ZEUS: sweet hells does my head ache
ATHENA [bursts out of his skull in full armor]: surprise, fucko
ZEUS: what the hell
ATHENA: i didn’t feel like being born regular so here i am
parent me
ZEUS: what the HELL
ATHENA: you got something on your forehead champ
ZEUS: I–
ATHENA: SOME AFTERBIRTH
get it
CLIO: wow Arachne you’re like REALLY good at weaving
ARACHNE: ahaha thank you!!
CLIO: no I’m serious
you’re amazing
ARACHNE: haha
I guess you could say I weave like Athena herself
ATHENA [appearing suddenly in the fireplace]: the fuck did you just say
ATHENA: lets have a little contest
humans versus gods
whoever weaves the best tapestry wins
and just to make sure everything is fair
i’ll be the judge
ARACHNE: that doesn’t seem –
ATHENA: i’m literally the god of fairness
i’ll definitely be fair
contest starts now
ATHENA: wow thats like, REALLY good
ARACHNE: …thank you
ATHENA: except for what’s with that weird dark spot in the middle?
ARACHNE: what weird dark spot?
ATHENA [stubs out cigarette in the middle of Arachne’s tapestry]: that one
ARACHNE: all right
i’m done
what’s your verdict
ATHENA: i mean
it’s good
i mean, it’s fine
i just don’t really get why you felt like you had to turn yourself into a spider for it?
ARACHNE: what?
ATHENA [turns her into a spider]: do you see what i mean
it was a weird choice
ZEUS: Man, I’ve got a splitting headache.
ATHENA: *bursts forth on a righteous skateboard*
ATHENA: SURPRISE, BITCH *skateboards away*
ETA: i definitely posted this before i saw the little blurb on the front page i swear it
ZEUS: I don’t think you could turn into a fly.
METIS: I could totally be a fly I’M A FLY NOW. Lookit me buzz, fool!
ZEUS: *swallows Metis* Who’s gonna bear super-powered kids NOW, bitch?
METIS: *blacksmithing up some armor* *blasting heavy metal* I’M ALREADY PREGNANT, SUCKER.
NO you are not crazy, I saw this comment and I was like, ‘I’m so confused because I DEFINITELY wrote about her being born from Zeus’ skulll???’ And then I went and checked the post and it’s something wonky and redesign related because the first paragraph was in the backend but wasn’t showing up on the main page, so I refreshed it and then it appeared.
OKAY GOOD. I was worried that I somehow missed something, and also there was no way you would have left out literally the most metal thing in Greek mythology.
The Greek Gods were all a bunch of jerks.
Athena-I got you a gift
Herse-A box?
Athena-Yup, awesome gift. Just don’t open it
Herse- Ohhhkay. *opens it* Ahh! Snake baby! BRB, throwing myself off the Acropolis
Athena- I told you not to open it. Geez. Now I have to get Affleck’s old nanny.
I’m literally the god of fairness
sure
sure thing
ATHENA: hey
ATHENA: hey odysseus
ATHENA: check this out
AJAX: [incoherent noises as he kills a bunch of pigs he thinks are agamemnon and odysseus]
ATHENA: pretty funny right
ODYSSEUS: jesus that’s fucked up
ATHENA: it’s funny because he thinks the pigs are you
ATHENA: whatta dummy
ODYSSEUS: you gods are all awful. you could do this to any of us at any time
ATHENA [stubbing out cigarette]: i remember how you used to be fun, O
ATHENA: when did you get so stuck up
ATHENA: know what O
ODYSSEUS: What?
ATHENA: i think you’re gonna have a hard time getting home
ATHENA: jus’ saying, you might have a few issues
ODYSSEUS: That sounds ominous.
ATHENA: no it’ll be cool we’ll party
ATHENA: you cool with suitors?
Since the Mountain Goats were a Toast thing today, a bit J Darnielle once did before “Against Agamemnon”:
“It’s about a guy named Ajax. Ajax was a warrior, that’s shorthand in Greek drama for he’s not very smart. But he’s a very strong fellow and a very good warrior, he’s very jealous of Agamemnon, who sort of represents a new class of warrior who’s both strong and smart. Imagine, right. Yeah, I know, I’m a geek too, I ain’t down with that either, you gotta choose sides, right. So that’s why everybody hates Agamemnon. But he gets his, don’t worry about that, it’s another story. So Ajax gets confounded by Aphrodite, I forget why she’s mad at him but she’s good and mad and so she causes him to confuse a bunch of sheep with his enemies, especially with Agamemnon. So he takes a sheep into his tent and tortures it, because that’s just how he is. What’s kind of funny about it is like, you’re supposed to think, ‘Oh, yeah, I can see how he would want to take this dude into his tent and torture him,’ but the joke is on him because he’s actually in this trance, and when he comes out of it, he realizes that he’s been running around boasting about how ‘I got Agamemnon in my tent and I beat the shit out of him and he can’t do jack, and it’s pathetic, and he’s just one of those pathetic smart dudes, but now I owned him, right, totally, I got Agamemnon so who’s smart, Ajax is smart, that’s who’, and – ‘whatever, Ajax, because that is a sheep'”
Where is that baller Athena portrait from?
http://www.klimt.com/en/gallery/early-works/klimt…
Klimt is always awesome
oh DANG I should have known! I need a print of this asap.
It’s actually just a glamour shot of Mallory.
Empire magazine did a photoshoot of Sigourney Weaver as Klimt portraits. Clearly there should be a similar one with Mallory.
odds that mallory would bring her own gladiator sandals to the shoot: 150% out of 100
It is Pallas Athene painted by Gustav Klimt.
Moral of the story: Crafting can be dangerous if you don’t want to be transmogrified.
JK, moral of all Greek myth: Keep your head down and hope the gods don’t notice you. Pro tips for not being noticed: don’t do anything, don’t be hot, preferably don’t move if possible.
Also wow does this new Toast run smoothly. I was so used to getting notices every ten minutes to the effect of “JAVA HAS SHIT THE BED AGAIN. NO MORE HUMOR FOR YOU TODAY.”
…I realize that was possibly a problem on my end, but regardless it doesn’t seem to be happening now so yay!
I was getting a lot of “a script on this webpage is not responding” prompts. Part of the problem may have been having 5 toast tabs open at a time, on my slow office computer. But it’s been running smoothly for me too.
really, a more honest, practical, and healthy theology than ‘God hurts you because He loves you’
“Moral of the story: Crafting can be dangerous if you don’t want to be transmogrified. ”
Ok, so if I was going to quote something along the crown of my ceiling in my dining room, that would be it.
I’m currently making a sampler with this saying.
Only, you know, really crappy-like so I don’t get transmogrified.
I was *just* talking about how dirtbagy (ditbagish?) Athena is at the end of The Furies where she’s all like, “Pffft mom’s are lame, I never had a mom, time for my impartial vote, oh look, Orestes is innocent, cause moms are the worst!”
I was actually on a history/ghost tour where the Oresteia was talked about (I live in a heavily Greek-influenced neighborhood), and the tour guide suggested that Clytemnestra “hired” the Furies…which, I guess, sort of? But also made it seem like Orestes was the good guy in all of this. Sure, killing Cassandra wasn’t great, but Agamemnon was an ASSHOLE who killed their DAUGHTER and Clytemnestra was totally in the right.
Furies for Hire? Is that a thing? My god, that’s terrifying.
But also, I wrote something once years ago about how this was actually the tail end of a multigenerational familicide clusterfuck and Apollo’s vote, at least, could thus be interpreted as “holy shit stahp.” Not speaking for Athena “Voice of The Man for this play” lady.
I had and English teacher who literally said in class “Isn’t Agamemnon the biggest A-hole ever? Clytemnestra is worth 10 of him on her worst day! Can you imagine how infuriating it must have been to be married to that jerk?”
He also explained all the Shakespearean dicke jokes. He was da bomb.
I was *just* talking about how dirtbagy (ditrbagish) Athena is at the end of the Furies where she’s all like: “Pfft mom’s are the worst, I never had a mom. Oh it’s time for my impartial tie-breaking vote? Orestes is innocent, cause mom’s are lame! P.S. shut up furies, stop being such whiners!”
Literally gasped out loud when I saw this post. It is everything I have ever wanted.
A PhD student I knew once described his dissertation as “like Athena: Headache-inducing and ready to do battle.”
Athena is so great at being the worst.
ATHENA: Orestes, bro, sick murder.
FURIES: Um, no? Can we, like, get him back for tormenting purposes? Because of the murder?
ATHENA: …Fine. But we gotta have a trial, a trial where should there be a tie, I’ll be the deciding vote. Just in case, should we need that.
*trial*
JURY: *is tied*
ATHENA: Women, amirite? Orestes, you’re cool.
ORESTES: Thanks dude. *skateboards off, to continue murdering, avoiding vengeful spirits,etc…)
I like the funny face on her armor. She’s the god of fairness, but she has a goofy side too! Like when she turned Arachnae into a spider? Remember that? That was hilarious.
But seriously, you come at the Athena, you best not miss.
The funny face on her armor. The funny face of Medusa. Medusa, the lady Athena turned into a gorgon. Turned into a gorgon because she was (depending on the story) either raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple or just had sex with him there. The Medusa that Athena totally helped Perseus kill. That Medusa.
GODS, Athena, you’re such a dick.
WHOOP I must be Jon Snow, because I know nothing! Thanks for the update.
Jesus, Athena. Have you tried NOT being a dick?
Please please please add more!
Her interactions with Medusa.
Her contest with Pallas.
Her conversation with Odysseus regarding Ajax.
Her battle (via Diomedes) with Ares in the Trojan War.
The contest of the golden apple with Hera and Aphrodite.
So MUCH MATERIAL!
Let us also remember the time she ACCIDENTALLY BEAT HER PLAYMATE TO DEATH and stole her name for all eternity. Remembrance my ass, Pallas-yes-that-Pallas-the-one-I-casually-manslaughtered-so-are-you-feeling-lucky-punk?-Athena meant that for a BOAST.
Didn’t Athena turn Medusa into a gorgon because Medusa was raped in her temple? I feel like Athena was a victim blamer in at least one myth.
“Surprise, fucko!” made me happier than those words have any right to.
I really did laugh out loud at my desk (thankfully coworker was not yet in the office) at those first lines.
honestly the post could have ended there and I would have been okay with it.
Athena, the original “yeah I don’t really have women friends, they always have so much drama” while starting oceans of shit with her casual cruelty Cool Girl.
“I mean, I like ambrosia and “The Big Lebowskios”, what would we even talk about?”
“And I’ve travelled internationally. My bro Odysseus totally gets that.”
Ahahahah I’ve always thought of That Girl as the “Other girls just don’t like me for some reason!” Girl and Athena is totally her.
[ATHENA invents a cool new DOUBLE FLUTE, but playing it makes her cheeks bulge out, DIZZY GILLESPIE-STYLE.]
ATHENA: Forget this. I’ma put a fatal curse on this flute, and then I’ll just leave it lying in the woods where any unsuspecting schmo can pick it up.
[MARSYAS, a satyr, is cruising the woods for REASONS OF HIS OWN.]
MARSYAS: Oh hey, free flute!
Mallory, if you write up your versions of all the Greek myths, I promise to read them to my future children instead of D’aulaires.
Is that a bas-relief of Jerry Lewis on her breastplate?
ATHENA: hey I heard you do swords and shit, let’s talk
HEPHAESTUS: @_@ aw yiss baybah baybah come git some uuunh uuunh
ATHENA: HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK, DID YOU JUST JIZZ ON ME LITTLE FREAK MAN
HEPHAESTUS: OH GOD I’M SORRY PLEASE DON’T KILL ME
ATHENA: WHAT EVEN IN THE HELL, I WALK IN THE DOOR AND YOU JIZZ ON ME
HEPHAESTUS: I THOUGHT YOU WERE A ROBOT
ATHENA: …
HEPHAESTUS: …with the helmet and armor? i just… sorry, please don’t kill me, i build robots, they look a lot like that. so very very sorry please oh please don’t kill me
ATHENA: ewww gross, your jizz where i wiped it on the ground has turned into a babby
HEPHAESTUS: oh weird, that’s never happened before
ATHENA: damn, i cannot leave this little jizz babby here to be raised by a pervert. get me a box or something, robot fucker. that is a thing people do, keep the babby in a box, right?
HEPHAESTUS: that’s what my mom did
—
ATHENIAN SCHOLAR: -and that, children, is how Erichthonius, king of our great city, was born
CHILDREN: O_o WAT
honestly the post could have ended there and I would have been okay with it.
ODYSSEUS: so, you’re like, my patroness, right?
ATHENA: Oh totes! You’re, like, my number one homeslice!
ODYSSEUS: Okay, but…I’ve been trying to get home to Ithaca, which is LITERALLY within rowing distance of Troy, but I’ve been trying to do it for…twenty years now?
ATHENA: Oh yeah, sorry about that, I like…had to take a call
ODYSSEUS: For twenty years
ATHENA: It was a SUPER important call tho
ODYSSEUS: Apollo cursed me and Poseidon tried to drown me, I was hoping maybe you could’ve done some stuff there
ATHENA: *steeples fingers* mmhmm, mmhmm, good notes, takin’ those in
ODYSSEUS: And now I’ve been a sea witch’s sex prisoner for nearly a decade. I mean, I think it’s a decade, I literally CANNOT EVEN TELL because Calypso mostly keeps me in the cave. The sex cave.
ATHENA: I thought guys liked that shit
ODYSSEUS: Okay but I have limits, though
ATHENA: Oh totally. Blaze your own path, dawg, that’s why you’re my lil broseph
MY IRL NAME IS ATHENA AND I HAVE BEEN CACKLING WITH GLEE AT ALL OF THIS BUT WANT MORE SO MUCH MORE PLEASE MAKE MORE
MY IRL NAME IS ATHENA AND I HAVE BEEN CACKLING WITH GLEE AT ALL OF THIS BUT WANT MORE SO MUCH MORE PLEASE MAKE MORE
I love this post. People seriously underestimate how much of an asshole Athena is, they keep being fooled by all the technically being a god of justice and whatnot, and being the patron of Athens. Plus she had that thing with Odysseus and he’s a big favorite.
But yeah, Greek gods. They’re all terrible, even the ones who seem fluffy and nice at first glance.
I love this post. People seriously underestimate how much of an asshole Athena is, they keep being fooled by all the technically being a god of justice and whatnot, and being the patron of Athens. Plus she had that thing with Odysseus and he's a big favorite.
But yeah, Greek gods. They're all terrible, even the ones who seem fluffy and nice at first glance.
Mallory, can your next book be about mythological dirtbags, please and thank you, I will throw money at this book. So much money.
Somewhere Percy and Annabeth are nodding, all, “WE TOLD YOU THEY WERE DIRTBAGS.”
Somewhere Percy and Annabeth are nodding, all, "WE TOLD YOU THEY WERE DIRTBAGS."