#they… the economy is in shambles

[victory-cookies]

applying for jobs again 😩

[raps-hellion]

demigods who know how much an average loaf of bread from the store costs:

leo — he was between foster homes a lot and often ended up homeless. he knows the cost because he's spent many times counting out the spare change in his pockets and praying he has enough.

percy — he and sally went/still go on grocery trips, and he rants to annabeth if the price goes up. want to know how the economy's doing? ask percy about bread prices.

demigods who do not know how much an average loaf of bread from the store costs:

annabeth — maybe back when she was with luke and thalia, but she's been in camp half-blood for most of her life. bread just appears on a plate in front of her, who is she to question it.

frank — he's a nepo baby.

hazel — she's been dead for 70 years. seeing what the price has been inflated to now may kill her.

jason — he was raised by wolves. lupa does not have time to worry about the inflation rate of bread.

nico — he was cut off from modern society for 70 years.

piper — she's also a nepo baby. and she spent a lot of time shoplifting, so the illusion of cost doesn't apply to her.

[hoshizoralone]

useless lesbian and her beloved children

[undead-knick-knack]

[linoyes]

LEE KNOW + GIANT JACKET MAKING MOVIE

[katabay]

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A KNIGHT...

the visual inspiration for this was a combination of Frederic William Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs and also Bernardo Cavallino's The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin

this was supposed to be just a one off illustration to get the thoughts out of my system, but then I started thinking about medieval politics and warfare and plagues and a castle and home as both a place of refuge, a prison, and a tomb, so perhaps they will end up as ex voto characters as well.

you may say, hey! that rosary looks like it has too many beads! it's a fifteen decade rosary, probably. dominicans are really into marian devotions. it works out.

also. spiral style stair cases. oh boy. it was that unexpectedly more difficult than I originally thought it would be to draw. the more I think about it, the less I understand them, even though I had a million photos of the stairs in front of me while I was drawing it.

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[hopeinthebox]

bts + reductress headlines pt.13

[andhumanslovedstories]

everyone's always like "oh Animorphs are so dark, Animorphs are so fucked up," and I was kinda like "okay yeah sure" because people will say anything that they encountered in their childhood was actually fucked up. People have a very specific view of childhood media where it is all basically Dora the Explorer, and therefore any level of threat or nuance gets this hyperbolic reaction.

so I'm reading Animorphs for the first time, and you know what? fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine FINE ANIMORPHS ACTUALLY IS THAT FUCKED UP. YOU GUYS WIN THIS ONE.

anyway we did a podcast about it.

Animorphs Part 1: Baby's First Existential Dread

apple podcasts | spotify | buzzsprout

(cyrus btw has already read animorphs, it was at a formatively young age, and don't even worry, the books made them So Weird.)

[heartorbit]

always by your side

[virfujiwara]

rip international fans

[thebadhalfofafandom]

[moeblob]

"Abduct is SUCH A strong word, pal! But yes."

[napping-sapphic]

everyone be careful if you are on my blog then you are within kissing distance

[gingermintpepper]

Okay, let's finally talk about EPIC's Apollo

I feel very compelled to say, first of all, that I do not dislike Epic. In fact, I am very fond of Epic and have been following its production and status very eagerly! I attend all the launch streams, I watch all of Herrans' update videos; I am, at the end of the day, a fan and I want it to be known that my words are spoken out of love and passion as much as they are spoken from a place of critique.

So really, what my problem with Epic's Apollo?

In the briefest possible terms; the choice to have Apollo be defined by his musical aspect in God Games is thematically strange. And not in the 'oh well in the Odyssey, Apollo was important to Odysseus and his family so it's weird that that wasn't kept in Epic' strange, strange in the sense that Odysseus' character arc since My Goodbye has been getting more and more obviously Apollonian and so it is positively bizarre that when we get to meet Apollo, the god seems entirely disinterested in him and his affairs. So much so that he is not even defined by any station that would indicate that he has been watching over and protecting Odysseus and his family.

What do I mean by 'Odysseus has been following an Apollonian arc'? I'm so glad you asked!

Remember Them is the last song in which Odysseus explicitly uses his sword until Mutiny where he must use it to defend himself against Eurylochus' blade. He uses it to help enact the plan to conquer Polyphemus and, due to Polites dying in that battle, Polites who wished for Odysseus to put the blade down entirely and embrace a post-war life, Odysseus also retires his sword. This is an action that symbolically separates him from Athena - and the image of Odysseus as a traditional warrior set for him in Horse and Infant - as much as My Goodbye physically separates him from the goddess and her war-ways - from this point onwards, Odysseus will no longer be leaning on Athena's wisdom or methods to solve his problems. Likewise, he will no longer be able to rely on her protection.

Odysseus thusly solves most of his upcoming problems through diplomacy and avoidance. He approaches Aeolus - a strange and ambiguous god (both in gender and in motivation) and appeals to them for help. Circe too, he approaches not with wishes to conquer or for revenge, but for the safe returning of his men and an alternate way forward. In all of these scenarios, there is some Apollonian element which is subtly interweaved alongside the influence of other gods; it is with a bow and arrows that Polyphemus' sheep is slain (and thus it is this Apollonian element which is at the root of Odysseus' spat with Poseidon), it is a vision of Penelope that warns Odysseus that his men are about to open Aeolus' wind-bag, Circe's peace offering to Odysseus is to refer him to a prophet of Apollo who has since died.

In this way, Apollo is walking alongside Odysseus for all of his journey after Athena departs - even in the Underworld, he is guiding him. It is Tiresias' proclamation that is the last straw for Odysseus, it is by the power of a mouthpiece of Apollo that Odysseus decides to embrace his ruthlessness. It is with the bow and arrow that Odysseus subdues the siren who sought to trick him, likewise, Odysseus does not attempt to undermine or escape the fate of paying Scylla's passage price - he knows of the doom about to befall the six men and quite unlike the rest of the journey until this point, he does not fight against it. This all comes to a head on Thrinacia where it is a blade which sacrifices the sun god's cow and brings destruction upon the crew once more.

My point with all of this is that when I heard the teasers for God Games years ago, it made perfect sense to me that Apollo would be Round One - he is not Odysseus' adversary and has no reason to oppose Athena's wish to free him. From other teasers about what will happen in the climax of Epic, Apollo will still be walking alongside Odysseus - it is Apollo's bow that Penelope will give the suitors to string. Likewise, it is Apollo's bow that will prove Odysseus' legitimacy and identity. That bow will be the power by which Odysseus hunts his adversaries and cleans out his palace - it is Apollo who is the avatar of Odysseus' ruthlessness, not Athena.

So tell me, truly, what was the point of having Apollo raise a non-argument in God Games? Why have him appear unconcerned, aloof and slightly oblivious? Why have him appear in his capacity as the Lord of Music at all?? And if the intention was never to make Apollo an active player in Odysseus' life like he was in the Odyssey, why keep Odysseus as a primary archer?

The answer of course is that Apollo is inextricable from the fabric of the Odyssey - his influence and favour exudes from Odysseus just as much as Athena's. In Athena's ten year sulk, it would have been Apollo who kept Telemachus and Penelope safe. It would have been Apollo protecting Odysseus from Poseidon's gaze as he travelled the seas (according to the Odyssey anyway)

Forgive me for not being excited about something that I thought was being purposefully set up. I was extremely ecstatic about all of the little Apollonian details that litter the sagas because I know where this story ends up (loosely) but all God Games did was reveal that maybe those Apollonian details were not intentional at all, but merely the ghost of the Apollo who persistently haunts those he favours, even if he cannot explicitly come to their aide in an adaptation.

[sforzesco]

sforza siblings :)

just. scribbling out galeazzo and ascanio, during one of ascanio's visits back home. somewhere between 1473-1475, probably

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[sout999]

AUD/USD exchange rate sucks major dong rn which means me buying stuff from the US is expensive, but on the flipside, you're getting a pretty good deal when buying from my lovely store~