okay so post epic odyssey where odysseus and Penelope have surfaced from their room finally and he and diomedes are catching up I'm imagining the conversation going something like this
Odysseus: so then I gave up being merciful and became the monster.
Diomedes:....you tried being merciful?
Odysseus: Yes?
Diomedes: you did? You tried being a good merciful person? You?
Odysseus: Yah okay fuck off it was polties dying wish. I had to try.
Diomedes:.....90% of the war crimes in the Trojan war were suggested, planned out, and carried out by you. We literally stoned to death the guy you had a personal grudge against. We framed him for treason and stoned him to death. 70% of why Athena liked you was because she thought she knew all the ways to kill someone and then you'd suggest something insane and I'd see her taking notes. You literally gave Ajex a psyoctic break just being yourself.
Odysseus: shut up
Diomedes: I'm not wrong. Did you tell Penelope about your attempt to be a good person?
Odysseus: What? Of course I did. I told her everything.
Diomedes: did she laugh?
Odysseus:...shut up that's not the point
Diomedes: she did didn't she!!!
Odysseus: ANYWAY eurylochus wasn't appreciative of my return to monsterhood and he started causing problems so I
Diomedes: killed him? Yah saw that coming. No shit. I'm so shocked.
this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.
good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.
sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.
so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.
one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.
btw anyone whos following the drake/kendrick thing but doesnt listen to rap music. this is a sign you should start listening to rap music. listen to some kendrick. you wont regret it i promise. listen to to pimp a butterfly. listen to good kid, m.A.A.d. city. listen to other rappers to, not just kendrick. if anyone wants recommendations feel free to message me/send an ask. rap music is awesome. this is your sign to get into it. rap is such a broad genre with so many incredible artists, there is something for you i promise.
the romances in hatchetfield fuck me up so bad like. every time. like youve got:
the most normal couple of all time, except one of them always seems to understand when the world is going to end and they inevitably are driven apart by something out of their control.
two grungy teens/young adults who will never get a happy ending so long as theyre together
a woman who everyone forgets and the man who falls in love with her every time he meets her again and again and again.
high school sweethearts haunted by their pasts and sometimes their futures, too.
a nerd and a 'cool kid', who just keep trying to sacrifice themselves for each other despite something interrupting them every time.
romance is not dead in hatchetfield! except for the fact that it usually ends up dying horribly and tragically.