zoexqsblog

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ughhh fine *experiences emotional growth*

All the star signs in my comic, Realta Part 1!

Part 2

All the star signs in my comic, Realta Part 2!

Part one

Some of my favorite Apollo paintings!

I do not know the artists' names because I just had these on my computer, but if anyone does, please let me know!

^ by Simón Vouet

^ by Briton Rivière

How I now percieve the Trojan War heroes :) (acheans)

Achilles: 🎶Una perra sorprendente / Curvilínea y elocuente / Magnificamente colosal / Extravagante y animal🎶 + anger issues

Patroclus: beloved by everyone (exept fate)

Ajax the Greater: strONK but no mental health and anger issues / da himbo

Diomedes: Perfection Incarnated/ Batman/Boss Baby

Odysseus/Ulysses: that one guy who has the only braincell in all the Achean camp and either uses it for war crimes or shares it with Diomedes, which is basically the same / Shortdysseus / Tinysses

Menelaus: certified UwU Dad

Agamemnon: Luisa from Encanto + some greed and curses / CEO of daddy issues / Raspberry cupcake / Lesser batman

Nestor: Respectable Grandpa

Antilochus: the bby

Ajax the Lesser: who?

Aeneas and His Father Fleeing Troy Simon Vouet (French; 1590–1649) ca. 1635 Oil on canvas San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California

art honoring Hermes

here's the third set in the series i'm doing on art honoring the gods as i finish my art history degree; Apollon and Artemis can be found under these links. here are my favorite pieces honoring Hermes :>

Disclaimer: Most artists throughout the neoclassical period (in particular, but not limited to) used Hermes/Mercury interchangeably for a myriad of cultural and religious reasons. I do understand that Hermes and Mercury are syncretized deities with very different aspects in Greek and Roman society respectively.

In order: 1) Souls on the Banks of the Acheron by Adolph Hiremy-Hirschl, 1898, Belvedere Palace, Vienna. 2) Detail from Palazzo Clerici Ceiling Fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1740, Milan. 3) Hermes (Engraving) by William Blake Richmond, 1866, University of Toronto Library. 4) Mercury Attaching his Wings by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, c. 1744, on display in the Louvre, Paris. 5) Hermes by Jules Alexis Coulan, 1914, Grand Central Station. 6) Elevation of the Great Elector to Olympus by Charles-Amedee-Philippe van Loo, 1751, City Palace, Potsdam, Germany. 7) Detail from Mercury Exhorting Aeneas to Leave Carthage by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1757, Palazzina di Caccia, Stupinigi. 8) Mercury and Psyche by Reinhold, 1857, Staatliche Museum, Berlin.

Aeneas please 🥹

pretty boy

The Aeneid - Amazon / L‘Eneide - Amazzone

by Fabio Fabbi

(source:trust me bro)

The Iliad - The Flight of Anchises | L´Iliade - La fuga di Anchise

by Fabio Fabbi

The fact that most translations and commentaries I’ve read says that

alius Latio iam partus Achilles, natus et ipse dea

Now/already another Achilles has been born [Latio], and he too is the son of a godess

refers only to Turnus really downgrades the ambiguity in this statement. Because Latio could mean in Latium, in which case it’s Turnus. But it could also mean for/on behalf of Latium. And it’s Aeneas who’s been consistently called the son of a goddess and who will take Achilles’ place at the end when he essentially recreates the Trojan War in Italy. 

This is the ambiguity of prophecy where it refers to two people at once. It’s not just Turnus because, in the end, Turnus isn’t the inheritor of Achilles. Aeneas is.

this is dumb and has absolutely been done before but here you go anyway

I've just re-read the short lived duel that Aeneas and Achilles have in Book 20 of the Iliad and it's actually the most hilarious fucking thing.

So it starts out with Apollo disguising himself as Lycaon, one of Priam's many sons, and telling to have a go at Achilles. Keep in mind that this is post-Patroclus Achilles. Aka: berserk Achilles. Aka: so fucking mad he would fight a literal river Achilles.

Aeneas, who is capable of critical thinking, says he doubts he can actually take him on. He also references a time when he was herding cattle on Mount Ida and Achilles ambushed him, adding that the only reason he survived then was because Zeus gave him enough strength to book it (cracking up the official times that he's been saved by a god from certain death to 3, you go dude!).

However, after a bit of back and forth and a ton of hyping up on Apollo's part, Aeneas decides to try anyway.

Like, what could possibly go wrong?

Achilles notices Aeneas charging at him and he begins to taunt him. It's something among the lines of: "I'm sorry, are you, background trojan character #61, actually gonna try and beat me? And then what? Do you think that Priam will reward you in some way? Maybe making you king after him? Well it's BULLSHIT, because Priam fucked so much that your chances of succeeding him are basically 0. Ahah. Loser."

Now, you'd think that maybe Aeneas got enraged at the comment and attacked him, or maybe he even got scared and backed down, but NOPE. What does Aeneas do?

Well, first of all, he insults Achilles' insults, comparing his bickering to that of a child. Literally, "I heard third graders do better than that." And then he decides to list his and Hector's entire fucking family tree.

You know that part of the Bible that's like "this guy sired this other guy, and this other guy sired yet another guy" and so on? It's basically that.

So after he's done with all that, Aeneas states that while he'd love to have a battle of insults with Achilles, because according to him he's actually very good at insulting people (his words, not mine), they should probably throw hands now. Achilles agrees.

The duel is shortlived and Aeneas gets his ass handed to him. Badly. As expected. And he's about die when ✨️POV shift✨️ we're not on Olympus where Poseidon, Hera and Athena are watching this absolute train wreck go down.

Poseidon, pitying Aeneas, suddenly goes on a rant. It's something among the lines of: "come on guys, look at him, he's just a little guy! He literally has no stakes in this war, he doesn't deserve to die here! He even gives us lots of gifts and sacrifices, he's literally such a nice guy. How can we do this to him!?

...oh and also he's part of some prophecy, Zeus would get mad if he died."

The fact that the way it's worded makes it sound like Aeneas being part of a literal prophecy is an afterthought to him absolutely floors me, Poseidon is literally just attached to a random dude that's fighting on the opposite side to his because he thinks he's nice.

After all that Hera is pretty unimpressed and states that she really doesn't care if our man lives or dies as neither her or Athena have ever saved a Trojan from death, she however adds that Poseidon is free to do whatever he wants.

The literal moment Hera stops talking, Poseidon lunges down from Olympus and onto the battlefield to look for the two combatants. When he does, he saves Aeneas like only he can do.

You know how when Diomedes first tries to kill Aeneas, Aphrodite gently folds her hands around him to shield him? There's none of that here. Poseidon just runs up to him and literally flings the motherfucker.

It literally says that he flies "high in the air". It's like a Looney Toons sketch.

So Aeneas lands and, while he's obviously a bit dazed, Poseidon proceeds to call him a madman and essentially tells him to never do something stupid like that again and just wait until Achilles is dead, then he'll be able to murder Achaeans to his heart's content. Aeneas is fine with that.

Achilles, who just saw his opponent just get yeeted into the fucking sky, just shrugs and goes "welp, guess that guy's off limits, I'm gonna go kill someone else now I guess lol".

This entire scene is pure fucking gold and the fact that I've literally never seen anyone talk about it just breaks my heart.

i don't rate books based on character development and plot holes. if it made me bawl my eyes out and search up its fanarts at 3 am it's a 5/5

So out of spite I sped-read The Iliad

Because I wanted to see if there was any way that Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship wasn’t as understandable or blatantly obvious as The Song of Achilles made it out to be. Y’all are welcome. 

Here are things Achilles has said to/thought about Patroclus, heavily paraphrased bc I’m not citing verse (my thoughts in italics):

In general, to start, “Patroclus” is almost always followed by some variation of “my companion”, so there’s that-

Book 11

“(Patroclus), joy of my heart”

Book 16

“Every Trojan and Greek can die as long as we two survive! We can take Troy together” —Achilles’ goofy ass bruh, I swear -_-

“Zeus, give him strength, keep Patroclus alive and bring him back to me” —Zeus: ope

Book 18 (y'all I put the wrong book why ain’t y'all stop me! 😭)

“I hope the gods have not done something that will break my heart (like kill Patroclus)”

[Antilochus preventing him from cutting his wrists after hearing he’s dead, covers his face in dust, screams so loud his mom hears it at the bottom of the ocean]

“What pleasure is there for me, when Patroclus, my beloved companion has been destroyed, the man I honored above all…”

“My own heart has no desire to live on….unless Hector is (killed for killing Patroclus)”

“So now I’ll go (kill Hector), killer of the man I loved” —Now I know he claims love for a lot of men, but he wasn’t willing to fight for any of their dead bodies until Patroclus, sooooo

“I’m going to wait to bury you until we’re both dead so that we’re together in death” —Shit’s a lil weird, but Achilles is a drama queen so it’s in line- UPDATE- okay so, if they wait to be buried together they’ll go to the same place! Makes sense!

Book 19

“I can’t even eat I’m so distressed, not even my own father’s death would upset me as much. I would have had you tell my son of me if you were alive because I thought only I would die” —-this one in particular gets me because Deidameia is alive, but he wanted Patroclus to tell his son about him!

Book 20

“(Hector’s) getting closer, the man who scarred my heart more than all other men”

Book 22

“I’m going to leave your [Hector’s] body here to be torn apart by animals while Patroclus is getting the burial he deserves”

“I’ll not forget [Patroclus] as long as I’m alive. Even when I’m dead, I won’t forget my companion”

Book 23

[Patroclus’ ghost asks to be buried together, Achilles agrees and tries to hold him but he vanishes] —-Why would Patroclus ask this of someone he didn’t love? And why would Achilles agree so easily?

[Gives him a golden urn and commands they have a mound]

In fact, literally all of book 23 is a damn festival for Patroclus lmao

Incidents of him with women:

Book 9

“He stole from me (Briseis), a woman I love. Let him sleep with her! I still won’t fight”  —-Don’t sound very loving to me, and also star point because they offered Briseis back amongst hella other shit and he still said no

“Achilles slept with Diomede, Patroclus slept opposite Achilles with Iphis" 

Book 19 (again!)

Briseis cries over Patroclus’ body, saying that when Achilles killed her husband, Patroclus was nice and would make sure Achilles would marry her instead  —–Idk how this would make anyone feel better about their dead spouse, but….go off, I guess? Not to mention he knew Achilles wasn’t gone make it! Liar lmao

Book 24

He sleeps with Briseis after Priam comes to beg for Hector’s body

Final verdict: 

Bisexual, open relationship. I won’t deny evidence of him and the ladies, but he was most definitely in love with Patroclus. 

The movie Troy can suck it, and I’ll die on this hill in aristeia like Patroclus. 

(update! Lmao y'all I had the right quotes, wrong book for some of them- why ain’t y'all say nothing?)

Patroclus: you ever wanna talk about your emotions Antilochus?

Antilochus: no

Achilles: I do!

Patroclus: I know Achilles

Achilles: I'm mad at Agamemnon!

Patroclus: I know Achilles

It’s  weird for me that Ulysses was a trickster and a liar during the siege and that was ok. But Antilochus won a chariot racing by using simple physics tricks and that wasn’t fair play.

Those guys would be horrified by high performance athlete nowadays.

Antilochus: Patroclus was killed

Achilles: *slowly removing his heart shaped sunglasses* I beg your fucking pardon?

Some Iliad boys in the woods! My thought behind this is that all of them went out on a trip and realized that Antilochus was not trained for this, because unlike Achilles and Patroclus, he was just a prince and was not set loose on a mountain with a centaur grandpa for several years. 

(left to right: Automedon, Patroclus, Achilles, Antilochus)

Did you know that Antilochus was among Helen's suitors?

peleus: my son cannot be a suitor. he is only 6. far too young.

meanwhile nestor: [presenting helen with what can only be described as a fresh out the womb baby] a great husband, no? a real charmer.

Some Iliads! 

1. Antilochus is the only person in the Iliad to ever make Achilles smile–it’s after Patroclus dies and Antilochus is a brat about a horse race

2. Menesthios is Achilles’ nephew and commander, his dad’s a river god and his mom’s Achilles’ much older sister, Polydora who is a cool lady in that she was crazy enough to bang a river

3. I AM NICE TO HEKTOR SOMETIMES I LET HIM SMOOCH HIS WIFE

4. Ajax! 

Achilles: any cute things to call your partner?

Agamemnon: sugar

Menelaus: honey

Diomedes: flour

Odysseus: egg

Nestor: 1/2lb butter

Antilochus: stir

Briseis: pour into a pan

Patroclus: preheat oven to 350 degrees

Me reading the start of Iliad book 18:

Antilochus: I’m going to Taco Bell do you want anything?

Achilles: *crying* I just want Patroclus back

Antilochus: Yeah…I only have like…12 dollars…

Antilochus: *breaking the news of Patroclus’ death to Achilles* now, don’t overreact-

Achilles: *already digging his grave and shoveling dirt on himself* too late for that.

Ajax and Teucer :D

Ajax And Cassandra by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1886.

Iliad/TSOA characters as weird roblox images

Odysseus, pretending to be insane to avoid going to war:

Helen, all through the whole damned Iliad:

Agamemnon (I don't think we need an explanation for this):

Iphigenia:

Ajax the great, after failing to get the armor of Achilles:

Achilles:

Patroclus:

Previous parts: 1