spookibird

[spookibird]

i mean this so seriously if you have any sort of creative project you can and should be a little obsessed with it. you should reread your own writing and look at your own art and brag about your ocs its literally good for your health

[spookibird]

Like to charge reblog to cast

[spookibird]

crazy to me that the trojans and achaeans (premodern armies in general, really) just kinda... stopped fighting after sundown.

i mean obviously it makes sense; it's not as if they had floodlights or nv goggles; it would have been pitch black, and melee combat in those conditions would be suicide. plus they just needed to sleep.

but also it's just. funny to think about. does the fighting taper off gradually or does everyone just drop their weapons and shake hands once the sun goes down like “gg, nighty night, same time tomorrow?” i assume the former but also what if it's like 9pm and there's two guys with personal beef still going at it. does the whole camp watch, exasperated, sipping wine and wrapped in blankies, waiting for one of them to finally die and get it over with?

[spookibird]

Why do people treat Neoptolemus as if he's the worst of the acheans anyways? Neoptolemus' actions during the war mimic that of his father's, everything he does from killing people like Priam, Astyanax and Polyxena to enslaving Andromache is similar to things his father and the other acheans did, as they also enslaved women and killed people since it was a WAR. I'm not defending his actions but I don't agree with calling Neoptolemus the worst achean.

Considering Neoptolemus was a child who got groomed(btw grooming isn't always sexual) into becoming a weapon of war by the adults around him(primarily by Odysseus as he was the one who took the most part in shaping him from just a child to a weapon), he does the things he does because he was told to do so by the older men in the Greek camp, which is why I don't get it when people say he's the worst, obviously he did some irredeemable things like everything he did to Andromache is irredeemable and disgusting but I think "Neoptolemus did terrible things like raping and enslaving women and killing people including innocents like Astyanax" and "Neoptolemus was a child who was groomed and manipulated by the older men in his life into becoming a weapon of war like Achilles" are two sentences that can co exist.

we are allowed to empathize with him while also hold him accountable for his actions.

This is just my personal thoughts on calling Neoptolemus the worst achean since I don't really agree with that. I don't even think there's any worst achean since they're all good and bad in their own ways but I think Neoptolemus is far from being the worst.

[spookibird]

whats their problem

[spookibird]

AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.

well…darn

[spookibird]

the thing about “andrew hussie returns to homestuck to write a cartoon pilot produced by vivziepop with toby fox voicing john egbert” is like. it’s so far-fetched i wouldn’t even make that joke. because it would be too ridiculous for me to even find funny. and it’s not a joke. it’s literally happening right now.

while you’re here, consider donating to my friend hamza

[spookibird]

what reading some modern adaptations of the iliad feels like

[spookibird]

"Because I said so" straight up isn't as good an answer as you think it is.

[spookibird]

The thing with Harry Potter is that if Daniel Radcliffe can walk away from it then so can you. No one else on the planet has their identity more tied to that series than him and he walked away. So to see the actors for the new show saying JKR isn't doing anything wrong, to see the actors involved in the new audible super production supporting her, when she has explicitly, loudly, and proudly said she's gonna use that money to fund taking away rights from trans people is ridiculous. No sense of morals if people pay you enough and this is insane.

[spookibird]

i didn't really notice before it was pointed out to me, but in the iliad, traumatic injury only has two outcomes: immediate (or near-immediate) death, or a short period of recuperation before the injured person can return to battle apparently no worse for wear (see diomedes, odysseus, menelaus, agamemnon, etc etc). there are no slow lingering deaths or infections or persistent disabilities or amputations. and i suppose that works narratively, because "X kills Y during his aristeia" is a definite triumph while "X injures Y who lingers in a bed for two weeks before succumbing to a secondary infection" is a lot murkier honour-wise. so the warriors just don't experience those things in the world of the iliad.

BUT if you take a step back and consider the epic cycle, the soldier philoctetes sits abandoned on the island of lemnos while the events of the iliad takes place, and he experiences nothing BUT infection and disability because of his permanently festering leg wound. (as someone with a medical education i admit i'm fascinated by the vividness of the descriptions of the odour, pus, swelling and pain)

it's like philoctetes is forced to endure the infection and lingering wound the rest of his army is spared. and then, when they finally rescue him and bring him to troy in the final year of the war, the physician podalirius (who was presumably present a decade back when philoctetes first got sick) completely heals him straight away! i know there are various related prophecies, but it also seems like the location is a crucial factor. i'd like to imagine it's the gods who want to keep the plains of troy so straightforward, full of binaries and no middle ground: a thrown spear can either hit or don't hit, an injured warrior can either die or return in a few days.

[spookibird]

one of the deans in beijing dance academy rehearses with students

[spookibird]

People can fuck off with this attitude. I'm in my thirties, I'm not a goddamn child. I vote in every election and I tell my reps when they're pissing me off. Your free speech is eroding out from under your feet thanks to people who aren't even elected and you think it's fine because you're still in your sex is icky phase? Fuck you. You want people to support a cause then put it in front of us instead of shaming your peers for having priorities you don't happen to share. You ain't catching any flies with that vinegar. That's not how we fix anything.

[spookibird]

[spookibird]

Deidamia and Achilles are on my mind again

[spookibird]

five covers in half a year (I've actually already drawn all covers for Tiffany, but the publisher hasn't announced them yet), pretty productive

I'll continue drawing witches in the fall