#here for the duration

[p-redux]

Didn’t take much to pull you out of retirement huh? Btw, you didn’t get a scoop - another blog best you to it. Also, you took a huge leap assuming Sam was flying with someone. His buddy Marina flew in today - possible he could have been picking her up and therefore didn’t have luggage? They have spent NYE together in the past, you know. you are a self-proclaimed truther - maybe do a little research before you suggest you know he’s with “a broad”? Thirsty, thirsty. Rest your eyes!

Didn't take much for you to crawl out of the woodwork to spew hate huh? Btw, I didn't say I got the scoop, I said this was a NEW pic of Sam--and I didn't see any blog beat me to it. Even BellaOutlander on IG, who gets everything right away, and many others, posted AFTER me. So, I was def one of the first blogs to post the new pic of Sam with a fan at Glasgow airport. Also, I NEVER said Sam was flying with anyone. I said he could be flying OUT of Glasgow go be with a lady friend because he has done that for New Year's Eve on more than one occasion. That's not me taking "a huge leap," that's me going on proven past behavior aka facts. Yes, I saw that his friend, Marina Campbell flew into Glasgow yesterday. Would Sam himself go to the airport to pick her up? At this stage in his career, I would think he would have sent a car service to pick her up. But who knows, Sam is down to earth, and a good friend, so he may have picked her up. The jury is still out on that one. Marina has since posted pics on her IG hanging out in Glasgow. It looks like she's with a group of friends...let's see if any pics come out of Sam being among them. As for them spending New Year's Eve together in the past, I don't think that's happened very often. On January 3, 2022, Marina posted from a Chargers American football game in Los Angeles with Sam and Alex, so I guess they could have spent that New Year's together. I've been here almost 10 years, and I don't remember that happening very often though. They've definitely hung out together a lot: worked out together, traveled together, climbed munros together, but I don't remember many New Year's Eve together, but it could have happened. And maybe this year, Sam felt like staying in Glasgow, and they'll hang out for New Year's Eve. No sweat off my back. Whatever Sam wants to do and whoever he wants to do it with is fine by me...and always has been. As for my play on words he's going abroad to be with a broad, it was OBVIOUSLY a joke, tongue-in-cheek, haha. Anon, maybe if you pulled the stick out of your ass, you might find a sense of humor. Bitter, bitter. Rest up, bitch! I'm here for the duration...

PS. For those "worried" about my eyes, I'm writing this on my desktop, which obviously strains them less than my cell phone does. There, I saved you the inevitable, "I thought you had eye pain, how are you writing such a looong post with eye pain?!" *eyeroll*

PPS. For the haters who were happy to see me semi retire, I never said completely retire, the fastest way to get me to post again is to piss me the f*ck off. So, keep sending me Anons like this, and you will ensure I will post more often. Besides getting the inside scoop, there's nothing I relish more than handing people their asses. Up to you...

[slavhew]

jakey + dirkjake sandwiched between my organic chem notes. a poem in there somewhere

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

spent the last couple nights watching the handplates (<- @zarla-s if you’ve never read it) comic dub with a friend of mine :-]

gaster ^

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Cannot believe the planet Earth itself is celebrating 1 month to Dragon Age: Veilguard by capturing itself a second moon just like Thedas has

[mayasaura]

There were so many good suggestions on this post, I had to make a poll, so

[dreamyybaku]

Fukouna Girl

[kaiserouo]

have been farming in solstice square today

[taraxippos]

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.

[awakenedsylvari]

a sequel to my poll from yesterday that included all the areas!

[p-redux]

From Submit Option:

_________

"Hi! Sorry P- I don't quite understand if Sam participated competing in HYROX (I don't understand anything about fitness, sorry!) or if he went to cheer on SH? Because in the photo with fans he appears dressed in "civilian clothes", so to speak! Could you clarify it for me? thank you!!

__________

Hi Anon! The Hyrox Glasgow competition was all day. Sam DID compete, but it wasn't until later in the afternoon. Sarah Holden competed HOURS earlier. Sam didn't have to compete until way later, but he was there early to watch Sarah. We can see him here while she is competing. 👇 I mean, he's RIGHT THERE. ❤️

These are her results in the competition, what she competed in, and the TIME of day when she competed. 👇

It's a 24 hour European clock, so she competed starting at 12:05 PM and ended around 13:28 PM, which is 1:28 PM.

Sam's Hyrox profile is also posted, showing what time of day he started competing. 👇

He started competing at 18:34, which is 6:34 PM.

And ended at 19:45, which is 7:45 PM.

So basically, Sam was there 6 HOURS before he had to compete. And we have PROOF he was right there when Sarah was competing earlier in the day. 👇

And here they both are with the SAME fans. 👇

I've actually gotten more info about #samarah and their romance (no, they're not just friends) but I'm waiting to confirm some things before I post it. Stay tuned...

PS. For the yappy frothy troll spamming my Inbox with your putrid froth. Give it up, sunshine. I've been here 10 years and I'm here for the duration. I know how to play this game, who's who, and what's what. I just laugh and laugh at your head exploding over me posting about #samarah. If you want to keep making me laugh, keep on sending me your ridiculous crap. But it's not going to make one bit of difference in what I post. 🤷‍♀️😘

[vaguely-concerned]

I feel that during the first coffee date walk through the market, rye has a fraction of a millisecond's kneejerk trauma freakout of '...wait. wait. am I really catching feelings for a rich boy again. with how that went down last time. am I truly that stupid' (once derogatorily referred to quite openly at a party as 'young master anaxas' pet mortalitasi' to which the young master anaxas only grinned and shrugged and STILL you don't break up with his smug controlling ass for good for six more months because you have a desperate bottomless yearning pit where your self respect should go, twice shy lol). and then he actually looks at lucanis standing next to him getting harding spearmint to help with bad dreams and generally being so quietly thoughtful and sweet through the prosaic yet necessary medium of grocery shopping it makes me feel a little unwell to truly contemplate. and rye is like '*the softest fondest eyes anyone has ever turned on anything* ...you know what. I suspect we don't have to worry about that repeating, I think we're probably safe. I am comfortable being this level of stupid. (slowly dawning marital intent even at this stage)'.

(part of the reason rye buys NONE of illario's bullshit at all right from the beginning is that he's basically vaccinated against this exact type of dude after that relationship lol. charming suave guy who in the beginning pays you a lot of lavish attention and takes pains to make you feel special every time you're in a room with him -- but shallowly and mostly, it slowly dawns on you, when there's something he wants from you (and he's often doing it at the expense of someone else, raising you up to put someone else down and you won't believe this... it can turn into a seesaw at a whim. yay). and beneath that there's just a seething pit of resentment and inferiority complexes and bitterness left to fester until he can make it everyone else's problem and that IS going to start to bubble up between the cracks with you too if you stick around for long enough. no thank you been there done that wasted my youth and potential on it and all I got was this lousy shiny set of new emotional intimacy issues haunting me for life! trust me illario I HAVE, as it were, chosen the wrong dellamorte before, which is exactly how I know I didn't this time. go get him lucanis I've got your coffee

hilarious mental image: rye and illario sitting quietly together while everyone else is busy milling about during a cursed dellamorte family dinner (the vibes are so bad. you know the vibes are bad. sitting as still as you can and hoping for calm skies is your best bet without lucanis or teia favourite child privileges to work with) and rye out of the blue gazing thoughtfully into nothing over the edge of his glass with half-lidded eyes to go 'you know. you remind me a lot of my ex. not in a good way' and illario with absolutely no shame and hilariously also something that's the closest he ever gets to real sympathy going 'yeah, I get that a lot'. best talk those two ever had, unironically. their bond leveled up to its final form that day. *soulsborne boss defeated text* MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING REACHED)

[magiefish]

Okay. So. I remembered this one kind of weird part in “Enlightenment” where Turlough tries to sell out the crew and The Doctor just kind of Stares at him the whole time. Like quite intensely. And, as a joke, I said to myself “I wonder how long he actually stares at him without looking at anyone else for” and decided to count it For Fun.

About 34 seconds. 34 seconds straight.

Sir. Sir please direct your big brown eyes somewhere else. Please blink sir. Please. Sir.

[quantumfeat72]

Hi! I'm alive

but i'm also still pretty sick, and i have a day job now, so running 2-3 comics in parallel isn't gonna be possible for a while. to be honest, i'm not sure i can handle a regular update schedule for one of them, but if i can i do want to start drawing again. so i'm curious:

more details:

KFC or robotchara would likely still be in colored-sketch form, and i might have to ignore asks for a couple updates while i remember what i was doing

CoL would probably have to move to a digital format - still black & white with hatching, but done fully digitally instead of scanning my sketchbook like i had been. (i don't have a good place for working on traditional art right now, and i gave my good scanner to a friend a while ago)

which one i prioritize is likely to change at some point, as i have plans i want to get to for all three (but especially CoL, since i actually have an ending planned for it), but it might be a while before that would happen

[itseghost]

ok rough thumbnails for a dai inspired tarot card design i want to do for my surana but i am the most indecisive person on earth so im looking 4 opinions lol his name is kelwyn he is a spirit healer/blood mage :]