#asterius is such a catch obviously everyone wants him

[natandacat]

theseus is so funny. he worked himself up over nothing, almost got broken with bc he was acting like an asshole over it, had a huge dramatic breakdown, and now he’s acting as if nothing happened.

#i think its clear thats hes really insecure and in his head hes like #asterius is such a catch obviously everyone wants him #and like yeah. asterius is great. but he fully made up a guy and got mad about it lmaooo #hades #love how everyone is like asterius.. you could do better.... plz.. #patroclus' 'there is no accounting for taste' KILLED me #maybe theseus was right to get jealous svvdsvds #cant believe i like him now #i like when people are pathetic sorry

[microsuedemouse]

as someone who never played Hades and won’t play this new game either (because they’re extremely not my type of game - I don’t have anything against them in concept), I have only this complaint: AGAIN they have taken a figure from the mythology who doesn’t normally get a lot of attention but who does exist in one of my WIP projects, and created an interpretation of that figure popular enough that it will inevitably colour the pre-existing notions any hypothetical future reader of mine will be bringing into the story.

…or at least, that’s what I worry will happen. very likely my thoughts on this are skewed by which corners of the internet I inhabit. I’m sure lots of people out there pay no attention to these games and still won’t really know shit about Asterion or Melinoë if and when my stories ever actually see the light of day… but it’s hard not to stress when you spend years of your life working on a project and you have to watch the relevant elements in pop culture shift while your idea is still technically in its infancy. when I conceived of these characters’ roles in my stories, they were known in pop culture in one way; when that cultural perception shifts, how does that affect my storytelling?

Asterion (known as Asterius in Hades) has existed in one of my projects since like 2013, and in that timeline he was very much a victim of Theseus’ so-called heroics. it was only thanks to the love of his mother Pasiphaë and his sister Ariadne that he was able to survive. and there’s always been some love for the Minotaur (or minotaurs, as a race) in pop culture mythology and fantasy, but he entered popular consciousness as A Character in a new way thanks to Hades - and in particular a lot of folks were inspired to ship him with Theseus. which, obviously, is not a bad thing. I loved seeing how much fun everyone was having with it. but in the back of my brain wiggled this anxiety that my Asterion would no longer be able to exist the way he currently does if suddenly I were to put my stories out into the world, because he doesn’t jibe with one of the most popular contemporary interpretations of the original figure.

and Melinoë… it remains to be seen, I guess. but in a more recent project of mine - literally just from the last two years or so - she’s important to the story. she’s not technically in the story, herself, but she’s very central to it. and part of why that works, at least in said story’s current stages, is because she’s such an obscure figure. even the characters steeped in the world of the arcane and the occult don’t think of her as a possible relevant figure to what’s happening around them until they have a lot of clues, because sure, like many mythological figures, she exists in some capacity, but she’s not well-known. if there were some kind of arcane lightning problem happening, yeah, these characters would be brushing up on their Zeus and Thor knowledge, if only to cover their bases - but nightmares and ghosts don’t instantly lead them to say ‘maybe Melinoë is involved.’ and it’s hard not to worry that if she enters the popular consciousness more in the real world, her obscurity in this story may become slightly less believable to readers.

I don’t know. I’m not looking for solutions, really, nor am I shitting on Hades, which I know loads of people love. I’m glad everyone’s excited for a sequel! I guess it’s just got me thinking about that particular type of Writing Anxiety. I have so many stories in me that have been in gestational form for years, and likely will be for a long time to come. so it’s hard not to worry anytime something in pop culture potentially poses a threat to how those stories will be received or understood. it’s like when a new book/movie/etc comes out that feels like it might be too close to something you’ve wanted to make for ages: what then? what do you do with this thing that lives inside you, now that it’s incompatible or redundant with the media landscape that will not wait for you to catch up?

being a storyteller is hard for a lot of reasons. I want my stories to resonate with others the way they resonate with me, but you can’t control what else is out there to affect how your work is seen. I guess you just gotta keep writing and hope you’ll hit the right note.

#personal #writing