εἴμ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς Λαερτιάδης

Greek 🇬🇷 Archeologist 🏺, Singer 🎼 and Storyteller 🪔 mainly mythology enthusiast (with my expertise being Greek and Egyptian mythologies) fanfiction writer

[katerinaaqu]

Hello and welcome to this corner of contradictions! I am a proud Greek archeologist and singer who loves mythology and worldbuilding! This page will be dealing with various themes but mostly fanart related to the TV series, comic and manga such as W.I.T.C.H and OCs to them.

Some of my work includes creating music such as:

Ballard's Sad Flute

or singing:

Dilla's Songchord (Avatar AU)

Some of the fanfictions that I do write on this fandom do include the below works, mostly one-shots and analysis on the worldbuilding

Hidden Truth Prequel: The Peak of Madness -complete-

(Diego -OC- slowly loses his mind and agony while waiting for his brother Caleb to show signs of life. Believing he truly is abandoned by everything and everyone, Diego uses his magic to do the unforgivable; take Caleb's form and hold his brother prisoner!)

Uneasy Lies The Head -complete-

(Diego is tormented by his guilt for what he did. And so he dreams and his dreams are nightmarish; mix of memory and dream)

~~~

Aditionally this page is also on occasion dealing with Greek mythos and poetry, particularly the homeric epics (Iliad and Odyssey) and the characters involved at them (with some special emphasis on Odysseus and the people who got related with him)

Some of the stories:

Guilt:

(Odysseus is being guilt-stroke and horrified by the success of his plan to take Troy and by the Greek rage upon it and sinks to a series of thoughts and flashbacks) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Survivor's Guilt and Survivor's Duty:

(Odysseus loses his last ship and last comrades at the sea, roams about for 9 days helpless and beaches at Ogygia where even more trauma awaits him) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Gone with the Wind:

(Odysseus remains awake for 9 days guarding the sack given to them by Aeolus in order to reach his home faster. However soon he finds out that sleepless nights take a toll on him and the consequences are severe...) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

The Death of Odysseus:

(The final moments of the king of Ithaca, based on the prophecy of Tiresias in the Odyssey. Odysseus has lived a long life and meets his end while finally meeting with an old friend...and his journey to the Underworld begins...) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

(Extra): The Funeral

Ismarus! Ismarus!:

(Odysseus and his men leave from Troy but are devided from the rest of the fleets by a storm. They find themselves in Thrace to the city of Ismarus where Odysseus decides they should raid the land of Cicones) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Witch's Lair:

(Odysseus's adventure in Aeaea and his bargain with the goddess-sorceress Circe)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Sweet Dreams:

(Neoptolemus has built his empire, he is expanding his name and yet his guilty conscious won't let him rest. Plundered by horrific nightmares he desperately seeks help from the gods to release him from his torments)

Part 1

The Roar of a Dying Lion:

(Agamemnon returns home after 10 years of war having Cassandra with him. However his most desired homecoming is drenched in blood. At the other edge of the world his brother Menelaus receives the news)

Part 1

Great Sorrow:

(Menelaus is left lost and devastated after Helen left and practically an emotional wreck. He finally picks up his places and goes to his brother, the only person he can rely on) -complete-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

The Curse of Beauty:

(Helen travels to Cythera to pay her respects to Dione and Aphrodite where she fatally meets with the Trojan Prince Paris and everything in her life is about to change)

Part 1

~~~

Short Stories

If I never knew you

Odysseus Leaving Ithaca (random Pocahontas inspo)

Odysseus and Helen

Argos (analysis and tiny scene A Tribute to Argos)

Screams and Shadows in the Night (Odysseus and Nausicaa one-shot)

Philoctetes Inspiration (Odysseus and Diomedes one-shot)

Philoctetes Inspiration 2 (Odysseus, Diomedes Philoctetes and Neoptolemus one-shot)

Ruthless Justice (Odysseus and Telemachus one-shot)

The Will to Die The Need to Survive (Odysseus and Calypso one-shot)

Escape from Cyclops Island: Hubris

I Take that Back (Odysseus Menelaus and Diomedes one-shot)

The Why never asked and the Because that never mattered (Helen and Menelaus one-shot)

The Lament for a Life (Achilles and Antilochus short songfic)

It's you; always has been you! (Neoptolemous songfic)

What makes the Heart Beat (Achilles and Antilochus one-shot)

Pomegranate Spell (Patrochilles and Achillochus story)

Guard Dog (a Patroclus and his dogs one-shot)

Kynaeon Asma (Achilles and Antilochus one-shot)

Heart to Heart (Post-Aulis Odysseus Achilles and Menelaus one-shot)

Flower Stained with Blood (Neoptolemus one-shot)

Trauma of the Mind (Odysseus and Diomedes short story)

[rozalinafromdreams]

I've seen people dismiss each other in all kinds of polite and not-so-polite ways:

"Achilles wasn't gay, he had women. Read the Iliad!"

"Achilles didn't have a relationship with Deidamia because she isn't even mentioned in the Iliad, and he wasn't heterosexual, he had Patroclus. Read the Iliad!"

But honestly, I don't think we should read the Iliad to prove our own opinions about Achilles' sexuality. We should read it to better understand ancient culture, the logic of the people of that time, and the way ancient people thought. After all, the Iliad was written by an ancient Greek for an ancient Greek audience. If Homer suddenly came back to life and saw people arguing over whether Achilles was gay or bi, I honestly think he wouldn't even understand what the argument was supposed to be about.

[katerinaaqu]

Okay let me say this that I got tired of the fact that the ONLY thing people have to say about Achilles is his sexuality. Like bro deserves better than that honestly. His sexuality is only one of his attributes not his whole persona. In fact I have made many analysis before from how many love interests he had and how imo his relationship of romantic or sexual nature are sometimes less projected than the rest of the aspects of the relationships he had (ex. Father son friends etc)

But it is also a fact that Achilles being exclusively referenced as "gay" and in fact pointing the Iliad as a source is also factually incorrect. In the Iliad yes Achilles and Patroclus are depicted have sexual relations with women and Achilles expressing also emotional connection with another BUT the intense tenderness and sadness as well as various other hints in the Iliad led many future writers depict them as lovers (and even then their relationships with other women especially on Achilles's case was not denied)

We also need to understand that just because Plato for instance depicted them as lovers that doesn't mean that was necessarily the homeric intent either. People back then had different opinions and interpretations just like we do today. Just because people like Plato and Aeschylus were imagining them as lovers 300 years after Homer that doesn't necessarily mean that this was Homer's intent. It might have been but it might as well have not. We must not think antiquity as a total block. Variations due to time place or individual opinions also existed

Anyways I see your point and as I said I am sick and tired of constantly speaking on Achilles and Patroclus and all we can talk about is their sexuality. However it is also a fact that in the Iliad they had lovers that were women so for people to erase that is simply sloppy. Anyways the argument you present that they try to "shut each other off" is mainly because the sexuality is the main focus of that argument. I agree it shouldn't be but when that argument presents itself then yeah this is how it goes.

[achilles-heal-thyself]

why hercules was the ultimate dumb b**ch of antiquity

i think we need to collectively unlearn the disney movie because the actual mythological hercules did not have a single working brain cell. he was just a 250-pound slab of beef travelling from town to town committing structural property damage.

he is the blueprint of every guy who tries to fix a leaky pipe with a hammer and ends up flooding the entire neighbourhood.

he murdered his music teacher with a guitar

when hercules was a kid, he wasn't great at academics. his music tutor, a guy names linus, tried to correct how he was playing the lyre (basically an ancient greek harp).

hercules got so deeply offended by constructive criticism that he picked the instrument and beat linus to death with it. his parents were so stressed out by his complete lack of chill that they literally banished him to live in the mountains with the cows so he'd stop murdering the faculty members.

he was saved from execution by his own butt hair

at one point, two goblin-like thief creatures called the kerkopes stole hercules' weapons while he was asleep. he caught them, tied them to a pole upside down, and slung them over his shoulder to carry them to their execution.

because they were hanging upside down behind him, the thieves had a direct, unvarnished view straight up hercules' loincloth. they noticed his backside was incredibly, prehistorically hairy and started absolutely howling with laughter. hercules asked what was so funny, they told him, and he found the roast so hilarious that he just let them go.

he literally spared their lives because they made fun of his ass-hair situation.

the oracle ghosted him, so he stole her furniture

when hercules went to the famous oracle of delphi to get a prophecy, the priestess looked at him, decided she didn't want to deal with his drama, and refused to speak to him.

normal response: leave a bad yelp review. hercules response: "if i don't get a prophecy, i am stealing the building."

he literally grabbed the sacred tripod chair the oracle sat on and tried to walk out with it so he could start his own rival oracle business. apollo (the god of the temple) had to physically fly and play tug-of-war with hercules over a piece of furniture until zeus threw a thunderbolt between them like a tired dad breaking up a fight in a mcdonald's parking lot.

his baby formula created the milky way

the literal galaxy we live in exists because hercules was a greedy baby. zeus wanted his mortal son to have divine powers, so he snuck hercules into bed with his goddess wife, hera, while she was asleep so the baby could nurse.

hercules bit down way too hard. hera woke up, shrieked and ripped the baby away, causing a massive jet of divine breast milk to spray across the cosmos.

that is NOT a joke. the word "galaxy" comes from gala, the greek word for milk. our entire solar system is floating inside a cosmic baby-feeding accident.

credits:

images: wikipedia, dividers: @chrisssiren

[katerinaaqu]

Okay well...OK that is too much so alright let us break down some things

I am not sure why the last one was placed as a reason why Heracles is dumb given that he was a literal baby at that time so it is not really a matter of stupidity there. He is just a hungry baby lol 😆 also shows how much of an appetite he has.

The tripod of Delphi now. Again probably shows how much little patience he has rather than no brain cells. I mean if anything he got the job done hahaha 😆 the oracle of Delphi was able to give a certain number of prophesies at a time. Heracles was desperate (he had just committed the most heinous murder of his own family because a god drove him mad) he needed a solution and he wouldn't wait till next time so he stole the tripod and literally held it hostage hahaha however for sure wash away a hubris by committing yet another hubris hahaha 😆 not the best idea but ironically the gamble worked.

Now the Kerkopes thing looks like to me someone that can take a joke. If anything some people might take it as a sign of intelligence hahaha 😆 instead of being offended he found humor at the situations that creatures literally were going for their execution (creatures also hairy by the way since Kerkopes are a type of creature that comes from the word for monkey) were laughing at him either because he was tanned by the sun or because he was hairy and Heracles just found their craziness hilarious and actually allowed them to live. Like if anything he found their boldness hilarious (but yeah being stolen blind was sus hahaha) so yeah if you want that big dude spare you make him laugh I guess? Hahaha 😆

His teacher incident is probably the closest I could think which again seems to me more of an issue of temper and uncontrollable strength than lack of intelligence (I mean people like Patroclus also murderer someone in a fit of rage) but sure

Honestly I was expecting different examples for Heracles being silly from time to time such as;

His supposed competition in drinking with Dionysus rescued mostly from art (like literally that had as only outcome Heracles drop drunk which was probably his objective)

Him absolutely loving it when Omphale was full dominatrix on him with sources like Ovid have his wife utterly furious at his behavior

Being distracted at the Centauri place for some time to have good time

Being manipulated by Eurystheus to perform two additional tasks

Him accepting the gift his wife gave him not suspecting her jealousy and inevitably leading to his doom

And so on and so forth. And even then Heracles had quite a few moments where he was actually showing he wasn't just brawn with no brain. I mean sure he is not like dunno Odysseus or Sisiphus etc but for starters he has Athena by his side as a guide and oftentimes he is actually figuring things out on the way.

In Argonautica he found water necessary for his survival

He knew he wasn't suitable for being a leader in Argonautica and he stood down and he even supported the idea that Jason who called the expedition should be the one to lead it and in many occasions he was proven right

He stayed by the ship and didn't get involved with the women of Lemnos and he even appears like the logical one to tell others to go

He outsmarted Atlas in his own game

He figured out how to defeat Anteus the giant by lifting him off the ground

He saved Theseus from the underworld but he realized his friend was beyond saving so he left

In some versions he is the one to figure out how to clean the stables of Avgeas

He figured out the best option to tame Diomedes's man-eating mares

He managed to kill the Nemean lion realizing that it cannot be pierced with weapons and then he used the skin as armor

He figured the best solution out to return Alcestis from the underworld

And so on and so forth. Now is Heracles the Epitome of intelligence? Absolutely not. More often whatnot he is irrational, rushes into shit and yeah he does silly stuff haha 😄 and he gets in trouble for it. If we say who has more brains him or Iolaos I would say Iolaos in a minute

But personally I found Disney Hercules much goofier or silly than mythical Hercules hahaha but then again he was supposed to be a cartoony character in the first place hahaha and he lacked the anger issues our real hero has

Sorry I guess apologia comes directly to me sorry for that.

[katerinaaqu]

🏛 The wild beauty of Greece being beautifully artistically depicted in this masterful cartoon! 🏺

Why! Why can't more people nowadays show the same respect and appreciation? 😭😭😭

Cartoon name: "Heracles and Admetus", 1986, by Anatoly Petrov

[katerinaaqu]

Odysseus spent the war keeping captives and raping them. There was sweet justice in him becoming a bedslave himself. Delicious justice.

I have answered to this a thousand times. There is zero evidence that Odysseus was using his war prizes or slaves for sex. In fact we have more evidence for otherwise.

His father Laertes seems to set an example for it since in the Odyssey he bought Euryclea for a very hefty price of 20 oxen and he loved her but he never took her to his bed because he was thinking of his wife's anger if he did (so there is a high chance Odysseus had the same principles in his life)

Odysseus had 50 slave women in his palace alone. They were working as servants not as bed mates (in fact Odysseus even calls the suitors out for forcing themselves upon them -minus the 12 ones that were willing- so Odysseus seems to hint that forcing oneself upon someone is the very least diminishing if anything else)

The only mention of a war prize of his in the Iliad is the hypothetical scenario that Agamemnon brought that "if I were to take the prize of Ajax or Odysseus I would do it!" (Plot twist; it is interesting that Ajax and Odysseus are placed side by side in regards to war prizes because Ajax is known for loving and caring deeply for his own war prize Techmessa with whom he had a son with, Eurysaces, and he treated Techmessa like a lawful wide and she returned his feelings so if anything the comparison between the two doesn't seem random)

Even in later traditions Odysseus takes Hecuba as his war prize. And even Euripides in the Trojan Women that seems to be one of the hymns of "devilish Odysseus" and it is confessed that Hecuba would probably be used for servitude either for Penelope or Anticlea so she was not to be used for sex

Odysseus is one of those that strongly insists upon stoning Ajax the Lesser to death for the double crime of rape and asebeia when Ajax raped Cassandra within the temple

Even in Ismarus he divides the spoils equally among men. He doesn't show interest on some specific woman to have good time with. In fact he seems dismissive. He only says in two words that "the spoils were equally divided among them" (it seems that the desire to have a hot woman to his bed after a conquest was the last thing in his mind)

Even in traditions that Odysseus is presented as a womanizer who has sex with every female he encounters (based on local traditions that want to make him the progenitor of the area) all his affairs are with free women who give themselves to him willingly including princesses, one daughter of Aeolus, Circe or Calypso -to the non-homeric versions that paint their relationship as for most part willing- and even some lesser known myths all of them depict him have affairs not rape women

To summarize as far as Homer is concerned there is zero evidence that Odysseus had sex with his war prizes at all and in fact we have more evidence to show otherwise imo but that is a matter of interpretation.

However even in the versions that depict him have affairs his affairs are willing. By n large we see him as the lover not the rapist so again rape doesn't seem to be part of his starter pack at all.

However again here we go with these disgusting mentions. Okay then as I said then Hecuba had it coming. She committed brutal murder in the name of revenge so she deserved turning mad or transforming into a dog for her crime or when she was jinxing the army she deserved being stoned to death by your logic. Cassandra committed asebeia against the God Apollo so by your own words she deserved what happened to her in a sanctuary of a goddess... Penelope was lying to people and tricking them so with your logic she deserved being constantly harassed by princes that were eating away her wealth and being agonizing for her son being away.

Are you serious?!

Okay my half-rant is over so here's some thoughts around the aspect of his captivity for the logical watchers and followers of mine

For the symbolism between war prizes and Odysseus there is of course a huge philosophical question about it and for sure there is an association or daresay criticism around the aspect of them.

Odysseus receives the same treatment as we see war prizes in Iliad one way or another. His situation with Circe seems to resemble Briseis and Achilles where Briseis does not seem mistreated but she is captive, slave, without capability of choosing for herself. She has similar shackles with Odysseus. His situation with Calypso is reflecting the aspect of war prizes unwillingly dragged to such a thing without their will.

The way it is treated in the Odyssey doesn't seem targeting the specific hero in particular but the aspect of war in general. We have a very domestic daresay anti war messaging in Odyssey. Survival and humility be more important than being heard and known, life and happiness being more important than glory and remembrance. Domestic issues prevailing over the war thematic. Odysseus is the main character of a story meant to elevate domestic issues over war that we saw in the Iliad (daresay even Iliad gave us more than enough domestic thematic especially in rhapsody 9) so it is him the one to represent it

It is also his nature; the piousness to the gods, his indirect methods and cunning, his priorities of survival over glory etc that connect him to many female characters in a thematic (since they are unorthodox for the ideal warrior of his time but many female characters use the methods of such kind). So of course it would be Odysseus to short of "represent them" in the Odyssey narrative. Besides one of the main epithets of Odysseus is πολύτλας aka "the Man of Many Torments" so in one way he also represents torments of such kind too

Hope this helps guys

[katerinaaqu]

i have a lot of respect and admiration for you

[katerinaaqu]

Find the 10 differences; Level: Impossible

Christos Tsagas my beloved ♥️

[katerinaaqu]

You know is fucking awesome when they even got the damn nose right hahahaha 😆

[katerinaaqu]

Find the 10 differences; Level: Impossible

Christos Tsagas my beloved ♥️

[katerinaaqu]

You know is fucking awesome when they even got the damn nose right hahahaha 😆

[catcher-in-the-reeds]

Armand Assante, 1997, the Odysseus of my childhood

[katerinaaqu]

Post by @katerinaaqu · 1 image

💬 3  🔁 17  ❤️ 47 · Find the 10 differences; Level: Impossible · Christos Tsagas my beloved ♥️

Reblog by @katerinaaqu · 21 images

💬 53  🔁 115  ❤️ 355 · Still the one and only casting for Odysseus! I mean look at that scoundrel enjoying the crowds' attention! Hiding in

Christos Tsagas, 1977; the Odysseus come to life!

[dyingroses]

I need more explorations of their reunion and life after!!!

[achilles-heal-thyself]

menelaus really spent a whole decade fighting, surviving and psyching himself for a romantic, dramatic cinematic reunion, only to walk through the door and realize he just RSVP'd to the darkest timeline. he brought pizza boxes to a bloodbath. classical mynecean family dynamics, 10/10 no notes.

[dyingroses]

Yeah especially if you think about how Helen sr couldn’t even have consented to Paris bc she was his prisoner.

[katerinaaqu]

It is not always as cut and clean as that to be honest it really depends on how one takes the myth. Sure there are several versions of the implications that she did not consent but there are many that show for some reason she did and she had a certain level of agency big or small

In the parts where Helen speaks with self-guilt we seem to see that at a certain degree and in many sources she does mourn the death of Paris for various reasons. In the Iliad we can perhaps detect the emotional burnout that she got through herself after 10 years. Whether that was a result of guilt for her half or full consent or coercion or whatever is hard to detect

Of course there is an emotional overload when we imagine Helen as completely blameless. Personally I am more aligning with the sources that give her a certain level of agency which also adds a different load to this storyline

Not only the death of her last daughter in the hands of her very grandmother but also the death of her other sons with Paris in that one version that died in a tragic night when the roof of their room collapsed on top of them in an earthquake. It was piece after piece lost

[srosehh]

people who write fics. how do you feel about comments on super old ones you wrote like 2+ years ago

[cha-melodius]

Bringing this out of the tags:

A fic written 2 years ago is NOT OLD. Two years is nothing. Two years ago was yesterday.

Also I don't care if a fic is 10 years old. Leave those comments!! Even if you think the author isn't active, or moved on from the fandom, I promise you it will make them smile.

[texasdreamer01]

[ellowynthenotking]

I commented on a fic that was 11 years old, and there was already a response by the time I got up the next morning. Comment on the fics, please, comment on them, I promise it'll make the author's day either way

[vashtijoy]

I got a comment on a fic of mine this week that just read "TWO THOUSAND AND NINE?"

I replied to it within seconds, of course. someone commented on my fic

[tonyglowheart]

As @pentapoda put it in this post:

(transcript: Every time someone comments on my old fic, i feel like I'm an old actor getting paid residuals. Appreciate you, old-fic-commenters. Key source of emotional income, tbh.)

[katerinaaqu]

There is literally nothing greater than getting comments on these old stories of yours that show you even these early fics of yours are still alive and appreciated by a person!

[katerinaaqu]

Odysseus throughout the entire Epic Cycle being like:

(Only Greeks and legends will understand this meme 🤣)

[katerinaaqu]

Dunno about you but if in a movie or a book a child is running away to save its life with its parent or big brother or whatever and suddenly they start crying because they forgot their favorite toy or lost it in the commotion and all, I feel incredibly sad. Because to that kid that toy was something like the illusion of a kid or a pet or a support

They know they will not get it back for there is no time to get it back or that is impossible to find or retrieve and we know the toy ain't coming back on its own. All that through the urgency of war.

You feel the heartbreak of that child 💔 for it knows their favorite item, something they have invested love and emotion on, is forever gone. Their support. Daresay their mean to feel both vulnerable and brave (vulnerable when they hug it, brave when they reassure it that everything's gonna be okay like a big brother or sister). You know the child will get over it eventually but at that second the child even has its wild imagination and imagines that toy being stumbled or burnt or left behind and "calling for them" as if it were a living being...

Dunno that kind of thing makes me feel a pinch in my heart every time. 😭😭😭😭😭

And if we wanna cry even more imagine baby Astyanax barely one year old telling his mother or wetnurse that he forgot his toy in his room while Troy is burning around and Andromache is running to find shelter in a sanctuary. Imagine little Anaxibia saying she forgot her doll when her brothers are running away with her (if we assume she was the youngest)...

Like picture in a world of war and violence where the adults see the bigger picture and are at a state that every second counts and that they must abandon all and run, that little baby cries because an item so important to them is left behind and they imagine it "all alone" somewhere 💔 😢

[katerinaaqu]

Oh my gosh how FURIOUS Euripides must have been to the city of Athens when he wrote and presented his "Trojan Women" when he placed Poseidon and Athena opening the play and agreeing both of them that the Greeks need to be punished!?

Like...POSEIDON AND ATHENA!

In a play performed in ATHENS!

This was Euripides clearly telling to everyone in Athens "See? Even the two gods whose beef created your city now agree that the atrocities you performed to Melos are unacceptable and deserve punishment!"

Euripides truly was the GOAT for it! No wonder he made history even if he had the great masters like Aeschylus or even Sophocles to compete against! The dude looked his very audience in the eye and from the very beginning, right off the bat he told them that even the gods that fought each other for the city they live in would unitedly condemn them!

[soundbuster]

Euripides really wasn't beating around the bushes with this one.

[katerinaaqu]

Nope! With anything quite frankly! He was a fantastic playwriter on many aspects! But yeah this one I think stroke deep! Like really deep!

[ulises-aithon]

this is my sign to reread Trojan Women again

[katerinaaqu]

For sure!

[katerinaaqu]

Why are Trojans frequently portrayed as darker in fan art ? especially in comparison to the Greeks .

I'm curious whether or not there's an actual reason for this or is it just vibes

(and if troy is around where modern day turkey is then doesn't that make less sense )

My my! This is a difficult topic to discuss because honestly I think I am not the person that will give you the "proper answer" given that every artist has their own ideas for their art, their own conceptions of the world, their own choices etc. So the best way to deal with this for sure is to question the artists that interest you as to why they do what they do.

What I can do is reply based on what I got from my own personal experience online, looking through people's comments on social media on the topic as well as the so many discussions that suddenly almost everyone seems to make online....so here goes what I got from my personal experiences;

Mostly vibes. Although I suppose if you move closer to east you will get some darker populations or even south of Troy in Judea and such or modern day Palestine etc you can find some darker populations too but when it comes to Asia minor and such we speak more again of the Mediterranean phenotype although Anatolian populations rightfully so have their own unique characteristics

Generally we get several pieces of fanart these days that often exaggerate the darker features of both Trojans and Greek some of them based to some exaggeration of the word "tan" to the ancient texts and sometimes driven by the red pigmentation that the ancients chose to depict some figures from time to time especially men etc. So I think there is a combo of the above quite a lot of the time (especially since extra promoted by retellings who do make some well...interesting descriptions of skin tones in the Mediterranean to say the very least, sometimes denying the obvious uniqueness of the Mediterranean populations apart from their common features) or sometimes this tan feature that they rightfully so wish to show gets exaggerated for artistic purposes so that it will show better to their art or colors I suppose.

So for once yes Troy is in modern day Turkey (although Turkish people did not live in that area at that time. We mostly speak on populations like Hittite and later on the Persian empire) and yes we also expect huge cities like Troy also that reside in passages to attract many peoples but I think it is based a lot on vibes and an exaggeration of the "tan" people of the Mediterranean are described to get or some Trojans be described as "tan" by some sources (for instance Hector in Malalas's chronicle) Sometimes I suppose it is to show that the Trojans are "non-Greeks" so sometimes they wanna give them more "exotic" looks I suppose

I am not in artists' minds to be sure why everyone makes the artistic choices they do and sometimes is just art. People just wanna see dark skinned Trojans and they do draw them as such I suppose However I noticed there is a great deal of pattern of people sometimes over-exaggerating the absolute fact that people of south and the Mediterranean in general have on average darker features than let's say north or northwest Europe and we do tend to tan easier than them so many times people exaggerate that feature to their art to portray it at other times they do base their drawings on the reddish pigments that many murals used because they are more interested to show "tanned Mediterranean people" rather than "pale Mediterranean people" which probably comes as a reaction against Hollywood casting choices of the past that many are skeptical about including us here very often. at others just to showcase the difference between Trojans and Greeks by winking at some further in Asia features such as past modern Middle Eastern regions or get inspired by some other populations in the are which is fair I suppose.

Troy is still a city in the Mediterranean, in Greek myth associated a lot with Greek culture (due to the whole use of "founding myths" of Greek mythos corpus) while historically is associated with the Anatolian populations associated with Mediterranean (East Aegean) and Mesopotamia empires especially Hittite empire but as it happens with many parts of the Mediterranean sea we do see a lot the phenomenon of the dark features of ours (skin, eyes, hair etc) being sometimes exaggerated in fanart for visual purposes or out of some inspirations artists have etc

These are some reasons I can think of from my own personal discussions with people outside the Mediterranean regions but I think the best way to get your response dear Anon is to ask the artists specifically why they do what they do in their art.

[katerinaaqu]

Oh my gosh how FURIOUS Euripides must have been to the city of Athens when he wrote and presented his "Trojan Women" when he placed Poseidon and Athena opening the play and agreeing both of them that the Greeks need to be punished!?

Like...POSEIDON AND ATHENA!

In a play performed in ATHENS!

This was Euripides clearly telling to everyone in Athens "See? Even the two gods whose beef created your city now agree that the atrocities you performed to Melos are unacceptable and deserve punishment!"

Euripides truly was the GOAT for it! No wonder he made history even if he had the great masters like Aeschylus or even Sophocles to compete against! The dude looked his very audience in the eye and from the very beginning, right off the bat he told them that even the gods that fought each other for the city they live in would unitedly condemn them!

[soundbuster]

Euripides really wasn't beating around the bushes with this one.

[katerinaaqu]

Nope! With anything quite frankly! He was a fantastic playwriter on many aspects! But yeah this one I think stroke deep! Like really deep!

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

fully sober in the club googling iliad full text

[fawnblooms]

Trashed off my ass in the library with a hardback copy of the iliad

[katerinaaqu]

Fully awake during 12-hour-night shifts translating Iliad ancient text XD