#Little Illiad

[jadagul]

Most people have heard of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but they're actually two parts of an eight-part Epic Cycle of poems that tell the whole Trojan War story.

In particular, neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey contain the Judgment of Paris, or Achilles dying to an arrow, or the Trojan horse. The first two stories we have from other authors summarizing the relevant poems; the third we have from the retelling in the Aeneid, which I suppose is also an author "summarizing" the original poem.

I was just reading a plot summary of the Little Iliad, which covers the period between the death of Achilles and the Trojan Horse gambit. And this plot is, like, batshit insane. It reads like either a 20th percentile genre novel or a JRPG plot summary.

I kidnapped an exiled prince from the enemy city! He told me of three prophecies that need to be fulfilled for the city to fall. Now we need to go recruit a new party member, go on a quest to recover an ancient artifact, and finally break into the enemy city to steal their load-bearing artifact.

(and that's just like a third of it!)

[alzirrx]

Homer: This is the lead hero of my second epic poem. He has a mind like Zeus’ own and possesses unparalleled strength, courage, nobility, cunning, and wit. He’s nearly undefeated in battle and has mercilessly overcome every trial he has faced.

Me: babygirl

Homer: what

[trashpidgeon48]

I am a tragedy enjoyer first, human being second.

[athamad]

The og wife guy fr

[katerinaaqu]

Homer Describing Odysseus: A head shorter than Agamemnon but wider in shoulders and in chest, strong legs and arms

Modern fanart: OK I shall make Odysseus shorter than literally ANY other character!

Like...come on guys! 😆 Agamemnon was also described to be taller than many men around the Greeks hahahaha and okay even if Odysseus could potentially be shorter than many other heroes in the war why the heck is literally EVERY character taller?! Including females?! Hahaha 😆 I mean I get it for goddesses that by n large they are pictured as tall etc but people like Penelope? Hahaha like even nowadays average height for women in Greece is like roughly 165-170 m tall yet alone back then! Hahaha she could potentially be at least at the same height as Odysseus if not shorter like come on!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Like allow some girls be shorter than average or average hahahaha 😆 😂 😆

[twist-shout-and-shells]

So, here's a little peek at that odydio fic I've been talking about here. Is this anything? I'm kind of uncertain about the characterisation.

Content warning: blood, nsfw

Context: year three, after a battle

Sthenelus lets him in with a suspicious glare. The ox skin that serves as door to Diomedes’ tent falls closed behind him, trapping him in the stifled room. The whole place rinks of post–battle rush.

“What do you want?” Diomedes asks without looking at him. 

Odysseus stops in his tracks. He’s seen Diomedes naked before. He’s seen Diomedes covered in blood before. Both at the same time—that’s new.

“I…” He clears his throat. “Someone mentioned you got hurt. I just wanted to…”

To see how you were. To make sure you’re alright. 

He could brush it off as a cordiality between commanders if they didn’t have a past—short as it is. But as he stands there, faced with Diomedes’ temperate indifference and his marble-sculptured, blood-soaked back side, he realises it looks a bit too much as if he cares.

“I’m not. It was just a scratch,” Diomedes says, shrugging one shoulder to show off a shallow, diagonal cut. A stray arrow, probably. 

The rest of the blood is obviously not his. The Argive scrubs at his chest with a wet rag, accomplishing little. There’s dried blood on his thighs, his arms, even on his face, sticking to his stubble, which is longer than he usually allows it to grow. 

Diomedes wrings out the rag and dampens it again. The water on the basin is stained pink.

Odysseus, like a suicidal lamb walking straight into the mouth of a hungry lion, steps close to him. Diomedes’ turns with a frown, and he deftly takes the cloth from the Argive’s fingers.

“You missed a spot,” he drawls, eyes fixed on Diomedes’, and rubs the cloth down his chest. 

He wants to clean him up with his tongue, press his face to his pulse point, and smell the number of casualties on him, feel the strong beating of his heart against his skin.

Diomedes watches him. His coal eyes darken when Odysseus’ hand travels to his back, leaving his skin damp on its wake, and then lower.

“Tired of keeping yourself company, Laertiades?” He asks, giving him that snarl-like smirk of his.

He brushes his nose to Diomedes’ dagger-sharp collarbone.

“Leave my father out of this.” 

Before he can dip his hand between Diomedes’ thighs, the Argive seizes his wrist.

“We tried this, Odysseus. It didn’t work.”

He turns his best smirk up to Diomedes, the one that usually makes people tremble in anticipation of whatever disastrously clever schemes he has in mind. Diomedes meets it with a stern eyebrow.

“Well…” His free hand cradles the nape of Diomedes’ neck, fingers brushing his blond-soaked curls. “I hear mistakes are better the second time you make them.”

Diomedes shakes his head slightly, moving Odysseus’ hand to his thigh to rub at the blood on it. Odysseus pictures what happened by the shape of the stain—a Trojan soldier on Diomedes’ arms, a knife to his stomach, his guts spilling out and soaking through Diomedes’ tunic where his pterygia didn’t cover it.

“I’m not your wife,” the Argive says, more softly than the last time, but by no means sweetly. “I won’t be nice to you.”

“That’s good.” He drops the rag. “‘Cause I don’t need you to be nice to me.”

Diomedes pulls him in by the waist. Their mouths clash like two beasts in the wild—untamed and hungry and far too keen on devouring each other. Diomedes tastes like dried sweat and rusted copper. His skin is a furnace under Odysseus’ hand, and his grip on Odysseus’ waist is bruising.

There’s a rather fine bed in the tent, but they end up on the leather hides on the floor beside Odysseus’ ruined tunic. 

For a moment, he thinks Diomedes will have his way with him, and it makes him dizzy with want as his blood flows south too fast. But the Argive straddles his hips, and Odysseus holds onto his thighs and stares up at him—glorious and wild and covered in the blood of the innocents they travelled all this way to slaughter over someone else’s wife. If Diomedes wanted to strangle him to death right now, he wouldn’t be opposed. At least he’d be free of the war. 

Diomedes’ teeth graze his neck. He bucks his hips up, desperate for friction, and moans when those canines dig into his skin. It’s harsh, and it’s mean, and Odysseus tilts his head to the side to give him more room to bite and lick and suck to his heart’s desire.

There’s an utter lack of control in it all that he’s never seen in the young man before. Diomedes is their most experienced commander, and while he is a terrifying sight on the plains, he fights with god-like discipline, with the confidence of someone who has trained his whole life to yield a sword and throw a spear. Like a perfectly contained flame. 

As he pins Odysseus’ shoulders to the floor of his tent and rides his hips until pink rivulets of sweat roll down his back, it’s like a torch dropped onto an endless, dry field. It spreads, and it spreads, and it spreads, and all Odysseus can do is let the flames lap him up. He holds onto Diomedes’ waist and lets him take what he wants from him. 

For once in his life, Odysseus has no clever words to say. Diomedes grunts out his pleasure, framed above him by the dim light of the tent like a divine vision. There’s blood on Odysseus' skin, blood that doesn’t belong to either of them. They’re not hurt, not yet. An arrow scrape to Diomedes’ shoulder is nothing compared to how much they could hurt each other.

[simsim54]

There’s something incredibly endearing and heartwarming about the taller person in the relationship being the little spoon.

Like Achilles may be hailed as Aristos Achaion on the battlefield, but in the quiet of the night, behind all that bravado, there is left a man who felt safe only in the arms of his therapon, his beloved, Patroclus.

[moonymellyyy]

You with the dark curls…

[rrenatass]

YES I TURN ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS INTO PONIES, SO WHAT!

this designs are heavily based on my designs of "the song of achilles", the right ones are the characters before the war and the left ones are after (or during, in patroclus case)

i made something silly here hehe

[inuthe3rd]

genuine question, why didnt Athena choose Penelope as her protege, since she was as bright and had presence and power just as his husband...?

also, shouldn't they kiss? /joking

[sirjo-esque]

I just woke up but Jay saying he might make a musical based on the Illiad is already the highlight of my day

[lunian]

by pretty big accident found this little pretty book I considered to get one day with all my obsession to ancient mythology/literature nowadays

its so nice looking and I realized that English version is not harder to understand, ironically

[simplenefelibata]

i'm unwell they make me unwell i haven't been this excited over writing a fanfic since Desolación/Desolation😭

[silver-colour]

Hey tumblr hivemind I'm looking for a good adaptation of the Odyssey any recs?

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

bringing books and research papers on my hometown visit, as the dreams of my childhood would have wanted