Latest Posts by crippled-gay - Page 2
This is the second of the two things I didn’t necessarily like in Song of Achilles. With how Ancient Greece was, Achilles and Patroclus wouldn’t have been or had their reputation tarnished for being gay. Being gay WAS THE NORM. Because, to Ancient Greece, what was manlier than two men?
So, I don’t like how she put a more modern twist on it. I understand why, us gays don’t yet know what it is like to live with our partners without (for example) weird glances from onlookers. And it makes it more relatable. But, I wish I would’ve been able to project that hope onto this book. It’s similar to how The Song of Ice and Fire shows brutality towards women in a MADE UP WORLD. Like for once I want my fantasy, my books to show what the world could be.
Anyways, I’m just sad because sometimes I don’t like the modern lens of classical books and myths because it takes away some fire shit.
There are two things that I didn’t nessarcirily like in Song of Achilles. The first will be discussed now and I will post later the second. I didn’t like how Miller portrayed why Achilles continued to not fight after quitting. Now, there is no fault to her, I might have read a different translation or just generally interpreted the Iliad differently. Or maybe she did include this, I just remember it not being as big of a deal.
So, I thought it was because Achilles realized that he could continue to live and live a long life with Patroclus. And that he didn’t need to fight or to be a hero. Achilles did say a throw away line that he didn’t need to fight in someone else’s war, but it was more portrayed as an excuse to throw a hissy fit. Which, I guess this is from Patroclus’ POV, but anyways.
We could’ve had a scene in the book where Achilles tells Patroclus that he has decided to live a long and happy life with him. Because of this, it would’ve hurt more when Patroclus dies and Achilles fights and dies. We would know that before Patroclus’ death, Achilles decided that he wanted to live a long and happy life with him. And that he gave up being a hero for that before his death.
Anyways, I’m just sad we didn’t get this extra angst in this story.
Jotaro Kujo is Autistic: an Informal Analysis
So. When I first started sdc, I INSTANTLY noticed a lot of core (and lesser known!) autistic traits when it came to Jotaro. I’d see him do something and I’d be like “oh! I do that!” Or “oh! I understand that!” Because you know. I Am Big Autistic Doofus.
So first thing I wanna start with is sensory. One of the first things we see of Jotaro is him yelling at some female students, correct? I noticed a trend here, and some behaviors I have too. Now, these girls are touching him, and they’re all speaking at once, voices overlapping, and he finally yells at them to shut up, right? Sure, you could play it off as him being edgy or whatnot, but that’s not necessarily accurate. Watching that scene personally, I noticed a few really striking things. he only yells after the onslaught of stimuli begins, and you can see him become more and more agitated as the stimuli continues. He reaches his breaking point when these girls start yelling at each other, and he screams.
And chalking it up to him being an Angsty teen doesn’t make sense, either, because the same thing happens in part four. Autism doesn’t go away with age, so it makes sense.
From experience, this is exactly how I experience sensory overload. Distressing stimuli, stimuli continues, your nervous system becomes agitated, and the stress can make you explode if it persists. this can also be why he gets snippy when people touch him unexpectedly. Unwarranted (ESPECIALLY LIGHT) touch can be really scary and even painful. His sensory issues also would tie into why he always wears his gakuran, even in the hot ass desert. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable and it provides deep pressure input. It’s a comforting weight he needs to keep cool, just like his hat is also a comfort item.
now,,, to break out the big guns,,, communication
Throughout each part we see Jotaro in, it becomes very apparent that he’s not the best with words, and not the best at reading people. He communicates, but it’s mostly actions instead of speech, so his intentions are often misunderstood and he’s seen as rude or brash. Again, another core autistic trait. an example I really love to use is the way he knew holly was sick. Despite his bitchiness about her being annoying (yes, that’s probably because’s he’s a fucking edgelord and can’t handle his emotions mostly) he genuinely loves her despite never saying so with speech. he knew something was wrong becuase she didn’t give him a kiss goodbye before he left for school. For a lot of us autistic people, routine is important, especially routines around people we love and cherish. Him getting a hug and a kiss goodbye is an ingrained part in his routine because he loves his mom. not receiving that affection threw him off, and perhaps caused some anxiety because “I’m leaving, why hasn’t she given me a kiss? She ALWAYS gives me a kiss goodbye, something must be wrong”
Along with that, rather than outwardly saying “I’m worried about my mommy” he travels across an entire continent to save her life. this also ties into how we read and understand people a lot of the time, and also a little thing called cognitive empathy and theory of mind. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand why a person may be feeling a way, “putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes”. Theory of mind is the ability to understand what a person may be thinking or feeling, and understand that people don’t know what you’re thinking or feeling without you explicitly saying so. In jotaro’s character bio, he is said to not be verbally expressive becuase he truly believes people know his motives and feelings with out him explaining, which is A HUGE AUTISTIC TRAIT.
personally, I do struggle with theory of mind and I also kind of assume people know what I’m talking about because that’s just how my brain works! Jotaro IS empathetic, and emotional, and kind hearted, but he just shows it differently.
Let’s talk emotions and emotional processing. it is common knowledge that Jotaro is an emotionally constipated dumbass. But again, watching him as an autistic person IT LOOKS LIKE SO MUCH MOREEEEEE
We usually don’t see Jotaro express much emotion outwardly, which we previously discussed has to do with theory of mind. But it ALSO seems to do with a little something called alexithymia. That is the ability to identify an emotion or feeling, which I personally believe is something he lacks. Not only that, but because of it anger seems to be the only emotion he can process and react to accordingly. anger is easy. It’s intense, it’s heated, and it is easy to express. Jotaro has a lot of trouble processing his emotions and identifying them. Grief, anxiety, sadness, overwhelm, they all come out as anger. Let me explain a little bit more about alexithymia, becuase again that’s something I deal with. So, if you have alexithymia, you may feel a certain way, but are unable to describe it in the moment. If I’m anxious, it’s squiggly or ragged or ziggzagged and blah, or “it feels like a lily is blooming in my stomach”. If I’m sad and don’t really know I’m sad, “I feel blah, and kind of heavy, and my hands feel funny.” If I’m overwhelmed, an example i used yesterday in voice chat on discord is ”I feel wiggly, my body feels like jelly” it can go on. Emotions can be tangible, physical sensations that can make them hard to describe. As a kid, when I’d dissociate I would say “today was a gray day.” Colors and shapes and sensations came easy, words not so much.
one more thing I’d like to touch on with emotions are meltdowns and shutdowns. Meltdowns are essentially outward expressions of extreme distress. This can range from crying and stimming to destructive things like throwing stuff, (TW) self injury like biting or punching or othering things like getting into fights and snapping at people. Meltdowns are triggered by fight or flight, your nerves are completely haywire, you can’t think everything’s too much and it’s all ??? and you just need to be alone to get though it. Shutdowns are exactly what they sound like: you are so overwhelmed that your brain and body completely shut off. You can’t move, speak, or think properly. Jotaro a big guy, and for a lot of autistic people our traits are seen as threatening or like we’re instigating, Espeically for somebody of his build.
so stimming is something everybody does, it can range from bouncing your leg or tapping your fingers on something, or rocking and flapping and humming. Despite stimming being a natural human behavior, neurodivergent people are notorious for it because we need to do it more regularly. It helps us regulate our senses and express our emotions. Something I noticed he does quite a lot is fist clenching. Fist clenching offers deep pressure input, and seems to be his body’s expression of anger or fear along with him biting his lip and clenching his jaw. Another very obvious thing he does is tipping his hat, a comforting motion, and also an expression of embarrassment, anxiousness, and I think it’s also to avoid looking at people’s eyes. last ones I wanna talk about are the notorious phrases...
“yare yare daze”. Feels nice to say, first off, and from what I’ve gathered it almost always seems to be used when he doesn’t know what to say or he uses it as an expression of exasperation or confusion.
ora! Something I belive has a lot of credibility is that stands will have the autistic traits their autistic user does, and, since star is jotaro’s authentic self it would make sense that the only thing he says is a vocal stim.
Last thing! So. Perception. How you view the world and interact with it. Autistic people are super well known for our attention to the small details, and what is one of the first things we learn about star platinum?
stands are a complete manifestation of their user’s authentic self, and, if that user is autistic their stand would be also. Wouldn’t it make sense for their strongest traits to show?
This concludes my essay.
For now...
Achilles x Patroclus Explained: for anyone who needs it plainly mapped out for them one more time.
The Iliad:
-Most obviously there is a Special Relationship between Achilles x Patroclus
-Achilles and Patroclus share a Bed & Tent, Patroclus also does all the “domestic” work for the 2 of them on top of being a soldier
-”But he had Briseis who he was going to marry”, despite only bragged about her because she was a war prize taken by Agamemnon thus taking his honor, he was “locker room talking for the boys” when in reality he had no sexual contact/dimension/relationship with her yet. He also knew the prophecy he wasn’t coming back from Troy so this is one of two reasons we can say that they have no plans together, (see bullet point one for second reason) and then later he wishes Artemis had killed her way back when they were raiding cities. It is also inferable that Patroclus had planted this seed of thought in her mind to put her at ease with Achilles as well as protect his honor because Patroclus is always there for Achilles (Achilles does take Briseis into his bed in Book 24 but again totally as a spoil of war… she is a conquest not a lover)
-Greeks know Achilles will only listen to Patroclus, Especially Nestor who goes to Patroclus to persuade Achilles to re-enter the fight
-When Achilles receives Patroclus’s body his first thought is to end himself with a sword because he does not want to live in a world without Patroclus
-Achilles’s rage at the death of Patroclus and wishing he had let all the Greeks die and they conquered Troy together
-Refusal to eat & sleep while weeping for days on end in bed with Patroclus’s body
-Andromache’s speech about Hector, forsaking all her other loved ones for her husband, aka her one true love and then Achilles giving the almost exact same speech right after about Patroclus his “beloved”
-Achilles kills Hector (Gods even fear his rage and that such emotion could cause war to end before prophesied) aka Achilles could change fate because he so “grieved” for Patroclus - totally homies right?!
-Achilles drags Hectors body from his chariot damaging and defiling the corpse for days; Angering the gods, to which he doesn’t care
-Thetis then comes to Achilles, to which he wants none of her comfort, during their conversation she also has to suggest AND specify for him to now have sex with a woman and maybe find a wife before his life is over (why does she have to specify “woman” & who/what was keeping him from getting a wife)
-Achilles tosses and turns sleeplessly (body of Patroclus is still kept in his bed) and he longs for Patroclus’s “μένος” (menos) which in ancient greek translates to “Might - Manhood - Vigor - Semen” plainly speaking “Spunk” (both kinds!)
-Achilles reaches to embrace the ghost of Patroclus when he appears before him - desiring to physically touch
-Achilles plays the role of the woman and/or wife of the deceased when they burn Patroclus’s body on the funeral pyre and then collects the ashes himself and puts them in the golden urn. Achilles then charges the men to do the same to him when he dies putting his ashes in the same golden urn and burying them together so that they will physically be together for all eternity - which does happen
-LITERALLY ACHILLES x PATROCLUS
Most Ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, Artists & Intellectuals:
ACTUAL Greek Artwork from 500 BCE (currently resides on display in Germany)
-There is no reference to this moment in any record or story. In this depiction Achilles wraps Patroclus’s arm while he sits between his open legs, and Patroclus lets his dick hang out, while Achilles’s is visible as well, super intimate for “bros”
-Later greeks assumed or imagined their relationship as Pederastic (An older “erastes” lover & an “eromenos” younger beloved) because that was the norm of that period but no one could definitely decide who was the top and who was the bottom
**SIDE NOTE They do not have an age gap to support the Pederastic Theory AND after the pederastic relationship ended the men involved married women which we know neither Achilles nor Patroclus had nor plans to do
-Plato totally thought Achilles was a Bottom in his “Symposium”
-Aeschylus (the literal inventor of Greek Tragedy) portrayed Achilles & Patroclus as lovers in his lost play “The Myrmidons” which was based on The Iliad. Surviving lines from the play are of Achilles speaking of “Patroclus’s Reverent Company, his thighs, and being ungrateful for many kisses”
-345 BCE = Athenian politician, Aeschines states in a speech during his trial that Homer didn’t have to say what they were because 1. the Greeks were more sexually fluid then 2. there wasn’t a word for “Homosexual” 3. Homer was a storyteller and ANY educated man knew what they were, like its THAT obvious
-Alexander the Great and his lover Haphaestion (this is a whole other can of worms still being fought) liked to think of themselves, and referred to each other as “Achilles & Patroclus”
-Shakespeare features the two in his play “Troilus and Cressida” in which Patroclus is called “Achilles’s Brach” aka “Achilles’s Bitch”
-Renaissance Artists & those onward armed with their skill, knowledge, and obsession with all things ancient painted numerous depictions of the two, usually scenes of Achilles receiving Patroclus’s body, and for “buddies” they sure love painting them showing A LOT of skin
-By roughly the 1960′s & 70′s historians and scholars started talking about them openly again with the
“ARE WE READY TO STOP PLAYIN’ AND OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE THEM AS ‘YOU KNOW’”
All joking aside we still have a select number of Historians, Scholars, and Hollywood still holding out:
-What about Briseis!? (see above) they both also do sleep with a woman each but sadly here they are seen more as conquest and war prizes than actual lovers - again there is a fluidity
-Achilles was a HERO! Best of the Greeks -He’s always shown as A MAN’S MAN! YET in a separate myth (see Achilleid) his mother Thetis was able to hide him among a group of girly girls on Skyros to which he was perfectly disguised and has a one night stand with the princess again showing their regard for sexual fluidity. ALSO Do not disrespect that he was a manly hero and a femboy! This also explains how his son comes to be - again this is a completely separate myth and origin
-Could they be cousins!? (NO)
-**Closing Eyes** Homo-erotic? WHERE? “Item Not Found”
-”Well all we can say, there is no source, Homer never explicitly stated that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple or had a sexual relationship that we can find in the source material so… I am choosing to ignore all context and blatant evidence, as well have no heterosexual explanation for them either… you’re just reading into it too much”:
EVERYONE who has a brain and has read The Iliad:
As for myself having read the Iliad, studied this Art, History, and Culture, as well as having a BFA; when you know, YOU KNOW. Feel free to share, use this as inspiration to read “The Iliad” if you haven’t already, think critically, and study up on your own!
IN CONCLUSION = THEY GAY & THE OTP !!
(Highly Suggest “The Song of Achilles” as well)
I don’t care who the top or bottom is in your gay relationship, who’s Achilles and who’s Patroclus? Hmmmm??????
Me: I wish I had a relationship like A and B
Friend: one or both of your otp are dead
Me: so???
When I say I’m a homosexual, I mean I’m a gay who relates all my relationships to the dynamic of Achilles and Patroclus yearning for some sort of love as beautiful and tragic as theirs.