I scarce need say how grateful I am to have by my side one so dear, one who once I lost to the hated gates of death.
[The warmth lighting his countenance soon wanes into solemnnity.]
It would be an affront to decency were a man to claim another man for his lover before all. A man makes public his wife and his bedmates, that no other man may impinge upon that which is rightfully his, but there is no need to make public a lover who too is a man. Such love I ought to have discarded by now, for I am at an age when a man must have a wife who shall bear him children - but how am I to cut from my heart he who is my second self?
[This explanation is heavy upon his tongue, for Achilles prides himself in honoring the principles of his fatherland, of fitting so seamlessly into the weave of Achaean tradition, and yet here is one snag that he cannot smooth, nor would he wish to.]
I am not ashamed of my love for Menoetius' son - not once have I been ashamed to love this man who to me appears as a god striding the earth. Yet this is how it must be in our dear native land. What of your home? You say that such was the case there too, but what of the present?
1/2 im sorry in advance for how long this will take
Well, that's... dated. [Even he's not going to completely stand for crossed cultural wires on one. "Rightfully his", really.] I'm fairly sure you've already figured this out, but marriage has definitely stopped being about your mate as property.
[But Achilles' words do much to reassure Jin. Achilles, a force of nature, the crash of wave upon jagged ocean rock, describes his emotions with a heart that is, unequivocally, full. All the bluster in the world could hardly take away from that: a man who speaks of love.
Perhaps he's just a romantic, after all. Or he's simply projecting again.]
You'll be pleased to discover that most other worlds do not place a limit of age upon love, though. Successors aside, no one would force the blade to your heart there. Or they shouldn't, anyway.
2/2 this is way heavier than a tag from an mk character should be
Jin's not deluded into believing that all of his relatives have shed their old habits, old customs, and old prejudices, not even for the nephew who'd followed directly in the shadowy footsteps of the Great Kung Lao himself. Much less the world itself. He bears an expression that speaks of something unsettled, not looking directly into Achilles' eyes through the feed: evidently, "was" is not quite gone.]
I should say that it's still that way. As I said, people are still coming around to it. Their gods, or the priests of those gods, anyway, condemn the love between two of the same sex. Sometimes, not even the act itself: just the idea that it could happen, or be possible, at all. There's no accepted period to experiment. It's just... something that shouldn't even occur in the first place.
I-- [Jin falters. It's almost too personal a story to tell, with wounds still fresh and hurts still newly dealt. Even over years, he's still a little hesitant to come forth with it all.] --thought I would be rejected completely, because of it. Many people still wouldn't approve of me, loving men alone. But it was a god who first told me that none of that mattered. [He wonders, distantly, if Raiden knows how those words had very well saved his life.] And more people understand, or try to understand, every day.
[Well does he know that in the eyes of much of this crew, the ways of his people are old-fashioned - backwards, a description he despises for it calls to his mind savages who neither work the land with plow nor tame the waves with ships. The more he sees of the ways in which men of other races and eras live, the wider his mind is tugged open, yet still his own traditions drape about him like well-worn clothing that he cannot cast aside. Thus he cannot see why a man would not have claim over his bride, she who has devoted herself to him, she whom he boasts for his treasure.
But this is not what this conversation is about: thus he tucks away such thoughts for another time and listens with keen interest.]
That your love should be condemned as are the twisted passions between parent and child...what an insult this is to bear. Among the Achaeans it would be greater cause for censure to lay insult against one's own father, or to trample upon the guest rights that almighty Zeus guards. At times I have wondered what aging Peleus might think if he knew of the passions that have long flourished between me and gentle-hearted Patroclus...but not once have I feared my father's condemnation.
[What is a snag in the fabric of his culture seems to be a deep rent in that of Jin's.]
Yet if a god protects the love you may bear for another man, then this ought to be all the assurance you require. The decrees that men make are as nothing to the deathless gods. Perhaps this goes without saying, but I shall not reject you for whom you love.
[Little does he know that Jin's boyfriend-to-be is a punk-ass bitch...
There follows a pause as he continues to ruminate over all that Jin has told him.]
Although, and I mean no insult by this-- I did not know that there live men whose hearts swell not with love for women, but only for men. Is it not natural that men should wish to lie with women, as is the way of our kind?
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[The warmth lighting his countenance soon wanes into solemnnity.]
It would be an affront to decency were a man to claim another man for his lover before all. A man makes public his wife and his bedmates, that no other man may impinge upon that which is rightfully his, but there is no need to make public a lover who too is a man. Such love I ought to have discarded by now, for I am at an age when a man must have a wife who shall bear him children - but how am I to cut from my heart he who is my second self?
[This explanation is heavy upon his tongue, for Achilles prides himself in honoring the principles of his fatherland, of fitting so seamlessly into the weave of Achaean tradition, and yet here is one snag that he cannot smooth, nor would he wish to.]
I am not ashamed of my love for Menoetius' son - not once have I been ashamed to love this man who to me appears as a god striding the earth. Yet this is how it must be in our dear native land. What of your home? You say that such was the case there too, but what of the present?
1/2 im sorry in advance for how long this will take
[But Achilles' words do much to reassure Jin. Achilles, a force of nature, the crash of wave upon jagged ocean rock, describes his emotions with a heart that is, unequivocally, full. All the bluster in the world could hardly take away from that: a man who speaks of love.
Perhaps he's just a romantic, after all. Or he's simply projecting again.]
You'll be pleased to discover that most other worlds do not place a limit of age upon love, though. Successors aside, no one would force the blade to your heart there. Or they shouldn't, anyway.
2/2 this is way heavier than a tag from an mk character should be
Jin's not deluded into believing that all of his relatives have shed their old habits, old customs, and old prejudices, not even for the nephew who'd followed directly in the shadowy footsteps of the Great Kung Lao himself. Much less the world itself. He bears an expression that speaks of something unsettled, not looking directly into Achilles' eyes through the feed: evidently, "was" is not quite gone.]
I should say that it's still that way. As I said, people are still coming around to it. Their gods, or the priests of those gods, anyway, condemn the love between two of the same sex. Sometimes, not even the act itself: just the idea that it could happen, or be possible, at all. There's no accepted period to experiment. It's just... something that shouldn't even occur in the first place.
I-- [Jin falters. It's almost too personal a story to tell, with wounds still fresh and hurts still newly dealt. Even over years, he's still a little hesitant to come forth with it all.] --thought I would be rejected completely, because of it. Many people still wouldn't approve of me, loving men alone. But it was a god who first told me that none of that mattered. [He wonders, distantly, if Raiden knows how those words had very well saved his life.] And more people understand, or try to understand, every day.
...
Hope that makes sense.
no subject
But this is not what this conversation is about: thus he tucks away such thoughts for another time and listens with keen interest.]
That your love should be condemned as are the twisted passions between parent and child...what an insult this is to bear. Among the Achaeans it would be greater cause for censure to lay insult against one's own father, or to trample upon the guest rights that almighty Zeus guards. At times I have wondered what aging Peleus might think if he knew of the passions that have long flourished between me and gentle-hearted Patroclus...but not once have I feared my father's condemnation.
[What is a snag in the fabric of his culture seems to be a deep rent in that of Jin's.]
Yet if a god protects the love you may bear for another man, then this ought to be all the assurance you require. The decrees that men make are as nothing to the deathless gods. Perhaps this goes without saying, but I shall not reject you for whom you love.
[Little does he know that Jin's boyfriend-to-be is a punk-ass bitch...
There follows a pause as he continues to ruminate over all that Jin has told him.]
Although, and I mean no insult by this-- I did not know that there live men whose hearts swell not with love for women, but only for men. Is it not natural that men should wish to lie with women, as is the way of our kind?