#but you know what ??? living is nice.

[egophiliac]

NEW BIRTHDAY THEME IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

BIRTHDAY SLUMBER PARTY, HERE WE COME

I think the theme is more loungewear than straight-up pajamas, but hey, I'm not complaining! (and -- look, we still have the groovies, I'm not giving up hope for animal kigurumi until I gotta)

[nelkcats]

The Crime Lord does not stop flirting with me!

When Danny ran away from home and ended up in Gotham he wasn't quite sure what to do, adrenaline was coursing through his veins and all he wanted was a place to be safe.

That's when Crime Alley lit up like a Christmas tree and Danny knew it could be his new home, something about Crime Alley was drawing him in. It wasn't long before he decided to get a job to lay low. Of course, the latter was a bust because Red Hood noticed him almost instantly.

Contrary to his expectations, the Crime Lord took an interest in him but said nothing. He simply asked him to repair his motorcycle like a normal customer in his new job. Danny did and well, he couldn't help but repair some damaged systems and add some modifications. He hoped he wasn't stepping out of line, he just couldn't help himself, it was second nature to repair damaged things.

He thought Red Hood would be angry about it but the man seemed delighted (or as delighted as he could look with the mask), he looked at Danny and asked him what else he could do. Nervously, he told him that he was somewhat good with technology and before he knew it he had been hired by a gang (more or less, they were just asking for some custom orders).

So, technically he established as the mechanic and supplier to the Hood gang, and more specifically to the Crime Lord himself. He gave Hood some upgrades and became his supplier of (mostly harmless) weapons and upgrades. This attracted the attention of most of the gangs that were against the Crime Lord and Batman himself.

Jason, noticing how nervous the guy was assured him that he would protect him and no one was going to hurt him as long as he was around, it was obvious he wasn't from Gotham. For some reason, his new employee blushed every time he said those words.

Danny didn't know if Red Hood understood what he was doing (That was totally a flirt for protection spirits!), every day it was getting harder and harder not to respond to him. His ghost side kept screaming that he got a good match!

Which was technically true, considering that Red Hood had promised him protection and let him stay in his haunt (it became obvious that Crime Alley was his haunt after a few days in Gotham but strangely it accepted him)

Jason continued to promise Danny that he would be safe (poor boy always looked nervous) and Danny wondered how many days he could take the blatant flirting.

[featheredadora]

[helixcraft]

the fish that keeps appearing all over my recommended only that he's out of jail and happy

[the-roadtrip-system]

broke: plurality is a form of possession

woke: plurality and possession are two entirely different concepts

bespoke: possession is a form of plurality

[toubledrouble]

You know what we should bring back?

Older christianity. I mean the anti government, anti military, community based christianity. The one that cared the most about peace, equality, mercy, kindness, and radical love. The one with shared property. The one that didn't conform to society but instead existed mostly outside of it. The one where noone considered one sin worse than another because in the end, we are all sinners trying our best to be better.

[daily-odile]

this may be too similar to the judo flipping loop but

odile punching someone. that woman needs to get her feelings out

Rock α V

[fortunatelyenchantingtaco]

I feel such special feelings towards the whole of ffxvi and especially towards clive being a costant suicide risk. He’s so pure so well intentiones and life has been so horrible to him its insane. The fact that he’s asking Cid, literally the first more or less decent guy he met, to use him to give him purpose and to kill him, is so fucking relatable and hearth breaking. Im absolutely insane about it i actually cant. The fact that Cid has gotten his hands on the strongest being in the entire world, the precious vessel of ultimate power, and CHOSE to give him agency over his fate and body is like. Fucking definining point of Clive’s character as a whole. He thinks that’s what he deserves, to be used by others, to suffer, to die

Cid had the option to become the actual person Clive relies on and listens to about literally everything. Compared to both Ultima and Clive’s mother and the Empire and every person who were actively denying him his agency over his fate and life and body, Cid was the one who did. Who chose not to control him but supported him and then let him go

It doesnt matter much whether you look at their relationship as familiar romantic or friendly, it really is the definining thing in the game. And the funny thing is that you spend more time without Cid than with him, but he has left such an impression on Clive and Jill they are not letting him go. Both of them, even years later they are mourning him. What makes me especially emotional is that while we see the game from Clive’s perspective, we think that their relationship is more one-sided, that Cid gives much more than takes. But then Cid hits you with his last monologue and suddenly we know that Clive changed him as much as Cid has changed him. They both were the most defining part of each other’s lives. What the actual fuck. I need to sit down

[calamitydaze]

me watching the entire internet realize what i figured out 14 months ago

[transmascissues]

hey i know your post about your mom was mostly just a personal vent, but i have to say, do you realize that also happens with trans girls and their fathers? literally happened to one of my friends. i’m not trying to downplay your experience or something but i found it strange that you seem to think this is something that only affects transmascs

i have one question for you: so fucking what?

i don’t doubt that trans girls have experienced similar things and yeah, that’s bad too, but what the fuck does that have to do with me and the specific things i’m facing as a result of being a trans man? i never said “look at this thing that happens to ONLY trans men and NO ONE ELSE,” i just said “hey, isn’t this thing that happens to a lot of trans men, including myself, fucked up?”

i would also like to point out that what you’re talking about is in fact a different (albeit similar) thing. the way cis people treat trans people can differ dramatically based on the cis person’s gender because their commitment to gender roles is, like, a major part of problem. the specific way a cis mother reacts to her trans son’s transition is often going to be very distinct, while a cis father will likely respond to his trans daughter in a different but equally distinct way.

what i’m talking about is a very specific kind of ownership and control and self-victimization and total lack of boundaries masquerading as love and care and maternal concern that cis women (i would argue white cis women in particular) project onto their transmasc kids when we do literally anything to our bodies. i’m talking about a phenomenon which is closely related to the way moms often pass eating disorders onto their daughters (or children they view as daughters) because they see a body that looks something like theirs and project all of their insecurities and ideals onto it. i’m talking about a form of parental transphobia and projection that’s specific to the dynamic of a cis mother and her child who was “supposed to” be her daughter.

if you’ve never felt that, you’re not even remotely qualified to tell me shit about how i should be talking about that experience, and if you couldn’t recognize that experience when you read my post, i’m guessing you probably haven’t experienced it because the replies to that post made it very clear to me that anyone who has experienced it firsthand immediately knew exactly what i meant.

like, yeah, cis dads also project onto their trans daughters, but are they likely to have a reaction like running away with actual tears streaming down their face? do you expect them to passive aggressively make comments about how sad their kid’s transition makes them, how it’s such a difficult emotional time, how it’s so tragic because their kid’s body was so beautiful before? do you think their go-to transphobic reaction will be weaponizing their emotions? i’m sure there are some dads out there who are like that, but i think we can agree they’re in the minority because that’s not how cis men are taught to react and parents like this tend to be pretty damn committed to following the gender roles they were taught.

and even if i’m wrong and our experiences are exactly the same, let me reiterate that i never said this was an experience exclusive to trans men. all i said is that it happens to us. that’s just a statement of objective fact.

this started in my life when i got my hair cut short for the first time almost a decade ago and it has not stopped since. i’ve watched my mom cry over me changing my name and respond to being asked if my happiness matters more to her than my name by saying “i care about both”, i’ve watched her melt down in a mall over me getting a suit for prom and give me the silent treatment for days after, i’ve heard her plead with me to stop t because it “looks unnatural” and she’s just so “concerned for my health”, i’ve watched her stare at me post-op and say “my poor baby” over and over like she’s looking at my corpse in a casket. i’ve watched her turn herself into the victim of every single aspect of my transition. i’ve had to live with this for 9 years and spent the early years of the pandemic literally locked in a house with it. this has been my entire adolescent and adult life, and the question of if i’ll have to cut her off someday (and maybe never see my cat or my little cousins who i love more than anything in the world ever again as a result) haunts me every single day.

who the fuck are you to tell me how to talk about that?

[sealrock]

paris and their favorite cousins in their younger years, when things were a bit simpler. (evander on the left, patroclus on the right. baby cousins not shown)

[gideonisms]

I love arranging it's like YES YES THE OBJECTS ARE IN LOCATIONS

[complexraspberry]

Roku Week Day 6: Fire Lord

[id: two digital illustrations. The first drawing shows teenage Roku and Sozin sitting on a rooftop overlooking the city. Roku is looking down with a gentle smile on his face. Beside him Sozin sits, leaning on one of his knees. He is looking at Roku with a soft smile. There are gentle flickers of light in the background.

The second drawing has Sozin, now an adult in his Fire Lord robes, leaning forward on a railing overlooking the city. Gone is the smile of his youth, now looking pissed off. The specks of lights from before now resemble embers. /end id]

Fire Lord Sozin... what a bitch. However, the dynamic with Roku and how everything just falls apart is interesting. How do you go from being BFFs with a guy to planning his death (and taking over the world)

[gingermintpepper]

As usual I read your tags always and so you said Apollo did not ask for resurrection of Asclepius and Hyacinthus so i just wanted to share this. About Asclepius death I read it on theoi.com, that earlier authors don't make him resurrect as a god but that's a later development mentioned only by Roman authors like Cicero, Hyginus and Ovid. But still Apollo has a role in Ovid's version

Ovid, Fasti 6. 735 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : Clymenus [Haides] and Clotho resent the threads of life respun and death's royal rights diminished. Jove [Zeus] feared the precedent and aimed his thunderbolt at the man who employed excessive art. Phoebus [Apollon], you whined. He is a god; smile at your father, who, for your sake, undoes his prohibitions [i.e. when he obtains immortality for Asklepios].

So here it is actually because of Apollo the decision was taken to resurrect him as god. And with Hyacinthus, I don't think I've read about Artemis playing the primary role. I know in Sparta there was a picture of Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite carrying Hyacinthus and his sister to heaven.

This is not on theoi.com but I saw on Tumblr it's from Dionysiaca by Nonnus

Second, my lord Oiagros wove a winding lay, as the father of Orpheus who has the Muse his boon companion. Only a couple of verses he sang, a ditty of Phoibos, clearspoken in few words after some Amyclaian style: Apollo brought to life again his longhaired Hyacinthos: Staphylos will be made to live for aye by Dionysos.

So since he is singing inspired by amyclean stories it probably means in that place it was believed Apollo was the one to bring back his lover to life.

Apollo as god of order was very important so i think it shows how special these people (and admetus too) were to him that he decided to go against the order for them 🥺

ANON!! Shakes you like a bottle of ramune!! BELOVED ANON!!!!! I'm littering your face with kisses, I'm anointing you with olive oil and honey - you absolutely made my night with this because, not only did I get the pure serotonin shot of having someone interact with my tags (yippee, wahoo!!) I also got to have that wonderful feeling of "oh wow, have I misunderstood something that was integral to my understanding of this myth/figure this whole time or is this a case of interpretational differences?" which is imo vital for my aims and interests as someone who enjoys mythological content and literature.

I'll preface my response with this: Hyacinthus is by far the hardest of these to get accounts for because his revival itself, as you very astutely point out, is generally accounted for in painting/ritual format which muddies the waters on who interceded for what. I wasn't actually familiar with that passage from the Argonautica - and certainly didn't remember it so thank you very much for bringing it to my attention!

That said, what I've come to understand, both about Hyacinthus and about Asclepius is that in the accounts of their deaths, Apollo's position is startlingly clear.

For Hyacinthus, it is established time and again that Apollo would have sacrificed everything for him - his status, his power, his very own immortality and divinity. Ovid writes that Apollo would have installed him as a god if only he had the time:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses. Book X. trans. Johnston)

Many other writers too speak of how Apollo abandoned his lyre and his seat at Delphi to spend his days with Hyacinthus, but they also all agree that when it came to his death - he was powerless. Ovid gives that graphic account of Apollo's desperation as he tries all his healing arts to save him to no avail:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book X. Apollo me boy, methinks him dead. trans Johnston)

Bion, in one of his fragments, writes that Apollo was "dumb" upon seeing Hyacinthus' agony:

(Bion, The Bucolic Poets. Fragment XI. trans Edmonds)

Even Nonnus in the Dionysiaca speaks constantly of Apollo's helplessness in the face of Hyacinthus' fate where he writes that the god still shivers if a westward wind blows upon an iris:

and when Zephyros breathed through the flowery garden, Apollo turned a quick eye upon his young darling, his yearning never satisfied; if he saw the plant beaten by the breezes, he remembered the quoit, and trembled for fear the wind, so jealous once about the boy, might hate him even in a leaf...

(Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 3. trans Rouse)

And the point here is just that - Apollo, at least as far as I've read, cannot avert someone's death. He simply can't. Once they're already dead - once Fate has cut their string - all Apollo's power is gone and he can do nothing no matter how much he wants to. And this is, as far as I know, supported with the accounts of Asclepius as well!

Since you specifically brought up Ovid's account, I'll also stick only to Ovid's account but in Metamorphoses when we get Ovid's version of Coronis' demise, he writes that Apollo intensely and immediately regrets slaughtering Coronis. He regrets it so intensely that he, like he does with Hyacinthus, does his best to resuscitate her:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo's regret)

And like Hyacinthus, when it becomes clear that what has happened cannot be undone, Apollo wails:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo wept.)

Unlike his mother, Asclepius in her womb had not yet died and so, with the last of Apollo's strength, he does manage, at least, to save him.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo puts the 'tearing out' in Asclepius.)

But it goes further than even that because Ocyrhoe, Chiron's daughter, a prophetess who unduly gained the ability to directly proclaim the secrets of the Fates, upon seeing the baby Asclepius, immediately prophesies his glory, his inevitable death and then his fated ascension:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book Two. Ocyrhoe's prophecy. trans Johnston)

Before she too succumbs to her hubris and is transformed by the Fates into a horse so she can no longer speak secrets that aren't hers to share.

These things ultimately are important because it establishes two very important things: 1) Apollo can't do anything in the face of the ultimate Fate of mortals, which is, of course, death and 2) even when Apollo is Actively Devastated, regretful, yearning, mournful, guilty or some unholy combination of all of the above, when someone is dead, he accepts that they are gone. Even if he is devastated by it, even if he'll cry all the rest of his days about it - if they're dead? Apollo lets them go. In Fasti, when Zeus brings Asclepius back, he does not say Apollo asked him to - Zeus, or well, in this case Jove, brings Asclepius back because he wants Apollo to stop being mad at him.

(Ovid, Fasti VI. Apollo please come home your father misses you. trans. A.S Kline)

Even Boyle's translation which you used above in your findings hints that Zeus made Asclepius a god because he wanted Apollo to stop grieving. (i.e 'smile at your father', 'for your sake [he] undoes his prohibitions')

And like, Apollo was deeply upset by Asclepius' death - apart from killing the Cyclops in anger, in book 4 of the Argonautica, Apollonius writes that the Celts believe the stream of Eridanus to be the tears Apollo shed over the death of Asclepius when he left for Hyperborea after being chastised by Zeus for killing his Cyclops:

But the Celts have attached this story to them, that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo, that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus.

It all paints a very clear picture to me. Apollo did not ask for either of them to be brought back. Though bringing them back certainly pleased and delighted him, they are actions of other gods who are moved by Apollo's grief and mourning and seek to mollify him. Him not asking doesn't mean he didn't want them back which I think is a very important distinction by the by, but it simply means that Apollo knows the natural order of things and, even if it hurts, he isn't going to press his luck about it.

Which, of course, brings us to Admetus. And I'm really not going to overcomplicate this, Admetus is different because, very vitally, Admetus is not dead. Apollo can't do a thing once Fate has been carried out and Death has claimed a mortal but you know what he absolutely can do? Bargain like hell with the Fates before that point of inevitability. And that's what he does, ultimately for Admetus and Alcestis. He sought to prolong Admetus' life, not revive him from death or absolve him from death altogether and even after getting the Fates drunk, he's still only able to organise a sacrifice - a life for a life - something completely contingent on whether some other mortal would be willing to die in Admetus' place and not at all controllable by Apollo's own power.

All of these things, I think come back to that point you made - that Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore these people are very special to him if it means he's willing to go against that order but, I also wish to challenge that opinion if you'd let me. Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore, I would argue, that it is even more important that it is shown that he does not break the divine order, especially for the people that mean the most to him. The original context of my comments which started this conversation were on this lovely, lovely post by @hyacinthusmemorial which contemplated upon Asclepius from the perspective of an Emergency Medical personnel and included, in their tags, the very poignant lines "there's something about Apollo letting go when Asclepius couldn't that eats my heart away" and "you do what you can, you do your best, but you don't ever reach too far" and I think that's perfectly embodied with the Apollo-Asclepius dichotomy. Apollo grieves. He wails, he cries, he does his best each and every time to save that which is precious to him but he does not curse their nature, he does not resent that they are human and ultimately, he accepts that that which is mortal must inevitably die. There is nothing that so saliently proves that those who uphold rules are also their most staunch followers - if Apollo wants to delight in his place as Fate's mouthpiece, he cannot undo Fate. And, if even the god of healing and order himself cannot undo death, what right does Asclepius, mortal as he is, talented as he is, have to disrespect it?

The beauty of these stories isn't that Apollo loved them enough to bring them back. The beauty is that Apollo loved them enough to let them go.

[literallyjusttoa]

I love your work so much i can't even describe it, it's giving me a warm and comfy vibe <3 I recently remembered Apollo is the god of mice, so i was wondering... can you please draw him holding a lil mouse and being amazed by its preciousness ? I would be so blessed if you did

Ooh ohh this isn't exactly what you said but this gave me an idea.

When those close to the Lord Apollo pray for his presence, he will often come with a companion. Sometimes, it will be one of his sacred red cattle. Sometimes, the divine wolf, Kitrinomavros. Sometimes, he will fly down with ravens, or his arrival will be punctuated by the trilling song of locusts. But with only his closest circle, Apollo will arrive with ...

His pet mouse.

Apollo insists that this mouse is very important, but no one has quite figured out what he means by that.

[sluckythewizard]

[PUT INTO PLACE, TIED DOWN AND ARRANGED, AND IS NEVER THE SAME, AGAIN.]<-listen to my favorite songs. VAMPIRES ARE WONDERFUL ARENT THEY. THE FLESH IS SO MUCH MORE DURABLE. SO MUCH STRETCHIER THAN HUMANS. THE STRESS DOESNT KILL A VAMPIRE THE SAME WAY IT DOES A HUMAN. YOU CAN TAKE THEM APART THREAD BY THREAD AND LEAVE THEM WIDE AWAKE WITHOUT WORRY OF THE BRAINMATTER SPOILING UNDER VINEGARY AGONY.