#god this got away from me

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

a character's self-deprication being what keeps them from being in a relationship can be really good but mostly when the self deprication is 1. justified and 2. only no longer an issue because their significant other is Into whatever they're angsting about

[bulletbilltime]

The last post I reblogged made me want to ramble about AI art, but I realized that it probably should be its own post, so here:

If the way you look at art is that its only purpose is to convey a specific idea, then generating art with AI would seem like the natural conclusion of that process. But AI takes the process out of your hands, and robs you of the satisfaction of having toiled on your own work. The art is no longer something you spent time with and can feel pride in; it's a product. Something mass-produced for the sole purpose of consumption. But you can't mass-produce your artistic self. Even if you trained an AI on your own work and asked it to generate more art, you didn't put Yourself into those pieces of art. You weren't the one to make all of the micro-decisions that go into art. The colors, the lines, the brush strokes, the shading, the characters' positions... all those small choices that can personify a drawing, they were taken out of your control.

As someone who always feels like their work is not interesting enough to get people's attention, and who wishes it could be more spectacular and eye-catching, the temptation of having an algorithm generate more interesting pictures has slipped into my mind a few times. But I refuse it every time. To accept the notion that I need to make my art more appealing to wide audiences is to accept the thesis of capitalism, that what I make is only as good as how many people it reaches. It's the thesis that social media and "content creation" algorithms, as well as all those analytics tools try to make us buy into. And if we buy into this idea, it can be easy to be pulled towards the suggestion of having our "content" be mass-produced by a machine. I want my art to reach many people because I want it to have a positive impact on more people, BUT I don't want that to be done at the expense of being the one in the driver's seat of the art process.

So I'm going to pull up my trousers and keep at it. Because one of the best things about art is the process. It's the joy of seeing something complete and knowing you were responsible for making it. It's looking back on old art, comparing to your newer stuff, and thinking "damn I got good". It's about having fun with it, it's about feeling that sense of accomplishment. You don't get any of that with AI art.

So if you're someone who uses, or thinks of using AI art, realize you're robbing not only the audience of your authentic expression, but you're also robbing yourself of one of the greatest joys of making art. And you'll never be an artist as long as a machine is doing all the hard work for you. You'll only be equivalent to a shitty commissioner who passes off someone else's work as your own.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[hinamie]

yeah sorry theyre tragic in this au too

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[usertoxicyaoi]

"Think carefully about what I meant by being prepared."

COSMETIC PLAYLOVER (2024). EPISODE TWO.

[genericpuff]

i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?

Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.

But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL

I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.

But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.

I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.

But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"

She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.

30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.

At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".

At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.

And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.

The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.

That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.

[sleepy-steve]

🧠🪱 Wiggly Wednesday Thursday 🧠 🪱

thank you for tagging me @stervrucht 🖤

no pressure tags: @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @stevesbipanic and of course anyone else that would like to ♡

thinking about Steve and Eddie who, after going through rounds of physical therapy after everything, continue to work out together because Steve obviously loves it and loves having a friend to work out with. and Eddie notices the difference in his stamina when he gets back to performing on stage. (and if Eddie likes to watch Steve work out a little bit, and likes Steve coming over to help his form more than a little bit, well that’s his business.) but Steve takes a dance class and shakes up his usual warmup, leaving Eddie with some… thoughts.

***

“Okay, Munson,” Steve says, pulling his arm across his body for a shoulder stretch. “You ready?”

“Ready to be tortured? Always,” Eddie jokes. It was their thing. Eddie acts like he hates being there, but he still shows up every other day to their local gym in Indianapolis. And he won’t ever deny the benefits he’s noticed since starting their exercise regime. He's faster on stage, doesn't get winded near as easily, holding those screaming notes without feeling like his lungs will explode. Little did he know that today his joke would come to be true.

Steve liked most kinds of exercise. He was a sporty guy. He liked the pull and stretch of his muscles, the feeling of accomplishment after achieving a new goal, that delicious soreness the day after a really good workout. But mostly he loved trying new things. He’d give anything half a chance if he thought it might be fun. Which is how he ended up at a dance-aerobics class the week prior, finding himself having a lot of fun, blushing furiously when the women in the class complimented how quickly he picks up the steps.

He went back three more times that week. Part of his enjoyment came from the new warmup he was taught in the class. Steve’s usual warmup consisted of basic stretches and a light jog, covering all bases to ensure he didn’t get injured, but not very exciting.

This, however, was far more enjoyable. Steve found himself sinking deep into stretches he didn't know he had flexibility for, and moving his hips to a beat, ultimately just having way more fun with the warmup. And it was about to become a huge problem for Eddie.

Steve pops his headphones over his ears, the tape deck tucked securely in his shorts pocket. He bends over, inhaling deeply as the song starts, rising up with his hands overhead, exhaling as he rolls his wrists, hips moving side to side with the beat. His already short cropped t-shirt rises, showing off a good amount of his chest. He lets his arms come down, bending over again, feeling the pull in his hamstrings. Gripping his elbows, he lets the top half of his body hang, swinging from side to side, his hamstrings fully stretched out.

Eddie looks up from his own basic stretching, shocked to see Steve fully bent over, because hey, since when was he so flexible? With Metallica blaring through his own headphones, Eddie just stares, completely forgetting where he was at in his warmup.

Steve lets his hands drop, moving to one foot, back to the centre, then the other foot. Ass just up in the air, his shorts way too tight. Eddie swallows. He’d been denying his crush for months at this point, and good god this was not helping.

Rolling his shoulders as he stands up, Steve lets his hands travel down his bare thighs, sinking into a squat with his back arched and head tilted back. Eddie's eyes are wide as he watches those tight little shorts with the little cut-ins on the sides ride up, showing far more of Steve's glorious hairy thighs than Eddie can handle. Steve drops his head forward, hunching his shoulders as he moves back to standing. He repeats the motions, and Eddie wishes he had the strength to pull his stare away from Steve's ass.

Seeing Steve's head tilted back and his back arched is sending Eddie insane. Like, he geninely thinks he might evaporate on the spot if he keeps watching. But he just can't look away.

Turning himself sideways, Steve has one foot stepped out in front of the other, legs perfectly straightened into a triangle shape, bent over his front leg. Just when Eddie thinks he’s about to get up and end his suffering, Steve lowers himself down into a lunge. His little shorts definitely way too small and tight for the movement, Steve lunges back and forth, fingertips resting on the ground on either side of his front foot. Eddie watches as the t-shirt rides up with each lunge, the desire to get his lips and tongue all over Steve's chest overwhelming him.

Shaking himself, Eddie tries to remember which shoulder stretch he was up to. He attempts something close to a stretch, but he can’t be sure he's doing it right, because Steve has lowered himself to the ground, front leg bent and back leg perfectly straight, and is fucking thrusting into the ground. If he were to ask Steve, he’d find out this was a hip flexor stretch. But Eddie’s forgotten how to form words entirely, suddenly imagining nineteen different ways he wants to get dicked down by the man before him.

Eddie suffers in silence, heart racing in his chest, watching as Steve repeats the movements on his other side. He prays that the torture ends soon, that they can just get to the workout, and Eddie can go back to pretending he doesn't want to ride Steve until his thighs give out. But Eddie gets no such luck.

Steve has moved into some kind of triangle position, hands on the ground, legs straight, and of fucking course, his ass in the air. Eddie marvels at how straight the shape is, only for a moment, because then Steve is lifting his heels up and down in turn, and jesus christ those tiny little shorts are just riding up, and Eddie can see a hint of Steve's ass peeking out. His jaw drops. He may actually explode.

Just when Eddie's thinking he can't take much more of this, Steve lowers himself down, knees spread wide, arms stretched out in front of him and head tucked down. A wild and rushed series of thoughts fly across Eddie's mind, all centred around Steve kneeling down in front of him. Eddie needs to get it together quickly.

As Steve brings himself back up to the triangle position, walking his feet to meet his hands and rolling his spine up, shoulders and head rolling back last, he sees Eddie taking off for his warmup jog. Assuming that he probably just took too long with his new warmup, Steve shrugs it off and starts his jog shortly after.

Eddie hits his personal best in several weights that day, desperately trying to expend his excess energy in some way. He barely registers the wins, mind still stuck on Steve and his perfect ass in all those new positions. He almost dissolves on the spot when Steve claps him on the shoulder in congratuations.

At the end of their session, Eddie takes a freezing cold shower and prays for the sweet release of death.

[ropebunnykant]

i've said it before, but i truly feel like a lot of the hate towards kant really comes from a place of people not understanding him and why he's handling everything the way he is. like i feel like at this point, more people understand his motivations and the fact that he's doing all of this to be able to raise babe, but i feel like the disconnect is now coming from the way he's handling it all.

and like, i understand that everyone has different interpretations, but one thing i have never been able to understand and get behind is the idea that kant, at any point, didn't feel anything for bison. we see before kant gets blackmailed by christ, before he is told that bison is an assassin and he needs to get close, that kant clearly felt something real on his and bison's first night together. you can make the argument about it just being because they had really good sex, and i'm not saying that wasn't part of it, but the thing is that when kant is laying there, daydreaming about bison with that silly smile on his face, he's not thinking about just the sex. yes, we get a shot of that too in his little daydream, but we also just get bison at the bowling alley. and kant tells style that bison didn't stick around as if he's disappointed, and again, sure, you can make the argument that he just wanted to make a fuck buddy out of bison or something like that, but style is teasing him about it in the same way a friend teases you about a crush - and style knows kant and his fuck boy ways better than anyone, so it's obvious this isn't just the way kant acts when he has good sex with someone.

but then captain christ calls. and kant is given this job that he has to do. this isn't an option, he doesn't have a choice here. it's do this job for captain or he brings back his car theft charges and he looses custody of babe. you can argue about his tactic in getting close, sure, but the truth is i don't think kant trying to be bison's friend would have even worked, nor would it have likely made much sense because they had already slept together.

and again, i've said it before, but a lot of the reason that kant was able to be convincing with everything in the beginning is because while sure, he was definitely playing things up, he also did always have a real interest in bison. kant isn't a good liar. we've been shown this time and time again, not just with bison, but with fadel and even with style. if kant hadn't had any interest in bison to begin with, he wouldn't have been able to fake it so easily. there's just no way to me that he didn't have some amount of interest from the beginning.

his interest has always been real. the problem has always come in with the fact that kant knows it can't be.

and i think in the beginning, it was easy for him to justify it, to brush it off. to tell himself "it was just good sex" or "it's just a crush" because as much as it may be real, kant needs to to be a lie. he needs to be faking it, be lying through his teeth, because none of this is real! he can't approach bison in a way he otherwise may, he has to be over the top. he can't win bison's heart naturally, he has to wiggle his way in, he has to lie and cheat and manipulate, he has to pay off his friends to help him and drug him to get information. it can't be real because even if it is, he has to do these things anyways. even if it's real, he won't get to keep him in the end. it's either bison gets locked up or kant does, and if he's the one in the cell, then there's no one to take care of babe.

so of course kant pushes away and ignores every bit of feelings he has until he can't anymore. of course he ignores the way he redraws bison's cat tattoo for him when he doesn't have to. he ignores the fact that maybe he does actually like it when bison hits him, that maybe they are the perfect match. he ignores the little kiss he gives bison despite him being totally out of it. he ignores the note he has in his phone of all the things bison likes, the things he dislikes.

until he's sat in bison's room and he sees pictures of the northern lights and thinks "he has dreams, just like babe does."

until bison calls him his boyfriend and he giggles like a teenager with a crush.

until he's in the shower and can't stop thinking about bison giving him his heart and the way he doesn't deserve it.

until style calls him on it, tells him what he already knows but can't be true, that bison has him wrapped around his finger.

until bison is telling him he loves every story on his body. until bison is kissing his way up his skin like he's something beautiful and precious but he's not. because bison says he loves the parts of him he thinks are ugly. but would he still if he knew? would he still look at kant with all that love, all that vulnerability, if he knew it was built on a false start? would he still find those parts beautiful, too?

of course kant doesn't think so. of course he has no reason to believe bison would forgive him. how can he expect that when he can't even forgive himself?

so it's better, isn't it, to just get it all over with? to do what he needs to and try to live with himself once it's all over? to let himself love bison for just one night because he'll lose him either way after that, won't he?

that's what it is, for kant. he can't keep bison. no matter how much he wants to. no matter how real any of it is.

[b4kuch1n]

siren

[gingermintpepper]

As usual I read your tags always and so you said Apollo did not ask for resurrection of Asclepius and Hyacinthus so i just wanted to share this. About Asclepius death I read it on theoi.com, that earlier authors don't make him resurrect as a god but that's a later development mentioned only by Roman authors like Cicero, Hyginus and Ovid. But still Apollo has a role in Ovid's version

Ovid, Fasti 6. 735 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : Clymenus [Haides] and Clotho resent the threads of life respun and death's royal rights diminished. Jove [Zeus] feared the precedent and aimed his thunderbolt at the man who employed excessive art. Phoebus [Apollon], you whined. He is a god; smile at your father, who, for your sake, undoes his prohibitions [i.e. when he obtains immortality for Asklepios].

So here it is actually because of Apollo the decision was taken to resurrect him as god. And with Hyacinthus, I don't think I've read about Artemis playing the primary role. I know in Sparta there was a picture of Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite carrying Hyacinthus and his sister to heaven.

This is not on theoi.com but I saw on Tumblr it's from Dionysiaca by Nonnus

Second, my lord Oiagros wove a winding lay, as the father of Orpheus who has the Muse his boon companion. Only a couple of verses he sang, a ditty of Phoibos, clearspoken in few words after some Amyclaian style: Apollo brought to life again his longhaired Hyacinthos: Staphylos will be made to live for aye by Dionysos.

So since he is singing inspired by amyclean stories it probably means in that place it was believed Apollo was the one to bring back his lover to life.

Apollo as god of order was very important so i think it shows how special these people (and admetus too) were to him that he decided to go against the order for them 🥺

ANON!! Shakes you like a bottle of ramune!! BELOVED ANON!!!!! I'm littering your face with kisses, I'm anointing you with olive oil and honey - you absolutely made my night with this because, not only did I get the pure serotonin shot of having someone interact with my tags (yippee, wahoo!!) I also got to have that wonderful feeling of "oh wow, have I misunderstood something that was integral to my understanding of this myth/figure this whole time or is this a case of interpretational differences?" which is imo vital for my aims and interests as someone who enjoys mythological content and literature.

I'll preface my response with this: Hyacinthus is by far the hardest of these to get accounts for because his revival itself, as you very astutely point out, is generally accounted for in painting/ritual format which muddies the waters on who interceded for what. I wasn't actually familiar with that passage from the Argonautica - and certainly didn't remember it so thank you very much for bringing it to my attention!

That said, what I've come to understand, both about Hyacinthus and about Asclepius is that in the accounts of their deaths, Apollo's position is startlingly clear.

For Hyacinthus, it is established time and again that Apollo would have sacrificed everything for him - his status, his power, his very own immortality and divinity. Ovid writes that Apollo would have installed him as a god if only he had the time:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses. Book X. trans. Johnston)

Many other writers too speak of how Apollo abandoned his lyre and his seat at Delphi to spend his days with Hyacinthus, but they also all agree that when it came to his death - he was powerless. Ovid gives that graphic account of Apollo's desperation as he tries all his healing arts to save him to no avail:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book X. Apollo me boy, methinks him dead. trans Johnston)

Bion, in one of his fragments, writes that Apollo was "dumb" upon seeing Hyacinthus' agony:

(Bion, The Bucolic Poets. Fragment XI. trans Edmonds)

Even Nonnus in the Dionysiaca speaks constantly of Apollo's helplessness in the face of Hyacinthus' fate where he writes that the god still shivers if a westward wind blows upon an iris:

and when Zephyros breathed through the flowery garden, Apollo turned a quick eye upon his young darling, his yearning never satisfied; if he saw the plant beaten by the breezes, he remembered the quoit, and trembled for fear the wind, so jealous once about the boy, might hate him even in a leaf...

(Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 3. trans Rouse)

And the point here is just that - Apollo, at least as far as I've read, cannot avert someone's death. He simply can't. Once they're already dead - once Fate has cut their string - all Apollo's power is gone and he can do nothing no matter how much he wants to. And this is, as far as I know, supported with the accounts of Asclepius as well!

Since you specifically brought up Ovid's account, I'll also stick only to Ovid's account but in Metamorphoses when we get Ovid's version of Coronis' demise, he writes that Apollo intensely and immediately regrets slaughtering Coronis. He regrets it so intensely that he, like he does with Hyacinthus, does his best to resuscitate her:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo's regret)

And like Hyacinthus, when it becomes clear that what has happened cannot be undone, Apollo wails:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo wept.)

Unlike his mother, Asclepius in her womb had not yet died and so, with the last of Apollo's strength, he does manage, at least, to save him.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo puts the 'tearing out' in Asclepius.)

But it goes further than even that because Ocyrhoe, Chiron's daughter, a prophetess who unduly gained the ability to directly proclaim the secrets of the Fates, upon seeing the baby Asclepius, immediately prophesies his glory, his inevitable death and then his fated ascension:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book Two. Ocyrhoe's prophecy. trans Johnston)

Before she too succumbs to her hubris and is transformed by the Fates into a horse so she can no longer speak secrets that aren't hers to share.

These things ultimately are important because it establishes two very important things: 1) Apollo can't do anything in the face of the ultimate Fate of mortals, which is, of course, death and 2) even when Apollo is Actively Devastated, regretful, yearning, mournful, guilty or some unholy combination of all of the above, when someone is dead, he accepts that they are gone. Even if he is devastated by it, even if he'll cry all the rest of his days about it - if they're dead? Apollo lets them go. In Fasti, when Zeus brings Asclepius back, he does not say Apollo asked him to - Zeus, or well, in this case Jove, brings Asclepius back because he wants Apollo to stop being mad at him.

(Ovid, Fasti VI. Apollo please come home your father misses you. trans. A.S Kline)

Even Boyle's translation which you used above in your findings hints that Zeus made Asclepius a god because he wanted Apollo to stop grieving. (i.e 'smile at your father', 'for your sake [he] undoes his prohibitions')

And like, Apollo was deeply upset by Asclepius' death - apart from killing the Cyclops in anger, in book 4 of the Argonautica, Apollonius writes that the Celts believe the stream of Eridanus to be the tears Apollo shed over the death of Asclepius when he left for Hyperborea after being chastised by Zeus for killing his Cyclops:

But the Celts have attached this story to them, that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo, that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus.

It all paints a very clear picture to me. Apollo did not ask for either of them to be brought back. Though bringing them back certainly pleased and delighted him, they are actions of other gods who are moved by Apollo's grief and mourning and seek to mollify him. Him not asking doesn't mean he didn't want them back which I think is a very important distinction by the by, but it simply means that Apollo knows the natural order of things and, even if it hurts, he isn't going to press his luck about it.

Which, of course, brings us to Admetus. And I'm really not going to overcomplicate this, Admetus is different because, very vitally, Admetus is not dead. Apollo can't do a thing once Fate has been carried out and Death has claimed a mortal but you know what he absolutely can do? Bargain like hell with the Fates before that point of inevitability. And that's what he does, ultimately for Admetus and Alcestis. He sought to prolong Admetus' life, not revive him from death or absolve him from death altogether and even after getting the Fates drunk, he's still only able to organise a sacrifice - a life for a life - something completely contingent on whether some other mortal would be willing to die in Admetus' place and not at all controllable by Apollo's own power.

All of these things, I think come back to that point you made - that Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore these people are very special to him if it means he's willing to go against that order but, I also wish to challenge that opinion if you'd let me. Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore, I would argue, that it is even more important that it is shown that he does not break the divine order, especially for the people that mean the most to him. The original context of my comments which started this conversation were on this lovely, lovely post by @hyacinthusmemorial which contemplated upon Asclepius from the perspective of an Emergency Medical personnel and included, in their tags, the very poignant lines "there's something about Apollo letting go when Asclepius couldn't that eats my heart away" and "you do what you can, you do your best, but you don't ever reach too far" and I think that's perfectly embodied with the Apollo-Asclepius dichotomy. Apollo grieves. He wails, he cries, he does his best each and every time to save that which is precious to him but he does not curse their nature, he does not resent that they are human and ultimately, he accepts that that which is mortal must inevitably die. There is nothing that so saliently proves that those who uphold rules are also their most staunch followers - if Apollo wants to delight in his place as Fate's mouthpiece, he cannot undo Fate. And, if even the god of healing and order himself cannot undo death, what right does Asclepius, mortal as he is, talented as he is, have to disrespect it?

The beauty of these stories isn't that Apollo loved them enough to bring them back. The beauty is that Apollo loved them enough to let them go.

[tired-biscuit]

yes, i am a sucker for a good ‘play fighting leads into something more’ scene between best friends that obviously harbour feelings for each other, sue me.

[deepseagraveyard]

ba dum tss 🥁❄️

[makeriia]

Fantober day 31!! A free day again.

Recently gotten into HADES, and I think about them a normal amount (lie)

[a-non-event]

"I'm gonna miss the lights."

[yuanology]

Ahhh 1 + 21 with Gojo after he escaped the prison cube and comes home to Reader? He's just so pent up and needy (≧▽≦)

it was one thing to crave touch.

it was another to crave you.

satoru had known you since childhood, tasted the sweetness of your lips and felt the branding warmth of your touch since his youth. he had known what it was like to want so badly that his heart felt as if it was being caved into his chest, beneath the constricts of is ribs where his bone stuck into his flesh and pierced through his lungs hard enough that he felt as if he couldn't breathe when you were not near.

you were a vital part of his past, a crucial piece of his present, and an irreplaceable factor of his future. you were his person—the one whom he wanted to spend forever and eternity and beyond that with.

satoru knew he was a god, and gods like him were not meant to rely on other things, on other people, but he couldn't help seeking you out; turning to you desperately, searching your warmth and craving your steady touch. home would not be home without your presence. how could it be, you were home.

"eyes on me, love. i've got you." your voice was steady, a calm cutting through the hurricane in his head. he was helpless to follow your order, to turn his eyes to meet your gaze.

you were as beautiful as he remembered you to be. the gentleness of your gaze, half-reverent as if he couldn't believe he was truly there (he shared the sentiment; after being locked away, he never thought he would be here in your embrace again, but he was and you were here and so was he and everything was right in the world again), the gentle curl of your smile, the feeling of your hand cupping his jaw.

satoru's heart ached as he realised just how badly he had missed you. just the sight of you, the feeling of you so close to him, was almost enough to undo him.

almost, because he realised he wasn't given the time to fall apart just from having your presence with him after so long, crowding him in so he didn't have to think about anyone but you for a long, long time.

no. just like everything else in his life, you dictated the way he fell apart (and god, what an incredible feeling that was, to be completely under your mercy).

your mouth slotted over his, lips working against his to make him fall apart completely underneath you. your hand worked on his pants just as quickly, understanding what he needed without having him work or beg for it. he whined at the feeling, of knowing that he could let go and you would take care of him because you knew him better than he even knew himself.

he could only cling onto you, arms wrapped around you torso and nails digging into your back as if he was afraid that you would disappear into thin air the second that you let go. you held onto him just as tightly, mouth peppering kisses all over his skin as if you couldn't bear to be parted from him. he held his breath when you sank into him, the motion slow and unhurried, as if you wanted to extend this moment forever.

"i've missed your touch," satoru choked out as your hips met against his, your cock buried entirely inside of him. "i missed you."

the soft exhale that escaped you was gentle, seemingly the release of all the tension you had held coiled around your existence tightly for the past few months. you landed your forehead against his collarbone, and he could feel your smile on his skin.

"i missed you too," you whispered. "let me take care of you?"

the sound that escaped him was ragged, fucked out and ruined and so, so vulnerable for you. "please," he begged. his nails dragged along the skin of his back and he made the absentminded note to kiss them better later. right now, he wanted to feel you—all of you.

"please, please, please, please—" his voice broke off into the sound of your name, slipped and caged between the litany of pleas and begs that made his words sound like a prayer. he didn't care. as far as he was aware, you deserved all of the worship.

after all, time could wait. infinity would spin itself a bed for the both of you—for now and forevermore. satoru would ensure it.

thank you so much for your request and your support! <3 i hope you enjoyed this lol because i certainly did writing it

[achingly-shy]

ALSO the end of the episode when jemma is telling fitz that he’s the real hero because he was beside her the whole damn time in the lab and was giving her hope when she had none and then she kisses his cheek and walks away and he sits there smiling and then that smile slowly turns into more of a thinking contemplating oh shit face AND THEN HE KNOWS HE NEVER GOT OVER IT HE NEVER GOT OVER HER