horrid melinoë, with intense eyes gleaming,
venom dripping from her mouth.
info
since there a couple of divergences on her myth, so I decided to define how my version of melinoë would be.
APPEARANCE
being a goddess, she can shift her appearance to look as she please. however, she usually chooses a young ( 20s ).
her major characteristic that she hardly ever changes is her skin being extremely pale-white with pitch-black pigmented spots around her body, resembling a piebaldism (partial albinism), alongside with her heterochromia – one eye has a russet colour while the other is a pale blue.
Disclaimer: She doesn't really have piebaldism, since that is a genetic condition and she is a goddess, thus, having no genes. The literal white and black colours of her skin is due to her myth description, only.
LIKES
horror movies, skulls, corpses and any bloody objects, her family, hellhounds, sparkling wine, cigarettes, cinnamon rolls, howlings, the sound of doors cracking.
DESLIKES
Morpheus (the god), documentaries, pandas and unicorns, ancient Romans, gin, sunny days, cockatrice, ghostbusters.
pOWERS
Her powers are deeply rooted in inducing fear within a complex psychological framework. During her youth, she endured a traumatic experience while attempting to control her abilities. She was frequently immersed in vivid nightmares, facing immense struggles to harness and manage them. Mastering her abilities required an arduous journey, shaping her consciousness and fostering a profound fascination with eerie and unsettling elements. Despite channeling energy to maintain equilibrium, she grapples with the interplay of light and darkness within. Internally conflicted, she harbors a compelling urge to evoke fear in others through psychological horror, manipulating and distorting their darkest thoughts, and occasionally devising intricate mind games that border on obsession.
Over time, she has grown immune to ordinary fears, becoming exceptionally challenging to scare. However, she retains specific fears that continue to affect her. While rare, she still experiences horrifying hallucinations, especially during moments of vulnerability. Occasionally unable to distinguish between dreams and reality at a glance, she relies on alternative methods to discern the difference.
— 𝑭𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
She possesses the ability to instill intense fear and horror in others at her discretion, with the power to control and amplify these emotions at will. Furthermore, Melinoë can physically embody the greatest fear of anyone confronting her.
— 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒎𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒄𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒇𝒍𝒂𝒈𝒆
Melinoë has the capacity to morph into a physical form composed of shadows or darkness, enabling her to seamlessly blend into shadowy surroundings.
— 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒄
She possesses the ability to enter and manipulate nightmares, inducing a shift from dreams to nightmares. Additionally, Melinoe can extract magical energy and strength from these nightmarish experiences.
— 𝑵𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚 (𝒂𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑹𝒊𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒏'𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔)
As the goddess of ghosts, Melinoe has divine authority and absolute control over the dead, though to a somewhat lesser extent than Hades. She can summon waves of dead to fight, physically grab ghosts and destroy undeads.
— 𝑼𝒎𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
She possesses the power to teleport through shadows.
— 𝑶𝒎𝒏𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒎
She can speak and understand every language existent on Earth, including monster's language, even if it is composed only by grunts and snarls.
— 𝑷𝒉𝒚𝒕𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒔
She has the limited ability to manipulate plants, but her touch tends to cause them to wither and die.
Facts
extracted from the myths
Melinoë is the chthonic greek goddess of ghosts, also entitled bringer of nightmares and madness. Sometimes also considered the goddess of funeral offerings and ceremonies. She does not possess a Roman counterpart (since her description was very similar to Hecate, the Romans incorporated her on their goddess Trivia).
She may, with less frequency, be considered a nymph instead of a goddess.
Melinoe was mentioned very few times in the human history and her appearance occurs basically in orphic hymns.
According to those hymns, she's the daughter of Persephone and Hades, even if, in many versions it is unsure if her father is really Hades or only Zeus disguised as Hades.
Her siblings are Zagreus and Macaria.
Melinoe was born at the mouth of the Cocytus, river of lamentations located in the Underworld, and she's oftenly represented as a woman with a half-white and half-black body, intended to represent light (Persephone) and dark (Hades), or, depending of the myth version, light (Zeus) and dark (Persephone).
𝐭𝐰! the stories contains dark themes in its descriptions, including psychosis, blood, death and corpse. I get inspiration mainly from Fran Bow, a dark fantasy videogame, and also Corpse Husband's yt channel.
". . .a putrid scent of carrion invaded her nostrils [. . .]"
". . . she looked into the mirror: pale, expressionless, dark circles under her eyes [. . .]"
" Fear is power. And specially because you're like me, that's not only a metaphor [. . .] "
" You are like that . . . impure, and capable of terrible things. You were always like that [. . .] "