🏳️🌈 & 🏳️⚧️ for Athena, Hermes, Eros, and Artemis
🏳️🌈 for a sexuality headcanon !
athena is a big fat lesbian whose understanding of her own sexuality is one of the few things she couldn't seem to figure out - not because she felt any shame about her attraction to women, but because she understands connection about as well as i understand physics lmao. for all her wisdom, athena's emotional intelligence was severely lacking for a long time - and so despite experiencing attraction, she never knew what to do with it. it took a partner metaphorically bonking her over the head with it for her to understand - and that bonk was in the form of them.. like... dying, so athena was forced to confront the depth of her attraction and feelings, lol. thanks, pallas!
hermes would be attracted to a street lamp if it had the right curvature. he can always find something to be attracted to in a person, regardless of gender, and his sexuality is the kind that's always in search of enjoyment. he will sleep with anyone if he thinks it'll be a good time, and he doesn't need it to be anything deeper. establishing that kind of connection with someone is incredibly rare for him.
eros talks a big game when it comes to his sexuality, and he often plays or seems to play the part of, to put it simply, fuck boy. however, one look at his relationship with his wife wipes that away. he enjoys sex and sexuality and the exploration of both - i think his wife does too. however, eros feels things very deeply, and his domain of love intertwines sex and love in a way that makes it very difficult for him to unravel on his own. he can play the part, and even represent, a kind of attraction that is based in the physical, but for him, sex and love are so so so connected. his attraction to others is plentiful, but he loves just as widely and when he wants a person, he wants them in every way imaginable.
artemis views sex between people the same way she does the mating of animals - something deeply significant, fascinating, necessary, but ultimately not something she cares to participate in lol. as a goddess of childbirth, she is not the kind of person to shame others for the sex they choose to participate in, and in fact, she values it deeply as a necessary part of life and a source of deep connection. she's still ace as hell though, and doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole herself.
🏳️⚧️ for a gender headcanon !
athena is a trans woman, but i think her experience of that is so irregular on account of her "childhood", that i don't think she really even views herself that way - at least, not until a modern era where these sorts of conversations are prevalent. no, to athena, she is a goddess who crafted her own image, her own body, her own name out of the memories of her mother, in defiance of a prophecy she would never fulfill, and sure - she may not be every part the goddess that someone like hera or aphrodite are, but that is irrelevant to her. nothing about her is typical, after all. (this does not mean there are no challenges, but labels in that regard do not mean much to athena).
hermes is a he/they in the sense that gender is as much a constraint to him as the rest of society is, and he's not interested in fitting perfectly into any boxes. he's still fairly comfortable and confident in his masculinity, but that doesn't mean he's contained by it, and i'm sure there are parts of his gender that are more fluid than others.
eros takes a lot of pride in his physique and places a lot of weight on it in terms of his gender, and what it means to be a man. to him, it's keeping his body at its best. peak physical performance and an appearance he's proud of.
being a woman is one of the most important parts of artemis' identity. it's integral to all of her work; childbirth, of course, but also to her hunt. the way that she engages with the wild is informed by her experiences as a woman, and i think it would be a lot different if she were a man. she has a respect for nature, and wild as she is, she is particular about who she interacts with, who is allowed in her space, and what rules she abides by. again, informed by her experience as a woman for sure.
