#odysseus headcanons

[katerinaaqu]

After having visited my nephew who is a sneaky little sweetheart has me thinking of Odysseus's childhood. (Headcanons ahead!)

I so imagine he would, as a toddler, being sneaky and proud of it. He would climb on a table and eat that extra set of grapes even if his parents told him not to, he would crawl or run about the house at the rooms he wasn't supposed to. He would look at you in the eye while doing so and he would come at you with that sweet baby look of his, hugging you and making you forget about everything.

Because he knows even as a baby that he is the beloved "much prayed for" child (possibly an only child till later too). He has those big smart eyes that stare into your soul. He would know how to speak very early (possibly already at 1st year forming words and phrases) and he would use them all as a weapon to kill you with cuteness and make you "aww" no matter what he does!

And with those big and beautiful eyes (the latter is Homer-canon) and his curly hair he truly would be a little devious devil wearing an angel's face hahaha 😆

You know he is up to no good and you are willing to forgive him for it! Odysseus would have been a sneaky little bastard from infantry and you can't change my mind

[stayasleepanddream]

Headcanon that Athena mentions her "friend" to Telemachus every time she has the chance and Telemachus, being this curious boy always wanting to hear stories, always encourages her to do so.

Then one day, Telemachus being bored as hell and probably got into another fight with the suitors, goes up to Athena and asks her if her friend ever did something stupid

And Athena just. Jumps to tell all the bullshit Odysseus got into. It's like a therapy session to talk about how dumb he can be. And Telemachus eats it all up

Fast forward to when Ody comes back home and Athena just hangs around sometimes. Telemachus, again, bored goes to ask Athena about stories of her friend and the shit he did. And Athena freezes up. Odysseus gets curious, and jealous, cause he never knew about a friend, and asks his son.

The mix of pure horror on his face when he discovers his son knows all the stupid shit he did in his youth, and the joy of Athena calling him her friend and talking about it goes entirely unnoticed by his son.

Athena meanwhile is dying inside.

Penelope is cackling

[amazingmsme]

Just a silly lil stupid idea I wanted to share after Ithica saga because lord knows we need it after that

But just imagine after he gets home, Odysseus & Telemachus are playing on the beach & Telemachus decides to run into the water. Ody chases after him, but when he gets to the water’s edge it quickly recedes around him to the point where it’s obvious it’s avoiding him. & to be funny, Telemachus jokes “I think Poseidon’s afraid of you, father”

& without missing a beat, he goes “he doesn’t have to be. I’m home now” & now Telemachus is like 👀👀👀 cause what the hell is THAT supposed to mean

Odysseus just smirks & cups his hands around his mouth & yells something like “I promise I won’t stab you again!” What? He can show off & brag to his son

& then a huge wave crashes straight into Ody & knocks him flat on his ass

[murasaki-cha]

After the Ithaca Saga, I believe that Odysseus thought he and Athena were officially done forever and would only occasionally see each other because she was mentoring Telemachus now. He really thinks there's no way they can reconnect anymore and attempt at a friendship this time, but he's fine with it, he can accept it.

That is until Telemachus goes up to him one day like:

"Hey father, can I ask you something?"

"Yes son, of course."

"You mentored under Athena before right? Do you happen to know a friend of hers?"

"Oh I... I wasn't aware Athena had friends before. She was very adamant about that "No Friends" rule back then... kind of stings."

"Oh really? She talks about him a lot."

"Does she now? *mumbling* must be so special about this fRieNd of Athena..."

"Yeah she told me about this one time he wanted to impress someone, so he climbed on all the way to the tree branch next to the balcony of their room and leaned against the trunk to look cool, but he kept talking to Athena in her owl appearance so he didn't notice the other person going to the balcony and he got so spooked when they called out to him, he turned too fast and lost balance, slipped, smacked his ass on the tree branch and broke his arm when he fell, so he had to wear a sling for 3 months and couldn't sit down for 2 weeks."

"....call Athena right now."

"Why-"

"ATHENA!!!"

The second Athena appeared, Odysseus threw himself at her, on one hand going "YOU CONSIDER ME YOUR FRIEND WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO!?!?!?!" and on the other going "WHY ARE YOU TELLING MY SON ALL MY EMBARRASSING STORIES!?!?! THAT WAS BETWEEN ME, PENELOPE AND YOU!!"

He was actually crying. Athena has absolutely no idea what is happening or what she should do. Telemachus just discovered a whole new side of his dad and might know where he gets it from now....

[the-storyteller78]

I fully think Odysseus expects to never see Athena again after he turns down her offer. Yes, it’s clear she’s changed—the Athena he knew would never say something so sentimental—but he’s familiar with her nature. She won’t be back now that he has no use to her.

I also fully think that Athena would absolutely rock back down to Ithaca after a week of letting the family reunite (she’s taking this empathy thing seriously, guys) and just be chilling at the breakfast table in the morning. Just visiting. No biggie.

(This becomes a regular thing.)

[backpackingspace]

Penelope: cupping odysseus's face: I would gut us both and entangled our intentions. I will stitch our skins together and tie us into knots you will never be able to unravel

Odysseus: peppering kisses across her face tearing up: that's the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to me

The rest of court watching them: uM

[ilions-end]

as much as i appreciate the way the "only one son per generation" curse underlines how vulnerable odysseus' family is, i'm increasingly enjoying the idea that telemachus just made that up on the spot

like he COULD have answered "well stranger, the reason i have no siblings is that my father went to war while i was still an infant and he hasn't returned" and left it at that, but i like to imagine telemachus pausing for a second like hmmm now what would be the wildest reason to be an only child... "oh, you haven't heard about our 𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖?"

and odysseus in disguise has to blink back tears like "incredible lie. that's my boy"

[acid-ixx]

if you guys are interested, send in an ask or comment!

will anybody be willing to hear out neglected child reader who was another one of zeus's bastard children. you're out there chasing for your stepmother (hera's attention), whilst zeus just lets you run around without his care, clearly too wrapped up in his affairs. your other siblings aren't as good to you, too, thinking another half-deity isn't worth their time—

so you'd give up, pretty much choosing to bestow the mortal world with your presence instead; because if you can't be loved by your own family, then let yourself be worshipped by passionate mortals instead.

how about romancing telemachus? what if you both learn what it's like navigating through his godly favor with athena, and you with your own powers? what if you have odysseus and penelope be the actual parent-figures you always wanted? their overprotectiveness skyrockets every time you propose to being elsewhere in ithaca, to the point you forget that it's you who has the godly powers to oppose, but how could you when a darker side of them appears every time you allow yourself to be disrespected within their palace?

how about in another place? what are you to many of the great warriors, if not for a forgotten, yet mysterious and whimsical deity? why is your name muttered in all the regions? surely, with just how much you deny your god-like origins, but still manage to capture the hearts of hundreds of suitors, you'd gain quite the infamous name despite your closed-off attitude.

imagine enough attention was garnered on your presence, that that's what was needed for them to finally notice you? but you're not quite the same child who used to pull on their robes, or look at them as brightly as the sun— no, now you deny them of any of your love. your mother, hera, finally sees you and urges you to return to olympus away from the prying eyes of many suitors and back into the domain of safety. she calls you her baby, fuzzing over you even when you openly and spitefully try to rip her hands away from fixing your 'messy' robes. zeus isn't any better, now he calls you sweet names and pretend like he hadn't actively bashed on you for your weakness back when you were begging on his throne for just a sliver of attention? he wants you to sit in between his throne and hera's? you're significantly smaller than him, he's gigantic in nature, and it doesn't help that he treats you like you could be easily squashed by him (which is every damn right possible, and it's intimidating and makes you want to cry).

and there's the issue with the others, too. so many of them used to deny you in favor of focusing on their own domains. now apollo wants to carry you off in one of his chariots to ride off the skies with him while he plays his lyre to you? artemis wants to teach you the way of the hunt under the dark, gloomy skies you used to wish under for a moment of their time? aphrodite used to spitefully shut you out of her own doors, but now she invites you in her room to gossip and play pretend while she coos and braids your hair?

and all the other gods, now wanting to take you away from the underserving - as they say it - mortal realm? that the people who built sculptures of you, who held you more lovingly more than those you grew up with, aren't worthy of your divine presence?

what a joy to be a being looming between the lines of mortal and divine, right?

a/n: this concept is better off and more coherent in my head i swear. now i don't often diverge from my main fandom, but the similarities between this and the yan! batfam is quite hilarious to me that ngl i want to make a crossover of it. and yes, this is me coping with the stress of having to deal with the sudden influx of hate in the yan! dc community, so i'm taking a short break from it to focus on this.

[dootznbootz]

POV: You're Anticlea and Laertes of Ithaca and your son came back from Sparta after swearing he was just going for politics

[kasel-the-mightless]

Pov: You, waiting 7 years for this idiot to get out of Ogygia

It's should have been a reference of my design for Poseidon, but at some point it all went wrong and now I have a bunch of sketches where Telemarket befriended Poseidon like Hiccup befriended Toothless from 'How to Train Your Dragon'

[ahotpeaceofshit]

[dreamsy990]

i dont need to explain the joke here you guys get it

[guitarspear2]

[platinumink]

Headcanon: Telemachus wears Odysseus’ clothes

I can’t stop thinking about this: I imagine Odysseus did not take notice during the songs “Odysseus” and “I can’t help but wonder” but Telemachus is 100% wearing his dads clothes in the songs in my opinion - at least the cape and stuff - to feel closer to him.

A day later, Ody finally takes a shower and goes to his closet to check out his wardrobe and finds it ransacked (like almost nothing is left that the clothes that are still present are only undergarments or oversized clothing). He asks his wife about it and she has no idea so Ody wears something a little big on him (he also definitely lost weight on his journey). During breakfast, in strolls Telemachus wearing his dads garments, belt, sword holding thing, jewelry and more, completely oblivious about the situation as both Penelope and Odysseus look at him in sudden realization. Odysseus does not speak about it as his son plops down next to him to start eating only to finally get what was going on.

He gets really embarrassed and wants to shoot up immediately to change and apologize but Ody shuts that down quickly by pushing his son back on his seat, puts his arm around his shoulder, smiles proudly and looks to his wife (who is hiding her laughing under her breath) and say that he will need a new wardrobe because a little owl kit has nicked his old one (or something like that). Telemachus, who is still embarrassed and red-faced hides his face in his dads hair, mumbling justifications but is told to relax and that it is fine and endearing and that Ody is actually happy that he could be there for his son at least in this way.

and now i’ve made myself cry by writing this out 😭

if anyone wants to write fanfiction about this, please tag me, i really want to see what people would do with this premise :’ D 🩵🩵🩵

Edit: now with official fanfiction by yours truly as well :D Can be read here 🩵🩵

Edit 2: another headcanon in this fandom can be found here (i'm already working on a fanfiction but work and uni have been crazy lately- if someone else wrote something, please tell me so i can thank them) 😭😭🩵🩵

Edit 3: I just checked in on this post and THANK YOU SO MUCH ON ALL OF THE LIKES AND REBLOGS! I never expected this to blow up like this! 😭😁🩵🩵

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Helen:Send the next one in. (Odysseus walks in) Hello, and you must be?

Odysseus: Odysseus. (Clearly looking around.)

Helen: (thinking) He is a weird one, he didn’t bring a gift, but he’s also not staring at me like I’m some trophy. It’s almost like he is here out of obligation.

Odysseus: Hey so… who was that girl you were talking to earlier. The one that really knew her stuff about strategy?

Helen: (intrigued) You mean Penelope? Yea she is really smart. Smartest girl I know.

Odysseus: Brains and beauty. She is perfect. (Gushing)

Helen: I’m guessing she’s more your type?

Odysseus: (realizing his actions) I’m sorry! I just…

Helen: Don’t appologize, I think it’s refreshing. Most of the suitors here are just boasting about their accomplishments. You actually seem interested in the girl you love.

Odysseus: Yea, she is incredible. But the way things are… I don’t stand a chance.

Helen: (hears someone whisper in her ear) You should talk to my dad. He’s been stressed about this whole suitor business. If you can help him out, he can put a good word in for you to Penelope’s father. And you can have my support.

Odysseus: Wow! Thank you. That would be amazing.

Helen: No problem, but maybe you can help me? Is there any suitor you would think would be good for me?

Odysseus: (ponders) I’d say Menelaus. He’s a good guy and is actually keeping his hotheaded idiot of a brother Agamemnon in check to give a good impression. And trust me… That is a feat in itself.

Helen: I think I saw him before… he did seem cute. Thanks for your insight.

Odysseus: No, thank you. (Looks behind her to see Athena giving him a thumbs up)

[yon-hara]

A messy comic about my headcanon of Polites's headband origin and mostly his relationship with Eurylochus expecially as a kid. More note in the end

More headcanon! In this comic Polites might seem a little insecure but my personal headcanon is Polites grow to be confident and physically strong overtime, while as a kid he's a little more quiet.

I imagine that Polites is a friend that everyone always talk to when they need support. And Eurylochus, is a friend that would listen to Polites when he's the one needed it.

And why Ody wear his headband in the first place? He just thought it looked cool