#appearance: hermes

[pineapplesaresweet]

Here is my contribution. Goodbye

[pink-noah]

Bonus-

Phaeton.

[dramaturgydrakes]

divine intervention

[mytho-nerd]

Me? Posting Greek god sketches in 2024? This is practically unheard of

[gncrezan]

some old @chrysanthemumgames hermes-seph sketches!!! some of it is established-relationship daydreaming but also a peek at my dark and twisted mind (sprawling intricate spidey au)

[nexxocatt]

ETM ACT 1 RANTS

So, I thought, since ACT 1 of ETM is now officially done,,, why not talk abt it? Y'know, for fun? Cause I have some thoughts😇 Let's begin, shall we?

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Also; TW: Mentions of death, violence, swearing (I think that's all. If you feel triggered, feel free to click off!!)

TROY SAGA

I have a love/hate relationship with 'The Horse and The Infant' tbh, like YEAHHH NEO AVENGE THE HELL OUTTA ACHILLES!!! But also oh Jeez, Zeus wtf man. Also when I replayed the whole ACT I was really scared that it was playing 'Monster', since they start with the same opening😭😭 (And yes it was on shuffle)

I FUCKING LOVE THE VOCALS IN 'JUST A MAN' Like oh meh Gods who possessed Jorge to sing like that, holy moly (hehehe refference). But yeah, very heartbreaking song, especially when that "when does a man become a monster?" part hits. AND THE "FORGIVE ME"S😭😭

In 'Full Speed Ahead' I love how Ody says "Polites!" cuz like THAT'S HIS BESTIE!!! YAYYY :D Also, I saw a tiktok that was depicting the last part (when Ody tells Polites to get ready cuz they're going over to that island, and Eury is like we don't know what to expect) as the trio with the 'Pessimistic Realist'(Eury), the 'Realist who doubles as a Sunshine Protector'(Ody) and, ofc, the 'Sunshine'(Polites) ((And Ody lowkey becomes a mass murderer when Polites gets hurt))

I swear 'Open Arms' will forever be my fav song on this Saga, I just LOVE how Polites is like a supportive bsf to Ody and is trying to get him to approach the world differently. The Lotus Eaters were probably so happy to get them to face Polyphemus so that they won't have to worry abt him

I hate & love at the same time how Ody shows one act of kindness and Athena's like "🤨📸 Are you slacking off work??? Nahhh, not on my watch." But also the hopeful "Goddess and man, bestest of friends!" and then the broken "Okay :')" break me everytime cuz like Ody really just wants to get close(platonically) to Athena😭😭

THE CYCLOPS SAGA

I hate how Polites is like "I can't believe there's so many sheep here, just for us! :D" like buddy, do NOT believe it😭 Also I believe in the headcannon that Polyphemus was really about to let them go before Ody hit him with the "Eye to Eye" verse

Didn't realise that in the opening of 'Survive', the ensemble sings the sylables of "POLYPHEMUS" before a video pointed it out (I believe the name was 'Epic: The Musical but only when someone's name is said' and it had the opening of 'Survive'). Also can we just agree that the broken "captain" in 'Survive' and the several "CAPTAIN!"s in 'Ruthlessness' are gonna haunt Ody forever😭🙏

I truly believe that in 'Remember Them', Ody was really about to just leave before Athena showed up and he decided to reveal his name, home address, and social security number to one of his enemies🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ But can you blame him tho?? Like I find it pretty reasonable to let your defeated enemy know who they messed it, so that they won't fuck with you or anyone you hold close again.

Even before 'My Goodbye', when Athena said "don't dissapoint me" in 'Warrior of the Mind' I was like "Then don't be dissapointed! How 'bout that???" (As you can tell I'm fed up at Athena's reasoning for leaving Ody. And then she has the AUDACITY to call Telemachus her friend and then disregard viewing Ody the same way🤨📸)

THE OCEAN SAGA

I relistened to 'Storm' during a school roadtrip, when it was raining heavily, and LITERALLY AFTER the song was done, the rain stopped😨😨 Also love the addition of trumpets to show that it was Poseidon who started the storm(cuz trumpets are his signature instrument if I remember correctly)

I feel like 'Luck Runs Out' is heavily skipped troughout the musical, but it's a really cool song that just radiates "Odysseus No. Odysseus YES" energy

'Keep Your Friends Close' is my fav song in this Saga bc I really love whoever sings Aeolus' role😍😍 Also the "Everything changed since Polites" line made me audibly and visually scream😭 Like okay, BOLD😤😤

I will always laugh at the "ALL I GOTTA DO IS OPEN THIS BAG" "WHAT" part😂😂 Like he just lost 557 men and he just BOLTS IMMEDIATELY. And I was really confused when Poseidon said "I mean you totally could've avoided all this, had you just killed my son", cuz like, wasn't it in the prophecy that ody was meant to blind Polyphemus, not kill him?? (This is not meant to show hate to this specific part, only to show hate to Poseidon, bc he gave PTSD to my fav boy and was wrong at the same time😤)

THE CIRCE SAGA

I immediately started crying at the start bc the opening instrumental sounds like the "Watch where the birds fly, they will lead us to land. There we'll hunt for food, my second-in-command" in 'Full Speed Ahead' and it really shows that now there's just the two of them, Ody and Eury, 'cause they lost Polites(whom I'm still mourning). Also the "What" and the "Damn" Ody says during Eury's explaination are giving me life😭🙏

I saw in an animatic of 'Wouldn't You Like' by Ximena Natzel on YT that at the last chorus Hermes was just throwing Ody around in the air and I feel like the "Oh-woah"s Ody sings are him going along with whatever Hermes is doing and he's enjoying himself🥺 (But not for long)

I have no idea what to say for 'Done For' other than I think it took over the entire fandom when it released on Feb 14th. I love how Circe immediately knows that Hermes gave Ody the Molly flower and Ody's like "Alr ya caught me, but hey, Imma still defeat you"

I also don't know what to say about "There Are Other Ways" other than the "Or maybe the world will need a puppeteer more!" part is making me question my sexuality😳 (ofc I won't steal Talya from Jay but I'm just saying). Oh also the "12 long years" part definitely took over the fandom at that point😭

THE UNDERWORLD SAGA

I made the BIGGEST mistake of listening to this Saga on a school roadtrip (the same one I was on when relistening to 'Storm') and almost CRIED MY HEART OUT when I heard both Polites and Anticlea's parts😭😭 there's also a sound on TT where it first shows Polites' part in 'Open Arms' and then in 'The Underworld' and I'm crying so hard😭😭😭😭

I love Mason's voice when playing Tiresias so much ong. Also: "Who?" Odysseus asked calmly. LIKE FOOL IT'S YOU!!!!

I love the song 'Monster' so much, mainly for the fact that Ody's asking himself if the other beings they encountered along the way feel as guilty as he does. I also feel like Astyanax is just vibing to the song and Hector's like "That's literally the guy who killed you???" And he's like "Womp womp. This song's fire!!" (Cringe, Ik, but you can't stop me)

On a last note: JORGE WHEN I CATCH YOU JORGE- /j

But seriously, you wound us, Mr. Jalapeño; YOU WOUND ALL OF US.

Hope y'all enjoyed my rant🤪🤪

[jeannereames]

In "Dancing With The Lion", you seem to say that Alexander was not handsome. But when I searched about Alexander's appearance on Google, I found that almost everywhere he was described as a handsome man. He was even called extremely handsome in a couple of articles. I have seen the copy of Alexander's bust originally made by Lysippus. It's said that Lysippus made the bust during Alexander's lifetime & Alexander looked like that. The bust doesn't look bad. Why do you then think that Alexander wasn't good looking enough? By the way, I loved the guy who seemed to represent Alexander on the cover page of "Dancing With The Lion". Alexander might very well look like that :-)

First, a comment on my description and why I made it, then some background on the history.

What Hephaistion thinks to himself is actually, “Only a flatterer would call him handsome.” He doesn’t say he’s ugly or plain. He’s just normal looking. I made that choice partly for historical reasons, but also because I wanted to humanize him. Same reason I gave him acne. 😉 I don’t see him as unattractive, I just don’t see him as especially handsome. (A link to the novels, for anybody looking, with the new covers.)

I would caution about taking seriously much that you find via a Google search. It’s kinda a dumpster fire, honestly, unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.* Always check who wrote an article. How did they learn the information they relate? That’s part of why I cite things here, even if I don’t load y’all up with citations the way I would in a scholarly article. But I want readers to be able to chase down references for themselves, even as, in our post-expert era, I also want readers to trust that I know where to look in the first place—what’s reliable.

Although it’s now 30+ years old, probably the best book on Alexander’s appearance is Andrew Stewart’s Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (1993). I know it’s expensive (LOTS and lots of picture plates inside), but because it’s been out a minute, you can probably find it used, or in a library.

So, let’s look at the history. There are several things going on here:

The ancient Greeks conflated wealth, class, intelligence, and beauty with heroic status. So Achilles is beautiful but Thersites is malformed and ugly. This motif rolled over onto historical individuals, and the Greeks purposely practiced “idealizing” in their sculpture, especially of anybody presented as heroic. There’s quite a lot written on Greek idealizing, but again, beware a simple Google search; I just tried to find something useful and gave up by the time I was on page 6; the best thing was an article in the NYT, behind a paywall. I’d suggest grabbing an art history textbook, especially a specialized one, like Shiela Dillon’s.

The Alexander head on the Akropolis (which was used to find the model for the cover of Becoming) is a perfect example of Classical-era idealization. We’d call it Photoshopped. 😉 Yes, it’s recognizably Alexander, but his face is made to match the canon of Greek ephebic beauty. (The publisher liked it. ha)

Add to this the divinization of Alexander and its impact on his sculptures across time. See Stewart mentioned above for a great description of how his Successors molded his image for their own purposes. Generally speaking, his hair gets longer and flowier, his eyes get larger, and his face get softened until he looks feminized. The sculpture below, from the Capitoline Museum, is a great example. It’s Alexander as Helios (the sun god), a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, and that original is speculatively dated to sometime in the late 200s or early 100s BCE, based on style.

We in the modern world are inclined to these same assumptions. We got it from them! I’ve noticed that most sketches (especially AI pictures) of Alexander on the internet turn him pretty. One (below, yes with 6 fingers) has him looking suspiciously like Henry Cavill! LOL

There have been some better attempts to use AI to render him, based on ancient statuary, but most use statues I’m less fond of. Yet the one that uses the Azara Herm is, I think, pretty close. I agree with Stewart that the Azara Herm is as near to a likeness as is out there; see Stewart’s discussion as to why. I believe it’s the bust you’re referring to in the ask. Below with link to Royalty Now, who made it. I want to be sure she gets credit. I bought myself a copy of this one. She did two reconstructions, but I don’t care for the other because of the statue used. Royalty Now may have airbrushed him a bit (he lacks scars, for instance—highly unlikely in a soldier), but at least in basic facial structure, it’s good. Note the long face. If a long face with sharper features is more accepted today—largely thanks to what photographs well—the Greek ideal was a rounder face, like the Akropolis head above.

So the real Alexander wasn’t an ugly man, no, but if you passed him on the street, you probably wouldn’t stop and stare. Unless he wanted you to. It was his CHARISMA that people noted, not his physical appearance.

That, I also tried to note in the novels. At one point, Aristotle remarks to himself that Hephaistion might have the looks, but Alexander would always be the one to draw eyes. 😊

------------------------------------------

* For instance, my educational website on Hephaistion appears pages and pages and pages down from the top on Google … even though it’s written by one of the two leading world experts on him (Sabine Müller is the other). Ergo, you have to wade through a lot of stuff put out by sites that know how to rank themselves higher before you get to the actual specialist. Once upon a time, btw, it popped up higher, but pay-to-play has changed search engines.

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

So you’re Oromë starting some exiting new campaign with your mates and your annoying little sister forcibly invited herself to play, not that it matters since it immediately goes to shit and you panic-call an old biker friend (shady af by the way) who sorts it out, your sister promptly hooks up with him—

Nessa was in it for shits and giggles.

[totallynotanthelion]

Waiting for Gramps to arrive for the banquet

Does this count as family bonding? (feat. Father refusing to be a crab)

[son-of-natalie]

Who is Percy chasing in the Lotus Casino and why do I feel like it could be Mr. D?

[thebalancedangel]

Aphrodite: …Is the Stygian boatman secretly handsome?

Ares, Iris and Hermes: “Secretly”…?

Aphrodite: *under her breath* You fucking Chthonic simps…

[nofacednerd]

Watching the first few episodes of the PJO show with my brother was so funny because episode one he said “man I wonder who’s playing Hermes” and I had to sit there and wait for him to get Lin Manuel Miranda jumpscared for 2 episodes

[percyjacksonfan3]

So no George and Martha?

[eurydices-carnation774]

Hadestown doodles that @likesaly sent me!!!! I love this dork/p

[soda-can-enthusiast]

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA JUMPSCARE WHAT??

[miraclesnail]

Descendants of Hermes, Potential

Part 49 of 1000 Ways to Tell the Stoll Brothers Apart and I Can Name You One (ao3)

Hermes, not just the messenger of the gods, more than just the God of Thieves but the God of Travel. The God of Roads. The God of Shepherds. The God of Herds and Flocks. The God of Persuasion. The God of Astrology and Astronomy. The God of Rustic Divination. It just goes on and on.