Go On. Convince Me.

Every candle casts a shadow. He/Him.

[prokopetz]

I mean, yes, I'm "literally from Hell" if you wanna get real technical about it, but I don't do what I do because I'm inherently evil. Like all beings, my actions are informed by their material circumstances – the material circumstances in question being "it would be really, really funny".

[wellntruly]

I like The Odyssey well enough, but I love movies. And it's zero percent surprising that Tumblr would love Emily Wilson's LBR piece, because it's just premiere posting. Her prose fucking crushes, so many lines are absolutely killer. But I do just need to mention that it's really not film criticism. It's hardly speaking to or about the movie at all, and when it is, it's predominantly her positing that because she is not interested in what it's saying, then it's not saying anything.

I mean if you just want to take, "There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible." This line makes me laugh every time I see it, it rules. And it has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026).

Presumably it's coming from the same complaint well as the majority of Wilson's piece: that while the Homeric poem is a celebration of fucking around and feasting, this movie is not. But in just saying, "it's not this" and nothing more, she's not discussing or even acknowledging how sex and food are actually used in this retelling. Both are tied together in what has been widely praised among audiences as one of the most indelible sequences: Samantha Morton's scene as the witch Circe. In it, the threat of sexual violence and act of eating are linked in a commentary on warmongering rapaciousness writ large, as a part of Nolan's intently laid out thesis of the Trojan horse as a kind of atomic bomb xenia violation whose nuclear winter the whole Mediterranean is now living under. And yes the food does look horrible, because it's horror food! It's difficult to describe in words, but it's like the stew Odysseus's men are eating is turning into gristly tentacles in their mouths, the sounds of their eating ghastly and so disgusting, while Morton transforms them through....something I will not even try to describe, I've just never seen anything quite like it onscreen. Largely practical effects too, astonishing.

Not a bit of that is in that line, of course. Great line, but isn't about the movie, it's about the author.

And honestly, the author is a bit out on a limb with much of how she has actually interpreted The Odyssey (film) itself, must also be said! And not just by me, or by film critics naturally, but also other classics scholars:

As a Classicist, I’ve Defended Emily Wilson’s Odyssey Translation. I Can’t Defend Her Review of Nolan’s Movie.

Emily Wilson used baffling arguments to flay Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s poem.

I mean when early on she summarily defined the work of cinema as "light and noise" and moved on, it was pretty clear that Wilson just doesn't have a ton of respect or feeling for epic scale movies in general. Which is fine! Everyone has types of art that they don't jibe with. But you don't go to the person who's not keen on dance for a good assessment of the new ballet, negative or positive.

And if one of the things someone claims about a movie is that casting actors of color flattened all of those roles into the stereotypical "Black best friend," but not by anything that can be seen in the script or their performances, so seemingly suggesting 'we', to use her skeptical punctuation motif, should read them that way merely because they aren't white, worth a pause to consider that while haterism can be a rush to read (or write), it can also mask any number of deeply iffy assertions that could definitely stand to be questioned!

[superohclair]

one thing about The Odyssey's cast is Robert Pattinson. yes the film is full of celebrities who have outsized reputations to the point that it can be difficult to see them as their character rather than as their public persona. but Pattinson? honestly, generational talent is an understatement. the man disappears into each and every role he takes on so completely that you don't see his public persona at all. you don't see Robert Pattinson! you just see Antinous and it's just such a good performance of the slimy bastard, too. so good.

[homunculus-argument]

"After you defeat your enemies, you cannot spare their children or they will come for you once they're grown, and the cycle of revenge never ends." Yeah duh, if you're just gonna leave them there?? No shit they'll hunt you down and avenge their parents.

What you're gonna do is take them in and raise them as your own. Don't lie to them what happened, or try to hide it from them; explain why it happened. Why you really, really had to do that. Because if you can't raise someone to trust you and your judgement after killing their parents in cold blood right in front of them, then maybe you are the villain that they grew up to see you as.

[isaacsapphire]

Pretty sure the UN calls both of those genocide.

[homunculus-argument]

Why and how are you enemies with an entire ethnicity? That's pretty racist.

[fnaf-movie-countdown]

A REAL Freddy Fazbear’s location is coming to the American Dream Mall in New Jersey in 2027!

“Freddy’s coming to Life”

Source

[thepenitenceofjudasiscariot]

[uptownthots]

“it isnt something you have to read critically” well 😭

[writeouswriter]

Characters will make a very nuanced choice that makes sense for their story arc and internal conflict, and audience members will be like "is anyone else going to misconstrue this in the most black and white, bad faith manner possible?"

[bayesic-bitch]

it seems like in bdsm the "rewards" and the "punishments" look very similar. this concerns me a great deal, because it points to a system of misaligned incentives. if we're not careful, it's even possible that a rational actor could deliberately violate regulations, because the penalties for rule violations are in fact incentivized. one shudders to think of the consequences of such an arrangement

[natural-blogarithm]

[source]

[bayesic-bitch]

oh... that can't possibly be pareto efficient... that's scary...

[swagophile]

cartoon bully girl shoves me against a wall and goes "awww~ it thinks it's people~" but then i pull her aside and calmly inform her that i'm pretty sure i'm something else wearing the skin of a person and the more i describe it the more horrified and disgusted she becomes until finally she asks what i think i am underneath and i say. i dunno. but its probly something cool, right? and then she calls be a dweeb and shoves me against a wall again and asks me for lunch money. which i respond to with violent sobbing

[swagophile]

She started kicking me and hitting me hard because I made her mad and i said "STOP STOP YOU'RE DAMAGING MY VESSEL" and she got really mad and told me to stop saying that and saying i'm a person and i insisted i wasnt and told her she should unzip my clothes and she called me a pervert and hit me more but eventually she did out of sheer curiousity and my body deflated and a small fox squirmed out of the gaps and looked up at her and she was really confused but then she decided the most sound option was to ask the fox for lunch money instead to which i responded with violent sobbing (fox)

[swagophile]

Moral Of The Story: The Author Is Actually A Small Fox

[what-even-is-thiss]

Opposite curse of Achilles where you can choose to do something grand and dangerous and be forgotten or live a normal unremarkable life and be remembered forever and that’s what happened to Ea-nāṣir

[goodgirlcoded]

i know this is tumblr and we’re all playing perverts but i just think some of you would be excellent company for a late night walk and a four hour conversation about absolutely nothing

[cxrvidteeth]

VALKYRIE

[preserving-tiktok]

[hugintheraven]

I say this every time, but people Do Not Realize just how short the timeline has been on gay people in kids’ media. And it’s an ongoing fight, but this was 10 - 15 years ago.

[casuallyodd]

I'm not in the Steven Universe fandom. I don't really even know the show. But the story she's telling here is important to remember. What feels like small snippets of representation took a lot of fighting to get and it wasn't as long ago as you think.

[partywithponies]

My woke take, as someone who has worked in both a public library and a school library, is that we desperately need both more books that are at a higher reading level but a less mature subject matter, and more books that are at a lower reading level but a more mature subject matter, because 8 year olds who are advanced readers are still 8 year olds and don't want to read about graphic violence and torture, and teens and adults who have learning difficulties or who are just later readers for whatever reason are still teens and adults and don't want to read about Billy the Bunny going to school or whatever the hell.

[partywithponies]

Shoutout to people in the notes also mentioning people learning the language, I should've mentioned that really, given that I've been stuck reading German picture books myself while learning German.

[ganondorf]

i think this captures the defining pathology of the collective social media psyche right now. we are in the thrall of people who are wantonly cruel but who also demand to be coddled at all times in every way

[fiery-kitty]

Lantern Shield with Gauntlet and Retractable Thrusting Blade (before 1596)

The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna

A mannerist combination weapon consisting of a round shield, an iron gauntlet, a retractable thrusting blade, and an oil lantern. The lantern could be used to dazzle an opponent during combat in low-light conditions. The object was part of the collection of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol and was likely intended as a technical display piece rather than a practical battlefield weapon.

Origin: Austria (Collection of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol)

Length: 82 cm; length (blade extended) 101 cm

Diameter: 40 cm

Depth: 40 cm

Material: Iron, brass, velvet, gold thread, leather

Technique: Forging, raising, piercing, blackening, bluing, gilding

[interretialia]

Ὀδυσεὺς Ἰθακήσιος

Ulixes Ithacus

Odysseus of Ithaca