reesebooks

[reesebooks]

Doing this for English class

Howdy, lads! How’s been quarantine? I got nothing going on, except the usual family drama. I eat chips, watch movies with my dad and my sleeping schedule has become even more messed up. Also people that I haven’t talked to in years are calling me from across the planet all of a sudden and just say ‘hi, I’m bored. Wanna talk?’. So that’s pretty nice.

I’m not gaining any new skills or stuff except maybe writing. I write a lot but I always come up with an idea for a story, write the first chapter and then I’m stuck and even if I’ve got the world building down and the characters and all that fancy stuff I just don’t know how to continue writing it. It’s weird. Like, I can write just fine but I just think everything I’m writing sounds bad and then I lose motivation and then I get another story idea so I abandon the previous one and the cycle continues.

But anyways I’m gonna talk about people who can write a complete story so... here we go. I decided to start with Greek mythology this time. Greek mythology is weird but fun, you know? I still don’t get why they decided that Aphrodite was gonna be born from Uranus’ castrated genitals. That’s super weird. Who decided that? Some really drunk dude, I bet. Also Hestia has got no stories and she deserves love for being the only god/goddess who wasn’t an asshole to some degree.

Random Greek mythology stuff:

1. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I’m not even done with this book but I know it’s going to stab me in the heart and leave me to drown in my own tears. So yaaaaaay. I absolutely adore it so far but it’s a retelling so I know what’s going to happen and I’m not ready.

So anyways, this book is a retelling of the Iliad from Patroclus’ point of view. It begins in Ancient Greece (obviously). Patroclus, a young prince, is exiled to the kingdom of Phthia where he meets Achilles a.k.a. Greek’s future greatest hero who’s mother is a goddess. They quickly become close and are living rather peacefully until Helen of Troy gets kidnapped, and Achilles and Patroclus are dragged into the Trojan war.

Don’t worry, this isn’t Troy (2004). I don’t know why whenever filmakers or dubbers try to hide the fact that there are LGBT characters they turn the characters who are in a gay or lesbian relationship into cousins. It happened with Sailor Moon when they dubbed it into english. And they did it with Achilles and Patroclus. And they really do love to remind you, every time Patroclus is brought up: "Oh, you mean his cousin?" "Yes, his cousin." "Are they cousins, though?" "Indeed, that Patroclus is his cousin." It’s just a big insistence from the filmmakers of “no homo”.

Listen, if you want to pretend that gay people don’t exist don’t bother making a movie on Ancient Greece.

I’ve also heard that the book ‘Circe’ is amazing, it’s from the same author, and is another retelling of Greek mythology. I’ve been meaning to read it as well.

2. Overly Sarcastic Productions

So where to start with Overly Sarcastic Productions? Well, first of all it’s a YouTube channel. OSP basically explains and resumes many things such as classical literature, history and tropes in media. They also explain many Greek myths, Aphrodite, Dionysus or even Narcissus.

The youtubers, Red and Blue (but usually Red’s the one who does the Greek myth videos), discuss everything in a very fun and simple way, and it feels more like you’re talking to someone who knows a lot about the subject rather than reading a text from a book. It’s just a really fun way to learn the basics about Greek mythology in my opinion. And the drawings are really cute too.