I lied about being on here more often. I made a new account. It’s called the companion moth (no spaces). I already followed all my mutuals on there! I’m going to post more art and discuss my writing in a fresh, less cringe way. I hope you like it!
if my body could speak, blythe baird // i put the coffin out to sea, lisa marie basile // @/belovedbi // ? // been a son, nirvana // elektra, sophokles; translated by anne carson // ? // churching, kristin chang
(Spoilers) Sorry but I have to talk about the Vulture's sequence and character design since no one else seems to be. This version of Adrian Toomes (rather, Adriano Tumino) comes from a Renaissance-stylized universe and is specifically based on Leonardo Da Vinci's art. He's animated in a stylized way that looks like old parchment, both his wings and weapons resemble contraptions Da Vinci would have designed, and when he fires off attacks scribbles similar to Da Vinci's appear on screen! It's just so wonderfully fitting for a character like Vulture
Alright, lads and laddies, I’m in government class right now and I just posted the long-awaited Book Nineteen analysis. I mentioned in the post that I haven’t done them in a while because of senior thesis. This is true.
School started back in August. I didn’t finish the Iliad by the start of school, and had to get through books nineteen-twenty-four in one night. My copy of the Iliad for this read-through has tear stains throughout book twenty-two. If you know you know.
That was emotionally devastating. However, as I’m two and a half-ish months into school, I have written an outline and have the first four pages on my thesis done. My thesis statement is as follows:
Homer’s Iliad is proof of the necessity of a good family, and how an absence of that anchor runs the risk of becoming lost amongst independent decisions, as best displayed in the juxtaposition of the mythological heroes, Achilles and Hector.
A real zinger, if I do say so myself. I’m quite proud with the work that I’ve put in and the direction of the paper.
Thank you to everyone who has liked, reblogged, commented, etc. on my Iliad posts. This is something very important to me and I’m glad I can make others happy with my words on this topic.
I know it’s been a hot minute since I made one of these posts. I’ll explain what all went on in detail in another post. In short, though, it’s: senior thesis. It started. But onto the analysis.
In this post I will be discussing: Achilles and Thetis’ relationship, Agamemnon being a dipshit, and Achilles and Patroclus’ companionship.
The book starts out with Achilles weeping about Patroclus’ death. Thetis is there to comfort her son. She instructs him to leave Patroclus’ body alone, to not be so concerned with it. Achilles responds with a description of how his corpse will be over taken by flies, eaten by dogs, and decompose. Thetis, who cherishes her son instilled nectar and ambrosia in the corpse to reduce the rate of decay.
This interaction has a lot of things packed into it. One is about Thetis’ actions as a mother. Achilles is a grown adult. He is in an immensely emotional state and has lost sight of reality upon Patroclus’ death. He wants to keep the body of his deceased friend. Rather than be truthful with Achilles, she moves according to his fragility. Her treatment of Achilles is not that of an adult, but spoiling a small child. This instance in Book Nineteen is not the first depiction of this, Thetis did the same thing when she pled to Zeus and when she cashed in a favor from Hephaestus to make Achilles new armor.
A way to further how spoiled Achilles behaves, we have the feud between him and Agamemnon. Now, I may or may not have mentioned this before (or I did and my opinion has changed, I don’t remember), but Achilles was rightly justified in Book One regarding proper compensating for his begrudging participation in the war. He had some sympathy and loyalty to the Greeks as shown in that same book, and lost that gradually and partially due to Agamemnon’s behavior.
In Book Nineteen, Agamemnon attempts to right that wrong, and apologize to get Achilles to fight once more. They way he does that, though, is silly. He tells Achilles that,
“I am not to blame! Zeus and Fate and the Fury stalking through the night, they are the ones who drove that savage madness into my heart, that day in assembly when I seized Achilles’ prize–––on my own authority, true, but what could I do?” (19. 100-104).
What a lad. Achilles did not like this bullshit excuse, but he said he would accept the apology. At this point, Achilles did not care about compensation or war prizes. Patroclus is dead and he wanted to avenge him.
If Book One is Achilles generally, Book Nine is Achilles showing his selfishness and rationale, then Book Nineteen is the breaking point where he loses the majority of his humanity. He vows to not eat, nor drink, until Hector is dead.
Shuhei, I love you, but you’re talking about your sword. If it wasn’t shaped like that it wouldn’t be very good at its job!
(I do get what he’s trying to say here though, there’s no classical beauty to Kazeshini like there is to Sode no Shirayuki or Senbon Zakura, no artistic design like Ashizogi Jizo or Tobiume, no specific purpose-function like Wabisuke or Suzumebachi. Kazeshini is just some sharp pieces of metal and a chain, and that’s more brutal-looking than a katana, even though a katana would probably be more effective at actually killing somebody).
So there’s a bit of nuance to this that Viz seems to have either missed or otherwise sidestepped.(in their defense this one is kind of clunky for english)
There is a kind of formal phrase inochi o toru[命を取る] that means very literally “to take…” or “to steal a life(span).” It’s almost pretty sounding and maybe a little sterile and abstract as a phrase. More common words for “kill” (korose[殺], kiru[斬る], korosu[戕]) tend to be more broadly applicable and depending on context interchangeable with things like “murder”/“slay”/“butcher”/“slaughter” etc…
But what Hisagi says here is inochi o karitoru[命を刈り取る]: “to harvest/mow/reap a life” playing off the toru[取る] in the compound karitoru[刈り取る]. (Funny enough the kari[刈り] he had to add to this phrase is the same kare[刈れ]: “reap” that’s his release call.) And there are a few ways to take that;
It could be a comment on the work being utilitarian and matter of fact, and perhaps even in mass number. You don’t mourn cut wheat, and you don’t harvest crops in any small number, you just do it, and you do it with a special tool made for the job.
Or it could be a comment on the way it plays with inochi[命]: “a lifetime/lifespan/lifeforce,” it’s not just ending a life in a fatalistic or predestined kind of way, it implies that there is an intended or natural lifespan and that Kazeshini interrupts that, cutting it short. It kills people who aren’t “meant” to die, it takes them before their time.
also the …katachi o shiteru daro[形をしてるだろ]: “it’s a shape/form/appearance (that reaps lives)” but in some contexts that katachi[形] can even read as “visage” so it has sort of a double play with the way the panel is drawn.
His rhetoric here around referring to Kazeshini also refers to himself, as he holds its blade directly in front of his own face and stares Findor down from behind it. “This shape reaps(literally because it’s a scythe)” and at the same time “This visage takes lives” because he’s showing that he’s changed his tune and gotten serious by announcing, “This is the face of a murderer.”
And that loops back around to Hisagi’s self image problems. He says he doesn’t like Kazeshini, the reflection/manifestation of his own soul, because of how it looks. He doesn’t like how a scythe looks like a tool made to cutting its targets down; he doesn’t like how showing his power and true nature makes him look like he’s a natural killer.
And reminder, his own name, his personal name and not his family one, is Shuuhei[修兵]: “Disciplined Soldier.” He’s not just paranoid or overly self conscious, he was born to be a solider(he was even something of a prodigy as an academy student) and he knows it, and he appears to hate it.
I just figured it was because his sword looks like a scythe with a blade on either end/chains. Grimm reapers in certain depictions have scythes. Kronos, the god eater, has a sickle. I do like the notion that Hisagi doesn’t like the “natural killer” implication. Especially because of how he behaved in that one filler episode with Rangiku. Hisagi might have a darker image, but he’s a softy.
as a persian girl i really wish that everyone informs themselves about the protests in Iran !!! people have no internet access, are being killed and beaten to death on the streets. the whole political system is a joke and a threat to human rights for all people in that country. it is my duty to use my voice for these people who aren't able to do so and i hope you do the same!!!
this is a women's rights issue and a human rights issue.