odiko-ptino

[odiko-ptino]

Do you atill wirte about Ares? I found your works from 2018 and I loved them so much! If you still have headcanon or work with him I'll glad to hear about it!

Hi!! Thank you very much for this!! I still deeply love Ares, he’s my favorite and I’m always happy to hear someone else loves him as much as I do ❤️

I… kinda still write things for him, and the others. I actually started to write a fic with him and Icarus watching the solar eclipse from earlier this month.

My main trouble is being able to finish anything anymore… I get an idea and manage to write a page or so, and then Life Happens and it never gets wrapped up. But i definitely still do write for my favorite god and think about him daily 😁 maybe I can manage to write a headcanon here and there still…

Off the cuff, check out this radical boar statue I saw recently and made me think of Ares ❤️ 🐗

The eyes glowed in the dark, it was HARDCORE

#thank you very much for sending me this ❤️ #I keep hoping someday my life will turn around again and I can go back to writing #it’s been a rough couple of years #I did write a bit about the eclipse #and about him and Artemis watching Hermes and triton being competitive #I’ve always liked imagining what he might be doing *outside* the known myths

[odiko-ptino]

If you ever upload the dragon wlw, please know I’d be eternally grateful 🙏😭 no pressure though!! Loved the snippet you shared :)

(I had three asks like this! 😳)

Well I appreciate that thought! I might consider it someday… tbh I have really always felt I wasn’t very good at writing sex. I feel like I write it too detached, like an alien robot curiously describing the act but not really “getting” it. And because i actually don’t think sex it’s very interesting by itself, I tend to write more… “novel” situations, which makes it pretty niche 😅 hard to feel confident about it… but I’ll consider it ☺️ I appreciate the feedback a lot though!

#people keep trying to encourage me by showing me some objectively terrible sex scenes from successful novelists #and part of me knows that there’s no way I’m worse than those 😅 #but I still feel embarrassed when I see what I wrote all alien robot style #I think more self conscious because that’s how *I* see sex #it’s a curiosity that results in nice feelings #I don’t understand passion and I can’t fake my way writing it #so I guess if you’re sure that’s what you want lmao #‘she shuddered bodily and began gnawing at my arm as she came. how curious!’ kind of approach

[odiko-ptino]

*arrives late but with tiramisù*

Hello there! Can you tell me more of One of those little guys from the forest, please?

And also, asking this as a totally uninterested, uninvolved stranger: what about the mysterious Witch of Bramble Woods?

Well hello there! I brought two forks, let’s share the tiramisu of lateness together for my delayed reply 😅❤️🍰

Everything under the cut for alacrity!

“One of those little guys from the forest” is a fic I’ve been writing that Erinye requested! Where her version of Apollo meets an original character I’ve been writing for (part of the same universe as the dragon wlw) - Oddjack is a little guy from a forest, probably fae, listening to one of Apollo’s impromptu musical sessions, and Apollo assumes he’s one of Dionysus’ retinue. He’s the guy you may remember from an art exchange where only one person was timely on their end and it wasn’t me ❤️ 😅

A snippet:

“Do you belong to Dionysus, then? His retinue?” This… odd little fellow… doesn’t look much like a satyr, but he’s certainly ugly enough, to qualify, particularly wandering out of the trees with reedpipes in hand.

Normally, these factors would lead directly to Apollo dismissing him from his presence; but the strange creature appears to be a child, or at least childlike, and possibly male, so Apollo feels he might fall under the sphere of Apollo’s own influence.

“No. I walk alone.”

This line is dramatic enough to belong to one of Dionysus’ masked performances; but the little fellow speaks it simply while watching a butterfly float past, ugly little face smiling curiously.

Well, Apollo can be prone to curiosity too, so long as nothing better happens to be going on.

“But you must have come from somewhere, hmm? A solitary forest daemon?”

The little guy shrugs. “I always turn up in a swamp.”

“Ahh.”

Now it comes together. Apollo can’t recall any of the Heleionomai off the top of his head - but he knows of all her retinue, the water-based nymphs are the ones Artemis complains about being the hardest to wrangle, water being notoriously difficult to hold. Apollo supposes this creature must be the offspring of a wayward swamp naiad - genetically, these demigods tend to be a gamble, and it looks like this one struck out with the looks. But he seems well-mannered enough, which is rare.

“The swamp where the Styx drains, usually,” the creature goes on, and Apollo’s ichor freezes.

————-

Aaaaaaand, for the second prompt: “uninterested,” eh? 😁well, speaking of art exchanges that haven’t been fulfilled yet! someone has been writing a very engaging crossover where their very sweet grandma-souled DAI Inquisitor is also the Dark Lord Sauron 😁 and in my fic of that story, Aisling has retreated from the kingdom of Men and the forests of the elves… to take up residence as the Witch of Bindbole Wood, a few miles from Hobbiton. Where she falls into a gradual friendship with a very mistrustful Sam Gamgee.

Snippet for your perusal! They’re on the road to Gondor:

“How are you ladies holding up?” Captain Rutherford’s voice drifts over as his mount trots up to meet with their ponies.

Rosie and Elanor smile at him. “Quite well, Captain, and thank you for the asking!” Rose replies.

“We were just remarking on how pleasant it is now - now we’re used to these ponies, and we’ve left the marsh road behind!” Elanor chimes in, as though she hadn’t been playing Bandits and Bounders in Rushock Bog only six months ago with her siblings and cousins.

“Pleasant riding weather, to be sure,” Cullen agrees amiably. “Though… I wish those storm clouds behind us would dissipate…”

All three of them hide smiles as they look behind at where Aisling and Sam are back at it again.

“I just don’t know how you can stand by planting *kingsfoil* all about the place, but you draw the line at a sensible plant like hogweed,” Sam is saying stubbornly.

“If I wanted hogweed for something, I’d simply go out and forage for it, rather than fight it off of my flowerbeds two hours every day!” Aisling replies hotly.

“Give the kids a half stick of honey apiece to do it for you, if you hate it so much! At least hogweed doesn’t bring all the cats to do *worse* in your flowerbeds like kingsfoil would!”

Cullen winces as Aisling “Telvido, Princess of the Cats” visibly bristles.

“Perhaps I could go over and bring up how nice and helpful dandylions are? Something they can agree on,” Elanor suggests doubtfully.

“Not enough. Let’s combine forces,” Cullen leans over conspiratorially to the young hobbit lass. “You mention dandylions to distract them momentarily, and I’ll flank in with a comment about how as long as we’re on the topic of weeds, we ought to start clearing all the nettles from the gardens within Minas Tirith. They’ll team up to yell at me together.”

Rose laughs softly. “Are you sure you’d welcome so much scolding on such a lovely day?”

“A soldier is happy to sacrifice himself to save the peace,” he replies solemnly.

#odiko ptino fic #odiko original #odiko Apollo #thank you for the ask!!! #I promise I’ve been working on that story lol

[odiko-ptino]

Dragon wlw? :v

The dragon wlw story is not Greek mythology - I’ve spent most of my time writing outside the fandom these days. Also, I guess that file name ought to have had a “monsterfucker” warning 😅

This story involves a female performative fighter type (think gladiator-ish) who’s approaching middle age, when most people age out of this career field… and she decides she wants to go out in a blaze of glory by going off and defeating a dragon.

Instead of doing that, she ends up being found, lost in the winter mountains, by a (lady) dragon who was standing guard while the rest of her clan sleeps in their cave. The dragon is curious about her so she invites her to stay in the cave until spring. They learn about humans and dragons respectively, get curious about each other’s bodies, and it all ends in monsterfucking ❤️

Snippet (sfw) below the cut:

She wasn’t hunting anything, as it turned out; and I didn’t know what it was I was seeing at first. She wasn’t far from the entrance, and still in the lee of the crag, though the snow still swirled about her. Her body was stripped of the cloth skin she wore, and she was attempting to beat the cloth against the rock in some baffling fashion. Her posture was hunched, clearly affected by the cold.

Mildly concerned, I went over to see what this was about.

“Hygiene ain’t at the top of my list, but at some point it’s gotta be considered,” she said through chattering teeth. She said she was trying to beat the water out of the cloth, in an attempt to wash it, but the cloth was freezing and frankly, so was she.

My little beastfool companion will be the first to admit she is a lady of action, not thinking.

I grabbed her bodily and breathed onto her, empty smoke pouring out of my nostrils over her skin, and her grumbling protests were interrupted by a rather obscene sound of relief.

I tossed the rags over my back and brought the whole lot, woman and cloths, back inside, breathing empty smoke on her the whole way. She was almost limp when we got back in to where the air was merely cool.

“Thanks,” she said groggily, “didn’t think that one through.”

“You never do,” I said distractedly. Distracted, because I was regarding her nude body at length for the first time.

…..aaaaaand cut to curtains lol. I’m not much use when it comes to smut, I think 😅 anyway hopefully you don’t regret your choice in asking for this one 😅 thanks for the ask!

#odiko original #if no one else asks for it #there’s one on the list I’ll specifically post for you #because it features your boi

[odiko-ptino]

War gods in the underworld? sounds chaotic and very fun!

This one is kind of an anthology of mini stories… fundamentally it’s a crossover with Egyptian mythology. It’s… pretty far removed from canon, and VERY self indulgent 😅 It’s so hard to write a description because it relies so much on my own convoluted headcanons!

But the idea is that, Ares befriends Horus after that myth where the gods all fled to Egypt, and the two of them enter the underworld together during the episode where death has pretty much stopped because Thanatos was captured… which in this story, is a VERY BIG COSMIC PROBLEM. Very chaotic and dangerous. Ammit is featured, Tartarus as the eldritch incarnation of itself is featured. And Horus, being in the underworld, is gradually changing into Osiris…

As weird as it sounds, I actually have a lot of fun writing this story 😅 I like the idea of Ares hitting it off with people who understand his dualities, and really proving himself by going in to face the dangers of the Underworld. Here’s one quick snippet of Horus and Ares talking about why Ares fled Typhon in the first place:

<Horus> “I just find it difficult to believe that someone who faced *Ammit,* and is prepared to wade through all the miasma to tame Tartarus itself, would have a care for some snake-headed monster, no matter how loud the roar…

Ares watches the miasma swirl.

“ Yeah, well… I wasn’t really that scared then, to be honest. I just ran because that’s what everyone else was doing, and Zeus said it was his demon to face, which seemed fair.”

“But… you’ll *be* him someday, won’t you? So it’s your demon to face too?”

“…huh?”

“Never mind. I suppose the Greeks do things differently.”

“Do you mean, will I succeed him? Definitely not. Old man’s gone to a lot of work to make sure he’ll be on top forever. And even if he did die…”

Miasma keeps swirling. It’s not doing anything noteworthy, but it does give him something to stare at.

“…I didn’t know until later that *she* <Athena> stuck around. Didn’t know that disobeying him was an option.… made me look pretty… pretty bad, afterwards. That she faced him alone, after Zeus fell.”

“Ah,” Horus replies softly. Horus thinks, Ares had complained of the complicated relationships between gods of Egypt, but it seems the Greeks are not immune, in their own way.

#odiko ptino fic #odiko ares #odiko Horus #I’m so invested in this weird unpublishable story lol #thanks for the ask! #❤️❤️❤️

[odiko-ptino]

As much as I would like to hear about all of them, how about the "Hermes Aesop?"

“I will send her a different message, if you don’t object. I will tell your mother… that her son’s name will be spoken still, thousands of years from now. That the world will forget the name of his master, and these politicians, and even struggle to recall the names of all but the greatest philosophers - but children half the world over, lifetimes away, will know her son Aesop and his stories and his name will be a thing of joy when it is uttered.”

This one was something I thought of after I found a copy of Aesop’s fables in Chinese. It’s kind of incredible when you think of it - especially considering Aesop was a humble slave.

In this fic, Hermes is offering to take a message to Aesop’s (dead) mother, who also died a slave, and he makes this prophetic statement after he sees that Aesop is feeling pretty down about it all.

Thanks for the ask! ❤️

#odiko ptino fic #odiko Hermes #odiko Aesop #I always deeply loved these two #their dynamic #the shared love of stories that are silly and bring people together

[odiko-ptino]

WIP meme!

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as you have WIPs

Tagged by @littlesparklight ❤️

Here’s a list near the top of the pile at least lol:

War gods in the underworld

Starting the fire

Witch of bindbole wood

One of those little guys from the forest

Hermes Aesop

Dragon wlw

Heist

out of body

I’ve been inactive so long I hardly know who to tag anymore 😭 let’s see…

@orchidzach @my-name-is-apollo @greypetrel @aimee-maroux @firekeeperannwyl @kashuan @hermes-is-my-homeboy @a-gnosis

#this isn’t anything close to ALL the files in the folder lol

[odiko-ptino]

Bringing together the three different possible killers of Adonis, for the meme. :)

#poor Adonis lol #just standing there looking pretty and harmless #one of my old ideas that I deeply wish I could have followed through on #was a murder mystery fic: a whodunnit with this exact scenario

[odiko-ptino]

has anyone else been seeing the tweets about a lotion from sephora that attracts spiders

#not mythology #all the thirst boy spiders #all yours for like $50 a bottle

[odiko-ptino]

Hi! I'm a Swedish comics artist that makes comics inspired by Greek mythology.

My comics archive

My ko-fi shop

#I assume everyone is already familiar with this extremely talented and creative legend #but in case you weren’t aware!!! these comics are GREAT

[odiko-ptino]

hi I’m ten seconds away from bawling my eyes out what the fuck why is it so thing ITS LITERALLY FULL OF LOVE AND JOY AND NICE I’m gonna be sick.

baby black vulture. I’m in fucking shambles. “vultures are ugly vultures are scary mimimimi” FUCK YOU THAT THING IS LITERALLY LOVE.

#ares fan blog #vulture #someone else said ‘they’re blameless because everything they eat has already perished’ #an interesting thought in context of being Ares’ birds #separately I love vultures though #their eyes look so soft and sweet #and they really are the gentlest birbs #and of course they’re a lot like my beloved turkeys aesthetically

[odiko-ptino]

Hi! Every once in a while I get back into Greek mythology and I think about your account, and I always love to hear your thoughts, like Till we have faces a long time ago.

Im taking a Greek mythology course in university as an elective, and we just went over Jason’s myth, and Medea’s character really caught my attention. I kinda like her as a character right now. Like most women in Greek myths she was wronged by men, but she herself was also definitely wrong and maybe even a bit extreme in many events. I just feel like she stands out quite a bit and I enjoy how different she is. Do you have any thoughts on her character?

Hi!! Thank you very much, I still love Greek mythology and I miss being able to rant about it as much as I used to!

What do you think of your elective class? I am only a hobbyist as far as studying mythology, though I have to believe I’ve logged enough hours studying it that I might as well have made it official lol. Im curious how an official academic teaches it!

As for Medea: endlessly fascinating figure. My Medea rants are a little unhinged and rambling so sorry in advance lmao.

I may or may not have mentioned before that I empathize with Jason more than is socially allowable 😅 I can really identify with being torn between standing by someone who helped me immensely early in life, even though they’re currently turning into bricks that are dragging to the bottom of the ocean… or cut ties with them, especially if it’s what everyone around me is telling me to do. I think Jason made the wrong choice, but it wasn’t as flippant as it often gets portrayed.

BUT regarding Medea herself - what a hell of a character. A lot of people forget that she was kind of an asshole herself - extremely cool, genius, capable, yeah! But also, she did murder her brother and chop up his body and strew it into the water, to slow her father down and allow her getaway, so… I don’t feel like she has too much of a moral high ground to be mad when someone decides to cut ties with her.

The speech she gave was, in that context, slightly disingenuous- a gal like Medea always has options, with or without a husband, and frankly Jason was holding her back just as much as she was holding him back, in my opinion. The only thing he would have been good for was if she’d had big interests in joining respectable society, and I just don’t see that from a badass murderous witch.

But her speech was pretty legit as far as a critique of how (non-Medea) women were treated in that society - and I think it was fair for her to be pissed that he ditched her for not being the prim submissive wife he needed in order to get ahead at that point.

Like it was GREAT to have a badass murderous witch as a wife out on the Seas of Adventureland when he needed to fend off monsters and outwit gods! But that kind of woman only has a place in Adventureland, not in respectable society. He would never have ditched a male companion like this, and I feel that’s the crux of her complaint.

The essential fact is that the place where Jason wanted his life to go, wasn’t a place where Medea could be - and I think it’s fair to remember that Medea was made to fall in love with Jason by Hera/Eros/Aphrodite - it’s not completely Jason’s fault either. They’re totally incompatible and if you trace it far enough back, the reason they ended so unhappy boils down to a god with an agenda.

TL;DR I think Medea was better off without such a milquetoast husband to begin with, but he wasn’t in a great position either. Personally if she’d had to marry anyone at all (which I DON’T think she needed to honestly), I think she ought to have stuck with Herakles, who was really welcoming to her when she was on the run later, and I’m absolutely confident she could have held her own with him. But if I REALLY had my way, I would have had her hook up with Atalanta while she was on the Argo! They would have already connected as the only two women on the ship; and they were both women who, in different ways, didn’t belong in their assigned roles, so think they really could have hit it off.

@aimee-maroux wrote that once! Though I’m not sure if it’s posted on Tumblr?? I would have liked to write it myself, but if there’s one thing I cannot do, it’s write Sexy Stuff 😩 but damn there’s potential there

#thank you for this ask ❤️ #I miss talking mytho #it’s felt so poisonous to be a mytho nerd on this site in recent years #so it makes me happy to hear nice things from someone #odiko Medea #odiko Jason #odiko Atalanta #man though #Medea and Atalanta

[odiko-ptino]

Sons Of The Labyrinth or The Things Our Fathers Do To Us

#Icarus #Astarion #I love the idea of these two finding friendship #I really like the theme of doomed Greek figures getting peace and closure in the afterlife #like this comic or the Medusa fic #I feel like I could write a whole series but it seems macabre

[odiko-ptino]

people who write on their phones (word mobile, gdocs app, scrivener mobile, notesapp, etc) how does it feel to be taunting god every single day

#omg this is something I do too #write fics on my phone AND text myself notes and inspo #the numbers of close calls I’ve had…

[odiko-ptino]

Medusa and the Styx

(A/N: I do subscribe to the version where Medusa was always a monster; also, the things with Hermes' coins and Charon's song are (as far as I'm aware) my own invention, not canon. Thanks to @my-name-is-apollo for beta reading!! Hope you enjoy!)

All things considered, the bank of the Styx isn’t so terrible.

Medusa “awakens” there, with no memory of having arrived, but unlike many of the other wailing shades, it doesn’t take her long to figure it out.  She’d had perfect clarity when she saw the youthful face locking eye contact with her through the polished shield.  And her own beheaded face is cradled in her arms, which is another clue.

Many of her victims are here – unable to receive proper funerary rites, as statues decorating a monsters’ den.  They don’t recognize her, since they died the instant they saw her – too fast for visual details to be retained by the shades.  For the best, she decides; if she’s going to spend an eternity here with them, that would have been incredibly awkward.

It’s not so bad here though.  She misses her sisters, yes; but, well… she had known, as a mortal, that she would be separated from them someday.  And there are many other mortals here, unlucky just as she was, or unloved…

… and even here, in this shadowy place, she’s grateful to know she doesn’t belong in that second category.

——

The aeons pass, and some of the souls end up crossing after all.  Sometimes they get a very-delayed proper burial; sometimes, Lord Hermes of the Coin slips them their fares. 

Medusa doesn’t know what to make of him.  He hides his agenda behind a cheeky and lighthearted smile, joking gently as he presses coins into the hands of weeping shades, and waving as they board Charon’s gloomy boat.  As a mischievous god of trade who moonlights as a psychopomp, it seems to be a kindness he does with the overlapping duties. 

She has already respectfully refused his offer of coin a number of times before she learns of his role in her death, and her posthumous use as a weapon of mass destruction by his champion.

Or, Athena’s champion.  That might be more precise.

She doesn’t get angry about much anymore, down here in the shadows, but learning this fills her with an anger and despair that leaves her almost sick, and she has to go to the waters, letting the cold dark liquid lap at her bare feet while she weeps for the first time since she awoke, and whispers her curses to the current.

To think that the gods could hate her, a humble Gorgon, enough to consign her to such a fate…!  She weeps, she curses, for quite a long time.

And then she recovers herself.  How silly.  The sheer number of souls here in this place, who crossed the wrong god on the wrong day, reminds her that the wrath of the gods is impersonal in the end.  There is only one god who to whom Medusa’s name meant anything of true import.

All the same, impersonal or not, it’s another reason for her to politely refuse Lord Hermes’ coins when he offers.  She wonders if he knows who she is.

—-

He came through at one point.  Between aeons (time is slippery in the underworld).  She’d recognize that face anywhere.  Him.  Perseus.

He gets a fast track to Charon’s boat, escorted personally by Lord Hermes.  Perseus is older now, scarred from many wars and many monsters, but still golden and beautiful and Medusa hides from him and weeps for the second time, tears dripping into the waters of the Styx.

——

More aeons, more shades.  She befriends them; they move on eventually.  Some (living) heroes come and go; some heroes attempt but end up joining the shades on the banks of the Styx, before eventually moving on in the traditional way.

Medusa finds her social life has improved greatly, being dead.  The shades cannot be harmed by her gaze anymore; and furthermore, everyone here develops an inability to be shocked by such generic horrors as snake hair.  Who cares?  You can see the three-headed beast Cerberus on the far shore; and the grim chronic entities stalking the area – of whom, Charon might be the most frightening in appearance, though he’s also the mildest temperament.  So there’s no reason at all for anyone to be bothered by her face, which is refreshing.

She’s grown so accustomed to this new arrangement that it’s almost a surprise to her when someone asks her why she hasn’t moved on.

The person asking this is a woman, tall and beautiful and grim, and Medusa is on her feet bowing almost before the woman has finished asking.

“Great Lady of the Dark Waters,” she says, nearly touching her forehead to the ground. 

“Yes, I.  Styx.”  The woman – the goddess Styx – waves her hand impatiently.  “I asked why you tarry here on my bank.  You let go of your anger and loss quickly enough.”

“Yes, Lady.”  Medusa’s speech had been rather rough and guttural and monosyllabic at the time when she had been murdered, but she’s speaking better these days, through practice.  “Served no purpose to be angry, I saw.”

“Then why?  Move on.  The bank isn’t intended to be a home. There are some that wait longer, but Lord Hermes has coin for all who need it.”

“Don’t want his coins, Lady.”

Lady Styx is a fierce goddess but her voice is soft.  “You fear him?”

“No.  But I don’t like him much.”

This makes Lady Styx throw her head back and laugh, a startling effect from such a stern visage. 

“He tries my patience sometimes too.  But I do like him, all the same.”  She’s serious again.  “Neither he nor any other can harm you here.  It is forbidden.  The Great Queen and King have a rough reputation, but I have seen your heart enough over the years to know they have a place for you on the far side of my river.  Take the coins from Hermes and go.  There is nothing to keep you here on this bank.”

“Lady, I thank you, but wrong.  I wait here not for love of the place.”

“For him, then.”  Lady Styx sighs.  “This is not his realm.  He has no place here.  He might well like to see you again, but he cannot.”

“Lady, terrible for me to contradict you twice.  But I hear Charon’s song.”

The Lady’s lips press together.  Charon’s song – a dark, forlorn melody.  He sings as he works, sings of the end of all – the day in the future when the last living god will cross this river.  Then Styx herself will follow.  When all of life folds in at last, in on itself like the famous ourobouros, until all is contained in the underworld and there is no need for the King of the Sea, or even the Sea itself. 

“That will be a long time yet, Medusa.”

“I will wait.”

Medusa says this with conviction.  Her time with Poseidon brought her joy that she had never known; joy she does not wish to forget by drinking from the Lethe.

Lady Styx sighs again, watching Medusa where she stands placidly with her tusked and snake-crowned head in her arms.

“He would not care to see you in this state,” the goddess says finally, and steps over to Medusa, holding out her hands.  It takes Medusa a moment to realize she is meant to hand over her head; and another two moments before she makes herself obey. 

There is a disorienting moment as Lady Styx places the head where it was meant to be – on the jagged stump of Medusa’s neck – and, holding it in place, she closes her eyes and murmurs a few words.  A splash of water coats Medusa’s neck, and then-

“Oh!!”

It has been – centuries , perhaps?  Or perhaps far more, or far less.  But Medusa blinks now at Lady Styx from atop her own shoulders again, and then beams delightedly.  If Lady Styx finds the sight of Medusa’s smile horrifying, as so many have in the past, she doesn’t betray so much as even a twitch of her eyebrow.

“Thank you, La-”

“If you’re here for the long haul, may as well be more comfortable,” Lady Styx cuts off her gratitude.  A brusque and serious goddess, no doubt, but Medusa cannot see her as forbidding and frightening anymore.

She has more in store to amaze Medusa, though.  “I can pass him a message, if you’d like,” she offers casually, then her mouth quirks as Medusa’s tusks flip downward in a bewildered frown.

“Truly.  I am no courier, but all waters are connected.  I can reach the Sea and give its king a simple message.”

Medusa knows the words, immediately.  She has thought of this daily since the moment she realized where she was. 

She will not waste her time asking him to remember her; he surely does.  Nor will she ask him to come to her before his time; it would be inappropriate to ask.

In fact, her message is not a request at all.

“Tell him… I remember, the smell of mountain thyme, in the meadow where he laid me down, where we knew each other.  Tell him I can draw the exact shape of the clouds that day.  Tell him the cicadas that made him laugh in annoyance, were the beautiful music I hum to myself when I remember him.  For me, Mountain Thyme is his domain.”

——

The aeons pass, and it’s not so bad.  Shades come and go; the Lady Styx is a constant and reassuring presence; Charon sings his dark song about the day when Medusa will see him again.

Medusa hums along happily, looking down from a face that is atop her shoulders, and waits for the scent of mountain thyme to reach her.

#odiko ptino fic #odiko medusa #odiko styx #AHHHHRGH this was so hard to write #i felt like an engine that couldn't turn #i'd love to think i can bring it back #i miss writing #anyway I really wanted to write a happy ending for Medusa that didn't undermine what she went through

[odiko-ptino]

2: The Skogsrå from Bramble: The Mountain King

Bramble: The Mountain King is a horror and adventure game based on Nordic folklore. Naturally, the Skogsrå ("forest spirit", also known as the Huldra) is one of the bosses you have to fight. I think their design for the Skogsrå is really cool, even if they made her a bit more malicious than she was in folklore (she certainly was a dangerous creature, but she didn't kill people like that. Though considering it's supposed to be a horror game, the changes make sense).

#skogsrå #bramble: the mountain king #tw body horror #nordic folklore #AHHHHHH #THE SKOGSRÅ #that scene felt so like…. powerful. I think they must have beefed her up in the game from how she was in the tales #but it felt like facing an old god #defeating her felt sad too even though she was violent and malicious #man that whole game had some Emotions #anyway fantastic job!! #she looks beautiful and dangerous and wild #(is there a basis for the swamp witch & monster btw?? the reference seemed Specific #the two women dealing with the mylings

[odiko-ptino]

Greeks are putting out books to clean up the misinformation Westerners have spread about our myths and I LOVE it.

Ioanna puts the focus on Demeter and I am here for it! Demeter is the protagonist of this story, after all.

In the reviews so far it looks like Ioanna depicts the Greek gods as powerful, as we truly see them in our culture. I really hope it keeps the balance, as the reviewers say.

Greek author, Greek book cover illustrator (Yorgos "Lanthimos" Cotronis) and we are on for a very promising work!

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#interesting! #way to go Greek authors! #I don’t know if I’ve seen any other modern retellings where Demeter is the protagonist of her own story #she does share the spotlight in a few but never as the main protag