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#circe story
whumpfessional · 7 months
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Voltober #1 & #2 - Oct 2
No editing, no proofreading, no prep. Let's go!
Starting off my attempt on @voltober this year with 1. Netted and 2. Sadistic Whumper. Makes sense to start with Circe and Balak.
I don't expect to write this much for all of them but it's nice to be off to a good start.
CW: slavery, minor whumpee, minor whumper, electrocution
“Run.”
The girl didn’t pause for a moment before sprinting away from the three Batarian youth, who crashed into each other, jostling for the metallic netting on the ground.
Master Ka’hairel and his friends had just graduated from their training program and the Master had presented Ka’hairel with his first submission net over a celebration dinner the previous evening. 
Standing invisible on the wall, the girl had sunk back into the memories of Ka’hairel’s older brothers, chasing her, netting her, shocking her. The slightly raised skin around her neck twitched as she stood rock still. 
Given their break from studies and new toy, it was no surprise when she trailed the trio onto a shuttle that touched down near their training center. 
The girl slid into the brush, landing on the outside of her thigh. The center had a wide variety of biomes to choose from to better train their conquering elite. She knew the game already, starting in the desert got boring fast for them. As had keeping lower settings on the net. 
Icarek explained that it was basic psychology; slaves were prone to laziness, so they needed incentive to not be lazy. The girl could have pointed out that running across sand dunes in bare feet could have been the reason for her slow pace but the thought didn’t occur to her to speak out. 
Remaining muscle spasms buckled her knees as she crept through the bush, trying to keep low and still. A twitch tossed her to the right, waxy green leaves rustled as she fell into the dirt. 
Birajuu. The girl shoved to her feet to try to run but the weighted net was already flying in her direction. 
Her head thumped the ground with bruising force as her limbs got tangled in the tight wiring. 
The air pushed out of her lungs and prevented her from preparing a breath. 
Burning, piercing pain tore through her body and her mouth tore open in a desperate attempt to scream, to gasp for air. Across every limb, over her face. 
Her muscles collapsed as the shock disappeared, face rolling into the dirt. Segar’s boots nudged her over, unhooking the net from underneath her. 
“How many points for that?” He yelled back, scooping the net up off the ground. A boot tip shoved into her, motivating the girl to find her limbs and lever herself off the ground. 
Light stabbed through her head as she trailed Segar back. 
Ka’hairal didn’t spare her a glance, grabbing the net back from Segar before resetting it. The girl was grateful for the moment that they spent arguing the rules of their game, pulling more air into her lungs. 
Hiding quietly wasn’t going to work again. Her brain was just coming back online before she caught Ka’hairal’s order. 
“Run” 
She aimed for the trees, waiting until she was out of sight before throwing herself up one. Callused feet helped her grip as she propelled upwards into the leaves. Carefully, the girl shifted higher in the branches, trying to rest her weight fully before transferring her step. 
The forest was quiet but the girl stood tense, waiting for any noise. Hearing some shifting from her left, she tried to move to the right side of the tree. Wrong move. The branch crashed under her weight and she let out a shriek as her legs dropped from under her. 
A bare second into dangling, the weight of the net crashed into her and sent her tumbling.
Air knocked from lungs. No breath to scream. Tears leaked from her eyes as the shock paralyzed her body and in turn the tears burned as the netting crossed over her face. 
It was over. Icarek won that one, digging a knee into her back intentionally as he unrecalled the netting. It was surprising to see her scraped palms, considering she didn’t feel the sensation. One leg fell out from under her on the way back but she dragged it behind her. 
Ka’hairal looked pissed. The girl understood. He hadn’t had a turn with his toy yet. 
It was a small enough arena that they would find her eventually if they stayed in place. She resolved to run this time. 
“Run.” Her master barked. She obeyed. 
Her breath rasped in her chest and she threw herself through brush and trees, fully aware of the trail she left behind. Her leg buckled but she was prepared, slamming herself into a trunk to keep upright and using it to propel herself in a different direction. 
Forest floor debris tore into her feet but she kept moving. Finding a wall in front of her, instinct took her left. 
Five steps into the new route, the increasingly familiar weight of the net slammed into her, 
No respite. Stabbing, stabbing pain pierced her core. Her eyes burned, her mouth was dry. 
Had it stopped? She shivered before rolling over to see Ka’hairal closing in. He yanked back the net and the girl clamped her mouth shut from crying out as the metal whipped across her skin. 
His face was still thunderous, though the glimmer at the back of his eye scared her even more. Terror gripped her stomach as tremblingly she pushed herself upwards. Unlike the others, he stood still, watching her with his upper eyebrows raised. 
Bad sign. 
Her master had the grace to wait until she had both of her feet under her. 
“Run.”
The girl flung herself into the brush. Her vision was blurred but hands in front of her, she scrambled away. One shuttered breath. Another. 
The net slammed her to the ground. 
Her mind splintered. It was too much. It lasted forever and for a second. 
A boot rammed into her side before she noticed the submission net was deactivated. She gulped for air, shaking on the ground. Ka’hairal stood above her and the boot caught her shoulder this time, rolling her onto her back. 
The girl panted. Her limbs wouldn’t listen. She struggled to roll herself over onto her side, pressing shaking limbs into the ground. 
“Run.”
The girl tried to turn to see Ka’hairal’s face, taking a moment to clock that he was in fact serious. 
Kra’tash. 
Like a varren, she dug her hands and feet into the dirt, hopelessly with no air to propel herself forward. 
The weight crashed down. Agony. Something beyond pain. Her skin burned. Acrid. 
There was a pause and she wheezed, twisting like a trapped animal. Her heart pounded in her ears and she feared it would burst.
“Run.”
No.
She was still in the net. She knew she had no change, but still she thrashed. It was clear what he wanted. 
A game he would win. 
Pain. Blinding pain. When it stopped, she could see his face as he bent down beside her. 
His smile had returned. 
Pain. 
He kept asking her to run. Her limbs jerked uncontrollably. 
“Run.”
The girl was sure she had drooled all over herself. 
“Run.”
Her eyes rolled back into her head. 
“Run.”
It was nice to hear him laugh. It was a harsh laugh. But it meant he wasn’t scowling. 
Somewhere the girl registered being lifted off the ground, her bruised face thumping against his back. Her leg kicked out in a spasm and he threw her off onto the ground instead. 
All pain was numb. She struggled for breath that wouldn’t come as she bumped along, dragged by her shirt’s collar. He laughed as her body caught on thorns, switching hands intentionally so she flopped through a mud puddle. 
Laughing wasn’t safe. But it was safer than his anger.
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In honour of the end of the first act:
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microscotch · 20 days
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frat party/mimis place edition beakers for @just-ornstein! 🎉
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kamiiri · 2 months
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Circe rolled her eyes, annoyed that the boy had interrupted her thoughts once again. “Okay, strike two. Stop talking and let me finish.”
Feeling helpless, Johnny just laid his head back on the table. He wondered what his family was doing right then. Were they together? Were they okay? Did they know he was alive? He hoped they were not in the same position as him. He shut his eyes tightly.
“I’m done. We can talk now,” Circe said.
“Talk about what?”
“I have some more questions for you.”
“And if I don’t answer?” Johnny asked.
“Come on, Johnny. You already know the answer to that.” Circe smiled gently at him with feigned tenderness. Johnny’s eyes darted to the metal tray full of razor-sharp tools.
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sporesgalaxy · 2 years
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circe clawthorne, raised in a puritanical straight society: but babe… if im a girl and ur a girl… we can’t get married :(
her fiancée, who grew up on the boiling isles so has never experienced homophobia: honey what the fuck?????
YEAH FJSHFKS
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evignonita · 2 months
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The Beakers and Buzz in my current save:
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The Curious-Muenda family:
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☠️💧💧😢
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ampresandian · 2 months
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I am academically curious:
I'm also super interested in if you learned about/got into mythology via other non-PJO contemporary fiction, like Madeline Miller, so idk put that in the tags or something.
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Odyssey - an opinion on Odysseus
Tw: reference to sexual assault, coercision, rape in abstract terms as themes.
Currently reading the Odyssey for the first time and there are 2 interpretations it feels like you can make with Odysseus and his intereactions with characters like Calypso.
He's an unloyal twat who willingly sleeps with everyone woman he can (I feel like this seems to be the most popular female oriented take from what I know of a lot of modern retellings)
That actually, Odysseus has very little choice. The women he sleeps with are goddesses who entrap him in someway and the reality is that his one consistent goal is to get back to Penelope, the clever wife he loves. In effect Odysseus pretty much is being coerced and forced into these sexual relationships. Take Calypso for example, he can't kill her, can't leave, can't persuade her to let him go. He spends the years he's there crying, sobbing, desperate to leave but lays in her bed at night when she asks him to. This to me doesn't seem like a man who wants to be doing that, wants to be betraying his wife, but instead a man who has little choice. Admittedly as well, it's made clear that the goddesses (Calypso and Circe) have a sort of magic when it comes to coercing and getting people to do what they want and it's made clear that Calypso's goal is to have Odysseus stay as her husband forever. The moment he has a chance to leave, after Hermes forces Calypso's hand, he does so, refusing to stay and turning down immortality and by all accounts one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet. There are multiple women, mortal and immortal, in the books who are described as desiring Odysseus and as extremely beautiful. The immortal he sleeps with, but the mortal he does not despite the opportunities afforded him. This to me suggests he only sleeps with the immortal ones because he has very little real choice, who is he to go against a goddess? I personally believe that if he had a real choice, he would have been celibate for those 20 years until he returned home.
I think it's really easy to judge Odysseus at face value, that he's a cheat and liar and that he didn't have to do these things. But to me, my personal interpretation (which is what it is, you can have a different one and that's fine!) is that this man, this highly intelligent man, adores his wife, wants to be back home, but has very little choice. That at best he sleeps with these goddesses knowing that it will enable his survival and at worst he's literally forced through the coercive nature that is a goddess and her powers. It doesn't seem to me, especially with Calypso, that he wants to be there, that he really wants her or cares for her or desires her, it seems like a motion, something he has to do because he's forced to. This man spends his entire time crying and I suspect if he could have he would have killed her, but who can kill a goddess? A daughter of Atlas? Certainly not him.
It strikes me as well, that if he really were that much of a rake, then the mortal women he comes across who are described as beautiful and desiring him, he would also sleep with or even marry and stay with. But he doesn't.
It may be an unpopular interpretation, but I actually really like Odysseus and I personally believe he has little choice in these flawed actions and that in reality he's a victim, I don't believe Homer puts it forth as some sort of romantic ideal or the hero being rewarded.
Obviously, you don't have to agree. You can have your own opinion and that's fine.
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Okay, but Odysseus did not cheat, at least not with Circe or Calypso. As much as I am for giving shit to people who cheat, what happened with Circe and Calypso can not be considered cheating, since Odysseus' consent is incredibly dubious.
Both Circe and Calypso had a lot of power over him. Both could have killed him if he didn't do as they asked. Circe could have killed his men too, and Calypso literally held Odysseus captive for years, to the point where when she touched him, he flinched. He was literally crying by the beach for years, and she only let him go when Hermes (a God more powerful than her) told her to.
It's really disappointing how people so quickly see Odysseus being forced into sex, and automatically villainize him. Trust me, there are many shitty things Odysseus has done (mass murder, kidnapping, etcetera), and you could probably even find times where Odysseus does cheat, but using Circe and Calypso as examples is absolutely awful.
(Just to note, this post is based on the Emily Wilson translation since that is the one I read. However, the power dynamics are pretty much the same in every translation, so my point still stands.)
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whumpfessional · 1 year
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Onboarding
This is for all of you lovely folks who have encouraged me to continue to write. I finally got this sticky piece out of the way and now I can continue with the next part of this story.
Continued from here (which is technically the first part of the story I posted). The start of Circe's story can be found in my masterpost.
CW: slavery mention/reference, minor whump reference, branding reference, IV mention, minor surgery reference (to remove a tracker), med bay stuff
It was quiet when she awoke. Florescent lights above crackled slightly as she lifted herself into a seat position, noting the IV drip connected to her arm. There was a slight beeping from the monitor beside her. The girl swung her legs over to the side of the bed and moved to stand up. 
“I’d take it easy if I was you,” a voice came from behind her and she turned to see who she assumed was Doc. They were a tall human with cool dark skin and a shaved head. They approached, staring down at their Omnitool. 
“You’ve been through a lot but we were able to stabilize you without issue. I hope you don’t mind, but the captain recommended that we remove this.” They dropped a small thin device, no longer than a cm into her hand. “This is the tracker that is placed in most Batarian slaves who go off planet. It was in your neck.”
The girl reached up cautiously, feeling the bandage placed over the back of her neck, near her spine. She nodded, holding her hand there. 
“I’m going to let the captain know you are awake. Just stay here.” They turned and walked out, the doors closing shut behind them. 
She paused for a second before slowly getting to her feet, using the IV stand to support her. It was a medical bay, obviously enough. But there weren’t any logos or icons that could give her an idea of who’s ship she was on. 
She was going to open one of the cupboards when the door slid open and she twisted around, her heart rate leaping.
“Ahh, there you are! Look at you, on your feet already!” Hef entered into the room, with Doc following behind them. “Come on, have a seat. We need to talk about a couple things.” Hef sat herself down on the end of the bed while Doc went to the other end of the room and seemed to be searching for something. 
The girl was entranced. Hef was so loud, there was so much life. She took up space as she moved through the room, bumping a table aside with her hip as she scooched in. And she was human. So human. 
“Now,” Hef started when the girl came to stand near her, a calculated arm's distance away, “we don’t have to figure out your options right away. You can take some time before you figure out what you want to do. The most important thing is that you are free. You don’t belong to anyone. You don’t have to do what anyone says. Do you understand?”
The girl stood silently, staring blankly at Hef. 
Hef gave a huff before reaching down and pulling a black half glove off of her left hand. There, the girl could see a familiar mass of scar tissue and a tattoo that was identical to her own, a gear with an eye in the middle. The girl’s eyes went wide and she turned back to look at Hef.
The realization hit her like an air shuttle. Her mouth fell open as she stared at it, her brain working through its calculations. 
“-but... h-how?” The girl managed to stutter, still staring at the hand. Hef pulled the glove back on. Even covered, the girl felt as if she could feel the eye staring back at her.
“Luck, mostly.” Hef said, with a shrug, “Same as you. Cerberus ship attacked the Batarian vessel I was on, though they didn’t just happen upon us, like we did with you. After setting us free, the crew gave us the option to stay and join up. I wasn’t going to say no.”
Circe began nodding again, more as a way of indicating to Hef that she was listening, rather than to say that she understood the words being said.
“I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t any bullshit. You are free now. And you will be safe here for as long as you need. Do you understand?” Hef continued. 
The girl nodded again, a pressure growing in her chest. “Yes.” She whispered faintly. The ground swam slightly beneath her as her breath lightened.
This was real. This was real. She was here right now. The pain in her body meant she was here right now. Excitement and anxiety mixed together in her stomach, an acidic heat she couldn’t pull one separate from another. 
A smile broke across Hef’s face. “Good. You seem to be able to speak now so that helps things. Do you have a name?” 
The girl shook her head then remembered herself. “No, not really”, she said in a quiet voice, “I’m just Girl”. The harsh Batarian tones seemed out of place in the quiet med bay.
Hef grimaced at the sound, snarl curling instinctively. “Well, we can fix that too. Come on, let’s get you settled” She stood up. On cue, Doc scuffed over and removed the IV, placing a blue bandaid over the injection site. They gave her a slight smile as well. 
Hef and the girl continued down the corridor.
The girl found herself burdened with a blanket, pillow, and several personal items pilfered from a communal storage space, 
“Anyways,” Hef continued to explain the layout of this ship as she had through the tour. Shell shocked, not much of the information given had stuck in her brain. “This is the mess. There’s coffee and tea always going and you can help yourself to snacks. We have a rotation for cooking and cleaning up after it, do you know how to cook?”
Hef’s head turned around, locking eye contact with the girl. She quickly ducked her head down and gave a noncommittal shrug. Cooking was far from one of her jobs but it couldn’t be that hard.
Not if it meant they would let her stay.
The door hissed open as they approached and they entered the room. Clamorous voices shocked the girl and her eyes flicked to the top of her lowered gaze, catching four figures around the table, animatedly shouting. 
“-can’t fucking believe I missed all the action-“
“If Doc wasn’t so good, you would be dead. So maybe chill out a bit.”
“It wasn’t that ba- d.”
Conversation spluttered as four sets of eyes fell on her. The girl stared down at her feet, willing the metal to swallow her whole. 
“Kid, this is some of my crew.” Hef gestured to the table and the girl forced her eyes up to follow the movement.  
“Montoya.” A bronze skinned human stared back, thick black hair tied back behind their neck. No visible weapons that the girl could clock. 
“Manny.” Gun. Dark brown skin, dreads pulled up in a large bun. There was a wide clear bandage wrapped around an injury his upper arm. 
“Emily.” Gun. Definitely something in her boot. Maybe something on the other hip. Blonde, tanned human woman with a nasty looking black eye starting to form. 
“Pilar.” The girl’s jaw slackened slightly at the sight of her pearlescent white hair, likely augmented somehow. The young Asian woman was the only one of the four to smile back immediately, giving a little wave. 
“Crew, this is-“ Hef stumbled for a moment, looking back down to the lank haired huddled form next to her. “Uh, this is the kid. Introduce yourselves. Behave.”
An order. The girl straightened up, heart racing to clog her throat. Had she been doing something wrong already? She had probably been staring,  just taking in the humans sitting around the table. 
The one called Montoya stared at her curiously, peering over top of a pair of tinted glasses. Pilar broke the silence, catching the girl’s eyes looking over her hair. 
“Hey kid, nice to meet you! I’m Pilar. I work with Doc.” She gave a genuine grin, so kind it hit like a punch. Pilar raised her eyebrows slightly to Emily, who got the message. 
“Hey, yeah. I’m Emily.” The blonde gave a smile too, thought it didn’t take up her whole face.  “Hef said that you were bunking with me and Pilar.” It was hard for the girl to not let her eyes flicker down to the holster at her side. 
The girl found herself nodding slightly, though she held tighter and tighter to the pillow and blankets in her arms. This was the most well armed group of humans she had seen in her life. And they were all clearly fighters. 
Emily jammed an elbow into the man sitting beside her. “Ow,” he moaned, rubbing his arm. “Anyways,” Manny gave a small wave, “same deal. I’m Manny. I’m a security officer, like Emily. And you are lucky you don’t have to share with me, Montoya and those other fucks. Pee-ew, it gets bad.” He let out a loud bark of a laugh. The only reaction from the others was eyerolling. 
Emily interrupted — “At least your room has six bunks for the four of you!” 
“Yours has four for three people, that’s like basically the same ratio!” Manny shot back, waving his arm across the table. 
The dark haired person cleared their throat slightly. “And moving on from that, as you may have guessed, I’m Montoya.” They cracked a slightly smile. The emotion coming off of them wasn’t as forceful as the others and the girl found herself relaxing slightly. “I’m our weapons specialist. I also deal with a lot of our tech upgrades, hacking, et cétéra.” 
Emily and Manny were still talking over each other, slowly getting louder. Pilar kept trying to make eye contact with her. The girl swayed slightly, fatigue and symptoms of exhausted adrenaline stores began to weigh heavily in the face of all this new input. 
Hef flashed her a glance before clearing her throat. “All right that’s it for now. I’m gonna get the kid settled. Y’all better not think you can slack off today just because you killed some Batarian scum.” She waved off a grumble of complaints as she guided the kid out of the room. 
The girl’s ears pricked for whispers as Hef led her out of the mess, not bothering to wave shut the door behind them. 
“So that’s her, eh?”
“Huh.”
“Fuck. Wish I’d got more of them.”
“You almost DIED-“
It wasn’t a large ship and they only took one turn left before Hef waved open a door, gesturing inside. 
The room was a narrow berth with four narrow bunks built out from the walls. Storage was beneath the cots. It looked like the two spare beds had been used as extra storage but the pile of clothes and stack of books had been all transférés to the left side one, leaving the bed closest to the door empty. 
A warm hand landed heavily on the girl’s shoulder and she violently flinched, hands reaching up clenched into fists. The pillow and blanket tumbled to the ground.
“Woah, hey.” Hef took a step back with her arms bent up in the air, eyebrows raised in shock. “It’s all good, kid.”
The girl looked at her own hands with fear before forcing them back down to her sides. She made to bend down to pick up the dropped supplies but Hef got there first, scooping them up to carry them to the spare bed. 
“It’s all good.” Hef repeated, smoothing down the mattress cover. “It’s been a hell of a day. Let’s save the meeting of the rest of the crew for later.” 
The muscular woman gave the bed a pat before backing up out the door past the girl, careful to leave sufficient room around her. “You get some rest. We can talk more later. Just get someone to help you come find me when you are up, alright?”
The girl nodded and inched backwards into the room, letting Hef fill the doorway. Her hand brushed over the blanket, eyes ducking around the room to avoid staring back at the warm ones looking down at her.
“Uh, okay. Yeah.” Hef tapped against the door frame. She opened her mouth to say something but it was eaten by the silence of the room. Instead, she just knocked a couple more times and turned to leave. “Rest up, kid.”
Hef left the door open out into the hallway. Footstep echoes grew quiet as she marched back the way they had come from. Sixty seconds. The girl stood frozen, counting in her head. 
Sixty more, for safety. 
Maybe one more round. Just to make sure. 
When it finally felt like she was alone, the girl stepped towards the door, daring to peek out into the hallway. 
Safe. For now. The girl waved the door shut, figuring the warning the opening hiss would give her would have to be enough if she had to run. Or hide. Or fight. 
The mattress sunk under her weight as she kicked off the slides Doc had given her and swung her legs up. It was forbiddenly comfortable, soft as a stolen moment of quiet. 
Fear froze her in place; every clank was the sound of the Batarian vessel latching on. Bootsteps were Balak approaching the door, ready to rip it from its frame. 
Exhaustion took her finally, the sweet darkness of a tired mind. The girl surrendered easily to it. If she died, she died. But for now, she lived. 
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jeanmoreaue · 9 months
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can madeline miller pls just write a retelling of medusa already
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platinumhairsimblr · 3 months
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-Escape 01-
"Can't Move..." "Can't..." "What did they inject me with..." "Pascal...? Mommy...? Daddy...?" "Need help... need a doctor..."
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kamiiri · 3 months
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Johnny trembled as Circe approached him with the needle. When it pierced his skin, he yelped and clenched his eyes shut. Soon, he was drifting in and out of consciousness, and the last thing he saw before he succumbed to the tranquilizer was the evil smile on Circe’s face.
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nikoisme · 2 months
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hi hi so 1) you seem very very cool and i thought u should know that :D and 2) GREEK MYTHOLOGY PET PEEVE???
(mine is that one 500(?) rewriting of the Perseus myth where there's a happy ending and the guy that sent him didn't actually want to marry his mother and get him killed)
(i think it's perseus i might be going a wee bit mad and it's another hero that starts with P)
Aaa thank you so muchh!! :'D I'm really happy you think that hahaha
I think my pet peeve is the Telegony. I really don't like the Telegony. It just doesn't make much sense and kind of goes against a lot of the things the iliad and the odyssey established. Of course there are going to be different versions of the myths,, but this is just a big no for me lmaoo
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sporesgalaxy · 2 years
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ok well im sorry that this is kind of ultimately very sad but the concept slots into my thoughts on Caleb too perfectly for my brain to let go of
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shesthespinstersimmer · 2 months
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Pics from this shoot can also be found in the NSFT CALENDAR - you can find it here 💋
Happy love day, y’all 💖
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