#cupbearer comic

[divineintervention-comics]

Cupbearers Chapter 1: Lamb to the slaughter

Cupbearers is a horror comic inspired by the myth of Zeus and Ganymede by @porcelain-rob0t

(TW for things that will be in this comic: body horror, implications and depictions of abuse, blood, gore, harm to animals, harm to children, themes of trauma, etc)

[porcelain-rob0t]

workplace shenanigans

bonus dionysus being a good supervisor

[cupbearerscomic]

"Sinag page 15"

[dammitrussellwhy]

It’s loving Lora Blora hours

[sarafangirlart]

Wait, I’m just now learning who Ganymede is. Correct me if I’m wrong but should I be adding ‘absolute nonce’ to my list of why Zeus is an asshole? From what I know Ganymede is a young handsome either Shepard or prince of Troy that’s taken from his home by Zeus because Zeus wants to do what Zeus always does.

Welcome to the “Everybody hates Zeus” club, I’m not the ceo but @cupbearers-comic is.

[smorkulon]

My own version and @cupbearers-comic version of Dionysus doing... Shenanigans

[ehlnofay]

Summerfest Day 4 - THIEF

It’s been so very many months, and still Arabella can’t come into the Bee and Barb without arousing suspicion. It’s a dreadful shame – of all the rickety wood buildings standing topside it at least had some variety. Before she’d even joined the guild, the innkeeper had let her behind the bar to cook her own meal when she’d wheedled (bland cheese, and meat bought off a street butcher, and beef bones, full of soft rich marrow) and the drinks they served had been interesting to look at, even if none of it was by any means fit for consumption. (Not even the mead, which was a nuisance and a half – all Black-Briar, here, with its spices and berries and inedible little extras.)

She pauses near enough to the door, for politeness’ sake; one hand resting lightly on the back of a varnished-smooth chair at a small table, a flat yellow cushion placed on its seat. The seam at the side is splitting. Talen-Jei sees her almost instantly from where he leans over a long table unloading a tray (he is well used, by now, to her sporadic appearances) and his face droops into blankness almost comically fast. She throws a smile at him – an easy quirk of the lips – and waits, patient, as he finishes with that table; he doesn’t look away from her even as he speaks to them, and then he’s coming over, empty tray tucked under his arm, tail held unnaturally stiff, to say quietly, “There is no-one here to meet you.”

(Arabella is very obviously not welcome in the Bee and Barb, but Maven Black-Briar is welcome everywhere; and it is known by all who frequent it that this is the inn she prefers to conduct business out of when it is business she doesn’t want to take into her home. Arabella has long since become the sort of business that is taken home, though of course she enters through the back way, and only at rare invitation. But of course a city-centre cupbearer has no way of knowing that. And of course he assumes that this is her purpose, when it’s been the only reason she’s ever appeared here ever since she threatened the innkeeps and their families for money and for sport.) (She really can’t blame them for their dislike, can she? Yet another way in which she must pick up after herself. Mend all the things she never expected to need unbroken.)

She smiles, all teeth. “I know,” she says, sunshine-bright. Talen-Jei’s gaze slips from her eyes. He pins it on again.

His tail lashes, once. “Then,” he says, word bitten off like it cracks against the sharp little ridges of his teeth, “you should take your business elsewhere. Underground, perhaps.” He’s holding the empty tray tight to his side as if she might try to rip it from his grasp and hit him over the head with it. (She really hasn’t made this easy for herself, has she? Oh, well. She’s always liked a challenge.)

“Harsh,” Arabella replies. She tuts, still, of course, smiling. “No need to be hostile, Talen-Jei, I’m only making a social call.”

The tail lashes again, sharply enough that she can almost hear it; his shoulders twitch sharply in an irritated almost-shrug. “Only – you can take your social call and –”

Frustration – that’s better than the inscrutable wariness; there’s so much more to do with it. “I hear congratulations are soon to be in order,” she cuts in smoothly, and he stills, eyes flicking toward the cluttered noise of the tavern before he brings them back. He’s doing an admirable job of holding her gaze; people tend to struggle, these days. Arabella unhooks a leather pouch from her belt – burnished to a reddish shine, the ends of its fraying wool drawstring hanging – and drops it, with a little flourish, on the table between them.

Talen-Jei looks at it. He does not touch.

“I feel we got off on the wrong foot,” Arabella says, the words smooth and rote. She clasps her hands. “You’re a businessman, yes? You understand that every company has its rough patches. Ours has lately been going through some – growing pains.” When he still doesn’t move, watching her with the sharp-eyed scepticism a bird might direct at a cat, she reaches out to loosen the string herself. It catches on one of her rings, and she wrinkles her nose as she works it free; goes back to smiling brilliantly once it’s done. “Water under the bridge, yes?”

When she lets go, the little bag flops onto its side, and three raw purple gemstones the size of knucklebones tumble free. Talen-Jei’s eyes do something very interesting.

(Karliah is a one-woman intelligence force, when she wants to be; it is immensely useful.)

(It’s been a very long time since Arabella’s had any use for her half-remembered knowledge in lapidary, if it were ever any good to begin with; but she was careful in selecting these stones, even though she wasn’t entirely sure she understood all the qualifiers for what would suit them to their purpose. They’re all large enough to cut down again, with the right tools, and unfinished, and each is a different shape. They’re all such a lovely colour, too; soft and crystalline, bright as plum-skin or snail dye.)

Flat-voiced, Talen-Jei asks, “What do you want?”

“I did say this was a social call,” Arabella reminds him. She pulls a face. “It would be a bit gauche to start making demands now.”

“What,” he says without the inflection of a question, “do you want.”

(Afraid; after last time, it reads as a threat. Like she’s taunting him. She isn’t offended – it’s an accurate interpretation of her character. What he needs is the terms laid out clearly. Which she planned for.)

(By Y’ffre, communication is such a chore. If she doesn’t think it all through ahead of time she talks herself into knots no-one knows how to unpick.)

Arabella nudges the little bag nearer to him across the tabletop; places her hands on either side of the chair-back so she can lean forward, pouting. “You’re ascribing to me an awful lot of malice, Talen-Jei,” she says, tipping her head. “Is it so hard to believe that I only want to be cordial? To be civil enough to make small talk about the weather, or the price of fish –” her tone is light, airy; she brings it down, just an edge under the chatter of the inn, “ – or, say, who’s commandeering common rooms of your inn without paying and who they speak to while they’re there?”

Talen-Jei looks at her for several seconds; his tongue flickers, for a moment, between his teeth, and he steps backward, looking almost as though it pains him. “No,” he says, voice like gravel. “I want no part of a power struggle.”

Neither unreasonable nor unexpected; Arabella smiles again, smooth and sweet enough to press dimples into her cheeks. “Quick on the uptake,” she remarks; “That would be useful. But there’s no hard feelings. You won’t have trouble from us again.”

Behind him, the inn is loud, smelling beautifully of food – most of it even edible – with the noise of the player in the corner half-drowned by the calling and chatter of people. Talen-Jei glances back at it all again, tail twitching; says, again with that watched-bird scepticism, “You speak as representative of the Guild. How? You’ve scarcely been here a year.”

(She had told him she was new to Riften when first she arrived, though she’s mildly surprised he remembered; the Guild is, for now, and quite famously, a Riften-only affair.)

Arabella cocks her head to the side. “As I said,” she says, with the air of one conveying a great and important secret, “we’ve been having growing pains.” He has left the drawstring bag open and untouched on the table; Arabella unbuttons the bag at her belt and pulls out a pair of neatly-folded sheets of vellum, tucks them inside the pouch without touching the leather. “A receipt of purchase,” she tells him without waiting for him to ask, “so you needn’t worry about ill-gotten gains, and a note, signed by me and stating in two languages that all accounts are balanced and I forfeit any right to ask for payment of any kind. Not Jel, I’m afraid, as I don’t speak it. Terribly sorry.” She isn’t. She leans back from the table, then – she’s been leaning too hard over the chair, and the position is beginning to ache – and clasps her hands; looks brightly at Talen-Jei, who is still watching her, either carefully inexpressive or at a loss for words. It can be hard to quite tell the difference, with Argonians. “A pleasure speaking with you,” she says with all the earnestness in the world, a sentiment she’s certain he quite emphatically does not share, “and best of luck with the engagement.” She starts backwards towards the door, smiling slick-sweet as honey. “And do keep me in mind, yes? I would so dearly love to be friends.”

[corvidonia]

never posted him when I drew him but take an ares from @cupbearers-comic

[justmenoworries]

Lore Olympus Episode 254 Spoilers

So, Apollo succesfully poisoned Zeus and, through a series of extremely convenient coincidences, has managed to get Eros and Psyche, the only two deities who know it was him, out of the way for now.

Does he...

A) ...keep away from the scene of the crime, so as to not be associated or draw suspicion onto himself

B) ...pretend to not know what Zeus is afflicted with and call emergency services together with Hebe to feign being a worried son so that he's less likely to be suspected by the authorities

or C) ...unecessarily frame someone else with no solid evidence whatsoever and call not medical services or the police, but the media, in the process getting as many eyes on him as possible which is the last thing a murderer should want?

If you picked anything other than C), congratulations.

Not only do you still have some good faith left for this comic, you're also a better writer than RS. (Not that the last one is a high bar to cross.)

So Apollo wants to frame someone else for his crime. Well luckily for him, there is already an established deity among the cast who doesn't get along with Zeus, has expressed the desire to overthrow him multiple times and is known for having a bad temper as well as having a grudge against hi-

It's Hebe.

He chooses to frame Hebe.

You know, one of the few gods on Olympus who has absolutely no reason to want Zeus dead and gone.

Just... why?

Ares was right fucking there!

If you absolutely needed to frame someone (which, just as a side note, you absolutely didn't) why not choose the war deity who everyone knows gets regularly banished to the Mortal Relam because of how much he doesn't get along with Zeus???

I mean, the best explanation I can think of is that this is supposed to reference how Hebe lost her position as cupbearer of the gods because of Apollo in one version of the myths, but if that is the case... wow, that's an extremely contrived and clumsy way to incorporate that into LO.

So, Persephone's deal with Erebus somehow altered her powers and now she can no longer make plants grow and only causes cold and decay whenever she tries.

And the winter that was essentially Demeter's power play in the original myth is now not only given to Persie but made into a terrible consequence of wanting power for herself. To save everybody she loved, might I add.

So empowering.

So feminist.

And as always when Persie screws up, she does what she does best:

Cry foul and beg someone else to fix it, then throw a tantrum when said someone else actually does try just that.

RS really misses no chance to try and villainize Demeter. Even if Demeter is absolutely, completely, undeniably in the right, she always has to be the eeevil mother-in-law making Hades feel bad.

And that's no different here.

Demeter is right, this is Hades' fault.

If he'd kept his damn mouth shut about the pomegranates or at least elaborated on the price one has to pay to get the Underworld's power, maybe his noveau riche wife wouldn't currently be killing all life in the Mortal Realm.

And the way he doesn't even try to dissuade Persie from "helping" and just watches as she keeps making everything worse because "lulz, I'm not gonna be a controlling husband and stop my wife from killing people".

But hey, this is the same guy who rewarded Persie with sex for breaking and entering and making death threats against a nymph. At least we're keeping it in-character. /s

Oh look, Persie has conveniently passed out from the strain so she won't have to deal with the direct consequences of her actions.

Wonder what kind of deus ex machina will absolve her of all responsibility this time.

[moonstruck-stormy]

I’ve been in and out of sleep all day all I wanna do is finish one comic and read cupbearer :(

[divineintervention-comics]

chapter 2 is in production so here's some concept art to hold you over

my concept sketches for Dionysus, he trains the cupbearers (Iris, Hebe, and Ganymede) as his way of getting into the Olympian counsel after Hestia gave up her position. he's the first demi-god turned god to join the Olympians so he has to work hard to prove himself. he's burnt out but does his best.

Hestia left for a reason but she never told him why, all Dionysus knew is that she gave him the position and he took it. but was that really such a good idea?

additional sketches that are sillier

im interested in gods on a zoological level, the way they have animals associated with them and come from different ecosystems. Dionysus is a terrestrial god and is more mammalian, his animal form is an Anatolian leopard.

i will post more about my god biology and that kind of world building stuff soon

[porcelain-rob0t]

Cupbearers V2 is coming soon

story of 2 godlings working as cupbearers on Olympus who learn that things arent as they seem

Cupbearers is a horror adaptation of the story of Zeus and Ganymede told from the perspective of Hebe.

this will be hosted on my website rather than on webtoons so i have more creative freedom

this is a disturbing horror comic, so warnings for depictions of abuse (primarily psychological abuse and implied CSA), body horror, attempted suicide, self harm, disordered eating, mental health issues, anything disturbing from Greek mythology would be here, so please view with caution

[porcelain-rob0t]

the deification of ganymede

[porcelain-rob0t]

its Gany Wednesday

[porcelain-rob0t]

it's gany wednesday

[porcelain-rob0t]

im thinking of remaking my comic Cupbearer. i have a better idea of the lore of the story, plus i feel i didnt explore each of the characters enough and that made the story less interesting. ive improved as an artist so it would make sense to revisit the story. i might make it in the form of a zine rather than a webtoon so i dont have to compete with an algorithm

so expect a remake of Divine Intervention: Cupbearer soon!!