yappathon

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Can't stop thinking about Rhaesaria x Erospsyche au

⋆˚࿔ mysaria as eros 𝜗𝜚˚⋆ god of love and sex ⁀➴ ♡

⋆˚࿔ rhaenyra as psyche 𝜗𝜚˚⋆ a princess & beauty 𐙚

⋆˚࿔ nothing is more erotic than being real 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

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In defence of Eurylochus-

I've seen many people analysing him in detail and I just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion by giving my interpretation of the four moments for which the fandom dislikes him the most:

Reason 1: He opened the windbag !

Context: Eurylochus is Odysseus's close friend, second in command and brother in law, which means he knows Odysseus in a personal level and therefore knows that Odysseus is a fucking liar. Odysseus lies and cheats and talks his way out of things, he is crafty, he is clever and he is cunning; core Odysseus triats.

So imagine you're Eurylochus and Odysseus just came back with the wind bag. He says it has the Storm and the Winions (agents of Wind God) say it's a treasure. Who do you believe the liar or the god?

Additionally Jorge was pretty clear Eurylochus represents the crew always in Epic the Musical, so the wind bag opening is not necessarily his idea particularly, any of the crew did it but their face/brand is Eurylochus.

I think in this scenario it's a mix case of Odysseus 'The Boy who cried Wolf' and Eurylochus 'Curiosity killed the Cat'

Reason 2: He tried to abandon his men to Circe

Context: Just the day they lost 557 men to a God (!) due to a mistake Eurylochus made, so his survivor's guilt is fully active and his mental state is not it.

Now after that happened, he took a team to scope the island and saw them turn into pigs by a Goddess (!).

He learned the hard way the same day that Gods are very dangerous and had the fear of God instilled in him, literally.

So logically speaking he was right in that they couldn't defeat Circe. The only reason Odysseus was successful was because of Hermes's help which was an option Eurylochus did not even know existed when he suggested abandoning the pigs-men to Circe.

I understand that this point is less about him wanting to abandon pig-men and more about the perceived hypocrisy in Mutiny, so next let's see;

Reason 3: The Mutiny

Context: The lair of Scylla. Odysseus definitely knew what was going to happen there, but he did not warn the crew, he did not prepare the crew. Instead he used them as canon fodder which like you can argue that it was the only way to get home but Odysseus consciously lied to his crew and sacrificed them.

I wanted to talk about perceived hypocrisy that some people think Eurylochus's actions in being mad at Odysseus since he was ready to abandon his men with Circe. But the difference matters guys, Eurylochus 'abandons', Odysseus 'sacrifices'. The only equivalent to the situation is that if Eurylochus purposefully led his group to Circe's Palace knowing she would turn them into pigs. Eurylochus tries to make a hard decision to save whatever's left, that does not make him a hypocrite or uncaring and it does not negate his right to be mad/sad during Scylla/Mutiny.

He did not mutiny because he wanted power, he did it because he and the crew could no longer trust Odysseus to have their best interest in mind and in a sad kind of way, they are not wrong. Odysseus's number #1 priority is him making it home and the crew is #2.

Different Beast: "Sirens know every route in horizon, now I know how to get back to my island"

Mutiny: "Please don't do this? I need to get home"

and then we all know how Thunder Bringer goes.

Reason 4: The Cow thing

He was hungry, starving and has zero hope he'll make it home. I'm sorry, you cannot be mad at him for this; this is the saddest thing I've ever seen.

But I'll go to the "Captain" he says after killing the cows.

"If you want all the power you must carry all the blame" Eurylochus is not calling Odysseus as Captain because he's trying to shift the blame imo. It's a reflex response, he hears the panic in Odysseus's voice and like he has done all his life (close friend and brother in law hello?), he looks for Odysseus for guidance. Eurylochus and all the crew immediately follow Odysseus's instructions afterwards proving that Mutiny was never about power and they still think Odysseus is the smartest man in Greece.

I also wanted to touch on the grief aspect of Odysseus and Eurylochus's relationship

In the Epic-verse; Odysseus, Eurylochus and Polites are childhood friends. After Polites's death Odysseus copes by trying to honor Polites's motto still 'Open Arms' and Eurylochus copes by being extra vigilant and cautious (Luck Runs Out).

Their ideology and way of coping with grief clashes with the others directly and that is the real tragedy of their relationship. These two men love each other very much, even after all that happens there is not a doubt that things fell about because they stopped loving each other. It's because both of them are heavily traumatized characters and they cope differently and in a way that opposes the others.

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You are such a fake Epic The Musical fan girl no shade but all you do is complain

?? dont speak on me again

also PSA please dont send anon hate messages, I do not accept constructive criticism. If you don't like my content just block and move on <33 xoxo

[yappathon]

I HATE EPIC THE MUSICAL YOUTUBE COMMENTS LIKE BRO??????

You ppl are not serious 😭😭😭😭 she was not born on this island, she was sent on here as a punishment for supporting Titans in the Titanomachy (that includes her father Atlas) (That was PJO Canon my bad) she is not a naive baby for gods sake 🙏😭

(and she says this line arrogantly and not melancholicly, she literally does a villian giggle, reading and listening comprehension all time low)

WHAT ORIGINAL MYTHS???? #)£+£6@!?@?@??? CONSENSUAL????? BROTHER WTF!!!! I'm going to kms, ppl really pulling this out of their ass- mind you this person hasn't even opened the Odyssey if they are saying this!

I shouldn't have opened the comments section and just enjoyed the animatic 😭🙏😭🙏

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Just saw someone say Epic the musical 'Love in Paradise' villanises Calypso and in the Odyssey, Odysseus and Calypso were on good terms and Odysseus had resigned himself to be Calypso's lover and I'm so worked up about this because in the Odyssey it is very clear that Odysseus has given no consent !!! and what translation did they read that made it so that even though he didnt want to, he resigned himself like god you people will excuse sa

Below are two excerpts from The Odyssey, the first one (blue) is translation by Fagles and the second one (yellow) is translated by Butler (these are the only two I've read), and i think the material speaks for itself:

I blocked the person because I never argue with someone who's set in their views and that account was full of pro-calypso stuff :/ but I am still fuming so I'm not going to be able to articulate my thoughts so I attached Homer's Odyssey and let the translations speak for itself. (just went through their most prominent tags before blocking and of course they are pro life lmao, how do you expect pro lifers know of about person's choice and autonomy)

There never should be debate whether she assaulted him or not, its plain and clear and idc if she has fans but if you like her then at least accept that she's not uwu misunderstood person, she's not the first person to assault someone in greek mythology nor is she going to be last but i really hate when people try to downplay her actions and try to excuse them- just accept it dude!

and I would say Epic the Musical humanised her and let her actions be ambiguous and that is far better than what any adaptation of her's deserve so if you think the musical did her dirty then take a moment to self reflect and find out why the tamest adaptation of her feels like villanising (spoiler alert: she is a villian of odysseus's story). I fully blame Percy Jackson for the modern shift in depiction of Calypso, RR is my public enemy #1. Whatever assumptions and heresays you know about Calypso is probably fabricated or someone's interpretation because she is not a prominant figure in myths

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Feminist retelling with Greek Mythology is 9/10 times not feminist at all and instead ends up demonising the hurtful party in the original myth.

Like most Hades and Persephone retellings in order to give Persephone more agency they almost always demonise and villanise Demeter which is a major ick for me. In order to show her in the wrong because 'Girlboss Persephone' or whatever, they make her toxic and controlling and hysterical which is such....

Or another example I could think of is Circe by Madeline Miller, it's "retelling the Odyssey from Circe's perspective and a feminist lens" and this does not work for me because it is quite clear in Homer's Odyssey that Odysseus is a victim of sa by both Circe and Calypso and turning a victim into abuser is extremely poor taste to me. And sadly this is not unique to Odysseus but another Circe's victim from original myths Scylla was also villanised. (if you are interested in an analysis of Odysseus's time on Aeaea then I'd recommend checking this post.) In the retelling, Circe is so woobified, she's not allowed to have any morally greyness that's not excused by her 'trauma'

Or a few Medusa retelling where Perseus is shown to be misogynistic to kill Medusa when his original motivation was to save his mother Danaë from the King Polydectes unwelcome advances. And no, in the Greek Versions, Medusa was not turned into Gorgon by Athena, she was born monster. The origin of Medusa being a beautiful maiden who was cursed by Athena is actually Ovid because Ovid could not comprehend how Poseidon had sex with a monster.

Also have a huge bone to pick with 'The Song of Achilles', like if I think about the book from the perspective of an original story then its fineee 🤷🏽‍♀️ but its not a original story, it's a retelling/adaptation and my god. The woobification of Patroclus and the demonising of Thetis and Deidamia?????? I will never forgive the book for how it portrayed Thetis, its criminal and lowkey misogynistic like Madeline girl what the fuck are you doing, she's two on two on turning rapists into rape victim in her retellings? and now she's writing the next book about Persephone and I'm terrified.

One of my biggest pet peeves about retellings is when the victims from original myths/stories are turned into villains of their original abuser and unfortunately a lot of Greek retellings fall into this pit

Also I wish authors would explore the tragedy of characters who are already doomed in the myths. This official recommendation of the book Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati please read it, I really enjoyed it <3333

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really disheartening when I read a great fic and when I click on the link to pinterest moodboard for it, its full of ai pictures

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MY SHAYLAS

doomed girlies who sensed their deaths my god

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Imagine being Tigris, losing everything at such a young age but still being brave for her baby cousin. When they struggled to scrap any money, she had to sell her body to keep food on the table.

Imagine being older Tigris watching Finnick's interview and finding out that the same cousin forces people into selling their body for control. Gods no wonder she wanted Snow dead.

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people are too hard on Eurylochus like sure he made a few bad decisions but consider: he is the second in command to Odysseus 'King of making bad decisions' of Ithaca, it was literally in his job description

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Hate when ppl are like 'we dont know if Lucy Gray really loved Snow, she was a mysterious character and we dont know her thoughts'

Like our homegirl wrote 'Pure as the driven Snow' about him AFTER seeing him kill a man, she was in love with him

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when Thunder Bringer starts playing after Charybdis

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need a 'reading thg + tbosas + sotr books' fics but specifically far into future after mockingjay but before everlark babies, because i need to read authors resurrect snow temporarily to rain hell on him, like haymitch deserves to punch him at least once

i want to see snow suffer but not at the expense of haymitch & everlark, they've suffered more than jesus

also because I want his adopted children to know his story ❤️ katniss be like you were friends with my dad and bathed buttnaked in it with him in my lake?

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RIP teenage Melissa Hat, you would've loved 'I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) by Taylor Swift

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Me when I'm in 'Haunting the narrative' competition and my opposition are Lucy Gray Baird and Jackie Taylor:

Haunting their situationships decades after their death.... oh taylorbaird you'll always be famous

If I fumbled them so bad, I too would never move on from them despite being decades and married with child; snow and shauna are not special xo

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My honest gripe with HOTD as an adaption of one of my favourite books:

(disclaimer, I am team black and this is my opinion so dont like dont engage, just block and move on i'm not interested in convincing anyone or debating about it xoxo)

This is going to be a long post, I'm just making a list of everything at once so I dont have to make multiple posts about it, its going to be a long one with lot of over explaining so just strap in:

1. HOTD fumbled the Laenor/Rhaenyra/Harwin triangle

I dislike how the show takes the route of erasing ambiguity out of Rhaenyra's children's parentage out of it and makes it obvious. For me when I read f&b, the discussion of it especially since Book!Rhaenys had dark hair, was intentionally done in bad faith to find any reason to discredit Rhaenyra's claim as the Heir and to sully her reputation. It wouldn't have mattered to them if Laenor was father or not, her enemies simply weaponised it to use against her (misogyny).

HOTD should have kept Dark Haired Rhaenys especially since her season 1 wig was egregious and should have not casted a caucasian man as Harwin Strong since they changed the race of Velaryon's to adapt to the ambiguity. I think they should have changed Harwin's race as well 🤷‍♀️.

They purposefully erased the ambiguity by making Rhaenys silver haired woman and I could not think of why other than the fact that this change made Rhaenyra looked stupid and incompetent like ?

2. Book Rhaenys would spit on Show Rhaenys

They did her so dirty, adapted her so poorly I have no words like I'm flabbergasted, you could not even call them the same character.

B!Rhaenys was literally Rhaenyra's closest and arguably one of her biggest supporters. Show Rhaenys on the other hand, oh boy. From the moment of their first conversation you could tell that she was out to get Rhaenyra like idk the actress who plays her, plays her with a very haughty smug demeanor.

Show Rhaenys treats Rhaenyra's sons (J+L+J) coldly, having being offended on her son's behalf while her son is perfectly happy with this arrangement and treats those boys as her son. But during S2, she happily accepts her husband's bastards 😭😭 bro where is your sense of self. I wish I could say that this was the only stupid decision she made this season but I literally cannot believe that she advised Rhaenyra to find peace and sneak into Kings Landing.

She feels more like a mouthpiece for someone rather than her own character (like remember when at the end of Season 1, she gave Alicent grand speech about how Alicent toils in service of men in her life blah blah... literally pot calling kettle black) and I blame the writers team for that completely.

tldr; Rhaenys in the book seems like the kind of character who had been robbed of their birthright so she died to make sure Rhaenyra got hers. Rhaenys in the show is the kind of character that is bitter about her stolen birthright and internalises it and takes it out on Rhaenyra rather than the system in the sense that instead of a leaning support she feels like an obstacle of sorts in regards to Rhaenyra

3. The Alicent dilemma

Oh boy where to even start with this can of worms. First things first, I have to say I was a tentative fan of Season 1 Alicent but I am not the fan of the route her character is taking in Season 2.

I thought de-ageing Alicent and ageing up Rhaenyra was a choice. I have a love-hate relationship with it. As a sapphic woman myself I thought young RhaenyraxAlicent was cute but the writers are dragging it and both the characters are suffering for it.

So I know the majority of book fans and show fans agree on the point that Book!Alicent is a one dimensional character of an evil stepmother trope but I have an unpopular opinion about it. I agree that B!Alicent can come across as one dimensional and it was intentional because F&B is a history book written by misogynistic men and all the women would suffer from it.

I think Book!Alicent's motives of crowning her son as the King is a perfectly sensible in universe motivation where male primogeniture is commonplace (considering that was the only reason Viserys became king) and felt slighted that her son was denied the right. The motivation does not condone her actions but at least it makes sense in the context of the world.

Show!Alicent on the other hand feels like nothing but a perpetual victim. She is a chess piece and not particularly powerful either. All her agency and ambition is stripped off of her.

When we see Adult Show Alicent for the first time, her and Rhaenyra are hostile hostile and I was happy with the doomed yuri we got and that we are somewhat on the track but then.... sigh

In the same episode we see Adult Rhaenyra offering to betroth Jace and Haelaena as a while flag but Alicent rejects it without considering it at all. Alicent undermines Rhaenyra constantly but then in S2 when her allies turned on her because surprise surprise misogyny... she had her soul searching journey like gtfo i hated the storyline

Comparing it to the Book, where the Green Council was originally called The Queen's Party. Book Alicent was an active player who made decisions.

Like oh my god, remember how they butchered Show Alicent during Blood and Cheese like omg I'm convinced the showrunner actually hates woman like first Rhaenys then Alicent... (not to mention Helaena like, the show tried to make Helaena dragon dreamer and fumbled it, didnt even have her crowned alongside Aegon)

The Green Council plotting in the show versus the book tells you everything about this adaptation of Alicent.

4. How ageing up and down undermines the book canon negatively

Ok but HOTD failed as an adaptation when the victim in the books is villainized and while her abusers are victimised.

The amt of Rhaenyra coerced Cole into having sex with her takes that came out during S1 was so mind boggling. Especially in the books when Alicent herself says "Ser Criston Cole protects the princess from her enemies but who protects the princess from Ser Criston Cole" (I am paraphrasing), like this is egregious.

Book!Aemma being a child-bride forced to marry Viserys when she was only eleven and she dies at just twenty three (!), the show aged her up to be in her early thirties at least by casting a much older actress (Sian Brooke who plays Aemma was born in 1980) while Book!Alicent was eighteen when she married Viserys while the show aged her down to 14-16 (I am unsure).

5. Erasure of female characters and medieval politics

Rhaenyra's Ladies in Waiting were all not adapted to the screen. Except for Elinda Massey who they turned into a maid-midwife-wetnurse and had her dressed as literally servant rather than a noble woman. Rhaenyra has no other friends or loyal companions in the show, Harwin's sisters are also erased with no mention at all.

And now from what I've read Nettles has also been erased like fuck off

5. Suffering from the eight episodes per season problem

So this doesnt have anything to do with the way they've been adapted Fire & Blood but I don't think eight episodes per season was the right medium to adapt this story. Because of this format the children of Rhaenyra and Alicent arent given enough screentime to develop and for general people to care about them, S2 felt like most happened during that and still nothing happened at all. The general audience are only emotionally connected to Rhaenyra and Alicent as they both are the only characters in the show to appear to have an arc or journey.

I really miss that we did not get a filler episode during time skip of Rhaenyra and Daemon on Dragonstone with their children so we can gauge their family dynamics like what is adult Daemyra's normal relationship like? how is their relationship with their children or stepchildren? Atleast something so when at the end of S1 Daemon chokes Rhaenyra (jesus christ) we atleast feel something other than shock and disgust like I hope you understand what I am trying to say here.

I think HOTD would have benefitted with a 26 episodes, hell even a 13 episodes season. The Episodes were needed to flesh out the cast of ensemble of characters

6. Laena and the disrespect to her and Rhaena

Laena and Rhaenyra might only have a single line in the books about their implied relationship but that was the excellent opening to flesh it out, instead Laena was de-aged (Laena was in her early twenties when Daemon pursues her rather than late teens). In the most blunt way, Laena was treated as a disposable black girlfriend trope whose was dishonored at her own funeral.

Laena is not fleshed out, forget implied relationship Rhaenyra is not even with her in the birthing chambers, they're not shown as nothing more than acquainted strangers and i hate it, i hate it so much

The show also attempts to other Rhaena because she doesn't have a dragon (Season 2) which makes no sense at all, it's attempting something and failing at it, it's not interesting, it's not working, it's not good. They're changing her story too and all it does is cause her misery, oh my god Let Rhaena be accepted and Loved.

Why was Rhaenyra mourning Luke scene cut with a scene with Alicent lighting a candle for him but we did not get Rhaena or any of Luke's siblings mourning for him.

7. What are they doing with Daemon?

Like seriously what are they doing with him? Daemon did nothing this season at all. The writers knew Daemon would never allow for the fuckass sneaking into KL, but they wanted it so badly so they had him hallucinate the entire reason. What a waste of Matt Smith.

8. Adding meaningless characters while erasing existing ones (why tf is Ormund Hightower needed)

Yesterday Ryan Condal reported that Ormund Hightower is going to have a big role in Season 3 and I just have one question, why? who needs more irrelevant characters when they should flesh out the ensemble of already existing ones.

Ok so Nettles was erased from HOTD plotline (an important character who is a black woman btw), along with Sabitha Frey and Black Aly but they added khia #13 to the main rooster.

(Spoiler for Season 3) Jace is going to die during Season 3 and the general audience wont even care that much because the writing team is fucking ass !

9. What is the show timeline again and casting decisions?

Seriously what is the show timeline, because every interview the writers did during Season 2, the ages of children of R & A is ambiguous as fuck like, fucking up ages has actually fucked the timeline.

And before I talk about casting decisions, disclaimer I am not hating on actors or I think they are bad actors, I think all the actors are phenomenal who did a phenomenal job with what they were given.

With that out of the way, I think Aemond is miscast because his actor looks older than he is and when placed alongside Luke's actor, it does not look like a squabble between 17-19 year old and a 13-14 yr old, it looks like a man in his late twenties harassing a child 😭 especially in regards to the actor they cast as Aegon and he looks much younger than Aemond's actor

And while I am not against the decision to make the Velaryon's black, I can't help but feel like it was done thoughtlessly and without much care because Jaeherys I's mother is a Velaryon yet he is depicted as a white man in the show instead of mixed. Both Jaeherys and Alyssane would be half black, making all the future Targaryen's to be of mixed race.

10. Who stole whose nachos?

In the books, it was actually Viserys and Alicents wedding anniversary tourney feast (squint im not 100% sure about the occasion) that Alicent wore a green gown and it was Rhaenyra who upstaged it by arriving in a bold black and red gown, rather than the other way around as seen in the show.

Instead of Jace, Luke and Aegon teaming up against and bullying Aemond as seen in the show, in the books it was Aegon, Aemond and Daeron teaming up against Rhaenyra's children because they felt like Rhaenyra + children stole their birthright, the iron throne

Instead of Daemon commanding the Council in Rhaenyra's absence (S1), it was actually Rhaenys who did that in the books

Rhaenicents got Laenyra's nachos plain and simple

and I'm only giving this from the top of my head, there's probably a few more that I am not remembering.

11. Saintly peace loving women

HOTD pretends to be a 'feminist' adaptation by changing the one dimensional female characters of books (intentionally done so by misogynistic maesters) but it fails at it. In trying to develop the female characters and making them more real, they are stripped of their agency and ambitions. They are not allowed to be petty and ambitious and morally gray ie Alicent Rhaenyra Rhaenys Helaena while other female characters are erased completely and its very frustrating because regardless what twitter says The Dance of Dragons was always about misogyny and how Green Council gathered alliances to try to strip Rhaenyra of her birthright just because of her gender.

Oh they can try to disguise it as gender not mattering and doing only whats good for realm as Rhaenyra would not be a good ruler but the guy they want on the throne is so infinitely worse in every way that their propaganda fails.

In the end, while making big changes in S1 (age) the writers have cornered themselves where they can do nothing but dig the hole deeper. They had a biased history book and all they had to do was expand some parts of it that was sensible but no.....

It might stand well as a show if S2 was a better season and I can only hope they can redeem themselves in S3, because they've already failed as an adaptation of a book but it can still be a good entertaining show and that's literally our best bet.