(Athena, Disguised As A Man, To Telemachus)

RIP Telemachus you would’ve loved Taylor Swift’s Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me

life in death or something like that

Fairies when they say they know a place:

For those of you saddened by the not yet reconciled relationship between Odysseus and Athena in Epic the Musical’s timeline, I’d like to give you some information that could help your heart.

In the Odyssey, Athena holds back the dawn until Odysseus and Penelope are fully satiated with their reunion— since this happens after the timeline of Epic, I personally head cannon her doing this for Odysseus and him afterwards immediately being like ‘yk nvm ur so right Athena this life IS amazing when you greet it with open arms’

And then ghost polities sneezes in the underworld, and he knows all is ok

hi hello i’ve seen far too many people find out about the telegony and be devastated that the odyssey’s happy ending does not remain happy for long.

so.

the telegony is not canon. it was not written by homer. some wannabe called eugammon of cyrene wrote it. telegonus was a character from one of hesiod’s works (not homer’s) and he’s never mentioned in the odyssey. eugammon just decided to make him odysseus’s son with circe because why not.

the telegony directly contradicts the ending of the odyssey in which odysseus and penelope grow old and die together. ALSO. odysseus’s bloodline cannot have more than one than one male heir per generation. some ancestor of his was cursed by a god. so that makes telegonus’s existence impossible. if odysseus ever had a kid with circe (which he didn’t in canon) it would have had to be a girl.

homer was long dead when eugammon was like. telegonus is gonna kill his dad and bring his step family to his mom’s island, marry his stepmother while is half-brother marries his mother. never happened. this is ancient fanfiction.

TL;DR : feel free to entirely ignore the existence of the telegony; it’s what i’ve always done anyway.

(Telemachus to Athena, who is disguised as a man)

“Dear guest, i will be frank with you. My mother

says that I am his son, but I cannot

be sure, since no one knows his own begetting.

I wish I were the son of someone lucky,

who could grow old at home with all his wealth.

Instead the most unlucky man alive

is said to be my father— since you ask.”

TELEMACHUS WHAT? “Since you ask” my ass. This is the first time he’s ever spoken to this man (Athena) and he is laying it all out on him (her).

I know that that’s because this is how the audience learns information but that doesn’t make Telemachus any less mopey. This man is so done with everything, he even tells Athena multiple times that he doesn’t believe Odysseus is alive anymore. BAHAHAH perf. No notes, diva 💅

(Telemachus crashing out in Book 2 of the odyssey)

“‘… you make me so unhappy! This is pointless!’

He stopped, frustrated, flung the scepter down,

And burst out crying.”

btw the scepter was previously referred to as a “talking stick”, he’s crying in front of ALL the suitors & Greek men he called to council, and he brought up two dogs with him while talking for reasons unspecified.

They were emotional support animals because I said so. Argos was not among them.

If you don’t understand why Polyphemus (cyclops) was so mad at Odysseus for killing his sheep, just pretend the sheep was a dog and suddenly Polyphemus’s rampage makes more sense

On the cusp of fall, meet me inside the wired gazebo and we’ll start a scrapbook for the different leaves we find