#and the personality of hades

[claudethecrabdemoness]

Ok so I think I found a way to fix Vox LOLLOLOL. 

And by fix him, I mean make him much, much worse.

🔌 📺😝🎩⚡️

So I was drabbling in my head w Claude and Vox and they got to deep talking about their previous lives and regrets and all sorts of existential meanderings, when Vox surprised me by saying “I was a Christian, ya know. A good one. Never even missed a Sunday- come late night or hangover or hellwater. *chuckle* Fat lot of good it did me, right?”

And then I was like oh. OHHHH. 

He should’ve been a televangelist. 

So now this is canon as far as I’m concerned, and can even make perfect use of the little priest getup from his song number. After all, that is essentially what he’s doing with the V’s: amassing a hell-wide cult through the power of his broadcast monopoly. And explains why Claude had never heard of him before- he’s not your average kind of celebrity. 

I picture he got his start on local access TV, in the early 40s, just right after Al would’ve had his heyday with radio. He was an East Coast boy, no doubt, and mastered the quick-talking pander of the telecasters at the time. He often ran small broadcasts for local churches- fundraisers, telethons, what have you- and the Christian community ate up his All-American boyish charm. Especially the ladies. He married one who went to his church and really believed his words had the power to change lives, urged him to start his own televised worship, and boy did he thrive. They quickly became a household name, and he basically kick-started the whole televangelist movement into high gear. Like the bastard he is. Soon he gained a country-wide following and had money pouring in from the faithful by the buckets, and of course it all went straight to his head. Hence why it’s a TV now as punishment. That’s when he began exploiting his pulpit, believing himself a prophet, staying with his wife only to maintain their image, buying houses and toys and cars all with parishioner’s money, staying awake for days on cocaine and coming back down with barbiturates, the whole nine yards. 

It eventually caught up to him when his followers tried to commit a mass murder/suicide in his name, and a lengthy court appeal didn’t really smooth over their new reputation as a dangerous cult. Which is so unfair. It wasn’t like he told them to go all Old Testament, buuut… it’s not like his message was that far off from it either. Idiots. From then on, he started overworking, overthinking, and overdoing the whole thing right into the ground. His wife left him, he lost a ton of money in legal fees, and he had to hire protection now to keep up with the death threats from angry loved ones of his devotees. All the stress and resentment drove him into religious fanaticism, and his sermons just got more and more ego-driven and manic, asking for larger tithes and claiming it would be help him work the Lord’s magic even faster. He eventually was killed by a hit put out on him by an up and coming newer cult- ironically a spinoff of his original one- proving that he was very much mortal, but his faithful followers still believed he was a messiah of some kind. 

And that’s because- in his haze of drugs and self-destruction- he believed he was one too. He was sure that what he was doing was for all the Right Reasons, even if the methods were unorthodox. But hey- even Jesus flipped tables and rebelled against the Romans, so who’s to say his path is any less holy? He was SURE that he’d still be getting a ticket to Heaven, despite some minor setbacks…

So you can imagine his rage when he very much woke up in Hell. 

All his hard work, all his devotion, all his MONEY- for what?? Damned to live with a TV instead of his beautiful face and nothing to show for his decades of faith??

What the fUCK??

It was then that he realized God was the biggest scam of all and immediately renounced his faith, spending the first few years of demonhood sinning and drinking as much as possible. He had no idea how to cope with it all, and saw no point to trying, really. What good is having a TV head when you can barely stand the thought of using it- just a constant reminder of the empire you left crumbing behind you. 

And that’s when he met Alastor. 

Now here was someone else cursed by his favorite medium and a deer form that boasted anything but the predator he saw himself as- only this man was anything but deterred by it. The Radio Demon’s broadcasts may have terrorized everyone else in Hell, but they invigorated something deep inside Vox. Something he hasn’t felt since his first televised sermon… something like worship. 

He had to seek him out. 

This then ties in perfectly with his one-sided crush/obsession with Al, their doomed stint at friendship, and the impending rejection he receives at the end. AGAIN. First God, now Alastor…? You’d think that second blow would reduce him into an even greater depression than before, but instead, it flips a switch inside him. That’s when Vox decides ENOUGH. He’s done pandering, he’s done negotiating, he’s done elevating anyone else above himself. And why should he?? If anything HE should be the one on that pedestal, HE should be the only one to get credit for all HIS deeds…

HE should be God. 

And dammit, if he can’t join the original up in Heaven, why not try to become one down in Hell?

The rest is canon as we know it, but I just really realllllly love the idea of ex-Christian Vox, and all the disillusionment religious trauma can bring. He went straight from communion to capitalism, and I like that in my hell-bound guys. I will def be using this as his canon backstory for my AU with Claude, bc I needed to bring even more conflicted suffering and RSD to this character before I can truly ship them together hahaa. 

And…. despite what his real backstory actually is…. this is the only one I subscribe to now. 😈

ALSO:

TELL ME THIS ISN’T HIM!!??!??? HELP. CREEPY HANDSOME IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO FOR THIS CURSED TV MAN I HAVE DECLARED IT SO PLS ADJUST YOUR FANART ACCORDINGLY. 

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk I’m going to go rot in my hole now thinking of more hcs for this akskshagaga-

[ochiody]

give odysseus loser hair please. thanks supergiant

[where-that-old-train-goes]

not normal about orpheus and eurydice. you loved someone so much it opened the stones of the underworld. so much that death had to listen. so much that everything stopped for your love. so much that you turned around. so much that even when you did wrong. she forgave you.

[aibafiles]

the juxtaposition between the sirens' songs is so funny. coral crown is an impersonal anthem about drowning sailors that clearly has a lot of thought put into the poetry of the lyrics. and then melinoe keeps showing up to fight them and they're like "oh shit we need to write a new song to roast her QUICK" and we get i am gonna claw (out your eyes etc) where the cadence is all over the place and the lyrics are just like we hate you and we're gonna kill you and your hair is ugly.

[thegraveyardwitch]

Petition for the Greek Temples to be rebuilt, so that I can pray to the gods in all their glory

[alabasterpickles]

Here’s a little family portrait I whipped up a few days ago because I had some questions about Makaria 😂 so I formally present —

Zagreus, Melinöe and the twins, Brimos and Makaria

Ages are 17, 16 and 5 (the twins were a happy accident hence the gap)

Second drawing is for color reference exclusively, it was my first pass! Everyone else’s designs are preeeetty much the same except for some minor changes tweaks with color.

Aaaand bonus smooches from a week or so ago while I tried to get back into the Hercules style (also because I wanted to draw some good ol’ fashioned lovin)

[each-uisge-enthusiast]

the modern villainisation of demeter will never cease to enrage me bc it wasn’t ENOUGH to just take a story of a girl being torn from her home from everyone who loved her and dragged away to be forced into marriage and twist and corrupt it until it was a romance story about female empowerment that wasn’t ENOUGH they HAD to take the original hero of the story the mother who went to every length to find her daughter again to bring her home and demonise her character until she was this horrific overbearing unloving mother. overprotective controlling without love. they turn the story of her grief at her YOUNG daughter being torn from her without her knowledge into the story of a misunderstood bad boy and a horrible cruel mother who won’t give him a chance and i really find it sickening. it’s ironic, that the ever misogynist age of hellenistic greece, has a better grasp of how disgusting and horrifying this situation was that a modern, self proclaimed ‘feminist’ era.

[mikimeiko]

Hades | Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium

[massiveladycat]

if you didnt get a coin in your mouth when you died in ancient greece, you weren't able to go to the underworld, and no men at sea got a burial (elpenor was actually very VERY lucky) so technically polites and all the others are just wandering alone and afraid and confused in their death places. polites sits in the cyclops cave, eurylochus and 580?? men are forever at the bottom of the sea, and 6 are still near scylla

[postnuclearwar]

i do love the juxaposition of hades 1 having zagreus seeking meaning and purpose versus hades 2 where melinoe has essentially been groomed for one specific purpose only

[halluciniwaynia]

one of the things that infuriates me about discussion like this on twitter is that the gods are supposed to be representative of not just the Greeks, but also the kinds of people that the Greeks encountered, along with the kinds of people who encountered their culture

Do you really think one of the most influential and important ancient western civilizations located in the motherfucking MEDITERRANEAN, a body of water which touches more societies than any other body of water on earth compared to its size, would really not have ever encountered a black or an asian person

miscellaneous other things to prove my point, both proving the Greeks made art of other people they encountered and that their culture was spread to a huge number of places on earth

source for second image is below

[shuutingstar]

You know how cool it would’ve been if Jason fell into Tartarus? As much as I love the Percabeth “I’d walk the ends of the world for you” I think Jason falling into Tartarus would’ve helped his character. Since Tartarus focuses mainly on memories, don’t you think it would’ve been an interesting way for Jason to relearn who he was? We’d see his memories and past achievements and hardships and figure out how he turned the way he did. Basically, Jason’s character would benefit from it and it could’ve been a challenge he had to face—like does he really want to know who he used to be? Sure he wants his memories back, but there’s a slight chance that he doesn’t like what he sees. Imagine the emotional turmoil he’d go through. Oh and also we’d get dark!Jason and that’s cool in of itself.

[lakeofthesocknessmonster]

"I liked your brother better"

[spineless-lobster]

Okay so this joke has definitely been made before but like I couldn’t resist making it for myself

[meboii27]

some of my fav hermes!!

[lunian]

Spent a whole day finally playing Hades 2 and huh

I feel like its some kind of courtship, guys