just me, thinking thoughts

this is my attempt at a more political blog, since i don't really like responding to posts on my main (i usually just talk in the tags). if i've make a mistake or overstepped my bounds in any way, let me know. (they/them)

[withasmoothroundstone]

I’ve been struggling with how hard it is to hold onto full consciousness that  I’m a human being equal to other human beings.

And understand that this is confusing.  So when I write about decisions I am making, don’t take them as judgements on people who don’t or can’t make similar decisions. And don’t assume that I am even totally certain I’m right – I’m pretty sure  I’m right about the core idea, but the details are confusing as hell.  

In a lot of this, I feel like I’m in some kind of freefall.  People have dealt with similar things for a long time, and I’ve gone out of my way to seek them out and learn as much as I can.  But a lot of the learning is necessarily by analogy.  And there are paths I’m trying to take – I’m certain others have taken them before me, but if any of them were able to write more than the most cursory maps, I haven’t been able to find them.  

Which is why it becomes important to record even my own flailing in the dark.  Because maybe – it’s been the case before – maybe it will help someone who’s flailing around in here with me, perhaps freefalling in the same place but we’re all unseen to each other, only sensed indirectly.

I have been writing a lot of things, none of which are finished yet.  I can’t really help the length.  I’m sorry in advance to anyone who (like me, believe it or not) has trouble reading long things.

Also understand why I’ve put photos throughout this post in various places.  Some things I can only say that way, and I find it important to remind people of there being physical real humanity behind all these words.  The words are just an attempt to convey things that words can only point to without getting there.  So you’ll also see things like this (and if I could do image descriptions I wouldn’t need the images – all I can say for any of them is that they show my face as I’m writing different parts of this, which by the way was not written in order):

Being sick is a weird thing.  It renders me vulnerable to all manner of nonsense.  But it also pulls down my defenses against reality. We’ve all got defenses against reality. I’m perhaps more aware of mine than a lot of people, but still can only pull them down at will for short periods of time. (We’ve also all got defenses against unreality – and those are incredibly important. Being sick makes it hard to defend against either one, so what happens is always a mixed bag.)

Right now can be almost unbearably painful.  Because I am aware of my full humanity, or as aware of it as I can generally get.  And that means being aware of how much of an unperson I am, and others like me are. And by the way – if you see me as a person because I’ve proven it to you, but people otherwise just like me who haven’t proven it are not people to you, I’m not actually a person to you either.  Real people’s personhood is not conditional.

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things for awhile, a long while, and not been able to articulate a single one in a full post.  This is the first attempt that I think will actually make it. 

But what prompted this post in particular.

There’s a lot of people in my life who vary a lot in how much I’m considered a person to them.

There’s one person who, while they connect with me in certain areas of life we have in common, I’m still pretty clearly not a person to them.

I was thinking how they are a person to me. How I use the areas where we can connect to try to understand them.  How I am always trying to understand other people.  Not just intellectually but to have genuine compassion wherever thy are at and whatever they are doing.

And.  Okay.  I’m disabled.  They’re either nondisabled or at least… not in a way I know of, and not in a way that puts them at the mercy of the systems I depend on for survival.

And the most common roadmaps followed by people in this corner of the online world, would tell me to just ignore our common humanity.  To make things even more adversarial, more us-vs.-them, than they started out.  To protect my own and to hell with everyone else unless they did exactly as I wanted and expected, even if what I wanted and expected changed constantly and unpredictably.

But that’s not a viable way for anything to actually work.

And also…

Okay one of my posts is about a concept I’m semi-borrowing from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind In The Door:  Xing.  In A Wind In The Door, there are evil creatures called Echthroi who try to X people – to erase their entire existence across time and space, at the deepest level.

And I don’t accept all the parameters in that book.  I don’t think real Xing is possible.  But I think people try to X people all the time.  I think disabled people are highly subject to Xing and this is highly socially acceptable.  I also think that even attempted Xing, whether small-scale or large-scale, is the worst thing a human being can do to another human being.  And the fact that it’s socially acceptable in many contexts doesn’t make things better.

Xing is about trying to erase your soul, or pretending your soul never existed.  It doesn’t matter if you believe in no souls one soul, many souls, you frigging know what I mean, the part of you most connected to reality, the parts of you that make you real, the seat of your personhood, whatever you want to call it.  So please don’t bullshit me about my language being wrong or your own discomfort at what you see as a religious concept.  These things are hard enough to write about without having to second-guess every other word I write.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what your mind or your heart tell you.  Your soul knows when you’re being Xed.  And it screams.  It fights to be taken as real.  No matter what choices you make.  No matter what cognitive abilities you have.  No matter how emotionally anesthetized you think you are.  Your soul responds.

And the thing about Xing is, it doesn’t just work one way.  When someone tries to X someone else, or participates in Xing someone else (often as part of a larger pattern that guides their behavior, such as working at an institution), they end up Xing themselves.  I don’t know how it works, I only know that it works like that every time.  When someone tries to X someone, the only winners in the end are the Echthroi.

So my instinct towards compassion for people regardless of what they’ve done, is not wrong.  And understand – by compassion, I mean love, I mean empathy.  I don’t mean excusing people.  I don’t mean forgiving people, although that can happen.  I don’t mean putting me or anyone else in danger.  I don’t mean sparing their feelings or avoiding the harsh reality of what they are doing.  I don’t mean acting like compassion for them is more important than compassion for the people they are Xing.  I don’t mean talking endlessly about how ~understandable~ it is for a mother to commit premeditated murder against her disabled child, how people are supposedly wrong to be disgusted and angry.   I don’t mean ignoring who ultimately has power over who else.  Don’t get me wrong here.

I do mean that recognizing our common humanity is ultimately vital for all of us.

And when I say that Xing Xes the Xer, that’s universal.  So if I respond to a person who participates in my Xing, by trying to turn the tables and X her, then I am Xing myself as well.  I lose touch with my own humanity.  I lose touch with the humanity of others.  If we, as a group, respond to the constant threat of being Xed by trying to X the people Xing us, then we are destroying ourselves.  We are aiding in our own Xing.  We are losing touch with the humanity of everyone, and this also means that when we are in positions of power, we will participate in the Xing of other groups of people.

And the only things that win in such a scenario are the Echthroi.

No amount of theory, rationalization, justification, will change this situation.  This is a fundamental property of reality.  Encouraging people to find elaborate ways to ignore that encourages people to inadvertently destroy themselves.

And these are things I found out when I listened to my soul begging not to be Xed.

None of this stops the fact that a struggle will have to happen in some form or another.

But it changes the shape of that struggle.

It changes what is acceptable and what is not.

Because I refuse to participate in the worst crime against humanity that exists.  Even if it is a crime that will never be a crime, that can’t be legislated, judged, heard evidence for.  It’s still real.  

And nothing can get away from that.  There are certain things that are just part of how the world works, and even if we can’t make sense of them, we can’t make them go away when it seems convenient.  I say seems convenient, because I’m convinced that even when Xing people seems right, feels right, it’s never right, and will never solve anything for real.  

I don’t know how to go forward.

I don’t know how to fight injustice without making it worse.

I don’t think there is or can be a formula or set of rules for this.

All I know is that my friend heard someone screaming for help across the street.

And they could not help this woman.

She’s in a nursing home.

My friend doesn’t trust the cops at all – but still almost called them to make sure this woman isn’t being physically or sexually abused.

And all I knew was I was suddenly terrified.

And I was reminded of something.

A woman in a nursing home.

She screamed for help every time I saw her.  Stood in her room, alone, yelling “HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP!”

A worker at the nursing home felt sorry for her.  Told me, “That poor woman, she has dementia.”

The worker was participating in that woman’s Xing the moment they made her situation one of sad inevitability, her cries for help solely the product of a malfunctioning body.

And I feared if the police went to that place, with this other woman screaming for help, they would possibly find no evidence of physical harm and would conclude “she has dementia”.

And I remembered the woman from my childhood visits to nursing homes.

And  I remembered that she didn’t just have dementia.

She lived in a small room with nothing to make it hers.

Her door was open but she had virtually no human interaction.

And she lived in an institution.  Institutions always X people.  

So she was being Xed in so many ways.

And her soul felt it and responded.  You could hear it in her voice.  There is a sound to a soul that is refusing to be erased.

I don’t know – and honestly don’t care on one level – how much she understood intellectually.  Whether she knew where she was.  Whether she knew who she was.

I don’t have dementia.  I do have wildly inconsistent cognitive abilities.  And I do tend to become severely delirious if sick enough.

I have been in hospitals and been too delirious to know where I was or even who I was. I’ve had time drag to a crawl in such a state.  And my only interaction – if you could call it that – was when nurses came in every few hours to switch my IV bags or sometimes clean me up.  This was not actual human interaction.  They were not acknowledging I existed.

And I felt it. My soul felt it. And my soul responded.  

So I know that you don’t need to have enough working brain cells to rub together to create conscious thoughts, to feel when you’re being Xed, and to respond on a primal level.  

This is the worst pain someone can inflict on someone else. And people do it to sick and disabled people habitually, put us in places that force people to do it even when they would not otherwise, and some form of this is completely socially acceptable in most cultures.

People act like I’m too stupid to know other people are even more stupid than me.

I think it’s pretty fucking evil to act like Xing people with cognitive disabilities doesn’t damage us or cause us pain.

I think this evil has become commonplace and acceptable.  This does not make it less evil.  Sometimes it’s impossible to evade a structure that forces you to at least partially participate in evil.  But it’s rarely impossible to try to do as much good as possible.

And that starts with knowing we have souls and that we can suffer and that our suffering from being Xed is not a sad but inevitable result of having a disability.  And that if we seem soulless and empty that is an illusion, and you can fight illusions if you know they are illusions.

What becomes horrible is when it’s too painful to know you have a soul and are fully human.

Because if you know – really, deeply know – that you yourself are human.

Then you can’t ignore the pain of your soul.  You can’t ignore the contrast between what other people see and who you are.

And that can be dangerous.

It can be dangerous to feel, to act on what you feel, to yell for help or to lash out or any of the other things that feeling your humanity under onslaught can make you want to do.

It feels safer to become numb.

It feels safer to accept that you are not a person, or are only a partial person.

Some of us learn this very young.

And we participate in our own Xing.

And when you begin to feel – you can do things that put you in danger, that may even put others in danger.

Which is why some part of me deeply knows that the instinct to dig in, to make it us and them, to hate everyone who hates me, to X everyone who Xes me, to lash out in any and every direction… this instinct is wrong, it contains illusions, it is deeply understandable and deeply wrong and deeply ineffective but it can feel so right in the moment.

And as communities we sometimes celebrate and encourage that impulse.  We nurture it and let it grow into something that is ultimately both evil and ineffective but that feels better than doing nothing and that is sometimes partially effective.  But some part of it is doomed, it is dooming ourselves, it is dooming anyone we might have genuine power over, it is so very seductive and so very dangerous.

So is passively allowing ourselves to be subhuman or partially human, or acting like we must go through life never harming anyone on any level.

Giving in to that seductive impulse to X people, or the impulse to be so utterly passive we X ourselves, are not the only two options.

But the effective options… they’re confusing.  There’s not as many roadmaps.  There’s not as many people.  They look different for each person.  Nobody can do everything.  Everyone has a part to play.  Sometimes people do good things while doing the wrong thing.  There aren’t words for these situations.

But as many of us as can, we have to try.

We have to grope around in the dark, to try to navigate this freefall, to find and create paths for each one of us.

It’s hard.  And confusing.

And right now.  I’m looking at you.  Whoever you are.  One human being with a soul to another human being with a soul.

I see you.  You are real.  So am I.  We’re in this together.

Sometimes you need a reminder that each of us is a human being behind the computer screen.

I don’t know where I’m going.  Where we’re going.  But I know I have to try.  I can’t accept any system that Xes anyone.  Whether that system is an institution, or an attempted fight or philosophy for liberation.  I can’t.  I won’t.  I will always try.

I won’t accept that anyone is soulless or empty.

I won’t accept that my soul always has to be filtered through an ego that distorts its intentions.

I won’t accept being Xed.

Which also means I won’t accept having to X anyone.

I can’t always resist doing the wrong thing.  There will be systems outside me that push me in the wrong direction.  There will be my own ego and illusions steering me wrong.  There will be unintended consequences, both for good and for bad.  But I can’t give up and act like that doesn’t matter.

If you are out there trying to figure this out, trying to grope around in the dark, I am here with you.  Lots of people are here with you.  None of us are alone.

And… sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy.  Well I know I’m crazy in one sense.  But what I mean is – my perceptions of reality, so few people voice these things, so many people participate in the Xing of me and people like me, that I wonder if perceiving our humanity and soul and everything is some kind of illusion.

And that I even wonder that – that is a symptom of how thoroughly fucked up and pervasive the Xing of people like me has become.

I’ll probably talk about my perceptions of other people in another post.  That’s an entire topic in itself.

Also – people often think there’s something special about my cats.  Because of the way they interact with people.  Because of the way you can feel that they have souls.

There’s nothing special about my cats.  I do my best not to X them.  They don’t learn to X themselves.  That’s the only thing different.  You can’t always do right by cats but you can try as hard as possible. 

I am like a cat who has learned to partially X themselves, but is beginning to listen to their soul.

One of the worst things for me is being conditionally a person.

It’s being a person because I can type in coherent English some of the time and people know it.

It’s being a person because I’ve displayed a real or illusory ability.  And people just like me who haven’t – or who are assumed they haven’t, even sometimes have people deliberately cover up that they have – aren’t people.  This is still Xing.  And it gets really insidious when people go, “You’re not like them, and they aren’t like you,” as if they decide.  As if, in the wrong situation, I am not somehow exactly “them”.  Real people’s personhood is never conditional.  

Or.

It’s people trying to make me a person.  I’m a person already.  You didn’t create my soul.   You don’t make yourself better by going through the motions of making me look kind of real.

Or.

It’s people saying I’m a person.  But not meaning it.  Not understanding it.  

Sometimes they gush endlessly about how I have a heart, a personality, but they treat me like a giant baby, and I am meant to accept this in order to make them feel better about themselves.

I can’t be that.  I can’t accept that.  My soul screams when I see it happening to other people.

You can’t make someone a person by celebrating that they are a mindless heart, or a heartless mind, or a bodiless mind, or a bodiless soul.  

All of us have whatever is meant by mind, heart, body, and soul.  We don’t all look the same, we are not all the same, but none of us are missing essential parts of our nature.   

You don’t have to compensate for the the ‘missing’ part by emphasizing some other part.  You don’t have to tell physically disabled people to ignore and disregard our bodies and cognitively disabled people to ignore and disregard our minds and autistic people to ignore and disregard our hearts and all combinations of these and more things.  “You don’t have a mind but that’s okay.” “You don’t have a body but that’s okay.”  “You don’t have a heart but that’s okay.”

No.  it’s not okay.  Our minds and bodies and hearts and souls may look different, may be different, but they’re not absent.

It’s not okay. It can never work.  It is not the answer.  It is not liberation.  It is not freedom.  It is not love.  It is Xing in disguise.

I have to be a human being.  I have to be a human being.  I have to be a human being.

Being a human being hurts sometimes.

It cuts so deeply to watch yourself being Xed.  To be isolated.  To be expected to be grateful for being allowed to exist.  To be expected to be grateful for Xing. To be expected to be grateful for partial or conditional personhood.

To experience this from people who are close to you, people who say they love you, people you love, people who love you in one way but not in another.

To have to figure out a way to accept the humanity of someone who won’t accept yours – without taking away from the magnitude of the horror they are inflicting upon you.

To feel like you are doing this alone, or nearly alone.

To struggle into consciousness, struggle into awareness of your own reality, struggle to maintain that awareness even when every instinct tells you to shut down.  To struggle to maintain awareness of who you are without going crazy in a world that tells you you don’t exist.

I say it again – I’m here with you.

I am a person.  You are a person.  Whoever and whatever you are.

I am looking at you to tell you that I am real.  But also – this is irrevocably linked to that – everyone is real.  Everyone like me.  Everyone.  

Including people who feel every inch of everything I have said and all the things I want to say and can’t, but who will never speak or write a single word that anyone can understand.  Including people who are in protective hiding from their own humanity.  ALL OF US.  

And I am not different or special here.  I’m not speaking only for myself when I say that I am real.  I am amplifying the message of lots of people saying the exact same damn thing without words.  I am amplifying my own message at times in the past when I have not been capable of words, at times in the future when I will not be capable of words.  This is all of us and always.  

Some people are pouring every ounce of their being into saying this but nobody hears, not even their loved ones.  Or they only partially hear, and can’t hear all of it.  So I’m saying it.

Some people are unable to risk doing that, even as their souls are screaming unheard.  Sometimes unheard even by themselves.  So I’m saying it.

I am telling you this is happening because right now I can.  I’ve never been able to before.  I don’t know if I will be again.  But right now I am doing my best.

I am also telling you that no matter who you are, I know that you are real.  I don’t have to know you personally.  

Also, to make it very clear:  I don’t have to like you.  I don’t have to trust you.  I don’t have to allow you to harm people.  I don’t have to totally avoid harming you if it’s the only way to stop you from doing harm.  If punching you in the face will keep you from killing someone I’ll do it, but I’ll do everything in my power never to do that just because I feel angry at you.  The world is messy and sometimes we have to make messy choices..  It doesn’t mean I don’t know or care that you exist.  

Also:  I can’t do this alone.  None of us can. We were never meant to.  No one person was ever meant to do every right thing.  It’s not humanly possible.  All of us are prone to particular errors as well as particular ways of getting things exactly right.  All any of us can do is figure out who we are supposed to be and be that person in the most active and committed way we can.  None of us will get it right all the time.  All of us have something valuable to give the world.  The best thing we can do is get out of our own way.

This is not like adopting a permanent unchanging moral code.  This is something each of us has to choose moment by moment.  Because we are living beings in a living world.  Pretending the world isn’t shifting and changing around us, and that we don’t have to respond to changes in the world and in ourselves, won’t help.

And even if we’re fumbling in the dark, in freefall, not really totally knowing where we are, the fact that we are trying counts for something.  There’s a reason that parts of the world got abruptly worse when “intent isn’t magic” became a meme.  

There’s a grain of truth there – unintended consequences are real.  But in adopting that as a motto, people forgot something very important:  

The sincere and dedicated attempt to truly do the right thing can be extremely powerful even when we don’t always know what’s right or fuck up or cause problems for people.  Sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but total disregard of intentions is a surefire portal to hell on earth.

Knowing you have a soul is hard.

Love is hard.  It’s not a feeling.  It can cause feelings – lots of them, not always pleasant either – but it’s not itself a feeling.  It’s a thing, a surprisingly concrete reality, a constant action, a choice.

And without it I don’t think we can get very far.

And if we X anyone we X everyone.  And that goes well beyond ourselves, well beyond even just humanity.

There’s also been a lot of talk about whether humanity can physically survive at this point.

And I think we’re honor-bound to try, even if we can’t.  

And if we can’t – even if we’re dead certain we can’t – we have a responsibility to all the life that will take our place in the world when we’re gone.  

That’s something that applies on a personal level, to our own personal deaths.  And it’s something that applies on a large-scale level, to our survival as groups of people, as cultures, as species, as life.  

Even if we find out for sure we won’t be around, that not only doesn’t let us off the hook, it makes it more important we try to do right by whoever and whatever comes after.  Even if we feel kind of like this:

Part of the reason I’ve had this come up again and again in recent years is I really didn’t expect to survive this long.  Without certain medical diagnoses happening at nearly the last second, I wouldn’t be here.  Many times over.  I was in the ICU a year ago.  I have an aspiration-related infection right now that, even though it is going great compared to some I’ve had, still fucked up my pulmonary function tests this week more than I expected.  These things force you to think on this level.  

None of us knows how long we have, whether we’re healthy or not.  It’s important to remember that and to make the time we have count.  These are not fluffy platitudes.  They are intense, deep, difficult realities with complicated answers we may never totally find.  But it’s important to try.

So I’m here to ask you.  Maybe even to beg you.

To (if you have them in the first place) put down all the tools you normally use to pick apart and demolish arguments, to decide whether a person is espousing a particular ideological philosophy and whether that philosophy is an acceptable one or an unacceptable one.  

This isn’t about winning and losing, gaining points or one-upmanship morally or intellectually.  This isn’t about your ego, or mine, or the ways they can duke it out, or getting the words and concepts exactly perfect, or what team you’re on, or what team I’m on.  So put all that crap down just for a second.  And if you get hung up on ‘soul’ or some other word, read what I said above about that and put all that crap down for a second too.  And if you don’t personally like me – you don’t have to, but please put that down as well.  For at least a moment.

And just understand, even for a second:

I have a soul.

People who are like me have a soul.

People who look like me have a soul.

Disabilities don’t ever get rid of that.

We can’t go around Xing people – erasing their souls, or trying to, or pretending their souls don’t exist.

And we don’t have to – can’t – know everything, get everything right, be everything for everyone, avoid all conflict, agree, etc.

But I think we do have to try to keep in mind people have souls and do our best to always act on that.  Both towards others, and towards ourselves.

I don’t think I actually know that much – but I think I know that, and that the years of effort it’s taken to say this mean something.  And understand as much as you can – it really is years, I’m not exaggerating.  And that if you saw me on the street you might think me mindless or soulless.  And that it’s not my ability to write this (or anything) at this (or any) particular moment in time, that contradicts that assessment.  But my ability to write can make you aware of it, so I’m taking as much advantage of that as I can.

And I’m pretty sure it’s our reality that matters, and everything else is details we have to muddle through as best we can.  We need each other.

Signed,

One small but important part of existence, in one small but important place, like you.

[logically-asexual]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[boop-your-dragons]

Does everyone "have" a gender?

Examining 'gender detachment' in the asexual community

[snazzy-hats-and-adhd]

Saving @derinthescarletpescatarian 's tags because I just like the way they are worded.

[tsarq]

This is so cool

[runesinthenight]

This is so validating because the respondents in this paper are saying some of the same things I've been feeling and thinking for years.

I'm asexual. I figured that out not long after I first came across the term in high school. But figuring out my gender took a lot longer. I didn't really think about my gender identity for years, it wasn't until I was in college that I started trying to figure out what my gender was. That process took years.

I didn't really feel attached to my assigned gender, but I also didn't feel the gender dysphoria that trans people described. I didn't particularly feel like I was neither of those either. For a long time, I honestly didn't feel like any of the gender descriptions and identities I was coming across really fit. I just didn't care that much about what my actual gender was. Eventually I decided upon the agender label as that seemed the most apt. As the paper says, it's really hard to be truly without gender in this highly gendered world. Agender is a way of defining myself in a way that people who experience gender might be able to understand when "I'm just me." isn't really an acceptable answer to the "what's your gender?" question.

I don't mind being perceived as a gender, none of them are offensive to me. While I do like when I am perceived as male or at least not female, I think that more has to do with growing up female and not wanting to be pushed into traditional female roles and values than a connection or repulsion to any gender. I'm impossible to misgender because I frankly don't care.

Honestly, the biggest problem I have with my gender, is trying to define it to people. There's been a large push in recent years for asking people for their pronouns, or including pronouns in things like email signatures and surveys. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a bad thing! This is very affirming for a lot of people. But it feels like I need to pick something that doesn't quite fit. At pride, for instance, there's always pronoun buttons. But they're all she/her, he/him, they/them, she/they, he/they, it/it, xe/xir, etc etc. And that's great. I'm always glad that there are a lot of options for people. But there's never any pins for any/all pronouns. I've never picked up a free pronoun pin at pride, despite always looking, because they all feel like picking what pronouns I don't want poeple to use and the answer is that I don't care. I fround an any/all pronoun pin once at a queer museum and I cried.

I really suggest you read the paper if you haven't. Not just the article, the whole paper. This is probably the most seen I've felt in a long time.

[librarycards]

"girls could NeVeR!!1!1! beat '''''males''''''™ in athletics????? it's BiOlOgY!??!?!?"

idk bud have you tried um. feeding them

[librarycards]

these murderous idiots are teaching young girls and women to be afraid of calories when eating a LOT of calories is literally vital for performing well in competitive sports. and then claiming it's 'natural' to uphold sex segregation bc of this imposed malnutrition. it's fucking crazymaking.

[librarycards]

the mechanics here are truly horrific. systematically deny [cis] women athletes adequate nutrition and hydration, overwork and injure them. deprive them of the ability to realize the true extent of their strength and skill. segregate athletics based on false ideas of "sex" based on generations of malnourishment and poor training. blame trans woman athletes for the mere possibility that one might beat a cis woman, while claiming that the cis woman's defeat is inevitable. create emotionally stressful and often sexually humiliating tests to "purify" competitive athletics rather than foster the physical health of athletes. continue punishing all women for daring to play sports + have bodies.

[shamebats]

Ngl the panic around HRT happening at the same time as the GLP-1 weight loss craze is some incredible worldbuilding.

[shamebats]

You have all these people just freaking out about the safety of sex hormones being used for the same purpose they have been for decades, meanwhile the same people who didn't even know what GLP-1 was until a few years ago are now eager to get on these medications and nobody cares about possible long-term effects or regret.

[illmetkismet]

And, crucially, they're putting kids on GLP-1 meds. Not like, because the kids want to be on them, but because their parents decided they're too fat. 13 year olds who don't know what the fuck these meds even are or what the risks or long term effects might be. You see, it's fine when a parent decides to subject their kid to a medical intervention they didn't ask for because the parent thinks their child's body is unacceptable. But when a child wants to exercise a modicum of control over their own bodies..... Watch out! Now it's irresponsible medicine!!

[agnesmontague]

we are exactly one minute and 16 seconds away from a popular account saying that refusing to say the r word is “corny bluesky lib shit” and all hell breaking loose

[agnesmontague]

theres at least the last struggling vestiges of recognition on twitter and other sites that the r word is ableist enough that people would want to avoid it but once a self proclaimed “leftist” funnyman makes a pithy post deeming it too cringe to care there will be nothing left but more infighting. trust me

[agnesmontague]

#literally happening tho#like my best friend said that shit in front of me and was talking oh but we’re reclaiming it#girl if anyone was then you cannot

oh absolutely, im aware that the prevalent excuse of the moment is to say "im neurodivergent enough to reclaim it" but i mean that in the coming days theres likely to be a vibe shift that entitles people to actively get mad at you for being a milquetoast centrist if you call someone out for using the word on MAGA republicans

[selfpoweredoxygenmachine]

everyone who makes clanker jokes is automatically racist to me as soon as people started saying wireback i lost like the 2% of ' oh theyre just being stupid about a star wars word ' left in me . ive seen tinskin ive seen 50 variations of the n word with just one letter changed ive seen riffs on actual racist slogans ( ' 5% of the population 90% of cybercrime ' ' clankers will not replace us ' ' flesh power ' ) ive seen the ' clink clank clan (ccc) ' i dont give a fuck . ' oh but i only say clanker not the other stuff ' ' i didnt know those were real slurs :( ' ' but robots arent people ' i do not care you are stupid on purpose at this point even if you managed to pull Robot Slurs straight out of your ass eith no other context its still fucking weird to make up slurs so you can larp as a ' flesh ' supremacist . is this not a fucking reasonable statement

[notatzimisce]

“but robots aren’t people 🙄” meanwhile:

[guerrillatech]

Black panther poster. Just as relevant today

[jingerpi]

IF YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED IT'S NOT BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY WORK JUST LOOK AROUND: A HOUSING SHORTAGE, CRIME. POLLUTION; WE NEED BETTER SCHOOLS AND PARKS. WHATEVER OUR NEEDS, THEY ALL REQUIRE WORK. AND AS LONG AS WE HAVE UNSATISFIED NEEDS, THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE. ASK YOURSELF, WHAT KINDS OF A WORLD HAS WORK BUT NO JOBS? IT'S A WORLD WERE WORK IS NOT RELATED TO SATISFYING OUR NEEDS, A WORLD WHERE WORK IS ONLY RELATED TO SAT- ISFYING THE PROFIT NEEDS OF BUSINESS.

THIS COUNTRY WAS NOT BUILT BY THE HUGE CORPORATIONS OR G6OVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES. WAS BUILT BY PEOPLE WHO WORK. AND, IS WORKING PEOPLE WHO SHOULD CONTROL THE WORK TO BE DONE. YET, AS LONG AS EMPLOYMENT IS TIED TO SOMEBODY ELSE'S PR0FITS, THE WORK WON'T GET DONE.

[sparrowlucero]

I know previously people took issue with me describing a lot of queernorm fiction as feeling assimilative and reimagining queerness as an aesthetic variety of straightness but man a lot of that stuff really does frame it as an inarguable positive that the characters are "no longer gay" that they live and behave as "normal people", and that "gender or sexuality is entirely incidental and not a plot point" in a way i find really alienating. You know, like, this is the common language when talking about it:

again i don't think it's wrong for people to read or write stuff like this, but I do find it a bit irking that it's often treated as the inherently more empathetic and desirable way to write queerness...

[plasticfangtastic]

People wanna fantasize about the ideal future a lot of lgbt ppl want future generations of lgbt kids to grow in a society/world free from.discrimination and fear... "queernorm" books simply offer a glimpse to that fantasy bcuz lets be honest homophobia is never going away...

Or should all lgbt books have to include the same tedious type of sad lgbt story where everybody is gonna be mean to the casts bcuz they are gay?

[sparrowlucero]

well no. I'm saying that this kind of fiction, at it's most paltry, can be very uninterested in queerness thematically and seek to normalize it via making it a cultural non entity/as similar to straightness as possible, removing the language around it and not having it matter within the plot. Which again, I think is fine in a vacuum, but in practice it's pretty common to see people big this up as being inherently the more positive and desirable (often even more morally correct) way to write queer fiction

[ruins-of-gods]

It's not that the "most straight" version is held as better, it's that the most culturally incorporated version is. Because being queer is held in our world as socially abnormal, and so any story about queerness is laced with that fundamental feeling of being other, and the good and bad that comes with that. And I, and many other queer storytellers, like the idea of a world where that doesn't need to matter - where a queer relationship can simply be a relationship, and a queer character can have being queer be a part of their bio rather than a defining trait. Queerness, for stories like these, isn't a theme, and shouldn't be - they're about other things. To write a story with queer themes is to acknowledge queerness as being a theme, and that requires it to be more than a fact of life. If that's the story you want to see, by all means, go for it. But I, personally, like the idea of a world where being queer can just be part of someone is without having to be a part of their character.

[sparrowlucero]

cool, but like, you understand why the "culturally incorporated version" in which queerness "isn't a theme and shouldn't be" and is something the characters can keep "in their bio" being considered - as you directly say - better, the preferable way to write, is exactly what I'm criticizing here right. Like I'm not saying that I don't grasp why someone might like it, I'm not critiquing the existence of it, I'm asking you to consider that people holding a strong bias towards this sort of "queerness doesn't matter at all and queer culture doesn't exist" stuff (something many people, again, can find really meager or alienating) as being higher quality than works which are directly about queerness is just flatly not a great way to think about queer fiction.

[x-wondertoast-x]

My struggle with this take is that it seems like you're implying that queer stories aren't good or meaningful unless the queer characters are suffering. Like, queer culture as we know it only really exists out of suffering. And while we hold our culture dear, I think I could safely say most of us would gladly give it up if it meant the violent, tragic history behind it never had to happen - if all the targeted murders, hate crimes, riots, homelessness, and the behaviors that developed out of fear for those things could be traded out for just... existing and being happy and no one caring about your sexuality.

Like, stories about queerness and homophobia are important because people need to tell the stories of their lives and the world we live in (whether through fantasy or realistic fiction or biography) to relate to each other and reach out to form community. But those stories aren't inherently more important or meaningful than stories about the lives and world people *wish* they were living in. And it's not just about escapism either. I mean that's a big thing for a lot of people, sure, but at its core the concept is also a commentary on how shitty the real world is for queer folks by comparison.

Normalizing queerness =/= erasing queerness, it's just cutting out all the othering and fear, and it's just as important to show what the world could be like without all that as it is to talk about the world as it is now. Neither of these methods of storytelling are better or more important than the other, and no one is really arguing that except for you. People just have their preferences, and for most, that preference is for stories where people like them don't have to worry about getting hate crimed for holding hands in public.

[sparrowlucero]

well, I'm not.

[thinking-through-some-things]

this might be a bit of a swing and a miss here, but i think I follow what you're saying: queernorm stories practically erase queer identity in an effort to normalize it. honestly, i feel like some of these stories are kind of lazy about that.

i think it's really sad to believe queer culture exists solely because of oppression and suffering. surely queer people would still find each other in a perfect world. are there no gathering places where you can find other queer people more easily? even if it's a 50-50 spread between straight and queer people and no one gets mad at you for asking them out, surely gay bars are still helpful if only to ensure you're in a crowd of similarly-attracted folks (just to alleviate the social embarrassment of asking out the wrong person). if there's still nuclear parent-child families, surely gay people find each other either as those existing outside that structure or those who need to find their own way in. surely trans people will still look for each other - some may want to blend in and leave the past behind, sure, but i'm certain others would want to remain visible and help other trans people find themselves - you know, kind of like they do today.

there are a lot of counter-cultural movements where like-minded people find each other. if you ignore all the greater worldbuilding questions, i think there's still space for queer people to find each other and make something together.

at the end of the day, what falls flat for me personally with queernorm stories is the way they refuse to grapple with the ways our world is informed by homophobia when they graft those elements onto their stories.

why is your character being pressured into marriage, when that exists (especially in nobility) to secure a family lineage through children? if gay marriage is an acceptable solution, then either 1) children aren't a concern and the whole point is either moot or based on something else you haven't examined, or 2) adopted children or children through other methods are acceptable, which again means marriage isn't necessary. and if this is all solved by one person being trans and one person being cis, that's still very much about their queer identities.

honestly any story that assumes a basic nuclear family structure is inherently defined by our modern culture. if you don't adhere to that basic formula, you're doing something non-normative. if you have a society that looks like our own, queer people and our relationships stand out.

transness is also something that feels really ignored. sure it's nice for trans people to seamlessly transition, but it also creates a society where trans people are invisible. which seems really isolating and only perpetuates the issues of isolation and self-doubt that trans people already feel.

if queerness is normalized in your setting, it shouldn't look like our own. if gay relationships are standard, nuclear families wouldn't be - at least, not as we know them. family structure, inheritance, nobility, children and childcare... all of these would be fundamentally changed. if trans and nonbinary people are understood and respected in your society, how does that affect gender presentation and expectation? how does that change for young people? how do you realize you're trans/nonbinary? if you're creating a world where queerness is built into the fabric of society, it won't be "normal society" simply because the presence of queer people would change that society.

i think people hear "make visibly queer characters without making them straight" and assume that means making them suffer because they're still imagining themselves in our world, in our society, dealing with our problems.

idk, i might be off the mark on what you were saying. but that is something that bugs me about a lot of queernorm stories i've read - the fact that eliminating homophobia and transphobia doesn't just mean changing how characters respond to queer characters existing; it means re-evaluating the ways those exist within our own societal norms.

[theancientfootsteps-deactivated]

Transition is a reflection of the glory of God, not an act of defiance against Him.

I would not be able to be what God intended me to be if I had not been given the body I was given. God created this body to be transformed. God made me to be wide-hipped and deep-voiced, to have breasts that hope to become scars. I was always meant to have exactly this experience, to be exactly this.

God did not create a different cis body from the one I think I should have, leaving me to disrespect His creation by trying to escape it.

God created a trans body.

A body that was made to change. A body that was created to participate in its own creation. A body that was fearfully and wonderfully made to sing His praises and bring glory to the boundless variety of His thoughts.

My transness forms the stones that pave my path to God. I was given this cross to carry in the footsteps of our Lord. And as self-denial gave way to truth, I was given the most precious gift - that of death and resurrection.

[thinking-through-some-things]

Curious about your EPIC rework because I was also disappointed by it

like i mentioned in my other post here (before i gave up), this definitely isn't the only possibility; you could focus the musical around something else. for my version, though...

as i said, i would build the musical around the idea of duty vs desire, and tie that into mercy vs ruthlessness. i think it would focus less on odysseus's guilt overall, which seems to be the real focus of the musical, and focus it more in this direction. still plenty of angst, but a little more pointed.

a lot of my changes probably take the musical further away from the odyssey. i'm actually not too concerned about trying to faithfully follow the source material; i think it's more important to actually tell a coherent story, and when you're abridging the material, you need to cut stuff. just be clear that's what you're doing.

(also i'm not going to cover everything i think needs to be fixed. mostly just elements to support my theme.)

i think it's a given that the saga format doesn't work for the final draft of a musical. no shade, it was a really smart way to gradually release the musical. ultimately though, it limits the story because then they were blocked into sticking with a theme, and you end up with too many epic finale songs... but i'll stick with it to help organize here. i'm just not sticking with a "theme". mostly because i'm getting rid of the wisdom saga to better distribute its songs.

unsurprisingly, i've written far too much and it's poorly organized, so this is just act one. i'll reblog with act two.

act one

overall, i would say act one is by far the stronger of the two. i'm probably going to cut at least 30% of the current act two, but act one mostly just needs editing. some songs might need more work, but mostly they still get to stay in the same place. add some spoken dialogue and you've got a pretty decent start.

the troy saga:

most of the troy stuff is fine. i think it helps to set up this idea of ruthlessness, and shows the peacekeeping side of odysseus. could it be stronger? yeah. but i like it setting this whole thing up. i have 2 main changes here.

1) every time odysseus mentions penelope and telemacus, he needs to mention anticlea. the musical has a bad habit of not introducing characters/elements until they're relevant, and i think it suffers for that. including odysseus's mother in the list of people he wants to get home to makes her death more impactful. i was so confused when she showed up the first time; she needs to be in here from the start.

2) to go with my theme, i would do this: the reason odysseus needs to kill the baby is because the baby would grow up to kill him; however, that doesn't necessarily mean ithaca would suffer. zeus can word it really carefully - i don't think that distinction needs to be immediately clear to the audience, but after you know how the story ends you can go back and realize that when you re-listen to it. this doesn't require much tweaking, but it helps to really set up the idea of making decisions for the greater good vs for selfish reasons (maybe he could have raised the kid? and only he would have died in the end? i want the audience to question this!)

moving into the second half of the saga, i think we need to introduce odysseus's men earlier. maybe a scene of him commanding them in troy? since i'm talking about a full musical instead of the current format, this might just be dialogue, not a song. but i think we definitely need a little more of polites before he dies. i don't really like having odysseus start out untrusting and jumpy, which is how he comes across to me in open arms. it doesn't make sense for this to be a lesson he needs to learn now, after being king of ithaca for well over a decade. originally i was just going to cut him, but my fiance persuaded me to let him stay. plus his death to polyphemus is a very brutal turning point.

instead, i would have a song/scene where we set up eurylochus and polites as odysseus's two advisors, two different sides of his leadership. you could rewrite open arms to fit here. polites argues for presuming peace, and eurylochus views things with suspicion and wants to attack first to keep the men safe. this really helps set up mercy vs ruthlessness. it shows odysseus is already a leader who balances peace and action, and it makes polites's death all the more tragic, because he represents the death of odysseus's inclination towards peace.

finally, i find athena's introduction and focus on being ruthless in this and the next saga confusing. she's mad at him for not being less emotional and more ruthless, but i don't see what that has to do with him being a "warrior of the mind". instead, i would make it clear that she thinks he isn't being cautious enough. she's mad because she thinks he isn't being shrewd, not because he's being nice.

athena and eurylochus should be coming from the same place: we need to be overly cautious and strike first, because that's how you stay safe. and rather than having a jumpy odysseus being taught to trust people by his soft bestie, i think he should be a general, exhausted from fighting for 10 years, jumping on the idea of relying on trust so he can relax and not feel so jumpy. his duty is to balance these two ideas, mercy vs ruthlessness, but because he chooses only mercy without remaining vigilant, polites dies and now he only has eurylochus to give him advice, meaning no one else is trying to suggest mercy. (i don't think eurylochus is bad - actually, he clearly prioritizes the crew and is always suggesting whatever is best for them. but often what is best for you isn't the best for those you come across, which is why it's the leader's job to balance those two things - again, the theme i'm going with in this version.)

anyways, athena needs to focus on pushing odysseus to be more suspicious and calculating, not more ruthless. she scolds him at all the same points, but now it actually makes sense. i don't love their flashback, but i don't have suggestions to fix it, so we'll leave it alone for now.

the cyclops saga

not too many notes here. getting to see the crew more gives it a little more weight (the stage production needs a tiny dialogue scene where you get quips and comments from nobodies so they're a little more recognizable when they die! make people even sadder!), but this is a really chilling series. the exposition bits need rewording (and again, a stage production has the benefit of 1) spoken word, and 2) stage directions so you can just show things happening).

odysseus's convo with athena needs work. as is, this doesn't seem like a good place for "what good would killing do when mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use." this is supposed to be the stance athena takes at the end of the musical, but this particular act of mercy seems to lead to the death of most of his men in the very next act - which really makes it weird that athena apparently agrees with that sentiment.

i don't hate everything about this line, especially if we actually see athena ruminating over the line over the next 10 years. but it needs to be clear that it is not mercy but pride that leads to the death of his men. or, if we want to make it about mercy instead of pride, it shouldn't be as the sort of threatening brag that it currently is; instead, frame it as "even now, when we've beaten you, we're still choosing to let you live. because i, odysseus, king of ithaca, have chosen to show you mercy." obviously yes it's still his pride, but then when everyone blames his "mercy" for getting his men killed it makes more sense.

(coming back to really hone in on the idea that mercy isn't the problem here - maybe eurylochus notices something is off before polyphemus starts singing, tries to point it out, and gets brushed off as being too suspicious and bloodthirsty? yet again, i find the musical's stance on mercy confusing. is it good? they seem to want it to be - that's definitely what open arms implies, especially since it gets repeated so often. except the musical stresses that mercy is *why* everything went south here, and it rarely actually shows mercy working. it's confusing. i think this whole thing should feel more like odysseus was reckless, the only thing athena calls him that actually makes sense, and that's why this didn't work. the characters don't need to say it directly, but the musical needs to better frame it that way.)

(an aside, but they still grab sheep on their way out? obviously they're still starving but like. i'm side-eyeing the way everyone (in the musical) acts like he was so "merciful" for leaving polyphemus alive, but even after he learns the sheep are polyphemus's friends and their deaths are what drive him to violence, he still makes a point of stealing and killing them... this isn't a serious criticism i'm just poking fun at it. but hypocritical much?)

athena's anger in my goodbye makes no sense to me - not that she's not justified, but that her reasons make no sense. she calls him "sentimental" and "soft", but that's absolutely not the problem here. she should yell at him for being prideful and cocky. accuse him of sparing polyphemus just to feed his own ego, or of being short-sighted - she mentioned the danger of leaving him alive in the last song, why not bring that up again? why doesn't she scold him for foolishly giving up his name? it's really weird that she keeps harping on the idea that he's "emotional".

odysseus's retort is good, but also a bunch of people just died so it's weird that he's so confident about how right he is. "my friend is dead, our foe is blind. the blood we shed, it never dries" from the last song, and "unlike you, every time someone dies I'm left to deal with the strain" in my goodbye are really good lines. more of his position needs to come from his exhaustion, because odysseus is smart. he's a brilliant general. this does a better job of explaining why he's making so many mistakes early on, and why he's pushing back against athena so hard despite the fact that he just fucked up real bad. he was wrong. he should have acted faster like she warned him to. but making him a man, exhausted from a decade of fighting, desperately trying to grant mercy where he can? his pushback makes more sense.

also, him jabbing at her for wanting "to be known" and being alone? really weird. the musical frames athena as this loser whose only friend was odysseus. i don't get it. especially when you're calling her a goddess who doesn't understand feelings right before that? which is she, a powerful goddess or a lonely girl? stick with him accusing her of not understanding human emotions and interactions. it still gives her a reason to stick around - she can be offended by the insinuation that there's something she doesn't understand, and it gives her a reason to dwell on his comments and eventually change.

the ocean saga

eurylochus needs to call odysseus out; if he'd listened to him, if they'd acted faster against polyphemus, they might not have lost those men, including polites. obviously that might not be true, but it feels like that's what his position should be. it's really weird that they're nervous about the wind god because "your luck might run out" rather than "you did just make a bad call that got people killed". especially when odysseus says "i took 600 men to war and not one of them died there." sure, not there, but you just lost a couple to a cyclops. this more deliberate questioning makes the sidebar with "i can't have you planting seeds of doubt" a little more serious. it's not just "what if you're not lucky," but also "what if you're not as sharp? what if you're making mistakes and bad calls?" the luck thing works for the rest of the crew, but eurylochus's role in this musical is to question odysseus and challenge him as a leader, to make sure odysseus is doing what will keep the men safe.

eurylochus questioning odysseus more pointedly makes the betrayal in the next song make more sense. we should already have the sense that he's starting to doubt odysseus's judgement. his "luck running out" doesn't really explain why you're doubting him with the wind bag; but if you think he's hiding things or making bad decisions, suddenly it makes a lot more sense. i think the implication in the show is that it's just curiosity, and we don't even hear eurylochus asking about it. now, if we have already established eurylochus is already questioning odysseus's judgement, it's a little less weird when we learn he's the one who opened it.

again, we need a mention of anticlea, and she should sing with penelope and telemacus.

honestly? basic take here but i like ruthlessness. i'm fine with not changing my theme to use a better word because this one is a banger. and the one animatic with him as a creepy horse? more horse poseidon imagery, please.

i think poseidon needs to call out specifically how hypocritical odysseus is more. lean into that "false righteousness". the problem is that he isn't being "nice" or "merciful", at least not in those moments, not in how he's currently behaving. most of this interpretation is already there; honestly, just changing the delivery of some of the lines would go a long way. "you are far too nice" needs to have the last word almost spat out - poseidon doesn't actually think odysseus is nice; nice is just a word odysseus is hiding behind to justify his actions. i'm sure it could use more work, but at a glance i really like this one.

it goes without saying that the ending sucks ass though.

i can't imagine anyone thinks that was a good ending. idk how to fix it because the current one is so bad it's hard to think of any way to have something good there. you just can't have the jaunty "open this bag" music in there at all. i know they like to mix in motifs and call back to other songs, but it fucking kills all the momentum in what is otherwise a very dramatic song - and we need to be able to take this song seriously, because it's what the entire rest of the musical is based on. i'm open to a completely different ending, but if you want it to stay relatively close to the current staging: poseidon and odysseus stare each other down. poseidon asks "any last words?" and you think odysseus is about to say something dramatic and instead... he yells "eurylochus!" poseidon is confused, but eurylochus responds with "captain!" and, understanding what he's asking for, throws odysseus the wind bag (he helped odysseus close it, so maybe he got it then, or at some other point, idk). and then odysseus opens the bag in poseidon's face. then everything poseidon does is the same, the effect is the same, you just don't get the musical equivalent of a wet pool noodle slapped across your face.

the circe saga

first! an addition! the musical wants athena to be a foil to odysseus, but they do such a poor job of exploring her character or logic at all, it just doesn't work. her character revolves way too much around odysseus. she says goodbye, and then we see her 4 sagas later (half the musical) where, apparently, she's decided odysseus was right because... maybe if she'd agreed with him they would still be friends. and then she defends everything he's done... look, i'm getting rid of god games, so i won't go into that now. yeah, odysseus is still what prompts her to change her mind in my version, but he's just the start of that journey. she's going to have other reasons. i want to add in a couple songs throughout the musical, just to show the transition a bit. additionally, they can help show time passing in odysseus's story by breaking it up a bit.

this first song is a small one. it's just telling us what athena is thinking and what she's going to do. it's basically her mopey and angry that odysseus insulted her. but she's a goddess of wisdom and intellect, so she's kind of intrigued - maybe there is something to learn about leading with kindness. i haven't decided how she ends up back in ithaca, but she's decided to investigate this. i know the popular (not academic, more fandom-related) interpretation of greek gods is that they're all stubborn and that's the whole point, but for the sake of this story and the theme (and also the character), i think athena should take the stand that if there is wisdom to be gained, it is her duty to learn it. again, this one is pretty short - a verse of angry, and then she talks herself down, and then she's setting out to investigate - a little bit to learn something new, maybe a little bit to prove odysseus wrong.

the athena song can also go at the end of the circe arc. i was going to put another one in there, but the pacing and time line don't match well, and monster is definitely the finale to act one. i wanted to fit something along the lines of the start of the wisdom saga in here, but i think i'm going to put it at the beginning of act two, so. only one extra song for now.

onto the actual saga: i think it's done pretty well. some of the phrasing is awkwardly fit into songs, but that might just be me, and it's overall not egregious. i will confess that "she had us in just two words" "come inside" "damn" does make me giggle every time like a 12-year-old boy. i didn't mention it in my post on the musical's women because i don't think the text directly addresses it, but there's a definite implication that circe is as harsh as she is to protect her nymphs from sexual assault, which they might have faced before. removing the undertones of that from her relationship with odysseus was the right call - i don't think that's a conversation this musical actually wants to have, and it muddles her justification for how she handles the men.

circe is also gives us someone to compare odysseus's leadership to; she's basically the only other leader of a cohesive group that we see. her harsh policy stands in direct contrast to odysseus's earlier choice to start with unchecked "mercy". in turn, her nymphs are safe. we see her later learn that there are times where you can extend mercy and trust, so she even has character growth. (you could make a very interesting comparison between circe & her nymphs and the sirens, but that's a discussion for outside of the musical, so i'll leave it for now.) i wouldn't be surprised if other people have criticisms, i just haven't been able to find basically any critical discussion of the musical, so.

you could mostly leave this saga alone, but i'm inclined to take my red pen and make some bigger changes. i'm just not sure how to. i really don't like hermes and the flower being inserted here - again, i think there's too much bloat in the musical of "oh here's a thing that's in this specific bit, clearly just because that's what happens in the odyssey, and then we won't talk about it again." hermes does appear in two songs, but actually, does he need to? i'm of the opinion that the musical needs fewer characters so that it can better focus on developing the ones that actually need to be in here. the only problem is that odysseus needs the flower from hermes to explain why he has magic in the next song. okay, so what if no magic is used, and he just uses his wit to convince her? except that's basically what the plot of the next song is. so at this point i've basically gotten rid of two songs and completely changed the third, and that doesn't really work. or need to happen.

i stand by wanting to remove hermes. i think you can just give odysseus some line to eurylochus about having heard about a plant on these islands that makes one immune to being transformed by magic for a time. i don't think it's important - it's literally a small, one-time detail just to explain why circe doesn't immediately turn him into a pig. he doesn't need magic in done for - he can just fight with a sword while circe is slinging spells at him. and then you can still go into there are other ways.

the one change that i think does need to be made is that odysseus needs to spend a year on the island. he needs to be stuck here. it does mean you have to basically cut the song in half, but that just means the second part, where circe decides to help odysseus, needs to be a reprise. i think you have circe trying to seduce odysseus, and then she's shocked when he rejects her. the difference is that he doesn't fully win her over; instead, she decides to give him and the rest of his crew one year. for one year, his remaining crew recovers on the island and rebuild the ship, helping the nymphs with whatever tasks they ask and basically proving "not all men" are terrible. finally, odysseus shows that there's payoff to being a merciful leader! he saves all of his men! as they're finally preparing to leave, penelope shows up, we get the reprise, and she sends them to the underworld. all is well!

the underworld saga

or, all is not well.

this is where i spell out my theme: while a good leader is merciful, mercy takes time. and that extra time can be detrimental to personal goals.

this is why it's important to mention anticlea earlier, and why the crew spends an extra year on circe's island trying to save the rest of the men. taking a year to save his men makes odysseus a good leader, yes, but it might have cost him a chance to see his mother before she died. it doesn't matter when she actually died in the odyssey - what matters is that this is really what makes odysseus question the cost of mercy. this is where he starts to put his own desires over the safety of the crew, because the cost of taking too long is suddenly real - as is the cost of taking time to be merciful.

i actually don't have too much to add. some edits might need to be made to fit with other changes, but overall it's fine.

okay, there's act one! this is definitely long enough, so i'll reblog with act two. suggestions and conversation are welcome; again, my fiance already changed my mind on one part. i haven't actually see any discussion on changes yet, so i'm happy to consider other changes, or for mine to be challenged (by something other than "actually this is perfect").

[thinking-through-some-things]

act two

as mentioned, i'm going to make way more changes to this act (and likely stray further from the odyssey).

right at the beginning, we're starting the act following athena and telemacus. something akin to the first 3 wisdom saga songs goes here. the big change i'm making is that athena and telemacus basically meet when the later is closer to like 13. he just doesn't make sense as someone who's supposed to be 20 years old. you can have the first half of legendary, but i don't know about the second half - that's where the suitors need to end up, so they can be a bit more restrained right now (although they are still pressuring penelope to marry them, so). i think it makes sense for this to be when the suitors are just starting to show up.

little wolf fits in here, i'm just not a fan of it. the bullet time is cheesy. but the fight itself isn't bad, and it brings these two characters together. however, i would just have athena watch the fight and come in after it's over, impressed by telemacus's refusal to back down (although she might chide him for being foolish). i think this does a decent job of establishing the suitors as villains - i mean, antinous is fighting a 13 year old.

(i'll discuss this at the end, but i'm not going to have penelope actually appear in my version. that said, if you keep her, give her a song here about dealing with the suitors showing up, demanding she marry someone new. she can set up the weaving plot here, and athena can be impressed by both how smart penelope is and how she diffuses the situation temporarily, particularly given how little power she is actually permitted to wield. in that case, maybe do the telemacus stuff later? or earlier; you can put legendary/little wolf after circe, and put a song checking back in on penelope, telemacus, and athena at the start of act two.)

the thunder saga

i am very torn about how to handle the sirens. i talk more about it in another post, but the decision to add in violence against women (or monsters that look like women, i suppose) doesn't sit well with me, particularly when you look at the musical as a whole. that being said, the sirens are one of odysseus's most iconic foes, and different beast is such a clear turning point for odysseus. it doesn't help that i find the wording in suffering really clunky. also, in the odyssey, odysseus learns of scylla and the sirens (and charybdis) from circe; he tells his men about the sirens, but deliberately withholds info about the other two, which would really add to the mutiny later.

in the interest of preserving more of the current musical (and making less work for myself), i'm willing to let these two songs in for now. i do think someone could warn him more specifically about scylla, since he seems to know about her "cost" but no one else does. (unless the implication is that no one else is even aware they're heading to scylla?) i don't really follow the logic that odysseus also had wax in his ears and just read the siren's lips. i assume this is to explain why he doesn't give away info, but i don't think it's necessary. just tie him to the post.

either way, his men need to push back against the idea of butchering the sirens. i'm okay with the plan being for them to surround and threaten the sirens, but once odysseus moves past that into "cut off their tails and let them drown", i think they should hesitate. protest a little. "we've already won the day, why be ruthless now?" odysseus can snap at his men for not listening to his orders, and then there's an actual fight/struggle. i think the men slowly positioning themselves around the sirens before attacking is a little less offensive than the men standing over women they've already captured and bound. (also, we need odysseus to call back to this act and actually feel remorse, so i'm going to be sure to bring it back up.) this also gives another chance for eurylochus and the crew to express doubt before the mutiny (somewhere around this scene, throw in some dialogue about the crew being hungry as well, to add to the buildup).

honestly, i'm still not crazy about the siren stuff. i'm just at a loss for how to change it or replace it. if anyone else has ideas i certainly welcome input.

moving on, we get to scylla. this might actually be my favorite song of the whole musical. it's terrifying, and odysseus is stone cold here. using six torches to sacrifice some of the men is a change i can get behind. it leads so beautifully into mutiny.

most of the issues i have with the mutiny have to do with it seeming to come out of nowhere, and only in response to the scylla incident. the edits i already made should make it seem much more inevitable. i would add in a line during the fight about how odysseus's focus on his wife has blinded him to how his men are starving. there's even a line in the odyssey where eurylochus complains about how odysseus seems to be made of iron, so he's ignoring how his men are starving and exhausted.

some of the lines about the sun cows make it seem like eurylochus and the crew don't believe they're going to be punished for killing the cows. idk how it gets translated other places, but the project gutenberg translation has a killer line for eurylochus: "all deaths are bad enough but there is none so bad as famine... if, however, he is determined to sink our ship out of revenge... i for one would rather drink salt water once for all and have done with it, than be starved to death by inches." i cut out the part where he does think there's a chance the gods will forgive them if they offer some of the cows as sacrifice and pledge to build temples, but it's clear the crew is ready to accept a fast death to avoid starvation. i think some of those ideas need to make it into mutiny. the men aren't foolish or overly confident/dismissive; they're starved and exhausted, and this is the only food they've seen in ages. if they're going to die anyways, they might as well die with full bellies.

into thunder bringer... i guess i missed this in my sa recaps but i don't think zeus needs to talk about forcefully undressing a female personification of pride? we're literally talking about odysseus right now; do you really need to talk about his pride as a woman just so we can give zeus creepy pervert vibes? really? let's leave that interpretation of zeus to someone who's actually doing something with it.

the rest of the song is fine. i would throw in a line about it being odysseus's fault his men killed the cows - he neglected his duty as their leader, so they acted out of desperation - to make the "you vs them" choice a little muddier. as is, it's a little more clear-cut: odysseus warned his men and they ignored him, so it's their fault because odysseus did nothing wrong. there should be a reason odysseus deserves the punishment, and neglecting his crew is all the reasoning we need.

the wisdom saga

as noted, i've already moved around several of these songs.

we'll be fine, or rather an equivalent song, can go here. we see athena grappling with what she's learned from telemacus and penelope, and she starts to wonder about odysseus. time doesn't pass the same for gods, but even she can tell it's taking him too long to get home. it's still a bit heavy on the "tell, not show" side of things, but athena should get a better explanation as to why she changed her mind about mercy. plus we can talk about how cunning penelope is for the challenge. it also gives us a better passage of time. honestly, you could even do a training montage here where we see here and telemacus bonding as he grows up.

i think the bit with athena scrying on odysseus is a pretty good way to explain how she knows everything now, but didn't know before. i'll address calypso in a minute, but just to finish athena's story here: instead of following with god games (which is completely made up from what i can tell; athena doesn't have to convince anyone, she just points out that poseidon is currently distracted and zeus says "yeah sure why not"), just have a song where athena explains her plan. it also helps finalize her shift in perspective: she sees how ruthlessness against the sirens (make sure to mention them!) and his own crew have changed odysseus into a shell of the man he was. in particular, those are both "smart" decisions, as they save future men and himself, respectively, which really allows her to question specifically her own teachings.

the other thing we're missing is an explanation to the "diplomatic mission" telemacus is on at the start of the ithaca saga - antinous mentions it as the reason telemacus is gone, but that doesn't make much sense to the listener. as part of athena's plan song, at some point she can overhear whispers of a plot against telemacus, or have some kind of foresight or intuition, and then send telemacus to search out news of his father. just a little mention to acknowledge it before he's already gone.

***trigger warning for the next 2 paragraphs for sexual assault***

backing up a bit, let's look at calypso. i've talked a lot about how this musical tries to handle sexual assault. namely how it doesn't. love in paradise is basically the one song where we see hints of calypso pressuring odysseus into a relationship - it's a happy, peppy song from calypso's side, and odysseus's side is more focused on his guilt from betraying his men than on how he feels about being sexually pressured by calypso. and her second song is explicitly not an apology, during which odysseus days "i love you." is it valid to want to see someone explore sexual exploitation in the odyssey and the way men are rarely allowed to be seen as victims? absolutely. is this musical the place to do it? i don't think so. you would need at least like three or four songs/scenes really exploring the subject, minimum, and that just destroys the pacing of the musical. i think an argument could be made comparing odysseus being a monster to the sirens and his men to feeling disgusted with himself for succumbing to calypso - you could really dive into the shame of being sexually assaulted and how victims often blame themselves. but that's a story for someone else to handle, because it certainly isn't happening here.

my personal opinion? we've already changed so many pieces of the story. just get rid of the sexual predation altogether. let calypso be chill and respect odysseus. i know that's going to be controversial given how much people really (really) dislike calypso in the epic fandom. but i think the story isn't equipped to handle sexual assault, so you might as well remove it completely.

you can still keep that unrequited love stuff from calypso. just have her back off once odysseus tells her no (especially once he mentions his wife. obviously "no" should be enough, but maybe that's a nod to her problematic side, that she doesn't leave him alone until he gives a reason). instead of focusing on "love", catchy as the song is, have calypso focus on making odysseus happy. it's a very small change, but important.

calypso should come from the perspective that we're both stuck here. poseidon literally won't let you leave without dying. you might as well just relax. hey why are you crying? what's with the ptsd? this place is amazing, so just get used to it. i think she should come across as supportive but defeatist, and maybe a little out of touch with human emotions.

this also gives us a chance for odysseus to reflect - he can go through his guilt over betraying his men and butchering the sirens. the musical kind of has this already, but it's pretty vague, and it's interrupted by calypso's song about wanting to sleep with him. also, with the choice in ghosts, it kind of just feels like everyone feeling bad for odysseus? he's sad they're dead, but i don't see much actual guilt for anything he's done.

i want more accusations. more of why he blames himself. this is really the only "pause" we have before the end of the musical where odysseus can really take the time to break everything down. this probably needs to be its own song to really give it time, maybe even a reprise of no longer you or monster? and it's fine to have some of the "supportive"/sympathetic ghosts, but i think we should get some of the crew that's angry with him, and some of the sirens.

however, we also need some sort of doubling down from odysseus. if he regrets so much, why is he still ruthless to the suitors? what about all of that suffering still convinces him not to use mercy in the end? i think most of the song should be about guilt, but the last verse should be him steeling himself against emotion and re-committing to ruthlessness.

whether you make this part of athena's scrying or not probably depends on what calypso's song ends up saying and how feasible the "flashback" stuff is to do live. but let's say it's separate, so it can go after athena's planning song; when she goes off to talk to zeus, we go back to odysseus. just have odysseus telling calypso about his guilt during her song, and don't show the ghosts until we focus on him in his song. calypso's second song can come after this.

to summarize, my new "wisdom saga" lineup is: 1) we'll be fine rewrite (or new song) to focus on what athena's learned about mercy 2) love in paradise but it isn't creepy and odysseus doesn't hear ghosts yet 3) athena sees how ruthlessness has hurt odysseus; she plans to save him and send telemacus away 4) odysseus gets an edgy guilt song with ghosts of people who love him and people who hate him

the vengeance saga

this is where everything really starts to fall apart. i feel like i don't have as many suggestions, but that's just because what is present needs so much editing that it doesn't offer much of a base. i'm going to do my best though.

i actually like the verses in calypso's second song, as they actually provide us with her story. the refrain isn't good though. i think i'd echo her sentiment in the first song, but softer: i'll help you leave if that's what you want, but there's still danger ahead, and you could stay here and just be safe. give her a chance to explain why the gods want him to leave now (poseidon is distracted, you might make it back if you're quick) and have most of this song be them gathering supplies so he can leave.

as i stated before, i'm kicking hermes out. i feel even less bad here, since hermes doesn't even talk to odysseus at this point in the odyssey - he just delivers the news to calypso. dangerous is a catchy song, so i'll let it stay in, but you give hermes's part to calypso.

i think this is a good point to check back in with ithaca. we need a song to get everything set up, because this is the last time we see it before the finale. you could put the challenge in here - and, functionally, that's what the song that goes here should do. like i mentioned though, i don't want to actually show the real penelope in the musical. instead, we can give this to telemacus and the suitors, and even athena. telemacus gets a verse telling us what he's doing, what he's learning, how he's looking for his father. the suitors can discuss telemacus leaving and their discovery of penelope's deception with the shroud. they're getting antsy, and athena worries about how she's going to get them to wait for odysseus when news comes that the queen has finally relented. the suitors hear about the challenge, and athena marvels again at how cunning penelope is. hopefully odysseus will get here soon...

(for the suitors, you could also use the second half of hold them down here. i'll cover my thoughts on that later, but i'm mentioning it here so we can keep track of it.)

you can just cut charybdis. immediately after odysseus talks about using ruthlessness, he just sails around the next monster? this song does nothing more than give odysseus a stanza about almost being home before poseidon shows up. if you want a hopeful travel song, just give him a reprise of something like full speed ahead. using motifs everywhere is cute and all, but sometimes you don't need a whole new song for a nothing scene. reprises are good and serve a purpose!

i'm at a bit of a loss for what to do about get in the water and 600 strikes. the beginning of get in the water is okay, but it's too late in the musical for odysseus to still be begging for mercy, especially from poseidon. and 600 strikes is just ridiculous and nonsensical. it's a fun thought experiment/power fantasy, but it doesn't make sense in a story where odysseus has been tossed around by gods the entire musical.

i agree there needs to be some sort of final confrontation with poseidon. their conflict drives the evolution of odysseus's character. this ain't it, but i'm not sure how to fix it.

in the odyssey, poseidon is basically distracted by a festival somewhere else, which is why athena tries to sneak him off calypso's island. but while odysseus is still on the sea, poseidon comes back early, notices odysseus, and fucks up his boat. there's a whole section about him washing up somewhere else and catching a boat home - i think it's fine to cut this, because we're ready to finish up the musical and don't need more distractions.

my current suggestion: some sort of confrontation. poseidon threatens odysseus, somehow he sees how odysseus has become ruthless and how much he hates himself. satisfied he's won because odysseus has learned his lesson, he lets odysseus go home.

a possible route: poseidon shows up and threatens to drown odysseus. he taunts him about all of his men being dead, and odysseus admits "it was them or me". poseidon brings up the missing sirens, and odysseus talks about punishing them for their crimes. maybe even something about wasting time saving the men from circe. poseidon lets odysseus go because "i see the man who spared my son is dead. what a fitting punishment, to send a monster home in his stead." poseidon leaves, and odysseus has some final bit dismissing what poseidon said and reassuring himself that he's done the right thing.

the ithaca saga

we're in the home stretch here! i already moved the challenge. we can get right into the final scene.

hold them down is a fine song. it brings us back into the banquet hall right before odysseus pops out. just change the bit with penelope so it's about them forcing her into marriage and you're fine.

as mentioned, i would put hold them down way earlier, back in the vengeance saga where i inserted the ithaca stuff. i think it shifts the focus away from odysseus and his ruthlessness. hold them down softens the ruthlessness of odysseus's actions. you're more interested in seeing the suitors punished than questioning if odysseus is doing the right thing.

that being said, i do think we need something to break up the poseidon confrontation and odysseus (the song). perhaps a reprise of hold them down? you could use the first half of the song here, where they get fed up with the challenge. you can make it seem like they're about to go into a whole song again and interrupt it with odysseus.

odysseus (the song) is okay. odysseus is pretty scary in it, and i really like the guy who begs for mercy. i don't think we need the guys holding telemacus down - again, odysseus should be the focus. you can have them threaten telemacus as he gets caught up in everything, but too much space is given to making the suitors the bad guys again. (i kind of like the idea of telemacus trying to offer mercy only for odysseus to cut those suitors down, but that's probably a step too far.) obviously we're removing the line where odysseus says they planned... look, i've covered this at length. it's gone.

a stage direction here, but i think the dead bodies of the suitors should remain onstage for the rest of the musical.

in i can't help but wonder, there needs to be way more apprehension. odysseus just went wild and killed a bunch of men, some who were begging for mercy. men that, though he doesn't like them, telemacus has know for years - men he knows better than his father. telemacus sees a violent man he doesn't know, standing before him claiming to be his father. and odysseus sees a man he doesn't know before him. when he left, telemacus was a baby. he has no idea who this guy actually is. the song should be about them carefully trying to size up each other and consider what their relationship wasn't and what it might be moving forward.

you could let athena talk a little more about what she's learned, or let odysseus say something about how his philosophy has changed. overall though their final conversation is fine.

it's clear that i can't help but wonder and would you fall in love with me again are only here to slap a nice happy ending on the musical. look, all the characters get to be together in the end! it's fine! they feel like fanfiction - the final example of how the musical falters at the end and can't present odysseus as anything but a hero. which is why I'm just cutting out would you fall in love with me again, and i'm not replacing it.

it's time to talk about penelope.

i discussed this in my post on the women of epic, but penelope has no character in this musical. she doesn't even appear until the final saga, and her only real purpose is to confirm that odysseus is not a monster and his guilt is unfounded. if you want to keep penelope in the musical, she needs more space where we can see how smart she is and how well she handles the suitors.

however, i'm going to be hypocritical here and remove penelope from the musical entirely. it's not hard - all i have to do is redistribute the info from the challenge and cut will you fall in love. instead, i want to play up the idea of penelope being the prize for odysseus at the end of the road. i'm not sure how hard you actually need to lean into that idea, but it's definitely the interpretation that should be drawn at the end.

odysseus spends the entire musical obsessed with getting home to penelope. he talks about how much she loves him and how beautiful she is. and now he's worried she might not accept everything he did to get here.

we don't know either. odysseus hasn't actually told us anything about her. we've had other characters discuss how smart she is and how much of a good leader/host she is, but we don't know anything about her relationship with odysseus. and really, they haven't seen each other in 2 decades. they probably didn't know each other for long before odysseus left. sure he loves her, but does he know her?

i think the musical should end with an uncertain odysseus walking through the door into her room. we don't get to see inside. so to back up, we have odysseus reuniting with athena. i would let him sum up his journey a bit, give his final philosophy. he needs a small monologue about how he's nervous that penelope won't accept him; this is either while he's talking to athena, or he can pause at the door before entering. if you have him say it to athena, it lets you keep the original ending where he says goodbye and enters the room. otherwise, he should be further from the door. they say goodbye and part; odysseus walks to the door, freezes and expresses his doubt, and then enters the room.

i will allow him to say her name as he enters, and penelope answers with her only actual line, "odysseus?" again, we'll get to see visions of her and hear her voice throughout the musical - it just won't be the real penelope. we don't get to see her.

the musical ends silently. odysseus walks through the door, his journey concluded, the bodies of the suitors littering the stage.

~*~*~*~

okay that's what i've got! as i said, it's only a start. i would love to hear other suggestions, especially since i'm not certain about all of my changes. i just want to hear more people talking about how the musical could be improved. it has potential, but it'll never be anything more if we don't have these discussions.

[thinking-through-some-things]

i've only just started this video, but astor rhymemaster does a great job breaking down the actual music and lyrics. just sharing for anyone else interested in seeing someone critique the musical, especially from a more technical perspective. she's a lot more critical, so just know that going in if you're a big fan. personally, i'm finding a lot of her takes really refreshing. it's not a complete rework, since it's just fixing songs as the musical goes, and it doesn't include the ithaca saga. it's worth a listen though.

[thinking-through-some-things]

Curious about your EPIC rework because I was also disappointed by it

like i mentioned in my other post here (before i gave up), this definitely isn't the only possibility; you could focus the musical around something else. for my version, though...

as i said, i would build the musical around the idea of duty vs desire, and tie that into mercy vs ruthlessness. i think it would focus less on odysseus's guilt overall, which seems to be the real focus of the musical, and focus it more in this direction. still plenty of angst, but a little more pointed.

a lot of my changes probably take the musical further away from the odyssey. i'm actually not too concerned about trying to faithfully follow the source material; i think it's more important to actually tell a coherent story, and when you're abridging the material, you need to cut stuff. just be clear that's what you're doing.

(also i'm not going to cover everything i think needs to be fixed. mostly just elements to support my theme.)

i think it's a given that the saga format doesn't work for the final draft of a musical. no shade, it was a really smart way to gradually release the musical. ultimately though, it limits the story because then they were blocked into sticking with a theme, and you end up with too many epic finale songs... but i'll stick with it to help organize here. i'm just not sticking with a "theme". mostly because i'm getting rid of the wisdom saga to better distribute its songs.

unsurprisingly, i've written far too much and it's poorly organized, so this is just act one. i'll reblog with act two.

act one

overall, i would say act one is by far the stronger of the two. i'm probably going to cut at least 30% of the current act two, but act one mostly just needs editing. some songs might need more work, but mostly they still get to stay in the same place. add some spoken dialogue and you've got a pretty decent start.

the troy saga:

most of the troy stuff is fine. i think it helps to set up this idea of ruthlessness, and shows the peacekeeping side of odysseus. could it be stronger? yeah. but i like it setting this whole thing up. i have 2 main changes here.

1) every time odysseus mentions penelope and telemacus, he needs to mention anticlea. the musical has a bad habit of not introducing characters/elements until they're relevant, and i think it suffers for that. including odysseus's mother in the list of people he wants to get home to makes her death more impactful. i was so confused when she showed up the first time; she needs to be in here from the start.

2) to go with my theme, i would do this: the reason odysseus needs to kill the baby is because the baby would grow up to kill him; however, that doesn't necessarily mean ithaca would suffer. zeus can word it really carefully - i don't think that distinction needs to be immediately clear to the audience, but after you know how the story ends you can go back and realize that when you re-listen to it. this doesn't require much tweaking, but it helps to really set up the idea of making decisions for the greater good vs for selfish reasons (maybe he could have raised the kid? and only he would have died in the end? i want the audience to question this!)

moving into the second half of the saga, i think we need to introduce odysseus's men earlier. maybe a scene of him commanding them in troy? since i'm talking about a full musical instead of the current format, this might just be dialogue, not a song. but i think we definitely need a little more of polites before he dies. i don't really like having odysseus start out untrusting and jumpy, which is how he comes across to me in open arms. it doesn't make sense for this to be a lesson he needs to learn now, after being king of ithaca for well over a decade. originally i was just going to cut him, but my fiance persuaded me to let him stay. plus his death to polyphemus is a very brutal turning point.

instead, i would have a song/scene where we set up eurylochus and polites as odysseus's two advisors, two different sides of his leadership. you could rewrite open arms to fit here. polites argues for presuming peace, and eurylochus views things with suspicion and wants to attack first to keep the men safe. this really helps set up mercy vs ruthlessness. it shows odysseus is already a leader who balances peace and action, and it makes polites's death all the more tragic, because he represents the death of odysseus's inclination towards peace.

finally, i find athena's introduction and focus on being ruthless in this and the next saga confusing. she's mad at him for not being less emotional and more ruthless, but i don't see what that has to do with him being a "warrior of the mind". instead, i would make it clear that she thinks he isn't being cautious enough. she's mad because she thinks he isn't being shrewd, not because he's being nice.

athena and eurylochus should be coming from the same place: we need to be overly cautious and strike first, because that's how you stay safe. and rather than having a jumpy odysseus being taught to trust people by his soft bestie, i think he should be a general, exhausted from fighting for 10 years, jumping on the idea of relying on trust so he can relax and not feel so jumpy. his duty is to balance these two ideas, mercy vs ruthlessness, but because he chooses only mercy without remaining vigilant, polites dies and now he only has eurylochus to give him advice, meaning no one else is trying to suggest mercy. (i don't think eurylochus is bad - actually, he clearly prioritizes the crew and is always suggesting whatever is best for them. but often what is best for you isn't the best for those you come across, which is why it's the leader's job to balance those two things - again, the theme i'm going with in this version.)

anyways, athena needs to focus on pushing odysseus to be more suspicious and calculating, not more ruthless. she scolds him at all the same points, but now it actually makes sense. i don't love their flashback, but i don't have suggestions to fix it, so we'll leave it alone for now.

the cyclops saga

not too many notes here. getting to see the crew more gives it a little more weight (the stage production needs a tiny dialogue scene where you get quips and comments from nobodies so they're a little more recognizable when they die! make people even sadder!), but this is a really chilling series. the exposition bits need rewording (and again, a stage production has the benefit of 1) spoken word, and 2) stage directions so you can just show things happening).

odysseus's convo with athena needs work. as is, this doesn't seem like a good place for "what good would killing do when mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use." this is supposed to be the stance athena takes at the end of the musical, but this particular act of mercy seems to lead to the death of most of his men in the very next act - which really makes it weird that athena apparently agrees with that sentiment.

i don't hate everything about this line, especially if we actually see athena ruminating over the line over the next 10 years. but it needs to be clear that it is not mercy but pride that leads to the death of his men. or, if we want to make it about mercy instead of pride, it shouldn't be as the sort of threatening brag that it currently is; instead, frame it as "even now, when we've beaten you, we're still choosing to let you live. because i, odysseus, king of ithaca, have chosen to show you mercy." obviously yes it's still his pride, but then when everyone blames his "mercy" for getting his men killed it makes more sense.

(coming back to really hone in on the idea that mercy isn't the problem here - maybe eurylochus notices something is off before polyphemus starts singing, tries to point it out, and gets brushed off as being too suspicious and bloodthirsty? yet again, i find the musical's stance on mercy confusing. is it good? they seem to want it to be - that's definitely what open arms implies, especially since it gets repeated so often. except the musical stresses that mercy is *why* everything went south here, and it rarely actually shows mercy working. it's confusing. i think this whole thing should feel more like odysseus was reckless, the only thing athena calls him that actually makes sense, and that's why this didn't work. the characters don't need to say it directly, but the musical needs to better frame it that way.)

(an aside, but they still grab sheep on their way out? obviously they're still starving but like. i'm side-eyeing the way everyone (in the musical) acts like he was so "merciful" for leaving polyphemus alive, but even after he learns the sheep are polyphemus's friends and their deaths are what drive him to violence, he still makes a point of stealing and killing them... this isn't a serious criticism i'm just poking fun at it. but hypocritical much?)

athena's anger in my goodbye makes no sense to me - not that she's not justified, but that her reasons make no sense. she calls him "sentimental" and "soft", but that's absolutely not the problem here. she should yell at him for being prideful and cocky. accuse him of sparing polyphemus just to feed his own ego, or of being short-sighted - she mentioned the danger of leaving him alive in the last song, why not bring that up again? why doesn't she scold him for foolishly giving up his name? it's really weird that she keeps harping on the idea that he's "emotional".

odysseus's retort is good, but also a bunch of people just died so it's weird that he's so confident about how right he is. "my friend is dead, our foe is blind. the blood we shed, it never dries" from the last song, and "unlike you, every time someone dies I'm left to deal with the strain" in my goodbye are really good lines. more of his position needs to come from his exhaustion, because odysseus is smart. he's a brilliant general. this does a better job of explaining why he's making so many mistakes early on, and why he's pushing back against athena so hard despite the fact that he just fucked up real bad. he was wrong. he should have acted faster like she warned him to. but making him a man, exhausted from a decade of fighting, desperately trying to grant mercy where he can? his pushback makes more sense.

also, him jabbing at her for wanting "to be known" and being alone? really weird. the musical frames athena as this loser whose only friend was odysseus. i don't get it. especially when you're calling her a goddess who doesn't understand feelings right before that? which is she, a powerful goddess or a lonely girl? stick with him accusing her of not understanding human emotions and interactions. it still gives her a reason to stick around - she can be offended by the insinuation that there's something she doesn't understand, and it gives her a reason to dwell on his comments and eventually change.

the ocean saga

eurylochus needs to call odysseus out; if he'd listened to him, if they'd acted faster against polyphemus, they might not have lost those men, including polites. obviously that might not be true, but it feels like that's what his position should be. it's really weird that they're nervous about the wind god because "your luck might run out" rather than "you did just make a bad call that got people killed". especially when odysseus says "i took 600 men to war and not one of them died there." sure, not there, but you just lost a couple to a cyclops. this more deliberate questioning makes the sidebar with "i can't have you planting seeds of doubt" a little more serious. it's not just "what if you're not lucky," but also "what if you're not as sharp? what if you're making mistakes and bad calls?" the luck thing works for the rest of the crew, but eurylochus's role in this musical is to question odysseus and challenge him as a leader, to make sure odysseus is doing what will keep the men safe.

eurylochus questioning odysseus more pointedly makes the betrayal in the next song make more sense. we should already have the sense that he's starting to doubt odysseus's judgement. his "luck running out" doesn't really explain why you're doubting him with the wind bag; but if you think he's hiding things or making bad decisions, suddenly it makes a lot more sense. i think the implication in the show is that it's just curiosity, and we don't even hear eurylochus asking about it. now, if we have already established eurylochus is already questioning odysseus's judgement, it's a little less weird when we learn he's the one who opened it.

again, we need a mention of anticlea, and she should sing with penelope and telemacus.

honestly? basic take here but i like ruthlessness. i'm fine with not changing my theme to use a better word because this one is a banger. and the one animatic with him as a creepy horse? more horse poseidon imagery, please.

i think poseidon needs to call out specifically how hypocritical odysseus is more. lean into that "false righteousness". the problem is that he isn't being "nice" or "merciful", at least not in those moments, not in how he's currently behaving. most of this interpretation is already there; honestly, just changing the delivery of some of the lines would go a long way. "you are far too nice" needs to have the last word almost spat out - poseidon doesn't actually think odysseus is nice; nice is just a word odysseus is hiding behind to justify his actions. i'm sure it could use more work, but at a glance i really like this one.

it goes without saying that the ending sucks ass though.

i can't imagine anyone thinks that was a good ending. idk how to fix it because the current one is so bad it's hard to think of any way to have something good there. you just can't have the jaunty "open this bag" music in there at all. i know they like to mix in motifs and call back to other songs, but it fucking kills all the momentum in what is otherwise a very dramatic song - and we need to be able to take this song seriously, because it's what the entire rest of the musical is based on. i'm open to a completely different ending, but if you want it to stay relatively close to the current staging: poseidon and odysseus stare each other down. poseidon asks "any last words?" and you think odysseus is about to say something dramatic and instead... he yells "eurylochus!" poseidon is confused, but eurylochus responds with "captain!" and, understanding what he's asking for, throws odysseus the wind bag (he helped odysseus close it, so maybe he got it then, or at some other point, idk). and then odysseus opens the bag in poseidon's face. then everything poseidon does is the same, the effect is the same, you just don't get the musical equivalent of a wet pool noodle slapped across your face.

the circe saga

first! an addition! the musical wants athena to be a foil to odysseus, but they do such a poor job of exploring her character or logic at all, it just doesn't work. her character revolves way too much around odysseus. she says goodbye, and then we see her 4 sagas later (half the musical) where, apparently, she's decided odysseus was right because... maybe if she'd agreed with him they would still be friends. and then she defends everything he's done... look, i'm getting rid of god games, so i won't go into that now. yeah, odysseus is still what prompts her to change her mind in my version, but he's just the start of that journey. she's going to have other reasons. i want to add in a couple songs throughout the musical, just to show the transition a bit. additionally, they can help show time passing in odysseus's story by breaking it up a bit.

this first song is a small one. it's just telling us what athena is thinking and what she's going to do. it's basically her mopey and angry that odysseus insulted her. but she's a goddess of wisdom and intellect, so she's kind of intrigued - maybe there is something to learn about leading with kindness. i haven't decided how she ends up back in ithaca, but she's decided to investigate this. i know the popular (not academic, more fandom-related) interpretation of greek gods is that they're all stubborn and that's the whole point, but for the sake of this story and the theme (and also the character), i think athena should take the stand that if there is wisdom to be gained, it is her duty to learn it. again, this one is pretty short - a verse of angry, and then she talks herself down, and then she's setting out to investigate - a little bit to learn something new, maybe a little bit to prove odysseus wrong.

the athena song can also go at the end of the circe arc. i was going to put another one in there, but the pacing and time line don't match well, and monster is definitely the finale to act one. i wanted to fit something along the lines of the start of the wisdom saga in here, but i think i'm going to put it at the beginning of act two, so. only one extra song for now.

onto the actual saga: i think it's done pretty well. some of the phrasing is awkwardly fit into songs, but that might just be me, and it's overall not egregious. i will confess that "she had us in just two words" "come inside" "damn" does make me giggle every time like a 12-year-old boy. i didn't mention it in my post on the musical's women because i don't think the text directly addresses it, but there's a definite implication that circe is as harsh as she is to protect her nymphs from sexual assault, which they might have faced before. removing the undertones of that from her relationship with odysseus was the right call - i don't think that's a conversation this musical actually wants to have, and it muddles her justification for how she handles the men.

circe is also gives us someone to compare odysseus's leadership to; she's basically the only other leader of a cohesive group that we see. her harsh policy stands in direct contrast to odysseus's earlier choice to start with unchecked "mercy". in turn, her nymphs are safe. we see her later learn that there are times where you can extend mercy and trust, so she even has character growth. (you could make a very interesting comparison between circe & her nymphs and the sirens, but that's a discussion for outside of the musical, so i'll leave it for now.) i wouldn't be surprised if other people have criticisms, i just haven't been able to find basically any critical discussion of the musical, so.

you could mostly leave this saga alone, but i'm inclined to take my red pen and make some bigger changes. i'm just not sure how to. i really don't like hermes and the flower being inserted here - again, i think there's too much bloat in the musical of "oh here's a thing that's in this specific bit, clearly just because that's what happens in the odyssey, and then we won't talk about it again." hermes does appear in two songs, but actually, does he need to? i'm of the opinion that the musical needs fewer characters so that it can better focus on developing the ones that actually need to be in here. the only problem is that odysseus needs the flower from hermes to explain why he has magic in the next song. okay, so what if no magic is used, and he just uses his wit to convince her? except that's basically what the plot of the next song is. so at this point i've basically gotten rid of two songs and completely changed the third, and that doesn't really work. or need to happen.

i stand by wanting to remove hermes. i think you can just give odysseus some line to eurylochus about having heard about a plant on these islands that makes one immune to being transformed by magic for a time. i don't think it's important - it's literally a small, one-time detail just to explain why circe doesn't immediately turn him into a pig. he doesn't need magic in done for - he can just fight with a sword while circe is slinging spells at him. and then you can still go into there are other ways.

the one change that i think does need to be made is that odysseus needs to spend a year on the island. he needs to be stuck here. it does mean you have to basically cut the song in half, but that just means the second part, where circe decides to help odysseus, needs to be a reprise. i think you have circe trying to seduce odysseus, and then she's shocked when he rejects her. the difference is that he doesn't fully win her over; instead, she decides to give him and the rest of his crew one year. for one year, his remaining crew recovers on the island and rebuild the ship, helping the nymphs with whatever tasks they ask and basically proving "not all men" are terrible. finally, odysseus shows that there's payoff to being a merciful leader! he saves all of his men! as they're finally preparing to leave, penelope shows up, we get the reprise, and she sends them to the underworld. all is well!

the underworld saga

or, all is not well.

this is where i spell out my theme: while a good leader is merciful, mercy takes time. and that extra time can be detrimental to personal goals.

this is why it's important to mention anticlea earlier, and why the crew spends an extra year on circe's island trying to save the rest of the men. taking a year to save his men makes odysseus a good leader, yes, but it might have cost him a chance to see his mother before she died. it doesn't matter when she actually died in the odyssey - what matters is that this is really what makes odysseus question the cost of mercy. this is where he starts to put his own desires over the safety of the crew, because the cost of taking too long is suddenly real - as is the cost of taking time to be merciful.

i actually don't have too much to add. some edits might need to be made to fit with other changes, but overall it's fine.

okay, there's act one! this is definitely long enough, so i'll reblog with act two. suggestions and conversation are welcome; again, my fiance already changed my mind on one part. i haven't actually see any discussion on changes yet, so i'm happy to consider other changes, or for mine to be challenged (by something other than "actually this is perfect").

[thinking-through-some-things]

act two

as mentioned, i'm going to make way more changes to this act (and likely stray further from the odyssey).

right at the beginning, we're starting the act following athena and telemacus. something akin to the first 3 wisdom saga songs goes here. the big change i'm making is that athena and telemacus basically meet when the later is closer to like 13. he just doesn't make sense as someone who's supposed to be 20 years old. you can have the first half of legendary, but i don't know about the second half - that's where the suitors need to end up, so they can be a bit more restrained right now (although they are still pressuring penelope to marry them, so). i think it makes sense for this to be when the suitors are just starting to show up.

little wolf fits in here, i'm just not a fan of it. the bullet time is cheesy. but the fight itself isn't bad, and it brings these two characters together. however, i would just have athena watch the fight and come in after it's over, impressed by telemacus's refusal to back down (although she might chide him for being foolish). i think this does a decent job of establishing the suitors as villains - i mean, antinous is fighting a 13 year old.

(i'll discuss this at the end, but i'm not going to have penelope actually appear in my version. that said, if you keep her, give her a song here about dealing with the suitors showing up, demanding she marry someone new. she can set up the weaving plot here, and athena can be impressed by both how smart penelope is and how she diffuses the situation temporarily, particularly given how little power she is actually permitted to wield. in that case, maybe do the telemacus stuff later? or earlier; you can put legendary/little wolf after circe, and put a song checking back in on penelope, telemacus, and athena at the start of act two.)

the thunder saga

i am very torn about how to handle the sirens. i talk more about it in another post, but the decision to add in violence against women (or monsters that look like women, i suppose) doesn't sit well with me, particularly when you look at the musical as a whole. that being said, the sirens are one of odysseus's most iconic foes, and different beast is such a clear turning point for odysseus. it doesn't help that i find the wording in suffering really clunky. also, in the odyssey, odysseus learns of scylla and the sirens (and charybdis) from circe; he tells his men about the sirens, but deliberately withholds info about the other two, which would really add to the mutiny later.

in the interest of preserving more of the current musical (and making less work for myself), i'm willing to let these two songs in for now. i do think someone could warn him more specifically about scylla, since he seems to know about her "cost" but no one else does. (unless the implication is that no one else is even aware they're heading to scylla?) i don't really follow the logic that odysseus also had wax in his ears and just read the siren's lips. i assume this is to explain why he doesn't give away info, but i don't think it's necessary. just tie him to the post.

either way, his men need to push back against the idea of butchering the sirens. i'm okay with the plan being for them to surround and threaten the sirens, but once odysseus moves past that into "cut off their tails and let them drown", i think they should hesitate. protest a little. "we've already won the day, why be ruthless now?" odysseus can snap at his men for not listening to his orders, and then there's an actual fight/struggle. i think the men slowly positioning themselves around the sirens before attacking is a little less offensive than the men standing over women they've already captured and bound. (also, we need odysseus to call back to this act and actually feel remorse, so i'm going to be sure to bring it back up.) this also gives another chance for eurylochus and the crew to express doubt before the mutiny (somewhere around this scene, throw in some dialogue about the crew being hungry as well, to add to the buildup).

honestly, i'm still not crazy about the siren stuff. i'm just at a loss for how to change it or replace it. if anyone else has ideas i certainly welcome input.

moving on, we get to scylla. this might actually be my favorite song of the whole musical. it's terrifying, and odysseus is stone cold here. using six torches to sacrifice some of the men is a change i can get behind. it leads so beautifully into mutiny.

most of the issues i have with the mutiny have to do with it seeming to come out of nowhere, and only in response to the scylla incident. the edits i already made should make it seem much more inevitable. i would add in a line during the fight about how odysseus's focus on his wife has blinded him to how his men are starving. there's even a line in the odyssey where eurylochus complains about how odysseus seems to be made of iron, so he's ignoring how his men are starving and exhausted.

some of the lines about the sun cows make it seem like eurylochus and the crew don't believe they're going to be punished for killing the cows. idk how it gets translated other places, but the project gutenberg translation has a killer line for eurylochus: "all deaths are bad enough but there is none so bad as famine... if, however, he is determined to sink our ship out of revenge... i for one would rather drink salt water once for all and have done with it, than be starved to death by inches." i cut out the part where he does think there's a chance the gods will forgive them if they offer some of the cows as sacrifice and pledge to build temples, but it's clear the crew is ready to accept a fast death to avoid starvation. i think some of those ideas need to make it into mutiny. the men aren't foolish or overly confident/dismissive; they're starved and exhausted, and this is the only food they've seen in ages. if they're going to die anyways, they might as well die with full bellies.

into thunder bringer... i guess i missed this in my sa recaps but i don't think zeus needs to talk about forcefully undressing a female personification of pride? we're literally talking about odysseus right now; do you really need to talk about his pride as a woman just so we can give zeus creepy pervert vibes? really? let's leave that interpretation of zeus to someone who's actually doing something with it.

the rest of the song is fine. i would throw in a line about it being odysseus's fault his men killed the cows - he neglected his duty as their leader, so they acted out of desperation - to make the "you vs them" choice a little muddier. as is, it's a little more clear-cut: odysseus warned his men and they ignored him, so it's their fault because odysseus did nothing wrong. there should be a reason odysseus deserves the punishment, and neglecting his crew is all the reasoning we need.

the wisdom saga

as noted, i've already moved around several of these songs.

we'll be fine, or rather an equivalent song, can go here. we see athena grappling with what she's learned from telemacus and penelope, and she starts to wonder about odysseus. time doesn't pass the same for gods, but even she can tell it's taking him too long to get home. it's still a bit heavy on the "tell, not show" side of things, but athena should get a better explanation as to why she changed her mind about mercy. plus we can talk about how cunning penelope is for the challenge. it also gives us a better passage of time. honestly, you could even do a training montage here where we see here and telemacus bonding as he grows up.

i think the bit with athena scrying on odysseus is a pretty good way to explain how she knows everything now, but didn't know before. i'll address calypso in a minute, but just to finish athena's story here: instead of following with god games (which is completely made up from what i can tell; athena doesn't have to convince anyone, she just points out that poseidon is currently distracted and zeus says "yeah sure why not"), just have a song where athena explains her plan. it also helps finalize her shift in perspective: she sees how ruthlessness against the sirens (make sure to mention them!) and his own crew have changed odysseus into a shell of the man he was. in particular, those are both "smart" decisions, as they save future men and himself, respectively, which really allows her to question specifically her own teachings.

the other thing we're missing is an explanation to the "diplomatic mission" telemacus is on at the start of the ithaca saga - antinous mentions it as the reason telemacus is gone, but that doesn't make much sense to the listener. as part of athena's plan song, at some point she can overhear whispers of a plot against telemacus, or have some kind of foresight or intuition, and then send telemacus to search out news of his father. just a little mention to acknowledge it before he's already gone.

***trigger warning for the next 2 paragraphs for sexual assault***

backing up a bit, let's look at calypso. i've talked a lot about how this musical tries to handle sexual assault. namely how it doesn't. love in paradise is basically the one song where we see hints of calypso pressuring odysseus into a relationship - it's a happy, peppy song from calypso's side, and odysseus's side is more focused on his guilt from betraying his men than on how he feels about being sexually pressured by calypso. and her second song is explicitly not an apology, during which odysseus days "i love you." is it valid to want to see someone explore sexual exploitation in the odyssey and the way men are rarely allowed to be seen as victims? absolutely. is this musical the place to do it? i don't think so. you would need at least like three or four songs/scenes really exploring the subject, minimum, and that just destroys the pacing of the musical. i think an argument could be made comparing odysseus being a monster to the sirens and his men to feeling disgusted with himself for succumbing to calypso - you could really dive into the shame of being sexually assaulted and how victims often blame themselves. but that's a story for someone else to handle, because it certainly isn't happening here.

my personal opinion? we've already changed so many pieces of the story. just get rid of the sexual predation altogether. let calypso be chill and respect odysseus. i know that's going to be controversial given how much people really (really) dislike calypso in the epic fandom. but i think the story isn't equipped to handle sexual assault, so you might as well remove it completely.

you can still keep that unrequited love stuff from calypso. just have her back off once odysseus tells her no (especially once he mentions his wife. obviously "no" should be enough, but maybe that's a nod to her problematic side, that she doesn't leave him alone until he gives a reason). instead of focusing on "love", catchy as the song is, have calypso focus on making odysseus happy. it's a very small change, but important.

calypso should come from the perspective that we're both stuck here. poseidon literally won't let you leave without dying. you might as well just relax. hey why are you crying? what's with the ptsd? this place is amazing, so just get used to it. i think she should come across as supportive but defeatist, and maybe a little out of touch with human emotions.

this also gives us a chance for odysseus to reflect - he can go through his guilt over betraying his men and butchering the sirens. the musical kind of has this already, but it's pretty vague, and it's interrupted by calypso's song about wanting to sleep with him. also, with the choice in ghosts, it kind of just feels like everyone feeling bad for odysseus? he's sad they're dead, but i don't see much actual guilt for anything he's done.

i want more accusations. more of why he blames himself. this is really the only "pause" we have before the end of the musical where odysseus can really take the time to break everything down. this probably needs to be its own song to really give it time, maybe even a reprise of no longer you or monster? and it's fine to have some of the "supportive"/sympathetic ghosts, but i think we should get some of the crew that's angry with him, and some of the sirens.

however, we also need some sort of doubling down from odysseus. if he regrets so much, why is he still ruthless to the suitors? what about all of that suffering still convinces him not to use mercy in the end? i think most of the song should be about guilt, but the last verse should be him steeling himself against emotion and re-committing to ruthlessness.

whether you make this part of athena's scrying or not probably depends on what calypso's song ends up saying and how feasible the "flashback" stuff is to do live. but let's say it's separate, so it can go after athena's planning song; when she goes off to talk to zeus, we go back to odysseus. just have odysseus telling calypso about his guilt during her song, and don't show the ghosts until we focus on him in his song. calypso's second song can come after this.

to summarize, my new "wisdom saga" lineup is: 1) we'll be fine rewrite (or new song) to focus on what athena's learned about mercy 2) love in paradise but it isn't creepy and odysseus doesn't hear ghosts yet 3) athena sees how ruthlessness has hurt odysseus; she plans to save him and send telemacus away 4) odysseus gets an edgy guilt song with ghosts of people who love him and people who hate him

the vengeance saga

this is where everything really starts to fall apart. i feel like i don't have as many suggestions, but that's just because what is present needs so much editing that it doesn't offer much of a base. i'm going to do my best though.

i actually like the verses in calypso's second song, as they actually provide us with her story. the refrain isn't good though. i think i'd echo her sentiment in the first song, but softer: i'll help you leave if that's what you want, but there's still danger ahead, and you could stay here and just be safe. give her a chance to explain why the gods want him to leave now (poseidon is distracted, you might make it back if you're quick) and have most of this song be them gathering supplies so he can leave.

as i stated before, i'm kicking hermes out. i feel even less bad here, since hermes doesn't even talk to odysseus at this point in the odyssey - he just delivers the news to calypso. dangerous is a catchy song, so i'll let it stay in, but you give hermes's part to calypso.

i think this is a good point to check back in with ithaca. we need a song to get everything set up, because this is the last time we see it before the finale. you could put the challenge in here - and, functionally, that's what the song that goes here should do. like i mentioned though, i don't want to actually show the real penelope in the musical. instead, we can give this to telemacus and the suitors, and even athena. telemacus gets a verse telling us what he's doing, what he's learning, how he's looking for his father. the suitors can discuss telemacus leaving and their discovery of penelope's deception with the shroud. they're getting antsy, and athena worries about how she's going to get them to wait for odysseus when news comes that the queen has finally relented. the suitors hear about the challenge, and athena marvels again at how cunning penelope is. hopefully odysseus will get here soon...

(for the suitors, you could also use the second half of hold them down here. i'll cover my thoughts on that later, but i'm mentioning it here so we can keep track of it.)

you can just cut charybdis. immediately after odysseus talks about using ruthlessness, he just sails around the next monster? this song does nothing more than give odysseus a stanza about almost being home before poseidon shows up. if you want a hopeful travel song, just give him a reprise of something like full speed ahead. using motifs everywhere is cute and all, but sometimes you don't need a whole new song for a nothing scene. reprises are good and serve a purpose!

i'm at a bit of a loss for what to do about get in the water and 600 strikes. the beginning of get in the water is okay, but it's too late in the musical for odysseus to still be begging for mercy, especially from poseidon. and 600 strikes is just ridiculous and nonsensical. it's a fun thought experiment/power fantasy, but it doesn't make sense in a story where odysseus has been tossed around by gods the entire musical.

i agree there needs to be some sort of final confrontation with poseidon. their conflict drives the evolution of odysseus's character. this ain't it, but i'm not sure how to fix it.

in the odyssey, poseidon is basically distracted by a festival somewhere else, which is why athena tries to sneak him off calypso's island. but while odysseus is still on the sea, poseidon comes back early, notices odysseus, and fucks up his boat. there's a whole section about him washing up somewhere else and catching a boat home - i think it's fine to cut this, because we're ready to finish up the musical and don't need more distractions.

my current suggestion: some sort of confrontation. poseidon threatens odysseus, somehow he sees how odysseus has become ruthless and how much he hates himself. satisfied he's won because odysseus has learned his lesson, he lets odysseus go home.

a possible route: poseidon shows up and threatens to drown odysseus. he taunts him about all of his men being dead, and odysseus admits "it was them or me". poseidon brings up the missing sirens, and odysseus talks about punishing them for their crimes. maybe even something about wasting time saving the men from circe. poseidon lets odysseus go because "i see the man who spared my son is dead. what a fitting punishment, to send a monster home in his stead." poseidon leaves, and odysseus has some final bit dismissing what poseidon said and reassuring himself that he's done the right thing.

the ithaca saga

we're in the home stretch here! i already moved the challenge. we can get right into the final scene.

hold them down is a fine song. it brings us back into the banquet hall right before odysseus pops out. just change the bit with penelope so it's about them forcing her into marriage and you're fine.

as mentioned, i would put hold them down way earlier, back in the vengeance saga where i inserted the ithaca stuff. i think it shifts the focus away from odysseus and his ruthlessness. hold them down softens the ruthlessness of odysseus's actions. you're more interested in seeing the suitors punished than questioning if odysseus is doing the right thing.

that being said, i do think we need something to break up the poseidon confrontation and odysseus (the song). perhaps a reprise of hold them down? you could use the first half of the song here, where they get fed up with the challenge. you can make it seem like they're about to go into a whole song again and interrupt it with odysseus.

odysseus (the song) is okay. odysseus is pretty scary in it, and i really like the guy who begs for mercy. i don't think we need the guys holding telemacus down - again, odysseus should be the focus. you can have them threaten telemacus as he gets caught up in everything, but too much space is given to making the suitors the bad guys again. (i kind of like the idea of telemacus trying to offer mercy only for odysseus to cut those suitors down, but that's probably a step too far.) obviously we're removing the line where odysseus says they planned... look, i've covered this at length. it's gone.

a stage direction here, but i think the dead bodies of the suitors should remain onstage for the rest of the musical.

in i can't help but wonder, there needs to be way more apprehension. odysseus just went wild and killed a bunch of men, some who were begging for mercy. men that, though he doesn't like them, telemacus has know for years - men he knows better than his father. telemacus sees a violent man he doesn't know, standing before him claiming to be his father. and odysseus sees a man he doesn't know before him. when he left, telemacus was a baby. he has no idea who this guy actually is. the song should be about them carefully trying to size up each other and consider what their relationship wasn't and what it might be moving forward.

you could let athena talk a little more about what she's learned, or let odysseus say something about how his philosophy has changed. overall though their final conversation is fine.

it's clear that i can't help but wonder and would you fall in love with me again are only here to slap a nice happy ending on the musical. look, all the characters get to be together in the end! it's fine! they feel like fanfiction - the final example of how the musical falters at the end and can't present odysseus as anything but a hero. which is why I'm just cutting out would you fall in love with me again, and i'm not replacing it.

it's time to talk about penelope.

i discussed this in my post on the women of epic, but penelope has no character in this musical. she doesn't even appear until the final saga, and her only real purpose is to confirm that odysseus is not a monster and his guilt is unfounded. if you want to keep penelope in the musical, she needs more space where we can see how smart she is and how well she handles the suitors.

however, i'm going to be hypocritical here and remove penelope from the musical entirely. it's not hard - all i have to do is redistribute the info from the challenge and cut will you fall in love. instead, i want to play up the idea of penelope being the prize for odysseus at the end of the road. i'm not sure how hard you actually need to lean into that idea, but it's definitely the interpretation that should be drawn at the end.

odysseus spends the entire musical obsessed with getting home to penelope. he talks about how much she loves him and how beautiful she is. and now he's worried she might not accept everything he did to get here.

we don't know either. odysseus hasn't actually told us anything about her. we've had other characters discuss how smart she is and how much of a good leader/host she is, but we don't know anything about her relationship with odysseus. and really, they haven't seen each other in 2 decades. they probably didn't know each other for long before odysseus left. sure he loves her, but does he know her?

i think the musical should end with an uncertain odysseus walking through the door into her room. we don't get to see inside. so to back up, we have odysseus reuniting with athena. i would let him sum up his journey a bit, give his final philosophy. he needs a small monologue about how he's nervous that penelope won't accept him; this is either while he's talking to athena, or he can pause at the door before entering. if you have him say it to athena, it lets you keep the original ending where he says goodbye and enters the room. otherwise, he should be further from the door. they say goodbye and part; odysseus walks to the door, freezes and expresses his doubt, and then enters the room.

i will allow him to say her name as he enters, and penelope answers with her only actual line, "odysseus?" again, we'll get to see visions of her and hear her voice throughout the musical - it just won't be the real penelope. we don't get to see her.

the musical ends silently. odysseus walks through the door, his journey concluded, the bodies of the suitors littering the stage.

~*~*~*~

okay that's what i've got! as i said, it's only a start. i would love to hear other suggestions, especially since i'm not certain about all of my changes. i just want to hear more people talking about how the musical could be improved. it has potential, but it'll never be anything more if we don't have these discussions.

[thinking-through-some-things]

What do you mean by the women from epic the musical was poorly handled? Can you explain? I’m interested bc I thought that too

ho boy, let's see.

there's definitely a general feminist critique to be had about how few women are in the musical and how small their parts are. obviously i realize the musical primarily follows the leading man and his male crew because that's just how the odyssey works. but it's still a conversation worth having, especially since there are ways to make the existing female characters better. the decision to base this on the odyssey is still a choice.

i don't have much to say about most of the monsters/goddesses. aeolus and scylla are fine. circe is okay, and she actually gets a few songs. personally i think god games should just be cut entirely; it's just athena justifying everything odysseus has done. hera is fine. i don't like how athena stops talking to aphrodite once ares shows up; the line that convinces her is "tell your lover that a broken heart can mend," which is directed at ares.

not mentioning anticlea until she's already dead means her death doesn't really have the weight it should. he's desperate to get back to penelope and telemachus, so it just feels like he forgot about his mom, which makes that tragedy feel a little unearned. he should be just as concerned to get back to her as he is the other two, which means he should mention her whenever he sings about them in the first act. then it would actually matter more when we find out she's dead.

the rest is under a read more because i wrote a lot about athena, and because i need to give a trigger warning for sexual assault for my other points.

athena is clearly the strongest female character and is positioned to be a foil to odysseus. that being said, i didn't really follow her shift in philosophy - going back to look at the lyrics it's because she blames herself for teaching him to be cruel? the goodbye at the start is weird - she's mad at him for not being ruthless, but really the problem is that he's arrogant - which is still something she could chastise him for. idk. either way i don't think her evolution was explored well at all - she basically just changes her mind because she misses him, not because she has actually seen anything to suggest mercy is good. and it's weird that she's only at the beginning, in the wisdom saga, and at the very end. her stuff isn't terrible, but it needs to be better distributed throughout the musical so there can be an evolution. give her one more song towards the end of act one, break up the wisdom saga so her story feels like it's part of the musical instead of a weird distraction in the middle, and actually show us why she starts to think mercy is good. as is her character is too reliant on odysseus in a way that really hurts that the story. bringing up telemachus earlier and exploring that relationship, or penelope and ithica, gives you a chance for athena to see something that helps her change her mind. (i have more to say about her story but that's just about fixing the plot. i think i've made my point here.

okay trigger warning for real.

calypso is really weirdly done. she has one song where she's pressuring him to be with her, and then a song where she refuses to apologize for "unrequited love" or something. odysseus is upset with her and struggling with ptsd in the first song, and then says he loves her in the second. it feels like the musical wants you to have an overall favorable impression of her. there's a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a case of sexual assault in the fandom posts i've seen, but i don't think that's something the musical is discussing. if anything, it takes the stance that it isn't, at least in this version, and that calypso is just some sad girl who wants to be loved. that being said, i've seen some pretty disgusting hatred directed towards calypso in those posts - not clear if it's for the original version, this one, or if there's any difference. either way, the musical needs to decide if calypso is bad/problematic or if she's good/misunderstood, and both of her songs need rewriting. (there's also something to be said about her being the only visibly black female character, but i don't know much about the actual actors for the musical so i'll leave this be for now. but that did stick out to me while watching the animatics.)

i have very mixed opinions about the sirens. the imagery of a group of men standing over and brutalizing a group of women as they beg for their lives was pretty heavy. i don't hate it - it very much sells the idea that the men have become monsters. however, it really bothers me that it basically just. happens. and then we move on. odysseus agonizes over so many choices, but this one seems like it was easy for him, and he doesn't suffer any guilt over it. no one challenges it. so overall it just comes off as a reason to brutalize women, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. i wish we'd at least get pushback from some of the crew so there's at least some conversation about how maybe this isn't 100% justified. instead, the only mention of the sirens is in god games, where... apollo gives a half-hearted argument about how the sirens sing catchy songs. the other gods at least have a point. and with all of this, athena's retort just feels very victim-blame-y to me. overall, i think there's a way to keep the stuff with the sirens in - but there needs to be more delicacy in how the whole thing is handled.

and finally, penelope. she's probably the worst-written female character in the musical. she exists to 1) be odysseus's motivation/prize, and 2) assure odysseus that he's actually a good person and sure, every terrible thing he did was totally fine, no issue. her first song, which isn't until the last saga, just 1) tells us she's sad, and 2) gives us odyssey plot. the challenge doesn't really do anything to the musical's plot, so you might as well cut it. and her only other song is the finale, where she assures odysseus she loves him and never doubted him and she has no qualms over anything he did because she's a Strong Woman so she still loves him unconditionally. also the bit about the bed is confusing. it's clearly only in there because of the odyssey, and it makes no sense for the musical. penelope has no character in this musical.

(i acknowledge this is a bit hypocritical, but i would actually cut the actual penelope out of the musical. the mentions and cameos of odysseus's idea of her, and the bit with the sirens, can stay, but actual penelope never shows up. i would lean into the idea of her being his prize in a way that leaves you a little unsettled. but also i think odysseus should be the bad guy in the end, so.)

and finally, i hate the decision to introduce the threat of the suitors gang-raping penelope. we already know the suitors aren't great. they're demanding penelope marry one of them. they beat up the kid. there's no need to evoke such a graphic image; i felt sick the first time i heard it, and i don't even have experience with/trauma related to sexual assault. the only point of this song is to justify odysseus slaughtering the suitors, because actually they're all terrible, horrible people. which again just weakens the idea that odyssseus is some kind of monster, because this very intentionally makes him look like a hero. between the decision to downplay the idea of circe or calypso sexually assaulting odysseus (both interpretations popular in what fandom posts i have seen) alongside the brutal violence perpetrated against the sirens and the intentional addition of a whole song about gang-raping penelope, the musical has an uncomfortable focus on violence against women. it's gratuitous and serves no purpose.

[thinking-through-some-things]

okay i've been going back and skimming through the translation of the odyssey on project gutenberg, since i hadn't fully read it before, and now i'm even more upset about the sirens.

i've heard the story of odysseus and the sirens before - the whole bit about his crew tying him to the mast of his ship so he could hear them. because epic is so drastically different i just assumed i had the wrong hero. but no.

*tw for sexual assault, again*

with that in mind, the decision to not address the crew butchering the sirens feels even worse. so that's now two potential places to address sexual assault against men that have been softened, and two places where violence against women, including sexual assault, has been added in and focused on. all to show how violent men are. there's three, actually, if we count circe and her nymphs. the implication that she turns men into pigs because of what past men have done to them gives her a motivation not present in the odyssey, but it does come from further sexual assault against women.

this isn't to say that sexual assault against women isn't present in the odyssey. however, it's perpetrated by heroes and villains alike as they claim women as prizes in battle.

this is exactly the sort of circumstance feminist critique asks us to question the inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence. can we really call it "realistic" to add in sexual assault simply to characterize male characters? particularly given that actual cases of sexual assault in the source material are ignored.

epic does not want to have a discussion about sexual assault, particularly as it exists in the odyssey. it doesn't engage with the cases present in the source material, and in two of the three places it's added in, it is presented from the perspective of the aggressors, not the victims.

frankly, if a discussion about sexual assault against women is something the creator wanted to engage in, the odyssey was not the text to use. it's certainly possible, if you want to focus on the unnamed women confined to the background of the text. but the female characters present in the odyssey have stories that aren't defined by sexual assault, and there are so many other greek myths you can turn to. persephone and demeter. helen. even medusa. there's no shortage of violence against women in antiquity. why go out of your way to add more? and why do it by taking focus from one of the few places sexual assault against men is presented?

i'm not upset by the removal of sexual assault in the story. it's not something the musical wants to engage with, and presenting characters as both heroes and perpetrators of sexual assault is definitely messy and problematic to modern audiences. but the addition of violence against women absolutely should be questioned, and i wish the fandom at large realized this.

(my hypothesis would be that the tiktok fandom skews younger, as this is the kind of conversation i remember starting to see a few years after i joined tumblr. it generally necessitates a certain amount of fandom maturity - maturity that certainly isn't tied to age, mind you. some people ignore that development and turn to fandoms that don't encourage critique. the most likely culprit though is that the algorithm promotes popular opinions, and the only unpopular opinions that can get views are ones that can get engagement - and it's easier to tear apart a poor argument than admit to changing your opinion due to a well-crafted one.)

(also, now that i'm skimming the actual odyssey: there's a whole bit in the underworld where "the wives and daughters of all the most famous men" show up to tell odysseus their stories. obviously they're focused around men, and there's plenty of stuff in the underworld about how awful women are. but if you want to give women a voice, that seems like a pretty good place to do it.)

[thinking-through-some-things]

the wildest part of the whole "elon musk did a nazi salute" argument is all of the people who think he did it on accident/didn't actually do it. like, that's the one thing i'm certain of. putting aside all of the evidence of his far-right beliefs and decent into fascism, the only real piece of evidence you need is that elon thinks he's an edgy online troll. you'd have an easier time convincing me that he doesn't mean it and was just doing it to be edgy than that it was an accident. i mean, he absolutely means it and is fascist, don't get me wrong. but even if he wasn't, he'd still do the action because "it's edgy" and "the woke left gets upset over dumb things". his only mistake was doing it somewhere more public than his twitter account and trump rallies.

edit: i wrote this before i read that he's making nazi puns in his posts to make fun of people who think he did a nazi salute. like? you're going to tell me that man wouldn't do it on purpose and then claim that wasn't what happened? he doesn't think making fun of the holocaust is a bad thing. even if it's not a nazi salute, is that okay? how far are you going to let him push it? because he's going to push until there's a consequence (spoiler alert: there won't be, because he's a billionaire and best friends with trump).

[thinking-through-some-things]

Curious about your EPIC rework because I was also disappointed by it

like i mentioned in my other post here (before i gave up), this definitely isn't the only possibility; you could focus the musical around something else. for my version, though...

as i said, i would build the musical around the idea of duty vs desire, and tie that into mercy vs ruthlessness. i think it would focus less on odysseus's guilt overall, which seems to be the real focus of the musical, and focus it more in this direction. still plenty of angst, but a little more pointed.

a lot of my changes probably take the musical further away from the odyssey. i'm actually not too concerned about trying to faithfully follow the source material; i think it's more important to actually tell a coherent story, and when you're abridging the material, you need to cut stuff. just be clear that's what you're doing.

(also i'm not going to cover everything i think needs to be fixed. mostly just elements to support my theme.)

i think it's a given that the saga format doesn't work for the final draft of a musical. no shade, it was a really smart way to gradually release the musical. ultimately though, it limits the story because then they were blocked into sticking with a theme, and you end up with too many epic finale songs... but i'll stick with it to help organize here. i'm just not sticking with a "theme". mostly because i'm getting rid of the wisdom saga to better distribute its songs.

unsurprisingly, i've written far too much and it's poorly organized, so this is just act one. i'll reblog with act two.

act one

overall, i would say act one is by far the stronger of the two. i'm probably going to cut at least 30% of the current act two, but act one mostly just needs editing. some songs might need more work, but mostly they still get to stay in the same place. add some spoken dialogue and you've got a pretty decent start.

the troy saga:

most of the troy stuff is fine. i think it helps to set up this idea of ruthlessness, and shows the peacekeeping side of odysseus. could it be stronger? yeah. but i like it setting this whole thing up. i have 2 main changes here.

1) every time odysseus mentions penelope and telemacus, he needs to mention anticlea. the musical has a bad habit of not introducing characters/elements until they're relevant, and i think it suffers for that. including odysseus's mother in the list of people he wants to get home to makes her death more impactful. i was so confused when she showed up the first time; she needs to be in here from the start.

2) to go with my theme, i would do this: the reason odysseus needs to kill the baby is because the baby would grow up to kill him; however, that doesn't necessarily mean ithaca would suffer. zeus can word it really carefully - i don't think that distinction needs to be immediately clear to the audience, but after you know how the story ends you can go back and realize that when you re-listen to it. this doesn't require much tweaking, but it helps to really set up the idea of making decisions for the greater good vs for selfish reasons (maybe he could have raised the kid? and only he would have died in the end? i want the audience to question this!)

moving into the second half of the saga, i think we need to introduce odysseus's men earlier. maybe a scene of him commanding them in troy? since i'm talking about a full musical instead of the current format, this might just be dialogue, not a song. but i think we definitely need a little more of polites before he dies. i don't really like having odysseus start out untrusting and jumpy, which is how he comes across to me in open arms. it doesn't make sense for this to be a lesson he needs to learn now, after being king of ithaca for well over a decade. originally i was just going to cut him, but my fiance persuaded me to let him stay. plus his death to polyphemus is a very brutal turning point.

instead, i would have a song/scene where we set up eurylochus and polites as odysseus's two advisors, two different sides of his leadership. you could rewrite open arms to fit here. polites argues for presuming peace, and eurylochus views things with suspicion and wants to attack first to keep the men safe. this really helps set up mercy vs ruthlessness. it shows odysseus is already a leader who balances peace and action, and it makes polites's death all the more tragic, because he represents the death of odysseus's inclination towards peace.

finally, i find athena's introduction and focus on being ruthless in this and the next saga confusing. she's mad at him for not being less emotional and more ruthless, but i don't see what that has to do with him being a "warrior of the mind". instead, i would make it clear that she thinks he isn't being cautious enough. she's mad because she thinks he isn't being shrewd, not because he's being nice.

athena and eurylochus should be coming from the same place: we need to be overly cautious and strike first, because that's how you stay safe. and rather than having a jumpy odysseus being taught to trust people by his soft bestie, i think he should be a general, exhausted from fighting for 10 years, jumping on the idea of relying on trust so he can relax and not feel so jumpy. his duty is to balance these two ideas, mercy vs ruthlessness, but because he chooses only mercy without remaining vigilant, polites dies and now he only has eurylochus to give him advice, meaning no one else is trying to suggest mercy. (i don't think eurylochus is bad - actually, he clearly prioritizes the crew and is always suggesting whatever is best for them. but often what is best for you isn't the best for those you come across, which is why it's the leader's job to balance those two things - again, the theme i'm going with in this version.)

anyways, athena needs to focus on pushing odysseus to be more suspicious and calculating, not more ruthless. she scolds him at all the same points, but now it actually makes sense. i don't love their flashback, but i don't have suggestions to fix it, so we'll leave it alone for now.

the cyclops saga

not too many notes here. getting to see the crew more gives it a little more weight (the stage production needs a tiny dialogue scene where you get quips and comments from nobodies so they're a little more recognizable when they die! make people even sadder!), but this is a really chilling series. the exposition bits need rewording (and again, a stage production has the benefit of 1) spoken word, and 2) stage directions so you can just show things happening).

odysseus's convo with athena needs work. as is, this doesn't seem like a good place for "what good would killing do when mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use." this is supposed to be the stance athena takes at the end of the musical, but this particular act of mercy seems to lead to the death of most of his men in the very next act - which really makes it weird that athena apparently agrees with that sentiment.

i don't hate everything about this line, especially if we actually see athena ruminating over the line over the next 10 years. but it needs to be clear that it is not mercy but pride that leads to the death of his men. or, if we want to make it about mercy instead of pride, it shouldn't be as the sort of threatening brag that it currently is; instead, frame it as "even now, when we've beaten you, we're still choosing to let you live. because i, odysseus, king of ithaca, have chosen to show you mercy." obviously yes it's still his pride, but then when everyone blames his "mercy" for getting his men killed it makes more sense.

(coming back to really hone in on the idea that mercy isn't the problem here - maybe eurylochus notices something is off before polyphemus starts singing, tries to point it out, and gets brushed off as being too suspicious and bloodthirsty? yet again, i find the musical's stance on mercy confusing. is it good? they seem to want it to be - that's definitely what open arms implies, especially since it gets repeated so often. except the musical stresses that mercy is *why* everything went south here, and it rarely actually shows mercy working. it's confusing. i think this whole thing should feel more like odysseus was reckless, the only thing athena calls him that actually makes sense, and that's why this didn't work. the characters don't need to say it directly, but the musical needs to better frame it that way.)

(an aside, but they still grab sheep on their way out? obviously they're still starving but like. i'm side-eyeing the way everyone (in the musical) acts like he was so "merciful" for leaving polyphemus alive, but even after he learns the sheep are polyphemus's friends and their deaths are what drive him to violence, he still makes a point of stealing and killing them... this isn't a serious criticism i'm just poking fun at it. but hypocritical much?)

athena's anger in my goodbye makes no sense to me - not that she's not justified, but that her reasons make no sense. she calls him "sentimental" and "soft", but that's absolutely not the problem here. she should yell at him for being prideful and cocky. accuse him of sparing polyphemus just to feed his own ego, or of being short-sighted - she mentioned the danger of leaving him alive in the last song, why not bring that up again? why doesn't she scold him for foolishly giving up his name? it's really weird that she keeps harping on the idea that he's "emotional".

odysseus's retort is good, but also a bunch of people just died so it's weird that he's so confident about how right he is. "my friend is dead, our foe is blind. the blood we shed, it never dries" from the last song, and "unlike you, every time someone dies I'm left to deal with the strain" in my goodbye are really good lines. more of his position needs to come from his exhaustion, because odysseus is smart. he's a brilliant general. this does a better job of explaining why he's making so many mistakes early on, and why he's pushing back against athena so hard despite the fact that he just fucked up real bad. he was wrong. he should have acted faster like she warned him to. but making him a man, exhausted from a decade of fighting, desperately trying to grant mercy where he can? his pushback makes more sense.

also, him jabbing at her for wanting "to be known" and being alone? really weird. the musical frames athena as this loser whose only friend was odysseus. i don't get it. especially when you're calling her a goddess who doesn't understand feelings right before that? which is she, a powerful goddess or a lonely girl? stick with him accusing her of not understanding human emotions and interactions. it still gives her a reason to stick around - she can be offended by the insinuation that there's something she doesn't understand, and it gives her a reason to dwell on his comments and eventually change.

the ocean saga

eurylochus needs to call odysseus out; if he'd listened to him, if they'd acted faster against polyphemus, they might not have lost those men, including polites. obviously that might not be true, but it feels like that's what his position should be. it's really weird that they're nervous about the wind god because "your luck might run out" rather than "you did just make a bad call that got people killed". especially when odysseus says "i took 600 men to war and not one of them died there." sure, not there, but you just lost a couple to a cyclops. this more deliberate questioning makes the sidebar with "i can't have you planting seeds of doubt" a little more serious. it's not just "what if you're not lucky," but also "what if you're not as sharp? what if you're making mistakes and bad calls?" the luck thing works for the rest of the crew, but eurylochus's role in this musical is to question odysseus and challenge him as a leader, to make sure odysseus is doing what will keep the men safe.

eurylochus questioning odysseus more pointedly makes the betrayal in the next song make more sense. we should already have the sense that he's starting to doubt odysseus's judgement. his "luck running out" doesn't really explain why you're doubting him with the wind bag; but if you think he's hiding things or making bad decisions, suddenly it makes a lot more sense. i think the implication in the show is that it's just curiosity, and we don't even hear eurylochus asking about it. now, if we have already established eurylochus is already questioning odysseus's judgement, it's a little less weird when we learn he's the one who opened it.

again, we need a mention of anticlea, and she should sing with penelope and telemacus.

honestly? basic take here but i like ruthlessness. i'm fine with not changing my theme to use a better word because this one is a banger. and the one animatic with him as a creepy horse? more horse poseidon imagery, please.

i think poseidon needs to call out specifically how hypocritical odysseus is more. lean into that "false righteousness". the problem is that he isn't being "nice" or "merciful", at least not in those moments, not in how he's currently behaving. most of this interpretation is already there; honestly, just changing the delivery of some of the lines would go a long way. "you are far too nice" needs to have the last word almost spat out - poseidon doesn't actually think odysseus is nice; nice is just a word odysseus is hiding behind to justify his actions. i'm sure it could use more work, but at a glance i really like this one.

it goes without saying that the ending sucks ass though.

i can't imagine anyone thinks that was a good ending. idk how to fix it because the current one is so bad it's hard to think of any way to have something good there. you just can't have the jaunty "open this bag" music in there at all. i know they like to mix in motifs and call back to other songs, but it fucking kills all the momentum in what is otherwise a very dramatic song - and we need to be able to take this song seriously, because it's what the entire rest of the musical is based on. i'm open to a completely different ending, but if you want it to stay relatively close to the current staging: poseidon and odysseus stare each other down. poseidon asks "any last words?" and you think odysseus is about to say something dramatic and instead... he yells "eurylochus!" poseidon is confused, but eurylochus responds with "captain!" and, understanding what he's asking for, throws odysseus the wind bag (he helped odysseus close it, so maybe he got it then, or at some other point, idk). and then odysseus opens the bag in poseidon's face. then everything poseidon does is the same, the effect is the same, you just don't get the musical equivalent of a wet pool noodle slapped across your face.

the circe saga

first! an addition! the musical wants athena to be a foil to odysseus, but they do such a poor job of exploring her character or logic at all, it just doesn't work. her character revolves way too much around odysseus. she says goodbye, and then we see her 4 sagas later (half the musical) where, apparently, she's decided odysseus was right because... maybe if she'd agreed with him they would still be friends. and then she defends everything he's done... look, i'm getting rid of god games, so i won't go into that now. yeah, odysseus is still what prompts her to change her mind in my version, but he's just the start of that journey. she's going to have other reasons. i want to add in a couple songs throughout the musical, just to show the transition a bit. additionally, they can help show time passing in odysseus's story by breaking it up a bit.

this first song is a small one. it's just telling us what athena is thinking and what she's going to do. it's basically her mopey and angry that odysseus insulted her. but she's a goddess of wisdom and intellect, so she's kind of intrigued - maybe there is something to learn about leading with kindness. i haven't decided how she ends up back in ithaca, but she's decided to investigate this. i know the popular (not academic, more fandom-related) interpretation of greek gods is that they're all stubborn and that's the whole point, but for the sake of this story and the theme (and also the character), i think athena should take the stand that if there is wisdom to be gained, it is her duty to learn it. again, this one is pretty short - a verse of angry, and then she talks herself down, and then she's setting out to investigate - a little bit to learn something new, maybe a little bit to prove odysseus wrong.

the athena song can also go at the end of the circe arc. i was going to put another one in there, but the pacing and time line don't match well, and monster is definitely the finale to act one. i wanted to fit something along the lines of the start of the wisdom saga in here, but i think i'm going to put it at the beginning of act two, so. only one extra song for now.

onto the actual saga: i think it's done pretty well. some of the phrasing is awkwardly fit into songs, but that might just be me, and it's overall not egregious. i will confess that "she had us in just two words" "come inside" "damn" does make me giggle every time like a 12-year-old boy. i didn't mention it in my post on the musical's women because i don't think the text directly addresses it, but there's a definite implication that circe is as harsh as she is to protect her nymphs from sexual assault, which they might have faced before. removing the undertones of that from her relationship with odysseus was the right call - i don't think that's a conversation this musical actually wants to have, and it muddles her justification for how she handles the men.

circe is also gives us someone to compare odysseus's leadership to; she's basically the only other leader of a cohesive group that we see. her harsh policy stands in direct contrast to odysseus's earlier choice to start with unchecked "mercy". in turn, her nymphs are safe. we see her later learn that there are times where you can extend mercy and trust, so she even has character growth. (you could make a very interesting comparison between circe & her nymphs and the sirens, but that's a discussion for outside of the musical, so i'll leave it for now.) i wouldn't be surprised if other people have criticisms, i just haven't been able to find basically any critical discussion of the musical, so.

you could mostly leave this saga alone, but i'm inclined to take my red pen and make some bigger changes. i'm just not sure how to. i really don't like hermes and the flower being inserted here - again, i think there's too much bloat in the musical of "oh here's a thing that's in this specific bit, clearly just because that's what happens in the odyssey, and then we won't talk about it again." hermes does appear in two songs, but actually, does he need to? i'm of the opinion that the musical needs fewer characters so that it can better focus on developing the ones that actually need to be in here. the only problem is that odysseus needs the flower from hermes to explain why he has magic in the next song. okay, so what if no magic is used, and he just uses his wit to convince her? except that's basically what the plot of the next song is. so at this point i've basically gotten rid of two songs and completely changed the third, and that doesn't really work. or need to happen.

i stand by wanting to remove hermes. i think you can just give odysseus some line to eurylochus about having heard about a plant on these islands that makes one immune to being transformed by magic for a time. i don't think it's important - it's literally a small, one-time detail just to explain why circe doesn't immediately turn him into a pig. he doesn't need magic in done for - he can just fight with a sword while circe is slinging spells at him. and then you can still go into there are other ways.

the one change that i think does need to be made is that odysseus needs to spend a year on the island. he needs to be stuck here. it does mean you have to basically cut the song in half, but that just means the second part, where circe decides to help odysseus, needs to be a reprise. i think you have circe trying to seduce odysseus, and then she's shocked when he rejects her. the difference is that he doesn't fully win her over; instead, she decides to give him and the rest of his crew one year. for one year, his remaining crew recovers on the island and rebuild the ship, helping the nymphs with whatever tasks they ask and basically proving "not all men" are terrible. finally, odysseus shows that there's payoff to being a merciful leader! he saves all of his men! as they're finally preparing to leave, penelope shows up, we get the reprise, and she sends them to the underworld. all is well!

the underworld saga

or, all is not well.

this is where i spell out my theme: while a good leader is merciful, mercy takes time. and that extra time can be detrimental to personal goals.

this is why it's important to mention anticlea earlier, and why the crew spends an extra year on circe's island trying to save the rest of the men. taking a year to save his men makes odysseus a good leader, yes, but it might have cost him a chance to see his mother before she died. it doesn't matter when she actually died in the odyssey - what matters is that this is really what makes odysseus question the cost of mercy. this is where he starts to put his own desires over the safety of the crew, because the cost of taking too long is suddenly real - as is the cost of taking time to be merciful.

i actually don't have too much to add. some edits might need to be made to fit with other changes, but overall it's fine.

okay, there's act one! this is definitely long enough, so i'll reblog with act two. suggestions and conversation are welcome; again, my fiance already changed my mind on one part. i haven't actually see any discussion on changes yet, so i'm happy to consider other changes, or for mine to be challenged (by something other than "actually this is perfect").

[thinking-through-some-things]

What do you mean by the women from epic the musical was poorly handled? Can you explain? I’m interested bc I thought that too

ho boy, let's see.

there's definitely a general feminist critique to be had about how few women are in the musical and how small their parts are. obviously i realize the musical primarily follows the leading man and his male crew because that's just how the odyssey works. but it's still a conversation worth having, especially since there are ways to make the existing female characters better. the decision to base this on the odyssey is still a choice.

i don't have much to say about most of the monsters/goddesses. aeolus and scylla are fine. circe is okay, and she actually gets a few songs. personally i think god games should just be cut entirely; it's just athena justifying everything odysseus has done. hera is fine. i don't like how athena stops talking to aphrodite once ares shows up; the line that convinces her is "tell your lover that a broken heart can mend," which is directed at ares.

not mentioning anticlea until she's already dead means her death doesn't really have the weight it should. he's desperate to get back to penelope and telemachus, so it just feels like he forgot about his mom, which makes that tragedy feel a little unearned. he should be just as concerned to get back to her as he is the other two, which means he should mention her whenever he sings about them in the first act. then it would actually matter more when we find out she's dead.

the rest is under a read more because i wrote a lot about athena, and because i need to give a trigger warning for sexual assault for my other points.

athena is clearly the strongest female character and is positioned to be a foil to odysseus. that being said, i didn't really follow her shift in philosophy - going back to look at the lyrics it's because she blames herself for teaching him to be cruel? the goodbye at the start is weird - she's mad at him for not being ruthless, but really the problem is that he's arrogant - which is still something she could chastise him for. idk. either way i don't think her evolution was explored well at all - she basically just changes her mind because she misses him, not because she has actually seen anything to suggest mercy is good. and it's weird that she's only at the beginning, in the wisdom saga, and at the very end. her stuff isn't terrible, but it needs to be better distributed throughout the musical so there can be an evolution. give her one more song towards the end of act one, break up the wisdom saga so her story feels like it's part of the musical instead of a weird distraction in the middle, and actually show us why she starts to think mercy is good. as is her character is too reliant on odysseus in a way that really hurts that the story. bringing up telemachus earlier and exploring that relationship, or penelope and ithica, gives you a chance for athena to see something that helps her change her mind. (i have more to say about her story but that's just about fixing the plot. i think i've made my point here.

okay trigger warning for real.

calypso is really weirdly done. she has one song where she's pressuring him to be with her, and then a song where she refuses to apologize for "unrequited love" or something. odysseus is upset with her and struggling with ptsd in the first song, and then says he loves her in the second. it feels like the musical wants you to have an overall favorable impression of her. there's a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a case of sexual assault in the fandom posts i've seen, but i don't think that's something the musical is discussing. if anything, it takes the stance that it isn't, at least in this version, and that calypso is just some sad girl who wants to be loved. that being said, i've seen some pretty disgusting hatred directed towards calypso in those posts - not clear if it's for the original version, this one, or if there's any difference. either way, the musical needs to decide if calypso is bad/problematic or if she's good/misunderstood, and both of her songs need rewriting. (there's also something to be said about her being the only visibly back female character, but i don't know much about the actual actors for the musical so i'll leave this be for now. but that did stick out to me while watching the animatics.)

i have very mixed opinions about the sirens. the imagery of a group of men standing over and brutalizing a group of women as they beg for their lives was pretty heavy. i don't hate it - it very much sells the idea that the men have become monsters. however, it really bothers me that it basically just. happens. and then we move on. odysseus agonizes over so many choices, but this one seems like it was easy for him, and he doesn't suffer any guilt over it. no one challenges it. so overall it just comes off as a reason to brutalize women, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. i wish we'd at least get pushback from some of the crew so there's at least some conversation about how maybe this isn't 100% justified. instead, the only mention of the sirens is in god games, where... apollo gives a half-hearted argument about how the sirens sing catchy songs. the other gods at least have a point. and with all of this, athena's retort just feels very victim-blame-y to me. overall, i think there's a way to keep the stuff with the sirens in - but there needs to be more delicacy in how the whole thing is handled.

and finally, penelope. she's probably the worst-written female character in the musical. she exists to 1) be odysseus's motivation/prize, and 2) assure odysseus that he's actually a good person and sure, every terrible thing he did was totally fine, no issue. her first song, which isn't until the last saga, just 1) tells us she's sad, and 2) gives us odyssey plot. the challenge doesn't really do anything to the musical's plot, so you might as well cut it. and her only other song is the finale, where she assures odysseus she loves him and never doubted him and she has no qualms over anything he did because she's a Strong Woman so she still loves him unconditionally. also the bit about the bed is confusing. it's clearly only in there because of the odyssey, and it makes no sense for the musical. penelope has no character in this musical.

(i acknowledge this is a bit hypocritical, but i would actually cut the actual penelope out of the musical. the mentions and cameos of odysseus's idea of her, and the bit with the sirens, can stay, but actual penelope never shows up. i would lean into the idea of her being his prize in a way that leaves you a little unsettled. but also i think odysseus should be the bad guy in the end, so.)

and finally, i hate the decision to introduce the threat of the suitors gang-raping penelope. we already know the suitors aren't great. they're demanding penelope marry one of them. they beat up the kid. there's no need to evoke such a graphic image; i felt sick the first time i heard it, and i don't even have experience with/trauma related to sexual assault. the only point of this song is to justify odysseus slaughtering the suitors, because actually they're all terrible, horrible people. which again just weakens the idea that odyssseus is some kind of monster, because this very intentionally makes him look like a hero. between the decision to downplay the idea of circe or calypso sexually assaulting odysseus (both interpretations popular in what fandom posts i have seen) alongside the brutal violence perpetrated against the sirens and the intentional addition of a whole song about gang-raping penelope, the musical has an uncomfortable focus on violence against women. it's gratuitous and serves no purpose.

[thinking-through-some-things]

*screaming crying throwing up*

*tw*

rape isn't a good shortcut to show your villain is evil! they were already plotting to kill telemacus and force penelope to marry someone! the fact that you're happy when they die means it ruins the next song when you're supposed to be focused on how much of a monster odysseus is! questioning why every piece of media needs to include rape against women is feminist critical theory 101! aaaaahhhhh

also for the record: there's a difference between conversations happening in fandom or things said by the creator and things that actually happen in the text!

[thinking-through-some-things]

i feel like i'm going crazy because all of my friends are obsessed with epic and i just. am not impressed.

don't get me wrong, it's an impressive endeavor and some of the music is pretty catchy. but it's not great as a *musical*, and i find the songs more enjoyable when i'm not trying to think of them as such.

the narrative is all over the place, and the themes are poorly developed. i gather the themes are ruthlessness vs mercy, but i couldn't tell you what the musical is trying to say about it.

i know it's supposed to be "loosely inspired" by the odyssey, and i know some people don't like the changes made, but in my opinion there wasn't *enough* changed. (i also don't like several of the changes, but that's because i think they hurt the narrative, not because they're different.) too many things feel rushed, pointlessly shoehorned in, or completely underdeveloped because *too many* elements were forced into the musical without consideration to how they related to the narrative in this version of the odyssey.

also i'm a little surprised not to see anyone talk about how poorly the women were handled? idk, i know i had more thoughts about this earlier, but i can't remember them right now. i do think the song about the suitors wanting to rape penelope was an unfortunate addition. and the bit with the sirens was. not really examined as well as i think it should have been.

the musical isn't irredeemable, and i have a lot of thoughts about how i'd improve the story to be a bit more cohesive.

we'll see if i need to rant more/have the energy to type stuff out. mostly i'm just shouting into the void to get this out of my head. if anyone else wants to talk about the musical though i'm down.

i just don't want to have to keep assuring people i liked the overall work to justify criticizing it. i don't think it's bad, i don't hate it. it's a decent first draft, and the music is pretty good (not my taste but that's fine). it's just okay for now, but the potential is there. but i find it fun to pick things apart and ruminate on how they could be better.

(also i will fully admit i haven't read the entirety of the odyssey, but i'm working on it. and also since this is a loose adaptation that shouldn't matter much. i don't care as much about following the story of the odyssey; i care about epic being a decent story/narrative)

[thinking-through-some-things]

okay first thought: the themes/narrative

look. i'm not going to stand here and say that i'm great at crafting stories or that whatever i'm suggesting can't be improved upon. i'm just going off of what i understood from listening to the musical. i absolutely am interested in other opinions/interpretations.

anyways.

the main issue i have with epic is that i think it lacks direction and dedication to its themes. honestly i wasn't even sure that it was trying to say in the first place. my immediate attempt at a thesis statement was "guy trying to get home struggles with what he does to get there." except i could tell it was trying to say *something* else, i just couldn't figure out what that was.

after looking at stuff online i'm inclined to agree that ruthlessness vs mercy is intended to be the main theme, i just... don't know what the musical is trying to say. you have to be ruthless? except athena comes around to the opposite position, and odysseus seems to be in turmoil over that choice. although he's in turmoil the whole time, so ruthlessness doesn't seem to be a *good* answer. but also mercy definitely isn't the answer? except is it really ruthlessness if you're totally justified because the other party is terrible?

obviously this confusion is intentionally part of the character, i just don't feel like it ever goes anywhere. or maybe "ruthlessness is the correct choice because everyone else is awful but you'll hate yourself" really is meant to be the takeaway, in which case i'll concede that this story isn't for me because i think that's terrible.

personally, i think the issues stem from a reluctance to change/remove enough parts of the story for whatever reason. (i wouldn't be surprised if some of this is the nature of releasing wip songs on tiktok - if the fandom latches onto a song/character, you might be reluctant to cut them even if later on they *really* don't fit. of course this is just conjecture on my part because again, i have no idea what happened on tiktok; i've only consumed the final product.)

to get to what this reblog is supposed to be about: how i would change the story/theme. obviously this is purely subjective, and my changes here are based entirely on my proposed theme. the musical could go in a different direction, in which case different changes would be necessary, but some of these might still help.

my proposal is to narrow the scope and focus the theme on ruthlessness and mercy in the context of leadership vs personal desire. my suggestion is: "mercy is an important trait for a leader, but ruthlessness is necessary to pursue personal goals." but worded better.

i would frame the story around odysseus struggling against his duty to keep his men safe vs his anxiety to get home to his wife. it makes sense with the overall structure - he's more merciful at the start while he still views himself as the general in charge of his men, and he grows more ruthless and more willing to sacrifice others as he becomes more distressed over how long it's taking him to get back. his inner turmoil is clearer - i think this is roughly the current idea, but i don't think it's actually explored from that angle in the text. and i think it gives a direction for the finale to move in - because as is, it just didn't land for me. also, odysseus is the bad guy at the end. for sure. let him actually become a monster.

okay i started trying to go through all my changes and immediately got tired so. here's where i'm starting.

[thinking-through-some-things]

What do you mean by the women from epic the musical was poorly handled? Can you explain? I’m interested bc I thought that too

ho boy, let's see.

there's definitely a general feminist critique to be had about how few women are in the musical and how small their parts are. obviously i realize the musical primarily follows the leading man and his male crew because that's just how the odyssey works. but it's still a conversation worth having, especially since there are ways to make the existing female characters better. the decision to base this on the odyssey is still a choice.

i don't have much to say about most of the monsters/goddesses. aeolus and scylla are fine. circe is okay, and she actually gets a few songs. personally i think god games should just be cut entirely; it's just athena justifying everything odysseus has done. hera is fine. i don't like how athena stops talking to aphrodite once ares shows up; the line that convinces her is "tell your lover that a broken heart can mend," which is directed at ares.

not mentioning anticlea until she's already dead means her death doesn't really have the weight it should. he's desperate to get back to penelope and telemachus, so it just feels like he forgot about his mom, which makes that tragedy feel a little unearned. he should be just as concerned to get back to her as he is the other two, which means he should mention her whenever he sings about them in the first act. then it would actually matter more when we find out she's dead.

the rest is under a read more because i wrote a lot about athena, and because i need to give a trigger warning for sexual assault for my other points.

athena is clearly the strongest female character and is positioned to be a foil to odysseus. that being said, i didn't really follow her shift in philosophy - going back to look at the lyrics it's because she blames herself for teaching him to be cruel? the goodbye at the start is weird - she's mad at him for not being ruthless, but really the problem is that he's arrogant - which is still something she could chastise him for. idk. either way i don't think her evolution was explored well at all - she basically just changes her mind because she misses him, not because she has actually seen anything to suggest mercy is good. and it's weird that she's only at the beginning, in the wisdom saga, and at the very end. her stuff isn't terrible, but it needs to be better distributed throughout the musical so there can be an evolution. give her one more song towards the end of act one, break up the wisdom saga so her story feels like it's part of the musical instead of a weird distraction in the middle, and actually show us why she starts to think mercy is good. as is her character is too reliant on odysseus in a way that really hurts that the story. bringing up telemachus earlier and exploring that relationship, or penelope and ithica, gives you a chance for athena to see something that helps her change her mind. (i have more to say about her story but that's just about fixing the plot. i think i've made my point here.

okay trigger warning for real.

calypso is really weirdly done. she has one song where she's pressuring him to be with her, and then a song where she refuses to apologize for "unrequited love" or something. odysseus is upset with her and struggling with ptsd in the first song, and then says he loves her in the second. it feels like the musical wants you to have an overall favorable impression of her. there's a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a case of sexual assault in the fandom posts i've seen, but i don't think that's something the musical is discussing. if anything, it takes the stance that it isn't, at least in this version, and that calypso is just some sad girl who wants to be loved. that being said, i've seen some pretty disgusting hatred directed towards calypso in those posts - not clear if it's for the original version, this one, or if there's any difference. either way, the musical needs to decide if calypso is bad/problematic or if she's good/misunderstood, and both of her songs need rewriting. (there's also something to be said about her being the only visibly black female character, but i don't know much about the actual actors for the musical so i'll leave this be for now. but that did stick out to me while watching the animatics.)

i have very mixed opinions about the sirens. the imagery of a group of men standing over and brutalizing a group of women as they beg for their lives was pretty heavy. i don't hate it - it very much sells the idea that the men have become monsters. however, it really bothers me that it basically just. happens. and then we move on. odysseus agonizes over so many choices, but this one seems like it was easy for him, and he doesn't suffer any guilt over it. no one challenges it. so overall it just comes off as a reason to brutalize women, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. i wish we'd at least get pushback from some of the crew so there's at least some conversation about how maybe this isn't 100% justified. instead, the only mention of the sirens is in god games, where... apollo gives a half-hearted argument about how the sirens sing catchy songs. the other gods at least have a point. and with all of this, athena's retort just feels very victim-blame-y to me. overall, i think there's a way to keep the stuff with the sirens in - but there needs to be more delicacy in how the whole thing is handled.

and finally, penelope. she's probably the worst-written female character in the musical. she exists to 1) be odysseus's motivation/prize, and 2) assure odysseus that he's actually a good person and sure, every terrible thing he did was totally fine, no issue. her first song, which isn't until the last saga, just 1) tells us she's sad, and 2) gives us odyssey plot. the challenge doesn't really do anything to the musical's plot, so you might as well cut it. and her only other song is the finale, where she assures odysseus she loves him and never doubted him and she has no qualms over anything he did because she's a Strong Woman so she still loves him unconditionally. also the bit about the bed is confusing. it's clearly only in there because of the odyssey, and it makes no sense for the musical. penelope has no character in this musical.

(i acknowledge this is a bit hypocritical, but i would actually cut the actual penelope out of the musical. the mentions and cameos of odysseus's idea of her, and the bit with the sirens, can stay, but actual penelope never shows up. i would lean into the idea of her being his prize in a way that leaves you a little unsettled. but also i think odysseus should be the bad guy in the end, so.)

and finally, i hate the decision to introduce the threat of the suitors gang-raping penelope. we already know the suitors aren't great. they're demanding penelope marry one of them. they beat up the kid. there's no need to evoke such a graphic image; i felt sick the first time i heard it, and i don't even have experience with/trauma related to sexual assault. the only point of this song is to justify odysseus slaughtering the suitors, because actually they're all terrible, horrible people. which again just weakens the idea that odyssseus is some kind of monster, because this very intentionally makes him look like a hero. between the decision to downplay the idea of circe or calypso sexually assaulting odysseus (both interpretations popular in what fandom posts i have seen) alongside the brutal violence perpetrated against the sirens and the intentional addition of a whole song about gang-raping penelope, the musical has an uncomfortable focus on violence against women. it's gratuitous and serves no purpose.