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katerinaaqu · 2 months ago

Note

greetings!

kindly requesting some background info and perhaps some linguistic breakdowns on the compound names & epithets of the greek gods.

So far ive come across a fair few (like areia and kronides for aphrodite and zeus respectively) and wondered if theyre tied to certain myths, are markers of where the god is in theogony, or are as simple as greek honorifics.

tysm and have a wonderful day :D

Hello hello!

Oh my this is an amazing question but also so damn extensive! Hahaha because there are countless epithets given to the gods depending on their cult and worship, their attributes or relations even their appearance at times (ex. Κυανοχαίτης Ποσειδών aka "dark/blue haired Poseidon", or Γλαυκόφθαλμη Αθηνά aka "Athena with the blue/gray/bright eyes" or "eyes like an owl")! Only Zeus has a bunch of them! Much more the others! However I will try my best to scrap the surface of their names and epithets here.

For starters the gods, just like the humans in poems and such, bear the names of their heritage or parenthood. So, just like we have let's say Ατρείδης Αγαμέμνων (Atreides Agamemnon) aka "Agamemnon son of Atreus", we have also Κρονίδης Ζευς Kroneides Zeus "Zeus, son of Cronos" [Since whenever you see the ending -ίδης (-ides) at the end of a name means "son of" ]

They also might have an epithet depending on the area they are being worshipped or linked to their birth or residing, for example Κυπρία Cyprian, an epithet of Aphrodite to indicate her birthplace in Cyprus or even Κυθέρεια "From Kythera" for her other elleged birthplace, Kythera.

Gods also bear as epithets names that are linked to the lands they have their temples or sanctuaries in for example Ολύμπιος/α (Olymbios/a)= Of Olympus, Olympic, Πελάσγιος (Pelasgios) [Zeus]= Of the Pelasgic tribe, etc or Delphic (the one in Delphi) etc.

There are so many so I am not sure if I can touch them all but I will sure try! I am sorry if this message is long.

Zeus:

Zeus's name is ancient. In fact it is being rescued from the very first confirmed greek scripture, Linear B as di-wo among others. His worship is indeed linked to the ancient times. Etymologically his name is linked to meanings such as "divine" or "heavenly" among others very freely though given that the actual etymology is rather obscure and Zeus is one of the greatest examples we have in etoimology. I believe comes from an ancient root which means "to shine" According to Burket n Greek religion.

Zeus has a plethora of epithets and some of them have to do with his attributes and links to the sky and weather Όμβριος (Ombrios)= of the rain, Αφέσιος (Afesios)= the one who releases (rain or other weather phenomena), Σκοτίας (Skotias)= the darkening, the one who brings darkness (associated with rain and clouds), Κεραύνιος (Keravnios)= the one of the Thunder, Αστραπέος (Astrapeos)= the one of the Lightning, Κατεβάτης (Katevatis)= the descending one (from the verb "κατεβαίνω" in modern greek which means "to descend" or "to come down"), Κόνιος (Konios)= the one of the dust, Ικμαίος (Ikmeos)= of the moisture, Ευήνεμος (Evinemos)= of the good winds, Νεφεληγερέτης (Nepheligeretis)= Cloud-gatherer (Homeric epithet from greek νεφέλη=cloud and verb αγείρω= to raise or to gather) etc.

Other epitheds include his role among the gods such as: Βασιλεύς (Vasilefs)= King, Ύπατος (Ipatos)= supreme, sublime, the higest of authority, Κορυφαίος (Korypheos)= top, of the top, the highest of all (or linked to the top of Mount Olympus), Ύψιστος (Ypsistos)= the highest of all, the most sublime, the top authority, Θεός Αγαθός (Theos Agathos)= the Good God, Βουλαίος (Vouleos)= of the council, councilor, Κοσμήτης (Kosmitis)= the one who brings order to the world etc. even Πατήρ (Pater)= Father (aka "Father of gods and mankind")

Then we have a plethora of epithets that link Zeus to several things he represents such as justice or giving of goods for example: Ξένιος (Xenios)= of hospitality, Ικέσιος (Ikesios)= of the begging (here the ritual of begging see for example Odysseus begging Arete for heeding his plea for getting him home), Φίλιος (Philios)= of love, of friendship, of kinship, Γαμήλιος (Gamilios)= of the marriage, Καθάρσιος (Katharsios)= the one who cleanses, Σωτήρ (Sotir)= savior, Μειλίχιος (Milihios)= Gracious, merciful, Ελευθέριος (Elephtherios)= of freedom, Πανελλήνιος (Panhellenios)= of all Greece and all Greeks (from παν= complete, all and ελλας=greece), Αρείος (Areios)= of war, Στράτιος (stratios)= of the army, Σθένιος (Sthenios)= of power, Τρόπαιος (tropeos)= of the prices, loot, Σημαλέος (Simaleos)= bringer of signs/omens, Μοιραγέτης (Miragetis)= leader of Fates (μοίρα=fate and άγω=to lead, to bring, to raise)

And that is just a sample! Hahahaha! He has countless names and epithets depending on his worship, his attributes. In Homer he is even described by his appearance or what he wears, for example Aἰγίοχος (Aegiohos)= Aegis bearer (from the myth of Athena and Perseus where Perseus gives the head of Medusa to Athena, by some accounts Athena presents this aegis to her father Zeus). Some of his epithets that connect him to myths such as the attribute of being part of the top of the mountain of course leads not only to his battle with his father Cronos and his dominance over Olympus but also the second defeat of the Titans in Titanomachy where again Zeus defeated his arch-nemesis, Typhoon. His attribute to mount Ida in Crete is possibly due to the fact that he was raised there in secret so that Cronos wouldn't swallow him like the rest of Rhea's children. Multiple myths connext Zeus to sanctuaries such as the one of Dodona where he is also offering prophetic powers, similar to Delphi. Zeus also is connected to South Italy given that it is under Aitna that he trapped Typhoon according to some myths and traditions.

Hera:

Hera is also an ancient deity known already from mycenaean greek as well, written e-ra. Her name is of a little more obscure origins. I have seen people connect her to ώρα (hora) aka "time" or "moment" αήρ aka "wind" or "air" and some others. Plato says it comes from ἐρατή (erate) which means "beloved". Either way Hera has given her name in many figures of mytholgy including the infamous Heracles (Heracles= Glory of Hera).

Just like her husband, Hera has also a number of epithets that connect her to her nature as well as her attributes: Νυμφευόμενη (Nymphevomeni)= married, the one who gets married, Τέλεια (Teleia)= complete, adult woman, Ζύγια (Zygia)= married, of the marriage Ανθεία (Anthia)= of the flowers, Ακραία (Akraia)= of the top, of theheights (title she shares with her husband as well), Γαμηστόλος (Gamistolos)= the one who leads marriage (γάμος= marriage, στέλλω=to send, to lead to) Άνασσα and Βασιλίς (Anassa and Vasilis)= Queen. Βοῶπις (Vopis)= Cow-eyed (Homeric epithet, the one wit the big eyes. Also in Homer she is described as "white armed")

Other interesting epithets of hers are: Αλέξανδρος (alexandros)= protector of men (αλεξ= protect, repel and ανδρας= man, here is used as an epithet not as a name so it is female gender), Ηνίοχη (Iniohi)= of the chariot, the one who leads the chariot, Ὑπερχείρια (Hyperheria)= whose hand us up above. We also have one where she is called Αιγοφάγος (Aigophagos)= Goat-eater (Αίγα=goat and φάγω=to eat), linked to Laconia (Sparta) where Heraclesoffers a sacrifice in goats to her because he had no other sacrifice to give. Other names and epithets link her to specific heroes like Βουναία (Vounea)= of Vounos (a name of a hero) since many heroes offer temples in her name.

She is linked a lot with heroes due to her involvement with them both for the good and for the bad reasons. As charioteer we see her ride a chariot in Iliad as they descend together with Athena to assist the Greeks in the Trojan war. It also seems to be connecting her with her husband as his support and his co-ruler.

Poseidon:

Yet another god we know exists at least since the dawn of greek civilization in Bronze age, having his name engraved in Linear B as po-se-da-or among others, Poseidon is the second most powerful god in Greek olympian pantheon and like his younger brother Zeus is the god of the heavens, he is the god of earth as a living space for humans. His name is linked both to earth and to water since depending on the interpretation one can say his name comes rom "flow" or "earth" and of course one of his most famous epithets as earth-shaker. That is because earthquakes are by n large the former of the landscape.

Poseidon's plethora of names and epithets also link him to that. In fact many of his epithets include the term "gaea" which means "earth": Βασιλεύς (vasilevs)= king, lord, Πελαγαίος (Pelageos)=of the sea (πέλαγος=alternative word for "sea"), Αιγαίων (Aegeaeon)= of the Aegean sea, Προσκλύστιος (Prosklystios)= the one who strikes against (here waves probably?) Γαιήοχος (Gaeichos)= the one who holds the earth, Εννοσιγαιος (Ennosigaeos)= the Earth-Shaker, Εὐρυκρείων (Evrikrion)=wide-ruling (in Homer), Κυανοχαίτης (Cyanohetis)= of the blue/cyan/dark hair (in Homer from cyan and χαίτη which is a word used both for the maine of the horse but also means "hair" in general), Σεισίχθων (Sisichthon)= Earth-shaker (from verb σείω=to shake and χθων=ground, dirt, earth >see also "chthonian"), Ἐπακταῖος (Epaktaeos)= on the shore, worshipped on the shore (επί=upon, onto and ακτή=shore), Ποντομέδων (Pontomedon)= lord of the sea (ποντος=water, sea, μένδω=rule, stand steadfast -among others-), Φύκιος (Phykios)= of the seaweed, Φυταλμιος (Phytalmios)= plant nurturer

Other epithets can be seen as: Ἀσφάλειος (Asphalios)= protector (possibly protection for travelers in the sea), Δωματίτης (Domatitis)= of the house (as protector of kings and families and kin), Ἱππιος (Hippios)= of the horses, Ἱπποκουριος (Hippokurios)= the tender of horses (both these have the word ίππος=horse and the second has the term κούρα= which means "healing" or "tending", see english word "cure"), Ἐπόπτης (Epoptis)=overseer Γενέθλιος (Genethlios)=of the birth (here of the family or of the kin)

So by n large Poseidon is linked to some earthly values as opposing to Zeus who is connected with heavenly affairs. He protects the household and the kin, the partenthood and ansestors among others. Even the fact that his animal is a horse (symbol of status of nobility) plays its part. And of course on myths involving him we do know on the famous del with Athena over the control of the city of Athens but we also know the association of Poseidon with various monsters and monstrous creatures such as the cyclops and more specifically the cyclops Polyphemus. In one essence that could be an indicator of how nature is dangerous for humans who have to struggle their way to live through the unexpected turns of it. As a protector/patron god of Troy he is known for having built the walls of Troy after Zeus punished him for the coup he took part in against him. Poseidon had also sent a sea monster to protect Troy nown as Cytus of Troy, which was defeated by Heracles the first time he conquered Troy.

Demeter:

The other sister of the gods, Demeter also appears as far back as Linear B scriptures at least as da-ma-te with her name being associated of course to the cereal of earth but her name itself has multiple interpretations some of them I see is from a proto-indoeuropean "da" for "earth" and "mater" aka "mother" so in one way "mother-earth" aspect which makes sense given how Demeter is goddess of harvest, of nature, of rebirth of earth after winter and generally associated with earth. Also she is associated with the seasons and their changes. Consequently she is associated with wealth given how wealth comes from cullivating the earth. From the myth of Persephone and her struggle to get back her daughter and have justice for her, made her also associated with justice and law and also of course like many goddesses and gods that have to do with rebirth and the underworld one way or another, is also linked to mysteries and secret worships (ex. Eleusynian Mysteries).

Χθονια (Chthonia)= Of the earth, Χλοη (Chloi)= Green/Grass related, Καρποφορος (Karpophoros)= Bearer of Fruit, Θερμασια (Thermasia)= of the heat/warmth, Πλουτοδοτειρα (Plutodoteira)= giver of wealth, Παναχαια (Panachaea)= of all the Greeks, Ανησιδωρα (Anisidora)= Giver of gifts, Ὡρηφορος (Oriphoros)= Bringer of Seasons, Πολυφορβος (Polyphorvos)= Nourisher of many, Αγλαοκαρπος (Aglaokarpos)= of the Good Fruit, Καλλιστεφανος (Kallistephanos)= Beautiflly crowned, Χρυσαορος (Chrysaoros)= of the golden blade (perhaps cythe?) Μεγαλη Θεα (Megali Thea)= Great Goddess, Μεγαλα Μητερ (Megala Miter)= Great Mother, Προστασια (Prostasia)= leading/standing forard, Ευρώπη (Evropi/Europa)= broad-eyed, Λουσιη (Lusyi)= Bathing/Purifying), Μέλαινα (Melena)= Black (associated with both the land when fertile being dark of color but also her mourning clothing for Persephone's loss) also in this manner Κυανοπεπλος (Cyanopeplos)= Of cyan/black veil, For her association with Justice we have: Θεσμοφορος (Thesmophoros)= Bringer of Law, Θεσμιη (Thesmii)= of the Laws, Ερινυς (Erinys)= Fury (Associated with her fury when her daughter was kidnapped) Other descriptive titles: Σεμνη (Semni)= Modest, Ἁγνη (Agni)= Pure, Πότνια (Potnia)= powerful/noble, Ξανθη (Xanthe)= Fair-haired/Blonde (possible description as well as linked to the golden color of cereal), Ευκομος (Efkomos)= Lovely-haired, Ανασσα (Anassa)= Queen

So generally the most famous story of hers is her association with Zeus, the god of justice and heavens thus herself associated with justice and the change of seasons. With Zeus she has Persephone. When Persephone was taken by Hades/Pluto, she dressed herself in black in mourning and kept on searching for her daughter. Her sadness was translated to the change of season, making winter roam the earth. Eventually when Persephone was proven to have eaten food from the Underworld, pomergranate, Demeter demands to be able to see her daughter at least half the year thus we have the change of seasons for Persephone is sad at her daughter's departure in the Underworld, thus bringing winter to the earth. She is also associated with her other brother, Poseidon, through their worship for the fertility of earth.

Hephaestus:

Another Olymbian god is of course Hephaestus who also has a long history since he also appears to the Linear B texts as A-pa-i-ti-jo and known for his protection over blacksmiths and metalworkers and not only. Unfortunately one of his most prominient features is that he is limping (either by birth or because he was thrown off Olympus either by Zeus or by Hera depending on the myth) So many of his epithets reflect on that: Ἀμφιγυήεις (Amphigyiaes)= the laming one or Κυλλοποδίων (Kyllopodion)=the one who drags his feet.

However he has many other glorious epithets about his craft or glory: Αἰθαλόεις θεός (Aethaoaes Theos)= Sooty god, Ἀγακλυτός (Agaklytos)= very renounced (άγαν= very much, κλέος=glory, fame), Χαλκευς (Chalkevs)= the blacksmith of copper, Κλυτος (Klytos)=famous renounced, Πολυτεχνης (Polytechnes)= of many crafts (πολύ=much, many, τέχνη=art, craft), Πολυφρων (Polyfron)= witty, ingenius (πολύ+ φρην=mind) And one of my favorites: Πολύμητις (Polymites)= wily, of many wiles, of many devices [Yup! The god of crafts has the same epithet that Odysseus gets! How cool is that?!]

Now for myths involving Hephaestus and his nature to be a good blacksmith or a cunning fellow come from various myths that involve him binding gods wih invisible or strong chains to name a few we have the famous story where he traps his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares by binding them on their bed. Or the myth where he binds his mother Hera in a chair and he needs to be made drunk by Dionysus to be coersed to set her free. His nature as a craftsman is connected to the attempt of rap of Athena and the birth of Erichthonius through the Earth/Gaea that gets fertilized with his sperm thus being technically the progenitor of Athens and the Atheneans. And of course the myths that involve him forging various armors for heroes and gods.

Ares:

So Ares is another deity with Mycenaean roots A-re and his name does seem to resemble the term αρά which means "curse" or even "wish" in ancient greek. God of war and courage Ares was not very popular around Greece due to his apparent savagery of character and his connection to war and slaughter and yet he too has a bunch of epithets based on his identity: Θηριτας (Theritas)= Beastly, Ἱππιος (Hippios)= Of the Horses, Αφνειος (Afnios)= Abundant and Γυναικοθιονας (Gynaikothionas)= Feasted by Women. Others such as Ανδρειφοντης (Andrifontis)= Slayer of men, Χαλκεος (Chalkeos)= Bronze or Χαλκοκορυστης (Chalkorystis)= Armed with Bronze, Θοος (Thoos)= Swift, Θουρος (Thuros)= Violent, Δεινος (Deinos)= Terrible, terrifying, Ενυαλιος (Enavlios)= The one sung by the flutes or Warlike, Χρυσοπελεξ (Chrysopelex)= The one of the Golden Helm and more In his case we talk more about epithets that have to do with war and violence which is why he was mostly hated god by the Greeks and represented by the obvious lack of lickiness that Zeus shows for him.

Ares is being connected to various of warriors in mythology and arguably he is responsible for the birth of the Amazons since he fathers many of them. He is also associated to Aphrodite (either as her husband or as her lover) in one way indicating how love or passion are oftentimes reasons for fights and combat). Ares also often gives horses to some strong wariors in myths (thus his association with horses and not just horses of battle). In one essence given how horses are signs of status, could be mythologically winking to the aspect of people gaining status through wars and conquest. Generally Ares is one of the most hated gods due to the aspects of violence he represents (even mythologically is shown as he is one of the least favorite children of Zeus) but his association with Aphrodite and arguably the birth of Eros from their union is to say the very least interesting

Aphrodite:

Aphrodite is a goddess witha plethora of epithets. Her name doesn't seem to be rescued from Bronze Age tablets but of course her name comes from te term αφρός (Aphros=foam) and the verb that means "to rise from" or "to give" or "bring to existence" but there are other theories too that seem to be under discussion. Her epithets of course reflect her notions of love and sexuality but that is not all

Ουρανια (Urania)= of the sky, Heavenly, Πανδημος (Pandemos)= of all people, of all that live, Επιστροφια (Epistrofia)= the one who returns (from verb επιστρέφω which stands for "return" or "turn back"), Αποστροφια (Apostrophia)= the one who reverts (here from aunlawful loves), Κατασκοπια (Kataskopia)= the spying one or even Ψιθυριστης (Psithiristis)= the whispering one So many of her epithets are linked to her lovey nature and to actions of sexuality. Even terms such as Μελαινις (melenis)= black of night (nightly actions such as love), Συμμαχια (Symmachia)=Ally (to love), Απατουρος (Apatouros)= Deceiving one (possible links to affairs), Μορφω (Morpho)= the one of appearances She is also linked to marriage having also the names Νυμφία (Nymphia)= of marriage, Μιγωντις (Migontis)= Unifying one even assciated with Hera by taking her name as an epithet Ἡρη (Iri)= of Hera (aka "of marriage") In Sparta she is worshipped for aspects of war as well thus getting names such as: Νικηφορος (Nikiphoros)= victory-bearer, Αρεια (Areia)= of war Ὡπλισμενη (Hoplismeni)= Armed While from her sea origins we get names such as Ευπλοια (Efplia)= of Fair Voyage, Ποντια (Pontia)= of the sea, Λιμενια (Limenia)= of the port and Ξένια (Xenia)= of the stranger/guest

Aphrodite is also associated like Zeus with her affairs with mortals and immortals alike. She is also the birther of heroes that eventually become founders of cities (like Aeneas) but she is also connected to the aspect of beauty which is very important in ancient Greek spectrum. Arguably her divine origins (either from the birth through the foam of the sea or through the god of Heavens, Zeus) is also associating the aspects of love and passion to a divine level for the ancient Greeks. Her association with war (either through her affair with Ares or by being a war goddess herself for the Spartans) is also associating the aspet of love with war and fighting (ironically we have the modern saying as well "All is allowed in love and in war"). Aphrodite is also associated with the rebirth of nature in one aspect through her love for the beautiful Adonis, who for her sake comes up every spring even if he is dead in the underworld. Her protective nature is also seen when she tries to take her offsprings out of harm's way even at the cost of her own pain (see for example the events of the Iliad) so in a way she is also a mother-goddes even if motherhood is not her ultimate attribute, in my opinion is a very important too.

Apollo:

For Apollo we do not have a steady association with Linear B tablets for it seems like a name we assume refers to Apollo could be written as "Hyperion" instead. Etoimologically it seems to come from roots that are used later to express a young boy coming of age as mentioned how Apollo is the "ultimate kouros" aka "ultimate youth". Homer also speaks on him as "the one with the silver arrows" to speak on his equipment. His association with archery and music but also prophetic powers earns a series of epithets linked to these;

Θεαριος (Thearios)= of the oracle, Προοψιος (Proopsios)= Forseeing, Κληριος (Klirios)= distrubuter of lottery, Μουσηγετης (Mousigetis)= Leader of Muses, Ἑκατος (Ekatos)= Shooter from afar (aka "archer"), Αγραιος (Agraeos)= Of the wilderness (here "of the Hunt"), Αιγλητος (Egilitos)= Shining For his association with healing and disease and plague we have also: Παιαν (Pean)= of the health, Ακεσιος (Akesios)= Healer, Σμινθαιος (Sminthaeos)= of the Mice [the ancient greeks probably did connect plagues with animals as well], Παρνοπιος (Parnopios)=of the Locsts, Επικουριος (Epikourios)= Helper, Αλεξικακος (Alexikakos)= Averter of Evil, Θεοξενιος (Theoxenios)= God of Foreigners (possibly also linked that he was a protector god of the city of Ismarus that was inhabited by Thracian people), Λυκειος (Lykios)= Of the wolves On myths on which associate him with rescues by dolphins (as well as that the dolphin is one of his sacred animals) he gets the name Δελφινιος (Delphinios)= Of the Dolphin, Ακτιος (Aktios) = of the shore and Επιβατηεριος (Epivatirios)= of the sacrifices before embarking, Πυθιος (Pythios)= of the Python (from the myth that he killed the python at Delphi), Διονυσοδοτης (Dinysiodotis)= of bestowing Dionysus (for his contibution to the deification of Dionysus)

Apollo has a very rich set of myths that is very hard to put them all. But of course his birth that is associated with the island of Delos, the moving island of the prophecy and his known myth of freeing Delphi from the python that was guarding the Castallia fountain gives him the association with prophets and omens. We also know Apollo from the tragic stories of affairs he has with both men and women. Apollo despite the fact that is a very beautiful god is being widedly rejected by his love interests. A known myth is his unfortunate story of Hyakinth too who even if he was reciprocating his feelings, their story ended in a tragedy. In one essence connects his aspect with music and poetry to the tragic aspect of life. He is also associated with the Muses through his attribute of music. His lesser known association with plague and disease and also healing or calling it off can be seen through myths such as the plague of the Greeks in the Iliad and his association with Asclepius and the teachings of healing of Chiron. Of course his association with Archery can be seen in the myths, one of the most infamous was the killing of the children of Niobe who was blasphemous towards his mother.

Artemis:

Apollo's twin sister ironically appears to the tablets of Linear B as a-te-mi-to and a-ti-mi-te (in gen. and dat. respectably) as for her name's origin there are various thoughts some of them that comes from the word ¨αρκτος" (arktos) which means "bear". Either way of course we also know Artemis as archer, goddess of wilderness and hunting and protector of the virgin girls (being a irgin goddess herself). A lesser known aspect of hers is that she is also linked with childbirth and raising children since according to the myth she was born first and then assisted her mother Leto give birth to ber brother Apollo. Also she was often associated with death, especially of women thus many figures in mythology call on Artemis for death. So her epithets also reflect on her roles:

Αγροτερη (Agroteri)= of the fields (here: of the hunt), Δικτυνναια (Dyctynea)= of the (hunting) nets, Φεραια (Pheraea)= of the beasts, Ελαφιαια (Elaphiaea)= of the deer (given that deer is also her sacred animal), Λυκειη (Lykii)= of the Wolves (sharing it also with her brother), Αριστη (Aristi)= the most noble, Καλλιστη (Kallisti)= very beautiful, Ἱερεια (Iereia)= Priestess, Ποτνια Θερων (Potnia Theron)= The leader of Beasts, Ἑκατη (Ekati)= shooter from afar (sharing it with her brother), Χρυσαλακατος (Chrysalakatos)= the golden-shafted (opposing her brother who is "silver shafted"), Ελαφηβολος (Elaphivolos)= shooter of deer, Ἁγνη (Agni)= pure, chaste, Παρθένος (Parthenos)= virgin, Αιδοιος παρθενος (Aidoios Parthenos)= reverted virgin, forever virgin On her attributes on children childbirth and girls we have: Παιδοτροφος (Pedotrophos)= the nurturer of children, Φιλομειραξ (Filomirax)= friend/beloved to young girls, Ορσιλοχια (Orsilochia)= helper of childbirth (since λοχία lochia, means "childbirth"), Ἡγεμονη (Igemoni)= leader (here of dance, from myths that involve dances in wilderness)

Artemis association with birth and labor is as I mentioned above, connected to her myth of birth. She gets born first and then helps her mother give birth to her twin. Her myths connecting her to wilderness are of course connected to the various animals she has as symbols. One myth involves for example the transformation of Aktaion into a deer and her sending his own dogs against him because he saw her naked while bathing in the river. Along with her brother Apollo she shoots the children of Niobe when she claims that she is better than their mother for having more children. Thus she is associated with death especially of females since she infamously shoots the female children of Niobe while her brother shoots the male (from what I remember at least, I could be wrong on that)

Hermes:

Hermes, the messenger of gods and also the sender of souls, the protector of all who travel (including merchants and thieves) also appears in Linear B tablets as e-ma-ha. For the origins of his name I do like the version of ἕρμα (erma)= stone heap. Onc again Hermes as a god that has multiple attributes not only as a god that brings the messages to others but also protect the travelers and interesting the thieves also (Hermes himself starts his life as a thief for he steals the cows of Apollo in his first day! XD) Thus he is also linked to pastoral life and flocks! So we have:

Διακτορος (Diaktoros)= Guide/Messenger, Αγγελος Θεών (Aggelos Theon)= Messenger of the gods, Αγγελος Μακαρων (Aggelos Makaron)= messenger of the blessed (or of blessed news), Χαριδωτης (Charidiotis)= Giver of Joy, Ἑρμηνευτης (Ermineftis)= Interpreter, Ψυχοπομπός (Psychopombos)= Sender of Souls, Κυδιμος (Kydimos)= Glorious/Noble As protector of flocks and merchants we have Επιμηλιος (Epimilios)= Protector of sheep/flocks, Κριοφορος (Kriophoros)= ram-bearer, Βουφονος (Vuphonos)= killer of cattle, Οιοπολος (Iopolos)= Sheep-tending/Shephard, Αγοραίος (Agoreos)= of the Market/Agora As protector of wandrers and thieves we have: Μαστηριος (Mastirios)= Of the searchers, Πομπαιος (Pombeos)= the Guide/the one who sends, Ποικιλομητης (Pikilomitis)= of the various wiles, Δόλιος (Dolios)= Wily/Planning, Κλεψιφρων (Klepsifron)= the one with the thefty mind, Μηχανιωτης (Michaniotis)= Deceiving/Trickster, Φηλητης (Philitis)= Thief, Εναγωνιος (Enagonios)= of th Games, Προμαχος (Promachos)= Champion And one of my favorites: Πολύτροπος (Polytropos)= of many turns/ways [YUP! Odysseus again shares his epithet with a god!]

So yes Hermes very early on is being assosiated with trickery and theft given how he steals the cattle of his half-brother Apollo and then pretends being innocent (also we have the creation of the lyre by him, which he gives as a gift to Apollo) and as a messenger of gods that is constantly moving to transfer the gods' will to humans and other gods, he is always associated not only with messengers but travelers in general (wanderers, thieves, merchants etc) also as a rule-breaker he plays an important part in the Odyssey as he helps Odysseus in Aeaea on his own accord also associated with the thief Autolycus to whom he gives special powers to disguise himself (according to traditions he is also his father). Hermes also has the task to guide the souls to the underworld till the river where they will be taken by Charon or wait for 100 years if they have no money to pay him. Thus later in alchemic traditions he is linked to transformation through death as well and many associated Hermes with Thoth in Egyptian mythology.

Athena:

The oldest and most known child of Zeus in Olympian pantheon is no other than Athena. Her name also rescued from Linear B scriptures as a-ta-na (in fact the full title we have is a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja =Potnia Athena) an there are various of suggestions on the name's etymology, I believe Plato says that her name deprives from Ἀθεονόα (Athoenoa) which deprives from he word "theos" (god) and "noisis" (mind) so her name says to be "godly knowledge" or "godly mind" (according to Plato's Cratylus 407b, they say the first α is an old and foreign way to spell η so technically he says Α θεονόα would go Η θεονόη aka "the god's knowledge/mind"). Either ay Athena is undoubtedly one goddess with various attributes that are also reflected to her names. Goddess of Wisdom born from the goddess of mind and wisdom Metis and Zeus, being born out of Zeus's head, Athena is goddess of war and war tactics, protector of crafstmen and goddess of weaving and culivation of plants (especially olive), protector of heroes and bearer of the Aegis of Zeus Athena is without a doubt one of the most prominient and mportant characters in the pantheon and some of her epithets go:

Παλλάς (Pallas)= Pallas (Arguably one of her most famous epithets. In Homer is used as part of her name, future writers such as Pindar or Plato deprives from the word "palleis" which means "to brandish" because she brandishes her aegis, others speak it comes from the name of a giantess that she killed but I believe the most beloved version is the one that has her taking this epithet from the name of the daughter of Triton who was her best friend and Athena accidentally killed and she was so devastated that in her mourning she adopted her dead friend's name as her epithet)

Τριτογένεια (Trigogeneia)= Born from the head (τριτύς=head), Κορυφασια (Koryphasia)= of the head, Γλαυκόπις (Glaukopis)= Owl-eyed (also light blue/gray or shiny-eyed), Οξυδερκης (Oxyderkis)= sharp (eyed or witted), Γοργολαφας (Gorgolaphas)= Gorgon-crested, Γιγαντολετειρα (Gigantoletira)= Destroyer of Giants, Αξιοποινος (Axiopinos)= the one of the Rightful Vengeance, Ανεμωτις (Anemotis)= of the Winds, Κελευθεια (Kelefthia)= the one who sends you on the way, Προναια (Pronaea)= the one before the temple, Παναχαια (Panachaea)= of all the Greeks, Παρθενος (Parthenos)= Virgin, Κορη (Kori)= Maiden, Αμβουλια (Amvulia)= Coincilor, Απατουρια (Apaturia)= of the deception, Μαχανιτις (Michanitis)= the one who comes up with plans, Ξενια (Xenia)= of the foreigner/of hospitality As protector of city of Athens we have: Πολιας (Polias)= of the City, Πολιουχος (Poliuchos)= the one who has the city (city-protector), Πολιατις (Poliatis)= City-keeper, Ερυμα (Eryma)= Defender, Σωτειρα (Sotira)= Savior As war goddess and associated with victory and such: Νικη (Niki)= Victory, Αρεια (Aria)= of the War, Σαλπινξ (Salpinx)= war-trumpet, Λειτις (Leitis)= distrubutor of war loot, Ζωστηρια (Zostiria)= gildred (in armor), Σθενιας (sthenias)= of the Strength, Πολεμηδοκος (Polemidokos)= war-sustaining, Ἱππια (Ippia)= of the horses, Χαλινιτις (Chalinitis)= the bridler of horses, Αλε�� (Alea)= Escape (of refugees) As protector of arts and crafts: Εργανη (Ergani)= Worker, Παιωνια (Paionia)= Healer, Ὑγεια (Ygia)= (of) Health Also interestingly she also has the title Μητηρ (Mitir)= Mother even if she is not a mother-goddess maybe that is closer related to her association with helping heroes

Of course we know the countless myths Athena is involved in, from her quarrel with Poseidon over the city of Athens and the Gigantomachy where she gains her title of "destroyer of giants", in epic poems she is associating herself with some of the greatest heroes including Tydeus, his son Diomedes, Odysseus and his son Telemachus but also women such as Penelope. Of course her wonderous birth from the head of Zeus is also very important part of her titles. Also her association to her half-brotherHephaestus and their protection of crafts.

Dionysus:

Dionysus whose name literally means "Child of Zeus" or even "Young Zeus" is the youngest Olympian and the first one to be born of a mortal woman (Semele), starting from a demi-god and ending up being deified as olympian god. His name appears to Linear B tablets as di-wo-nu-so and is one of the most beloved gods to think of. He has various attributes although he is mostly known as the god of wine and festivities his rich cultural background can be also god of madness and ritual madness and ecstasy, of fertility of nature and the rebirth of it after winter, of theater and of wilderness. From the Orphic traditions he was born once more as Zagreus and killed by Hera or devoured by Titans and thus he was re-incarnated as Dionysus through Semele. His trip to the underworld and his rebirth connects him so with regeneration and rebirth and connects him to Eleusynian Mysteries. As god of madness and orgic celebrations he is also god of theater and culivation of the vine. From the orgic nature of his worship we also have epithets that connect him to the eating of animals, often associated with omophagia (raw-eating). So here are some epithets:

Δασυλλιος (Dasyllios)= of the forests, Λιμναιος (Limneos)= of the lakes/marshes, Σταφυλιτης (Staphylitis)= of the grapes, Ομφακιτης (Omphakitis)= of the unripe grape, Ληναιος (Lineos)= of the wine-press, Θεοινος (Theoinos)= God of Wine, Αγαθος Δαιμον (Agathos Demon)= Good God, Προτρυγαιος (Protrygaios)= the one who comes first for grape-picking, Οινοψ (Inops)= wine-dark (potentially reference to his dark hair according to his descriptions), Κισσιος (Kissios)= of the Ivy, Ακρατοφορος (Akratophoros)= Bringer of unmixed wine, Ανθιος (Anthios)= of the Flowers, Κιστοφορος (Kristophoros)= Basket-bearer (basket both for sacrifices also for grapes), Ερεβινθινος (Erevinthinos)= of the cheakpea, Πατρωιος (Patroios)= Paternal (god), Αισυμνητης (Asimnitis)= Dictator, Πολιτης (Politis)= Citizen Asossiation with sexuality and cullivation: Ανδρογυνος (Androgynos)= Androgynous (sexually), Φαλλην (Phallin)= Phallus, Αυξιτης (Afxitis)= the raiser in size As god of madness: Βακχος (Bacchus)= of the Bacchic frenzy, Ιοβακχος (Iobacchos)= of the bacchic-cry, Ιακχος (Iakchos)= of the ritual-cry, Μαινολης (Menolis)= Mad/Raging, Βρομιος (Vromios)= Noisy (or of the eating), Ανθροπορραιστος (Anthroporrestos)= Man-slayer, Σωτηριος (Sotirios)= Savior (recovering from madness) As a god of orgiac festivities and omophagia: Ταυροφαγος (Tavrophagos)= Bull-eater, Βουφάγος (Vuphagos)= cattle-eater, Μοσχοφαγος (Moschophagos)= calf-eater, Αιγοβολος (Egovolos)= the striker of goats, Νυκτελιος (Nyktelios)= of the night, Λαμπτηρος (Lamptiros)= of the torches/lambs, Ἑστιος (Estios)= of the feast, Μελπομενος (Melpomenos)= Singing From the orphic traditions and regeneration: Ζαγρεύς (Zagrefs)= Zagreus, Διμητωρ (Dimitor)= two mothers (or twice born), Λυσιος (Lysios)= releaser, Ελευθερευς (Eleftherefs)= Liberator, Σαωτης (Saotis)= Savior, Μυστης (Mystis)= of the mysteries, Χθονιος (Cthonios)= of the earth (also cthonic worshipping)

Without any exaggeration Dionysian worshipping festivities are some of the most ancient known n Greece and some of them survive one way or another even today. I have made some answers in regards to the dionysian worshipping process but in general he is associated with myths that involve the inducing of madness in various occasions. His followers satyrs and maenades also are involved in various of myths on their own. Dionysus is also known for being chased by Hera in various occasions and the inducing of madness by her and him being released by Rhea using the stone of Amethyst (crystal associated with wine due to its color). Dionysus is also one of the gods known for going to the underworld and reviving people or giving them immortality (such the reviving of his mother Semele and his marriage to Ariadne), thus associated with Eleusynian Mysteries and rebirth rituals. His status as god was earned from the myth that says that Zeus finished the pregnancy of Semele himself by sewing the fetus in his hip. His association with the vine has also many myths but I like the myth of Ampelos, the young Satyr that was his lover who got killed (depending onthe myth he has a different end) and was transformed to the first vine by Dionysus (or he died because he tried to pick grapes and thus Dionysus naming the plant after him) His association with theater comes from his dionysian celebrations where people wear animal skins or masks and dance in their ritual ecstasy, literally becoming someone else while also dancing and singing as a chorus (choir), thus the association with theater and the ritual offerings to Dionysus before a theatrical performace

***

Sorry I was so late my friend! Your ask was one of the most extensive I ever had and I wanted to include as many pieces of information as I could! And this is but a sample! I will be glad to analyze further specifics you might think you want to hear more and give you the myth behind it if it exists because man this is like a thematic for an entire book I swear! Hahahahaha

Other honorable mentions could be Hestia and Hades

Hades:

The last out of the three great gods including Poseidon and Zeus and he inherits the realm of the dead. In fact oftentimes especially after the 5th century BC the word "Hades" (Άδης) was used to indicate the underworld itself while the god was being referred to with the name Πολύτων which means "Wealthy" or "Wealth" and the name was later taken by the Romans as "Pluto". Hades was a hated god to woship because he was connected to the essences of death which Greeks disliked (in the homeric hymns for instance Hades is often not even named but he is referred to as "The one with The Many Names" The name deprives according to Plato from the word that means "unseen" Due to the fact that he was so feared because of the essence of death, by n large there is no cult for Hades in temples but Hades is honored to funerary rights and necromantic rituals. So epithets and cult names are rather scarce but interesting non the less:

Πλουτων (Pluton)= of the Wealth, Θεων Χθονιος (Theon Chthonios)= God of the Underworld, Ζευς Χθόνιος (Zefs Chthonios)= Zeus of the Underworld, Πολυσημαντωρ (Polysimandor)= The ruler of many, Πολυδεγμων (Polydegmon)= Host of Many, Πολυξενος (Polyxenos)= the host of many, Νεκροδεγμων (Nekrodegmon)= Receiver of the dead And my favorite: Νεκρων Σωτηρ (Nekron Sotir)= the Savior of the Dead

There are not THAT many myths that include him except of course the infamous kidnapping (and depending on source) rape of Persephone which also leads to the change of seasons. In one essence the way that he is worshipped during the dunerals AND is associated with this myth in a way seems to connect together the essences of life and death; rebirth and doom or even marriage and death which often go side by side (see for instance how often women died in childbirth or young). However I love the term "Zeus of the Underworld" showing how powerful he was feared to be. Especially since like Zeus he has a domain that is untouchable by humans (Heaven and Underworld) but I also love how he is known to be also a "Host" to the dead and also a "Savior". That last one touches me really much.

Hestia:

Hestia is one of the siblings born out of Cronus, the oldest one according to tradition. As a goddess she is the goddess of the house and household. She never leaves Olympus and rarely ever leaves the kitchen where she feeds all these endless mouths of Olympian gods and their entourages! Like Athena and Artemis she is sworn to remain a virgin and unmarried. Her worship is really important. For starters the house fire that burns in every Greek House is dedicated to her (her very name means "heath of fire" nowadays)

Unfortunately cannot find epithets as such dedicated to her. She is known as a Virgin goddess just like others before her in this list. She is known as the Goddess of Altars and Heaths. Oftentimes she is not even depicted, possibly to indicate her importance by the absense of image. Her sacred animal is the pig which again is an animal that can give to people pretty much everything from meat till blood till skin and bone.

Of myths again I know only of one, her attempt of rape by Priapus or rather that Priapus tried to sneak on her while she was sleeping, she wakes up and screams and Priapus is scared for his life and runs off. Generally she is worshipped and honored like a good lady of the house. She has altars everywhere (arguably ALL altars are in one way dedicated to her)

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irlactualhuman · 1 month ago

Note

Lea Shepherd,

It has come to the attention of the HR department that you have been using your corporate email to both offer and request sexual favors from several of your coworkers on company time, and in a seemingly official capacity. This is a clear violation of company policy regarding sexual conduct in the office, on official channels, and during work hours. Our policy clearly states that benefits not considered "earned rewards", such as target bonuses, cannot be distributed to employees evenly, including so-called "social benefits".

To comply with policy, we ask that you either cease all sexual activity described herein immediately, or agree to both offer and receive such sexual services from all employees equally. The entire HR team would strongly urge you to choose the latter option, as it will not only go a long way to undoing the sense of unfairness this conduct has instilled in many employees, but will also likely improve overall corporate moral, including for us here in HR.

If you do choose the latter option, as we most certainly hope you will, HR may be required to change the designation and official duties of your employment, as it is likely this even distribution of activity will severely limit your capacity to carry out your existing work. Management has, however, already given the green light on this, as they are all eager for your well documented talents to become more widely available.

Please respond to this email with your selection by noon this coming Monday, so HR and Management can move forward and take any necessary adjustments to ensure your continued success with us.

Thank you for your time and for that thing you did the other day in the break room,

Laika Loveless HR Manager

Laika Loveless,

After due consideration, I will conditionally accept this new position within the company that Management has seen fit to develop for me. My stipulations are outlined as follows:

Pay increase commensurate to my increase in duties. We can scarcely say that I was compensated fairly for my admittedly assumed duties up to this point, but we can use them as a spring board. Based on my new adjusted workload intake, I would expect no less than a 130% increased salary yearly.

As I will be moving to a more physically intensive position within the company, this must be non-exempt.

I will require at minimum two PA's under my direct supervision. I do not have any singular or outstanding requests as to their work history or training beyond the ability to administer good and frequent massages.

Finally. I want Jessica's office. The nice one on the 3rd floor with the bay window. If you'll circle back to me on this in person, Ms. Loveless, I can review with you some additional information I may have pertinent to this request.

I am certain we can come to an understanding on all further points related to job function, the filing of appointments, and commission. The Christmas party will be sublime, this year.

I am thrilled to be helming this new venture on behalf of the company. It is as my father always told me, "get on your knees, girl!" He was right, and I am sincerely flattered to have my accomplishments so keenly realized by my superiors.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

- Lea Shepherd

Title Pending (Might I suggest Morale Officer?)

PS: GIRL I TOLD YOU WE GONNA MAKE THIS HAPPEN JESSICA IS FCKIN THROUGH see you at drinks at Marty's honey. kisses!

#leaanswers

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sandontshengshou · 4 months ago

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Day 3829 of seething and coping over the fact that despite making Jiang Cheng feel like he was worthless to his OWN FATHER by relentlessly and publicly favouring his other son/ward?, he ALSO managed to deeply traumatise said boy by making him promise to place the priorities of the Jiang Sect (a.k.a his own biological kids) over Wei Wuxian’s own life like the kid never even mattered to him!!! Fucking sublime!

#character flaws this nuance that okay whatever idc #i am in his walls #if there are no jfm haters i am DEAD #jiang fengmian hate #jiang fengmian critical #anti jiang fengmian #mdzs #cql

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wellofdean · 10 months ago

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Thinking about @luckshiptoshore and her liveblog of watching Supernatural and how much I love following it and how great it is to watch someone just fucking ENJOY the show...

And then, there were a couple of people in my Discord who love the fic, but have never watched the show, and folks in there were trying to convince them that it was worth watching (duh!) and that knowing the show by heart makes the fic so much better and like yes, again... DUH! And then I was suddenly overcome with such a feeling of ENVY for all the people who still have the chance to watch Supernatural for the first time already knowing what happens in the end.

I mean, I watched 14 years of it in real time (after downloading and bingeing season 1) and at least I was clever enough not to be in the fandom trenches that whole time, and just enjoyed it for what it was, but the end broke my brain, and changed the whole show for me.

Because, like, here's what happens in Supernatural by the end: Dean and Cas are in love. It was not subtle. Dean can't say it because he never has a single moment of not being up to his pretty, pretty eyeballs in dealing with the ongoing and constantly multiplying trauma of being the man his father raised him to be, and god's specialest boy to boot, but in the end, Cas finally does just fucking say it. Not only that, he waits until he can use it to save Dean, and show him once and for all in an incontrovertible, undeniable way exactly how deeply and truly loved and SEEN he is.

When you watch it knowing that, knowing that the the whole story is going to end in that stupid bunker dungeon with Cas telling Dean who he is and dying to save him, the whole thing just HITS DIFFERENT, because the Dean of season one with his outcast liminality and pretty, pretty lips is the poor, lonely, weird boy who will one day be loved like that by Castiel, an angel of the lord -- an impossible Eldritch being who learned what love and selfhood are from closely observing Dean.

The consensus amongst most Supernatural fans is that it is trashy and bad and that its all evil queerbaiting, but I would contend that it's actually deeply entertaining, culturally rich and interesting (yes, even its flaws and missteps), often impressively well-written and acted, never puts on any airs about being prestige television or high art, but still manages to be ultimately epic and somehow sublime, and that it's a queer story, about queer love saving the universe, and it is so, so worth watching.

Like, my brainworms are not 'they strung me along all that time and then never let them make out', by brainworms are 'they told us so many times and in so many big and small ways, and now I need to watch every bit of it again and again and again so I can finally REVEL IN IT (and, friends, that is the Supernatural rewatch journey: realising it was ALWAYS THERE). My brainworms aren't 'but does Dean reciprocate??' they are: 'of course he loves Cas, and of course Cas knows that Dean loves him, and the one thing Cas can't have? That's just his chance at happiness and a soft epilogue with and for Dean, because Cas, impossible, cosmic, Eldritch being Cas, traded his chance at happiness for his family's lives and sacrificed himself for love of his son and Dean, because that is what you do when you love someone, and what he has watched Dean never stop doing for even a minute of his beleaguered life.'

And then, Dean dies (yes, it's stupid), and he cannot just go to heaven, drink a beer and hang out, he needs to climb into his magic soul vehicle, hit the axis mundi and tear the universe up looking for his angel and his happy ending in The Winchesters? Fuck me.

And like, it's the most romantic, and devastating story I have ever been told? And I love it so much?

#supernatural #anti-trashnatural agenda #I am sometimes overwhelmed by how much I love that story #and dean #fuck I love dean #and castiel #angel of the lord

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somepsychopomp · 13 days ago

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and so what if I said I was drafting a fic where Eris tosses a golden apple among the gods but instead of "for the fairest" it says "for the best kingly lover" or something like that and both Zeus & Poseidon reach for it at the same time.

naturally neither will back down since their pride and reps are on the line. Both have had many lovers over the years and regard themselves as outrageously good and definitely better than the other at sex, but how can they determine who should rightfully get the apple & the bragging rights?

Well, they should share a lover and have them judge the two divine brothers. But what lucky mortal should get such a privilege?

Someone good looking themself, who'd be able to appreciate the sublime attention bestowed upon them. Someone young and without much experience, or preferably none, so they have little in terms of expectations or past lovers to compare to (not that either god thinks that any mortal could ever compare to them in bed)

Someone intelligent, who'd most certainly make the right choice (AKA after being bribed a little or a lot)

Someone like... why, Athena's darling pupil, the young King of Ithaca!

Odysseus is currently a bachelor king, but doesn't squander his life or status on heaps of whores. He lives a rather humble life, contributing to the construction of his palace himself, plowing the fields, and making frequent appearances among his people.

By the time Athena catches wind of who her father & uncle have chosen for their little contest, it's too late. She cannot dissuade them or rush to hide Odysseus- for she knows that no matter who he chooses, the loser would be more than willing to exact revenge against her student or his people.

There's also one other problem for Ody. A tiny, miniscule problem that doesn't even register as a concern in Zeus' or Poseidon's eyes.

Odysseus of Ithaca is engaged and madly in love with his future bride, and he will want no part in either god's attention.

But it's too late.

On one particularly beautiful day, Odysseus wakes up to a cloudless sky and the warm sun shining down on his island. The rocky coast is usually a darker shade of blue from the rough surf, but today the ocean glitters like sapphire and silver. Odysseus thinks today would be a wonderful day to go for a morning swim so he heads to the beach alone. And wouldn't you know it, right outside his palace is a little cove he's never noticed before. How strange, given that he's confident he knows every inch of his island.

Odysseus sheds his clothes and sandals, baring his body but feeling safe within the high walls of the little sunlit cove, and slips into the water. Another pleasant surprise- the sea is much warmer than he was expecting for so early in the morning!

He sinks beneath the water and luxuriates in the feeling, swimming a little farther out. It takes just a few breaths before he's nearly upon a large boulder jutting from the surf, a miniature island in the cove. Odysseus thinks it'd be great exercise to touch it and swim back.

He ducks his head underwater one last time before surfacing once he reaches the rock...

When he emerges, there's a man waiting for him. A man larger than any Odysseus has ever seen before, with a mane and beard of pure white hair and eyes the color of gold. He sits upon the boulder as if it were his throne, smiling with mirth at Odysseus and inviting him to come and enjoy the sight of the beautiful sky together.

Odysseus is instantly wary and tries to retreat, only for his back to come flush with a broad chest. An equally large man with black silken tresses and sparkling blue eyes purrs at him and encourages the little king to stay and enjoy the water...

#yes in this situation Ody is both Paris and Helen #who will Odysseus chose??#por que no los dos?#epic the musical #epic: odysseus #epic zeus #epic poseidon #thinking of a name for this AU/fic

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lilyevansxoxo · 7 days ago

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for @wolfstarmicrofic / january prompt n.3: first time meeting the family (772 words) AO3

In the summer after their sixth year, Sirius pays Remus a visit. Lupin’s cottage is a white dot in the midst of the endless greenery, which blends with their rubble-walled garden. Sirius had never seen so much nature all at once. It was different from what he was used to seeing in Scotland, harsh and sublime. This—the earthy smell seeping up and all around him, the clement warmth of the sun, the distant buzz of bees and nameless insects, as he walked up to the yellow front door—felt like a hug.

He knocks on the door, at the faded speck of paint, and waits with his hands folded behind his back, mustering up his most perfect shit-eating grin.

It's a surprise, his visit. Remus had sent him a letter a week prior, mentioning his low morale since his mother Hope had fallen even more sick within a week of returning home from Hogwarts.

From inside the house, a rustling of paper, something heavy falling to the ground, a curse said sottovoce, socked steps—then the door opens to reveal a quite shocked Remus.

Sirius spreads his arms wide. “Surprise!”

Remus opens and closes his mouth dumbly. “Sirius? What–what are you doing here? Is everything alright?”

“I just wanted to pay a visit,” he simply says, tilting his head, “you know. I thought you’d like some company or a bit of help, since your mother’s sick.”

Remus’ mouth formes an ‘o’, then his expressions grows pleased. “Come, come inside,” he encourages him in after clasping a hand on his shoulder.

The house is cozy and cram-full with furniture and knick-knacks. The living room’s ceiling is lined with wooden joists, a simple lighting fixture hovers above the small table at the far end of the room, where Hope sits. Sunlight dances on her skin, exacerbating its paleness, as the curtains gently move with the breeze coming from the open window.

Sirius smiles, tight-lipped, and gives her a nod. “Good afternoon, Mrs Lupin.”

She doesn’t respond but her expression grows more confused, eyes vacant.

“Get your shoes off and leave them there on the steps,” Remus says, before he reaches his mother’s side.

Sirius does as he’s told. He sits on the carpeted stairs in front of the entrance door, works on the laces of his combat boots, struggles to get them past his heels, then neatly places them beside him.

He tries not to snoop at the hushed voices coming from the other side of the house. He stands up and remains there, wedged between the console table and the coat hanger, and wonders if, all things considered, it was a good idea coming unannounced. A familiar sensation of unease creeps up his spine to the back of his neck. He grows tense, mind reeling.

“Sirius,” Remus beckons him to his mother’s side.

Sirius crosses the room with quick steps until he stands in front of them.

“Mum, this is Sirius Black. I’ve mentioned him a few times before,” Remus says, articulating his words.

Hope looks at him then slowly turns to Sirius, who extends his hand.

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs Lupin,” he says.

Hope shakes it weakly, cold palm against his own warm one. The ochre cardigan draped over her shoulders slips down with the motion. She whispers something but Sirius can’t make out her words. Still, he smiles.

Remus repositions the cardigan over her shoulders and places a hand on her arm. “We’ll be out in the garden, okay?”

After her approving nod, Remus leads Sirius through the kitchen—copper pots and pans hang along the stove hood, a red teapot sits on a turned-off burner, the stone sink is filled with food-encrusted plates, rags everywhere—and out the backdoor.

They silently sit on the stone steps, socked feet buried between the blades of grass.

“Your father?” Sirius asks, after a while.

“He’s at work for most part of the day. He takes care of her in the evening,” Remus says, then his shoulders suddenly sag. “It’s the pain meds.” His voice is almost a whisper as he speaks to the space before him. “They’re quite strong, that’s why she’s like that.”

Sirius lifts his head. He doesn’t say anything as he places a hand on Remus’ back. The fabric of his vertical striped shirt wrinkles under his palm.

Remus turns to him, teary-eyed. And Sirius’s heart breaks.

“Thank you for coming here.” Remus nudges Sirius with his shoulder. “Can I give you a hug?”

Sirius nods, smiling, snorting a little at the ridicolous request. “You shouldn’t even ask,” he says and envelopes a sniffling Remus in his arms.

#wolfstar microfic #wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #hope howell #writing tag #*

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shaanks · 2 months ago

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Would you want to pull that Shanks has separation anxiety hc back out from under the bed and maybe perhaps share it with the rest of us? Tbh I LIVE for the head canons you share!!

You are so sweet!!!! 😭😭😭 I'm sorry I've been sitting on this one for several days now, I wanted to be at least sort of clear-headed to answer it properly. Some of this is going under a readmore because I'm incapable of answering things concisely lmfao.

Edit: for anyone watching out there this post is riddled with spoilers so read at your own risk.

I think about Shanks and all of his sublimated feelings and fears and dreams so much it makes me so crazy and sad lmfao. Focusing in on the fears part though like...abandonment and loss have been really central themes in his life.

He was found in a locked treasure chest - seemingly abandoned by his biological family (which in the end, good, because if they are who we think they are they suck anyway).

He spends his childhood aboard the LITERAL ship of dreams, two of the most prolific men of that era are his father figures, he has this incredibly close relationship with Buggy, he is soaring on the wings of this burgeoning era, where the only limits he has are what his imagination and talent allow him to be capable of...and then it all just stops.

The family that he knows sails away to the end of their journey without him because he opts to stay behind with Buggy when he gets sick, and nothing is ever the same or right again. Roger sickens, Rayleigh's mind begins to fray. The crew disbands. Everyone disappears.

Roger allows himself to go to the gallows, and on the way there he lays the future of their world on the shoulders of a grieving 14 year old boy, who has to now learn what it means to be utterly alone in a world that has not only branded him enemy, but whose governing structures are fully aware of his power and the danger his talent and proximity to Roger entail.

The only person he had there with him, Buggy, runs out on him - for reasons that were understandable, but could have been avoided by words neither of them had the emotional maturity to express, especially not in the moment of such anguish and grief.

He eventually finds people, good people, new friends and comrades, people he can trust, but even then he is having separation and its cost modeled for him in the form of Yasopp and his son, and eventually in the form of a tenacious, lovable little boy named Luffy, who loves so fiercely and is very clearly terrified of the prospect of being left, of being alone. A fear Shanks resonates with deeply. A pain he knows he will eventually have to inflict on this little boy.

There's a lot of meta around that Shanks had no faith or interest in Luffy until he ate the gum-gum fruit and didn't think he had any potential to be a pirate, but I think that's a really shallow, kind of willfully ignorant take on it. Shanks himself found a home at sea as a boisterous naive child, and the RHP more than have the capability of looking after a child with a penchant for trouble...but that's how he lost his world, too.

Leaving Luffy behind hurt him, but he left him with connection, an emotionally valuable memento, and to Shanks' awareness he was leaving him with a stable support system firmly in place. There are no guarantees in this life, but he's learned through personal experience that not even the Pirate King can grant you assurance that your family at sea will survive.

ALL that to be said that I think one of Shanks' deepest, most untended hurts is loss, the loss of family, of friends, of love, and because that wound has gone unaddressed--and because he went from lost 14 year old boy to Captain to Yonko in such quick succession, and there doesn't tend to be a lot of emotional support for mythic figures of authority--it manifests as separation anxiety.

Individual members of the RHP are rarely seen off on their own, with the exception of Benn going off to rescue Luffy that one time. They all move around together.

When people leave, Shanks keeps tabs on them, when danger arises, he does his best to be two steps ahead of it. I genuinely think there's a part of him that whispers "you'll never see them again" any time someone he cares about walks out of a room, or leaves the ship a little before him. There's a reason, I think, that he's always shown to be the last person to board the ship, why he's always ushering people on ahead of him 50 times before he goes up.

With a lover, I think it would manifest tenfold, I think that's partially why he's so clingy and touchy-feely and cuddly (aside from just being literally the sweetest man alive), because to have that sort of connection means he reached out of the imposed avoidance of his own desires to really bring someone in close, and I think that kind of loss, or the perception of the possibility of that kind of loss, would devastate him in a way he wouldn't recover from.

So he holds your hand everywhere you go, shadows you through rooms, presses you close to his side when you're out at bars, and worries, just a little bit, every time you get up to go to the galley or have to take night watch without him.

Because what if it all falls apart again. What if you disappear. What if the crew disappears. Just like what happened before.

I hope this makes sense and was coherent, I just have a feeling or two about him, ya know?

#av answers #ask #forever-a-night-owl #OP #meta #Shanks #seriously thank you for wanting to know and caring at all about my thoughts #sorry this took so long and sorry it IS so long I just wanted to give it like #the diligence it was due #<333 #OP spoilers #Wano spoilers #spoilers

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ohmyamor · 1 year ago

Text

Siren!Wooyoung

inspired by this little thought I had floating around a while back :)

w.c.: 3.1k

warnings: kind of yandere? obsessed wooyoung, attempted and successful drowning

the sea has always called to you, for as long as you can remember

silent beckonings to come closer, to explore it and rid yourself of your mortal troubles

and as much as it scared you, these feelings intrigued you all the same

you know you're not supposed to feel this pull

if anything, the other villagers and even your own mother have continued to drill inside your head the dangers of the water

not only of the sublime waves that are forces to be messed with

but other things that lurk beneath the surface

your mother is one of the sea's biggest cynic

ever since she lost your father to the waves years ago, she seems to hold a grudge fiercer than anything else in her life

no one really knows what happened to your father

you all lived a humble, yet comfortable life due to his job as a fisherman

every morning at the break of dawn he would finish his morning coffee alongside your mother before giving her and you a kiss goodbye and heading out to sea

he was always joined by at least one other fisherman, one of your longtime neighbors and a trusted family friend

one day, the friend was unable to go out with your father

an ominous storm had blown in suddenly overnight and the friend, due to his wife's begging, opted to not go out into the gray waters

he suggested that your father not go either, saying something about an eerie feeling emanating from the waves

but your father politely declined, claiming he had a family to feed and besides

he was never a fan of superstitions anyways

and so he left one dark and cold morning, giving your mother a heartfelt kiss on the lips and you, an affectionate kiss on your forehead

that was the last time you had ever seen your father walk out the door

since then, your mother vehemently forbade you from going anywhere near the sandy beaches

she wouldn't even allow you to stand across the street and look out into the sea

"nothing good lurks in those waters" she scolded every time you begged her to go

and so eventually, you gave up trying to convince her

as the years went by and you continued to age, you focused less on changing her mind and instead focused on helping her with anything and everything you could

with your father gone, it was difficult to make means ends, but not impossible

your mother took care of most of the finances on her own, but you helped with deliveries and any grocery shopping

the village was quite a ways away, and with your mother's slow aging, it was simply a better choice for you to make the journey rather than her

but what she was unaware of

was how you would take advantage of slower days and sneak out to the sandy beaches

although you had stopped asking for permission to go near the ocean, that didn't mean it ever left your mind

besides, it was always better to ask for forgiveness than permission

it's simply unexplainable, the peace and longing you felt when you sat on the cold sand and stared out into the waves

peaceful, yes, but also like there was something calling to you

and so you sit, knees tucked close to your chest and head resting peacefully on your arms

your eyes are closed, taking in the breeze and salty air that invades your senses

why the village hates the ocean so much, you'll never know

you're unsure of how long you stay sitting there, blissfully unaware of your surroundings

the only thing that snaps you out of your small doze is the sound of splashing water

blinking tiredly, you bring a hand up to gently rub your eyes

you scan the water in front of you to see if maybe some dolphins or sea lions have perhaps made their way to this part of the beach

but all you see is calm water

frowning slightly, you continue staring, hoping that something will appear and make sense of the splashing that you heard

but nothing appears

sighing, you pick yourself up off the ground and stretch your arms above your head, taking this as a sign to head home

as you gather your small basket and begin your trek to back to the pathway that led you there

you remain blissfully unaware of the eyes that peek out from beneath the waves

Wooyoung has been watching you

creepy? maybe

but that's none of his concern

technically, he isn't supposed to be anywhere near the surface

he knows this

he knows this rule like the back of his hand

and yet, Wooyoung has always considered himself a pioneer of sorts

a trail-blazer, if you will

there's a whole other world outside of the murky waters he and his family reside in

and it would be such a shame to act like there isn't

his family disagrees, of course

"humans want us dead Wooyoung. They're not our friends" his father had chastised him

"but why?" Wooyoung can't help but to argue back

"what have we done that makes them hate us so much?"

his father had only shaken his head

"exactly. they're humans. they need no excuse to inflict horrors on those different from them"

Wooyoung never liked this answer

"we use our voices to sink ships. What makes us so different?"

and this is where the conversation always ended

with an exasperated sigh and flick of his hand, Wooyoung's father demanded he get out of his sight

Wooyoung thinks to himself that doing this, going up to the water's surface, is just one small way of getting under his father's tail

and so he continues to sneak away from his family and friends as much as possible

swimming gracefully to a secluded area of the water's surface where he can expose himself to the outside sky

it works, for a while

until one day, he makes his way to the top and when he brings his head out of the water

he spots something

or someone

sitting in the sand

almost as quick as he broke the surface, he dives back beneath the waves, wincing as he hears the splashing of the water

he can't really see the figure as well with his head underneath the water, but he can make out a blurry form standing up and raising their arms before turning to walk away

seizing his moment, Wooyoung carefully pokes the top of his head out and watches as a young woman walks away from the sea

you forget quite quickly about the odd splashing

not that it bothered you much in the first place

the ocean is a wonderful, terrifying thing, and you're sure it was the sound of waves crashing or a fish coming out of the water that caught your attention

it's not until a few days later that you can return to the sea

your mother had fallen a bit ill, and rather than risk leaving her side in fear that something worse would happen, you opted to forget about the ocean for a few days to help nurse her back to health

but now that she had recovered, you were eager to return to your secluded spot

this time, you bring a blanket

the sun is shining today, and combined with the cool salty breeze and the sound of seagulls in the sky, you believe it would be the perfect opportunity to take a nap

so, you finish your errands quickly and make your way to the seaside, gently setting out the blanket and removing your shoes before laying down beneath the sun

inhaling deeply, you cannot help the smile that takes over your face

this is nice

your eyelids do not hesitate to fall shut and you lay there for quite some time, relaxing under the comfortable heat of the sun

it isn't until you hear what sounds like faint singing that you abruptly sit up

straining your ears, your eyes flick around anxiously to see if you can spot anyone

there's no one

and yet, you can still faintly hear singing

it's then you notice that you can no longer hear the gentle sound of the waves crashing against the shore

nor can you hear the seagulls in the sky

besides the singing, it's oddly quiet

an uncomfortable feeling worms its way down your spine and without hesitation, you begin to gather your things

promptly making your way up the path, you can't help but send a questioning look back towards the water

what was making the noise?

Wooyoung truly didn't mean to scare you off

really, he didn't

but after the first time he caught a glimpse of you on the beach, he couldn't help but be curious

after all, you are the first human he's ever seen

and so, for the following days after his first encounter with you, he continues making his way up the surface

he just needs to see you again

it's disappointing at first, the way he makes the long and annoying journey past his family and up to the surface only to not see you anywhere

but Wooyoung is persistent if anything and he has the feeling he will see you again

so he waits patiently, checking in day-to-day to see if you've returned

and finally

you return!

Wooyoung is quite happy when he comes to check in on your beach only to find you laying down comfortably on the sand

he can only make out so much from a distance, but from what he can see, you look quite content

initially, Wooyoung is fine with watching from afar

but then he gets this sudden itch

this urge to see you closer

and so he swims closer to the shore, closer than ever before

but it just isn't close enough

he sighs, frustrated, at how you seem so close yet so far away

when an idea strikes him

he knows that technically he shouldn't be using his voice to lure you in

after all, humans have been known to kill sirens for their voices for eons

but other than his voice, Wooyoung has no other way of getting closer to you

so he ignores the warning voice in his mind and slowly opens his mouth

he sings, just loud enough for you to hear, but not to pin point his location

he watches as you sit up and look around confused

and he can't help the little prick of satisfaction when you glance for a second in his direction

he stops singing when he sees you get up and begin packing your things

and while he is a little bit disappointed to see you go so quick

he can't help but grin at the plan that begins forming in his head

you'd be lying if you said there wasn't a nagging urge to go back to the beach

you just couldn't wrap your head around the singing

where exactly was it coming from?

you know for sure there wasn't anyone in your village who was heading to the beach

everyone was always too scared to even step foot within a five mile radius of the water

perhaps someone from out of town?

but your village hardly ever received visitors

there's only one way to find out you thought to yourself as you gathered your small basket and bid your mother farewell

walking out the door and down the street to a place that was most familiar

once you found a good place to settle down, you laid down your blanket and settled in

breathing in deeply, you admired the view before laying down on your side

one of your arms rested underneath your head and you closed your eyes, waiting

a few moments later, you began to hear singing again

the urge to sit up was incredibly strong, but you fought against it

last time I sat up, whoever was singing stopped. I don't want to scare them off

furrowing your eyebrows slightly, you remain laying down

the singing began to grow slightly louder and as it did, you found yourself melting into the blanket beneath you

the sounds of the waves and the feeling of the blanket slowly faded away

you were hardly aware of just how heavy your body felt and how murky your mind had grown

then, the voice stopped

inhaling sharply, you sit up and look around quickly

still, you saw no one

but the feeling was there again, the feeling of eyes watching your every move

clearing your throat, you let out a small, "hello?"

you hold your breath, anxiously awaiting a response that never comes

sighing, you once again gather your stuff and head home, unaware of the hour that had somehow flown by

this trend continues on for a while

you head to the beach after your errands are done in hopes of catching whoever was singing so beautifully

only to never see a single soul

except today is different

you tell your mother as you leave that you'll be back soon, kissing her cheek goodbye and exiting the house

you lay your blanket down and rest, not completely lying down but instead remaining seated upright

sure enough, a few moments later, the voice appears once again, singing louder and much clearer than ever before

you can't help the way your eyelids flutter shut and your body gently sways to the words

words that you do not even understand, but make the same fuzzy feeling appear in your brain

you allow yourself to be carried away by the beautiful song and do not bother looking for whomever is singing

except

you're snapped out of your haze when you feel freezing cold water hit your shins

gasping, your eyes snap open and you look down

you've somehow made your way away from your spot near the back of the shore and you're now standing in the water

you fall backwards slightly, anxious and unsure as to how you managed to make your way over here without even realizing it

you watch as the waves come up and barely skim your feet before retreating back

shaken and slightly out of it, you hurriedly walk away from the beach, leaving your basket lying in the sand

when you get home, your mother is quick to rush out of her room and towards you

"where have you been?" she almost yells, her hands on either side of your arms

"I was running my normal errands," you reply, unsure as to why she seems so anxious

"(Y/n), it's been hours since you left!"

your heart freezes

"hours?" you echo

your mother nods

"you're never gone this long! I thought something had happened to you," she frowns, running her finger along your eyebrow

"lord knows I can't handle losing you too," she whispers

you frown, guilt sinking into your chest at how much you seem to have worried her

"I'm sorry mom, I promise I'm okay. I just lost track of time," you tell her

she stares into your eyes for a few long moments before sighing and releasing you

"Just please be more careful honey"

you nod, watching as she walks back to her spot over the kitchen stove

how did I not notice how much time had passed?

you stay away from the beach for almost two weeks this time

it drives Wooyoung insane

he knows he had gotten quite bold last time, using his voice to lure you ever so close to the water

but he couldn't help it

observing you from afar wasn't enough

he needs you closer

so he waits anxiously, tail flicking nervously and sharp teeth nibbling at his salty lips as he waits day after day for you to return

and when you do finally come back, he knows what he must do

Wooyoung watches with focused eyes as you settle into the sand, farther away than normal

he frowns a bit at this, not liking that after all his hard work, you've gone back to square one

but he's quick to shrug off this annoyance

he has a plan and nothing can stop him

Wooyoung waits a few moments to let you settle in before opening his mouth

he allows the sweet sounds to release from his throat and carry themselves to where you sit

nothing too direct, yet

he just wants you to relax

and when he sees that your eyes have once again fallen shut and you allow yourself to be swept away by his song

he sings louder, with more intent

Wooyoung watches hungrily as your body slowly stands up and ever so gracefully makes its way closer to the water

as he watches your feet approach where land and water meet, he begins to sing even louder

he learned his lesson last time, and he was going to make sure you don't wake up before he allows you to

time goes by agonizingly slow as Wooyoung watches your body wade through the water

it rises from your ankles to your hips to your midsection before finally, the water has reached just below your chin

Wooyoung can't help the victorious grin that makes its way across his face

he fights the urge to stop singing and swim closer to you, but he knows that's not the plan

instead, Wooyoung ducks under the water and swims backwards slightly

his throat is beginning to hurt ever so slightly at the way he has to project his voice, but he knows it'll all be worth it

finally, Wooyoung can see your head come underneath the waves

and only then does he stop singing

Wooyoung watches your eyebrows furrow and your eyes fly open, fear as evident as the sun rays coming in from outside

you flail around helplessly, legs kicking desperately and arms moving around to try and find something, anything to grasp onto

all your movements have your air running out quicker than ever and Wooyoung can't help but feel a little pity when you open your mouth to breathe, only to swallow water

you struggle valiantly, he must admit, but the sea is not friendly to your kind

he watches as your eyes begin to fall shut and your limbs move slower and slower, before stopping altogether

it's only then that Wooyoung swims up to you, gathering your limp body gently in his arms and beginning to swim away

as he swims, he looks fondly down at your beautiful features, features he's only ever been able to admire from afar

the sea may not be kind to you, but Wooyoung will be

after all, he's all you have now

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

two fics in one week?? who am i lololol it's bc my semester is basically done :) hope you all enjoyed this, I had a lot of fun writing it!

#ateez x reader #ateez imagines #wooyoung x reader #jung wooyoung x reader #wooyoung imagines #ateez fluff #ateez au #wooyoung au #siren au #ateez fanfic #wooyoung fanfic

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girlactionfigure · 1 year ago

Text

THURSDAY HERO: Herbert Zipper

Herbert Zipper was a conductor and composer who founded a secret orchestra at Dachau, and wrote a song that became an anthem for death camp inmates.

Born in 1904 to an affluent Jewish family in Vienna, Herbert was a musical prodigy who studied at the prestigious Vienna Music Academy with the great composer Richard Strauss. He found employment as a conductor and composer for cabaret shows.

Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and immediately started persecuting Jewish citizens. Herbert was arrested that year and sent by the SS to Dachau, where he became a “horse,” pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with heavy rocks for 12 hours a day. One of the most talented composers in Europe was doing the work of an animal.

Herbert was not the only music man in Dachau. All the Jewish members of the Munich Philharmonic – comprising most of the orchestra – were also incarcerated there. Herbert enlisted the other musicians in an audacious, even insane, plan. They would make instruments and create an orchestra, right there at Dachau.

How could anybody create musical instruments in a concentration camp? They combed the camp for discarded pieces of wood and metal and fashioned eleven primitive yet functional instruments. At least one guard helped the musicians; Herbert requested a piece of wire for a string instrument, and later found it under his pillow.

Herbert’s Dachau orchestra performed concerts for the other inmates every Sunday, in an outhouse. It’s hard to imagine the experience of listening to sublime music in a filthy environment, while knowing they could be all killed for their participation. Herbert said that the concerts were not for entertainment, but rather to bring purpose and even a bit of normalcy back to their lives.

Noted playwright Jura Soyfer, an old friend of Herbert’s from his cabaret days, was also at Dachau. Together they wrote “Dachaulied” (Dachau song), with Herbert composing the haunting music in his head and Jura penning the sad, sardonic lyrics inspired by the concentration camp motto “Work will make you free.” They thought that writing the song would help them maintain some dignity in an atmosphere of constant humiliation and demonization. Herbert deliberately made the song difficult to learn, so that his fellow inmates would have to use all of their concentration and thereby mentally escape from their horrific surroundings. Amazingly, the Nazis never discovered the secret orchestra.

At the end of 1938, Herbert and Jura were transferred to Buchenwald where they taught other inmates the Dachau song. Soon after, Jura died of typhus at age 26, and Herbert lovingly prepared his body for burial. At this time Hitler hadn’t yet began to implement his “Final Solution” to kill all the Jews, which started in 1941. Herbert’s father Emil was in London, desperately trying to get a visa for Herbert and his two brothers to escape Austria. Miraculously, Emil was able to secure his sons’ release from Buchenwald, and they joined him in Paris on March 16, 1939.

During all this time, Herbert’s fiancee, dancer Trudl Dubsky, was working in Manila, in the Philippines. She recommended him for the job of conductor of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, and he was hired, traveling there in September, 1939. Herbert and Trudl were married on October 1. Although it wasn’t a world-class orchestra at the time, Herbert enjoyed working with the Manila Orchestra and under his leadership it improved dramatically. Life was good for Herbert and Trudl until January 1942, when the Japanese army invaded the Philippines and occupied Manila. It was a brutal occupation and once again Herbert was arrested, this time for refusing to conduct the orchestra for Japanese military officers. He was incarcerated and harshly interrogated for four months before being released. For the next three years Herbert and Trudl survived hand-to-mouth, owning no belongings and traveling frequently in search of safe haven in a country at war.

The most difficult period was the Battle of Manila in early 1945. More than once the building where they took shelter was bombed by the Japanese artillery and they escaped with only seconds to spare. In the end of February they were living with hundreds of other displaced people in a seven-story building in Manila that had neither electricity or water. Herbert volunteered to get water every day, a dangerous and difficult undertaking. On the early morning of February 26, 1945, Herbert was on his water run when he saw an opportunity to reach the American front line, and he rushed across a battle field to do it. While there he received a crucial piece of information: the apartment building where he was staying was due to be bombed by the Allies within fifteen minutes! Herbert desperately explained that 800-1000 civilians were inside the building! Due to his pleas, the bombardment was delayed for 45 minutes, giving him just enough time to get back to the building and rescue everyone inside including Trudl.

Until Japan was defeated on September 2, 1945, Herbert worked secretly for the American army under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, transmitting valuable information about Japanese shipping schedules by shortwave radio. When Japan finally surrendered, Herbert organized and conducted a concert of Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, a goal he’d set during the darkest hours at Dachau. The concert was performed in a bombed-out church.

Herbert and Trudl immigrated to America in 1946, joining the rest of his family. He co-founded and conducted the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, and organized another orchestra especially to give free concerts for public school children. Students called Herbert, who had no children of his own, “Papa Z.” For the rest of his life he volunteered and supported arts education for young people.

Herbert was close friends with poet Langston Hughes and they collaborated on an opera together, “Barrier.” Trudl worked as a ballet tacher. They moved to Chicago in 1953, where Herbert founded the Music Center of the North Shore, and then to Los Angeles, where Herbert directed the School of Performing Arts at USC.

Interviewed by a Los Angeles Times reporter at the end of his life, Herbert said “We have to see the world as it is, but we have to think about what the world could be. That’s what the arts are about.”

Herbert is the subject of a biography, “Dachau Song: The Twentieth Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper,” and a documentary that was nominated for an Academy Award. His beloved wife Trudl died of lung cancer in 1976. He continued his music for two more decades, conducting his last concert in 1996. Herbert Zipper died in Santa Monica in 1997.

For inspiring concentration camp inmates and inner-city schoolchildren with his music, and for saving hundreds of lives during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, we honor Herbert Zipper as this week’s Thursday Hero.

Lyrics of Dachau Song:

Barbed wire fraught with death surrounds our world

On which a merciless heaven visits frost and sunburn.

Far from us are all joys, far our home, far the women

When mute we march to work, thousands in the gray dawn.

But we learned the Dachau motto and it made us hard as steel.

Be a man, comrade, remain human comrade

Do good work, pitch in, comrade

Because work, work will make you free!

#Thursday Hero #🎖

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robertwaltons · 2 months ago

Text

i am not immune to blasting my favourite characters with the neurodivergent beam — i think there is something very comforting about a character from a book written long before these things were understood (at least with the vocabulary we have today) articulating things about themselves that you can see something of yourself in

with that in mind, let me take you on a journey where i explain in far more detail than probably necessary

Why Captain Robert Walton from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) has ADHD (in my non-professional neurodivergent opinion)!

i’ll be going through some common ADHD symptoms and presenting evidence from the text to demonstrate how Walton, in his own representation of himself, can be interpreted as displaying these traits

let's go!!

— INATTENTIVENESS AND FOCUS

Walton has a strong and active imagination, and seems prone to excessive daydreaming and letting his mind wander, even becoming distracted by sensory input (the sublime beauty of nature, lol):

Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.

He feels that he is set apart by his own manner of thinking, that his mind is in need of "regulation":

Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

The "keeping" that Shelley refers to is artistic terminology meaning

The maintenance of the proper relation between the representations of nearer and more distant objects in a picture; [...] the maintenance of harmony of composition. (X)

I would interpret Walton's meaning here to be that he understands his thoughts to be somewhat "all over the place" or lacking practicality; he is aware that he has an overzealous and ambitious personality, and requires a sense of harmony (ideally, in the form of an understanding friend) who will keep him focused.

Even Victor comments on Walton seeming to become impatient with him or lose focus during his own tangent:

Victor: But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.

(adhd bitches be like let me infodump my entire brain at you and tell you seven unrelated stories before getting to the point but the SECOND someone else goes off topic it's so over)

Walton's inattentiveness is best demonstrated by his lack of concentration on things like his education in favour of his interests when he was a boy:

My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night[...]

and speaking of!

— HYPERFIXATIONS

I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

^ me when i will go insane if i don't have my silly little Topics to obsess over. this guy gets it

Walton is clearly influenced heavily by his fixations; polar exploration and his "passionate enthusiasm for the dangerous mysteries of ocean" are lifelong special interests for him. He refers to his voyage as "the favourite dream of my early years", and also developed a love for poetry from a young age:

[...] for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas’ books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country;

When he is forbidden for pursuing a seafaring life by his father, and in doing so prevented from indulging his main interests, Walton becomes fixated solely on literature, attempting to become a poet himself:

These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

Interestingly, when he fails to achieve his literary goal, his attention seemingly switches seamlessly back to his previous interests when he is finally given the opportunity to pursue them - jumping between hyperfixations in search of dopamine is often experienced by many with ADHD:

You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.

Walton claims that he is “practically industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour” but this mostly seems applicable when he can hyperfocus on tasks that are stimulating to him and related to his interests - for example, when he prepares for his voyage while working on whaling ships:

I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.

— HYPERACTIVITY, IMPULSIVITY AND RESTLESSNESS

i mean. i think most people would consider sailing off to explore as-yet unknown and extremely dangerous parts of the world completely of your own volition impulsive no matter how long you've been planning to do it

Even so, Walton seems to display a reduced sense of danger even upon "the commencement of an enterprise which you [Margaret] have regarded with such evil forebodings":

These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river.

Walton's hyperactivity can be seen in his innate restlessness and never wanting to feel “settled” or too comfortable:

My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.

His wanderlust drives him forward, literally physically sending him to places very few have ever been:

[...] there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

To me, this line indicates that Walton has an awareness of his own overwhelming eagerness (and tbh this is also how I would describe what my own ADHD feels like sometimes):

I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.

Walton also seems prone to excessive talking and infodumping, demonstrated even by the act of sending his sister such long and detailed letters in the first place. He is a grade A yapper and that is why we even have the story in the first place!

My favourite evidence of this is when Walton is so taken by the romantic story of his ship's master that he derails his entire letter to his sister to tell her about it, saying:

This, briefly, is his story.

Reader: the story was not brief.

My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.

you don't say!

— POOR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION

Despite committing himself to his voyage for six years and having thought of it for much longer, Walton doesn't seem to have uh. much of an actual concrete plan:

I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.

In relation to this, let me just leave this extract from Jessica Richard's article '“A paradise of my own creation”: Frankenstein and the improbable romance of polar exploration' here:

Shelley subtly indicates Walton’s incompetence as an expedition leader (despite his extensive reading and apprenticeships on Greenland whaling vessels) when she has him begin his journey on a rather late date, July 7th. Whether Walton is simply a poor planner, or, as Frankenstein himself fears, he “share[s] my madness,” a departure date so late in the season all but dooms his enterprise to failure from the outset. (p. 299)

ouch!

He seems to have little awareness of this aspect of his personality; he assures his sister that:

I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.

Yet to Victor, he describes:

how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought[...]

Not only does he neglect his duties as captain to care for Victor, even while his ship is imperilled by pack ice…

Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and gentle manners have created.

… he is highly averse to abandoning his voyage even when his crew threatens mutiny:

We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free.

oh robert........

— EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION AND SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES

This seems to be a persistent issue for Walton; he continually refers to the fluctuation of his own emotions and his inability to regulate them on his own:

My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed.

I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.

He is deeply desirous of understanding and community with others, but is left feeling lonely and like an outsider, having difficulty connecting with most people including the men he sails with:

A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship:

Walton implies that he is insecure of aspects of his personality, and is in need of external validation and someone to “sympathise with and love” him:

How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!

Lastly, this line appears in the 1831 version of the novel only but it is one that, for me, ties together a lot of the book's themes especially with regard to neurodiversity and is generally one of the most affecting for me personally for that reason:

There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.

me too, buddy. me too

aaaaaaaand that's all(!) i have to say for now

most of this is really just based on my own experiences and traits (am i projecting? absolutely. but am i correct? also yes) and just my own interpretation and i’m sure i’ve left out SO much but i had fun putting my hyperfix spinterest hat on and hopefully it was interesting to read! let me know your thoughts!

#went crazy about this on discord recently but this is the more coherent and in depth version #i think i worked out once that walton’s narrative is something like 15% of the entire novel’s length #and by god i will wring so much out of that 15%#robert walton #frankenstein #walton tag #spreading the good ADHD Walton word 🫡#this stupid idiot means a lot to me can you tell #mary shelley

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valiart · 7 months ago

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Behold, little baby fanfiction. I've never written one before, but the whole Sulemio fandom and the Sulemio week got me a bit inspired at the final hour. I don't have Ao3, so here it goes:

The Wedding We Didn't Get

(3500 words, Wedding Prompt/Free Day)

The sun rose over the craggy walls of the Caloris Basin on Mercury. Suletta held her thumb up to the burning orb, failing to eclipse it by a factor of three. All her life, she’d help up a fist to cover the star, but on Earth and the more distant planets, people just held up a thumb. Non-Mercurians always imagined the sun to be monstrously huge when seen from Mercury, as though it devoured the whole horizon. The idea seemed rude to Suletta. They made the sun out to be some kind of monster, boiling her planet alive.

Suletta had never looked at the sun that way. She loved the way it broke into rainbows across visors and windows. She watched, through the glassy walls of the most refrigerated place on Mercury, as the morning light sublimated nighttime rime into puffs of steam. She’d never been in a place to watch the sun for more than a few minutes; the suits couldn’t handle much more than that. But those few minutes in the light of the full sun were beautiful, the literal definition of radiant.

The only thing that could ever surpass the sun stood before her right now.

***

Miorine had wanted to wear a suit. She’d always dreaded the idea of her own wedding; after all, she’d expected to despise her spouse, if not directly rival them. Her father had apparently intended for the competition to protect her, to give her the strongest possible partner, but one that wasn’t her choice. He’d never trusted her to make the right decision. He’d always thought someone else should lead in her stead.

So dreaming of being married in a suit always made her feel strong, powerful. She wore the pants. She had the power, chauvinistic as it was. Her spouse was lucky to be marrying her, and not the other way around.

Then Suletta had said “I always imagined seeing us in our dresses.”

The last thing Miorine had expected from her spouse was love. Much less love at first sight. Much less the stupid insipid head-over-heels heart pounding, sweaty-palmed, short-of-breath bullshit wrought by the mere sight of her volcanic victor, her red-earth lover, her insanely perfect wife. How someone so sweet could have come from a desolate rock such as this completely escaped Miorine. The very idea that joy could come from these blasted plains and half-melted crags was absurd.

And yet the proof stood before her, resplendent in a puffy green dress decked out with live roses and tomatoes. Suletta’s hair was sewn into the same shapes, an intricate hairstyle she’d said was popular in Roman times. Suletta wobbled a little bit on her crutches; even with the support rigging built into the dress, the fruit was heavy and cumbersome. With its flared frills and borderline Victorian volume, it was the kind of dress Miorine would never have been caught dead in.

“Your garden was how I fell in love with you, Miss Miorine,” Suletta said. Had said, but still did. “I want everyone to know that side of you.”

Idiot. Miorine thought, as her face turned bright red and tears welled in her eyes, threatening her tastefully winged eyeliner and immaculately porcelain blush. Stupid asshole idiot. I hate you. I hate you so much. I wish I could punch you. I wish I could tear those crutches away and throw you into orbit.

Suletta held up her thumb to the sun, then back down to Miorine, eliciting chuckles from the small audience. The dome was only big enough for twenty people; any larger and the amount of refrigeration necessary to keep it livable would have been prohibitively expensive. Unreasonable when the rest of the colony needed every watt they could scrape together.

Earth House et-al sat stage right, with only Sabine to break up the mix, a surprise plus-one from Nika. No matter. The old rivalries were moot now. Everyone wanted the same thing: peace. And Miorine was going to see it delivered.

She’d never thought she’d come this far. When she’d gone out in her suit on that fateful day, she’d half expected to simply float into deep space and die. That possibility hadn’t scared her. She’d welcomed it.

And then this dumbass came into her life, and suddenly living became the only thing Miorine cared about. So long as she lived with Suletta. So long as she could listen to that embarrassed stammer, see that pitiful blush, feel those calloused hands. So long as she could see that saccharine smile, Miorine could go any distance, hurdle any obstacle.

So when Suletta said she wanted dresses. Suletta got dresses. Even after Suletta described hers. Miorine had wanted to die. Instead, she’d simply said: “Do whatever you want.”

Miorine wore white lace, gauzy across the chest. Body-tight, so Suletta could not imagine anything but her. Simple lines, with faint silver threads drawing the vines of the garden they’d made together. Subtle enough that only a careful viewer would notice the design, but obvious enough that Suletta would understand. She wore crystal heels and simple pearl earrings. She’d cut her mullet, and kept the bob. Simple, professional, herself. Her outfit may as well have been in the dictionary as a visual definition of class.

She felt so fake next to Suletta.

She felt so hopeful as she took her place beside her.

She shivered when Suletta took her hands.

“Enough flirting, you two. You’re making this embarrassing.” Guel said, with false authority. When they’d asked him to officiate, his first question had been “Why me?” Then he’d shaken his head. It was, after all, better not to know that Suletta just felt bad for all the trouble she’d caused him. In a way, no one had suffered more than him from Suletta’s arrival at Asticassia. It seemed only fair.

“Do your job.” Miorine hissed. She tapped his phone, where the entire ceremony was laid out in plain text. She hadn’t trusted him to remember it all. No matter how much Suletta had changed her, Miorine still had trouble letting go of control.

Guel coughed into his hand. He began reading the nondenominational, interplanetarily legal text Miorine had picked out. A simple declaration that they would share assets, interests, and fulfill each other’s obligations in the eyes of the law—whichever law that happened to be at the time, corporate or Spacer or Earthian. Simple, unemotional, with nothing for anyone to pick at that might show favor to one belief system or government.

“The groom has chosen to write her own vows.” Guel said, with relief. His part was effectively done. Though he routinely gave speeches himself, being at the centre of an actually emotional scene clearly went above his capacities.

“As the champion of Asticassia’s dueling tournament, Suletta Mercury has earned the right to recite her vows first.”

***

Suletta stared down at her notes. The tablet, and therefore the words, trembled in her grip. She really thought she’d be braver than this. She’d killed people, for goodness’ sake. To protect Miss Miorine, of course, but that didn’t change the facts. She was someone with blood on her hands. She should be able to handle getting married.

She looked to her mother, silent and still in her wheelchair. Mr. Rembran sat next to her, equally still, but from stoicism rather than paralysis. She had dressed her mother in a simple blue dress, easy to take off and on, comfortable and soft. A red-white-and-blue striped blanket kept her warm. She couldn’t speak, even with computer aid. Eri said her brain refused to make the connections. She wasn’t brain-dead, but she wasn’t far from it. Still, there seemed to be light in her eyes that hadn’t been there the day before. As ruthless as her mother was, she’d always acted out of love. She cared. No matter how present or gone she might be, she was here, today, watching her daughter get married.

“The first time I saw you,” Suletta began, her voice wavering, “I thought you were trying to kill yourself. You were so angry with me for saving you. Then you stole Aerial, and tried to fight Guel yourself. I thought you had a death wish. Then I got engaged to you! I thought I was coming to school to make friends, not get married. I thought you were terrifying. I still do. But when I saw how messy your room was-“

“Hey!” Miorine scowled and blushed. Laughter broke out.

“A-and how beautiful your garden was,” Suletta said quickly, scrolling past the paragraphs where she described Miorine’s mess in intricate detail, down to a particular stain that had taken three long weeks to remove even with industrial solvents. “I quickly learned how caring you were, how much love was in your heart. It takes a lot of love to raise plants. It seems so simple on Earth, but here we have to make the soil from the ground up. We have to purify the water. We have to make the air, and import fertilizer at great expense. Asticassia is not too different from Mercury in that way. And the tomatoes you grew were the most delicious I have ever had. You were callous and distant, and beautiful.”

Suletta’s hands shook. One of her crutches slipped loose. Even with Mercury’s low gravity, holding herself up with one arm was borderline impossible. She tipped forward.

Miorine darted forwards and caught both the crutch and her. She very carefully placed the crutch back under Suletta’s armpit, and propped Suletta back up. She rearranged the tomatoes that had been dislodged in her brief fall, and stood back, eyes closed. She took a small breath, and waited.

Suletta stared at Miorine, lost in her grace.

“Keep talking.” Miorine said, with perfect calm.

“Ah! Um, I… I’ll always remember the way you pushed me up against the window and told me you needed me. When you said to email you three times a day, I thought you were still mad at me, because I would have messaged you more. I want to share every moment with you. I want to tell you about the little bug I saw, or the nice thing someone said, or just share a photo of the sunlight on the rocks. I want to be with you every day, to protect you, to help you, to turn your forever frowns forever upside-down.

“I promise that even though I’ll never pilot a mobile suit again, I’ll always fight for you. I’ll always stand by your side, even if I can’t stand. I’ll never betray the trust you’ve given me. And I swear to get better at cooking so you can stop ordering food all the time. Most importantly, I promise to make you happy. I want to see you wake up with a smile, to put you to bed with a kiss. I want to see our babies. I want to see how beautifully you age. I want to know you, so completely that I can’t separate you from myself. I promise that these wants will never change. I promise to be the best partner there can be.”

Miorine stood like a statue now, still as marble and just as white. As the sun shone down on her, it seemed that she did not reflect its burning light, but radiated on her own with a cool brilliance of greater magnitude than any star.

“As best I can, that is…” Suletta said, looking down from Miorine’s placid expression.

Guel bit his lip and tried not to cry. He failed. Voice choking, he said: “How you can you just stand there like that?”

“That’s not your line,” Miorine said, quietly.

Guel swallowed his pride and wiped his tears. “The bride has also chosen to write her own vows,” he said. “Miorine Rembran, please recite your vows.”

***

Miorine sucked in a breath. She couldn’t lose her composure now. She had to be strong. She had to be perfect. She was the youngest President in history. She could not fail, for even her wedding was a public, political act. No matter how human she wanted to be for Suletta, she had to be a public figure first.

She told herself all this to no avail.

“I…” she carefully opened her eyes and looked down so the sight of Suletta wouldn’t overwhelm her. She had her speech memorized. All 100 words. Simple, curt, effective.

Suletta. You are a powerful, strong person. I respect you completely. I trust you. You are more than a fighter, you are a friend, and you are the correct fiancée for me. I solemnly vow to support your efforts to advance education across the system, and to support those who have no one else. I promise to listen to you, to believe you, and to consult you. I am grateful for the opportunity to call myself your wife. It is difficult for me to say this in front of so many people, but I love you. I always will.

Tears plopped onto the tiled floor. Fat and heavy, and soon joined by more.

“I hate you!” Miorine cried. “How am I supposed to follow that, huh? How am I supposed to match you?”

Earth House howled with laughter. Even her father cracked a small smile.

Miorine sobbed, staring into those innocent blue eyes, quivering above the stupidest fucking smirk Miorine had ever seen, so small and serene and sure, as though this shame were cute, and fuck, it must be to her.

“How can I possibly stand next to you when you are everything in this universe. You are bravery. You are valor. You are my knight in shining armor, even when you’re not wearing anything at all.”

Suletta gasped.

“See! I can make you flustered too. So don’t think you get a monopoly.”

“Mioooo…” Suletta whined.

“Everything you do drives me completely insane,” Miorine said. “The way you know exactly what I want before I know it. The way you follow my instructions to the letter, and better. The way you always stand up for me even when I don’t deserve it. The way you can just pop into a room like a tray of free cookies and make every single person smile. The way you look at me makes me want to rip my face off.

“I love you so intensely that just thinking your name makes my heart pound. You make it so easy to love you. So easy to stand up. You make me want to wake up every day. To take care of myself, so I can take care of you. You may not pilot a mobile suit anymore, you may never be able to walk on your own again, but you are still the most powerful person I know. Nevertheless, I promise to protect you. I promise to carry you when you fall. I promise to hold your hand. To tuck you in. To let you call me Miomio when when Suletta is upsetta. To clean you if you can’t, to feed you if you can’t. To take care of your mother. To take care of whatever family we have. You have done so much for me. I owe you my life.”

She sucked in a breath, deep and shaking.

“I owe you my life,” she repeated, between sobs. “But I’m giving you my heart. So don’t break it!”

Laughter interrupted audible sobs from the small crowd.

“Now rest, my noble warrior.” Miorine said, cradling Suletta’s warm brown cheek in her hand. “Rest, my precious groom. Rest, because I will hold you. I will stand for you. And I will be there with you for everything, until I no longer draw breath.”

“Miorine…” Suletta’s blue eyes shivered beneath an ocean of tears.

Guel coughed, and waved a nearby drone over. The drone was shaped like a giant tomato, and had only one function. Though no one else could know it, Ericht controlled the drone; she couldn’t take much more part in this ceremony than to be a digital flower girl, but that was enough for all of them. They were together, and would be, forever.

“We will now exchange rings.” Guel said, trying hard to maintain his composure. The drone’s top flipped open. Inside lay two small rings. One was a simple platinum band studded with rubies; it had belonged to her mother. Suletta, ever the teacher, wanted to give her something with history.

The other ring was a bright silver mash, not a single piece of metal but a fused conglomerate of shards. Aerial’s pieces, almost microscopic, sifted from the vacuum at great expense. Her researchers had wanted to study the shards. She’d given them what remained after this came together. Love trumped research.

“Miorine! That’s not the ring we picked out for me.” Suletta said with a gasp.

“I know.” Miorine said. “But I think this one suits you better.”

“It’s supposed to be the other way round,” Guel interjected, “But President Rembran, please place the ring on the groom’s finger.”

Miorine wiped the tears from her face and picked up the Aerial ring. She gently slipped it onto Suletta’s finger long, strong fingers. Suletta covered her mouth and shook with sobs.

“Ms. Mercury, please place the ring on the bride’s finger.”

Suletta trembled as she picked up the simple band, and slid it onto Miorine’s thin digit. Miorine could not help but think that Suletta was so strong. So gentle. So effortlessly perfect.

“By the power vested in me by the Sol Compact, I now pronounce you wife and wife. Mrs. Mercury, you may now kiss the bride.”

They stared at him.

“Ah, the original Mrs. Mercury.”

***

Suletta couldn’t move. She could barely see through the veil of tears. She could only vaguely lurch forward with trembling legs and shivering arms and hope that the shimmering white shape in front of her was her wife and not a particularly attractive pole.

Her Mio’s hands found her. One wrapped around her hand, pulling her upright. The other wrapped around her waist, pulling her in. Miorine’s delicate lips brushed against Suletta’s at first, gently sharing a warm breath, a flicker of tongue, so swift and temporary that Suletta couldn’t be sure it happened. Then they were pressed together, breath joining breath, lips against lips, tongues seeking tongues, desperate for each other even in this disturbingly public view, in this tiny glass dome on a boiling rock.

Suletta pushed away, exclaiming with shame: “Mio!”

Then she realized that Miorine’s hand was no longer entwined with hers. Instead, she reached under Suletta’s legs, and swept her off her feet.

“You’re lucky this is Mercury.” Miorine said. “I can’t do this on Earth.”

“Miorine, I’m supposed to-“

“You’re not my groom anymore. You’re my wife. And I choose to carry you.”

As Miorine carried Suletta past their friends, past their family, all standing and clapping, Suletta looked once again to her mother. She expected to see nothing. After all, she was barely present. At her healthiest, she had been stoic and stalwart, cunning and sweet, but never soft.

A single tear travelled down the creases of her face, dripping onto the blanket below. Mr. Rembran took out a small handkerchief and wiped the tear away. He nodded to her.

Suletta nodded back.

“You know,” Miorine said, as the pressure doors sealed behind them, “you’re lucky your legs don’t work right now.”

“Why?” Suletta said, completely confused.

“Because after tonight, you won’t be able to move a muscle.”

#yuri #suletta mercury #sulemio #miorine rembran #suletta x miorine #sulemioweek24 #gundam the witch from mercury #k i s s i n g #the implication #this is self-indulgent as fuck so bear with me #No editing we die with honor

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yourlittlebunnyy · 4 months ago

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Snow

main masterlist - kallias masterlist

summary: You loved each other, Suspended on a thread, Of snow.

warnings: death, happy but also not very happy ending

w/c: 4k

a/n: this fic is basically "snow" by maxence fermine

enjoy! 🤍

Your son decided to return to visit his now elderly father, who had retired to the top of a mountain.

At dawn he left the palace. Saying goodbye to his friends and his mate, he made his way north.

It was a journey to the sun of his heart. The purity of the world and of the light offered themselves to his gaze.

As he walked with slow steps along the road he felt a pure and shimmering joy. He was free and happy. He carried with him as his only baggage the gold of faith and his love for his father.

But what was to come happened. Wanting to love the snow of his Court too much, he forgot to fear it. And it almost devoured him with its love.

While crossing a mountain, he lost himself and his luggage in a terrible snowstorm. He fell prey to the fury of the elements and barely managed to save himself through makeshift shelter.

Your son found shelter under the overhang of a cliff, sheltered from the wind, and there, shivering with cold, at the end of his strength, alone in the thick of darkness, alone in the depths of the snow, alone in the vertigo of his loneliness, alone in his silence, where he could have died a hundred times of cold, hunger, fatigue, disappointment and exhaustion, he survived.

He survived because what he saw that night, that thing, that extraordinary thing that came from afar, that sublime and beautiful thing was the most beautiful and sublime image he had ever been allowed to see in his entire life. And that image he could never forget again.

That thing so beautiful was you. When your son crouched beneath the rocky overhang, you were there before his eyes. You looked as fragile as a dream. Remained forever a young female, clothed only in a light white robe despite the great cold. You were dead. And you were resting under a meter of ice.

You were not really resting. You were dead. But your coffin was as transparent as crystal. Your son immediately felt connected to you, a total stranger.

For him it was not like standing in front of a dead body. Yours was not an ordinary death. You were a wonderful presence.

First of all, you were wearing only a light robe. What were you doing, dressed like that, under three feet of ice? This was the first question that came to his mind. But he could not find an answer.

Where were you from? How long had you been a prisoner of that transparent, perennial trap? And, come to think of it, were you real?

You, the young female trapped under the ice, seemed to him as fragile and tender as a dream. The radiance of your golden hair responded like a flashlight flame. You clearly did not belong to his Court. Your eyelids, though closed, allowed the icy blue of your eyes to shine through, as if the wear and tear of the ice had diaphanoused the tenuous skin that protected your gaze. Your face was as white as snow.

He looked at you in silence, silently wondering why he felt so much affection for you.

He thought you were a dream.

It seemed to him that your image was being softly shaped by the geometry of his dreams. But in fact your vision was not the result of a hallucination at all. You stood there, under the ice, three feet from your son, and he loved you dearly.

He stayed all evening filling his eyes with you. And he did not tire of it for a single moment. There he was, motionless despite the cold, contemplating what he had never hoped to dream of.

For him, that night, time stood still.

Who were you? And why were you in that place?

He did not know.

But he knew one thing, one thing only, sad and beautiful: your face asleep under the ice would never die.

At first light of day, your son planted a cross in the precise place where he had made your gruesome discovery. And he resumed the path in search of his father.

He could never have forgotten you. Your face haunted him all the way.

He went through the whole Court, and one morning he came to the door of father's dwelling. A servant opened it for him.

He stepped aside with a bow, letting him in. He waited for Kallias in a cozy parlor, comforted by the warmth coming from the fireplace.

When the male entered the room he embraced him.

"I have missed you." Said your mate to your son. He responded with equal sentiment.

One evening he asked Kallias, "What was my mother like?" He stopped breathing for a brief moment. He had never asked anything about you.

"I would never have seen the light if it hadn't been for her."

"What was she like?" He insisted.

"Love is the most difficult art. And writing, dancing, composing, painting, even running a Court are the same thing as loving. Funambulisms. The difficult thing is to advance without falling. I, in the end fell because of my love for her. But art saved me from despair and death. It's a long story, I think it would bore you."

"No." He begged him. "Please tell it to me!"

Kallias took a deep breath. "It goes back to when I was still young, a mere heir, just like you."

Your son pleaded him again to continue, and in the face of such insistence, he plunged into memories.

"It all began by magic. One day near the Solstice, as I was returning from a fight, I fell in love with your mother. She was a very different female from any I had ever known. At that time, Amarantha had just set foot in Prythian. I had participated in a very violent battle that had ended in a brilliant, beautiful and unpredictable victory. So I was returning as a winner. Triumphant but wounded. A soldier had disemboweled a male in front of me, I still had the senses of that scene: the taste of mud and blood everywhere in my mouth, the enemy soldiers rushing at him, that hostile face furrowed with hatred. The male had lunged at me, ready to stab me. Then I had felt something push me away, and then nothing but a bloody body from which the guts hung. But at the time it was an honor, the joys of war. One had to die or come back wounded.

I could never forget the sight of that body slumped on the ground. Then I fainted. They took me for dead. I stayed there all night under the lifeless body. The next morning someone heard my groans. They lifted the body and discovered my horrified face, the face of the heir. They treated me, and for several days I continued to deliriate. After a week, there was still horror in my eyes.

My father-your grandfather-came to me to congratulate me, and I was proud, but with a pride nonetheless clouded by the pain of what I had experienced.

Finally, when I had recovered my strength, I took the road back. I did not want to fight anymore, and not so much because of the wounds inflicted on me - since the beginning of Amarantha's tyranny I had been wounded six times - but because of the sheer disgust I felt towards war. I, the very one, the heir to the Winter Court, who had pledged my allegiance to our armies, realized that I no longer had any desire to kill.

I therefore left the army and set out on foot for home. And it was there, on the way back, that the miracle was accomplished.

Crippled by the cold, at the end of my strength, with the horror of war still in my eyes, alone in the thick of the darkness and tragedy I had just experienced alone in the abyss of winter, alone with the vertigo of loneliness, alone in my silence, where I could have died a hundred times of cold, hunger, fatigue, disappointment and exhaustion, I survived.

I survived because what I saw that day, that thing, that extraordinary thing that came from a distant place, sent by Mother to compensate for the horror of the male slumped on the ground, that sublime and beautiful thing was the most sublime and beautiful image I had ever been allowed to see in my entire life. And that image I could never forget again.

The image was that of a young female balancing on a tightrope, a young female as light as a bird, a funambulist who was performing with the grace of a squirrel above a silvery river. She was very high in the sky. More than walking the tightrope she floated through the air as if by magic. I watched her glide suavely into the blue up there, standing in front of her invisible wire, barbell in her hands, one would have called her an angel.

I slowly approached the river, and the beauty of the young female captivated me. It was the first time I had seen a Fae from another Continent. She seemed to be flying. Intrigued, I advanced further. She was now perfectly above me.

A dense crowd had gathered on the shore to witness the strange apparition. I approached an old man and, still looking at her, asked him, "Who is she?"

The old man, without even looking at me, replied with a tremor in his voice, "She is a funambulist. Or a bird lost in the air."

She was a funambulist, and her life followed a single line. Straight.

She was from another continent. Her name was Y/n. They had nicknamed her Snow, because she had delicate features and ice-colored eyes. And also because when she darted through the air she seemed as light as a snowflake.

This is how she had begun. One day, while still a child, her path had crossed that of a traveling circus. Flabbergasted, she had discovered the possibility of daydreaming. Heedless of the dangers, she had decided to make it her own career. She had started with a tightrope stretched a few inches off the ground. Then, little by little, she had gone higher and higher both in height and in the mastery of her art. And so she had become the first female funambulist in the Winter Court. Up on the tightrope, she had never come down again.

My Y/n had become a funambulist for the sake of balance. She, whose life unfolded like a winding thread, littered with twists and turns that intertwined and dissolved the sinuosities of fate and the insipidness of existence, excelled in the subtle and insidious art of making evolutions on a tightrope.

She never felt more at ease than when she walked the wire a thousand feet above the ground. Straight ahead. Without ever deviating a single millimeter from her course.

It was her destiny.

To advance step by step.

From one end of life to the other.

Her prowess had conquered all the squares of my Court.

At nineteen, my Snow had already traveled more than a hundred kilometers on her tightrope, often risking her life. She had stretched her tightrope between the two towers of my palace and had balanced several hours above the rope, like an Esmeralda made of wind, snow, and silence.

Then she had repeated her feats in every building I owned, each time defying the laws of balance.

She was no mere funambulist. She proceeded through the air as if by magic.

Looking at her so far up there, her body standing upright in the sky like a white flame and her hair caressed by the wind, one would have called her the snow goddess. For in reality the hardest thing for her was not keeping her balance, or even mastering fear, much less walking that endless tightrope, on that thread of music interspersed with dazzling vertigo. The hardest thing, when she advanced into the light of the world, was not to turn into a snowflake.

By now they were claiming her from every corner of the Court of Winter. So she went and crossed with her rope into the Summer Court. Then, almost without realizing it, she made it all the way to the Court of Dawn, where I traveled only to be enraptured watching her. Never before had a performer from one Court performed in another, not in such period.

And I looked at her and already loved her. In my eyes, your mother seemed at once poetry, painting, calligraphy, dance and music. She was Snow and represented all the beauty of art.

When the beautiful stranger had finished the number on the tightrope and had returned to earth, I could not restrain my desire to approach her. I stepped forward and, in doing so, discovered the fineness of her features, the design of her mouth, the line of her eyebrows, and knew instantly that never again would I forget that face. I looked into her eyes, and in turn Snow squared me. There was no need for words. She smiled at me, and in that smile I lost my soul.

I knelt down, and said, "You are what I have been looking for. You are my mate."

Snow, on the other hand, was not looking for anyone. But my gesture seemed to her of such beauty that she delighted in it. And she married me.

The first years were happy. A happy event came to strengthen our bond. You.

You possess your mother's diaphanous beauty and my white hair. Our life was one of peace and silence. Gradually Snow settled more and more into my Court. Sometimes she felt homesick for her land, but she never complained about it.

What she missed most of all was her craft as a funambulist.

One night she dreamed of flying.

The next day, waking up, she thought about the dream again. Then she thought no more about it. The Solstice came, then passed. You grew in the ecstasy of light. Snow was happy. In one hand she held my love and in the other her own heart, which she offered to you. And that fragile barbell served to keep her balanced on the thread of happiness.

But one day the balance of that balance wheel became so fragile that it broke. One day the affection lavished on her by her loved ones was no longer enough to make her happy. She cruelly missed the life in the air. She thirsted again for vertigo, for thrills, for conquest. She thought only of becoming a funambulist again.

She asked permission to arrange one last performance. She wanted to stretch a rope from one mountain to another in the heart of our mountains.

Surely I estimated that desire insane, deeming the idea of endangering his life senseless, but, as a true mate, I bowed and agreed.

I had two of the best ropes come from the Autumn Court: one was short and thin, the other much thicker and five hundred yards long. Then I sent two servants to fasten the longer cable between the two highest peaks of the mountains.

Y/n slipped the barbell out of its case, put on her ballerina shoes, and, stretching the smaller cable in the garden, practiced for hours over tiny mountains of snow and a miniature ocean on which chunks of ice floated.

I did not tire of watching her. My mate was an unrivaled funambulist.

On that wire she was so happy, so beautiful, so ethereal, that every day I thanked Mother for giving her to me. Her hair was fluttering. She had a clear gaze. And she was walking on air.

The performance was set for the first days of the New Year. A crowd gathered from all over Prythian to witness your mother's feats.

When Snow placed her feet on the cable, the crowd rumbled. Up there, so high it made one dizzy just looking at her, she looked like a tiny white dot in space, a snowflake in the immensity of the sky. Armed with her barbell, for more than an hour and a half Snow performed high above the ground, slowly approaching the opposite side of the mountain. Below, I held my breath. One false step and it was certain death.

But she, perfectly mastering her art, advanced inexorably. Step by step. Blow after blow. Silence after silence. From vertigo to vertigo. She never stumbled.

It was the thread, which broke. Surely badly secured, the cable broke loose from the rock and plunged my mate and barbell into a fall of almost a thousand feet.

Those who saw her disappear there, in the heart of our mountains, took her for a bird falling from the sky.

Her body, surely fallen into a crevasse, was never found again. Snow had become snow and slept in the bed of her whiteness.

I never recovered from the loss of my wife. My two clumsy servants were dismissed without any other form of revenge on my part. A few days later it turned out that they had killed themselves by throwing themselves off a cliff. I felt neither joy nor sorrow.

I saw only one thing: my pain. I knew only one thing: that never again would I find the woman I had loved. Never again would I see Snow again. Never again would I see beauty again. Back I was in my home, now devoid of any joy, I threw off the robes of the High Lord. I promised myself that I would devote myself to your education and art. To absolute art.

So it was that I became, for love of a woman, a poet, musician, calligrapher, dancer. And painter. Because painting was clearly the most faithful link between the lost face and absolute art, the surest means of finding Snow again. And so in that art I excelled.

I got the equipment from a paint merchant - a wooden easel, silk brushes, a palette, an endless amount of colors -, had a small hut built in the garden and locked myself in it. I spent long years there, painting my mate whom I would never see again except in dreams.

However, I was never satisfied with one's work.

Her paintings, though splendid, seemed to me too colorful, too little resemblance. To reproduce Snow accurately I would have to make a completely white, virgin, purified painting. How to paint whiteness? My Y/n portraits were all beautiful, but there were none that resembled Snow.

I kept perfecting my art, day after day, night after night, never getting tired. Then I began to feel old. You, already united in a bond and grown up, went to live far away.

I found myself alone in front of the canvas. I would wear out my eyesight by dint of contemplating the image of my beautiful disappearance.

And one day, because of that incessant work, I became almost blind. And it was that very day, from the abyss of my grief, I painted the whitest and most beautiful of all her portraits.

There. Here the story ends. I never forgot your mother, just as I never ceased to revere and dipimg her. Even when I sank into myself. Especially when I sunk into myself. From the deepest blackness, I painted whiteness, discovered purity. Then I discovered that true light and true colors are always intrisically linked to the beauty of the soul.

Starting from the face of my beloved, I cultivated absolute art. Starting from the total absence of light I took hold of it and its nuances."

Kallias fell silent. Your son was seized with dizziness. He looked at his father and said, "I know where my mother is. I met her on my way here. She is dead, but it is as if she is still alive. She lives in a glass coffin. She is so beautiful that I stayed a whole night contemplating her." As he spoke he had a look lost in the void, his eyes still veiled by the breath of the dream. The story had been long and throbbing. Returning to the real world was difficult.

Your beloved merely smiled at the young man and nodded his approval. But it was clear he did not believe him. "How do you know? No one knows where she is. You don't even know what your mother's face looks like."

"The mountain digested her and returned her body. She is there, under the ice, a meter from the surface. She is there, in her glass coffin, untouched, as beautiful as when you met her. I swear I know where she is. I saw her by accident, coming here. Her face impressed me so much that I stayed beside her all night. I planted a cross at the site of her ice tomb. If you wish, I can lead you to her."

Kallias realized that he was speaking the truth, and he could not hold back a tear.

"I knew that one day she would send me a messenger. But I did not know that this messenger would come so late in my life. And what's more, my son." Then he turned to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "And to say that since she died every day I have tried to find her again in painting, in music, in poetry, the snow beauty of her face. And to say that now her face is within my sight. And to say that I will not be able to see her."

The next day your son asked your mate, "Have you thought about my proposal? When do you wish me to take you before my mother's grave?"

Kallias sighed, then replied in a sad voice, "My son. This trip would be useless. I know you speak the truth, but what good would it do for an old man like me, now almost blind, to find the grave of a dead woman? Where she is, my bride is at peace. May her isolation be respected for eternity." Then he took his leave and disappeared into his room.

A month passed. Your son dared not speak of you in the presence of your husband. Besides, Kallias himself seemed to avoid the subject.

Every day, his father would simply say hello before breakfast. Then he would remain invisible for the rest of the day, and during dinner he would remain silent.

But then, one morning, standing on the bank of a river, your mate said to him, "Tomorrow we're going to find Snow."

They left at dawn. Your son walked ahead, and Kallias followed him, orienting himself with the sound of his footsteps.

Whenever the young male offered his hand to help him over some steeper or treacherous passage, your beloved refused it and punctually overcame the obstacle without need of help.

At night they slept in villages on mats spread out on the ground. When, upon entering a village, Kallias introduced himself and announced his presence, the doors opened in front of him as if by magic. Your son was amazed ti how deeply everyone seemed to respect and admire his father. And he understood how fortunate he was to still have him beside him.

Not everyone gets to meet divinities while still alive.

The journey was long, unceasingly white. White as the silence that accompanied them. White as the snow that covered the valleys.

Finally, one morning, the first mountain peaks appeared. Their road began to climb toward the sky and its purity.

They were the hardest hours.

His father began to show signs of fatigue. But he pretended not to, since they were no longer far behind. The journey was coming to an end.

When he saw the cross, your son trembled with emotion.

"Father!" He shouted. "I found it!" He rushed under the rock, there where, on a stormy night, he had discovered the grave of you, his mother, and had a cry of surprise.

"What is it?" Kallias asked impaneled. "Has snow disappeared forever in the heart of the mountain? Has there been an avalanche?"

"No." Said your son. "Far from it. It is as if the Mother has understood our appeal and foreseen our coming. Y/n is there. But her body is even closer than last time. She is barely two or three centimeters from the veil of ice. I can almost touch her."

You were there. You, a creature so beautiful, so bare, as fragile as a dream. You were dead, yet you seemed alive. You were resting under the ice. And soon you would emerge from your grave. Your body so delicate and your skin so diaphanous made you look even more fragile.

Your son threw himself on all fours and scratched the ice with his fingernails. Finally your face appeared. He took your husband's hand and placed it on your face.

"Do you feel her face? Her skin?" Your beloved's hand caressed your cheek. He had become completely blind. But he did not need his eyes to recognize the lines of your face. You were so well preserved that the simple pressure of his palm on your eyelids was enough for him: "It's really her. It's my Snow. You did not lie to me." He fell to his knees before you and wept his hot tears on your icy face, having found again his mate.

Kallias never descended from the mountain. He lay down on the ice, next to you, his greatest love, and closed his eyes.

Your son tried to dissuade him by telling him that to stay there was madness, but his father replied in a calm voice, "Leave me alone. I have found my place. For eternity."

Then he fell asleep beside your intact body. He died letting himself be overcome by the whiteness of the world. He was happy. At the height of your heart.

You loved each other

Suspended on a thread

Of snow.

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