[image description: A gorgeous day by the sea. A mermaid with dark skin and red-orange scales sits in profile atop a high-dive. She has a tattoo of a crown of laurels on her near shoulder, and wears a 2-tone blue sports bra with a 3 inch zipper and a black band at its base. Text reads, “115, Gigi ~ Small God of the Sports Bra”]
Small gods associated with innovation are the most likely to remember the date they, or at least their portfolio, came into existence. Gigi has existed for centuries, but was originally the small god of strained corset stays, before she became the small god of punishing lower back pain. When she felt a change coming on in 1977, she prayed to herself that she was about to become the small god of cosmetic breast reduction or something equally soothing.
Instead, she became the small god of sports bras, and anyone who tries to say that this is just as good has never tried to do aerobics with a large chest and no underwire. Compression hides many ills. It doesn’t cure them. The two are not the same.
So she went to the small god of body modification and requested a reverse little mermaid. Not the most common procedure (that award goes to earlobe piercing), but not unheard of, either, and in short order, Gigi was no longer a member of the Busty and Bipedal club. Her portfolio might not allow her to shed the former, but there was nothing about her that required the latter to endure.
Water forgives many things, including gravity, and breasts are buoyant enough to make her otherwise insufficient tools suitable for the job. What is a sports bra but a swimsuit with delusions of grandeur, after all?
If you’re looking for the small god of the sports bra, look to the sea. Unlike the little mermaids who came before her, she isn’t planning to come back onto the land. Gigi walks on knives for no one.
The bra’s pretty, though.
Artist Lee Moyer (13th Age, Cursed Court) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.
Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:
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Lee Moyer 