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Annie Leibovitz: Alan Cumming backstage at the Kit Kat Club, New York City, 1998

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I love my leg hair #myleghair

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actual modern historians: in this letter, Margaret tells her dearest friend Adela, “my love, I long to worship at your altar of Venus once more. come to me and rain kisses upon my breasts as  you did in Paris last spring.”

people on the Internet: “FrIeNd???” ERASURE. STOP TRYING TO HIDE THE GAY. “OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES”

aforementioned historians: she. she opens the letter with “My dearest friend.” we’re literally quoting here, and we just admitted they had sex

people on the Internet: “JUST GALS BEING PALS” EH? R/SAPPHOANDHERFRIEND?

historians: a truly vast number of us are queer

people on the Internet: LOL FELLAS IS IT GAY TO KISS YOUR BEST LADY FRIEND’S BREASTS??? NOT IN HISTORY!!

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Odysseus disguised as a beggar :

Irus, THE local ithican beggar : This island aint big enough for two beggars.

Odysseus : are you seriously gatekeeping poverty ?

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extremely funny kylix of athena saving jason from the serpent protecting the golden fleece where jason is just flopping out of the serpent's mouth. like hey girl. what am i up to? oh just hanging out. yeah i got eaten by the snake. it happens. mind giving a brother a hand. cute owl btw

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I've already spoken about this several times, so this isn't the first but it will also not be the last. (Yeah, I really will not shut up about this lol)

The way the larger fandom treats Penelope just genuinely bothers me.

I've already touched on this one before, but she's either the "Spartan-trained man-punching strong dominant wife" which is one, entirely out of character, two, people only characterize her as for the sake of the weird Girlboss x Malewife trope. I mean, fine, you can like that trope, but stop forcing it onto characters who barely even fit the mold.

Or the "kind loving perfect wife who remains unaffected by everything and only exists to comfort everyone."

And it just... It irks me so bad, because why is quite literally every other character, and yes, I mean every character, (Odysseus, Telemachus, Athena, Poseidon, Polyphemus, Circe, Calypso), allowed to have trauma but her?

And most of the time, it's for the sake of making her the caretaker, the one who comforts everyone, the perfect wife and mother.

And I understand if the fic is hurt/comfort, I understand that most of those fics have a typical comforter/caretaker archetype, but, that's literally all she is.

And it just undermines her entire character, undermines all of her complexity. This is a woman who spent twenty years waiting for her husband, ten years wondering if he might have died at war, another ten wondering if he was swallowed by the sea.

This is a woman who raised her son and kept her husband's kingdom afloat, all alone for twenty years, in a period where misogyny was heavy towards women.

This is a woman who spent most likely five years unsafe in her own home, disturbed by suitors constantly trying to gain her hand in marriage. (And if we're going through EPIC specifically — this situation was much worse, considering Xenia seemed to be non-existent in the musical).

And in the Odyssey, this is a woman who prayed for Artemis to kill her.

And the way all of this is just ignored, thrown under everything in order of making her the perfect badass wife or the untouchable caretaker just bothers me so so much.

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favorite character from any media BUT it has to be a woman. in the tags now go (pls talk to me about your favorite fictional women pls pls pls pls)

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Incredibly Odysseus pilled today <3

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I think I may never be sad ever again. There is a statue entitled "Farewell to Orpheus" on my college campus. It's been there since 1968, created by a Prof. Frederic Littman that use to work at the university. It sits in the middle of a fountain, and the fountain is often full of litter. I have taken it upon myself to clean the litter out when I see it (the skimmers only come by once a week at max). But because of my style of dress, this means that bystanders see a twenty-something on their hands and knees at the edge of the fountain, sleeves rolled up, trying not to splash dirty water on their slacks while their briefcase and suit coat sit nearby. This is fine, usually. But today was Saturday Market, which means the twenty or so people in the area suddenly became hundreds. So, obviously, somebody stopped to ask what I was doing. "This," I gestured at the statue, "is Eurydice. She was the wife of Orpheus, the greatest storyteller in Greece. And this litter is disrespectful." Then, on a whim, I squinted up at them. "Do you know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?" "No," they replied, shifting slightly to sit.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure!"

So I told them. I told them the story as I know it- and I've had a bit of practice. Orpheus, child of a wishing star, favorite of the messenger god, who had a hard-working, wonderful wife, Eurydice; his harp that could lull beasts to passivity, coax song from nymphs, and move mountains before him; and the men who, while he dreamed and composed, came to steal Eurydice away. I told of how she ran, and the water splashed up on my clothes. But I didn't care. I told of how the adder in the field bit her heel, and she died. I told of the Underworld- how Orpheus charmed the riverman, pacified Cerberus with a lullaby, and melted the hearts of the wise judges. I laughed as I remarked how lucky he was that it was winter- for Persephone was moved by his song where Hades was not. She convinced Hades to let Orpheus prove he was worthy of taking Eurydice. I tugged my coat back on, and said how Orpheus had to play and sing all the way out of the Underworld, without ever looking back to see if his beloved wife followed. And I told how, when he stopped for breath, he thought he heard her stumble and fall, and turned to help her up- but it was too late. I told the story four times after that, to four different groups, each larger than the last. And I must have cast a glance at the statue, something that said "I'm sorry, I miss you--" because when I finished my second to last retelling, a young boy piped up, perhaps seven or eight, and asked me a question that has made my day, and potentially my life: "Are you Orpheus?" I told the tale of the grieving bard so well, so convincingly, that in the eyes of a child I was telling not a story, but a memory. And while I laughed in the moment, with everyone else, I wept with gratitude and joy when I came home. This is more than I deserve, and I think I may never be sad again.

Here is the aforementioned statue, by the way.

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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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Is he asexual?

🖤       🩶       🤍       💜

Reasoning: 1) when circe says "everyone's true colors are ~revealed in acts of lust~" he goes "i'm not sure i follow", as if he completely forgot sexual attraction was. A Thing

2) i'm ace and i like him

3) OdyPen ace4ace real

@wrong-thyme

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Penelope *lighting a cigarette*: when I became queen you were still young enough to sit on my husband's lap and feed from his fingers isn't that weird

Eurymachus, so drunk he can barely stand: can you put taht out on me

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iliad characters as florida man headlines bc me and the diomedestruthers were chatting about it;

odysseus:

achilles:

hector:

the ajaxes:

paris:

nestor:

menelaus:

calchas:

agamemnon:

diomedes:

neoptolemus:

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love the word 'great' as a descriptor. an epithet, if you will. its so neutrally positive. 'great diomedes' what is he great at? lots of things but also nothing. 'great and terrible achilles' yeah he is. 'the great might of telamon's son' yup, for sure. so many uses for 'great'. i love, i like.

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Good afternoon today I am thinking about how Calypso hears Odysseus say Penelope's name before she even learns what his name is. She hears “Penelope” before she ever hears “Odysseus.”

And so do we.

In the opening lines of the musical, Odysseus rallies his men by invoking home: “Think of your wives and your children.” We are told so early and so clearly that the impulse that drives him, long before we even know him by name, is love, home, and memory. When the choir asks “What do you fight for?” he first answers: “Penelope.” And then he says it again. And when the prophet Tiresias speaks, when Eurylochus confronts him, when Circe questions his heart, when the gods themselves threaten him and debate his fate, it is always Penelope whose name rises, it is always his wife who is consistenly brought up. Penelope, whose presence is invoked in absence. Penelope, who defines every move he makes.

We learn who his wife is long before he utters his own name, which he only ever does once, in the only saga she's not mentioned. The only time he claims his name aloud is the one time he is wholly severed from her, textually and thematically. Every other chapter of this story, every other trial he endures, echoes with her name. Except this one. Penelope does not enter that cave. Her absence is deafening, and the one time he utters his name instead of hers, it is this exact same act that brings the storm, Poseidon's fury, the years added to their journey. The moment he lets go of her is the moment he is torn from her.

Her name is a refrain in the mouths of gods and monsters, a tether through temptation and torment. If you strip her from the story, you do not simply lose a love interest. You lose the anchor. You lose the tension. You lose the meaning behind every choice Odysseus makes, and every cost he bears.

She is not an afterthought. She is with him from the very beginning and she's the one with him at the very end. She is the centre of the story.

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how many nonbinary people have come out publicly only to then semi re-closet themselves because people are so incapable of not being extremely exorsexist towards them immediately... ive seen this happen to nonbinary people across agab we cannot catch a damn break

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Achilles commission on ig