Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Imagine three brothers whose father just died. Nobody really liked him but he owned a lot of businesses all over town, which he split the ownership of between his three sons.
The first son gets the CEO position of a powerful corporation, including his own private jet
The second son gets the father’s shipping company and his yacht
The last son gets ownership of a small funeral home that isn’t doing very well
The first son becomes a total jerk who sleeps around and cheats on his wife constantly.
The second son adopts the culture of the sailors at the docks and develops an aggressive personality
The third son’s company is more of a reliability than an asset, but through hard work he makes it work. He’s not very comforting to the grieving costumers, but his prices are fair and he treats them with respect. He marries a wife who helps him run the funeral home. The place is a success, despite its dreariness.
I’ve noticed this revisionist Greek myth is common wherein Persephone loves Hades and eats the pomegranate seeds in order to evade her overbearing mother, and that’s all well and good. You know, sometimes I’m in the mood for it and sometimes I’m not. But hear this: as long as we’re doing this, why is no one wondering whether Aphrodite might really love Hephaestus?
Think about it. All the gods in their immortal splendor are lining up to marry her, doing everything in their power to impress her, the goddess of love and beauty, and she choses…that guy. A god in technical terms only, a social reject who’s ugly and malformed and um, no fun. Always slaving away in his workshop when everyone else is quaffing nectar and having their eternal beach party up on Mount Olympus. They can’t believe she’d give up all of them for that.
So, because the gods do not take rejection well (looking at you Apollo), eventually they start to say to each other, well, we all know Zeus made her do it anyway. He’s gotta feel guilty for throwing Hephaestus off Mount Olympus that one time. And it quickly becomes thatpoorgirl, stuck in that workshop full of sweat and dirt and cyclopses when she could have had one of us. Because of course they’ve got love all figured out; it’s entirely technical and dependent on who’s the most charming and good-looking and not at all variable and strange and notoriously unpredictable, right?
Meanwhile Ares, only the most arrogant and brainless of the crew, can’t take a hint and is still showing up wherever Aphrodite goes trying to hit on her, so eventually she and Hephaestus decide to rig up an elaborate mechanical trap for him, using her as bait. When all the gods have laughed at him for getting caught he huffily attempts to regain his dignity by telling them, whatever, guys, you want to know the truth, I was meeting her for an assignation. And they all kind of know he’s full of it but they just accept it as the unvarnished truth from thereon in, because they’d love to believe she’d cheat on Hephaestus with Ares. They’d love it. Come on, Aphrodite, get off your high horse and admit you’re just as shallow as the rest of us.
So they talk, but Aphrodite doesn’t really care about their collective jealousy because she dotes on her misshapen genius of a husband with his sooty hands and his sweaty brow who always takes her seriously and is always so hard at work inventing astonishing new things to make her happy, and she loves the volcano they live in with its internal pressures so conducive to the formation of precious stones and its passages lit with glowing lava that so gorgeously offsets her cheekbones, and all the cyclopses worship her because even with one eye apiece they’ve still got more depth perception than most men do where she’s concerned. True it is that as a couple the two develop a reputation for not getting out much, because all those Olympian parties bore them to death and they’d rather spend time with each other (poor Aphrodite, she’s such a vivacious young thing and her husband is so grasping and insecure that he won’t let her go out and have fun), but they do all right.
THIS IS THE KIND OF CONTENT I’M LOOKING FOR
love <3
Ok, ok, wait, but it doesn’t end there. Because Aphrodite features pretty heavily in the story of Eros and Psyche. She’s painted as the villain, her jealousy causing her to send her son to curse the girl, but that’s just not true. She knows what it’s like to be clamored over for your beauty, knows the lies that are spread, the way it sets you up as a target and discredits your mind. Aphrodite hears the mortals whisper that this human girl rivals her in beauty, and one day she gets around to seeing what the fuss is about.
She finds Psyche’s home all but besieged by suitors, but she notices the girl isn’t falling for their flattery, that she is still kind, no matter who she’s dealing with. She sees a bit of herself in this girl who aches to be spoken to, not at, and who wants most of all to be heard.
When she sends her son to the girl, she is less than truthful about her motivations. She knows if she tells him she hopes he will fall for this mortal girl it will make things awkward for him, that true love must be discovered on its own and cannot be forced. When he comes away from the encounter with her name on his lips, searching for excuses to talk to her again, Aphrodite whispers into the soothsayer’s ear to tell Psyche’s father that she is loved by a god. Frees her from the hoards of shallow admirers and gives her son the opportunity he needs to see her again.
When a year of late-night conversations fails to convince her son that it’s time to reveal himself to his beloved, she puts a bug in Psysche’s ear to ask for her sisters to visit, whispers in their ears to convince Psyche to take matters into her own hands, ensures the two can finally meet face to face. She is saddened when Eros flees, believing Psyche had betrayed him.
The four tasks Psyche must overcome to be reunited with her son aren’t laid forth out of spite, but rather to help the girl find herself. Aphrodite knows this girl hasn’t had a choice in the path her life has taken up until this point. Knows that everything was in the hands of her father, and of Aphrodite herself. She wants to make sure Psyche means it, wants Psyche to know what she’s getting into when dealing with the Olympians. Wants, most of all, for Psyche to question her own motivations, fully evaluate the situation, and then make her own choice.
Her frustration at the Olympians aiding the girl isn’t because she hates being tricked. No, she wants Psyche to break out of her shell, wants her to have the option to decide this isn’t worth it and walk away.
When the final task ends in Psyche laying unconscious on the roadway, Aphrodite searches the girl’s heart and knows her intentions are true. Knows she is ready to join the family. She kicks Eros out of the house to ensure he would find Psyche, to ensure he would come to his senses and forgive her, realize that he had been unfair to her and to ask her forgiveness in turn.
They say Aphrodite was sour about the whole ordeal until her granddaughter was born, but the truth was she hadn’t stopped smiling from the moment her son had first come home, whispering the girls name in reverence.
hades isn’t a badass. hades named his three-headed-guard-of-the-underworld-dog spot. hades whispers to his flowers to make them grow. hades grows fruit. there’s no sun in the underworld.
hades isn’t a badass. stop saying this false thing
In myth, Hades’ most remarked upon traits are 1) how responsible/reliable he is, 2)how sober-minded he is, 3)how dedicated, implacable, and long-remembering he is, and 4)how boring and grim most of the other Olympians think he is to be around. Oh and notably, that if you play him a song he likes, he’ll basically give you anything you ask for(though not without conditions).
Hades is, canonically, a gigantic nerd. If they’d had trainsets, he’d have been the Olympian who collected trainsets, meticulously corrected with exacto knife and hobby-paints the errors toy-makers introduced to those trainsets, and then endlessly talked about those trainsets to anyone sat next to him at Thanksgiving Dinner :| When he wasn’t trying to rope them into an interminable discussion about gardening or divine law, that is :| :| He’s the sort of god who frequently handed out punishment like giving someone a million-piece puzzle where every piece is shaped the same, that resets itself at the start of every day if you don’t complete it, and then he keeps the last piece on his person at all times as a secret private joke for eternity because he finds you personally distasteful(not even because he’s mad at you or hates you particularly; he just doesn’t like you as a person) :| :| :| He is. A Gigantic. Nerd.
He’s also like one of the only gods who is faithful to his wife. And he listens to her like when she asks for a soul to be released and he’s like “But honey, the rules.” And she just gives him that look and he goes “Yes dear,” and lets the soul go with the easiest freaking instructions ever in a myth. And the human still fucks it up. Not his fault Persephone, not Hades’ fault this time. Essentially, Hades is sorta like the accountant suburban dad who collects really specific figurines and gets really grumpy when people mess up his lawn. Do you know how hard his wife worked on those roses? He is calling his attorney. Oh wait, he is also an attorney.
Filed under: Favorite Myths
Everybody knows it’s Persephone that you’ve got to watch out for.
I love this post every time I see it.
Anonymous: whoa ok step back, daedalus built a cow suit for a woman who wanted to fuck a bull and that's why the minotaur WAS A THING? I DID NOT KNOW THIS
I honestly think that I’d be doing you a great disservice if I didn’t tell you about the time Daedalus enabled rampant bestiality, so allow me to clear this gap in your knowledge.
Anyone who doesn’t want to read a poorly retold myth about a man who built a cow suit so realistic that it totally fooled a magic bull into laying down some absolutely quality homo-bovine dick and siring a minotaur should probably press J on their keyboard right now, but honestly if that synopsis doesn’t do it for you then you should probably just quit Greek mythology all together.
So, Minos is this guy who manages to achieve the dual feat of being both King of Crete and an incorrigible asshole. Also, the first achievement is a really tenuous one, because Minos has like a billion brothers and he’s basically Malcolm in the Middle and all his brothers are better looking than him and they have way better abs and it’s really awkward every year at Christmas because they’re all “could you pass the stuffing, Minos? Also you’re totally stuffed because I’m going to be king one day haha suck it, right on” and so Minos starts to get really worried that he’s going to lose the throne to one of his more lustrous-locked brothers and then he’ll be stuck with just the one achievement of being an incorrigible asshole and so he has a little brood and he comes up with a plan.
One day, he goes up to Poseidon, god of the sea and all things wet (or at least that’s what he tells girls at the Olympus nightclubs) and he’s like “hey, Poseidon, could you do me a solid?” and Poseidon is like “no bro but I can do you a liquid” and they have a little manly giggle and then Minos says “no but really, I need a favour” and Poseidon is like “well, you just gave me a golden opportunity to mock the states of matter, I’m 100% up for doing any favour you want” and Minos says “well, you know how I have loads of brothers” and Poseidon is like “you mean the better looking ones?” and Minos pouts and says “looks aren’t everything, but yes, those ones” and Poseidon is like “go on” and Minos says “well, I need them to stop trying to steal the throne because it’s getting really annoying and also I can’t sleep at night any more and it’s driving my hot wife insane, could you maybe show that you totally support me being King of Crete? That way, they’ll definitely stop being dicks at Christmas” and Poseidon just nods and says “I have a great idea for how I can do this”
and Minos is like “wow, are you going to send down an army of merpeople and slaughter all my brothers in a righteous and watery battle?” and Poseidon is like “no” and Minos says “are you going to conjure up a giant tidal wave and make it destroy all my brothers’ homes but leave my palace totally intact?” and Poseidon is like “no” and Minos says “well, are you going to turn all my brothers into mermen?” and Poseidon is like “look, I’m going to send you a bull”
and Minos just blinks and says “a bull” and Poseidon nods and grins and says “yes, a bull” and Minos says “THAT’S bull” and Poseidon points behind him and says “no, THAT’S a bull” and then he brings out this fucking phenomenal bull. Like, this bull puts all other bulls to shame. It’s glowing white and it’s as big as two ordinary bulls and probably twice as virile. It’s basically overcompensation in taurine form. Anyway, this bull is so bitchin’ that immediately, all of Minos’ brothers are like “wow, nope, you can keep that throne, we don’t want Poseidon to sic his sick bull on us” and basically Minos lives happily ever after with his incredible bull.
Until eventually Poseidon shows up at Minos’ palace and says “hey, Minos, you know that really awesome bull I lent you a while back?” and Minos is like “what bull” and Poseidon is like “the magical snow white bull which gleamed in the Cretan sun like limestone and Apollo’s cheekbones” and Minos is like “oh, THAT bull” and Poseidon is like “yes, that bull, now where is it because I’m having a bull party next week and I really want it back” and Minos says “well, here’s the thing, and it’s kind of a funny story really and I’m sure we’ll laugh about it later, maybe we could even laugh about it now, ha, but anyway all jokes aside I’m keeping the bull” and Poseidon is all “like fuck you’re keeping that bull, it’s my best bull, this is bullshit” and Minos is like “that’s one of the hazards of keeping a bull, maybe you’re not cut out for it” and Poseidon says “you haven’t heard the end of this, Minos, you have made a very powerful and watery enemy” and he leaves and Minos goes and, like, pets the bull or something, I don’t know what you do with bulls.
So, Poseidon goes back to his soggy lair and formulates a plan, and he eventually comes up with something straight out of Quentin Tarantino’s brie-induced nightmares. He goes to find Aphrodite, the goddess of love and afternoon delight, and says “hey Aphrodite, first of all you look delectable and secondly I need you to help me make a woman bang a bull” and Aphrodite is like “I honestly hate this job sometimes, but you’re right, I do look delectable, tell me more” and Poseidon is like “I had this really sweet bull and I lent it to Minos so he would think I liked him and now he won’t give it back and so I need you to make his wife fall in love with the bull, it’s a foolproof vengeance plan” and Aphrodite says “you are a god” and Poseidon says “yes” and Aphrodite says “why can’t you just, you know, take back the bull with your divine power?” and Poseidon is like “look, are you going to make this woman fall in love with the bull or not” and Aphrodite is like “fuck yes, that sounds hilarious, consider it done and I want front row seats” and Poseidon is like “you are my favourite niece and occasional lover, I owe you one”
Back to the palace at Crete, where Minos’ wife, Pasiphaë, is lounging about on a contemporary equivalent to a chaise-lounge when she suddenly gets this unmistakable urge to do the do with a bull - but not just any bull, her loins quiver only for the bull in her husband’s barnyard. Instead of doing what most people would do when they realise they have an insatiable urge to make tender love to a bull and immediately committing herself to months of therapy, she thinks “I know what I have to do” and she picks up the contemporary equivalent of a phone and calls Daedalus, inventor and architect extraordinaire.
She’s all “hey, Daedalus, we have patient confidentiality, right?” and Daedalus is like “I’m not your doctor, so no” and she’s like “well, I’m your Queen, so how about you say ‘yes’ instead and I tell you what I want?” and Daedalus is like “my lips are sealed, tell me what you need” and she’s all “well, there’s this really rad guy and I totally want to just lay him down and lick chocolate sauce off his body, but there’s a hitch in my plan” and Daedalus says “yeah, you’re married” and Pasiphaë says “yes, and also he’s a bull” and Daedalus is like “do you mean he’s well hung or” and Pasiphaë is like “look man you gotta help me on this, I need me some sweet bullocking and only you can help me” and Daedalus says “I’ll do what I can, but I hope you have a damn good shower at your palace because I may need to use it for about 6 weeks afterwards” and she’s like “done, now get over here and get me some”
So Daedalus turns up and helps her, and in the blink of an eye, he’s built her this monstrous wooden cow suit. Now, the myth is not exactly clear on the mechanics of this bovine sex toy, but it’s established that Pasiphaë gets into the cow suit and goes to find her bullock beau and they make sweet, sweet cattle love all day and all night. I do not know how she manoeuvres herself inside this wooden furry abomination and frankly I do not want to know, but whatever she does is 100% successful because 9 months later she gives birth to another furry abomination. The good news is that he’s a healthy, bouncing baby boy. The bad news is that he is half baby and half bull and also he has this really annoying habit that most newborns don’t have of eating people, which means that Minos is the definition of Not Impressed with his new stepson, so he does what any sane human would do in this situation, and he calls Daedalus.
Daedalus says “I’m in the shower, what do you want?” and Minos is like “look, my wife has committed a slight indiscretion and I need you to take care of the result” and Daedalus is like “she fucked a bull and she’s had a grotesque hybrid baby, hasn’t she” and Minos narrows his eyes and says “how do you know?” and Daedalus says “just a stab in the dark, mate, I had no hand in this at all, literally none, just let me wash my hands a minute and I’ll be right back” and Minos is like “just build something to trap that devil spawn, because it’s started to eat my servants and I never even wanted a stepson anyway, it’s just one more claim to the throne isn’t it” and Daedalus is like “dude, give me a week and it’ll be done”
and so Daedalus constructs this impenetrable labyrinth that’s so impregnable that Daedalus nearly gets lost on the way out, and they lob the minotaur tot right into the middle of it, and that’s that.
Except then the minotaur starts demanding the sacrifice of seven young men every year, who are tossed into the labyrinth and forced to play a fatal game of cat and mouse with a grotesque superpowered man-bull creature that will ultimately devour them, flesh from bone, at the heart of a labyrinth that only he can navigate, but that’s a story for another myth. Or The Maze, starring Dylan O’Brien, out in a multiplex near you.
i often see all these poems and headcanons about modern greek gods and i yawn whenever they’re exclusively us-based because honestly
hermes would be completely fascinated with traveling by plane. staying in a city for more than one day would be a preposterous idea when there’s a whole world to see, transportation systems to try, adapt and revolutionize. can a japanese bullet train break his record on land? what about the lockheed sr-71 blackbird in the air? what about the panama canal? the moscow metro system would hold a special place in his heart, with its beautiful architecture and its daring nature, reaching the very depths of the mortal world. let’s say it’s his favorite gateway to guide souls to the afterlife from. (i’ll omit his stunts in china’s underground black market, for the sake of simplicity. he is the patron of thieves and smugglers after all.)
artemis would favor the great african plains, the australian and north-american wilderness, and the amazon rainforest. she’d be at home among the hunting tribes, reborn as a huntress each time, learning about the cultures that far transcend her own. she’d bring hope, strength and health to the young girls growing alongside her, teaching them the ancient ways of the hunt and protecting them from harm. but artemis would also lead in major women-driven movements around the world, aiding in hospitals at war-torn zones, bringing the miracle of life to even the most desolate of places. she’d accept women of all backgrounds and walks of life as her protégés, whether they fit the physical description or not. artemis would never leave any of them behind.
apollo would thrive in the arts, from broadway to bollywood, from the louvre to a small, self-sustained gallery in colombia or argentina, the brilliant street artists in brazil and barcelona, the lively musicians in the antilles. he’d inspire young musicians, artists and writers all over the world to follow their paths; appearing at random gigs to encourage that south-african band making their first public appearance, leaving random bouts of inspiration to the troubled poet in pakistan, or helping the young illustrator from amsterdam find the motivation to finish that project that’s got them stuck. no matter how big or small the task, apollo is ready to offer insight and inspiration whenever and wherever it is needed.
athena, so amazed by the internet and the speed with which information can be shared, creating accounts on every single piece of social media and imparting her wisdom via her words and pictures, inspiring the youth to learn more and think more and understand more than ever. she’d lead movements for social justice, fight tooth and claw in protests all over the world, slowly but surely weaving her way into the corrupt legal systems and destroying them from the inside each time she is reborn.
hades, wanderer of obscure cathedrals and abandoned cemeteries, ironically finds himself often in vatican city, meteora, egypt and tibet, always exploring the most spiritual side of humanity. his travels are quiet and respectful in nature, with the mere intention of observing the human rituals concerning death and the afterlife. El Día De Los Muertos in Mexico is by far the one that’s intrigued him the most.
by special request of ourlolitadaydreams, a larger version of that hold my flower doodle
BUt yall don’t understand how perfect this is.
Cause, it’s generally agreed: Hades was a pretty chill dude. He was rich and powerful and grim and kind of a moody manic sometimes, but generally, as long as you stayed on your side of the styx and didn’t much up with him he was content to leave you be. And even if you come crashing down into his realm being a jackass, he was still fair and just, if annoyed. (The story where Heracles bails out one of the guys he had punished for being rude psycho jackasses basically amounts to “leave the lead jackass to rot, but if it means that much take the other brats”)
He’s a very Lawful Neutral figure: The guy behind the desk of the great tax collector in the ancient world. The Greeks had a healthy respect and fear for him, but as long as you followed the rules and paid the ferry man there wasn’t anything to fear- and really he wasn’t the one responsible for the system…Just the guy enforcing it.
But Persephone.
Persephone.
There was someone you did not want to piss off. There is a reason Hades name is just “The Rich One” and her’s is “The Iron Queen”. She took her job as queen of the underworld very very seriously and she had a mean streak a mile wide. When Orpheus came down to fetch his wife Hades was all for letting them go he was so moved by the man’s music, but Persephone is the one that set the trial knowing that Orpheus couldn’t resist looking- in some versions of the myth after he’s ripped apart by nymphs she seats him in their court to be their musician and it’s implied that was her plan all along- to not only keep one soul but to gain another- capable of great music to please her husband. When the whole thing with Adonis went down, she threatened the stability of all the world to tip the scales in her favor. According to Homer when men wanted to call curses down on the souls of the departed they invoked her name.
The Greeks where terrified of her. Aside from her priests no one was allowed to speak her name legally (with Hades and the others it was just social tabbo) for fear of drawing her attention. To them- she was the Goddess of Life AND Death, Summer and Winter. She command power over men’s lives and their deaths. You did not mess with her.
In all likely hood this is exactly how it would go down- Hades holding her flower while she meeted out the divine hellish punishment on the offenders.
Greek myths are fucking great because their gods are so human. They argue, they fuck up at things, they make fun of each other, they piss each other off, it’s great, there’s so much human interaction and then Christianity comes in like that guy and is all like “oh my god is infallible and knows everything and immortal and everywhere at once and you can’t see it but its totally there and stronger than everything” shut the fuck up Christianity go take a writing class
