#a modern day odyssey

[greentrickster]

Okay y'all, listen up, because this evening I went on an Odysseus-style odyssey, in that what was meant to be a quick jaunt with minimal difficulties turned into a multi-hour trip where I was thwarted every step of the way.

As all good disasters do, it started off well enough. My mom informed me that a local, extremely large booksale is on today and I decided to go, because yay, books!

Then my dad, who was in the same room at the time, generously pulled out his wallet, handed me some cash, and told me to go buy myself a book! So even better, free book(s) and no requirement to return the change! Jackpot! I drive to the booksale in high spirits! Arrive! Enter the building!

...

What the heck, why are there so few tables?! What has happened to this booksale, it's in an area the size of a full-sized basketball court and usually it's full of tables covered in books! There's maybe an eighth of that! It doesn't even have a sci-fi/fantasy section. It's, quite possibly, the most tragic I've ever seen this booksale look, and I'm unable to find anything to my taste there.

However, like Odysseus before me, I don't assume failure at the first hurdle - I was told to buy myself a book, but I was never told where I had to buy it! To the local bargain outlet, which has all sorts of delights to offer, including books, and I've found some good ones there before! Not tonight, apparently, but, like. It's happened.

So that's... less than fun.

Also, I'm starving at this point, because I left at five-ish and haven't had supper yet. So, since this place sells food, I grab a box of soft strawberry granola bars for $2, because my money tonight is for literature, not sustenance, and I'm not out yet! There's still Barnes & Noble, the local mega-chain bookstore, which I have mixed feelings about! But it's my last option at this point and, hey, graphic novels! Manga! All sorts of exciting new releases! I was just there a week or two ago and even wrote some titles down while I was there!

My friends, I walked all over that store and perused books for two hours, and I found nothing that sparked enough joy to accompany me home. I did find a couple with minor potential, and one that gave me heart palpitations and made me regret the choices that had led to this point in my life, but nothing I felt the desire to own, you know?

My feet hurt, because I wore the cheap sandals that are only good for short expeditions. It was late. I wanted to go home and get a mom hug to help with the trauma that came with the heart palpitations.

But I had no book.

I had not fulfilled my mission.

A state of events that was simply unacceptable.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it was also about eight at night and everywhere around me other than a few grocery stores tend to start rolling up the carpets within an hour or two. So, in an act that would make Odysseus proud, I rearranged my strategy! I would use the cash to buy the Christmas gift I've been meaning to get for my dad (I get my holiday shopping done early), then go home and buy a couple books I'd been eyeing on Amazon!

Books would be purchased!

Triumph would be had!

I got home and discovered, as Odysseus did, that not all was the pleasant peace I had left it in! Except instead of a bunch of entitled suitors trying to marry my wife and steal my throne, the internet had gone down five minutes before I opened the door.

I chose to do the mature thing in order to gain Athena's favour by screaming into a pillow. About twenty minutes later, the internet turned back on! Success!

I discover Amazon has upped the amount you need to spend to get free shipping from $25 to $35 as of September 8th, because they are an evil mega-corporation and not my friend! Rage!

However, still rich with Athena's blessing, and in dire need to prove that if Odysseus can do this then so can I, I made one last-ditch effort... and went and asked to use my parents' Prime account to get free shipping for my order.

And thus my books were finally ordered, and, like Odysseus, I am at last triumphant, but boy golly, that was 90% more effort than it needed to be, what the heck, what sort of sick, dystopian future am I living in that I finally have my own money to get books but can't guarantee the bookstore will have anything I want to buy?!?

[dionysism]

"odysseus should visit diomedes after the events of the odyssey" "odysseus should go see menelaus" personally if i was odysseus im not going fucking no where ever again 😭😭 THEY can come to ithaca. i've been traveling long enough

[itsakarp]

I love the beginning of The Underworld cause Odysseus is like “this is what Circe told me to do. Now YOU tell me what we’re going to do.” He is Tired. They definitely had this conversation at least 5 times on the way there. He said we are NOT going to have another bag of winds situation today

[cocoa-rococo]

"i'm TIRED, my friend!"

no joke? this line grabbed me by the throat more than any other in "mutiny". holy shit.

eurylochus sounds exhausted. he's been through literal hell and back after facing a war, a cyclops, a god, and a witch, and not a few hours before, JUST saw the captain of his ship, and one of his closest friends, let six of their friends die and did nothing.

after the mutiny, eurylochus speaks like he's dazed, and rightly so. it's that thousand-yard-stare, slow-walking, disassociated headspace that comes with seeing atrocities and not being able to do anything about them. it's that hypnotic influence stemming from seeing something so wonderful you almost can't fathom it, and it's within arm's reach, it's tangible.

all while odysseus is pleading with him not to make a bad decision (after so many of his own), begging him not to go for the feast that's right there, (the wind bag that's right there), even when he's so hungry, he can feel the hollow of his stomach and the stabbing of the emptiness.

but that line? that outburst?

that's real, aching exhaustion, raw and tearful and helpless, the kind you get when you're so fed up and upset at the world for being the way it is you don't want to do anything but collapse on a bed and sleep. you can almost see the way his face is pinched and he's this close to crying from hunger, betrayal, pain, from finally buckling under the weight of their actions.

he's seen so much, gone through so much, lost so much, and now he's being pled with to consider a being who would look at him like an ant for the sake of sparing a perfectly fine cow, and goddammit all, he is TIRED. he wants to eat something real. he wants to sleep. he wants to go home.

"i'm just a man" indeed. and who could blame him for craving something human.

[backpackingspace]

Listen diomedes deserves to have a vlog. Every video is just him staring at the camera while drama in the odysseus household unfolds in the background.

[froschli96]

you know, i always find it really funny when dudebros complain about syndicate and odyssey being too "jokey" or not "taking its characters seriously" or whatever…

like, did y'all collectively sleep through "it's-a me, mario!", "i meant besides vaginas", ezio inventing the latte, bartolomeo's... just... *gestures vaguely* entire character, etc?

like, it's fine to have preferences of course, i myself prefer a more serious and grounded tone, but these are usually the same people who tout the ezio trilogy as "peak assassin's creed", call ac1 a glorified tech demo and hate on connor for being "too serious and boring", like? make it make sense!

[shuruzy]

Tenmaar has pulled something new out of his wardrobe

[drunk-on-starlight]

I do like that Layla's ambition was a consistent character streak in all three of the "ancient" trilogy.

Mind, I think her killing Victoria was a stupid writing decision and they could have payed it off better, but hey. Nothing is perfect.

[seekslight-arch]

other  ✧.*  tag  dump part two

v : everywhere i go the light follows { canon } v : burning brighter { star guardian } v : burning bright { star guardian — modern } v : hey! who are you calling a lady? { modern } v : for demacia { odyssey } v : oooh i've never been here before! { space groove } v : a beacon in battle { porcelain } v : the superior tactic is to never give up { anima squad } v : finish the fight! { soul fighter } v : into battle with hearts aglow! { battle academia } v : { arcane }

she's like a grenade to the face; she's beauty she's grace : { shimmershots } i hope you will one day let the light guide you : { apostisms } are we supposed to be... dating? we haven't even talked... { deadn30n }

[findusinaweek]

The metal bar of the shelf dug into his spine. He was far too concentrated on Demosthenes' lips on his to mind. It would, over the course of the next few minutes, leave a cold stripe across his back that would itch when he re-entered the warm kitchen, adding to his irritation. But for now, he only felt the warmth of Demosthenes' mouth, the puff of air when they parted. He tasted slightly like honey. Perhaps he'd tasted some sweet just before following him in here. He wondered if he had needed something or if it had been an excuse. 

[hyvee]

One piece>

[diveyne]

me thinking about the headcanons i never rewrote or transferred over when i moved blogs...

[nikoisme]

There is so much potential for a modern day retelling of the odyssey and it's great. Fucked up roadtrip. Odysseus takes an uber but keeps ending up in wrong places. He gets stuck on an airport. The possibilities are endless and frankly we don't utilize it as much as we should

[archaic-stranger]

the greek students

seeing the roots of modern life in antiquity

a deck of flashcards, learning the unfamiliar words by heart

quiet afternoons spent in museums

attention to detail and impeccable grammar

socratic dialogues and fast-paced conversations

fragments of ancient pottery, beautiful in their intricacy

perking up when greek letters show up in your math or science classes

a rich vocabulary

reading the works of long-dead philosophers, applying their ideas to the present

stories passed down for thousands of years, still as poignant as if they'd been written yesterday

flaky spanakopita that melts on your tongue

recognizing where mythology and history overlap

reciting poetry until the words flow from your mouth

tracing the letters on an ancient scroll

warming your face under the rays of a mediterranean sun

wondering about the lives of those who came before you

the satisfaction of translating a sentence without looking up any of the words

a pantheon of gods, learning their stories by heart

arguing over the best translations of the Iliad and Odyssey

recognizing greek roots in words you use every day

copying the alphabet until its letters are as familiar to you as those of your native tongue

[aroaceleovaldez]

I HAVE BEEN REMINDED OF SOMETHING i think i've made a post about it before but maybe it's just sitting in my drafts. idk, whatever, I will ramble again. Said thing that reminded me was a tiktok by madison_murrah about how the PJO TV show doesn't get the balance between mundanity and magical correct for pjo and I want to expand on that cause while a.) it totally is a problem in the show and i take issue with it, b.) it is also a problem in later books and i ALSO take issue with that too and i would like to elaborate on it

this got long so ramble of the day below the cut:

so the thing is that PJO is actually pretty unique in it's approach to hidden world modern fantasy. like, hidden world modern fantasy is a decently established genre with a ton of examples, but there's a reason why PJO stands out so much, and that's because technically it's NOT "hidden world." There is very intentionally no distinction between the mundane world and the mythological, at least in first series. They 100% overlap. And you do not necessarily need to be "special" to see the "mythological world-" some mortals are totally naturally clear-sighted, a lot of kids are clear-sighted, and it's like 50/50 for if mortals can become clear-sighted. In fact, most demigods aren't immune to the effects of the Mist, all that really matters is if you're actually thinking about being able to see through it. And there's a reason for that!

In general, this format of the "hidden world" modern fantasy serves two purposes: One, as the series is meant to introduce people to Greek mythology and explain why it is relevant and how it can be relatable in modern contexts, it intentionally juxtaposes myths against modern concepts: Medusa runs an apparently average garden statue store. Procrustes runs a mattress store. The entrance to the Underworld is in LA at a record store. Circe lives on an island paradise that's secretly dangerous. Hydras are like chain donut stores that seem to pop up on every corner. Perseus and his mother struggle in Perseus' childhood but get a happy ending. Calypso has an island paradise where the challenge for the hero of our story is being tempted to leave behind his goals. The plot of Sea of Monsters is blatantly the Odyssey, and it's about Percy trying to get to his best friend (who he shares a literal psychic link to) who is in danger of getting married to someone awful (a literal monster) to help you understand Odysseus trying to get back to Penelope and how important to each other and in sync they are. Battle of the Labyrinth is Theseus and the Labyrinth and it's Percy/Theseus trying to protect his home and his people and fellow kids (like Nico) from the dangers in the maze. These are all supposed to help us understand what is actually going on in those stories.

We also still see how Greek mythology influence shapes and influences western culture in general in their world (which is supposed to be our own and so uses real-world examples) - in government, in architecture, in pop culture - Mythomagic is clearly supposed to be your standard TCG like Magic The Gathering. And in general there is no distinction between where the mythological ends and mundane begins - Camp Half-Blood is both a magical training space for demigods and your run of the mill underfunded summer camp, complete with cheesy camp songs and t-shirts and crafts. Olympus is located on top of the Empire State Building which is operating completely as normal except for when a demigod asks to go to a non-existent floor. Your best friend with a muscular disease in his legs is secretly a satyr. Your brother with down syndrome is a cyclops. Your teacher in a wheelchair is secretly an immortal centaur. Your crappy algebra substitute is a literal fury. But also they're still your teachers. The satyr is still your best friend, the cyclops is still your brother. And that brings me to the second aspect of all of this (which i have talked about before [here] and [here]) - the other purpose it serves is that it is an extension of the overarching disability themes that form the core of the series.

The entire reason that meshing of mundanity and magical is so intertwined is entirely because it's part of the disability metaphor, specifically inspired by early 2000s parenting/teaching concepts for children with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, as trying to reframe disabilities as "superpowers" to empower kids (and still exists in some more modern forms - like referring to disabilities as "being differently-abled") (I talk about it in my previous post on the subject but this generally fell out of favor due to many kids/students finding it belittling of their struggles) - this is why we get the description of ADHD and Dyslexia being framed as "demigod superpowers." In the series this structure is intentionally made to encourage kids to reframe how they view disabilities in general as not something negative but something interesting and fantastical that they may be more open to engage with - and PJO does this in a really nice way where a lot of the disability struggles are still acknowledged and treated sympathetically. Kids still get bullied, Percy and Annabeth struggle in school or with reading/spelling, they grapple with both internal and external ableism. The entire reason for the titan war in the first series, at least from the demigod perspective, is criticizing flawed systems meant to support disabled people that don't do their job effectively or let too many people fall through the cracks. The Mist "hiding" the "mythological world" from mortals (and even some demigods) is about how most abled people (and some undiagnosed people) don't recognize disability struggles until it affects them personally. None of these things are glossed over! It's handled with nuance and care! The series says "you can be disabled and you can be like these fantastical heroes - not in spite of your disability, but alongside it. Neither negates the other." The series was explicitly made so Rick's disabled son could see himself in a hero and learn about mythology for school. Those are the two pillars of the entire franchise: Disability and learning about mythology.

So, when you mess with that "hidden world" structure, the entire thing falls apart and it immediately doesn't feel right, because it's no longer serving either of those two purposes when it needs to be fulfilling both. Late-series Riordanverse has a tendency to compartmentalize the mythological and keep it entirely sectioned off from the mundane. Think about first series and even TKC versus later series - how many mortal characters are there? what do they do? are they just in the background or do they interact with the main cast frequently? are they more than just family or an extension to the main cast? First series we see Percy's classmates frequently, Percy talks about his mundane experiences at school, multiple mortal parent characters (and other mortal characters like Rachel) are active participants in and vital to the plot. We even see a lot of background mortal characters. In TKC, not only are all the magicians technically mortal, but also Sadie's completely mundane best friends help her out. Now think about HoO, or ToA, or even MCGA. Think about the mortal characters in those series. How important are they? Out of the important ones, how much are they in mundane situations versus being almost entirely involved in something mythological? How many aren't related to any of the main cast? How many aren't actively working for a god? The answer is basically zero! Why is that? Because Rick stopped letting the mundane exist. The entire draw of the main series is that Percy does continue to live this mundane life and that adds to his mythological life and makes the balance and meshing between them interesting, but basically all mundanity ceases to exist by HoO. Camp Jupiter is an isolated entirely magic town. Percy and Jason's schools are full of mythological beings as basically the only people they interact with. The Tri's headquarters is an entire giant building in New York City that they completely control that just so happens to ALSO be directly across the street from the local Oracle's house, because even where Rachel lives isn't allowed to be mundane anymore. Why is Olympus just at the top of the Empire State Building versus the Tri having an ENTIRE building? That feels weird and unbalanced, particularly given the difference in importance between those two! Because one is playing into that balance of the meshing of mundane and magical and the other isn't! The show continues this trend. It doesn't allow any of the mythological to exist within mundanity like it functions in the books, which creates a completely different atmosphere and doesn't allow those spaces or scenes or characters to serve their actual narrative purposes, either making it easier to understand mythology contextually or what disability metaphor or representation is occurring there.

It's part of the problem with show!Percy being too mythologically-savvy - Percy is supposed to be the mundane lens unfamiliar with mythology that the audience is learning by proxy through. That's the entire point of the series! If you have Percy already know everything because he's already too ingrained into this mythological environment from the start, and he just exists in this entirely magical world where he understands everything immediately then the literal target audience of the entire franchise (students being introduced to mythology) is left behind! That's part of why the pacing of the show feels so bad! It's rushing through every scene that's more or less the same as the books, particularly anything mythological, because the show is assuming you've already read the books and already know enough mythology to know what it is and what happens and that you don't want to see it again, so it rushes through. The show doesn't explain things that it presumes you already know - worldbuilding, character decisions, basically any mythology, etc, so it doesn't even bother with it.

Later books in the franchise do this too - as long as it's tangentially Greco-Roman mythology, or if it's anything to do with the main series like a reference in TKC or MCGA or etc, it's not going to elaborate much if at all. HoO speeds through Jason's introduction to CHB, and the only reason we get much introduction to Camp Jupiter is because it's actually new. We're no longer trying to contextualize or learn about mythology, it just all becomes set-dressing and references thrown at you rapid-fire as filler. By late HoO and into TOA and TSATS and such, we're not longer even within the realm of pretending like we're adhering to mythology at all. Why is Iris a vegan? Why is Rhea a hippie? Dunno, don't care! Literally doesn't matter! Why are the pandai panda/elephant-monsters and the troglodytes frog-monsters when that's not part of their actual history at all? Well a.) literally just word associations and b.) possibly a little bit of racism (they're supposed to be humans from India and northern Africa, and you made them monsters. cool. okay. and their plotlines totally aren't horrible within those contexts. awesome. please try thinking literally at all next time, thanks). We're not even bothering to look at mythological instances anymore for a basis, a lot of it's written like we're just going based on the first results on google (hi Menoetes and the cacodaemons - the latter of which is not even spelt correctly once in the entire book - which is weird because they do say "daemon" so they know the word. Not that the cacodaemons are mythologically accurate at all because then they would be humanoid. Instead they seem to just be inspired by the things from Doom). None of it serves the purpose of the narrative at all; we're literally just making random choices, some of them quite distasteful! In large part due to refusing to acknowledge the actual contexts of the myths and how that might translate into something similar or equivalent a modern setting to help conceptualize it - something the first series did inherently by design. And we need this! A.) So that you're less likely to make bad decisions because you are inherently thinking about the historical and cultural contexts of these things and how to compare/explain it, and b.) because the audience for later books/the other series and the show is going to be the same as the first series! Those nonsensical references may be at best cameos to people who are already familiar with them, but if your intended audience is new to mythology then making references like that is just going to leave people out of the loop! You don't shift your target audience in the middle of a franchise!

Later books in the series and the show are failing to understand what the first series was actually doing narratively and how it was approaching these subjects and its audience. When you fail to do that, it completely messes up the general worldbuilding and the core themes and intentions of the franchise as a whole. Once you lose touch with that you might as well just be writing a completely different franchise. You need to approach it from the same lens or else it will feel completely off, because otherwise you've lost all base touchstones that make the series what it is.

[deadbaguette]

Crack AU treated seriously: Diomdes goes to Ithaca with a twist

So this would generally be your typical Diomedes going to Ithaca AU. Presumably after getting exiled (? Is there a better word for it?), instead of going to modern day Italy he goes to Ithaca under the impression that he’ll see Odysseus there. But, of course he doesn’t because The Odyssey is happening. The twist that makes NO SENSE and is just purely my want to see my platonic rarepair happen (Telemachus and Neoptolemus/Pyrrhus), and the twist is: for whatever reason, Neo is there with Diomedes. Don’t ask why because I could not explain to you a good reason to make this happen lmfao

Story elaborated below but it’s a little long be warned

I like the dynamic of Neoptolemus and Diomedes, mostly because in so many ways as soldiers Diomedes foils/contrasts Achilles but in so many ways parallels his son. Diomedes gets on begrudgingly with Neo, and I could go on a whole other rant on a different post about some fake dynamics/scenarios for just them, but the main point in this post is that Neo somehow SOMEHOW tags along with Diomedes. They reach Ithaca together and meet Penelope and Telemachus.

They greet Diomedes and Pyrrhus with good courtesy, but the elephant in the room of “hold on where tf is your husband??? he was so eager to go back to you guys???” is very present. One way or another Penelope explains the situation, that being Odysseus is absent/mia (much to his own dismay) and the suitors all trying to wed Penelope. Diomedes is sad obv (I’m not gonna go super big into the angst right now) but he tries to brainstorm with Penelope on solutions for her predicament. Since Odysseus was his closest friend (more than friend for me personally but u can interpret it as platonic if u want) and he knows that Odysseus would want what’s best for his wife and son, they think of a solution that can the guarantee of their safety as of now until they hear news of Odysseus. That solution is fake marriage bcs I am a bit of a sucker for that troupe.

But back to Neoptolemus because he’s here too, I want him to bond with Telemachus what with their dads not being here (one’s dead one’s absent). Neo is like way stronger than Telemachus so at first he thinks he’s a bit of a wimp (keep in mind they’re like both teenagers, Neo’s life was just kinda fucked up), but over time they get along better. Pyrrhus’ relationship with Odysseus is a little complicated, so while Penelope and Diomedes might share all the good stories/parts of Odysseus with, Pyrrhus got off to a slightly rocky start with him lol. What with Odysseus taking him away from his mom and basically all the war shenanigans (war crimes), Telemachus for the first time has a whole and humanized version of his dad. It’s more than what the suitors have said out of malice and jealousy, the things Neo has told him have opened up the trickery/cunning side of Odysseus more than he’d known before. He’s jealous that it seems like everyone knows more about his dad than him, but he’s grateful to have someone his age who would view Odysseus more like he would: an annoying dad/uncle??? (Neo vehemently objects to this, and Odysseus would too. “You’re not my fucking dad!!!” “Holy shit thank the GODS for that!!!”)

All in all, happy family. Odysseus returns home to Penelope and Telemachus, and now two surprise guests too. Telemachus has like 3 kinda parents now (Diomedes might be more like an uncle) and a kinda brother/friend/??? I love my little delusional found family. Odysseus is more than a little surprised, considering this IS Neoptolemus. Kid did a 180° in terms of personality in Troy and then ANOTHER 180° somewhere on Ithaca at some point. Or maybe more like a 90° turn in terms of personality, I imagine Telemachus is the most sane of the family and it is much to his dismay.

And when they all eventually die (Diomedes won’t ascend to godhood here I want him to be in the underworld with the rest of the fam) they’ll live happily in the underworld and Pyrrhus can catch up with his dad and mom.