rakasha | Entries tagged with mythology

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thetatteredveil:

a god is only a god because you let it be, quit encouraging them and they’re just annoying telemarketers, all noise no substance

normal-horoscopes:

YOU JUST LOOK THAT OLD GOD IN THE EYE AND SAY NO THANK YOU SIR

e-seal:

The ancient things from before being can only tear your psyche apart if you let them xoxo
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prokopetz:

“I didn’t know you were religious.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve been subtle about it!“

“But… like, isn’t your culture’s whole thing that you killed your gods?”

“We did. Several times, in fact. They keep coming back, and we always give them another chance until they do something particularly insufferable, and then we kill them again. It’s a good system – everybody knows where they stand.“

“No kidding. What did you kill them for the last time?”

“I think it had something to do with gender roles.”

charlottedabookworm

sparklecryptid

lectorel

distressedherbalist
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thehmn:

We don’t much remember that Freyr, the Norse god of harvest, also had the unique property that women couldn’t be harmed near him. Not because he would attack those who wanted them harm, but because it was like a magic shield was put on them. Weapons would literally break on impact with women’s skin if he was around.

Gerd is the only jotun woman romantically involved with the gods who is consistently depicted as big, and often fat. That’s because in the story about Freyr falling in love with her he especially admires her “big, white arms”. It also makes sense that a god of harvest and plenty would love a woman embodying that.
Freyr, his sister Freya and their father Njord (who also married a jotun btw) are all gods of fertility in each their own way, so I like to depict them as overweight too, though not as big as Gerd.

I also like depicting Freyr as something of a classic romantic hero because of how hopelessly and dramatically he falls in love with Gerd. He longs for her and cries when he thinks he can’t be with her, and gets depressed because he has to wait a whole week to meet her in person. Also, the reason why he doesn’t have a sword is because he gave it to Gerd as a present.

And Gerd is a tough lady. Freyr’s servant threaten her with death (without Freyr knowing) and she doesn’t give a shit. He had to threatened her with bad luck for the rest of her life before she agreed to meet Freyr.

Her father is the sea jotun Ægir which is why I tend to give her a sea inspired look.
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zombie-poets-society:

youlookshittygoodnightdenise:

ronnanlynnch:

RPGs, or relentlessly persistent girlsÂ by cassandrha

This concept is really interesting

This really makes me rethink the characters decisions. Usually these women are depicted as stupid, vain, or selfish. But I sympathize with them way more when their options written this way
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galahadwilder:

rachelladytietjens:

pyrrhiccomedy:

perfectly-generic-blog:

angel-of-double-death:

haiku-robot:

dorito-and-pinetree:

galahadwilder:

A sudden, terrifying thought

When you see an animal with its eyes set to the front, like wolves, or humans, that’s usually a predator animal.

If you see an animal with its eyes set farther back, though—to the side—that animal is prey.

Now look at this dragon.

See those eyes?

They’re to the SIDE.

This raises an interesting—and terrifying—question.

What in the name of Lovecraft led evolution to consider DRAGONS…

As PREY?

I know this isn’t part of my blogs theme but like this is interesting

i know this isn’t part
of my blogs theme but like this
is interesting

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howdidigetinvolved

The eyes-in-the-front thing (usually) only applies to mammals. Crocodiles, arguably the inspiration for dragons, have eyes that look to the sides despite being a predator.

hey what up I’m about to be That Asshole

This isn’t a mammalian thing. When people talk about ‘eyes on the front’ or ‘eyes on the side,’ they’re really talking about binocular vision vs monocular vision. Binocular vision is more advantageous for predators because it’s what gives you depth perception; i.e, the distance you need to leap, lunge, or swipe to take out the fast-moving thing in front of you. Any animal that can position its eyes in a way that it has overlapping fields of vision has binocular vision. That includes a lot of predatory reptiles, including komodo dragons, monitor lizards, and chameleons.

(The eyes-in-front = predator / eyes-on-sides = prey thing holds true far more regularly for birds than it does for mammals. Consider owls, hawks, and falcons vs parrots, sparrows, and doves.)

But it’s not like binocular vision is inherently “better” than monocular vision. It’s a trade-off: you get better at leap-strike-kill, but your field of vision is commensurately restricted, meaning you see less stuff. Sometimes, the evolutionary benefit of binocular vision just doesn’t outweigh the benefit of seeing the other guy coming. Very few forms of aquatic life have binocular vision unless they have eye stalks, predator or not, because if you live underwater, the threat could be coming from literally any direction, so you want as wide a field of view as you can get. If you see a predator working monocular vision, it’s a pretty safe assumption that there is something else out there dangerous enough that their survival is aided more by knowing where it is than reliably getting food inside their mouths.

For example, if you are a crocodile, there is a decent chance that a hippo will cruise up your shit and bite you in half. I’d say that makes monocular vision worthwhile.

Which brings us back to OP’s point. Why would dragon evolution favor field of view over depth perception?

A lot of the stories I’ve read painted the biggest threats to dragons (until knights with little shiny sticks came along) as other dragons. Dragons fight each other, dragons have wars. And like fish, a dragon would need to worry about another dragon coming in from any angle. That’s a major point in favor of monocular vision. Moreover, you don’t need depth perception in order to hunt if you can breathe fucking fire. A flamethrower is not a precision weapon. If you can torch everything in front of you, who cares if your prey is 5 feet away or 20? Burn it all and sift among the rubble for meat once everything stops moving.

Really, why would dragons have eyes on the front of their heads? Seems like they’ve got the right idea to me.

Rebageling for the profoundity of “A flamethrower is not a precision weapon.”

chromapulse reminded me of a thing so I’m bringing this back
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caffeinewitchcraft:

ohhbobs:

stop checking on them
they don’t miss you

These are the words written on a post-it (a human invention) in Persephone’s bedroom. They’re written in what she fondly calls New English, aka the English that her mother still doesn’t know, even after all these years.

Every morning, when she wakes, she sees this post-it stuck onto the stone wall and makes herself read it out loud.

“Stop checking on him,” she says, arms wrapped tight around her knees. “He doesn’t miss you.” The words bring the familiar sting of pain, the familiar tightness in her chest, the accompanying breathlessness. There’s still a part of her that rebels at the thought, that clings to what he said before and not after.

She thinks she might have been happier loving a mortal, which is so in fashion these days that her mother is gallivanting about Earth like she hadn’t spent centuries chastising Persephone for the same. If she loved a mortal, she could bind them in ways that it’s impossible to bind a god.

She gets up and gets ready for her day. Being an immortal means that she can’t just spend all day in bed. That path leads to centuries of apathy and she’s still young. So very, very young.

“Go back to Olympus. I should have known better than to let a child into my kingdom.”

There was no “letting” about it. She’d been younger still and in chains and in captivity and in love. She’d beguiled and coerced so that he’d take her with him, made him free her.

She’d thought she was shedding her chains, choosing new ones that better suited her, but she didn’t see the way her discarded shackles slipped onto him. She didn’t see what a burden she was, what a burden she would become to him, how limiting, how heavy, how stupid.

It’s been five years now and she’s still counting seasons like she has a chance of being let back in. Summer and winter, summer and winter, summer and winter, ad nauseum. Her mother had said that she’d stick to the cycle, that the Earth actually benefited from winter, but Persephone sees the way the summers are growing longer and hotter, the way the winters are short but so sharp she could cut her teeth on them.

Spring? She stopped that a long time ago. The melting of winter is good enough for mortals and gods alike. They don’t notice and, therefore, they don’t ask.

Keep reading
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agadixit:

An illustration for a Russian fairy tale Vasilisa the Beautiful.

Art by me.

distressedherbalist …is she doing the Murder Walk?
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prokopetz:

Concept: Baba Yaga, except instead of a scary cannibal grandma she’s a smirking vodka aunt (vodka great-aunt?) who freely hands out apparently sound – albeit often slightly self-destructive – advice, and it’s not until much later that the implications of the advice she’s given you finally click and you’re like OH GOD DAMMIT.

distressedherbalist
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scifi-fantasy-horror:

by Betty Jiang
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kansascity-elffriend:

Weapons from Celtic Myth

Celtic myth is wack, and the weapons are some of the weirdest stuff out there, so here’s a short list of my faves.

The Gae Bolg- The spear of Cú Chulainn. If you wash it in a stream before use and throw it from the foot, it extends barbs down every blood vessel in the victim’s body. You don’t remove the spear from the corpse so much as clean the corpse off of the spear. Very nasty.

The Spear of Lugh- This thing is so bloodthirsty that if you don’t keep it immersed in a bath of blood while it’s not in use, it’ll burst into flame and consume the blood of everyone nearby. Fortunately, if you don’t have enough blood to fill a bathtub, poppy juice will do.

Claíomh Solais, the Sword of Light- has seven edges. Emits blinding light.

Caladbolg- the sword of Fergus MacRoích. It leaves a rainbow trail when you swing it, and once lopped the tops of three mountains when Fergus missed a strike.

Fragarach, the Answerer- A sword that can cut through anything, inflict wounds that never heal, control the winds, and prevent people from lying when it’s pressed against their throat. That last one may not be a magic power per say.

Excalibur- You think you know it, but those basic boring Athurian Legends you’ve read don’t show off its best powers. In Welsh stories, this thing burns out the eyes of its wielder’s enemies, and cuts through anything that isn’t enchanted like a lightsaber.

If you know any others, feel free to add them!
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Chronos: Zeus! You would dare show yourself at the gates of my temple at the heart of my kingdom? Are you mad? What could you ever hope to achieve here?
Zeus: In one word… regicide.
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“HOW TO LOVE A GOD:

i. be prepared to burn. there is no way this will not spell tragedy, and you know this singsong melody of warning bells: your father’s gentle words, the restless-reckless humming beneath your skin. if you want to love a god, learn to ignore it.

ii. throw yourself off cliffs to teach yourself how to fly. throw yourself off cliffs to teach yourself how to fall.

iii. hollow out your body, divest yourself of these useless mortal organs. fill yourself with longing instead.

iv. know that there are only a handful of gods but a world of mortals. you will not be the first glint of metal to catch the light of the sun, and no matter what you weave into your heart at night, you will not be the last.

v. never forget that you will burn.”

- ICARUS’ GUIDE TO LOVING APOLLO | mythology reimagined #5 | paperharbors (via inkmagician)
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poseidons-trident:

Κητω

Keto was the goddess of the dangers of the sea and, more specifically, of sea-monsters, whales and large sharks. She consorted with her brother Phorkys to produced a brood of fearsome monsters including the she-dragon Ekhidna, sailor-devouring Skylla, the hundred-headed serpent Ladon and the petrifying Gorgones.
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thoodleoo:

everyone talks about the greek gods as parents, but we really need to think more about the greek monsters and creatures as parents. like please imagine:

cerberus being pounced on by a whole litter of three headed puppies and teaching them to hunt for souls

medusa threatening to turn any child who bullies her kid into stone

the sirens singing lullabies to their daughters, both lulling them to sleep and teaching them the songs they’ll someday use to lure greek sailors to their deaths

confusion over exactly what percentage bull and what percentage man the minotaur’s child is

pegasus teaching his foals to fly on their lil baby bird wings

the chimaera carrying its babies around by the scruff of their neck and then licking each one of their lil heads clean with its lion head
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helleneoftroy:

icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun.

@modernmythsnet | event eight | quotes | metaphysical
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erinye:

mythological drinks! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

consume at your own risk, some will grant you immortality while others will make you burp ghosts! also here are some info pops to sate yall curiosity too~

1. /Norse/ Yggdrasil root beer

2. /Chinese/ Immortality peach bubble tea

3. /Hindu/ Amrita in a can

4. /Aztec/ Quetzalcoatl milk chocolate

5. /Welsh/ Cauldron of Rebirth

6. /Greek/ Ambrosia juice box

7. /Egyptian/ Sunshine Ra-mune

8. /Sumerian/ Gilgamesh’s Herb of Life tea

9. /Persian/ 7Universe fizzy Jamshid pop
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ladyartcmis:

sapphic mythology: asteria

In Greek, Asteria means ‘of the stars’. In mythology, she was the daughter of Titans Coeus and Pheobe, and the sister of Leto. She was the goddess of falling stars and nocturnal oracles. She flung herself into the Aegean Sea as a quail to escape Zeus and became Ortygia, or ‘quail island’. When her sister Leto, pregnant with Apollo and Artemis, was pursued by Hera, Asteria’s island was the one place on earth which gave her refuge.

@sparklecryptid
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timberwolf-manstab:

It’s a hippocampus based on a black dragonscale hmpk betta. Black and white pen in a ‘lil greytone sketchbook.
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queeenpersephone:

@francescadaferrara requested → persephone

you wear flowers in your hair and he collects ash under his fingernails
but when he shows you how to weigh a human life,
cupping his grey hands under yours, the power becomes intoxicating and
you must admit that your souls are the same:
hungry.
aching.

@sparklecryptid
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