fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2690 ]

[ SECRET POST #2690 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2690 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[My Little Pony: Equestria Girls movie]

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[Star Trek: The Next Generation/Reginald Barclay]

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[Dark Souls]

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[Call the Midwife]

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[The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim]

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[The Thing. Inception. EverymanHYBRID. Adventure Time]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #384.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Oh? What is it about?

I'm gonna guess Achilles and Patroclus's big gay love.

It's the life of Achilles as narrated by Patroclus. It's got all the standard slashfic tropes- Achilles' evil mother doesn't want them to be together, there's a nasty female rival for Patroclus (although Achilles assures him that he's not attracted to her and describes her vagina as "oily" for some reason) there's a lot of angst, they're semi-closeted for fear of being "shamed" if people knew about their relationship, and everyone dies. (Including Briseis.) Also, at one point Achilles and Patroclus set up a tent to shelter slave girls to keep them from getting passed around as the spoils of war, because they're just so gosh-darn noble like that.

Wouldn't the Greeks have pretty much expected Achilles to be giving it to Patroclus? That was always my understanding.

One would think so, yes. But whoever let historical accuracy get in the way of angst?

No, not really. Patroclus was expected to be giving it to Achilles because he's older. Read Plato's Symposium, they have a debate over if Aeschylus was right to make Achilles top (in one of his lost plays) or not.

No, because Patroclus was older

...worse than the Troy movie, then. I didn't realize it was possible.

That sounds terrible.

So basically Mary Renault would spin in her grave if she knew her name was on this book. ö.ö

This is associated with Mary Renault? Really? omg I'm rereading her stuff now. Her style is kind of hard to get through for me, but I love the descriptions and characters. Even more interesting that her books were written at a very not-gay-friendly time, so I always appreciated her work. I take it the book in OP's secret is not a recommendation, though..

Just going by the review at the top of the book in the secret saying it's Mary Renault reborn and ... I have never read it, but from the description alone... no?

I've only read her Alexander trilogy (Man, there are so many novels about Alexander who SUCK. I recently found one where the main character is some special snowflake servant girl OC who is the love of his life or something ugh. Does anyone have recs?) and I likes them. I always wanted to try her other books, but I can't decide on which one. Especially since I'm really not a fan of bad/sad endings and she seems to have written a lot of those.

DA

Wouldn't trust that review much, IMO; "Room" wasn't totally awful, but it is the kind of book that you sit back afterwards, and think, "What a well-written piece of utter garbage that book was."

...I may be somewhat bitter because I bought the book at full price, and didn't wait for the remaindered prices.

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evewithanapple - 2014-05-16 04:56 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-05-17 12:08 (UTC) - Expand

Years ago I read Melissa Scott's A Choice of Destinies and your comment asking about Alexander books just brought it all coming back. It's spec fic/one of the alternative histories that asks what if Alexander had gone west instead of east to India, but then goes from there way into that world's future complete with space stations named after him, you name it. It's totally ridiculous but I remember enjoying it!

...and since you mentioned wanting to try Renault's other books, I couldn't resist a drive-by rec. If you liked the Alexander trilogy, her two books about Theseus (The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea) have a lot in common with those. There's also my personal favorite of her historical novels, The Last of the Wine, set in Athens near the end of the Peloponnesian War. Sad endings do abound in Renault's work, but no worse than the ending of The Persian Boy, if you made it through that!

Oily vagina lol. Wouldn't that be a good thing if you were into the bumsex already?

The book sounds appalling.

idc how far-fetched it is, if it saves me from unnecessarily having to read about abused background women, I'll take it

Unfortunately, it won't. Iphigenia still dies brutally onscreen to give Achilles some angst. Also Patroclus' parents disappear after the first few chapters but we are informed that his mother is/was "simple" and drooled on herself a lot.

Damn. Well, dodged a bullet with that one, since I thought to pick it up a few times. Surprisingly it's not just tumblr, this book was recommended in several magazines for a time.

(though my first comment was in a more general sense-- like, when authors decide to throw in mentions of rape because it's more 'realistic', I'm happy that an author did the opposite even if it IS unrealistic in the context of the myth)

To be fair unless you're having an explicitly supernatural work Iphigenia has to die... Since she was sacrificed by her father, so you either have to have the gods come in and save her (as happened in some versions), or let her die.

I kinda like how it was handled in Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze... It was definitely his intent to let Iphigenia die, since his work is meant to be in a non-supernatural world, but he had a character relate the ascension story... an unreliable narrator but since I read vol 2 before vol 1, I didn't realize that at first.

The sacrifice doesn't have to be included though. It's never mentioned in the Iliad, and Agamemnon has a daughter called Iphianassa, who might be the same as Iphigenia, who he offers as bride to Achilles.

(no subject)

ozaline - 2014-05-17 00:39 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

may_lily - 2014-05-17 02:02 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ozaline - 2014-05-17 05:18 (UTC) - Expand

Thanks for making it so I don't accidentally buy this book!

"Oily vagina" makes me think of how one of my friends from a few years ago allegedly described PIV sex as a feeling of sticking his dick into a bowl of fried rice.

Edited 2014-05-16 00:47 (UTC)

I have so many questions for your friend.

Unfortunately, I heard this second hand. I was good friends for a while with another guy who was part of that social group. I got the impression that he might have been blowing hot air about even having had sex in the first place. I really don't know. I just thought it was one of the weirdest things.

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