#but at least that's how i view it with the series and greek mythology bases

[onlythestar]

[episode 4 spoilers] i don't think some people are getting the medusa/annabeth parallel right.

i saw a lot of people on twt saying that this time percy sacrificed himself for annabeth (as he was the one to fight the chimera), but that's not what i think the parallel is about.

athena punishes annabeth with disappointment, when everything annabeth wanted was her respect and approval. and yet athena punishes her because of percy's (son of poseidon) actions. that's the punishment, and that annabeth didn't escape.

then athena "gives her a second chance", at least that how i interpret it: she lets the chimera enter her temple, a sacred place, to test annabeth's loyalty, to see if annabeth would put her respect and love towards her mother over percy, again, and annabeth knows this, yet she still chooses percy: the right move, what athena wants, is not for annabeth to fight the chimera, it is for annabeth to embrace her spring and be logical, be strategic – to let percy behind. that's the right and smart move: percy was useless for the mission as he was wounded, the smart war move was to sacrifice him. and annabeth disappointed athena, once more, by trying not to.

even worse? that didn't matter. it didn't matter that she went against her mother wishes for percy, again, because he sacrificed himself anyway. because he played hero. late enough for it to be clear what annabeth was about to do. once again, percy took annabeth's chance to gain her mother's approval, and once again he got victorious in her place: he gained his father's, poseidon, help, he earned it with his heroic gesture; and annabeth, again, disappointed athena.

worse? medusa warned annabeth, they were the same: they wanted athena's love and fought for it, but then poseidon/percy got in the way. and yet both medusa and annabeth were the ones to suffer athena's disapproval.

percy didn't save annabeth from meeting medusa's fate. he helped it happen, he played his rol (unknowingly) as the son of poseidon

[themyscirah]

What runs/stories do you recommend for someone starting WW? Could you please be specific (/nicely)

Yeah ofc!

My Wonder Woman Starter Recs (specific style 😎)

First stops: for an initial introduction to Wonder Woman, I'd generally recommend going to at least one of three places first. These three are:

Wonder Woman: Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick

Wonder Woman: Year One by Greg Rucka

Wonder Woman: the Hiketeia by Greg Rucka

Of these I generally recommend reading Historia first, as it's a retelling of the origin of the Amazons as a race and how Diana came to be (so it essentially starts from the beginning) and is also the most recent of the them (if that means anything). Something to note about Historia though is that it's a DC Black Label book, so it's events aren't strictly canon in the main DCU and there are some changes and new elements present. I don't think this is something that should discourage anyone from reading it though, it's the best WW origin story out there, and even in strict main canon over the years her origin is one that has had many fluctuations and small (& sometimes big) changes. WW:Historia is three prestige format (longer) issues.

You'll notice the third book there is WW: The Hiketeia. Hiketeia is a great book if you're looking for a view into Diana as a professional and experienced hero. It's a graphic novel so standalone and not too long, and has a great Diana and really interesting plot (Diana vows to protect a young woman and finds herself pressed against the wheels of Greek Tragedy). This is also the first work with Diana done by Greg Rucka, one of her most prolific and loved writers. A sampling of this work (and also Historia) I think gives a good guide to where to go next in terms of runs on her main title.

Wonder Woman: Year One is the second book on the list up there, but I'm mentioning it last here as it's a bit more complicated in terms of format. Unlike other year one books, WW: Year One is actually a series of issues on her main title, showcasing Diana's arrival to man's world in Rebirth (and also current p sure) continuity. The issue numbering for this one is strange (only the even issues 2-14 on WW (2016)) so I recommend looking for this in trade form if possible.

These 3 books I think give a taste of some of the best standalone stuff in the Wonder Woman mythos, and give the reader a good idea of where they may want to go next in terms of longer runs on the title. So I'll break that down here as a Step 2.

STEP 2: WHERE NEXT?

Here I break down some highly recommended runs based on what they have in common with the standalone books from step 1. As a rule, these runs are going to be much longer than the above and generally more connected to the wider DCU and other books. Look for the italics to see the introduction to each new work. Explanation paragraphs follow after each italic/bold rec.

Curious about Greek mythology in WW and the Amazons' origins after reading Historia? Liked the prescence of a supporting cast and Diana learning about Man's World from Year One? Willing to read a longer run? I recommend: Wonder Woman by George Pérez

George Pérez's time on Wonder Woman totally reinvented the character after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and is fundamental in establishing many core concepts of her lore. At 62 issues, 2 annuals, and a 4-issue crossover event at the end (War of the Gods), it's definitely a commitment to read, but it's the most enduring and well-loved run on Wonder Woman for a reason--it's just that damn good. Lots of focus on mythology (although with a lighter tone than Historia) alongside Diana learning her role in relation to Man's World & establishing herself as a hero and ambassador. Pérez's run also has almost-certainly the most expansive and developed supporting cast in WW comics, something that really drives the emotional core of the series, especially in later issues. Obligatory note that this series was written between 1987 and 1992 and contains some very occasional aspects that I thought were in some way dated/uncomfortable etc. while reading (details of Cheetah's origin, depiction of the Bana-Mighdall, Hercules) but despite that I still highly, highly recommend this run. The word fundamental cannot begin to describe it.

Liked the experienced Diana of the Hiketeia? Interested to see her attempt to balance the high stakes responsibilities of an ambassador and superhero? Looking for some really badass moments and fights? Haven't read enough terrible tragedy? I suggest: Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka 2003 EDITION.

Some of Diana's coolest moments of all time are collected here. Also one of her most controversial. The 1st Rucka run is very much the story for anyone who liked the Diana of the Hiketeia and the tragedy of that and Historia. 2003 Rucka Diana is a Diana tested, forced to make decisions that are anything but easy, and live with the consequences. She's extraordinarily capable, but her enemies know that and are prepared to that end. This run, along with the Pérez run, rank among my favorite Wondy comics of all time (those and Historia are my top 3). This run is such peak Diana, especially in terms of sheer badassery. Her final confrontation with Medusa is in my opinion perhaps the greatest Wonder Woman fight scene of all time. Her encounter with Athena in the second-to-last issue breaks me every time. Cannot recommend this book more.

*a note abt this run is that it is more context-dependent than the other ones listed here, as it's the run that finishes out the Wonder Woman vol. 2 book and so has some guest appearances from characters introduced in other prior runs (Artemis of Bana-Mighdall, Cassie Sandsmark, and Vanessa Kapatelis, to name a few). I read this run before knowing much (if anything) about any of them, and still enjoyed it a lot, so I wouldn't be worried about this really but just thought I'd mention it.

Rucka's 2003 run is published from Wonder Woman (1987) #195-226. You can also find it in trade and I believe(?) omnibus. Sometimes the Hiketeia is included in collections of this series, as the 03 run is thematically similar in many places, just with a much deeper look at Diana and the world & with higher stakes.

Liked the specific characters and plot threads of Wonder Woman: Year One? Want to see what happens with Diana's exile, or learn more about Barbara Ann? Want a Diana in between the extremes of young and highly experienced? Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka 2016 EDITION may be for you.

...yes I'm putting ANOTHER Rucka book on here. He writes a great Diana, what can I say. This run is the same one that Year One came out of, just the follow ups to that story and versions of the characters. I have this run listed as separate from Year One though, as there's some really big time skips since the events of that first volume. A lot of time has passed since then, and there's more history between the characters, not all of it without drama. This run continues to be weird with the numbering, as well as some artist changes, so I definitely recommend looking into reading this in trade format (physical or digital) if at all possible. My recommended reading order is WW 2016 by Rucka vol. 2 "The Lies" (Wonder Woman: Rebirth Special #1, followed by 2016 main title odd numbered issues 1-11), then Rucka 16 vol. 3 "The Truth" (odds 13-23) then Godwatch (evens 16 through 24) followed by 25? But The Truth and Godwatch combine near the end so that doesn't really work either. This run is so good but recommending it is such a pain because the numbering is so all over the place. On God I never know which order to read this in. Going to revoke my previous statement and say read it as Rebirth Special 1, then only odds 1 through 11, then from 13 through 25 normally. That may lead to some weirdness as you read because the two stories take place at different times and have different art styles, but they come together at the end pretty dramatically so I think it's less confusing to read it this way? Maybe? So strange bc this is one of the go to good starter runs and yet it's set up so unintuitively. If someone has a better way to read this then let me know and ill edit, ik this explanation is super confusing bc neither way to read it is totally ideal imo and I feel I definitely read it in a weird order.

Going to call that a good rundown of some of my greatest recommendations in terms of Wonder Woman comics. If anything wasn't fully clear here or anyone (not just anon) has questions or wants to talk abt WW comics/my choices feel free to send as many asks or dms as you want. Have a good day everybody, & as Diana says, may the glory of Gaea be with you <3

[happyk44]

This is the incoherent flow of my thoughts.

The first Neptune [god of fresh water and rains] is the beloved son of Saturn and they have similar possessions - food and water.

Saturn is the one who gives food, Neptune is the one who gives water to drink. Saturn grew food, Neptune, with the help of rain, made sure that it grew healthy and nutritious. Rains are important for agriculture.

Their relationship, in my opinion, was somewhat similar to that of Demeter and Persephone :)

Ahhhhhhh, I love that idea. Which makes the whole thing between Percy and Kronos a little bittersweet. Oh man, it would've been so neat if that was used as a set up for the next series. Something triggering Kronos to do a mental switch to Saturn during the fight and he falters for a moment, because, yes, the son who brought forth rain to cultivate the fields may have changed into someone darker as the empire became mightier but that is still his son, and how could he fight his grandson for such a reason?

I think what fascinates me about the events of Saturn vs his kids and Kronos vs his kids is that the war doesn't seem to be as publicized in Roman mythology. I'm not as well-read on Roman myths tbh but from what I've been able to pull online, the general consensus is very much yeah, yeah, Jupiter overthrew his dad and expelled him to Latium (the future birth place of Rome), where he brought knowledge and agriculture, okay whatever let's move on, and that's it. Like it's not as detailed and if I do try to go into further, it will immediately shift to Greek names, or reiterate that the two are conflated

The general consensus does appear that separating Saturn's original iteration from his conflation with Kronos has been rather difficult for scholars. No matter what though Saturn is a very important figure. He is the ruler who human once thrived under during the Golden Age. His festival is major. He had a temple!

I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that unlike Kronos, Saturn never consumed his kids, and his being overthrown was merely representative of how children succeed their parents - as what I've gathered is that Roman mythology was more based in politics and government, essentially how people are, versus Greek myths which looked more to the ways of the natural world (seasons changing, how certain plants came into being, etc).

So him and Neptune being able to bond is very plausible under this theory, since, presumably, he would've raised all six kids before they (or at least Jupiter) kicked him out. It could be that Saturn, seen as a benevolent figure, was viewed as too kindhearted or something similar by his children, so they dethroned him, allowing orderly and rigid Jupiter to take his place.

(Saturn is not completely benevolent since he also killed his dad and had ten day gladiator combats held in his name, but like. Ten days of beating the shit out of each other in exchange for the rest of the year being peaceful and fruitful isn't the worst thing, ya know, lol)

I know that sacrifices made to Saturn were done in with their heads uncovered (Greek rite), where other Roman gods were worshipped while veiled - which kind of furthers that Saturn is more representative of the time before the Roman Empire came to fruition.

Given Jupiter's importance to the Roman people, it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to worship his father, if there was a huge blowout between the two the way it occurred in Greek mythology. Especially since he's not the only god of agriculture or harvest. Obviously a lot of people worship based on representation rather than mythology, and I don't know how ancient Greeks or Romans reconciled their worship of the gods with the stories told in their name, if the two were separate or done in tandem, but nonetheless, again, I wouldn't be too surprised if it's uncovered that, no, Saturn didn't eat his kids, he raised them until they decided his ways were archaic and outdated and booted him from both the throne and Greece.

And under that theory, a trigger in PJO to make him go from Kronos to Saturn would've been cool. Why is he fighting his grandson? His children dethroned him, yes, but he still loves them, wouldn't dare hurt their offspring. So he stops fighting and calls out to grandson with a gentleness that makes Percy stop, baffled, before Kronos kicks back in and the battle continues.

But whatever he says is just enough for Percy to dwell on it later, teasing the set up for the next series 👍

(Granted, in this sense I don't see the Titan Army fighting on the Roman end, because I feel Saturn wouldn't have any interest in battling the Roman camp/gods, and tbh I don't fully get why that happened in canon because it was Luke's beliefs that stemmed the resurrection of Kronos and the war and Luke didn't know about the Romans, so the whole thing should've been solely Greek but like, whatever, lol, Percy telling Jason about how he fought Kronos and Jason is just, "You fought grandpa??? Why would you do that, he's so chill.")

[eternaljourneytmbr]

A concept knocking around in my head; a flier who wishes to visit the Overland, suddenly having a chance encounter with someone from topside. Of course, getting back up there is easier said than done, as the access point their human acquaintance unwittingly utilized is in very unfriendly territory.

But her father knows another way to the surface. And with a human accompanying her, surely Regalia won't raise a mighty fuss over a flier transiting through one such passage?

---------

(human point of view)

"Henry! Ares! The Overlander is escaping!" Ares? Who the frick is Ares? My gut was sinking faster than the Titanic as my mind whirled, pattern-matching… wait. Ares. Greek god of war. Most of the bats down here seemed to have mythological names; Nohsia was the only exception thus far. Whoever this Ares was, they were either built like a brick shithouse, or their parents had… exceedingly high expectations that might not have been met as the lil'batty grew up. Yeah. That was probably it. Hopefully. I tentatively released my grip on Nohsia's neck fur and retrieved one of the road flares from my pocket. "Just gonna get a little light on the situation," I informed my chiropteric companion, before igniting it and throwing it into the darkness below. "Wait- what are you doing?!" Nohsia cried out. "They will see us!" "They already know we're up here!" I watched as the flare plummeted, descending… possibly ten meters? Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fif- oh what the actual f- If Nohsia was the size of a small car, and Palaestra was a Winnebago; then Ares was a freaking semi-truck! Dude definitely ate his spinach growing up! Washing it down with the blood of his enemies, of course. "HoAAH SHIT," I shrieked, scrambling backward and almost falling off Nohsia, who promptly slowed down and leveled out to prevent such a consequence from occurring. Not good. So not good! "Don't stop! Keep flying up!" "But you'd have fallen!" "That's the least of our worries! Where the hell is it!?" "Where's what? What did you-" Her voice stilled. I felt her muscles twitching. Then she fell out from under me, twisting wildly, and it took all of my barely-adequate strength to hold on as she careened about. I felt the beast's passage over us, the wind from their beating wings doing just as much to enhance her evasive maneuver as her own creativity had. A series of clacks and clicks cut through the darkness almost directly above my right shoulder. The enormous bat - Ares - had just either tried to pluck me away in his claws… or in his jaws. Given how quickly they had passed by, and there was no imminent second attempt, it was probably - hopefully - the former case. Then again, I had hoped that Ares was a hilariously misnamed runt of a bat, and look how that turned out!

---------

Oh. Guess not.

note: Nohsia's name is actually spelt 'Gnosia'; [human POV character] doesn't know that at this point, and so is assuming based on pronunciation. It doesn't fit the canonical naming pattern, as she's named after a star instead of someone from Greek mythos... but there's still a tentative connection? According to said mythos, the constellation of Coronae Borealis was created/placed in the sky after Bacchus married Ariadne... or something like that. Inspiration for the bat's name was from an alternate name for α CrB; Gnosia Stella Coronae.

'Gnosis' also translates to 'knowledge', so... a rather apt name for a very curious bat.

As for her appearance... Lasionycteris noctivagans.

--

Meanwhile, Palaestra? Greek goddess of wrestling. Figured that name would be suited for a hypercompetitive individual who also wishes to break with authority and explore the world above. Appearance: Lasiurus/Aeorestes cinereus.

[suspicious-pools-of-blood]

Hi buddy! Its Athena, I'm sending this out to all my mutuals - what got you into writing, what inspires you, who inspires you and what music inspires you to write? what do you love about writing?

Hi Athena!

To be honest, I don't actually know when I first got into writing. Especially if we count the "daydreaming plotlines of stories that never actually get written down," I've been doing that since I was a kid. I guess I started writing in middle school; we'd get assignments in English class to write stories and I'd always get way too ambitious and perfectionist with it and have trouble keeping it as a short story haha. In eighth grade we had one such assignment that was open-ended enough that the story I came up with would have needed at least a full book to contain it all, so I ended up just submitting a chapter 1 with a "to be continued" at the end. I wrote bits and pieces here and there continuing that story, but for the most part it just lived in my brain for several years. High school English class was a lot more essay-based than middle school, but my tenth grade teacher was fond of fiction; we had one or two full short story assignments, but for the first few months we also would get weekly vocabulary homework that involved writing a (very) short story using that week's words, and I think that's what really got me into writing. Those were more like one-shots than full short stories, but it made me remember how fun writing fiction is (and it's also around that time that I started writing more predominantly angst/whump, which is now my bread and butter). I just checked my old google drive files and it looks like I started actually writing stuff down around 2017 and actually writing my main story -- which, although nearly unrecognizable now, is the same one I started in eighth grade -- towards the end of 2020.

Inspiration: I think I'm mostly inspired by (1) other media and (2) history, with heavy overlap between the two. Full disclosure, coming as no surprise to anyone who has talked to me for over 5 minutes, I watched Xena: Warrior Princess in 2020 and it permanently rewired by brain harder than anything else ever has. In my elementary school, everyone got their Greek mythology phase from reading Percy Jackson in class, but my English class was the only one that didn't read it, so none of us had that phase -- until I watched Xena, and the ancient Mediterranean became one of my primary hyperfixations. I was never much into history before, but I always loved the medieval vibe of fantasy (although I actually was never into high fantasy/magic worlds); my formative book series as a kid was the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. (Side note, I think John Flanagan having written that series when he wasn't a writer previously was also influential for making me view writing as an activity with a very low bar for entry, so I didn't feel intimidated or like I shouldn't write just because I wasn't aiming for a career in writing.) So when I first started writing I defaulted to the generic run of the mill medieval-England-with-the-serial-number-filed-off setting that a lot of earth-like fantasy defaults to. By high school I think the setting had started to become more original, though still approximately equivalent to medieval Europe. But once I watched Xena, I realized that actually ancient Greece is so much cooler what the fuck. From there I watched some other stuff made by the same people who made Xena, including the STARZ Spartacus series, so I got generally into ancient history because of all that. I started reading a lot more nonfiction history books (as well as well-researched historical fiction, for the vibes) covering various civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean (not limited to Greece and Rome). I'm also half Turkish, so I was raised with the vague awareness that before the Turks there had been a number of great civilizations in Anatolia, from which we were partly descended (fun fact, my parents actually named me after one of those civilizations; it was one of my given middle names, but unfortunately no one told me it was based on that until after a decade of hating it because to me it was just a random girl's name and every time I mentioned not liking it my parents would be like "oh but it's a beautiful name" and I assumed it was just more of them being transphobic and not wanting me to change it to a boy's name lmao). I also sort of knew (though I didn't know the historical details) that our people migrated to Anatolia from central Asia a long time ago (tbc most Turks are genetically only very slightly Turkic, but a lot of cultural elements can be traced back to the nomadic lifestyle, even stuff as simple as our cuisine being a lot more dairy-based than other cultures in the area) and used to be nomadic warriors, what with the horseback archers and all that, so that inspired me for the whole other half of my setting. I also got into the history of the steppes, from the Mongols in the medieval era all the way back to the various peoples such as the Sarmatians or Scythians theorized to have been the basis for the Greek myth of the Amazons. And recently I started watching a Turkish show (okay, I started it like a year ago, it just has very long episodes that I have a really hard time sitting through) called Destan that is set in central Asia before the Turkic migration, and that's probably the biggest influence currently on my writing. [Stefon voice:] This show's got everything. Nomadic tribal politics and governmental organization, a strong female lead, so many strong female characters actually, horseback archery, a pet wolf, kurgans, fantastic fight choreography.

Whoops, wall of text. Here, have some line breaks.

I'll also add, for who inspires me, other writers on tumblr! For me this is more of a whump thing than a general writing thing; I used to feel suuuuuper self-conscious about writing fucked up shit (that was probably the biggest reason why I rarely wrote stuff down, because What If Someone Saw It) but now I open my dash and see way more fucked up shit than I could write lmao so idk if that counts as inspiration, but it definitely gets me past certain mental blocks to writing.

Music is a tough one, because I have OC playlists and whatnot, but those tend to be more "put them on and stare at an empty document for an hour" playlists than actual writing playlists. Sometimes I'll pick one specific song (or just a few) and put them on loop. If I have a song with lyrics associated with a specific scene, that might inspire me to write that scene, but for general writing inspiration I go more for either instrumentals or ~vibes~ music (a good example is Calyx Virago by Xandria, which fun fact is where my OC Calyx's name comes from).

My favorite part of writing is probably the end result. I write what I want to read (as evidenced by the fact that my story basically came about by putting all my hyperfixations into a blender and pouring out the results into a google doc), so I very much am the "Oh boy I can't wait for the next chapter! What do you mean I HAVE TO WRITE IT?!" type of writer lmao. That's also why I do a lot of story development in my head without writing things down, because I imagine scenes more like a movie, and then often have difficulty putting it into words in a way that sounds good. But if/when I do manage to do that well, it's gotta be my favorite part of the whole process.

[moonlight-prose]

ETERNALLY YOURS | COSMIC IMBALANCES

a/n: i originally was going to post this only on ao3, but i figured why not here too. this is something i've been working on a lot lately and have been keeping it to myself. mainly because i was too excited to just stop writing it and post, but hopefully you enjoy this story! i waited to post it until eternals was officially out on disney+ and IT IS!! so hopefully this series doesn't spoil it for you. it's not edited fully so there's probably a few mistakes.

note: reader has a name and that's asteria based on greek mythology, but other than that there's no descriptions about them at all.

summary: there was much to be said about the planet earth, but you never did think that you'd be making a home there after leaving the one you knew so well.

word count: 5.6k+

pairing: druig x fem!reader

warnings: not explicit yet, violence, cussing, some angsty ass scenes regarding farewells, some anticipation, and a small dash of an not quite enemies but strangers to lovers trope.

next chapter | series masterlist

“𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒘𝒆’𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆.” -𝑨𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂 𝑵. 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏

Eternity is a long time to love someone.

You never did quite get eternity. Not yet at least, but you did get more than that. Days turned to months which turned to years and eventually you realized how long you had inhabited the place you once refused to call your home. Fate had a cruel way of doing just that. Placing you in a situation where you knew you didn’t quite belong, and yet something - or someone - kept you there.

For you it was him.

Unable to leave his side even though he chose a path you didn’t wish to follow. Yet there was that constant ache that continued to fester like an open wound, growing until it consumed you whole. Until there was nothing but the blood that he had spilled, poisoning your veins and forcing you to remain right where you were.

Waiting for him to come back to you.

One day.

Eternity was a long time to love someone and yet you had promised to do just that. Love him until each star in the universe faded away, till each planet no longer remained intact. If only he had made the same vow as you, then perhaps you wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.

Perhaps you wouldn’t have become lost.

985 BC; 3,000 Years Ago

“You mean to tell me that you’ve visited this planet?” you asked, gazing at the map that gathered together in the air. Bits and pieces floating past your face caught your attention as he turned to the next page, shifting the view until you were staring at the land of this place you’d never heard of until now.

Slopes and valleys became mountain ranges; expanses of crystal blue water with waves that crashed to the shores of sandy beaches showed. It was a planet with little intelligence, something that he had called human, but still you remained fascinated by it all. Each myth, mystery, and tale that you discovered you devoured as if you’d never heard of something so interesting. For someone who had been raised in a palace as a warrior, you’d seen your share of things, but this...a planet that housed a people who were still developing.

That procured an emotion within you that you had never felt before.

It wasn’t curiosity. Far from it. Yet you couldn’t get it out of your mind that you knew this place would be far different than what you’d seen before. Call it an inkling or even a vision, but you felt something pulling you there and perhaps it was a mistake. You very well might have finally lost it, yet that was something you had to figure out for yourself. A discovery that would force you into a new state of mind.

One you were willing to go to extreme lengths to find out.

“It’s not much,” he said, turning to yet another page. “I’ve heard things since the last time I set foot on that land, but I can’t say for certain if any of it is correct.”

“Odin,” you said with a smile, pulling the book in your direction to go back to the image of the oceans. “You say that about each planet. As if that will make me lose my interest.”

He paused, regarding you with a look you’d seen a thousand times before. “I can see what you are after..”

“And what is that?”

“Purpose.” His words jarred you in a way they hadn’t before, because he was more correct than you would ever admit. Although something told you that he knew why you visited multiple planets, why you searched the realms for things unknown to even him. “You may not find it there.”

“What if I do?” you asked, unable to tear your eyes away from the page before you.

“That is for you to determine on your own,” he replied, setting something down onto the table before him. A piece of jewelry you’d seen him wear before and yet you never asked him about it - figuring the answer would be far too mundane for the likes of your mind.

“I’m not sure if going is the best option for me,” you whispered, shutting the book and latching it shut. “I search for it and yet...nothing seems to hold my attention.”

“Is it supposed to?” Settling into the chair he focused on the way you held yourself. Shoulders straight like a warrior, like he had taught you, but there was something within your stance that told more than you liked. “You’re afraid.”

“That obvious?”

“Why?”

The question was something you didn’t hold an answer for and yet even as you stood there, a hand still pressed to the book’s leather bound cover, you knew that you had made up your mind long ago. Long before you learned of this planet called Earth. Why were you afraid? It seemed like such a simple answer. You didn’t want to lose any more hope that there was no purpose to your life. That you did everything you could to end up with empty hands and an even emptier heart.

“What if - what if after all of this...I don’t find what I’m searching for?”

He heaved a sigh of exasperation. One you’d grown fond of hearing and yet it didn’t make you feel any better, because it meant he had grown tired of hearing about your worries. Which was something you understood. The worries you housed within your body seemed to eat away at your soul - tearing you to pieces from the inside out until nothing remained but a lifeless form of you.

“Purpose is not something you find,” he said as if he were merely telling you the details of the weather. “You may search for it, but you will never find it that way.”

“So what?” You tugged at the sleeve of your dress. “I’m supposed to let it find me?”

“If you wish to figure out what that purpose is then yes. You allow it to find you.”

Things seemed so simple when he explained them to you, but of course they would be. Odin had been a father to you for far longer than even you could remember. You understood that you were not born of his blood, knew that Hela was not your sister, but something deep down within you told you he saw you as his child. Just as you saw him as your father. He raised you, taught you the ways of ruling - even if you were to never acquire the throne - and loved you as a father would love his daughter.

“I have to go,” you said softly, brushing your finger down the front of the book, feeling the vibrations of its powers flow beneath your palm.

In a way you understood what his next words would be, but you blame that on your powers peeking their head out. Even though you had promised to never use them against people you couldn’t quite stop them from showing themselves every now and then. He could tell - felt your presence in his mind just like a slight pressure in the back of his head - and he let out yet another sigh.

“You already know what my words will be. Do not pry into my head to search for them.”

“I want to make sure you-”

“You may not be my child, but I will treat you as such. Do what you must to figure out where you lie in this universe, but don’t search for a guide.”

“I just don’t know if this is the right path to take,” you said, pulling your powers back into their space within your head.

“Then find that out for yourself. I cannot tell you.”

The longer you put off the choice of leaving home one more time, the more you would regret never having left sooner. You knew that. Could feel the stirring in your veins at the thought of exploring new terrain and you had even locked away your powers for this decision. If you were to see what came next you would never leave and perhaps that was what spurred your choice to follow your heart so quickly. You wanted to experience this adventure without knowing.

Without the fear of the future looming over you.

“Will Asgard be safe if I leave?” you asked, following Odin out into the halls and hearing the sounds of life outside of the palace echoing back to you.

“You are not the only protector we have.”

“But I am the only one who knows-”

He held up a hand, stopping you in your path. “Do not forget Heimdall. The one who trained you to use the powers that you possess. Your leaving has not hindered us before. I doubt it will now.”

Smiling, you continued down the hall until you reached the already open doors. Watching as Hela trained with a group of warriors that she had been known to fight with - Fenris lazily gazing at her from the sidelines. You would miss her while you were gone as a sister misses her kin and yet it was more than that. She was your friend.

“Give me a moment to say goodbye,” you said, leaving Odin at the top of the steps and heading in her direction.

It took her nearly running you through with a sword, but eventually she stopped mere inches from your chest. Her hair falling around her shoulders and a playful look in her eyes. That is until she saw the melancholy in yours, an expression you’d word before except this time was different. This time you would not see her again after a short trip away from home.

No, somehow you knew deep in your bones that this was it.

Once you left Asgard you would not return and while that terrified you, it also brought a sense of peace you didn’t think you’d get again. You wanted to go. Needed to venture outside of the realms of your comfort and discover another place that could be your home. Except you had your doubts about leaving the people who were your family - who were all you knew.

“It’s time?” she asked, the sword vanishing within her cloak, hand waving to the soldiers that paused their fighting. Within moments they resumed as she walked away, you right beside her. “Will you not stay till tonight?”

You shook your head, the echo of people shuffling away from the both of you echoing off the walls. The palace carried quite a bit of noise and you didn’t think people knew. Or perhaps that was just your senses picking up on the amount of people that were around you at each time.

“I need to go,” you replied, pausing at the balcony that overlooked a majority of Asgard. The mountains in the distance allowed you to see what you were leaving behind, what you would not be returning to. A sight that you wished to burn into the back of your mind - something to keep while you were away. Just another relic that would fade in time, but yours nevertheless.

To remember those that made you into the warrior you were today.

“Where are you off to this time?”

Glancing at her you watched her dig her nails into the cracked stone of the balcony railing. “Earth.”

“That pile of dirt?” You heard the undertones within her question, what she wouldn’t tell you.

Pressing her wouldn’t give you answers, but nonetheless you wished to know what was bothering her. Slowly you reached out towards her mind, attempting to delve into the caves she had let you in once before. However this time you felt the resistance within her body. Knew that to go any further would bring the wrath of Hela upon you and that was something you wished to avoid.

“You can say you’ll miss me,” you said, teasing her in the hopes of helping her to forget whatever darkness plagued her mind. “I know I’m your favorite sister.”

She scoffed, nudging your shoulder with her own. “You’re my only sister.”

“Then it should be easy to say-”

“Asteria.” That name had been given to you as a child here growing up in the world of gods, but you supposed they saw you as one of them. A god who controlled her own fate.

Who would bear witness to acts before they ever took place.

“Of course I’m going to miss you.” She let out a breath, her shoulders dropping as she continued to stare at the sight of Asgard rather than you. “You are all I have here.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, finally meeting your eyes. You wanted to see them clear of any emotion like always, and yet all that was reflected back towards you was pain. The pain of losing a sister. “I don’t make friends easily and part of why he still speaks to me is because he needs me.”

“You don’t need me to live, Hela,” you replied, resting a hand on her shoulder in the hopes that it would bring her a small amount of comfort. “You are stronger than me, than Odin and you know it. I know you do.”

“Will you ever return?”

You didn’t have to answer her to respond. She could tell by just a glance in your direction; the decision in your mind had been made up and there would be no going back on it. You had to do this. Without the support and help of your family. There were no more words that needed to be said aloud at a time like this, because what more could you say? No amount of reassurance in the world would convince her of the fact that she would survive without you.

Gathering her in your arms you held her close in an attempt to remember how hugging your sister felt. What she smelled like, how she sounded, every detail you could grasp onto you tightly clutched until they melted into your mind. Permanently etching themselves into your brain. You would not forget this place, her, everything that had shaped you. You couldn’t.

“Be well my sister,” you whispered, cupping her cheek and leaving her to watch over Asgard as she was destined to.

“We’ll meet again in the stars. One day.” She nodded, the words leaving her throat in a choked manner as she held back the tears.

“I hope so,” you replied, turning away from a life you had known so long - a family you love so dearly - and began to follow a new path. One that seemed to be carved from the very stars themselves.

Eventually you’d return here, see what you had left behind, but that would not happen for years to come. You only hoped that the future you had glimpsed was not as dark as it seemed. For if it was you weren’t sure how you’d handle it. Ignoring the pain that violently twisted your heart, you continued onwards. Heading towards your room to gather what you needed for the venture to a different planet.

There would be guards that came with you, no protection from what lived within the nine realms. No, this venture would be one you made on your own.

You clasped the cloak shut around your throat, the bag strapped to your shoulder along with a sword and knives that you kept with you at all times. Call it a warriors worry, but you weren’t quite sure what lay within the confines of Earth. You certainly didn’t wish to find out the hard way with nothing to defend yourself. The words of Heimdall rang in your ears as you rode the horse down the bridge towards your last stop on Asgard.

After having bid your goodbyes to Frigga and Odin you left through the back entrance, doing your best to avoid any interactions with those who would try to convince you to stay. You’d gone over every possibility of staying, of visiting when you could, and none of them bode well for your future. There would be a day when Asgard would call you home. When a new king sat on the throne, but for now you would have to say goodbye to those who would remain there.

Inhaling a deep breath as the horse continued to gallop towards the bifrost, you took in the sight of the palace growing smaller in the distance behind you. A home you once knew would now become a distant land and yet somehow...you weren’t afraid anymore. Through it all you knew that this was the right choice you were making. Wiping away a few stray tears that fell down your face you called out to the horse, stopping it’s movements and giving you a chance to leap down to the ground.

“It’s been nice knowing you Delos,” you said softly, patting his head and feeling him nudge your shoulder. A sign that he understood what you were saying - that this would be the last time you saw one another. “Serve your next companion well.”

A neigh was all you received in response, but it was enough for you to turn away and head towards the entrance of the bifrost. Where a man stood, sword placed in front of him and eyes watchful of everything that went on around him - everything that happened within the cosmos before him. You smiled, drawing back the hood of your cloak and stepped forward to bow your head in greeting to the warrior who you knew as your leader. Your guide in this place.

“So,” he said, shifting to focus his golden eyes upon you. “The time has come for you to leave us.”

“It has.” There wasn’t much to be said between the two of you, because he already knew what would happen. Understanding that to ask you to stay would go against the entirety of your relationship - your friendship. “I think I’ll miss you most, Heimdall.”

His lips quirked upwards in a barely there smile. “Don’t tell Hela that. She will have my head.”

“Somehow I think she knows.”

All you expected from him was a warm goodbye, a promise that he would be watching over you always, but as he lowered to one knee, sword still propped in his hands you understood this was much more than a goodbye. To have a watchman of Asgard kneel before another was considered treason unless that watchman was of royal family lineage. You weren’t blood born to Odin and Frigga but you were from an Asgardian bloodline. That you knew.

“Asteria goddess of the stars-”

“Heimdall why do you kneel?”

“I kneel to remind you that I will be here if you ever need my help.”

Crouching down you brought him up until you were able to wrap your arms around him, hugging him tightly to you in order to remember him as well. Just as it was with Hela you knew that the memory of him would never fade, would never grow old, because he meant far too much to you. An arm went around your waist as he pressed his cheek against your head, letting go of a breath that you knew he’d been holding for far too long.

“It’s me that will be offering my help,” you whispered. “I shall be on Earth, but do not refrain from finding me if Asgard is in need of another protector. Promise me you’ll do that.”

He nodded, pulling away and grasping onto your armor clad forearm, keeping you close and pressing his forehead to yours. “I promise. Be well Asteria.”

“Be well Heimdall,” you replied. “I shall see you again one day.”

You weren’t sure if it was your eyes playing tricks on you or if you saw him smile briefly, the shine of tears gone as he blinked. Odin may call himself your father, but it was Heimdall who raised you. Teaching you the ways of the sight you possessed and how to wield them for your own safety and the safety of others. Heimdall...your family. How just that he was the one to send you off. How tragic.

“You know the rules of the bifrost already,” he said. “I will not be able to keep it open for you, but I will be listening if you need to be called back.”

Nodding you stepped towards the very edge of the bifrost. The endless expanse of space greeting you, but there was one star you kept your eyes on. Your new home - hopefully. Tightening the straps of your sword and bag you prepared yourself to land quite hard on the ground. It always jarred you when traveling by way of the bifrost, but this would be one of the last times you partook in such an act.

“Are you ready?”

Were you? Ready to say goodbye to all you’ve ever known.

You said yes without hesitation in your voice, the feeling of certainty curling low in the base of your stomach, because this had always been what your life would lead to. What you were destined to do. Glancing back one last time at Heimdall you smiled, tilted your head towards him, and watched as he turned the sword. Bringing the bifrost to life and leading you towards another planet entirely.

Travelling through it felt as if you were sprinting past the stars; a bright light encasing you with an array of colors - your feet leaving the ground. You got the urge to tighten up your body, to tense your muscles almost like you were preparing for a fight, but there was no fight to be had. Instead you inhaled deeply, allowing the push of the bifrost to guide your movements until you were hurtling towards a ground made of dust and dirt.

Clenching your fists you braced for impact, feeling your feet slam to the ground - the light still shrouding your view of where you were. Except you could feel the difference the second you landed. The scent of soil and trees far more prominent than they were on Asgard, and the hum of an energy unlike any you’d ever known began to thrum a constant beat in your veins. While Asgard allowed you to connect to the home when you focused enough, this was instant.

A sensation telling you that you belonged here.

Eventually the bifrost vanished altogether, leaving you to stand upon a ground that was burned with runes and finally give you a chance to take in the world around you. The first thing you noticed was the darkened night sky. You weren’t sure of the time of day, or whether or not the sun would rise in a few hours like the book had said, but you did know this. Even throughout the nine realms, Asgard shone dimly in the sky above you - a star that would probably never be seen by humans. Yet you could see it as clearly as if you were there.

“Thank you Heimdall,” you whispered, stepping away from where you landed and venturing even further into the forest.

If you were lucky you would find a good place to hunt for food. Shelter was your first priority though and so you traipsed through fallen leaves and thickets of bushes to find a place that would serve its purpose for the night. You didn’t hear the rustling behind you. Or maybe you did and assumed it was an animal that had found you interesting enough to follow. Either way you paid no mind to the creature and continued on your way.

That is until the rustling soon ceased altogether and nothing but silence remained. Noise you could handle. That you were able to track, but it’s when said sounds ceased altogether did you feel unnerved. Something had found you within this forest and deemed you fit for prey rather than interest, and so you paused your movements. Inhaling breaths when you needed to in order to create as little sound as possible.

Drawing the short sword gifted to you from Hela you listened for what might be in the area. Attempting to reach out and find a mind to connect with, even if it was an animal you would be able to see where you resided. Easier to locate them first than run head first into a fight you were blind to in more ways than one. That is until you felt the vibration from them stop and a pressure in your mind start.

They were blocking themselves from you.

How would an animal know how to do such a thing?

The growl pushed air in your direction, sending a chill down your spine, but you refused to let that place fear into your veins. Not when you were being hunted for what you assumed was a meal. Turning quickly you leaped into the air, right as a creature came barreling in your direction only to slam head first into a tree. You landed on your knee, the sword going into the ground in order to slow your movements and give you a chance to get back up quicker.

“You’re a new one,” you said, already feeling the adrenaline in your veins begin to bring out the sharpness of your powers. Killing this alien-like creature would be easy enough if you were to use what you had, but you weren’t sure what exactly it was.

For all you knew whatever this thing was, needed to live in the forest to help bring forth evolution.

“Alright,” you said, sliding the other sword attached to your back out of its sheath and dropping your cloak to the ground.

Unbeknownst to you a group of people had been hunting this very creature down from the very village it attacked and could feel a shift in power from the surrounding area. You however felt nothing. Almost as if they weren’t there to begin with although that might have been due to them being masked by a particular individual. Sprinting forward you slid beneath the creature’s legs, swiping at whatever flesh you could get to before running towards the tree and using that as leverage to jump atop the thing’s back.

It would have taken you seconds to jam your sword into the back of its neck, effectively killing it, but something latched onto your back and yanked you off. A sharp pain went through your spine as you hit the tree with a strong impact. Forcing you to stay on the ground for a few seconds before stumbling back to your feet. The sword being called back to your hand as you rushed at the creature one more time.

Now you were pissed.

It took you yet another try of taking out it’s legs to get back onto it’s back but you managed with some struggle. A man came running through the forest, freezing at the sight of you lifting what looked like a black sword and driving it home into the creature’s neck. It collapsed within seconds, falling to the ground with a loud thud and jolting you forward. Grabbing the sword you yanked it out of the thing’s neck, flipping off of it and landing on the ground with ease.

You still felt the pain in your side from where you had been stabbed by whatever the fuck was attached to it’s back, but you could stand. That meant you had won the battle. With a groan you returned to your full height, the sword coated in what you assumed to be blood still in your hands. What should have taken you seconds to notice, took you much longer than that, but within moments you were pointing the sword at a different thing altogether.

A man.

“Are you of Earth?” It was more of a demand than a question, but the adrenaline was still coursing through your veins.

He didn’t move, barely even flinched, and if it wasn’t for the shift in his eye color you would have thought him to be dead. Gold filled his irises until the blue no longer remained and instead you were standing there waiting for him to do something. While you would have leapt into an attack already you felt as though you should remain in place. Watching as he exhibited a type of power you’d never seen before.

“What are you doing?” you asked, lowering your sword slightly. You figured he wouldn’t respond, but then you felt it. A pressure in the back of your head that tried to force its way into you forced a searing pain to spread from your temples to the very back of your head.

Clutching your forehead you shut your eyes and searched for the source of that affliction until you realized what exactly he was doing. Dropping your sword you brought your hand up, gathering the energy that seemed to emit from his very body into the palm of your hand and dragged it towards you before slamming a foot to the ground and shoving him away.

“How?” he exclaimed, stumbling back until he hit a tree and attempted to catch his balance.

“You were trying to get into my mind,” you replied, seeing the slight glow of blues form from your hands until they were encasing the very ground beneath your feet. While you held the capability to see what happened in the future you also held yet another power, one much stronger than you knew.

For so long you had locked it away, forcing it to the back of your mind so as not to lash out and hurt anyone with it.

Except now you weren’t home and this man was not here to befriend you.

His eyes - now blue - met yours once more. “You’re not human.”

“Clearly not,” you said, regarding him with a look of fury. “Why were you trying to get into my mind?”

“I’ve never met someone like-”

The sword kissed the skin of his throat as you moved faster than he could have anticipated. His eyes holding yours in a steady and unwavering gaze let you know he wasn’t afraid of what might come of this altercation. In fact, he seemed intrigued. Almost - impressed by your skill to take down a creature he was clearly after before you involved yourself into the mix. You should have kept walking, but now it was too late and there you were. In need of answers from a man who seemed content with staying silent.

“Answer my question.”

His lips tilted upwards, eyes squinting at you as if he could see right through your stance of bravery. “Where do you come from?” he asked, eyes glancing down at the blue, almost black and silver armor you wore.

His attire was different, a type of armor that didn’t look to be of any planet you’d been to before. You wondered if perhaps this was what they wore on Earth, but as far as you could tell this planet did not have life this intelligent. Let alone life that held powers beyond what you knew. The answer to his question lay on the tip of your tongue, ready to be said aloud and yet you couldn’t get the words out. You didn’t know this man, had no idea if he was even from this planet. So with a stubbornness many said you learned from Frigga herself you stood strong and pressed the sharp blade even further into his throat.

“I’d answer my question if I were you,” you said, voice eerily calm given the situation at hand.

He merely smirked, eyes regarding you with a look that sent your mind into overdrive. “My name is Druig.”

“That’s not-”

“And I would leave if I were you. My family was right behind me. Really any second now-”

You yanked the sword away from his throat and stepped back, sensing the presence of several other beings like him. Powerful enough to overtake you and with a huff of frustration you gathered your cloak, drawing the hood over your face once more. If you could get away from his forest you’d be free to do as you wished, but it was the lingering curiosity of who this man really was that kept you from leaving immediately.

“Druig,” you said softly, latching the straps to your sword closed and adjusting it to a much more comfortable position. “What are you?”

For a brief moment you caught the slight smile on his face. “I believe I asked you first…”

“Asteria.” Was it dangerous to give a complete stranger your actual name? Absolutely, but in the end what harm could he do to you? He had yet to alert his family of your presence and there was the matter of making sure you remained in one spot. He could barely get past the first barriers in your mind, let alone any of the others. “I’m-”

“Druig?” A voice called from only a few feet away, forcing you to move and gather the other sword that had fallen mid-battle.

He watched, unmoving and emotionless, as you vanished into the thicket of trees, sparing him one last glance before moving on. You ignored the incessant pressure in your mind, informing you of yet another view into the future and instead focused on the task at hand. Whoever he was, you would make sure to put as much distance between you as possible. No matter the cost. He may not know what you were yet, but then of course, that made you even.

You had no clue what he was either.

What you didn’t know was that above, lightyears away standing on the edge of the bifrost Heimdall stood, watching as two stars collided within the nine realms.

Setting a course of destruction for one another.

[iiceddorklatte]

a discussion on greek mythology and its modern adaptations || importance of sex and wrath in mythology

okay before i get into this a couple of things:

this is more of a rant/tangent style post and is just something I thought I would talk about in regards to a major interest of mine. If you dont agree with some of the things I say or reference, thats okay! again this is my perspective on the issue but I do think it adds insight to many communities involved in adaptations of mythology.

this talk involves discussions of sexual assault and uses the word rape and dissects the word in regards to its original meaning, if you are not in the headspace to read stories or read the word, please come back later or do not read.

this talk also focuses on the harsh treatment of women in mythology, and same warning as before click off if you wish

okay now that youve been fully warned, lets get into it.

as someone who reads Lore Olympus(i know! blasphemy) i will say that there are a lot of controversial themes or storylines that do not sit right with me. If you know the series you probably know that I am talking about the storyline between Persephone and Apollo. This is not a defense of it at all, however I am also not fully condemning it.

First, I want to look at Greek Mythology as a whole. To make it clear, not all myths are told the same. A good majority of mythology has been passed down through word of mouth or paintings or any other art form and will have inconsistencies or changes. Mythology as a whole is a tool used to explain human nature, the universe through the eyes of a certain group, and hierarchy systems along with many other things. Mythology and their stories are also used for morality based subjects. What I mean by this is that these stories are meant to teach a lesson or a type of behavior. This is typically why you will see inconsistencies between the retelling of myths. To use a very popular example of this, the myth of Hades and Persephone varies, but still have their own messages attached. For example, the myth where Hades forcibly kidnaps Persephone and highlights Demeter's determination to get her daughter back is a story about how a mother's love conquers all and how that love made her continue on her quest. However, in another telling where Persephone willingly enters the underworld and marries Hades, the story is about breaking free from authority and gaining back your own control. Again, myths vary depending on what message they want to send to their audiences.

Now I want to look at the gods and their behaviors throughout mythology. I know that everyone is tired of the 'Zeus fucks everything' joke but it is important to note it. Specifically, in the Greek mythos, Gods are the reason many things exist. Or at least are involved in some way in that process. This is why sex and wrath are important jumping-off points in creation mythology. Uranus(or the night sky) was born from Gaea, and then produced the Titans. Because of his hateful nature Uranus had his children imprisoned, until his son Cronus(time) castrated him and dispersed his remains. From this, he created Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. The cycle of sex and wrath is seen time and time again through these myths, and unfortunately the combination of these two is also very commonly seen in mythology.

//Tw SA (i am speaking about this topic from a mythological perspective, but also adding in modern day views of it)

Sexual assault is unfortunately very common place in Greek Mythology. Zeus is typically the mastermind behind these plots, however other Gods are also involved in it as well. The story of Medusa is another myth with many different iterations, however I want to look at the version that falls in line when her name which means "protect, rule" or "guardian". In this myth, Poseidon being jealous of Athena decides to rape Medusa, a servant to Athena, on the steps of her temple. This is again where wrath comes back into play. Athena, being infuriated by the violation of her temple, curses Medusa to become a gorgon. Depending on the interpretation, this 'curse' can also be seen as a gift of protection under the guise of punishment. Most of these horrific acts done by the Gods can be seen as being caused by their own or an outsider's wrath. I do also want to note that the word 'rape' meant something slightly different. Rape used to be defined as "to seize or abduct; carry off by force" as well as our modern definition to it. While in cases like Medusa or anything to do with Zeus really, we understand these cases do mean sexually assalt. Here is where I want to talk about Persephone.

The myth of Hades and Persephone goes by many different names, however one that can be seen around is “The Rape of Persephone”. While in some myths, authors have concluded that Hades may have assaulted persephone, the rape that is being refered to here is abduction. The Rape of Proserpina is the title of a popular sculpture created by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini between the years of 1621 and 1622. While this statue is about the Roman counterparts of Hades and Persephone, Pluto and Proserpina, the Romans basically stole the Greeks mythos and changed the names slightly. While it is more complex than that, the stories are the same if not similar, which is why I am bringing this statue up. The statue depicts Persephone, being held up by Hades, with her arms and legs in motion kicking away from him. Her expression is fearful and terrified. Hades is joyful and excited. He doesn't look hateful. Why is that? One way to explain it off is the lighting or the fact it's a statue, or that art and its meaning differs from person to person. However, I'm me and I'm very annoying so I'm going to go deeper into this by looking back on a different spin of their myth. While Hades did fall deeply in love with Persephone and was given permission from Zeus to kidnap her, another telling of the story from the Roman perspective sheds more light on the situation. According to a section from Metamorphosis, Aphrodite was wronged by the Gods and wanted to enact revenge. She elected her son Cupid or Eros to shoot Hades with an arrow of love, which would cause him to become infatuated with the Goddess of Spring. It appears wrath is commonplace amongst all the Gods. 

I know that I am bouncing all over the place, but stay with me. I now want to talk about Apollo and his connection to all of this. To reference back to Lore Olympus, Apollo in the series plays the role as the story's main antagonist. In the series, he sexually assaults Persephone. Now before I continue, I would like to say that using Apollo in this way is a gross misrepresentation of his mythology and Persephones. In actual Greek mythology, Apollo is a candidate to be married to Persephone. It is even cited that the God of the Sun and Music stated that he was in love with her. Granted this is mythology, and different versions of the story do appear with Apollo involved or not. Even though the series did not capture the true interaction between Persephone and Apollo, he is not free from the nature of his older counterparts. The myth of Apollo and Daphne shows this plainly. In this myth, Apollo falls in love with a nymph named Daphne who is the daughter of Peneus the River God. However, Aphrodite and Eros become involved again. While Eros shoots Apollo with a love arrow, he also shoots Daphne with one full of hate. This causes Apollo to constantly chase after Daphne, even though she has no romantic interest in him at all. While evading him during a chase, she calls out to her father to help her. To save his daughter, he answers her pleas and turns her into a tree right before Apollo catches her. While this very condensed retelling of the events that took place may not seem like Apollo was going to assault Daphne, it is heavily implied. Because of his infatuation from the arrow, his emotions towards her include not only romantic but also sexual attraction. From patterns we have seen from Gods such as Zeus and also Aphrodite, its only common sense to believe that Apollo was going to rape Daphne if he caught her. Even though Apollo did not sexually assault Persephone, Gods in themselves are selfish and narsasistic, and will take whatever they see as rightfully theirs. It's in their mythological nature. 

Even with the background of Apollo falling in the trend of Gods taking advantage of beings deemed ‘lesser’ than them, one could argue the cycle of sexual assault of women is still problematic and that the modern adaptations of these stories diminish what happened to these women. Which to an extent, I agree. However, I do think it's also important to look at the society that these myths were circulating around. The Greeks and Romans were a dominantly patriarchal society and women were given few rights compared to men. While some Greek city states differed and there were a few acceptions, thats all they were, acceptions. Because of this role of women in society, it is not hard to believe that women were treated this way as if it is commonplace. When looking at greek goddesses, this narrative heavily tracks. Even though they are powerful and in their own right bring more fear into the hearts of men compared to their counterparts, they are treated with malice and violence. These goddesses are sexually assaulted, pushed to the side, or diminished simply because of their gender and this is not an accident. A powerful female figure is terrifying to men, specifically men seeking power, which is why these events could have happened to them in myths. These goddesses are portrayed to have envy, anger, disgust, remorse, sadness, alongside a lot of other emotions. They portray human emotions. 

I know I know, youre gonna say to me ‘Wrena/Kore, seriously? Now we're talking about humanity? In comparison to Gods?” Yes, but there is an important distinction in this mythology. Mythology is human created. While it does portray all-powerful gods and mighty heroes, it's still human. However, this tends to split from Greek and Roman mythology. Remember when I said the Romans stole the Greeks myths and just switched around the names, well they did do that! But they also took some of the humanity out of the Gods. Greek mythology is known for being very human, having a moral in its stories. While Roman mythology also has a story, the Gods are more like objects, representing their roles and being all-mighty hammers of justice for the 'greater good'. Greek and Roman tellings of mythos can get interchanged or swapped due to how long ago these myths were and how similar they were. This is why mythology is so complicated, you either have an overload of information or not enough. Some events are the same, some contradict each other. This is why mythology is a wonderful source of stories. They tell a different version based on what that individual or society needs at that moment. 

To get slightly more personal and not just throw facts or hypotheses at you, when I was little I was told the story of Hades and Persephone. My grandmother told me the version of Persephone being kidnapped by Hades, but falling in love and choosing to stay on her own accord. When I got older, I learned about the other version. I was upset and distraught at this revelation. I thought my grandma was trying to spin a story about stockholm syndrome to get me to accept the patriarchal society we live in. I was pissed. Now that Im older, I realize that wasnt the message she was trying to tell me. What she wanted to say in the story is that even though people will try to control me or take control away from me, dont. Take back the reins and never let someone decide my life for me. Each version of different myths have their own meanings and interpretations, and all are correct.

Unfortunately, that also means all of the bad ones are correct as well. Lets loop back on over to Persephone. Persephone in her myths has been sexually assaulted. Even though Apollo was not the one doing the act, its still stated that it happened. In the creation myth of Zagreus, Zeus sexually assaulted Persephone(his daughter) while she was unconscious. It's fucking despicable and awful to read. But Zeus is gross and that does not diminish the fact that she was in fact sexually assaulted. Wether people like it or not, it's apart of her mythos. Or at least a version. You see, the ‘romanticization’ of mythology is more of a modern trend. Taking old greek myths and modernizing them to make it seem like everything is not terrible is a common trend in writing. However, this attitude is harmful to mythology as a whole. While the modernization of greek myths does leave out some of the awful parts of the stories or ignores them, like incest or graphic violence, it still serves a purpose. While some reasons for re-vamping them could be interest or purely for entertainment sake, some try to stick with a moral messaging. Lore Olympus, while ignoring or misconstruing some of the more graphic details, still has an important story behind it. Persephone being assaulted in that story is a representation of modern day rape victims. She’s scared to tell anyone and terrified of the person who did it to her. When she does finally tell people, she is met with support and comfort. This is the narrative that survivors need today. Support, love, a safe space. Humans are always trying to relate to each other, or see themselves in the things they consume. And mythology is one of those things we just cant help but insert a piece of ourselves into. Mythology changes and shifts with individual needs, and it is all up to the individual and their needs. All versions are right. 

TLDR: While I dont like the storyline between Apollo and Persephone in Lore Olympus, it does serve a purpose and reflects on Persephone's mythology without creating a culture shock for modern audiences. Wrath and sex are the two most important themes in greek mythology, and more than often combine in an unsavory way. Mythology has many different versions of its stories, and each version has their purpose. All of those stories are correct depending on the society and individual. Again, you can enjoy an adaptation of mythology while recognizing that there will be inaccuracies and changes you don't like. You can also enjoy traditional mythology while recognizing the values and morals portrayed are from an ancient society with a different view on the world. 

heres some links to articles that were insightful into this topic, i recommend checking them out if you want:

[petruchio]

my pjo hot take (or cold ig?? idrk) is that rr was never really interested in making jason grace his own character and instead took the easy way out and made jason grace diet!percy (walmart percy jackson, if you will). jason has so much potential and it never gets explored. like he was raised by wolves, he should've been a little feral. he talked back to the king of gods, his father, in front of the council!! grew up in camp jupiter (wasn't he like the youngest kid to ever join??), hera's champion (what's his relationship with hera like?? is he sympathetic to her?? does he resent her??). has a sibling from the greek end and i could go on. he has so much potential and yet we get nothing!! what do you think? (feel free to write as much as you want. i love reading your pjo meta essays.)

💓💓💗💞💕

omg yeah i agree so much i feel like the general consensus on jason has been like. he had so much potential as a character and it somehow ALL went unused...

i thought i had answered another question about jason like months ago on my blog and now i just ??? can't find it?? but i always felt so let down by jason because there was so much to explore that just went COMPLETELY UNEXPLORED and it's unfair because he is <3 jason grace our king our hero our savior

my general take on hoo that i've kind of settled on in the last few years or so is that actually jason SHOULDN'T have been the main character and it should have been a single pov series from leo's point of view!! i think it would've been a really great follow up to pjo to take a lot of the tropes that pjo kind of establishes and turn them on their head--so like, instead of the child of the big three being the main character, he would've been the kind of "sidekick" trope, which i think could've lent itself to a lot of cool exploration of like "what makes a hero" and "what is destiny"

BUT, within the series that we GOT, (and i KNOW i've ranted about this before) i wish we could've actually EXPLORED the complexities of jason and piper's relationship being built on false memories. i'm still a proponent of the theory that piper's fake memories were of leo (come on its POETIC) and also that would've added such a fascinating wrinkle into both jason's relationship with reyna AND leo's relationship with piper... that love square could've just been. immaculate if it hadn't just been like, hinted at in the first book and then basically dropped completely.

i also have always wished for a series that would've been just about the romans, because i feel like the way roman mythology and history were explored in hoo left... much to be desired imo. i think there could've been a lot of more in depth explorations of roman works and stories (like how the sea of monsters parallels the odyssey, could we have had something like that with, say, the aeneid or something i'm just spitballing here) or used famous roman history tales to draw parallels and take lessons away from (someday i will actually think more and construct a real argument for my idea for a series in which jason is a julius caesar parallel.)

anyway yeah i totally agree that whatever jason was meant to be he definitely... isn't at least in the later books of hoo. i think the biggest problem with hoo is that every book is just like, fanservice based on the response to the last book which has aged them so much more than the original pjo series. like i literally could not tell you a single overarching theme that we're meant to draw out of hoo that wasn't either a) already established in pjo or b) only appears in like, 2 chapters of one of the books. i think a big strength of writing a children's series is the opportunity to build on themes and explore them in subsequent books and kind of, turn them on their heads and ask the difficult questions and i just feel like hoo never DID that. it makes sense why like, it was clearly a fanservice series and it's fun that it exists! but it just is kind of thematically bare compared to pjo.

[sweetea-rosey]

Orange Theories (This is a lot of Series analysis explaining the theories)

Part 1

Name- Thomas and the other seem to go with names based off of Roman mythology. Logan and Patton being an exception, being based off of the greek Logos and Pathos.

So- the greek god of war is Aries and the Roman god of war is Mars. So, my two top name theories are 'Marshal' and 'Aaron.'

Alternately, the Greek goddess of rage Lyssa/Lytta- which leaves room for names such as Lyle or Lyon (which would be a cool route to go- it sounds like Lion, an animal known for pride. And ignoring this being Roman's trait, those who have the sin of pride over taking them often lash out when that's threatened.)

As to his relationship with the others...I feel that he would be Logan's opposite. Logan wouldn't like him much, at least. Anger is irrational and has the ability to blind someone- to block out logic.

You could argue that Virgil would be like this, too, but if you think about it, fear has the ability to be calmed down with logic- Virgil never blocked him out. In the debate they had, Virgil didn't want to participate, and granted, his views were irrational. But even Logan admitted that Virgil followed some logical forms of thinking- he had reasons for his doubts. And, even then, if he, himself, didn't listen to Logan, he never stopped Thomas from doing so. He let Logan say his piece and calm Thomas down. He and Logan worked together.

Another piece, is that Remus would be Logan's opposite. He's chaotic and random, he doesn't follow a line of logic and he's irrational...or is he? Remus spouts random nonsense half the time, but he's never very wrong, is he?

"I didn't make him throw the baby, I merely gave him a baby...and a large... sharp knife..."

Doesn't that make sense? Yes, he's random, "ERECT! Remember that... erection medicine?"

But, that was because Logan said "Erect."

He works based off of word association (it's not the time for word association games.)

Certain words trigger Remus' train of thought. We do it all the time, just because it's not clean doesn't make it illogical. If someone says "red" you think if the the color or something you know that has the word associated with it.

When Remus hears "erect" he thinks "erection" and something that has the word associated with it.

Logan likes word association games because they're logical and make sense.

Not to mention, he's technically everyone's opposite. He's immoral, brutally honest, brave and extroverted, chaotic.

He's not even Roman's opposite. Roman's opposite is Virgil; fear.

So, Remus is a wild card. He identifies as "Intrusive thoughts" and "Dark Creativity". But even Roman admitted that Creativity follows some form of Logic, otherwise they would be random and that's never funny (demonstrated by Patton.) And the twins are just two sides of the same coin.

Furthermore, if you look at the series, so far, the Light Sides have an arch of having to learn how to deal with and accept their opposites.

The series can be broken up into two seasons; Anxiety and Deceit.

Anxiety: Roman has to learn Virgil's importance to the group and accept him as a helpful part of Thomas.

Confidence;Doubt Bravery;Fear

Deceit; Patton has to learn that being selfish is okay, sometimes, and that Deceit does, have some beneficial contributions.

Honesty;Lying Generosity;Selfishness

Remus never got such an arch, he was thrown into the middle of Janus' as a result of Thomas not taking care of himself. Remus is a result of deminishing mental health. I imagine he's more of a wild card, just showing up every now and then to mess with the others.

Logan had no problem with Remus. He never recognized him as a threat and he just camly dealt with him.

So, that makes the next step or "season" to be about Logan's rival.

Rage blocks out Logic. It often doesn't make sense, especially in the heat of the moment. It only makes things worse and you causes people to often forget why they're so angry. They forget logic, only registering rage at something.

I predict that the next normal SS episode will be the beginning of season 3; Rage.

Irrational;Reasonable Passionate;Cool

Energy;Calm

Patton's gonna not like him. He'll believe that he ruins relationships and causes Thomas to be mean. (I.e. when he got upset because Thomas deamed his friends as effable.)

Janus is gonna try to convince them that anger can be okay. That it's important to let yourself be angry at others, seeing as it's recognizing your own worth and importance and recognizing and validating how you were hurt and allows yourself to work through that pain; because you acknowledge its presence and impact.

Logan would try to help, but Rage would make nonsensical arguments that Logan doesn't know how to logically dispute. Y'know those times when you know something is wrong, but they say it in a way they sounds viable and you don't know where to start unwinding it? Yeah.

Rage would probably support Roman (my poor boy- the dark sides keep picking on him-)

He'd tell Roman that his anger at the others is justified and that he deserves an apology. This is getting into Pride!Roman territory. But, I don't think Thomas and the team would do that. It would be more like- Roman is hurt, tired, and confused. At the beginning of Rage's arch, he'd be fed up with feeling like he can't do anything right by the lightsides. And then having to be friends with someone who was only using him. So, he'd side with the anger who'd be telling him that he's valid and that his feelings matter, too.

And, I think Rage would believe it. He wouldn't just be using Roman, he'd really be friends with him, because he knows/thinks that Roman's anger is justified.

And, again, Remus is a wild card. All the side will probably have their ups and down with him.

Virgil would probably side with Patton and be bitter at Roman for backing him.

I think this would be the last of the dark sides, and then it would shift into working on personal issues.

Roman's insecurity and relationship with Remus. Logan's emotional isolation, Janus and Virgil's trust issues and violent relationship and Virgil's life with them, Patton's emotional suppression, ect.

[buffaloborgine]

Examination into the naming of FFVII - Before Crisis’s Zirconiade

Yeah, I mean, why don’t we look a bit more into why this thing below has a weird name? 

Despite having a structure similar to the WEAPON, this thing is considered as a Summon, as its title in Before Crisis is “Ultimate Summon” and “World Burner”. 

Besides, it doesn’t have the word “WEAPON” when we call it so, let’s just agree that this thing is a Summon. 

What I want to point out here is the name. “Zirconiade” is a non-existing word, it is totally fabricated by the writer. 

Nonetheless, even made-up things come from things that really exist, as a base, or reference. 

So let’s see where this “Zirconiade” thing comes from. 

First of all, we have the prefix “zircon”. Zirconium (Zr) is the 40th element in the periodic table. The name zirconium is taken from the name of the mineral zircon (the word is related to Persian zargun (zircon; zar-gun, "gold-like" or "as gold")), the most important source of zirconium. Then we have the suffix “iade”, which is close to “iad”, in Greek, it means “relate to”. Therefore, we can translate the name “Zirconiade” into “Something relates to zircon”. 

So the first thing you think of when talking about a metal is probably its crystal form, right? 

Here is a crystal of zircon:

See the similarity in color theme yet? So crystallize zirconium has a range of color from yellow, orange to red, and the Zirconiade has a theme color of mainly red with gold blades. 

So, there you go, you got a reference for what the thing is based on. 

The point is, that crystal does have a name. It’s called as “Hyacinth” or “Jacinth”. 

In religious aspect, jacinth has been supposed to designate the same stone as the ligure (Hebrew leshem) mentioned in Exodus 28:19 as the first stone of the third row in the breastplate (Hoshen/choshen) of the tunic (ephod) of the High Priest of Israel. In Revelation 9:17, the word is simply descriptive of colour. In Revelation 21:19–20, it is mentioned as one of the foundational stones of the New Jerusalem. This leads my research a bit further into reading about the “breastplate of the Israeli High Priest”. So here is what I found: 

“The priestly breastplate (Hebrew: חֹשֶׁן‎ ẖošen) was a sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Israelites, according to the Book of Exodus. In the biblical account, the breastplate is sometimes termed the breastplate of judgment, because the Urim and Thummim were placed within it. These stones were, at times, used to determine God's will in a particular situation (Exodus 28:30). Using these stones did not always determine God's will (Samuel 28:6)“.

“Whether there is any pattern to the choice of gemstones depends on their identity. Taking the majority view of scholars in regard to the identity of the gems, and including the implication from the Book of Revelation that the onyx at the end of the fourth row was a sardonyx, there are four colours – red, green, yellow, and blue – each represented by a clear gem (red – carbuncle, green – heliodor, yellow – chrysolite, blue – amethyst), an opaque gem (red – carnelian/red jasper, green – green jasper, yellow – yellow jasper/yellow serpentine, blue – lapis lazuli), and a striped gem (red – sardonyx, green – malachite, yellow – pale golden agate, blue – sky-blue agate). The four colours of red, green, yellow, and blue, are the first four colours (apart from black and white) distinguished by languages, and are distinguished in all cultures with at least six colour distinctions (the other two being black and white). These colours roughly correspond to the sensitivities of the retinal ganglion cells. (The retinal ganglia process colour by positioning it within a blue to yellow range, and separately positioning it within a red to green range.)“

What we can take out from this is that the stones on the High Priest’s breastplate were “at times, used to determine God’s will” but not always “determine God’s will” and that those stones have a pattern of four colors: red, green, yellow and blue. So, does this has any connection to FFVII anyway? Well, yes. If you look at how Fuhito wanted to use Zirconiade, you can see the reference of “determine God’s will”. Fuhito is a student of Bubenhagen while idolizing Hojo at the same, he believes that the Planet needs to heal and deems humanity as the source of harm, so humanity needs to return to the Planet so the Planet could heal. Fuhito thinks he himself acted on behalf of the Planet’s will, so, yeah, you see where this is going. Besides, the pattern of four colors is also seen in Before Crisis, because the Zirconiade needs to be empowered by four support materias, which have the exact colors according to the pattern described above: red, green, yellow and blue. 

In conclusion, we can see that the Zirconiade literally represents a force that serves the will of the Planet. Although, by the time Fuhito summoned it, it’s not really representing the will of the Planet, is it? 

Let’s get back to the other name, “Hyacinth”. So hyacinth comes from “hyacinthus”, a flower with the name of Greek origin.  

If you are familiar with Greek Mythology, then you may have heard about Apollo’s affair with Hyacinthus. It ended up in tragedy but we won’t talk about it here. The flower itself in Greek culture, is associated with springs and rebirth, while in Roman Catholic tradition, it represents prudence, constancy, desire of heaven and peace of mind. 

The problem here is that Zirconiade is meant to be “World Burner”, the destruction of the whole world while “Hyacinth” represents “rebirth”, “desire of heaven”. If we combine these two very opposite meanings, we can get something hideous, like Zirconiade brings about rebirth from the ashes or it shows desire for heaven achieved by destruction. Overall, it fits with Fuhito’s mindset of burning the world, so that the Planet can heal. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk. I’m glad this doesn’t become a series of writing :’). 

[trainsinanime]

Percy Jackson and Western Civilisation

Okay, I’m gonna do it. I know it’s a bad idea, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because someone has to and either nobody else is, or they’re hiding behind fandom-specific hashtags that I’m not familiar with. Basically my question is: What is up with the concept of "Western Civilisation" in the Percy Jackson books, and is it really as stupid as the first book makes it seem?

I know the correct answer is "read the rest of these Harry Potter wannabe books and find out for yourself, and then make a post about that or maybe a Youtube video essay or something", but I don’t care enough about the question to do that and I didn’t like the first book enough to want to. Also I don’t know how to make Youtube video essays. So if you think that my take is uninformed and not worth your time because of that… well, you’re probably right. That said, I think the question is still valid, and maybe this will prompt someone more knowledgable than me to make a Content™ about this or something.

To briefly sum up what this is about: In the Percy Jackson books, the ancient greek gods are real, are around, and keep having children with mortals, one of whom is our hero Percy. These kids get sent to a summer camp that is totally not Hogwarts because it’s a camp, not a school, you see. This summer camp is on Long Island, New York, USA. The gods themselves have moved to the US and live on a mystical 300th floor of the Empire State Building.

Obviously the question here is what the gods are doing there. Is this situation similar to Neil Gaiman's amazing book "American Gods", where local versions of the gods appeared because their worshippers are here? Are there versions of the gods everywhere? Turns out no, they’re just in the US. They moved here because they are bound to a mystical concept known as "the heart of western civilisation", also sometimes called "the flame". This used to be in Ancient Greece, but then moved to Rome, then around Europe for a bit and eventually settled in New York.

Depending on your point of view, you could describe this as either a neat solution, or as an intriguing piece of world building, or as what the fuck is this shit. I’m in the latter camp, if you can’t tell. Because while it seems neat and simple on the surface, it actually presupposes a lot of things and raises a lot of questions, like:

What even is western civilisation?

What languages does western civilisation speak? What alphabet does it use to write them?

Which stories and myths do all of western civilisation share?

Since western civilisation has a center, it seems logical to assume that it must also have limits; things that are not western civilisation, but something else. Which of these "something else" exist? Presumably at least one "eastern civilisation", I guess, but how many and what else?

What parts of the world are and are not part of western civilisation? For example, is the middle east part of the western civilisation? I mean, islamic tradition played a huge part in preserving ancient greek texts, and their reintroduction to Europe during the Reconquista of Spain is what triggered the Renaissance and is a big part of why we care about Ancient Greece today at all.

What, if any, are the religions of western civilisation? Apparently Greek Gods are one of them, okay. What about Christianity, what about Judaism, what about Islam?

What is the philosophy of western civilisation, if any?

It is established that Roman Gods and Greek Gods are actually identical, as the Romans claimed, even though that's historically wrong. Okay, fine, that's a choice. What about the Norse gods or those of ancient Egypt? The Romans did the same with them.

What happens with immigrants into western civilisation, and with people who were conquered by it? Are Chinese immigrants to the US part of Western Civilisation? Are Native Americans? Why or why not?

Was Rome part of Western Civilisation before they took over Ancient Greece?

When did Western Civilisation move to the US, and why then?

Again: What exactly is Western Civilisation and how do you determine where it goes next? Is it based on followers of a religion, or is it about culture, or mythology, or language? Because trying to paint a continuous line along any of these axises is at least somewhat problematic.

That’s just a small selection. I could go on, but the book doesn’t even acknowledge that these questions are real, much less try to provide any sort of answer. And from what I heard when I asked around, it seems like the later books in the series don’t either.

All these questions ultimately center around one key concept: The book assumes that there is such a thing as Western Civilisation, that it is clearly definable, and that it follows a neat line from Greece to Rome to Europe to the US. This is an assumption that is incredibly easy to poke holes into on every single level, so for me the really interesting question is really why the book even makes it at all.

I’m kidding, I know perfectly well why the book does this. This mental model of a single western civilisation that starts with ancient Greece and has found its modern form in the modern US is old and super popular. This continuinity is a story we in the western world tell ourselves. This story is the reason why most buildings in Washington DC look like greek temples. And most importantly, this version of history, or a related one that mostly just stops in Europe, is what is told in high school history books all across, well, "Western Civilisation". And, oh yes, author Rick Riordan used to be a high school history teacher.

"Western civilisation moved around a bunch and is now home in New York city" is not the start of the world building here, it appears to be the end of it. You could just as well say, "The greek gods are here because of what you read in your history text book, and you're really smart for remembering it."

I could say something about how this is problematic™ actually, because it supports the same world view that was the underpinning of Manifest Destiny, and how it supports the toxic view of American Exceptionalism. But honestly, I don’t think the book intends to do anything like that. It seems genuinely disinterested in dealing with any questions like that. Likewise, there is a hypothetical version of this where "Western civilisation" is defined by people believing they are in "Western civilisation" and perpetuating that story, which would be interesting on a meta-level (well, it would be yet another American Gods, but there's nothing wrong with that, that was an amazing book). But again, that seems deeper than Percy Jackson wants to go.

"Western civilisation" is just a tool to move the setting from a wild, scary, unimaginably remote place like… modern Greece, I guess, to the mundane, familiar, safe and kind of boring setting of modern-day New York City. Making New York City and its surroundings feel boring and mundane is definitely an unusual choice, but the book really commits to it.

(Random aside: Is there any cross-US road trip story ever where the hero travels from the west coast to the east coast?)

At least as presented in the first book, "Western Civilisation" is just a tool to make sure that the book's fictional universe does not become too interesting. And it reuses an old and popular but also clearly incomplete, problematic and in many ways just plain wrong narrative to do so, because it assumes its readers know and believe that story. It’s not the only part of the book I dislike, but it’s one that really stuck with me.

Or maybe I’m completely misinterpreting all this because I didn’t read any of the subsequent books. If you have, then please, I genuinely would like to know what you think about this!

[greekbros]

My thoughts on Blood of Zeus, also I wasn't expecting much but ironically I was disappointed.

(I'm going to be fair and say that the blood of Zeus honestly wasn't a very well-written series)

(first off it's HEAVILY suffering from "bishonen same face" syndrome. Literally even gods that honestly should have been a little more PHYSICALLY different were hot 20 something year olds....I'm looking at YOU dionysus. That guy at the very least should have looked like a castlevania version of danny davito)

(second is story....what...the fuck...IS the story? Seriously because many greek myths literally start with "And than Zeus fucked her right in the bussy" and literally it's a cat and mouse game with either hera or some other god. Honestly, come up with something that doesn't sound like an edge lord version of disney's Hercules. Another part is they made the story complicated enough that you end up not giving a shit for a lot of characters.)

(The rules of being a god in the series is kind of strange, are they immortal or are they not immortal, can they heal fast or can they actually die? because honestly I was rather confused throughout the whole time... Do they have Norse god rules or do they have "gods can only be killed by Gods" rule? You honestly can't tell and it feels like as if most of what's been going on is due to the plot's inconvenience)

(The nicest thing I can say is that this series has an amazing form of nuance that I'm not certain if anyone on tumblr had picked up on. Greek gods in mythology are selfish and vain, they would never admit to having flaws or even take up any faults and what they did without giving it justification. in the series, they humanize the gods enough to the point that it would make sense for them to actually act up this way, they're just really powerful humanoids, they're not gods and that actually helps the story in a weird way because we get to have the nuance of having a Greek god we always associated with rape, destruction, and all sorts of stuff but in the form of a very flawed man. Plus, it probably depicts the gods a little more interestingly than any other media to be fair. )

(The diversity in the show is genuinely the most realistic, not only do you have different ethnicities but you also have different levels of sexuality, based on my research it seems that open love was a rather common thing amongst both gods and nobles, thus stuff like this would be very common to see in a nobleman's villa, and other things such as social suspicions of new strangers and also even how people view the world is genuinely accurate to Greek society as well. You can at least give the directors that level of credit)

3/5 Thunderbolts :/ for me.

[rachaelslibrary]

February Wrap-Up

Hello everyone.  Wow it really has been a while since I’ve posted anything but I had my best reading month in pretty much ever this month so I feel duty bound to do a wrap-up.  I also really do plan on posting more this year (which I say every year) but I really do mean it.  

This month I read a total of 7 books, three of which were for my English Lit class but I am totally counting them because they were long and took me a bit to get through.  The class is weird because some weeks I only have to read like 15 pages, but others I have to read like 250.  Anyways, I’m pretty impressed with myself because on top of work and school, I was also busy moving into my new house this month.  But that’s besides the point.  Here are the seven books I read for the month of February.

1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by ???

I’m sure you can guess that this was for my English Lit class.  It’s a classic, and I know I’ve read part of it before for a class in high school but this was my first time reading it all the way through.  It was alright.  Really repetitive and Gilgamesh was kind of a little whiny at times.  I’m not going to give it a star rating, just because I don’t think it would be fair to grade this purely based on my enjoyment.

2. The Odyssey by Homer

Another one for my English lit class, and also one that I had to read part of for high school, but I did enjoy this one more than Gilgamesh.  Maybe it’s because I’m familiar with the storyline due to Percy Jackson, or maybe because it’s Greek mythology and I have a thing for anything in that category.  Either way, I didn’t entirely mind having to read 250 very, very thin pages of this book.  Again, I’m not going to give it a star rating, but it definitely ranks the highest of the ones I’ve read so far for my class.

3. Resistance Reborn (Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) by Rebecca Roanhorse

I was in a Star Wars mood for a solid week this month, so I re-watched a lot of the movies and picked this up.  This story takes place before movies 8 and 9 and follows the main characters as they try to rebuild after being decimated by the First Order.  I love Poe Dameron, he’s one of my favorite characters in the entire Star Wars universe so I was excited that this would be more Poe-centric, but a lot of the times he felt out of character.  It was like reading a watered down version of the character from the movies.  The book was enjoyable, but rather surface level, and while Rebecca Roanhorse did a good job of crafting a whole new Star Wars story, it ultimately felt like it could be skipped.  I was looking for a nice build up to the 9th movie, and this just felt like a weird fanfiction one shot.

3/5 stars.

4. Oedipus the King

Ever heard of an Oedipus complex?  This is the origin.  Poor Oedipus receives a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, so he decides to leave home and never see his parents again to prevent that from happening.  The catch?  He was secretly adopted, runs into his real father on the road not knowing who he is, kills him, and then goes and marries his mother not knowing who she is.  I didn’t expect to enjoy this but I found myself feeling really bad for Oedipus who was just trying to do the right thing.  Even though it was for my English Lit class, I’m glad I read it.  Will I ever read it again?  Probably not, but at least now I know the origin story behind the psychology. 

5. Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

If you’re looking for a creepy story with a ton of queer relationships, this is the book for you.  In the early 1900s at the Brookhants School for Girls, a string of mysterious deaths occurred.  Fast forward to the present, and Merritt Emmons has written a book about the deaths and supposed curse that surrounds the school.  The book is now being made into a movie and as the cast arrives to begin filming, weird, creepy things begin to happen to them as well, making them wonder if the place really was haunted.  It’s a story within a story within a story, and a lot of it genuinely creeped me out in a good way.  I enjoyed both the 1900s timeline and the present day timelines presented in the book, and I enjoyed almost everything about this book.  It was a five star read for me up until the last 100 pages because it had a very dissatisfying ending that left a lot of questions and overall just didn’t feel wrapped up at all.  It felt like the author realized how many pages she had written and thought that she needed to wrap it up in the next 10 pages.  Not a bad book at all, but there’s just too much to be desired with the ending.

4/5 stars.

6. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and I am so glad to report that I really really liked it.  I’ll be honest, not much happened to continue the overarching plot of this series, but that didn’t stop it from being an enjoyable book.  This is told entirely from Nesta and Cassian’s point of view as they train and fight and just learn to be around each other every hour of the day.  I didn’t like Nesta in the original trilogy and found her to be very bitchy but this book explains it all and does an excellent job of it.  It’s a book about hurting, depression, healing, PTSD, and love.  And it is DIRTY.  Easily the sauciest of any of Sarah J. Maas’ books.  As I was reading it I kept thinking to myself “is this what it’s like to read adult romances?” I haven’t been able to answer that question for myself yet, but I didn’t hate it. I also love Cassian so much, so any book that he was a central character I already knew I was going to love.  Is it a literary masterpiece? No.  Does it become the Rhys and Feyre show occasionally?” Yes.  But could I overlook the little problems and just enjoy the story?  Absolutely.  The more I read it the more I realized that this whole series just has such a special place in my heart. 

4/5 stars

7. American Royals by Katharine McGee

This is a contemporary story that answers the question, what if George Washington was made king during the American Revolution?  American Royals follows three royal siblings, the heir, Beatrice, and her younger siblings Samantha and Jeff as they navigate what it means to be royal as young adults.  Jeff and Sam are straight out of high school and trying to decide what they’re going to do with their lives, and Beatrice is under pressure to start dating and get married before she eventually inherits the throne.  The story also follows Nina, Sam’s best childhood friend who has always had a crush on Jeff, and Jeff’s ex-girlfriend Daphne as the two fight over him.  Although this book was predictable at times, I still enjoyed it.  It was a light, fluffy read that got me through my book hangover after a Court of Silver Flames. If it was an eight book series I probably wouldn’t continue, but there’s only one sequel so I’ll probably pick it up over the next few months.

3/5 stars

[t100ficrecsblog]

an interview with sapphictomaz (they/them) what are you working on right now? Right now I’m working on finishing a fic called “toward eternity,” a canon divergence fic that features an immortal Murphy. There’s only one more chapter that I need to write and post, which feels weird, since I’ve been working on this one fic for the past three months or so. It’s been a long process consisting of obsessing over immortality lore and reading old wiki pages to refresh my memory of plotlines from seasons ago, but it’s also been really fun to completely immerse myself in one project. In that sense, I almost don’t want it to end - once the full fic is out there, and it’s all finished, it’s going to be hard to let it go. I’m going to miss it, but I’m also excited for people to read it in all its glory.

what’s something you’d like to write one day? This is tough - I don’t have a well of ideas to draw on. When I get a good idea for a fic, I generally plan and write it right away, rather than dwell on it. I tend to obsess over my ideas, too, so while I’m writing one fic it’s very difficult to think of a plot for another one. Still, I have been toying with the bare bones outline of a mythology au fic, where Murphy would be an exiled & fallen god and Bellamy is an unsuspecting mortal that gets dragged along on his quest to save the universe. This may or may not ever get written, but the idea and universe that goes along with it makes me smile.

what is the fanwork you’re most proud of? Definitely a fic I wrote called “i’d still choose you.” It’s a mythology au where a mortal Bellamy goes on a quest to save his best friend from the Underworld, only to fall in love with cursed demigod named Murphy and save several people’s lives along the way, mostly by accident. I normally write from Murphy’s perspective, but for this fic I wrote from Bellamy’s point of view, which was challenging because I feel less in touch with his character, but I’m really proud of the way he, and the whole universe, turned out. Greek mythology has been something I've loved for years, so it was a lot of fun melding the world of those myths with the world of t100. At the time, it had also been my longest fic I’d ever written, and I got really great feedback on it, so it’s something that makes me smile whenever I think about it.

why did you first start writing fic? Honestly, I think because I daydream a lot. I started writing fic back in 2012 or so, originally for a book series I was reading at the time called “House of Night.” A character was killed off in the series, and I wanted to ‘fix’ that plotline. I originally imagined lots of scenarios in which that character could have lived, and then one day, I sat down and just wrote out one of these scenarios. Literally the definition of “if the author isn’t going to do it right, then I will.” Only after writing that first fic did I realize that this was something other people did, too, and after I read a lot more fic, it gave me the courage and inspiration to post my own. Luckily for me, I’ve gotten a lot of good comments over the years, which makes it easier to keep going.

what frustrates you most about fic writing? I think the expectations around it. I love feedback and interaction with readers, of course, but there have been times when I feel pressured to update and post in a certain time frame, or if updates aren't long enough I feel bad about that, too. That's my own fault, more than anything. I have to remind myself that fic writing is done for free, and the only expectations I have to rise to are my own. If I'm happy, then it works - but often this is easy to forget.

what are your top five songs right now?     Capable - the Wild Reeds

Famy - Ava

There’s Still a Light in the House - Valley

Give Yourself a Try - the 1975

First - Cold War Kids

what are your inspirations (books, songs, other fic)? Songs are definitely my biggest inspirations for fics. Almost every single fic I write has its own soundtrack that I listen to while writing. Poetry is also a big inspiration for me. I think a lot of the time, a mixture of both song lyrics and poetry lines inspire me the most. For instance, in my current project "toward eternity," I was heavily inspired by the song "When The Angels Sing," by Social Distortion. I also was heavily inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death." The very last line of that poem ("I first surmised the Horses' Heads / Were toward Eternity") inspired the title and general themes. So, it's a combination of listening to songs and reading poems at the same time.

what attracts you to Murphamy? what first attracted you? I think I was attracted to Murphamy because I love Murphy, and I think a lot of Murphamy fans would feel similarly. Murphy's been my favourite character throughout the entire series. When looking at his character arc and journey throughout the show, it's impossible to study it without seeing the impact Bellamy has had on him. Especially during earlier seasons, they've had such a fascinating push-pull dynamic with each other that I love to explore in fic. It was during the cliff scene in 2x04 that I really noticed this - that scene is so ripe with symbolism that I still watch it to get inspired. And, I mean, who doesn't like a good, well-developed enemies-to-lovers?

Besides Murphamy, what’s your favorite ship in t100? Clexa, for sure. I loved Lexa even before Clexa happened, and then when it did, I was so invested in their relationship and dynamic that, five years later, I'm still obsessed with them. Since I mostly write Murphamy, I do my best to include at least a crumb of Clexa in all my fics because I love them so much. Another t100 ship I really love that I wish got more attention is Remori! I think they're really fun together and bring out the best in each other, and most of all, they support and encourage each other to be better. They're a really interesting pair I wish we saw interact more.

how did you first decide you wanted to write for the Chopped challenge? My friend Elle (hopskipaway) introduced me to it, actually! She'd been an active participant before I had ever heard of it, so I started following it through her. I first wrote for the Holiday Exchange challenge, which was really cool. I'd been in fic exchanges before, but I liked that the Chopped element made it so the fics were specifically tailored to what the participants wanted to see. The environment was really encouraging and supportive, which influenced me to sign up for the Chopped March Madness, too, which was lots of fun!

what’s your Chopped! process like? or is it different every round? This is going to sound weird, but honestly, my Chopped process is...not having a process. I read the list of tropes & ships that have to be included, and then I leave it completely alone for at least a day. Generally I form a base idea just looking at the trope list, but even if I don't, I let them ruminate in my head and then after a while, a plot idea comes to me. I think taking a step back from the pressures of a challenge like that allows me to be fully creative, which in the end, results in a better end product.

what are some things you’d like to recommend? There are so many lovely other fic authors out there I couldn't name them all if I tried. Still, some of my all time favourite authors on ao3 are: blueparacosm, hopskipaway, oogaboogu, sadie18, & maunwocha. They've all got lots of lovely writing that I thoroughly enjoy, and I've had the pleasure to get to know them all, and they're lovely people, too. They all deserve the most love and support possible.

as always, I am delighted to interview another member of the popular Murphy-centric fic-writing conglomerate. they all have such different styles and are so excellent in their own way! “toward eternity” is on my weekend reading list to re-read and comment on every chapter, but “you can bloom again” was the first sapphictomaz fic I ever read and remains my favorite. It’s Harper/Clarke and was written for Chopped!, and at the risk of sounding cliched, it’s a very fresh take on both of these characters. Also, a road trip at the end of the world. you can find them on Twitter here, or find them here on Tumblr @lexasheart. 

[takaraphoenix]

Is it me or are riordans books lsoong it’s charm? I mean I like the idea of different stories told by other prospective and other mythology but when is you keep making sequels and spin offs over and over and not just end it it loses its fun. Also didn’t rick kill of Jason?

I mean, you’re talking to the girl who abandoned the books after HoO due to a loss of quality and also… for the ridiculousness of cramming all the mythologies together.

I stand by the fact that TKC didn’t do as well as hoped and that’s the only reason he tied it to his big property. To make more money. There is literally no other reason than CHASE being highly recognizable among the PJO fandom, that’s the only reason Magnus was Annabeth’s cousin.

If he’d kept all of those vastly different series separate, that might be a different tune. But he knows Percy is his money-maker so he forces Percy into everything else to effectively make the PJO readers also read his other work.

That’s the reason why we’re on sequel number two for the PJO series and why TKC turned out to be in the same world and why Magnus had to be Annabeth’s cousin. Whatever he’s gonna do with the Celtic gods - and let’s be real that is 100% where he’s going to go next now that he went through the three biggest pantheons - Percy is definitely going to find his way into that too.

It’s just… frustrating because this greed just… made his world completely fall apart.

If all the gods operated on the same rules, I’d buy it all being one world, but how he mashed them together…?

But his “they moved on and changed into Roman” completely falls apart considering the ““Greek”“ gods we met in PJO, because by that logic, these were not the Greek gods, they were the American gods - Poseidon in a Hawaiian shirt, Zeus in a suit, Hades owning a record label. They moved on and adjusted according to the new worshippers. But somehow those American gods are treated like the Greek gods, while the Roman aspects are just 100% old-fashioned proper Roman.

No. No, either you say Greek and Romans both live in modern US and have them proper!Roman and then also proper!Greek, or you say they move on to a new place of worship and change accordingly… and thus remove the existence of “Roman” demigods in the US, because effectively there would be neither Greek nor Roman demigods there since the gods as a whole moved on and evolved into a new American aspect - which was what I had assumed happened prior to him retconning Romans in and making the whole thing make zero sense.

Not to mention, what? Will Magnus Chase then get a spin-off where he has to fight a civil war against the Germanic gods? Aka, the other aspect of the Norse gods? Wodan and Donar and company??

Also, you know, just how fucking forced it is to have the two Great Prophecies that have been laying around for millennia… just take place half a year apart. It’s bullshit. If he had tackled that second prophecy with a full new set of demigods in the future, yeah sure. But he had to make it about Percy too, because as mentioned above, Percy is what makes money.

Look, I’m not saying it couldn’t work to have all pantheons be real. But the way he does it is forced and not very thought through. So literally every single pantheon moved to the US, huh? What’s Europe, dirt under your fingernails? We are most definitely not doing shitty enough to be treated that way. Why would our gods move to the US? All of them? Why would the Egyptian gods be moving all the way up there? It’s… It’s started being really fucking offensive, to be quite frank.

The way he did it with the Greeks, with only one pantheon that also accordingly adjusted to being American, it was an interesting concept. It was also 2005.

In the past 15 years, the world’s view on the US has shifted drastically. They are most certainly not the center of the world or in any way or shape a symbol of progressiveness and the place where all the gods would move. It’s incredible narcissistic and it is also incredibly rude.

Because, at its base, what he’s doing is stealing from other cultures. Oh, sure, after the Egyptian gods he stopped taking gods from POC. But… uhm… I know this site doesn’t like to hear that but white people have culture too? Those ancient gods are part of a culture, whatever the fuck the primary skin-color of the people of that culture are. And to just rip those gods and myths out of that culture and forcing them into America, completely removing them from their actual cultural background, is in fact cringeworthy at this point.

If you take one, it’s still all fun and games somehow and hey it’s for the children and the theory of the gods moving on, it’s kind of intriguing.

But if you just keep stealing the gods from their country - and yes, considering he at this point goes out of his way to make it all take place in the US, that quite literally is stealing them out of their countries - then it’s really getting cringeworthy.

And yes, I know, overall this hellsite thinks white people don’t have culture and white people culture are American suburban soccer moms or whatever the fuck, but you gotta… you gotta look beyond America for a change. Every single country has its own, unique culture. Yes, even countries that are pre-dominantly white, even they have their own culture and history. And taking huge parts of any country’s cultural background, ripping it out and making it take place in your own backyard centric around your own people with absolute disregard of the country of origin, that’s… seriously, that is not really cool. Not even when you take it from white cultures.

If he’d at the very least would make an efford to make them take place in Europe too - I’m not even demanding each mythological series should take place in its country of origin (even though that, of course, would be ideal, seriously), he’s not even trying to bring Europe in on this.

When the Argo II went to Rome, there was nothing. Rome, literally the center where the Roman gods came from… but… no Roman camp. This would have been an ideal chance to show that his bullshit nonsense of ALL the gods can ONLY be met in the US and ALL demigods HAVE to move to the US is actually factually wrong. He could have introduced a Roman camp in Rome, have them get back-up from European demigods. That would have been his chance.

But no. Absolutely all of those gods completely moved to the US and left nothing behind in the countries that shaped them. Go to Rome. Walk through Rome. See all of the statues and fountains of the old gods, you can not tell me that if the Graeco-Roman gods were real, they would not also manifest there and they would not also have a camp there.

Especially considering Silena Beauregard was born in Paris, the gods very much go to Europe still apparently. But only to sire kids that their single parents then have to ship to the US because fuck Europe, am I right?

Look, I’m not saying he can’t work with the gods of other countries. I enjoy seeing interpretations of gods and I’m fully aware no one gives a rat’s ass who’s adapting mythologies from pre-dominantly white cultures, but I think that if you really do make a living only out of using other country’s mythologies, histories and their culture, then you sure as shit should also bring a basis level of respect toward that country, regardless of what country we are talking about.

He shows an extra amount of respect for other non-white cultures by not even touching them himself anymore and instead helping young authors from those countries show-case their own takes on a PJO-esque world - and that is absolutely amazing and really good him, honestly. Like, I genuinely think that’s a great thing to do from him and a good way for him to use both his fame as well as his white privileg, because let’s be real being a straight white man helps there a lot.

But the very least he could do about all those mythologies he keeps using would be to pay a baseline respect toward their cultures too and not forget that they too come from countries that he is not intimately familiar with, that they too are part of a culture and that he could, at the very fucking least, be respectful enough to them to not pretend that a Greek demigod born in fucking Greece would have to be shipped to New York because that’s where it’s at and where everything turned completely American centric. Like, that’s literally all I’m asking. Take into account that those gods came from somewhere and respect their origins and stop treating modern day Europe like it’s some garbage dump or something.

Well, that sure took a detour there. But then again, it really had to be said. Yes, a huge part of why this is losing it’s charm is because he keeps dragging new pantheons into this same world but under the same conditions of “America first, Europe, uh, never” and with every new mythology (and every time it moves closer toward the now), it becomes more and more cringeworthy and, for me as a European, also boring and unrealistic.

And yeah, he killed Jason. Because sure, we had the second Great Prophecy, what was supposed to be a huge-ass war but eh we’re fine with 9 demigods who should be 7 and literally no one of importance died in that world-changing war. But now in some supidass side-quest - yeah, I’m calling it as it is, Apollo getting deaged and them having shenannigans is in fact a side-quest because for fuck’s sake the two last series were each about a millennia old Great Prophecy and a giant (or titan, heh) war - the son of Zeus dies.

[empty-movement]

Mismatched Bodies

- Episode 36, And the Gates of Night Open

Utena:  I probably wouldn't understand since I don't have any siblings myself, Utena:  ...but what does it mean for a girl to have an older brother? Utena:  What's this? Utena:  The moon? Akio:  Normally, it's something useless and of little concern. Akio:  But, every now and then, you look up at it and feel a certain degree of comfort. - Episode 14, A Landscape Framed by Kozue

Moons in Revolutionary Girl Utena serve two purposes, hinted broadly at by this dialogue that occurs very shortly after space becomes a major motif in the story. The full moon comes to represent both sibling relationships, and the comfort and closeness of relationships, sometimes sibling ones, and sometimes not. 

A full moon appears outside the window as Miki plays his piano, it looms large in the sky outside Nanami’s window just as she learns her brother is not actually her brother, and two moons consume the sky outside Utena’s window in episode 30, the larger eclipsing the smaller, as her loyalties become split between the siblings she cares about. 

These are all quite evidently Earth’s moon, even the two that appear in episode 30 look far more like it than any others. However, just as events in the story reach a head, we get this very strange window. A moon above a massive planet, dominating the scene with its rings spanning across. Why?

The planet is Jupiter. Jupiter does have rings, but they are not nearly so visible as Saturn’s; the characteristic counter-rotating storm bands drawn on this planet are very much Jupiter’s, and they are what gives it away. Saturn also has this atmospheric feature, but the bands are significantly lighter and appear more as streaky blurs in a true color image. The difference is significant enough I think to say this planet is supposed to be Jupiter, whether they mean to refer to Jupiter’s bands or are depicting Saturn’s bands. Why the confusion?

Let’s talk about the moon. It has a very, very distinguishing feature to set it apart from all others, one that makes their drawing it very deliberate: a single massive crater site that makes it look like the Death Star. This is Mimas, the smallest known astronomical body to maintain a spherical shape based on its own gravity, ironically named after a Gigantes of Greek mythology. (These are the giants that the Olympian gods battle it out with early in the mythological history.)

Mimas, however, is a moon of Saturn. 

So what we’re given here is a moon and a planet mismatched, dominating the sky outside Utena’s room just as Touga arrives, asking her to accompany him. He takes her then to the duel arena at night, where he confesses he loves her, and asks if those feelings really must remain unrequited:

Touga:  Is there no way I can be your Prince? You're my only princess. Utena:  Not that again. Touga:  It's true. I love you. From my heart, I treasure you. Your nobility and beauty shine on many. Touga:  And even if I'm not worthy of you, please, be with me for at least this instant. Just that will do. If I can just carve the memory of this night, the two of us together, within me, that will be enough. Will you permit me that much? Utena:  I understand. Touga:  Thank you.

When it is clear to him they will not be, he asks if he can have at least this one intimate moment to himself, and she grants him this mercy. (This is an interesting development for Utena, who I think would not have answered the same way before now, and it shows how much she has grown since earlier episodes.)

In this moment, both Touga and Utena are seeking comforts. Touga wants the comfort of intimacy with this girl he’s become obsessed with, whether he truly loves her or not. Utena has come with him because he says he will tell her about Ends of the World, and she believes this information would comfort her to know, as it would help her protect Anthy. As viewers, we can note how in neither case would these things bring them any comfort: Touga would not be comforted to have what he admires for rejecting him, and Utena is not going to sleep better at night knowing who Ends of the World is. But it ultimately doesn’t matter, because neither gets this comfort they want anyway.

The sky in the window and the moment in the arena speak to the same thing: the ill-fated connection between these two people. Though Akio can put a moon in the wrong place, for a moment, in the end, these bodies do not belong together. Touga may be able to capture a moment of intimacy for himself in the arena that night, but he does not belong with Utena, any more than this moon belongs in this orbit. Everything here is wrong: the wrong planet, the wrong moon, the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong people.

Though I do not think this is necessary to the comparison, it would seem most likely that Utena is Jupiter, and Touga is Mimas. If only because Touga is, at this point, the more pointed comparison to Mimas: a small thing made larger by its name, orbiting the wrong planet. This is definitely the comparison Akio would find most amusing to make, and I tend to assume anything we see in the sky is an extension of Akio’s thoughts and will, given the nature of the projector as explicitly how he creates the world we see. But even if it were not, the point remains the same.

In a window used throughout the final stretch of the series to illustrate and expand on points in the story, we are given here, before Touga’s final duel, these mismatched bodies. They dominate the sky, consuming the view through the window, because they are only bodies left of any significance now that the dueling game is drawing to a close. One is the largest body in our solar system, and in orbit around it is the other, far smaller and less significant than its name would suggest. And though these bodies are all that is left in the sky for us to see, they are mismatched, one fundamentally unable to belong to the other. 

Utena and Touga share a strange, confrontational intimacy. Touga is drawn, perhaps to love, to this strange girl that snubbed him, that was able to get around all his most carefully woven nets, and Utena will never forget that he was, for a moment, her Prince. She asks him during the duel to come how many times they have fought, and when he tells her as a lingering touch breaks, she wonders why it feels like so many more. They have always been at odds, unable to understand or connect to one another, so much so that they do not even belong in the same orbit of the solar system. They were simply, it seems, never meant to be.