Aliciavance4228 - Alicia Vance - Tumblr Blog

Nu but seriously now, what the hell is this?!

I love how everyone, from ancient greeks to classical artists to 21th century greek mythology fans mutually decided that Perseus has a juicy ass. Let's keep it that way.

I like how classical artists depicted Athena and Hermes as the duo even when they two aren’t helping a hero.

I love how everyone, from ancient greeks to classical artists to 21th century greek mythology fans mutually decided that Perseus has a juicy ass. Let's keep it that way.

Nobody talks about Aphrodite and the Lemnian Women enough:

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 114 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Lemnos happened to have no males at the time [when the Argonauts visited the island], and was ruled by Hypsipyle, the daughter of Thoas. The reason for this was that the women of Lemnos had failed to give due honour to Aphrodite, in return for which she afflicted them with a foul odour. Whereupon their husbands took to bed women whom they captured from neighbouring Thrake. For this dishonourable treatment the Lemnian women slew their fathers and husbands."

The exact same person who tortured Psyche, tried to kill her, made people commit sexual crimes and cursed parents to lust after their children (and vice-versa) decided to punish a group of women by making them smell bad.

They are Cersei and Jaime.

“Zeus and Hera are like Cersei and Robert from GoT” excuse me good sir they are Ned and Catelyn Stark

Try to find any difference challenge: Impossible

Painting by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussi Trioson

You know for a matter of fact that young Björn Andrésen would've been the perfect cast for Dorian Gray.

For those who don't know (to be fair I haven't said this thing before...) I love redheads. Red hair in general is very beautiful to me, and the fact that is very rare makes it much more special. Back in Ancient Greece people considered it to be either a symbol of beauty or a sign that those people would become vampires after they die. In Ancient Egypt it was a symbol of luck. In the Medieval Ages redheads were believed to be witches. Later, red hair was associated with seductiveness and sex-appeal. Cleopatra, Vincent van Gogh and Queen Elizabeth I were all redheads.

So naturally, every time I see a painting featuring a redhead I like it. And after so much time I've finally found the woman behind many famous paintings: Elizabeth Siddal.

She was an english painter, art model and poet. She was the most renowned model at that time, and most of the artists' ideas of beauty and aesthetic were highly influenced by her looks. She was married with the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and she soon became his muse. Many paintings featuring famous female figures such as Lilith, Beatrix, Persephone, Joan of Arc, Aphrodite, Ophelia and Fiammetta had her as the main inspiration for their appearance.

And now you might be asking: "But didn’t she die in 1862 and most of these paintings were made by the time when she was already six feet under the dirt?" Well yes, but even years after her death when Rossetti used other models he still included features from his dead wife (especially her beautiful red hair) and used sketches of her for reference as well.

To be fair these pictures give me stronger Athena vibes than any picture of a big owl, so I can see why she chose them instead.

Shout-out to the great goddess of wisdom, master of war and crafts, oh clear-eyed badass queen

For choosing out of all the great majestic owls there are, this one:

Like... It's so scruffy. It looks like it got into the rain and didn't enjoy it one bit. I wanna put it into a blanket burrito. Like what compelled the goddess of I-am-the-best-actually to look at a snow owl or a barn owl or the freaking eagle owl and be like no I want the tiny one that looks like a wet cat, I like that one. Was it the attitude? Cos I think it was the attitude.

Before starting to talk about this subject I want to make one thing clear: Hephaestus is one of my favourite Greek Gods (either in Top 5 or Top 10), so I'm not writing this post because I dislike him, but because I cannot stand superficial/surfface-level depictions of greek gods' personalities, nor the simplification of them and the erasure of their nuances (either through romanticization or demonization).

I do appreciate the fact that a lot of people start to realize that the relationship between Aphrodite and Hephaestus was a disfunctional one and that both of them are happier with different people (Ares and Aglaea, respectively). However, the fact that many people are usually focusing only on Aphrodite's actions and ignore Hephaestus' abusiveness rubs me in a wrong way.

Now, referring to Hephaestus as an Incel or choosing to villainize him for that is not the best solution either. He wasn't the only god asking Zeus for a wife, nor the only one who presents a more or less misogynistic attitude towards women. We're talking here about Ancient Greece, so expecting the deities to act how we would expect them to act based on nowdays' principles and standards is unrealistic and juvenile. I would also like to point out the fact that Hephaestus is, according to Hesiod's Theogony, happily married with Aglaea, who is also described as his first and only wife. They also have four daughters according to Orphic Rhapsodies Frag. And yet he is the exact same deity that you guys claim to be an Incel, which is a contraditiction to the original meaning of the term. The word was ment to reffer to a category of men who blame their appearance for not being able to have sex (when in truth the reason why women don't want them is rather due to their personality and beliefs; and by beliefs I mean their tendency of objectifying women and having ridiculously high standards for their future wives while simultaneously getting offended when a woman has her own standards too). I can see Apollo and Hades falling into more Incel Stereotypes than him, considering the fact that one of them cursed many women for refusing to sleep with him, whereas the other literally had to kidnap a woman in order to have a wife. And yet nobody dares to call them Incels, just because they two aren’t described as being disabled nor falsely considered unattractive, unlike Hephaestus.

That being said, negating his wrongs and turning him into a woobie who did nothing wrong just because you cannot stand Aphrodite isn't a good way of perceiving their relationship either. While Aphrodite was indeed manipulative towards Hephaestus and her sleeping with his own brother in his bed was hardly admirable, I would also like to point out the fact that Hephaestus was pretty much toxic and revengeful towards her too.

Now, there are a lot of versions on how they got married as well as a lot of lost fragments, which leads to speculations rather than something 100% certain. So I won't talk about it purely because I want to avoid misinterpretiation and misinformation, and discuss directly about what intetests me the most.

Wheter or not Aphrodite willingly married him or loved him, what do we know for sure is that she preffered Ares more and had an affair with him all this time. Being cheated on is a form a betrayal from a partner, so Hephaestus being angry on her is understandable. However, instead of divorcing her directly, he decided to humiliate her in one of the worst ways possible before separating from her:

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 14. 40 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic C4th A.D.) :

"With cheek shame-crimsoned, like the Queen of Love, what time the Heaven-abiders saw her clasped in Ares' arms, shaming in sight of all the marriage-bed, trapped in the myriad-meshed toils of Hephaistos : tangled there she lay in agony of shame, while thronged around the Blessed, and there stood Hephaistos' self: for fearful it is for wives to be beheld by husbands' eyes doing the deed of shame."

On top of that, Hephaestus directed his wrath towards one of Aphrodite and Ares' daughters (Harmonia) and her descendants as well, despite the fact it wasn't technically her fault that she was fathered by his brother:

Statius, Thebaid 2. 265 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) :

"The dread necklace of Harmonia . . . The Lemnian [Hephaistos], so they of old believed, long time distressed at Mars' [Ares'] deceit and seeing that no punishment gave hindrance to the disclosed armour, and the avenging chains removed not the offence [of his affair with Hephaistos' then wife Aphrodite], wrought this [a cursed necklace] for Harmonia on her bridal day to be the glory of her dower [description of the necklace follows] . . .

The work first proved its worth, when Harmonia's complaints turned to dreadful hissing, and she bore company to grovelling Cadmus, and with long trailing breast drew furrows in the Illyrian fields [the pair were turned into serpents in Illyria]. Next, scarce had shameless Semele [their daughter] put the hurtful gift about her neck, when lying Juno [Hera] crossed her threshold. Thou too, unhappy Jocasta, didst, as they say, possess the beauteous, baleful thing, and didst deck thy countenance with its praise - on what a couch, alas! to find favour; and many more beside. Last Argia shines in the splendour of the gift, and in pride of ornament and accursed gold surpassed her sister's mean attiring. The wife of the doomed prophet [Eriphyle wife of Amphiaraus] beheld it, and at every shrine and banquet in secret cherished fierce jealousy, if only it might be granted her to possess the terrible jewel, nought profited, alas!"

Furthermore, I would also like to emphasize the fact that Hephaestus had a considerable amount of lovers. And while timeline is another uncertain aspect and he might have slept with those women before he married Aphrodite and/or between the moment when he divorced her and the one when he remarried, the possibility of him cheating on Aphrodite isn't an impossible one. In this case, that could be taken as a Double Standard, and his reaction when he found out that Aphrodite was cheating on him would be completely hypocritical.

As I said, Aphrodite was abusive and toxic towards him as well. But deciding to solely demonize her instead of acknowledging that both of them were abusive and toxic towards each other -I don't like to use this term but I can't find another one for the moment- is purely slut-shaming. Some of you guys are complaining about how "Hera has no agency" and were praising Kaos for portraying her as cheating on Zeus despite the fact that this is out of her character because "He finally got a taste of his own medicine", yet when Aphrodite cheats on her possible unfaithful husband she's suddenly a whore. You guys want a goddess who can be sexually active without any sort of inhibitions, yet when Aphrodite is brought into discussion there's at least one person who won't hesitate to call her all slurs for that, whereas Demeter is turned into a prude on top of being a Helicopter Parent in many fanfictions and retellings (because apparently when a woman becomes a mother she cannot care about anything else).

So instead of choosing one extreme or another where a) Aphrodite is a brainless slut and Hephaestus a poor woobie or b) Aphrodite is a helpless victim and Hephaestus an Incel who deserved to be cheated on, perhaps it would be a better idea to treat them as humane, realistic figures, instead of some sort of cartoonish caricatures who can easily fit into whatever labels and tropes you want them to fit in.