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having thoughts about Molossus (and technically Pielus and Pergamus but i think it affects him more)

he's half Greek, half Trojan, but in all the stories he hears, those are opposites, different sides of a conflict. does he have to pick a side? his mother is from Cilicia, father from Skyros, stepmother from Sparta, stepfather from Troy. yet he's from Epirus? what cultural heritage does he have? when his mother weaves him Trojan garments, do they fit right on him? when his father gifts him a Skyrian pony, does it feel as instinctual to ride as a Trojan horse? he looks too Trojan to be trusted by the Greeks, none of them want him as a son in law. too Greek to fit in with his Trojan family, he sticks out in group portraits.

and then there's Andromache. when does he learn about Astyanax? at what age does he come to understand why she holds him at arm's length, why she looks at him as though she is comparing him to somebody else, why all his milestones are marked with a sense of melancholy? it gets easier for her with each subsequent child, but the damage is already done with Molossus. and how does he grapple with the knowledge that he is the product of rape? that he wasn't just unplanned, but throughly *unwanted?* how does he square his memories of his father with his mother's memories of a monster?

people whose parents or grandparents lived through a famine are more likely to hold onto fat reserves. people who are pregnant during or after wars have children who grow up with stress responses as though they lived through the conflict themselves. being an infant during a time of danger or scarcity will flood your brain with stress hormones and teach you habits that will effect your behaviour into adulthood, even as your memory of that time fades. Molossus will carry invisible scars passed down through Andromache just as much as she passed down her eye colour or the shape of her nose. he will flinch at raised hands, hoard food, and struggle to fall asleep, but unlike her, he won't understand why.

and through it all, he can't even talk to his own mother, the person who is supposed to comfort him when he needs it most. he can't share his struggles and express how he relates to her, for fear of burdening her, when he's sure his mere existence is already such a burden. he knows already she will not hold him, or if she does, it won't feel genuine. and he knows why. it isn't her fault, but it isn't his either. he knows he shouldn't hold it against her, because she's had it so hard, but he does, because he's just a kid, and then he hates himself for resenting her.

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homer's minor characters being canon fodder and their introductions being their obituaries and their kleos being preserved purely by their obituary being included in the epic rendering them immortal if only for one narrative moment

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reading the Iliad is an experience

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this was just a study that got out of hand (hence the non-existent costume design) but anyway. i think about hektor and andromache a lot. especially hektor choosing to leave troy's walls knowing he will die and knowing that his city won't get razed until he does. and how he can't really not go out and die. and andromache knowing that.

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Pyrrhus get behind me I'll save you

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Helenus and Pyrrhus practicing for the long walk from Troy.

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one thing that i love about the gods in the Iliad is that even though Athena and Zeus' relationship is shown to be exceptional by virtue of her birth, Athena is portrayed as absolutely closer to Hera, at least for the duration of the war. Hera said oh this one wasn't born out of wedlock on a technicality? great cool she's mine now

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Ariadne

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I think Dionysus is really only ever serious when people are being mean to his wife

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Dionysus rescuing Ariadne from the Underworld is the most romantic thing I've ever heard in my life

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beg no more, you fawning dog--begging me by my parents! would to god my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw--such agonies you have caused me!

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Helen of Sparta but she is about to save her husband, Menelaus is the damsel now !

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messy sketch of a tired Deidamia and little Pyrrhus

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so many people headcanoning their achaean fave as uniquely sympathetic to the trojans. so few acknowledging that the number who voted to spare polyxena's life from the whims of a ghost is: literally only agamemnon.

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ONG ODYSSEY TELEMACHUS WAS SO GIRLBOSS-

SPEAK YO TRUTH KINGGGGGGG 🗣️🗣️🗣️

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hera’s son

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ares, aphrodite, and harmonia

‘he feeds her bloodlust and she dresses him in softness