achilles-heal-thyself

i think we need to collectively unlearn the disney movie because the actual mythological hercules did not have a single working brain cell. he was just a 250-pound slab of beef travelling from town to town committing structural property damage.

he is the blueprint of every guy who tries to fix a leaky pipe with a hammer and ends up flooding the entire neighbourhood.

he murdered his music teacher with a guitar

when hercules was a kid, he wasn't great at academics. his music tutor, a guy names linus, tried to correct how he was playing the lyre (basically an ancient greek harp).

hercules got so deeply offended by constructive criticism that he picked the instrument and beat linus to death with it. his parents were so stressed out by his complete lack of chill that they literally banished him to live in the mountains with the cows so he'd stop murdering the faculty members.

he was saved from execution by his own butt hair

at one point, two goblin-like thief creatures called the kerkopes stole hercules' weapons while he was asleep. he caught them, tied them to a pole upside down, and slung them over his shoulder to carry them to their execution.

because they were hanging upside down behind him, the thieves had a direct, unvarnished view straight up hercules' loincloth. they noticed his backside was incredibly, prehistorically hairy and started absolutely howling with laughter. hercules asked what was so funny, they told him, and he found the roast so hilarious that he just let them go.

he literally spared their lives because they made fun of his ass-hair situation.

the oracle ghosted him, so he stole her furniture

when hercules went to the famous oracle of delphi to get a prophecy, the priestess looked at him, decided she didn't want to deal with his drama, and refused to speak to him.

normal response: leave a bad yelp review. hercules response: "if i don't get a prophecy, i am stealing the building."

he literally grabbed the sacred tripod chair the oracle sat on and tried to walk out with it so he could start his own rival oracle business. apollo (the god of the temple) had to physically fly and play tug-of-war with hercules over a piece of furniture until zeus threw a thunderbolt between them like a tired dad breaking up a fight in a mcdonald's parking lot.

his baby formula created the milky way

the literal galaxy we live in exists because hercules was a greedy baby. zeus wanted his mortal son to have divine powers, so he snuck hercules into bed with his goddess wife, hera, while she was asleep so the baby could nurse.

hercules bit down way too hard. hera woke up, shrieked and ripped the baby away, causing a massive jet of divine breast milk to spray across the cosmos.

that is NOT a joke. the word "galaxy" comes from gala, the greek word for milk. our entire solar system is floating inside a cosmic baby-feeding accident.

credits:

so we always talk about the Olympians like they're the blueprint of divine messiness, but we never talk about Thalassa.

probably because she doesn't have a PR team or a teenage demigod son writing a YA book series about her.

for the uninitiated: Thalassa is the primordial Greek goddess of the sea. but she isn't a lady sitting on a shell holding a starfish. she is the actual, physical water. every molecule of salt, every damp grain of sand, every horrifying deep-sea creature that looks like a melted shoe with teeth? that's her.

i feel like pop culture completely erased her because poseidon has a louder PR team and a fancy golden fork, but the actual surviving myths and historical facts about thalassa are so much funnier because she possesses the exact energy of a tired department manager who has been working the same shift since the dawn of creation.

THE CRAB CLAW HEADPIECES AND ICED MATCHA VIBE

like, if you look at actual ancient roman and greek mosaics of her, she isn't depicted as some delicate mermaid. she is drawn as a massive, deeply unbothered woman rising out of the water, and she has literal crab claws growing out of her head like horns.

she's usually holding a ship's oar in one hand and casually gripping a dolphin in the other like it's a standard-size iced matcha. the sheer "do not talk to me" energy radiating from these ancient artifacts is immaculate.

THE ULTIMATE CUSTOMER SERVICE DEFLECTION

but my absolute favourite thing about her is that she actually shows up in aesop's fables, which is already a wild crossover for a primordial deity.

basically, this shipwrecked guy washes ashore, barely alive, and starts aggressively screaming at the ocean. he's calling the sea treacherous, evil, and a trap for mankind. and instead of just ignoring him or drowning him like any mythological entity would, thalassa takes the time to physically manifest out of the surf just to argue with him.

she looks this dripping wet, traumatized man in the eyes and says, "hey, don't blame me. by nature, i am actually as calm and still as the dry land you're standing on. it's the winds that keep crashing into me and make me violent. if you have a problem, take it up with them."

she literally hit a homeless shipwreck survivor with the "i am just a victim of my environment" defence. the corporate deflection is staggering. she basically told him to file a complaint with the atmospheric department because the hydro-department was not liable for his damages.

AN ACCIDENTAL MOTHERHOOD AND DOG-HEADED CHAOS

and don't even get me started on her family dynamics. according to the orphic hymns, she is technically the mother of aphrodite. everyone knows the story of aphrodite floating to shore on a seashell, but the forget how she got there.

cronus castrated his dad uranus and threw the pieces into the ocean. those pieces landed directly in thalassa's lap, mixed with her natural sea-foam, and out popped the goddess of love.

thalassa didn't even ask to be a mum that day. she was just minding her own business, doing ocean things, when the universe dropped a divine, bloody gender reveal party directly into her ecosystem. the she had to raise the telchines, who were nine sea-demons with dog heads and flippers for hands who spent their free time spraying sulphur rain on crops just because they were bored.

FINAL VERDICT: WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO STAN

so yeah. poseidon might be the "king" of the sea, but thalassa is the overworked utility company holding the planet together.

she's a crab-horned, dolphin-wielding queen who will personally rise out of the waves to tell you that your existential dread is technically a weather issue and not covered by her insurance policy.

credits: images (instagram and x)