#zephyrs posts

Goddess of love, lust, beauty, passion, pleasure, passion, procreation, youth, gardens, childbirth, war, prostitutes, and sexuality. One of the twelve Olympians.

APPEARANCE

Aphrodite’s appearance changes depending on who is looking at her. To her own children, she will appear how their children imagine their idealized mother to look, and she will share features with them. To most others, she appears to them like the adult/idealized version of the people/features they are attracted to (this can take both male and female forms, linking her to Aphroditus). To those who don’t experience romantic attraction, she will appear with her face always covered, either by hair or a veil, and will bear more resemblance to her Olympian form.

PARENTING

Because of her different epithets, she can come off in many different ways. Aphrodite Ourania is more “motherly,” while Aphrodite Pandemos is more flirtatious and fun. Depending on when the person interacts with her, they may feel like they're two different people, when in reality Aphrodite just embodies so many facets over so much time. Aphrodite Ourania also tends to bless homosexual couples, and can even give them a child as a surrogate. 

Aphrodite takes many, many lovers, and thus she is regularly “cheating” on several different mortals at once. She has a ton of different children from all over the world, and it can be a little hard to explain to her children how their mother sees romance. 

Children of Aphroditus have been accepted into the cabin as well, even though they are a rarer occurrence. They usually have somewhat similar powers, and are respected on the same level (especially given how information about queer culture has expanded). 

CLAIMING

Aphrodite’s claiming used to be all over the place. For mortals she still harbored romantic feelings for, those claimings would be a lot quicker than those who had wronged her, or she grew bored of. However, now because of Percy Jackson’s Pact, she has to claim her children by the age of thirteen, and/or when they first step foot in Camp Empeiria’s territory. 

Aphrodite likes to claim when she knows her child will garner attention. Then, she transforms their outfit into their “dream outfit.” This can sometimes be a bit embarrassing, especially if the child is more shy, but the clothes will be more resilient to damage, and their old clothes will be teleported to their bed and folded. After the transformation, a pink clam shell hologram with a pearl inside will glow over their head, followed by the sound of a dove’s coo.

CABIN

The exterior of the cabin has pink walls with white trimming and a small porch. Rose bushes grow around the cabin under the windows. There is a small birdhouse for a family of doves that has long called the place home. Other flowers and bushes grow around the cabin and attract pollinators. 

Like all cabins, it’s made up of only two rooms: a main room/bedroom and a bathroom. The inside is decorated with pink, white, and blue furniture, with large, full-body mirrors both near the bunk beds, and in the bathroom. While it may look neat on the surface, a lot of the campers' belongings are crammed into chests, closets, shelves, and under the beds. 

In the bathroom, there are jars of seashells that decorate the shelves. There are also pieces of dead coral around the cabin as well, and some coral-shaped lamps and decorations. 

There are shelves of romantic literature from across time, in several different languages. Sappho’s Ode To Aphrodite is also there. The whole cabin is filled with nice smells. The main room smells of flowers and roses, and the bathroom smells of the sea and fresh water. Bottles of rosewater are in the cabin as well. 

As Aphrodite was represented by red, white, and gold, these colors can be regularly found in and around the cabin. Roses, myrtles, and anemones can be found growing around and inside the cabin.

There is a collection of enchanted stropnia (bras) that are made to fit the wearer perfectly and never hurt. They are passed down to the different campers over the years, and will have the name of the current bearer embroidered in gold.

CABIN CULTURE

While Aphrodite can be seen in a stereotypical light, her children, much like her, embody many different concepts and ideas. As Servius thought that love was connected to inspiration and invention, her children can be known for their skills in innovation. Similarly, they can also be incredibly skilled warriors. Any camper who comes to Camp Empeiria with preconceived notions of the goddess will easily have them disproved.

Because of the connection Aphrodite has to Ares, the two cabins regularly visit and band together. They also share fashion and combat skills, with the Aphrodite children more than willing to help them look their best before charging into battle. 

To not offend Aphrodite, whenever the Hunters Of Artemis come to visit, their cabin is teamed against Aphrodite, as the two goddesses have a long-standing feud. It is exceedingly rare when a child of Aphrodite joins the Hunters Of Artemis, as she can take offense to that. 

POTENTIAL POWERS

Love Manipulation

Charm-Speak

Communication With Doves

Sea-Foam Manipulation

Humanoid Shapeshifting

Seashell Manipulation

Weapon Manipulation

Aura-Vision

Goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, marriage, prosperity, victory, lust, motherhood, Rome, war, military, bureaucracy, freedom, politics, springtime, agricultural fertility, and vegetation. One of the twelve Dii Consentes.

APPEARANCE

Like her Greek counterpart, she will appear differently to anyone who looks at her. To her children, it’s their idealized mother. To others, it’s their idealized partner, and she can even take male forms through Venus Barbata. To those who don’t have romantic feelings, she appears with her face covered. However, she is usually showing more skin than her Greek counterpart, as she was usually depicted in the nude. 

In her earliest forms, she sometimes resembles a venus figure. This can be most commonly found in her epithet form Venus Caelestis, marking her nature as a descendant of the primordial sky.

PARENTING

As the mother of Rome, Venus tends to have the most divine descendents at any given time. She is very active as a partner, and will have many mortal lovers at once. She is also known to take demigod lovers frequently, resulting in many legacies. 

Because of her more motherly role, she has a much easier time communicating with her children in her Roman form. Thus, she is known to usually have better, more active roles in her children’s life than her Greek counterpart (though at times this changes, depending on what aspect she is in). 

She personally gives her children a rose-gold ring for every year they live in New Rome on their birthday, even if they just attend for the school-year. 

CLAIMING

She claims her child on their 16th birthday usually, though if they complete some act of heroism, she will claim them sooner. Her symbol is the Venus planetary symbol, or the symbol denoting the female sex. This is in the form of a tattoo, mark, or item that appears on her child’s body. To contact her, her children can sacrifice a dove and burn rose petals in her temple.

TEMPLE

The outside of the temple is made out of shining marble. It faces the sea from Temple Hill, and is flanked on either side by beautiful flower gardens. In those gardens, there are statues of her with baby Cupid (on the left) and with baby Aeneas (on the right). The doors are kept open to allow the sea breeze to come in. 

Inside, there is a nude statue of Venus at the center of the temple. Her eyes are made out of rubies, and underneath her, there is an altar and pyre for sacrifices. Her hair is imbued with gold, and her nails are made with turquoise. To her left and right, she is surrounded by other statues of gods that are associated with love. The sun shines upon Venus through a skylight, and flowers grow in pots around the temple. 

There are mosaics in the floor to mark out a single-file line, in which the patrons of the temple must enter through. Pink and purple banners are hung from the ceiling. 

Because Venus was also a patron goddess of fishers, many who fish off the coast of California come to the temple to give her a sacrifice from their catch. 

NEW ROME CULTURE

When one wants to pursue a romantic partner, they go to Venus’ temple to pray. Thus, many small, sealed notes surround her statue with confessions and prayers of love. Small objects are also put there, like stuffed animals, scented candles, bouquets, and gemstones. 

As Venus is seen as the mother of Rome, she is held in great reverence throughout the city. Thus, it is typically seen as bad luck to bad-mouth her. This can cause some problems for newer students at Jupiter Academy, as it’s mostly a student-held belief.

POTENTIAL POWERS

Love Manipulation

Gardening Prowess

Temperature Manipulation

Crush Detection

Solar Resistance

Light Manipulation

Luck Manipulation

Empowerment During April

I'm Zephyr, and this is a blog where I write about my Riordanverse rewrite, focused on the Greco-Roman pantheon. I will write my ideas about the different gods and goddesses in the series, meta-analysis, art, and when I can, maybe answer a request or two. If you want to know how a Greco-Roman god functions in the rewrite, you can send a request through the ask system (when it's open!)

REWRITE GUIDE

Camp Half-Blood -> Camp Empeiria