#epic the best of you

[shangdragonsthief]

Here's my latest BSD x Epic vid. The Best of You. Chuuya is challenging his suitors, and telling Dazai he's not fooled by his beggar disguise, so he better win the competition. I didn't get to work on any videos over my break, so it's another snippet this week. Hopefully this weekend I'll get some more videos made.

[protagpigeon]

so I challenged myself to catching the fieldlands alpha luxio before finishing rei's tutorial in my current pla playthrough. buckle in rei, every day's going to be a new wacky adventure with akari around

[jgjuniper]

dripped outtt🥶🥶🔥💯

[dollypopup]

We all need to take more time to appreciate Colin Bridgerton and the details of his sexy dream. In his brain, the ultimate fantasy involves

him walking to Penelope in a new (fully imagined) dress/nightgown as he is cravatless, shirt undone, in her garden in the mist

an APOLOGY to her for how late it is, and that he just HAD to see her (Colin Bridgerton out here putting the man in manners)

STUTTERING through a confession of how much he's been thinking of her ("I rehearsed that speech for hours")

The mist dissipating and turning into flames around them like candlelight (he's a WRITER!!!!!! the metaphors. the VIBES)

Her reply that she ALSO can't stop thinking of him or their kiss (consent KING)

The two of them passionately smooching as he presses her against a wall (they like it rough)

Cushioning the back of her head with his hand as she grabs onto his arm for dear life (but also tender)

Very loud moaning from her as he kisses over her neck and chest (praise kink! praise kink! praise kink!)

and then my man woke up in a SWEAT. chest HEAVING. cheeks RED. from one of the most romantic PG-13 wet dreams possible. this is the guy who was having threesomes like half an episode ago and now he's blushy blushy over the idea of Pen having feelings for him and them smoochin' about it. and you wanna tell me he's NOT the best Bridgerton Boy??? puhlease!!! 11/10, ultimate fave, sign him up for an AO3 account posthaste

[coquexari]

[fullychaotichell]

THE father-daughter duo 😭😭

[lyculuscaelus]

Diomedes being the first name ever spoken in Epic the Musical is enough for me.

[epicfirestormer]

Why did he think that was a good idea to say

[elizakai]

Magical girl Epic✨

(I gave him roller skates oops)

Magical girl epic/au by @ksopaz

Epic sans by Yugogeer012

(The quality is fucked.)

[transhawks]

this fandom doesn't get dabi tbh. Like outside of the aesthetic, if given half the chance, he would have become a workaholic to rival his dad. Like he'd complain about it more than Enji tho, but he'd still be out there working his ass off.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Would it be controversial to say that you can’t claim to care about killer but then hate color

[johaerys-writes]

I don't get people who are like "whether Patroclus and Achilles had a physical relationship is irrelevant, their bond is more important than that" like yeah sure they're best friends that have grown up together and are each other's favourite/most trusted person, Achilles values Patroclus more than all the Achaeans put together and wishes to sack Troy just for the two of them, Patroclus asks to be buried with him so that they can be together forever, they are narrative foils but also share more similarities than any other pair in the Iliad, their love transcends physical intimacy; in fact no measure of intimacy could make their bond stronger than it already is, whatever souls are made of theirs are the same........... and also, they are fucking

[letsplaythermalnuclearwar]

Shout out to Epic animators for all having basically the same/very similar designs for Odysseus, Polites, and Eurylochus. Don't know if Jorge gave you canon designs or if you held a little conference amongst yourselves to decide what these dudes should look like or if their described like that in the Odyssey, but it makes watching animatics a lot easier

[indelicateink]

as an american, sam reid’s total inability to hide his contempt for overly fake-chipper american journalists, especially ones who Have Not Done The Assigned Reading know and care about the show, will never not be hilarious and iconic to me

[morgines]

I'm probably living in the neolithic since I can only make traditional art but I made fanart of some of my favorite scenes of Spy Wars by @clawedandcute !!!

[rin-solo]

I love. LOVE. Get In the Water

It's one of the objectively best songs in the musical; I will die on this hill.

Poseidon was always, despite being pretty much the main antagonist of EPIC, a really underdeveloped character in my opinion. He just needed a little more nuance and the fact that one (+ kind of one more) song managed to add so much to his characterization pretty much exclusively through subtext and implications is incredibly impressive writing. Because it did!

At the start he's yet again playing games with Odysseus, the way he did in Ruthlessness. In both songs he could kill him easily at any point, yet he chooses not to for the sake of playing games. In Ruthlessness, this becomes his own hubris as it leads to Odysseus escaping.

If you listen closely, at the start of GITW he already sounds slightly different. He's still trying to keep up this "God of Ruthlessness" front that he's so proud of, but he's no longer more or less carefree the way he was in Ruthlessness. He's been obsessing over this feud for ten years, and even if he would never admit it, it's actually clear just from his voice that he really is tired of it too. Not in the sense of it emotionally draining him the way it probably does Odysseus, but in the sense that it's a bother, a loose end in his life, a book that he finally wants to slam shut.

But he still has a reputation to uphold, and he still cannot close this book until Odysseus is dead, so he keeps up the game. Instead of just killing him, he's taunting him to kill himself. He might associate the idea of just striking him down with a sort of loss, like then he'd have to his hands dirty. Then he's rambling about killing his people, his family. He's provoking Odysseus on purpose, likely trying to get him to snap back, to hate him and fear him the way that Poseidon would think any mortal who has consumed this much of his time should. In his eyes, Odysseus deserves nothing less than to curse him with his last breath as his "darkest moment", the god who became the bane of his life.

And Odysseus replies, of all things, with ... sympathy.

Honestly, I don't blame Poseidon for being speechless for three full seconds. He literally just threatened to gauge Telemachus' eyes out the way Odysseus did with Polyphemus, and this absolute madlad of a man replies with an acknowledgement that he (might have) caused Poseidon pain too.

Now, I don't really think Poseidon was particularly hurt over Polyphemus' loss or hurting in any way in that moment. But just the fact that Odysseus acknowledges that he might be hurting too is probably something Poseidon hasn't heard in ... who knows how long? His family is the Olympians. I don't think I have to say more.

It's actually more of a genuine apology than Odysseus' explanation in Ruthlessness ... Now he doesn't say "sorry" because he's still not sorry for hurting Polyphemus, since he still needed to do that in order to escape. But he expresses regret over the pain he caused in a more genuine way than ever.

I am convinced that Poseidon is utterly unfamiliar with sympathy or mercy. He's lived by his "Ruthlessness is mercy" motto for centuries, and he doesn't know anything else. No one would try to teach him something different. The other gods all live by this logic, even if he's the most vocal about it considering he seems to have made it his whole personality. Mortals wouldn't dare to question Poseidon in the first place. And barely anyone would be willing to treat someone with kindness who is in turn treating everyone around them with ruthlessness.

It's very likely that Poseidon hasn't encountered anyone like this until Odysseus. Ruthlessness is simply how he treats people, and also how he expects to be treated back. The fact that Odysseus doesn't, the fact that instead of hating or fearing or cursing him he acknowledges that they have both hurt each other and that it doesn't lead anywhere to still pursue vengeance must have triggered Poseidon in an unprecedented way.

To him, this was probably the most outrageous thing Odysseus could have said in that moment. And it throws him off so much that he is genuinely speechless, and then simply replies, "I can't." ... his most genuine-sounding line in the whole musical.

I cannot stress enough how much it threw me off to hear this line; in the best way imaginable, it doesn't sound like Poseidon. It sounds almost vulnerable. Almost human. Because he is genuinely at a loss so much that he forgets to put up his "wrathful god" facade for just one second. Standing ovation to Steven Rodriguez for his whole performance, but especially this part.

And then Odysseus goes all out, to say something even more outrageous: "Maybe you could learn to forgive?"

... Which is when Poseidon snaps.

Kind of understandable, honestly. There's this mortal whom he has likely fantasized about seeing pleading, hate-filled, and terrified, cowering before him, for ten years now ... telling him that he ought to learn something. Even hijacking his own motif and his instrument in order to turn it on its head, "defile" it if you will.

This f*cking mortal pr*ck took his own "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" catchphrase and turned it into forgiveness ... Of course, Poseidon is no longer hesitating, of course he is no longer concerned with getting his hands dirty or not. He yells "DIE!" and unleashes his ultimate move (which is really overkill for simply killing a mortal if you think about it) ... But he does it anyway because this time he genuinely means it.

This simple exchange (my favorite moment in the whole musical, actually) tells us so much about both of these characters that it makes me want to skitter and squeal in excitement.

Here is Odysseus—the very same one whom Poseidon specifically tried to teach ruthlessness—becoming the first person in a long time to offer him sympathy despite how Poseidon himself showed him nothing but ruthlessness. And then one song later, here is Odysseus showing him the consequences of not accepting said sympathy.

Six Hundred Strike and what Odysseus does to Poseidon would've not hit the same, in my opinion, if he hadn't made this offer, if he hadn't given Poseidon this way out, even if no one watching genuinely expected it to work (probably not even Odysseus himself.)

Six Hundred Strike is not Odysseus exacting vengeance. If GITW proved anything about Odysseus it's that he does not want vengeance. He wants all of the hatred and pain to be over, to the point where he is willing to let go of, and I am inclined to say forgive, Poseidon for what he's done to him. Six Hundred Strike is simply Odysseus teaching him this lesson that Poseidon couldn't have learned in any other way, because he has proven in GITW that he genuinely does not speak any language besides that of ruthlessness.

It's just the perfect representation of how Odysseus has now finally learned the balance between mercy and ruthlessness, which seems to be the core theme of the musical: Both have their time and place, one simply has to be willing to act in both ways and know when to use either. No one extreme is the solution. I am genuinely exhilarated that Odysseus finally seemed to have figured out that it's been both all along.