#SAVE ME ODYSSEUS HADES GAMES SAVE ME

[charlesjosephwrites]

Wax Works - WIP Intro

–> GENRE: YA fantasy

–> POV: first person

–> MAJOR THEMES: destiny, found family, good vs. evil

–> STATUS: About to start the first draft

–> SUMMARY: After the fates foresaw a rising threat to Olympus, the gods concocted a plan: Reincarnate some of their greatest heroes to form an elite squad to protect their legacy. Things didn’t go entirely as planned as Daedalus absolutely refused to be separated from his son again and yanked Icarus along with him to the next life, giving the group an unintended fifth member. Now, the newly reincarnated Icarus is struggling to prove that he’s not the weak link of the group as he does his best to help his friends defend the world in the name of Olympus.

Some quick character intros after the break!

Our Protagonist

Toby Mckinnley/Icarus - The epitome of the Impulsive Teenage Boy. Toby grew up terrorizing his older sisters and getting himself hurt with his recklessness. When he finds out about the gods’ plans for their group, he is incredibly eager for the opportunity to help save the world. The fact that no one seems to have much faith in him only makes him more eager to prove that he has what it takes to be a hero.

The Rest of the Gang

Oscar Lamar/Odysseus - The king. Oscar may technically be classified as a genius, but he has absolutely no sense of direction. His plans to get into a prestigious university were completely thrown off when the gods thrust him in charge of figuring out how they were supposed to save the world, but as someone who is basically incapable of turning down a challenge, Oscar has fully embraced his role as leader.

Tyrone “Tye” Weaver/Daedalus - The inventor. Tye grew up in a very poor family in a rough neighborhood, but that didn’t stop his passion for building things. From a young age, he was constantly drawing up elaborate mazes and pulling junked electronics out of trash cans to either fix up or rebuild into something else entirely. Tye doesn’t fully understand how he’s meant to help save the world, but he’s willing to try, especially if it means protecting his family. He would also be much happier if Toby would stop making him constantly worry that he’s going to get himself killed. What the Hades Toby?????

Ian Hartnell/Orpheus - The bard. As a musical prodigy from a rich family, Ian was playing simple tunes on the piano before he could walk, and he was filling concert halls with people flocking to hear his original compositions by the time he was ten. That would have been great, of course, if Ian’s heart was actually in classical music, but his parents never gave him much of a choice in the matter. Though he is a bit wary of the gods’ plans at first, Ian is more than willing to join the team once he realizes that this means he is finally getting the chance to play the punk rock anthems of his dreams.

Carlos Beldad/Achilles - The warrior. All Carlos really wants to do is play football and spend some time with his boyfriend, but if the world needs him to be a fearless warrior, he’s more than willing to do whatever it takes to help keep the world safe. Assuming, of course, all this hero business doesn’t make him miss the big game. He still intends on wiggling his way into the NFL once the world is saved, after all.

Zoey Watts - A demigod daughter of Zeus. Her father put her up to the task of keeping tabs on the rest of our gang of heroes and reporting back to Olympus. Zoey doesn’t actually want to have to keep putting herself in danger like this, but she's holding onto the hope that this will finally be enough to make her father proud of her.

A very special thanks to @humour-and-hyperfocus​ for helping me out with the title!!!!

Taglist (Lemme know if you want to be added or removed!): @apricotwrites, @ifonlyicouldwrite​, @sprigofbasil​, @magic-is-something-we-create​, @humour-and-hyperfocus​, @littlerobinwriter​, @incipientdream​, @ravens-and-rivers​, @cheshawrites​

#wax works #wip intro #wip introduction #my wip #writeblr

[sometimesrosy]

Do you think we will ever get a bellarke kiss? i know we got plenty of other confirmations, but it would be nice for it to be spelt out for me? i want endgame without a shadow of a doubt, is that too much to ask?

I actually believe that The 100 is around 25% ABOUT Bellarke and I believe the end game of that story is romantic fulfillment, because their relationship is NOT platonic. A platonic soulmate pairing is Sherlock and Joan, not Clarke and Bellamy. They yearn for each other and are jealous when the other is with someone else and long for something more, mutually. They are MUTUALLY PINING, which is an awesome story, imo. 

It can be hard to tell what KIND of story a person is telling, and so our task as the audience, if we want to follow along and be on top of the story instead of just sitting back and enjoying the rollercoaster ride is to figure out what the story is, what genre it is, what tropes they’re using, what archetypes, what themes, what style... what TYPE of story.

A lot of genre stories are very simple and not surprising, a soap offers melodrama and mix and matching relationships, an action show offers big fights and exciting adventures and a victory to reach for, romances offer love and consummation and if a tragedy pain and loss and if a comedy or romantic genre happiness and unification of the couple.. Right? 

So what the hell story are they telling HERE? It IS a post apocalyptic science fiction action adventure survival show, and so we have science fiction tropes like spaceships, AIs, mad scientists, and we have post apoclayptic tropes like quests for redemption, birth and rebirth, scavengers and warriors, mutants, savages, and we have battle scenes and sword fights and gun fights and kidnappings and rescue missions and death.

There is an OBVIOUS Bellarke storyline, and it is OBVIOUSLY (not a delusion) a love story. It IS about their partnership, a soulmate relationship, her head to his heart, their NEED to be together, she is the hero but he is the key, her need to redeem him his need to save her.  Their feelings are not platonic, which precludes romance or sexual desire or longing, thus the jealous watching while one is with someone else romantically or sexually.  BUT the question is, what KIND of romance is it??? We know already it’s a slow burn, but are we getting our established relationship? It’s what I want, but what I want is not relevant to what story they are telling. I suppose I shouldn’t have to tell you that what YOU want isn’t relevant to what story they are telling, either. This kiss and confirmation you want? It doesn’t matter. Us wanting something to happen doesn’t mean that’s the story, doesn’t mean that’s what we’re getting. That’s the kind of interpretation that leads to people deciding Lxa was the hero and Clarke her reward and Bellamy the villain, or Spacekru were the stars with Echo (WTF!? That doesn’t even make any sense,) the new hero and Clarke was the villain. Or ignoring Marper and Mackson because you ship Minty, when Marper and Mackson are also beautiful? And ignoring the actual story and the actual heroes leads to being disappointed when our wants don’t happen the way we want them to. Also, my opinion about what is going to happen isn’t relevant to what is going to happen, either. I am an observer, looking for textual clues for what story is going to happen. Now I’m a GOOD observer, and I spend a lot of time double checking my theories against the text and against logic and literary analysis thought, but I am still only putting the puzzle pieces together trying to make it fit the story they are telling.

I will say that the theory I have found MOST useful in puzzling out the story is Jungian Literary Theory. 

Jung is also an influential force in myth (archetypal) criticism. Psychological critics are generally concerned with his concept of the process of individuation (the process of discovering what makes one different form everyone else). Jung labelled three parts of the self:

Shadow – the darker, unconscious self; rarely surfaces, yet must be faced for totality of SelfPersona – the public personality/mask (particularly masculine)Anima/Animus – a man’s/woman’s “soul image” (the negative that makes a composite whole)

A neurosis occurs when someone fails to assimilate one of these unconscious components into his conscious and projects it on someone else. The persona must be flexible and be able to balance the components of the psyche.

Mythological / Archetypal: A mythological / archetypal approach to literature assumes that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters, and motifs (i.e., archetypes) that evokes a similar response in all people. According to the psychologist Carl Jung, mankind possesses a “collective unconscious” (a cosmic reservoir of human experience) that contains these archetypes and that is common to all of humanity. Myth critics identify these archetypal patterns and discuss how they function in the works. They believe that these archetypes are the source of much of literature’s power. [x]

The Shadow-Persona-Anima/Animus is a particularly good fit for The 100 AND Bellarke. Bellarke ARE the Anima/Animus. In fact, we have seen again and again the dark/light, yin yang symbolism to make us subconsciously connect them as two sides of the same coin, dark and light... and they take turns being the dark and light. If they are the anima/animus, then that means they need to integrate the other (which we saw between seasons 4/5) and it also means they need to be together which we’ve seen in seasons 1-6, and which need has only gotten BIGGER as the seasons have passed.

Oh when I consider this approach more fully, I think that Octavia is the Shadow to Bellamy’s Persona... the girl under the floor, rarely let out, and once free (after losing her animus [lincoln] going out of control and becoming a tyrant that destroys the world until the persona asserts itself and feelings/pain/emotion is balanced once again with purpose/ethics/doing what is right.) You know what? I’m shocked that no one has really delved into the Hades/Persephone/Demeter allegory of Dante/Clarke/Abby. I went with Dante’s Inferno as the allegory I explored... maybe because I didn’t start doing my Jungian analysis until season 3 and they showed us that Blake illustration of Dante’s Inferno, and I took the knock upside the head the show was giving me and went OH YOU MEAN IT’S AN ALLUSION!!!!

I think this show is, well, a mix and match of different influences, and I like that. I like that we get The Divine Comedy and the bible as well as Greek mythology as well as Game of Thrones and Battlestar Gallactica and Tangled and The Beauty and The Beast and Penelope and Odysseus as well as Elizabeth and Darcy. I like that shit. The mythic/archetypal stories can be seen in ALL those references. Bellamy is Han Solo and Clarke is Princess Leia. See I love that shit.

I think in some ways, this show is about healing and becoming whole and making peace with your darkness and choosing to be better and rebirth and redeeming humanity and hopefully in season 7, although it is by no means certain, the healing of the earth itself. It’s about trauma and how we struggle to come back from total destruction, because that’s what post apocalyptic fiction is about and one of the reasons we consume it... because we can see our OWN rebirth in the dramatic, fictional rebirth (and why I hate post apocalyptic fic where the guiding principle is that humanity is doomed and there’s no point.) 

Oh wait. You asked about Bellarke and I went into jungian literary analysis and Dante’s inferno and post apocalyptic fic... Okay so here’s the thing. I can not GUARANTEE you that you’ll get a kiss. Because a KISS isn’t the point. The point is UNITY, together, the head and the heart, becoming WHOLE. This is why they could end every season with Clarke and Bellamy together and victorious, but together in a different way, and still with more story to tell... because...wait... each season there has been a DIFFERENT mythic tale of the anima/animus coming together. If the show had ended at season 4, it would have been the sun/moon, always longing, never together. If it had ended at season 5, it might have been binary stars, aligned and moving in the same direction. Now in season 6, we don’t get the ending of our story. We’re still in the middle of it, but Clarke and Bellamy have actually come TOGETHER, and it is in an intimate, romantic way, with that fairy tale “true loves kiss bringing her back from the dead,” aka mouth to mouth aka “the kiss of life,”... when we know that mouth to mouth was not necessary to CPR, but it WAS necessary to the romantic trope of true love’s kiss.

See, this all brings me back to my ORIGINAL analysis on Bellarke after Hakeldama in season 3, when everyone thought Bellarke was dead and CL was the endgame story, and I went, no wait. They are the head and the heart and they can only do it TOGETHER and the main idea is bringing together the opposites/enemies/yin and yang to create a coherent whole that means that Clarke and Bellamy HAVE to be together that’s how this story works. Bellarke is endgame. I don’t make the rules.

Of course I was not aware that it wasn’t considering ONLY romance to be “together,” and the hands metaphor was used instead of fandom’s desire for a kiss, and there are other archetypal light/dark head/heart/ yin/yang king/queen stories than just the simple romance that shippers want. Not that there’s anything wrong with the simple romance. I think season 1 WAS a simple romance for them. It was enemies to friends to lovers... but without the resolution of the lovers part when they decided to drag it out into a slow burn that COULD, if we got to the end of it, be the most fantastic epic love story on tv. 

I’ve faced so many years of people telling me I was delusional, I have double checked my theories and compared the development of the bellarke relationship to canon, to romantic conventions, to archetypes, to allusions, to other ships on the show. I’ve watched and charted the relationship growth for all six seasons, and the thing is, yeah they sometimes pull back and they always put obstacles between clarke and bellamy and if I saw the direction going ELSEWHERE, that’s what I would go with, because I am more attached to the story than to my WANTING it to give me my ship. But they are NOT portraying Bellarke as platonic, and they are NOT portraying B/E as endgame, but as a romantic obstacle, family, spy/master, and a “right for now” romance, rather than a Ms. Right romance. And Echo’s story is not being portrayed as her being fulfilled by her relationship with Bellamy, but by rediscovering who she is and reclaiming her life from the people who would use her, who stole her identity. Echo’s story seems to be going in a feminist direction about female empowerment and not needing no man, while Clarke and Bellamy’s story has gone in a “yes I can do it without you but I don’t want to and I need you in my life because I love you and I won’t let you go.” Bellarke’s story has only gotten MORE romantic, culminating this season in that true love’s kiss/back from the dead... which leaves us season 7, to ratchet the epic love story up one last notch. 

Which notch? Consummation. So yeah, I think they’ll “kiss,” because the togetherness has steadily gotten more and more romantic every single season and I honestly can’t see what else could come between true love’s kiss and  endgame except a season worth of story about how they get from “I can’t lose you, I need you,” to endgame romantic physical and official “we are married and in love” status. But you know, i’m not one of the writers just an observer with some literary analysis.  My fave is jungian, but i like the others, too. Except maybe the first one, historical/biographical, because I don’t think that works at ALL unless you understand the text for itself outside of historical biographical context which would be a secondary analysis, and I think fandom prefers hist/bio but never bothers to understand the story being told for itself before deciding it means all sorts of things about context. oh my god rowena stop talking and just post. 

#the 100 #bellarke #endgame #jungian analysis #it turns out i'm not doing a 101 class on The 100 but more like a senior level class tbh

[howtotrainyouragents]

Agent H’s Book Reactions

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson returns to Camp Half Blood to discover the camp is dying, he has a new cyclops brother, and the only thing that can save the day is hidden deep in the dangerous sea of monsters.

-So I’ve decided on my ranking of the books: The Titan’s Curse > The Last Olympian > The Lightning Thief > The Sea of Monsters > The Battle of Labyrinth. The only reason BoTL ranks last is because of the girl drama and how it ruins Annabeth for me :/

-The only reason SoM ranks second last is pacing. It’s a great book, and I think it has the best, most iconic action scenes of the series. But the pacing is so off that it’s hard to catch your breath. Leaving camp, escaping Luke, getting attacked by a hydra (Eyy, shoutout to SHIELD), being saved by Clarisse, and being destroyed by Charybdis all happen immediately one after another (like a day or two max passes). There’s literally no pause. There’s a slight pause after but then Circe’s Island, the sirens, and Polyphemus’s Island all happen really quickly in sequence with very little breathing room. And then there’s like three different times they almost escape Polyphemus and then there’s a showdown with Luke and it’s just a weird, uneven climax. And throughout there’s too many conversations left unfinished. PJO books are all about nonstop action, but I think the other books are better spaced out with more breathing room.

-Also, it’s funny, this is the only book that actually doesn’t have a deadline to complete the quest. It’s just like: they go on the quest, come back, and somehow mysteriously it’s ten days later. But there’s no deadline, so why the rushed pacing?

-While we’re talking about things I didn’t like, there IS an emotional unsatisfaction at the end of the quest. We want Percy to be recognized just as much as he does, but nope Poseidon decides to be unhelpfully foreboding. That being said, I do love how Percy gets treated as just one of the campers. All he’s ever wanted was to belong and to not be the weird kid.

-All that being said, this really is such a great book. I’d count it as the official beginning of the 5-book arc. The first book is just about introducing Percy to the world and showing who the players are. This is the book that actually explains and develops the relationships, sets up the stakes, shows the villain in his glory (because Luke was faking it in TLT, so this is the first time we’re seeing the real him), and delivers what the endgame of the series is. Well done.

-Also, here’s how I break down Percy’s character arc in the 5 books (Note: subject to revision as I keep rereading the series): First Book: Percy learns he is a hero. Second book: He learns he has to decide what kind of hero he is going to be. Third book: He rejects the paths of heroes before him. Fourth book: He creates his own path as a hero. Fifth: He fulfills his role as a hero.

-It also does two further interesting things as part of the 5-book arc:

1) For the second outing, it undercuts the emotional arc of TLT. Percy is no longer the special Son of Poseidon hero. He’s back to being the underdog with a monster as a brother. He’s gotta start developing his skills, proving his worth, and becoming a hero (another reason why I say this is the official beginning of the arc).

2) The entire emotional arc of this book is about accepting monsters as family. Literally, Percy’s whole arc is about accepting Tyson, which is absolutely fascinating because it recontextualizes every other monster for the entire series. Connected to that is Hermes’ attempts to bring Luke back and teaching Percy that you can’t give up on family. It’s a lesson that isn’t always applicable in life, but in messy Greek mythology it works perfectly (and for a children’s book it works perfectly) because their families are messed up and sometimes straight up evil. But you can’t just ignore that: you have to stand your ground, do the best that you can by others, and let them make their own choices. I was gonna say that I don’t think this book has as serious themes as the others, but it does: it isn’t just about good and evil, but about good and evil in the people you love. And that theme carries through to the very end

-Also. ALSO. The ending is literally the best ending of the series and also the best ending of at least like five other series I can think of. The entire book has been about explaining to Percy the prophecy, figuring out what Luke’s plan is, and getting the Golden Fleece. Thalia’s return clicks everything together at once. It’s jaw-dropping, it’s game-changing, and it’s brilliant. (I also just really really love how the entire plot is actually just a manipulation by the bad guys that succeeds. What a subversion)

-I’ve realized that each book somewhat parallels a different Greek heroes. Like obviously, stuff overlaps and whatnot, but there seems to be a heroic theme to each book’s monsters/struggles. At first I didn’t think TLT, paralleled anyone, but I think it parallels Perseus (with the gray sisters, Princess Andromeda, and Pegasus making a show in the second book): A demigod is raised by his mother who is being coerced by a cruel man, he goes on a quest to rescue her, he fights Medusa, there’s the winged sandals, the Hades’ Helm of Darkness, Surprisingly a lot of parallels! SoM is obviously Odysseus, TTC is Hercules, BoTL is Theseus, and I think TLO intentionally doesn’t parallel anyone but it is a culmination of all the heroes and just focuses on Percy as a hero (could be wrong, must read again).

-Okay that was a shit ton of analyses. Miscellaneous items:

-This book does a great job of developing Percabeth. This is the only time until House of Hades where we see them alone working together and considering they’re the endgame, this book has to do all the heavy-lifting of developing Annabeth as a character (especially as she disappears in the next book), showing them working as a team, showing how care about each other, and just making us believe in their love and relationship. AND IT DOES THAT.

-I know Tyson’s shield is important later , but  like when does it come back into play?

-It never says that Annabeth gets back her old clothes after Circe. Like obviously she does, but it’s not ever mentioned *cough blame the pacing*

-How did Percy defeat Polyphemus? He was just that angry??

-I do love that so much of Percy’s skill as a hero comes from being a swordsman because that’s a skill of his own and that’s he’s worked hard to hone. That being said, I also love how this book really explores his Poseidon powers: navigation, controlling ships, jetting throught he water, air bubbles. He  levels up really fast here.

-I’ve expressed before that I’ve decided to love Clarisse and it’s because of this reread. She’s a bully and she makes many stupid decisions in this book. But she is incredibly brave, a strong leader, caring of her soldiers, put in a difficult situation, but still genuinely cares for the camp and wants to save it. I love that as the story goes on she becomes less of a bad guy as the evil rises and they need to band together; at the end, she’s just a frenemy, she’s the villain-now-awkward-family-member character, and I think we need to appreciate that more. 

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson and the sea of monsters #sea of monsters #som #agent h #agent book reactions #Most of this review doesn't make sense I see that now #i wrote it on a plane #but this is the best I can do

[fedonciadale]

Which metas do you think are THE jonsa metas??

This is a difficult question…. There are so many good things out there. I just name the ones that come to me immediately.

There is no need to mention blindestspot’s uber-meta of course.

There is @bitchcakegreen who does a series on the directorial choices in the Jonsa scenes. Here

There is @trinuviel‘s series on the ‘subtext’ of Jonsa in season 6 and 7, for example here. She’s also done amazing stuff on the customes as well as @tiny-little-bird.

There is @occupyvenus on the Stark linneage and her classic on the “Why Jonny choked Littlefinger” (x), as well as her meta on the kingsguard cloak the hound left in King’s Landing with Sansa that smelled of fire and blood (x).

@lady-in-a-song wrote a meta on how Jon might have had a crush on Sansa pre-canon (x).

There is some greek stuff Deucalion and Pyrrha by @wolfandbatstuff

There is @yourdearladydisdain’s metas on Odysseus and Penelope parallels (x). Their url is deactived now, but I reblogged most of it and tagged odyssee parallels.

And since I’m a sucker for literal parallels, there is my own meta on the parallels to Beren and Luthien in Tolkien . I had an anon ask about Florian and Jonquil where amazing stuff was added in the reblogs (x). I also did a post on the function of secret parentage in literature and how it might tie in with Jonsa (x).

There is the awesome cyvasse meta by @shinynewrevulsions for political Jon, and I made a post on a parallel of the betrayal in AFFC with Cersei and the bastard Aurane Waters (x). @scullylikesscience has done quite a lot on political Jon (under the tag, don’t hate the player, hate the game). Im fully aware that political Jon is not necessarily Jonsa but if it turns out to be true it could tie in with a Jonsa endgame.

There is the pomegranates parallel (x), that links to the Hades and Persephone parallels, for this you could check @sxpiosexualx. And there is the ‘blood of Winterfell’ parallel (x).

@theons wrote a beautiful meta on Sansa rebuilding Winterfell from snow, when she still was direwolfpupy (x).

There are the blogs of @kellyvela (resp. @butterflies-dragons her Jon/Sansa sideblog) and @lostlittlesatellites that are practically a long jonsa metas….

And this is just that come to me at the top of my head…. Sorry, for the self promotion, I wanted to answer privately, but somehow that wasn’t possible after I saved this as a draft….

Hope, this helps you with your fanlore.

#jonsameta #ask #only some #there are many more #This is not exhaustive #Some shameless self promotion

[swaglexander-the-great]

Hey!!!! Dumb question but what exactly is the Iliad?

THE ILIAD: A SUMMARY

The Short Version: A yarn about blokes getting shitmixed in a war over Miss Hellenic Beauty Champion because some gods thought it would be a Lol.

The Long Version: A Homeric epic poem passed down through spoken word over generations that was penned down in about 800 BC. In the mythological timeline, it ends the Age of Heroes (by wasting them all). It covers the Greek seige of Troy, a whole lotta gods Messing With Shit, a Poseidon who needs anger management, a few hundred names and lots of General Epicness ft Diomedes and Patroklus. Sit back my buddy, let’s go through a quick summary of the books.

Book 1: Apollo ghettoblasts the Greeks with Pain because Agamemescunt kidnapped his priestess Chryseis. Being a douchebag, Agadouchebag Mr Steals Yo Girl from Achilles, which leads to in͟ten̛şȩ ͟śul͜ki͢n̶g͡ . Achilles’ divine Ma brokers a deal with the Zeus goose (not literally thank goodness, although it’s a definite possibility) so that the Greeks won’t win until they realize how fucked they are without Achilles and go crawling back to him for help.

Book 2: Zeus messes with Agafuckface by telling him to attack Troy. Agamemhoe messes with Zeus by telling his entire army to fuck off back to Greece. Odysseus, with Athena’s help, uses his wicked ol’ tongue to lick  Agaiceheart back into  shape (not literally, although very possible in Ancient Greece). There are 31 paragraphs of names about Greeks and 16 paragraphs of names about Trojans going to war. The epic story continues.

Book 3: The armies meet. Memealaus (sorry, Menelaus) and Paris decide to have a 1v1 to end this shindig. Paris is saved by Aphrodite and a cloud because he is a Weak Bitch, so we gear up for another 9 years and 11 months of war. Helen tells Aphrodite to go fuck Paris herself if she likes him so much, but Aphrodite threatens Godly Bitch Revenge is Helen ever talks back to her like that again.

Book 4: Menelaus gets grazed by an arrow. Like a football player with a stubbed toe, this means war. He also apparently had ‘shapely thighs and fair ankles’. Watch out for the Zeus eagle, boi. Fighting commences. Diomedes appears. He is awesome, as usual. We continue to the next chapter.

Book 5: Pretty much an entire chapter about Diomedes being a son of a gun and killing fucking everything thanks to Athena. A dude called Sthenelus gets a rock hard boner watching all of this. Aeneas thinks it’s a good idea to take on Diomedes. Mistake. Big Mama Aphrodite has to save him, also with a cloud. Diomedes hasn’t quite reached Critical Awesome yet, so he stabs Ares and Aphrodite as well. Hera calls Ares a little bitch and we carry on.

Book 6: Just a lot of death really. Diomedes was going to kill a bloke, but they realize they are family friends, so just do a little swapsie of armour. Hector gives Paris a spray for being a cowardly little bitch, Paris agrees, and they set off for battle.

Book 7: Hector decides to 1v1 and get this over with. Menelaus tries to accept, but his wingmen Restrain Him. Ajax gets picked out of a hat to fight, but after a bit of a tussle it gets dark, so the fighting pair give each other presents and go home for the night. The next day, they all take a holiday from fighting and the Greeks build a wall. Poseidon is triggered. (reason here.)

Book 8: Due to Poseidon being triggered, Zeus forbids any godly interference on both sides of the war. Hera and Poseidon bitch about Zeus as the Greeks get casually wreckt by the Trojans, but decide not to act on it. Lucky for the Greeks, the Trojans decide sleeping is better than winning, so leave off for the night.

Book 9: The Greeks hit Fuck It and decide to grovel to Achilles for help. Before they do, Diomedes gives Agasaggytitnon a spray for being a douchebag, and everyone agrees that he is indeed a douchebag. Sthenelus probably pops another boner. Back in the tent with the power pair, Achilles and Patroklus, Patroklus tries to be the polite bf to the pleading Greeks, but Achilles is still thinks Agamoomoo called him a ‘vile tramp’ so refuses to help. The drama continues.

Book 10: Odysseus and BAMF Diomedes go on a sneak mission and  heroically stab the Trojans in their sleep. They also heroically steal some horses. The epic heroism continues.

Book 11: Hector takes a leaf out of Diomedes’ book and decides to shitmix the Greeks. He successfully shitmixes the Greeks, giving Agamugface a well-deserved arm wound. Paris shoots Diomedes in the foot, but Diomedes literally does not give a shit. Some random dude gives Odysseus a bit of a stab, Ajax gets Confused By Zeus but survives, but things still look Grim. Sweetheart Patroklus sees the Grimness and decides to try and use his wiles to break Achilles out of his Uber Sulk.

Book 12: The Trojans continue to roadhaul the Greeks, which will come back to bite Hector, but we do meet a dude called Thootes. He doesn’t do shit, but his name is great. There is graphic violence, and the Trojans go to chuck a Greek ship on the barbie. 

Book 13: Poseidon rises from the sea, back being a buddy to the Greeks now the his great enemy The Triggering Greek Wall has been overcome.There is a shit ton of fighting wherein the Greeks do well and Poseidon is happy because he’s getting vengeance for his other traumatic wall experience.

Book 14: Hera sees Poseidon disobeying Zeus and getting sweet wall vengeance and while probably thinking she married the wrong brother, decides to use Titty Distraction so that the Greeks don’t get chucked on the Trojan barbie. Titty Distraction predictably works A+ and the Trojans get slightly shat on with gratuitous eyeball violence. Hector gets hit by a rock and almost has the most anticlimactic death since Amycus, who suffered death by Elbow Punch.

Book 15: Zeus wakes, calls Hera a scurvy knave and tells Poseidon to Fight Him. Poseidon does not want to Fight Him, so melts back into the ocean and stops helping the Greeks. Apollo resurrects Hector from his rock to the face and the Trojans joyously return to their mission to barbeque the Greek ships.

Book 16: Honeyboo Patroklus (still on his way to Achilles since Book 11) sees Apollo and his Brojans on the warpath and breaks Achilles’ heart with Man Tears. While Achilles and Patbroklus have a very, very long, heartfelt conversation, the Trojans start to toast the Greek ships. Achilles gives (yes gives) Patroklus his armour and tells him to fuck shit up, but not to win without him. Fighting commences, we discover the word hurly-burly, Sarpedon dies in a shower of Zeus-induced blood rain and Patroklus becomes Diomedes 2.0 until he is gang bashed by Hector, Apollo, a literal god, and some awkward random called Euphorbus. Sasstroklus delivers a final fuck you, pulls the finger at all three of his killers and blazes it down to Hades.

Book 17: Hector takes Achilles’ armour off Patroklus, marking him as target #1 for the Sulk King. The Trojans and the Greeks spend an entire chapter having a tug of war with Patroklus’ body. Ajax and Menelaus comment mildly on how Zeus is helping out the Trojans, and the god shines a bit of sunlight in chagrin for being called out. The Greeks win the tug of war thanks to Double Ajax Tactics.

Book 18: In which Achilles goes nuts. Everybody has a cry because Patroklus was a Swell Guy (seriously,as swell as a Hawaiian surf that guy). Achilles goes and therapy-screams at the Trojans, who see the mad bloke and back the fuck off -  rightfully so, as Achilles is planning some good old human sacrifice to his dead ‘rider’ Patroklus. Meanwhile, Hephaestus quick-smelts some smashing new armour for Achilles with his household robots.

Book 19: Achilles gets dolled up for battle. Agadickbutt and Odysseus try to placate the madman with gifts, including Briseis, the dame Agamemnope stole from Achilles, but Achilles’ quota of fucks has run out indefinitely. He saddles up and gets ready to fuck up his bae killer.

Book 20: Zeus R͡ELE҉ASE͜S̵ ͝T̀H͜E͡ ́ǴO̷D͞S͝ and lets them play for whichever team they like, so long as Achilles doesn’t sack Troy just quite yet. It’s probably a friendly game similar to football in god terms. Athena invents the spear boomerang, Hera and Poseidon do some casual sunbathing, while Achilles paints the town red rather literally. 

Book 21: Achilles finds men too weak and decides to take on a literal river (Scamander). Achilles realizes this was A̴ B̸ad ̶I͜de͟a͡and decides he’ll stick to men. We’re not sure whether Diomedes would have backed off from a river, but I guess we’ll never know. Apollo saves a dude called Agenor from Achilles molestation and in doing so also saves the Brojans. The epic story continues.

Book 22: Apollo says surprise Achilles, tricked ya into chasing me boi, I’m immortal. Achilles stares him dead in the eye for a full minute then says ‘fuck you’ and rides off back to Troy. Hector decides it’s time for another 1v1, but at the last minute considers that this idea was insane and fuckin legs it. Achilles chases Hector around the wall of Troy three times presumably to this soundtrack. Hector finally stops to fight, and thanks to the Athena Spear Boomerangᵀᴹ, Achilles avenges his Patroklus. Hector performs the minor miracle of talking whilst having a spear sticking out of his throat before he dies, then Troy’s hero gets roadhauled and everyone is Sad. 

Book 23: Ghost Patroklus pays Achilles a visit, like a sexy Obi wan Kenobi and tells Achilles to bury him already. Patghostklus also beseeches that their bones be laid (ha) together when Achilles inevitably gets fucked on by Fate. Achilles says of course bby I was gonna do that anyway, and tries to make out with a ghost, but this isn’t a Whoopi Goldberg type deal, so Patroghost gets sent back down under. They put the fun in funeral by having games and giving out toasters and such as prizes.

Book 24 (The End): After ‘yearning after the might and manfulness of Patroklus’, Achilles continues to roadhaul Hector until Apollo gives his fam a spray about the dishonour of it. Hera says he’s only mortal scum so who gives a fuck and Zeus says chill wife and commands Achilles to RE̵L͘E̡A̷S͢E ̴T́HȨ H̀ȨC̕T̵O̷R͡ (sorry I can’t help it). With Hermes as a bodyguard, Priam (Hector’s dad) goes to get the body back. Achilles and Priam have a man-cry bonding moment over Dead Loved Ones, Hector is whisked off to be buried and there ends the Iliad! There’s none of the ankle-shooting, wooden-horse-building shenanigans in there, they all come in later texts such as the Aeneid and Ovid, although I still can’t find the exact text where Achilles gets shot. If y’all know, send me the link ;)  I fucking found it nvm

Anyhoo, that was…Jeez, that was The Iliad (aka the longest post in existence). Well, my retold, abridged more slightly less serious version.It’s definitely worth a read, if you can get past all the names!

Check out more Greek Stories here :D

#stories #the iliad #greeks #homer #Achilles #HOLY SHIT THIS IS LONG #the iliad summary

[king-of-zeroes]

Aeneid, aka bad fanfiction of the illiad/oddessy

Turns out I wrote an abridged version of the Aeneid after a few glasses of gin and forgot about it so here it is because why not.

Aeneas. 

The bridge of Classical Mythology between Greek and Roman. Son of the Goddess Venus and Trojan prince Anchises. He fought in the trojan was and got his butt kicked and rescued by his mother after Diomedes grabbed him by the leg and used Aeneas as a weapon to beat half an army to death and Neptune saved him by breaking character to save him from one of Achilles drive by beat-downs despite him being a minnor character at this point. This is some less than subtle foreshadowing. During the sack of Troy at the end of the legendary Trojan War, Aeneas was commanded by the Gods to leg it alongside his dad, his wife (who then died) and a buncha fanboys called the Aeneads. However he is plagued by Hera. I mean Juno - the roman rebranded version of Hera. In fact most roman gods and heroes were of Greek invention but given a new colour palette and name. ORIGINAL CHARACTER! DO NOT STEAL!!1! Basically if mythos was deviantart. Why is Juno even angry ad Aeneas, he aint don nothing wrong. shes just the go-to villain to screw over demigods for some reason. anyway Aeneas gets a fleet of ships because his mum gave them to him (a common theme that aint gonna stop soon so buckle down) and after a booze cruise to Thrace is told to go to Italy (where a lot of people from the Trojan war went to) as he is prophesised to become a great king. so off they go but Juno causes a storm for literally no reason to they crash at this island where they see a giant table with a ton of food so they eat it and a few harpies say "One day you'll get so hungry you will eat your table!" So they're like "Cool, whateves" and got lost and land in Buthrotum (how do you pronouce that?) and they're brought as prisoners to the rulers Helenus and Andromache. See Buttwhatever is a Greek city but has been taken over by trojans. but Aeneas is a trojan so why??? Plot holes aside, Helenus says if they go the short way, they'll die like super brutal to scylla and charybdis who are like the worlds greatest tag team wrestling team if WWE included murder. So they start the long ways around and one of Odysseus's men I mean Ulysses. DEFINETLY NOT ODYSSEUS. ULYSSES IS AN OC. Nah screw it, he's just a renamed Odysseus. And this guy helps them away from this Cyclops that Odysseus just stabbed in the eye. Then Juno asks Poseidon I mean Neptune to have them crash as Aeneas is supposed to destroy Carthage (Junos fav city) bu they crash in Carthage. Maybe Neptune was drunk. So they Queen of Carthage, Dido (no not the singer) sees the crew get slam dunked on her shores and Venus forces her to become his Overly Attached Girlfriend because the Gods have no fucking idea of consent in a relationship. So these two are at it but Venus is like: "Son, you know I just got you a super hot GF who I made to be always wanting it but you gotta go so you can be a king." So Aeneas leave in the middle of the night. Dido is distraught as she was forced to love this due who bailed so she lit the entire city on fire and stabbed herself. In some versions she still survived for a few days. Holy shit she's hardcore. So Aeneas dad dies and they celebrate I mean comisterete I mean HONOUR his memory by partying all day and night non-stop for a week. They party so hard they wake the dead guy up and he joins the party, gets wasted and says "VISIT ME IN HADES MA BOI" then dies again from alcohol poisoning. So to procrastinate actually doing his job, Aeneas decides to go to hell. Relatable - I've been in retail and hell is preferable. so on his way to hell he meets Dido cause she died. Remember? I dont. well I say "Meet", meet as in when you see your boss/teacher/colleague you don't like in a shop so literally dive into the next isle. So he meets his dad and the dude gice him a nine hour lecture about how good Romulus is, how great Rome will be and how FUCKING AWESOME his decendent GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR will be. Because he apparently couldn’t do it alive. so he climbs out of hell. wait how did he even get in there anyways? what could this nerd do to go to hell? be bad to workers on black friday? so he climbs out of hell. all his men are hangry (a new emotion I have invented that is a combonation of hungry and angry) so they end up eating their breadtables. BOOM! OMINOUS PROPHECY FROM EARLIER FULFILLED WITH SIGNIFICANTLY LESS PAIN THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. So they hit up the natives (the latins) and Aeneas is like. "Dude, I know this is your crib and we are basically a bunch of murderhobos with giant superiority complexes but hows about you let me move in and marry your daughter." Then Juno returns to Ruin Everything and starts a war between these otherwise nice people. So the kings BF who the princess was engaged to (Turnias) is psyched for this while Aeneas legs it because he has realised he has never actually won a single fight by himself because his mum has always showed up at some point to save his sorry ass so Venus saves the day (again) by hitting up her husband to make Aeneas a ton of legendary game-breaking weaponry despite the fact he's only a level 2 paladin. So after schenanigans happen, Aeneas friend died who he was supposed to protect died and deciding to shamelessly rip off the moment from Achilles and Patroclus becomes a meatgrinder of death. Suddenly some of that sweet Grimdark Angst has made this loser competant. So this turnip guy legs it and this significantly smarter and better woman called Camilla shows up and kills most of Aeneas' fanbase so he sends a dude to assassinate her while she's distracted by something shiny. because feminism hasn't been invented yet. Turns out this was a super smart move as she was the Goddess Diane's adopted daughter and she super-smites the assassin dude. Then a whole lot more murder happens than I can physically talk about where a bunch of siginificantly more cool and interesting people die until it is the Super Final Shoenun Showdown between Aeneas and Turnip. Turnip dies. So that happened. Aeneas and the princess are basically King and Queen of a literal mountain of corpses. Thus ends the worlds worst continuation fic & state sponsored plagiarised propaganda.

#long post #mythology #classics #aeneid #aeneas #i regret nothing

[axeandshield]

Themes of Limbo and Death: Pandora’s Vault and Revival

/rp

1.Pandora = “a fate worse than 3 canon lives being taken from you” (from c!Sam) = inescapable, fiery Hell 

it is dark, for there is no daylight, and encased with unforgiving obsidian

it is torment, not only because of solitary confinement, but also torture, and the despair stemming from the knowledge that it is inescapable

2. Revival book = the power to open a passage to go into limbo and afterlife, to pull people back to the land of the living

Dream is being kept in Pandora only because he has the revival book = the passage to limbo saved him from going to literal limbo, but stranded him in a fiery Hell that is Pandora

so Pandora can be seen as c!Dream’s Limbo / Hell

3. Escape from Limbo can not be done simply by himself; he needs assistance, someone with enough power to survive the trip to Hell and back

in Tommy and Wilbur’s case, Dream has the forbidden knowledge of Revival, which enables him to do so

but in Dream’s case, his Limbo is physical instead of spiritual, tangible, can be accessed with the Warden’s permission (hc: is this because of Dream’s status as Admin? The World is his, therefore his Limbo would also be physically in his World, after all you can not tear the Admin physically away from its World)

and I thought, a visit to Pandora is essentially a trip to Hell, or, the Underworld (when you think about it, so many people have died visiting the Pandora, like Tommy and Ghostbur, it’s literally a trip to hell; and all visitors need to die several times in-game to complete the visit)

and I thought of Technoblade going to visit Pandora

and as said by the man Technoblade himself, “one of the most common elements in the Hero’s Journey is Descent to the Underworld (Katabasis)”

quote from wiki, “The trip to the underworld is a mytheme of comparative mythology found in a diverse number of religions from around the world. The hero or upper-world deity journeys to the underworld or to the land of the dead and returns, often with a quest-object or a loved one, or with heightened knowledge. The ability to enter the realm of the dead while still alive, and to return, is a proof of the classical hero's exceptional status as more than mortal. A deity who returns from the underworld demonstrates eschatological themes such as the cyclical nature of time and existence, or the defeat of death and the possibility of immortality.[3]Katabasis is the epic convention of the hero's trip into the underworld.[4] In Greek mythology, for example, Orpheus enters the underworld in order to bring Eurydice back to the world of the living.Most katabases take place in a supernatural underworld, such as Hades or Hell — as in Nekyia, the 11th book of the Odyssey, which describes Odysseus's descent to the underworld. However, katabasis can also refer to a journey through other dystopic areas, like those Odysseus encounters on his 10-year journey back from Troy to Ithaca. Pilar Serrano[4] allows the term katabasis to encompass brief or chronic stays in the underworld, including those of Lazarus, and Castor and Pollux. In this case, however, the katabasis must be followed by an anabasis (a going or marching up) in order to be considered a true katabasis instead of a death.”

now, we don’t know the outcome of the visit yet, but the knowledge that cc!Techno knows of Katabasis makes me optimistic for some reason

4. Every person that has being pulled out from Limbo has changed somehow (see Tommy, Wilbur, and Dream) = Death changes a person; it leaves a mark on them; The Revival is a second chance given to them (in Tommy’s case, the death was already unfortunate, I wouldn’t call it a second chance, but Wilbur’s certainly is)

idk, I just thought it is interesting that these themes are so closely interwoven together

#dream smp #technoblade #pandora's vault #dreamwastaken #c!dream