#anyways. LISTEN TO EPIC THE MUSICAL

[spacedykez]

my favorite things about epic the musical

but now we'll be the ones who ✨SLAY✨

i love how fast and intense the part where ody's giving orders is

the soldiers' little "WHOO"s after ody's lines OUGHHHH

*hawk screech* A VISION

"I know that I'm ready!! // I don't think you're ready..."

ody's voice is so SOFT when he's singing "it's just an infant"

zeus's voice is so deep. it fits him

the backing vocals on "if you don't end him now you'll have no one left to save // penelope!!"

ody & zeus's duet. no more needs to be said

"PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS, DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS" sobs. ough.

"is the price i pay endless pain?" yeah. seems like it. i mean the odyssey makes sure to remind us that you have endured "much suffering" like fifty times so.

the second repetition of "when does a comet become a meteor" with the whole chorus singing....

"and ithaca's waiting!!" is such a satisfying line for some reason

"PENELOPE'S WAITING!!" they have the best relationship of anyone Ever actually.

the men singing "captain, what's the plan?" so satisfying

"we're up we're off and away we go!" yayyyyy

"captain! :D" "polities! :D" (dont talk to me SOBS)

this whole song is just so great tbh.

I LOVE when ody and the men are singing together. so fun. idk why its just satisfying

jungle noises!! also the beat to Open Arms is just SOOOOO very nice i don't know why something about the drums is just so very /pos though

the lotus-eaters' voices are very fun tbh. i love the overlapping vocals. they sound like Creechurs /pos

when the lotus-eaters go "oooooh!" after polites' lines >>>>

the high flute/whatever it its thats playing the melody of athena's lyrics as she sings them? oughh >>>>>

"Let's go!!"

ody's smug little "ha-ha-ha-ha"

you can HEAR the smile in athena's voice when ody tricks her. like. ooh yes this one this is my favorite mortal.

"nah, don't be modest, i know you're a goddess" >>>

i just LOVE how ody sings "you are ATHENA badass in the ARENA unmatched witty AND QUEEN OF the best stra-te-gies we've seen"

ody's little "ohkay" after athena's "we'll see where it ends." god he sounds so just. blorbo. in this song. yknow. hes just so smug cat /aff

warrior of the mind, just, like, in GENERAL, is great

THE ARROW FLYING AT THE START OF POLYPHEMUSSSS

"WHO ARE YOU." you can HEAR the oh shit

i love ody and the Cyclops' whole exchange. just something about it.

i love the cyclops' voice filter? whatever he's got goin on. very cool

"hey cyclops do you know what's better than eating me? GETTING DRUNK!!! yeah trust me dude youll NEVER wanna eat me now"

i appreciate him repeating "nobody" three times so absolutely NO ONE can miss it.

"I'm so glad we see eye to eye" hehe. cause. yeah.

"what..? WATCH OUT!!" >>>>>>

THE BEAT HERE GOES FUCKING CRAZYYYYYYY /pos

the whole not exactly call-and-repeat thing that ody and his men do during this song. just. man i love this musical.

when the men r singing in the background of ody singing >>>>

"captain..?" POLITESSSSSSSS :((((((((

the BANGING... like. its so emotional /pos.

the cyclops singing a version of the song ody and his men were singing before >>>>>

the sort of focusing-in thing at the start of Remember Them? i dont know. its just very satisfying

remember them is just a great song all around. amazing. 10/10 no notes

i lied i have notes. i LOVE the guitar riff thing? that happens around when ody says "SCATTER"

"captain" "wait" >>>>>

the cyclops sounds so SAD when hes saying "don't go! :("

"my comrades will not DIIIIII-EEE-IEEEE in vain." they always say it like "diii-EEEE-iiiiiieeee" and its very funny

the line "selfish and prideful and vain" is so funny after reading the odyssey. this goddess raised your child for you and saved your life like 1932094234 times. have some goddamn respect. gods.

"YOU'RE NOT LOOKING FOR A MENTOR I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A FRIEND!" callbacks to previous songs >>>>>>

"wiser, why's your" love that. (sounds alike)

the little stuttering the music does at the end of this song!!! so satisfying.

[scyllas-dogs]

well anniflamma may have too much dignity to draw poseidon getting backshots but I sure dont. here we go

EDIT: my pizza hands got slapped so now its up on blusky thank u

[mythology-void]

love watching odysseus fluctuate violently between suicidal depression and all-consuming homicidal fury like look at him go

[notcryingtoday]

why is it always "sorry i have a partner" and never "hell no i could kill you where you stand, i'm no pet i'm a married men"?

should i lower my standards?

[starry-bi-sky]

im on my hadestown bullshit again but im also still on my SVSSS bullshit too so au where Shen Yuan gets transmigrated into a nameless NPC sometime after Bingge merges the realms and becomes the demonic emperor over like, basically everyone. And Shen Yuan manages to become an immortal cultivator and has a few years to himself to explore the world he's in, conveniently avoiding Bingge the whole time. Until eventually Shen Yuan joins what is essentially a traveling theater group.

They all love the strange stories he tells, ones he claimed he learned from far away places, and eventually ask him to write one as a play so that they can share it with the world. He does one better and writes a musical and slightly xianxia-izes Hadestown so it fits with the times better.

Eventually they learn everything, the music is st up, their lines learned, and the group rents out some kind of low-class stage for a night in a town that's neither too big nor too small. One that Bingge is conveniently passing through.

The actor for Orpheus falls 'sick' the opening night, and Shen Yuan gets convinced into taking the role by his. He has the prettiest voice, and he knows Orpheus' lines and character the best! Shen Yuan agrees.

Bingge attends that night too, and sits in the far back, in a seat where nobody can see him that well.

There is nothing to prepare him for the Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Not the actor, who looks distressingly, uncannily similar to Shen Qingqiu, from the sharp curve of his jaw to the sound of his voice. It's Shen Yuan's saving grace that he has just enough differences that Bingge doesn't fly to his feet immediately.

Not the character Orpheus either. Who shares a distressingly similar worldview to the one Bingge once had a long, long time ago. A young man, a boy really, with so much hope for the world around him to near the point of naivety. Who believes that there is still good in the world and the people around him.

There's nothing to prepare him for Epic III. A song the lone Orpheus sings to convince Hades to let him and Eurydice go, one that rends Bingge of his flesh and leaves him feeling raw and wanting.

Suddenly he's no longer watching the stage; he's on it, standing in Hades' place, jaded and bitter and cold and reigning over all. Having become cruel like Shen Qingqiu once was. He stands in Hades' place, tall and imposing and powerful.

And there is a shadow of the past sitting at his feet. A boy in love with the world looking up at him, stripping him down to his soul, and asking him where he's been. Bingge stands in Hades' place, and just like that, becomes a man again.

[leynaeithnea]

Diomedes

Ok so this wikipedia article was a LOT more elaborate than I expected, I just spend over two hours going through it and making notes Nobody asked for it but here are my notes on Diomedes, theyre not consistent, i changed style and detail a few times, but alas here we go:

Diomedes:

strong defender of justice, deserves better

lost a lot of people

warrior very young

athenas favorite warrior

his fathers glory (and shame)

breast plate from haephestus

shield from his father blessed by athena

fathers sword

spear

boars, lion

most expiereneced warrior of achaeans

doesnt like achilles

brought 80 ships

Sthenelus, chariot driver, best friend, epigoni

youngest of the kings

(post homeric: offered immortality, divinified)

helped Odysseus kill Agemenons daughter

helped Odysseus kill Palamedes (bitch deserved)

brave, NOT haunted by hubris

wounds both ares and aphrodite (same day) and attacts apollo, but withdrew in time

granted divine sight to see immortals (on that day)

grew up way too soon

big battle when 14

more level headed than Ody (can take an insult)

doesnt hesitate to call out bs

“let him go or stay, the gods will make sure that he will fight” (hc: he tried, very humbled by the gods)

athena joined his fight once, driving his chariot and guiding his spear

“friends” with glaucus (trojan) (“i wont fight more immortals” “bro, our grandparents were bros”, “ok give me your gold armour, ill give you my bronze one”)

saves Nestor (ody runs away when he asks for help :(

wants to kill hector so he doesnt get taunted (Nestor says no, Zeus says no 3x /+1 lighting) he eventually turns back and gets taunted, he kills another guy

he attacks the trojans at night and wins, after hector boasted, in the end diomedes is the one worshipped as immortal

agamnenon wants to leave, Dio says hes a bad leader (yes), and that he’ll stay to fight the city that is doomed to fall, even with zeus fighting for the trojans, nestor says he has no better idea, proposed to appeall to achilles with gifts (ody and agamenon agree), they fail, Dio tells them “told you so” (but it doesnt matter anyway, theyll win)

he sleeps outside his tent in armour (they wake him n others at night for council about spies, Dio volunteers, he gets to pick a second, he goes for Ody, ody didnt rly want to go, Dio choose him anyway despite deserting him)

Dio and ody face the spy of the trojans Dolon, (hiding between corpses) he almost runs away but Athena “is fighting to be known” doesnt want someone else to strike first, so she makes Diomedes throw the spear and orders him to stop, Dolon tells them good gossip, including white horses, Dio kills him

they do some more bs, like killing people in their sleep (dio) and stealing horses (ody) dio considers unaliving more until athena suggests he may stop so other gods dont get jealous

both kings are good at being stealthy AND open combat

Rhesus horses are badass (first sign for the fall of troy), Dio gets them (bedding gift?), people without the horses and king leave W for the achaeans

Lord of War Cry

dio throws a spear at hector, apollos helmet saves him, but he mingles with the crowd, first time that Dio speaks back and calls him a dog (even the best men loose their temper at times)

Paris shoots his foot, (fucking moron blasts about it, Dio gives him a verbal lashing) he withdraws under cover of Odysseus, ody gets an ouchy

agamennon wants to flee (again), Dio tells them they should just let themselves get wounded again

Dio wins all funeral games of patroclus (though wounded) – Athena makes sure of it – draws first blood in the fight with Ajax, they stop him worried he’d kill him

Athena appears to him undiguised, Athenas favorite

kills some amazons, Achilles kills his cousin (who was a bitch), dio mourns him though and wants to have achilles punished

Dio and Ody bring Achilles son to Troy after Achilles death (bc they could not win the war without him there)

Ody and Dio sent to negoiate for peace after Paris’ death (by poised bow that the two of them stole?)

dio and ody gotta steal a statue of athena, ody disguises himself as beggar at night, dio follows later and brings the statue out

Ody tries to stab him in the back?? (to get the glory himself???) Dio catches it and ties him, and shoves him infront of himself, but refrains from punishing him because they need him (“for the greater good”)

dio is one of the warriors inside the trojan horse

dio leaves immediatly after the fall of troy (after the achaeans angered athena through the rape of cassandra by ajax the lesser) and arrives home safely (favored by the gods) Post Trojan war possibilities:

when he gets there his wife has commited adultery and keeps him out of town (palamedes brother having told he brought a different woman) aphrodite being pissed about the scratch helps her get many lovers, he has to leave again

gets kidnapped by some guy to get sacrificied to ares, gets saved by a girl

comes to the court of some other king who offers him his daughter as wife and lands, if he fights for them, so he does, and has two sons with her

he refuses to fight more trojans later on, he just wants to live in peace

birds haunt him and his men (his men cried so much over his death they got turned into birds)

[likesdoodling]

I know this might seem like a wild crossover, but so far as I'm concerned it makes perfect sense. >:D

[bbgdionysus]

I HATE studying like I could be yapping about how much I like Telemachus but nOoOoooOOO

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Omg I loved your herald viktor epic line idea I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. If u have time and energy id love to read it sooo much ❤️❤️

Since the Ithica Saga dropped last night my brain has not known a single moment of peace. "Would You Fall in Love with Me Again" is just so insanely perfect for a Machine Herald Viktor x Reader AU it makes me physically ill. Like, seriously:

I am not the man you fell in love with

I am not the man you once adored

//

Would you fall in love with me again

If you knew all I've done?

The things I cannot change

Would you love me all the same?

//

Would you fall in love with me again

If you knew all I've done?

The things I can't undo

I'm not the man you knew

Viktor is so Odysseus coded it is PAINFUL. The pain of sacrificing so much of himself to survive. The regret of everyone he's had to leave behind, to betray. The ghosts of his legacy haunting his mind. All for his goal, the one thing he knows he's meant to do with every fiber of his being. Nothing, neither magic nor gods, will stop him from fulfilling that dream. He will not be the same once all has passed, and he will never regain all that he's lost. Can the person who loved him the most as he was before still love this version of him?

And the reader's answer...

I will fall in love with you

Over and over again

I don't care how, where, or when

No matter how long it's been

You're mine

Because what you loved about him is deeper than any of the ways he's changed. It's something at his core, in his soul, in the light of his eyes, no matter how tired they may seem now. It's your first kiss, it's the sound of his voice in your ear, it's the curve of his lips when he smirks, it's the way he looks at you like he falls in love all over again every day you're with him. Time may pass, and the world may change, but not this. Never this.

He is yours just as you are his, and that is the one thing that will never change.

[iggys-patootie]

thinking about the fact that the lyrics of the "open arms" chorus are polites' final thoughts and polites' final word spoken aloud is "captain" (desperate, hurt, pleading) and how that means even as he was at the mercy of the cyclops, even as he was probably terrified but all too aware of what was about to happen to him, he was still thinking about all of the guilt he knew was already in odysseus heart. how much more guilt was GOING to be in odysseus' heart after his death.

and how he spent those final seconds wanting to tell odysseus to still, despite it all, greet the world with open arms.

[cosmicourple]

hnnnn,,,, Wetthunderthighs hot spring sex. Hnhhhh,,-

[gnomeniche]

i am a eurylochus (from epic the musical) defender forever.

yes, he made deadly mistakes, but get this: so did odysseus. eurylochus is literally Just A Man, even moreso than odysseus. he doesn’t have the benefits of being a king with a capital-h Heroic fate and connections to the divine. he is trying his best to ensure the crew sees their home again while mediating their dissatisfaction and fear (getting into more interpretive territory but that could be a motive for opening the wind bag: to assuage the crew’s suspicion). eurylochus had all the reason in the world to be suspicious of odysseus’s decisions (many of them have unintended consequences!), and as a second-in-command, it is his Job to ask questions to ensure the leader knows what he is doing before the orders are executed.

and i think a lot of people miss that he has his own character arc implied in the background. he is just as affected by all the tragedy as odysseus. his changes of heart aren’t a sign of him being a hypocrite. he’s changing from everything the crew has been through, trying to learn from his horrible mistake with opening the wind bag by putting more trust in his captain. and the trust gets shattered when the king and captain decides to use his power to destroy his own people. he, odysseus, and rest of the crew ALL saw people die. they all went to the underworld. they all have people waiting at home for them. if you went into ANY of their heads, you would hear the “all i hear are screams / any time i dare to close my eyes” refrain. you need to remember this.

one thing about me is that i will always love a character who is a companion of a very powerful/significant Hero who is a) just an ordinary person caught up in the affairs of Gods and Kings and Monsters and Heroes, b) aware and wary of how much more power the Hero has compared to their less powerful comrades, and c) someone who chooses to put their trust in the Hero regardless but has their faith tested, possibly leading to a myriad of painful outcomes and betrayals depending on how careful/not the Hero is with their regard for their companions. it is an excellent character type. it reminds us that, as much as we put ourselves in the shoes of Mythic Heroes like odysseus, we would more likely be one of the ordinary people helping them and caught in the crossfire.

so, i adore how much epic the musical humanizes the crew and emphasizes their pain and desperation. i’ve read adaptations of the odyssey that make the crew out to be a bunch of idiots who ruined everything because they couldn’t just listen to their ruler. and i feel that type of adaptational decision buys too much into narratives of A King’s Rightful Power and Staying In One’s Place. odysseus can call the crew friends and brothers, and i believe epic’s version of him does see them as that, but he is the king and the captain. there is a power differential no matter what. so i love that i never get the feeling of “ugh what idiots these stupid underlings are” from epic. there are valid reasons why people lose trust in their leader, especially after a horrific war and on a difficult journey where people are dropping like flies. odysseus is still sympathetic, of course, but so are the rest of the men. i feel for all of them, and i think the musical is great for giving odysseus and the crew such a compelling relationship. and i love eurylochus because he embodies that relationship.

[nyssasatelier]

But Captain, what do we do with our fallen friends?

[unorchido]

comfort

Drop this here and runs

[backpackingspace]

Listen. Odysseus practiced his dad skills on his men.

[sprucestairs]

I love being into multiple medias that are all based off Greek mythology cause it's just like. Yes of course all of these pictures are of the same person.

Wdym they're not?