#she's mean i'm sorry lol.

[vaguely-concerned]

are. are you telling me that if the romanced mage warden dies and alistair is king, he deadass stares greagoir down over her dead body and grants the circle of ferelden its autonomy after ordering it rebuilt somewhere safer. first you have to deliberately leave him behind so he won't die for you and then he does that for you once you're gone, even when you're broken up??? absolute and literal king behaviour of the highest order????? the actions speak louder than words of it all??????? I think I hauve covid

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

[avatar-aaang]

Crystal is such a fantastic character bc shes missing her memories and one of the first things she does is try to be mean to Charles, who is just so delighted by her anyway, and when she realizes that she might have been disliked before, she kinda of just starts over.

and she starts off being by being so kind by demanding they help a girl half way around the world, and they oblige. and then! she wipes the girl's memory of the house so she'll never have to suffer the nightmares the way Crystal does.

she's working through some shit, but every time she comes out the other side having tried to be a better person and trying to help her friends and correct mistakes.

and when she finds out who she is? she is horrified by what she sees and wants nothing more than to get away from that. and she still thinks she's a horrible person bc of what she's done and how her parents react to her calling them. she doesn't realize that you're not your past actions, and just bc she was awful then does not mean she has to continue to be that way.

she wants away from charles and edwin and niko bc she doesn't want them to know her like that. even tho they've never known her like that, and they never will, bc Crystal has changed so much as her time as an amnesiac and she is constantly trying to be a better person.

anyway stan Crystal, she wants to be kind, and her journey from being a bitch to being That Bitch is so fantastic, I can't wait to see what she does next

[screwpinecaprice]

@glowweek Day 5 FAMILY | FRIENDS

Peridot and specially Lapis do not trust the racoons.

Specifically chose this angle so I don't draw feet. _(:,3」∠)_

Mi own connverse kids Ebony and Rohini are there! And technically Sakura and Zachary. (Please until now I don't know what else to name them. 😭)

And sorry the older Maheswarans aren't there. I don't know where to put them and I already had character overload. 😞

Hibiscus print on Bismuth's shirt is from ManMadeOfGold!

Speaking of shirt, another thing I avoided was thinking of their outfit designs. 😅 It's somewhere a little over a decade of timeskip since SU:Future and I'm sure at least one or two would've reformed during the time. So I'm gonna say they wanted to keep the vibe of a casual outdoors picnic-type event so they wore the casual themes.

[badadboombadabing26]

Yep 🥰

[dykephan]

why was it always danrific.. stand up philrific nation it's never too late

[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.

[glacier-shrimp]

Done with our favorite Spider-Boy! Spiderling? Spider... What was his name again?

Avengers paper cutout 6/?

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Indeed her hair did grow a bit (thank god because before WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT)

Bonus: how she actually wants it

[lesbianshadowheart]

random ass thought but i don't like a lot of the fanservice in the bg3 epilogue and I especially have an issue with Karlach seemingly finding a solution to her engine in Avernus. her whole story is about terminal illness and her potential death at the pier is very very sad and emotional but it is a valid choice as it honors her wish to go out on her own terms. The epilogue makes it so that forcing her to go to Avernus becomes the correct choice idk theres just smth about it

[cheriafreya]

I can't believe I'm gonna say this but... I'm starting to consider taking a break from Genshin and just go play Wuwa instead for once 😬

[dootznbootz]

Don't get me wrong, I hate the telegony with every FIBER of my being. HOWEVER!! I feel like there's so much yummy angst potential with Odypen.

Like?? Imagine Penelope holding Odysseus' dead body. And it reminds her so much of when he'd fall asleep in her arms, in their bed holding an infant Telemachus. Because little baby Telemachus wouldn't stop crying so he had to be held in his papa's arms :3

But he's still crying to this day,, crying in the background, sobbing, hugging his mother from behind as she's holding her dead husband. Her husband that she waited 20 YEARS for. Her husband that's literally been threw hell and BACK, yet who never gave up because he wanted to see HER and their SON!!

He could've stayed with Calypso, he could've stayed with Kirke, he could've. But he DIDN'T. And I know damn well the moment he came back, and she saw him, she SAW on his face he's been threw shit. And imagine that, imagine the pain of someone you love more than the Sun experiencing that. Imagine that, and they did all of that, to see you.

People undermine that Penelope loves Odysseus just as much as Odysseus loves Penelope. It's been 20 years. She had every right to assume he's gone or get remarried. But she didn't. She had faith the entire time.

And she waited so long, and he went threw so much, just for him to get killed by some borderline (Not fully) rapeling. That's so heart-wrenching.

And for Telemachus, who never even KNEW his father. To suddenly see him again, to see how happy his mother is, how happy he is. Just for some bastard he has to call his half-brother to kill him. Telemachus knew so little of his father, only the stories Penelope told him. And now, sadly, it'll stay that way.

Telemachus and Penelope would fucking despise Telegonus. They've been waiting so long for this man, and this man has waited and had to go threw so much. All three of them did not go threw all that just for Telegonus to kill him. I don't care if it was an 'accident'. It doesn't matter if the killer didn't want to do it, it matter's that the victim's family lost someone they FUCKING LOVED.

Penelope would NEVER marry Telegonus, and Telemachus would never marry Kirke.

But Odysseus death gives us some JUICY angst. I hate it. But good god it scratches that angst-loving part of my brain SO GOOD. 😼

Feel free not to answer since this is a rather long ask/ramble :'D And ye, take care Mad! <3

Oh, also, just so it's not ALL just angst, a few Penelope and Baby Telemachus headcanons/shenanigans? They mean the world to both Odysseus AND me 🥹

So, this is a really fun ask...But I don't think you're going to get the answer you'd like from me :')

As many folks know, I am a big lover of fluff and very soft stuff. I have angst but even then I would consider it more hurt/comfort in a way as I do plan for the "comfort" to be what's most important :) I also just think of "angst" as just the "something that makes sense storywise".

The Tele-GONE-y to me, is just blatent whump. Not really my cup of tea.

Also the Tele-GONE-y has the whole bullshit about Odysseus doing fuck all in random war, getting married and having children with a random af woman, before coming back to get killed. So that's just...ew. All of it is ew.

And I don't even like the idea of Telegonus existing in any form. At most, Telegonus would only exist in my mind as Polites' son. (not based on Epic at all. This Polites is my own special guy. He's my lil weird goober of my own design reeeeee) My dear friend thehelplessmortals is the only person who I feel explores it in a way that makes sense to me and seems canon.

As you put it into words:

"And she waited so long, and he went through so much, just for him to get killed by some borderline (Not fully) rapeling. That's so heart-wrenching."

And it's just TOO heartwrenching for me :') I can't do it. It's honestly such a horrifying scenario that I got nauseous the first time I heard about it. (that's not even getting into the gross out of character marriage circle and Odysseus fucking around away from his family)

For me, I cannot see Circe (my Circe definitely) as a mother regardless. She wasn't made for motherhood. Also Odysseus and her only have sex once in my writing in exchange for his men to be turned back into humans. (as it's only stated explicitly once in the Odyssey)

The Odyssey also says that Odysseus' line only has one son each. That's Telemachus. (OdyPen can have a daughter though! >:3 Girldad Odysseus is very tasty for me)

If you're just into the angst of Odysseus' death, I got a bit of that though :'D

Penelope being 75% Naiads will live a long life. And Odysseus, being her husband, gets the advantages of having a magic Water wifey and that affects him in how he will live a long life as well (Calypso also gave him ambrosia/nectar to keep him alive. as he was nearly dead when he washed up.)

BUT. He is mostly mortal. He lives way beyond what is normal for Mortals but still.

His hair now fully gray. His breathing raspy and slow. He's slow to move...

Penelope lives a bit afterward. Sleeping and taking comfort in their nest that cradles her as she sleeps. She feels him everywhere. She grieves him endlessly.

Their nest starts to wilt. Only when she goes too does it come alive again.

And for some random Penelope and Telemachus headcanons :P

Nereids have lined bioluminescence, while NAIADS have spots. Like the black spots on the beloved rainbow trout 🥹 (they don't have the black spots. they just have spots that glow in their own control lol)

Telemachus gets "spots" from both his mama (naiad scales/glowbit) and his papa (freckles) 🥹

It's what they use to communicate underwater. And it's nice because even if you're not full naiad and don't have as many scales, you can still communicate as it's about the flickers :3 (Odysseus can understand these to a degree)

Very rarely do they "just randomly glow" as you know, don't wanna give away your thoughts. But it's cute because Odysseus will occasionally have a lightshow when one of them is dreaming.

I know a lot of people have Penelope see Odysseus in Telemachus constantly, and while she does to a degree, she is actually one of the few people who really emphasizes that he's his own person. You don't have to be good at whittling, you make such beautiful pottery. You like green, not orange. You don't have to pick that color when it's not your favorite and because other people simply get excited about you being like your dad sometimes. That type of stuff.

You take care too, Dear Anon! :D

[pickypickypeak]

[morelikeravenbore]

🦋 AU WIP in which Aurélie was the New Fifth Year (and hated every minute of it lol) [250 words]

Aurélie was absolutely positive that if the Sorting Hat had tried sticking her in Slytherin house, she would have packed up her things and left Hogwarts the very same night she'd arrived. Having just transferred from Beauxbatons, the ordeal of wearing a manky old hat while a thousand-odd British children gawked at her had been bad enough, but if that Hat had declared her a snake and condemned her to living in the dungeons —

Thankfully, she'd been spared the trouble of arguing her way back to France when she was proclaimed a Ravenclaw, and it was with much relief (and a perfectly executed side-eye to the Slytherin table as she passed) that she'd joined the Eagles with their flattering blue-and-bronze uniform and their bright, airy common room in a tower.

Unsurprisingly, she'd discovered fairly quickly that members of Slytherin house weren't exactly the most well-adjusted among the student body: Ominis Gaunt, Heir of Slytherin, aristocratic to the bone and about as welcoming as a viper in a chicken coop, took every chance he could to openly and vocally criticise her; Imelda Reyes, Quidditch captain, competitive to a toxic degree and unapologetically distrustful of the French, took Aurélie's inexperience (and, quite frankly, disinterest) in Quidditch as a personal insult, and Sebastian Sallow —

Well, Sebastian Sallow was the type to drag you down to a secret room in the deepest, darkest recesses of the school and wasn't particularly sympathetic if you happened to have a deep-seated fear of the dark.

Sebastian Sallow was unforgivable.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery, he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. (Eddard VI, AGOT)

This is literally people in fandom trying to make shallow connections between Lyanna and [X character] and presenting them as equally important as parallels drawn directly in the text. In fact, this coming after Ned tells Arya she reminds him of Lyanna (in looks and behavior) feels like George cementing the importance of their likeness. Other characters might have passing similarities to Lyanna, but Arya's parallels are much more meaningful than that and are being highlighted for a reason.

[iindigoeyed]

I don't want to start shit but the funniest argument you can have against feligami is that felix somehow is manipulating / controlling kagami. You mean the guy whose whole thing is that he hates sentis being controlled. As if he holds any power over her. Ah yes, the same guy who detransformed in front of her willingly because she was about to pummel him with a fucking chair, totally powerful. And the part where he showed her he meant no threat by throwing his fan away so it would get her mother off their trail-- so awful and menacing of him. I'm so scared for Kagami, yall. He might have put himself in harms way by going against Tomoe (who turned into like the size of a skyscraper and multiplied four times at this point) literally just so he could get to know her; but let's not forget that he's COMPLETELY EVIL and wiped out the entire planet with the help of his amok... which he promptly stopped doing after being told that he shouldn't do that by Kagami herself. The fact that Kagami has years of fencing training and could easily defend herself from him-- hell, the fact that she's best friends with Ladybug and could have turned him in to the heroes at any moment in those sewers if she was uncomfortable around him-- no, none of that brings me any solace. i'm quaking in my boots at this 15 year old boy built like a twig. He's a monster guys.

Look at them at the pool together -- she looks so afraid, clearly he forced her to be there. Ignore the part where she's happily sat next to him of her own free will. He's gonna hurt her for sure. Kagami needs to be protected from him, because she cannot take care of herself obviously. The horror.