#they are so achilles and patroclus coded

[masonjarsmoments]

[pelideswhore]

army dreamers by kate bush but make it about the iliad

[milomilesmib]

Every achillean couple sees patrochilles and goes "omg they're so us!!!"

[ourchunkysalsa]

i have one coherent thought after episode 7 and it’s this

[marsfilms]

The sun once again fell in love with moon

[hnbka]

my tears ricochet IS byler as will gets vecna'd.

Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe All the hell you gave me? 'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you 'Til my dying day

i will not be explaining how easily this connects to byler's story, please do the math on your own

I didn't have it in myself to go with grace And you're the hero flying around, saving face And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?

will would want nothing more than to be selfless and just rid others of himself because he thinks he's a burden to others, he doesn't have the same sense of self-worth does. mike gets to be this hero if will dies from vecna even though mike was, well, mike. to will, he wasn't much of a hero, just really rude and distant. the wake connects back to will being missing, "my life started the day i met you/the day will went missing??" will thinks mike didn't even care that will went missing, so why was he at the wake, at the search parties?

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet

mike loves will, we know this. so if will was vecna'd and his bones were all crackly like max's, he would be the first weeping over his body. so this is bitter will, why do you care now?

And I can go anywhere I want Anywhere I want, just not home And you can aim for my heart, go for blood But you would still miss me in your bones

mike is home for will, and mike won't accept will back as anything more than a friend. barely that in the beginning of s4, even in the end. so, will can't go home, properly, to mike. and the you can aim for my heart, go for blood?? mike pushing will away, being just a terrible friend in s4, but he still misses him in his bones.

And I still talk to you (when I'm screaming at the sky) And when you can't sleep at night (you hear my stolen lullabies)

bffr, the sleepovers? the nightmares? this line is byler

(okay extra lines in the song)

You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

mike felt like he had to end his feelings for will, but it killed him just to do it (he literally, physically couldn't cause bro is whipped)

And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain Crossing out the good years

"why am i the bad guy?" good years also being s1 and s2 byler when they were more comfortable in their friendship/mike's internalized homophobia wasn't showing so hard

You turned into your worst fears

this one can be interpreted. mike's biggest fears could include l*nnie, losing will or even ted. and he turned into all of those (not lonnie abusive, but homophobic and makes will feel bad so the comparison kind of works)

'Cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave

used to. he used to.

[d4jamso]

Song of Achilles mhmh.g... but what if I made it byler

[fxoye]

i'm honestly at a loss right now. like... what even is happening on the SNW star trek reddit thread?

i know i shouldn't be surprised at this point, but the level of pushback and dismissal when it comes to even the mere possibility of spock being queer is just... baffling.

like, i get that reddit has its share of toxicity and closed-mindedness, but for some reason i thought the star trek fandom would be a bit more evolved, you know? this is literally a franchise that has always been about inclusivity, diversity, and pushing social boundaries. and yet here we are, in 2024, still having to justify the basic idea that hey, maybe the character with a decades-long history of queer subtext and coding could, in fact, be queer.

it's just wild to me that this is even a debate. like, i'm sorry, but the idea of kirk and spock's relationship having homoerotic undertones is not some fringe tumblr headcanon - it has been acknowledged and explored by literal cast members, writers, and even gene roddenberry himself. the term "slash" in fanfiction comes from kirk/spock stories, for crying out loud. this is not new!

and yet we have people in that reddit thread acting like the mere suggestion of a queer spock is some sort of sacrilegious retcon that would ruin the character forever. as if spock's entire 50+ year history would be erased if he so much as looked at a man with anything other than heterosexual brotherhood.

it's just so frustrating and disheartening to see this level of knee-jerk dismissal and erasure, especially in a fandom that prides itself on being progressive and imaginative. like, we can envision a future with warp drives and aliens and literal magic space gods, but a queer vulcan is a bridge too far? okay then.

and the thing is, no one is even saying that spock is definitively, unquestionably gay, or that every single iteration of his character needs to be explicitly queer. all we're saying is that there is room for that interpretation, and that queer stories have just as much right to be told as any others. but apparently even that is too much for some folks.

it's a reminder that even in supposedly "enlightened" geeky spaces, homophobia and heteronormativity are still alive and well. and it's exhausting, honestly. as a queer trekkie, i'm just so tired of having to constantly justify my existence and fight for scraps of representation.

you know what, i'm gonna say it: the erasure and denial of spock's queer subtext, and specifically the spirk ship, is not just frustrating - it's straight up homophobic.

like, let's look at the facts here. kirk and spock's relationship has been coded as romantic and even erotic since literally the beginning of the franchise. the term "t'hy'la", which has been used to describe their bond, translates to "friend, brother, lover" in vulcan. that's not subtext, that's just... text.

and the evidence just keeps piling up from there. the way spock is the only person who can pull kirk out of his darkest moments, the way they constantly risk their lives and careers for each other, the "this simple feeling" speech in the motion picture... like, come on. even the kelvin timeline movies had scenes of them practically eye-fucking on the bridge.

and don't even get me started on the plethora of literary references that heavily code their relationship as queer. kirk and spock's dynamic has been compared to achilles and patroclus, gilgamesh and enkidu, alexander the great and hephaestion... all classic examples of homoerotic male partnerships. the iconic back-to-back pose from the episode "bread and circuses" is a direct visual reference to the novel "ishmael" by barbara hambly, which depicts a gay romance between two men. (as somebody pointed out; this is not accurate and since i was hazed asf (meds) when i wrote this, can’t remember what literary parallel i was actually trying to draw here. let me dig through my stash of gay literature history and i’ll address this 😭☝️).

these are not coincidences or fan delusions - they are deliberate, well-documented artistic choices layered into the very foundation of kirk and spock's relationship. and the fact that so many people are eager to ignore or downplay them in order to cling to a heteronormative fantasy of male friendship is honestly pretty telling.

and look, i get it. it's easy to claim "they were just best friends" because that's what we've been culturally conditioned to see as the default. but the reality is, intimate male relationships have been historically desexualized and stripped of romantic coding in order to maintain heterosexual norms. the achilles/patroclus model of male love used to be widely understood as having a romantic and even sexual element - it was only in the 19th and 20th centuries that it was aggressively reframed as "platonic friendship" in a textbook example of straightwashing.

so when people insist that kirk and spock's bond could never be anything other than a sexless bromance, they are literally upholding centuries of homophobic revisionism designed to erase queer love from our cultural narratives. and i'm sorry, but that's not something i can get behind as a queer fan.

you cannot look at the overwhelming evidence of kirk and spock's queer subtext, the decades of analysis exploring their relationship through a romantic lens, the undeniable impact and influence of queer interpretations on the very fabric of this fandom... and tell me with a straight face that it's all meaningless or invalid.

kirk/spock walked so that every other slash pairing could run. it is the ur-text of queer shipping in modern fandom. and while it may have started as subtext, it has long since transcended those limitations to become an integral part of star trek's cultural legacy.

but at the end of the day, i know that fandom will always be what we make of it. no amount of downvotes or closed-minded rhetoric can change the fact that queer interpretations of spock have been part of his story since day one, and will continue to be so long as there are lgbtq+ fans who see ourselves in him.

so to my fellow queer trekkies: keep boldly going, keep reading the subtext, keep telling our stories. they can call it illogical all they want - we know the truth. and as a wise vulcan once said: "there's no point in denying the facts of one's nature." 🖖🏳️‍🌈

[voidcatofbedlam]

Finally read the epic of Gilgamesh. The relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu was compared to that of Achilles and Patroclus in the introduction.

Ah yes a great friendship indeed

Yes I know technically they came first but it’s so patrochilles coded my heart can’t handle them.

One followed the other and left first, two parts of a whole yet fated to be separated, violent grief and questionable decisions…

And historians say they are ✨best friends✨

[girlsjustwannef1]

I'm re-entering my greek mythology phase (reading Clytemnestra) but it made me think about how greek tragedy coded Lestappen is. Are they not Achilles and Patroclus reincarnated?

Prideful young Achilles cursed with a parent who wanted their child to be the best. Patroclus' only sin being caring too much and so he becomes a martyr of a futile cause.

Max cannot escape the narrative and Charles refuses to.

[opal-punk]

orym and dorian are so achilles and patroclus-coded

[favvn]

not me, wanting to make a web weave post featuring scenes from the star trek movies that i still haven't seen because i cannot stop thinking about how star trek uses the term "friend" for kirk and spock's relationship in the same way e.m. forster uses "friend" in maurice (self-explanatory) and a passage to india (aziz and fielding at the very end of the book wow that passage) in the same way "friend" is used interchangably in the discussions on different kinds of love and relationships in plato's symposium (the platonic ideal of love aside. although it is worth noting that kirk and spock's relationship fit that ideal--ironically--due to the constraints of 1960s homophobia and repression, which is also the reason why the platonic ideal is brought up in maurice, albeit in a different era and maurice rejects it vs clive who uses it to make peace with the intolerance of the 1900s.) to say nothing of achilles and patroclus, alexander the great and hephaestion (which roddenberry had in mind for kirk and spock), etc.

and like. how genius to use such an innocuous word because in our modern age, "friend" has lost that nuance that it once had. so, all along, they can point to a relationship without specifics. the hayes code can't object because it's implicit and subtle, and what censor would be heartless enough to raise objection against friendship? but, if the viewer has that knowledge of the history behind it, they can take note of it and see what's implied but can not be made explicit due to an intolerant society.

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Given the nature of the Tolkien fandom and just tumblr in general I’m gonna go ahead and assume you guys have heard of Patrochilles. And so I would like to take a moment and consider the very reasonable and normal question of who is the Achilles and who is the Patroclus of Russingon. On the one hand the Nirnaeth Arnoediad followed directly by Maedhros’ descent into insanity is very Achilles coded. He blames himself for his death, there’s the whole devotion thing, Fingon being a ray of sunshine and the only good thing in Nelyo’s world, Maedhros having Feanorian related pride and stubbornness etc. This post, like Maehdros, has no other hand. That’s it that’s all I’ve got. Fingon is a Patroclus and Maedhros is an Achilles.

All I’m saying is that there’s a reason Achilles Come Down is on pretty much every Maedhros playlist I’ve seen. As it should be

[tragicromanceftus]

achilles and patroclus are so jegulus coded like-

[sunnytastic]

it's actually insane how much bakudeku are so achilles and patroclus-coded

[cranberryjuice-posts]

I’m abt to post a new clarisse FIC but I just wanted to go on a rant abt this

SPOILERS FOR PJO

Clarisse and silena Were in love. Ive already made a post abt thhis before but I wanna just like elaborate

- “Clarisse is in love with Chris and silena is in love with Charles beckendorf”

Yes that’s true but have you ever noticed how differently clarisse treats female characters vrs male characters. She softer and while still a bitch not an actually shitty person to characters like for example annabeth, silena and more, in the sea of monsters she was concerned for annabeth after she broke her ribs but in the next line insulted Percy.

She is also seen countless times being kinder to annabeth in multiple different scenes while still be harsh to other male characters. She gets ruthless in the war meeting in the final book and all she said is “I apologize to only silena” or something like that. When have we ever seen clarisse apologize than to silena

- “clarisse went into the labyrinth to find Chris she loved him”

Clarisse went into the labyrinth to find Chris, the only reason for this was because he showed up to her house in Arizona. She felt responsible to get him back from camp. She also helped nurse him back to sanity until Dionysius could help.

Clarisse felt responsible for Chris, that’s why and she can still love him platonically. That’s how I’ve always viewed their relationship was them being platonic.

- “silena and clarisse Were Just good friends that’s it”

Clarisse and silena Are direct parallels to Achilles and Patroclus, two characters in the Iliad who are very clearly lovers.

I Said it once I’ll say it again, Rick most likely didn’t think about making both girls the parallels to the myth until he was already writing the book. If he had decided on that way before I firmly believe he would of made them both together

But I would also like to add his books came out in the early 2000’s the last Olympian coming out in 2009 and queer represantion wasn’t as “common” as it is now. With Disney also being his publisher he was probably hesitant to even introduce a gay character in his books let alone two sapphic women.

Yes we started to see change for queer identies in the early 2000’s we also have to still think that again Disney is ricks publisher, even Disney didn’t really start being more accepting of LGBTQ+ identies until recently.

- “well if all that’s true why didn’t Rick just make them in love in the final book”

I Just explained why above but also he had already written their relationships out, silena and beckendorf in the demigod diaries or which ever one it was and clarisse and Chris in the battle of the labyrinth.

He can’t just go back and completely rewrite the cannon relationships he has set without it being weird.

——

In the end even actors like Dior who plays clarisse says that her character and silena will have a more sapphic relationship and with the show coming out now and with season 2 being announced, Rick having cannon gay characters a whole book about nico and will who are to young men in a relationship going through Tartarus, I belive Rick will make silena and clarisse have a more romantic relationship compared to the books.

Also we’re going to be seeing a lot of change anyways, Rick wrote these books YEARS ago and of course like any artist you will critique your old work. So again I hope we see a more developed and romantic relationship between silena and clarisse especially since Clarisse is very much a lesbian coded character

That’s it Ty for coming to my Ted talk 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩