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upsidedownwithsteve · 2 months

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A soulmate AU: Steve Harrington x fem!reader [2.6K]

THE TIMELINE

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching half’ of a human whole…and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him.”

- Aristophanes, Plato’s Symposium.

I. ATHENS, GREECE: 8TH CENTURY BC

The gods were angry.

Or so you’d heard. It started with whispers. Murmurs from the town and its people. Rumours spread across Athens the same way the breeze did at the start of summer. They said the gods were angry, furious.

How could the mortals be so silly? How could they possibly rile their gods like this? Again?

Stupid humans, foolish humans.

You didn’t understand.

But then one morning before the sun rose, you awoke to a reddened sky and a heavy wind, a storm brewing over the horizon, a dark mass you could see above the sea from your bedroom window. Preachers took to the streets then, standing on the cobbles with bells ringing above their heads, warning every person listening about the end of times. It had happened before, they said, their faces masks of horror. It was happening again.

The gardens all died, grass turning black, crops to dust, life fleeing from the ocean as Poseidon uprooted the seafloor, waves crashing against the cliff's edge. Athens turned to decay, colour slipping from the world as the gods ruled over it from the skies and sea. A punishment fit for the crime, the elders said, telling stories at the marketplace, of how their own grandparents had once been born together, joined at the heart, four arms and four legs.

One soul.

They said Zeus came from Olympus, that he’d crashed down to earth riding a bolt of lightning and he ripped the mortals apart. They said it was a bloodshed, rivers of red running through the plazas, wells turning thick like tar.

Zeus cursed everyone, you heard. Your kind had been getting too prideful, too full of ego and greed and want for more. The gods feared an uprising, they sat on their thrones and they resented to power you all craved.

So they did something about it.

With their wounds left to heal on their own over months and years, each half of a mortal was thrown to different corners of the earth, destined to spend the rest of their lives searching for the other half of their soul.

It seemed nothing more than a fable, a horror story for children, something you would never have believed. Soulmates? Someone made just for you? An impossible notion, you were sure you would have once thought, if you hadn’t already met yours.

He was at the forge when the first bolt of lightning hit the ground.

The concrete split and temples on the cliff sides shook, the tiles on each home shattering as they fell. You heard people yelling from your garden as the ground shuddered and an eerie quiet followed. A hollow silence, a calm before a storm and then something else hit the ground too.

Bigger, heavier, more powerful.

You dropped your basket and ran.

Still barefoot, you left the sodden clothes on the grass and fled, passing the sanctuary of your home, the temples beyond the rivers, the forests that came before the sea. You ran to the plaza, through the marketplace that was buzzing with fear, shoulders burning with pain as you slammed your way past everyone who ran against you. You were battling a tidal wave of townsfolk, each one crying and yelling.

You heard shouts of Titans! Furies!

People yelled out names they once didn’t dare whisper, each word said like a curse. Cronus, Crius, Oceanus, Thea. Standing on the marble steps of the Parthenon, a preacher in guided robes had blood running down the side of his face, a cut on his head matting his greying hair. He was ashen, clutching at his scribes and shouting at the frenzied crowd below.

“Tartarus has risen!” He yelled, “the gates of Hades have opened and we, foolish mortals, shall pay for our sins! The father of gods shall come for us, he shall feast upon thy flesh and bone and—”

The preacher's harrowing words were cut off abruptly as another crack in the earth opened up. The shining marble split and the man fell through, the world itself swallowing him whole. You didn’t have time to react more than a strangled cry coming from somewhere deep in your chest. You clasped your hand to your mouth, fearing you’d lose your breakfast, that you’d become too dizzy to keep moving.

The ocean was growing closer, too tall waves and swirling, dark pools buried into its depths. Ships were being sucked under, their white sails the last thing you saw before they were swallowed by Poseidon’s fury. A golden chariot raced down from the sky, sparks flying in the air as it landed on the roof of the Acropolis. More marble shattered and Ares, the god of war, had landed on earth to do his duty.

By the time you reached the forge, the plaza was running red, just like the elders had said it would. The bronzed statue of Hephaestus that guarded the entrance to the blacksmiths had come to life, the god himself taking its form as he spewed fire across the village, molten heat and steel dripping from his large hands, coal crumbling at his feet. The air smelled like ash, like fire and death.

As you searched for him - your other half - eyes wide and frantic, your chest heaving, Hades stood in the shadows across the cobbled road. Inky black dripped from him, from his robes, his skin, his mouth. He looked ghoulish until he stepped into what was left of the daylight, a trick of the sun turning his gaunt face handsome. He grinned at you, each tooth pointed and sharp and he held out a hand. A pomegranate was placed in his palm, the fruit cracked open and the ruby seeds spilling out of it like tiny jewels. He beckoned you, a voice in your head whispering, silky, sultry, full of promises that couldn’t be real.

Surely eternal damnation was better than a fate like this?

You moved, your body not your own, one foot in front of the other, your hand outstretched. Images flashed through your head, dark swirls of three headed dogs, rivers made of souls and gates of bones. But when they opened, there was a garden, more beautiful than the ones in Athens, with their marble pillars and fountains that led into ponds. In this garden, temples stood gleaming and tall, with maidens dancing amongst rose bushes, naked and with hair to their waists. They waved to you, more scarlet coloured fruit held in their hands and they were laughing, singing, pulling you closer--

Another bolt of lightning - bigger and louder and brighter than before - hit the ground and the maidens disappeared. The god of the underworld grinned once more before he stepped back into the shadows and turned to smoke, melting into the bloodied ground.

Zeus had landed in Athens.

And you couldn’t find Steve.

Steve Harrington, son of the town’s head blacksmith, was tending to the forge when the first god came to earth. He’d left you in bed, the threadbare sheets around you still warm, your skin littered with his leftover kisses, marks from his greedy fingers the night before. The sky had been scarlet when he walked across the plaza and in the far distance, a plume of smoke rose from what seemed like the ocean. The Methana volcano was simmering, waiting, spewing fumes of gas and dust.

A warning.

The forge cracked when Zeus arrived, the bricks splitting along with the forge floor, cobbles and bricks turning to rubble under the men’s feet. Fire and coal tumbled from the cast iron cages, half made swords of burning steel falling at their feet. The sky above rumbled, the windows shattering as bolts of lightning hit the land and people screamed, torturous sounds that made Steve run blindly out into the plaza.

Some were kneeling, their heads bent and their palms open to the sky, to the gods. A sacrifice that was ignored. Others ran, diving into buildings that immediately fell on top of them and Steve watched in horror as people dropped before him, falling like sacks, crumpled to the ground as they clutched their chests in agony. They called out their lovers' names, their voices hoarse, pleading, desperate and all at once, a crowd surged behind Steve, carrying him with them, his shoulders burning at the momentum.

He had to find you.

The market was in ruins, once fresh vegetables and fruits now smashed into the concrete, the smell of baked bread hidden under burning embers. Panicked horses fled their owners and carts, almost knocking Steve to the ground as they tried to escape the carnage. The sea level was rising, the shadows of boat sails towering over marble buildings, the hulls of ships teetering closer to pillars that once held the statues of the gods now seeking revenge. Steve had been raised to honour them, to covet them, to fear them.

And he’d never felt as scared as he did when he spotted you across the square, eyes wide and not yet finding his, your gaze too trained on the statue of Aphrodite that was crashing down too close to you. The white marble hit the floor and shattered, sending clouds of dust and dirt into the already smoke filled air and you disappeared from Steve’s sight once more.

Panic flooded him, a fear like no other and suddenly the gods that reigned from the seas and skies didn’t seem as terrifying anymore.

He yelled your name, choking on the fumes from the fires that had started to rage all around, Hephaestus riding a cloud of black coals and burning embers as he let fire pour from his palms and open mouth, a gaping maw of molten lava that dripped from and melted everything and everyone it touched. Steve flung himself to the ground to avoid the flames, crawling desperately forward before he caught himself and began to run again, hissing as the gaps in his shoes filled with shards of broken stone. Red poured from the soles of his feet but he didn’t think anything could hurt as much as the thought of losing you.

Again, he screamed for you, the letters of your name hitching in his throat, scratching like glass and more people tore in front of his path, running from the destruction. Bodies fell before him, couples forever trapped in a lovers embrace, their faces hidden in each other's chests. They became one again, four arms, four legs, two faces.

Joined at a heart that was no longer beating.

Steve didn’t want to die without you.

He found you in the rubble as Zeus moved closer, a grey and white shadow of a man, a huge hulking figure that didn’t seem real. He didn’t look like his marble castings, the statues that were gilded with gold leaf. He wore no olive laurel on his head, he bore no kind smile nor gentle eyes. Instead he held bolts of lightning in his hands like swords, like spears, throwing them at his victims with cruel precision.

A storm followed him, bigger than anything Steve had ever seen before. It turned the red clouds above the god purple and black, an inky slurry of darkness and electricity crackled between spaces. The air buzzed and Steve’s skin prickled, the static making his ripped and bloodied shirt cling to his damp chest.

Poseidon had finally shown himself, emerging from the waves, his skin a sickly green, his eyes darker than the deepest depths of the sea he came from. He held a triton, seaweed hanging from its points, his body scarred and battered from the horrors he created in the oceans. He seemed too big, a giant, an almost titan and rain poured from Zeus’ purple clouds as he advanced onto Athens.

Steve saw your arm, a limp hand from beneath a pile of stone and he cried as he lifted each piece of what was once Aphrodite. The marble face of the goddess of love smiled warmly at him and it felt mocking, it felt like an arrow to the chest.

You were still alive, barely awake, nose dripping blood and a slice across your forehead that narrowly missed your eye. You cried when Steve pulled you free, his strong arms wrapped around your torso and you clung to him, barely daring to look at the horrors that surrounded you. He smelled like smoke and fire and the metal sting of blood, but under it all, there was something like home that still lay on his skin.

He seemed frantic, calling your name over and over until you nodded and said his back, like it was only upon hearing your voice that he believed you were alive. Steve sat amongst the debris of Aphrodite and held you, your weak frame pulled into his lap and he cradled you there, your head on his shoulder and your arms around his neck.

You weren’t sure what you coveted more fiercely, the young man or your last breath.

A shadow lingered nearby, listening to the soft murmurs you shared the pretty lies you both needed to hear as you told each other it would be okay. Hades stood close, statuesque and with black plumes at the bottom of his dark robes, a midnight blue cast over his skin. He looked like he’d never been close to looking human. He held a timepiece in one hand, a golden thing that ticked too loudly and he grinned at you and Steve, watching, waiting as two creatures by his feet held scrolls of names. They were made od nothing kind, created from bone and other people’s spines, their too long tails and forked tongues that flickered over the skin of the dead as they sent their souls below.

Steve knew he’d fight a god before he let them take you.

But he didn’t get such the luxury of battling for his lover. Zeus moved closer still, rain pouring harder, electricity making his hair stand on end. The father of gods himself stood tall before you both, his eyes as white as his long hair and beard. Nothing about him softened as he gazed down at you both intertwined, blood from each other staining your lover's skin.

Steve pulled you closer, his hand cupping the nape of your neck as he pushed your face to his throat, shielding you, protecting you. You clung to him tighter, hands fisting in the rags of his old shirt and you wondered if you’d ever get to see him again. If this life was it, if this was all you were allowed.

The two of you in the ruins of Athens, the goddess of love shattered at your feet. Four legs, four arms, two faces, one soul. Connected by a heart that seemed weaker than ever in the presence of something cruel.

Silence came before the crack, the world stilling, Athens at peace. You found solace in Steve, your nose pressed to his neck as you held onto him, praying for something painless. You pushed two kisses to his skin then, the side of his throat that seemed to make your lips fizz and Steve sucked in a breath, his lips at your temple, cherishing the last touch he got of you.

“I love you,” Steve whispered and his voice cracked on each word. Tears from his eyes stream the dirt on his face, running rivers down your cheek until they mixed with your own. “I’ll find you again. In the next life, and the next again. I prom—”

A bolt of lightning, so hot it felt frozen, struck the breath of space between your chests. Something inside of you cracked then, ribs splintering as the weapon found your heart and you couldn’t feel Steve’s arms around you anymore.

You couldn’t feel anything.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington smut #Steve Harrington fanfiction #Steve Harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington oneshot

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twentymuleteamborax · 2 years

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valis is interesting but pretty much too incoherently dense

#idc if its supposed to be that way to make the narrator/fats seem insane #its just... too... plato once said this the aboriginals said that

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limnsaber · 7 months

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Stammi Vicino and the events of Yuri!!! On Ice are still mind boggling to me. Where’s that post about scarcely-fathomable level of romance.

Stammi Vicino is the first skating sequence in YOI. It is the first full skating routine we are presented with and it’s the choreography we see in the very first moments of the show. Lyrically, Stammi Vicino is about a man calling out for someone to hear him, speaking of intense loneliness and decrying love. The lyrics were written by the creator of YOI, Kubo Mitsurou, and translated into Italian for the composition.

In the first episode of the show, both Yuuri and Victor skate this routine individually. Victor skates it for Worlds, and Yuuri skates it because he wants to get his love for skating back.

Unbeknownst to him, Yuuri’s performance was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, and Victor comes into his life from there (directly because of Yuuri’s SV performance).

Victor sees Yuuri’s performance and comes to meet Yuuri, and that’s the inciting incident of the show. Both of their routines were a calling out into the darkness, and they were answered. (That’s love!) Through the show, we learn that both Victor and Yuuri were in bad places at the time of the routine of the first episode, and we see them grow wonderfully together in their relationship and as people through the series.

Stammi Vicino is also known as Hanarezu Ni Soba Ni Ite in Japanese, or Stay Close to Me. This line is said by both characters throughout the show, perhaps most significantly by Yuuri in their argument in the parking garage in EP 7 (a major turning point for their relationship).

The first time Yuuri sees Victor in the flashback, we get notes of Stammi Vicino underneath the dialogue.

This song is perhaps the musical foundation for the entire show! Every aspect of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship is writ in, from calling out into the darkness to finally coming together— represented in the closing routine of the show, Stammi Vicino: Duetto.

Yuuri skates Stammi Vicino once more as the show’s final episode closes, and this time Victor joins him for a pair skate. The final episode is one where they’ve finally fully come together — they agree on their future and on their future together. It’s a beautiful bookend to the story, and represents, as the skating routines always do, their characters and their relationship.

In Duetto, the verses about condemning love are gone and the piece has two singers instead of one. Verses in both the aria and duetto say “your hands, your legs / my hands, my legs / our heartbeats / are blending together,” referencing — and they were crazy for this honestly — Plato’s theory of soulmates. At the end of the piece, the singers “leave together”.

The creator, Kubo Mitsurou, has stated in the past very explicitly and publicly that Victor and Yuuri are soulmates. Canonically! The first time Yuuri sees Victor in the flashback, we get notes of Stammi Vicino underneath the dialogue. Stammi Vicino is the musical thread of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship.

They’re engaged!! To be married!!! They’re canonically soulmates!!!

The music in YOI is deeply intertwined with the storytelling. Each routine is uniquely representative of a character, who they are as person, and their journey. The relationship between Victor and Yuuri is the core of this show, and Stammi Vicino is perhaps the most important piece representative of their relationship.

Stammi Vicino, the aria and duetto, represent a story about loneliness and calling out for love and that call being answered. That’s the thesis of Yuri on Ice.

“There’s a place you just can’t reach unless you have a dream too big to bear alone. We call everything on the ice ‘love.’”

#yuri on ice #yoi #katsuki yuuri #victor nikiforov #Stammi vicino #GOD this show is everything to me #lim posts #lim on yoi #victuuri #vikturi #viktuuri #victuri #tagging all 4 ship names like it’s 2016

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dailyadventureprompts · 6 months

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Homebrew Mechanic: Meaningful Research

Being careful about when you deliver information to your party is one of the most difficult challenges a dungeonmaster may face, a balancing act that we constantly have to tweak as it affects the pacing of our campaigns.

That said, unlike a novel or movie or videogame where the writers can carefully mete out exposition at just the right time, we dungeonmasters have to deal with the fact that at any time (though usually not without prompting) our players are going to want answers about what's ACTUALLY going on, and they're going to take steps to find out.

To that end I'm going to offer up a few solutions to a problem I've seen pop up time and time again, where the heroes have gone to all the trouble to get themselves into a great repository of knowledge and end up rolling what seems like endless knowledge checks to find out what they probably already know. This has been largely inspired by my own experience but may have been influenced by watching what felt like several episodes worth of the critical role gang hitting the books and getting nothing in return.

I've got a whole write up on loredumps, and the best way to dripfeed information to the party, but this post is specifically for the point where a party has gained access to a supposed repository of lore and are then left twiddling their thumbs while the dm decides how much of the metaplot they're going to parcel out.

When the party gets to the library you need to ask yourself: Is the information there to be found?

No, I don't want them to know yet: Welcome them into the library and then save everyone some time by saying that after a few days of searching it’s become obvious the answers they seek aren’t here. Most vitally, you then either need to give them a new lead on where the information might be found, or present the development of another plot thread (new or old) so they can jump on something else without losing momentum.

No, I want them to have to work for it: your players have suddenly given you a free “insert plothook here” opportunity. Send them in whichever direction you like, so long as they have to overcome great challenge to get there. This is technically just kicking the can down the road, but you can use that time to have important plot/character beats happen.

Yes, but I don’t want to give away the whole picture just yet: The great thing about libraries is that they’re full of books, which are written by people, who are famously bad at keeping their facts straight. Today we live in a world of objective or at least peer reviewed information but the facts in any texts your party are going to stumble across are going to be distorted by bias. This gives you the chance to give them the awnsers they want mixed in with a bunch of red herrings and misdirections. ( See the section below for ideas)

Yes, they just need to dig for it: This is the option to pick if you're willing to give your party information upfront while at the same time making it SEEM like they're overcoming the odds . Consider having an encounter, or using my minigame system to represent their efforts at looking for needles in the lithographic haystack. Failure at this system results in one of the previous two options ( mixed information, or the need to go elsewhere), where as success gets them the info dump they so clearly crave.

The Art of obscuring knowledge AKA Plato’s allegory of the cave, but in reverse

One of the handiest tools in learning to deliver the right information at the right time is a sort of “slow release exposition” where you wrap a fragment lore the party vitally needs to know in a coating of irrelevant information, which forces them to conjecture on possibilities and draw their own conclusions. Once they have two or more pieces on the same subject they can begin to compare and contrast, forming an understanding that is merely the shadow of the truth but strong enough to operate off of.

As someone who majored in history let me share some of my favourite ways I’ve had to dig for information, in the hopes that you’ll be able to use it to function your players.

A highly personal record in the relevant information is interpreted through a personal lens to the point where they can only see the information in question

Important information cameos in the background of an unrelated historical account

The information can only be inferred from dry as hell accounts or census information. Cross reference with accounts of major historical events to get a better picture, but everything we need to know has been flattened into datapoints useful to the bureaucracy and needs to be re-extrapolated.

The original work was lost, and we only have this work alluding to it. Bonus points if the existent work is notably parodying the original, or is an attempt to discredit it.

Part of a larger chain of correspondence, referring to something the writers both experienced first hand and so had no reason to describe in detail.

The storage medium (scroll, tablet, arcane data crystal) is damaged in some way, leading to only bits of information being known.

Original witnesses Didn’t have the words to describe the thing or events in question and so used references from their own environment and culture. Alternatively, they had specific words but those have been bastardized by rough translations.

Tremendously based towards a historical figure/ideology/religion to the point that all facts in the piece are questionable. Bonus points if its part of a treatise on an observably untrue fact IE the flatness of earth

#homebrew mechanic #d&d mechanics #research #tableskills #tabletop inspiration #dm tip #dm advice #exposition

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thedansemacabres · 4 months

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The Almost Lost Relationship of Adonis and Dionysus

[ID: An image of the seats at the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. The sun shines on the pale steps, illuminating them slightly. Beyond the stairs, there is nothing else in the theatre and it acts as an empty scene.]

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ADONIS IS KNOWN FOR BEING CAUGHT BETWEEN PERSEPHONE AND APHRODITE, and this eventually being the cause of his death—Artemis, Ares, Apollon, or perhaps all send a boar to gore Adonis and end the affair between him and Aphrodite. However, of course, there is always more to this story: that being the continuation, the romance of Adonis and Dionysus. This will serve as a small introduction to a relatively unknown aspect of Adonis’ mythology, especially in the perspective of Adonis representing infertile life compared to Dionysus’ fertility.

PANYASSIS, AND THEN PLATO

Apollodorus contains one of the earliest tellings of Adonis’ death from the 5th century poet Panyassis, who states that Adonis died twice—once when Persephone obtained him, and another when he was gored by a boar. However, continuing Panyassis’ fragment, Plato Comicus states that Adonis’ death was caused by Aphrodite and Dionysus, not Aphrodite and Persephone:

O Kinyras, king of the hairy-assed Cypriots, Your child is by nature most beautiful and most marvelous Of all humans, but two divinities will destroy him, She being rowed by secret oars, and he rowing them. (fr. 3)

By desiring and loving Adonis, Aphrodite and Dionysus later cause his demise. This is one of the earliest mentions of Adonis and Dionysus, whilst grim, does lead us slightly into the romance of Adonis and Dionysus. Another myth—or perhaps a continuation of this one—presents another tale, as recorded by Plutarch.

PLUTARCH’S FRAGMENT

Plutarch presents a differing story: that Dionysus fought with Aphrodite for Adonis and won. In discussing the ethics of food, particularly eating swine, he invokes this in a lost text written by Phanocles:

Εἰδὼς θεῖον Ἄδωνιν ὀρειφοίτης Διόνυσος ἥρπασεν, ἠγαθέην Κύπρον ἐποιχόμενος. Knowingly, mountain-roaming Dionysus carried away the divine Adonis, after approaching the Holy Cyprian with hostile purpose. Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales

One of the many reasons he cites for pigs being less than ideal animals for consumption is that they gored Adonis—which, in hypothesis, could be a reason that some Aphrodisian cults avoided consuming pork, but this is merely my own thinking.

This fragment gives little context to the motives of Dionysus in this myth, the reaction of Aphrodite or Adonis. Despite this, the wording is of intrigue to me of several parts:

What does knowingly mean? The translation phrases it as Dionysus knowing, but knowing what? Or does this refer to Adonis knowing that he would be carried off—as in the original ancient Greek, it is placed as “knowing, divine Adonis.”

Adonis here is called a god, theos, which may refer to his apotheosis, which was of contention in ancient Greece.

“Hostile purpose”, ἐποιχόμενος, also refers to the passing of wine. So, instead of violence, he may have given Aphrodite wine in “exchange” for Adonis.

There is also something to be said of the similarity between Adonis being carried off with Dionysus carrying Ariadne away from Noxus. There were also contentions about the divinity of Ariadne, with some myths declaring her dying and another conflating her with Aphrodite—similarly to Adonis, who Plutarch mentioned previously could be identified with Dionysus.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

As remarked in the Adonia in Context, Adonis’ divinity was a contested question—with some remarking him as nothing sacred, while others entreating him as a deity. I personally have come to understand him as divine, returning from the underworld, especially as he journeyed there with Persephone. That within itself—returning to and from the underworld—is no task for mortals, even if it was divinely sanctioned by Zeus. If he did die when he was first received by Persephone, does this imply a cycle of resurrection that eventually led to a state in between, or an odd sense of immortality?

There is also the notable comparison of Adonis and Dionysus mirroring Ariadne and Dionysus, in which they are taken by Dionysus and become his lovers. In my own practice, this does come into Adonis being in our modern terms in a polycule with the god. Fascinatingly, Ariadne’s own divinity was of debate, perhaps remarking her as a parallel to Adonis himself. There is certainly something to be said of Adonis being a sterile god with the fertility god Dionysus, continuing the paradox of Dionysus. Adonis represents the ancient Greek man that was infertile and as such did not mature into a proper member of the polis, and Dionysus is the great disrupter of the polis.

As a personal practice though, there is always the option for others to honour them as I do—as divine lovers—and in my personal practice, Dionysus is the one who eventually “wins” Adonis. And as someone extremely unconventional and a “failed” man in the eyes of my biological family, Adonis is the perfect comfort as the failed adult who succeeds into immortality.

References

Edmund P. Cueva, (1996). Plutarch’s Ariadne in Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. American Journal of Philology,

Jameson, M. H. (2019). 2. The asexuality of Dionysus. In Cornell University Press eBooks (pp. 44–64). https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501733680-007

Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales, stephpage 612c. (n.d.). http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg112.perseus-grc1:612c

Reitzammer, L. (2016). The Athenian Adonia in context: The Adonis Festival as cultural practice. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/45855

Seaford, R. (2006). Dionysos. Routledge.

#adonis deity #dionysus deity #dionysos deity #dionysus devotee #dionysus worship #aphrodite deity #aphrodite worship #hellenic pagan #hellenic polytheism #hellenic paganism #hellenic polytheist #helpol #dragonis.txt #witchcraft #pagan #witchblr #paganism #paganblr

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muirmarie · 1 month

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switch the order of the empath and the world is hollow, say that the strain the vians put on mccoy's body plus how they cured him is what triggered the xenopolycythemia, say he knew something was wrong with him when he said he'd stay with the platonians in plato's stepchildren he just didn't know what.

it's a very different story than what canon is telling BUT I do just want mccoy not wanting spock to know because he knows spock will figure out that it was because of the vians.

and he does. and he tells kirk.

and actually they have a big blow-out fight when mccoy decides to stay on yonada, and especially kirk's reaction to mccoy ONCE MORE offering to stay behind to save them, like he did with the platonians.

listen mccoy half dead from the obedience device AFTER they've already gone through the empath??

listen I just want the fallout after they find the cure and mccoy actually has to deal with the both of them, tbh.

#leonard mccoy #james t kirk #spock #mcspirk #star trek #star trek tos #st:tos #writing ref

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neil-gaiman · 2 years

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To clarify on the CS Lewis question, I've noticed fantasy authors tend to trash CS Lewis on religious grounds while any praise mainly comes from Christian apologists. Guillermo Delo Toro even said he refuses to read Lewis now based on his religion despite once being a fan. It's a big world out there, but offhand the only two people I can think of who speak positively about Lewis and don't make his religion the grounds for liking or disliking his work are you and Steven Moffat.

For me, reading as a kid, Lewis was a pretty ropy Christian allegorist. As a kid reading Lewis the places he sent me, excited, deeper into the library to find out more about what he was talking about, included Silenus, Bacchus, fauns, werewolves, who Plato was and what Plato's cave analogy was, naiads, dryads, maenads, Elizabethan magic and worldview with regard to things like fire elementals and ships, and into the original Arabian Nights.

Whereas the point I noticed that the dragoning of Eustace Scrub was a retelling of Paul on the Road to Damascus just made The Voyage of the Dawn Treader less interesting for me, not more. The wild fun essentially pagan magic was, in retrospect, for me as a seven year old, the joy and the heart of Narnia, while the Christian gloss, especially in the last book, always felt awkwardly imposed from outside. (It was my biggest disappointment with the Prince Caspian movie. They had taken all the gods out.)

And I think it's the undigested blobs of gloss that people, Christians and otherwise, react to badly as adults, because they feel like something from another book. Aslan as the lamb who then assures the children he has a different name in our world feels to me now like it would be more at home in something like The Water Babies. At the time, I just assumed that it meant Aslan kept an eye on this world too, and I would say a respectful hello to Lions in the zoos when I was taken to them, just to be on the safe side.

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bookshelf-in-progress · 3 months

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A Wise Pair of Fools: A Retelling of “The Farmer’s Clever Daughter”

For the Four Loves Fairy Tale Challenge at @inklings-challenge.

Faith

I wish you could have known my husband when he was a young man. How you would have laughed at him! He was so wonderfully pompous—oh, you’d have no idea unless you’d seen him then. He’s weathered beautifully, but back then, his beauty was bright and new, all bronze and ebony. He tried to pretend he didn’t care for personal appearances, but you could tell he felt his beauty. How could a man not be proud when he looked like one of creation’s freshly polished masterpieces every time he stepped out among his dirty, sweaty peasantry?

But his pride in his face was nothing compared to the pride he felt over his mind. He was clever, even then, and he knew it. He’d grown up with an army of nursemaids to exclaim, “What a clever boy!” over every mildly witty observation he made. He’d been tutored by some of the greatest scholars on the continent, attended the great universities, traveled further than most people think the world extends. He could converse like a native in fifteen living languages and at least three dead ones.

And books! Never a man like him for reading! His library was nothing to what it is now, of course, but he was making a heroic start. Always a book in his hand, written by some dusty old man who never said in plain language what he could dress up in words that brought four times the work to some lucky printer. Every second breath he took came out as a quotation. It fairly baffled his poor servants—I’m certain to this day some of them assume Plato and Socrates were college friends of his.

Well, at any rate, take a man like that—beautiful and over-educated—and make him king over an entire nation—however small—before he turns twenty-five, and you’ve united all earthly blessings into one impossibly arrogant being.

Unfortunately, Alistair’s pomposity didn’t keep him properly aloof in his palace. He’d picked up an idea from one of his old books that he should be like one of the judge-kings of old, walking out among his people to pass judgment on their problems, giving the inferior masses the benefit of all his twenty-four years of wisdom. It’s all right to have a royal patron, but he was so patronizing. Just as if we were all children and he was our benevolent father. It wasn’t strange to see him walking through the markets or looking over the fields—he always managed to look like he floated a step or two above the common ground the rest of us walked on—and we heard stories upon stories of his judgments. He was decisive, opinionated. Always thought he had a better way of doing things. Was always thinking two and ten and twelve steps ahead until a poor man’s head would be spinning from all the ways the king found to see through him. Half the time, I wasn’t sure whether to fear the man or laugh at him. I usually laughed.

So then you can see how the story of the mortar—what do you mean you’ve never heard it? You could hear it ten times a night in any tavern in the country. I tell it myself at least once a week! Everyone in the palace is sick to death of it!

Oh, this is going to be a treat! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a fresh audience?

It happened like this. It was spring of the year I turned twenty-one. Father plowed up a field that had lain fallow for some years, with some new-fangled deep-cutting plow that our book-learned king had inflicted upon a peasantry that was baffled by his scientific talk. Father was plowing near a river when he uncovered a mortar made of solid gold. You know, a mortar—the thing with the pestle, for grinding things up. Don’t ask me why on earth a goldsmith would make such a thing—the world’s full of men with too much money and not enough sense, and housefuls of servants willing to take too-valuable trinkets off their hands. Someone decades ago had swiped this one and apparently found my father’s farm so good a hiding place that they forgot to come back for it.

Anyhow, my father, like the good tenant he was, understood that as he’d found a treasure on the king’s land, the right thing to do was to give it to the king. He was all aglow with his noble purpose, ready to rush to the palace at first light to do his duty by his liege lord.

I hope you can see the flaw in his plan. A man like Alistair, certain of his own cleverness, careful never to be outwitted by his peasantry? Come to a man like that with a solid gold mortar, and his first question’s going to be…?

That’s right. “Where’s the pestle?”

I tried to tell Father as much, but he—dear, sweet, innocent man—saw only his simple duty and went forth to fulfill it. He trotted into the king’s throne room—it was his public day—all smiles and eagerness.

Alistair took one look at him and saw a peasant tickled to death that he was pulling a fast one on the king—giving up half the king’s rightful treasure in the hopes of keeping the other half and getting a fat reward besides.

Alistair tore into my father—his tongue was much sharper then—taking his argument to pieces until Father half-believed he had hidden away the pestle somewhere, probably after stealing both pieces himself. In his confusion, Father looked even guiltier, and Alistair ordered his guard to drag Father off to the dungeons until they could arrange a proper hearing—and, inevitably, a hanging.

As they dragged him to his doom, my father had the good sense to say one coherent phrase, loud enough for the entire palace to hear. “If only I had listened to my daughter!”

Alistair, for all his brains, hadn’t expected him to say something like that. He had Father brought before him, and questioned him until he learned the whole story of how I’d urged Father to bury the mortar again and not say a word about it, so as to prevent this very scene from occurring.

About five minutes after that, I knocked over a butter churn when four soldiers burst into my father’s farmhouse and demanded I go with them to the castle. I made them clean up the mess, then put on my best dress and did up my hair—in those days, it was thick and golden, and fell to my ankles when unbound—and after traveling to the castle, I went, trembling, up the aisle of the throne room.

Alistair had made an effort that morning to look extra handsome and extra kingly. He still has robes like those, all purple and gold, but the way they set off his black hair and sharp cheekbones that day—I’ve never seen anything like it. He looked half-divine, the spirit of judgment in human form. At the moment, I didn’t feel like laughing at him.

Looming on his throne, he asked me, “Is it true that you advised this man to hide the king’s rightful property from him?” (Alistair hates it when I imitate his voice—but isn’t it a good impression?)

I said yes, it was true, and Alistair asked me why I’d done such a thing, and I said I had known this disaster would result, and he asked how I knew, and I said (and I think it’s quite good), that this is what happens when you have a king who’s too clever to be anything but stupid.

Naturally, Alistair didn’t like that answer a bit, but I’d gotten on a roll, and it was my turn to give him a good tongue-lashing. What kind of king did he think he was, who could look at a man as sweet and honest as my father and suspect him of a crime? Alistair was so busy trying to see hidden lies that he couldn’t see the truth in front of his face. So determined not to be made a fool of that he was making himself into one. If he persisted in suspecting everyone who tried to do him a good turn, no one would be willing to do much of anything for him. And so on and so forth.

You might be surprised at my boldness, but I had come into that room not expecting to leave it without a rope around my neck, so I intended to speak my mind while I had the chance. The strangest thing was that Alistair listened, and as he listened, he lost some of that righteous arrogance until he looked almost human. And the end of it all was that he apologized to me!

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather at that! I didn’t faint, but I came darn close. That arrogant, determined young king, admitting to a simple farmer’s daughter that he’d been wrong?

He did more than admit it—he made amends. He let Father keep the mortar, and then bought it from him at its full value. Then he gifted Father the farm where we lived, making us outright landowners. After the close of the day’s hearings, he even invited us to supper with him, and I found that King Alistair wasn’t a half-bad conversational partner. Some of those books he read sounded almost interesting.

For a year after that, Alistair kept finding excuses to come by the farm. He would check on Father’s progress and baffle him with advice. We ran into each other in the street so often that I began to expect it wasn’t mere chance. We’d talk books, and farming, and sharpen our wits on each other. We’d do wordplay, puzzles, tongue-twisters. A game, but somehow, I always thought, some strange sort of test.

Would you believe, even his proposal was a riddle? Yes, an actual riddle! One spring morning, I came across Alistair on a corner of my father's land, and he got down on one knee, confessed his love for me, and set me a riddle. He had the audacity to look into the face of the woman he loved—me!—and tell me that if I wanted to accept his proposal, I would come to him at his palace, not walking and not riding, not naked and not dressed, not on the road and not off it.

Do you know, I think he actually intended to stump me with it? For all his claim to love me, he looked forward to baffling me! He looked so sure of himself—as if all his book-learning couldn’t be beat by just a bit of common sense.

If I’d really been smart, I suppose I’d have run in the other direction, but, oh, I wanted to beat him so badly. I spent about half a minute solving the riddle and then went off to make my preparations.

The next morning, I came to the castle just like he asked. Neither walking nor riding—I tied myself to the old farm mule and let him half-drag me. Neither on the road nor off it—only one foot dragging in a wheel rut at the end. Neither naked nor dressed—merely wrapped in a fishing net. Oh, don’t look so shocked! There was so much rope around me that you could see less skin than I’m showing now.

If I’d hoped to disappoint Alistair, well, I was disappointed. He radiated joy. I’d never seen him truly smile before that moment—it was incandescent delight. He swept me in his arms, gave me a kiss without a hint of calculation in it, then had me taken off to be properly dressed, and we were married within a week.

It was a wonderful marriage. We got along beautifully—at least until the next time I outwitted him. But I won’t bore you with that story again—

You don’t know that one either? Where have you been hiding yourself?

Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that one. Not if it’s your first time. It’s much better the way Alistair tells it.

What time is it?

Perfect! He’s in his library just now. Go there and ask him to tell you the whole thing.

Yes, right now! What are you waiting for?

Alistair

Faith told you all that, did she? And sent you to me for the rest? That woman! It’s just like her! She thinks I have nothing better to do than sit around all day and gossip about our courtship!

Where are you going? I never said I wouldn’t tell the story! Honestly, does no one have brains these days? Sit down!

Yes, yes, anywhere you like. One chair’s as good as another—I built this room for comfort. Do you take tea? I can ring for a tray—the story tends to run long.

Well, I’ll ring for the usual, and you can help yourself to whatever you like.

I’m sure Faith has given you a colorful picture of what I was like as a young man, and she’s not totally inaccurate. I’d had wealth and power and too much education thrown on me far too young, and I thought my blessings made me better than other men. My own father had been the type of man who could be fooled by every silver-tongued charlatan in the land, so I was sensitive and suspicious, determined to never let another man outwit me.

When Faith came to her father’s defense, it was like my entire self came crumbling down. Suddenly, I wasn’t the wise king; I was a cruel and foolish boy—but Faith made me want to be better. That day was the start of my fascination with her, and my courtship started in earnest not long after.

The riddle? Yes, I can see how that would be confusing. Faith tends to skip over the explanations there. A riddle’s an odd proposal, but I thought it was brilliant at the time, and I still think it wasn’t totally wrong-headed. I wasn’t just finding a wife, you see, but a queen. Riddles have a long history in royal courtships. I spent weeks laboring over mine. I had some idea of a symbolic proposal—each element indicating how she’d straddle two worlds to be with me. But more than that, I wanted to see if Faith could move beyond binary thinking—look beyond two opposites to see the third option between. Kings and queens have to do that more often than you’d think…

No, I’m sorry, it is a bit dull, isn’t it? I guess there’s a reason Faith skips over the explanations.

So to return to the point: no matter what Faith tells you, I always intended for her to solve the riddle. I wouldn’t have married her if she hadn’t—but I wouldn’t have asked if I’d had the least doubt she’d succeed. The moment she came up that road was the most ridiculous spectacle you’d ever hope to see, but I had never known such ecstasy. She’d solved every piece of my riddle, in just the way I’d intended. She understood my mind and gained my heart. Oh, it was glorious.

Those first weeks of marriage were glorious, too. You’d think it’d be an adjustment, turning a farmer’s daughter into a queen, but it was like Faith had been born to the role. Manners are just a set of rules, and Faith has a sharp mind for memorization, and it’s not as though we’re a large kingdom or a very formal court. She had a good mind for politics, and was always willing to listen and learn. I was immensely proud of myself for finding and catching the perfect wife.

You’re smarter than I was—you can see where I was going wrong. But back then, I didn’t see a cloud in the sky of our perfect happiness until the storm struck.

It seemed like such a small thing at the time. I was looking over the fields of some nearby villages—farming innovations were my chief interest at the time. There were so many fascinating developments in those days. I’ve an entire shelf full of texts if you’re interested—

The story, yes. My apologies. The offer still stands.

Anyway, I was out in the fields, and it was well past the midday hour. I was starving, and more than a little overheated, so we were on our way to a local inn for a bit of food and rest. Just as I was at my most irritable, these farmers’ wives show up, shrilly demanding judgment in a case of theirs. I’d become known for making those on-the-spot decisions. I’d thought it was an efficient use of government resources—as long as I was out with the people, I could save them the trouble of complicated procedures with the courts—but I’d never regretted taking up the practice as heartily as I did in this moment.

The case was like this: one farmer’s horse had recently given birth, and the foal had wandered away from its mother and onto the neighbor’s property, where it laid down underneath an ox that was at pasture, and the second farmer thought this gave him a right to keep it. There were questions of fences and boundaries and who-owed-who for different trades going back at least a couple of decades—those women were determined to bring every past grievance to light in settling this case.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to lose what little patience I had. I snapped at both women and told them that my decision was that the foal could very well stay where it was.

Not my most reasoned decision, but it wasn’t totally baseless. I had common law going back centuries that supported such a ruling. Possession is nine-tenths of the law and all. It wasn't as though a single foal was worth so much fuss. I went off to my meal and thought that was the end of it.

I’d forgotten all about it by the time I returned to the same village the next week. My man and I were crossing the bridge leading into the town when we found the road covered by a fishing net. An old man sat by the side of the road, shaking and casting the net just as if he were laying it out for a catch.

“What do you think you’re doing, obstructing a public road like this?” I asked him.

The man smiled genially at me and replied, “Fishing, majesty.”

I thought perhaps the man had a touch of sunstroke, so I was really rather kind when I explained to him how impossible it was to catch fish in the roadway.

The man just replied, “It’s no more impossible than an ox giving birth to a foal, majesty.”

He said it like he’d been coached, and it didn’t take long for me to learn that my wife was behind it all. The farmer’s wife who’d lost the foal had come to Faith for help, and my wife had advised the farmer to make the scene I’d described.

Oh, was I livid! Instead of coming to me in private to discuss her concerns about the ruling, Faith had made a public spectacle of me. She encouraged my own subjects to mock me! This was what came of making a farm girl into a queen! She’d live in my house and wear my jewels, and all the time she was laughing up her sleeve at me while she incited my citizens to insurrection! Before long, none of my subjects would respect me. I’d lose my crown, and the kingdom would fall to pieces—

I worked myself into a fine frenzy, thinking such things. At the time, I thought myself perfectly reasonable. I had identified a threat to the kingdom’s stability, and I would deal with it. The moment I came home, I found Faith and declared that the marriage was dissolved. “If you prefer to side with the farmers against your own husband,” I told her, “you can go back to your father’s house and live with them!”

It was quite the tantrum. I’m proud to say I’ve never done anything so shameful since.

To my surprise, Faith took it all silently. None of the fire that she showed in defending her father against me. Faith had this way, back then, where she could look at a man and make him feel like an utter fool. At that moment, she made me feel like a monster. I was already beginning to regret what I was doing, but it was buried under so much anger that I barely realized it, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to back down so easily from another decision.

After I said my piece, Faith quietly asked if she was to leave the palace with nothing.

I couldn’t reverse what I’d decided, but I could soften it a bit.

“You may take one keepsake,” I told her. “Take the one thing you love best from our chambers.”

I thought I was clever to make the stipulation. Knowing Faith, she’d have found some way to move the entire palace and count it as a single item. I had no doubt she’d take the most expensive and inconvenient thing she could, but there was nothing in that set of rooms I couldn’t afford to lose.

Or so I thought. No doubt you’re beginning to see that Faith always gets the upper hand in a battle of wits.

I kept my distance that evening—let myself stew in resentment so I couldn’t regret what I’d done. I kept to my library—not this one, the little one upstairs in our suite—trying to distract myself with all manner of books, and getting frustrated when I found I wanted to share pieces of them with Faith. I was downright relieved when a maid came by with a tea tray. I drank my usual three cups so quickly I barely tasted them—and I passed out atop my desk five minutes later.

Yes, Faith had arranged for the tea—and she’d drugged me!

I came to in the pink light of early dawn, my head feeling like it had been run over by a military caravan. My wits were never as slow as they were that morning. I laid stupidly for what felt like hours, wondering why my bed was so narrow and lumpy, and why the walls of the room were so rough and bare, and why those infernal birds were screaming half an inch from my open window.

By the time I had enough strength to sit up, I could see that I was in the bedroom of a farmer’s cottage. Faith was standing by the window, looking out at the sunrise, wearing the dress she’d worn the first day I met her. Her hair was unbound, tumbling in golden waves all the way to her ankles. My heart leapt at the sight—her hair was one of the wonders of the world in those days, and I was so glad to see her when I felt so ill—until I remembered the events of the previous day, and was too confused and ashamed to have room for any other thoughts or feelings.

“Faith?” I asked. “Why are you here? Where am I?”

“My father’s home,” Faith replied, her eyes downcast—I think it’s the only time in her life she was ever bashful. “You told me I could take the one thing I loved best.”

Can I explain to you how my heart leapt at those words? There had never been a mind or a heart like my wife’s! It was like the moment she’d come to save her father—she made me feel a fool and feel glad for the reminder. I’d made the same mistake both times—let my head get in the way of my heart. She never made that mistake, thank heaven, and it saved us both.

Do you have something you want to add, Faith, darling? Don’t pretend I can’t see you lurking in the stacks and laughing at me! I’ll get as sappy as I like! If you think you can do it better, come out in the open and finish this story properly!

Faith

You tell it so beautifully, my darling fool boy, but if you insist—

I was forever grateful Dinah took that tea to Alistair. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the loophole in his words—I was so afraid he’d see my ploy coming and stop me. But his wits were so blessedly dull that day. It was like outwitting a child.

When at last he came to, I was terrified. He had cast me out because I’d outwitted him, and now here I was again, thinking another clever trick would make everything well.

Fortunately, Alistair was marvelous—saw my meaning in an instant. Sometimes he can be almost clever.

After that, what’s there to tell? We made up our quarrel, and then some. Alistair brought me back to the palace in high honors—it was wonderful, the way he praised me and took so much blame on himself.

(You were really rather too hard on yourself, darling—I’d done more than enough to make any man rightfully angry. Taking you to Father’s house was my chance to apologize.)

Alistair paid the farmer for the loss of his foal, paid for the mending of the fence that had led to the trouble in the first place, and straightened out the legal tangles that had the neighbors at each others’ throats.

After that, things returned much to the way they’d been before, except that Alistair was careful never to think himself into such troubles again. We’ve gotten older, and I hope wiser, and between our quarrels and our reconciliations, we’ve grown into quite the wise pair of lovestruck fools. Take heed from it, whenever you marry—it’s good to have a clever spouse, but make sure you have one who’s willing to be the fool every once in a while.

Trust me. It works out for the best.

#the bookshelf progresses #fairy tale retellings #inklingschallenge #four loves fairy tale challenge #four loves fairy tale challenge 2024 #the farmer's clever daughter #theme: eros #story: complete #this one was *so much fun*#i was grinning throughout the brainstorming process #faith and alistair just *loved* telling me their story #and especially in the first scenes i kept stopping just because i was having so much fun with the lines #maybe it's horribly boring to read but as a writing exercise it was fantastic #i love these two so much #i haven't had this much fun since writing last year's epistolary story

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fragmentedblade · 3 months

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Can you expand more on Ratio's philosophical influences? You seem super knowledgeable!

I've been sitting on this for some time because I didn't know what prompted this message and thus I didn't know what to answer and how. I guess it may be the comment I wrote about him having a socratic but also a sophist air?

There are a lot of details in Ratio's overall design that point towards philosophical references. I want to draw attention to the fact that since this is a vague message on anon I don't really know what to focus on or what could I skip because it's information already known, so what I'm going to say is a very brief summary of many ideas, which of course makes such ideas but the shadow of an echo of themselves, so faint they almost become untrue. I fervently advise to look more deeply into any of this if something catches anyone's interest. And I also want to point out that the problem of knowing a little bit of something, even its existence, is that seeing turns to seeking, and an excess of seeing is also a blindness; what I mean by this is that I'm not sure how much of what I am going to say was intentional by the developers/writers and how much is just me suffering the blindness of seeing too much haha

However, I also want to clarify that I do think many of the things I’m going to say are present even if perhaps not intended by the writers/designers. This is due to the fact that Ratio’s main influence is platonism, and platonism is everywhere in western philosophy and in general western culture; once you see it you cannot unsee it. So perhaps I am reading too much or making correlations between things in his design that were not meant to be linked, giving a depth to the character that is probably incidental, but that I would say nonetheless exists because it pertains to a certain philosophical tradition in which the elements stem from each other. I hope this will become clearer in its development if it isn’t right now.

Ratio has an Apollonian air. At first that and his mask made me wonder if he was going to be linked to the Mourning Actors, who alongside the Masked Fools for now remind me a lot of the Nietzschean Apollonian and Dyonisian dichotomy. This was conjecture on my side so I won't go on about this on this ask.

Ratio retains however the Apollo air. When I saw his splash art he reminded me instantly of the Belvedere Apollo, down to the strap under his chest like the sculpture has the quiver's strap. His sixth eidolon too recalls that sculpture, since it seems to be a mix of the pose in Michelangelo's David with the cloth in the Belvedere Apollo. Among other things, Apollo is a god linked to truth, medicine, archery and divination. The owl seems to be a reference to Athena, though.

Ratio also has the laurel or bay branch on his head, which is one of Apollo's traits. Laurel on someone's head became linked to victory as well as academic and artistic merit (I know in Italy people still use it when graduating, for instance; I mean, that's where the word comes from). The fact that he has half of it is most likely due to an aesthetic choice, especially given how the character designs are pointedly asymmetric in this game; however, I think it works well with how, no matter how much he achieves and how hard he tries, Ratio is never gazed upon by Nous nor accepted by the Genius Society with the frustration, bitterness and questioning that brings both himself and others.

This last point, being ignored by something akin to a divinity, works also with his Apollonian air, I'd say. Given his Apollo look, his snake-like pupils made me think instantly of Delphi. Delphi was where a temple to Apollo was (linked to a mythological snake, and snakes thus became associated with Apollo in imagery), and it was famous for its prophecies. Socrates (the master of Plato and main figure in his dialogues) is said to have started the habit of questioning he is mostly famous for because a friend of his went to the temple in Delphi and was told by the Oracle that the wisest man in Athens was Socrates. Socrates was perplexed by this because he knew nothing, and started posing questions to supposedly erudite people about the matters about which they were experts, only to come out of that feeling unsatisfied with the answers. Thus, Socrates thought the Oracle may be right after all, but he was only the wisest man because he at least knew that he knew nothing.

This works very well with Ratio because Socrates starts the journey by being distinguished among his peers, gazed upon, by a god (Apollo was supposed to possess the Pythia, or at the very least the prophetic power came from him), while Ratio never gets that recognition, and seems resigned to that already ("If this day I have not gained the recognition of Nous, it stands to reason that I never will at any point in the future" and "One day, I received a letter from the Interastral Peace Corporation (...). I could tell the solemnity of the invitation, so I excitedly passed it on to Mr. Ratio. Yet, he said nothing. I could sense his heavy silence even through the headgear. He then politely asked me to leave. The moment I closed the door, I heard a grim sigh followed by a self-deprecating laughter... Perhaps he realized he would never be accepted into the Genius Society..."). The mix of arrogance and humbleness, although enhanced in Ratio in a comical degree, is already somewhat present I would argue in the way Socrates talks in Plato's dialogues. Arrogance was also a trait Heraclitus, the author of the line cited in the name of his banner (“Panta rhei”), was famous to have.

So Ratio takes the position at the IPC. The Intelligentsia Guild is "often seen as a vendor of knowledge", and is looked down upon by the Genius Society. This is where I think the philosopher/sophist dichotomy comes in. Sophists were teachers, and were paid. They also were known to use rhetoric to convince (I would say there's a reference to this in one of Ratio's daily messages). In the political landscape of Athens, they were very useful for young men interested in politics. Some sophists became quite rich and famous. Usually philosophers, who didn't receive any money and did everything for the "love of knowledge" itself, looked down on them. At least in the texts of Plato that's often the case, although some sophists are portrayed under a better light even there; btw many of the things I've been saying come from Plato, but since this is an intricate subject on its own that isn’t directly pertinent to the ask I won't dwell on it right now.

Education in ancient Greece consisted of both intellectual and physical training. Intellectual education included music, poetry, mathematics, astronomy,... Physical fitness was held as something very important in a young man's curriculum as well. I think this is where the fanservicey choice of making Ratio so fit and pretty comes from. And I say “pretty” because beauty too is an important concept for Plato, and ancient Greece in general. It is also part of what linked the need of a young man to develop himself both intellectually and physically. Beauty is linked to harmony and order, both on an individual basis and cosmologically, often in some philosophical trends to a mathematical level; pythagoreanism has a lot of this.

Indeed I think pythagoreanism has to do somewhat with Ratio's design, considering his link to mathematics and geometry, and given his name ("Ratio" made me think of the golden ratio and in general pythagorean ratios even before it made me think of "reason" tbh), but in general the main philosophical reference in Ratio seems to be Plato, who was influenced greatly by pythagoreanism; this is one of the perhaps unintended indirect yet present links I mentioned at the beginning.

Platonism is very present in many ways in Ratio. It's noticeable even in his visual design, with how buff and handsome he is, arguably the references to Apollo and Athena, the geometry imagery, and even the sculptures he creates with his technique, but the influence is seen throughout his entire character, story, dialogue lines,... Part IV of Ratio’s character story, the way he talks with Roseth and what he says, has in my opinion an echo of platonic dialogues, as does his line “To spread knowledge, we must first make people realize their folly” recall Socrates. In the Trailblaze mission the main character had to argue for their innocence, which to me brought to mind the Apology of Socrates. On the other hand, the way this was done was very reminiscent of the socratic method, both in the discussion and counterargument mechanic of the game as, and especially so, in the use of memory. The main character had already the knowledge they seeked, yet they had forgotten about it, and had to retrieve it through memory guided by the intense questioning of Ratio; this, if applied to the research of a more essential knowledge instead of circumstantial, is the core of Socrates' maieutics. Maieutics is "midwifery". Socrates called by that word his method because he thought he was helping give birth to truths or knowledge that were already present in people's minds, if forgotten. It's what Ratio's skill, "intellectual midwifery", references.

The fact that Socrates' method, the "intellectual midwifery" to put it in in HSR terms, works in platonic philosophy is because it is taken that there are eternal truths, something Ratio believes as well (“The beauty of truth is that it never changes, even when no one understands it. Well, that's true for me, at least”). This has to do with what is called the theory of Forms or the theory of Ideas. The world that we see is but the shadow of that other conceptual abstract world, of which we have but forgotten memories and that we can access only with the mind's eye. Our soul once saw/was part of that other world, which is why it can remember it. Plato was influenced by the pythagorean view of a sort of journey or reincarnation of the soul after dying, to put it some way. This is also extensive, it has to do with orphism, is at the core of a lot of philosophical and theological western traditions, and thus I will say only this, even though it feels very close-to-fake simplistic haha. To summarise, there’s the other abstract perfect world of which everything in this world participates from and is but the shadow of (everything beautiful participates on the Idea of Beauty, eternal and inextinguishable, but it’s never as perfect as that Idea, only but its echo). The idea that the world is but the shadow of the other world is present in Ratio's English line when he is ko-ed, "Mere flesh…" (in Chinese, though, if I’ve understood correctly he says “«Mediocre»… hah”, which is very different if still lore-heavy). This of course implies a strong ontological dualism.

In this sense it is extremely interesting to me that Ratio’s banner is named “Panta rhei”, because Heraclitus is the epitome of the defender that all things were in constant change yet all things are One, the process of “becoming”, the constant struggle, at the core itself of reality (this too is harmony). He was pointedly monist, and is often contrasted to Parmenides, who spoke of eternal unchanging truths and beings. Both are cornerstones in the development of western philosophy and influenced Plato, but the choice calls my attention. In the Japanese wiki the line was linked/took to the buddhist concept of impermanence; while not necessarily related to that, this wiki suggestion made me wonder whether the choice of making “Panta rhei” the name of Ratio’s banner was done to further enhance another aspect of the many parallels between him and Ruan Mei, who also talks about life as something seemingly diverse and changing, hopes to obtain permanence, and talks about a something that transcends the multiple faces of life and that unifies them all (“Life is countless and varied in form. I firmly believe in that. Its beauty is like a myriad of flowers, and I want to pluck the one that never wilts”; “I wish to discover "the true essence of life," something that all individuals possess unknowingly, whether it is the materialism of their existence or an unknown entity beyond corporeal realms”; “The core of all existence is unity”). Even beyond that, in the context of everything else Ratio has going on, the mention of Heraclitus brings very intriguing food for thought to the table; yet I think this may be another instance of things that are, yet were most likely not meant by the writers.

Moving on, I’ll give a quick comment on the more explicit philosophical references we can find in Ratio’s traces, attacks and voicelines, and will dwell a bit only when I think they work well with the subjects and concepts I already commented Ratio plays with, otherwise this response will be eternal.

Summation (trace): in Chinese this is more clearly linked to the inductive reasoning, which in context it is obvious this is what this trace references; I don’t know why they chose to translate it this way. It is a method of reasoning that comes from the observation of particularities to generalisation, hence “summation”. It works well with Ratio causing more damage per debuff, and with the references to empiricism in Ratio’s attacks. The consequences in inductive reasoning are not truly ensured by the premises (the typical example is how you can’t ensure that all ravens are black by as many black ravens as you observe).

Inference (trace): this baffled me because again it is more clear in Chinese that this is referencing deductive reasoning, but every language translates “inference”, whereas in the “deduction” trace the characters are exactly the same as the ones in the Chinese wiki for “inference”, but every language translates “deduction”. I don’t know what’s happening here, I wish I knew Chinese and found this less confusing, but at least both words are present in his traces. Deductive reasoning is the one that goes from premises to conclusion. It is heavily linked to logic and it doesn’t necessarily require empiric knowledge.

Deduction (trace): this is what is called “inference” apparently in Chinese (if someone knows about this I would love to know what is happening in Chinese in these two traces). Inferences are, well, the process of reaching conclusions. It can be either through deduction or induction (or abduction, some would argue, but that’s another can of worms).

Mind is might (basic attack): in latin this is “scientia potentia est”, and while at this point the line is very detached from its context, initially it was linked to Bacon and Hobbes. I honestly think this is just a very convenient name for an attack of a character following a philosophy/sciences/knowledge thematic.

Intellectual midwifery (skill): Socrates, and platonism. I talked about this before.

Syllogistic paradox (ultimate): Syllogistic paradoxes were one of my favourite things when I was studying. Syllogisms are a form of logic reasoning, which consist of two premises and one conclusion. Though the premises may be true, and though the reasoning may be sensible, at times contradictory or illogical conclusions may be reached. This is a syllogistic paradox. Why this happens is because of a myriad of reasons, like the differences between natural and logical language, or the development of theories (the paradoxes in set theory are among my favourite things ever). I personally like to draw a strong distinction between paradoxes and contradictions. Anyway, I have a lot to say about this haha In general, this is what the name of the ultimate is referencing. It works well with Ratio’s traces. It also goes well with some of the other subjects present in his characterisation, like platonism, Descartes and such; there are a lot of paradoxes that arise from many of the theories that play with such topics. I think reading Alice in Wonderland’s apparent madness through the lenses of logic makes us see that most of those incongruences are actually pretty logical; many of them iirc are syllogistic paradoxes. Carroll was a logician. I mention this because this, as well as many other ideas present in Ratio, work extremely well with Penacony.

Cogito, ergo sum (talent): this is a line by Descartes, a rationalist. This too is something that fits Penacony incredibly well. Descartes starts doubting knowledge, ends up questioning pretty much everything, establishes inspired by mathematics and logic a method of acquiring the truth, and in the research of true knowledge he starts doubting everything with a methodical doubt to be able to tell what knowledge stands after being hit by doubt, and why, and try to reconstruct knowledge from there. Ratio’s lines about “seeking answers with a negative hypothesis in mind”, “When one is immersed in academic research, scepticism comes more naturally than belief” or “Pursuit tinged with negativity is still pursuit, and it is capable of leading us to the right conclusion” reminded me of Descartes’ method. One of the steps in the process is doubting one’s own existence, but since I (pardon the “I”, but the first person is very important in Descartes) doubt, then I think, and since I think, then I exist; cogito, ergo sum. This is closely related to platonism in some senses, and while Descartes’ philosophy comes in part from a criticism of scholasticism, it still has ties to it, but Descartes was a massive breakthrough in the history of Philosophy. I also won't dwell on this, but this is fascinating imo haha

Anyway, Descartes’ doubt about the existence of reality, of the world, is heavily linked to dreams, because in dreams we believe things are real but are not, so equally we could be at every moment in a dream and not be aware of that; only the existence of oneself is clear of this doubt (Zhuangzi’s text about the butterfly plays with this too; I comment this because butterflies have appeared in Penacony and the Zhuangzi’s text seems to play in an interesting way with the concept of “I”, taking it a different route than Descartes, which is a very intriguing idea but I don’t know much of Chinese philosophy at all). The concept of simulated realities, Matrix-like settings and such, all are strongly linked to this conception of Descartes, even though similar things existed previously (such as Plato’s allegory of the cave), and this works very well with Penacony again. Obviously, Descartes’ theory is strongly dualist, and it’s even established a body-mind dualism. The idea of the ghost in the shell also comes in great part from Descartes. Descartes’ view of the body was not too unlike that of a machine.

This was in a time in which clockwork and automatons were quickly advancing and fascinating people. Physic theories started to look (even more) like clockwork, with the universe as clockwork and god as a watchmaker that put it into place and then let it run its perfect course, needing or not (depending on the theory) adjustments from the watchmaker from time to time. I said before that harmony was linked to both the cosmos and the body, with the body in part being a reflection of the cosmos, and even linked to it by the harmony of the spheres. This new way of approaching the cosmological and human issues and developing Physics still has echoes of that. Newton, who is referenced in one of Ratio’s idle animations, is one of the epitomes of this concept of the universe as clockwork. Again, I don’t know how much they’ll do with these ideas nor even if they were written on purpose, but it all works so well with Penacony it would be a pity if they did nothing with this.

Another thing I want to note about Descartes is that besides mentally detaching himself from everything while doubting in his deconstruction and construction of knowledge, seeking undoubtable truths, he famously did so physically as well for some time when he first started thinking about the matters in his Discourse on the Method one night: “having no diverting company and fortunately also no cares or emotional turmoil to trouble me”, while he “spent the whole day shut up in a small room heated by a stove, in which I could converse with my own thoughts at leisure”. This reminded me a lot of Ratio’s head and how he uses it: “with the headpiece on, isolated from my five senses, i can think without interference”, “he put on a headgear to keep away all external distractions and completely focus on thinking? Who else in the world could manage that?”.

Mold of idolatry (technique): this links mainly again to the theory of Forms of Plato, with that representation of something else that is what is real. The name of the technique and what it does works well also with the idea of idolatry, especially of idolatry of false gods, idols or even falsehood in general, and how Ratio criticises people’s blind infatuation with geniuses. It also reminds me of Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophise with a Hammer. Among other things, Nietzsche heavily criticises platonism and platonic philosophy, and mostly all western philosophers (he has kind words for Heraclitus, for instance).

Wiseman’s folly (ultimate’s effect): the idea that knowledge or beholding the truth brings to something similar to madness or ends up leading to foolishness is a very common one. Many of the Ancient Greece philosophers were said to have been extravagant. Diogenes the Cynic and Heraclitus were two such examples. Democritus was said to have plucked out his own eyes. Empedocles is said to have killed himself in a volcano. There’s Nietzsche, Georg Cantor, Kurt Gödel. It is the idea of the wise ending up being very much like the fool, but also the idea of the wise ending up losing sight of basic truths I believe, in that alienation from the world.

Know thyself (eidolon): this is what was inscribed in the temple of Apollo in Delphi I spoke of before. This is linked to Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and platonism, of course. I think when it comes to Ratio that’s it, really. But this maxime has had a lot of implications and interpretations in different contexts and at different times. It could be seen as just a salutation, recommending temperance, the idea of knowing oneself and one’s limitations as key to succeed when approaching subjects or problems, the first step of getting to know anything at all, humans and the world being closely linked and even reflection of god so studying one helps studying the other, etc.

Vincit Omnia Veritas (eidolon): the translator says this means “eternal truth” in Chinese, which would play way better with the philosophical ideas and concepts present in Ratio while still playing with his name, “Veritas”. I won’t dwell on this because I’ve already talked about the link between eternal truths and Ratio a lot, and besides I can’t even confirm this is the true meaning because I don’t know Chinese.

Eidolon “The divine is in the details” seems to be a reference to a Chinese idiom that comes from a book. I don’t know if it has greater significance, but if anyone knows I am all ears. The other eidolons obviously work with Ratio, but I don’t see obvious philosophical influences so I’m skipping them.

Esse est percipi (ultimate line): “To be is to be perceived”. This is a line by Berkeley and linked to his philosophy. He criticises both dualism and materialism. The core idea is that the world’s existence is entirely dependent on the mind, that things don’t exist unless they are perceived and thought. His justification for one’s own existence seems to come from this perception, as Descartes’ came from thinking: “I do nevertheless know that I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist”. Parmenides has a similar idea in his poem. I don’t think this was intended to be read too much into when it comes to Ratio, but I think it fits nicely with the other topics he has going on, and the dichotomy they often entail. It also works well with Ratio’s plaster head, with how he says “I don't have to set eyes on stupid people. Of course, they don't want to see me either”, with how he uses it to go unnoticed or unrecognised in both Herta’s Space Station and Penacony, and I think it could be overread or taken to more exaggerated levels in a juicy manner reading this under the notion of nothingness, mediocrity and being disregarded by Nous.

One of the listed researched achievements of Ratio is in the field of epistemology. Epistemology is the field that studies knowledge. Although studied in particular at times, it is of course often linked to ontological conceptions; all the philosophical theories I’ve stated carry with them epistemological implications as well as ontological. In one of Ratio’s character stories there’s a mention to epistemic logic which is, speaking broadly, a logical approach to the analysis of knowledge.

Another one of his listed achievements is in natural theology, which is the study of god through reason and logic instead of things such as transcendental experiences or revelations. This is very common in philosophy in general. It often has to do as well with the world as a harmonious whole, god as watchmaker/the universe as clockwork, and teleology. I will mention Newton and Darwin here because Newton is referenced in Ratio’s idle animation, and Darwin because he broke up with the teleological tradition when it came to the world. Ratio’s work is named Aeons: A Natural Phenomenon, and the title and its description, how its “Aeon non-theism”, makes it seem to me like he wrote of Aeons as if they were just another form of life or something that pertains to nature itself and not detached from it, which although very different from Darwin’s ideas did remind me of how he dismissed teleology in nature. This also clearly links, in my opinion, to Ruan Mei.

Other than that I also want to note Ratio’s final speech to Screwllum about inspiring doubt and scepticism when it comes to established ideas and geniuses. It reminded me of Socrates, how he was said to have “perverted” youth inspiring all that questioning among other things. It reminded me of Nietzsche, how he fervently encouraged individuals to use critical thinking, question dogmas and preconceived ideas they could have, and come up with their own conclusions that does not mean necessarily negating absolutely everything they held true before the questioning (this exchange between Screwllum and Ratio: “Screwllum: «You wish to uproot the researchers' blind worship of geniuses». Dr. Ratio: «I am only laying out my questions».”). It also pointedly reminded me of Kant's “Sapere aude!”, “Dare to know!”, and his text What Is Enlightenment?, in which among other things Kant talks about the lack of courage, not of intellect, of people to think for themselves, how humanity lives in a constant immaturity or adolescence of the mind, and urges them to get out of that state, to dare to know. Kant was greatly influenced by rationalism but said to have awaken from the rationalist slumber thanks to empiricism; the plays on rationalism and empiricism, deduction and induction, and the presence of idealism in the rest of Ratio’s writing as well as this fervent push for people to snap out of their lack of criticism and dare to think for themselves are what made me think of Kant here.

There’s more things to talk about Ratio, like his view on mediocrity and geniuses, and how that view is constructed and described in traces through fragments in his lore, the character stories, snippets of conversations; how he seems to be so similar in character and drive to geniuses, but never accepted as one, and how he is regarded as very different and eccentric by “normal” people, even in the Guild. In short, how he is detached from both the “normal” people and geniuses, like suspended between both states without being either completely, and how it makes so much sense in this context that he tries to breach the rift between both. I couldn’t help but mention this, to avoid forgetting this aspect of his characterisation in the future, but I won’t dwell on this because it isn’t really directly linked to any philosophical influence that I can think of.

I think this is it. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything important. And I’m sorry it is so long, but I really tried to summarise. As I said, I may well be reading too much into some of these things, but I also think that since Ratio plays with many of the core authors and concepts in the history of western philosophy, some things I expect were not intended by the writers still are present somewhat, because mentioning this or that thing alongside this or that other thing ends up having implications if you know a bit of the context.

I hope this was clear enough. However, I can try to explain myself better or further if I wasn’t. Philosophy may look unapproachable and dry at times at first, but it really isn't, it just needs one to get accustomed to some basic terminology, and it becomes fascinating and beautiful, and lifechanging haha. I would love it if Ratio is making people get a little bit more invested or interested in it, or open to explore it. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to check the main ideas, texts and authors that may spike someone’s interest if anyone wants to read further about anything I've said or compare sources, but tbh I think even Wikipedia can be useful with getting a first feel of some basic ideas to know what to look for. And although I am not an authority or the most trustworthy source at all, I will help as best as I can if someone reading this has any further question. I recommend reading the texts firsthand though, with historical context in mind and footnotes perhaps if possible, and making one's own mind about everything.

#Dr. Ratio #Veritas Ratio #Ratio #Dr Ratio #Honkai Star Rail #Sorry for all the tags but I want to try to reach the person who asked this since it's been some time #If you are still around and see this I would appreciate confirmation that you saw it just to ease my mind a bit xD #Ratio fits Penacony so much I hope they do something with it #I talk too much #I should probably delete this later #And reread it just to make sure everything is alright after copypasting the text to tumblr #Traces

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odessa-2 · 1 month

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of course the funeral is an End Game but S still plays games...Not an innocent lamb..he loves inuendos and SH loves the atenttion

From Gran Canaria to Cumberland he plays with the fandom..Showing nothing implying everything

He is more carefull ,his eldest might have access to sm soon

Yes ok Anon. We've long since established that SC are both victims and active participants in the narrative. But just as I answered my previous Anon, I'm seeing things a little differently now. I think it's important for shippers to not take the narrative personally. It's actually not for us. The narrative is a Starz/Sony/TPTB construct with nothing but money and profits as the driving force, as well as evil opportunistic men in high places who see SC as objects as a means to money and profit. They have dehumanised Sam and Cait. And it's sickening. Hollywood is a sick place.

We get attacked because we've discovered the truth. Or at least have come extremely close to it. As Plato had once said, "No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth." Hence why we get attacked. Hence why Cait gets her knickers in a knot when we persist. The striped sheets really pissed her off and it's not because we hurt Tbags feelings.

That's why Deidre was on the constant warpath with a few 'delusional creatures' before she decided, just like her lil sis, that perhaps it was best she take a step back from SM and look after her mental well-being and to stop defending evil. It really is that simple.

As for Boo1, yep, she's at an age now where she'd be understanding a great deal. It is my personal belief that both Sam and Cait will whittle down the fuckery once they are done with OL but not entirely rid themselves of the narrative and it's choke hold on them. Sam will still be able to profit from the OL cash cow for some years after. But let's hope I'm wrong about them being tied to the narrative for years to come. What do the littlens call Tony, I wonder?🤔......Uncle Tony? Mr McGill? Or maybe it's just plain ol Toni with an ''i".

#free the heughans #odessa 2 #samandcait

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ourautumn86 · 1 year

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do you write for platonic!reader and pedro? i haven't seen many people write about pedro pascal without smut and i just want to feed myself with fluffy fics 😭

i wanted to request something where the platonic! co-star!reader (the same age as bella) is obsessed with snacking. pedro always takes a video of them whenever he catches them eating on their break on set and he finds it adorable because he always finds the reader in a random corner cheeks stuffed with food 😭 i just think it's cute and i see pedro as more of a father figure <33

a/n; i do!!!! this is so cuteee <333

♡

“seriously pedro?!? again?!” he was laughing before you had even finished up with your whining, bursting into the filming plato, cheeks filled with a snack you had decided to eat on your free time before you’d have to go back to filming.

you were frowning, shaking your phone right on his face, his newest instagram post in display.

it was a bunch of photos and videos he had sneaked of you eating your snacks in between the sets, always in a corner and hiding your food, fighting bella’s hands off when they’d try to steal some for you and pushing fruit into your mouth until your cheeks would swell.

“i already told you to stop! it’s embarrassing, look at how many people have seen me eat my snacks already, delete it!!!” you were burning, cheeks red in embarrassment.

“but you look so cute! look at this one! you look like a little chipmunk fighting bella for your food.” he laughed and you huffed. “people love it, look at the comments! they all agree.” his smile made it difficult to stay mad at him, not when he was always so sweet to you. he felt like a father sometimes, always showing you and bella off on his stories with a proud little smile.

“hey!” you huffed when he managed to steal a m&m from you, quickly munching on it.

“mmh!” he hummed, eyes shooting open. “that’s good! let me try a green one!” he screamed, hands trying to sneak inside the package once again but you quickly moved.

you tried and scape, save the life of your truly loved snacks, but when you turned around, bella was already there.

“did somebody said green m&ms?” they smiled, devilish. and your face was of pure terror.

you were cornered.

and your m&ms surely did not scape safe and sound that day…

a/n; i’m so so sorry for such a big delay! hope you like it<3333

pedro pascal masterlist! <3

xxx

#pedro pascal #bella ramsey #pedro pascal fluff #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal fan fiction #pedro pascal actor #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x reader #bella ramsey x reader #fluff #platonic #platonic relationship #dan! writes ♱

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dansevilpianotea · 20 days

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who do you think is more Crowley coded and who is more Azira coded out of dnp?

i set myself hourly notifications ever since you send the ask and it still took me this long to answer, im so sorry 😭

to answer your question:

It might seem like obvious that dan is crowley coded and phil is azira coded because of their aesthetics and personality but stating that as that is too simple for me. lets break it down:

dan is like crowley in the obvious sense of having that edgy aesthetic and always needing to question things while phil is the one with the light aesthetic who enjoys what is happening despite the problems it has. just watch them play the game of life.

this reminds me of this quote from a book ive read for uni which really stuck with me:

so yea, dan is the social scientist who points out what most people miss and phil is the one who tells us that we shouldn't wallow in defeat of it but make our own meaning out of it. and we need both! they are like ying and yang, like crowley and aziraphale in that way.

crowley who questions heaven and thusly falls, but then doesnt stop questioning hell because he doesnt see the world in black and white, good actions and bad actions.

i think dan for a long time was not like that. i say this with the utmost respect but if you look back, his branding was usually self deprecating jokes and at least to me personally it felt like his perspective was pessimistic. he always made sure to leave a positive message but to me it felt like a wish for a better future, not a feeling of certainty that it will be better.

Phil on the other hand is very much like that:

Phil is like aziraphale and me in the sense that he gets irrationally worried about things,

but it is dan who literally did a tour about his worries of the world ending, with branding and all:

and yet:

phil and crowley both have that rational optimism, the sense that things will be okay. but aziraphale does not give up in-spite of the odds being against them. in s1 he refuses to run away to alpha centauri because he believes that they should stay and fight. that there is still hope. he does not accept that the world will end. but its crowley who sparks the idea of aziraphale raising the antichrist with him. its aziraphale who tells angel crowley of armageddon , and its why crowley gets upset and questions the almighty.

so my point is that phil has aziraphale's light aesthetic vibes and his fear of near doom but crowley's certainty that everything will be okay in the end despite it.

dan on the other hand has crowley's edgy dark aesthetic, his cynicism and sense of questioning belief systems, but also aziraphale's determinism to fight what he is sure is a losing battle/the end of the world because he wants to believe that it is possible that everything will be okay (that being the message of wad/ywgttn/big/etc...)

i want to talk a bit about 'dark/light polarity'. what we mean by that is two sides of the same coin. yin and yang:

☯️

they depend on each other, they interconnect and intertwine. be it real people or fictional characters, it is never a clear black and white binary, because what the characters have something that the other lacks and when they come together they become a whole. plato said humans once had 4 legs and feet, and then got split in half by zeus to punish us to live our lives yearning to be connected with the other half of our soul/coin, our soulmate. they carry sth of each other within them because there are shards that got broken in the middle when the being was split and were forced to choose sides.

so even tho it might seem like dan is more like crowley coded and phil is more aziraphale coded because of their light/dark aesthetic, there's many things of both in each of them and thats what makes it interesting and real to us.

#sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer but thats what you get when you send an ask to a philosopher /lg #*/lh #dan and phil #daniel howell #dnp #amazingphil #wad #good omens #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ask

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written-in-flowers · 1 year

Text

Children of the Moon: Cobra x Reader

Pairing: Cobra x fem!reader

Word Count: 1k

Genre: sickening fluff, slice of life, with a hint of smut if you squint your eyes.

Summary: You remember Aristophanes's origins of love on your date with Cobra. On your third date at the beach, you come to the realization that Hina Junpei is your missing other half.

Tagline: ..'And the children of the moon was like a fork shoved on a spoon; they were part sun, part earth, part daughter, part son..-"Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

A/N: feeling quite soft lately. Might do something similar with the other characters if I'm up for it.

***

A philosopher named Aristophanes spoke at Plato’s symposium one night where he described the human need to seek an ‘other half’. He said that there’d once been three sexes: the women who came from earth, the men who came from the sun, and the figure of both sexes who came from the moon. They looked rather funny, since they resembled two people stuck into one body with eight limbs and two faces on one skull. They walked backwards, forwards, and ran cartwheels. Being powerful beings, he said, they devised a plan to take on the gods in heaven. Having heard this, in response, Zeus used a thunderbolt to split the humans in two. This is where the concept of looking for one’s ‘other half’ came from.

It was this story that came to mind when you and Junpei sat beside the ocean that night. Your third date since meeting, you’d both taken a ride on his motorcycle to the seaside. The vast expanse of water glittering in the setting sun mesmerized you; it made for a glorious end of a nice day out. You shared a small picnic in the sand, his bike parked nearby, and watched the sunset together. Conversation and laughter flowed easily between the both of you; two people who normally remained quiet did not stop talking when together. Junpei, or Cobra as people called him, didn’t socialize as much as he once did; you’d never been the sociable type, being introverted and not very talkative. You both enjoyed the quiet from time to time; you sometimes spent time together in silence, reading and occasionally breaking the silence to speak. Nobody ever made you feel comfortable in quietness except Junpei. Sitting in the quiet with him brought on this soft, warm comfort you’d never experienced before.

Sitting on the blanket beside him, you looked away from the sun to look at him. The yellow and orange rays of light shined on his handsome face and in his golden hair. You saw the tranquility written on his face, the reflective contemplation he sometimes fell into in the silence. Yes, that is a face you wouldn’t mind sharing a head with. You pictured the two of you attached like the humans in Aristophanes’s story; the androgynous child of the moon, who was both man and woman together. You saw this strange figure sitting where you did, reading and talking as the sun set. You’d be both enjoying each other’s time when thunderbolts came down from the heavens like knives, severing you from Junpei forever. The creative person inside you painted an image of you and Junpei having just been separated, blood dripping from the horrific gash down your backs and tears falling from your cheeks in sobs. That realization that you’re forever parted would hit you both, and you’d sob for ages. You knew you’d be so upset by this unfair punishment that you’d continue searching for him, your other half, in defiance. You’d love and admire him over any god in the sky. Because, while you watched Junpei eat a grape as he leaned back, you knew this was your other half.

Your soulmate, even.

Your mother once told you that finding your soulmate is dangerous. When you asked her why, she said, “Because once your souls have found each other, they will never let go. No matter how many lifetimes you live, your souls will always remember finding one another.” Your soul was in such danger now. You’ve found Junpei, and you knew you’d never let him go.

He caught you staring, and a smile broke his face, “What?”

“Nothing,” you shook your head, giving an embarrassed laugh.

“Like what you see, huh?” he teased.

Junpei rarely teased anymore, from what Yamato told you. The tragedies he’d faced in life, the regrets he carried with him, dragged down the bright, playful person he’d once been. To see him smile and inch closer to you this way made you happy. You liked thinking you made him happy too. Happiness became such an alien feeling to both of you, you’re not sure when you’re truly feeling it. Yet, being alone in this beautiful place with Junpei, perhaps you felt it now.

He leaned over the small spread between you and pecked your lips. His kiss. Oh, you loved his kisses. You’d kissed other men before, and while you enjoyed them, Junpei’s kisses felt special. While they’re sometimes fueled with lustful passion, he could also kiss you with comforting whispers and sweet words. He kissed you with reassurances during uncertain times; he kissed you with gentleness after rough days. Even one taste of his lips felt like finding familiarity after decades of being deprived; as if you’re traveling in a foreign country and tasted food from home. You thought of other men you’d kissed, and you did not find yourself yearning for them like Junpei’s. Whenever you kissed, it simply felt right.

Yes, this child of the moon would search the entire universe for this man.

“I love you.”

The three words slipped from you subconsciously, filling the silence and remaining there between you. Once you realized you’d said them, you froze in worry. What if Junpei didn’t feel the same? What if he does not crave your love the way you do for his? What if he is not your other half, and you shouldn’t put so much thought into a silly story? For several seconds, neither of you spoke. Junpei’s smile disappeared and he surveyed your face. He searched for something, and you worried what realization he might find.

“You don’t feel the same,” you said softly, doing your best to keep back the lump in your throat. “It’s…It’s okay if you don’t. I didn’t mean to…It’s okay, but I had to tell you. If you don’t feel the same, I won’t bring it up ever again and we can go back to being whatever it is we are right now.” You’d ruined it. You’d ruined everything.

“YN…” he said your name so gently; his deep voice always sent shivers down your spine in these moments, “How could I not feel the same?”

“Huh?”

He sat up right, cupping your cheek and said, “You make me feel things I’d never felt with another woman before. Sure, I loved other girls in my life, but not like I do with you. With you, YN, it feels so much deeper and…and familiar? It feels like I’d loved you before I even met you. It’s like if we’d met once before a long time ago, and only just now I remembered that I loved you.”

“Like, you’d been waiting for me to turn up? To find me again?” you asked, hope in your voice.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Yeah, exactly like that.” He then said, “Whenever I’m with you, it doesn’t feel awkward or wrong in any way. It feels natural. It feels normal to me. It’s a good feeling. You make me feel like I can be myself again.” He kissed you again, a bit more deeply, “When I fight, I don’t just fight for Sannoh. I fight for you too. I’d fight anyone who tried to take you from me, who tried to hurt you. It’s like finding a thing you’d lost and never wanting to let it go again.”

Tears filled your eyes, and you sniffled. He pulled you into his lap, his warm arms wrapping around you and yours around him. “Junpei, I feel the exact same way,” you said, your forehead pressed to his, “Down to every single word.”

“I love you, YN,” he said, replying to your own three word statement.

You kissed him again, this time more passionately. The both of you stayed there in the sand, the sun lowering further and further as you shared words of love. You each bared your souls to one another as night crept over the skies above. The sun’s warmth faded in the arrival of the moon’s chill by the time you decided to leave. On the way home, you couldn’t help holding Junpei particularly tight. You held him as if you’re trying to stick yourselves back together, but that didn’t happen until you arrived at his place.

Where you shed off each other’s clothes and slipped into his bed Your naked flesh pressed against his, you both got as close to being shoved back together as you could. Junpei’s length filled you, and your legs went around his waist to keep him there. Complete euphoria and longing grew between the both of you. Nothing smutty or dirty happened. No hair pulling, biting or filthy words were exchanged. You did not release each other even when that blissful climax arrived, because being separated sounded foolish now. You both fell asleep in each other’s arms, as you’d meant to be.

As the mythical children of the moon once did.

***

A/N: thanks for reading this little blurb of mine lol been having really deep feels lately and this came out. Also, rewatched Hedwig and the Angry Inch too lmao Hope you enjoyed this <3

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