Their Love Is So Sweet Make Me Sick/pos

My DioOdyPen basically

Okay I have a vision. Odysseus literally JUST woke up after getting top surgery, and he's feeling pretty loopy and he's also like half-asleep so he thinks Penelope is someone else😭

Odysseus: "my wife, she'll get upset if she sees you touching me like that on my chest.."

Penelope: "I am your wife."

Machine starts beeping

Odysseus: "What's up? ;)"

Penelope laughs

Odysseus is a very feminine character, now that I think about it...

Alright, let’s get something straight before anyone comes at me with a “bUt tHiS iS gEnDeR eSsEnTiAlIsM” take. I’m not saying Odysseus is literally a woman or that masculinity and femininity are these rigid, unchanging constructs. I’m talking about how the ancient Greeks perceived these traits. This is about Homeric gender coding, not modern gender politics.

Ancient Greek society had clear ideas about what was “masculine” and “feminine.” Men fought, conquered, and sought kleos (glory). Women used cunning, patience, and endurance to survive. Odysseus? He embodies the latter far more than the former. That’s the point. That’s what makes him interesting. I’m not slapping modern labels on him; I’m analyzing how he would’ve been understood in his own time.

Got it? Got it. Then let me explain.

Greek heroism is all about kleos (glory), right? You charge into battle, fight, die gloriously, and get immortalized in song. Odysseus? Not his style. His whole thing is survival. Achilles, the epitome of warrior masculinity, chooses an early death in exchange for undying fame. Odysseus chooses life, no matter what it takes. He hides, deceives, and grovels when necessary...all acts that a traditionally “heroic” warrior wouldn’t be caught dead doing.

Take the Cyclops episode: a classic strongman hero would just fight Polyphemus. Odysseus? He outsmarts him with wordplay, drugs his enemy (like a sneaky witch would), and escapes by disguising himself under sheep. You’re telling me this is masculine? If anything, it aligns him with figures like Circe and Penelope. Women who survive through wit and deception rather than brute strength.

This man’s mouth is his deadliest weapon. He doesn’t win with a spear; he wins with stories, persuasion, and trickery. The word polytropos (πολύτροπος), used to describe him in the very first line of The Odyssey, literally means “many-turned” or “twisting,” evoking the way a woman might spin or weave. The metaphor of weaving is all over his character, and weaving is, of course, the domain of women in Greek thought.

Even his lies are textile-like. He spins tales, unravels them, and reweaves them as necessary. And let’s not ignore that his narrative mirrors Penelope’s: she weaves and unweaves her shroud, delaying the suitors; he spins and unspins his identity to survive. He and Penelope are two sides of the same coin, both manipulating reality to stay in control.

If we take ancient Greek gender norms seriously, dominance in sex = masculinity, and submission = femininity. And Odysseus? The man spends years being kept by women. Calypso and Circe both hold him as a sex slave, reducing him to an object of desire rather than an active agent. That’s not exactly Achilles ravaging Briseïs, is it? He’s literally lying in bed (λέχος) while these women rule over him.

Even in Ithaca, his return isn’t some macho takeover. He sneaks in, disguises himself, and watches before making his move. Unlike Agamemnon, who storms into Mycenae post-Troy and gets murked by his wife, Odysseus waits, gathering intel like a patient, calculating woman.

He also cries...like...a lot.

Masculine heroes go out into the world to conquer (Iliadic energy). Feminine figures are more often concerned with the home. Odysseus’s entire goal? To get back to Ithaca, to his oikos, to his wife. He’s not seeking new conquests or greater glory. He wants stability, family, domesticity. He longs for the space traditionally occupied by women.

Odysseus is basically the Greek epic’s answer to the trickster woman trope. He’s wily, verbal, emotionally expressive, and constantly using the strategies of metis, not brute strength, to survive. While Homeric masculinity typically means fighting, dying, and achieving kleos, Odysseus thrives through deception, patience, and endurance. Traits that the ancient Greeks more often ascribed to women.

odysseus to palamedes the moment he's forced on the boat taking him to war

reference under the cut:

One piece is a reimagining of the Odyssey but kind of in reverse.

Each member of the strawhat crew reflects different aspects of Odysseus, Luffy is his trickster nature, Zorro is the blood lust, Nami is sailing prowess, Robin is the strategist, Franky is his ingenuity, Chopper is his empathy, Brook is his determination, and Jinbe is his wisdom.

I wanna say Enel is Posideon, Shanks is Athena, Emu is Zeus, and Law is Hermes.

Going in to what I ment by one piece being the odyssey in reverse:

There are some story beats that match up in reverse like starting the series with Luffy on a raft that gets sunk in a whirlpool like how Odysseus took on Charybdis.

Posiren and Ruthless Ody

Help wisdom saga has me on chokehold

this came to me about 0.2 seconds after the stream ended

My entire musical taste revolves around these two. I'm not complaining; I love listening to it with edits

There's a reason why Odysseus sounded so broken when he had to choose between him and his crew. Let's not forget that.

Relistening to the thunder saga and people LOVE memeing on Eurylochus for the "but we'll die" line. You think Odysseus would just forget that he led this crew into battle for 10 years? That Eurylochus is his brother in law?? because they mutinized??? if Eurylochus would've done the same, like Odysseus had said, then Odysseus would've done the same in Eurylochus position. Hell the entire point of their development is that they changed into each other. Of fucking course he sounds so broken, he fought with these men for 10 years. Newsflash, one mutiny isn't gonna change that he actually cared about them. He had their backs, patched them up, lifted their spirits when they were down, fought like all hell to make sure they were okay before the Underworld Saga. He. Cared. About. Them.

That's why the choice was so difficult!!

“What did he think was gonna happen???” Eurylochus thought his captain was still in there. He had no idea just how far gone Odysseus was. He had known him as someone who cared for his men. Even after Scylla its difficult to accept someone you thought you knew so well had changed so drastically.