#who is enslaved

[bookwyrminspiration]

when the worldbuildings so complex even 100 pages in you don’t know what’s going on

[somepinkthing]

"Hector was a good man" "diomedes was an honorable man" BZZZT WRONG. Diomedes was there to steal, burn, and wage war same as the next person. In fact, he was pretty adamant about it. Hector had no issue with the greek's actions, merely that they were directed at him—I mean look at what he wanted to do with patroclus's body, only to then cite respect for funeral rites when it was his own turn to die. Hector also owned slaves within his own city walls—people that he likely took from their homes during troy's own conquests. All that seperated him and the greek warriors was which side they were on.

The Iliad isn't a story about morally upstanding men. Sure, it has men who have honor and perform honorable acts, but these are not good samaritans. It's is a story about war and grief and the real victims of fights between so-called-honorable men and gods. The urge to find a "good guy" in this story is wasted. Hector doesn't have to be morally good just because achilles isn't. Troy didn't lose because they were more or less evil than the greeks. It all just. Is. Because of fate? Because the gods said so? Because people will always make disastrous mistakes and it will always end up biting not only them, but everyone else around them? Who knows? In the end though, doesn't it all feel so pointless in the face of the endless amounts of grief and destruction that war leaves behind? Maybe that's the whole point

[keferon]

Isn’t Vortex a fucking torture freak tho? 👀👀👀

Yep. He is. He is a lot of things actually. The more you learn about him the more fucked up it gets

[ghastigiggles]

(p.2) unlearning takes time

[part 1] [...] [part 3 (not done yet)]

[scripted-downfall]

It's kinda hilarious how the Lords in Black looked at Ted and went "yeah, no, fuck this one guy in particular" for no real discernible reason. Like, obviously, there's Tinky and his Spankoffski Poké Ball, but then there's Pokey who a) turned homeless!Ted immediately and then had him dance two feet away from his infected little brother and b) passes up on turning anyone with Join Us or Die solely to taunt/beat up Ted with his girlfriend and her husband. And! They all collectively agree that they're gonna try to make Grace/Steph/Peter all think that killing Pete is the way to go, even though they shouldn't really care whether Steph dies or Grace loses her [redacted] because they're all still "things they cherish the most". What the hell made these eldritch beings decide to fixate on fucking Ted of all people??

[kawareo]

Idk if this is a hot take but the way I see him, Gortash never gave the slightest shit about Karlach. I think he might have found her useful and capable for a while but then he didn't need her anymore and just wrote her off like nothing.

I think he sold her to a devil and felt nothing and then wandered if that was what his parents felt like after they've sold him.

I think he genuinely never thought about her again until she showed up at his coronation and I think that only after that, he would've even consider respecting her; she escaped Hells now? She takes what she wants now? She isn't blind to how evil he is anymore? Now we're talking!

[thegoldencontracts]

Every single time someone makes Azul out to be a pathetic easily bullied guy with no ability to defend himself whatsoever an angel loses its wings falls to the ground and fucking dies.

Please remember, Azul's overblot was the exception, not the norm. He's not a pathetic little crybaby. The thing about this portrayal is that it does insinuate the idea that someone is weak and "pathetic" for having a breakdown when it's this widespread, clearly genuinely belief that a character is pathetic as evidenced by one breakdown.

Same goes for Riddle. Yes, he had a breakdown during his overblot, but with both him and Azul, that was an exception, not the norm. There are plenty of scenes where they've both shown themselves to be smug and powerful characters.

Heck, even during Azul's breakdown, he did end up displaying his true power by sucking that literal magic and talent out of all the students nearby. Leona literally stated that his Unique Magic was forbidden. Riddle was known as the Crimson Tyrant because of the way he treated others. Azul isn't going to cry every time someone insults him, case in point, the way he behaves with Jamil, who makes a habit out of it. He doesn't run off feeling hollow after every interaction, because, well, he keeps coming back! And his enthusiasm is never hankered!

Even when dealing with physically stronger individuals, like Floyd (and most twst characters let's face it most of the cast has six packs), Riddle is never afraid. It was once mentioned that he effortlessly overpowered Floyd during the opening ceremony in Beans Day. With his magic, he's not weak, and he's certainly not helpless.

Obviously, while you can write whatever you want, I just want to explain why I believe that characterization is inaccurate. I love writing fics myself, and I (a long with most fic writers I've asked) prefer writing things that seem like they could reasonably happen with the characters and/or au in question.

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

btw what theon went through is what thousands upon thousands upon thousands of slaves still go through in essos. so, do you still feel pity for the slavers that were crucified? do you still pity the slavers killed when daenerys freed the unsullied?

i ask these questions, and yet i know that there are still many people who believe that the violence against the slavers wasn’t justified, or believe that it was simply “too much” or “not fair.” truly… what an insane hill to die on.

maybe these people should spare more empathy for the formerly enslaved instead of wasting time making up excuses (that are not supported by the text) for why the slave masters' deaths were somehow not justified 🫶

[lavender-rosa]

Bitches say they want more complex female and non-white characters but they can't even handle Annette

[finelythreadedsky]

wait i think actually madeline miller's circe is the heir to margaret atwood's penelopiad, unintentionally, in the way it thematizes the impossibility of real solidarity among women.

bc it's such a major part of the penelopiad how penelope creates what she thinks is a real community, a sort of family, with these young women in her household only be to reminded and continue to reinforce that they are slaves over whom she (among others) holds the power of life and death. and penelope ultimately does not or cannot hold a lasting grudge against odysseus on their behalf. she aligns herself, or circumstances force her to align herself, with odysseus instead of with other women whose positions are even more dangerous than hers. the world they live in does not allow solidarity between women across lines of class and enslavement, and penelope is also complicit in maintaining that world and her place in it.

and then the thing i found so frustrating about circe was that at every turn miller forecloses the possibility of real connections between women-- but the thing in this world that prevents that is just, like, jealousy over men. and totally needlessly. the other nymphs are prettier. glaucus loves scylla and not circe. her mom never liked her. hermes doesn't really think she's hot. athena is a rival for odysseus' attention. and the book doesn't do anything with this, it's not due to structural power imbalances or a society built on enslavement or even how patriarchy pits women against each other (circe lives alone on an island outside of society that could be another writer's lesbian separatist utopia!), it's just that circe doesn't like other women and they don't like her. end of story.

much as i don't love what atwood does with helen, it does make sense in the context of the penelopiad! thematically and in terms of characterization. atwood's penelope has internalized this idea of what it means to be a good woman and, willingly or not, she's staked everything on being seen by men as a good woman. it makes sense that she's desperately trying to pull herself up or even just cling to what little she has by dragging other women down. she does to helen what she ultimately does to the maids. she's with and for odysseus, always, not helen, and not the maids. that's the kind of world she lives in, and while she likes to think that she's resisting it with a sort of radical female community, in the end she is its agent. even if she feels bad about it. she's here to tell a story about odysseus, not about the girls he killed.

[cleomigadon]

Behold: my four day descent into fanfic madness, all because one author decided to break my mind. @mxmaneater this one’s for you!

Summary: Nimm and his crew stroll into Gortash’s coronation and of course, things immediately go off the rails. Nimm ends up surrendering, and what follows… oh, it’s nasty and depraved (which I absolutely support, because let’s be real, I’m depraved too🖤).

Gortash‘s control over him is terrifyingly well written.

If you enjoy that as well, do yourself a favor and read this fic:

[itslilacokay]

CHOSENWEEK FINALE : CELEBRATION / HEALING

happy birthday bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /silly

anyways thats all the days compleeete! now i can finally say this..

ChosenWeek will officially come to a close on [November 6 at 12 AM GMT+8].

why that time specifically? welllll im aware that people have different timezones, like for example it could be november 5 for me but its still the 4th for some others which means its still chosenweek for that part of the world

so me setting it at november 6 will at least have me make sure that its at least near or exactly november 5 for all of us!

dw i have it already scheduled so when it comes up then it. comes up yeah

[taibhsearachd]

It has been 0️⃣ days since the bone collecting subreddit had undocumented human remains (prior to this we were at 3️⃣ days since someone posted a human ulna they found in a basement), and, worse, 0️⃣ days since the person in possession of the probably native or slave bones worried more about what they were worth than how to respectfully deal with the remains of a person who probably didn’t want this for their body. ….guys I’m just on this subreddit for cool animal bones and tips on cleaning them, it’s fucking crazy how often people show up with real human remains and also are so fucking awful about them.

I just. I just want to talk about how to clean my rats’ bones (I still gotta do that), I’m happy to identify random human bones when they happen, but I feel real gross when someone shows up like “oh here’s a family heirloom!” and it is just the lower jaw of an enslaved human. That’s not an heirloom that’s a crime you absolute freak.

[tthelady]

"Jade saved aventurine" "Jade is like an older sister to aventurine" "Jade's like a mother to aventurine" you have lost the plot 😭

[sarafangirlart]

Imagine if I made an au where Perseus adopts Medusa’s kids, ppl will rightfully call me deluded bc he literally killed their mom and Medusa’s sisters are right there and deserve to keep whatever they have left of their sister. This is how stupid y’all’s au where Odysseus adopts Astyanax.

[marzipanandminutiae]

okay but now I'm so happy I know about Elizabeth Bigley/Cassie L. Chadwick, 19th-century American con artist (okay she was Canadian, but she mostly worked in the US)

favorite thing she did: ran a brothel and then, when she set her sights on marrying a wealthy doctor, pretended to believe that it was a boarding-house for respectable women only to be SCANDALIZED when he told her it was a well-known House of Ill Repute. oh she would never have intended such a thing! he must rescue her from here at once! could she possibly impose upon his hospitality to stay at his large elegant home?

the marriage plan worked