#sometimes i iron it as well

[regularbeans]

i... brush it...?

ok night showerers here's my question: you get your hair all nice and clean. you wake up. it's tussed it's fucked. then what? you wet it again?

[kindlythevoid]

One of my favorite things about Psych is how when they establish a character fact, they stick with it.

Have I at all heard that Gus did tap before the Episode Where He Does Tap? No! But it's brought up/he does tap in several episodes afterwards!!! (Tap-Man and the Seabirds comes to mind)

Did Juliet have a brother before Ewan "JOOOOOHN CEEEEENAAAAA" O'Hara appeared? Not really, although they DID say she had a large (at least extended) family. And they bring him up afterwards!! (Obviously the Bourne episode but also her dad mentions her "and the boys" growing up with Lloyd)

Did Shawn know what Phineas and Ferb was before it was referenced?? Who knows!! But now he's watching their marathons!!

And like!! We love that!! I can't super think of any other examples but there's something so refreshing and comforting to have details that for any other show would've been one-offs never to be brought up again instead become a more nuanced part of the character as a whole!!!

[aulostheremin]

Headcanoning Shen Monkey's species

cus my life is falling apart and only monkeys can make me feel something

Now it's well known that Sun Wukong is based on rhesus macaques and so are his monkey children. of course in almost every adaptations, he's more anthropomorphic, having slight human features like an average human height and wearing clothes. this goes too with Destined One, Old Monkey and some other background monkeys.

But for Shen Monkey, I don't think he's the same species as them. he has dark grey/almost black fur, light grey skin, pointed ears (this might be cus he's a zodiac deity), yellow eyes, pronounced snout and a longer tail that almost curls.

closeup screenshots of Shen I've gotten from @szynkaaa

so what species Shen Monkey could be? I say he's either a langur monkey or vervet monkey.

these are honestly the closest thing I could get to match Shen Monkey. the colours are way off and these two monkeys are not even native to China but well... I tried.

@/szynkaaa and @blackknight-kai have their own posts on deep analysing the monkey characters in Black Myth Wukong, and it's what inspired me to make these kinds of posts to fulfil my obsession with monkies. so check them both!

[il3x]

Commenting on superhero fiction as someone who's very new to the superhero genre is always risky. I want to gush about everything that's cool but I also don't want to become the equivalent of a first-time fantasy reader saying "Woah, it's so awesome how your wizard lives in a tower!!"

[creaman]

Why did he do this

[incorrect-web-novels]

"I hate Kim Dokja because he's too much like me" <-forced to bear the sin of knowledge

[welcometogrouchland]

I'm going to be so real I do not understand tim & steph shippers who feel that Steph dating Tim again would save her character. You can make an argument that giving Tim a more compelling love interest would be beneficial for him! And you can at least make an argument that the fujo mischaracterization of Steph would stop. However she'd still, inevitably, be treated as a prop character/extension for someone more popular 😭 it also wouldn't make her appear in more books! Tim doesn't have many frequent appearances at the moment either! You can just say you like the couple and want them back together without acting like you have some kind of moral stance

[corpocyborg]

so like... the Qun being reveled to be pro-trans in DAI makes zero sense... considering both sten & the arishok are shown to believe strongly in gender roles... and that sten even goes as far as to say that a person can never be anything other than what they're born and that a fisherman who tries to become a merchant will never be a real merchant and will only ever be a fisherman pretending to be a merchant... like... ?????

I mean i get wanting iron bull to be pro-trans himself but wouldn't it make way more sense for that to be something he actually dislikes about the Qun... and then it would actually create tension in his storyline between his own viewpoints & agency and the messages he's learned from the qun and partially actually believes and has partially been forced to believe through literal indoctrination and abuse... and therefore whether he becomes tal-vashoth or not could actually be something that matters instead of just a meaningless pseudo-choice...

[wickjump]

falls to the floor and saves myself from the awkwardness of losing followers for having opinions they did not like (which is valid of them btw curate ur own online experience) by blocking everyone in a ten mile radius and by everyone i mean two people to spare myself

[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.

[emdeerm]

Idea!

Ex-Twin

Damian and Danyal were twins. They were very close but only within their mother's sight. Everyone else only ever saw a cold indifference.

Danyal has failed a mission at the age of 6 which resulted in his death. Damian was with him at the time and retrieved the body. In a desperate attempt to get his brother back, he tried to dip him into the Lazarus Pit.

The Pit took him away much to the heartbreak of the living boy.

Damian threw himself into an even more ruthless training and excelled at it. With time, Ra's was even happy that the other boy has died. It served as an excellent motivator to his heir.

Years passed. Damian has been with his Father for a long while now. He was now turning 22 and Father held a Gala in his honour. Damian has long since realised that it was quite unnecessary but it helped their covers and allowed him to make connections.

However, they were just as boring as ever. Same faces, same lies, same talks. Nothing aloevera changed

Until a new couple from a city Amity Park, came with two teenage children. Samantha, the girl, was expected. Her bright pink gown less so if any information on her was any true.

Her companion, a boy her age, clearly uncomfortable in the suit and tie, made the ground under his feet disappear.

He looked so much like Damian himself did at the age of 15. And his eyes were that familiar, haunting blue.

Damian excused himself from his current conversation, and gracefully strode out of the room past the young teens.

Maybe he was being paranoid. Most likely unreasonably hopeful. Perhaps he was behaving irrationally.

Nonetheless, long minutes later, the scan of a hair he managed to snag revealed the truth.

It was his brother.

He came back.

___

Um... so, Maddie and Jack got dozed with some old Ecto at some point during very early stages of Maddie's pregnancy and Lazarus (Ectoplasm+Clockwork) infused the preserved genes of the baby, who died so early and had a glorious life of adventures ahead of him, into the barely formed zygot.

Danny's adventures happened. Phantom Planet not so much (unless you want it to be after the AGIT). Sam's parents finally made into an even bigger leagues and were invited to the Gala.

Danny had a bad feeling. Anything to do with the extremely rich was always problematic. No offence, Sam.

[outlying-hyppocrate]

coming back here feels like paying a visit to the fucking dead.

[hanzajesthanza]

honestly as much as i dislike triss for her treachery i mostly dislike her because she becomes sympathetic. if i had to choose between fighting in a war or being able to stare at philippa eilhart’s boobs all day i know what i would pick

[chatxkilluaxnoir]

I have Gravity Falls and Etc. fic(s) idea(s)

Which, I am going to write now while I am having this fic idea (probably going to be a short one, but in the future I might make a revised expanded version or something. Who knows).

I actually have multiple Gravity Falls and GF TAU and Reverse Falls and etc. stuff that stems from this specific The Book of Bill thing.

Specifically stuff exploring Dipper's nightmares.

(I have some other ideas for the other dreams and/or nightmares too. Sometimes even in relation to Dipper's in some way).

I love my boy, and his nightmares hurt my heart.

But also because I love him, I want to explore even more of issues/trauma/suffering and/or to do Dipper angst. And etc.

Because I want both happiness and/or suffering for my faves/the characters I love very much.

Like Dipper.

So he is going to be getting even more of that from me, probably.

Because he is great and I love him.

[lususnatura]

[jrueships]

Paul George on Stephen A. Smith’s Kawhi Leonard jab: “I didn’t like that moment… Kawhi wants to play… We exhausted a lot out of Kawhi this season. So at some point your body breaks you down… I didn’t appreciate that moment. I know I laughed because the situation was lighthearted, but deep down it was like you gotta let that go, Stephen A.”

Paul George, knight in shining armor