#we are from the same state
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superbat-lmao · 27 days ago
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The landscape of vigilantism and superheroism is forever shifting and changing. People die, get resurrected, betray their ideals, change their morals, go from hero to criminal to anti-hero, redeem themselves before death, it is impossible to keep track of everyone’s allegiances and fluctuating morals.
The only person able to keep all of that information straight, is Batman. He’s the only one who bothers to try. Everyone else relies on his files, the details and connections he makes sure to document, to leaf through. New people join every day and Batman learns as much about them as he possibly can.
There’s a day in the future when Bruce looks around at all the new faces in the Justice League, all of the new teams that feed into its recruitment, The Titans, Young Justice, The Outlaws, ect and realizes that his world has changed. His children are the structure of the vigilante/hero scene. He was a scaffold, allowing them to reach their potential where they would settle into place and become the structural supports for the rest of the community.
But there will always be a piece of Bruce that misses the beginning. When things were simpler and he was just settling into the League he was creating. When the faces went from new to familiar and hadn’t yet reached complicated. Some people called them the golden years or the good ol’ days, but Bruce couldn’t name them. He just missed the beginning when he hadn’t known the end.
And before anyone knows it, even Batman is gone. Finally passed on. And no one is able to recreate what he did, who he was. The way he held things together.
Instead, his children share the role. They serve as the points of contact between so many interrelated and unconnected teams. They are the bridges of communication, of sharing intel, of laying inroads. No one man keeps track of what Batman was able to, but together, his children carry on his legacy.
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One of my favorite aspects of the Buddie relationship is that they are both so okay with clinginess. Obviously Buck tends to be the one who is the clingier of the two, but neither of them have any reservations about this behavior. They see no problems with always wanting to be around each other. They are equally codependent.
Eddie is beaming fondly about Buck’s obsession with taking Christopher to the zoo all the time. Buck willingly forces Eddie, Chris, Taylor, and himself into an awkward dinner because he wants his girlfriend and best friend to get along, and Eddie allows it even though he kinda hates Taylor. Eddie doesn’t even flinch when his best friend shows up on his doorstep out of the blue after he just got out of the hospital from a lightning strike injury that killed him. Buck has zero issue with Eddie dropping Chris off with zero warning to get him out of bed and back to living life again.
Eddie sees Buck’s attachment issues as something to be treasured or protected, and clearly encourages Buck to be around constantly if the “this is Eddie’s house, I’m not really a guest” line is any indicator. And as for Buck, if Eddie ever found a new friend to hang with, he would immediately start crashing out, as evidenced by the ill-advised maiming he does of Eddie’s ankle because he’s so damn jealous of Tommy. They couldn’t possibly be more “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine” about each other, it’s just that ridiculous.
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ohgreat-moretapes · 10 months ago
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Tim I noticed a lot of indigenous patches on your jacket, are you Native?
Idk what my dad was 'cause I never knew him, but yeah my mom is (or... Was.. I guess..) Muscogee, the tribe native to the part of Alabama I'm in.
If I remember correctly she came to Alabama from Oklahoma (where a lot of Natives were displaced to in the 1800s) to "get back to her roots."
But yknow, I was separated from her in childhood (which tbh is upsettingly common for Native families) and I was raised in a very white very Catholic asylum so I'm not as connected to the culture as I'd like to be.
-Tim
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evienyx · 1 month ago
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Calculating Sentry's Power Level (with science!!!)
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In Thunderbolts*, we are told rather explicitly that Sentry has "the power of a thousand exploding suns." I have seen this used a lot when discussing how he might measure up against other beings within the MCU.
Now, I have no real way of calculating or quantifying the power of someone like Wanda or Loki or anyone like that. For Bob, though, we might actually be able to find a number. What would this number mean? Unimportant, this is just for fun, so don't take anything as gospel either because I'm barely checking my math here and am just stream-of-consciousness-ing this thing.
Okay, so, let's figure out just how much power Bob has (spoiler: it's so much omg lmao). My man is stressed and doesn't wanna know but that's too damn bad okay here we go.
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To start, let's look at how much energy, or power, the Sun outputs.
When it comes to stars, their power output is referred to as their luminosity, and is measured in Watts (also known as Joules/second, or the energy output every second).
The Sun's luminosity is about 3.828 × 10^26 Watts. (source)
For reference, the total U.S. electricity consumption in 2022 was about 4.07 trillion kWh (or about 1.4652 × 10^19 Joules) (source). Dividing our Sun's luminosity of 3.828 × 10^26 Joules/second by this, we can find that the Sun outputs enough energy to power the U.S. for a year 26,126,126 times over, every second.
So, a lot of power.
This alone would pack quite a punch. However, we are not looking at the power of just one Sun, but of 1000. So, we multiply our Luminosity by 1000, and can also multiply our number of United States as well to find that our power output is now
3.828 × 10^29 Watts, or 26,126,126,000 United States (in a year, every second).
Even now, though, we aren't getting the whole picture. After all, Sentry's power isn't "the power of a thousand Suns." It's "the power of a thousand exploding Suns." Therefore, we need to look at the amount of energy that the Sun would output at the end of its life.
In astronomy, stars are categorized based off of their luminosity and their surface temperature, as well as color (source). The majority of stars (as in about 90%) fall into the "main sequence," while the other 10% are made up white dwarfs, giants, and supergiants. They are organized in what is known as the Hertzprung-Russell (HR) diagram, shown below.
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Our Sun is what is known as a G-Type (yellow) star. It is a very average star (which is a good thing). For average stars, their life comes to an end when they run out of excess hydrogen to use for nuclear fusion (the process of fusing hydrogen atoms into helium, which releases immense energy and powers the star). Once that hydrogen runs out, the star begins to collapse.
This collapse, however, produces more heat, so that the star can then create essentially a burning shell of its little remaining hydrogen that wraps around the star's core. This shell causes the outer layers of the star to expand rapidly, turning the star into a red giant, which will consume its helium until it is gone, and collapse and expand again.
As material continues to be ejected from the red giant, it also forms a planetary nebula around the dying star. After about a billion years, it will run out of material and the inner core of the star will be exposed. At this point, the star is left as a white dwarf (source).
Now, that was a lot, and a lot of energy was involved, but there are three main parts of the G-Type star's death: the red giant, the planetary nebula ejection, and the white dwarf.
When a star expands into a red giant, it heats up a lot, and its luminosity increases significantly (source). We don't know exactly how much the Sun's luminosity will increase by at this point. Some estimates put it anywhere between 1000 times greater and 3000 times greater, so for the sake of this, let's just say 2000 times greater.
So, the luminosity of our dying red giant star is about
7.656 × 10^29 Watts.
Unfortunately, Watts is measuring our energy output per second, and we want it overall. So, let's keep going.
Though the red giant period lasts for about a billion years, the increased luminosity is really only toward the end of it, as it comes from the burning of helium into carbon, which goes by much quicker than the hydrogen burning that took up most of the star's life.
So, instead of a billion years, we will go with about ten million years worth of our high luminosity.
Energy = luminosity (watts) × time (seconds)
Energy = (7.656 × 10^29 joules/second) × (3.154 × 10^7 seconds/year) × 10^7 years
Energy = 2.415 × 10^44 joules.
I'm not even gonna try to figure out how many United States that is.
This is only the red giant phase, of course. We still have a bit more to look at.
Though there is no fusion involved or anything, the planetary nebula ejection still outputs a lot of kinetic energy, which we can thankfully calculate relatively easily. We only need the mass and the velocity.
For mass, we're looking at about 40% of the Sun's original mass being sent out into space (source), so about 7.9536 × 10^29 (source).
For velocity, we're looking at about 20 km/s, or 20,000 m/s (source).
Another note: 1 joule = 1 kg × (m/s)^2
Now, onto kinetic energy:
E = 0.5 × mass × velocity^2
E = 0.5 × (7.9536 × 10^29 kg) × (20,000 m/s)^2
E = 1.591 × 10^38 joules.
That's a lot of energy, but in terms of stellar and astrophysics things, it's not actually that much lol. Still, now we know it.
Lastly, we have the white dwarf phase. Now, once a star is a white dwarf, its death is essentially already done. All that would be left in terms of energy for this white dwarf phase would be the energy that is output as it is cooling. Certainly, this is a lot of energy, but it isn't really enough to make much of a dent in our calculations, especially since it is happening over the course of billions of years.
So, our final number for the amount of energy output by the Sun in its death is about:
2.415 × 10^44 joules.
Our planetary nebula ejection number (1.591 × 10^38 joules) is so insignificant against this number that adding it changes literally nothing.
This is just one Sun, though. We need a thousand.
So, if we want to quantify the amount of power that Sentry has, knowing that it is the power of "a thousand exploding Suns," we can say that it is about:
2.415 × 10^47 joules.
This is more energy than the Sun will output over its entire lifetime, and by quite a lot.
Now, one thing may have caught your attention through all of this.
The idea of "exploding star" evokes a very particular image, and it is certainly not that of a star turning red and expanding and contracting over the course of a billion years. When you hear "exploding star," you don't think red giant; you think supernova.
The thing is, most stars don't go supernova. Our Sun is not nearly massive enough to go supernova. It would need a mass at least eight times that which it has to even have a possibility of going supernova.
However, supernovae have a general amount of energy that they output when they occur, in the ballpark of about 10^44 joules (source). Multiply this by 1000, and you get about the answer we already found (10^47 joules).
The exciting thing about a supernova explosion is not just the amount of energy that it outputs, but the speed at which it does so. The fact that the Sun cannot go supernova, and therefore cannot explode, will not affect our final answer in any way but vibes.
And so, we come to our not-at-all-peer-reviewed, done at midnight, completely without double-checking my work, final answer.
MCU Sentry, with the power of "a thousand exploding Suns," has the power roughly equivalent to 2.415 × 10^47 joules.
Or:
241,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules.
For reference, in 2019, the world total electricity consumption was about 22,848 TWh (source), or about 8.225 × 10^19 joules. This means that Sentry's power is equivalent to about how much energy the entire world uses in a year, 2.936 octillion times over (or 2.936 × 10^27).
Considering this is (I think) representative of his power level and not something like the total amount of power he can use ever, it's safe to say that, even if it is the power of a thousand exploding Suns rather than a million, MCU Sentry is still pretty strong, all things considered.
Anyway, if you find anything in particular that is grievously wrong with this, feel free to let me know. I did this in like under two hours.
Read next: Sentry Vs. The Avengers (with science!)
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POV: They don't know I've got 2.415 × 10^47 joules worth of power inside me (except they kinda do lol)
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lotus-pear · 1 year ago
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bsd fic authors i understand yalls pain SO well right now why is it so fucking HARD to write dazai. like i have a whole fucking spreadsheet dedicated to tireless analysis i have done on my part so i can accurately characterize him but he is such an unpredictable and morally gray character that it's hard knowing his limits and boundaries and where he draws the line for himself.
#i hate when ppl make him out to be a sadistic villain with no remorse. like did we read the same manga 💀#but at the same time he is NOT crying abt all the ppl he sent to the grave. he sleeps just fine at night knowing he committed atrocities#yes he feels remorse? but he isn't like kunikida to weep at someone's grave for failing to save them#and then we have his emotions themselves#dazai isn't emotionless. far from it. he has difficulty expressing affection but yk he finds someone endearing when he trusts them#trust is very important to dazai and is one of the aspects of human emotion that he can fully grasp#but like everything else is in a hazy gray area that he does not feel like exploring. he feels alienated from his humanity bc of this#AUUUGHH can someone help me with character analysis PLEASE#I WASNT PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS MF UNTIL RECENTLY SO I MISSED OUT ON A LOT OF IMPORTANT DETAILS#see i would go and reread a few light novels but like i don't have time for that#and this is for dazai specifically. i am very well versed on his relationships w other charcaters#but just like asigiri himself said: it's very difficult to write dazai and write him WELL#so yeaaa i have a lot of smart ppl following me pls help#bsd#ALSO MY FRIEND STILL HAS NO LONGER HUMAN UUUUGHHHHHH I NEED THAT BACK BC I TABBED IT A SHIT TON#FOR LIKE CONNECTIONS TO YOZO AND BSD DAZAI AND WHERE ASIGIRI DREW INSPIRATION FROM YOZOS CHARACTER FOR DAZAI#THAT WOULD BE SUCH A VALUABLE FUCKING RESOURCE BC I DID SOME ANNOTATIONS IN THEM TOO BUT MY BOOK IS ANOTHER FUCKING STATE#I HATE IT HERE FML
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hplonesomeart · 1 month ago
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Some sappy colorful comfort art for the occasion of pride month. Be who you are and be with the people you cherish :3
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faunandfloraas · 10 months ago
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Aussie question time: when I find out an idol is American/Canadian, their image in my mind completely changes because now it’s like “Oh I know exactly who you are, I grew up with your type around me” there are subtleties that I’m going to understand that others might not. So with all that said, I’ve been curious about what that’s like (if you experience it) w the skz aussies (throw in a lily if you’re feeling it -v-) 🎤
this is wayyyyyy too long so I'm putting it under a read more- also disclaimer: i dont know these guys and these are just my opinions, dont take em too srs <3
Hmmmm... Well I guess I'll start with Felix- I've said it before a bunch but the whole "Felix is a tiny uwuw baby sweet summerchild who is just such a baby" etc. etc. has made me laugh from the get go- because Yep! he is incredibly sensitive and sweet natured and kind and he cries a lot- 100% that is true. Dont think I'm saying it's not. But like. He also grew up in western sydney, he grew up in a area that if you google it one of the first suggestions is "is it safe" but then at the same time he went to private catholic school im pretty sure. and i saw pics from back then that he'd posted back in the day of cool little felix with his gold watch and his fade and all his little homeboys looking rowdy on the train- I know that kid and while that kid can also be sweet and sensitive, he's not incapable and hes not a baby. Good recent example was when he went on that Jewel box show with the gay dudes and people were acting like he was *so uncomfortable* and sooooo out of his element and so this and so that- theres gay dudes all over sydney, there's gay dudes all over australian media- the idea felix couldnt handle that was simply laughable to me- but it kinda shows how many outside perceptions of him still very much fall into that vaguely infantalizing thing. Like when he was the one who was happy to go up to adam levine and dj snake in that skz talker while the other boys were much more shy? that didnt shock me at all. felix went to korea as a whole teenager laregly against his parent wishes- he's actually quite an outgoing and brave guy. Outgoing guys can still be sweeties, though- one doesn't negate the other.
One other aspect of Felix i think a lot of fans just gloss over but is easily noticeable by me is that he can kindaaaaaa be ... a lil bitchy? like he's never ever mean or cruel dont get me wrong- but he has a slight bitchy streak, he rolls his eyes AND he's actually much more sarcastic than people bring up? Again- he does it a lot with Chan and that doesnt shock me- they both are aussie boys, Chan will get it and I think Felix can very much be himself with Chan, he doesn't necessarily feel the need to put up an extra air of like... Sweetie boy-ness? bc when he calls chan a cunt on live chan just laughs and goes OI!! so yuh the main thing with felix is while i do think hes a little sweet guy, ive never from the get go had a hard time seeing him outside of that box, too. Also maybe that's a lil bit aussie humour slipping under the radar here or there 🤔
Chan to me from the get go too was pretty much like. Prototypical overachieving aussie Good Boy. Like, i had a drafted post i never posted bc it was too niche- but it was essentially about how he speaks about sports and the like, and it just said "We get it. You went to zone carnival" which was the sporting event that the kids who got gold or 1st place were sent to. If you went to zone, you were the Successful kid. I think these days most fans perceive him as... a bit of a goofy guy? but I have gone through the archives and i have seen the comments from people talking about how chans such a bad boy- thats shit is so funny to me bc you can show me every iteration of chan and I'd never, ever think he's a bad boy. Like he wishes he was a bad boy, he kinda cosplays a bad boy- even him referencing swearing bc of his australianess and shit over the years makes me giggle a little bc i feel like felix def 100% swears all the time but he doesnt like Smirk about it too much? he doesnt really bring it up? things like that stand out, it to me feels very like Oh yeah I'm this naughty Aussie boy who swears hehe and then all the australians are like ? Girl we all do huh lmao
Otherwise, I dont have as much to say about chan as i do about felix, funnily. Like idk people might perceive differently to me, but nothing too far off? I will say that given Chan's success and the fact he was seemingly a very well achieving kid too (maybe not debuting for such a long time is part of this) he is WAY more humble than I'd expect. Like not to besmirch Australian men but a lot of them can be really loud and cocky, especially the famous successful ones (any sport star) it's almost encouraged to be like that if you're a dude (but only to a certain degree, anything beyond a certain point and you'll be roasted lol) So I have to give credit where it's due and say that Chan *Seemingly does have a very good nature and I appreciate that about him! Its probably why I like him so much bc he actually very much doesn't give off those vibes- he doesn't seem like that overly macho cocky bloke I know very well. So that makes him good fun for me- he's very successful and he's confident and yet he doesn't activate any of my bitch instincts- thats impressive! I don't know him, so I'll never know for sure of course, i feel like i need to make that disclaimer but still I do believe he has a good heart, and he tries so hard! and I appreciate that.
Lily is weirdly like Chan. like she's hilariously like chan tbh- I wonder how they really get along sometimes bc I feel like they might look at each other and be like Hm... we the same............ ? Lmao I will say though, lily is a bit out of pocket and half of that I believe is her personality but half of it is just.... I think she's just australian 😭 like i cant lie you get me as a teenager to early 20 something and put me on a live and I can promise I would be saying as much ?? shit. Like, I do think Australians are a little loud and not necessarily always.... tactful (again Not everyone, but yk.) lily certainly fits that bill to a T. I appreciate that regardless of her idolhood she does still say things that maybe she shouldn't, she shrugs off a shoplifting confession, she says she'd murder someone if she had to, she bought and wore a shirt that fans quickly tracked down and found out all the proceeds were going to Palestine- she would have known what that suggested. she clearly had this goal of being an idol since she was a baby, like literal baby but she hasn't sacrificed her broader personality, even the parts that could potentially be off-putting to those idol fans that expect perfection and nothing else. I appreciate that in her! and I hope she never loses her little weird girl spark bc it does make her very dynamic! Her slightly gruff aussie girlness is very fun for me to see in the idolsphere bc it def feels out of place, but in a refreshing way...
so yeah. Idk if this was sensical, I was making dinner so I put my phone down a bunch and it's probably disjointed but thats my opinion... my thoughts, my ideas! Idk my take on them. Thanks for asking 🫡
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liamket · 3 months ago
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i present
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the thing
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andoutofharm · 2 years ago
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i have a special kind of annoyance for people who say fall out boy (or any band!) look “sad” or “bored” because they’re standing still while playing or have a serious expression like. just say you know nothing about them and also have zero respect for neurodivergent people and/or people who’ve had surgeries that restrict their movement and go
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lightkrets312 · 10 months ago
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to the people who write summaries and wikis with thorough breakdowns of all the lore and media for a series that breaks it up into 20 different formats: you are doing fantastic work, may it remain intact and accessible well into the future, I owe you my life
to the people that decide splitting your series into 20 different media formats with critical lore in most/all of them is a good idea:
ARCHIVE YOUR SHIT IMMEDIATELY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING.
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its-all-papaya · 4 months ago
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sorry i missed a night on tumblr dot com, i was having an experience that's going to inform really good fanfic some day
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taraxippos · 9 months ago
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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.
#Sorry this turned into a 100000 word essay on The Iliad it can't be helped#I read Circe by the same author and thought it was like.. better? Definitely not great just less aggravating and kind of boring#Just rote 'you heard about this villainous woman from a Greek myth... Here's the REAL story' shit#It did have a few things I thought were good I remember it starting kind of strong and then just going limp for the remaining duration#I think part of it is that in that case she's expanding on a figure that Didn't have a whole lot of characterization in the source so#like. She had to actually Expand The Character#Again Silence of the Girls is the only Greek Mythology Retelling I have like....positive?.leaning positive? feelings towards#I've got BIG issues with it too but it does pretty much the exact opposite of everything I'm mad at SOA for and in some very#compelling ways (it's just that the author seems way more interested in Achilles and Patroclus than The Main Character Briseis#to the point of randomly starting to have Achilles POV interjections (which I thought were Good in of themselves but#really really really really really really really didn't need to be there) and then get kind of lampshaded by Briseis narrating 'I guess I#was trapped in Achilles' story the whole time lol!!!!!!')#It undermines the book on both a thematic level and just like. a construction level like it's real sloppy at times.#Also the Briseis POV sometimes has these like really out of place Author Mouthpiece Moments where she's very obviously#Stating The Point to the audience and it's like yeah we get it. We get it.#Wow in the scene were our mostly silent enslaved protagonist removes the gag from the mouth of a dead sacrificed girl as a#small but significant act of defiance and grieving in a book called 'Silence of the Girls' you inserted an ironic repeat of the line#'silence befits a woman'. in italics even. Thanks for that. I could not possibly have grasped the meaning of this scene if you didn't#spell it out for me like that. Thank you.#Actually hang on the only Greek mythology retelling I have unequivocally positive feelings for are the 'Minotaur Forgiving'#songs on 'This One's For The Dancer And This One's For The Dancer's Bouquet'. Fully love it. Like not just as songs I think it#does function well as a narrative and engages with and expands on the source in really beautiful and creative ways
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bitchfitch · 8 months ago
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I need funding to make a rubella themed slasher block buster bc I Guarantee a fuck ton of vaccine hesitancy can be defeated the same way it was created: by bold faced lying for monetary gain
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gillespiejr · 1 month ago
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heartwarming! their shared antisemitism bridges all political gaps!
#i just saw a few posts saying they were shocked that something like that happened in colorodo given how blue of a state it is#and it would be poor taste to directly comment on their post but i wanted to express my thoughts on the matter:#when we are talking antisemitism it applies just as much to the right as to the left#their reasons for hating jews might be different but ultimately it boils down to the same thing#and secondly the fact of the matter is democrats are not only doing jack shit about antisemitism but they are harboring#antisemites leftists and islamists which all feed off of each other#meanwhile republicans are actually doing stuff about this. now are their motivations pure? mostly not#they're probably *not* doing this because they just love jews so much#it's more that all of this shit is anti western and anti american#so yeah although i wish i could say otherwise it doesn't shock me at all#i have received infinitely more support from my conservative friends in light of like everything post 7. october than liberal friends#as a matter of fact i pretty much lost my liberal friends#and it is consistently the case that the most liberal states and most liberal institutions are tolerating the worst cases of antisemitism#it's the result of a lot of complex things but the big message i'm trying to get across here is that no political affiliation which absolve#anyone from antisemitic tendencies because the whole point of antisemitism is that it's universally appealing#these thoughts are my own and i'd be lying if i said they weren't fueled by my emotions#i feel really strongly about this#so feel free to push back but i'll get off my soapbox now#Oh editing to add i do NOT deny that antisemitism exists on the right. That's not my point to be clear
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pinkfey · 2 months ago
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the moral grandstanding of hunger games fans has to come to an end rn
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dykedvonte · 8 months ago
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I beg people in the MW to think very carefully when they talk about mental illness and physical disability cause it’s not as straight forward and easy to diagnose/depict as you think…
#it’s less I hate the analysis more so the way people talk about these real mental disorders in really demonizing ways#like there aren’t people who leads normal lives#and are well adjusted with these disorders like only people like them can do shit Jimmy does and it’s in a really fear mongering way like#please be careful with how you handle those subject matter not every bad character needs a reason why some people are just like Jimmy no#no clear diagnosis or if ur gonna pick something you don’t need to be on the apd spectrum to be narcissistic it’s just like I wish people#would understand that like people like him just exist he would not be diagnosed as either in like a clinical setting cause it’s more than#just hitting the boxes plus like it’s stated that Jimmy still choice to do what he was doing#like a big thing with sort of violent apd personalities is they don’t show any regret or remorse at all for these actions and he does it’s#born from self preservation but to this extent to classify he’d have to still not feel anything like it’s just a touchy thing and we are#bordering on the same fear mongering people had about schizophrenia or bpd#like I just feel like he def has something but it’s not named or define for a reason like he practically fits everything and it’s likely i#intentional so you can give him that excuse but it’s likely he’s just like that like some people are cruel with no sort of neurosis like hes#def delusional but sociopaths and psychopaths tend to have a better grip on reality than he does#did and more factors point to himself than anything going on in his head#this is just the psych in me but pls be super careful with how you discuss mental illnesses cause it’s still his choice to do the things he#mouthwashing
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