#*posts epically without context*

[axofixations]

[generic-enthusiast]

idk I think it's really special how you can meet someone or see a fictional character or watch an episode or read a chapter or listen to just one song and not know that it's going to be the beginning of a huge part of your life. the person that helped you through a crisis was once just someone you said hi to that seemed nice. the character you've written or read thousands of words about used to just be a distant piece of media. that chapter that changed your life didn't use to exist in your mind. you cried to that song for the first time once.

[mosdrash]

Hey @o3o-lapd-o3o and @rin-solo , i did it 🤭

Just a silly little thing

[luvuomi]

✎ . . . ❝ [ amethos but, epic au! ]❞ .ೃ࿐

dedicated tracks: “the horse and the infant” & “just a man”

though strategic in his battle tactics and a master in the art of war, sethos is not one who particularly enjoys the bloodshed and adrenaline that comes along with it. unfortunately in this day in age, not many would agree. for them, to harbor such skilled yet deathly attributes, should thus be carried with pride. only then, can a man ever wish to become that which is greater than himself. this is how many view the reigning king of tulaytullah.

an adversary that is neither man nor mythical, but one’s darkest moment.

but would his fellow comrades still think the same of him now if they saw him hesitating on striking down his greatest foe? granted.. said foe was nothing more than a mere infant.

a fragile, defenseless being he now cradled in his arms, a familiar gesture that brought forth memories of his own child as he looked into their eyes. how could such innocence be deemed a threat by the gods? to be the bearer of such great calamity?

he couldn’t do it. how can when all he sees as he carries this child are fleeting images of his own son and wife.

where as he stands out on the balcony overseeing a once prosperous nation now set ablaze and ringing with battle cries from his invasion, he imagines for a moment that he’s back home in tulaytullah. even after all the years, away from everything he’s known, he can still see the image of the streets below bustling with vendors as they open up shops and prepare for the day ahead. instead of the smoky air, he imagines the mellow summer breeze that travels through the air of his kingdom, greeting him a pleasant morning.

in this daydream, sethos continues to hold the infant in his arms, having decidedly taken him in to raise as his own. at his right, his own son tugs at him, eagerly wanting to meet his new little brother and on his left, is his wife — amélie . her head resting upon his shoulder while tender eyes gaze upon the infant that she of course welcomed with open arms. it’s a distant future but one that is so picturesque, he almost believes it to be true.

but as the infant’s cries suddenly echo out, everything vanishes as quickly as it came, reduced to nothing more than the ashes that fill the darkened skies.

the world he desires is not awaiting him should he go against the will of the gods.

to have sympathy now would come at too much of a cost. one he can’t afford to lose as a man who’s just trying.. begging to go home.

[twstedfreak]

Not Even the Gods Can Keep Me from You — g. satoru

Ꮺ ⋮ pairing — odysseus!gojo satoru x fem!reader [greek au]

Ꮺ ⋮ synopsis — ❝ you were never supposed to fall for the prince of ithaca—especially not when war was on the horizon and the gods had already written tragedy in the stars. but you did. and any now, years have passed, the sea has swallowed his name, and you're left raising his son in a kingdom that’s slowly forgetting him. across cursed islands and shattered battlegrounds, gojo satoru is fighting his way back to you—but after all this time, will love be enough to bring him home? ❞

Ꮺ ⋮ c&w — 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—kinda ooc, kinda slowburn too, war, violence, death, grief, emotional manipulation, long chapters(?), separation, implied infidelity in the context of war and distance, strong language, betrayal, intense emotional conflict, Satoru’s inner turmoil and struggles with guilt, longing, and regret. tags might be added along the making of this Ꮺ ⋮ notes — it’s finally here… slowly but surely, i’m going to start uploading this series I’ve been working on for what feels like forever. seriously, the on-and-off relationship i’ve had with this story and the thought process behind it? Yeah, it’s been a ride. you wouldn’t believe half the stuff that went into it (just kidding, maybe you would). anyway, i’ll be posting the first chapter soon! just tweaking a few things here and there. upload times might be a bit inconsistent, as well as expect (ig)slow updates, idk it really does depend on my mood, so please bear with me while I get everything in order. thanks for sticking with me, y'all!! if you want to be added to the taglist, make sure to comment before i close it! i’m currently sorting out my tumblr theme (you know, the usual chaos of customization), but i’ll be back to posting soon. thanks so much for your patience and support, can’t wait to get this rolling! teaser post here! Ꮺ ⋮ status — new & ongoing

masterlist | drabble | headcanon ˚ 　 ⤹ 　 ❝ ©twstedfreak

TABLE OF CONTENT . . . . !!

PROLOGUE — BEFORE THE STORM The moment the thread was spun

01 | The Prince & the Spartan  ⤷ A diplomatic visit. A shared glance. Their world begins to shift. 02 | The Lasting Days  ⤷ He falls fast. She builds walls. But the heart doesn't always obey. 03 | The Archer in the Crowd  ⤷ A masked suitor. A silent promise. A choice she never saw coming. 04 | Athena’s Watchful Eyes  ⤷ Athena watches a child become a man—driven by love, tested by fate. 05 | The Ninth Dawn  ⤷ Nine days. One child. One goodbye. Neither ready to let go.

MORE TO BE ADDED..... !!

Ꮺ ⋮ reminder — inspired by epic the musical by jorge rivera herrans. The banner and divider design is created by me. Please do not use, alter, or modify the template/design without permission. Do not steal, modify, tweak, translate, or plagiarize anything from my blog. Do not use / copy my template or theme. Respect my work, love u guys. 🚨

Ꮺ ⋮ TAGLIST OPEN comment to be added to the official list —

@sims-4lifers. @spiritkittten. @crystal-freak24. @not-aya. @n1vi. @kinkyvitch. @twistedbitcc. @abeitriz. @sims-4lifers. @artist1936. @ratedrrrr. @barbare2. @sheep-infog. @tojideckmuncher. @midnightlunasworld. @lovely-maryj. @the-queen-yn. @dairyfaerie. @qnqwr @poopooindamouf. @theanaoevre. @blueemochii. @tinykryptonitefairy. @thesimppotato11. @kyungjunnies. @tamishadawn. @corvid007. @linaaeatsfamilies. @borntoexplore11-blog. @dainslumi. @rjreins. @perffff0. @sillysushi. @bluepanda08. @joyfulweaselbananapanda. @crsdf4everr. @lem-hhn. @leave-rae-alone.

— ©twstedfreak

[leynaeithnea]

Greek Mythology Sources

Interest in greek mythology rises anew with the new number of retellings and adaptions...and misconceptions all around...

Claims like "that never happened" or "that's the roman version" are around a lot...but even if you wanted to learn more, where would you even start looking? Where do you begin your research for your next fic, or next discussion? Well...That's for you!

Here's a list of source names, links to access them, maps, family trees & more

Where to access the texts:

ToposText

Database, interlinks all names and places, has almost all sources translated, can find all name mentions of place or character in the sources, has a map with the places

Perseus Collection Greek and Roman Materials (and Scaife Viewer)

Digital Library, nearly all main greek and roman sources, including OG language text and dictionary for those languages (is instable at times, try coming back a few hours/days later and it should be up again)

Theoi Greek Mythology

Database, has summary posts for individual heroes, creatures, gods and events, as well as many translations, has a search function

List of Ancient Sources

Homer's Iliad (8th BC)

Homer's Odyssey (8th BC)

Epic Cycle (and Theban Cycle) fragments (8-6th BC)

Homeric Hymns (7th BC)

Orphic Hymns (2nd BC/2nd AD)

Quintus Smyrnaeus’s Posthomerica (3rd AD)

Tryphiodorus’s Taking of Ilium (3rd AD)

Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (3rd BC)

Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (5th AD)

Hesiod’s Theogony, Works and Days, Catalogue of Women (8th BC)

Statius’s Thebaid, Achilleid (1st AD)

(More under cut)

Virgil’s Aeneid (1st BC)

Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica (1st AD)

Colluthus’s Taking of Helen (6th AD)

Pindar’s Odes (5th BC)

Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides (5th BC)

Fragments of lyric poets (8th-6th BC)

Athenaeus’s Deipnoshists (2nd AD)

Lycophron’s Alexandra (3rd BC)

Pausanias’s Description of Greece (2nd AD)

Strabo’s Geography (1st AD)

Scholia on Homer (~ 5th BC - 11th AD)

Scholia on Pindar  (2nd AD?)

Scholia on Sophocles, on Euripides (1st BC-15th AD)

Maurus Servius Honoratus’ Commentaries on the Aeneid (5th AD)

Corpus Aristotelicum (4th BC)

Fragments of Hellanicus’s works (5th BC)

Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca Historica (1st AD)

Herodotus’s Histories (5th BC)

Dionysius Halicarnassius’s Roman Antiquities (1st BC)

Plutarch’s Quaestiones Graecae (1st AD)

Eustathius’s commentaries on Homer (12th AD)

Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, Epitome (2nd AD)

Hyginus’s Fabulae (2nd AD)

Ovid’s Works (1st AD)

Antoninus Liberalis’s Metamorphoses (2nd AD)

Conon’s Narrations (1st AD)

Dictys Cretensis (4th AD)

Dares Phrygius (5th AD)

Malalas’s Chronography (6th AD)

St.Jerome’s Chronicon (4th AD)

Eusebius’s Chronography (5th AD)

Philostratus the Athenian’s Heroicus (3rd AD)

Seneca Plays (1st AD)

Suda (10th AD)

Tzetzes (12th AD)

Duris of Same (4th BC)

Ptolemy Hephaestion (2nd AD)

More Sources:

WordHoard

(Software/Java Document for Scholia on Homer, commentary on the Odyssey & Iliad)

About This Book – Euripides Scholia: Scholia on Orestes 501–1100

Scholia on Euripides

LacusCurtius • A Gateway to Ancient Rome

Roman Sources and History

https://web.archive.org/web/20050625081727/http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Hesiod/iliad.html

Little Iliad Fragments

Most of these places have older translations for the epics, poems and hymns (with older language), places like Poetry In Translation and https://www.gutenberg.org often have newer translations available for free, though…with a bit of digging most translations even recent ones can be found online :)

Comparing several translations is also good if you want to make any arguments about what a text says without being able to read the text in the original language, does the text really say that or is it just this translation?

It also doesn't hurt to research a little about the author of a work as well to get context for which time and sociopolitical and personal situation they were writing in (it helps to do a quick search into the history of ancient greece too, i.e. epic writers writing during the 7th century BC had different agendas than playwrights of the 5th century during the persian wars, athenians during the conflicts with sparta, or later hellenistic writers after Alexander the Great)

Wikipedia: CAN be used, it's a good starting point, but check the sources cited as much as you can, rather than believing what the page itself says

Links to Maps

Ancient Greece Maps – Ancient Greece: Φώς & Λέξη

User:MaryroseB54 - Wikimedia Commons

Cyowari - Professional, Digital Artist | DeviantArt

Some of the Realms of Greece in the Heroic Age by Yaulendur on DeviantArt

Late Bronze Age Mediterranean Trade, c. 1400-1200 BCE: Empires, Merchants, and Maritime Routes of the Ancient World - World History Encyclopedia

Translators:

Translate to Ancient Greek Online

https://logeion.uchicago.edu

Wiktionary

Ancient Art 

Resources

Harvard Art Museums

Family Tree: 

(Compiled by a friend, not exhaustive) - Note that there are often various different versions of lineage for many characters, so this only represents ONE of many possibilities)

Family Echo

Books

Oxford classical dictionary.pdf

Brief History Of Ancient Greece.pdf

168679208-Ancient-Greece.pdf

Complete Greek Drama

The Ancient Epic Cycle and it's ancient reception A companion.pdf

Final Note

These things should not be gatekept, its time to share them freely

I wish I could offer even more sources via academic books and papers but I fear this would exceed my abilities considering the vastness of the topic of Greek Mythology! But this is a starting point :D Have fun! 

Google Scholar has a lot of secondary sources (scholia commentary & theories), books about history, society, politics, flora & fauna, religion, culture, etc. of the time both of history and mythical history…if you have a friend in academia with university access (if you don’t have it yourself) you can ask them to check if they have access to the papers/books otherwise hidden behind insane paywalls, because a LOT of them are available as pdfs!

I also wish I had more visual/audio sources but this is smth I cant change :") I'm sure there's some good videos on youtube out there...somewhere x)

Feel free to contact me if you have more sources you want to add or any links don't work

Here is the Post as DOCs to share outside of tumblr

[subtle-foreshadowing]

ok but they all pmo a little (said they were gonna watch something with me. doesnt, puts on their stupid fucking musical that i only slightly like and then keeps making excuses as to why we cant watch what i want to, while everything about said musical is out of order, so i cant even understand whats going on, and in the past theyve also done it out of order and i only got that they were doing a really cool reference to another song after the 5th time of them playing it to me because i just watched the song it was referencing)

sorry guys. my evil alter

[the-littlest-goblin]

As I’ve alluded to, I think a lot of the failures of c3 can be traced to the fundamental gap that, in a plot where so much revolved around “”the gods”” CR never answers the question:

What the fuck is a god?

Others have made excellent points in how we talk about epic fantasy and the difficulties in fully receiving a world where gods definitively exist. What's interesting to me is that, if you really want to get deep into the philosophical weeds (and I always do), then what does it actually mean when we say "gods exist" in Critical Role?

Disclaimer: this isn't exactly as comprehensive as I would like but what I hoped to articulate in one meta post is more like 2-5 thesis proposals in a trench coat, and I still want the catharsis of yeeting my thoughts into the void so I can finally take a nap. I tried to limit the academia of it all but there's still plenty of jargon, and also a bibliography because I like to show my work.  

Short version: Godhood/divinity is a semantic lacuna in the CR's worldbuilding. That's not a bad thing, in fact it's kind of necessary. The problem arises when the plot makes gods and godhood a central problem without resolving or even acknowledging the barriers to understanding those concepts, thus leading to hours of dialogue, plot beats, and a supposedly climactic resolution which all amount to nonsense if you look too closely.

As anyone who’s so much as dipped a toe into philosophy will tell you, you gotta define your usage of terms or the discussion is DOA. On all levels of CR text, words like "god"/"the gods"/"divine"/"deity"/etc. are used interchangeably in so many contexts, and the meaning of those terms is only accessible via contextual implication, and the deducible meanings in so many of those contexts directly contradict each other. C3 especially reveals a dissonance between how the mytho-cultural text approaches divinity compared to the contours drawn by the mechanico-ontological text.1

The former in Exandria refers to "the gods" in terms of the Pantheon, a definite collection of individual entities. These otherworldly beings of Tengar, a realm of pure possibility. But "god" is also a rank within D&D's cosmic taxonomy—a rank to which, in Exandria, other entities can rise via the Rites of Ascension. The Matron is a god same as the others; Tharizdun is part of the pantheon but separate, not of Tengar. Maybe a "god," maybe not?

In the mytho-cultural role "the gods" play in Exandria, their being-qua-being is positioned as necessarily plurally defined and unknowable, but nevertheless possessed of immense "cosmic power" befitting their role in the Creation myth and ongoing worship. It makes perfect sense that the in-world mythology is (intentionally) plural and contradictory. However, as others have pointed out,* Exandria's socio-political and cultural worldbuilding vis a vis religion are (less intentionally, I would imagine) rather underbaked, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of what the gods (and religion) mean for the cultural part of mytho-cultural. 

Now let’s get into the latter. Because CR isn't just a narrative—it's a ludonarrative, and the game mechanics have huge ontological implications.1 

In the mechanico-ontological sphere, the gods are positioned as sort of exceptions to the rule, by which I mean, like, we don't get stat blocks for deities. Which again, on its own, makes perfect sense! D&D focalizes the PCs, and so on the purely mechanical level, gods/the divine are subordinate, acting only through proxies. This is necessary for the game-narrative D&D supports. Giving god-level power explicit stats would be a catch-22:

first, it would severely demystify "cosmic power"—to define is to limit, after all. Not doing so can imply an ontology where gods are not confined by mechanics—their powers go beyond, their powers are not only unwritten but unwriteable.

secondly, if the rulebooks were to even attempt codifying mechanical abilities on par with the semantic associations of “god-level” power, then it would be very difficult to maintain either the PCs focal role as agents of the narrative or a fairly balanced game, much less both. We saw this play out in Downfall—the point of the mechanics in the final battle outlined the huge disparity between mortals and gods.

Speaking of Downfall—as well as their mechanic and mythic existences, the gods also exist on the narrative level as characters. As such, we must necessarily consider questions of agency and consciousness in qualifying their existence, but fuck if that isn’t a messy question on the one layer, let alone putting it in the contexts of these shifting, intersecting layers.2 Keeping it brief though, the gods’ narrative agency is subject to similar issues as their mechanical powers.**

Being an exception to the rules of mechanico-ontological existence only holds together so long as divinity remains separate from everything governed by mechanics when mobilized in a narrative. I'm not trying to nitpick—Matt's "NPCs are not governed by the same rules as PCs" MO isn't automatically world-logic breaking, and there's a degree of pedantry on that front that is simply unsportsmanlike. But the problem in c3 specifically is that the plot focalizes the gods and divinity as a construct in such a way that invites—demands even—closer inspection. And the coherence between the structural layers of the narrative breaks down quite quickly under this scrutiny.

It's not like c3 brought this theme out of nowhere. Disproving that there is any essential divide between gods and mortals defines the zeitgeist of the Age of Arcanum. The Matron’s ascension proves that, however the difference is defined, the state of being one or the other is traversable. Exu: Calamity brought this up plenty: Laerryn contends that the distinction is access to the Celestial plane, and seeks to dissolve the difference by achieving large-scale interplanar travel for all of Avalir; Zerxus embodies that so called "divine magic" is not strictly tied to a worshipful relationship with a deity.

In c2, god-or-not is a huge element of Jester's arc with the Traveler. Her build shows that, despite the very different class abilities/powers of warlocks and clerics, there is no mechanico-ontological constraining the distinction between a warlock patron and a god. These are roles defined through a relational existence, not in keeping with any essential taxonomy of substances.1 The Traveller’s position in the cosmic taxonomy as an Archfey has less bearing on the type of magic he can grant than the belief and conviction on the side of the grantee. Similarly, there’s the Luxon in all its mystery—a god but not a pantheon deity? Divine but not a god? The semantics seem less and less significant. 

Now’s probably a good time to remember that CR is a story, and stories are representative constructions wherein any logic other than narrative logic is secondary. D&D as a story engine allows fictional representation to evoke a unique facsimile of materialism because the diegetic laws of physics are established in such detail via mechanics. But still, in a fictional world, metaphysics kind of are physics, and also kind of are semiotics, and both answer to the symbolic. It's fun (for me) to dig into the worldbuilding using philosophy as a framework, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if the philosophy finds gaps so long as the rest of the narrative elements cohere around those gaps.

In c3, they do not. 

Next to c3, c1 gets the closest to leaning too hard against the logical house-of-cards making up cosmic ontology in Exandria due to the importance of the Divine Gate in defeating proto-god Vecna. The Divine Gate is, imo, the material nexus point where all the semantic and ontological contradictions coalesce: it was created so as to specifically block gods from traversing out of the Celestial plane, but is permeable to mortals. Presumably there is some quality or essential substance that decides who can move through it and who can’t—but what is that? What is the substance of divinity, not in the ontological sense but in the materialism of arcana? It’s not something exclusive to denizens of Tengar, because the Matron is also trapped; perhaps “divine” is a misnomer, and it only traps the specific entities designated at the time of its creation, regardless of any shared essential quality? Except no, because Vecna was able to be trapped behind it as well. 

On the flip side, the great thing about the Divine Gate is that it encompasses and narratively justifies that catch-22 of divine mechanics by adding the element of time. The gods used to be un-writably powerful Pre-Divergence, hence their cosmic standing, but the Divine Gate limits their powers of acting in the present, allowing for their mechanical impotence. The Divergence and the Divine Gate incorporate the gods’ disparate ontological states into the history of Exandria, a physical and temporal division that allows for these contradictions to coexist in separate corners of the narrative.*** 

This coheres throughout campaigns 1 and 2—even when c1 started approaching concepts of “divinity” more closely, the plot maintains a separation between mortal stakes and divine stakes. Vecna was Vox Machina’s problem because he posed a threat to mortals; he posed a threat to mortals because he was seeking to achieve god-level power on the mortal plane. We don’t need to know what the “power” exactly means to know it would be a huge imbalance. The threat is nullified by trapping Vecna behind the Divine Gate. We still don’t know what he is vis a vis godhood, but we do know his powers of acting and affecting on the Material Plane are curtailed and as such he’s not mortal’s problem anymore. Compare this to the Bell’s Hells attitudes towards their joint BBEGs of Ludinus and Predathos. Ludinus is the threat on the Material Plane; for much of the campaign, BH cap off cyclical debates on the gods by agreeing that stopping Ludinus is their actionable concern. In the end, however, Ludinus’ rhetoric succeeds in focalizing cosmic concerns: the narrative concludes with the resolution to the questions of ‘what to do about the gods and Predathos,’ reifying Ludinus’ view that the cosmic structure was a problem to be solved (despite the complete lack of supporting evidence to that point). Meanwhile the resolution to the—previously central—question of ‘what to do about Ludinus’ is ‘leave him to his cottage-core Thanos epilogue,’ as though he is not nor has he ever been a primary source of conflict.

I think Predathos is where the irreconcilability of material substance and ontological substance really start to chip away at the foundations of narrative coherence. The “God-eater” must be subject to the same questions re: “so what do you mean by god?” The takeaway is that the Predathos lore is frankly a hot mess of ludonarrative dissonance—perfect illustration for the other side of that catch-22 I was talking about!

 In theory, Matt could have introduced Predathos into Exandrian cosmology without it becoming a narrative problem, had it remained at a sufficient distance from the immediate plot to sit comfortably obscured in the same miasma of metaphysical unknowns as the Luxon or Tharizdun. It’s Ludinus and all the discussion surrounding these cosmic entities that shines a glaring spotlight on the contradictions by way of placing the gods into an ethical framework and using that judgement as a basis for praxis. Moral philosophy is not my area, but as far as it intersects with ontology: it is, to put it mildly, very fucking hard to put a subject under ethical judgement when said subject has no defined being as such that it’s very subjecthood is in question. 

What I’m trying to say is that you hold a guy in a very different ethical standing than the sun. The Dawnfather is both and can be reduced to neither. He is a character in a narrative with agency and personality and relationships at the same time he is a mechanical construction that has no independent existence and extremely limited powers of acting, and all the while he is semantically presumed all-powerful.

*I can’t find the post now to link it but I’m 99% sure it was by @utilitycaster

**For an illustration of (non-game) narratives where a pantheon of gods explicitly exist, are in possession of a certain cosmic power, and are direct narrative agents, see: Homer. I ran out of steam before getting to the full comparison I wanted to make, maybe I’ll get to that in another post, but trust me when I say it has massive implications—like, ‘requires a totally different method of engagement with the work, one which heavily departs from, and at times directly contradicts, literary and pedagogical tradition since at least the early modern period’-level implications.

***In terms of Pre-Divergence depictions, frankly I need to finish rewatching both Calamity and Downfall (possibly multiple times) to properly incorporate Brennan’s contributions to the text into this consideration. Drive-by assessment though, as it pertains to the main campaigns: we see glimpses of what the gods powers of acting can be without the Divine Gate, both with Asmodeus at the end of Calamity and the final battle in Downfall, to use as a comparison. These are useful for when c3 brings up the possibility for an alternate state of affairs while providing no examples for what those alternatives would entail. 

1. Bryant, Levi R. “Substantial Powers, Active Affects: The Intentionality of Objects.” Deleuze Studies 6, no. 4 (2012): 529–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45332014.

2. The structuralism I’m employing follows a number of works and theorists, namely Roland Barthes for lit theory and Richard Schechner for performance theory; the most relevant direct citation is Daniel McKay’s book The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art (2001), which references both of the above and many others.

[ihavenoideawhatiamdoinganymore]

Some (bad) art I made for my series on Ao3: Hail, the Conquering Hero, under the name Akulreas. This account is actually a side blog (not even it’s own blog, just a side one) because my main account is followed by my sister and I’m sorry, but I am not letting her see the art I made for a Percy Jackson/Epic the Musical fanfic that I wrote. Here’s the link, by the way, since this makes little to no sense without the context of the AU:

Basic summary: ghost Odysseus and Perseus end up haunting Percy and become his New Dads™️ (Poseidon fucking DESPISES them)

Do I know how anatomy works? No. Am I going to learn it all? Maybe. Am I going to learn it all for some silly little sketches I made for my fic? Of course not. People who actually know how to draw anatomy (or just draw in general), I sincerely apologize.

This one was because of a Tumblr post I saw at 11:00 PM and I thought ‘oh, this fits them perfectly’ and then spent thirty minutes drawing this before immediately going to sleep. First time I ever drew Percy. Never again. (The first guy’s Perseus, by the way. Second guy is Odysseus.)

This happened because I was talking with someone who was commenting on Like A Victorious Hero and they mentioned a scenario where Zeus attempts to hug Perseus and Perseus immediately starts cursing him out and telling him to go away. It tormented me for about a week before I gave in and drew it since I didn’t feel like writing it out. I chose Neal Illustrator’s Zeus design for it and if you look at Perseus for like, two seconds, you’ll see some minor similarities (mostly the hair).

Maybe I’ll add some more another day. Not now, though, because it’s late and I’m tired. Please don’t kill me, I know I’m not Good At Art.

Edit: this is my hundredth post on this side blog. Oh my gods, I don’t remember reblogging that many things??

[endlesstrashcycle]

Thoughts on the men of yj

I saw a post or a video (I don’t remember), where they commented on how yj is a postfeminist show, where the male characters are designed in the same way that female characters have been created It's obvious that the girls in yj are not helpless victims, objects of desire, morally pure or that their strength lies in their emotional part. (The most emotionally intelligent act in that show is until Misty decides to go home from work instead of stabbing Shauna)They are violent, messy, sexually complex, power hungry, and yet all these traditionally male traits end up being somehow as female coded within the context of the show. So it’s not surprising when male characters have this gender association inverted. But it's not only the gender stereotypes, I would also say they purposely imitate the laziness of writing decent male characters that so many times show writers have shown with female roles, because it’s not just that the girls are complex, it’s that the men are purposefully not... However, what did surprise me was that I was so into the girls I didn’t even note the way the guys were written until someone else did.

 For a moment I imagined the men in the show as women, wifes, a teen girl in the middle of a bunch of teenage boys etc and oh, I just felt bad. Im not discovering the wheel and im pointing out to something most people for sure know but I still wanted to take it out.

Adam, everyone though there HAD to be something behind him, there wasn’t. He was just a manic pixi dream boy that felt in love with an older woman (I recognize that the character of  Shauna is an epic force to recon with and an icon for feminine madness and fury but in many moments she is nothing but a toxic karen in a unhappy marriage whose first scene was she masturbating in the room of her daughter ), who initially treated him like shit and ends up killing him.

Jeff is a husband that forgives almost everything that his horrible wife has done, he is comic relief but he is also sacrificial, loyal and domestic.

Travis goes from sexualized boy that sleeps with the cool girls/is used to sensitive infantilized soul. The moment he takes off his shirt in the lake he is sexualized, several scenes with boners, the way the girls take turns kissing (and SA-ing) him while high, his family ends up dying and he is dependent to the will all of these girls. In season three, Lottie literally drugs him to induce visions. He’s infantilized and spiritualized in a way that mirrors how girls are often reduced to “mystical innocents”, when the girls go to get Ben they leave him, when they come back, he is waking up in his hammock in a cute as fuck bungalow decorated with his drawings almost as a like magical maiden.

Ben, he is injured, physically dependent of the girls, emotionally wrecked, passive, completely vulnerable, dreaming about his lover, he didn’t participate in the cannibalistic sessions, he refused violence and still survived (for a while). Besides Van, no one was as badly hurt as him, and still this crippled man managed to survive without consuming meat, keeping his innocence, purity and goodness. (Yes, I don’t think ben burned down the cabin) Even Kevin and the predatory police. Kevin is a grown man still holding a candle for Nat, his childhood crush after decades, after his family. He helps her out, gets manipulated, he was gentle and idealistic, and he’s quickly out of his depth.

And Walter, my hated fave. He’s a rich, charming, hyper-competent male Misty. But instead of competing with her or trying to dominate (allegedly), he’s just… obsessed. Devoted. Murderously loyal after barely knowing her. He beeegs for attention and scraps of affection, adapts to her every need, and just wants to be chosen.

I chose to believe that the lack in depthness on the male characters is not part of the messiness, fast pace, writing editions of the show, but actual commentary about lazy writing and female characters being accessories to the male story.

[sketching-shark]

I am currently reading journey to the west

I got surprised by this,it the Anthony y c. Yu

I have a question in the original mandarin text,does the book have sexist and misogyny in it,I know the one I am reading kinda does,since I know you,you know about the Chinese journey to the West,I hope you can help me understand or that I might be wrong or misunderstanding things.

From a fellow jttw fan

Ah, I wouldn't say that I'm super knowledgeable about Xiyouji @nightmarebunnyking, but I really do appreciate the vote of confidence from another jttw fan! And my mono-linguistic butt has only read Yu's English translation, which does indeed have a number of scenes with misogynistic language and ideas which we can assume are at least pretty decent translations of the original text.

Misogyny and sexism are scourges found the world over, and it's good to make note of how it springs up in even foundational texts and to feel confident in critiquing it. I've also talked before about how JTTW is wild enough of a work that it makes sense for it to be an inspiration for a wildly diverse range of retellings, everything from kid's shows to grimdark novels, and with Sun Wukongs who are everything from genuine heroes to flat-out rapist villains (seriously wish I could erase a couple of retellings I've stumbled across from my memory).

But turning back to the og classic, @here4tripitaka has made a number of posts that go into detail on how they saw it manifest in their own reading journey which I do think are worth looking over if you want another person's thoughts and critiques about it. As for myself, I would say that I am annoyed and disheartened by Xiyouji's moments of misogyny (like how nearly all of the lady yaoguai want to marry Tang Sanzag instead of eating him), though at least for me it isn't anything near the work's most defining feature. And God knows western classics like The Iliad and The Odyssey are rife with sexism as well! That said, this isn't to excuse its presence in any of these classics, but to say that for all that it's a fiction that's near and dear to my heart it's definitely not without its flaws, with sexism and misogyny being a big one. And that the fact these fictions are foundational and inspirational doesn't mean you shouldn't critique them.

My own brief thoughts aside, if memory serves correctly @ryin-silverfish has specifically addressed sexism and misogyny in Journey to the West from a much more knowledgeable standpoint about the history and context of how it manifested in 16th century China and in Xiyouji's original text, so I hope it's okay if I forward this question over to him regarding what the particular cultural and historical context behind JTTW's misogynistic comments and scenes might be.

@journeytothewestresearch might also have more to say on this topic, as he's done a lot of really great research into many different facets of this epic.

And, of course, it can be good to remember that for all the sexist and misogynistic language and scenes that comes up, it's very clear that the journey would have never succeeded without the frequent help of the goddess of mercy and compassion Bodhisattva Guanyin.

[mostlydeadlanguages]

Hello! I was wondering if you had any tips for using cuneiform as an art inspiration? One of my friends is super into cuneiform and birds, so I wanted to kind of write the cuneiform for "corvid" using stylised triangular crows.

Feel free to ignore this, it's a pretty involved ask!

I had a look at the Assyrian Languages website, and it spat out

but there's so many options! Why is the translation given as "erebu" without the cuneiform, then followed by the other words "uga" and "buru", which do have cuneiform?

And are there rules for rearranging the different units of the word? Is it like English, where you can't really split the letters of a word up, because it won't make sense?

I also double-checked the translation with the the Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, which you linked a couple posts ago, and they match, but there isn't any cuneiform in the dictionary.

Thank you for reading this far!

Okay, buckle up for a ride!

Akkadian is a Semitic language with a weird, cobbled-together writing system. It's a bit like a rebus: we can figure out that "👁️ ❤️ 🐑" means "I love you," because "eye" sounds like "I," hearts connote love, and a female sheep is a ewe, which sounds like "you." Likewise, a given cuneiform sign can be one of three things: a syllabogram (representing the sound of particular syllables, like 👁️), a logogram (representing a particular idea, like ❤️); or a determinative (representing a category of ideas, like "Dr."). In many cases, a given sign could be any one of those, depending on context. As a result, there are many possible ways to spell most words—although certain sign combinations tend to get standardized in a particular place and time.

In this case, "UGA" is the logogram for a corvid, and "MUŠEN" is the determinative for a bird. So one way to write "a crow" (literally "a crow-bird") would be to combine the signs for UGA and MUŠEN. (MUL is the determinative for an astral body, so if you were trying to say "the crow-planet," you could write it as "star-crow-bird," or "MUL.UGA.MUŠEN."). And yes, the order does matter in most cases; I wouldn't rearrange them.

But! Instead of writing something logographically, you could "spell it out" using syllabograms. So the word erēbu/arēbu, which is what "crow" would have sounded like, can be broken down into syllables and spelled that way, e.g. a-re/ri-bu. When the Epic of Gilgamesh describes sending out a raven as part of the Flood story, it spells it as "a-ri-bu." (Well, technically a-ri-ba/a-ri-bi, because those are the declined forms.)

The simplest two options that appear in the corpus, then, are UGA or BURU4 ("crow" without the "bird" determinative, which is optional) or a-ri-bu. Here's what those look like, using two different potential writing styles: Old Babylonian (an earlier and more complex writing system) and Neo-Assyrian (a more rectilinear, streamlined, later writing system):

As you can see, UGA is a very complicated sign, so I would recommend choosing either BURU4 or a-ri-bu. I find Neo-Assyrian much easier to reproduce, but the choice of writing system is up to you.

I hope this helps. Send me a picture of what you produce; it sounds so fun!

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

Some recent discussions I’ve seen about EPIC: The Musical, The Trials of Apollo, and Greek Mythology itself have prompted me to make this post.

With me, at least, when I’m talking about one of the Greek gods, I’m talking about them as they are portrayed in a specific thing.

It’s the same in my fanfics— I would not portray mythology Apollo the way I do ToA Apollo, and vice versa.

A good example of this I think would be my Marsyas fic. In it, I do not have Apollo flay him, because that makes more sense in the rrverse world. If I was going purely on the myths though? I would have had him go through with it. And have a crisis about it. Because that’s what happens.

I just wanted to put it out there that there are people capable of keeping different depictions of the gods separate from the myths. I felt the need to come out and say this, because I don’t want people thinking that my favorite media’s fandom (ToA) ignores/misportrays the myths. We are very aware of what is ToA and what is myth, and I want to set that straight.

Plus, I think it’s worth mentioning that some people in the ToA fandom connect so deeply with it because of the themes of change and the cycle of abuse. And for that to work, the gods have to be more dysfunctional than they are in the myths. It wouldn’t hit as hard if they weren’t.

idk. I just feel like there’s some layer of…hm, instinctual dislike towards fandoms of medias with Greek myth inspiration, because of certain inaccuracies and how that consequently reflects on the myths.

And I didn’t really like seeing that directed at ToA’s fandom, where we have fun discussing the differences between the rrverse and mythology and do in fact keep them separate. I’d argue the ToA fandom’s the most informed on the Greek myths in the wider rrverse fandom because we’re actually interested in the gods. Many have read the myths, or are reading them, like myself! We are educating ourselves on the mythology! And when we find something that has an interesting vision because of ToA’s context? We incorporate it into the setting of the rrverse. But we do not treat that vision as mythology canon.

A very good example of this is Zeus and Apollo’s relationship in ToA. It’s a stark contrast to the myths. I get why people wouldn’t be a fan of that. I like learning about their mythological relationship myself! I love the Greek myth soap opera. I love the Greek gods. I don’t know why someone would be into the mythology without liking the gods.

But I also feel like there needs to be an understanding that how the gods are portrayed in fictional stories are not always intended to be accurate. There are creators out there who treat their retellings as gospel truth, and that is definitely annoying, but there are others who just want to tell a story— and that’s what ToA is. A story. It’s essentially an AU of Greek mythology where Zeus succumbs to paranoia about the cycle. That’s how I see it.

It’s not accurate to the myths, because it’s not meant to be— it’s meant to tell a story, not retell one.

I’m beating a dead horse here because I’ve talked about this specific thing before. But yeah.

Just something I wanted to clear up with the mythology side of tumblr.

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

Epic Fandom We Need To Talk! (An Open Letter)

As a former survivor of severe Cyberbullying and harrasment I can no longer stay silent anymore. You have forced my hand.

This has gone way too far and I am massively disappointed. All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say. This is no longer a joke as a survivor of Cyberbullying and harrasment I can say that a misunderstanding has turned into The Epic Fandom putting the livelihood and well being of artists in danger. I ask you to be respectful and understand I am speaking from old wounds and experience. Please don't twist my words, I don't support 🍇 or Antinous he is a horrible character.

Tw: Mentions of Cyberbullying, 🍇 and harassment

Dear Epic Fandom,

You are better then this, I know you are. Polites taught us to greet the world with open arms and accept when people make mistakes and stop holding onto are anger. The fandom is growing and we can't stop it but I'm really disappointed in the people letting hate win and turning the fandom venomous and toxic

We are all Epic Fans but behind the glass on your screen there's a person, a person with feelings who you know nothing about. You all don't know the real Melody typing this but your all probably gonna make assumptions based on what you dont know and that is the danger of being online. The person who posted fanart of Antinous and Telemachus you didn't like, they have real feelings. Complicated messy feelings that aren't able to be articulated enough online.

As a survivor of bullying myself my motto is block or scroll. I myself am very uncomfortable with a lot of the ao3 tags shipping Odysseus with Poseidon or Zeus but do I go angrily type on my keyboard? No I don't cos it's none of my damnn business. When I saw that art, I was confused and uncomfortable but instead of being reckless and sentimental I asked for clarification. Taking Polites advice I used open arms and talked about what was bothering me without attacking the artist. Instead of being like Polites you all became Poseidon. Ruthlessness Is Mercy is not the way to go, it's a toxic way to go about life. Did you all not listen to that Thunder Saga and see how it destroyed everything Odysseus had known for the past thirteen years.

You should all be absolutely ashamed of yourself. This is not what the Epic Fandom should be. You don't like someone's fan art ask for clarification and or block. There is no need to be Ruthless and cruel. The fact two genuine heartfelt Apologises have been made and you still can't let it go very much clearly shows your character. You are very much like Poseidon and Zeus and should be ashamed. In Ares words you are all sick cowards. Not only that but you are clearly projecting. I suggest you go to therapy if you think your time in the Epic the musical fandom should be spent bullying and harassing people then leave. The number one rule is that there is always a person behind the screen and that you should think before you type.

I'm still not over the fact how you have twisted and triggered someone's truama. I also can't believe hate is being given after the artist mentioned her experience. 🍇 is not a thing to weaponise. I feel like the Wisdom Saga has made you far too comfortable in how you handle and discuss 🍇. The artist forgot her trigger warnings and wasn't even trying to imply the twisted image you put on her. Also I pointed out she shouldn't have tagged it Epic and apologied. Jorge has made adaptations to The Odssey a piece of fiction. What Jorge has done with Antinous is his own creative liberties. If you can't have sensitive and respectful conversation about something that is still happening to people I don't know what to say. Accusing someone of supporting 🍇 is not okay at all. The artist wasn't attending that way and understands she shouldn't have done what she did but it goes both ways. Look for context before you slam. Judging someone based on an honest mistake and huge misunderstanding is dangerous and cruel. Do you not understand the dangers this could put the artist in in real life. Please have open arms and think before you type. This is a serious topic and not a joke.

Moving on I want to talk about why I think this blew up so bad. It's because Elian was commissioned to do an animatic for Jorge. Listen you all would have blocked if it wasn't for that. I read comments saying they idolised her and that is a really f**** dangerous thing to do. Idiolising someone because they've been noticed or hired by Jorge isn't healthy at all. At the end of the day we are all human beings. Elian is allowed to make mistakes and grow. Outside of Epic this is becoming a massive problem in genuine.

Worse I've seen and heard about Artists like Mirscy and AnniFlamma getting attacked just for defending their friend. I'm sorry are we not allowed to defend our friends now from bullying? I can't speak for them but if I saw my friend getting hated and harassed on I'd be angry too, it's like a natural emotion to feel. Then again you are the same fandom that mocks Eurylochus for sticking up for his crew so I'm not suprised. These artists are human beings and not God's because Jorge noticed and appreciated their work. Stop twisting these artists into people there not.

I'm not Tiresias but I can see Jorge stopping collaborating with artists on animatics if you keep this disgusting behaviour up. Constructive criticism is okay but falsely twisting the image of an artist is not okay at all by doing this you are dehumanising artists and doing exactly what Hollywood does. Jorge will have to stop commissioning people it you keep using the fact he noticed them against them when they make mistakes like all human beings do.

Please do better and stop being Poseidons. An 8 year grudge was unhealthy and got him nowhere. Be more like Polites and Greet The World with open arms. Not everything is black and white. Tik Tok built the Epic Fandom up and you hold all the power.

Stay kind and great the world the world with open arms.

Yours Sincerely,

Melody

They/Them

Ps: If you send me hate and twist my words be warned I have friends as well. One particular friend was there when a lot of my Cyberbullying truama happened and is aware why this has triggered me so badly and caused an episode.

Attack you will be blocked. I'll also remove reblogs.

Attack and you will be reported.

You don't scare me.

Be nice Epic Fandom and don't become The Monster. I'm willing to have civil conversations but that's it.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I've got a wip where stories and myths are thematically relevant, but I always hear writer advice like never start with a dream or things that aren't happening. How do I present this in the first chapter without it feeling intrusive or feeling like a false start? I've dabbled with ways to convey this story: a character is reading the legend when they're interrupted, a character might be told the story as a child, or a character might be watching performers do a play about the legend. I'm using limited third person with shifting POV every chapter, if that matters.

Avoiding the "False Start" of Beginning with Dreams and Stories

When you start the story with a dream, story, myth, or other story within the story, the risk is that you invest the reader in that story... they believe the setting is the story's setting, the characters are the story's characters, and the plot or conflict is the story's conflict. The risk is that when you reveal it was in fact a story within the story, you potentially confuse them, disappoint them, or give them literary whiplash. Obviously, you wouldn't want to do that unless you DO want to do that... in other words, that may be just the effect you're going for, or it may be a necessary facet of how the story is told. So, unless you're doing it intentionally, because that's the effect you're going for, you want to provide context for this being a dream, story, or myth as soon as you possibly can.

Instead of beginning with an epic battle between a young woman and a powerful witch, you could preface the dream with something like:

Cara almost always dreamed, but this dream was more vivid than most--and darker...

That way, the reader understands that what's about to happen is part of a dream sequence.

Or, if the myth is being read to the character as a child, you could do something like:

Sometimes, in the stillness of the night, Cara remembered the childhood nights she'd spent perched on Grandmama's lap, listening to her spin epic tales about the mighty gods. Cara loved all of the ancient myths her grandmother told, but she loved none more dearly than the tale of Ariadne and Theseus, which began like this...

Here again, you're providing context for the reader that the story about to unfold here at the beginning is in fact a myth, and with this framework, the reader understands that this myth will have importance to the story somehow. They're not going to feel like their time is being wasted.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[hexhomos]

Sorry, I'm asking here because asks aren't on your doomreed account, but do you have any fic recs for them ? You and vinnies art have intrigued me 😭 they both seem like such wet cats in different ways, and I love that

help i didnt know asks were off fixed that now thank you... I have two fics i keep in my back pocket as like, exemplary distillations of their whole thing (one in college vs one of their usual superhero stuff,) these are;

Supersymmetry and Night Blooms

Rly good examples of their usual shenanigans, the second one is directly based on a canon comic issue that *feels* like fanfic by a prolific yaoi author, the first is set in a modern-time re-imagining of the fantastic four where they meet in a supergenius internship thinktank for gifted youngsters. There's other fics that are good but i think they might be super confusing without canon context! which leads me to my second point. After you read these fics...

A lot, and i mean A LOT of official doomreed stuff feels straight up like fanfic. Either because its so beautifully woven or insane in concept (doctor doom points a gun at the real life Jack Kirby and Stan Lee to get himself written back into reed's life in his 3rd ever classic appearance, in the 60's, THAT'S the bodyswap issue)

or because the literal authors themselves come out to say 'they're soulmates' or 'they're in love' and Im talking abt this:

(^joseph culp, the first ever doom actor from 1994)

(^fantastic four (2019))

I've got even more stuff under the cut!! AND recs!!! CLICK! v v v

(^jonathan hickman, author of arguably the best FF saga & Secret Wars (2015)!!!)

(^Cantwell, author of the Doctor Doom comic!!)

These are excerpts from the canon fantastic four book, DOOMGATE:

There's even an RPG INSTRUCTION MODULE based on the idea of an earth where Reed & Victor partner up in college, Reed dies a tragic death (via their lab experiments) and Victor assumes such a traumatized widow role in his honor that he grows up to be a golden hero and protector of earth LOL (still a bit nuts):

This is not even to touch on the breadth of all their comic issues and little moments together. Victor canonically delivers Reed's second child and he chooses her name! Shes treated like his child too and calls him uncle doom!!

...Victor even asks Reed out on candlelit dinner dates for a yearly Latverian holiday!

In fact, that's the great starter doom/reed issue i keep recommending: read [ My Dinner With Doom right here. ]

If you enjoy that, check out my [ broader post guide for doomreed reading. ]

Still on the fence? try out these single comic issues:

Doctor Doom:

*Fantastic Four (1961) annual 2 (Classic origin of Doom issue) *Some call it MAGIC (the introduction of Doom's struggle w/ the devil for his mother's soul)

Doomreed:

*Marvel Two-in-One (2017) annual 1 *Marvel Two-in-One (2017) #11 (2nd fic i linked is based on this!!!!!!!!!) *'Duel Intentions' short story *Doom 2099 (2019) *Fantastic Four #700 special *Shame Itself (noncanon satire mini)

Anyway I've had a lot of fun reading these series generally and their big, year-spanning arcs are incredible. People hype up Secret Wars for a reason, Hickman's fantastic four builds up a really compelling doom/reed epic of cosmic divorce proportions. And its about love! And Forgiveness!