I made this because I really really want more people to be put on them but I feel like with the amount of clutter I am accidentally about to scare people instead. ANYWAYS MY LOVES!!!
Yes yes, it is the one and only
His main changes are his body really because his original design was based essentially directly on pottery art of him
He got his hair chopped (mainly for variety lol) and his wings got moved to the back of his head like Aphrodite. They're the same shape tho! Making that heart shape as I used the turtle dove again
I added those dots on turtledove's wings to imply it more
Idk if it's been noticed, but I've been giving the Erotes who are Aphrodite's kids these choker things and a pearl necklace, and then putting a rose somewhere (Himeros you just can't see lol-) so Hermaphroditus has those to! (and be the last one--even Hedylogos)
I'm saving the vitiligo for when he's colored but I've been think of the way @sapocipo did it where they mark where Salmacis embraced him (ever since reading that I just cannot look at my design and want to do the same--but I have to say it out loud first because I become guilty n scared lol)
I'm back in the sea deities trenches (my beloveds) so imma ramble on Nerites, headcanons, the usual y'know.
It'll be as incoherent and nonsensical as always so...
Aelian, Characteristics of Animals
Just gonna put this all here... so I don't gotta reference it later-
Nerites is the babi, he just is. He's just a little babyy little brother to the Nereids aweeee; and he'd hate being called a baby lmao.
I like making Nerites slower than his sisters. He would need to be carried by one of them in order to keep up. I also like to think he was born a while later than his sisters, so none of them are really close to his age.
Then Aphrodite just spawns lmao
I like to think Nerites finds her wandering the sea after she's been under the care of the Ichthyocentaurs for a while. And for once, he gets to lead someone around and show them things. I imagine he just knows a lot of things because his sisters taught him a lot.
This would intrigue Aphrodite, and she'd enjoy his company.
They grew up as playmates, probably rarely apart, I'd imagine. Real childhood (technically) friends right here, that would grow into lovers. I have said before that I imagine them to be very highschool lovers vibe, especially with their lack of children, I enjoy it to be very lighthearted and sweet. (cuteness aggression cuteness aggression cuteness aggression RAH)
The idea that he helps out with Eros and Himeros as infants also intrigues me. Like he was a father figure to them even though they were probably too young to remember.
I also think Aphrodite would have been the one to want their relationship to reach a higher level. But honestly, I don't think they'd act all that different to how they were before. Like, they already held hands, they already hug, face kisses maybe probably most likely.
Aphrodite would want more, but not really sure of what. Nerites, meanwhile, is moreso content. What more could he want? He has his parents, sisters, and playmate who's now his companion. Or maybe things don't feel as right as they should.
I do think their differences in wants would contribute to their breakup. Despite the dramatic-ness of it, I doubt the relationship itself was strained at all. They just had different desires and Aphrodite turned him into a shell lol.
When Aphrodite is called to join Olympus, she probably thinks this is the "more" that she and Nerites need. To leave the sea and be among the most grand Gods. Nerites, again, is more content. He loves his family and the sea, despite the difficulties he's faced. If anything, the prospect of leaving them makes him realize just how much he loves where he is.
He loves her, but he's not willing to leave his home and family for Aphrodite. Not even the gift of wings could spur his heart. And since he loves the sea, he was turned into a sea critter by Aphrodite in her heartbreak and anger.
(I like to think Nereus turns him back, poor boy)
Throughout that space of time, it's back to how things were with his family and the sea, but without his playmate. He'd be in a time of reevaluation, thinking back to how they were before. If something is wrong with him for not wanting to leave with his companion. Or maybe he desired being with Aphrodite as her friend and playmate over a lover.
In floods Poseidon. Honestly I don't have ideas for them yet other than I want them to have a relationship before Poseidon marries Amphitrite (it's a whole thing. I'll get to it one day...- )
But it's honestly all he could ask for mainly because Poseidon now rules the seas. He wouldn't have to worry about being asked to leave it or his family. Poseidon usually treats his lovers well, so it is natural that Nerites receive that affection. He is even made his charioteer (and I like to imagine this solves his issue of being the slowest out of his sisters).
Their bond results in Anteros, mutual love, being born, who would eventually join Aphrodite's retinue of Erotes. To me, I see them making up. Despite how they ended, they had a positive relationship from when they were friends and when partners. They had different wants, maybe even feelings, but they still care for one another.
For me, they make up by Nerites having Aphrodite promise to look after Anteros. Aphrodite has shown care for the Erotes, so I feel like this makes the most sense.
Of course he turns into a shell again by Helios lol
A different version of Hermaphroditus’ “origin story” found in Greece
“The story of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis is well known from Book 4 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.¹ In Ovid’s account, the daughters of Minyas, toiling on their looms while the other women of Boeotia dutifully observe the rites of Dionysus, tell a series of stories about love, including the story of how the rapacious nymph Salmacis tried to seduce the handsome and chaste youth Hermaphroditus. By the end of the story, Hermaphroditus has been transformed into a hermaphrodite and the spring of Salmacis has been given an emasculating power. In 1995, a Greek poetic inscription, dated to the second century B.C.E. and found at the very site of the spring Salmacis in Halicarnassus, revealed a very different account.² Composed in elegiac couplets, this poem about the excellence of Halicarnassus shows, at first glance, little trace of the details of the Hermaphroditus and Salmacis story known from Ovid:
τὸν τ᾽ ἐρατὸν μακάρεσσιν ἀειδόμενον παρὰ χεῦμα
Σαλμακίδος γλυκερὸν ναισσομένη σκοπέλον
νύμφης ἱμερτὸν κατέχει δόμον, ἥ ποτε κοῦρον
ἡμέτερον τερπναῖς δεξαμένη παλάμαις
῾Ερμαφρόδιτον θρέψεν πανέξοχον, ὃς γάμον εὗρεν
ἀνδράσι καὶ λέχεα πρῶτος ἔθηκε νόμῳ
αὐτῇ τε στάζουσιν ὑπὸ ναμάτων ἄντρου
πρηνέα φῶτινων ἀργῦρεντα νόον.
Halicarnassus settles the lovely hill beside the stream of Salmacis, called dear to the immortals in song, and she occupies the lovely home of the nymph, who once took our boy in her sweet embrace and raised him, Hermaphroditus, to be outstanding, he who discovered marriage and was the first to bind the marriage bed in law. And she herself [Salmacis] beneath the holy streams dripping in the cave tames the savage mind of men. (15-22)
In the inscription, Hermaphroditus invents the institution of marriage and 'binds the marriage bed in law'. The spring of Salmacis, on the other hand, does not make men less manly or manufacture hermaphrodites; instead it 'tames savage minds'. A far cry from Ovid's chaste boy and lustful girl, in the Salmacis inscription, we find Salmacis the nurturing nymph and Hermaphroditus the lawgiver.”
- Romano, Allen J. “The Invention of Marriage: Hermaphroditus and Salmacis at Halicarnassus and in Ovid.” The Classical Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2009): 543–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20616705.
last thing i posted with them was a little depressing so uh i offer this as recompense
i really really like how they’re often depicted with satyrs (specifically silenus but this isn’t him—i might draw those two next actually but this ones just a random satyr shrugs) (also ik satyrs are moreso related to horses than goats esp in earlier accounts i don’t CARE i wanted to draw a goat guy bc i draw horses far too much) i think it’s so interesting that satyrs [often thought of by OTHERS as these disgusting and off putting creatures] and hermaphroditus [who was initially horrified at their own body but loved by others] often come together in art its just super neat to me
something something the connection between dysphoria and dysmorphia has been a theme thru out literature dating back super far and i think thats really cool idk
i may or may not make a rlly ranty post abt that topic bc gender as horror thru out history is one of my special interests that i surprisingly don’t talk about a lot
Today was putting my boys in blue day. And figuring out design details here. Made Pelops nearly a year ago on a WHIM for a silly valentines day thing. And now. Now he is a developed/developing character. I've always worried he looks pretty basic, just a default hot guy BUT I'm getting better at that. Enjoy him like I do.
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