#artemis she connects to most tho

[thr4ce]

thinks... a lot... about how kara's two primary deities/lords are artemis and aphrodite. thinks about how she engages most often with the lady of the hunt. how she probably prays to artemis every single time she's in the tubes, if only in a casual/cursory way. may my arrow strike true.

[firinnie]

Erichthonius of Athens

(Before the main post I wanted to say that I want to add some more animal attributes to my gods. When I found out that Hephaestus has a donkey under his patronage I couldn't resist lol. Of course, they are gods so they can change their appearance or hide something in it but for now let's give them a little shine.)

So, since we're sticking with interesting Greek myths, I have a story for you today that involves Athena's (short) motherhood, still as a virgin goddess.

Safe part: So Athena canonically decided to adopt Hephaestus' son, Erichthonius, who according to one version was half boy and half snake. The goddess left him to be raised in Athens where he grew up, proved his power and wisdom, and later became a legendary king. Wow, happy ending! Now you can move on to the less happy part. 🙂

Mentioning attempted rpe: I remember what a big wtf I had the first time I read this myth but Erichthonius' birthday is much more complicated. You see, Hephaestus and Athena were supposed to have a friendly relationship, platonic on her side but not on his. One day Poseidon told his nephew that the goddess of wisdom was making advances on him. So he tried to seduce her and when she didn't want to - tride to rped her. You don't have to guess that the goddess experienced in fighting defended herself but despite everything, Hephaestus' "seeds" dirty her thigh, she pushed it on the earth in disgust and because of that Gaia (personification of the Earth) gave life, which literally came out of a crack in the same earth. Athena decided to adopt child even though SHE IS NOT BIOLOGICALLY CONNECTED TO HIM, which is important since she is still one of the 3 virgin goddesses. (with Artemis and Hestia) I once read a version where she was supposed to clean her thigh with a lock of her cut hair, but most definitely it is a piece of wood, so we can safely say that the child was born of Hephaestus and Gaia only.

Mentioning successful s*icide: It is worth adding that Athena gave the boy to the three daughters of Cecrops, current king of Athens, to raise. The child was in a basket that they were not supposed to open, but because they did, they went crazy and threw themselves off a cliff. Here too, there are two versions, one says that it was because Erichthonius was actually half a snake, the other that in the basket, apart from boy, there was also a snake that attacked the princess.

I hope you like this interesting facts. It shows how thin the ice of decency of Greek myths is, but it also gives a very interesting perspective on this. I still prefer the myth of Pallas tho.

[icyfox17]

hey foxers <3 i hope you’re doing well

just popping by to ask you to give me a full length paragraph on the cabin you think you’d be in in pjo and why :) give me specifics and all of that if you want!! /nf

i’ve started to realise recently that i’m a bit Stuck between two different cabins, one that i was assigned to when i was younger and one that i get told all the time nowadays i’d be in instead. i’m curious to hear your thoughts about the one you’d be in, if you’d like :D !!

-tommieieieiieieueue

Hi spritesy ily i miss u, hope ur doing okay sunshine :(<3

UHHH honestly ik its basic af but I've always felt the most connected to Poseidon bc i always feel very calm by the sea and stuff idkkk it just feels like home, y'know? Plus every single quiz I've ever taken has always given me poseidon so:0 I have been told I give off apollo vibes too!! And when I was a kid def not but who I am now? Yeah I can see it LMAO I love healing + music sooo v apolloy

OH the only cabin I relate to more than Poseidon us Artemis btw, she doesn't have kids tho so that's why I often forget to say her but she's the best. Love the deer and bow and arrow imagery. She's so cool. Pls adopt me

What are your thoughts for yourself/me :00000

I see u as Demeter for the plant vibes and apollo for the healing/sun/poetry

[percabeth4life]

Tell us about Mom, why do you love her? (i love her too, but i wanna give u a rant excuse)

Okay this was sitting in my drafts for days now cause I forgot I’d started to answer it lmao.

I was recently reading some thesis and essays on her and her worship and her nature and she’s just- Gods the myths don’t showcase just how lovely she is. I’m just- she is the Woman, the protector of Women and Girls in all stages of life even tho most look at Artemis of Aphrodite- It is her that is-

Hera the Unmarried

Hera the Girl

Hera the Maiden

Hera the Betrothed Bride

Hera of Marriage

Hera the Grown Woman

Hera the Widow

I’m just- she’s the guardian of women. She was connected so very strongly to Womanhood because she was associated with ALL STAGES of a woman’s life. It’s something many these days associate with Aphrodite, but like- it was Hera who guards women in all aspects of life, even tho Artemis has the maidens and Aphrodite has their youth, along with some aspects of marriage- but Hera is marriage and women, and newly weds would make their first marriage sacrifices to Hera Teleia and Zeus Teleios (Married Hera and Married Zeus).

And in Cult Worship (not the myths, the Cult Worship, the actual way she was viewed and worshiped, not the story telling of the myths) she was worshiped most for womanhood, fertility (with people, animals, and plants alike), and childbearing, which I most commonly see given to Artemis (she does rule it, but Hera does too). Hera has a hand in childbearing as well! For the woman especially. Artemis I might say is more for the child, healing the mother and bringing the child forth, and Hera is the mother, she soothes the mother and helps her through it.

Prior to 6th century BCE she was worshiped more individually, but after it was mostly in association with Zeus, as the Divine Queen. And in that manner she is the Mother of All, she is the Queen. Much like how Zeus is the Father of All, the Divine King, the King Supreme, she is the Queen and Mother. She can be turned to in any stage of life, and you can know she’ll be there to help you. She stood for women, was not the cruel, jealous, and spiteful Goddess so many consider her to be, but a hand on yours, a hug, a comforting smile. She is the Queen, a Mother, and a Goddess of Women.

And she was even associated with military strength! And even wealth in some forms! In Argos she had a sanctuary and was worshiped for Motherhood, Military Strength, and Wealth. The Military Strength was as she is Queen, like Zeus she is prayed to in times of war (which those who read ATLOP may have noticed, she was part of Zeus’ prayer as they were commonly associated after 6th century BCE). And wealth comes from the cow herding, which brought in a fair bit of wealth and cows are her sacred animal.

It’s just... Hera is so lovely- such a wonderful queen- and so many just look at the surface of her myths without any understand of what they mean, what they say, what they show, without understanding they’re stories and not her.

She deserves all the love.

[rightpastnowhere]

look, i am terrible at picking things, but I <3 you and I <3 your headcanons! so you choose which five you want to give me! :)

sjjfkejfkdjdj that’s fair!!!! let’s see…….

deities au!! i think that caters to a lot of people

send me an au (either one of your choosing or one from this list!!) and i’ll give you 5 headcanons

1. a lot of god stuff for vox machina has vex and vax as a pair of opposite domains cause twin things, which i love!!! so much!!!! that trope is one of my absolute faves, and i love putting the twins as the sun and moon gods because i can compare them both apollo and artemis each. but!! for this au i'm shaking it up - vex is going to be the god of the sun, and vax is going to be the god of shadows. instead of two opposite concepts, they are two concepts that are connected. you can't have shadows without light, and vex is like,,, the sun. that's the og light source. so. twinnies <333

2. vox machina, as the first party played (and the only party to reach level 20 so far), are gonna be like,,, the main gods, the most powerful ones. the mighty nein will be the next on the hierarchy of power, with bells hells below them but still gods. the other parties will just be background characters tho

3. percy is an outlier among VM, he's a god who started out as... not a human, per se, but not a god. some kind of demigod or mythical thing. but then whatever this au's briarwoods parallel will be happens, and through some Things and Shenanigans, he ends up as a full-blown god

4. trinket is a constellation spirit!!! vex has a connection to all the constellations, but she is especially attached to trinket, and since he's only visible during the nighttime sky, he hangs out with vex in the daytime

5. vex glows!! she is the sun, so of course she glows!! she grows brighter when she's excited, angry, or happy. she's a lil lightbulb <3

[kidflashimpulse]

do you think that when Bart first arrived in the past and met and got to know Wally Bart saw him as something of a big brother or brother figure?

personally, yes! its a HC that I feel strongly about

I don't think Bart immediately latched on to that feeling and im a strong believer that Wally was very apprehensive to letting Bart become close to him (not out of malice but his general instinct of precaution/suspicion and questioning everything but also most probably being often annoyed by Bart lol), so at first Wally kept his distance which im sure Bart actually appreciated/wanted at first cause at the time he had bigger things to worry about (impending alien invasion lol) but u know, as Wally started putting things together and Bart grew more comfortable with having a family and someone like Wally who I think among the flash fam is someone he connected with the easiest, then they got closer. I think Wally most likely could sus out some of Barts shady moments and Bart kept Wally on his toes, so yeah that easily would've lead to a brother kind of dynamic.

We also need to consider that Artemis was undercover for the majority of the time Bart started being in Wallys life, which I also think adds to the potential for them having gotten close.

My opinion on whether Bart knew Wally in his original timeline is largely mixed, I usually go with yes and that he knew him for a bit so Wally couldve also served as a source of familiarity in that sense, but its entirely possible that he didn't originally know Wally, who knows. Tho if he did, I have this major HC which I think about a lot lol where at some point Bart kinda lets slip to Wally that he was alone (didn't have a relationship in the future) cause of the pain of losing someone (i.e Artemis) , cause Bart is under the impression that Artemis was legitimately dead whilst she was undercover and so he wouldn't have thought he was revealing anything major, but this obviously shocks Wally which leads to the incentive of him confronting Dick during YJ Invasion questioning Kaldurs loyalty cause hes shit scared out of his mind that thats how Artemis dies. 

But yeah, I do think Wally and Bart fell into the reluctant mentor and annoying mentee dynamic where with their family tie it became brotherly, despite the relatively short time span. 

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Absolutely wild Rachel thinks it makes sense Rhea wouldn’t be the single named parent to the sisters/“friends” while Kronos is the single named parent to the brothers as if Rhea isn’t literally an anagram for Hera, her ancient art isnt modeled to look like Hestia, and that she shares divine mother/fertility status with Demeter. Like cmon, giving Hades an Oedipus complex is not worth it when the more obvious connections is right there and would actually get rid of the weird explicit incest and overtones she was desperately trying to get rid of but (accidentally?) made so much worse.

2. yall gotta realize the extent of rachel's "research' is purely a 30 second glance at google and thats it. thats why hephaestus has runner blades instead of actual prosthetics, it's why ares' military uniform isnt correct, it's why she puts in french aesthetics despite the country not even existing yet, its why sicily is framed as more important and the actual birthplace of these gods than actual greece, and the list goes on and on. rachel doesnt care about being remotely accurate and never has.

3. im confused because wasnt it a point persephone was uncomfortable with hades being hyper violent especially over her? yet this whole trial has been him going overboard in being a violet prat to literally everyone especially when its not warranted. tho for all we know rachel either forgot the part of persephone being uncomfortable with it or thinks everyone else forgot and shes reimplementing it bc she thinks its hot. anyway name a more iconic duo than LO and inconsistency over everything.

4. I don' care if the readers are young and don't know any better, literally no one with more than two brain cells would ever be cool and even approve of Persephone, only a week into being 20, would throw away her entire life, friends, and family (and possibly even her own powers if she eats the Pom) for some guy she's only known a most a month who doesn't respect her wants and obsesses over her body. Demeter is literally the only sane person in this sorry and she's the bad guy? Seriously?

5. tbh if you're 2000+ years old, are super rich, framed as the most desirable and power and sexy, and are a literal KING and you still couldnt find a wife or even a true relationship in all that time maybe the problem is you, buddy, not that everyone else isnt good enough or you haven't found an impressionable teenager to fawn over you.

6. Yeah Thanatos constantly flinching and being frightened of hades considering that was his caretaker has some rather bad implications to what hades was actually like off screen to this kid (and he was terrible on screen).

7. This comic's writing is my getting worse because Apollo read it and was so offended at his portrayal that he cursed Rachel and her writing forever.

8. im honestly shocked rachel would go with the "hera made hephaestus herself" version bc its so overwhelming ableist AND misogynistic because it says hera isnt good enough on her own and thats why hephaestus isnt "right" like everyone else, especially against athena. idk i think it would have been nicer if he was zeus and hera's kid together and it'd be a sweeter story of them loving him and sticking up against people who doubt and bully him, but god forbid this fanfic depict them positively ��

9. to add on the "perfect looks" anon, even ancient greeks didnt depict the gods all the same? like hera and demeter were depicted as more matronly, aphrodite was more curvy, artemis was more skinny, athena muscular, etc. even the guys werent all the same (apollo, eros, and dionysus looked more effeminate, hermes looked more like a teen, hephaestus was more muscular, etc) so the idea rachel is "clever" for having everyone look the same is wrong and just badly excusing her for being a lazy artist.

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

10. FP// Sorry but the only god the mortals feared was Hades and for very obvious reasons, but even then they didn't see him as a monster. Literally every other god, including Pan who is a major weirdo, was well loved and respected. I think Hades is just projecting his own insecurities onto everyone else when they clearly don't have the same issue. Plus in this he's so violent and cruel and literally enslaves the dead, why wouldn't the mortals see him as a monster? Get a hint, idiot.

[teawiththegods]

One of the reasons I personally connect Artemis to witchcraft is because of her rule over the realm of childhood. @theoi-crow and I have had many conversations on how the most powerful witch is very likely a child. Children are still very attached to the spirit realm having recently come from it and the world has yet to bombard them with the noise that serves to drown out all the magic.

Look at this cutie! Let me tell you something about her. He was a very powerful magician. He made friends with trees and every animal she came across, had two powerful deities as friends even tho she didn’t realize it yet (I was OBSESSED with twins as a kid so two guesses who those deities were 🤣), and had such a rich vibrate imagination it brought things to life! She made potions, talked to the moon, felt protected by the stars, walked with the divine, casted spells, followed her intuition, connected to the earth, and expressed himself creatively.

I was once a magical powerhouse.

Now back to Artemis. If children are major sources of magical power and Artemis is not only a guardian of children but depicted as a child in some cases that would mean she herself is a powerful witch.

And that has been true in my experience with her. A major part of my work with Artemis is getting back to my child self. There’s a variety of reasons her and I are doing this work but one of them is specifically in order to unlock that source of magical power I once had. And the lens that Artemis is specifically using is one of a child. As in, we’re looking at magic the way a child would, or really the way the cutie above looked at it. I could give examples but I already feel like I’m entering the realm of rambling at this point. But you know if you want to know more about the work I’m doing with Artemis let me know! I’m happy to talk about it!

Of course, there are plenty of other connections Artemis has to witchcraft so I’m def not saying this is the only one. I just think it’s one that often gets overlooked especially with the whole “magic is serious adult business” mindset that gets pushed around. Funny enough for me, the goal is to get as far away from “adult” and “serious” as possible when it comes to my magic. It’s all about reconnecting with lil Jessie who will always be my witchy inspiration.

[yjwhatif]

Traci is canonically a lesbian in the comics WHY is she dating Jaime tho. We really can’t have any decent lgbt rep all we have are cheating bisexuals, a nonbinary character who keeps getting murdered, MAYBE Ed and Bart but probably not, kaldur dating an undersea racist, and traci either having her lesbianism ignored or Jaime used as her coming out story

Hey anon. Thanks for the message - it kinda sent me down a thinking rabbit hole - so I’ll apologise now for how long this might get. (I can make a long rambley post about anything 🤦‍♀️ It’s a curse!) Anyway, take these thoughts as you wish…

On the matter of Traci, while I can’t speak to comics/wider DC canon (I don’t know much about that stuff), from the people I have heard talking about Traci, I was under the impression she was Bi - thereby making it valid that she’d have feelings for Jaime. Also I believe her dating Jaime is something that happens in wider canon as well so I personally don’t see a problem with them currently being together in the show. With what we saw of them in S3, I actually find them to be quite a sweet couple - though that doesn’t mean I expect them to stay together for ever - they’re still teenagers who are growing and learning about themselves through the connections they make. I honestly think they’ll start growing apart sooner or later - not all relationships last because as time goes by you learn that some connections don’t remain as strong as they were. The spark fades but that doesn’t mean the breakup has to be messy or framed in a way which implies it’s Traci’s fault because she likes girls too - if it did get framed like that I would absolutely acknowledge there’s an issue with that.

Of course, I’m saying all this under the assumption she is Bi, which I think is the way YJ canon will eventually confirm her to be - we just haven’t been given that confirmation yet. We don’t know if she is out in universe yet or still discovering herself - we haven’t been shown much of her personal/non heroing life to get much of an in-depth read on her as she interacts with people outside of her hero life. (I think this is a really long rambley way of me trying to say - I don’t think they’re “ignoring” her being a canonically LGBTQ+ character just because she’s currently in a relationship with Jaime and I don’t think they’re “using” him for a coming out story - but that’s just my personal perspective on the subject. I totally acknowledge I could alway be wrong though.)

All that being said, I do agree that the show is still majorly lacking in it’s positive onscreen LGBTQ+ representation - especially considering Greg’s comments on the subject for s4. While I hadn’t thought about when I was watching, after reading this comment I did realise there hasn’t been anything new yet and we’re almost at the end of the first half of the season. After ep. 1, I thought we’d be getting content with Violet as she gets a better understanding of her identity - though that’s not happen - she wasn’t even apart of Artemis’s arc despite their bond and being a member of the team. I think they were also setting up Harper having feelings for Violet with their little exchange - but again that’s not seen any exploration either. Though I do have to say I’ve never felt any romantic chemistry between the two - Harper clearly has some attraction to Violet - but I have never been convinced Violet reciprocated. Obviously that beach scene was really badly done - so if they want me to connect with and root for their relationship - they’re gonna have to do a hell of a lot of work to make that happen.

It’ll be interesting to see if the representation all turns up in the second half again - like in s3 - as that’s where Kaldur’s arc will be, and I have a feeling the Violet and Harper stuff will be explored then as well - though I would have thought they’d have learnt from doing that. I feel the focus on the original team members causes a bit of a problem in the fact that most of those characters are heterosexual - or at least have only ever been depicted in hetero relationships in YJ canon - so we’re not gonna see much representation from them… There’s Conner and M’gann, Artemis and Wally, Artemis and the new boyfriend I can’t remember the name of, Will and Cheshire, Dick and Barbara, even Gar’s relationship with Perdita keeps being brought up. That’s a lot of hetero and other than Kaldur and Wyynde, I can’t think of any other LGBTQ+ relationships that are confirmed in show that could help balance out the scales - which really isn’t great considering all Greg’s said about increasing the representation. I think this is one of the reasons I’m more interested in following the Outsiders and the newer characters - because there’s a greater chance of diversity between them with their being constructed in a less restrictive time… and hey, we very almost got official Ed and Bart if it wasn’t for the ridiculous final restriction set by TPTB who won’t let Bart be depicted as gay. (I’m never not gonna be annoyed by this.) At least Greg confirmed Ed as LGBT and is clearly as infuriated as we are about the Bart fiasco. Though of course they still need a lot more if they’re are going to fix the imbalance - which means explicit in show confirmations and not just implied behaviour - because there too much room for that to be missed or labelled as ‘wishful thinking’ or ‘reading too much into it’ by those who don’t want to see the representation. (I honestly don’t know if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, moving on.)

The last thing I want to comment on is the idea that Wyynde is nothing more than an “undersea racist”, I’ve seen this said a few times before before and I personally don’t think it’s fair to continue labelling him as such. Obviously, we don’t know much about Wyynde, so all that I say now could wind up being proven wrong with a mole styled betrayal storyline when we get to Kaldur’s arc - but for now I want to defend him. Obviously, in the comics Wyynde aligned himself with a very hateful group of people and took part in the discrimination of those who he deemed lesser than himself and his fellow purists. Yes, he was a racist during the time of s1 and that shouldn’t be unacknowleged, but within the small amount of content we got with him in s3, it is clear to see he has grown and seemingly gained some new perspective on his fellow Atlantean’s. The purists despised anyone who possessed any kind of aquatic qualities - no matter how small. This includes someone like Kaldur, with his webbed hands and feet, and gills - and yet, 8-ish years later, he’s now in an open relationship with Kaldur and neither seems uncomfortable with that fact. He’s trusted by the king to be a member of his royal guard. He chose to help Kaldur with his rescue mission on the surface world and even returned for the party at Bibbo’s where he looks to be enjoying himself amongst the range of people he’s with. 8 years have past since his comic appearance, and while we don’t know what happened in those 8 years - a lot can change in that amount of time - enough to help him see the error in his past judgement and accept everyone as equal - no matter their appearance/status. Unless he does something in the present which shows he hasn’t changed as much as he seems, I don’t think it’s fair to solely label him as nothing more than the mistakes of his past - especially when he’s showing genuine positive change… but that’s just my opinion on the matter - and I’m here just hoping Grandon don’t absolutely betray me by doing something sinister with his intentions. Guess we’ll have to see what comes in S4b.

Anyway, this has gotten so ridiculously long again (as usual). Apologies, I can’t stop myself from rambling on when no one asked for it - like I said, I can make a long post out of anything. It’s kinda a patchwork post of different thing I’ve had passing opinions on and they’ve finally been stitched together here. Thanks for your message - I hope you don’t mind me giving my overly lengthy perspective on the matters raised - feel free to point out anything that might be inaccurate (I am in no way an expert on anything I’ve talked about - so I’m open to correction.) Hopefully the representation problems will start being acknowledged soon - but I guess we’ll see what happens.

LB 💛

[phemonoi]

Aphrodite’s dark side | Epithets

Evidence of a cult of a warrior and dark Aphrodite has been widely studied. Aphrodite had been depicted with armor and prayed to for martial assistance in many places from Syria, to Corinth, Sparta, Argos, the Attika, Kypris, Rome, Naxos, and many, many, other places (but mainly Sparta. Surprising, no?). The cult of a warrior Aphrodite has been suspected to have emerged from Aphrodite’s “ancestral” correspondents like Istar or Astarte, who were both goddesses of sex and war. However, the evidence of a dark face of Aphrodite is there, and it can be too called upon today, even if it wasn't as popular as her holy and hevenly aspects.

Enoplios — weapon bearing

This is an epithet of Aphrodite attested by Plutarch, and is also epigraphically present in the Roman period. In the third century AD a priestess, Ponponia Kallistoneiké, set up a dedication to Artemis Ortheia in Lakonia attesting one of her fellow deities was Aphrodite Enoplios.

Summakhia — ally in war

Pausanias finds a cult of Aphrodite “ally in war” in Arkadia. This is all the comment I could find about it.

Nikephoros — victory bearer

In Argos, according to Pausanias, Aphrodite wore the epithet “victory-bearer”. Icons of Nikephoros and Hoplismene (armed) Aphrodite have been also attested in Syria and Eretria.

Areia — of Ares / war-like

At Sparta mainly, there is a lot of evidence of icons portraying an armed Aphrodite with inscriptions of this epithet. Pausanias tells us of one in a temple behind the Bronze House of Athena. There is another female wearing a peplos, a helmet and a spear, but without the aegis that characterizes Athena, thus many suspect it belongs to an armed Aphrodite.

HOWEVER Leonidas of Tarentum writes in the third century: “Eurotas once said to Kypris (Aphrodite), ‘Either take up arms, or quit Sparta, the polis mad for arms.’ She, laughing, replied, ‘I shall be ever unarmed.’ She said ‘and I shall dwell in Lakedaimonia.�� Our Kypris is unarmed. Shameful are those tale-tellers who say that our goddess bears arms!”

BUT from Antipater of Sidon, in the first century, there is a contradiction: “Even Kypris is Spartan. She is not dressed as in other towns in soft garments; But in full-force she has a helmet instead of a veil, instead of golden branches a spear-shaft. For it is not proper for her to be without arms, the consort of Thracian Enyalios (Ares) and a Lakedaimonian.” And this is not the only record we have of an actual Aphrodite wearing armor in Sparta; Plutarch, Nonnos, Julianus of Egypt and perhaps others tell us about the Spartan tendency to portray Aphrodite wearing an armor; either bow and quiver, spear and helmet, a shield, and even a sword. So perhaps Leonidas was either being sarcastic or lying (or the cult of Aphrodite Areia came after him, of course). This Epithet is thus related to Hoplismene. Julianus tells us that in the sanctuaries of armed Aphrodite girls revere her war-like nature and women give birth to courageous children.

Above all, Pausanias also claims that this Aphrodite was specifically worshipped as a female Ares. This gives us a clue whether this Aphrodite had been syncretized with Ares’ actual femenine counterpart, Enyo (Ares has an epithet related to her: Enyalios)

Androphonos — killer of men

This epithet is representative of her chthonic aspect. There is evidence of a sanctuary of hers and Aphrodite Anosia in Thessaly.

Anosia — the unholy

Aphrodite Anossia apparently was celebrated by women in Thessaly, and she is associated with homosexuality (although this is doubtful). Atheneus tells us a tale of a hetaira (courtesan) named Lais, that flee to Thessaly and fell in love with a man. A band of jealous women beat her to death at Aphrodite’s temple and thus the goddess in this temple became known as Anosia, the Unholy.

Tumborukhos — gravedigger

The Pythagoreans said there are two Aphrodites: one in heaven and one in the Underworld. Therefore she was called Tumborukhos as well.

Epitumbidia — she upon the graves

Couldn't find much information on this epithet either but it must be related to the previous one and representative of her Underworld connections.

Skotia — dark one

This epithet is referent of Aphrodite’s origins as a terrible goddess, and her associations with the planet venus, which were suppressed later by the pop cult (not the association with the planet, tho). This epithet appears to link her to the Erynies and Hekate, and may be referent of a “witch-star” (kakkab kassaptu in ancient Babylonian) nature. The lack of evidence for these type of epithets points at an unpopularity of them. It is important to highlight that some of them could be use against the goddess to give her a bad or “demonic” reputation in the christian sense so I suspect their suppression might have a relation to that.

Melanis — black

Related to the previous epithet. It appears that these “dark” and “unholy” aspects of her are related to the planet venus, as points her Ouraneia (“heavenly”) epithet as well. Venus was known as a “star of lamentation”.

Persephaessa — Queen of the Underworld

This epithet appears to be a syncretism between Aphrodite and Persephone. This is obviously mainly an epithet of Persephone. I could not find evidence for it being used to Aphrodite in the ancient world, just commentaries about it; however, by searching it on google you find an archeological source of it but sadly its written in german, and I have no idea how to read german.

Hoplismene — armed

Pausanias tells us about the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Kythera, saying that there “the goddess herself is an armed xoanon”. The xoanon were archaic wooden icons, and this one, according to Pausanias, was wearing an armor. Quintilian once asked why the Lakedaimonians (Spartans) have an armed Aphrodite, and Plutarch said that they like to portray every god in armor to show that all of them have excellence in warfare. This Aphrodite is present in Corinth as well.

Hegemone — leader (of the troops)

This Epithet of Aphrodite is found in the Athenian Agora, and their border fortress at Rhamnous. The city council also offered dedications to this Aphrodite. There are figures of her engaged in combat with the giant Mimos, and other portrays Aphrodite in a chariot wearing Athena's aegis (although it lacks the gorgon face), along with Poseidon. Hesikhios confirmed this epithet in the sixth century AD saying it applies to Artemis as well. This Aphrodite was also offered sacrifices with Themis and Nemesis, in honor of Aeneas, her son.

Strateia — campaigner

In the Hellenistic period, Aphrodite was called Strateia in western Asia Minor. There is an inscription from Mylasa refers to a priest of Aphrodite Strateia, and a calendar of offerings specifies sacrificing to Aphrodite Strateia along with Arete and Herakles. In Paros and Epiros, strategoi (military generals) are known to have sacrificed to Aphrodite, along with other deities.

Enkheios — spear-bearer

Hesikhios, an author from the 6th century AD, tells us about a terracotta Aphrodite in Cyprus depicted holding a helmet in one hand, a spear, and a shield leaning against one of her legs.

Conclusions

Can we use these aspects of Aphrodite even if they have been exaggerated and weren't actually very much present in ancient cult? Of course. Because worship changes and evolves, if you find one of these epithets symbolic in your life and devotion, you can totally use them and even give them a different dimension. As a witch, for example, I could use the dark and unholy epithets of Aphrodite as a symbol of how witchcraft has been regarded as evil in superstition and a reminder of the persecution women have gone through, and it would be an act of devotion to the Goddess and an act of empowerment. The unpopularity of many of these epithets is also representative of stigma against women and thus using them today could be attested as an act of rebellion.

References

Stephanie L. Boudin, Aphrodite Enoplion

The Other Side of Aphrodite

William Manning, The Double Tradition of Aphrodite’s Birth and her Semitic Origins

Yulia Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite & the Most High God

Laura McClure, Courtesans at Tables: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus.

John Opsopaus, The Ancient Greek Esoteric Doctrine of the Elements: Water.

Aeon Journal, Aphrodite

[ectonurites]

for the character headcannons ask game, jason and cass?

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT im putting this one under a cut because it got SUPER long bc i cant shut up ever

lets start w jason

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok using the ‘realistic’ category here loosely but GOD i love the idea of Damian & Jason having interacted while Jason was staying with the League before getting dunked in the Lazarus Pit. like. this obviously would need to be set more in preboot and following the Lost Days & Batman Annual 25 version of Jason’s resurrection, but god the idea of it just makes me scream in a good way. Like... these are things Jason likely doesn’t remember very clearly once he’s brought back to life more fully by the pit because he was uh pretty catatonic, but Damian being a little kid and knowing about the boy that his mother keeps around the base, that she’s trying to help bring back to health. Damian not even knowing that’s his big brother, just that he’s a presence that shares his mother’s attention. Jason again being unresponsive but like, ok god you know that part of lost days where Talia shows the others observing him that he only fights back at those he perceives as genuine threats trying to hurt him, 

Because Jason can perceive that she’s safe, she’s not actually trying to hurt him, he trusts her because she saved him? thinking about lil child Damian who is ya know already being trained in fighting stuff and like the idea of him trying to provoke Jason just to see what happens but Jason not fighting back because on some level be it his connection to Talia or even little baby Damian visually reminding him of Bruce, he knows that Damian is safe too 🥺 

and then when Jason and Damian meet again in Gotham as Red Hood & Robin respectively, Jason not really remembering because there was so much going on back then for him, but Damian realizing that oh... that was Him

B (hilarious): 

alright so if we are looking at comics currently, in modern stuff jason is what, like 22? hes old enough to drink in the US but still definitely early 20s so around my around my age, thats what im using as a basis here. if we adjust timeline and still consider his death having happened when he was 15, that puts it around 2013. and then coming back to like interacting with people about three years later if we still kinda base things off of the preboot timeframe (since we never got a super solid retelling of the timeline of death -> resurrection -> training -> tries to get revenge aside from knowing he went to the all-caste instead of the lost days version of the story) making him reenter the regular world and stuff around age 18 in 2016. meaning a solid three years of pop culture that he was entirely missing, and like im sorry but he really doesn’t strike me as the type to bother looking into what he missed, he’s kinda busy focusing on other stuff. lets take a quick look at some major things from those years. 2013 gave us ‘what does the fox say’ and ‘the harlem shake’ . 2014 had that time U2 just put a fuckin album on everyone’s phones, The Fault In Our Stars movie came out. 2015 introduced the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ and the whole blue & black vs gold & white dress debate happened. imagine any of the other batkids (or even arguably roy during rhato stuff) bringing these things up and jason’s ensuing confusion. thank you for your time

C (heart-crushing): 

so. there are two specific instances from rebirth era Jason i want to bring up here and much like a lot of these it’s less a headcanon and more of an inference based on observations, but i wanna take a sec to discuss Jason’s relationship with other people’s death. early in rebirth, Tim ‘dies’ from that whole thing in detective comics. he didn’t actually die, we as readers know, but in-universe they all very much so thought he was dead. frustratingly a lot of the batfam wasn’t really shown mourning him aside from in the Detective Comics Rebirth title itself (which just. when a major character dies even if its temporary- that should have a ripple effect) BUT an exception to that is in RHATO 2016, where we get this offhanded comment in Jason’s internal monologuing

similarly later when Roy, who like, had an incredibly close relationship w Jason that had just gotten mended before Heroes in Crisis, gets fuckin murdered in that whole thing... Jason doesn’t go to his funeral either. He leaves a dramatic voice mail and then visits the grave on his own later, choosing to instead keep working on the mission they’d started rather than going and taking the time to mourn properly.

Jason’s relationship with death is incredibly complicated, obviously. He has died, he has come back, and he now is willing to cross the line most other bats won’t and will kill people when he deems it necessary. I think thats something important though- he doesn’t just like... go around killing for fun (usually, some writers preboot made him a little murder happy but even then usually this still was vaguely followed) he kills people he thinks deserved it. Like, even looking back at the mess of Morrison’s Jason during Batman & Robin 2009, Jason was still trying to bring a sense of justice with who he was killing (”punishment that fits the crime”), it wasn’t killing for the sake of killing. He sees things in this kind of almost black and white ‘people who deserve it’ and ‘people who don’t’ way, and he has no problem dealing with death when it’s with the people he thinks deserve it. 

but when someone who doesn’t in his mind ‘deserve it’ gets killed? i think he just goes into total avoidance mode. throws himself into other things he’s doing, tries not to dwell on it too much no matter how much he still thinks about it (this is especially evident in him consistently telling people “i’m fine!” after what happened to Roy, despite bringing Roy up literally like every few issues for a WHILE after he died and very clearly still struggling with it, Artemis is the only one who gets through to him on it a little bit) 

but yeah, I just think that from Jason’s relatively unique situation of having been murdered, he knows what it’s like and he is perfectly fine wishing that on people he thinks are bad and deserve it, but it crushes him to imagine the people he loves and cares about having to experience something as painful as what he went through. not to mention the whole “I came back, why do I get a second chance at all this when they, who are a much better person than I am, probably won’t” mindset we get some implications of him having 

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

hello DC i am once again insisting a batfam member is bisexual

CASS TIME

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok so we know cass likes ballet. thats canon. however i think we also should in general explore cass experiencing other types of dance/performance as well, be it herself as a performer or even just watching. like... god imagine her & like my brain just automatically for group activities puts her with tim steph and duke but also for this in particular I feel would be a Jason embraced activity, but like them going to see a broadway show or some other professional theatre or something, and her just being enthralled by the reading of body language of the performers! like again by any point in current stuff cass does have like, the ability to speak fine (reading still hard tho) but even so I think like. okay im a theatre kid if that’s not obvious from the Everything About Me but one thing I always do after seeing a show is ya know spend dinner afterwards discussing it with whoever i saw it with.

I just think that like, bringing those people i just mentioned to the table to discuss seeing a show after would be so FASCINATING because cass would bring this whole perspective of critiquing their acting on a whole different level- not based on how well they delivered lines out loud, but by what their body language was saying as they moved on stage. like im very amused by the idea of cass getting a totally different picture in her mind about what a character’s motivations were because she was paying way more attention to what their physicality was saying vs the words that were written and how they were delivered. i think the debates her and the others would have would be EPIC there. jason defending the text as it was written adamantly and cass being like ‘ok yeah sure but thats not what they did’

B (hilarious): 

cass having no concept of money because why would she bother? is SO funny to me. like it’s not that she couldn’t be reasonable if she wanted to, but like, she knows that the Waynes are well off so it’s not something she actually needs to be concerned about, so she just goes hog wild. takes steph out to fancy dinners and makes steph order for them since cass ya know doesn’t really read the menus, and steph’s like ‘jesus christ this costs-” “don’t worry about it” “but cass-” and she just holds up one of bruce’s credit cards and steph’s still like “but you don’t even know the range-” “it is fine”

bruce does not have the heart to tell her to stop

C (heart-crushing): 

i mean this is pretty much canon but especially now after death metal where she’s remembering, not just being told by a guy using weird alternate timeline technology, that she used to be an adopted member of the Wayne family... like that hurts so bad. To look at these people who have ya know been kind to her, Bruce has still been a father-like figure to her (i mean literally from the moment they met in New 52 canon during the flashback in Batman & Robin Eternal, where he’s telling her that she’s not a monster just because of what people forced her to do.... that she’s a hero... that hug.... dad behavior), and they do to some extent treat her as family... But to then really know, to feel and remember that she was actually adopted! She was a part of their family. To look at how she’s been calling herself Orphan while working with them this whole time... that’s so heartbreaking! I have cried about this idea so much! I want so badly a conversation between her and Bruce now where he offers to officially adopt her again, I need it so bad and if it doesn’t happen at some point in the next year or two I will be so distraught.

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

i want an in-depth exploration of cass’ relationship to her own gender. being raised without language and you know with so much of her life being independent (remember: CASS RAN AWAY AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING ANY SPOKEN LANGUAGE) and outside of an organized society impressing too much of gender expectations on her, i feel like the way she experiences it would be very unique! like sure she’s so far been fine with being assigned ‘girl’ (ya know that comes with batgirl, and how people just automatically treated her based on how she looks) but in terms of gender expression and like her actual relationship with ‘traditional femininity’ etc like... because of how she was raised I just think she’d have a really different perspective on it that could be cool to explore, and I think she’d fall outside of the binary after she really thinks about how she identifies.

tldr on that: she/they nb cass is what i’m getting at here

[jacks4eva]

reaction to the lost hero by rick riordan

imma be honest this is a long time coming, okay so here’s the timeline we’re looking at so you understand me. i read lightning thief in middle school, dropped it and read it again in ninth grade. then i read sea of monsters, but never started titan’s curse. then for some reason in 11th grade i bought the second book in heroes of olympus and started to read it and got confused so i started to read titan’s curse and got to when percy took artemis’s place and then dropped it...again. very sad that time considering it was LEGIT THE END SO CLOSE. anyway yesterday i read the whole thing again and the battle of the labrinyth in like 6-8 hours. idk i can’t remember if i started at 10pm or midnight but i finished at 6am. anyways today i read the last olympian, and now i’m starting the lost hero. i thought it’d be funny to do my reactions.

this timeline is just funny because i have read so many books, and yet the most popular ones like percy jackson and harry potter, didn’t wanna finish lol. i still haven’t finished goblet of fire yet i read 100 pages an hour and could probably finish it in a day. anyways.

let the reactions begin

okay i’ve heard of jason but i was not expecting a pov already

woah electrocution

he’s already got a love interest what

he said the coach is 5’0 i now imagine the coach as danny devito i have no choice

piper and leo yes i recognize these names

(i’ve seen a lot of posts about percy jackson okay)

i like leo i don’t like dylan

i love the starwars reference

oh look guys we got popular girls that are racist, can they get their asses beat in this pls

dylan is also racist for smiling-asswipe

we love the cherokee representation

i hate them so much can they please leave

“i had to say something” i like coach hedge is this bad

i hope percy is the storm but i just know i wouldn’t be that lucky

ofc dylan is a racist monster

danny devito never returned :(

PLS TELL ME THESE REINFORCEMENTS ARE PERCY AND ANNABETH

who is the bulky dude

i’m sorry i’m laughing he’s a big scary dude with his head shaved and A RAINBOW TATTOO and his name is butch

oh so that’s why percy isn’t here

okay usually when reading i can form some kind of theory or connection but at this point i literally have no clue what is happening

i just knew as soon as he asked that he had abilities with fire but i was not expecting fire fingers

wow what a first impression “you should be dead”

wait so all i remember from the son of neptune was the beginning had percy alone i think and i’m not sure if he had his memory or maybe not and he was running away from monsters, so is what’s happening to jason similar to that? and WILL PERCY NOT BE FOUND IN THIS BOOK?

“That also was necessary. Long ago, your father gave me your life as a gift to placate my anger. He named you Jason, after my favorite mortal. You belong to me.

“Whoa,” Jason said. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Now is the time to pay your debt, she said. Find my prison. Free me, or their king will rise from the earth, and I will be destroyed. You will never retrieve your memory.”

... okay theories, um a goat skin cloak was mentioned to have been owned by Zeus’s foster mother and that he owned it so the woman could either be the foster mother or Hera. If it was Hera, it would make sense that Zeus gave his son to placate her anger at his cheating or whatever. They are also trapped in Olympus, so prison would make sense. Hera was brought up a lot too, and according to wiki Hera persuaded Aphrodite to make her son make Medea fall in love with a mortal named Jason, so more than likely the lady is Hera. Their king will rise from earth could be the king from the battle of the labrynth, maybe. Or another king ya know there are so many.

Wait a minute

Something else I know about their names is Jason’s last name...JASON GRACE I thought it sounded familiar, because of Thalia Grace. Hah look at me being correct. That explains the flying and not being burnt by a lightning bolt—oh I’m stupid for not seeing it sooner.

Now just gotta figure out who Piper’s parent is.

Aha so I was right it was Hera.

Chiron not being able to give the information they need is kind of annoying.

Enceladus? So a giant offspring of Gaia, um...no bueno. Not a king tho.

“Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants’ revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera’s rage.”

Okay theory time, child of lightning is obviously Jason. Beware the Earth...yeah no clue. The giants’ revenge the seven shall birth, the giants are probably the children of Gaia since that one giant was her child and it’s the seven are probably the seven half bloods from the great prophecy. The forge and dove shall break the cage, um maybe Leo is the forge since he’s hephaestus’s child (probably butchered the spelling). Doves are typically associated with aphrodite/venus, so idk about that. Maybe Piper is Venus’s child, I mean her God parent is her mom and it’d be funny since she was judging the other aphrodite kids. Also I assume Hera will kill whoever trapped her or someone involved since she’s so mad. Idk.

Could kill Drew btw.

CALLED IT CALLED IT CALLED IT IM A GENIUSSS

Wait. This woman looks like Hera, her clothes are made of Earth and she said Leo would fight her children trying to wake her. They’re gonna try to wake Gaia, which would make sense that it said stay away from Earth if she’s the Earth Goddess

I like the wolves thing because Romulus and Remus, ya know the twin boys who were raised by wolf and started Rome.

“You are our saving grace, as always. The she-wolf curled her lip, as if she had just made a clever joke”

I mean yeah his last name is grace

“She must really like this Percy guy to search for him so hard, and that made Jason a little envious. Was anyone searching for him right now? What if somebody cared for him that much and was going out of her mind with worry, and he couldn’t even remember his old life?”

so what if Percy’s just chilling at the Roman version of camp halfblood without a clue to who he is? bro.

Imagine reading this and seeing all of things I get right and wrong and wanting to slam your head into a wall.

Okay like idk why Annabeth was freaking out we kind of knew they were siblings, I mean they have the same dad. Unless this is saying they have the same mom or are twins or something. That’d be cool. That’s probably what he’s saying tbh but still, could’ve emphasized it more than “that’s my sister” like dude.

Anyway, they look very different so that’s funny.

King Boreas? uh.

Oo French

Let’s see what I can translate from the very little duolingo I did. Bienvenu, maybe a greeting. Idk which tho. Je suis Piper, I am Piper. Et c’est Jason, fils de Zeus, and this is Jason, son of Zeus. Vous parlez francais? tres bien, you speak french? good. Hey not bad, not shockingly good but considering I did the duolingo lessons 4 years ago, not bad. Vrai? Truth? Yeah I just looked it up.

Danny devito is alive!

“Leo scratched his head. “Well, I dunno about Enchiladas—”

“Enceladus,” Piper corrected.”

Leo is me omfg

DANNY DEVITO IS BACK

Arrows...HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS PLS?

“Leo stepped out next. “You’re catching me, too, Superman. But I ain’t holding your hand.”

this made me laugh ok moving on

Uh fight a sea monster? bro is Jason just Percy 2.0

“Aphrodite’s message was clear: This one needs no improvement.

And Piper agreed.”

I wonder if you can hear me squealing from hundreds or thousands of miles away

Did you miss the fact that he’s thirty feet tall— I DIED

Who slew titan k-what now? So basically yes. Percy 2.0

Okay I recognize the name Hazel, and all I ask is that she is not involved with Jason because Jason and Piper are really freaking cute.

an exchange of leaders, SO THEY DID SWITCH THEM

The way I called it

I WAS RIGHT AHA

anyways. time to read son of neptune

[captainshazamerica]

Yeah I don't like brutalia either primarily because talia is out of his league no pun intended (and ahem she's my wife piss off bruce lol) i love that the impact of thier story is Damian!!!hahaaa

I dont ship babs with anyone really I wouldn't mind DinahBabs but I'm not fussed I just don't like her with bruce or any of his kids, they squished her into a relationship with dick and then in animated movie she was with bruce 😨 and I'm not sure if her and jason ever actually got together but he left her a note confessing his love which she never read so? Also Jay kid going after his big bros ex 😅

I dont really like WonderBat for no reason other than it feels so freakin weird to look at like my brain refuses to process it

I'd die for supes/lois harlivy and alfred/tea 😊 I like that you sent spideypool to superhell hahaa

Dickkory is supreme imo they should get married and let live in peace with thier chaotic super kids

Platonic stucky & SuperBat the brotp feels!!!! Just choosing someone and being like that idiot right there is my brother my family and I'd die for them is just ahhhh you're right platonic ships are the best ❤ohh whose your fav ships/otps ? I mean Lee and Ed yeah? I love ed he's such a poor disaster honestly bless him

💖🌼💖🌼💖

LMAO at Talia being out of his league, the pun fits way too much tho 🤣👏🏻"piss off bruce" lmfaoo, get it!😂 I just dont like that some versions have dub con with her and Bruce, puts a yucky taste in my mouth and kinda tainted the whole ship for me tbh. I like versions of her where she isnt like evil lol. Honestly I dont really ship Bruce with anyone, I like the Ace!Bruce headcanon tbh! But lmao yeah that's exactly where I was going going the impact of the ship being damian ahahaha

Yeah I feel like I just dont know Babs well enough (well in canon, I feel like I know Fanon her way more xD she never seems to be in the stuff I watch and read too much) to go full out shipping her with someone, I dont oppose to DickBabs tho and love a good childhood friend to lovers trope, I just havent seen them in canon much. And yeah never actually heard of DinahBabs, again I'm not opposed to it but I honestly dont know Dinah well enough to ship her with anyone other than canon tbh. Wait which animated movie with babs with bruce?! I for some reason dont remember that?! I know she was Jim's wife in Gotham by Gaslight (hate that but like the movie, especially the street rat Robin's all together omg). But like I can actually see her and Jason a bit, I need to look into that more. Omg he did? Which comics???he is so dramatic tho, he freaking would leave a damn love letter 🤣that's so jason tho to go after his brother's ex too😂👏🏻

Omg SAME ABOUT WONDERBAT, omg, like that's my EXACT feelings towards it! For some weird reason it makes me brain go Huh? But I cant pinpoint why! I mean, she also is too good for him/out of his league lmao

So confession, I've never liked Supes that much at all and only recently started to come around after diving so deep into the Bat and titans world xD So I dont have a huge connection/seen Supes/Lois in much but I do think they are very cute, I just need to watch and read more of them! And Harlivy is iconic man. And are you even a batfan if you dont love Alfred and tea?! Gosh I would die for alfred tbh, he is too freaking pure for this world. That bats would be NOWHERE without alfred man

Lmao about me sending spideypool to superhell 🤣 like listen,there arent too many pop ships I would send there but they are one of them man xD On top of the fact I think of Peter as a high schooler and Wade way older, not to mention wade would corrupt that poor child, the whole ship just gives off Cursed vibes to me man🤣🤣🤣

Bro I need to read more of Dickkory cause while I dont like oppose, i just feel pretty neutral! What makes them supreme to you? Win me over Batanon!! Like I wanna go hard for it but again I guess I just havent read enough of them?(tho again, I LOVE the IG Teen Titans version of the ship!)

Dude YES to platonic stucky and sueprbats!!!! I rarely see them get platonic love in the fandoms!(tho platonic superbats gets more than platonic stucky it seems). But YES! Amen to what you said! I also am an only child so I kinda love any found family sibling vibes, especially bros.

Lmao you know me so well, def Nygmakins (Lee x Ed) is like my otp(he truly is a mess and needs her to stay in line man, Oswald is too much of a mess as well xD ) and I love how she is helping him fight his inner demons type trope and they are both like morally grey at that point in time and the chemistry and ah!

But also, Bbrae (Beast Boy x Raven (in all forms), DamiRae(Damian x Raven(especially in Justice Leauge Dark Apokalypse war), YJ Artemis x Wally (cant think of the ship name at the moment ), and most recently Jaytemis(Jason x Artemis, dif Artemis, this one is an Amazonian Bi queeeen )

[bittybattybunny]

Did Kai have any sort of family after losing her foster family and becoming the Demon King? Or did she only have her husband?

Yes actually!!! A lot of Kai’s own story involves her own found family collection (i say collection just. cuz she tends to outlive them)

I’ve briefly mentioned she has a few kids and you see them in one of my sketchbook tours

but she also has a group of friends who she was close to

and the opening chapter of one of her ‘stories’ involves her dealing with the loss of a close friend she considered family (she even tried to go through legal means to see him but when humans turned around and said fuck you she snuck in. I can actually post this writing if people wanna read it?)

She also has some of her adoptive family still alive tho the bloodline is thinner. The Hellsing family she was raised in still exists to a point in her story (before the great catastrophe at least) Her whole ‘became the demon king’ thing happened when her uncle attacked her but she was able to get her sister in law and unborn nephew to escape while she distracted the rest (i have a whole ass animatic planned for this to the song “monster�� from frozen’s musical. someday. someday I’ll be able to sit down on it weep)

This nephew was the one who hired Ren to help find “the king of fear” as she was known at that point. Alex is a good boy. His son was the one who went to find his great aunt after Ren’s death and she fully became a fallen god and offered her a place to stay and just. try to relax. She ended up falling into a deep sleep for a while and his family was the ones to build the ‘tomb’ she normally rests in when ever she has these extreme ‘low energy’ periods which can last between 5 years to her longest one was 5000. Typically she’ll rest for between 20-50 years at a time. and there’s a legit reason she does this too. But that’s not about family---

Point is that family is still very fond of their matriarchal demoness and she helped them found “Prometheus” a group to help humans deal with monsters and monsters live in peace. (cuz boy howdy do people have trigger fingers) there are other groups in their world with either similar goals or ones to ‘suppress’ monsters (example: The Order is a group who sees monsters as tools and lesser beings. sometimes Prometheus is forced to work with them and normally they send strong demons or dragons and such so that The Order can’t do anything to their operative. it was on one of these collaborations that Kai kidnapped Booberry from them. she regrets nothing.)

Kai often just refers to the current descendant as just “her nephew” as she’s too lazy to shove the amount of “great” in front of it because she’s old. there’s only one case of a niece and that’s where the bloodline ended (again that’s another story all together)

When Kai woke up after the Great Catastrophe alone she ended up meeting a young man named Leo (who if you look in Kai’s tag on my blog you can see him!) Who she bonded with and she likes hanging out with (and there’s other things but I’m not gonna talk about it)

There’s also her ‘generals’ and a few of them are gonna show in TLC soon (just a brief cameo) A group of 4 who’ve met Kai in a few incarnations and they always tend to get along. Original names were Matt, Trisha, Faith, and Maki is Maki (she’s an elf so she lives longer) Current names are Byron, Tiffny, Jacob and Maki. These four actually form Ren’s party when he’s trying to find his wife at the actual start of “Nightmare’s Dream” and you learn they each have a connection to Kai through the story.

Matt/Branden/Byron; he’s featured in the writing I mentioned up top, he’s kinda similar to Leo in the way he interacts with Kai as an almost human morality pet for Kai. He used to be Kai’s student when she was teaching, and his father was the warden at the jail her friend Sammy was in (this is the friend she lost) Matt can see through her disguise when she’s showcasing nightmares. Kai can cause hallucinations on targets using her ‘fear’ hence her title “king of fear” and normally they are only visible to her and her target. But Matt can see them.

He ends up getting in trouble a few times; once with a tribe of demons who want to turn children into imps, once with the literal Anti christ, once with a haunted house. And each time Kai was there and ends up saving him.

Matt later is in an accident and ends up reincarnating as a winged human named Branden and has all his past memories. So when he starts working at Prometheus as one of their ‘informants’ (aka he goes to gather information in both human and supernatural affairs. he’s referred to often as the angel of trust because of his silver tongue) and he meets her again he shouts something from one of his classes with her causing her to snap back on reflex until she realizes (running joke is Kai loathes Julius Ceaser and if you say his name she always whips around shouting “WAS A SLUT AND A HARLOT” in a very aggressive tone. It makes people laugh when she does and she always gets embarrassed afterwards)

The two of them end up working together for a while and become good friends (and maybe a bit more but they never state really) but then when with his new work partner Trisha (nicknamed angel of death, she works in the sector that deals with cleanup) he ends up betraying Prometheus and Trisha rips his wings off and kills him (this is the context between the ‘redraw’ meme I do every few years of a man with a bleeding back drowning)

Trisha is also someone who grew close to Kai (hence she killed Branden because his folly led to Kai nearly going berserk) but she was killed by a sleeper agent from the order. And this is how Kai lost two of her close friends.

Now backing up to Sammy the inmate one; he was with her when Kai met her first child, the young moon goddess Artemis. Arty is a constant for the demoness ever since she picked her up in the woods (her arc also has one of my favorite kai lines: (which i can’t find the direct line but)

Sam shuddered as he looked around the woods, “Do you ever feel like there’s 100 eyes watching you?”

“Yes but it didn’t work out so we broke up.” The demon responded flatly as she looked around with a deep set scowl.

While she was out with Sammy when he was hunting they ended up finding a little girl who turned out to be a new goddess and her elder sister was kidnapped by the embodiment of Greed in his attempt to become a god. Kai ends up stopping this but also kinda ends up becoming Arty’s mom. While she doesn’t raised Arty fully she does do a lot of teaching and such for her and does refer to her as “her daughter” and Arty calls her mom. when the great catastrophe occurs, Arty is one of the few gods who remained when the rest went to new ‘realms’ or simply vanished and is considered one of the main gods of their world because of this.

And then there’s her son Ganon, an Orc Lord she adopted when his village was ruined. he currently poses as her ‘demon king’ while she pretends to be the chancellor (this is the ruse she uses. normally heroes will fight the ‘king’ and lose but if they actually are a threat or have poor reasoning she kills them from behind. this is also how the story starts as someone found a spell to try and incapacitate her buttt)

There’s also morte and her daughter demeter (I’ve shown them before, a set of necromancers) who she’s very friendly with. Demeter even calls her aunty Kaya and loves to sit on her lap and such during meetings. (i have one snippet when Kai was recruiting someone to their side but hadn’t told her yet she was the REAL demon king and Demeter was sitting on her lap laughing) Morte is thankful to Kai for saving her circus (Morte runs a circus that helps those stuck in limbo pass on but at one point demons of sin over took it in a way to gather souls)

There’s also her friend Ciera, the daughter of the girm reaper. she’s Kai’s best friend for the most part of her life, and is the one who helps Ren when the gods of life and death try to prevent him from reincarnating again (which is like other things a whole other story) (she also briefly shows in Bone Stealer at one point. While visiting bunny’s sick grandmother, Bunny and Steve run into Ciera as she’s leaving. Steve stops Bunny from attacking her) She’s over all chill.

There’s also Nicki. Kai’s ‘twin’ brother. He’s the ‘bad guy’ through the arc that contains Leo and sets up ‘the great Split’ that Kai will cause (this is lore/plot stuff) He originally was raised to hate her by their maternal Uncle who’s a arch mage like Ren however he’s fallen due to his hatred of Kai’s birth. Nicki is not really her brother (in the first life) but a failed clone of the demoness. When Kai is reborn Nicki gets to actually be her brother and the two get along really well and he’s very protective of his sister now that he understands what her actual deal is and not the bs his uncle fed him. Before the rebirth too Nicki helped kai solve some stuff and worked with her until his death (unlike her, he was not immortal)

And then Kai actually has two bio children with Ren! Akito her son takes after her and he’s the one who takes over her role as the true demon king of Tir-Na-Nocht so she’s able to die and try life again, and a daughter, Rei who takes after Ren in looks but... she’s a himbo. pure moron. she got her grandpa’s himbo gene strong. She’s a cat girl who works with her brother and she is the head of the guard.

Aki actually has his own story where he grew up in a ‘mundane’ world but then his entire class got ‘isekaid’ to another. it gets shown that this isn’t truly the case. the great ‘split’ mentioned above was Kai literally broke the world in two realms. She made one primarily humans and high tech and then the other was magic and mostly monsters. there are a mix of both but it cut down heavily on the murder. She raised Aki in the human side for his and Rei’s safety due to them being the children of a fallen god (mama worries) and Aki inherited his mother’s odd ‘status’ “Hero/Demon King”  so he has to not expose his demon nature and also stay below the radar (it turns out the person who summoned them was attempting to break a centuries old treaty) until his mother and father can figure out what happened to him (thankfully he can go to a church and his older sister Arty can act as a messenger but there’s a bit of a time split in the worlds) That world is actually the one “Fae Rules” takes place in o7o.

She also is friends with a dead prince named “Shade” (yes this is who you think it is) as well as her ‘cousin’ Sena (who she loves to give shit to)

And in her second life she obvs has her brother, cousins, her father (her father’s boyfriend/her manny), aunt’s etc!!!

So yes; she had family other than her husband!!!! And she cherishes them all.

[percabeth4life]

thoughts on Artemis & Athena (in general) and their portrayal in pjo?

Artemis

In General

Very cool, very much who I’mma pray to for all things hunting and archery. She’s got the moon theme nowadays which is cool, and animals in general. I kinda wanna work with Her some but currently haven’t started connecting to Her.

She’s a good protector though, and that’s great. Definitely a great Goddess, wish I knew more about Her personally as I’ve only skimmed her myths.

In PJO

Honestly she’s alright? I don’t like how she’s kinda negative towards men because in the myths that wasn’t a thing. She’s a protector of women but not a man hater, men were common worshipers of hers. On top of that she’s a protector of all children, not just girls.

The hunt was pretty cool overall, I have mixed feelings about the lack of permission for relationships in the hunt (especially as the oath doesn’t actually prevent same sex relationships) but like... that’s a complicated situation and I don’t think Rick handled it well.

Overall she was alright, could’ve been done much better but wasn’t the worst.

Athena

In General

I’ve contacted her briefly before and She’s seems like a really great Goddess. I work more with Apollo personally but if I’d stuck with engineering I probably would’ve made a point to connect with Athena.

She’s done some pretty impressive things, and the myths that people hate on her the most for are actually Roman ones which is a fun fact. I need to do more deep dive reading on Her but she’s a very supportive Goddess from what I’ve heard.

In PJO

She was alright? Honestly probably wouldn’t have had kids ngl. Minerva maybe, but not really Athena.

Her aspects outside of strategy were majorly downplayed in the books which is a shame, she rules multiple things. Also how she kinda took over the knowledge realm from Apollo is hmm because she’s wisdom. Did you know she’s also associated with peace?

Everything he did with Minerva was wrong so just jot that down real quick.

Overall tho she wasn’t bad. Like, she paid attention to her kids and guided them (or at least Annabeth since we didn’t really see the other kids). She didn’t really ask the parents if they wanted a “surprise, you did nothing but you gained a kid!” gift but that isn’t too off cause it would be seen as a blessing to be gifted a kid by a Goddess

[theoi-crow]

so I’ve been working with aphrodite on and off all year who originally came to me in a dream at a rough time in my life where I completelg lost myself and occasionally I’ve been trying to make a connection with apollo but I haven’t really focused at all on him the past month or 2 and suddenly last week I had this sudden feeling that he was upset with me and a few days ago I came to your blog hoping your asks had been (would’ve checked sooner but I got a mild concussion from falling down (1)

(2)the stairs last week… not fun but I was low on energy and focus from it but so your asks were obviously closed so I ended up going through your apollo tag hoping to find some insight on what to do if he’s upset with you and ran into the song apollo after reading more about him and whatnot on your blog and omfg I suddenly felt a warmth next to me and I got this clear image of a shaggy haired sandy blonde boy in my mind and we ended up sitting here listening to music together and honestly

(3)for me he felt like a teasing older brother and also had a guiding vibe and it was so interesting to be able to finally officially feel the difference between him and aphrodite because for me she’s kind and gentle and she’s like the best friend who will sit and listen to your complaints and roll her eyes with you when you get objectified by ur mom’s best friend’s son again and sympathize when you get your heart broken and apollo is like a teasing older brother and very warm and I came across

(4)a song that I could’ve sworn he was telling me reminded him of him and artemis and honestly it reminded me of my twin and me as well (brother by kodaline in case you’re interested) and it was so wonderful but… is he a jealous god? Cuz I think he felt neglected and I thought that even more so cuz that night after having gone thru ur blog I’m p hecking sure ares came to me in a dream and in said dream apollo didn’t like that I was talking to him and I’m not sure what to do about that😪

(5)also sorry for the spam I just needed to get that off my chest. I honestly would love to work with ares but I don’t wanna make apollo upset but I also already kinda have persephone (and hades a bit) on a back burner because well honestly I was feeling a little overwhelmed even though I’d love to work with them as well (tho I can feel their patience with me, like they know I’m not ready but they give me v parental vibes lol and ares also gives me big brother vibes it’s v interesting okay sorry

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Omg are you okay?! How's the concussion?

My they/them wife had one a few years back and I had to take them to the hospital! (They're doing a lot better though, thank the gods. Though my little dog is always nervous to be right behind them since he caused the concussion last time.) 

Please don't apologize for putting in multiple asks, I don't mind how many you put in so long as you number them just so I don't get confused with other asks and you did that so I'm happy, plus I encourage it because writing it down helps the one asking as much as it helps me. ^^

Because it's a lot, I'm going to break it down just to make sure I answer as much and as well as I can. Please don't feel bad, I do this for every ask that requires more than 2 inbox entries.

"so I’ve been working with aphrodite on and off all year who originally came to me in a dream at a rough time in my life where I completely lost myself"

Isn't she amazing?! She did the same thing to me, she came to me when I was in the middle of a crisis. There are SO MANY devotees who say Aphrodite showed up when they needed her the most. 

"and occasionally I’ve been trying to make a connection with Apollo but I haven’t really focused at all on him the past month or 2 and suddenly last week I had this sudden feeling that he was upset with me"

Hmmmm… sometimes when we think a god is upset with us, it's actually a bad experience with parental figures/authority that's projecting and pretending to be a god. I made a post about it here: (LINK)

This can also be your shadow self: (LINK)

It could be your shadow self that is projecting the thought that Apollo is annoyed with you.

This is the feeling that I'm getting from Apollo because even though you initially had that feeling of him being upset with you, you added this: 

"and a few days ago I came to your blog hoping your asks …. your asks were obviously closed so I ended up going through your Apollo tag hoping to find some insight on what to do if he’s upset with you and ran into the song Apollo after reading more about him and whatnot on your blog and omfg I suddenly felt a warmth next to me and I got this clear image of a shaggy haired sandy blonde boy in my mind and we ended up sitting here listening to music together and honestly for me he felt like a teasing older brother and also had a guiding vibe and it was so interesting to be able to finally officially feel the difference between him and aphrodite…"

He could have also given you a bit of insensitive to look him up because he wanted you to personally feel his energy. And your right, he does feel like a teasing older brother (the other day he was teasing me about a joke Hermes made that just went over my head and then I later caught 🤣) but he does guide me, here's guiding me as we speak. But this is what I mean when I say "It could be your shadow self that is projecting the thought that Apollo is annoyed with you." 

"because for me she’s kind and gentle and she’s like the best friend who will sit and listen to your complaints and roll her eyes with you when you get objectified by ur mom’s best friend’s son again and sympathize when you get your heart broken"

UGH, WHAT A CREEP! Aphrodite totally understands and she'll keep reminding you that you are more than what others think of you. And she understands the complexities of love and how it really changes people and helps them grow. Keep working with her, she'll teach you to see your true worth.

"... Apollo is like a teasing older brother and very warm and I came across a song that I could’ve sworn he was telling me reminded him of him and artemis and honestly it reminded me of my twin and me as well (brother by kodaline in case you’re interested) and it was so wonderful." 

You have a twin? No wonder Apollo wanted you to hear that song. You both have that in common. You can also add Artemis and work with both of them as a representation of you and your twin as well. Or focus on the twin aspect of Apollo. Either way, I can see why he wanted to talk to you. 

"but… is he a jealous god? Cuz I think he felt neglected"

Apollo has SO MANY followers. I sense this is your own guilt projecting. It's okay for you to take breaks from gods. Don't think that he'll feel like you are ignoring him, he'll occasionally nudge you and try to get your attention if he senses you are having medical problems because he's the god of health. Because you just went through a concussion, I'm not surprised Apollo is sending you messages and is trying to get your attention. He did the same thing with my wife. After their concussion Apollo was suddenly everywhere, encouraging them to go to the doctor, reminding them to take meds, etc. 

" I thought that even more so cuz that night after having gone thru ur blog I’m p hecking sure ares came to me in a dream and in said dream apollo didn’t like that I was talking to him and I’m not sure what to do about that"

You said that your mom's friend's son is harassing you right? Ares likes to work with people because he helps them learn to stand up to bullies and those that are harassing others.

Dreams represent a lot of things.

I believe that both gods were on your dreams but it wasn't jealousy (Apollo and Ares not only work with me but they work really well together. Apollo opened Sparta while Sparta loved Ares. Apollo also encouraged his Spartan soldiers to be molded in the image of Ares which is why Sparta had Ares in chains so the spirit of the god of war would never leave Sparta. Plus I usually ask Ares, Apollo and Hermes to help me exorcise my home or whatever place I'm renting for the night. Hermes takes the lost souls where they need to go while Ares fights demons and Apollo purifies the negative energy with his light.)

But I sense it was more of an argument as to who you should work with first. I sense Apollo wants you to focus on your health first while Ares wants you to focus on defending yourself. 

"also sorry for the spam I just needed to get that off my chest." 

Please don't apologise. You numbered them and I really appreciate that.

"I honestly would love to work with ares but I don’t wanna make apollo upset."

You won't. Apollo isn't a jealous god. He knows the value and benefits Ares will bring in your life, he just wants you to focus on him first especially because he's telling me it seems working with too many gods right now will be overwhelming for you. It is possible and there are devotees who work with multiple gods at once (like me who is currently working with 6+ gods. Here's an example of how I juggle my time with them: (LINK))

"but I also already kinda have persephone (and hades a bit) on a back burner because well honestly I was feeling a little overwhelmed even though I’d love to work with them as well (tho I can feel their patience with me, like they know I’m not ready but they give me v parental vibes lol"

They understand. That feeling is just to remind you that they'll be there when you're ready. Think of it as them sending you a hug energy now and then. 

"and ares also gives me big brother vibes it’s v interesting okay sorry."

No need to apologize! Especially when you talk about Ares because as I've said before I can talk about Ares ALL DAY!!! I grew up with him and he's the reason why I always attract these scary looking people who end up being super dorks and puppies like a tatted up vicious looking bike gang watching over the girl scouts who are selling in a sketchy neighborhood but they're doing it to make sure the girls don't get hurt or kidnapped. 

Just the other day I was right outside of school sitting on a bench when a creepy dude started to ask for my number and just wouldn't take no for an answer. I suddenly felt Ares's energy when a cop came out of nowhere and asked him if he was a student. He wasn't. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, you're bothering the students." I was so thankful because he's always watched out for me that way so yes he is most definitely like a big brother although he gives me "war-dad" and "papa bear" vibes and his rock in Athens is literally the most comfortable rock in the world!!!! I miss it everyday! 😭

I'm sorry it took me this long to answer your asks, between going to Greece and starting school it was impossible to be in Tumblr besides re-blogging every few seconds I got to be on it. 

I hope this helps! 

May the gods be clear about what they want so they may guide you into a more fulfilling and spiritually prosperous life.