Aphrodite
Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and beauty. She was also known as Venus.
Description
Physical appearance
Being the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite generally appear as an extremely beautiful woman. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
Personality
The Prime Universe version of Aphrodite was proud and prone to fits of pique, her temper often getting the better of her despite her yearning to appear as an unflappable figure of power. She liked to watch over romantic affairs from afar, a craving which she came to satisfy through fiction as well as she had fulfilled it by being a patron to real lovers in ancient times. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
Powers & abilities
As a Goddess, Aphrodite generally possessed great supernatural powers. In the Prime Universe, in addition to a deity's natural ability to know when their name or image was being invoked, she displayed such abilities as turning people into animals, making large numbers of magical entities disappear by clapping her hands, (PROSE: Magic Trick) and creating Love Potion. (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids)
Biography
In the Prime Universe
In the Prime Universe, Aphrodite was once a major goddess alongside the other Olympians. She knew Pythagoras in his lifetime, but did not like him. After the rise of Christianity, Aphrodite spent a few centuries trying to pose as a demon or sorceress, but eventually gave up on fighting the tide and, like the other Gods of Olympus, officially decided to retire around the 7th century. Still feeling a need to watch over people's romantic entanglement, she eventually took to spending her days watching soap operas, using what power she had left to make her TV run forever without any technical issues. An ongoing frustration to her in the modern world was the widespread reproduction of the damaged Venus de Milo of which she constantly caught glimpses due to Gods' ability to know when their sacred image was being invoked; she was all the more upset for the fact that she claimed to never have even been to Milos. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
In the 1960s, the Creator of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids decided to place her Clockwork Cherub creations under the patronage of the “Great Goddess” Aphrodite as well as the god Cupid, (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids) her son, (PROSE: Magic Trick) as she intended for them to harness “the Power of Love” to spread peace throughout the Multiverse. (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids)
Subsequently, she was officially worshipped by the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, although Pythagoras-858 did not put much fervour into this practice, (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker) with a Temple of Aphrodite existing within the Cupid Homeworld. (PROSE: A Copper-Colored Christmas Carol) The Crew's Terms of Service, Section A113-B noted that in case of blasphemy against Aphrodite, “prosecution may be undertaken” through the Misuse Office in the Underworld. (VIDEO: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids) The Order of Aphrodite was one of the highest honours that could be internally bestowed on members of the Crew. (PROSE: The Green Gorillas) Cupids sometimes swore “by Aphrodite”, (PROSE: The Labors of Juliet) and when a happy turn came to him, Philatel-426 once exclaimed “Aphrodite (…) be praised for this!”. (PROSE: A Copper-Colored Christmas Carol)
After #257 lost the Creator's formula for the Cupid Love Potion, Aphrodite began supplying the Crew with a purely supernatural substitute. The interchangeability of the Creator's biochemical formula and Aphrodite's creation was a subsequent subject of puzzlement for the Department of Theology, the Department of Wizardry and the Department of Philosophy. (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids) Pythagoras-858 met Aphrodite on at least one occasion before the 2019 “rabbits” incident; she didn't particularly like him, but acknowledged him as a reasonable man, who could be talked to, and also knew to act respectful in the presence of a deity, whatever his personal convictions. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
When the faceless magician's Hat flooded the Cupid Homeworld with illusory white rabbits for three days, the Department of Problem-Solving eventually admitted they had no other recourse but to follow Valerius-1497's suggestion of summoning Aphrodite to enact a literal Deus Ex Machina. Aphrodite, who had been watching a particularly engrossing piece of TV involving characters called Anthony, Alice, Aunt Eileen, Vanessa and James, was upset at being summoned by a common demon-summoning ritual, without a chance to compose herself, and, even though she'd promised herself that she'd give up on the practice of turning impudent mortals into animals, she zapped Valerius-1497 into a parakeet, (PROSE: Magic Trick, The Winter Quests) something which the Crew had not found a way to reverse by December 2021. (PROSE: The Winter Quests) However, she then agreed to fix the problem, clapping her hands thrice and making the rabbits and Hat vanish before returning whence she came. (PROSE: Magic Trick) The Department of Quasireligious Obsequiousness and Nostradamus-066 subsequently released a joint recommendation to the rest of the Crew that they should organise great sacrifices to Aphrodite in thanks. Colonel-028, who still believed the Hat to have been created by the Department of Haberdashery, snidely suggested sacrificing its members. (PROSE: The Cupid Parliament Destroyed?)
The Great Goddess Aphrodite was mentioned in Cupid Fact File #1225 as one of the “strong” concepts to which the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids had attached itself. (PROSE: Father Christmas)
In the 97th Cosmos
In the 97th Cosmos, as in the Prime Universe, the planet Venus was named for the goddess. (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians)
External links
| Concepts from Greco-Roman Mythology in Jenny Everywhere media | ||||||
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