#ajax form

[121231212i]

Ajax

[ilions-end]

i love the part of sophocles' ajax where odysseus very carefully, very diplomatically debates agamemnon, trying to convince him that ajax deserves a proper burial

some of my favourite lines:

AGAMEMNON: Odysseus, are you for me or are you against me, and for this man? ODYSSEUS: I hated him when it was honourable to hate him.

!!

ODYSSEUS: He was my enemy, but he was also noble. AGAMEMNON: And you have respect for an enemy's corpse? ODYSSEUS: I am moved by admiration for his greatness, rather than by hatred for his smallness. AGAMEMNON: He was a man of many turns. ODYSSEUS: Many of our friends later become enemies. AGAMEMNON: But do you wish to praise these so-called friends? ODYSSEUS: I do not see friends and enemies as mutually exclusive.

and the finishing blow:

AGAMEMNON: I see now that every man works for himself. ODYSSEUS: Who else should a man work for?

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

*scuttles over to you* hey imagine how scared Childe must've been when you first found him as Foul Legacy.

the Harbinger stumbles home after a particularly difficult battle, his boots thumping along the darkened streets, the harbor city asleep under the black blanket of nighttime. labored breaths fall from his fanged maw, Foul Legacy's power barely hanging on so he can get them home, back to where it's safe, back to you. he pushes the door open and immediately doubles over, clutching the wall for support. it's fine, it's fine- he's home now. he'll patch himself up and slip into bed with your sleeping form, wrap his arms around you and drift off, nightmare-free. somehow you always chase away the memories of falling and falling and breaking on the way down.

it's past midnight. usually you're asleep by now, but the thumping noise of the door swinging shut, or perhaps the footsteps downstairs- something woke you. you sit up groggily in bed, following the shuffling and the quiet hisses of pain, not cautious in the slightest. Childe's taught you enough about combat for self-defense, a small sword in your hand as you make your way towards the door. but it clatters to the ground when your eyes land on an otherworldly beast, all violet and black and vivid crimson with sharp claws and two twin horns, hunched near the front door of your home.

you stare. Foul Legacy stares. then he scrambles back and presses himself against the way with a strangled screech.

you nearly jump back in fright, heart hammering in your chest as you grip your weapon. yet the creature merely shrinks away and grips its knees, letting out rasping sobs and whimpers. its blood drips onto the floor, dark and speckled with tiny lights, and your heart suddenly squeezes in a jolt of realization. gingerly you step forward, lowering your blade to the ground as you approach the weeping monster, placing a gentle hand into its thick, familiar coppery hair.

Foul Legacy's head snaps up towards you, his singular, faceted eye wide and filled with tears as he chokes out a faint, mournful whine.

I'm a monster. I'm terrifying. Please, please, please, don't be afraid.

you wrap your arms gently around the Abyssal half of your Harbinger, and Foul Legacy cries as he melts desperately into your embrace.

[m1d-45]

bloodletting

summary: a budding god needs a place to test their new powers, and childe was always a little too eager to lose a fight... a match made in heaven!

word count: 1.7k

-> warnings : minor AQ spoilers ? just like, general gi plot.. fairly graphic depiction of blood + other injuries (might be classed as body horror???). generally obsessive tendencies (childe <--> you). i cannot stress this enough, reader is 110% a sadist.

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @ryuryuryuyurboat || @undrxtxd || @rainswept || @wanderersqt || @rozz-eokkk

< masterlist >

power was not something that came easy. it was fought over, stolen, defended with teeth and claw, tides of blood shed just so one could have power over another. social, physical, financial; no matter the leverage it provided, power was hard won. to give someone power was to admit defeat, a certain death that tartaglia had learned and taught more than his fair share of times. nobody undeserving of power ever held onto it for long; it was an acknowledgement that you were better, that you deserved it, that you’d won. power was a fickle resource that childe would kill to keep, only ever laying down his blade for a precious few.

the tsaritsa, of course. his fellow harbingers, skilled both on and off-field, who themselves could rival the archons. his family, for whom he’d happily give the world.

and naturally, who would be more worthy to hold power than you?

you, not just a god but the, the highest authority across all of teyvat. you bore a hundred names and a thousand monikers, your worship the one thing the world could agree on. granted, nobody could quite agree on how, but that was fine. childe did not need external powers to tell him what to do. he knew, in his deepest heart, that he had gotten it right.

he knew—and, on occasion, flaunted—that he was your favorite. of all the vessels you had chosen, you returned to him time and time again, wishing on his stars until his vision gleamed. his bow shone with power, even his weakest weapon more than enough to push his strength to new heights. part of him wondered what he could do if you’d granted him swords, or a claymore… but that was speculation for another time. didn’t it say something that you had still chosen him at his weakest?

the thought always made him smile. thick in the heat of puppeteered battle, before the sun to after dark, your presence was a constant in his life. at every altar, with every offering, when his hands stung from the rash of leather and his blade was covered in rust, your name a prayer behind blood-soaked teeth. he could not remember a time when his pocket was not weighted with a charm.

his devotion was no secret. he wore your bow with pride, entirely phasing out his other weapons. it didn’t matter that he was technically more controlled with them, for you had chosen this path for him. your word was his guide, a polar star through bitter nights.

he did not doubt when your presence ebbed or flowed. who was he to dictate when or where you spent your attention? no, his faith did not waver. it had no reason to. he waited patiently, going about his regular duties, lingering in snezhnaya for no other reason that he just felt like he had to.

who was he to question to buzzing in the back of his head? who was he to decline when he felt an instinct to leave, to go for a trip far past the city gates? who was he to think himself better than the guiding light that had never led him astray?

for you, he was whatever you needed. and so he went, armed with a thick coat and snowboots, hands shoved deep in the pockets to hide the slight shake. down the main road, an arbitrary turn into an alley and down an abandoned path, into a part of the city he’d never traveled. but a golden thread had tied itself around his heart, pulling without hesitation. he easily hopped over the fence gate, not bothering with hauling it open through the snow. the path beyond was covered in a thick layer of powder, his foot crunching through a foot of it before hitting solid ground. still, he continued.

snezhnayan winters were not warm. they bit and dug into every gap in your clothes, stealing away the precious warmth within. and yet, with his half-done coat and incomplete guard, he was not cold. or, rather, he couldn’t feel it. his hands were pink with frost, stiff at the knuckles, but he couldn’t feel the resistance. his body was not important, not now.

the snow began to thin. it fell from his knees to his shins to his ankles to his toes, until he was face to face with a thick wall of bramble, impossibly overgrown. he was beginning to overheat in his jacket. twin blades made quick work of the wall, and the sight behind it easily dispelled any breath left in his lungs.

the air that washed out of the bubble was thick and heavy, like a humid spring instead of snezhnayan woods. his breath came in short gasps, a shameful wheeze that he hoped was missed beneath the howling snow. he didn’t want you to see him as weak, as someone so easily tired by a short trip to a falling star; he didn’t want you to think of him as anything other than his best.

but you didn’t push him away. you helped him up—his head was buzzing with delusion, he could hardly see, when had he fallen to his knees?—and brushed the snow off his hair, not pushing him away when he leaned into your touch. he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could barely collect himself enough to recognize that he needed to get you inside, away from the wilds.

that was power. to so effortlessly take over every thought in his head, to hold his mind in your hands and pull it into your liking, that was the power he adored you for. gods were figureheads of power, a physical incarnation of their dominion. a god of the entire world would only naturally have power to manipulate that world to their liking. how blessed was he, that he could be the first you made yours.

he was with you when you first stepped into zapolyarny palace, looking around at the chandeliers and fine tile. he opened the door for you to her majesty’s throne room, sucking in a sharp breath as you brushed by. he was by your side when the tsaritsa swore you her fealty, delicately placing the gnoses in your hands.

and oh, how he’d fallen to the floor right then and there, dizzy from the wash of power that rolled off you in waves, an ocean that he willingly dove into. the floor was cool beneath his forehead, his hair sticking to his skin as sweat quickly began to bead. he didn’t bother pushing himself up on his hands, teeth sinking deep into his lip again to control his panting breath. copper bloomed over his tongue, filling his mouth and clogging what remained of his senses.

dimly, he was aware that he was being pathetic, that this would surely change your mind about him. he heard your voice, faint through the fog of his mind, your wisdom lost to his own inadequacy. and yet, despite his weakness, every part of him was tuned into you. he knew it was your hand whispering across his shoulders, he knew it was your influence that stole the breath from his lungs. he knew it was you, because it was always you. you were all he could think of, and now you were finally able to leverage your full power over his self.

he’d woken up in a hospital bed. saline dripped into his arm and the lights pierced his eyes, his head full of snow and iced over. and yet, the moment he was cleared for release, he found himself desperate to be back to your side, racing through the tiled halls of the palace and following the urgent burn in his chest. you would have been right to turn him away, to deem him too weak to stay by your side, but you didn’t. you smiled when he lost his breath and laughed when he wavered, brushing off his concern. you invited him with you—his lungs burned with the need for oxygen—as you twirled the gnoses between your fingers, as if they were toys or paperweights rather than objects of divine power.

divine to him. child’s play to you. a courtyard of snow was cleared in an instant, ripples of pyro melting permafrost while keeping the flora beneath intact, a lazy show of power that pulled little more than a slight hum from you in response.

he wasn’t so much a fool as to think he could teach you everything, or even something, about being divine. and yet he clung to your side like a sailor in a storm, watching as you grew familiar with the elements. he watched, stubborn and weak, as you stopped hesitating.

flowers bloomed as you walked by, crumbling to ash with the slightest look. electro jumped from your skin to his, a painful spark that drew his mind from his head, finally seeing your amused eyes instead of just mindlessly staring. you could—should��have just left him behind, but you didn’t. you instead asked for his help, taking his hand in yours and leading him to a quieter hallway of the palace. you didn’t comment on his thundering pulse despite the fact that you could certainly feel it, tracing a finger along the crease of his palm.

“i wonder…”

a claw of geo cut across his skin, a sharp sting that quickly welled with blood. he barely felt it, watching with detached awe as it filled up his hand, sliding over the edge and dripping to the floor. you didn’t show any emotion, just… watching. his heart beat in his hands, a pool collecting on the floor, and still, you just watched. your other hand moved over the surface, barely an inch away, the blood collecting in a bubble beneath it. with a hum, your fist tightened, pain lighting up his arm. a strained grunt slipped between his teeth, hand flinching closed, brushing against the ball of his blood you had pulled from his veins. his hand was stained red, shaking in your grasp, minutes stretched into hours.

all at once, it dropped, forced back into his body as forcefully as it was removed. with a snap, the skin stitched itself shut, and you were again dragging him along like a child did their favorite toy.

you did that a lot. pull him aside and experiment with whatever new reaction you had discovered that month, week, day, hour, watching his reactions with unabashed delight. and he let you. every time, without fail, he eagerly followed, knowing full well he’d end up rigid with lightning or with ice crystals studding his throat. it was worth it, though. you always fixed him up, squeezing his hand with a whispered ‘good job’ that never failed to make him dizzy.

it didn’t matter what you did to him. it never did. even when his mind was hazy with pain and he couldn’t quite stand on his own, he never regretted it. unconsciousness licked at the edges of his vision, burning black stains that lingered even after you stopped, but he never once hesitated.

if you asked him to jump, he’d ask how high. if you felt like holding him underwater, he’d cherish every bruise. to be kept as a toy was still to be kept.

[an-albino-pinetree]

Half-loafian response.

[luffysprincess]

Guys my new bed is sooooo comfy

[likethexan]

BkII:402-437 Cassandra is Taken, Virgil's Aeneid

"Every man in her life failed Cassandra of Troy" Never ever speak ill of Coroebus of Phrygia

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Rod Liddle

If only our TV news programmes and politicians could bring themselves to call it all ‘Far-Right Terrorism’, then something might get done – because we all know that Far-Right Terrorism is the biggest threat to our democracy. But they don’t. Even though it is, of course, far-right terrorism, lower case – the real far-right terrorism which our politicians do not want to think about and indeed lock people up when they complain a little vociferously about it.

A week or so back the Dutch football club Ajax of Amsterdam played a cup tie against the Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv and as a consequence what the media carefully call ‘pro-Palestinian’ thugs attacked the visiting Jewish supporters, with five hospitalised and 20 to 30 more injured. Many of the attacks were carried out by young men on mopeds – according to one Dutch politician, Moroccan young men on mopeds, which is about as close to actually identifying who these perpetrators might have been as you will get. The Israeli government reacted with shock, booking two planes to bring the football fans home from the fetid ghetto that parts of the decent, liberal Netherlands has become. Dutch politicians lined up to do the platitude stuff. The reliably witless Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, was among the first out of the blocks: ‘I strongly condemn these unacceptable acts. Anti-Semitism has absolutely no place in Europe. And we are determined to fight all forms of hatred.’

Just read that vacuous bilge again – the bloodless and vague ‘unacceptable acts’ and ending with a commitment she does not remotely mean to keep. Oh, and anti-Semitism has absolutely no place in Europe? Au contraire, Ursula. It has many, many places, largely as a consequence of policies enacted by people like you. So, in that crescent (fittingly) of Europe from north-west France, through Belgium to Rotterdam and the Hague – and now arcing further north, to Malmo – these are the places where a large diaspora of Muslims from the Maghreb and the Levant have settled. Hey, it’s just occurred to me – gee, could there perhaps be some connection? If there is you can bank on the mainstream politicians and the mainstream media not to make it.

[holy-mother-of-whumpers]

Chapter update for what was The Nasty Iphigenia Business but in this work of the series is approaching more toxic non-con Aga/Ody ^^'

How do bad things happen? When good people, or people in power, are

Looking away.

...except the concussion I suppose. But, to be honest...

I might take it a little slower on the next updates because that part needs a little more editing.

Or not, every time I try to work at my other fic I procrastinate by working on this fic instead (the writers and artists and adhd people know what I'm talking about) 😂😭

[doloneia]

teucer is such a snarky bastard and i love him for it… like in his arguments with menelaus and agamemnon in ajax hes just like “ohoho its the CLOWN POLICE here to tell me WHAT TO DO well GUESS WHAT? go fuck yourself” and the entire time i am cheering and clapping on the sidelines

[cruel-hiraeth]

i’m aware that childe can speak in his foul legacy form, but i like to think that he can only do so in short bursts; a variety of noises fills the space in between. the longer he inhabits his monstrous body, the more he clicks and rumbles and huffs to communicate, his “speech” largely unintelligible to humans ears.

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

Bruh

I know he very likely would avoid it, but how would FL/Ajax react to Melusine Creator seeing him in human form? Would they be scared because he's a vision user, much like the ones that hurt him?

hehehehe Melusine Creator continues to be a favorite i see

see, you haven't entirely forgotten where you came from or what happened. it's something you'd rather not think about, pushing the memories to the back of your mind most of the time. Neuvillette recommends facing them only when you're ready, bit by bit, so you don't get overwhelmed- healing is a slow process, after all, both physically and mentally. vaguely you remember that Foul Legacy does have a human form, back when Teyvat was just a bundle of pixels on a screen, but you don't pay much thought to it, not when you have a wonderful Abyssal friend already here with you. it's only when his latest trip to the outside world goes several days over that you begin to worry, nervously skipping and pacing back and forth in front of your little shell cottage as you wait

you don't dare venture out of Merusea, but you're brave enough to check with Cosanzeana every day, and today, she's not alone, instead talking to a human with bright ginger hair and blue eyes as lightless as the deep sea

fear grips your heart as you scramble backwards, two pairs of eyes landing on your trembling form, the faint, glittery markings on your arms and legs and torso aching when you catch a glimpse of a Hydro Vision. but the human holds up his hands, an expression of concern written all over his strangely familiar face as Cosanzeana attempts to calm you

"Hey, hey, it's me! Foul Legacy!"

you pause, calming just enough to carefully examine him, the coppery hair and blue eyes and many, many freckles oh- oh! Ajax! Foul Legacy's human self! your antennae perk up as you run to him, tail waving as you curiously examine him from all angles, his gray Fatui uniform faintly familiar. Ajax grins as you shake his hand the same way you did for Foul Legacy, calling all your siblings over to meet him. soon he's completely surrounded by a crowd of curious Melusine, chatter filling the village. you have another friend- or is he the same friend, only different? he has a Vision, like their sister Sigewinne! is he going to stay? Ajax laughs, patting your head like Foul Legacy does and apologizing for being gone so long, the exhaustion of his previous mission sapping away the energy he needs to transform into Legacy. but you don't mind, he's still your friend! and you can hold hands with him much easier now, if you're both on your feet!

[baejax-the-great]

Dude, Agamemnon being a shitty leader isn't even subtext. It's just text

[durgewyll]

i play high charisma characters but i don't know how they'd be in social situations bc i'm low charisma irl 😭

[monocaelia]

little tartag release + rafayel new myth drop; today is truly my day

[juchily]

they called that shit straight up "werewolf conversion therapy" had Enid speaking about hoping that her mother could some day actually accept who she was

Oh man, that girl is not both straight and cis