#creating mythology

[writingwithfolklore]

Creating Mythology

                I’m headed back to my folklore roots this week and talking about creating your own myth for your worldbuilding!

                Mythology explains something otherwise unexplainable, whether that be a part of the world, a structure, or a part of the human experience. They are typically reflections of society in the time they were created that echo to the present--a foundation of a certain belief or custom. This can be a really intriguing way to bring readers into the history of your world—what will your myth say about the people of that time, what were they concerned about? What kinds of stories did they tell?

                Myths are just stories with a simple theme. Remember that this thing is supposed to have lasted across time—when you’re retelling a really old story, how many specific details do you actually remember? Don’t try to fool us with a story that’s too in-depth. Mythological stories are about mortality, or the nature of mankind, the afterlife, religion. A theme your myth may have is: “humans were born from the sea” or “all mankind was originally kind”.

                What does your myth explain about the world? Maybe it’s where humans came from, or where a certain religion, custom, ritual, or traditional practice originated, even where a revered creature originated, or where it went. If your world can’t explain something by science, the people in it would have tried to explain it through myth. What things need explaining?

                To make your myth believable (or, believable to the world it’s in) we want it to be distant in the past. Think thousands of years old, or at least, no one alive today knew anyone who lived through that time. I would say a good three or four generations old is a convincing minimum for time to have passed, but myths can be (and often are) as old as the beginning of humanity itself. As well, it may be difficult to pin down exactly what time a myth was created.

                Your myth should have characters—usually they’d be gods or beings with power over the world, but this isn’t necessary. Maybe your myth is about one really influential king, or just some person who caused a great deal of waves. Nevertheless, whoever they are, think of the impact time has over someone’s reputation. The older it is, the more revered these characters may be.

                Lastly, think about how your myth impacts the present. What has the past gifted? What has been lost?

Here’s a good resource: Creating a Myth: 7 Tips for Building a Richer World - TCK Publishing

                Good luck! Next we're covering legend and folklore <3

[youcalledsworld]

What would Ares do?

Ghost King Danny but instead of mistaking him as a thousand years old ghost everyone knows he's a teenage boy. So everyone assumes he won't be able to keep it in his pants when beautiful women are offered as sacrifices.

Danny hates this and tries to help the best he can by either getting them home, finding new homes or giving them money to get home by themselves because they understandably don't trust him.

But there are some who latch onto him because he is the only one who showed them kindness and promised safety. And he can't just leave them all alone. So with the help of Pandora they create a safe haven for them. He visits them every now and again and Pandora decided to stay with them.

[somepinkthing]

"Hector was a good man" "diomedes was an honorable man" BZZZT WRONG. Diomedes was there to steal, burn, and wage war same as the next person. In fact, he was pretty adamant about it. Hector had no issue with the greek's actions, merely that they were directed at him—I mean look at what he wanted to do with patroclus's body, only to then cite respect for funeral rites when it was his own turn to die. Hector also owned slaves within his own city walls—people that he likely took from their homes during troy's own conquests. All that seperated him and the greek warriors was which side they were on.

The Iliad isn't a story about morally upstanding men. Sure, it has men who have honor and perform honorable acts, but these are not good samaritans. It's is a story about war and grief and the real victims of fights between so-called-honorable men and gods. The urge to find a "good guy" in this story is wasted. Hector doesn't have to be morally good just because achilles isn't. Troy didn't lose because they were more or less evil than the greeks. It all just. Is. Because of fate? Because the gods said so? Because people will always make disastrous mistakes and it will always end up biting not only them, but everyone else around them? Who knows? In the end though, doesn't it all feel so pointless in the face of the endless amounts of grief and destruction that war leaves behind? Maybe that's the whole point

[lady-forest]

BG3 Belarusian fantasy AU!

My Tav, the tiefling-sorceress who lives on the outskirts of the village and helps its vilagers with her magic

And Shadowheart - the cleric of Mara, the goddess of death and night in belarusian mythology

[short-wooloo]

Sigh

For the last fucking time, THE JEDI ARE NOT CATHOLIC!

They're not based off of the catholic church, that's just people's fanon interpretation (and it's mostly just people projecting their issues with catholicism onto the Jedi), if you actually take a minute to look up what George Lucas' sources and inspirations for the Jedi, you'll find that he based them off of everything EXCEPT christianity, the inspirations for the Jedi being Japanese and East Asian cultures, Arabic ideas (Jedi may be derived from "Al-Jeddi" which means "Master of the Mystic-Warrior way"), Buddhism, Jewish Mysticism, Samurai Bushido, Shaolin Monks, Hinduism, Qigong, Greco-Roman philosophy and mythology, Sufism, Confucianism, Shinto, and Taoism, the only christianity you might be able to say influenced the Jedi is Methodism, since Lucas was a Buddhist-Methodist

Like yes, you can certainly find Jedi beliefs and practices to be similar or parallel to catholicism and Christianity, I have, but that's on you, that's YOUR interpretation

[novafire-is-thinking]

Fall of Icarus Pharma

Yes, I am A BIRD

I have NO WINGS

I have NO WINGS

Yes, I am A BIRD

I have NO INSIDES

— 'Anthem for the Broken' by MISSIO (Spotify | YouTube)

[chronosdawn]

A little drabble based on the Hades!Wriothesley x Persephone!Reader idea I mentioned.

GN!Reader, warnings for discussions of kidnapping and imprisonment (but I feel like that comes with the territory with this AU ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯) and mild descriptions of gore.

Word count: 1.5k

The lord of the underworld stood before you in all his imposing might, the heavy sole of his boot tapping slowly against the stone floor as he cast his gaze over you. It couldn't have made for a terribly pretty sight. You sat sour-faced, trying to ignore the way the cold metal of your chair was seeping through your thin robes. The soft peach fabric—the only bright colour in this cursed place save for the sliver of red on your captor's clothes—now marred with sprays of dark ichor from your ill planned venture.

"I thought I told you to stay away from the lower levels?" Wriothesley said finally, his eyes narrowed—twin shards of ice freezing you in place.

You refused to meet his eyes. "I don't see why I should have to listen to someone who kidnapped me."

He let out a heavy sigh, like you'd already had this argument a hundred times and he was tired of it—probably because you had and he was. "Well, you'd better start to learn. This isn't the sunny fields you're used to; this is the underworld, it's dangerous. I might have brought you here but I have no intention of hurting you, although that relies on you sticking to the rules. You're lucky I had Cerberus keeping watch down there."

You flinched at the mention of the three-headed beast that had jumped out of the shadows the moment the first of the wraiths had reached you. For a few brief seconds you'd wondered if that was the end, whether Wriothesley would come looking for you only to find your blood running down the dark stone steps and into the Styx, but then the beast had leapt over you and the bone white hand was ripped away, it's claw-like nails a hair’s breadth from grazing your leg.

It had been complete carnage after that, skeletal limbs with sagging skin ripped from emaciated torsos one after the other as more wraiths clawed their way towards you, scrabbling over each other to reach the sole living thing in the room. It was only when they'd sensed Wriothesley's impended arrival—trails of frost creeping along the floor as he approached—that they'd finally stopped coming out of the water, the few with limbs still attached dragging themselves back down the steps.

"Maybe if you'd actually told me what was down there, I might have taken the warning a bit more seriously."

"Oh? So, if I gave you a description of everything gruesome thing the underworld has to offer, then you might be more inclined to listen to me? That's a long list, sweetheart."

You scowled at him, folding one leg over the other as you crossed your arms in front of your chest. "You don't have to be a dick about it."

"Because playing nice with you has worked so well thus far?" His lips started to twist into a sardonic smile but froze as his gaze narrowed in on where your robe had shifted with your movement, revealing a couple of extra inches of skin. Before you could think to move away, he was kneeling on the floor in front of you, his large hand curled around your calf as he scrutinised the exposed part of your leg.

"Hey, what are you doing?" You tried to bat his hand away but his arm might as well have been made of marble for all the good it did.

"Were you going to mention you got injured, or had you not even noticed?" Wriothesley's tone was oddly flat as he spoke, his eyes narrowed accusingly.

"What?" You leaned forward to see what he was talking about and caught sight of set of scratches running across your skin, the blood seeping from the wound shimmering in the light of the wall sconces. “When did—ow!” Reaching down to probe at the injury, you couldn’t help but wince as your finger grazed the edge of the torn flesh, pain flaring up your leg.

Wriothesley let out a deep breath and you suddenly became aware of how your current position had brought you far closer to the ruler of the underworld than you usually allowed, how from this distance you could pick out the individual strands of grey in his hair, the light scruff on his chin.

“It doesn’t look like it’s too deep at least. You got lucky, a serious wound from a wraith will scar even a god.” He kept his gaze on your injury, a faintly faraway look on his face and, not for the first time, you found yourself thinking of what could scar someone like Wriothesley. Whether it’d been a wraith that had carved its claws down his throat or something else—something worse. Maybe you should start paying more attention to the areas he said were off limits to you.

“Does it hurt?” You went to shake your head only to reconsider. It hadn’t hurt, or at least not enough that you’d noticed, but now as you focused on it, you became aware of dull but persistent throb in the area around the wound.

“It didn’t earlier but it’s starting to now. It’s not because the wraiths are um—poisonous or anything, right?” It was an effort to keep the panic out of your voice and you didn’t think you managed it entirely but Wriothesley simply chuckled at you.

“No, they’re not. You probably just didn’t notice the pain earlier because of the shock.” He ran his thumb down the side of your leg and though his touch was gentle, you still grimaced as it sent a flare of pain up your shin. “Healing magic isn’t really my forte so I’ll send for someone more qualified to come and take a look. In the meantime, this should help with the pain.”

A gasp escaped your lips as frost blossomed over your skin, an intense cold spreading over the area around the bloody scratches before being replaced by a heavy numbness such that you could only barely feel a faint pressure where Wriothesley’s fingers were still curled around your calf. You couldn’t feel the injury at all.

“That’s um…”

“What? Not even a thank you for acting as your rescuer and tending to your wounds?” He looked up at you from beneath dark lashes and you felt the words sitting heavy on your tongue. You’d thought before about how easy it would be to give in. Putting aside how you came to reside in the underworld, Wriothesley had never tried to force anything from you even if there had been a teasing comment here and there. You knew what he wanted though, could see the loneliness that clung to him like the fur-lined coat he favoured, that drove him to commit the act of stealing away a god, and no matter the temptation, you refused to give it to him.

“Considering that it was your beasts I needed saving from, I’m not sure a thank you is truly owed,” you replied instead, the words dripping from your lips like poison.

He dropped your leg as though you’d burned him. “My beasts, huh? Yeah, I guess it’d seem that way to you.” There was a faint trace of humour in his voice, though his wasn’t the tone of someone telling a joke, but rather the sort you used when you were the punchline.

“You can wait in your rooms,” he said, standing and turning to walk towards the towering marble arch that served as the entrance to the room. “I’ll tell our resident healer to come and find you. But seriously,” he paused on the threshold, turning back to look at you over his shoulder, the lower half of his face hidden by the collar of his coat, “keep away from the lower levels. If you want to act out at me for bringing you here, throwing your life away to the things that call that place a home is not the way to do it, and I can’t always be around to keep an eye on you. Not that I imagine you’d want me to either.”

He left without waiting for you to reply, and you watched his form disappear into the gloom that seemed to seep from the walls of the underworld, leaving the room feeling oddly empty. You looked down at your leg, frost still curled around your wound. Sometimes you wished Wriothesley was as terrible as the stories you’d heard about him on the surface claimed—wished he was a little easier to hate. Because you couldn’t give him what he wanted, not if it meant being stuck here more than you already were; a land that had never seen the sun and where every flower you’d tried to grow withered before it could bloom. You needed to find a way out of here and soon, you thought, the feeling of Wriothesley’s hand still fresh in your mind, before you were tempted into something that would ensure you could never leave at all.  

[gingermintpepper]

So, one of the most interesting things that's come from my recent exercises in writing the Olympians as young deities is all of the very fun and somewhat painful conversations that come from the young deities acquiring and consequently settling into their domains.

Apollo and Artemis especially have been really fascinating under the microscope. They start off identically, with extremely similar interests and similar domains over the hunt and wilderness. They spend their days under the stars and foraging for fruit and dancing and singing in the fields, two rustic god-children exploring and learning together. Then Apollo goes off on his own to slay Python.

Now, a lot of things change when Apollo kills Python. That is the act which transforms the bow from a tool of survival and sport to an instrument of murder, bloodshed and ultimately war. It is Apollo's first act of wrath which separates him from Artemis - both spiritually because she has not yet shed blood herself as a goddess and physically because it leads to his exile. Most importantly however, the slaying of Python is the act that grants Apollo his knowledge.

If violence is what first separates Apollo from Artemis then it is knowledge which keeps them apart.

This can refer to a lot of things; that Artemis continued to be at home with the wild beasts of the forests and mountains while Apollo grew to prefer the domesticated sheep and cattle, that Artemis continued to avoid mortals while Apollo grew to know their ways and endeavoured to teach them more. The point that has been the most interesting to me however has been Artemis, who remains free of slaughter, and thus remains pure and Apollo, who becomes acutely and entirely too aware of it, and thus must be constantly purified.

Apollo's infatuation with medicine specifically is the place where this becomes most apparent. When he leaves for his exile to travel as a mortal, without nectar or ambrosia, without power, Apollo is without the privileges of the divine for the very first time. He sweats, he smells, he grows weary when he travels, he grows hungry and thirsty. He experiences fatigue and nausea, the fever of sickness, the chill of infection, the delirium of poison. The blood Apollo shed does not only make him impure spiritually, it strips him of the purity of his birth and station. Likewise, medicine is not a divine practice. What use do the unkillable immortals have for something as finicky as medicine when they have nectar and ambrosia? Apollo however, knows of the pains of the flesh and the suffering of the mortal coil. He pursues medicine in all its horrors and difficulties because of the knowledge he gained with blood.

Artemis then, cannot understand the medical Apollo. When her brother returns possessed by this spectre of ill-gained knowledge, she does not recognise him. Who is this boy who scores the deer and studies the shape of their intestines before he cooks them? What good is there in rescuing a chick with a broken wing? The Apollo-of-the-Wild in her memories would have done the correct thing and left the thing for dead - let the forest take what is its due. Who is this Apollo whose hands are always stained to the wrist in the blood and gore of the living? What is his fascination with the mechanics of mortal bodies? Artemis does not know and Apollo does not tell her.

That has, by far, been my favourite effect of the whole Python watershed moment to explore recently.

[mynqzo]

Why do you like vampires specifically, what do you like of them?

the sucking and fucking

[yinyuedijun]

so anyway it's mid-autumn festival on the luofu and danheng is around for once to celebrate, and you tease him by saying he's like the moon goddess chang'e since he's 饮月君 imbibitor lunae. he hates this until you put on a set of lingerie + bunny ears and call yourself the rabbit on the moon, which flusters him sooo much like he goes bright red but obviously the two of you end up [REDACTED] all night. in his imbibitor lunae form, of course.

[dinoserious]

have i ever talked abt my personal pokemon mythos origin for giratina as arceus’ bile. ok well im doing it now

giratina is the bile built up and spat out after the creation of the universe. arceus loved this spontaneous and unplanned creation, but it was too violent and had to be sealed away. giratina now preforms as a sort of counterbalance to the universe from the distortion world. dialga and palkia are older, and were created when arceus severed two of its many arms. they sequestered themselves in other realms on their own terms, after seeing how their power could lead to terrible results. uxie mesprit and azelf were created after all this as a sort of safeguard against further destruction. they are some of the oldest pokemon to have not left the world for somewhere else

i think arceus loved giratina very much. it was an unplanned and chaotic being that it considered beautiful in its spontaneity, but could not come to terms with the destruction it wrought. the world was new, and all arceus could think to do was to seal it away. the shame this action brought to it was a big factor in arceus becoming a mostly absent god, not trusting itself to directly meddle in the world it created

[nixies-creations]

For @topgunalternateuniverse bingo. Free space: Hangster - Hades x Persephone AU

“Are you saying you wouldn't fight for me?" Hades sighed, and brushed his finger along his cheek, "Darling, I would burn this world for you.”

[puppycheesecake]

Adam & Eve.

[skreeonkg]

Tired of selkies being the same generic pretty woman imagine if a seal wriggled onto a beach and from its mouth popped out a fat butch

[lepeltge]

“There once was a village where there lived a rabbit, a fox, and a monkey who often played together. One day, the Great Emperor in the Heavens decided to test the animals’ loyalty to him. He came down from the sky disguised as a beggar and asked the animals each to bring him something to eat. The three generous animals instantly set out to honor the poor man’s request. The fox returned to the beggar with a fish; likewise, the monkey with some fruit. The rabbit, being a small and more limited animal, unfortunately was only able to bring back the grass he could gather. Ashamed at his feeble offering, the rabbit, in an act of self-sacrifice, proceeded to ignite the grass he’d gathered and threw himself into the flames to be eaten by the beggar as a meal. The action of the rabbit so touched the beggar-emperor that he placed the rabbit in the moon to become its guardian and surrounded him with smoke as a reminder to all of the rabbit’s noble death. Thus was born the Legend of the Moon Rabbit to be told for centuries to come.”

This is a piece I did for @nnnnnnnothingtoseehere ‘s mythology AU! Seonghwa is the daltokki, aka the moon rabbit, in this AU. There’s a lot of conflicting feelings and responsibility with that, though. They have more art over at their blog and would be happy to answer any questions ;)

[finngualart]