#A Place Called Silence

[chineseredcarpet]

Wang Yuwen shows support to Justin Huang Minghao as she attended the premiere of A Place Called Silence with Lin Yi & Qin Xiaoxian

[oceanusborealis]

A Place Called Silence (Mo Sha, 默杀) - Movie Review

TL;DR – A film that wanted to be murky in its depiction of crime but ended up being muddled and frustrating. ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 2.5 out of 5. Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.WARNING – Contains scenes that may cause distress. A Place Called Silence Review – Today, we are looking at a challenging film because it is filled with grand highs and…

[prolibytherium]

I never touched it but I feel like i only ever hear positive things said about song of achilles.. in (rough strokes at least) what makes it dogshit to you?

Okay it's been a while since I actually read it so some of this might not be spot on accurate. Sorry if at any point I say 'the book never does xyz' and it actually does once or twice but I think my underlying criticisms are accurate

-Patroclus is made into like this soft gentle tender quivering little yaoi boy. In the source text, he's shown as compassionate and moved by the suffering of his own men (and apparently having some medical skill, tending to the wounded in the camp), but very much invested n combat and very, very good at it (pages worth of descriptions of the guys he's killing left and right). In this, the arguably more complex character from this 8th century BC text is flattened into Being A Healer, he doesn't want to go to war he just wants to help people, he only goes because Achilles has to but he doesn't want to fight he's a HEALER he's a gentle lover NOT A FIGHTER who just wants to help he just wants to help everyone around him he HEALS while Achilles is a doomed warrior who is so good at fighting and KILLING its a DICHOTOMY GUYS!!!LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL SUN AND MOON DOOMED LOVERS SO SAD patocluse HEALER . (I Think he's specifically characterized as being BAD at fighting but might be misremembering)

-I don't remember much about Achilles' characterization I think it just makes him less of a jackass while not adding anything of interest and levels out into being mad boring.

-Not getting into the literal millenias old debate whether the mythological characters Achilles and Patroclus were being characterized as some type of lover by the original oral sources of the Iliad or its Homeric writers. We will never know. We don't even know what (if any) culturally accepted conventions of male homosexuality existed in bronze age Greece (we know much more about their descendants). But there are some interesting elements of their characterization in this direction, with how unconventional their relationship is WITHIN the text itself- Patroclus is described as cooking for Achilles and his guests (very specifically a woman/wife's job), Achilles chides Patroclus like a father, but there's also scene where Achilles' mourning of him directly echoes a passage of Hector's wife mourning her husband, Patroclus is explicitly stated to Achilles' elder, and is overall treated as his equal or near-equal, closest confidant and most beloved friend (to the point that pederastic classical Greeks would debate over who was erastes (older authority figure lover) and who was eromenos (adolescent 'beloved')- many took it as a given that this text depicted their present-day cultural norms of homosexual behavior but it existed so Outside of these norms that it had to be debated who was who). Their relationship is non-standard both within the text and to the descendants of the civilization that wrote them.

Basically what I'm saying is this book had opportunities to like, explore the unconventionality of the relationship (being presented here as explicitly lovers), explore the dynamics of why Patroclus wants to do 'women's work' (besides being a tenderhearted softboy), the weird dynamics where they take on paternal roles to each other but also roles of wives, how they feel about being this way, and just kind of Doesn't. Which I guess isn't an intrinsic fault (because it omits much of what I just talked about to begin with). it's just like.... Lame. This book takes jsut abandons everything interesting about the source text in favor of flattening it into bland Doomed Yaoi.

-The conflict that sets off the core story of the Iliad is Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over Briseis, an enslaved Trojan woman taken by Achilles as a war-trophy, Achilles spends most of the story moping because he was dishonored by his 'trophy' being taken. Achilles and Patroclus and everyone else are raping their captives, all the women in the story are either captured Trojans (or in the case of the free women within the walls of Troy, soon to be enslaved, and are slave owners themselves). Slavery as an institution and extreme patriarchal conventions are innate to the text and reflective of the context in which it was developed. You cannot avoid it.

But obviously you can't have your soft yaoi boys doing this, so the author has them capturing women to Protect Them from the other men. Their slaves are UNDER THEIR PROTECTION and VERY SAFE (and they might even Like And Befriend Them but I might be misremembering that. Briseis does though). Our heroes have apparently absorbed none of the ideals of the culture they exist in and the author seems to think "they're gay and aren't sexually attracted to their captives" would translate to them being outright benevolent (also as if wartime sexual violence is just about attraction and not part of a wider spectrum of violent acts to dehumanize and brutalize an accepted 'enemy')

In the source text, Briseis mourns Patroclus as being the kindest to her of her captors, who tried to get her a slightly better outcome by getting her married to Achilles (which probably would be the Least Bad of all possible outcomes for a woman in that situation, becoming a legal wife instead of a slave), and wonders what will happen to her now that he's gone. This is a really really sad, horrible, and compelling dynamic which could be fleshed out in very interesting ways but is instead is tossed entirely aside in favor of them being Besties. Like brother and sister.

All of the above pisses me off so much. If you don't want to engage in the icky parts of ancient/bronze age Greece then don't write a retelling of a story taking place in bronze age Greece. I'm not gonna get mad at children's adaptations of Greek myths or silly fun stories loosely based on them for omitting the rape and slavery but it is SO fundamental to the Iliad. If you're not willing to handle it, either fully omit it or better yet set your Iliad inspired yaoi in an invented swords-and-sandals setting where you can have all your heartbreaking tragic doomed lovers plot beats and not have to clumsily write around the women they're brutalizing.

-The author didn't seem to know what to do with Thetis and she made her just like, Achilles bitch mother who spends most of the story trying to separate our Yaoi Boys (iirc her disguising Achilles as a girl and hiding him on Scyros is made to be more about getting him away from Patroclus than trying to save her son from his prophesied doom in the Trojan War) until she sees how much they loooove each other and I think helps Patroclus' spirit get to the afterlife or something in the end?

-This is more of a personal taste gripe but it has that writing style I loathe where the prose feels less like a story and more like an attempt to string together Deep Beautiful Hard Hitting Poetic Lines that will look great as excerpts on booktok (might predate booktok but same vibe). It's all very Pretty and Haunting and Deep but feels devoid of real substance.

I really like The Iliad and The Odyssey in of themselves. They're fascinating historical texts that give a window into how 8th century BC Greeks told their stories, saw their world, interpreted their ancestors, etc. And genuinely I think these texts have 'good' characters, there's a lot of complexity and humanity to it.

WRT the Iliad- all of the main Achaeans are pretty fascinating, the one singular part where Briseis Gets To Talk and laments her situation is great, Achilles fantasizing that all of the Trojans AND the Achaeans die so he and Patroclus alone can have the glory of conquering Troy (wild), Achilles asking to embrace Patroclus' shade and reaching out for him but it's immaterial (and the shade being sucked back underground with a 'squeak' (the squeak kinda gets me it's disturbing and sad)), Hecuba talking about wanting to tear out Achilles' liver and eat it in a (taboo, exceptioally pointed) expression of rage and grief for his mutilation of her son's corpse, just one tiny line where the enslaved women performing ritual wailing for their dead captors are described as using it as an outlet to 'grieve for their own troubles' is heartrending, etc. A lot of grappling with anger and grief and the inevitability of death, a lot of groundwork laid for characters that could be very interesting when expanded upon in the framework of a conventional novel.

And Song Of Achilles really doesn't do much with all that. I know a lot of my gripes here are kind of just "It's different from the Iliad", I would have thought of it as mostly mediocre and forgettable rather than infuriating if it wasn't a retelling (and I DEFINITELY have strong biases here). But I think the ways in which it is different are less just a product of a retelling (of course there's going to be omissions and differences) and more a complete and utter disinterest in vast majority of its own subject matter, to the book's detriment. I think a retelling has a point when it EXPANDS on the source, or provides a NEW ANGLE to the source. This book doesn't Really do either, it just shaves off the complexity of its source material, renders the characters into a really boring archetype of a gay relationship, and gives very little else. Its content boils down to a middling tragic romance that has been inserted into the hollowed out defleshed skeleton of the Iliad.

Bottom line: I definitely would not be as mad about it if I wasn't familiar with the source material but I think it's fair to expect a retelling to Engage with/expand on its source, and I also think it's weak purely on its own merits. This book was set up to disappoint Me specifically.

[therealmnemo]

*motions for my fellow trans afab peeps*

hey, I know that we've been dealing with transmeds using theyfabs to invalidate our existence... but you gotta understand that words can have different meaning and the widespread use of it by trans women right now is specifically with the meaning of someone that is afab and being transmisogynistic by trying to slap down their asab over trans women's real material complaints. look for context. theyfab isn't a slur and I'm honestly all in for that to be the most accepted context because I refuse to validate a transmed's train of thought. I will listen to trans women though when they talk about their oppression, and you should too.

*pats you on the back* good talk

[snzluv3r]

wow you people are fucking weird not everything needs to be discourse??? just let disabled people have feelings and boundaries??? so weird to speak over a marginalized group on an issue you clearly know nothing about just because you misinterpreted the conversation in the first place. disgusting i’ve seen the language “moral panic” and “catastrophizing” to gaslight disabled people while simultaneously trying to say you “get we’ve been left behind in this pandemic”…as we try to speak about how this pandemic is affecting us

[dustyhyena]

my partner keeps putting the fuckijg fairies with figgy pudding post on my dash i am going to kill them

[chirpsythismorning]

In film, mirrors are often used for moments of reflection, obviously, both the physical and emotional kind, but they are also used for moments of deceit, deception, dejection, juxtaposition, contrast and comparison, distortion, delusion, breaking down and breaking through.

The fact that they took the time to have Mike face his reflection in one scenario, like head on, but not in the other, despite both scenes including a mirror, feels extremely intentional.

El looking in the mirror is for the obvious reasons, as she is using it for its purpose, to look and see the physical changes and feel some way about it emotionally, based on her experiences leading her up to this point. Though for Mike, the meaning is not the same. And we see that in how they choose to film these scenes differently in regards to Mike and what is being implied in each scene.

Basically, there is a significance to them making a point to awkwardly put Mike dead center in the middle of the frame facing the mirror beside El when she looks most feminine, as it also creates this feeling of reflection for Mike, but I would argue it's also deceit/uncertainty, based on the fact that it is shot really eerily in this case.

For one thing, he's not following the rule of thirds, whereas El is. This meant the audience would feel inclined to focus on El because she is following a more common rule of framing than Mike is. And yet once you really look at it, Mike being in the middle just standing still, almost emotionless, feels like you're seeing something under the surface that is just barely within reach, hence why they filmed it the way they did.

Side note: Think of the snowball scene, where the camera has Dustin in the frame following rule of thirds, in focus, whereas Mike is smack dab in the middle not in focus. Most people were focused on Dustin, though putting Mike in the frame in the middle feels important despite that, because it's the damn middle.

A few episodes later, we get a parallel to the first pretty scene and with Mike present again, only they are alone this time. In this scenario, El looks less feminine, and in contrast to the first scene, Mike is not being forced to look in the mirror and reflect. This is because in this case there is no deception to confront since he is most attracted to El in this state and therefore he isn’t deceiving himself. This is also why he's forced to look down uncomfortably at himself, followed by overcompensating...

[doctorwhoisadhd]

thinking about putting together a murray gold leitmotif fakebook

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 49🚨

He had just been crowned the khagan's Heir. With Nesryn as his potential bride. Potential, to Aelin's amusement, because Nesryn herself wasn't so keen on being empress of the mightiest empire in the world.

But what Sartaq had said— Elide blurted, "You mean to not go to Terrasen?" Aelin kept still, her fingers curling at her sides.

"Terrasen needs aid," Rowan said, his face the portrait of steely calm as he surveyed their new allies and old friends.

"And yet Terrasen has not called for it," Hasar countered, utterly unfazed by the wall of Fae warriors glowering at her. Exactly the sort of person Aelin had hoped she'd be when she wrote to her all those months ago.

Chaol cleared his throat. Gods above, Chaol was walking again. And married to Yrene Towers, who had healed him.

A thread in a tapestry. That's what it had felt like the night she'd left the gold for Yrene in Innish. Like pulling a thread in a tapestry, and seeing just how far and wide it went.

All the way to the southern continent, it seemed. And it had rippled back with an army and a healed, happy friend. Or as happy as any of them might be at the moment.

Aelin glanced sidelong to Rowan. Found him already staring at her. We'll convince them to go to Terrasen, her mate said silently.

"It's back," he panted, gaping at Nesryn. "For days now, I swore I felt something, noted changes, but today it just all came back."

Nesyn angled her head, her curtain of dark hair sliding over an armored shoulder. "Who…"

Borte squeezed the young man's arm. "Falkan. It's Falkan, Nesryn." Prince Sartaq stalked to Nesryn's side, graceful as any Fae warrior. "How." But the young man had turned toward Aelin, eyes narrowing. As if trying to place her.

Then he said, "The assassin from the market in Xandria."

Aelin arched a brow. "Hopefully, the horse I stole didn't belong to you." A cough from Fenrys. Aelin threw the warrior a grin over her shoulder.

"I was always young," Falkan muttered. "I just didn't look it." His gray eyes again found Aelin's. "I gave you a piece of Spidersilk."

For a heartbeat, the then and the now blended and wobbled. "The merchant," Aelin murmured. She'd last seen him in the Red Desert-looking twenty years older. "You sold your youth to a stygian spider."

"You two know each other?" Nesryn gaped.

"The threads of fate weave together in strange ways," Falkan said, then smiled at Aelin. "I never got your name."

Hasar chuckled from the other side of the desk. "You already know it, shifter."

Before Falkan could figure it out, Fenrys stepped forward. "Shifter?"

But Nesryn said, "And Lysandra's uncle." Aelin slumped into the chair beside Chaol's.

Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up, she found him near laughter.

"What's so funny, exactly?" she hissed.

Rowan smirked. "That for once, you are the one who gets knocked on your ass by a surprise."

Aelin stuck out her tongue. Borte grinned, and Aelin winked at the girl.

But Falkan said to Aelin and her companions, "You know my niece."

"Lysandra is my friend, and Lady of Caraverre," Aelin said. "She is not with us," she added upon Falkan's hopeful glance toward the tent flaps. "She's in the North."

Not their considerable beauty, but their size, their pointed ears, their weapons and elongated canines. Aelin whispered conspiratorially to the girl, "Make them roll over before you offer them a treat."

Lorcan glared, but Fenrys shifted in a flash, the enormous white wolf filling the space.

Hasar swore, Sartag backing away a step, but Borte beamed. "You are all truly Fae, then." Gavriel, ever the gallant knight, sketched a bow. Lorcan, the bastard, just crossed his arms.

Yet Rowan smiled at Borte. "Indeed we are."

Borte whirled to Aelin. "Then you are Aelin Galathynius. You look just how Nesryn said." Aelin grinned at Nesryn, the woman leaning against Sartaq's side. "I hope you only said horrible things about me."

"Only the worst," Nesryn said with dead flatness, though her mouth twitched.

But Falkan whispered, "The queen," and fell to his knees.

Hasar laughed. "He never showed that sort of awe when he met us."

Sartaq lifted his brows. "You told him to turn into a rat and scuttle away."

Aelin hoisted up Falkan by the shoulder. "I can't have my friend's uncle kneeling on the ground, can I?"

"You said you were an assassin." Falkan's eyes were so wide the whites around them gleamed. "You stole horses from the Lord of Xandria—"

"Yes, yes," Aelin said, waving a hand. "It's a long story, and we're in the middle of a war council, so..."

"Piss off?" Falkan finished

Aelin laughed, but glanced to Nesryn and Sartaq. The former jerked her chin to Falkan. "He's become our spy of sorts. He joins us in these meetings." Aelin nodded, then winked at the shifter. "I suppose you didn't need me to slay that stygian spider after all."

But Falkan tensed, his attention going to Nesryn and Sartaq, to Borte, still gawking at the Fae males. "Do they know?"

Aelin had a feeling she'd need to sit down again. Chaol indeed patted the chair beside him, earning a chuckle from Yrene. Doing herself a favor, Aelin indeed sat, Rowan taking up his place behind her, both of his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. His thumb ran along the nape of her neck, then drifted over the mating marks again scarring one side thanks to the seawater they'd used to seal them. But as her muscles soothed beneath that loving touch, her soul with it, her breath remained tight.

It didn't get any better when Nesryn said, "The stygian spiders are Valg."

Silence.

"We encountered their kin, the kharankui, deep in the Dagul Fells. They came into this world through a temporary crack between realms, and remained afterward to guard the entrance, should it ever reappear."

"This cannot end well," Fenrys muttered. Elide hummed her agreement.

"They feed on dreams and years and life," Falkan said, a hand on his own chest. "As my friends have said the Valg do."

Aelin had seen Valg princes drain a human of every last drop of youth and vigor and leave only a dried corpse behind. She wouldn't put it past the spiders to have a similar gift.

"What does this mean for the war?" Rowan asked, his thumbs still stroking Aelin's neck.

"Will they join Erawan's forces is the better question," Lorcan challenged with a face like stone.

"They do not answer to Erawan," Nesryn said quietly, and Aelin knew. Knew from the look Chaol gave her, the sympathy and fear, knew in her bones before Nesryn even finished.

"The stygian spiders, the kharankui, answer to their Valg queen. The only Valg queen. To Maeve."

[marasschino]

what are your thoughts on shinjimina ?

Hmm

So I wasn't sure if you meant shinjimina as in femc and Shinjiro or mc and Shinjiro so I'll do both.

I'll start out w/ Kotone and Shinjiro since I have less thoughts here tbh. Shinjiro is probably one of my fave s-links for Kotone and even then I still kinda wish it was done better but the contrast between them hoo boy. Combined w/ the fact that these two are one of my favorite ship dynamics of "menace who will make anyone a friend and guy that begins to realize that people *do* care about him and that he does have people to go home to".

While it's certainly not my favorite ship w Kotone I can certainly see why it's one of the ships I see most often for both of them.

Now if you meant shinjimina as in Shinjiro and Minato then man I have got lots of thoughts about these two. Like as a concept they are something and I wish they had more canon interactions becuase Minato and Shinjiro are such parallels to each other it's crazy.

Like they both try to distance themselves from the people that they care about AND are simultaneously some of the most caring people in SEES. The first time Minato summons a persona he loses control and Thanatos basically rips out of his soul (and while you could argue that's Death ripping out of him I feel Thanatos is represented as part of Minato in a lot of canon and not part of death), and I'm pretty sure we all know about Shinji at this point. And just one more thing to add to this pile, is that they will both die for other people even if those other people don't want them to.

I just think if Minato had like one real reason to go and talk to Shinjiro like they both would've came out better for it, but they're both passive little shits so they were never gonna approach each other unless they *needed* to. They strike me as the type of duo that could've grown together as people and idk there's something special about that.

But in conclusion I wish there was more Shinjiro/Minato content like there is not enough of them and we gotta make up for that 😭

[chineseredcarpet]

Wang Shengdi for A Place Called Silence promos

[tenok]

.

[freecinemaa]

Место под названием Тишина A Place Called Silence (2024) Русский Free Ci...

[sheyearns]

Tag dump.

[appalachianapologies]

Hi bestie I’m resurrecting my tumblr for you <3

Can you write about Aled and Frances from Radio Silence in the future!

Here’s lots of pictures of Oso and Tiger being gremlins

tumblr resurrection muahaha! stinky baby piss boy oso and esteemed gentlemen gremlin tiger!!!!

prompts

Frances hasn’t been able to stop grinning for the past straight hour.

There’s absolutely nothing fun about unpacking what feels like hundreds of boxes, yet she couldn’t imagine anything else that she’d rather be doing right now.

“I think the kitchen light’s already out.”

Spinning around, she meets Aled’s eyes. “What?”

“Won’t turn on. Tried the switch a couple of times.”

“Lemme see, lemme see,” Frances replies, standing from her kneeling position over one of their numerous boxes. “Which one?”

Aled points above the stove with an eyebrow raised.

“Wait, we’ve only got one light in the whole kitchen?”

“It’s not really a luxury flat. Pretty small place.”

“Still. What’re we gonna do when it gets dark and we need to cook something?”

“We can just have dinner before it gets dark?”

Rolling her eyes, Frances counters, “Midnight snacks? What happens when it’s two AM and the inspiration hits but we’re too hungry to work on an episode? What’ll we do then?” Before Aled can even open his mouth, Frances continues, “Are we just gonna have to make mac ‘n cheese in the dark?”

There’s a smile on his face when Aled replies, “Or we can just dash to the store and get another bulb?”

Frances gives a few nods, before immediately changing her mind. “Well, now I’m kinda attached to an episode written in the dark. Could you picture it? A huge power outage in Universe City?”

Aled thinks about it for a split second. “Shall I go grab my laptop?”