#the modern odyssey

[beauty-and-passion]

Life imitates art

A Brief Rundown of the IRL Ithaca Saga (to the best of my memory, in probably not chronological order)

jorge (creator, odysseus) decided it'll be cool to celebrate the ithaca saga with the epic cast via a trip to ithaca, greece

surely nothing can go wrong

mico (telemachus) seemingly found out about the trip with the rest of the fandom. he proceeded to plot a trip to ithaca

the epic cast dealt with multiple broken vans and missed a ferry by one minute. they had to cancel a stream because they were too exhausted

mico made it onto a plane

ithaca got hit by a typhoon, forcing them to move another stream indoors

mico got banned from tiktok. it was reversed

mason (tireseas) asked luke (zeus) to stop the rain. luke refused

the crew hiked up to odysseus' palace. they ran into a roadblock. mason looked into the future and did not see a way around it. (they found a way around it)

the crew found a well and sang their epic songs into it. except jp (crew) who just sang happy birthday

janani (aphrodite) also sang "royal we" into the well

anna (penelope) made it onto the plane to fly out to ithaca

hermes (troy) decided to take a plane to ithaca like a normal human instead of teleporting. he got side-eyed by a woman at the airport as he slept sprawled out in a chair. this quickly became a meme

hermes arrived in ithaca to the delight of everyone except jorge. mico also appeared in his videos. mico still had not updated anything after getting on the plane

anna's connecting flight got cancelled, leaving her stranded in a fancy hotel. she struggled to find the toilet in her hotel room

mico finally updated, claiming he was stuck in munich. mason appears in the video and gives him a water bottle, proving he is lying

the fandom believes mico anyway

mico is forced to post another video revealing he had been gaslighting us basically the entire time and was just delayed in getting to ithaca, that was all

troy and talya (circe), in character, talk about tea. troy says the tea tastes like her father's approval. earle (ares) then asks for 1000 cups and breaks down crying as luke cuts the camera

jorge posts a video apologizing for mico's absence, encouraging him to fly to ithaca, new york. mico appears in the background of this video

mico posts a video saying that he's finally in ithaca, but the crew is in ithaca, new york. jorge appears in the background of this video

jp films a behind the scenes video, calling out "some random guy" who just showed up asking if anyone knows jorge. it's mico

janani sings "royal we" again, but after she says "troy was breached" troy comes out screaming in pain. mico appears in the background of this, filming the video from two points above

it's time for the ithaca saga livestream... except it gets cancelled because the connection is bad and jorge's devices are dying

TL;DR: the gods saw the epic crew in ithaca and went "do you guys think it'll be really funny if we just. recreated the odyssey"

[mistyjessart]

have some epic christmas saga doodles

epic the musical: christmas saga

[cineemaa]

movies + letterboxd reviews

[lupusmaxima]

2025/02/07

four winters after i read the odyssey for class, i begin the iliad. i lost all my notes from first year, so i guess i’ll have to do a reread

[katerinaaqu]

Modern Media Agamemnon: The only absolute asshole in the team. Chilling in his tent wearing flamboyant clothing. Barely fighting and when he does he always has someone do the fight for him. Always speaking about women and sex not respecting anything and anyone. Being the greedy embarrassment of his team. Gladly would offer his own mother if that would mean his victory. Always compared to the worst type of scoundrels. One-sided persona.

Actual Ancient Agamemnon: Strong powerful leader who wears his armor and always fights to the front line of battle encouraging (or daresay provoking) others do the same. Respected by his peers and always managing to turn the public to hear him. Performs many mistakes due to abuse of power but always tries to rectify them. He would do anything for his family. He respects his enemies. Speaks a lot about his concubines but ironically he shows respect for some of them (he defends Cassandra's heritage to his wife). Always compared to the gods. Complicated persona.

[sashayed]

we can all agree that faces like matt damon's were invented in 1922 at the earliest so my question is are there any film actors who do or did have the ancient and/or timeless juice to play the man of many turnings? you have to buy that he is smarter and more cynical than anyone around him but also that he can pull off "jolly backwater lord/everyone's buddy" when necessary. may be (should be?) ugly, MUST have aura. god's favorite. feels weird if he's not short. like, i kind of think odysseus is a bad role for movie actors. their job is to etch a compelling fixed image for endless replay and my man is not a creature of fixed image. his world is not photographable. if you must bring him into this age he should be impossibly charismatic in person but weird-looking and different in every photo. his mouth should always be yapping or his eyes should be closed. if you saw him in the newspaper you shouldn't recognize him in person

[melodyartist]

Omg I love how smitten Menelaus is with Ody!!! Do you think that if things with Helen didn't work out Menelaus would try to date Ody instead?🤭

I don't know... WOULD HE?

Yeah no, I don't think so. They are not so close to do that

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[ithacantrickster]

they went shopping for t-shirts

[sapphoismymuse]

the odyssey modern au but polyphemus is some scammer online that odysseus gives his personal info to while athena scolds him about online safety

[telemy]

Hear me out

Actor Au where Telemachus and Antinous have to do their work and fight eachother on camera (and act like they want to kill eachother) but hang out and are all Sweet and cute towards eachother off camera 🙏

[mistyjessart]

The Odyssey Modern AU: Christmas edition

For your consideration: the Odyssey but as a Hallmark Christmas movie where Odysseus travels to New York for work and is trying to get home to Hawaii?? (I needed a long domestic flight shhhhh it was either this or Vancouver to Newfoundland) in time for Christmas dinner with Penelope and Telemachus after missing it for the last 20 years straight

The Trojan War is some really big business venture or something that took literally forever for them to sign but they finally did it!!

Polyphemus keeps them after work threatening to get HR involved because they accidentally ate his lunch that he left in the fridge, Polites and some of his other coworkers get stuck there but Ody and the rest manage to escape the office

Athena is Odysseus' boss (and childhood friend) who told him to get everything done more efficiently so he could leave earlier but noooooo he didn't listen and guess who's cutting it close again

The wind bag: Aeolus (from another department, maybe distribution??) sends them home with snacks that they forget to declare and Poseidon the airport security guard sees them after Eurylochus opens the bag in the waiting area and pulls them into the security room until they miss their flight

Circe owns a local motel and wanted to kick them out because she doesn't trust so many dudes around her employees after past incidents, but her and Athena's mutual friend Hermes gives Odysseus some of her favourite tea as a peace offering and he tells her about his wife and kid and she's just like "fineeeeee okay you're a wife guy, I guess I can find you a room"

She calls them a taxi to the airport the next day and the driver Tiresias just keeps giving them ominous life advice and seems to know like... way too much about them and also they're not entirely sure he actually has his license

Odysseus gets a call from his mom like "where are you we're waiting for you" and he's like "I'm on my way home I promiseeeeeeeeee I'll be there this time"

The sirens are various sales reps at the airport

Scylla (baggage check employee) keeps some of them cuz their bags are too heavy so Ody and the rest head to the gate without them

Eurylochus brings snacks again (thinking Chicharron-style snacks, ones you're not supposed to bring on a plane) and Zeus detains them

The suitors are just the neighbourhours who bully Telemachus like "oooOOOOhhhhh ssuuuUUURrreee your dad is tOOOOtally gonna show up to Christmas this year" and making jokes about his mom

Athena (who did leave early and catch the original flight) scares them away and reassures Telemachus that his dad is on his way (while texting Odysseus "see I told you so")

She finds out Zeus is the one detaining them so she calls her dad like "please can you at least send Odysseus on his way, you literally know him, he's just a dumbass sometimes" so Zeus let's Odysseus go catch his flight but keeps the rest of them in security

Calypso is some lady he's seated next to on the plane who hits on him for the entire ten-hour flight

Poseidon, who got transferred to the other airport, recognizes Odysseus from before and pulls him into security again and Odysseus just rips into him until he lets him go

The neighbours are bullying Telemachus while he's out getting last-minute ingredients for dinner when some dude turns up and tells them off and threatens to get their parents so they all run off

Penelope's just like... "who are you and what have you done with my husband, how are you actually on time"

Insert sweet and sappy Christmas dinner with the entire family until Odysseus' sister goes "wait... where's Eurylochus?"

Eurylochus turns up at the door the next morning like "ODYSSEUS YOU MF I HAD TO CATCH ANOTHER FLIGHT-"

[haley-harrison]

Epic modern AU incorrect quotes part 1/?:

Elpenor: Why are you eating tofu?

Perimedes: I'm trying to convince the Captain that I'm vegan.

Elpenor: Why?

Perimedes: 😏 Because I keep stealing his chicken wings and this way he'll never suspect me. 😎

[godsofhumanity]

[texting] Penelope: Are you eating healthy? Odysseus: Yes... Odysseus: today i ate aged organic milk tossed over seasoned tomato puree spread on baked whole wheat. Penelope: Wow! Let me see? Odysseus: [picture of a cheese pizza] Penelope:

[daily-uquiz]

*crying*

[katerinaaqu]

At a heated game night

Odysseus: Honey...honey...what are we doing? This is ridiculous

Penelope: ...

Odysseus: One of us is going to lose this game, the other one is gonna feel lousy and we both lose.

Penelope: ...

Penelope: *swipes the whole table*

Telemachus: Yeah...just leave my birthday present on the floor...

Odysseus: *kisses Penelope on the lips* That’s my girl!

Later

Odysseus (alone to Telemachus): She had me! There is no way I could win! I knew it! I'm just glad she didn't know it yet!

Penelope (alone to Telemachus): Two moves! And then...*slash neck move*! I'm a very good chess player! But I am a better wife!