#also i fucking hate aeneas so
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persephoneist · 2 years ago
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also as a followup to my last post you should always read the odyssey first bc 1. bitch was written first and 2. then you can see how hard the aeneid is ripping it off
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psy--conic · 5 months ago
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Reading the Iliad, Book 17 thoughts
This is my first time ever reading it and I know next to nothing abt greek mythology so if I interpret anything wrong by all means pls correct me
Im reading the Robert Fagles translation
Nothing even matters anymore Patroclus is dead guys
I just wanna say they put his body through a damn wringer a little
Okay so we start off from where the last book ended but we're following Menelaus now
He sees that Patroclus is fucking dead and immediately drops what he doing to defend his body
Menelaus has been a real one this WHOLE poem Nestor had no place talking shit on him that one time😭
The man who speared Patroclus in that back, Euphorbus, starts fighting with Menelaus over that body bc he wants to strip it and take it back to Troy bc Pat was Achilles' bestie
Then Menelaus says "I killed ur brother lol." and Euphorbus doesn't like that at all
He tries to stab Menelaus's shield but his spear breaks and then Menelaus stabs him in the neck and he dies.
He goes to take Euphorbus's armor (I still don't know how they find the time to do that shit in the heat of battle)
Apollo goes down to Hector and tells him that Euphorbus is dead
Hector rushes out to where Menelaus is and now Menelaus is torn between backing off or staying to defend Patroclus's body and he's like "damn I'm kinda fucked"
Menelaus has no choice but to back off for a minute bc there's no way he and fight and protect a corpse WHILE being outnumbered
So he leaves to find someone to help him.
Menelaus grabs Ajax (greater) to help him with the whole Patroclus thing
By the time they get back to Pat's body, Hector has already taken Achilles' armor and is now trying to drag Patroclus's body back to Troy.
Hector wants to leave Patroclus's body for the dogs
Which I find very surprising bc ppl give Achilles A LOT of shit for his treatment of Hector's body (rightfully so) but Hector was gonna defile Pat's body too so why doesn't he get the same energy you guys give Achilles?
Hector also plans to put his head on a spike😭
MY SHAYLA
Ajax (greater) and Menelaus start standing over Patroclus's body again
Glaucus goes up to Hector and says "Ur really uncool for not defending Sarpedon's body and I hate you for it" THEN he tells Hector that the only reason he's not over near Pat's body rn is because Ajax is there and he's a way better fighter than Hector💀💀
Wild as shit
Ajax (greater) did almost kill him with that rock one time tho😭
So Hector swaps out his own armor with the Achilles' armor that he took from Patroclus. And goes back to the battle
Zeus ends up seeing Hector's outfit change and he's just like "Poor fool, he's dragging it at this point😐"
So damn near every Trojan is gunning for Patroclus rn But Ajax and not letting that shit slide and he's killing everyone.
Ajax sends Menelaus to go find some other Greek heroes to help them so
This is where Ajax (lesser) and Meriones come into play
A big game of tug o war for Patrclus's body takes place but it's kinda 50/50
Even Athena and Ares are like "This show is really good"
Achilles won't even fight and still, the Greeks are putting their necks on the line in order to get Patroclu's body back to him. He doesn't even know that this is going on
Like they'd rather die than lose this body to the Trojans
And ig Achilles' immortal horses sense the moment Patroclus dies bc they literally start bawling. Automedon is trying to get them to move but they just won't
And Zeus feels bad for the horses and puts strength within them so that can start running again
Hector spots Alcimedon and Automedon riding around and he really wants Achilles' horses
So Aeneas and Hector start approaching them
Fighting happens, not really important, no one who matters dies
Athena is sent down to help the Greeks and take the form of Phoenix.
She tells Menelaus to keep encouraging the Greeks so he does that
Apollo approaches (in disguise) Hector again and he says "Stop letting Menelaus kill Trojans pls"
Cut back to Ajax (greater) he's pissed bc every time a Trojan throws a spear it hits a Greek BUT every time the Greeks throw a spear it doesn't land. So clearly the gods are not leaning in their favor rn
Ajax stresses that someone has to go tell Achilles that Patroclus is dead.
And that job lands on Antilochus. Menelaus tells Antilochus the news and he stands still for a moment before he too starts crying. But he does run off to tell Achilles what's happened
Bro, they FINALLY are able to get Patroclus and haul his ass back to camp
Holy shit that was a lot
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bcowlick · 12 days ago
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Chapter 5 of the Iliad, thoughts so far...
I would like to start by saying.... I'm not okey 🫠
Now i completely, absolutly HATE HATE HATE the people who proclaim that Zeus hates Ares because reading the chapter it really felt more like a squabble between father and son more than verbal abuse. But i'll expand later on that, let's go with what you guys are here for.
✨️ Memes ✨️
1. Early on the chapter the scene where Athena and Ares sit down on the beach to kind of just chill... It's such a cute scene of this two brothers. It's like Athena saying "Hey let's watch how this people kill each other instead of acting directly on the battle, so dad won't get mad. Want some popcorn?" I personally imagine them like this:
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Which is sad considering what happens later on 🫠
2. Athena telling Diomedes that he is TOTALLY free of comitting hubris agaisnt Aphrodite by harming her. Like girl, that felt personal 🤣 she's still hung up on that golden apple, huh?
3. Athena making so that Diomedes spear goes straigth to Pandarus face like... Woman, what was the need of it being THE FACE.
This bastard really used poor Pandarus and then gave him a Mortal Kombat ending, damn!
(I luv you Athena, never change)
4. Diomedes really telling Aphrodite to her face that she shouldn't be in the midst of the war.
Aphrodite fucking Areia while listening to this bullshit:
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(Srry again to my english speaking followers but this meme is the only one that captures the feeling xD)
As a disclaimer, yes i know that Aphrodite of the iliad is specifically the Pandemos one. Which means of course that she is painted in a more soft manner.
Still, is a funny thought that Diomedes was telling a minor war goddess, to her face, that she should leave the battlefield.
5. Aphrodite best mama bear. Omg, i just LOVE any iteration of Aphrodite being a mama. She is a bit overbearing but so protective and loves her babies so much. Aeneas surviving thanks to her is so KDKDKSK is REALLY adorable!!
Unrelated note but once a friend of mine compared this scene of Mitchell vs The Machines to Aphrodite saving Aeneas and i have inserted that into my belief system ever since:
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(It wasn't this one but close enough!)
Like sure, i know she rans away after getting sttabed on the wrist and all and that it doesn't ends up being cool (She actually just covered him and carried him away) but still, the context is the same that she did all that in the midst of a battle. So i still stand this queen.
6. Ares lending Aphrodite his chariot so she can go back to Olympus and treat her wounds. And they say romance is dead!
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7. Zeus also telling Aphrodite to not mess with the war and to keep with romance and love.
Aphrodite: SERIOUSLY?! TWO TIMES THE SAME DAY?!
8. Diomedes is really to overrated.
"Ah! He stabbed a god! So cool! He stabbed Ares!!"
The guy saw Ares fighting at the side of Hector and was the first one to say "RUN AWAY, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! RETREAT!!!!"
Athena was the one who had to come back down to Heaven and tell him "Piece of coward, man up and help me stab my brother!"
9. Ares raising the morale of the Troyan and Thracian troops, to the point they made the Acheans retreat all the way to their boats.
I was reading that part like "YASS KING" yes i'm biased.
Also, Ares taking a human form to fight among the soldiers. Ares i luv you
10. Hera basically telling Athena to seize Ares. "Go and stop your brother, he's missbehaving and i don't like that"
11. Athena very enthusiastically going back to Olympus to dress up in her pretty armour because she has to look her very best for the stabbing she's planning
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Also Athena and Hera asking pretty please to Zeus if Athena is allowed to stab Ares and Zeus saying yes LOL
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Their relationship REEKS of this two ⬆️
12. Apollo also shine during this battle. Helping with the rescue of Aeneas, and helping Ares during the battle! Nice Apollo!
13. The stabbing 🫠
Athena really forcing Diomedes to go and impale Ares. Athena using the invisible helmet so Ares doesn't see her coming with Diomedes on the chariot. Ares throwing the spear expenting it to be a clean hit only to grow confused why the shoot failed (He's not seeing Athena, he doesn't know she blocked the attack)
And then Diomedes stabbing him in the gut (With Help of Athena) and Ares being described as screaming with the strenght of 10 thousand men. (Reminder that Ares had taken a human body while this happened btw. It probably hurt more)
Ares escaping all bloody and begging Zeus to do something against Athena.
Ares doesn't know Zeus gave the yes for Athena to do the attack (My heart)
And Zeus reprimends him for bloodthirsty and says those hurtful things but at the end of the day...
Zeus doesn't turn away Ares. He allows him to search for medical help, and gets him patched up with painkillers (basically the ancient greek version of Pain Killers) and then the chapter finishes with Zeus and Ares sitting together in silence.
It just reeks more of those moments when you had a nasty fight with your parents but at the end of the day you still have dinner with them and the air is tense but you STILL have dinner with them.
Zeus did not forsake Ares. He gave what he believed was a stern warning, and then allowed him to cure his wounds and dress up with clean robes.
It is interesting because Zeus wants the Troyans to be succesful in winning and Ares almost managed, but as the god of fate, he knows Troy is predestined to fall (according to a prophecy the book mentions in earlier chapters btw!)
So he has to stop him as well, to accomplish his role as God of Fate, and to keep his promise to Hera. Yet that doesn't mean Ares is suddenly cast away neither.
I repeat, at the end of the chapter, THEY. SIT. TOGETHER.
Gods i love this messy relationship between father and so much aaaaaaah
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dootznbootz · 2 months ago
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choose violence!! 🔪😈 2, 6, 8, and 25 :3c
FUCK YEAH! LET'S GOOOOOOOO! THANK YOU FOR THE PRIVILEGE TO BE VIOLENT!!!!
The ask game :3
2: (suggestive) a compelling argument for why your fave wouldn't top or bottom Pen's a switch, Ody's a service switch, bitches be switches. Does that count??? xD If we're talking like, actual Odyssey Odysseus, then Odysseus wouldn't "bottom" because he's a high ranking king in the Mycenaean Era who is obsessed with Penelope. The only dick Odysseus takes is Pen's strap
6: Which ship fans are the most annoying? I've already been over this multiple times but yeah, OdyDio 🤷 Sorry, not sorry, have your fun but I will never like it and some of y'all are rude and annoying. I tag stuff as "#anti OdyDio" for y'all to be able to block it as that's fandom etiquette. And overall, it's not fucking cool to send an article about fucking pederasty to your inbox as to why I "need" to ship OdyDio. It's also not cool to be petty and send a hate ask about me to my friends >:( If you don't like me, you can block me. or literally block the tag I use to rant about it but then give the shippers a chance to ignore so they can have fun. I made the tag for the very reason of letting folks ignore my insane ramblings. I have never gone into someone's inbox, fic, fan art, etc. to say shit, I only say shit on my own blog and I tag it. Also don't act like your not the fucking majority at this point. I can't even look up Penelope tags anymore because y'all still make her about OdyDio
8: Common fandom opinion that everyone's wrong about ...I could list so many, especially considering which SIDE of the fandom you're talking about O_O the whole "All Penelope does is cry" (in general, so many folks just do not actually see her character and/or even WANT to see her character and I'm sad) alongside the fact that whenever people talk about Athena's blorbos, Penelope's never included. >:( YOU FORGOT A BLORBO OF ATHENA. "Odysseus and Helen are cheaters and aren't victims", "Telemachus hates his mom/Penelope and Telemachus are abusive to one another" "Agamemnon is the most evil man alive" (he sucks but like, damn), the insane rate of Woobification AND "grimdarkification" of characters (so many "actual Odyssey fans" like, have Odysseus almost like, abusive??? to Penelope??? which no???) The Circe, Calypso, and Paris woobifiers (enjoyers are different. If you like them and still understand they are fucked up, then cool) And I've seen a weird increase of "Odysseus most likely had a concubine even though none are listed" when like??? idk, it's just weird as it's not canon and that's just really out of character imo lol Since this is already semi suggestive, A like, smaller "no you're wrong" to me is that Penelope has large boobs. like to me, no she does not. to me, it's not Penny if it's above a B cup. Odysseus has the boobs of the relationship. Pen has fine AF thighs though.
I could go on forever fuygiuhjihugyhgj
25: Common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing Honestly, I don't know??? like some of the others complaints I sometimes agree with but I think one I'm sick of hearing is that like "Diomedes should be in the Odyssey" when idk, I think he's having fun in Rome having a weird tense rivalry with Aeneas. Also with the whole "Odysseus will be the only survivor" that means that poor Dio would die too. I think it's weird to put Diomedes into a completely different story that has nothing to do with him when his life AFTER the Iliad has so many fascinating possibilities.
Also like, idk, I'm someone who absolutely agrees with the "Penelope being Spartan doesn't mean that she was taught as a warrior" as someone who has a "weird, feral Penelope who's scrappy and likes to fight", it's a weird thing of "hey, I only have Pen like that because I want to and because I can get silly. I'm not doing it as a "stick it to the man' or 'girlpower', there's just something wrong (affectionate) about my Pen." like it's the weird feeling of "I absolutely agree with you but I'm also still self-indulgent and Penny's gonna have a Florida woman who tries to wrestle a gator energy. She's just like that, not because she's Spartan. I'm just silly" so not necessarily a complaint I'm sick of hearing but more like a "complaint I agree with and while I play with that thing you're complaining about, I'M DOING IT DIFFERENT." xD
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echo-loves-flowerboy · 19 hours ago
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I love the take that Apollo to some extent sees himself and his lover's fate reflected in Achilles & Patroclus and I would like to add my personal interpretation that Apollo hates Achilles specifically because of it.
So at one point in the Illiad after Achilles drags Hector's body around Patroclus' grave for several days, Apollo pleads with Zeus to stop him because 'Many a man has lost an even dearer one than he has like a brother or a son (or a lover *cough cough*) and they move on without committing heinous war crimes' (im paraphrasing here obviously)
He also criticises the gods that support Achilles who he characterises as basically a bloodthirsty monster without pity or a single feeling of decency.
Now obviously Apollo already has an agenda against Achilles because he is the main threat against his patron-city and also he murdured his son in his own temple that one time.
I think it's also notable that Apollo doesn't initially go after Patroclus when he joins the fight (apart from setting off Aeneas to hold him back) and he in fact yeets him off the wall of Troy four times when Pat tries to climb it, whereupon he warns him not to try taking Troy because he's not destined to (Notably Achilles warns him of the same thing: just drive them from the ships, don't try to take Troy because Apollo will murk you)
It's only after Patroclus doesn't let off and keeps killing tons of Trojans in front of the walls that Apollo paralyzes him and takes off his armour. He also resolves the paralysis once Pat is wounded.
Now I don't think Apollo initially spares Pat because he has pity for him, rather he knows the intensity of feelings Achilles has for his 'companion' (possibly due to his personal experience) and knows that Patroclus' death will make him rejoin the fight.
He also doesn't orchestrate a duel between Pat and Hector but instead lets Pat be attacked by multiple Trojans (imo hoping to subvert Achilles wrath from his fav trojan) where any other god would have tried to grant their favourite the full glory.
Now on the basis of that here is my lukewarm take on Apollo and Patrochilles:
Apollo initially hates Achilles for fighting against Troy and being generally merciless towards his victims, he is also aware of his relationship with Patroclus and strategically spares him as not to set him off.
However once Patroclus doesn't let off the trojans even after being warned and slaughters them on mass (basically acting like Achilles) he changes his mind and decides attacking Pat is necessary (tho whether or not he wanted him dead is up for debate imo)
He then reaches the find out part of his fucking around and Achilles is way more enraged about Patroclus' death than Apollo predicted, does a shit ton of mass murder and kills trojans begging to be taken prisoner, confronts Hector and denies his request to have his body returned to his family and then desecrates said body and taunts his family & ppl of Troy.
I think this is where Apollo stops sympathising with Achilles situation to any extent and instead views him as a terrible version of himself (a man heartbroken about his lover but instead of mourning and trying to honour him properly he uses it as a motivation to enact endless violence)
At this point he sees Achilles as a man with no love in his heart because from his point of view the actions are not justified even as revenge. They don't honour his dead lover but only satisfy Achilles lust for blood.
ie in Apollo's eyes Achilles seizes being a hurt lover and starts being a merciless monster. Something that Apollo likes to think he himself does not become as a reaction to heartbreak.
(An alternative interpretation Apollo could be jealous that he himself always had to hold back to some extent when his loved ones got killed due to fearing consequences from other gods, meanwhile Achilles can just go on a rampage uninterrupted but that's just a side note)
All of this builds up to Apollo finally shooting Achilles. Exact happenings are obviously unclear due to the parts of the epic cycle between the Iliad and Odyssey being lost. But I imagine it is a particularly risky action to kill the guy that's under the protection of Athena, Hera and Poseidon all of which have protected him (among other things from Apollo) before, which is probably why he held off for so long.
Once Achilles slaughters several other armies that come to help Troy (all the while justifying it with feeling Apollo also felt but didn't commit war crimes over) however, Apollo finally has enough and kills him, consequences be damned.
TLDR; Apollo sees himself in Achilles and his feelings for Patroclus but eventually concludes that Achilles actions mean he's incapable of love and therefore he should get kicked in the head.
Ie. We all have dead boyfriends, stop doing war crimes about it!
One of my heart-wrenching mythological headcanons is that Apollo, to some extent, felt afflicted for bringing about Patroclus' death since like. it reminded him of how guilty and devastated he felt when he lost his Hyacinth, whose demise was partly his fault. Like, he literally had to cause and witness the death of another faultless young man who just wanted to live for and with his beloved...and he was once beloved himself
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leo-frognag · 3 years ago
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blorbo ask thing for figures from classical mythology/the high school latin curriculum
blorbo: tiresias. this mf. transed his gender both ways and basically said fuck you to juno (deserved) and still ended up getting prophetic powers out of it. an absolute king. i love telling people his story b/c they don't fuckign believe any of it.
skrunkly: i mean if we're going Classical mythology and throwing greek stuff in there too i'm gonna say the minotaur <3 he didnt ask to be born and idk i think i'd bust him out of the labyrinth to let him run free and eat grass n shit
scrimblo bimblo: galatea is the og girlboss she recognized her man was an incel and said u know what? no <3 and left him. self-care. nobody talks about her tho (prob b/c the story has become somewhat ubiquitous), but they should. everyone needs to know that pygmalion viscerally hated women but still spent almost 100 lines of his Metamorphoses story DESPERATELY trying not to fuck a statue. and still failed. smh
glup shitto: bro back in middle school we used the "Ecce Romani" textbooks and there was this guy named Titus who was the uncle of the main character kids (marcus and cornelia). and he fucking DIED?? i always liked him tho b/c he seemed like a cool uncle
poor little meow meow: polyphemus was literally just vibing?? just sitting there?? yeah he killed people but the only reason they were even in that situation in the first place was b/c of fucking odysseus (beloathed). then the aeneid goes and says that he's still living on his little island, blind, just chillin?? and people are STILL terrified of him. smh
horse plinko: aeneas didnt suffer enough <3 like im sorry but sir you NEEDED to communicate with dido?? you fucked up a perfectly good carthage is what you did. look at it. it has suicidal tendencies. and u STILL got redemption? catharsis? you got to go to the underworld and absolve your sins?? and then proceeded to kill and maim more?? bro.
eeby deeby: gaius julius caesar <3 fuck you i never want to read another relative clause again. fuck you. hope u get stabbed. also u ruined the calender so now october isn't even the 8th month just b/c u wanted to put ur own fucking name in it. god.
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apis-vergilii · 4 years ago
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Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram... .... I am but a baby/impostor Latinist, not fit to stand toe-to-toe with an average Italian fourteen-year-old, but I shall try. Herein my first original Classics/philology/translation/Aeneid post. You begin at the beginning, right? These are the first four lines, setting the stage, introducing both the “war” (by naming Troy) and the “man” - who is not yet named, and referred to first as “profugus.” Before Virgil outright names Aeneas, he describes him with that word - it’s our first glimpse of him. So, one’s choice of how to translate “profugus” strikes me as important.
Most translators seem to go with variations on “exile/exiled.” Dryden (1697): Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Fagles (2006): Wars and a man I sing - an exile driven on by Fate, He was the first to flee the coast of Troy, destined to reach Lavinian shores and Italian soil, [...] Williams (1910): Arms and the man I sing, who first made way, predestined exile, from the Trojan shore to Italy, the blest Lavinian strand.
Weirdly, Fitzgerald (1981) goes with “fugitive”, which makes me picture Aeneas in cartoon prisoner’s stripes sneaking out of Troy with a sack of loot slung over his shoulders instead of Anchises: I sing of warfare and a man at war. From the sea-coast of Troy in early days He came to Italy by destiny, To our Lavinian western shore, A fugitive, this captain, buffeted Cruelly on land as on the sea By blows from powers of the air - behind them Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage. (I...could also go on about where exactly in Virgil’s text did you get “a man at war” and anything identifying him as a captain, but this is not a Fitzgerald diss post.) ... So, “exile.” It’s a perfectly good translation of the Latin word “profugus.” In this context, though, I wonder if it gives the wrong impression of what Aeneas has just gone through. “Exile” has connotations of banishment, expulsion, punishment. One is “sent into exile” after committing a crime, or after one’s political enemies take power. One can “go into exile” more or less voluntarily for the same reasons. But - at least to my ear, in my mind, in the year of our shithole planet 2021, it implies that the place you were exiled from is still there. You are externalized, you have been othered, you have been pushed out, but a relationship still exists between the exile and the place from which they are exiled. As the Aeneid begins, Troy is fucking gone. It’s over. It’s been sacked. Burned to the ground. The walls are razed, the treasury is looted, the citizens are kidnapped or killed, the fields are torched. The city has fallen. The sky is burning red and the shouts and clanging weapons of the occupying Greek army are getting closer and closer. Aeneas grabs his toddler in one hand and his go-bag in the other, convinces his stubborn dad that it’s time to go, really, no Dad we cannot just hunker down and ride this out, we are out of time, gets them to safety in a single-minded fury of survival instinct, then charges back into the flames in a blind panic, just in time to see that he’s too late to save his wife. We have a word for that man, and it’s not exile. It’s refugee. ... I submit to the jury my own humble attempt: I sing of war, and a man, A refugee from Troy, the first to reach the Italian and Lavinian shore, tossed about by Fate on earth and sea, tormented by the vicious rage of unforgiving Juno.
Not “the man,” but “a man,” a person, an individual. No “man at war” or “arms and the man,” just a man. Aeneas. Enea. Αἰνείας. Looking behind him as his home goes up in flames with his wife inside. On the one hand we have War, a gigantic concept and a force, it seems, of nature. On the other - one mortal man. I’ve taken poetic liberty by moving the reference to Fate into the fourth line (still less carnage than Fitzgerald - ok ok I’ll stop), but I did so deliberately in order to let the simplicity and starkness of “a refugee from Troy�� speak for itself. ... How does our reading of Aeneas change if we think of him not so much as an “exile” but as a “refugee,” with all the contemporary resonance of the term? It’s jarring - we’re used to thinking of refugees as helpless victims (unfortunate) and of Aeneas as a fairly bland, one-dimensional Imperial Propaganda Hero (also unfortunate.) Does his frequent helplessness in the face of Fate hit us any differently if we are more conscious of the life-wrecking trauma the man has experienced? What about how easy it is to convince him to leave Dido - she deserved so much better, I’m not here to argue against her, but can we understand a man who might be unconsciously afraid of finding a new home because it carries with it the possibility of losing home again?
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alrighty second half let’s go!
-oh snap so cressida is a trojan but her dad is working with the greeks and wants to take her away from troy
-oh yeah i forgot that single combat thing still hasn’t happened yet
-“i don’t WANNA fight i wanna be GAY”
-“nobody likes me everybody hates me GUESS I’LL GO EAT WORMS”
-every time i hear the word remuneration i think of that one scene from love’s labour’s lost
-wait THIS is where the “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin” line comes from???
-yeah ulysses i’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the rumor you heard about achilles and polyxena is probably not true
-OMG THEY KISSED
-well that was gay
-also i would like to point out that patroclus here is a short king
-i continue to love thersites
-this show within a show is just TOO much
-“let me bear another to his horse, for that’s the more capable creature” OOOOOOOF
-aeneas: I’M GONNA SWEAR BY MY MOM
-oh aeneas is low key pissed
-oh this is just that one scene from romeo and juliet
-PANDARUS WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS
-“hi sorry to be like this but we’re kidnapping your girlfriend” (okay maybe it’s not like that but no one asked cressida)
-see? SHE DOESN’T FUCKING WANT THIS
-go off cressida
-oh you’re making TROILUS deliver her?????? are you kidding me
-paris: bro. BROOOOOOOOOOO.
-PANDARUS STOP INSERTING YOURSELF INTO EVERYTHING
-somebody’s insecuuuuuuure
-oh this guy IMMEDIATELY started flirting with her
-ooh it’s almost time for single combat!
-“LET’S ALL KISS THE GIRL” …how about not
-look she VERY obviously does not want this CUT IT OUT
-okay i am officially no longer rooting for achilles and patroclus
-especially patroclus because that bastard kissed her TWICE
-“it were no match, your nail against his horn” DUDE WHAT
-also apparently calchas is a woman in this production and she’s just watching which made this entire scene more painful
-FINALLY WE GET THE FIGHT EVERYONE’S BEEN TALKING ABOUT FOR THE LAST THREE ACTS
-some excellent fight choreo!
-no clear winner, so…bro moments and dinner party instead???
-uhhhhhhh i have a really bad feeling about this
-okay thersites i may not like them anymore but that is not the reason you should be mad at them
-thersites dissing menelaus is funny though
-oh this is just like that one scene from much ado but somehow worse ewwwwwww
-cressida is TRYING
-someone please give her a hug
-at least troilus is trying to find a reason for this
-welp glad to see you’re taking this well, troilus *sarcasm*
-“lechery, lechery, still war and lechery! nothing else holds fashion.” …yup
-CASSANDRA IS BACK
-once again: i love when shakespeare writes about the human cost of war
-aww hector trying to protect his baby brother
-troilus screaming at cassandra in the middle of her prophecy and cassandra wrapping her arms around hector and crying…STOOOOOOOP
-the interpreter was too shocked to translate
-fuckin pandarus
-thank you for the exposition thersites
-SOUPED UP MOTORCYCLES
-“yeah you’re pathetic enough to live”
-WELP (patroclus died)
-tfw you only join the battle bc your boyfriend died
-WELL THAT WAS AN EPIC ENTRANCE
-bury your gays strikes again
-“I’M FINE WITH A 2V1”
-that is an impressive suit of armor
-“enter bastard” nice :)
-WAIT DID CASSANDRA DISGUISE HERSELF AS A DUDE TO GO AFTER HER BROTHERS BC IF SO THAT MAKES HER EVEN MORE BADASS
-might just be a production decision BUT.
-anyway i think thersites and parolles from all’s well would be very good friends
-first off: you can’t kill an unarmed guy achilles that’s bad
-second off: INSANE LIGHTING CHOICE
-and there’s the beginning of the hector-dragging
-yeah troilus is not okay
-thank you for telling pandarus to fuck off
-pandarus: *does not fuck off*
-wait that’s it???
-that was the most unsatisfying ending i have ever???
okay so i got a request from the lovely @enbymoomin to watch troilus and cressida, so…here we go!!!
more to come later
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hecohansen31 · 6 years ago
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I Know The Signs Of The Ancient Flame
College Student! Michael Langdon+Classical Student! Reader.
(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!
How are you? I haven’t published the fic for a while, and I am still scared shitless about publishing this kind of things, because it doesn’t have smut and it is.. more about a ‘guilty pleasure’, than anything!
But I still hope you’ll like the idea behind it! (Also if this interests you I have done a similar piece about classical culture with Xavier, which you can find HERE).
As always: any feedback is welcomed, let me know what you think about it, whether it’s positive/negative (just remember to be kind): hearts, reblogs and comments all go straight up to my heart!
Have a nice day!
PLOT: Stuck in a tiny elevator with your ex-boyfriend, you suddenly discover that your story might be more classical than you thought.
WORDS:3,4 K
WARNINGS: Angst, Past Trauma, Break-Up, Classical Annoying Things, Claustrophobia, Claustrophobic Spaces.
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You seriously should have known better than to simply hook-up with some of your fellow schoolmates, mostly when group projects were around, and you had been paired with the boy who had broken your heart: Michael Langdon.
You had started a relationship with him with no interest other than for the sex, which was amazing from the rumors you had heard, and which you could confirm with some of your own.
But then for you it had become more.
Michael had heightened your perception with a softness he had shown only to you, making you think you were special, different from a simple hook-up.
But then things had stared becoming more difficult than you had originally believed they truly were.
Michael ignited stupid fights and he would get on your nerves, making you feel like who was truly doing the most in your relationship was you.
In the end, he had just given up: one night you had fallen asleep with him and the day after that… he was gone and when you had tried to confront him, he had shooed you away.
This was enough to leave you heartbroken, even more since you shared a few courses, so you had to actually face him constantly, although you had become especially talented at being as cold as him.
That was till the day your teachers had thought it would be a good idea to set you up on a joined project for your final paper, since you had both expressed your interest in the same theme: the fourth book of “Aeneid”.
What your Latin Literature teacher hadn’t understood, other than your barely contained hatred for each other, was the different point of views you beheld on the subject.
Whereas you had a more lenient thought towards Dido, knowing all too well what it felt like to be seduced and abandoned, Michael didn’t understand her cry and need for Aeneas, decidedly classifying her as a rather maniac desperate woman.
Whereas you thought that Dido’s suicide was caused by Aeneas and the most tragic of tragedy in the entire epic poem, to Michael it was nothing more than a last gesture of revenge, a useless reply to a man who had told her ‘no’.
You weren’t in the slightest in the mood to talk with your ex about this, mostly when all he kept on doing was blabbering his own opinion as if it was the best.
After the teacher had assigned your homework, you had both insisted on the possibility of a change of partner, which wasn’t possible, since he thought that your diverging opinions would work well in a debate.
Which was stupid, according to you both, to say the least.
After you had exited the classroom, definitely scorned, Michael had followed you, even after you had suggested you two just worked on your own things and then put them together, once you were finished with your researched.
‘It doesn’t work like that!’ he had mumbled, annoyed ‘I don’t know about you, but I am honestly trying my best to get a decent grade in this class…’.
‘This is why I am telling you to leave the entire thing at me’ you had shot back, meanwhile you went through the lawn of the college park, trying to quickly get away from him.
‘I…don’t think that you should do everything alone…” something in his tone seemed rather embarrassed, but you didn’t dare to turn around to check on him: you knew all too well what his blue eyes could do to you “… the teacher actually paired us together because of our contrasting ideas…”.
‘Which means that if we work together all you’ll do is try to convince me that your stupid opinion is the best one’ you replied, moving onto the first library you could find, almost having the satisfaction of closing the door in his face.
‘… well if you start up with that attitude we certainly won’t have a nice experience’ he commented, stopping the door from closing just a few minutes before it might have slapped on his face ‘… I am no asking for you to stop this hostility, but maybe… just to soften it’.
Yeah, of course, he could come back whenever it was useful for him…
What a dick.
‘… go to hell, honestly’ you simply mumbled back at his proposal, sneaking in the elevator and again Michael managed to catch the ride with you, which would make the entire thing quite more awkward.
‘Very mature, (Y/N)’ he mumbled, meanwhile he set himself on your side, as you huffed “,,, that is why we broke up, honestly… you always see your single point of view and nothing else”.
You were ready to properly reply to him, but suddenly the elevator went black and a strange noise was heard before the elevator shook lightly, under your feet, sending you against Michael and making you both fall on the ground, you on top of Michael, before the light reappeared but not the movement of the elevator.
“What the fuck?!” mumbled Michael, meanwhile you felt him shifting nervously under you as you tried to get away from him, to reach for your backpack which you had lost due to the sudden shake “What the hell is going on?”.
“I think that it is probably an alien invasion” you joked, immediately pushing yourself up to use the emergency button, knowing all too well that in some pretty shitty situations the elevator of the college library would stop working.
All you could do was just wait.
With your ex, in the same small place.
“… did this thing just broke?” Michael looked seriously panicked at the sole thought of it being, indeed, broken and you couldn’t help but smirk just to spite him, nodding lightly.
“This shit hasn’t been working properly since I first came here, we’ll have just to sit here and wait for the technician” for which you weren’t ecstatic, since you were stuck there with your idiotic ex, but there was no other way.
You would just put your headphones on and ignore all the incoherent mumbling that Michael had to say to you.
… and then you saw him crunching on the ground, his face definitely paler than it was healthy and in an attempt at human decency you reached out, immediately startling him, with his eyes going to the closed door, blocked due to the elevator having been stuck between floors.
Nothing too bad, the electricity had probably run out and the technician would have to just push and pull on a few things to get it work again.
“… Michael… is everything ok?” his breathing was shallow and sweat was drenching his perfect curls (you had once noticed a hair curler in his bathroom but hadn’t made any questions).
“No…” he swallowed a deep intake of saliva, before his breath went back to being even shallower “… I hate… fucking… closed spaces… I am scared… shit… fuck… by them”.
The revelation honestly surprised you: he had never talked much about himself when you were together, or better… he had talked about himself a lot…
All his best points, the perfectness of his features and the elegance of his steps, the way he was so smart that every teacher loved him, whether or not they approved of his methods or not…
… but he had never spoken or confessed to you why some nights he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep till you joined him in bed, or when he would wake up from nightmare and hold you just a bit tighter…
… he had never explained to you what had troubled him and in the end it had become heavy in your relationship, one of the many reasons why you had broken up eventually, feeling like he was just withholding important information from you, and it hurt… to know he didn’t think you were worthy of that intimacy.
You didn’t have many experiences with claustrophobic people, you, yourself weren’t a big fan of small spaces, but you had learnt to live with them (mostly since your apartment was the size of a shoe box) but you thought that water and slow breathing might help.
You took out your precious water bottle from your backpack: it had been decorated with a shit ton of stickers you had gotten from Michael, who would bring them over to you at first as a joke and then as a true gift.
You had thought about getting rid of the painful water bottle, but you couldn’t help but think it would be a waste, and in the end kept it, although sometimes you would look at a particular sticker and memory would bring you back to that moment when you had been happy with Michael.
Michael seemed a bit taken aback by what you were offering him, but he took the water bottle in his hands, gulping a few good sips from it, before he splashed some on his face, gaining a bit of color, which made you let out a breath of relief and move closer to Michael.
“Everything is going to be alright” you tried to make him relax, honestly wanting to touch his shoulder, to let him know that you were there with him, but you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, alongside that you weren’t sure that you would be able to stop yourself from touching him any further “… Michael you just need to take a few deep breaths, understood?”.
“What if the oxygen runs out and we end up dying for asphyxia?” he shot back, but did as you told him, meanwhile you rolled your eyes at him.
“… and then I was the anxious one” you muttered under your breath “… then you should better shut the fuck up”.
Michael couldn’t overlook the sarcastic annoyed tone you took and shot you back a rather pretty smirk, although it wasn’t as energetic as it would have been, hadn’t he been having a slight mental breakdown a few minutes before.
“You know that I can’t shut the fuck up to save my life”.
Oh, you did perfectly.
Michael was always the one who would say the more hurtful during your fights: he knew exactly where to hit and sometimes he just couldn’t hold his tongue to save his life, hence you hadn’t been able to stop yourself from shattering in front of him many times.
He would always come back to you, asking for forgiveness, as a child.
Those were the only times he would allow you to see the trauma he had gone through.
“… well either way, I am going to put on my headphones, so Taylor Swift will cover your voice in 1. 2…”.
“Maybe this is a sign” spoke Michael, catching your attention for the cryptic phrase “…that we are meant to discuss about the entire ‘Dido and Aeneas’ debate”.
“That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say” you replied, shooting him a look that ‘kindly’ invited him not to say anything, anymore “… and I have heard you say a shit ton of stupid things”.
“Oh… I remember that you quite liked when I would whisper at your ear…” he retorted, and this time his smirk was full-blown.
“… I honestly preferred you when you were not breathing” you mumbled, although you didn’t plug your ears yet with your earphones “I don’t see how we can debate on such things: I believe that Dido was a fucking tragic heroine who got more than she bargained for, for daring to love Aeneas, a dick who left her, because Fate had plans for him… I hate that asshole and you won’t convince me in any way to change my opinion”.
For all your life, Dido had been the scream shout by women who loved too much and got, literally, burned by it, and after Michael’s betrayal, you had felt even closer to the epic heroine.
You certainly didn’t glorify her last choice but understood the way she pushed the blame onto Aeneas and did the same as you analyzed the book, from your point of view.
“Aeneas couldn’t just say to the Fate ‘hey, dude, I just have fallen in love with a girl, so maybe… I might have to stick to Carthago, for longer and never found Rome’. It was simply impossible for him… he couldn’t have done that”.
“He loved her, and he might have stuck and fought more for that feeling” you mumbled, almost burned by Michael’s affirmation.
“You are truly naïve, (Y/N)” mumbled Michael, shaking his head slowly “… you always think that a thing as small as love can fix anything: he fucking couldn’t let love blind him, he had Lavinia waiting for him on the Roman shores!”.
“But he loved Dido, he said so, the cave… the…” you were just rambling right now, the way he spoke Michael didn’t accept any objection.
“… he didn’t love her, he just found her suitable for his plans, he used her” Michael’s tone was final.
“… so, you won’t deny me, at least, that Aeneas was an asshole?” you replied definitely all angered.
“He did what he had to do” he mumbled, as if he wasn’t proud of Aeneas’ behavior, as if it had been his, some kind of sadness shining in his eyes as he sent her a little look as if he wanted to see her reaction to the entire thing “… there are some things that are waaay out of our control”.
“I think that is what weak men say when they can’t do something, because they don’t want to” you whispered, and this got definitely to Michael, who turned to you, his eyes extremely icy.
“Why can’t you just convince yourself that sometimes some things are better on than off?”.
And that, this time, got to you.
You got to your feet, immediately coming closer to him.
“… are you talking about our relationship or ‘Dido and Aeneas’?” you shout “… because I was not the one who took off in the dark of the night! I would have fought, but maybe it is, indeed, better off than on! It makes things easier, definitely”.
You then moved to turn around and seriously sat onto your place again, with headphones on, but this time Michael’s hand shot out to get to you, making you turn around, and although you were expecting him to be angry at you, he looked devastated.
“I fucking saw you being miserable with me” he commented “… yeah we had the best highs I have ever had in a relationship, you made me feel so good, but then… the lows were so ugly and too many and…”.
“You were fucking the one who didn’t want to work in that relationship!” you retorted, pointing your finger at his chest “… I was so so fucking in love with you, butterfly in the stomach and all that shit… but you were always closed off, you didn’t let me in…”.
“Because I am fucking rotten, (Y/N)!” he screamed in your face and before you knew it he was up in front of you, his face all red due not to anger towards you, but to anger towards himself, something that broke your heart.
Truly.
“… all I do is take and destroy and that was what I was doing to you, the only good thing in my life”.
Silence broke down between the two of them.
Michael also shifted his sight onto the door, pushing it so he wouldn’t be facing you.
You still were able to stare at his distorted reflection in the side of the elevator: he was a few minutes from crying and again… you searched out in your backpack to find a box of tissues.
You moved closer as if you were cornering a scared animal, holding the box between you two in order for Michael to grab it at its own pace, which he did, almost stealing it from your hand, and scrunching it closer to himself, almost pushing it onto his chest.
“… thank you” he mumbled, softly “… I am sorry for this entire thi…”.
“You thought that you were protecting me…” you mumbled, catching immediately his attention, although your words were resentful, your tone wasn’t, blocked onto a calm uniformity “... but what you didn’t understand was that I felt shitty in these months… even more than when I was with you, which might be crazy…”.
“I felt also shittier, if it might help” mumbled Michael, a weak smile onto his face and you moved down to sit next to him, your shoulder budging against his.
“It does, you should feel shitty for letting me cry over you, asshole” your tone was in no way mean, neither it held that bitter sarcastic bit it had at first, a lighter teasing one that brought some kind of beauty onto your face, making Michael beam at you.
“Oh c’mon, you might say that, but deep down you obviously still love me” he retorted, shifting his face to your side, making you smirk lightly “… you have to admit it”.
“And you have to admit that you are an asshole” you answered back, this time definitely more aggressively “…Michael, all you needed to do was talk to me, I can handle things I am a big girl”.
“It isn’t that easy” Michael’s face was again hiding from your glare “… people like me can never ‘just talk their problems out’, you don’t know how people look at me, whenever I tell them… they look at me like the monster I fucking am…”.
He got up, swiftly, and then moved to the opposite side of the small elevator.
“… maybe Aeneas just wanted to stop Dido from being hurt, that is why he ran away, he had a fucking pissed goddess on his shoulders, why would he want to involve others in his shitty mess”.
“Because she fucking didn’t care of that pissed off goddess!” you shouted back, gaining his interest and when you turned around his eyes were teary and her gaze softened “… I wouldn’t have cared and I wouldn’t have run away from you, Michael”.
“You don’t know… what I…” he tried to push you away, but you raised onto your feet.
“… I don’t care, because you took care of me when I had a fever, you made me tea whenever I was panicking and you brought me stickers because they reminded you of me” your smile was sad “I loved you, truly”.
“I still love you, truly” Michael’s word were extremely honest and you just were left with your mouth open, surprised by the thought that Michael ever loved you, and blushed, lowering your eyes, but just when you were…
… the elevator shook again, signaling that it had started working again.
You were again pushed against Michael’s chest who protectively draped a shoulder over your shoulder, before the elevator regained its power and started again his movements quickly reached the chosen floor, the door opening to reveal two annoyed technicians.
You couldn’t help but blush thinking that maybe the two must think that you might be the one who actually stopped the elevator to spend a ‘romantic moment’ there.
Michael thanked them for their work, before he pushed you away from the elevator, after he had dragged your backpack out of it with his foot and you pushed it over the shoulder, smiling politely before you sprinted away from ‘the crime scene’, Michael behind you.
You both reached a more secluded area, Michael smirking lightly over to you, although his expression had some nostalgy to it.
“Well that was a fun experience” he mumbled, his hand onto your waist, more out of habit than anything.
“You shitted bricks for half of the experience” you replied, smirking at him, before you brushed a few of his curls away from his face “…you are an idiot”.
“You liked this idiot” he retorted, and you weren’t able to deny the truth anymore.
The knowledge of his insecurities might have definitely gotten into you.
“I did”.
“We could give a happy ending to Dido and Aeneas… we could be the one who stayed together” he proposed.
You were a bit uneasy trying things again, mostly because if Michael left you again, you weren’t sure you would have survived again, because of the pain, but the smile on Michael’s face as he gripped onto your hand as you nodded, was the best thing ever.
But you stopped him from actually kissing you, as he leaned in.
“We have homework to make”.
And then you sprinted off, Michael on your tail.
You would be fine, Michael would be fine.
And it was all because “non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco” (“not unknown to being unwell, I am learning how to help those in need”).
---
So as always: feedback is precious, even more lately, when during the holidays us writers get no notes, so don’t be a bad people and share the fic if you liked it, saying something, it literally takes you a few seconds, and it makes us writers happy!
With this being said, here are the people of my stable tag-list (if you want to be added/removed, just shoot me an ask!).
@emmyrosee​ @blakewaterxx​ @lovelylangdonx​ @so-langdon​ @1-800-bitchcraft​ @rosegoldrichie​ @lathraios​ @rocketgirl2410​ @kaetastic​ @frenchbread4ever​​ @melodylangdon​
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itonje · 5 years ago
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i cant believe i wasted an entire day of my life reading the firebrand by marion zimmer bradley
full review under the cut bbies 😘
like it had a really strong beginning i think but then as soon as the actual trojan war picked up. how it slogged! and i dont mind it when there are darker elements because there already are a lot of dark elements in the source material but. adding in...that scene at the end was completely unnecessary like the og myth is brutal enough WHY would you add on to that. like honestly that alone was the worst flaw of this book like. it made me so mad so like warnings if you ever take a crack at it. imo id rather read a book where the violence is toned down even if it fucks w the plot than where its turned to fucking 100 for no reason other than. i still have no idea why that was put in there. 
the characterizations were...alright. i thought all the girls had dynamic personalities (esp helen!! who was really well characterized. i have a different interpretation of andromache but w/e lol) which is nice to see. shoddy characterization of agamemnon BUT i will give it an excuse since its told from kassandras pov. akhilles is crazy as shit and i love to see that. wish we got more of sexy sexy #1 woman respecter aeneas. the ending is VERY rushed but im glad because i didnt want to read more of that book than i already did.
(note: the transliteration was welcome because i style it like that too but. wish it had some consistency. strange to have kassandra and akhilles without hekabe or aias.)
 the prose is..passable? sometimes it tries to do a chaotic cluttered thing when kassandra foresees things but. its just messy. i feel like the author was trying to do a thing where you write out really pretty abstract concepts but it failed literally every time she tried to do that. 
also i hate mother goddess shit i am so so tired of mother goddesses and its very obvious that the “greek patriarchal” gods is very much supposed to be christian monotheism even though like. greek religion simply did not function like that?? (not denying they were misogynists though lol) and maybe there would be something to that if it was like, idk drawing pararells to hellenization and the death of indigenous gods esp considering the real trojans probably had way more eastern anatolian influence they did greek but. whatever i suppose. some matriarchal gender essentialism bullshit i guess. 
and to fucking mention the fucking author who. when reading up bg from this book found out she did really bad shit (i will not get into) and if the previous things didnt make me dislike the book literally. this did. what a repulsive fucking person and i wonder how much of the book was clouded by...that. and if i enjoyed it before i literally cant because. god. apparently her daughter is an active anti-lgbt rights activist now.
so yeah. give it like, a -15/10 because like even if the book itself was higher literally all of it was tainted by the author. i pirated a free pdf and if you want to check it out you should do the same (this isnt worth spending money on) but. i dont recommend reading it at all. the original was better
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a-magpie-witchling · 8 years ago
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What is a Dæmon?
Disclaimer: As it always is in witchcraft, this depends on the witch you ask. This is my personal interpretation of what a dæmon is and what it means to have one. Also I’m in one fucking big hurry, gotta go meet stranded family. So I’ll probably edit this later but I didn’t want to keep accumulating asks about it!
I tend to go down the Pullman path, and if asked, I would say the dæmon is the soul of the person simply shaped as another creature, all of what someone is plus what they need to be.
Mostly everyone would choose to see their dæmon as an animal, and I think it’s the most direct and honest approach to them.
Simply put, a dæmon is like a combination between what you would normally consider a familiar, a shadow self, an anima/animus, a totem, a patronus, a spirit animal, a fylgja, your soul, and your conscience all together (without the cultural background or connotations). It’s a non-appropriative term that is used to describe your soul in the shape of an animal.
As I’ve said before, I choose to use pop culture references sometimes to avoid cultural appropriation. The concept of the dæmon as I choose to understand is made by Phillip Pullman and then modified to my own needs.
A dæmon is the externalized visualization of your own spirit in the form of an animal. This animal changes as you grow up, and settles permanently the day you mature and become an adult (at around 14 to 20 years old). It can change again, someday, after experiencing extreme trauma or an event that would transform who we are in the deepest part of ourselves altogether.
Personally I have a bear dæmon (Aeneas), a magpie familiar (Semiramis), and a cat fylgja (Samhain). They don’t hold the same importance nor help with the same thing. I don’t really communicate in many ways with my familiar or my fylgja, I just know they exist.
However Aeneas is an integral part of my everyday life. I talk to him constantly, when things get overwhelming he helps me clear my mind.
I visualize Aeneas walking by my side, warding off bad spirits, giving me strength…
In my loneliest times, Aeneas never leaves me alone.
How to reveal your Dæmon?
1.       The Gender
The gender is probably the easiest part of the dæmon’s identity. Usually it’ll be the opposite of the person. I’m female, so Aeneas is male.
Some consider, however, that this rule doesn’t always apply to people. It’s been said that LGBT+ people can have a dæmon that’s their same assigned gender.
This is, I’ve found, especially true for non-cisgender people, not so much for gay, lesbian, bi, etc. people. And sometimes when someone is gender fluid or NB or something along those lines, the dæmon will most likely reflect it. Animals that change their coats across the seasons, animals that change their genders, animals that are more than one gender at once.
One of the most emotive dæmon reveals I’ve been a part of was uncovering a gyandromorphic butterfly for a bigender person. We cried for like half an hour.
2.       The Name
The name is arguably just a tiny bit easier than revealing the animal itself. When I found Aeneas’ name it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was minding my own business when someone said it and I opened my eyes wide and whispered “that’s… that’s it! That’s his name!”
If you don’t know the name, neither does the dæmon. After all, they know just as much as you do, they just tend to interact different with that knowledge.
My best recommendation is: don’t hurry it.
3.       The Animal
This is it. The big question. What’s my animal?
Well, there’s not one way of uncovering a dæmon. The reveal can take years. Aeneas, for example. I’ve known he was a bear since 2012 but I still don’t know what kind of bear. A polar? A grizzly? Shit, maybe I’ll never know!
When I do dæmon reveals we agree from the get go that I can’t point out an exact animal. One of the most recent reveals I did uncovered just that the dæmon was in the mustelidae family!
It can take years, and attempt after attempt.
But I do maintain firmly that discovering your dæmon must be a mind blowing experience.
You can doubt at first, but when you do sense it you’ll go “oh… oh! OOOOH! YES! THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!”.
You’ll feel it. Once you process it there will be no hesitation whatsoever. If a few weeks later you feel like it’s not your animal, then it never was your dæmon.
My method for revealing a dæmon involves a LOT of question and several days of narrowing them down.
You can do it yourself without help, but, again, it can take years.
If you’re reading this, the chances that you’re a bird dæmon is really fucking high. People that care about these things are usually bird people. Someone with an ant or a primate soul you wouldn’t catch dead trying to find out who their dæmon is.
Mostly always you’ll find that there will be three animals you’ll end up saying “yes, that’s EXACTLY my dæmon,” although it won’t be so in two of those cases (and deep down, you’ll know it).
The first one will be the animal you want to be. This first level is encompassed almost solely of beautiful, cute, or badass animals. Yes, we all want to be a stag, an eagle, a raven, a wolf, a lion, or a cat. But… most of the times we aren’t. We just are animals we don’t find ‘cool’, because it’s… it’s us. It’s banal.
Only once I’ve unveiled a tiger, never a lion, never an eagle. I’ve unveiled I think… two or three wolves. Wolves, btw, tend to belong to order enforcers or soldiers.
There are ant dæmon. And frogs, and mosquitoes, and all kinds of ‘ugly’ things. Sometimes people aren’t happy. Once I unveiled a tortoise and the person almost yelled at me. Another time I unveiled a hyena and the person basically told me to go fuck myself and then a few weeks later came and said I was right and that they had to learn to live with it. This animal usually represents who we want to be, instead of who we are.
And of course, there comes the ricochet effect.
The second animal is usually the exact opposite. It’s where the “bad” dæmon start to show up. People focus solely on their defects and the animals that they hate are the ones that they think will define them.
Eventually you reach a balance. And that balance is your dæmon.
A few pointers, though: trauma survivors tend to have dæmons with means to carry them away and escape or with the means to defend themselves. Usually a survivor has wings or claws or venom.
The MBTI personality test is one hell of a useful tool, although it doesn’t have the last word.
If anyone is interested, I do dæmon reveals (for as long as it takes, until we pin it down) for $25 in my shop and I also trade them for goods or services! It tends to take at least two or three days of constant personal questions, but it can extend up to months! So please don’t hire the service if you don’t have the time or the patience!
If you cannot afford to have a reveal, check out the daemon forum! Their method and mine aren’t the same, but they’ll surely be able to help you! There are other daemonists who also perform reveals for free!
Happy unveiling!
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elf--shot · 4 years ago
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i just finished reading the aeneid.
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there is so much in there and i’m really angry that i refused to read it for years. what the fuck past me get it together
i am trying so badly not to be a parody of a dreary marxist and point at everything in there while yelling “IT’S THE DIALECTIC”. however, it is, in fact, the dialectic. the ending is one big “synthesis! …wait oh no. oh no oh dear”
one of the reasons i didn’t read it earlier was because i was like, “i’m not in the mood for roman boosterism” and past me you fucking moron that’s not what this is at all. it is obviously not solely the province of We Moderns to have ambiguous and complicated thoughts about the empires we live in or under. you dumbass. i know you mainly were just cranky that hexameters are hard to read out loud. still.
my opinion is that a demigod is someone who knows they’re stuck inside a narrative and knows what their place in that narrative is.  aeneas knows he’s stuck in the aeneid and he would very much like to not be in it, but he knows he’s there. turnus knows he’s stuck in a story but is very badly confused about which story it is and who he is in it and then he gets iced
i was…underwhelmed by most of book 6, honestly because i think as a vision of the underworld it was too familiar for me—kind of the, hate to bring up tvtropes, but the seinfeld-isn’t-funny thing, where it was new once but it’s been done to death since (mostly by dante, which, no shade meant, but i was like…yeah i’ve seen this.) in terms of “scenes where you ask dead people for advice” i still like book 11 of the odyssey better. HOW-EV-ER. the bit where aeneas sees the field full of people who will be reincarnated as romans, and anchises points to one of them and is like “yeah that’s you” i? is aeneas dead? (IS HE? well…sort of) but also time is just weird in an underworld, everything’s just always-already.
i was EXTREMELY OVERWHELMED by book 2 in a horror and awe sense. the part where venus comes to aeneas and says “look. LOOK. the gods themselves are pulling troy apart” as the massive shadowy-smoky figure of neptune shatters the walls and juno leads the charge and all you can see of athena on the heights is the flash of her gorgon shield. like fucking kaiju. there is a…sense of the extended horrific and of destruction in the aeneid that either is not present in homer or i just missed it. and it’s throughout the book—the underwhelm at parts of book 6 is offset by the fact that the entire poem is extremely, extremely fucking haunted—but especially in 2.
i talked about it to my mom a bit—she taught the aeneid or parts of it in a humanities core program—and she said, it’s a challenge in a visually saturated culture, maybe, to talk about what it’s like when the only light you have to see by is the city you’re in burning down around your head.
CAN YOU HAVE HUMANITY AND ROMANITY IN THE SAME BODY? AENEAS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW (VERY QUICKLY, LIKE IN THE NEXT 5 SECONDS)
18th brumaire voice men make their own history but they do not make it as they please the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living and yes this includes the dead generations of romans that haven’t been born yet and are all hanging around there in the underworld waiting their turn
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artemviswrites-blog · 8 years ago
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hello! i’m hannah, and i’m back into the rp world after a monster hiatus away. i’ve got a decent amount of free time these days, so i’m hoping to find a couple of people to 1x1 with! under the cut are a bunch of plot ideas, including some fandom related things. if you’re interested in anything you see feel free to send me a message or like this post! and, if you’d like to know more about me, my about me and guidelines pages can definitely help.
i play males and females, and i do m/f and f/f. only rpers over 18, pls find the plots and ideas after the read more!
GENERAL IDEAS
i’m a sucker for anything related to spies and espionage. give me spies working for rival organizations, or agents working for an organization that isn’t what they thought it is (a la alias), or spies that are assigned on missions together but hate each other and have to work together. there is really no way to go wrong with this so long as there is lots of angst and conflict!
one of my all time favorite plots is art thieves. a pair of high profile thieves stealing art and jewelry and other expensive things from all over the world. maybe they’re a team? maybe they’re rivals? or maybe one is retired and the other comes to find them and bring them back into the ring because there’s trouble afoot?
ohhh and royalty, a modern royalty plot would be amazing. it could be any of the classic tropes -- two people betrothed to be married but they hate each other. or maybe one is betrothed to another person? secret romances are my jam.
i’m myth trash which means i’m always down for mythology-based plots that are retelling of stories or personifications of mythic figures in present day. favorites include zeus + hera, odysseus + penelope, orpheus + eurydice, artemis + athena, aeneas + dido, cassandra + helen of troy. but lbr there are so many possibilities and dynamics.
ok but i’m also fairy tale trash so plots involving retellings of fairy tales or personification of fairy tales are right up my alley. they could be the originals or the disney versions, i’m not picky. some of my favorites are peter pan, lady and the tramp, sleeping beauty, snow white and rose red, and the snow queen.
historical plots are great and one of my favorite eras is the roaring 20′s -- so a great gatsby inspired plot would be fun. give me socialites causing trouble, rich millionares throwing extravagant parties, or a journalist trying to dig up all the secrets of the upper class. soooo many options here!
old hollywood plots, tho -- actors and actresses caught up in the glamour of the film world. give me studio drama and set up romances and elaborate films with the cast having affairs. i’m all about anything related to the studio era of hollywood and beyond. think like 1930′s-1960′s.
who remember’s the iconic the wedding planner with jlo? give me something where the wedding planner falls in love with the bride or groom. OR maybe it’s something like this where it’s someone who believes in love and someone else who thinks it’s a farce?
this is always posted about but tbh i want one of my own, so something based around a mystery-solving duo/group a la nancy drew or scooby doo gang plS? two childhood rivals who both liked to solve mysteries and go off to college only to return home after being away for awhile and find themselves sucked back into the mystery business. or maybe it’s two private detectives who get stuck on a case together?
this modern retelling of tangled sounds like fun tbh. 
HP RELATED
founder’s era
rowena/helga  —  two women who are at the heart of creating a school for magic and also having to deal with godric and salazar at odds with each other? two women who end up spending so much time together that they wonder what it’d be like to be together always? i can play rowena or helga, but tbh i just really love the idea of them being in love and telling godric and salazar to fuck off. 
first war
james/lily + sirius/oc   — yeah, yeah, i know. this is a long shot, but it’s been eons since i was able to play my oc against sirius, and i’m dying to try it again. i’d really like to double up and play all four of these guys together -- i will happily play james! i can give you the full rundown of my oc as well...just ask!
frank/alice  — these TWO I SWEAR. they’re so cute i love them and i’m 100% willing to play frank or alice. give me their auror adventures and them having neville and we can au if you’d like where they don’t lose their minds or we can keep their heartbreaking ending it’s all up to you!
au’s + etc’s  — i’m pretty much open to any au’s and ships (no sirius/remus pls ty) and would be interested in playing any of these characters, so if something interests you let me know: marlene mckinnon, dorcas meadows, amelia bones, alastor moody, alecto carrow, and fabian prewett.
trio era
pansy/harry  — this ship gives me life? like they’re so polar opposites in so many ways and pansy flat out was willing to give harry up to the dark lord, but like, pansy was also the victim of jk rowling’s hate so she deserves better than that storyline. i’d love to play these two out after the war when harry and ginny are falling apart and pansy is still trying to figure her life out and feels like the outcast. (i could really only see myself playing pansy here)
viktor/hermione  — i would LOVE to see these two run into each other after the war and hit it off and end up falling for each other again. krum is still a quidditch star and hermione has a badass career and they’re just trying to navigate everything and idk I JUST LOVE THESE TWO.
cho/ginny  — IMAGINE THIS: two gals who go pro after the war and play on rival teams but whoops fall in love and become a power couple in the wizarding world. i can play cho or ginny just pls give me quidditch babes.
crackships + other  — there are so many other ships i love in this gen (alicia/charlie + penelope/oliver are the two biggest tbh yes they’re crack but INDULGE ME OK)  that i’d be willing to play, so just throw them out there. some other characters i’d be interested in playing: alicia spinnet, oliver wood, penelope clearwater, luna lovegood, daphne greengrass, astoria greengrass, blaise zabini, and charlie weasley
miscellaneous
quidditch  — this could be set during any era, any time. give me quidditch players and rivalries and falling in love and friendships. there’s so much potential here!
pureblood society  — this has always been an interest of mine: exploring the pureblood culture pre-first war. give me arranged marriages, feuding families, lavish parties, and soooo much gossip.
cursebreakers  — we don’t know terribly much about cursebreakers, but it’s such a cool job and there’s so much potential so i’d love to have a duo that travels the world tackling magic from centuries past.
original characters  — i mean, there’s so much possibility in this world that we can definitely do anything and everything. just toss out an idea!
OTHER FANDOMS
pokemon  — i have NEVER NOT WANTED a couple pkmn lines. original characters -- trainers, gym leaders, coordinators, etc. give me EVERYTHING we can make just about anything work tbh. we can even come up with a new region (just no new pkmn pls my brain couldn’t take it).
riverdale  — yes this show i loved it i love all the garbage characters and i’d love to rp some of them? we could au it or focus on what happened immediately following the season one finale. i’d love to do archie/betty, jughead/veronica, or cheryl/veronica, and i’d happily play archie, veronica, or cheryl!
gossip girl  — yes ok it’s an old fandom i’m old i get it. but consider this: ignore everything after season two. we could play chuck and blair how they should’ve been done. we could au it and have blair go to yale. my favorite ships are chuck/blair, dan/serena, and nate/blair. i’d prefer to play blair, serena, or nate!
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thefreelanceangel · 8 years ago
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☯ Tell us all about your favorite muse you’ve ever written and why they meant so much to you.
I have written a lot of characters in the last seventeen years. Keita, Elena, Aria, Paisley, Slate, Jonas, Nathan, Jack, Thomas, Heathern, Lore, Linden, Bertram, Andrew, Aeneas, Black Robin, Seraphie, Tabitha, Bonnie Blue Eyes, Valentine, Charonte, Dragoste, Luminaria, Fish, Dia, Siba, Ax, Betre, Tamara, Honoria, Michael, Wrinkle, Savannah, Zorayas, Ferazhin…
(I had 40 characters alone for the oWoD HTML chat room.)
And while Capricia is definitely in my top five, I’d have to say my absolute favorite (who shares a lot of traits with her, actually) is Mariel Dunne. 
Back on the old mirror chat that was created after White Wolf closed the official HTML chatrooms, I made a sidhe kinain with an attitude. Originally, she was meant to be a pure self-insert. A couple of the old players and I challenged each other to make “idealized you” characters. I, being in love with Changeling: the Dreaming, went straight for the fae. 
I even gave her one of my middle names (with a little variation) for her given name. And made her pretty, of course. What’s the point of an idealized self-insert without the right appearance?
The only problem was Mariel herself. She didn’t stay me. Not even for a single chat session. Within a couple of hours, I had a snark-filled, hostile gamer girl with a bitter sense of humor and a chip on her shoulder big enough to see a mile off. 
And I started playing her more often, learning more about her as I went. Her history was, of course, melodramatic and overblown; that was one of the things I toned down a bit when I took her out of the mirror chats and put her into my fictional city, Brandenburg. 
She’s a whiz with computers–has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and specializes in B2B programming–and loves competitive gaming. Mariel’s a whiz with FPS games, enjoys the hell out of raiding and would like nothing better than to meet some of those “whiny-ass losers” IRL so she could plant a steel-toed boot in their faces. 
Mariel isn’t nice, but she’s loyal. She’s loyal to the death. As hostile and viciously sarcastic as she is, it’s hard for her to make friends. The ones she’s made are her friends for life. There is literally nothing she won’t do for Briar Dallas, her BFF. And even her ex-boyfriend, Tyler, can count on her to be there, albeit throwing snark left and right. 
I get Mariel, much as I do Capricia. (They’d throw so much sass at each other, my gods…) I get why she’s hostile, why she’s immediately ready to go on the offensive and why she takes out her anger through competitive gaming. I also get her love of music–girl’s one hell of a drummer and pretty good with composing original music–and her fashion sense. (Punk Goth with a bit of “fuck you I do what I want” thrown in.) I understand why she sneers at romance novels, wears every color in existence as long as it’s black or neon, has a few lacy skirts and hates her hips. 
And I never fail to tear up just a little when she’s loving. When she has a chance to do something nice for Briar or takes a minute to volunteer at the Brandenburg animal shelter. When she steps up to defend someone or personally hunts down whatever jackass just spawn-camped Thomas. The wealth of potential kindness in her, lurking just under that porcupine-prickly surface, is such a contrast that it’s a delight to see. 
I like complicated characters that have multiple facets, and out of all the ones I’ve written, I think Mariel’s got to be my favorite. 
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