Something I love about the dynamic between Lucy and Lockwood is that Lockwood always has the right thing to say to charm the people they encounter while Lucy is blunt and often accidentally rude, but when interacting with each other, Lucy very much charms Lockwood while Lockwood always seems to say the wrong things to her.

seeking, yearning, reaching hands

"should we tell authors on ao3 when we have discord conversations about their fics" i don't speak for everyone here but if y'all ever find a group chat discussing my fics you can should must and WILL send me screenshots of the whole damn thing. inflate my ego. gimme

Ironically, after having obsessively listened to the entire saga on repeat last night, my favorite song was I Can’t Help But Wonder. It was my least favorite on my first listen through, but the more I listened to it and absorbed all the meanings and implications? I just. Loved it so much more 😭

There’s Odysseus finally meeting his son for essentially the first time (yes he held him as an infant, but he doesn’t know him as a person), there’s the fact that he spent twenty years wishing he could know his son. And then there’s Telemachus on the other side of the conversation who’s been dreaming of knowing his dad for twenty years and is worried his dad won’t love him?? Devastating. Imagine desperately loving and wanting to meet your child for twenty years and being told they worry you won’t love them??

AND THE LINE ABOUT ODYSSEUS TELLING HIS INFANT SON HE WOULD CAPTURE THE WIND AND SKY FOR HIM?? Guys. Odysseus literally captured the wind and sky to get home to his son and wife.

And then we have the reunion with Athena 😭😭 They don’t even talk about anything that happened?? I just imagine this scene of Odysseus saying, “Show yourself. I know you’re watching me,” just like he did when they first met, and neither of them say a thing about their argument, nothing about Athena fighting for him and saving him, nothing about everything that happened between the last ten years.

And without saying any of that, Athena goes straight into a roundabout way of saying, “You were right, I was wrong, and I led you astray.” She said, “I’m sorry,” without saying it. And there’s a beat of silence. Odysseus sighs. And essentially tells her, “No, you weren’t wrong. And I wasn’t wrong either. That world could exist somewhere far away, but it doesn’t exist here. I’m too old and tired to ever find it though, so you’ll have to make it exist someday for both of us.”

He forgives her in un-said words. It’s an absolution of the wrong Athena feels she’s committed. A goddess apologized to him, and Odysseus absolved her of her sins. Just. AHHHHHHHHHHH.

And then they part ways 😭😭😭 and there’s a tone in their voices that says it’s really their final goodbye this time. And they didn’t even say goodbye.

My favorite moments from the Epic: The Musical Ithaca Saga Premiere Livestream (in no particular order):

• Armando and Jay doing the macarena during Luck Runs Out
• Also during Luck Runs Out when Odysseus says "let me pull you aside then I need to talk to you in private" and Jay pulled Armando to the side of the room in a very silly flirty manner and then immediately pretended to smack the shit out of him
• Talya and Jay swapping lip sync roles during There Are Other Ways
• Troy standing on the table and twerking during Dangerous
• Everyone pretending to row during Full Speed Ahead
• Luke acting like the cyclops during the cyclops saga, and reprising the role during Circe and Odysseus' fight in Done For
• Mason and Jay ballroom dancing during No Longer You
• Jay and his mom swaying together during Anticlea's part of The Underworld
• Jay's dad messing up lip syncing Hephaestus' part of God Games and laughing about it
• During Legendary, Mico is clearly on screen lip syncing as Telemachus but Jay keeps typing in chat "Where's Mico?" And "Mico it sucks we couldn't get you here"
• Jay trying to hold Mico in his lap during Just A Man
• Steven Rodriguez' cast message between the showing of the Vengeance Saga and the Ithaca Saga
• Jay wearing ten billion pairs of glasses during Just a Man and then later in chat saying that whenever he wears glasses that means he's being serious (so obviously we can interpret that Just a Man was super serious)
• During Get In the Water Mason kept trying to hand Jay a tiny fork clearly trying to mime Poseidon's trident but then it also seemed like he hadn't actually watched the Six Hundred Strike animatic before because he never ended up handing the fork to Jay and his jaw dropped when Odysseus started stabbing Poseidon, at which point Jay picked up Mason's tiny fork off the table and mimed stabbing Poseidon, much to Mason's amusement
• KJ jumping around on and crawling over the couch attacking random people with pillows during Scylla
• So many viewers spamming the chat with pancake emojis during Survive
• Mason pretending to turn into a pig during Puppeteer
• Luke pretending to be the magical boar during Warrior of the Mind
• JP pretending to be the cow during Mutiny
• The grocery bag that they filled with air and tied up and threw around as "the wind bag" during Keep Your Friends Close and Dangerous
• Jay and Luke actually pretending to game as Telemachus and Antinous during Little Wolf with what seemed to be switch controllers
• The cast using one of said switch controllers as a stand in for the baby in The Horse and The Infant
• Everyone applauding at the end of Charybdis when Odysseus is singing "Penelope" but then going "wait wait" and freaking out when Odysseus starts going backwards. Then Get in the Water started and Poseidon said "There you are. Coward." and Jay yelled "IT'S STEVEN!!!!!" and everyone cheered
• Jay just absolutely tackling Mico in a hug at the climax of I Can't Help But Wonder
• The entire cast trying to be excited and hyped at the end of the stream while saying goodbye/thank you but all of them had been crying/sobbing through the last two beautiful songs so they all just were wiping their eyes and noses and some of them just could not pull it together enough to look at the camera (looking at Luke Holt and Earle Gresham Jr. affectionately) so it was a very emotional excited goodbye

Jorge did an excellent job in showing Penelope's character and why Odysseus and Penelope are made for each other in two songs

Of course throughout the whole saga we are told Odysseus loves Penelope more than anything, she and Telemachus are his one life line and one motivation to getting home

But when we finally heard Penelope, in her two actual songs (by that I mean not counting Ody's hallucinations and the siren), we are shown why

In the challenge, she's smart, shown by her weaving and unweaving the shroud, and in setting a challenge that she knows only Odysseus can complete once she suspects he's close to home. She's steadfast in her love, never faltering in the face of 108 strong men taunting her, and pressuring her every single day. She's a queen, holding herself with dignity and authority. She's an amazing woman.

In Would You Fall In Love With Me Again, she once again demonstrates her intellect both logically and emotionally by testing Odysseus with the wedding bed. Then she breaks down in tears and anger letting go of all the pain and suffering and longing and yearning and agony she's gone through in the past 20 years. She was in so much pain and agony, but she kept waiting.

This is a story about a man who moved mountains and seas for his love and a woman who stood still in the midst of storms and terrors for hers.

some of my favorite moments from the livestream

you can say goodbye to penelope / cyclops time

i look into your eyes / helios' cow

it's been 12 long years... or has it? / jorge as circe and talya as ody

i need to talk to you in private 😏 / eurylochus light up six torches 😏

get in the water or else... / poseidon it's been 10 years (i counted right this time)

my personal favorite moments from the listening party/live stream

Jay cradling Mico in the horse and the infant and then dropping him off a roof:

Luke as the cyclops terrorizing the soldiers with his club pillow:

Mason pretending to be Poseidon with a FORK 🔱

Jay and Talya being dramatic in their duet in Done For

then switching their roles in "there are other ways" (Talya was singing ody's lines and Jay trying to seduce her as circe lmao)

Mason (??) dressing up like a ghost for Polites' part in "the underworld" and surprising jay 😭

Jay and his mom during her part in "the underworld" 🥹❤️

Jay and Mason waltzing ???? while singing their duet in "no longer you" 😭😭😭

HE DID THE EAR THING WHILE SINGING "PENELOPE WHY YOU KNOW I'M TOO SHY👉👈"

them softies cried for the entirety of "I Can't Help but Wonder" 🥹🥹🥹🥹

I LOVE THIS CAST SO MUCH

river textures, 2024