#mostly from a book called

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? / I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. / Open your doors and look abroad."

Read the English translation here

Read The Gardener in English through Project Gutenberg here

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[bunnieswithknives]

I love you insane, slightly obscure Wizard Of Oz lore. Everyone say thank you Frank Baum for inventing aromantic people and also the power of friendship and also insane body horror

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[unnonexistence]

i think ive expressed this sentiment before but i love chapter titles so much. i love chapter titles that follow a naming scheme. i love really long chapter titles that start with "in which". i love chapter titles that just plainly state something that sounds unremarkable & you can't tell why it's important until you read the chapter. i love chapter titles.

[greaseonmymouth]

I’ve started reading The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and a) I’m really enjoying it and b) I feel like my mutuals who are into The Terror may possibly also be into this book because one of the characters is from the Franklin Expedition and I’m getting queer vibes off him

[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.

[goldenflowers]

okay so since gale's earring is obviously modded in my game, i'm gonna talk about my headcanons for what i've done with it and how him replacing the mystra earring plays out! i have actually posted about this before, but it's been a while and i started using a different combination of mods to get things closer to how i wanted them, and i also just wanna expand on my thoughts.

i don't want gale to immediately replace his earring or anything. what i do want—what i imagine as part of my personal canon for him and elenion—is for him to choose to quietly remove it and place it at mystra's altar after their confrontation at stormshore tabernacle, as a symbol of him finally accepting that there's more to life than her and as a small form of catharsis after having defied her. he's still a wizard, he can't completely forget the goddess of magic, but he doesn't need her love anymore. and he certainly doesn't need to wear her sigil on his body.

and elenion absolutely notices. but they don't want to press gale about it or push him so they don't say anything right then. instead, when they leave the tabernacle, he gently reaches out and brushes a lock of gale's hair behind his ear. his fingertips graze the now-empty spot where mystra's sigil once was. they ask gale, softly, if it feels lighter now and gale says it does, but he's not sure if it's relief or loss. elenion tells him it's okay to feel both.

neither of them bring up the idea of replacing that earring, or mention it again for the rest of the journey. they both have so much else to worry about, they don't even know if they'll survive all this—and gale needs time and patience to process all these different emotions, and elenion doesn't really care what is or isn't on gale's ear, he just wants gale there, safe and happy and alive at the end of it all.

fast-forward to a few weeks post-game, and gale and elenion are living together in waterdeep. they're walking hand-in-hand through the marketplace on a peaceful afternoon. they weren't really going anywhere in particular, but gale ends up stopping at the window of a jewelry shop. elenion has noticed that gale often reaches up to dangle an earring that isn't there, and he sees the look in gale's eyes now, so he just casually goes "you thinking of getting something sparkly, love? you'd look great wearing something dramatic, like a silver lightning bolt earring. or a little dragon wrapped around a pearl. or a skull with sapphires for eyes". and then, more gently: "we can take a look, if you want." gale laughs and says yes, he'd like that.

elenion acts like a complete menace who might as well be no help at all. he insists that gale try on all the most random earrings in the store and comes up with half-joking, half-heartfelt symbolic reasons for each one ("this one is shaped like an open book! to represent how you're no longer hiding your true self, and also how you never stop talking!" "an ornate key! for unlocking your future, or maybe the key to your heart, which i believe someone very charming and handsome is actually already holding!" "a sunburst with a ruby in the center, because you're finally stepping into the light! and because you'd look hotter than the sun wearing it."), partly just because it makes gale laugh but also because he doesn't want to be the one to choose gale's new earring. they don't want this to be just another thing he wears for someone else, so they want him to push back on all of their ridiculous suggestions and find something that's his.

and gale does. he smiles and affectionately rolls his eyes at all of elenion's nonsense. and while they're distracted, he picks up a gold moon with purple jewels in it. a perfect match for the silver stars with blue jewels that elenion always wears. he holds it up to his ear, asks his partner what they think. and their breath catches a little before they smile and sincerely say that it's beautiful.

[vaguely-concerned]

imagine not only going through life with the name of Peniston Lamb, but then passing that burden on to your favourite son and thus presumably sending him off to the famously merciless environment of british boarding school with the bullseye target of Peniston Lamb jr. painted upon his innocent child's back in neon colours.......... truly the british empire was the generational trauma machine along every axis and in every aspect of life it touched huh

[hide-your-bugs-away]

London Haul!!! 🇬🇧🐾✨️

[race-week]

Why has my dad become one of the Lando stans you find on twitter?

[golden-bean-soup]

With the way bsd is going and the jesus thing fyodor has going on I bet atsushi is gonna be like the antichrist or smth similar

[pergaminaa]

Modern au

Manon and Dorian are kinda sorta pretentious af and they made sure their daughter has a name that has its own weight but also they made sure it’s beautiful.

Their daughter’s name and middle name translates to: beautiful gracious queen (her first name is welsh like her mama and Dorian was the one to pick her middle name and he made sure both names worked together both in sound and meaning)

The daughter accidentally learned of her name’s meaning and with her ego it wasn’t a good kind of knowledge.

Because when anyone referred to her as ‘princess’ she’d just roll her eyes (like her mom) and mutter “why call me a princess when I’m a queen”

Anyway baby ate her pride when she started school and was forced to learn how to write her name. Because her name (first) is long. With eight letters there were a lot of tears involved.

Manon negotiated (she actually lost the negotiations because her daughter is small and too pitiful she had to help) again pushover mama so anyway baby would write it only three times and Manon would write the rest.

Dorian was like ‘witchling, you can’t do that’ and he’d sit with his daughter instead because ‘you need to learn how to write your name’ but his daughter argues that his and Manon’s names are short and they don’t understand her plight

Dorian is like, it’s only two letters more than his name, and three letters more than Manon’s so it’s really not that bad.

He lays down on the floor next to the tantruming child. He helps by writing her name twice but she has to do the rest.

Honestly Manon is weak and gives in easily this is why Dorian took over homework because he can handle their child and her dramatics (which she takes after him that’s why he GETS her while Manon just gives in)

[themyscirah]

Ok game time which 3 series would you just DIE to get a run on ? I'm talking full creative control, can be as a writer or an artist + plotter if that suits your vibe best

My 3 are

Suicide Squad

Wonder Woman

Green Lantern Corps/Green Lanterns

(in that order)

[cervideity]

buncha words on my interp of their relationship under the readmore (biased but many of my points are just canon observations) (also if your name is charlie fourswords dont click it or ill get you)

[daily-dragonvale-dragons]

July 22nd 2024, a Monday: Curlyleaf dragon (baby)

[bethanydelleman]

In one of my most popular posts, I pointed out that Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë's writing styles don't have a ton in common, despite being constantly recommended to Austen fans looking for further reading.

Anthony Trollope is another name I hear frequently as similar to Austen. And let me say now.

No. Stop it.

I read his most famous and popular novel, Barchester Towers. The whole time I had this vibe, though I couldn't exactly find a quote to support it, that this author did not really respect women. The main hero is explicitly said to treat women like children. A main plot is about a bishop being hen-pecked (controlled by his wife). Another main plot is a woman who is a heartless, magical siren.

Well then the vibe stopped being a vibe (woman is ivy, man is tower):

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper. They were not created to stretch forth their branches alone, and endure without protection the summer's sun and the winter's storm. Alone they but spread themselves on the ground and cower unseen in the dingy shade. But when they have found their firm supporters, how wonderful is their beauty; how all-pervading and victorious! What is the turret without its ivy, or the high garden wall without the jasmine which gives it its beauty and fragrance? The hedge without the honeysuckle is but a hedge.

Yeah, I want to vomit. Women are a parasitic vine that cannot grow properly without a man? Fuck you, Anthony Trollop.

And why in the world would anyone compare this author to Austen?

Before someone fights me:

Yes, I realize that an author from 1857 might have unfortunate views about women. I'm not an idiot. I choose to read those who don't.

Yes, I know I only read one novel. I'm not going further because that was enough for me. I also wasn't very fond of his writing style besides the misogyny.

The main problem here is the comparison to Jane Austen, not Anthony Trollope himself. I didn't find them comparable at all besides being British and the presence of clergymen. If you love Trollope, this is not an attack on you personally.