#homeric hyperfixation haze

[yea-baiyi]

i keep thinking about the odyssey i am THINKING about wei wuxian as odysseus. you were dead. its been years since you’ve seen your family. the child you left behind is almost a man. you wear a face they don’t recognise, you sneak in through the back door. the dog gives your identity away. the world knows it’s you when you draw your weapon. the person you love recognises you by the original symbol of your love—a secret that no one else in the world knows about, still, because they kept it safe for all these years. you get the chance to go back and despite everything, you found home waiting for you; he kept your place and raised your son and he was still there waiting for you when you got back. tell me o muse, about a complicated man i am extremely not okay

[yea-baiyi]

i’m sure people smarter than me have said this, but the odyssey is the sequel to the monomyth actually. in the hero’s journey the hero departs from home, from innocence, from safety, to fulfil his destiny. in homer’s the odyssey, the war is over, the destiny fulfilled. next comes the real fight, the unwinnable fight—to return to everything you left home to fight for.

in the first half of the poem, while odysseus fights tooth and nail to return home, his home fights with its last breath to give odysseus a home to return to. and time is running out. his wife penelope is down to her last desperate excuse. suitors have invaded his home, eating through his household and his wealth. his son, telemachus, almost grown, leaves home for the first time to find out if odysseus is still alive, if there is still a reason to keep fighting. having lost everything he had, over and over, odysseus is finally allowed to arrive in his homeland. at first he doesn’t recognise it. and he is cursed to look old and decrepit, so that none of his loved ones would recognise him.

for the second half of the poem, he has returned and miraculously, he has not been displaced or forgotten. but now he has to reclaim what was his. and removing the rot, restoring this place to the home odysseus remembers, is long and painful. instead of walking through the front door, he must sneak in through the back or risk being thrown out. not a single person knows him by sight; odysseus must prove his identity over and over, to every member of his household. he must retell story after story, share secret after secret, reveal every marking or scar upon his body, to finally be recognised by his own family. and then he destroys every last trace of the intruders—kills the men, kills the servants, wipes the slate clean.

by athena’s magic, he is restored to his former youth and glory as he reunites with his wife. the families of the slain suitors try to seek revenge, but zeus, lord of the skies, intervenes. odysseus, filled with his god-given strength, is home, and ready to fight to protect it.

it’s a complete sequel to the heroes journey, but what makes it part of the monomyth is the horrible truth about odysseus’ tale: that it’s impossible. that you will leave, and your home will change in your absence, and someone might fill your place; your family won’t recognise you, your wife met someone else, intruders have destroyed your home, and you will never be as young as you were. you will return and you will fight with every ounce of your strength and it won’t be enough to turn back the clock. it’s the terrible last chapter to every hero’s story that we don’t like to talk about.

and yet, of course, it’s the same story we tell over and over: we’ve won the war, now all we want is to return home, but home is no longer somewhere we can reach.

[yea-baiyi]

fuck it, yushi-huang as iphigenia

[yea-baiyi]

oh my god i was going thru one of ur tags to find ur yushi huang/iphigenia post (banger btw) and i saw smth abt hua cheng as theseus n idk if u have talked abt it but if u haven't pls do i will pay u (i wont) (also u dont have to if u dont want to ofcofc)

hello i’ve been sitting on this ask for months

i’ve really wanted to post about hua cheng as theseus, but i have no clue how to translate my thoughts, bc it’s just a jumble of “stain them, i don’t care” and “fuck he’s the king of athens he invented ghost city” and “FUCK it’s the red string that saves you from the maze” and “lmfao trans ghost shapeshifter ship of theseus motherfucker”

(quote dump beneath the cut)

Hua Cheng as Theseus

Herakles by Euripedes (translated by Anne Carson)

Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles (translated by Ian Johnston)

Theseus and Ariadne by Angelica Kauffman

Life of Theseus by Plutarch

do you see my vision

[yea-baiyi]

Pei Ming from TGCF is Achilles

hear me out ok, this started when i read iphegenia in aulis and realised she’s literally yushi huang (king’s daughter offers herself up sacrifice to protect her nation from war and has her throat slit) and then it spiralled into me researching the greek plays and homer and realising there are a ton of similarities/parallels between tgcf and the greek myths and so after weeks of hyperfixation fog here is my argument:

Why Pei Ming Is Definitely Achilles

1. He is notably the warrior to witness Yushi Huang’s sacrifice and admire her bravery (Iphegenia in Aulis)

2. Turns down being king because it would distract him from the joy being a WARRIOR (Iliad)

3. Peak Pei Ming behaviour: Meets a hot woman on the battlefield, kills her, then weeps over her dead body because he has fallen in love with her beauty (Posthomerica)

4. On that note, lots of infatuations with women but zero actual relationships

5. Pei Ming’s sword is called 明光 which literally means clear and bright — while Achilles legendary armour is notably described as glittering and golden. (Iliad)

6. Pei Ming’s sword fuses with Rong Guang and becomes a vengeful ghost — after Achilles death, his armour also becomes somewhat of a curse, as Ajax goes mad and kills himself after fighting over the armour (Ajax).

7. Himbo (do I even need to elaborate)

the only thing missing is Patroclus tbh but this entire thing has been sitting on my mind for weeks it is so hilarious. anyway this has been sitting in my drafts for days, so might as well post it and add on if I can think of anything else.

[yea-baiyi]

the problem with trying to summarise my thoughts on tgcf and greek myths is i honest to god don’t know where to even start

[yea-baiyi]

can someone do a painting of penelope at the loom but instead it’s lan wangji with his guqin

[yea-baiyi]

nice to see my wwx post was a hit with the tumblr girlies, i could talk about hua cheng as theseus but idk if y’all are ready for that conversation

[yea-baiyi]

not really an ask, i just wanted to tell you that i think about your yushi huang/iphigenia post all. the. time. i'm obsessed with it, someone please send help

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ thank you!! that post was a special project to me, the idea was haunting me for days and i’m happy how it turned out. i’m glad you liked it too!!!!

link to the post they’re talking about since i don’t think that many people have seen it

(i didn’t answer this ask originally bc these kind of comments make me feel so happy i just wanted to keep them in my inbox so i could see <3 but alas i have to clean out this inbox)

[yea-baiyi]

gonna make a tags list for this blog for my own reference:

(updated 07/03/2023)

shows, books and characters generally tagged with abbreviations, chinese name preferred (so shl rather than woh, cql over the untamed). unless it’s a 2 syllable chinese name then USUALLY i tag in full (wuxi, xiao zhan, etc). ship name usually in full.

my art and my edits will generally be tagged as such

- meta stuff: general meta posts, including mine! sometimes i just go off in the tags idk - art stuff, gif stuff, art ref

- funnies, faves

- fic prompt

specific fandom tags

cql:

- big cql meta - all posts that cover or are reference for the giant all encompassing cql meta that exists in my head, pretty much just my personal cql meta tag

- heart eyes hanguang jun - lwj love

- wwx beloved girlie - when wwx is so fucking Gender

- happy hanguang june / july

- baby lwj - he’s a baby ok i hoard posts of teenage lwj and i cry

- adhd wwx / cradles gently - look i will project my adhd self full force onto wwx and nobody can stop me

- autistic lwj - i’m working on a detailed analysis on this one so current posts are mostly for my own reference!

- jl’s skywalker moment - reference tag for my cql fic

- lxc loves his didi - look the one thing i love abt lxc with no reservations is how much he loves his didi

- lan jingyi is my favourite character - bc he is

- jiang cheng stannery - this is a pro-jiang cheng zone

- yunmeng heroes/trio - i love pain!!!

- i can’t believe i have to stan jzx - jzx meta..... 

tgcf:

- xianxia jesus - xie lian tag

- my hyperfixation demon - hua cheng tag

- tgcf reread/rereading tgcf- all my notes n ramblings while rereading tgcf

- hua cheng is the normal one in this relationship - yelling abt hualian

- old men au - lmao

- homeric hyperfixation haze - posts on mxtx and greek mythology

- flop byron demon xuan - he xuan tag

- yelling is a love language - fengqing tag

- hx has beef and sqx is leaf - beefleaf tag

other:

- qiye screaming - qiye is phenomenal i still can not shut the fuck up about it

- best character ever created - ye baiyi obviously

- man of the soft baby eyes - for my zhang zhehan obsession

- my favourite little man - dongfang qingcang tag