ao3 is facing a ddos attack from an overseas right-wing anonymous group because it contains "degeneracy and disgusting things like LGBT and NSFW".
they're not the only right-wing group that is attacking fanfiction sites because of queer & nsfw content. the Heritage foundation, the US right wing think tank that writes laws for republicans, wrote an article about how "big tech turns kids trans" in which they're advocating for the Kid's Online Safety Act to pass because it will give state attorney generals power to sue websites for "potentially harmful content towards minors". in this article they point out websites like wattpad, tumblr, tiktok, twitter as sites that GOP attorney generals can and will target for censorship if this bill passes. all places where fandom, that's mostly queer, hangs out.
if you think this bill has no chance of passing because of all the red flags it poses, think again. it currently has 38 cosponsors in the senate, and is being pushed by the democrats as a "protecting the children!!" type bill.
there are left-aligned orgs in congress rn lobbying for this bill to pass. july is extremely decisive, because if KOSA goes through to markup it'll be bundled with the Earn It act, Restrict, and all the other bad internet bills and passed as a package, completely censoring the internet forever.
if you want to learn more about the bill, go here. also sign the open letter against it here
it's ESSENTIAL that you call your members of congress, specifically Maria Cantwell (you can call from out of state) and tell them DO NOT PASS KOSA. this site here connects you to your members of congress and gives you a short simple script to read off of! super easy and doesn't take much out of your day! please do this now!!
in my opinion, many modern greek retellings/stories inspired by greek mythology don't fail because they're inaccurate. they fail because they have nothing new to say.
i don't mind changes to the original myths, as long as they make sense and they have a narrative purpose! i understand that making changes is sometimes necessary to convey a certain narrative, especially to modern audiences.
is epic the musical mythologically accurate? hell no! but the changes serve to tell a specific story and to convey a certain message. also, epic the musical is self aware about its "inaccuracies". and the music just bangs.
is hadestown accurate? no! does it make the change that I always dread, removing the kidnapping from the hades/persephone myth? yeah. but hadestown is barely about them, and it uses greek mythology as a "narrative frame" to tell a certain story. it has a point. it has a message.
what are stories like lore olympus trying to say? what is the messagge of the hundredth persephone/hades retelling? what are we supposed to take from them? "don't listen to your mother she's a bitch"? "mothers are irrational and you should forsake her for a man"? very feminist.
why are we still doing the medusa "feminist" retellings? it's BEEN done. too many times. and they're ALL the same. it's a worse crime than being bad: they are boring.
i'm tired of retellings that are just "what if this very famous story was THE OPPOSITE and the protagonist was an ASSHOLE the whole time and the villain was MISUNDERSTOOD and the real VICTIM" okay but why. why would that be the case. what's the point of the story you want to tell. or do you just want to use shock value.
of course, i dislike retellings that are so different from the myth that they go AGAINST the spirit/message of the original, because in that case what's even the point of retelling the myth? just tell an original story. but i would take stabbed poseidon and capitalist hades any day over the same basic story of medusa being a girlboss or demeter being bad because of... reasons?
tl;dr: stop being unoriginal and tell a good story. or at least an entertaining one. i beg you
Just watched The Odyssey 2026 and my god were the characters done dirty...
Hate hate hate what they did with Odysseus's characterization like you cannot be serious. Who is Odysseus if not a sly clever liar (affectionate).
Now he's just some modern goody two shoes inner dilemma hero in a sea of them. They stripped him of his whimsy and cruelty both.
#NotmyOdysseus
There's not one moment in the film where I could go, ahh there he is Odysseus being Odysseus. Not one instance of him being clever, he's just lucky...
Didn't add the 'Nobody' scene but still made him shoot at Polyphemus which starts it all which doesn't even make sense with his characterization in the movie. The Polyphemus scene is supposed to highlight Odysseus's cleverness and hubris but the movie version of him has no pride!
Don't even get me started on Athena & Odysseus! Odysseus famously Athena's star pupil is not.... Instead she's haunting his guilt? Athena who famously interfered in the book to aid Odysseus like a lot... directly and behind the scenes.
In the book Mentor was actually Athena in disguise so I was so hoping for it to be her since Telemachus remarks multiple times about 'wise eyes' but no... it was about how you shouldn't see gods in people blah blah BORING!!!!
'Defy the Gods' Ah yes Odysseus famously devout follower of Athena...
I couldn't help but notice how dirty the female characters were done compared to their Epic counterparts and the erasure of Anticlea during the Underworld scene.
And I'd like to talk more about it, starting with Athena! She is one of the active players who guides both Odysseus's and Telemachus's journey. When Odysseus reaches Ithaca it was Athena who makes him look like an old beggar. Even in the final battle against suitors she deflects their spears to protect Odysseus and afterwards when nobles are angry Odysseus essentially killed their sons Athena steps in herself to establish the peace.
She is integral to the story, there is no Odyssey without her!! Odysseus only survived and made it back home due to her guidance and interference, removing her entirely is a disservice to the actual Epic being adapted.
And second character is Penelope, my Queen!!! I want to get this out of the way Anne Hathaway is in my personal opinion the standout of this film, she did amazing with what she was given. However that is to say, they didn't give her much. They cut off many Penelope moments that give us a taste of her own cleverness (making her a true partner for Odysseus) in favor of some simple status pin which isn't a good trade off imo.
The Olive Tree Bed moment was also not in the movie to my disappointment. A scene that clearly demonstrates how she tricks her own extremely clever trickster husband rather than some pin symbolism.
Circe and Calypso.... the less said about them the better though I hated their costuming.... Where were Circe's nymphs? or not nymphs since Nolan is allergic to whimsy even handmaidens? Circe is a powerful GODDESS 😭(Why was a raven/crow her sister? Was it supposed to be Pasiphae? If yes then I have so many more questions.)
I hate Calypso so i won't waste any words on her but its so funny that they made Odysseus eat Lotus Flower like lmaoooo you can't make this shit up..
I didn't like the costuming, the hair, the armor, the lightening either. I hated the look of Ithaca's palace and the ending like Odysseus... leaves Ithaca and his son after just arriving????
I also think it's so peculiar how Nolan didn't want an orchestra in sound design when the Homeric era didn't have that and then have everything else inaccurate from the armor design to the choice of modernised dialogue (surprisingly I didn't mind the modernised dialogue, not when the movie had larger issues).
Though props to them for making the pig transformation disturbing & sickening and not props for making Scylla lame ass design when her description is genuinely so horrifying, I believe the Odyssey could have been Nolan's first venture into VFX- nothing wrong with a little of it especially while adapting mythological creatures though disappointingly Nolan still clings to his practical only approach.
Also props for a good Eurylochus, making me side eye him and still making me feel sorry for him at the same time.
Side minor note: icky that they cast a black woman for Helen only for her to be abused and miserable when the source material makes no note of it, not a good look imo.
Also since they did deviate from the Poem of the Odyssey and included references to other Epic cycles, I wish they could have added Palamedes and Odysseus acting insane since I felt like the setup for it was there in the film with the scene of Odysseus and Penelope before war and it could be a scene to show again, his prominent cleverness that's direly missing from the film.
When the Trojans put a spear in the horse to verify, I had thought in that moment it was a reference to the omen of Laocoon and sea serpents would appear next but then it happened again and again and was just a tool to create tension.
(Again before anyone says Laoccon is not canon to Homer but neither is anything about the Trojan Horse except a few mentions in the Odyssey. If the sack of Troy has been expanded it would have been nice to see other epics being referenced.)
Why was Apollo the Sun God? What is this Percy Jackson?
All in all, if it was just any other standalone it would be strong 3.5 to 3.75 but as something that has source material an underwhelming 2.5 to 3.
The rating 3 is the average and generous because the film does look good so there's that.
Taking creative liberties in adapting an already existing source material is a thing but it's forgivable and completely understandable only as long as it serves its purpose to enchance the original material for a new medium but I feel like this movie changed the core of who Odysseus is as a character/person completely, erased his mentorship bond with Athena, erased his cleverness and trickster nature, whitewashed him and in the end the character isn't even identifiable as Odysseus anymore.
From Time Magazine interview that Nolan did it was noted that,
For Nolan, one of the hardest things about adapting The Odyssey is that in The Iliad, Odysseus has a relatively minor role. “A lot of the characteristics of Odysseus that can be really admirable in a supporting character, like being a bit clever, being a bit slick, when your hero is like that, it doesn’t always work,” he says. “There’s a reason that in Star Wars, you’ve got Han Solo, but you’ve also got Luke Skywalker, a heroic figure that’s a little more pure and transparent. So the challenge was to be true to the complexity of Odysseus but make him relatable for the audience.”
Which I think is precisely why he got Odysseus so wrong and this movie failed as an adaptation, the rigidness and the lack of letting go of realism to the nth degree.
Just watched The Odyssey 2026 and my god were the characters done dirty...
Hate hate hate what they did with Odysseus's characterization like you cannot be serious. Who is Odysseus if not a sly clever liar (affectionate).
Now he's just some modern goody two shoes inner dilemma hero in a sea of them. They stripped him of his whimsy and cruelty both.
#NotmyOdysseus
There's not one moment in the film where I could go, ahh there he is Odysseus being Odysseus. Not one instance of him being clever, he's just lucky...
Didn't add the 'Nobody' scene but still made him shoot at Polyphemus which starts it all which doesn't even make sense with his characterization in the movie. The Polyphemus scene is supposed to highlight Odysseus's cleverness and hubris but the movie version of him has no pride!
Don't even get me started on Athena & Odysseus! Odysseus famously Athena's star pupil is not.... Instead she's haunting his guilt? Athena who famously interfered in the book to aid Odysseus like a lot... directly and behind the scenes.
In the book Mentor was actually Athena in disguise so I was so hoping for it to be her since Telemachus remarks multiple times about 'wise eyes' but no... it was about how you shouldn't see gods in people blah blah BORING!!!!
'Defy the Gods' Ah yes Odysseus famously devout follower of Athena...
I couldn't help but notice how dirty the female characters were done compared to their Epic counterparts and the erasure of Anticlea during the Underworld scene.
And I'd like to talk more about it, starting with Athena! She is one of the active players who guides both Odysseus's and Telemachus's journey. When Odysseus reaches Ithaca it was Athena who makes him look like an old beggar. Even in the final battle against suitors she deflects their spears to protect Odysseus and afterwards when nobles are angry Odysseus essentially killed their sons Athena steps in herself to establish the peace.
She is integral to the story, there is no Odyssey without her!! Odysseus only survived and made it back home due to her guidance and interference, removing her entirely is a disservice to the actual Epic being adapted.
And second character is Penelope, my Queen!!! I want to get this out of the way Anne Hathaway is in my personal opinion the standout of this film, she did amazing with what she was given. However that is to say, they didn't give her much. They cut off many Penelope moments that give us a taste of her own cleverness (making her a true partner for Odysseus) in favor of some simple status pin which isn't a good trade off imo.
The Olive Tree Bed moment was also not in the movie to my disappointment. A scene that clearly demonstrates how she tricks her own extremely clever trickster husband rather than some pin symbolism.
Circe and Calypso.... the less said about them the better though I hated their costuming.... Where were Circe's nymphs? or not nymphs since Nolan is allergic to whimsy even handmaidens? Circe is a powerful GODDESS 😭(Why was a raven/crow her sister? Was it supposed to be Pasiphae? If yes then I have so many more questions.)
I hate Calypso so i won't waste any words on her but its so funny that they made Odysseus eat Lotus Flower like lmaoooo you can't make this shit up..
I didn't like the costuming, the hair, the armor, the lightening either. I hated the look of Ithaca's palace and the ending like Odysseus... leaves Ithaca and his son after just arriving????
I also think it's so peculiar how Nolan didn't want an orchestra in sound design when the Homeric era didn't have that and then have everything else inaccurate from the armor design to the choice of modernised dialogue (surprisingly I didn't mind the modernised dialogue, not when the movie had larger issues).
Though props to them for making the pig transformation disturbing & sickening and not props for making Scylla lame ass design when her description is genuinely so horrifying, I believe the Odyssey could have been Nolan's first venture into VFX- nothing wrong with a little of it especially while adapting mythological creatures though disappointingly Nolan still clings to his practical only approach.
Also props for a good Eurylochus, making me side eye him and still making me feel sorry for him at the same time.
Side minor note: icky that they cast a black woman for Helen only for her to be abused and miserable when the source material makes no note of it, not a good look imo.
Also since they did deviate from the Poem of the Odyssey and included references to other Epic cycles, I wish they could have added Palamedes and Odysseus acting insane since I felt like the setup for it was there in the film with the scene of Odysseus and Penelope before war and it could be a scene to show again, his prominent cleverness that's direly missing from the film.
When the Trojans put a spear in the horse to verify, I had thought in that moment it was a reference to the omen of Laocoon and sea serpents would appear next but then it happened again and again and was just a tool to create tension.
(Again before anyone says Laoccon is not canon to Homer but neither is anything about the Trojan Horse except a few mentions in the Odyssey. If the sack of Troy has been expanded it would have been nice to see other epics being referenced.)
Why was Apollo the Sun God? What is this Percy Jackson?
All in all, if it was just any other standalone it would be strong 3.5 to 3.75 but as something that has source material an underwhelming 2.5 to 3.
The rating 3 is the average and generous because the film does look good so there's that.
Taking creative liberties in adapting an already existing source material is a thing but it's forgivable and completely understandable only as long as it serves its purpose to enchance the original material for a new medium but I feel like this movie changed the core of who Odysseus is as a character/person completely, erased his mentorship bond with Athena, erased his cleverness and trickster nature, whitewashed him and in the end the character isn't even identifiable as Odysseus anymore.
From Time Magazine interview that Nolan did it was noted that,
For Nolan, one of the hardest things about adapting The Odyssey is that in The Iliad, Odysseus has a relatively minor role. “A lot of the characteristics of Odysseus that can be really admirable in a supporting character, like being a bit clever, being a bit slick, when your hero is like that, it doesn’t always work,” he says. “There’s a reason that in Star Wars, you’ve got Han Solo, but you’ve also got Luke Skywalker, a heroic figure that’s a little more pure and transparent. So the challenge was to be true to the complexity of Odysseus but make him relatable for the audience.”
Which I think is precisely why he got Odysseus so wrong and this movie failed as an adaptation, the rigidness and the lack of letting go of realism to the nth degree.
The “nobody” scene in the odyssey is absolutely not just a clever pun—it’s a character defining moment for Odysseus because he refuses to be nobody. He devised an incredible plan that worked and he could have saved his men and returned home much sooner but he just had to yell to the cyclops that he isn’t nobody—he’s Odysseus, king of Ithaca so now Poseidon knows who to curse which severely fucks up the rest of the journey.
The “nobody” scene highlights both Odysseus’s cleverness but also his arrogance and those two traits define Odysseus throughout the entire story. It’s a foundational aspect of Odysseus’s character and cutting the scene displays a shocking level of ignorance and disregard for the themes in the source material.
I love Lupita, but OMG what a HORRIBLE look they gave her in "The Odyssey"… So I mixed some Minoan clothing with versions of Greek dresses from pop culture to create a new look for her.
I find it kind-of fascinating how different people respond to the weirdness of AOTC sometimes. Because, on a fundamental level, it doesn't work. I love AOTC, I've got tons of nostalgia for it, but it is a film that is extremely confused about a lot of things and doesn't necessarily accomplish everything it's setting out to do because it can't quite decide what it wants to be and it's biting off more than it can chew.
Anakin is supposed to be simultaneously in a coming-of-age-gone-wrong story of sorts, where he's a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, still clinging to some of his childish behaviors while also chafing against authority and aching for independence from his guardians, as well as in an epic romance with a woman who is written as the coolest most competent most badass and morally upright woman in the world.
And those two things simply do not work together very well.
The coming-of-age-gone-wrong story is one where Anakin is intentionally written as a whiny teenager whose relationship with Obi-Wan is starting to get difficult because Anakin wants his independence and Obi-Wan is understandably a little worried about giving it to him and then Obi-Wan is forced to allow it and he learns that it's good to let your children have the space to make mistakes of their own as a part of growing up except that Anakin then secretly goes off and murders a bunch of people and now we the audience know that Obi-Wan was right all along and the horror is that he doesn't even know it. This is honestly an extremely compelling story, because it takes the coming-of-age concept and really turns it on its head with your two characters going in almost completely opposite directions instead of actually meeting in the middle. Anakin being a whiny teenager is essential to this story working because you WANT to see that he's still in that limbo between childhood and adulthood, you want to understand that that confusion about who he is and who he's been and who he wants to become is central to the decisions he makes by the end.
The epic romance is a fairly bog standard forbidden romance storyline, although it is also a little turned on its head by the fact that you as the audience are intended to understand that the two lovers actually SHOULDN'T get together even if you believe the love is genuine. You SHOULD be able to watch this romance and fully believe that Anakin and Padme truly love each other and would be good for each other if only they weren't in their respective jobs and that the things that compel them about each other is exactly what should be keeping them apart in the first place. We should believe that their desire to do good and help others as much as they can with the power that they have is what brings them together but it also is what has brought them to their positions that require them to choose between their work and their love for each other. But doing this requires the audience to BUY THE LOVE, you have to buy that these two people do genuinely care about each other and love each other SO MUCH that they're willing to throw away what they've worked for to try to have it despite all the reasons they know they shouldn't. And this can also be a compelling narrative on its own! On paper, the forbidden romance storyline should be extremely compelling, especially if you get the right actors with good chemistry able to really pull it off.
The problem is that the whiny teenager simply doesn't fit into the epic romance narrative. He just doesn't. Not when your female lead is written as the coolest most competent most badass and morally upright woman in the world. I can believe that she'd FEEL for the whiny teenager, that she'd sympathize with his plight as he struggles to become an adult, that she'd want to help him, sure. But I don't for a MOMENT truly buy that she'd actually fall for the whiny teenager who throws stupid temper tantrums and murders children, certainly not enough to buy that she'd throw away all of her morals and everything she's ever worked for just to be in a relationship with him.
ROTS Anakin fits better into the epic romance, as someone who's already figured out how to be an adult and has more of his shit together, and his awkwardness tends to come off as more endearingly sweet than cringy and juvenile and even creepy the way it does in AOTC. But AOTC Anakin fits better into the coming-of-age-gone-wrong narrative. And they're trying to somehow do both of them at once in the same film, and unfortunately it just DOESN'T WORK. The coming-of-age-gone-wrong narrative gets set to the side to focus on the epic romance but the epic romance doesn't work with the whiny teenager from the coming-of-age-gone-wrong, so both of them end up falling flat. And it's truly too bad because they could both easily be incredibly compelling stories on their own, but they're extremely incompatible with each other.
And this has led to some interesting fan reactions to the epic romance plot in particular as people desperately try to figure out how to make some of it make sense. The coming-of-age-gone-wrong comes off better for the most part, but the epic romance struggles a LOT as people try to figure out how the coolest most competent most badass and morally upstanding woman in the world would be willing to set aside mass child murder for a whiny teenager who can't respect a "no" when he hears it and claims to be down for dictatorship.
Some people just choose to buy what the narrative tells you and ignore the ways in which it makes very little sense. They just choose to believe there's genuine affection there between them because the story doesn't work if you don't think they genuinely love each other. So what if Padme's characterization makes no sense? So what if this means the woman who saw through so many people's bullshit is suddenly falling for Anakin's bullshit hook line and sinker? It's what the story is telling you is true, so you just have to take it at its word and enjoy it for what it is or not.
And, you know, fair enough I suppose. I think that gets pretty hard for a lot of people who recognize all of the insanely bad writing in the epic romance and how little explanation there really is for what Padme sees in Anakin that would cause her to feel the way the film says she does, but it's a valid choice to just decide to take the story you're being told at face value.
But for those of us who can't buy into it, there seem to be a few other options, usually regarding different interpretations of Padme herself.
Some people choose to interpret Padme as just perhaps less morally upstanding than the film might want you to believe she is. Maybe she THINKS she's super morally upstanding, maybe a lot of people around her think she's super morally upstanding, but she's actually kind-of selfish and racist and doesn't care about sentient rights anywhere near as much as she might seem to. Maybe she's always been this way and it was just less obvious when she was younger and focused on Naboo, or maybe she's become this way over the last 10 years, jaded by the invasion of Naboo and her time as a Senator in a corrupt Republic. This is a harder interpretation to support, since I don't think it falls in line with what the narrative really wants to say about Padme as a character, but I can understand how some people might get here.
Some people choose to believe that Anakin is, intentionally or not, using the Force to mind control Padme into believing she loves him over the course of the film. Each time she says no, he exerts a little more control over her, causing her to make decisions she would not normally make, until she's declaring her undying love for him and agreeing to marry him only a week after meeting him as an adult for the first time. This is obviously completely in line with a lot of the themes about Anakin as a character, and it's an extremely easy fix for the problems with Padme's characterization, but it also tends to take away a lot of complexity Padme could have as a character and reduces most of her agency to being an object in Anakin's narrative as opposed to a complicated person making her own complicated choices.
And for people who don't love any of these options, we're left desperately trying to splice together some kind of coherent characterization for poor Padme, trying to make the narrative make a lick of sense without reducing Padme to nothing or pretending Anakin's a better and more compelling person than he actually is. And all because poor AOTC can't decide if it wants to be a coming-of-age story or an epic forbidden romance and the two things clash against each other so hard that we've been spending over 20 years now trying to piece it back together.
Hihi! I broke and gave in to your encouragement of requesting before Thursday so here it is （╹◡╹）♡ I’ve always thought that yanderes who genuinely think that kidnapping is a good thing are kinda like cat owners and cats. Minus the delusional part.
Cats don’t understand why they aren’t allowed to go outside and see it as lack of freedom + think the outside world is sooo much better. They don’t know they’re safer inside, especially if they used to live on their own. But their owners do. And just like cat owners, Logan knows it’s safer for platonic fem teen reader inside his home than to be all alone. (At least he thinks so)
Reader is an orphan who’s been on her own for a good while now so Logan’s not taking her away from family-just her freedom. Which he doesn’t see as something she needs. To top it off, reader doesn’t really fight back. She’s pretty docile about it all despite some fear and confusion. She’s not quite ready to fully accept it but she likes Logan’s care, even if treats/acts like she’s younger than she really is. He doesn’t mean too…not really. He can’t help it, everyone just feels so young to him.
I hope you enjoy this request!! I might be a little greedy and request again on Friday-have a great day! :)
synopsis 𖥧 you're too young to understand, but that's fine, he's been a monster a lot of times and he doesn't mind being the villain in your story if you're alive to tell it.
content 𖥧 fem/afab reader, teen reader (13-17), reader is a little oblivious and naive but oh well !!
💬 : MORE YANDERE LOGANNNNN
🏷 : @luna-kait , @mavixgirl
The first time Logan Howlett saw you, you were a flicker of vulnerability in a place where vulnerability got you killed. It was a dive bar in Laughlin, the kind of place that didn’t ask for ID and where the air was thick with sweat, stale beer, and the metallic tang of old blood. He was there to do what he always did: bleed for cash in a chain-link cage, let the feral thing in his chest have the reins for a few rounds, and then disappear into the night.
He’d just finished a fight, knuckles split and already knitting back together, when he heard it. A low, insistent murmur that wasn’t a proposition. It was a threat. His head, already on a swivel from the adrenaline, snapped towards the far end of the bar. You were there, wedged into a corner booth, your eyes wide as saucers. You couldn’t have been more than sixteen, drowning in an oversized hoodie, your hair a wild mess around a face that was still soft with youth. A man, large and sweating through his flannel shirt, had his meaty hand clamped around your wrist, his body caging you in.
“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that,” the man slurred, his breath fogging the air near your face. “A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t be all alone.”
You were trying to pull back, your small frame trembling, but your voice was locked in your throat. You were frozen, a cornered animal.
Logan moved before he could think. It wasn’t a heroic impulse; it was instinct, a primal snarl that ripped from his gut. He was across the room in three long strides, his hand closing around the back of the man’s neck like a vise. He didn’t say a word. He just yanked. The man was thrown backward, crashing into a nearby table and sending drinks flying. Logan stood between you and the threat, his broad back a wall of worn leather and coiled muscle.
“The girl said no,” he growled, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. He let his knuckles pop, the adamantium-laced bones making a sound like grinding stone. “Now, you’re gonna walk away, or I’m gonna make you walk away on stumps. Your choice.”
The man, seeing the feral glint in Logan’s eyes and the fresh blood on his knuckles that wasn’t his own, scrambled to his feet and stumbled out into the night without a backward glance.
Logan stood there for a moment, breathing hard, the scent of your fear—sharp and acrid—filling his senses. He slowly turned. You hadn’t moved. You were just staring at him, your body still rigid, your hands clutching the edge of the booth. He saw it then, in the hollows of your cheeks and the shadows under your eyes. You weren’t just a kid who’d snuck into a bar. You were a kid who had nowhere else to go.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice rough, the softness in it feeling foreign to his own ears.
You just nodded, a quick, jerky movement, your lips pressed into a thin line.
“What’s a kid like you doing in a place like this?” He didn’t say it with judgment, just a tired, weary concern.
You didn’t answer, just shrugged one thin shoulder, your gaze dropping to the sticky floor. The silence stretched on, filled with the jukebox’s mournful wail and the clatter of pool balls. Logan sighed, a deep, bone-weary sound. He couldn’t just leave you here. He wouldn’t. It was a compulsion, a hook sunk deep into his gut.
He pulled a worn leather wallet from his back pocket, tossed a few bills on the bar to cover his cut of the fight and the trouble, and then he did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He held out his hand.
“Come on,” he said, not unkindly. “You’re with me.”
You looked at his hand, then up at his face, your eyes searching for the catch. There wasn’t one. Just a man with a permanent scowl and eyes that held an ocean of old pain. Slowly, hesitantly, you placed your small, cold hand in his. His fingers closed around yours, engulfing them, and he felt a strange, fierce surge of protectiveness that was as unsettling as it was absolute.
That was six months ago.
He didn’t ask you where your parents were. He could guess. Orphan. Alone. Scraping by on scraps and luck that was rapidly running out. He’d seen it a hundred times, in a hundred different towns. You were just another ghost in the machine, waiting to be swallowed whole. Except now, you were his. Not in the way a man possesses a thing, but in the way a wolverine claims a kit. A responsibility. A purpose. A line in the sand that no one, least of all the world, was allowed to cross.
He brought you to his home. A 1979 GMC Motorhome, a hulking beast of faded brown and orange that smelled of old cigars, leather, and him. It was parked on the edge of town, under a canopy of cottonwood trees. You stood in the doorway, taking in the small, lived-in space: the unmade bed in the back, the tiny kitchenette with a chipped enamel coffee pot, the maps tacked to the walls, and the ever-present scent of metal and man.
“It ain’t the Ritz,” he grunted, tossing a duffel bag onto a bench seat. He pulled a clean blanket from a cabinet and laid it on the small sofa that folded out into a bed. “But it’s got a lock on the door and it moves. That’s more than most get.”
You didn’t complain. You never did. You just sat on the edge of the sofa, your hands in your lap, looking around with a quiet, guarded curiosity. He made you a sandwich—thick-cut ham on rye, the only thing he had—and watched you eat it like you hadn’t had a real meal in days. You probably hadn’t.
That first night, he sat in the captain’s chair, pretending to read a dog-eared book, but his senses were tuned entirely to you. He listened to the soft sounds of you breathing, the rustle of the blanket as you tried to get comfortable, the tiny, hitched sigh you let out when you finally fell asleep. He didn’t sleep at all. He just watched over you, his claws itching beneath his skin at every passing car, every snap of a twig in the darkness. You were vulnerable. You were alone. And the world was a predator.
He understood that better than anyone.
The thing about Logan was, he didn’t see what he did as kidnapping. The word didn’t exist in his internal lexicon for what had transpired between you. In his mind, he hadn’t stolen you; he had salvaged you. He’d pulled you from a wreck. You were a stray he’d found shivering in the rain, and he’d brought you inside. It was simple. It was logical. It was, in the only way his damaged, century-old heart knew how to function, an act of profound care.
He saw your life before him as a series of dangers. The men in bars with wandering hands. The nights spent in bus stations or abandoned buildings, your senses always on alert. The gnawing hunger that hollowed out your stomach. To him, that wasn’t freedom. That was a death sentence you were too young to even understand.
His home, this rolling metal box, was safety. It was warmth. It was a promise. You didn’t need to make decisions. You didn’t need to worry about where your next meal was coming from, or who might be watching you. He would handle all of that. Your only job was to exist, to be safe within the perimeter he established. He didn’t see the cage; he saw the walls of a den, impenetrable and secure.
You didn’t fight him. That was the part that confounded him, and the part that made the whole thing seem, in his eyes, justified. He’d expected tears, accusations, attempts to run. He was prepared for that. He’d spent a century being the bad guy; he could handle being the villain in your story if it meant you were alive to tell it.
But you didn’t. You came with him. You ate his food. You slept in his space. You were quiet, docile, like a small, wounded bird that had finally stopped fluttering against the bars of its cage. He’d catch you looking at him sometimes, a flicker of something in your eyes—confusion, yes, but also a nascent trust that made his chest ache with a feeling he refused to name.
You were afraid, at first. He could smell it, that sharp, salty tang that clung to your skin. But it wasn’t a fear of him. It was a generalized, pervasive anxiety, the lingering trauma of a life spent on the defensive. He’d see you flinch at sudden loud noises, tense up when he moved too quickly. He hated it. He started announcing his movements, his voice a low, constant rumble in the small space. “Gettin’ a beer.” “Goin’ out for air. Door’s locked. I’ll be right outside.” He’d never been so verbal in his life, but for you, he learned.
He treated you like you were younger than you were. He couldn’t help it. You were sixteen, but to a man who’d seen the turn of the 20th century, you were practically an infant. He’d cut your sandwiches into triangles, the way he’d seen mothers do in diners. He’d remind you to wear a jacket when the temperature dropped, even if it was only a ten-degree swing. He’d stand outside the bathroom door when you showered, not peeping, just… listening. Making sure you didn’t slip. Making sure no one came in. It was paternal, in the most primal, animalistic sense. You were his to protect, and that meant every facet of your existence fell under his jurisdiction.
You, in turn, began to settle. You stopped flinching when he came through the door. You started leaving your shoes by his, a small, neat pair next to his massive, scuffed boots. You’d sometimes sit on the passenger seat while he drove, your legs tucked under you, watching the world scroll by through the windshield. The silence between you shifted from the silence of a hostage and her captor to the comfortable, companionable silence of two people who had simply run out of words.
You began to like his care. It was the first time you could remember anyone caring if you were warm, or fed, or scared. It was a foreign concept, a luxury so immense it felt like it might suffocate you, but it was also a balm. His gruff “You eatin’?” was a declaration of love. His grunt of approval when you finished your plate was a validation. When you had a nightmare (the first one, a few weeks in) you woke up crying. He was there in an instant, sitting on the edge of your bed, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air, unsure if he was allowed to touch you. “Hey,” he’d said, his voice a low anchor in the dark. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re right here. Nothin’s gonna get you. I got you.”
You’d lunged forward and buried your face in his chest, your small hands fisting in his white undershirt, sobbing. He’d frozen for a split second, his entire body going rigid. Then, with a slow, careful movement, his arms had come around you, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other splayed across your back. He’d held you like you were made of glass, rocking you slightly, murmuring low, nonsensical reassurances. “Shh. I know. I know. I’m here. I’m not goin’ anywhere. You’re safe.”
After that, the last of your resistance, the tiny, fluttering part of you that thought you should be somewhere else, simply faded away. This was your life now. And for the first time, it felt like you might be okay.
He didn’t keep you hidden away. That would have been cruel, and for all his rough edges, cruelty to you was an impossibility. The RV was his home, but it was also his vehicle. He was a drifter, a man with no ties, and his life was a constant, slow-motion escape. You became a part of that rhythm. You learned to love the hum of the engine on the open highway, the way the world changed from desert to forest to coastline.
He’d find fights in every town. It was his trade, his release, his only real skill. He’d park the GMC on the outskirts, walk you into the bar with a hand on the small of your back, and guide you to a stool at the rail overlooking the cage. “Sit here,” he’d say, his eyes scanning the room once, twice, three times, cataloging threats. “Don’t move from this spot. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll be right there.”
And you would sit. You’d become his constant, a small, quiet anchor in the chaos. You’d watch him strip off his jacket, his muscles rolling beneath his skin, the feral tension coiling in his frame. When he climbed into the cage, he’d give you one last look, a silent command to stay put, before the bell rang and the world narrowed to fists and fury.
You were his reason to come back to himself. In the past, the fights would swallow him whole. The berserker rage would take over, and he’d be lost until the last opponent fell. Now, in the moments between the blows, his eyes would find you. A flash of your hoodie, your hands gripping the rail, your worried face. It was a tether, pulling him back from the edge. He’d fight smarter, harder, but he’d fight to win, not to destroy. Because he had to get back to you.
After the fights, bruised and bleeding, he’d climb out of the cage to a chorus of cheers or jeers, and you’d be there, holding out his jacket. He’d take it, his knuckles stinging, and you’d walk beside him, a silent, unwavering presence. In the RV, you’d become the nurse. You’d learned quickly that bandages were useless. Instead, you’d run a warm, damp cloth over the cuts on his face, wiping away the blood, your touch impossibly gentle. He’d sit on the edge of the bed, his head bowed, letting you work. He’d never let anyone take care of him before. Not like this. It made him feel something raw and unguarded, something he couldn’t put into words.
Sometimes, on the road, you’d see things. A giant ball of yarn in a field. A roadside dinosaur made of scrap metal. A sign for a cavern tour. And you’d look at it, then at him, a silent question in your eyes. He’d grunt, and more often than not, he’d pull over. He’d stand back, arms crossed, watching you explore, a strange, quiet contentment settling over his features. He was giving you the world, piece by piece, on his terms. You saw a giant rubber-band ball; he saw a safe, controlled experience. You saw a dinosaur; he saw a memory being made, one he could keep safe in his chest.
He took you to a diner in New Mexico, a small, neon-lit place with the best blueberry pancakes he’d ever had. He ordered for you, a whole stack, and watched you drown them in syrup. You got a little on your chin, and without thinking, he reached across the table and wiped it off with his thumb. You both froze. He pulled his hand back, a scowl on his face, but you just gave him a small, shy smile, the first real one he’d ever seen on your face. It hit him like a sucker punch to the heart. He’d kill anyone who tried to take that smile away. He’d tear the world apart with his bare hands.
One night, in a bar outside of Tulsa, you saw a girl your own age. She was with a group of friends, laughing, her hair catching the neon light. She looked so… normal. She had a life. She had freedom. A cold, sharp stone settled in your stomach. You watched her order a drink she was clearly too young for, watched her giggle with a boy who put his arm around her. She was making choices. Bad ones, maybe, but they were hers.
That night, back in the RV, you were quiet. More than usual. Logan noticed. He always noticed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice low. He was cleaning his bloody knuckles with a rag.
You shrugged, pulling your knees up to your chest on the sofa. “Just… thinking.”
“’Bout what?”
You hesitated. The words felt dangerous, like a betrayal. But they bubbled up anyway. “About that girl. In the bar. She was my age.”
He stilled, the rag frozen in his hand. His eyes, already on you, sharpened. “Yeah. And?”
“She was just… out. With her friends.” You looked down at your hands. “She can just go wherever she wants.”
The silence that followed was thick, charged. You could feel the shift in him, the subtle tensing of his muscles, the way his jaw set. He wasn’t angry. It was something else. Something watchful.
“She can go get herself in trouble, you mean,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “You saw the way those boys were lookin’ at her. You think she’s safe? Walkin’ out of there alone?”
“She’s not alone, she’s with her friends-”
“Friends her own age,” he cut you off, tossing the rag aside. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his gaze pinning you in place. “Kids. What are they gonna do when something happens? When some guy doesn’t take no for an answer? Call the cops? Cops’ll show up twenty minutes later, if they show up at all. That girl, she’s a target. Just like you were.”
“I wasn’t-” you started, but he shook his head.
“You were. That’s the truth of it. The world doesn’t see a girl when it looks at ya. It sees an opportunity.” He sat back, running a hand over his face, looking suddenly, impossibly tired. “I’m not tryin’ to keep you locked up, kid. I’m tryin’ to keep you alive.”
“I know,” you whispered, and you meant it. You did know. That was the most confusing part. You knew, logically, that before him, you’d been a ghost, a shadow, one wrong move away from disappearing entirely. But the feeling of that stone in your stomach wouldn’t go away. “It’s just… sometimes it feels like I’m not… Like I’m just an extension of you.”
He was quiet for a long moment. You saw something flicker in his eyes—pain, maybe, or a deep, unsettling recognition. He got up and moved to the small window, his back to you. The moon was a pale sliver, casting a weak light on the cracked asphalt of the rest stop.
“You think this is easy for me?” he said finally, his voice barely a whisper. “You think I don’t know what you’re givin’ up? You think I don’t know I’m…” he trailed off, his fist clenching at his side. He couldn’t say the word. Selfish. He was being selfish. He knew it. He’d known it from the second he’d taken your hand in that bar. He needed you to be safe. He needed you to be his to protect. The need was a living thing, a feral beast that had sunk its teeth into his soul and wouldn’t let go.
He turned back to you. The hard lines of his face were softened by something that looked terrifyingly like anguish. “I’m doin’ the best I can,” he said, the words rough, torn from him.
You looked at him, this man who had pulled you from the wreckage of your own life, who fed you and clothed you and held you when you cried, who treated you like something precious and breakable. The fear was still there, a small, cold ember in your chest. But it was dwarfed by something else. A fierce, desperate affection for this broken man who had decided, for reasons you couldn’t fathom, that you were worth protecting.
You nodded slowly. “I know, m'sorry Logan.”
He let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for a century. He walked over to you, and for a moment, he just stood there. Then he reached out and, with a tenderness that belied his brutal hands, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His thumb grazed your cheekbone, a fleeting, hesitant touch.
“It ain’t forever,” he said, the lie sitting heavy in the air between you. He didn’t believe it. You could see it in his eyes. To him, forever was the only option. Because forever was how long he could protect you. Forever was how long he would keep you safe, even if it meant keeping you from the world.
You leaned into his touch, just for a second, before he pulled away, clearing his throat and turning back to the window. You watched his silhouette, broad and unyielding against the moonlight, a sentinel against the darkness.
He was a wolverine, fierce and territorial, and you were his kit. He had found you, claimed you, and built a den around you. You had a sense of freedom, a long leash that stretched from one end of the country to the other, but it was still a leash. He would take you anywhere, show you anything and everything, as long as he was there, as long as his eyes were on you, as long as you sat on the stool near the cage and didn’t move.
And you didn’t move. Because for all the confusion, all the unspoken tension, all the fear of what you might be losing, there was one thing you knew for certain: when his hand found the small of your back in a crowded room, when his low voice rumbled “I got you” in the dark, when his fierce, possessive gaze swept over you to ensure you were safe, you felt it. That thing you’d been searching for in bus stations and empty apartments and the bottom of your own hollow chest.
You felt safe.
And for a girl who had never been safe a day in her life, that was a cage she was willing to stay in.
Some after "Sinners" reading material if you're interested in Black American and Indigenous History (and the immigrants who came over, too). I put in the Jones-Rogers book too so y'all won't think the 58% had no serious role in shaping the horrors of America.
The only way reach this conclusion is if Epic was your only source.
Because I can think of half a dozen examples of Poseidon interacting with his sons. Unfortunally there isn't much about him with his daughters, except that time where he arranged the marriage of Briareus with Kymopoleia.
Ps: yes, this comment was on a video about Epic The Musical.
I can name like 3 different occasions when he helped out his son without them needing to die
He helped Bellerophon when king Iobates tried to kill him by nearly flooding the entire kingdom
He gave a winged chariot to Idas so that he could abduct/elope with Marpessa when her father and later Apollo tried to stop him
He gave three wishes to Theseus so that he could ask for whatever he wanted. And according to a schollia on Euripides Hippolytus he not only used it to kill his son but also to escape both the Labryinth and the Underworld
HATE those male gaze vs female gaze outfit videos like do you not realise how misogynistic it is to look at a girl wearing something body con and go “oh must be for man”. Isn’t choosing what to wear based on whether it does not fit the male gaze defeating the whole point of going against it because you’re still letting the male gaze dictate what you wear?
^^ I was thinking, like, "surely we all remember this from last time," but then I thought about it again, and realized that there are people who voted this year, who wouldn't even have been in their teens during the previous Trump rodeo.
So yeah, if you weren't following it last time, there will be a lot of Executive Orders that get walked back, struck down, or, once subjected to even mildly rigorous legal interpretation, turn out to have little or no effect.
When you see that Trump has signed an EO about something that seems drastic and scary, take a breath and wait a few hours, then see what the experts are saying about it.
