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genericpuff · 3 months

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Can you call Tina Belcher driving through a parking lot at an anxious snail's pace a driving "style"? So why do we try to use "style" as a defense for LO's pacing problems?

There's something about how Lore Olympus engrosses people within its weekly doses of H x P content and cliffhangers that makes people not realize just how long Lore Olympus takes to get to the point of, well, anything. Many plotlines are setup, and then go untouched for weeks, sometimes months at a time, before seeing any sort of progress, much less a resolution. In this, I'm going to actually give you time ranges on some of the more egregious payoffs and continuations of plotlines that were setup - some that are now resolved, others that have yet to see the light of day.

CONTENT WARNING: I will be discussing the SA plotline, and there will be spoilers for Episode 265. I will also be showing pictures of some rancid ass tattoos, I know that sounds random for what we're discussing, but trust me on this one, I have a point to make. Also there's a Junji Ito panel from The Enigma of Amigara Fault... yeah, that one.

LEUCE

Let's start with an easy one that's not exactly tied to the main plot. The Leuce plotline. She was first introduced in Episode 201 as a 'bargaining chip' from Zeus to Hades, in a misfired attempt to get Hades to call a truce over the embargo between the Underworld and Olympus.

At the time of this episode's release, by all accounts this seemed to be a cut and dry reference to Hades' first wife, Leuce, unfortunately reduced to a mail-order bride who Hades, of course, turns down, because he doesn't want the "I can't believe it's not butter" Persephone, he wants overpriced, tastes-the-same-but-costs-more-because-of-the-brand-name Persephone.

But then she came back, 36 episodes later - in real time, this was roughly 38 weeks for free-to-read users as the series went on a 2 week hiatus near the start of S3 - only to be used as a cliffhanger leading into a recycled Minthe plotline, in which she attempted to seduce Hades in Episode 238, only to be shot down for the second time.

If you're having a tough time wrapping your head around how long 36 weeks really is, that's nine months. If you got pregnant when Leuce was first revealed, you'd be entering the final window of pregnancy by the time she returned, assuming the baby didn't come pre-term.

Another 7 weeks later, enough time to actually get pregnant again following that first baby, we got the sudden continuation of that plot, with Persephone invading her home and filling it with barn animals, with a not-so-subtle threat to Leuce to stay away from her husband.

"But what about the text messages? Were they really from Hades?" Well, if you were someone reading this comic in real time, you wouldn't have this question answered for another SIX EPISODES - that's a month and a half in real time - and the answer would ultimately be "she made it up, she was 'manifesting', none of it's real, they should call her Deleuceional!" Six weeks for a nothingburger answer to wrap up a nothingburger sideplot, all in the pursuit to 'prove' for the 1275903729 time that Hades and Persephone are truly meant to be together.

EROS AND PSYCHE

This is a big one. The Eros x Psyche plotline was one of the most popular romance subplots, second only to Hades and Persephone, throughout the comic. And yet, despite people holding their breath to see what would become of the star-crossed lovers, a mortal and a god-

-readers in September 2021 would not find out how their recent skirmish with Apollo in Episode 171 would resolve itself until Episode 218, A YEAR AND TWO MONTHS - ROUGHLY 60 WEEKS AND A MIDSEASON HIATUS - LATER, and even then it would only show us Eros, who quickly summarizes what happened to him during the entire trial and Kronos arc that his anticipated romance storyline got sidelined for - he got married and now he has a child.

And it wouldn't be for ANOTHER six weeks that his wife and the mother of his child would actually show up, not alongside Eros, but Aphrodite and Hephaestus, in Episode 224.

What happened to her after finally having her 'true form' revealed to Eros? Well, that's not shown for another three weeks in Episode 227. During this a bunch of info about how Psyche got out of that sticky Apollo situation is dumped on us and we just have to go along with it as she becomes a goddess, not because she earned a place among the Olympians, but because Zeus needs her to spy on Apollo, which was actually shown one episode prior in 226.

So let's say you got knocked up again after that Leuce baby, when Eros and Psyche were shot out of the sky. Welp, in the time it took for Rachel to get around explaining what happened to the both of them, now you just had your second baby and for all we know, you could have gone for a third and already be well into or near the end of your first trimester, if you really wanted to get busy. You'd have a Dionysus, a Melinoe, and maybe even a Demophoon. Congratulations.

And speaking of Melinoe-

MELINOE

Turns out the interloper and the child in Tartarus were one and the same, or at least that's what I'm assuming, because otherwise that would mean there's some whole ass other baby to worry about that we haven't even been introduced to yet.

Melinoe, or "the child deity", was first established in Episode 218.

But as per LO tradition, the child would only mentioned in passing every now and then until finally being revealed as Melinoe in Episode 252, a whopping... THIRTY EIGHT FUCKING WEEKS LATER.

And that waiting is still ongoing as Melinoe is, of course, still trapped in Tartarus, with no end in sight. Since then, Hades and Persephone have gotten married, kidnapped a child, Persephone has terrorized a nymph and caused yet ANOTHER genocide, and they've resurrected a child that was suddenly revealed to be Demeter's. Thirty eight weeks and counting of dragging on a plotline that we're supposed to believe is dire while the characters do sweet fuck all.

What was the name of that other dream baby that Rachel referenced from some obscure non-legitimate source?

Riiiight, Brimos. Congrats, there's pregnancy number 4. But can we find a way to make a fifth happen?

KASSANDRA

We're first introduced to Kassandra, another implied victim of Apollo's, in Episode 226 when a photo of her is found on Apollo's pen drive which was conveniently left on the ground for Psyche to swipe.

In Episode 227, they theorize on how they could track down this mystery woman, using either Eros or Aphrodite's abilities to find her through the power of

✨love✨

How will that actually work though? Has anyone ever been in love with Kassandra, or has she ever been in love with anyone else?

Any bets on how long it would be until we'd get our answer?

Episode 251. The same episode where we're finally told about Leuce's delusions, we suddenly skip to the reveal of Kassandra being Apollo's personal oracle.

And it still doesn't end up answering our question as to how Kassandra was tracked down, by the way. Eros and Psyche sorta just conveniently find her at the same time Apollo happens to be there when he's getting her to deliver her big prophecy to him.

That's twenty four weeks, meaning you're now near the end of your second trimester with child #4. Whoever the child is remains to be seen but I'm sure Rachel will find a way to shoehorn another helpless baby into the plot for Hades and Persephone to rescue who we can use for this metaphor.

But none of these come close to the greatest unresolved plotline of them all, the one plotline that has outlasted even the main H x P plotline of Lore Olympus' story-

APOLLO

Or more specifically, the SA. Rachel has tried so hard to twist Apollo into a villain of Disney proportions, through his sudden involvement with Ouranos, while also using him as a mouthpiece for her own critics by having him literally dish out word-for-word the criticisms that have been made towards Rachel's writing of Persephone-

But the core foundation of his plotline goes all the way back to 2018, when he assaulted Persephone, a plotline that has yet to resolve itself or show any progression beyond Rachel's half-baked attempts at speedrunning Persephone's healing process, while Apollo is still at large and hasn't been brought to justice.

We've seen her in very poorly-written therapy where her assault was addressed once. We've seen her grapple with the potential consequences of the SA through a gynecologist scene that, as I've discussed before, does more harm than good in helping the discussion around women's sexual health. And of course, Rachel will pepper in vague references to the SA every now and then when she's bothered to remember that it's a plotline she wrote and still hasn't resolved:

And judging by how the story has been progressing, Rachel seems far more intent on simply using Apollo as a mouthpiece for criticism and a puppet for Ouranos rather than focusing on the bigger issues, all while Persephone has helped more people cope with the assault that happened to her rather than receiving help herself.

What's really telling is that despite half of the Olympians at this point knowing what Apollo did, not one of them even tries to convince Persephone to come forward, or say something themselves. Daphne has more than enough reason to come forward. Artemis, Hera, Eros, Hermes, and Hephaestus all know what he did, and yet none of them say a thing, even when those of them who haven't been conveniently shoehorned out of the plot are still in the same room as him-

The assault scene happened in August 2018. It's been five and a half years since it was established, and while there have been small efforts made to resolve it - from Hera and Hephaestus having the photos deleted to Persephone seeking therapy - there's less reason now than ever for it to not be addressed, especially with so much at stake. I could side with Persephone not wanting to say anything in the beginning, when he was blackmailing her with the photos and her TGOEM scholarship was on the line, but now that she's a Queen, rich, and married to Hades, living in the Underworld where he can't get to her, without any schooling or scholarship or job to worry about or the photos hanging over her head, it comes across as flat out irresponsible that not a single person thinks it's worth mentioning. Even the narrative itself seems to be trying to undo the SA entirely.

At this point, I'm not confident it will be mentioned at all, and that Apollo will be conveniently dealt with as a pawn of Ouranos rather than as a perpetrator of violence towards women.

A FINAL ANALYSIS OF LO'S PACING

There are certainly far more examples of this weekly edging happening throughout LO, but I hope the ones I provided get across the point I'm trying to make about its pacing.

Of course, none of these gaps in time are happening back-to-back-to-back. This is Lore Olympus' writing "style", if you can call it that - constantly bombard the reader with separate plot points so that they'll either not remember the ones that were left behind, or so that Rachel can buy herself time to get herself out of the corner she wrote herself into. It's the equivalent of clickbait, constantly grabbing your attention with shiny new things that will replace whatever you just saw in your brain, on a constantly repeating cycle. It's the writing process of inexperienced amateurs, like what you'd see in short stories written by fifth graders - "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened", with no theme or overarching meaning tying them together; and if you were to ask them why a certain thing happens, especially if it logically doesn't make sense, the answer is just, "well, because it does." There's no rhyme or reason, they just thought it was cool.

And I say "style" because while fans of LO have definitely defended the story's pacing as just a writing style, the actual execution of what they're implying is painful to watch and not what any experienced writer would call a legitimate style. It's not uncommon at all in long-running series like this to jump from plotline to plotline, often times longform stories like these have to balance multiple side plots at once to keep things engaging and to bulk up the plot with more actual content.

But in most cases, the reader will expect the speed of a plot's resolution to be relative to its urgency. If a casual B plot with low stakes is introduced, it's not necessarily doing any harm if it just sits there for a bit before finally being resolved. After all, it's low stakes and no one is being hurt by it existing on the sidelines. It might feel a bit like pointless fluff, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with fluff and it can offer fun and relaxed reprieves from the overarching narrative, assuming you integrate them well so they're not drawing attention away from those more urgent plotlines at the worst possible times (looking at you, Stranger Things S2 Episode 7-)

But when even the high stakes plots are being hung out to dry and treated like distractions and fluff, it comes across less like a decisive writing "style" and more just directionless pantsing from an inexperienced writer who's gotten themselves in way too deep.

And that's what really separates Rachel's writing problems from "style". Style is decisive. Style is the act of referencing over a set period of time, crafting what you like and what you've learned into something new, with rounds and rounds of fine-tuning. Style is experience put into action.

And, while I don't typically like using my own work as a comparison, LORE | REKINDLED is meant to try and recapture the original magic of Lore Olympus' art style and writing foundations - and even then, you can still see the clear difference between Episodes 14 and 44, which use the same panel from the same scene, but look vastly different due to the improvement and refinement that's happened over time.

Same style, but different levels of experience and skill, which is to be expected after weeks and weeks of fine-tuning and deliberate practice.

If you're lacking in your fundamentals, whether in art or writing, you can't equate that lack of skill to "style" because you're not choosing to be inexperienced, you just are. And that's okay! But to try and pass it off as 'style' implies that you're choosing to be inexperienced - when in reality, if you tried to put out anything beyond your skill level, you simply wouldn't be able to, because you haven't gained those skills yet. Like fifth graders writing short stories with the "and then this happened" model, "it's just my style" is often used as an excuse by young artists and writers who don't understand that style is not exclusively an end result of inexperience.

I'm gonna go on a tangent here, but there's this controversial but trendy style in tattooing called 'ignorant', and it's best defined as "tattooing badly on purpose".

These tattoos are regularly praised for their simplistic ingenuity and visual aesthetic but equally criticized for being the opposite of what many artists have worked to overcome - being "bad at art". After all, who would willingly pay for a bad-looking tattoo? It's because it's the style that's in demand. I would argue that it takes a lot of confidence and mastery of the craft to be purposefully bad at it and make it look good, as contradictory as that sounds.

As much as the lines may be wobbly and the anatomy poor, ignorant style tattoos are done purposefully by experienced artists who still know how to properly tattoo. As much as they may look like they were drawn by a middle schooler, they will still heal properly, the lines will hold up, and the client will not (or at least, should not) experience any excessive scarring or unhygienic practices as one would experience from an actual inexperienced artist-

In a genuinely poorly-done tattoo, the evidence of the inexperience is literally written all over the body. The skin swells, the ink bleeds out, the lines are inconsistent in their depth, and there's clear signs of trauma to the skin that will undoubtedly result in a poorly-healed tattoo (and that's not even getting into the larger health risks such as contracting blood diseases due to a poorly kept space). It's not hard to see the difference between a bad tattoo and a tattoo that's intentionally bad.

It's the age old saying in a different medium - only once you learn the rules can you properly break them.

Rachel never learned these rules in her writing and it's evident to anyone who knows these rules and is viewing LO through a critical lens - or in my case, experiencing it on a week to week basis. It's a regularly occurring problem in the medium of webcomics as a whole - thinking that knowing how to draw is enough, and that writing comes dead last, if at all. When in reality, comics are a marriage of art and writing, you can't simply do one really well and allow the other to drag behind. That's not to say there aren't comics that succeed at having bad art and good writing, if anything a well-written comic can save bad art-

But if you have a comic with good art and bad writing, that's when a comic opens itself up to harsher criticism. As much as art may be the visual forefront of comics, if you want to keep your audience along for the long road that stretches ahead, you need to have a strong foundation in writing, or at least, enough of a plan to ensure you're not driving in the dark. The art can be as gorgeous as you want it to be, but if the plot is weak, then no one will have any reason to check back in week to week.

And such is Lore Olympus' biggest weakness. Much of what we praise LO for back in its first season was simply its foundation. It's very easy to praise a story's writing when it hasn't had to payoff what it's setup. Having ideas is easy, and early LO is rife with good ideas - but many of those ideas have since fallen flat, even the ones you wouldn't expect.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, but actually executing them in a way that can be engaging from start to finish and resolve itself in a way that's satisfying is a whole other challenge that many creators, including Rachel, find themselves unable to tackle; and nothing is a greater example of that than LO's third season, which is now fumbling its plotlines that have failed to resolve themselves properly after 5 years, while introducing new ones that serve as mere distractions, as if they were a laser pointer aimed at a cat.

I hear the argument, "LO is a better story if you binge read it" a lot, which - while I can certainly understand in today's culture of content that's churned out to be binged - I still fail to see how it actually makes LO a better story. Binge-reading LO doesn't remove the pointless plotlines. It doesn't fix its blatant timeline problems, its retcons, or its inability to stay focused on one topic for more than 5 panels. All it really fixes is the waiting, the ritualistic toiling over each and every cliffhanger that caps off the weekly episodes just for them to either be resolved in the next week or left behind with no in-between. And while having all that waiting removed certainly makes the reading experience a lot smoother, it doesn't make the story or its writing better.

The relationship between a story's writing and how the audience experiences it shouldn't be overlooked. Many stories depend on how the audience experiences it within the mind to succeed and leave an impression.

Junji Ito utilizes the dreaded page turn to scare his audience, an effect that can only be truly gained and appreciated if you read his books in traditional print.

Marvel spent years meticulously building up its Avengers franchise, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime cinematic event through Avengers: Endgame, which is truly the epitome of "you had to be there", because if you watch Avengers: Endgame in 2024 in your living room, you're likely not going to experience the same level of hype as audiences experiencing it in the theater in 2019.

youtube

The same can be said for James' Cameron's Avatar, which entranced audiences with its innovative motion capture CGI and immersive 3D effects, an experience that could only be lived to the fullest if you saw it in 3D in IMAX theaters back in 2009. Without that experience, most people in 2024 find the movie to be pretty generic and uninteresting, a reverse Pocahontas with blue people in space, but when it first released in IMAX theaters in 2009, it was a cultural and technological phenomenon due to how advanced it was in its VFX. I can't even share with you clips of it, because obviously it would just be proving my point to try and show you how groundbreaking Avatar was in theaters through a bad shaky cam Youtube upload of its IMAX release on Youtube, but let's just say that it wasn't uncommon for people to brag about how many times they'd gone back to watch the same movie just to feel what they felt from the first showing all over again.

All that's to say that while Lore Olympus may offer a 'better' reading experience when binge-read - regardless of whether or not it actually helps the story's pacing problems - the reality is that LO is still being written exclusively with the weekly format in mind, and its been very much to its detriment, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Readers are often left in the dark on plotlines for weeks at a time, Rachel loses track of what she has and hasn't addressed, and the extended waiting times trick readers into believing that weeks have passed in the comic's story, when in reality it's only been a day or two, sometimes as little as hours depending on the sequence; meanwhile, if you binge episodes that had those problems in hindsight, you'll likely be a lot more quick to notice how many plot beats are either retconned or abandoned entirely, because you don't have the weekly waiting times artificially inflating the pacing of the story and causing you to forget what was established weeks before, because when binged, those weeks are reduced to hours and minutes.

And worst of all, with the assumption that you're reading on a weekly basis - as it wants you to do - Rachel tries to pull clever stunts by matching up LO's episodes with real life dates and holidays, which often just makes the story beats feel rushed or random in their execution - because to the vast majority of readers who haven't caught on to this or are reading the episodes through the physical books, they are rushed and random, and they can't exactly explain why.

Binging these episodes doesn't solve the problem, if anything it exemplifies them because, as a shining example, Hades and Persephone suddenly get married right in the middle of an ongoing issue, which isn't exactly the best time to wrap up the story's main plotline. Since then readers have become less and less interested in their story, and can you blame them? By all accounts their story is over. Everything now just feels tacked on to give them something to do in a story they no longer fit into.

There's an episode behind the FastPass lock right now, Episode 265. It unlocks for free on February 17th, three days after Valentine's Day. Guess what episode it is?

Ah yes, the episode where Hades' initiates sex without consent with his wife who's suffering from panic attacks, who also happens to be a rape victim. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

I actually made this particular discovery while writing this essay, so that was a very unwelcome surprise, but it explains the sudden random shift from Persephone being so stressed over the ongoing situation that she's passed out to Hades just deciding for the both of them that now's the time to have sex. As much as the fans will defend this as a husband and wife's last chance at intimacy before diving into a dangerous situation, they'll also still conveniently forget - just like the narrative and Rachel herself - that Persephone is a rape victim, and Hades initiating sex with her after nearly having a panic attack isn't exactly a good look.

This is why our theories as to when LO ends are so firmly cemented in one specific time range, because the story's pacing and distractions seem only intent in one thing - getting the story to last until spring, when the series will most likely conclude. It's basically been all but confirmed by Rachel, from her stating the series would be ending in early 2024, to Inklore - an imprint that seems designed specifically for Rachel and LO - launching officially in spring of this year, undoubtedly just in time for Rachel to wrap up LO for good.

(and boy, do I have some words about Inklore and its plans for "Rachel Smythe Presents", but that's another essay entirely.)

At the end of the day, LO's pacing is equivalent to paint drying on the wall, but it relentlessly convinces us to keep watching because the paint is blue and pink and maybe, maybe it'll turn into a piece of art. But as is evident in the comment sections of the newest episodes, even the fans are starting to realize that paint will not magically turn into the final piece of art they've been waiting to see if the hand that wields it doesn't know what it's doing.

Though style may be gained as an accidental side effect of one's influences and experiences, what Lore Olympus' intent is remains to be seen, and the longer the story goes on, the blurrier whatever intent it could have becomes. Unless it somehow manages to pull off a twist of Attack on Titan proportions that thoroughly explains and ties together the plotlines that have been left in the rearview mirror, the vehicle that is LO will continue to trudge along at a snail's pace, until it inevitably either crosses the finish line or crashes - but by that point, anyone waiting for it could very well be gone, their good faith left behind at the starting line when there was still plenty of time to change its trajectory or stop.

Such a time is long, long gone.

#lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical

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minetteskvareninova · 2 years

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I wish the collective tumblr imagination did for Eros and Psyche what it did for Hades and Persephone. I mean, a lot of that couple’s appeal is based on conjecture - little record of any cheating or dramas (my preferred reading of the Adonis myth notwithstanding), Persephone’s relatively equal status in the Underworld etc. The most concise myth that talks about their relationship is the Rape (or, well, abduction, whatever) of Persephone, which doesn’t talk that much about what Persephone did or felt (which admittedly lends it to reinterpretations explaining why she had such good relationship with her husband afterwards, but again, conjecture) and is less about either of them than it is about Demeter. She is the one who does the most in this story, and her feelings are centred. I understand that people love their “scary misunderstood goth x secretly terrifying flower girl” pairing, and there’s nothing wrong with that! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with conjecture! Greeks themselves didn’t have a set cannon of myths, so warping and reinterpreting these stories is definitely in keeping with their nature. It’s just that, well... You have to admit it’s just conjecture?

Meanwhile, there is nothing uncertain or up for interpretation about the relationship between Eros and Psyche. We know exactly how they met and fell in love, and... Well, I just like that story a lot? As a fan of fairytales, you can tell that a lot of fairytale tropes come from this story. You have the plucky girl who makes great sacrifices for her love and wins thanks to her perseverance and good heart (her arch is actually pretty typical of the “girl saves the boy” kind of fairytales, in that she doesn’t fight threats physically, but by magic or relying on people and animals she helped). You have a mysterious lover whose face she must not under any circumstances see. You have the evil stepmother/mother-in-law archetype who is jealous of the heroine’s beauty... Admittedly, Aphrodite is more justified in her actions than most, considering her idiot son was supposed to punish this girl for being worshipped as the actual goddess of love and beauty, and instead he not only saves her, but gets himself hurt because of her. Which, did I mention how great this story is, because it’s really fucking great. The heroine also has agency, like, right there in the text, but also as in any good fairytale, there is enough space for little tweaks and additions that could make characters a bit deeper. I love this story so much and I wish I wasn’t alone in this.

I’ve already made my peace with the fact that Hades and Persephone are more popular. I am not even mad at that anymore; I’ve long since came to understand that the real problem is “my story is underrated” and not “this other story is popular, which my story isn’t and that’s bad and fault of the other story”. But please, I am begging you. Read on Eros and Psyche. You may not love it as much as I do, in fact you may not like it at all, but at least give it a chance.

#hades and persephone #eros and psyche #greek mythology #random history

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thesungod · 3 months

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I mean- people also tend to say that Hades and Persephone are faithful spouses, even though that's even LESS true than it is for the other Big Three couples- BOTH of them took other lovers. I'm not saying there's no good marriages among the gods: Eros may be horrible in HoO but I'm giving him points for actually having a mutually healthy/happy/faithful marriage to Psyche. Truly he is more of a wife guy than Hades will ever be. But I would not cite Hades and Persephone as a faithful couple with a happy ending. Where are Nico's stepsiblings hiding out

not Nico’s stepsiblings😭

okay, as i see it: it’s very much possible that they love each other and that they are not faithful to each other. they are portrayed as a couple in love and he literally kidnapped her so.

gods don’t follow rules. it should be difficult to grasp their interpersonal relationships. i love it <3

#nico hades and persephone being very complicated with each other occupies 75% of my brain on a good day #the sword of hades means so much to me #also i have to say: eros wasn’t *always* good to psyche really😭#really no god is completely good to anyone #ask

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blinday · 2 years

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I'm done with it. I shall criticize my favourite silly little comic because this is my life now, I suppose. No good criticism? I shall do it. And build another tag because the an.ti.l.o are so fucking annoying and childish (yeah let's call someone a bitch because she was 'agressive' in their response to a post). So, this must be a safe space for anyone who wants to actually criticize, comment or analyse this cute comic we love.

I'll start telling my experience and then applying what I know it was not done in an ideal way. In the beginning, i thought it would be very silly and boring, but boy, was I wrong. I mean, it is silly, but SO cute and entertaining! The art style is so charming. I am a very scrupulous artist, following the anatomical rules as much as possible even in stick doodles, so how freeing it was to meet an art style that literally threw that out of the window. It shows what's happening in a non realism way and passes the emotions of both characters and author. (The horniness of some moments lmaooooo). It made me connect in such a wonderful way, and I felt so intensely for each character! It's kind of a new feeling for me.

It's not perfect, of course, as I will explain.

The narrative structure doesn't exactly follow a line of thought, wich gives off some pacing inconsistensies. I for one can never really tell how much time has passed from event to event. Some people say Hades and Perse didn't know each other for more than 2 months, others claim it was close to a year, so the fandom is also very divided in this aspect.

Some characters are stabilished in a way and then act incoherent. Yeah, it deepens the character, but what I'm trying to say is, if your character has shown to have [this] behaviour, and react in a way to some situations, it will be weird if they betray this patters without explanation. Like Eros, who is shown multiple times having a great emotional maturity, and then leaves with no questions asked because he was spooked by Psyche, and then went on a rampage because of that. Wtf was that Eros, how am I supposed to poor meow meow you if you HISS AT PEOPLE!!!

Jokes aside, it was pretty weird, and I don't blame Aphrodite for hiding Psyche from him after that tantrum.

Apollo is another one. When he was first introduced he was your typical jock who isn't used to girls not wanting him and finding a quest on Perse. But suddently he is not only a psycho, but also an emotional abuser and rapist. I think it would've been way less uncanny if the change was slow and gradual, because in the same chapter he assaults Persephone he had previously stabilished good terms and accepted how she felt about him. Yeah, a person can hide their true nature, but that's not how it's done. Anyways he is a bastard and I hate him. Terribly written, yes, but a bastard nonetheless.

It also bugs me how some things are completely brushed aside and then treated as a mere trivialty when the writers remember it was there in the first place. Like the photographer incident with Hades pulling his eye off. He took SO LONG to do that, and it served no narrative purpose other than make him look badass. And then, back into character inconsistensies, Hades basically changes and this aspect of his personality is forever forgotten. It was probably because Rachel wanted to make him look cool and badass but then realized that it wouldn't be coherent to have him be both cruel and a blue cinnamon roll.

Another inconsistency is Persephone's relationship with her classmates and her grades. The writing goes back and forth with Persephone's priority list because sometimes grades are everything, and others she isn't even enjoying the college. After the rumor about Hades' violence on Perse's classmates EVERYONE stops talking to her? You telling me this pink sugar cube couldn't make better ties with ANYONE in that damn campus? I no believe no.

Artemis is constantly changing from badass huntress who can read others and deduction genius to dumbass who can't read the room, and it's frustrating because she is my favourite character. She's kinda dumber in latter chapters. Still my favourite tho.

I have more, but I think it's enough for a tag-building post. I hope you like it, and please, remember: just because I criticize, it doesn't mean I hate the comic. We can recognize both flaws and strongs in a piece and still love it.

Keep respectful and healthy, okay? It's safe, and every opinion is just that: an opinion, can't hurt anyone. I'll try to analyse characters next time. Any ideas on who?

#lore olympus actual criticism #lo conscrit #constructive + criticism #lore olympus conscrit #long post #lore olympus analysis #lore olympus fandom #lo fans safe space #shoo antis shoo we are just chillin in here #blinday talks

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semi-consciousbeing · 2 years

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Okay so like, about Lore Olympus, here's some things I would personally like to see / what I think would make the retelling better:

Persephone being like, 119 and not outright 19. I'm super okay with an age gap just...I've seen some criticism making some very valid points about that and I feel a bit uncomfortable abt it now. So 119 seems like a reasonable age to me. That way, Rachel could have played into "Demeter is a controlling parent" thing too. She kept Perse in the mortal realm under her watch to protect her ans Perse eventually grew bored of it and being babied (even tho Demeter did it with the best of intentions). Not sayin that you cant get annoyed by it at 19, it's perfectly normal, but I feel like 119 would be more suitable bc Perse's powers would develop more and more and beg for space to grow properly (haha, notice my bad pun?). Also, if I failed to mention, it would also make things less creepy between her and Hades. ALSO, Perse veing older would also be good for strenghtening her friendship with the nymphs she made/grew up with, which brings me to my next point

PERSE WITH HER NYMPH FRIENDS. That way, her going genocide mode would be a bit more emotionally striking.

Her friendship with Hermes would also have time to develop more

About Hestia and Athena, I got no problem with their relationship, since RS made them non related. I would like it if she makes their relationship romantic and not sexual, bc that would play well with them beinf in TEGOM (or whatever it is called). Now, idk the specifics of the vow, but from what I understand, it only talks abt sex, not romantic relationships

I would rlly rlly rlly like to see what happened with the Titans and the premordial beings

I would also like to see Psyche and Eros developing their relationship (even if it's jusr crumbs)

FLASHBACKS OF WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE TIME SKIP!!! (Perse turning Minthe back, their relationship, Perse turning Daphne back, their friendship and the fact that Daph knows abt what Appollo did, also whether Artemis knows or not, also Perse coming to terms with Eris and all that)

ALSO OH MY GOD I am rlly in it the dynamic between Zeus and Artemis. I wanna see more of them

Also Zeus and his trauma

Also the fact that....Zeus ate Metis??? Hera's mom??? Does she know?? How does she feel abt that???

Can I....can I get Dionysus?

Also Minthe redemption arc, or just more Minthe

OH SHIT I JUST REMEMBERED DEMETER-

Yes, I do wanna see Demeter struggling as a mortal but eventually finding a good place for herself, what about it?

#lore olympus #should i tag this as anti lo?#anti lo #i did it #lore olymous #LO #lo #lore olympus headcanons

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superioritea-complex · 6 days

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new ballets russes

ngl if i ever ended up with a ridiculous amount of money i'd probably found a ballet company, i'd wanna do something new and interesting like the ballets russes did back in the early 20th century- minus Diaghilev being a strange and quite frankly gross individual- I feel like so much of ballet has gotten repetitive, in the sense that we've focused to much on perfection we've forgotten that we are a performing art form- so often we get hung up on body proportions and things like hyper extension and body shape that we end up losing the emotion of the dance completely. I've recently watched dying swan- the og version with anna pavlova and now i can't help but feel newer versions are overly santized, like the concern is to look beautiful and not the real tragedy that is happening on stage. I think it's not only a disservice to audience members but to dancers as well as we are robbing them of developing their creative expression. That and it would also help with the fact that many ballets are quite frankly dated- for example the bolshoi black face scandal for their production of la bayadere (this happened in 2019 btw).

I would love to see a new fantastical adaptation with elaborate costumes, choreography, sets, and music- (bring back camp!!). Plus there are so many myths and cultural things to chose from a ballet could be done on Sappho's life, or on La Maupin (if you don't know who she is PLEASE look her up- she's unhinged and my hero), or even take from more myths like eros and psyche, or apollo and hyacinth, or a full length version of orpheus (i know balanchine did a short version with music by Stravinsky but imagine an entire set for the underworld- like fully fleshed out costumes for hades and persephone- it's actually a shame how minimalist balanchine's sets and costumes are given the inspo (bc they weren't originally!!- look at old apollo costumes vs the more recent ones- like bro HOW did we get here???) or we could start adapting Dostoevskyballet and Kafka like we've been adapting Shakespear (METAMORPHASIS BALLET GUYS- I MEAN COME. ON.) and these are just the ones off the top of my head.

I think now would be a good time to reinvigorate the artform especially with increased interest due to the overall ballet core trend- it could be a great way to bring in more people not only as those who take classes but also as viewers. Also ballet company's have shitty marketing- ofc if you only push the nutcracker for the entire year then you're only going to get people to watch the nutcracker and your other repertoire is gonna flop. duh. By investing a bit in marketing instead of lining the artistic director's pockets (be so fr do u really need a second vacation home?) the company would be more successful overall-( more people to come in and see shows, more artistic outreach, more outreach means more tickets means more money so hopefully better conditions for the dancers, etc. etc.)

tldr. people only say ballet is boring bc y'all have made ballet boring, the lack of artistic expression, lack of new creative sets and costumes, elitism, racism, homophobia, etc. etc. etc. are what have made people less engaged with the art form over the years NOT the actual style of dance itself.

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antiloreolympus · 2 years

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10 Anti LO Asks

1. I just find it gross how Persephone never got the choice to tell anyone (besides "Chiron") about her assault? Eros prodded it out of her, Hera "touched" her and figured it out (then forced Hephaestus to SEE the actual act), Psyche found out and was about to tell everyone else until happenstance stopped it, and Hades, the man who is praised for "respecting her boundaries", went against those boundaries to spy on her then forced her to tell him. Even that choice was ripped away from her.

2. Rachel could have ripped off Mamma Mia down to the plot and ABBA musical numbers and it'd still be more accurate to mythology than whatever she's doing instead. Hell, it'd force her to actually set it in Greece instead of /ITALY/. The supposed GREEK myth expert over here!

3. What's gross about the Eris thing is what is it saying exactly? It's a "curse" to have less than pleasant emotions? All that's telling RS' audience of young girls is that they what, can't have normal emotions and have to be "perfect" all the time? IDK, it sees awfully easy for Persephone to be "kind" when she never faces any actual consequences for her actions and has everything provided for her that the 99% of us will never get. It's such a privilege worldview to sell as "feminist"/"empowering"

4. Something I feel like RS fell flat one was when hades said Aphrodite had half Olympus around her finger. Hera doesn’t like her, hades hasn’t helped her, Ares is ready to leave her for Persephone, I haven’t seen anyone other than Eros help her. She slept with Zeus to get her son out of trouble, but I haven’t seen anyone actually treat the goddess as she is.

5. is that supposed to be a meta comment by rachel about how people critique persephone being "boring" because of her lack of dark traits? bc people love a good, sweet character, the LO issue with persephone is rachel kept insisting she's this ~complex~ goddess only to blame eris for persephone's one negative trait because she didnt actually want a complex character, she wants persephone to be her bland self inert who gets horny induced rages for the ~aesthetic~ but is perfect the rest of the time.

6. the fact persephone's entire personality and goals is just the doing of others is like .. such a weird self own. rachel somehow took a goddess with admittedly lacking characterization in mythology and made her so devoid of anything to her she had to write in a gaggle of goddesses trying to scrap together a a flimsy excuse of a personality for her to even try and make sense of the lack of development she's given her. how is that even possible to unwrite a character like this and publish it??

7. where's that gif from twilight where the blonde lady threw a baby into the fire because that's what I want to do to baby persephone 💀 apologize to the roses that were wasted to make that thing 💀

8. Why does baby Persephone look like a mandrake from Harry Potter lmao. does Rachel know those thinks are ugly and can kill you.

9. It's kinda funny Hades' expressions when he saw Persephone in the party because when he asked who was she he looked like he's about to sneeze and then he looks like he's getting a heart attack instead of falling in love at first sight or whatevs

10. I stopped reading LO a while ago because of the characterization of Thanatos, who's always been my favorite Greek deity to learn about (ignoring the fact that webtoon got boring for me in general). Throughout the (minimal) myths he's in, he's shown as fair and kind, but also not very emotional (seeing as he's, well, death & being emotional would interfere with being neutral). Idk if this makes any sense I just always get really attached to death deities so lo thanatos makes me sad :(

#anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #anti lo #lo critical

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mileyjassie · 3 years

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ασφαλής "safe".

Art made by @jasperiine

Pairing: Kwon Soonyoung (Hoshi) x Female Reader

Genre: Fluff, Drama.

Word count: 3.4k

Synopsis: You're a artist who fell in love with a statue that came back to life, you're both deep in love, but, since his curiosity and lack of trust make you feel betrayed you leave him behind and now he's searching for you to give him another chance while having to learn how to live in the modern world.

Author's note: I wrote this thinking about the history of eros and psyche, I hope you enjoy reading it.

My lovely one, learn to love, my Psyche.

You saw him for the first time when the golden, warm light of the sunset rested on top of his white, smooth shape, made of marble, finished with genuine perfection.

Few saw how magnificent he was, very few looked into his empty eyes and his well-sculpted lips and saw the true beauty that arose from his presence.

"Bullshit" You were told, some without malice, just disinterested, clearly you did not understand such ignorance, but said nothing because you knew that only you had the gift of seeing life in his curves. In this way, thus, you also avoided the jealousy that you felt trembling and going out of your ears when false words of admiration left the mouths of those who only longed for their own artistic contemplation.

You came back for him, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by a friend or more, those seeing him for the first time as well as other masterpieces...or those who knew him well, these keeping company since they knew that your path to him was inevitable.

You particularly admired it when you were alone, not many around cared about the time you spent, seeing you sitting on the floor below his figure, doodling or painting in your sketchbook.

It was a habit, a hobby, a kind of meditation, which brought you calm.

"You love him." One of your friends smiled, dictating a fact, not a joke. They knew it, saw it in your eyes and thought it was amusing, the artistic love and appreciation you had. "You keeps drawing this statue, you always comes to see him. This is a little strange." Smiled once more, receiving shakes and confirmations from the rest.

"Maybe I'm in love" You lifted a shoulder, hiding your furtive gaze to show your back and look again at the marble sculpture that lay just ahead.

His fingers touched his stomach differently, his nails were medium and square, you had drawn them several times, from all angles.

"Why don't you ask him out?" The question slid past you, you laughed quietly with it, as if it tickled you. "Why don't you ask him to marry you?"

"I already asked." You turned around again, to see them and shrug. "But he never answered me. I think I will wait forever." Laughter was spreading across the area as you sat next to them with crossed legs. "I think I was rejected..."

"He's making a fool of you."

"You think?" You turned your face, looking the marble marks.

"Do it again."

You narrowed your eyes, hiding your good mood.

"Should I?"

"Ask him again, persist, give him a kiss..."

You were surprised by the excitement that grew out of silence. They all wanted to indulge in entertainment, they wanted a scene to excite them.

You looked at the greek statue that persisted in its elaborate pose, you always wondered if he was seeing something, if he was warning something or if he was sacrificing himself for others. He looked like a petrified hero.

You put your hand on your face, pretending to blush at the indications and flirting suggestions that were being thrown at you.

You left them behind, walking like a lost maiden in the vast hall that you were at, even though there were no obstacles as far the statue in the column on the other side was, you pretended to be naive, meeting him by mistake.

"Oh" You exclaimed, hearing the giggles behind you. "Are you, my love? The one who calls for me?"

When you noticed that only your friends were the viewers, you were bold to go up on the marked block of marble, climbing your fingers through the fabric sculpted by a miraculous genius that covered part of his trunk and legs, listening to some cheeky "hm's".

"I'm here" you touched his cheek, looking at his lips. "I heard you cry out for help. I came to rescue you, my sweet angel."

Your friends hugged each other restlessly, hissing at each other for the romance scene they saw you star in. You tried not to lose focus, not to leave the character you created to satisfy your childish follies.

You closed your eyes just a little, seeing the simple details of his face while allowing your lips to touch the cold, rough surface of the marble, but you closed your eyes for a quick instant, really feeling like an real actress, like an true artist and lover of beauty.

When you heard gasps you didn't care so much, yet you were confused enough, the moment your eyes opened, you saw him inhale deeply and loudly, his eyelids trembling in half-blinkings, his arms resting around you, without strength, totally fragile.

His dark eyes remained stuck in yours, tired in your arms.

His parted lips made the sound you had fantasized about for so long.

"T...Thanks for saving me..."

For an instant the hall was lost, it was empty, silent, private. That was when you realized that you were indifferent about the situation, already astonished when it came to the boy.

His appearance filled you with tenderness, and in the same way filled you with sadness. It was like this?...Was like this how Hades felt when he first saw Persephone?

You took off your coat, covering the boy with blond, tousled hair, already kneeling and hiding himself in the fabric that covered his lower body.

"Are you coming with me, all right?" You murmured gently, waiting for his approval, receiving a innocent look, a little scared, but still seemed to trust what you weree saying. He nodded, accepting your help to stand and get off the block.

The reaction of the friends sitting on the floor on the other side was already expected, and you didn't blame them for that, you could be like that, but for some reason you chose not to be.

You didn't say goodbye to the others, you didn't think to do that at any time. You only had eyes for him.

You prepared him a hot bath, after that you gave him something to eat and offered him your own bed to rest, and you didn't ask for anything in return for that, on the opposite, you gave him the space he needed, nothing you asked for or waited for.

The next day, very early in the morning, a cold but well-lit morning, you woke up when he approached slowly, looking at your face silently and carefully.

"Are not you curious?... Don't you want to ask me anything?" He said calmly, however, curious.

"If that is your will, then I believe I am going to. If it is not, then I will not do it." You sat down, watching him for a while, wondering if he could hear your heart beat so hard. "You look comfortable, that's enough for me."

You stood up, standing beside him, running your fingertips along his side, just touching the woolen fabric of the long sweater you gave him to use.

"If you want to tell me something, just look for me." You whispered, walking away.

"My name is Soonyoung. They called me Hoshi."

You smiled to yourself, very satisfactorily.

"Hoshi... This name I know." You turned around, he did the same.

"For all this time I waited for someone to set me free. I felt alone, often empty... however" He came over, holding his own fingers "You have made me less lonely many days lately, I hoped you could save me... and you did. "

You felt your face flush, but you remained neutral, not wanting to waste his words.

"I just have to thank you." He said at last, making your shoulders relax with his sweetness.

You approached slowly, doing the same with the hand you brought to the side of his face.

"You are my greatest inspiration. I can only thank you for simply having this indescribable beauty that I have been drowning with for so long."

His lips parted in surprise, eyebrows trembled and the top of his ears burned in a vicious pink for your pupils.

Soonyoung had no more expressive reactions after that, so you left him again, not wanting to scare him with the infinite admiration that you had kept inside your head for so long.

"You're gonna have all the care you need. You are safe, Hoshi, calm your spirit."

"I hope..."

You turned around to find his body standing a little far, still trapped in his own imaginary space.

"I hope the gods make you the happiest woman in the world."

You touched his hand, taking him with you to your favorite room, leaving your shyness to satisfy his wishes.

"I know I told you many times not to go out, but I know you need hobbies and here I am providing you with my tools."

Soonyoung observed the room, he seemed impressed with the amount of materials, also happy to have something to do.

You showed him your canvases and your paints, your brushes and pencils, you took him to your table and made him sit down, leaving your hands lightly on his broad shoulders.

"I give you all my sketchbooks, I give you all my secrets, so I hope you find the peace that I find in you."

"Are you going to let me see everything? Are you sure about that?" He asked indecisively, he seemed to imagine all kinds of things that you could have drawn of him. He was right.

You moved your hands up his neck, sinking your fingers into his light, soft hair.

"I don't want to hide what is rightfully yours..."

You lowered yourself to the side of his face, resting your hands on his arms, with a low sigh his face turned towards yours, allowing you two to touch your lips.

You held his jaw, his hands finding your forearms to make you sit on his lap.

You held his face in your hands, noticing him looking for more contact by embracing your waist with one arm and with the other hand holding the back of your thigh.

You parted from his mouth with a foolish smile, receiving a soft smile from the boy in return.

"Do you love me that much? Do you swear to really love me?" He asked hopefully, blushing when you pecked his lips again.

"I'm doing all of this for you."

You stroked his hair, getting up to fetch some new books and putting them in order on the table.

"I have some books keeped, but I noticed that you have read most of them quickly because you were so vague and bored" You looked down, but he didn't seem to notice, he had curious eyes and hands on the books. "Many of them are to study, they are boring if I have to say. So I bought new ones, I hope you like it, I don't think you will be bored with these."

"I am so gratefull." He stood up, hugging you tight, you returned the gesture, completely overwhelmed.

"I am very happy, and extremely grateful, but still curious..."

You looked for his eyes, not understanding what still disturbed him.

"Tell me, my angel."

His hands lightly squeezed your arms, stroking for a moment.

"There is a room, always locked. You always gave me the freedom to explore your house, I didn't want to seem invasive anyway, that's why I never asked..."

You looked away.

"Don't go in there or ask me about it again, okay?" You smiled at the boy, he didn't seem to understand why you were avoiding it.

"Why can't I know what you're hiding there? What are you afraid of me finding out?"

You walked away from Soonyoung, stopping by the doorframe.

"I am giving you everything I have, I am giving you all my love and I asked you for nothing in return, so I warn you, my angel, if you let yourself be led by your curiosity, in the end you will be betraying my trust..."

You saw him press his lips and hide his regretful look, but he said nothing to you, so you left him in the room alone.

It was late at night when you woke up slowly in the void of dawn, trying to understand what disturbed you, if those sounds were of your fear or really true.

You got up, even leaving your room barefoot, wishing you didn't find him awake as you feared every night.

He had stolen you key, opened the room door that you had warned him to stay away, and hidden in the dark. He acted behind your back.

You found him with a tightness in your chest, disappointment was the only word that could describe the pure melancholy that was born in your heart, since you had nothing to hide but your good intentions.

The newspapers were on the table in the small office filled with photos of his sculpture. His eyes lit up on the news, messages, controversies on the computer screen. My friends being part of his miracle in interviews and publications, none of them stabbed or handed me over.

All the chaos that his disappearance brought to your life, all the situations where you had to repress yourself to protect him, emails filling your patience every day, all this you hid from him so that he wouldn't suffer from this turbulent new life. You did it to love you freely, you did it to love him freely.

Soonyoung looked at you confused, maybe sorry to find that nothing bad you hid. It was the opposite, you were protecting him.

"You were thinking about me, my love... I'm sorry."

"You betrayed me, Soonyoung, you betrayed my feelings, the trust I had in you." You watched him from a distance, in a way that you never would have, he noticed, and got hurt.

You walked away when he came to you in search of reconciliation, of affection, but you could not treat him with the same adoration that washed over him at all times.

Even if he killed you inside, you could not deny the sadness that possessed you thoughts, you left him behind, abandoned him, because you could not bear the truth that the love he felt for you weighed much less than the love you felt for him.

"Forgive me" he murmured with red eyes, you don't know if he was afraid to see you go.

You covered yourself with a thick coat, trying to escape his cold hands.

"Don't go, my darling, don't leave me!"

"I cannot stay, because if I look into your eyes I will not hold on, I will not be able to not forgive you, and this is not what my heart is asking so loudly at this moment." You said, sad to let go of his fingers, but so eager to go away. "Don't wait for me, I'm running away." You said at last, leaving your home behind.

"How long do you intend to run away?" One of my friends asked me, in which she gave me shelter, a little upset "Didn't say you loved him?"

You curled up on the upholstery, looking out the window at the blue sky.

"I'm so sad that you could never imagine my pain. Did I make a mistake? Shouldn't I have adored him so much?" You turned to the girl who was adjusting her belongings over the dressing table, not much distracted by your regrets.

"You cry so much but you do not accept to hear about the boy, you do not have the courage to know what our friends are doing with him. You, my friend, so fearless and passionate in the past, now do not seem more than a coward."

You closed your eyes with force and embarrassment, her criticisms hit you like sharp arrows that burned in harsh truths.

"Well, tell me, what did you do to him?" You got up, sitting in front of her on the bed, plagued by dark idealizations. "What are you getting him through?"

"Your friends care about you, but they were touched by the boy, who exudes empathy and sincerity" She approached, indifferent about your feelings, straightening your clothes and hair as if it were a simple morning conversation. "They challenged him to face the world, called him a parasite, ordered him to get a career, a job."

You gasped, astonished by the news, the boy who they said feeling empathy with barely knew how to use a computer and was being led to take unknown paths.

"How scared must my love be?"

"Don't whine having ignored his existence until now." She said impatiently, not letting go of your locks. "You need to stop talking and learn to listen."

"So tell me quickly, hurry up!"

"As I said before, the boy exudes sympathy and soon there was a charismatic reaction in our friends. Noting that he spoke weird, the first decided to teach him to speak correctly, taught him new words and practiced for days, holding on and becoming his closest friend."

You smiled, being interrupted before you mentioned any dazzle.

"The second soon realized that different clothes he didn't have, and being our richest friend was more than happy to buy new clothes for the boy who was so humble and listener. Gave him a new haircut, a set for every type of occasion and perfumes, and I have to confess "She sighed, rolling her eyes, taking her hands out of your hair. "I found it capriciously exaggerated, however, despite being disappointed I feel not surprised."

Noticing how obedient you remained and seeing the anxiety spilling out of your eyes, it didn't take long to proceed.

"Our third friend found out that he knew nothing about the new ways, that walking on the street could not do it alone and that the loud noises made him afraid. That good-hearted friend you have, gave part of the days to take care of the feelings and fears of your beloved, until walking on the sidewalks between crowds and witt cars disturbing your ears were no longer a problem."

You felt your shoulders relax, in incredible inner peace, until you looked up again.

"And you? What did you do?"

She looked at you from the corner, wickedness overflowing through her feline eyes.

"He got the job, now he works as a guide at the city museum, the same museum that you kissed him and left us behind." She paced the room with a sly smile, going over her belongings on the dressing table, going to the high desk by the window. "How can a dependent man like him be by your side if he falls apart when he sees you go? So weak, so sensitive. If he thinks he will have you at all times, I want him to know that it won't be like that, sometime you will have to leave him behind to come to us, the same I say inversely. "

She let the perversity spill and disappear, returning to being the controlled and wise girl from before.

"Did you ever see us flounce when you left us for the boy?" She looked at me, satisfied with my small negative head wave "On the contrary, there was no interference, we are more than that, we are free from blind attachments."

She sat down again, combing your hair back.

"My responsibility was to make him find you, that's what I was asked to do and I agreed, but to be honest, I didn't do anything." She shrugged, self-sufficient. "I said that the only way he would have to find you would have to be on his own, I didn't teach how to handle electronics, I didn't give tips, I didn't give a single picture of you."

You squeezed your eyebrows ready to complain, ready to defend the boy, but regretting the moment you saw her narrow eyes waiting for the cries she was listening these days.

You bowed your head, not knowing what to say or ask.

"Are you proud of him?"

You lifted your head, agreeing with a slight smile.

"I am."

"He worked hard for you, I'm not surprised, I really like him too."

You looked at her quickly with the comment she made, finding her face turned.

"He has earned our trust. But it is not our approval that he needs at the moment." She stood up, going to the window, being surprised, giving birth to an amused smile. "What are you waiting for to find him? Isn't your pain already healed?"

You raised your eyebrows, asking with euphoria rising in your chest. "He is outside?"

She nodded, you jumped out of bed quickly, out into the hall and down the stairs. Was that the reason you were getting ready all this time? You smiled at the thought.

When you were on the sidewalk of the house, you stopped for a moment to find him, but you saw no familiar silhouette, there were some civilians and gentlemen nearby selling fruits but you didn't find the boy you were looking for.

A soft and insecure hand touched your shoulder, you turned with the gesture, in a trance to find his dark hair, but his same sharp eyes staring at you with hope.

You got dizzy with the new details, with the accessories, with the denim jacket, with the sneakers, with the earrings, it didn't look like him, but it was him.

You looked down, seeing his hands holding one of your sketchbooks, a drawing of your face on it, an old self-portrait of an impatient sketch you did once.

He smiled widely, even letting out a laugh.

"You came back to me, my angel!" He said cheerfully, his voice filling the longing you felt, giving you chills for using the nickname you gave him and, of course, with the new pronunciation.

You gladly received his tight embrace, not wanting to loosen your grip on his body, after all you never wanted to stop loving him, not even for a single moment.

"You are the one who found me, love. You finally found me."

"Forgive me for what I did, I will never betray you again, soon you will see that it is more than possible for us to live happily, so come back with me..." he said muffled against your hair, hiding his face in your neck.

You stroked his hair, bringing his face close to yours, brushing lips and watching his small eyes narrow in anticipation for the first kiss so far.

"I know that, dear, and I forgive you. Because I love you."

𝒇𝒊𝒏.

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alatismeni-theitsa · 3 years

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anti LO anon opinions

(1) Whats up with LO giving some characters random american names? In few fastpass episodes was characters that have bame anna, larry and derek and in previous episodes there was characters with american names. Isnt that supposed to be greek mythological beings that should have greek names?

(2) Maybe it’s my aroace ass but why do I have a feeling the relationship of HxP in LO goes too fast? I feel uncomfortable seeing them so close because nothing really has happened to bind them that much so early.

(3) I’m going to rant for a second here. I think the Kronos plot in LO is interesting but at the same time it’s also just so? Random? Like isn’t this supposed to be about Hades and Persephone? It have been over 150 episodes and they’ve only just now decided to do any basic romantic interactions, but there’s so many side plots that it just makes them seem so out of place?

It’s not great editing to jump from cutesy shipper moments to suddenly a new war is starting in the span of a few panels. The tonal shifts have to be built up, maybe split over a few episodes, but LO doesn’t put in the effort. It wants the stakes and writing of a deep epic but doesn’t put in the work to do so, so it ends up looking like shallow cliffhanger writing than actually planned.

Like you still have to deal with her murdering people (even if it was an accident), you now have to deal with Leto apparently being the real evil mastermind, redeeming (?) Apollo (🤢), Thetis trying to ruin Zeus’ marriage, Persephone being raped, her scholarship, her school work (?), Eros and psyche, semele and Dionysus, Daphne and Thanatos (gag), Minthe!, and now a whole new war all on top of the ACTUAL myth its popularity and readership is based off of.

For all we know Smythe does genuinely want to tell these other myths (the majority which have nothing to do with HxP to begin with) but just isn’t patient enough to just save them for a spin off series, so she shoves them all into this despite saying back in 2018 she was not going to do. Problem too is that doing that makes HxP, the actual selling point, completely minor in the grand scheme of it all. Who cares about Persephone cuddling her boss when they’re accidentally causing another war under their own noses? How are they good people at that point?

If Demeter or Zeus accidentally awoke a villain they’d be thrown in tartarus too, but we know Persephone will get off Scott-free for this and become queen with no push back. How is that fair? I will feel sympathy for her bad childhood and really bad two weeks on Olympus (good lord it’s only been like a month in comic and all of this is happening, what the hell) but why should we root for a character who is putting millions are risk and who we know won’t be punished or learn anything from it? From anyone not blinded by the rose-tinted glasses, Persephone and hades are villains as well, but because we get their POV we’re supposed to ignore that? No thanks.

Why isn’t the editing team cutting the fat, so to speak? You can’t write and market it off a singular myth and proceed to make it a b-plot because you got bored of it and don’t know how to get from point A to point B. There are a ton of super successful Webtoons that wrapped everything up strongly in less than 100 episodes, some with even less, but LO seems determined to be over 200+ at this rate with the actual plot/hook (HxP) being MAYBE 1/6th of the actual product, with everything else being unrelated side plots smythe found more interesting. Though I guess they do kinda matter in this case, it’s literally Persephone’s fault AGAIN she’s putting countless lives in danger, yet it still won’t be her fault somehow? It’s all just very stupid.

(4) What i find annoying about the LO marketing is they keep insisting it's this "global phenomenon" but that is only correct if you only go off the English speaking server. It was not received well in Korea, it doesn't even rank in the Latin American server, and only does ok in France, and it's not even on other Asian servers. I understand media tends to be very America-focused, but that seems to be twisting the truth. If they were honest True Beauty would be marketed as the "global hit", not LO.

(5) Whats up with LO giving some characters random american names? In few fastpass episodes was characters that have bame anna, larry and derek and in previous episodes there was characters with american names. Isnt that supposed to be greek mythological beings that should have greek names?

(6) what really makes me mad about LO is just that it has so much potential that isn't met. With a competent writer it could be a nuanced look into complex characters who aren't easily cut into black and white, and art wise, especially with the long strolling panels, it shows with a competent eye they can absolutely make something constantly visually strong, yet both genuinely good moments in either writing ad art are few & fair in between in over 150+ episodes. I'm sad over what could have been.

(7) I find it so weird that ppl are praising Rachel for giving Persephone stretch marks but the whole comic barely has diversity. There's only been a handful of plus sized women and I haven't seen any plus sized men so far (I could be wrong. Also, only one goddess is plus sized. Everyone else is skinny.). Nobody has kinky hair and a lot of the guys are extremely tall compared to the women.

#anti lo #answered

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genericpuff · 1 year

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Do you plan on adding any new characters (oc or people from myths not included in LO), archs, or plot lines in Rekindled?

Considering that LO already bit off more than it could chew, I likely will not be adding any extra plotlines/characters into Rekindled, as I'd like to refocus the writing back to its foundations in S1 and expand on them further (if Rachel had just stuck with the original trajectory of what she had set up, even if both our versions would have ended up diverging along the way).

Of course, what I'm hoping to tackle is subject to change, but stuff I know for sure:

I will not be tackling Eros and Psyche's myth, at least not in as great detail as LO, due to the fact that its placement in the story makes no sense with the original myth in mind (in the OG myth Persephone and Hades are already married so it would make more sense to tackle that if and when I get past the Hades x Persephone story; I might tackle it in a one shot or something, which is also what I'd love to do with Orpheus and Eurydice!)

I will be removing the Apollo SA. It's obvious Rachel didn't feel up to the task of tackling it and only wanted to use it for virtue signaling because she shoves it off into the background every opportunity she gets and seems like she wants people to just forget it happened. Considering it serves no narrative purpose beyond that, then it's a pretty obvious thing to have removed, SA shouldn't be used as a means for character development (especially when it's just to make the main love interest look better by comparison, blech).

While I'll be removing the SA, I'll still be covering some of Persephone's struggles with finding healthy relationships and feeling comfortable in her sexuality. TGOEM will be less of a 'purity club' and more of a women's support group for female goddesses and nymphs who have been harmed by the patriarchal systems that are in place in Ancient Greece (forced marriages, sexual assault, etc.) Demeter's biggest fear is her daughter being consumed/killed by a male god the same way her creator (Metis) was, and Gaia before that, and in a lot of ways, she's both consciously and subconsciously supplanted those fears into Persephone. They both have a lot of stuff to work through, to say the least!

How gods/goddesses are created is being completely rewritten. Believe it or not, there are more sensible ways to skirt around the incest that don't have to perform insane writing gymnastics when you're dealing with deathless, non-corporeal beings. It's one of those "Rachel, the answer was spitting you in the face" things and I'm pretty excited to get into it :' )

I will be dropping Eris' role as Persephone's reason for wrath. This made zero sense and did nothing for the plot back then and it makes zero sense and does nothing for the plot now. All it does is further rob Persephone of any agency or responsibility and it makes her 10x less interesting as a character. This does mean Eris likely also won't make much of an appearance in Rekindled as that was literally her only purpose in LO from what we've seen and I'm not planning on tackling the Trojan War, but we might see about referencing her every now and then as a background character, it depends lol

References to the Trojan War will be removed as all the references that Rachel made in LO, again, make no sense especially with how messy the timeline has gotten.

The divide between Kore and Persephone as namesakes will be far more apparent and characterized. Not gonna spoil too much but we're gonna tackle the original foundation of Persephone/'the feeling' a lot more with what was started in S1 and never followed up on (because Rachel retconned it through Eris). I'll also be taking a similar approach with Hades vs. Aidoneus.

I'm working with what Rachel has provided in terms of worldbuilding (which is, to be fair, very little LMAO) and expanding on it to make 'more sense' especially with the whole gods vs. modern times thing. There are a lot of modern amenities the gods have in LO that make no sense for them as gods so I'll be attempting to rectify that by giving all the elements of LO's modern setting some more purpose. Not just in how Olympus and the Underworld and the Mortal Realm are designed, but also in the every day technology they use (like cars and phones).

Demeter's characterization is going to be completely redone. I feel I owe that much to her after what Rachel has done to her lmao

Minthe will be handled a little bit differently. She'll still be Hades' on-again-off-again partner at the start of Rekindled, but she'll be playing a slightly different role in the narrative as a whole.

Zeus and Hera will be a bit less of a focus, though I'll try to cover it when I can. Zeus will be a confidant foil to Hades whereas Hera will be a confidant foil to Persephone.

EDIT: Poseidon will no longer just be a comic relief character. We WILL be seeing the realm of the Sea in Rekindled :' )

That's a lot, but still not even the tip of the iceberg with how much stuff I have planned ;3 Hope that satisfies y'all for now!

#lore rekindled #lore olympus au #ama #ask me anything

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jeannereames · 3 years

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I know this was not your intention, but I am in love with the idea of historically accurate Greek vampires. I also have a random question: did the ancients have 'horror stories' (the folklore kind) like we do?

First, I too am intrigued by the concept of a vampire-ghost story. It would be interesting to explore an idea like that: the shade who doesn’t want to go back to Hades’s Hall, whether out of pity for a grieving parent (or spouse or lover), or desire to avoid the dullness of death (or both). Plenty of pathos in that scenario!

They did have horror stories. Greek myth itself is filled with horror and violence, and those stories which have come down to us began as local tales that gained wider popularity. That’s why there isn’t a (correct) version of any given Greek myth, but multiple takes. Cultures influenced by Jewish-Christian-Muslim tradition are acclimated to a “canon,” and tend to assume canons in all world religions. In fact, relatively few had them. What’s a canon? An authoritative text: e.g., the “correct” version.

Greek religion focused on what people did in terms of sacrifice, etc. (orthopraxis), not what they believed (orthodoxy).* So variations in myths didn’t flip them out. They’re more interested in the larger “sense” of the gods, and honoring particular local manifestations (usually found in epithets connected to particular stories about them).

Greek myths and legends were dynamic, belonging to a lived tradition of storytelling that was sometimes yoked to Greek religious cult, but also told at symposia (drinking parties), or as plays in the theatre, or to children in school, or by parents or nurses. And I do mean told, not read out of books. Thus, they could—and did—change over time. One of the more interesting examples of this can be seen in the “redemption” of Helen of Troy. In most early versions, she was equally guilty with Paris, choosing to run away with him, leaving her husband and daughter. But as time passed, the stories changed, suggesting she was raped, or even that she stayed in Egypt and never went to Troy. That latter was (likely) started by the lyric poet Stesichorus, then picked up by Herodotus and finally Euripides. Theatre often altered myth to tell the story a bit differently.

It’s not unlike fanfiction really.

Most myths and legends didn’t find any “fixed” form until the later Classical and Hellenistic Eras. That change owed to the rise of academic “mythographers,” in places like Alexandria, who studied myth. Also, depictions of myth in art on frequently visited buildings—such as the labors of Herakles on Zeus’s temple at Olympia—resulted in popular ossification from the Classical period. In the Archaic period and earlier, not just how the labors went varied, but even which were included in the twelve. But the construction of that temple with the labors depicted on the metopes “decided” them. (Pictured below is one of those metopes.)

That said, we still find multiple versions of stories out there. There’s no agreement on how Ariadne died—or if she died (Dionysos’s mortal wife). Aphrodite is variously the daughter of Zeus by Dione (so Homer), or the daughter of Ouranos when Kronos cut off his balls and tossed them in the Sea (so Hesiod). And myth was still changing down into the Hellenistic and Roman period. The story of Eros and Psyche is Roman, or at least Hellenistic.

So the answer to your question is that, yes, of course the Greeks had horror stories, some of which went on to become very famous, like Medusa.

There were also local stories and even shrines and oracles that qualify as horror. The Lebadaian Oracle of Tryphonios supposedly scared people so badly, some were never the same after, and a few actually died of fright. The petitioner had to be lowered down into this cave, where scary things happened (not discussed), then brought back out, and whatever one babbled on the “throne of memory” was the oracle, recorded by a priest. Talk about a “Haunted Mansion”! Or haunted cave, as it were. “To descend into the cave of Trophonios” was even a Greek saying for having the piss scared out of you.

Similarly, before it turned into a tourist attraction in the late Hellenistic and Roman Era, there was a youths rite for Artemis Ortheia in Sparta, probably involving torches and masks in the sanctuary at night. One can see why Sparta might find useful a ceremony designed to scare the bejesus out of young men, to test bravery.

The initiation rite in Dancing with the Lion at the end of Book 1 Becoming has some fear elements mystery initiations often had, meant to simulate the fear one faced at death. These mystery rites had stories attached. The murder of toddler Dionysos is pretty horrible.

Likewise, the Rape of Persephone is an ancient Blue Beard equivalent story that spoke to the fears of young women (and their mothers) before marriage. It would eventually transform into the Eleusian Rites, probably a local Thesmophoria that became panhellenic.

There are lots of stories about witches (like Circe and various Thessalian Witches), too.

If you (or others) have an interest in the darker side of Greek myth and religion, I’d recommend picking up Daniel Ogden’s Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greco-Roman World. It’s a reader, or sourcebook, so he gives passages from the ancient sources themselves on various topics from witches and ghosts to raising the dead (necromancy), weird oracles, etc. I use it in my Greek Myth, Religion, and Magic class. 😊 He’s also got a book on Greek and Roman Necromancy, Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, and Night’s Black Agents: Witches, Wizards, and the Dead in the Ancient World. Daniel does a lot with Alexander (and Macedonia) but also writes copiously on Greek religion, especially its less publicly acceptable manifestations.

---------------------------

*This has a parallel in their attitude towards sex: what you DO, not who you do, or what you believe about your “sexual orientation,” which wasn’t even a thing. I like to point to these parallel approaches as it helps give a larger sense of Greek culture.

#horror stories in ancient Greece #Greek myth #Greek witches #Greek magic #Circe #Tryphonios #Tryphonius #mythographers #how Greek myth developed #fluidity of Greek myth #Daniel Ogden #Classics #Asks #ancient Greece #tagamemnon

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asongoficeandfiresource · 3 years

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Can you explain your thought process on your Greek myth edit? Particularly The last three? Thx! It looks great

Thank you very much :) OK, so I’ll go through each one to explain my reasoning:

Dany as Athena, goddess of wisdom, cleverness, law and justice, strategy, women’s arts, and nobler aspects of war: Dany primarily fits the justice, war, and strategy aspects of Athena. Her ASOS story is centered on her waging war in Slaver’s Bay. She sees the injustice that is happening there and puts her own plans aside to help the people there. Her victories are gained primarily through her strategic planning and she is able to minimize her own casualties. She also administers justice whether it’s against slavers or when making rulings during court.

Bran as Apollo, god of the sun, prophecy, youth, archery, healing, plague, and the arts: The physical embodiment of Bran’s soul is named Summer after the season where the season where the sun is the strongest. That’s also not so subtle foreshadowing that he’ll be the primary character to bring back the summer. Bran also has visions and can look into the past, with the possibility of seeing into the future.

Catelyn as Demeter, goddess of the harvest, agriculture, fertility, and the cycle of life and death: Catelyn comes from one of the most fertile regions in Westeros, which also happens to be the unofficial battleground of the kingdom where a great deal of death and destruction happens, particularly in the main series. During most of her time in Winterfell, she experienced a ten year summer, producing children. By the time autumn came she was parted from most of those children and lost her son. Now she’s one of the people bringing death and destruction during her afterlife as she continues to look for her daughter, Arya. Demeter’s most famous myth is the abduction of her daughter Persephone, which leads her to stop the growth of plants and sink the world into Winter.

Arya as Persephone, queen of the underworld, goddess of spring, flowers, rebirth, and vegetation: Arya is a little girl who loves the outdoors, particularly plant life. She likes flowers and tries to keep track of the different kinds. She also uses her knowledge of moss to tell direction. She was also born near the start of summer and knew only that season until she lost her family and began her first descent into an “underworld” in autumn. In ACOK, she goes further and further into the Riverlands which has become a region of death, fire, and decay. She even encounters two versions of Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades in the form of the Clegane brothers. Then she has to go to an even more overt underworld in the form of the House of Black and White where she has to join a death cult due to lack of legitimate options. According to GRRM, she’ll officially flower in winter.

Meera as Artemis, goddess of hunting, wild, nature, and chastity; protector of young girls: Like Artemis, Meera is non-gender conforming in her clothing and abilities. She’s a young maiden who is a hunter and she fishes. She’s also athletic and quick. She’s the food provider and physical protector of her group.

Sansa as Medusa: This sorting is influenced by the prophecy referring to “a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs” and Sansa becoming Alayne Stone. Medusa was a beautiful young woman who was punished for being sexually assaulted by being turned into a gorgon, a woman with venomous snakes as her hair who can turn men to stone if they look in their eyes. The combination of those two details is likely meant as an allusion to Medusa.

Cersei as Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, sexual passion, pleasure, and procreation: This goddess is usually referred to as the goddess of love, but her power was less about love and companionship than sexual desire. Cersei is considered to be the most beautiful woman in Westeros. Even as she grows older, when she puts in the effort to do herself up, she is considered the next thing to a goddess. She also wields her sexuality and desirability as a weapon to gain things from men and control them. Aphrodite could also become jealous of human women were considered her equal or superior. For instance, when the human princess Psyche was considered more beautiful and gaining worship, Aphrodite sent her son Eros to deal with her only for Eros to fall in love with Psyche, resulting in a mother-in-law from hell situation (Cersei/Margaery/Tommen anyone?). Aphrodite also cheats on her husband repeatedly, most famously with Ares.

Jaime as Ares, god of war: In contrast to Athena, Ares was associated with the brutal, bloody, and savage aspects of war. Jaime is a man who enjoys combat and solves his problems with violence when he can. Just to compare, while Cersei saw the solution to Bran catching them in their affair to be soothing and manipulating the child, Jaime went straight for the kill. In his thoughts, he notes that he felt more comfortable with soldiers than at court. He also likens fighting to dancing. Combat is something he enjoys, glories in, and uses as a default to address issues when he can. Now that he has a disability, he’s thinking of ways around that.

#answered

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sigeel · 4 years

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Hey, maybe when you're done with Hades and Persephone you can do a 2nd volume featuring the adorable antics of Eros and Psyche

oh no I already have a plan to do a story about Chiron and from his side I get to explore more about Apollo, Artemis and Demeter after Persephone moves away. I also get to do a lot of world-building regarding centaurs and nymphs and how they fit into myths and my own story as I’ve set it up.

I honestly don’t know why, but the Eros/Psyche story never really inspired me.I think it’s because it feels complete in its narrative. Like… when I read it, everything is told in such detail so I feel like I have nothing of my own to contribute to it.While Hades/Persephone’s relationship in the myths is very vague, so there’s a lot of freedom allowed, which I love.

There is even less about Chiron which is what I love even more. Plus I adore drawing centaurs so there’s also that XD

#chariclo/chiron #sigeel #linda sejic #punderworld

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extremelyblackandwhite · 4 years

Text

the unseen one - 11

Pairing: Hades!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: fluff

A/N: eros and psyche is one of my favourite myths so i had to include it somewhere bc they’re so cute, they’re adorable, give them a trophy. enjoy xx

Next Chapter >>

(gif not mine, credit to the creator)

Days passed, hours fly whenever you’re confined to your own existence. James had been filled to the brim with work after Hecate decided to sulk and ignore his requests to do her actual job. He knew he could and should reprimand her, he was the King of the Underworld after all but he also knew Hecate to personally enjoy revenge and he could see her going straight to Zeus to tell him about Y/N. He knew what happened when Zeus set his eyes on a mortal, specially a pretty woman mortal and he was not about to see Y/N being harassed by Zeus and then attacked by Hera. He decided it was best if he just let her do her thing, at least until things died down.

He was sleepless, tired of walking souls into their trials, their final resting place yet all he could think was about Valentines’ Day’s night with Y/N. He could still see her sunny, beautiful smile that sparked joy even in the angriest of Gods once he said he’d spend it with her.

- You have a visitor. - Hecate slammed his door open to warn him of someone coming in, not even caring about knocking or asking if it was alright for her to slam the door open. James rolled his eyes, sighting as he got up from his chair to see another god come into his office, none other than the god of love. Had Aphrodite sent Psyche on another beauty chase? He didn’t know, what he knew was that Eros only came down when something was needed.

Eros was older than James, he had probably been around for longer than his own existence but he always looked like a perpetual young adult with his curled blonde locks and white clothing. In all honesty, Eros normally was one of the only gods who could get under his skin, having previously tried to steer him into the direction of a young woman back when his soul belonged to the mortal lands.

- You can go now, Hecate. - he gestured for the goddess to close the door, leaving him alone with Eros. - I thought death and love did not go hand in hand.

- Psyche said I owe you a favour because you defended her from Aphrodite. Trust me, I would not be here if it wasn’t for my wife. - Aphrodite hated Psyche with a passion. Not only had she been more worshipped than Aphrodite back when she was mortal but she had dared to marry her favourite son. Ever since, Aphrodite would constantly send Psyche into Persephone’s Groves to try and collect some flowers which would anger both Hecate and Demeter. James had taken upon himself to take Psyche under his wing and protect her from the goddess of beauty, not only because she was just a scared mortal who had turned into a goddess because of her lover but also because he thought that if he became friends with the woman Aphrodite hated, maybe she would leave him alone. - So you have a favour from me.

- What could I possibly want from you? You can tell Psyche that she doesn’t owe me any favours. - James wasn’t one to sell his services, much less punish someone for being helped. He definitely did not want to be in debt to one of Aphrodite’s sons, specially when Aphrodite was one to cash in all debts and was one of the smartest woman he’d ever met.

- Are you sure? It’s Valentines’ Day in a few weeks, you surely could deal with going up to the mortal realm like every other deity in the pantheon. - by every other deity he meant Zeus and Apollo as James had never heard of any other gods being particularly found of getting a mortal the easy way.

- Can’t leave the underworld during daylight.

- I can distract Apollo long enough for a day outside without anyone even noticing. - he suggested. - C’mon, it’s for my wife and she will not have you protect her from my mother for free.

- Can you really do that? - James raised an eyebrow at his proposal. He sure would love to spend a day away from the underworld, a day with her, specially Valentines.

- Considering how badly Apollo’s relationships go and how he is attracted to every single pretty mortal, it shouldn’t be too hard. Deal?

- Zeus cannot know. - James was sure that if Zeus even dreamed that he was seeing a mortal and wildly ignoring his request of finding a goddess to become Queen of the Underworld, he would either try and do what he did with every single mortal woman or forcefully marry him to the first goddess who was willing. James did not know Persephone, but he’d be damned if someone sat on her precious throne without deserving it.

- Hiding stuff from Zeus is a hobby. - Eros replied, turning on his back, happy that his wife would be pleased. James on the other hand looked at the sunflower still sat on his desk, the faint memory of Y/N’s touch rushing through his mind. It didn’t matter that Hecate was mad at him and ready to riot, he could now spend a full day with her.

Suddenly time flew by slower and slower each day but as promised, Eros had distracted Apollo from his duties around midday which allowed James to ascend into the mortal realm, the pale winter sun hitting his skin for the first time since forever. He relished in the small things that he hadn’t seen in ages, from the sound of people talking and laughing in the sun, the faint screaming of the children having fun mixed with the wind. The sounds of Brooklyn were still the same after all these years.

He knew Y/N worked close by in a kindergarten so it didn’t take him long enough to find it and find her. She was outside with most of the children, sat on a table far too small for her as she helped the toddlers make cards using various types of flowers and glittery materials. He knew it was probably weird to stare at her for so long but he couldn’t help but do so, watching her show her laugh what sounded like the music of muses, the light of the sun itself. It took about an hour for her to start to organise everything again as the kids went inside for lunch, an opportunity he took to approach her.

- Made any postcards for me, sweetness? - he asked softly, not to scare her. Y/N raised from the table, eyes darting from the mess she was cleaning the figure standing behind her. A smile formed on her laps as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her scent immediately invading his senses.

- I thought we were meeting up tonight. - she loosened her hug so she could look at him. - What are you doing here? Did you get fired? Oh please tell you didn’t get fired.

- Day off. I thought I could surprise you and maybe take you for lunch. - he pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

- I would love some lunch, I just need to finish cleaning this up. - she pointed at the, what he believed to had been a pure white table, now completely covered with dried up glue, pen marks and glitter.

- I’ll help you out. - James grabbed one of the rags she was using to help her bring the table back to its white colour. It didn’t take too long and he quickly found himself helping her fold the table and bring it inside. - Where do you wanna go?

- You know what? I want an egg sandwich, bodega style.

- That’s a breakfast food.

- Breakfast food is the best food.

tag list: @philogrobizedvee @keithseabrook27 @inlovewith319

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laclopedelasorciere · 4 years

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My Notes on Eros✨🌸

This set of notes touches on Eros, Cupid, Aphrodite, theories of Eroses creation, Psyche, Apollo, Daphne. and more.

Who is Eros?

Eros is the classical Greek god of sexual desire and attraction, the word erotic comes from his name. He is later on regarded as the protector of homosexual culture.

What are Eros’s attributes?

Eros had a bow and set of arrows that were gold-tipped and sharp he would shoot at beings to cause love between them. He also had a second set of arrows that were blunt and lead-tipped that would cause the victim to be unable to receive love.

Does Eros have a role in Roman Mythology?

Yes! He is known as Cupid. The matchmaking chubby baby that sets up a romance.

Who are his parents?

Theory 1: Chaos

This theory is basically the theory that he doesn’t have parents and he came from ‘Chaos.’ This theory is backed up by the fact that everything stems from love. Eros was the matchmaker and caused love, so his creation would be necessary for the rest of the god(esse)s.

Theory 2: Aphrodite and Ares

This theory is the idea that Eros is the son of Aphrodite (goddess of love) and Ares (god of war). This is the theory I have always known as true, which may be because I’m such a big Lady Gaga fan and she references this in her song G.U.Y. “Greetings, Himeros God of sexual desire, son of Aphrodite,” the song goes. In the theory with Aphrodite and Ares being the parents of many Erotes or winged love-gods. Himeros and Eros are both Erotes.

Theory 3: Zephyrus and Iris

This theory is less popular and is the theory that Eros is the son of Zephyrus (the West Wind) and Iris (messenger of the Gods).

Theory 4: An Egg

This theory is strongly influenced by the Orphic religion (a subreligion of Greek Hellenism). The theory goes that Eros was born with golden wings out of an egg laid by Nyx (the Night) in Erebus (the Darkness).

Myths including Eros

Apollo and Daphne

Apollo, God of sun, light, music, poetry, healing, plagues, prophecy, knowledge, order, beauty, archery and architecture. Apollo had mocked Eroses archery skils, which caused mischevious Eros to prove his power by shooting Apollo with a gold-tipped arrow and shoot his love interest, Daphne, a Naid nymph (naiads were minor goddesses of fountains, wells, springs, and other freshwater bodies), with a lead-tipped arrow.

Apollo ended up heartbroken as he was madly in love with the nymph but she was untouched by his attempts.

Eros and Psyche

Aphrodite (Eroses alleged mom and goddess of love) was jealous of the fact that Psyche had countless suitors and begged Eros to make mortal Psyche fall in love with the ugliest creature available. Eros agreed and flew down to earth to accomplish the mission but accidentally pricked himself with one of his gold-tipped arrows.

Eros enlisted the help of Zephyrus to organize secret meetings with his mortal lover. They had a fling that consisted of them meeting up nightly.

Now, there are two versions that I have read of the following myth, but they both end up the same. Version one goes that Psyche was told to never look at Eros and they had a secret love. The second version goes that they would meet in total darkness and she could not see her lover. Regardless, Psyche could not see Eros.

Psyche had curious and envious sisters who convinced Psyche to find out her secret lover's identity. Psyche would either sneak a peak or light a candle to do so. She discovers Eroses' identity and he realizes that she has discovered his identity. He flees the secretive sacred grove that they would meet in, feeling enraged and betrayed.

Psyche feels heartbroken and empty and needs to win back her lover. She begs the gods and goddesses to give her an opportunity to win back her lover, and Aphrodite grants one. Aphrodite gives Psyche a set of four seemingly impossible tasks (remember Aphrodite does not like Psyche!):

1) Sorting out a huge pile of seeds

2) Retrieving the Golden Fleece (a fleece of the golden-woolled ram, Chrysomallos, a symbol of authority and kingship)

3) Filling a flask with water from the River Styx (river between the Underworld and world of the living)

4) Return from the Underworld with a box of beauty ointment from Persephone, goddess of vegetation and wife of Hades, ruler of the Underworld

Psyche completes the tasks and wins Aphrodites approval and Eroses' trust. Eros and Psyche get married and have a child, Voluptas, goddess of sensual pleasure.

Offerings to Eros

In ancient times, offerings to Eros consisted of plants, flowers, sacred oils, wine, handmade jewelry, and animal sacrifices. Modern-day offerings to Eros include apples, grapes, roses, bows and arrows, rabbits and eggs.

Festivals and Celebrations

In Athens, Eros and Aphrodite were honored together started in the fifth century BCE at the acropolis. A festival would take place honoring Eros, it was called the Erotidia and would happen in March or April, during Spring, the season of fertility. It was full of sporting events, games and art.

Sources (in order)

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