#sometimes characters are just like me for real. sorry!

[jackiespurnell]

what about you whats ur yj character rankings?

okayyy so this is gonna be an interesting one just a friendly reminder i love ALL of them and they went through so so so much and they all deserve so much better <333 no hate pls !! (spoilers for s3e4 btw)

im gonna do in description stuff for the top three only because i have to go :<

jackie, my babygirlie, my wet pathetic meow meow comphet lesbian. idk what to say. shes so tragic and i miss her sm. i think what kills me the most about her is how optimistic she was from the start that everything would be okay and that they'd all make it and how by the end she just lost all of her motivation. she started off with the most life in her, and left with the least. all she ever really wanted was to be loved, yet she left the earth thinking everybody hated her. also anyone who says shes a mean girl square up cause she was just oblivious, okay? she wasnt purposely bossy!!! leave her alone!!! but yeah shes my baby i miss her

misty. look, i know a lot of ppl dislike her for obvious reasons but i dont care shes my shayla!!! she just wanted attention, okay??? similar to jackie, she truly just had the best intentions but kinda ended up screwing people over. tbh i cant explain why i love misty sm but i just do. she makes me cry so much, like, she tried so so hard and while yes she is insanely offputting and concerning and scary, she was just a kid, okay?? also, when shauna was yelling at misty in the car in adult timeline saying how something fucked her up as a kid (paraphrasing) i know she said it to be mean, but i think its true. i think maybe she has some sorta disorder or her parents were absent or smth. idk, but my shyala deserves better idc

lottie. my babys dead!!!! yall killed her!!!! i just sat there in shock when she died for a good five mins then started crying cause fym shes dead??? sure, she technically caused travis' death and probably akilah's too if she dies but she never had any bad intentions!!! she just wanted to help

this is really interesting actually cause my top three are basically all girls who wanted to help so much that they ended up fucking people over.

4. nat. my shayla did nothing wrong she was so god and so pure to the point where it makes me sick. its not her fault she was stuck in a bad situation she deserved the whole world idc

5. taissa. tbh at first i was kinda anti-taissa just cause of when she was getting all pissy about shauna playing w jackies corpse but i was sooo wrong!!! tai is SUCH a good friend and genuinely just such a good person i love her

6. van. look im not anti van i mean sometimes she pisses me off lowk but im more nuetral than anything when it comes to her like sorry i dont have any real opinions on her lmao but she is funny ill give her that

7. shauna. look i really really wanna love shauna sm because my girl went thru soooo so much and she really is such a kind soul but just. she pisses me off and i wish she didnt. but as much as i love her i just cannot support her 90% of the time. like girl needs to stfu (but i love her still)

[evilneo]

sometimes im like "damn why is there not more discussion about [canonically abused character]'s and [canonical abuser who has no regard for autonomy or boundaries and is also a parental/familial/older figure of some kind]'s abuse through a lens of CSA bc im a victim of that and they resonate with me and also it would not be a stretch at all to view it as that even tho its not canon". and then im violently transported back to the real world where the internet is mainly split into either "we discuss it but only bc we fetishize pedophilia and incest LOL we dont care about survivors" or "we have a complex about this and we think if you hc characters in this way youre as bad as the first camp. what do you mean were basically telling survivors that their experiences are too disgusting and shameful to talk about? shut up" and well i think both camps are Dick Heads‼️‼️‼️‼️

[theelmoarchive]

THE SUCKENING!!!!!!!

Can you tell who my favorite is

I love drawing these guys so much Emizel is slowly filling every sketchbook page i flip

[anghraine]

One of the weirder parts of being formally tested for autism as an adult—apart from the hellscape of hours of math hell—was that they kept asking me for my conclusions or opinions about things I had very little knowledge of. These weren't basic facts you'd expect someone to pick up in the course of a standard US education, and I kept repeating that I would have to do actual research to form opinions on subjects I had no significant information about.

Obviously, "not opinionated" isn't a major problem for me when I do have a reasonable amount of information, but my eventual diagnosis specifically mentioned that I kept repeating that I would have to do more research to acquire the necessary baseline of data for forming opinions on [whatever], and that the phrasing of my various refusals tended to be identical or very similar (I didn't see any need to alter my wording when I was simply repeating the same position over and over).

*cough*

Anyway this is also about Star Trek. (Surprise.) I knew Spock would be relatable before we started the grand TOS watch, but did not expect him to be the most relatable character on television ever, and his continual refusals to deliver opinions without enough data for informed theories was actually a big part of this.

[dreamsy990]

some of the less nice thoughts about being aroace

extras below the cut

sketch

closeups on my favorite panels

bonus: adios

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

literally the easiest way to make someone care about a character and make them feel well-rounded beyond basic traits like personality, sexuality, ethnicity, etc, is to give them an actual character arc, and it’s shocking how many people do not seem to fully realize this

you cannot just cram a bunch of tropes. tropes are not the main event, they are tools to tell the story you wish to tell. emotional impact comes from the lead up, so you can’t just jump ahead and expect the payoff to work. “I want this character to just ___ already!” but they’re not there yet. that’s where the arc comes in - how do they get there?

and! most importantly, and this is something I really want people to think about when writing - the most important relationship your character should have, always, is with the world and society around them. defining your character purely through their interactions with other characters are, I find, how a lot of female characters end up feeling flat or not engaging with the themes as much as the male characters, and also how queer and non-white characters wind up as devices for other characters’ development instead of being more fleshed out

[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.

[ravenalla]

Snarky Din how I miss you

[princsstwilightsparkl]

saying "if aroace people can date, then can lesbians date men?" is absolutely aphobic narrative btw!

[konmics-n-stuff]

I really resent the Young Justice tv show for … a lot of things. TBH.

[thefloatingwriter]

relating to your reblog.. no one actually gets beetee i fear. minus you mostly. but the consensus of him being a chill tech guy and not in part a mass murderer both in the arena and in the rebellion & also pretty morally grey in a sense? yknwwww. yknw!

yes yes yes. all do this yes. he’s morally gray. it is so obvious he is morally gray it is practically written on his forehead. his morals are definitely questionable. that is so obvious and yet…

at this point i think i need a therapy session simply so i can rant about other people’s interpretations of beetee. because. do you even understand him. did you even read the trilogy. like i don’t even know what to tell some of you at this point except that you just don’t get him like i do.

[fightinggamegirlfriend]

*puts head in hands* god stop brain developing feelings for more characters please stop. I don’t want to hoard more characters I already have enough love in my heart! Argh!

[sygneth]

The confirmation that Harry's squad abandoning him is just poor writing just so the player can continue doing shit on their own is the fact that it never gets explained. Harry even tries to bring it up but kim just. Shuts him up about about it is so so sooooo absurd. Jean's inaction could also harm him but he just makes harry drop the subject? C'mon folk it could have not been more obvious that the writers simply did not come up with that part 💀 I wish people would just take things as they are: de is not really a detailed novel. It's a fuckin game. With excellent writing, excellent characters and worldbuilding, but still a game

I don't think there is much to add here anon. This is a very solid point.

EDIT: I figured it may be worth adding that this is about the posse leaving on the day of the mercenary tribunal, not before the events of the game

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

my biggest dissonance is how robert de niro in once upon a time in america actually looks like young carlo (but more handsome than carlo) but noodles character is nothing like him like max is a certifed carlo core. he would do everything max did

[averlym]

a word to the wise sometimes the only true rest is looking beyond what you thought was success

so true! adamandi is full of wise advice such as this, including: "and you'll never feel better if you - fucking die- you stupid ass!"

[brainrotzora]

these things are always happening to the ones i like :////////

anyways the lighting in this dungeon is so nice

didn't get any good pics bc i was too busy dungeoning but so pretty...best dungeon music so far goes to snowcloak though btw