Yu-wa of Ming Yue Hall

[mercyalayne]

danyweek day 1 | prophecies, magic, and visions

“..her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. from smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. she is azor ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end ”

comm collab with @virginrosess @unicornsandfigs @dracarysdreams 🤍

art illustrated by slazete

[globodamorte]

the truth come out: does kunou totonou is gay?

[globodamorte]

does he?

[masterofmingyuehall]

yes but unfortunately his person of interest is living in a different manga genre

[boitedecrayons]

Totonô and Leica! Inspired by the volume 8 cover.

[two-bees-poetry]

twenty years across the sea

[dramatic-dolphin]

and if i said nolan's odyssey starring no greek actors and with no recognizable aspects of greek culture or involvement by greeks, is the direct legacy of white supremacist colonialism that treated ancient greece as not just the pinnacle of ancient culture, but of an artificially created "european" culture, which white western europeans and their settler descendants, as the new pinnacle of culture, were the sole spiritual inheritors of.

[hiveswap]

^^^ PEOPLE ARE STILL THERE. There's a metro station across the street from the colosseum where i found a hair in my pizza slice. We drove by ruins of an amphitheater next to a motorway in greece once. It's literally just real places where real people live and have lived. It's not mythical perfect lands that once existed. I went to Itacha in 2023 and there was not enough parking space.

[linddzz]

I'm drunk. But my favorite recent moment re: ancient Greek literature is that I have a coworker who was very Mythology Retelling vibes and she loved a "modern interpretation ' and I was like. Girl you can read modern translations and they're gonna still be better than modern retelling. And she would scoff at me being annoyed at modern retellings that seemed shallow and bad. I'd be that snob during lunch break who wouldn't tell people to not enjoy things but if someone asked why I didn't like Madeline Miller I would SAY IT.

Anyway she was very excited for the Nolan Odyssey and so I gave her my Emily Wilson translation. And then after she saw the movie she was so excited for she sidled up to me today and admitted that the movie wasn't as good as the translation. And she had several things she wanted to rant about.

And I'm like OKAY NOW YOU GET IT now you see why I'm annoying!!!! Rant away girl I got you!!!

[distantvoices]

Xiao Wen Ju by Zhong Lin for Marie Claire China March 2024

Styled by Austin Feng. Makeup by Clive Xiong. Hair by Minghu Zhang.

[ohmovie]

“For the love of my brother, not of heaven.” — Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert

Dune: Part Three (2026) dir. Denis Villeneuve

[ginger1982]

“She’s unbelievable in this movie. That's not media hyperbole. She is actually terrifying and amazing.” – Timothée Chalamet on Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance as Alia Atreides

[tris-morreu]

nolan's the odyssey has such a fundamentally culturally christian understanding of religion and divinity that it is genuinely jarring to see characters in a supposedly ancient greek historical context describe divinity and its expression in those terms. characters wonder aloud why gods hide themselves (they didn't), question the existence of what nolan interprets the supernatural to be (they wouldn't) and talk of zeus's law (not real, and still somehow bastardized) in the same way we would talk about the ten commandments. it's so out of place. and it taps into that "defy the gods" thing.

like. we can defy the christian god, in a way, because we can choose to not do what he says we ought to. sure. but we cannot defy greek gods in the same way, because the god is not just an entity that commands you but the very thing you are doing. apollo does not just send plagues, he is plague. you know apollo is real because there is plague. plague is not apollo acting in the world, it is an instance of apollo, in the same way that insight is athena, love is aphrodite, harvest is demeter, storms are zeus. gods are not commanding nature and sending signs and acting upon the world, because signs and nature and human nature are themselves the gods. the gods cannot be absent, because we still get ideas, and harvest, and go to war, and feel desire, and hunt. the gods cannot be defied because you cannot defy "getting ideas" or "harvesting" or "having sex" or "dying." to attempt to is entirely futile. like you cannot defy poseidon because you cannot defy the sea. you cannot defy aphrodite because you cannot defy love and reproduction. nature and human nature are unbeatable, and so the gods are unbeatable, because they are nature and human nature.

and it's such a beautiful way of looking at the world, and he just doesn't get that.

[masterofmingyuehall]

Ngl I liked Zendeyas press tour looks better than any of the costumes in the Odyssey.

[sierra9s]

lokiloki

[threefates]

1860s female archery outfit with a pocket diary hanging from the belt

[jabutipiranga]

Light Spoilers for Nolan's Odyssey!

Streets are saying the movie is like this and I'm so scared

[themousefromfantasyland]

The Odyssey (2026): Movie Review

I posted this originally on Letterboxd, but I want to share with all my mutuals as well

Spoiler Alert!!!!!

I just went back from watching Nolan's Odyssey movie, and I have so many thoughts. Prepare yourselves, this will be a long review.

I will start by saying how I hate the culture war that this film caused. I think I hate both sides of the conversation. I hate the pathetic anti-SWJs and how they made a huge deal of Nolan casting a few non-white actors and a trans actor to play a cis role, as if POC and queer actors never had played roles in Greek mythology films before. But as a Greek mythology fan, I hate how my own camp reacted to this film, being rabid Homer purists and not even giving this film a chance.

It's Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. It's exactly what it says on the tin. He doesn't even try to be historically accurate. Who knew that brutalism would be an architecture style so popular in the Bronze Age Mediterranean? Odysseus travels in a viking ship for goodness sake. This is a guy who has no experience directing period fantasy pieces, so he designed ancient Greece as a generic "the past" with a few fancy costumes. I can't say I'm a fan of this aesthetic, but the film is so much more than that, and I feel like reducing the whole end product to a couple of weird directorial choices is shallow, intellectually dishonest and anti-art. 

I can say it right. @the-blue-fairie, @thealmightyemprex, I'm speaking specifically to you because I know you read my reviews and you don't like Nolan's style, this film isn't for you. Everything that you dislike about Nolan's directorial style is present in this film. This doesn't make the film bad, though. 

Everything is gray, dark, moody; the film takes itself as seriously as a shipwreck. It doesn't allow a single moment of levity. And it still embraces the fantasy elements.

Contrary to past adaptations, like the Hallmark miniseries or even the Tiktok concept album, it embraces the fantasy elements without embracing the wonder. The magic feels offputting, strange, like a disquieting apparition. 

Polyphemus doesn't speak properly, just proffering a few otherworldly and inhuman ramblings after Odysseus and his crew blind him, asking for Poseidon to curse them.

The Lastrygonians aren't rock-throwing giants , but an army of ruthless giants in full metal armor who don't rest until they kill as many of Odysseus' crew as they could find. 

Circe isn't a beautiful sorceress in a huge temple filled with nymphs, she's almost an old hag living in an old hut who has to manually twist the bodies of Odysseus' crew to turn them into pigs, in moments of visceral body horror. There's no Hermes here.

The ghosts of Odysseus' fallen men don't just haunt him, they try to physically attack him when they journey to Hades. 

There are no Lotus Eaters. Calypso is drugging Odysseus with lotus flowers herself, making him forget almost everything and making him live in a mist of confusion for years. All that to make him forget the horrors he saw.

Telemachus and Penelope share a very tempestuous relationship for a son and mother, with Penelope bitter about being powerless as a woman, constantly arguing with her son, belittling him, while Telemachus is constantly trying to prove he is fully capable of leading Ithaca.

And more, there are no gods here. Only Athena appears, in brief visions Odysseus has, before it's revealed in the end that she's wearing the face of the young priestess that the Greek army killed when they profaned Athena's temple in Troy. It's left ambiguous if she's Athena herself or only a manifestation of Odysseus' guilt for the horrors he took part in. She has tears in her eyes when Odysseus remembers the priestess being killed and Athena's statue beheaded.

Everything is meant to be unpleasant, not fully into horror territory, but extremely upsetting, strange. Maybe other directors could have made it more striking. Nolan has a too down-to-earth style. He films fantasy like he films sci-fi, but the guy is effective at what he wants to portray.

He makes you feel like you are right there inside this world. No matter how anachronistic this Greek world is, it feels like it exists. You won't see any bad CGI or bad special effects. The combination of score, camera angles, and editing choices immerse you completely in this story, as if the adventures and horrors are happening all around you. 

And all this lack of wonder has a point, because the film has a central theme: Hospitality and decay. 

Hospitality in this world is not just courtesy, it's a sacred law that guides this civilization. You should accept and treat well everyone that reaches your residence, be it a noble or a beggar, because they may be a god in disguise. Yet, people are constantly exploiting or breaking the laws of hospitality, the sacred laws of Zeus: From Antinous and the other suitors abusing Penelope's hospitality for years, from Polyphemus eating Odysseus’ crew, from Circe turning them into pigs when they were almost starving, and lastly, when the Greeks offered the Trojan Horse as a gift of peace to Athena before slaughtering the whole city.

This single act of breaking the laws of hospitality is what dooms this entire world. 

This film is set during the Collapse of the Age of Bronze, the period of dark ages between Mycenaean Greece and Classical Greece, a period in which the epic poems were meant as a reminder of all the glory lost in the process. 

This is a world in decay, where everything is dying and collapsing. 

At all times, there are constantly mentions of the Sea People and how they may attack and destroy their kingdoms at any time. The Sea People are an unknown people who are theorized by some historians to be one of the causes for the Bronze Age collapse. It’s one of the threats that makes the suitors’ situation even more urgent. Ithaca needs someone who can protect it from the Sea People. 

And then, almost by the end of the film, it’s revealed: The Sea People are the Greeks who sacked Troy. The memory of what they have done, of how they broke the laws of Zeus spread through the Mediterranean, and that has caused a cascade effect of every rule that governs civilization starting to collapse.

This is the main reason for why Odysseus can’t go back home, he can’t live with what he has done. The whole journey is him dealing with his constant guilt and trying to make things better, but only making them worse as a result. He knows what he has done has consequences, and he’s watching as it spreads to the whole world.

In the end, Odysseus and Penelope exile themselves to a journey into the west, while Telemachus rules Ithaca as king, but even though our main leads are happy, it’s evidently clear that as a whole, this world, all kingdoms visited are doomed. Everything will collapse and the songs about their feats and mistakes will be the only things remembered.

The Trojan War is depicted as both this world's Götterdämmerung, the Twilight of the Gods, and its Original Sin, the primordial crime from which every subsequent horror symbolically descends. 

This film has a happy ending, but it doesn’t end on a hopeful note. The final shot of the film is the Trojan Horse ablaze, symbolizing the violation of the laws of hospitality and how that symbolizes the decay that will destroy everything. 

We are living in times of economic recessions, environmental catastrophes, and liberal democracies in decay. Despite all the dubious choices Nolan made, the text is incredibly rich. Maybe this is the story for our times. 

@ariel-seagull-wings @mask131 @maimoncat @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @princesssarisa @tamisdava2

[tyriq-edits]

Is it ok to ask why you dislike the new odyssey? (From seeing the trailer itself, I do agree that it’s not accurate to the myth in some things)

1) calling it inaccurate to the myth is an UNDERSTATEMENT dear anon.

2) Nolan FUNDAMENTALLY misunderstands what the Odyssey is about and why it is such a significant text to greek and western culture as a whole. The slogan of the movie is: One man who defies the gods. THAT IS THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE ODYSSEY IS ABOUT!!!!! THE ODYSSEY AND GREEK MYTHOLOGY AS A WHOLE ARE LESSONS ON WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER DEFY THE GODS! The whole fucking reason why Odysseus is lost for a decade at sea is because he BROKE THE LAWS OF XENIA, the laws of the Zeus. The reason why Telemachus cannot simply throw out the suitors? XENIA! The Odyssey is there to teach the readers about Xenia.

3) no greek actors in sight anywhere. Imagine if Nolan made an adaptation of journey to the west and hired only white actors from the east coast.

4) The movie was filmed in the illegally occupied western Sahara, thus supporting settlements and colonialism

5) the movie looks like ASS. No colours, no interesting settings and everything is drowned in lights. And the costumes look like they are bought from the dollar store and spray painted. The entire movie looks like a 13 year old edgelord’s definition of “coolness”

6) the same way Nolan fundamentally misunderstands the point of the Odyssey, he also fundamentally misunderstands greek culture and history. WHY IS TELEMACHUS WEARING PANTS?!? WHY IS ANYONE WEARING PANTS?! Why does Odysseus’ boat look like a viking ship? Why does the suit of armour look roman???? WHERE IS THE BRONZE?! The COLOUR?! And this is not a “whoops we were off by a few hundred years in some artistic styles”. This is a “WE WERE OFF CENTURIES! Mycenean greece and the Roman Republic are 1200 years apart. 1200 YEARS!! At that point you might as well give Odysseus a jetpack. It’s like if i made a movie adaptation of Frankenstein, still set in the 1800s, and made Victor wear jeans and sneakers. It is THAT level of inaccurate. Pretty much the only historical accurate part in this movie is one of the suitors gay flirting with Telemachus as a way to assert dominance. Which yeah, is something the greeks did, using homosexuality as a way to dominate other men.

7) WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO LET AGAMEMNON AURA FARM? Agamemnon! AGA-FUCKING-MEMNON!!!! AURA FARMING?????????

8) Nolan is so preoccupied with being a pretentious fuckass that he lets this get in the way of his own art’s quality.

9) bro took out the whole “nobody blinded me” scene. You know… the story that just so HAPPENS TO BE THE CATACLYSM FOR THE WHOLE STORY!

10) it just fully gets rid of the gods. Poseidon? Never appears. Zeus? Never appears. Again Nolan is a pretentious asshole who tries to turn the Odyssey, again a book about the laws of the gods and why you need to respect them, into an atheist redditors wet dream. And i am saying this as a staunch cold hard atheist myself. Imagine if someone made a movie based on the new testament and just COMPLETELY left out God, the angels, the immaculate conception or that Jesus is the messiah.

11) After Nolan was done shooting the movie, instead of safely getting rid of all the equipment and stage props, HE JUST DUMPED IT ALL INTO THE OCEAN!

12) Zendaya (and I think some of the other actors but I’m not sure) wore ancient bronze discs that were stolen from an archeological dig and turned into Earrings to the premier of this movie. This whole movie LITERALLY supports art theft and the theft of ancient cultural artefacts by doing this. And as an archeologist specialised in ancient roman and greek history: I AM PISSED!!!!!!!!

I could go on for much much much much longer but these are some of my main points why I hate this movie with the same intensity that AM (from I have no mouth and I must scream) hates humans.

[vernalagnia-blog]

tamura yumi's new work "don't call it mystery" is lovely and quite a good read. although her biased perception of us judicial system's fairness is what it is, bias. like i get her critique of the japanese judicial system, but alas, us or canada is no better, esp. about child protection (protection from whom? whose children are protected? who did the protection? the residential school and sixty scoop in canada as case in point) but the commentaries on violence on women are on point.

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

Given that Tumblr is the site that goes crazy over media wherein an ambiguously neurodivergent and ambiguously non-heterosexual person solves mysteries, I feel like y'all would enjoy this manga