Yo.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy perfecting my art style, starting "A Christmas Carol, or a Ghost-Story of Christmas" (I <3 Christmas Carol!), settling in with the school year, and renewing all my Internet-gaming accounts (Go Poptropica and ROBLOX!).

B.t.w. Hi George (O'Connor). Still waiting. But don't worry. You can upload those profiles anytime (quick pause while I purchase a plane ticket to NY to stalk you muttering "pro...fi...les" until you upload them).

P.S. Have you noticed how early Christmas advertisements were this year? The local PCB Wal-Mart was already stocking up on Christmas decor when I went mid-October to prep for my aunt's annual Halloween party.

Empousa

So just yesterday I got bored and did this.

By the way, I'm (im)patiently waiting for George O'Connor's new book "Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory", and his new profiles.

P.S. Legendary is 1/3 done. I know. Slow. For those of you who know me, do NOT critisize. If you personally know me, you also know that when I get the chance I can fall into a mentally-unconscious rut for days on end.

Myth Talk! JP's picks, part 1

In case you didn't know, those three things up in the title are in different myths than each other, though all are cross-linked in one way: they all have to do with water-fare.

Recently JP (for more on him you can read the first episode of George O'Connor's segment Fan Art Forum) sent me word about his three favorite myths (among other things having to do with my book LEGENDARY) which happened to be: (in order of mythological timelining) The Second Labour of Herakles, The Adventure of Iason and Talos, and the Odyssey (JP's picture of Odysseus is on the earlier-mentioned episode on George O'Connor's blog).

So to start off this three-in-one segment, I'm going to tell you about the interview I had with the Hydra...

Me: So Mr... Hydra? is it?

Hydra: Rooaarr.

Me: Oh you're a missus... honest mistake... no! Bad Hydra! No eating the camera-man.

Hydra. Roah-Rooaar? Roaarr!

Me: Okay... so... who were you're parents? Typhon and Ekhidna? And who exactly were they? Oh, okay... so lemme get this straight, your daddy, Typhon, he was 600 km high, breathed lava, had 100 heads, some of which were animal-like, had wings, had six monstrously gigantic snakes for legs and snake heads for fingers, and was able to lift Mt. Aitna in Sicilia without breaking a sweat. Eh, I've seen worse. And then you're mother, Ekhidna, was a beautiful nymph with a snake-tail instead of legs. [the correct name for that is "drakaina" (pronounced dray-keh-na)] Oh really, so you have the ability to grow two heads for every one head that is injured or destroyed. Fascinating.

Hydra: Roah-Roah-Roar? ROOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAR!

Me: No, you cannot eat me. Oh no! Not again! (dives behind chair as Hydra breathes acidic gasses)

Now, back to the story. You know Herakles? That ultra-strong guy with a thing for lionskins? Yeah, remember how he was driven insane by his stepmother Hera so that he killed his wife and kids and that when he came to he went to the Oracle of Delphi, correctly reffered to as the Pythia, and asked what he needed to do to gain back the gods' favor but thew Pythia didn't answer so Herakles tried to force her but Apollon appeared and told him what to do in person and Herakles had to go to his evil cousin King Eurystheus of Tiryns to apply for a 10-year job to reconcile but Eurystheus had other plans and made him do 10 (give-or-take a couple) labours, the second of which was to kill the Hydra. Oh, you didn't remember that... Well now you do!

So Herakles gets his nephew Iolaus, and they ride down to Lerna, the swamp-home of the Hydra. Herakles had Iolaus tie a thin sheet of tissue around his nose (the first gas-mask!) in order that Iolaus doesn't die if the aforementioned poison-breath of the Hydra is breathed in. Herakles is strong enough to handle it, though. As Iolaus sets up a campfire, Herakles begins shooting arrows into the swamp to coax out our scaly friend. As the Hydra rises from the swamp, the battle begins. The fighting is hard to do, because of the whole two-heads-grow-back rule, until Iolaus gets an idea. Fetching a torch, he follows Heracles carefully, and every time Herakles bashes a head, Iolaus (get ready for this!) sets the neck aflame so that the growing Hydra heads are charred and killed. This is repeated until an angry Hera sends the Hydra's sidekick into action. Who's the Hydra's sidekick? Oh just you're typical, run-o'-the-mill, 4 FOOT, MAN-EATING CRAB!!! The crab scuttles up to Herakles and in a (one-millesecond-long) bloodthirsty battle to the death!: Herakles steps on the crab and kills it. Yep. Just that easy. He just jumps onto the crab and squishes it like a cockroach. It must be fun being a demigod.

So this whole bash-n-char method keeps going until finally there's only one head left. The middle one. No big deal, right? Wrong. Because the middle head just happens to be IMMORTAL AND INVINCIBLE!! So in another (millesecond-long) bloody battle to the death: Herakles topples a mountain onto the Hydra and burys it, head and all, alive. To this day though, you can apparently still see venomous vapor pour out from under the rock. Herakles dipped his arrows in the Hydra's blood, which just-so-happened to be incredibly poisonous. He went back with Iolaus, and later joined the Argonauts, a band of heroes led by the hero Iason to find the Golden Fleece.

Now Iason had to get the Golden Fleece, but you'll never guess why... No not for his mother's freedom, like Perseus... no, not as punishment, like with Herakles... Give up? Okay: he did it for the heck of it. I know, I know, modern versions say he got for his uncle Pelias because Pelias said he'd make him king of Iolkos if he did, but no... ancient sources do agree that he got it for Pelias, but they mention absolutely NOTHING about Pelias promising to make him king. In fact, all sources agree the real reasons behind Pelias sending him there was because he hoped Iason would die on the way. But ancient sources don't say anything about Pelias coaxing him into it with a false promise. No, sirree. Iason did it for pretty much the heck of it. And no offense but I like that! Most heroes in mythology have a reason to go off and save damsels and slay dragons, like they have to for their parents or they have to as punishment... but not Iason. He became a hero FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. I like that.

But back to the whole Talos-story: Talos, just so you know, was a ginormous bronze statue created by the god Hephaistos to guard the island of Krete. Talos stood up on a large rock near Krete, looking out to the horixon like a giant security guard. What was so special about Talos. Oh, just that he was an automaton. As in, he was a bronze statue THAT WAS ALIVE. Now when I say alive bronze statue I don't mean those cheap looking robots you see in movies and one TV that only look similar to a person. Now, I mean a real, living, humanoid, 1000 foot person made of bronze. As in he looked exactly like a normal, everyday, 1000-ft-tall human would, but he was shiny. Oh yes, and did I mention he was psychopathic?

My desktop

My desktop, feauturing art by George O'Connor.

I don't care what you think! I am NOT obsessed! Now shut it while I wait for him to upload more art!

P.S. I'm still waiting for you guys to comment and suggest urban legends and Greek myths for MYTH TALK.     >:-D   (eMoticons! gotta <3 'm)

Miley Cyrus/I'm Waiting, George

While usually I wouldn't talk about this, I have to say: Miley Cyrus might be growing up a little too fast.

How many of you seen the new music video for her song Can't Be Tamed? In it, she frequently is strutting in a museum, the escaped new attraction of it. She dances through with her (very big and, well, developed) back-up birds. Throughout she wears only two outfits: A black leotard with feathers and knee-high boots, and a very low-cut one piece covered in silver scales and peacock feathers.
No offense, but did Britney Spears and Lady Gaga have a baby somehow?


In the meantime, I'm waiting for you, George O'Connor. I get all my hero-profile information from you. If you don't post any more hero-profiles on your site, I can't have them in my book (No, I'm not stealing them... okay, yeah I am... kinda...not really... I mean...) Plus, are you going to upload my pic of Psykhe, George. Was it hackers? A virus? WWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

P.S. Yesterday, my dog Jack sat in the backyard staring at an empty wooden post for three hours straight. No relation to anything her, but I just wanted to say it.

Review: Olympians: Athena - Grey-Eyed Goddess

I decided to do a review of Athena by George OConnor.

First of all, the beginning:

At the beginning of the book is a basic summary of what happened in the previous book, Zeus - King of the Gods, in which the Titan-son of Earth and Sky, Kronos, swallowed all his children but one, who rose against him, made him vomit the children up, and then locked him and the other evil Titans in Tartaros. These children rose up as the 1st of the Olympians, the 12 major gods. Here in Athena, the Moirai (Moirai), goddesses of fate, tell the story of Zeus, king of the Olympians, who tricks his wife Metis into a game of shapeshifting after a terrible prophecy from Earth. Personally, I loved this part. Why I love watching a girl turn herself into various flying creatures including a dragon-like snake and then getting swallowed whole by her shapeshifting husband, I know not.

Of course, as I just revealed, Zeus swallows her. Unknown to him, though, she is already pregnant. She gives birth to a daughter, and uses her last powers to forge the girl armour. Then, in a headache and a hammer-swing, Zeus' head opens and his daughter by Metis, Athena/Athene bursts out. The next parts of the book are basically just of how Athena recieved and revised her Aegis. Athena, goddess of wisdom, battle, and art, is not fitting in on Olympos, and goes to Camp Triton in Libya, a camp for girls (tomboys to be exact) founded by the merman Triton. Athena is friends with Pallas, Triton's daughter, who seems affixiated by Zeus, or to be exact, his power. His symbol of power: his cloak, the Aegis. During a disarmment contest between Pallas and Athena, Zeus uses this as an advantage to distract Pallas and allow Athena to win. Pallas, distracted too much, drops defenses and is stabbed by Athena, who does not realize her friend's distraction and was trying to disarm her. Pallas dies with the final words, "Did Zeus see how I fought..." Zeus, ashamed, gives the grieving Athena his Aegis and gives her a throne on Olympos.

This is, in my imagination, a brilliant translation of the many Pallas and Athena stories, all in which Athena kills Pallas accidentally because of Zeus, and all of which are very, very nondescriptive. In fact, I hope George doesn't mind if I "borrow" it...

The next story in the Aegis selection is that of Athena and the Gigant Pallas (for those of you who don't know, a Gigant is a giant rock/mountain-monster with tremendous size and strength sometimes also depicted with snakes for legs). In my version of the story, Pallas attacked with Typhon (no, I'm not explaining who Typhon is, get over it and read a book for once you no-good, lousy sloths), but here, George shows him as attacking with the other Gigantes in the Gigantomakhy (Gigantes vs. Olympians battle, which I know is impossible because Herakles had to help out in it but this part of the Aegis was completed before Herakles' grandad was even born, hence my theory of Typhon and Pallas). Anyway, here the Gigantomakhy starts as the Gigantes, in one full page comic, begin building a mountain-ladder to Olympos so they can confront the Olympians. The Olympians fight back, but are held back by two facts: the Gigantes can't die if they touch Gaia (Mother Earth)'s sacred ground, and the leader (Alceoneus in the original myth, pallas in this version) is huger than the others. Athena confronts Pallas, kills him, and skins his fur for her Aegis. I loved this part, even though in my opinion this is the one that changed the myth the most.

The next Aegis story (of course) is the myth of Perseus, the hero who slew the goddess Medusa and gave her head to Athena. Again, read a book. I'm not going through the entire Perseus story. Athena makes Medusa's head part of the Aegis (in this version, only the snakes. In the original myth, she used the face too). And yes, that picture above is about Pegasos. Any of you who read know he came from Medusa after she died.

The last tale (not about the Aegis) is of Arachne/Arakhne. Arachne is a skilled weaver who boasts to be better than even Athena at weaving. A weave-off is held between the goddess and the girl, Athena weaving a tapestry of her father Zeus defeating his father Kronos. But Arachne, who ends up winning, has woven a bold statement: weaving all the scenes in which Zeus and Athena had seemed dumb, ruthless, or ignoramical. What happens now is perhaps my least favorite ending to the Arachne story. Out of simple jealosy and anger, Athena turned Arachne into a spider. This, as said before, is my least favourite ending to this story. In mine version's ending, arachne, struck guilty by Athene, kills herself, and Athene pitiously turns her into a spider then.

Over all, Athena was very good. Loved it. On a scale of 1-5, 4.

Pictures by George O'Connor. Don't steal and say they are you're own. Cuz' he'll sue you.

What's Black, White, and Red that I am absolutely ecstatic about?

This sample from my finished comic of Perseus (one of fifteen I'll be using in my book)

OMGosh! 50% Off Sale at the Toga Store! Get out of my way! No, I don't care that your the King of Larissa! Let me into that Store!
PS. For those of you who don't know (which would be everyone who hasn't hacked into my computer) the name of the series my book will (hopefully after publisher-approval) be part of is... wait for it... The CLASSICAL CLUB!
PSS. Just got ATHENA: GREY_EYED GODDESS today. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sad News

I have good and bad news.
Bad news: Big Book of Greko-Roman Gods isn't being published.

Good news: Though last Wednesday BORDERS denied having a copy of Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess. But I ordered one, and tomorrow it's ATHENA!

ATHENA!!!

Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess by George O'Connor came out today! Whoo! Yess! Uh-huh! Oh yeah! Uh huh! I love the Olympians serie (at least what has been so far released)! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!