The Biggest Penelope Fan Since Odysseus

Kal, 29, she/her, bi. I have a history degree, I work in Hellenic studies, and it all really shows. Mostly Medieval and ancient Mediterranean goings-on. Leftist, witch, Hellenic pagan, intersectional feminist, future librarian. 🦉Athena devotee 🦉 https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zosteria/w

[captainkaltar]

Mutuals DM me for my Substack~

It’s all about the ancient Mediterranean in modern pop culture and also neat stuff I discover while researching my thesis

[captainkaltar]

I’ve added a lot of cool stuff to my Substack since I first made this post. If you’d like to tune in, DM me or leave a comment on this post 🧿

[dearestdarlingsidney]

.Patroclus and Achilles.

[iktend]

prometheus but the scar on his chest is combined with tscars ^_^ happy pride !!!

close up below vvv

[necarion]

They need to make Hippodrome, a movie set in the vicinity of the 532 Nika Riots, when the rival chariot teams were effectively gangs providing civil service. Chariot racing was always way bigger than gladiatorial everything, and we haven't had a good Constantinople movie maybe ever.

[butchvirgil]

when is he not

[aliensundermybed]

I love Achilles so much fight me

[iliothermia]

[olecap]

FINALLY I finished this series of hero portraits

it took me a long time but here we are, hope you'll like it!!

[garashir]

hey friends where is that picture of boromir with the gondor flag except its a pride flag?

[lesbiansforboromir]

Couldn’t find it so I made another because you’re right that it’s a crime and it’s definitely my duty to remedy it

[pre-raphaelisme]

Cassandra by Frederick Sandys, 1863-1864.

[smsomah]

Scanned from the book Desert Eves: An Indian Paradise; Catherine Clement and photos by Hans Silvester; 2001

[fiery-kitty]

Solomiya Krushelnytska as Brünnhilde in R. Wagner’s opera “Die Walküre”

[fangirlsovertoomanythings]

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

[gardnerhill]

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

[three--rings]

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil.  Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again.  (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

[waterhobbit]

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

[three--rings]

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life.  The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.)  There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors.  Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime.  And yes, so much of it is of the personal type. 

[volkswagonblues]

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

[fahbee]

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases.  In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them.  Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

[faejilly]

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

[muffinworry]

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

[smokingtigerhiddengun]

So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blanc….

[marzipanandminutiae]

I think it’s also important to note, and complicates our ideas about what the highly patriarchal/misogynistic society of 19th century England looked like, that these stories SOLD

they were POPULAR

the Victorians LIKED reading about women who won out over shitty men in their lives, even when that plotline reaffirmed a woman’s power and agency or put an active sexist in his place (ie Irene Adler besting Holmes)

which is fascinating in light of. you know. [gestures broadly at all of Victorian gender dynamics, laws, etc.]

[sailor-hobbiton]

So yes, Benoit Blanc is the best modern Sherlock.

[rosary-enthusiast]

Happy pride month to the heathens, the maenads, the men with fingers suited to a lyre, the women who find themselves carrying Sappho’s legacy, the children of Bacchus who need no definition, the androgynous & the Achillian, the followers of Hermaphroditus. May you breathe easily.

[reynard61]

Let's ambush mama! 😼

[dvandom]

"Why do Pallas cats always look grumpy?"

"Pallas kittens."

[waywardmartian]

The sheer roundness of this kitten must be admired.

[wizardnem]

wizard tea 

[drarry]

Imagine being the gays at a pride event in 2004 living their lives when someone grabs the microphone and announces to the room that Ronald Reagan was pronounced dead. Can you even imagine the hype, the celebration, the pure elation

[drarry]

This is the Pride Month that It will happen. I feel it in my gay bones

[broken-horn-of-equius]