#i don't remember if it happens with Apollo and Athena really. I like it being an inherited Naruhodo family thing though

[californianedgeworth]

it's a running thing in Ace Attorney that I notice upon replaying/rewatching is that even though blue text is supposed to symbolize the protagonist's thoughts, the assistant will sometimes reply as though it's been said out loud. which like. makes Maya and Susato seem like mind readers. but I think there's a line of dialogue in one of the courtroom scenes that says that Phoenix's thoughts are clear just from the expression he's making. implying that first-trilogy-era Phoenix and Ryunosuke are just super expressive/have really bad poker faces to the point that people can tell the exact thought they're thinking, which I think is fitting

[fandomsandflyingstingrays]

Some arthritic Telemachus headcanons, because I love projecting

His first flare happened when he was two, and it scared the daylights out of Penelope. She spent hours poring over Polites's old medical texts and writings for any solution (because I'm definitely in the camp of him being a healer)

I know they didn't have immunosuppressants in Ancient Greece, but they also didn't have jetpacks, so let's say the combined brain trust of Polites and Penelope managed to figure something out. Telemachus's fevers came further and further apart, the aching in his joints became manageable, the fatigue no longer kept him bed- bound, but things were never the same again

For one thing, because of the aforementioned immunosuppressants, Telemachus got sick all the time. He felt increasingly guilty about it the older he got, fearing it was keeping him from being able to defend Penelope from the suitors. Penelope, however, just spread rumors that everything from a cold to an infected toenail was actually a deadly and very contagious illness that only she should take the risk of tending to, so those episodes actually ended up being a defense of their own

In addition, while Polites had notes on some things that helped with symptom management- stretch and strength exercises, warm blankets and baths- fatigue and pain were common enough in Telemachus's days that learning how to fight proved difficult

That is, until Athena showed up

Telemachus had absolutely no plans to tell her about his condition, having hidden it from the suitors his whole life, until he walked into his first day of training with her and she handed him a spear with a grip she'd designed specially to help his fingers

He'd fully assumed she wouldn't want him as her warrior if she knew. But she not only did she continue to train him, she put all her goddess-of-wisdom prowess into doing so in the most accommodating way possible. She hounded Apollo about what exercises Telemachus should be doing to warm up and cool down, always kept their sessions short, and crafted his Warrior of the Mind outfit with his joints in mind: boots with extra arch support, wrist and knee braces built in, gloves to protect his fingers, etc

That's how he became such a competent fighter so quickly between Little Wolf and Odysseus: for the first time, he had a teacher that knew how to work with his limitations

Training with Athena was a major confidence boost, but when Odysseus came home, Telemachus still begged Penelope not to tell him

Obviously she refused, never having lied to Odysseus and not about to start now, and never having seen arthritis as a weakness the way Telemachus had growing up trying to keep up with the suitors

But the argument was rendered moot when Telemachus got an infection from Melanthius's blade, because come on, the man definitely never cleaned that thing

Obviously, Odysseus freaked ("this is Poseidon's fault, I know it, he still hasn't gotten over the stabbing thing-") but Penelope was just like "don't worry this happens all the time"

"What do you mean this happens all the time"

Odysseus didn't leave Telemachus's bedside until his fever broke, lying next to him and singing the lullabies he used to sing to him when he was a baby. In his delirium, Telemachus just assumed he was dreaming Odysseus was there the way he often had in years past, and he cried with relief when he was well enough to remember that his father really had come home

Then he wiped his tears away and saw the way Odysseus was looking at him

"Mom told you, didn't she"

He waited for the disappointment that was surely coming, for the legendary hero to bend under the weight of realizing that it was impossible for his only son to ever measure up to his legacy

Instead, Odysseus took his face in his hands and said he couldn't believe how lucky he was to have a son stronger than he ever could have imagined

It still took a while for Telemachus to stop trying to perform around Ody, trying to be the son he thought he expected even though they both knew it was a struggle

But there came a day when they were at the base of one of the palace stairwells and Odysseus could just tell it was a bad enough day for Telemachus that they would cause him a lot of pain. He could also tell that Telemachus would insist no matter what that it was fine

So Ody just. Scooped him up and carried him up the stairs

When he set him down, Telemachus was blank-faced, and Odysseus began to worry he'd overstepped. He started to apologize, but Telemachus cut him off. "It's okay," he said, and then, "thanks, Dad."

It was the first time he'd ever called him dad. Odysseus cried for half an hour

After that, Odysseus became the first person that Telemachus was fully able to let take care of him. He'd grown up trying to protect Penelope, and he never totally stopped wanting to please Athena, but Odysseus was so genuinely delighted to be a caretaker that it was easiest for Telemachus to fully relax when he was with him

He knew he'd never be the warrior Odysseus had been, never be able to stand the relentlessness of war, but his parents and his patron were doing everything in their power to make sure he'd never have to. By the time he took the throne, he was the king the new world needed: able to lead with empathy and to keep his battles short

[azerinbouee]

why does rick riordan write percy differently in every book after pjo?

it is not even about the timelines. like, the way he wrote percy in son of neptune was I think a great characterization. he was amnesiac but he still carried a major undertone about how much he loved annabeth, and his normal characteristics like his loyalty, his experience in battle, his ability to make new friends, his natural leadership, him being a great war strategist even though he does not even remember how to make them, and his underlying anger and trauma from the Titan War. then this anger and characterization was not handled that well in mark of athena in my opinion and unfortunately percy's arc in that book was mostly used for that meaningless effort to create a rivaly between him and jason but it still was okay for most of the part. then in the house of hades, all that buildup has exploded, and wasn't that the perfect place for the character? he broke down finally, going as far as to bloodbend a goddess and liking it. his love for annabeth was the only thing that held him back, but it must have been very traumatising for him, not just the whole tartarus experience but that feeling of power, and liking the pain he caused on akhlys, that must have caused a big inside dilemma in percy. incredible place to put the character percy, after everything that has happened. that could have led to a great conclusion.

then the blood of olympus happened. and... well, where was percy's trauma? where was the result of percy going as far as to bloodbend to save annabeth and himself, and finding out the true limits of his power, which is so scary even someone like annabeth freaked out. someone who knows percy inside out, better than anyone does, that knows the way he breathes. she was scared of percy. and percy realised that. how is that of no consequence in blood of olympus? let alone, percy and annabeth does not even have povs. the only thing mentioned about this is annabeth talking to piper about what happened and piper's question about what would happen if percy decided to act scary. then... his nose bleeds, that wakes gaea, and that was something he technically knows he could control now, so he could have stopped his blood from dropping to the ground and waking gaea, but he did not because annabeth asked him not to. this could have caused a great arc showing percy's regret and dilemma about doing the right thing even if using that power is wrong and choosing to not do anything because he always puts annabeth first. but there was nothing because it took 2 minutes to defeat gaea after that. percy seems same, even less traumatised than he was at the end of titan war at the end of the blood of olympus.

i won't go into the trials of apollo much, because to be honest that was apollo's story and I found percy's small bits enough for that story. no need to build unnecessary characterization in that books for percy. but timeline wise , let's do demigods and magicians. he is back to being the scary, scowling, frightening and powerful demigod. and he knows he is powerful. his lines to carter, 'names have power, i can't tell you my name.' , 'not many people can fight me that well.' . I love the percy in that book. i think that is exactly where he should be at that point.

then the chalice of the gods happens.

percy in that book is nothing like in the demigods and magicians. and there is literally days between both books. he is back to thinking he is useless, and everything is like taken out of a time between the pjo books, like none of the hoo happened. same for the wrath of the triple goddess. where was percy's trauma of tartarus? of bloodbending? of all the other things that has happened? where was annabeth's trauma, as well but that's another long topic.

I just am starting to think rick resets the characterization of percy in the beginning of every book and likes to write what he wants at that moment. i really don't like him do this to percy out of all characters. and I wish he realised before he write the other books.

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

this was pulled out of my head on the Discord and decided to share here ^-^

My ranking of godly parents

1) Apollo

this just goes without saying. do i even need to explain?

ONWARDS!

2) Dionysus

cried when his son was killed. asked percy to keep other son safe. is seen eating with his sons in CHB.

3) Aphrodite

helps Piper and her friends on their quest. helps the Seven on their quest. the only bit of bad parenting i remember is forcing piper into clothes she doesn't like.

also Aphrodite is a good mom in the mythology so

4) Hera

#unpopular opinion with wider fandom

Juno is Jason's mom. fight me.

She is actively mourning his death, something Zeus DID NOT do, and helped Jason out as much as she could.

also Hera gets way too much flak from the fandom

5) Hephaestus

keeps an eye on his kids. points taken off for little contact with them, but it's kinda understandable because of his social awkwardness.

6) Ares

#unpopular opinion with wider fandom

"he was gonna hit Clarisse!" was he though? or is it implied Clarisse was raised in an abusive home so when Ares made any sudden movements she would react like she would be hit?

also he gives her not one, but TWO electric spears and his blessing. he provides her armor when she has none.

Ares is a good dad fight me. also it's canon in mythology

Mars is also a good dad, but everyone already knows that.

7) Poseidon

#unpopular opinion with wider fandom

first thing he tells percy is that he wishes he was never born. granted, it was more foot-in-mouth but come on. you've had kids for a WHILE Poseidon you should know not to say things like that.

points for saving Percy a few times (The Arch, Princess Andromeda) but it's probably really easier to give a helping hand to your mortal kids when you only have one mortal kid who hasn't done anything to screw up his or your name. eyes what happened with Theseus

i have other points of contention but i'll stop here.

8) Hades

#unpopular opinion with wider fandom

said he wished Bianca was alive instead of Nico. granted he regrets it so points there but YOU DO NOT SAY THAT TO A CHILD DAMMIT

i don't consider tsats canon but what the fuck was up with that shit. be glad i didn't consider that or he'd be sent towards the very bottom of this list for sending his son to hell on purpose.

9) Hermes

#unpopular opinion with wider fandom

bro fixated WAY too much on Luke and ignored his other kids. coughs in Didn't Claim Chris coughs in Ignored Connor and Travis when they were right in front of him coughs

10) Demeter

absent parent. didn't bother to help Meg or Lityerses, resulting them being raised in abusive households (Nero & Midas/Commodus)

11) Athena

in the words of Stixlx on the Discord: "she sends her kids to die like soldiers rather than kids"

12) Zeus

an abuser is an abuser. therefore he gets dead last.

he also saved thalia but didn't save jason, so there's that too.

[englandsgirl18181234]

New Brain Damage!Athena AU idea?

Y'all, I suddenly really want to start an AU where Ares finds out about Zeus being a shitheel, aka abusing Apollo and Athena, and him going to Hades and Poseidon about it more than five years after he started to get included in Zeus's 'lessons'.

TWs FOR UNDER THE CUT:

Ares thinks(wrongly) Poseidon is going to hurt Triton like Zeus hurts him, Athena, and Apollo. He gets between them, hoping to take Triton's punishment for him, while in the middle of a panic attack.

I have this image in my brain.

Ares is kneeling in front of Hades in the Underworld, Zeus's lightning is crackling across his cheek cause he got punched in the face, and he's being ridiculously formal.

Like, servant speaking to royalty in Ancient Greek levels of formal. He's talking in a way that puts Hades so far above him in the hierarchy that it sounds like he doesn't even expect Hades to remember his name once he leaves. That he's so far below him that he's barely even worth noticing. And Ares is literally begging for help.

He's doing his best. He's at his most formal and submissive, exactly the way Zeus preferred. But he's not Apollo or Athena. He's not good at diplomacy or asking for help. So he's fully expecting to be rejected.

And Hades is just sitting there, staring at Ares in shock and horror. Here was Ares, his proud nephew, on his knees and begging him of all people for help, with wounds still uncleansed and a story that reminded him far too much of his own father. A story of a king gone mad with power and taking it out on those closest to him.

He promises to help, offers Ares, and then Apollo and Athena when Ares tells him about what Zeus has done to them, protection, and wants to cleanse Ares' wounds for him.

Ares denies the healing, saying he still needs to speak with Poseidon and that he'll need proof of Zeus's actions because Athena and Apollo are both too afraid of Zeus to ever act against him.

And Hades is once again left staring, wondering how in Tartarus something like this had not only happened, but also somehow managed to slip past everyone else on the Olympian Council.

Were Apollo and Athena really that unwilling to trust anyone? Even their own family?

And so Ares then goes to Poseidon with the same story, and gets about halfway through before Triton interrupts and basically demands that Poseidon declare war on Zeus.

Poseidon is horrified by what he's hearing, getting so many flashbacks to Kronos, and then Triton interrupts, demanding to be on the front lines of a war that hasn't even been declared yet, and it's like he can't breathe. The very idea of any of his children being near Zeus in that moment is terrifying to him. So he forbids it.

Triton is furious, screaming back at him about how he'd already let Athena be hurt once and that Triton wasn't going to let him do it again.

Both of them are so lost in their argument that they don't realize Ares is having a panic attack in the corner until he shoves himself between them, certain that Poseidon was going to turn out to be like Zeus after all.

He's doing the exact same thing Athena did for him when he'd walked in on one of Zeus's 'lessons' on accident.

Ares doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to stop their fight. So he does the same thing Athena did. He shoves Triton behind him, taking advantage of the older god's surprise, and drops to his knees, begging Poseidon to punish him instead for causing the fight.

She'd put herself between them, when Zeus was about to beat the everliving shit out of him, and grovelled. She'd made promises about teaching him against doing such things in the future, sworn to take his punishment for him without complaint, and just been absolutely desperate to keep him from getting hurt too. She'd gotten on her knees and literally begged their father not to hurt him.

Poseidon is, for a split second, offended that Ares thinks he would ever hurt one of his own children.

Then he sees how terrified Ares is, literally shaking in fear. Sees how his nephew is clearly in the middle of a panic attack, and still got between them anyway to try and protect Triton, who was so much older than him and could more than handle himself.

He locks eyes with Triton, seeing the same surprise and horror on his face as Ares continues begging, and knows what he has to do.

Except:

Poseidon kneels in front of his nephew, doing his best to make himself smaller and less threatening without actually shifting forms.

"Ares," he says softly.

Ares' mouth snaps shut as he cuts himself off mid word. He doesn't raise his head, shaking in fear.

"Y-yes, my Lord?"

"Ares, I am not going to hurt you."

He can see the way Ares is about to start begging again and decides to preempt him. "And I am not going to hurt Triton either, nephew. I would never hurt my own children."

Ares is silent for a long moment, shaking slightly.

"Y-yes, my Lord," he finally whispers. The God of War still doesn't look up, his eyes glued to the floor.

Triton sends him a look and makes a small gesture towards Ares.

Poseidon decides to let him take over for now. He pushes himself to his feet and takes a step back, returning to his throne a moment later to give the two space.

"Ares," Triton asks gently, crouching in front of the god, "can you hear me?"

"…y-yes sir."

"Do you know where you are right now?"

"Th-throne r-room," his nephew manages to get out after a moment.

Fates, he really was out of it, wasn't he? Poseidon had never heard him sound so afraid before.

"Who's throne room, Ares?" Triton asks gently.

Ares is quiet, his brow furrowed. "Olym- Olympus?" He says, more question than answer.

Triton laughs quietly. "Not quite, cousin."

Ares pales and opens his mouth, clearly about to apologize.

"It's okay, Ares," Triton assures, running a hand through Ares' hair the way he did when Pallas or Athena were upset all those years ago. "I'm not upset. You're in Atlantis right now. Do you remember why you came here?"

Triton's hand comes away covered in gold.

That's all I've got for now. Let me know what you think!

[babyrdie]

Okay, I have something to confess… none of the deaths in The Iliad were sad for me. Aside from the amount of randoms dying, let's consider Patroclus and Hector here because I honestly don't remember the rest.

Patroclus: I genuinely couldn't be sad. Sure, I was sad about the characters' reactions to Patroclus' death (for example, Antilochus running and crying and Achilles' depressive episode), but not about his final battle itself. I'm sorry, guys, but it was funny to read him about to die being petty and saying to Hector something like "you idiot, you only killed me because Zeus and Apollo helped you. Face me alone and I'll kill you! I'll kill you multiple times! Anyway, Achilles is going to kick your ass hahahahahaha he's going to kick your ass SO MUCH". Like, dude, you're DYING. What's YOUR problem, you looked your KILLER in the face and said "actually ☝️ I can kill you". And okay, even if we think it's true that two gods helped Hector… MAN, WHAT KIND OF MIND DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO DECIDE THAT YOUR LAST WORDS ARE GOING TO BE ACCUSING YOUR KILLER OF BEING WEAKER THAN YOU. If I were Hector I would respond something like "man, fuck you, you're dying!!!"

Hector: I also couldn't be sad about the death itself. It was sad to see Priam begging, Andromache talking about being enslaved, etc. But the moment of the battle? Sorry, the battle was hilarious. In Book 16, Patroclus was there spitting blood and dying while still using his last breath to be like "I didn't lose, YOU will lose" to Hector (man that was petty) and Hector was like "Achilles? He's not going to kick my ass, I AM going to kick his ass". And then he goes and prepares to fight Achilles alone, despite his understandably worried parents, because he needs to defend the city and it's a touching moment and you understand Hector's decision, but you still feel like it's suicidal, but hey…he seems confident. And you think that this is where the typical epic fight will happen, especially since he responded to Patroclus' threat by insinuating that he would defeat Achilles. But no, he sees Achilles approaching with a murderous aura around him and decides that he's going to run. And he DOESN'T stop. They run around the walls of Troy while the Trojans watch…what is this, a stadium where you watch the action from above? And then you're like "man, how long are they going to run?" and apparently Athena thought so too because she goes and tricks Hector into stopping running. And then you think okay, now it's the epic fight. But no, they're throwing spears at each other and exchanging harsh words while Athena shows her favoritism by helping Achilles. And then Hector is dying and he's like "Paris and Apollo are gonna kill you!!!!" and Achilles is like "bitch, look at my face and tell me if I look like someone who wants to live."

And as an honorable mention, we have two other funny no-death-all-teasing moments!

One of them is Achilles running after Apollo. Bitch, I know you're mad, but that's a GOD. Hurting a god is already a rare feat, do you really think you're going to be able to kill him or something? You got your ass kicked by Scamandrius despiste your confidence (another hilarious scene, actually), man, Apollo isn't on your level. I KNOW YOU'RE MENTALLY UNSTABLE IN THIS SCENE, BUT MAN. Apollo actually taunting Achilles is also hilarious. He is a god that's thousands of years old and he's arguing with this guy who can't even be 30 years-old. This guy who, like, Apollo's stepmother (Hera) acts like he's just Thetis' baby (Hera defending Achilles be like: well, he was suckled on the divine breasts of Thetis! Thetis, a goddess! Goddess that I raised!!!). Like, man, I know you want to kill him, just kill him. No need to trade taunts like you're in the same position or something. My theory is that Apollo was in a bit of an Book 1 Achilles situation. Achilles wanted to kill Agamemnon, but Athena stopped him, so the only option left was to curse him. Apollo wants to kill Achilles, but fate exists and it's not Achilles' time to die. So okay, he'll do the second best thing: provoke him. Like, it is SO personal lol

The other moment is Aeneas. Apollo encouraging Aeneas to fight Achilles because his mother is Aphrodite and Achilles' mother is Thetis, and since Aphrodite is more powerful than Thetis, surely Aeneas is stronger than Achilles, right? Aeneas then goes on and gives Achilles a huge speech. He goes on and on about how his mother is Aphrodite, about how he won't be intimidated, about how he won't be just another one... then Achilles kicks his ass SO hard that Poseidon has to step in and take Aeneas away. And Achilles cares SO MUCH about Aeneas that he's like "oh, a god helped you. Okay then" and goes back to fighting. And let's face it, if Achilles had any interest in Aeneas, he wouldn't care that the gods want Aeneas alive. He literally commits sacrilege with Hector's and tries to go after Apollo, he just didn't go after Aeneas because he apparently doesn't care enough about him. Man, Aeneas, that was humiliating. All that confident speech for that.

I'm seeing a pattern here, actually:

Patroclus "I could kill you!!!" to Hector while being killed by Hector. Okay, man…but dead people don't fight! At least you can brag that you beat Sarpedon if you care so much about proving your skills even while you're dying, I guess.

Hector "hahaha I'll kick Achilles' ass, that threat doesn't affect me!" to Patroclus and then running after seeing Achilles. Running for his entire life if it weren't for Athena. Is this the swift-footed Hector we see running for the third time?????

Achilles "I'm the best of the Greeks! I'm the peak! I'm THE MAN" to Scamandrius and then having to desperately be saved. Dude was defeated by SCAMANDRIUS and thought he could chase APOLLO. GUY IS THE SON OF A NEREID AND ALMOST DIED IN THE WATER.

Aeneas "my mother is Aphrodite, your mother is Thetis. I'm the chad, you're the virgin. That's how we are, you understand?" and then having to desperately be saved. It's even funnier when you think about how he was like "well, his mom is Thetis and she is a Nereid, not a Olympian…" BITCH DIOMEDES ISN'T EVEN A DEMIGOD AND YOU WOULD DIE IF IT WEREN'T FOR APHRODITE. HOW THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOUR MOTHER BEING APHRODITE WOULD MAKE YOU STRONGER THAN ACHILLES IF YOU WERE NOT STRONGER THAN A GUY WHO IS NOT EVEN A DEMIGOD.

But well, Hector, Patroclus and Achilles are all characters I adore. Aeneas I don't have a strong opinion of, truth be told (no, I haven't read The Aeneid). And yes, this post is completely immature. I've made many posts giving serious opinions, let me be honest about how I felt in these scenes even if they weren't written to be funny.

[hornedtussock]

I've been obsessing over the Batman villains and Epic the musical and I really want to rant about what my vision is

So my basic rundown of characters are:

-

Odysseus: Two-Face/Harvey Dent

Penelope: Gilda

Athena: Batman/Bruce

Telemachus: Robin/Dick

Eurylochus: Riddler/Edward E. Nygma

Polites: N/A

Aeolus: Harley Quinn

Poseidon: Rupert Thorne

Circie: Clayface/Matt Hagen

The nymphs: Calendar Girl + Baby Doll

Hermes: Mad Hatter/Jervis Tetch

Tiresias: Scarecrow (Specifically the Corpsecrow design)/Jonathan Crane

The Sirens: N/A

Scylla: Poison Ivy/Pamela Isley

Zeus: Etrigan the Demon/Jason Blood

The Suitors: Random henchman

Apollo: The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot

Hephaestus: Mr. Freeze/Dr. Victor Fries

Aphrodite: Catwoman/Selina Kyle

Ares: Bane/Eduardo Dorrance

Hera: N/A

Calypso: Joker??? Still N/A

-

I'm still trying to figure out who could go where but I'm pretty sure of who is who, like Mad Hatter is 100% Hermes and ClayFace is Circie. But depending on what I try to figure out for the ones I don't know some things will move around for certain characters.

But the basic premise I have is Two-Face and other villains go out to fight another group of villains, and they win obvi and "Just a Man" plays out, then they leave. They do arrive back at Gotham, but they keep getting turned around and such and such. Batman is secretly watching over Two-Face and then the Polymethous Saga where instead of the Cyclops, it's a group of goons that try to eliminate the group. So that goes about and then Bruce just dips out. Boom, the Ocean Saga and Harley Quinn gives Two-Face a gag bag that is basically an industrial fan in a bag and all they have to do is not open this bag. Riddler opens the bag, whoops. Then Rupert Thorne shows up and is like "Hey, remember that group of goons you tortured? Yeah, those were mine- soooooo, say goodbye to most of your group" Then Two-Face goes "Gotta open the bag gang" and they get blown away to the old movie studio lot where uh oh! Clayface gonna make the rest of their group into statues for the time being cause uuhhh- trauma. Anyway Two-Face goes to get them back and Mad Hatter pops out of the shadows and is like "Hey fam, take this little device I made to trick that guy so you might not die tee-hee okay byeeee!!!" *insert epic wonderland x wouldn't you like animatic* Then Two-Face and Clayface have their debacle and then it's like "MR. HAGEN PLEASE LET US GO HOME I WANNA SEE MY WIFE :(((" " *sigh* Fine ig, but I can't get you home dude, gotta find this guy that can do spooky stuff that can help you, I can get you there though" "okay chill, can I get my group back now?" "... UUGGGHHHHH fine" Yay, everyone is okay, kinda. They then go to Scarecrows lair and travel through his fear gas for a bit. Two-Face then finds him and Scarecrow goes "So everything is gonna go poorly for you but I'm gonna be super cryptic about it so you get confused and leave me alone" After that, Two-Face is the monster raw raw raw, and then they encounter the sirens while going back and he's like "I'm tired of being chill, gonna lose it for a bit" and then they're dead. Now they gotta go through a giant garden as a short cut and who's in that garden? Yep, Ivy, and 6 villains get taken away for fertilizer just cause she needs it. Then Riddler's like "Dent wtf?? Why did you do that?" "Edward, I just wanna go home, I didn't want to do it, but I wanna see Gilda." He's then knocked out and then he wakes up to his group finding those oversized cows from the one episode of the New Batman Adventures and it's all downhill from there.

(I'm out of motivation to finish this but just imagine everything EXCEPT FROM THAT PART OF HOLD THEM DOWN that happens in Epic from there but with the villains and such and such) [I'm so tired]

[jynxedshapeshifter]

It's really funny to me that most of Phoenix, Athena, and Apollo's cases are standalone, but then you play The Great Ace Attorney and none of the cases Ryunosuke handles are standalone (and even Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney is connected to everything else). Everything is interconnected. Like just to go through everything:

Jazaille Brett is an assassin who was sent to Japan specifically to kill John Wilson, which ends up being crucial information by the last case of the duology

The only reason Ryunosuke was able to become a lawyer in the first place was because Kazuma ended up with amnesia for months

McGilded was involved in trading government secrets, although this wouldn't be revealed until two months after his death

I was going to say Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro was the only filler case but even that becomes relevant to the overall plot after Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro

A communications officer is the one who was selling the government secrets to McGilded, government secrets that are vitally important to the plot

Everything involving Jezaille Brett was covered up, leading to Menimemo taking matters into his own hands and killing her himself. Susato defended this trial, and by pure chance (because there's no guarantee she would've spoken to Soseki otherwise), got information about why she was called back to Japan

The collar found in Soseki's room at the Garrideb's ended up being vital to the overarching plot of The Great Ace Attorney duology (I think. I definitely comes up after Memoirs though)

Where do I even start with Return of the Great Departed Soul

and Twisted Karma and His Last Bow and The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo are both the climax I would say, since they're the same trial. This is where everything found out as far back as the first case of the first game is put together.

And all of this is without mentioning all the weird not-coincidences that happen in Ryunosuke's trials that I only remember happening similarly in Turnabout Corner.

Every single one of Ryunosuke's cases (and Ryutaro's case back in Japan) builds up to Twisted Karma and His Last Bow and The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo. The closest Phoenix gets to this (because none of the other defense attorneys get close to this, maybe none of the other protagonists but I don't really remember if AAI1 and AAI2 are interconnected or not) is in Spirit of Justice where he's watching a revolution happen in real time in Khura'in, and even then it happens over three cases (or I guess four, if the civil case is to be counted).

The only connections Phoenix's cases in the other games have are the first and last cases of games, and even then the first and last cases aren't usually connected (I think the best we get in the original trilogy is the connection between Turnabout, and Reunion and Bridge to the Turnabout). I don't remember if he has a "weird not-coincidences" case.

The only connections in Apollo's cases are Turnabout Trump and Turnabout Succession, and those are intricately connected because Turnabout Succession explains Kristoph's motives during Turnabout Trump. Turnabout Corner is Apollo's "weird not-coincidences" case.

The only connections in Athena's cases are Turnabout Countdown and The Cosmic Turnabout. Similarly to Phoenix, I don't remember if she gets a "weird not-coincidences" case.

Even with the similarities that are undeniable between Dual Destinies/Spirit of Justice and The Great Ace Attorney (enough that I vividly remember thinking and posting about how similar they were), Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice's cases aren't nearly as universally interconnected to the climax as The Great Ace Attorney's are. 5-2 and 5-3 are essentially filler cases that allow us to get to know Athena better, with 5-4 leading into 5-5. 6-2 and 6-4 are just filler so we have some time playing as Apollo and Athena. You need to play every case in The Great Ace Attorney in order to understand everything. Everything is so heavily connected that it'd be impossible to understand if you don't know the plot of the rest of the duology.

The point being, it's incredibly funny to me that Ryunosuke is the only protagonist who, across both games he shows up in, has cases that are so intertwined that every case he's defended is crucial to solving the last one we see him defend. Even if we just consider the "weird not-coincidences" cases, every single one of Ryunosuke's cases is a "weird not-coincidence" case. He does not get a break from defending cases intertwined with every other case he has and will defend. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was completely purposeful on Stronghart and/or Sholmes's end. If Ryunosuke hadn't taken both of Soseki's cases, he wouldn't have had such heavily intertwined cases. If Stronghart hadn't had Ryunosuke defend Harebrayne, he wouldn't have even found out about the Professor case.

It's just funny to me that Ryunosuke and Susato get a series of inherently intertwined cases over the course of two games while every other defense attorney gets one game with some intertwined cases at best (as far as I remember, every case in AAI1 was connected to every other case in AAI1, as is the case with AAI2, but the games themselves aren't interconnected anything like TGAA1 and TGAA2 are. The interconnectivity between all the cases in both games while the games are basically completely separate is why I said defense attorneys instead of protagonists).

[frogwiththephatahh]

I really like the Leveling System in God Games

I think it's really interesting how Athena's trial is written. She's the goddess of wisdom, so everyone, including Zeus, knew she was going to use her wits to convince each of them. And Zeus seems to have set up each God in the order of easier to hardest.

Only for it to backfire in his face.

Apollo's up first. And honestly, I don't think he wanted to be here for the sake of arguing against Odysseus. He literally opens up his first with, "you all know I'm a fan of catchy songs." Which is a very fitting thing for the god of music to say. I think, no matter what Athena said, Apollo was going to agree just for the sake of being included in a catchy song. But I don't think Zeus knew this.

Obviously, he would know Apollo's intentions- being part of a song. But Apollo says a "catchy" song. Not just a song. I think Zeus believed he'd come up with an argument in order to get more time in the song. But Apollo, as a true enjoyer of music, would know there's only so long he can stretch his time before the song lost it's catchiness. And he's right. His part is an earworm, even if it's short.

Then there's disciplined, strict Hephaestus. Who has a very solid argument against Ody. "Why should I give him my support? He sacrificed his own cohorts." Odysseus doesn't deserve mercy because he showed no mercy to his own men. This is a good case, and one Zeus probably agrees with. But the thing about Hephaestus is that I don't think he was EVER on Zeus' side to begin with. Instead, he seems more like he was waiting for Athena to give an answer, daring her to prove him wrong. And she gave him a satisfying enough answer for him. Yes, Odysseus sacrificed his crew, but they also disobeyed him multiple times, and then literally stabbed him in the back. And that's also a valid argument. Hephaestus isn't hard to please.

Now the levels are getting harder. We're at Aphrodite. Leaning more into the mythology itself rather than the characterizations we're given in Epic, Aphrodite is notoriously a very vain, very prideful goddess. Just like Zeus, she wouldn't want to change her mind so easily. And, famously, she was also one of the only gods to sit out on the Trojan War, seemingly because of a disdain for conflict. Which is why Athena mentioning the war and fighting doesn't do anything to pierce Aphrodite's shield.

Aphrodite is the goddess of love. So of course her argument mentions Odysseus hurting the people he loves. It's interesting, however, that she specifically mentions his mother and not any of his crew, friends, or his wife and son. I think this actually says a lot of Anticlea. "Claimed to love his mother, but let her die of a broken heart." None of the rest of Ody's family is "heart broken." Penelope and Telemachus still have hope that Odysseus will return. They're still alive, fighting every day to keep his place as king, even in the face of adversaries who want to hurt them. But Anticlea can no longer do that. Her disappointed that she waited so long to see her son, only for him to never make it home, must be immeasurable. And according to Aphrodite, Odysseus did this on purpose by antagonizing Polyphemus.

Is this a good argument on Aphrodite's part? No, not really. Obviously, it was stupid of Odysseus to reveal his name, but he wasn't doing it to purposefully spite the cyclops. We know this. He was doing it as a warning, so that Polyphemus would always remember what happens when he chooses not to have mercy. It's a good sentiment, on Odysseus' part.

What's interesting about Aphrodite is that we never see Athena truly convince her. There is that moment right before Ares enters where Athena asks her to reconsider her decision. I, personally, think that Athena was going to mention Odysseus' other loves- his wife and son. And Ares choosing this exact moment to interject is most certainly planned.

It's not that Athena was using "old tricks." It's that Aphrodite was about to start agreeing with her.

Ares' part is by far the most interesting to me- because he's the most right! "What kind of sick coward holds back his powers while his friends get devoured?" We've seen Odysseus think his way out of tight spots before. We know he could have spent longer trying to find a way around Scylla. Ares knows this, too.

And the way Athena goes about convincing him otherwise is fascinating to me. She could mention that Ody is "just a man." He can't possibly be expected to have the energy to think his way out of every situation. By the time he gets to Scylla, he's exhausted after three years at sea. Of course he wouldn't be thinking clearly. But Athena knows Ares wouldn't care about this.

Instead, she appeals to Ares' on a more human level. "You want more bloodshed? Then set him free!" Ares, as the literal god of bloodshed, would love that shit. Now, I've seen Ares be called a hypocrite over this, as he was literally just talking about how Ody let blood shed when it didn't need to be.

But it's actually fitting. Ares isn't just the god of bloodshed and violence, but the god of war. Odysseus standing by and letting his ALLIES die is shameful to Ares. That's not how you win a war. You don't sacrifice the many for the good of the few. Odysseus instead killing enemies as a means to get home is a much more honorable act than letting his comrades die. It's the message Ares has probably been wanting to scream in Odysseus' face for three years.

I think this is why Ares is so far up. Because honestly, it doesn't take MUCH for him to agree with Athena. But that "much" takes a lot to get to. Because anyone who didn't know Ares would try to be actually reasonable, and point out Odysseus' circumstances and why he came to make the decisions he did. Ares is Athena's brother. And her rival god of war. She knows him. And Zeus underestimated that.

Then we come to Hera. This is speculation, but I think Hera is in the same boat as Hephaestus. She was always willing to agree with Athena, she just wanted to see what kind of argument Athena could come up with. But unlike Hephaestus, she's hard to please. Athena's first tactic is going all in, giving the reason why she, personally, is drawn to Odysseus. "He's got the mind of a genius." To which Hera answers with, "Try Harder." She immediately sees through Athena, and knows she just named the first good trait that came to her mind. Throughout her verse, Hera is waiting for Athena to give her "one good reason." One good trait, is what she's looking for.

This one is also interesting because it takes a moment for Athena to appeal to Hera specifically, like what she did with Ares. "Never once has he cheated on his wife." Which is a hilarious dig! For those out of loop, Hera is the wife of Zeus, a serial adulterer. Zeus has more children with mortal women than he does with Hera herself. So of course she'd be against cheating. But THEN you remember that Hera is also the goddess of marriage. So of course she's won over by the mention of Odysseus' faithfulness to his wife and family.

I don't remember who said it, but I do recall a post mentioning that it's strange Athena didn't immediately mention Odysseus' family and his need to get back to them. I think this was actually smart on her part. Hera could have easily shot back with, "okay, but what about all the men he let die who also had families and wives waiting for them?" So I don't really think that argument would have worked anyway.

Zeus is technically the final level, but I don't think he thought of himself like that. At the beginning of God Games, Zeus names all the other gods then says, "OR me." That doesn't mean, Apollo OR Hephaestus Or Aphrodite Or Ares Or Hera Or Zeus. It means Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Ares, and Hera OR Zeus. As in, convince the other gods, or just try to convince me.

Zeus sees himself as just as hard to convince as all the other gods combined. And he's pretty much right. Considering he denies Athena's wishes, even when she won the game.

[thesummerstorms]

So the Apollo kids would have had a pretty massive burden during the Second Titanomachy.

Ares kids are typically your front line fighters, Athena kids are most often your strategists, Hermes kids are likely your scouts and saboteurs and thieves, Hephaestus kids are mostly going to be your weapon smiths. All of those are crucial to a war effort, even if not every member of the cabin proves skilled in that specific aspect of their parent's domains.

But Apollo kids have a really, really crucial triple whammy: prophecy, archery, and healing. (And pity the poor Apollo kid who mostly got musical or poetic talent, or a talent for sussing out truth and logic, but is now forced to step up and fill those shoes!)

Prophecy is probably the least prominent; we don't see any Apollo kids blessed with prophetic gifts beyond the normal demigod dreams that I can remember, but maybe they're off screen or maybe instead they're really good at helping other Campers interpret those prophetic nightmares. Even if that's not true, the potential of an Apollo kid being able to glean crucial information via prophecy is probably enough of a threat to put a target on their backs.

But that's not all! They also have archery, aka the Camp's best supply of ranged fighters/ranged support, and medicine, on which a war can be lost or won. Monsters regenerate, but humans don't. If you don't have medics to treat your injured and dying, you're going to run out of forces.

The thing is, I don't think logically it makes sense for them to be the only ones practicing medicine and archery in Camp. A lot of the time it's easier to keep things simple and make any archer or healer an Apollo character. But not all of his kids are going to be good at archery or healing! Or one of those might be their secondary talent, in the way Will is a poorer archer than his siblings but the best of the healers.

According to Wikipedia, Apollo's domains included oracles/prophecy, healing, archery, music, dancing, poetry, light, the sun, knowledge, law, herds and flocks, and protection of the young, and the protection of public streets/places. Even if he had the most children other than the Hermes cabin, you still are potentially going to see a very WIDE range of talents! Someone is probably going to be good at dance and music and debating technicalities and barely passible at first aid.

And even aside from that, they absolutely still needed archers and medics for the war against Gaia... But by that point the Cabin was down to just Will, Austin, and Kayla.

Luckily most of the direct conflict was constrained to just the final Battle of Half-Blood Hill. (Ignoring any individual skirmishes that might have happened between individual demigods and monsters, particularly during the time Thanatos was chained.) But even in the planning stage having one medic, one archer, and a third person who might be a medic or an archer or split between both or neither and that being the support for the whole camp makes no tactical sense.

I feel like even if Apollo kids are the best at archery or medicine when that's where their talent/focus is, they must be supplemented by other campers who either have trained in that skill or whose parents domain can overlap with it in some small way.

Miranda Gardiner who trains in archery rather than blades because she feels at home in the trees or growing vines to climb in order to find higher ground.

Jake Mason who trains in archery because his hands are too important to his work to risk being the one swinging the close range weapons rather than swinging them. (He also makes really good bows.)

A Demeter kid who grew up hunting and foraging and now finds they have a knack for herbal medicine beyond what a mortal could accomplish. No, they aren't going to be performing emergency surgery, but they're good at helping manage the chills and colds and fevers that come when a bunch of children are crammed together in close quarters.

An Aphrodite kid whose skill at reading emotions allows them to calm distressed patients, whose empathy leads them to want to help, and whose dedicated practice gives them steady hands while they stitch the wounds that can't or shouldn't be healed with nectar and ambrosia.

You can apply this to other demigods and domains too! A child of Athena who's interested in the intersection of textiles, armor, and battle strategy and works extensively in workshops with the Hephaestus kids. An Ares kid who speaks with command and instills courage and is often pulled into the Athena strategy meetings so they can relay the plan in a more effective or inspiring way.

Just in general, I think in order to make it through two wars (three? Are we counting TOA as a war?? The Romans did get hit hard) the Camp probably has to be a little less specialized and more integrated than it might seem at first glance, even if you still have your "stereotypical" examples of the children of a specific god.

[abyss-king444]

hey so ive been asking around and just wanted more opinions and such

so ive been getting a lot of deity alters/working/worshipping deities videos on tiktok (i know the algorithm does its thing but like, ive never shown interest in it on tiktok?) these past few days which has never happened before. I looked up paganism ONCE two years back and at most saw five videos on youtube. ive especially been getting ones for Apollo and Aphrodite. I saw in a video like not too long ago i saw that a sign from Aphrodite is birds, and theres birds have been non stop chirping.

I want to know if im just being delusional? and I want to know if i am being reached out too, how to being or even how to just ask for more signs

Thanks for reading this essay, ofc dont reply if you dont want too!

Hi friend, so honestly I was in the same boat you are in. I thought I was being delusional when I sunk hours of research into looking up every myth I could remember Athena being in. Honestly, my best piece of advice is to just do it. Throw anything at the wall and hope to the gods themselves it sticks. That's what I did anyways. You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna look kinda stupid doing it. And you're gonna not know if its legit or not. At the end of the day you have nothing to lose and I'm sure both Lady Aphrodite and Lord Apollo would appreciate it. Also, the gods don't have to reach out to you for you to begin worshipping/working with them. Athena didn't reach out to me, but she was the deity I began my practice with. I just gave her an offering one day and a quick prayer and she seemed to appreciate it. In short, try it out if you really want to. Not every sign with be clear and there might not be any signs at all. Just do it. Sorry if this wasn't as helpful as you wanted it to be.

[lilislegacy]

imagine that Annabeth did not know about this, that demigods do not menstruate until the age of 11.

She is a very smart girl who reads a lot and I think she has also come across books on physiology, and well, imagine when she turns 11, Annabeth is like, "Hmm, I think my ovaries will start working soon" and she stocks up on everything she needs and waits, but it does not come and worried, she goes to Athena's eldest daughter."

Hey, I'm 11 and my first cycle still doesn't come, maybe I need to go to the Apollo kids or could you take me to a mortal gynecologist?"

And her sister is like, "Oh, Annie, I forgot to warn you, all half-breeds with female physiology have frozen ovaries that just exist, well, like for the external normality of our body, so don't worry, you won't have menstruation in any case :D".

i’m not sure where we landed with the whole “do demigods menstruate” conversation, but if they didn’t, this would definitely happen. she’d be like uh what’s wrong with me?

this also makes me wonder. as a cis female, i despise getting my period, like most people do. but when i think back to like 5th and 6th grade, before i got it, i remember being so jealous of all the girls who had gotten theirs and i hadn’t. i felt less “woman” then they did, and was really insecure about it. and then i was so excited when i did finally get it and felt way better about myself. (the excitement quickly faded.)

so while trans people get gender dysphoria from getting their period, do we think cis girl demigods would get dysphoria from not getting it? 🤔🤔

this topic has ended up being way more complex than i expected 😂

[characteroulette]

A study on prosecutors -- (previous) (next)

Simon Blackquill, the Twisted Samurai.

Simon was actually a bit of a hard sell for me, much like his contemporary. I'm not really into Dual Destinies or Spirit of Justice (and therefore I'm not able to remember all the details as well as I can the other games oop so sorry if I get some things wrong here), but there are things I enjoy about them. One of those things ended up being the prosecutors!

It's thematically appropriate with the whole "dark age of the law" setup. A prosecutor who's on death row is allowed to take on trials to help with the workload the prosecution's office is dealing with. (Don't mind the fact that there's enough wiggle room for Klavier to go out for an event.) We hear from Fulbright about this prosecutor and Athena seems to recognise him. The absurd of why are they letting an inmate have any legal sway whatsoever doesn't matter so much. This is the dark age of the law.

Then we meet him and he's appropriately a grumpy jerk.

We're not given the details of his crime really, just whatever we can glean from the animated cutscenes. (It involved blood and a sword.) But Blackquill's mannerisms are harsh and unforgiving. He's a psychological suggester, able to run circles around the judge and drag us along for the ride by the ear. I think this part of his schtick is kind of annoying to deal with, mainly because of how obvious it is that he's messing with all of us, but it definitely does make for a fun character. He really showcases how easy it is to become intimidating in this world of dumbasses when you're able to keep even a single braincell advantage. (The less forgivable act, to me, was his shutting Apollo down at every turn. He is so mean to Apollo! It's not like Apollo can help that his eyes are magically tuned to other people's body language, and yet Blackquill calls it cheating and cuts him down for it. Then he allows Athena to do her mood matrix things with very little argument! This was a huge jarring point for me for a long time and part of the reason why it took me so long to actually finish this game.)

The setup is there: something about this guy is performative, is softer when handling Athena. Yet he masks it all very well with his abrasive attitude and trickery. He forces us into a corner, forces the hand of our client, and we have to head back out into the investigation.

It's easy to explain away most of his attitude, in actuality. He's been in prison for seven years. He mentions constantly the different mates he's met in the clink. Fulbright may act like his only friend and supporter, but there's too large a gap between them considering Fulbright holds too much authority over him.

Blackquill has become unsociable from his time in the clink. His refusal to admit to the truth has him leaning into his belligerence, has him constantly acting the part of the bad guy. (When did it start to become a part of who he is? Perhaps he's always been a little twisted. It never rings false to anyone besides Athena, after all.)

His situation is intriguing and so we're hooked into wanting to know what the hell happened to make him like this.

Also, I gotta give a special mention to his talking sprites. All of them are really good, from him slamming the desk as he laughs (which is just how I see him in my head by this point) to his eye flashing as he glares down at you. He plays with a lot of the usual conventions, too, turning his back towards you and never actually having a full point. I may not like how his objection sounds (and this is a me problem, I only like about 20% of the actual objections in this series whoops), but his "Silence!" is pitch perfect. That really conveys more of his character than anything else, devs and his va did a damn good job with that one.

Anyway, second day of the trial. It's actually pretty fun to see Blackquill on the ropes, having him act as if we're the ones cutting him down instead of the other way around. He's just as annoyingly ruthless here, but it's easier to deal with when we can actually gain some ground on him. For all his posturing and intimidation tactics, he can't keep up the act while we're shutting him down.

Once we pull off our victory for our client, he's back to being a cool customer. He's a pretty graceful loser compared to so many other prosecutors we've seen. Compared to Gaspen, even. There's still a lot we don't really know about him and his situation, but he's made his character loud and clear for us to see. For that, I gotta say it's understandable if you started liking him by this point.

Case 3 is kind of a mess during the trial segments due to everyone trying to confess to the murder. Blackquill may be facilitating a bunch of this nonsense, but he's as along for the ride as we are. That makes things more fun and tolerable than it could have been, so hey.

It also showcases his softer approach with Athena; again, the hints are being put down. You can't quite pick them up yet because you don't have the full context, but you can notice Athena mention that she's fighting so hard in order to save someone not our client. (And Blackquill even addressed her as directly about it as he can, saying that she should know it's useless trying to reach him.) When Means puts Athena out of commission for a minute, Blackquill doesn't mock her or even take advantage of the situation. He doesn't help, either, he can't do that without giving away the whole game, but he allows her the time to come back. That's probably the biggest hint we get as to who these two are to each other and it's a subtle thing, too.

His dynamic with Athena is probably the most enjoyable, also. She's a real spitfire in court, owing to her youth and her energetic nature, while he's a steel wall with trickster energy. They work surprisingly well off one another, trading jabs and him always seeming to be a step ahead but never fully leaving her in the dust. He recognises her inexperience and she recognises his humanity; neither want to hold back against the other and yet their blows aren't as harsh as they could be.

He was, after all, made to be her opponent on some level. Seeing their dynamic work so well off one another, it's easy to stop finding him aggravating and start finding him endearing. A rough around the edges older brother type rather than a hardened criminal trickster type. (Though he is very much still both.)

An aside on the DLC case, I think it's very funny how Blackquill was the only prosecutor willing to try this case against an orca. Sure, he saw the underlying actual murder mystery beneath it all, but it's so easy to imagine him being presented this case, laughing his ass off, then agreeing to prosecute it. This man's as insane as Phoenix!! And that goes a hell of a long way to endearing him to us. To me, specifically. His mannerism against Phoenix is kinda not fun, considering Phoenix is hardly ever fun in this game, but it's such a wacky little character detail about him that I just adore. His devil may care attitude may come from a dark place, but it lends itself to such a fun time.

Of course, we then reach the fourth case and even more mysteries are thrown in our face.

For one, Blackquill is just as on edge and vicious concerning this case. We understand some of Apollo's beef, he knew the victim and is emotionally invested in his client, but Blackquill being just as invested is definitely strange. It definitely raises some alarm bells to keep in mind, right up until the courtroom is blown up and we're forced into a time skip.

Meeting Blackquill's older sister adds another piece to the puzzle. She's really nasty especially to Athena and you make a note of it, but still can't quite make out the whole picture. It's an easy detail to overlook, even, if you aren't really paying attention to the names, since there isn't a big fuss made over her being his older sister. It connects him to this space station, but not in a way that matters. Not yet.

Another piece is Fulbright's odd behaviour. They really have to work hard to start building enough clues for Fulbright's turn to make sense, but the important thing for us concerning Blackquill is that he seems more worried about Blackquill's rehabilitation than before. Fulbright himself is struggling in what he should reveal to us, where his sense of justice lies, and Phoenix presses him to share enough with us for the next day of the trial.

Of course, Blackquill continues the trial with his added fervour. It really feels he has more of the pieces to this puzzle than we do at this point, but we at least manage to hold our own until Fulbright returns with the decisive evidence to prove Starbuck's innocence. The problem then is that it implicates Athena.

And Blackquill goes into absolute panic mode.

This is what he's been trying to prevent! He can't have Athena accused of another crime, he can't defend her this time like how he did before. He's doing his best to hold his uncaring demeanour together, but he's slipped too much for it to be convincing. He's run out of time and his sister refuses to accept that.

This leads us into the final case and our impromptu trial to figure out just what exactly happened for Blackquill to land himself on death row.

How Blackquill guards himself while absolutely falling apart here is so heartbreaking. He's doing his best to protect Athena, to save the girl who's his mentor's precious treasure, and him and Athena going back and forth on whether or not the whole truth is worth exposing, no matter how painful it is, is excellent. I really feel Blackquill's desperation here, aided by one of the sickest Mood Matrix segments ever. Learning that Edgeworth asked Phoenix specifically to become a lawyer again to help Blackquill, having Edgeworth act as prosecutor on this trial, everything about this is so good. All of it really lends to showing us the player why we should care about Blackquill. It definitely got me good.

Only once we prove Blackquill and Athena both innocent does that weathered shield finally fall. Blackquill gets to show off a bit of his less guarded self, gets to have some fun as we leap into the next segment of the trial. He gets to finally, finally dig up the truth behind that terrible lie he's been keeping for the past seven years and confront this Phantom himself. If the Phantom reveal wasn't so slapdash, this entire segment would be a lot more powerful, I think.

All of it, though, is in service of the straight up satisfaction we get when seeing Blackquill at the end, able to live his life again. Seeing how he actually calls on Athena's help in the next game, then hops onto the bench with her to help her out is so good, there's so much growth that happened there. He's still his smarmy trickster self, but he's willing to show a bit of his caring older brother side! I love seeing it.

Anyway yeah hopefully this conveys how much I love Blackquill, wish he had that little extra oomph to his narrative to make him truly great.

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

So I was re-watching the show and I had a thought about the dynamic between Zeus's kids. Ignore if you've answered this before, but how do her siblings feel about Persephone?

I kinda feel like there are parallels to Sally trying to keep Percy away from Olympian drama and Demeter trying to keep Persephone away from Olympian drama, only for both to fail badly. Not to mention that Persephone probably, for a brief period, turned into the kid Zeus paid attention to most, mostly because of how Demeter protested her marriage. I do have the HC that Persephone and Hermes get along the most, due to Hermes being the sibling to visit the Underworld the most, but what do you think? Hades might be a useful ally in a rebellion.

I haven't really thought much about Persephone's dynamic with everyone else🤔

However, I will touch on my thoughts on her relationship with Demeter and Apollo (in the RRverse) because those are the ones I know right off the top of my head.

With Demeter, I don't like the helicopter parent stereotype attributed to her. Contrary to the media's beliefs, Demeter's panic is very sound considering her daughter was. ya know. kidnapped.

it was an arranged marriage! yeah yeah it's still kidnapping, and Persephone screamed for help. it's all there in the Hymn to Demeter.

because of this, Demeter and Persephone had a very loving mother-daughter relationship imo. Demeter also wasn't against Persephone marrying, btw. In the Orphic tradition, Demeter prophesizes that Persephone would marry Apollo, though that never came to pass obviously (I have a silly take on this in a bit sit tight).

Now Apollo :D the fun starts here.

SO. PERSEPHONE'S PLAYMATES WERE ATHENA AND ARTEMIS. Additionally, as mentioned previously, Demeter was like "oh yeah Persephone's gonna marry Apollo one day".

SO I PRESENT-

Apollo & Persephone are BFFs, and Demeter is the mom who sees her daughter has a boy friend and starts shipping them XD

Persephone: MOM WE'RE JUST FRIENDS

Demeter: You look so cute together!

Persephone: MOM YOU'RE SO EMBARRESSING hides face

also! there's another myth that adds on to this headcanon of mine :D

People think Demeter causes winter. She does not - she just stops the plant growth.

Apollo lets winter happen when he takes his vacations to Hyperborea :D

SO I PROPOSE-

Apollo aligned his vacations during the time Persephone is in the Underworld because fuck it if he can't hang with his BFF during this time of year might as well do his vacation instead so he has more time during the spring/summer months with her then!

BACK TO DEMETER BEING A SHIPPER-

Remember this scene in The Last Olympian?

The older lady harrumphed. "I warned you, daughter. This scoundrel Hades is no good. You could've married the god of doctors or the god of lawyers, but noooo. You had to eat the pomegranate."

Apollo is the god of healing. He also hold dominion over law, and played defense attorney for Orestes.

...DEMETER STILL SHIPS PERSEPOLLO TO THIS DAY XD

she presents it to Persephone like she has two options but they're the same person LMAO

I also wanna talk about the whole 'Demeter forbid Apollo from going near her kids' thing too! Because with the context of this^, it makes you wonder why.

...but then you realize that maybe it was because of the above she forbid him from her kids - or more specifically, she forbid him because he didn't marry Persephone XD

So she ships them. But also she's salty she didn't get her favorite nephew for a son-in-law to marry her favorite daughter and therefore banned him from her kids.

Seems counter-productive, but you do you Demeter lmao XD

(and yes, Hades would be a useful ally in a rebellion...hehehehe)

[englandsgirl18181234]

I couldn't think of anything specific to ask about your chthonic!Athena au, but I wanted to let you know how much I love it!!! There's so much embedded grief in every action Apollo and Athena take, something they probably don't even remember living without anymore, and it influences every aspect of the fic with so much sorrow. If things had been different, if Zeus hadn't been a piece of shit, if if if... there's so much longing there. You can see how clearly all three of Zeus's main victims (I'm counting Hera, here, because despite everything I want the best for her. Apollo and Athena had each other, but she had no one) are so incredibly fucked up in ways that the others had NO IDEA about. It's a lethal mix of a lack of awareness mixed with hypervigilence, with devastating results.

I did think of a question, actually! Did Zeus know she would die? Did he know he was damaging her soul? Or does being god king just mean he has a certain level of power? Will Zeus go to the afterlife when he's inevitably killed, or will he fade?

I love your story!!! I hope your day/month/year gets better ^_^

Thank you so much, this is so sweet!! I really appreciate it!! I'm really glad you like my fic!!

It really does, yeah, and that's kind of the point. Athena and Apollo are both fueled by a grief they've lived longer with than without. For Athena, it's for Odysseus and Penelope and Telemachus. But for Apollo, it's for the royal family and Athena. He's known she was dying for thousands of years, but that doesn't change the fact that she was killed in front of him by their own father while the rest of their family watched and did nothing to stop it.

And there really is this awful mix of trauma, hypervigilance, lack of awareness, and just, a willingness to be a bystander, that's turned Olympus into a toxic mess under Zeus's rule. It's gotten so bad by the time of Athena's death that the few people that noticed something off just don't mention it. It's not a done thing, talking about things that could be dangerous.

More under the cut!

That's actually how Kronos maintained a hold on Ares in the Lightning Thief in this verse, as well as how he turned so many gods against Olympus. Ares did act very out of the ordinary when Kronos started appearing in his dreams, but other than Apollo and Athena no one ever talked about it, even among themselves. Athena and Apollo both talked about it together, but were too worried that it was because he found out about Athena's condition to actually confront him about it.

And most of the gods that turned to Kronos's side were the ones that wanted to say something about how toxic Olympus had become, but didn't have the power or charisma to make a difference without potentially pissing off the Olympian Council. What happened to Athena in God Games is a well known horror story/warning about potentially defying Zeus, so all the minor gods are extremely cautious where he's concerned to make sure he doesn't turn that power on them too.

Zeus's mood hangs over Olympus like the Sword of Damocles, with even and especially his children taking care to ensure that they don't anger him too badly. The only people that don't care about his temper are his siblings.

And Hera in this verse is complicated. Because she does see Zeus's temper and knows that she's technically replaceable. But she also knows that unless he wants a war on his hands, he's not going to actually turn his temper on her. He can't just make her disappear like he did Metis or hurt her physically like he did Athena, she's too powerful and too visible for that.

But he can hurt her in little ways, and she knows it. He cheats on her more often when she angers him, which turns into this vicious cycle of him cheating and her punishing the woman and children, which in turn pisses him off even more.

A lot of Olympus isn't fond of her for that very reason, so she can get rather lonely at times. But she can also turn to Hestia and Demeter when it gets too much for her to handle, because the three of them are close.

So Zeus did know that what he did would kill her in most of my AU's (not including Zeus's Regret obviously), but he doesn't necessarily know the details of how. It's basically an unconscious instinct, that using above a specific level of power will have deadly consequences, even for gods. It also varies depending on the target. It's actually why Apollo is dying in my Chthonic Apollo AU even though Zeus didn't intend to hit Hestia with enough power to kill her. Apollo is much less powerful than Hestia at the time, so his threshold was lower than hers.

And I'm currently thinking that Zeus is going to get the Kronos treatment in Chthonic Apollo, and potentially Chthonic Athena as well. It's either that or Hades and a few others are going to kill him/force him to fade. I'm really not sure yet.

Thank you so much for your questions and I'm So sorry this took so long to answer!! It's been in my drafts for weeks and I just kept blanking on how to answer!

[avatarskywalker78]

Flufftober 2023 Masterlist

(Need to Knows found here, Main OCs here, Side OCs here).

I really enjoyed writing the fics, loved the prompts, and was able to complete the series, so thank you very much @flufftober for another great event!!!

Find links to my fics below!!!

into (and out of) trouble - I've Got You - Diagnosis Murder - Steve & Jesse

friendship (across realms) - Family, Friends, Loved Ones - Twilight Princess, Link & Midna

easy to love - 'Wait, you love me?' 'I always have' - The Flash - Cisco x Eddie

a part of you - Wearing Each Other's Clothes- Ace Attorney - Apollo x Klavier

(maybe more than) good company - x + 1-The Flash- Iris x Caitlin

to make new memories (with the family we choose) - Corn Maze- Krypton-Adam & Ashley (OC)

being part of a family (i thought i'd lost) - Porch Swing-The Flash-Iris x Eddie

(just trying to) do good for you - Rainy Day-Ace Attorney-Apollo x Klavier

first impressions - (...) at first sight-Diagnosis Murder-Steve & Jesse

with you (among the lights) - Candles, Lanterns, Fairy Lights-Ace Attorney - Maya x Franziska

remember (that you're not alone) - Sweet Tooth - Diagnosis Murder - Steve & Jesse

what a hero is made of (beyond destiny) - Fire & ice - Twilight Princess - Link & Midna

(not so wrong) roommate - Wrong (...) - The Flash - Barry x Eddie

holding on (to hope) - Have your character share the last table at a cafe - The Flash - Iris x Eddie

what i never said (what i'll say now) - Emergency, Confession, Adventure - Krypton - Seg x Adam

singing a song (for the one you love) - Singing one another to sleep - Ocarina of Time - Link x Malon

i believe (in you) - Encouraging S.O. to achieve a goal - The Flash - Iris x Caitlin

(mis)adventures in baking - 'Did you plan for this to happen?' - Spider-Man (Raimiverse) - Harry & Peter

doing what you have to (for family) - Keeping Someone Safe - The Flash - Malcolm & Eddie

i want to learn (from you) - Pumpkin - Krypton - Adam x Seg

lucky to have (a friend) - Swoon - Diagnosis Murder - Jesse & Steve

(already) made the right choice - Picking - The Flash - Caitlin x Iris, Barry & Iris

keeping hold (of memories) - Trinket - Ace Attorney - Phoenix x Miles

embarking on a new path - 🫠 - Spider-Man (Raimiverse + Comics) - Amanda & Harry

all i want (is to be by your side) - 'You've told your parents?' + Reverse all the Roles - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Zelda x Link

don't know why you love me (but i know you'll never leave) - Fireplace - Krypton - Adam x Seg

i trust you (so trust in me too) - Outdoor Event - Ace Attorney - Klavier x Apollo

we will do this (together) - Soothing Touch - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Zelda & Link

late nights (and far too early mornings) - 'Hey, wake up!' + 'Oh no, you're a Morning Person' - Ace Attorney - Apollo & Athena

what am i worth (to someone like you?) - Self-Worth/Self-Love - Krypton - Adam & Seg, Adam & Val

finally getting (to spend time together) - Hot Chocolate - The Flash - Iris x Caitlin