cavalal386
Know what you're doing yet?
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I remember reading a tumblr post about how Nobody would believe her about any prophecy, and that when Odysseus met her he told her that his name is Nobody so that meant he could believe her.
could we do something like that?
give me a moment to find that post.
EDIT: Found it, sorry it's a bit long:
<teaboot>
Too bad the prophet Cassandra never met Odysseus
<teaboot>
They say if she made a prophecy Nobody would believe her
<kansascity-elffriend>
I've gotta say, that is exactly the kind of stupid thing that probably would circumvent a curse.
<elidyce>
Cassandra: YOU ARE ALL GOING TO REGRET THIS SO MUCH YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW.
Odysseus: Regret it why?
Cassandra: You won't believe me if I tell you. If I prophecy, nobody believes me. That is my curse.
Odysseus: … I'm Nobody. Fill me in.
*A couple of months later*
Odysseus: HELLO PENELOPE, I AM HERE PRECISELY ON TIME AND NOT YEARS LATE incidentally I rescued and adopted a Trojan seer while I was away, she's great, got me home really fast, Cassandra this is your new mother who's not going to treat you like shit.
Penelope: … I'm going to need more details, but okay, sure.
Cassandra: *in tears* I love you, new family.
<cipheramnesia>
Cassandra: Penelope, I've had another vision.
Penelope, sighs: Go tell your father.
<queerqueerspawn>
I love this but…
First, in order to be Nobody, Odysseus must have already left Troy, been fucking around to find out, and ended up meeting and tricking Polyphemus - and most likely being cursed by Poseidon, which is the whole inciting event for the Odyssey.
Second, since this is after the fall of Troy, Cassandra's already been taken captive by Agamemnon, so there's an urgent ticking clock for Odysseus to get to her before Clytemnestra and Aegisthus do (and kill her), while he's doomed to be bad at sailing and essentially marooned.
All that being said, there's something delightful about Odysseus overcoming his curse from Poseidon while circumventing Cassandra's curse from Apollo with a blessing from Athena - the thick soup of boons and maledictions from a crowded pantheon cancelling each other out, with human ingenuity and cooperation at the core of untangling them together.
<elidyce>
@queerqueerspawn YAY DISCOURSE Okay, so here's how I was picturing it:
Cassandra, having *just* been taken captive, *during* the final sack of Troy, is ranting up a storm about how profoundly they're all going to regret this because why the fuck not at this point.
Odysseus, who has not lived this long by ignoring important stuff like ranting seers, goes over to ask, you know, what's up.
Cassandra tells him that nobody ever believes her when she makes prophecies but for the record HIS FUTURE IS TERRIBLE.
Odysseus may not have encountered Polyphemus yet, but he's still the guy who came up with 'Nobody' as a workaround on the spur of the moment. A seer saying 'Nobody believes me, there's a curse' is absolutely enough to give this very clever man the idea to call himself 'Nobody' a little ahead of schedule and ask for more details. He was smart enough to think of it in the original timeline, he can do it now!
Cassandra, who has no reason to lie at this point, gives him the low-down.
Odysseus, reassured that Agamemnon is not going to live much longer in any case and also fuck that guy, basically shoves Cassandra into a bag and escapes with her before Agamemnon can catch him. There's a fair bit of chaos at this point and he's one of the sneakiest people alive, he can manage it.
Cassandra's advice gets Odysseus home in record time because she is able to keep him away from Polyphemus and thus Poseidon's curse, along with all the other things that go wrong.
Odysseus thinks Cassandra is GREAT. After what happened with Apollo he is WAY too smart to try to get into her robes, but she's smart, she's gifted, and she's been treated ridiculously badly by pretty much everyone. He decides to adopt her - what better gift to bring his son than a future-seeing sister with absolutely no loyalties left to anyone else, right? - and presents her to his wife as a new daughter. Penelope, being pretty sharp herself, can really see the advantage to a gifted seer nobody else can take advantage of who is also Extremely Grateful and Loyal to Odysseus and his family and is down with this plan.
Cassandra loves the plan and is an enthusiastic assistant in Odysseus's future endeavours. Curses and blessings cancel each other out. Happy endings all around!
<nimblermortal>
One plot hole: Penelope does not call herself Nobody.
So Odysseus comes home with some hot young thang who is Extremely Grateful and Loyal to him, and is about to get her hackles up about the hypocrisy of him chasing away her suitors who had only just begun to gather when Odysseus ups and outs with, "I want to adopt her."
Penelope reassesses the situation.
She's a sweet if deluded dear, and it is just like her idiot husband to want to take care of the sweet and the deluded, is that not why he went to war in the first place? Bundle of idiots, the lot of them.
And aside from the nonsense about seeing the future, Cassandra is quite good about being a princess and developing a relationship with Telemachus.
Yes, this can be permitted to stand.
<elidyce>
"I brought this home for our son."
"…. yeah, okay, honestly there are worse gifts you could have brought home."
I do like the idea that Penelope would be willing to take the crazy kid on because honestly, the poor kid seems nice and it's reasonable that if she helped Odysseus somehow they should do something for her.
But if you think Odysseus wouldn't do the Nobody Routine with Penelope and Telemachus so they can have their Own Private Always Correct Seer, you clearly don't think he's as smart as he's supposed to be. Like I said, he's VERY SMART, he would have figured the Nobody thing out VERY QUICKLY.
"Just introduce yourselves as Nobody, it'll make sense in a minute."
"Dad, this is kind of weird - "
"I have had this argument with the WHOLE DAMN CREW like five times already just DO IT."
*ten minutes later*
"OH WOW APOLLO IS QUITE AN ASSHOLE HUH."
"If you'd been in the war *I* just went to, the idea that a god would completely destroy one young woman's life just to cover up the fact that he treated her badly would not surprise you EVEN A LITTLE BIT. The Gods don't treat people very well. Except Athena, she's been pretty good to me."
"… yeah, sounds right."
<korben600>
Side note: I like the idea of Odysseus hearing about the suitors gathering in Penelope's house, and decides to do some preliminary recon.
Cassandra, a completely new an unknown person, is enlisted to waltz up to the front door and knock. She,being very pretty and female, is promptly harassed by every drunken asshole there.
She looks at them all trashing their King's house, harassing his servants, and trying to bang his wife, and says, without a hint of irony:
"When he gets back, Odysseus is gonna kill you."
They do not believe her.
Despite it not actually being a prophecy, it does come true.
…as an aside, someone should totally make a series of this. It's just Odysseus and co. trying to rules lawyer their way out of a bunch of ancient curses. Like, Odysseus is still fated to encounter all the problems of his voyage, but instead of him going to them, he stays on land with his wife and kid by his side, and all of the curses end up washing onto his shores.
For example, I'm thinking Circe gets bored on her island without some poor Greek King around to talk to, so she decides to travel and is knocked by a storm all the way to Ithaca.
She's naturally pissed and angry gods don't mix well with natives.
So Odysseus and co ask Cassandra what to do, and she's like "Sorry, chief, but Penelope's really not gonna like how you handled this one the first time around…"
The plot twist is that apparently Circe is bisexual and seamstresses turn her on, and Penelope also loves Circe's habit of turning annoying people into animals, so Penelope and Circe get along much better than expected.
It helps that Penelope's tongue is just as quick and flexible as Odysseus's. She sweet talked her way around a hundred horny assholes for ten years. She has Circe wrapped around her little finger within a day. And she has other things wrapped around her within a week.
And like in the original Greek myth, Circe starts helping them out and guiding them through the hellscape that is Ancient Greek Mythology.Only this time she's doing both of Telemachus's parents.
Too bad the prophet Cassandra never met Odysseus
<teaboot>
They say if she made a prophecy Nobody would believe her
<kansascity-elffriend>
I've gotta say, that is exactly the kind of stupid thing that probably would circumvent a curse.
<elidyce>
Cassandra: YOU ARE ALL GOING TO REGRET THIS SO MUCH YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW.
Odysseus: Regret it why?
Cassandra: You won't believe me if I tell you. If I prophecy, nobody believes me. That is my curse.
Odysseus: … I'm Nobody. Fill me in.
*A couple of months later*
Odysseus: HELLO PENELOPE, I AM HERE PRECISELY ON TIME AND NOT YEARS LATE incidentally I rescued and adopted a Trojan seer while I was away, she's great, got me home really fast, Cassandra this is your new mother who's not going to treat you like shit.
Penelope: … I'm going to need more details, but okay, sure.
Cassandra: *in tears* I love you, new family.
<cipheramnesia>
Cassandra: Penelope, I've had another vision.
Penelope, sighs: Go tell your father.
<queerqueerspawn>
I love this but…
First, in order to be Nobody, Odysseus must have already left Troy, been fucking around to find out, and ended up meeting and tricking Polyphemus - and most likely being cursed by Poseidon, which is the whole inciting event for the Odyssey.
Second, since this is after the fall of Troy, Cassandra's already been taken captive by Agamemnon, so there's an urgent ticking clock for Odysseus to get to her before Clytemnestra and Aegisthus do (and kill her), while he's doomed to be bad at sailing and essentially marooned.
All that being said, there's something delightful about Odysseus overcoming his curse from Poseidon while circumventing Cassandra's curse from Apollo with a blessing from Athena - the thick soup of boons and maledictions from a crowded pantheon cancelling each other out, with human ingenuity and cooperation at the core of untangling them together.
<elidyce>
@queerqueerspawn YAY DISCOURSE Okay, so here's how I was picturing it:
Cassandra, having *just* been taken captive, *during* the final sack of Troy, is ranting up a storm about how profoundly they're all going to regret this because why the fuck not at this point.
Odysseus, who has not lived this long by ignoring important stuff like ranting seers, goes over to ask, you know, what's up.
Cassandra tells him that nobody ever believes her when she makes prophecies but for the record HIS FUTURE IS TERRIBLE.
Odysseus may not have encountered Polyphemus yet, but he's still the guy who came up with 'Nobody' as a workaround on the spur of the moment. A seer saying 'Nobody believes me, there's a curse' is absolutely enough to give this very clever man the idea to call himself 'Nobody' a little ahead of schedule and ask for more details. He was smart enough to think of it in the original timeline, he can do it now!
Cassandra, who has no reason to lie at this point, gives him the low-down.
Odysseus, reassured that Agamemnon is not going to live much longer in any case and also fuck that guy, basically shoves Cassandra into a bag and escapes with her before Agamemnon can catch him. There's a fair bit of chaos at this point and he's one of the sneakiest people alive, he can manage it.
Cassandra's advice gets Odysseus home in record time because she is able to keep him away from Polyphemus and thus Poseidon's curse, along with all the other things that go wrong.
Odysseus thinks Cassandra is GREAT. After what happened with Apollo he is WAY too smart to try to get into her robes, but she's smart, she's gifted, and she's been treated ridiculously badly by pretty much everyone. He decides to adopt her - what better gift to bring his son than a future-seeing sister with absolutely no loyalties left to anyone else, right? - and presents her to his wife as a new daughter. Penelope, being pretty sharp herself, can really see the advantage to a gifted seer nobody else can take advantage of who is also Extremely Grateful and Loyal to Odysseus and his family and is down with this plan.
Cassandra loves the plan and is an enthusiastic assistant in Odysseus's future endeavours. Curses and blessings cancel each other out. Happy endings all around!
<nimblermortal>
One plot hole: Penelope does not call herself Nobody.
So Odysseus comes home with some hot young thang who is Extremely Grateful and Loyal to him, and is about to get her hackles up about the hypocrisy of him chasing away her suitors who had only just begun to gather when Odysseus ups and outs with, "I want to adopt her."
Penelope reassesses the situation.
She's a sweet if deluded dear, and it is just like her idiot husband to want to take care of the sweet and the deluded, is that not why he went to war in the first place? Bundle of idiots, the lot of them.
And aside from the nonsense about seeing the future, Cassandra is quite good about being a princess and developing a relationship with Telemachus.
Yes, this can be permitted to stand.
<elidyce>
"I brought this home for our son."
"…. yeah, okay, honestly there are worse gifts you could have brought home."
I do like the idea that Penelope would be willing to take the crazy kid on because honestly, the poor kid seems nice and it's reasonable that if she helped Odysseus somehow they should do something for her.
But if you think Odysseus wouldn't do the Nobody Routine with Penelope and Telemachus so they can have their Own Private Always Correct Seer, you clearly don't think he's as smart as he's supposed to be. Like I said, he's VERY SMART, he would have figured the Nobody thing out VERY QUICKLY.
"Just introduce yourselves as Nobody, it'll make sense in a minute."
"Dad, this is kind of weird - "
"I have had this argument with the WHOLE DAMN CREW like five times already just DO IT."
*ten minutes later*
"OH WOW APOLLO IS QUITE AN ASSHOLE HUH."
"If you'd been in the war *I* just went to, the idea that a god would completely destroy one young woman's life just to cover up the fact that he treated her badly would not surprise you EVEN A LITTLE BIT. The Gods don't treat people very well. Except Athena, she's been pretty good to me."
"… yeah, sounds right."
<korben600>
Side note: I like the idea of Odysseus hearing about the suitors gathering in Penelope's house, and decides to do some preliminary recon.
Cassandra, a completely new an unknown person, is enlisted to waltz up to the front door and knock. She,
She looks at them all trashing their King's house, harassing his servants, and trying to bang his wife, and says, without a hint of irony:
"When he gets back, Odysseus is gonna kill you."
They do not believe her.
…as an aside, someone should totally make a series of this. It's just Odysseus and co. trying to rules lawyer their way out of a bunch of ancient curses. Like, Odysseus is still fated to encounter all the problems of his voyage, but instead of him going to them, he stays on land with his wife and kid by his side, and all of the curses end up washing onto his shores.
For example, I'm thinking Circe gets bored on her island without some poor Greek King around to talk to, so she decides to travel and is knocked by a storm all the way to Ithaca.
She's naturally pissed and angry gods don't mix well with natives.
So Odysseus and co ask Cassandra what to do, and she's like "Sorry, chief, but Penelope's really not gonna like how you handled this one the first time around…"
It helps that Penelope's tongue is just as quick and flexible as Odysseus's. She sweet talked her way around a hundred horny assholes for ten years. She has Circe wrapped around her little finger within a day. And she has other things wrapped around her within a week.
And like in the original Greek myth, Circe starts helping them out and guiding them through the hellscape that is Ancient Greek Mythology.
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