#well this is the exact opposite

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Yeah, I don't know about you, Fidds, but I'd fold at this 🙏

Previous!!

Next!!

First!!

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I love how Bashir just refuses to acknowledge or appease authority he doesn’t respect. He goes to see Tain, an extremely dangerous retired spymaster of whom he is explicitly asking a favour, and is as impertinent as possible throughout the meeting and doesn’t even try to hide his contempt when Tain says he wants Garak to suffer for the rest of his life. He gets chucked in solitary confinement while in a Dominion prison for protesting the guards cutting rations. And he snarks off Sloan while getting interrogated. He always puts honour and principles above self-preservation even when the consequences are or could be dire.

[supertaliart]

More WoH/Princess Bride! I just really wanted to figure out their outfits properly.

[applerums]

m'kay compiled all the darling doodles into one thing so i can. get rid of them for fuck's sake

[star-scroll]

Ectoberhaunt Day 13

Isekai: Old Hero New World

[willthespy]

Did somebody say Solangelo?? ⛄️💫

[mage-ical-character-person]

It's finally done! took me forever! Overdid it on the shading here and background making it take longer but I'M PROUD OF THE SHADING AND BACKGROUND. SO HAH

Master of manipulation Mr Puzzles, everyone!

*cinemasins ding* he survives this.

Anyway I still think Three should give Puzzles therapy even if conflict of interest and I still think they should get to be friends eventually but that would take a WHILE as one of the many things they have in common is that they both suck at opening up. In the meantime: explosions.

Meggy simply refuses to deal with this guy. PLEASE make him literally anyone else's problem and let the girl rest.

Oh yeah and the last bit is in reference to um did you know that if magnet on old TV you get pretty colors

[linksysuniversescribbles]

"I only stick with you because there are no others."

(Close-ups under read-more)

[kyouka-supremacy]

do you think atsushi could ever be possessive toward akutagawa or feel jealousy? (not jealous of his strength bc that’s a little canon isn’t it? but just jealous when akutagawa’s interacting with others??)

i think jealousy mainly stem from insecurity or lack of trust in your partner, so if we’re talking about post-“away with you, you fool”, i think atsushi really doesn’t have any “grounds” to be possessive / jealous. he understands how strongly akutagawa feels for him and if he reflects on their partnership…he’s also get that akutagawa’s the one who “opened up” first, and (kinda) unconditionally. obviously atsushi’s self worth is abysmal, but weirdly enough…i think he’d kinda feel secure in akutagawa’s affections for him????

akutagawa is the jealous type. in a romantic setting i can kinda see him uplift atsushi in his head whilst hating himself, and that making him feel unloveable comparatively or just in general and insecure hence leading to jealousy. or the uplifting might just mean he’s resigned to losing atsushi, atsushi’s too good for him after all, this is the best he can get (hence being so insecure that he’s not being jealous —> he was not jealous when kyouka finding the light and living happily, even if he believed she was exactly like him, with a propensity for darkness and ability suited only for killing. yet he continues being the mafia’s dog and doesn’t seek that for himself, maybe out of resigning himself?)

idk if he’d act on it, but i can see those feelings existing. basically how they kinda exist already in canon with the whole dazai-akutagawa-atsushi thing, but even w the dazai case, it’s not to monopolise his attention exactly but moreso to fight for his reason to live, he wants the pain he endured to mean something, if no matter how hard he tries and no matter what he does, he simply loses due to his inherent nature (thus atsushi is the better protege even if he’s crap, atsushi never had to “earn” his blessings) that just proves that he shouldn’t have tried surviving in the first place, that’s pretty awful for someone who believes they can change and the past not having a bearing on who he is now- since it means he’ll never be worthy of approval. so i can’t see it as purely “he’s acting jealous just out of affection for dazai and desire for love” and i can’t precisely compare it to akutagawa in a romantic scenario.

sorry for yapping, please feel free to disagree w what i said, bc its something I’m confused on and idk how to analyse them like that. but the main question i have is does atsushi have the capacity for jealousy/possessiveness if akutagawa is his partner? and how about akutagawa? also how does their jealousy “look” (as in would they act on it?)thank you :D

So apparently Asagiri personally took it in their hands to answer this ask with this month's chapter lol

Starting off with Akutagawa, because it's something I actually think about often. I agree that his insecurity is so huge and deeply rooted, it would extend to making him believe he has no right to be jealous of Atsushi– because Atsushi is so good, and Akutagawa is so bad, it was inexplicable for them to be together in the first place; and part of Akutagawa is there waiting, expecting the fall out, because it's just unavoidable, because they're just too different, because he doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve Atsushi's love. Akutagawa's lack of self worth being so constraining, he pretty much lies in wait for the day Atsushi will leave him forever (and then is always caught off guard when Atsushi always comes back). Very relevant to this, and something I really like to stretch on, are Akutagawa's abandonment issues that spawn from the traumatic event of Dazai leaving him. Akutagawa expects the people he's the most attached to to grow sick of him and leave, and has little hope Atsushi is going to be any different. He's so abandoned dog coded.

But like, that doesn't change the fact that Akutagawa is jealous. Even if he doesn't think he deserves to be jealous to begin with, even if he would never admit it to himself, he is. He loves Atsushi, he loves him, he wants to keep him by his side, to sink his teeth in his flesh until he tastes his blood. His impulse to keep him is violent, greedy, instinctive, the same of people who grew up with nothing and thus are ready to fight with nails and teeth to protect what little they have. Of people who grew up with too little in a too vicious environment to ever become accustomed to sharing. Of people who grew up used to everything they care for being in constant danger of being stripped away from them.

But Akutagawa can't admit it, right? Not when he has no right to be jealous of Atsushi. So I'm sure Akutagawa's reaction to anything that would trigger that jealousy would be immense passive-aggressiveness and withdrawing into himself, shutting Atsushi out and trying to leave him first as a defense mechanism. A sudden relapse of building up those walls that Atsushi is so good at crushing down as soon as Akutagawa lets his guard down. Seething rage and joyless laughs and “I'm not upset. Actually, I've always known this is how it would end up. Everyone leaves and I'm meant for loneliness, there's no new discovery in this. I didn't care that much anyway.” A little of overacting, but the abandonment issues are real. According to the circumstance, Atsushi can get a little irritated (because there's really no need to be this dramatic), but they fight and then make up as they always do.

When it comes to Atsushi... I agree that with him it's not a kind of jealousy derived from insecurity or lack of trust in Akutagawa's affections. At the same time, I think he'd share Akutagawa's same greed of someone who was never used to own much, and thus is violently defensive and territorial with what he has. And Atsushi is pretty selfish, right? He wants to keep Akutagawa for himself, and he's going to react aggressively to anything that threatens to take him away.

By the way, Akutagawa is highkey flattered by that. He's so used to meet contempt and rejection that the thought of being reclaimed is simply dreamy for him. Because you know him, he's Akutagawa, he's fucked up, he could only respond to to possessiveness with delight. Forget about being abandoned, you mean to tell him there's someone who believes he's worth killing a god for? Sign him up for life! I'm 100% sure Akutagawa was full face blushing off screen in the last chapter, and couldn't maintain eye contact for too long.

[stuck-in-jelly]

An interesting observation from the book regarding Viren and his views on the other leaders:

When Viren enters the gazebo and regards the other leaders its clear he doesn’t hold a good or even neutral opinion on any of them except maybe Fareeda. However he especially has a crude opinion on King Ahling.

Viren describes King Ahling several times as being “not known for his wisdom” and “lacking in intellect.”

Overall its clear Viren looks down at the King of Neolandian a LOT.

And yet by the end of the meeting, when Aanya still declines to join the fight causing the other leaders to rescind their allegiance, King Ahling is who Viren turns to in desperation.

It also is huge irony that Neolandia is the first to respond after the assassination attempts, being lead by King Ahling’s son.

This is a pattern Viren had, belittling and undermining people but ultimately relying on them to accomplish his goals. He’s done it to his own son, to the crow master, and even to Kings and Queens.

[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.

[felikatze]

reading more of arc2 after finishing s2 of the anime - it really is notable how beatrice, from her very introduction, is a grounding presence for subaru? where rem is what he stands to lose, beatrice is stability.

just from the clever setup of having met her three hours before his reset point in the mansion. beatrice in arc2 is the one character he never needs to reintroduce himself to.

that way, he can just pretend like she didn't get reset at all.

as compared to rem and ram, whose dynamic with subaru shifts with every loop depending on factors outside of subaru's control. specifically Meeting The Same People Over And Over. It never goes the same way twice. Ram can't teach him how to read a second time, he already knows. So that dynamic of Ram as his senior, his teacher, is simply gone, and cannot be recovered.

Beatrice, in her library, is isolated from the rest of the mansion. Subaru is uncannily good at finding the library, and everyone else needs to scour the whole place. So it's quiet. It's a space to think, where he doesn't need to put up a front, because his relationship with Beatrice is going to be the exact same regardless - she's going to be annoyed with him.

Additionally, Beatrice is the first person to protect him. She doesn't ask him to explain why he thinks he may be in danger, she just makes the pact anyways. And she sticks to her word, defending Subaru against Ram, who she's known muuuch longer.

And as recontextualized by arc4, it's because where Beatrice gives Subaru stability, Subaru gives Beatrice hope. That maybe this will be it. This may be the change she needs. That how easily he makes his way into the library is a sign.

In that sense, it really is quite cute that, after leaving the library behind, Beatrice holds Subaru's hand. Her presence quells his fears, and his presence will lead her to a new tomorrow.

You can tell my favorite moment in the s2 finale was when Subaru starts shaking when the rabbits click their teeth but he calms down when Beatrice squeezes his hand. It's such a quick exchange but I love it a lot

[sysig]

Cards 👏 cards 👏 cards 👏 (Patreon)

[muchmossymess]

give me your headcanons for a minecraft server with the fmab kids

[invinciblerodent]

he really said "🥺" didn't he

i want to sink my teeth into him and shake him like a badly trained dachshund