#we were reading the odyssey in class

[greekmythcomix]

How I teach the Iliad in highschool:

I’ve taught the Iliad for over a decade, I’m literally a teacher, and I can even spell ‘Iliad’, and yet my first instinct when reading someone’s opinions about it is not to drop a comment explaining what it is, who ‘wrote’ it, and what that person’s intention truly was.

Agh. <the state of Twitter>

The first thing I do when I am teaching the Iliad is talk about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about Homer:

We know -

- 0

We think we know -

- the name Homer is a person, possibly male, possibly blind, possibly from Ionia, c.8th/9th C BCE.

- composed the Iliad and Odyssey and Hymns

We don’t know -

- if ‘Homer’ was a real person or a word meaning singer/teller of these stories

- which poem came first

- whether the more historical-sounding events of these stories actually happened, though there is evidence for a similar, much shorter, siege at Troy.

And then I get out a timeline, with suggested dates for the ‘Trojan war’ and Iliad and Odyssey’s estimated composition date and point out the 500ish years between those dates. And then I ask my class to name an event that happened 500 years ago.

They normally can’t or they say ‘Camelot’, because my students are 13-15yo and I’ve sprung this on them. Then I point out the Spanish Armada and Qu. Elizabeth I and Shakespeare were around then. And then I ask how they know about these things, and we talk about historical record.

And how if you don’t have historical record to know the past, you’re relying on shared memory, and how that’s communicated through oral tradition, and how oral tradition can serve a second purpose of entertainment, and how entertainment needs exciting characteristics.

And we list the features of the epic poems of the Iliad and Odyssey: gods, monsters, heroes, massive wars, duels to the death, detailed descriptions of what armour everyone is wearing as they put it on. (Kind of like a Marvel movie in fact.)

And then we look at how long the poems are and think about how they might have been communicated: over several days, when people would have had time to listen, so at a long festival perhaps, when they’re not working. As a diversion.

And then I tell them my old and possibly a bit tortured simile of ‘The Pearl of Myth’:

(Here’s a video of The Pearl of Myth with me talking it through in a calming voice: https://youtu.be/YEqFIibMEyo?sub_confirmation=1

And after all that, I hand a student at the front a secret sentence written on a piece of paper, and ask them to whisper it to the person next to them, and for that person to whisper it to the next, and so on. You’ve all played that game.

And of course the sentence is always rather different at the end than it was at the start, especially if it had Proper nouns in it (which tend to come out mangled). And someone’s often purposely changed it, ‘to be funny’.

And we talk about how this is a very loose metaphor for how stories and memory can change over time, and even historical record if it’s not copied correctly (I used to sidebar them about how and why Boudicca used to be known as ‘Boadicea’ but they just know the former now, because Horrible Histories exists and is awesome)

And after all that, I remind them that what we’re about to read has been translated from Ancient Greek, which was not exactly the language it was first written down in, and now we’re reading it in English.

And that’s how my teenaged students know NOT TO TAKE THE ILIAD AS FACT.

(And then we read the Iliad)

[twinsarekeepers]

I’m curious as to your honest thoughts on the show? Like I love pjo and all but the show was a bit of a let down writing wise. There’s always the point of “it’s an adaptation, not a carbon copy” like yes but this new writing isn’t exemplary better than the book just because it’s rewritten by the author himself

I think the show is well-written not because Rick is attached to it, but because I actually like the way the writers are approaching adapting the source material. I have a lot of issues with the original books in terms of writing quality because frankly speaking, I don’t think Rick is a very good writer. He has a lot of interesting things in those books that he never explores or drops within the first two and this fandom gives him and the books too much credit imo.

This is why I’m not very moved when people try to ascribe meaning to a certain scene or choice he made in the books to get mad at the show for changing. As an example, one of the main things people were upset about was the kids “knowing everything” in the show when they were getting tricked left and right in the book. Many posts were dedicated to how the book version is superior because it illustrates how they’re just twelve years old kids so of course they’ll make mistakes and get tricked by monsters.

That’s a perfectly fine interpretation but I was twelve years old when I first read tlt and I was able to anticipate almost every single trap, despite being pretty gullible and naive at that age. My knowledge of Greek mythology consisted of Disney’s Hercules, maybe two Google searches, and my second grade teacher’s reading of the kid friendly version of the Odyssey. No where near the level of Percy who’d been learning for a whole year in an established class on the topic with Chiron or Grover who was literally a satry born into the world or Annabeth, who spent the majority of her life dedicated to studying specifically quests and Greek mythology and was also on the run fighting monsters for a good portion of her childhood. Like twelve year olds can be dumb but those three stumbling into every trap was asking me to suspend my disbelief too far. I remember being upset that they weren’t able to figure it out because it was obvious that Rick wasn’t making that choice to show any personality flaws or character dynamics (because he would’ve had them learn and grow but they never did they just kept being not smart), he just wasn’t able to figure out a way for them to fall into those traps organically so he had to dumb them down.

I think the show was able to get across the characters’ childishness without compromising their established backstories. Yes, Annabeth knew it was Medusa right away because that makes sense for a kid who has experience with running into monsters. But, she still acted very much like a child in her interactions with her (and throughout the episode and season). She lashed out and called her a liar and wouldn’t listen to her side of the story because it painted her mother in a bad light. That’s peak twelve year old behavior.

Yes, Percy figured out Kronos was behind everything, but it makes sense because Percy knows Greek mythology and where Kronos resides. He still very much acts like a child when he asks Hades to give him back his mom in exchange for nothing because it’s the right thing to do.

There are dozens of examples like this for a lot of complaints of the show. And this is not me saying that the show is perfect: every single show has flaws. For me, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the dialogue or the exposition dumping. It didn’t hinder my enjoyment though because I don’t think it was egregious (and wrt the exposition dumping, I expected it because the book did it and there’s really no way to “show not tell” Greek myths). I also didn’t like that we didn’t get to really see the huge clashes between Zeus and Poseidon in the weather (we got references to it through news reports but I would’ve liked something more). I was able to look past it because I really liked the storytelling and the themes the show was pulling out of the original source material.

I loved Medusa-Sally parallels and Medusa-Annabeth parallels. I loved the juxtaposition of Pan’s quest to manifest density. I loved Percy and Annabeth’s opposite trajectory in respect to their relationships with their godly parents. I loved exploring Sally’s choice to send Percy to school instead of camp. I loved explicitly coding Annabeth as autistic. I loved Luke’s backstory being brought earlier into the story. I loved the deadline passing and Poseidon surrendering to save Percy. I loved Persues-Andromeda and percabeth parallels. I loved fleshing Grover out. I loved glory vs home seeking being the central theme of the show.

And lastly, I was able to understand that with a limited number of episodes and run time (due to the nature of child labor laws!), they did the best they could and I feel like they did a pretty good job for a first season.

These are not ALL of my thoughts on the show because that would be a very long post. I gave one detailed example of why I think the show succeeded in something the fandom tries to ascribe the books and it was like three paragraphs lol. Anyway this is not the post to try and convince me that the show is bad for whatever reason you have cooked up. I’m not going to change my mind and I doubt I’ll change yours. Here’s to a season 2 that builds on a solid season 1!

[foreststarflaime]

What degree(s) do you think Genesis would have?

Ooohoho well. If I may throw my projecting opinions into the discussion lol

He would do great as a classics person I feel (meaning here the study of ancient Greece and Rome, because that is a really ambiguous name to give a study area, but here we are I don’t make the rules). I’ve said plenty about the parallels you can draw with him and the Iliad before, and Loveless absolutely does give me ancient epic vibes, and specifically homeric epic vibes with the themes and the character of the goddess. And if I may go into lore speculation mode for a second, the Cetra do give me the ancient Greece kinda vibe in some ways, so it would be cool if that was the role they played to Gaian society like greece/rome is for us, and with how little of it there is and the whole freaking out over a couple new lines that got discovered (oof that’s a weirdly structured sentence)! So I am pinning my fellow classics major pin on him, he would love the classes I’ve been in which are solely dedicated to reading and discussing a specific text like that especially. He would so be the type of person to walk up to your discussion of the Odyssey or smth and be like “well actually it’s more complex than that bc the greeks’ society was based off this thing called xenia” and procede to lecture you on greek culture with the greek words that don’t translate quite right thrown in all the time lol (haha I would never do this wdym). I actually did have the idea for my thesis in my Greek Gods class that was very much inspired by him—I’m studying sorta the relationships between warriors and poetry in ancient epic

But he would not stop at just one, he is so extra lmao—I could also definitely see him being an english major. And I won’t say theater major exactly because I feel like he would he the exact flavor of english major my uni used to have that I have been told stories of where they had this weird rivalry with the theater department lmao—the eng department would put on productions of Shakespeare, and every department would usually have a decent amount of rep with showing up at the performances, except. Most notably. The theater department, because they were salty that anyone besides them got to put on Shakespeare. The petty energy of that is so Genesis to me, whichever side of that he would he on—although I do tend to lean towards the english side of that for him because he loves analyzing the work so much

And then he’d also probably have some random chemistry degree because he’s a child prodigy genius who invented pasteurization apparently, so great for him lol I could never

[iamf0rtis]

so today in latin class we were reading our textbook, specifically a section that was similar to a passage in the Aeneid where the ghost of Aeneas’s first wife, Creusa, basically tells him to move on from her and shit. which is interesting on its own but my brain immediately jumped to battle of the labyrinth.

something about Nico summoning Bianca. in our textbook it kinda combines the idea of Odysseus summoning ghosts from the odyssey and the speech Creusa gave and. that feels a lot like what happened in that scene with Nico. Bianca telling him that he needs to forgive Percy. that he needs to move on without her.

“quid tantum insano iuvat indulgere dolori, o dulchis coniunx?” ; “What does it help to give in to such great insanity, o sweet partner?” (Aeneid Book 2 Lines 776-777)

“lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae.” ; “Push away your tears for your beloved Creusa.” (Aeneid Book 2 Line 784)

“‘Why didn’t you answer me sooner?’ he cried. ‘I’ve been trying for months!’

‘I was hoping you’d give up.’

‘Give up?’ He sounded heartbroken. ‘How can you say that? I’m trying to save you!’

‘You can’t, Nico. Don’t do this. Percy is right.’” (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Battle of the Labyrinth pages 166-167)

…all im saying is rick is a literary genius and i have horrible brain rot

[mademoiselle-red]

So I had a thought today: Patroclus’ tragedy is that he isn’t Odysseus. Hear me out. This is gonna be a long and meandering story. So I was thinking about that battered old picture book adaptation of The Iliad I’d received as a child, and how at the time, I was very into “trickster” characters who achieve their goals through some kind of cleverness and get away with it. My favorite character through the first part of the book was Paris because he wins over Helen by getting Aphrodite to make her fall in love with him (yes, I know better now, but I was 9 years old at the time lol). But then I realized he was actually stupid, so I dropped him. No one really piqued my interest until Patroclus showed up and put on his friend’s armor and bluffed his way through the enemy lines. I was really rooting for him to win! It was brilliant. But then the gods intervened and gave the victory to Hector. Boo. I dropped him, Patroclus —he didn’t get away with his trick, and that made him immediately less interesting to 9 year old me. I did feel a vague sense of unfairness at the fact that he didn’t fail because his plan wasn’t clever enough, but because he didn’t have a god on his side. And, I didn’t care much for his friend Achilles since he was strong because he was strong, not because he was clever.

I was also at the time, very into track and field races, which were co-ed at my elementary school, and I always managed to do pretty well in the longer races against boys who normally ran faster than me because I knew how to manage my stamina and they didn’t. Anyhow, I ended up latching onto Agamemnon, because the ending of the picture-book focused on him, and he ended up killed by his wife, and thus not clever enough to get away with it, which made him a total loser in the eyes of my former self. But then, a few years later, I read The Odyssey in my 9th grade English class, and I finally found the character of my heart, Odysseus. He is the clever trickster who does “get away with it”, over and over again, and I loved it. Odysseus is not as strong as Achilles or politically powerful as Agamemnon, but he is clever, and he outlives them all. I could never get enough of this kind of story: the clever youngest brother wins the fortune, the clever hero defeats the stupid knights and marries the princess.

Real life didn’t quite work out that way. Like Patroclus’ bluff, my advantage in strategy and stamina was short-lasting. As we began to hit puberty, my body fat to muscle ratio caught up with me, the boys got even faster, and the school races were now segregated by sex. But by then, I was already losing interest in the sport.

And now as an adult, I’ve found new appreciation for the tragedy of Patroclus. It is the tragedy of the almost-good-enough, the almost-victory. He was more clever than Achilles, cleverer than Hector, and he could have won, had he been able to fight that battle on his own terms, bypass Hector and make it over the walls of Troy, had the gods not thrown him down from the walls and forced him to fight Hector face to face. But he isn’t Odysseus, and Hector isn’t the Cyclops. But he could have been Odysseus, who always won by not fighting fair, perhaps in another universe, where Lady Athena smiled upon him and chose him as her favorite.

Patroclus was among the best of the warriors, but not the best. He was clever, but not the cleverest. His tragedy is perhaps the tragedy of the average person, as strong and clever as an ordinary hardworking warrior would be, but not extraordinary, not blessed by the gods, forced to share the world with those few who are.

[haybels]

a note

I was eight. I have friends over- those friends you have because your parents are friends. We’re playing with our little sisters, and they want to dress us up. I get put in a tutu, and take it off as soon as possible. My heart is pounding- not out of embarrassment, but because I wish I could wear things like this more often.

I was twelve, laying in bed way after my bedtime. I had my iPod touch, the one I got the day I went to the Odyssey of the Mind competition in Iowa. My body was starting to change, and I was starting to lose sight of myself. In passing on the internet, I hear about a way I can make myself more comfortable. I throw myself into it- read about everything relating to it. Knowing it exists helps me. I find resources, learn the lingo, and cry as I realize how much I want it, but how much it seems out of reach. I Google if I can get hormones and surgeries without my parents permission.

I was fourteen. We were in the car, the whole family, shopping for new furniture for the living room. I was tuning everything out- a girl, my age, had jumped off an overpass on a freeway. Her parents found out she was transgender and kicked her out of the house. She took her own life. I see posts talking about her, showing awareness to the plight of people like her. I share the posts, wishing I could have the support I see her having. Her name was Leelah Alcorn. I still think about her every night before I fall asleep.

I was sixteen. I’m not a particularly good athlete, though I still go out for sports whenever possible. I get told I’m not a real man, and that feels good.

I was eighteen. I want to watch the Super Bowl, so I find some friends going to a fraternity house to watch the game. I make an impression, and I get an invitation to join. I lay in bed, night after night, thinking about what it would mean to join. I swallow my feelings, try to accept what I always will be, and sign the bid.

I was nineteen. I sit next to some people I met in class- I had sat next to them last year but never managed to talk to them. This year, they find me. We bond over being in the same major and how much we hate the required class we’re in. I tell them the secret, the one that I told myself I’d never let slip, and they become the only ones I can trust.

I was twenty. I stay inside- I can barely bring myself to leave my room. How can I face myself these days? I let myself grow unkempt. Long hair to represent what I want for myself, and unkempt facial hair to show what everyone else sees me as.

I was twenty two. I return home after graduation. All my friends are off to bigger and better things, but I don’t. It’s hard to care for your future when you haven’t felt anything in years, when you feel like there’s nothing to look forward to. I still haven’t found a job, and the failure is getting to me. If I’m not the smart one, the one who has it all together, then what’s the point. It’s clear I’ve been left behind. I sit in the garage, a rusty fishing knife pressed to my wrists, and think about finally doing it.

I was twenty three. I swallow my pride and decide I need it, that life isn’t worth living anymore if I have to tiptoe around everyone else’s feelings. I call a clinic and schedule an appointment. I get my prescription and decide this is the time I need to come clean. I’m told I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I haven’t thought this through, that I need therapy before I can make this decision. I start my treatment and lie, saying I had taken their advice and waited. Lying has become as easy as breathing, my tells becoming suppressed. What’s lying about one little thing when I’ve been hiding the truth for my whole life?

I’m twenty four. I’ve struggled for so many years. Tomorrow is when I’m reborn, but I’ve known for so many years. I’m proud of myself, but also mad that I’ve caved to others for so long and delayed what I’ve wanted my whole life. But it’s over. I’m going to be free.

I’m finally going to be happy.

[gently-decaying-flowers]

oh my god thought from english today:

when did men crying become a bad thing? idk we are reading the odyssey and in the book we read odysseus got home and he and telemachus were like openly weeping and it was a really like sweet moment

but the energy in that classroom between my male english teacher and The Boys in my class gave me second hand embarrassment

[apollos-boyfriend]

what did Ovid do? I took a myth class and he was the first author we read so I’m curious what the argument for him ruining Greek mythology is

okay so first and foremost a quick disclaimer that i am like. not a historian in the slightest. i’m just autistic and have had a special interest in greek mythos since like. fourth grade.

ovid is like. one of THE major poets of greco-roman mythology. his works are what inspired a lot of extremely influential writers that came after him (shakespeare, for example) so he’s a pretty big deal in the grand scheme of things. being roman, his works came much after the original greek writing he based them off of, so while most greek mythos got lost/destroyed, his survived. because of that, and his overall influence, a LOT of modern takes/views of greco-roman mythology comes from his interpretation of things. a good comparison i’ve seen to him is that there’s a larger gap in time between the lives of homer (author of the iliad and the odyssey, famous greek works; 8th century bc) and ovid (43 bc) and the lives of snorri sturluson (icelandic historian and compiler of norse mythology; 1179) and jack kirby (creator of marvel’s thor; 1917), and yet no one claims marvel’s thor to be an important figure in norse mythology.

additionally. ovid’s works were nothing but personal bias and hatred. ovid fucking HATED authority. he was anti-authoritarian to a T, and greek gods were authority. he went out of his way to write them as cruelly as possible because of that, as he used his writing to vent his frustrations against the government. he’s most infamously known for this bastardization of athena. trigger warning for rape in the upcoming paragraph.

in the original greek myth, medusa was always a monster. she was born a gorgon alongside her sisters, and died as one to perseus’ sword. in ovid’s retelling (a retelling that has become ALARMINGLY popular recently), medusa was born a human woman who was a priestess at one of athena’s temples. after medusa was raped within said temple, athena punished her, turning her into a monster that would turn any man who gazed into her eyes into stone.

he’s not a reliable source for basing your knowledge of greek myths on, and a lot of people DO because his ideas are so popularized and widespread that they’re seen as the originals. which sucks! he sucks! if i could kill him again i would!

[astralscrivener]

For the End of the Year Book Ask! #3, #10, #16 <333 Let your correct onions be KNOWN Beautiful <3333

I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY BOOK ONIONS

3. what were your top 5 books of the year?

FUCK this one took a lot of thinking

i had to go to my shelf of favorite reads of the year and it was. very tough to choose.

firstly is yellowface by r.f. kuang, which i talk about more in the next question (i answered these out of order oopsies)

second i think is the fifth season/the obelisk gate by n.k. jemisin. i read the fifth season both last year and this year for two different classes, and then finally got around to the sequel + am currently reading the third book and i am bonkers about them. i am thinking about essun and nassun and alabaster and hoa constantly. deeply unwell. a lot more geology than i had initially expected but i'm having a GREAT time

the long way to a small angry planet by becky chambers. my fucking beloved. i've literally owned the book since like 2021 but took forever to read it but i love it sooo much i love the entire wayfarer crew but i think about kizzy and ashby constantly. the socks match my hat scene was so small but lives in my head rent-free

circe by madeline miller!!!! this one is popular for a reason. i know a lot of people tend to prefer TSOA/their first introduction to miller's writing is TSOA but circe was mine bc i love the odyssey (and also the emily wilson odyssey came out before wiliad. so. i have not had the brain power to get thru the fagles translation of either one yet). anyway i loved this a lot. i connected a lot with circe as a person and a character and her entire web of relationships...i am so emo about it. also i am a circe/penelope truther and when i write a sci fi or fantasy novel very loosely inspired by their dynamic. then what. ....wait i might have just had a breakthru on one of my wips wait a minute—

and finally the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson. i think about eleanor too often. way too often. someone in the goodreads reviews commented on her loneliness and it clicked for me why i like her so much and i have not recovered <3

10. what was your favorite new release of the year?

out of the ones i read this year? yellowface by r.f. kuang. i don't read thrillers much but this one was so much. i loved it. chaotic satirical thriller criticizing the publishing industry and raising questions about ownvoices and representation, which authors and stories the industry rewards and prioritizes, the pitfalls of being a young prodigy, and also it was just bonkers. i know this one was divisive for some people but i loved it. i had a great time. i have not stopped thinking about "they called it a globule" for months.

16. what is the most overhyped book you read this year?

you know DAMN WELL what you were doing when you chose this question. kissing you on the mouth

anyway is this a safe space. is this a safe space for me to be bitch. f**rth wing. it was f**rth wing. spoilering so tumblr doesn't put it in the search for the stans to find me

it is bad. it is bad. i initially gave it i think 1.5 stars (rounded up to 2 on GR) but i hate it more every single time i think about it. there is just so much wrong with it as a book but is also emblematic of a lot of larger issues in publishing, and particularly with red tower as an imprint, but i do not have all day to rant or we will be here forever

end of year book ask!

[semper-legens]

40. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Owned: No, library Page count: 518 My summary: Henry met Clare when he was twenty eight, and she was twenty. Clare met Henry when she was six, and he was thirty six. Henry travels through time, a strange genetic quirk which sees him rocketing around his personal timeline at apparent random. But how can they live a normal life out of sync? When Henry disappears for days at a time into the past or future? When Clare is left waiting, hoping for his return? They cannot control time, after all. And they cannot fight fate... My rating: 2/5 My commentary:

A little while ago, my friend Megan and I were in London, looking for last-minute tickets to a show to fill our time between the shows that we'd booked. With few affordable options, we found ourselves settling down into the cheap seats of The Time Traveler's Wife to see what was what. Now, we'd never read the book before, nor had we seen the film or the more recent TV series, so this was our first engagement with the story. And it was...odd! Naturally, I became intensely curious about whether the strangeness of the plot was an adaptational problem or if it was inherent to the story in general. One reservation at the library later, I had a copy of this doorstop in my hand. Now, a lot of people love this story...but I couldn't really see much in there, I'm afraid. Let's get into it!

One of my biggest problems with this story is that, despite being titled after Clare, it isn't Clare's story, it's Henry's. It's really just The Time Traveler Who Has A Wife. Clare is such a static character. She doesn't really do anything proactive other than introduce herself to Henry at the allotted time, and as a teenager attempt to pressure Henry into having sex with her. Once she's in a relationship with Henry, she becomes less and less relevant. At first, she's in university, then presumably she graduates, though it's never mentioned, then she becomes a paper artist. We don't really get to see why she wanted to be an artist, who she is, what she likes and dislikes outside of Henry...her whole life revolves around Henry. She's compared to Penelope from the Odyssey early on, and that's pretty much her whole character. She waits for Henry. She waits for her life to catch up with Henry's, then she marries Henry, then she loses Henry and waits until she can see him one more time. Henry is everything to her and that's all she has. I wound up internally comparing her to the main character of Outlander as I was reading, because these are very similar stories in terms of genre and audience (and protagonist's name, come to think of it), but at least I have a sense of who Claire from Outlander is. She's compassionate, she's caring, she's spunky, she's seen some shit in the war but is determined to make the best of her life. This Clare? Just...doesn't have much of a character.

And this is where I divert to the thorny topic of class, because hoo boy. I don't know anything about Niffenegger as a person, but if you told me she grew up rich I would not be surprised. Henry's mother was a famous opera singer, his father a gifted violinist, and he's a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago - like, an actual studied-library-science librarian, not a library assistant like me. Clare's family is lives-in-a-mansion rich, her family has servants, and she lives on her trust fund. Now, writing about rich people is not a bad thing. But this book does not see itself along the lines of class and wealth at all. It takes a long time for us to see how Clare and Henry are living (his salary, her trust fund), and they are mentioned to struggle for money until Henry does some time travel lottery winning. But like...we never see them struggle. Henry keeps his job, despite randomly time travelling away every so often and being caught naked at work and being pulled up for that once. It takes ages for Clare to offhandedly mention she's living on trust fund interest, and she drops that so casually, like that's just a normal thing that everyone does. They have season tickets to the opera! Their lifestyle doesn't change when they become millionaires outside of buying a house! They live in this world of wealth and privilege that is so, so alien to me (and I'm pretty middle class!) and it was so hard to connect to them because of that. These people don't have problems. They just have money.

While we're on the subject of thorny topics, however, let's talk about race! Remember Clare's family servants? One of them is the cook, a stereotypical black woman cook who acts like a mammy stereotype from a 1930s film. Clare has this 'friend' (they interact like twice) who is a black lesbian and she's weird and vaguely antagonistic. And while Henry's family doesn't have servants, they have this family friend, Kimy, a Korean woman who is basically a second mother to Henry, spends her entire time on-page caring for Henry and his father, and speaks in a stereotypical broken English. These are also the only characters of colour I noticed in the book. There's this...joke?...about Clare's friend Gomez being nicknamed Gomez, but he's actually of Polish descent. So two of the three non-white characters here are subservient to the white characters, and that is their entire purpose and characterisation. It's that much more glaring for never being commented on! For Henry and Clare, this is normal.

Anyway. I struggle to understand what the point of this book was. Like, it's not the romance between Henry and Clare, because there's nothing there. We never see Henry and Clare getting to know each other or interacting as adults outside of the status quo of them being hopelessly in love. They already are soulmates when we meet them, and there's not a lot of development there. Is it their ongoing love story? Not really, there's no tension there. They struggle for money for like five minutes. There's the whole baby subplot, but we learn from a future Henry in the middle of it that they end up having a kid, so that gets deflated. The tragedy that Henry's inevitably going to die in his mid forties and leave Clare alone? But I haven't connected at all with either of these characters because they're both paper-thin. Henry gets more development, but it's still not enough. The whole middle of the book is just an exercise in nothing happening until the narrative decides 'we need an ending, time to kill Henry'. And I just do not care about it.

Aaaaaaaaaand I suppose I should end here with talking about the very squicky fact of the age gap in Clare and Henry's relationship, and how Fate plays a part in it. Clare first meets Henry age six; Henry is in his thirties. Clare spends a lot of time coming onto Henry as a teenager, and they wind up first having sex when she is just-turned eighteen, and he is in his forties. Henry kisses Clare when she's thirteen and he's an adult! Not to mention that we see Henry and Clare really getting to know each other when she's a kid - and a little kid, at that - but never as adults. Hell, one of the first things Clare says to Henry is that the last time she saw him he was sucking her toes in their meadow and that she was pressuring him for sex for years. And it's all meant to be okay, because they're fated to be together, I guess. Like, that's the reason we're not meant to find that weird. The time travel works on stable time loops, Henry cannot change the future no matter what he does (we're meant to take that as read, pretty much) and he and Clare are married in the future, so they're always meant to be. Clare has had no other partners, outside of sleeping with Gomez once, which she feels awful about. Henry is implied to have slept around a lot before meeting Clare, and his ex is obsessed with him to the point where it's implied that learning they aren't gonna be together forever is a reason for her suicide, but that's fine and he doesn't feel like apologising for that. Their whole relationship dynamic is fucked! But the book wants it to be romantic, so it's romantic. Just don't think about it, okay? Just don't think about it.

Next up, some fact, and a look at how Indigenous people discovered Europe.

[thelonecalzone]

At long last, here is the official reading list for There'll Be Some Changes Made, and a few recommendations from some of the readers! It's long, so hopefully there's a little something for everyone.

Thank you again to the wonderful readers, both for your encouragement, and for helping me compile this list <3

Recommendations (Named Throughout TBSCM)

The Pearl - John Steinbeck The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Upon the Blue Couch - Laurie Kolp In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith Paradise Rot - Jenny Hval Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters Fingersmith - Sarah Waters Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown Under the Udala Trees - Chinelo Okparanta In at the Deep End - Kate Davies Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid Lavender House - Lev AC Rosen My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg Straight Jacket Winter - Esther DuQuette and Gilles Poulin-Denis

Source Books (Referenced, but not named)

The Odyssey - Homer The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams Hamlet - William Shakespeare The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald Come Along with Me - Shirley Jackson (unfinished novel) We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson A Certain Hunger - Chelsea G. Summers The Poison Garden - AJ Banner

Honorable Mentions:

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson Different Class - Joanne Harris The Lost Girls of Ireland (Book 1) - Susanne O’Leary The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum The Broken Girls - Simone St. James Dear Fahrenheit 451 - Annie Spence The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston Ash - Malinda Lo Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour Camp Slaughter - Sergio Gomez The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Banished (Under the Coffee Table) Books - DO NOT READ:

Ulysses - James Joyce Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult The Book Thief - Markus Zusak In the Darkroom - Susan Faludi Marley & Me - John Grogan

Recs from Fellow Readers

Things We Lost in the Fire - Marina Enriquez Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado The Well of Loneliness - Radclyffe Hall Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin  The Safety of Objects - A.M. Homes Crush - Richard Siken The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare I’ve Got a Time Bomb - Sybil Lamb The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo Sadie - Courtney Summers The Messy Lives of Book People - Phaedra Patrick The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix The Final Girl Support Group - Grady Hendrix The Lying Lives of Adults - Elena Ferrante They Were Here Before Us - Eric LaRocca The Patience Stone - Atiq Rahimi Agamemnon - Aeschylus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's poetry - (start with "You Foolish Men") The poems of Sappho - (“Anactoria”, the book of fragments, and “Goatherd” specifically)

[indigosabyss]

Writeathon Week 1: Roundup

Since I didn't want to clog up the feed too much, I'll be keeping talk of the streams to these weekly roundups. But follow my Twitch if you're interested!!

This week's target: 21,000 words Actual wordcount: 37,360 words Amount Left 'til One Million: 139,151 words

I have written. So many commissions. Updated so many WIPs. It's going great!! The full list of fics I worked on in these seven days is under the cut, but you can just read through my ao3 if you want an idea.

Start time for next week (17-23 Jun) will be 6 PM GMT+5

comm info | patreon | ko-fi

COMMISSIONS

(Patrons get monthly custom fics and are included in the comms. Total word count is included in the brackets here, but I've written the most recent chapters this week only.)

Where Do We Stand, On The Matter of Us? [N/A, 10k]

(DCST TsukaGen + QPR!SenGen)

At first, Tsukasa had thought that reviving Gen was a good idea. Then, he realized it was a fatal mistake. Even later, he realized that it was the greatest thing he could have done for the softly budding civilization that had sprung up in Japan. It was strange, having to stand by and know that all this was possible, simply because Gen hadn't stood by Tsukasa, all those months ago. To know that when he had been overlooked in favor of Senku, that choice had been right. Gen had already made his choice. So why did it feel like his hidden affections were being returned, as they crossed the ocean to America, and the enemies that lay there?

Me And My Friends Going to Pride As Allies [G, 2.6k]

(Ms. Marvel taken from my Pride Sponsorship List)

…They're all queer and think each of them is the only one.

It's Not An Odyssey If You Don't Know Where You're Going [T, 4k+]

(OMFD PJO!AU)

From a very young age, Stede Bonnet had displayed rather uncanny abilities. It started with the relentless harassment he had faced from his peers, whose rough shoves resulted in many skinned knees and purpling bruises. All of which disappeared in less than minutes. Of course, as a child, it never occurred to him that this was unusual. The glowing was more of a concern. On the oceans, he was free of judgement for his proclivities. But there was still plenty to be feared about the ichor that ran through his veins. So he kept quiet. Until he met another like him. Blackbeard, Edward Teach, and - few people knew this - son of Charybdis. Yes, like the sea monster.

Funny I Should Meet You Here [N/A, 5k]

(RyuuSen Childhood Friends to Strangers to Lovers)

Ryuusui met Senku when they were kids in elementary school. But after Ryuusui changed schools, they grew apart, their paths never to cross again. Until the Petrification Wave came, and thirty seven hundred years passed. Leading to Senku arriving at the land where the Nanami Academy used to stand. Two friends reunite. And buried feelings bloom into something new.

Playing A Mean Game [T, 8.5k]

(Post-The Marvels Kamala Khan transported to X-Men First Class) This one's on shaky ground bc a patron asked for this, but it was one of my own ideas. That's why I put it last.

Three months ago, Monica Rambeau sealed up the Incursion, with her on the other side. Tired of waiting, Kamala gathered up the Quantum Bands and brute forced her way through the Noor to get to her side. Except she gets deposited in a world that's almost exactly like the sixties of her own world. With the addition of a group of people she definitely would have remembered. Erik was just trying to stop Schmidt from getting his hands on another kid like him. He didn't take into account that he would have to keep an eye on her after that.

Personal Projects

(Recent Chapters restricted to One-Week Early Access)

You're Ten Billion Percent Not Alone [G, 7.5k]

(QPR!SenGen in High School AU based off Bloom Into You)

In a bid to secure the firstyear vote, student body president candidate Gen asks for Senku's help in the campaign, in exchange for a space to do experiments. What started as a flimsy alliance turned into a tangled mess, as Senku realized one very important similarity they both shared. ... They were same, until Gen ruined it.

An Overlord of Earth [N/A, 5k]

(Gwenpool x Hazbin Hotel Crossover)

When you die, the afterlife grants you unlimited power, as long as you have the ambition and the bloodthirst. Just stick it out in the boring, bland real world for your entire life, until you get to go wild in your second. Gwen had the power to manipulate reality to her whims, and she wasn't even dead yet! But her brother was. And she wasn't going to rest until she brought him back to life. So she was going to look through Hell, find Teddy, and everything would be great! Sure, the second she got there, she did a little murder. And then continued doing more murder. But she was allowed to have a little fun while looking for her brother. But why was this deer demon so interested in having her soul?

"I Will Always..." [G, 4.5k]

(dr stone canon compliant Byakuya fic)

Byakuya hadn't exactly planned on becoming a father. He felt more like he owed it to the memory of his friend to take Senku in. But Senku was an incredible kid. Clever and enthusiastic and resourceful and yet still needing a guiding hand to stop him from doing things that would probably end with him getting killed. And between stargazing and bleach, microscopes and marker ink, model rocket launches and actual astronaut training, Byakuya really started to believe that he could do this. Then the green light. Of course he was out of harm's way, safe in the ISS. But Senku- Well, there was always hope. He would always hope.

Starting With Saplings [N/A, 5k]

(Naruto 'Team Ro in Warring States Era' time travel au)

If you must fix something, you must start at the root of the problem. Except they already tried that and the Root was not very receptive to the idea. So... start before the problem even existed?? Except Team Ro didn't plan to come back to the past. They didn't have any concrete idea of what to fix. Most of them don't even think they have the jurisdiction to make such changes. But now, in the Warring States Period, they must do something. Because if everything they do has an effect anyway, might as well go down swinging.

The Last Surviving Member of the Archives (All Four of Them) [N/A, 29k]

(Magnus Archives; S5-spoilers)

Four separate timelines. In each one, only one person from the Archives team walks out alive. Scarred, changed, traumatized, but alive. Jon's alone in the Eyepocalypse. Martin lost his Jon into the Lonely. Tim has made it his mission to destroy any devotees of the Fears. And Sasha... Sasha has completed the Corruption portal started by Jane Prentiss. When she steps through it, she finds herself in a world where the Fears have won. And her three, long-dead coworkers are there too. Each without any explanation as to how this happened.

Vengeance and Sunshine [G, 71k]

(PJO x DCST crossover)

Ethan Nakamura survived everything the Greek pantheon had thrown at him, and now he could finally leave. Just him, now-mortal Apollo, the sun chariot, and the open skies. And then that day came. That day, when green light covered the world and turned the entire human population into stone. The gods were left abandoned, and thus faded. But the demigods remained. And they rose again. Against all the odds, Ethan Nakamura broke out of the stone by himself, and finds himself 3,700 years later in the Stone World, suffering from a re-opened stab wound and no idea what was happening. A lot had changed over the millennia. There were new (yet familiar?) gods, a continuous race of progress, and a leek-haired cannonball that broke every obstacle down with sheer determination. This was fine. He could work with this. The modern world will rise again. And so will the pantheons. ...Right?

[dxppercxdxver]

can I get a story?

my good friend of Course you can

my freshman year english teacher was. shall we say insufferable. @wilhelmina-murray-harker and i met in that class and bonded over making that woman’s life a living hell (it was very fun. highly recommend). aside from the fact that she had essay guidelines that structured the whole thing By Sentence she was also just. Very Weird. about the people in the books we read

we read the odyssey at the beginning of the year and i think she spent. at the very least five consecutive minutes going on about how attractive odysseus’s legs were. and continued to say a great deal more Salacious And Scandalous things on that subject over the course of the class

she did the same thing to the esteemed sydney carton while reading a tale of two cities. it was Uncomfortable to say the least :)

mina and i (on the ace spectrum, also Normal) Did Not Like This At All shjshsjs

[delphi-dreamin]

Classics

Pairing: Satan x Delphi (AFAB, she/her)

Warnings: Public sex (RAD library after hours), stress relief, unprotected, pet name: kitten

Word Count: 1.2K

A/N: I knew I'd finally get around to writing this one! It's not quite what I'd anticipated. But I think I'm happy with it? Anyway, enjoy. (And happy birthday, Satan! 💚)

It had been an infuriating day. She'd missed breakfast, gotten in trouble for being late to her first class, gotten detention for something that she hadn't even done, and to top it all off, Lucifer was in the human world on business for Diavolo. By the time she's out of detention, Delphi just wants the day to end.

She can feel Satan's pact mark burning on her outer thigh and she clenches her jaw. She doesn’t even want dinner at this point. She just wants to go home and go directly to bed. It’s finally the weekend and she doesn’t even have any homework to complete for the next week. She can go home and just shut out the rest of the world.

She doesn’t expect to be pulled into the RAD library by a hand that shoots out of the door as she passes by. She also doesn’t expect to be pinned to the wall by the circulation desk by a very red-faced Satan, his eyes glowing green in the low light. By now everyone else should have left. So why is he still here?

“Do you know how much your rage affects me?” he snarls, his own barely contained.

Delphi nods, whispering, “I remember. I felt it when we formed our pact.”

“I’ve been here for hours trying to distract myself from how angry you’ve been all damned day,” he grits out, clenching one claw-like hand into a fist at his side, still holding her in place with the other.

“Well, I’ve been angry all damned day,” she sighs. “I didn’t have breakfast, I was late to class, and Mammon got me detention. I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you.”

She tries to free herself from his hold and turn away, but he holds her firmly against the wall. With a sneer, Satan says, “Oh no, you aren’t going anywhere. Come with me.”

He takes her wrist and drags her into the stacks, passing by shelf after shelf full of ancient tomes. Delphi jogs behind him barely keeping up, each of his long strides equaling three of her own. She tries her best, but she’s winded by the time he comes to a stop in the literature section. Satan releases her wrist to select a book from the shelf, handing it to her with a wry grin. Delphi looks down at the title and frowns. The Odyssey by Homer. It’s one of her favorite epics, sure. But why is he giving it to her?

He drags her further into the stacks until they reach an isolated study carrel, stacked with books and papers. She looks at him with confusion and annoyance.

“What are we doing here, Satan?” she huffs. “And why did you give me this book?”

“It’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?” Satan asks, a smug smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah?”

He continues, “And Lucifer is currently in the human world, isn’t he?”

“You know he is,” Delphi snaps, crossing her arms. She’s getting tired of this game already.

“So you have no outlet for all this wrath you’re experiencing,” he concludes. “We’re going to fix that.”

Delphi rolls her eyes, dropping the book onto the carrel. “And how exactly is The Odyssey going to vent my wrath?”

Satan grips her chin, bringing his face nearly close enough to touch the tip of his nose to hers. “Lean over the desk and spread your legs,” he growls.

Swallowing thickly, Delphi complies. She rests her forearms on the desk, her back arching so that her stomach rests on the wooden surface, spreading her legs wide. If it were earlier in the day, she would be embarrassed, wary that someone would walk by to find her in such a compromising position. But it’s well after hours and the fire in her belly rages still, fury churning within her like a storm-tossed sea.

“Start reading,” Satan commands as he pushes her panties aside, running a finger between her folds. “Out loud.”

Taking in a shaky breath, Delphi opens the time to the first page. She clears her throat before beginning, “Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Tro-hoy!”

She gasps as Satan roughly thrusts into her, his normally gentle hands gripping her hips almost painfully under her skirt. When she doesn't resume her narration, Satan hisses, “Keep reading, kitten.”

Delphi whimpers as he begins to move, slow but hard, slamming his hips into hers. She continues, “M-many cities did he visit, and m-many were the nations with whose manners and c-customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and b-bring his m-men safely home; but do what he m-might, he couldn’t save his men, for they p-perished through their own sheer f-fo-holly-!”

A particularly hard thrust sends her sliding further onto the desk, her loud moan cutting her reading off mid-sentence. She takes a moment to catch her breath and find her place in the passage.

“Folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the g-god prevented them from e-ever reaching home. T-hah…tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove – oh, there! Right there! – from whatsoever source you may kno-ohh…them.”

Delphi pauses reading to grip the edge of the desk, a loud moan ripping from her throat as he hits a particularly deep spot. She cries out, her voice hoarse from how dry her throat already is, “Fuck, Satan! Harder!”

The Avatar of Wrath happily obliges, slamming into her harder until she’s screaming with every loud snap! of his hips into hers. Her mind goes completely blank as she rolls her hips back to meet his, tears forming in her violet eyes. The only thing she can think of is her own pleasure, grabbing one of Satan’s hands from her hip and bringing it between her legs. She nods into the desktop, whimpering as his nimble fingers tease the fire from her belly to a searing point deep within her that his cockhead continues to pound into over and over.

“So…close,” she pants, resting her head on the desk. “Satan, I’m so close-!”

“Then come for me, kitten,” he growls in response, gripping her hip tighter.

“Oh, fuck-!” she cries, her hips stuttering erratically as the incandescent heat washes over her, whiting out her vision and sending her head reeling. Satan continues to work her through it, until her knees give out and she collapses fully onto the desk, supported by it and his hand on her hip. As the fluttering of her walls slows, Satan pulls out, pumping himself hard and fast until the backs of her thighs are dripping with his cum.

After a few moments, he readjusts her panties and pulls out the study carrel’s chair for her to sit in. Satan brushes Delphi’s hair behind her ear, smiling down at her. Softly, he asks, “Feel better?”

She nods, a hazy grin on her lips as she responds, “Much. Though I’m a bit sticky.”

Satan chuckles, ruffling her hair. “I’ll go get some damp paper towels. You rest here.”

As she watches him retreat back into the stacks she finds herself thinking, Okay, so maybe the day wasn’t all bad.

Taglist: @ariamichel @leavesandflowers @sparkbeast20 @sassykattery

[f0xgl0v3]

Old books And Ye olde Camp Jupiter

NOTE!! The actual stuff about PJO is about 5 paragraphs in; so if you want to slip my bad rambling about two very old epics, I have it headed)

I’ve been reading the Iliad (just finished it, still try to spell it with two L’s 😎) and I’m working on the first books of the Odyssey (with Telemachus doing his thing) and I’ll say; first it was an actual joy, a riot, a rollercoaster, to read the Iliad. There has been very few books where I’ve laughed as much in character dialogue interactions (that sounds so funky but I genuinely did giggle about it) and it was just so silly goofy and fun, and I have it annotated so I can start talking about certain things

And I’ve just started the Odyssey; which it certainly does feel like a sequel (that sounds mean, but it feels the same way that reading daughter of the moon goddess and then heart of the sun warrior; amazing books by the way, go pick them up)

And it’s really fun to consume some version of the original stories and Epics and comparing it to media created with it (I say that like I’ll talk about more than just PJO and the literary choices Rick made on how to interpret and use the gods and stuff. I still am getting around to reading TSOA but it scares me man)

But, I really don’t know what I’m trying to get at

Just that the books are fun and it is generally super fun and interesting to read and even though the first few books of the Odyssey are feeling a bit like a Jason or Piper chapter; I’m pushing through to read Odysseus and his journey; and so I can eventually get to the Aeneid and annoy my friends even more with fun things about Rome and giggle in my classes;

Where the Pjo starts)

Along with that! I’d want to talk more about pre-modern CHB and CJ; seeing as my history class is going through the slog that is colonial history currently and I need someway to stimulate my brain other than writing facts about Mainz Gladius while people are talking about the Salem Witch Trials (my class is feral and gross and they have a big lack of nuance and maturity to think and process the events without being absolute idiots- that sounds mean but they’re annoying and I need to vent)

But I’d like to say there are things we know basically about sides that Greeks and Romans sided on; and because I apparently allergic to discussing Greek demigods at the moment, I’m listing Rome :3

We know that in PJO Roman demigods and the Roman side tends to want to side with rising empires almost inherently; or just rising… things. *cough, cough, the Confederacy, cough, cough*. But aside from that; we can base the ideas that,

1) we can probably confirm that there was a drop in Greco-Roman demigod participation in wars out of the Americas after it (the pantheon and the majority of the demigod groups) moved; though we can probably confirm until after North America became a Economic powerhouse that if following Riordanverse canon; that the Gods moved to New York (if we want to push it, they probably were in Massachusetts in the late 1600s the earliest in America; though I’d say they hadn’t moved until America started like doing good in like what post WII? I think-?)

*A note that is for my Re-imagining, I am seriously considering not moving Pantheons from their native lands; since that leaves a kind of bad taste in my mouth and it makes the Gods and Olympus almost… too accessible for demigods; in the most likely case I’ll pull the Greek Pantheon back onto Olympus in Greece (and I will probably make a point that American demigods can and usually when they need to get to Olympus on their own, can access Olympus through the Olympic mountain range in Washington; I am in Washington, and therefore biased, along with that being the OLYMPIC mountain ranges, I mean, it’s RIGHT THERE guys; how could I not capitalize.) and I might possible move CJ over to being in Italy (though I like the Idea of having CJ just being right there in the Bay Area; before reading tLO and just hearing about them, I thought they were located in Italy, and this all depends on what I do once I start storyboarding Re-imagined) anyway, back on topic,

2) that I’d assume for the most part, as we see that New Rome likes setting Camps up 1) in the west, and 2) near rivers (and we can probably infer it would be somewhat closer to the Equator, or a warmer area). That I think the most likely place that in the Colonial Americas, Romans settled could be,

(This is all using names from Colonial times of Colonies)

A) in British Honduras (Belize); along the Belize river. As we know that Romans supported the British during the revolutionary war, it follows my criteria of being in a warmer climate, and near a river; though it isn’t exactly west, though in proportion to where the early Greek settlers would be, it certainly works, but it puts them far from the revolutionary and just USA so probably not; it’s the middle choice.

B) in New Spain (specifically the portion of California); along the Sacramento River. As Spain was a rising empire at some moment, it is along a river, warm climate, and certainly west. The fact that the Romans would have to be in American territory to still fight in the civil war; so this would be one of my more outlandish concepts.

C) in North Carolina (or just Carolina depending on the time) along the Cape Fear river. This puts them along a river, warm climate, not west but it would be in the direct opposite (as I’d put Greek demigods hiding out amongst the northern colonies or the middle colonies even) and it puts them both in a heavily loyalist (or a colony that supported being part of the British empire) colony; where it would be fitting for them to fight on the side of the Brits, AND a colony that would be in the Confederacy; meaning that they would be in prime position for both wars; I am quite proud of this, and if I needed to put a direct town as example for an area for Romans; I’d say Fayetteville, I’d put the legions settlement across from Fayetteville- in that strip of land between the main Cape Fear river and the river breaking off called south river I think. I am very proud of this one

But yeah! This post originally was going to be about the Iliad and the Odyssey; but I got side-tracked so there are some of my Colonial New Rome ideas, uh, I hope people see the sort of effort I put in for figuring out geological locations for ideas of Camp Jupiter; I might make a post of just a timeline for where Camp has been located through the years- it’s a fun little thought experiment, id also say pre- really big colonialism of the Americas, that the Romans temporarily were first with Spain (I didn’t chose Portugal despite the fact that during that time they had the whole seafaring empire thing, but the Greeks would totally be supporting them) then the Romans go with the British Empire, briefly go down to the confederacy, then stick with America.

[timetravellingkitty]

oh my god i have a kahani for you

ok so theres this girl i used to be freinds w/ but we had a falling out last year because she was talking shit about everyone in the friend group unprovoked + shes a pathalogical liar (like i don't think she has a genuine sense of self, she lies about herself & her experiences based on what she thinks will get her the most attention)

now i've blocked her on like every platform but the other day i decided to unblock her ig just to see if shes done any new faltu shit. and omg. so you know that bookstagram trend where its like "you left your colleen hoover book at my house" and they then show all the books they actually read which are the opposite of colleen hoover. she did the trend. the thing is, she does read colleen hoover. me and my friends watched it and were like - what is she on. no joke she has a spotify playlist about her ex and the description of it is a quote from it ends with us.

but also the books in the reel are ones that (a) i am jealous she owns and (b) i am 99.9% she has not read. 2 of them were 1984 and animal farm which we literally need for english class 😭😭 the rest of it was like the odyssey, wuthering heights, the secret history which like i'm pretty sure she could not explain the plots of if you asked her

ok that was longer than i thought it would be but i hope you're entertained!

NO WHAT THE FUCK AFJSKSLS NOT THE PLAYLIST