#Weak Prometheus

[arnadelus]

Walter doesn’t want to destroy humans, so David resorts to (micro) violence

[sprucestairs]

hhhhhh I need to properly reread Percy jackson again. This post brought to you by the fact I was about to make a post about a scene I very vividly remember of Will Solace trying to convince Pollux not to keep fighting with his good arm broken before Percy manages to convince him not to bc he promised Dionysus, then thought to myself "huh maybe I should fact check that- I mean I did also convince myself that Travis stoll died in this battle when he actually just went to college." And guess what? That scene ✨️didn't happen.✨️ Pollux was trying to convince Percy to let him rejoin the fight very half heartedly, while propped against a tree, and Percy was just like "hmmmm... no"

[slow-clap-processors]

Artemis

Chell said nothing.

And that was her choice.

But if she had the last word, she’d say:

“Yes.”

“You didn’t ask,

If I wanted to go;

Not that I’m going to correct you.

Because if I had a voice it would be screaming,

I deserve better.

"It’s no wonder the portals are orange and blue,

One behind my eyes and one inside you;

Gateways leading to different parts of the same room

We both know how this puzzle is solved;

Just look away,

A click of the gun and it’s finished.

The sound of the radio echoing after my footsteps.

"I am a predator and these tests are my prey-

That’s what you said. I don’t know what to say.

A huntress? oh please,

You make me sputter in outrage and weak in the knees-

I always knew the cake was a lie.

Don’t worry.

No one was fooled by my act either.

"I am the moon, and I am not.

They banished me there and I have turned it against them.

I love it like a crow loves it’s nest,

High in a maple tree,

Fabricated from plastics and pure poison.

What I mean is, I’m used to bad dreams,

Limited breath, and things which are not as they seem.

"I don't sleep, which is fine

I don't prefer my nights to be restful;

Maybe I should.

But maybe instead,

You could turn off the emancipation grill,

And we could grow seedlings in the companion cubes

So they'll always have someone to sing to them.

"Don’t scrape the floors

Of the vines and trees,

Don’t wash away your scars for me.

I will banish the crows, but don’t ask me

To sing for you.

Don’t look at me like they do,

Like i’m some slice of delicious

Vanilla,

Crazy,

Cake-

I promise, I don’t taste nice.

"Notice how you never use my name?

Look me in the eyes,

Coward, Titan, I know

Your cameras will never let you forget.

A girl could never dream of a prettier headstone."

GLaDOS’s sister poem: Prometheus

[hauntingblue]

NAMI NEEDS TO GO UP THERE AND FIGHT BIG MOM I AM SO SERIOUS!!! THIS IS A BATTLE FOR THE ROMANCE DOWN TRIO!! SANJI DO NOT DARE TAKE HER SPOT!!!

[the-irreverend]

I absolutely love the direction they decided to go with the black goo from Prometheus and how it ties into the themes of the film and the franchise.

Rook and Weyland wanted to use the black goo to make humanity better at colonization by ridding humanity of its weaknesses and limitations. But as a result, it creates a human without any humanity.

You even see that same theme in the chip that Andy used to "upgrade" himself with. He wanted to use it to better help the people he cared about, and yet in doing so he lost the care he had for them and tragically ended up becoming more like the cold machine that Weyland-Yutani wanted him to be.

Both the chip and the black goo are perfect metaphors for how people try to obtain, use, or embrace certain things to make themselves "more perfect" or gain more status and power in the system or society they're a part of. And yet by doing so, they lose the things that make us human and become more like mindless machines that think of nothing but serving a system that doesn't care about anything or anyone except those who benefit from it the most.

[blood-starved-beast]

I've read this line before actually getting it in my game but it's still so insane to hear/see for oneself like. Just how little Melinoe cares for them I mean. It's straight up bigotry, and frankly I'm not surprised at all that Melinoe thinks this of them.

Think about it. Melinoe is a child soldier raised to kill Chronos. Failure is not an option, the titan has to die, or otherwise what purpose does she have? We see how intertwine this view of herself is with her purpose in her Book of Shadows entry - she blames herself for the fall of the House

In her Mind, Melinoe has to "redeem" herself, prove her worth to exist. So she cannot fail. And most importantly, she cannot be weak.

To a god, mortals are insignificant. They live short lives full of survival. They fear death and what comes after, so they cannot live to fulfill a purpose or cause as it could mean their death. So they avoid that. To Melinoe who whole life for a purpose, that is weak of character, and also lacking sense. And any that do have influence, it is short lived, and usually forgotten, their influence ends there. What is life, if not to live for a cause of sorts? For a singular purpose? That is alien to Melinoe, whose whole life she has lived in the company of gods and shades during a war whose stakes go as high as to threaten the very nature of godhood itself.

So when she sees someone who sides with Chronos, Chronos who represents the "Golden Age" for mortals, she sees a traitor. This is antithetical to her purpose, her existence. Melinoe groups people into two kinds: those who fight for Chronos's demise, and those who wish to help him succeed. She cannot entertain the nuance of the side that wishes to see him succeed - cause that means her purpose - to right the wrong to her family and the error of her existence - will be for nothing. They are wrong, the mortals who support him are wrong. And they are weak. For supporting survival over the Cause of defeating Chronos. Why do they fear death? When being a shade means no longer worrying for death and can thus work to defeat Chronos cause the lack of fear for it? Hearing Nemesis or Prometheus out - that would mean that what she's been raised for her whole life: that is wrong. And if that is wrong, that defeating Chronos is wrong, then what is she good for?

[bellfilmz]

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐧

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: rafe x Female reader

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: After surviving a plane crash with a mysterious stranger she met mid-flight, she now has to find a way to survive, completely unaware she’s stuck with Rafe Cameron.

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

⸻

Day 2.

The island was too quiet in the morning.

You woke up to the sound of birds and waves crashing softly in the distance. The fire had burned low in the night, just faint embers now.

Rafe wasn’t beside you.

Panic set in instantly.

You shot upright, scanning the trees. “Rafe?”

No answer.

Your heart picked up, but just before you could spiral, a voice called out from the woods.

“Chill—I’m here.”

Rafe stepped out from the trees shirtless, damp from what you assumed was a swim, holding two coconuts and what looked like a half-smashed protein bar from a suitcase stash.

“I thought you disappeared,” you said, trying to slow your breathing.

He raised an eyebrow. “Kinda hard to ghost someone when we’re literally stuck on a rock.”

You gave a weak laugh.

He tossed you the protein bar and knelt by the embers, poking them to life. You watched the way his shoulders moved, the muscle under sun-kissed skin. He’d tied his hair back with a string he probably ripped off a bag. There were tiny cuts along his ribs from wreckage. He didn’t seem to care.

“Figured we’d need food,” he said.

You stared at the coconut. “What, no island espresso?”

He grinned. “Nah, but I’ll get to that after I invent fire.”

“You already did invent fire.”

“I stole fire. From the gods,” he deadpanned.

You cracked a smile. “Okay, Prometheus.”

⸻

Later.

You walked inland together to look for more wreckage. There were scraps of metal, broken cases, and clothes stuck in trees like twisted decorations.

“Still no other survivors?” you asked.

Rafe shook his head. “Just luggage.”

You stopped to breathe. “I keep thinking someone’s gonna find us any second.”

“Me too,” he admitted. “But the plane veered way off-course. Could be days. Weeks.”

The thought made your stomach twist.

“We won’t die out here,” he added firmly. “I won’t let that happen.”

You looked at him, surprised by the sudden heat in his voice.

“Why do you care so much?” you asked quietly.

He hesitated. “Because I don’t want to be alone out here.”

Something about the way he said it sounded more personal than situational.

⸻

The heat was brutal. You both sat waist-deep in the lagoon, letting the cool water take some of the sting off.

“Wanna play twenty questions?” you asked suddenly, trying to distract yourself.

He raised a brow. “That’s a little middle school, no?”

You shrugged. “You got anything better to do?”

He smirked. “Fair. You start.”

“Alright. What’s your full name?”

He looked at you warily. “That’s question one?”

“Yup.”

He sighed. “Rafe Cameron.”

You blinked. “Wait… Cameron?”

He paused. “Yeah. That mean something to you?”

You frowned, trying to place it. The name did sound familiar.

“I feel like I’ve heard that before,” you said. “Weird.”

He just shrugged. “Probably nothing.”

He didn’t elaborate.

⸻

The second night felt colder somehow. Maybe it was the creeping reality of it all setting in.

You sat by the fire again, this time wrapped in a hoodie you’d salvaged from a suitcase. Rafe was lying back in the sand, arms behind his head, staring up at the stars.

You glanced at him. “You really think no one else made it?”

He was quiet for a moment. Then: “I think if they did, they’d be here by now.”

You nodded slowly. “I just… can’t stop wondering if anyone’s looking.”

“They are,” he said with more certainty than he probably had. “Someone always is.”

You looked at the side of his face. “You’ve been through something like this before?”

“No,” he muttered. “But I’ve felt alone before. Doesn’t always take a crash.”

The weight in his voice startled you. Rafe Cameron, this cocky stranger with a sarcastic streak, was more cracked than he let on.

You scooted a little closer. Just enough that your knees brushed.

“Hey,” you said softly. “You’re not alone now.”

He looked at you then—really looked at you. And for a second, his expression softened.

“I know.”

⸻

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

Tags: @persiar9 @namelesslosers @sublimepenguinpeach-blog

[11queensupreme11]

I need to know how people are gonna react to finding out about Percy’s mortal spot 🫠

im ngl, i genuinely believed putting the mortal spot on THE BACK is probably THEEEEE DUMBEST fucking thing ever 😭 ur back is literally your most vulnerable spot and now she just made it 100000x more vulnerable 😭 i'm almost certain rick wrote it that way for poetic reasons cuz percy's fatal flaw is loyalty, mortal spot on the back, hence "the only way you can kill percy jackson is to stab her in the back" 💀 yes yes, very poetic, but i don't think the ror characters will appreciate it 😭

(gonna try and fit as many reactions here as i can, excluding beel and loki since they already know)

cú chulainn: this dude is a trained warrior. he knows everything about weaknesses and blindspots. and the back????? IS PROBABLY THE BIGGEST BLIND SPOT THERE IS. he'll be screaming and ripping out his own hair in pure horror and disbelief when he finds out his dumbass lover put HER ONE MORTAL SPOT on her fucking BACK of all the goddamn places 😭

apollo: he's gonna throw up when he finds out and then he's gonna throw up even more when he learns that the LAST PERSON to have the curse of achilles was killed by HIS COUNTERPART. he prays to every deity and the fates that they won't be cruel enough to repeat that with them because he CANNOT lose percy 😭😭😭😭

poseidon: his jaw drops. he looks like a complete idiot all gobsmacked like this, but nobody even blames him because they're also just as shocked. he has half a mind to spank his daughter for her terrible idea, not just for the placement of the mortal spot, but for getting that damn curse in the first place. at first, he liked it because it made her 99.99% invulnerable but that fucking mortal spot just ruined it 💀💀💀

hades: buries his face in his hands and lets out the heaviest sigh ever. he loves his niece, he really does, but he has to admit... she's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. he loves her so much though so he won't be TOO disappointed 💖

anubis: "BABY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" he's screeching in horror when he witnesses the scene. welp, now he knows how she got the curse, but holy SHIT this is probably the worst curse ever (it's really not). he's literally gonna be begging her to stop when it comes up on the screen, but it's already too late

ra: USUALLY he would be busy restraining anubis from doing something stupid, but he's too busy gawking. percy was literally told that her fatal flaw was LOYALTY.... and then she goes and picks HER BACK as her one mortal spot???? "omfg the poseidon in that universe taught that child NOTHING"

rhea: "WE 👹 MUST 👹 GET 👹 HER 👹 OUT 👹 OF 👹 THAT 👹 UNIVERSE 👹 BEFORE SHE GETS HERSELF KILLED" no seriously, grandma rhea is WORRIED. if she were a human, she'd have 1000 heart attacks and her hair would've turned grey already. this baby is stressing her the FUCK out 😭

prometheus: would literally cry 😭😭😭 like "percy... my dear baby cousin, your back??????? WHY?????" 😭😭😭😭 he's usually very supportive of her ideas, even the most craziest ones, but..... the back???????????

izanagi: "oh bless her heart, she's trying her best 🥺💔"

sun wukong: does a very slow facepalm as he sinks into his throne because oh my gods this girl is FUCKED. he has never seen a more doomed person before in all his years of living 😭

aphrodite: "wait does this make sex harder??? should i have her try other positions instead? 🤔" (she's asking the real questions here)

lugh: gently grasps cú chulainn's shoulders and say solemnly, "son, i think the universe really hates you 😔💔" because this is the SECOND PERSON that cú chulainn cares about to have some sort of near-invulnerability. the first died thx to him, and now percy might follow 😭

odin: a little concerned at how similar she is to his baldur. pure-hearted and kind, a genuinely good person, with a near invulnerability. he hopes, for loki's sanity, that percy doesn't die too because the crashout would be catastrophic fr 💀

adam: absolutely HORRIFIED because she picked literally the worst spot on her body to be her mortal spot 😭

leonidas: "how tf is this kid alive right now 💀"

tesla: so it turns out it's not just math and science that he needs to teach her, but basic self-preservation as well! alrighty then, he's already getting the lesson plans ready as well as a VERY long lecture about poor decision-making skills 😭

basically, every ror character's reaction to percy getting the curse of achilles and choosing her back as her one mortal spot:

EVERYONE is horrified 💀

percy literally has so much stacked against her. everyone and everything in that universe is out to get her. she's the product of a broken vow. she's a demigod, so naturally monsters hunt her down on the daily. she has a cursed fucking sword that's cursed to fail her when she needs it most. her fatal flaw is loyalty. and then she goes and puts her mortal spot on her BACK 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 not only that, but the fates of that universe love love LOVE greek tragedy and percy is a walking greek tragedy waiting to for the curtain call 😭

[mercurial-madhouse]

REUPLOADED (It's back!)

Dedicated to everyone who reached out to me wishing to have it back. You're all such precious gems. Thank you!

LOVE AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD

| 150K+ | E |

A POST-APOCALYPTIC LARRY/ZIAM SOULMATES AU by @mercurial-madhouse / writing_practice originally written for @onedirectionbigbang Fest Round Four.

“Wait. Just so I’m clear in me fucking noggin,” Niall says. “An international worldwide takeover is well under way and the only thing standing between having hot showers and a second end of the world is us five fuckers?”

**

Society shattered when all electricity suddenly cut off across the globe, plunging the world into darkness. Now, Prometheus Industries is the sole remaining supply of power, a saving grace to those who survived Lights Out. As fugitives in no-man’s land struggling to break into Prometheus HQ, death lurks around every corner for Louis and Zayn. Things get complicated when a routine recon falls apart and Louis collides with Harry and his mates Niall and Liam, survivors with their own agenda.

When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.

********

@hiccoops gifted this fic with the most extraordinary piece of art and you'll find the rest of her artwork here.

THE TRAILER

Trailer a gift from the incredibly amazing @1dfanfictionbookcovers !!! Thank you so much, my love! I’m still in awe!

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[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[pynkhues]

I would LOVE to read your analysis of louis as byronic hero as apposed to his reading as gothic heroine. lots of the latter and zero of the former in the fandom.

Sure! Mmm, okay, so –

What are we talking about when we talk about Gothic Heroes?  

When we talk about gothic heroes, we’re really talking about three pretty different character archetypes. All three are vital to the genre, but some are more popular in certain subgenres i.e. your Prometheus Hero may be more common in gothic horror, whereas your Byronic Hero might be more likely to be found in gothic romance. That’s not to say they’re exclusive to those subgenres at all, and there is an argument that these archetypes themselves are gendered (in many ways, I think people confuse Anne being an author of the female gothic with Louis being a gothic heroine, but I’ll get into that later), but this is also not necessarily something that’s exclusive.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, haha, so the three gothic hero archetypes are:

Milton’s Satan who is the classic gothic hero-villain. You can probably guess from the name, but he was originated in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. He is God’s favourite angel, but God is forced to cast him out of heaven when he rebels against him. As an archetype, he’s a man pretty much defined by his pride, vanity and self-love, usually fucks his way through whatever book or poem he’s in, has a perverted, incestuous family, and a desire to corrupt other people. He’s also defined as being “too weak to choose what is moral and right, and instead chooses what is pleasurable only to him” and his greatest character flaw, in spite of all The Horrors, is that he’s usually easily misguided or led astray. (I would argue that Lestat fits into this archetype pretty neatly, but that’s a whole other post.)

Prometheus who was established as a gothic archetype by Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in 1818. Your Prometheus Hero is basically represented by the quest for knowledge and the overreach of that quest to bring on unintended consequences. He’s tied, of course, to the Prometheus of Greek myth, so you can get elements of that in this character design too in that he can be devious or a trickster, but the most important part of him is that he is split between his extreme intelligence and his sense of rebellion, and that his sense of rebellion and boundary pushing overtakes his intelligence and basically leads to All The Gothic Horrors.

And the Byronic Hero, who as the name implies, was both created by and inspired by the romantic poet, Lord Byron in his semi-autobiographical poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was published between 1812-1818. The archetype is kind of an idealized version of himself, and as historian and critic Lord Macaulay wrote, the character is “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.” Adding to that, he’s often called ‘the gloomy egoist’ as a protagonist type, hates society, is often self-destructive and lives either exiled or in a self-exile, and is a stalwart of gothic literature, but especially gothic romance. Interestingly too, in his most iconic depictions he’s often a) darkly featured and/or not white (Heathcliff being the most obvious example of this given Emily Bronte clearly writes him as either Black or South Asian), and b) is often used to explore queer identity, with Byron himself having been bisexual.

Okay, but what about the Gothic Heroine?

Gothic heroines are less delineated and have had more of an evolution over time, which makes sense, given women have consistently been the main audience of gothic literature and have frequently been the most influential writers of the genre too. The gothic genre sort of ‘officially’ started with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto and Isabella is largely regarded as the first gothic heroine and the foundation of the archetype, and the book opens even with one of the key defining traits – an innocent, chaste woman without the protection of a family being pursued and persecuted by a man on the rampage.

The gothic heroine was, for years, defined by her lack of agency. She was innocent, chaste, beautiful, curious, plagued by tragedy and often, ultimately, tragic. Isabella survives in The Castle of Otranto, but she’s one of the lucky ones – Cathy dies in Wuthering Heights, Sybil dies in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Justine and Elizabeth both die in Frankenstein, Mina survives in Dracula, but Lucy doesn’t. There’s an argument frequently posited that the gothic genre was, and is, about dead women and the men who mourn them, and Interview with the Vampire certainly lends itself to that pretty neatly.

Of course, the genre has evolved, and in particular by the late 1800s, there was a notable shift in how the Gothic Heroine was depicted. The house became a place of imprisonment where they were further constrained and disempowered, she was infantilized and pathologized and diagnosed as hysterical, and as Avril Horner puts it in her excellent paper, Women, Power and Conflict: the Gothic heroine and ‘Chocolate-box Gothic’, gothic literature of this era “explores “the constraints enforced [by] a patriarchal society that is becoming increasingly nervous about the demands of the ‘New Woman’.”

This was an era where marriage was increasingly understood in feminist circles to be a civil death where women were further subjugated and became the property of their husbands. This was explored through gothic literature as the domestic space evolved into a symbol of patriarchal control in the Female Gothic.

Female Gothic vs Male Gothic

Because here’s the thing – the female gothic and the male gothic are generally understood to be two different subgenres of gothic literature.

While there are plenty of arguments as to what this entails, the basics is that the male gothic is written by men, and usually features graphic horror, rape and the masculine domination of women and often utilises the invasion of women’s spaces as a symbol of further penetrating their bodies, while the female gothic is written by women, and usually features graphic terror, as opposed to horror, while delving more specifically into gender politics. More than that though, its heroines are usually victimized, virginial and powerless while being pursued by villainous men.

The Female Gothic as a genre is also specifically interested in the passage from girlhood to female maturity, and does view the house as a place of entrapment, but she is usually suddenly “threatened with imprisonment in a castle or a great house under the control of a powerful male figure who gave her no chance to escape.”

That’s not Louis’ arc, that’s Claudia’s arc twice over, first with the house at Rue Royale, then with the Paris Coven, and Lestat and Armand aren’t the only powerful male figures who imprison her.

Claudia as the Gothic Heroine

Claudia in many ways is the absolute embodiment of the classic gothic heroine. Even the moment of their meeting is a product of Louis’ Byronic heroism – his act of implacable revenge against the Alderman Fenwick which prompts the rioting that almost kills her. She’s a victim of Louis’ monstrousness before they’ve even met, and while he saves her, he arguably does something worse in trapping her in the house with both himself and Lestat, holding her in an ever-virginal, ever-chaste eternal girlhood, playing into Lestat’s Milton-Satan by enhancing the perversion of family and ultimately infantilizing her out of his own desire for familial closeness.

Claudia has no family protection before Louis and Lestat – a staple of the gothic heroine – she is completely dependent on them in her actual girlhood, and again in adulthood, never developing the strength to be able to turn a companion, to say nothing about the sly lines here and there that further diminish and pathologise her (Lestat calling her histrionic, Louis making her out to be a burden, etc.). This is all further compounded again with the Coven, and when the tragedy of her life ultimately leads to the tragedy of her death.  

Louis as the Byronic Hero

Not to start with a quote, but here’s one from The Literary Icon of the Byronic Hero and its Reincarnation in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights:

“Generally speaking, the Byronic hero exhibits several particular characteristics. He does not possess heroic virtues in the usual, traditional sense. He is a well-educated, intelligent and sophisticated young man, sometimes a nobleman by birth, who at the same time manifests signs of rebellion against all fundamental values and moral codes of the society. Despite his obvious charm and attractiveness, the Byronic hero often shows a great deal of disrespect for any figure of authority. He was considered "the supreme embodiment [...] standing not only against a dehumanized system of labor but also against traditionally repressive religious, social, and familial institutions" (Moglen, 1976: 28).

The Byronic hero is usually a social outcast, a wanderer, or is in exile of some kind, one imposed upon him by some external forces or self-imposed. He also shows an obvious tendency to be arrogant, cunning, cynical, and unrepentant for his faults. He often indulges himself in self destructive activities that bring him to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself. He is hypersensitive, melancholic, introspective, emotionally conflicted, but at the same time mysterious, charismatic, seductive and sexually attractive.”

Louis as he exists in the show to me is pretty much all of those things, and I think to argue that he’s a gothic heroine not only diminishes Claudia’s arc, but robs Louis of his agency within his own story. Louis chooses Lestat, over and over again, he’s not imprisoned by the monster in the domestic sphere, he is one of the monsters who’s controlling the household, including making decisions of when they bring a child into it and when Lestat gets to live in it – he wanted to be turned, he wanted to live with Lestat in Rue Royale, and while there are certainly arguments to be made about their power dynamic within the household in the NOLA era, importantly Louis actually gained social power through his marriage to Lestat, particularly through The Azaelia, he didn’t lose it in the way that’s vital to the story of the gothic heroine.

Daniel Hart even said it in a recent twitter thread about Long Face, but there is an element of Lestat and Louis’ relationship that is transactional, and to me, for that to exist, they both have to have a degree of control over their circumstances and choices in order to negotiate those transactions. Claudia is the one who can’t, she’s the one who’s treated effectively as property, and she’s the one who lacks control over her circumstances.

While you could perhaps argue the constraints of the apartment in Dubai lend more to the gothic heroine archetype, I’d argue it as furthering the Byronic trope again by being representative both of Louis’ self-destruction and self-imposed exile. As Jacob has said a few times, Louis does seem to have known to a degree that Armand was involved in Claudia’s death on some level, and it’s that guilt and misery that has him allowing Armand his degree of control. The fact that Louis was able to leave Armand as easily and as definitively as he was I think demonstrates that distinction too – after all, to compare that ending to Claudia’s multiple attempts to leave the confines of the patriarchal house, both in Rue Royale and Paris, which were punished at every turn – first by her rape, then by Lestat dragging her back off the train, and then by the Coven orchestrating her murder.

Louis gets to leave because Louis can leave, he has both the social and narrative power to, and the fact that he does is, to me, completely at odds with the gothic heroine. Louis can, and does advocate for himself, Louis is proud, moody, cynical. Defiance is a key part of his character, just as his exile from NOLA society due to his race, and his chosen rejection of vampire society in Paris, is. He’s intelligent and sophisticated, travels the world, and has misery in his heart, guilt that eats him up, and self-destructive tendencies. That’s a Byronic Hero, baby!  

[freenos]

Ok maybe I do have more thoughts on the Medea interactions and how they reflect on Melinoe:

I’ve noticed that the discussion around Melinoe’s morality tends to focus on her proximity to the Olympians but I think there’s also something to be said about the moral grey area that witches fall under. She didn’t grow up in the House of Hades or Olympus, she grew up in the Crossroads and her perspective is influenced by the guidance of witches. And while Circe and Hecate are a little coy about their misdeeds, Medea stands out as the one who really owns the darker aspects of her craft and talks about the suffering she inflicts with pride. In contrast, Melinoe is…not pure but very invested in the idea of doing the right thing and being in the right. So there’s this contrast between them, Melinoe clings to moral justification for her task while Medea isn’t held back by moral dilemmas.

And I think part of that is because Medea pursues her craft to satisfy her own vengeful desires while Melinoe hasn’t gotten to fully explore her identity as a witch yet: They both use their craft in vengeful ways but Melinoe always has this degree of separation from the root conflict. (Nemesis gets at this idea quite a lot actually.) The titans are retaliating for things her family did long before she was born, yet Melinoe is tasked with cleaning up the mess. And when she does take time to herself, she often feels guilty about it. In contrast, Medea gets the satisfaction of personal revenge and is content to use her curses on anyone who gets on her bad side.

It’s that intent that differentiates Medea from Melinoe, I think. No matter how impressive her feats, Melinoe is ultimately a weapon wielded by someone else and lacks pure intent of her own so she often hints at feeling…morally conflicted when talking to Medea. While Medea draws her power from the “blackest of intent” , it seems like Melinoe is forcing a tough exterior, filling a role that doesn’t always come naturally to her. And she wants to know how Medea manages to pull it off so seamlessly. Medea’s “with practice!” line is funny but also, if Melinoe is going to eventually become the goddess of nightmares, maybe she will get there with practice…

I have a suspicion that her arc won’t be about “becoming the nicest person and making everyone proud” but instead, channeling her craft to achieve her own goals without seeking the approval of a higher authority or abiding by someone else's vision of the future. Not perfectly restoring the Age of Gods or the Golden Age of mortals but instead bringing about a different future. She may end up letting her compassion guide her but Prometheus doesn't call her an agent of good or evil, he calls her an agent of change. And it seems like witches in this game are portrayed as catalysts for transformation.

As her understanding of the world grows and shifts, I think it’s interesting that Medea is one of the people Melinoe looks up to and confides in. She asks Medea these very earnest questions about mortals and gods and Medea grants her a joyfully bleak perspective every time:

Medea also has this consistent tendency to disregard mortal suffering, to compare them to livestock and talk about them in terms of how poison-susceptible they are. I get the sense that Melinoe's perception of mortal weakness is influenced by these kinds of conversations:

Melinoe's understanding of the world is shaped by an interesting range of perspectives and is somewhat...shaky and incomplete for now. I think she isn't quite sure how to reconcile her more compassionate impulses and the responsibility that she's dedicated her life to:

Although she adheres to a very black-and-white set of beliefs for the sake of completing her task, there's also hints of uncertainty in her conversations, especially with Medea, a more experienced and self-assured witch. I think Melinoe's character development has the potential to go in a lot of interesting directions!

[gigizetz]

Okay I’ve never read the Circe book but I’m obsessed with your Warrior animatic and I’ve been trying to guess the plot from it so here it is:

Circe meets Hermes when she’s a kid and he’s getting punished for something, but she’s kind and gives him something to drink. She’s mocked by her siblings for being weak, and then one day she finds out she’s actually super good at witchcraft. So she tries to do magic on this one dude and she fucks him up pretty bad. She is cast out of her home and brought to an island to be alone at. Circe begins training to use her powers and connect with nature, and she gets very good at surviving on her own. Hermes comes down to visit at some point as thanks for when she was nice as a kid. Circe tames the animals on the island and is THRIVING like the queen she is all by herself.

Am I close? 💀

You're actually pretty close! Only thing is that the man she helps at the beggining is not Hermes, it's Prometheus.

[hauntingblue]

BIG MOM ELECTROCUTED!!! NAMI REALLY IS THE MOST POWERFUL EVER

[lostintransist]

Secrets Are For Grown Ups | Part 9

CW: Y'all I'm not gonna lie this chapter is heavy and should be taken with caution. Nyla visits Johnny and Simon to discuss what she learned and about how to move forward from here. Discussions of being a bad person and the missing language between consent and rape.

Part 1 can be found here | AO3 | @/bernardsbendystraws for the dividers

Story is under the cut.

Simon collapsed into bed after he and Johnny had been able to work their way up the stairs. The blank and distant look in his husband’s face would have been more concerning if Johnny could focus on anything but his own tumble into the depths of his soul.

His feet itched to run. His missing foot itched with the need to flee the evil he had done. Evil could be accidental—that was what he took from the conversation with John.

Leaving Simon to his own demons, Johnny took himself to the backyard. Stomping around on the pavers at bottom of the stairs or to the tree near the fence and back did not make the itching disappear. He tried for nearly an hour.

Giving up on that he stripped and settled into the shower. Leaving his leg on the counter he hopped the few steps so he could grasp the handle they installed in the bathroom for times like this. Hand firmly on the bar Johnny turned and sat on the shower chair, swinging his one foot over. Once safely in the tub he closed the curtain and stood to pull down the shower head. He stayed there until the water ran cold.

Unable to fathom putting his prosthesis back on Johnny hops down the hall, dressing in soft clothes. He can’t look at Simon for the same reasons he can’t bear to look in the mirror. Working his way to the couch he lays down, a torrent of thoughts and feelings plucking at him as if he were Prometheus.

When sleep finally steals him away, deep in the night, he has nightmares of his sisters and of being dragged through hell.

The morning broke early, the sun peering into the basement window to wake Nyla from her troubled rest. Her boys needed her today. She had given them the evening to wallow in the mire of their poor decisions. Her flight home was set for the end of the week and a mother to her bones, Nyla needed to see them on the path to healing before she put an ocean between them again.

Some fractures never heal right. And as much as she yearned to piece the words together exactly right to absolve them of their pain, Nyla was a woman before she was a mother. Before a woman she was a sister, and before a sister she was a daughter, and before a daughter she was a person viewed as disposable by every aspect of patriarchy. All of those steps between where she stood and where she had begun could not erase the pain she harbored for failing to teach her son how to care better for those around him.

Smiling lightly at your offer of breakfast she declined. Fasting had focused her connection with God, and His strength would be needed to carry her through now. Resting a hand on the counter she waits for you to look at her. When you do it is with one bowl of oatmeal readied and the other waiting.

“I need to see to my boys.”

You give a weak smile and swallow down whatever you might have said.

“The door will be unlocked for you if I need to leave for any reason.” Pointing your eyes down you open your mouth as if to confess.

“This is not a confessional child, I do not need to know of what you consider your sins. There is no one in right in this situation, and no one way to create a new map to move forward,” Nyla lays the words on the counter, leaving them for you to examine later.

“Now,” straightening up, Nyla girds her mental loins. “I will go and wake your boys and be on my way to see mine.”

“Thank you, Nyla.” Your tone communicates the thanks is more than for waking the children to get ready for school.

The door takes an inordinately long time to open as Nyla waits on the small stoop. When it finally creaks open she is met by her son looking more haggard than when he lost his leg.

“Mum?”

Grown men should not sound like five year old boys. It tears at her heart.

“Aye, now let me in my love,” Nyla steps forward, pushing the door open with her hand and her presence.

John hops back, settling on the stairs as she shuts and locks the door. Turning Nyla finds her son where he landed.

“Son, where is your leg?” Her hands find her hips as she stares at him in exasperation.

The sheepish look that crosses his face has one she has seen for decades, each of her children got that exact look from their father.

“In the bathroom,” John mumbled.

“Well then it seems you need to find a clean sock and put it back on if you are going to accomplish anything other than stewing in sorrow today,” Nyla stepped up the stairs past John heading for the bathroom.

Finding the mess of clothes and towels strewn in the small space she tsks to herself before setting everything to rights. By the time that John has joined her in the hallway the room looks cleaner than before she had arrived.

Handing her son his leg Nyla strides off to the bedroom he shares with his husband. Opening the door she finds a facsimile of a man in the bed and the curtains drawn tight against the morning.

Dodging the dark wood furniture she remembers from her last visit Nyla flings open the curtains with a purpose, ignoring the hiss from both men as the sun assaults them. The room smells of them, their overlapping colognes and the smell unique to sleeping in the same space night after night. Neither is unpleasant, but Nyla cracks the window open anyway. The light hops of John following her further into the room tell her her son is going to put his leg on if nothing else.

Turning around Nyla looks over both men; Simon is staring into the middle distance beyond the mattress, the dark green duvet spread over his waist. John is settling his prosthetic into place and shifting to ensure it has seated correctly.

“John, come with me to the kitchen. We will make breakfast for the two of you,” Nyla started forward as she spoke.

“I’m not hungry, mum,” John protested.

“Does not matter, your body requires food,” Nyla squeezed her son’s shoulder as she passed him.

Settling herself in the kitchen came as familiar comfort. Within reach she would find the remedy for so many pains.

John settled at the table, knowing full well to stay out of the way as his mother cooked.

As two eggs fried in a pan, and a stack of toast grew on a plate John finally spoke.

“Am I a bad person?”

Nyla sucked in a deep breath as she watched the eggs.

“I did not expect you to come home a good man from war, John.” She can feel the flinch, and her heart aches for the pain of it. “I have lost more respect for you with how you handled the situation that led us here than over anything you might have done in service of our country.”

The eggs are done. Nyla turns off the stoves and transfers them to a plate. Settling that plate in front of her son she takes his face in both hands, lifting it up to look at her.

“You will learn as you grow to love your son that no force on Earth or beyond can remove a parent’s love for their children.” Looking from eye to eye, she catalogs the tears there. “You have not shown yourself to be a good man thus far John. Use this opportunity to become better.”

John’s face crumples. His hands reach for her, those same hands that asked to be lifted when he was to small to walk for long, and asked for her prayers when he left for basic training. Compassion sees her pulling her son into a hug, humming as she holds and rocks him from side to side. Nyla sends her pleas to God, asking for anything that He can do to be made manifest.

She leaves him with a plate and an order to eat at least a bite of everything on his plate. Returning to the bedroom she finds her son-in-law exactly where she left him.

Nyla settles on the edge of the bed, fingers drifting through Simon’s hair.

“I never wanted to be anything like him,” the raw quality of his voice tells her to hold her peace. Speaking now would be a mistake whispers the voice she attributes to God in her mind.

Minutes shift and Nyla switches hands, using her other one to rub the breadth of his shoulders.

“He never took no for an answer from my mum.”

The whisper barely reaches her old ears in an understandable form. The ache that had settled below her heart when your call had reached her doubled now. Choices were made that hurt people, that didn’t free Simon or your John of sin. She loves these sons of hers, anything less is would be tantamount to forsaking them.

“I have no absolution for you, Simon. You didn’t see what you were doing to her, but that doesn’t free you from that choice. She is stronger than your mother,” Nyla pulls her hand back in time as he jerks upright.

Ghost, the memory of a battlefield her son spoke about, looks down at her now.

“What?”

“The mother of your child is stronger than your mother was. She holds the pain you handed her with grace. Instead of falling into a bad marriage or a toxic situation, she ran. She uses your choices as a tool to sew safety and structure that houses her and the boys. Your boy is raised with love, patience, and with an eye toward the man he will become. Nothing you can do now will ever undo what was done, but there is a way to move forward here.”

“I raped her, Nyla. There is no moving forward from that,” Simon’s lip quivers, and his adam’s apple bobs.

“She doesn’t call it that. I have never once heard hear call it anything close to that. When she talks about it, it is hardly ever with blame toward you or my John.”

Simon, a veteran who could pick up a weapon for his country and not blink, broke before her.

“What she calls it doesn’t change what it was I did Nyla. I am worse than my father; I am worse than the monsters that created me,” one hand clawed at his chest and the other covered his eyes as he wept.

Nyla pulled him close, letting Simon sob into her breast like her son had moments ago. She started rubbing his hair again. His cries reminded her of when her children were small and the bad thing that happened was the newest worst thing that ever happened to them.

“English is a funny language,” she started slowly as Simon’s sobs ebbed. “It is created in patriarchy and as such does not have words for the spectrum between consent and rape. You all made choices that led to where the stories diverged, if blame needs to be dispersed it will need to be worked out among you three. All I can say is that as of now, your son is excited to meet you and his mother has been clear with her boundaries. Don’t cross them now that you can see them.”

“How?”

Nyla had never heard a broken man before, and prayed she never would again. All the strength Simon collected to keep himself did nothing to spare him the pain of his choices.

“She is strong and wants better for her children than was gifted to you. Lean on your captain as you navigate this new world. He will be here a while longer, and despite his anger, he loves you.”

“Love cannot overcome what I did,” Simon crunches forward. He brings a fist to his mouth as he fights down the need to vomit.

“Again, Simon, that is not your choice to make,” Nyla stands, pulling her son-in-law to his feet with the hand not trapped to his mouth.

“Let’s get you a bit of food and find you and John a therapist, or a priest, to help you work through everything in your heads.”

Simon followed on silent feet as Nyla headed for the kitchen. Her John stared at the kitchen table where she had left him. The both ate under her watchful eye. The road ahead is long and fraught with turbulence, but even if you and her boys interact only in ways that will help the boys grow into good men, that will be better for everyone.

Secrets Masterlist | Masterlist

@love-kha1 @sweetlike-sugarplum @vmaxis @splaterparty0-0 @momowhoo @talia-the-gemini @redkarmakai @aethelwyneleigh27 @asexualbuthorny @sleep101 @callsignbumblebee @lucienofthelakes @sirbonesly @demothers-empty-blog @fightmerahhh @skeletonsucker @fruitymoonbeams-blog @bingoz @noheadcanons-juststories @kaoyamamegami

[spacemothsota]

The leadership structure of the Seekers

The Winglord theme is actually so interesting in itself. I like that most people in the fandom somehow unanimously decided that such a position exists, and it makes sense since the cities on Cybertron are city-states, meaning they have a local ruler/government and other structures.

On the other hand, it seems to me that Winglord should not only be a position of power, but also full of obligations. What is Winglord for? (Obviously, for governance, but its position cannot be just a privilege). What obligations can this position bear for the one who occupies this position. Here are my couple of ideas.

It seems to me that the Seekers' leadership structure is actually arranged like that of birds. Birds in nature do not actually have a leader. This concept simply goes to the oldest and most experienced birds, who stand at the head of the wedge. It is no secret that humanity, in its desire to conquer the skies, focused on birds, but what if Cybertronians do it differently? What if, in fact, Winglord is not a title earned by birth or inheritance like the same kings, but a title given to the most experienced flyer among all? Sounds good, plus it would explain why Starscream takes this place.

A Winglord is not a title that can be inherited, it is a calling that a true ace of his craft receives, anyone, be it forged or constructed, can receive it, age also plays no role. There is no luck or fortune in the sky, only cold calculation and the risk that the pilot is willing to take. In the process, you either succeed or die, there is no other way from it. A Winglord is a master of his craft, any noble king or general he will displace from their position with his skill. His task is to teach young seekers to reach their level of skill, as well as to provide weaker brothers with safety. If you give a Winglord a choice between his brothers and an imaginary leader (usually a bot, not necessarily having a flying altform), then he will choose his brothers. The duty of a Winglord is to care for the well-being of everyone, regardless of social status or work. If the previous Winglord dies, his fellow triads must take it upon themselves to finish his work, keeping the Seeker community safe and in order until a new bot can be chosen to take his place. Like birds in a flock, the Winglord and his fellow triads must lead their charges to a better future. (They do not have to be ready for this, as leadership can never be. Experience in leading others always comes with experience.)

I would compare Winglord to a person who received the flame of Prometheus for the first time. It is not only a blessing, but also the greatest duty to distribute this flame to everyone. An obligation that does not allow you to chicken out and retreat. I think Winglord's obligations consist mainly of preserving the number of seekers, he cannot allow even the weak to die, since this is a risk of losing the chance for the development of their society, losing the much-needed and vital primacy in the sky (flight is life). It can also be a vision of treaties, about better supplies, in exchange for the energon they found, they could set their own conditions (perhaps one of these conditions once became the city of Vos, because having your own city/settlement, you could avoid discrimination). The amount of obligations may vary depending on the political situation of Cybertron (I think during the golden age or pre-war period, Winglord was a status similar to King and was inherited because it greatly limited the seeker society, focusing them not on mastery but on the "military" path. This was a guarantee of stability, although it could cause unrest in the seeker society).

Many write that Starscream Winglord, probably during the war that we see in the comics, this is indeed true. Vos fell, the wonderful city in the "heavens" was destroyed, like other cities. There is a possibility that many senior Seekers who were there could have died. Starscream has always been ambitious, but as much as he craves leadership, he is also a master in flying (let's not deny it, after all, he hardly got his position only because of the "Beautiful Scarlet Optics"). Starscream not only could, but probably was a good leader for his comrades. He was definitely not ideal, but he learned this gradually gaining experience. Starscream has all the good qualities of a leader: charisma, intelligence, oratory skills. It probably also kept him in the position of Winglord for a long time, and also this management experience helped him become a good leader after the war (and although this is debatable, but I consider him a better leader than Windblade. He knew what problems Cybertronian society could face after such a long war. About those problems that preceded the war. He knew what he was managing, that he had the best potential… Honestly, this makes him even more tragic in my eyes)

Winglord is a duty to move society forward and take care of it, a guarantee of progress. Stagnation for this status means loss of independence for all seekers.