#which gives hermes and the twins a possible point of contention

[likethexan]

Your least favourite myth about Hermes?

Hmmm good question anon.

As a Hermes fan I take all of his myths with stride, but if I have to choose myths about him that I don’t like or do not prefer:

It would be the Apemosyne and Crocus myths, for very different reasons. Apemosyne because Hermes Did That (poor girl) and he is painted in a very negative light, and the Crocus myth is just a copy paste of the Apollo Hyacinthus myth 😭 no unrequited love like Zephyrus but the dead boyfriend killed by a discus and becoming a flower is just too on the nose for me

[thecorteztwins]

Idea: Fabian/Pietro but is an Hades and Persephone AU :)

Ok, doing this under a cut both for length and content, warning for a LOT of discussion of noncon because IT’S GREEK MYTHOLOGY:

Ok, so firstly, the version of Hades and Persephone I’ll be basing this on is the original wherein he explicitly kidnaps her, he explicitly abducts her, she is not willing, she does not want to be there, she does not want to be with him, she just eventually gets used to it. I specify this because Tumblr has popularized a very sanitized new version in which Persephone and Hades are this cute happy couple and hooked up very willingly and it’s just all crazy Demeter throwing a fit. Now, I don’t think it’s bad to rewrite new versions of old stories. It’s GREAT. People have been doing that for ages, it’s why there are so many variations on myths and fairy tales. Hell, the Bible literally has books that contradict each other on how the same events went down. And a lot of my favorite works in media are just retellings of familiar stories. So I don’t MIND the idea of going “I am rewriting this myth into something I like better” in itself. But Tumblr has also spread the idea that this is “real” and “original” story, which...no, it is not. Without going too in-depth about ancient texts and translations and stuff, there is no secret older version in which Persephone ever wanted to be with Hades. It has always been a story of kidnapping and implied rape. And there’s no problem if you enjoy the new version that is popular now. I get why a lot of people would! But I just wanted to be clear on WHICH version I’m using, and what kind of content is going to be there. I’m trying to steer away from TOO much darkness here, but also not turn into cute and consensual either. I just don’t want people popping in with comments like “THIS IS WRONG, HADES WOULD NEVER/IN THE ORIGINAL THEY WERE IN LOVE/etc.” You know how people can be when your preferred version of something isn’t their preferred version/the popular version.OK, so Magneto is our Zeus (king of the heavens, lots of kids, isn’t a rapist like Zeus but he sure does enter into a lot of relationships with younger women and slanted power dynamics). Exodus is our Poseidon, he’s Magneto’s lieutenant, his second in command. He’s equally benevolent and destructive, just like the sea, and his sanity shifts like the tides. And Fabian is the third in command and thus given domain under the Underworld, considered the most undesireable of the territories. As in Greek myth, what it lacks in beauty and life (not just no living people/animals, but no flowers and plants and natural beauty either), it makes up for in wealth. The Greeks believed it was literally UNDER the ground, which of course is where gems and minerals were mined, hence why Hades was also the god of riches. In a swap from Greek canon, where Poseidon is as much of a horndog as Zeus and Hades only takes (literally) a woman once, Exodus is celibate and Fabian is...not. Fabian is, well, Fabian. And that seems counterintuitive, right? The seas are teeming with life, just as Poseidon had many children. The Underworld is by definition devoid of life, which is probably why Hades had only woman and it was his wife, and why they never (unless you scour some really obscure stuff) had any children. So, what gives?Much like Fabian started as Magneto’s favorite and first lieutenant only to be replaced by Exodus, it was originally so here too. The stoic, ascetic, loyal Exodus ruled the Underworld, as constant and true as death itself, while the ficke and fertile Fabian ruled the sea with many consorts and an endless stream of children. But Fabian decided to imitate the wrong religion and pull a Lucifer with an attempted coup on Magneto, and thus Magneto swapped his and Exodus’s positions. All of Fabian’s former concubines became lakes and streams, separated from the sea. All his children were transformed into the countless life forms that live in the ocean---the fish, the crabs, the coral, the seals, and so on. All of them once women and children. Cruel and unfair? Sure, but that’s how it goes with gods. Lots of collateral damage and people getting turned into animals/plants, mostly women who didn’t deserve it.Now that Fabian ruled the realm of the dead, Magneto also forced him to take on Exodus’s celibacy. No wives, no women, no children. No sex or fertility could fester in a realm by definition devoid of life. Fabian attempts to weasel around this law as much as he can, but Magneto makes it so that he can’t do anything with the dead souls there, and anyone living he tries to bring there will die the instant they enter. And he’s not allowed to leave. So he tries bargaining. The Underworld has metal, lots of it. You know what Magneto loves? Metal. You know what there isn’t any of up in the Heavens? Metal! Fabian will give him ALL THE IRON (because for some reason that’s Magneto’s fave instead of gold or silver, go figure) if he lets Fabian fuck again. Magneto agrees that he’ll let Fabian have ANY consort of his choosing, so long as he agrees to three rules:- He can only have ONE, and they must wed. No harem.- They must be divine or semi-divine. No mortals. This is the only bride he’s getting, so they have to last.- They must be a man. The justification Magneto gives is he doesn’t want any chance of children but actually Magneto just wants to fuck with him a little because he hates him.Fabian, naturally, turns this down because WHAT THE FUCK MAN! But as he gets more and more stir-crazy over the ages, he finally gives in, takes the bargain, and sets out on a quest to find THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMANLY GOD OR DEMI-GOD MAN HE POSSIBLY CAN!Magneto is amused.Anyway, Fabian watches the surface world for ages through caves, crevices, etc. Since Magneto has cursed him not to be able to actually set foot there, that’s how he sees out into the world of the living, through all the holes in the earth. He does this for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, because he’s that picky, but also getting more desperate with every century too.Enter Pietro, our Persephone, though the role he fills as a deity is more like that of Hermes/Mercury, the super-fast messenger of the gods. Fabian never met him before because he always thought himself too important to use a mere messenger, always demanding an audience with Magneto himself.Speaking of Magneto, he is the father of Pietro and his twin Wanda via a mortal woman. Giving birth to the children of a god placed a strain so great on her body that she dissipated into nothing upon their birth, and they were raised by Bova, the divine cow, until they were old enough to join the world of humans, at which point she left them with a worthy human couple who had lost their own twins. They grew up, discovered their godly powers and heritage, and joined the pantheon, but that’s another story.Anyway, Pietro has wed an elemental, Crystal, and they have a demigoddess daughter, Luna. The only time the super-fast Pietro slows down is to spend time with them (or his sister). Crystal, as an elemental, loves nature, so they’re all having happy family time in this beautiful green glade, splashing about in a lagoon with a waterfall.And the waterfall has a cave behind it, which Fabian can see from. Now, Pietro is pretty, but he’s hardly womanly. He’s got a sharp face and lean muscles and his personality isn’t what I’d call particularly effeminate, going by stereotypes. But he’s still lovely and lithe, and he fits the criteria given by Magneto---male and divine---and Fabian is DESPERATE at this point. So he sees this elfin, attractive dude and he’s just like YES THIS IS IT THIS IS DEFINITELY PRACTICALLY A WOMAN AND THIS IS THE ONE I WANT!So he tells Magneto he’s found his choice, and Magneto lifts the curse long enough for him to obtain his “bride”. Normally no one is fast enough to catch Pietro, he’s the freaking wind itself, but the moment Magneto gives Fabian the “okay” the ground opens beneath Pietro and swallows him up right before his family’s eyes. Next thing he knows, he’s in the Underworld and this huge dude in a cape is standing over him, yammering about how lucky he is to be chosen and how their wedding will be an event to remember for centuries and blah blah blah.Naturally, Pietro is less than thrilled, and punches Fabian in the face without even realizing who he is. He then zooms around the Underworld and realizes where he is, and that there’s no exit. Cue Fabian gloating about how there’s no escape for him and he’s his now. Pietro says that just because he’s HERE doesn’t mean that Fabian can touch him at all, and he does a damn good job of keeping away from the guy. Fabian is more frustrated than ever...then remembers that gods get hungry too. They can’t starve to death, but they do get hungry.And nothing grows in the Underworld. So Pietro is zooming around down there evading Fabian and all the forces he sends to capture him---monsters, Furies, ghosts, Cereberus---but he can’t escape his stomach. He’s ravenous. But he can’t find any food here. Why would there be? No one here needs to eat. As Pietro gets more and more desperate for a single scrap, who appears before him, pomegranate in hand, but Fabian.”Gods cannot starve, but we do hunger, as you do,” he says, as though Pietro needs reminding,”And I too am a god. Any food that is here is in my castle. Be my bride and---”He doesn’t even get to finish before Pietro snatches the pomegranate away and runs once again.Just like Fabian KNEW he would. He knew that Pietro would steal it and run. It was the plan all along.Pietro cracks the pomegranate open, but he only gets six seeds down before he feels the CHANGE happening. Something is WRONG with him. Has he been poisoned? Can a god be poisoned? He cannot die, but he knows he can suffer. And something feels very, VERY strange right now.He drops the pomegranate, and it rolls away, stopping at the booted feet of Fabian.”I was hoping you’d eat more before you caught on,” he says, “But you are, after all, a quick one.”PIetro demands to know what has been done to him. Fabian explains that everything in his domain becomes his when it enters. That’s why none of the other gods come here. And food does not grow here, but it can be brought here. And once it comes here, it also becomes his. Anyone who eats it becomes his---meaning, dead. In Pietro’s case, he can’t die, but it can take his godly powers. He is immortal still, but so long as he is in the Underworld, he will lack his famous speed.He can’t run from Fabian anymore. He fights him, but the larger man drags him back to his dark palace, carved from polished obsidian and basalt, coming out of the rock walls of the Underworld itself. It’s beautiful inside, so much so that Pietro is stunned for a moment in spite of his situation. This is not what he expected the dismal domain of the dead king to be; its opulence outshines even Heaven itself. He’s thrust into a plush and beautifully decorate room the size of a house, told that these are his chambers, and everything he could ever need or want is there. There’s a huge crystal tub with steaming groundwater pouring in, gilded and velvet furniture stuffed with the softest fur of slain animals, paintings (mostly of Fabian, admittedly) and trinkets and...gowns? There’s a ton of women’s clothing here?Fabian informs him he’ll playing the role of a wife, and Pietro freaks out all over again, screaming at him, throwing things, trying to attack him.This is a mistake. Fabian catches him by the throat and tosses him to the floor, reminding him that he’s not so fast anymore. And when Pietro grabs the nearest little golden statue---a smirking bust of Fabian himself---to try to beat his captor’s godly head in, he’s also reminded that Fabian has guards here, who tear his weapon from his hands and hold him back while Fabian smirks down at him in perfection imitation of the golden bust.He says Pietro will adjust. And that he’d better hurry it up because the wedding is already planned. Fabian has been planning it a damn long time, long before he saw Pietro. It’s gorgeous, it’s huge, it’s opulent, it’s over the top, and he is NOT going to have it ruined by an ungratefully reluctant bride! Er, femininely shy bride!The invites go out and Pietro’s name is on them and that’s when Magneto realizes just who it was that caught Fabian’s eye. And Wanda realizes what happened to her brother. Wanda is our Demeter figure. She’s actually more of a Hestia/Hecate combo in terms of her role as a deity, much like how Quicksilver is Hermes but is playing Persephone’s part here, and she’s his sister instead of his mother, but she plays Demeter’s role as the one person who speaks out against this, the one person who rages, the one person who grieves. She uses all her power to petition her father to go back on his bargain, but he refuses her. He’s not happy about this either, but he won’t become an oathbreaker. Not for Pietro. Maybe he would have for one of his daughters, but not the boy.Wanda tries to rescue Pietro next, but the curse of the pomegranate seeds keeps him bound there in the Underworld, one month for each seed eaten.Half a year, every year.So for half a year, every year, Wanda’s chaos powers go haywire, her witchcraft encircling the world, letting loose cold and winds and magic...and ghosts too. The reason there are so many ghost stories around this time? Wanda is fucking with the Underworld and yanking out as many souls as she can just to spite Fabian. But the wedding still goes on. Fabian still has his bride. Pietro is still trapped for six months a year, and he hates it. He fights it for centuries, even long after he knows he can do nothing. And slowly, he adjusts. He finds small but significant ways to rebel, ways to making Fabian unhappy without provoking retaliation. And some small, awful, shameful part of him...begins to enjoy that at least Fabian values him. Sees him as a treasure. Pays attention to him.The way his father never did. And sometimes, Fabian will throw some kind of attempt at real human kindness in there, something more than cold gifts of gold and jewels, something more than cold hands in the dark. Like when he let Eurydice have her chance to go back to Orpheus. That was for Pietro, because Pietro wanted it, because Pietro asked. It was admittedly not done out of REAL kindness or compassion to Pietro, but just in hopes it would make him more compliant out of gratitude. And Pietro realized he could begin to use that. To make things better for people in the Underworld in whatever small ways he could sway Fabian. He had a purpose here. He could be a hero.And so he became not merely Fabian’s new toy, but the beloved Queen to the dead, the one to whom they petitioned for aid, the only god who would ever hear their prayers. And every six months, Pietro would return to the surface world. Wanda’s rage and grief would cease, and Crystal would make the entire world blossom and bloom in happiness at his return.And Fabian would wait, knowing what was his would come back to him.Oh, and while I’m on this: Haven is Medusa. A religiously devout woman (Medusa was a priestess to Athena) who was wronged by a man and then she was supernaturally punished as a result, making her a monster/villain the rest of her life, as well as apparently pregnant the rest of her life (with Pegasus/the Adversary) and only giving birth at her death. Admittedly we’d have to change her rapist since it was Poseidon and EXODUS AIN’T ABOUT THE LIFE but yeah. And I’d make Monsoon our Pegasus, so her son instead of her brother.

[recentanimenews]

The Road Twice Traveled - A Look forward to Kino's Journey

Kino’s Journey -the Beautiful World- follows a traveler, Kino, who goes from country to country by way of an intelligent motorcycle named Hermes. Kino stays no longer than 3 days at each stop, interacting with locals and observing their unique customs until setting off once more.

  On the Road Again - Animated Ink

  I’ve revisited Kino’s Journey three times. The first was on a recommendation, the second was to acquire content for a convention panel (but I couldn’t stop watching), and the third time was for a feature in Otaku USA. Every (re)visit reminds me of how amazing anime can be.

Fans of the first adaptation know this property, at its simplest, as a dramatic series of tales regarding fantastic worlds outside the one from which the protagonist hails. At its most intriguing, the show is largely self-contained anthropological moral tales dripping with romantic and Buddhist influence. So how will audiences familiar with Kino’s Journey receive the reboot?

To start, it is with a heavy heart I say that the director of the beloved first adaptation, Ryutaro Nakamura, died in 2013. The reboot will see Tomohisa Taguchi (Persona 3 & 4 movies, Twin Star Exorcist) in the director’s chair. This could mean a shift in execution, and judging by the trailer, I’ve a couple reservations.

First is the absence of the TV lines, which I’d argue apropos given this generation’s unfamiliarity with tube-based TVs. But it’s a visual aesthetic that Nakamura insisted upon and one that gives a great feel to the original adaptation.

Secondly, the character designs are pretty on point, but a little too pretty concerning Kino. Kino’s design in the original adaptation is androgynous, but the reboot’s design is slightly more feminine. While I doubt this will be off-putting, I hope the cute factor is not leveraged for exploitation. Speaking of designs, the attention to detail regarding the motorad (Hermes) and Kino’s pistol surely pleases the original author Keiichi Sigsawa, a motorcycle and gun enthusiast.

Lastly, the countries themselves seem to carry the same anachronistic air of sci-fi and history. The backgrounds seem lovely, and the color palate is excellent. All these aspects should help ease the handoff from memory to experience. Even if the episodes are just the same material reimagined, I can’t wait to see what Taguchi does with it!

An Adventure of Hope - Natasha

In contrast to Ink, I've held off on watching the original Kino's Journey ever since Ryutaro Nakamura's death. His shows have always held a special place in my heart and hearing the possibility of Despera never being finished left me feeling a little hollow and wanting to avoid finishing all of his works. Luckily, with the announcement of a new Kino's Journey and some years having passed since Nakamura's death, I feel like I can finally let go of some of my fears and start anew.

I know almost nothing about Kino's Journey, except for the fact that it stars a child and their anthropomorphic bike as they venture across different lands and meet different people. Based on the preview, I can assume that the new series will stick to that premise and deliver in the same vein that the original did. While the character designs seem different, I’ve heard that visual artistry was never the main trademark of Kino's Journey anyways. Rather, the praise the show gets is centered on its atmosphere and execution in simplicity. The strengths of many slice-of-life shows are focused on these elements, but personally speaking, few have managed to find the balance between tone and episodic vignettes like Natsume's Book of Friends and Mushi-shi. Kino's Journey looks like it could follow in those steps – the music is relaxing, the settings are vibrant, and Kino's voice actor (Aoi Yuki) seems well chosen.

Last is the question as to whether this is a continuation or if it's a reboot. As a new viewer, it seems like this will make little difference to me; the beauty of these kinds of shows lies in how easily one can pick them up at any given moment. Maybe the show will have moments tailored for fans who've seen the older series, but I'm sure I can watch this without worrying about being the intended audience or not. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing what adventures Tomohisa Taguchi and studio Lerche bring us this season!

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As contributing editor over at Ani-Gamers, Ink writes and edits articles and reviews pertaining to anime, video games, conventions, and manga. He also co-hosts the Oldtaku no Radio podcast. His reviews and analyses can also be seen periodically within the pages of Otaku USA magazine and online over at Fandom Post. 

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You can find more of Natasha's work by following her on Twitter @illegenes and at her blog Isn't it Electrifying?

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