#mythological family

[mythological-art]

Venus, Mercury and Cupid

Artist: Antonio Balestra (Italian, 1666–1740)

Date: 17th Century

Genre: Mythological Painting

Media: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Private Collection

In Roman mythology, Venus, Mercury, and Cupid are associated with love, desire, and the power of love's arrows:

Venus The goddess of love and sex, and a major deity in the Roman pantheon. She is often depicted as a blonde nymph in a seashell, and is sometimes accompanied by Cupids. Venus is the embodiment of spiritual, celestial love. However, she can also be flighty, passionate, impulsive, and jealous.

Mercury The winged messenger of the gods, and Cupid's teacher. He brings Cupid's wings and arrows to Venus.

Cupid The god of desire, and the son of Venus and Mercury. His name comes from the Latin word cupido, which means "love or desire". Cupid is often depicted as a winged infant carrying a bow and quiver of arrows. His arrows symbolize love's power, and his wounds inspire love or passion in his victims. Cupid is generally viewed as beneficent, but some literature portrays him as callous and careless.

[liquidstar]

Yes, Greece still exists, we didn't all die 2000 years ago. Yes, people speak Greek. You people are so fucking stupid for real. So many of you claim to love ancient shit but can't even acknowledge the actual living culture of the people whose mythology and classics you romanticize. You keep leaving annoying comments about how you just forget Greek people still exist, thinking you're being quirky because you love ancient stuff soooo much that you forgot about the people it came from. You think about it so little you don't even realize that an actual Greek person has to read this shit, making it clear how little you actually care about the culture beyond the romanticized (and westernized) mythology. Don't claim you love Greece, don't use our mythology anymore if you can't acknowledge that we're still around without making it about how little you think about us. It's mind boggling that you'd think a Greek person would read this and think you're anything but obnoxious. Explode.

[where-that-old-train-goes]

not normal about orpheus and eurydice. you loved someone so much it opened the stones of the underworld. so much that death had to listen. so much that everything stopped for your love. so much that you turned around. so much that even when you did wrong. she forgave you.

[specialagentartemis]

in middle school during my Intense Greek Mythology Phase, Artemis was, as you can likely guess, my best girl. Iphigenia was my OTHER best girl. Yes at the same time.

The story of Iphigenia always gets to me when it's not presented as a story of Artemis being capricious and having arbitrary rules about where you can and can't hunt, but instead, making a point about war.

Artemis was, among other things--patron of hunting, wild places, the moon, singlehood--the protector of young girls. That's a really important aspect she was worshipped as: she protected girls and young women. But she was the one who demanded Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter in order for his fleet to be able to sail on for Troy.

There's no contradiction, though, when it's framed as, Artemis making Agamemnon face what he’s doing to the women and children of Troy. His children are not in danger. His son will not be thrown off the ramparts, his daughters will not be taken captive as sex slaves and dragged off to foreign lands, his wife will not have to watch her husband and brothers and children killed. Yet this is what he’s sailing off to Troy to inevitably do. That’s what happens in war. He’s going to go kill other people’s daughters; can he stand to do that to his own? As long as the answer is no—he can kill other people’s children, but not his own—he can��t sail off to war.

Which casts Artemis is a fascinating light, compared to the other gods of the Trojan War. The Trojan War is really a squabble of pride and insults within the Olympian family; Eris decided to cause problems on purpose, leaving Aphrodite smug and Hera and Athena snubbed, and all of this was kinda Zeus’s fault in the first place for not being able to keep it in his pants. And out of this fight mortal men were their game pieces and mortal cities their prizes in restoring their pride. And if hundreds of people die and hundred more lives are ruined, well, that’s what happens when gods fight. Mortals pay the price for gods’ whims and the gods move on in time and the mortals don’t and that’s how it is.

And women especially—Zeus wanted Leda, so he took her. Paris wanted Helen, so he took her. There’s a reason “the Trojan women” even since ancient times were the emblems of victims of a war they never wanted, never asked for, and never had a say in choosing, but was brought down on their heads anyway.

Artemis, in the way of gods, is still acting through human proxies. But it seems notable to me to cast her as the one god to look at the destruction the war is about to wreak on people, and challenge Agamemnon: are you ready to kill innocents? Kill children? Destroy families, leave grieving wives and mothers? Are you? Prove it.

It reminds me of that idea about nuclear codes, the concept of implanting the key in the heart of one of the Oval Office staffers who holds the briefcase, so the president would have to stab a man with a knife to get the key to launch the nukes. “That’s horrible!,” it’s said the response was. “If he had to do that, he might never press the button!” And it’s interesting to see Artemis offering Agamemnon the same choice. You want to burn Troy? Kill your own daughter first. Show me you understand what it means that you’re about to do.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico referring to his mom as "Mama" implies he most likely at least used to refer to Hades as "Papa" and i 100% headcanon he still does but mostly in the manner of him having the entire Underworld wrapped around his finger for being the baby of the family

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[mircsy]

Okay, you know what? Here:

Get in the Water, but Poseidon chooses a more family friendly way to convince Odysseus

[mushyooms]

feasting in Sparta

[deadbaguette]

Diomedes goes to Ithaca AU bust refs :3 except we have a special guest (it’s Neoptolemus) below the cut

The family!! (More than half of them have never met)

[wolfythewitch]

things you missed

[dacenturion]

That scene in Book 6 where Paris gathers courage and follows Hector riding into battle. I always thought it was so cute because it’s one of the few scenes where the brothers really show that they care about each other. Paris is like “Let’s go, brother!!” And Hector is like, “sigh…my little bro….”

Drawing the horses was SO HARD

[justvea18]

Would it be ok to request some menhelen?

Ofc! (+ Hermione for good measure)

[the-storyteller78]

Headcanon:

Telemachus used to have long hair. His mother always told him that long hair—and the ability to keep it without it getting cut off during battle—was the mark of a good warrior. She told him his father, the mighty Odysseus, the man of many devices, had long hair for much of his youth.

(What she doesn't tell him is that Odysseus went to war with shorn hair and red-rimmed eyes, because leaving his family behind was a cause for mourning far worse than a war lost.)

And so Telemachus, young and bright and quite without the father he so adored, grew out his hair. It got to be quite long indeed, and if his father had been there to witness it, he would have sung his dear son's praises, boasting of his honor and dignity and patience to anyone who would listen. But Odysseus was not there, and all Telemachus had of him were stories and desperate imitation. Still, there was comfort in even those, like his father might be watching over him in some odd way he couldn't sense. The thought gave him strength.

The more benign suitors dismissed the change. Let the boy have his hair, they said, chuckling with faint fondness. What is the harm? Even our little prince must become a man at some point.

But the other suitors, the ones who schemed with malice in their eyes as they watched Telemachus pass by them with a new confidence in the set of his shoulders, saw the danger in allowing this to continue.

The maids were on their side. It wasn't difficult for a few of them to find their way into Telemachus' room in the dead of night and cut his hair with quiet, nimble hands.

Telemachus knows it was suitors. The incident is never brought up again, and he never tells anyone the truth of the matter, not even Penelope. But he can no longer sleep as soundly as he once did, and he no longer tries to grow out his hair.

He isn't brave enough to try.

[nikoisme]

Ctimene concept mayhaps

[literallyjusttoa]

Hey guys crazy idea but like Artemis and Apollo are Dipper and Mabel right? Right? Yeah I got carried away big time but like I think Gravity Falls + Greek Mythology is a banger idea so it's fine.

[moplopbool]

Kids before the war!