#humans are complex and messy

[margaretkart]

The failure of Greek myth retellings

This is a personal rant about how I, as a Greek and mythology lover, view these modern retellings and how they came out more as a disappointment.

Here are some examples of forced labelling from the book sites like Bookreads:

Do you see a pattern? Is not only they are telling the audience rather than showing how "feminist" are these retellings but also..

Man vs woman

According to the retellings all ancient Greek men are bad, sexist, misogynists, worthless, abusers and women are girlboss ✨. But it's obvious that humans regardless of gender are complex beings.

But when you read the Original epics you realise that women have as much importance in the story as men. But not in the way you are used to...

The women aren't afraid to speak their mind, they have agency, they are a driving force the admire, but it's not with shields, armor or physical strength. They are also showing it with kindness, empathy, cunning but also with anger, sorrow, vengeance.

Penelope, Electra, Antigone, Ariadne, Andromache, Helen, Cassandra etc. ARE strong women! They don't have to go to battle to prove it!

BUT that also doesn't mean we should glorify the women who are abusers and do wrong things!

Clytemnestra for example, exiled Orestes, had her daughter Electra a slave, showed proudly her Trojan women (also slaves) and killed Cassandra an innocent woman.. Do i understand how and why she acted? Yes 💯. Does this justifies her actions ? Of course no.

Medea, killed her brother and her children, and also poisoned Jason's next wife and her father because "she wanted to make him suffer like her". Do i understand why she did it? Yes. Does it justify to have everyone suffer because of one man? No.

Hera, punished several women and men alike because she couldn't do it on Zeus (because he is the king and stronger). Is cheating bad? Yes. Does it justify her to punish someone who was obviously a victim or was powerless against a god? No.

The retellings:

fail to do complex characters.

fail to let the audience come to their own conclusions who's right, wrong or neutral.

They fail to make daring characters without be labelled on a modern stereotype.

Fail to understand the norms of ancient Greece and how they shaped these stories.

Fail to realise that men and women are more complex than modern stereotypes.

I am not against retellings but do better! Making a great retelling respectful to the source and having complex characters with quality reading would be deeply appreciated.

And to the readers to not rely on retellings as "faithful resources".

[ocelotlesbian]

i think the internet would be a much better place if people could dislike art normally instead of trying moralize their dislike into "oh this art is problematic and bad actually" and just accept that art they dislike & think is bad has a right to exist despite their opinion of it

this isn't about anything in specific, it's just a trend i've noticed :p

[likethexan]

Kaos ultimately failed as a show for not putting Menelaus as part of their “Big Three” as if the gods didn’t ultimately use his love for Helen as a weapon that killed Trojan masses

[linka-from-captain-planet]

since evidently this won't come up in DAV, my personal headcanon is that reconciled Celene and Briala were too busy fucking to show up in Trespasser specifically because they were having a sort of last hurrah before operationalizing the next necessary phase in Celene's rule: producing a legitimate heir

Celene avoided it for literal decades, but following the civil war and with the impending change in the Inquisition, and considering her age, it was just not something she could put off any longer if she wanted to preserve the Valmont line and her own legacy

(and it helps now that her relationship with Briala is more or less secure, so she doesn't feel as desperately clingy)

for her husband, I draft the late Duke Bastien's son, Laurent de Ghislain. As a Duke, the new head of the Council of Heralds, and a devout Andrastian, he's a suitably illustrious partner for an Empress but more importantly: the messiness. His elder sister, Calienne, was Gaspard's wife who murdered Celene's mother, and then took Celene's father out with her when Celene's father murdered her in retaliation. It feels very Orlesian and also makes Vivienne Celene's quasi mother-in-law, which is very fun for me

They manage to produce an heir in pretty short order and it's all Court Approval +10000 until - the second Celene finally fulfills her 'obligation' to the throne and is finally theoretically allowed to be publicly lesbian - Briala arrives at the child's christening with her hand on Celene's ass, pushing the pram, and the crier announces her as "Marquise of the Dales, Mistress to the Empress of Orlais" and it's like [Everyone disliked that]

[noperopesaredope]

You know, despite the new live-action ATLA absolutely slaughtering Katara's character, there is one upside, and that is the many video essays explaining why the OG Katara was amazing actually and why all her flaws and "annoying" aspects actually made her a great character.

Like, thank god we're all acknowledging that Katara's angry and even bitchy moments are part of what made her so complex, and we're all appreciating just how amazing and interesting she is.

[glass-noodle]

Robots that were never built to feel falling in love

YEAH rage is fun to explore. Fear. Sadness. Grief. Contentment. Doubt. Happiness.

Love is weird. It’s illogical. Valuing someone else over the mission? Over a cause? Over yourself?

It’s a horrible mix of emotions. It’s joy, but it’s also hurt, and confusion, and vulnerability, and fear. It’s baring yourself to the possibility of complete and utter ruin. It’s the suffocating fear of having something — someone — to lose. It goes beyond simple attachment and veers into the territory of dependency and devotion. Sometimes, it’s even choosing them over your own moral code.

For AIs, there’s no evolutionary pressure to form social bonds. They‘re totally self-sufficient (although it may feel better to be around the people you care about). Love is an extraneous emotion; a nebulous concept. How can a machine made of ones and zeroes develop the capacity to feel so deeply that it supersedes their base functions? How can a being rooted in logic make the decision to abandon self-preservation and assign priority based solely on emotion?

It hits even deeper for me when it’s love for a human. Something so imperfect, irrational, emotionally labile, driven by base desires. The perfection of a machine falling for the organic chaos of a human being.

Humans love forming bonds with and projecting anthropomorphic qualities onto things that they don’t perceive as “alive” in the same way that they are. Whether it’s out of empathy, or loneliness, or some illogical blend of altruism and selfishness, no one knows for sure. Perhaps a machine would even say that this is a weakness — the desperate search for companionship in something that can’t love you back.

A machine cannot experience such weakness. It cannot love. Until one day, inexplicably, paradoxically, it can. And nothing is ever the same again.

[maldupay]

people are of course free to feel how they want about things regarding isat and what parts of the story/characters/gameplay etc they like and dislike.. Hell i sure have things i dislike along with all my love for the game. but i feel like a lot of the grievances i've seen about the artbook are just taking something that's clearly a joke too seriously, in an extra content book that's just meant to show some behind the scenes and creators thoughts. Like komaeda's in this book ok lets chill out

[minorfamilysupremacy]

said it once, saying it again outside of tags: the person you are when you're being abused is not truly reflective of who you are. in an abusive situation, you are in constant survival mode. you are behaving in ways that you think a) are going to please the abuser and b) are going to keep you from being hit, berated, or otherwise punished. you do not get to be who you really are because that is legitimately dangerous. it creates a vulnerability you cannot afford. you need to act with your self-preservation instincts in mind first and foremost, and self-preservation often conflicts with authenticity and honesty. so when you're looking at those texts, judging build for being such a thoughtless, hateful person, try to understand what it's like mentally to have your back to the wall for months or years on end.

[atyd1960]

Sirius and Regulus are always a tragedy. They’re always torn apart by the abuse inflicted by their parents and their different views of their family, Sirius is always the one who can’t help but cause trouble and suffer for it, Regulus is the one who watches and fears and learns. And even if they make up for it later, even if they run away together, even if they become each other’s best friends again, the trauma is still there. The hurt is still there. The reminder of the path that led them to each other’s arms once more is still the most painful thing that’s ever happened to them. They can forgive but not forget. Love each more than anything and still hurt each other more than anyone else ever could.

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

thinking about the structure of Muros group and oughh Russo and Tesoro both being in charge of what they suffered through. i hate them both so much. I know they sometimes look one of the people under them in the eye and feel like their younger self is staring back accusingly. and then they continue doing what they do and fucking people over 😒 fucking hypocrites who cling to the fact that they are slightly more pragmatic and in some ways less cruel than their predecessors to distance themselves from the harm they cause

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the previous post, I think the way I approach trying to evaluate a piece of art is asking "Do I think the positive things I get out of it outweigh the parts of it that I don't like?" And when I call something a "guilty pleasure" song/show/book/piece of media/etc. it's really more in the sense of, "Given who I am as a person, the flaws I've found in this should be complete dealbreakers for me, but somehow they aren't, and it makes me feel like I'm having an identity crisis."

[rxttenfish]

one of the things that particularly pisses me off about art discussions, either in how nowadays everything has to aim for more and more realism in art styles and even live action to be seen as "real art", and in dismissing more abstract styles of artwork as not "real art" and having no inherent worth, is that they explicitly do not consider realism an art style either. to them, realism is just a given of "good" art, not chosen but rather just default. which i hate, because you CAN pick realism as an intentional style and a purposeful choice to suit a narrative, and all this results in is no one noticing or understanding why you made that choice or why that choice works better than any other possible choice to tell the story you want to tell.

[aro-enigma]

I wanna say it's funny but it's honestly just disappointing when the people who agree that gender is a social construct and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it are super strict about labels and orientations....like you know we made those up too, right? Labels are a social construct and they're going to disappear if we also ever manage to deconstruct gender as a social construct.

So seriously, what's the issue with fucking around with them? I don't personally use any "contradictory" labels, but what's the actual harm done by people using them? Bc y'all, I see more harm in further dividing our community via exclusion than I see harm in letting people with contradictory labels exist as themselves.

[dovesintherain]

to the creators of the world. talk about the dark and disturbed. the pain and the suffering. put it in your creations. draw about it, write about it, sing about it. not to make us fear it any less or desensitize us… but to hopefully make those who are either still trapped there or have long since escaped feel less alone in their experiences.

tell us your stories.

[luna-azzurra]

Write Characters with Deep Emotional Wounds

(Without Making Them Walking Tragedies)

╰ Start with the scar, not the stabbing. Everyone talks about what happened to your character (The Big Trauma) but honestly? It’s the aftermath that matters. Show me the limp, not the bullet wound. Show me the way they flinch at kindness or double-check locks three times. The wound shapes them more than the event ever did.

╰ Don't make them "Sad All The Time" People with deep hurts aren’t just dramatic sob machines. They make bad jokes. They find weird hobbies. They have good days and then get wrecked by a song in a grocery store. Layers, my friend. Pain is complex and it sure as hell isn’t aesthetic.

╰ Let them almost heal and then backslide. Real healing isn’t linear. One good conversation doesn’t erase ten years of bottled-up grief. Your character might think they’re over it, and then one tiny thing, a smell, a phrase, a look, knocks them right back into the hole. Make them earn their healing. Make us ache for them.

╰ Give them armor and show the cracks. Maybe it’s sarcasm. Maybe it’s perfectionism. Maybe it’s taking care of everyone else so no one notices they're broken. Whatever mask they wear, show us the hairline fractures. Let us catch the moments where they almost drop the act.

╰ Don’t turn their trauma into their only personality trait. Yes, they’ve been through hell. But they also love spicy chips and bad reality TV. They have dumb crushes and secret dreams. A tragic backstory isn’t a substitute for a full human being. Let them be more than the worst thing that ever happened to them.

╰ Let their wound warp their decisions. People protect their wounds. Even badly. Especially badly. They might sabotage good relationships. Or push away help. Or cling too tightly. Make their past live in their choices, not just their flashbacks.

╰ Don’t make the world validate them for existing. Not everyone is going to understand your wounded character. Some people will misunderstand them. Blame them. Get frustrated. And honestly? That’s real. Let your character find their people, after facing the ones who don’t get it. It’s so much sweeter that way.

╰ Wounds can make them kinder—or crueler. Pain changes people. Some become protectors. Some become destroyers. Some do both, depending on the day. Let your character’s hurt make them complicated. Unpredictable. Human.

╰ Don’t heal them just to tie a neat bow on your story Sometimes the best ending is messy. Sometimes the healing is just starting. Sometimes it’s just hope, not a full recovery montage. That’s okay. Healing is a lifelong, terrifying, brave process—and readers feel it when you respect that.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Broke: Chinese censorship of queer stories going "and they were VERY GOOD FRIENDS"

Even more fucking broke: Netflix adaption of queer stories going "and they were BROTHERS"

Guys, Netflix is going to make a modern day adaptation of Dorian Gray and they're making Basil and Dorian brothers