#Hephaistion's fans

[jeannereames]

POLL about Hephaistion

Redoing the Hephaistion poll after several answers reminded me you all are children of the internet. 😊 There wasn’t an internet until I was in my 20s, and even online bulletin boards weren’t much of a thing until I could legally drink. So, I removed a bunch of novels that were getting no votes to add several new options. (Edit to add: the only reason I left my own is that it got 2 votes in the prior poll; I'm not that egotistical.) I’d forgotten about Horrible Histories, which has a big following.

If you’ve already voted, please vote again. I deleted the prior poll. If you choose an option that asks you to specify, I’d love it if you’d do so in tags or comments (I'm honestly very curious about public history). These are in chronological order. Kinda. Left off fanfic as most people go to it after developing a fascination, and the old Pothos site + forum, once huge, has seriously dwindled. If either fits you, put it in tags.

PLEASE REPOST for wider responses.

[2o3dinge]

RY X - Lençois (Love Me) [Cassian Remix]

[flora-is-drowning-in-fire]

My modern Alexander the Great/Hephaistion AU

Modern day Greece :) - 2023

Hephaistion is the mysterious one 

Alexander is the hot athletic guy 

They literally share everything with each other 

They come out to each other in the last year of sixth form

Alexander goes to Hephaistion and tells him he found a bf

Hephaistion shows Alexander how to be in a relationship

Alexander comes home and he tells Hephaistion that he’s broken up with Bagoas 

Hephaistion is like well good cause I love you

They start a secret relationship but like it's kind of open???

Once they go to uni they don’t hide their relationship and end up sharing a dorm and house

Philip is the dean a university

Olympias is a stay-at-home mum but she hates it

Amyntor is the head of politics at the uni

Philip hates the fact that his son is gay (even though he is literally fucking most of the younger professors working under him and barely goes home because he’s having various affairs with men and women)

Olympias loves the fact that Alexander is gay and Philip is in denial

Olympias and Philip are legally married but they’re separated (they live in the same house though, because Olympias wanted a ’stable’ home for Alex even though this is unstable af)

Amyntor could care less about Alexander and Hephaistion, he totally ships it 

Hephaistion’s mother is dead

Philip died - 2025 (fucking loser)

Alexander b. 20th July 2005

Dresses old money style after Heph took him on a shopping spree

Golden hair and hazel/blue eyes

Studies: ancient history and ancient languages

Fave book - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Fave artist - Pink Floyd

Hephaistion b. 5th October 2004

Dresses in (no idea what the style is called) cargos, converse, tank tops, baggy jumpers

Dark brown hair and green eyes

Studies; pure history

Fave book - Maurice EM Forster

Fave artist - Tears for Fears/Prince

[mascula-sappho]

ok so: I'm working on a series of one shots for Pride this year and the basic concept is we take historical/literature gay and trans people and stick them in the *homophobic* *transphobic* modern world exactly as it is now and watch Confusion unfold. Here are some ideas:

1. Fingon and Maedhros on the Hither Shores in the seventh age of Arda, trying to deal with the technological advancement and find out who this "Tolkien" is and also wtf the "Rings Of Power" are. Run ins with right wing weirdo Tolkien fans are a must: "dirty shippers" "what is a shipper?? we're married if that's what you're asking"

2. Alexander the Great and Hephaistion crash a Neo Nazi march. They are completely baffled as to why the world has been taken over by Persians (bc pants) and also at first are relieved that people know their names, but this quickly turns to: "we are like Achilles and Patroclus" "ah yes such pure and perfect brotherly love" "NO, we are like ACHILLES and PATROCLUS"

3. Tiresias crashes a TERF hippie seance and actually manages to predict the future (they are baffled by climate change) and end up getting Snake gendered (having their gender transed AGAIN BY THAT SAME DAMN PAIR OF SERPENTS) in front of said seance

4. Vergil and Sappho strike up a friendship and try to publish poetry, little did they know, they are in hot water due to book bans, and wonder how the current government even works.

5. Catullus writes an explicit invective against Ron DeSantis for banning Sappho's poetry. On the Statehouse of Florida's exterior. He is rather impassioned given the sheer amount of Fanboy, but his lack of regard for modern vandalism laws could land him in trouble.

6. Beleg and Túrin join a hunting group, little did they know, they might be the ones hunted, but they outfox their chasers? Idk about this on

[ladyinbooks]

Hey Lady, just curious. If you don't mind sharing, what are some of your favorite books?

Also, I love, love your stories. Thanks for sharing them.

Aw, thank you! ❤️🤗

Favourite books. Hmm, this is a tough one! I think it depends what mood I'm in, but I'll give it a go:

Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner) - I mentioned this book in the previous ask I responded to, but it's just a gorgeous book about love, politics, and devotion vs honour. Couple it with a main m/m romance and it's honestly a book I've never got tired of.

The Song of Achilles (Madeleine Miller) - I'm... probably going to be hunted down by fans of TSoA, so I'm going to preface this by saying: I love this book. I adore the prose; I love the romance. My academic background is Classics, and this is the first book I can remember that properly and explicitly deals with the Achilles/Patroclus romance. All that said, I do have quite a few nitpicks about her Patroclus portrayal, so although I absolutely recommend this, it's a book I have to put aside some of my own Patroclus preferences to enjoy.

Fire from Heaven (Mary Renault) - While I'm on a Classics kick: this book. It's an old-y, but a good-y. Non-explicit queer romance, but it's all about the early life of Alexander the Great. Hephaistion my beloved. You have to take it for what it is, but there's a reason Renault is still referred to as the queen of Alexander fiction. Is her depiction of him romanticised and often misty-eyed? Yes. Is it still eminently readable? Also yes. No, seriously, Hephaistion my beloved.

Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch) - Wonderful, wonderful set of books about a PC in the Met who ends up in the secretive (and tiny) magical investigative branch. Fantastic characters, fun murder mysteries and magic. Some of the later books in the series began to feel a little slow and same-y for me, but the first three are absolute wonders. Peter Grant is a phenomenal main character.

Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) - I know, I know, this is predictable, but... I love it. I love it so much. I love the theme of kindness outlasting evil; of good triumphing not because of the strongest person, but because of the idea that anyone can stand up and make a difference. Also I love Boromir. I said what I said. 🤣

That's all I've got for now - I read a lot, but tend to be really, really picky, so something has to have a huge impact to stay on my 'absolute must-reads' list forever. However, I'm curious if anyone has any recs they'd like to send - I'm always up for hoarding more books!

[mademoiselle-red]

Reading the Renault fandom dissertation, part 6: the conclusion

An academic, Jui-an Chou, wrote about us, online fans of Mary Renault’s works, as part of her phd dissertation in 2018 at Duke University. As the subject of her research, I have a few thoughts.

(Here is part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 of my series of posts on this TC fandom study)

“Like slash and BL, Renault’s historical fiction is a fantasy that looks to and appropriates an elsewhere for an erotic ideal that is absent from a century that went through the medicalization and criminalization of homosexuality, the rights movements, and the political struggles that are still happening today. […] The unexpected affinity between Renault and her millennial fans provides clues to how an author such as Renault can be read in an academic context. Slash/BL provides a mode of desire so deeply intertwined with appropriation and distantiation that it bypasses the problem of identity in gay and lesbian studies and queer theory altogether. The cross-gender desire for homoeroticism shared by slash/BL and Renault is homophile without concerns for gay rights, denies identity without political radicalism, and indulges in the scene of desire without involving the self.”

I identify with Laurie’s struggles because I’m also queer. I like reading about queer people struggling with the same issues I face. I like reading about queer people falling in love. My self is very involved in my reading of the novel, thank you every much.

“It is this romantic fantasy about pure love in an exotic setting that appeals to both Renault’s contemporary gay readers and her millennial fans. While gay readers today no longer find identitarian empowerment in Renault’s cross-writings, slash/BL fans continue to read her works as fantasies that do not correspond to identity categories and their political consequences.”

Apparently, the gays only read for “empowerment”, while the millennials only read for pleasure. 🙄🙄🙄

“From Achilles/Patroklos, Alexander/Hephaistion, Ralph/Laurie, to Renault as author, and then to her 21st-century fans, desire and identification in and for Renault’s writings are always directed towards an elsewhere that can never be reached nor determined. Within the serial longing for alterity, what is missing is always a concern with the here and now, with what one is and represents—the front and center of identity politics. Renault’s contempt for contemporary politics and fantasy’s departure from the familiar converge to create a narrative that strips the last residue of politics from both gender and sexuality and turns them into mythical ideals, forever on the horizon and never to be attained.”

Ironically, The Charioteer is precisely about a protagonist who nearly misses out on love, belonging, and happiness in the here and now because he was too preoccupied with a fantasy of the past! And the novel also features two political speeches (from Ralph and Alec) about the chasm between the ideals of gay love in Ancient Greece that many in the community look towards and their present reality of living under criminalization and blackmail. It really makes me wonder how carefully Chou read The Charioteer before undertaking this analysis of the novel and its reception.

“While Renault’s works have inspired and then disillusioned her contemporary gay readers and her lesbian feminist critics successively, they have also found an unlikely affinity in slash/BL fans in recent years. The centrality of the “boy” in both Renault’s homoerotic romance and Boys’ Love is anything but a coincidence: the figure of the boy signifies a temporality outside of gender, sexual, and political definitions, and in both Renault and slash/Boys’ Love, the love for and of the boy constitutes a romantic narrative detached from identitarian agendas.”

It is astonishing that Chou attributes the centrality of the “boy” figure to Renault and Boys Love but does not mention its origins in the writings of Plato & other authors of antiquity who valorized the “boy” figure and influenced all those that came after. The ideal of the “boy” has played a central role in gay art, literature, and culture for millennia, shaping those very “gender, sexual, and political definitions” that Chou claims it eludes.

“The reason why fantasy is a better context to understand this serial desire for otherness than queerness is because queerness is antithetical to fantasy: despite its diverse strategies to challenge identity constructions including its own, queerness is defined as a radical political project. Disidentification as a mechanism of BL fantasy, on the other hand, is a rejection of an identity through which political agendas can be exercised. Reading Renault and the desires within and without her works in terms of fantasy provides an opportunity to examine her very rejection of possibility: by insisting to remove the self from the here and now, Renault’s works construct a sexuality that has no future but amorously beholds an infinite number of pasts.”

The notion that queerness is antithetical to fantasy is utterly baffling. Show me one radical political project that did not begin as a fantasy! Political action, in my opinion, is what turns fantasy to into reality, but first, one must dare to dream. Queerness is radical because it dreams and acts on fantasies deemed unacceptable by cis-heteronormativity.

And that concludes my read-through of Chou’s dissertation. Thanks for listening to my rant.

I might do an extra post where I discuss Chou’s reflections on how her personal experiences and shame associated with being a lesbian and a BL fan brought her to write about this topic for her dissertation. I found those parts interesting and surprising because she hardly factors lesbian, bisexual, and queer women readers’ identification with gay male characters and masculinity in her analysis of Renault’s “millennial” online fans, despite the large contingent of queer women in these spaces.

[gameforestdach]

In einer überraschenden Entwicklung hat Zack Snyder, ein Filmemacher, der für seinen unverkennbaren Stil in Filmen wie ‘300’ bekannt ist, erfolgreich die Rechte an seinem Drehbuch mit dem Titel 'Blood and Ashes' zurückgewonnen. Ursprünglich als Fortsetzung der optisch beeindruckenden und narrativ dichten ‘300’-Reihe gedacht, hat das Skript eine Wandlung zu etwas weitaus Einzigartigerem und Provokanterem erfahren. Das Projekt, das einst eine direkte Fortsetzung zu '300' und '300: Rise of an Empire' war, hat sich nun in eine „unglaublich homoerotische, super gewalttätige, super sexuelle“ Darstellung des Lebens von Alexander dem Großen verwandelt. Die narrative Wendung markiert einen Bruch mit dem herkömmlichen Fortsetzungsansatz, wobei tief in die komplexe Beziehung zwischen Alexander und seinem engsten Vertrauten, Hephaistion, eingetaucht wird. Inmitten des Panoramas eines antiken griechischen Kriegsepos verspricht dieses Drehbuch, eine kraftvolle homosexuelle Liebesgeschichte mit der Grandiosität und Intensität historischer Kriegsführung zu vermischen. Die Rückgewinnung der Kontrolle über das Skript ermöglicht es Snyder, diese Geschichte verschiedenen Studios zu präsentieren und damit Türen zu potenziell bahnbrechenden Kinoerlebnissen zu öffnen. Mit Snyders Erfolgsbilanz, visuell fesselnde Filme zu erschaffen, die die Grenzen des Mainstream-Kinos erweitern, steht 'Blood and Ashes' als Zeugnis seiner kreativen Ambition und Bereitschaft, unkonventionelle Erzählungen zu erforschen. Die Entwicklung von 'Blood and Ashes' von einer geplanten Fortsetzung zu einem eigenständigen Epos verkörpert Snyders Evolution als Geschichtenerzähler. Es verspricht ein filmisches Unterfangen zu werden, das Genre-Grenzen neu definieren und dem Publikum tiefe Einblicke in historische Charaktere und Ereignisse bieten könnte, dargestellt durch Snyders einzigartige Perspektive. Da das Skript nun ein neues Zuhause in der Filmindustrie sucht, warten Fans und Kritiker gleichermaßen gespannt darauf, wie Zack Snyders Vision für 'Blood and Ashes' auf der großen Leinwand Gestalt annehmen wird und möglicherweise neue Maßstäbe für historische Epen im Kino setzen könnte.

[askblog-with-the-vampire]

What was one book that was so good you could not put it down and one book that was so bad you had to put it down?

There are so many books I've gotten lost in....the one I've only just read is the Dancing with the Lion series, Part One: Becoming and Part Two: Rise by Jeanne Reames. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

The books were very much in keeping with the fact that Lestat and I have just moved to northern Greece, as they are about the youth of Alexander the Great and the beginning of his lifelong relationship with his dear friend and close confidant Hephaistion. The prose is simple and engaging, the characterization is phenomenal, and the historic accuracy is perfect without being obtrusive to the story itself. It is a gay romance, but one near to my heart, as the primary relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion blurs the lines between friends, brothers, and lovers in a way I find personally very engaging. The books also feature ace-spec/demisexual representation in a way that feels organic, not pander-y. I'm quite the fan and I do thing most of you would love them as well.

As for a bad book.....I don't tend to find them. I think I know myself well enough to select literature that suits my tastes.

However, I do hate, and will continue to hate, Tale of the Body Thief. It's Lestat as his most obnoxious. I live with that. I do not need to read it.

[murfeelee]

Replies - Gay Ships

thennowforever-wwefan4life replied to your photo “I WILL MISS MY TWO HAPPY GAY POWERFUL COUPLES One has been over for...”

murfeelee that post was beautiful! Nagron is my og OTP

SAAAAAME! Nagron are my precious babies, and actually are my one truest pairing.

On my scale of ships:

6: Monchevy (Versailles)

7: Sterek (Teen Wolf)

8: Malec (Shadowhunters)

9: Britin (Queer as Folk)

10: Nagron (Spartacus)

As messy and campy and crazy as Monchevy was on Versailles, I still effing loved them. TBH that’s mostly cuz they remind me SO MUCH of the gay couples Anne Rice has in all of her Vampire Chronicles. It’s downright uncanny.

I hope more shows follow in Versailles’ footsteps, and give us more historically canon LGBT relationships to fawn over like Monchevy. I want an Alexander the Great and Hephaistion tv show, I want a show about Sultan Mahmud and his slave-turned-general Malik Ayaz; I want it all. Historical lesbians and trans people, too.

My all-time favorite tv fandom is actually Teen Wolf, cuz the fans gave ZERO effs about what that arse-clown Jeff Davis and his poop-nugget Tyler Posey were saying. The best fanfics I’ve ever read are Sterek fics, and Sterek’s as close to canon as a non-canon ship can get. Sterek Is Eternal. DoB for Life!

As much as Shadowhunters kept torturing us with the seemingly endless angst, we knew Malec had a happy ending. The book!canon already told us that they’re married with kids, so in watching the show it just became a guessing game of trying to figure out what their tv storyline would cover (cuz the book timeline’s years ahead by now). The show fixed some things, effed up some things, but also left a lot out, and really? What Malec needs is its own spinoff.

I used to think that NOTHING could top Britin from Queer as Folk, but I EFFING HATED the series finale. EFFING HATED IT. It still keeps me up at night -- my mother and I had screaming matches about that daggone finale! I can’t STAND ambiguous open endings. I don’t want to sit here making my own conclusions -- that’s what the effing writers are for! YOU’RE supposed to be telling ME a story! >_< I was furious that Britin had such a controversial ending, after being such a revolutionary and groundbreaking show. EFF! >:( My babies.

Considering the sheer mayhem of Spartacus' body count, on top of the rampant Kill Your Gays trope infesting other shows (The Magicians, I’m looking at YOU -- how DARE you kill off Quelliot! >_<), I am so glad that Nagron is one of the earlier gay ships where they actually get their fairy tale ending, despite everyone else. I was so scared for them! But SDK did us proud, and the Goat Farm lives on in our hearts. <3

[sailorsally]

1, 8, 14 for the shipping asks? 💜💜

Hello darling 💙

1. What was your first OTP? 

My first OTP was Alexander/Hephaistion back in 2004 and it's still my OTP in every sense.

8. Who is the most shippable person you can think of?

I don't get the question? Like, someone you can ship with multiple people? I'm tempted to say Jack Harkness 😂

14. Has a fanbase ever made you ship or not ship something? Why?

Oh, I'm sorry it's you who asked this question but I won't lie, Good Omens fanbase made me absolutely hate GO and want to have nothing to do with Crowley/Aziraphale 😅 It just became too much too fast and too obnoxious.

Black Sails fandom kinda pushed me in direction of SilverFlint. When I watched BS for the 1st time I wasn't big a fan of Silver and frankly I couldn't even touch SilverFlint fics (Guess I was mad on behalf of Flint lol) But after seeing some meta and edits and rewatching the show, look at me now! I've not only read but written SilverFlint! So thanks BS peeps ;)

Thanks x

[jeannereames]

Hephaestion seems to have a big fanbase. How did it develop? I ask this because not much is known about Hephaestion historically. How did this interest in Hephaestion grow despite lack of enough information? Has Oliver Stone's "Alexander" contributed to it?

Hephaistion's Fanbase

He does have a fanbase, which I discovered by accident. It well predates Stone’s Alexander, although the movie certainly enlarged it. I suspect much has to do with Mary Renault, at least at root. Even Oliver Stone’s film is an homage to her. I hope I’ve shed a little light on his career as well, but freely admit she started it, even if I didn’t come to my interest through her. I may be one of the few, at least among people my age.

I wrote a little about his fanbase in my article “The Cult of Hephaistion,” published several years after the film. If the bulk of the article is about Hephaistion’s military career, the opening discusses his public-facing reputation, and I got to use “fangirl” in an academic article. LOL.

As the chapter explains, I discovered his fanbase after I completed my dissertation in (late) 1998. While still at Penn State (e.g., before mid-2000), I began to receive email and even a few snailmail letters asking for a copy of it.

Let me point out something: nobody, much, reads a dissertation. It’s a niche market if there ever was one; in the normal run of things, only other scholars and grad students read dissertations. God alone knows how people found out I’d written mine on Hephaistion, but within a year, word had spread and I was getting requests for it. To say I was floored would be an understatement. And it wasn’t just one or two. For a little while, I was getting queries every few months.

(PLEASE do not go buy a copy! I’m working on a major revision, and large chunks of the dissertation are already in print as articles anyway [HERE on academic.edu]. The dissertation is no longer up-to-date and parts are simply wrong. I did the best I could at the time, but now have 25 more years of academic work under my belt and a whole lot of very good material has been published since that I’m consulting for the book.)

Anyway, what struck me was the truly international nature of the interest, even before the Stone flick. Many requests came from Anglophone countries, but not all. Yet—as I discuss in the book chapter mentioned above—they did share one common characteristic: over 80% came from women. 2/3rds of the rest were from gay or bisexual men. From my chapter (you can download it to read further):

What struck me most about Hephaestion’s fans is that they compose subsets of society who have traditionally occupied disempowered social positions: women, and gay or bisexual men. If I were to say, “Hephaestion has fans,” the instinctive reaction to that pronouncement is rather different than if I were to specify, “Hephaestion has female and gay fans.” The clarification transforms him from Alexander’s right-hand man and chiliarch into a romantic hero—a Brad Pitt of the ancient world. (Or a Jared Leto, as the case may be.) All of which says perhaps more about our unconscious assumptions and automatic ordering of value than about the fans themselves. Enthusiasm for Hephaestion seems to be suspect and uncomfortably suggestive of motivations emotional and romantic. Yet is any intense interest ever devoid of emotional content? Perhaps the biggest fans of all are those of us who have devoted our careers to the study of Alexander, his court, Macedon, and related topics. Certainly no one goes into academics purely for the financial compensation.

I DELETED THE POLL. Going to redo it with a better list of options.

[2o3dinge]

A Modern Myth revisited

Thirty Seconds to Mars is currently on their Seasons tour and Jared Leto has been playing “song roulette” several times during the acoustic part of the show. True to the interactive spirit of all Mars shows, he asks fans for suggestions of old songs he used to play. His memory often proves a bit rusty, though, so it’s mostly been just the choruses and some vocalises - ah-ah-ahs, oh-oh-ohs.

But refreshingly, Jared Leto can still play the twenty-year-old song “A Modern Myth” from beginning to end by heart...

“A Modern Myth” was the first song ever played live off their second album A Beautiful Lie (2005). That was long before finishing and releasing the album. In fact, it was February 2004, about a week after he had wrapped shooting Alexander (2004).

There’s a review of a gig from February 21, 2004, at the Roxy in West Hollywood with quite favorable first impressions of the song and performance. It's an interesting glimpse into the band’s biography as well - Tomo Miličević was still a newbie; Shannon Leto was energized; Matt Wachter's input elevated their sound; the guys were close with Incubus, especially Mike Einziger who contributed here on a “Where the Streets Have No Name” cover.

But “A Modern Myth”, or just “Myth” then, had a special place in the set list. It was performed by a nervous Jared and a string quartet. Clearly a labour of love.

The concept of the duality of myth and reality as a song theme was completely contingent … wait, no, kidding! It was the central theme of Alexander!

Ptolemy: Alexander once said to me that we are most alone when we are with the myths.

And thus it was Colin Farrell’s number one theme, for a certain period of time.

It begs the question: was Colin Farrell at the TSTM gig in February 2004, at the Roxy in L.A.?

Probable, he was. He was also at the show of his 2003 fling Britney Spears on March 8. Hobbling on crutches, necklace with medallion, that contained Leto’s/Hephaistion’s lock of hair dangling around his neck (which it would for several weeks more), listening to AMM - I can easily picture it. Not even made up. Pendants were worn by both actors throughout the film shooting and beyond by Colin, while on crutches. Even when most of his other clothes would mysteriously fall off or were never put on, this thing stayed put. Dedication.

So here’s some slightly out-of-character New York Post gossip story saying Colin on crutches was outside the Roxy “the other night” and in a defensive mood ...

Which other night? Here’s the schedule of bands playing the Roxy between Colin’s return from Thailand - shooting wrapped 13/02/04 after which he spent some days in Krabi at a resort - and the date given here (12/3/2004). I think it boils down to two dates - if at all: Courtney Love or TSTM.

Wouldn’t he choose his actor buddy’s concert? After all this was the guy who had been portraying his loyal friend and lover, who had been closely working with him on a daily basis from August the year before until not even a fortnight before the concert date, who had planned something very special and novel for his stage return after a long band hiatus due to the film shooting, including a cover of U2, Colin’s favourite band, almost like a surprise, whose strand of hair Colin was still carrying around his neck.

However, eventually Colin took the necklace off and jetted off to Cape Town to shoot "Ask the Dust". The necklace was deposited at his home in Dublin. "A Modern Myth" was often played, in different emotional iterations. It remains linked to Alexander and Colin Farrell.

[alexandros-ho-megas]

Are you and Hephaistion lovers? Or just real close mates

Of course I love Hephaistion! I mean, I tried to have him deified. As the kids say, “That’s love, bitch.”

No second-hand historical account can begin to capture my feelings for Hephaistion, but here’s some information from the ancient sources, as I’m fond of providing citations for you all (you’re welcome):

“[Alexander] had loved Hephaestion most of the group of Friends who were thought to have been high in his affections, and after his death showed him superlative honour. In his lifetime, he had preferred him to all…” (Diodorus 17.114.1)

“Even in Alexander’s case, Hephaistion’s death had been no small calamity, and I believe he would rather have been the first to go than live to suffer that pain, like Achilles, who surely would rather have died before Patroklos than have lived to avenge his death.” (Arrian 7.17)

“Alexander’s grief at this loss knew no bounds. […] Upon a tomb and obsequies for his friend, and upon their embellishments, he purposed to spend ten thousand talents, and wished that the ingenuity and novelty of the construction should surpass the expense.” (Plutarch 72.3-5)

“About this time [Alexander] wrote a letter to Cleomenes, an official with a bad criminal record in Egypt. In so far as this letter showed [Alexander’s] love for Hephaistion, a love which persisted even beyond the grave, I can find no fault with it; but there were other things in it which, I think, were highly reprehensible. The letter contained instructions for the erection of a shrine in Hephaistion’s honour in the city of Alexandria, and another on the island of Pharos, where the lighthouse is, both to be of great size and built regardless of expense. Cleomenes was to see to it that the shrines were named after Hephaistion and that all mercantile contracts should bear his name. (Arrian 7.23)

Well it certainly has persisted beyond the grave! I’m hilarious, but I digress.

Hephaistion felt the same:

As a matter of fact, Hephaestion enjoyed so much power and freedom of speech based on this friendship that when Olympias was estranged from him because of jealousy and wrote sharp criticisms and threats against him in her letters, he felt strong enough to answer her reproachfully and ended his letter as follows: “Stop quarrelling with us and do not be angry or menacing. If you persist, we shall not be much disturbed. You know that Alexander means more to us than anything.” (Diodorus 17.114.3)

Though for some reason, I think your question refers not solely to my love for Hephaistion, but to whether we were “practicing our sarissa skills with each other at night,” if you know what I mean.

Let me rephrase your question for you:

“O Alexander the Greatest, Alexandros ho Aniketos, King of Kings, Lord of the Two Lands, Better King of Macedonia Than Your Dad, best historical figure and way more badass than that loser crybaby Caesar– joy to you! I know Hephaistion was a brilliant military leader, kicked ass with his command of the Companion Cavalry, and did a bang-up job of being your second-in-command. I’m a big fan of his work in India. Damn, what a man. During your life, you emphasized the similarities in your relationship to Achilles and Patroklos yourself, and I was wondering if your friendship included eros as well as philos. You of course don’t have to answer if that’s too personal, though, since I’d certainly hate people prying into my sex life! You’re the greatest!!! :)

^As you can see, I don’t send myself fan mail since it would be … obvious.

So was Hephaistion “bridging my Indus,” so to speak? Well, you know, he literally bridged the Indus for me (Arrian 5.4), but anyway…

Spoiler alert: It’s not stated outright in the ancient sources. Curtius tiptoes around the issue, and he has an obvious boner for Hephaistion in his work, which amuses me. I mean, don’t we all?

If you’re desperately curious about if Hephaistion “sailed my fleet” or “fortified my city,” I’d advise you to read the ancient sources on my life and use your best judgement. I mean, would it be possible that I had a sexual relationship with a man who was the friend I loved above all others and was also documented as being exceptionally attractive? The man whose relationship to myself I directly compared to Achilles and Patroklos, who I attempted to have deified, and whose corpse I had to be dragged off of.

Take an educated guess.

To quote a great man (myself), I’ll only tell you thirsty lot who topped if, “I find that everything connected with Hephaistion’s shrines in Egypt is in proper order.” (Arrian 7.23). So get to work.

[letosghanima]

Found a Captive Prince fan vid on Youtube. With some footage from ‘Alexander’ (2004) and thus surprise Jared Leto/Hephaistion appearance! *lol* *wuvs* I’m assuming he’s supposed to be Auguste of Vere in this fan vid. And Little Alex is Smaurent.

[blingblingbubbles]

I love ‘Mystery of love’ by Sufjan Stevens. And I just looked up the lyrics...’Like Hephaistion, who died Alexander’s lover’ and now I love this song even more. To all the other lovely people that ship Alexander/Hephaistion...listen to ‘Mystery of Love’, it is beautiful. To all the lovely ‘call me by your name’ fans: Look up Hephaistion and Alexander if you don’t already ship them.

[fanfictionlive]

Why would someone bother reading a fanfic, where they hate the main character/main pairing? + How to deal with a fandom that is hostile towards your ship?

I'm reading Alexander the Great fanfiction, and people are so incredibly hostile towards my ship. There are two main pairings in the fandom: Alexander/Bagoas and Alexander/Hephaistion. The majority of people love Alexander/Hephaistion, and bash Bagoas all the time. And okay, they can hate him all they want in their forums, and also make him into some horrible villain in their Alexander/Hephaistion fanfiction; however, what makes me angry is that they HAVE to read and send hate on Alexander/Bagoas fanfiction. There are way fewer stories about Alexander/Bagoas, and almost all writers who write them, have to leave a note at the top saying: "If you hate Bagoas, don't read this story." But people who hate him, still continue to read the story, only to hate on him.

Some examples from this story with Alexander/Bagoas:

1

There wasn't any new stories in the forum so I came back to read yours.

Mmm, so Alexander was mating with his eunuch & promising eternal love in cold snow field while Hephaistion was dying alone?

You know what? I have seen people dragging Alexander down, to the level of barbarian butcher, autocrat monster, and I have read stories that dragged him to the level of a murderer & rapist, but here you drag him down to the level of a wonton lewd with absolute no decency. I would say that's a new low.

2

I truly despise your Alexander right now. His love means nothing. His promises are lies. His vow no longer sacred. I can't even think of how cheap his action was at the moment. I tried so hard to tolerate him and Bagoas but I think I've reached my limit. Have fun writing your fantasy.

3

I mean you drag Alexander down to the level of a wanton lewd scum, not wonton, which is one of my favorite food.

4

I really don't get it ! What's so nice about Alexander frolicking with Bagoas ? Betraying Hephaistion ? And it is betrayal, not only random sex. This is not Alexander anymore ...

5

Awww...now that Hephaistion is no longer dying, his two-timing lover can go and play in the snow with that eunuch. Let's make it even, shall we? Let Hephaistion have his own lover and let's see how that pan out. Let Hephaistion became enamored, enchanted or whatever it is with his new lover. I hope this isn't considered as bullying. Nowadays we can't even give bad reviews. I prefer honesty though and I don't like or respect your Alexander. The only reason why I still read is because of Hephaistion.

6

Well, what is going on here?

I read this story now and then and since I am not a Bagoas fan I skipped many chapters. Anything made you upset?

Well, this is a public forum and you chose a so-so-popular character as your hero and try to romantize some not-so-romantic relationship, as a result you have to face criticism and negative feedback, or else you can publish your story in your own blog and delete any comments you don’t like.

However you want to idolize their relationship, it is very plain that Bagoas gained his favor from the King because he pleased the King in bed, and he made the most out of it. It is a use-use relationship where Bagoas offered sexual service while Alexander paid with money and status. Of course it didn’t matter who his master is, Bagoas would fight to win the favor of his master by hook or by crook.

In an era where same-sex marriage is legalized and accepted more and more, most people don’t have any problem and even admire the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion, which is truly based on lifelong friendship, mutual dreams, deep understanding, devotion, and love. Bagoas? I would say he is one of the less-harmful favorites of the kings, but it is hilarious if you expect most people to like him, or like the use-use relationship between Alexander and him.

As I told another writer, this is a very small forum and the authors don’t usually get many feedbacks. So cherish them even if you don’t like them. And if you publish something controversy in public forum expect criticism, this is called freedom of speech, otherwise post your story in your private blog.

7

I could never understand why Mary Renault made such a fuzz of Bagoas. There were many Chinese emperors who slept with eunuchs, and if anyone suggest there is 'love' in the air that's the biggest joke in the world. I think the westerns make a fuzz of eunuchs because they are not very familiar with them and tend to romanticize them. Actually eunuchs played such terrible roles in ancient China they helped to bring down some of the greatest dynasties. That's story for another day.

8

As for the story and the author, I have to say I am sorry for her. I see she is so infatuated with Bagoas, that she wanted to make everyone else, to be infatuated with the eunuch well, which unfortunately doesn't work at all.

The thing is, she can't be honest and write Bagoas as the true love, only love, only flame for Alexander. She had to give that honor to Hephaistion, and therefore put Alexander in the awful position of an adulterer, a wanton, lewd, unfaithful husband who cheated his spouse with a seductive youth wherever there is a chance, and Bagoas, if nothing else, the hateful other woman who is a home wrecker. Sign, that doesn't make a perfect couple, does it?

9

I can't believe Alexander still had the decency to blush whenever Hephaistion teases him. Not even an ounce of guilt. So that was what Hephaistion knew...at least that eunuch had a purpose. Still I don't get the attraction. It's like a job well done. King should be happy but does not mean he should sleep with him. Imagine if the entire army did a good job, is he going to kiss and make love vow to them too? I don't think so. But I can see the difference though. Not all men look like Bagoas. So effiminate and fragile. Maybe that's what lured Alexander. Someone he can control because Hephaistion was the dominant one. Bagoas was lust at first sight, love came after. A cheap love.

10

DawsonNova95, we have read the summary and the warnings but we are also entitled to our opinion. So what if we have nothing nice to say? Criticism is normal for authors. If they can't stand them, then maybe this isn't for them. From our point of view, that is how we describe Alexander in this story. We just don't get what is it about Bagoas that he loves so much. He just knew him and now he promised him the moon and the stars. It shows how cheap his love was to Hephaistion, who was supposed to be his long-time lover. In this story, Hephaistion seemed loyal to Alexander but the latter was free to have other lovers. I don't mind the wives but lovers? Why is that? Because he was a king so he can have as many lovers as he wanted? Bullshit.

These are only some examples. I don't understand why these people bother reading the story, when they hate the main character/main ship. I'm afraid the author will discontinue the story, because of continued hate and negativity. How can I support her? Furthermore, I, myself, want to write for this pairing , but I'm hesitating because I don't want to deal with all the hate and bashing. How do I deal with a fandom that is hostile towards my ship? What would you do with such comments?

submitted by /u/swater63 [link] [comments] from FanFiction: Where Magical Ponies battle Imperial Titans https://ift.tt/37HRNZn