stare into the sun

Hi I am asking about your Penelope headcanons and listening so intently. I love your design for her btw!!!

thank you for enabling me okay here we go

she was a botanist! you may think it would be tough to be a botanist in a world where plant are all but extinct. and you would be right. it is very illegal, in fact. but our girl stays silly

penelope grew up reading stories about the plants that used to exist before labyrinth spread across the entire planet and wiped out basically all wildlife

since plants are very much antithetical to the olympians’ whole… thing, botany is very illegal

her mother was a secretary of poseidon (since in the mythology, penelope’s mother was a naiad, a type of water spirit). poseidon had an extensive entourage of personal assistants. penelope spent a lot of her childhood learning how to do the same work, preparing to take over for her mother when she died (but that part sort of went over her head. olympians live a very long time and don’t like change, so a lot of their assistants come from a long line of people who did the same work.)

penelope’s mother often took her to work with her. it was mostly boring admin stuff and young penelope got bored easily. she brought books to read while her mother worked; mostly history ones. but she never got past the first dozen pages or so. the bright illustrations of the world as it once was captivated her. she paid no mind to the propaganda explaining how harrowing and dangerous and uncivilized the pre-city world was. the plants and colors were so beautiful, and she wanted nothing more than to catch even a glimpse of the world she read about. from that moment, penelope fell in love with plants. it didn’t matter that she’d never seen one and likely never would. penelope would go to the ends of the city to find the worlds of life she read about.

of course, she needed more realistic goals, you know, work to do for money while she chased her secret passion. penelope’s first job was doing minor administrative work in one of poseidon’s workshops. it was smaller then, but as she got older and better at her job, it became one of poseidon’s leading factories. later, penelope’s studies into mechanical engineering (she spent a summer drawing up plans for a rudimentary irrigation system and found that she had a knack for it) even led to one of her designs being implemented in the facility, becoming the sleek industrial laser nicknamed the Cyclops. (years later, a grief-stricken and vengeful Ulysses would break into the workshop and steal the diamond at its core)

penelope quickly became known for her skill in mechanical engineering and led teams to implement new designs for poseidon’s factories. this is where she met ulysses. each could match the other’s wit and brilliance, and they hit it off right away. ulysses even shared her passion for plants, though for different reasons. she often confided in them about her research, and they worked together to search for what plants may be left

less significant but very important to me: ulysses and penelope were in a queerplatonic relationship. they would often affectionately refer to the other as “my partner — research partner, that is.”

a few years after they married, ulysses was asked to take part in the ilium war, to test out their designs and strategic knowledge on the battlefield

meanwhile, penelope continued their search for the last plant life. having a spouse off at war came with financial aid. penelope took advantage of the extra income to take time off work, time which she used to focus on her and ulysses’ secret project

while ulysses was at war, penelope had to keep up some ruse to be able to continue her research in secrecy. i have a few concepts i’m working with, but none that i’m really set on yet. you know the myth of how the real penelope spent years weaving a shroud for odysseus’ father laertes, but each night would secretly unravel the day’s progress so that she wouldn’t have to marry one of her suitors? i want something that mirrors that, but i haven’t settled on a concept yet

then, in the final year of the war, she found it. daedalus and the mechanisms got it wrong. ulysses didn’t find the last relic of the natural world. penelope did

the mechanisms have proven to be unreliable narrators, and i find it hard to believe that penelope had nothing to do with the vault named after her and the revolutionary discovery inside it

it was ulysses’ idea to use the seed she found to incite revolution. it wasn’t that penelope had never thought of what her success could mean for the world; she just enjoyed the discovery for its own sake. her ambition had more to do with personal victory, knowledge, and preserving the beauty she knew existed in the world. she never wanted to change the world, at least not the way ulysses did.

anyways i have many feelings about her but this is the most i can articulate right now. please feel free to add more thoughts or ideas! i would love to talk about her