#space anabasis

[that-lich-queen]

In the between-spaces, yes, in the quiet bustle of the red-eye hours, in the places where everything hangs in some precarious balance never named for fear of tipping it. Nothing good happens after two, they say, but normal laws don't apply here. This is a place where time and space mean less than they might, where weary travelers from near and far converge and pass by each other like ghosts through the ages, luggage and burdens rolling faithfully alongside them, united, never quite touching. Not quite an afterlife, though; more of a crossing at the river. You're free to go, but the gates keep calling: come back, come back.

going into an airport can count as a trip to the underworld i think

[theseventhoffrostfall]

The Anabasis/Xenophon is one of the oldest stories or frameworks in worldwide literature. A force of some sort finds themselves trapped behind enemy lines and must work together to fight their way home. From the 10,000 of Greece, to the Czechoslovak Legion, to the Warriors (the movie), it is a great fucking story.

If given free reign to retell it once more, in any time or setting of your choice, from a single man to an army, to anything else, what would you do with the story?

To be honest, one of my more notable takeaways from Anabasis is that he goes through a protracted war against overwhelming numbers in a foreign country and in the end all he gets out of it is a ride home with his horse, the twink he picked up, and the chance to gibber incoherent and yet oddly detailed stories about it to his barely-interested friends back in Athens. Not a single crumb of money. One of the only times I've finished a book saying "he's just like me fr"

Anyway, tough question. I know there's a (so far as I know) decently well-regarded sci-fi series explicitly based on it, with a guy having to guide a stranded fleet back to friendly space. But my brain refuses to ever remember the title of it, and I interpret that as a sign. Still though, that's one of the strongest ideas for inspiration from Anabasis and there's not much point retreading that same ground.

I suppose the angle I'd play up, in contrast to the "trapped far behind enemy lines" line that most adaptations and inspired-bys go for, would be the "marching republic" aspect. Like you have a mercenary army in, say, a fantasy setting, that was once severed from its homeland and for any number of reasons effectively never made it back home (whether physically or they found they weren't welcome) and has since over time mutated into a militant nomadic nation-state. You could even mix in some Mongol influences, considering "Nomadic warriors that are far more methodical and organized than the image of a roving warrior horde tends to evoke" is right up their alley. Some promise of return to their homeland to triumphantly save it in their hour of need (a la Martin's Golden Company) never hurt anybody either; that well's far from tapped out.

[comradewodka]

some of our NPC friends in Lancer are going to get Lesbian Married soon and I needed to make sure Creed was the hottest person at walmart the reception

more creed facts: they're soul-bonded to a little NHP partner who helps them drive their robot

(Lancer has things called NHPs that are like... not AI, they're their own sentient beings originating from eldritch tech-entities that exist outside our concept of time and space? but they serve a similar purpose to an advanced AI when put into mechs.)

Their buddy was named KASSANDRA, is now named ANABASIS (its a long story) and pretty much means the world to them and goes with them everywhere. The device ANABASIS's data is stored in is inside the big handbag lmao

nbd just a tradgoth and their emotional support NHP 🖤

[odissean]

This page will be updated with more details soon. For now, I have quick overviews for available verses.

VERSE / WAYFARER.

A catch-all, fandomless verse for interactions following Maedi's main storyline. The arcs will also be applied to all crossover verses unless otherwise stated.

ARC | KATABASIS. For threads set after the Odussomai has gotten lost. They have turned to piracy to survive as they attempt to return home. After several years, they finally get close enough to hear news of Aaneach — and it isn't good. They lost the war and were conquered. Maedi's crew mutinies against her.

ARC | ANABASIS. For threads set after the Odussomai's mutiny. Maedi crashed the Odussomai in a final bid for survival. Her crew died while she alone survived, albeit badly injured. The Odussomai fared no better. She is still determined to return home, however. She works any job she can, legal or not, as long as it is profitable enough. Every bit she earns goes toward repairing the Odussomai. This is her only way home.

VERSE / BURNED MY DECENCY.

A St.ar Wa.rs verse. Miscellaneous info will go here.

Very similar to Maedi's main verse except the enemy the Aaneachans warred with was the Separatists. Then the Aaneachans fell under the Empire's fist after the Clone Wars. The Odussomai works with the Partisans for years until the crew mutiness. After that point, Maedi becomes obsessed with repairing her ship and going home.

VERSE / SELF MADE PURGATORIES.

A St.ar Tr.ek verses. Miscellaneous info will go here.

Essentially identical to Maedi's main verse. Aaneach exists in a quadrant of the galaxy unexplored by Star.fleet, and the Odussomai ends up stranded in the Beta Quadrant (although this can be changed to Gamma for Voy.ager muses).

VERSE / AMONGST THE ASHES.

A Ma.ss Eff.ect verse with an And.rom.eda arc. Miscellaneous info will go here.

Essentially identical to Maedi's main verse. Aaneach exists more on the fringes of the galaxy in an area not of much interest to Council species. The Odussomai ends up in Council space when it gets lost, though. ME1, the Odussomai probably trades intel to Shepard for resources. ME2, the Odussomai has mutinied; the Ill.us.ive Man recommends recruiting Maedi and is especially interested in her (crashed) ship. ME3, Maedi pretends to continue work for Cerberus in exchange for protection against the Reapers for Aaneach; in reality, she feeds information back to the Alliance. She will be aboard the Nor.man.dy briefly before taking the rebuilt Odussomai to defend Aaneach.

ARC | IF HONOR MATTERS. The best I've got is that the Initiative took an interest in Maedi's designs. They would give her the resources to repair the Odussomai in exchange for her ship-building expertise. Then she discovered a higher-up intended to simply steal her work and the Odussomai. The other person knocked her out but didn't have the stomach to kill her. Thus she ended up in stasis on the Nexus. She takes the Odussomai and departs at the first opportunity. Ryder will have the option to track down and recruit her.

VERSE / HOPE WHITTLED DOWN.

A DND verse with a BG3 arc. Detailed information can be found here.

Aaneach exists as a planet in a pocket of Wildspace, albeit one with no awareness of the Astral Sea or other planes. When the Odussomai gets lost, it finds itself adrift in the Astral Sea. Their journey is prolonged by the perils they face and the fact that the Odussomai is optimized for travel in Wildspace, not the Astral Sea. Maedi's crew eventually mutinies, and their ship crashes on Toril. She is the sole survivor, doing anything she can to repair her ship and get home.

ARC | THE MARROW OF DESPAIR. A BG3 offshoot of the above verse. Notes on the personal quest can be found in the linked post. She was picked up by the Nautiloid and infected. The party will find her holed up in the same cave as Rugan, holding out against the gnolls.

VERSE / VIOLENCE AND UPHEAVAL.

a Dra.gon Age verse. Miscellaneous info will go here.

Same backstory except it's fantasy rather than scifi. Aaneach is a collection of islands in the Amaranthine Ocean, of which Cthaia is one. In DA:O, the Odussomai makes a profit ferrying refugees from Ferelden to the Free Marches. In about Act II of DAII, her crew mutinies and the Odussomai is shrunk with Maedi as the sole survivor. She's stuck in Kirkwall for years afterward. In DA:I, she joins the Inquisition in exchange for a ship built to her specifications after the conflict is concluded.

[nuvolette]

E per finire ecco Fatima Claudia e Yoshiro.

[fialleril]

Do you happen to have a snippet you're open to sharing of a character having grown into being confident and-or in control of themselves? Vaderkin openly snarking or goofing off with Padme for one of the first times, or maybe a newly freed droid (in the Resistance even?) openly refusing someone's order to their face? (Sorry this is out of the blue but I just learned my ESA has a brain tumor, and even if they're fictional seeing someone can grow to be confident on their own would be really nice.)

Hi friend! I’m sorry about your ESA - sending prayers and good vibes if you want them.

As for snippets...hmm. I have a couple of Anabasis snippets up already that might fit the bill, particularly the one where Anakin destroys the Sith holocrons, the one where he rolls into a meeting shirtless and forces everyone to deal with the reality of his scars, and the followup to that one where he and Padme plot against Orn Free Taa.

But for something new: idk if you’re reading Heretic Pride, or if you’re at all interested in OCs, but if so here’s a snippet for what will be chapter 14 of that fic. (So, if anybody wants to read it in order without spoilers, don’t click the read more!)

*

Miik is the one who arranges the first meeting. It’s in thefern room in the conservatory, during their free meditation period, and theyall know to tell any master who asks that they’re going to practice groupmeditation.

Aloo runs into Master Sinube on her way to the conservatory,and she’s only a little surprised by how easily the lie comes. The guilt thatfollows it, though, twists in her stomach for hours and even days after. Butit’s not enough to stop her from going.

Almost sixty younglings come to the first meeting. Aloo isone of the last to arrive, and she stands for a moment just inside theentrance, blinking in surprise. She’d thought she was alone. She’s neverimagined there could be so many of them.

Miik seems startled by the turnout, too, and more than alittle nervous that everyone seems to be looking at him. He’s a good anddiligent student, and everyone likes him, but he’s never really been much of aleader in the Temple.

“Um, hello,” Miik says, his antennae trembling with nerves.

There’s a smattering of greetings in reply, but they quicklypeter into silence. They’re all eyeing one another nervously, and no one seemsto know where to begin.

“So, uh,” Miik starts again. “We all know Anakin, right?”

Something about that question, or maybe the way he asks it,seems to break the tension, and Aloo finds herself laughing along with everyoneelse.

“Is that our code phrase, then?” asks a Muun girl whose nameAloo doesn’t know.

Miik stands there blinking in surprise. “Do we need a codephrase?” he asks, a bit weakly.

“We might,” says Ras. He’s raised his chin the way he alwaysdoes just before the beginning of a duel. “I don’t know why the rest of youcame, but I’m here because Anakin helped me find my family. We all know that’sagainst the Code. But I asked him to help me anyway, and he did.”

There’s a long stretch of silence. No one seems to want tomeet anyone else’s eyes.

Aloo squares her shoulders and looks directly at Ras. “Metoo,” she says.

“Yeah, me too,” the Muun girl says, and then someone else issaying, “me too,” and then it’s like a floodgate has opened and the truth,terrifying, exhilarating, liberating, comes pouring out.

They’re all here because they’ve broken the Code. Becausethey’ve taken the forbidden step, most of them before they’ve even beenapprenticed, of learning about the people they came from.

“I think we do needa code phrase,” the Muun girl, who introduces herself as Palek, says. “Becausethere are a lot of us already, and there are going to be more, and…we need away to know.”

“What about…Grandmaster Jocasta?” Miik suggests shyly, andeveryone laughs, not at him but at the story behind the name.

“I like it,” says Aloo, grinning. “It’s perfect.”

“Grandmaster Jocasta” is almost infamous by now, and thereare endless rumors about the name. But Aloo knows the full story, because sheheard it from Anakin himself.

He calls the chief archivist of the Jedi Order “Grandmother”most of the time, a fact which still leaves Aloo a bit awed. Madame Nu can berather severe, especially if she suspects you of treating her archives withanything less than perfect reverence, and Aloo’s not ashamed to admit she’salways found the old woman intimidating. Most younglings feel the same.

But Anakin seems strangely fond of Madame Nu, and, strangerstill, she seems fond of him in turn. She actually gave him permission to call her “Grandmother,”though he tries not to address her that way when any other masters are present.

That’s how “Grandmaster Nu” was born. It only took a handfulof times: Anakin beginning to say “Grandmother,” realizing there were othermasters present, and changing titles mid-word. Aloo thinks that if she’d donesomething like that, she’d be mortified, but Anakin seems more gleefully amusedthan anything whenever he tells the story.

Aloo’s heard that once, when Anakin was twelve, there wasactually a special session of the Council called to address the fact thatPadawan Skywalker apparently believed Madame Jocasta Nu, who didn’t even have aseat on the Council, was Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.

Anakin himself refuses to confirm or deny that this everhappened. But he always does so with a wink, and Aloo is pretty sure about hertheory.

“Grandmaster Jocasta,” Palek says, snickering. “And we cansay we’re working on a research project. It would even be true.”

“A cultural research project,” says Miik, getting into thespirit of the thing.

“Okay, but…what are we researching?” asks a Chagrian boynamed Tago. “I mean, now that we know something about our families, what are wegoing to do with that?”

There’s another nervous silence, broken at last by Palek,who squares her shoulders and says defiantly, “Well, I don’t know about anybodyelse, but I’m planning to contact mine.”

A soft but collective gasp goes through the room. If theyweren’t all gathered here actively discussing breaking the Code, it wouldactually be funny.

Palek stands there, glaring around the room as though daringany of them to tell her she’s wrong, and that gives Aloo the courage to speak.

“I have contacted my family,” she says. She whispers itreally, but the room is so quiet that she may as well have shouted. Noweveryone is staring at her.

“What…what was it like?” Miik breathes into the silence.

“Strange,” says Aloo. “But good, I think. I have a motherand a father and two sisters and two nieces. They’re nice. It was…awkward, atfirst, talking to them, but they’re nice.” Everyone is watching her in raptattention so, emboldened, Aloo continues. “I’ve talked with one of my sistersthe most, probably a couple dozen times now. The others I’ve only talked totwice so far. But I like talking with them. I feel like…like I’m learning apart of me I never knew.” She swallows, and because they’re all watching herthe way she thinks she probably used to watch Anakin whenever he spoke abouthis family, she forces herself to add the most dangerous thing of all. “And Ifeel at peace when I talk to them. I feel at peace in the Force. I know Ishouldn’t, that it’s wrong to have attachments, but…I do.”

“Is it wrong, though?” asks Ras. There’s a stutter in hisvoice, and he looks absolutely terrified, but he’s asking.

“I’m not sure it is,” Palek says, forcefully enough thatAloo is pretty sure she’s trying to convince herself, too. “The masters arealways saying we should trust the Force and our instincts, right? Well, if allof us are feeling the same way about this…maybe there’s a reason.” She looksaround at each of them, eyes blazing with defiance. “Maybe this is the Force’s will.”

“Master Yoda wouldn’t agree with that at all,” Tago nearlygasps. He looks terrified.

But who says he’salways right? the memory of Anakin whispers in the back of Aloo’s mind.Those phantom words fill the dead silence of the room and leave her shaking.

“But we’re all here anyway,” says Miik. His antennae aretrembling but he meets Aloo’s eyes as he adds, in a voice too unsteady to bereally teasing, “And Aloo doesn’t seem likeshe’s going to fall to the Dark Side at any minute. Right?”

He winces. Aloo thinks that probably came out sounding morelike a question than he’d actually meant it to.

“No,” she says, and thinks that she doesn’t sound asflippant as she’s like, either. “I’m not.”

“And besides,” says Palek. “There’s Anakin.” When everyonelooks at her, she only shrugs. “I mean…he’s always known his family, right? AndI think we all know he still talks to his mother. And that’s all against theCode, but…”

But it’s made Anakin the Jedi he is, Aloo thinks. And that’strue for her, too, she realizes. Who would she be now, if she’d never triedAnakin’s meditation, never dreamed of the stone house and the beautiful garden,never learned about her sister or spoken with Padmé and Sola and their parents?The question leaves her startled and breathless. She can’t imagine the answer.And she finds she doesn’t want to.

*

Palek is the first person to ask to borrow Aloo’scommunications array. Aloo isn’t really surprised when the Muun girl pulls heraside after lightsaber practice one day, though she is impressed by Palek’sboldness. Master Yoda has only just left the room.

Palek has two fathers and three younger sisters, and shesays she’s contacted them via datapad twice now. “It’s like you said,” shewhispers to Aloo as they slip through the halls of the Temple. “It’s…strange. Idon’t know if seeing them and really hearing their voices will make it lessstrange, or more, but…I want to find out.”

Aloo waits until she’s certain no one else is in her sharedquarters, and then she slips the equipment into a pouch on her belt and makesher way to the meditation room where Palek is waiting. It’s one of the smallerrooms, empty except for a trickling fountain in one corner and a pair ofmeditation cushions on the floor. There’s no cameras. That’s important.

Palek is almost shaking with nerves as Aloo shows her how toset up a secure channel. She’s turning her datapad over and over in her hands,and she offers Aloo a tight smile when everything is ready.

“Thanks,” she whispers just as Aloo turns to leave. She’salready tapped in her parents’ com code, but her hand is hovering over the com,hesitating.

“Aloo, do you…are you sure we’re right about this?”

Aloo swallows. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “But…what doesyour heart tell you?”

That’s an Anakin question, and it brings a more genuinesmile to Palek’s face. “Yeah,” she whispers, and presses the com button.

[strangerthings4theories]

Billy Is Alive - Meta Index (Pre-S4)

Our assertion that Billy is alive will take some heavy lifting to prove. So here’s a handy-dandy index to help you keep track of our posts. Topics without hyperlinks are in the works, but haven't been posted yet.

Be warned - potentially MASSIVE spoilers lurk herein!

Note (June 25, 2022) - all of the posts listed here were written before S4 dropped. That means a lot of them are out of date. A new index is coming soon!

📣 Before We Begin 📣

Frequently Asked Questions

This Blog Is A Ship-Friendly Space

Where Do Sarah And I Get Our Crazy Ideas?

Why Haven't We Seen Dacre On Set?

⭐ Billy Is A Main Character In Stranger Things ⭐

ST Asks You To Sympathize With Billy Hargrove

Billy Is Not A ‘B’ Character In ST - He’s A Main Character

Billy Is As Important To ST As Hopper And El - A Study Of Intro Shots

Arrested Development: Billy Might Be An "Adult," But He's Still Growing Up (placeholder post)

🌊 Billy Will Return From The Ocean 🌊

The First Rule of Analyzing ST: The Upside Down Is Symbolized By Water

The Lifeguard And The Rip Current: Our First Big Hint That Billy Is Alive

The Demogorgon Is Billy’s Dark Reflection

Billy Is Going To Find The Byers

S1 E3 vs S4 E3 - A Parallel In The Making

Billy Is The Phoenix - He'll Rise From The Ashes

Billy Will Return From The Upside Down On His Own (He Won't Be Rescued)

"Surfer Boy Delivered Hot To Your Door"

Hints That Billy's Return Will Mimic The Demogorgon's First Scene In S1

The Hawkins Yearbook Code: More Evidence For Billy's Return

🦁 Billy Is A Mythological Figure 🦁

Billy Is A Christ Figure

Billy Is A Christ Figure Pt 2: The Sauna As The Garden Of Gethsemane

Billy Is The God-King Who Dies And Lives Again (Katabasis + Anabasis Pt 1)

Billy Is The Three Brother-Gods of Greek Mythology (Katabasis + Anabasis Pt 2) (placeholder post)

Mythological Tradition Demands Billy's Return (Katabasis + Anabasis Pt 3) (placeholder post) (placeholder post #2)

S3 Is Billy's Superhero Origin Story

Billy Is The Aragorn Of ST

True Courage: Billy Is The Cowardly Lion From The Wizard Of Oz

🪞 Mirror Russia 🪞

If Billy Is Alive, Where Is He?

The Star Trek Connection: Proof For Mirror Russia (And Mirror Billy)

God Playing Dice: How D&D Is A Metaphor For The ST Multiverse

Vecna, the multiverse, and achieving undeath

ST Puzzle Tales: Billy Mayfield?

ST Puzzle Tales: they keep changing his name??

They keep calling him Billy Mayfield and I am about to die

"Just imagine the real Billy crawling out of the Upside Down in California while the false Billy, animated by the Mind Flayer's lingering corruption, bursts out of a grave in Hawkins."

⚡ Billy's Future Arc ⚡

Billy Is A Gatekeeper - Or Rather, "Keymaster" - For The Upside Down

Billy Will Come Back As A Guide For The Others

Billy Is Not A Racist, He Just Wants To Protect His Loved Ones (Childhood Wounds Pt 1)

sidenote: even if Billy's racist, you're allowed to like him because...

Healing The Wound: Billy Will Save Max From Neil (Childhood Wounds Pt 2)

A Monster For The Monster-Killer: Neil As An Alcoholic In S4 (Childhood Wounds Pt 3)

Billy's Story Is About Recovering Lost Innocence (Billy's Sexuality: An Overview)

👥 Billy + Other Characters 👥

�� Eleven

ST Is Jungian, And Billy Is The Shadow

Mirror Images: Billy and El Are Reflections Of Each Other

Billy took El's powers?

The rainbow bridge

The phone booth: in S3, El hears Billy's call for help

🧟 Will

Zombie Boys: Billy And Will Are The Boys Who Came Back To Life

Why did Billy throw off the Mind Flayer's control when Will didn't?

How did the Mind Flayer force Billy to do such terrible things when it didn't force Will? / (a note on victim blaming)

Happy birthday, William(s) 🥳🧁🍰

An important Billy/Will parallel

🦸 El and Will

Billy's theme song is called "William"

Little gods: Billy, El, and Will from a theological perspective

Billy, El, and Will as reflections of each other

The "Two Man Rule" and opening gates: foreshadowing of Billy and El? Or Will and El?

How similar will Billy, El, and Will's storylines be?

🌻 Billy's Mother [potential MASSIVE spoilers]

S4 "Welcome to California" teaser ⭐

More musings on the S4 teaser

"Stop lying to me! You saw him again, didn't you?"

The Creels 🏰🥀🐇

Current theory: Vecna is Billy's [redacted] ⭐

☠️ Eddie Munson [potential MASSIVE spoilers]

Billy's Doppelganger: A Back Door Into Understanding ST (Dark Reflections Pt 1)

The Road To Eddie Munson: How I Predicted His Character In ST (Dark Reflections Pt 2)

The Lion And The Ninja: Eddie Munson Is Billy's Future Rival (Dark Reflections Pt 3) (placeholder thread)

Final Standoffs: Billy vs Eddie, Hopper vs Brenner, El vs Kali (Dark Reflections Pt 4) (placeholder post)

"I Am Hell's Master..." ⭐

👤 Others

The American And The Survivor: Billy and Hopper

Playing The Monster: Billy and Kali

✍️ Answered Asks ✍️

Billy, Hopper, and Mike as Dorothy's companions in Wizard of Oz

Billy and the undead army

ST writers' Twitter account says weird things about Billy

What's the deal with Billy's clone?

Dacre and the Duffers are lying in interviews

Max feels guilt over Billy's death; Billy and El believe themselves to be monsters

Is Billy Number Twelve?

Dacre's IMDb credit for S4

Billy has too much thematic significance to be a side character / the Duffers made Billy a sex symbol on purpose

Billy's "redemptive death" makes no sense

Meaning of Billy's tattoo in S3?

Dacre's "coming soon" post on IG

The creepy Surfer Boy Pizza shirt

Runaway Max: was Billy dissociating in the dead-cat-on-fire scene?

Why didn't the Mind Flayer absorb Billy?

The light blinking in front of Hopper's cabin in the S4 teaser

The significance of "Dear Billy" ⭐

Max is listening to an album that's all about Billy coming back ⭐

Billy is Kas the Bloody-Handed from D&D

🍿 The Duffers' Movie List 🍿

Why Eric Draven From The Crow Is Billy

Billy Is Paralleled With Neo From The Matrix

Billy Is Prince Adam/The Beast From Beauty And The Beast

🕵️‍♂️ Other Observations 🕵️‍♂️

The S4 posters hint at Billy's return ⭐

Billy's birthday ⭐

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." (a note on travel in S4)

Billy didn't want to serve the Mind Flayer

Billy's wardrobe colors are very American *cough cough*

ST may be using ring composition

The Source of the Mind Flayer/Upside Down? (comic book cover art)

✨ Miscellaneous ✨

"I can't tell you for sure I won't return, so you'll have to wait and find out." --Dacre

"A single soul dwelling in two bodies..." (deleted tweet from Dacre)

STOP INFANTILIZING EL, it's insulting

[deputychairman]

20 23 and 25 for the meta asks for writers :) Also I just wanted to say thanks for your amazing work! I love your writing a lot, I still remember visually so many scenes from the first story of yours I read even though it was years ago (it was the one where Finn becomes a space diplomat)

So it turns out i could NOT answer these at work, but this was a wonderful message to get, thank you so much!

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

In Anabasis at the moment I’m quite enjoying Johnny Lawrence being all, “shit, poor Mr Miyagi’s ghost knows Daniel’s going through it, this is his KID but he can’t even talk to/help him” – which is not a subtle parallel to Robby going through it right now ("I'm having a terrible childhood right now!") with the SAME evil geriatric karate teachers and Johnny not being able to talk to/help him; sure, he's like, the B-team of father figures, barely scraping a pass so far, but he's still distantly, symbolically aware that We Have Been Here Before.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

WELL. I still vividly remember the gender-flipped inspired-by-Star Trek story I made up on a family holiday in Cornwall when I was about 12, it didn’t really have a plot arc but it had OCs and big dramatic set pieces and tragedy and a whole galaxy and the main character lived in what I thought was the coolest possible house in the world, which included one of those metal spiral staircases and I think parachute silk on the ceiling? As I said, I was 12, it was the early 90s, I’d just discovered Camden Market. The influences are clear, in hindsight. There's also that Man from UNCLE fic i wrote when i was 15 that I've still got in a notebook and intermittently promise to post but never do.

And I'm going to save 25 for another ask in the hope of wasting my employer's time tomorrow: udermining capitalism, one tumblr ask meme at a time.

[phoenixflames12]

Sea Fever

Inspired by @toomanyassassins's heartbreaking Peglar x Bridgens fic here

On AO3 here

Harry Peglar is dying and with his last breaths, asks John for a final request.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

-Excerpt from Sea Fever by John Mansfield

During the last days, the darkness descends.

The light fades slowly from Harry's eyes, dripping and swirling into shadows thrown high against the canvas. His tongue aches for water that he cannot hold down, the weight of John's weathered hands tight against his palm.

'Don't leave me, Harry,' his touch seems to say, desperate and loving all at once.

Sometimes the shadows change, transforming against the swirling nothingness that has descended over his pupils. They morph into his Father- the minister of a country church in Somerset, whose love of the gospel made his son's inability to read a constant badge of shame. The words of the liturgy swirl through his minds' eye- endless, ageless words that used to come to him as readily as breathing.

Sometimes they lighten, the pale, blinding light of the endless Polar summer glaring into the tiny scrap of sanctuary that has become his world.

But always, come darkness or daylight, John's fingers are there, running lightly over his cheekbones, catching desperately into the heavy crown of his hair.

Around the tent, the slowly laboured breathing of the men fills the canvas with something that could be comfort.

He thinks he can hear Little mutter in his sleep, hear Hartnell cry out something that can't be made out clearly, the creak of the ice, the howl of the winter Arctic wind pummelling against the string of oil lamps.

'John?'

His lover's name is caught in the blood on his tongue, rank in the quiet as John curls closer.

Through his sightless eyes, the shadows shift, blood clogging at his lungs, the need to cough almost unbearable.

'John, I- '

But John is there before he can finish, holding him, weathered hands gripping his shoulders as he is eased into a sitting position. His lungs are burning, his throat screaming, the world twisting and pitching into iron tasting nothingness as he wretches up the blood.

Frostbitten fingers gently run themselves over his back, reaching up to trace peeling, mottled skin.

'Easy,' he murmurs, his voice a soft, low rumble, and Harry imagines him coaxing fractious young scholars into reading Chapman's Homer.

'Easy, there,' he hears again, the words distant and drifting into the swirls of sleep that are tugging at the corner of his psyche. The threads of lucidity are faint and fleeting, and though he tries to cling on to them, they always float away.

A rough kiss against his hand, tightening of fingers and an intimacy that had they been anywhere else, they would have had to hide.

Not here, though.

Not now.

Now there is nothing left to hide and yet so much left to say, to explain and, try as he might, Harry cannot find the strength to begin.

The men don't disturb them now as they move slowly through the remains of their existence between the tents.

Sometimes though, sometimes he will feel the weight of Crozier's pitiful gaze lingering a little too long, hear Little murmur grey, dry words that could be comforting in the strange, empty space that is not filled by John's voice reading Voltaire.

The familiar callouses brush back against his forehead, and he knows that John does not have the answers.

'Keep talking.' It's a desperate command as if by saying it, the silence that has descended over this dreadful polar wasteland will be banished for good.

Harry wishes that he could comply.

Wishes he could fill the tent with words as John did when he read Anabasis on that first, eternal winter when the darkness felt as if it would never end.

Somewhere in the shifting shadows, he hears the soft thread of footsteps swirling off into nothingness.

In the shifting silence, he feels his fingers begin to slip off the thread of lucidity.

'How is he?'

Little.

John's fingers tighten over his knuckles and tries to reply, but his tongue feels hot and thick, a fat slab of dry meat lolling uselessly in a dry, parched mouth.

'He'll- '

Whatever John is going to say next is drowned in an audible swallow, hot, wet tears stabbing welling up behind Harry's sightless eyes.

Desperately, he tries to blink the tears away, tries to move his aching, useless tongue into some semblance of speech. All that comes out is a low, gravelled groan that tears against the back of his throat.

Beside the bunk, Little slowly eases down to his knees, a sharp intake of breath that is laced with pain wincing around an exhale.

A rough, careworn hand grips his shoulder, the shadows swirl, and Harry thinks of that last desperate moment before he had collapsed on the ice, the world pitching and tilting into John's embrace. Remembers the weight of the collar, the pull of cracked leather cutting into the fraying wool of his jersey.

Slowly, he tries to blink away the darkness, the shadows slowly solidifying the hazy, bearded face, sunken and hollow with hunger, exhaustion and grief.

'L- '

The sound is caught around another fit of coughing, throat aching iron red, his tattered lungs burning as John grips his shoulders, heaves him into a sitting position.

'Don't choke now, Harry,' he murmurs, the words tucked somewhere deep in his shoulder.

He hacks back the rest, feeling the weight of Little's gaze shift desperately from one to the other.

'Is- Is there nothing we can do, John?'

His voice is desperate, cracking at the edges like all of the officers- their command voices lost in the howl and crack of the bitter Arctic wind.

Bridgens' silence is enough to tell Harry what he has known ever since his gums had begun to swell.

All John does is hold him closer, the weight of frostbitten hands secure and safe and home, and he absolutely cannot let go.

He melts into the touch, the shape that could be Little blurring into the dark threads of his love's jersey.

'Don't leave me,' he hears John murmur, voice cracking in the silence.

Hears Little creep away, a whispered conversation, the sound of words that he doesn't need to hear.

Instead, he clings on to John, like a sailor clutching driftwood as the light descends once more. John, his love, his anchor, the only anchor in the world that will keep him together as the world, the ship of life starts to drift further and further into the night.

'The C, the C, the open C…'

They are breaths of sounds rather than words, but he hopes that John will understand them.

John's hand tightens around his own, the world pitching violently like the ships as they had been, bucking and crashing through the ice.

Desperately, Harry reaches with his other hand, groping through the shadows for John's grip.

It is given gladly, knurled fingers resting gently against his cheek, the other hand gently supporting the back of his head as if he were once more a babe in arms.

'Keep talking,' John whispers into the sudden quiet.

His voice cracks against the words, and Harry has to force himself to swallow back the blood.

'It… It grew so fresh… the…'

He swallows, tries not to choke.

'The ever free…'

The rest of the verse escapes him.

All he knows is what he loves; that distant shimmering mass of ocean that glistens far off from the ice, stretching on for as far as the eye could see.

'I… I love the sea. I… I love the sea.'

John's arms tighten desperately around thin, wasted shoulders.

His fingernails dig through the unravelling wool of Harry's jersey, grounding him to a slowly departing world.

'You'll see it again, Harry,' he murmurs, voice choked against mottled, peeling skin, pressing their foreheads together, losing his fingers in a mass of heavy hair.

'I promise that you'll see it again.'

~****~

Fin

[annecoulmanross]

The premise: AMC’s The Terror (2018) is almost perfectly set up to be a structured as a classical Greek tragedy, or, ideally, a series of three tragedies.

Three requirements of a classical Greek tragedy:

The play is performed by only three actors and a chorus.

The three actors perform all of the dialogue roles between them.

All of the action of the play takes place on a single day (in the space of no more than twenty-four hours), and always in the same physical place.

Obviously this last requirement is the hardest to achieve with the events of the show sprawling over two years or more, but with a trilogy of three tragedies, you could narrow the action down to three key days: (1) Franklin’s death, (2) Carnevale, and (3) The day the mutineers lure the Tuunbaq and everyone but Crozier dies. I could focus on the structural elements that would allow for these three days of “action” but I’m more interested in the implications of the first two requirements: basically, can you stage a version of The Terror with only three actors? The answer is that – barring action sequences which would never be staged in a Greek tragedy anyway, because all true action happens off-stage – yes, yes you can. So, let’s talk about logistics.

Core Casting Divisions:

ACTOR 1 = Franklin (also: Goodsir, Blanky, Little, Bridgens, Tozer, etc.)

ACTOR 2 = Fitzjames (also: Lady Silence, Hickey, Jopson, Peglar, Stanley, etc.)

ACTOR 3 = Crozier (also: Collins, MacDonald, Hodgson, Gibson, etc.)

Beneath the cut: how this casting breaks down, scene by scene; and the implications of these casting divisions, complete with a lot of rambling thoughts about – among other things – gender, masculinity, and (amusingly) Rome.

(Also, I want to thank my dear friends, fellow terror-classicists, and everyone who has so patiently talked terror-meta and terror-thoughts with me, including, but in no way limited to, @kaserl, @catilinas, @rhavewellyarnbag, @paramaline, and @endofvanity – your wonderful thoughts about this show have been enormously helpful as I’ve played with the narrative mechanics here!) 

+

Casting, Scene-by-Scene

A basic outlay of all major dialogue scenes in every episode (a “major dialogue scene” is a scene with more than one character, minus “fight scenes” because action never happens on stage in a Greek tragedy), with the roles of the three actors listed in 1-2-3 order, and an “x” to mark when an actor doesn’t appear in a scene.

01x01 – “Go for Broke”

Franklin – Fitzjames – Collins [Discussing the ice]

Blanky – x – Crozier [Crozier complains, part 1]

x – Jopson – Crozier [Crozier complains, part 2]

Strong – Hickey – Young [Young’s illness revealed]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [Fitzjames’ storytelling]

Goodsir – Stanley – Young [Treating Young’s illness]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Collins [Collins’s dive]

Goodsir – Stanley – Young [Young’s autopsy]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [Franklin’s decision]

Tozer – Hickey – Manson [Burying Young]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Gore [The pack has arrived]

(Notes: This is an incredibly cleanly written episode, and the casting is correspondingly clean. Franklin and Fitzjames almost always appear together, as do Goodsir and Stanley; both pairs are “leader and subordinate,” but the roles shift, with Actor 1 as Franklin and Goodsir, and Actor 2 as Fitzjames and Stanley. Actor 3, meanwhile, plays three characters with foresight: Crozier, who foretells the pack ice through his knowledge and by listening to Blanky; and Collins and Young, through their more supernatural visions.)

01x02 – “Gore”

Franklin – Fitzjames – Gregory [Checking the engine]

Bridgens – Peglar – x [“Here comes the lending library”]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Gore [Gore’s sledge party departs]

Goodsir – Peglar – Gore [Gore’s sledge party]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [“Repairing bonds”]

Irving – Hickey – Gibson [Irving’s discovery]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Hodgson [Hodgson’s sledge party returns]

Blanky – x – Crozier [Remembering Parry’s expedition]

Irving – Hickey – Crozier [A shared drink]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Crozier [The death of Silence’s father]

Goodsir – Fitzjames – Crozier [Goodsir explains how Gore died]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [Franklin discusses how Gore died]

Blanky – Lady Silence – Crozier [Lady Silence’s warning]

(Notes: As the show adds complexity, so does the casting. Irving appears as a new role for Actor 1, paralleling Franklin in his religiosity; Gibson appears as a new role for Actor 3, paralleling Crozier in being a person with whom Hickey.... uh, flirts.)

01x03 – “The Ladder”

Hartnell – Morfin – Weekes [Preparing Lady Silence’s father, part 1]

Goodsir – Morfin – Weekes [Preparing Lady Silence’s father, part 2]

Hartnell – Lady Silence – Hodgson [Returning the totems to Lady Silence]

Goodsir – x – Des Voeux [“Burying” Lady Silence’s father]

Little – Jopson – Crozier [Little’s worries about the Inuit]

Irving – Hickey – Gibson [Gibson asks for Irving’s counsel]

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [The sledge rescue party proposal]

Blanky – x – Crozier [Crozier’s mutiny plan]

Irving – Hickey – x [Irving’s warning]

x – Hickey – Gibson [The break-up]

(Note: The sequence in the hunting blind is nigh-impossible within this casting, since it features predominantly three separate characters all played by Actor 1 – Franklin, Goodsir, and Tozer. Imagined poetically, one could say that this is an omen of the violence so soon to come in the physical space of the hunting blind, since violence cannot be depicted on stage in a Greek tragedy. Conceived practically, one might argue that this is because the hunting blind is a hotbed of toxic masculinity, where the masculine Tozer baits the patriarchal Franklin into remaining with the marines, and teases Goodsir for his “feminine” caution.)

Franklin – Fitzjames – Crozier [The death of Franklin]

Chambers – Morfin – Weekes [“Silver swan”]

Blanky – Fitzjames – Crozier [“It’s technically not mutiny if I’m in charge”]

(Notes: This episode mainly functions to round out the first third of the show’s narrative, so the main parallels are familiar. We do, however, have a range of important sequences featuring the new-to-us characters Morfin and Weekes; we begin to get to know more of the men, rather than just officers. Morfin is played by Actor 2, which could be evidence to argue that Morfin was once lashed was for sodomy – cf. “Actor 2,” below for more.)

01x04 – “Punished as a Boy”

x – Jopson – Crozier [“You hear everything, Jopson”]

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [“Does not one bring one’s habits to Terror?”]

Goodsir – Stanley – MacDonald [Tending to Heather]

Tozer – Hickey – x [The idea to kidnap Lady Silence develops]

Little – Fitzjames – Crozier [The plan to “get” Lady Silence develops]

Hartnell – Hickey – Crozier [Questioning the kidnappers]

Johnson – Hickey – Crozier [The lashing]

x – Hickey – MacDonald [After the lashing]

Goodsir – Morfin – x [Morfin’s headaches]

(Note: The scene “Morfin’s headaches” is really interesting to me, because it causes overlap problems all over the place: Morfin MUST be played by Actor 2, because his death scene must have Goodsir (1) and Crozier (3) in it, but Actor 2 also plays Fitzjames and Stanley, both of whom are also in this scene; this is the scene in which Fitzjames and Stanley have their one significant conversation, in fact, which it hurt me desperately to lose. I think there’s something in this scene about thwarted connections – Morfin reaching out to Goodsir, Stanley reaching out to Fitzjames – and that may be why it all tangles up here, why the casting system breaks down and fails here, as it does.)

Irving – x – Crozier [Men shifting to Erebus]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Des Voeux [Feeding Lady Silence]

(Note: Goodsir sure does have a lot of scenes with Des Voeux in these early episodes. I’d never noticed this, and I’m not sure what to make of it.)

01x05 – “First Shot a Winner Lads”

Little – Fitzjames – x [Sending Lady Silence to Terror]

Goodsir – Stanley – Des Voeux [Goodsir asks leave to go to Terror]

x – Fitzjames – Collins [The requisition of spirits]

Goodsir – Hickey – x [Hickey’s wounds]

Little – x – Crozier [“How fares the raft of the Medusa?”]

(Note: Little and Blanky almost never interact, so the fact that they are both Actor 1 rarely causes problems. Losing Blanky in this scene is tragic, though, BUT this does create an interesting parallel between Crozier’s failure at being a mentor for Little, and MacDonald’s greater success(?) at being a mentor for Goodsir, below, since both are Actor 1 as mentee & Actor 3 as mentor scenes. )

Goodsir – Hickey – x [“Does that really work with anyone?”]

Goodsir – x – MacDonald [Doctors bonding over teeth exploding]

x – Hickey – Gibson [The proposal]

Irving – Hickey – Manson [Storing Hornby’s body]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Crozier [Interviewing Lady Silence]

Blanky – Fitzjames – Crozier [The punch]

Blanky – Jopson – Crozier [Blanky’s amputation]

(Note: Jopson is holding Blanky’s hand during the amputation. That’s my justification for having him here. I just like it, that’s all.)

Little – Jopson – Crozier [Crozier’s detox plan]

(Note: Obviously, there are additional important people in the “Crozier’s detox plan” scene, and one is loath to ignore Fitzjames, for example. But this is the beginning of Jopson’s core arc, so he takes priority, and Little receiving Crozier’s gun is weighty.)

01x06 – “A Mercy”

Irving – Fitzjames – MacDonald [The provisions remaining]

Blanky – Fitzjames – x [The Fury Beach™ Scene]

x – Jopson – Crozier [Tending to Crozier, with Jopson’s backstory]

Hartnell – Hickey – x [Hartnell’s new charter]

Little – Fitzjames – x [Carnevale as a “last hurrah” before the walk-out]

x – Stanley – Collins [“Flurried thoughts”]

Bridgens – Peglar – x [Xenophon’s Anabasis]

Goodsir – Stanley – x [Goodsir’s discovery re: the tinned goods]

x – Jopson – Crozier [Going to Carnevale]

(Note: We’ve just had seven (7!) entire 2-person scenes of either (a) Actors 1 and 2, or (b) Actors 2 and 3, bouncing back and forth – this would keep Actor 2 very, VERY busy. Actor 2 also plays no less that five (5!) different characters in here, almost their entire core repertoire of Fitzjames, Hickey, Jopson, Stanley, and Peglar, omitting only Lady Silence, who will also show up later in this episode. There’s a lot more to be said here, but I’ll just note that we start and end with scenes of Jopson caring for Crozier – a classical ring structure – with Stanley failing to care for Collins placed at the center.)

Blanky – Jopson – Crozier [Crozier arrives at Carnevale]

x – Hickey – Des Voeux [“Unless you want that ripped off?”]

Little – Fitzjames – Crozier [Crozier’s speech at Carnevale]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Crozier [Lady Silence returns]

x – Stanley – Crozier [The fire begins]

x – Hickey – MacDonald [MacDonald’s death]

Goodsir – Fitzjames – Crozier [After Carnevale]

01x07 – “Horrible from Supper”

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [What the men have packed]

Tozer – Hickey – Gibson [The mutiny plot begins]

Goodsir – Morfin – Collins [Morfin stumbles]

Blanky – Jopson – Crozier [Goodbye to Terror]

Goodsir – x – Collins [“Terrible from supper”]

Goodsir – x – Crozier [Goodsir wants hunting parties]

Tozer – Morfin – Crozier [Finding Fairholme’s fate]

(Note: For casting reasons, Fitzjames doesn’t appear here, though he’s very much present in the show’s version of the discovery of Fairholme’s remains. One might derive some AU scenarios for this (what if Fitzjames didn’t know about the destruction of Fairholme’s rescue party?) or one might contemplate what it means for Fitzjames to be present or not, when, notably, the numbers of how many men have died that Fitzjames writes on the Victory Point Note addendum in the next episode ONLY tally if Fitzjames forgets – or purposely omits – Fairholme and the men of his sledge party.)  

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [The Hand Touch™ Scene]

Little – x – Crozier [“The men deserve every gold thing there is.” ]

(Note: Crozier and Little will have to also discuss Tozer’s recommendation to arm the men as a past event, since Tozer can’t be in this scene with Little already there, when they’re both Actor 1; more on this in the next episode.)

Goodsir – Morfin – Crozier [Morfin’s death]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – x [Goodsir gets comfort-cuddles]

Hartnell – Jopson – Crozier [Hartnell is a good boy.jpeg and so is Jopson]

Little – Jopson – Crozier [Jopson’s promotion]  

Tozer – Hickey – Hodgson [Bringing Hodgson into the mutiny]

Irving – Hickey – Koveyook [Asking for help]

01x08 – “Terror Camp Clear”

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [Victory Point Note addendum]

(Note: The scene where Crozier questions Hodgson poses some problems, since both are Actor 3. The details may simply have to be elided into other scenes. This episode has several such issues, including, tragically, Hickey and Jopson’s scenes (Actor 2), and, unfortunately, Little and Tozer’s scenes (Actor 1). What this does show us is some new dynamics in the overlaps – Hickey and Jopson are Crozier’s “prodigal son” and the obedient elder son, respectively; Little and Tozer are what happens when leadership goes wrong, in two very different ways.)

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Crozier [Discussing Irving’s mutilation]

Little – Fitzjames – Crozier [Leaving Little in charge]

Bridgens – Peglar – Collins [Bridgens the doctor]

Blanky – Hickey – Crozier [Interrogation at the scene of the crime]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – x [Mourning friends]

Tozer – x – Des Voeux [Noises in the fog]

Little – x – Hodgson [Hodgson’s worries about the Inuit]

Blanky – Fitzjames – Crozier [Realizing the camp is armed]

Goodsir – Lady Silence – Crozier [Sending Lady Silence away to safety]

x – Hickey – Gibson [Mutiny planning]

Little – Fitzjames – Crozier [Arresting Hickey]

Little – Hickey – Crozier [The hanging]

Diggle – Hickey – Gibson [The mutiny sledge leaves]

Tozer – x – Collins [Collins’ death]

(Note: Even before Goodsir is kidnapped by the mutineers, like Penelope ambushed by the suitors, this episode gives us none of the Goodsir – Fitzjames – Crozier dynamic that stabilized the end of Carnevale; Bridgens has, in many ways, already taken over for Goodsir in becoming the “doctor” for the crew, and he will bloom into having two vitally important and devastating Bridgens – Fitzjames – Crozier scenes in the next episode. For now, Goodsir has three major scenes with Lady Silence: the last they will ever have together.)

01x09 – “The C the C the Open C”

Bridgens – Fitzjames – Crozier ["Blank pages now”]

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [“More than god loves them,” part 2]

Tozer – Hickey – Hodgson [Hodgson joins the mutiny]  

x – Fitzjames – Crozier [Fitzjames falls]

x – Hickey – Hodgson [“Veal Cutlets Tomata”]  

Goodsir – Hickey – Gibson [“(Tr)eating” Gibson]

Little – Jopson – Crozier [Little proposes leaving the sick behind]

(Note: The last time we saw these three together, it was Jopson’s promotion, and the time before that, it was “Crozier’s detox plan,” and Jopson was promising “I got you” to his captain; now it’s the other way around. Little acts as a pivot around which circumstances turn, rather than an agent in and of himself in many ways. Like fellow Actor 1 character Franklin, Little is thrust into a position of leadership for which he isn’t truly ready, and then his choices are slowly cut off from him – but where Franklin’s choices are cut off by fate, and the ice, Little’s are largely cut off by the opposition of others: first his captain, in vetoing the plan to leave the sick behind, and then by the men, in voting to leave the captain in Hickey’s clutches.)  

Inuit Leader – Lady Silence – x [Not enough food to share]

Bridgens – Fitzjames – Crozier [The end]

Little – Golding – Crozier [The funeral]

Blanky – x – Crozier [Forks]

Bridgens – Peglar – x [“Can we sleep?”]

Tozer – Hickey – Armitage [Making mutiny camp]

Goodsir – Hickey – Hodgson [Feeding mutiny camp]

(Note: So technically Tozer is visibly in this scene, and Hodgson’s not, but in a Greek tragedy he would be visibly on stage, so I’m calling that fair play.)

Goodsir – x – Hodgson [Hodgson’s Eucharist monologue]

Tozer – Hickey – x [Tozer’s plan to return to the ships]

Bridgens – Peglar – x [The C the C the open C]

Tozer – Pilkington – Armitage [Discontented mutineers]

x – Jopson – Crozier [Foley’s cow]

Little – Golding – Crozier [A false report]

Hartnell – x – Crozier [“Go be with your brother now”]

Little – x – Crozier [“We will live”]

01x10 – “We Are Gone”

x – Hickey – Crozier [A Wednesday]

Little – x – Le Vesconte [A vote]

(Note: For you Dundy fans, this is literally the first time I’ve found a place for him; I could perhaps have gone back and put in the short “benjo” scene, but alas, some things aren’t meant to be – the primary people listening to that announcement are Hickey (2) and Gibson (3) and Le Vesconte clearly can’t be Actor 1, since this, his star scene, is with Little (1). Dundy really does come out of nowhere, narratively speaking, even more so than Hodgson in many ways.)

Goodsir – x – Crozier [“This place is beautiful to me”]

x – Hickey – Crozier [“I forgive all of them”]

Diggle – x – Crozier [Escape plans]

Tozer – Hickey – Crozier [A doctor a day keeps the doctor… well]

Tozer – Hickey – Des Voeux [Next steps forward]

Tozer – Hickey – Crozier [“You could have just joined up”]

Little – Lady Silence – Crozier [Captains losing ship and crew]

Inuit Leader – Lady Silence – Crozier [“Silna”]

Inuit Leader – Translator – James Clark Ross [“Aglooka”]

(Note: Working chronologically such that James Clark Ross appears only at the end but not also at the beginning, as per the rules of Greek drama, our Actor 2 ends the story in the role of the Translator. Something very poetic about that.)

+

Implications of the Casting System

Basically, my argument here is that, in a pinch, you can retell the narrative of AMC’s The Terror (2018) using only three actors, with relatively minimal problems of overlap, and that’s FASCINATING.

In part, these core casting divisions (Actors 1, 2, and 3) are purely pragmatic – we have scenes that require, e.g., Franklin and Fitzjames and Crozier to all make important statements, so those three have to be played by different actors. And it fractals out from there – e.g., Blanky and Crozier have numerous significant scenes, so they can’t be the same actor, and you can’t lose the “Sir John Ross Never Knew How Close He Came” Fury Beach scene, so Blanky and Fitzjames can’t be the same actor, which means Blanky and Franklin MUST be. But sometimes these spiraling casting necessities make for very cool accidental overlaps as a result of the pragmatic necessities of so small a cast. 

(Also, for the classicists in the room, I first mapped this out while watching a production of the Bacchae, so that tells you something about my headspace.)

So, interesting things about what parallels these actors might play out:

– Actor 1 predominantly plays very masculine men in very traditional masculine roles (Franklin, the paternal leader; Blanky, so rugged and grounded in himself; Little, the stoic with depressive tendencies who’s bottling up his emotions; Tozer, who is, um, Tozer). The exception in many ways is Goodsir. The thing is, Goodsir is one of most feminized men in this show, given his role as a medical care provider, his warm softness, his initial apparent lack of physical courage (it’s an abundance of reasonable caution, Tozer!), and his Penelope-like role in later the Odyssey narrative. But Goodsir has to be played by a different actor than most of the other characters in this show with a dubious relationship to Victorian British masculinity (Actor 2, see below), because he shares scenes with them! Goodsir and Hickey MUST be played by different actors (not to mention Lady Silence). So here we are, with Goodsir amongst the “manly men.” Even Bridgens is fairly traditionally masculine, if only in his physical appearance and his classical education.

Other interesting parallels: If I had to give a real, classical answer to the “why is Goodsir with this bunch” question, I think it has to do with the shift from the Franklin & Fitzjames & Crozier “First Triumvirate” of the early episodes (brief Roman digression, but the Roman “First Triumvirate” would be Franklin = Pompey, Fitzjames = Crassus (well… Cicero), Crozier = Caesar? …hilarious) to the Goodsir & Hickey & Crozier “Second Triumvirate” of the later episodes (Goodsir = Lepidus (I’m SORRY), Hickey = Antony, Crozier = Augustus). Basically, Goodsir has to take Sir John’s place as the representative of (or spokesperson for) the brittle British empire and its hapless inadequacies, once Franklin is gone (more on this is “Actor 2.”)

Also, you know, re: Blanky and Sir John, both men lose a leg. Do with that what you will. (“Good one leg man” and “Bad one leg man” indeed.)

– Actor 2 predominantly plays figures whose masculinity is either queered, problematized, or non-existent. (Fitzjames, who crossdresses, who carries his legacy like a woman’s beauty – easily lost over time; Lady Silence, who is rarely if ever treated like a woman within the narrative, but, in fact, is one; Hickey, whose queerness and violence are intertwined; and Jopson, whose life is defined by dedication to a career that places him in feminized roles.) Peglar, despite his sexuality, is one of the more traditionally masculine characters this actor plays, but what can I say, Peglar is fragments, and fragments, as we know, are gay-coded. Stanley is also, on first glance, a more masculine outsider, but the gender binary of live men and dead men prevails in this show, and Stanley’s been dead inside since long before he ever set foot on Erebus. This is also where one might argue that the flogging to which Morfin alludes is a punishment for sodomy, and that mentioning it to Goodsir is a specific attempt to find a kindred soul, and/or an attempt to flirt. 

Other interesting parallels: Fitzjames and his masks, both literal and metaphorical, and how those masks are desecrated by Hickey along with Fitzjames’ body and boots; Hickey and Jopson as the opposite ends of the spectrum for father/son relationships with Crozier (I know this means we can’t have that Hickey & Jopson scene – I can’t account for it, I’m sorry too!). But back to Fitzjames and Hickey, this parallel also makes interesting sense re: the two “triumvirates” in show (Franklin & Fitzjames & Crozier and later Hickey & Goodsir & Crozier) because, in contrast to Franklin and Goodsir who are representatives of the British empire, Fitzjames and Hickey are places where the British empire is most visibly broken, Fitzjames because of the lies he’s had to tell about his origins, and Hickey because he’s the eternal outsider, literally trapped outside the tent. (Well, and the lies Hickey’s also had to tell about his origins! Though that’s his own damn fault in many ways.) Also, Fitzjames is technically “Crassus” in his triumvirate, and he does play on tropes of wealth and privilege and inane military campaigns in the east, but he’s mostly, actually Cicero, mutilated by Hickey/Antony, who also steals his mask – aka boots/severed head – to prove his cruelty and co-opt power.

This actor has to do A LOT of work, as a friend of mine once said. But also they play all three of my favorite characters, so I adore them.

– Actor 3 predominantly plays Crozier. (Crozier is the main character of this narrative, we can’t avoid that; he’s part of both triumvirates, and a vast number  of the significant scenes include him, so his actor is stuck playing just Crozier much of the time.) Apart from that, however, I love that one of the natural overlaps is for this same actor to play Collins, whose connection with dreams and visions parallels so interestingly with Crozier’s foresight and foreknowledge.

Note: Because of the tragic structural limitation of “one setting only.” I’ve not included any of the characters back in England, apart from James Clark Ross, since he does eventually make his way out to the Arctic. If I were to include the contemporary England scenes (omitting the flashback scenes), it would have basically this set up:

ACTOR 1 (overlaps with Franklin) = Lady Jane, Barrow Jr.

ACTOR 2 (overlaps with Fitzjames) = Sophia Cracroft

ACTOR 3 (overlaps with Crozier) = John Ross, James Clark Ross, Dickens

Actor 3 is potentially the most interesting of these, because Crozier doubles with James Clark Ross re: life experience (Antarctic hand tremors!) and with John Ross re: being a harbinger of things to come. Actor 1 is intriguing also, though – less, I think, for doubling Lady Jane with her husband, which I do ultimately like quite a lot, but also for the other parallels offered, e.g. Lady Jane and Goodsir. (Did you know Lady Jane once dissected a giant squid? Goodsir would have loved it!) 

This has been your “a Terror-obsessed classical scholar tries to make a tv show into a Greek tragedy” hour – thank you for joining me! 

[disbander-of-armies]

What my tumblr means

I was tagged by my wonderful friend @hiddenlookingglass! I’ve just done one of these and usually I try to space these out but this gives me the opportunity to address some things that I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while so here we go.

Header image: It’s a photo I took two years ago at a small beach in Sicily. I chose it because I think it looks really nice and it fits with my blog title (”thalatta” means “sea” in ancient Greek). Also, it sometimes looks distorted on my tumblr app, I don’t know why, it’s just tumblr being weird I guess.

Icon: A photo of me blowing bubbles. I wanted my icon to be a photo of me because this blog is very personal to me but at the same time I didn’t want to do a face reveal so that’s why I chose this one.

My content: Well, mostly anything Classics/ancient history. I sometimes share unrelated posts that I tag as “self care” because I also want to spread positivity on my blog. I usually try to stay out of politics (I want all sexualities, genders and religions to feel welcome on my blog so you can draw your conclusions where I stand politically). Lately I’ve been struggling a bit because I don’t know what to post. When I started my blog I wasn’t an ancient history student yet and I just used it as a place where I could dump all my thoughts on ancient Greece and my God, it shows! Since I’ve started studying ancient history and have gained a lot more followers I’ve become a lot more careful because I don’t want to spread any misinformation. I also feel that right now I’m in a weird “intermediate” position. I know a lot more about ancient history than I did when I started this blog but I’m by no means an expert in anything yet. There are a lot of things that I would love to write about (like, making ancient Greek more accessible) but I just don’t have the knowledge yet and/or the time to do proper research. And the things I do know feel kind of, I don’t know, generic? Like I assume everybody already knows that (or maybe that’s just what it seems to me because I’m living in the Classics bubble).

Background color: I just chose a color that I thought fitted in with my images, there is no deeper meaning to it.

URL: “disbander of armies” is the translation of the ancient Greek name “Lysistrata”. Lysistrata is one of the comedic plays by Aristophanes. It’s set during the Peloponnesian war and it’s about a group of women (lead by Lysistrata) who organize a sex strike to force the Athenians and Spartans to make peace (which the also accomplish by the end of the play). I love the play because a) it’s hilarious and b) it often gives an insight into the lives of those people who weren’t that well off and whose lives are often overlooked. And that’s one of the things I love most about ancient history, learning about the ordinary people.

Also, I just really love the name, it’s really powerful and yet peaceful. Obviously Aristophanes chose the name because of the content of the play but (and this is just a theory but I would love it to be true) he might also have chosen it because of the priestess of Athena Polias (who was probably the most powerful woman in all of Athens) whose name was Lysimache, which means “disbander of battles”. Joan Breton Connelly writes in her book Portrait of a Priestess:

“If it can be shown that the Lysistrata similarly draws upon the lives of historical Athenians, in this case priestesses, our view of the public role of women and their name recognition within the polis can be greatly enriched. Indeed, we might even understand these women to be insiders, part of the “men’s club”, so to speak, and thus fair game for public comedy.” (Connelly 2010: 63)

Blog title: “Thalatta! Thalatta!”. It’s a famous quote from Xenophon’s Anabasis and it’s very personal to me. The Anabasis is a work by the Athenian historian Xenophon who lived during the 5th/4th century BCE. When he was around 30 years old, he took part in an expedition in Asia Minor by the Persian prince Cyrus. It turned out that this “expedition” was actually just a ruse for Cyrus to gather mercenaries in order to overthrow his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes II. They fought a battle at Cunaxa (in modern Iraq) in 401 BCE which was won by Cyrus but since he himself was killed, the victory was pointless. Now thousands of Greek mercenaries, including Xenophon, were trapped in a foreign country. A large part of the Anabasis is the story of how they fought their way back to Greece.

The “Thalatta! Thalatta!” (which means “The sea! The sea!”) quote appears when the Greeks, after months of fighting off enemies and trying to find their way back, see the sea for the first time (in this case it’s the Black sea). This was a huge milestone for them because it meant that Greek colonies were near.

Xenophon vividly describes how, since he was travelling further back, he first heard a commotion and it was thought that they were being attacked but when they heard that the others were actually shouting “thalatta!”, everybody just broke down in tears because they were so happy.

The Anabasis is my favorite book of all time (I actually got super emotional again just writing about this scene!). I love it because you learn so much about how the ancient Greeks saw their world and especially, how Xenophon saw the Gods guiding him (before he went on the expedition he had asked the oracle of Delphi to which Gods he should pray to to successfully complete his journey and the oracle replied that he should pray to Zeus Basileos (Zeus the King) (Xen. an. VI, 1, 22). To quote from the article One Man’s Piety by Robert Parker:

“Xenophon, then, was very close to Zeus Basileus. And the god did not let him down. (...). There is self-glorification and self-congratulation in all this, no doubt; but also a picture of one sense in which a Greek could feel himself especially close to a particular god.” (Parker 2004: 151)

It also had a huge impact on myself and the things I struggle with. Like a lot of other people, I struggle with mental health and there were times when I’ve been in a very dark place and thought that I would never get better. Xenophon and those soldiers must have felt like that too sometimes (though I by no means want to compare my experiences to those of the ancient Greeks!). It shows me that people can go through incredible hardships and still come out victorious. This doesn’t mean that you will never have to face difficult times again. The “Thalatta” scene is by no means the end of their journey and they had to face many more obstacles after that. But in the end, there was a happy end (of sorts) for Xenophon. After living many years as a soldier, he settled down, had a family and died at the age of around 75. Here is another favorite quote of mine of him describing his home (he speaks of himself in the third person):

“Here Xenophon built an altar and a temple [for Artemis] with the sacred money, and from that time forth he would every year take the tithe and of the products of the land in their season and offer sacrifice to the goddess, all the citizens and the men and women of the neighborhood taking part in the festival. And the goddess would provide for the banqueters barley meal and loaves of bread, wine, and sweetmeats. (...). The temple itself is like the one at Ephesus, although small as compared with great, and the image of the goddess, although cypress wood as compared with gold, is like the Ephesian image. Beside the temple stands a tablet with this inscription:

“The place is sacred to Artemis. He who holds it and enjoys its fruit must offer the tithe every year in sacrifice, and from the remainder must keep the temple in repair. If anyone leave these things undone, the goddess will look to it.” (Xen. an. V, 3, 9-12, transl. by Carleton L. Brownson)

Sources:

Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess. Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton University Press 2010.

Robert Parker, One Man’s Piety. The Religious Dimension of the Anabasis, in: The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, edited by Robin Lane Fox. Yale University Press 2004, 131-153.

[slaygentford]

I think you might appreciate the fact that I named the main characters in this musical/cirque/ballet that'll never get made Katya and Ana because it sort of fits a katabasis/anabasis structure and realizing that made me go apeshit

THIS . fucks also you know what fucks even more? someone making a cirque in 2020. keep on keeping on space cowboy 

[bainelland]

Writing Life: 2019 Review

I was tagged to do this by @concreteangel1221​ Thank you, and sorry it took me so long.

total number of words you wrote/published this year:

42,409 words published on AO3, but I wrote a bit more than that

fic(s) you completed this year:

I completed 5 fics.

fics you’ll continue next year:

“How could I have known”

“In Essence Divided”

“In A Kingdom By The Sea”

current number of wips:

5. Three listed above. One that was once published until I took it down because I didn’t like the way it was turning out and wanted to work on it a little longer. And another one that sits in my file and stares at me judgmentally every time I decide to not write it.

any new fics to start next year:

Unfortunately, yes.

favorite fic you wrote this year:

“In Essence Divided”

least favorite fic you wrote this year:

“A Little Fall Of Rain” and a prompt I got from @concreteangel1221 It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s just that looking back at them I can’t help but feel the urge to change them just that little bit. To add that one word, one sentence, one paragraph, to... to write them better because I know I could do it.

favorite line/scene you wrote this year:

Actually, all of my favorite scenes/paragraphs are from the things that I did not publish. But I think I can share two of them with you anyway. The first one is from the fic I published before and then deleted it, called “Little Theater” but this particular paragraph is from a chapter that never saw the light of the day. 

“And as she stood like that in the middle of the clearing, listening to those signs of life around her, her ears picked up the sound she’s been waiting for. The reason why she’s been freezing her toes off in the cold. Hooves. Heavy hooves stomping on the frozen ground.”

And the second one is from a very cheerful little piece called rather adequately if I do say so myself, “Annoyance & Disappointment”.

“And in a split of a second, the moment was over. Her face fell. Suddenly there was too little oxygen to go around. She could not breathe. She felt her chest tightening. The blood rushing in her ears muffled every other sound. She saw the lips move and she heard the words that fell past them. The green eyes looked at her with such unusual tenderness, with such foreign feeling, that the words could not have possibly been a lie. Yet she did not believe her own ears. She did not believe what she had heard.”

most popular fic this year:

“How Could I Have Known”. There’s just something about the fake relationship trope that speaks to the people, you know.

least popular fic this year:

“Rocking Around The Christmas Tree”. 

longest completed fic you wrote this year:

“Completed”? I do not know what that word means *nervous laughter* Well, that would be “Whispers In The Night”.

shortest completed fic you wrote this year:

“A Little Fall Of Rain”.

longest wip of the year:

“How Could I Have Known”

favorite character to write about this year:

Lilith

a fic you didn’t expect to write:

All of them? I only started writing fanfiction for CAOS and publishing it on AO3 in 2019 and to be honest about it, I’ve never expected to write +42k words in fanfiction, ever. 

most memorable comment/review:

Literally, every single one of them. It just chimies my changas to know that people are reading the things I’ve put my time into and to hear what they think about it, y’know. But I have to say that @claire-de-macarune leaves the bestest comments. And of course, that one time when @sheep-in-space informed me she had written a follow-up to “Whispers In The Night”. I cried.

events you participated in this year:

Madam Spellman Fictober Challange

fics you wanted to write but didn’t:

Oh, so many. Every WIP I have?? Every prompt I’ve got in my inbox. Every idea I have written down in my notebook. There’s too many of them

favorite fic you read this year:

In no particular order. By all means, that’s not a complete list but if I were to name every single fic I fell in love with this year we’d be here for hours!

“My Empire for Ashes (This Tornado Loves You)” series

“Sir, Spare Your Threats” and “to bed, to bed, to bed”

“Anabasis Kingdom”

“Part of Your World”

“Mary’s Hands”

“Birds singing in the sycamore trees”

Writing goals for 2020:

To finish every WIP I already have before starting another one. And to just write. Just Write.

And that’s it. Thank you, for tagging me. I had quite a lot of fun while doing this. I will tag @sheep-in-space, @renaissancefleabag, and everyone else who wants to do this.

[satbiym]

Icarus AU Chapter 5!

The Lament for Icarus by satbiym

Yuuri took a deep breath, head bent, the heat from the hearth a gentle presence with an echo warning him from getting any closer.

“Yuuri.” His mother whispered. Yuuri slowly opened his eyes and looked up from where he was sitting.

“It’s time.” She said softly.

Yuuri got up, leaving behind the rich smell of burning Katsudon in the hearth.

x

x

A Mysian who saw that they were amazed, retorted by persuading one of the Arcadians who had acquired a dancing girl to dress her in the finest costume he could, fit her with a light shield and bring her on to give a graceful performance of the “Pyrrhic” dance. Thereupon there was a roar of applause, and the Paphlagonians asked if the Greek women also fought side by side with their men. The Greeks answered that these were the very women who had routed the king from his camp.”

Anabasis, Xenophon

x

Phichit, bright-eyed and flushed, turned, almost vibrating with his enthusiasm.

“Yuuri! Look!” He said, pulling Yuuri closer by clasping Yuuri’s hands within his own, and squealed, “It has started! Look! Those horses there are so beautiful!”

The village priest gestured for his disciples to bring in the chariot with the four horses that Phichit had been referring to. Phichit who had turned back to the proceedings gasped, probably in surprise at the way Yuuri’s hand had tightened within his.

“Yuuri, what-” Phichit started to whisper, only to be cut off by a curt shake of Yuuri’s head, his hand still being gripped tightly. Frowning, Phichit turned back towards the priest, who was now leading the horses and chariot in the direction of their house, the crowd following.

“Yuuri.” Phichit asked, with a familiar undercurrent of foreboding in his tone.

The priest bypassed Yuuri’s house, opting to lead them all to the nearby ocean.

“Yuuri.” Phichit urged, more frantic than before.

The priest didn’t stop walking, the reigns of the chariot and the horses still firmly in his hand, until-

Yuuri threw his arm over Phichit - sweet, soft-hearted, Phichit - and crushed Phichit’s face into his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see any more. Minako’s face, smooth like jade, turned to look at them and met Yuuri’s unflinching eyes.

No. I won’t let him see it.

Minako turned back to look as the horses were plunged into the ocean.

The sacrifice to Helios had been made.

Phichit’s shoulders shook and Yuuri tightened his grip as the priest turned, knee-deep in the ocean and raised his fist to the exhalted cheers of the crowd.

Halia had begun.

Yuuri released Phichit and moved forward, blood rushing in his veins and hand leaving Phichit’s and moving to his sword.

The priest waddled out of the ocean and with a huge smile declared, “The Titan Lord of the Sun is pleased with our sacrifice. Our Hero, Yuuri Katsuki, born to Hiroko Katsuki, student of Minako, named Icarus, first of his name, is now going to start Halia with a Pyrrhic dance.”

Yuuri turned, blood still roiling, looked at the crowd that seemed to stretch all the way to the other side of the peninsula, and was not afraid.

His eyes sought Phichit’s, Phichit who had come here on his request and been demanded an almost impossible task from, who had left his family and home after being away for years, with nary a whisper of complaint, all for him.

Phichit was white-faced, still trying to understand what he had been witness to. So young, Yuuri mused, and yet… he shines brighter than any other.

Faced with the dulled look in his friend’s eyes, Yuuri decided: he would just have to do his best to remind Phichit of why he had decided to come to Hasetsu in the first place.

Yuuri nodded to the aulos performer waiting for his cue, loosed his body, feet apart and hand on his sword, and started to move.

Yuuri lost himself, with every swing of his sword, jab of his fists and leap of his feet, he forgot the sudden hush of the crowd, the uncertainty of the future and the cruelties of the past.

He was Yuuri Katsuki.

Yuuri slowed his rapidfire movements, the aulos taking on a sweeter note...

Born to Hiroko Katsuki.

And with a lethal slice of his blade, he drew up from his arched back, quicksilver, sharp and ruthless in pushing his body to its very limit, the aulos tripping over itself to keep its pace with Yuuri, but he paid it no mind, too lost in his own mind.

Student of Minako.

The aulos’s music swelled until it seemed to almost tip over with how much it contained, tension thick and grabbing, and Yuuri threw his sword towards the ocean, only to - with rapid gymnastics - tumble after it, quick enough to grab it out of the air before it could even touch the earth.

The aulos’s music stopped along with the air in everyone’s lungs, as they took in the final image of Yuuri Katsuki pointing his sword, snatched from mid-air, at the sky - no, not the sky, the sun.

Yuuri opened his eyes to wide-eyed silence but with not one eye turned away from him and his story.

He was Icarus, first of his name.

x

x

Helios the Sun rides his chariot, he shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he gazes with his eyes from his golden helmet. Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and his bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich, fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind : and stallions carry him. Then, when he has stayed his golden-yoked chariot and horses, he rests there upon the highest point of heaven, until he marvellously drives them down again through heaven to Okeanos (Oceanus).

Homeric Hymn 31 to Helius

x

x

The competitors were giving him a wide berth.

Yuuri resisted the urge to rejoice even mentally at the reprieve from social niceties. After his dance, he had little patience to suffer courtesy small-talk.

Yuuri turned towards Phichit who had been unusually silent since his dance that even Minako had given a perfunctory nod to. Yuuri opened his mouth, only -

“Hey, you! Icarus!” A light voice that somehow managed to distill an inordinate amount of anger in it, called out.

Yuuri turned quizzically to see a blonde youth, who appeared to be around Phichit’s age, march towards him with purpose. The crowd had long left to go watch the other competitions and festivities. Yuuri blinked as the blonde got up into his space and stared at him, eyes narrowed, before hissing a venomous, “No one needs your interference.” before walking away.

Yuuri, whose eyes had started to water from the impromptu staring contest, blinked rapidly and wondered if there were just people in the world whose sole purpose was to voice Yuuri’s innermost fears and insecurities.

“Wow, who misplaced their child and why does that child look like he wants you on the end of his sword?” Phichit who had witnessed the whole thing asked.

Relief overwhelmed him at Phichit’s voice and he lightly laughed, turning towards him, saying “I honestly have no idea. Also, I doubt he’s a child, Phichit, he seems almost as old as you.”

Phichit drew up like a haughty bird and with no little amount of self-importance said, “Yes, but I am Daedalus, I doubt even the heavens could fathom creating someone like me twice in a row.”

Fond and so terribly charmed, Yuuri couldn’t help but agree.

But at Yuuri’s laughter, Phichit’s face grew more somber than before, and he rushed forward, gathering Yuuri’s hands within his own.

“Yuuri. Yuuri.” He said urgently, “You mustn’t. You mustn’t use the wings, please, Yuuri I beg of you.”

Yuuri, surprised at the sudden vehemence and the tears that had started to fall from Phichit’s eyes, said, lost “But, why? Did something happen?”

Phichit gripped his hands tighter and he said with desperation, “Yuuri, that dance, it- it reminded me of what I have to lose. Yuuri, Yuuri, please don’t fly with my wings, if something happened to you and because of something I’d created, I’d never-”

Yuuri laid his hand on Phichit’s mouth silencing him, and said softly, “Phichit, I have complete faith in you. I would never make you an accessory to something you wanted no part in, but please, I beg of you, please, let me do this, for Hasetsu.”

Phichit drew in a shaky breath and still trembling stared into Yuuri’s eyes, and after a moment, said with a conflicted expression, “You have to promise me, you will come back from that ocean, swear it so.”

Yuuri nodded and said, resolve strengthening, “I swear it.”

Phichit, whose shoulders had still not stopped trembling, still looked like he was on the precipice of a cliff about to do something rash. Yuuri softened, rash was usually his modus operandi.

Yuuri, drawing close, asked lightly, “Come now, Phichit, have I ever broken a promise to you?”

Phichit, finally relaxing, threw himself into Yuuri’s arms. Yuuri, who had never had any doubt about the many people who held love for him in their hearts, tightened his grip on Phichit. He had known, but maybe not how much.

Maybe there was no need for him to interfere, but he intended to be deserving of this love, and he was going to come back from the ocean, for there were people in this mortal world who loved him just as much as he them.

There was no other outcome that Yuuri would accept, he would spit at the three Fates themselves if needed, but he wasn’t going to break his promise to those who held him so dear.

Having someone to fight for was a powerful thing, indeed.

[nuvolette]

Ecco qua 4 personaggi da Space Anabasis.

Per cominciare ecco qua: Lucio Valerio e Tiye

[fialleril]

two-bitoutlaw replied to your post “That awkward moment when you start out writing Orn Free Taa as a...”

[grabs popcorn] oh gosh does he get what's coming to him??

Oh yes.

I mean, that was the plan even before. Orn Free Taa is a fairly important antagonist in the second half of Anabasis, but he’s also an antagonist to people who have already beaten and survived Palpatine, so...he doesn’t stand a chance, really.

But once I realized he’s literally just Trump as a Twi’lek, his inevitable comeuppance became that much sweeter.