the idea of fucking each other. I do think she’d make him fight for it

Ares: Now for most of the duration of the musical, no I do not think he’d be interested. But after he repeatedly stabs Poseidon with a trident? Oh boy

Aphrodite: Yeah, he’s just her type! Tough warrior that’s secretly a sub :)

Hermes: Mans been willing to fuck him for a long ass time, like I’m impressed by his level of self restraint actually

Dionysus: Is in the same seat as Demeter in that he has little idea of who this dude actually is. Don’t think he’d turn him down though

Hephaestus: I don’t think so, but I have no concrete reason for that answer. Vibe check

Aeolus: No thanks :)

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.

I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.

(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)

Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!

Holy crap, where to even start with this. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be rushed. I knew it wasn't ever going to live up to what I had hoped it would be years ago when I was still a diehard fan.

But I didn't think it was going to fall quite this hard. Despite bracing myself for the worst, Rachel has once again let my expectations down through a final display of explosive mediocrity and disappointment.

Yes, the episode is called "You're Welcome", and yes, that instant "ick" you're feeling is the exact same as what we're all feeling. This title plays into the dialogue later, but what a shitty, lowkey mean-spirited title for the series finale.

Now, before we get into the actual episode, the WT ads for this are just... so desperate and misleading.

They are trying SO HARD to hype up something that isn't there, and at the last minute to boot, because Rachel definitely hadn't written any of this ahead of time.

First off, the bit about the gods being in "eternal chaos" of course isn't a stake worth worrying over because Gaia literally does away with Ouranos in the first 5 panels.

Did you really think I was joking about that 5 panels thing?

That's it. That's the death of Ouranos. As mysteriously and quickly as he arrived, he was gone, after Gaia ripped out of him what appeared to be some purple sunny side up - but it's actually, in fact, Apollo.

And that's when we start to get some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen throughout LO. Remember when I said LO's dialogue was like Shenmue 3? Welp, the finale decided to continue that tradition and further fuel the suspicion that this entire thing was written by ChatGPT.

Oh, by the way, that "thank you, ma'am" was Artemis' first and last line of the episode. So once again, just like in Episode 248, we're completely robbed of her reaction to Apollo being a rapist piece of shit and the character development she could have had as a supporting character. The women in this "feminist retelling" really couldn't be more half-baked.

Gaia stumbles upon Persephone, and I'm not even gonna fucking bother showing the panels where Gaia says it's time to "make things right" because they literally don't matter. Why don't they matter? Because Rachel just had to get in one more pointless time skip.

We're shown a sequence of pointless images that I'm not gonna show as I don't want to waste my image limit on them, depicting Hades having a sad day because his small wife isn't with him and oh nooo what could have happened?? Did Persephone finally divorce him ??

Nah, we couldn't possibly have an actually happy ending in this comic. Instead we get a completely pointless phone conversation between Hades and Hecate-

Not only is the grammar particularly bad in this episode, but the actual script-writing is atrocious. We literally did not need this phone conversation to happen because-

-we're cutting BACK TO THE PRESENT THAT WE JUST CUT AWAY FROM FOR A 3 MONTH TIME SKIP. FOR NO REASON BESIDES SHOWING HADES BE SAD OVER SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL, AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE.

I- I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS. I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS. ALL I CAN HEAR IN MY BRAIN IS THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ITEM GET MUSIC-

-BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE SOME CONTRIVED FETCH QUEST. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HADES AND PERSEPHONE HAVE PROVEN 'TRUE LOVE' IS REAL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVEN'T USED 'LOVE' AS A FORCE FOR DESTRUCTION?? ARE WE FORGETTING THAT HADES MUTILATED A GUY IN THE NAME OF 'LOVE'? THAT PERSEPHONE LITERALLY INVADED THE HOME OF HADES' CANONICAL FIRST WIFE BECAUSE SHE FELT MILDLY THREATENED BY HER?

This whole concept of "true love" that Rachel is trying to convey feels so juvenile especially for a series that has sold itself as being mature and thought-provoking and progressive.

HAHAHA SO FUNNYYYYYYY why does Rachel write like this. this is, at best, the writing of a 13 year old on fanfiction.net, which I SHOULD KNOW, because I WAS ONE OF THEM. BUT I'M 28 NOW AND RACHEL HAS ANOTHER 10 YEARS ON ME.

Okay, this is the part where I'm CONVINCED Rachel either just mashed this into the episode in the MINUTES leading up to its release, or she used ChatGPT or something. Because NONE of this dialogue makes any sense. Beyond how stilted and lifeless it is (seriously, this dialogue reads like something from Empress Theresa) Gaia is clearly meant to 'replace' Erebus here which I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN EXPLAIN IS SO FUCKING DUMB, but ALSO what is even Persephone trying to communicate here? "That is true, but it was a deal I was willing to make and ties me to the Underworld. Please don't change me." What? Gaia hasn't even insinuated that she's going to do anything to Persephone, why is Persephone immediately jumping to this conclusion? What does 'changing' her mean? Is she asking Gaia not to force her to sacrifice something (which she never did)? Or is she asking Gaia not to strip her of her Underworld status? Because again, why is that even something Gaia would do?

Maybe this is harsh but I'm pretty sure even Empress Theresa is more coherent than this, what in the flying fuck is Gaia talking about?

"I can just see the potential for conflict! To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres." Like... okay, first of all, that second sentence isn't even a complete sentence, it's a dependent clause left hanging, but also what the fuck does this MEAN. Is she EXCITED for the conflict but then contradicting herself by saying she wants to relieve Persephone of that conflict? Or is she saying she can see the conflict it would cause for Persephone to have to perform duties in both realms and trying to insinuate that she's going to relieve her of those complications?

Here's what I think happened - I think that second 'sentence' wasn't supposed to be a sentence, but the start of the sentence to the next panel-

So with that theory in mind, the sentence becomes, "To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres, you are to spend three months in the Mortal Realm to do spring and the rest of the year in the Underworld. That seems fair to me."

It's still a very poorly written line of dialogue, but at least with that fix in mind it makes sense. But man, you can really fucking tell this episode was submitted at the last minute because that's a serious syntax error that should NOT have happened in this two-time-Eisner-winning comic.

Errors aside, it's clear that Rachel is following through on having Persephone spend only three months in the Mortal Realm, rather than the traditional six. There ARE other translations that have that number closer to four, but those four are the time she spends in the UNDERWORLD, meaning she's always spending either equal or MORE time in the Mortal Realm. Of course, Rachel doesn't want her self-insert small wife power fantasy to actually have to be separated from Hades despite this being a retelling of The Abduction of Persephone, so instead of her spending three months in the Underworld, she's now spending them in the Mortal Realm, literally doubling the MINIMUM amount of time (four months) she was originally meant to reside in the Underworld.

But oh no, apparently those three months are STILL NOT SHORT ENOUGH FOR PERSEPHONE-

Of course, Rachel "Retcon" Smythe had to have her cake and eat it too. I always worried something like this was a possibility, but I never thought she would actually prove me right - not only is Persephone only separated from Hades for three months out of the year, but actually he can visit her any time he wants to, so really, they're not separating at all.

I think Rachel needs to look up "reunion" in the dictionary, because if you can visit each other any time, then that means the 'reunions' are no longer special occasions. This completely removes any semblance of depth or meaning from all of the storytelling leading up to this, all of it with the expectation that this was a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone, because that's what Rachel said it was going to be. At this point it's safe to say that Rachel has zero business attempting to "retell" mythological stories, because she doesn't even seem to grasp the concept of why they were written the way they were to begin with. Either that, or she really just doesn't care, and the only reason for making LO a Greek myth comic at all was to propel her career.

This also brings me back to those promotional ads, the other one that posed the question, "Will sacrifice be enough to bring these two back together?"

This is stating the obvious, but I need to make it perfectly clear - Hades and Persephone have never sacrificed a single thing. The only thing they could POSSIBLY quantify as a "sacrifice" is "not being tied at the hip for a few hours", because even Persephone going on the equivalent of a work trip next door is apparently enough to make Hades sad as we saw in the 3 month time skip panels. Why is Hades so sad and lonely if he can visit her any time? Why is he acting like he hasn't seen her in years when he's actually on his way to reunite with her? Why is Hecate calling to ask him if he's "okay" as if he JUST got separated from her, but actually he's about to literally go to the Mortal Realm to reunite with her?

Hades hasn't 'sacrificed' a damn thing, neither has Persephone. They've both always gotten exactly what they wanted, even at the cost of breaking the story's own established rules. Their 'sacrifice' is equivalent to what billionaires think are 'sacrifices' when they can't buy another yacht or go on that third overseas vacation for the month.

And even outside of this episode, when have these two ever sacrificed anything?

I've tried so hard to think of what sacrifices have been made by the characters within LO, and I genuinely can only think of one - and that was when Artemis chose to go to the Mortal Realm with Persephone instead of staying with her family in Olympus. That was a genuine, selfless sacrifice, made by a character who has been shelved in favor of focusing on the self-centered pink and blue airheads.

Being forced to be apart for a couple days to do the equivalent of a day job and whining about it the whole time is not a 'sacrifice'. Neither of these characters have ever sacrificed anything, they just feel like sacrifices because they have the integrity and empathy of soggy cardboard.

sigh Anyways, we're back in the present and Hades and Persephone immediately decide they're gonna have sex because ofc, and then we get this gem of a panel-

MMMMMM

FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JOKE

For some reason it's just a common thing for people to just be in Hades' home, and they can't seem to get any privacy as a result of this, but I digress. Turns out they still need to have that coronation for Persephone.

There is... so much wrong in these three panels.

First, to state the immediate issues - why the fuck are they mentioning Apollo at Persephone's coronation? Like first of all, no shit Apollo isn't gonna be there, but also, if this is supposed to be an event for and about Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld, then why in the WORLD is Apollo even being mentioned? This is supposed to be a "feminist retelling" where the victims are empowered and heal from their trauma, but LO once again can't try to show any sort of positive growth for the victims without bringing up the assaulters and giving them screen time. It just goes to show that Rachel's idea of "healing" is purely rooted in the revenge, and not the growth. It's a very high schooler approach to this subject, hellbent on showcasing how all the meanies from the past are losers now and life just sucked for them forever, but inadvertently proving its own point that the victims haven't and can't move on because the narrative is spending so much time on caring what's going on with the abusers. It's the "I don't care! Look at how little I care! I'll prove it to you by putting in the effort of showing you how little I care!" approach, it doesn't really feel like moving on.

It's not about how Persephone and his other victims could have grown and healed, no, Rachel always needs to highlight just how much worse the bullies and haters and abusers are doing to make the victims seem like they've healed by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I can understand wanting to showcase the downfall of a character like Apollo, but this just... isn't the right context for that? Because it's once again taking attention away from the victim to focus on the abuser. It's once again spending screentime on the voices of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

And speaking of, what the fuck is this punishment even? I knew Rachel wasn't gonna be able to resolve this plotline properly, she never had the capability to, but ... community service? Are you fucking for real? What is this even a punishment for even? Was this EXCLUSIVELY the SA, or does this ALSO include his attempts to overthrow Zeus by poisoning him, nearly killing Daphne, Eris, Eros and Psyche, trapping Eros and Psyche in an enchanted basement, and framing his father's 'death' on his half-sister? Because if so, how in the world is anyone content with community service? He hasn't even been turned into a mortal, HE'S STILL A GOD, so what's to stop him from going "WE'LL MEET AGAIN, SPIDERMAN" and trying something else? How is this a reasonable resolution in ANY context?

This is why I talked at length about what an issue it was to hide what Apollo really admitted to. Because now we really don't know what exactly he confessed to, and thus we can never really see the point of views of the victims outside of just Persephone - and we still don't even get Persephone's, because she just walks away from him and then he gets eaten by Ouranos and next we see of him is him doing community service! Once again, any emotional development that could be given to Persephone and the other victims is stripped away to make room for the point of views of the oppressive men. In this, the two-time-Eisner-winning "feminist comic" that is LO.

And that brings us to the "where are they now" segment. Yes, as we all feared, there's a "where are they now" segment, and it's as rushed and underwhelming as we ought to have expected it to be.

There is just... so much to unpack here, and yes, all of it is delivered in the dumbest way possible that only raises more questions than answers.

So Rhea and Metis are just back and we're not gonna talk about the implications of them being alive again?

Dionysus is a 3 month year old in the body of a teenager / young adult, and his mom is just alive now because Hades conveniently got his hands on more ambrosia and brought her back to life offscreen? But somehow Triptomelus and Hedone are still child-sized relative to their ages?

How did they 'heal Zeus'? And why is he so content with losing his power as King and Apollo being sentenced to community service after making an attempt on his life? How does he feel about the letter that Hera gave him? Did he even read it?

Where the fuck is Hebe in all of this? Is she okay? Do people still think it was her who put Zeus in a coma? Or did Apollo confess to that, too?

You're telling me Hera and Echo are just in a relationship now despite the fact that Hera is literally racist towards nymphs and there is ZERO reason for them to have a relationship in the comic beyond the fans making gratuitous headcanons out of it? How is Rachel, a bisexual woman, so bad at writing actual lesbian relationships and giving them the same amount of attention as the heterocis ones without shoving them into the background as props for insincere queer rep? And what about Hera herself? How did she overcome her role as the Goddess of Marriage to finally divorce Zeus?

"Ares is still a dog!" Haha! Ares is still a Persephone simp! Happy end!

Why is Eros just standing there smiling at the camera struggling to be seen past Hedone who's just floating right in front of him? You're telling me there wasn't a better place to put her out of that entire panel?

"Hades and Thanatos have been making more time for each other. Sometimes they even have a conversation." I'm sorry, is this supposed to be funny? The man abused Thanatos for years, treated him as just a lowly employee when he was literally his adopted son, and now you're trying to play it off as a joke that they're "making more time for each other"? What the fuck is this?

TGOEM disbanded? Why? What about the women who were genuinely a part of it?

Also, Artemis and Selene are just good friends now because reasons? Because they're both affiliated with the moon, I guess? Why is Selene even in this comic-

"They are still looking for Kassandra". Who? And why? This feels like such a last minute addition to acknowledge a character that the comic spent WEEKS foreshadowing only to have her finally appear as a pointless McGuffin, but it's so last minute that it does nothing. I'm assuming it's Eros and Psyche looking for her, but like... why can't they find her? They're gods, tracking down one mortal shouldn't be that difficult LOL ???

And also, where the fuck is Leto?? You're telling me she was an accessory - maybe manipulating Apollo, maybe not - but we don't see what happened to her? Is she just back to being a social outcast then? jesus christ this comic isn't finished-

Kassandra is where the "where are they now" sequence ends, and we're treated to one final horribly written dialogue scene between Hades and Persephone, where they tell each other how much they love each other in a desperate attempt to convince the audience that this is, in fact, a romance.

There's this thing in romances called chemistry, and if you're good at writing it, you shouldn't have to write dialogue like this. You should be able to see how much the characters love each other through their actions, through their small behaviors around each other. It's not always about what they say out loud, it's about what they don't have to say, because when two people really share that close of a bond based on love and trust and chemistry, words often aren't necessary.

Hades and Persephone do not have that chemistry. It has been apparent for years now, but this final exchange really is the nail in the coffin. There are no microexpressions or subtle emotions, no subtlety in their word choice, and nothing unique setting their voices apart. It's all just "wow thank you for being such a wonderful amazing partner, you are amazing and I love you" word salad that has to do all the heavy lifting for the completely non-existent chemistry that's been at its absolute worst throughout this entire season.

And worst of all, despite this story trying so hard to be focused around Persephone, around her story, her trauma and her healing, her voice... it's still all just about Hades. In the end, she's thanking Hades, and forcing him to say "you're welcome". All of it is trying so hard to convince us that Hades has been a positive addition to her life, that she 'owes' so much to him, but we've obviously seen plenty throughout the comic that begs to differ. And even if he were a better person than he is, it still doesn't change the fact that once again, the men are being held up above the women, with the women being grateful to the men who choose them. LO can try its hardest to convince people that it's feminist, but it is, at best, reinforcing the very same structures of the patriarchal system that it claims to despise and rebel against.

We do get one line from Hades acknowledging Persephone's part in the relationship-

-and it falls so fucking flat because it's still about him and what she does for him, and because nothing about their relationship was built on any sort of organic chemistry. There was a lot more chemistry back in S1, but it was still predicated on Hades lusting after a vulnerable 19 year old girl.

Yep, and that's it. That's the end.

Except it isn't because Rachel wanted to try and be smart by including an 'epilogue' that's really just stretching the episode out pointlessly for another few panels. And of course, we had to get another time skip, just a final dose of salt in the wound, this time to years ahead when we inevitably had to reconnect with Persephone and Hades in the future after Melinoe was born.

To recap, Melinoe doesn't remember... because Hades had Morpheus erase her memories.

This plotline has really started to give me the ick because it actually feels very familiar. Bear with me here, because I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent about my own original work, but it's because I wrote a plotline exactly like this years ago.

There's this... turning point, in Time Gate: Reaper, when the main character Uzuki is kidnapped by a Reaper (see: undead) who wants to experiment on her in the hopes that he can somehow gain her abilities to bond her soul with others (which later allows her to literally possess people after she becomes a Reaper herself). Mitsuhiro, the male deuteragonist who kickstarts the plot by telling Uzuki she's got a limited amount of time left to live (which he knows thanks to his magical death timers that mark themselves on his skin), feels an immense amount of guilt after finding out she was kidnapped by the Reapers (at this point she's been gone for three months), as they were originally after him; he worries that she was made a target simply due to him associating himself with her, and vows to rescue her.

With the help of some other spunky teenagers and anime trope characters, Mitsuhiro does eventually rescue Uzuki - but for the three months she had been gone, she had been tortured, abused, and experimented on, causing her mind to split and for her to lose any sense of awareness of who Mitsuhiro or her other friends were. She was no longer herself after the hell she had been through.

Mitsuhiro's solution to this is to have Springlock - another Reaper with motivations that are not yet clear to the cast - erase her memory. This is not a light decision that comes without consequences - for the remaining duration of the story, Uzuki is plagued by night terrors and panic attacks, unable to really remember what happened to her aside from whatever brief flashbacks her brain recalls in its haze of memory loss. She is traumatized, both physically and mentally. She has lost three months of her life and memories, and doesn't know how to explain why she's covered in scars that are still healing, why she's missing organs, why she's now blind in one eye, and why the sound of scraping metal and ticking clocks gives her panic attacks. Mitsuhiro has convinced her friends that she's suffering from memory loss due to trauma, but only he knows the truth that he forcefully took her memories away from her, without her consent. This was not the right choice to make. It was not noble of him, it was not a grand gesture of love, he made a decision on her behalf without her consent that has now resulted in her becoming a nervous wreck. Sure, she still would have had PTSD if she remembered what happened, but at least she would know why and could then seek adequate help. Without those memories, she has nowhere to begin to heal. And so we see the consequences of this throughout [AFTERBIRTH] and even the upcoming Thread of Fate. It is a long-term problem that is not going to be solved overnight, especially not with Mitsuhiro withholding information from her.

Reading about Melinoe having dreams about her experiences trapped in Tartarus with Kronos ... it felt familiar enough that I had to talk about why the insinuations of this are so fucked up. I know there are people who are gonna handwave it away as "she's just a kid", "these are gods so what does it matter", etc. but ... it just feels like such an oversight to have Hades effectively erase her memory of her trauma and then hint at them still being present in her mind through her dreams. She did not ask for that. And the fact that she's now dreaming about it all does not bode well. But we're supposed to think Hades made the correct choice, regardless.

But none of this is effectively expanded on or explained, because we get one final scene of Melinoe and Demeter visiting Persephone, who has just given birth to... Makaria?

So it turns out Persephone and Hades are just able to have biological children now. Don't know why, but of course they both look exactly like Hades.

What I was really confused by though is the fact that it's Makaria and not Brimos. Do you remember Brimos? The child that was foreshadowed in Hades' original fantasy dream sequence about his future children about Persephone?

Either Rachel completely forgot about him, or she saw all the criticism over the fact that Brimos isn't a confirmed child of Hades and Persephone (rather, an epithet that can apply to basically any Underworld god including Persephone and Hades) and that her "research" was dependent on a book she read when she was 13 and decided to axe that. But she went to the effort of establishing that all the dreams Hades had were , in fact, canon visions of the future, so good job Rachel, you created yet another plothole on top of the hundreds of others.

And that's where the series ends, on a final nuclear-family-photo of Persephone, Hades, Melinoe, and Makaria. Of course, Dionysus and Thanatos aren't present in this shot because this is Lore Olympus and only biological children count /hj

Why Rachel couldn't move the "the end" portion to THIS part, I don't know, but I'm also expecting way too much of the person who finished this 20 minutes before it was due.

So that's it. Six years and that's what we get. I didn't expect much, but I was still incredibly disappointed, as were many others who walked away from this dazed and confused. Maybe it's all the "haters" deserve at this point. But what of the fans? While many of them are celebrating this ending at best and tolerating it at worst, I can't help but think of the fans of this comic who hung on for so long in the hopes it would "pay off", just for it to go out as gloriously as a wet fart.

As for me, I have such mixed feelings about Lore Olympus ending, but none of them pertain to the comic itself. Most of what I'll miss from this comic isn't the comic itself, but the people who have made reading it every week so fun, the artists and writers who have enriched the content with their own interpretations of what could have been, and the experiences of being part of such an amazing community made up of people who are as long-term-obsessed about this piece of media as I am.

I get people who ask me a lot if it's "worth it" to be so engrossed in the LO slander, who assume that I'm going to "regret" ever being a part of it all... but from where I'm standing right now, I couldn't ask for a better view.

Even if I didn't love every minute of it, everything I have here I owe to this comic. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing, pile of shit comic.

[raphael-angele]

If Hades raised Nico and Bianca Part 26 (Babysitting)

Artemis, entering: Apollo, where is- Who is that?

Apollo, holding baby Nico: Hm? Him? Oh, this is Uncle Hades' son. His name is Nico. He's squishy

Artemis: Well, he is adorable *approaches*

Apollo: *turning away* Hey, back off. He's my squishy. Get your own.

Artemis:

Bianca: *tugs on Artemis' clothes*

Artemis: *looks down* Oh...well hello there. *picks her up* What's your name?

---

Bianca: Uncle, look! I found a seashell!

Poseidon: Oh, that's a pretty one, Bianca. It's shiny, too.

Bianca: Can I keep it?

Poseidon: Of course

Nico, pulling Poseidon's arm: Uncle Popo! Uncle Popo!

Poseidon: Woah. Slow down there, Nico. What's wrong?

Nico: Look! *shows baby turtles crawling to the sea*

Poseidon: Oh, look at that. They're going to the sea for the first time.

Nico: We have to help them! *tries to pick one up*

Poseidon: Uph! Not so fast, little one. We can't do that.

Nico: But-

Poseidon: They have to do it on their own. Or else they'll never learn how.

---

Bianca: AARRGH!

Ares: *sigh* C'mon. One more time

Bianca: I don't wanna anymore. This is stupid. >:(

Ares: Look, it's normal to fall on your first few times.

Bianca: But I've been practicing for months now.

Ares: Doesn't matter; you'll still fall. Doesn't matter how good you are. You'll still make mistakes. But if you want to be better than now, then you have to keep going. Understand?

Bianca: Yes, Mr. Ares.

Ares: Alright, c'mon. Stand up, dust yourself off, and let's perfect this dance.

---

Nico, playing with Hera's peacocks: Hehe, hehe. Pretty.

Hera: Who are you?

Nico: Hm?

Hera: How did you get in here?

Nico: I-I...

Hera: What are you doing in here?

Nico: ...the peacocks...

Hera: What?

Nico: The peacocks were hungry. So I gave them food. They took me in here.

Hera:

Nico: I'm sorry, Ms. Hera.

Hera: *sigh then picks him up* You shouldn't be here, little one. Olympus is not a playground for you to wander on.

Nico: I'm sorry.

Hera: And it's very rude to enter someone's chambers without their permission.

---

Aphrodite, waking up: *looks in the mirror to see her hair full of flowers* What the-

Aphrodite: *looks back in her bed*

Nico: *sleeping with a basket of flowers on the side of the bed*

...

Bianca: Ms. Aphrodite

Aphrodite, braiding Bianca's hair: Yes, Bianca?

Bianca: What if I don't want to fall in love? Will you get mad at me?

Aphrodite: Of course not. Love isn't for everyone. Some people prefer to focus on other things like their work or something else.

Bianca: But...I don't wanna be lonely

Aphrodite: You don't have to be. Just because you don't want to fall in love with others doesn't mean they don't love you. And it wont always be a romantic kind of love.

Bianca: What do you mean?

Aphrodite: Hmm, you know how you love your brother very much? Well, that's a different kind of love. Or when you love your friends, that's also a different kind of love.

Bianca: So...you'd be okay if I never get a husband?

Aphrodite: Of course I would. You'd only be hurting yourself if you're forcing yourself to love someone you don't really love. *finishes braiding her hair* And, done!

Bianca, looks in the mirror: ...wow

Aphrodite: Do you like it?

Bianca: I love it...I look like mama

---

Nico: O-once...up-upon...a time... *trying to read Puss in Boots*

Athena: You're doing well, Nico.

Bianca, pointing to a word in her book: Ms. Athena, what does this word mean? Exqui-Exquisite?

Athena: It's an adjective. When something is exquisite, it means it looks beautiful.

---

Nico: Choo choo! Uncle Hepha! Can I play with choo choo?

Hephaestus: Sure, why not? Just don't touch it, okay? You'll hurt yourself.

Bianca: Uncle Hephaestus, can you please fix this? *shows him a trinket*

Hephaestus: What is it? *takes it*

Bianca: It was our mama's music box. When you open it, it should make a pretty sound and the people in the middle should dance around. But they stopped dancing.

Hephaestus: Alright. I'll try and fix it. But I can't guarantee you that I can

---

Nico: HAHAHAHAHA! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!

Hermes: Nico, we've run around 5 times already. You're gonna throw up at this point

Nico: No, I'm not.

Hermes: Yes, you are. That's enough running around.

Nico: Aww :(

Hermes: How about instead, we go and prank your Uncle Apollo? :D

Nico: YEA!

Hermes: What are we thinking? Cut the reigns on his chariot? Cover his chambers in tin foil? Shoot him in the butt?

---

Zeus: Ah! Hello, little ones. Why don't you come here and give your uncle Zeus a hug?

Bianca:

Nico:

Zeus: Come on

Nico: *throws the dummy sword Zagreus gave him*

Bianca: *throws the dummy sword Achilles gave her*

Zeus: Ow!

Hades: ...good work, children! :D

[gingermintpepper]

On that trojan war au thing you're writing. 1. What are the tags for it, cause I'm super interested! And would love to read what you have so far! 2. "And Odysseus is a much grimmer darker man due to his home being one of the places that were first swallowed up by Erebus" - I wanna know more about this. Please tell me more.

Oh , wow, I'm so flattered! I'm very happy it sounds appealing to you <33 This work is a huge passion project of mine so I'm always glad to talk more and more about it, especially since there are many aspects occurring in the background (such as the alternate fates of the main players of the Trojan Conflict) which I cannot properly cover or even explain within the events of the novel itself.

That said: 1) If you mean tags as in ao3 - unfortunately, this work isn't on ao3 my friend :( As I said above, these are elements and concepts in the greek mythology based-fantasy novel I'm currently writing (the concept of which I outlined here in the introductory post of my novel concept!) As for wanting to read whatever writing I currently have available: I currently have three fics available on ao3 that are written in my Pursuing Daybreak verse!

The Prince and Princess series deal with a young Apollo and Artemis and the many consequences they face after Apollo has slain Python. The two works uploaded right now are Exeunt Phoebus Apollo which covers the murder trial of Python and Manent Apanchomene Artemis which covers the intense feelings of helplessness and alienation Artemis experiences after Apollo returns from his banishment and is completely changed. Both of these have themes of family, grief and relationship exploration at their heart.

The third bit of writing I have up is quite outdated but does cover the immediate aftermath of Hyacinthus' death. It's called A Petal Falleth and features Apollo making one of those Big Silly Decisions that have completely unintended but extremely important consequences: namely, instead of the larkspurs being made of Hyacinthus' spilt blood, Apollo anchors the boy's soul to the flowers so Thanatos wouldn't take him. Like the Dawn is also set in this world but because it is nsfw in nature, I wouldn't recommend it as easily as the other three bits of writing. If you don't mind the whole naked men thing though, I'd definitely suggest reading Like the Dawn for a better idea of what my current writing is like (along with eventually getting to see characters like Hector, Andromache and Cassandra/Helenus) Like the Dawn's themes are also different to the other three works with it focusing more on the power dynamics of a god/mortal relationship, exploring masculinity and masculine sexuality and self discovery.

The running theme here, of course, is that all of these bits of writing are centered on Apollo/Artemis or Hyacinth because my novel itself is centered around them. There are, of course, other important characters and figures like Eros, Psyche, Penthesilea and Iaso (one of Asclepius' daughters) but while there is the definite presence of characters from the Trojan War they most certainly aren't at the center of the novel (and the ones that are aren't the Greeks but rather the Trojans i.e Hector, Alexander, Andromache, Cassandra, Helenus, Aeneas, so on and so forth.)

2) The basis of the apocalypse in my work is cosmological! Due to Apollo's err-- untimely departure, there's no longer anyone maintaining the axis of the heavens or the navel of the earth. Because of this, Erebus - whose darkness is usually kept firmly in the spaces between the realms - begins to spill out into both the heavens and the earth. The beasts of Erebus (referring primarily to the Seven Curses - Old Age, Misery, Deceit, Violence etc etc) consume, torment and destroy whatever is inside of Erebus' darkness and Ithaca, as one of the islands on the far edge of the world, was one of the very first places that were devoured in this manner. Odysseus was visiting the Argives at the time for a festival and had left the pregnant Penelope at home since he didn't want her to suffer through the voyage in discomfort. He only finds out about the destruction of Ithaca after it had already been consumed when Athena personally interrupts a feast to warn both him and Diomedes. Needless to say, Odysseus, like everyone else, assumes that everyone on Ithaca has died and thusly is a very, very different man in terms of humour and comport. A part of him still stubbornly clings to the belief that Penelope managed to escape - that she was smart and resourceful enough to see the end approaching and do her best to escape - but that doesn't stop him from being dour for the majority of the time. Diomedes does his best to keep his spirits up in the meantime. Without him around, Odysseus is something of a black hole when it comes to the oppressiveness of his discontent though he does manage to lighten up when in the company of Helen, Clytemnestra and even Menelaus on occasion.