#i need to function again at some point

[jerejerejere]

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I need a pause button on the obsession, i don't get anything done all my brain wants ot to be fed käärijä-shaped sugar 😭

[iliothermia]

Anons are off because I'm done with people lying in my inbox, insulting me, and just piling on. I am one person who is trying to deal with hatred from multiple sides but those sending these messages see themselves as just one person throwing in their opinion because you can't see the other 15 messages I get insulting me for the same thing. I feel like I've been clear about my stance and why I function how I do in my small space online. If you find issue with how I function then please just unfollow me and leave me alone. I'll be offline for a while but I appreciate everyone who's sent me caring messages and things to consider a lot. I'm genuinely disappointed though, that this all comes from me saying I love my Jewish community and I hope they're doing okay- My first message directed at supporting other Jews I've made, after months of reaffirming my care for Palestine. Stay safe yall.

[relicsongmel]

Something I've always found fascinating about Raymond Shields is that despite seemingly having altruistic reasons for being a defense attorney, his reasons for trying to convince Miles to be one are anything but.

It seems understandable enough on the surface. After Ray comes around and agrees to work with Miles in The Imprisoned Turnabout, he sees remnants of Gregory shining through him despite von Karma's influence. Whether or not he recognizes that Miles' decision to become a prosecutor wasn't just born from that alone—that it was in tandem with wanting to distance himself from anything that reminded him of his father to alleviate the burden on his heart—is up for debate, but regardless: he acknowledges Miles as Gregory's son through and through and wants to capitalize on his dedication for pursuing justice in a way that he knows would make his father proud. He wants to let Miles in on the life he was robbed of at 9 years old—the life he once dreamed of living, where he follows in the footsteps of his father by giving everything he has to save people, by fighting like hell for the vulnerable and the condemned.

That said, as much as Ray dresses up his proposition by making it out to be as if he's looking out for Miles' best interests (and the best interests of society, even)...his motives for trying to get Miles to switch sides are almost entirely selfish. Ray's efforts (and most of his actions in general, really) are ultimately a product of his desperate attempt to cling on to anything related to Gregory out of an inability to move on from his death. Wearing his hat and coat, leaving the name of his office unchanged...and now, requesting that his son literally change jobs just because he can't bear the weight of his own loneliness anymore. Because he can't bear to think that the damage done by DL-6 is irreversible and Miles has moved on while he has stagnated for the past 17 years. Because he has an idealized vision of what he thinks Gregory would want and fails to realize that his son's occupation wouldn't matter to him as long as it brings him happiness and fulfillment. In his mind, letting Miles go means accepting the circumstances that brought him where he is and allowing both of them to move on. And that terrifies him.

It's even more deceitful when you realize that Ray's pitch comes at a very opportune time for Miles given his circumstances at that point: that is, he's under threat of investigation for prosecutorial misconduct and at risk of being stripped of his badge. Ray might fake incompetence, but he's not stupid—and he takes full advantage of Justine's warnings to try to sway Miles when he's in a more vulnerable position in terms of his job. Which is...pretty fucked up, to put it lightly. Despite having a better idea of where he came from compared to most people, through this Ray shows a lack of understanding of who Miles truly is and a lack of respect for what he's come to value, even if his path toward obtaining those values had some bumps along the road. But he's so blinded by his grief that he doesn't even stop to consider how much he's really asking of him, or what Miles is really searching for.

Ray was moved by Gregory. He values saving people. Defending the weak is an undeniably noble endeavor. But to ask that of someone else without consideration for their best interests is decidedly less so.

For all his occupation requires a certain selflessness, Raymond Shields is far more selfish than he lets on. And I for one find that contradiction fascinating to unpack.

[skeletalheartattack]

Valve just published a blog post regarding plans for the first MVM update in twelve years for TF2 (to be released later this year, sometime after August), and it shaping up to be the first MVM update to involve community submissions (excluding Robotic Boogaloo).

[taraxippos]

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.

[crescentfool]

What are your ryomina headcanons? I've loved these two since I played P3 FES, and I'm so excited to get back into the fandom^^

hi!! thank you so much for the ask, welcome back to the p3 fandom, it's always a delight to see new and old ryomina fans alike! 🥺💛💙

as for headcanons, here's a "few" i that i tend to come back to a lot! my interpretations of them are influenced from both the source material and other's fanworks, so i've linked to them as i saw fit! hcs in no particular order under the cut because oops this got long (900 word bullet point list, mentions of reload content up to 1/1)

minato's hair is dyed blue (hair originally brown, you can see it in his roots!) and he has a beauty mark on under his left eye. i like mirror imagery and there's definitely a few arts i've rb'd that portray them this way :) (e.g. this one by feliichu and this one by marasschino)

as far as i'm concerned the bathhouse scene from the manga where ryoji's hair down = similar shape to minato? that is canon to me. this art from xierru is a fun depiction of hair down ryoji :D

ryoji is homeless. everyone say thank you foxmulder_whereartthou for this awesome fic it's why i have the headcanon! but like seriously. we have no idea where ryoji lives and i could believe this.

minato dying at the end of the game is sad to an outsider's POV BUT!!! ryomina gets to be together in death for the rest of their lives (this illustration from mafuwara is a gorgeous representation of them as nyx avatar + the seal)!

speaking of the seal, they are like telepathically communicating to me in the great seal together. (mymp3 had a comic wip with this. give it a looksie :D)

ryoji likes cuddling with minato because he's warm :) (something something orpheus has fire affinity, minato is warm by extension and ryoji is cold because he's death)

ryoji's camera roll is filled with pictures of minato! ryoji... loves life, to me. and i feel that photography and journaling are perfect ways of expressing gratitude and capturing the moments in life that are most important to you :3

my other favorite activity for these two is stargazing- i feel like it's something they could appreciate either in life or death (looking at the stars from the great seal...)! they do a bit of this in the fic eurydice's vow by crescentmoontea (P5R spoilers, takes place in third sem it's a very fun fic concept).

between ryoji and minato i feel like ryoji was the one who fell in love first- and it doesn't really click in place for minato that he loves ryoji until december hits (appriser reveal + ryoji transforming into thanatos). its about the realization that ryoji was with him for his whole life and that he gets him like no one else does.

ryoji is like a sad and wet puppy who is so scared minato won't like him back. he is so scared of being rejected by minato to me like. this boy straight up deflates after he does his "i know i said i wanted us to be friends, but... i actually want to be something more." / "what about you?" on 12/1 ???

AND SPEAKING of wet puppy ryoji. ryoji is like. every animal in the world to me. he's a bird. he's a cat. etc. and also ryoji knows every language in the world ever and uses it to express his love for minato. see this fic from superheroics to see what i mean.

both of them are lactose intolerant. "this isn't lactose, it's milk!" i definitely think ryoji would make himself sick eating ice cream and milk he doesn't know what lactose is. (i made a silly poll about this once and the tags were very entertaining.)

i see minato as transmasc or nonbinary depending on the day (schrodinger's headcanons babey they're simultaneously true and not true at the same time!!). either way he's not cis to me and ryoji is like. His Gender. anyway go read this fic by nail_gun for t4t ryomina :D !

ryomina are WEIRD GUYS TO ME!!! they are so strange and they understand each other better than anyone else because of the circumstances of their relationship!!! if you asked them to do the "i wonder what i taste like" meme i think they'd start biting each other (affectionate) tbh but that's just me.

after ryoji gives minato the music box in 12/31 on reload, minato listens to the music box every night in january. this boy has insomnia and also chronic illness to me (things that housing death does to you). but i think he finds comfort in the melody and memories he made with ryoji.

in general, i think it's fun to imagine minato taking ryoji to places and show him things he's interested in! i feel that ryoji takes a lot of interest in minato's life, this isn't really a hc because in reload, minato DOES give ryoji a tour of the school (11/9) and possibly port island (11/12). but ITS CUTE OK! (tangentially related fanwork: this series of doodles from vinnigami: 1, 2, and 3)

not a hc but minato's kindness is like the backbone of their relationship and i think we would not have the ryomina we know and love today if minato wasn't such a kind soul. oh minato.... we can learn so much from you... like ryoji did!

anyway! that's all the hcs that i could think of, thank you for the ask! i had a lot of fun answering this, these two mean a lot to me 💛💙

i hope you don't mind the links to the fanart and fanfic as well, the fanwork people have made for ryomina have really made an imprint on me! if you want to see more of them, i definitely recommend looking through my tag for them because oh. i got a lot of them reblogged alright 😂 (<- SOOO NORMAL)

[hermitsdump]

does impulsive tattoo shock migraine out or do I need to waterboard myself first

[icewindandboringhorror]

One of the interesting bits of trying to resume working on the game after so long is looking back at my ancient Draft Placeholder versions of an image from 4 yrs ago trying to remember what the hell I meant back then, to hopefully interpret it into some more final (ish..) form of the same thing .. making slow progress lol

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Some mild existential dread in the house today

[wizardnuke]

i love dnd..i love playing heavy utility/support/backfield and i love having three to six attacks in a turn and an insane ac. at heart im a support player ill get my hands on whatever we're missing in a group

[themyscirah]

Reading shit comics kind of sucks but at least I get the satisfaction of proving my own point w this

[loverboybrightsideghost]

fuck i really am a perfectionist FUCK

[saprosappho]

French movies: (a few of these are quite violent/upsetting so make sure to look at a synopsis before watching if that’s of concern) of these, l’auberge espagnole and les visiteurs are my favorites, they’re very funny! Also la piscine is really excellent cinema

French shows: (these are all on Netflix and I listed their English titles, a couple are miniseries, call my agent is my fave)

Feel free to dm me if you want more info about any of these, plus I think I have digital copies of a few of the movies

holy shit thank you so much!!! genuinely this was more than i could hope for wrt how kind of out of the blue my question was so wow. tysm again

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[1ncandescentrage]

I'm happy that my chronic pain and I have been living more in harmony as of late