#which Greek god are you?

[dhampiravidi]

me - Zeus o-o

Oraia - Poseidon

Jayn - Ares

Jas - Hera

Rose - Aphrodite

Tagging: @etdraconis (Cassian) @deathtransformed (John) @eraserisms @ashortgothamite @astral-athame @abrushwithdeath @starlsssankt

[timeturner-jay]

tumblr i did it

an actually accurate “what greek god are you” quiz

[l-just-want-to-see]

pjo/hoo/toa + the cycle

The Lightning Thief / Growing Sideways, Noah Kahan / Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, Ilya Repin + Saturn Devouring His Son, Goya + Saturn, Rubens / The Blood of Olympus / The Family Jewels, MARINA / The Last Olympian / The Sea of Monsters / The Family Jewels / Orestes Pursued by the Furies, Bouguereau / The Hidden Oracle / Apollo and Marsyas, Manfredi / In The Blood, John Mayer / The Sea of Monsters / The Combat of Ares and Athena, Jacques Louis David / The Family Jewels / Mark of Athena / The Combat of Ares and Athena / The Lightning Thief / Family Line, Conan Gray / Cronos and Rhea, Schinkel / The Lightning Thief / The Blood of Olympus / In The Blood / The Last Olympian / Chronos and His Child, Romanelli / Desireé Dellagiacomo / The Lightning Thief / Family Line / The Fallen Angel, Alexandre Cabanel + The Last Day of Pompeii, Bryullov / The Blood of Olympus / The Outcast, Botticelli / Glass, Irony and God, Anna Carson / House of Hades / Family Line / The Last Olympian / The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper + Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Roman School + Minerva and Arachne, Houasse + Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love with Paris, Kauffmann / The Last Olympian / Hadestown / The Lightning Thief / apple, Charli xcx / The Last Olympian / I Would Leave Me If I Could, Halsey / The Sea of Monsters / ? / LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK, Lavery and Corrigan / The Last Olympian / Eat Your Young, Hozier / The Last Olympian / Orpheus and the Bacchantes, Lazzarini / The Blood of Olympus / Susan Smith, wych elm / Orpheus and the Bacchantes / The Burning Maze / ? / The Tyrant’s Tomb / Perseus Freeing Andromeda, Veronese / Abduction of Psyche, Bouguereau + Bacchus and Ariadne, Van Loo / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero

[leupagus]

One thing I find interesting about the negative reactions to Kaos

Or more specifically, the negative reactions to the Orpheus/Eurydice plotline in Kaos

(Cut for spoilers!)

Is that almost all of the negative reactions are something along the lines of "they fucked up the perfect love story! They made Orpheus too obsessive! Who does that bitch Eurydice think she is, NOT being in love with him too!"

When in fact the original myths never says dickshit about whether Eurydice is in love with Orpheus. Yes, Orpheus braves the underworld for his wife; yes, he cares enough to get her "back." But the original myth isn't about what love can achieve because Orpheus fails in the myth. Love isn't enough, because he doesn't trust her, doesn't believe she followed him all the way out of Hades and back to the earth. He turns around because he doesn't think it worked, and he was right because he fucked it up.

Orpheus, in the myths, does not love Eurydice enough to have faith in her, and Eurydice is completely silent in the myth. Did she want to follow Orpheus? Did she love him back? Did she want to live in the world again? We have no idea; we just assume.

And it's so funny to see viewers of the show get angry that their interpretation of the myth isn't catered to, because the show itself deals with this exact problem — people in the Cave watching Orpheus torture himself for their amusement, gods being annoyed that Orpheus might not be able to do it (or terrified that he will). Even Orpheus gets angry (though kudos to the writers, they don't have him indulge in it for long) when Eurydice falls in love with someone else, because that's not how the story was supposed to go. Viewers both in the show and of the show are mad because the two people/characters actually in the story are making different choices, or aren't who they want them to be. Just like real life.

The whole storyline is an exploration of why people — including the audience — want Orpheus and Eurydice to be a love story to the detriment of the actual characters involved, and why sometimes the happily ever after is something different (possibly something better) than a love story.

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[mythological-mayhem]

Zeus: Nothing in life is free.

Aphrodite: Love is free.

Apollo: Adventure is free.

Hermes: Everything is free if you take it without paying.

[my-name-is-apollo]

Why is Hera so hostile to Leto in a manner that she isn't with the other lovers of Zeus? I can't think of any other woman who was targeted so much by Hera. One could say she didn't want Leto to give birth because her children would be a competition to Hera's children, but why bother her even after she had already given birth? Is it because Leto herself is also a threat to Hera?

Sort of I guess?

I don't think Leto would ever be a threat to Hera's role as the queen of the gods but Hera might see her as a competitor for Zeus' affection, even though I think Zeus would not marry someone else and replace Hera.

The twins are definitely a big reason why Hera begrudged Leto - it is outright stated in the Callimachus Hymn to Delos that the reason Hera especially targeted Leto was because she was told that Apollo would be dearer to Zeus than Ares is. Zeus is very proud of Artemis as well. As he himself puts it, he doesn't mind facing Hera's wrath for children like her.

But the continued hatred even after the birth of the twins (like sending Tityus to rape Leto) could have been for different reasons. This wasn't like one of those affairs Zeus would have with mortal women where he'd leave them behind once the child is conceived. Neither could Hera, despite her many attempts, get rid of Leto like she did with the other lovers. Not only did Leto give Zeus children that he loves dearly, she also stayed on Olympus despite Hera's hatred towards her (which isn't directed to any of Zeus' other divine mistresses, btw). It might have also been because Leto herself is dear to Zeus, if the way she's treated on Olympus is any proof. In the Homeric hymn to Apollo, Leto stands next to Zeus - in the Olympian assembly - to welcome their son. Hera is completely absent from the scene, as if Leto had taken her place even if temporarily. Now you could say this is because Apollo himself is such a powerful and glorious son in a way that no other son of Zeus is, so of course Leto would get such an honor (the hymn itself presents it this way).

But here's another instance - in the Iliad, when Hera goes to seduce Zeus, he is obviously very smitten but before getting into the action, he lists some of his lovers (I believe these were his favorite lovers, as a lot of others are not mentioned):

"for never has such desire for goddess or mortal woman so gripped and overwhelmed my heart, not even when I was seized by love for Ixion’s wife, who gave birth to Peirithous the gods’ rival in wisdom; or for Acrisius’ daughter, slim-ankled Danaë, who bore Perseus, greatest of warriors; or for the far-famed daughter of Phoenix, who gave me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthus; or for Semele mother of Dionysus, who brings men joy; or for Alcmene at Thebes, whose son was lion-hearted Heracles; or for Demeter of the lovely tresses; or for glorious Leto; or even for you yourself, as this love and sweet desire for you grips me now.’ (Book 14, trans. A. T. Murray)

Notice how when talking about most of them, he also mentions the children they bore to him but when Demeter and Leto are mentioned, he doesn't bring up their children at all despite them being some of the most accomplished kids of his. What's more, he takes Leto's name just before Hera's. I mean, this is an interpretation but it looks like not only did Zeus love Leto the most out of all his mistresses - giving her a place second to that of his wife, but also his love for her wasn't necessarily only because she gave him two amazing children.

Nonnus does something similar in the Dionysiaca (but this time Zeus is enamored with Persephone instead of Hera) but more notably, when Typhoeus attacks Olympus and Zeus is discouraged, Nike takes the form of Leto to encourage him and it's pretty telling of what Leto meant to Zeus.

One interesting similarity between Hera and Leto is that they both had a giant try to rape them. Porphyrion tried to violate Hera (Zeus inspired him to do this) and Tityus tried to violate Leto (upon Hera's order). Though both of them were killed, only Tityus got an eternal punishment in Tartarus of having his liver/heart eaten out by vultures so Zeus seems to have taken a greater offense at Tityus trying to assault Leto.

Again, I don't think Zeus would ever take anyone other than Hera as his permanent wife - she is irreplaceable to him. There's an entire myth about Hera leaving him and Zeus winning her back. Their relationship is obviously complex and involves all kinds of emotions including love and hate. But Leto is continually dear to him as well and that's something Hera can't do much about.

[vaguely-concerned]

...the 'almond room' thing in the unwanted guest IS a reference to/play on words on amygdala, right? (amygdala comes from the greek word for almond!) I didn't read that wrong? it is stupid sexy Ianthe coyly inviting Palamedes into a different chamber of her brain, as it were?

(also the pieces of meat -- the feeding or kissing, it's hard to say which of it all -- being present right from the beginning... ianthe DOES know exactly what has happened to her, doesn't she. palamedes is just cutting his way through her layers of denial and repression all merciless and scalpel-like to get her to admit it. or, she knows subconsciously at least -- each person comes in and feeds her something that she's helpless to stop from becoming a part of her even in her coffin, with bloody kisses. oh baby love is feeding me bad meat and I have no choice but to swallow it down. like yeah I suspect that is how human contact can feel when your sense of self and boundaries developed to be a specific kind of Fucked Up lol. that shit could make a person dream of being a diamond in a glass of wine; perfect, inviolable, untouchable, eternally separate and safe. In the words of Andrea Gibson in Prism:

They say the womb is where we learn love is knowing the cord that feeds you could at any moment wrap around your neck

that is quite literally ianthe's first introduction to love -- her sister, a cord around her neck. Corona is Ianthe's other self, a second soul running around outside of her body, and she seems to consider herself as responsible for (and entitled to) the preservation of Corona's soul as her own. the way this mirrors that growing up, Ianthe had to be two necromancers in one body to let them stay together. (twins and ghosts all the way down I guess.) she's still just trying to do the same thing, I think, she's simply put on some bigger boots about it. the central problem of lyctorhood, self vs. connection/love, rears its head once again -- Ianthe existentially wants total self-contained self-sufficiency, perfect control, sovereign sway and masterdom over her soul... but she wants that at the same time as being in uninterrupted (uninterruptible!), eternal and indelible intimacy with her sister, whose soul also cannot be allowed to change. which, you know. freedom and love don't coexist the way you want them to, Ianthe, no matter how clever you are there won't be a way to get what you want. (especially not with a sister whose idea of what love is seems to go more towards being consumed, made one, by whatever violence necessary -- 'she could have taken me'.) man. Ianthe is a spectacular and ongoing piece of work, but sometimes it's hard to see how she could ever have turned out otherwise considering the conditions she was born and raised under haha.

the two-way street of the horror of digestion, whether you're the devourer or the devouree. part of you in me, part of me in you, whether either of us likes it or not we're both changed by this. bad news: you can't get out of interconnectedness by finding the cleverest loophole around it, ianthe. nice try, though)

[sarafangirlart]

Trojan War adaptations that completely remove the gods are so stupid as if the drama and interactions between the gods with each other and their favorite mortals aren’t literally the highlights of the story. Especially Athena and Hera, there is never a dull moment with them.

[kacievvbbbb]

I need Mihawk to go on a true odyssey (you know like the Greek sense of the word)

Just the universe, truly atrocious luck, psychological and very physical violence all conspiring with the ocean to ensure this dude does not get where he is trynna go.

Mihawk vs heaven hell and everything in between trying to make it to his next duel with Shanks.

Of course he wins and of course he learns nothing. (​the ocean screaming shanking banging its head because it’s tried its best but these stupid as fuck swordsmen)

[prolibytherium]

There's a LOT of things people do wrong when constructing fantasy beliefs in pantheons of gods, but one of the more specific is having only one god related to fertility and it kind of being just a horny sex thing.

Like you'll have one in the entire bunch whose sphere is listed as fertility and it's basically like Yeah this is the sex one. She's always depicted naked (but not TOO naked because censorship and/or the writer's own skittishness). She's going to have the exact body type epitomized in contemporary western beauty standards and there's usually no chance in hell that she's gonna be fat (unless MAYBE they're referencing 'venus' figurines). Her thing is fertility, which means having sex and making babies. Might be a goddess of beauty or love or marriage too, because these are kinda sex things, but that's probably it. And yeah that sort of thing is virtually nonexistent in real life.

Like the concept of fertility is so fundamentally important to the function of most societies in human history in ways that it is just Not in industrialized imperial core countries. Most people are getting food from stores, and not having to worry about harvesting crops or breeding livestock or foraging for food or having enough animals to hunt, so fertility only really comes up as a concern if you're trying to have kids (and there is certainly societal pressure to have children, but your wellbeing and survival is rarely going to Depend on it). And I think writing only from that perspective and not even trying to learn about WHY fertility is so conceptually important is why you see this trend.

There's no absolute universal statement about how people believe in gods but it's broadly accurate that systems with many deities will Usually have more than one deity associated with fertility, and these associations will certainly include human reproduction but also the fertility of livestock/hunted animals, plants, the land itself.

Some fertility deities may also be heavily associated with seasonal changes or environmental factors that agriculture or foraging is dependent on (spring/summer/fall, seasonal rains, seasonal flooding, rain itself, sunlight, good soil, rivers, wetlands, etc). Some certainly might be related to love, marriage, sex, and beauty, but that's VERY RARELY going to be the sole way the concept of fertility is embodied. And they'll often will have other associations not directly about fertility, or related to fertility in culturally specific ways.

[backpackingspace]

Okay but consider post Canon over protective Athena who is sick to death of her most devout being raped.

Athena sticking close to the whole family and promising penelope that she'll keep a close eye on odysseus the first time he has to go into the market and penelope can't go with him. (She was going to go anyway. She's never actually going to let any of them out of her sight ever again. And it's an easy promise to her dearest weaver who seems so distressed to have odysseus leaving her side.)

Athena fully manifesting in the market when someone grabs odysseus with godly flashes of snakes and owls and the drums of war to scream /release him/ (odysseus is feeling indulgent for both his patron and his wife it's so cute that they're this worried it's not like he couldn't defend himself just fine. Especially from whatever poor fuck just grabbed him who definitely doesn't deserve a goddess screaming in his face. Hes trying so hard not to laugh if he did athena would send him flying.)

Athena telling all the other gods that yes she knows odysseus is the favorite barbie doll she choose him well after all and to back the fuck off if any of them bother him again they will have made an enemy of her.

Athena disguising odysseus only as an old beggar from here on out instead of an irresistibly tall and handsome man. Because she saw how uncomfortable nausicaa's attention made him.

[newspecies]

"the vast majority of legal persecution against early queers was focused on men" ARE YOU INSANE

[gingermintpepper]

❄️

For you!!

❄️Share a snippet from a WIP of your choosing. 

Oough, thank you very much for participating!! I thought a lot about what I should offer and eventually settled on this snippet from my very self indulgent Apollo/Evadne work teehee: 

“So you returned.” 

The stranger laughs, “As have you.”

Lo, he sits on the edge of the riverbank, his smooth, even-coloured ankles submerged in the cool water, the fabric of his skirt folded up above his knees. Somehow, the stranger’s gotten even more beautiful since she last saw him; gone are his loose, lovely curls which lay amaranth kisses onto his shoulders and neck, now they are bound atop his head and adorned with many petalled flowers. Likewise, his already flawless face now shines with the faint gloss of cosmetics. A deep blue colour stains his lips and the corners of his eyes. It matches the splendour of his blue skirt, makes her triply assured that this stranger is no mere man, but some visiting prince or king passing through. It is the only reason one such as him would ever willingly spend time with a creature like her. 

Evadne clutches her veil tight as she stands beside him, makes certain that there is no way for a sudden wind to worry her cloth and reveal her shame. The stranger’s skin is so gorgeous, rich like a polished gem and just as smooth as its surface. Evadne’s never known a man so hairless! But then, the stranger has surely never known a woman like her either. 

“Are you just going to laze about the edge today?” she says. They’re idle words, spoken just so she stops moping about when she’s got perfectly good company at hand. Gods alone know when she’ll ever have such a thing again. “It’s sweltering today, you’ll feel greater relief if you stick more than your toes into the water, sir.” 

He laughs again, soft and calm. A quiet wind bustles over the water’s surface, he raises a fine-fingered hand to brace against the breeze. The silver bangles looped about his wrist make a melodious clatter as they settle one atop the other around the broad flesh of his arm. “I’ve no intention of disturbing you again. Just as I promised, your river is yours once more.” 

His voice is just so… magical. Like music, or birdsong. Like some pleasant thing Evadne wishes she could hear forever. “I already told you, I am no nymph, good sir.” The very idea is just as ridiculous as the first time he said such a thing. As if a nymph’s spring would ever be so pitiful. As if Evadne would ever be allowed in the same waters as a lovely nymph! “I’m merely a maiden who wishes to bathe in peace. That is all I ever was.” 

“Is that so?” Those calm eyes appraise her then, dark gaze roaming over each part of her fabric covered body ‘til Evadne is warm in the cheeks and hot all over. “When we were together last, you surely were— “

“W-What about you?” Evadne can hardly think past the heat in her face, the pounding of her stupid heart in her chest. 

Miraculously, the stranger stops. “What about me?” 

She squeezes her eyes shut, too shamed to even look at him when she speaks, “You praise my beauty when you have never even seen my face, but certainly with a face like yours, you must be a son of Desire or Beauty?”

The sweet wind blows. The river softly babbles on. Evadne slowly pries her eyes open and meets the grinning face of the stranger, beryl-bright eyes positively aglow with humour.

“You find me that good-looking, hm?” 

She takes a step back, hands covering her eyes over her veil so she doesn’t have to look at the mess she created, “Maybe not quite that handsome— “

“‘A son of the Beauty’, was it? Such high praise. I’ll treasure it always.” 

“Please forget such foolish words at once, sir!"

[sunnist4rs]

Tw Rant

I hate how the TRAs have to take over everything and make it about their stupid message. I’ve been a huge Greek Mythology fan all my life and Telemachus has been my favourite character ever for years and years (and years).

Personally I love Epic the musical, I think it’s a funny adaptation of my favourite book but in Different Beast (my fave song from Epic but it’s being ruined) Odysseus sings ‘I don’t have a daughter’. This is perfectly fine in context but the Tras have started using it to joke about trans!Telemachus.

At first I ignored this but they’re still talking about it, drawing art about it and now they’ve started saying ‘this is the modernised Odyssey’. I even saw people saying it’s transphobic not to headcannon Telemachus this way. It’s so annoying seeing them take a character like Telemachus who I’ve cared about before some of these people learn the alphabet and turn him into some annoying as trans ally.

I have plushys named after this guy (parents didn’t let me name our dog after him), see him as the ideal (and only good tbh) man and he’s just generally my comfort character. I don’t want to associate him with the removal of woman’s rights and the disfigurement (idk if that’s the right word so sorry if it’s mean) of children. It sucks that they have to go and trash everything without knowing anything about the source material.

[mrs-starkgaryen]

House of the Dragon as Greek Mythology

☀️ (My other collages) ☀️

Jacerys Velaryon as Apollo