Why Do I Do This?

renata-dx

6 months ago

Hymn To Demeter Graphic Novel Sneak Peek

Hymn to Demeter Graphic Novel Sneak Peek

Written by Allister Nelson (c'est moi), illustrated by my bestie EJ Strunck @ejstrunck, debuting from Critical Blast Publishing. Ever wondered where the myth of Hades and Persephone came from, and what exactly Demeter was up to a-searching for her abducted daughter? Well, the original myth makes little mention of Hades and Persephone, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter chronicles a grieving, bereft yet powerful mother Demeter's journey in this classic "found feminism" tale of first love, gambling with gods, friendship, and watching your child go farther than you can take them <3

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renata-dx

7 years ago

I don't care if this is from my peanuts blog I need it here

This what happends when you let me home alone with my phone, peanuts stuff and pics art

Take Me To Olympus #14

Hello all! Another chapter of TMTO coming up! This is a bit of a special chapter with some deeper insight into Aphrodite.

It was a ride to write, but it's also pivotal in both Aphrodite's, Ares' and Hera's development.

TW: Suidical thoughts, violence, anxiety, panic attack, depression

The Cover

Previous chapter

Next chapter

-

Curiosity killed the cat

“What do you mean ‘you shot someone’?”

There might have been more than a little shrillness evident in Julia’s voice. But even Ares seemed to be in chock. And he wasn’t even the one who’d actually come home with blood all over their hands after just having shot someone.

“How did you even get the weapon that would make such a thing possible?”

The question hung in the air, a weapon in and of itself. Because if Julia was living with Gods from Ancient Greece who were actually armed with modern weapons, she might just pass out. Or scream. Or do whatever appropriate thing that one did in such a situation.

“I … He …” Aphrodite trailed off, their eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Julia had to wrench her eyes away from their mouth, feeling the Deity of Love’s magnetic pull tear at her. “He had a gun. And he was right there, when Ares showed me the clinic. They were all so scared, I could feel the love in the room as they thought the thoughts that might have been the last.

“I didn’t think. Just acted.”

Ares looked at Julia, a grim smile on his face, the shock ebbing out with every second. He’d seen this before, she reminded herself. Had probably felt it in every ounce of this world and all others.

“Aphrodite lunged. I actually think it was the fiercest and fastest movement that they have ever made, quickly dismantling the intruder’s grip of the gun.” Then something dark flickered over his eyes, even as he laughed. The embers of his hands sung a song of betrayal as they flickered to life. “The bastard managed to pull the trigger as they pushed his arm away, shooting himself in the shoulder in the process - you should have heard the screams and moans he let out after that!”

It didn’t take any more information for Julia to pull Aphrodite with her, tugging gently at their arm to guide them through the house. She settled the deity into the couch, which had apparently become therapy spot number one over the course of the last few months.

“I don’t … it wasn’t on purpose,” Aphrodite kept repeating the words. That they hadn’t meant to, and they didn’t do it on purpose.

Suddenly, their eyes turned wild, and they gripped Julia’s shoulders, fingers digging into them like the claws of a beast.

“YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME I DIDN’T DO IT IT ISN’T RIGHT NO NO”

The scream almost turned her deaf, and she could do nothing but stare into the eyes of Aphrodite as the storm inside of them churned and churned, faster into the chasm that their own mind seemed to become.

She continued screaming, with Julia by her side, stiff as a board, merely staring and blubbering as they moved their arms away from her, tearing at their own skin instead. Blood was drawn, lines of red winding down their arms.

“Move it,” Hera said, her voice hard. But when Julia turned, there was something inexplicable that made her move - that made her collaborate instead of doubt the other woman.

Tension and softness and the promise of Hells to pay to whomever had done this.

It only took a few seconds for Julia to vault over the couch, Hera taking her stead. Ares stared, dumbfounded with his mouth slightly open, at the mess that Aphrodite was becoming.

Tears streamed down their face as they screamed, an ugly cry that twisted in the room, tearing at their minds. Julia took the cue that Hera sent her in the form of a long look and started herding the remaining Gods and Goddesses out of the room.

Except for Ares.

“I need to be here,” he said, his eyes never leaving Aphrodite. Flames licked at his hands. A warning.

One that Julia heeded.

Hera gripped Aphrodite’s shoulders, her hands digging into the bones beneath their skin, her eyes locking with theirs. There was something broken in the iris - the thing torn apart, darkness draining into the vibrant honeys around.

Hera soothed, her voice dripping into the tone that she had seen Artemis use with the scared children who came to her. She kept her eyes locked with Aphrodite’s whenever the other woman glanced her way.

But there was no stopping the screaming.

A thing that grew as it continued, more words stumbling through their teeth, one taking over the other until it became incoherent. A shriek from a banshee, hidden within the darkest parts of the mind.

The Queen of the Heavens stayed by her side, but encouraged Ares to come closer, too. With her hands, which would forever be stronger than those of Aphrodite with the power that Hera had in advantage, she kept her grip tight, even as they thrashed against her with all of their might, lost in their own mind.

“Tell her,” was all she said to Ares. A request and a command in one and the same, her lips pulling apart to show teeth in something that was more animal than ethereal.

There was no telling if the War God would be able to understand. No telling that the brute of a doofus would get what was going on.

But then again, the brute would be feeling each and every thing. Something that the Gods did not usually do.

But Aphrodite was lashing out in such a blind way - it had reached the levels of mortals. Their emotion had become something more than the pettiness Hera had seen among them all.

Had seen among herself.

And it had only just started to manifest - when they were all beginning to get their powers back. She had felt the same thing warping in her chest. Something beyond the things that had happened.

They were changing. But it was not by the force of others - nevermore adapting to a tyrant king.

She just hoped it was enough for when they were forced home again. She could still feel the remnants of their home. The tingling of electricity in her veins, ice coasting over her skin, fire burning a hot path through her bones. And then the last thing, the earthy element that seemed to cloud their very breathing, keeping their words tethered to the veil of the world.

The Fates must be laughing at them all now. Hera knew she would have been.

oh god it was so much too much they couldn’t take it. what had happened it was burning tearing away at their consciousness. down through veins through brain and bone and sinew and leaving their mouth in wracking words that coalesced with the foreign air outside.

“Tell her.”

The words cut against Aphrodite’s stream of consciousness, if for a moment. Then they were dragged again into the abyss.

it hurts. how could the humans deal with this pain? nothing nothing like the pain she had felt. nothing even like being cut up and torn apart and fed to the wolves. there would always be coming back from that. this-

“Aphrodite.” The words soft. And yet, they knew that voice. There was something that called them.

-this was something beyond that. shattering and burning up and tearing apart at the same time until nothing but ash remained. pain pain pain a pulsing poetry wracking through their head.

“I can feel the war raging through you. I can feel your battle, your bravery. I can feel the pain and the fury and all that is not right.”

more and more. tearing her further down. a kraken hidden within the mess of it all its tentacles gripping at their arms and legs until the only way out - the only way to reach power was the scream that tore through their bleeding lungs.

“I see, now, that you went through this once. Perhaps many times before. At my expense. I see that I have driven you over the edge.” Something ran down the side of her, something physical and soft and calloused and very much there. “I can feel the scar tissue that closes over your heart, your very soul. I wonder how much I have caused.”

Images. Screaming, flipping. Tearing themselves apart as the pain in their heart became too much to bear. Blood running in streams down their legs, like some form of twisted miracle of birth. Love and pain and something entirely strange coalescing inside of her. Growing, growing, growing-

Then the whisper. Piercing through them, scattered thoughts attempting to fall into the position. “Sorry can never be enough. Sorry will forever be lacking because I know the battle. Tearing yourself apart day after day and then rebuilding yourself. All for the sake of others.”

The thing in their mind grabbing at them, trying to drag them bag down, right when they were nearing the light - right when they were getting so close. and they feel their grip loosening waves of salty darkness forcing its way into lungs and fatesaboveshe’sdrowning.

“Your love almost destroyed you then.”

nothingbutdarkness. iftheyclosetheireyestheycanalmostseetheendofitall.

“I will not let that happen again.”

inthedarkness and it is coming for them and it reaches, plunging into the murky waters. Teeth snapping at the thing that envelops them, weapons cutting at beasts too dark to spy. They look up, and it is War incarnate. Right there with them - right there by their side.

But he doesn’t keep fighting. He let’s himself be taken by the monsters around him, reaching out a hand. A hand that is not empty.

Aphrodite - yes, that is their name, they remember now - takes the sword.

And then they unleash themselves upon the thing that tries to keep them imprisoned, clawing and slashing and hacking at it with all of their might.

It doesn’t stand a chance.

It retreats, back into the depths of their mind. They know that it is still there, watching, waiting. Next time, they will be ready.

It was never too late.

And with that, they smile at Ares. A grin that is toothy and filled with the gaps that they know he likes. Gaps of secrets and friendship and promises unsaid.

Aphrodite opens their eyes.

Ares felt them. The war, the pain, the love. He was crouched over them, as if his body could reach into their mind and dull the war that was going on there. He hoped he had given enough.

Because no matter how much he enjoyed partaking in the bloodshed - no matter how fantastic the rush of victory through him was, he would always be banished to the sidelines when the war came to its climax.

The most important point, that pivotal moment.

And he was locked out. Forbidden from deciding the outcome. He supposed it was the Fates’ way of keeping power in check. Supposed that the other Gods and Goddesses had similar rules imposed.

Supposed anything to keep it from being a punishment directed at him. For all the horrible, terrible things he had done.

Bloodshed was inevitable in war. Even the silent ones - the wars with oneselves - were never without losses. Ares would forever be doomed to look at the survivors with guilt in his eyes, face and body tense as to not collapse.

Because that was another thing. Another burden.

He was War incarnate. He was the one to greet the survivors - the people who had gone through much and yet had so much more ahead of them. When the blood stopped singing in their veins and the ringing began instead, he was the one who stood in the corner, silently there for each and every subsequent battle.

Many didn’t survive the aftermath. The second and third and fourth battles with themselves, yes. But when it went into the dozens - when enemies piled up outside the door, waiting for one to be defeated for a new battalion to rush in, that was when he was there.

Death happened on the inside, too. Death much worse than whatever Hades or Persephone could do to them. Something that killed souls before they were even born anew.

And he had just watched Death come around for Aphrodite. Something that was supposed to be impossible. They could not collapse to other feelings, the Gods would not be able to succumb to anything but themselves.

And yet.

Yet they had come home, gone into shock.

Yet he had felt the war creep up on them, much like the horseman of the apocalypse he had been reading about. His counterpart looming over Aphrodite with a scythe of their own making.

Ares did not stand back then. He felt it rip something apart in him, something that was supposed to stay whole. Something that he had desperately needed.

But he could care less, in the moment. As he flung himself into their mind. Into his own death.

Aphrodite came to life beneath him with a cough and a sputter, Ares silently moving away and letting Hera give them the glass of water that she had prepared.

Alongside the broken crack, another thing stretched out. It took him a long time to discern the feeling. Relief. Relief coursed through him, warming his every limb, putting a fire into his eyes that he had never before felt.

Not just because Aphrodite was here, safe and whole. But also because of what delving into her mind had just done. He had done it. The thing that the Fates had forbidden him from - sure, he was a little beat up and broken, but that didn’t matter. He would sustain injuries any day if that meant that he could save others.

That he could help the ones at the clinic with something other than his presence and the knowledge that he would always be there, watching, waiting.

As the evening progressed and the others came milling back into the room, cooing and caring for Aphrodite, Ares felt himself smiling fondly at the group. This was not a family by blood anymore, not just, at least.

Because now, the blood of the covenant had become more powerful than the water of the womb. It could not be more true with Julia standing to the side, laughing with the best of them.

Ares never showed them his hands. His eyes, he could hide. The crack that was ripping through his chest, too.

But his hands, bruised and bloody and dark with the blood of a thousand, he never showed them.

Because there were no more embers left in the War God. The fire of War had been emptied, taken away by the same thing that had marred him down his middle, cleaving into his chest.

Justice for that would come later. For now, he was content to laugh with his family.

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renata-dx

7 years ago