D.L/ David Luong

“All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.” -Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone and wishing you a year of Cung Hỷ Phát Tài! May your year be as bright and filled with fortune as the red envelopes and the red lanterns in the sky. 🏮

Admittedly, I had been wanting them to drawing in traditional Vietnamese clothing and drawing the mythological figures through our cultural lens for a long time. For Ares, I have always seen him as someone similar to Bodhisattva Skanda and Vajirapana- a god of victory and war, a commander and a huge protector of everyone he loves as well. His áo dài were inspired from the áo tấc- an antiquated form of áo dài that were once worn by important dignitaries/court officials during the Nguyễn dynasty of Huế. With a kimono-like outer cloak and a scarf, it do look very similar to historical áo giao lĩnh that were once worn in the central-southern part of Vietnam. The swords (gươm kiếm), the guandao (mã tấu/trường đao) that he hold were all based on the original Vietnamese ones, as well as the additional diamond mace, too.

For Aphrodite’s multilayered áo dài, I want to combine the traditional graceful look of the Eastern Mediterranean-Middle East region with SE Asia-As both cultures similarly ultra-maximalist in patterns & decorations, all of the flowing robes and maximalist jewelry and such. Her outer layer of the áo dài were much more inspired from vintage “Cách Tân/Le Mur” look of the 1930s, with all puffy sleeves and ruffled lace, sewn in with the patterns of jasmine & sala flowers-that made of pearl. Her hair were all tied back into a “lotus bud” bun hairstyle, decorated with a diamond & pearl headpiece, flowers and elaborate hairpins - partly inspired from the late Byzantine , as well as depiction of ancient Vietnamese women during the Lý-Trần dynasty. (11th-15th century)

"Aphrodite inspires love in both men and gods, but her heart always returns to Apollo and Ares."

Why Apollo?

Ai generated image on the cover

There's good chance the synopsis was done with ai too

Things got so bad that it's impressive to see a book acknowledge that Aphrodite has 2 origins

Sounds fine

This book feels more as a analysis of her myths

"Forced to do the biding of Hera and Hephaestus"

I have a bad feeling about this

"At first, she thought him busy with the onset of the Trojan War, but then came his announcement. The horrid declaration to take Demeter's inept daughter for his daughter."

That's not the first, or the second, or even the third book where Ares basically abandons Aphrodite to find "someone better" 😑

Also quite interesting that instead of the Charities as friends we have Polemos as her loyal friend

"A mortal she had been blessing with immortality, or attempting to before Hephaestus found him. Hera intervened in a way, saying that what she did had been merciful in comparison. But Aphrodite felt it cruel, she was all the boy had, and now she too had been taken from him just as he was robbed from her."

Wtf...

"And step into the sacred night where she meets Anchises, a mortal who sees her not as a deity, but as a woman of flesh, fire, and mystery."

I would say that Anchises already believed she was a deity within the first 5 minutes

"Gaia, mother of all, watched with a sorrowful smile.

At last, she thought. A counterbalance to the violence of sons."

Aphrodite won't help with your expectations, Gaia

"There will be many who mistake your presence for promise, your glance for consent, your smile for surrender. They will build stories around you, claiming you were made to be theirs."

This isn't even the third chapter

Also Aphrodite has myths where she refuses someone and she wasn't sleeping around as much as you're trying to imply

"Whether it's for her business, her outfit, or her non-existent dating life, she likes things just so."

Oh no... 🤦‍♂️

"『So?』 Ares leaned back in his seat. 『We're exes.』

『That's not the same. It was several thousand years ago and you know I was just rebelling over the whole mismatched marriage thing.』"

Ares and Aphrodite broke up, and he's trying to get back with Bellona

"I didn't cause Troy."

"Paris wanted Helen's love. And she was at least a little infatuated by him. How was I know it would lead to war?"

So here Aphrodite is trying to claim she had little to do with the war. Because getting a married woman to leave her hometown with a guy she met that same afternoon wouldn't be a scandal in her pov 🤨

Except in Homer's case, playing it safe would've been the best sort of action, luv.

Drawing my own Aphrodite and Ares, along with @coloricioso ‘s Hades and Persephone dressing up as the personifications in the painting that I have been reblogged earlier - “The Four Seasons” by modern Greek artist Yannis Tsarouchis.

(Edit: I’m sorry if I draw fanart of your gods a lot, constantly! But I want you to know that oppositely, the palce’s doors are always opened and they are always welcomed to our place, by my Aphrodite and Ares.)

For me, Aphrodite and Ares represent spring and summer because as the goddess of love, beauty, and procreation, I am feeling like that she is literally an embodiment of life’s renewal and growth of spring in some ways. From her, love and desire were born and personified; and that her powers ran through both the natural and supernatural world.

I put Ares as the personification of summer because not only that he is often associated closely with his wife, I kind of wanted to tie him more with the Roman version of him, Mars, too. As similar to how the later Roman people viewed Mars, many Greeks alike across Sparta had already adopted Ares as “the model soldier archetype, filled with resilience, physical strength, and military intelligence.” The Greeks who lived across the regions of Thrace and Asia Minor - whom often being deemed as “foreign, barbaric and war-loving” to the Athenian persepctive, had been been associated the god due to his quick temper, aggressiveness and an unquenchable thirst for conflict.

From Siwa Oasis, Egypt, early 20th century

Egyptian silver fish fertility pendant, circa 1913