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hwaightme · 1 year

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Love was spring

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💮 pairing: seonghwa x gn!reader 💮 genre: comfort, fluff, tid-bits of angst, strangers to lovers 💮 summary: following a serendipitous meeting with you, seonghwa blooms in love after heartbreak, and learns that "if you intend to love a single flower, you must love its generation and extinction, presence and absence." - Do Jonghwan 💮 wordcount: 2.6k 💮 warnings/tags: allusion to idol!hwa, heartbreak, recovering from heartbreak, flora, cherry blossom season, implied ideation of death, time, healing, overcoming hardships, rainy days, discussion of life and its meaning, reassurance, meaning of forever 💮 a/n: the sentimental mood, bittersweet reminiscence have not left me after listening to Seonghwa's cover of Angel Baby, so I hope you enjoy my expression of this <3 Thank you so much to Sky (@/legohwas) for reading and for helping with the name, forever grateful<33 Much love and any reblogs, comments, thoughts and notes welcome!

💮 perma-taglist (open): @legohwas @acciocriativity @doom-fics @justhere4kpop @honey-lemon-goose @byuntrash101 @shakalakaboomboo @starillusion13 @hongthoven @cqndiedcherries @uwuheeseungie @hoshischeekss @frankenstein852 @charreddonuts @miriamxsworld @mingigoo @michel-angelhoe @innsomniacshinestar @foxinnie8 @preciouswoozi @wooyoungjpg @mystar1024 @nebulousbookshelf @wowie-hockey

Love was pernicious when the soul was a snow-covered, sleeping tree - a notion that Seonghwa had been unfortunate enough to explore, and a terror to experience. In the flickering embers of what used to be a blazing passion, Seonghwa had remained intentionally oblivious to himself, and to the troubles that constructed a suffocating enclosure around him until catastrophe was imminent. When he had been at his lowest and needed precious love and unconditional support the most, he had been left to perish in the lonely silence, accompanied solely by the drumming of a biting cold winter rain. That day, his heart had joined the millions of droplets by shattering into a myriad of miniscule white flowers, only for their pure luminescence to be extinguished in the blink of an eye and blend with the wet concrete as sickly grey sludge.

As he watched the sun leave his life, the back of the one who had all his adoration and had promised him a forever turning into that of a total stranger, he ceased to believe in the feeling. If it was something so easily disposed of, equivalent to the passivity one experienced when discarding a plastic wrapper or an old, useless and broken toy, then he did not want any part in this farce. Evidently, he had been mistaken in his romanticisms, in his dreams and in his vision of soulmates, and thus, in his future.

Nights blended into days, remaining colourless as Seonghwa drifted in a melancholic somnolence. A hollow shell of a human being, he did what he had to do to be deemed functional enough, competent enough, acceptable enough for the rotating cogs of the societal machine. Seonghwa smiled, because his muscles were trained to do so. He refined his movements in a complex dance routine, because he could dissociate from his inner turbulence. But, in the darkness of his room where he had long ceased to turn on the light out of fear that he would see the ghosts of his history, he let himself collapse onto his bed and study the vapid monotony of his ceiling, so intently that he saw a reflection of his own heartache and misery in the off-white paint.

Amidst his endless search for some form of relief, the dark-haired man had taken to visiting the same bridge every rainy evening. The very bridge on which he had parted with the one who he had called the love of his life, physically metamorphosing into nothing but a black dot with every confident step away from him, but still having the ability to transform into a festering wound in his cranium. Seonghwa had nothing left to give, and yet he kept on hoping that one day everything could turn around, and the sun would shine once more. Alas, the rain had only gotten stronger, until the unforgiving element was a loyal spirit hovering above his lowered head.

Pulling the heavy weight of fate behind him, Seonghwa trudged to the bridge once more, turning in the direction of the flowing river and regarding the way in which large droplets collided with the surface, disturbing an otherwise innocent, serene mirror of the sky. Collapsing onto the stone guardrail, he peered at the waters below absent-mindedly and toyed with the idea of becoming a leaf, be it an oak or a maple; exist to gather energy, give, give and give some more only to break away from familiar territories and succumb to eternal rest on the current’s bubbling surface. A long, tranquil holiday. Away from all of this. Away from judgement, misinterpretation, anxiety that gnawed at his insides like a voracious dog. If only Seonghwa had known that it would turn out like this; then he would have never given into the silly risk that was now poisoning his thoughts, his feelings, and was rapidly approaching his actions.

And it was at that moment, in the desperate solitude, amidst a battle with himself that he met you, and the unforgiving downpour cowered in your radiance.

“Hey, you come here often?” The cheesy phrase pulled him out of his ruminations, and he spun his head around to register the source of sound, finally stumbling upon a figure wrapped up in a raincoat, face partially hidden by an umbrella. Out of politeness, he chose to respond to the mysterious passer-by, flabbergasted when the umbrella moved to reveal a megawatt grin and an adorable face. While you looked to be about his age, you possessed a fascinating contrast of wise eyes that gave the impression of having seen many lives, wonders and displeasures of the world, and the refreshed, youthful face with the faintest natural blush coating your cheeks. In his mind, you were the promise of spring after a detestable, incorrigibly brutal winter.

Love was assuaged grief when the soul was the bare branches of a cherry blossom tree, early buds only just beginning to peek out from their bundled cots, and revealing their youthful colours against the warm grey bark that was decorated with memories of past trials and tribulations; an ode to time itself. This was a notion which you had proposed to Seonghwa amidst your improvised performances - an attempt to elicit at least the ghost of a priceless smile. After the initial meeting, you had come to cross paths more and more often, until serendipitous grew into coincidental, grew into intentional. And for the first time, Seonghwa found his footsteps and his heart getting lighter, and the rain no longer provoked despondent rumination, leaving the cyclical, habitual aches that only time could heal.

The routine was simple. Every evening when the sleepless sky caressed the earth with millions of diamonds that connected to form thousands of threads, embellishing the heavens and tying the mortal and the timeless, you would meet. Same bridge. Same time. Same umbrella, decorated with ornate flowers. You had not asked Seonghwa for much, except to show up, and to bring you a story that brought him warmth. Even if the side effect of the otherwise happy and reassuring memory was a stray tear or two. Raindrops, condensation of the soul, you called them. Trickling reminders that he was able to feel and was capable of knowing when he was on cloud nine prior to entering his period of monsoons and thunderstorms.

Each rainy night, of which there were many, come early signs of the spring season, he recounted what love had meant for him before being subdued by a ruthless frost. How he had traversed each city believing that he finally understood the meaning of utopia and paradise, only for the rose glasses that he had unknowingly been given to be shattered, leaving him experientially blind. Suspended in his retrospections, Seonghwa ambled through his mind’s labyrinth as he divulged the stories of the many shops, cafes and quiet cobbled streets he had visited, with the memories now having transformed into bitter anguish.

The more he shared, the more despicable the prior fondness became. How dare this terror haunt him so? How dare the scenes appear before him in a warm sepia tone, when Seonghwa wanted nothing more but to let them go? He wanted to shed the dead leaves. Anything to submit to an unfeeling winter for a while, for the remnants of the prologue to his solitude to be frozen solid.

“You may wish to forget and say it never happened, it is only natural. But sooner or later, the ice and snow will melt and all that you had buried will be streaming down memory lane and back into your heart.”

“I suppose, but either way I will be thinking about it. So what does it matter if I think about it now, or later?”

“Acceptance, Seonghwa. Acceptance. With steady reflection and time dedicated to yourself rather than your demons comes acceptance. As you’re healing, the sun shines brighter, the days get longer, and the world awakens. It would be a shame to miss the spring, don’t you think?”

He lowered his head in silent musing, letting your words echo in his head before turning to survey the landscape. This was his first venture in the park near the bridge, despite him passing by it countless times. It had been a setting, a backdrop for his chilling thoughts, so deeply entrenched in periphery that he had never even considered stopping and admiring it. And now, with you, he felt that it was right that he did - without you walking by his side, finally having let him take a hold of your umbrella and hold it above your heads, he doubted he would find this collection of bare trees, murky ponds and meandering cement paths as miraculous as he did now. You pointed out the buds, so young they were a pale turquoise, and the fresh grass, thin lines of green among the wilted greys and browns.

Perhaps this was what you envisioned when you talked of love. The nightfall turning into sunset as the clocks chimed the same hour. The same tree, adorned with the promise of a stunning canopy. The same memories, but with each passing day, growing brighter and lighter, until they turned into white clouds floating across the skies of sweet daydreams, serving as nothing more than a signifier of a past that had paved the way towards a marvellous present. If this was what you envisioned, then, certainly, this was what Seonghwa wanted to learn to feel.

Love was harmonious when the soul was the flurry of cherry blossom petals dancing in the wind, enveloping the beholder in the spring embrace and decorating the world in a snowlike carpet and in baby pink. While the tree did not bloom for long, reaching its most beautiful peak and burning out at times in a matter of days, the fleeting, divine glory that it achieved was what you and Seonghwa would consider an eternity. If anything, the growth, the blossoming, the fall were reflections of every living organism in the expanse of space and time; a slow inhale, and a level, measured out exhale all in the hopes of a next cycle.

“You know, Seonghwa, I think that every single person is like a cherry blossom tree. Grand, ever-expanding, unique… bare. However, our identity, our interests, our friends and family… fans, they are all blossoms, leaves, the curvature in the bark that decorates the magnificent branches.”

Your musings were Seonghwa’s favourite pastime and focus, the words forming philosophical symphonies as he let himself be guided from one piece to the next. He had found comfort in sharing his troubles with you, and as soon as the weather had gotten warm enough for you to be able to do so, sitting side by side under the awakening flora to ponder their meaning into a fuzzy abstraction. The conversation had stemmed from your observation of the falling flowers, appearing to be shed as soon as they blossomed. Taking note of the lack of regal white robes on some of the branches, Seonghwa had pointed out that they might have been stolen away by the heavy rain last night, thus falling into a moment of melancholy as he recollected the circumstances of your first meeting.

Gently, you placed a hand over his in an expression of reassurance and a reminder that you, indeed, were here with him, and were not striving for impermanence. Turning his own hand so the palm was facing upwards, he intertwined your fingers together, comfortable with the sweet affection, since the throngs of observers hungry for photographs of the blossoms at their most splendid had long whittled down to lazy stragglers. They still retained a sliver of a chance to capture the grandeur of the remaining veterans before they too would join the fallen white raindrop, preferred to amble past, enraptured by their own routines, their own growth, their own blossoms.

“Flora has its life cycles. The same goes for everything in life. Some things and people appear and disappear in a single season, with only pictures or a passing thought to retain them in your psyche, whilst others, either on their own accord or by joining forces with like minded souls become a continuous presence. You see, even those who you had to say goodbye to were precious. Because they are irreversibly a part of you. Anything you do, anyone you meet is an addition to that beautiful blossoming tree, just like you are to theirs.”

Seonghwa shifted his gaze towards you, taking in your serenity as you basked in the April sun. Leaving behind the flowery umbrella and with it the rainy days, he was caught in a silent bliss, eagerly waiting for each tomorrow, all while living vicariously through every today. He found himself reconnecting with passion, with art. No longer was he functioning for the sake of appearances, but was well and truly living. After having assumed he had to love only beauty and solely seek perfection - the exact notion which had resulted in his near demise, it was a breath of fresh, resurrecting air to discover that to truly love, meant to love the silence, the obsoletion and the absence. Now, as one season changed into another, and as gorgeous blossoms fell to turn into colourful water streams he was able to sit back and quietly observe the metamorphosis instead of mourning it. Because he knew that this meant there would be a future, with new colours, new leaves, new blossoms.

“Life does not stand still…” he murmured, squeezing your hand ever so slightly, a warmth spreading in his chest as your eyes met his and your lips curled into a soft, adorable gleam.

“And what do you think about that?” you held your breath, your heart swelling with pride as you urged Seonghwa to go on.

“I find it to be… like love itself. Even in the quietude of the branches left bare, the fondness and awareness of knowing they had once been home to thousands of petals makes it worth it. And, as such, they never leave, turning into a transformative forever.”

The heavens sighed, a strong breeze washing over the park, your two forms settled on the wooden bench, the shedding canopies of white. Blossoms erupted in a visual catharsis, and scattered across the earth as far as the eye could see. The final flickers of this beautiful season’s embers. And yet, it did not feel like a dismal, all-encompassing finale, but rather the end of the beginning. While Seonghwa did not know what this renaissance would bring, and what florescence shall be his future guide, he was confident that in his newfound tranquillity, you were the reason why loving was easy. Why love was like being brought back to life.

“It is easy to believe in ‘the end’. And takes an infinite, intrinsic love, transcending time and seasons to believe in ‘forever’.” you agreed, and gazed at the scene before you. The glimmering waters of a pond - the sky’s mirror, dotted with brilliant ethereal cotton, soothed by the wind’s caresses. You and Seonghwa watched on as the floral dancers cascaded down in their closing act, elegantly waving their farewells before settling on lapping foam.

Slowly, he was learning the intricacies, the little things that formed a delicate equilibrium that was adoration, devotion, enamourment. Equanimous, Seonghwa wanted nothing more than to live in this ever-changing present, and, with you, love the beauty and the silence after it had fallen.

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eretzyisrael · 11 months

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by Yossi Klein Halevi

How is it possible that, in much of the international community, there is “understanding” for the mass atrocities of October 7? That on parts of the left there is greater outrage against Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre than to the massacre itself? That those who feel most vulnerable on liberal American campuses are not Hamas supporters but Jews? That anti-Zionists who call for turning Israelis into a defenseless minority within “Greater Palestine,” “from the river to the sea,” are chanting their hateful slogans with even greater vigor and moral self-confidence?

One answer was inadvertently provided by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. Speaking last month on Palestinian TV, Abbas sought to explain the origins of the Holocaust. The Nazis, he said, were not antisemitic, but opposed the Jews “because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money… In [Hitler’s] view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them.” In other words: the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves.

Abbas was widely condemned as an antisemite, including by some on the left. Yet Abbas’s sensibility informs the response of many progressives to the events of recent weeks. Israel, they say, effectively provoked the massacre with its occupation of the Palestinians, its racism and colonialism and apartheid, perhaps with its very existence. Once again, that is, the Jews have brought tragedy on themselves.

Blaming Jews for their own suffering is an indispensable part of the history of antisemitism. Whether as the Christ-killers of pre-Holocaust Christianity or as the race-defilers of Nazi Germany, Jews were perceived as deserving their fate. Invariably, those who target Jews believe they are responding to Jewish provocation.

What makes this moment more complicated is that, unlike in the past, Jews do indeed have power. We are no longer innocent. We are occupying the Palestinians in the West Bank. As the war intensifies, civilian casualties are rising in Gaza. And expansion of West Bank settlements undermines the long-term possibilities of a two-state solution.

But this moment does fit the historical pattern of antisemitism in the ease with which much of the world has, over the last decades, erased the Israeli understanding of the conflict and how we got to this point. A systematic and astonishingly successful campaign on the left has negated the Israeli historical and political narrative. As a result, one of the world’s most complicated moral and political dilemmas has been turned into a proverbial passion play, in which The Israeli plays the role of Judas (in place of The Jew), betraying his destiny as noble victim and becoming the victimizer.

The Jewish state has been transformed into the sum of its sins, an irredeemably evil society that has lost its right to exist, let alone defend itself.

To blame the occupation and its consequences wholly on Israel is to dismiss the history of Israeli peace offers and Palestinian rejection. To label Israel as one more colonialist creation is to distort the unique story of the homecoming of an uprooted people, a majority of whom were refugees from destroyed Jewish communities in the Middle East. To brand Israel an apartheid state is to confuse a national with a racial conflict, and to ignore the interaction of Arab and Jewish Israelis in significant parts of the society. To understand Israel and its security dilemmas only through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian power dynamic is to ignore its vulnerability in a hostile region, and the Iranian-allied terror enclaves pressing against its borders.

#israel #hamas #hamas massacre #yossi klein halevi

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chipen · 1 month

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He’s mercurial, impulses derived from the foulest residue of humanity, cultivated into a convincing caricature of their corporeal form. Giddy as he parades around in their skin, awaiting the moment when boredom would begin to fester & his vulgar technique would allow him to become malleable again, reshaped by the hands of an excessively curious child. To be around him was to accept that he might turn that sinister power on you, distorting the soul until the body crumpled alongside it. Choso’s gaze remains impassive, even as he rights the egregious wrong of the curse trying & succeeding at reading the manga upside down. The way he assimilated knowledge at such a pace was another detestable skill employed as carelessly as any of the others. It’s not until he tilts his head back, the warbling lilt of his voice dispersing the quiet, repetitive drone of the television in the background, that his attention is fully snared by those terrible, terrible eyes. His response is involuntary, the question intended to agitate him & what a sick satisfaction would he derive from it. The shift of his expression, whilst minute, mimics a flutter of excruciating pain, his voice does not come without exertion & he compels his gaze to return to the commercial playing on endless repeat. ❝ family means everything. ❞ it matters not that retaliating into mahito’s provocation could manifest as a death sentence, his blood seethed, smouldered into a barely repressed fury. He angles his gaze down, withering & dark, teeming with umbrage. ❝ something you could never understand. ❞ // @venstm

ONE COULD DEBATE THAT MAHITO doesn't even really comprehend anger - but mahito would tell you that he understands it better than anyone. human hatred is born from varying breeds of anger and hurt, violence enacted in passionate rage. hatred was a passionate thing, flaming hot, and with it the special curse burned with the force of a thousand suns. he was a being of passion entirely - the jovial pendulum of his innocence and emotions as pernicious as any toxic venom. it really was unfortunate that as the most 'human' among them, mahito had latched onto the curse user with nigh on lustful curiosity. truly unfortunate indeed.

there is a patient bat of his eyelashes - blue and grey lidding beneath the allure of his eyelids. mahito seems nonplused by his reaction. if anything it causes the edges of his lips to tilt upwards, a saccharine smile following suit before slipping away. oh, patchface's macabre and lovely features mold into something almost innocent, pinned beneath kamo's dark gaze - and mahito's allured tones lilt out a soft, undeterred laugh. how funny! how fascinating! choso was filled with loathing! even he was not exempt from human hatred it seems.

the finger that had so sweetly caressed curse users lips dips over his chin, along the front of his neck. slowly, with that unusual grace of his, mahito rises - free hand falling to rest on the cushions near choso's strong thigh, and the curve of his palm adorning his throat like a collar. innocent smile cuts to savage smirk, and he leans inwards, so close that long hair flutters against his clothing, and it's easy to see the vast swirls of cursed energy within mahito's gaze. his violence is a purr, teeth sinking his lower lip the same moment he squeezes just slightly upon delicate airway. ❝ maybe not, but it's not my fault choso! ❞ his head tilts, thumb tracing the blood manipulator's pulse point, fascinated by the power that lulls beneath, ❝ i'm just a curse. i wasn't born to understand all that sweet sentiment. i suppose you'd consider it above me, hm? like i'm some sort of animal. ❞ but he doesn't sound offended - only curious, amused... dangerously playful. mahito knocks their noses together then, tongue dipping luxuriously across his own lips. ❝ don't be mean to me, ❞ he squeezes, ❝ makes me think you want to play! ❞

#⸻ 𝘮𝘢𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘰 › … thread .#⸻ 𝘮𝘢𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘰 › … ic .#venstm #oh boy here we go

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necatormundi · 26 days

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In theory it's the erdtree's shadow but Because of that the scadutree is more like an inverted/parodical image of Enir-ilim in particular (coiled tree with radiant white bark; proto-erdtree), itself a shadowed place in imitation of the shadowrealm as a whole. more specifically it's the portion of the erdtree that blatantly betrays its origin in the cultural matrix of the hornsent rather than something sui generis While displaying the wretched circumstances of that inheritance in Marika's betrayal/sin and subsequent crusade. it is the Symbol of the crusade AND a Spiral at the same time (and it is difficult not to see something of the crucible horns in the prickly flora of umbra). its inimical relationship to the forces that made it create a sort of war against the self, hence it's extreme frailness/dual trunks, one choking the other/seclusion in a veil of shadow. the pernicious denying of its own roots bit really reminds me of Miquella's self-denying efforts to create a clean slate for his own order (he even abandons the remnants of his great rune on scadutree base as insult to injury lol).

But also... it's notable that it's described as bereft of Order when the single other mention of Something bearing no order is with Minor Erdtree, an uncharacteristically kind and passional aspect of Marika that sounds almost, primordially remote? very ideal but unnaccomplished (pure conjecture). It makes me reflect on the Golden Order and fundamentalism being latter pursuits during radagon era when i assume the real crucible erasure began in earnest. Hatred and Kindness being approximated like that... does the transposition of the world into sense denature these?

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groupchatbrain · 6 months

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why don't you give credit to the makeup post to @/terrybarberonbeauty ig?

In response to thy query, most clandestine and shrouded in the veil of anonymity, I find myself compelled to address thine inquisition with a disposition of transparency and sincerity. It hath come to mine attention that mine actions, specifically the act of disseminating an image not of mine own creation upon the platform known as Tumblr, hath sparked a discourse concerning the ethics of attribution and the rightful acknowledgement of the creator's labour.

In the spirit of candour, I must confess that, at times, individuals of our era are beset by a malaise most pernicious - a certain lethargy that clouds our judgment and impairs our capacity to perform acts of due diligence, such as the provision of proper accolades to those whose work we seek to share with the world. This, I concede, is a failing not uncommon amongst our kin, for the siren call of convenience oft proves too alluring to resist.

Yet, let it not be said that I stand inflexible in the face of constructive critique. Verily, upon receiving thine message, a missive that served as a clarion call to rectify mine oversight, I hastened to amend the situation with all due haste and diligence. With a heart both humbled and enlightened, I ventured forth to edit the aforementioned post, therein inscribing the credit rightfully owed to the creator of the image, thus restoring the balance of honour and recognition to its rightful state.

Art thou appeased by this act of restitution? Hath mine efforts to amend mine previous omission sufficed to quell the tempest of concern that once did rage within thine heart? It is my fervent hope that this gesture, though belated, may serve as a testament to my commitment to uphold the virtues of integrity and respect within the realm of creative expression.

Let us, henceforth, tread the path of righteousness together, ever vigilant in our endeavours to honour the contributions of all artisans whose works adorn the tapestry of our shared digital commons. May this incident serve not as a source of strife, but as a beacon of understanding, illuminating the importance of acknowledging the labour and passion that creators pour into their craft.

In closing, I extend unto thee my sincerest apologies for any consternation my initial lapse may have caused. It is my earnest desire that we may move forward from this incident, fortified by a renewed commitment to the principles of fairness and respect that bind us all as members of this vast and varied community of souls.

Art thou now suffused with contentment, I pray?

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streets-in-paradise · 1 year

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Diverted Course

Troy (2004) Reader Insert Fanfiction / Achilles x Mycenaean Princess!Reader Precuel - Part 22

Word Count 10 K

Warnings: Thetis is being portrayed as a supportive mother. Clichés from the historical epic-swords and sandals film genre mixed with mythology.

Characters (main): Achilles, Patroclus, Thetis, Phoenix, Eudorus, Agamemnon, Hesione.

Summary: Returning to his homeland gives Achilles time to meditate on the intense experience he has lived and he intends to take drastic choices on the matter. However, the reminder of a pernicious detail leaves him in need of good advice and Patroclus convinces him of visiting the best sources available.

In the meantime, Hesione attempts to penetrate the stubborn mind of her master hoping to persuade him using his loneliness on her advantage.

Notes: In the movie Achilles afirms to have seen the gods, implying he is the only mortal arround who had any contact with at least some of them. From this fact i attempt to add some of the mythical element into the story without changing the original tone of Troy centered in mortal actions and motivations.

Tags: @yerevasunclair @mysticaldeanvoidhorse @spideyanakin @spideyanakin-interacts @awakenedevildays @alaysha-of-middle-earth @zoegarfield @helie-brain @rfkfan

There were many silent sacrifices that Achilles accepted to endure for Patroclus since he took him in, but having to stand his new friend during a good portion of the journey back to Pithia was a very annoying one. The bard that the lad befriended in Mycenae was quite talkative and obtrusive, constantly meddling in matters that weren’t his business. He would never stop reminding him that he was a witness of his greatest crime, the only one Greece wouldn’t cheer him for. The awakening of passion in the heart of the queen among greek princesses, splendid daughter of the King of Kings, woman meant to belong with some mighty lord ruler of rich lands. The story brought forward the bard’s curiosity, seeing in it great epic potential and for so, filling the hero with unwanted advice in hopes of making him reveal more details.

Death threats weren’t enough to keep him shut, not at least while being around them. It was most likely that Alexander knew the risk that the rage of the myrmidon champion meant for him and wouldn’t challenge it anyways, but he also wanted to have privileged access to the novelty. He would keep it secured awaiting for better times in which his songs would be an honor instead of a source of scandal. That didn’t stop him from accidentally bringing many questions to the hero’s already troubled mind.

Her suitors and what he was going to do with them were a concerning conversational topic between them on the way. The artist was coming up with ideas on the assumption that Achilles would follow the less subtle route to obtain the lady as wife. Go directly to her father, expect the obvious negative, then do a carnage that wouldn’t leave a single one of her suitors alive and kidnap her. He wouldn’t be the first greek hero taking that path, many stories in the past were evidence of it. Other remarkable warlords before him met with the refusal of their fathers in law and resorted to war like violence.

It would be what everyone expected of him, a typical Achilles reaction according to the brutal fame he was acquiring. He didn’t want that, their nuptial thalamus should not be stained with a bloodbath. However, the reminder brought him the realization that he was indeed capable of jealousy. Despite being completely sure of her feelings for him, the idea of returning to her city and finding out that Agamemnon betrothed her to someone else was unbearable to him. Suddenly, killing the chosen suitor in a rage outbreak didn’t seem an improbable possibility. Not even an oath like the one forced on Helen’s suitors would stop him. If he would have been in their situation he would have killed Menelaus in the blink of an eye. Except that he wasn’t even a legitimate suitor for his lady’s hand, he was only the most dreaded soldier at her father’s command.

Reproaches about his lack of patriotism and long lasting hate were all Agamemnon had for him because he never valued or understood myrmidons like he should. Phthia grew with the frequent arrival of persecuted runaways from other greek cities, many of whom were protected during the times of Peleus, mixing themselves with the descendants of the original habitants of the land. National feelings would hardly emerge among people that were once forced to leave their homelands, mycenaean occupation didn’t change that. The king loved to insult him based on his lack of loyalty to the country ignoring that his definition of Greece was himself. Myrmidons weren’t happy with submission just to feel like belonging to a closed identity given to them by his empire, they were only loyal to themselves.

Reclaiming political power wasn't his particular ambition like was often suspected of him only because he was from a conflictive province. The greedy king could keep the throne and place his favorite crawler general on it; all Achilles wanted from him was the princess. The way to eternal glory, he would win on his own through his actions in the battlefield. She was the only of his wishes that strictly required from the approbation of his hated rival. For her he was going to endure him, since she had the loyalty of his arrow pierced heart. It didn’t take long for him to realize he was starting to miss her, in Mycenae he got used to seeing her everyday and he underestimated how much he loved that. He wanted to wake up beside her, to see her smiles witnessing his training combats with Patroclus, to introduce her with everyone she couldn’t meet the first time she visited him.

Remaining separated in times of war was understandable and normal, but being without her in peace was harder to accept. Something on him was changing and the people around him were noticing it. Patroclus was surprised to see him pick the lyre again, then offering him lessons with the excuse of his recently noticed strong interest in music. They had tried it before and made some good advances, but Achilles postponed those because combat training was a priority. Not only that preoccupation seemed to change, but he even catched the hero playing alone at one given opportunity.

The song sounded melancholic, but it was beautiful, and the lad didn’t dare to interrupt until it was finished.

“ I’m so full of jealousy, I can't believe this… I will never be as great as you. Everything you do feels epic, Achilles!”

The man smiled for him, used by then to be the center of his admiration. It was no secret that Patroclus looked up to him and he didn’t want him to doubt himself in pointless comparisons.

“ You are the one with the musical inclinations, I only play when I’m bored.”

“ You know I’m not talking about musical talent.” The lad clarified. “ When a normal man falls in love, he acts like a fool until successful courting leads to marriage. When you do it, it has to become an intricate adventure for a distant maiden that is practically unreachable. Look at yourself, you are in the part of the tale where the hero mourns his longing for an impossible love because his great challenge hasn’t come yet.”

Achilles wasn’t following the joke.

“ Life is not an epic tale, Patroclus. If it was, I would know what happens next.”

Seeking to help out while trying to differentiate sadness from bad mood, he sat next to him hoping to provide him comfort. Achilles would never ask for it first, especially from him, but Patroclus knew what to do when he needed it.

“ I know exactly what would happen, her father would do something incredibly stupid that would anger the gods. They would punish him through her and you would become her only hope, so Agamemnon would be forced to let you have her in payment for saving her life. “

“ What worked for Perseus didn’t turn out well for Hercules. “ Achilles recalled. “ For some heroes passion leads to doom.”

The pessimistic claim didn’t bother Patroclus in the slightest.

“ But you are Achilles, you are greater than all of them! And your princess already loves you, which means you only have obstacles in the way because the world would not easily accept that her heart belongs to you. All the other heroes won the right to marriage before the girl’s affections … Although Andromeda is still questionable, I like to think that she liked Perseus on sight.”

“ When the choice is marriage or being devoured by a sea monster, the bride is just offering herself as payment for the rescue.”

The stubbornness of Achilles would have disencourage anyone else, but the boy had an inextinguishable spirit.

“ Think of the lack of conflict due to loyalty to her family. Agamemnon is not a father, he is a jailer. From what I saw, she seems to be like a ghost haunting the palace for him. If she has to choose between him and you, he will pick you faster than Medea picked Jason… And with you she wouldn’t be making the worst mistake of her life. You would not abandon her for a younger princess once she would stop serving a purpose for your heroic journey… not unless you want to be fed a stew made with the flesh of your own children as the main ingredient.”

The casual application of her most frequent dark joke got a chuckle out of him, on that he noticed the mark she left on his cousin.

“ That won’t be necessary, once she would be rightfully mine I would never let her go.”

Patroclus had a triumphant smile that gave his expression a mischievous look.

“ What are you up to now?” Achilles inquired, knowing something was coming. “ Don’t give me that look, I know what it means.”

“ Now that you ask, I was going to see Eudorus and I wondered if you wanted to come with me. “ Patroclus innocently offered. “ Phoenix will be there and I bet you would like to talk with him.”

“ I’m not looking for advisors, but you can leave if you want.” Achilles concluded. “ Salute everyone on my part.”

The harsh negative would stumble once more with infallible insistence.

“ Achilles, I’m being serious now. I lost my father and you are the person I search for when I feel lost. Who is yours, if not the old friend of your deceased father? “

He had a point, Phoenix was the closest thing Achilles had to a parental figure found on father’s side. However, he was behind someone else in the matter of being a trustable source of advice.

“ My mother.”

It was the obvious answer, only that Patroclus didn’t consider her first in that opportunity because he thought she was already aware of everything.

“ Haven’t you spoken with her about this? You always tell her everything and you had already visited her before seeing anyone else when we arrived.”

There was a certain glimpse of shame in him.

“ I didn’t tell her yet, don’t make me feel any more guilty about that. “ Achilles confessed. “ If we do what you want, would you go with me to visit her later?”

“ We have a deal." Patroclus agreed. “ I like your mother, tables turn when we are with her. She treats me fairly and you become the little boy.”

Their first stop was the house of Phoenix, adoptive father of Eudorus and old teacher of Achilles. The family had a modest home not too far away from theirs and have been there since the beginning of the mycenaean occupation. The countryside villages were untouched by it, an inheritance of the deposed king that wasn’t magnificent enough for the mycenaean eye. Comfortable places, but not symbols of power they cared to occupate. Those were once conceived as retirement country houses for royals of old age, but with enough patience and work put on them they were turned into suitable places for families. Phoenix took excellent care of Achilles’ inheritance while he was growing up and by the time he reached adulthood the place reserved for him was magnificent compared with its initial state. An architectural hybrid between the palace of a prince and the house of a traveling mercenary, not absolutely sophisticated nor fully rough. In contrast, the place of the old man and his family was just a homely country house.

The disposition intended to imitate the order of things from the times of Peleus. but the space was susceptible to expansions. In times of peace Eudorus was often seen occupied in home improvement labor. Before the rushed travel to fight in Argos he was working on an ampliation to emplace a thalamus for the eventual time of his marriage. It was his wishful project for the future, so he was getting the house ready in advance of finding a woman he would want to take there.

Achilles used to mock the sequential order of his efforts, wondering why he would bother in getting the bedroom ready before actually finding the bride. At that particular opportunity, he was the one asking about the state of the project.

“ He has been working non-stop since he returned, it’s almost ready.” Phoenix told the freshly arrived visitors. “ The women of the argives must have inspired his purpose. “

The impetus didn’t come from Argos, his friends imagined it linked to his mycenaean admirer. The sweet servant girl with an obvious crush on him must have reinforced his will to work on that.

“ We have met Helen of Sparta in Mycenae.” Patroclus innocently excused him. “ That woman is an unstoppable source of inspiration for anyone.”

The old man was absolutely unimpressed by his implications.

“ Those thieves are hoarding treasures from all over Greece, the least they can do with that is getting stunning wives.”

“ … And they do, women were arguably the best thing there.” Achilles joked to soften things. “ When we’ll become truly rich, I would like to get one of those for me and one for my friend.”

“ A mycenaean serving us would be a nice change for once. “ The man snarked, letting them see he thought the hero was talking of buying slaves. “ You know I don’t like to see you both leave knowing you will be fighting for Agamemnon, I accept it because I have no choice.”

“ I fight for myself and your son fights for me. We only use that king to get our deserved rewards.”

The conversation was paused to make proper libations to the gods with the wine that Polymele brought for them.

“ And how good were those this time?” The mother of Eudorus asked. “ I’m absolutely proud of my son’s glory, but we weren’t expecting him to arrive without you. Haven’t you thought about how you were going to scare the people, Achilles? At first sight we could have thought you were lost in battle! “

“ Mother, he was being honored in Mycenae for the great victory against Diomedes.” Eudorus jumped in his lord’s defense. “ The conqueror of Thebes, of seven gates, was never forced to retreat before. Achilles made him.”

The hero seemed pleased with the accurate description of the official motives masquerading his reasons for staying in the mycenaean palace more than necessary.

“ Not easily, he is worth the fame he acquired. Diomedes is the best I have faced, just not good enough to contain me. He knew when to back down, or a deity who loves him inspired him to do it. “

“ Then he got his army submitted to Agamemnon, paid the tribute, and you got the argive blood cleansed from your skin by the hands of the mycenaean princess. “ Patroclus added. “ Not a bad outcome, you got honors that have never been given to any other hero during the ruling of Agamemnon.”

“ Diomedes can still be called a King, Achilles takes the myrmidons to battle as a mere commander.” She recalled, showing disdain for the descripted situation. “ No honors can repay that, a ceremony in the palace of Agamemnon isn’t enough.”

“ But it was a great start.” Achilles insisted, on a positive note. “ His own people are fascinated with me, Mycenae loves me against the wishes of its king.”

The affirmation was accurate, but also an excellent metaphor. Mycenae discovered a fervor for him that Agamemnon despised, but the most special of his subjects actually loved him against his wishes.

Phoenix seemed to have a clear position about that.

“ A bath? If they want to vindicate you, at very least they should have let you sleep with her.”

The joke made everyone chuckle for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t speaking seriously, but Achilles truly had the even more delusional idea of taking the princess of Mycenae as payment for all past and future offenses when he would finally be able to part ways with the Atreide.

“ Don’t make him wish for so, father. “ Eudorus spoke first. “ The girl is a delight, she surprised us all. Kindness like hers is rare to see in the highest royalty, especially in the House of Atreus.”

The remark made him feel taunted and Achilles wasn’t going to remain impassible.

“ The only one in that family that is worth something. Let me tell you something, Phoenix. That princess is splendid and her personal entourage is not far behind. Her servant girls are as lovely as her, one is very feisty but the other one is pure tenderness.”

Polymele retired to a subtle sign of her husband, understanding he was going to share things that she wouldn’t like to hear.

“ It may seem like that, but servant girls are no game.” He strictly commented. “ Not even with the ones belonging to his own household a young man is safe. One may say that everybody does it, but things are never so simple.”

Patroclus was weirded by the strange reprobation.

“ As long as she consents, I don’t see the problem. Those girls are often offered as part of hospitality. Why should we be the ones to beware of them and not the other way arround?”

“ Because there will always be someone else willing to ruin your life for one of them. Servant girls aren’t prostitutes, you don’t remain free of consequences. Don’t underestimate the damage that a jealous owner can cause you. Everything is fun until he realizes that she wants you for real and barely tolerates him. Some don’t like to get reminded that those girls spread their legs for them only because they have to.”

The passion he showed in the intense explanation was suspicious, almost like a defensive reaction.

“ That’s not ethical advice,” Achilles pointed out.” you are treating us like kids that want to put their hands over the fire because they don’t know it burns.”

“ You already know I was not born a myrmidon, your father offered me shelter after I ran away from my homeland. What I never told you or my son was the reason.” The man replicated. “ I was once a prince of Hellas, son of King Amyntor. My father humiliated my mother with his blatant preference for a concubine of the palace and she begged me to do something about it. She wanted me to seduce the slave so she would despise him and so I did. I got close to her, at first for the sake of my mother’s sorrow, but I got to experience a sweet furtive passion with that girl. I awakened in her the fire that only love brings, she wanted me like she had never wanted my father. When we were discovered, Amyntor forgot I was his son. His jealousy overcame everything, he summoned the Furies to curse me with childlessness and they heard him. “

He stopped the tale for a brief instant and glanced at Eudorus.

“ You know now why my blissful union with your mother has never produced offspring. My seed is cursed, dear boy. I came to this land escaping the hate of my father and you were a miracle that happened after I thought I lost everything. It was decreed that I would never conceive a child of my own and when I met Polymele she was already pregnant with you. I got blessed with a chance to raise two boys, my son and my apprentice, and I thank the deity who had mercy on me for that.”

“ Maybe it was your mother, Achilles, I will never know. “ He continued, back on his main interrogator at that opportunity. “ After all, she allowed me to educate you when you reached the proper age. She honored my friendship with your father by letting me be the one teaching you what he couldn´t. I’m obliged to transmit you the humble wisdom that I acquired in a lifetime. Don’t get in the way of a master and his possessive love, he would destroy you no matter what just to keep the illusion of full ownership over his favorite girl. “

The words of advice Phoenix had to give weren’t a calming balsam for the worries of the heart poured for them. Eudorus received those like a personal alarm while Achilles felt his existing doubts increasing after the visit. The outcome contradicted all expectations, he was still feeling conflicted because the advisor didn’t succeed on the accidental intention of making him desist from his secret purpose. Nothing would, not even Zeus himself coming down from Olympus to tell him that woman was forbidden. Speaking of the servant girls was easier than directly confessing he was going after the mycenaean princess, but he knew the advice wouldn’t change much if the man would be aware of his actual target. In any case, it would be harsher and more determinant giving the substantial difference in the high rank.

On his part, Patroclus was amazed recognizing in them the same fear of disappointment he sometimes felt regarding them. It was a strange realization, since normally his cousin never seemed vulnerable to expectations and Eudorus would only care about disappointing him in particular. Phoenix felt to him then like the patriarch they all wanted to make proud, but whose wisdom they wished to put in question. Not a single word of complaint came out from the men, despite the lad waiting for it to emerge. The two grown adults he admired the most, fearless warriors and makers of massacres, wouldn’t dare to question the advice of the man who raised them taking the lead of their absent fathers.

His hope was in a presumably kinder advisor, the only one who could help Achilles out of the tribulations in a way that wouldn’t make him feel hopeless.

Thetis received them the next day in the usual grout by the sea. Only her son knew the precise location of the isolated spot where he spent the early stages of his childhood and Patroclus was the only company he ever admitted. The reason would have been evident to anyone who could witness his interactions with his mother. The stoic mask would fall completely in her presence, she was capable of discovering the deepest secrets of his heart with amazing ease.

“ You have found more than glory in Mycenae.” She told him right away. “ I saw it in you, but I preferred to wait until you would come to me with the news.”

It never stopped to impress them, Achilles found his initial guilt over hiding the secret absolutely pointless and Patrocus was in disbelief for what he was witnessing.

“ I didn’t want to overwhelm you so soon. You were receiving me as your son coming victorious from battle, it wasn’t a proper time to come to you for help.”��

Once he approached close enough she gave him a soft caress on the cheek.

“ There is no wrong time to need your mother.”

He had a sweet smile always ready for her.

“ Your little helper has convinced me.”

Patroclus peeked from behind his shoulder waving one hand and Thetis smiled at him.

“ I see. It's nice to have you with us this time, Patroclus! I heard about your journeys, your first steps outside your homeland. I’m very proud of you.”

The boy was bright with happiness receiving the praise.

“ At least I'm not the only one who is here for your validation.” Achilles mocked him. “ Although I’m not sure who needs it the most right now.”

Sitting on top of some rocks on the shore, she allowed him to rest his head against her shoulder in a calming pose.

“ I always wondered why you didn’t try to sneak into the competition for the hand of Helen.” She commented as a subtle entrance for the matter. “ It’s true that I advised you against it, but many achaean heroes were there. I thought pride could have pushed you anyways.”

“ I’m the best, I have nothing to prove.” Her son answered right away. “ It didn’t matter to me how pretty they said she was, I told myself I was married to the sword and nothing would distract me from fighting. When I had to leave for her wedding party, many men told me I was going to regret it once I met her. I didn’t, Helen is beautiful beyond measure but meeting her didn’t change my life and that made me feel safe in my position. If the prettiest girl in Greece wasn’t trapping me, no other would. “

He made a brief pause looking for exact words that would describe the best what he had to tell her.

“ I met someone else there, a shy girl nobody was paying any attention to. She was the niece of the bride, I thought I was never going to see her again and that’s why I never spoke about her before. I visited her palace, I stayed for more than I should have and now I feel I can’t live without her.”

There was no judgment in his mother’s reaction and he felt encouraged by that.

“ You have a good eye for trouble.” She sweetly mocked him. “ I thought you hated the Atreides, the eldest surely hates you. He invaded the land of the myrmidons in spite of your existence. The age of the demigods was starting to fade, a direct descendant of gods was rare to see. Prince Agamemnon of Mycenae was horrified when he heard people were saying the little boy of King Peleus didn’t have a mortal mother. A demigod child ruling anywhere else was a threat to everything he wanted to build, so he came here with lies claiming the myrmidons were hiding Thyestes and took away your crown before you could get to rule. "

“ No way, he is your Eurystheus!” Patroclus recalled with weirded excitement. “ This is getting very interesting.”

" Deep down Hercules cared for his lost throne, I don't. " Achilles corrected him. " Everyone thinks I say it because I'm trying to escape who I'm meant to be, but I'm not. Agamemnon did an excellent job shaping my fate for his benefit because the man I have become is not the one that prince boy was meant to be. I'm a fighter, not a politician. I can barely look after myself, nobody in their ríght mind would ask me to look after a kingdom. "

" ... Too bad, because your princess seems born to rule. I bet you wish you had your old title just to give her a throne to sit on. "

The tease wasn't ill intentioned, but it touched a detail he didn't consider until then.

" I don't need to present myself to her as the one I was born as. Consider it for a moment, Patroclus. Her mother committed treason sleeping with a traitor. If she finds out I was born a prince, she could think I want her just to get my throne back and she will find logical reasons to believe it. It's the only detail everyone remembers about the Queen of Mycenae, you can naturally assume her daughter is haunted by that. I don't want a scepter of king, I want her... but how do you convince a woman who has been told over and over that her dead mother was a weak bitch seduced by an enemy? "

It made sense and for so, the lad didn't object.

" I have a plan, but it requires time I can't afford and patience I don't have. " Achilles continued. " I can win the dowry with the sword, make Agamemnon owe me so much that he will have to acceed regardless of the mutual hate we feel. Once his greed will be satisfied he will not have any believable excuses. I put the world at his feet and all I ask in return is a wife. The great emperor will not look good if he refuses and we know he will pick his damn empire over her anytime. He could be capable of selling her to old King Priam for the control of Troy."

" Well, to be exact there is nothing he wouldn't give to rule Troy."

" What I mean is that he will not miss her and before he will sell her to anyone else for power he will have to sell her to me. I will bring him all the power he wants so he will not have to exchange her for it on any of the few free kingdoms that remain. " Achilles clarified ríght away. " The problem is that this is a long term plan. She is clever, so far she has managed to delay marriage, but i don't know for how long she will stand. "

There was genuine worry in his face when expressing his deepest concern.

" What if I come back one day to find her married? Maybe she resisted as much as she was capable of, but Agamemnon forced her to marry someone else. Doubt is driving me mad, I don't know how long it will take me to find a new excuse to return. My only comfort is knowing that she is with Odysseus now, that should keep her safe for some time."

Thetis kissed his forehead and prepared herself to deliver bad news.

" I lament to inform you that your friend conspires against you. Is not personal, he still loves you, but nothing comes above the love he has for his wife and son. He fears you could recklessly unleash a country-wide war for that girl and hopes to contain the situation with manipulations. Nothing new, he is once more playing with forces he can't understand trying to cheat fate. "

He raised his glance at her with confusion.

" Mother, are you sure about this?"

" Which one of the two?" Patroclus asked him." Odysseus playing on his own side or her being your fate?"

Thetis seemed quite surprised by the comeback.

" You have returned with a sharper tongue, dear boy. Is that another prodigy from the women of the Atreides?"

Patroclus easily confessed his guilt.

" For cursed people, they are very nice. "

" Don't insult her like that, the only curse my princess has is being born from that father."

" So easily you claim her yours!" His mother followed in a teasing tone. " This is not the same man who left the homeland for war. A true miracle has occurred, my son was visited by the children of Aphrodite!"

" Is that all you both plan to do? Join forces to mock me?" Achilles defended himself. " Yes, I am in love. I thought I would never feel that need for someone else and here I am, losing my mind for the daughter of Agamemnon Atreide. Maybe it is the punishment he got for all the offenses he caused me, or it's yet another motive of suffering I have to endure from him. In either case, it's already done. I love her, I can't conceive the idea of finding her married to someone else or witnessing her wedding as an invited guest. If what you say is true, mother, then Odysseus is ríght in just one thing. I would kill the groom if i have to, she wouldn't even have to ask me to slaughter the husband being forced on her."

" Or you could also remember that the goddess of marriage is the woman who educated me. '' Thetis interrupted before the rage inside him could escalate. " You don't have an immortal mother in vain. "

Achilles wasn't fond of the idea, the mere thought made him feel uneasy. He stood up out of sudden and gave a few steps away contemplating the sea.

" You know I don't like to owe favors in Olympus.You never know how the ones up there will choose to collect payment. "

" I'm loved and respected by both sides of the ruling marriage and that is not an easy achievement." She insisted. " Do you truly want the princess of Mycenae for a wife?"

" Ask Hera if she wants us to honor her getting married or to offend her with an adulterous relationship. In either way that girl is mine. ” Was his terminating answer halfway into an angry ramble “ In fact, being her lover would never be enough. Only a coward would conform with that. I would steal her from her dying husband and if I have to spill blood all over the temple, I will. "

" That sounds like a threat, I think it's not wise to offend the goddess whose favor you need." Patroclus mocked his lovesick rage. " ... You truly are lucky that this lady is your mother. "

Thetis smiled once more, purposely avoiding chuckling to the comment and the overall situation, but remained silent.

" Do you think threatening the Queen of Olympus is a viable option?" The boy continued, horrified. " Are you completely out of your mind?

" I'm not a coward, I speak my mind. If Hera doesn't make her my wife, I'll take her by myself. "

" Or the goddess can obviously go one step ahead of you and marry her to someone that would screw your plans."

To the immortal woman in front of them it was like seeing the argument of two children. However, the unusual wisdom that the youngest was showing was unusual to perceive in someone of his age. He had a healthy fear of gods her son had never acquired.

" No one will get in my way." Achilles confidently answered to Patroclus' provocation. " No one would be that stupid. "

" What about a man you wouldn't kill so easily and she wouldn't want to cheat on despite not loving him ? I know of a prince that fits the description, a great fighter and a very honorable man... Agamemnon would love to get him on board. "

The mere reminder of that man annoyed the demigod. Although the idea seemed improbable,he had realized that his cousin was in the ríght.

" Prepare an expiatory sacrifice for tomorrow morning or Hera will gift your girl to Hector just to give you a lesson. "

Thetis wanted to show support for Patroclus' advice without revealing too much of certain information that could be upsetting for her son. As a sea deity she was aware of many things happening on the domains of Poseidon.

“ That would be an excellent start, I can do my part and speak with her later. “ She quickly took the lead in the conversation. “ The alignments on Olympus could also be useful information to you. I will try to figure out what the great deities think of her, but don’t expect much. Your discredit of Olympians comes from the fact that you have met them, your girl has never felt divine presence. Zeus hates the Line of Tantalus, no one assists them directly. Agamemnon has done more harm than good trying to restore the relationship with the Great King. He thinks that ruling the world would prove that he is better than his ancestors and Zeus will forgive him. I feel confident guessing that the young princess must be secretly watched by Athena, anyone loved by Odysseus gets at least a bit of her attention. Aphrodite is over Helen, if they are close she may be keeping an eye on her too. “

“ Aunt and niece have become hard to separate. That must be why the goddess of love couldn’t keep turning a blind eye anymore.” Achilles commented. “ It explains a lot. I thought the world was going a bit more insane than usual when no other man seemed to mind leaving that gorgeous girl all by herself. She even used to boast of being invisible to the eyes of men and I heard that while my own eyes were feasting on her.”

They shared a few chuckles to the amusing sounding confession.

“ Aphrodite is called the laughter loving for a reason: she adores pranks. Expect some more pranking now that she is bringing her favorite mortal man. “

The words escaped from her in a moment of distraction because the thought was already on her mind. Her son suspected immediately and questioned her about it.

“ Mother… is there anything else that I should know?

She was reluctant to keep speaking, as if they were reaching a cursed topic, but there was nothing else she could have done.

“ Your beloved was invited to Ithaca under false pretexts, Odysseus has a mission for her. To be the bridge between his people and the trojans, Prince Hector is on the way on board of a ship that will arrive soon there. His brother Paris is with him, he is the favorite mortal of Aphrodite. Hector is the predilect of Apollo … and of their entire nation. “

Patroclus cackled loudly to the incredible coincidence.

“ Well, looks like all our mockery will be put to test. “ He concluded. “ Do you think Athena could be connecting her thoughts with Odysseus’? She didn’t tell him about her old escape plan, I'm sure of that. If she sees him the same way I see you, I can confirm that it didn't come out from her.”

Achilles was certainly dismayed, but not even in front of his mother he would admit it.

“ It’s only a shame that I can’t be there to see her gaining fame. Her glory is a motive of cheer for me, she always takes pride in mine. I want the trojans to adore her so Hector can envy me later. And as for Paris, he can check on the wonderful woman that could have mindlessly gifted herself to him if she wouldn’t have met a real man first. He will see how unworthy of her he is and she will feel embarrassed to have ever considered him.”

Surprisingly calm reaction making everyone else suspect there was more behind he wouldn’t acknowledge at the moment.

“ May I ask you one more favor?”

The goddess secured some of the strands of golden hair falling at the sides of his face behind his ear

“ Anything. No matter the path you take, I’m always on your side. “

Achilles seemed partially encouraged and that was a relief.

“ Take care of her, keep her safe when she is unreachable to me. “ He sweetly begged. “ I don’t need you to spy on her because I want to test her loyalty. I trust her, I feel it every time she is close to me. She wants no one else, the world demands her differently. The request is not about me, I just want to know if there will be someone out there looking after her when Athena or Aphrodite would be too busy with the mortals they like more. “

The petition was clearly heartfelt and he hugged her right away.

“ That will not be a problem, she has been praying to the Nereids.” Thetis shared with him in complicity. “ She thinks I don’t listen to her talking of her love for you, but if you would know the things I have heard you will be swimming to Ithaca. “

His eyes went wide realizing that his mother had been aware of everything all along.

While such matters were occupying him, the situation in Mycenae appeared to be diverting the course...

The atmosphere in the palace was moderately quiet, but that wasn’t doing any wonders for the king’s mood. He seemed distracted at best and more easily irritable than usual at worst. Dealing with him wasn’t simple even for his royal advisors. The absence of Nestor complicated things even more and there were no future prospects for an imminent military action that would justify his comeback from Pylos.

For Agamemnon, it was just him and the mundane issues of Mycenae in a boring in between wars period he would be spending alone. It was hard to admit he didn’t enjoy peace, not even the domestic one obtained in solitude after getting rid of his daughter for a while along with all the uncomfortable visits they were forced to receive. Having her around was often a source of headaches, but letting her go to any place other than his brother’s palace and being uncertain about her time of return wasn’t nice.

He was worried, no matter how much he trusted Odysseus or how advantageous it would be to have information about Ithaca after the conflict with Diomedes. To some extent, he was regretful about letting her go.

It was a constant in his relationship with her, taking choices as king that he would later regret as a father. In a more busier context, with some war upcoming or anything to distract his mind, he would simply ignore it. All his usual topics of concern were in control and he had no better idea than turning his thoughts back at her. Their bond was of constant struggle, if there was one thing she learned good from him was the insistence on doing things her way and there was nothing he hated more than being contradicted. She would always stand in the opposite viewpoint for any issue, from the petty things to actual conflicts, and drive him insane.

However, the palace wasn’t a constant battlefield at all times and she was a nice company. Whenever being anywhere else was impossible and campaigns had to be postponed, in the cold seasons when receiving guests was less frequent and the palace would reduce to just the two of them and their servants. Hunting wasn’t her thing, but in the bad weather she did appreciate the fur clothing. He would typically mock the hypocritical stance and she would laugh, admitting her guilt, to later extend the discourse claiming that hunting trophies were the useless side of it she didn’t enjoy. He once tried to explain to her his taste for keeping trophies using battlefield comparisons. In war when one man kills the other, the defeater has the right to take the fallen’s armor as a prize to display at his home. Without hesitation, she told him that an armed man in battle was a danger to another armed man, but a deer in the woods wasn’t. Only greater prizes from actually dangerous creatures made sense to her for that. The hunt of the Calydonian boar or the gorgon head kept by Perseus, not parts from the lifeless remains of animals that weren’t extraordinary.

If wars had to be fought following her logic, only killing the extraordinary people, he wouldn’t be at the edge of ruling Greece. Their philosophical arguments were at least entertaining and he would always crown those with some intricate wartime anecdote that would keep her listening. At some of those occasions she would simply hear him vent about Achilles driving him insane without stopping to question him a single time. Her silent support was comforting to him, seeing her simply nodding and smiling to whatever he said for once was definitely helpful. That man would often manage to outshine him while making him look like the villain of his heroic tale, so the king liked to have someone with whom he wouldn’t feel that way. His girl was always understanding, the onlyone besides Menelaus that seemed to be completely on his side.

Watching her sitting among her slaves, directing their work while keeping up with her own beautiful embroidery works, would sometimes secretly fill him with pride. She already looked like a queen and she had reached the age to become one. Although he was hoping to receive her back before the end of the season, soon he would have to let her go definitely. His empire needed offspring, from his viewpoint as a king he had to get her married as soon as possible. From his feelings as a father, he couldn’t grow the courage to let her go.

He would never admit it. Not even to himself, always up to find new motives to place on her. Blaming her was easy, stating she was not ready yet to be a good wife sounded more rational. In that line of thought, delaying the marriage was saving an unlucky man the disappointment of getting stuck with a disgraceful mess of a woman that would ruin his life. He was merely providing the useful service that Tyndareus should have given him before he married Clytemenestra, making sure the daughter she gave him would be in optimum conditions before her engagement. He managed to truly convince himself of that, satisfied with his self deceiving. She wasn’t good enough for any man and it was his responsibility to perfect her. Behind his cruel reproaches he was hiding the consequences of his paranoid fears, but also the possessiveness of his filial love.

It was no mystery to anyone that Agamemnon was a greedy man in every sense of the term and that included his affections. Shouting that he wanted her out of his life only masqueraded his necessity to keep her by his side. He preferred to have her in the palace, far away from the world, because she belonged with him. A fierce, jealous love was the guide of his parenting style. Taking anything away from him was already a difficult task, expecting him to give it away was nearly impossible. He was the accidental creator of his own difficulties, living in the contradiction of needing her to provide an heir to the house and feeling like any man wanting her was stealing her from him. She, who he had raised to be the exception to the rule in the troubled history following the women of the family, was a final product meant to be handed to someone else.

His mother abandoned him and his little brother when she sentenced herself to death for being unfaithful to their father, then his wife followed the same path. She carelessly left that child lonely for the sake of a lover, but her father knew very well what that little thing endured growing up without a mother. He promised himself he would do better with her, that he would keep her safe from the curse. Her innocent acts of rebellion in the palace were a fair price to pay for rescuing her from that fate.

Under her watch she was doing fine, occasionally trusting her to Menelaus wasn’t doing any harm either. As the only woman they managed to save, she was theirs by right, meant to be their caring company from her roles of daughter and niece. For the same reason she was their special responsability. Odysseus was a great man, but he wouldn’t understand it. He was probably being indulgent with her, allowing corruption to happen accidentally just to be a nice host. He was her favorite for a reason, he would often destroy all of her father’s good work on a week of visiting by giving her permission for anything she wanted.

She adored the King of Ithaca and he had an evident soft spot for her. She was always all smiles at the news of his arrival to Mycenae, even happier than if they would tell her that her father was returning from war. No other visitor would spend as much time alongside her as he did yet it never seemed to be enough. She would always beg for him to stay a few days more, looking at him with an adorable expression. It was the exact kind of trick she used to play as a little girl to stay for longer in Sparta, only not about her uncle anymore. She had built a great affinity with Odysseus, one that replaced Menelaus from the spot of favorite. It was granted that, despite the good intentions of Penelope, that man would give the girl too much freedom.

There was no doubt that his friend also meant good, but he wasn’t the one dealing with the consequences. Odysseus was responsible for her only while she would remain on Ithaca, nothing obliged him to be severe. For as much as Menelaus enjoyed being a relaxed uncle, he was aware of the limits he couldn’t let her cross. He would be more careful because he was aware of the risks, they had a secret mission to accomplish keeping the curse at bay. Although, at the end of the day, it was always up to him. The eldest brother, head of the house and father of that girl he wasn’t ready to raise alone when circumstances made him. His younger brother was a good support, but he wasn’t there all the time.

The trojan was all he had on a regular basis, that damn woman he would never get rid of. She knew too many secrets of the family, so he could never sell her, but he was too dependent on her and could never kill her. They were stuck with each other and over the years she had at least proven a consistent loyalty. It was a bond of relative mutual convenience making itself more evident when there was no one else around.

“ I’m bringing your meal, the poor boy that pours your wine is afraid you may slaughter him so I told him I can handle everything.” She announced herself carrying a tray to serve him. “ We are far beyond that, aren’t we?

Agamemnon tried to remain as composed as possible to show kingly dignity.

“ Just because my daughter has made you a queen among slaves, that doesn't mean you can talk to me as if you were a real one. She uses you to fulfill a need, as slaves are meant for. Queen Penelope of Ithaca is now in your place, surely doing a better job than you.”

The woman began to serve the table for him with cold carelessness.

“ Perhaps you are the one worried wondering if Odysseus is doing better work pretending to parent her. “

She poured wine and handed him the cup with total naturality, upsetting him even more than a claim that got him a bit too deep.

“ That’s an insolence I can't tolerate, not even from you. Hesione, favorite of the princess, I can’t care less about your old age and she is not here to protect you. “

“ The last time you marked my body she didn’t speak to you for days. I have seen her shredding tears of resignation whenever her benevolence wouldn’t be enough to calm your wrath against any other of us. Anger is what will be awakened if you touch me or her handmaids. Only three persons in this palace she expects you to protect in her absence, two of them are away.”

The reprobation made sense, so he switched the topic.

“ Odysseus was blessed with a firstborn boy, but I fear he would never be a good parent for a girl. Not only was he luckier than me regarding his offspring, he has an irreproachable wife and in this fortune lies his optimism. He has no idea of what it's like to have been married to a traitorous whore knowing your mother was one too while you beg for your only offspring, that just HAD TO BE yet another WOMAN, to not end up like that. I’m sure the pretentious little bitch is going to be insufferable at her return, that’s what he does to her.”

“ Be honest to yourself, King of Kings. “ Hesione warned in a mock. “ You are thinking of the people she will meet. Provincial nobles that will be dazzled by her shine, she may make new friends. Some that you didn’t buy for her, that you can’t control in the limits of this palace. Your sad attempt to control Patroclus wasn’t only about upsetting his cousin, he is the first friend your daughter made from outside your borders and that makes him dangerous… Who knows who she may befriend next?”

“ YOU KNOW WHY I HAVE TO DO IT! “ He yelled out of blatant rage for the callout. “ Your intrigues mean nothing to me, I’m protecting her from the curse she was born with.”

If she would have been completely free to speak, Hesione would have said he was that girl’s curse. At least for that she missed the presence of Achilles, he would never hesitate on freely insulting him without fearing repercussions and through the blade he had earned the power to do so.

“ It will not happen again because I have paid enough attention. From the claws of that harpy I rescued her and I made her a decent girl.” Agamemnon strictly concluded . “ Too nice, perhaps, her sense of morality drives me insane… But she has high morals, even if she often uses those to judge me.”

“ Trojan sense of morality, too elevated for the House of Atreus.” The woman clarified, reclaiming what she considered her accomplishment. “ That rectitude and virtue didn’t come from you.”

“ She is a righteous woman anyways, Hesione! I made that possible, on my watch she grew up safe.”

The king had a long sip of his drink while the slave kept accommodating plates.

“ She can’t be under your watch forever. “

He swallowed his first bite of food quickly to eagerly reply.

“ I can’t trust her to another man, they don’t understand. With me the curse is contained…”

“ She is a girl, not a feral force of destruction.” Hesione recalled. “ You don’t need to contain her, you need to understand her. It’s not about finding a husband to control her in your place, she needs one that would care for her. So far you have received prospects following nothing but your own interests. Your local flatterers and a few foreign princes from families you like, all focused on your personal gain. Have you actually checked on any of those men, besides from their inventory of richness or political influence? What about their personalities, goals and morals? Do you find any virtue in at least one of her suitors?”

“ Antilochus is a good young man, Nestor and I have been thinking about it since they were kids. He was my strongest favorite, but he became a suitor of Helen and our plans got ruined. Until quite recently, many of the most righteous princes were too busy fighting for her.”

Hesione was subtly heading the conversation into a very important point she wanted to make. Always letting her master believe that she was simply helping him think, what she actually seeked was to persuade him.

" It's not about righteousness. Look for a man that is in perfect balance with yours and her morals. One that would follow your brutal ways of heartless conqueror but would still make her happy. "

" That man doesn't exist, no one can reconcile such extremely different interests. Agamemnon insisted. " Her purpose in life is to serve me, it's logical that the choice has to be useful to me. "

He was incredibly stubborn, but she wouldn't stop.

" The kind of man you are looking for is a fierce warrior with a good heart. One that would be with you exterminating an entire population of men, but would pretend he didn't see the children escaping. A son in law fitting for your needs that would still have softness reserved for her. A mighty arm to destroy your enemies that would wrap her in a tender embrace."

The servant was purposely describing Achilles in a language vague enough to plant the seed of an idea that was favoring him. Despite the king didn't figure out the underline meaning of her words, the advice seemed sensical to him and precisely for that he was feeling conflicted.

None of his trustfull advisors would have ever been so direct.

" I fail to see what makes you so interested in her departure from this house. '' Agamemnon snarked with poisonous disdain. " You'll lose everything with her marriage and I am not speaking only about your position of privilege. You don't have a family, that girl is all you have. I have many other matters to care about, my mind will move on, but without her you will lose your purpose. "

Her answer was a hard strike.

" My love is selfless, I want the best for her no matter what will happen to me. Perhaps because I have nothing I can call mine and you own so much, you will never understand that. "

Agamemnon cackled carelessly and shamelessly.

" There you are again, playing to be the sacrificial matriarch! It doesn't suit you as good as you think it does. "

Hesione watched him completely unamused.

" You still hope for it, don't you? How many years humiliating me in front of her got you nowhere? How many teachers and etiquette trainers that you have collected among the best wives in mycenaean nobility have failed before? Now you think that Penelope of Ithaca, of all queens, will be the one successfully training her to hate me and my kind? "

" She needs a fitting role model to follow and Penelope is a flawless queen, i believe her influence can inspire her into becoming one. Acknowledging your inferiority is part of that, she is too old to keep pretending you are her mother. "

Her mockery was turning into rage. She had no doubts about the love of her girl, but it was true that her social position demanded other teachings besides from hers and the king was pointing it out to hurt her.

" You are spiteful because she hasn't learned to dehumanize trojans like you wanted. Growing up with me was supposed to show her that we are all pets your family will dominate someday, but you failed in poisoning her with your hate..."

She made a brief pause, unsure of letting the anger dominating her get its outlet.

" ... Let’s revisit some basic facts about your daughter. She loves horses more like any other noble girl who has been in this palace. Do you remember when you whipped a lad working in your stables thinking she was sneaking there to see him, only to later find out she was there talking to the horses? "

The king remained silent.

" If given the choice, she loves dressing in blue clothes as much as your traditional red. She can recite the story of the foundation of Troy as fluently as she would tell you about the origins of Mycenae. Dardanus and Tros are names as familiar to her as Perseus or Tantalus. "

She didn't want to get that far, but couldn't stop herself.

" My child calls me her anna, and she speaks my language with the cutest greek accent. She is insecure of it and would never dare to speak it with another trojan, but King Priam himself would get emotional hearing her because it's perfect mixing. Troy is her secondary homeland, she made my roots as hers as the ones birth assigned her. "

" Being attached to you doesn't make her an honorary citizen of your old kingdom." Agamemnon mocked her. " It's true, you taught her some unusual traditions behind my back, but a princess of Mycenae can only be destined to rule trojans after I'll raid their city."

" Start thinking of her beyond your wishes or you'll lose her. " The trojan concluded, a genuine piece of advice wrapped in the harshness of her emotional state. " Now is the time for you to do it, before it will be too late. Don't get surprised later if once your grandkid is born Odysseus receives the news first."

The callout didn't convince him completely, but it gave him a new problem to think about.

The king sent away emissaries with important messages the next morning. Two to Pylos and several more to Argos, making his advisors suspect he had developed a remarkable interest in Diomedes after managing to submit his army.

#troy (2004)#troy 2004 #troy #troy 2004 fanfiction #troy fanfiction #achilles #patroclus #thetis #phoenix #eudorus #agamemnon #hesione #brad pitt #garrett hedlund #julie christie #vincent regan #brian cox #achilles x reader #brad pitt x reader

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mollyringle · 1 year

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In which I have had it with disingenuous advice lauding rugged individualism

We often hear that if you truly and deeply want to create something—writing, music, visual arts, a company, an invention, etc.—you will find a way to do it. You’ll squeeze out the time between your other obligations; the muse and the passion will help you along, and you will succeed! I have said things like this myself in the past, meaning to be inspirational and encouraging, as people generally intend to be when they say such things. But as I’ve gotten older and met more kinds of people and looked honestly at society, particularly here in the US, it has become painfully clear that the above is an incomplete story.

The whole truth has to include this part too:

There are many people whose wonderful creations we haven’t yet seen, and might never see, because these people are not getting enough support in terms of basic needs: health, finances, family, safety, access. For reasons beyond their control—expensive chronic health problems, disabilities, neurodiversity, families who cannot or will not help them, unstable housing situations, and more—they cannot merely grab the muse’s hand and be pulled along a prolifically creative path to success. Their vision may be exactly as wondrous and world-changing as anyone else’s, but we might never know, because circumstances block them from bringing it to fruition.

We don’t hear enough about these people. Given the way social media and news are designed, we hear frequently and voluminously from successful people with vast platforms, and next to nothing from those who fell through the cracks.

I don’t know of any easy solution. All the solutions need to be huge and systemic, and they go against the stubbornly individualistic American mindset that we cannot seem to shake (a problem shared by many other countries too).

But those of us who have at least enough daily stability, peace, health, and support to have struggled through our own issues and created something should pause and realize that, although our own struggles were indeed hard, other people’s are truly insurmountable, the way things stand. It’s disingenuous to claim, “Well, I managed it despite all these hardships, so anyone should be able to,” because in truth, we didn’t do it alone. It’s almost a certainty that we had someone willing to give us employment. Friends or relatives willing to help us now and then. People providing medical care for us. People keeping our utilities running smoothly. People interested enough in our idea that they contributed helpful feedback and even money. People who told others about us and boosted us up.

No one accomplishes feats of creation entirely by themselves from start to finish. It is one hundred percent a myth. Yet the “you can do anything,” “follow your dreams,” “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality continues to thrive and is still viewed as a fully workable plan. It is, I have come to believe, one of the most damaging and pernicious myths in our culture.

Dreams and creativity are vital, and yes, they are also personal and individual, and everyone deserves to be free to pursue them. For that to happen, however, our societies need to support everyone at a basic health and safety level. Everyone.

Vote accordingly. It’s all anyone can currently do. But in the meantime, look around at everything that has gone well in your life, all the tools and resources that have helped you get where you are, and recognize the often-invisible fellow humans behind each of those steps and each of those items. Send those folks a bit of gratitude, and try to turn your habitual thinking toward the realization that you are not alone—not a rugged pioneer, no matter what the American Dream has told you—and that no one else ought to feel alone either.

And I will keep saying it in short form and long till the end of my days: talk up the small creators you run across, those who actually need word-of-mouth hype. The big names are doing just fine without you posting about them. Give some bandwidth to those for whom a praise post would make their day and possibly even boost their finances.

#compassion #individualism #society #culture #social support #arts #inspiration

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dumbasswhatever · 1 year

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Three little babes in their bassinets

Angelic little triplets or triple threats?

They might have fooled the others, but they won't fool me

It's time to give these teething, seething three

The third degree

Which of the Pickwick triplets did it?

Who of the crew could commit this crime?

Might a little brat make a mommy go splat?

It's a story pretty gory for a nursery rhyme

Which of the Pickwick triplets did it?

Which of the spawn had the brawn to kill?

Will a baby get tried for matricide?

Coochie-coochie-coo, time for you or you or you to admit it

So quick as a whip gotta pick which Pickwick triplеt did it

Penelope in pink surе is making quite a stink

Is she trying to throw me off the scent?

Though she bats her little eyes, is she a killer in disguise

With a diaper full of criminal intent?

Preening Patrick is pernicious with an appetite so vicious

He would bite the hand that feeds him with a sneer

But could that rotten tot be behind this evil plot

Baby-stepping towards a murderous career?

Pouty little Paco's looking coy, but he's a bad, bad boy

Could Paco's passion prove apocalyptic?

With his paci' and his rattle, did this pisher go to battle

Proving he's the perp amidst this Pickwick triptych?

In this picaresque puzzle of the Pickwick pack

Will a lighthouse shed some light

On which kid gave ol' mom a whack?

There's an infant to indict

I'll book this little crook tonight

But

Which of the Pickwick triplets did it?

Who of the crew would commit this crime?

Which little brat made mommy go splat?

Which crib, which sib will be doing hard time?

Which of the Pickwick triplets did it?

Which little putz had the guts to kill?

Like a forensic pediatrician, I'll complete this inquisition

I will name the neonatal from the cradle that proved fatal

I will find the perpetrator who did murder to their maker

Coochie-coochie-coo

What if none of it is true?

Has my inspection been too cursory

Should I look outside this nursery?

What if none of the Pickwick triplets did it?

Who'd have had a menacing motive and hid it?

Who? Who? Who? Well

I pick you!

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fantasyfactorxx · 11 months

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Do toxic fans in some online spaces (eg. Twitter) make it difficult to become or identify a fan?

The digital era has given rise to a paradoxical dilemma as fandoms grow exponentially. While social media sites like Twitter provide people never-before-seen chances to interact, express their enthusiasm, and celebrate the works they love, a more sinister and pernicious phenomenon has also emerged. A lengthy and depressing shadow of toxic fan behaviour has been cast over these communities, making it harder and harder for new fans to join or for long-time fans to publicly identify as members of a treasured fandom (Pan 2022). Since fandoms have moved to more open platforms over the past ten years, such as Twitter and TikTok, fan culture has been widely available to a wider audience, enthusiasts of many kinds of things nowadays connect freely and publicly, as opposed to forming primarily obscure groups of people who were all enthusiasts of a certain subject (Zubernis 2022).

As it highlights issues regarding the nature of fan culture, the impact of online spaces, and the psychological toll it takes on people who want to show their respect and excitement, this complicated subject is a viral challenge. Today, we discuss the convoluted realm of toxic fan behaviour in this blog, as well as how it hinders people’s ability to participate in, enjoy, and appreciate fandom in the digital era.

What makes a fandom toxic? There are three main components to making a fandom toxic according to (Lefler 2023), which are possessiveness, entitlement, and a feeling of superiority. Due to possessiveness, toxic fans believe they are the owners of the material they enjoy and they would behave as though it is exclusively theirs (Lefler 2023). Possessiveness goes hand in hand with entitlement, the creators are entitled to demand anything they want since, in their minds, they own the thing or persons they like (Lefler 2023). Then there’s the sense of being better than, fans who are toxic feel better about themselves than less intense or obsessive fans, who are usually referred to as ‘casuals’ (Lefler 2023).

Journalists, news organizations, and others have used the term ‘toxic fandom’ in recent years to describe popular culture enthusiasts who exhibit actions deemed undesirable and harmful (Vinney 2022). It is without a doubt that negativity permeates unhealthy fandoms already take place in different forms but the members who exhibit a lack of regard for others – becoming confrontational and aggressive when faced with opposing viewpoints – may be the primary indicator of a toxic fandom (Moore 2023). These behaviours might include making harsh online remarks on the revival of a certain pop culture icon, mistreating other fans or those involved in its creation, or doing antisocial behaviours such as doxing – sharing someone else’s private information – or making threats of rape or murder (Taylor 2023). People would essentially be discouraged from freely expressing their passion or thoughts due to their fear of such reaction (Arouh 2020).

Online venues, including social media platforms, may become hostile places where rude remarks and abusive behaviour are the norma due to toxic followers and this would lead to new fans being reluctant to participate if they are constantly exposed to this animosity because they fear being singled out or made fun of (Huesmann 2007). Peer pressure is particularly strong when it comes to prospective new fans because of the worry of not fitting in or being shunned by the fan community (Cohen & Sherman 2014). Peer pressure is already a big issue as it is in the real world, what more to say about how it would be an issue online. According to (Pan 2022) who highlights that toxic fans reject artistic interpretations or fan works that differ from their opinions, discouraging from expressing original ideas and contributions to the fandom.

Fans that are toxic often have strong, inflexible beliefs about the fandom, its characters, or the plot’s course and within the fan community, these strong viewpoints may cause polarisation, with some ardently supporting the toxic behaviour while others fiercely reject it (Turner & Smaldino 2018). The toll toxic fandoms can have on a person’s mental health is among their most detrimental effects because when becoming a fan of a show you adore, but when you join a fandom and are rejected for who you are or what you think, it may make you feel alone and inadequate (Moore 2023).

To conclude this, toxic fans really do make it difficult to identify as a fan. Due to how possessive, entitled and a feeling of superior that the toxic fans possess it makes it difficult for those new fans to come in because these toxic fans have dominated the site. New fans who do come into the fandom would eventually have the fear embedded within them because they know they knowledge is not as much as those who have been there since the very beginning.

List of References:

Arouh, M 2020, ‘Toxic fans: distinctions and ambivalence’, Ex-centric Narratives, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ExCentric/article/view/7917 >.

Cohen, G, L & Sherman, D, K 2014, ‘The psychology of change: self-affirmation and social psychological intervention’, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 333-371, viewed 6 November 2023, < https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137 >.

Huesmann, L, R 2007, ‘The impact of electronic media violence: scientific theory and research’, Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 41, no. 6, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704015/ >.

Lefler, R 2023, ‘What’s toxic fandom and what creates it?’, Reel Rundown, 18 March, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://reelrundown.com/misc/5-Factors-that-Can-Cause-Toxic-Fandom-to-Arise>.

Moore, B 2023, ‘Toxic fandoms: when passion turns to poison’, Agents of Fandom, 28 March, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://agentsoffandom.com/toxic-fandoms-when-passion-is-poison/#:~:text=Characteristics%20of%20toxic%20fandoms,-The%20negativity%20that&text=Arguably%2C%20the%20main%20sign%20of,engage%20in%20bullying%20and%20harassment.>.

Pan, Y 2022, ‘Analysis on the motives being a fan or fandom and the possible factor that some fans performed sasaengpaen/fanatical behaviour’, 2021 International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2021), 17 January, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/sdmc-21/125968493>.

Taylor, V 2023, ‘Toxic fandom: what is it?’, Medium, 31 January, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/toxic-fandom-what-is-it-c8c1520beb06#:~:text=These%20actions%20might%20include%20posting,sharing%20someone%20else's%20personal%20information). >.

Turner, M, A & Smaldino, P, E 2018, ‘Paths to polarization: how extreme views, miscommunication, and random chance drive opinion dynamics’, 1 November, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://www.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2018/2740959/>.

Vinney, C 2022, ‘What is toxic fandom?’, Verywellmind, 19 January, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-toxic-fandom-5214499>.

Zubernis, L 2022, ‘How fandom turns toxic’, Psychology Today, 16 July, viewed 6 November 2023, <https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/the-science-fandom/202207/how-fandom-turns-toxic>.

#mda20009 #week 9

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sluttyhaecceities · 1 year

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"In modern thought irony and humor take on a new form: they are now directed at a subversion of the law. This leads us back to Sade and Masoch, who represent the two main attempts at subversion, at turning the law upside down. Irony is still in the process or movement which bypasses the law as a merely secondary power and aims at transcending it toward a higher principle. But what if the higher principle no longer exists, and if the Good can no longer provide a basis for the law or a justification of its power? Sade's answer is that in all its forms - natural, moral and political - the law represents the rule of secondary nature which is always geared to the demands of conservation; it is a usurpation of true sovereignty. It is irrelevant whether we see the law as the expression of the rule of the strongest or as the product of the self-protective union of the weak. Masters and slaves, the strong and the weak, all are creatures of secondary nature; the union of the weak merely favors the emergence of the tyrant; his existence depends on it. In every case the law is a mystification; it is not a delegated but a usurped power that depends on the infamous complicity of slaves and masters. It is significant that Sade attacks the regime of laws as being the regime of the tyrannized and of the tyrants. Only the law can tyrannize: "I have infinitely less reason to fear my neighbor's passions than the law's injustice, for my neighbor's passions are contained by mine, whereas nothing stops or contains the injustices of the law." Tyrants are created by the law alone: they flourish by virtue of the law. As Chigi says in Juliette, "Tyrants are never born in anarchy, they only flourish in the shadow of the laws and draw their authority from them." Sade's hatred of tyranny, his demonstration that the law enables the tyrant to exist, form the essence of his thinking. The tyrant speaks the language of the law, and acknowledges no other, for he lives "in the shadow of the laws." The heroes of Sade are inspired with an extraordinary passion against tyranny; they speak as no tyrant ever spoke or could ever speak; theirs is the counter-language of tyranny.

We now note a new attempt to transcend the law, this time no longer in the direction of the Good as superior principle and ground of the law, but in the direction of its opposite, the Idea of Evil, the supreme principle of wickedness, which subverts the law and turns Platonism upside down. Here, the transcendence of the law implies the discovery of a primary nature which is in every way opposed to the demands and the rule of secondary nature. It follows that the idea of absolute evil embodied in primary nature cannot be equated either with tyranny - for tyranny still presupposes laws - or with a combination of whims and arbitrariness; its higher, impersonal model is rather to be found in the anarchic institutions of perpetual motion and permanent revolution. Sade often stresses the fact that the law can only be transcended toward an institutional model of anarchy. The fact that anarchy can only exist in the interval between two regimes based on laws, abolishing the old to give birth to the new, does not prevent this divine interval, this vanishing instant, from testifying to its fundamental difference from all forms of the law. "The reign of laws is pernicious; it is inferior to that of anarchy; the best proof of this is that all governments are forced to plunge into anarchy when they wish to remake their constitutions." The law can only be transcended by virtue of a principle that subverts it and denies its power."

Gilles Deleuze, Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty

Elucidation of anarchy in above quote is very interesting in that it is profoundly different from the conception of anarchism in orthodox anarchist ideological currents. Instead of referring to it as an ideological entity which can, will or does exist, the anarchism as an "evil idea" here is purely a socio-libidinal process. Anarchism in perpetual motion of pure lawlessness.

An inversion of platonism, in that instead of entire society being a "reading" of the laws, the "laws" shall become readings of the society, not dissimilar to laws in physics. Anarchism is strictly the social processual of a pure war, where the social bodies and power vectors are far from equilibrium.

Yet are always in struggle tending to meta stability of concatenating regicides, nonce bashings, banishing, assassinations, a state of asymptotic insurrection. Only war brings life, lawful peace is death. Arsons at nodes of power in an anarchist society play same function as forest fires by indigenous tribes. Becoming-indigenous is becoming-war-machine.

Why does Deleuze say "The fact that anarchy can only exist in the interval between two regimes based on laws" and "all governments are forced to plunge into anarchy when they wish to remake their constitutions"? Deleuze, by anarchy, is not referring to an entity of anarchist society, but the process of this tensile power struggle where all vectors have to push against each other in order to maintain their existence for a vector cannot survive nullification.

Semantics play by same principle, the meaning of signs in language is an open battlefield which has to be fought for unless a state imposes top down structures of law over what can language possibly say, effectively making the entire social recording surface mute until "the chips are down again" and vectors are in motion.

Institutions of anarchy Deleuze refers to are institutions of an anarchist culture which refuses to submit and forego the war machine.

#deleuze #gilles deleuze #deleuze and guattari #cruelty and coldness

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elisaenglish · 1 year

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The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking, Emotional Imagination, and How to Rehumanise the World

If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination… begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling.

When the Inquisition persecuted Galileo for advancing the rude truth that Earth is not the centre of the universe, the charge against him was heresy—the same charge on which Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for her crusade for political reform. We have had many words for heretics over the epochs—rebels, radicals, freethinkers—but they have always been the ones to dislodge humanity from the stagnation of the status quo, to illuminate our blind spots, dismantle our unexamined biases, and jolt us out of our herd mentality. Without those devoted to seeing reality more clearly and possibility more wildly, we would still live in a world haunted by superstition and governed by dogma.

The power and dignity of this most courageous human mindset is what the pioneering classicist Jane Ellen Harrison (September 9, 1850–April 15, 1928), who brought the culture of Ancient Greece to the modern world, explores in her magnificent essay “Heresy and Humanity,” found in Alpha and Omega (public library) — the out-of-print essay collection that gave us Harrison on the art of growing older, published just as humanity was being dehumanised by its first World War.

Harrison writes:

“The word “heretic” has still about it an emotional thrill—a glow reflected, it may be, from the fires at Smithfield, the ardours of those who were burnt at the stake for the love of an idea.

Heresy, the Greek hairesis, was from the outset an eager, living word. The taking of a city, its expugnatio, is a hairesis; the choosing of a lot in life or an opinion, its electio, is a hairesis; always in the word hairesis there is this reaching out to grasp, this studious, zealous pursuit—always something personal, even passionate… To be a heretic today is almost a human obligation.”

In a sentiment Bertrand Russell would echo in timeless manifesto for freedom of thought, Harrison adds:

“The gist of heresy is free personal choice in act, and specifically in thought—the rejection of traditional faiths and customs.”

A century and a half after Emerson inveighed that “masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence,” she considers what makes heresy so difficult yet so necessary to the health of society:

“All traditional views are held with such tenacity, such almost ferocity, because they belong to the class of views induced, not by individual experience, still less by reason, but by collective, or, as it is sometimes called “herd,” suggestion. This used to be called “faith.” The belief so held may or may not be true; collective suggestion is not in the least necessarily collective hallucination. Mere collective suggestions—that is the interesting point—have the quality of obviousness; they do not issue from the individual, but seem imposed from outside, and ineluctable; they have all the inevitableness of instinctive opinion… Hence they are held with an intensity of emotion far beyond any reasoned conviction. To doubt them is felt to be at once idiocy and irreverence. Inquiry into their rational bases is naturally, and in a sense rightly, resented, because they are not rationally based, though they may be rationally supported. It is by convictions such as this that a society of the homogenous kind—a society based on and held together by uniformity—lives and thrives. To attack them is to cripple and endanger its inmost life.”

Observing that the development of science is what pivoted heresy from damnable to desirable in society, Harrison contrasts sensemaking by empiricism with sensemaking by authority:

“Science classifies, draws ever clearer distinctions; herd-suggestion is always in a haze. Herd-suggestion is all for tradition, authority; science has for its very essence the exercise of free thought. So long as we will not take the trouble to know exactly and intimately, we may not—must not—choose… We must follow custom; we must accept the mandates of [those] who enforce tradition.

[…]

Science opens wide the doors that turned so slowly on tradition’s hinges, and opens them on clean, quiet places where we breathe larger air… It is well to remember our debt to science—our inward and spiritual as well as material debt.”

And yet, Harrison argues, the heretic needs more than science—the heretic needs humanity. She writes:

“Science broke the binding spell of herd-suggestion. For that great boon let us now and ever bless and praise her holy name. She cleared the collective haze, she drew sharp distinctions, appealing to individual actual experience, to individual powers of reasoning. But by neither individual sense—perception nor ratiocination alone do we live. Our keenest emotional life is through the herd, and hence it was that, at the close of the last century, the flame of scientific hope, the glory of scientific individualism that had blazed so brightly, somehow died down and left a strange chill. Man rose up from the banquet of reason and law unfed. He hungered half unconsciously for the herd. It seemed an impasse: on the one side orthodoxy, tradition, authority, practical slavery; on the other science, individual freedom, reason, and an aching loneliness.

[…]

We live now just at the transition moment; we have broken with the old, we have not quite adjusted ourselves to the new. It is not so much the breaking with the old faiths that makes us restless as the living in a new social structure.”

At the root of this new social structure, she observes, is not the old cult of homogeneity but the recognition of individuality, and the diversity of individualities, as the wellspring of vitality and social harmony—“differentiation that would unite, not divide.” With the World War flaming around her, waged on the herd-versus-herd collision of nationalisms and ideologies, she writes:

“Only through and by this organic individuality can the real sense and value of Humanity emerge. We are humane so far as we are conscious or sensitive to individual life. Patriotism is collective herd-instinct; it is repressive of individuality. You feel strongly because you feel alike; you are reinforced by the other homogenous unites; you sing the same song and wave the same flag. Humanity is sympathy with infinite differences, with utter individualism, with complete differentiation, and it is only possible through the mystery of organic spiritual union. We have come, most of us, now, to a sort of physical union by sympathy and imagination. To torture even an enemy’s body would be to us physical pain, physical sickness. There will come the day when to hurt mentally and spiritually will be equally impossible, because the spiritual life will by enhanced sympathy be one. But this union is only possible through that organic differentiation that makes us have need one of the other.”

A generation before Albert Camus, in the midst of the next World War, called for the superhuman duty to “mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once,” Harrison concludes:

“In a word, if we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination, joint offspring of head and heart which is begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling. About the moral problem there is nothing mysterious; it is simply the old, old question of how best to live together. We no longer believe in an unchanging moral law imposed from without. We know that a harder incumbency is upon us; we must work out our law from within.”

Noting that we have outgrown the easy shorthand for morality offered by religious dogma, she contours what is asked of us if we are to rehumanise humanity:

“We must adventure a harder and higher spiritual task… a steady and even ardent recognition of the individual life, in its infinite variety, with its infinite interactions. We decline to be ourselves part of an undifferentiated mass; we refuse to deal with others in classes and masses… We are dissatisfied now not only with the herd-sanctions of religion, but with many of those later sanctities of law to which some even emancipated thinkers ascribe a sort of divinity. We feel the inherent savagery of law in that it treats individuals as masses… Yet all the time we know that we can, with spiritual safety, rebel only in so far as we are personally sensitive to the claims of other individual lives that touch our own. The old herd-problem remains of how to live together; and as the union grows closer and more intricate the chances of mutual hurt are greater, and the sensitiveness must grow keener. Others are safe from and with us only when their pain is our pain, their joy ours.”

Couple with E.E. Cummings on the courage to feel, then revisit Albert Camus on what it means to be a rebel, the radical Russian dissident prince Peter Kropotkin on the spirit of revolt, and the pioneering X-ray crystallographer and peace activist Kathleen Lonsdale on moral courage and our personal power in world change.

Source: Maria Popova, themarginalian.org (8th July 2023)

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popitdontdropitwrites · 2 years

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"The Mantis" Medic/Sniper - Chapter 1

Summary: Ludwig Humboldt, a renowned geneticist with an unconventional understanding of ethics, begins an ambitious project to evolve mankind through genetic modification. With the help of his lab assistant, Mick, he introduces praying mantis DNA into his body, eventually transforming him into a exceptionally powerful and highly intelligent human/mantis hybrid.

This does not come without costs, however, as in time, the cold, efficient ideology of insects – being to survive, thrive and breed – takes over completely. His once noble goal of improving the lives of mankind distorts and twists within his altered mind into something far more sinister...

You can also read the fic on ao3 here

This fic is co-written with Murder_Media on ao3. All chapters from Sniper's POV have been written by them. I have written all of Medic's POV.

All I will say is, monsterfuckers this is for you.

Her prodigious size alone could have easily dwarfed the rest of the collection, but it was her beauty that transformed her into a fearsome, tyrannical queen amongst mere servants. Her emerald skin, complemented by a pleasing cerise blush speckled on her limbs shone as though it had been lovingly polished by dutiful, worshipping hands. Her eyes, marbled with lush greens, followed his own with miniscule pupils imbued with predatory focus, as if she lusted for him with the same lethal passion. He put on his best smile – which was often enough to frighten even the most fearless men – and brazenly reached out to touch, expecting her to cower in fear, but if anything, she doubled down. The praying mantis reared up tall, raising her scythelike forelimbs as her wings opened wide to reveal fine, lacey wings adorned with beautiful vermillion eyes, beckoning and challenging him in one carefully constructed expression.

At his corrupt, rotten age, Ludwig often thought he was incapable of love beyond his unprofessional interest in the human form and all of its gloriously efficient organs but this creature made his heart flutter so violently that it seemed to bleed with love. He felt a sort of kinship with this slave of ruthless instinct and baser desire, one he had never quite experienced with another man. He decided then that she would be his bride, a match made in heaven, or perhaps hell – it did not matter either way to him, for the only smile that he cared for was his own, not those of the gods.

He was not referring to matrimony in the traditional sense, rather, he was intending for a marriage on a genetic level, a fusion of Ludwig’s own DNA with that of this fantastic creature to construct an entirely new being, one that would be knighted with the prestigious title of progress or better yet, evolution . From his stately example, a new species would emerge, irrevocably changing the course of humankind’s history from perniciousness to greatness, until the old, pitiful definition of men fell into obsoleteness.

He would be heralded as a genius, one worthy of being a leader of the scientific community rather than just another dreadfully average pawn. His past work, though many swore on its brilliance, had merely got his foot in the door. This ambitious project, should it succeed, could grant his name the respect and awe it deserved, landing himself alongside the greats and in time, perhaps with a fine vintage in hand, he could bear witness to the fruits of his hard labour; an ideal, utopian world, inspired by his vision.

His assistant let out a wolf whistle, treating their subject as if she were any other pretty thing, yet to realise her true importance. “She’s a beaut, isn’t she?” He lauded, turning his hand over to demonstrate the fearlessness of the creature hanging from the hands of a figure she would likely consider a god from her small, unknowledgeable eyes.

“She’s perfect.”

“Thank fuck for that, eh?” Mick replied, kicking up more of a huff than he truly meant, as betrayed by the slight but perceptible levity in his tone. “Here I was thinkin’ you’d send me back to the forest again to find ya more bloody bugs.”

His lip twitched in disapproval at Mick’s flippant attitude, but quickly forgave it; he was just a boy, after all. “Can you really blame me for being particular? You are forgetting that it is my body being subjected to this experiment.” He rebutted, raising a brow to his assistant. “We are not toying around with lab rats and bunnies anymore.”

“Right, of course.” He straightened up a bit, his body apologising in the place of words. “I’m glad you like her. I nicked a bunch of pretty sheilas for ya, but I think she might’ve…” Mick crouched down beside Ludwig, looking inside of the makeshift habitat. “Yeah, she’s eaten ‘em, so it’s her or nothin’.”

“Excellent!” He exclaimed with inappropriate enthusiasm. “It saves us from having to pick out the inferior specimens ourselves.”

“Survival of the fittest and all that.” Mick ran a hand through his overgrown hair, picking a stray twig out from his umber locks, the minute tremor in his fingers making the task far more difficult than it should have been. “Do you want to hold her?” Mick outstretched his hand to him and the mantis tensed, ready to strike if he dared to come any nearer.

Ludwig humoured Mick, if only to bite into his boyishness and savour the taste. “Please. It would be a little rude of me to harvest our subject’s DNA without properly meeting her first, don’t you think?”

He encouraged the insect to climb onto the back of his hand and after some protest, she did, curiously crawling all over his arm, her feet sticking to the dark hair. Ludwig pushed up his glasses, getting a better look at her most intricate features – her delicate antennae, the coarse spikes on her raptorials, the leaflike pattern of her tegmina, the softness of her underbelly…

“You made an excellent choice. She is… hah, I don’t even have the English words… Schön, Prächtig, Königlich… And gott, I can’t even begin to imagine the end result!” He grinned, suddenly overexcited, as if a fire had been ignited from under his skin. “We should get to work at once. Prepare her for the procedure, bitte.”

He offered their subject back to Mick, and she scurried back to the safety of his knuckles. “Right now?”

“Yes, right now. We have far too much work to do and to be honest with you, I am much too excited to delay it any longer.”

Mick tried to hide it, but his hesitation was as obvious as the stubble he had neglected to shave this morning. He glanced down at the praying mantis, his downturned lips laden with pity.

“Getting attached already, are we? I thought I taught you better than that.”

“I can’t help it, I’ve always had a soft spot for these little guys.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” He chuckled, finding his sudden softness to be endearing, if not a little aggravating – he did not have the time for this. “You have done far worse before and have never had a problem.” He did not consciously intend for it but his voice fluttered playfully, demeaning the younger man. “What’s the matter with you today, hm? Normally you’re so good for me.”

“Nothin’, it’s just a bit… cruel, isn’t it?”

“I assure you, my dear boy, it’s anything but.” The scientist replied, dismissing his concerns with a casual wave of his hand.

Mick opened his mouth, whether he was about to interject or agree was inconsequential; Ludwig was not yet finished.

“It is relatively quick, and remarkably painless. For a mindless, simple insect, I would go as far as to say she won’t feel a thing.” He licked his lips, detecting the comforting familiarness of those words. Perhaps Mick did too. “Go on, say your goodbyes if you must and be done with it.”

The bushman averted his gaze. “Yes, doc.”

“Good boy.” He patted him on the back, offering him a single honeyed drop of comfort to whet his appetite for when he would inevitably return for more with woefully bitten, bloodied lips, chewing them even still, burdened by it all. “Meet me in the laboratory when you are finished.”

Mick grabbed the jar and eased the insect back inside, effectively sealing her inside of her soon-to-be coffin, devoid of the energy he had arrived with. He wordlessly headed towards their makeshift walk-in freezer, disappearing behind its hulking metal doors.

He breathed out the last of his irritation and collected a lab coat from the rack beside the staircase. Ludwig slipped into it with habitual ease, feeling far less bare than before. He scowled at a purplish bloodstain on one of the sleeves and thought to gently remind Mick of it later, once he was in a better mood.

He strode upstairs, bounding up each one and tapping at the railing, unable to wait any longer. It would only be a few minutes before their specimen was ready for the procedure, but in this state, time would crawl along, much like the hours, if not the days prior to this moment.

Ludwig flicked the switch and the dazzling, almost blindingly white lights of the laboratory stuttered to life, emphasising the pearliness of the tiling, the sleekness of the slate countertops, the glint of oiled machines and the pristineness of his tools. If he did not adore the disgustingly excessive cleanliness and sterility, he would surely be driven mad by it. There was a comfort to be found in seeing one’s own reflection in every freshly sanitised surface, the smells of latex and chemicals, the blissful quiet away from the apartments below. For Ludwig, this place may as well have been a personally tailored paradise, even if others considered that sentiment unusual.

Unlike their humble living quarters, the laboratory sported the finest, latest technology, most of which had been especially designed for his use. He had called in a few favours with a good friend of his, a fellow visionary of the future who only asked for a public endorsement for his company when the time came to speak to the press in return for his work. As promised, a fine leather case rested on the workbench, complete with handling instructions for the courier, demanding the utmost care and attention as to not break the device within – he sincerely hoped Mick too, had abided by them when taking it inside. Ludwig placed his hands on the case, his fingers hesitating on the golden latches, tempted by their heavenly shine.

He told himself to wait, and instead, he made the necessary preparations for their experiment, snapping on a pair of red gloves as he did so. He wanted Mick to be there as he unveiled their brilliant machine to light stars in his tired, once hopeless face. Ludwig remembered the sadness tainting his distractingly vibrant viridian eyes all too well, the very same misery that had carved deep lines into Mick’s once youthful visage. Upon meeting the Australian on those squalid, filthy streets, he had initially believed the man to be only a few years his junior, but deceptively, a life of outcastment and misfortune under the Australian sun had left the poor thing to wither away into a disgustingly haggard, rapidly ageing derelict.

It seemed absurd in retrospect but he had been uninterested at first, even when the boy struck up conversation as he passed him by on the way to work, excited by a familiar, friendly-looking face, or perhaps more accurately, a well dressed, wealthy man. It was upon learning that he was only twenty-six that Ludwig stopped to spend his change on him for the opportunity to discreetly assess him. Day by day, coin by coin, he had interviewed him during their short talks, asking questions as they came up. His education; as minimal as the system allowed, his housing; a quiet bench usually safe from the elements, his relationships; profoundly harmful to all parties involved, his prior work experience; odd jobs, physical ailments; nothing he cared to admit, ideal job; anything that would take him.

He had offered him just that, and the stench of urine and grime had been enough to make him weep when his new assistant hugged him, praising him endlessly for his kindness. Many of his colleagues questioned his choice and his competency, whispering of his proclivities to one another, like a flock of talkative, prying birds. He never cared to argue the fact that they were all fools, not out of the kindness of his heart, rather, in the interest of preserving his reputation. They did not see that he had found the perfect candidate for the job – a man who would nourish his creativity and respect his decisions rather than hold him back with conflicting opinions and moral boundaries.

Mick returned minutes later, clutching the jar in his hands, which had frosted over. His fingers, like strokes of paint on the glass, revealed artful glimpses of the carcass within as they unwittingly wiped away the ice. He brushed by the older man, looking at him for approval as he opened the jar and carefully positioned their specimen on the prepared tray. The scientist leant down, looking closely at the mantis, expecting the resilient creature to spring back to life any moment but she remained motionless, defeated by the cold hand of death at last, unaware that she would soon be defying it, or at least, her DNA would be.

He rested a hand on Mick’s shoulder, the touch startling him, though it was not unwelcome. “I have something to show you.” He met Mick’s eyes, smiling warmly at him. “I think you will like it.”

It intrigued him, as evidenced by the parting of his lips, just enough to reveal the tips of his yellowed front teeth. “I’ve been wonderin’ about that thing.” He nodded towards the box, its lid still closed tight, withholding its mysteries from the world.

He pulled away from the younger man, gently stroking the leather surface with his fingers. “Oh, I imagine you have.” He unclipped the latches, deliberately taking his time with each one. “Would you like to see what’s inside?”

“That’d be good, yeah.”

Ludwig slowly lifted the lid of the case, revealing its embroidered silk lining and it took his breath away to see the machine of his own design resting regally on top. The medical professional’s attention landed on the sleekness of the handle and the elegance of the trigger, while the sadist’s eye went directly to the collection of sharp needles of varying shapes and sizes, their gleam as dangerous as the radiant smile of the moon.

He couldn’t help but hold the ingenious device, running his hand along the barrel, the handle, and finally to the glass chamber on the end, feeling its immense power at his fingertips. He peeked inside of the glass, noticing the blocky, jagged shapes of mechanical components inside, which worked in perfect harmony to turn bodily fluids into pure, usable genetic material before they were stored in the canister to be injected into the desired host.

He hoped it would function as he had outlined. His associate, as brilliant as he was, was no geneticist and from time to time, things got lost in translation from frantically muddled English and German to idiomatic, colloquial American English. This time, he had exhaustively explained every aspect of it to prevent such a mishap from occurring. They could not afford errors of any kind – a faulty machine could be replaced, but his body and mind could not.

“Are we gonna give it a crack or are we just gonna stare at it all day?”

“My, my, someone’s eager.” The scientist crooned, not daring to look away from the wonderful contraption for a second. He was fascinated with it to the extent where he wanted to lick it, something he recognised as potentially dangerous, for many reasons. He would have tried it, if Mick was not there to cause a fuss. “Perhaps I should test it on you, hm?”

His assistant instinctually stepped back. “Nah, you don’t want this DNA or whatever, it’s a whole lot of shit.”

“I would argue otherwise.” He stepped a little closer, a gloved hand cupping the boy’s chin, tilting his head from side to side as he stared, wide-eyed and horrified, unsure of whether he was serious or not. “You have perfect eyesight, healthy skin, flexible joints, keen senses and many aesthetic features most would consider desirable, or at least would be if you took better care of yourself.”

The bushman blinked once, twice. “Wait, what’d you just say?”

He released him, giggling with glee. “Come on now, we have an experiment to conduct!” He clasped his hands together, eliciting a strangled groan from the rubber of his gloves. Ludwig browsed through the provided needles, all of which could be installed and removed on a whim for different sized specimens. He collected the smallest of them all – about the size of a pin needle, if not thinner – and screwed it on the end of the barrel until it was tightly in place, careful as not to prick himself.

“Stand aside, bitte. For all I know this thing might explode the moment I turn it on.”

Mick peeled away from him. “You’re jokin’ right?” He asked, nerves plaguing his normally laid-back intones.

“Of course I am. When was the last time something exploded in my laboratory?”

“Last week, you wanker.”

“Really? I don’t recall.”

“That’s ‘cause it knocked ya out cold.”

“Ah, yes! I remember now.” He sang cheerily. “Well, I’m sure it won’t happen again.” He grinned, flicking the switch on the side, eliciting a whirr from the harvester as it surged with energy.

“I’m not scoopin’ your brains off the floor if that thing pops like a bloody balloon.” Mick shielded his face with his hand, daring to peek through his fingers.

Ludwig lined the device up with the insect’s thorax and pierced her soft underbelly, going deep into her guts. Partially frozen haemolymph to oozed from the incision and he grinned, his fingers trembling on the trigger, unable to be still with the anticipation blitzing through his bloodstream. He gave it a firm pull, hearing it click as it locked in place. Seconds later, an inhuman groan rumbled from the depths of the machine and a light radiated from within, casting a red glow around the glass chamber. The metal warmed in his hands, and motion spurred from under his fingertips, as if the device were truly alive.

The machine grew louder with every passing moment, the whine of its insides rapidly heightening into a pained scream. A harsh thunk sounded as the machine sucked in the creature’s fluids and organs, turning them all into an unrecognisable liquid as they passed through each section and into the chamber. The light burned brighter into a blinding vermillion sun, causing heat to seep through his gloves, becoming almost unbearable. He turned away from the glow, the shriek of the harvester rising to deafening levels. Inside, the spinning cogs and mechanisms crackled, popped and snapped, chewing each other up into unrecognisable, useless hunks of metal, filling the air with a putrid burning smell. The machine shuddered and trembled in his hands and as though it could burst at any moment, unable to take the strain of its final processes.

But a mechanical hiss, the harvester powered down, steam whispering from its ruined form. He was ready to jot this down as an astronomical failure when he noticed the fluid sloshing around within the storage tank. It was entirely colourless, meaning it was no longer tissue or haemolymph, rather, it had been miraculously purified. Despite the machine burning itself out, it had managed to completely harvest her DNA, as indicated by the green light weakly flickering from inside the glass.

“Incredible… it actually worked.” He breathed out.

“Are ya sure? I think it’s cooked itself.”

He tapped the glass, making a thoughtful sound. “The completion light is on.”

“Bugger the light, the bloody thing’s fucked.” He shook his head, refusing to acknowledge the greatness of his invention.

“I don’t appreciate your tone.”

“All I’m sayin’ is that we’re better off safe than sorry.”

“It sounds to me like you do not trust my judgement.” He snapped, shooting the boy a glare over his glasses, reminding him of his authority.

“That’s not what I meant, I was–”

“Oh, so you want to talk back to me now, do you?”

“No, doc.”

“Of course not.” He whispered, his tone flipping to sickly, taunting sweetness in an instant. “Now that you have finished insulting my work, would you mind helping me with the injection?”

Mick took the syringe from him but hesitated, his fingers freezing in place. He refused to meet his eyes, instead looking at the miraculous liquid bubbling inside of the machine. “Look, doc, I don’t want to get in the way, but is this really a good idea? I mean, these things eat each other just for the fun of it. I don’t know if turnin’ into one is the brightest move.”

“Ah, I should have known that was the thing bothering you.” He sighed, steepling his hands. “You see, Mick, I could argue the same thing with mankind. Every one of us is capable of despicable acts, but for most, our unique ability to feel empathy and rigid laws – written or otherwise – keep us from tearing each other to pieces.” He made a crushing motion with his hands. “All that is to say I could easily kill and eat you right now if I so desired, I am certainly physically capable of doing so, but not on a psychological level. If this procedure goes to plan, my mind should remain perfectly preserved.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very. You will not have to worry about being eaten, I assure you.”

“Alright, that’s… that’s good enough for me.” He breathed out, finally readying the syringe. “Where do you want it?”

He shrugged off his coat and undid his tie before undoing the buttons of his collar, exposing his neck. “My neck, bitte.”

He breathed in deep, calming himself. “Pray I don’t stab an artery or anythin’.”

“Relax, it is no different to what you have done before.” He tilted his head to give the younger man better access to his veins.

The silver eye of the needle inched closer until it nervously kissed his skin and sunk in slowly, injecting the liquid without any of the professionalism he had grown used to. A pained hiss escaped him and the bushman apologised feverishly, the sting worsening to a burn, as if his blood were boiling, melting him from the inside. The needle withdrew, and in mere moments, the pain passed into a faint, dull throb.

“What happens now?” Mick put the now empty, useless machine aside.

“We wait.” He replied, uttering the two words pleasantly despite how much he despised them – he would much prefer instantaneous results. “A celebratory drink would be an excellent way to pass the time, don’t you think?”

Next Chapter

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