True alphas sleep with the nightlight on

“I’d been seeing a lot of people talk about like pantheon designs, and while I seen a large majority of people really loved my pantheon design, which I appreciate, I then also had a couple people like message me on like platforms and basically mention that a lot of my character designs read more… asian elements, and from different countries, and on the line of like orientalism, rather than greek. which I hadn’t realised, because I don’t—like, I hadn’t done so much research, I was going a lot more down the route of like, ‘inspired by’ the god rather than trying to be like historically accurate, because that’s not what my pov is going to be. it’s very much like, not trying to be a way to teach you greek mythology, like we’re not playing the gods for that reason.

“but a lot of people had brought up very valid points, which I have seen, and I am going to get my design altered. I’m going to change out the harem pants to be more of like a toga, and removing some of like, simplifying the cloud patterns because while I—and me and my artist that had worked on it together, referenced the… like when you search like ‘greek cloud pattern,’ but there’s a lot of then crossover, which, upon further research after being made aware, that it leads into a lot of like japanese-style cloud patterns. which I do see, ’cause like I’ve been to japan, I remember the patterns, I just hadn’t realised that it read more that than the original [intention]. so we’re tweaking it, we’re changing it… because it will still be cute. it will still be flirty. I will still be having fun with it. the character itself is not changed, like I’m not gonna get rid of the hair, I’m not gonna suddenly be shirtless, it will just be like a toga length rather than like the skin-tight kind of turtleneck thing.

“honestly part of it came down to like, we didn’t get to see everyone else’s announcement arts until it was public. like, I didn’t know what—and other than like a couple people who we’d shared them in pr—like to each other kinda thing. we didn’t get to see what other people’s arts were. so I hadn’t realised a lot of people were going down more of the like... what’s the word. trying to be like authentically greek in their designs.

“my resea—as you may all be aware, I have had quite a year so far. especially for the few months in the lead-up to pantheon smp. due to certain people. and situations. so, my research for pantheon was very limited; I picked aeolus as my god because I did a bunch of research and I liked the designs of them and the idea of being a lesser-known god because I felt like it allowed me a bit more flexibility in my portrayal. again, not of the god, but of a champion of this god. because even in some stories and things he’s not even considered a god. but either way I wanted to have something that was a bit more [wavy hand gestures] rather than people having set mindsets on it. so I was like ‘I’m gonna pick a god slightly lesser-known, that allows me more freedom.’ and when you search aeolus, a lot of the designs are based off of the design from epic the musical, which I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t watched—I still haven’t watched it. I’ve now listened to the aeolus song a bit more, but other than that, I haven’t seen it. so I also hadn’t realised that its design was not accurate, or a good indication of greek culture, and [was] appropriating asian cultures.

“so. all that to say, I am sorry for my original design, if it offended you; that was never my intention, obviously. it was just down to… lack of knowledge, my own ignorance. I appreciate people that sort of came to me with it, in a polite manner, and brought it to my attention, ’cause it wasn’t something I ever obviously would try and do.

“there’s still some fantasy elements that are going to remain. like I’m not going to change the design fully, like it’s just going to be kind of like a... greekified version, if that makes sense, like I’m just going to tweak the design. and also, episode one’s already filmed, so that skin exists. I can’t stop that. so... we’re going to do some tweaking, we’re going to... I said, I just thought everyone was going more down the like fantasy, ‘ah yes we’re kind of...’ like, god-inspired, and then I got there and it was like no, everyone else is just in a toga. and I’m like, ‘ah.’ so I drape clouds over my arms, like... [grimaces] y’know? sorry. my bad.