#prometheus modernization/retelling here we go

[moonchild-in-blue]

I need everyone to watch Kaos (from Netflix) right now, please and thank you. Quite possibly my favourite modern retelling of the Greek myths / Olympic pantheon.

The story revolves mainly around Orpheus and Eurydice (Riddy), and around Zeus and a certain not-so-great prophecy. Dionysus is one of our main stars and he's great and amazing and hot and absolutely babygirl.

Yes there are a LOT of references and myths and characters beyond the main Olympians (Zeus' famous kids don't even appear). Yes you see Prometheus having his liver pecked. Yes, we do get to see the Minotaur & Co. Hades and Persephone too, obviously. Yes, there is A TON of great poc and queer rep. Yes, there is blood and sex and violence and poignant society AND religious commentary. Yes, you do get old man yaoi. Yes, Jeff Goldblum as Zeus is incredible and no joke my new favourite portrayal of him (Zeus). Yes, they are faithful to the "doomed from the start" narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice. Yes, Hera does have her peacocks.

Please please please go watch it please it's so great and visually beautiful and amazing. Pirate that thang if you must.

My thoughts whilst watching the show - no plot spoilers but be warned for mild thematic/ character/ setting commentary. Generally safe to read if you haven't watched it yet and don't mind a little preview:

SOUNDTRACK IS WOW. Don't Fear The Reaper? On episode one?? The song I've been listening over and over because of a certain beloved band has made a cover of it???

Love how they portray the worship of gods as something that is part of their daily lives and culture without seeming too "gimmicky".

There are clear parallels to Catholicism in the way they conduct themselves (either in favour or against the gods; all the little rituals and traditions), and it's quite interesting to see how would modern society function if Hellenism (or rather the ancient practices. pls correct me if I'm wrong) were the primary (and as far as I got it only) established religion in the world.

The "Vero" declaration with the hand gesture as part of Olympian liturgy? Amazing. Interesting choice in using Latin rather than Ancient Greek, but very cool nonetheless.

A significant amount of casual mentions of horrifying violent acts by the gods, and even some healthy dose of violence/ blood. Thought it was very interesting to see Zeus discussing infanticide and natural catastrophes the way we discuss the weather or grocery prices. They really leaned heavily into the whole grandeur and arrogance of gods in regards to human life which I super appreciate. I'm tired of seeing passive, Cool and Hip and Benevolent Zeus & Co.

Also the amount of criticism by the god-haters (Blasphemes? Non-sympathisers?) feels very refreshing (and on the nose concerning irl organised religions), especially in contrast with the more devout and how they put their life in second place in lieu of worship (yes I'm thinking about the Tacitas AND the Celebration Ritual™ iykwim).

The subversion of the "doomed from the start" narrative surrounding Orpheus and Eurydice is done so beautifully it hurts. Right from the first moment they appear, you know how it'll go. And yet!!

You know what happens, of course. Their story was never meant have a happy ending. But the way they took that and put a modern spin on it it's just!!!! My heart !!!!

I was rooting for Orpheus the entire time, knowing damn well it was a lost cause. I can't blame Riddy, but my God is it painful to watch. LOVED the actor who played him, he just the right amount of earnest love and rockstar flair. Riddy is SO cool - there's not much I can say beyond that that isn't a spoiler but. Yeah. We love complex female characters.

I'm gonna be really petty and pedantic here, but for a show revolving GREEK mythology, set in Olympia / Krete, with sooo many little references to the myths, it is CRIMINAL that they insist on calling Heracles by his roman name (Hercules), and that they refer to Hades as God "Of Death" instead of God "Of The Dead" / King Of The Dead. There's a major difference there - Thanatos would like a word.

Troytown? Where the Trojan refugees (displaced war victims really) are *literally* segregated to (their exact words, segregation), and even use those nose lines/tattoos as way to identify them? Where they face scrutiny and police brutality and prejudice from the Kreteans? As a clear reference to minority poc urban areas and how they are unfairly mistreated and deemed as "others" by the same governments who put them there in the first place??? YES YES YES.

A lot of queer and poc rep. And I mean A LOT. The Fates alone are a whole vibe.

Again, it doesn't feel gimmicky at all, nor does it fall under the "okay they're definitely trying to hit all the quotas so everybody is gay and ethnic and uses neo-pronouns" trend some media are starting to follow, which really just end up falling flat rather than significant (looking at you Sex Ed 4). An actual diversity win.

If you're familiar with the story of Caeneus, you'll love how they portrayed him here.

Dionysus is everything and some more. I love him. Prometheus is incredible. Jeff Goldblum as Zeus goes above and beyond expectations - he brings that Goldblum Flair™ but with an intense violence and paranoia you could only pull off as King of the Gods. Hera is just wow, truly a queen.

Hades and Persephone have an *interesting* dynamic - have never seen him being portrayed like that before. Usually Hades and Persie are the "dom goth Mommy and Daddy" of mythology retellings, and yet here it's completely different. Certainly *A Choice*. I don't mind Hades, but would've liked to see "goddess of spring & dreaded" Persephone.

I understood the vision, but I don't think it worked *quite* as well as the other ones. She's still super cool nonetheless - that sandwich scene was incredible.

Also - VERY COOL how diverse the actors are. With the exception of Dionysus who is objectively Young and Hot, pretty much all the other gods (and adjacent) are middle-aged or up, with visible signs of aging (grey hairs, wrinkles, sagging skin, belly fat, etc), which is cool cus usually the gods are made to be a specific flavour of "hot".

The Furies, who could've been all snatched and sexy and token Femme Fatale characters, are actually older butch women with mean lesbian energy and I think that's very cool and awesome and wonderful.

Even the human cast is so diverse and interesting and REAL, rather than yet another yassified ensemble - it's great to see. Not everyone is conventionally hot and attractive, and THAT is sexy af.

All the little Easter eggs and references to the myths and general ancient Greece culture are SO nice to see. I giggled when Polyphemus first appeared. That first scene on the cereal aisle was very funny. Gagged at Cassandra.

Stylistic choice of the Underworld environment and on-camera portrayal is chef's kiss. That's all I'll say.

LABYRINTH AND DAEDALUS YES. Would smash the Minotaur, 1000%. That Scene™ was. Hmmmmm yeah.

Overall I loved it and high key might re-watch it again. What an amazing show. This was a win for all of us Greek Myth nerds, and I'll be truly devastated if Netflix doesn't renew it for a second season.

[sheikhlaurent]

.. or : how i learned to let go and love the blog

I've been thinking a lot about how much I've missed this format and what the internet used to look like ten~ years ago. So much has happened, so much has changed, but somehow someway, my old tumblr username i used when i thought i would ride the COMME des FUCKDOWN era into a cohesive brand of cultural commentary is here this time? idk last time I tried to have this @ it got taken and no shade to @/sheikh-laurent but I had to snatch this one up lol I can't lose this chance again lmaooo Hopefully I can step into the lineage of so many people who have had this pun and contribute to the mantle. A winding road of discovery and retelling truths I already know about myself both because of this site and the ways it's manifested itself IRL. Now that SuperWhoLock is just a reflexive jaw clench that won't hurt you anymore. you've done the MOGAI discourse in real life because you finally finally finally graduated from that midwestern state school with the help of a lot of barista brekkies.

Maybe the ghosts of the people who taught you how to be you can finally quiet down long enough for you to come back to the home you built with an astigmatized vision and carpal tunneled hands. They aren't here anymore but somehow you are. Maybe they're dead, maybe they got shipped out, maybe they got the diagnosis after all, maybe they're comitted, maybe they just got it together and got out of here. And now here u are.

You've come crawling back to this place where you just threw a few gifs and moodboards and Warsan Shire Rupi Kaur screenshots with a lil bit of Potterhead tings sprinkled in with the A$AP Mob/Odd Future blog era things. In this reanimation of teenager's past, we might just be all of that and more.. So be ready to see posts and reposts and do a bit of obama presidency revivalism, from the memory of the child raised by it. Hopefully there are gems in these musings, but mostly I just want to be able to do the job of what a blog is supposed to be: A Peek Into My SICK SAD WORLD.

in the end, why lament the dead internet blogs and just Frankenstein's Monster my way to another one from the buried and semi sanitized recollection of the times past. Who knows, maybe this modern Prometheus will finally finally finally get taken out the paint? hopefully not doe.

Thank you for having me back; TTFN but will see ya real soon :D

[catilinas]

hey Tate :^) randomly popping up to say that i just finished both 'The king must die' and 'The bull from the sea' in (almost) one go instead of working/eating/sleeping. and i can't thank you enough for recommending these books, the first one especially! so... maybe you have some other myth retellings or historical novels in mind to recommend?

hi!!! i’m so glad you enjoyed them / that i’m not the only person who felt like that reading them. the king must die especially Yeah. holy shit.

for Other Recommendations. the few ~myth retellings~ that i’ve read alas mostly are not novels. the genre of ‘myth retelling’ novels < the genre of weird long poems that Do Things with specific ancient texts rather than ‘myths’. but i do read a Lot of historical novels so i definitely have recommendations there! as long as you care about like. the roman republic. anyway here’s a list:

memorial - alice oswald. a ‘translation’ of the iliad, but only the death scenes (often just lists of names!) and the epic similes. it frames itself as yknow. a memorial. to the dead minor characters of the iliad but imo it also speaks to the futility of epic memorialisation. i have read the two page introduction approximately One Million Times.

nobody - alice oswald. you will be missing out if you don’t read this one against memorial. it’s a ‘retelling’ of ‘the odyssey’ and a lot of other myths that involve the sea at any point. a lot of the oresteia too. but it also never names any of its characters or indicates where each story starts or ends. oswald’s best poetry is always about water and this book is Mostly About Water so it snaps supremely.

war music - christopher logue. similar concept but completely different vibe to memorial. also a king poetic Selective reinterpretation of the iliad, but focusing mostly on combat scenes. i’m a big fan of the deliberate anachronisms and framing of the poem through camera angles / film terminology like it’s such a sexy way to ‘translate’ the omniscient moving narrator. AND it pushes you towards a v different emotional response than oswald like memorial is lowkey War And The Pity Of War (The Poetry Is In The Pity) while war music is like. uncomfortably fun. i think comparisons of ancient epic to modern (war-focused) action films can be Lazy or Done Badly (thinking only abt Violent Action Scenes Made Heroic and not the role of the listener/reader/viewer) but the elements of that in war music Work! also agamemnon gets called a piece of shit

tv men: hektor - anne carson. the spectatorship element of war music made more obvious and on a much smaller scale (it’s just one poem in a sequence). also v cool things going on w different degrees of Looseness of translation stacked inside one another

autobiography of red - anne carson. based on the fragments of stesichorus’ geryoneis but bcs the original is so incomplete it can’t really be a ‘retelling’ so much as an imagining of what the poem could and definitely Could Not be. technically a novel but A Novel In Verse. also one of my favourite books of all time ever. it’s in third person but the claustrophobia of the narrative style / the way the protagonist is often closed off to parts of his own thoughts is Weirdly Similar to theseus in the king must die? ALSO geryon ends up with a photography motif. this time we are also using it to think about the subjectivity of which fragments of a poem end up surviving / what gets cut off outside the edge of the photograph

red doc> - anne carson. rip so much carson But this is the sequel to autobiography of red. what happens when you live past the end of your myth. namedrops the battle of ager falernus. prometheus is there. (and also: h of h play - anne carson. i didn’t know whether to include this because it is A Play. like it’s a ‘translation’ (loosest sense of the word) of euripides’ hercules. but geryon (or a version of him) is there for long enough that it counts as the final installment of autobiography of red. to me.)

lavinia - ursula le guin. the second half of the aeneid told from the perspective of lavinia. BUT what sets it apart from other What If Myth—But Woman ‘retellings’ is like. v close engagement with the aeneid as a story and specifically A Story Written By An Actual Author who created his fictionalised past in very deliberate directions. like it doesn’t just treat the aeneid as an authorless body of mythic stories. vergil’s ghost is a character also. fate is real also. ALSO the setting in The Mythic Past As It Becomes The Historical Past + le guin’s decision to include vaguely supernatural elements but never the gods directly is like. very similar to the texture of worldbuilding in renault’s theseus books.

fire from heaven - mary renault. speaking of her. she wrote a whole bunch of other historical novels which you might like! this is the only other one i’ve read so far though. it’s the first of a trilogy about alexander the great. alexander has lot like theseus in that they are both deeply fucked up little guys :-)

dancing with the lion series - jeanne reames (@jeannereames hi 👋). also about the early life of alexander the great. i’ve only read the first one of these (again) but like. i read the whole thing in a day. the level of historical detail is also absolutely nuts. which makes sense bcs reames is an alexander specialist. but still!!!

cicero trilogy - robert harris. welcome to the rome zone. this is the series that got me into roman history :/ it follows the life of cicero from the perspective of his secretary tiro (the inventor of a shorthand system!). It Makes Roman Politics Fun I Promise. for real though these books manage to cover a very complicated period while also not getting bogged down in it And showing you cicero’s Wit. like i know i’m tumblr user catilinas but these books mean i can never really dislike cicero

roma sub rosa series - steven saylor. but if any books Could make me dislike cicero. well. these are a Long series of detective novels set at the end of the roman republic. catiline is there And He’s Sexy. you WILL get invested in the fictional detective’s family drama. also the author is gay and writes lgbt characters in a way that like. actually thinks about what that means In Ancient Rome. catilina’s riddle (book 3) is one of my favourite books of all time ever. also congrats to saylor for writing detective novels which really get into the function of the figure of the detective / Who Is The Detective Really Helping Here / cicero is a massive bastard etc

masters of rome - colleen mccullough. i’m just going to link the review that convinced me and also my entire family to read these. they are terrible they are amazing marcus livius drusus is there. they are massive they cover almost one hundred years of history sulla is sexy and kills people and you will know so much of the minutiae of roman politics If you get through them all

the key / the lock / the door in the wall - benita kane jaro. the key and the door in the wall are a duology about marcus caelius rufus and his relationships w catullus and then caesar. and also clodia. the lock was written later but i’d chronologically in between, and is about cicero and his conflict with clodius. BUT also all three books repeat A Lot of the same events, just from slightly different angles. the unreliability of the narrator helps / makes this v fun. the prose is A Vibe also a lot of the focus is less abt the political situation than like. caelius being young-ish as the republic collapses.

attis - tom holland. legally i have to include this :/ i don’t even know how to describe it like it’s a cryptid of a book you might have to get it through interlibrary loans. it’s not even brilliant it’s just so so weird and also the author cannot explain why bcs he can’t remember what happens in it. it’s about catullus (archeology student?) in a modernised alternate history version of rome (90s london?) being involved in a mystery involving ritual murders (tom holland HAS read girard. if you were wondering). there are also clowns.

hostis - vale aida ( @valeaida hi also 👋). first in an in progress series abt an alternate history version of the second punic war. i read the whole thing in a day instead of writing one of my essays earlier this year :/ have you ever read livy/silius and been like uurfgjhgh the narrative parallels between the lives of hannibal and scipio…… What If That Was A Book. you will go nuts over the barcids

augustus - john edward williams. my highschool philosophy teacher recommended this to me :-) it’s a kind of epistolary novel In That it’s framed as a collection of (imaginary) texts like. letters and biographies and memoirs, all showing Sides but never the entirety of The Emperor Augustus over the course of his life. i read this around the same time as A Source Book for the augustan period and was like. yeah.

[jewfrogs]

What was the place of trans people in Ancient Greece? I don’t mean myths, but accounts of irl trans people. I once read something about priests of Aphrodite whose initiation ceremony was castration and wearing women’s clothing, which could be reinterpreted through a modern lens as Ancient Greece’s version of trans women, so to speak. Perhaps even non-binarism, though I don’t believe there was basis for escaping the gender binary and the very much enforced roles in the Greek patriarchy.

this is another great question! i’m going to broaden our scope a little bit to include some discussion of rome as well, because there’s a lot of useful stuff there and the two are interlinked.

discussing trans people in any historical context is difficult, because the framework through which we understand it doesn’t exist. that isn’t to say that people who didn’t conform to their assigned gender didn’t exist (gender variance has been documented for about as long as history), but that applying modern labels and understandings to them doesn’t always work, and there’s a lot of overlap between some categories (e.g. could we understand this individual as a trans woman or as an effeminate [gay] man? what does that mean when neither of those identities are contextual during the individual’s time?). all that to say: there isn’t a lot that directly corresponds to trans people from antiquity, but there’s certainly not nothing.

one reference to trans people in ancient greece comes from lucian’s dialogue of the courtesans (c. 120-190 CE), where the character megilla/us seems to be remarkably like a trans man: “I was born a woman like the rest of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.” this is an excellent post that discusses this passage in depth.

according to pliny the elder, there was a noted phenomenon of women turning into men: “The change of females into males is undoubtedly no fable. We find it stated in the Annals, that, in the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius Longinus, a girl, who was living at Casinum with her parents, was changed into a boy; and that, by the command of the Aruspices, he was con- veyed away to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus informs us, that he once saw at Argos a person whose name was then Arescon, though he had been formerly called Arescusa: that this person had been married to a man, but that, shortly after, a beard and marks of virility made their appearance, upon which he took to himself a wife. He had also seen a boy at Smyrna, to whom the very same thing had happened. I myself saw in Africa one L. Cossicius, a citizen of Thysdris, who had been changed into a man the very day on which he was married to a husband.” (Plin. Nat. 7.4) it seems likely that this is discussing intersex people, since pliny references them immediately before, but it is interesting to see evidence for at least some form of transition and for the acceptance of said transition—arescon has a wife! that’s pretty neat! these people seem to be fairly well-accepted, which does make one think about how transition in general might have worked or been seen.

with regards to the priests, i haven’t read about anything like that with aphrodite (although i would be remiss not to mention aphroditos here, particularly her mention in macrobius’ saturnalia), but i’m guessing you’re thinking of the galli, priests of cybele (a phrygian goddess, often correlated with rhea and with the intersex deity agdistis) as well as her lover attis (who was castrated as well—catullus 63, which i am going to write something about one day, is a retelling of their myth). they were castrated and generally wore women’s clothing, and many sources refer to them with feminine language. firmicus maternus (c. 4th century AD) said of them negant se viros esse, et non sunt <mulieres>: mulieres se volunt credi (“they deny that they are men, and are not <women>: they want to be believed as women”). there are certainly parallels that can be drawn here!

in addition, there can be a lot of blurred overlap between gay readings and trans readings. in ancient greek & roman thought, the categories of men-who-are-penetrated and women-who-penetrate (or, well... hump, since one of the latin words for these women is tribades, or “rubbers”) are almost genders in their own right, or perhaps the intersection of two genders: men-who-are-penetrated are like women but not, and women-who-penetrate are like men but not. (it can definitely be interpreted, to some extent, that these people want to be read as the opposite binary gender to the one they were assigned—which raises the question of whether we simply don’t know some of these stories because people did pass and therefore it wasn’t outwardly transgressive.)

this is probably best encapsulated by an excerpt from the fables of phaedrus (a first-century CE roman author who is supposedly adapting aesop’s work), where the question tribadas et molles mares quae ratio procreasset (what reason brought [lesbians] and [effeminate men] into existence?) is asked, and this is the answer:

The same Prometheus, creator of the clay crowd (which is broken the moment it offends fortune), had made those parts of nature which decency hides with clothing apart from the rest for the whole day. Just before he could fix the parts to the right bodies, he was suddenly invited to dinner by Liber; when he had watered his veins well with nectar, he returned home late at night on faltering feet. Then, with a half-awake mind and a drunken mistake, he applied maidenhood to a type of man and affixed masculine members to the women; thus desire now enjoys perverse joy.

there are different ways this can be read, because “applicuit virginale generi masculo” and “masculina membra applicuit feminis” can both be taken as an aetiology for either tribades or molles mares. take one: the first line refers to molles mares, making them men in body with women’s spirits, and the second line refers to tribades, making them women in body with men’s spirits. take two: the first line refers to tribades, making them men in spirit with women’s bodies, and the second line refers to molles mares, making them women in spirit with men’s bodies. these are both really interesting readings that both resonate to some extent with transness and specifically with the space in between gayness and transness.

as an example, take the figure agathon (a fictionalized portrayal of a real playwright) from aristophanes’ thesmophorizusae. agathon is notably effeminate—he’s first introduced by a character saying εγώ γαρ ουχ όρω άνδρ’ ουδέν ενθάδ’ όντα, Κυρήνην δ’ όρω (“I see no man, but I see Cyrene”, in reference to, as one commentary puts it, “a dissolute woman of the day”). that is to say: agathon is read as a woman. when another character in the thesmo needs to dress up as a woman, he doesn’t borrow a woman’s clothes—he borrows agathon’s. could we read agathon as a trans figure? perhaps! but his effeminacy is tied to him being, as the greek puts it, ευρύπρωκτος—literally “wide-assed”, but often translated simply as a certain six-letter word that starts with f. agathon isn’t a woman, exactly, but he’s not quite a man either. i wouldn’t necessarily call this in-between space trans, but i don’t know if i could call it cis either.

tl;dr: there are few depictions of people we might call trans as we understand it today from ancient greece, but there are a lot of interesting questions we can ask and consider with regards to gender that touch on transness and antique experiences analogous to modern-day trans ones. also gayness and transness are very much intertwined.

[dakotacrisis]

Transferred (12)

FRESH BAKED JUSTICE!

---

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the leaves in the trees were changing color, Marinette had all her assignments done, Kagami’s dress was coming along beautifully, Alya and her were talking again, and Quinn had finally purchased a real planner.

Marinette now sat in a window seat of Nanette’s moms’ cafe sipping a mug of warm tea and listening to the excited and funny ramblings of her friends.

“You’ve been awfully quiet today.” Nanette noted. “Everything okay?”

“Everything is pretty much perfect.” Marinette sighed, “I’m enjoying the moment while it lasts.”

“Here, here,” Nanette clinked her mug of cocoa against Marinette’s. “Heard anything from Adrien?”

“Nope. I don’t know what is going on anymore with him.” After Marinette’s confrontation with Lila at the fabric store she called Adrien to vent. He couldn’t talk long as he was on his way home and had something important to discuss with his dad when he got there. She kept her complaining short and tried calling Alya instead but was met with an even more abrupt end to the conversation as someone in the background made a bunch of noisy complaints about deadlines and narrative flow.

She tried talking to both of them the next day and again was met with quick dismissals and apologies. Something was going on but Marinette for the life of her couldn’t tell what it was. Were those two in cahoots for something? If they were, why couldn’t they tell Marinette?

Marinette’s phone beeped. “This may be him.”

“And I am telling you, Tsurugi!” Quinn was nose to nose with Kagami, “I don’t care how powerful a ninja Pucca is, she could not defeat the kraken!”

“It is essentially a giant octopus. She could totally take it!” Kagami argued.

“I will physically fight you on this!”

“Children,” Nanette’s mom approached the table and swatted Quinn on the top of their head with a menu, “No shouting in the cafe. You’re disturbing the other customers.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Labelle,” Quinn and Kagami muttered. “Hey, Marinette, can you settle this for us?”

“In a minute, I got a message from Chloe.” Marinette opened her messages.

“What is it?” Kagami leaned over her shoulder.

“She sent me a video. Geez, twenty minutes? What is this?” Marinette recognized the thumbnail as her old classroom.

“Fresh Baked Justice.” Kagami read out the title, “Was the caps lock necessary?”

“Let’s see what’s happening.” Marinette propped up her phone and pressed play.

---

“Why am I the one recording?” Marinette recognized Alya’s voice behind the camera.

“Because I, unlike you, never doubted her. So I get to present the information.” Chloe was standing at the front of the classroom as the other students entered. “Now wait for my cue to start recording.”

“I’m already recording.”

“You incompetent--”

“Watch it, Chloe.” Alya warned.

“Fine, whatever,” Chloe huffed as she waited for everyone to get seated.

Ms. Bustier entered the room and gave Chloe and Alya a confused look. “Girls, what are you doing?”

“I knew we were presenting our projects today and I wanted to be the first.” Chloe said.

“And Alya is recording because?”

“Because I want to relive everyone’s jaw dropping reactions to my perfect project.” Chloe boasted but there was something slippery about the way she said it. Something she wasn’t letting on about.

“Alright then,” Ms. Bustier smiled, “Since you are so eager you can go first.”

“Perfect,” Chloe cleared her throat, “My dear plebeian peers, may I present my wonderful project of a modern retelling of an ancient story. The story of Dolos and Aletheia.”

Chloe hit a button on the remote she was holding and the slide on the screen changed to a picture of Lila with little devil horns photoshopped on her forehead.

“Now, in ancient myth Dolos was a either a lesser god or simply a personified spirit of trickery and guile depending on your interpretation. A master of cunning deception, craftiness and treachery.” Chloe continued on unbothered by the mean looks she was getting from her classmates, “The most well known story concerning Dolos is while under the apprenticeship of the Titan Prometheus he forged a copy of a statue Prometheus was sculpting.”

The powerpoint changed slides again. This time a picture of a statue of a woman with sad eyes and holding a tablet of some sort filled the screen.

“The statue Prometheus was sculpting was of Aletheia, or her Roman name, Veritas. Aletheia is the goddess of truth in ancient myth. Prometheus decided to create a statue of her so to help regulate the behaviour of people.”

Again the slides changed this time to a picture of an incomplete statue of a woman that had Marinette’s head photoshopped on it.

“Now in the myth, Prometheus was called away from his shop leaving Dolos alone. In his ambition the trickster decided to use his free time to fashion a forgery of the statue Prometheus was making. So good were his skills and in the details of the forgery that when Prometheus returned to the shop and saw the copy he decided it was impeccable and put both statues in the kiln.”

Slides changed and now stood a regular picture of Marinette with a little halo around her head and next to it was a shopped photo of Marinette twisted to give her an evil smile and a burglar mask. The devil horned Lila picture stood between them looking awfully smug.

“The only problem was that before Dolos could finish the Aletheia statue he ran out of clay and could not add any feet. Thus when the statues were done the true version of Aletheia awakened and walked with measured steps but her incomplete twin was stuck in place unable to move forward. This product of subterfuge thus came to be known as Mendacium, or Falsehood. Standing in place as a reminder that while something false can start off successfully, inevitably, Aletheia, or Truth, will prevail.”

“Well, Chloe,” Ms. Bustier looked put out, “This is well researched but how is this a modern retelling? You’ve only repeated the original myth and put your classmates faces over the pictures.”

“I am aware, Ms. Bustier.” Chloe nodded, “I was merely informing everyone of the original story. Now we will be moving onto the modern retelling. In this version the personifications of Dolos and Aletheia have been changed to Lila and Marinette respectively.”

At this the students in their seats started to squirm and exchange bewildered looks.

“Ahem,” Chloe cleared her throat and hit the button to change slides once more. This time instead of a shopped photo it was the class picture. “Once upon a time there was a normal high school class. In this class there was a pillar of truth and justice, almost to annoying degree, known as Marinette Dupain-Cheng.  All was well in the class and many people liked her. Until one fateful day when a dark power of lies and deception crept into the school. A miss Lila Rossi.”

The screen now showed a still from Alya’s interview with Lila the first day she came to school.

“Lila charmed the people around her with tall tales of interest and famous connection in order to impress the students. While this irked Marinette she could not prove her lies were in fact such and so suffered in silence. Any time she tried to call out the falsehoods being fed to her peers she was met with resistance and, in extreme cases, hostility.

“What Marinette did not realize at the time was just how much her attempts at uncovering the truth angered Lila. How if Marinette could provide concrete proof to her claims then Lila would be powerless to stop it. Unfortunately for dear Marinette, she was stunted in her mission of justice by Lila with sabotage and manipulation of her classmates.”

A video appeared on the screen of what was clearly Lila sneaking into the janitor’s closet early in the morning and leaving with a large white jug of chemicals before ascending the steps into Ms. Bustier’s classroom. The time stamp on the video read about a month ago. The day Marinette sat in bleach.

A minute later the door to the classroom opened again and Lila stashed the bleach back in the closet before integrating herself with the arriving students.

“Thankfully for Dupain-Cheng, another hero rose to the challenge. One detective Chloe Bourgeois.” Chloe smirked. The camera panned to Lila. She looked more composed than she should have considering Chloe was going to expose her for the lying worm she is. Adrien, who was forced next to Lila, looked absolutely delighted by Chloe’s project.

“This day would mark the first in a long line of pranks and lies that Lila would use to break down Marinette and drive her away from her friends and the school.”

The next video took place in the library. The time stamp read about a week after the bleach incident video. Marinette was sat at one of the computers furiously typing away on a document. A couple feet away at the printer Lila stood taking the paper out of the printer and shoving it back in all bent and crushed. She walked away and a minute later Marinette stood up from her desk and crossed to the printer to collect her paper. Only the printer was now jammed due to Lila’s sabotage. Unaware of any foul play Marinette went about unjamming the printer while Lila now snuck to the computer Marinette had inhabited and started clicking at things on the screen. She ran back into hiding as Marinette got the printer fixed and returned to send her report to the printer again. Only this time Marinette started to freak out and frantically click everywhere on the screen trying to find a now permanently deleted document.

Chloe described what was in fact happening in the video to the class so they had the proper context before reminding them of Marinette’s ‘excuse’ for not having her report done. Her ‘excuse’ that someone had deleted the document and all her notes.

A few students started to look at Lila with suspicion.

A newspaper clipping now occupied the screen. It was the article about the art students and the picture of Lila wearing Marinette’s ballgown. In the article the false name Lila gave the reporter for Marinette was highlighted.

“Now thanks to the incredible work of Detective Chloe, I was able to find the reporter of this article and ask them about the misinformed name.” The screen changed to a video of a journalist sitting in their office. The name on their desk matching the name on the article.

“Now,” the video version of Chloe said, “What can you tell me about the person who gave you the name Margaret Dubois-Peng for this article.”

“It was this girl pictured in the center of the photo I took,” the journalist held up the picture, clearly pointing at Lila, “And I did not mishear her. She told me that the name of the girl that couldn’t make the picture was named Margaret. I remember because I thought the dress was beautiful and wanted to get the name perfect since the talented designer was absent from the photo.”

“I am sorry to inform you but there is no Margaret Dubois-Peng that attends Francoise Dupont. The actual designer of that dress was a girl named Marinette Dupain-Cheng whom Lila is in the same class with and knew the dress belonged to.”  Video Chloe said.

“Really? Doesn’t she know what kind of exposure an article in this newspaper can give to young artists? Especially considering that the Next Big Night Fundraiser is approaching. This is when the organizers and founders of the event start looking for possible recipients for the Next Big Thing title.” The journalist asked. “What kind of petty high school drama would make her lie about that?”

“What indeed?” The in class version of Chloe asked as the video on the screen ended. “I’m sure we all remember Marinette’s little freak out that day when she tried to vault a desk to get to Lila. Her outlandish claims of sabotage have more weight now, don’t they?”

Oops. Looks like Lila’s stone face started to crumble. Only slightly. She wasn’t about to give anything away yet.

“Now, I could go into all the other interviews I managed to accumulate with other famous contacts Lila claimed to know like, Jagged Stone, Prince Ali, and Clara Nightingale. So I will!” Chloe pulled up another video. This time a short montage of said celebrities holding a photo of Lila and stating that they had no idea who this person was and debunking whatever claim she made about them right then and there.

The quiet whispers passed around the class were now getting louder before Chloe called their attention back to her.

“Now, for the final nail in the coffin of Marinette’s departure from the school,” Chloe clicked the remote again with a list of items appearing on the screen. The stolen items Marinette was framed for stealing. “Her supposed theft of various objects from the rest of the class. Like Nino’s headphones,”

The screen changed to a picture of Lila grabbing the headphones out of Nino’s bookbag while his back was turned.

“Or Max’s charger.”

Another photo of Lila snatching the charger off of the table in the library Max was sitting at while he was reading.

“Mylene’s headband and Rose and Juleka’s pencil toppers.”

Two more photos both of Lila clearly reaching into the girl’s lockers and pulling out the objects.

“Unfortunately I have no evidence of her putting these in Dupain-Cheng’s bag as there are no cameras set up inside the classroom but I think the evidence of her initially being the one to steal the items speaks for itself. Lila Rossi is Dolos. Spirit of trickery and deception that drove away the Truth.”

All eyes were on Lila now. Unperturbed Lila stood up and walked to the front of the class next to Chloe. “Chloe, I will be the first to say that this is a very nice project. You obviously put a lot of work into it. Not only trying to create a parallel of high school drama to an ancient tragedy. Spectacular work. I can’t believe you even got all those celebrities to play along for it with those fake interviews. I’m sure that as the mayor’s daughter they were only too happy to help you with your project.”

Oh no. Lila really didn’t think she was going to lie her way out of this, did she? There was no way! There was video and photographic evidence on all accounts!

“These photos are some of the best photoshopping I’ve seen. You must have worked with Alya over there to create them.” Lila waved at Alya recording. “But I think there should be a helpful disclaimer to remind everyone that this is in fact a work of fiction twisted to look like real life events.”

“You are not that lucky, Rossi.” Chloe made a come hither motion and Adrien stood up. “While I know everyone in class has got to be at least speculative about me, I know they all believe Adrien. What reason do they have not to? He’s done nothing wrong ever in his life.”

This time it was Adrien who addressed the class. “I can confirm that what Chloe has said this morning is true. All of it. I knew Lila was a liar from the beginning and that she was hurting Marinette. I thought that she couldn’t cause such horrible damage to our class with her lies but I was wrong. I made Marinette ignore the problem like I did and it cost me dearly. Cost us dearly.”

He wasn’t smiling as he turned to Lila. “After what you did to Marinette and how I saw her cry because you had managed to turn the entire school against her I offered to come back and expose you for the liar you are. It was Marinette who convinced me not to so that the class wouldn’t turn against me next. It may have cost me some good friends but there are times that I look at this environment you created with your selfishness and think that maybe getting pulled from school altogether wouldn’t be bad if it meant getting away from you.”

At this the class got into a frenzy as they tried to attack Adrien for knowing the truth and not exposing Lila earlier if what he said was true. Chloe whistled loudly drowning out the frantic voices and restoring order once again.

“I’m not done.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “To close out my project I wanted to bring special attention to this particular parallel

“In one of Aesop’s fables he tells the a tale of a man that found Alethia in the wilderness away from civilization and asked what she was doing there. I believe this ties in very well with the treatment that Dupain-Cheng received during her tenure here. The quote is as follows: “A man was journeying in the wilderness and he found Aletheia standing there all alone. He said to her, ‘Ancient lady, why do you dwell here in the wilderness, leaving the city behind?’ From the great depths of her wisdom, Alethia replied, ‘Among the people of old, lies were found among only a few, but now they have spread throughout all of human society!’” Chloe read dramatically, “Now if we were to take the people of old referenced here and imagine it as the people of this class and the little white lies we all have told from time to time that would be a fair comparison. But when Lila Rossi started to attend our school her lies infected our peer group and her influence has been felt throughout the entire establishment. Thus the lies found among only a few have spread throughout the whole school and with it has also driven away the truth...and a friend.”

Lila wasn’t smug now. Her hands shaking slightly out of either fear or anger.

The entire class was stunned into silence for about ten seconds before everything exploded. People were launching up from their seats and pointing at Lila with anger and disbelief. It was hard to make anything out with all the noise but a very distressed Lila stood in the center of the storm trying to fix everything before getting overwhelmed and running out of the room.

After that the camera turned to Chloe and Adrien wearing matching smug grins before the video ended.

---

“That was glorious!” Marinette tried not to be one of those people that revelled in other people’s misery but Lila had this coming. And Marinette loved every second of it.

There was a message along with the video that Marinette had failed to see prior to pressing play.

You are gonna get a lot of our lame classmates texting you apologies. You should ignore them. They aren’t worth the energy.

“Chloe…” Marinette’s giddy grin softened. She would never have guessed that her long time childhood bully could ever be so...nice.

Another message popped up. This time from Adrien.

Did you get Chloe’s message?

Yes I did. She texted back. It was amazing! How are things over there now that the storm has passed?

The storm is still going. After Lila bolted no one could keep quiet so Ms. Bustier left everyone to chat and get it out of their systems while she went to look for Lila.

Are you okay? I saw how everyone tried to lay into you.

No worries here. You know how Chloe is. We’re standing in the back rn watching the chaos. I keep hearing people say: Marinette was telling the truth

VINDICATION!

You deserve it!

Chloe told me not to respond to the apology texts I’m bound to get any second now.

You know me. I’d at least hear them out but I understand how they hurt you. Forgive but never forget and all that.

You’re right. In time yes but for right now I’m gonna leave them unread. Let them squirm a little.

Marinette no!

A text from Chloe.

I’ve been reading over Adrien’s shoulder and my response is, Marinette YES!

“I may have been slightly wrong about Chloe.” Kagami smiled, “To go to all that trouble just to prove your innocence? It is commendable.”

Marinette saved the video to her phone. “That’s why she’s Queen Bee.”

---

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (13)

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(tagged) (idk why some of the tags aren’t working. I tried guys.)

@northernbluetongue @heredemaquam @zazzlejazzle @lady-flora-of-slytherin @ladylb @immatureidiot101 @kristycocopops @schrodingers25 @sublimemagazinestarlight @shamefullove

[pjstafford]

He’s No Monster. Review of the Post Modern Prometheus Man. Blog 38 of the Disability in the World of The X-Files Series

I must admit that I approached this episode of my disability focused watch with trepidation. It is an episode so well done, nominated for so many emmys, so funny and campy, that it is hard not to love. It is a black and white retelling of the Frankenstein story. There is a mad scientist, a compelling created man monster, odd town characters, and everyone goes to a Cher concert at the end. What’s not to love? Oh, yeah, the medical rape. Women are drugged, passed out and then impregnated to create a Bride or at least a friend for the story’s Frankenstein (a genetically engineered man with a full and a half head attached together). The excuse (similar to the physical rape in Small Potatoes) is that the women who wanted children were able to have children they otherwise would not have had. However, they were never asked for consent. From a gender equity and social justice perspective, it is an abhorrent episode despite how well it is done. So in approaching it with a disability focus, I fear I might become more disenchanted. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

It is probably important to remember here that my career has been in community inclusion for persons with developmental disabilities. My passion for this is at least partially motivated because I am the younger sibling of a person who was socially isolated for much of her childhood years. She didn’t go to school (pre IDEA) and had no friends growing up. She became obsessed with television. Also, she was often violent.

Here then is a story of a boy raised in isolation in a type of root cellar or storm cellar. ( I am not a farm person). Completely alone, he becomes obsess with Cher due to the movie Mask. See, he is lonely; Incredibly lonely. He believes no one could stand to look at him or be friends with him unless they were as “hideous” as him. Despite his father being only a simple farmer, the boy becomes extremely well read and well spoken through the books, television and media centers of the homes where the simple farmer is medically raping the women. The townspeople came to burn him out, but then discovered “he’s no monster.” Instead of being hauled off to jail like his creator, and despite his complicity in the rapes, he gets his dream of going to a Cher concert where he is joined by all the townspeople and Cher pulls him up on stage with her. So if we set aside the rapes for a moment (and you can see I struggle with that), the moral of the story is that instead of children being raised completely isolated because of their differences, they should really just do the things they love in the community like going to Cher concerts. Yes, bigotry exists, and people might initially be fearful, but, those that take the time to get to know the boy with the different appearance will become his friends. He doesn’t need to find someone just like him. He just has to accept himself and let’s his strengths showed through. Instead of developing maladaptive, antisocial behaviours out of loneliness and desperation and a life hidden away, he can venture out in the community and find himself giving a high five to Mulder while listening to music he loves. It’s a simplistic reading on a complex societal problem, but it is also the moral of my life’s work and, I suppose, of what I learned as a sibling of a sister with a difference. This episode is supposed to be a fairy tale and, from a disability perspective, this ending works for me.

[umbrahighpriestofgiratina]

Greenhorn Prometheus Chapter 2

Part two! Since I wasn't initially super-clear about this before, this whole thing is a parody-of-a-parody/retelling of Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder's Young Frankenstein, which should give some context but isn't required viewing for this fic (indeed some of the jokes might land better if you don't). Weirdly AO3 has a Young Frankenstein tag but FFnet doesn't. Anyway...

Chapter 2: Construction

The next morning, Silver, Colress, and Sabrina were having a lovely breakfast like nothing had happened. "Pass the pancakes, Sabrina?" said Silver. Sabrina telepathically lifted over a platter of pancakes, Silver taking bites while looking at How We Did It. "...We're going to need a lot of DNA," said Silver. "How so?" said Colress. "Some of our own, for starters, human DNA was a vital ingredient in the original Mewtwo project... Then we need Alakazam DNA, Lucario DNA, Mismagius DNA, all sorts of others... And last but certainly not least, Mew DNA." ~That's going to be a tall order...~ said Sabrina. ~Are you absolutely sure you can reverse engineer the Mewtwo project for good?~ "Positive. I know what made the first project fail. I know what to avoid." "If I may chime in?" said Colress, "I have... Connections that can provide us with every bit of Pokemon DNA that isn't Mew's, as well as more modern flash cloning equipment. "Really? Colress thank you!" "Give me one moment..." He pulled out a phone and dialed a number. "Yes, hello? Colress here. I have a favor to ask..." --------------- Silver heard a thud on the side of the estate. He ran out to see an airship had parked out in front, with men in strange outfits swarming around. "What in the name of Lugia is this?" Colress approached. "Oh hey! These are my ex-Neo Plasma friends! They offered blood samples from their Pokemon and, ahem, acquired the necessary cloning equipment!" "That's great but can they park the airship further from the estate?" "Certainly! Hey guys, back it up!" The airship started making beeping noises as it indeed started backing up. Silver sighed. ------------ In the laboratory, the DNA samples had been lined up in front of a massive machine. Silver placed three samples with the others - one labeled "Silver", one labeled "Colress," and one labeled "Sabrina." The three sources of the samples looked upon the display. "We just need the Mew DNA, right?" said Colress. "Precisely," said Silver. "But I'm not sure how to get it..." ~I may have a lead.~ said Sabrina. ~Pewter Museum has some samples of Mew DNA in the back. Including that of one Mew of the Tree Of Beginning.~ "That would be perfect!" said Silver! "I'll sneak in and get it!" said Colress. "They'll think I'm just there for normal research!" "Excellent, Colress, thank y-" Silver stopped and stared at Colress, specifically at his swirl. "Wasn't that twisting in the other direction before?" "Huh?" "...Never mind, just go get that Mew DNA." ---------------- It was dark, and stormy and a night. Colress had already made his way into the Pewter Museum and was headed for the back rooms. He reached through a slot in the door to open it from the inside, and after being briefly startled by his own hand, entered. There before him were vials of the DNA of various different Legendaries. Colress grinned as he made his way over to one vial in particular - Rotan Mew. He reached out to take it, but a bolt of lightning hit very close to the museum at that instant, startling him and causing him to drop the sample, splattering it all over the floor. In a panic he looked around, spotting a sample labeled "Abnormal Mew DNA" - well it was still Mew DNA and he didn't see any more, so it'd have to do. He grabbed the sample and spirited it out of the museum. ---------- The samples were ready. The machine was ready. Silver and Sabrina stood before it, at the ready. "Colress! Are the preparations complete?" From atop the machine Colress gave a thumbs up. "Get down from there then! You'll get electrocuted!" "What?" "I said get down from there you'll get-" "I'm down, I'm down," said Colress, suddenly right next to Silver, "no need to shout." Silver merely stared and shook his head. ~Well this is the last situation I thought I'd be in,~ said Sabrina. "Well creating an ultimate lifeform to serve as a force of good is pretty new I say-" said Silver. ~Not that. Getting neck deep in former Rocket shit.~ "...Oh?" ~Rocket was always interested in my powers. Ever since the Black Fog incident. They offered me a job with them but I refused, and have been keeping my eye on them and their since.~ "Black Fog incident?" ~...Never mind. Let's just get this done.~ The group started making more preparations. "Colress, release the safety valve!" said Silver. As Colress turned to do so Silver turned to Sabrina with an almost-like-his-father's grin. "Can you believe it? A second Mewtwo! We'll have achieved this all ourselves!" Sabrina simply raised an eyebrow as Silver turned to the machine. A manic look appeared in his eye. "From that fateful day when stinking viscous slime first crawled from the seas and shouted to the cold stars... I am mon! Our greatest dread is our inferiority to the gods... But tonight! We shall hurl the gauntlet of science straight into the face of Arceus themselves!" The machine activated, started glowing, whirring, churning. "Tonight! We shall ascend into the heavens! We shall mock Groudon! We shall command Zekrom's thunder!" On cue lightning cracked outside. "And we shall penetrate the sacred domain of Xerneas himself!" Something started forming inside the machine. "Pull the first switch!" Sabrina pulled it. The machine glowed brighter. "Second switch!" Colress pulled that one. Brighter. "Third switch!" "Not the third switch..." said Colress. "Did I stutter?!" said Silver. Colress and Sabrina pulled it. The machine gave off an ominous glow. "Give my creation life!" The thing inside the machine grew, sprouted limbs, a torso, a head. Eventually it stopped. The machine whirred to a pause. Silver pressed his face very close to the thing within. "Speak to me... Speak to me..." Nothing. Nothing but the cold, hard glass and the lifeless meat doll inside. "...Nothing..." ~...Silver, I'm sorry-~ "No no, you're alright... If science teaches us anything, it's to accept our successes and failures with... quiet... dignity and... grace..." There was a pause before Silver started angrily pounding on the glass, Sabrina and Colress trying to hold him back. "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS YOU BASTARD SON OF A BITCH! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" After a bit he curled up on the floor somberly. "Worthless... you're all worthless..." ~That's a mood,~ said Sabrina. "Quiet dignity and grace, huh?" said Colress. --------------- At Viridian City Town Hall a crowd of people and Pokemon had gathered, two people standing in front. "Now I assure you," said one to the crowd, "this one is different! He's only been back for what, a few days?" Another man came to face the first two. "He's an Altamura! They're all alike!" There were yells of assent from the crowd. "It's in their blood, they can't help it! They say they're working for us... When what they really want is to rule the world!" More yells. "Enough!" said the first man."These are very serious charges you're making, in particular because we still have nightmares about the first three times! We haven't heard from the one man most qualified to judge this fairly." There was a knock at the door. "Oh! Inspector Looker! Come in!" Looker entered the room. Notably, he had bags under his eyes, and was tightly clutching a box of tissues. "Dreadfully sorry, came down with a cold..." "A what now?" "A-" he sneezed - "Cold." "Oh, then go on." "Well, see, a riot is an ugly thing... Once you get one started, there is little chance of stopping it, minus bloodshed. I think before we go around jailing people we had better-" he sneezed, causing the others to recoil "-make damn sure of our evidence. We need to confirm the fact that Altamura is following in his father's footsteps - I've met him and he doesn't seem like the type." There was a chorus of "whats" from the crowd, Looker's clogged nasal passages rendered him so illegible. Looker sighed. "He's probably not following in his father's footsteps." There were several "ohs" from the crowd. "I think what is in order is for me to pay a visit to him, have a nice chat, you know?" There were disgruntled murmurs among the crowd. Looker sighed. This was going to be a long assignment. ---------------- Silver was slouched over the dining room table of the estate, muttering the word "reputation" to himself. Sabrina looked at him and sighed. ~You really shouldn't do this to yourself.~ "I should." ~Could you at least stop thinking about it? My powers keep picking up your angst and it's dragging me down.~ "No." ~At least touch your food.~ Silver leered at the plate of macaroni and cheese in front of him and started aggressively poking it. "There. Now I've touched it. Happy?" Sabrina just scowled. "You know, this reminds me of my mother," said Colress. "When these things would happen to her, she'd always know what to say..." "Like what?" said Silver, a brief glimmer of hope returning to his eyes. "'Oi, what the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night?! Why don't ya get out of there and give someone else a chance?!'" Silver and Sabrina stared. "What? My mother was Galaran." "No, about the bathroom-" Silver started to say. "That was the only place I could set up my chemistry set!" Silver breathed a deep sigh of relief before he started slouching again. ~Don't do that again, unless you want me to beam my mental image straight to everyone else's brains,~ said Sabrina. "Maybe it's better this way," said Silver, pointedly ignoring them. "The damn thing. Maybe it's better off dead." ---------------- In the deep dark of the basement the being's hand twitched. There was an unearthly moan. ------------ The moan was heard up above. "Glad you guys like the mac and cheese at least," said Silver. ~Uh, no,~ said Sabrina, ~That was-~ "That sound. You made a sound like it was good. It should be obvious." "Neither of us made a yummy sound." said Colress. "But you did," said Silver, "I just heard it." "Wasn't me!" "Well if it wasn't either of you what was-" There was another moan. ~...It's coming from the laboratory,~ said Sabrina. There was a long pause before everyone jumped from the table and ran. --------------- The three ran up to the machine, where the new Mewtwo, eyes wide open, was shifting around inside. "Alive! It's alive!" said Silver. ~She's alive.~ said Sabrina. "...You can tell?" ~Once you pinpoint the brain patterns behind gender it's pretty easy. And more accurate than... you know.~ "Aha! Stand back then..." said Silver. He once again got uncomfortably close to the Mewtwo, who stared into his eyes oddly. "Hello there girl. I'm going to set you free now..." ~Mmmmmmm,~ said the Mewtwo, her moans now more distinctly feminine. "Is the sedative ready?" said Silver. Colress held up a rather large syringe and gave a thumbs up. Silver pressed a button on the machine. The fluid drained, the glass lowered, the tubes connected to the Mewtwo detached, and she wobbly floated out of the device that birthed her. "Stand... On your feet," said Silver. The Mewtwo touched down and looked around, then stumbled. "Now... Walk... You can do it..." The Mewtwo attempted to alternate between using her feet and hovering. Silver took her arms and attempted to help her along. "Yes... Good.... Good..." Suddenly, a spark came off the machinery, and a loose piece of paper caught fire. The Mewtwo's eyes widened and she let out a frenzied psychic moan, attempting to psychically throttle Silver. "Ack! Quick, give her the-" The throttling cut him off, resorting to him attempting to pantomime as the Mewtwo tugged him around like a marionette. "Okay, charades!" said Colress. Silver started pointing rapidly at the Mewtwo's side. "Uh, tickling? No, that can't be it... Spinal cord?" The jabbing continued. "Oh! The sedative!" Colress fortunately managed to plunge the syringe into the Mewtwo's backside, knocking her out cold within seconds. Silver gasped and panted upon being freed from the psychic grip, and Sabrina put out the fire. ~Are you okay?~ said Sabrina. "Yes, yes, absolutely fine, but... Colress? May I speak to you for a moment?" Colress scooched over to Silver. "Now that Mew DNA you gave me... Was it that of the Mew Of The Tree Of Beginning?" Colress shifted nervously. "No." "Ah, good. And you mind telling me what DNA I did put in?" "You won't be angry?" "I will not be angry." "...Abby-someone." "Abby someone? Abby who?" "Abby Normal. A bit of an esoteric Mew specimen apparently." "Abby Normal." "I'm almost sure that was the name," Colress said, sweating. Silver gave a joyless smile and chuckle. "Are you saying that I put abnormal Mew DNA into a six foot seven, two hundred and sixty nine pound... Demigod?!" At that last word he stood up and started throttling Colress. "Is that what you're telling me?!" Colress started holding up fingers and mimiming two hands moving apart as he was throttled ~Okay, charades,~ said Sabrina. ~V? No, a valley, toss him off a cliff? Oh, wait, separate you two.~ Sabrina was about to separate the two when a loud knocking echoed through the estate. Silver paused and let go of Colress. "...Who could that be at this hour?" ------------------- Looker was continuously pounding at the door with what little energy he had. He really wished he wasn't here right now. --------------- Silver shook his head. "Sabrina, go see who it is. Colress, make sure the Mewtwo is contained!" "Alright what are you doing?" "I'm going to wash up," said Silver, a manic look in his eyes. "I've got to look normal. All of us, have to behave normally!" He stormed off. Colress just nodded slowly. ---------- Silver and Looker were sitting together, playing New Super Mario Bros. co-op. "So," said Looker, stomping on a Shroomish in-game, "how's it been since I last saw you?" Silver paused. Not paused the game, just paused. "Remind me?" "When you were a child. I was on the trail of your father, and I sought out you." "Oh, yes, now I remember," said Silver. "It's... been good. I turned my life around, became a Pokemon professor, I have a stable life and income and all that, my Pokemon are faring well..." He sighed. "That's good to hear!" said Looker. "I've been all over the world, chasing new assignments, coming up with different disguises..." He frowned. "Though, it's not all sunshine and rainbows; I lost my dear Croagunk partner." "...Oh. Oh." said Silver. "I'm... sorry to hear that." "I appreciate your sympathy," said Looker. He thought a bit. "The people of Viridian are concerned about... you being here." Silver kicked a Torkoal in-game. "Why?" "They're concerned about the usual. Organized crime and genetic monstrosities," Silver scoffed. "Genetic monstrosities are passé, like ghost stories." "Well see to them it's real," said Looker, sniffing and wiping his nose. "Especially with an Altamura in this house." "So?" "I'm not worried, but they're worried about... Things like genes and chromosomes and behavioral similarities. All probably bullshit of course but to them it's-" Silver twitched. His character fell into a pit and floated back out as a bubble. "They have nothing to worry about." "Something upsetting you?" "No, no, this whole thing is deeply... amusing." "Very well! I'll go reassure them that you have no interest in the family business! If that's alright with you." A telepathic voice echoed from the basement. ~Mmmmmm.~ "I'll take that as a yes!" said Looker. "Mmmmmm," said Silver. "Very well. Until we meet again," he sneezed, "Silver." "Same to you." Looker got up and left. Silver sat there for a moment before turning off the game and taking his own leave. ------------- In the laboratory, the Mewtwo stirred and moaned in her prison. A figure approached, in awe at the sight of her. "Oh... Mary, Mary we've done it!" The figure stroked the glass. "I'm going to set you free. Would you like that?" ~Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.~ The figure pressed the release button. "They wanted to hurt you... but I'm going to help you!" Suddenly Silver, Sabrina, and Colress entered the room. "Thank Lugia that's over with," Silver said. The three froze in shock upon seeing the figure. "Agatha!" Silver said. More Mudsdale winnies. "Don't come any closer," said Agatha. "What are you even doing?" said Silver "I'm going to set her free!" said Agatha. ~That's a really, really bad idea,~ said Sabrina. "She'll kill you!" said Silver. "Not this one!" said Agatha. "She's as gentle as a Mareep." On cue the Mewtwo emerged from the chamber, an angry glow in her eyes. "Stand back, she has unstable DNA!" said Silver. "It's not unstable!" said Agatha. "It's good DNA!" "It's unstable I tell you!" The Mewtwo turned her head in Silver's direction, eyes glowing further. "Ix-nay on the unstableway," said Colress. "I am not afraid!" said Agatha. "I know what she likes!" She pulled out a suspiciously familiar violin and started playing. The Mewtwo's eyes stopped glowing, and she adopted a happy expression as she started pawing the air in a cat-like fashion. "That music..." said Silver. "Yes!" said Agatha. "It's in your blood! It's in the blood of all Altamuras! It reaches the soul when words are useless! They used to play it to the Mewtwo your father and Fuji were making..." "Then it was you all the time!" said Silver. A chord. "Yes!" "You played that music in the middle of the night!" Another chord. "Yes!" "To get us into the laboratory!" And another. "Yes!" "And it was you who left out my father and Fuji's book for me to find!" "Yes!" "So that I would-" "YES!" "And you and my grandmother were-" "Yes, yes, say it! She was my girlfriend! She's almost as foxy as Oak!" Sparks flew from an old machine. The Mewtwo panicked, and used a blast of psychic force to break out through multiple layers of ceiling into the cold, stormy night, the lightning only panicking her further. "You'll never catch her now!" said Agatha. "She's free I tell you! Free!" "Gone... Gone!" said Silver. "We've got to find her before she kills someone!" He slumped to his knees. "What have I done... Oh Lugia what have I done..." ***

[novelmonger]

I wonder if the people asking this question realize how much of the literary canon is actually fanfiction itself. A few examples off the top of my head:

The Aeneid is an epic about a minor character from The Iliad.

Othello is a retelling of a racist cautionary tale called "The Moorish Captain," in which Desdemona's husband doesn't even have a name. Yeah, Shakespeare took an awful racist story and turned it into one of the greatest tragedies in the English language. I could just stop right here and my point would be made, honestly.

Le Morte d'Arthur is a retelling of Arthurian legend, which has in turn spawned several lauded fics itself, like The Once and Future King and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

The Three Musketeers is more or less the further fanfic adventures of characters from a book called Memoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan.

Lord of the Flies is basically a fanfic of The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne.

Till We Have Faces is a sort of fix-it fic about the myth of Cupid and Psyche as told by Apuleius. (And if Till We Have Faces isn't considered a classic, it really should be.)

Frankenstein tells you right on the title page that it's a fanfic. The oft-forgotten subtitle is "The Modern Prometheus." You may as well call it a Prometheus AU.

You could argue that Paradise Lost doesn't count as fanfic because it's based on the Bible, but...FFNet itself has a section for the Bible that has 4.3K fics in it, so....

And I could go on, but you get the idea. Fanfiction not only can be art, it can be some of the most well-respected art in history.

is fanfic art?

This question has cropped up in my online interactions lately, and to be perfectly blunt, I think it's a pretty stupid one.

Of course fanfic is art. It's a creative expression of human emotion and imagination. If that ain't art, I don't know what is.

I think a more important question to ask is, "Who benefits from saying fanfic isn't art?" The answer to that is way more interesting.

[deadideaspod]

http://media.blubrry.com/deadideas/ia801409.us.archive.org/13/items/bestofthebestghostinthetablet/Best%20of%20the%20Best%20Ghost%20in%20the%20Tablet.mp3

We’re trying something new here on Dead Ideas. We have a sizeable back-catalog of episodes, many of which new listeners may never have heard, and which long-time listeners may have forgotten. So, we’re reprising classic episodes that are among the best of the best.

One of my personal favorites is the finale episode from our cuneiform series. It’s a mash-up juxtaposing the story of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh with the cyberpunk feel of the thriller Ghost in the Shell.

See, one of the things I loved about studying the Sumerians, world’s oldest known city-building culture, is how surprisingly modern they feel. Thanks to the preservation of cuneiform tablets, we know more about them than, say, the Vikings or the Mongols. We even have their letters, giving us their most intimate thoughts and feelings, and that makes them feel strikingly recent – hence the futuristic cyberpunk elements. If you want more on the history of the Sumerians, by all means go back and listen to our full cuneiform series, which still stands as one of our best, but today’s episode stands on its own as a complete self-contained story. The oldest of the old meets the newest of the new in this Cyber-Sumerian retelling of the world’s most ancient epic. Enjoy.

Featuring a haunting soundtrack by Belgian industrial band Militia.

Be sure to support the show at www.patreon.com/deadideaspod to get your portrait drawn!

Maps, pics, references, and more at http://www.deadideas.net. Music and graphic design by Rachel Westhoff. Map by Adam McKithern.

Co-hosts: Andre Solo

Time/place: Composed in final form in Ancient Mesopotamia, c. 1100 BCE

Dead Idea: Cuneiform

Ghost in the Shell, directed by Mamoru Oshii, 1995

A Map of Ancient Sumer, c. 3000 BCE, by Adam McKithern

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Baruch, Book of. 6:43. Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition. Retrieved 6-20-17 from: https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Baruch%206%3A43

Bertman, S. (2005). Handbook of Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford University Press.

Black, J., Cunningham, G., Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G. (2004). The Literature of Ancient Sumer. New York: Oxford University Press. – “A Supervisor’s Advice to a Young Scribe”

Bottéro, J. (2001). Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Bottéro, J. (2004). The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Budin, S. (2006). “Sacred Prostitution in the First Person.” In: Faraone, C. A. & McClure, L. K. (2006). Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

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Civil, M., Trans. “Hymn to Ninkasi.” Retrieved May 14th, 2017, from: http://www.piney.com/BabNinkasi.html

Faraone, C. A. & McClure, L. K. (2006). Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Fink, S. (2013). “The Genealogy of Gilgamesh.” Classica et Christiana, 8(1): pp. 81-107.

Fisher, D. S. (2008). Representations of the Poor in The Poor Man of Nippur and The Eloquent Peasant. Thesis. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University.

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Best of the Best: Ghost in the Tablet – Gilgamesh/Ghost in the Shell Mashup – Sumerian History We’re trying something new here on Dead Ideas. We have a sizeable back-catalog of episodes, many of which new listeners may never have heard, and which long-time listeners may have forgotten.