#ALMOST ANY OLYMPIAN IS MORE INTERESTING

[starfanatic]

“Did you know that Hades was actually not a bad guy?-“

YES I KNOW! I FUCKING KNOW! IM TOLD THIS EVERY FIVE SECONDS!!!! I DONT CARE!!!! EVERYONE KNOWS THIS!!!!!!! HE ISNT A GOOD GUY JUST BC HE DOESNT DO ANYTHING, THAT JUST MEANS HE HAS NO MYTHS!!!! CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT ANOTHER GOD PLEASE?????? HES BEEN SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT EVER SINCE I GOTTEN INTO GREEK MYTHOLOGY IM FUCKING EXHAUSTED!!!! I DONT WANT TO SEE HIM ANYMORE PLEASE-

[themisplaceddemigod]

i'm immortal, i can wait

PJ!Apollo x F!Reader

summary - Apollo has loved you since he first saw you, but he's had to wait several years before he could make such a confession. Especially since you're the child of his scariest uncle, Poseidon.

warnings - Apollo is his own warning. that and his haikus, also i am KEEPING JASON ALIVE in the Trials of Apollo part of this (curse you Rick)

He met you in person when you were fourteen.

Westover Hall, you had been summoned to collect two demigod kids with your brother Percy and friends Annabeth and Thalia. The mission turned sour, Annabeth was kidnapped, and Artemis saved the day before calling him to give you all a lift back to camp.

Both of you could remember how red your face turned when you'd seen him, and he wouldn't tell you but he'd heard you talking about how hot he was with Thalia. It boosted his ego (which quite frankly does not need any more boosting), and he was smug the whole ride.

"Percy, you never told me you had a sister!" He spoke so loudly the whole bus could hear him.

"Um, because we've never met in person?" You brother suggested, a little nervously. Apollo was pretty chill, but that made him even scarier.

The god of the sun just laughed, before turning to look at you. The way his eyes roamed your figure felt less-than-innocent, and your face flushed as you yet again turned a bright shade of red. You couldn't believe the Apollo, the hottest Olympian, was actually staring at you with interest. Like he found you pretty enough to be stared at.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" He smiled flirtatiously, earning some aggressive threats from the Hunters behind you, which he ignored. "Just kidding, I know it already. (Name), right? Pretty name."

You felt as if you might explode. From embarrassment, from being flustered, you didn't know. Maybe he was toying with you, as gods tended to do, but then he looked at you again and genuine interest and attraction glimmered in his stunning blue eyes.

"Thank you, Lord Apollo," you stammered out, unsure of what else to say.

"So shy," he teased, grinning, "Cute. I like you."

Of course, he had to restrain himself from charming you entirely, since you were still a minor. Poseidon would have his head if he touched you at this age, so he decided it was best to wait a few years.

Those few years were full of struggle and pain for you, losing so many friends in the battles with Kronos and then Gaea. Apollo almost intervened just to comfort you several times, but was stopped by his sister convincing him to give you a few more years - and also reminding him that the Olympians could not intervene.

But you grew into such a beautiful, smart, brave woman - and extremely sexy, but he would have to keep that to himself - and Apollo felt lucky to have watched this growth. It made his attraction to you all the more prominent, and he began to feel something he hasn't felt in centuries - genuine. true love.

And it scared him.

His past lovers that he had really, truly loved had both been killed in gruesome ways. He was afraid of what being with him would mean for you, but ultimately decided on getting Poseidon's permission first.

The god of the sea said no.

Then came his trials.

The first demigods he went to were you and Percy, of course. Since he was stuck with an infuriating little girl, he hoped that you might tag along on his perilous journey to make it a little better.

To his delight, you agreed.

"What's so funny?" He demanded when he caught you snickering during a break from all the running.

"You," you laughed, "Never thought the god Apollo would be reduced to an average teenage boy with acne." You laughed even more at that, and he pouted, but enjoyed hearing you laugh nonetheless.

His first sign that you might have a crush on him too came when he mentioned he'd turned some gossipers into ravens just for telling on his previous cheating girlfriend. The mere mention of his ex-girlfriend seemed to irritate you, and Apollo was amused.

Though his turn for jealousy came when he noticed how close you were to Jason Grace. He couldn't do anything, though, so he watched miserably as you got along with the son of Jupiter so well that any outsider would think you were dating.

"What's with the pout, then?" You had asked him when you noticed how upset he looked.

"I am not pouting!"

"Yes you are."

You stepped closer, and your intoxicating scent filled his nostrils. He felt like a schoolboy with a massive crush, just you being that close scrambling his thoughts and making it difficult for him to answer.

"Alright, keep your secrets," you laughed, then walked away, and Apollo was left disappointed.

He was not even going to talk about the whole thing with Reyna. You had suddenly gotten so angry with him after that, you hadn't spoken to him for two days - unless absolutely necessary. It hurt, but he knew you must have been even more hurt by what had been implied.

The end of the trials eventually came and relieved all of you, the defeat of the Triumvirate taking a great weight off the world's - and yours - shoulders. Apollo disappeared after he went to fight Python, and for two weeks you heard no word from him or Olympus.

Then suddenly he was in the middle of camp, spouting the worst haikus you had ever heard in your life. And that was saying something, since all his haikus were pretty terrible.

"Like captured water

You hold me in your cupped hands

I flow on your palm."

Your jaw dropped. That was even worse than you assumed it would be, especially since he chose to center it around the fact that you're a daughter of Poseidon.

"Lord Apollo-"

"See what I did there?" He winked, coming up to you with a cheerful grin. "Did you like it?"

"Well-"

"Fear not! I have another one prepared that is sure to woo you."

Your face flushed, "Please don't say "woo", your kids are listening!"

He was already reciting his next haiku.

"You shatter my sleep

All milk-need and petal lips

You smile and I melt."

You frowned in confusion, "What does that even mean?"

"Aha! See I knew that was the one!"

"I didn't-what?"

He ignored your puzzlement in favour of coming so close to you his overwhelming godly power almost made you pass out.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around for two weeks," he apologised sincerely. "I was in a coma. I swear on the River Styx that it's the truth. But I came here as soon as I woke up, for you." He grinned like that was the best confession he could muster.

"Are you serious?" You breathed out, unable to believe what you were hearing.

"Technically I wanted you when you were fourteen, but that would have come across as creepy apparently," he informed you, "So I had to wait a few years until you turned the right age. That was okay with me, I'm immortal, I can wait."

Your jaw dropped further, "Are you, um-is this-?"

"A love confession? Yes!" He gleefully exclaimed, as if it were perfectly normal for an Olympian to invade camp and profess his love for a demigod.

The entire camp was silent, except for the Aphrodite girls who seemed to be glaring holes into you while trying to curse you - fortunately only the Apollo kids (ironically) had the power to curse a person to speak in rhymes.

"And what did...what did my dad think of this?" You cleared your throat, slightly nervous.

"Oh he was against it at first," Apollo admitted, "BUT he came around. It seems the trials proved a lot more than I thought."

"Well, uh, that's great," you half-smiled, not sure why you felt a sense of dread. This should be the happiest moment of your life.

Apollo's smile faltered, "Do you not-"

"No I do!" You quickly cut him off, sparing him the embarrassment of being rejected in front of a few dozen kids MUCH younger than him. "It's just...you're a god..."

He sighed, "Let's go take a walk."

A few minutes later you were away from prying eyes, sitting by the lake since it always calmed you down. Water soothed you, as cliche as that is for a Poseidon kid.

"I'm just worried," you started after a few minutes of silence, "You know, about all your mortal affairs and having demigod children and all that." You sighed. "I know it's silly. But I just don't think I can go through with it knowing that."

He frowned, but understood, "I can always stop-"

You laughed bitterly, "All the gods promised a woman what. Zeus promised Hera, but there's Jason and Thalia. Poseidon promised Amphitrite, but here Percy, Tyson and I are. It's in your nature, you can't help it."

He felt offended by that, "Yes well, none of them had the displeasure of being turned into mortal for a few months. It changes a god, you know."

You turned to look at him, "Are you really sure about this? That this is what you want? I'm what you want?"

"I've waited for you since you were fourteen," he reminded you, "Of course I'm sure." Despite your reluctance, he took your hand. "Please, just give me a chance."

You thought it over for a moment, before smiling softly, "Fine. You have your chance. But the first mortal affair you have-"

"I won't need them," he smiled, moving closer, "You can have all my children."

Your jaw dropped at his blatant suggestion, a deep blush forming on your cheeks, "Are you crazy?! I can't-"

"You can," he leaned in even closer, "Once I make you immortal."

You started stuttering and stammering just then, uttering some kind of incomprehensible nonsense that the god of the sun just laughed at. He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, before finally leaning in and claiming your lips.

He had waited long enough, now he was going to kiss you every chance he got.

[nydescynt]

Thematic Analysis of Hades II: Why You Can Never Go Home

(At some point I might make a video on this, but for now sharing my thoughts via textpost. Spoilers ahead!)

So the text of the story of Hades and Hades 2 are Zagreus breaking out of the House, and Melinoë breaking in.

But the wild thing (and the reason Hades 2 is much more interesting to me) is that both games actually have almost inverted themes from that text. Zagreus is intent on uniting a household; Melinoë is discovering the home she's fought to return to is rotten to the core.

Zagreus, despite his entire textual goal being to leave his home and family, is narratively & thematically working to bring the family and household together. His mother comes back and is reunited not just with him but her husband, mother, and entire extended family. Achilles and Patrocles, Orpheus and Eurydice, Asterion and Theseus: Hades is a story of people metaphorically coming home and making peace with where they are (Sisyphus, Thanatos, Orpheus). Everyone basically gets a happy ending, credits roll, problems all resolved or en route to be solved. Everyone is home.

(Important to note: we never see a human in the first game. We see shades, and gods, and monsters, and the closest you get to a mortal living thing is the satyrs. This is a story concerned with the realm of the gods.)

In contrast, Melinoë has no home - besides being estranged from her childhood home, she literally lives in a tent. In case the theme was too subtle, presumably.

Now, she has been fighting her entire life to become powerful enough to return home and reclaim her family - that seems Zagreus-adjacent on its face. However, there isn't a home to return to- Hades is in shackles, the rest of her family trapped in time. At this point in Early Access, on both a metatextual & diegetic level she quite literally can neither make it to Mt Olympus or into Zagreus' room - she cannot go home, she cannot meet her family.

Consider the others: Odysseus' presence seems to tie into the idea of a long journey home, but this is an Odysseus who lived and died and now has other (inhuman) priorities. He loves them, but has no interest in reuniting with Penelope and Telemachus at this point. Nemesis dislikes her siblings, and is more concerned with the equal application of "justice" than whether it has any reforming effect. Narcissus and Echo eventually talk and part more amicably, but that's the best that can be said about their relationship.

Hecate refuses to be called Melinoë's mother: she will not distract from the "true" family that Melinoë has no memory of ever meeting.

Instead of Ares and Dionysus (enjoyers of chaos and least affected by the toxicity of the family in Hades 1) we have Hestia and Hephaestaus- a goddess who helped murder her father and a god constantly belittled by his own family. Their tense and frequently bitter interactions with the other Olympians are evocative of the central theme being explored: what if there isn't a home to go back to? What if your family is unforgivable? (What if you want to forgive them anyways? What if you need to?)

This theme is why Arachne is in the game, and Athena is not: likeable, first-helper-of-Zagreus Athena turned Arachne into a spider out of petty anger. How do you reconcile that?

Moros (lovely, kind Moros, who gushes at Odysseus like a fanboy) and his sisters the Fates did horrible things to mortals out of boredom. The same mortals whose bodies you can see stacked up like cordwood in Ephyra, who you repeatedly claim you are fighting to protect from Chronos. Moros can neither confirm nor deny that the current events could have been set in motion by the Fates. How do you reconcile that?

Polyphemus raises sheep. He genuinely loves and cares for them, is protective of them. He also eats them, and is confused when Melinoë implies a contradiction.

How can you love someone and be willing to kill them? For survival? For fleeting satisfaction? For vengeance?

Is Chronos' willingness to eat his children so morally heinous that it makes him worse than every cruelty the gods have wrought? Worse for who?

[punkeropercyjackson]

Ultimately the reason Percabeth is such horrifically bad ship yet gets praised so much is that while Percy and Annabeth canonically love eachother,they also canonically don't like eachother LMAO.Percy's constantly wishing Annabeth was extremely different than who she actually is because he finds her unbearable and hard to be around and finds escapism in being around people who're unlike her with the biggest example being him having been in love with Rachel before they settled into still close exes

There's also his friendships with the Grace Sibs,Thalia had infinitely better progress with him in TTC than Annabeth has in the entire saga and he admires her a lot more too and it's a running theme that Jason is Annabeth's opposite and Percy became instant best friends with him upon first meeting and all three of their first meetings are more charming and unique than Percy saying his type is princess-y girls in his narration but Annabeth hating being seen as one because she's gnc and 'You drool when you sleep'.I also think if anybody is Percy's cosmically intertwined soulmate it's not any s/os but Nico and Hazel and by that i mean in a found siblings with him also being their pseudo-parent way.All their dynamics are interesting and richen their characters and they're from different time periods which only adds to how special their bond is

And on Annabeth's end.......She kinda straight up hates his existense.She's always talking about how stupid he is and that he's useless without her and i get that Rick tried to sell it as affectionate teasing but she's angered by it so often it's obvious it's just Rick being a cishet nt white old man.She gets angered by finding him attractive too?????This trope can be good but Percy never actually does anything,he's literally just existing and that includes not actively pursuing her back since he dosen't want her even half as much as she thinks she wants him.It's rare compared to her mean-spirited comments he explicitly never consented to and finds unnecessary and one of the many thing's he wishes she wasn't and he never returns her physical assaults so 'they're demigods and it's normal!' excuse dosen't add up

Yeah,they're dating in canon and gonna get married.Percy's also gonna not only go to college but a demigod college when again and again and AGAIN he says he dosen't want to be a half-blood and he's only going so he can live out a traditional lifestyle with Annabeth so so much for 'his thether to his mortal side' i guess.Annabeth never got any shit from Poseidon like Percy did Athena or terrorizing like Aphrodite does everybody else she talks to and Percy was forced to narratively forgive Luke,again,only because of Annabeth when he groomed him for a bit and abused him tons too and it's so vile to gaslight us into thinking Luke was anything but a serial pedophile and beyond far right to Percy's lifelong outcasthood and anarchy and Annabeth as a direct victim of his sick sexual 'interests' in plausible deniability font due to being a pg series.Percabeth is the peak cishet romance norms taken up to 12 like the Olympians and it's embarrasingly obvious nobody saying they're t4t has ever been in a transmasc4transfem relathionship

That's why this moment is so fucking depressing.She knows him and she dosen't like any of what he is and he dosen't say it outloud because he's scared of the truth,that he ended up with the wrong person,that he fucked up again and she's hollower whenever she's around him because she exists FOR him and for almost nothing else.They weren't eachother's choice,they were eachother's destiny decided by everyone but themselves.This fucks up my autistic ass so much man,no wonder i only ever liked that lesbian!Percabeth au with transfemme Percy and butch Annabeth that was popular when i was a kid,that's deadass the only way you can make it work,they'd need an entire rehaul but at this point i don't care to try because the shippers don't deserve it after how demonic they've been since the 2000s.Percabeth was never a good ship,you were just a tween

[jellyfishsthings]

Thank you for all the requests, please send more they are so fun to write. I have almost finished them but from now on I will have tons of extra free time so sent me prompts or story ideas... I write fluff, angst and smut

Also I have been toying with the idea of writing a theseus scamander story (probably on wattpad and AO3) please tell me if you are interested ... or a oneshot . Plus I have recently released a short zutara story in my accounts on Wattpad and AO3, if you are interested check it out... (you can find them in the link on my bio)

CHARACTERS I WRITE FOR: pretty much all Hatty Potter characters from any era, Star Wars, Five Hargreeves, Tyler Galpin, maybe Formula drivers and possibly more ... and book characters from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Heroes of Olympus, The Shadowhunter Chronicles and many more ... SPENCER REID or hotch ...

Lastly if anyone wants to be on my TAGLIST please leave a comment or message ...

[jedirevan224]

An Unacknowledged Foundation

A paper on Liper, because I had thoughts lol

If you’ve been a part of the Percy Jackson fandom for long, or even observed it from the outside, you’re probably aware that the shipping side of the fandom gets pretty intense and opinionated. Some ships are reasonable, but many are not, especially considering the context of the books. Whether it is a fan favorite like Percy and Annabeth, or an obscure ship with no basis like Thalia and Grover, each of these ships generally appears to have the fan base due to it when looking at canon content and existing–or even hypothesized–chemistry. All except one. One of the least popular ships I am aware of in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians fandom is that of Leo and Piper, commonly known as “Liper”. Despite their frequent and close interactions throughout both the Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo series, they are overwhelmingly seen only as friends, or siblings. When thinking about their relationship and bringing it to a real-world line of thought, questions are raised about whether Leo and Piper’s relationship is truly as platonic as the fandom, and even the author himself, chooses to see it. 

Shall we get into it? Well, let’s start from the source. As described within Riordan’s multiple series, Leo and Piper have one of the closest friendships explored. Certainly, the author builds them as the closest platonic male-female relationship. Their unique origins as the only known unrelated half-bloods to become friends before knowing the truth about themselves adds even more meaning to this. Throughout the quest, it becomes clear that Leo is closest to Piper out of all of the others, and he looks at her differently than any other girl he’s shown interacting with. Piper notices and thinks about Leo in times that others do not and shows him affection that makes the author’s efforts to show a platonic relationship feel contrived. When you look at the culmination of their friendship in Trials of Apollo, all these little things start to add up to look like something deeper.

From the beginning, it is clear that Leo and Piper were friends before Jason ever came into the picture. In Jason’s first hour after waking up on the Wilderness School bus, and even later, it is Leo who is filling him in on who Piper really is: The fact she stole a car and how she did it (TLH pg. 5), she likes to fight her own battles (TLH pg. 11), and that her dad is Tristan Mclean (TLH pg. 193). When Leo meets almost any other female character, his interest in them is sparked only by their beauty or some surface aspect of their personality. Oftentimes, this personality that he is attracted to is harsh and entirely uninterested in him, which is indicative of a deeper insecurity in Leo rather than a true affection. For example, Leo states he is in love with Khione, the ice princess, after she looks at him without any friendliness (TLH pg. 208). When he meets Calypso, Leo becomes more interested in her because of her willingness to get her hands dirty, showing she wasn’t as shallow as other girls he’d met (HoH pg. 375). But such a surface trait is not a basis for true feelings, and her behavior towards him as time goes on remains primarily harsh, remaining consistent with Leo’s type: women who are–in his mind–out of his league, and unkind, or even abusive to him. This is a realistic and consistent portrayal of Leo by Riordan, which he continues to show in the Trials of Apollo. In Hazel’s case, Leo refers to her appearance as “first-rate craftsmanship” (BoO pg. 103). 

These descriptions contrast to when Leo thinks of Piper. He’s not so concerned with how she looks, and is close to her and feels comfortable around her because they’re friends beyond the surface level that Leo experiences towards most other female characters. He observes in one scene how Piper has grown, not just in a physical sense, but in her presence (TLH pg. 485). In an even more impactful line in a later book, Leo mentions that he wishes Piper were there because her presence made him feel calm, which he needed after a night of bad dreams (HoH pg. 67). On their first adventure, Leo thinks after comforting Piper about her father that he felt like he was “relaxing comfortably with a friend” (TLH pg. 487). Later on in the books, Leo has particular concern over never seeing Piper again, and later misleads her into believing she had the cure because he knows its the only way he’ll be able to follow through with his plan to sacrifice himself (BoO pg. 330, pg. 349-350). Though all this could be interpreted merely as close, platonic feelings Leo has for a friend, him flirting with Piper on two occasions does make this seem unlikely (TLH pg. 372, HoH pg. 322). Considering this all together, it is clear that even in the context of friendship, Leo cares deeply for Piper in a way that is unique from any other character. If that was the end of the story, then I wouldn’t have much to say. Yet from the beginning, Piper’s friendship with Leo is as deep as his with her, even if she seems less aware of the fact herself. 

On the surface, Piper’s interactions with Leo seem very platonic and friendly–until you start to add it all up and compare her behavior towards him to other characters. Piper is often the first to notice or react to Leo when others don’t. When he appears on his metal dragon for the first time, Piper is the first to call out to him, and while the campers around her are calling Festus dangerous, Piper calls him beautiful (TLH pg. 186-187). Considering the importance of Festus to Leo, that is significant. Later, when nearly every member of the seven is doubtful of Leo, Piper never is, even in spite of Jason’s injury (MoA pg. 60). There are many other instances where Piper notices Leo: his appearance, his physical state, or his emotions. In the Lost Hero, Piper notices that Leo had been up all night and convinces him to go to sleep (TLH pg. 197). Later on, Piper notices Leo’s sour mood and its effect on Festus, when Jason is oblivious (TLH pg. 230). In the last book, Leo observes that “Piper was a little too good at knowing when he was lying” (BoO pg. 86). In other words, Piper pays attention to him. She knows him. These are only a few examples out of many that can be found in the books. 

But not only is she mentally close to Leo, giving him careful attention, Piper is physically close to Leo on many occasions. Although the gesture is mentioned on numerous occasions to be “sisterly”, the number of times that Piper kisses Leo on the cheek or embraces him, and the feelings portrayed in each instance, does not feel comparable to the singular time that Hazel does the same to Leo. When Leo returns with Hazel and Frank from their visit with the ichthyocentaurs, in addition to her insane reaction jumping into the water, Piper kisses Leo on the cheek. In this sequence, she does not pay much attention to Frank and Hazel, both of whom are her friends who have returned from the same danger. This makes the interaction feel quite romantic in nature (MoA pg. 306). When Leo returns from Calypso’s island, Piper nearly knocks him out of his chair in an embrace, and later patted his arm in a reassuring gesture that he was really with them (HoH pg. 443, 445). Later, when Leo activates the Archimedes sphere that is connected to the Argo II to control the grabber arm connected to the ship, Piper is standing beside him at the monitor, and kisses him on the cheek while congratulating him (BoO pg. 330). When she does this, Jason, her boyfriend, is flying around to yell guidance for Leo’s movement of the grabber arm. Though it is one thing to kiss a friend in a dangerous and adrenaline inducing situation, it’s curious to call it platonic in such a comparatively safe and calm environment. In Mark of Athena, there’s a moment where Piper observes Percy give Annabeth a kiss on the cheek, and Piper states that “they were so easy together, it made her heart ache” (pg. 117). But earlier on in the same book, Piper had a similar moment with Leo, which she does not acknowledge (pg. 306). Keeping in mind that Riordan is from a different generation, some of this behavior could be more expected than in current times, but the consistency of it is too much for this to explain. 

Even when kissing isn’t involved, Piper reacts with incredible emotion whenever Leo is in a dangerous situation. In The Lost Hero, Piper screams when she sees Leo enveloped in fire for the first time (TLH pg. 267). Later on, she is devastated when Leo is banished to Calypso’s island by Khione, and unable to bear the thought of not seeing him again (HoH pg. 326, 332). In the midst of these emotions, Piper is able to awaken Festus with her voice (HoH pg. 333). When he dies, Piper reacts very strongly and refuses to believe he’s truly dead (BoO pg. 473, 493, 495). While these are all understandable reactions to a friend being in danger, Piper’s reactions are often emphasized in the absence of Leo’s other friends' reactions. Taken together, the amount of attention Piper pays Leo and the emotion she has for him throughout the series makes it clear that she cares for him an incredible amount, perhaps more than should be expected from platonic friends. 

Piper and Leo’s relationship grows and strengthens throughout the Heroes of Olympus series, but because of the tight timeline towards the end of the story, the true culmination of their friendship can only be seen in their reunion and thoughts of each other throughout the Trials of Apollo. In The Dark Prophecy, the first time Leo mentions Piper is in a particular conversation with Apollo. In this exchange, Leo comments that he would like the recipe of their tofu enchiladas to give to Piper. Then, just after this, Apollo questions how Leo can be so calm when Apollo and Calypso, Leo’s girlfriend, are about to go on a dangerous quest. Leo continues to look at his tofu, which he has just associated with Piper (TDP pg. 93-94). When Piper first encounters Meg and Apollo, Apollo tells her of their adventures and mentions their encounter with Leo, Piper is aggressively ecstatic to hear that he’s alive and demands to hear everything about him (TBM pg. 118). This is an understandable reaction to hearing a friend is really alive, but in comparison only a very few, brief lines are given to Jason’s reaction (TBM pg. 205). Then, in the events of the novel, Jason tragically dies at the hand of Caligula. Piper and Leo reunite, what should have been a joyous moment overshadowed by the reality of Jason’s death (TBM pg. 414). When Leo questions the group about Jason, Piper is said to have “[broken] down. She fell against Leo and sobbed the story until he, thunderstruck, red-eyed, hugged her back and buried his face in her neck” (TBM pg. 415). This interaction, though driven by grief, is nothing short of intimate. The closeness they show as they seek consolation from each other makes it clear the time apart and distance from each other has not impacted the depth of their feelings for each other–be those platonic, or otherwise. 

This same scene leads into the last canonical interactions between Leo and Piper. Despite promising Calypso that he would be able to travel swiftly and would be back before long–when she was clearly displeased at the prospect of him leaving at all–(TDP pg. 391), Leo commits fully to escorting Piper, Tristan Mclean, Coach Hedge, and Mellie back to Oklahoma with his dragon (TBM pg. 416). This is an excursion that would add at least a week to his journey, up to as many as three weeks. It would not be amiss to add that, while the adults will be in the yellow Pinto car with the baby, the chances are not low that in this journey, Piper will be flying on the back of Festus with Leo. That is a significant amount of time to spend in close proximity to a teenager of the opposite gender, and expect feelings to still be platonic, assuming they were before they left. When Piper realizes how far away Leo will be settled from her, her “smile was as faint as fog” (TBM pg. 417). Although she is trying to show happiness for her friend, it is clear that the reality of being separated is not one she is ready to accept. Nor should she be; Leo is a close friend who has just returned from the dead at the same time as their mutual friend has fallen, the only friend she has left who’s been with her since the beginning. Finally, Apollo and Meg leave, and Apollo reflects as he looks back that “Piper and Leo, Coach and Mellie” (TBM pg. 417) were preparing for their journey. The imagery, pairing the young couple with the old, along with the emotions and attachment depicted throughout this whole sequence, make it feel unreal how we see Leo and Piper in the end of the series. Leo awaits the return of Calypso–who he’s increasingly unsure of–from band camp, and Piper is seen dating a mortal girl she cannot have known for longer than a few months. 

These narrative decisions for the end of Leo and Piper’s friendship arc, and their own respective romance arcs, are so concerning, and–in Piper’s case–unrealistic, that it is important to take a look at the bigger picture and to truly consider what it means for each character and what the author intends behind these choices. Looking at the bigger context of the narrative in the books and considering what is shown versus what is told throughout the stories brings into question what is actually being portrayed through Leo and Piper. To understand the contrast between Leo and Piper’s relationship, and the romantic relationships depicted by Riordan, it is important to explore what a healthy relationship looks like in real life. On a more concerning note, looking at these things brings into better light a stark disparity between the amount of interactions Leo and Piper have and the amount of support their ship receives, in contrast to almost every other Percy Jackson ship and similar relationships in other fandoms.

When writing a story, what matters more than what is said is what is shown, especially concerning relationships and dynamics.  Within Riordan’s series, he makes significant narrative decisions that show quite plainly Leo and Piper’s connection–without ever acknowledging it. When Hera, goddess of marriage, is imprisoned, it is Leo and Piper who must open it together. Later, when Piper is reflecting on the history of the snake song she is singing, it is said that the man who sung it in the legend had to sacrifice his wife for the power. It is Leo who is sacrificed. Additionally, the comparison between Leo and Piper and Beckendorf and Silena is too impactful not to mention. When Leo and Piper first arrive at camp, they both immediately feel the loss of the former cabin counselors when they join their cabins, and have to go through the journey of overcoming that history, be that one of heroism or notoriety. Considering the background, but sweet relationship between Silena and Beckendorf, Leo and Piper stepping up to fill those shoes together feels like the natural symbolic conclusion to the love story that couldn’t be finished. If the author had not included several lines to enforce the nature of their dynamic such as, “Are you kidding? You’re like the annoying little brother I never had. Of course I’ll stick up for you,” (It should be noted that Leo and Piper are only one month apart in age), and “Well, sisterly pecks on the cheek from Piper, but that didn’t count,” then their relationship and dynamic would absolutely come off as romantic. Even with those author signals, the lack of clear acknowledgment of the potential by Leo or Piper feels unnatural and out of character because the author has so clearly outlined what should naturally lead into a romantic relationship.  In fact, it could be said that if Leo and Piper were eventually meant to end up together, then Riordan is far more of a literary genius than I’ve ever given him credit for. But as it stands, the canon seems set in the relationships Riordan has chosen to establish within Trials of Apollo. 

The romantic relationships chosen by the author to depict and spend time within his series are often problematic, and those problems are often not addressed, or addressed incorrectly. Leo’s relationship with Calypso is toxic and even abusive. Piper’s relationship with Shel is spontaneous, out of character, and has no basis. Even her relationship with Jason felt stiff and uncertain for the majority of the time. Though this brought conflict and realism to the story, it brings questions about what direction should have been taken when contrasted with Leo and Piper’s easy dynamic and trust in each other. To answer this more clearly, we must understand what a true foundation for a healthy, loving relationship looks like. It can be agreed that those who are in love will be more patient with each other, kind, humble, want the best for the other, slow to get mad, quick to forgive, protective, trusting, and persevering. Such a state doesn’t just appear. Love doesn’t come with the butterflies in the stomach when you meet someone, but when you turn around and realize that they’ve been with you through everything and never left your side. That’s love. In this context, two scenes come to mind. When Piper’s father has just been recovered and she is worried and fearful about him, Leo is there to comfort and support her (TLH pg. 487). As was previously described, when Leo succeeds at making his long labored project work, Piper is there beside him, congratulating him and encouraging him, in addition to the kiss (BoO pg. 330). Then, finally, they comfort each other over Jason’s death in a way that no one else could have (TBM pg. 415). This is not to say Leo and Piper always show love to each other, but have the emotion and background that easily could become that. 

Throughout the book and the fandom, the consensus on Leo and Piper’s relationship is that they have a purely platonic, sibling dynamic. But if the facts are truly faced, that is simply an inaccurate description. Consider a friend you have of the opposite gender; can you imagine interacting with them the same way Piper and Leo interact? If so, how would your significant other feel about it, or vice versa if you were the one watching? Unless you are accepting of the idea of your partner being with someone else, then it is probable that the idea is uncomfortable at best. To give a better idea of true platonic friendships in Percy Jackson, consider Thalia and Percy or Reyna and Nico. These dynamics are what an actual platonic, “sibling” dynamic looks like. In fact, I applaud the author for encompassing this so well in these cases. But since it can be done, it calls into question what went awry when writing Leo and Piper. What if they were actually siblings? Or what if Leo was much younger than Piper and Jason? Or Piper older? These are just a few concepts that could have aided in creating the dynamic the author seemed to intend without this confusing and misleading portrayal of a simple, friendly relationship. This is not to say that Leo and Piper’s interactions are equivalent to teens in an active relationship, but as clearly having feelings for each other, albeit unacknowledged, and having a strong basis for their friendship to evolve into a romantic relationship as strong and likely to last as Percy and Annabeth themselves. 

Keeping all this in mind, it would be expected that fictional characters with such a strong foundation for a canonical relationship to evolve would have a strong base of fans who ship them. This is, insanely, not the case. Out of the 51,552 works of fanfiction on AO3 as of this writing, only 175 are tagged with Piper Mclean/Leo Valdez, which makes up 0.34% of the total number of fics. This does not account for the times that they are tagged in larger fics where they are not truly the relationship being depicted. To contrast, there are 1,021 fics tagged with Jason Grace/Leo Valdez, which makes up 2% of the total number of fics. This, somehow, people ship significantly more even though the canon basis for Jason and Leo’s relationship is mainly feeling secondary to and jealous of each other, with very few instances showing this supposed friendship. As far as content, there are only a handful of pieces by artists who’ve been able to get their work out for the very few existing shippers of Leo and Piper. To understand how unusual this is, we’re going to go for a moment to the Harry Potter fandom. Out of 492,200 total number of fics, Hermione and Harry, a similar close, platonic friendship, are tagged as a ship in 8,159 fics, which is 1.7%. This is a much larger percentage, though their relationship is not shown to be as close or intimate as Leo and Piper’s*. Going to yet another fandom, Rex and Ahsoka–another platonic friendship closer to a “coworker” dynamic–from Star Wars: The Clone Wars are tagged as a ship in 1,518 out of 53,309 fics for this media type, which is 2.8%. Out of ALL Star Wars media types, Rex and Ahsoka are shipped 0.7% of the time, which is still higher than Leo and Piper, despite having many more challenges and moral quandaries about their relationship than them. With these comparisons, the numbers become nothing short of concerning. 

*I have not read Harry Potter, so it is merely an assumption based on what I’ve seen of Harry and Hermione. Maybe they have a similarly close friendship.

There are many possibilities why a fandom would have such low numbers for a ship in comparison to other fandoms, but a lot of it boils down to the author and his intentions. Although there is clearly a strong, healthy foundation for a romantic relationship through the dynamic Riordan shows and the larger narrative images, he does not name it as such. With a younger audience of fans, they do not or cannot look deeper than what is written, and overwhelmingly take the surface dynamic signaled as the ultimate truth. On a more concerning note, this perception follows to accept multiple toxic, dangerous relationships Riordan writes into his novels without clearly painting them as such, or warning young readers from believing in these poor examples. While this could be passed off as a simple error and misunderstanding of how to write platonic male/female friendships, the fact that he succeeds in other places makes this unlikely.

To conclude, when looking at the canon basis for Leo and Piper and the conclusion of their relationship into the Trials of Apollo series, it is clear that their dynamic was into the narrative in a way that can be seen as near-romantic despite being stated to be that of merely friends, and the effect of these signaled dynamics has skewed the impressions of the fandom to be overwhelmingly against the ship. It must be noted that the shipping sides of fandom can get crazy and out of the blue. Not liking a ship, even if it does have a strong basis or is canon, is entirely fair and understandable. However, it is expected that the number of shippers will reflect the basis for a ship. Characters who have close, intimate moments with each other, even if they don’t have a canon relationship, often have this chemistry and potential played up in the fandom. This is far from the case for Leo and Piper. 

What does this mean? Let’s think about it. Riordan is an extremely talented writer. It seems unlikely that he could’ve written such an underlying dynamic unintentionally, even explaining away each and every one of the interactions or narrative decisions, which would be a stretch. Such a talented, intelligent person however, also has agendas. These agendas he has chosen to pursue in his writing over truly good storytelling, and as a result, intentionally, or unintentionally, shows through his stories consistent wrong representations of relationships, that impact the thoughts and opinions of the young audiences that read them. In the worst cases, bad behaviors are encouraged and understanding of what true love and healthy relationships are is broken. (Would you want a partner who treats you the way Piper treats Leo, or the way Calypso treats Leo? Or, on the other hand, would you want to date someone you just met, like Shel, or someone who’s been with you through everything, like Leo?) Not only Riordan, but almost all writers have an agenda of some kind that impacts the stories they tell. Some agendas are good, others are bad, some are straight up nefarious. When you read something on a page, don’t take it for granted. Not even this paper. There is a person behind those words with opinions and agendas, and if you aren’t careful you may be led into believing or condoning something that would otherwise have seemed unthinkable, or misunderstanding something that would in reality be clear as day. Leo and Piper may not be a canon relationship, but the foundation for it is as real as it is unacknowledged.  If you made it through that whole thing, thanks for reading! *Cup of tea* for you, as a present.

[supernaturallyliterate]

Okay I know I’m late but I just watched PJO episode 7!

SPOILERS FOR SHOW AND BOOKS AHEAD

We get so much more Sally POV!! I am here for it honestly

The fact that Poseidon showed up for Sally when she prayed to him?! MAN this is a change I can stand by. It shows so much more depth to Poseidon’s character, shows that he is fully aware of how much his family sucks but that he is still bound by its rules. He is still powerless to stand up to the norms of Olympus. He knows he can’t interfere in Percy’s life because it would be 1. Acknowledging that he’s his son and 2. Would make him a target for an insta kill like Zeus killed Maria Di Angelo & tried to kill Bianca and Nico. Don’t tell me Poseidon didn’t know about that.

The RAGE on Percy’s face in the preview during his fight with Ares! YES. GIVE ME FERAL PERCY.

The little scene preview of Luke clapping Percy on the back during the foreworks JDKDKDKFKRK BOOK READERS Y’ALL KNOW WHATS COMING

I am really interested in the moment on the Fields of Asphodel when Annabeth gets rooted to the ground by regret. This is a significant change from the books and honestly I liked this one too. Especially Annabeth’s line, “I trust your dad.” If you noticed, she calls Athena, “mother” but she calls Poseidon Percy’s “dad.” It is doing so much set up with just two simple words.

But also! What is she rooted by? Regret for Thalia’s death? She was six! Regret for Percy getting turned into gold? He did that shit intentionally. Honestly there’s so much that baby Annabeth could be regretting but I think it’s Thalia’s death. Especially because she’s seeing what happens after death here. So she can’t help but imagine her friend Thalia. Being turned into a tree in life. To prevent her from… being turned into a tree, only in death.

And of course there’s Elysium and rebirth and the fields of punishment. But most people go to the fields of Asphodel.

The change of the Fields of Asphodel having people wander around aimlessly to being turned into trees rooted to the ground unmoving is interesting. It felt a little like an intentional parallel to Thalia. But I wonder if it’s based in any Greek myth lore

Grover being eaten by Cerberus not gonna lie I was worried about our resident goat boy!! But it makes sense for him to be the one to lose his pearl. Even though it also could’ve worked with Annabeth

Not gonna lie I was a little disappointed that Annabeth wasn’t the one to almost fall into Tartarus instead of Grover. That would’ve been an AMAZING parallel to the fall into Tartarus later in the series. Heroes of Olympus.

Hades is characterized a little differently. More friendly? More animated? Lmao lively. He gives queer or metrosexual energy. He still has his unbothered attitude about the godly affairs which sets him apart from other Olympians

CRUSTY’S. Okay. I was excited that they included the scene with Crusty. But again, I felt like it was another moment of “Percy knows too much”. He immediately knew who Crusty was, I assume because Hermes told him. He knew how the bed trap worked. He knew about the secret passage to the underworld. I just. I don’t like how the series just GIVES Percy and the trio so much information or they just HAVE it. It’s one of my biggest critiques of the show. Give me clueless Percy asking Annabeth who someone is from Greek myths. Give me Annabeth’s AHA moment when she remembers a Greek myth and puts in context with their situation. I wanna see the trio being so fucking confused and have to work to figure out who they’re up against.

Even Percy realizing that it’s Kronos in his dreams! It felt like something mundane and not a big revelation.

I like the gold percy and gold Sally Jackson parallel. That was good.

I’m so excited to see Percy kick so God of War ass (well, ankle) next episode!

I have more thoughts but have these ones for now

[hermesgoestojuvie]

do you have any permes hcs or fic ideas?

oh anon u have no idea what you've unleashed. the permes fic ideas are all i have some days, alas, im not that accomplished at the whole idea to words transition as i wish i was. i'll go into a few more concrete ones under the read more

Quick note: So like. All the things I plan to write happen when he’s 18+. and there's no sibling or parent incest. (bringing that up cause i got an. interesting dm once.) So this is just a quick disclaimer of sorts. And I’m not hating on anyone who wants to write or read something dark! I mean for instance I have a time travel Percy/Hermes brainworm that is considered dark and probably not what a lot of people want to read, so i'll tag it as such.

The One Where There is a War

Explained a little more in detail here but I have no problem talking a little about it again. It was inspired by this one perpollo fic that I'm still looking for so I can link it, bc trust me, it is GOOD. (edit: FOUND IT!!!! HERE it’s by @ghost-bxrd)The premise of that fic was a war between the gods and demigods, and my fic is meant to draw from that as well as some elements from Lore by Alexandra Bracken. It takes place post-second Giant war, but I'm toying with the idea of having the war and all related events, like gaea's rising, happen when percy is maybe 19-20? I'm not sure yet though. I might keep the timeline as is instead. For now, just know that it is post-second giant war.

Anyways, the premise is the new war the demigods have waged on the gods, when Percy, already a conflicted party to the war, comes across an injured Hermes when he is separated from his group of scouts.

2. Warning: Untitled For Now But It Is The Dark!Hermes One

you ever read child surprise by aphroditesfavorite or the breezeblocks series by violetmoreviolent?

Both are perpollo, and while I've not caught up to child surprise (i'm two chapters in, its been in my marked for later for a while, and ive had the tab open for ages, i just keep getting distracted lol) i know that it does deal with a time-travel trope, with percy, post-second giant and titan wars, waking up in the past, the day athena and poseidon compete over athens.

from what i hear, where child surprise is perpollo, there is a dark, forcecful hermes scene, which is absolutely not meant to be shippy btw! i heard from a friend who has gotten farther than me that the aphroditesfavorite has also stated that the shippy comments received about that hermes scene has made them uncomfortable so like, dont go reading it for that guys please.

breezeblocks meanwhile has a take on dark!apollo, a more ancient apollo, in a way. an apollo that you remember IS an olympian and all that may entail. i actually have caught up with the latest updates, and it takes place in the present. i dont want to go spoiling, but I will say that like, the way its all unraveling and unfolding is just so interesting, im high key invested.

@ashilrak and @mrthology have also written an absolutely heartbreaking, gutwrenching, exceptionally glorious banger of a fic, HAUNT ME, THEN- that also really captures the otherness and ancient, almost older, aspect of the olympians.

anyways, the reason i bring these fics up is because i just really love the idea that percy was born from the sea, while also acknowledging that one of my favorite parts of the whole book series in the first place is percy's connection to mortality and to his mother. reading child surprise really was root of a lot of ideas of percy emerging from the saltwater fountain in athens at the time of poseidon and athena's competition, with the idea that the trip to the past coincides with unwanted percy's ascension. it is not the birth of percy jackson the demigod, but in half, percy jackson the deity (the other half near coming to fruition in tartarus before he forced himself to stop.)

all that^ was just a very long way to say, this fic, im not sure WHAT it is yet, or where the direction its going in is, but we have established permes in the modern era, the time slipping happens when percy is struggling with keeping his impending ascension at bay, and then percy deals with a hermes at his like. prime? if thats the word. having to reconcile that with the softer versions they know later.

3. The One I've Been Struggling With

i'm just gonna copy/paste some stuff from my outline, like just the first two pages. this is the most concrete fic wip i have lmao. its all very rambly bc thats how the process goes for me so sorry abt that! anyways, starts below:-

an au that is not modern times, but perhaps in the past? Ancient Greek times? So more “ancient greek minded hermes.” Or if you think there is a better alternative, that would work too, I’m all ears. Trickster god Hermes (which he is) and minor immortal(?) Percy.

i dont know what percy's situation is yet. need to figure that out

i was looking at a comic and thought, trickster god Hermes would definitely pull something like this on Percy. And then I thought, what if, trickster god Hermes, sees this one man (Percy) and falls in love with him. But this man seems to pine for a woman who doesn’t love him back, and so Hermes takes her shape. (I don’t know who this woman would be. Annabeth? It could be her, but I also love the bond Percy and Annabath have in general, she and him are incredible friends. Rachel? I loved her friendship with Percy too.)

Anyways, Hermes taking their shape made me laugh a bit because wow Percy is getting catfished by a god. And then I was like WHAT IF- Percy himself is a minor immortal like. A young nymph-ish type. A prince of Atlantis? A demigod turned prince of Atlantis? I am not sure what he is, but, I am going to use nymph as a placeholder until I figure this out. 

So sure, Percy is immortal, newly or otherwise, but he’s young and still not fully like, aware (I don’t know if that's the right word) about what it means to be immortal because he literally was born 20 years ago, which is normal mortal young man age. And Percy is like, “I’m as old as them and I want to live as them. I was them.”

His father is protective of course, he is aware of the way of the gods and how they chase pretty people. Poseidon warned him about gods, how they come and go, how he should never fall for one because loving one usually ends in tragedy or heartbreak- that to them hearts are easily won by tricks and discarded as easily. (Thinking again: mortal Percy turned immortal by marrying/mating with Hermes? Except, then I thought, Poseidon wants Percy to be immortal–if he thought Hermes showing interest and Percy reciprocating would allow for Percy to choose to be immortal he would probably begrudgingly allow it. So then….immortal Percy? Need to think)

The big Hermes reveal is when Percy is attacked or injured, or some other god shows up, and Hermes saves him but reveals his true form in the process. 

BACK TO THE PLOT!!!

Hermes was like, I will have this nymph, and that is FINAL. And Percy is kind even though he is not necessarily always NICE, (it may be ancient greek but new yorker percy is timeless) he's sweet and cares so much. he’s a hero and so loyal. he's brave and mischievous and genuinely good, and Hermes is just. Blown away, by the way Percy loves, so deep and it consumes you, to be the one Percy cares for, Hermes thinks there is no feeling like it.

Hermes tells himself that Percy can't possibly be deserving of mortal love. So what if golden haired Annabeth (placeholder for now, still dont know if we're going the annabeth route?) is a warrior who can run like the deer and loves the very woods Percy does. No, he needs a god's adoration, a force to be reckoned with at his beck and call to fulfill his every whim the way Percy himself makes others feel. If people would be loved the way Percy loves, everyone would be a god. 

I am laughing at Hermes taking the shape of Annabeth while talking to Percy, but also using the moment to talk up Hermes. Like if Percy is in his starry eyed about Annabeth phase, Annabeth wanting to have a sit down would be so exciting for him, and Hermes as Annabeth would be petty enough to be like lemme proselytize about myself, “have you heard of the great wonderful god Hermes?”

Percy being like, “Yeah my dad tells me every day, stay away from these people and then gives me a list of gods, why?”

Hermes immediately pissy

Percy is still talking, “so yeah Hermes is on the list too- why, Annabeth? Did something happen? you look...not well. Are you sick?”

Hermes, through gritted teeth, “with all due respect to... your father, I think you should hear about the god Hermes because he's not... whatever it is your dad said.”

Percy: Well, apparently the god Hermes fixates on pretty people and tries to get into their pants using trickery.

Hermes as Annabeth: CHOKES

Hermes-Annabeth: THAT IS SUCH SLANDER. I have never.... ahem, i have never heard of that about the god Hermes

^That was the first two pages. there's 11 more of me realizing writing is hard and i have commitment issues. but hopefully i finish at some point bc this is the fic ive poured some serious time in!

anyways, that was the three main fic ideas ive been tackling. i have had more that i immediately forget about, but just know, i can think about them all day!

[saym0-0]

oh my god. oh my GOD mechs esmp crossover. this is for SUCH a niche audience the esmp fandom is dead i dont care mechs esmp crossover

LISTEN TO ME okay ill have to add a sci-fi element to my established esmp world i am OKAY with this, grimlands are already victorian steampunk its not that big a stretch to add space travel, especially in the place of dimension travel.

okay so in my esmp lore the emperors are blessed by the gods with conditional immortality and flight, they know a new ruler has been born by if they're born with wings. i bet though i could twist that into the king cole/olympians idea of trading their citizen's lives for immortality. although it is kinda reversed? (mechs immortals tend to stop aging but can be killed, emperors still age and can die of old age, but cant be killed). hmm i mean theres definite differences between king cole and the olympians so maybe its just another variation, or something closer to the mechs themselves? though that ones less likely

honestly there literally is an esmp1 musical so i reckon its interesting enough to attract the mechs

but lets be honest with ourselves here, the only reason im doing this is so i have an excuse to draw grimlands!marius lmao

i think raph would be interested in it too though, with how they're so much more reliant on technical advancement than magical.

ivy would love the rivendell library, and crystal cliffs

hmmm jonny might have fun between mythland and the cod empire,,,

hmmmm brian would maybe like to hang out with shrub in the undergrove? he does like his garden,, maybe the overgrown with katherine too,, or gilded helianthia!

hrm,, i keep wanting to put people in the grimlands but i know thats only because its my favourite so therefore the most developed and also the most similar in vibe to the mechs

with that said though, tim really would have fun there,, like hes the gunpowder guy!! fwhip is the gunpowder guy!! they both r in charge of weapons!! guns, crossbows, same difference really

oough back to raph i think she and fwhip would bond over making their own wings,, fwhip made his to prove that he is fit to rule after gem fucked off to wizard school and raph,, uh actually i never found out raphs backstory beyond the fact im like 78% sure she made her and marius' mechanisms,, although that could be widely accepted fanon who knows not me

i think marius would also enjoy mezelea

but OH MY GOD TOY SOLDIER IN MEZELEA,,, i cant believe i almost forgot it,, i think it would immediately blend in with the clones and pretend to be one right up until they leave the planet, and have the time of its life the whole time,,

i dont know where ashes would go either.. i cant just say grimlands again because theres like four of them there already but,, the explosions!!

maybe mythland, or rivendell, those both seem like they'd appreciate a good mob boss taking over the place tbh

i think brian would get along with pix also

okay this isnt mechs but the fandom is a circle so if theres actually any fans of both out there reading this post, has anyone else noticed just how similar pix and jon's (tma) voices are?? genuinely when i started listening to the podcast i had to double check the va wasnt pix (and imagine my confusion when they share the same name too..)

anyways if anyone wants to scream about this with me please do, or if you want to know more about my esmp expanded universe feel free to do that too! in asks replies or reblogs idm

[deathlessathanasia]

Any particular trends in the way Hera gets characterized that annoy you?

Here are a few that come to mind right now, but there are many others I could name.

The ultimate devoted and loyal wife. I've said this before, but just because she doesn't sleep with other men doesn't mean she is oh so very loyal. Amphitrite doesn't cheat on Poseidon either, it's really not that big of a deal. Hera does, however, work against Zeus more frequently than any other Olympian, but why not just ignore that and pretend that she takes revenge on the women he is involved with and his children because she loves him too much or is too constrained by her goddess of marriage role to do anything to him personally? That is obviously more interesting… said nobody with good taste ever.

The flanderized version: This is the Hera whose "jealous wife" and "wicked stepmother" traits are taken to an extreme and she is reduced to just that and usually nothing more.

The physically aggressive, always ready to throw hands, overly sassy and sarcastic Hera: I don't even know where any of these traits come from and I honestly blame the stereotypical strong female character™ trope for this. It is actually super rare for Hera to physically attack anyone, nor is she generally rude or sarcastic in her speech, not compared to other gods and certainly not to a fault.

The Athena clone (not necessarily Athena the way she is portrayed in the myths, also the modern perception of her): I include here a series of elements that don't always appear together but which fit well in this category. The overemphasis/exaggeration of her warlike aspect, her portrayal as cool, rational, unemotional, the mature and responsible one who usually plays the role of the voice of reason among the gods, concerned with strategy and a careful planner. Sometimes involves making her more masculine in appearance and behavior which, sure, she (like most goddesses) can be gender-nonconforming in some ways, but ultimately Hera is still quite feminine and that's fine. She is actually emotional and impulsive too, prone to making decisions on a whim without caring for the consequences, and expresses her feelings very freely. Also her schemes are rarely that well thought out, let's be honest, and many of them fail or backfire spectacularly.

The marriage police: The one who preaches to everyone that having sex outside marriage is wrong, judges or dislikes gods and mortals for choosing to conduct their sex lives in a way she disapproves of and tries to dictate the way they should do it instead. There is just no solid basis for that, sorry. Sure, she does sometimes take offense to Zeus's affairs, but that is because he is, you know, her husband. Hell, she is almost always on good terms with the very promiscuous Poseidon, not infrequently with Aphrodite as well, in the Iliad she is said to love and care for Agamemnon only shortly after he had claimed to prefer his concubine to his wife, she doesn't punish mortal men or women for being unfaithful to their spouses.

The sanitized and defanged sort of Hera that never really did anything questionable and is just misunderstood.

Several of these can be combined (such as 2 with 5, 3 with 4), which does little to improve things.

[thedandelionresistance]

Also maybe this is ironic after that long post about misanthropy being shitty, and maybe it's the NPD, but I don't actually think it's bad to think you're better than humans... specifically because I think I define that differently than other people.

I don't use better to mean "having more worth, deserving to live more, deserving to have power over those you are better than, deserving to have your needs met more, being better at everything".

I use "better" in two ways.

The first is conditional. Essentially like... an Olympian swimmer is better than swimming than me, full stop. I am better than plenty of people in a bunch of different conditional ways. I'm also worse than plenty of other people in a bunch of conditional ways. These are neutral statements, but because my NPD makes me have a need to be better than others, I back that feeling up specifically with the stuff that's more material and factual. Not only does this help prevent crashes and lessen their impact when they do happen, but it drives me to be better at stuff that's important to me.

This includes things like compassion, as one of my most important values, so it does actually make me a better person (see, that word again, this time in relation to myself). And yeah like, I do consider myself a better person than, say, a raging transphobe - but that doesn't mean the raging transphobe doesn't deserve compassion and deradicalization, or is less of a person than me, nor does it mean I am incapable of being transphobic myself. I actually frequently analyze my own behaviors just to make SURE I am in fact ACTUALLY not bigoted, because I'd rather find out that I wasn't morally better than a bigot than pretend like I was when I wasn't.

Morally better is still a type of conditional betterness, but it is actually almost the opposite of the second kind. Okay terrible segue, but the second kind to me is opinion or preference betterness.

If I say I think pizza without pineapple is better than pizza with pineapple, that's just my preference (I don't actually feel strongly either way, but easy example). Similarly, if I say something like "dragons are better than humans", that's stating a preference. I'm liking an intensely magical creature with shining scales, powerful wings, and incredible breath weapons over a devoted and clever persistence predator who have developed incredible technology to achieve things they otherwise couldn't.

I guess it's just... I know I'm in the minority on this, but I guess to me "better" as a general statement about a whole species doesn't actually imply the other is "worse" or "lesser". Perhaps less interesting to me personally, though not even always, or less embodying the traits I most like and prefer, but good in their own right and even better to others or in other ways. If I believe, say, dragons are better than humans as a whole, there are still areas where humans are conditionally better, and people who disagree with me and even think humans are better who are entitled to their opinion.

This goes double if I think that my OWN species is better than any other, including humanity. This is something that I feel in part because of NPD, and sometimes is also tied to the species identity itself. It's actually because I saw a post about how as a dragon (one of our more prevalent identities) you're "supposed to" fight this feeling and... actually no, I don't think you are. Not only would it be extremely triggering and destabilizing for us personally to do so, but it's also okay to feel however you want about your species in relation to others, as long as you aren't hurting those of other species.

Idk, I just think calling a species "better" is a morally neutral statement, and isn't inherently putting the species (singular or plural) that it's being called "better than" down. I think there are multiple identities that are defined in some ways by being better than others in some ways - some godkin, for example. Better just... isn't about superiority in the sense of loaded beliefs about a species' worth or rights or deserving to be treated with dignity and compassion. It's not the opposite of "worse" - I don't actually feel that it has a strong opposite, but maybe "more neutral" would be the closest?

I think it's okay to combat dysphoria/embrace euphoria by accepting and celebrating that feeling. I think in expressing it, a small disclaimer just that you're not in any way insulting or putting down members of the species you feel better than can go a long way. After all, when externalizing internal feelings and beliefs, we do have a responsibility to our community and to others in general to try and reduce harm and act in ways that are kind.

Idk, maybe it would just help to reframe the whole discussion though. It's not "winning a free vacation is better than having cancer" but "winning a free vacation is better than winning a free massage session". Both are great! Some would even disagree - I know for a FACT my partner would and I love her for it.

Just, as someone for whom having and accepting and sometimes expressing these feelings with care for others is important, I think there's more nuance to it than "you can't feel better than any person or group, ever" because I just think feeling better than a person or group is itself morally neutral. I think that "better" itself doesn't have the implications a lot of people think it do. And again, maybe I'm the one using it atypically but... I do wish more people would use it that way, or be open to talking about it being used that way positively.

I feel really alone about this. Outside of my system we don't really know any people that do this. I understand why people are saying not to express these feelings (less so about telling people how to feel, but still), but I don't think negative ways are the only ways they can be expressed. I think these feelings can be really important to people, and so can expressing them. I think we can make room for things, people, species, etc to be better than others in ways that are kind and harmless.

I think that focusing on conditional and preferential betterness can do this, because there's nothing harmful about a person or species being objectively better AT a skill, nor about preferring one over the other. There's nothing wrong with feeling pride over being the thing you prefer. I even think, as long as you treat someone as if they are WORTH just as much as you, that feeling superior in other ways unrelated to worth is okay.

And I think I just figured it out. To me, being better than someone doesn't mean they are not your equal. I know that sounds contradictory, but hear me out: when we say someone is our equal, we mean that they are worth just as much as us. We mean they are just as deserving of rights and respect and dignity. In some cases, we also mean they are just as capable as us - but this can itself lead to bigotry, as in the case of ableism. Someone can be less capable and still be worth just as much, be just as deserving of rights and respect and dignity.

But "better" to me doesn't mean "not equal" in those ways, because it's not related to objective worth or deserving rights and respect. It's about other things - things like skills and my own personal preferences. It means that two equals can both be better than each other.

It's not the loaded word it is for others, because my NPD and other things have FORCED me to unpack those things and find a healthy and harmless way to use it.

It's okay to feel better than someone, even than an entire group of people, as long as you recognize them as equals. And that's not a contradiction, because those things aren't mutually exclusive or even about the same thing in the first place. It's just one of the complexities of life.

Also to be very clear: No, this does not justify any kind of bigotry or supremacy groups. Those groups are EXPLICITLY treating others as inferior and NOT equal, and purposely harming them because of it. When this occurs at a societal level, as with transphobia, not all harm from everyone is necessarily intentional, but it's still harm. I can't be clear enough that I am ONLY arguing that harmless uses are okay, and that harmless uses do exist.

[synergysilhouette]

An alternate take on "Hercules" (1997)

This movie is a classic, though I did want to put my own twist on this, similar to my other remakes. Granted, my version isn't really too much closer to Greek mythology, but it has a bit more tweaks in there.

Change his origins. If we're gonna be loose with Greek mythology, I'll put my own twist on it. I'd make it so that Zeus (a questionable father in any iteration, it seems) had a child with a mortal woman--who's looks and personality would be similar to Disney's version of Hera--but because she was human, she couldn't be with him. As such, he married Hera, who is bitter that she was his second choice, and is extremely jealous when it's discovered that the mortal woman sired a child with Zeus named Hercules (let's say she was born in Rome), though she changed his name to Alcaeus to hide him from Hera. When he finds out the truth, he wants to go to Olympus to meet his father, but must achieve godhood to do so. It's also explained that many Olympians have taken in interest in Hercules--namely Dionysus, Hermes, Apollo, Athena, and Artemis, plus the Muses, all of them godly children that Zeus sired before his marriage to Hera--and they assist him here and there, though they must do it discreetly to avoid Hera's wrath.

2. Change the villains. This is a complex issue; Hera is definitely a villain here, but so is Hades, and to a point, Zeus. Zeus is the "good dad, bad husband" type of person; he's a lively person and a fun friend, but not good with his relationships, ie making Hera his second priority and undermining his older brothers since he's the king of the gods. He's not evil, but he is toxic. As such, Hera sets a plan in motion: she tells Zeus that she will not harm Hercules or his loved ones if he proves himself worthy of being a god, thus setting in motion Hercules' quest (as well as wanting to find where he belongs). However, she tasks Hades and Persephone (no Pain and Panic here, sadly) with doing him in before he can become immortal. She also manipulates her sons, the neglected Hephaestus and the power-hungry Ares, into helping her bring about Hercules' doom. She also cheats by occasionally giving him unreasonable bouts of anger that hinder his progress as a hero. And since we're dealing with about five villains, the Titans don't exist.

3. Megara is different--but only slightly. Still her jaded, pessimistic self, I'd want to remove any possible arguments of her being toxic with Hercules, since I was never a fan of them together. Here, instead of Hades offering Meg her freedom, her simply forces her to do his bidding, almost like an Ella Enchanted situation. However, seeing her lack of enthusiasm for this, Hermes, Apollo, and Artemis intervene during several occasions to help her work around her master's manipulation as well as giving her tools to help Hercules if he's in a bind (since they can't openly use their powers, as it would put a target on their backs with Hera). A part of me wanted to conflate her and Persephone's character into one, making her a woman forced to be Hades' wife and become bitter as a result, and Hercules' love and kindness makes her fall for him and decidedly leave Hades, but perhaps that's too much.

4. The ensemble is different. The main cast of the original was Hercules, Pegasus, Phil, and Meg. Here, the cast is made up of Hercules, Pegasus, Iolaus (his cousin rather than his nephew like in mythology) and Meg. Phil doesn't exist here, with Apollo, Athena, and Artemis training Hercules, with Meg and Iolaus as moral support. Hermes mainly tries to keep everything discreet so it never reaches Hera.

5. The message/ending is slightly different. Zeus learns to be a better person/god, owing his treatment of others due to his own childhood trauma at the hands of his father. His redemption is kinda like it was in "Immortals: Fenyx Rising." Hades and Persephone get some kind of gratification, as Zeus vows to treat Hades better and Hades acknowledges his manipulation of getting Persephone to marry him (this version of the story varies, but if he's gonna be a villain, we may as well go that route). Hera is imprisoned with Ares, and Hera acknowledges how she mistreated her sons due to her own pain, with only Hephaestus managing to overcome his trauma and help Hercules. Hercules doesn't really "give up" his godhood for his mortal family, though--he's never forced to make a choice between them and the Olympians; I kinda hated the implication with the original ending.

Lemme know what you think! This has been rattling around in my brain for a while.

[demigodsanswer]

Twice Upon a Pointe: 11/13 Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

As a Soloist at New York City Ballet, Percy had become known for his skills as a partner. He could dance with any girl of any size, and she’d find him reliable, trustworthy, and stable. He never cared to put himself forward. Her stability and safety was all he cared about. Partnering was the one moment in his life he felt like ADHD didn’t rule his world; he was locked in, razor focused on her, whatever she needed, whatever she needed him to do, he knew right away. 

But Percy hadn’t always been considered a good ballet partner. While Mr. Lester’s classes had offered some pas de deux training, he still felt skittish and unprepared walking into SAB’s pas class for the first time. 

Truly, he’d felt nervous in all of his classes. If he’d ever felt like something of a hotshot at competitions and in Lester’s classes, that feeling had abandoned him at SAB. Everyone at SAB had been a hotshot wherever they’d come from. And all of them had been dancing for years longer than Percy, some of them a full decade ahead of him. 

Whatever anxiety he had, it held him back in pas class the most. He was worried about dropping the girl, or messing something up and throwing her off in the process. He could hide his complete lack of confidence in his technique classes, but here, if he screwed up, someone would know. Worse, someone could get hurt. 

In their third pas classes, the teacher had reassigned partners. He’d wound up with Annabeth. She was a level above him, but several kids from the upper level shared this class. 

She was nice to him, but she didn’t talk much. Annabeth mostly paid close and careful attention to the teacher. She always looked so serious. She had introduced herself in a formal, polite way that made Percy smile. A lot about Annabeth made him smile, actually. All of the girls at SAB were pretty, but she was something else. He was sure that if they’d had the time, he might be able to make her smile too. 

Don’t drop her, he thought as the teacher gave instructions, just remember the combination and for the love of god, don’t drop her. 

Annabeth was instructive, telling him what she needed from him. Where he needed to put his hands, where he needed to press his thumbs into her back. She was steady and confident. When he messed up, she was able to correct a little to keep herself in the right place. And Percy learned. 

He needed to be stronger, so he started going to the gym more, lifting weights and doing push-ups until the girl’s weight felt almost like nothing. He needed to work on his confidence too, Annabeth had told him. “We’ll make more mistakes if you’re nervous,” she told him. She wasn’t being cruel. She was just correct. 

They danced together for three weeks, until her weight and balance were completely familiar to him. And Percy had been right, he could make her laugh. Still, he tried to push any thoughts of a crush on her out of his mind; he didn’t have time for that, and she’d never be interested in him. 

But he couldn’t help but look forward to every pas class. 

It was the middle of October when she stopped showing up. 

“Percy, you’ll be with Rachel today,” the teacher told him. Rachel walked over to him. 

“Where’s Annabeth?” He asked after class. 

“Chiron needed her for Nutcracker, ” Rachel said. 

“She got pulled into the company?” Percy asked. 

Rachel nodded at Matt Sloan shoved against his back. “Sorry you’ll never dance with her again, Jackson,” he said. 

“Why wouldn’t I dance with her again?” Percy asked. 

“You’re the worst dancer here. No way you get a company contract,” Matt said. 

(Years later, Percy would hear that Matt suffered a career-ending injury out at Ballet West, and he’d pretend to feel sorry for him.) 

But for a while, Percy was pretty sure Matt was right. Even in his first show as an apprentice, just a party guest in the summer’s Romeo and Juliet, he watched Annabeth dance the principal role with Charles Beckendorf, that girl who’d taught him so much, but who didn’t seem to recognize him at all these days, and he thought well, I’ll never be him. 

And then he felt something different. He stood in the back row of men during the Knight’s Dance. She was at the front with “Paris.” And Percy felt that fierce determination to get there, to be that man. It wasn’t for the first time, or the last. When he danced with Annabeth Chase for the last time, he decided, he’d know it was the last time. 

~ 

His Slaughter debut was the day after Tarantella. He was standing backstage next to Reyna, who was doing a series of squats and stretches in her pink costume. She still had her light blue leg warmers on. Her dark hair was up in a classic bun, but it would have to come down during her quick change. She only had a few moments to change into her black costume, change her shoes, and take her hair down. 

They did this ballet well together. She was taller than most girls he usually partnered with, but in heels they were closer in height than if she were on pointe. And, he thought they had a good chemistry together. 

It wasn’t her debut in this ballet, she’d told Percy a few weeks ago. She had done it a handful of times, most of them with Jason. 

“I feel like everything is my debut,” Percy said, trying to laugh. Really, there were so many principal roles he hadn’t gotten to dance yet, including Slaughter. 

“You’ll get your chance,” she said. “You’ll get everything once you’re a principal.” 

She sounded so sure of his prospects in casting, and of his chances at promotion. It almost felt too familiar for Percy’s taste, but he mustered up his kindness and just said: “Thanks.” 

~ 

Reyna had an incredible stage presence, and a remarkably subtle approach to acting in ballet. She brought the audience to her, drawing them in closer. He imagined them having to tilt forward in their seats to really get all of what she had to offer. But Reyna paid them no mind. She didn’t play to them; she played to Percy. And it was electric. He felt drawn to her in all the ways his character was meant to. He might have over-acted the role if he didn’t have her to play off of. 

Reyna pretended to be passed out at the bar, and Percy leaned in and kissed her hard. She was wearing red lipstick and he knew it had gotten all over his face. He hoped it wasn’t too noticeable from the audience. With their kiss over, he pulled her into the center of the stage. They started their second, much more wild pas de deux, with Reyna’s long dark hair flipping everywhere, and her legs kicked oh so high up in the air. 

Her character was so different from how Reyna seemed in real life, and that almost made it better. She got to be free, unbound and unserious. Percy channeled that same feeling as he slid across the floor. 

As the ballet came to its tragic end, the audience erupted in cheers and applause. Percy felt like a rock star. Reyna kept pushing him forward in the curtain call, making sure he took a good, long, and earned bow.  

~ 

Percy paused on his way to rehearsal. He was a few feet away from Lupa’s office when the door opened. A pretty woman in her early thirties stepped out. As she passed him, Percy noticed there were tears on her cheeks. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

The woman shook her head, but took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. “You’re Percy, right?” She asked. 

He nodded. 

“I’m Gwen,” she held out her hand, and he shook it. “We were supposed to dance Slaughter together, actually. But Lupa …” she glanced back at the door. “It doesn't matter.”

Before Percy could say anything, she kept walking. He didn’t have time to ask what that was about, before he heard the voices from inside Lupa’s office steadily getting louder. 

He recognized Reyna’s voice, but she was speaking in Spanish, so the words flew past Percy, too quickly for him to pick out anything meaningful. Lupa didn’t hesitate to respond, keeping her words Spanish as well. 

Percy heard his name. Then Gwen’s. Then Jason’s. 

“You promised me --!” Reyna said in English. 

“I promised you nothing,” Lupa said, her voice back to an almost quiet speaking volume, pulling Reyna’s back down with her. “You are my star, Reyna. So I need you to learn to dance with Frank.”

“We need more tall men!” Reyna said. 

“Or maybe we need shorter girls!” Lupa yelled back. Her voice went quiet again, cold and furious. “Get rid of this grudge Ms. Ramírez-Arellano before you end up back in the corps de ballet.” 

Percy sensed that was the end of the conversation, and he took off down the hall before he could get caught eavesdropping. He ducked into his rehearsal studio. There was still a week of performances, and it was time for his rehearsal with Reyna. Percy waited for her to arrive, working hard to look like he hadn’t just heard her fighting Lupa, or heard Lupa fighting back. 

The rehearsal studio was hot as the sun beat in, pressing oppressively on the back of his neck. 

He waited. 

After a few minutes, though, Reyna didn’t arrive. Lupa walked in instead with Rachel behind her. 

“ Que calor!” Lupa said, smiling and fanning herself with her hand. She turned to the wall and made sure the AC was on. “We had a bit of a casting shake-up,” Lupa said. “I needed to pull Gwen from Tchai Pas and put Reyna in. I want to see how you do with Rachel in Slaughter. If it’s bad, we’ll put Reyna back in , ” she said. 

Percy nodded. “Alright, I think we can handle it.” 

Rachel smiled. “I’ll just need a quick refresh on the choreography, and then I’ll be ready to go.” 

Lupa and the ballet master ran through the choreography again, and it gave Percy a good chance to reorient himself to Rachel’s shorter frame. He was used to dancing with her, but on pointe. The walk through helped him prepare. 

“We’re going to run it with the hair change,” Lupa said to Rachel. 

Rachel understood, and started pulling pins out of her bun. Rachel dug through her bag, dropping the loose pins in and pulling out a hair brush. She combed through the hairspray, freeing some of her curls. With her hair down and brushed out, she flipped it a few times before scooping it back up into a looser bun with fewer pins. 

“We’ll see if that holds,” she said. Her red curls had always been hard to contain. Percy was about to say something, but she looked at him knowingly. “If you say anything about Merida, I’ll throw my hair brush at you,” she threatened, shaking the blue thing in his direction. 

Percy put his hands up defensively. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“Alright,” Lupa siad with a clap, “let's see how this goes.” 

It was an immediate success. He and Reyna had danced it well, and they’d found a pretty natural rhythm together. Because he’d been so used to dancing it with her, Percy anticipated that switching to Rachel would cause some hiccups. But it didn’t. It felt as natural as dancing the Wedding Pas with Annabeth had that first time. Sure, there were differences between the partners, but to an onlooker, it seemed as if Percy and Rachel had always been dancing this ballet together. 

Rachel ran the first part of the ballet. On the stage, she’d be doing it up on a platform, but here, she just stayed on the floor. She tossed away her shawl, her hair piece, and even her pink shoe to the men waiting to grab it. Then she disappeared, going to the back of the room, their temporary “backstage” where she took down her hair. 

When she came back, they started their first pas de deux , the far more contained one. The tone of Slaughter might have been remarkably different from Tarantella, but Rachel was still just as fun to dance with. When they got to the second pas, the one with all the high kicks, Rachel didn’t hold anything back, and so Percy didn’t either. Maybe it was her hair, or maybe it was just who she was, but Rachel’s take on the character felt far more fiery than Reyna’s. Reyna’s take almost had a seductive Black Swan quality to it, but Rachel’s was more carefree in its sexuality. 

Percy dipped her into the back bend, and Rachel did her high kicks as they marched. Percy stole a glance at them in the mirror, and they looked great. 

When the dance ended a few minutes later, Percy and Rachel were playing dead as the music came to an end. Once the pianist completed the final notes, there was a long, terrible pause where Lupa said nothing. Percy started to move, assuming it was okay to get out of his death position. From the other side of the room, Rachel sat up as well. 

Finally, Lupa smiled. “Well, that looked great! I don’t think I have anything to worry about with you two,” she said. 

Percy let out a deep breath. 

“So we’re on?” Rachel asked. 

“Tonight and all the rest of Percy’s shows,” Lupa confirmed. “I’ll update the performance schedule.” With that, Lupa left them to the ballet masters. 

They ran it for another hour, before Rachel was sent to try on the costume. She came back half an hour later, as Percy was running his tap solo at the end of the ballet. 

“We’re going to sneak into the theater to practice the quick change, if you’d like to come and run the pas on the stage with Rachel?” Lupa offered. 

The energy of the stage and costumes brought an added layer to the ballet. Rachel’s quick change always went off without a hitch, and their two pas ’s were almost perfect, as if they’d been dancing them the whole time. The two were literally alone on the stage -- the corps and other soloist performers would be there later, but this impromptu dress rehearsal was just for Rachel and Percy. With the stage and theater all to themselves, they just let go and danced as if this whole thing were just for fun. Percy even lost sight of where Lupa was in the theater. All of his attention was on Rachel and their dance. 

~

With a few hours left before show time, Lupa sent them off to go eat something before coming back to the theater. The two sat outside at a cafe enjoying a light dinner, chatting about Slaughter and the rest of the company. 

“I’m happy I get to dance with you again,” Rachel said. “I’ve always thought we would have made good partners, if we’d stayed in the same company.” Her eyes were fixed on her plate as she tore into a slice of bread and buttered it lightly. 

“Me too, to both things,” Percy agreed. “And I am … sorry that things never worked out.” 

Rachel tilted her head to the side. “You mean that you got your apprenticeship?” She laughed a little. “You got the thing every SAB kid wants, so don’t be sorry. I would have ditched you and stayed in New York too, if the roles were reversed.” 

“You think I ditched you?” He asked. 

“Of course not. I never took it personally,” she assured him. “How do you feel about Miami, though?”

“The company?” Rachel nodded. “It’s been great. I mean …getting to do Tarantella has just been a real dream. And, of course, it’s great to dance with you again.” Percy pushed some food around. “Lupa’s been really great to me so far, but it seems like things can get kind of intense sometimes.” 

Rachel smiled at the complement, but then turned a bit serious. “Lupa can be incredibly supportive. She’s not afraid to give dancers what they want. I mean, full disclosure, I told her I remembered Tarantella being one of your favorites. She knew Hazel wanted to do the Swans, so she gave her Swan Lake to keep her in the company. She let me dance Coppelia when I was twenty.” She took a sip of her drink. “She’s a really good director.” 

“But?” Percy asked. 

“It can get a little kill or be killed,” Rachel said, shrugging. “She’s got a she-wolf side to her. Not that you’ve probably seen it, since you’re doing a great job,” she said smiling, and Percy didn’t mention what he’d heard earlier that day, “but she can be tough. And not in Chiron’s straight-forward, pragmatic way. Like,” she leaned in closer, “Gwen had a baby in November, and Lupa asked her to come back for this season. But she keeps putting Gwen in ballets, then pulling her out at the last minute, because she doesn’t think Gwen has lost enough weight yet. It’s why Reyna is doing Tchai Pas now. And Gwen is just devastated and humiliated. She wants to be home with her baby, but Lupa promised her all these ballets if she came back early, and she’s gotten to dance none of them on stage.” 

Percy’s heart sank at that. He thought about mentioning his brief conversation with Gwen in the hallway, but he didn’t want to humiliate her anymore. Situations like that, though, were unfortunately common across companies. But Percy couldn’t think of a time Chiron had asked a dancer to come back early, only to deny them roles. In fact, he could only really think of the opposite, with Annabeth. She’d gotten more time off and then more roles on her return. But since his injuries, Chiron had always been cautious about dancers’ health and wellness. 

“Why did Jason leave?” Percy asked. 

Rachel took a deep breath. “He was Miami’s workhorse. He’s been here since he was, I think, nine years old. He was doing the work of a soloist when he was in the corps. He was doing the work of a principal when he was a soloist. When he got his New York offer, he called Lupa and asked for his Principal promotion. She’d done the same thing for Hazel. But … she just said she couldn’t do that, and that he wasn’t ready.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “None of us know how Jason couldn’t have been ready. He was already doing that work, but … “ she shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe he wasn’t ready, but at least as a soloist in New York he’s doing the work of a soloist for the pay of a soloist, not what Lupa was demanding of him here.” 

Percy leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got more respect for Jason now, I guess.” 

Rachel nodded. “We make fun of Reyna a lot for maybe being in love with him, but I don’t think she was. I think Jason was just the perfect dance partner for her, and I think she expected to dance the rest of her career with him. But Lupa just let him go. Reyna’s been dancing with Frank, and they’ve been doing a good job, but that perfect person is just gone. Jason and Reyna, they were like … Like Beckendorf and Annabeth, right? Just completely perfect and --- and did you know you get the dumbest look on your face every time someone mentions her name?” 

Percy’s mind had wandered a bit at the mention of Annabeth, but the change in Rachel’s tone from concern to teasing brought him back to Earth. 

“Huh?” He asked. 

Rachel shook her head, smiling. “You are so in love with her, aren’t you?” She asked. 

Percy’s face felt hot, but he didn’t bother denying it. “She’s really special,” he said. 

“I’m happy for you,” Rachel said, reaching her hand across the table to Percy. “And I’m sorry we … I haven’t been the nicest about her.” 

“Thanks,” he said, “and I think you’d like her if you got to know her. And now you two are the same rank, so there’s nothing to be jealous about,” he teased. 

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Rachel muttered, her cheeks pink as she sipped at her water. “I keep wondering what it might have been like if you’d come here with me.”

“I was happy to go to Miami with you,” Percy said. And he meant it. If there was someone at SAB he had to leave with, he was glad it was going to be her. “I was excited when I found out you were the other person from SAB who’d gotten the offer, and that we were going to go together. And I am sorry that didn’t happen.” 

Rachel nodded, her green eyes turned down and sad. She didn’t brush off the apology like she had with the earlier one. “Yeah, me too,” she said. “But you will be a principal, Percy,” she looked up at him, her eyes clear, “I don’t know what Jason was lacking, but whatever it is, you aren’t lacking it.” 

Percy smiled and thanked her. 

“It’s just about time to get back,” he said. 

Rachel nodded. 

As they walked out together, heading back towards the theater in the last drawn out rays of sunset, she turned to him. 

“You fit in really well here,” she said. 

Percy just nodded, not sure what to say, but sure that he agreed. 

~

Dancing Slaughter on stage with Rachel was almost as fun as dancing Tarantella with her. There was this old familiar feeling whenever he was on stage with her, and it made it easy to just let go and dance. The Sleeping Beauty and Agon had been stressful, every performance felt like it applied more and more pressure. But not here, not in these ballets. Here, Percy could just act and dance with his friend, and feed off of the rapturous applause of the audience. 

Agon might have been a Balanchine ballet, but Slaughter and Tarantella really reminded him what he loved about Balanchine’s rep. They were so different. Different from Beauty, different from anything else. 

As he held Rachel as she dipped back, her red curls hanging wildly, and her legs kicking up in the air, he felt like a Balanchine dancer for the first time in a while. Not a New York dancer, or Chiron’s dancer, just Balanchine’s. 

~

His final week of performances seemed to pass in a blur. He got to dance with Rachel each night -- one night on for Tarantella and the next for Slaughter. 

He couldn’t believe his time in Miami was already almost over, but as the days crept by, he started to get more and more excited to go home. He didn’t miss City Ballet too much -- dance was dance and he was doing plenty of it -- but he missed Annabeth. He desperately wanted to hold her again, kiss her. Each buzz of his phone brought a little bit of hope that it was her, but her messages had gotten fewer and farther between in the few days in Miami. 

It only added to Percy’s desire to see her. 

On his last night of performances, Lupa had scheduled him for both ballets in one night. He was glad Tarantella was first, otherwise, he didn’t think he’d have the energy for it. Slaughter wasn’t too demanding, but the idea of doing all those Tarantella jumps after another ballet seemed almost impossible. 

“Our last Tarantella, ” Rachel lamented in her little peasant girl dress. 

“Well, let's go out there and rock it. Make it count,” Percy said. 

They did. 

They did their turns contest, and on his final turn, he managed to make it around seven times, to thunderous applause. She did her final turn. One. Two. Three. Four. And then, a fifth. Percy beat his tambourine as a kind of praise before she started her series of pirouettes down the stage. 

Percy clapped the tambourine as Rachel did her pirouettes, keeping time for her, and the audience started to clap along. It brought up the energy, and Rachel seemed to just turn faster and faster. 

When she reached the end, they did their final steps, before starting their spins off the stage. Percy was completely out of breath. His legs hurt in impossible ways, and he was happy. He pulled Rachel into him right at the edge of the stage, and kissed her cheek, before letting her go. She ran off stage, and he followed, but not before beating the tambourine one last time against his chest and throwing his hands in the air in triumph. 

They barely had the breath to come out for their bow, but they made it. Percy spotted someone in the audience standing for them, and soon the whole theater was on its feet, clapping for them. 

Percy would have given them an encore if he could muster the stamina. But they simply took an extra long bow, before exiting the stage to get ready for Slaughter. 

Slaughter was a very different vibe, but their energy was still up. Where Rachel had crazy fast spins and footwork in the last ballet, now she had high kicks. They weren’t quite as high or seemingly effortless as Reyna’s but there was still something flirty and fun about them. Her costume change went off without a hitch, and she was able to fling her red curls around with every bend, dip, and spin. 

The fun and sexy energy came to an end with the titular slaughter, as Rachel took a “bullet” for him from her pimp, who Percy “killed” before killing himself. Despite the sudden tragedy, there was another eruption of thunderous applause from the audience. 

They were the last ballet of the night, and it was Percy’s last ballet with Miami, and each performance had felt like one of the best of his life. Second only, he thought, to Sleeping Beauty, and even then, he wasn’t sure. 

~

Back stage, Percy lifted Rachel in triumph, settling her on his shoulder as he gripped her thighs to hold her steady. They cheered as loud as they were willing. They hadn’t changed yet, so Percy’s tap shoes made a little click with each step, and the fringe from Rachel’s stripper costume tickled his hand.  

He was done in Miami, he realized. Not that he didn’t know that going into the day, but the reality of it was starting to settle in. All of the friends he’d made, and the good times he had here were over. He had tomorrow off to see some more of the city, and then he was back on an airplane to New York. And the day after that, New York’s Spring season rehearsals started. 

Before he could think about all the good things about New York, one of those good things arrived in front of him. 

“Percy, someone is here to see you,” Hazel said. 

Just past her was Annabeth, her blonde hair down and brushed to one side. She was in a white linen dress with brown buttons down the center, with a light blue sweater pulled over her arms and shoulders. She had a bouquet of blue and purple hydrangeas in her hand. 

Percy placed Rachel on the floor, and immediately lost all sense of where she was next to him. At that moment, it felt like he and Annabeth were the only ones in the world. He suddenly felt a collection of words nearly rise up into his mouth, as his heart beat somehow got faster than it had on stage, and his face felt flushed. It was like feeling that sense of freedom. He couldn’t describe it, but he knew it right away. He pushed the words back down -- I love you -- knowing it would be an insane thing to say to her now, after so little time together, and so much time apart. Instead, he said: “Oh, thank god.” 

He’d caught a frightened and suspicious look in her eyes when she’d seen him carrying around Rachel in her skimpy Slaughter costume . But that look disappeared as Percy rushed forward towards her. Hazel deftly took the flowers out of Annabeths’ hands as Percy nearly crashed into Annabeth. 

Percy rested his hands on her face, making eye contact for a moment, as if looking for permission to be completely public with their affections. Annabeth responded by pulling on the front of his costume, down towards her mouth. 

Annabeth didn’t pull away when Rachel said, “Pretty flowers,” presumably to Hazel. If anything, Annabeth only kissed Percy harder, laying her claim to him. He remembered that she’d once accused herself of being jealous. He’d tease her for this later, he decided, for now, he would enjoy having a beautiful woman fight for him. 

Finally, though, Annabeth did pull away, letting go of Percy’s costume. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said to her, his voice low, only for her. 

Her hands were still on his chest. “You’ve been so excited about Tarantella, I wanted to see it. Percy, you were amazing.” 

Percy was going to say something else, but he heard Frank clear his throat next to them. Percy’s face still felt red, and only got more red when he saw that Rachel, Hazel, and Frank were all standing there. 

“This is Annabeth,” Percy said, “this is Rachel, and Frank, and you know Hazel.” 

“Good to see you again, Hazel,” Annabeth said. Hazel agreed and handed back the flowers, before pulling Frank away. Annabeth handed Percy the flowers. “These are for you,” she said. Percy accepted them gladly, but noticed Rachel had stayed where she was. 

“It’s so good to meet you, Annabeth,” Rachel said, “or, I guess, see you again. We went to school together.” 

Annabeth looked her over. “We did?” 

“I was in Percy’s year,” Rachel said, “but all three of us were in the same pas de deux class.” 

Annabeth nodded. “Oh yeah,” she said in a way that convinced Percy she had absolutely no memory of Rachel. 

“Sorry about the outfit,” Rachel said, gesturing to her costume. She rested her hands on Percy’s shoulder. “I was playing a whore.” 

“Was it hard?” Annabeth asked. 

“Hey!” Percy said, turning to Annabeth, who looked away from him, her mouth pressed shut in a hard line and her jaw tense. Before things could get worse, Percy turned towards Rachel, shaking her hands off him in the process. “I’ll meet up with you guys in a little bit?” He said. 

Rachel nodded. But as she turned, Lupa walked up behind them. 

“Ah, there you are Percy,” she said. Lupa’s eyes landed on Annabeth, who stood up straighter. “Ms. Chase, is it?” 

Annabeth held out her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Jason speaks highly of you,” she said. 

“You in New York are lucky to have him.” There was something different in Lupa’s tone. The warmth was there, but something felt phony about it. Percy looked between Lupa and Annabeth, their gazes both piercing, but their smiles and tones polite. 

“I saw your Sleeping Beauty performance,” Lupa continued, “fine work. You certainly are one of Chiron’s dancers.” Percy didn’t know what that could mean, but it sounded backhanded. Whatever the subtle insult was, Annabeth caught it as well, and pressed her lips together into a thin smile. 

“I’m very proud to be one of his dancers,” Annabeth said. “And we’re all looking forward to having Percy back with us.” 

“Actually, before you steal Mr. Jackson away from us,” he turned to Percy, “I was hoping to speak to you in my office.” 

~

Like everything else in Miami, Lupa’s office was warm. There were several pictures on the walls, all of them of a young Lupa dancing on stage. Percy knew that stage better than he knew most places in New York. 

Of course, he didn’t need to recognize the theater and stage to know she’d been a principal in New York City Ballet. She’d danced there for nearly thirty years before retiring. She was one of the last great dancers to work with Balanchine himself. Her and Chiron.

When she’d retired, she’d gotten a job offer from Miami, and she promptly abandoned her position as a ballet master with NYCB. It worked out for her well enough; it wasn’t long before she was artistic director and reinventing the company entirely. 

In one black and white photo, she was posed in a fish dive with a dancer who felt eerily familiar. 

“That’s Chiron,” she said, “as you might have figured out. He was quite the dancer back in the day.” 

A series of repeat back injuries had ended Chiron’s career, and then a botched surgery had left him all but wheelchair bound. Percy knew he still had some use of his legs, and could stand and walk when he needed to, cane in hand. But these days, he mostly stuck to the chair. 

“I’ve seen some videos of you,” Percy said. “I actually used to own a tape of Serenade, and you were the Russian girl.” He still mourned that old VHS Mr. Lester had given him and that Gabe had destroyed. 

Lupa smiled. “One of my constant parts. And he was one of my constant partners. I bet you can guess the ballet there,” she said, pointing to the picture of her and Chiron. Percy knew that fish dive anywhere. Look ma, Lupa and Chiron’s younger selves seemed to say to him through the frame, no hands! 

“ Sleeping Beauty? ” He guessed. 

She nodded. “I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I don’t like Chiron. He was a dear friend of mine. We’ve just always disagreed on certain things. And, in the last decade or so, I’m afraid we’ve gotten a bit competitive.” 

“I’ve heard you don’t think he’s using Balanchine’s rep to its full potential,” Percy said. 

Lupa just nodded. “That he has never cast you in Tarantella is completely unbelievable.” 

“Maybe this will teach him something,” Percy suggested. He knew Chiron was working on finalizing the Winter, and Spring seasons for next year already. Maybe he’d find Tarantella on there somewhere. 

“Maybe,” Lupa said. She took a seat behind the desk and gestured at Percy to sit down. “But I want you to know that New York is not your only option.” 

“What do you mean?” Percy asked. 

Lupa smiled. “I have been very, very happy with your work here this month, Percy. I’ve always thought you were a strong, capable dancer. Your work with Rachel and Reyna was exquisite. You are a perfect leading man.” 

Percy sat quietly and waited for her to finish. 

“We at Miami Ballet are prepared to offer you a company contract,” she said. 

“Oh, that’s very nice, but --” 

“It would be a principal contract, Percy.” 

He had been completely ready to turn down a soloist contract. But a principal contract? He hadn’t expected it. This kind of offer was … he tried to think of another dancer who’d been given a new company contract and promotion, and he came up blank. His heart started to beat faster as he imagined it -- leading ballets, being billed as a principal, finally having that rank he’d waited and worked so long for. And in a company that gave him ballets he was actually suited for. Real, exciting Balanchine ballets. Not just Opus over and over again. 

He could have it. It was everything. 

“Oh,” was all he managed to say. 

“I have wanted you in my company for eight years, Percy. It is long past time you were given the recognition you deserve, and the rank you’ve earned. Miami is prepared to welcome you into their Fall Season as our newest principal dancer.” When Percy still didn’t say anything, she added. “Miami is the perfect fit for you.” 

~

Percy stepped out of Lupa’s office a bit dazed. Rachel and Annabeth were outside the door waiting for him in silence. Rachel was smiling; Annabeth was not. Percy wondered if they’d been able to hear the conversation, or if they both just suspected what Lupa had wanted to talk to him about. 

“She …” he looked away from Rachel’s wide smile to Annabeth, “she offered me a principal contract.” 

He heard Rachel celebrate, offering him an immediate and excited, “Oh Percy that’s so great,” but his eyes were only on Annabeth as her neutral facade shattered into a look of utter devastation that broke his heart. But she quickly pulled her face into a forced grin. She leaned forward, resting a hand on his arm. 

“That’s really, really incredible, Percy. If anyone deserves it, it’s you,” Annabeth said. She started to speak again but her voice cracked. Annabeth cleared her throat, keeping her head down so Percy couldn’t see the tears in her eyes, but he knew they were there. “I am so happy for you.” 

Annabeth turned away quickly and headed down the hall. Percy knew she didn’t know where she was going; she was just looking for anywhere else to go. 

“I’ll let you deal with her,” Rachel said, “but we should go out and celebrate.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Percy said noncommittally as he took off down the hall after Annabeth. 

She was already far down a dark hallway, her fast footsteps the only sound. 

“Annabeth!” Percy called after her. 

“How the hell do I get out of here?” She asked. 

Percy jogged to catch up to here. “Here,” he said, leading her down another hallway in silence until they reached the building exit. 

Annabeth was taking off down the stairs before the humid night air had hit Percy’s face. She had her phone out, ready to call a car as he shouted her name. 

“Are you going to tell Chiron?” She asked, finally pausing and turning to face him. Her face was tense, her gray eyes piercing in the nighttime lights of the city. They were completely dry, filled only with anger and a tense, scrutinizing glare. 

“That you called Rachel Dare a whore?” Percy asked. He was still annoyed about that, but she didn’t make any effort to defend herself or apologize. She just narrowed her gray eyes at him, a cold scrutinizing gaze, as she waited for his real answer. “Yeah, I’ll have to tell him about the contract, I guess.” 

“You should do it as soon as you can. It might push him to make a counter offer,” she said, her tone calm and calculating, as if to say don’t worry, I’ve figured out how to get us out of this. 

But Percy shook his head. “I don’t know if it would make a difference,” he said. 

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed again. “Why the hell wouldn’t it make a difference?” She asked, 

“Lupa has wanted me in her company since I was eighteen. Chiron only gave me the apprenticeship when he thought I was going somewhere else. I don’t want my principal contract to be earned the same way,” he said. 

Annabeth scoffed. “Chiron didn’t give you an apprenticeship to spite Lupa. He never offered Rachel Dare a contract. If he offers you a promotion now it’s because you’ve earned it, and you should be dancing in New York,” she said. “Luke’s spot still hasn’t been filled, and you are the only man in the company qualified for it.” 

“Well, maybe I don’t just want whatever Luke left behind,” he said. He regretted his phrasing right away. Annabeth's eyes went wide, and she almost laughed as she took steps back and away from him. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he tried to say, running down the few steps to grab her hand and turn her around. “I just meant I am wanted in Miami. They made a space for me.”

“You are wanted in New York, Percy,” she yelled at him, her face tight with anger. 

“But what if I’m not? What if I walk into Chiron’s office in two days, and he says ‘Congratulations, bon voyage!’ What then?” He asked, trying to match the intensity of her gaze.

 But it wasn’t working. He wasn’t finding anger. Anger he knew so well. He knew how to be angry like he knew how to dance. But this feeling was different and distant. Old, but somehow still familiar. Whatever it was had started to prick something behind his eyes. 

“Then this is over,” Annabeth said very simply. “Then you go to Miami, and what we have is done.” 

His eyes started to itch now. “Don’t give me ultimatums, Annabeth,” he said. 

“It’s not an ultimatum, it’s reality,” she said. She pressed her lips together to stop them from shaking; he could hear sadness start to bleed through her anger. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. 

“It does. Miami and New York’s seasons don’t line up. There’s, what? Two months in the summer we’d be able to see each other? Our relationship wouldn’t last the year,” she said. 

“You’re the one always saying it’s going to end,” Percy reminded her. “You were with a man for ten years, but you can’t fathom being with me for five months!” He shouted. 

Annabeth shook her head. Whatever sadness he’d heard in her voice was crushed under a chilling anger. “I don’t know why this is so hard for you to understand. It’s just what makes the most sense,” she said. 

Percy’s mouth felt dry, and he felt like he’d swallowed a golf ball. That strange feeling hadn’t gone away, it had just made a home in his chest and in the front of his face. He felt himself tear up, but he couldn’t push it away like he usually did. Oh, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind, I’m going to cry. 

“It doesn’t make any sense that I have to choose between the thing I’ve spent half my life working for and,” he looked at her. Her anger had melted away. She was just looking at him, full of pity, her own eyes suddenly damp too, her bottom lip pressed between her teeth, trying to hold it back. Where she was successful, Percy wasn’t. “And you.” 

He felt tears on his face, and he wiped them away quickly, but they didn’t seem to stop. “Christ,” he muttered, his gaze down towards the gray stairs under them. 

Annabeth just stepped closer and pulled him into a tight hug. Percy hugged back, trying to not sob at least. He just took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of her shampoo and perfume, the warmth of her body, and the soft touch of her skin. He felt her hand on the small of his back, holding him close to her, the press of her palm perceivable even through the thick material of the costume he was still wearing. He wanted to tether himself to that touch, to never let her go. Somehow he knew that even if she left right now, and he never saw her again, he’d be tied to her for the rest of his life. 

He imagined their future: her, the director of City Ballet, him the director in Miami. Always competing for dancers. Shit talking one another to their dancers. Poisoning each other’s wells. Would she hang a photo from their Sleeping Beauty on her wall one day? 

The phone in her hand buzzed, and she pulled away. They were silent for a moment, before Annabeth leaned in and kissed him. There wasn’t passion, or anything to affirm to Percy that he had somehow come out on top, that there was anyway to have both her and Miami at the same time. No, he knew what the kiss was for. He knew it was the last one. And still, he hoped he was wrong. 

“That’s my car,” she said, when she pulled away. 

 “Annabeth,” he started to say, but he didn’t have anywhere else for the sentence to go. 

“I’m choosing for you,” she said. “You’re going to go get a mojito with your friends. If you want to, you can sleep with hot Miami girls tonight, tomorrow, whenever. And you can start learning to enjoy your life without me.” 

She started down the stairs towards the car. 

“Annabeth!” He yelled. She turned. “I thought we weren’t supposed to give up,” he said. 

She smiled sadly, and just shrugged her shoulders. Percy noticed again just how golden her hair looked under street lights. 

“This isn’t Agon,” she reminded him. “And we were never lovers.”

“But!” He caught her attention one more time, “you’ll always be my friend. I’m always in your corner.”  

She nodded. “And I’m in yours. Goodbye Percy.” 

He watched her get into the car, her golden hair disappearing behind the dark windows. Percy sat on the cold, damp steps, his legs exhausted, his mind weary, and for the first time since he was seventeen, he wept. 

[destinygoldenstar]

Just A Couple Of Fun Headcanons Of TD Characters (Owen)

- Owen’s family (two loving parents, uncle, grandfather, & youngest of three brothers) are huge nature enthusiasts. Owen learned plenty of survival skills in the woods from his grandfather, who is a hunter, and they pay a visit to his woodland life almost every month. 

- As a small kid, Owen’s grandfather taught him how to fish for the first time, and they cooked the fish for dinner for the family. Young O was upset because they were once living fish, but his grandfather taught him that sometimes meals have a dark side to them, but that doesn’t make them any less tasty. If anything, the depth to the story makes it taste better than something bland.

- Overall, Owen’s family all have great loving relationships with each other. They’re all obese, and incredibly reckless with their spending habits. They go in debt a lot more times than you think. It’s a casualty at this point.

- Owen and his brothers go to a catholic school. They’ve been in one in all their school years. Owen’s usually the restless one during mass. He was also in a choir at one point, but he hated it.

- Owen has a list of all his sins. It’s a very small page, but he never forgets his wrongs this way. (And then becoming a mole doubled that page)

- Owen isn’t a literature person. In book reports, he draws them out in little scribbles.

- Growing up, Owen had multiple buddies and got along with people easily. However, none of them were really ‘close friends’. They were just people he hung out with from his extroversion. A lot of his classmates are really serious or have family issues, so Owen simply felt like he had everything easy compared to them and had no interesting stories to bond with. At most it’d be about a hunting weekend with his grandfather or compliments to school food that literally no one else would say.

- Despite being as big as he was, he actually wasn’t incredibly food obsessed in his early child days. Most of his weight was carried over from his family, so it wasn’t like it mattered. 

- When he was around ten, he had a dream to become an Olympian. It became a path he wanted to pursue at first... you can probably guess where that led to.

- It didn’t work out. School PE was painful and not helpful. The failure led to quite a bit of insecurity. So Owen practically begged for his parents to send him away to a summer camp he found online. A fat camp. 

- That too ended up being bad. Everyone there was incredibly miserable, and the coaches guilt tripped the kids all the time. They had to jog in the hot sun for hours, with one coach mocking that people like them could never win a race. There was also a restraint with food amounts, and boy did the kids get hungry. 

- Owen found a food stash at that camp in the middle of the night, and from borderline starving, he raided it. He regretted this, added it on his sin list and prayed for forgiveness and all of that, but he had to admit he liked it. 

- After leaving the camp, he took a studying interest in recipes for the rest of the summer, learning about all kinds of food. If asked, he could gladly nerd out some facts about cooking. 

- Owen doesn’t just eat food mindlessly. He has an understanding of a variety of edible stuff. Sometimes he’ll compare people around him to a food product to understand them. He’s cheese. Noah’s curry. Izzy’s hot peppers. And so on. If he calls someone equivalent to Chef’s food, he means that as a compliment. 

- By his teenage years, he gave up on his athlete dream and decided he was going to work towards becoming a gourmet. Not only could it pay for his family, but it was also something he genuinely enjoyed. He wanted the people around him to never be as miserable as that camp ever again. So he made a vow to share what fun he found along the way. 

- Counting what he lost at the camp, he practically doubled his size and weight by high school. Appetites definitely grow when kept too far away from food for a long period of time. But when asked, he’d shrug off all concerns. Course, stereotyping isn’t so kind, so not a lot of people in school took interest in him as a person aside from the occasional gross-out gag that landed once every twenty attempts. 

- Owen has a whole closet full of stuffed animals. Those are his ‘friends’. As much as he won’t want to admit it out loud, it’s obvious to a few people that he has a crippling sense of loneliness. He can’t be in a room by himself for five minutes without panicking and thinking no one wants him. The stuffed animals aid it and help him sleep at night. He still sleeps with a plush toy to this day.

- Owen doesn’t actually process his bisexuality. In his mind, it’s completely normal. This guy can’t stay in a closet even if he tried.

- Owen’s audition for Total Drama was just him eating cheese and expressing all the fun party ideas he has for the other contestants. He admitted he didn’t think he was gonna win or anything, but what he really wanted was to fit in with a crowd he can connect with from a dramatic experience.

- They picked him for the show because of his mascot demeanor. They had ‘comic relief’ in mind from the start. “He’d make a great running gag; Just LOOK at him!”

- Needless to say, Owen won Island (in my canon) and gained loads of buddies from the experience. But then he gave up his money for the million solely because he wanted to have fun. He didn’t think there’d actually be consequences.

- Owen has an obnoxious amount of screen time on the show because the producers always market him as the main joke character of the show. They need him for the comedy purpose. The more he’s on that show, the more he’s molded into that role as his stereotypes, both the comic relief ones and the offensive fat kid ones. But he stayed anyway because he cared about the people around him, and thought they were genuinely interested in him as a person. (They weren’t. They only saw him for his role.)

- Unlike everyone else, Owen genuinely thought Chris and Chef cared about him. Chef was always making ‘delicious’ meals for him and all his friends, and Chris shared his enthusiasm for the ‘fun’ games. When Owen was in the hospital from is broken jaw, Chris paid the medical bills to assure he’d come back to the show right away with special treatment. After his first elimination in Action, Chris pulled him for the mole job, setting it up as wanting to help Owen and his family for their cheese cellar situation. He confessed that without Owen, he didn’t know what the show would be like. Owen took that as though Chris cared about his well being, so he accepted the job. (Chris and Chef didn’t actually care about Owen as a person; They just wanted his jokey image)

- The mole role was miserable. Everyone became disgusted by Owen after that. It took a LONG TIME for anyone to talk to him since then. He dated Izzy, and he occasionally visited DJ for support in their family’s broke situations, but other than that, nobody wanted to hang out with Owen anymore. 

- World Tour was his chance to rebuild his friendships and get a fresh new start. But the thing was, Chris had replaced him as his prize camper, especially now that Alejandro and Sierra were in the picture. Childish comedy was out, and sadistic comedy was in. 

- I already made a post about Owen in World Tour. TLDR, he didn’t rebuild any of his friendships. Everyone bullied him, used his kindness, and then abandoned him, leaving him all alone. 

- He tried to come back to the show, but Chris didn’t want him back. He didn’t compete in All Stars because Chris wanted that to be a ‘serious season’ for the ‘serious characters’. And well, Owen was framed the entire show as a joke. 

- Needless to say, Owen believed that. He believed his feelings didn’t need to be taken seriously, and that he was very shallow, pretentious, and one note. To hide any negative emotion of feeling less important and unheard, he embraced the role with a smile, especially since he had someone to look after.

- Life after Total Drama wasn’t easy with the debts and the loneliness being untreated. He had next to nowhere to go without the show. It wasn’t long before he found that someone else was in the same boat as him. He was also the only person who didn’t shut Owen out after the show. So their agreement to become Reality Pros was mutual. Owen just tagged along to whatever Noah was doing, and they went from there.

- They went to move out and live together, and they moved all around the world depending on the show. Owen was the one responsible for groceries, and Noah was responsible for everything else. For the long time that they spent with their career together, Noah became Owen’s whole world and dreams. He was what Owen wanted from the start, as the friend he needed, who understood him and wanted to be near him. 

- Beary got a funeral in Brazil. RIP. 

- His biggest fears were flying and letting Noah down. If he screwed up, he felt bad about it. He didn’t want anything to be about him and instead, let it all be about Noah. It’s not like shallow Owen had anything interesting going on anyway. (A mindset from Chris’s psychological torture)

- And then Noah fell in love...

- Owen cared about Noah. A lot. Suffice to say. So when he realized Noah didn’t feel the same at first... it was a bit hard to stand, especially to not show any of that despair in front of Noah or the camera. 

- Owen did what he thought he was supposed to do. Help his little buddy get the girl. Even if that meant it was far more apparent that Noah wouldn’t need him anymore, eventually. If anything, Owen dreaded that Noah dating Emma would mean Noah would abandon him like everyone else did. But Owen assisted the relationship anyway because he puts Noah’s needs over his. Always. 

- Noah and Emma didn’t end up together. Emma said she’d date him ‘when she won’. She didn’t win. So she was still in a rocky position in how to get in law school. She chose to focus on that over dating Noah, and they both thought that was for the best. Admittedly, with Emma’s past relationships and Noah’s lack of experience with feelings, neither of them would have been as ready to start one as they initially thought. Both Emma and Kitty still stay in touch and they’re all loyal friends who will be at each others aid when needed.

- Owen pretended to be disappointed for his little buddy, even if deep down, he was wondering if that meant he still had a chance. He was sad for Noah. He was sad for Noah. He wasn’t gonna think abut himself...

- But Noah caught him crying by himself in the middle of the night, believing he failed Noah ‘like he always did’. That Noah wouldn’t care about Owen anymore, and that’d say something since Noah didn’t show that very well. He had to get the girl. He didn’t get the girl. So now it’s the fault of the sidekick for screwing it up. 

- Noah confessed that Owen didn’t fail him. Not at all. If it weren’t for Owen, Noah wouldn’t know what he’d be doing with his life. Noah didn’t get in the college he wanted to, so he’d have nowhere to go if Owen never came into his life the way he did. Noah has a hard time showing that he cares about people in general, but he’d always care about Owen. Noah’s still learning how to show that care better. 

- A year or two later, Owen and Noah mutually start a bit of an asexual relationship. Noah doesn’t really strike me as someone who’d be into all the sex talk. Owen’s just happy that he can connect with someone that he can do anything for. 

- Izzy and Owen reunited quite a bit in the future after their separation in World Tour. They don’t get back together, but they remain great friends, and Brainzilla turns out to be a nice edition to the friend group.

- Owen didn’t end up remaining friends with everyone on Total Drama, but he did with Geoff, Bridgette, Gwen, and DJ. He never goes back to Chris. He doesn’t need Chris anymore with his new reputation.

- Owen has a cheese business that blooms pretty quickly. You can thank his boyfriend and his parents for the help. The flavor is called ‘Quippy Cheddar’. 

(Let me know if you want me to do anyone else)

[2manyfandoms2count]

Hi!!! 👋 It's been a long time since I spoke to you! Have you seen or visited the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics' Opening Ceremony today?!?!? If so, what's your opinion of it, what are your favourite performances/sequences, favourite moments, favourite costumes, favourite ceremony outfits from any country, and the coolest thing you've ever saw during the event? Your own accounts of the events and internet documentation (YouTube clips, memes, internet reactions, etc) counts, too. Besides, I wonder how you and everyone else you know celebrated or reacted in your experience?

Either way, I hope you have a good day! Good luck on the Olympics spirit and inspiration! Do it for Ladybug and Chat Noir!!!

Hiiii, it’s good to hear from you!!

I have personnally been lucky enough to escape from Paris for a few days, but I watched the ceremony on TV! I think it’s probably the best way to watch, even if the atmosphere seemed awesome: there was a gauaranteed good view, and I was out of the rain 😂 I didn't do anything special to celebrate the occasion besides watch it with my family, and I live reacted with some friends on Discord.

Honestly I wasn’t expecting much from the opening ceremony, there were sooooo many memes about the Phryges (the mascots), the dancers announcing a strike, the cardboard beds, people going for a swim in the Seine, but in the end I was really pleasantly surprised! I even almost cried at the end haha

Some moments were a little long (it was really cool to see all the delegations, but around the end I didn’t understand why they stopped having little interludes; and the masked horserider bringing the Olympic flag on the Seine was loooong, she should’ve started closer to the Trocadero imo, or again have interludes during the galloping), but overall it was very enjoyable, and I was proud to call myself French ❤️

My flop 3 (starting with the flop because it wouldn't be French not to complain)

1. The absence of Ladybug and Chat Noir :'( : I'm very happy the Minions made an appearance (they’re French! By creation, voice acting and animation), but it would’ve been fun to see our favourite Paris heroes make an appearance, even a very brief one running on the rooftops alongside the masked hero, their specialty </3

2. The French Cancan: it seemed sooooo disorganised and unsynced, you wouldn’t know they were Moulin Rouge professionals. The finale with all of them dropping to the splits kind of saved it for me, but I feel like it could’ve been much better coordinated

3. The Aya Nakamura segment: it was an interesting concept to have her come out of the Académie Française and singing with the Garde Républicaine, but if you're paid big bucks to perform at this kind of event, the least you can do is sing live, you know?

My top 3

1. The lighting of the Cauldron and the transition to l’Hymne à l’Amour: granted, the final set-up was a little long, but the masked Assassin’s Creed-like hero was perfect the rest of the time (I must admit I was a little concerned when they brought the flame up to Notre Dame, the works have barely finished following the fire of 2019 ahdjdkk), and I understand the athletes for taking it slow given how rainy it was - they’d never have lived it down had they slipped in their white outfits 😅 Then the passage from our oldest living Olympian to two of our most iconic Olympians (Teddy Riner and Marie-José Perec, both triple Olympic Champions, and perhaps even more for Riner as he's still competing!) was really touching, it was a beautiful image. And of course Céline Dion’s rendition of Piaf’s classic song was iconic, just a perfect closure of the opening ceremony.

2. The Conciergerie segment with Gojira and Marina Viotti: the contrast between Metal and lyrical singing was unexpected but worked very well imo; the light show and blood effects were incredible, very Revolutionary. It wouldn’t be France without a little reference to bloodshed, just listen to our national anthem...

3. Philippe Katherine's glittery, smurfy cameo: it was absolutely hilarious, like most things he does. I feel like the majority of people don’t know who he is and I'm glad that he might be discovered in this unhinged way; my family and I were literally discussing him and the fact that he probably wouldn’t be featured because he's got too much potential for havoc last week and... we weren't wrong 😂 if you fancy a laugh, check out his music, he recorded one of his albums in English (Here Comes Katherine!), featuring classics like "La Reine d’Angleterre" or "Computer Music" (the guy has no filter)

Special shout-out to all the diversity in the ceremony as well, on all fronts; the not-so-hidden references sprinkled around (Jules et Jim for the Richelieu BNF throuple, the Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables (fun fact: the show is going to be on this winter at the Chatelet theatre, and I'm going to see it!)); the magnificent rendition of the Marseillaise by Axelle Saint-Cirel; the hommage to great women; Lady Gaga's feathery performance; all the dancers on the side; "Zizou Christ" and Jamel Debbouze's opening bit; whoever was in charge of the Eiffel Tower lights show and event music; and pretty much anyone who was involved, period. Everyone did a great job, especially considering the fact it really was raining cats and dogs by the end.

I'm sure I forgot stuff but yeah TL;DR, it was very fun!!

As for the costumes, I sadly can't remember what delegations I liked most, but I do know that I was really impressed by some countries! A lot were stunning even under the rain ponchos, and I think it's great to embrace culture in these occasions instead of going for blander costumes.

I hope this answers your questions, and that you have a good day too!!!

[sororalice]

Book Review: “The Hierographicon” by Cory C. Childs

A font system for occultists and more from the author of “A Little Orphic Initiation: Three Easy Pieces for Prose, Poetry, and Piano”

Disclosure: I know the author/compiler of this text and software personally and work with them professionally. Nonetheless, I will endeavor to be as objective as possible.

“The Hierographicon” by Cory C. Childs, billed as a “Technical Toolkit for Esoteric Artist and Academic Esoteric Alike”, is actually a compilation of several texts, separated using a schema based upon the Greek Muses, an ennead of goddesses that, according to Hesiod, are the children of Zeus, king of the Olympians, and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. From this divine origin comes art in all its forms, and each muse is reflected in the present text as different aspects of the work are brought to light.

At the core of the work is the font system (for that is the only word I can use here, for this is no mere font) which is linked to at the beginning of the text and available free of charge. The installer for the font also installs a shortcut to activate the massive and complex system of shortcuts that make the font system usable.

As an offering, especially a free offering, the font system is excellent. It allows for a single Windows installation for an extensive number of languages and symbol sets useful to occultists (note that while I am sure classicists, philologists, and folklorists—among others—may benefit from this font system as well, I am primarily speaking as an occultist writing for other occultists). This font system works in any Unicode-based writing software (though, as noted in the text, it will argue with Microsoft Word’s shortcuts…solutions are offered within the text) and, for those with an urge to get under the hood, the entire Unicode specification document is included.

The use case given by our author for the font system is that of an occultist researching a particular spell in the PGM (the “Greek Magical Papyri”), which almost certainly contains several ancient languages the reader does not know. Speaking from experience, this can be a difficult task involving several reference texts in addition to the PGM itself, and part of why it is so difficult is because until now it has been nearly impossible to take accurate notes for later research and reference. This font system makes this laborious process much easier, allowing the working occultist to note down accurately exactly what the text says in a document for later work, which saves time and energy for the actual research required to make sense of the spell and make it useable.

The font system itself is articulated in to several subsystems, which are helpfully explained by the Muses in turn. In addition, several appendices are included. This is where our dear author shows their impishness as well as their literary ability. Among the appendices are works by the odd and interesting author of the 19th century, Isaac Preston Cory, with whom our author clearly feels a peculiar kinship and with which the average reader may feel varying degrees of interest, but the real gem of the work, at least from an aesthetic point of view, is our author’s brilliant and scintillating literary offering satirizing the best and worst of our little occult community.

About halfway through the book, in section Ω, right after the “Agrippa’s Pseudo-Koryphanean Alphabetic Correspondences” and right before “Orphicum Fragmenta” sits the sort of long, fantastical riff one would expect to run into into in the best of William S. Burroughs on a real good fix (think “Interzone”, “Nova Express”, or of course “Naked Lunch”) where the reader is led through a goth club filled with a menagerie of magickal helpers and hazards. While it is a short piece wedged in among the “real material” on offer here, I feel like this jazz solo of a short story can stand alone on its own merits.

All in all, “The Hierographicon” is an interesting, if uneven, contribution to occult literature. The font system will, I am sure, prove invaluable to many, and the various appendices are interesting enough to support their added weight. Well worth the price.

“The Hierographicon” by Cory C. Childs can be purchased on Amazon here (not an affiliate link): https://a.co/d/68rUK14