#classics percy returns

[phykios]

Academic Dishonesty for Fun and Profit [read on ao3] 15k, rated G

Does Percy like his job? 

Of course. 

Well, mostly. 

Kind of. 

See, the thing is…

Percy is on his computer, which is half the problem. 

There were a lot of things he could have been doing right now. Like grading, or finishing next semester’s syllabus, or responding to the avalanche of emails from anxiety-ridden freshmen and overbearing admins. Or grading. Gods, he has a lot of grading to do. Why hadn’t he listened to Paul when he said there was so much grading!

But to be fair, he is, technically, actually working right now, proctoring his Latin 3 exam. Never mind that he can definitely hear the kids in the front row whispering the answers to each other. Absently, he notes that Jamie has made leaps and bounds since her first Latin class—she’s the one supplying the answers this time around, rather than Junie. 

But to be frank, the Minotaur could parade through the exam room in his tighty-whities and Percy wouldn’t care. Or even notice. He’s too busy refreshing his email over and over again, tapping Riptide against the wooden table. 

Fucking ADHD. 

He can’t focus on anything else, except for the fact that the mid-April soft deadline has long since passed, and he still hasn’t heard anything. Which could mean nothing. These things take time. Or it could mean he was rejected. Which would suck, of course, but it would also make things a lot simpler in terms of his immediate future. But there’s been no change to his application status since last December. So here he is. Not paying attention to the final. Refreshing his email. 

Quickly flipping over to the Mythomagic subreddit, he refreshes that page, too. Nothing new. 

He refreshes his email again. No news. 

“Professor?” 

Only years of battle training keeps him from jumping out of his seat. “Mm?” 

Sierra, one of his straight-As, is standing before him, brandishing her exam. “I’m finished,” she announces, proudly.

He can see that. What, does she want a medal? “Great,” he says, “you can leave it on my desk and head out.” 

“Actually, could I ask you a question?” 

“...Sure.” He set down his pen, cautiously. “What’s up?” 

She beams. “I was just wondering when you were going to post our last weekly quiz grades.”

Internally, he groans. “I'm working on it—promise.”

“Totally!” she chirps, “but have you gotten to mine yet? I was just wondering how—” 

“I’m sure you did fine,” Percy interrupts, gently. Behind her, another student drops off his paper, and, blessedly, leaves without comment. “I’ll try and get the last of the quiz grades up in the next few days. Sounds good?” 

Sierra nods, clearly disappointed. “Sure thing.” 

But she doesn’t leave. 

Percy rolls his tongue behind his teeth, counts to ten. “Was there anything else?” 

“Yeah, so, a couple weeks ago, you mentioned the possibility of some extra credit? I’ve been reading Cicero, and I thought that maybe I could…” 

But what Sierra was imagining she might do with Cicero, Percy will never know. Because, looking out of the corner of his eye, he sees that his email has just refreshed. And the subject reads “Application Update.” 

His heart starts racing. 

“...And so I have about three pages of an essay already written comparing him and Catullus and contemporary views on homo—” 

Percy lifts a finger, and she falls silent, her jaw closing with an audible clack. “Sorry,” he says, tongue numb in his mouth. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I just… gotta read this real quick.” 

Fingers trembling, he moves his mouse, the cursor hovering shakily over the unread email. The email preview isn’t very long, a simple, “Thank you for your application to the…” which tells him literally nothing. He has to open it. All he has to do is press down, and open the email. 

But his thumb won’t respond. The email remains unbolded, unread. 

Just click already, he internally chides his thumb. 

His thumb does not click. 

Oh, for the love of—“Sierra?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I will give you one point of extra credit right now if you open this email for me.”

She blinks. “Seriously?”

“Two if you read it out to me.” 

“Okay!”

Percy scoots out of the way, pressing his eyes into the palms of his hands. He might actually be sick. 

He barely has a chance to hope that he didn’t leave anything embarrassing open on his computer, before her soft voice quotes, “Thank you for your application for the Campbell Fellowship for Bronze Age Research at the American Society of Underwater Archaeology. Attached is a letter about the status of your application.” 

His heart is beating so loud, he’s surprised she can’t hear it. “Is that it?” 

“Well, there’s also the letter.” 

With his face covered, she can’t see him roll his eyes. “Can you read the letter as well, please?” Undergrads. Di immortales. 

There’s a beat where Percy thinks he might actually explode, and then, her voice barely audible over the blood racing in his ears, he hears her read: “We are pleased to inform you that—” 

“Wait.” 

Pleased? 

He stands. “I got in?” 

“Uh—” 

Perhaps a tad rudely, he yanks the computer out of her hands, bringing it up to his face. For once in his life, his dyslexia doesn’t act up, entirely cooperative as he reads for himself, in neat, tidy, Times New Roman: We are pleased to inform you that the ASUA has awarded you the Campbell Fellowship for Bronze Age Research for the upcoming academic year.

He gapes. 

“Professor?” Sierra asks, shyly. 

He’s in.

He’s in!

“I got it!” He shouts. Every head in the exam room shoots up, staring at him.

“You got it?” echoes Sierra.

Brandishing his computer, he can only gesture to the screen, excitement bubbling up in him like a Coke about to explode. “I got the fellowship!” 

Fifteen pairs of eyes blink at him, uncomprehendingly. 

“Uh, I’ll be right back.” Inelegantly, he plops his computer back down on the desk, snatching up his phone. “Give me—give me five minutes. Stay put.” 

Bounding up the steps of the lecture hall, he already has the phone to his ear, dial tone ringing, and he barely makes it out of the room before his wife picks up. 

“Percy?” 

Now, Percy’s wife is a legitimate genius. She has known him almost her entire life, and in that time, she’s become a master at picking up the little nuances of his voice, the change in tone indicating the little undercurrents of emotion, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. She also knows that he knows that calling her in the middle of the workday is generally not helpful, as she’s usually in a meeting or deep in the zone, and taking her out of it is bound to mess up her flow for the rest of the day. 

But of course, Annabeth is a genius. She knows him inside and out. And she knows he wouldn’t call if it weren’t extremely important. 

“Annabeth—”

She doesn’t even let him finish. “You got in?”

He grins. “I got in!”

Over the phone, she gasps. “He got in!” Through the tinny connection, he hears her office cheering. 

And in the empty hallway, he jumps for joy, punching his fist in the air. 

***

Because his wife is brilliant, Percy doesn’t even realize that their walking date ends at the Greek Embassy until the three of them turn the corner. It’s just one of her many talents, making sure that Percy gets to his appointment on time. 

Percy wouldn’t exactly call it the perfect weather for a walking date. Gray clouds blanket the sky, enveloping the tips of skyscrapers in mist, and through the alleyways, the wind howls, whipping at their jackets, sending Percy’s messy hair into further disarray. Even Annabeth, who has recently taken to keeping her curls in a short bob with a rotating collection of headbands so that they don’t get in my gods-damned eyes so I can see what I’m working on, isn’t faring much better. Still, he’s out with his wife and daughter, enjoying a leisurely walk down the streets of New York, and it’s hard to be in a bad mood with that kind of positive energy around. “Alright,” he announces, slowing to a stop outside the consulate. “Here we are.” 

Automatically, Annabeth looks up, appraising the exterior, and Percy merely grins, awaiting her judgment. 

She frowns. “That’s the embassy?” 

Percy nods. “Uh huh.” 

“But it’s so… nothing.” 

He shrugs, readjusting his backpack, gripping the strap before it slides off his shoulder onto the wet pavement. In his other hand is his eldest daughter’s, squeezing it tight as she twirls around, her sneakers making little whirlpools beneath her feet. “That’s what I thought.” 

Now, technically, it is a Tuesday, and Junie should have been in Pre-K, wowing all her teachers and outperforming all the other kids by a mile. But, well… turns out the genes run a little bit deeper than just looks. The teacher had not been exactly sure how Junie had managed to flood the classroom via the little sink in the corner, but it seemed pretty clear that she had. She hadn’t been expelled, exactly, but it had been suggested she seek education and enrichment somewhere else. Honestly, Percy and Annabeth were a little charmed by it. Apples and trees and all of that. But they did worry that it heralded things to come. 

“I mean, there’s nothing,” Annabeth says again, craning her neck upwards. “No decoration, no sculpture… There’s nothing there!” 

“Nothing but pilasters.” 

She gags. 

“At least the one in Boston is next to the bar from Cheers.” 

She blinks at him, uncomprehending, and Percy makes a note to himself. 

“So how long do you think this will take?” she asks. 

“Dunno.”

“Because if it’s not that long we can just wait out here for you.” 

He shakes his head, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t waste the rest of your lunch break on me.” Besides, his back itches in the way that means it’s probably going to rain soon. “I’ll pick up Lucie from my mom’s place, and I’ll have dinner ready by the time you get home.” 

Percy is long-since immune to the domesticity of such a statement. Or at least he thought he was, because the way Annabeth grins at him, leaning forward to capture his lips in a stronger kiss, makes him want to do a little jig with Junie, right here on the sidewalk. 

His daughter certainly seems to agree, if the way she spins faster is any indication. 

Annabeth slides her own bag off her shoulder, and pulls out a bulky file folder, handing it to him. “One last check?” 

“Hit me.” 

“Award letter?” 

“Check,” he says, thumbing through the pages. 

“Proof of insurance?” 

“Check.” 

“Background check?” 

“With fingerprints, and without allegations of underage terrorism.” That had been a fun and nerve-wracking experience, getting his fingerprints taken. He had been sweating bullets for a week, expecting his brief career in monument-related arson to have the FBI kicking his door down. 

“Visa application?” 

“Plus immunization forms, birth certificate with apostille, and two hundred dollars cash.” 

“Passport?” 

He blinks. “I thought you had it.”

Annabeth snaps her gaze to him, eyes blazing. “Are you serious?”

“Kidding!” Reaching into the folder, he pulls out his shiny new passport, flapping it in the air. “Kidding.” 

She swats at him. “Seaweed brain…” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughs, kissing her again. “It’s all good, promise.” 

“Don’t be an idiot in front of the ambassadors, or whoever it is you meet in there, okay? Save your dumbassery for something less high-stakes.” 

Scoffing, he slips the passport back into the folder. “Excuse you, my dumbassery is only reserved for the lowest of low-stakes operations.” 

“Just go and get your stupid visa.” 

Percy crouches down. “See you soon, Honey Dew,” he says, kissing her forehead. “Go have fun with mommy!” 

Junie’s only response is to kick water in his direction.

Yes, he stands and watches them leave, smothering a laugh, even as it begins to drizzle on him, until they turn the corner. 

After checking in with the security guard at the door, he is directed to sit in the hallway, on a low, uncomfortable wooden bench. The floor is not marble, but it has the same kind of glossy shine to it, in a black and white checkered pattern that makes his eyes hurt. Tapping his foot, he casts his gaze around for something to focus on, and finds very little but blank walls, dim, yellow lights, and a fake marble statue in the corner of the winged, headless Nike (he knows that one on sight—Cabin 17 had made their own replica with an intact-head and placed it on their cabin roof after a series of Hermes-related pranks gone awry). 

Directly across from him, mounted on the wall, is a large, nearly-square painting. From his vantage point on the bench, Percy can make out a brown landscape, a blue, cloudy sky, and… not much else. There are lines of white blobs, dots of red and green and blue, and it takes Percy an embarrassingly long time to realize that they are people. Okay, the blue blobs are cannons, and the white are soldiers, he presumes. The subject begins to take shape, clues falling into place before his eyes.

Percy is, after all, quite familiar with sieges. 

He checks his watch. He made sure to arrive five minutes before his appointment, but it’s been fifteen minutes, and so far no one has come to collect him. 

Returning his attention to the painting, for lack of anything else to do, he stands, leaving his folder on the bench, and walks over for a better look. He can see much more clearly this close, can much more easily make out the lines of attackers and defenders. The white-robed people, armed with curved swords, are defending some kind of castle on a hill, with walls and towers and… columns.  

He frowns, tilting his head. 

In the center, towards the top of the canvas, is undoubtedly a temple of some kind. He counts eleven columns, gleaming white, in a row, with a gaping hole in the middle, filled instead with a circular building with a terracotta roof. Beneath the temple, on the slope, are even more columns, and a wall unevenly dotted with arched openings. 

There is something eerily familiar about the image that he just can’t quite place. 

What the hell is it? 

But he doesn’t have too much more time to dwell on it. “Mr. Jackson?” 

An older woman with a shock of white hair strides towards him, her heels (her very tall heels, dang) clacking against the not-marble. 

“Yes. Ms. Georgopoulou?” 

She shakes his hand, firm despite her age. Her wrists have so many bangles, maybe it’s a covert kind of weight training. “Yes,” she nods. “Please, follow me.” 

He takes a step to follow, before remembering that he left all his shit on the bench. 

Swiping it from the bench, he turns, grinning sheepishly, only to see that she is already halfway down the hallway. Percy has to actually jog to catch up with her. 

Several turns and one staircase later, Percy is in her office, seated on a leather chair that has seen better days, all but twiddling his thumbs while she painstakingly types in his application information. Which seems kind of a waste of time to him. On Paul’s recommendation, Percy had filled out his application on the computer, as he did not want to subject some poor admin worker to his terrible handwriting. If she’s just going to retype everything, why don’t they make the whole system digital? 

Ms. Georgopoulou types slowly, precisely, her bracelets occasionally scraping against the ancient-looking keyboard. Every so often, she will gaze at him over the thick, brown rim of her glasses, appraisingly. 

He stretches his mouth in a not-quite smile, feeling, once again, like a little kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office, waiting for the inevitable scolding or dressing down or disappointed sigh at his “antics.” 

Squinting, she takes another look at his passport. “Ah!” Then she beams, years shedding from her face. “Perseus?” 

He pauses. Only monsters call him by his first name. 

Surreptitiously, he slips his hand into his pocket, fingering his pen, tensing his legs just in case he has to make a run for it. Wouldn’t be the first time an old lady turned into a demon, but boy does he wish it happened less often. It’s not even surprising at this point anymore. “Yes?” 

But then, she does something maybe even scarier than spit venom at him. 

She starts speaking at him in Greek. 

He’s sure he looks like a dumbass, sitting there, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Um,” he starts. “Uh, I don’t—I don’t speak Greek.” 

Which is true. He technically speaks ancient Greek because of magic genetic fuckery. But modern Greek? It’s about as foreign to him as Korean. Except he’s actually picked up some Korean just from the restaurant down the block from his mom’s first apartment. So really, it’s about as foreign to him as, like, Martian would be, or something. 

Ms. Georgopoulou hmms at him, a wordless judgement, and goes back to her typing. 

It feels like an eternity before she talks to him again. “You have somewhere to say?” 

Percy nods, grateful for English. “I’ll be living in, uh, Piraeus.” Though he imagines he’ll mostly be living on his boat, or whatever island he ends up closest to for however long it takes to re-survey whatever part of the ocean he’ll be in. 

More typing. She flips through Percy’s sheaf of papers, frowning. “Where is your proof of insurance?” 

For a heartbeat, he panics. 

Oh gods, did he forget the insurance? 

He snatches them out of her hands, his own trembling as he thumbs through them. There’s no way he forgot the insurance. He and Annabeth double-checked, triple-checked—

“Here we go!” Percy brandishes the lucky paper, relief so intense it almost makes him dizzy. “Got my insurance right here.” 

Thankfully for his nerves, the meeting wraps up fairly quickly after that. Percy hands over the cash for the visa fee (no card, no check, cash only, because of course), and is summarily shown the door, letting him know that he will be notified about the status of his visa application in no less than fifteen days. 

More waiting. Joy. 

Still, Ms. Georgopoulou is nice enough to lead him back out of the labyrinth of the consulate, rather than let him embarrass himself further by getting lost. Walking once again through the hallway with the painting and the checkered floor, he spies that same painting out of the corner of his vision, the one with the siege and the temple and all the little blobby figures—and it hits him, all at once. 

“Oh!” he exclaims, stopping dead in his tracks. “It’s the Acropolis!” Because what else would it be? 

Ms. Georgopoulou eyes him, oddly. “It is,” she agrees, with a tone that she probably uses on her grandkids. Her dumb grandkids. “See?” 

She gestures to the label, and Percy has to squint to read the tiny letters. 

The Siege of the Acropolis, reads the caption, once he manages to make the letters fall into place. Painting by Panagiotis Zografos, under the guidance of Yannis Makriyannis.

So he’s off to a great start. 

***

Frederick Chase takes them all out for dinner the evening his visa arrives—by which he means all of them, including his mom, Paul, Estelle, and Junie and Lucie. They get a big corner booth in the back of a fancy, Japanese-Spanish fusion restaurant that one of Percy’s grad student colleagues had recommended, for which Percy is infinitely grateful, as Frederick had suggested a Greek restaurant at first, before Annabeth commented that Percy would soon be eating his weight in Greek food, and would probably prefer something else for the time being. 

Some concern had been expressed about the littles one finding something to eat, but Estelle had taken to the chicken katsu with aplomb, and Junie had eaten enough of the tempura green beans that Percy wasn’t too sure there’d be room for dessert. 

She sits in Percy’s lap now, painting water trails with her straw on the wood of the table, while his mom holds Lucie so Annabeth can run to the bathroom. Frederick, on his third glass of wine and more animated than Percy can ever remember seeing him, is regaling them all with stories from his own research trips, a handful of which had taken him to the Mediterranean. 

“Let’s see,” he begins, counting off his fingers. “I’ve been to… Sardinia, Malta, Samos, Samothrace, Lemnos—oh, Lemnos!” The wine in his glass almost sloshes over the rim, and Paul has to move out of the way of his elbow. “Lemnos was wonderful. Such a lovely, remote island with all these incredible volcanic formations, and did you know that ANZAC used the island as a staging ground for the Gallipoli campaign?” 

“Oh, really?” Asks his mom, genuinely interested.

“That’s what I was there for—I wanted to see whether the Axis had used the geography in the same, or set up their bases and commands in roughly the same places, as part of a broader investigation into how the Axis built off leftover infrastructure outside of Germany. In any case, I had a letter from the Ministry of Culture, I had all my permits, I even had the Deputy Ambassador notify the local Air Force base when I would be arriving.” He pauses to take a sip of wine. “All I needed was one historical map from the 1910s—just one—but the local commander would not let me look at it!” 

Paul gasps, a little theatrical. The wine must be hitting him, too. “No!” 

“Oh, yes. The man would not budge. Kept citing national security concerns. I told him, in not so many words mind you, but I told him that I had come all this way to see this darn map, and that the Greco-Turkish war had been over for almost a hundred years at that point, and not only was there no reason to keep the contents of the map classified, but satellite technology made the whole thing moot anyway, so what was the harm in letting me take a look?” 

Chuckling, Percy spears the last of his potatoes, popping it into his mouth. He’s heard this story before, heard all about how Frederick managed to convince the stodgy Greek Air Force commander to let him study the map by promising him a citation in his article. 

“So,” he goes on, “I am arguing with this man for what feels like hours, until finally he’s called away for something or other, and that’s when I realize.” Frederick leans in, a savage glint in his eye that Percy instantly recognizes as Annabeth’s war games face. “I don’t know what they were doing with it, I don’t know why it was there, but there, on his desk, was the map—and there, in the corner, was a copier.”

“Wait,” says Sally. Percy takes a drink of water. “Did you—”

“Make an illegal copy of a classified map from 1917 and smuggle it back to Virginia? Of course.” 

Percy spittakes so hard it nearly comes out on his daughter’s head. Estelle thumps his back while he coughs, spots appearing in his eyes. 

“Alright there, Percy?”

“Yeah,” he wheezes, “I just never heard that version before.” 

Frederick blinks, cocking his head. He looks so much like his daughter it’s actually scary. “You haven’t?” 

“You told me you managed to convince him by promising to put him in your article!” 

“I did?” 

“Yes!” 

“Oh.” He flushes slightly, sheepishly dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Well, I, ah, must have given you the, um, undergrad version.” At Sally and Paul’s concerned look, he rushes to assure them, “Don’t worry, it was declassified the next year!” 

Looking plenty worried, his mom shifts her concern from Frederick to Lucie, a grin creasing across her face. “Aw, sweetheart,” she coos, “looks like someone needs a change.” 

Suppressing the last few coughs, Percy shifts Junie to Frederick, who is more than happy to take his granddaughter from him. “I got it,” he says, standing. “If the waiter comes back, make sure to order me some matcha brownies, yeah?” 

Luckily, they’re already in the back, so it doesn’t take too long for Percy, kiddo and new diaper in hand, to make his way to the bathroom, and summarily run into Annabeth, who is just coming out of the women’s room, flicking her hands clean of water. “Oh!” She laughs, “fancy meeting you here.” 

“Come here often?” 

She grins, then shifts her attention away. Not that Percy is upset by that. “Hi sweetie,” she coos, wiggling her fingers. Lucie laughs, and Percy falls in love all over again. “Everything okay?” 

“Just time for a diaper change.” 

Annabeth steps aside, with a grand sweep of her arm. “Be my guest.” 

The bathroom does not have stalls, and Percy breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not his fault that men’s rooms don’t generally have changing tables, and it’s nice not to get weird looks while taking care of his daughter. Or when Annabeth comes up behind him, and wraps her arms around him, hugging his torso, face buried in his shoulder blades. Like she is right now. 

“I love you,” she mumbles into his back.

“I love you, too.” He cleans and changes Lucie with all the speed and grace of someone who’s done this a million times, and as he looks at his daughter’s face, feels the warmth of his wife pressed up against his back, the muffled noise of the restaurant and all of New York city in the distance, the sounds of the city as familiar as a lullaby, he is struck with an almost painful pang of longing. “I’m going to miss you so much.” 

Annabeth tightens her arms around him. “It’s only for a few weeks. We’ll be there before you know it.” 

“I can’t remember the last time we’ve been apart for so long.” 

“Apart from being kidnapped by a rogue goddess?” 

“Yeah, exactly. I can’t remember it.” 

She snorts. 

Picking up his clean kid, he bounces her in his arms, and is rewarded with a giggle. She’s just about old enough to transition out of diapers. She’s growing up so fast. “It just feels so real, now,” he says, quietly. “The visa, the plane ticket… I’m really going.” 

“You are.” She comes around to his side, her hand never leaving his arm. “You’re going to go to Greece for twelve months, dazzle the crap out of the other archaeologists with your million shipwreck discoveries, and not have to deal with any grading or any undergrads the whole time. And we’ll be right there with you, the whole time.”

“Almost the whole time.”

“Almost,” she conceded.

“I just—I don’t want to waste this opportunity. I’m not…” 

“What? Not smart enough?” 

He shrugs. 

In response, she rolls her eyes, then gently cuffs him upside the head. “Ow!” 

“Percy,” she says, dead serious. “Do you know how many people apply for things like this?” 

“I dunno… a few?” 

“Try at least thirty per cycle. These are really prestigious grants. People apply from all over the world, in all stages of their careers. And you, seaweed brain,” she pokes him with her finger. “Beat out the competition.”

He feels the grin stretch across his face, slowly. “I did, didn’t I?” 

“We did.” She kisses him. “Half of that proposal is mine.” 

“The better half.” 

“Of course.” 

“Your name should be on this visa.” 

“And it would be, if I could breathe underwater.”

“I can’t wait for you all to join me,” he says, eyes going misty.

Annabeth kisses him again. “We’ll be right behind you.” 

They’re in the bathroom so long, dessert has already come and gone, but his mom manages to snag a matcha brownie for him before Paul gobbles them all up. Frederick leads them all in one last toast, to Percy’s great academic finds or whatever, but the true highlight of the night is when Annabeth nudges Junie, who, with a gasp of almost-forgetfulness, pulls out the little thing he’d seen her working at for the last few weeks, proudly presenting it to him. 

“I made this for you, daddy,” Junie announces to the table. “I hope you like it!” 

In her hands is a friendship bracelet, patterned with the Greek wave in blue and light green. Some of the waves are uneven, the crests a bit clunky, but in the center, Junie had woven an evil eye symbol in white. 

“I love it,” he croaks. “Thank you so much.” 

“Mommy helped with the mati, but I picked the colors.” She points at the band. “Blue is for the ocean. The green is for honey dew!”

He cannot stand it—he hugs his daughter, and doesn’t stop himself from crying. 

***

Percy, who in the last seventy-two hours, has suffered air travel, jetlag, a mattress as soft as a concrete slab, the Athenian metro system, and one really, really steep hill, now faces his final challenge of the day. Swallowing his fear, he runs a hand through his sweaty hair, and steps up to the front desk of the library. 

"Ah, signomi," he stammers, the word strange and unfamiliar in his mouth. The syllables are pretty close to ancient Greek, but the way they fit together is just… weird. "I have an appointment with, um, Aristides?"

The older lady at the front desk peers up at him over the rim of her glasses, her wrinkled hands resting on the pages of a yellowed book. With her red-dyed hair, large frames (are those Chanel?), enormous jewelry, and heavy eyeshadow, she reminds Percy of every school librarian he's ever had. 

She leans in, hand to her ear, one eyebrow cocked. "Eh?"

"Aristides?" he repeats, a little louder. It echoes throughout the main hall of the library, and he does his best not to wince.

"Ah, Aristides!" She perks up, babbling at him in Greek. "Edaxi," she says, "one moment, please," before rising from her seat, and floating across the hall, where she disappears behind a large, wooden door.

Unsure if he should sit at one of the tables, Percy elects to stand, hands gripping the strap of his backpack, tapping his heel against the floor. An older patron in the corner of the room, his table piled high with books almost tall enough to wall him off from the world, glares at him.

It's a beautiful little library. The attached museum had been a beautiful little thing, too, and if it weren’t the middle of the night on the east coast, he would have called her up himself, and shown her around via video.

He channels her now as he looks around, observing. The outside had been all neoclassical, almost beating you over the head with it, with perfect, fluted ionic columns, tapering gently at the top. Inside, beautiful, grand, wooden bookshelves surround the room, their contents locked behind glass. Some of them he can read instantly, of course—the library has a hefty collection of ancient Greek literature after all—but the rest swims in front of his eyes, scratchy gold lettering blurring together with blue and red leather. Wandering over to something that won't make his head hurt, he stops in front of a glass display of a book, open to a delicately printed page of text. 

It’s in Greek—ancient Greek, thank the gods—and to his delight, it’s the first few lines of the Iliad. Instantly, his shoulders unwind, and he relaxes enough to lean down and take a closer look, quietly mouthing the familiar words to himself. Percy doesn’t even bother with the label, instead tracing his eyes over the floral linework in the header illustration. He sees ram heads, fish, and pumpkins in the little cornucopia, and some kind of gorgon mask in the big, illuminated “Mu” that begins the poem. His master’s thesis had been a new translation of the Aeneid, but during that process he had come to appreciate the art of old, fancy editions of epic poems. It was kind of cool to see a physical, non-magical link to his past. He might be living proof of the Olympian gods, but plenty of mortals had dedicated their lives to carrying that legacy forward on faith and passion alone. And now Percy will carry it forward, too, without using his sword this time. It’s pretty cool, if you think about it.

A quiet voice behind him breaks the spell. "Mr. Jackson?"

Percy turns, and is greeted by a well-dressed man, probably in his early 40s. He looks as Greek as Greek can be, with a great beak of a nose and thick, wavy, salt and pepper hair. “Percy,” he insists, reaching out to shake his hand. “Thanks so much for meeting with me, Mr. Yiannopoulos.” 

“Please,” he returns, in a perfect American accent. “Call me Ari. Come on, let’s talk in my office.”

His office is huge, definitely bigger than Percy’s apartment back home, and covered wall-to-wall with books, in so many languages that it makes his head spin. As Percy closes the door behind them, Ari sheds his suit jacket, tossing it over a spare chair squashed between two teetering piles of books. He gets the sense that this guy and Frederick would get along famously. 

“You get settled in alright, Praetor? No problems with the apartment?” 

Percy sets down his backpack on the 70s-era linoleum floor. The things he’s picked up from Annabeth still astound him. “Yeah, it’s fine. But getting here was a journey, let me tell you.” 

“I’d bet,” says Ari, evenly. 

“That hill is killer.” 

“They’re building a new metro station in the neighborhood, but it won’t open for another few years probably.” 

“How do you stand it?” 

Ari shrugs, sitting down behind his desk. “Practice, mostly. But I live on campus here.” 

“Heh, must be nice.” Percy sits in the chair opposite him, zipping open his backpack and rummaging around for his documents folder… until something occurs to him, and he suddenly shoots his head up. “Did you just call me ‘Praetor’?”

“Took you long enough.” 

He blinks. “You’re a Roman?” 

“Yep.” Ari rolls up his sleeve, revealing the familiar, stark harp symbol, with twelve lines beneath it, signifying twelve years of service. “Third generation legacy.” 

Something in his brain might be broken. Or maybe it's jetlag. “You’re a Roman… but you work for the Greek government?” 

Ari raises his brow right back. “And you’re a Greek, but you teach Latin.” 

That does not at all clear anything up for him. “Did you know who I was when I applied?” 

He shakes his head. “I only learned you were coming after the review committee circulated the applicants. I saw your name, and I had to basically beg my supervisor to let me be your liaison.” 

“Okay… Why?” 

“I’m glad you asked.” Percy doesn’t think he looks particularly glad. “Because, Praetor, you,” Ari glares at him, as sharp and pointed as the finger he’s thrusting into Percy’s face, “have a bad habit of attracting attention.” 

Percy frowns. “Wait… Is this about the Gateway Arch? That was, like, fifteen years ago—”

“The Arch, Mount St Helens, the sinkhole in Rome,” he counts off his fingers. “Do you even know how much paperwork I had to do when you and your friends collapsed the Necromanteion in Epirus? Oh, and then you all decided that the best course of action would be to march on Athens and stage a battle on the Acropolis!” Ari slams his hand down on his wooden desk. “The Acropolis is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire world! We had to close the site for days! My bosses were about to have me crucified!” 

Percy would scoff, but Ari is a Roman. He knows exactly what he’s talking about vis-a-vis crucifixion. “Well,” Percy counters, “my bosses were going to have me—and also you—obliterated if I hadn’t gone there.” 

Ari glares again, a wolf stare so perfectly intimidating it could only have been taught by Lupa. It probably works on the skittish undergrads and beleaguered government employees he has to deal with on a daily basis. But Percy has also trained at Lupa’s knee. He’s faced the Titan king and the goddess of Earth. He has stared down Athena while hiding underneath a pastry cart—and has seen the exact same look on his two year old when she doesn’t want to be put down for a nap. 

Sensing, perhaps, that he is outmatched, Ari blinks first. “Fine,” he grinds out, “but I’m giving you an assistant.” 

“What? I don’t need—”

“Oh, yes you do. A grant this big comes with serious scrutiny, which will fall on my shoulders if you decide to trash another priceless heritage site.” He turns to his computer, quickly typing something out. “I’m sending you his resume right now. You are not to leave him behind or waste his time with useless data entry.” 

“But—”

“Don’t worry, he knows his way around a boat.”

Percy gapes, his whole day suddenly upended. In all his time preparing for the fellowship, he had not expected that he’d have a permanent hanger-on. Especially one he knows nothing about! “You can’t just saddle me with some mortal assistant and call it a day!” 

Ari levels him with another look. “Don’t be stupid—I’m sending you a legionnaire.”

“A kid?” 

“Yep.” Ari finishes typing with a final clack that brokers no argument, before swivelling back to face him. “You can pick him up from the port when you head out Thursday morning. He’ll be waiting for you at Terminal B.” From a desk drawer, he pulls out a folder, sliding it across to Percy. “I’ve booked you two tickets for an overnight ferry to Crete. You’ll have one day to settle in Heraklion before you start your first survey. Any questions?” 

Flabbergasted beyond speech, Percy can only take the folder. 

“Great.” He stands up, and goes over to open the door to his office. “I’ll be checking in with you next week. Have a safe trip, Praetor.” 

***

“How’s the kid?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy groans, dropping his head back. 

Over the Iris Message, Annabeth snorts. “That bad?” 

“No,” Percy admits. “He’s actually been really helpful.”

“Then what is it?” 

In truth, there isn’t a lot to complain about Arthur Taylor. A son of the Roman god Portunes, Arthur had spent the better part of his childhood sailing around the world with his mortal dad, before they settled in San Francisco when he was fourteen. After two years in New Rome High School, he had tested out of most of the classes, and was given permission by the Senate to take his senior year off for a long term Legion assignment—which, apparently, just so happened to be babysitting Percy. 

Still, he’s a good kid. He’s an excellent sailor, knows how to operate the very expensive diving equipment that Percy had to rent for appearances’ sake, and, to be quite honest, keeps Percy from going insane by giving him someone to talk to.

There is just one slight problem. 

“He keeps calling me ‘Mr. Jackson’!”

Annabeth, the heartless woman that she is, just laughs at him. 

“I’m serious!” He whines. “It’s weird!” 

“You know that I’m Mrs. Jackson, right?” She flashes the ring at him for good measure, like he’d ever forget one of the best days of his life. “What’s so bad about that?” 

“It makes me feel so old.” 

“I’m older than you.”

“And you’re aging beautifully.” 

“Ha ha,” she deadpans. Then she yawns. 

Percy frowns. “It’s not that late over there.” It’s only 8 AM here, and Annabeth seriously lives up to the night owl stereotype. 

“No, but I haven’t really been sleeping well for a few days,” she admits. “Taking care of all three of us is hard work.” 

A pang goes through him, cutting through the gentle morning sun filtering through the window. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. Sally’s pitched in a few times, and my dad has started sending me those fancy microwave meals.” She shrugs a shoulder, her t-shirt sliding down and showing some skin. Percy tries not to stare like a teenager. “We’ve been getting by just fine.” 

“I know.” And he does. Annabeth wouldn’t let a little something like her inability to cook stop her from being the best mom ever. “I just miss you guys so much.” 

Smiling softly, she leans forward, and he copies the movement. “We’ll be there next week,” she reminds him, “which means we’ll see you in just three weeks.” 

“What if I just cut my survey short and met you in Athens?” 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time. Besides, yesterday you told me you were onto something?” 

Was it only yesterday? Gods, Percy’s sense of time is shredded out here. They’ve only been surveying for a little over two weeks, but it simultaneously feels like forever and no time at all. The only way Percy can really mark the passage of time is by his twice daily IMs back home. “Maybe,” he hedges. “I talked to some sharks the other day, and they said I should try and find this nymph who’s lived in this part of the bay since the twelfth century.” 

“Any luck yet?”

“Not yet, but they said she liked to scare the tourists sailing back and forth from Chrysi.” 

“Is that daddy?” Junie waddles into view, rubbing her eyes with her fists. 

“Baby, you’re up so late!” Annabeth hoists their oldest into her lap, so she can get a better view. “What’s the matter?” 

“Hafta go potty,” she mumbles. “Heard talking. Hi, daddy.”

“Hi, Honey Dew,” he says, almost tearing up. He misses his family so fucking much. “Are you being good for mommy?” 

She nods, her eyes still droopy. “Miss you.” 

“I miss you, too, kiddo. But I’ll get to see you in just a few weeks! And then we’ll have our big boat adventure!” 

Smiling, she snuggles into Annabeth, burying her face in her t-shirt. “Adventure,” she repeats, dreamily. 

“Come on, let’s go potty so you can go back to bed.” Annabeth took their daughter’s hand, waving at Percy from thousands of miles away. “Bye, daddy! Have fun on your survey!” 

“Good night, baby!” 

“Night night,” his daughter says, clumsily flopping her arm. 

“Night, Percy,” says Annabeth. “Talk to you in the morning.” 

“Sleep well.” 

Annabeth blows him a kiss through the IM, and he catches it, rubbing it on his cheek, before swiping a hand through the image of her sticking her tongue out at him. 

Good timing—from above, he hears Arthur ring the horn to signal they’ve arrived. Percy emerges from below onto the deck, shading his eyes against the bright morning sun. “Morning, Captain!” Arthur calls from the wheel. “We’re coming up on site 23B.” 

“Excellent.” That’s the other great thing about Arthur. Aside from all of his other skills, he is also a whiz at deciphering their legacy data. “How’s the weather looking?” 

“Another perfect day.” 

They are currently cruising off the southern coast of Crete, cruising easily over the most perfect, bluest ocean Percy has ever seen in his life, beneath a bright, clear sky. It’s hard for the weather to not be perfect here. 

“Alright,” Percy says, “if that’s the case, do you think you can head back to Ierapetra and pick up some more supplies?” Their little galley kitchen may be powerful, but it’s still pretty small, and they need to restock every few days.

“Sure thing,” says Arthur. “Any requests?”

“Just clear out their entire stock of peach juice for me.” It may not be blue, but it is delicious.

Arthur opens his mouth, as if to say something else, but then closes it, ducking his head, embarrassed. 

“What is it?” 

“Um,” Arthur hedges, hands gripping the wheel, “would it be okay if I took some time to go check something out in town?” 

Percy frowns. “Sure. Is everything okay?” They haven’t been accosted by monsters yet, but he figures it’s only a matter of time. “Do you need backup?” 

“What? Oh,” Arthur flushes. “No, nothing like that. I just wanted to sight-see a bit.” 

“Sight-see?”

He nods. “There’s this house—supposedly, in 1798, Napoleon docked in town, incognito, for a single night, before he headed on to Egypt for the Mediterranean campaign.”

The kid’s been all over the world, has docked in every continent except Antarctica, but he’s practically bouncing to go check out some random house that maybe has a connection to the Napoleonic wars. Grinning, Percy makes a note to introduce Arthur to Dr. Chase at some point. “Sure,” he says. “Have fun.” 

Arthur beams. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson!” And he looks so excited, Percy can’t even bring himself to be annoyed with the whole “Mr. Jackson” thing. 

And if Percy decides to give the boat a little push after he dives in so that Arthur can get to shore faster… Well, there are multiple benefits to this decision. Arthur gets to shore faster, and Percy gets to have some time to himself. 

Hey, just because having the kid around keeps him from going crazy doesn’t mean he doesn’t need some Percy-time. 

Percy lets himself sink further down, enveloped by the warm, crystal clear blue water. Eyes closed, he tilts his head up towards the surface, breathing out a stream of bubbles, his t-shirt gently wafting in the calm undercurrents. A school of something swims past him, tickling his arms and face like a soft breeze. 

Yeah. This is the life. 

For a few solid hours, he just lets himself be moved around by the will of the ocean. He moves in something approaching a circle, simply drifting around the island of Chrysi. Dappled sunlight drapes like lace over the rocky seafloor and patches of seagrass, while parades of colorful fish stop in their tracks to look for a second at the weird obstacle in their migration path, before continuing on around him. Eventually, the current takes him by the waist and draws him further from shore, into the deepening dark of the sea. Beneath him, he can sense the slowly sharpening descent of the ocean floor, stretching further and further, past the hunting grounds of squids and octopus until, he knows, some hundreds of meters further south, the ground suddenly gives way to a steep, sudden cliff. And what lies beyond, no one knows. 

Which is crazy to Percy. He’s seen the surveys, read the topographical maps, and even asked his dad, but despite the seventy or so years of dedicated surveying and the literal thousands of years of nautical travel and trade, there are still, somehow, unknowns in the Mediterranean. There are creatures down here even his father doesn’t know. There is magic here older than the gods themselves. 

And there is also a nereid staring at Percy from behind a tall rock. 

He yelps, tripping on himself. Yes, tripping underwater. It happens, and it’s just as silly as tripping on land. “Ahem. Hello?” 

The nereid pokes her head out further. She’s pretty in the way that all nereids are pretty, by virtue of being an immortal in a pantheon full of pretty people, but there’s something distinctly different about her. Her skin is pale, her hair somehow sticking to her face, like she had just emerged from underwater… despite still being underwater. 

Percy chances a swim closer. She doesn’t immediately run away, but she still seems pretty shaken up by the appearance of a sudden stranger. “Hey. Uh, I’m Percy. What’s your name?” 

Her eyes widen, and she squeaks, blushing blue to the roots of her glossy, black hair. “My lord!” She bows, nearly tumbling into a full front flip, her long, skinny tail flipping against the rock with a thump so loud, Percy can feel the vibrations. 

Oh good. She knows who he is. “Hi.” 

“Hello! Good morning! Um, afternoon? My lord!”

The water ripples out from around her, shaking so hard she’s starting to cause her own localized whirlpool. “Percy is fine. Please.”

The nereid nods, sharply. “Lord Percy!” 

Well, that’s about as far as he’s going to get. 

She stares at him, starry-eyed, but still nervous. Also, she doesn’t look like she’s about to make off with him and drag him to her undersea lair, so that’s a plus. “So… what’s your name?”

“Eunice, Lord Percy!”

“Great—wait. Eunice?” 

“Yes!”

Eunice. Huh. Well, he’s heard weirder. “Eunice. You live around here?”

She nods, her hair whipping in the current. 

“I’m looking for—”

“For shipwrecks! Yes! Your father told us!” 

“Right.” Oh he’s well aware. He’s had random nereids accosting him all summer to tell him about the incredibly fascinating sunken lobster fishing boats off the coast of Maine they had found, and how about they go check them out together, just the two of them? “Well, actually, I was talking to Kostas the other day—”

“The squid?” 

“The shark.” 

She nods. “I know him well! We are good friends!” 

That had not been Kostas’ version of events. “He said you might know something about a bronze age wreck around here?” Specificity is important, he’s learned. There are so many shipwrecks around Crete, mostly from the last forty years, and specificity means he’s not wasting time chasing Cold War-era fishing vessels. 

In lieu of an answer, instead she turns and bolts into the deep, almost smacking Percy in the face with her tail. 

He stares after her. 

Then, just as quickly as she left, she swims back, beckoning with one webbed hand. “Please, Lord Percy! Follow me!” And then she shoots off once more. 

O… kay. 

With only some trepidation, he swims after her. 

She’s fast, and the further they go, the more she blends into the environment, but the sea puts his senses into overdrive. He can easily follow her bubble trail, weaving in and out of spiky rock formations, inching ever closer to—where else—the edge of that underwater cliff. Because of course. “Hey, Eunice,” he calls out. “Where are we going?” 

“We seek the edge of the Minoan Crown, my lord!” She sends back. Which means absolutely nothing to him. 

But it’s not like he can get lost, so, onwards and upwards. Or downwards, as the case may be. 

The water grows colder, blacker, heavier. Pressure curls around his ankles and wrists like weights, but Eunice is not stopping, so Percy swims through the water as thick and heavy as molasses. He can still breathe down here, but something about the water is just… different. Awkward. Like it almost doesn’t fit in his lungs. More disconcertingly, he feels like he can barely see, the darkness is so impenetrable. 

“Nearly there!” Eunice calls cheerfully. Percy wipes his brow, suddenly sweaty. 

“Nearly there” turns out to be something of an overestimation, but eventually, she makes a right turn, and comes to a hard stop, Percy nearly barreling into her. 

“Here, prince,” she says, approaching a dark shape in the dark(er) water. “Look.” 

This deep, in this thick, complete darkness, he’s essentially blind. Still, he can sense that they are in an underwater cave, some five thousand or so meters beneath the surface. He has an impression of spiky stalagmites and packed sand. Cautious, he swims closer. His eyes essentially useless, he closes them, reaching out with his feelings instead. 

The water here is still, unnaturally so. There is no life, no movement, aside from the gentle wave of Eunice’s hair. A cold hand brushes against his arm, and his eyes snap open as he jerks away in shock—not at the touch, but at the fact that he can suddenly see. 

Eunice is softly glowing. Her skin, already so pale, is translucent, enough that he can see her bones, but now he can also see the bioluminescent spines protruding from her forearms, casting the cave in an eerie, almost ultraviolet light. “Be at ease,” she says, her voice lower, suddenly confident. “I shall be your light.” 

It’s not great. He’d rather have a flashlight. But it’s more than enough to see the smooth, wooden curve of the keel which rises up out of the packed sand of the cave floor, about six inches from his face. He places a hand on a plank, running his palm over the whorls and grain of a piece of wood which had somehow, miraculously, survived all this time. 

“Whoa,” he breathes, a stream of bubbles escaping his mouth. How has the wood not completely disintegrated by now? 

“You must take care, my lord.” Eunice waves a hand, redirecting the current. “This cave has never known the anemoi, and a hero’s breath is a dangerous thing.”

He frowns, and then it clicks. “This cave is anoxic,” he says. “There’s no oxygen down here.” And no oxygen means no wood-eating organisms. No wonder the keel is so intact. 

She tilts her head at the unfamiliar word, frowning delicately, a personality change equal parts eerie and sudden.

“Nevermind.” 

With his portable nereid spotlight in tow, he swims around the exposed body of the ship, his astonishment growing with every look. Not only is the keel intact, but so is the deck, as is the single exposed mast, rising up into the black water, a thick length of rope—rope!—attached to the top. Turning and swimming down, he examines the spot where the ship emerges from its sediment casing. If the wood and the rope had survived this long, what else might there be? A sail? Some paint? What if the ship’s cargo survived, too?

“Eunice,” he says, remembering to pull his face away. “How long has this thing been down here?” 

She shrugs. “I cannot say for certain, for I had not yet come into being when this vessel came to rest in this cave, its passengers long since drowned.” 

The question is out of his mouth before he has time to register that it might be a little bit rude. “How old are you?” 

But she doesn’t seem to mind. Eunice smiles, her mouth full of long, sharp teeth, glinting in the light of her spines, and Percy shivers. He vastly prefers the awkward, nervous Eunice from earlier. “I am old enough to have guided the Argo safely through the clashing rocks, to have been challenged by Cassiopeia, and to have mourned the swift-footed son of Thetis, pouring honey and ambrosia over the silver casket of the greatest of warriors.” 

So, about as old as the Trojan War, then. 

Which means this ship is even older. 

He places his hand on the wood, and closes his eyes again, focusing, a trick he’s picked up from Leo. 

Machines have stories, and so do ships. How they’re made, how they work, how they’re broken. Percy just has to be willing to listen. 

“It’s not a cargo ship,” he says, mostly to himself. “It was a warship.” He can hear it, the furious beat of drums, the rhythmic grunt of oarsmen, the sharpening of blades and the readying of bows. The wood, hewn from a cedar tree, is warm beneath his touch, even here in the freezing cold dark. “And it was sailing north.” 

“North?” 

“It was… running away from something.” Limping away from battle. The captain had cut his losses, and had ordered his men to retreat. “There was a storm.” No doubt his father and uncle had been fighting again, this sad little warship caught in the middle of an explosive family dispute they had no part in. Percy hears the crashing of thunder, the howling wind, the mighty crack of a mast as it splits apart. “And then it sank.” 

An all-too common occurrence. But where did it come from?

Percy frowns, stretching his senses further. 

He sees round shields and horned helmets, and people exhausted by constant war. There is the spicy, floral red lotus, and the earthy, woody papyrus. A mighty river floods in an endless cycle, giving life in a barren desert. And in him is a spirit that covets this bounty, a feeling of envy so hot and sudden, it almost knocks Percy off his feet. 

He has to—he has to write all this down. If this is what he thinks this is, then this could be the find of a generation. Maybe several generations. Frantically patting his pockets, he pulls out Riptide, converting it to normal pen mode, before he stops, and smacks his forehead, groaning. 

Di immortales, he left his notebook with Arthur on the ship!

***

“Absolutely not!”

“Ari—”

“No!” 

“Ari, this could be huge.” 

“You’re talking about causing an earthquake!” 

“A small one!” 

“Are you out of your mind?” 

“How else am I supposed to get it out of the cave?” 

“Arthur, tell me you think this is a bad idea.” 

“Um…” 

“Iuppiter dique te omnes perdant, Percy, you’ve gone and corrupted him.” 

“Look, it’s not Minoan or Mycenaean, it’s not Egyptian—it’s unlike any other ship I’ve ever seen before. The cave is anoxic, so the wood is so well-preserved, and Eunice says that it’s been there since before she was, so we’re talking 12th century, at minimum.” 

“CE?” 

“BCE.” 

“...And it’s not Mycenaean?” 

“Mr. Jackson thinks it could belong to the Sea Peoples!” 

“Arthur—!”

“Sorry!” 

“...The Sea Peoples. Really?” 

“I mean… yeah. I think so.” 

“...Let me make some calls.” 

***

Calls are made. And Percy waits. 

Luckily, he has a really, really nice way to pass the time. 

Annabeth, naked as the day she was born, lounges on the cabin bed, stretching her arms over her head, before she flops over onto her back, limp and boneless. Percy, drinks in hand and equally naked, has to force himself to set the bottle down on the little table, rather than drop the damn thing and jump her all over again. “Water or wine?” he asks, shamelessly leering. 

She shamelessly leers back. “Water, then wine,” she responds, already reaching for a glass. “I need to rehydrate.” 

Originally, the plan had been for Percy to go back to Athens to meet his family after they arrived. However, given the potentially paradigm-changing archaeological treasure stuck in the Hellenic Trench, Ari and Percy had both decided it would probably be best for Percy to stay put, and have his family come to him, rather than the other way around. Which is fine by him. They can explore Athens as a family any time, but the perfect weather off the coast of Crete will only last for so long. 

The tourists have begun to dissipate as the summer season gives way to a warm fall, so Percy, Annabeth, and the girls have the beaches and seas more or less to the locals and themselves. Junie is utterly enchanted by the Flying Dolphin, and has decided that her new favorite game is hiding in the various nooks and crannies aboard ship, then popping out to surprise him, giving her daddy a heart attack in the process. Lucie takes a little more time to adjust, laid low by a minor ear infection, made worse by the rocking of the boat. The only way to calm her, they quickly learn, is for Percy to hold her while they go for a dive, suspended in a little air bubble, her little eyes wide as she takes it all in.

Percy, Annabeth, and their family spend their days diving, fishing, making friends with the elderly women who come out every morning at sunrise for their daily swim, relaxing on the beach, and eating their way through the multiple gelato shops which line the promenade. Aside from a few hiccups, having this time with his family has been an absolute, perfect paradise. 

Percy is pretty sure he and Annabeth are guaranteed a spot in Elysium. Whenever they end up there, he hopes it’s exactly like this. 

Especially this part. 

After about a week and a half, Frederick, sensing that Percy and Annabeth were in desperate need of a little alone time, had graciously volunteered to take Arthur and the girls inland on a tour of Minoan ruins. Percy had essentially been put on shore leave while Ari did his bureaucratic, six degrees of New Rome separation thing to make sure Percy’s plan isn’t completely idiotic, and maybe even viable, and Frederick was already chomping at the bit to see some old rocks which had once been palaces, so it didn’t take much effort to convince Arthur to go along with them.

So, with the kids away and work on hold for the time being, Percy and Annabeth are engaging in some truly excellent sex. 

Like, a whole lot of it. 

Dehydration is a very real possibility for both of them.

“Tell me you have more of that cheese,” she says, after downing a glass and a half of water. 

“We finished off the graviera this morning. I’ll tell Arthur to pick up some more on his way back.” 

She pouts. “You mean to tell me that I’ll be cheeseless for two more days?” 

“Unless you want to get dressed and go get some yourself.” 

“Honestly, I’m considering it.” She lifts one leg, grasping her knee and pulling it closer, stretching out a cramp—and giving Percy one hell of a view. “I’m going to need some snacks if you’re going to keep making me come like that.” 

He grins. It had been explosive. “Hit your limit already?” 

“Not even close.” Percy settles onto the bed next to her, wine glass in hand, and she lifts herself to kiss him, slipping the glass out of his grasp. “But seriously, we should probably eat. I think we were fucking all through lunch.” 

“You hungry?” 

“Give me like half an hour. You’re not?” 

Percy frowns. He… really isn’t. “I’m fine.” 

Annabeth hums, thoughtful. “How much do you eat out here?” 

“The normal amount, I think.” Usually, he’ll have some yogurt and granola for breakfast, some cheese and salted fish for lunch, and whatever fresh fruit and cheese they had on hand for dinner. There���s an abundance of fresh fish, too, and catching some for a quick grill is comically easy out here. Arthur is largely in charge of grocery shopping, and he certainly doesn’t complain about the food, but he also seemingly has an endless supply of oregano flavored chips. Hopefully Percy isn’t accidentally starving him.  

“Hm.” 

“What?” 

“Just thinking.” 

“About?” 

“You.” With her free hand, she trails a finger up his chest, her nail ghosting over browned skin and white scar tissue, leaving a pleasantly tingly feeling in its wake. “Ocean life seems to agree with you.” 

“It certainly beats grading.” 

“Mmhmm.” Her fingers move further north, from his shoulder to his neck to the back of his head. “Your hair is getting long.” 

On reflex, he runs a hand through it, pushing it back from his face. “I can cut it.” 

“Don’t.” She tangles her fingers in it, tugging, and smirks at his quiet gasp. “I like it.” 

Thoughts of lunch are pushed to the wayside in favor of… other pursuits. 

It’s only much later, as the rim of the sun just barely kisses the horizon, that Annabeth puts her foot down. “We have to eat something.” 

“I can just catch us some fish,” he protests. 

But Annabeth shakes her head, pulling on her underwear. “I haven’t been on solid ground for forty-eight hours. I want to walk around the old town, eat my weight in stuffed peppers, and then get another twelve of those giant sfakianopita, so that the next time we have a two day sex binge, I’ll have something more substantial to snack on instead of just cheese and nuts.” 

“You can snack on my nuts,” he mutters, and is rewarded by Annabeth throwing his shirt at his head. 

Still, solid ground is a solid idea. As much as he enjoys living aboard the Flying Dolphin, she is one small ship. Ierapetra isn’t exactly the big city, but compared to his cramped quarters, it might as well be as bustling as Manhattan. To his chagrin, Percy hasn’t actually spent much time in town, rarely venturing further inland than the corner shop on the boardwalk. 

Annabeth laughs as he points it out. “Only you, seaweed brain.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Your first instinct is to go for the bodega.” She laughs again, bright and bubbly, her curls bouncing in the evening breeze. “Guess you really can’t take the city out of the boy.” 

Hand in hand, they wander the streets, Annabeth pointing out every architectural feature that tickles her fancy. She had used the flight to blast through an audiobook about Ottoman architecture, and she takes great delight in putting her newfound knowledge to the test. Almost as much delight as Percy takes in listening to her. 

“So why is this one square?” he asks, as they are admiring the remains of a mosque with its tower broken off. “I thought mosques were supposed to be rounder.” 

“It depends. Lots of mosques have unique layouts because of geographical limitations. This one is interesting, though. Look at the walls—see how they’re sticking out?” 

Percy nods. 

“And the tiled roof. This mosque is missing the qubba.” 

“The what?” 

“The dome.” She needs both hands to explain, and Percy tries not to pout at the loss. “Representing the vault of heaven. It’s not a requirement, but it’s still unusual for a mosque not to have at least one dome.”

“You know,” he says, “I have noticed that all the churches here have domes.” 

Annabeth smiles, proudly. “They’re definitely related. Most dome architecture can be traced back to the 6th century, and the construction of the Hagia Sophia.”

“There weren’t domes before?” 

“There definitely were,” she says. “Remember the Pantheon in Rome?” 

“I was a little busy fighting some nymphs that day.” 

“It’s basically a giant circle imposed on top of a big square. It’s the world’s biggest dome made of unreinforced concrete. But that means it’s also very heavy, and it needs a lot of internal support, which shrinks the available internal space. The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, is so amazing because the architects basically invented an entirely new way to construct and support the dome. Instead of putting a sphere on a cube, the Hagia Sophia has pendentives in the corners to help bear the weight of the dome. They also reduced the weight of the dome by cutting windows into the bottom, which lets in a ton of natural light, and supposedly it makes it look like the dome is floating.” She sighs, happily. “I’d love to see it one day.” 

Percy is already mentally composing his vacation request. “I’m sure I can get Ari to get us some time off after we officially discover the paradigm-shifting archaeological marvel.” 

Annabeth takes his hand again, almost glowing. “I’d really like that.” 

With renewed energy, they finish their ramble, settling down at the first restaurant they see once they emerge from the maze of streets back onto the beach. True to her wishes, Annabeth manages to eat her weight in stuffed peppers, while Percy devours almost an entire grilled octopus, using his fries to mop up every last morsel. They share a couple bottles of wine, and endless plates of fried cheese, as the sky turns from purple to blue, the twinkling lights of the cruise ships off the port like stars. 

Percy has his arm around her waist as they walk back to the boat. He’s a little tipsy, and Annabeth is very sturdy. Still, he manages not to trip as they slow their roll, coming to a halt in front of the very annoyed looking young woman who waits for them at the dock, tapping her foot next to a giant package. 

She doesn’t look like a local. Percy’s spent enough time with the frequent fishers that he can easily pick them out of a lineup. But she does look mad. “Um… can we help you?” 

The woman sighs, tossing the sweaty strands of brown hair which have escaped her tight ponytail. “Percy Jackson?” 

“Who wants to know?” Annabeth adjusts his grip on her waist, giving her more room to draw her knife. 

“I need your signature for a delivery.” 

Percy is pretty sure he would remember making an order big and important enough to need a signature. “Sure…?” 

She hands him a clipboard and a pen. Then she stares at him when he does nothing. “Are you going to sign?” 

“Sorry,” he says, “I’m a little confused.” Annabeth snorts. “Who is this from again?” 

“Mr. Yiannopoulos commissioned the equipment from New Rome on your behalf.” 

Oh. Now that he looks, he actually does see the Senate insignia on the top of the delivery form. 

“What is it?” 

The woman eyes Annabeth suspiciously. “And you are?” 

“Annabeth Jackson.” 

“Hero and Architect of Olympus,” Percy adds. 

Turns out, that was the trick. The woman’s jaw drops open, her eyes widening. “You’re—you’re Annabeth Chase?” she gasps. 

“That’s me.” 

Percy chuckles, clumsily signing the form. The novelty of Annabeth having fans has long since worn off, but not the delight of seeing other people recognize her brilliance. 

After an autograph and a selfie for Drusilla, who apologizes profusely for her attitude, Praetor, she had just been told to wait by the Flying Dolphin for an unknown amount of time, and you know how the Senate doesn’t always give all the pertinent details, Annabeth is giving her directions to their favorite gelato spot while Percy crouches by the package. “So, what is it?” 

“I don’t know,” says Drusilla, still starry-eyed. “I only picked it up in Miami.” 

Percy frowns. “Is that a card?” 

Sure enough, there’s a Hallmark greeting card taped to a corner, nearly hidden beneath all the customs stickers. Tongue between his teeth, he gently pries it off, cleanly slicing it open with Drusilla’s pen. On the cover is a drawing of a dragon, lighting birthday candles with his breath. 

“Who’s it from?” 

“To Percy,” he reads the chicken scrawl inside. “Got a special request from NRU engineering to help make you a little present. As payment, I expect ten percent of every underwater treasure chest you find. (Babies are expensive!) Love, Leo.” 

“What does it mean?” 

“Who’s Leo?” Drusilla wonders. 

Percy stands, grinning. “It means that Plan Earthquake is a-go.” 

***

Plan Earthquake is pretty much exactly what it sounds like it would be. 

The Aegean Sea plate is surprisingly active for how small it is, and seismic activity is pretty common in this part of the world. If, say, for instance, there were to be a minor earthquake originating from the Hellenic subduction zone, maybe it could potentially dislodge any archaeological detritus from where it was trapped in an anoxic cave almost six thousand meters below sea level, sending it floating closer to the surface, where it could then subsequently be discovered by some passing ship surveying the area for wrecks. 

You know, possibly. 

But first they need to get it out of the rock. 

Unfortunately, Leo’s magic winch did not come with jackhammers, so Percy is warming up for the big act by gently shaking the packed sand apart. Eunice is helping, too, redirecting the currents to help clear away the loose chunks of rock. Annabeth is on standby on the surface, monitoring the seismological chatter, while Arthur mans the ship, and keeps an eye out for sea monsters. 

“How you doing, hon?” Annabeth says into his bluetooth earbuds. 

Percy shakes out his hands, jumping up and down. “Fine,” he confirms. “Think we’re almost ready to fire up the winch. How’s it looking up there?” 

“All clear,” she confirms, after a beat. “Arthur says we’re alone out here. No ships, no uninvited guests.” 

They should be. There’s no reason for tourist ships to come this far south of the coast, nor for shipping out of Cairo to come this far north. Also, the monsters have been leaving them alone for the most part. Hopefully they’ll stay away, instead of dropping in in the middle of Plan Earthquake and making things interesting. Percy breathes in, stretching out his arms. “Alright. Give me another hour.” 

It’s long, grueling work, but bit by bit, they uncover the wreck, freeing inch after inch of preserved wood. To his delight, he finds that he was right—the packed sediment did preserve the paint. There’s no way it will survive contact with oxygenated water, and there’s no way he could explain away any pictures, so he commits each color to memory, all the beautiful ruddy reds and browns, and the gold and white geometric designs on the prow. It’s truly a masterpiece of construction, shell-first with mortise and tenon joints, sleek and sturdy and beautiful.

Though, he thinks as he starts attaching cables to the boat, maybe a little too sleek. Hopefully it’s sturdy enough to withstand the pulling. 

“Eunice,” he calls, “you ready?” She’s not his first choice for an assistant, but he figures even she can’t screw up pressing a button. 

She frowns at the machine, the image odd on her delicate face. If he didn’t know better, he would say she was afraid of it. “Prince, explain again, what would you have me do?” 

Okay, nevermind. “You know what, just swap with me.” 

“My lord?” 

“Just keep the boat from shaking too bad, and try and slip water between the wood and the rock to help wiggle it out. I’ll man the winch.” 

The winch is automatic, but Percy still has to keep his attention divided more than he’d like between the cable and the boat and the rock, making sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong. It’s slow going, and sometimes they have to pause the winch to maneuver around a particularly stubborn piece of earth, but between Eunice and Percy, they manage to slide the hull out of the packed stone. Percy winces a t every groan and every ding of rock against the wood, but that’s okay. No wreck is perfect. 

A particularly spiky shard of rock scratches a deep line across the gold paint, and Percy kind of wants to cry about it. 

Then, the winch abruptly stops, the mechanics whining in protest. The cables pull taut, and the wood screams. 

It’s over in a second, but to Percy, it might as well be slow motion. 

The keel can apparently no longer stand being dragged over the rough earth. Percy watches in horror as a catastrophic looking crack races across the wood, shooting up from bottom to top. The internal pegs on the mortise and tenon joints must have been more corroded than he thought, because as soon as they touch water, they disintegrate, and the ship pulls itself apart. 

Percy swears. 

“Are you okay? Percy!” 

“I’m fine—it’s the ship!” 

Eunice races over to the machine, overcoming her fear of technology to slam on the brakes. 

“What happened?” 

The port side of the hull has split in two, sharp splinters of wood floating in the water, and based on the creaking, the starboard side is just about on the brink, the force of the winch leaving it hovering in an awkward bend, listing to the right. The ship’s cargo has spilled out onto the rock, coins and ingots glinting in the soft light of Eunice’s bioluminescent skin. 

“It broke,” he says, not at all able to keep the horror out of his voice. 

“How?”

“I broke it.” A life-changing find that could upend the entire field of archaeology, and Percy goes and breaks it. He swims closer to investigate, running his fingers over the exposed wood. 

“Talk to me.” 

“The pegs must have been in worse shape than I thought.” Hopefully Percy can salvage at least one of them for further study. “The hull cracked towards the stern, and the joints just came apart.” 

She swears. “How bad?” 

“It’s not great.” The front half, suspended in the water, seems to have emerged mostly unscathed, but as for the stern, it is deeply, firmly wedged within the earth. “The stern is stuck, and I’m not sure I can get it out.”

“So, what now?” 

Percy blows out a breath. “There’s nothing for it—we’ll have to keep going and excavate what we can.” 

And break the other half of the ship in the process. 

A lot of bad things had happened to Percy in his life. This doesn’t make the top ten, but it definitely makes the top twenty. Right in between getting kicked out of Goode and getting electrocuted by Thalia. 

He takes a moment to mourn the loss of a beautifully made vessel, his hand over his heart, before waving back to Eunice. “Alright,” he calls. “Fire it up.” 

Of course, he has to amend his list after he watches the winch rip apart the other side of the hull. This hurts way more than a lightning bolt to the chest. 

But Percy’s been a soldier longer than he’s been an archaeologist, so he can get his job done, and grieve at the same time. 

He takes a deep breath, calls on the power deep within him, and cracks a fault line. 

It’s over, quicker and easier than blowing up Mount St. Helens, and less than forty minutes later he’s back on the ship, sitting too close to his wife in the galley, feeling sorry for himself. 

“It’s really okay, babe.” 

He groans, dropping his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I Schliemanned it!” 

Arthur pokes his head in. “How are we looking on the scanners, Mrs. Jackson?” 

Annabeth really likes Arthur. More specifically, Percy thinks she really likes it when he calls her by her family name. So he’s not surprised at her warm tone with him. “Minimal tsunami risk across the coast. Thanks for the save earlier.” 

He blushes, mumbling. “It was nothing.”

She had sworn up and down to Percy that she had never been in any real danger. Percy did not believe Annabeth Ingrid Jackson about measures of danger (she feels the same about him, so it works out.) But his earthquake had rocked their boat more than a little bit. Annabeth hadn’t gotten far. And probably wouldn’t have made it over the side. But Arthur, all about safe harbor, had managed to grab her before anything too catastrophic occurred. 

He slides in across from the now, tapping his feet against the base of the galley table. “So, what now?” 

Percy pinches the bridge of his nose. “Now we wait. We’ll come back at some point in the spring, officially discover what’s left of the ship, and get it ready for surveying.” 

“What’s left of it?” he wonders. 

“I had to leave like a fifth of the wreck in the cave.” A whole fifth, including hull, keel, deck, and cargo. Annabeth rubs his back, and another wave of misery crashes over him. He can’t believe someone paid him over a quarter of a million dollars to come all this way and destroy the first priceless artifact he finds. 

Arthur frowns, thoughtful. “Isn’t that a good thing, though?” 

Percy lifts his head. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, intact shipwrecks are super rare, even for stuff sunk in the last fifty years.” 

“The Uluburun was mostly intact.” 

“Mostly,” Arthur points out. “And it wasn’t stuck in a cave. What are the odds of a three thousand year old ship surviving being ripped out of a rockbed by an earthquake?”

“He’s right,” Annabeth says. “Honestly, the fact that it’s broken will probably add to its authenticity.” 

Percy hums, noncommittally. They’re probably right. But he still feels bad about it. Bad enough that he feels like an hours-long swim to clear his head. 

Annabeth is waiting for him when he climbs up on deck around midnight. Just Annabeth.

“Where’s Arthur?”

“Arthur went to bed,” she says. “I ended his watch for him.” 

“You’re not the captain.” 

“There was a power vacuum, on account of the captain going swimming with the fishes.” 

He kisses her, the last dregs of his bad mood floating out to sea. “I’m so glad you’re here.” 

“Me, too.” 

They hold each other, swaying to the gentle motion of the waves, under a dark sky littered with stars, and Percy has a strange, distinct feeling that they’d done this before. Maybe in another life. Maybe in his dreams. But something about this moment, so peaceful and beautiful, feels eternal, immutable, like a cornerstone of the universe. 

“Guess what?” she murmurs into his collarbone. 

“Hmm?” 

“I’m pregnant again.” 

He goes warm, from the tips of his toes up to his chest and his cheeks. “Really?” 

“I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, given how excited you get on the water.” 

Then he blushes for an entirely different reason.

“Sorry.” 

“So not a problem.” She kisses him again. “So, so not a problem.” 

***

Percy takes a sip of lukewarm water. It gets hot in Greece in early March, and this room, even with all the windows and doors open, is still pretty stuffy. “Excavation is currently underway at the Chrysi site, and is expected to continue through June, before resuming this coming September. By then, we should have completed both the trilateral and photogrammetric surveys of the site, and may be ready to begin excavating the cargo and other material for preservation.” He clicks to the final slide, a picture Arthur had taken of him, Annabeth, and the girls on the deck of the Flying Dolphin, and the audience politely coos, applauding while holding cups of hot tea. 

Which makes sense, since this is a tea talk, something that apparently exists. But why do they all drink hot tea for these things? It’s over sixty degrees fahrenheit outside! 

“Thank you so much,” says the moderator, an older woman with straight, white hair, who speaks fluent Greek in the most Jersey-ish accent he had ever heard in his life. “Really, really intriguing stuff. Shall we open the floor for questions?” 

The audience is made up mostly of young grads, dutifully scribbling away in their notebooks, with some older academics scattered among them. They sit on couches and armchairs and rickety-looking wooden seats, lined up in rows, and the unlucky ones who didn’t get a seat either are relegated to the porch outside the salon, leaning against the door, or squished three to a person on the piano bench in the back. 

A girl in the front row with dark, curly hair and a flannel shirt raises her hand. She doesn’t look that much older than him. Actually, she might be a few years younger. That’s kind of a sobering thought. “Thank you so much for such an interesting talk. My question is, you have all these different types of data, between the legacy data and the weather patterns—how do you keep it all organized?” 

“With difficulty.” His audience chuckles. “For something with this many moving parts, I have to do it manually. However, drawing my own maps gives me the freedom to adapt on the fly.” And add data that would be, uh, inconsistent with mortal abilities. “Plus, my wife helps me keep everything straight.” 

Annabeth flashes him a thumbs up from her front row seat. Junie flashes him two, and Lucie kicks her feet, distracted by the amphora on the bookshelf next to her. He hopes that Annabeth, at six months pregnant, still has her reflexes ready if Lucie tries to make the bookshelf baby’s first lava rock wall. 

From the back of the room, a thin, reedy man with round glasses and a scruffy black beard raises his hand. “How do you choose your areas to survey? What made you pick Crete?” 

The fish tell him. “I have specialties in deep-sea diving and open water sailing,” well, that’s one way of putting it, “so, the Aegean is just a little too shallow for my tastes. Plus, there’s been so much maritime traffic in the Levantine Sea since, well, forever, it seemed like a natural place to start.” 

To the left of the first girl, another girl raises her hand, her sleeve falling to show off her amazing red figure pottery tattoo. “Thank you so much for sharing. The colors are just so bright and so strong, do you know, or do you have any theories as to why it hasn’t degraded?” 

He and Annabeth have spent days hammering out the details Percy would fudge, drilling the answers so often they become automatic, but he’s still proud of himself for not tripping over his words when he answers, “It’s unclear as of right now. There’s still a ton of tests that need to be run, but my best guess would be that, after it sank, the ship ended up in some kind of anoxic environment, maybe like the Bannock Basin, that was able to preserve most of the organic matter.” He ducks his head, full of false modesty. “Of course, that’s just a theory.”

Annabeth smirks at him from the corner of his eye, and he really has to fight back the answering one which threatens to spread across his face.

The tea talk wraps up in due time, and the chairs and couches are summarily put back into place as the audience all moves out onto the porch, carrying plates of crackers and cheese and tall, thin bottles of ouzo. Percy hangs behind, lingering at the podium, entertaining the stragglers who come up with questions and “more of a comment, really” and whatever else, leaning against the wooden mantle now that the project screen which covered it has been retracted back into the ceiling. Annabeth has more or less let the kids roam the now-empty salon to their hearts’ content, allowing them to check out the art and artifacts with strict instructions to Junie not to touch, so she can hold court with Percy. He’s grateful, always, for her steady support. 

“So you think it’s more of a warship,” says an older man, with a shock of white hair but the energy of a college student. 

Percy nods. “At first glance, other than weaponry, the cargo looked like it was mostly looted material—jewelry, precious stones, that kind of thing.” 

“I saw, those raw sapphires? What an amazing find!”

Next to him, Annabeth surreptitiously covers her brand new sapphire bracelet with her other hand. 

“Where are you headed next? My wife and I have spent pretty much our whole careers excavating in Crete, so if you’re headed back that way in June, we’d love to take you two out to lunch.” 

Annabeth’s eyes light up, a calculating spark. “Your wife is an archaeologist, too?” 

He nods, proudly gesturing to a silvery haired woman, chatting in Greek with the moderator, her hand over her mouth as she laughs. “I study Bronze Age Crete, she does Hellenistic, and together, we’ve been excavating at Mochlos for, gosh, I don’t even remember how long.” Catching Annabeth’s expression, he asks her, “But you’re not an archaeologist, yeah?” 

“Unfortunately,” she shrugs, ruefully. “I’m an architect.” 

“Somebody has to bring in the bacon.” 

The man laughs. “Well hey, it’s handy to have an architect out in the field! And to get to bring your kids with you, too…” He shakes his head, his gaze, like a magnet, turning back to his own wife. “I don’t have to tell you how special it is to have someone you love doing this work with you.”

Annabeth takes his hand, squeezing, but Percy has no qualms about public displays of affection, so he does not hesitate to sling his arm around her shoulders and kiss her on the cheek, loud and sloppy. She shoves him, laughing, and as he hears Junie and Lucie start playing around on the old piano in the corner of the salon, on this beautiful warm spring day in Athens, Percy can’t remember if he’s ever been happier. 

***

They decide to extend their trip past the end of May. Estelle had been put out all year that she wasn’t able to live with her big brother on a boat and explore the Mediterranean for ancient shipwrecks instead of having to go to school, ugh, so Sally and Paul agree that they are all in dire need of some island time. Percy had to return the Dolphin at the end of his fellowship, and while he was sorry to see it go, the Amalia is a little bit nicer. The man he rented it from said it belonged to his yiayia, and he had brought it with him when he moved from Poros to the mainland. Where the Dolphin was all business, the Amalia is all homey, quiet pleasure. The man, Kostas (Percy had snorted, and Annabeth had had to kick him) had done his best to remove all personal traces to make her fit for rental, but Percy can still sense the love in every inch, from stem to stern. He runs his hand up the mast, and he’s nearly bowled over by the strong rush of emotions practically radiating from her—love, sorrow, and a pride so strong it makes his heart hurt. 

As nice as she is, she still won’t hold all nine of them—the family plus Arthur, who is well on his way to becoming Sally Jackson’s third child—so Percy is spending more time on shore this one month than he has all year. He’s had to move out of the Piraeus apartment, too, but Paul got an amazing deal on a vacation rental apartment in Kolonaki, so Percy wakes up every morning to the sight of the Acropolis from his balcony, sipping on a nice, cold glass of peach juice. 

Don’t get him wrong, it’s pretty nice. There’s not a lot to complain about. 

But he’s very excited to get back out on the water for one last ride. 

Just him and the love of his life.

He had no destination in mind, just somewhere far enough from shore to see if they could catch a glimpse of some dolphin pods. Annabeth, just about ready to pop, is lounging on the sun-drenched deck while Percy takes a call in the galley. “How do you feel about Nat Geo?” Ari asks in lieu of a greeting. 

“Like in general?” 

“Have you ever had media training?” 

“...No?” 

“Well, you’re going to.” Through the IM, Ari is happier than Percy’s ever seen him, his features smoothed out into a broad, happy grin. “The permit application just landed on my desk. I’m fielding requests from all over to get a glimpse of the Chrysi wreck.” 

“I thought my problem was that I attracted too much attention.”

“You keep making life-changing discoveries like this, Praetor, and you can attract all the attention you can handle.” 

“Hope so,” says Percy, “because Eunice told me that she heard from her sister that there’s another Bronze Age ship floating around Ithaca that needs discovering.” 

He squints, suddenly suspicious. “You’re not planning another earthquake, are you?” 

“Not currently, but who knows. There are a lot of subduction zones around Greece. Lots of places for ships to get stuck.”

But Ari just sighs, throwing his hands up in defeat, though his smile has come back. “Whatever, fine, whatever you need. Make your little earthquakes.” 

Then, from above deck, an earth-shattering scream rips through the peaceful afternoon. 

“PERCYYYYYYY!!!” 

“Whoops, that’s my cue,” says Percy. “Gotta run, send me the Nat Geo details later!” 

Swiping his hand through the image, he dashes up to the deck, expecting to find a pod of dolphins waiting in the water below.

Instead, he has to pivot, hard, and get down to work bringing his third daughter into the world. 

The dolphins return later in the evening to meet the new little sea princess, then graciously offer to escort them back to shore, where his family (and a doctor) gather at the docks, ready and eager to meet their newest relative, little Thalassa Amalia Jackson. 

“Thalassa?” Sally asks, holding the tiny thing, her voice soft with wonder. 

“Annabeth’s idea, actually,” says Percy, hovering as the doctor checks his wife over. “Born amid ships.”

“And made amid ships, I suspect.” 

Percy blushes, scratching his neck. “Guilty.” 

“I also get to name the next one,” says Annabeth, exhausted but proud and healthy

“You can name every single one of them.” A deal like that shouldn’t be made lightly, but Percy doesn’t care. He’d give her the world if she asked for it. A name is nothing. “Except Olivia.” 

But Annabeth just grins. “No take-backs!”

[s-awturn]

Day Off || F1 Grid

cw: nothing but superficiality, cuteness, intimate but not obscene moments, sharing moments, mention of gossip. Just pilots resting

starring: LH44, CS55, CL16, LN4, OP81, MV1

a/n: I had this written a couple of days ago, but Tumblr just "ate" the only file I had and I lost everything. I was so mad I didn't even want to write anymore, but damn, This is too good a HC to waste, so okay, let's try again (remembering to save periodically this time 🫡

LEWIS HAMILTON:

You and Lewis had created a reading list to complete throughout the year, you bet there were about a hundred books on the list, titles ranging from classic literature, biographies, poems, and contemporary literature. Books that you and Lewis wanted to read together or the books you thought the other should read.

So it was common for the two of you to spend the pilot's day off reading in bed while listening to blues or jazz on the speakers. You read together, wrote reviews of the books you read and discussed them.

He was reading Percy Jackson and the Mark of Athena and you were reading Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

"So? What did you think?" He asked, marking the page he was on, Lewis had just started the last chapter and you had already finished reading.

"He does go through a metamorphosis and it's extremely unpleasant to imagine, but I've read more unpleasant books," you confessed, putting the book on the bedside table. "Four stars, and you?"

He snorted "Piper is so boring, damn she only knows how to think about Jason and how she doesn't like being the daughter of Aphrodite, so boring"

"God, yes! I don't like her either... Anyway, I'll wait for you to finish, and then we can choose the next one."

"Sure, honey," he kissed her temple and returned to reading just as Etta James began to sing "At Last." You settled into it, petting Roscoe as he lay beside you. This is the best way to enjoy your day off.

CARLOS SAINZ:

Carlos was at a stage where he wanted you to learn golf to play with him, after all the sport was a tradition for him and the Spaniard wanted you to be part of it, but you were terrible. You were really bad at golf, but that didn't make he want to teach you any less.

And well, you didn't like golf either, you didn't understand the sport, the scoring was weird, there were at least half a dozen different clubs and you couldn't even cheer.

But at least the clothes were cute and the cars were cool.

"Let's go, amor, I'll teach you," he said, going to pick you up in the golf cart. Lando, who was accompanying them this time, leaned his body on the golf club, waiting.

"Carlos, I'm terrible at this, you know," you grumbled, taking the bat he offered you. Carlos was a persevering man, you had to admit. He stood behind you, teaching you again how to perform the shot, instructing you to separate your legs and take a deep breath.

"I bet you five bucks she'll throw the ball in the lake"

"Shut up, Lando," you both said.

You followed his instructions and hit the ball...

...that fell into the lake.

"I knew"

"Shut up, Lando"

CHARLES LECLERC:

A day off for Charles meant you would get to visit his favorite spots, from a famous restaurant to a little coffee shop tucked away in a city alley. Sometimes he would take you to the south of France to see some chateau, other times he would just rent a chalet for you to be together in privacy, and you had lost count of how many times they had gone to Italy to see the vineyards and villas on the border with Monaco.

This time, you were preparing for a slightly longer itinerary, you had suggested visiting the Grace Kelly exhibit before heading to the cottage he had rented for the weekend.

"Got everything you need, mon cher?" He asked, wrapping his arms around her waist in a sweet hug.

"It depends, I know we're going to see the Grace Kelly exhibit, but I have no idea where we're going after, you say a cottage and I don't know whether to bring a bikini or coats" you mumbled, looking at her handbag.

"Take both just in case, you know spring can have unpredictable weather"

"Are you saying that so you don't give me a hint about where we're going?" You turned in his arms, facing the pilot. "That's not fair."

"You'll like it, mon ange, I promise"

"At least tell me if it's still in Monaco..." You tried to persuade him, sliding your nails lovingly along his chin, making the Monegasque shiver and let out a heavy breath.

"You're not taking me to the siren song, pretty girl." He gave you a quick kiss and a light slap on your ass before leaving. "We'll leave in fifteen minutes."

LANDO NORRIS:

Lando's downtime with you was spent playing games, you thought it was counterproductive to fuel his competitiveness when he should have been resting, but this routine of games with you made him much calmer and more relaxed when he returned to work. Ironic? Yes, but it worked.

You two played anything, Monopoly, Naval Battle, Game of Life, Detective, W.A.R, Uno, even checkers or cards. Any game was fair game.

The problem is that you got really competitive, your friends even gave up trying to play with you because the game turned into a battlefield.

"You lowlife cheater, did you really throw a +4 at your fiancée?!" You yelled at him, Lando laughed and blew you a kiss before dodging the pillow you threw at him.

"You know how things work, honey. Just because I love you doesn't mean I'm going to let you beat me."

"This will come back!" You bought the four cards he forced you to. "I really hate you."

"And you are the love of my life"

"Die, you jerk," you snapped and he laughed.

Lando could feel all the tension leaving his shoulders, playing with you always made him relax, no matter how aggressive and passionate you became in the game.

OSCAR PIASTRI:

Considering that Oscar was always traveling and there were few really usable pages in his schedule, any time the two of you could have together should be taken full advantage of, and For both of them, there's nothing better than an afternoon of movies.

You two had created a list of movies on Letterboxd and the chosen one of the day would be Interstellar.

Oscar was making popcorn while you were arranging the blankets and pillows on the couch, so what if it was the height of summer in Australia? There in the apartment, the air conditioning was hovering below fifteen degrees, keeping the room at a favorable climate for you and your boyfriend to cuddle while watching astronauts lost in space.

"I thought you were going to choose Anatomy of a Fall," he muttered, placing the food on the coffee table, popcorn with cheese, assorted snacks, chocolates and ice cream and of course, lemon soda.

"I was dubious, but you know I love any movie that has Matthew McConaughey in it," you said, getting under the covers, accompanied by Oscar, "and of course, The movie's soundtrack is perfect, I use it to study..."

"Have you watched it?"

"No, I was waiting for you, but I discovered the playlist... I'll send you the link, you'll love it"

He hummed in agreement and you pressed play on the movie, Many times you paused the film to comment on something or express your theories. It made the movie session better, Oscar didn't mind listening to you talk about it and you loved his theories.

It was, without a doubt, the best way to enjoy the break.

MAX VERSTAPPEN:

He would rather be playing, sleeping or, I don't know, watering the plants, but you always dragged him to a skin care session. You spread different creams on his face, plucked some extra hairs from his eyebrows, trimmed his beard.

As much as he denied it, Max learned to enjoy it, being taken care of by you was one of his guilty pleasures. And it all got better when you started gossiping without any trace of shame. He talked about what went on behind the scenes in F1 and you shared news about work and your condominium.

"I'm still sad that Logan was let go, he had a lot of future," you said, sliding the massage stone across his face, spreading the serum into his skin.

"He's a good kid, unfortunately he wasn't ready for Formula One yet, he came in too early and couldn't adapt well... I hope he can find his place" he grumbled, sighing at the gentle massage on his cheekbones.

"Yes... Williams was very ungrateful to him and I won't elaborate on that" you said a little bitterly and Max laughed, you always positioned yourself as a defender of the poor and oppressed.

"Yes... I won't elaborate on that either... It's better"

You both were silent until you clicked your tongue.

"Uh, I almost forgot to tell you, last week there was a horrible fight at the condominium meeting.

He opened his curious eyes "You can tell me everything, dear"

"The neighbor at 1165 caught her husband with the building manager and the building manager's husband in her bed"

"What the fuck?! Are you kidding?!"

You laughed, putting away the massage stone and sliding your fingers firmly over Max's face "you had to see it, she put together a PowerPoint with photos and screenshots of the conversations"

Max laughed out loud "damn, I wish I had seen..."

"It was a real fight, they argued and everything, it was really fun to watch"

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"I will definitely go to the next condo meeting"

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO S-AWTURN™ 🪐. I do not allow copying or republication. Any unauthorized publication will be reported.

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[nyxshadowhawk]

A Retrospective on Harry Potter

Why did I like it in the first place? What about it worked? Where do I go from here?

I have decided to give up Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling’s reputation now stinks to high heaven. At this point, she is quite indefensible. And even if that weren’t the case, she is not someone that I would want to associate with anyway. Meanwhile, the internet has not only turned against her, but against Harry Potter itself. An innocent question on Reddit, about which Hogwarts Houses the ATLA characters would be in, got downvoted to oblivion. Innumerable Tumblr threads insist that fantasy fans should get into literally anything else (suggestions include Discworld, Earthsea, The Wheel of Time, and Percy Jackson). And now that Harry Potter is no longer a sacred cow, there has been a recent slew of video essays that rip it to shreds, attacking it for its poor worldbuilding, unoriginality, and the problematic ideas baked into the original books (like the whole SPEW thing), etc. Those criticisms always existed, but now they’re getting thrown into the limelight.

It pains me to see such an ignoble downfall of Harry Potter’s reputation. If Rowling had just kept her damn mouth shut, Harry Potter would have aged gracefully, becoming a beloved children’s classic. I'd still plan to introduce it to my own kids one day (after Rowling dies and the dust settles). It’s not surprising that not all aspects of it have aged well, since it’s been more than twenty years since its original publishing date, and everything starts to show its age after that long. I acknowledge that most of the criticisms of the series that I’ve seen lately are valid, and I’ve read plenty of better books. And yet, when I return to the books themselves, even with the knowledge of who JKR really is inside my head, I still really enjoy reading them! There’s still a lot about them that I think works!

None of the other things I’ve read have had as collossal of an impact upon my identity, my values, and my own writing as Harry Potter. It’s hard to move on from it, not just because it’s something I enjoy, but because I have to literally extract my identity from it. I don’t know who I’d be without Harry Potter. I don’t know what my work would look like without Harry Potter. I don’t know how to carry it with me as just another piece of media that I like, as opposed to a filter for who I am as a person. So, with all that in mind, I have to ask myself why I liked Harry Potter so much in the first place. If I’m going to move on from it, then I have to be able to define and isolate the things about it that I want to keep with me. Something about it obviously worked, on a massive scale. So what was it?

It’s not the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is objectively quite terrible, especially in comparison to that of other fantasy writers who knew what they were doing. At best, it’s inconsistent and poorly thought-out, and at worst it’s insensitive or even racist. Is it the characters? The characters are, in my opinion, one of the stronger parts of the story. But I felt very called-out by one of the many online commentators, who said that anyone who identifies with Harry is too cowardly to write self-insert fic. (I do not remember who said it or even which site it was on, but I distinctly remember the phrase, “Reject Harry Potter, embrace Y/N.”) The reason why people get so invested in Harry Potter’s characters is because they’re easy to project upon, and it’s possible that my love of Harry comes more from over a decade’s worth of projection than anything else. The incessant arguments over characters like Snape, Dumbledore, and James Potter ultimately stem from the fact that these characters do not always come across the way Rowling wanted them to. As for the writing itself, it’s decent, but not spectacular. Harry Potter is something of a sandbox world, with less substance than it appears to have and a crapton of missed opportunities, making it ripe for fanfic. For more than ten years, I’ve been doing precisely that — using Harry Potter as a jumping-off point to fill in the gaps and develop my own ideas, some of which became my original projects.

So what does Harry Potter actually have that sets it apart? Why are people so desperate to be part of Harry Potter’s world if the worldbuilding is bad? What, specifically, is so compelling about it? I think that there’s one answer, one thing that is at the center of Potter-mania, and that has been the underlying drive of my love of it for the past decade and a half: the vibe.

Harry Potter’s vibe is immaculate.

You know what I mean, right? It’s not actually a product of any specific trope, but rather a series of aesthetic elements: The wizarding school in a grand castle, with its pointed windows and torches and suits of armor, ghosts and talking portraits and moving staircases, its Great Hall with floating candles and a ceiling that looks like the night sky, its hundreds of magically-concealed secret doorways. Dumbledore’s Office, behind the gryphon statue, with armillary spheres in every single shot. Deliberate archaisms that evoke the Middle Ages without going as far as a Ren Faire: characters wearing heavy robes, writing with quills and ink on parchment instead of paper, drinking from goblets, decorating with tapestries. Owls, cats, toads. Cauldrons simmering in a dungeon laboratory. Shelves piled with dusty tomes, scrolls, glass vials, crystal balls, hourglasses. Magical candy shaped like insects and amphibians. A library with a restricted section. A forbidden forest full of unicorns and werewolves. That is the Vibe.

There are five armillary spheres just in this shot. They are unequivocally the most Wizard of tabletop decor.

There’s more to it than just the aesthetic, though. The vibe is present in something that writers call soft worldbuilding.

There’s a phrase that writers use to describe magic systems, coined by Brandon Sanderson: hard magic and soft magic. Sanderson’s first law of magic is, “An author’s ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” A hard magic system has clearly-defined rules — you know where magic comes from, how it works and under which conditions, how the characters can use it, and what its limitations are. Examples of really good hard magic systems include Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist. If the audience doesn’t understand the conditions under which magic can work, then using magic to get out of any kind of scrape risks feeling like the writer pulled something out of their ass. It begs the question, “Well, if they could do that, then why didn’t they do that before?”

You may come away from that thinking that having clearly-defined rules is always better worldbuilding than not having them, but this isn’t the case. Soft magic isn’t fully explained to the audience, but that doesn’t matter, because it isn’t trying to solve problems — its purpose is to be evocative. Soft magic enhances the atmosphere of a world by creating a sense of wonder. If your everyman protagonist is constantly running into cool magical shit that they don’t understand, then the world feels like it teems with magic, magic that is greater and more powerful than they know, leaving lots of secrets to uncover. Harry Potter, at least in the early books, excels at this. The soft magic in Harry Potter is what got me hooked, and I think it’s what a lot of other people liked about it, too.

The essence of soft magic is best summed up by this scene in the fourth film, in which Harry enters the Weasleys’ tiny tent at the Quidditch World Cup, only to find that it’s much bigger on the inside. His reaction is to smile and say, “I love magic.”

That’s it. That’s the essence of it. You don’t need to know the exact spell that makes the tent bigger on the inside. You don’t need to know how Dumbledore can make the food appear on the table with a flick of a wand, or how he can make a bunch of poofy sleeping bags appear with another flick. You don’t need to know how and why the portraits or wizard cards move. You don’t need to know how wizards can appear and disappear on a whim, or what the Deluminator is, or where the Sword of Gryffindor came from. You don’t need to know how the Room of Requirement works. Knowing these things defeats the purpose. It kills the vibe, that vibe being that there is a large and wondrous magical world around you that will always have more to discover.

One of the best “soft magic” moments in the books comes early in Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry is trying to navigate Hogwarts for the first time:

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk. —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 8

Many of these details don’t come back later in the series, which is a shame, because this one paragraph is super evocative! It establishes Hogwarts as an inherently magical place, in which the very architecture doesn’t conform to normal rules. Hogwarts seems like it would be exciting to explore (assuming you weren’t late for class), and it gets even better when you learn about all the secret rooms and passages. The games capitalized on this by building all the secret rooms behind bookcases, mirrors, illusory walls, etc. into the game world, and rewarding you for finding them. The utter fascination that produces is hard to overstate.

Another one of the most evocative moments in the first book is when Harry sees Diagon Alley for the first time, after passing through the magically sealed brick wall (the mechanics of which, again, are never explained). This is your first proper glimpse at the wizarding world and what it has to offer:

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad....” A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon.... —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 5

What works so well here is the magical weirdness of wizardishness juxtaposed against normalcy. Eeylops Owl Emporium is just a pet shop to wizards. A woman makes a very mundane complaint about the price of goods, but the goods happen to be dragon liver. Broomsticks are treated like cars. All of these small moments contribute to the feeling of the wizarding world being alive, inhabited, and also magical. It gets you to ask the question of what your life would be like if you were a wizard. What do wizards wear? What do they eat? What do they haggle over and complain about? What do they do for fun?

In Book 3, Harry enjoys Diagon Alley for a few weeks when he suddenly has free time, and we get to experience the wizarding world in a state of “normalcy,” when he isn’t trying to save the world. He gets free ice creams from Florean Fortescue, gazes longingly at the Firebolt, and engages with delightfully weird people. He’s a wizard, living a (briefly) normal wizard life among other wizards in wizard-land. And that is fun. It’s so fun, that people want that experience for themselves, enough for there to be several theme parks and other immersive experiences dedicated to recreating the world of Harry Potter.

One of the greatest things about Universal was its phenomenal attention to detail. You can hear Moaning Myrtle’s voice in the women’s bathroom, and only the women’s bathroom. The walls of the Three Broomsticks have shadows of a broom sweeping by itself and an owl flying projected against the wall, so convincingly that you’ll do a double take when you see it. Knockturn Alley is down a little secret tunnel off of the main street, and that’s where you have to go to buy Dark Arts-themed stuff. It’s really well done.

Another thing that contributes to the vibe, in my opinion, is that the wizarding world is slightly macabre. They eat candy shaped like frogs, flies, mice, and so forth, and they have gross-tasting jellybeans. In the film’s version of the Diagon Alley sequence above, there’s a random shot of a pet bat available for purchase. In the third film, when Harry is practicing the Patronus Charm with Lupin, the candles are shaped like human spines. In the first book, this is Petunia’s description of Lily’s behavior after she became a witch:

Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school, and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 4

I remember reading this for the first time, and it just kind of made intuitive sense to me. I suppose it fits into the “eye of newt and toe of frog” association between magical people and gross things, but somehow it works. Unfortunately, this is retconned later with the knowledge that wizards can’t use magic outside school, but before that limitation gets imposed, the idea of Lily amusing herself by turning teacups into rats seems like an inherently witchy thing to do.

That association between magic and the macabre shows up elsewhere, as well. In The Owl House, Luz’s interest in gross things is one of the things that marks her as a “weirdo” in the real world. When she goes to the magical world of the Boiling Isles, weird and gross stuff is absolutely everywhere. That world’s vibe leans more towards the macabre than the whimsical, but it works because you sort of expect the gross stuff to exist alongside the concept of witches, and that they would be an intrinsic part of the world they inhabit. You don’t question it, because it’s part of the vibe.

(The Owl House is one of the few things I’ve encountered that has a similar vibe to Harry Potter, but it’s still not the same vibe. In fact, The Owl House outright mocks the expectation that magical worlds be whimsical, and directly mocks Harry Potter more than once. The overall vibe is much closer to Gravity Falls.)

The Harry Potter films utilize a lot of similar soft worldbuilding with the background details, especially in the early films that were still brightly-colored and whimsical. For example, the scene in Flourish and Blotts in the second film has impossibly-stacked piles of books and old-timey looking signs describing their subjects, which include things like “Celestial Studies” and “Unicorns.” When Harry arrives in the Burrow in the same film, one of the first things he sees is dishes washing themselves and knitting needles working by themselves, taking completely mundane things and instantly establishing them as magical. In that Patronus scene with Harry and Lupin, the spine-candles and a bunch of random orbs (and the obligatory giant armillary sphere) float around in the background. One small detail that I personally appreciate is the designs on the walls above the teacher’s table in the Great Hall, which are from an alchemical manuscript called the Ripley Scroll:

It’s all these little things that add up to produce The Vibe.

Obviously, much of the vibe is expressed very well in John Williams’ score for the first three Harry Potter films. The mystical minor key of the main theme, the tinkly glockenspiel, the strings, the rising and falling notes that mimic the fluttering of an owl, the flight of a broomstick, or the waving of a wand. That initial shot of the castle across the lake as the orchestra swells, as the children arrive at their wizarding school:

If you grew up with Harry Potter, just looking at this image gives you The Vibe. The nostalgia hit is definitely part of it, but The Vibe was already there, back when you were a child and you didn’t have nostalgia yet.

In my opinion, only Williams’ score captures this vibe — the later films, though their scores are very good, do not. But the soundtrack of the first two video games, by Jeremy Soule (the same person who did Skyrim) absolutely nails it. This, right here, is Harry Potter’s vibe, condensed and distilled:

This is why I feel invalidated by the common advice “just read another book.” I have��read other books. I’ve read plenty of other books, many of which are wonderfully written and have left an impact on me. But there’s still only one Harry Potter. To date, there’s only other book that has filled me with a similarly intense longing for a fictional place, and that is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. That book deliberately prioritized atmosphere over everything else in the story, and actually lampshades this in-universe. The Night Circus has a plot and it has characters, but it’s not about its plot or characters. It’s about the setting and its atmosphere. It swallows you up and transports you to a fictional place that is so evocative and so magical that you just have to be part of it or you’ll die. And even then, The Night Circus has a different kind of vibe from Harry Potter. In this particular capacity, there’s nothing else like Harry Potter.

The thing is, I don’t think Rowling was being as deliberate as Erin Morgenstern. (In fact, given many of Rowling’s recent statements, I question how many of her creative choices were deliberated at all.) She was throwing random magical stuff into the background without thinking too hard about it, which works when you’re writing a kids’ story, but stops working when you try to age it up. Actually, scratch that — soft worldbuilding is definitely not just for kids! The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system, for crying out loud, and Tolkien is the original archmage of worldbuilding. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that prioritizing atmosphere over meticulousness is bad worldbuilding. That is a valid way to worldbuild! Not everything needs to be clearly explained, not everything needs to make sense. The problem is that Harry Potter doesn’t balance it well. Certain things do have to be explained in order for the magic to play an active role in the story (and the setting of a magic school lends itself to that kind of explanation), but no rules are ever established for the kinds of magic that need rules. When you begin thinking about the rules, you’re no longer just enjoying the magic for what it is. At worst, you begin running up against the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

It wasn’t actually the “aging up” of the story that did it in, per se, but rather, the introduction of realism. The early books were heavily stylized, and the later books were less so. A heavily stylized story can more easily maintain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. That’s why, for example, you don’t ask why the characters are singing in a musical — you just sort of accept the story’s outlandish internal logic, and the inherent melodrama of it doesn’t take you out of the story. Stylized stories are more concerned with being emotionally consistent over being logically consistent. The later Harry Potter books changed their emotional tone, but without changing the worldbuilding style to compensate.

In addition to the more mature themes and darker tone, Harry Potter introduced more realism as it went, but Rowling did not have the worldbuilding chops to pull this off. There’s the basic magic system stuff: When you begin thinking about it too hard, something like a Time-Turner stops being a fun magical device, and starts threatening to break the entire story. Then there’s the characters: Dumbledore leaving Harry on the Dursleys’ doorstep in the first book is an age-old fairy tale trope that goes unquestioned, but with the introduction of realism in the later books, it suddenly becomes abandonment of a child to an abusive family. The exaggerated stereotypes of characters like the Dursleys become tone-deaf. The fun school rivalry of the House system is suddenly lacking in nuance. And then there’s the shift in tone: The wizarding world that we were introduced to as a marvellous place is revealed to be dystopian. You start thinking about how impractical things like owl messengers are, you start wondering if Slytherin is being unjustly punished, the bad history appears glaringly obvious, the quaint archaisms become dangerously regressive. Oh, and the grand feasts are made through slave labor! The wizarding world suddenly feels small and backward instead of grand and marvellous. J.K. Rowling’s bigotry throws it all into an even harsher light.

This is why I’ve always preferred the early books and films to the later ones. There’s a lot of things I like about the later ones, but they’re not as stylized — they don’t have The Vibe. Thinking about things too hard is just a necessary condition of adulthood, but it’s still possible to tell a dark, mature story that is highly stylized. I really think JKR could have better pulled off that shift if she was a more competent worldbuilder. But it is painfully obvious that she did not think things through, and probably didn’t understand why she had to. In her defense, she did not know that her story would end up being one of the most scrutinized of all time. As it stands, her strength in worldbuilding was in the softer, smaller, deliberately unexplained moments of magic that were there just to provide atmosphere. And there were less and less of those as the books went along.

Pretty much all the Harry Potter-related content released since the last film — including Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts, Hogwarts Mystery, Hogwarts Legacy, Magic Awakened, and that short-lived Pokemon Go thing — have been unsuccessful attempts at recreating The Vibe. In fact, the only piece of supplemental Potter content that I think had that Vibe down pat was the original Pottermore, back when it was more of an interactive game. And of course that got axed. That was right around the time things started going downhill.

Some of the art from Pottermore’s original Sorting quiz.

So what now? Well, that’s the question.

I think I can safely say that The Vibe was the reason I liked Harry Potter. It’s the thing I still like the most about it. I’ve spent years chasing it, like an elusive Patronus through a dark wood. If I can capture and distill that Vibe, and use drops of it in my own work, then perhaps I won’t need Harry Potter anymore.

I'm gonna write the story that I wish Harry Potter was, and when I'm a famous author, I won't become a bigot. I'll see you on the other side.

[book--brackets]

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan (2005-2009)

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse - Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. 

She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena - Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (1954-1955)

In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord's evil dominion.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (1950-1956)

Four adventurous siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie— step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1943)

The Little Prince is a classic tale of equal appeal to children and adults. On one level it is the story of an airman's discovery, in the desert, of a small boy from another planet - the Little Prince of the title - and his stories of intergalactic travel, while on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition.

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (2002-2011, 2023)

When fifteen-year-old Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. 

Overnight his simple life is shattered, and, gifted with only an ancient sword, a loyal dragon, and sage advice from an old storyteller, Eragon is soon swept into a dangerous tapestry of magic, glory, and power. Now his choices could save--or destroy--the Empire.

Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle (1962-1989)

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger. 

Wild nights are my glory, the unearthly stranger told them. I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract. 

Folk of the Air by Holly Black (2018-2020)

Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. 

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe. 

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. 

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences. 

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab (2020)

France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman named Adeline meets a dangerous stranger and makes a terrible mistake. 

As she realizes the limitations of her Faustian bargain-being able to live forever, without being able to be remembered by anyone she sees- Addie chooses to flee her small village, as everything she once held dear is torn away. 

But there are still dreams to be had, and a life to live, and she is determined to find excitement and satisfaction in the wide, beckoning world-even if she will be doomed to be alone forever. 

Or not quite alone-as every year, on her birth-day, the alluring Luc comes to visit, checking to see if she is ready to give up her soul. Their darkly thrilling game stretches through the ages, seeing Addie witness history and fight to regain herself as she crosses oceans and tries on various lives. 

It will be three hundred years before she stumbles into a hidden bookstore and discovers someone who can remember her name-and suddenly, everything changes again. 

Circe by Madeline Miller (2018)

 the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not obviously powerful like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur; Daedalus and his doomed son, Icarus; the murderous Medea; and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or the mortals she has come to love.

[aph-ro-ditee]

rubber band ~

percabeth oneshot !!

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

When Percy and Annabeth finally get some alone time, none of it seems to be spent alone.

The dorms of New Rome were small, but Percy and Annabeth didn’t mind. Percy kept his room cool and the walls were mostly covered with pictures he had collected over his years at camp, with a few posters scattered around of his favorite movies and bands old and new. Only one bed fit in his room, but he was used to sleeping alone. A desk occupied the far wall next to a small closet, but most of his clothes were on the floor in classic college fashion.

The sun was setting when Annabeth showed up at Percy’s door with a bag full of snacks. Immediately, he understood.

“Start making the popcorn,” He smiled and pointed at his girlfriend, mocking a demand. “I’ll pick the movie.”

“What?” Annabeth’s face contorted as if that were the worst insult she’d ever heard. “You picked the movie last time, it’s my turn!”

“Uhm, no. I don’t even remember what movie we watched, therefore I couldn’t have picked it.” Percy shrugged. His logic made sense to him!

“Percy,” Annabeth sighed. “You picked Finding Nemo. You cried.”

Percy was not very amused with this news, and just pointed at Annabeth and the popcorn again. With a few playful grunts and complaints, she was soon back with the perfect movie date snack— salted popcorn and M&M’s mix.

“You always get the ratio right,” Percy took a handful and shoved it in his mouth. “I love you for that.”

Annabeth just shook her head and laughed, searching for the remote to the TV. Eventually, she found it under his bed, somehow inside of a shoebox.

“How did that even get there?” She chided, and Percy shrugged again.

“‘Dunno,” He took another handful of movie-mix. “A boy’s room is a mystery.”

The two agreed on a movie together. They had picked one that neither of them had seen before but after reading some reviews and doing a deep dive into the cast, they decided it was the perfect film for their date night.

It wasn’t long before Annabeth found herself comfortably on top of Percy— one leg over his with her hand on his stomach and her head resting on his chest. She loved to listen to his heartbeat and feel his breathing, moving her head up and down. Her fingers traced lightly over his very, very defined body between handfuls of popcorn, and she enjoyed hearing his heartbeat speed up whenever she went lower than usual.

It was completely dark in the room now that the sun was fully below the horizon, but the glow of the TV cast a light on the two that made them look like they were cutout of a color magazine and put into an old fashioned newspaper. About an hour into the movie, both of them were almost asleep. Percy only jerked awake when his phone screen buzzed and lit up so bright it left dark spots in his eyes. He just reached over and pushed his phone on to the floor face down.

“What was that for?” Annabeth spoke, now awake from the loud thud.

“Easy solution to an annoying problem.” Percy said as if he had done that a lot, and Annabeth wondered how much more damage the phone could really take before breaking completely.

Annabeth didn’t bother returning her attention to the movie, she just shut her eyes after their short conversation. She barely started to drift off when Percy’s heart pounded in her ears. Her eyes shot open, worried her boyfriend might be having some sort of episode right here in his dorm, but she realized he was just watching the movie. Annabeth followed his gaze and her heart leaped as well.

Two very attractive actors had been pining for each other the whole movie, and they had finally kissed. No, not just kissed, they were alone together and very passionately kissing— obviously a turning moment in the movie considering this scene seemed to be lasting forever. Annabeth blushed in the TV light as Percy’s hand moved softly over her body.

Annabeth looked up from his chest. Gods, he’s perfect, she thought. The shadow from the light made Percy’s jaw line cut sharp across his face, and his side profile was so beautiful. Annabeth thought he was way more attractive than the man in the movie. She must have been staring at him for so long, because he blushed and a smile curled at his lips. Annabeth almost jumped out of her skin when his eyes darted down at her. Even though they had been together for years, she still got nervous butterflies when they were this close.

“Hey,” Percy smiled and barely whispered, his deep, soft voice trickling down Annabeth’s spine. His eyes flicked toward her lips and he slid is hand into her hair and around her neck, leaning into her.

They were so close, Percy studied her face with every breath. His eyes made Annabeth feel small and warm. He was obsessed with her. When his eyes landed on her lips and they stayed there, making Annabeth blush so much that she felt glad it was hard to see in the dark room.

As Percy leaned in for a kiss, Annabeth dragged her fingers down his abdomen and played with the hem of his pajama pants. His lips grazed hers, and her hands felt his heart beating so fast in his chest. Their lips were barely together when Percy slid his tongue into her mouth and—

The door slammed open so loud, Annabeth screamed. The fluorescent light poured in obnoxiously, interrupting their date with a flash bang. They both glared at the figure in the door.

“Percy!” A familiar voice cut over the movie. “Did you see my text?”

For a moment, Percy just blinked, trying to comprehend what was going on. His heart was still beating fast, now from a mix of adrenaline and embarrassment, and his head still felt light. When his body relaxed, he realized that the person in front of him was his best friend Grover.

His eyes flicked from Grover, to his phone on the ground, then back to Grover.

“What?” Percy said as his friend made his way closer to the bed.

“I texted you!” Grover showed his phone screen, which had a movie poster kind of like the one above Percy’s desk. His eyes went wide as he grabbed the phone out of his friend’s hand.

“No way,” Percy studied the photo, scrolled through a bunch of names Annabeth didn’t recognize, and even squealed in excitement. “Holy shit, dude! This is insane! When did-“

Annabeth didn’t do anything, but her presence must of made itself known, because suddenly Percy was not very interested in Grover’s phone anymore. He cleared his throat and gave the phone back to Grover. Poor, poor Grover, who seemed to be oblivious. Percy’s hands fell back on to Annabeth and she gave an awkward smile.

She knew that Grover and Percy were best friends— literally bound together by the force of the gods— but sometimes he struggled with boundaries. Annabeth let the two of them have loads of guy time, with and without her. But sometimes, she wanted to be with just Percy, like right now.

Grover scrolled more on his phone before Percy cleared his throat again and pointed at Annabeth, trying to give more of a clear sign. Grover just stared at him.

“Oh,” Grover jumped. “Hi Annabeth!”

“Hey, Grover,” Annabeth smiled and laughed, but Percy threw his head in his hands.

“Are you two watching a movie?” Grover turned to look at the TV, which was now paused. Grover looked back at the two of them cuddled in bed. “What movie is this?”

Again, Percy said nothing. He gave Grover a look that said Dude, I’m a little busy! Girlfriend in my bed!

Grover studied them for a moment before gasping.

“Oh, gods, I’m so sorry, I should have known, I’m so sorry—“ Grover apologized all the way out the door until it was shut, leaving Percy and Annabeth alone in the light of the TV again. Percy rolled his eyes and wiped his face in embarrassment, but Annabeth just laughed.

“Gods,” His voice fell back into a hushed tone. “I can never get five minutes with my girlfriend.”

Before she could respond, Annabeth’s mouth was shut as Percy pressed into her. His tongue tasted like salt water and his hands wrapped up and around her neck. Annabeth’s hand remained low on his stomach, but just rubbed in circles, feeling the way his body hitched whenever she slipped beneath his pants.

Percy’s hand moved slowly down her body, and his mouth followed. Pressing gentle but intense kisses on her neck, he breathed against her skin. His teeth nipped right above her collarbone and Annabeth let out a small noise. Percy smiled against her skin, making her feel warm.

On their way down, Percy’s hands tugged at the bottom of Annabeth’s shirt, asking for permission. With a slight nod of her head, Annabeth’s body felt hot with an intense feeling, begging to be released. His hands found their way up and under her bra, the slight stimulation making her quickly gasp for air.

Percy moved his mouth up to bite her ear before whispering; “I need you, Annabeth.” Then, his mouth was back on her mouth and Annabeth slipped her hand fully into his pants. Both of them were so close, their body heat making it hard to breathe as they gently felt each other’s skin.

When the door slammed a second time, Percy was the one to yell. Quickly, he pulled his bedsheets back over him and Annabeth.

“Grover!” Percy’s voice was weak and he knew his entire body was red, which now gave Grover an obvious sign that now wasn’t the best time.

“I’m sorry!” Grover covered his eyes with his hand. “I just found out that the movie comes out on your birthday and I wanted to—“

“Yes, we’ll see the movie together!” Percy was getting impatient, moving his hands around like he was shooing a bug away.

Grover didn’t say anything this time, he just turned, almost missed the doorway, and left, closing the door behind him. Percy sighed again.

“I’m so sorry, Annabeth,” He put his hand on her cheek and she smiled into it. “The universe can never leave us alone.”

“It’s okay, we should be used to it by now.” Annabeth smiled and Percy kissed her again, but she pulled out of it.

“What?” His face dropped, worried that the mood had been completely ruined.

“Do you have a rubber band?” Annabeth’s eyes looked at Percy, then to his lips, then back up, making his heart do jumping jacks in his chest. Still, his face turned in confusion.

“A rubber band?” Percy asked, but Annabeth just smiled, nodded. “Why would I need a…”

Annabeth slid her hand completely under the band of his pants, and all at once, realization hit. Percy basically flew out of bed and hit the ground so hard, the noise echoed. The excitement running through his body made it difficult for him to function properly, and on all fours, he searched for a rubber band.

Above him Annabeth laughed. Somewhere between his desk and his dressed was a large brown rubber band, and his legs finally seemed to stand him up properly enough to stumble over his clothes on the floor and make it to the door. This time, when it opened, the light wasn’t so blinding. He slipped the rubber band around the door knob and slammed it shut. Annabeth winced at the noise, sure that all this banging would get them a noise complaint.

Just as easily as he flew off of the bed, Percy was back up and under the covers. Annabeth just looked at him and couldn’t help but smile knowing that they made each other this excited.

The movie was over, but the screen stayed on, illuminating the two of them in enough light to see what they were doing. Percy’s mouth met hers and their bodies went crazy. They pressed against each other, yearning for the other’s warmth and closeness, and everything was perfect. The universe may have wanted them apart, but at least it knew not to interrupt when a rubber band was on the doorknob.

note: thank u for reading !! original work by me, posted on my ao3 (sefoxx) :3

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

I'm taking a Classics course this year and it's extremely funny to me that, while some versions do make Kronos into Greek-Satan, in most versions Zeus eventually just... like... releases Kronos after a few centuries.

It's like "Hey dad, yeah, you and the other Titans can come out now. I think ya'll've learned your lesson, just no more eating your kids, K?" And Kronos just... accepts his son's rule. It's honestly hilarious.

From a historical perspective it's meant to be reflective of the Athenian banishment system where you got to return after ten years or so, but it's also endlessly funny to me. Zeus just has his ex-con cannibal father puttering around occasionally offering advice and its usually terrible.

It's even funnier in Roman mythology because in that series of events Saturn (Roman Kronos) and the Titans go to Italy and rule over a Golden Age while making ready for Jupiter and the other Gods to come over with Aneas once the Trojan War is over.

So, I'm proposing an alternative version of Percy Jackson. While the Greeks were fighting the secondd Titan War, the Romans just have to like, settle a dispute between Jupiter and his geriatric father over some bullshit. It's be hilarious.

[draurer]

perciver omegaverse au where Oliver is a classic alpha, athlete and handsome, and everyone is sure that one day he will marry a classic omega who will be a suppotrive house-husband while he builds a career as a professional Quidditch player

also, perciver omegaverse au, where everyone thinks that Percy is an insufferable omega with a heavy temper, he's just an evil bitch who rejects any advances from alphas, whom someone will tame one day (or he will die alone, lol)

and you know how it ends up?

Percy turns out to be an alpha (or beta) too, and no, he doesn't need anyone to tame him, and he won't die alone, and Oliver will never marry a classic omega, because he already has his red-haired and insufferable alpha, for whom he himself will clean the house, and he'll cook the food, and he'll be a supportive husband

.

I just like the alpha x alpha or alpha x beta dynamics

Percy lets his man take care of him, but he can BITE HIM if he wants to, and he can take care of his man in return. they just. umm. power-couple.

[rubytuezday]

Modern Eren Jäger headcannons

on the college soccer team

listens to 2016 frat party music (the Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Childish Gambino) and also rock (Nirvana, Deaftones, Radiohead)

wears clear plastic frame glasses when he's too lazy to put in his contacts (saw someone else say this and I can't stop thinking about it)

loves piano - grew up listening to his mom play classical

tans so fast it's unfair

super flirty with everyone - he's a natural charmer

secretly listens to asmr when he can't sleep

got his tongue pierced when he turned 18

really good at doing accents (his favorite is Aussie)

fluent in German (raised bilingual)

wants to be an honorary uncle to his friends' future kids

frequent special guest on Connie's YouTube channel (like almost every gaming vid)

favorite movie is Return of the King (he cries at the ending every time but pretends like he doesn't)

really good at rolling blunts

coffee order is either the sugariest thing on the menu or a redeye (black coffee with a shot (or two) of espresso)

silver > gold

had a Creepypasta/Slenderman phase when he was 13 (still secretly rewatches Marble Hornets and EveryManHybrid)

read all the Percy Jackson books and liked to pretend that he was also a long lost son of Poseidon (main character syndrome to the max)

remembers everything anyone tells him. You mentioned your major? Eren remembers. You eat a specific food frequently? Eren knows that it's your favorite. Ordered a coffee around him exactly one time? Eren has that shit memorized

obsessed with mood-lighting

either super expressive or impossible to read, no in between

loves taking his mom to the symphony

knows how to cook exactly 3 meals (no I will not elaborate)

favorite sitcom is That '70s Show

so feral for him sorry not sorry

[whilereadingandwalking]

For generations, the Haddesleys have fulfilled their contract with the bog. When a patriarch dies, his body is delivered into its murky waters; in return, the bog sends a bog wife to the oldest son, allowing their family to continue without any outsiders. But their home, their inheritance, has gradually fallen into decay, and the oldest son can’t have children. As the children—including Wedda, who ran away years ago; Eda, the oldest daughter and matriarch; Charlie, the disabled eldest son; Percy, the son who has always craved Charlie’s inheritance; and young, needy Nora—gather around their father, they wonder. What will happen if this time, the exchange doesn’t work? What it will it mean about their past—and what on earth would they do next?

This complex Appalachian gothic, The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister, about family inheritance, isolation, and patriarchy is slow-paced but never boring. The suspense is gradual, the emotional consequences building alongside the narrative ones. In classic gothic fashion, the fantasy is almost beside the point—how much is truly coming from the bog, how much from a magicked past, and how much of it is just base human nature, is just blind, stubborn loyalty to the stories a father imposes on his children? The line between real and false is slimy and impossible to pin down, for the characters and for the reader. People unspool, make irrational decisions, grasp at a story that’s rapidly slipping through their fingers. The novel is rich with grime and cold, wet and muck, Chronister bringing the texture and sensuality of a bog and of a crumbling once-great house to the forefront. A great, eerie fall read.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Content warnings for ableism, implied sexual assault, suicidal ideation and attempt, death, grief, emotional abuse.

[ahecen]

posting this post hoo domestic percabeth wip that i've had for more than a year bc why not. 6k and a little rough at times due to it, yk, being a wip. written to go along w this series.

Skin.

Annabeth dabs the foundation onto her jaw with a hardened gaze and burning eyes. It isn’t a new occurrence, so it’s strange that the sting resonates so deep. It's been months since they hurt each other in their sleep, so maybe what wounds Annabeth the most is that she thought they were better. 

She knows she’s naive. Luke told her so many times during the years of his corruption. But when Annabeth was twelve her world turned upside down, and with it went her lack of optimism. She hasn’t been able to shake it within the last six years, not really.

She goes over what she knows to be true. Percy is at work. He will be home in two hours. Estelle is sleeping in her crib, so she should pay attention to that. Annabeth is alone, and it has been two years.

Percy had a mental breakdown half way through senior year, which was putting it lightly. Annabeth was scared for him—and of him. Sometimes she feels ashamed for thinking that way of him, but screaming fits in the middle of the night that lasted until the sun rose would have never been taken lightly.

She angles her face this way and that, testing the shadows of her jaw in the dim lighting. It’ll do. She turns on the sink, taking a final gulp of water to swish in her mouth, washing away the last bit of sourness that came from her gut ten minutes ago. Satisfied, Annabeth steps out of the small bathroom, her solitude left behind.

The Jackson apartment has only seemed to get noisier and noisier over the years. The radio is always crooning classic rock, and pots and pans clatter more often than not. When Annabeth was younger and it was just Percy and Sally, she was fascinated with how the busyness of their home was capable of drowning out the chaos of the city. Now with the addition of a baby, moments of quiet are rare.

It’s why she likes these mornings in the summer, if she can push unkind thoughts out of her mind. It’s vastly different to enjoy being alone versus feeling lonely. Garbage trucks and horns honking are a million miles away when the sun shines just right through the curtains, casting a warm glow throughout the home. It’s peaceful, and it’s so strange that her boyfriend’s empty apartment is the only place she can close her eyes without caution.

The place is too small for five people, it’s hot because the AC has a mind of its own, and Annabeth might have started a small fire trying to cook dinner the other night, but it’s home. She’ll miss everything when she moves upstate next month.

On the technical side of things, Annabeth lives with Rachel. They aren’t exactly the best of friends though, and her place always smells like weed and turpentine, so Annabeth prefers to spend her days with Percy.

Annabeth ponders waking Estelle so she can interact with, like, another living thing, but that wouldn’t be fair to the baby.

She opens her recent calls and stares at the list of names. Most from Percy, a few from Sally, and at the very top of the list reads a set of ten numbers. There’s no contact name, but the arrangement is burned into her memory. 

She ignored his call four days ago. She missed it two days ago when she was showering and didn’t have it in her to return it. Last night when her father called her for the third time, Annabeth steeled her heart rate and held the phone to her ear. It may have been the bravest thing she did in months.

For the most part, Annabeth can accurately predict what her father will call her about and what the brief conversation will entail. Annabeth doesn’t like surprises. This time he surprised her.

She opens her laptop, types in the Cornell website without a thought, scrolls to check that yes it still exists, then abruptly closes the screen.

She finds the New York Times crossword and completes it in under two minutes. (She blames her lack of a restful sleep on her slow time.) She peels an orange then lays flat on the carpet to eat it, because why not. 

Annabeth is extremely bored, if that was unclear.

The silence makes her feel useless, in every aspect of life. It’s at this time that Annabeth hears Estelle’s cries.

She has learned that babies can’t be, well, babied, but it must be awfully scary to be so small and wake up alone in a world so big.

Annabeth likes taking care of Estelle. Summers aren’t much different in the Jackson household than they are during the school year. Sally is a writer and Paul is a teacher which isn’t inherently an issue, but it presents problems when living in New York City with a baby and two other adults. Percy has a job because he needs to do something for his sanity. Annabeth was grateful when she was fired from her internship a few months back. 

All that is to say Annabeth is happy to care of Estelle when the apartment is empty, even if Sally and Paul insisted they could take their daughter to daycare. When Annabeth said it was fine, it truly was fine. She and Estelle have a strange fascination with each other. She doesn’t have much experience with babies, but she tries to find it endearing rather than creepy when Estelle refuses to tear her eyes away from Annabeth’s face. They're the same eyes as Percy.

He's mentioned before that Annabeth shouldn’t blame Estelle for the staring, for reasons that are to be expected from her boyfriend. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

She likes holding Estelle in her arms. Her little fists find her hair and make grabbing motions, gripping her braids. It’s cute, though sometimes the baby forgets she has this thing called strength, and tugs too tightly. Or maybe she finds it entertaining to interact with the bright colors and noises and textures of the world around her, and she can use Annabeth’s hair as her first step of exploration.

Estelle is a testament to the innocence of life, and how growing up leads to breaking down. Annabeth never had much of a childhood. By the time things slowed down in her young, tumultuous life, she found she was left far behind. Annabeth wonders what her half-brothers were like as infants. She wasn’t allowed to hold them, and even if she were, her parents would still never tear their loving gazes away from their perfect, innocent sons.

She rocks the baby in her arms, her cries simmered into quiet whimpers. Annabeth’s humming something that might be Beyoncé, but Estelle doesn’t know the difference between “Flaws and All” and the rise and fall of the larynx.

Estelle is set into her play area with the bright colors and objects, and Annabeth falls over the couch, watching her. Not too much later, she hears the lock to the front door moving around, and then Percy steps through.

Estelle waddles over to her brother, which makes Annabeth only a tad nervous that she’ll fall on her little face or little behind. Percy picks up his sister, raising her into the air.

“Hey," Annabeth greets, his presence a sight for really sore eyes. "How was it?”

“Boring. Kids don’t drown like they used to.” He bends to kiss her upside down, which is only a bit disorienting. He then kisses Estelle’s forehead and her sparkly eyes go wide. The gestures are terribly domestic, and it is brought to Annabeth’s attention, not for the first time, that they live in the fantasy of playing Estelle’s mother and father while her real parents are away.

Annabeth shakes her head in sympathy. “Society is regressing.”

While a summer job as a lifeguard may not be the most optimal choice, there isn’t much about the actual work to complain about. Any excitement is better than none at all, even if that means he has to save a kid in the deep end. Or the shallows.

Chlorine makes Percy extremely uncomfortable—it’s why he chose basketball over swimming when his school forced him to play a sport, even if he was notorious for fouls.

“You smell like chemicals.”

“Annabeth, you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”

She shoves him. “You didn’t shower at the pool?”

“I forgot my flip flops and I was not about to get athlete’s foot.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Would you want to rub fungal cream on my feet for a week?”

She cringes. “Ew, Percy. You wouldn’t make me do that.”

“You’re right,” he sighs. “I wouldn't.” 

“You’re the breadwinner in this relationship, can you believe that?”

He stretches, his arms crossed behind his head. “I always was. You didn’t get paid.” His arms fall rather abruptly. “Shit, sorry.”

Annabeth furrows her eyebrows. “What for?”

“The internship.” It’s said delicately, like any other tone would set her off. It would. Annabeth was fired from her internship at an architecture firm just a few weeks ago for allegedly yelling at her boss. Annabeth thought it was simply a heated discussion on differing opinions. Apparently her behavior was inappropriate. Annabeth disagreed—and still disagrees—but there’s nothing she can do. Maybe file a report for wrongful termination, but she hated the company’s consistently boring designs anyway. It’s for the better.

“Just because I don’t have a job anymore doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to talk about yours. It’s fine. I need to get used to the real world anyway. Normal teenagers aren’t really granted full creative control over redesigning an ancient city.”

“They aren’t?”

Annabeth nods solemnly. “I know it’s hard to believe.”

“You should have prepared me better for that. I can’t believe you.”

“The betrayal.”

He smiles softly. “Sorry I fell asleep last night.”

She shrugs. “You don’t need to wait up for me.”

“I want to. Is Rachel done with her masterpiece yet?”

“You know, same old same old.”

“You don’t remember.” It’s not a dig.

“I don’t remember.”

The main draw to Rachel might be her collection of substances, so what. Annabeth knows what she’s doing. See, Rachel is a “freelancer,” which just means she paints all day and her dad pays her rent. She can virtually do whatever she wants without consequence. Annabeth doesn’t really have a right to judge though, since her own father pays for her tuition. It’s fine. Sometimes Annabeth needs a different kind of fix, one she can’t bring by herself or through others. She doesn’t talk about it with Percy, but she knows the drinking makes him uncomfortable. It’s why she keeps that lifestyle on the other side of town, where the windows reach from the top of the ceiling to the bottom of the floor.

Annabeth sneezes.

Percy gives her a look, then rises to his feet and says, “Lemme shower.”

He rounds on her to place a kiss on her temple, then leaves for the bathroom.

..

“Is Stelle asleep?”

He doesn’t acknowledge the darkness of the night before, nor does he bring light to what happened two years ago to the date. If he wants to be oblivious then she’ll let him, just for today.

She nods, and he responds back with, “Damn, she sleeps more than we do.”

Getting back from miles below felt like a sick nightmare crafted by monsters. It took days for Annabeth to be convinced this wasn’t a hallucination, and she truly was back in the mortal world. Sometimes at night she slips back into this untrue stream of consciousness, and she doesn’t trust anything she sees. What hurts the most is Percy. It hurts because she can’t tell if he’s real or not, the person who is the realest thing she's ever known. Annabeth is thrusted back into the pit, wandering blind and helpless as she cries for her abandonment. Clouds of smoke around her head help her forget, in a different way.

“Your mom always says she’s an easy baby. She doesn’t need to be submerged in water to stop crying,” Annabeth teases.

“That’s actually funny considering I was scared of public pools as a kid.”

“Probably because of all the chemicals.”

“Yeah, an aversion to swimming in piss would make sense.”

“How is that different from swimming in the ocean?”

“Because I’m, like, directly related to fish.”

Annabeth blinks. “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”

He snorts. It’s so easy to fall into his arms, focus on the warm familiarity of their banter and not the thousands of ways this moment can be interrupted with the wrong word, or an unintentional harsh tone.

“Toddlers scare me," Annabeth admits. "Their limbs are too long.”

“So dracanae in Grand Central Station is just another Tuesday, but a regular human being is what gets you going.”

He’s ridiculous. She tells him just that.

“What? My sister’s limbs are perfectly fine. She doesn’t appreciate the slander.”

They both look at her. She remains sleeping peacefully, her little nose washed with pink.

There’s another part of playing parents for Estelle. If not imagining her and Percy with their own child was a test of self control and recklessness, Annabeth would fail miserably. It makes her thankful to have an IUD. Annabeth isn’t a forgetful person. In fact, she has the best memory of anyone she knows. Reciting Macbeth is different than remembering to take a pill every day, though.

Annabeth is plenty okay with only looking forward to surviving college, thank you very much. Percy on the other hand is so incredibly family oriented, he doesn’t even see his daydreams as out of left field. Older Percy with kids of his own. Normal.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yeah,” Annabeth says. He gives her a look. “What? Coffee counts.”

“Let’s feed you then, lazyass.”

“Not lazy, ’m just tired.”

They leave Estelle to make their way to the kitchen.

“Nightmares?”

“No, I just couldn’t sleep. I hate when there’s no reason.” 

Nightmares are to be expected, but they’ve become predictable.

“I would’ve stayed up with you. We could’ve watched a movie or gone on a walk or something.”

He doesn’t remember. It’s better this way, Annabeth thinks.

Percy kissed her forehead when he left this morning. The act woke her up, and she wasn’t able to fall back asleep, but that route was more preferable than waking with half a mind and not knowing where he was. Then she would remember, mid-panic, that Hera’s war is over, and they don’t need to have eyes on each other at every moment to know the other is okay. Annabeth doesn’t know which is easier: to fall asleep alone, or by his side just to meet her lonely soul in the mornings.

“Pancakes okay?”

Annabeth laughs through her nose. It’s basically the only thing he can make himself by scratch. “What other options are there?”

He takes a moment to consider, pulling a faux thinking face. “The most irresistible gourmet cereal.”

She narrows her eyes. “I think I can resist it.”

He actually manages to get enough done in the kitchen considering the various distractions from his girlfriend. 

“What would you do if I turned into an owl?” she asks playfully, swinging her feet from up on the counter.

“I had a dream about that once.” She blinks. Percy continues, keeping his eyes on the batter in the pan. “I was a fish. You ate me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It was scary. Try not to eat me please.”

“I will keep it in mind.”

“Thank you." He eyes her. "Where’d that come from?”

“Where did that dream come from?”

“I asked you first. But I’m pretty sure it was from your mom because it happened around the time we started dating.”

“That’s nice. And I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”

“You have the strangest thoughts, Annabeth Chase.”

She cocks her head to the side. “What, you’ve never thought of if you were, like, a dolphin?”

“Of course I have, but not a dolphin. Dolphins are evil. I’m thinking megalodon.”

“When are you not thinking of megalodon, Shark Boy?”

“Probably when I find it. Nevermind, I will actually never shut up when I do. You’ll need to euthanize me.”

“I am honored that I’m the person elected to euthanize you when the time inevitably comes.”

“Fuck yeah.” He nods, confidence restored in being the one to find the extinct shark.

Annabeth smirks. “Name all the species of sharks in—”

“In alphabetical order?” He tilts his head towards her, curls falling with the movement. “See, you can’t make fun of me when I actually enjoy doing it.”

“I’m not making fun of you! I genuinely like it, I swear.”

He sighs. “Angel, Atlantic weasel…”

She grins incredibly wide throughout his recital. She grins at the brightness in his eyes because he’s honestly a huge nerd and refuses to admit it, at the speed at which he recites, and him being so in the groove of it all that he burns a pancake. The whole situation is a lot to smile about. It’s at times like these that Annabeth’s joy is ruined by her guilt towards how she thinks of him. How she could ever not want to be with him, not want to share his company and laughter.

But it’s different when they are caught in moments of turmoil.

..

She likes being here with him. He plays with the coils at the end of her braids, running his finger along the downward spirals.

Sunlight filters through the curtains. The light hits Percy’s curls in a way that makes his flyaways look like spun gold. He nuzzles his head into the warm crook of her neck, his breath tickling her skin.

He lifts her glasses off and reaches over her to set them on the night stand. He smiles in a way that makes her suspicious. “There. Now I can see your beautiful face.”

Annabeth stares at him blankly. “Never do that again. I would actually pay you to never say that ever again.”

Percy laughs brightly, the skin around his eyes crinkling. She smiles at the sight.

He’s like a boa constrictor, but a nice one, if there ever was such a thing. She feels safe.

“Is this okay?”

“Your elbow’s actually digging into my ribs a bit—”

“Shit, sorry,” Percy moves his arm to wrap around her shoulders instead, “But I meant is all of this okay? Like, are you happy staying here?”

“Of course I am. Wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.”

His hand moves down her bicep, then up, then down. Again and again in a way that leaves a trail of warmth in his path. “You kinda live with Rachel.”

“Rachel,” she repeats, testing the syllables. “She’s not really roommate material.”

“She’s your roommate though.”

“I’m a glorified squatter.”

Kids remember their moments of appraisal, times when they were singled out for being special. They also remember other kids getting rewarded, and they wonder what they did wrong. What do they have to do to get their gold star of recognition?

“My dad said he’d help me move in.”

His hand freezes, then continues its gentle movement. “Well no, right? We are.”

“I told him yes.”

His hand drops. “You already talked to him? When?”

“Two nights ago. It was time for him to cash in on his be a father twice a year check.”

Percy doesn’t say anything.

“I’m too forgiving,” Annabeth says.

“Maybe. But that's not always a bad thing.”

“When do you think it’ll finally click?”

“When he’s deserving of it. Who knows when that'll be.”

“That’s why I do it, I think,” she murmurs. “Let him in, even if it’s just for a moment. That's all I can handle.”

His arms tighten just a bit more. “You’re a good person, Annabeth. I just worry you give too many chances.”

“At least I’m consistent,” she jokes. “It’s okay. We'll be together for six hours tops.” 

Moments of silence pass, and she pokes his chest. “I can hear you thinking.”

“What are you hearing then?”

“Whole lotta static. I wish I could read your mind.”

He admits, “Sometimes I think you can.”

..

A jolt wakes Annabeth, and she registers it as his heel digging into her shin. Her vision is blurry. She sighs deeply, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Morning, sunshine.”

She turns her head to find Percy still asleep, and shaking so infinitesimally it’s barely there. His eyes seem to be rolling back and forth behind his eyelids. Her head clears. “Percy?”

In the seconds it takes to wake him, Annabeth prays his memories will remain. It doesn’t happen often anymore, whereas a year ago his memory would lapse about once a week.

She presses her hand to his chest lightly, rising up then down to follow his breathing. Percy grasps her wrist, and she can imagine his head feels as if it’s filled with air.

His eyes open, wild, then soften in a millisecond. Annabeth examines his every feature, picking apart every quirk to figure out what’s running through his mind.

“It’s fine. ‘m fine.” He lays back down, and with his arms around her she follows him. He strokes her hair; she can feel the trembling in his fingers.

His head turns so that their foreheads connect, noses brushing. It’s enough to feel the other there, to have this undeniable proof that they’re alive and unharmed. But Annabeth knows it’s not enough for him, and it’s why she gives him what he needs when he kisses her.

She should ask what scared him. She should ask what happened in the nightmare. But picking at his cuts won’t stop the tremor in his body or the fear behind his gaze.

Sometimes words fail the both of them, and selfish desires take over, even if it leads to more hurt.

His lips lower to her neck, and a sadness falls over Annabeth at how they got here. Not in this moment specifically, it’s a selfishly good moment, but how they let silence become their method of communication, and the approval of ignorance equating bliss.

When they got back after the war there was unprecedented terror, mainly brought to the forefront through vivid flashbacks. They were delicate, carrying each other like thin glass. Then after feeling depleted for so many months, they found a way to be alive for each other, through harsh hands and scattered bruises. It felt good. It still feels good, even if Annabeth knows it’s wrong, and every time he presses against her her heart cracks a bit more. Percy and Annabeth are at their most vulnerable when with each other, no matter the state. 

When his hand travels under her shirt, it should jolt Annabeth back to reality. But his touch is warm, and she’s spent too many years in the cold, so she pushes all other thoughts of opposition away. It’s not to say that she doesn’t want this. Percy isn’t taking advantage of her or ignoring her wants. Annabeth craves his closeness, and it’s intoxicating to be needed this way. It’s just that afterwards she can’t help feeling a little dirty for how they treat each other.

Soon, is her mantra. Soon soon soon.

Annabeth glances at the clock on the nightstand and her eyebrows raise in surprise at the time that has passed. Sally should be home by now. She then glances at the door, notices it’s still shut tight, and concludes if Sally opened it, she would have found them both innocently sleeping above the sheets.

Annabeth’s hand comes up to pat Percy’s arm. “Hey, stop.” Pale, inquisitive eyes meet hers. Before he can ask what’s wrong she says, “We’re getting ice cream.”

His eyebrows draw together, producing a crease in the middle that Annabeth smooths with a press of her thumb.

“Your mom’s home. We’re getting ice cream.”

That crease returns. “We have ice cream in the freezer.”

She pushes him off her and turns to plant her feet on the ground. “Get your ass up.”

//

2. Lungs.

The July rain leaves the air sticky and thick.

Annabeth licks the melted edges of her ice cream before the drops can coat her fingers. She looks over at Percy to find half his cone already gone.

“That good?”

“I’m all healed,” he answers.

“Ice cream has a one-hundred percent success rate. You know this.”

“The day it falls to ninety-nine is the day the world implodes.”

Annabeth hates summer. The few months of the sun high in the sky used to mean two things: she had a quest, and she had Percy. Now, it is a period of stillness. The calm before an unknown storm.

It is slowly killing Annabeth to live through these constant days of nothingness. It will kill Percy if he does anything at all. So he will stay, take care of his sister, and Annabeth will leave to start the next chapter of her life. 

They pass a flower stand of sorts. It’s overflowing with a variety of flowers and color. Annabeth almost sneezes from the sweet smell.

Percy spins around and before Annabeth can even wonder as to why he did that, he produces a sunflower.

Annabeth’s grin is bright, and her laugh even more so. “Thief!”

He covers her mouth with his free hand, smiling from either his antics or her joy, she doesn’t know. “Shh! Coming from Annabeth ‘arrested for shoplifting’ Chase.”

She takes the stalk from him and twirls it between her fingers. “That got expunged last year. Asshole.”

He laughs and throws his arm around her shoulder.

They make their way to the park, thankfully finding an empty bench in the shade. The stolen sunflower rests over Annabeth's lap. As dutiful people watches, they observe the bikers and the joggers and the strollers and the couples and the solos and so on.

She could talk with him for hours about anything, really, but the silence is just as comforting. Actually, anything that isn’t revolved around her she could talk about for hours.

“Narnia freaks me out.”

He sputters a laugh. “Go on?”

She likes that she can just say things to Percy, random thoughts that spring up in her mind, and she doesn’t worry about him thinking she’s, like, weird or something. Which is a strange train of thought to go down because they’ve been best friends for years. If he didn’t like her they wouldn’t be here, but Percy liking Annabeth will always remain a cosmic mystery to her.

“I was going to say something about us actually being older than we are, then I thought of those kids living in Narnia for decades, then when they go back to the mortal world, they’re back in kids bodies.”

“Freaky,” he agrees.

“Reminds me of us a bit.”

“Yeah.”

His thumb grazed her knuckles. Percy slides his hand under her own, the other reaching over to trace the lines of her palm with his index finger.

Annabeth hums. “What’s it telling you?”

He eyes her. “The best year of your life is upon you.”

“Oh really.”

“Yeah.” He pauses to inhale, exhale. “You throw the packs into a bonfire, you smash the bottles, and you score an internship at a fancy architecture firm where you are so valuable that you’re paid more than the boss.”

“Sounds nice," Annabeth says. "Too bad that life is incomplete.”

“That’s why the next year will be better. And the year after that.”

“And after that…”

Percy nods. “And after that.”

Annabeth laces her fingers with his, holding tightly. “I believe you.”

“Good.”

The high sun leaves the streets radiating with heat. They talk and don’t talk, meaningless comments about the world around them and stupid hypotheticals. It almost feels like those first few months together, where they would fill their weekends with each other’s time. Looking back, Annabeth doesn’t know if they were making up for lost time, or they were taking advantage of an unknown future. A future where they knew stability couldn’t be promised.

//

3. Blood.

Annabeth stares at her reflection for so long she loses time. There’s only one bathroom in the apartment, so it’s probably rude to stay hidden for so long, but Annabeth can’t escape to solitude anywhere else.

She feels outside of her body, like her movements are being controlled by a third party entity. She absentmindedly runs her thumb across the bumps and ridges on her thighs, past scars inflicted by no one but herself. When Percy discovered what she was doing was one of the worst moments in Annabeth’s life. It was all because of the damn look he gave her. It was heartbreak, and she was the reason for it. Annabeth isn’t proud of the millions of ways she has hurt him over the years. One day it’s going to give, and Annabeth may be a horrible person for waiting for the day they leave each other for good, but at least she’ll be prepared. She thinks she could be married to Percy for twenty years and still feel the ground beneath her shake with uncertainty. It’s not a good feeling, but she doesn’t blame Percy. Annabeth Chase will always be her own worst enemy.

It’s the worst fucking feeling in the world to discover that someone doesn’t love themself in the way you love them. Annabeth saw that feeling on Percy’s face.

She turns on the sink, freezing cold water pooling into her joined hands, and splashes her face.

Annabeth hears feet padding outside the door. The steps are light with a purpose, feet not dragging. She knows it’s Sally, so she’s probably putting Estelle down for the night, or just a nap (whatever the baby decides). Before she can stop herself, Annabeth twists the metal door knob. The hinges creak as she steps out.

Annabeth hovers outside the door to Estelle’s room, one foot in the hall.

“Sally?” “I just wanted to thank you for everything. For being understanding, mostly, especially when we leave you in the dark.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. You’re a part of this family too. You always will be.” Annabeth heard the unspoken even if you’re not with Percy.

“This isn’t something a good girlfriend does.”

“None of that, Annabeth. Sometimes being a good person means doing the hard thing.”

How can Sally say all this when she doesn’t know? She doesn’t know all the things they had to do to survive in the pit, she doesn’t know how they treat each other now.

“I just feel bad,” she croaks.

“There’s no need to be. You’re only eighteen. You’re expected to be the adult on the godly side of things, but there’s no need for that here.”

Her chin wobbles, tears pooling over her eyes faster than she can stop them. “I’m scared this will all be for nothing,” she sobs.

Sally opens her arms without hesitation, and Annabeth falls into them. “Oh, sweetheart. Why have you kept this all in?”

“I can’t talk with Percy about it, and you’re his mom,” she chokes out. “He’s your son first. I’m just his girlfriend.”

Sally rubs her back, like she's coaxing every bad feeling out of her. It is about as comforting as it is weakening. There’s something about Sally Jackson that doesn’t make Annabeth scared to feel. “I wish you wouldn’t think of yourself so small, sweet pea. You’re a part of this family. You always will be.”

Annabeth hears the unspoken even if you’re not with Percy.

“I don’t know, I just… I felt so lonely the last couple years. But I don’t feel that way anymore. Now I’m leaving for real, and it’s my choice to be lonely. Ithaca seems a world away.”

This home represents everything of a past life. The framed photographs on the wall are of a younger Annabeth, so in love she let it blind her. She grew out of it, like she grew out of camp after the first war.

..

When she opens the door to the bedroom, Annabeth isn't surprised to find the window open, and the silhouette of Percy sitting on the fire escape.

Escape serves a double meaning. Over the months, Annabeth and Percy found the rusted railings separate from the rest of the world. Here was neutral territory. Here, they could gaze into the windows of the countless homes around them, looking into glimpses of people’s lives. Sometimes it’s frustrating for Annabeth to know even after all the things they’ve been through, they’re still smaller than two insignificant specks of dust in the cosmos.

“Can I join you?” she asks, needlessly.

“Always.”

She swings her feet above the city. She feels like the little kid she was at camp, kicking her legs up and up over the lake. The world seemed so big back then. Now, Annabeth’s imagination has drifted to the stars.

It’s late, but the end of summer means that the sky is washed with a dull ocean blue. It’s another thing she dislikes about these months, how the days never want to end.

Percy is sitting at her side, their thighs touching. His forehead rests against the deteriorated railing, breathing in the warm smog of the city.

Annabeth watches him. She remembers his first days at camp, where she fell back and observed him from the shadows. He wasn’t unlike the other newcomers, but there was something about him she couldn’t get a read on. Six years later and Annabeth still feels as if she’s missing the final piece to the infinite puzzle that is Percy Jackson.

“You haven’t aged a day in six years.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere," she says. "My gray hair is all because of you.”

He chuckles, and his hand raises to her jaw, tracing the soft line. When his thumb grazes over the spot just before her chin, Annabeth jerks her head away, then winces at her blind reaction. His hand freezes.

It’s an old dance, and Annabeth’s tired, so she lets him inspect her jaw while her face burns. She feels naked under his scrutiny, with nowhere left to hide.

Percy is smart, and Annabeth knows she won't be able to lie her way out of this one.

“Annabeth…” He’s shaking his head.

“You were having a nightmare. I’m fine, I swear. It’s nothing new.”

It’s alright, really. It was Annabeth’s fault. In hurting him, she hurt herself. It only seemed fair; it’s why she no longer cries when nightmares translate to real life. This is the price she pays for selfishness.

“Nothing new… Annabeth, do you realize how fucked up that is?”

“What do you want me to say? I’ve taken countless hits to the face before. From you, might I add, in the training fields. This is honestly better than those times.”

His face is impassive. That look has always scared her more than any look he's given to an enemy. “I’m thinking maybe you were wrong for staying here.”

Her heart drops. “You want me to leave.”

“No, but." Percy exhales, frustrated and regretful. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I’m trying not to be selfish. You’re not happy here.”

“I’m not happy anywhere but here.”

“Doesn’t that make you upset? That your happiest state is when your boyfriend hits you and he doesn’t even remember it?” His voice breaks at the end, and his expression crumbles. “I’m no better than—” He stops himself, but Annabeth knows who he was going to name.

“Percy," she says, not fucking around, "look at me. You are nothing like him, and you never could be. These situations are nowhere comparable, you have to realize that.”

He's looking all over her face and all around her, like his vision is shaky. Something has happened, but Annabeth isn't quite sure what. She can't leave. Not yet. “Fuck, I hate this.”

“What?”

“It's like..." He licks his lips. "I almost think next year could be a good thing.”

Percy gets it, but she doesn't feel that triumph in her chest that she thought she would. How can things break down even further, so so simply? Their world is crumbling, but they're only two specks of dust.

“You get it now,” she mutters. “Hopefully we’ll be better.”

Percy is no where near satisfied. “We can’t just keep saying that, Beth.”

“Yeah, but this time an actual change is being made." She takes his hand. "For real. It’s not like last summer.”

His gaze is low, watching the tiny people below them carry on with their night. “I hate the summer.”

“And the winter,” Annabeths adds.

“Fall, then.”

She shakes her head. “That’s when school starts.”

“Spring,” he finalizes.

“That’s when finals are. Peak academic stress.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

She smiles, leaning into his chest and his arms wrap around her shoulders. She breathes deeply, his scent a beacon guiding her back to reality, but also an escape.

"I'm sorry," Percy whispers against her temple.

"It's okay. I promise. Gods, I’m never going to be able to get you out of my head.”

She feels the light laugh in his chest. “Would that be so bad? Nevermind, don’t answer that.”

“It’s just a year. Plus winter break. We’ve been apart for longer before.”

“Before we were us though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

His thumb and forefinger on her chin guides her eyes back to his. He's trying to be happy for her. She wants to tell him that the mask does more damage than good. “You’ll do great things, miss architect.”

“You will too. I know it.”

He chuckles wetly. “Why am I so sad? It’s not even…”

“It’s a change—but a good one. I’m sure of it.”

He nods. “I trust you.”

She hopes it's enough. Annabeth can't trust herself.

[d1onysishere]

Hey D1ony, I have two things to ask you:

1. What are the personalities of your interpretations of the fallen children?

2. Can you please make more art of them whenever you have the time?

Taking this as an opportunity to truly info dump

HI! The answer to this ask took me quite a bit to make simply because i kept overthinking the answers, bit at last, i bring it to you: The fallen humans personalities, or about as well as i can write it all down into a short post.

The personalities of the humans are shaped by a few things, mostly information found in the original Undertale Game and a LOT of creative liberty taken by me. Also by the fact that all these characters have been left to stew in a large underground cave for eleven years at the shortest <3

(Mind you, every single FALLEN human in the AU is capable of using magic to a certain extent, but some are more proficient than others.)

Chara – First fallen human.

Chara's personality is strongly inspired by Undertale Red and Yellow, and a little bit by TS!Underswap, (aka my favourite interpretations of their personality). Chara is calculating, rational and efficient: but they have a very short temper and grow impatient very fast.

Eiden – The one who holds patience.

Eiden has been growing in the Ruins for basically most of their life, having fallen down at the age of 10. They're gentle, caring and generally quite motherly; but they have a tendency to be quite the worrywart. Overthinking about things thay don't matter in the slightest.

They don't get out much, staying in one place for the majority of their time: They've basically reread the same books in their house over a hundred times over because they simply don't see a reason to get out and buy new material.

They take all the time in the world to think about things, and often fail to comprehend that other people may be in a hurry.

Avery – The brave one.

Avery is the younger sibling to Eiden, and quire the contrast! He doesn't like spending too much time dwelling on things, and tends to overlook smaller details while focusing on the bigger picture. He prefers taking things at face value other than searching for a deeper meaning. But even through all that, he's very reliable and kind. They hold genuine enjoyment in helping others even if they're not going to receive anything in return.

Though simple minded, he's a good person who loves seeing good in other people. Also he unironically likes DnD and does his best during roleplay.

Don't tell anybody that, but he wants to run a campaign of his own one day;)

Integra- The one who stands for honesty.

Integra is a simple person. An introvert. She prefers living in solitude, unbothered by other people's opinions. They don't have a close relationship with the other fallen humans, instead surrounding themselves with other quiet, introverted monsters. They like practicing dances privately, but the music they play during practice sessions attract monsters from all over Waterfall: earning them quite the fanbase.

They learned a lot of new skills while in the Underground, mostly because they don't have much of anything else to do. And while her own style is much more classic-oriented, she's quite open minded to discovering new hobbies, music and dance styles.

Percy – Perseverance personified.

Percy is a nerd. How could she not be, she went to Mt. Ebott in search of knowledge, after all! Being so smart and awesome, she quickly grasped the usage of magic and even became a teacher in a monster school. She's extremely proud of her achievements in magical and monster research, and is not afraid to tell everyone about them. She, however, has a very bad habit of jumping to conclusions AND overthinking everything, like a theorist on a sugar rush.

She misreads people's intentions CONSTANTLY, more often than not assuming the worst of any given situation. This human holds a thousand calculations inside their head, and everything involving other people is wrong.

She also runs the main DnD group in the Underground, and some people are invited!

Cinder – Safe haven among blazing heat.

Cinder is... Comfortable. They're one of the introverts in the group of the fallen humans. They choose to avoid conflict at all costs, fighting being their last resort option. They put other people before themselves under any and all circumstances. They make a good shoulder to lean on with your troubles when you're feeling down, and you can always trust them to keep a secret. Although they are quite shy, so while they know a lot about others, most people don't know a lot about them in return.

They might also go overboard in certain areas: They make space on the couch while being the only person in the room; Make meals for others that hold just a bit too much food; going out of their way to make sure others are comfortable to an unsettling degree.

They also hold fondness towards Punk rock music, but no one really understands where that came from.

Clover – The judge, the jury. The executioner.

Clover's personality is inspired by Red&Yellow, as well as the original UTY... With a sprinkle of creative interpretation.

Clover is reliable, resourceful and generally quite the person to be around. Some people like them, some people find them to be a bit annoying. They're loyal to a fault just as long as they agree with what they're told to do: Otherwise, you'd have a hard time getting them to do anything.

They might be positive and a bit loud at first glance, but don't let that fool you, as they've become quite the actor while living in the Underground– no, really, they're an actor. That's a shtick they do now: along with running the Wild East after Starlo's absence.

They're quite charming, if anything.

And that's basically the personalities of the fallen humans! Forget Frisk, we're not talking about Frisk here. We're not gonna be talking about Frisk for a while. For a good reason.

About the art part: I make some pieces of the fallen humans, but barely any of it really makes it to Tumblr as i simply don't see enough of an audience for that content just yet– But hey, this ask is an opportunity to share SOME of the private pieces I've been making! (they're mostly memes and/or sketches)

Headshot of Integra and them practicing some dance moves

Cinder in my best attempt at drawing a punk outfit

Profile headshot of Eiden (and Eiden being trapped in an Ice cube)

Funky sketches of Avery

Frisk in their Asskicking outfit (feat. Chara)

redraw of punkitt's weed brownie comic i made a very long time ago because i had nothing better to do (feat. Clover and Cinder)

And at last, please enjoy the Clover dance i reanimated with the Frisk design from my Au. Because what else are you going to do when you have an Au.

[leikeliscomet]

Who's Afraid of Tenmartha?

Chapter 1 - She Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Doctor Who’s representation of love and sex has changed throughout its run, for better and for worse. 60s Who had a wide range of companions following the asexual, weirdo Doctor in mostly platonic dynamics. 70s and 80s who kept this but with a shift to predominantly younger female companions and slightly skimpier outfits but still maintained ‘no hanky panky in the TARDIS’. The controversial Eighth Doctor kiss however would mark the shift of the Doctor’s sexuality. Nuwho, specifically RTD1 and Moffat Who wanted the Doctor to be a sex symbol of sorts with everyone and their grandma (literally in Fifteen’s case) failing to resist the Time Lord charm, Martha included. Alongside Doctor Who’s predominantly white casting, its canon Doctor ships minus the very recent Thasmin and FifteenRogue, fall into the mainstream view of acceptable romance. In mainstream romance, the ideal couple is cis, heterosexual, monogamous and white; a white cishet man and a white cishet woman. The man is brave, smart, funny and caring. The woman is kind, beautiful, gentle and feminine. We might get a remix where the man is harsh and cruel or the woman is a fixer-upper in need of a good ol’ makeover but either way, the dynamic will end in the same way - the ideal (white) masculine man and the ideal (white) feminine woman. The Doctor and River Song. The Doctor and Rose. The Doctor and Clara. An acceptably white masculine man with his white acceptably feminine woman. Despite the Doctor being non-binary and genderfluid, being able to take on any appearance, the Tenth doctor presents and is viewed as a white man by show and fandom. And Martha Jones is a human Black woman. This plays a key role in talking Tenmartha because it doesn’t exist in a vacuum in the social perception of interracial ships, specifically m/f where the woman is Black.

Whether you ship Tenmartha or not, they have romantic coded scenes throughout series 3. Smith and Jones is filled with double entendres such as Ten asking Martha if she wants to go out, Martha asking if Ten has a partner plus his offence to the question and the classic ‘genetic transfer’ which conveniently couldn’t be anywhere else but on Martha’s lips. This romantic subtext is pushed further in The Shakespeare Code, having Ten and Martha share a bed. Martha says she loves the Doctor romantically on several occasions. Ten holds Martha’s knickers. He swears up and down ‘one trip’ yet keeps Martha along for the whole series. In her return in series 4, The Sontaran Stratagem, Ten would get jealous when he realised Martha was engaged. RTD even made a scrapped scene where Ten was supposed to undress in front of Martha. It’s set up like a 2000s romcom. Will they? Won’t they? BWWM (Black-Woman-White-Man) is one of the few times where Black women are viewed as the object of desire in this dynamic, the one worth fighting for, the one the man will fight and give his life to defend. Why BWWM rose to popularity in the 2010s and why there’s a mini comeback right now could range from many reasons from wanting to push back on the desexualisation of Black women and the idea of the unlovable single Black woman, colourism and violence in the depiction of Black Love or even the divest movement but either way, I understand the appeal. In Tenmartha’s case, this is the only time in the show’s history that flips the script of the acceptable romance with a Black woman as the companion. The desirable companion is a Black woman. The love interest is a Black woman. The ideal woman is a Black woman.

Fandom’s hatred of BWWM (Black-Woman-White-Man) is nothing new. From the hate towards Candice Patton on The Flash, the outrage of Tom Holland’s Spiderman dating an MJ played by Zendaya, the anger of a Black Annabeth dating beloved Percy Jackson, the harassment of Francesca Amewudah-Rivers for playing Juliet to the most recent takes on how SydCarmy of The Bear is a threat to the sanctum of platonic m/f. Hell, even I remember my first SydCarmy moment when I used to be a RWBY stan (don’t judge me!). There were plenty of posts about how teen assassins Emerald and Mercury were so brother and sister coded and they couldn’t be romantic at all, despite Ren and Nora having similar playful dynamics but getting seen as romantic from the jump. I don’t know what siblings tell the other ‘you want me’ in their debut episode, but good luck to them. No matter what show, BWWM is almost always rejected by fandom because it essentially threatens the ‘ideal’, white cisheterosexual romance. The ideal man can be white but the ideal woman must never be Black.

How race plays a role in romance and sex creates two specific tropes of Black women; the Mammy and the Jezebel. The former as a form of desexualisation, the latter as sexualisation. The Mammy is undesirable, unworthy and unloveable. Her purpose is to serve the needs of white families whilst having no needs of her own. The Jezebel is animalistic, promiscuous and ravenous. Her purpose is to provide sexual pleasure to white men whether she wants to or not. These tropes have been rebranded through TV and film. Whilst not as jarring as decades ago, the function remains the same in tropes like the new and improved disposable Black girlfriend trope. Martha fits the criteria because she’s consistently the exception. Unlike Rose, Martha’s attraction to Ten was treated as a flaw in the show and fandom and something she needed to overcome. In a show where love conquers all, Martha’s love is the one that needs conquering. Martha’s romantic attraction to Ten is her main storyline, with constant confessions of her love in secret to her ending her arc by moving on from her crush. Martha’s sexual attraction to Ten is also seen as a flaw and actively demonised in fandom. Martha flirts with Ten in Smith and Jones but stops when Ten is uncomfortable, but fandom interprets Martha as sexually pushing herself onto him, even though she stopped and respected his boundaries. This view is a rebranded Jezebel trope. Black women’s sexuality is a coin toss between the Jezebel and the Mammy. It’s either perverted, animalistic and uncontrollable or it doesn't and can’t exist at all. Amy, Clara, Rose, River, Jack and many, many more all thirst over the Doctor, but Martha is uniquely ‘aggressive’ in her attraction. There’s also no comment in fandom about Ten’s own behaviour like holding her knickers and kissing her because in this context, deviant Black sexuality is the opposite of the pure, noble white sexuality. Ten’s romantic and sexual moments are accidents, naivety, but Martha’s are lustful, calculated. Whilst Martha’s story is about moving on, finding her independence and strength plus it being a very relatable storyline to me personally, it’s common for romantic and sexual narratives to push the idea of the independent Black woman, that Black women don’t need to be involved in romantic storylines. Whilst mainstream feminist criticisms have rightfully criticised the heteronormative ideals of women ‘needing’ to be partnered with men, there’s been a lack of analysis of how Black women are excluded from romantic narratives to begin with. As I’ll go into way more detail, the exclusion of Black women from romantic and sexual pairings isn’t done in the name of Black asexuality and Black aromanticism either but more so a form of desexualisation to reaffirm that Black women are undesirable in a society where desirability is currency. The Doctor can love anyone, but not Martha Jones. The Doctor can also fuck everyone but Martha apparently. Martha’s perception represents the sexualisation and desexualisation of Black women. She’s sexual but cannot be sexual. She’s attractive but can't be attracted.

That being said BWWM isn’t the fix-all solution for the colourism and misogyny within the Black dating scene. White men and non-Black men of colour can still and do perpetrate the same misogynoir towards Black women. Dating and sexing aren’t allyship. If Ten constantly takes his Rose angst by comparing Martha with her, dismissing the risk of racism when time travelling and overall not appreciating her till she left, then is this really flipping the ‘ideal’ romance or just continuing how Black women are seen as undesirable and put in romantic dynamics that don’t serve us? Tenmartha flips the script of acceptable romance positively, but also negatively. Ten affirms Martha’s a one-trip companion but strings her long for more. He brings up Rose and takes Martha to New New York just as he did for her. Even Simm!Master giggles at Martha being lesser than Rose and calls her useless in The Last of the Timelords. Martha’s treated as a rebound, rather than an ideal love interest. Tenmartha’s story ends with the two going separate ways and moving on with Ten ‘returning’ to his ideal, which the script tells us is Rose Tyler. The Tenmartha split isn’t treated like a great tragedy like the Tentoo incident either, but rather a natural conclusion. The narrative by RTD tells us they just weren’t meant to be, despite also insinuating that they could’ve been in another lifetime.

On the other side of the pond, some fans have swapped Doctor Who m/f for f/f and headcanon Martha as a lesbian, specifically for Rose. Rosemartha posts love to go on about how Martha and Rose shouldn't be pit against each other but making out instead. Don't try to fuck the Tenth Doctor Martha you silly billy, just fuck Rose instead! Despite Martha being compared to Rose, put down for Rose, attacked by the fandom for Rose, her being shipped with Rose is supposed to be the consolation prize and many white fans seem oblivious to how from a Black woman’s perspective this can be backhanded. The Rose in Rosemartha is doing the heavy lifting because the main crutch seems to be centred around Martha loving Rose along with Ten, moving on from Ten’s Rose comparisons to date Rose or Rose being the reason she heals. Not just Rose and Martha, but any disproportionate dynamic between white and Black characters, or Black and white women is met with the shallow and jarring ‘stop pitting women against each other!1’ which conflates the antiblackness from white women and Black women’s self-defence as the same. In this case, Doctor Who stans conflate the anti-black racism of Rose stans with a few mean posts from Martha’s. The rise of ‘just make them kiss’ correlates with this as it’s common for racist and misogynist memes to be ‘yurified’ by taking the bigot or ‘ideal’ woman and shipping them with the marginalised or ‘lesser’ woman in the caricature romantically and/or sexually. In this case, Rosemartha is the attempt to fix the misogyny towards Martha and Rose by making them a romantic pairing. Whilst this isn’t inherently wrong, I’m very much anti-Rosemartha and I’m standing ten toes down on that. It worries and angers me when people see the dehumanisation of Black women to uplift a white woman and start yelling ‘toxic yuri’ instead of addressing the misogynoir that’s right in front of them. Society is sexually entitled to the bodies of Black women due to a mix of antiblackness, misogyny and compulsory sexuality, but hates us all the same. From the backlash I’ve gotten from white sapphic Rose stans and the racism of sapphic fandom, it confirms the idea a lot of BWWW (Black-Woman-White-Woman) seems to be in favour of the white sapphic more than the Black sapphic. Martha is Rose’s love interest, Rose’s girlfriend and a great character… because of Rose. How convenient.

Not just in white sapphic community but white queer community as a whole still doesn’t understand that their frameworks of queerness centre the white experience. What may be liberating and progressive for them can be dehumanising and detrimental to Black queer people. Martha’s doubt of herself and comparisons to Rose plus fandom’s rejection of Martha as a lesser companion compared to her acts as a mirror to how misogynoir affects Black women in terms of beauty standards and self-worth, even if RTD1’s subxtext was accidental. Even Martha’s dad left her mum for the young and blonde Annalise. Many people don’t see the degradation of Black women to uplift white women as a red flag because the dehumanisation of Black women is fully normalised in a society that is as anti-black as it is patriarchal. Black women’s admiration of white womanhood isn’t because every single Black woman is sapphic, but because we’re conditioned to see white womanhood as something to aspire to and Black womanhood as something to be ashamed of. Cute noses are small noses. Nice eyes are blue eyes. Pretty lips are pink. Rosy cheeks are pink. Good pussy is pink. Good hair is straight hair. And straight hair is blonde. 

Despite being these things myself and being first in line for any Black lesbian and/or ace representation, I don’t see every lesbian or asexual headcanon on a Black woman as being in good faith. The idea that Martha’s a lesbian and the idea series 3 was about comphet, to me, seems like a side effect of the internet misusing terms. In this case, lesbian discourse can treat comphet as attraction to men then disliking it and not a systemic pressure on women to pursue romantic and sexual relationships with men. And yes I know about how lesbians force attraction to men, picking men and boys to crush on, trying relationships and sex with men to convince themselves but trust me you don’t need to tell me. Martha never gave lesbian to me because her attraction to men seems real. Martha‘s attraction to Ten doesn’t seem forced, she’s genuinely sexually and romantically attracted to him. Unlike Bill, there’s no external forces like her mum that pressure Martha into needing man. She has no issue rejecting them when she's genuinely not interested e.g. Shakespeare so the forced attraction angle doesn’t bang. She was also attracted to Riley from 42 or Professor Milligan but despite how nasty and evil and icky Tenmartha is and how the fandom is very much anti MarthaMickey, no one (including RTD for some reason) wants to put Martha with her canon (white) male love interests either. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Martha’s attraction to men seems very much real, but I don’t think fandom wants it to be. And I think this absolutely stems from how we measure the (un)desirability of Black women.

The lesbian and asexual headcanons of cishet (coded) Black women never seem to translate into material support for canon Black lesbianism/sapphism and Black asexuality. Obviously we all love a bit of Bill Potts but when I’ve seen more lesbian Martha edits on the tl over Bill I scratch my head sometimes. There is only one darkskin Black girl who’s an aroace main character in TV/Film history and that is Selah Summers and yet most people in queer fandom, aspec or not have no idea who she is. Large chunks of sapphic fandom had no idea The Colour Purple was a sapphic film when it came out. Sapphic online communities are still shocked when Megan Thee Stallion and Doechii say they’re bisexual and they’re always missing in the so-called ‘sapphic renaissance’. All Black women are romantically undesirable, but no Black women are aromantic. All Black women are sexually undesirable but no Black women are asexual. All Black women attracted to white men are actually lesbians, but actual Black lesbians in question are invisible. I find it also very dodgy how rare the bisexual-Martha and pansexual-Martha headcanons are. Continued bisexual and pansexual erasure in fandom and the general erasure of Black bisexual and pansexual people from mainstream queer representation absolutely play a role here. This headcanon also means Martha could be attracted to women and still leave wiggle room for her canonical male love interests and potentially, Tenmartha. We can't be having that, can we?

How people navigate romance and sex can’t be separated from other systems that come into play and Doctor Who is no different. In the Mammy-Jezebel tightrope, Black women are either forced or excluded. Tenmartha can’t exist because Martha’s too undesirable or Tenmartha exists as in, Martha was the main instigator with her ‘aggressive’ flawed desires. These wider issues can’t be ignored and I argue that Tenmartha can’t be talked about in good faith unless we address misogynoir in how Martha is treated as a character but also how misogynoir shapes what we consider ‘acceptable’ romantic and sexual pairings. Whilst calls to keep Martha far from Ten are sometimes in good faith, as in, to ‘protect’ her from a pairing that harms her it can also come across as removing her as a potential candidate from the list of love interests for the Doctor and Doctor Who’s market place of desire, even if there are things she needs protecting from in the Tenmartha dynamic. Next, I have to ask, what are we trying to protect Martha from then?

<- Intro Chapter 2 ->

[nebbyy]

 Leo Valdez x Child of Aphrodite!reader

A/N: I haven’t got much to say this time, just a reminder that requests are open and will remain this way for some weeks at the very least:))

Warning: absolutely none (maybe some swearing? But like, two bad words), just pure fluff. Also, reader uses female pronouns

It was kind of against your destiny to fall in love: Aphrodite is bound to never return Hephaestus’ love, so that they’re stuck in a loveless marriage. With the two of you, it’s the total opposite

The exact same MOMENT you see the boy in camp, disheveled look, face covered in machine oil and dust, you’re, absolutely smitten

It’s the classical “she fell first, he fell harder” type of trope

He notices you pretty early on too, but he doesn’t even try to approach you at first

I mean, no way that the prettiest child of Aphrodite could ever even look into his direction, you’re wayyyy over his league

It takes Piper’s help to start things up, when she accidentally stumbles upon Leo while she was taking a walk around camp. “Oh how rude of me. Y/N, this is my best friend, Leo”

It would be embarrassing to write down just how much he’s stumbled on his words the first time the two of you talked, just because of how he was absolutely captured by your godly beauty

He comes to find that you’re also a lot more than you’re looks: you’re funny, smart, clever, strong as fuck, and one of the best friends Leo has ever known

It doesn’t take long for him to realize that he’s completely and irrevocably in love with you, but oh boy how long does it take him to confess it to you

He had prepared this big, fancy plan to take you by the beach, with candles all around, a circle of rose petals and in the center of it a picnic filled with all of your favorite foods waiting to be devoured

Too bad he didn’t check the weather that morning, or he would’ve seen that a storm was expected right on that evening. He might’ve asked for Percy’s or Jason’s help too, maybe they could’ve done some big-god shit to prevent the rain

Nevertheless, you both found yourself soaked wet, standing by a line of extinguished candles, the petals long gone with the wind, and the food watered down to a soup

He wanted to drown himself in the sea right then and there, but he was quickly stopped by your laugh coming from behind him

Oh gods, where you making fun of him? Did you figure out what his intentions were? It must’ve been it, I mean, how could you ever want to have anything to do with him other than simple friendship, he’s been so stupid so reckles-

His track of thoughts was interrupted by your hands grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him in for a loving kiss, your skilled lips so soft and comforting against his much inexperienced ones

“You could’ve just told me you liked me at Camp, you know.”

“Wait, was it that simple?”

You laughed again shaking your head at his cluelessness, and he swore the sound of your laugh could’ve been the only thing he needed to live from that moment on

Okay no maybe food too, but you get the idea

You spend most of the time chilling in cabin 9 while he works on his projects, chilling in his bed or peaking at what he was doing

He definitely calls you dove for obvious reasons

Best believe that as soon as you guys are a thing all his flirting with every girl that moves is OVER my boy does not come from the streets he’s a loyal mf

After the curfew you usually sneak out to chill in some secluded area in the forest, and cuddle for hours in the moonlight

And whenever it rains, you waste no time to go at the beach and dance in the rain, reminiscing about the day you two got together

Oh, and get ready to see Leo as an emotional wreck anytime one of you is on a quest, when he’s unable to text you or hear anything from you for days or even WEEKS

He’s sure that’s worse than Prometheus’ destiny

Overall it’s like a golden retriever - siamese cat relationship, 10/10 would recommend

[ecoterrorist-katara]

You mentioned that your first ship was percabeth what did you like about it? I'm just rereading the books since I havent read it in over a decade and Im surprised how well it still holds up with the friends to lovers. Personally I feel like it did the subtle lines between platonic and romantic and how with each book the lines got blurred. I feel like with FTL its actually really hard to write organically because its hard to write that change from platonic to romantic without one side seeming like they are almost being convinced into it (usually the girls side).

hello anon!! Sorry it took me SO long to get to your ingenious ask. I was like "hmm haven't read PJO since I was thirteen, time for a re-read" and I just kept...getting sidetracked.

Even as an ETL enjoyer myself, I subconsciously took it for granted that enemies-to-lovers is inherently more toxic in comparison to friends-to-lovers. You're absolutely right, though, that FTL comes with its own set of baggage. For whatever reason, I've never extrapolated that baggage to the trope as a whole.

One of the critiques I often see of ETL is that F/M ETL reproduces heteronormative gender roles and power dynamics*. That’s true, but that's a risk in FTL too, like you said. "Guy falls for girl and pressures her to return his feelings" is very much a gendered dynamic. The friendzone is, by definition, unique to FTL ships, and there are many many well-known examples where a male character pressures his female friend to return his feelings and makes her uncomfortable: Gale and Katniss, Bella and Jacob, Katara and Aang, etc. To be clear, I absolutely don't mind if one party falls first in an FTL dynamic, but how that person conducts themselves makes all the difference. (I also don't think it's a coincidence that in the examples I listed, the only character to end up with the girl they liked was Aang...who was also the only character written by men.)

Also, this is a side note, but I think it's pretty funny that people think friends-to-lovers is inherently wholesome? Have we forgotten that Heathcliff and Cathy is a classic case of childhood friends-to-lovers? Less dramatically, I'm very partial to versions of Wolfstar where Sirius and Remus are both huge messes as a result of trauma/war etc and say mean things to each other.

Anyway...onto Percabeth. I loved Percabeth for the same reasons you do: I thought the slow burn was impeccably organic. I also loved the mutual pining. Even though the book was from Percy's POV, it was very obvious to me that Annabeth liked him, possibly even before he recognized his own feelings. The mutual devotion in their friendship felt really special to me and I never felt like romantic interest will jeopardize the friendship. Fundamentally, my favourite friends-to-lovers romances have this kind of dynamic: it’s fine if they don’t get together because their friendship can survive anything, but of course they will -- it's obvious to everyone!

A gradual slow burn friends-to-lovers is catnip to me, whether in original fiction or fanfic. I want to be salivating for the mutual confession! I want to feel the yearning! I want to giggle in a very high-pitched fashion and scream when they get it wrong! Some of my favourite fics, even in ETL ships, are actually FTL. My favourite Dramione fic of all time is Lionheart. As for Zutara, basically all post-canon fics are FTL: refraction, Katara Alone, The Horizon, Another Word for Alchemy, Half Asleep, etc. FTL is hard to write, but when it's done well? Chef's kiss. Delicious.

A lot of Ka/taang vs. Zutara discourse tends to fall along "do you prefer FTL or ETL," with the conclusion that if you prefer FTL you'll like Ka/taang...but it's precisely because I'm an FTL enthusiast that I don't like KA! I think it was written poorly! It stumbles right into the exact pitfalls of FTL you identified, and there are so many better FTL romances out there that don't rely on pressure as a source of conflict/drama.

Anyway: anon you've made me think a lot, and I'm very grateful! Big hug to you.

*Footnote: obligatory disclaimer that fiction is fiction and people can ship whatever dynamic they like.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 2B

Book summaries below:

The Montague Siblings series (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, and other stories) by Mackenzi Lee

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men.

But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

Historical fiction, romance, adventure, 18th century, series, young adult

Maurice by E.M. Forster

Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and on into his father's firm, Hill and Hall, Stock Brokers. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way, "stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him"; except that he is homosexual. Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Mauricewas ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote. In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be; someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."

Classics, literary fiction, Edwardian, 1910s, adult

[demigodsanswer]

21

WILDCARD! Dealer's choice :)

Annabeth had a complex color coding system that involved several different sheets of sticky notes. They were different sizes and colors, with pens to match. Percy had to assume it was easier for her to look for colors than trying to read her own handwriting and spelling all the time. All of her letters ended up squished together, and the heights were all the same. Even on a good day, Percy couldn't tell the difference between her lower case n and h.

Percy was doing his best to stay focused in the NRU library study room. But Annabeth was prettiest when she was concentrating. Some kind of Athena gene, he assumed. He wondered if he looked best underwater. He should ask her.

"Can I borrow a post-it?" he whispered, trying not to distract her. She handed him a sheet of gray and blue tabs (where did she get gray tabs?) without a word, and without lifting her eyes from the book. I was something by Marcus Aurelius in Latin. He could tell by the look on her face that it didn't come nearly as naturally as the Greek. She just needed to finish her Latin studies GE course, but Classics was Percy's whole major.

"You know, I can just do your homework for you," Percy offered, "if you want to do my Math homework?" He was stuck in a GE of his own. It was the most basic math class that would cover his degree requirements.

Annabeth looked up, but past him, thinking on his words.

"If we finish early, we can get Panda Express before it closes," Percy added, trying to tempt her. He didn't understand fractions in fifth grade or now. Annabeth did though. She had no issue with algebra or geometry, or any other kidn of fancy math she needed for Architecture. Percy didn't have any trouble with Latin. "Not like you need Marcus Aurelius to build a skyscraper," he added.

"Yeah," she said, pushing the book towards him and stealing his math notebook from him. "Just, don't mess up my system," she said. "The key is in the front cover." It was hand written key, so Percy did his best to follow what he understood.

"Aye aye," he said.

They finished half an hour ahead of scheduled and managed to pick up enough orange chicken to feed a small army.

"Thanks for you help today," Annabeth said, planting a kiss to Percy's cheek. They were eating on the couch like true Romans.

"Happy to," Percy said. "Thanks for finishing my fractions."

"I went ahead and did next week's assignments for you too. I figure if fractions are hard, you're really going to struggle with percentages."

"You are correct," he said. He went to kiss her on the cheek, returning the affection, but she turned her head to say something, and he caught her mouth instead.

"Omp -- hey!" Annabeth said with a smile. "First you steal my egg roll and now my kisses?"

"Happy accident, both of them," Percy said, leaning in to kiss her for real and on purpose this time.

"You owe me an egg roll," she said.

"Or I can do you Cicero translation?"

Annabeth considered it. "Fine, it's a deal."