#OOOH ATHENA!!

[bea-schuyler]

and all i hear are SCREAMS

[dootznbootz]

Odysseus: "I need her to be Mine~" Athena: "...I can introduce you two." Odysseus: "What? Really?! Wait, you know her?" Athena: "Uh, yeah? You think you're my only pet trickster? You just said she was the 'smartest girl in the game', you think I'm gonna ignore that? I'll be right back."

Meanwhile~

Penelope: "...So...The guy who has been watching me from around corners before running away is also one of your favored mortals?" Athena: "Yes, I'm sorry, he's usually a lot smarter than this." Penelope: "...Eh, You know I've had stupid moments too. I'll go say hi."

[flamingtoads]

Happy Vampire Bobby Day! 🧛✨

[loz-the-noob]

I’m trialing a new art style and I started by thinking about how Ema would look in it. I kind of hate it but I’m posting it for posterity and to get second opinions(?)

[superloves4]

Okay, the pjo show is here and it got me thinking of demi-god Elrond and Elros kidnap fam, but then who is the godly parent, like

Eareandil who is a mariner and leaves when Elrond and Elros are little leaving them and their mom alone

or Maglor, associated more tangentially with water, but more bitter feelings to be explored

[livingalittle1117]

Moodboard for @writing5ever fic on the percabeth do not confess au

[dreadeves]

have not touched ons in a really long while but by god. epic the musical au with odysseus!yū, penelope!mika, the humans as odysseus’ crew and the vampires as the suitors. it fits a little too well

[semisomni]

oof ouch

[room-temperature-orange-juice]

I’m sorry but if it was Odysseus and 30(ish?) years earlier, Athena would not have gone “oooh maybe I pushed you a bit too hard”

She would’ve gone

“GET THE FUCK UP ARE YOU A KING OR A SAD DISABLED FISH I DONT CARE HOW MANY BONES ARE BROKEN YOU CAN BITE HIM DONT YOU DARE PASS OUT

[capsizedskeleton]

i okay. the thing about athena is she sounds so much more mortal this saga. the oooh i pushed you too hard and the you're a good kid, not to mention how pleading she is in all of god games. she's acknowledged her faults and how she has a second chance. how she can give that to odysseus. fuckkkkkk it reminds me of how people have historically liked greek gods because of their humanness, their fallible and fickle nature. athena is more human because of her ability to grow

[hisbucky]

Bobby: Evan Laurent "Buck" Buckley Grant-Nash. Buck: What'd I do?! What did I do?!?! Harry: Oooh, he full named you! Maddie: Harry, please. This could be serious. May: Yeah, serious enough to bring out the popcorn. Bobby, grimly: There's a little rumor going on about you and my quarterback. Care to explain? Buck: ...Yeah, Eddie asked me out. Everyone: *gasps* Buck, defiantly: And I said yes! Bobby: No, you didn't! You take that back! Athena, sipping coffee: It's about damn time.

[mer-acle]

Oooh I just had an idea (I'll take sentences my characters never wanna hear for 500)

Remember in God Games when Athena basically takes an involuntary time dive to an important moment of her life?

(it's honestly kinda near-death-experience coded but that's not the point I'm trying to make)

What if in the aftermath of it all that happens again.

Extra what if, what if someone is close to her/touching her right in that moment and gets pulled along with her.

[doggirlbuck]

anyway details of this au under the cut because i wrote a lot 🫶🫶🫶

i think itd be common for firefighters to have a personal water-type that they take with them to fires to help out. bobby has a poliwrath that he got as a polywag when he first moved to la, chimney has a psyduck, hen has a marill, buck has a squirtle, eddie has a gyrados and a vaporeon. specifically eddies vaporeon was an eevee that shannon got around the time eddie was discharged from the military, with the intention of it being a family pet, and she left it with eddie and chris when she moved to la. christopher and eddie talked about if they wanted to evolve her (i just decided the vaporeon is a girl) and what they should evolve her into, they agreed on vaporeon.

also i dont think many of the characters would be trainers and do much actual battling, mostly keeping pokemon as pets or to help with their jobs, but i think buck was a pretty successful trainer and collected gym badges from different states when he was traveling in his 20s. his squirtle is pretty new and young, he didnt get it until he was a firefighter for a few years and decided he wanted a water type like everyone else. other than his squirtle, he has an eevee (that hes scared to let evolve because the amount of choices is overwhelming and he likes the idea that it has the potential to be anything), an arcanine, a luxray, a raichu, and a mareep, (arcanine luxray and raichu are pretty high levels, hes had them the longest)

i also think christopher from a really young age would be really really interested in being a trainer, so when eddie comes home from the military and its just him and chris, he takes chris with him to do battles and gyms together as a way to earn money while also spending quality time with chris. other than his vaporeon and gyrados,(which he and chris got as a magikarp probably won as a prize in some carnival or fair, goldfish style) he has an ursaring, a lucario, an absol, a gengar, a munchlax, and a skitty. (skitty and munchlax dont really battle much he just thinks theyre cute and likes having them around) around the time chris is 11 or 12 and ready to start his own pokemon journey, buck takes up a sort of mentor position for him since hes the most experienced trainer of the group. (eventually chris would start collecting his own pokemon instead of just battling alongside his dad but i havent gotten that far yet and i really should be asleep instead of typing all this out)

as for chim and hen, they have a plusle and minun (chim has minun hen has plusle) chim i think is in 3rd place when in comes to amount of experience pokemon training among the 118, he did it as a hobby and to earn a little money before becoming a firefighter, he gets back into it later because buck complains that his pokemon are getting bored since he started firefighting, and he wants to teach chris, so he wants to get back into it but more casually, he eddie and chim start battling for fun in their free time (sometimes bobby begrudgingly agrees to battle, mostly because poliwrath seems interested and hes incapable of saying no to his beloved partner pokemon). anyway chim other than his psyduck and minun, has an abra, a chikorita (he got shortly after buck got him back into battling), a murkrow, and a bewear. (he and murkrow have a sort of adversarial frenemy relationship but they still love each other 🫶)

hen has aforementioned marill and plusle, she has a vulpix, and oddish, and a chansey (which helps her with peoples injuries on calls) and her karen and denny for a while have a herdier that she saved from an earthquake 🫶

maddie i think likes collecting cute pokemon after she comes to la, she has a cubone, a dratini, a teddiursa, and a floatzel (the floatzel was an egg buck was given by another trainer, he leveled it up and gave it to maddie to protect her, mainly to put his own mind at ease but she appreciates it and her and floatzel become really close)

anyway thats all i have i will probably also come up with what pokemon christopher and athena would have but athena is a toughy because she is a cop (cops in pokemon usually have arcanines) but she is allergic to dogs and i am not about to retcon that so i have to come up with something else anyway there is no point to any of this im just having fun. ok. send post

my brain is constantly in random au hell forever. im coming up with a 911 pokemon au currently. no reason why. just for fun i guess

[sarnai4]

If the Olympians gods were Olympian athletes, what sports do you think they would participate in?

Oooh, fun question! Okay, let's see. Starting with my faves.

Athena: She should do something solo that also showcases her mind. I could see her doing the discus and shot put. She'd be able to analyze where everything is going to line up based on the wind. Her mind would be going full calculation mode and she'd always get it super far.

Ares: He would do a team sport since he's used to being in charge of the Spartan army. I could see him playing football. He'd love that rough contact and would tackle the mess out of everybody. EVERYBODY. The other team would genuinely fear him.

Demeter: She'd do the bobsleigh and other winter Olympic sports because we know that in the summer, she's going to be around her daughter the entire time.

Hades: I don't know why, but I see him doing shooting. It wouldn't require him to move that much and he can just seem really calm with it while getting bull's eye every time. He constantly shocks his family with his accuracy.

Hermes: He's doing track and field and beating everyone in every race he's ever been in.

Artemis: She's definitely doing archery. No way around that.

Apollo: I know he did archery too, but I don't want to do a double since that's repetitive. I'll have him do wrestling since he's shockingly good at that.

Dionysus: I think he'd do acrobatic gymnastics. That way, he can kind of tell a story (bringing in his theater side).

Hephaestus: He could do table tennis. He'd create a type of super fast wheelchair to move him exactly where he needed to be in time to hit the ball.

Zeus: Triathlon because this lets him prove he can do three things instead of one. Anything to be on the screen longer. It'll give him bragging rights later.

Hera: I see her as a figure skater. It might be due to me imagining that peacock aspect and it's making me think of grace. She'd enjoy the attention too.

Poseidon: Is swimming cheating? Does he worry about that? Nope.

Hestia: Weird, but I'm thinking of sailing. She's in the house so much that maybe getting to be out sailing is her one way to really explore. She gets better at this and ends up going to the Olympics.

[helpami-flaffy]

EPIC THE MUSICAL OPINIONS, VERY OPINIONS, VERY MINE.

IF YOU DON'T WANT SOME NEGATIVITY DON'T READ. THIS IS NOT PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE I SWEAR.

MOSTLY COMPILED AT NIGHT, SOME REVISION.

PLEASE DO NOT COME AT ME.

.....................

After this saga I'm left kind of perplexed about epic.

What is epic trying to say here? What's the musical's stance on ruthlessness?

Because it isn't very clear to me anymore.

Is it bad? Is it good and just? Is it a necessary evil? Is it worth becoming something monstrous just to achieve your goals?

The thing I'm trying to say is:

Is epic a tragedy or a triumph?

Until the vengeance saga I thought it was the former, but now I'm not so sure.

Throughout the story Odysseus takes desicions that either side with what I'll call the 'open arm mentality' or the 'ruthless' mentality.

He gets punished for both a number of times.

He kills Astianax so he doesn't have to fear his future vengeance.

He spares Polyphemus and that leads to 558 men dying.

He appeals to Circe's humanity and that leads her to freeing his men and helping him get to the underworld.

He sacrificed 6 men to Scylla and that leads to 'mutiny' and 'thunder bringer' where the rest of his crew dies and he ends up in calypso's island where she imprisoned him for 7 years.

First act of ruthlessness= good outcome

First act of open arms= bad outcome

Second act of open arms= good outcome

Second act of ruthlessness= bad outcome

(I forgot to add the sirens, that encounter is kinda strange tho.  Ody kills all of them but I wouldn't call that ruthlessness. Ruthlessness is doing whatever needs doing to get what you want. He needed to know how to get home, and killing the sirens after doesn't matter in that context. I guess it's good for future sailors? I'll count this as an altruistic positive I guess)

This breakdown isn't perfect, lots of other things happen and some things Ody does can't really be neatly categorized by this simple metric imo, but I'll continue anyway as it feels to me the story breaks down his actions in a sort of similar dichotomy.

All in all the 'good to bad' ratio seems pretty balanced, right? It's not always ruthlessness that wins the day, and 'open arms' solutions don't always work out.

So why does it feel like we're supposed to root for ruthless Odysseus? Why does it feel like the story wants us to believe that being the monster is a good if 'somewhat sad' outcome?

Why am I saying this? Well, it's 600 strikes.

Actually just- all the vengeance saga.

Why is what Ody does here supposed to be cool and awesome? Because, like, that is absolutely the angle here.

Complete with a, honestly absurd, anime power up and fighting-god-one-on-one moment.

Why does the story break down it's logic,  breaks suspension of disbelief (at least for me), to get Odysseus into a position were he can torture Poseidon into letting him go?

Wich?? Btw should not work??

Why is this how he wins?

Why are the ghosts of his friends and family no longer spectres of regrets for but terrifying promises of death?

What does this say? Was Odysseus wrong about their sacrifice? Was regret ever only a noose around his neck? I'm looking too deeply into this one lol.

In 'get in the water' we even get the obligatory appeal to Poseidon's mercy just to hammer down once again that 'open arms' doesn't work, even tho it's Athena's appeal to her father's mercy that set Odysseus free in the first place.

The saga ends with Poseidon asking Odysseus how he'll sleep at night after all of this and Ody, in admittedly the coldest line ever written on paper, says:

"Next to my wife"

...

This is cool.

Extremely cool even.

But that's kind of the problem I have with it.

The song ends in a badass way. This is meant to be the final zing to seal Odysseus' cool ass victory.

And in all of this, not once, does the story seem to recognize that...well...

Poseidon won.

Hell not even Poseidon recognized it!

I'm not even saying "OoOh if it was realistic Poseidon would have have won!" (Tho yeah, ask me about that, lol)

In the great ideological battle that's at the center of Epic: the musical, Poseidon was the ultimate victor.

Ruthless is what wins at the end, it's what gets Odysseus home. Odysseus might be a monster but he's a victorious one.

I feel people and the musical both don't really acknowledge that.

That even if Poseidon lost the battle he ultimately won the war.

Were is the irony? Where's the bitterness and sorrow? We're Poseidon's bloodied, mocking smirk revelling in his victory?

Is Epic a tragedy or a power fantasy?

[firinnie]

Athena and her bf(not)f - Pallas

Oooh a pair of young friends who definitely have nothing bad to look forward to, right? Just a happy ending! For both, riiight!?

But seriously, I really like this one myth about Athena having something like a childhood, but Zeus, as Zeus does, did not take responsibility for his child, so gave it to his nephew to raise. One of Triton's children was girl named Pallas, who was supposed to be Athena's childhood friend. In general, I wanted to make her quite unique here, not as a character with a mermaid tail (as Triton is often portrayed) but a human with elements of a sea creature. I added a bit of pearls, and young 'Thena also wears them, after all, she was raised as an equal.

Unfortunately, as in most myths, the ending is pure sad. During a friendly duel, Athena accidentally stab her friend with spear and Pallas died in front of her friend. In the full version of this myth that I managed to find, it was by Zeus's doing! He didn't want his daughter to lose so he distracted her rival, a second of inattention was enough for her not to dodge. And because of that Athena returned to Olympus.

Generally, I see in this story something for the beginning of this great quarrel between Athena and Poseidon, I'm not surprised that he would have a distaste for the girl who killed his granddaughter so dishonorably, right?

Additionally, my Athena as an adult has a very turquoise outfit, remember? Let's just say that she likes this color very much and values ​​it as a memento of Pallas.