Things I enjoyed in the month of May, the Lore Olympus edition:
Let the insanity recommence!
.............................................
Shut up. Don't talk to me. It's too fucking beautiful and I'm in so much fucking pain.
My wife...
This is the most beautiful webcomic/comic/graphic novel in existence.Fight me.
....................
That was my initial review.A veritable spewing of emotion.But I can't really be blamed, I'd just finished the last updated episode and I was in a-go-ny.An intelligible evaluation of something I'd fallen moronically in love with was beyond me by that point.True love = squishy brain nonsense.It's simple maths.HOWEVER, days passed and my brain, though still palpitating pink and blue love hearts all over the place, had gained enough sense to know Rachel Smythe's Hadean creation deserved a little better treatment than my stuttered word vomit.No, it deserved my overuse of the thesaurus and a downpour of idolatry!My usual form of reviewing.So, here we go, prepare yourselves for a disgusting amount of fawning...................I LOVE IT SO MUCH I'M GONNA DIE....Now we have that out of the way...If I could demand you read one thing, in the entire world, it would be this.Sounds hyperbolic, probably is hyperbolic, but I genuinely think it deserves such hyperbole because my heart? This increasingly saccharine lump of muscle in my chest? I swear it's grown two sizes since reading LO.Maybe three.Maybe fifteen.It may have even changed colour, two-tone pink and blue, in allegiance to my precious cinnamon rolls.
If I cut myself, I'd probably bleed purple at this point, that's how far gone I am.How could I not be?LOOK AT THEM:
This shit's illegal.ILLEGAL....Everyone knows some form of the myth of Hades and Persephone:
The King of Underworld falls in love with the Goddess of Spring and steals her away, she eats Hades' proffered pomegranate and thus can't ever truly leave him; they sometimes fall in love, but her time is always split six months between the mortal realm and the underworld.
It's a classic Greek tale of kidnap and misogyny, but like the adaptable creatures we humans are, we like to rewrite it so it's sappy and not rapey at all.Honestly, I prefer it that way.To me, H+P have always gone along the lines of Asphodelon's take on them:
And there are hundreds of retellings of the myth (I just read a really cute one that's super similar to LO but dirty), and their trope is seen in many other stories that don't have H+P as the protagonists, in the same way Pride and Prejudice is basically the blueprint for most modern romances.It's not often, though, that you come across a retelling that somehow manages to be faithful to the original tale but entirely its own.Unless you're Lore Olympus, which is... honestly, I've got many words in my head but nowhere near enough to do justice to what Rachel Smythe has achieved.Not only is LO probably the most beautiful webcomic out there (again, hyperbolic, but come on, look at it), with its soft, painterly, yet graphic characters brushed with jewel tones that seem to blush whenever Persephone is near; it's the connection of that beauty with the story that make this a level above simply a cute story about two gods falling in love whilst battling adversity from douchebag baby brothers and abusive sun gods.
Some webcomics can feel disjointed, as if the story really is happening week by week without a plan, and personally, I'm more of a grand story arc kinda goblin (I have shucked my woman-suit, I am goblin henceforth), I need to feel as if the narrative has had at least some forethought behind it.And LO absolutely does.From the first episode, the first meeting of H+P, you can feel that this isn't going to be an easy road.Mythologically, we already know that, but in the context of Smythe's mythology, we're fairly in the dark as how everything will play out.But it's a darkness with weight to it.
With history and unrevealed secrets and an abundance of squeal-inducing cuteness.It's one of my favourite aspects of the series, that it doesn't take itself too seriously, that it deals with serious subjects but it's balanced so seamlessly with moments of silliness and affection.And it does deal with some monumentally important issues:
🌱 Misogyny🌱 Emotional manipulation🌱 Gaslighting🌱 Self-worth🌱 Rage🌱 Consent🌱 Parental abuse🌱 Spousal abuse🌱 Infidelity🌱 Child abandonment🌱 Depression
Issues that are so brazenly accepted in the original tale.Of course some guy can kidnap a girl and make her his wife.Of course she can be handed over like chattel from one brother to another.Of course the men can fuck anything in sight, consent or no.The Greek myths are rife with this unchallenged bullshit, and it's an unavoidable aspect of Hades and Persephone's story, but with Smythe at the helm, she takes things in a different direction.
She doesn't eradicate or gloss over anything, choosing instead to address and understand the importance of these shitty things that happen throughout the myths, placing them within her story so carefully carelessly, if you know what I mean.Never whipping them out for drama's sake.Never being grandiose when quiet is what's really required.It's so... lovely, and reassuring.
I swear, you could learn more from Smythe's Olympians than you ever could from a guidance counsellor in school.(Sorry, GCs, I'm sure some of you give a shit but you're of the lesser-spotted variety, if we're being honest)If I could pass this out to every human on the planet, I would.If I could create a hyperlink in everyone's brain's so that when they start to process the world in words and shapes instead of whatever baby-squish happens inside and infant, they're taken directly to Webtoons.Before that, even, so it could simply be looked at.Because it is so, so, so fucking beautiful.
I might have mentioned that before.Won't be the last time.Because I'm obsessed with it.As an artistic person who struggles to create (some of us are merely have the tools, not the imagination), I instead spend a lot of time consuming multiple forms of art: literature, music, illustration, webcomics, fanart, photography etc.They're essential to my wellbeing, I crave stimuli, it enriches something inside of me.But not all of it flicks that little switch inside my brain that sets my nervous system to: fucking feral.Lore Olympus did, and I knew it would because I watched my sister read it and basically dissolve into a puddle of mythical goo.(Her 12 Days of Christmas posts were basically a love letter to the series. Go look. It's necessary)
It was fun to watch - sorry, Em, but it was.And fun to experience when it was my turn.Everything about this was fun:
🌸 Meeting the characters(There are many and they are all lovable monsters - except for the purple douche-canoes that refuse to kindly fuck off)🌸 Their emotional range and the many and varied expressions that reflect it(Especially Persephone; her little cinnamon roll face!)🌸 Reading the myth anew(You will never read a sweeter retelling. Ne-ver)🌸 Getting emotional over everything(Be it laugher, rage, swooning, curling up into the foetal position because oh my gods, it hurts, it hurt so bad)🌸 THE OUTFITS(Green dress, green dress, GREEN DRESS)🌸 The romance(I LOVE THEIR STUPID FACES SO MU-U-U-CHHHHHH)🌸 The friendships(Eros, if Hades didn't exist, you'd be my number one guy)🌸 Every time Persephone left a smudge of pink of Hades after touching him(This only happens with him. No one else. Not even her mum. ... *gross sobbing*)🌸 THE DOGS(All the love for Cerberus because he's such a good, good boy, but a special shout out to the tiny terror that is Cordon Bleu. ... Specifically covered in Persephone kisses. ... I die)
Just... all of it.It's perfect.Even when Smythe is torturing me with separation anxiety, or not every panel being H+P stinking up the place with their fucking adorable flirting, or when things are really fucked up and painful.I'm still stupidly, hopelessly, putridly in love with everything it has to offer.Which I blame almost entirely on Hades and Persephone.
Has there ever been a cuter fictional couple?Not in my universe.No couple in the history of fiction have ever been as bloody adorable and awkward and weird and FUCKING PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER as these two.
AND IT'S INSTA-LOVE!SMYTHE GOT ME WITH INSTA-LOVE, MY MOST HATED TROPE UNLESS ITS SUPERNATURALS, WHICH H+P ARE, SO I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOUTING!...Oh yeah, it's official, the switch has been flicked, I have indeed gone fucking feral.Which is why every digital surface I own is now emblazoned with LO art/fanart.Evidence:
Evidence:
Evidence:
And why my sister and I cannot stop talking about it, or twitching like baklava-addicts (inside LO joke) waiting for the next episode to upload, or fretting over whether the upcoming Jim Henson/Netflix adaptation will be muppets or animation - we're 99.9% sure it's animation but the muppet-fear is still there.Or why I'm about to explode your browser with two hundred+ images of LO cuteness created by artists just as fucking feral as I am for this ridiculously beautiful-in-all-ways webcomic, that I hunted down just to soothe my LO needs....I'm not even sorry.Enjoy!:(Probably my favourite Artemis ever)
Naomi
Alicia Ramos Castillo aka pinapali
Abigail Larson
Kallie aka. kallielef
Dinan Hadyan
Leah Herskowitz
Lissette Carrera(She's my favourite LO fanartist, hence the picture dump)
Jaki King
(The proportions of him *swoon*)
Tati
Jamie
Ksenia Inozemtseva
Audrey Estok
Sara
sweetandsourtofuu
April Johnston
Ash
Justine Cunha
Alexandria Monik
Muriel Caceres
Meggles
pleasurenerd
Limka
tart
EK Belsher
Conner Perison
(I loveeee bad bitch Hera)Stef
Continued in Part II.V...
(Read Part I, Part II.V, Part III)
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