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.
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Ooh for the micro story- accost!
Master Windu on the whole looks incredibly unimpressed with Obi-Wan's testimony. "You don't have post traumatic stress disorder, Master Kenobi."
"I could," Obi-Wan says placidly, lacing his fingers together behind his back. "Honestly, after three years fighting on the frontlines of a galactic war, I think it's time we look at the mental health of those who surv--"
Master Windu raises a hand to quiet him. It works, if begrudgingly so. "The Jedi Council fully understands and supports those Jedi who are grappling with the aftermath of the war, Master Kenobi. That does not make you one of them."
"I could be," Obi-Wan lies, as he isn't. And he's certain that the entirety of the Jedi Temple knows that. The end of the war has, after all, been an incredible blessing to him in every which way.
"I overheard you telling Master Vos that you've slept like a babe for the past several months," Master Fisto points out.
Yes, Obi-Wan has been sleeping rather well. After all, his padawan has made sure of it. They sleep curled together in bed in varying states of undress most every night. Anakin has singlehandedly ensured that Obi-Wan feels too exhausted for any sort of post-war trauma lately, and he's sure the Council knows that. The council practically endorsed it, after all.
So it's really no one's fault but theirs that they've found themselves in this situation.
"I think we're getting off topic," Obi-Wan says. "A holo reporter accosted my padawan on the streets of Coruscant. Of course I retaliated in the name of protecting him."
Master Windu rubs at his temples. "A holo reporter touched your padawan's elbow--your padawan, who, let us remember is a fully-fledged Jedi Master capable of looking after himself and no longer your padawan at all--and you cut off the reporter's arm."
Obi-Wan blinks back at him. "I don't know what came over me," he says blandly. "It must have been the stress of it all. The war and such. You know."
"Get out," Windu says, looking torn between exhaustion, disgust, and aggravation. "And you'll be sitting down with The Coruscanti Sun's Editorial Team in two day's time as punishment. They want to do a spread."
Obi-Wan goes. The threat would carry more weight if he didn't know that the Council knows that there's no way in all of the galaxy that Anakin Skywalker would allow Obi-Wan to spread for the holo cameras. If Obi-Wan is willing to maim a man for asking after the specs of Anakin's mech arm--ensuring that, well, if he liked it so much then he can wear one of his own now--then there's no telling what Anakin would do to keep his master safe from the eyes of an entire editorial board.
[send me a word from this list for a micro-fic!]
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Ignorant?
Let’s just say this was Noelle’s breaking point into why she can’t stand Sebastian… the audacity of this bitch. I know a lot of people really like him (and I for one absolutely love him as a character💚🤍) but Sebastian gets on my nerves SO much playing the game, and to that I reflect that onto Noelle.
but also when he almost forced Ominis to cast Crucio in the scriptorium, like bro stfu cause like hell are you making my baby do that, that’s messed up😭👿
What I wish my choices were
>that was cruel
>you’re not thinking straight
>I WILL TURN YOU TO ASH YOU FOOL
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hey guys just so we’re all on the same page. jeric is not platonic and it never was. whether or not the writers intended for them to be queer is pretty much irrelevant bc at the end of the day they DID come across that way and the fans noticing queer subtext isn’t us being crazy, it’s literally just us watching the show and noticing things. i’m so tired of queer fans being invalidated and told we’re making everything up when we ship gay pairings when that’s… literally not true. obviously they don’t need to actively ship jeric themselves or even like them as a romantic pairing at all but i’d love to not be told i’m insane k thanks <3
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it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.
i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.
there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.
'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.
to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.
and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.
but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.
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blatant plagiarism is WILD, my dude
come up with your own ideas if you wanna write ffs!
(this acc blatantly stole @neteyamswillow ’s fic word for word 😭)
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