#it doesn't make your comic 'deep' to line it up with real world dates that aren't gonna matter in 3 weeks anyways when they go up for free

[genericpuff]

Rachel "Retcon" Smythe Strikes Again!

Okay, so I've been seeing pictures of Volume 4 of Lore Olympus floating around, and people are ALREADY FINDING RETCONS.

Most notably so far, some added panels in the Hades and Apollo confrontation that happens outside Artemis' house (when Persephone steals Apollo's lyre) in Episode 81.

This is the original scene, for anyone who needs a refresher:

Aaaand here are the panels that were added.

(all pictures of Volume 4 are courtesy @iwannagutyou on IG!!! thank you for giving me permission to use these! <3)

First of all, the art. It's so noticeably bad. You can tell Rachel has completely lost her ability to draw these characters in the S1 style, I'm fairly certain she took the panel of Hades from the old version and just copy pasted it to try and get around it (look at the posing) but it's incredibly obvious looking at that third panel that LO is not and can never be what it was back in 2017-2019. Those first two panels seem like they were copy pasted from the previous ones, which is just sad if those are the lengths she has to go to to come even close to replicating the older style.

Now, this just might be due to camera translation, it could very well look better IRL, but the colors just look so incredibly desaturated and the lines blurred out, to the point that people are doing double takes over whether or not panels have been directly changed - they haven't been, they've just been so sucked dry of their colors that they look off enough to cast suspicion.

If anything it's a harsh reminder that LO has kinda always had art problems, especially with its lazy humor and stupid meme faces.

Of course, to be fair, color loss can happen in print, but seeing how slapped together these books tend to be, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't put in the effort to convert the page art to CMYK or at least tinker with the saturation in editing some more to ensure it would come out more vibrant in print.

Now. Excuse me while I go on a bit of a crackpot rant here. Newbie puff pals beware, because this is gonna get dicey and you're about to learn where my tinfoil-hat rep comes from but I just have to talk about it.

Back to the added Apollo panels, where Persephone asks Hades not to hurt him and he looks nervous before she says "I just want him to leave".

Maybe it's just me, but it's a little weird that THESE are the panels they decided they needed to add. It's weird that she's asking Hades not to hurt Apollo when she's about to break into his car and steal his lyre just a few moments later. It's weird that the implication seems to be that she's referring to Hades' act of violence towards Tori... but Persephone doesn't know that's happened yet. So this feels like an unnecessary retcon that's doing more harm than good.

But I feel like the timing of this is kinda messed up as well, as this book released just days after the release of the last FP episode in which Apollo has his 'side' of the assault story told through his perspective, which is often considered a HUGE no-no in writing assault stories because it often comes with the implication that it's asking for empathy from the audience. We already know Apollo is delusional, we already know he thinks him and Persephone are meant to be despite her constant rejection of him, we didn't need a flashback from his own warped perspective explaining that very thing, the only purpose to do such a thing this late in the game would be to try and get the audience to 'connect' with him (it's giving S3 Bryce from 13 Reasons Why vibes). Now we have this scene of Persephone asking Hades not to hurt him (despite the structure of the episode being literally fine before, this change wasn't needed) getting snuck into the physical book release just a couple days after the newest FP tried to present Apollo in an empathetic light (and let me tell you, that's a whole essay and a half that I'll be getting into eventually).

Shit, if I wanted to get REAL Pepe Sylvia with it, I might say that hypothetically, the whole point of the random Leuce abuse episode - despite Persephone having no way of knowing what she attempted as Hades hadn't told her and she wasn't there to see it and we weren't shown her overhearing them in any way - and the following episode that was mostly padding of Hades and Persephone having sex - no consequences or follow-up whatsoever to the Leuce scene - was just to pad out the episode release schedule and buy time until the book came out so that Rachel could release that Apollo POV episode right before the book came out and revealed those new added scenes of Persephone asking Hades not to hurt Apollo, in what could be a sly artificial attempt at minimizing the SA plot so Rachel can finally just brush aside the one major plot point she regretted writing the most. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Rachel's controlled the pace of her comic to release certain moments at certain times that line up with IRL events.

But, y'know. I'm gonna quit on that thought while I'm ahead because it's probably making my credibility meter drop into the red. My ADHD has been real bad lately and it's really starting to show LMAO All ima say is that IDK who Rachel thinks she's fooling here, this kind of shit is stupid easy to fact check when the digital version of the comic is available online to read.

To end on a much funnier and lighter note, remember how Rachel tried to retcon the Demeter/Hera/Hestia relationship by changing the line "I miss my sisters" to "I miss my friends"? Well, there was one panel that had been missed in the webtoons version that still refers to them as sisters. You can still find this unedited line in Episode 78.

And uh. They forgot to fix it again for the book.

It's permanent now. That's permanent marker. It would have cost them nothing to find this in the webtoon version and fix it before it got sent to the book editors. Now it's gonna cost them thousands because the book editors didn't bother (or know) to check.

There's also this... weird shit going on with the speech bubbles. Like, they're REALLY FUCKING OVERDOING IT with the speech bubble outlines. I don't know who made this choice but it was a bad one. Gross. Don't do that. It looks so cheap.

But let's be real, at this point I feel like the book editors are just outright sabotaging Rachel because who the fuck calls themselves a professional when they do this shit-

Oh, and there's no bonus episode, just sketches. Which is fine. But it makes me chuckle to think that Rachel just didn't have time in her already razor-thin buffer to draw up a new episode to pass off as "cut content".

[parkersjiggle]

I have a starker prompt! Person A is in love with Person B. Person A thinks it's hopeless cause they're just friends. Person A doesn't realize that Person B returns his feelings. People around them refer to Person B as his boyfriend and he thinks they're just teasing him until one day he realizes that everyone thinks they're actually in a relationship. Including Person B. This whole time Person B just thought they were taking things slow. Up to you which is Peter and which is Tony.

Hi! Thanks for the prompt! It’s my first time ever writing/posting my work so I hope I didn’t disappoint, also English isn’t my first language but that shouldn’t be a problem.

“Hey Tony!” Peter practically yelled, tossing his backpack in the air and shooting a web to pin it against the wall. Tony always pretended to be annoyed at this even though he secretly found it pretty funny.

“Sweetheart, you know you can just place your backpack on the couch? You‘re capable of that right?” He replied amused and winked at the young man.

Peter instantly went red “y-yeah um I, I- know it’s just more fun this way” he flinched at his own awkwardness and resisted the urge to hide his face. That’s been happening a lot recently. He didn’t quite understand where all the pet names were coming from all of a sudden but damn he wasn’t complaining. Peter risked a glance at the man, standing and petting Dum-E’s head, and smiled, quickly looking back down to hide his scarlet cheeks.

It was truly unfair though. Tony was in a white tank top, the fabric clinging to his muscles in all the right places and his hair was a little tousled and sweaty. “How can a person be this freaking hot?” he thought. But that wasn’t the only thing that attracted him to Tony, oh no, it was also his sense of humor, his intelligence, his kindness, his generosity, his ambitions, his sarcasm, his strength, the way he carried himself, the soft and real smiles he only showed to a select amount of people... yeah he was in deep. Maybe if it was only Tony’s looks that made Peter’s knees a useless sack of jello, he could’ve gotten over him a long time ago. At the end of the day there were a lot of attractive people, but that doesn’t mean you have to be in love with them right? But no, he just had to be in love with a man he could never have. Hopeless. That’s what it was. For now though he decidedly catalogues that pet name in his mind so he can unravel it over and over again when he’s laying in bed later.

Peter blinked and shook himself from his stupor “uh anyways, what’ve you got for me to work on today, Tony?”. Calling Mr Stark by his first name was another thing he’s been getting used to, but the man sat him down a few weeks ago and insisted that now he really couldn’t have it if Peter still called him Mr. Stark and to please please please with a cherry on top call him Tony. To be fair everything from that conversation was a little fuzzy to him since he got stabbed on patrol that day and Tony had cried and yelled and hugged and softened all at once. He couldn’t quite grasp why suddenly it was so important to call him Tony now since it kind of became an inside joke between them, but I guess logically at some point it had to come to an end and how could Peter refuse anyway? He liked the familiarity that came with it. It made him feel more like an equal.

“Uh actually, Pete, I thought we could head upstairs and watch a movie together? You know, leave the lab for once. I’ve got popcorn and I’m pretty sure Nat and Cap will want to join us too.” Peter frowned and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Tony wanted to watch a movie with him? He actually suggested to leave the lab in order to do something mundane and domestic? What was going on... Tony mistook Peter’s silence and confusion for hesitation and quickly added “I mean we don’t have to. We can just work on your web-“

“No! No, I mean I would love to. I’d like that actually.” Oh God he sounded way too eager. “Might be a nice change of scenery” he concluded, trying to be a little more casual about it.

Tony‘s lips twitched reassuringly at the other brunette “Let’s go then, darling.” a warm feeling spread all over him and it tenfolded when Tony actually grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together to guide him up the stairs.

“Go sit, I’ll pop the corn. Save me a seat next to you, kay?” Tony asked as he walked off towards the kitchen, not really expecting an answer. Peter mumbled a “yeah” under his breath anyway. He stood there for a good minute just smiling to himself.

“Hey spiderbaby, come sit” Nat had a knowing smirk on her face as she lifted her legs off the couch so she could sit more upright and make room for the two. Peter tried to scold his features into a look of indifference even if he realized it was probably useless already. What was the point in faking it in front of a super spy who could probably see through Peter as if he’s actually transparent.

When they both settled on the couch Natasha’s eyes snapped up from the tv and she frowned slightly as she tilted her head at Peter “So, how’s the boyfriend doing? He treating you good or do I have to go all assassin on him?”

Peter felt his cheeks warm up and shifted a bit as he let out a dramatic sigh “I really wish you would stop teasing me with that, you know? I just.. He doesn’t even li- Oh God he’s coming over. Ssht!” he lost his train of thought and pretended to be very invested in whatever was going on with his sleeves. Natasha looked a little puzzled at his reaction but decided not to say anything.

“Guess what? Popcorn AND pizza. How awesome am I?“ Peter finally lifted his gaze and stared at him with what could only be described as exasperated fondness. “You’re okay I guess”

“Hey now” Tony wagged a finger in Peter’s direction as he flopped down closely next to Peter “I’m feeding you, the least you could do is feed my ego in return” Tony joked, giving Peter a halfhearted glare that Peter rolled his eyes at as he grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Peter hurriedly swallowed the bite he’d been chewing and somehow mustered the courage to look into Tony’s whiskey colored eyes. “Okay then. You’re pretty great- no, scratch that, you’re really great. You’re the best actually. And I just-“

“PLEASE, I beg of you, stop the flirting already. I’m trying to enjoy my movie and this is more painful than any torture technique I’ve ever experimented with.” Natasha interrupted Peter’s rambling.

Peter’s first instinct was to deflect and deny. He wanted to say that he was simply complementing, stating the truth even, but definitely not flirting. Any protesting however was quickly forgotten when Tony pulled Peter’s blanketed form across his lap, smushing Peter’s cheek against Tony’s thigh as he gently ran his fingers through Peter’s messy chocolate locks. “Oh Nat, don’t be jealous. I’m sure you’ll find someone someday” he didn’t face Nat though, simply grinning down at the younger man in his lap.

Peter couldn’t believe his ears and it only got more confusing and complicated when Nat spoke next “No, in all seriousness, I’m really happy for you two. You’re great together and you’re changing each other for the better. I mean Peter, you’re more giggly and joyeus than ever and Tony you’re actually taking breaks more often, eating when you’re supposed to... it’s good that you’re dating”

“You’re right”

“WHAT?”

They spoke at the same time and suddenly Tony’s eyebrows furrowed as Peter pulled his head out of Tony’s lap. “What’s wrong?” He questioned with a hint of concern in his voice.

“What do you mean “what’s wrong”? You’re not weirded out or anything?” Peter’s eyes were comically large.

“Why would I be weirded out? Wait- don’t you think we’re... you don’t think we’re good together? Do you want to break up with me or something?” Tony’s eyes were a little glossy and he started fidgeting with a pillow next to him.

Natasha took that as her cue to leave, silently as ever, not that Peter would’ve noticed anything either way. “Break up? What? I- how- I mean? We’re... we’re dating?”

“Are you kidding me? I call you sweetheart and darling all the time. I look at you like you’re my entire world, which you are by the way, and I- I mean I thought we were just taking it slow, but you... you really didn’t know? What did you think we were doing?” He sounded a lot lighter and he could even start to see the hilarity of the situation. “We had a whole ass conversation about this. I said I couldn’t waste any more time pining over you and not being with you, since in our line of work every day could be our last. Were you not there or something? Cause I’m pretty sure I wasn’t talking to myself though but then again-“

“You mean when I GOT STABBED? I think there was a lot of blood loss going on at that moment!” Tony winced at the reminder. “Fuck... just shut up and kiss me already, you idiot”.

And Tony did.