#Here you go Narrator.
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Help I made myself sad. (spoiler below the cut)
#Slay the Princess#stp#stp spoilers#Why did I do this?#Base curiosity.#Here you go Narrator.#I destroyed the Shifting Mound. Just like you asked.#Except neither of us were destroyed. Rather our consciousnesses came undone in the infinite emptiness of the construct.#Okay yeah ultimate bad end for everyone. Nobody gets to be happy.#I know I'm being silly here in the tags but I was almost crying through this. I'm still upset about it.#Mounds I'm sorry I'll never let you die again.#Only infinite loops and leaving the cabin for us now!
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Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#Sorry to everyone who was looking forwards to this comic only to find out I put WWX in the ugliest outfit.#Continuity came first. Plus let's be honest; he did *not* show up in anything fancy. Or in all black as seen in most fanart.#We are at the middle of WWX depression arc. His self-care was 100% because Jin Yanli would be sad if he didn't try to look nice.#Okay okay. Fine I've delayed talking about the kiss long enough.#It is absolutely a core LWJ scene over a WWX scene. Which is made even more fascinating because we don't get his POV.#But we get so many insights! His loss of control and his firmness all contrasted against how he trembles.#And all of that wrapped up in a wonderful self-loathing bow! You go Lan Zhan! You hated yourself so much for this!#WWX is a hilarious narrator for this because he is truly just...baffled by what's going on.#He would push the person away but he doesn't want to hurt their feelings or pride (putting other people first again are we?)#I do understand why this one is divisive for people though. I choose to look at it through a character/humourous lens.#I've seen people defend and admonish this scene as a particularly shitty thing LWJ did and let's be very clear here: It was.#That's why I like it. LWJ did a shitty thing and struggles with it. It's part of what makes him so robust as a character.#It's also fine if you enjoy this scene for it's eroticism. You're not a bad person for that. You are just A Person.#People will have their own experiences with this topic. Be kind to each other alright?
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This little NPC is lost. The Narrator [Black] has come to guide her back to where she needs to be. [Blank Scripts AU]
I imagine Black would be a lot more tolerant toward his NPCs since they're basically just the Dungeons spawns, and by extension, his own creations.
[If you're familiar with manhwas / manhuas that features the dungeon / system genre, you'd be able to understand this AU a lot easier. The majority of my inspiration for worldbuilding came from those specific genres.]
[NOTE: 'Dungeon' is just another term for the Parable. Technically, Black owns a Dungeon and the Parable is just a small part of it. The Dungeon itself is much, much larger.]
For context, the comic below references this post about the Dungeon's children/guard dogs.
[They're more like the immune system since all they do is make sure the (body) is safe.]
[The reason the Narrator [Black] considers them his children is that the Dungeon is feeding off his energy and in turn shares the 'nutrients' to the monsters it produces, which transforms them into an image that resembles his power.]
And the old man below is Joseph!
Joseph is NOT AN NPC! He is a person who exists outside of the Dungeon!
[There are two separate 'worlds' for this AU. Inside the Dungeon (where most of the game-like stuff is happening) and the world outside (pretty much their normal world.)]
[There is a secret third world, and that's our world. Our reality.]
These characters are not actually important or anything, I just made them to make the AU feel more lively. To make a world that exists, you know?
When the Narrator [Black] first established himself in their world, he found a growing problem with homelessness. Not understanding human norms or why this has become a problem in the first place, he offers (tricks) them into working for him as janitors for the Dungeon and they accept for the money.
Most of them left after they got paid, but Joseph was one of the people who stayed. He doesn't have anywhere else to go and has no ambitions in life. He just wishes to live a peaceful life with food and a roof over his head.
Joseph defaults to referring to the Narrator [Black] with feminine terms due to his appearance despite his voice. The Narrator [Black] is not the type to care for such terms anyway so he doesn't care how other people refer to him as long as there's respect.
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This post focuses more on the worldbuilding and background aspects of the AU! There are a lot more in store for the Blank Scripts AU, and I want to explore more on how the characters might interact with their surroundings and how this would work to make a world that makes sense.
It would be so cool if people made self-inserts or OCs for my AU actually. I'd love to see how you guys would work with my stuff. Play around with it like a barbie world for your little barbie dolls. Be canon compliant, be canon divergent, who cares, have fun.
#tsp blank scripts au#I REALLY HOPE I'M MAKING SENSE HERE#this AU is genuinely so big in my head#I barely know how to navigate my way around it to show bits and pieces to my audience little by little so that you get what's up first#before I just dump a truck-full of lore on top of you and expecting you to just understand what the heck I'm on about#because I'm pretty sure if I don't introduce you to the world first you're just not gonna understand what's going on half of the time#let's take it slow okay? sorry if some of these posts come off as boring#I just really love this AU and I'd love to show it to you in a presentable and palatable way so that we can both be on the same level of-#-understanding this AU together#you know what I mean?#and also because I just wanted some background/side characters interactions#tsp au#tsp oc#the stanley parable#the stanley parable ultra deluxe#tsp#tspud#tsp narrator#narrator tsp#my drawing museum
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now, people are free to think whatever they like, i won't tell them that they're wrong, but i'm not sure i entirely agree with the idea that 432 is responsible for the skip button ending happening the way that it did,
rather... i think, quite literally, that they had no hand in it.
#uwu art#The Stanley Parable#The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe#TSP Skip Button#Skip Button Ending#TSP Settings Person#TSP Timekeeper#TSP Employee 432#TSP 432#NOW that i posted them now I can Post About Them#featuring something that was supposed to be a warmup & turned into something else#i honestly think the skip button ending was a result of the narrator's self-consciousness & just Terrible circumstances & some hypothetical#* third party interference#but that third party is not 432 nor anyBODY really present in the game#but the game itself#but i definitely am onboard with thinking 432 saw what was going on & did nothing to help#not in a ' fuck you narrator suffer ' type way just ' that's his bed he can lie in it i just work here ' type neutral way#never quite caring or realizing just how DEVESTATING
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Request: Could you please draw The Narrator again? I've seen a few versions of how The Narrator would actually look, but I think you've done the absolute most perfect, spot-on version of himself. He's not too human, yet not outright robot. He resembles the actor himself, whilst having charm that makes him singular. He looks like he could do a complete flip from comedic to menace. If you draw him, then thank you. It's appreciated
[ID: two drawings of the narrator from the stanley parable. in one, he is standing on one foot and holding his hands clasped together next to his cheek, smiling with his eyes closed. above him is the text "and stanley was happy" with a smiley face next to it. This drawing is monochrome brown. the other picture is of the countdown ending, with the narrator on the big red countdown screen. the text above him reads "and stanley died again." he is glaring down at stanley, who is shown from behind, standing in front of the mind control buttons. the narrator is depicted as an older fat man wearing a suit with a vest and no jacket, with his sleeves rolled up slightly. end ID]
i can be your angle or yuor devil.png
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hey i don’t remember this bossfight
#the stanley parable#tsp#the stanley parable fanart#tsp fanart#tsp narrator#tspud#the stanley parable ultra deluxe#ney’s art#ney’s comics#kind of?? the images definitely go in sequential order#because it’s a blatant undertale reference#but there’s no dialogue#shrug#anyway i told you he could make more of those right? so here’s that :P#dunno how obvious it is but the lines in front dig into the ground and re-emerge#like one of those sea monsters y’know
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sunday was chained up in the rooms he secretly kept you locked away in. the family knew of the area, of course they did, it’s where they kept the traitors and the highest ranking criminals. they thought sunday was visiting various convicts to gather more information… they weren’t aware someone innocent was hidden away like a prized jewel.
mind you, many of the older members of the family wouldn’t have mattered if you were innocent, but luckily for you, many have been trying to find you for a long time. enough there’s been missing posters of you yellowing on penacony’s streets. a beloved friend of sunday and robin, including other younger elite members of the family. it was too public, them bringing sunday to that room.
so out you went and sunday guided inside. sunday said nothing. he didn’t look at you. maybe, he knew the dream you had, one where you were running through an open field under the sun, your arms spread apart like a bird about to take flight; free.
robin was horrified and bundled you away, she ignored the flinch you gave her when she got too close, too fast. most wouldn’t think you were missing for months, perhaps even years. dressed to the nines in silk clothes and not a single scratch or bruise on your body. the chains sunday used on you were cushioned; he wanted you by his side, not a walking punching bag.
time flew past you at a nauseating speed. you never were one for rollercoasters, or the pin ball transportations in penacony. one thing is for certain, when everyone’s backs are turned, you will leave and never step foot in penacony again.
first, you must do something. sunday took your life from you. but… you never wanted to see him in your place in that little cell.
“come to gloat?” sunday said. he sounded so bitter, tired. it was almost enough for you to take a step closer, to get within range of his telepathy.
sunday… he didn’t treat you badly, per se. you clung to your childhood much like he did; you, sunday, and robin. all brought to the family at young ages, the only ones at that time that were considered outsiders back then. you gravitated to each other, your dream much like theirs as a child.
your dream… you don’t dream anymore. you haven’t for a long time.
“no,” you whispered. you hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since leaving this cell. you hadn’t spoken a word since sunday brought you to this cell. it hurt. “i wanted to say farewell.”
you have never seen sunday like that before. after the words left your mouth, his head snapped up from where he was fixated at the ground, his neck audibly cracking. before, you thought sunday’s eyes looked like the evening sky, soft and sweet, the perfect sunset. now, they looked like threshold to mania, pupils shrunken and nearly glowing; something else was watching you from his gaze.
“you—cannot—leave me,” sunday rasped out, teeth bared and spit clinging to his lips. he strained against the chains holding him back that for a moment, he looked like a beast held restrained by flimsy material it could easily break free from. distantly, you noticed, they no longer held the cushions they did for you. now, they were a sickly purple; you did not want to know why it looked like that.
“i can. i will,” you replied. you thought this should’ve been more emotional; you did not have it in you to be passionate. exhaustion clung to your limbs, but somehow you kept striving forward. maybe it was the inherent stubbornness sunday used to bemoan.
you turned around; you saw enough. it was time to go, your goal accomplished.
“what about our dream?” sunday hissed. behind you, you heard something creak, and knew you couldn’t stick around for much longer.
“it has not been our dream for a long time, sunday. i hope just that one day you realize it wasn’t your dream, as well.” you wondered if you should clarify, let sunday keep this little flicker of a flame, of hope. and you decided you would. “i know i said this was a farewell. we both know you won’t let it remain that. i await the day you find me again. maybe we can find a new dream together.”
#sunday#yandere sunday#sundar hsr#sunday honkai star rail#yandere sunday hsr#sunday x reader#sunday hsr x reader#yander sunday x reader#mothwrites#cw for:#kidnapping#unreliable narrators#i’m gonna be honest here i had that song from high school musical the ‘gotta go my own way’#stuck in my head because of this idea#hmm maybe don't read if you haven't finished the new quest
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hey wait a minute
so it's the start of AvA part 7 and Chosen and Dark are talking, right? and the former has this vision of terrible things happening if they don't stop the latter, right here and now.
they see the ViraBots descending on the last remnants of stick kind with Dark as their leader (or Lord if you will. ha ha) and i, trusting viewer, took their assessment as reliable*. we JUST saw Dark getting uncomfortably violent in earlier scenes after all
but
however
notwithstanding
unless Chosen has demonstrable prophetic powers (like how Orange has** in the past seen things currently happening (horizontally-prophetic let's call it: seeing faraway in the current time) (there's probably a better word for this but let's move on)), how did they know this was definitely what Dark was leading up to?
** ⬆ examples of Orange horizontally-prophesizing in AvM episode 11, SkyBlock (unconfirmed but referenced as, "uh? well maybe??? maybe i didn't think about it yet-" (abridged quote from AvG react video)) (op will die /j /extremely pos if this is used again in AvA 11 (HAH they'd both be episode 11 (op just giggled maniacally)))
Dark doesn't even have his control bracelets on.
because Chosen didn't know about them yet.
because this is not a prophetic vision.
Chosen is just that... reactive. what was it. @compressedrage (hi o/ ) had a good wording let me find it. yeah i guess it was reactionary
the ONLY time we've seen them stop to think things through is actually just a terrified anxiety breakdown while they stand there, frozen, imagining the worst, until they snap out of it JUST in time to impact their reality.
but with no time left for debate. reasoning. they assumed Dark was beyond reasoning from the moment he showed off what his device could do............. because they were beyond reasoning out of fear.
<community post version>
#okay im not sure about that final phrase after the dots but it sounded epic so i kept it in#*im trying to call up the phrase “unreliable narrator” here#that chosen's instincts weren't accurate. obviously Dark's weapons CAN harm stick figures deeply...#...and when push comes to shove they do (a self-fulfilling prophecy if you will?)...#...but let's look at the ViraBot gun and the portals. one direct-connects (hehe) to IP addresses.#keep in mind Dark didn't know about Alan's new buddies chilling on his PC#the others go to YouTube; Twitter; Reddit; Google; Twitch; Wikipedia; Discord.#these aren't places where stick figures live at all. in some corners of them but not primarily. there's a city RIGHT THERE-!#-but he doesn't care about it. im saying obv it's still not awesome of him to target human-centric websites either-#-did he change tho? if chosen listened long enough to hear him out? was his plan to go back to when cho was having fun too?#i can't know for sure but i sure am having fun thinking about it#alan becker#animator vs animation#ava the chosen one#ava the dark lord#ava orange#ava the second coming#subpixels
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“Now this—this isn’t The Stanley Parable OR the Demo.”
Eight! featuring knitted sweater vest demo man himself.
#the stanley parable#tsp#Paratober#tsp narrator#the sparrow parable#he’s stuck here until you go find the real game
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thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”
#dc#batman#brudick#i don’t even ship it#i think i'm still mad at the poll when people were trying to refute the brudick points#by saying shippers are also biased and ignoring the history and that it really was a familial relationship early on#me the only asshole on this website enough of dumbass to try to read early batman “no it fucking wasn't”#if you hate the ship fine but don't back up your argument with complete lies#the pro-brudick camp has receipts which gives them way more validity than the haters#i'm sure somewhere out there there's dick grayson pre-crisis saying bruce is like a father to him#there's so many comics and i've barely scratched the surface#but i did read both the first golden age compilation book of batman and silver age world's finest compilation#and neither of them say anything like that#and no “his ward dick grayson” is how he's called constantly it's one of the stock phrases in the ever present narration#early comics fundamentally didn't understand they were a visual medium and are full of very tedious and unnecessary text panels#and to be fair each issue needed to function as an intro to someone who had never heard of batman and robin before so#“and his ward dick grayson”#every damn time#their relationship was adult man and his plucky kid sidekick he inexplicably hangs out with#which doesn't make sense and doesn't parallel to real life real social interaction#but neither does a man going in a batsuit to fight crime#and the out-of-universe explanation is because this comic was aimed at kids who were supposed to project onto dick grayson#and the kids want to be batman's kid-partner not his kid-son#it's not that complicated this trope still exists today#kid who should not be here but is because it's a kids' show/book/movie/etc#i stg i'm gonna become a brudick shipper out of spite at this point#and WHILE I'M COMPLAINING i am also going to be mad at the people who get all up-in-arms#about all the evil heroes doing child endangerment on their poor abused sidekicks#should there be kid heroes? no but cape comics would suck without them so stop complaining and enjoy yourselves#RL vigilantism is also always bad stop bringing real world standards into this they don't apply
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and I’ll never see you again if I can help it
Posted on ao3: read here!
In which Gem tries to sort through the past and the present.
…unfortunately, Pearl is always there.
#ender writes#gempearl#pearlgem#mcyt#mcyt fanfiction#trafficshipping#trafficblr#wild life smp#no healthy communication for you. no reliable narrators here. go listen to night shift by lucy dacus on loop and on full blast#if you see me mix up tenses because i Had A Vision and had to make the flow of this fic way more complicated than it needed to be#You Simply Didnt. ok
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Palinode has made me cry twice today I love her so much and I need Laos to be so much kinder to his soul
This fic is beautiful
Putting in my guess that Bee is a crested Gecko, as I went to school with a girl who had them as ESAs and she could and did regularly hide them under her scarf to take to class. They just chill there.
Also very fast.
(In reference to the his dark materials/dungeon meshi daemon au fic. Thank you! I am being flattened by dogs)
#his delicious materials#bee is offscreen wanting to point out that it isn’t a scarf but#a) she doesn’t work here b) a continuous problems with palinode pov is that she doesn’t know shit about fuck#a person who canonically cannot work out where the other ball goes in a juggling trick#is not going to have the faintest idea about any fashion distinctions#unless you’re going to suddenly pull a ball out of them#(slaps roof of dog)#you can get away with so much when your narrator is palinode#but you can’t get away with wings for hands cos that’s not how feathers work!#for everyone wondering how the fuck this relates to dungeon meshi#sorry#where the FUCK is my pen
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Flower Empowered.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#lan wangji#wei wuxian#lan wunian#The absolute chaos that ensued when Lan Wangji showed up...those girls went wild.#We have to give kudos to narration that takes the form of a bunch of suitor seeking ladies.#They were so loud about being here for the hotties and whispering gossip. You go girls.#Wei Wuxian most likely just picked up a already tossed flower to throw. Second hand flowers...are still flowers I suppose.#Can you imagine if LWJ had allergies? Poor lad.#Okay it's time for the real gritty discussion point. The one everyone is waiting for me to talk about:#So...from where we are in the timeline...what the hell is WWX supposed to be wearing?#I'm serious. Put all the fanart out of your brain for a moment.#We are post burial grounds and sunshot campaign so he's had his little goth moment reveal.#*BUT* he is still with the Jiang sect. And by proxy of this flashback talking about his disrespect - they never bring up his attire.#meaning he is likely in some kind of Jiang Purple.#Continuity wise it really feels like this scene should have been *before* the burial mounds.#I understand why it's post - we need to build up on the mystery of how he became the YLLZ.#But also his personality feels way more 'pre-burial mounds WWX'. I think this was probably a 'I don't want to kill my darling' scene.#(The Phoenix mountain flashback is a lot of people's 'darling'. I am knowingly putting myself in the line of fire here).#I'm willingly putting him in Wen Qing's borrowed cloak and assuming people take him wearing it as like...a war trophy.#Historians will revise this moment later on but for now he *is* a hero of that war.
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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.
#Sorry this turned into a 100000 word essay on The Iliad it can't be helped#I read Circe by the same author and thought it was like.. better? Definitely not great just less aggravating and kind of boring#Just rote 'you heard about this villainous woman from a Greek myth... Here's the REAL story' shit#It did have a few things I thought were good I remember it starting kind of strong and then just going limp for the remaining duration#I think part of it is that in that case she's expanding on a figure that Didn't have a whole lot of characterization in the source so#like. She had to actually Expand The Character#Again Silence of the Girls is the only Greek Mythology Retelling I have like....positive?.leaning positive? feelings towards#I've got BIG issues with it too but it does pretty much the exact opposite of everything I'm mad at SOA for and in some very#compelling ways (it's just that the author seems way more interested in Achilles and Patroclus than The Main Character Briseis#to the point of randomly starting to have Achilles POV interjections (which I thought were Good in of themselves but#really really really really really really really didn't need to be there) and then get kind of lampshaded by Briseis narrating 'I guess I#was trapped in Achilles' story the whole time lol!!!!!!')#It undermines the book on both a thematic level and just like. a construction level like it's real sloppy at times.#Also the Briseis POV sometimes has these like really out of place Author Mouthpiece Moments where she's very obviously#Stating The Point to the audience and it's like yeah we get it. We get it.#Wow in the scene were our mostly silent enslaved protagonist removes the gag from the mouth of a dead sacrificed girl as a#small but significant act of defiance and grieving in a book called 'Silence of the Girls' you inserted an ironic repeat of the line#'silence befits a woman'. in italics even. Thanks for that. I could not possibly have grasped the meaning of this scene if you didn't#spell it out for me like that. Thank you.#Actually hang on the only Greek mythology retelling I have unequivocally positive feelings for are the 'Minotaur Forgiving'#songs on 'This One's For The Dancer And This One's For The Dancer's Bouquet'. Fully love it. Like not just as songs I think it#does function well as a narrative and engages with and expands on the source in really beautiful and creative ways
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did you know i ALSO dabble in spooky monthifying all KINDS of characters? at the PEAK of last october, i spedrun through drawing canons, fancharacters, & OC references in the spooky month artstyle for a thing between friends & DAMMIT I'm STILL PROUD of them!
so here's me flexing a little;
FEATURING! @thedoodlecorner's OCs as WELL as @tomiechu's !!!!
#uwu art#Spooky Month#Bob Velseb#because he is the Only SM canon character here#would it be cringe to tag all the fandoms present here......... fuck it#Danganronpa#Ultimate Imposter#Hatoful Boyfriend#Shuu Iwamine#The Stanley Parable#TSP Narrator#Creepypasta#Jeff the Killer#OCs#GET BLASTED EVERYBODY#Rosemary Ariana Baker#Sheldon Franklin Cortex#Sid Auburn-Emerick#Marshall Lucus Ramirez#this is also an excuse for me to go ' hey i can draw in different artstyles you knew this already but look how much i fuck at it '
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I know you dont care about pesterquest but i wanna know, did you think they wrote eridan well or bad?
bad
#why would he care about shrek hes a hipster#also he cant just casually waltz into a movie theater hed scare the shit out of everyone there#like everyone else on alternia automatically assumes a sea dweller is going to want to kill you#eridans never done anything casually before in his life#even GAMZEE's internal narration goes 'better not stand on the beach for too long#if a sea dweller sees me theyll attack lol'#i know hes been memed to hell and back because hes a pathetic little meow meow but like#objectively eridan was fucking terrifying by alternian standards#even if he isn't actually like that inside he still LOOKED and ACTED the part#and also he did do all those murders yeah#like so many murders#like 'killin is all i evver done practically' levels of murders#vriska says her bodycount is in the 'many thousands' so eridan's deffo up there too#hes like objectively dangerous and scary#and the fact that the team forgot about this when it came to dealing with him pretty famously had disastrous results#anyway heres my eridancore movie rec: Once (2007)#i know 'hipster actually likes mainstream stuff' is a Trope and theres truth to it but like look at me in the eyes#do you really mean to tell me eridan “wizard and magic are stupid and fake but i have 6 wizard statues in my room” ampora#is going to be the hipster that admits that he likes mainstream stuff
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