#and i think she turned out BEAUTIFUL

[kissingarthurclaus]

Mama Scout loves her babies! 🥺🫶💖

Taglist♡: @crushes-georg @changeling-selfship @mavlotov @me-myself-and-my-fos @tiny-cloud-of-flowers @sunstar-of-the-north @dearly-beeloved @adoredbyalatus @squips-ship @drjohndisco

[bitter--boxx]

briar releases her new single💗.. kinda XD

[dirt-str1der]

Just finished Dr Stone Reboot

[laurrelise]

guys i’ve drawn lila some more

decided to draw 2 of her saddest scenes for what reason????????

i actually don’t have an answer i just liked the references

(also here are the references)

and i can’t remember if ive dropped these here before but i did some pencil drawings of her a whiiiiiile ago and im actually really proud of them so i’ll just leave them here regardless :)

v also their references

[kurithedweeb]

I just learned why Shad hates Irene in canon and knowing what I do now about everyone’s favorite the Matron, I can say with my whole heart,

What the hell, Irene

[agentark]

in the span of maybe an hour, clara oswald goes from, "I already know - don't say it." to, "people like you and me should say things to each other" and I'll never get over it

she literally gets pulled out of time the moment before her death and learns he's been clawing his way back to her for 4.5 BILLION years?? Just to save her??? I would also suddenly and urgently have words

[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.

[sol-consort]

I'm sorry but how does the model of propriety sobriety and piety ever so merciful Sir cop River Ward's crush on the mercenary V actually allign with his moral compass

like that's the stealing thieving murdering V, what gold-worthy mental gymnastics is that boy doing to justify his feelings? What is he gonna tell the rest of his badges friends when "bounty on head NY most wanted criminal scum" V shows up to the police department Christmas office party as his plus one?

Or is it another case of a man bagging a clubbing diva after meeting her wilding at the said club, then getting surprised and offended when she still wants to grove at the disco after they tie the knot. Is this a case of "I can fix her!" to River?

[jelliebeanbitch]

i will go to my first ever gay date with courage! i will not overthink it! i will not get bi imposter syndrome! i will not tell myself im meant to only ever be with a man! i will just follow my heart and my pussy and live my life! a gender is just a gender! a date with two girls is still a date! i am allowed to date girls! i will not get brainworms!

[nostalgia-tblr]

one of my big cultural gaps is disney but i started typing out a beauty and the beast inspired thing anyway thinking well maybe if i dont know the story in its most popular form at least i might come up with something a wee bit different from other people doing it and then mine has a plot device a somewhat inaccurate painting as the basis on an agreement to marry and only now did i think 'fuck i've made him anne of cleves'*

*i mean in a pop culture sense. i do tend to agree that the holbein painting can't be that inaccurate and she probably actually did look like that (hot!) and i feel i should disclaimer this in the post itself not the tags because if i don't someone will object won't they

[mymarifae]

i'm in tears. do you know how beautiful this subversion of expectations irt death is to me. do you even understand how important it is. she's all warmth and love, always surrounded by vibrant displays of life - rather than the expected wither and decay. because death is not the antithesis to life: it is life. they are a part of each other. saying goodbye is always hard, but you have to let everything go, eventually. it's okay, it's not a punishment, it's not scary, it's not lonely - it's one last well-earned rest. releasing your borrowed energy back unto the universe so it can feed a new budding life, starting the cycle anew. and she's here to hold and cradle you until you're ready to go. you lived well. you were loved. sweet dreams, okay?

[waterlilyvioletfog]

Criston making Alicent give him his favor ohhhhh the layers of chivalric romance are INSANEEEEEE!! Chivalric romance is of course, a facsimile, a public display of courtly behavior that at its ideal execution conveys a chaste, pure, non-sexual regard, a way to put nasty issues like sex and violence in pretty terms. Alicent’s furious with Criston at this moment and Criston is mad at her for making him babysit her brother, and also they had sex last night, but they’re in public so instead he does the asshole move of making her play along with the old chivalry script, the same one that made her give a favor to Daemon Targaryen once.

[crystalpallette]

also known as: why do they keep giving amitie big sticks

alts ft. amitie! two are from quest, and one's technically also a quest unit except she's first appeared as an alt in 20th, so I'll count her that way. either way isn't she so cute. baby girl.

-

ringo | arle | amitie | ally | rulue | maguro | lidelle | ?

[rosykims]

im a eurydice = solas truther btw and ill die for my beliefs

be so serious........ and lavellan as orpheus......

[sysig]

Coming in to play! (Patreon)

[zebedeezing]

Really awful that this even needs to be a thought in my head at all but I’m dreading that if Liam Payne’s death is indeed a suicide, people will make it about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘mob mentality’ and whatever the fuck and dismiss and harass his ex and the women who’ve spoken out about his behaviour recently. Make no mistake regardless this death is shocking and tragic, but the internet is allergic to nuance, feel like its gonna get pissed away, all the allegations made ‘nought’ or excessive or all equates to harassment and bullying. It’s gonna become a talking point about fucking ‘wokeness’. Any victims who’ve stepped forward, they’re gonna hear ‘Didn’t you get your wish? You killed a man’. Jesus Christ.