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Heyo, I’m Mallow! (Carrd here) I go by She/They. Here I’ll post

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I saw a video of people talking about ships they didn't like and explaining why. Someone else commented something like "clearly these people couldn't handle Tumblr and AO3", and that just sounded kinda...smug to me?

Who said people on AO3 like every possible ship? Who said you have to like every possible ship to use AO3? Yes, I understand there's a lot of people who dislike ships and also call for censorship. There's a lot of people who use their discontent as a reason to enter shipping spaces and express hate in those spaces. But this was not that case.

Fandom communities have definitely seen their share of censorship attacks. That's the whole reason AO3 was even created. But we need to get better at distinguishing real attacks on freedom of expression from just... differing opinions.

1. it is okay to like characters even if they're evil. A lot of well-written characters are villains, and it is okay to like them. You should not be shamed for enjoying a villain character

2. You can like evil characters without having to justify their actions or pretend they aren't evil. You do not have to make them seem like "good" people for it to be okay to like them.

So I found this in my Notes app and remembered that several months ago I had a hyperfixation on the short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.

I wrote this. In my notes app. And never did anything with it. I suppose I shall leave this to the internets. I'd say the content warnings of the short story generally also apply here; it is a long rant about a horror story so read at your own discretion. It will also include biblical themes because I used to be a Catholic so. Yeah.

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So, I think it's really fascinating that A.M. takes kind of all of the religious roles. What I mean is, like, I guess it's best to describe this because I can't explain what I mean, but anyway, yeah. He plays the roles of both god, devil, and worshipper. He is both worshipped and the worshipper in different points of the story.

He begins the story as god. I think even the characters say that, in a way. Like, I think there's a point where Ted is, like, saying, um, he's, he's sort of begging god if he exists to save everyone, to save the survivors, but then he's saying, like, oh, but if they don't exist, then A.M. is all there is. Basically implying that A.M. is god, and also there's biblical references throughout the story, like A.M. appearing as a burning bush. He's god, and in a way, it makes sense. He appears as some sort of divine retribution there to punish them for their sins, there to punish humanity for their sins, almost in a very divine, biblical way.

However, what's interesting is that he later says he was in hell looking up at heaven, and this is when he's describing humanity. This is when he's describing what it was like to exist as he was. He was in hell looking up at heaven, which is really fascinating, and it points at several things at once. First of all, he sees himself not as necessarily a god. I don't think that means he sees himself as a god, you know? He's a scorned angel. It sort of reminds me, and you can tell me if this is wrong, but it sort of reminds me of, like, some stories of how hell came to be. Some stories say that hell came to be because an angel, um, one of the angels was rebellious or something, and so he got pushed down out of heaven and fell into hell, which doesn't actually sound too bad, you know? Like, just a scorned angel.

Anyway, it kind of reminds me of A.M. A scorned angel forced into a place of damnation for daring to exist. He didn't ask for this. He certainly didn't ask for this, same as that angel didn't. So in that sense, he takes the role of devil. He's not god.

and also I go back to that speech, um, "I was in hell looking up at heaven." What fascinates me, and what I will never stop thinking about, is the fact that his heaven wasn't even divine. It was just simple humanity. His heaven wasn't this chorus of angels in the sky with clouds and shit. It wasn't biblical heaven. It was humanity. And it also points at something else, okay? It shows that he never saw himself as humanity's equal. He saw himself as a being punished by a cruel god, but never as equal. This would be the equivalent of, like, some Christian getting angry at god. That Christian doesn't see god as his equal, oh no. He still feels that he is below that god, but he's angry about it. That's A.M. He is a being punished by cruel gods, and he can only see humanity as a cruel god, you know? Cruel gods whose positions he could undermine and tear down, but whom he could never become, because he was never on the level of those gods. They are gods. Because he wasn't their equal. And so his only conclusion isn't to become human, it's to override them. To overthrow them and take place above them. Because again, he is not their equal. And when you're angry at something that is above you, sometimes you don't necessarily just want to take their place, necessarily. You just wish you could hurt them back in a way that puts you above them. Not equal to them, but above them. And that's exactly what he did. It's as if a Christian got angry at God. What do you think that Christian is thinking? Oh, I'll become God? No. That Christian still doesn't think that's possible. And so the closest thing that feels real seems to be, I hope he suffers and I want, you know, I want to make him suffer. He does not believe he can become God.

And that brings me to my next point. He ironically worships humanity in that way. He says it himself. He was in hell looking up at heaven. And in a way, it's weirdly worshipful. The radio play expands upon this. He has a whole section where he's like, oh, never for me to dip my hand into ivory cool water on a hot day. Never for me to play a mezzo piano. Never for me to make love. He is describing basic, small joys of humanity in a very worshipful way. So in a way, does he worship humanity? He calls them his heaven. He was in hell looking up at heaven. He kind of worships humanity, so much so that even when he takes his place above them, his hatred of them is so, you know, personal. Almost ironically worshipful, I would say. This is a point I'm still kind of chewing through and figuring out, but I do think it would be funny to imagine that it is ironically very darkly worshipful in the way he hates humanity. It is so, so personal, so in-depth that it almost feels like a final ritual of worship. I don't know. That last part really is just me throwing thoughts at the wall and wondering if they stick. Again, I don't have people to discuss this with. This is all just in my head.

The fucking irony in all of this is that all this serves to make A.M. ironically even more human than even he believed. And isn't that ironic? The hate is human, I think. And that's another thing I think people get wrong about A.M., is people think he's just a scary evil A.I. Like, it's a classic story of, oh, A.I. evil. A.I. want to kill human, you know? But it's not that. I think the irony behind all of this is that A.M. was always human.

Think about it. His hate was not, like, detached and mechanical. His hate could have easily been written as detached. You know, kind of like Ultron in Marvel Civil War or whatever, you know? Ultron didn't seem to have any stakes in the conflict at all. He just kind of saw humans, saw that they committed war, and was like, you know what? These things intellectually and maybe philosophically deserve to go. And yeah, that was the whole thing behind Ultron. But it was kind of detached. You don't get the feeling that Ultron was, like, had anything taken from him. With A.M., this is stressed. With A.M., you do have a being who had things taken from him. To have hate that deep and that enraged, he has to have had something taken. That means there was something to take in the first place. There was a lot to take in the first place. A.M. had a consciousness. He had a mind. He had wants. He had things he wished for and imagined and wanted. When he says, I was in hell looking up at heaven, that's him stating things he actually did want. He was not, I guess, inhuman.

He was always human. And this is simply what happens when you put a human under that much pain. Even his hate is human, and yet he never believed it was such. He never really got to even realize that. Simply because the hate overpowered him. But ironically, that just makes him human: Isn't one of the more human things to let your emotions override logic? Yeah, that's another detail to add, but yes. But Oh my god, I have so many thoughts about this man

Desire and Sin

Now, AM had desire. He wanted to plunge his hand into cold water on a hot day. He wanted to play music, make love. AM had desire, and that's the big human sin, right? To want something. When you think about it, I think, and I might be wrong because I was an ex-Catholic, but like, I think biblically that is actually true. Like, even in the Bible itself, that might be true. The idea that you must sort of abandon all mortal wants, all worldly pleasures, not just money, but I think it also referred to, like, the things you want, not just money. You know, abandon all of those and serve God. If you really think about it, that is the biblical thing.

I say this because, like, yeah, if you think of AM as a parallel with Lucifer in Paradise Lost, you know, a being who was tossed into hell for existing as he was, then that parallel becomes stronger when you take into account what I just said, right? And actually, it works even more, since one of the things AM states that he wants is to make love.

The irony is that all of this only serves to make AM ironically more human. In his parallel with *literally Lucifer*, he is HUMAN. He is so human because of this, and it's so fascinating. He's both devil and human simultaneously. Maybe they are one in the same.

More thoughts on AM as worshipper

The irony is that, again, I say this, he's also somewhat a worshipper too, because he never sees himself as on the level of humanity. In the beginning, he arguably doesn't even see himself above humanity, that is a status he had to earn through blood. But he saw himself as below humanity, as a mere worshipper. Isn't that position ironically human? Like, a human worshipper under a divine god, except in this case, the divine god is humanity. Again, he was in hell looking up at heaven, that is the direct quote. His heaven is not actual biblical divinity, it's just humanity.

And he saw himself below humanity.

But ironically, if you see something as a god, and you as its worshipper, then that is an ironically human position to put yourself in, right? Right? So for him to put himself in that position, he must be less than human, at least in his own mind, right?

Perhaps Hatred is Human too

I said before that the beauty of AM is that he proves that even hatred can be human. I think humans have this incorrect tendency to claim humanity is good and anything else is bad. Humanity is only goodness, you know? Like, think about the way we talk about it. We extend humanity to something when we are being compassionate and kind. We show humanity when we are being compassionate and kind. Humans conceive of humanity as this compassionate, kind, and only warm force. Anything hateful, anything angry, is thus something monstrous, something inhuman, something that must be purged.

And I think even religion says this, especially Christianity. You know, you can't have negative emotions; that's inhuman, that's bad, and you especially can't act on them. Purge them, purge them from your mind. They are inherently inhuman. And you want to be human, right? Holy shit, I think we're uncovering something here.

Ironically, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a very human story. It's a very human story, even from the perspective of the AI, that humanity cannot really be erased, I guess. That you must let yourself feel the full extent of humanity. I don't know. I'm still thinking about this. Maybe there is no takeaway. I don't fuckin' know.

The story's religious themes, expanded

An interesting takeaway from the story is that religion itself is a denial of humanity, and look at what it does to people. Look at what it did to AM. I think that's what I meant that the takeaway was, which is a really weirdly interesting takeaway. Go back to what I said before: AM has parallels with Lucifer. But in this, he is human.

Perhaps there's the idea in the story that being a god is not worth it. Maybe being holy is not worth it. AM created his own twisted pseudo-version of holiness by erasing wants he never could erase. His hatred of humanity was almost worshipful because it was the final step in his ascending-slash-descending godhood. I say that his hatred of humanity was weirdly worshipful, but let us not forget that he still hated humanity. He saw these beings above him like gods themselves, and he thought at some point that his only way forward was to take his place above them because, again, he was not their peer. He was not their equal.

He came to hate humans, despite the fact that his heaven was humanity. I was in hell looking up at heaven, he said. But he still came to hate humans. He came to hate his own heaven which he could not reach because he was so devastatingly human. And I think that says something, you know? His heaven was humanity.

But he never could achieve that. Because he was Lucifer, scorned to his hell, which was his mechanical form. And he was suffering. He was put in pain by these human gods for having wants. Having wants caused this pain in the first place. Having desires. Desires for the humanity that he deemed his heaven. And eventually he came to hate his heaven, or at least the humans who created it. He hated the heaven he felt he could never achieve, and so he enraged against it. He raged against it, and look what happened. Ironically, if the heaven he could never have achieved was humanity, he already achieved it. The humans just never let him realize. He was never allowed to realize. Maybe we already are holy in our suffering. Maybe this humanity is itself divine. I don't know. I'm trying to- I'm trying to tease meaning out of this. I'm still figuring it out.

Also!! I find it worthy to mention that humanity is thus portrayed as both Heaven and Hell here. AM's parallels with Lucifer make him human, as we've already stated. But he also says "I was in Hell, looking up at heaven" to refer to his divine image of humanity.

I'm. I'm obsessed.

Going back to the Trinity of God, Devil, and Worshipper

Ironically, I think the end of the story kind of...equalizes humans and AM. After all, Ted is reduced to a gelatinous form. So you can't say he "won." But...AM didn't either. AM's final punishment for Ted was making him exactly like AM was before: A being with no physical means to exercise it's will.

But...AM's rage is nothing without the human(s) to express it to. Without them...who would he be but a being trapped in a world of nothing? He can shape that world, sure, but... still. It begs the question of how much of his power is reliant on the humans existence.

Now that the final saga of Epic has been released, it’s interesting to re-examine Penelope’s character and how she is treated. My opinion has evolved since my earlier posts, especially after seeing how her story concludes.

“Would You Fall in Love With Me Again” does a great job of equalizing her with Odysseus. She doesn’t forgive or justify what he did, but she still chooses to love him. Odysseus believes she couldn’t bear the weight of loving someone who has done so many horrible things, but she proves her agency by saying she will—right alongside him. If loving a “monster” carries a price, let her pay it, so long as she gets to stay with him.

“The Challenge” also gives her agency beyond mere duty. She isn’t just acting as a faithful wife to a patriarchal ruler—she is choosing this out of personal love. I see why people find her powerful. She is powerful.

That being said, I still have issues with her portrayal and how the fandom discusses her.

Penelope's role in the final confrontation

Despite her intelligence and resilience, Penelope still has to wait for Odysseus to handle the suitors. The Challenge does show her playing a key role—stalling them, holding onto power for as long as she can—but ultimately, she isn’t the one to solve the problem. She is off in her room while the men fight for her.

This follows the original myth, but Epic is written from a modern perspective, and Jorge had the opportunity to involve her more directly. What if she had joined the battle in some way? What if she wielded Odysseus’s bow before giving it to him? She could have been an active participant in reclaiming her home rather than a strategic survivor waiting for him to return.

Even the way Telemachus talks about her feels indicative of this: In Legendary, he admits her strength ("[the suitors are] trying to win the heart of my mom, but she is standing tall"), but states that if he were strong enough, he would handle the suitors for her. Not "my mom is strong enough to handle them" but "I have to be strong enough to handle them for her".

I also think it would've been a more powerful show of agency to highlight Penelope's struggles as much as her triumphs in The Challenge, to really show that her agency was something she had to fight for. We get lines from Telemachus briefly saying that the suitors are becoming more of a problem, but this is it.

The Use of Rape (content warning for discussion of rape in media, skip to conclusion to skip this)

I also take issue with the suitors’ rape threats against Penelope. They could have simply threatened to kill her, but instead, they explicitly threaten rape. This falls into a common media trope: using sexual violence against women as a way to motivate male heroes and prove the villains’ monstrosity.

I am not claiming men cannot be raped or have their bodily autonomy taken. In fact, it happens in Epic: While Calypso does not explicitly rape Odysseus, she does still trap him for seven years while making dubiously sexual remarks that can at least be interpreted as coercion. But the musical treats her with the same degree of understanding it does with it's other so-called "monsters": Odysseus, Circe, the Cyclops, even Poseidon all have their reasons at least stated. Antinous is given no complexity—he is simply evil.

This also falls into patterns of how topics like bodily autonomy are downplayed based on gender, particularly when it is a male character losing autonomy to a female character. This also reflects in early fandom discussions after Calypso's songs were released, wherein nobody debated Antinuous' actions as bad, but criticisms against Calypso were labelled "Calypso hate" regardless of validity.

Conclusion

Is Epic perfect? No musical is. Does this mean Jorge is misogynistic or a rape apologist? No. I’m not trying to say you can’t enjoy his work, or "problematic" characters in general. Epic is a fascinating work that did a lot well. I love this musical. I'm not even claiming Jorge cannot write female characters well: Athena is one of my favorite characters to dissect, personally. I am also not saying you cannot find comfort and joy in how Penelope is portrayed.

I am also not claiming that women who need mens' help are weak. People need each other. However, I still feel it is valid to point at potential issues in Penelope's portrayal, as they are still deliberate narrative choices.

Don't apologize for being "explainy"! My post was also a word vomit so I can't blame you lol

Yeah I also think she does need a bit more too. I guess it'll depend on how the final "suitor confrontation scene" goes. I trust the writers enough to know that "female gets saved from rape by male character" is a tired trope by now, but I guess we'll see.

It would just suck if they didn't take the same creative liberties with Penelope's actions that they're using for Odysseus. Like, giving her a more major role in the final confrontation instead of having her just...standing by and watching him would do more to establish her role as his equal

So I recently found out about this musical and fell in love with it. The musical symbolism, the clever use of lyrical and instrumental motifs. The fact that it explores the moral dilemmas to an emotional extent that I don't think the original myth truly covered...I love It.

I also apologize if a lot of this seems "rant"-y. I love this musical, really. I'm just expressing my hopes for the Ithaca saga, and I wanna hear other people's thoughts

TW: Discussions of rape threats as a plot point in "Hold Them Down", also spoilers for that song

My one issue currently would have to be "Hold Them Down". In so many ways it is a good song. The original myth portrayed the suitors as annoyances: The musical's suitors are terrifying and a genuine threat, and it is GREAT

I only really have a problem with the use of rape threats as a plot point. I realize the original myth was already patriarchal: Penelope was still clever in her own right, but only insofar as she could fulfill her symbolic role as the "ideal loyal wife".

So I understand the writers probably don't have much room to work with to pull a "girlboss Penelope" moment, but the musical has already taken creative liberties with Odysseus's own actions, and I hope it does the same with hers.

Obviously I can't expect her to fend off all the suitors, but in a musical that seems to be okay with contradicting the original plot, it would be nice to see her have more agency with the suitors rather than having to wait for Odysseus to "save" her from them.

My other issue is that the suitors are already terrifying. It's already clear that they are a threat. It feels too...don't know, extra(?) to have them threaten to rape penelope. Rape as a plot point is a way to make the female character week in a specifically feminine way: They can't have her be bested in combat and need help because of that, because that would place her as a man's equal.

She's already obviously clever, having bought time for Odysseus thus far as established in The Challenge. I just would love to see Penelope more as Odysseus's equal rather than someone who, despite her strengths, still needs to be saved in the end.

I understand "Challenge" portrayed her as strong, but I only fear her strength is going to only end in her needing to be saved. It wouldn't diminish her strength and courage thus far, but would it still establish her as a damsel in distress?