Oh Gosh, Is It Another Installment Of That One Lil' Crack AU Where Lex And Clark Have A Baby Together,

love castiel as a character because he feels no emotions for the first kajilion years of his existence and all of a sudden he can feel things now and his first two emotions are queer longing and catholic guilt. literally who else is doing it like him

who else up thinking about how benson was randy's first and randy was benson's last? benson gave randy his first good day in ages, benson had his last good day ever. randy experienced his first love, benson his last. that day was the first time randy found the courage to start fighting for himself, and also the final time benson lost the courage to keep going.

the start of randy's life. the end of benson's.

Review of A Thousand Ships

I was going to wait a read a collection of greek mythology book adaptations and make another post with multiple books, but I just felt so strongly about this one I'm making it's own post.

My review under the cut:

I was really looking forward to reading this book and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. I loved Circe and Ariadne so I thought this would be similar. I couldn't have been more wrong.

This book covers so many characters in a desire to give a voice to all the women in the Trojan War that you can only meet them shallowly. And because this book covers more of the Trojan War than even the Iliad does, it spend A LOT of time retelling/summarizing the surrounding myth. Like 80-90 of this book is just retelling what happened in the Trojan war. It's not even a good retelling, where you get a sense of the feelings of the characters, it's boringly factual, as entertaining and emotionally moving as reading a summary off wikipedia. It might be interesting if you don't know the story, but I know the Trojan war like the back of my hand. The same goes for most greek mythology. Yet I love myth adaptations, but a good adaptation depends on the skills of prose. And Hayes just doesn't have that.

So even with a "feminist retelling" a lot of time is spent going over the actions of the men in the war. Even Penelope's chapters are 90% her retelling the Odyssey with a few sassy remarks thrown in. How is that fair to Penelope? It's still the equivalent of saying she did nothing but sit back and have shit happen to her. It would have been smarter to focus on one character, so you could spend time looking at their contributions specifically. Because of the framing Hayes choose, we are still only seeing the women superficially. And it doesn't feel like they do anything, but are simply having things done to them. Like is it really feminist if your characters have no agency?

For a feminist retelling I'm really disappointed by how this book handles Helen. The characters all distinctly her and she isn't included in this book. The Iliad explicitly shows over and over that the war wasn't her or anyone's fault, everyone is a pawn in the god's game of chess. And yet her perspective isn't included because the author wants to take the easy route and blame the war on Helen and make her out to be a selfish bitch? Ok 🙄

The men almost are all depicted as selfish and evil, which gets rid of any nuance. They all either outright hate or disrespect women. Like, Hayes, buddy, I'm reading this bc I like the characters of the Iliad. If I'm the target audience, shitting on all the characters I like may not be the way to go. Also "all men treat women poorly" is so derivative and weak of a take for feminism. It's just not true. It's also the kind of thing that is a Terf red flag, and considering the author is a white woman from TERF island...

1/5 I hated it. I personally think if you are interested you should save your money, there are plenty of other good greek myth adaptations (and actual good feminist ones) that are more worthy of your time.

how tf isnt the menendez boys or daniel ricciardo trending??

I wonder if my parents realize that they've already lost me. That my smiles are fake and my eyes are constantly searching for escape routes. That I'm just biding my time until I can be free of them. I wonder if they know that I was never theirs to keep.

obsessed with like, Jason who absolutely refuses to reconcile with the bats. he wants no part in that family and will not talk to them under any circumstances. but he's legally dead with no friends and sometimes he gets sick of being completely by himself and wants to have company. so.

Bruce: hey Alfred have you seen my-

*comes into kitchen to see Alfred calmly preparing dinner while Jason Todd, Killer Red Hood, silently does paperwork while sat on the corner of the kitchen counter*

Bruce:

Bruce: uh-

Tim, doing homework at the table: don't mention it. if you acknowledge him he'll leave. he just likes being around people sometimes.

the bats have to start treating him like a stray cat, letting him go to them and acting completely unbothered by his presence because if they even make eye contact with Jason he'll jump out the window and they 1. won't see him for a month and 2. will start to see a lot more murders cropping up around gotham.

eventually it gets to the point where Dick will come to dinner to see the rest of the family wordlessly ignoring the brick shithouse of a man who is just sat on the floor of the dining area reading a book and he has to just. take a breath and pretend Jason isn't there. calmly stepping around him without acknowledging him. Alfred will silently place a plate of food by the guys elbow while speaking to Damian about school. When they decide to move from the table to the tv room for a movie night none of them can even look around when they hear him eventually follow just to sit in the corner of this room instead.

Bruce: I'm concerned, this is abnormal for Jason. what if he's been drugged with something? or he's trying to gain sensitive information?

Damian: actually he used to do this a lot after he came out of the Lazarus pit. he liked to sit in and watch me train, and occasionally we'd find him sat by grandfathers feet while he ran meetings. Mother says it's important to let him settle, because it's likely that he's simply craving human intimacy on his own terms for once.

Bruce, crying: oh

Jason still refuses to say a word to any of them unless it's in costume, and even then it's the same old 'i'm not your son! i'm not one of you! fuck off!' shtick like normal. they just have to accept him sneaking into the house every now and then too.

one time Tim needs Red Hoods info on a case he's working and since Jason's been sat on the floor against the wall of the bat cave for the past 45 minutes just. staring into space and vibing. he risks sliding the file across the floor towards him before pointedly turning back to the batcomputer, the info he needs marked clearly. five minutes later it's wordlessly slid back, info filled out and Jason refusing to acknowledge Tim's existence again. it's the only way he'll communicate with them.

after a while it gets to the point where Jason will straight up go to bludhaven and break into Dicks apartment just to silently sit in the corner of the room and Be Around A Familiar Person. Tim comes back from his lunch brake at WE to find him sat on the edge of his desk, working through a case. They work in silence for the rest of the day and when Tim leaves Jason just follows. They get a batburger together but the second Tim slips up and asks how his day was he's off like a shot. Damian regularly eats lunch at school on the roof while Jason plays mario kart on a DSI next to him. Batman will be 4 hours into a solo stake out when civilian Jason will silently slide up next to him with a crossword. they never talk. Jason still makes it clear that he's pissed at Bruce. Bruce doesn't know what else to do but let him be and hope eventually, with enough time, things will progress even further.

Dick, whispering so Jason won't pick up on the fact that he's being perceived: are you sure this is normal

Damian: is anything about any of us normal

Tim: he's got a point. at least we know Jason's watching us. I did this shit all the time before I was Robin, and none of you ever noticed me.

Dick:

Tim: sometimes its comforting to be in the same room as people you're familiar with, even if you can't handle interacting with them.

Dick, crying: ok

H

You see

Growing Up in this …

They see u struggling ,falling and slipping

They do see u ,they do know,they do understand

But one thing they would never do is helping u

They would back up and stay still

Thinking , time will do you good by passing

U will grow up and will get it together later

By your own

They don’t know what will happen but they are sure they won’t have to see u struggling with the same thing anymore

The one’s who want to help would say “life goes on ”

Yeah life do goes on

But I want it to fucking goes good

Goes while I’m happy , healthy and fixed

And u know whats fucked up even more

It’s when THEY are your own parents

I'll hate you forever ♥️

“It’s literally impossible to be a woman.

You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we're always doing it wrong?

You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you wanna be thin. You have to say you wanna be healthy, but also, you have to BE THIN.

You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass.

You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean.

You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas.

You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time.

You have to be a career woman, but also, always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is INSANE, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining!

You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood, but ALWAYS STAND OUT and ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. But never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that but ALSO, always be grateful!

You have to never get old. Never be rude. Never show off. Never be selfish. Never fall down. Never fail. Never show fear. Never get OUT OF LINE. It's too hard! It's too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says 'thank you!' And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also, everything is your fault.

I'm just so tired of watching myself, and every single other woman tie herself into knots, so that people will like us.

And if all of that, is also true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don't even know." -Gloria the barbie movie

this is it. this is exactly it oh my god.