#lo Demophoon

[kotamagic]

This week on Lore Olympus...HOLY SHIT! IS THAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I SEE???

Last week, we saw Demeter call Persephone and tell her about Demophoon. She immediately came over to discuss it in person and to show sympathy and support.

Demeter feeling she lost both children (one to marriage, one to an infection) is completely valid. Even in the case of Persephone, who is immortal, she "lost" her to her own issues, but given more recent developments, it isn't a total loss. She went to therapy (are they still going to that off-screen? I hope so.) and now she's talking about Demophoon. Progress is progress, no matter how small.

Moments later, Hades appears with Demophoon, and Demeter is in shocked tears. The baby she thought she'd never see again is back.

Hades, my dude, "creative accounting" is an interesting way of fudging numbers.

Yeah, and this good deed on Hades' part needs to stay hush-hush, or EVERYONE is going to want a similar favor. Why do Castor & Pollux, the Gemini twins, come to mind....? (In b4, Zeus fudged THAT one...)

Ah, ok, this is how Rachel is working around this...

As I mentioned in my previous LO post, the original myth has it that Demophoon's immortality ritual got interrupted. Depending on the source, he died either during the fudged ritual, or perished later of other causes. (Possibly a foot injury, as mentioned in LO) Demeter would later take Demophoon's older brother, Triptomelus, as an apprentice and teach him about agriculture.

Rather than add the complexity of Demeter having 2 children during the 10 year gap, we're re-naming Demophoon as Triptomelus and HE is going to learn, then teach agriculture. Let's just hope no one accidentally slips the truth out.

After Hades and Persephone leave, Demeter, Hera, and Hebe Hestia proceed to have... a lady's evening with wine?

Demeter is still a bit salty about Hera marrying Persephone to Hades, but let's be honest (cuz Hera definitely was), they were gonna get married with or without someone else's permission.

The discussion then moves back to Metis, and Demeter's memories of her. Demeter herself was into physical activities back in the day, but they had to go on hold to save the world. Having been denied that, Demeter gave (more like forced/encouraged) Persephone to take up physical activities in her place. Was she trying to live vicariously through Persephone by doing so?

During the discussion, Hera touches Demeter's bracelet from Metis and suddenly has a vision. It's not a pretty one, and from what I can gather, it's either Hera herself or possibly Hebe in Kronos' clutches! And here, we were thinking Kronos was going to have Melinoe target Morpheus!

Anyway, thanks for coming to my LO post! There will be a bonus post with visual commentary coming up shortly!

[monstrumpuella]

"Technically"

[tumb1rprincess]

So, this new episode of Lore Olympus was interesting. I wasn't expecting a heart-to-heart with Hebe and Demeter, but I feel like it kind of fits to have those two talk when it comes to being a parent and how much to protect your child from and how truthful you should be with them. Hera's parenting style with Hebe hasn't really been focused on much, but I'm glad this chapter shed some light on it.

And it looks like people's theories about Demeter having a child while she was mortal and losing him is on the money. No wonder she reacted so negatively when she and Persephone reunited after ten years. She got separated from Persephone after Zeus's verdict, had another kid, lost that kid too, and just when she thinks she'll be together with Persephone again, she sees her with Hades and feels like she's losing her too. So she pulls the intervention in a desperate attempt to keep Persephone with her, because she's so scared of losing a child again.

The only thing I'm worried about is if Demophoon is going to kind of be a "replacement kid" for Demeter so she won't feel lonely when Persephone and Hades are together. I feel like that's kind of a cheap way to solve that problem.

[genericpuff]

Honestly RS didn't have to make Hera a fertility goddess. When we saw that tomb thingy with the mural of all the goddesses-with the blacked out wall- I was thinking the secret fertility goddess was going to be well Despoina.Persephone's sister.

But no it was Hera 😃

When Demetor was hinted at having a forgotten kid it was a little demigod toddler. 😐For a replacement kid for her. When it could have been despoina, who was like idk hidden away.

the Hymn to Demetor basically explains the seasons.Despoina is LITERALLY the goddess WINTER and FROST. The entire winter plot line in LO could have been an introduction to Despoina as a villain of sorts. A fertility goddess in cahoots with Kronos.

But we didn't get any of that. Just poorly tied up plot lines.🥲

I agree that Hera being the mystery fertility goddess makes zero sense in the greater context of LO, but I'm gonna disagree on it being better if it were Despoina, not because I disagree about your points regarding Demophoon (definitely random and made no sense), but because Despoina is *not* literally the goddess of winter and frost. I've had this point mentioned to me in the past and every time I find zero credible sources on her being a tangible goddess affiliated with any specific element of nature, much less winter/frost. At most she was Persephone's sister whose history is enshrouded in mystery, at minimum "Despoina" was an epithet (i.e. a title) that could be attributed to being another name for Demeter or Persephone.

Khione is the closest to being a "goddess of winter" but she has zero affiliation with the Mystery cults or Demeter (and at best she was "probably" the goddess of winter, her background isn't supported by as much text to firmly determine her history so her being an officially recognized goddess of snow is up for debate.)

When it comes right down to it (*granted this is my interpretation/understanding of the myths so don't take it as absolute fact) "winter" as it would have been described within the context of Ancient Greece wasn't necessarily freezing storms and snow on the ground - more so, it was the absence of the harvest which Demeter was responsible for. The ground became infertile, the crops refused to grow, people starved. You'll notice that in the translations of the original myth, it never explicitly uses the words "winter", "frost", or "snow". The "winter season" in the myths isn't necessarily "snow and frost", it's just not harvest season.

That said, literal snow and frost is definitely a factor in LO that Rachel decided to utilize, but I feel like if she had used Despoina as some kind of explanation for that by making her the goddess of frost and snow, it would have just further perpetuated misinformation and appropriation of mythical figures that are already massively misunderstood with little surviving information surrounding them. Hera being the missing fertility goddess doesn't make sense in the context of LO, either, but at least she has the benefit of actually being a credible fertility goddess, so at best it's just bad writing and setup on Rachel's part (especially when Demeter was right there lmao)

[kotamagic]

Lore Olympus this week answers some questions and creates more...

Persephone sent up a care package (more like a whole-ass shipment) to Demeter as an apology for unintentionally fucking up Spring. At first, Deneter suspects its pity from Hades, but the included note from Persephone clears that up.

In-law tiffy-tiff.... not as comical as "terms and conditions", but we'll roll with it.

While Demeter is signing for the shipment, the nymphs found Hebe in the snow. They immediately bring her in and warm her up.

Once she's stable, the subject of Metis comes up, as well as her strained relationship with her daughters. Metis put a lot of responsibility on Hera & Demeter because it was win the war or die. How the next generation was treated reflects the approaches Hera & Demeter on their respective children.

Demeter micromanaged everything Persephone did so that everything would be perfect. It worked when Metis did it to Demeter during the war, and it worked, so.... why wouldn't it work for Demeter & Persephone?

If you've been reading Lore Olympus this long, then you know damn well that it didn't work.

Obviously, circumstances changed after the war. There was no need to cower in fear from Kronos all the time, but Demeter kept pushing for the same rules and methods, to the point of madness, and that's what drove Persephone away.

Hera, on the other hand, didn't do that to Hebe. She understood that times were different. Hebe, while she had a role, still had wiggle room to be who she wanted to be. The pressure wasn't nearly so crushing.

Also, Cup Bearer? Wasn't that Ganymede's job? Or has he not been kidnapped by Eagle Zeus yet?

We see this kid again. There was mention of something that happened in the past where Demeter was involved in Attica.

The original myth has it that Demeter disguised herself as a mortal while searching for Persephone in the Mortal Realm and was welcomed into the home of King Celeus of Eleusis and his wife. In gratitude for their hospitality, Demeter performed a ritual to make the prince, Demophoon, immortal, but failed when it was interrupted.

But it seems Rachel is making a change to this story...

Lore Olympus has it that Demophoon died of an infected wound rather than burning in the fire of the immortality ritual. Furthermore, his mother is not Queen Metanira...

...but strongly implied to be Demeter herself.

If this happened during the 10 year gap, it would explain why Demeter was so crushed--- she lost ANOTHER child.

But, if these events happened before Persephone's birth, it could explain why she was so obsessed with keeping her safe from everyone & everything.

Demeter never told Persephone about Demophoon because she "didn't want to burden her" with those memories. The truth is, telling Persephone about Demophoon might have provided clarity (NOT an excuse) as to why Demeter was so anxious about her safety.

Ok, I need sleep badly....

Thanks for coming to my LO post!

[monstrumpuella]

The Child known as Demophoon

[monstrumpuella]

Home again

[genericpuff]

This plot point annoyed me so much! I thought she was finally going to open up to Persephone about the reasons why she hated Hades so much, about what he did to her, but no! They just introduced a new yet unnecessary character to the story 🤦🏼‍♀️

What are your thoughts about it?

oh yeah it annoyed the piss out of me too and for one very big reason that is CHRONIC in LO:

It's a solution to a problem Demeter didn't have.

This happens to a lot of characters throughout the comic. They'll have some kind of plot-driven conflict or character-driven flaw, and then it will be solved by something else entirely that had nothing to do with their original problem or doesn't line up with the theme of their storytelling. Minthe had insecurity issues and a toxic relationship with Hades? Just give her a classroom full of children to babysit! Hades had infertility issues? That's fine, Persephone somehow fixes those issues because at the end of the comic they have babies and Hades has his happy ending so it's fine! Hera was in an unhappy relationship with Zeus and had trauma from her past as a victim of Kronos? No problem, just make her an all powerful fertility goddess! Persephone accidentally causes winter which kills possibly thousands of people? Gaia is here to save the day, and also she's the one who makes Persephone return to the Mortal Realm for a couple months with full visitation rights. Apollo is a serial rapist who's attempted murder on several occasions, even against his own father in an attempt to take the throne? Community service, that'll solve it.

Demeter is one of the biggest examples of Rachel's inability of writing an actual cohesive plotline. She writes like the only goal is to come up with new twists to keep people reading each week without ever considering what themes or questions she should be answering throughout. So when she does pose questions, the answers often wind up being severely disconnected because she can't be bothered to actually plan out a plotline with narrative structure, she just needs 'things' to happen. To put it bluntly and simply, she writes like how a 13 year old on Wattpad would write, no actual thinking about the material she's presenting, no consideration for the curtains and what color they are, just "make the things happen so that people will keep reading because that's what writing is!"

Demeter's problem wasn't her failing to understand Persephone. It was people failing to understand her when she had reasonable cause to both be wary of Persephone moving to Olympus as well as Hades and his intentions with her daughter. But because Rachel needs to have the perfect happy ending for her self-insert power fantasy couple, she resorts to gaslighting both Demeter as well as the audience by extension into believing that the solution to Demeter's character arc... is understanding Persephone more.

Like first of all, the moral "people just want to be understood" is way, WAY too "baby's first storyline" at this point in the story especially when we've tried to tackle much bigger topics like sexual assault, and when we know how complex Demeter's backstory is. There's no way she needs to be told by Hebe that people just want to be "understood". She absolutely knows this already, and has been fighting to be understood by her siblings and peers and family for centuries, but of course, everyone sees her as just "the contrarian".

But then the final solution is... the sudden appearance of Demophoon as her long-lost child, and Hades giving her the volcanoes. That's it. She doesn't get to actually become Queen of the Mortal Realm, she never really gets closure over the past 2000 years of abuse from everyone around her, Hades just - like with everyone - buys her affection and she gets a new baby to pour her attention into instead of Persephone and we're all just forced to go along with it for the sake of Rachel's fantasy.

Rachel can't write (￢_￢;)

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus Episode 265 Betrays the Series' Own Messages of Consent

I've been keeping it on the down low lately with new episodes of LO, both for the sake of my mental health and because LO itself has just become so... pointless and boring. There's only so much to say when nothing is happening, and in that regard, I will preface this with a "congratulations" towards Rachel, because she's finally found a way to best the "haters" - make the comic so boring that there's nothing worth talking about to begin with.

At first glance I thought this was going to be another one of those episodes. Good job, Rachel, you managed to pad out another episode with pointless fluff to get you closer to that looming end date. Just keep dragging, just keep dragging, just keep dragging-

But the longer I sat on it, and read the comments and posts about it in discussion circles, the more I've realized that this episode in particular has a load of issues that I don't feel good just sitting on and not talking about. Primarily because, over the course of about 90% of this episode's length, we see Lore Olympus - and Rachel - slyly undo everything that ever mattered in its subtext about consent, healthy relationships, and strong communication.

Granted, Lore Olympus has never exactly been the poster child for those things, but it's trying to be, so we're going to dissect it with an equal amount of scrutiny. It wants to be taken seriously, so I'm going to take it seriously and criticize it seriously.

CONTENT WARNING: EPISODE 265 SPOILERS AHEAD, AS WELL AS DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, MENTAL HEALTH, GROOMING, AND SYMPTOMS OF MANIA, PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Episode 265 opens with an attempt at plot progression, returning to Morpheus who, last we checked, had been targeted by Kronos as the cliffhanger for Episode 259 before being shoved aside entirely for multiple episodes worth of Demophoon, pool-fucking, and a vision from Hera.

Honestly, I won't waste my 30 image limit on the episode's opening sequence because it accomplishes absolutely nothing. And by the time it starts to try and state what that goal is, it transitions away, because Rachel has the attention span of a squirrel on meth and having Morpheus state what her plan is would just be too much dedicated writing for her at this point, she needs another week at least to figure it out.

So instead we get exactly what was promised in the FastPass previews - the entire episode is spent, yet again, on Hades and Persephone, with the exact same topics, conclusions, and terrible sex as the pool scene.

Seriously, this might be a nitpick, but I'm so tired of Persephone not being allowed to swear. We've seen other characters swear. We've even had Kronos call her a "dumb fucking bitch". But this "girlboss" character who we're supposed to believe has "agency" can't be allowed to swear even when they're in an ACTUALLY STRESSFUL SITUATION? You know purity culture isn't exclusive to sex, right, Rachel? If you're gonna deconstruct it, maybe don't have the poster child of that deconstruction be relegated to a church girl? She's literally the Queen of the Underworld - adjacent to the ruler of Hell - let her fucking swear LMAO

Anyways, we see very quickly that Persephone is still feeling the ill effects of her anxiety that she was feeling in the last episode. Anxiety that, by the way, caused her to pass out. Please keep that in mind, don't let it escape.

And what is she stressing over? The genocide? The fact that they still don't have an actual solution to the ongoing "plague"?

Nah. The sleep dive. She's stressing over her husband doing the sleep dive again and - like last time - turning into a dad-possessed monster.

As always, the fear and anxiety is in no way linked to the actual devastation happening outside - it's just concern for the main male lead, because that's all Persephone's character and thoughts and opinions and "agency" can revolve around.

But uh. Remember that scene where Hades got possessed by Kronos and literally strangled her? Remember that scene I just asked you to keep in your brain about her panic attacks getting so bad she's been passing out?

Hello? No? Okay. Next.

I hate, I loathe, I detest this dialogue. Not because it's cliche as fuck - it is - but because the whole "I trust you, it's just xyz I don't trust" shit has been overplayed and debunked as a plausible response in relationship communication for years now.

We talked about this back during our discussion of Leuce - how it shouldn't matter if Persephone doesn't trust Leuce because ultimately Leuce can't do anything to her or Hades' relationship if it's built on as much "trust" as she claims it is, trusting Hades is all that should matter full stop - and it repeats itself here, albeit with Hades' dad instead of his canon first wife. This is a copout. Relationships actually built on trust can definitely still be worried about the issues posed by other people, but if you trust your partner, if you truly trust your partner, that's it. That's where the sentence ends. No shit you don't trust Kronos, we've been over this song and dance multiple times before and while he's definitely a bigger real threat than Leuce, your distrust for Kronos has nothing to do with how you're communicating with your partner who knows there's likely no other way and a solution has to be found. Nothing's being accomplished at this point from Persephone moping around and having sex with her husband, and he's showing 10x more initiative in actually finding a solution - even if it means putting his own safety at risk - than Persephone.

I didn't edit any of that, those are the legit real panels. Literally what the fuck is this dialogue, my tinfoil hat theory about LO being written by ChatGPT is becoming more and more plausible and I hate that, my crackpot theories shouldn't actually become reality.

Is there an owl in here?

LO is just spinning its wheels over the exact same conversation and points that have already been made. Nothing is being accomplished here, it's just more moping and going over the same problems - the centre of which being "what about H x P's relationship?? :(((("

All of that repetitive meandering and moping for "okay fine but if anything feels weird, get out" "okay". It, again, accomplishes nothing that couldn't have been accomplished during the pool scene.

And now we get this line. "I experienced greed in that way, and you do not possess it." Don't be alarmed if you were confused, I was confused too, as were many people in the discussion circles. Thanks to the ULO Discord, I realized she was talking about Apollo. She's literally comparing him to Apollo.

"After all this time, I can't comprehend you causing me harm. I've been at the receiving end of harm so I would know" is literally all she's trying to say. And even with it translated... I don't really like the implications of it at all. This has been a problem since S1, but there's always been this subtext in LO that because Hades didn't rape her, that somehow makes him less abusive or a better partner for Persephone than Apollo, that's all the SA has really been trying to achieve.

But Hades is abusive. He's intentionally pursued women who are in a crisis. He's trapped women in financial dependency. He's sabotaged women from having power and status on the same level as him.

And now, we're about to see actual abuse from Hades - the subtle kind that demands co-dependency, but is still abuse, full stop - but it's being framed as "romantic".

"Being an Originals creator was my big chance to prove myself, and I flopped"- wait sorry I misread. We're talking about Persephone failing at being Queen. Yeah, she definitely flopped. And it goes to show her true intentions in wanting to be Queen, now that she's hit rock bottom and isn't putting on a brave PR face - she wanted to become Queen not to make the Underworld a better place, not to be an example of being a better ruler among a gallery of scumbags, but to "prove" that she could belong and be one of the big guys, that she could be more than just a cereal box mascot.

Don't get me wrong, I can absolutely get wanting to rise above the odds and "prove" to everyone that you can be more than people's perceptions of you, but becoming the literal ruler of a realm that you then go on to destroy due to your own hubris, just to whine and cry about it and have your husband and your colleagues and your friends carry the burden of that destruction on your behalf... therapy would have been a better first step to overcoming those insecurities, not taking control over the lives of innocent people.

Especially when Persephone DID have status and power before becoming Queen, it just wasn't the specific kind of status and power she wanted. She was only a trust fund child with a huge net worth, a full-ride scholarship, and everything she could ever need provided to her with little struggle to get it - but she didn't have control over other people so it just wasn't good enough.

This is the perspective and attitude of a 19 year old who never matured. Who never could mature because she transitioned from her mother's control into Hades'. There were far better ways to prove herself, ways that we had seen her try to do, only to drop so she could pursue her co-dependent relationship with Hades - she gave up her schooling, gave up her apartment (which we only see her use maybe 2-3 times), gave up so many of her connections and support so she could be with Hades.

This is the result of 5 years of real-time grooming that we're seeing play out.

No, you are just saying them because she's your wife. You'd be saying it to Minthe, or Leuce, or Hera, or any other woman in Persephone's position because it's not about taking accountability, it's about keeping these women in a position of submissiveness and co-dependency, by giving them reassurance that nothing they ever do is wrong and that he's the only one that can give them that freedom from consequences.

And then we get the reinforcement.

I'm gonna spare you all the cringe of the actual sex scene (and yes, they do straight up go into having onscreen sex and it's... not hot at all), but here's some of the dialogue spoken by Hades during the entire sequence:

Again, let's remember the actual situation that led up to this and the position Persephone is currently in. For the third time Persephone has "accidentally" killed thousands of people. Over the past few episodes we've seen her try to realize how so many of these problems have been her fault and she clearly doesn't know how to make things right (and Rachel has made it obvious how much she doesn't want you to agree with this kind of self-awareness because much of it is being said through the mouthpiece of a rapist). And now we have Hades, reinforcing the thought patterns that would prevent her from growing and learning and changing. In this, a comic that's supposed to be "feminist", a comic that's trying to preach the importance of consent, a comic that's trying to make us believe this is a healthy, consenting relationship with strong communication skills.

These are literally grooming tactics. Hades is reinforcing the same thought patterns that will prevent Persephone from acknowledging her errors and mistakes. People are dying and Hades is telling her that if anyone has anything to say about it, they deserve to die anyways. The same man who literally rewarded her with sex for vandalizing a nymph's home is now telling her that she's not cruel, but kind:

Hades might not be Apollo, but he literally choked her out less than a week ago while possessed by his dad, and for the last SEVERAL episodes he's had the starry skin making him resemble who? Oh yeah, his dad.

Hades is literally holding Persephone in the same position Kronos did, while she's experiencing a literal meltdown that she's trying to stuff deep down - in fact, exhibiting a LOT of symptoms of mania - and initiating sex.

Doesn't this feel a little familiar?

Oh right, but he asks her if she's "still okay" mid sex only AFTER initiating chokehold sex with her without her consent and love-bombing her, so it's fine, clearly.

I remember being 17 years old and reading Fifty Shades of Grey for the first time, and even then understanding fully how toxic their relationship was. I can only hope the teenagers in Rachel's comment section can realize that as well, but judging by the comment section, I'm not holding out hope. This is literally "fifty shades of fucked up" material, and what's worse is that I can't tell if Rachel genuinely thinks this is healthy, or just doesn't realize how unhealthy it's coming across as. Even beyond how "cringe" this sequence is, it enters into the realm of being deeply uncomfortable and unsettling, and it needs to be talked about, Rachel can't be let off the hook for this especially when this is supposed to be, again, a comic that's intending to "deconstruct purity culture" and teach young girls about consent and boundaries.

And that's it, that's the end of the episode. It reads like the manifesto of a villain in the making at the hands of a predator, like Anakin being manipulated by Palpatine - "so long as you're with me, you'll have all the power, all the glory, and everyone else will be crushed underneath your heel."

Is that really the message we really want to come away from LO from? That it's fine for husbands to initiate sex with their wives through trauma-bonding and reinforcement of toxic thought patterns rooted in grooming because... they're married? That being a "girlboss" means sabotaging and abusing anyone who you perceive as a threat?

Is Hades really that much different from Apollo? Because so far, the line between his actions and Apollo's are seriously starting to blur. The parallels between Persephone and his past partners - Minthe and Hera - have always been clear, but they've never been quite so loud as last night's episode.

This is Hades' play, the play of a groomer and an abuser who depends on making their victims dependent on them - taking advantage of women while they're in a crisis.

For Minthe, it was financial - she had lost her job, blamed it on him, and he found a way to "solve her problem" that strategically put her into a position where she had to continue to financially depend on him for what's assumed to at least be a year or longer, through her apartment, her bills, and her job.

For Hera, it was emotional - she had chosen Zeus over him, and instead of addressing her marital concerns within the marriage, she participated in an affair with Hades in an attempt to have what she could have had if she had chosen Hades instead, a man who resembles her own abuser. Not only did this put her into a much more vulnerable position than him - if the affair was found out, Hera would have suffered the consequences far more than Hades - but it's also manifested itself into Persephone, who Hera has been using as a stand-in for herself, even going so far as to manipulate Persephone's image and how she goes about her decision-making, from intentionally pulling the strings to get Persephone a job with Hades so she could get closer to him as a "test" for Hades, to forcing Persephone to wear a wedding dress she wanted her to wear over the one Persephone had actually picked out herself.

And now there's Persephone, the newest addition to the cycle of abuse and untreated trauma, the true culmination of Hades' years trapping and manipulating women - financially dependent on him, emotionally dependent on him, and only where she is because she's made her entire identity revolve around him.

I'm not going to psychoanalyze Rachel in any way, I don't want anyone to think that this is permission to do so because Rachel's personal life is her own and I want to examine the material rather than the person. But so much of LO gives me such a gross impression that Rachel herself never matured past middle school, that she never grew beyond the mindset of being a 13 year old girl who felt like the entire world was against her and that no one could understand her, that she never gained the perspective most adults do by the time they're 25 at minimum after they've entered the "real world" and had the lived experiences that make you realize "wow, that girl I hated in high school for stealing my crush from me probably wasn't as bad as I thought she was and we were all just teenagers trying to navigate the hellscape that is adolescence."

And instead of actually analyzing those thought patterns and mindsets, Rachel is instead reinforcing it in her own audience of 13 year old girls and teenagers who will only hopefully maybe outgrow it and not just repeat the cycle themselves.

And this isn't entirely on Rachel's shoulders. It's on the shoulders of E.L. James, of Stephanie Meyer, of Colleen Hoover, of every "young adult" romance author who's peddled this strictly heteronormative "submission culture but not like the 1950's kind I swear" crap, that women should only aspire to find the richest man they can bag in their pursuit for power and after that everything in the world is owed to them and any problem they have can be solved by riding dick. Trauma? Solved. Genocide? Solved. The very real consequences of your own actions that affect others to such a degree that it will be felt for decades? Solved. Just ride that dick and get that money, girlboss.

Just like 50 Shades of Grey, if Lore Olympus was any other story, it would be a tragedy. It would be a masterclass in understanding and showcasing the signs of emotional abuse, financial abuse, grooming, trauma-bonding, love-bombing, and enforcing co-dependent habits for the sake of trapping people. It would be a precautionary tale to young girls to stay alert and be wary of older men, that men like Hades are depending on girls to fall for their tricks, their praise, their affirmations that they're so mature for their age, that they're not like other girls, that they would just be so set for life if they spent all their time and attention with them, so that they can "have it all".

I can only hope that even a third of the young girls who read LO naturally grow up, gain perspective, and learn that LO isn't the pillar of healthy relationships and consent that it tries to be. It's certainly a common thing to see these days, for people to join the UnpopularLoreOlympus / #antiloreolympus community with sentiments that they started reading it at age 14 and then (thankfully) learned that what LO was preaching wasn't healthy.

But for every other girl who doesn't realize this, it's reinforcement of the same cycles - the cycle of women being only objects for sex, pitting themselves against one another, confusing gender empowerment with abuse towards others, and making their entire identity revolve around a man and justifying it as healthy so long as it makes them rich and powerful.

Even if Rachel some day gets her own head out of her ass and realizes what damage she's causing in her audience, like Persephone committing genocide, no amount of self-awareness will undo the consequences. She'll still have the awards, the money, the accolades, everything she's gained off the backs of Greek myth, feminism, and good faith from an immature audience who doesn't know any better and isn't being given the tools to understand.

Even if she realizes that, that's something she's going to have to live with for the rest of her career.

And it's a fucking tragedy.

[genericpuff]

LO stan brain rot is vehemently defending a comic that you're swiping through so fast that you miss and forget crucial plot points, like thinking Demophoon was the reason for Demeter being a helicopter parent despite him being born during the 10 year time skip while Demeter was mortal.

LO anti/critic/hater brain rot is being able to look at an out-of-context panel of a character with same face syndrome turned greyscale and name exactly which character, scene, and episode it's from.

We are not the same.

[genericpuff]

this is driving me nuts and i don't know if i'm off my rocker, but demeter's son is implied to have died when he was about ten. the great divide lasted ten years. is rachel seriously saying that demeter IMMEDIATELY got with the king and had a kid within the first few WEEKS of the divide? like, she's got a SHORT time frame if he is indeed ten. she's banished and made mortal, her daughter has to run the mortal realm, and demeter - who is obsessed with her duty - just. gets pregnant? wtf rachel?

k but they also claim that he's 12-

so yeah rachel really isn't even planning anything out anymore, she's definitely trying to save face in her interviews that she's 'planned out' what's currently happening for a 'long time', but evidently not long enough for her to notice the plotholes that are happening in real time lmao (so no, I don't think she's 'planned out' LO as much as she says she has... and if she actually has planned it out this far, then it goes to show how little thought went into said planning.)

love the idea though of Demeter being separated from Persephone, turned into a mortal, and just IMMEDIATELY shacking up with another mortal LMAO Rachel could have just as easily gone for the route of having Demeter be taken in by Theseus and Phaedra in her time of need and then become the nursemaid for their child Demophoon, but nah just- just forgo that entirely and make Demeter the biological mom, even though you've literally Demeter sitting with who we can assume to now be Phaedra in the S2 finale-

sigh

[kotamagic]

Bonus LO post cuz there's more I wanna talk about!

Look at the shift in Demeter. She goes from angry at Hades for showing up when she's in a sensitive moment to realizing he brought back the baby she lost.

The initial anger, I feel, is her thinking he has come to take Persephone back to the Underworld again, away from her. Technically, he is, but he's also returning Demophoon to her, so that at least she has a child with her.

This could play well into the "agriculture needed due to change of seasons" thing. What do I mean? Well, if winter used to only be a few days, then mortals didn't need to store more than a few days' worth of food around during that time. With winter now being much longer, it's important for mortals to learn agriculture so that they can grow and store enough food for the whole 3-month season of winter.

Not sure how that's going to help RIGHT NOW with the Mortal Realm crisis going on, but eventually, it's going to save lives.

This is beautiful. This is important.

These two have had a lousy relationship for likely eons. Hades offered an olive branch (the volcanos) and now intentionally broke some rules to bring Demophoon back to his mother. To see these two make up like this is crucial and a big step forward. There is hope that things will work out.

Pfft! Hera! Don't tease Demeter when you know damn well your husband loves quickies with mortals...

I MAY HAVE FUCKED UP SOME NAMES IN MY INITIAL POST! ITS HESTIA, DEMETER, AND HERA! WILL FIX! I PROMISE!

[angstandhappiness]

Such a smooth guy

"Technically"

[angstandhappiness]

INTERESTING

The Child known as Demophoon