#not only was she a child but she had not been involved in the Greek pantheon long enough to really know what she was pledging herself too

[oliviaxwestons]

Liv chuckled a bit before nodding a little as he spoke about balancing in high heels. "It helps that I grew up in the upper east side," she confessed with a slight shrug. "Forced 'elite' social functions were good for something, at least." She had hated high heels growing up, always preferring to be barefoot or in her cleats, and the feeling had not changed as she got older. The only difference now was the fact that she decided when she wanted to put up with the pain; most of the time, she just opted to go barefoot or to wear her boots. "It's okay if you only read the first series," she said with a shrug. "At least you've read anything at all," she added with a laugh. "A lot of people have only seen the movies and do not get me started on those disastrous monstrosities. Though, there's no aging out when it comes to mythology for me. I have a tendency to love pretty much all mythologies. But yes, he has a sequel series that involves Greek and Roman myth, another series that surrounds Apollo, then a crossover Norse mythology series, as well as an Egyptian mythology series." She paused for a moment, dramatically looking around as if she was afraid to be overheard. "Full disclosure, though, I've only read the Percy Jackson series, the Heroes of Olympus series, the first of the Norse series, and the first two of the Egyptian series. I haven't even touched the Apollo series yet. I'm definitely behind," she laughed before shrugging a little. "I'll get around to them eventually." At the mention of a lack of females, Liv gave a quiet chuckle before nodding. "Noticed that did you?" she asked with a grin. "The ancients were all very male focused," she said with a roll of her eyes before shrugging a little. "At least the females that did get front and center treatment were really badass." She grinned as she watched him adjust his satchel a bit before giving her a bow. "Honestly, she would have loved to see someone dressed up as Flynn. She probably would have been glued to your side the entire night. She had a little child-sized cast iron skillet and everything. She was adorable. But she decided she wanted to be Red from Descendents this year," she said with a nod. "And she insisted that I was either Mal or Ella. I don't do that much pink so...Mal it is," she remarked; trick or treating wasn't for a few nights, so she didn't have to worry about finalizing costume accessories or anything just yet. "Those onesies are too damn comfortable, I swear. I put one on and instantly want to crawl into bed."

"I don't know how anyone can balance in shoes like that, so enduring that for any amount of time just seems like a superpower to me," Nick told her ruefully. He couldn't help but look a little proud that his limited mythology knowledge and memory for a series he'd read years ago hadn't let him down. "I only read the first series of those, full disclosure -- I hear there are a bunch more, and other mythologies too, I'd just aged out before it got to that point, I think." Nick tilted his head slightly, leaning in as if to confide a secret. "Honestly? I just don't remember any actual female Greek heroes, only a handful of goddesses. Which seems fishy to me, but it does sort of narrow down the pool of potential guesses, for better or worse." With a laugh, Nick wrapped his hands around the strap of the leather satchel slung across his chest and managed a lazy little half bow. "You got it. It's a little bit of a shame she didn't do Rapunzel this year, I have a crown I could have returned to her and everything. What did she decide to go with instead?" he asked out of sheer curiosity. "And you'll hear absolutely zero judgement from me -- a shark onesie sounds both comfortable as hell and totally on theme."

[landofgodsxmonsters]

My temptation to make a version of Bianca who is Persephone & Maria's daughter (well Nico is still Hades & Maria's daughter) is sO STRONG

[starless-nightz]

Hi! I just saw your daughter of Hera headcanons and I adored them! Can I please get something similar but instead as the daughter of Hestia? Thank you!

Being a daughter of Hestia HCs

note -> I love Hestia so much shes one of my favorite greek gods <33

warnings -> none.

content includes -> fluff, platonic! Hestia, everyone at camp likes you.

People are surprised that Hestia has a child. The goddess of the hearth is, of course, a virgin goddess and works to keep peace among the gods, so when you arrive at Camp Half-Blood, it's something of a shock to everyone—Hestia rarely takes a direct part in demigod affairs, and the idea of her having a daughter is unexpected.

You're instantly seen as a soothing presence. The moment you enter the campsite, people notice how your presence seems to bring peace with it. Fights seem to die down when you're near, and tension just melts away. The other campers start looking to you for comfort and advice instead of seeking battle advice or quests. They come to you when they need to be heard or if they had a long day of training and want to unwind.

You spend a lot of time around campfires. You are a daughter of Hestia, and you only feel at home around the fire. You would usually busied by tending it, to keep it burning steadily. You're less concerned with combat and quests than some of the other campers. But you provide a much-needed service: keeping the camp's heart-cordial and warm.

Your cabin is a home for all the others. Just because Hestia herself didn't have a cabin, you're probably sorted into Hermes' cabin, or you've been given your own tiny spot. Whichever the case, wherever you go, your space becomes a haven to the campers. A place to lock themselves up and relax, talking it over, or just being with themselves, not judging each other. You always keep one warm blanket around, should any camper need one, or an extra mug of hot chocolate.

You have a gentle approach to leadership. You do not like to bark orders or rush into battle, yet people hold you in high regard. Your quiet wisdom and soothing way with mediation make you a natural peacemaker and the others often ask you to help negotiate conflicts among the campers. Even the more hot-headed children of Ares or Hermes listen to you when tempers flare.

Your powers are subtle, yet so very valuable. You do not yield fire in a destructive manner, as Hephaestus' children do. You can control hearth flames and bring warmth and comfort with you where you go. You can light fires that never burn out or summon a small flame to soothe someone's anxiety or stress. Your powers are more about protection and nurturing than about combat.

Older campers, especially those who have been through wars and quests, respect you. They have fought enough battles; the tranquil natured attitude is a change of scenery. You are there to remind them it's not all about the fights that make life worth living. Some even open their hearts to you, sharing with you their deepest fears and worries, knowing you'll never betray their trust.

You are attached to nature and home. Like Hestia, you find delight in simplicity and small quiet moments. You love helping in the kitchens, planting flowers, and just sitting with others by the fire. All these so-called ordinary activities happy for you, and you make other people notice the beauty of them too.

People come to you for advice and comfort. Even campers who are more inclined toward fighting or adventure will be drawn to the calmness you bring with you. Children of Athena might look to you when they're troubled by strategy; children of Apollo might come to you when they need emotional support after healing someone else. You're never too busy to listen, and people learn to rely on that.

You're often underestimated, and that's really okay by you. Most anybody who assumes that you aren't a fighter also thinks you won't be much use on quests or in battles. But when it comes to anything involving the heart, family, and loyalty, you're second to none. The way that emotional intelligence and quiet strength keeps people off guard till your role proves to be utterly important.

Chiron and the other leaders trust you highly You're one of those people whose opinions are sought often at camp morale or in case of disputes arising. Chiron values your sober-mindedness and your ability to look at things from every side. You're the one he trusts to help mediate issues between cabins, and your input is quite valued in camp meetings.

Around campfires, you are usually the life of the company. While others may sing or tell stories, you can sit by the fire, stirring and keeping it bright. You seek no attention, but your presence will be felt in the warmth of the flames and the serenity it gives. Without you, the campfire would just not be the same.

[aliciavance4228]

Here Are A Few Things From Greek Mythology Which Not Only That Make Sense, But Are Actually Quite Briliant

1. The children of Ares (war, combat, bloodlust) and Aphrodite (beauty, sex) are: Eros (love), Anteros (requited love), Himeros (uncontrollable immediate desire), Pothos (longing desire), Harmonia (harmony), Phobos (fear), Deimos (panic/terror) and Adrestia (revenge); which are all of the emotions that can happen in a relationship between the foul-tempered abusive jock and the pretty girl. The ancient Greeks understood relationships.

2. Perseus is the son of Zeus. Why didn't Hera go after him or his mother? Because they're from Argos, and she's the patron of that city.

3. The story of Heracles states that Hera tricked Zeus into saying that the next king of Argos shall be the next male born. Of course, she manipulates events to happen so that Heracles's cousin Eurystheus is born first - thus making him the rightful king. But wait - Heracles has a twin. (Iphicles) So why go for his cousin, and not his fraternal twin to really rub salt in it with Zeus ("Hey, Alcmene's son is the next rightful king - Ain't no rule saying it had to be Heracles, haha!")? It makes a bit of sense actually - by making Eurystheus the next born child, she ensures that it's not Heracles. If she induced labour in Alcmene, there was still a chance Heracles could have been the first one born - and not Iphicles.

4. Why would the relatively amiable Hades kidnap Persephone to make her his bride? Well, according to some sources, he did that after asking Zeus for relationship advice. Given the fact that Zeus has raped and/or kidnapped plenty of women (and poor, minor Ganymede) just 'cause he felt like it, it isn't surprising that his advice would involve something like that.

5. Every source and most people tend to think Hades got the worst and Zeus the best of the deal when they divided up the world, but actually it's kinda balanced because all three of the brothers' domains come with some great perks. Zeus' is obvious, but consider this: Poseidon got the element that covers about two thirds of the planet, with earthquakes to boot, and for Greeks travelling by sea was something of a necessity, while Hades got all of the minerals and gemstones, and as many point out, the one biggest flaw of humanity is that the dead have always and will always outnumber the living.

6. Most stories of Andromeda mention that she was supposed to be eaten by a monster because her mother Cassiopeia blasphemed and made Poseidon mad by claiming Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids. All nice and good as the Nereids were supposed to be extremely beautiful, including Amphitrite, Poseidon's wife herself, but the thing comes in when you remember that the Nereids had a brother called Nerites, who was even more beautiful than them, and who was Poseidon's first serious relationship besides his wife. No wonder he got pissed off, she was badmouthing both his wife and his boyfriend!

7. There's some poetic justice in the fact that Narcissus, who saw himself as an unattainable treasure, got transformed into a flower — something that literally anybody can take and do with as they wish.

8. The anger the Olympians felt when they discovered Tantalus' crime makes even more sense when you remember that at least Hera, Poseidon, Hestia and Demeter (Hades wasn't present at the time) all know how it feels to be eaten by your own father.

For Hades' part, it certainly explains why he'd give Tantalus such a torturous punishment in the afterlife.

Made worse by Tantalus being the son of ZEUS.

9. Why are all the gods (save Hestia) prone to so much hypocrisy, violence, sexual assault, and abuse? Well, each god is typically associated with either an aspect of nature (such as the oceans, plants, weather, etc.) or emotions and biological reactions (bloodlust, love, sexuality). As such, the gods are less like people, and more akin to forces of nature; the gods, like nature, are indifferent to humanity, so sometimes they’ll harm people when they’re angry, reward people when they’re happy, etc.

10. Some of Typhon and Echidna's offspring, such as Cerberus, Ladon, the Caucasian Eagle and the Colchian Dragon were utilized by the Olympians in some way despite the fact that they were the offspring of their Nr. 1 Enemy. Sounds odd...but when you think about it, it's actually genius. It's an excellent way to prevent the monsters from running wild and destroying stuff, whilst simultaneously taking advantage of their destructive tendencies.

11. Why is Hades such a faithful husband (Leuke and Minthe were later Roman additions) when both of his brothers are pretty unfaithful? Well, Hades has a very important job that never seems to end. He’s in charge of the Underworld and since someone is always dying, Hades is always very busy which means that he didn’t have time nor interest in having affairs. Also many couples were likely to be together in death. Perhaps Hades saw through those couples what it means to be a good husband. It does help that Hades is also far more mature than his brothers.

12. Nyx is one of the few beings Zeus is too afraid to face, having let her son Hypnos get away with messing with him since he went to his mom. Why's he scared of her in particular and not other primordial deities like Gaea? Depending on the myth Nyx is the mother of many personified concepts, and that includes the Fates...aka the one force even gods like Zeus can't overcome. Imagine how outclassed Zeus'd be if he had to fight their mom!

13. Why is Hestia the least problematic deity out of all Olympians? Cronus ate five of his children, and she was in there the longest. Perhaps the reason Hestia is the sanest and nicest of the six Olympians is because she as the oldest was forced to mature faster in order to take care of her younger siblings while they were trapped in their father's stomach. Hades being the second oldest and first son similarly assumed this role as well. Then we have Demeter, then Poseidon, then Hera and Zeus. While not a perfect graph, you could graph 'reasonable behavior' as being tied to 'who spent the longest in his stomach'.

Credits: TV Tropes

[audreyscribes]

do you think Ariadne accepts Dionysus's children as hers too? She is very loyal to her husband, so I only see Castor, Pollux, Dakota and any other child born to Dionysus being automatically "adopted" by her too or "I'm going to mess with my husband (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)" and claim his children as her right after him do the announcement (poor kid)

i.g:

Dionysus: this one is mine, don't worry *see the sign in the kid's head* ... My grape!

(they're both extremely cute together and the kids suffers with this)

Oh yeah, I can imagine that being the case. Between her and Dionysus when Ariadne was still mortal, apparently they had a lot of demigods; so in terms of demigod children, she probably understands this is just him being a god and still loves her greatly, so it’s just probably filling a need once in a while; why else we see only a literal handful of Dionysus demigods.

So yeah, I can imagine Ariadne accepting Dionysus’ demigods as her own in a way, much like Poseidon’s godly wife, Amphitrite, being very cool to his demigod children. Heck, Amphitrite made cookies for Percy! So it’s not out of the question.

Thus insert the amount of godly shenanigans just between this husband and wife that the Dionysus’ demigods are subjected to. It's also been confirmed by Percy that Ariadne has a strange sense of humour, so yeah I can see that scenario happening a few times, which is practically all the time

What’s also nice to know is that Ariadne is the Cretan Goddess of Labyrinth and Paths, right before she was absorbed into the Greek pantheon. So you can imagine there’s some connotations…afterall, if you’ve ever been in a Labyrinth before, you probably have gotten mad trying to get out…but most importantly, just imagine getting minor blessings or gifts from Ariadne, especially those that involve weaving because of her iconic magic ball of yarn, she is considered the goddess of weaving in a sense. Prepare to get a lot of blankets/quilts, sweaters and socks for Winter Solstice/Christmas from her. There’s also a stretch to say Ariadne is to connected to her roman counterpart, Libera, is a minor goddess of wine with chthonic attributes too, so like can you imagine seeing the floating grape floating above the kid’s heads, and people thinking oh Mr. D is straight up claiming them normally, and him inwardly sighing at his wife’s antics. So very, “MY GRAPE!” 

It’ll be a very confusing but fun times ahead. 

Thanks for the ask and I hope you have a nice day! ヾ(•ω•`)o

[themisplaceddemigod]

Can you do one with Poseidon before the big three made the pact to have no more kids. And he meets her on the beach and one thing lead to another and had a son that would end up being the reason why the pact happened and why in the future Zeus is so paranoid about Percy. 

ooooh this sounds fun! sorry for the late reply, i've been busy with work, university and Ramadan!

when power meets passion

PJ!Poseidon x F!Reader

summary - the ask :)

warnings - not proof read, fluff at the start, devolves into angst at the end

Humans were never meant to mingle with the gods. They were meant to be worshippers, dedicating their lives to these divine beings. There was no such thing as falling in love with one of them, or at least that's what you believed before you actually met one of them.

You were a marine biologist, the ocean's wonderful and mysterious animals the objects of your fascination and awe. You also loved the water, and could spend hours just swimming with the fish in their enclosures at the rescue center you worked at.

One of your particular endeavours, the one that actually caught the sea god's attention in the first place, was rescuing a baby tiger shark that was about to be eaten by fully grown bull sharks. You'd brought it to the center, nursed it back to health, and practically raised it until it was ready to be released.

You didn't ever think that would lead you to meeting a handsome stranger on the beach who had seemingly come out of nowhere, nor did you think that you'd manage to start and maintain a relationship with this man.

He was so kind, so gentle and he shared the same passion as you about marine life. You never suspected anything about who he really was, not until he took you aside the night after you both found out that you were pregnant.

"Look, uh...I know this isn't going to be easy for you," he started, a little nervously, "But there's something you need to know. Somethung big, actually, and I'm sorry I've kept it to myself for so long. But this time with you...it's been the best I've had in a long while. And I didn't want to ruin it."

You started getting nervous, wondering where this was going, "What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath, taking your hands into his larger and warmer ones, "It's okay if you don't believe me right away, but you'll see when our baby is born. They're going to be special, in a lot of ways you won't expect. Because I'm not just any ordinary human...I'm Poseidon."

Your jaw dropped, before you laughed nervously, "That's a joke, right? Cause of how much I love Greek mythology? It's really sweet that you're trying to make me laugh right now, but-"

"I mean it," he stated firmly, squeezing your hands. "I am the Greek god of the sea." To prove his point, the waves crashing against the shoreline outside the cabin died down, as if by command. "I didn't want you to know, because I was enjoying your company so much as an ordinary person. But now that you're having my child...he or she will be a demigod." He placed his hand on your stomach, and warmth spread throughout your body, relaxing your tense limbs. "I can't promise to be involved in the baby's life, but I will watch over you two."

You frowned at that, "Are you leaving? Before the baby is even born?"

He sighed, as if he'd been asked this many times before, "It's not the best idea to raise the child around me. They need to be sheltered, especially because of their attractiveness to monsters, and I will only get them killed."

That was his excuse, he didn't want to tell you that it was normal for a god to fall for a human, have a child and leave. He genuinely loved you, and didn't want to hurt you like that.

You tried your best to understand, you really did. You still felt hurt, not understanding fully why he couldn't be with you if you loved each other so much. But you had to move on, because he was doing the same, and you weren't going to let him think that you were weak, especially since he was a god.

You gave birth on your due date, a healthy baby boy who barely even screamed as he was birthed. He came out quiet and calm, much like a certain god who fathered him. As you held him in your arms for the first time, you understood what Poseidon had meant about him being different. He radiated a different kind of energy, and to you he seemed, and looked, very much like the sea god. He was different, he was special, but you would love him no matter what. He was your greatest gift.

And, as you would soon learn, your doom.

Because years later, when he turned twelve, the first monster attacked. He dealt with it okay enough, coming out with only a few bruises and one deep gash, but the ocean water healed that. Another sign he was different, the ocean was his safety, the source of his power and healing. He could control it, command it, and bend it to his will. He could use it to fight, to heal himself, and to do whatever he pleased.

This power went straight to his head, and left you wondering where in all the years you had gone wrong in raising him.

Your son was everything that Luke Castellan would become (decades later), multiplied by ten. Angry, vengeful, scornful of the gods because they weren't around. Because they abandoned their mortal lovers and children, choosing to keep to themselves and stay up in their palace.

The city was flooded. Buildings were crumbling. Cars were crashing. It was all happening too fast, too much all at once. You didn't know where to look, where to go. Your cabin had been flooded first, so you fled into the city hoping the tsunami wouldn't reach it.

But it did.

A tsunami worse than anything your city had ever seen before was approaching, looming over you all like a monster straight out of Tartarus. Every fire hydrant on every street had burst, soaking people, cars and stores alike as water just poured in from all sides. It was the worst sea storm in history, one that was brought forth and controlled by none other than your son.

The boy you had raised, was now destroying a whole city in his rage. Blinded by anger and scorn, by hate for the deity that brought him life, he took other lives. It was unlike anything the gods had ever seen, one of the worst acts of rebellion ever committed by a demigod.

You had tried to speak to him, tried to reason with him, but he was beyond saving. His frustration and resentment had built up too much and caused him to explode, in the most horrifying way imaginable. This was not your son, not the sweet little boy who used to giggle at stingrays and grab baby sharks with his bare hands. Not the sweet boy who used to wake up early on Mother's Day to make you breakfast and remind you that you're the best part of his life. Not the sweet boy who understood why his father wasn't around, before all the quests.

Quest after quest, he suffered. Mentally, emotionally, and it changed him. He got angry that the gods refused to help, even when he was put in extremely dangerous and life-threatening situations. Furious that his father would ignore him when he called on him for help.

You didn't want to, but you witnessed the heartbreaking encounter between your distressed son and his father, who finally appeared to him after all these years.

"Where were you?!" You could hear (son's name) scream, atop a massive wave of water. "Where were you all those times I needed you???" He kept on going when Poseidon couldn't find the words, "Not once did you visit me, NOT ONCE! You just left me, and mom! All those times I called for help, all those times we were having it rough, and you couldn't help in ANY way!" His voice was so agonised, you felt tears pool in your eyes.

Your poor boy...

"Son, if you stop this now-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Your son roared, the wave getting higher and more imposing, "I WAS NEVER YOUR SON! YOU NEVER ACTED LIKE IT!"

Still, Poseidon tried to reason with the boy. But when that failed, and the sea god met your eyes, you knew exactly what had to be done. You shut your eyes in pain, an overwhelming ache growing in your chest.

And when you opened your eyes again, Poseidon was in front of you, his face the saddest you'd ever seen it. Sadder than the day he'd left.

"You know what they're going to decide about his fate," that deep voice you missed so much boomed, trying to speak gently, "You know what's going to happen, and I...I can't stop it. I wish I could."

"I know," was all you could choke out, before his strong arms wrapped around you comfortingly, and you were sobbing into his chest.

And when your eyes ran dry and all you could do was sit at home and stare out the window, he had to go. He promised he'd try to come see you, try to make things right, but you didn't think that was possible anymore.

You just had to live with it.

And beyond the halls of the Olympian palace, you heard their decree. You heard the decision that would inevitably be broken decades later...

"Each of us, Poseidon, Hades and myself, Zeus, shall swear an oath here and now to never bear children again."

A/N: I hope this was what you had in mind, or at least similar! Ended up being sadder than I thought, broke my own heart writing this but I still hope it was good enough!

[vxsellie]

okay so i talk abt loving hozier all the time but i never rlly delve into how fucking significant his music is. and i think, in light of the recent election, it’s time to do so

so here’s my analysis on hozier’s song “swan upon leda”

(ignore if some things are worded weirdly, this was initially written for my sister & my sister only. so it might seem like i’m talking to u as a friend, that’s why!) also if there are any inaccuracies in the myths' interpretations, PLEASE lmk!

anyway here it is!!!

So, before we get into the lyrics themselves let’s take a little peeksie at the song’s background!

Not only is this one of his most political works, but it was also published three years after he literally ghosted the world. And that only makes its debut so much more significant seeing as he’d taken the time to make sure he’d have everyone’s attention when releasing it.

Also, the title is so so so fucking important to take into account when studying this piece of fucking ART. It’s based off of the Greek myth ‘Leda and the Swan’. In this tale, Zeus is heavily attracted to a woman named Leda and transforms her into a swan before raping and impregnating her.

In turn, Hozier connects this story (and also the overarching theme of Zeus being the most powerful god despite being a rapist and child predator COUGHTRUMPCOUGH) to the way women are denied their reproductive rights & how these horrid occurrences effect all of those involved, not just the woman who bears the burden.

A husband waits outside A crying child pushes a child Into the night She was told he would come this time

He paints a picture here, putting an unnamed protagonist into a modern-day tale of patriarchally inflicted torment. The waiting husband symbolizes Zeus in the ancient context as well as an unnamed rapist in modern context. He waits and waits, never acting. He stands outside, so very close to where the problem lies and yet does nothing.

The crying child is inspired by Leda & made into the song’s protagonist, depicted as underage and therefore not able to give her full consent to this outcome. The child she pushes is the one that had been forced upon her, it going into the night symbolizing an untold future. Something she hadn’t asked for and yet is thrusted into doing. Her fear means nothing to the waiting husband & means even less to society as a whole. So, she does it scared. She does it with tears streaming down her face because deep, deep down she knows she has nobody to aid her in this despite having been promised to have help; having been promised that he would come this time.

Without leaving so much as a feather behind To enact, at last, the perfect plan

This illustrates the parallelism of Leda having been turned to a swan and the unnamed child having been forced into the life of a mother. Not leaving a feather behind, to Leda, represents the lack of proof she’d had to Zeus’s cruelty. He’d simply found her, transformed her, impregnated, transformed her back, and left. Now, had a feather been left, she’d have had proof. She’d have been believed. But that kind of miracle never happens for rape victims, now does it? No, instead she was forced to carry a ton more children by a husband that didn’t believe that she’d been raped by Zeus. This, in many ways, connects to real day occurrences that I don’t believe I need to digress on each individually. Though, I happily would if it proves my point mores.

The perfect plan he speaks of is the men getting away with it. In every tale, in every real-time situation, the men get away. They get what they want from the woman, leave her (and their newly formed fetus) to rot, and leave to return to their wives. The perfect plan, is it not?

The gateway to the world Was still outside of reach of him Would never belong to angels, Had never belonged to men.

This. This is why I love Andrew Hozier-Byrne, ladies and gentlemen.

As he speaks of a “gateway to the world”, he’s referring to childbirth. To bring a child into the world is a gateway, correct? It’s a bit of inexplicable divinity, pregnancy. To create an entire being with naught but your own bodily organs and cells? Those of which had been made by a woman before you? Yeah, it’s pretty fucking insane to me. Anyway.

Okay back on topic. The point is, this amazing occurrence he discusses is said to still out of reach to “him”. This unnamed male figure can be both Zeus in the myth or the husband in the modern altercation. This means that, despite them having forced themselves upon these beautiful souls, they haven’t a say in gateway. They don’t have a single fucking important role to play in the birth itself. They’re just the sperm.

And then Hozier goes even further. Not only does he say that the rapists are unfit for the sanctitude of childbirth, but heaven itself is unfit. The angels up above. Zeus. God. Whatever religious aspect you want to praise; it doesn’t hold a candle to the divinity that is a woman. As are the men. All men. Mankind itself, if you will. Regardless of your role or title or holiness, you’re all fucking useless when it comes to the sacred act of conceiving, creating, then bearing another human.

After the first chorus, the image alters to another scenario:

A grandmother smuggling meds Past where the god-child soldier, Setanta, stood dead Our graceful turner of heads Weaves through the checkpoints like a needle and thread

This shows a grandmother stealing medicine for an abortion, likely for a daughter or granddaughter. This shows the generational struggle to make the right choice. As it feels both revolutionary and also something she’d been doing her whole life. Fighting for rights.

Now, Setanta, as referred to in the song, is based off of an Irish myth. In this myth, Setanta is the name of a child who had killed Culann’s guard dog in self-defense and therefore felt guilty. In a fit of grief for the life he’d stolen, Setanta offered to take its place and thereby became known as the “Hound of Culann”. His story is actually really interesting to read about, but I won’t go into too much detail on every depicted myth. As Hozier refers to the checkpoint soldiers as Setanta, he claims they’d “stood dead” at their watch — which goes to show that these soldiers are young (as Setanta had been) and he therefore protests against the way they’re surrendering their full lives to this ruined system of oppression that they enforce.

Someone’s frightened boy waves her on She offers a mother’s smile, and soon she’s gone. The gateway to the world The gun in a trembling hand

This right here is absolutely fucking amazing. Hozier connects both oppressor and oppressed, humanizing the grandmother to be retrieving meds for an unplanned pregnancy & also personifying the young boy as someone’s child who needed something so simple as a mother’s kindness to keep him going.

The way he does this goes to show what a talented person he is. Being able to make your audience sympathize with both the boy and the grandma is fucking magic. Rather than making the soldiers wholly evil and merciless, he made them children. The same children the lady is trying to prevent bringing into this world.

When nature unmakes the boundary The pillar of myth still stands The swan upon Leda Occupier upon ancient land

While the first chorus is a reminder of childbirth’s right to be protected and not put in the hands of religion or men, the second chorus ties it all together by showing the repetition in history and how it’s bound to repeat itself so long as man remains lustful for power. This shows that greed and brutality is an undeniable way to keep this horrid pattern living on. He laments that nature did not intend to have one rule over another (men over women; society over youth). And yet, somehow, it’ll forever remain unavoidable.

The pillar of myth still stands. That crumbling foundation it had been built o remains, standing tall as more and more men come to repeat it. And, in all honesty, I doubt it’ll ever end. The child will continue to push the child. The husband will continue to wait. The grandmother will continue to smuggle her rights. The boy will continue to tremble. And mother nature will continue to watch with a frown on her face as mankind sets more pillars atop her divinity.

All in all, Hozier is awesome sauce!!!

[recentlylocal]

Showing up three years late to Trials of Apollo (with meta/fanfiction) but Jason's death makes so much sense in the meta-narrative of the Riordanverse as a whole. He and Percy were alike in so many ways, but while Percy's harmatia was loyalty to a fault, Jason's was always duty.

In the narrative, the people who survive find a way to channel their fatal flaw. When Thalia became an immortal huntress, she could no longer be tempted by individual power or glory. Annabeth channeled her hubris, her desire to "fix" the world, into re-building for a better future instead of trying to tear down the past.

Percy retired. That seems like such a silly way to put it, but in the world of Greek mythology?? That's huge. He made the choice Achilles couldn't – he chose a quiet life taking care of the people he loved, and he left the rest of the world to it's own fate. World ending crisis are still happening — Percy is just choosing not to get involved.

Jason has no way to channel his flaw. He never learned to be an individual not defined by his duties! He never had the chance! He was a child solider, abducted from his family before he really knew them. He was a leader, unable to show weakness. Then Hera stole all his memories, and!! It's unclear if he ever really got them back like Percy did!! Like the man is walking around during HOO relying on everyone else to tell him who he is!! He has no innate sense of self, and no clear path to even learn how to develop one.

He saves the world, he finishes his quest, and then what? He and Piper break up because they don't know how to be together when the world isn't ending. He thought his one other close friend was dead. His relationship with Reyna was shit-canned even before the amnesia. I have no doubt he and Thalia love each other in the way only siblings can, but after more than a decade apart, they're practically strangers. What does he have left to form an identity around? He has always defined himself by the people around him, and now he's alone for the first time in his LIFE with a bunch of mortals and absolutely no greater purpose in life.

In Tyrant's Tomb so far, there's so little shock about this death! People keep saying he made his choice and it's so true!! If it hadn't been Roman emperors, it would have been something else! Somewhere, eventually he would have found a sword to fall on somewhere.

Because it was the only goddamn thing he was ever taught how to do.

[talonabraxas]

The Goddess Sophia Talon Abraxas

“Allegory of Divine Wisdom”

In Gnosticism, the “Fall” didn’t occur through Adam and Eve – it happened before the world’s creation, through a mistake made by a heavenly being called Sophia (whose name is Greek for “Wisdom.”

The story of Sophia’s fall (which was part of the Gnostic creation myth) is told slightly differently in the many Gnostic texts that discuss it, but the various versions of the tale all share the basics in common.

Sophia was one of the “aeons” – divine entities who were descended from God the Father and who were roughly equivalent to angels. Of the many aeons, Sophia was the last to arise from God.

Like the other aeons, Sophia was the child of a male-female pair of aeons that had come before her, who had given birth with the Father’s blessing. Sophia and the rest of the aeons formed the “Pleroma” (Greek for “Fullness”), the Gnostic name for Heaven.

Sophia wanted to have a child, too. But she went about it in the wrong way: she conceived without the involvement of her male partner or the approval of the Father. Her child was the “demiurge,” a misshapen, belligerent creature that was utterly unlike the other heavenly beings.

Sophia immediately realized her horrible mistake and cast her child out of the Pleroma. The demiurge, now alone, believed that he was the only being who had ever existed, and created the material world out of his ignorance, foolishness, and malevolence, trapping sparks of divinity within Adam and Eve along the way.

Because of her fall and its dire consequences, Sophia became a flawed being. Her deficiency rendered her unable to remain in the perfect “Fullness” of the Pleroma, so she was placed just outside of the Pleroma, in a realm above that of her malevolent son. In anguish, Sophia repented, and the Father agreed to bring her back to the Pleroma once what had become lacking in her was restored to its natural fullness.

Precedents for Sophia in Jewish Literature

In the genre of Jewish (“Old Testament”) writing known as “wisdom literature,” Wisdom (Hokma in Hebrew was personified, and she gave monologues describing her great deeds and articulating her perspective on the world. Since Hokma, like the Greek Sophia, is a feminine noun, Wisdom was cast as a female figure. In the words of Nicola Denzey Lewis, Wisdom is “God’s active feminine principle, at once a part of God but also separate from God,” as in Proverbs 8, Job 28, and Sirach 24. In this regard, she’s much like the Gnostic aeons, who are also semi-independent extensions of God. They act, whereas God himself simply is.

Here’s an example of one of Wisdom’s monologues, Proverbs 8:22-31:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

The Gnostic depiction of Sophia was surely heavily influenced by this earlier Jewish depiction of Wisdom, both directly and indirectly through the works of thinkers such as Philo of Alexandria, a first-century Jewish intellectual who worked personified Wisdom into a rationalized cosmological system that sought to synthesize and harmonize the Jewish scriptures with the works of Plato, another importance influence on the Gnostics and early Christians more generally.

Sophia and Non-Gnostic Christians

Some texts from the Valentinian school of Gnosticism connect the story of Sophia’s fall to the fate of non-Gnostic Christians – that is, Christians who have the baseline Christian virtue of faith but not the higher mystical insight of gnosis, the root of the word Gnostic.

For these Valentinians, those with gnosis will ascend to the Pleroma after their deaths to partake of its perfect “Fullness.” Christians without gnosis will still be saved, but will have to spend some time in the place where Sophia was put after her fall, so that they, like her, can continue to advance in perfection until they’re worthy of being admitted to the Pleroma. You could say that Sophia’s realm is much like Purgatory in this view.

The existence of Sophia’s celestial waiting room of sorts enabled these Valentinians to have their cake and eat it, too: to preserve the special privilege that they believed gnosis imparted to them, while nevertheless being able to reassure other Christians that they, too, would ultimately be saved. This was surely a socially advantageous view, since it placed the Valentinians within the wider Christian fold rather than apart from it.

[iz-star]

LaDS random thoughts.

I've seen players saying that they can't see Zayne as a romantic interest cause he resembles or reminds them of their dads or older brothers that are involved in the medical field... Funnily enough, these players always tend to be Rafayel girlies in most cases, and I find it funny cause in my case is kinda like this but opposite places? Rafayel sometimes reminds me to my dad!

Like not only personality wise but also, my dad used to be quite the artist when I was a child. He was a musician and also painted, I remember seeing him paiting a whole ass scene of a guy holding a dying woman in his arms in one of the walls of our rooms, kinda like a greek sculpture style. I think to see him paiting was that inspired me as a kid to learn to draw, altho I have to admit that I've been quite inconsistent about it, especially cause these were always just hobbies and not something that we decided to take professionally; my two brothers dedicated themselves more to music, while I went to the art route just to pass time.

Anyway, the thing is that I've always had this thought in mind and my mom ended up confirming it lol. My family knows I play L&DS cause I have no shame and they hear me yap about it all the time (They don't even know the name of the game or how... Spicy it gets, however), and my mom knows how much I love Zayne, so one day I showed her the three guys (it was before Sylus debut) and asked her to rate their looks from 1 - 10; I showed her Zayne and she said "I give him 100!" (cause she knew he's my favorite ❤️), then I showed her Xavier and she said "80, he kinda looks childish" (he was wearing his hoodie tho, so I suppose for her he looked too young), then I showed her Rafayel and she said without a second thought "200! He looks cool!"

And I was like... "Really? He's your favorite?" She just shrugged her shoulders and said "He's the one I like how he looks like the most"

And listen, is not like Rafayel resembles to my dad physically... Maybe there are some slight similarities, especially with the hair (and I think that's kinda important lol) but I left it like that. After some time, the devs released the lastest outfits of the three guys (The outfits used for 4 stars cards and that were recently released with Sylus debut, I don't remember their names rn, sorry lol) I showed my mom their outfits because I was drooling for Zayne and asked her which one she liked the most. She said Zayne looked nice, Xavier looked like a prince but of course, she liked Rafayel the most, and I was surprised again and asked her if she was being serious, like the previous time, she didn't comment on Xavier but dismissed Zayne cause he looked like a "Mister or Sir" I don't know if these terms fit with what she meant to say tho, cause words in our native language are different, but what she meant to say is that he looked "Too old for her taste" and the way my jaw dropped... I literally told her "You're older than me! You should probably notice him more than me!" We laughed a lot.

At the end I told her that it was curious and funny how she always chose Rafayel cause out of all the guys, he's the one with the role of the artist; my mom laughed. It was probably his vibe, idk but it's clear for me that my mom has a type and if she were to play the game, she'd definitely be a Rafayel girlie ahaha.

To finish this story, unfortunately my parents divorced years ago, you know things irl are more complicated than games and even tho my dad shares some similarities with Rafayel, they're not exactly the same, they have a lot of differences too so It's not complicated for me to see Raf as someone different and not feel weird when I get cute messages from him, however, I think after this is easy to sense how unserious my parents are, no wonder why Zayne's seriousness got me wrapped around his finger since I first interacted with him xD

[random-sparks-98]

Sunlit Gotham Universe Notes

Batfam Notes:

- Due to moving around the batfam timeline a bit, Jason is the only one who has died who has been fully buried and then revived (Steph’s heart stopped for about three minutes when Black Mask captured her, and Damian has not been killed.)

- Damian came to Gotham earlier than canon, and is currently 10 years old and in 4th grade at Gotham Academy

- Jon Kent is also going to be the same age as Damian in this AU

- Jason Todd is going be announced as Legally Alive before the beginning of the story (Yes, he is still Red Hood, but he doesn’t kill anymore (most of the time))

- Bruce will NOT be going missing in time

- This means that Tim never drops out of high school, gets emancipated, and becomes CEO of a company at the age of 17. It also means that Dick will not have been Batman

- Selina and Bruce are dating - he’s gonna probably propose soon, but big life events keep happening (like adopting new children every few months) so he hasn’t yet. He claims he’s waiting for a time when everything is calm. His children call bullshit and say he’s just scared she’ll say no

- Selina totally knows that he already has the ring and is honestly just teasing him and stressing him out more by making comments and jokes every so often

How does Wonder Woman not know about the demigods?

- When the Greek Amazons went to live on Themyscira they became cut off from the rest of the mortal world. This means that they weren’t aware of Camp moving around to follow Olympus

- Diana was born WAY before the First Great Prophecy, and technically isn’t a true demigod because she was sculpted from clay - therefore not really part mortal

- By the time Diana had left the island, demigods had gone underground and general society forgot that they existed. Both camps are kept secret so that the demigods are safe, so Diana hasn’t heard about them and assumes that the demigods are just no more

- Due to the Mist, Off World League Missions, Rescue Ops, and the fact that she lived in Paris for a while, Diana hasn’t been around during any of the major battles - or her focus was elsewhere

- Donna Troy might show up at some point, and the same logic about leaving Themyscira works for her too. We’re going with the Magical Duplicate origin story for her, so again, doesn’t quite count as mortal enough for the prophecy

- Cassie Sandsmark originally used magical artifacts to help Diana fight crime and was later ret-conned into being either a daughter of Zeus or a granddaughter of Zeus. The ret-con is going to be brought up in the story and we can all thank the Flashes for messing up the timeline. But basically she doesn’t become a proper descendant of Zeus until after the Titan War and therefore the prophecy doesn’t apply to her either

Children of Apollo have the following abilities According to the Riordan Wiki:

- They can curse others to only speak in rhyming couplets that can take days or even weeks to wear off (depending on strength and number of people in the spell)

- They are expert archers, inherited from their father. However, the children of Apollo who are healers tend to be less skilled with this (as seen with Will Solace)

- They also excel at anything involving throwing or shooting stuff, like shooting hoops or shooting firearms or other missile weapons 

- They are skilled in physical contests and games

- They excel in the arts

- They are skilled musicians

- Vitakinesis: As the children of Apollo, they are natural healers. They can heal people by singing a hymn to their father (in Ancient Greek).

- Audiokinesis: As the children of Apollo, they have the ability to control sound waves and music

- It is extremely rare that a child of Apollo can possess complete photokinesis, as only Apollo himself and the Titan of Light, Hyperion, and the Titan of the Sun, Helios, have been known to use the ability

- From what can be gleaned from The Demigod Diaries, it can be presumed that some, or even all of Apollo's children possess a limited form of precognition

- Thanks to a curse, all the children of Apollo have a terrible fear of snakes

In this AU, souls have auras that are unique to each soul. Demigod children with parent’s who deal with light (ex: Apollo or Iris) can see the auras if they focus really hard. Children of Apollo will often use it as a way to check how well a patient is healing as the brighter the aura the healthier the person.

[writing-for-life]

Hi my dear, I hope you're doing well.

I've been thinking about TLOS (SPOILERS)

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and about Morpheus' "relationship" with Iris. I was shocked for a moment, but then I was like "ok".

What was it like writing this? Where did you get this idea from? It's a bit risky, but it's also amazing haha. Was it always Iris or did you think of other gods/creatures for this?

Haha, of course it’s risky, that’s how I roll 🤣

So in case people haven’t read The Light of Stars and don’t want any spoilers, this is the exit sign…

But first of all, I’ll give you Pierre Narcisse Guérin:

I mean, how could you not? 🤣

So that painting was somewhat of an inspiration. Morpheus and Iris have a short history, but they were never an item (who knows with Greek gods though, right? 😉).

Where to start? The easiest way in is probably authorial intent. I needed some hook to make Morpheus believe that Thalia was special in some way. Well, to him she is anyway, but as in, “Why can she transcend certain rules?” Of course everyone who read it until the end knows that nothing is quite as it seems, but that revelation comes fairly late, and up until then, we do believe this is a possibility. And that’s a way in, because if he has a past with Iris, it’ll of course make him think.

Then, I obviously very heavily played on Psyche in the Underworld before you-know-what happens. There are many parallels, many Easter Eggs peppered all over the story that people might only recognise in hindsight, or only if they know their Greek mythology fairly well and recognise the references to Aphrodite’s tests, but Thalia’s path is not unlike that of Psyche (and the butterfly references are also because of that of course). I can’t possibly pick out every reference now because I’d recount the whole novel, but there are many.

Now, what does Psyche have to do with Iris?

Eros fell in love with Psyche, that was obviously the whole reason for her eventually falling asleep (the Stygian sleep was brought on by opening Persephone’s box, and I just took the liberty to spin enough yarn to say that Hypnos/Morpheus/Dream has to be involved in that. Because—sleep 🤣). And generally, Eros is assumed to be the son of Aphrodite. BUT there are a few retellings that make him the son of Iris and Zephyros. And how utterly terrible would it be if

a) Iris had a child that she fears might not be Zephyros’ but Morpheus’? And she she then gave the boy away to Aphrodite to bring him up as her own so Zephyros wouldn’t find out?

b) That child was Eros, who later fell in love with Psyche, and Morpheus played a part in them nearly not getting together (all’s well that ends well of course) without knowing he nearly ruined the love life of his potential son (which is totally something that would happen, he’s just not very good with his kids 🙈).

c) Millenia later, Dream’s own mother uses this to play a slightly twisted game.

d) That c) was exacerbated by the fact that Iris had a twin called Arke who sided with the titans during the titanomachy and hence lost her wings. And I just turned her into Dusk, Night’s handmaiden. Bold move, don’t care, my fic, because it made sense for the premise 🤣

When I wrote TLoS, I probably already had plot bunnies for a The Pillars of Creation (the sequel) without intending to ever write it (that has obviously changed). Suffice it to say, and as people will probably expect from me 🙈, nothing is quite as it seems, and there will be many twists and turns, but it’s a good side plot for the bigger issues at hand.

That probably all sounds super complicated and like blasphemy for Greek mythology lovers, but the Greeks retconned their own gods and their stories so many times that I felt no shame to make it work for me. I just love playing around with Greek mythology, and it made a lot of sense if we assumed that some Greek gods were really aspects of the Endless. And that people only believed they were gods like [Hypnos/Thanatos/Teleute, Nyx etc] while others gods were truly separate beings.

And even without that background, the story still worked. I hope 🙈🤣

Because quite frankly: There’s also something that hearkens back to Eros and Psyche in Morpheus and Thalia themselves, and how their story ends (for now). In more than one way. IYKNYK 🖤

@morpheusbaby3 ask answered

[deathlessathanasia]

Were Metis and Zeus friends?

Idk? All Apollodoros' Library (Apollod. 1.2.1) says is that Zeus, when he reached maturity, took her as a συνεργόν (helper, coworker, fellow-worker, accomplice, colleague, associate, work partner) and she gave Kronos a pharmakon that made him vomit the children he had swallowed. As far as I can tell the language used doesn't suggest any particular intimacy beyond the idea of two people doing something together. Later on (Apollod. 1.3.6) she tries to avoid his sexual advances but he rapes her and then pulls a Kronos on her, so whatever friendship they might or might not have had probably ended there, one imagines.

Hesiod on his part gives no details about their relationship in the Theogony (Hes. Theog 886-900) and only says that Zeus made her his wife after he became king and that he deceived her and "put her in his belly" when she was about to give birth to Athena, in order to avoid the birth of a dangerous child but also that she would devise on his behalf both good and evil. In the fragment describing the births of Hephaistos and Athena attributed to Hesiod by Chrysippos and preserved by Galen (Hes. Fr. 343 M-W)) we learn that, after Hera gave birth to a child without him, Zeus got Metis to "lie with" (παρελέξατο) him, by somehow tricking/deceiving (ἐξαπαφὼν) her ( though if you go with the reading "even though she twisted much" instead of the emendation "even though she was very shrewd/wise/knew much" force might also have been involved, but I find it plausible that a few words might be missing here and the deception refers to him getting her into bed and her twisting much is in reference to her trying to escape being ingested) and then swallowed her because he feared that she might give birth to something stronger than the thunderbolt.

In the scholia to Iliad 8.39 it is said that he swallowed her when she was pregnant with the child of a Kyklops, "wanting to possess her for himself" (βουλόμενος παρ ἑαυτῷ ἔχειν), no mention of him fearing the birth of a child from her as in the other versions. This is less relevant but I'm mentioning it for the sake of providing a complete overview of their relationship across all sources that mention it, in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies Metis is on multiple occasions described as the daughter of Zeus, apparently swallowed by him as a child. I have no idea how this last one came to be. And I'm not even going to get into the Orphic traditions because that Metis has nothing to do with the Metis of mainstream Greek myth, other than the fact that they both get consumed by Zeus.

So were they friends? You decide. Personally I don't see much evidence for it so I guess my answer would be probably not particularly?

[00belle00lovely00]

Do you have any Headcanon for bubba x crafycorn? I have PLENTY

OOOOOOOOOHHHH YESSSS!!!

MORE UNDERRATED SHIPS!!! You've got taste fam, you've got taste.

💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍

Can we all agree this ship deserves to be called Sketchbook? PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. P L E A S E.

We all thought of it. Nerd x art kid. WE ALL DID.

Honestly, the more you think about it, Bubba and Crafty would pretty much be always hanging out whenever there's anything involving active games. Although they would (kind of rarely) participate, Bubba has never been one to like sports. And Crafty is way too ashamed of messing up in front of the group. So you could think of them as some sort of backing each other up type of way, not like Kickin and Hoppy would, but the feeling is there.

THEIR DATE WOULD BE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS-

Bubba, although he is great with books, is pretty bad at anything involving drawing. He had never personally done it before, not even as a child, since he had never seen the point of putting so much effort on a piece of paper that would come and go. BUT. IF HE WERE TO BE THE ONE WHO HAD A CRUSH ON CRAFTYCORN FIRST- WELL, MY MAN GOT PRIORITIES.

They would help tutor each other ALL THE TIME. As in like- Crafty being Bubba's art teacher and Bubba being Crafty's history/math/science/etc teacher!

(BIGGER BODIES HEADCANON. NOT KIDS HERE. NUH UH.) You'll remember when in the game's cutouts Pickypiggy mentioned eating both Bubba and later on Craftycorn, right? And how in one of the cutouts Crafty is literally out for blood? WELL FOR THE SAKE OF THIS HEADCANON, IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW.

These two gotta be loving Greek mythology. As a person who loves it, it's the PERFECT combination between art and having a LOT of memory.

They listen to music together, and ironically, Bubba remembers the whole lyrics of her fav.

You'll know Crafty would, in any headcanon of ANY ship, draw her crush. The same would go for Bubba. BUT HERE'S THE TWIST. BUBBA, MY MAN, GOT A WHOLE PLAN BOARD IN HIS ROOM TO FIND OUT HOW TO TREAT HIS GAL. STICKY NOTES AND EVERYTHING.

Live laugh love Craftycorn girl failure.

Ngl, I don't see Craftycorn as much of a shy type of person as everyone treats her to be. She's low in speech, yes, but I'd imagine she'd be able to hang around everyone just as fine. But due to her soft spoken voice, people would always treat her like some sort of shy kid, which sometimes embarrasses her. But Bubba? On the contrary, he would treat her with equal respect and view point as the rest of the group, which eases her a lot.

Musicals? They love it. Documentareis? They love it. Science fiction? They LOVE it.

I'd imagine them having very subtle PDA, nothing too obvious, maybe holding (hands???) but the intention is there.

YALL WANNA HEAR AN AWSOME SCENERIO? HERE'S ONE FOR YOU: TODAY IS CRAFTYCORN'S BIRTHDAY AND DOES ALL THE DECORATIONS HERSELF, THE WHOLE CAKE, EVERYTHING. But EVERYONE forgot so that makes her sad- BUT. B U T. BUBBA IS THE ONLY ONE THAT REMEMEBR SO THEN WE GET WHOLESOME SHIT AND ARGHTRDJKBFGUSAYDTFUSGDFJKASGDGSBDJHDGFBJKSAGDFBAWYETFRAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH...... ahem. My apologies.

💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍

I'm personally more of a Craftycorn x Bobby Bearhug shipper BUT THIS IS VERY GOOD TOO- I LOVE THESE KIND OF SHIPS

WHY ARE THEY SO UNDERRATED.

THEY SHOULDN'T BE UNDERRATED.

[hakusins]

Very important question from someone you may or may not know:

Are you interested in Greek Mythology? If so, do you have any favourite gods, goddesses, creatures, and myths? Can we also know why you like them? 🎤

yeah i like greek mythology a normal amount. bjhEBRJHFBHJERBFJJEBRHF

BUT IN ALL HONESTY, anon - this ask had me running around clawing at my walls screeching and IT DEFINITELY WOKE UP A LOT OF DEMONS THAT WERE SLEEPING IN MY HEAD HJERBFBJHERF i actually had to take the whole day to just calm myself down.

no i don't like greek mythology i LOVE IT. I ALSO LOVE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY, NORSE MYTHOLOGY, RIGHT NOW DABBLING INTO EAST ASIAN MYTHOLOGY LIKE KOREAN, JAPANESE AND CHINESE BUT IM GETTING THERE !!!!!! BHJTGBHJRHJHERFHBERFJ GRRRRRGRGGRHETGGRER. !!!!!!!!! IM SUCH A NERD, I LOVE LEARNING ABOUT MYTHS, I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MYTHS !!!!!!!!!! its why I love the BL series ENNEAD and I LOVE LOVE LOVE xianxia danmei novels because ANYTHING WITH MYTHS WILL HAVE MY HEART!!!!!!

okay now onto your questions! In all honesty, from my very very deep and in depth knowledge of all of them, it is safe to say I can't say i think of any of them as cool or anything. i think they're all assholes one way or another. but i do quite like {oseidon because myths involving him are always the funniest to me JBHREFBJHREF but for goddesses... hm, there's not much but i quite like athena :DDD I honestly don't really have favourite goddesses/gods, but I do have favourite creatures!!!

THE MINOTAUR, ASTERION, IS DEFINITELY MY FAVOURITE !!!! HIS STORY TO ME IS SO TRAGIC, like he was always destined to be a monster - there was no moment since his conception that he could be anything BUT a monster and its just so utterly heartbreaking because this perversion of nature was created just by the gods, so by that principle, shouldn't he be something to be revered? something to be respected? or is it because his mom fucked the sacred bull gifted by Poseidon in order to conceive him that dictates that he is nothing more than a stain on his family, that he was an abomination that shouldn't have been born? bUT NOT ONLY THAT, his creation is the results of the gods' intending to punish King Minos for his arrogance and greed, but they made Queen Pasiphae, his wife, to bear the brunt of the humiliation? Like she's an innocent party in this matter, but she's the one who is forced to bear a half bull child and her husband just gets humiliation? I DONT KNOW ITS JUST, the creature of the Minotaur just fascinates me deeply that I want to nitpick the author or just the person who begun this myth because what was the cultural environment that inspired this myth? Was there a real life event that inspired this? Or was this just a cruel and sick imagination of how mortals think the gods dole out their punishments?

I CAN HONESTLY YAP THE SAME WITH MEDUSA, but Medusa had so many chances to not BECOME the gorgon Medusa. Like there could be timelines where Medusa was not a priestess in Athena's temple, where her tragedy began. Medusa could've chosen to be something or someone else and there's a chance she could've escaped her fate. THE MINOTAUR NEVER GOT THAT CHANCE, hell if you asked anyone with a mild knowledge of Greek mythology, no one would know that the Minotaur's name is Asterion! They only know him as the Minotaur, the beast of the Labyrinth.

but for myths, I honestly can't choose - Helen of Troy? Odysseus? Arachne? King Midas? Ixion? Sisyphus? Tantalus? Lycaon? Europa? The foundation of Athens? The birth of Peresphone? Hades and Persephone? Eros and Psyche? Adonis? Narcissus? Jason and the Argonauts? Perseus? Theseus? Heracles? The Titanomachy? The birth of Aphrodite? The Gigantomachy? Atalante? Typhon and Echidna? The birth of Dionysus? The several renditions of the birth of Zagreus? The birth of Hermes? Achilles and Patroclus? The women of the Amazon? The Titans? Pandora's Box? I CAN GO ON BUT THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH FOR ME TO TALK ABOUT !!! I HONESTLY HAVE SO MUCH FUN AND IM LOVING SO MUCH BERJFJBHERJBFEJHRF URHGRGHT please come back to talk to me about greek mythology anon please please please please, i swear i'm normal.

[zerogate]

The problem, as St Augustine knew well, was the vagina of the Virgin Mary. This is rarely considered in the modern world. Yet, for a time, Mary’s vagina – or to be more precise, her hymen – was an issue of profound theological importance to Christianity, and that hymen’s presence (or absence) was debated in the highest circles of the Church and written about by everyone from the most loathed of heretics to Augustine himself.

The debate arose because this topic was not only one of great import, it was also one on which most gospels offered little help. The Christmas story is a story of a birth, but it is commonly told with biblical, rather than biological, simplicity. Of the four gospels found in modern Bibles, only two mention the actual birth of Jesus – and both do so briskly. The Gospel of Luke spends longer explaining the tax and travel arrangements of Mary and Joseph than it does on the moment of the birth itself, which is briefly dispatched in a single sentence. The Gospel of Matthew is more laconic yet, merely recording with workmanlike brevity that Mary ‘had given birth to a son.’

But, in the early centuries of Christianity, there was a gospel that lingered long and lovingly over every aspect of the birth of Christ. This gospel, known today as the Infancy Gospel of James, tells the story of the birth of Jesus with a physical and psychological detail lacking in the better-known versions. It offers detailed descriptions of how Joseph felt when he discovered that his supposedly virginal Mary was already quite far gone (in short: not good) and considerable detail on the lead-up to the birth. It even contains an intimate account of the birth itself, which begins with Mary’s contractions, involves the unexpected intervention of a midwife, and ends with a vaginal examination that is, in every sense, unorthodox.

Yet, while it is almost forgotten today, the Infancy Gospel of James was, for a time, one of the most popular and influential Christian gospels of all. It was read in churches in the East, for centuries, at important feasts – and even at Christmas. Its sacred words have been woven into the liturgy, art and calendar of Christianity for centuries. At least 140 manuscripts survive in Greek alone, and the spread of languages into which it was translated includes Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, Sahidic and Armenian. As one modern scholar put it, the ‘sheer number . . . attests to the value placed on this text in the Christian tradition’.

This book tilted the theology, the calendar and even the character of Christianity: the cult of the Virgin Mary, still evident today in the Catholic Church, is unthinkable without it. Together with later gospels in which it was absorbed, it even shaped the way the Nativity was represented. The famous image of Mary riding on a donkey is not present in any of the gospels contained within modern Bibles. This image, however, does appear, dramatically, in the Infancy Gospel of James.

Similarly, if you have ever seen a Nativity scene in which the baby Jesus is watched over by an ox and an ass, or in which he is born in a cave, you are looking at its influence, for these appear not in the Bible but in the gospel into which the Infancy Gospel of James was later absorbed. These scenes infused the works of Giotto and were held in the blue and beaten gold of Byzantine mosaics. It is, in the words of one modern theologian: ‘hardly possible to overestimate the influence of [this text] on subsequent church history.’ And it contains, at its heart, the story of how the Virgin Mary’s vagina was capable of burning human flesh.

[...]

As the scene of the birth opens, Mary and Joseph are travelling towards Bethlehem, Mary sitting on a donkey. They have not travelled far when Mary tells Joseph to take her down from the animal because her contractions are beginning. Or, as she puts it, in a brief and dignified phrase, ‘the child within me presses me to come forth.’ Joseph manages to find a cave in which Mary can give birth, and – an even greater stroke of luck – a Hebrew midwife to assist.

While he is outside the cave and Mary is labouring within, he suddenly notices that the entire world has quite literally stopped. The birds of the heavens are held motionless in the sky; a nearby shepherd, who had been lifting his hand to smite his sheep with his staff, has frozen with his hand in mid-air; the river has stopped flowing; the stars have stopped moving. Jesus has been born.

The moment of stillness ends. The birth over, the world starts up again – and, as it does, controversy begins to churn. It is at this moment that the gospel takes an unexpected turn. Because, for reasons that are not entirely clear, another woman, named Salome (no relation to the better-known Salome in the Bible, though she shares with her a certain insubordinate air), turns up at the mouth of the cave. The midwife, running outside after the birth, tells Salome, in great excitement, ‘I have a new sight to tell you about; a virgin has brought forth.’ Salome, not unreasonably, expresses a certain scepticism at this idea. ‘As the Lord my God lives,’ she says, ‘unless I thrust in my finger, and search for the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.’

The midwife, not entirely to her credit, rises to the challenge. Get ready, she briskly tells Mary, ‘for there is no small contention concerning you.’ Salome enters the cave, and then, without a moment’s pause – or, indeed, permission – puts her finger into Mary’s vagina. Quite what Mary’s feelings are on this unexpected move are unrecorded, but the response of her vagina is unambiguous, for Salome’s hand is suddenly burned off. Salome is appalled. ‘Woe unto my iniquity and mine unbelief,’ she laments, ‘because I have tempted the living God, and lo, my hand falleth away from me in fire.’

-- Catherine Nixey, Heresy