#end rambles

Q!Philza in a qpr polycule with q!missa and q!étoiles.

I imagine him being young and his father getting mad at him because he won’t tie his hair back and it’s holding him back in training and whatever so his dad cuts his hair short for a while

Achilles hates it because his mom really like his hair and he loved when she would take care of it when he was young… until over time he started seeing her less and he just couldn’t figure out how to do what she did with it, without it being a tangled mess, hence why he stopped trying to tie it back

After a few years of having his hair cut, Patroclus enters his life.

One night he mentioned how much he enjoys Achilles hair, comparing it to the the colour of the sun and how soft it is to the soft warmth. His hands were so gentle and reminded him of a familiar kindness.

Soon it is long enough to be cut again but for the first time in a while, Achilles fights back on this. Peleus is furious with him. After a few days of back and forth arguing about it, Peleus lets him grow out his hair as long as it is tied back during training.

Patroclus would spend the early hours of the morning brushing through his hair and tying it back in many different fashions. Achilles wasn't picky about how it looked but he enjoyed how much care Patroclus put into it. At night He would spend even more time, undoing ties, untangling knots, and running his hands through the golden hair.

This time that they spent with each other was cherished deeply. No matter what occurred that day and whatever laid ahead in the future, they would always have these moments together. Their hushed tones and gentle touches.

The day that Patroclus didn't return from the front lines of battle, Achilles spent hours trying to rip out the braids in his hair. Tears stained his face and clumps of his blond hair littered the ground around him. In his blind rage, he cut Patroclus favourite hair tie of his. An old leather strip, dyed red and purple, now torn. He dropped his knife and held the pieces tight in his hands.

He awoke and his hair was a mess, with no one to fix it, it stayed that way all throughout the day. Odysseus offered to help but Achilles refused to let anyone touch him. He want to sleep with his hair still in knots.

His REAL kids, not the illusions.

All he could feel was relief.

He hugged them both tight, feeling them in his arms. He could finally rest, knowing that they were safe.

Holding each other, together again.

The children were startled and safety was a temporary bliss.

So this is a book that has the most polarizing stuff around it and it boggles my mind. People either treat this as the second coming of Christ or the devil so I’m gonna go over the shit that is commonly discussed around it. Even though I love this book, it’s also important to be critical of the content that one is consuming.

-TSOA fetishizes mlm-

This is a big topic and it’s super frustrating because as a vincian person this convo almost never features and even ignores the communities input, especially trans/enby folks. Like the whole idea is that we are heavily viewed through the lens of cishet women who fetishize us but then we’re prevented from speaking about it so that’s real ironic.

This argument mainly comes up because the author is a cishet woman, so there for she shouldn’t be writing gay romance because it’s not her thing to represent. This is super dumb because you don’t have to be queer to consume and create queer media, it’s not inherently fetishization. Just because it contains sexual themes does not immediately make it fetishization either(we are literally either infantilized or fetishized and I’m so tired of it, it is a huge problem but it gets overtaken by people speaking over the issues we face in order to virtue signal). As long it’s not harmful and done respectfully then there’s no issue.

Some valid criticism about this is that it’s weird that the straight sexual elements are so heavily emphasized while a lot of the queer sexual elements are so very few. which is whatever but for something that’s supposed to specifically be queer it’s annoying and this is one of my only gripes with Millers take on this.

People complain a lot that Patroclus is portrayed in a very feminine, twink, stereotypical way which I find really funny because for one, he literally kicks ass and isn’t portrayed this way at all in any versions, it’s just the audience who is pushing this idea onto it so check y’all’s own bias on that. It is also to note that people point out the way he is described in comparison to Achilles implies it but like in comparison to Achilles, everyone appears weaker because he is literally half deity, he was set to become a god wtf do you want??? And like this is being told from Patroclus perspective so of course he is going to seem lesser because he sees himself that way, man was constantly reinforced into his self deprecation by so many people around him throughout his entire life.

-It’s weird that she is writing this about children-

So this is going to go over different interpretations of the Iliad and the story of Achilles in general(as well as history because I gotta use this degree somehow)

For one, this story follows Patroclus from the start to end of his life so of course he’s going to be a child for the first bit!?? By the time the Trojan war part comes, he and Achilles are both adults. Also do people think that younger teens just don’t do anything sexual cause they need a lesson in puberty(they wouldn’t survive my old elementary/high school) don’t get me wrong, sexualizing minors is weird but it’s also weird to push the narrative that these things don’t/shouldn’t exist until 18, because they most certainly do and ignoring it creates a big problem.

Also it’s literally YA, most ya is about teens because they are young adults so it’s weird to pick this out specifically (and I’m sick of the narrative being pushed that being gay is preying on and sexualizing minors.)

Okay so time to go into history because there’s a lot of misconceptions around Ancient Greece.

People point out that it’s weird because there is a large age gap between Achilles and Patroclus. This doesn’t hold up because for one, in TSOA they are around the same age. Depending on different iterations of the myth, Achilles is older, Patroclus is older, or they are around the same age. THEY ARE NOT REAL SO THEIR AGES VARY SO VASTLY THIS MEANS NOTHING

Historically is was common for homosexual relationships to exist(especially within the military) which there was a hierarchy involved along with a lot of people misunderstanding what these were. For one there was no stigma around who was giving/receiving, this was a ROMAN standard and involved the idea that receiving means feminine therefore bad because masculinity good and giving is giving because being dominant is masculine so it doesn’t matter. This understanding didn’t exist and were very open about their homosexual relationships and partners but there was other understandings. These relationships mainly existed between a higher and lower ranking person, which WASNT ALWAYS a slave/owner relationship either, and a lot of the relationships were more of a mentor/mentored thing which is where a lot of the hierarchy is along with age gaps which varies a lot because the military in many areas was like a puberty age to end of life thing so there were all sorts of variances, whether it be small/big/to no age gap.

-Retelling of the Iliad-

I think a lot of people forget that this is a retelling, it’s supposed to be different. If you want the Iliad then read the Iliad, this is a modern reimagining, therefore you gotta take it as that and stop comparing it to the source because my god we don’t even know what the original story was because there are so many versions over THOUSANDS of years. I see a lot of retellings of classics get criticized because they stray from the source, and don’t directly have everything the exact same as the original, there’s no point in retelling it if you’re just doing the same thing as the original.

-my own criticism-

This is more of something directed to the fandom around it than anything but I do have some stuff for the book directly.

First off, the Percy Jackson treatment. It’s annoying when people take this book at face value, don’t read anything else other than this, and declare themselves experts on everything. Like I’m a huge fan of this book and Percy Jackson, but in no way are these good things only read to understand Greek mythology. There is so much more out there and these take a lot of liberties when it comes to the cultural understandings and values of Greek mythology. People treat Ancient Greece(and Egypt) as dead cultures so they can do whatever they want with it, which is not true??? Like these still hold a lot of cultural value, it’s fine to make new interpretations but do it RESPECTFULLY please. There’s so much misinterpretation and hellenization around Greek mythology which is super sensationalized and disrespectful so just be aware of that.

My other criticism is the way women are often portrayed in Greek mythology, both historically, in general, modern understandings, and in this book.

Don’t even get me started on Medusa because I will GO ON so much that Rose won’t even know what door hit her.

I’m going to speak about TSOA specifically because that’s what we’re here for and I will lose my marbles.

Thetis, I really hate how she is portrayed in this book because for one, it reinforces the whole thing about women being the cause of the Trojan war and all bad things in mythology(see Pandora) but also because she is reduced to Achilles evil mom, which is weird. She has so much character beyond the evil mom trope(which she barely fits into). I understand that it can’t be explored from a narrative standpoint(limited perspective and all that) but I feel like a modern retelling is a great opportunity to step away from this idea and it’s a huge disservice to her character to continue to reinforce this. She had all the chance to change the stereotypical and negative narrative around the women in this story but instead she just kept it. It’s super weird especially since she is trying to push for retellings of other women in Greek mythology to be more positive(her other book Circe). This was a weird choice to just let all of the women in this story to be to blame when she had the opportunity to redirect that concept.

Anyway rant over for now, I could go into more about this book for literal hours but I’ve already spent so long on this so maybe another time.

Also want to point out that I love this book but I’ve seen a lot of bad tales from people who both love and hate it so here’s my piece.

I was really thinking about all of the symbols used to represent Achilles and wanted to talk about them. I think it’s really interesting that in many ways, we continue to only remember and recognize Achilles for his death.

Like I was really thinking about this when I was looking at the design I did for binding the Iliad.

Achilles is always symbolized through the arrow and sometimes a bow. Which is like the whole thing with the fates and how he will die but be forever remembered.

BUT IT GOES FURTHER THAN THAT

I was looking especially at the lyre. Like he is often symbolized with the lyre as well WHICH I FOUND SUPER INTERESTING because that also happens to be symbolically important to Apollo. AND THAT BITCH(/affectionate) IS RESPONSIBLE either directly or indirectly depending on differing versions.

In another life they could have lived.

They could have spent their life far away from war, only fighting to protect their tranquillity. Having only each other and sharing their domestic duties.

Partners in life, not death.