Sunshine Challenge #4
Jul. 13th, 2021 08:46 pm
Prompt 4: The Furies
The Furies, also known as the Erinyes, are a trio of vengeance deities whose immortal task is to hear complaints of insolence from mortals—and to punish those crimes by hounding the culprits relentlessly. They are said to focus on punishment for lying, killing, or sinning against the gods, but any lawbreaking was indeed punishable by them.
Ponders.
Vengeance. Hounding the culprits relentlessly. Punishment for lying, killing or sinning against the gods.
Hmm. Well, not forgetting that my fic is generally speaking full of all the fluff, there's A Tale of Torment and Sweet Revenge, which sounds appropriate. La Leyenda is about wreaking vengeance on someones who perpetrate badnesses, various, so that'll do. (Also, dragon!) And perhaps Thriller fits the 'hounding the culprits relentlessly' part of the theme. One can hound Chris all the time, really. He's always guilty of something! All popslash, the latter two are AUs and could, I think, be read as original fic.
Food and Tricksy are set in my Chronicles universe, and involve Chrisfer and Lancyn in punishing some wrongdoers, so I think that's also fair.
There is also, ahaha, a very elderly fic from before my LiveJournal days, called Revenge of the Gnomes. It's set in the world of The Archers, a very long-running BBC radio serial about farming folk. There's a smidge of background given, and you don't really need more. Reads like crack, but isn't, exactly.
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I rather approve of the Erinyes. I like the idea of people being hounded and punished for wrong-doing. They'd be pretty busy, these days. I'd like to think of Andrew Wakefield being tormented all the time, for lying, killing and—I think we can make a case for this one—sinning against the gods. Bastard. I hope he suffers.
What they are, really, are the personifications of Conscience, of the knowledge of one's own guilt. They don't bother with the little stuff—stealing a donut with a maple glaze doesn't qualify, even if you did blame your brother, the Furies aren't interested. We need them for the big stuff, though, because the people who commit the big sins don't seem to have consciences. If we could but set them onto those sinners who blithely enough get away with crimes against other human beings and don't even seem to notice or care that they committed them.
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You know, this guy might be a minor deity fit for modern times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4T_LlK1VE4