#TRULY helen of troy born again

[shelfperson]

was gonna make a post about how devil’s minion only really works for me when daniel is, first and foremost, still louis’ emotional support poolboy but then i realized that absolutely no iwtv ship works for me without the explicit caveat that all parties involved would always always always rather be fucking louis du lac

[littlesparklight]

I've talked about Paris' relationships with his family before, of course, but let's do it again. Mostly because I want to point out that "everybody hates Paris" isn't actually cut and dry or obvious. The relationships on display are complicated, and have more than one side or emotion to them.

(All translations are from Caroline Alexander.)

Book 3 line 40ff: "[...] would that you were never born and died unwed; so I would wish, and it would have been far better than to be as now an outrage and something to be sneered at by others."

This is in direct response to and connected with Paris jumping forward in front of the front lines and then shrinking back among the ranks when Menelaos takes the challenge as a real one/takes the opportunity to make it one. Each of the times Hektor throws out these insults it's about (actual or perceived) failure on Paris' part to act as he should, in the context of martial engagement. As harsh as his words are, this isn't actually about what he thinks or not about Paris, but specifically about his (lack of) actions. And we know Hektor is very, very tied up in expectations of what a man should be doing in regards to combat. (Connected with but also separate from his culture-typical desire for kleos.)

I think this is important, and an important distinction to make, because; line 56~ff: "The Trojans are great cowards; else before now you would have worn a shirt of flying stones for your evils, such things you have done."

This is when Hektor says anything in judgement of what it's all about. The only time. (He, like others, use the "Alexandros, for whose sake this strife arose" elsewhere, but that's more factual than expressing some sort of judgment like above). I've mentioned it before but this statement would include Hektor, too; no one has made Paris give up Helen. Paris does not have the authority or ability to keep Helen without the passive allowance of those around him, as well as the more active back-up of those who have more authority in Troy; his elder brother and the heir to the throne, as well as his father.

Hektor may say this, yet it's in the ninth year of the war and he and Priam both have tacitly allowed Paris to keep Helen.

I don't think one can disregard the fact that Aphrodite has a hand in sanctioning that relationship, but mortals have responsibility as well. And why are they letting him do this, then? Hektor might be angry, but if he truly had no affection for, or connection left to and with his brother, why would he go along with it?

Priam, too, talking to Helen, blames not Helen, and neither does he blame Paris; he very pointedly lays blame on the gods instead. Yes, Paris isn't present and isn't mentioned, but his lack of mention is conspicuous in itself, considering he's talking about blame for the war. Helen didn't exactly sail to Troy by herself; it takes two to tango, as it were, and Priam prefers to put the blame elsewhere entirely.

Line 306~ff: "Listen to me, Trojans and strong-greaved Achaeans. Now I go back again to windswept Troy, since I cannot bear to see with my own eyes my dear son locked in combat with Menelaos loved by Ares."

Priam is quite plain, so I don't think there's really much to say, except to point out that he has no reason to say this for anyone's sake. Who will care for the reason an old man who shouldn't be on the battlefield anyway goes back? But no, he says he loves Paris, and can't bear to watch him be killed. Yes, Priam includes Paris in a group of other sons he's castigating later, but - that's in a group, and he is grieving. Much like Hektor when he's angry, things are said then that, even if at least partially true, are certainly not the whole sentiment.

Let's go back a bit: Line 59ff: "Hektor, since you rebuke me fairly, and not beyond what is fair [...] If you wish for me now to go to war again and do battle[...]"

Watch that first line. It'll be relevant later. But what I want to touch on here is the way Paris phrases the second part. If you wish. Given how he doesn't seem to be very much driven by shame (or duty), I don't think the driving force to him ponying up to suggest the duel here is because he's been shamed by Hektor's words. Seems to me, it's far more about Paris wanting to please Hektor himself, do what he, specifically, wants, and not necessarily what is expected of him.

Another thing I'd like to note that is easy to miss and of course entirely relies on how one wants to interpret it, but Paris doesn't have chest armour for the duel against Menelaos. Lykaon lends him his; the narrative says it "fits him", and sure, there doesn't need to be any warm sentiment between them for someone to lend Paris chest armour to use.

Paris' own armour could just as well have been brought from Troy; every single man there, brother or not, could simply refuse to lend him any, if they so hate him. But Lykaon lets him borrow his.

Book 6 line 521ff: "Strange one, no man who is fair could slight your work in battle, since you are brave; but you hang back by choice and are not willing. And for that I grieve deep in my heart, when I hear insults about you from the Trojans[...]"

Hektor cares about Paris being insulted. Yes, his acknowledging Paris' skill is damning with faint praise because it's followed up by pointing out how unenthusiastic Paris' engagement in combat and the war is. But he goes out of his way to say that he doesn't like it when others (not him?) insult Paris(' martial abilities).

line 526ff: "We will redress these matters later, if ever Zeus grants us to dedicate in our halls a feast bowl of freedom[...]"

Does this sound like a man who has nothing but hate and disgust for his brother? Someone who, while their relationship isn't very good right now (as is the point of what he's saying here), doesn't want it to go back to being better than it now is?

Book 13 line 775ff: "Hektor, since it is your desire to blame the blameless[...]"

Right before this is when Hektor finds Paris on the battlefield, and for the second time (since he does not use the insults he did in Book 3 in Book 6 when he comes to Paris' home) uses the strings of insults he did in Book 3.

This is the only time, Book 6 included, that Paris categorically refuses Hektor rebuking him. Paris might normally let Hektor insult him - but clearly it's because he thinks Hektor, whether he's being too harsh in his phrasing or not, isn't wrong to chew him out. But he's clearly also not afraid to take a stand and just tell Hektor he's wrong, when he is in fact wrong.

Outside the Iliad

It's a bit of a pity we don't get any idea of what the Iliad might have done with Hecuba's thoughts on Paris. We get nothing. Outside of it, pre-war, we of course have the fact that neither Hecuba nor Priam wanted to actually kill Paris, and they both welcome him back despite well knowing the dream omen. (Of course they could assume it's been interpreted wrong, by this point.) Hecuba's grief over her exposed and presumably dead son gets fronted in Euripides' Alexandros, and in the Trojan Women, she fully defends him in the agon against Helen. Sure, we might assume she's putting all the blame on Helen not because she any longer cares about Paris, or to more effectively try to condemn her in front of Menelaos. But I don't think a lack of affection for Paris in the way she chooses to respond is something that can be assumed either.

[kingbryancroidragon]

Niall MacGinnis as Menelaus in the 1956 film "Helen of Troy."

A constant problem with the multiple screen adaptations that side with the Trojans and villainize the Achaeans, is that it is rarely there are more fantastic performances on the Trojan side than on the Achaean side. As a result, while the filmmakers want you to root for the Trojans, it is more often that not the Achaeans you end up rooting for and this film is no exception.

Niall MacGinnis was a phenomenal actor in his day, bringing a performance only he could do, while with Jacques Sernas as Paris, you find yourself asking: "Besides the will of the writers, why is Helen going with that block of wood again?" Jacques Sernas' performance was one anyone could have done.

Despite being intended as the villain, with the Achaean king being portrayed as pirates who want to loot Troy, Menelaus is far more sympathetic, being more stern than truly brutish and the realization that Helen is gone leaves him truly hurt.

Also, as a funny piece of coincidence, Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who had been born in Dublin and was in his forties when he played Menelaus. So was Brendan Gleeson.

[corinthbayrpg]

NAME. Paris Ašhar AGE & BIRTH DATE. 3,000+ and Unknown GENDER & PRONOUNS. Male & He/Him SPECIES. Manticore OCCUPATION. Pirate FACE CLAIM. Alperen Duymaz

BIOGRAPHY

Paris was born in the city of Troy, nameless and with a future that would spell disaster for his family. His mother did not bother to give him a name; he would be dead from exposure by the next day. At least, that was the plan. A seer had told his parents that he would one day be the ruin of his homeland. To protect themselves, Priam and Hecuba decided that he would no longer be their child, and they would pay someone else to do the deed of ridding them of their son. The chief herdsman, Agelaus, took Paris himself, but he, too, could not bring himself to kill the child. Instead, he raised him as his own. He named him after the bag he carried him in, and was raised as a shepherd instead of the prince he had been born as.

As a young man, Paris found his own desires and destiny on the hills of Mount Ida. He had no idea it was the mountain he was intended to die on as a child, but his past never once darkened the future he saw for himself. He was no stranger to the gods, either. In fact, it was the dryads whom he found fast friendships with – and the very first love that he knew. The dryads were around in the beginning; in the Golden Age that Paris had heard so much about. They knew his heart, and he knew theirs. Loving them was easy, and it was natural. When the Dryads would return to their trees, Paris would spend night beneath them, whispering about the tales he’d been told – no matter how far from the original the others had said they were. This was his life, and it was all he needed.

But the fates would not be circumvented, and the moment Hermes came for him, he was unable to say no. The gods promised to give him the life he wanted with the dryads he loved, if only he could solve a dispute between the goddesses. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite – who was the most beautiful? A golden apple of discord thrown by Eris herself; all Paris could think of was how they should’ve just invited her to the wedding in the first place. Perhaps it spoke volumes that Zeus could not make a decision even with his wife in the discussion, but the deed fell to Paris. His heart belonged to others, but even he could not decide. He was only human, and therefore he was far from perfect. The goddesses instead attempted bribery – from Hera, ownership of all the known land. From Athena, the greatest war abilities known. And from Aphrodite, the love of the most beautiful woman. To Paris, there was no choice in this, either. Not until Aphrodite changed her bribe – where he could know the purest form of love. In his mind, it would only be knowledge shared among the two that held his heart. Not the promise of the other half of his soul – the one Zeus tore from all humans when they were born.

Helen of Sparta was that other half, and there was no denying the connection when they met. This was in secret, of course. Aphrodite had teleported him to her kingdom in Sparta – trapped to a marriage with Menelaus. They planned an escape from the city, hightailing it back to the land of Troy. But it was then that everything started to fall apart. Priam had learned from Agelaus that his son had not died after birth like it was intended, and now he needed protection. Arguably, Paris insisted that they would be fine away from the city, in the hills of Troy’s kingdom, where they would not be found. The dryads would protect them – Paris had told them of his plans. Helen was the other part of him, therefore, they would have the solution.

That never came to pass, however, as the invading army from Greece trapped them within the walls of Troy. Menelaus on a mission to bring home his wife, and Agamemnon with the strength of Achilles and the Myrmidons behind them. Paris knew what he had to do – to cause less bloodshed, he challenged Menelaus to single combat. His skills lied with the bow and arrow he’d used his whole life, so he was no match for the strength and wisdom of Menelaus with a sword and shield. In fact, Paris was more than willing to die – but only if it meant that Helen would have a chance to escape in the aftermath of his death. Maybe then he’d be able to go with the dryads to Elysium, or wherever they were able to visit with Gaia’s help.

It was Aphrodite who saved him, though she only pushed back the inevitable. Full scale war broke out, the clashing armies of Greece and Troy now fighting to bring Helen home – or to let her stay. All attempts to flee were blocked; death was at their gates. Though he was always just a pawn in the mind of the gods; Apollo guided his hand as he took his last stand. His arrow brought down Achilles, and it was an arrow from Philoctetes that would spell his own death. There was no time for him to say goodbye. No goodbye to Helen, and no goodbye to Gael and Aster, just a mountain top where he would be left to die.

Oenone, a river-nymph and daughter of Oceanus, had the ability to heal all wounds. It was Aphrodite who promised his love to the nymph if she would save him. Oenone did – but Paris held no love for her, either. It was her father who cursed him for the break of a promise he’d never made. Oceanus turned him into an incubus, forever cursed to feed on the souls of the living. But that wasn’t enough for the titan. He knew that Paris’ love was for the dryads, the land dwelling children of Gaia. Paris would live as long as he lived upon Oceanus’ or his descendant’s domain. The rivers or the oceans, of course. The longer he spent on land, the more likely he was to die. Whether that be by the shapeshifters of the world, or the Titan himself, it was yet to be decided.

So Paris took to the sea. He would sail to be as close as he could be to the dryads, who had moved back to the mainland of Greece. Paris would visit them as much as he could, until the titans faded from existence, taking Gael and Aster as well. The incubus’ mistake was thinking that with the fall of the Titans, he, too, was free from his curse. However, Poseidon inherited the seas – and so he inherited Paris’ curse and immortality. Paris mourned the dormant nature of the dryads that held his heart, and he spent far too long on land besides their tree. It was his bow and arrow that saved him, though the more shifters he killed, the more he was hunted.

The only place Paris found safety was upon a ship. For years, he would swap between vessels. Nothing could harm him, and as captains came and went, Paris found himself no longer a young man, but a weathered old soldier who’d known love and loss, and once Aphrodite could no longer reach him, he was utterly alone. The centuries passed, and the more naval warfare that he entered, the more lost Paris felt. He was jaded, treated the humans he would steal souls from as nothing but a body to pass the time. Witches who no longer had magic because of him would only recognize it too late, and he remained impervious on the ocean.

It wasn’t until he became captain of his own ship that he began to spread more terror than he thought was possible. Paris had never fit in, anywhere he’d gone, so he decided to make a life for himself as a pirate captain. Mutiny was easy thanks to his charm; the cubi easily became captain of a ship where a crew loved him. The only issue was the fact that he would have to dock every few weeks to replenish the crew – downside of being an Incubus. He would ensure to stop by Corinthia every few months, telling tales of his adventures to Gael and Aster as they slept. Anyone who came too close to the dryad’s resting place would meet their death with an arrow to the heart.

As the Golden Age of piracy spread, so did the ship’s crew. Immortals who needed a place to call home found his ship, and quickly it became all of theirs. Paris had never truly had a family outside of the ones he’d left behind in Troy all those centuries ago, but these reapers, furies – they became his family. Paris would stop at nothing to defend them, pillaging throughout the world as piracy became their main agenda. It was yet again another time that Paris had pushed his luck upon land – close to the docks, waiting too long for another of their crew. A snake, hidden among belongs, and a bite that poisoned his blood instantly. Paris should have known, perhaps he should’ve been far more careful, as well. It took him slowly, long enough to where he felt the rock of the waves hit the ship, and the gaze of his friend before his own vision went dark.

The pit of Tartarus welcomed him. Typhon, with all his rage, and the eternal torment and despair that awaited him gave him nothing but hell to witness. Countless times he was torn apart, his soul shattered piece by piece. Crudely he was put back together, for centuries and centuries, until his soul was no longer recognizable. Paris held on to the memories of Gael, of Aster, and when he was young – when he wasn’t cursed, or used by the gods. It seemed like a dream when he was suddenly free. No longer an incubus, but a manticore. His freedom was met with the awakening of the dryads, and now Paris has to find his way yet again in a world he does not know.

PERSONALITY

+ imaginative, reliable, courageous - blunt, anxious, impatient

PLAYED BY LAUREN. PST. She/Her.

[helenaspencer]

intro to helena

Is that HELENA SPENCER-MAY? Wow, they do look a lot like PHOEBE DYNEVOR. I hear SHE is an EIGHTEEN year old FRESHMAN who are studying HISTORY  at Luxor University. Word is they are an ARISTOCRAT student. You should watch out because they can be CHILDISH and SNOBBISH, but on the bright side they can also be GENEROUS and CHARMING. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself. [YUNI, 21, GMT, SHE/HER]

lord knows why i did this. im sorry.

01: basic information

Full Name: Lara Helena Spencer-May

Nicknames: Helena - she insists on being referred to only by her middle name.

Date Of Birth: August 12, 2002 (currently aged 18)

Zodiac: Leo sun, Leo ascendant, and Libra moon.

Place Of Birth: New York

Nationality: American and Swiss.

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Course: History (Freshman)

02: physical

Faceclaim: Phoebe Dynevor

Ethnicity: White (Swiss, English)

Height: 173cm (5′8)

Weight: 56kg (124lbs)

Eye Colour: Blue

Hair Colour: Blonde

Distinctive Features: a tangible air of disdain for anyone who earns less than 100k a year

Clothing Preference: Helena won’t wear anything which isn’t designer, but even then, she has her preferences. Perhaps stereotypically, she adores Chanel, closely followed by Versace. Her sense of style is fairly feminine, with a lot of dresses and skirts, and she wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of jeans.

03: personality

Overview

Positive Traits: Generous, charming, loyal, creative

Negative Traits: Childish, snobbish, insincere, judgemental

MBTI: ESTP

Religious Beliefs: Atheist

Description

Helena has pretty much the emotional maturity of Veruca Salt. Which is to say, she cares about one person in the world, and that is herself. She doesn’t make long term plans, instead pursuing short term happiness - which means that whatever she wants in that moment, she will go for. And if you stand between her and whatever she wants, no matter how dumb - whether it’s a bag or a college - she reacts dramatically. She’s not above throwing tantrums, literally stomping her feet and screaming, scratching, you name it, until she gets what she asked for. She once keyed an ex boyfriend’s car because he understandably refused to invite her to his sister’s wedding and Helena had already picked out her (white) outfit. In addition to this, Helena’s sheltered upbringing has made her extremely ignorant to the world as a whole. She fails to comprehend how anyone can not be rich, since it’s all she knows, and so she tends to assume that poor people are always lazy and unambitious. As a result, she refuses to associate herself with anyone who is a scholarship student or comes from a poor family, as she insists that mindset might be contagious and drag her down. Her mood can switch very rapidly - one minute she is being sweet and charming to you, and the next minute she is screaming and crying. She’s also extremely adept at crocodile tears, which she uses on everyone she wants something from, seeing no problem with manipulating others if it gets her what she wants. She generally has a very superior outlook on herself as opposed to others, hence why she just assumes she’s going to inherit the May family’s company, over her cousins.

04: past

Biography:

Lara Helena Spencer-May was born in New York to a Swiss father, Matteo May, and English mother, Margaret Spencer. Her father works for the family’s pharmaceutical company, her mother is from British landed gentry and works as a classicist for the British Museum. Helena spent the first few years of her life in New York, before moving back to Switzerland, although she continued to spend a lot of time in New York over the summer, where she would later meet Zander Driskell.

Although her first name is legally Lara, Helena forced everyone to call her by her middle name from the age of eleven. Firstly, she thought that Lara sounded common, and slightly too similar to her cousin Loren’s name, and secondly, as her classicist mother told her the story of Helen of Troy, who she had been named after - and there was nothing which sounded better in Helena’s shallow mind than being beautiful enough that men started wars over you.

Helena is her parents only child, and she was absolutely spoiled rotten from the moment she was born. Her father gives her anything she asks for, and pretty much dotes on her; her mother also treats her as if she’s the centre of the universe. As a result, Helena has become accustomed to never being told no, and has no idea of a good way to act if she is - hence her tendency to throw tantrums if she doesn’t immediately get what she wants. She’s far too used to being able to manipulate daddy with a few tears into giving her an extra 5k in her bank account.

From the age of six, Helena was sent away to attend Ecole des Roches, a prestigious boarding school in Paris. She would either come back to Switzerland over the summer, or spend summers in New York. One such summer was spent in Saratoga Springs when she was sixteen, where she met Zander Driskell - and who she began dating, with Helena deciding to stay in New York after summer ended to be closer. Despite this, their relationship quickly turned toxic, with Helena’s spoiled and selfish nature making it difficult for her to put up with Zander not giving her everything she wanted - they broke up and got back together multiple times over the course of the next year, before a particularly bad break up caused Helena to up and leave for Paris again, finally finishing her high school education in Paris.

Then came the time for college. To be honest, Helena has no actual interest in gaining a degree. As far as she is concerned, she is just going to get a degree for the sake of having one, as she is convinced she is going to inherit the family business. Still, she had ambitions to attend the  University of St Andrews  in Scotland, primarily because she knew Kate Middleton met Prince William there, and Helena would love to be a Queen one day. However, her grandparents instead gently pushed her to attend Luxor University, suggesting that Helena would benefit from some bonding time with her cousins. She instantly refused - and was thus incredibly shocked when for once, her father put his foot down, insisting that either Helena attend Luxor, or he would cut her allowance. No number of tantrums, screaming, threats to jump out of the window, or run away would work - Helena ended up at Luxor, much to her upset, surrounded by her dreaded scholarship students.

Timeline:

August 12 2002 - Helena is born in New York

2006 - Helena moves back to Switzerland

September 2008 - Helena is sent to Paris to attend boarding school. She returns to either Zurich or New York over the summers following.

Summer 2018 - Helena meets and begins a relationship with Zander Driskell. They have many fights and an on and off relationship.

December 2019 - After a particularly bad argument, Helena throws a tantrum and leaves New York, returning to Paris to finish her high school education.

September 2020- Helena begins attending Luxor University.... fashionably late.

05: other trivia

- Helena speaks fluent Swiss German, Swiss French, and English. In addition to this she is fluent in High French, since she attended school in Paris. Her accent when speaking English is sort of an amalgamation of American, English, and French due to her upbringing and her English mother, and it tends to change depending who she’s speaking to - if she’s speaking to someone English, for instance, it will be more on the English side as she subconsciously matches them, whereas if she’s speaking in English to a French person, it becomes more French.

- Adores the British monarchy. Especially Princess Diana. And yes, Spencer means she’s a distant relation. She won’t let you forget it.

- If you call her Lara, she will spit on you.

-She loves classical paintings, and collects art. Her dorm room walls are covered with paintings and reproductions of Greek tapestries. She dresses as Helen of Troy every. single. Halloween.

- She can play the piano, and the flute. She is constantly in a stage of quitting and rejoining the concert band though, as she joins, can’t take any criticism at all, quits, and then misses it and wants to rejoin.

- Massive fan of Lana Del Rey.

06: notable connections

Within Luxor:

- Friendships: ...

- Former Relationships: Zander Driskell

- Cousins: Loren Velazquez, Zelda Reese

NPCS

- Matteo May and Margaret Spencer May: Her parents, who she has wrapped around her little finger.

07: connection ideas/wcs

Friends

Although Helena is often too childish to hold friendships for long, she can be fun for a party, so I see her having a lot of friends who she just drinks with or parties with every once for a while, without any genuine connection going on or spending too much time together

Enemies

Maybe someone who is annoyed by her antics and has been on the receiving end of one of her tantrums and thus sees the immature side of her personality as an annoyance.

Hookups

As long as she doesn’t perceive you as poor (god forbid), she loves a good hookup or friends with benefits.

08: tl;dr

Helena is highly immature, childish, and spoiled. She is rich to the point of not being able to understand or appreciate anything cheap or anyone poor in life, and looks down on pretty much anyone who isn’t at her level of rich as a result, seeing them as lazy. She truly believes she is superior to her cousins and that she’s going to inherit their family’s company, purely because she wants it that way.

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟱𝟱: 𝗭𝗲𝘂𝘀

Zeus is the king of gods and god of storms in classical Greek religion. The Romans syncretized him with their Jupiter. Both “Zeus” and “Jupiter” come from the name of the Proto-Indo-European sky god, reconstructed as “*Dyēus Ph₂ter” literally “sky father”.

𝗔𝗹𝗹-𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿

The title of “All-Father” is normally associated with the Norse king of the gods Odin, though several other Indo-European deities share the epithet. Odin bears it in part because he is the father of several other prominent Norse gods (Thor and Baldur) but also because he is a cosmic father figure, creator of the earth and protector of mankind. Zeus earns this title in a much more literal sense. Fatherhood of over 100 other gods, demigods, heroes, and various lesser divinities is typically attributed to Zeus, and very few by the same mother. The only motif as common as Zeus’ divine parentage in Greek legends id the ensuing rage and jealousy of his wife (and sister), Hera. Some of Zeus’ more famous children include the heroes Heracles (Roman Hercules) and Perseus, the gods, Persephone, Dionysus, Ares, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, and Athena, the most beautiful woman in the world and spark of the Trojan War Helen of Troy, the punished soul Tantalus (from which English gets the word “tantalizing”), the Cretan king Minos (father of the Minotaur), and occasionally the nymph personifications of fate (the Fates) and inspiration (the Muses). Many of these children, most notably Heracles, would be cursed or antagonized by Hera and in an effort to protect his children from her wrath, Zeus would often appear to his lovers as other people, animals, or objects. Heracles’ mother though she was sleeping with her actual husband. Helen of Troy’s mother was seduced by a swan. Perseus’ mother knew only a literal golden shower before she became pregnant. Zeus’ affections were not limited to women, or even animate objects; the cup-bearer of the gods, a boy called Ganymede, was abducted by Zeus as an Eagle, and the Centaurs of Cyprus were born from Zeus’ masturbation onto the ground. This capacity for the creation of life, even incidentally, is not uncommon in global traditions, especially not for a deity of Zeus position as lord of the cosmos. However, Zeus is rather unique in that most of his exploits are portrayed as infidelity to his wife and often explicitly without consent of the other party. This behavior is odd as Zeus is also considered a standard for human behavior and while Ancient Greeks had different concepts of marriage and loyalty, they certainly did not outright condone this kind of behavior. Though little direct attestation on this matter exists, it’s thought that the Ancient Greeks viewed this as a bit of a divine exception, especially as Zeus’ siring of children generally resulted in gods and heroes crucial for the maintenance of the natural order.

𝗣𝗮𝗻-𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝘀, 𝗢𝗺𝗻𝗶-𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻

Zeus was the most universally recognized and worshiped figure in Ancient Greece, which was a loose collection of independent city-states bound primarily by language and religion. Thus, Zeus was a symbol of Greek unity. The Olympic games, an event that brought together all of Greece, where dedicated primarily to Zeus. As a national symbol, he also represented the divine justification of Greek domination outside of the mainland, and fusional Zeus deities came about in all Greek colonies, such as the Egyptian horned Zeus aka. Ammon. The Romans, who saw themselves as the inheritors of Ancient Greek civilization, adapted their already similar Jupiter to fill the same position. Of the state ordained priesthoods of Rome, the Flamen Dialis (high priest of Jupiter) supervised all the others and had a seat in the senate. Association with Jupiter was highly politicized especially during the roughly 200 year struggle of the Roman commoner class to attain political equality with the aristocracy. During both general strikes (remembered as the “secessions of the plebs”) the strike leaders made their stand on the Sacer Mons, a hill with an altar to Jupiter. This was done to send a message to the aristocracy that Jupiter, who was the patron of kings, emperors, and governance, was with the people, not the aristocrats.

𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗻

One of the best-known legends of Zeus, both in modern and classical times, was the legend of his birth. Zeus comes at the tail end of a series of cosmic patricides. In the beginning, the seat of cosmic order lies with Zeus’ Grandfather, Uranus, the sky. He and his wife, the earth goddess Gaia, give birth to 12 gods, known as the Titans, as well as the monstrous Cyclopes and Hekatonkheires. Uranus was disgusted by his monstrous spawn and imprisoned them in the earth. Gaia, who loved all her children, conspired with the Titans to overthrow Uranus. The youngest Titan, Cronus, rises to the challenge and castrates Uranus, thus claiming the cosmic throne. Cronus, however, receives a dire prophecy: just as he slew his own father, so too would his own son overthrow him. Paranoid, Cronus decides to eat his children when they are born (though he does not stop having them). Like Gaia before her, Cronus’ wife Rhea cannot stand to see her children eaten, and ends up hiding the last one. The young Zeus grows up on Crete, until he comes of age. With aid of the Nymph Metis, Zeus was able to get Cronus to vomit up his siblings, the remaining deities of the Greek pantheon, and freed the Cyclopes and Hekatonkheires. With their combined might, Zeus overthrows Cronus and takes his place. Once again, the prophecy of patricidal doom is delivered. Specifically, the prophecy mentions the son of Metis, currently Zeus’ wife, not the son of Zeus himself. Thus, Zeus solves the issue by expanding on his father’s scheme: instead of eating the children, he devours Metis. However, the legend does not truly stop here. For one, Metis does conceive a child, which manages to burst forth from Zeus after she is devoured: the goddess Athena, who though a daughter is also explicitly gender non-conforming, dressing as would a male soldier. Zeus’ most famous son, Heracles, also carried prophecies of ascending to rule, though normally taken to mean rule of his mortal family’s kingdom, his ambiguous nature as both mortal and god make him a contender for Zeus’ own usurper.

Image Credit: 𝘑𝘶́𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘺 𝘛𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘴 (Jupiter and Thetis), Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1811

[repulson]

heyyit’s tilda here again but with, this time, menelaus !!  resident fuck boi ( ? ) with an actual heart, but also a shadow boi. either give this a like or catch me on discord at cassandra of troy.#4764

WANTED CONNECTIONS. ( wip ) CHEAT SHEET.

APPLICATION   :

— ✹ HEED THE MURMUR ! The Halls of Sparta welcome ( MENELAUS ) the ( PRINCE ) of ( MYCENAE ). The bards tell us they are approaching ( 30 ) and strike a likeness to ( ALEX HOGH ANDERSEN ). Their deeds precede them in the world — extoled to be ( ADVENTUROUS, PASSIONATE & ENTHUSIASTIC ) yet ( ARROGANT, TRANSPARENT & IMPULSIVE ) in their worst hour. When they enter a quiet room, shadows of ( BUBBLING CAULDRONS OF FOREIGN SCENTS, THE SCENT OF BLOOD ON THE WIND FROM A PASSING BATTLE and THE EMPTY HALLS OF THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON ) spring forward. Their opinion about the marriage contest is a ( POSITIVE ) one. Their purpose at the Spartan court falls in line with ( MAKING A NAME FOR HIMSELF ).

PLOT POINTS

To win Helen���s hand would be a glory indeed. To marry, potentially, the most beautiful woman on earth would be enough to level his name to his older brother’s who is famed for brutality, bravery and a strength only ever seen amongst demi-gods. In truth, he loves his brother dearly. But love is not the same as trust. And trust does not grow within Menelaus’ heart, not for his brother or anyone. What truly lives between his bones and pumping veins is envy, the sense captivating his entire building with as much strength as a mirror can destroy a gorgon. Once landing upon Spartan’s shores, Menelaus will fight for Helen’s life as if he was fighting for his life. But he does not fight for love, lust or the riches of Sparta. Instead, he fights for prestige and prestige alone. After all, what is love to a man who was born in the shadows of better beings? TDLR: Menelaus will fight fiercely for Helen’s hand. 

It seemed that everyone around Menelaus had some god chosen deity, the singular figures plucked by the gods themselves, chosen with gold and ivory and other such gems that meant that THEY were special.  Menelaus was lost to the shadows of the earth, and perhaps in the eyes of the gods, he was nothing but a ghost. After crossing the leagues of ocean, Menelaus will begin to step into the empty temples that belong in sacrifice to the wrathful Poseidon. Many stray from such a deity, if only due to the wrath and temper that takes the lives of innocents and sinners with the single wave from the ocean. People only come when offering sacrifice in a feeble hope to stop him from smiting loved ones on long journeys. And so, in Meneleaus’ head, it seems that Poseidon is the patron deity for him; and with effort, sacrifice and vows he may induct himself to carry the sea god’s name. But, it is one thing to vie for his attention, an other to wield it. After all, what is Poseidon asking for in return? TDLR: Menelaus will search for Poseidon’s guidance and care, which will only mean something foul in the long run. 

It has been said before and it will be said till the end of times that Menelaus grew behind Agamemnon’s groomed, strong shadow. To grow in the shadows is to forgo the sunlight, the glory and the legend that comes with the House of Atreus. In fact, such a lack of exposure only meant that Menelaus went without tenderness, compassion and sweetness that may have come naturally to anyone else. He watched on as his brother climbed to the tainted throne of their father, and watched as Agamemnon took to the role with greater steed than Menelaus would have imagined. The only matter that may bring Menelaus forward in terms of prestige and status is Helen’s hand. If such a union does not become whole I dare to propose that Menelaus and Agamemnon will become enemies more than brothers, for the lesser brother will find a way to undermine Agamemnon as he searches out his own name and own fortunes. TDLR: if Menelaus does not get Helen’s hand, he will try to kill Agamemnon out of either madness or jealousy or both. 

IF THEY ARE A MORTAL, WHAT WOULD THEY FIGHT FOR ? WHAT WOULD THEY DIE FOR ?

It is your god-given right to marry Helen of Sparta. 

He knew that he knew that with more sincerity than he knew his own name, as he stood at the first night of celebrations of Sparta’s ceremony. For years he lived alongside her as a young boy, yet he always seemed to miss her eye - in fact, was she looking towards Agamemnon? The brother he hid behind? Wait, was he hiding behind his brother? Confusion riddles him mad, almost. 

Questions and uncertainty wobble Menelaus from his pedestal. He is unlike Athena, who boasts such wisdom. He is unlike any soul who can act one way and think another - for Menelaus only offers what he thinks and feels, honesty not such a virtue but a vice that weakens him in such plays that leaves him exposed to intrigue and plots of disaster. 

But he could trust Agamemnon, could he not? Surely he would not fight for Helen’s hand when it is clear that it is the lesser daughter, Clytemnestra, who fights for his hand instead? Just thinking about him leaves Menelaus shook and stirred; cracking knuckles to the beat of his heart, or sucking on teeth till he ran out of puff. 

Oh yes, he is no actor. And if he loses the fight to win Helen then he, without doubt, will lose his mind to a madness that rots an innocent's core. Even then, my friend, he is not innocent. In fact, how many lives had he cut down from the head of his sword? How many lives had he sent to the Underworld under the guiding light of Hermes? In honesty, you could not count such numbers on your piggy fingers and nor could Menelaus, who did not care for the heads he cut from feeble necks. 

Even then, was that enough to win the hand of the Spartan princess? Oh, wise Gods, why do you plague the man who only did what he was told? Why curse Menelaus, who was already given such grief by being raised beneath his older brother’s impending shadow? Had he not been a good servant? 

In his head, at least, he believed to be the better of mortals who roamed the earth at the Gods’ will and believed to be the most deserving of the suitors who travelled to Sparta. It was his God-given right, he knew that. He knew that fact with his whole, bleeding heart. In fact, why were they putting on a show when her hand would be rightfully directed to him? 

Yes, confusion spins Menelaus’ from his true fixture upon Earth, but would he ever come down from such great heights? With the questions laid upon the mortals in a way to test their souls and nature, Menelaus lifts his head to poke his nose up towards the heavens - his pompous nature is one undeserved, everyone else knew that. 

Yet Menelaus, with his cruel and wavering hands, believes that confidence comes first - how else would he earn the eye of the Gods?

“I will be fighting for Helen!” He shouts, his answer loud and proud for all to hear as one hand goes to his chest - to rest upon his heart that no longer beats but simmers beneath his bones and blue blood. 

“For she is all I desire in this world, and she deserves a man with the soul of a warrior, the brain of a mentor and the heart of a husband!” His followers ( or were they simply Agamemnons? ) cheer with volume and heart, leaving Menelaus to smirk from beneath his unshaven beard. 

“I will not die, my friends. The Gods themselves won’t allow it!” In truth, how could the gods allow it? For not one had chosen Menelaus as their champion, and instead, he searched upon their temples for one to pluck him from his brother’s breast - Hera, were you not supposed to look with kinder eyes upon brothers who mimicked Hades and Poseidon? 

“With my brother’s brain and my brawn, there is no way I may leave this land empty-handed. For love, for legend and Helen!”

[olympivnshq]

congratulations mona ! you mentioned cat called artemis and L lost her heart immediately. mine followed suit about 10 lines later. there is an ache in HELEN that you showed through your writing in ways we had imagined, but not quite delved into the way you did. we were curious to see what applicants for her would make of whether the trojan war was a result of an affair, or a pure abduction. we’re glad you picked one route and stuck to it. we’re excited to see how helen fares in the midst of the gods who started it all with your first faceclaim choice: ROSIE HUNTINGTON WHITELEY. 

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  OOC INFO.

hi hi! i’m mona, i’m currently in the gmt+2 zone, and i actually own a cat called artemis :)

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  DEITY  —  GENDER. AGE RANGE.

HELEN OF SPARTA —  FEMALE. 28-32

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ MORTAL NAME. JOB/OCCUPATION. BOROUGH/NEIGHBORHOOD.

HEDY HATHAWAY, ACTRESS/SOCIALITE, UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN, NY

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ AESTHETICS.

classical statues, paintings covered with dust, a silken ribbon forgotten on a bench, the clatter of a spoon against porcelain when stirring tea, the sensation of velvet against skin, pearls from a ripped necklace spilling on marble floor,  rose petals, old perfume, gold and pearl jewelry, fields of roses and peonies, hazy afternoons & warm vanilla ,gold highlight & shimmer, lost momentos, soft wind, sad smiles, warm hugs, choral singing somewhere far away, sun shining through big windows and flowy chiffon curtains, gentle and loving touches, dancing with your eyes closed,  equal parts mysterious and electric.

☆ﾟ*・ PLAYLIST.

i. will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? will you still love me when i’ve got nothing but my aching soul? // ii.  housewife, beauty queen, homewrecker, idle teen. the ugly years of being a fool, ain’t youth meant to be beautiful? // iii.  helen of troy is that your name stupid girl, stupid game - she cries all day, cries all night // iv. when i’m dead and gone, will they sing about me? dead and gone, will they scream my name? // v.  mama said, you’re a pretty girl, what’s in your head it doesn’t matter - pretty hurts, shine the light on whatever’s worse, perfection is the disease of a nation // vi. in the land of gods and monsters i was an angel, living in the garden of evil // vii. she’s made of outer space and her lips are like the galaxy’s edge, and her kiss the colour of a constellation falling into place // viii. can nobody hear me? i’ve got a lot that’s on my mind,  cannot breathe, can you hear it, too?

☆ﾟ*・ HOW WOULD YOU PLAY THEM?

helen of troy has always been defined by her face, a face that launched a thousand ships and started a war, and yet no one ever seems to care about the girl and soul hidden behind that mesmerizing face. beauty is a curse, a burden that comes in a disguise of a gift from gods, and helen knows this better than anyone else. she only has a face, but not a voice. she spends her whole life being controlled by various powerful men, ushered into their companies and later beds. there’s no one more alone in the world than helen of troy as she’s trapped in gilded cages and kept as some exotic bird. there are only those who wish to use her as a tool, such as her parents, husband and even the cruel gods for their little games of war, and then there are those that judge her and try to put all the blame on her, paint her as a whore, seductress and bringer of destruction in their songs, tales and poetry. but next to paris, she feels safe, understood for the first time, like she can finally make a choice in her life. and she does, she finally is allowed to make choices, she’s on a quest to enlightenment and a better life, a life in which she can decide what she wants. helen wants to have her voice heard and she wishes is to be free. she’s mostly been passive her whole life, unable to speak or take matters into her own hands, but rather she must follow the strict protocols and obey the rules others have written for her. yet helen isn’t a cruel woman despite all the loneliness and abuse, but she’s hopeful and free-spirited, always carefully waiting for the perfect moment to flee. if she could, she would trade her face with any other lady or princess, just so she could have a normal life.

a life filled with beauty, wealth and splendor was once again bestowed upon helen or rather hedy, but it all came with a very similar price indeed. hedy was born in a family filled with successful and ambitious people; a famous businessman for a father and a wealthy model for a mother with a keen eye for the finer things in life. as their only child, hedy had always struggled to live up to the high expectations of her parents, had always tried her best to make them happy while completely pushing her own happiness aside. from an early age, her mother started taking her to pageant shows, modeling and acting auditions, wishing to make a profit on her strikingly beautiful child; from a charming baby to a stunning toddler and teenager, people were practically climbing over each other to get a piece of hedy and make her their new shining star. hedy didn’t like any of it really, even in a room full of people and photographs she always felt profoundly alone, yet she never really had much courage to speak up to her parents. instead she would sneak out at night or when no one else was around and attend painting courses, cooking lessons, even parties, anything and everything that made her feel alive and less lonely. when she first got into the acting business, she had expected to finally be recognized for her hard work and not just face. but of course, she was a fool for thinking that. no matter how hard she had practiced or worked, she always got picked for similar roles, the beautiful damsel in distress, the pretty girlfriend of the main hero, the bond girl, a stunning girl without a name, the provocative but stupid blonde bombshell. her parents however were entirely pleased and so was the media and her fans. but her parents didn’t stop there as they went a search for a fitting husband. almost one year ago, she got engaged to a businessman who’s practically 15 years older than her, and while she does wear a pretty diamond ring on her finger just to please her parents, she knows that she will never marry him. among her peers, she’s known as a bit of a heartbreak among her peers, but that of course is only a facade as she wants to find someone who will truly love her for what she is and not just like her for the way she looks or what she owns.  she’s learning how to be more independent and free, she’s learning how to grow and escape her parents’ shadow. she’s also become an advocate for women’s right and equality and with the help of other women, she’s learning how to love and respect herself, and never let anyone again use her as a puppet. most do see her a joke, a young, wealthy and beautiful girl like her simply cannot be unhappy, she is not allowed to be unhappy. they all claim she has everything, judge her at every possible opportunity, but hedy won’t let them get to her this time. she will fight for herself. she’s not happy, but she wants to find it, and she’ll try to seize it. one step at a time.

answer these questions: 1. are they more likely to stand with the pantheon or against it?  she is more likely to stand with the pantheon, but truth be told, now she’d be quite indecisive. sometimes she feels as if the gods are simply playing with her for their own sickly-sweet entertainment. 2. what is their stand on mortals? she is a mortal and she’ll always be more fond of her own kind that the gods.

☆ﾟ*・ SAMPLE PARA (OPTIONAL)

’’ – miss hedy, miss hedy,’’ a man in a black suit calls, steady hands gripping a white phone ready to capture her every word and motion. she snaps out of her beautiful reverie, forgetting almost for a few brief moments that she’s supposed to be answering inquires and not imagining that she’s on a sunny beach somewhere with warm sand tingling beneath her toes. ’’yes?’’ she looks up, blue eyes steadily focusing on the impatient man. ’’this year you were once again named as one of the most beautiful actresses in the world, tell me how does that make you feel?’’ when she hears his inquiry, she sighs, chest trembling with disappointment.

didn’t anyone come to ask at least one single question about the movie? she asks herself, unwilling to face the truth. is that all she is? a pretty face that’s meant to be ranked with the others? a girl only born to be on display? she can almost hear the cry of thousands of women across the world, women only valued for the way they look, now for what they truly are. ‘’i’m honored. really. next question please.’’

an older woman from the audience raises her hand and with a soft smile she starts to form her question, and the more she talks the more hedy can see that her smile isn’t genuine. ‘’recently, the young and beautiful margo vera has been compared to you, from your similar career paths to looks, it’s sometimes hard to ignore the resemblance. do you see her as competition, miss hathaway?’’  she refrains from rolling her eyes, knowing that such behavior doesn’t suit a proper lady like her. in that instant she wishes they could all just leave her alone. hedy’s cherubic smile falters, but her lips are still curved upwards. ‘’no, of course not. why would i?’’

‘‘so are you saying that she could never match your looks?’’ the woman immediately jumps, searching for tiny pieces of flesh that she can fest upon like a true vulture. ‘‘no, no, i think she is extremely beautiful. i wish her nothing but the best. i’d even love to work with her,’‘ but what she wants to say is, i hope she’ll be more beautiful than me, i don’t want this, i don’t want this beauty, i’ve been carrying it all my life, but it’s too heavy for me. i want more from life. don’t you see that beauty isn’t everything?

‘‘with the recent beauty standards in the industry, do you think…’’ another man starts, but hedy stops him with a wave of her delicate hand. ‘‘that’s all for today. thank you all for coming. see you next time…’‘ she announces wearily.  the wave of flashing lights before her is almost blinding.

–you look so beautiful today, smile for the camera one more time, miss hedy

– smile, i love your face

–hey over here, over here, stay for another question

it’s always like this. she’ll never be free.

☆ﾟ*・ ANYTHING ELSE?

pinterest board <3

[animatevibration-blog]

Mad Titan, Or Last Man

Please note that this is an incomplete assessment of motivations simply because comic book characters will never have an end to their story. I am also not informed on Thanos’ current exploits in the comics since I have not read Marvel, or any comics for a number of years. The focus will be on an older iteration of Thanos and his fascination with death that I believe derived from him growing up in a utopia of immortals essentially. Also, this is not an explanation of the Hollywood version of Thanos since his motivations make no sense and is clearly just political propaganda from writers that don’t know anything about population trends. This is not a super in-depth analysis either, I’ve merely looked at his motivations through the lens of the Nietzschean last man, as well as the underground man from Dostoevsky's works.

I had difficulty understanding it at first, mostly because I personalized concepts too much that I shouldn’t have, namely Lady Death. Which in turn, made Thanos’ motivations look like an outburst of an angsty teenage boy. You can’t fully personalize a concept in a story otherwise you miss the point, Lady Death is still death itself, the only real reason it was given form is because that’s seems to be the easiest way to relate to values expressed in stories; it makes it easier to embody them through secondary personalization, which is a term coined by the psychologist Eric Neumann. Secondary personalization is an act from which the more something is understood, the more it is refined in the consciousness until it’s anthropomorphised completely, creating almost a god image within the individual. It’s essentially the same as the image of Helen of Troy discovered by Faust when he travels to the realm of the mothers, she was the spirit of unbridled creative generation and freedom that he longed for. Lady Death is the anthropomorphised value of what Thanos desires most, and he expresses it as female because he is male, because it’s that which he lacks, the other part of his reality. That is partly a Jungian notion from which the male takes an inward journey to discover the Anima within, or his inner feminine that is tied to his highest value, making the attaining of that value an almost sexual act of union between being and image, something like that.

“But wait” you may say, “then why is Death a woman to all within the Marvel universe?” Good question, that is because the concept of death has always been a feminine one throughout history; it is the consumptive element of nature that consumes the life that came before so that successive generations may come into being. The easiest picture to express this in is the Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its tail. It is the sphere that contains existence from which death, or consumption is the precursor to new life. Other faces of death are the Babylonian Tiamat, the Malekusian Le-Hev-Hev which translates to “she who draws us in with a smile so she may consume us.” There is also Nut from Egyptian myth, the mother sky who embraces all in death, which you can see her image placed on sarcophagi, and Ta-Urt who is the bestial guardian of the underworld. Death is Feminine because it is part of nature, or the great mother earth, so it’s not surprising that we will portray it as a woman... Most of the time.

For this assessment though, I want to focus on Lady Death as a very singular expression of his “highest art” so to speak, which arised from the stagnancy of Utopianism. So, let’s begin.

What would a man(or eternal) strive for when perfection was already attained? I really needed to think about that for a second because when you think about utopia, the interesting bits are always the struggle to achieve it. That’s where the meat is in such a value system, that’s where all the action is, and that’s when I had an idea. So, what would a man(eternal) strive for when perfection was already attained? Perhaps he would strive for struggle itself. Perhaps when given eternity, what then would be more desirable than the finite? What could you desire more after you are given the universe through society, than to have it all taken away? It sounds crazy doesn’t it, who would ever destroy perfection merely to struggle? Well, a human would... Even in the face of eternal happiness and comfort, simply to achieve one semblance (if even for a moment) of the meaning that comes only from the finite and imperfect, a person would dash it all away.

That is the purpose of Thanos, he craves the one thing that was taken from him by his parents, and the society that believed it knew better, namely death. Honestly, what meaning could you ever possibly find in a world where people have already conquered the most meaningful aspect of it? Things have to die, things have to wear down, they need to decay because the universe isn’t a structured space of rules and laws. It bends, it curves, it’s constantly changing, it’s a flow of perpetual becoming. The speed of light itself is constantly changing, and that is the speed of causality itself, which is the frame from which events can even happen in reality. Laws, structures, immortality are all societal concepts born from consciousness, more precisely the consciousness of the left hemisphere; especially the concept of immortality. Things are always changing, we just cant perceive most of it, and you, are not really you. Everything you are now is the current complexity of a a cosmic lineage that dates back to the very beginning of existence. All the material that makes up your being came from the death of something before you. Whether it be the nutrients you ingest from animals and plants, or the elements of you refined in the cores of long dead stars. You are a process, not an end, and to extricate yourself from that process is to produce a fate far worse than death could ever be, an immortal Utopia.

I had to ask myself, is that really the goal of life, just to transcend it? If like the eternals that happens, what other outcome could you have but a utopia of eternal happiness and complacency? Why would you even want that when what is taken is so much? What other options could you ever have than sacrificing everything that made you human; to place it all at the alter of godhood, so that you could simply keep existing and going through the motions like a machine. There’s a reason why vampires are portrayed as impulsive nihilists most of the time, because what the hell else can you do with eternity once you have it. Of course there is a universe full of possibility within the universe, but it will never be achieved by the eternals because they are no longer part of that process and the only kind progress they can achieve is scientific analytical processes which is very indicative of western culture now, because that’s all they value. Which in turn will probably only lead to them becoming like Celestials, ethereal nothings that don’t exist in reality, that don’t understand the underlying complexity and importance of emotion, and merely act like computers.

That entire society and Thanos himself is a microcosm, most likely of the projected anxiety of a post-industrialized society that puts far too much (to an almost pathological degree) value in a singular system of linear analytical cognitive progress. My god ladies and gentlemen, if eternity was sitting in a lab continually making it easier for people to live for the eternity they have anyway, where all that’s left are mere intellectual and habitual procreative pursuits, I would also think death and destruction would be a far more preferable option, it could even become an ideal. Jesus, just try it for a hundred years and get back to me on how you feel about it. I don’t blame Thanos for pining after it, lusting after it, making it his muse, his companion, the Galatea to his Pygmalion, his reason for being. It’s meaning that matters, not more life, not happiness, not perfection, It’s the meaning in the struggle for more life, it’s the meaning you derive from struggling for happiness, it’s the meaning in life that you derive from struggling for perfection that gives depth to existence. It’s not the result, it’s the process. Death matters because it makes everything beautiful, everything meaningful, everything is something you will never see again, something that will never be again. Struggle matters because it makes you more than what you were, it allows you to change. Now let me talk about struggle more.

To struggle is to be human, to suffer is to truly live. Humans are the only beings that can say life is suffering and have a smile on their face. And humans are the only beings in the known universe that will willfully suffer in full understanding of it. Each person has a vast ocean of dormant potential in them just waiting to be realized. I don’t say that in a metaphorical way, though that’s the best way to describe it. You have a plethora of dormant genes in you that wait for the right environmental factors to be activated and embodied as new modes of being, because humans are action oriented, not cognitive oriented. It’s the notion of wishing upon the stars, each one represents a potentiality of what you could be, and you have a choice, you can pick a star and struggle for it. But if you don’t have to struggle anymore, if you have forever and everything provided for you, you won’t do it, you won’t experience it, because you don’t have to. I say this because Thanos is human, strikingly human, perhaps even the greatest of what humanity could be, essentially he is the underground man in a world of last men.

“I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. Alas! There comes a time when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas! There comes a time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you the last man, ‘What is love? What is longing? What is a star?’ So asks the last man and he blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man who makes everything small.”

“His species is ineradicable like that of a flea; the last man lives the longest. ‘We have invented happiness’ says the last man, and blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live for one needs warmth. Becoming sick and being suspicious are sinful to them: One proceeds carefully. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or human beings!”-Thus Spoke Zarathustra p.13

Of course, it would be very rational to want such an existence, and everyone on his world is very rational, but rational isn’t reasonable, and reasonable isn’t meaningful. People are contradictions unto themselves. They almost never want what they need, or need what they want, or even want what they want. The easy paradisaical life is a beautiful dream full of splendor and joy... Only so long as it stays a dream. If man were to make his dream a reality I believe, well, I know that the moment after he would spit on the very ground he toiled so arduously to build and content himself with its absolute destruction,  just so something interesting could happen in his utopia. That is the folly of it, and that’s what I believe Thanos saw, even if he didn’t understand it himself. That is essentially Dostoevsky's notion of utopia and the values of enlightenment which is basically the society the eternals had made. 

“There are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of humanity to make it their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbors simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world. And yet we all know that sooner or later those people have been false to themselves, playing some queer trick, often a most unseemly one. Now I ask you? What can be expected of man since he is being endowed with such strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man will play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all of this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself(as though it were so necessary) that men are still men and not keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive suffering of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), may be by this curse alone he will attain his object- that is, convince himself he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated chaos darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point!” -Notes From Underground p.230-231

The point I’m expressing is that people are inherently chaotic, and that they love it too, it’s the source of our greatest freedom, the dancing star. We would also destroy all that was good for us merely to keep it. That chaos is lethal to utopianism and eternity. Thanos killed his people and worshiped death because perfection had a flaw, it was meaningless. They sacrificed everything for it, and in turn missed the sole notion powerful enough even to propel one to remake the whole universe and succeed... death. But, that’s just some guys opinion. 

[theotherwesley]

Wesley Watches And Rates All The Faust Operas

You thought I was kidding, but here we are: 

*I am not an expert, and my advice should never be followed.  I am but a humble nerd with a passion, dragging you along on my youtube-tour. You probably shouldn’t quote me, but using this as a starting point and guide to this particular musical and literary phenomenon is encouraged! The information below was gleaned largely from wikipedia, vague memories of my BA degree, and my own assessment of the source materials.

My ratings are based on my subjective enjoyment, and a few preferential criterion such as:  1) Was Mephistopheles fuckable, 2) Did I get to see an orgy of witches, 3)Does Marguerite pass the Sexy Lampshade Test, and 4) Was Faust Dragged to Hell.

Preliminary Notes: originally, the legend of Doctor Faust came from the sixteenth century and was inspired by one man (or possibly two who were later conflated), Johann SpidersGeorg Faust, who was your average practitioner of Renaissance Magic. He was not an especially savory individual; he had racked up quite a criminal record and been boastful enough of his “christlike” abilities to heal the sick and perform miracles that he’d seriously annoyed the church. He was denied entry into a city due to accusations of Necromancy and Sodomy. Being an alchemist, Faust got up to some particularly adventurous chemistry experiments, the last of which failed so spectacularly that his lab exploded and the doctor was reduced to his component parts. His remains after death were so gruesome that his colleagues came to the obvious conclusion: He’d been personally dragged to Hell by Satan himself. AND THUS WAS A LEGEND BORN.

The story of Faust was told and disseminated in sixteenth century chapbooks (early printing-press zines, if you will) as a dramatic morality tale. It is from the chapbooks we originally get the character of Mephistopheles, the pact exchanging 24 years of service for the soul, the famulus named Wagner, the wild adventures through various courts, and the conjuration of Helen of Troy. Aside from in the chapbooks, there is one version of Chrisopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, where the titular character is torn asunder by demons as he is dragged to hell-- but unfortunately for me, a known B-movie horror enthusiast-- this ending appears in no subsequent retellings of the Faust legend. Cowards.

Goethe’s play Faust is obviously the most famous adaptation of the legend, and through it the legend turns from a cautionary tale to a story of hubris, love, faith, and philosophy. If you’re not already familiar with Faust, you might take a moment to read it or at least check out the act summaries. You’ll understand everything that references it a lot better if you do, even if you just read Part I (the second part gets a bit tedious unless you have a fetish for Herodotus and metaphysics-- but there’s a cute homunculus in a bottle! and talking sphinxes and griffons! and kinky rose petals! Angel butts!!!). 

 Armed with this knowledge, let the opera tour begin:

Faust (1816, Louis Spohr)

--The Libretto with English translation 

--Playlist of the whole opera

It’s very pretty! The style and over-all sound reminds me of a Mozart opera, which, I guess, is not too surprising considering they were more or less contemporaries who trained and worked in similar circles. (Louis Spohr! He did collaborations with Beethoven! He invented the violin chinrest! Who knew! Not me! Anyway--) This Faust is not based on either Marlowe or Goethe’s Faust, but rather some miscellaneous adventures from the early Faust legends and chapbook pamphlets. In this version Faust ensnares a devil named Mephistopheles to his service, vowing to use his powers for the good of mankind. Great plan! That always goes well! 

There’s a love potion, a flying cape, a duel with an outraged rival-- all the usual necessities for a Faust story, only now there’s not one but TWO young women screwed over by Faust’s philandering! (His first love, Röschen, and erstwhile damsel-in-distress, Kunilingus. ....*checks notes*, sorry, no, “Kunigunde”). Mephistopheles is cattily insightful, the wronged women team up to avenge themselves against their seducer, and yes, yes indeed, Faust Is Dragged To Hell!  

The poetry of the libretto is quite pleasing, it’s got some great dialogue and epic fantasy sequences. Mephistopheles puts on show of infernal pyrotechnics with 17th century stage effects, all of them tremendous fire hazards. Someone gets dragged to Hell by a chorus of dancing goblins before Act 1 even finishes-- O my cup runneth over! We get the witches’ sabbath atop Mt Blocksberg, there’s a guest appearance by Sycorax, everyone gets real horny up there with a love potion, it’s great. 

Mephistopheles seems to be on the ladies’ side in the story (as much as he’s on any human’s side), in that he cautions them not to trust Faust, and urges them on when they FREAKING TEAM UP AND GO TO SEEK VENGEANCE. Oh my god it’s so great. Kunigunde attacks Faust and Faust freaks out and tells Mephistopheles to save him and Meph is all “what’s that? I don’t know, suddenly I can’t read”. Meph is also the one doing all the actual rescuing of distressed maidens, at Faust’s behest. He views Faust’s attempts to break the laws of Love and Nature with contempt, knowing that Faust’s soul is on the fast track to Hell. There’s no actual pact here; Meph is the one being held hostage. He makes sure that Faust doesn’t enjoy any of the spoils of his sorcery, so Faust’s ennui and dissatisfaction remain the same as before he began his quest to “Use Hell’s Powers For Good”. 

And just quick review of the scoreboard: Faust used his powers to do 1 (one) useful thing with his power before he ruined a bunch of people’s lives in quick succession, murdering Kunigunde’s betrothed and driving Rose to suicide. He still cries about it and the “rich seeds of Good he sowed” but Meph is having none of it and HE. DRAGS. THAT. BOY. TO. HELL!!!!!!! EXEUNT.

Rating: 4/5 Stars. Better than expected! I want a revival of this version! With stabbing! And special effects! Mephistopheles is truly doing the Lord’s work here, no offense to his demonship. Lost some points with me for being so very, very heavy on the pining and lovesick maidens, but won me back when the lovesick maidens picked up daggers. 

Faust and Marguerite (1855, Lutz) and Faust up to Date (1888, Lutz)

Straight up can’t find this one! But this early silent film short is apparently based on it?  IDK folks, if you have a recording of this you’d like to share with me, I’d be delighted to hear it. 

As for the burlesque, I suspect it hasn’t actually been performed since 1888. But the music is pretty cute! The Pas de Quatre, aka “Skirt Dance” seems to be the only track that’s stuck around. Here it is played on an old disc music box. 

Rating: ??? 

La damnation de Faust (1846, Berlioz) 

--Libretto in French and English

--La Damnation de Faust with Jonas Kaufmann --I like this one because Faust is super duper cute and this Mephistopheles reminds me of an OC makes yellow work. 

--This is the first of what I’m called The Big Three Faust Plays; all modeled after Goethe’s Faust specifically, written within roughly ten years of each other, and which feature the most well-known arias that I’m aware of. 

This opera positively reeks of Romanticism; it’s got Byron out the ears, it’s wading through Wordsworth, it’s doing the Grand Tour, it’s gazing mournfully from the top of Mont Blanc, contemplating Nature and the Human Spirit. It’s Berlioz, buckle up. 

The beginning is obviously Faust wallowing in ennui. He considers suicide, but is interrupted by a timely reminder of Christianity. Suddenly the devil appears in order to take advantage of a soul precariously teetering on the edge between redemption and damnation.  In this version, the devil does not announce himself as the devil, but rather as the ~Spirit of Life~, here to show Faust the joys of the world. (There’s no pact at first, Meph is just “get in bitch we’re going debauching” and Faust’s like “aight” and they’re off.) The devil takes Faust on a fun tour of life’s noteworthy attractions such as “Drunk Student Karaoke”, “Dancing Gnomes”, and “A Nice Forest Nap”.

During his magical nap Faust sees a vision of Marguerite (later we learn she has simultaneously dreamed of Faust) and falls in love. He awakes with the usual boner for this Maiden of Radiant and Humble Virtue who Nature Hath Sheltered In Perfect Simplicity, because that’s always a big turn-on. Meph steers the course of their interactions very carefully, using magic and fairies and wisps to enchant the couple’s surroundings to ensure they are surrounded by romantic atmosphere the whole time. Once they’ve gotten into some heavy necking, he bursts in and tells them that the whole town is coming with pitchforks and also someone’s told the girl’s mother and they’re in big trouble. Faust flees. 

Everyone does some quality Pining, Faust sings a sad song about Nature, and then Meph shows up again saying “hey I hope this doesn’t put a damper on our vacation, but Marguerite is in prison for murder and she’s going to be executed BUT QUICK, ACT NOW AND WE CAN SAVE HER for just one quick easy payment of your immortal soul” and Faust is just like “WHAT WHERE WHO WHAT UH FINE YES SURE OKAY SHIT, WOW, LET’S GO” and Meph is >:))) and they jump on their horses and ride off to go save her except OOPS, NO THEY DON’T because actually they are RIDING INTO THE WAITING JAWS OF HELL!!!! NYAK NYAK NYAK NYEEEEEHHHHH!!! Faust burns for eternity, Marguerite goes to heaven, curtain. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Look, I’m not saying I’m biased, but Mephistopheles doesn’t even show up until half an hour into the opera, okay? I find this one hard to sit through even though the music is really delightful; and I do mean it is gorgeous music. Between the two famous mocking serenades, “Devant la maison” shoots “Vous quid faites l’endormie” right out of the water; all the chorus pieces are fantastic; the Hungarian March is a great instrumental piece; Faust actually has some decent arias for once (rarer in each subsequent opera), and there is Brander’s wonderfully irreverent Rat Song... I think the reason this doesn’t hold my attention as much as other versions is that the plot is very meandering and the characters don’t have concrete motivations; they’re sad teenagers in love, I guess? And the devil tricks them? This whimsical aspect is 1000% part and parcel of the Romantic Aesthetic I realize, but personally I came for a recognizable story and got mostly pastoral vignettes. We spend half the opera listening to Frolicking Peasants and Men At Arms. Mephistopheles just hops out of the woodwork to play a dirty trick on a random guy getting his Byronic Mope on. There’s no pact, no soul-signing until the very end, and it’s just a plain ol’ tricky trap, not a device to punish hubris or moral crimes. I’m even reluctant to give this its rightful Dragged To Hell points because out of all the Faust scenarios, this is the one where he seems to deserve it the least! He doesn’t actually do anything bad! It’s not satisfying if he’s dragged to Hell for no reason! Pfui. However, points gained back for the made-up Satanic babble sung by infernal chorus at the end.  

Faust (1859, Gounod) 

--Libretto in French and English

--1995 Adaptation with Samuel Ramey as Mephistopheles  You already know I’m a slut for Samuel Ramey playing the devil in any capacity so I’ll spare you my gushing play-by-play of his performance. The quality of this video is.... not great. I apologize. I still love it, but you’re going to want to find a clearer recording of the music if you want to get the most out of this opera. 

--2011 Adaptation with Paul Gay as Mephistopheles (Warning: this version is quite lurid and includes some staging choices that I find pretty uncomfortable-- I can’t decide if the director is consciously trying to highlight predatory sexism as a bad thing or if it’s just kind of included to make things seem ~spicy~. Anyway, it’s otherwise a high quality production with an interesting set design, just be warned that there’s some on-stage grossness. Also, a hilariously bad decapitated head prop! --to accompany a truly baffling ending. To its credit, the death of Valentin was genuinely pretty moving and made me feel... er, well, anything about the character. Tassis Christoyannis’s made that aria memorable, which is more than I can say of other productions. 

Second of the Big Three! 

Gounod introduces a more complete cast of characters borrowed from Goethe’s Faust to flesh out the the story and setting; we meet Wagner the student, a regiment of soldiers including Marguerite’s brother, Valentin, and their young friend Siebel (a pants role-- which immediately endears me to this character because I’m a ~big ol’ queer~). Later we meet Marguerite’s nosy old neighbor, Martha, who is REAL thirsty for Mephistopheles and who I relate to very much.

 This opera follows Goethe’s Faust- Part I much more closely than its predecessor, and where it does not follow the original, it diverges in favor of making the story more engaging and streamlined. There is WAY LESS pining into the aether, and more sword fights. The larger cast of named characters makes for more interactions, which in turn makes for more memorable moments on stage, better dialogue, a comprehensible timeline of events, and more concrete motivations for everyone. 

A SUMMARY: Faust’s pact in this version has nothing to do with the philosophical wager seen in Goethe, but is simply an exchange of his soul for returned youth. He is old, he’s spent his life studying, he wants to be young and full of passion again. He seals the deal after the devil offers him a vision of Marguerite, whose sight is so inspiring and lovely that Faust is overcome with desire for her alone. They go to find her, encountering on the way a regiment of students and soldiers, one of whom is Marguerite’s brother, Valentin, who is going off to war leaving his sister in the care of young Siebel. Getting Marguerite to stop and talk to Faust proves difficult since she is so pure and virtuous that A) Mephistopheles has no power over her, and B) she’s wary of the compliments of strangers. Faust gets Mephistopheles to bring her a case of jewels to warm her up to him, then Mephistopheles concocts a ruse to distract her nosy neighbor Martha and give them an excuse to meet Marguerite (shenanigans ensue). The ploy works, Marguerite is seduced, and in love with Faust. Cut to some time in the future, when Oh No Everything Has Gone Horribly Wrong; Faust has gone away and left Marguerite pregnant and unmarried, she is shunned by society with the exception of Siebel, meanwhile her brother has come home from the war to find her in a disgrace. Faust and Mephistopheles eventually return, but encounter an enraged Valentin who duels Faust to avenge his sister’s honor. Faust, of course, uses Mephistopheles’s magic to cheat, and Valentin is fatally stabbed. With his dying breaths, he curses his sister and blames her for his death, since he died defending her honor-- the people who witness this are rightfully aghast that he’d use his last moments to denounce his own sister-- and rightly so, because that’s a real dick move. Faust flees, and Marguerite is left on her own with no support and a newborn child to care for. She seeks refuge and forgiveness in the church, but finds she cannot pray, haunted by voices and cursed by Mephistopheles himself, as he whispers in her ear, promising damnation. She faints, and is presumably driven mad. Cut to Faust, who is being treated to a front-row seat of Walpurgisnacht. During the revels he sees another vision of Marguerite, this time of her in chains and awaiting execution for the murder of her child. Mephistopheles grudgingly takes Faust to see her in prison, where he tries to rescue her. In her fevered state she will not leave, wanting Faust to instead stay with her in the cell. During the delay, she sees Mephistopheles and finally puts two and two together, knowing a devil when she sees one, and understanding that Faust is not only responsible for her suffering but also in league with infernal powers. She pushes him aside, rejects him, and throws herself instead on the mercy of God, choosing death and redemption over being rescued by the man whose affections ruined her. Mephistopheles ruefully pronounces her condemned, but a voice from Heaven pronounces her Saved. Faust watches in awe as Marguerite’s soul ascends to Heaven, and he is left alone and presumably damned. 

Why is this framing of the story significant? Because it’s about her. Faust is only an instrument; his soul is not especially remarkable, he might have been damned without any devil to encourage him.

 But Marguerite’s soul was untouchable to Mephistopheles; he puts a vision of her before Faust for a reason. We don’t waste any time bemoaning Faust’s moral downfall; Faust is not the one seeking redemption at the end of the opera. Faust is a means to an end, and that end is leading an otherwise spotless soul into perdition.

 This opera has Mephistopheles at his most sinister, his most manipulative; he is the one driving Marguerite deeper into misfortune, who isolates her, mocks her, whispers condemnation into her ear her until she doubts everything. Desperate, without support and seeing no way forward, no future for herself or her child, Marguerite kills her baby, or is led to do so by Mephistopheles. Without a doubt, this has been the devil’s plan all along, and with Marguerite now branded a murderess, he thinks he’s won. But Faust, despite taking no responsibility for his actions, nevertheless feels pity and remorse at her misfortune, and goes to rescue her--and  this gives Marguerite the chance to finally see what he is.

 She rejects him; she does not choose love, she does not choose to live or be rescued by the forces that ruined her in the first place. She stays, renews her faith, and thwarts Mephistopheles’s best efforts to damn her. This is not about a man's hubris; it is about Marguerite escaping the devil and saving herself on her own terms. That’s why I find this version to be poignant. 

Some musical highlights: “Le veau d’or” (the golden calf)-- if not my favorite of Mephistopheles’s ballads then in the top three, particularly because it lends itself to some flamboyant acting; Marguerite’s “Ballade un roi de Thulé” (the king of Thule) is absolutely haunting; and "Seigneur, daignez permettre", aka The Church Scene is fucking incredible-- the juxtaposition of Marguerite’s pleas and the choir’s Dies Irae, the echoing church organs in the background, Damnation seeming to gain a voice of its own to summon her... it’s some real Eyes-of-Notre-Dame Hellfire shit. 

Rating: 5/5! A perfect score! Gounod wins the first place ribbon. Though he beats Boito’s “Mefistofele” (up next) on several key points, I want you to know that my personal bias will probably always be in favor of “Mefistofele” on account of being a ho for the titular character. --But Gounod’s is the better opera, fair and square. “Faust” has the most comprehensive storyline, the most memorable arias, and the best (I think) balance of both humor and poignance.  I will give this version the benefit of a Dragged to Hell point even though we don’t actually get to see the final deed. The Walpurgisnacht scene does exist as a ballet, so I’ll still give it the points even though it gets cut out of most productions for length (sometimes the ballet is performed as a stand-alone event). Additionally, he scores most favorably on the Marguerite > Sexy Lampshade scale-- this is a story about her more than it’s about Faust or Mephistopheles, and I’m here for that.

Thank you Mr. Gounod, you may retrieve your Incredibly Prestigious Award from my blog after the ceremony. 

Mefistofele (1868, Boito) 

--Libretto in Italian and English

--HERE IT IS, MY FAVORITE ONE, MY FAVORITE MEPHISTOPHELES, SAMUEL RAMEY, MOSTLY SHIRTLESS, FLIPPING OFF GOD AND LIGHTING A CIGARETTE ON STAGE IN HIS MATCHING CHERRY-RED TAILCOAT AND VIOLIN CASE 1989 (WHICH IS THE YEAR OF MY BIRTH, NO COINCIDENCE, I THINK)

--Oh, fun fact! The opera scene in Batman Begins is the chorus from the witches sabbath. If you thought it sounded familiar, this might be why.

Anyway. This is the third of the Big Three most-referenced Faust operas!  

Unlike its predecessors, Mefistofele covers both part I and part II of Goethe’s Faust, starting with the seduction of Marguerite and moving on to serenading Helen of Troy and finally with Faust’s redemption. The first part of the opera is very similar to Gonoud’s Faust, but first there is a Prologue, which is taken pretty much directly from Goethe.  And oh my god, is the Prologue hilarious. We encounter Mephistopheles, the titular character, on his way to work-- or more just loitering around in the aether as one does when one is bored and immortal and humanity is going on sinning with or without you, when he stops to greet the Lord God in passing, all satirical charm and sarcasm. God, very graciously, does not ask him whether he has anything better to do, but instead inquires if he knows Faust.

 “Oh yeah, that guy. Neck beard, likes science, big fan of yours. Sure I’ve heard of him,” says Meph. “Hey, you seem like a betting man--”

“Um,” says God.

Meph continues; “I bet I can tempt him into sinning and thus damn his immortal soul to Hell!” 

God agrees-- because God already knows the future and thinks this will be a fun way to build character. 

A choir of angels descends and Mephistopheles gets grossed out, sprays them with insect repellent, and leaves. (I am paraphrasing). 

The next few scenes are pretty familiar; Faust laments his ennui, a chorus of peasants and students celebrate a festival, Faust is on the cusp of a revelation that Jesus is neat, but is interrupted by the devil. The devil introduces himself, offers Faust his services on earth if Faust agrees to serve him in Hell after death. 

Faust, who seconds ago was ready to devote himself to a life of holiness, sayeth “yolo” and they shake on it, with the condition that Mephistopheles can reveal to him one moment of such surpassing joy and beauty that Faust will wish for it to last forever-- thereupon Faust consents to being dragged immediately to Hell. Because pssh, that’s later and who cares about later?? They hop on Mephistopheles’s magic cape, and fly off to have adventures.  CUT TO: Faust seducing Marguerite and Mephistopheles distracting her nosy neighbor Martha. THEY KISS, FAUST LEAVES, HE GOES TO A PARTY ON MT. BROCKEN. HE SEES A VISION: MARGUERITE IN PRISON! QUICK, TO THE RESCUE! BUT NO, SHE REJECTS HIM, HER SOUL IS SAVED, SHE DIES-- Wait, what? I hear you ask-- She just got here, she wasn’t even introduced, now we’re skipping to the end? The answer is: yes. Yes, you’re just supposed to know what’s going on already. 

To be fair, Faust operas are the Spiderman remakes of the nineteenth century; there’s a new one coming out every ten years or so, Goethe is required reading, everyone is writing Faust fanfiction-- no one is wondering who the girl is or how they met or is wondering if they’ll kiss or not. Everyone knows the plot already, it’s fine.

BUT THIS ISN’T THE END! No indeed! Now we are on a tour of PART II of Goethe’s Faust! You know, the part you skipped! Don’t worry, Boito isn’t making the entire metaphysical play into an opera, just the juicy bits with Helen of Troy. Marguerite is instantly and completely forgotten-- this is now a Helen/Faust one-shot, which Mephistopheles is forced to watch with annoyance. 

CUT TO: Faust’s old laboratory from Act 1, where he is on the brink of death, lost in a reverie of all the good times he’s had. Mephistopheles is hovering over him, tapping his wristwatch and reminding Faust of his past loves and glories, incredulous that Faust hasn’t yet found his One True Moment™.

 Faust just sighs and says “gee, I guess the REAL happiness was the good I could have done along the way but absolutely didn’t!” and God busts in through the ceiling with a HALLELUJAH and Mephistopheles is like “oh don’t you dare, don’t you fucking-- THINK OF ALL THE GOOD TIMES WE HAD, ALL THE SEXY LADIES I GOT YOU TO MEET! AFTER ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU AS YOUR WINGMAN--” and Faust faceplants into the bible and goes straight to Heaven. Meph is left spitting in defiance as he sinks into the earth. THE END.

Why this framing is significant: The way Boito has arranged and cropped the scenes makes this story very much center around Mephistopheles. While Berlioz’s Faust was about the suffering of a young man for love, and Gounod’s was about the victory of Marguerite over Hell, Boito’s opera is about the humorous tragedy of Mephistopheles, whose endeavor was rigged to fail from the onset. 

Faust doesn't end up in Hell in Goethe's version, and I accept this because Mephistopheles lost his bet on a technicality: the Moment™ Faust wished to prolong was not provided by Mephistopheles, it was caused by his sincere desire to do a last bit of good in the world, coming to the conclusion (after being made blind by the goddess of Care) that benefiting mankind is what brings one happiness, not knowledge or fleeting pleasures. It wasn’t that he suddenly found Christ or gave himself over to God, as the opera implies, but because he finally realized the worth of striving to do good, and fond a source of platonic love within himself, which makes his soul redeemable despite his pact with the devil. So Goethe gives us a humanist, philosophical explanation for Faust's redemption..... BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY-- he has Mephistopheles lose Faust's immortal soul because he's Too Fucking Horny For An Angel Boy’s Ass. (I know when I’m being pandered to.) 

Unfortunately, Boito misses the whole philosophical trajectory of Goethe’s Faust and reduces it to a simple morality-play where a sinner is saved on his deathbed merely by acknowledging the hereafter. He doesn’t suffer blindness, he doesn’t actually DO anything good in his last hour, he just repents and decides Heaven is real after all at the last possible second before kicking the bucket. It would be disappointing, IF that were the point of the story. But that’s not where the drama is!

Like Gounod’s Faust, the focus was never really on the doctor at all; his redemption is not what we paid to see. It’s Mephistopheles’s reaction to losing Faust’s soul that makes the ending interesting, not the fact that Faust gets a free pass to Heaven. 

Highlights of this version: It’s fucking hilarious, and Mephistopheles is the star of the entire show. His arias are in turns sinister and sardonic, playful and powerful. The dialogue is taken directly from Goethe’s Faust in most cases (translated into Italian obviously), and hey, the dialogue in Goethe is really funny and good and witty! Hard to go wrong! 

“Ave Signor” (Hail, Lord!) is such a terrific opener; there will always be something delightful about the idea of the devil conversationally sassing God and daring to make a bet with the Almighty in the spirit of work-place rivalry. “Son Lo Spirito Che Nega Sempre Tutto” (I Am the Spirit That Denieth All Things) is full of dark bravado and rebellion, whistling defiance at the Lord. It’s a great Villain Song and as someone with sympathy for the devil it is completely my jam. “Ecco Il Mondo” (Behold the World) is both teasing and menacing and the staging lends itself to some glorious melodrama. “Ah! Su! Riddiamo, riddiamo” (Turning, turning) gets a prize for being the best infernal chorus and witches’ sabbath scene out of all of them-- it’s frenzied and spooky and satanic and whirling, everything you could want from an orgy of infernal creatures. Ten out of five stars, would exalt Satan to again.

Rating: 4.5 / 5 stars. Second place prize, and Honorable Mention for being the judge’s favorite. It’s not perfect. The story leaves much to be desired-- let’s face it, Part II of “Faust” isn’t especially... dynamic on its own, and especially when condensed to fit into opera format, the events don’t add up into a satisfying narrative.  Boito glosses over some frankly essential elements in the original and just has Faust skip right from his life-ruining adultery to being carried to Heaven on the backs of angels-- just for thinking of all the good he *could* have done if he hadn’t been, you know, a real stinker this whole time.  So I’m not giving Boito a pass for omitting Faust’s Hell Dragging. Furthermore, this play is woefully short on Marguerita; she basically just shows up to be seduced and then a second later is Ruined and Saved. Booo.

But hey-- is this play called “Faust”? Is this play called “Faust and Marguerita”? No. This play is called motherfuckin’ “Mefistofele”, because it’s about Mephistopheles. It’s about our suave, under-appreciated servant of Hell working hard for his cut, trying and squeeze just ONE life-altering moment out of this absolute dehydrated turd of a man, and the play is rife with his frustration. He is the one who whistles in defiance of God, and he loses because it is *inevitable* that he loses. God was never going to let him win that bet; Meph was a tool in his ultimate design to shepherd Faust closer to redemption. Mephistopheles is dragged off stage whistling in defiance as a lifetime’s worth of effort is flushed down the drain in a single moment of seemingly undeserved redemption. Not for a *solitary second* did we want this opera to be about Faust. No. This is the devil’s opera, and that’s why it’s so fucking great. 

Doktor Faust (1916–25, Busoni)

--Adaptation with Thomas Hampson 2006 

--Libretto in German and English

...And now, a German libretto written by an Italian, in contrast with Boito’s Italian libretto translated from German. 

God, this is such a modern ass Modern Opera. It does that thing I hate that modern operas do where the composer is like “What? You wanted a ~melody~? What is this, musical theater??” Like obviously they’ve transcended the need for anything so plebeian as a tune I can fucking hum. It’s very Intellectual, very High Art. The plot is full of tortured genius manpain, naval gazing, and I can’t remember a single aria from it. ...Okay, that’s a bit harsh; in the final two scenes Faust gets some lovely melancholy solos that actually stuck out to me. But this is a three hour long opera. So. Maybe skip ahead.

Plot-wise, this is the most existential of the bunch. No Marguerite in this one, just a Duchess with no name. Faust still ruins his lover’s life but in his final act he rejects both God and the Devil and uses his Supreme Human Will to transfer his life-force into his dead child’s body, resurrecting him as a young man with a blossoming frond of some kind. (Symbolism!!!) 

--This marks the full 180 turnaround from “Faust is forcibly dragged to hell by Satan himself and his body explodes all over the stage” to “NOT ONLY IS FAUST REDEEMED OF HIS SINS BUT HE TRANSCENDS BOTH HEAVEN AND HELL WITH THE INDOMITABLE FORCE OF HIS HUMAN WILL, GOD IS DEAD, FAUST IS THE ÜBERMENSCH”, and to that I say *ptttttttbbbbbbbb*.   

Rating: 1/5 stars.  Plot is ponderously philosophical, overweighted with symbolism, and the music, while interesting, is largely forgettable with a few exceptions. Also it is Three Goddamn Hours Long. Points lost for nameless female character who fails the Lampshade Test. Loses further points for a dry and flavorless Mephisopheles, boooo.     

The Rake's Progress (1951, Stravinsky)

--1992 production with Jerry Hadley and OH LOOK WHO IT IS IT’S SAMUEL RAMEY AGAIN HUH WELL DON’T MIND IF I DO this production is really, really well acted and funny and the dance portions are especially cool. 

--Libretto in English and Italian

Another modern opera, this time by a composer I actually like! 

Now, this isn’t technically a Faust opera; its based on a series of delightfully comedic prints by William Hogarth, detailing the decline and fall of a young man who inherits a huge sum of money, spurns his true love, and wastes his inheritance on foolish ventures and hookers, eventually ending up insane in Bedlam (I’m not saying tertiary syphilis, but definitely tertiary syphilis-- Let us take a moment to appreciate both condoms and penicillin.) 

In the original paintings there is no deal-making devil, but but luckily he’s been added in by librettist W.H. Auden (who was intermittently friends and lovers with Christopher Isherwood!!!!-- I just wanted to add that because it makes my gay little heart very happy). The names are all vaudevillian puns, such as “Tom Rakewell”, “Anne Trulov”, and “Sellem, the Auctioneer”. Mephistopheles has been exchanged for the slick, modern Nick Shadow.

Highlights of this version: Baba the Turk, the bearded lady that Nick convinces Tom to marry as a demonstration of his free will (???). Listen: I know she’s meant to be comic relief and is an unflattering stereotype, but dang if she didn’t win my heart completely. I like that her marriage with Tom apparently falls apart, not necessarily because she’s a bearded lady, but because she’s just very chatty and overbearing and is much better traveled than Tom, and has had numerous wealthy and important suitors who she won’t shut up about. She’s knows her own worth and conducts herself accordingly, and is very vocal when she knows she’s being treated badly. She’s got Anne’s back when they meet at the auction of all Tom’s property (which she was included in as an object because she was under a spell of silence and immobility-- rude), telling her to watch out for Nick Shadow and generally being very forgiving and understanding about the whole affair; she was hurt that Tom lied about his affections, but she doesn’t blame Anne for it, which is wholesome. Then she announces that she’s going back to her career on the stage because she is BABA and she has had enough of these scrubs. Anyway. I love her. She’s described very beautifully if you happen to like beards, which I do (and so did the author).  

“No Word From Tom” reminds me why I love Stravinsky so much (and Dawn Upshaw sings it like a nightingale). “Lanterloo My Lady” is spritely and fun and texturally interesting; besides, “sweet dreams my master, dreams may lie, but dream-- for when you wake you die” is chill-inducing. “How Dark and Dreadful is This Place” plus the whole card game in the cemetery is sad and grim and comical all at the same time; Tom is such a pathetic and naive mess you can’t help but feel sorry for him, even while Nick’s smugness is delicious. Tom’s mad songs are all quite touching and beautiful. 

Rating: 4/5 stars. The libretto is really excellent, jazzy, full of great wordplay and aphorisms. Nick is a delightful Mephistopheles; thoroughly modern, witty, sly, arch, fourth-wall breaking. Faust is not dragged to hell, but he is condemned to insanity. Loses points for a female lead whose entire purpose in life is to babysit this asshole through his poor life decisions. Also, while certainly more memorable and melodic than Busoni’s Faust, it still has that sort of shouty modern opera sound that I find a little challenging to listen to; but that said, the music fits the plot, and the plot is fun and absorbing, so while there may be fewer individual arias I’m likely to put on my jogging playlist, it’s engaging to watch as a production from start to finish.  

--Okay! That’s it! I know, I know, this isn’t actually a review of every Faust opera to date, but I have to get back to my life, and you already know my feelings on modern and contemporary opera. Thank you for bearing with me for this entire novel-length post that literally no one asked for!! You’re a the real hero here! I love you almost as much as I love Samuel Ramey in tights.  *stage kiss*  Yours in Service Here but in Mine Below, ~Wesley 

[foxes-evermore]

Hey,,,, if you wanna you know,,,, whip me some of that angst you got,,,, that could,,,,,, that could work,,,,, that could be cool,,.

listen,, im in physical pain and also am not able to sleep at the moment so im sitting up in the kitchen getting ready to eat a whole cheesecake and preparing to cry,,,, the angst hour is upon us,,, lets do it

if this is about the thing i said yesterday, the specific angst i was talking about was a Kevaaron Song of Achilles AU, which, im not sure if that’s what you were hoping for, but im emotional,,,, just @ me again if you meant something different sjksldjlksdf

anyway here we go its long im so sorry alksjlskdfj

I’ve said this a lot before but like

Sporty-Boy-With-A-Destiny Kevin Day

Boy-Whom-Was-Treated-Like-Shit-By-The-Only-Parent-He-Knew-But-Succeeded-Out-Of-Spite-And-Became-A-Healer Aaron Minyard

t his writes itself

originally….. listen… originally i was like “of course Riko is Paris and Ichirou is H*ctor,,,, and Jean is Helen”

bUT then i got to thinking

and i’ll be damned if the mcfucking USC Trojans aren’t the for real trojans

and like this adds a whole knew level of angst because like

hear me out, i want Jeremy to be Paris just because of the Jerejean™,, but in reality,, the boy is H*ctor. Honorable and Loyal to a Fault, and best of the best right after Kevin.

which also means that Riko is actually Menelaus, and Ichirou is Agamemnon. and that makes a lot of sense because honestly the tension between them and Kevin with everyone going “no, IM the Most Important, fuck you” is 100% there.

Back to the boys though,,

like here’s Kayleigh Day, a simple sea nymph whose only desire is to protect her son and also make sure he is remembered and worshiped forever,,, and young Kevin is so on board,,,,

meanwhile

Aaron gets in some Trouble for killing a man who dared to lay a hand on his twin brother, and Tilda is overly happy about getting rid of him for the crime, so she sells him to a king who is known for adopting outcast orphan boys for his army. Aaron never hears from/sees his mother or brother again, but ,,, he meets the stupidest boy he has ever encountered in his LIFE. the kid is an absolute IDIOT, but he is half a god and destined for greatness and everyone dotes on him. 

Aaron doesnt care.

Kevin does.

Why is Aaron ignoring him?? Why doesn’t Aaron fawn over him like the other boys do? why won’t Aaron pay attention? it’s frustrating but intriguing.

The second time Aaron gets in trouble with royalty, the king wants to know why Aaron isn’t training and sparring with the other boys. He doesnt care about anything anymore, that’s why.

But he still knows pain and fear, so he does the only thing he knows how to do when a superior is angry: he finds a small/dark place and he hides.

Of Course someone finds him, and OF COURSE it’s that talented brat.

Kevin drags him to the king because its the right thing to do, but instead of leaving him for the wolves, Kev is like “I choose him. as my brother-in-arms. i want him by my side at all times” and obviously the king is like “why” because look at this fucking tiny pale stick-boy,,, he’s not even 5 feet tall yet,,, will he ever even get over 5 feet?? (spoiler, the answer is no)

and Aaron is also like “????” and Kevin just smiles for the king and then gives Aaron this look that says “try to ignore me now, you piece of shit” :))

So these 2 spend some quality time together and for a long time it’s basically just like that one part in SoA where Achilles is training and Pat goes I stepped forward. ‘’fight me.’’

There’s so much bickering and whatnot and, just like in SoA, they don’t even truly realize they’re falling for each other until the Big Bad Ocean Mom comes and tells Aaron to fuck off and then sends Kevin away to train with the horse dad, Wymack, to keep him safe.

Aaron follows him and Kevin is like “I knew you would come :)” and Aaron is like “shut the hell your mouth” and they finish their journey together.

and they fall in L

they fall in Love on that mountain.

just two bois dicking around and experiencing foolishly strong emotions where no one can stop them.

But Then Aaron’s past that he conveniently forgot to mention catches up with him when men come to tell them that it is time to die to fight Troy. Kevin is an amazing warrior and it’s expected that he go to fight in the war, but Aaron can hear his own blood pounding, because he Remembers something that he hopes everyone else might’ve forgotten.

He’d made a promise to Jean of Sparta. not a promise. A blood oath, to go to war for the most beautiful boy in the world if something like this ever happened. and now it was happening.

Kayleigh warns him that if Kevin goes to fight the trojans, he’ll die, but she cant elaborate anymore, aside from telling them that Jeremy will die first.

Who can kill Jeremy, though? N o   o n e. Kevin is the only swordsman good enough to best him, and why would he kill the devout trojan prince? he’s an honorable man. an admirable man,,, in fact, Kevin has heard so much about him, and he adores the prince,,

and What has Jeremy ever done to him?

Kayleigh tries one more time to save her son, spirits him away to an island at night,, weds him to a beautiful princess named Thea, they promise her a child and in return she disguises him as one of her lady dancers whom she calls her “ravens”

Aaron finds him though, recognizes him, because he would know those green eyes a n y w h e r e.

Thea invites Aaron to stay, too, says that the three of them could work something out. The two agree cautiously and they start to get comfortable, incorporating Thea into this thing that used to be just them 

But eventually men come and find them,,, find Aaron,, and they’re dragged off to Troy to fight with Riko and Ichirou,, one man determined to bring back his caged lover and one determined to seize the city.

It’s exciting at first, in that “we could die any second” sort of way. everything happening all at once, arrows and spears flying, swords clanging, and fire on the beach.

but Aaron watches from day one as Kevin loses himself. the way comes back to camp the very first day of battle covered in blood and sweat and grinning like he just won the world.

Something about it twists Aaron’s stomach, but he pushes it down because there’s only room right now to be glad that his love is alive and that they’ve successfully arrived and that maybe there is hope and the war will end with both of them on the other side of it, going home.

The night after that first battle, Aaron sees a trojan girl being handed off as a spoil of war, probably to Ichirou or Riko, and demands that Kevin take her as his prize. Kevin is high off the fighting still and doesn’t really question this.

The girl’s name is Katelyn and she’s eternally grateful to Aaron, but even warier than he is of Kevin’s lust for battle and glory.

Anyway.

time passes. years. Aaron and Katelyn save as many of the captured girls as they can, and they make a family and they get close, and one day Katelyn admits that she loves Aaron.

he’s shook.

But he’s not as shook over her feelings for him as he is over her justifications for why they should be together and forget Kevin.

“He’s a monster,” she tells him. “He’s not a person anymore. He doesn’t love you, he can’t, because he doesn’t know how to love.”

and that can’t be true, but it is, isn’t it?

he only knows how to fight and kill. he only feels the need for glory, and nothing else, doesn’t he?

When did it become like this? When did Aaron lose Kevin? a few months back? years? the day they arrived at Troy? earlier?

had he ever even really had Kevin? he’d never had him to himself, at least, had he? It was always Aaron and Glory. Kevin was born to be remembered, and they both knew it. and Kevin wanted it more than anything, didn’t he?

did he want glory more than he wanted Aaron?

but it’s like Kevin is reading his mind,, every time Aaron has these thoughts, Kevin is there, on top of him, kissing him, holding him, touching him with these burning hands that leave Aaron wanting more, more, more.

he’s driving Aaron crazy and Aaron is fine with it because they have each other and they’ll be back home together one day and that’s all that matters.

and then Riko pisses Kevin off,

and the gods see this story and how it ends, and some laugh at the tragedy of it, and some hurt for the poor souls involved.

Kevin won’t let his men fight anymore, and the Trojans are taking ground back and hope is lost, but Riko and Ichirou won’t swallow their pride, and neither will Kevin.

Aaron begs. “These are our friends,” he says, “if the trojans just see you, they’ll retreat”

“You’re letting them die,” he tells Kevin from down on his knees, “you could save them. please.”

his lover’s tears are enough to snap Kevin out of his rage, but not enough to make him fight. 

“You dont have to,” Aaron bargains, “let me ride out in your armor.”

[richincolor]

Need Some Romance?

One of the ARC’s I received at the LA Times Book Festival was Sarah Dessen’s new book. My friend is a big fan of her books, but I had never read anything by her so I decided to give the book a try. I found the book to be kinda bland and the romance was predictable, however I know that teenage me would have loved it. When I was a teenager I loved reading all sorts of romance novels rooting for the couple to beat whatever obstacles they were up against. I got lost in the fantasy of falling in love with your soulmate and riding off into the proverbial sunset. When I was a teen, however, there was not much diversity in YA contemporary romance, so I definitely missed seeing myself as the heroine/love interest. Times have changed, but not by much. While there are more YA romances with characters of color, the number of novels actually published is still very dismal compared to the number of romances featuring white couples. And, as a proponent of Black Love, I could barely think of any romances that focused on Black love or even Latinx love. I found that most titles were interracial couples (not that there is anything wrong with that), but that is an examination for another time. What I want to do is highlight some YA romance that I’ve read and loved, and that you should read too. Also, if there is a title that you’d like to share, please do so in the comments below.

*PS I would have included "When Dimple Met Rishi" but since we just discussed it just last week, read our discussion to learn what we all thought of the book.

PPS A few months ago I did a post about adaptations of Romeo & Juliet. Check out that list for more romance titles. Romeo & Juliet 2,0: Reflecting Our World.

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

High-school junior Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is something of a relief. Her Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual. Struggling to sort out her growing feelings and Saskia's confusing signals, Leila confides in her old friend, Lisa, and grows closer to her fellow drama tech-crew members, especially Tomas, whose comments about his own sexuality are frank, funny, wise, and sometimes painful. Gradually, Leila begins to see that almost all her classmates are more complicated than they first appear to be, and many are keeping fascinating secrets of their own.

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han (Really the entire series)

Lara Jean’s love life gets complicated in this New York Times bestselling “lovely, lighthearted romance” from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series.

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once?

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Maria McLemore

For twenty years, the Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows—the Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find.

Lace Paloma may be new to her family’s show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she's been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small town where both families are performing, it’s a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace’s life. And his touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees.

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brackenburgh

Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now... Henry and Flora.

For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.

Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?

Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.

The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.

Achingly romantic and brilliantly imagined, The Game of Love and Death is a love story you will never forget.

The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

[littlesparklight]

Last soulmate ficlet.

--- Menelaos is born with an upside-down torch in the small of his back.

It almost gets him killed, though his father is looking for reasons before he even finds the mark. He survives, despite the seemingly ill-omened pattern. What sort of tie is that, anyway? It doesn't seem to matter much, and when he marries Helen, who has no such mark on her, Menelaos has already, almost, forgotten about it. Thinks about it briefly when he's caught by eyes the colour of a shallow sea, promising him with breathless earnestness that he'll help him find the tombs Menelaos needs to sacrifice at. He cannot bring himself to ask, can barely hold himself from kissing Alexander of Troy, but he can't stop himself from inviting - demanding - he comes to Sparta.

They are tumbling into bed after Alexander has indeed come to Sparta when Menelaos finds the matching mark to his, right above his heart.

Of course those blue-green eyes, the far too soft, sweet-voiced young man those eyes belong to, is who would be carrying the threatening imagine of the upside-down torch. On such a small figure, too. What has either of them done for that?

What's more surprising is he wakes up in the middle of the night with Alexander's hand at the small of his back, tracing out the torch, his cheeks wet. Menelaos nearly flinches as one tear, hot in a way that is entirely imagined, but it still feels like it scalds the skin where it lands on one of the cheeks of his behind. He turns around, takes the hand that had been caught about the pattern of the flame in the small of his back. Alexander smiles, says it's nothing, I just didn't expect---

Well, he didn't expect either.

Didn't expect to find a goddess informing him his wife and Alexander has left for Troy. Didn't expect the hollow swell taking the place of his heart - perhaps he had expected to be counted as first by the one who carried the matching mark, for isn't that how it's supposed to be, even if he's not sure he can say the same, when he's married to Helen? And if he can't say the same, if he can't live up to what Alexander deserved - would have deserved, if he hadn't run off with his wife - then what can he even expect from Alexander, beautiful enough to be a match to Helen, unlike he?

Standing in Troy's megaron once again, Alexander's impassioned voice telling of three goddesses visiting him on Mount Ida, of the apple he was given, blue-green eyes the colour of glass, of turquoise, flat and empty and open, so very, very open, Menelaos has to look away.

The upside-down torch is just a pattern, an image, yet the small of his back burns. What is its match against the gods?

He should, needs, wants, doesn't want, to kill Alexander. No one brings up the potential of a duel, not until they've almost suffered for a whole ten years already, because no one wants to settle. Menelaos just doesn't want to have kill those wide, desperate eyes with his own hands.

He doesn't have to, yet the reason he tears along the empty spot between the armies for his disappeared opponent isn't rage at his stolen opportunity, it's an attempt at soothing the burn in his lower back, the throbbing of his heart. Alexander always disappears before he can truly touch. That goes for his death, too, Menelaos standing many spear-lengths away, yet he can feel it when Alexander's eyes, brief and burning, meet his. He doesn't look away, this time.

It's the least he can do, for both of them, even if the petty thing would be to look away again, like Alexander has kept disappearing even when he keeps attempting to look at Menelaos, as if that would make up for anything. But it's all they're given, isn't it?

An Underworld torch to set fire to sacred Ilium, burning many along the way.

(Menelaos would never have said anything, but Proteus' prophecy is a relief, in a way. Helen says nothing either, always rests her hand higher up on his waist, leaving that one spot on his back alone. When he, heart still beating, is led into Elysium and is faced not with the begging-wide, sea-colour eyes of Alexander but rather his older brother, Menelaos wonders if he will still have to fight, just to get what should already had been gained.

He doesn't.

Even if Hektor looks as if he might, maybe, want to fight, he also mostly looks tired as he points him in the right direction.

He and Alexander end like they started, from when they'd found their matching marks. Alexander crying into his chest, but at least the smile is real, this time.)

[olympivnshq]

congratulations tessa! we truly adored your rendition of HELEN OF TROY. the trojan princess and spartan queen is difficult to portray given how many contradictory traits she possesses, but you tied them together in a beautiful depiction of a woman yearning for something more than what she was given. we’re so excited to see this version of helen with her unique mortal memories on the dash (especially with clytemnestra, omg). please join us with your third faceclaim choice: ELIZABETH LAIL.

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  OOC INFO.

hi! i am tessa. i am 25, my pronouns are she/her, and my timezone is CST. i work at a restaurant five nights a week, and i am also a master level student for psychology/counselling.

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  DEITY —  GENDER. AGE RANGE.

HELEN OF TROY - FEMALE.  24-30

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ MORTAL NAME. JOB/OCCUPATION. BOROUGH/NEIGHBORHOOD.

Serena Scott. Counselor at Manhattan’s Women’s Medical. Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

☆ﾟ*・ HOW WOULD YOU PLAY THEM?

She never asked to be beautiful, much less hold the highest honor in that court, and if Helen had been given the option to choose to keep or leave her beauty in the shell she hatched from, there would be no hesitation in her decision to cast it aside. Of course, that wasn’t always the case. A young girl being courted by men from all over the world was a dream come true, like standing atop a mountain of clouds, offering smiles to the promises of riches and gold and happiness, Helen had no issue with the grandeur of her face. Lucky was she, fortunate enough to pick her own fate while other women were subject to the whims of men, and when she chose Menalaus, Helen foolishly believed she was choosing wisely, for when she looked at him, she saw a golden future, one that filled her completely, but that was her naivety rearing it’s ignorant head, for though she tried to be happy in the stagnant position of wife, she quickly found that her beauty was all she was wanted for. Had anyone even thought of her mind? Words? No, she was as useful as the tapestries on the walls, golden busts in the likenesses of gods, jewelry that adorned the necks of royalty. Helen was a bauble, a token to be appreciated, not even a pawn in the game. She was a pretty trinket waved around to impress.

It was not naivety that held her complacent with Paris and his proposal, nor was it overwhelming lust like so many of the stories state. Her decision was a calculated move to be more than she was, more than the choice she made from the high horse she sat on, but the artless plan did not account for the possessiveness of Menelaus. How was she to know he would throw himself into a war to get his prize back? How was she to know her beauty came with such a cost? The happiness she found on the shores of Troy quickly evaporated into the air like smoke with the sounds of approaching war, and when it was over, when her treachery brought Troy to its knees, she sailed home with Menalaus, knowing she would never be so foolish again to believe she could reach beyond the parameters given to her. That promise, of course, was forgotten with her mortal renewal.

Serena Scott was graced with the same beauty, and unfortunately, the burden that went along with it. Her parents are of the elite, her father an investment banker, her mother a transplanted southern socialite. Another bauble in a different time, but Serena was not born to please the world in this life. She wasn’t born to please anyone but herself, so it seemed, much to the dismay of her mother (who often reminded her inner beauty was a mythical legend) and her father (who wanted nothing more than to ignore the chaos his daughter reigned). By sixteen she had the party life and drug tolerance of a college student, but that all came to a screeching halt on a night she was forced not to remember. Fluorescent lighting coaxed groggy eyelids open while her parents stood bedside, and a nurse all but force fed her pills from paper cups while speaking of unwanted pregnancies and the risk of diseases. A man had taken it upon himself to use her beauty in the way he saw fit, and the idea weighed heavy on the teen’s mind for years, rolling around and tainting the once wild child’s view of the world she once thought was her oyster. Eventually the trauma filled knowledge pushed her towards a career that was not even a fraction of the lucrative (and bored) existence her parents’ planned for their only daughter. Despite their refusal to pay for college and threats to cut her off, she went to NYU, received a degree in psychology, and after completing her masters (all on student loan debt thanks to no funding from home), Serena began counseling women on how to be the masters of their own destinies, on how to protect themselves from the patriarchal society they all fell victim to. There was an intrinsic need to make sure she empowered as many women as possible, and when Helen’s memories came flooding back into her conscious, she knew it was not some singular event that held her enraged at the idea of a woman’s choice being made for her but a whole lifetime of events that put a stain on her soul.

answer these questions:

1. are they more likely to stand with the pantheon or against it?

Serena  will undoubtedly stand against pantheon, for with her memories of the past, she knows that gods meddling in the lives of mortals, of the lives of anyone but themselves, is a fate worse than death. She feels as if this time around, she’s been given a second chance, and she isn’t keen on any petty gods ruining that for her.

2. what is their stand on mortals?

To be honest? She likes mortals a heaping amount more than she likes gods, and she isn’t really afraid to give that opinion.

☆ﾟ*・ GIVE US A SAMPLE OF YOUR WRITING!

Helen stood on the balcony, eyes on the sea, on the pillows of white that stretched as far out as she could gander, wind whipping her hair and dress about her violently as a fear gripped her so tightly that her knuckles turned more pale than the stone barrier her hands clutched. The repercussions were on her now, sailing towards her with a vengeance she wasn’t sure she had the power to dismantle, nor did she have much faith in the walls of Troy to stand long enough for Menalaus’ rage to temper. Oh, how foolish was she? To think she could outrun the decision she’d made simply because it wasn’t all she dreamed? How could she, a woman, expect to be the master of her own fate? When Paris had offered her the escape, she hadn’t thought twice before her hand was in his, and now she’d dragged a whole city down with her impulsivity.

She saw the way the people looked at her, the woman who wanted more than she was dealt. Some offered her pity in their eyes, others only held daggers. Helen was used to neither, only the admiration of people who wanted to gaze upon her beauty, and so at first she was held meek, shying away from the whispers and taunts, but it was hard to remain fearful when she was given a voice in Troy, a life, a chance to be something more than a bauble on display. Slowly, she began interacting with the commoners, and she found it easy to immerse in this life, a princess of Troy, not a trophy for Sparta. Day in and day out she grew more comfortable inside the high walls that kept her safe, until the gongs of war sounded and popped her pretty little illusion to pieces at her feet.

Hard eyes watched the water, tears pricking her eyes as the apprehension of what was to come shrouded over her shoulders. Helen knew she may be able to end it all should she be brave enough to hand herself over when the boats found land, but as she stared out at the sea, watching the ships inch closer to shore, she realized she would rather die than give up so easily. “I want to live,” she heard herself say, and the sound was stronger than she felt. “I deserve to do it how I please.”

No one was there to hear her words, but it mattered not. Helen of Troy was choosing herself, no matter what the men or gods or kings wanted, no matter what wagging tongues would say to spite her, and even if she regretted it for as long as she lived, at least she had one sure moment, which was more than she’d ever had before.

☆ﾟ*・ ANYTHING ELSE?

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