#because dionysos and diogenes both

[capriccio-ffxiv]

yeah I think I'm renaming Illyria's Ancient to Diogenes. (maybe only when they're* not the Azem)

But if only so I can make this joke

Dio: /holds up a plucked dodo Dio: "BEHOLD! A MAN!" Meition: "hiiiiiii" Dio: "fuck. shit. fuck. damn it." Dio: "... SHE STILL HAS FEATHERS, DAMN IT. ... BUT STARS SUNS AND SHADOWS YOU MORON, YOU'RE JUST PROVING MY POINT—" [dio is forcibly removed from Elpis]

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Illyria: scar on her left cheek; self-inflicted, doesn't like to talk about it (she has depression issues). When she's Thee WoL, big bleached set of scars over her heart and on her back which look like places where feathers might have grown once, and were torn out, plus two much bigger scars where she'd started growing wings.

Ryuu: Heals with unnatural speed due to lots and lots and LOTS of dragonsblood infusions (note: this is the only reason I can excuse Squeenix not giving Estinien scars from the Eyes, and even then I'm like COWARDS..... GIVE HIM SCARS). When she does get injured badly, the wound heals over with scales first (different texture than Au'ra scales! and red in color), then the scales shed; even then, often there's still a pattern left. She has a big one left over her torso from the first Stormblood fight with Zenos. For a while, her left eye was also a Sin Eater's (black sclera, white iris) from Light exposure on the First, but that eventually healed. Under the light of the full moon, if she's not wearing clothes (ha!), one can just barely see fractals spiraling out from her heart, but only with certain light. Mooncat Miqo'te, Duskwright Elezen, Xaela Au'ra (but NOT the Oronir, importantly), some Viera and Hrothgar, and some other nocturnal Tribes can see this better than most. Loporrits can see it quite clearly; and it's clear as day at all times to Y'shtola. These also appear during solar eclipses.

Hyperion: Most of his body save for his face, hands, and feet are covered in spiraling fractal scars, originating around his heart. These are pale white in comparison to his normal skin tone. When the Ghost Moon shows her face (only in a strong Umbral Wind), they glow bright silver.

Bit of lore about the fractal stuff under the cut...

Dio/nysos/genes: when they're not Azem, not so much scars, as piercings; a golden chain going from each nostril to each ear, which is a symbol of those officially Ostracized from Amaurot. The Ostracized can never again enter Amaurot or any place under its jurisdiction under pain of death; this is considered a mercy compared to immediate execution. The chains are delicate and beautiful, and have ornamentation related to the crime. In Diogenes' case (the name they take in exile), the crime was writing a play that a bit *too* pointedly satirized Amaurotine society; it was Emet-Selch who argued passionately for their ostracization instead of execution. When Dio is Azem (and thus Dionysos), it's because they showed Hades and Hythlodaeus the first draft of their play, and were advised to never, ever produce it for the public eye... but always keep it close to their heart.

Hyperion literally tried to sear important memories into his very soul so that Ryuu would have them in the future, as a contingency to the Grand Plan his sister Venat came up with. Selene tried to stop him, but got caught in the ritual; she (and by extension Ardbert and Kian) didn't gain anything specific save for a strong sense of connection to any of Hyperion's shards (so Cyella/Cylva, Lammitt, and Ryuu). What Ryuu once thought was a semi-precognative Echo like Mikoto's was in fact these seared-in memories (like Amon's memories of Meition & Ktisis Hyperborea). Despite his best efforts, the strongest pieces were connections to Kian, whom he met in Elpis, which initially had... not so great consequences for Kian and Ryuu both.

Ryuu still has very strong skills of not so much precognition but analysis and prediction, but those aren't supernatural (even if they might in some way tie back to what she inherited from Hyperion); the Echo just sometimes gives her an edge on what information she has to work from.

Of note: the fractal scars were not visible until she herself returned from Pandaemonium. There was a certain level of connection/alignment which had to happen, and she had to consciously make the choice to accept it. Hyperion even sent her a message along the lines of "You are your own person. I beg you, walk away from me, from my moon-shadow, from this... unless you cannot. Unless you find you have no other choice. ... and if you don't have another choice... I do not know whether to be sorry that you've been set to walk in the same footsteps of a man from a civilization that should have failed years ago, or to take some joy in the notion that someone as brilliant and worthy will continue my work. Perhaps both? Perhaps both..."

"Oh, know this, my dear spark -- if there is anything left of me in you, I am the part of you that loves you. Please never forget that. And ever if you are in the blackest night, deepest despair, hold that close. I love you. I do."

howdy! a wol question for you! that I am,,, mostly certain I havent asked yet but if I have, oh well!

does your wol/oc have any scars? if so how did they get them?

from an msq event? an accident as a child? are they large or rather small? do the scars still pain them, physically or mentally? do they wish they didnt have them? or do they enjoy their scars?

[jeannereames]

The original of Prado bronze - when was it identified as Hephaistion and why is it identified as Demetrius now? Thank you.

First, let me begin with a serious caution: unless a figure is NAMED, it’s all guesswork. Some guesses may be more sound, but ultimately, it’s opinion. What I see and what another person sees can differ, and the Prado Colossal Bronze is a good example. One of the main reasons for IDing it as Demetrios Poliorketes rests on perceived similarities to a couple other statues thought to be D.P., especially one from Herculanium. But I think D.P. appears much softer, and when the Prado is looked at full-on, the mouth is different, the chin is firmer, the face is longer, and the jaw seems squarer (although the damage makes that tough).

Now to be fair, different sculptors could be the reason for the differences, not to mention different mediums. Just compare the ATG Azara Herm to the Pergamum head to see how much difference there can be! But to me, the Prado just doesn’t look enough like Demetrios. Actually, to my mind, the Hephaistion votive (discussed below) looks more like Demetrios than the Prado Bronze!

Our biggest problem is that we lack what’s called a “portraiture tradition” for Hephaistion, unlike what we have for Alexander, or Sokrates, or Augustus, or Antinoos. No matter the slight differences in these figures, it’s usually pretty easy to guess one when you see it. That simply doesn’t exist for Hephaistion. While there may have been about a bajillion statues of him made for ATG after H. died, that didn’t survive Alexander. The Successors had every reason to promote *themselves* with Alexander, and minimize Hephaistion’s memory.

(This is one reason I’m highly skeptical that any of those figures in the Pella mosaics are Hephaistion. The lion hunt mosaic, for instance, is almost certainly Alex and *Krateros*, based on a description by the travel-writer Pausanias of a bronze [I think bronze?] group commissioned by Krateros’s son, to commemorate when his father saved the king from a lion. Pausanias describes virtually the exact same positioning. The house it came from, called the “Dionysos House,” might even have *been* Krateros’s son’s house. It’s one of the biggest of the Hellenistic-era houses in that block area. I gave it to Hephaistion’s family in the novel (*grin*) just because I wanted to be able to describe something concrete, but of course, it wouldn’t have had any lion hunt at that point.) HEPHAISTION in portraiture...the ONLY securely identified statue of him is a dedicatory votive from the Thessaloniki Museum made by one “Diogenes” to the “hero Hephaistion.” (This image is copyrighted to me, and watermarked.)

Unfortunately, it lacks what most art historians would consider distinctive, or “portrait” features. It’s of a style that resembles northern Macedonian and Thracian portraits of “hero horsemen.” The female figure in the stele (perhaps Diogenes’s wife?) is about to pour a liquid offering into the patera (offering bowl) that he’s holding in his hand--pretty standard stuff. Slap a hat on his head and he could be the Thracian Rider.

A handful of other portraits, mostly in marble, have been IDed as Hephaistion, largely because he’s positioned with Alexander as part of a sculpted set. Two of the better known are the Kyme head and the “Demetrio” statue (so-called because it was originally thought to be Demetrios, too). Yes, the Kyme head and Demetrio statue do sorta look alike, but that’s because they’re “generic ephebe.” ALL those look alike. :-) (An ephebe is a young man, usually in his late teens/early 20s. They tend to be modeled on statues of Apollo, the idealized young man.) One may as well point out that most Archaic koroi look alike!

Probably the best known “Hephaistion,” the Getty head, is also almost certainly a forgery. The other best-known Hephaistion figure is from the “Alexander Sarcophagus” (so-called because of who’s on it, not who’s in it) in the Istanbul Museum. There are actually THREE possible Hephaistions on the sarcophagus, but the best known is the central horseman in the long-side battle scene. That ID is based on the assumption it’s the burial sarcophagus of Abdalonymos, King of Sidon (who was given his position by Hephaistion). Waldemar Heckel recently tried to re-argue the sarcophagus belonged to Mazeus of Babylon, which I’m not buying (I think if fits Abdalonymos better). But if he’s right,t hat would probably throw the ID of the central rider into question. WHATever the case, again, we have a generic face. Both Alexander on the left, and “Parmenion” (so IDed by several, although Antigonos Monophthalmos has also been floated) on the right of this battle scene have, to my eye, more distinctive (e.g., portrait) features.

So how do we know Hephaistion if we see him? We don’t.

So if it’s all so IFFY, why do I consider the Prado Bronze to be Hephaistion? It owes to a couple things, which I fully admit are speculative. It was first IDed as Hephaistion as early as 1900, and a couple more have argued so since, including Manolis Andronikos, but the most recent arguments (that I know of) come from 1988 by Moreno, repeated in Smith’s HELLENISTIC ROYAL PORTRAITS (which is where I first encountered it, back in grad school).

I found three points intriguing: First, the bronze is a “colossus,” so larger-than-life, usually reserved for gods and heroes. If we do later see this transferred to kings, this portrait is early for that (310-300 BCE?). Second, Moreno thinks it’s a Lysippos and (my bad Italian aside), I found his argument convincing. Third, the head lacks a royal diadem, which we usually see with Successor kings. Granted, it IS an early statue, and those arguing for Demetrios suggest the fashion of taking up the diadema (ala, ATG) hadn’t yet caught on.

But in a nutshell, that’s why I think it could be Hephaistion: a portrait made of the “Hero Hephaistion,” possibly for a heroon, or hero shrine. That he’s not wearing the diadema may suggests it’s not meant to be a king.

So why couldn’t it just be, say, Apollo? Well, it does have a few characteristics that may suggest it’s a portrait, not a generic god. First, he’s got a crease in his forehead; this is no Apollonian ephebe. He’s older if not old, probably early 30s. He has a long face, jutting chin, and deep-set eyes (better seen side-on) under a heavy brow. Plus the wild hair recalls Alexander’s a bit. The hair is one reason he’s been suggested as Demetrios, in fact. But once more, when I look at this portrait, I just don’t see the similarity (putting below both the Prado head and the Herculanium marble).

Does that make the figure Hephaistion? Again, no. But given when it was made (310ish), if it IS a *portrait* of a person heroized, well...Hephaistion makes a pretty good bet.

So that’s the (rather long) explanation for why I still accept Moreno’s ID of the bronze as Hephaistion, and why it became my “mental image” for what Hephaistion might have looked like. But again, I FREELY admit this is all a bunch of speculation!