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According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.

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Wholesome Odypen please 🥺 ...?

I offer you a silly odypen gif i never finished. It’s titled “indirect kiss” in my wips

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This is a result of the inhumane decisions that members of this administration want you to be silent about in public for fear of a loss of “civility”.

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

The final part! It is done!

Fan OCs you might see in the BG: https://docs.google.com/presentation/...

Song: Dear Wormwood by The Oh Hellos Program Used: Storyboard Pro

CONTENT WARNINGS: Canon-typical blood and violence, implied/referenced child abuse, child murder, religious abuse, choking, vomit

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🎤

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While I'm here I want to talk about how Epic characterises Odysseus, and why criticisms that Jay “gives him a conscience” misunderstand both the Odyssey and what Epic is actually doing.

First: the claim that Homer’s Odysseus didn’t feel guilt or grief just isn’t true. He does express regret, sorrow, even shame, just rarely in the moment, and rarely in overt ways. But the man weeps constantly. He breaks down when hearing songs of Troy. He mourns his fallen men. He carries the weight of what he’s done, even if he couches it in calculation and cleverness.

And when people say Jay’s version of Odysseus is somehow "softer" or overly moralized, they’re not only flattening Homer’s character — they’re missing the thematic project of the musical entirely.

Jay isn't writing a story where Odysseus learns "to be ruthless and let go of mercy." That’s one thread. But if we take it as the core arc, then yes, you might reasonably ask: why does he hesitate to kill now, when the Iliad Odysseus did far worse without flinching?

The answer lies in "Just a Man," the linchpin of the musical and a crucial catalyst for Odysseus’ internal arc. In it, he’s asked to kill an innocent child, and he does. But not before hesitating, asking: "Will these actions haunt my days? / Every man I've slain / Is the price I pay endless pain?"

The killing of the infant, possibly the darkest moment in the musical, comes as he says, “I’m just a man,” right after asking, “When does a man become a monster?” He drops the baby as he says it. We’re not meant to believe he’s not a monster. We’re meant to see that he doesn’t want to believe it.

That moment haunts the rest of the show. He didn't become ruthless when he dropped the baby, he already was; war changed him so completely that at the end of it, he was able to kill a baby that looked just like the son he left 10 years prior, and that terrifies him.

And the fear doesn’t go away. In "Open Arms," Polites is essentially telling him that war has changed him, and he carries it with him even now, after it's over. That truth unsettles Odysseus so deeply (who in the song prior is literally running "full speed ahead" away from his actions, away from war, convinced he can just get home and leave it all behind) that a goddess has to intervene to steady him.

When he faces the Cyclops, he tries to justify the violence: "It's just one life to take / And when we kill him, then our journey’s over." But the tone is clear: this is self-reassurance.

And Odysseus does this a lot in Epic! There’s a pattern of him trying to reassure himself and his crew that they’re almost there, that if they can just get through this trial, they’ll be home. He insists that their journey is nearly over again and again, that their families are still waiting, that everything will be fine, that they can still make it home.

But these aren’t promises, they’re hopes dressed as certainty. He has no real reason to believe any of it. It doesn’t matter. He says it anyway. Because if he stops believing it, even for a moment, the weight of what he's done, and what he's become, might crush him (we see this play out explicitly in both "The Underworld" and "Love in Paradise"). These aren’t just reassurances. They’re quiet, desperate lies. Mostly to himself.

Even delirious with exhaustion, he clings to this idea: "So much has changed / But I'm the same, yes, I’m the same."

But he isn’t. And he knows it. Odysseus is afraid the war will never end, not because of geography or gods, but because he’s afraid the war has already changed him beyond return. And that is one of the major ideas we can take from the Odyssey. As Emily Wilson observed, the long journey home is not just physical, it’s existential. The question isn’t just can he return, but who will return if he does.

So when Odysseus later embraces brutality, when he says, "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves / And deep down I know this well," it’s not a turning point. It’s a confession. He’s admitting that this capacity for violence has always been there. And it’s Penelope’s danger that makes him stop pretending otherwise.

That’s the true arc: not from man to monster, but from denial to acknowledgment. Not the loss of conscience, but the unbearable weight of it.

And that’s why it matters that it’s Penelope who is in danger when he finally stops clinging to who he used to be. It’s for her sake that he embraces what he’s become. And in that moment, he knows she might not love him anymore. He chooses the path that will lead him home no matter what anyway.

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YALL. Holly Black has a list of resources she's used for writing her books on the fair folk. I'm OBSESSED. I love her work and world building. it's so true to the heart of faeries

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buying him time

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Big ATLA piece!!

I've been watching the series while doing schoolwork lately and it felt comforting, so I wanted to make a scene where the gaang was just having a good time jsjs

I took the opportunity and did a forest study from a photo for the background, and I am so proud of it UvU

also heres a 1 minute timelapse for anyone interested hehehe

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Agony of a Witch. Eda's curse theme always cuts to the core

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What if there was a cow that could fly?

um. uhh um. fat bumbalbee

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Cymru Queers for Palestine disrupting and leading the Cardiff Pride Parade, Saturday 22nd June by Hannah Tottle

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Why am I seeing almost nothing about the Maldeen?? The Freedom Flotilla with Greta Thunberg and 11 other activists on board, carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza such as food and baby formula was just intercepted by the IDF. Drones sprayed a white substance on the ship and the IDF detained everyone on the ship. Communication has been lost.

Photo from June 9th, 2025

DO NOT stay silent about this! Free Palestine! 🇵🇸

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#Repost @gazafreedomflotilla

After drones repeatedly hovered over the ‘Madleen’ last night, we need people of the world to help tag and email their foreign ministry. The volunteers aboard are delivering life-saving aid to Gaza. They are unarmed, carrying only food, medicine, and baby formula, and acting fully within international law.

It’s time for world governments to step up. Demand they protect their citizens aboard the ‘Madleen’ and stop enabling Israel’s war crimes.

Safe passage is a legal obligation, and a moral one.

USE THE LINK BELOW TO EMAIL EACH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS!!

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greta thunberg and 11 others on the flotilla carrying aid to gaza have been kidnapped by the israeli government in international waters.