i write tragedies not sins

With takes on Nolan's Odyssey making its rounds....

Just know, I am weeping

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but Menelaus was not the villain Hollywood loves to make him. Helen was not the abused wife and adulterer Hollywood loves to make her.

Helen CHOSE Menelaus out of all the suitors she had presented to her. Menelaus was not Spartan. Helen of Sparta, aka the princess of Sparta, aka a Spartan woman.

Helen was a demigod and Spartan princess, born to be the step daughter of King Tyndareus of Sparta. Helen and her brother Pollux were the only two demigods born of eggs after Zeus, disguised as a swan, raped their mother Leda. Pollux and Castor were half-brother twins, just as Clytemnestra and Helen were half-sister twins. Leda gave birth to quadruplets, something no one ever fucking mentions besides the eggs that often get brought up. They were an example of heteropaternal superfecundation, aka multiple ovum being fertilized by sperm from one or multiple males.

Sometimes it is said that Pollux and Helen were in one egg, and Castor and Clytemnestra were in another, one egg being fathered by Zeus and the other by Tyndareus. Regardless, Pollux and Helen got the godly glamour and praise, while Castor and Clytemnestra were just mortal. (Fun fact: Pollux prayed to Zeus to let him share his immortality with a dying Castor so they would never be apart, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini--whenever you see Gemini symbols, that's Pollux and Castor; the more you know!)

But back to Helen being Spartan: Spartan women had the most rights out of any woman in the whole Greco world. They controlled the finances of the house. They could divorce their husbands and demand they be marked if there was domestic violence. If they died in childbirth, they were given the same honors as warriors who died in battle. Helen was a princess and demigod, but she most importantly was a Spartan woman.

Then we have Menelaus and Agamemnon (he murdered his daughter for wind; Clytemnestra did nothing wrong--fight me on it and you will die like Agamemnon in that bloody bath water; Clytemnestra had every right to stab that man mercilessly, with all the fury festering in her Spartan heart) These two stayed in Troy as exiles from their own throne in Mycenae (there is a whole wacky era of incest, cannibalism, and so much more--go read about the House of Atreus, wild times indeed).

Helen and Clytemnestra knew who these sons of Atreus were. Menelaus was described as golden haired, and a skilled warrior, especially when compared to his brother. So when they took their throne back and Agamemnon ascended the throne as the eldest, they were back on top of the pecking order. Just so happened that Helen was of age to marry.

You're telling me that when presented with a bunch of varying men and boys, Helen WASN'T going to choose the hot one she grew up around? The buff golden haired hunk of a prince? The guy she knew was devoted to her and wouldn't let another man touch her? Get out of here.

Menelaus wouldn't hurt a fucking hair on Helen's head. It is why he dropped to his knees in the Iliad and cast his sword aside, and bared his fucking chest to her and she could have killed him but she chose to go home with him. It is why there is a damn play about Helen being spirited to Egypt and her hijinks of trying to get home to her husband and kid and how excited she is when he shows up to whisk her away.

In short... go read my Stiles!Helen of Troy fanfic. It has small mention of implied mpreg and yet is far more accurate than Nolan's interpretation. And made with a significantly smaller budget.

of gods & monsters

“I’m not the best at conversation. I’ve been told I have no finesse for it.” Stiles took a step closer to Derek, pushing the billowing silk out of the way. “And what would you say if you looked at me now?” Derek looked up, startled for a moment when he realized he was now looking at Stiles’ unveiled face. He was silent for a beat, taking in Stiles’ features for the first time, convinced he would never see such beauty unveiled for him alone.

enjoy, darlings [See author note for content warnings]

Duke Edmund Seamus Hale was dying.

Derek had been uninterested in his father’s ailing health, even when cautioned that the Duke could be experiencing the last of his breaths. He sat in a chair lingering on the outskirts of the room, his head resting in his hand as he listened to his mother’s soft weeping.

His mother had been humiliated in retrieving her wayward eldest son from one of his establishments. Her tears did little to hide how appalled she was by the capital venture that had been sustaining her eldest.

Gambling dens and brothels were the underbelly of such societies, and were viewed as shameless regardless of the elite status of many of Derek’s clients.

And Derek was pleased by her disgust.

“Derek, please,” Talia had hissed under her breath as he forced her to stand in the welcoming parlor of the gambling hall. “He won’t last through the night.”

“Devils last longer than that,” Derek had huffed, retrieving his watch from his waistcoat. He grimaced at the timing. “Fine,” he growled. He gestured for his mother to head towards the exit. “If they are truly his last breaths, I can hardly risk missing them.”

Despite his current status as excommunicated from the Duke’s good graces, the truth was blatantly obvious: Derek would always be welcomed back.

The eldest son returned at his dying father’s firm and urgent request. If Derek had to miss one night of profit in order to witness his father’s death, it would be money well lost. He trusted his people to handle anything that arose in his absence.

Derek had forgotten that despite his father’s death rattles, he would be enduring his mother’s sobs. He had grown tired of the theatrics, impatiently checking his watch once more.

“Perhaps we should ask the healer back,” Laura sighed.

“They said there wasn’t anything else they could do,” Cora replied.

“I meant perhaps they could give mother something,” Laura grumbled.

Derek’s eyes flickered between his family members present.

Laura looked ever the stoic eldest daughter, her mourning veil carefully draped over her face as she nestled her newborn daughter in her arms. She had been widowed months ago, and had expressed a disheartened sigh when realizing she would have to prolong the mourning period should their father actually be taken by death this time.

Cora tapped her thumb against the porcelain of her tea cup, uncaring when her younger brother cast a sharp glare at her, as if the faint noise of her impatience would insult anyone with how hidden it was by their mother’s sobs. She had been adamant that Derek not go alone, though was regretting her choice once she realized she would have to stay. Being younger and female helped to hide her from their father’s expectations.

Erol, youngest and most treasured by their mother, was the only child who dared to show any type of respect to the dying Duke. It had been the norm over the last decade, a majority of the Hale children finding no comfort in the presence of their father.

Of course, Erol was under the delusions, and likely the false promises of their mother, that the Duke would consider changing how his title passed.

It was pure arrogance on Erol’s part.

Despite Erol’s constant and unwavering loyalty to the Duke, the man would never change tradition and bypass his eldest son. Besides, the Duke passed on some of his own vices to his youngest son, and knew there would be ruin for the Hale name with Erol at the helm.

It was why Erol hated Derek, and had been vocal of his hopes for Derek’s death to come from one of his more than shady connections.

Derek didn’t assimilate to the rules of the underworld after leaving the cage of his father’s orbit, he had become a foundational pillar to it. He clothed, fed, and housed the misfortuned poor—he gave money to the orphanages when his father had cut funding in government; he gave transport of medicine at no extra cost on his shipping vessels when the pandemics worsened; he gave disabled soldiers jobs in his gambling dens that kept them from the streets and poorhouses.

The truth was blindingly clear to all in the sharp reality of the Duke’s impending passing—Duke Edmund would never give his title to Erol, despite the latter’s asskissing.

Derek’s eyes landed on the one person he had been hoping to see.

Stiles.

I am going through all my old stuff in external hard drives.

And I found a lot of fics that I can edit and maybe change the storyline of, but I also found fics based off of old requests/suggestions. I might start posting those, some of the writing is old so I don't feel great about posting it as is.

The tropes are very much my old bread and butter, aka regency and historical. Some have mpreg, some have a/b/o.

My vampire!Stiles arranged marriage with werewolf!Derek stalled with some creative issues so I want to try and get an outlet to explore with other stories while that one marinates.

Hello!

Oh wow! This is such a nice thing to hear.

Yes, of course! I have said in the past that I don't mind if people download and/or print out my fics for their own personal use. That stands for if people want to make them into books for themselves.

I just ask that they are never used to make money off of, because that is where copyright infringement and risk of things come in when focused on fanfic.

Oh wow! I have never had someone ask to do a podfic of my work. That is so amazingly nice of you.

I am glad to know you’ve enjoyed my work enough to want to do this.

I only ask that you let me know where it is published once it is (I don’t know much about podfics, if it is on AO3 we can do a “related work” type of thing) and allow me to link to it and to (obviously) give me some sort of credit just so people know this is a collaborative transformative work.

Other than that, I look forward to seeing your work! And thank you so much for enjoying my writing and for conversing with me about this.