viola

Despite making this post in August, this post spikes in brief periods throughout the year, depending on when folks like to start.

Reading all the cool costume projects people are working on

(the quality is a bit poor bc of the speedpaint guys. click on the art and u will see it in the correct resolution <3)

first art im posting here.. kinda nervous 🫦

SPEEDPAINT !!!

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Hate hate hate what they did with Odysseus's characterization like you cannot be serious. Who is Odysseus if not a sly clever liar (affectionate).

Now he's just some modern goody two shoes inner dilemma hero in a sea of them. They stripped him of his whimsy and cruelty both.

#NotmyOdysseus

There's not one moment in the film where I could go, ahh there he is Odysseus being Odysseus. Not one instance of him being clever, he's just lucky...

Didn't add the 'Nobody' scene but still made him shoot at Polyphemus which starts it all which doesn't even make sense with his characterization in the movie. The Polyphemus scene is supposed to highlight Odysseus's cleverness and hubris but the movie version of him has no pride!

Don't even get me started on Athena & Odysseus! Odysseus famously Athena's star pupil is not.... Instead she's haunting his guilt? Athena who famously interfered in the book to aid Odysseus like a lot... directly and behind the scenes.

In the book Mentor was actually Athena in disguise so I was so hoping for it to be her since Telemachus remarks multiple times about 'wise eyes' but no... it was about how you shouldn't see gods in people blah blah BORING!!!!

'Defy the Gods' Ah yes Odysseus famously devout follower of Athena...

I couldn't help but notice how dirty the female characters were done compared to their Epic counterparts and the erasure of Anticlea during the Underworld scene.

And I'd like to talk more about it, starting with Athena! She is one of the active players who guides both Odysseus's and Telemachus's journey. When Odysseus reaches Ithaca it was Athena who makes him look like an old beggar. Even in the final battle against suitors she deflects their spears to protect Odysseus and afterwards when nobles are angry Odysseus essentially killed their sons Athena steps in herself to establish the peace.

She is integral to the story, there is no Odyssey without her!! Odysseus only survived and made it back home due to her guidance and interference, removing her entirely is a disservice to the actual Epic being adapted.

And second character is Penelope, my Queen!!! I want to get this out of the way Anne Hathaway is in my personal opinion the standout of this film, she did amazing with what she was given. However that is to say, they didn't give her much. They cut off many Penelope moments that give us a taste of her own cleverness (making her a true partner for Odysseus) in favor of some simple status pin which isn't a good trade off imo.

The Olive Tree Bed moment was also not in the movie to my disappointment. A scene that clearly demonstrates how she tricks her own extremely clever trickster husband rather than some pin symbolism.

Circe and Calypso.... the less said about them the better though I hated their costuming.... Where were Circe's nymphs? or not nymphs since Nolan is allergic to whimsy even handmaidens? Circe is a powerful GODDESS 😭(Why was a raven/crow her sister? Was it supposed to be Pasiphae? If yes then I have so many more questions.)

I hate Calypso so i won't waste any words on her but its so funny that they made Odysseus eat Lotus Flower like lmaoooo you can't make this shit up..

I didn't like the costuming, the hair, the armor, the lightening either. I hated the look of Ithaca's palace and the ending like Odysseus... leaves Ithaca and his son after just arriving????

I also think it's so peculiar how Nolan didn't want an orchestra in sound design when the Homeric era didn't have that and then have everything else inaccurate from the armor design to the choice of modernised dialogue (surprisingly I didn't mind the modernised dialogue, not when the movie had larger issues).

Though props to them for making the pig transformation disturbing & sickening and not props for making Scylla lame ass design when her description is genuinely so horrifying, I believe the Odyssey could have been Nolan's first venture into VFX- nothing wrong with a little of it especially while adapting mythological creatures though disappointingly Nolan still clings to his practical only approach.

Also props for a good Eurylochus, making me side eye him and still making me feel sorry for him at the same time.

Side minor note: icky that they cast a black woman for Helen only for her to be abused and miserable when the source material makes no note of it, not a good look imo.

Also since they did deviate from the Poem of the Odyssey and included references to other Epic cycles, I wish they could have added Palamedes and Odysseus acting insane since I felt like the setup for it was there in the film with the scene of Odysseus and Penelope before war and it could be a scene to show again, his prominent cleverness that's direly missing from the film.

When the Trojans put a spear in the horse to verify, I had thought in that moment it was a reference to the omen of Laocoon and sea serpents would appear next but then it happened again and again and was just a tool to create tension.

(Again before anyone says Laoccon is not canon to Homer but neither is anything about the Trojan Horse except a few mentions in the Odyssey. If the sack of Troy has been expanded it would have been nice to see other epics being referenced.)

Why was Apollo the Sun God? What is this Percy Jackson?

All in all, if it was just any other standalone it would be strong 3.5 to 3.75 but as something that has source material an underwhelming 2.5 to 3.

The rating 3 is the average and generous because the film does look good so there's that.

Taking creative liberties in adapting an already existing source material is a thing but it's forgivable and completely understandable only as long as it serves its purpose to enchance the original material for a new medium but I feel like this movie changed the core of who Odysseus is as a character/person completely, erased his mentorship bond with Athena, erased his cleverness and trickster nature, whitewashed him and in the end the character isn't even identifiable as Odysseus anymore.

From Time Magazine interview that Nolan did it was noted that,

For Nolan, one of the hardest things about adapting The Odyssey is that in The Iliad, Odysseus has a relatively minor role. “A lot of the characteristics of Odysseus that can be really admirable in a supporting character, like being a bit clever, being a bit slick, when your hero is like that, it doesn’t always work,” he says. “There’s a reason that in Star Wars, you’ve got Han Solo, but you’ve also got Luke Skywalker, a heroic figure that’s a little more pure and transparent. So the challenge was to be true to the complexity of Odysseus but make him relatable for the audience.”

I've not heard high things about it and it's tempered my spirits.

Here's my full opinion down under the cut.

-there is no shame in being introduced to mytholgy from something like percy jackson, epic the musical or anything like that, but keep in mind that actual myths are going to be VERY different from modern retellings

-the myth of medusa you probably know (her being a victim of poseidon and being cursed by athena) isn't 100% accurate to GREEK mythology (look up ovid)

-there is no version of persephone's abduction in which persephone willingly stays with hades, that's a tumblr invention (look up homeric hymn to demeter)

-as much as i would like it, no, cerberus' name does not mean "spot" (probably a misunderstanding from this wikipedia article)

-zeus isn't the only god who does terrible things to women, your fav male god probably has done the same

-on that note, your fav greek hero has probably done some heinous shit as well

-gods are more complicated than simply being "god of [insert thing]", many titles overlap between gods and some may even change depending on where they were worshipped

-also, apollo and artemis being the gods of the sun and the moon isn't 100% accurate, their main aspects as deities originally were music and the hunt

-titans and gods aren't two wholly different concepts, titan is just the word used to decribe the generation of gods before the olympians

-hector isn't the villain some people make him out to be

-hephaestus WAS married to aphrodite. they divorced. yes, divorce was a thing in ancient greece. hephaestus' wife is aglaia

-ancient greek society didn't have the same concepts of sexuality that we have now, it's incorrect to describe virgin goddesses like artemis and athena as lesbians, BUT it's also not wholly accurate to describe them as aromantic/asexual, it's more complex than that

-you can never fully understand certain myths if you don't understand the societal context in which they were told

-myths have lots and lots of retellings, there isn't one singular "canon", but we can try to distinguish between older and newer versions and bewteen greek and roman versions

-most of what you know about sparta is probably incorrect

-reading/waching retellings is not a substitute to reading the original myths, read the iliad! read the odyssey! i know they may seem intimidating, but they're much more entertaining than you may think

em dash

“not x, not y, but z”

short sentence stacking as a stylistic choice

none of these belong to ai. these are all what human writers have been writing since day one, way before ai was invented. ai was trained to mimic how human writers write — so em dash, not x not y but z and short sentence stacking would never have been used by ai at all if ai hadn’t learned and mimicked them from human writers.

no, you are not “fighting against ai” by accusing every work that has em dash, not x not y but z or short sentence stacking in it as ai-generated, you are helping ai harm the writing community by engaging in witch hunt and scaring human writers away from creating/sharing their works for fear of being wrongly accused of using ai.