gh-0-st-king

[gh-0-st-king]

Missing 3rd life so I drew the Renchanting duo 😌 I'm so happy with how this came out, especially Martyn 💚

Pose ref by mellon_soup on tiktok once again. She fuels my art so much lmao

More life series art is in the works :) And I'll probably make my design for Xisuma... maybe... at some point...

@inthelittlewood tagging Martyn because he said he wants to be tagged in fan stuff :))

[gh-0-st-king]

Part 2 of my life series designs! 💚💚

Once again, bases/pose refs belong to mellon_soup on tiktok!

Part 1

[gh-0-st-king]

Part 1 of my life series designs! Gosh these all took so long, but I'm quite proud of how they came out!

Bases/pose refs used are by mellon_soup on Tiktok!

Part 2

[gh-0-st-king]

An art piece I did while catching up on all of @inthelittlewood 's Eyes and Ears AU lore! I’m quite proud of how this turned out!

(Base/reference by mellon_soup bellow the cut)

[gh-0-st-king]

Gods I adore them :') The Dads (tm)

skizzpulse please please please please please please please please please please 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Lazy skizzpulse for you Rory.. they have matching piercings

Tell kitty I say hi!!

[gh-0-st-king]

Sometimes you just need to fill a page with eyes

[gh-0-st-king]

Silly little Mumbo Jumbo sketch I did while watching Grian's Hermit Craft :P (bear with me, this is my first time drawing anyone from HC or the Life Series)

[gh-0-st-king]

Grian sleeps on Scar's chest when they cuddle. Initially, this was just because Scar enjoyed the compression from Grian's weight and Grian liked absorbing Scar's body heat, but after 3rd life, it was also so Grian could listen to Scar's heartbeat and know he was alive, that Scar hadn't actually been killed by Grian's hands.

[gh-0-st-king]

In case anyone asks, this moment is where I'll be living for the rest of ever

I'm sorry but I have to repeat it again:

"appreciate YOU, buck"

He said YOU, not it, YOU.

He's not talking about buck helping him in that specific moment, he's talking about buck IN GENERAL.

And he says it OUT LOUD. To buck and himself.

I know as an audience we know that. Hell- they know it too.

He's shown it over and over again across the seasons.

But he's never actually said it out loud THIS DIRECTLY.

No reading between the lines, no big gestures, just a plain, casual, undeniable "appreciate YOU".

[gh-0-st-king]

Canon, your honor

Darius: So today I learned that Hunter has me in his scroll as "Dadrius Dadmonne"

Alador: [shrugs] Could be worse. The twins have each other down as "spare parts"

[gh-0-st-king]

Gods I love this take so much 😩🙌 I also think Percy should be a god of natural disasters or some type of storm fod just for funzies, but this take is so correct!

I think you hit the nail on the head with the divorce and loyalty stuff! I've never actually heard a take like that and I love it!

So if Percy Jackson was going to ascend, what would his domains be? I think we can all agree that Percy would not be a god like Ariadne or Leto is a god. He would definitely be powerful. But the Greek pantheon has most domains already covered. Here's what I think:

Percy should be the god of loyalty, first of all. And, actually, THIS would be the most frightening bit. He'd be a second Eros. Don't see the vision? Imagine Percy deciding on a whim to make Zeus loyal to Hera. I think he should. It'd be the funniest way to get back at Zeus for all those times he voted to kill him, because what's Zeus gonna do?? Complain that he feels really really bad just thinking about cheating on his wife now?????

I don't have a clear picture of what else he'd definitely use this domain for, right off the bat, except I think he'd refuse to make Aphrodite loyal to Hephaestus if asked. Not for any particular liking of Aphrodite, but I think he'd refuse to make someone loyal to a spouse they didn't choose, just on principle.

Secondly, if he's ascending, he definitely should have killed Aklys and taken her domain. That's actually probably how he finds out that 1. Domains aren't fixed and 2. He's burning through his mortality. If Percy is ascending, fighting the goddess of misery should be the thing to instigate the process.

A possible second domain-by-conquest; I think he should get to take Kronos' power over time. As a treat. Maybe he has a confrontation with him in Tartarus, and this is a fight where, unlike Aklys, he knows the stakes and knows what he's doing. And he decides to put Kronos down for good by replacing his role in the pantheon like Apollo once took over from Helios.

Actually, speaking of Apollo. He has given out domains before. I want him to give Protector of Youths to Percy. Why? Well, the pjo Apollo doesn't seem to do too much with it (maybe. Haven't read the Trials. Lmk if I'm wrong). And I think it is PERFECT for Percy. I've seen some people say he should be the god of demigods (currently Hercules' role, and he's definitely not doing much with it), but i disagree. Percy has always cared for mortals, and I don't think ascension would stop that. He should protect young people regardless of their heritage. I think that matches his canon behavior better.

He should get to be god of riptides. Because it's thematic and it pleases me. Percy should get to keep a connection to the sea.

God of filial devotion might also be appropriate. That might already be covered by a different god though, I'm not sure.

Lastly. This might be controversial. Percy should be the god of divorce.

I have reasons. In no particular order:

I like divine duality, ie, Apollo is god of healing&plagues. Percy can be god of loyalty&divorce. (This is not a perpollo post necessarily, apollo just happens to be a useful example of what I'm going for here. Percy contains multitudes.)

He helped his mom get a divorce when he was younger. No - no, really, stay with me here. In many cultures for much of history the only way out of a marriage, particularly for women, was to kill your spouse. This is the original divorce. It's also not an option for gods. The Greek pantheon in pjo has clearly changed somewhat with time, but not as much as i think they should. I think Percy should be a sea change, and one of the ways to do that is provide a way for all those old unhappy bonds to either be dissolved or renewed. A catalyst to either commit to your marriage - hello god of loyalty - or leave it and try again. If we're breaking gods out of the old patterns, then let's do that. Percy can introduce the gods to the modern concept of divorce, and leave the past in the past.

It's either a genius idea or I'm completely deranged. Probably the second one, but there you have it.

I think if you want the gods to be kinder, you have to modernize them in some ways, and also address some of their own perennial unhappiness. Hera would certainly be a nicer goddess, for example, if she wasn't trapped in a bad situation. I don't say nice. I don't know that any god is nice. But nicer.

I guess mostly I want percy to ascend because it would be really funny if the gods were discussing whether to smite or reward him and he interrupts to be like, "okay, but you have to choose quickly, one of those isn't going to be an option for much longer" and that's how they find out that he's ascending. I think he'd have gone through all the stages of grief by that point, he's just. Over it. <- another reason I want percy to be a god is because he doesn't want to be. I think often those who seek power are those who least ought to wield it. Percy, who once chose not to overpower a nymph who was terrified he'd use her spring to clean horse stables, who inspires loyalty so quickly he made Praetor in a week, is extremely well suited to power.

[gh-0-st-king]

Okay can we talk about Scott and his relationship with love and sacrifice throughout the seasons? Because like, there are some goddamn patterns First there's Third Life, and I like to say that this is Scott at his best. And by best I mean most emotionally available. Scott is very expressive during this season, because he loves Jimmy, and for that is keeping the peace. Scott is the mediator, he wants a happy life and he does his goddamn best to keep that life. And when he's forced to choose a side he does it with the people he's already friends with. And then Jimmy dies and he is heartbroken. And then when the self-sacrificing starts. Like Third Life is the definitive worst Scott has done and that's because he was entirely throwing caution out the window. He grieves Jimmy and then decides that it was due to him not being there, that if only he had been there (despite already dying and not having control of the situation) things would've been different. So he spends the rest of the season like a suicide-bomber, doing his best for his remaining friends. Then there's last life, and this is when Scott becomes closed off. After the grief of Jimmy and knowing how much feeling things hurts, he plays it different. He befriends Pearl because she's new and has something to give him, plus, she's volatile, a wild card. Chaos that can defend herself. So he treats it like a vacation. Of course he's still cautious, but now he's detached himself from his emotions. Obviously he stills cares about Pearl, she is his supposes reason for winning. But the way he treats emotions with Pearl and Jimmy are very different. He was way more earnestly open about his feelings with Jimmy. And when he decides to just go red from the boogeyman, that's another case of him loving his friends too much to go after them, and the only way he can help is to take action. When he wins it's for Pearl. But he doesn't end it with Pearl, he ends it with his pet axolotl. Something that is far less telling of his care for people.

And then when Double Life rolls around he realizes how much she actually cared about him. And that scares him. That scares him right off. The idea that if she gets him to open his heart again that he'll be hurt again. So he goes to Cleo who he knows won't care, they've always been closed off and sarcastic, they won't care if he upkeeps bonds or not, they won't care about the lovey-dovey. And throughout the whole season he's pushing Pearl away because he's scared of being opened back up. And at the end he knows he's done her wrong, so he does the thing Scott Smajor does best, decides that she deserves life more than him. Limited Life is god's most unhealthy coping mechanism ever. He went and got himself a surrogate husband who would ignore everything that would happen that season. Martyn does not give a damn about previous seasons unless your name is Ren. Scott picked the guy most likely to betray him and went "hey we're both sad and hurt, let's team up" and was sooo ready for Martyn to kill him. AND HE STILL CARES ABOUT HIM. He still checks up on him and helps with his Birthday and asks Martyn to kill him because he thinks his only use is dying for his loved ones. AND he offers up his life to both Cleo AND Jimmy this season. He is so twisted up in the past this season, and in an awkward phase of healing with Pearl. Secret Life is I think when we reach peak-standard happy-emotionless Scott. He's in his band and he is living life and ignoring the horrors. He's a friendly calm, collected, not showing fear guy. He says "I love you" to everyone and is infuriatingly collected when people spend entire sessions out to kill him. Of course he sacrifices himself to Gem TWICE this season. He has a problem. Real life is Pearl reconciliation hour. And then Wild Life. My god, Wild Life. Cleo is old reliable, Impulse is nice to team with, and he made up with Pearl. And for the first bit he's doing the norm, he's close, but not outwardly expressing it in tangible ways. And he's mister peacekeeper. But pearl and Impulse are messing it up, he's trying to be friends with Gem and Joel but his teammates are ruining this. And he's not the universal best friend. He's not the guy you casually hand around in his base with. He's teamed with Mister and Miss Chaos. AND HE ACQUIESCES, he goes "yeah, burn down their house. Yeah, kill that guy". His teammates, which he knows are the problem but goddammit Scott is loyal , so he decides Gem and Joel are ruining this. THEY have stripped away his persona. His trustworthy-ness. He guns it after both of them, his happy cracks and spills out anger. It's the second worst he's placed because he stopped trying to lie and listened to his emotions. +he's gotta let Pearl kill him, tis tradition. It's the fact that Scott within the life series is hated by the watchers due to his ability to LOVE. It's the fact they don't feed well off him because he doesn't hold tangible grudges. It's the fact that Scott loves so desperately and bad that he has tied his own well-being to how well others are doing, if Scott is doing well he gives it to his teammate because then it must be HIS fault that they're worse off. By being too nice and too calm, people don't realize his connections with people are real. And if they don't love him back then he won't have to be heartbroken. Scott has weaponized love, against the watchers, against his peers, and most importantly, against himself.

[gh-0-st-king]

"Scott and Jimmy are divorced-" actually Scott was widowed.

Which is very nitpicky, obviously, because. They're both currently alive and also no longer married. So divorced is a pretty fitting term.

But I think it's been so long since Thirdlife that we too easily forget when Scott was widowed.

Coming home to silence, to an empty house that was usually full of banter and laughter. He finds the cake he made Jimmy earlier that day, something he pranked Jimmy with, something they laughed about. It would stay uneaten now. He holds the Pufferish of Peace, a silly little misspelling that was just so Jimmy, one of the last things to remind Scott of him. It's quiet.

The rest of Scott's life was pretty short and miserable. He lost all his lives in pretty quick succession and the whole time after Jimmy died he was "dazed" as Bdubs put it. More violent and reckless than he'd been before (hadn't scott been the one to warn jimmy not to antagonize or get himself in trouble?), more dulled and unfocused than before. And then he died alone.

I think it's important to remember that Scott was widowed, not divorced. Losing Jimmy wasn't a mutual decision, or even something Jimmy asked for. It was sudden and violent and unfair. It broke Scott for the rest of the season. And Scott didn't even get to process it, really, living a short and miserable life and then being thrown into the next season where he was told nothing from before matters.

But it does matter. It festers and hurts and smothers. Not always, and it seems to get less as the seasons go on (or maybe scott just gets better at hiding how much love and grief buries him every time he sees someone he once called a partner), but when there are moments where Scott brings up their marriage, whether he's trying to get Jimmy's attention or being petty toward Jimmy, I feel like we don't analyze it enough through the lens of Scott as a widow.

[gh-0-st-king]

Currently thinking about Aphmau and Laurance and certain lore info...

So we know that Aphmau is either Irene herself that woke up again from that staff or a reincarnation (I'm betting on her actually being Irene who just lost her relic and memories).

And we know Laurance is a shadow knight. And shadow knights gain immortality when they kill their lord.

SO!

Let's say Aphmau is Irene, and gains all of her old powers back when she absorbs the relic. We know Irene lived for a long time, outlived her friends, etc. Now that could be because she spent a lot of time in her dimension where time passes quickly. BUT! Let's just say for my own selfish purposes that not aging is just one of her powers from her relic.

And let's also say that shadow knight immortality works like this: Shadow knights aren't human anymore. We don't exactly know what they are, but it's something otherworldly and the process begins with the shadow knight's human death. So really... would it make sense for them to age?

Now they can definitely die. They only gain true immortality when they kill their lord. But aging? I don't think something otherworldly and inhuman can age. The nether is a strange place where nearly all of the beings there are senseless monsters.

I'm sure y'all have picked up on my line of thinking already.

But what if Laurance never left. What if he stayed loyal to Aphmau for all of those years? After another decade people would start noticing that neither of them are aging. For Laurance it's obvious why, but for Aphmau, it's a new aspect of Irene's power that she's coming to understand.

It drives her to panic. Because as the years pass, her friends start getting older and older. Garroth and Dante soon retire from being guards. Her kids are having children of their own. But she's still the same.

She doesn't want to outlive her friends. But it's out of her hands. The only way to remove a relic from someone is through their death.

But Laurance is still there, still as devoted to her as ever. And she leans on him now more than ever because he still looks the same as the day he came back from the nether. He understands in the way no once else can.

As even more time passes, Aphmau has to give up any leadership position she has because whispers of her not aging are floating around. More people are flocking to see her, calling her Irene, calling her a goddess, wanting her blessings.

But all the attention just shoves the fact that she can't age right in her face. So she leaves.

Most of her and Laurance's friends are elderly now, at least, the ones that didn't go to the Irene dimension all those years ago. And her children are all grown, wrapped up in their own lives. None of them have been spared of the goddess Irene's revival. People bother them daily, trying to figure out where she is, trying to get into contact with her. So really, leaving is the only way to give them peace.

Laurance accompanies her, and they travel to different regions, hoping to gleam some hidden knowledge about the relics. They had tried learning about them before... but then Shad came back in Aaron's body and the whole ordeal had driven her away from finding knowledge about the relics.

More time passes, and it's just the two of them, looking the same as they did when they met a century ago. A forgotten lord and her guard. Only known now as a goddess and her monster.

Aphmau was never the type to indulge in things like love, especially when there were more important matters going on. But with everyone she cared about being long gone aside from Laurance, she finds that she's truly grown to care about him. And truly, he's her only option. He won't age and die like the others. He won't leave.

And hasn't he been here all this time?

She remembers long ago, being ready to accept his affection after the werewolf wedding. But he stopped her, wanting Garroth to have a chance.

Garroth isn't even alive now. They attended his funeral a decade ago.

Perhaps she just wanted things to stay the same? And in her and Laurance's relationship, it had. He's still as flirty as ever, vying for her affection. Perhaps she had fooled herself into thinking it was just an old habit. Perhaps he had begun to believe this was all that he could have with her and was fine with it.

But if there was anyone to love, wouldn't it be him? Wouldn't it be the guard that's been there for her for a century and will be there for more to come?

So one day, when they've traveled back to Phoenix Drop, which is more of a city than a village these days, and are looking back at all of the old structures that Levin's daughter insists of keeping for historic purposes... Aphmau tells him.

She tells Laurance that she loves him. Because she does. He's been there for her for ages now, will always be there for her. And she'll be there for him as well.

Sorry if that got gooey and weird and hard to follow. I'm currently very sleep-deprived, lol.

[gh-0-st-king]

I have a visceral urge to make Tu'la and the meif'wa folk who reside there be this intense war-ridden region.

Constant war, children are raised learning how to use weapons and fight, territories are constantly changing.

This all started because I thought, "hm, cats are really athletic and flexible and kinda dangerous if feral."

Also, this would give KC such a good backstory. She isn't the warrior she was raised to be, she's a magicks user and one who wants a softer life running a bakery. But in Tu'la, that just isn't a possibility for her.

They want her magicks to be used against the enemy clan. They want her to fight, they need the numbers.

But she doesn't want to hurt anyone. Her kindness and compassion is instinctual. So, that's why she leaves Tu'la, has to be smuggled out to cross the border.

Also, this gives her and Dante's relationship an interesting angle. Because she'll randomly comment on some of his techniques, will randomly sneak up on him in the woods, stalking him through the trees just to startle him.

Also, also, this gives the werewolf wedding much darker context. All we were really told was that it was to add Meif'wa blood into their pack, but not why they would want that.

So what if the reason is for a meif'wa's agility and athletic traits? Werewolves are naturally strong, but adding a meif'wa into the mix would really add to their strengths.

Then that leads into a much darker route of Aphmau just being breeding stock because they want meif'wa in their pack, to fight against other packs and claim more territory. They've heard of meif'wa's ruthlessness and eye for battle in Tu'la and they want in on it.

And in turn, this would give Laurance an even better reason to become a monster to save her. It's not just that she's marrying someone other than him, it's that she'll be breeding stock, tortured and locked up if she doesn't comply, her future would be a nightmare.

Anyways... that's my dark take on mcd for the day.

[gh-0-st-king]

YES YES YES I LOVE THEM SM

I 👏 LOVE 👏 THEM 👏

bonus walker and dior picture bc they're giving me the clarisse and percy big sister/little brother vibes we deserve:

[gh-0-st-king]

Reyna: What was it like growing up with Percy? Must be intimidating, considering his natural leadership skills and how dangerously smart he is.

Annabeth: What? No. He's a stupid seaweed brain. He couldn't find his way out of a paper bag without me.

Reyna:

Reyna, sarcastically: Oh yeah totally. Between the two of you it's incredibly clear who's the brains, brawn and the leader.