#lining got boring

[the-parentheticals]

Alright, let’s get officially started with our prisoner 001! A bit of a note, some of their crimes are easy to guess if you already have knowledge of their backstory, and some of them are difficult even with that. This one…probably would fall into the difficult category.

Also, feel free to provide judgements of what you’d vote for them, what you think their crime was, and all that.

Name - Ritorin Fuyushi (とりん 冬しり) (the first character in his first name means “winter” and the others are all katakana)

Age - 21

Gender – Male

Birthday – Feb. 21

Height – 170 cm

Blood Type – AB

Image Colour - #0A1172

Occupation – University student, part-time skier

Personality – He’s a rather laid-back person who doesn’t worry too much about being in Milgram, but if he’s questioned too much, he has a tendency to become short-tempered.

He typically speaks bluntly and is rather unwilling to talk with others. He doesn’t see much of a point in giving too much energy to anything.

He doesn’t usually interact with the other prisoners beyond what’s necessary, but he is willing to be civil during any ordinary conversations.

“Hey there. The name’s Fuyushi Ritorin. I’m a university student, and I also ski in some competitions in my free time. I’m sure as hell not getting out of here anytime soon, so we should try to be civil with each other, at least.”

“Leave her alone! She had nothing to do with it!”

Canon Cover – Throw Down (pretty similar to canon, but with a lot more of a classical flavour)

DECO*27 Cover – Rooter’s Song

Vocaloid Cover – Kagerou Days (Jin) (I was gonna go with something else, but this one’s honestly kinda spoilery enough)

MV – The List

His song has a classical flavour, heavily featuring piano and violin, and the lyrics discuss planning and building something that will bring good to the world.

The MV starts with an extreme close-up of him watching something not shown on screen, and his eyes go wide.

Fuyushi runs after a little girl with light blue hair through a snowy field. Although the girl doesn’t leave any footsteps, Fuyushi does.

The next scene is of him standing in an old-fashioned library, doing research. There’s a montage of him going through maps, highlighting routes, and looking at law books.

He pushes a stack of research across the table to someone, waits a beat, then smiles.

The next scene is in the field, where the girl is gone and Fuyushi is fixing up a hastily constructed snowman.

It cuts to a fancy party, where Fuyushi’s talking with an older man and looking very pleased. The camera cuts away for a few moments, and the man disappears. Fuyushi appears scared for a moment, but then becomes calmer and walks away from the scene.

Red and blue lights start flickering, and Fuyushi panics, pushes the camera away, and starts running.

The scene cuts back to the field, where Fuyushi collapses in the snow, a pool of red under him. Blood is splattered around and behind the girl, but none of it is on her.

The MV closes on a similar shot as the beginning, this time with an older version of the girl, and it’s revealed she has light green eyes and freckles.

 Trivia:

He claims to be innocent, although when asked about who really killed his victim he becomes rather tight-lipped.

Murder is his only major crime.

He’s double-jointed.

[reader-from-another-dimension]

It’s very telling when the devil loves you.

From this au!! They’re so symbrock to me aughhh

[ryomaandgundhamkin]

ALMOST FORGOT TO POST THESE SCHOOL DOODLES/ OOPS

The person next to me in one of my classes went “wtf are you drawing bruh” and I didn’t fucking know how to explain 😭

So here you go. MASM doodles. OH MY GOSH IS THAT TRADITIONAL ART??! yes I know I haven’t posted that here in a bit😨

I absolutely LOVE MASM eclipse. he’s so sigma. the rays are so painful to draw though. 17. Also I don’t get what’s going on with Sun’s rays either💀

yep yessiree my new artstyle for MASM, and honestly I love how eclipse turned out ‼️

(No zoom up because my camera doesn’t let me take photos of up close because it just… works like that🔥🔥💯)

ALSO MY HANDWRITING SUCKS DONT MIND IT

[h20milk]

i peel oranges neatly. the sections come apart cleanly, perfectly, in my hands. when cove peels an orange, he tears holes in it. juice squirts in all directions. "taion," he says, "i don't know how you do it!" cove is my best friend. i hope he never learns how to peel oranges.

[pastellguts]

Godwyn/Fortissax drawing inspired by @iliothermia 💛

[nelkcats]

Project: Save Humanity

or something like that

It's no surprise that the Ancients get bored. They are immortal and have all the time in the world to complain about it, sadly Danny joined them after he was crowned.

Their monthly meetings are divided into three topics: Taunting the Observants (Clockwork's favorite topic after they were demoted to helpers, assistants, and other menial jobs), talking about the safety of the Realms (quite peaceful if just as chaotic), and argue.

They- really had nothing to do, and their hobbies eventually bored them. So Danny had a brilliant idea (read: he saw it on a TV show) and decided that they should all become mentors and save one of the dimensions.

Clockwork was about to say that was not a good idea, since it was the same as throwing giants into a world of ants but he needed some fun so he kept quiet. He showed them the dimension of DC and how it was continually being destroyed, the King told them to start their project in that place and select someone.

Clockwork selected Flash because he felt vengeful, Nocturne selected Tim Drake for the same reason, and so they went; each one of the Ancients selecting a "champion" they were going to teach. Although their selection reasons were quite absurd (being that they were selecting their opposite poles or just someone interesting).

Danny being a spirit of protection, selected Jason Todd and secretly Billy Batson, because he was the king and could break the rules (Clockwork rolled his eyes at the comment). The question now was, how did they appear to them and avoid the world's myriad routes of destruction?

Well at least they weren't bored anymore

[bisclavret]

eoin macken deserves so much more credit for consistently playing gwaine as if he's always choosing his words carefully around merlin or biting his tongue altogether so he doesn't say something that might jeopardize their relationship

[front-facing-pokemon]

[dunedragon]

Scribbled this out based on this meme

[junotter]

I wasn't sure which version i liked so have bothhhhh woahh

[kittycrumb]

i need to add more variety into my art.. sorry for all the season 1 clementine.. i love her 💗🌹

[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.

[buwheal]

I dont know how to feel about how you can see the adjustments and the little added features accumulate over time........its almost scary..... but i thought it was interesting.. so heres The Page at the end of its lifecycle before i open a new one and perpetuate my endless purgatory.

[oakskull]

so i read this fic and while im Pretty Sure this was not what the author had in mind it Was what i did lmao

(mind the tags on the fic its labled as Mature bc implications)

[entropysanyt]

coloring manga pages is. fun I think

panel is from chapter 12 woohoo