It's a-me, Heracles!

welcome to the premier source and insight into the life of Greece's greatest hero; ME! (Heracles or Hercules, or even Herc whatver floats your boat)

[actualheroheracles]

And it's over!

Hey guys,

As suspected Eurystheus has set me one hell of a finale; im tasked with capturing Cerberus, the demon guard dog of hell, sans weapons. WHAT. THE. HELL. I know I’m god and I’m super strong but even I have my limits, and I have a feeling this glorified dog might test them, especially if I’m allowed no weapons, not even my faithful club! O woe is me. Even better, he says he’s doing this as a final revenge for killing my family, as if I wasn’t already tormented enough, you gotta go and pull this one me??? Some cousin you are.

  Anyway, right now I’m off to Eleusis to meet with Eumolpus so he can clue me in on the Eleusinian mysteries in the hopes that I don’t die/have a more successful time in the underworld. Be back soon hopefully.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  So I’ve been read into the mysteries, hopefully that will lessen the odds of my failure by somewhat, I’ve also been fortunate enough to find the entrance to the underworld in Tanaerum, with some assistance from the lovely Athena once again, as well as surprise assistance from Hermes who has helped me traverse my way down to the Underworld. So far so good; Hestia also appeared to help me on my way by assisting me in my avoidance of Charon, the ferryman of the dead in Underworld, so he doesn’t mistake me for someone who is legit dead as opposed to just ‘visiting’. Now all I have to do is find my good old uncle Hades and ask if I can casually borrow his demonic three-headed guard dog. I’m sure that’s going to go down a freaking treat.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Well that went surprisingly well if I’m being quite honest; I expected significantly worse from my final labour task, this hasn’t got shit on some of the other things Eurystheus made me do. Turns out Hades wasn’t anywhere near as much of a grumpy sod as I was informed he was and in fact he was surprisingly calm and understanding about the whole thing; on the condition that I found Cerberus myself and subdued him with nothing but my own two arms. Now that sounds incredibly difficult but I gotta say, after some of the wrestling I’ve been doing with other hellish creatures in this whole penance deal, Cerberus was a lot tamer then I expected. Sure the whole three-heads thing made it a little bit more fun than usual but eventually the dog submitted to my will and allowed me to carry him back to the mortal realm to be presented to Eurystheus. Unlike many of the other spoils of my labours that I returned to my cousin the beast was allowed to leave unharmed and alive, not being sacrificed to any of the gods, as I’m sure Hades wouldn’t have been too thrilled with that prospect.

  Well now that my Labours are all done and dusted and I’m no longer under the command of my ever lovely cousin Eurystheus Hestia believes that I’ve come a long way from how I was when I started and that my anger management has significantly improved! Overall I guess I’d have to say it was one hell of a wild ride and I probably wouldn’t have coped anywhere near as well without this online diary for me to vent at so I guess I’d just like to say thanks really! But, at the same time I suppose this is somewhat of a goodbye as I don’t really need it anymore if my anger’s under control. Who knows what I’ll do now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop adventuring, I’ve got so many more places to see, beasts to conquer, maidens to seduce, you get the idea; who knows where I’ll end up!

  Have on last magnificent selfie of me and my uncle’s lovely hell-hound Cerberus:

  Heracles, signing out for the last time.

[actualheroheracles]

So close!!

Damn.

  Heracles here again, I can’t believe it’s already been 8 years since I started these dumb labours. I wish I could say how the time flies when you’re having fun but that would be blatant lying. On the small Brightside I’m so close to finishing, as I mentioned in my last entry Eurystheus set me my second last labour to complete. Unfortunately for me it’s also a pretty damn impossible task but y’know, some of my other labours seemed impossible to begin with too so you never know.

  My first problem is that, yes I know that the apples exist, but where in Zeus’ name are the damn things??? Are they up on Olympus with Zeus himself considering they’re his, or has Hera hidden them away somewhere difficult, because at this point I really wouldn’t be surprised by anything that goddess pulls. So far I’ve travelled practically everywhere looking for the damn garden, and all I’ve managed to do is get in a few fights with minor gods and almost get turned into a sacrifice by some oaf of a King known as Busiris. I’ve recently however been informed that Nereus, one of the sea-gods, might have some idea about the whereabouts of the godly apples so I’m currently headed to him now and rough him up until he coughs up the location.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well that was fun; Nereus the slimy git kept shape-shifting to try and throw off my game, he obviously doesn’t know about my all-encompassing strength because a little bit of transforming isn’t going to loosen my grip buddy. Eventually he figured this out for himself and swiftly gave in to my whims and disclosed the location of the heavenly garden the apples are kept in.

  This doesn’t however solve my problem that Hera would never allow me to steal the apples due to her ever-lasting hatred of me. I’ll have to find some decent way of getting around that, sooner rather than later hopefully.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Me again, by a stroke of luck I encountered poor old Prometheus chained up on his mountain, destined to have his liver ripped out day after day by an Eagle sent by my Dad (to be fair from what I heard he entirely deserved his fate up on that mountain for making the Gods look like fools). However, something in me pitied him and as such I put him out of his misery by finally killing the eagle; in his gratitude towards my wonderfully kind deed he disclosed a most brilliant plan for me to retrieve apples so that I don’t personally have to do the deed. He told me of Atlas’ hatred for his job of holding up the earth and the sky, so much so that he would happily agree to fetch the apples for me so long as I agreed to carrying his burden for him.

  Luckily for me Prometheus was right; by Zeus does Atlas hate his job, he agreed in a heartbeat to my plan as soon as I mentioned I would carry the weight of the world for him. However, Atlas wasn’t very enamoured with the idea of returning to his terrible job and instead ‘offered’ to take the apples back to Eurystheus for me while I had the pleasure of holding the earth for the rest of time. Pffffffft, as if bro, I’ve got far better things to be doing then your shitty job. Being the clever man that I am I managed to trick him into taking the earth and sky back, asking if he would take them back for just a moment while I adjusted the pad on my back to be more comfortable. SUUUCK, as soon as he picked the burden back up again and had set the apples down I was gone. Thankfully finding my way back to Eurystheus was significantly easier and adventure-free then my journey to the apples. Sadly, due to belonging to the gods Eurystheus couldn’t even keep the apples after all the hard work I put into getting them so Athena came and fetched them back to return them to their sacred garden. All that hard work for absolutely nothing!! What a waste.

  Considering my next task is my final, thank the Gods, I can only imagine that Eurystheus has something perfectly insane stored away for me to complete, oh joy. But, on the brightside, I’m so close to being done with this whole ridiculous thing and by Zeus is that a relief.

  As usual, here’s an exceedingly good pic of me showing of my guns as I hold up the earth for Atlas:

    Ttyl, Heracles.

[actualheroheracles]

Gods i hate cattle now

Hey all;

  So once again it’s been a pretty long time since I last updated this stupid diary thing, first let me just say that once again it’s all Hera’s fault, seriously if it wasn’t for her I would’ve been back months ago, but no she insists on making my penance hell and her own wicked version of a game.

  Should probs start from the beginning shouldn’t I (and I should stop getting ahead of myself I keep doing it, stupid Heracles!). So to get to Erytheia out in the middle of freaking nowhere I had to cross the Libyan desert, and let me tell you right now, that was not a fun time. At one point I got so delirious from the heat and so overcome with anger (this diary is helping but I am by no means cured of my anger problems people) that I legit shot an arrow into the sun. Apparently my dedication to my task and my courage Helios, the sun, gifted me with a sweet as golden cup that I could use to sail to Erytheia. Praise be to the gods! I honestly wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to make it to the island otherwise.

  As soon as I landed on the island however I was confronted by Geryon’s cursed guard dog; Orthus, a vile little two –headed creature. He wasn’t the big of a deal tbh, I just smacked him around with my club and he was down and out; and when Eurytion, the herdsmen for Geryon’s cattle, attempted to assist the dog I dispatched him in the exact same manner. What a piece of cake. Unfortunately for me however Geryon evidently had heard the commotion caused by dealing with other two and came charging out to greet me fully decked out with armour, and spears for each head. He was actually a lot easier to deal with then I had imagined, I just thank the Gods that I chose to dip those arrows in the foul blood of that Hydra all that time ago because boy do they take monsters out like no other.

  Ironically it turned out that the hardest god damn part of this labour would turn out to be actually escorting the stupid cattle back to Eurystheus, I hadn’t expected it would be too hard, I mean c’mon it’s just a bunch of cattle???? I’d already dragged back numerous other creatures to Eurystheus in these dumb labours without too much difficulty. Oh how very very wrong I was. First of all two of Poseidon’s sons decided that they rather fancied the heard for themselves and tried to thieve it off me; while not so much as a problem for me, it was still a nuisance having to take the time to kill them. Oh no the real trouble started when I got back to Greece. Not that it was even my fault to be fair, Hera apparently has decided to up her game and meddle in my penance more frequently than before. Freaking great. Turns out trying to manoeuvre a big bunch of cattle isn’t exactly as easy as I had previously thought but it was manageable to being with; until that bitch decided to send a gadfly to annoy the ever loving shit out of cattle, biting them and scattering them across the entire Zeus-damn country. Meaning that, lucky me, I had the honour of chasing the damn things down again, which is why its taken me a good solid year to return to this diary.

  And if that wasn’t enough, Hera also decided to send a flood to make the river I had to cross impassable with all of my cattle. Lucky for me though I have excellent problem-solving skills and I showed that wicked goddess I wouldn’t be put off by her petty games; so I threw tonnes of stones into the river until it was shallow enough for me and my herd to safely cross to return to Eurystheus. I was fuming once I did eventually reach Eurystheus however as the great oaf decided to sacrifice the fine herd to the very goddess who made my journey with them back so difficult in the first place. Like, really????? She snubbed you once, is that really a good idea pal?!

  Gods I’m tired from all that running around after cattle, if it hadn’t been for the Hydra and stables mishap this would’ve been my last labour in this accursed penance, but as it is my next labour is to fetch the golden apples Hera gave to my father as a wedding gift. On one hand im happy im stealing something of Hera’s giving but on the other hand I’m a little apprehensive of how Dad might handle this, this could take some scheming but I’m sure I’ll inevitably work something brilliant out as always.

  To finish off, have a fine pic of me trying to herd some of the stupid runaway cattle:

      Heracles out.

[actualheroheracles]

God damn it Hera not this shit again

Well shit.

Me again; well I just got back from my latest labour, let me tell you, it did not go down how I wanted at all.

Ok so I dunno if you know anything about the Amazons but basically they’re a tribe of wicked strong and kinda crazy women, literally, the whole tribe is just women, men are only used to get children and then only the female children are kept to be trained. This labour involved me having to steal or otherwise obtain a belt given to the leader of their tribe, Hippolyte, by Ares due to her status as a great warrior. Now Eurystheus being the fickle thing that he is doesn’t want the belt for the battle purposes it was made for, he only wants it to appease his daughter who rather fancies it. Naturally I didn’t really expect the leader of a fierce warrior tribe to just hand over a piece of her armour, let alone one gifted to her by the God of war himself. As such, I figured I’d either have to steal it from her in the night or blatantly charm her into giving it to me considering how devastating my looks can be and how flattering I can be.

  Unsurprisingly, the latter method actually succeeded, for a while at least, until Hera lost her shit and decided and to butt in and ruin everything, AGAIN. She came down from Olympus and disguised her wicked self as an Amazon warrior and walked among the others of the tribe spreading lies that it was my intention to steal away the queen. Luckily I had several men with me due to having to sail to find the Amazons otherwise I may not have survived this labour, for the Amazons after hearing Hera’s nonsense completely lost it and began attacking me and my ship and men. I had to think fast as I knew that the Amazons were great in number and most fierce on the battlefield so sadly I had to slay their great queen and steal her belt before fending off some of the enraged Amazonians before making a hasty escape on my ship.

  Had Hera not interfered with her utter outright lies this would’ve been my easiest and most peaceful labour yet; but of course it wasn’t meant to be. Most of all I feel sorrow for Hippolyte, she seemed like a mighty warrior and her kindness to hand over her prized belt for nothing astounded me. I swear to Zeus, if I ever make it up to Olympus I am so getting Hera back for all of the meddling and death.

  Anyway, the next labour should hopefully be a little less sad, assuming Hera doesn’t rear her ugly lying head again, but significantly more difficult. I must travel to the ends of the earth to Erytheia, the red island of the sunset, and steal the cattle of the great 3 headed monster known as Geryon, supposedly he not only has 3 fierce heads but also the sets of legs joined at the waist.

  As per custom, a fine photo of me slaying poor Hippolyte during the battle against the Amazonians:

    -Heracles

[actualheroheracles]

Mad Mares

Holla friends,

I’m back from my latest labour, and good lord it was a doozy. I briefly mentioned the mares in my last entry but boy oh boy that hasn’t got shit on what they’re like in real life let me tell you.

I should probably start from the beginning (I’m getting ahead of myself again and skipping to the best part!); turns out that there were several of the damn things that I’d have to catch AND they were tended to on a regular basis making me capturing them solo slightly problematic. As such, I managed to, erm, persuade a few lovely volunteers into helping me get the groomers out of the way but not catch the violent beasts lest Eurystheus lose his shit over me getting help in a labour again.

  So I knew that they ate men and all that jazz, but what no one cared to inform me o was the fact that horses tend to go batshit insane when you feed them human flesh, who would’ve thought it huh. Some people reckon they can even breathe fire due to their unnatural diet but that’s a load of BS, they are however completely insane, they’ll kick anyone’s ass, and then proceed to eat them if given half the chance. I thought it’d be all good though because Diomedes keeps them tethered to a bronze manger so they can’t run feral and eat everyone in the general vicinity; so while me and my helpers drove of the groomers and the soldiers Diomedes sent when he caught wind of our presence, I left Abderos with the mares. That poor bloke; I thought he was up for the task, but I tend to forget not everyone is as fabulous as me and he got overpowered by the beasts and I came back to find them feasting on the poor boy.

  I may have been working on my anger management issues and this online diary has helped a lot in me trying to think things through and act less violently to everything but by Zeus a red haze came over me when I saw what those horses had done. As such I may have brutally slain Diomedes and then in a nice twist of fate I fed him to his own stupid vicious horses; this seems to have been the smart thing to do because evidently eating their master has sated their need for human flesh for now and they’re significantly more manageable now thank the gods.

  I brought them back to Eurystheus as per usual; and after having been completely blown off by Hera the last time he tried to sacrifice animals of my labours to her he decided to sacrifice the mares to my father, Zeus, instead. Lol, Dad was not happy about this arrangement, immediately refused the sacrifice much like Hera had done and instead he sent a pack of wolves and lions to kill the damn things instead. I’d almost feel sorry for Eurystheus at this point if he wasn’t such a prat all the time.

After the failed sacrifice Eurystheus informed me that my next labour would take me all the way out to find the Amazon Queen, Hippolyte, and bring back her belt. I’ve heard a lot of impressive shit about these women and I can’t say I’m keen to fight them, maybe I can just use my amazing charm and seduction to win her over instead.

  And of course I can’t very well end an entry without a selfie of me and the lovely mares:

    Heracles signing off.

[actualheroheracles]

Boring Bulls

Hey guys, Heracles here

So my labour this time is to capture this huge bull that’s been causing some havoc for King Minos in Crete, but from what I heard he brought this on himself for not sacrificing the damn thing like Poseidon told him to. Ever since he didn’t sacrifice it apparently it managed to both seduce his wife (lol how embarrassing for Minos), which resulted in the bastard Minotaur child which is a monster in its own right, and has also been levelling people’s houses and rampaging through the countryside ever since. How pleasant.

  When I arrived Minos attempted to offer me assistance in my quest but I quickly denied; A) I’m freaking Hercules I don’t need your help to catch a bull, I don’t care how big or strong it is, I’m stronger and better, and B) I don’t want to repeat the whole, you got help so your labour is invalid crap again. So I set out after where the bull was last seen uprooting peoples things, I sneaked up on the great beast before, similar to the Lion, I began to strangle it, not with the intention to kill this time merely to subdue. What a piece of cake, hardly worth all the effort to sail out here. I shipped its sorry hide back to Eurystheus with me, that’s where the trouble started. Eurystheus lost it again being the mouse-heart that he is, hid in his palace again at the first sight of the creature, what a surprise. After he calmed down a tad though he immediately wanted to sacrifice the bull in all of its splendour to Hera due to her hate of me in the hopes that she would take kindly to the offering and try to impede my success in the labours even more then she’s already tried. Apparently however she didn't take to kindly to this and refused the sacrifice on the grounds that, while a fine specimen, the bull reflected my glory and success and she wanted nothing to do with that. SYKE, nice to know that I’ve angered Hera even more and that she snubbed Eurystheus.

Eventually the beast was released into the wilderness whereupon it has rumoured to have begun wandering Marathon, but that’s no longer my concern nor my problem. My next labour sounds far more interesting than this simple task was; I have to bring back the man-eating mares belonging to Diomedes. This could prove both an interesting and difficult task but I’m sure I’ll figure out some brilliant plan like always.

Here’s a fine depiction of my wrestling the Cretan Bull into submission:

  Be back soon, Heracles.

[actualheroheracles]

Annoying Aviary

Hey guys,

  This is a fairly short entry, understandable considering this labour was very much my element, just straight up fighting, no messing around, no schemes or tricks, just the way I like it. If you don’t already know Stymphalian Birds are huge fierce man-eating birds with strong metallic feathers and great beaks of bronze to rip their victims with in addition to a highly toxic dung that poisons theyre nesting grounds. I heard they were originally the pets of Ares, which is totally unsurprising, a murderous dude with some murderous pets, but they’ve recently gone a bit out of control and taken over Lake Arcadia, their numbers expanding rapidly as they breed and terrorise/eat the local townsfolk.

I’ve dealt with worse to be perfectly honest, so I had no reason to be scared going into the fight, admittedly their numbers were quite high but I do like the occasionally challenge, makes the fight more interesting and my glory in victory all that much sweeter.

Once again Athena took pity on me and my plight, for the swamp surrounding the birds nesting place highly poisonous and I was unable to cross, thus she gifted me with a rattle crafted by Hephaestus known as Krotala. I used these to scare the birds out of their trees, as soon as they took flight I shot them down with my mighty Hydra-tainted arrows. While I did manage to slay most of them some did escape me but I get the feeling they won’t be hurrying back to these marshlands anytime soon. As proof of my victory I returned to Mycenae with some of the fallen birds; for once Eurystheus had no snide remarks of my accomplishment and accepted the labour as complete thank Zeus, if he’d rejected this labour like the last I think I would’ve slipped into a homicidal rage again.

  Thankfully im almost halfway through my penance now! Boringly however, my next labour is another capture but no killing mission, this time a bull, oh well maybe at least I can have fun on my way there considering its all the way in Crete, who said the penance has to be all doom and gloom.

  As usual, have a fine photo of me slaying one of those pesky Stymphalian birds:

    Later, Heracles.

[actualheroheracles]

I hate Eurystheus i really do

Gods do I hate doing things for lesser mortals.

Heracles here again, I’ve just started cleaning out King Augeas’ stables, and by Zeus this place is filthy! I’m a hero, I’m not cut out for this kind of deal, I should be out fighting fierce creatures, slaying the foes of Greece, not cleaning up the dung of thousands of animals of a pampered King, that’s what slaves are for, am I right? Anyhow, because I was a bit mad about the whole thing I went to Augeas and struck up a sweet deal without telling him that I’m meant to be doing this for Eurystheus; I bargained that if I could clean out his stables in a day then I could keep a tenth of his exceedingly large cattle herd. The king thought me mad when I proposed the notion to him, but he foolishly agreed thinking it must be impossible; after trying to do this manually for a solid few hours I’m beginning to agree with him to be quite honest. I’m good, hell I’m amazing, but even I have my limits.

I think I might try and rope Augeas’ son into my ploy and see if he can give me any ideas of a better way to do this, because I will get me those cattle!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ZEUS DAMN EVERYTHING TO THE UNDERWORLD.

So I came up with a totally brilliant way of cleaning out those stupid stables; there’s two huge rivers near the stables, and I figured Gaia and her forces of nature could do a better job at cleaning out the stables then I ever could. As such, I dug out a massive trench to each river and knocked a decent hole out of one of the walls of the stables letting the force of the rivers do all the dirty work for me. Totally brilliant right?! Well, Augeas wasn’t pleased, he’d caught wind of the news that I was here on Eurystheus’ orders and decided he wouldn’t give me my rightful reward, even daring to say that he never promised me a reward in the first place. The nerve. Doesn’t he realise who I am, that I could behead him where he sits on his big gold throne. In the end he said if I didn’t like his decision, which I didn’t obviously, I should take it up with the judge. So I dragged the king’s son with me to testify that I in fact should receive a reward for all my hard work diverting those rivers to clean out those filthy stables. At the time I was positively ecstatic that the judge ruled in my favour allowing me to take back to Mycenae with me a handsome herd of cattle, but now I rather wish he hadn’t. Eurystheus the weasel that he is decided that, like the Hydra task, this labour was considering null and void due to me receiving payment for my efforts. WHAT A LOAD OF COW DUNG, I did the hard work, I completed the labour like he instructed me to, whether I received payment for it is beside the point. Then he also had the utter gall to say that even if I hadn’t received payment I technically didn’t even do the work, the rivers did the work for me. WHO DIVERTED THE RIVERS IN THE FIRST PLACE HUH, THAT’S RIGHT, ME, HERACLES, I DID THE WORK, THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Now I still have seven labours left this is insane, I’m never going to be done at this rate. On another note my next labour is to defeat the Stymphalian Birds, finally back to killing things like I’m good at!!

  As usual, have a photo of me watching the rivers cleaning out the stables:

    Bye for now.

[actualheroheracles]

Freaking Centaurs

Heracles again,

 I’m on my way to my next labour, catching the fierce Erymanthian Boar, but beforehand I’m having a little stopover to see my dear old friend Pholus the centaur because I’m a bit peckish and I haven’t had any decent booze in a good long while, plus I could always use some good ideas for catching the boar. He’s being a bit stingy though, says he doesn’t want to open the wine because all the centaurs share it not just him; personally I think he’s just being greedy and wants all the drink for himself and/or is being a drama queen about how pissed the other centaurs will get if we have just a little bit of wine with dinner. If he keeps this up im just going to open it myself, damn the consequences, I’M THIRSTY HERE!!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  So I may have been slightly mistaken in my thinking that the other centaurs would be chill with us drinking the wine; they smelt it as soon as I opened it and got slightly angry so they just straight up came at me with bits of trees and rocks. Like, c’mon buddy I was just having a sip no need to get your knickers in a twist geeze. They kept coming at me, they’re very passionate about their wine im thinking, so I had no choice but to smack them around with my club a bit and I might’ve shot a few of them with my Hydra arrows. Shame, I was trying to save those for the labours.

I was most distressed to find that Pholus had managed to bring death to himself in the melee having picked up one of my arrows and proceeded to drop it onto his foot, killing him. Had I known my supposedly harmless social visit would’ve ended with his death I never would’ve bothered coming at all, so now not only do I have my family’s deaths on my hands but my friends too. Just great.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It took me a while to hunt down the foul boar after burying Pholus and leaving his cave; but while my visit to him may have gone so badly in the end, one good thing did come out of visiting my old friend, he gave me the brilliant method I used for capturing the beast. After locating it stomping and snorting at the base of its mountain I chased and chased it, something I wasn’t so keen on after the last labour but a hero’s gotta do what a hero’s gotta do I suppose. Eventually I employed Pholus’ grand plan of chasing the dumb creature into deep snow where it had great difficulty moving and eventually I was able to trap it in a net, being careful to remember not to shoot it or it would all be for nought, and after the hydra disappointment I was not going to make that mistake again.

  I finally dragged its sorry hide back to Mycenae, and Eurystheus the coward, scared of my powers, hid away in his palace before ordering me to get rid of it; I gladly obliged throwing the creature into the sea. It took three whole days for Eurystheus to sufficiently calm down and gather his wits to inform me of my next labour; he’s tasked me with cleaning out the Augean Stables. REALLY, IM GOING TO BE THERE FOREVER, WHY, WHY, WHYYYYYYYYY. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll figure out some way to clean out those accursed stalls because otherwise I will literally be there forever.

  Once again ill end the entry on a fine selfie, this time of me and the boar obviously:

    Heracles out.

[actualheroheracles]

I'm never running anywhere again

Hey guys,

So it’s been awhile since I last updated this blog, well a solid year to be exact, and let me tell you, there is a damn good reason. I've been chasing that accursed Hind the entire, freaking, time. I don’t think I'm running anywhere ever again after this to be quite honest. So I know I gave the hind a brief intro in the last post, at least I think I did, I dunno It’s been a long time man, but basically I’m fairly sure Eurystheus picked this thing because I think my tangle with the Lion and Hydra proved I can kill anything so he tried to challenge me a slightly different way. Anyway, this god-damned thing is fast enough to outrun an arrow, making hunting the thing damn impossible; and as I learned the hard way, it also makes chasing it down manually pretty time consuming and tiring. Basically, if you’re ever thinking of chasing this thing for fun or giggles, or purposefully trying to anger Artemis, just don’t, it is not a fun time I assure you.

Now being the fabulous part divine being that I am I was able to chase and chase the stupid little thing until it got tired, which it turns out takes a full trip through Greece, Istria and Thrace, and a full year before it would even slow down. But, inevitably it gave into my chase; I grabbed the damn thing and began carrying it back to Eurystheus ’palace.

However, Eurystheus the sneaky sod evidently gave me this as a labour in the hopes that by capturing and potentially desecrating one of her sacred animals Artemis’ would completely lose it and behead me or something worse. SUCK IT EURYSTHEUS, IM STILL ALIVE. For now. Artemis was surprisingly nice about the whole deal really, tbh I was kinda expecting her to totally lose it too, but after some deliberate and gratuitous flattery at both her and her brother, Apollo, and explained it was part of my penance for me losing it she was pretty understanding. Glad I didn’t try to shoot the thing or then I really would’ve been murdered by her I think, but because I hadn’t actually done anything to it besides tiring it she allowed me to bring it back to Euystheus so long as I brought it back to her unharmed.

It was then I realised a slight problem; Eurystheus wanted me to hand the thing over to him, and if I did that, then it couldn’t return to Artemis and then I’d really be in her bad books, and we all know how that ends. In the end though I managed to find a happy solution, well not so happy for Eurystheus but who cares about him; I made him come out of his stupid palace and fetch the Hind from me himself. The fool, I let go of the Hind as soon as he came close to me, and being as fast as it was and having had a proper rest it immediately sprinted with all the swiftness of the wind back to its master.

You can only imagine how pissed Eurystheus was; oh my Zeus was he mad. Sometimes I think he thinks im just a pretty face and a lot of muscles, I mean I am lovely and strong, but that’s not the point, I do have a brain too sometimes cousin of mine!! It would do you good to remember that because at the moment things don’t seem to be working out so well for you so joke’s on you buddy.

 So yeah, long story short; I didn't have to kill anything this time, I just got to spend a whole freaking year chasing this dumb animal through 3 different countries pissing off two gods and my cousin in the process. It’s been a strange labour to say the least but something tells me I’ve still got a whole lotta strange left in this whole dumb penance. Anyway, a years worth of chasing has left me pretty beat guys so I should probably head off before I attempt my next labour: capturing the fearsome Erymanthian Boar, also without killing it rather like the Hind.

  And of course, no entry is complete without an obligatory selfie with my task, so heres me finally capturing the Ceryneian Hind (feat. the Nemean Lion pelt):

-Heracles

[actualheroheracles]

Hail Hydra!

Hey all,

  I’m back from my second labour; and in a shocking turn of events, you’ll never believe who raised the hell-beast I just slaughtered. Yep. That’s right. Hera, AGAIN. This woman seriously has it out for me big time, she ain’t messing around no more, if Lolaus hadn’t been there to help me with the serpent she might’ve actually succeeded in her plight against me for once.

Woops, im getting ahead of myself I should probably start from the beginning of this; so it took me a while but I eventually found Lake Lerna. And let me tell you I could definitely believe that a portal to the underworld is under there because DAMN, that place reeked there was poison in the air and everything. I wasn’t initially sure precisely where in its gigantic cave the beast was lurking so I shot a few flaming arrows to catch its attention. And boy, did I get its attention, and by Zeus do I wish I hadn’t.

Trust Hera to use such a sneaky conniving creature against me; I tried wailing on the thing with my club to stun it like I did the Lion, thankfully it didn’t have the same impervious skin that it did allowing me to cut clean through one of its necks. But alas. Having never faced a Hydra I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, despite having faced some pretty weird stuff in my time I didn’t particularly count on regrowing heads. I mean come ON, THAT’S NOT FAIR.

After about 5 times of slicing necks only to be faced with more and more angry as Hades heads once they finished regrowing I called upon the help of my faithful nephew, Lolaus, in the hopes that he could think up a better plan then I to defeat the terrible thing. Luckily it would appear all the brains in the family went to that child because he thought of the terrific method of cauterizing the neck stumps with a torch before a new head could regrow until I eventually found the immortal neck. However, Hera apparently saw what was going on down on Earth and she was not amused that I’d almost defeated her newest attempt to kill me, so she decided to send a gigantic crab to distract me from the last neck. Pfffft, as if that thing could hurt me, I crushed its weak form under my foot, I certainly wasn’t going to use my arms to kill it like the lion. Those pincers could get near my face and leave a horrible scar or something, now THAT would be a real greek tragedy.

Once again the honourable and great Athena came to my aid, not in person this time but in the form of the mighty sword she gifted unto me which I used to slice the Hydras last vicious head off with, the head remained very much alive though thus I shoved it under a rock where it would stay for all eternity. While I was there I also dipped several of my arrows into the Hydra’s foul blood, for its blood contained a most potent poison, in the hopes that maybe I could use them in the future of these labours.

When I reported back to Eurystheus my rage was unbelievable; he’d heard of the fact that Lolaus assisted me in the slaying of the Hydra and ruled that because I didn’t kill the beast purely on my own the labour was null and void, meaning I’d struggled against the vicious thing for absolutely nothing. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME, ARE YOU KIDDING ME, CUT ME SOME SLACK, YOU’RE MY COUSIN FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.

 Hopefully I can take some of my anger out on the next labour assigned to me; capturing, but not killing, the Ceryneian Hind, a sacred beast of Artemis legendary for its speed and ability to escape everything. I honestly have no idea what im going to do for this task, im good at killing things, restraining myself and not killing things, not so much.

  And of course, here’s a portrait of me with my latest conquest, the fearsome Lernean Hydra:

    Heracles out.

[actualheroheracles]

Nemean Lion Time

Brief update!

  I finally reached the little town of Cleonae where I found about the terrible beast that supposedly roamed the wilderness around their little town and they were all too eager to help me out. Ok, so, I may have slightly underestimated that Nemean Lion I was talking about, it wasn’t quite as tame as I had anticipated and yeah I know most lions generally have reputations as man-eaters but they ain’t got squat against this beast from what the villagers told me. Some of them even said the foul thing knows how to imitate the calls of maidens in distress to lure men into its caves in order to eat them.

And surprise surprise, guess who made the foul creature and set it to roam and terrorise this village; Mother. Freaking. Hera. What a surprise, I’m so shocked that the psycho goddess whose fault I’m doing these labours is responsible for one of my wonderful tasks (I told you that woman was off her rocker, maybe now people will start listening to me).

Anyway I should probably go find the damn thing and see just how fearsome it is up close and personal; reckon those villagers are probably exaggerating when they claim weapons don’t do anything to it (they just haven’t had the right people, i.e. me, behind the weapon).

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Ok, good news is I’ve found the brute of a creature in its , er, lovely den just outside of the village. Bad news is, turns out those villagers might’ve been right when they said weapons ain’t worth nothing against it; I shot it with all my arrows. Nothing. Not a single damn scratch on the thing, I might as well have been pelting him with tiny stones for all he cared. As such he didn’t seem to think me much of a threat and apparently wasn’t up for eating any men today and simply slunk back into his cave like I was nothing, like I wasn’t even there. Screw the labours this is about pride now, I will not be snubbed again and I shall prove my glorious reputation as the great hero Heracles to all in the village and this big dumb cat.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

SWEET SUCCESS!!!!

After like hours of moping around trying to think of a good way to end this cursed lion I kinda let my temper get the better of me, and still without any real plan I just charged into its den. Luckily I still had my club on my because while weapons may not be able to pierce it they can still pack a fair punch and knock the damn thing around a little. After stunning it with the club I didn’t really see many options, beating him with the club repeatedly would probably just stun him, piercing the hide wouldn’t work, so I just straight up strangled him in a wicked headlock.

At first I didn’t really think it would work; what a fool I was! Of course it would work, I’m Hercules son of Zeus for heaven’s sake, I’m blessed with godly strength, this beast had nothing on my brute force. After the deed was done, as revenge for the earlier snubbing I decided some sort of trophy to recognise my victory was necessary, and then I thought of the best thing; turning its lovely, impenetrable coat into the most awesome cloak ever. One problem however was the manner of actually taking the coat considering y’know, it was impenetrable and all.

I think Athena took pity on me after watching a few hours of me trying to cut the stupid thing with a knife and a rock, instead she came up with the incredible idea of cutting it with its own claws, BRILLIANT!!

I don’t think Eurystheus was too pleased to see me when I came back all draped in lion fur, I think he was kinda hoping I’d fail and get eaten by the Lion, lol better luck next time cousin, you’re gonna need to do better than one measly cat. However I think my strength has terrified him a little because he has forbidden my entry into his city from now on, at least until ive finished the labours. How rude. Doesn’t he know who I am?! Anyway, he gave me my next rad task to do in this quest, something about a hydra (some weird many headed lizard snake thing I dunno) terrorising lake Lerna. Apparently it’s the unholy offspring of Typhon and Echidna, this should be interesting to say the least.

  Also last but not least, here have a sick selfie of me strangling the lion:

      Ttyl, Heracles.

[actualheroheracles]

Welcome!

Hey its Heracles here,

I should probably start from the beginning here; if you don’t already know I’m kind of a big deal. You may know me better as Hercules; I’m one of Zeus’ sons, by the mortal woman Alcmene, and because I’m a productive of his ,uh, wandering habits my sort of step-mother, Hera, doesn’t seem to like me much. Being the son of a god comes with a few perks; I’m basically the strongest mortal ever, I bet I could even beat a few of the gods at an arm wrestle if they’d let me try. And by Zeus, apparently there’s something about being part divine that women just adore, and I can’t say that I blame them. I’m kind of gorgeous.

Recently things haven’t been so good; y’know how I mentioned how Hera doesn’t like me so much, I don’t think I emphasised that quite enough to show just how insane she is. Her most recent scheme on me resulted in me going completely psycho and um- I may or may not have murdered Megara, my lovely wife god rest her soul, and our sons in a temporary fit of Hera induced insanity. However for some weird reason most people seem to look favourably upon Hera and thus only blame me for the murder, that’s where this blog comes into it.

So after I kinda lost it and murdered my family (it was all Hera’s fault I swear) Hestia, who has taken it upon herself to act as a therapist to me, thought it might be a good idea for me to write out my experiences during my penance for the murders in an online diary/blog thing so that hopefully I can work through my problems a little less violently in the future (booooring).

That’s where we come to the present day; I went to Delphi and asked that old crone Pythoness what I should do to make up for my grievous sins and she said I have to serve my cousin Eurystheus for twelve years and do anything he tells me too. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME, I mean yeah I get immortality out of it and I did screw up a bit, but him of all people, really???? I know he’s my cousin and I should respect him or like him or whatever but it’s so hard when he’s just so boring and beneath me, but I have to do it or Dad will get mad at me and that never ends well for anyone. I swear to Zeus Eurystheus better give me some wicked cool labours to do that make me look even cooler or I will be super unimpressed man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So Eurystheus finally gave me my first labour to complete, he’s told me to kill the Nemean Lion. Lmao he said that like he thinks it’s a big deal, I mean c’mon cuz, it’s me, I can kill anything; I bet it’s as tame as a lil pussycat.

Anyway I should probably get going, forge some arrows to kill it with, I shouldn’t need much more than those and my club, I mean how hard can it be to kill a lion dude?? I’’ll update you guys tomorrow night with how it went down, I’m sure it’ll be sick as.

Heracles out.