Hyacinth: Sincerity and Joy

[binary_sunset]

Personally, hyacinths have a very special meaning for me. As a queer man, one of the first places I really felt represented in the literary canon was, of course, Greek mythology. The most well-known story of Classical queerness is the story of Apollo and Hyakinthos. If you're not familiar, Apollo is besotted with a young Spartan man named Hyakinthos. Problem is, the god of the North Wind, Boreas, is also interested in Hyakinthos and spies on him and Apollo when they're together. At some point, Hyakinthos throws a discus as hard as he can (being both a Spartan and Apollo's beloved gives him quite an arm). Boreas, in a fit of jealousy, blows the discus back towards Hyakinthos and strikes him in the head, killing him instantly. Apollo is so overwhelmed with grief that Hyakinthos' blood becomes the first hyacinth flower so that his beauty can live on. (A lot of Apollo's doomed lovers get turned into plant life. It's just A Thing, I guess.)

EDIT: As dr_zook pointed out, it's actually Zephyros, the west wind, who fell in love with Hyakinthos and not Boreas. I do not know why I thought this.

If you're a Percy Jackson fan, you might recognise it as the story Cupid uses to goad Nico di Angelo into coming out in The House of Hades.

Anyway, to celebrate this flower's super ancient relationship to queer men, I've decided to make some hyacinth-themed icons for a couple of canon men who like men! Everyone has canon male love interests except for Hunter, who was confirmed to be bisexual by showrunner Dana Terrance.


Sex Education


Hades (Game)


The Witcher (Netflix)


The Owl House

Comments

[dr_zook]

What a bunch of lovely icons! I love how your mind went with the prompt. :D My favourite is, of course, Jaskier!

... But wasn't it Zephyrous (the warm West Wind) who fought with Apollon over Hyakinthos?

[binary_sunset]

🙈 It was Zephyros. I'm a dumbass.

In my defense, I was cross-referencing with my copy of The Metamorphoses, which just casts Hyakinthos's death as an accident, attributed to no autonomous entity. But yes, in most other versions it's Zephyros. I'll fix the post. Considering that I'm a pagan who works closely with Apollo, this is VERY embarassing.

[dr_zook]

I'm so sorry, I didn't to embarrass you! It's just that I've devoured these myths as soon as I could put together letters, so it's deeply engrained in my brain; it made sense to me, as a child, that it was Zephyrous, the warm west wind. Because where I come from gays are described as "warm brothers". Made it easy to remember, ahem...

I'm sure Apollon would be willing to forbear with you, since he himself may lose track of his lovers from time to time? ;)