meiri, when we are talking threefold bullet or three and a half fold, what is your take on the dynamic and relationship between stamatwins themselves? i am of the opinion that since they consider each other to be the same, singular person often in text, they basically are, but what is your take? are they the same? are they that different? do you think they're actually close or distant? and if we're talking close, what do you think of, like, interpretation of them as an androgyne, don't really know how it's spelled correctly in english, mythological creature cut in half for hubris which people basically take as "see, romantic soulmates"?
oh this is one of my fave subjects to write about or rather to incorporate in writings where i center on peter going his own loving ways this is gonna be fun
okay i'm responding to the androgyne part right out of the gate: the mythological (Platonician, and i'm guessing you mean the Platonician myth because it is the most well-known and the one in which beings were cut in half) androgyne is half male, half female. [i'm not talking about the historical use of androgyne for intersex people nor the modern sense of androgyne as a gender identity or presentation this is about the MYTHOLOGICAL BEING, FROM PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM]
that's the ethymology of andro/gyne used very literally in plato's symposium (ἀνδρός/andros = man, as in the sexed/gendered being as opposed to άνθρωπος anthropos which is man as in humanity [think "mankind", "caveman" when both of these terms Also Include Woman] and γυνή/gynê = woman) so right out of the gate they're eliminated from the mythological androgyne story by virtue of being both men. and i'd argue them being both men is important to their lore and how they handle of concept of Conception/Creation and how they talk about the Polyhedron specifically (calling it "a child" or "a daughter"). the platonician myth of the androgyne does have the androgynes (and to be fair, all the other "pairs" (male-male, female-female, female-multiple & male-multiple beings) equally) punished for hubris, cleaved in half, and desperatly trying to reunite with their half, but at the core of this myth very much is the etiology of romantic & sexual desire: Eros. quoting Plato’s Symposium translated by Benjamin Jowett :
"Each of us who were separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a human being, and we are always looking for our other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous [Androgynes] are lovers of women; the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; lesbians are of this sort; peoples who were originally of two or more parts are of the sort we call ‘amphiphylóphilos’, ‘lovers of both’, and they are especially favored by Eros."
One of the thing that also happens with the Platonician Androgyne is that, before being cleaved in twain, they would reproduce asexually. upon being cleaved, when reunited, they starve to death and do nothing else from not wanting to do anything apart, so the gods rearrange their genitals around so they can reproduce as the people now do : the platonician myth of the Androgyne (and of the cleaving in twain) is about romantic and sexual desire, the drive for a romantic (soul)mate and reproduction. it is an etiological myth about sexual desire and sexual inclinations (why some women are not attracted (EROS! eros eros eros) to men, but to women: they once were one with another women; why some people are attracted to both men and women: because once a upon a time they were one with a man and a woman or more), as well as how we got to be a sexually reproductive species.
the term "soulmate" does apply to the twins, or rather, andrey tries his hardest for it to apply to them, but the platonician myth of the androgyne is Not about non-romantic soulmates.
tldr : platonician myth of the androgyne out of the equation because
1. it is about a being half male and half female, which the twins are not
2. or rather 1.5. it is thematically and narratively important that the twins are men for, to me, this greatly informs the way they act and speak about artistic Creation (goes for a lot of male artists irl tbh)
3. it is an etiological myth about sexed reproduction and the drive of romantic and sexual desire (EROS!!!!) which does not apply to the twins.
in my mind andrey is the one most attached to them as a single being. quoting him from PCHD :
- Twins are the two sides of a single person.
- I'm quite a quarreller—and I don't want to discredit my soulmate! [he means Peter]
and, interestingly enough, at the beginning, Peter is also quite keen on the "a single person" thing :
- You will make no mistake by calling me Peter. You can call me Andrey too, just for the sake of diversity, and it won't be wrong either.
BUT!!! and this is where i start salivating the evil gears of my mind start turning. on day 10, shit hath broken loose, and dankovsky comes seeking peter :
Dankovsky : Go help your brother. Do you know that he's been arrested? He's killed several people trying to help you.
Peter : ...That's fine. I've been suffering for ten years because of him.
now this is soooo delicious je m'en lèche les babines. we can imagine that the "for ten years because of him" refers to the murder of Farkhad which, in PCHD, was Andrey's sole doing (as far as he retells it). it can also be about the Polyhedron's constructin : something they so covetted and so desired that in my mind a man was killed for this, something they so protect and are so protective of, but which has driven peter mad. in these ten years, peter as sunk to the bottom. by day 10, he's trying to self-immolate. he's developped and is sustaining a debilitation alcohol addiction, alcohol of andrey's making.
i think andrey grasping at this belief that they are one (including la fameuse "The furnace of this catastrophe has molded me, my brother, and you into a single person… The fire of war has molded us into a threefold bullet. It's natural. We are one. The three sides of a single process.") because he's guilty. trying to cope with the fact that he has ruined is brother with his liquor, with his murder, with his completion of the polyhedron which, according to all, simply should not exist. and yet it does. haunted twofold. andrey, by presenting himself as peter's other face, is trying 1) cope with the distance that's growing between them, by his fault and 2) trying to protect him. when shit hits the fan, he's running after peter, there are mixups, dankovsky gets taken for him. by being peter's other face, andrey is trying to protect him.
here's what i think it is :
it is less "two sides of the same coin" than it is "two sides of a same shield". also fits with andrey's "I am the battering ram that clears his path." (P2). a shield has two faces: the one that takes the blow of the blade and the one inside. andrey is the face that takes the blade and peter the one inside. or rather he wishes he was.
when i write peterstakh (you're on the peterstakh blog you are told about peterstakh), andrey lives very poorly the fact that his brother is "breaking away" from him. quoting my own self:
“It’s you.”
“As much as me can be.”
“It is you… right?”
“As much as right can be.” Peter noticed the dimple between Rubin’s brows, this worried notch like a knife nick. “Don’t fret. I keep my doors locked.” He paused. “And Andrey wouldn’t want to touch you. Well, except to h—”
“Except to hit me.”
“He’s needlessly, mindlessly possessive. And a fool. He knows better than anyone else, even than myself, that you’re not fighting for the same honeycomb in me. He just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”
“What are you, his? Won’t he let yourself be you?”
“Less his than he at all. You already noticed.”
(Tenderopen Be Sir Carrion)
« Does it surprise you [that I haven't slept with any of my models] ? » Piotr asks [...].
« Quite different from your brother in this way, then—forgive me for getting ahead of myself. I heard he was… generous in his affections. »
[...] « He has… a way bigger heart than I do. Full of holes to let the light in… And people through.
— Do people compare you two often ?
— Too often for my taste, not often enough for his — or vice-versa, depending on the day. »
[...]
« He thinks seducing others this much protects me, in a way. That he spares me the woes of love by attracting them to him.
— That's commendable… I suppose.
— So do I. »
(Pierrot sur le Rivage, my own translation (it's in french originally lol))
TLDR : they're close. they're really close. to me even, because i love fun, they can do whatever the hell was happening with the Kains by the end of Bachelor's route : hopping back and forth between each other's bodies (<- this is a link to a lorepost i made), swapping consciousnesses. they believe they should have been born as one (conjoined), and where they imagine they once were stuck together in utero, the imaginary scar sometimes burn when they get too high or too drunk. they consider themselves halves of a whole, and it hurts.
it hurts because andrey hurt(s) peter, has been hurting him "for ten years". with the murder, with the alcohol, with the successful(?) construction of the polyhedron. andrey copes with his fault by insisting on his protective role, his front-shield face, his battering-ram head, because it helps ease the guilt of knowing it is his samogon, which he began distilling for selfish reasons, that is slowly making peter lose himself in the whirly depths of the bottle. showing themselves as "both sides of a whole" is a protective measure, yes, to blur where one ends and the other begin, so if they're hunted the hunters have twice as many men to pursue. it's also true.
peter is growing distant because he's in pain, he's sick, he's losing his mind, and gaining a love andrey has no control over.
to quote a fic i've been working on for years on and off
[Rubin] : "If you don't think his heart's big enough to contain the both of us in different chalbers, you can give him a piece of yours. I'll help cutting you up."
