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20 years ago Ares destroyed his enemies

Thank you, God of war fandom, and sensere congratulations to us all

He is Birthday boy, you know 👇

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They were left in Sparta (Lysandra and Calliope OOAK, part 2)

What's going on here?

Part 1 - Heads and bodies

You saw me straggled with Kratos!

You saw me wasted with Ares!

What can break me after all armor, weapons and warfare attributes I made!

Only women clothing..

I can embroider, but I absolutely can't sew. My brain is fully against this activity. I nearly fall asleep with a needle in my hand. Maybe it is different, when you use sewing machine, but i don't have one, so I had no choice.

This part will cover my tries to make dresses for Kratos's wife and daughter from the rectangle pieces of fabric, avoiding sewing like a plague.

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Preparation process

Must be said. I didn't even try to follow all cultural rules in reproducing these dresses in real life, because in the first trilogy we have a very fantactic version of Hellada after all. But I looked at concept arts and screenshots for hours deciding, what should I do to not feel myself like a fool.

I've already mentioned that before, but most of the time you just sit and brainstorm how to adapt conception of the clothes you see to the real life.

I want to be canon, but I also want to make my dolls feels right. This is actually just a continuation of my monologue about "searching the right fabrics which fits an ancient warrior". But things became more complicated here. I mean, at least Kratos wears short chiton under his armor. And Lysandra??

Don't fight me about it, I think we all can agree that Lysandra's dress aged not very well.. (Calliope has better situation..). I like the idea that Lysandra's dress made from two separate pieces, but it has very european vibe if said it straightly. I saw a lot of arts here on tumblr, where artists draw her wearing a classic chiton, so that means I am not alone here.

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Lysandra As I said before in the post about Kratos's armor, making dolls of ancient people with ascetic culture bans me from using fabrics which feels too modern. Both blue and white fabrics should have right and different! texture comparing to each other (underwear shouldn't be too rough), right thickness (for the natural folds at 1/6 scale), right color (close to something "basic").

Good points! - I thought and started to make sandals, because it is easier and needs only leather and threads.

Okay, it was fast.. Returning to the fabrics...

For the white dress I found very very thin cotton cambric with a slight crush effect. After cutting a rectangular piece (I know it is not a right way, but I can live with it), I cut a hole for the neck and hemmed the edges of the collar.

For the blue dress I found and chose bright blue cotton gauze. Pattern is almost the same. Rectangular piece with a neck hole and front slit at hem.

First try with 90° angled hem "tails". (I ruined collar, wap wap wap..)

Second try with with more longer 60° angled hem "tails". And simple embroidery over the chest, which I made in between of cursing.

After that I drew claws-like patterns and other lines with the silver acrilic paint.

For the finish touches we need a hairband. And I'll say straightly.

There is absolutely no apportunity to make it the same as in the game. I tested silk ribbons and many variants of thin fabric, but it just doesn't lay right over the forehead and hair and looks very awkward and heavy. That's the problems you face when you try to recreate 3d models in reality..

Soooooo I made a little non-cannon variant of this hairband using blue threads, which turned out pretty good I think. I was not able to drew pattern on it (I tried and ruined the first try), but for the more fancy look I added a small dropping tassels behind her ears (uwu).

Other uwu-touches that nobody asked is her juwelry. Her significant golden pendant, Kratos's gift, which I don't like in the game, but like it in real life. Made from the things for the nail design. And a silver omega ring from GOW Ascension, which is not canon for GOW1, but I found perfect little blue marbles!!

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Calliope

Let I just make a scream and you believe me that I went absolutely insane with her tiny dresses.

You need to find blue fabric, but not the same blue (warm torquoise?) and much more thinner. Because Calliope's doll body is very tiny and fabric still should make folds more or less naturally. Okay, you found a nice thin cotton with embroidery. It has right thickness and feelings, but it is not blue enough and you are already too insane to search for more. But not too much! because you deside to tone fabric by yourself.

NO. It can't be too much efforts for the little Calliope.

White cotton cambric as an underneath dress and a two-pieced dress from above. Long enough to hide her tiny bare feet (uwu).

Oh, and a hairband. __________________________ And that's all I guess. My main purpose during making these two was 'separating' them. Because in GOW1 they are not really a characters. They are 'wife and child', one entity Kratos lost. They even have the same blue color pallete like clones.

I am happy that they turned out similar in some ways, but at the same time pretty different.

Calliope in process really received vibes of her father as I wish. She is a little strange girl and likeness to her father makes her face looks a bit awkward. But her light aquatic color and stripes feels very cheerful and playful. Same as Calliope herself.

Lysandra's blue color is more haunting, bright and strong. Has more complicated hue. Straight silhouette, lack of decor and rough texture complicates her. She is a spartan like her husband. Very disciplined, knows her role, but not so rigid as Kratos. And same as him deeply worried about people she loves.

If you think this the end of this chapter of my doll customizing, you are wrong! We will have a bonus level with other canon stuff which Kratos needs AND more family photos! Thank you for your support in comments and PM Stay tuned! seeeee ya

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What are your favorite ships? And why do you ship them?

Oh gosh, Anon, it is a huge question. I mean there is a lot!

Can't believe that after all these years I became a multishipper.. Did you even see Kratos?? ( I am going to speak about GOW, because it is my main interest now.)

What a bisexual icon he is, good in every variation of relationship with women in his life or one particular man named Ares lol. And I love all of these ships because I somehow see healthiness in every each of them, despite of absolutely different dynamics in there.

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Извините, но у меня уже ломка без ваших постов😭, я жду продолжения или вообще любой пост, который я хочу прочесть и лайкнуть.

Привет, Анончик (мой сын с фикбука, ты?) Английский язык для меня иногда как силовые упражнения😭 Обещаю описать вторую часть кастома Каллиопы и Лисандры в ближайшее время, у меня уже все готово, просто не хватает нормальных фотографий. Спасибо за твое сообщение!

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They were left in Sparta (Lysandra and Calliope OOAK, part 1)

Not a surprise post for these who standing by my doll making processes. (THANK YOU YALL)

Yes, I made them too. It was my cruel plan from the beginning. Because Kratos just can't be fully himself without his family and the first trilogy is a fullmetal prove of this statement. Kratos literally destroyed the world, where they're dead.

After preparing to write all of this, I found out that somehow I don't have a lot of photo of them.. (Is it canon or not??) I think I was really too busy with Kratos's armor and girls didn't try to drive me insane at the final stages, but oh well. I'll try to fill the gaps in process with my rants.

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Lysandra's head

As I said, I planned that from the very beginning. Lysandra's head arrived at the same package with Kratos's. Rare photo of these two BEFORE.

And her head was absolutely perfect (you can guess the actress!), It didn't even need an extreme resculpting like Kratos. I just remade her nosebridge to make her nose looks more greek, you know.

And that's the body I choose for her. Small bust, soft belly, strong wide hips. Spartan woman TM (Is it consider as a nudity content? There is would be plenty.)

God I was so glad that her head didn't need a lot of touch ups. (at the same time I was dying over Kratos's quirasse). Airbrush for laying a skincolor. Aquarellis and soft pastels for the face-up.

I wanted her to have a calm, but strong-willed expression as we can see at concept arts from Ascension. Looking at her in Ascension I am joking often in my head that Kratos married a female version of himself.

Okay, her face turned out pretty "ascensioned". But my goal is to keep in touch with the GOW1 design. I made her hair from the light brown wool, layering strands backwards (and as I remember correctly, in Hellada more beautiful than tow-heads were only red-heads..)

I really love and adore Lysandra. She feels so feminine, and she was the only one (before Ares) who kept a tight rein on her reckless husband. And, well, she is ready.

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Calliope's head

Girls didn't try to drive me insane. Think about this lie twice, my past-me. At the stage of preparation, I found out that I can't find a donor head and body for the 8 y/o child. And the problem was not in ages. It was in scaling. 1/6 is too big (Kratos and Lys are in this scale), 1/12 is too small, 1/8 has only adult faces, etc. Fffffffffffff, it turned out in need to ask saler to print me a custom sized head with childlike features. I chose this anime girl and resculpted eyes, nose and lover lip.

I wanted her to looks like Kratos, like his little copy, so I tried my best to make them look alike.

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Calliope's body What about the body? Welllll, I planned to use Penny's box body firstly, but after some time I gave up and agreed to myself that this body had proportions of a 1 or 2 y/o child even if I like hands and feet. Good for a chibi, but not for a regular girl.

According to concept arts, Calliope should be able to press her face to Lysandra's belly. And cause I am lazy and I didn't want to sculpt a whole body from zero, I bought an 1/12 adult action body for the base and started to make 1 frankenstein body from 2.

Firstly, I decided to remove all rubber skin from the jointed carcass. Secondly, I cut off forearms and calfs and replaced them with the ones from the Penny's box body. After that I sculpted the whole new torso, thickened arms and legs, but saved the movability of all joints. Joint in the neck is questionable, but it's visibility is not bothering me much.

OKay, size comparison looks promising.. Time for painting, I mean airbrushing.

For the base color I chose dark tan of the hands and feet and airbrushed both head and body with it. (Photos as usual shows what they wants). And I also painted the face with aquarellis and blushed her body with soft pastels. I knew, all of that work with pastels won't be visible under the clothes, but I am very pleased with the realistic vibe of the skin.

And you know what's next!

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Calliope's hair Calliope is the first and only doll in my GOW party who has actual hairstyle. Her hair are done in a very tight curls? Or braids? It is hard to understand, but it made my life very difficult! ᕕ( ᐛ ) ᕗ

I'll say it right now, after many tries I had left the hope to make her curly braids reversible. Her head is too small for that. And I didn't want to use hair spray for the wool, because it could make wool looks too greasy.. But I continue to think. And remembered one thing. You probably did it yourself, if you have long hair like me. I meanб if you hold a hairstrand with two hands and start to twist it in one way, in one moment it will curl into a double spiral right between your fingers.

After remembering that I just made the same thing with wool, sealing the result with curling iron, and glued these tight spirals it to the head.

Aaaand this is it. My poor eyes. (Lol it is Kratos on the gif, I haven't notice)

She turned out pretty good I'd say, really. They both did. But somehow the sealant I use for the doll face-ups gave an unexpected reaction on Calliope's face and after some time began to peel off slightly over her eyes. An uncritical thing, because it just made her pupils look foggy and I redraw her eyes right above it.

I just feel that I need to say some words in the end of the post to hint that I will show her face properly in the Part 2, where we're going to make clothes for them!

Stay tuned! And thank you for the comments and the tags under reposts! I read all of them and feel myself very inspired!

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Resentful whisper

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In his grip

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Kratos has nevus on his shoulderblade

Important?! Important!

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General Kratos (no-ashes OOAK, part 2)

What's going on here?

Part 1 - Head

Poor me, it's been a while. Lasted autumn was a hard time for me, but I tried to find time and strength to continue making this OOAK anyway.

Here could be a scream like" NEVER AGAIN!!", but it won't be here, because it is a lie, yeah? Yeah.

Of course I knew that making Kratos's Dominus armor is going to be difficult even with the experience I had with Ares (❤). And it was! Kratos's outfit turned out more layered, had more elements, more different textures. I am just afraid that photos can have a so-so quality, i am sorry..

Well, come on under the cut.

When I made Ares, I've already said that I wanted to be as close to the gow1 design as it possible. Not a simple task, there is only one cutscene in gow1, where you can see this armor's details closely, and also I found a couple of early concepts.

Dominus armor was also made as a custom skin for the gow3 and I used a couple of screenshots from there for the shin panels, but somehow gow3 variation of this outfit has a little different... mood.. I don't know. More bitchy vibe maybe?

Well, anyway everything starts with the cuirass.

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Cuirass

I decided to make a cuirass differently this time, taking into account that Kratos's torso should not be scratched anyhow while taking the armor on and off, because of his body art.

In some way his outfit is more realistic, I mean, at this screenshot you can see that he wears chiton under the armor. Bad news for the future-me, I thought then, but it solved a problem with scratches.

As we can see, his cuirass is a classic Lorica musculata, and I was going to made it the same way I made Ares's armor, using linen fabric and CVA glue. I wanted his cuirass be a single piece, wearing over the head, with fasteners on the sides, so I changed a pattern since the last time and started to glue.

After separating a base from the body, I started to sculpt a relief of the pectoral, abdominal and back muscles. I've had a couple of tries actually, because i needed to be sure that the relief won't crack during bending armor in shoulderstraps. After curing I sended a sculpt, put layer of a patch, and the base is ready.

Well it was an easy part. Here was a huge timeskip in real life, because I sat there and brainstormed how to make these "birds" over the chest. At screenshot you can see that their claws also forms a line of a diaphragm. An obvious option was just to sculpt these birds, but I was afraid of material cracking near the collar and armholes. So there was no other option, but to make these bas-reliefs also of the thick fabric.

Nothing scary, right? Just draw a bird, move the pattern, cut it and glue it over the cuirass.

After that I've just needed to seal all the edges with silky cord and paint everything with acrillic paints.

Oh, and sew hooks-fasteners.

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Skirt and belts

After the cuirass I went south. Because I was afraid of a rectangular piece of fabric, which could end my whole career. (I mean chiton... I wasn't ready for it. And then I still didn't have a right fabric for it.)

Okay, as a General Kratos doesn't wear pteruges, he wears skirt with two long plate belts with relief and some chain-mail piece. Same as Ares has, or I'd say, same as Freya has, yeah. Looks more like her chain-mail, also made from tiny round plates.

Skirt was an easy thing to do. I used a simple dark-brown leather with the silky golden cord over the edge.

Chain-mail is more interesting. Of course I could make my life difficult and make it by myself, but for such miniature when you can find an already perfect piece of material, it is much better. Small, weaved, metallic round plates.. with smooth surface.. I used earrings for this. Just torn them with plyers in a right way and painted with acryllics, and sewed to the skirt.

Long belts also needed to be made of metallic plates, but I sculpted them, glued to the knitted base for the realistic movability and painted also with the acryllics.

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Chiton and wraps (and bracers)

Okay, maybe one more little rant won't hurt anyone. Do you know what's the most wrecking thing you deal with while working with a rectangular pieces of fabric? You should find not only the right color, but a right feeling.

Maybe it is just me, but I think, when you make an ancient warrior doll, you can't use fabric which feels too.. modern, when you look at it or touch it. Even if Kratos was hm quite wealthy as a general, Spartans themselves were very ascetic people, they used simple fabrics with rough textures. But at the same time it should not be too rough to the body and it shouldn't be too thick, because it is underwear.

Long story short, muslin is my friend now. But sewing process is not my friend. How I am glad that all greek clothes is a differently sized rectangulars. I know I am not making chiton right, it should be wearing around the body and pierced over the shoulders. But you can't be absolutely realistic everytime. Besides, it is still an underwear, it's main goal is preventing scratches of the body.

Bracers were easy. Just a glued fabric again with the cotton cords at the edges and a schematic golden depictions of goddess Nika standing on the globe. (I discovered this today lol..).

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Sandals and shin panels

Muslin is still my friend here and sewing is not, because I needed to start with preparing wraps again, which covers legs from the toes to the knees. Hm, smart..

Design of the sandals and shin panels I took from the gow3 variant of this armor. I pretend that they are a single pieces too...

I've already had a good pair of the leather soles so I glued wraps to them and started to make a base for the shin panels. Same way I did them for Ares. Fasteners of the panels and sandals stripes are also from the cotton cords.

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And... Prepare your spirits, General is here.

Fuf. And this is it. Dominus armor is complete. But is this the end???????

No.

Because Kratos is not a whole person without the most important thing in his life. Yeah yeah, the reason this entire project took almost a year is because I was made Lysandra and Calliope at the same time with Kratos. And they are finished too at this moment. I'll try to write posts for both of them soon, but now, at the Christmas Eve I wish you have a good time with your families.

Merry Christmas, my dears, and Happy upcoming New Year!

See ya very very soon and thank you for watching.

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I tried Procreate, Sasha helped to paint.

Ares ❤ looks at Kratos probably

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Thank you for explaining everything. I really appreciate it. Also don't worry, I completely understand that it's difficult to capture the colors perfectly because in GOW 1 Kratos mainly appears in darker lighting. However I have a lot of reference of Kratos's pre-ash skin, if you would like, I can send you some if it helps.

Btw you're right that colors can appear different because of lighting and camera quality. So I'm not mad or upset because I know you're trying your best. Anyway I hope you know that I'm not trying to be harsh. I just wanted to give feedback.

Hi again, Anon! I think I have enough references, but you can send it to the quick messages. Anyway I love pictures of Kratos! ❤️

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hello!!!

you know.. I recently read the official God of war 1 novel and only fell more in love with Ares/Kratos, but I'm also amused by the fact that Athena loves Kratos. Do you think Ares himself knows about this? If so, how do you think she reacts to the feeling of falling in love with her "frigid bitch" sister?

By the way, more questions.. How long have you been making dolls? You're selling them at auction, right? if so, for about how much?

Hi, Anon and thank you for your ask! Welcome to my fort, where we love Ares and Ares/Kratos! Glad too see another fan of the novels! ❤️❤️❤️ >Do you think Ares himself knows about this? I think even if he knew, he didn't believe that it were true feelings. I think he doubted that she was able to feel anything close to affection at all. >If so, how do you think he reacts to the feeling of falling in love with his "frigid bitch" sister? Ares's reaction:

I think he classificated any closeness to his sister as a very stupid desicion to make. Especially when you are a mortal. ____________________________________

>How long have you been making dolls? Well, Ares was my first fully customized doll ever.. 👉👈 I've had big (70cm+) asian ball-jointed dolls since 2012, but my maximum in customizing during these 12 years was making wigs for them. I've never painted them or made clothes, I really did nothing except wigs. I don't know what have happened.. It was a regular day, when I was just "let's make Ares from scratch!" %) And here we are. >You're selling them at auction, right? There is nothing to sell, I mean as I said, I don't have any other dolls yet)))0))000))))00 And the ones I have will stay with me. (And I have never sold anything I've created before..) >if so, for about how much? You know I was wondered of how much money I've spent to make Ares.. In my approximate calculations, expendable materials and tools only ate ~300$... Plus, if you make it for selling, the "work process" itself costs something.. I don't know, will you buy a one of a kind doll of your favorite character for the spherical 500$? ahaha

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I hope you don't mind my feedback but I noticed Kratos's action figure skin looks pale. I'm not sure if the lighting is making him look whiter then he appears but can you please make his skin color darker? I only request this because Kratos's original skin color in GOW 1 is brown or dark olive before the ashes.

Besides that I love your action figures and I think you did an amazing job! You're extremely talented and the way you make faces so detailed is impressive! Btw I just gave feedback because I just want you to improve but I'm not trying to attack or bully you.

That's how it looks if you recreate scene in the dark temple, using fire as the light sourse just like in the game. Tone looks pretty close to me..

Please understand that for the process I take photos only in a cold LED light or in the morning light, when white balance at its highest, because it is the only way to show small details of the painting. (Also we had no sun today, so pictures turned out colder and lighter). Otherwise photos will be bad, because my camera is not very good and "see" his skin very differently in a different light.

I am doing my best to be close to the original..

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General Kratos (no-ashes OOAK, part 1)

The headline is a spoiler itself, but whatever, because today is the day, when i finally can share the part of my latest work!

This is going to be my second custom of the action figure and long story short. When I had a first thought about having a tan-skinned human Kratos, I was blessed with rare enthusiasm, because we don't have any official figures of Kratos in his "golden ages" as a human and general of the Spartan army (WHY).

It would be easy just to repaint figure from mass production, but those figures are all post-vow-to-Ares. And we need to be canon. If we make Kratos from the timeline when his soul was still his, we make him fully-General!!

Why not to go under the cut to see how is it going?

Everything starts with the head as usual. I bought it last fall, I guess? You have no idea how hard it is to find a bald head with a beautiful scull. With the right proportions of the face to match the body and to match Ares. (They are going to stand together). All "action heads" are different and rarely interchangeable and I guess I used all my luck at this step, because things became so problematic after, that I nearly lost my mind. In a time I also bought a head of a nordic Kratos in a hope to make my life easier, and oh god it is giant even for a giand body I have.. This head now in my scrap.

Anyway. Let's look at our donor. Don't know who is this...

You probably think 'meh he doesn't look like Kratos' and you are right! But what do I have here? A KNIFE!

The plan was simple, I just needed to cut off his neck and face and re-sculpt this head entirely.

Step. By step. I cut and build again his eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, chin, cheekbones, jawline, forehead, nape... until I started to see him. Hi~

Actually, you never can say, how the sculpt will show itself after painting. It is the most cruel and frustrating thing, you can like the result, but the face easily can play uno reverse card with you in the end. With those thoughts I made a new neck for him. Because default neck of the body I chose was too long and wide and has an absolutely useless point of artuculation. First try, second try, and after curing it still seemed a bit too long, so after passing some time I cut the bottom of the head a bit to set it deeper.

After finishing the sculpting I sended all and prepared everything for toning head and neck with the airbrush. Aaaand here my airbrush died. When I bought a new one with a normal compressor, I proceed. Somehow I repaint it 5 or 6 times in a row. God bless my "red stone" primer, really. Quick color match test! Nice?

Nice! Now we can finally paint his face and body. Really I have no idea how doll customizers uses pencils for such a small faces. How! Brushes and a liquid paint is the only option for me. And I am happy about improving my technique since I painted Ares! ❤

By the way, his scar is carved, you can feel it, it is just hard to see it at photo.

Oh gosh here I had a big exhalation, because sculpt didn't do a sucker punch to me, while it could. I didn't give him a too angry face for a yet-secret reasons, but wow.. he is.. so young. ?? and.. human-like It is easy to forget that there were time, when Kratos wasn't 200% done. It is so mind-wrecking. I.. it is hard to show at the pictures how much life and personality he actually has irl. I will gave you a better pictures next time, when I get used to him, I just see now how easily electric and natural lights and shadows change the perception of his face. But.. still wow.. He needed the last thing. His beard. Here could be a lot of curses, because it ate 3 days and 4 tries to glue and form it, but it won't be here! Let's just have a small laugh, because I used actual goat wool for his goatee. And we finally can assemble him!

What's next you ask?

I kinda have nothing to say except 'I am making his Dominus armor now 👺'.

Thank you for watching and commenting in tags if you did it when I made Ares doll, I love you guys

Stay tuned! Skeletor will return very soon!

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Hello! I like your Ares/Kratos, and that is how you reveal it. Recently I've been thinking: "And who was erastes Kratos?". But after that, I came to the conclusion that it was Ares, reincarnated into a human, because it is unlikely that the god of war allowed another to teach the young Eromenos - Kratos.

What do you think about this? What do you think would happen? If you have a different opinion about this, then please tell us.

(I'm sorry if there are any mistakes in the text. English is not my native language😔)

Hello, Anon 🦋

Thank you for your PM and don't worry about the language 👌

I think Kratos is a bit too old to be Eromenos, isn't he?

If I am in my right memory, Erastes-Eromenos dynamic is about a man teaching life a teenage boi. Hm, okay, if we think that Ares is like an enternity years old, then Kratos is defenitely a boi for him 🙃🤣 . But still, Kratos is an adult man, in his society he almost close to be called an "old man" being near his 40s.

Anyway I think their dynamic with Ares is not just master-servant one. Somehow it is very close to actual relationship of an older and younger brother with a big age gap (who they actually are, which is easy to forget).

Ares cares about him and loves him, but he still can beat his ass if he don't like how he speaks to him. Same for Kratos, as a good spartan~ he is very humble and obidient to the people who is much older than him in pre-canon, what makes him a good servant for gods, but he still can be an arrogant and not very smart little mortal (from Ares's perspective) and cause problems for both of them. But for Ares it seems like not a big deal, he is just a bit overreactive type, but much more forgiving as a devine creature than mortal Kratos.

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I wrote a thing. And it is hot

Ares visiting Kratos in a mortal world during a peace-time. To see him after a long time break. To see what he is doing. To see how he is living. To understand what holds his heart.

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Sneakpeak of the new "God of War" ooak

who can it be? 👀🦋

work in progress, huge post about the new heads will be soon.