#this prophecy is bull

[redg5]

Alright, time for a random rant because I was left unsupervised.

So all Percy Jackson fans know the big prophecy for the first season of books. “A half blood of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds…” we all know that. But like, does anyone else find it weird that people just immediately assumed the prophecy was referring to a child of Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon? Like there is nothing to indicate it has to be one of these three gods. Sure you could argue that the use of the word ‘gods’ implies that it must be one of the brothers but at this point that term when talking about a collective of deities has a very gender neutral context to it. So like it’s completely possible that the demigod in question doesn’t need to be one of the big three.

There are about seven gods in the running to be elder gods. You have the obvious six children of Kronos but you also have Aphrodite, who was born when Uranus was cut into pieces and part of him fell into the water. Now of the seven you can rule out Hera and Hestia from the running because Hera is the goddess of marriage and Hestia is a maiden goddess. But that still leaves five other people who could count as one of the eldest gods.

We know that the brothers make an oath to not have mortal kids again, sure, but it’s very clear that Demeter and Aphrodite are still getting together with mortals, given their cabins at camp. My point in all of this is like, what’s stopping a child of Demeter from being the child of prophecy? Or of Aphrodite? Like the prophecy doesn’t give two shots of if you want to fight this war or not, if you were the half blood it alluded to, you took some part in the war, likely an important one.

[starsfic]

I'm liking your Prophecy Father AU already.

You mentioned that Red Son was raised on the story of Wukong. But what exactly was he told? Are DBK and Iron Fan also worried about him? What have they been told about Wukong's condition?

I can't help but imagine it to be like an abused spouse situation (even if Azure didn't intend for it to be that way) where Azure doesn't let them visit or even see Wukong and just makes up excuses. Like "oh, being Empress if very busy work, he doesn't have time for visits" or "oh, he's not feeling well and doesn't want to see people right now" or something like that. And DBK and Iron Fan find this SUS. But can't really do much against the Emperor and it's driving them insane.

I imagine that there are a lot of people worried about Wukong. Has he met Guanyin and Nezha? What is the Queen Mother doing in this AU, if at all?

Okay, so the timing of the Camel Ridge Trio's conquest of Heaven is after the Demon King of Confusion was defeated by Wukong and he took his and FFM's names out of the ledger of the dead. In the confusion of the Ten Kings' reports, the Camel Ridge Trio killed the Jade Emperor in a surprise attack. Meanwhile, Wukong, Macaque, and DBK had become sworn brothers.

Red Son is told about the first two conquests, including how loving Wukong was to his subjects. DBK and Macaque both know that Wukong must be worried sick, and it definitely doesn't help that, for almost 23 years now, nobody has said a word about the Jade Consort.

Nezha and the Queen Mother have both been imprisoned, alongside Erlang Shen, due to trying to launch a rebellion. Iron Fan was almost caught in said rebellion, but DBK provided her with an alibi so she didn't get arrested. Azure can't imprison Guanyin or the Buddha, so he's very nervous about their silence.

Wukong never met any of them up close and personal, although he has received mystery gifts on his and Azure's anniversary and his birthdate.

(Nuwa is the only one openly banned from seeing Wukong and Xiaotian after her prophecy, but Azure knows he can't actually do anything if she wishes to see them. Like Guanyin and the Buddha, her silence makes him nervous.)

[trump666traitor]

[danthropologie]

I also think that RBR need to keep Checo happy NOW because Danny has made it quite clear that he doesn't intend to look for a drive (if thats the plan) til at LEAST the summer break. They can't have Checo getting mad and jumping ship before Dan's even ready to think about taking over. He asked for at least 6 weeks (before he wants to start thinking of the F1 future), I feel like Melbourne is gonna start the yearning but he's gonna wanna stick to whatever plans he's made til the summer

honestly i think the whole summer break timeline is kinda bullshit—i think he already knows he wants to be back next year and he's gonna have his team putting out feelers by monaco at the very latest—but i totally agree with what you're saying. daniel definitely doesn't seem to mentally be in a position to be getting back in a car right now, so keeping checo happy is what they gotta do 🤷‍♀️

[goblinroleplay]

my dragon age parties are always as follows: - my favourite little mage who has witnessed or comitted atrocities - cool warrior - varric

[tylermileslockett]

"Homecoming,"

In this scene, of Aeschylus's Greek tragic play "Agamemnon",  King Agamemnon has finally arrived back to his palace in Argos (Mycenea) after conquering Troy. He arrives in a chariot with his spoil of war; CASSANDRA (a Trojan slave girl cursed by Apollo with the power of prophecy - but that none shall believe her visions).

Agamemnon's wife, CLYTEMNESTRA meets them at the palace doors, obstructing his entrance. (The chorus has previously related the tale of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia, ten years prior on the way to Troy. So this confrontation is eagerly anticipated). She showers her husband with rhetoric of love and respect, then rolls out fine embroidered cloth (with fragile red dye) and then convinces him that only by walking barefoot on the  tapestry will he prove his high worth and placate her to enter.  

Professor Peter meineck, in his "Modern Scholar" audio lecture series: "Greek Drama", points to the symbolism when he says "...Agamemnon is wading through blood of his sacrificed daughter," and "...trampling the wealth of the house." Professor Meienck also thinks this tapestry is a menstrual image representing Clytemnestra's power (he even mentions that the ancient Greek word for door was also a slang word for vagina). So when Agamemnon relents, he unknowingly goes to his death. He now represents the sacrificial bull of the Greek new year "Buphonia" Festival.

Random Fun fact: this scene in this play is where we get the concept of "rolling out the red carpet" for honored guests.  

Want to own my Illustrated Greek myth book jam packed with over 130 illustrations like this? Please support my kickstarter for my book "lockett Illustrated: Greek Gods and Heroes" coming in October.You can also sign up for my free email newsletter. please check my LINKTREE 

[valyrfia]

f1 drivers as tracks from the tortured poets department: a very abridged and very biased list.

DISCLAIMER: this is all for fun and should be taken very lightheartedly. Not all drivers were included, but I am open to suggestions as well as constructive criticism.

Without further ado:

CHARLES LECLERC - I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Absolutely suicidal lyrics that should be mildly concerning but all in all very upbeat and makes you want to run around doing side quests. Such as write an album, or open an ice cream shop. I'm thinking this is specifically 2022 Charles when he trusted no one at Ferrari, or mid-2023 when everyone was calling him washed and calling for his teammate to be n1 driver, and then he proceeded to put it on pole in a tractor multiple times and still hasn't finished outside the top 5 since. Either way, I am looking forward how this song will hit when Charles gets his eventual championship.

MAX VERSTAPPEN - Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

This one is for Mad Max, who was thrust onto the world stage as an untested young prodigy at seventeen, who was called too young and immature and proceeded to win a GP upon debut in a top team, who was called Crashtappen from 2015-2019 and labelled as overly aggressive to his detriment, who was painted as a villain by every media outlet and documentary and DTS episode, who said "fuck the haters" and won championships anyway, who broke records, and made his own national anthem the expected song for every podium. A driver who is fast approaching greatest of all time status, for his win streaks alone. A driver that most others now just shrug about, because there's no shame in not choosing to fight the inevitable.

LEWIS HAMILTON - So Long, London

Ah, the heart-wrenching track of letting go of your long-term British relationship that doesn't serve you anymore. So many lyrics from here I could apply to the rumoured break down of amicable relations between Lewis and Mercedes, the team he won six championships with. From "My spine split from carrying us up the hill" to "I didn't opt in to be your odd man out. I founded the club she's heard great things about" to "you say I abandoned the ship But I was going down with it. My white-knuckle dying grip. Holding tight to your quiet resentment". Honestly, I could copy and paste all the lyrics here and they would apply to Lewis' Merc swan song. Taylor wrote "you swore that you loved me but where were the clues, I died on the altar waiting for the proof." about Abu Dhabi 2021.

CARLOS SAINZ - The Prophecy

Carlos has been delivering some of the best drives of his career this season, but it doesn't matter because he's not the chosen one, he's not il predestinato, he's not the son of Maranello. No matter what he does, he would never have kept that Ferrari seat over the mythos of Charles Leclerc. "Let it once be me. Who do I have to speak to, to redo the prophecy?"

LANDO NORRIS - Guilty as Sin?

Specifically given for half-flirting with Red Bull for most of last season, only to shake himself out of it and re-sign with McLaren, but I have one eye on him, not entirely sure he's given up on the Red Bull daydream, and Red Bull have been open about wanting to get him, if they can. It's all on Lando to stay faithful.

OSCAR PIASTRI - Fresh Out the Slammer

Piastrigate continues to inspire and compel an entire generation of F1 fans, and as such should form the basis of Oscar's song selection. What was the promises that Alpine made him, if not "Gray and blue and fights and tunnels Handcuffed to the spell I was under For just one hour of sunshine"

FERNANDO ALONSO - Florida!!!

Florida!!! is a big and powerful song about being a Shakespearean villain with a History and questionable morals and motives. Who is that if not Fernando Alonso? "Tell me I'm despicable, say it's unforgivable." "Is that a bad thing to say in a song?"

LANCE STROLL - But Daddy I Love Him

Yeah this one is self-indulgent and too good to resist. He's singing it about Fernando btw. Next.

DANIEL RICCIARDO - Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

Someone is getting that Red Bull seat next year, and every name is on the list except Daniel Ricciardo. "As the decade played us for fools, you saw my bones out with somebody new." Who knows what would have happened if Daniel hadn't left Red Bull, all those years ago? "Just say you loved me the way you were" Oof. We could spend years living in the What Ifs of it all.

[abiimaryy]

I sat and transcribed the Workin’ Boys programme as Matt Lang intended

Zoey Chambers (Henrietta) is humbled beyond words to be a part of this groundbreaking production. Zoey has been entrancing audiences for years with her portrayal of badass girl-bosses like Sandy from Grease and Fantine form Les Miserables. Zoey would like to thank her brother, Zack, for giving her the acting bug all the way back in the third grade! It’s ironic that Zack thought he was the actor of the family but Zoey would go on to completely overshadow him in every way. Sucks to suck doesn’t it Zachary? Zoey would also like to thank her roommate and fellow cast member, Hailey! Hailey is perfectly cast in her very small and inconsequential part. The role of Marge is just so uniteresting and one dimesntional that it helps mask Hailey’s limited range as an actress, as well as other flaws, such as not being pretty enough to pull off an ingenue. Enjoy show and ||be sure to check out Zoey’s Only Fans for spicy pics, JOIs and other lewd content.

Hailey Dilmore (Marge) is so lucky to be part of the best cast in the world! She has no idea how she managed to worm her way into this talented group of ladies! You may recognised Hailey as Pink Lady from Grease of Disciple #3 from Godspell! Hailey would like to thank her fellow cast member, Zoey Chambers. Zoey has been an inspiration, a mentor, and above all, a friend. She’d also like to thank her parents and her dog, Walter. Also she’d like to apologize to the cast once again for blowing up the bathroom every single day during rehearsal. She’s so sorry she made it stink so bad that everybody had to cross the street to use the toilet in the Bank of America. She really doesn’t know what’s happening to her bowels. She’s going to the doctors after the show closes to get everything sorted out. Enjoy the show!

Ruth Fleming (Secretary #4) is so fucking stoked for her acting debut! This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me I mean, her. Ruth ran the lights for her school’s shitty production of The Barbecue Monologues and was also the Assistant Stage Manager for The Wizard of Oz… it sucked. She got bulled and excluded by the whole cast, even thought her job was just as important as theirs. More important actually! Being in the cast is way better! You don’t have to think of an excuse to barge into the dressing room. You can just walk right in! Everyoby takes off their shirts and lets their titties tumble free! It’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen… I mean she’s ever seen. Anyways, Ruth doesn’t wanna thank anybody because nobody ever did anything for her.

Cassandra King (Eve) is elated to be present with you fellow vessels in these freeing moments. Everything has transpired exactly as the light in the sky foretold. Cassie has never been a believer in prophecy or the eternal spaces between… but she’s seen too much to deny their truth now. She no longer fears the visions or the pain that comes with their descent. Pain is the price of knowledge. Pain is the language that unites the children of Azzokish no matter which star they may hail from. Cassie wants to see what lies at the end of the cold half. She’s ready to see the face of the girl screaming in the dark. How did she find herself aboard? And what is the destination of such a significant ship? Is tonight the night Cassie departs? The lights do give no answer. And so she waits for deliverance. Cassie would also like to thank her boyfriend, Chris.

(Note: the spelling of Azzokish could be wrong it was blurry as hell)

[happyk44]

Obsessing over the concept of Percy having so many dreams about Nico dying in front of him in different ways at camp or on quests and he has no idea what to do about them so he starts trying to get Nico to hang out with him and tries asking him in subtle ways about what's going on, trying to figure out if Nico is in dangerous without possibly freaking him out about Percy's dreams (who would feel safe if someone kept having dreams about them being murdered by faceless entities in orange shirts or killed by monsters)i

It goes nowhere. Nico is apparently fine, flitting between camp and the underworld and New Rome as he wishes. With more underworld kids coming into CHB for the summer, he's started spending more and more time there though, and all Percy can think of orange shirts and Nico's blood drenched in them

Eventually he caves and drives to camp, hunting down and cornering Clovis, who's passed out in a sunbeam like a cat. Percy steps into the grass and kicks him gently. Clovis wakes slow and tilts his face towards Percy. He stretches long, yawns loud. Percy stifles a responding yawn and squats.

"What's up, Percy?" Clovis hums.

Percy tugs at his fingers as he finds the right words. "I keep having shitry dreams," he decides on. Clovis arches a brow. Percy sits back and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What does it mean when you keep having dreams about someone dying?"

Baby blue blanket creasing, Clovis cocks his head. "Who's dying?"

Percy grits his teeth. "Does it matter?"

"Well, some dreams are just subconscious processing and some are my siblings being weird." Clovis blinks slow. People compare him to cows a lot, that baby softness on his cheeks and easy going demeanour. But Percy sees a cat more than anything. Domesticated and pampered. "And some are prophetic."

The grit of his teeth begins to hurt his jaw. "How do you know which one is which?"

Clovis hums and sits up slowly. He reaches down to his toes and flexes with a long groaning grunt. He gives a little sigh as he pulls away. "Well, I'd have to ask them if they're doing things. As for subconscious processing, that's just what's going on in your brain. And prophecies..." He hums thoughtfully. "I guess you wouldn't know until it happens." With half-closed eyes, he faces Percy. His head lags to the side. "So is there anything going on your brain to worry about this person dying?"

"Well, there is now," Percy says through gritted teeth. Clovis laughs, a trilling dreamy sound. Percy glares at him. "Clovis."

He shrugs. "I can ask around tonight." He picks at a blade of grass. "Who is it?"

Behind them, Nico is calling out to someone. It makes Percy's skin crawl. Kids laugh and Nico laughs and Percy wants to grab him and hide him. Clovis's bright orange camp shirt makes him feel like a bull, caged up with some idiot waving a red flag in front of him. He needs to rush forward and break the things bothering him. Skewer them and feel their blood drip down his skin.

He's starting to lose his mind.

"It doesn't matter." He too aware that the gap between question and answer was too long.

Clovis isn't looking at him but he feels watched anyway. "It could," Clovis says. "But at least I know it's not Annabeth. Or Grover." Percy startles and Clovis's grin is soft. "If it was, you would have said it before you even sat down." He gives another big stretch then flops back on his blanket, rolling over into a warmer brighter patch of sun. "Actually, you'd say if it was anyone." He tucks his legs up into his chest. "You'd keep quiet because you don't want to worry them. Which means there's probably some real concern there."

His eyes slide fully shut and he doesn't speak again. Heart pounding, Percy watches his serene face. He doesn't like that Clovis picked him apart like that. But not much he can complain or deny in it.

Knees whining, he stands slow. Part of him misses the Achilles' Curse for that reason alone. He liked it more when his body didn't hurt because of constant strenuous activity and the passage of time. He runs a hand through his hair.

What is he supposed to do? Wait for Clovis to tell him that his siblings were being assholes for no reason? To sit down and meditate about the reason his mind was focused in on Nico dying in various ways? Or worry unendingly that the universe was giving him a sneak peek at the future and soon he'd be standing at Nico's memorial, trying to figure out which person around him was the killer?

"Percy!"

He startles and turns. His skin crawls as Nico jogs up to him. There's a little boy practically pinned to his side. The closet they grow, the more Percy wants to shove Nico down deep where no one can find him. Ocean depths. He'd like the darkness, Percy thinks. Then he slaps the thought away as his arms begin to rise, his gut yanking towards the beach.

"Hey." It comes out breathless and wispy. "What's up?"

Nico's smile is gentle. It makes Percy's stomach cramp, the idea of it gone forever, bled out on forest grass. "Joel and I were seeing if he could summon ghosts." He gazes down at the little boy still tucked into his side. The kid is looking at Clovis. "Might be a bit of a trial for him though."

When the kid doesn't stop looking at Clovis, Nico pinches his ear and he tucks his face into Nico's side instead. He gives a ragged breath but Nico's easygoing look doesn't change.

It flits to the top of his tongue, but Nico answers before Percy has a chance to open his mouth.

"Ker," he says, "is his mom."

There is little Percy has forgotten from any of his underworld adventures, including being chased by those spirits while trying to stop Ethan from escaping with the sword. Violent death and disease. Feasted on human flesh. They couldn't kill, but they could harm and give death a jumpstart.

Percy's shoulder gives a phantom throb at the reminder.

"Didn't know she'd be interested in having kids," he says.

Nico's lip twitches and his arm curved around Joel's shoulders tightens him closer. "He's technically adopted." Joel's face tilts further away from Percy. "She thought he was cute."

There's definitely more to that story that Percy doesn't know how to ask about, so he just agrees passively that Joel is cute and they move on. Joel doesn't speak to anyone but Nico or make eye contact. He's a barnacle on Nico's side.

All Percy can focus on is his bright orange shirt and the violent death that thrums in his veins and how close he is to Nico. It would be accidental, Percy thinks, if Joel killed him. It's clear he likes Nico. It would be accidental if Nico was torn to shreds.

Percy wonders how easy it would be to get water into his lungs from the bottle he drinks from, how suspicious it would be if he drowned on dry land. Quickly he leaves with rushed goodbye. His hands are already plunging into pockets for his keys. He doesn't hear Nico's goodbye.

That night he dreads his dreams more than ever.

Joel is there this time. His face is wet, half hidden in shadows. Nico is front of him, sword out, protective. Then things slip and it's not Nico and Joel anymore, but one older girl and two younger kids behind her. The kids look terrified but the girl is enraged. Her obsidian sword slashes at someone rushing forward.

The world is too bright, Percy thinks. There are no shadows. It's like the sun is standing in front of them.

The girl shouts and beats off a pair of people who charge at her. With snapped necks, they fall to the ground in front of her. She yells and shoves her sword into the ground.

It splits so easily. The grass trembles. The earth rumbles. Skeletal hands claw out of the ground. Hazy spectres join them. The girl turns and grabs the kids while people fight the entities she summoned. The world is so bright, but there's shadows at the edge of the sunlight. She won't stop running. One of the kids runs alongside her. The other is held in her arms.

The shadows twist and flex towards them. It's unable to spread into the light. They're closing in. The first kid is closer, free of the weight of another person. The shadows greet her but she stumbles to a sudden stop, spinning around and staring pleadingly at the girl Percy realizes is one of Nico's half-sisters from long before.

Are the kids' Joel's half-siblings? he wonders.

"Go!" the girl shouts. The kid hesitates but the girl shouts again, "GO!"

The shadows swallow the kid with a wispy black maw. The girl is almost there when the ground creaks and groans. It rumbles violently, separating and splitting at the very seams. The earth opens before her.

Percy can see the decision she makes before she makes it, jumping over a gap in the earth before it splits too wide. She doesn't stop running even as she tosses the other kid into the air. He screams, a bloodcurdling thing that chills Percy down to his bones.

The shadows catch him. And he's gone.

The girl pants, gripping her knees as she bends over. The earth stops quaking. There's a few seconds where the only sound is panting. But as the people they were fleeing from close in, the girl laughs breathlessly and turns around.

"Isn't it fun when we chase each other?" she says. "I think we should do that more."

The leader of the little group is some tall boy who looks like he's never smiled in his life. He's bulky. Each muscle bulges and he glares. The girl is unphased.

"How dare you?" he seethes.

She rolls her eyes. "Well, my dad protects their parents." She grins, eyes dark like the void. Her hands flex at her side. "Why shouldn't I protect them? Especially since you refuse to listen to reason." She gestures widely. "Just because Chthonic is in the title doesn't mean it's bad. Chthonic means dirt, earth." She just her chin towards one of the kids. "You are technically Chthonic." She shrugs. "Besides, you fucking morons, they're kids. What kind of dipshit is scared of little kids just because their dad picks up dead people for a living?"

Her arms haven't lowered from where she's spread them. Her hands flex again, each finger tapping in the air, one after the other. Percy can't hear anything else that's said. It all goes muffled. It's obvious arguing. Judging from the pulled weapons, there are threats abound.

Then the earth breaks.

It's not the same as the earthquake before. This is a complete cave-in, the ground falling out from under their feet. She's the only person who doesn't look terrified to be falling. They all disappear into darkness. Like teeth chomping, the earth slams back together and seals itself over.

Then there's his ceiling. His fan is going in fast circles, a soft whrrrrr.

Sweat is sticky against his neck. Oh, he thinks.

Violent death and disease being present at every meal, every training, every campfire song. Someone was probably unnerved by it. Unnerved by him. Nico's protective hold was a wall in front of the bomb. It needed to be broken down so the danger could be disposed of, bomb defused.

He doesn't know when he grabbed his phone. Only aware of it pressed to his ear by the ringing. It goes for a while. His stomach churns.

A tired "H'lo?" passes through.

His stomach doesn't settle. "Hey, Nico. Sorry." He glances at his clock and winces. "Did I wake up?"

Nico snorts. "No," he grumbles. "I'm a vampire." Quiet breathing, tense silence. "Percy? Why are we on the phone right now?"

"I..." Percy pauses. Glances up to his ceiling fan, still spinning in fast circles. "I just. Had a weird dream." Nico makes a "go on" noise. Percy bites his lip and leans against the wall, drawing his knees up to his bare chest. "Have any of your siblings had to..."

Fight against other campers? Run with a pair of kids people wanted to kill because they thought they were dangerous? Commit suicide to stop those from going after the kids once they were safely away somewhere else?

There's nothing good in those questions.

He closes his eyes. "What was camp like for your siblings? Before?"

"Uh." There's some rustling. "Not good. Most campers didn't trust us because of the whole Underworld children thing. Lucky for them, my dad doesn't really go around spawning kids on a monthly basis."

Percy snorted. His fingers wove themselves into his sheets so tight they started to go numb.

"But we didn't have a lot of friends. People avoided us."

Blood on dark grass flickers through Percy's mind. "Or killed you," he blurts out.

His mind shuts down at the words. He can't process what he's said, barely hearing the whrrr of his ceiling fan or the sound of his own breath. His skin floats away from him. Then pulls back solid when Nico says, "How did you know that?"

He swallows thickly. "Like I said. Weird dream."

"About my siblings being killed at camp?"

Nico viciously protecting Joel comes to mind and sticks in place. "No," he says after a beat. "Technically I think she committed murder-suicide."

"Which one?"

Percy hates that question. Sourness floods his tongue and he answers with a gritted, "I didn't get a name. She was fighting off other campers, trying to protect a couple other kids from getting hurt."

A sarcastic little laugh echoes through the receiver. "Yeah, that's happen more than once."

The sheets unwind from his numb fingertips. "Fuck."

"It's been over five thousand years, Percy," Nico says. "Things tend to repeat themselves a few times." Percy doesn't know what to say to that. "Why were you dreaming about one of my sisters anyway?"

"I don't know," he says. It's the truth. He has no idea. But he has theories. And he has fears. "She was just there."

Nico is quiet. The sound of his breathing is steady, and Percy hones in on it. He matches each inhale and exhale with his own breaths.

When Nico does speak again, he almost sounds far away. "That's odd." There's a creak and a thump, like feet hitting the tile. "Is that why you were talking to Clovis?"

No. "Yeah."

"Interesting." His voice is faint, before suddenly loud and fast. "Hey, I have to go."

Percy's stomach churns violently. "But-"

His words speed fast together as he says, "I have to go do something, I'll call you back later."

There's no dial tone, just a loud clattering that makes Percy's heart drop directly into his stomach. Clovis's sleepy voice eclipses to max volume in his head. And prophecies... I guess you wouldn't know until it happens.

A dozen thoughts blur through his mind as he hikes up the window to the fire escape outside his bedroom. He should tell his mom he's leaving, he should call Grover, he should call Annabeth, he should make someone check on Nico.

He gropes around the top of his dresser for a spare dog whistle then blows through it hard and sharp as he clambours out through the window, shirtless, shoeless, and panicking.

Mrs. O'Leary barks up at him from the dark alleyway. Shadows still cling to her dark fur. He doesn't even bother racing down the stairs. Just throws himself over the railing. Nico's name echoes in his head like a broken record as he falls. Soft fur grips tight in his hands. He doesn't feel the pain of landing, shadows swallowing them both before he can even recognize that he did.

It's strange to appear just a few feet away from a gaggle of kids threatening your cousin and the kid he's chosen to protect. Behind the group yelling words Percy can't hear under the roar of blood in his ears, there's a couple other kids - twins of Erebus - sneaking towards them.

They get close.

But they get caught.

Nico snaps forward and Percy's hitting the ground before he understands what's happening. It goes by so fast, he can barely remember his own actions. Everyone's still breathing. But banged up heavily, or unconscious. Joel is crying wheezy little tears while his aunts try to comfort him, and Nico...

Nico is gripped so tight in Percy's arms that Percy worries he might've broken something. He relaxes slow. Nico detaches. Mrs. O'Leary's hot breath huffs against the top of his head. Nico gives her a pat on the nose, not looking at Percy as he turns to Joel and checks in on him.

Percy's watching the slump of bruised campers before him. His blood feels too hot. Sweat drips down his back but his skin is too dry. He takes a step forward. A hand shoves against his chest and he gazes down at void eyes.

The world slams back into place.

He breathes.

"You are ocean water," Nico says very quietly. "Not blood and human viscera."

His mouth is dry. There's something inside him that wants. "Water is water."

"Not like that," Nico says. Percy swallows and steps back. Nico lowers his hand. Then turns to face Joel and the twins. His voice brightens up, feigned cheeriness, as he marches towards them. "Joel, do you want to go live with my brother's cult?"

Distantly Percy feels like he remembers Nico saying something about that once, but he can't remember what, so his mind draws question marks he doesn't ask as he twists on his heel. Nico crouches, speaking in a steady soft tone. The girls are holding each other's hands. They spare looks for the people who were scared of their nephew, and spare looks towards Percy. It's the same look.

They look away when Nico says something to them, vanishing hand-in-hand into shadows. Nico whistles and Mrs. O'Leary approaches with heavy steps. Joel hugs her leg. His ragged breaths are wheezed tired and weary into her fur. Nico keeps a steady hand on his back.

There is no murder-suicide this time. Instead the shadows swell and deposits the twins, with Mr. D and Chiron beside them. Nico cuts them off when Chiron tries to question him. He takes long way out with the girls on either side of him towards the Apollo cabin.

He doesn't follow the girls back into the woods with healers on their tail. Instead he opens the door to the Hades cabin and sits on a wooden chair. There's a buzz of white noise from a nearby noise machine. Otherwise everything is quiet. Nico's phone sits where it had been dropped to the ground minutes before.

His blood still feels too hot.

It feels like hours later when Nico walks in. However, the clock on the wall says it's only been twenty minutes. Joel is tucked up into his side. He goes down without a fight into Nico's bed. Lets himself be tucked in and drift off. Then Nico pulls another chair around and settles down in front of Percy, straddling the chair backwards. His arms cross over the top. His chin rests on folded wrists.

They watch each other. Then Nico moves to rest his cheek on his wrists instead. "You've been having those dreams for a while?"

Percy makes an affirmative noise.

"They haven't really been about my siblings, have they?"

He doesn't answer that. Instead, he says, "If people kept doing things like this, why didn't you guys make your own place?"

"We did," Nico says. "A few times actually. But no one liked that they didn't know what we were doing. So they made us come back to be hated and suffer." He snorts. "The old adage - keeps your friends close and enemies closer."

Percy doesn't laugh. "Why did she adopt him?"

Nico lifts his head. "Some things had happened when she found him. She took an interest and gave him her blessing."

"What things?"

Nico looks to the ceiling. "Things that help her fill her fridge with food to eat." His eyes flicker back down to Percy. "Only Chiron and Mr. D know the specifics. But Joel is fine." He glances over his shoulder. "He's a good kid. No one needs to be scared of him." He turns back to Percy. "Now answer my question."

Blood still too hot, Percy stares at a spot just above Nico's head. Then grits his teeth. "I don't like watching you die."

"I'm not scared of dying," Nico says. "None of us are. It's why it's always been so easy to take care of them. Take the dislike, take the insults, take the threats."

Percy stares at him. Then repeats, "I don't like watching you die."

Nico stares back. "You're not going to."

It's hard to believe that. So he leans forward, reaching out to grab the top of Nico's chair and pull it down until he can feel Nico's cool breath against his skin. "If I keep having those dreams, I'm gonna take a page from your dad's book and kidnap you."

Nico's lips twitch, but his voice stays even. "Then I guess you should keep in mind to make room in your dungeon because I'll be bringing a few people along." He lifts a hand and strokes a thumb down the side of Percy's face. "I heard your siblings were pretty protective too." His fingers slip away. Percy's skin yearns. "Something about how the ocean drowns what it loves and drowns what it hates."

That's not protection, Percy thinks. It's possession.

But he doesn't say that outloud.

Not yet.

He slowly lets the chair fall backwards until it lands stable on all four legs. He wants to deny Nico's statement about drowning. But he has - at least what he hates. Ahkyls, the mountain lion that tried to attack Grover, those kids. Only one success. But the want, the need...

"I should head home," he says slowly. It takes him a minute to process his words and stand up, heading for the door.

Nico makes a low noise and stands too. "Sweet dreams," he says once Percy has walked out into the night, still barefoot and shirtless.

Percy climbs onto Mrs. O'Leary's back. "I hope so."

[iliyad]

As a Hellenist, I've recently noticed a trend among various PJO fanfictions which in the big scheme of things isn't a huge deal but something I wanted to set right. And it's to do with Poseidon.

(EDIT: By Hellenist, I am referring to my degree in Classical Studies and Ancient History. I am not referring to Hellenic Polytheism.)

@percabeth4life - ATLOP: Trial By Fire, c. May 2020

@izzymrdb - And I Will Swallow My Pride (In the hopes of a final goodbye), c. August 2020

visiblyuncomfortabl - My Soul Opposes Fate, c. December 2021

@mrthology - Long Ago, That Current Caught Us, c. April 2022

@ditesfavorite - Child Surprise, c. 2022

I couldn’t find any earlier examples, but starting with IzzyMRDB’s fic, several fics make reference to Poseidon possessing a gift of prophecy or, in the case of percabeth4life’s fic, suggest that there was some sort of abundant connection between oracles and the sea. And it’s simply not true.

Poseidon has variously been associated with or considered a god of: the sea (Hom. Il. xv. 184), earthquakes (Hom. Il. xv. 190), and horses (Hom. Il. xxiii. 307), along with being referred to by various epithets connecting him to springs (Κρηνούχος), seaweed (Φύκιος) and bulls (Tαύρειος). He has never, in any primary text, been referred to as having any connection to prophecy himself.

He has, however, been attributed as the father of beings with various connections to prophecy. In some traditions the Greek sea-god Proteus, described as tending Poseidon’s seal flock by Homer (Od. iv. 365), is instead described as a son of Poseidon and king of Egypt (Apollod. ii. 5). Further, the Delphic Sybil Herophile (a prophetess) ordinarily considered the daughter of Zeus and Lamia (Pausanias 10.12.2; which also describes Lamia as a daughter of Poseidon) has been conflated with a sea-nymph daughter of Poseidon and Aphrodite bearing the same name by Scholiast (on Pindar’s Pythian Ode 8.24) which was carried over by Riordan who subsequently conflated Herophile with the Erythraean Sibyl in the Trials of Apollo series.

So, yeah. Obviously, fanfic writers don’t have to stick to historical/mythological accuracy in their works, but something I found equally strange and hilarious while reading these fics was how this particular connection between Poseidon and prophecy kept popping up. I have no idea how it’s happened, but if any of the authors (or others in the fandom) do have an interest in accuracy, keep in mind in the future that there is no direct evidence of Poseidon himself having any connection to prophecy. Even taking Proteus (and arguably Herophile) into account, that’s only one or two children of well over 30 attributed offspring who have been described with any connection to prophecy at all, which statistically doesn’t point to their existence being evidence of their prophetic gift having anything to do with their father.

[gaykarstaagforever]

FREE ON YOUTUBE

...YouTube, I feel like your free animated movie recommendations have declined in quality a bit since the halcyon days of Osmosis Jones.

Yes, it is a blatant Kung Fu Panda knockoff, with an American voice cast that is clearly whoever was home at 11 am the week they called.

This is bad. Like, unfinished, I think I'm missing like half the movie, they forgot to resolve the main plot and it just stops, bad. There is a scene where the only character on screen suffers an animation error, and no one fixed it. The framerate of the movie drops every time the action picks up or the camera swings around too fast. Like...you made a computer-animated movie, and you don't have the hardware or time to do...you know...computer animation? The stones on the Chinese producers of this mess.

Not everything has to be Pixar or DreamWorks. CG is hard. I get it. But you gotta work to your strengths. In this case, the computers you are using can't even render the movie properly. Like...I don't know how you get around that. That's kind of a major issue.

Technical incompetence aside, this suffers from the usual bad CG animation problems of every character looking like they come from a different artistic universe, and most of the action is generic mocaping that doesn't take into account how any real bodies shaped like these bodies would move. And there are just things they didn't bother capturing. Like none of these dough monsters ever stands up on screen.

Shot composition is a disaster. Most scenes are a mob of creatures standing in a pack in an empty space, doing exaggerated facial reactions to someone else talking. It's like bad machinima made in the Skylanders games engine, except all of the character designs are way worse.

The plot, such as they attempted it, is supposed to be about a small, incompetent warrior who looks like Jackie Chan who gets transported to the mystical realm of Merryland by a magical jade necklace his grandfather gave him. There, he transforms into an anthropomorphic panda, for reasons that are never explained. There is a prophecy that a Panda Warrior is destined to save the realm, and our guy is apparently it, except there is a flashback to like a couple of years ago when the ultimate evil took over, and...there is ANOTHER Panda Warrior who was just there and sort of stopped it? But then didn't? Who the hell was that guy?!

Also the ultimate evil is one of the two sky-whales who guard the Dragon Ball (yes, literally) just turning evil because it absorbed too much power. Why did this happen? How are you going to stop it from happening again? Then that whale turns into a nine-headed snake after an evil mouse from the real world just...is there, and merges with the Whale. After the snake is defeated the mouse just crawls out of it and runs away, and no one says a damn thing.

Our panda warrior and his 7 legendary warrior friends kung fu fight the snake at least 3 different times, and never get close to stopping it. And the panda doesn't do anything special or lead them, he is just there, and then at the very end his necklace glows and that...helps? Somehow? The true hero here is, and I'm not joking, Jimmy Ginseng, a tiny ginseng man with an erhu who shows up whenever the warriors are losing, plays the erhu, the enemy gets soothed by the song, and then Jimmy gets tired and leaves. EVERY BATTLE ends like this, including the final one.

So...?

The panda has that cool green sword in the picture. And he does have it. It is just...a sword, thst someone randomly gives him. I think he ends up dropping it and it never comes up again.

Also all the warriors are animals, except for the one who is a talking tree stump...filled with lava. And he dies at the end by setting himself and the snake on fire. Because his master, a purple fox, told him to do that to save everyone. ...Except the SNAKE SURVIVED IT, and they had to fight it again, lose, and wait for Jimmy to show up.

The bull character also sacrifices himself, TWICE, to save everyone else, and both times that doesn't work, either.

The movie ends with Merryland being restored from the devastation of the snake...BEFORE the snake is defeated. It just...gets better, after they resuce an elf girl princess who does...something...? And then the regrown flowers shoot the snake with missiles of some kind. Which ALSO fails to defeat it.

The panda doesn't go home and become human again and nothing is explained. But during the credits there is a fight scene between the little human warrior and his general, in which they get drunk and wrestle and tons of fight animations repeat in a loop for 3 minutes. Is this part of the movie? Are these outtakes? What does this have to do with anything? If this is what happens after he got home, I don't know why or what it means.

...My guess is that the first panda warrior we see was supposed to be his grandfather, as a panda? That was probably the idea? But no one ever says that. The movie doesn't remember to explain that.

This was translated from Chinese. Perhaps the translation is terrible. Or they did a massive reedit of this for the US release. That could explain some of this. ...But then why didn't they cut out the glitch scene, or some of the shots with the bad framerate? There are literal 10 second sequences in this movie where there is no dialogue or music, just a camera sleeping over a scenery to ambient nature sounds. Who reedits a movie for the foreign market and cuts out vital plot scenes, but leaves in shit like that?

...Unless all those vital plot scenes had even worse technical problems. Jesus. That's a terrifying thought.

One positive here. While nearly all of the voice work is as boring and bored as you'd expect, the immortal Tom Kenny is good, with what very little he is given to do, here. The man is a professional.

And here is the weirdest thing: Rob Schneider is really good here as the panda man and Jimmy Ginseng. Like, shockingly good. Like, this is without exaggeration the best performances of this man's miserable life. He is funny, charming, nuanced, he feels like he is reacting properly during what were probably one-sided conversations recorded on different days in different places. It is shocking how good he is in this awful, stupid movie. My only guess is that he was somehow involved in bringing this over and it was going to serve as an audition piece to get him more voice work. In which case, like, fair enough, dude. You nailed it. He is genuinely very good in this very bad movie.

What an odd artifact from 2012. What a waste of time. Why did YouTube recommend this? What do any of us gain from being shown this? I am just flabbergasted.

You're on time out with these movie suggestions, Google.

Also there is a pig who flies who looks like this:

Those aren't ears, they are just gross misshapen tendrils that bob around as she moves. It's like someone was playing with a stretch tool and then...stopped.

I was gonna end with "Now let's have Jimmy Ginseng play us out," but I can only find this one bad picture of him, and it doesn't show his erhu:

Here is some nice erhu music from someone else. Something redeeming in this godforsaken post:

[baiuzennsenn]

Random f1 fan: “Lestappen has no drama.”

— The 2019 Austrian GP where Max ruined the chance of Charles’ first win and Charles then unfollowed Max but they still took the same plane to leave. The 2019 Silverstone where Charles “revenge” to Max. Unfollowing each other but won’t miss any memes about each other on the internet. Claiming Not Friends but still being each other’s biggest fan: 2022 secret santa.

: “no angst.”

— The INCHIDENT. And many many more intense moments from their karting days. The 2022 Roman Empire in which Max and Charles competed for WDC.

: “no reasonable slayable dynamic.”

— Armando Filini, manager of the Maranello Kart, the first team for which Leclerc raced. “They were always fighting. It didn't matter if they were competing in a tie or in a final, if it was raining or if the track was dry. Once we were in Genk, Belgium, in the first free practice, and they went on track. Charles and Max met, began to push each other and almost hit each other, with the risk of being left out. Jos Verstappen and I were glued to the fence to look at them and he turned around and said to me: 'These two will fight forever. They will fight even in F1′. A prophecy”.

: “they will never be brocedes nor are they friends I’ve had enough.”

— Max and Charles are not intimate friends for sure. Comparing brocedes’ dynamics to lestappen’s only proved you know nothing about lestappen’s lore… ZERO. I knew it’s a popular comparison in the industry but talking about ship dynamics it’s a totally different thing.

I’m surprised many ppl only recognize shipping drivers who are really good friends irl otherwise they call it silly fans’ fabrication.

Lestappen is the type of ship in which Max and Charles don’t need to pretend to be intimate friends but they both care each other so much. This has begun from their childhood rivalry in karting times. Caring doesn’t definitely means they care about each other’s daily life. They recognize each other’s capacity that “you deserve to be my No.1 rival forever.” You can find many cases that they care much more about each other’s performance (even Red Bull recognized it!) and their desire to compete with each other. That’s their biggest tense. They’re not friends but still each other’s biggest fan.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm just saying, the last two times older and more experienced drivers had this much beef/incidents with a rookie/young driver who literally didn't give a single fuck about what the older and more experienced drivers thought, the rookie/young driver won multiple world championships with Red Bull, so yeah suffice to say I can see the red bull coding in Oscar and if any of the older drivers dub him anything similar to the crash kid or crashstappen, Christian, Helmet you know what you gotta do, the prophecy must be fulfilled -

[aurumacadicus]

I tagged this and the other post with 'minotaur steve' so you guys can find them together lol.

--

"So, there's this prophecy," Tony begins, rolling his ball of twine up as he walks away from the hidden labyrinth entrance. "I don't remember it exactly because I was too busy killing a guy trying to chop down one of my heart woods, but the gist is something like 'The bull-headed son of the Rogers clan is the only one who can save the Stark Forest.' So let's get going and--hey? Are you listening to me?!" He turns, scowling because the Rogers minotaur hasn't followed him.

His rant dies on his tongue the moment he sees the minotaur. The man's ovine head is tipped up, eyes closed, nose to the sun. Tony can see his nostrils flare as he sucks in deep lungfuls of air. He looks... somehow smaller, his curved, sharp horns no longer scraping the stone ceilings. The wind ruffles through his golden brown fur. He looks at peace. Tony suddenly remembers that all the minotaurs are kept locked in the labyrinth. They never get to see the sky.

He reminds himself that only this one has any modicum of intelligence suited for the outside world. The other minotaurs had proved that by grabbing for him when they saw him searching their halls, hungry and boorish. He's still not sure whether they hungered for food or for want of a cow, and he doesn't wish to know, either. Still, he wishes he could have rescued this one under better circumstances, even though he knows he simply wouldn't have left his forest unless he had to.

"...What should I call you?" he finally asks, more gently than he means to.

The minotaur reluctantly draws his head down, eyes fluttering open so human and blue that it makes Tony's breath catch in his chest. "...My," he begins, slow, as if not used to making human syllables. "Ma. She called me... Steve."

"Steve," Tony repeats quietly. He holds out his hand. "I'm sorry, Steve. The humans we meet will not be kind to you. You'll have to stick with me."

"No one has been kind to me but Ma," Steve says, and his fingers rub over the circled star scarred onto his hip before he reaches out to take Tony's hand.

Tony swallows thickly. Steve's hand dwarfs his, and he can see the muscles in it twitching, careful not to crush his own with his grip. He's scary, part of him acknowledges. Steve is at least seven feet tall not including the horns, maybe taller. Tony's bad with heights if there are no trees nearby. He's built like the stone walls they'd walked through in the labyrinth, wide and sturdy, muscles visible through his fur and skin. He'd watched Steve's hooves shatter the brick as he'd warned away another minotaur as they passed through its territory to leave.

But Steve has gentle eyes, and he's so careful where he's holding Tony's hand. He must have gotten practice, holding his mother and protecting her from the other minotaurs wandering the labyrinth. She had obviously instilled in him a gentleness that the other beasts had never known.

"Once I've done what the gods say needs doing... must I go back?" Steve asks, eyes sad.

Tony doesn't remember that part of the prophecy either, but he knows, suddenly and with certainty, that he'd burn his own forest temples to the gods down before he'd force Steve to go back into the labyrinth. "No. You can stay with me. I'll protect you from anyone who says you need to go back."

Steve smiles, and something about him softens further. "Lead the way."

Tony turns, mind already racing with routes to take that would keep Steve safest. Humans always want to take on monsters for glory. Steve might be the only one who can save his forest, but they need to make it back there in one piece. He still needs to take them to the tiny isle of Brookslynne to retrieve the Rogers weapon, so it will be a long journey. He doesn't want to travel at night, but maybe--

"...About your payment for my help," Steve says slowly, reluctantly. "You don't... look like you have the right parts."

"The gods don't really care about a person's parts when it comes to a bargain," Tony mutters. If Steve's only seen male minotaurs and human women, he's not going to give him the birds and the bees talk.

"The gods don't really care about a person in general," Steve agrees darkly, and Tony bites back the questions he has about how it must have been like to grow up in the labyrinth, seemingly the only truly intelligent one of his kind. It's none of his business, anyway. He just needs Steve to save his forest.

[tangledinink]

In lieu of a new chapter-- I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? one-shot! In which Leo cannot sleep, and events occur as a result. NOW UP ON ao3!!! Or, read below the cut!!!

It was another one of those.

Those little loops he got into sometimes.

Insomnia was kind of like that, funnily enough. Really hot-and-cold, waxing and waning, on and off, or at least it was for him. So sometimes, it really wasn’t so bad. He’d sleep relatively well for weeks at a time. Granted, it was never as simple as just laying his head on the pillow and falling asleep (could you imagine?), but with a little bit of work, he could eventually manage to get himself off to dreamland and get a good six or seven hours. And that was awesome, by Leo’s standards! It was great when it was like that!

But that was when it was good.

Sometimes, it was harder than that. Sometimes, it took herculean efforts to get himself to sleep each night. Sometimes, he’d be lucky if he got three or four hours, no matter what he did, with the occasional all-nighter sprinkled in here or there, just for the fun of it. And that was less than ideal for, like, a lot of reasons, obviously, but at least it was tolerable. That was kind of the usual for him, quite frankly, and he knew how to operate under such circumstances by now.

So, you know. Sometimes it was good. And sometimes, it was hard, but overall okay.

The real problem came when things… got away from him.

He knew how to weather a no-sleep kinda night. He was comfortable with taking the occasional L and just grinning and bearing it for the day. That was fine, it happened, not a huge deal. He could handle all that.

Two all-nighters in a row? Okay. Now we’re starting to run into a problem, but still not anything insurmountable. Things will probably suck for the day, but he’s capable of muscling his way through and remaining (mostly) functional. That’s what they made Red Bull for, obviously.

It’s on the third night, usually at around one in the morning, that he always starts to think that maybe he might be in real trouble. And that was really his downfall. The thinking. 

Despite his best efforts, he’d always climb into bed on the third night, intending on getting, like, some bomb-ass sleep, finally, because surely his body is ready for it after two nights in a row, right? But then always, without fail, that stupid little voice in his head would eventually go,

Oh my god, is this the start of a Loop?

And he’d go, NOOOO, why did you say that!? Why would you jinx us like that!? Now the insomnia heard you!!!

And that would be that. A self-fulfilling prophecy. His stupid, dumbass brain would go, oh no, what if we get stuck in a Loop? and then his anxiety would kick in, grabbing onto the thoughts and sinking its teeth in and going, oh no, oh god, please, we’ve gotta sleep, this is night three, we can’t keep going like this! and his heart rate would pick up, and all his nerves would flash on stark and bright, and all the cogs would start spinning in his annoying, useless brain, everything switching on and going into overdrive… 

Which, of course, would simply ensure that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

And then, all of a sudden, he’d be in a Loop.

That was when things were truly bad. When he was ‘Looping,’ so to speak, trapped in these dumb little circles, endlessly worrying and stressing about his inability to get to sleep and keeping himself awake. And the longer he went without sleep, the more panicked he’d get, and the less ability he’d have to keep himself in check and apply, you know, actual reason or logic to anything. And then he’d start getting desperate. He’d just do more and more stupid things to try to get himself to sleep, and he’d freak his family out and scare them, and then feel awful about it later. 

He wasn’t allowed to hang onto his own trazodone prescription anymore because he had once, in a state of overtired delirium and panic, accidentally taken too much. 

He had been fine, really, it wasn’t like he took that much-- he mostly just gave himself a killer headache. But he sure had freaked Dad out. And maybe also himself.

He hated worrying them. And he knew they all already worried about how much he slept as, like, a baseline, let alone when things were bad, even if bad only came around every few months or so. Especially because it wasn’t like he wasn’t trying. He really was! He tried so frickin’ hard. His dad had dragged him to, like, a dozen different sleep doctors and specialists or whatever (that brave soul, he always shook like a leaf every time, which Leo also hated,) and they’d tried twice as many different medications and tricks and home treatments or whatever, but nothing actually, truly fixed the problem. Not forever, anyway.

The point was, it sucked.

He didn’t like it. 

It was stressful, and it was unpleasant.

And, quite frankly? It was scary.

And the longer he was awake, the scarier it would be, because the longer he was awake the less he could trust himself. When he was like this, even the simplest of tasks would suddenly become so freaking hard.

Leo was not a chef by any means, but he was competent enough that he could at least do simple things like make a sandwich or cut up an apple for himself. But he only had to nick himself with a knife once, clumsy with sleepiness, for his Loop Self to suddenly be terrified of the kitchen.

Likewise, Leo though typically perfectly capable of navigating the streets of the city, but only had to get a bit turned around and confused on a single occasion for his Loop Self to be petrified of leaving the house alone-- even if he had found his way in a matter of minutes that first time.

It only took him sending one stupid sleep-drunk text to the wrong person by mistake for his Loop Self to become too frightened to text people for fear of somehow sending something awful to the wrong person and promptly destroying his social life.

It didn’t matter how unlikely or niche the fear was. Every time he got like this, his Loop Self would find more ways to be anxious and more things to be terrified of. And the longer he was awake, the more paranoid he would get.

This was his fourth night. 

This wasn’t the longest Leo had ever stayed up, but that was of little comfort to him at the moment. During the day, it really wasn’t that bad. Like, yeah, Loop Leo would always be there, kind of whispering in his ears, but it was a lot easier to ignore them in the light of day. He could still be a person during the day, at least, mostly, even if he was afraid the entire time. But at night? Once it was dark out and the rest of his family had gone to bed?

That was when Loop Leo truly came out to play.

And looping he most certainly was doing, pacing anxiously through his room and tugging at his hair, his nose wrinkled up as he scowled. 

You should lie down. Like. Get in bed? So you can sleep? You can’t go to sleep if you’re not laying down, and you need to sleep, Leo pointed out.

What if something happens while we’re asleep? Loop Leo countered. Besides, we can’t lie down. Laying down makes us feel like we’re losing it. Can’t you feel how much energy we have?!

That’s not energy. That’s anxiety, Leo argued from his current spot, way in the back of his own mind, trapped in some tiny metaphorical cage. But, of course, he was ignored.

‘Cause the real bummer of the matter was that the later it got on nights like this, the more ‘Loop Leo’ and ‘Leo’ kind of blurred together, until they were basically just the same person.

He paced for a while, spiraling around his room. He checked the locks on all his windows, and then he went downstairs and checked all the doors and the security system. He then almost set off said security system because his brain was so foggy and moving so slowly that he nearly mistyped the password. And then when he realized his close call, he had spent some time stressing about that, too, laying on the couch with his face buried in the pillows, because he just didn’t wanna be in one place right now, and besides, his room felt too small to be in anymore.

Leo groaned softly, rolling over onto his front, pulling the pillow over his head as he did so. He thought quietly to himself that he should have asked Dad for sleepy drugs, but then he would have worried Dad, and Dad would be stressed, and he didn’t even know if it would work for sure, and what if he poisoned himself, somehow, actually?

That’s literally why Dad holds onto the drugs. So that doesn’t happen. Just go wake him up! He won’t mind. He’ll give you the drugs. He’ll give you the correct dose! 

Nope, absolutely not. We cannot do that. Leo whined to no one in particular, rubbing at his face with his hands and rolling over onto his feet again. And he kind of stumbled a bit, and nearly fell over, but he didn’t. 

He couldn’t stay in one place anymore. It was driving him crazy.

He went down to the Lair. He played video games for, like, an hour and a half, and he lost every single one. He thought about playing Minecraft or something simple like that, but he was afraid he’d accidentally fuck it up and then be crushed about it later, so he didn’t. He laid out the gym mats with the intention of practicing some of his gymnastics routines that he was working on, and then thought, what, are you crazy? Right now, like this? You’ll break both your legs. You’ll get a head injury and die. So he put the mats back away. 

His sleepy brain thought about messing with some of Donnie’s stuff for a minute, ‘cause it might be funny, and then the anxiety brain went, are you insane!? And so he talked himself out of it at the last minute, heading back upstairs.

He checked all the windows and doors, (again,) and then peeked his head into his Dad’s room, just to make sure that he was still there and alive. He was, and was furthermore snoring softly in his bed, and Leo internally sighed in relief. He did another lap around the ground floor before he went up to the second, and did the same exact thing. Checked all the windows, and then checked on Mikey and Raph. And, just as he expected (or rather hoped?) they were both there. Mikey was all curled up in bed, snuggled up with his pillow, and drooling slightly on himself. His limbs would kind of twitch every now and again as he dreamed, and Leo smiled a tiny bit at the sight. Raph was splayed out across his mattress, amongst all his blankets and pillows and stuffed animals, his limbs flopped out in every which direction. Leo watched him for a little bit, too, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe, watching as his chest slowly rose and fell with each breath.

He stayed there for a few minutes, lingering on each family member for a spell before he finally moved on, closing the door behind him as he quietly could.

He made his way back up to the third floor. And he kind of had one of those ‘out-of-it’ moments for a second there and got dizzy and sort of blacked out real quick and almost fell, but then he didn’t. He caught himself, so it was fine, totally fine, but he still kind of rushed a bit the rest of the way up the stairs because suddenly he was sort of scared to be on them.

Once he reached the top, he ended up sitting in the hall for a bit, clenching and unclenching his fists and staring up at the ceiling. Eventually, he laid down on the hardwood floor, curled up on his side, and closed his eyes, like somehow this would be the fix and laying in the middle of the floor was the answer and he would finally be able to fall asleep like this. He stayed there for maybe five minutes before he gave up and got back to his feet, and he wandered towards Donnie’s room to do the exact same thing he had just done on the last two floors.

Very carefully, very quietly, he cracked open the door, leaning through the doorway to peek his head in, blinking a few times to adjust to the lighting.

And Donnie was there. Bundled up in bed beneath his weighted blanket, fast asleep, just like the rest of his family. Just like Leo had known (hoped) he would be.

See? Leo told himself. He’s fine. Everyone is fine. Chill.

And that should have been enough, right? That should be fine. He had physical eyes on him. He could see him, right there, literally, like, five feet away. 

The problem was that Donnie always slept under the covers, with his big weighted blanket layered up on top, curled up into a little ball. And his back was on Leo right now, facing the wall, leaving him with only a view of the back of his head.

So he couldn’t see if he was breathing or not.

This is stupid, Leo protested. Of course he’s breathing. Why wouldn’t he be breathing?

What if he’s not? Loop Leo countered. Something could have happened. He could be dead.

He’s not dead. And even if he was, what would we do about it? Cast Revivify? Use a Max Revive? 

Maybe he’s dying. 

Maybe he’s dying right now.

Maybe he just stopped breathing, just now.

Maybe he stopped breathing just before we came in, and he’s still alive, but not breathing, and we could still save him. What if we’re watching him die right now? What if he’s dying right now in front of us and we’re just watching him? 

What if he’s dying, and he dies, and then we’re just one person instead of a set? What if we have to live without him? What if we never talk to him again? And we can’t ask him for help with our homework ever again, or play Mario Kart with him, or show him dumb botany memes that make him laugh? What will you do when you see a stupid science joke and you wanna send it to him and make fun of it with him? What then?

What if he dies and leaves you and you let it happen?

He’s dying right now and you’re watching it happen.

Do something!!!

Leo’s feet were moving before he even realized they were.

He kind of stumbled a bit in his rush, not being the most coordinated person at the moment, only just managing to avoid face-planting right into Donnie’s bed frame. He kind of ended up flopping against Donnie’s bed, half falling on top of him, grabbing onto his blanket to hang onto and using his free hand to grab him and shake him.

“Donnie?” He hissed frantically, practically digging his nails into his brother’s form through the blankets. “Donnie!? Wake up!” He tightened his grip as his heart climbed up into his throat, because oh my god, he was dead, he wasn’t waking up, and he didn’t know what to do, and he was about to start screaming for their dad--

“Wha--? Leo? What the fuck is-- The house had better be on fire--” Donnie slurred, his voice weighed down with sleep, and Leo kind of paused for a moment, stopping dead and staring at him.

All he could hear was his own heartbeat pounding wildly in his ears.

And then he sobbed, immediately throwing his arms around his twin and clinging desperately to him.

Donnie chirped in surprise, sort of floundering, his eyes wide as he stiffened.

“Leo? What’s going on? What’s wrong?” 

“I-- I thought you were dead--” Leo wept pitifully, burying his face against his shoulder.

“... Why would I be dead?”

“I-- I couldn’t see you breathing!!!”

“Leo, what the hell are you talking about? And why are you in my room?”

Leo hiccuped weakly, because, like, he didn’t actually have a good way to answer that? Hostage-Leo rattled the bars of their metaphorical mind cage and fucking wailed because oh my god, STOP, you are embarrassing yourself and being soooo fucking insane right now and it is NOT CUTE, get it together right this fucking instant!!!-- But actual, physical Leo did not have it together. Not in this instant or any of the following instances. He just wept and burrowed in closer to Donnie, hugging him as tight as he possibly could, and he knew he was probably pissing him off and he had just woken him up and he probably didn’t like this, but he had just--

He had been so fucking scared that he was dead.

He had been so scared that he was gone forever, and he’d never ever see him again.

Donnie sighed deeply, reluctantly wrapping an arm around Leo as he whimpered into his shoulder, giving him a few awkward pats on the back.

“You’re totally sleep deprived, aren’t you?”

“Y-yeahhhhhh…”

“Are you in a Loop?”

“Mm-hmm…”

“How many days has it been?”

“Foouuuurrrrrrrrr…”

“Jesus christ, Nardo.”

“I love y-youuuu…”

“Why didn’t you ask Dad for meds?”

“I don’t knowwww…!” Leo sobbed, because how the hell was he supposed to explain that, actually, he was too scared to do that because what if he somehow accidentally poisoned himself and died? That just seemed like wayyy too much to try to unpack at four in the morning, quite frankly.

“Oh my god. You’re so stupid…”

“Y-yeah…”

“And you’re totally losing it, I assume?”

“Mmm…”

“Okay,” Donnie sighed, patting Leo’s shoulders a few more times. “Come on. Get up.”

Leo whined loudly, tightening his grip in response and curling up closer to Donnie, all but koala-clinging to him while Donnie huffed a bit at the increased weight.

“Lee, come on--”

“Please lemme stay! I promise I, I won’t w-wake you up again--”

“You can stay, Nardo, but we’ve gotta go get meds first, okay?”

“Noooo…”

“Yessssss,” Donnie insisted, imitating his drawn-out, whiny tone, trying to pry his brother off of him. “Come on. You’re fucked up, so just let me fix you already, dum-dum. We’ve just gotta go downstairs and get your meds from Dad, alright?”

“I don’t wanna take meds…”

“Yes, you do, your brain is just operating at an even lower capacity than usual right now,” Donnie insisted, finally managing to worm his way out from under Leo and get up to his feet. Leo whimpered, a tiny bit of panic flaring up in his chest, attempting to chase after him and grab him back, but Donnie quickly danced out of the way, purposefully standing just out of arm’s reach.

“Come on. I’m going downstairs to get Dad. So if you wanna hang out and not be all by yourself, you’re gonna have to follow me,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest and fixing him with a hard stare.

Leo groaned softly, taking a moment, rubbing at his face with his hands and crying for just a tiny bit longer. He was feeling very miserable and frightened, as well as feeling very stupid for being so miserable and frightened. But even more than either of those, he just felt exhausted, and so very much did not want to have to get up or move or do anything else.

But even more than that-- he didn’t wanna be alone.

Finally, after several long moments, Leo gathered up just enough resolve to get to his feet, only wobbling a little bit as he did so. He reluctantly followed Donnie out into the hall, hanging onto their hand like a lifeline and sniffling softly. Honestly, he was being so brave about this. As soon as they approached the stairwell, however, he stopped short, digging his heels in with a whine and pulling back against the other.

Donnie sighed, his shoulders slumping with quiet exasperation.

“Leo, we’ve gotta go downstairs, remember?”

“Dee…”

“Leo.”

“I don’t wanna.”

Donnie quirked a brow.

“Okay, and?”

“I’m gonna fall down,” he hissed out, his voice absolutely drenched in worry, cracking the tiniest bit at the end. Much to his chagrin, he could feel himself tearing up again, but what if he did? He almost had coming up! What if he fell down and fractured his skull or something? Or even worse, what if he fell and took Donnie down with him, and fractured his skull? 

Donnie absolutely rolled his eyes at him.

“Leo, you’re not going to fall down. You are literally an award-winning acrobat. And I am also literally an award-winning acrobat. And I am holding your hand right now,” he said, shaking his arm as if to demonstrate. “And they’re stairs. I think that we can handle it with our powers combined. It is fine. You’re not gonna get hurt. I’m right here. Chill,” he pressed. “Are you ready?”

Leo wrinkled up his nose, hesitating. Donnie narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, look,” he huffed. “You can stay here if you want, but I have to go downstairs to get Dad so we can get your meds. So you can either wait up here, and I’ll be right back, or you can come down the stairs with me and we’ll go together. It’s your choice.”

Okay, fine. He’d brave the stairs. If he had to choose between risking the trip down or letting go of Donnie, who had literally just almost died, (... kinda,) then the stairs were definitely the lesser evil. 

Inhaling sharply and steeling himself, they started the trip downwards.

And would you believe it?

They were fine. 

He got a little overwhelmed and dizzy at a few places, but each time Donnie kept a hold on his arms, hanging onto him to make sure he stayed upright until it passed, and, hey, you know what? It turns out that he was, in fact, still fully capable of walking down stairs. Who knew? Hahaha…

Once they were on the ground floor, Donnie wasted no time in heading down the hall, towing Leo along by their connected hands into their dad’s room.

“Dad,” Donnie hissed softly, reaching over to try to shake him into consciousness. The poor man had been dozing quite peacefully up until now, and sort of twitched and snorted in his sleep slightly, mumbling to himself.

“I swear I’ve never been to Dallas…”

“Dad! Wake up!” Donnie pressed, a bit louder now, nudging him a few more times, until finally, their dad startled awake, his head jerking upwards as he blinked blearily.

“Hm…? Purple…? What’s… What’s wrong…?”

“Mom, I frew up,” Leo mumbled sleepily, extending his shoulders forward slightly to try to do the pose. Donnie whipped around to absolutely glare at him.

“Are you seriously quoting a fucking meme right now!?”

Leo giggled softly, maybe a bit hysterically, covering his face with his free hand and slumping against Donnie. His brother sighed loudly, rolling his eyes and scowling.

“Father, Leo needs his trazodone.”

Their dad was still clearly half-asleep, and it took him a second to process this, but to his credit he caught on fairly quickly, looking between the two and humming softly.

“Of course, of course…” he said, rolling over slightly in bed so he could begin shuffling through the drawers of his nightstand. Donnie, in the meantime, hoisted Leo off of himself, shoving him instead onto the bed.

“Sit.”

“You too!” Leo protested, and Donnie grumbled.

“Yes, okay, I’m also sitting. See me sitting?” He said, gesturing to himself with a flourish as he plopped down by his brother’s side, elbowing him a bit. “Here. Move over. Not, not there, there-- Stop it. If you fucking touch my face I’m going to fucking end you I swear to god--”

“Blue,” their father interrupted, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. Leo blearily turned to face him, blinking slowly, and his dad very carefully pressed a little white oval pill into his palm. “Here.”

Leo stared for a moment, processing. And then he picked the pill up in his fingers, examining it carefully.

One. There was one of them.

And he was pretty confident it was trazodone.

And there was just one. And it was 150mg. He was supposed to have 150mg. This should be… right. It should be okay. He was… 80% sure. He counted a few more times, just to be safe.

“It’s the right dose, Blue. It’s alright. I double-checked,” Dad assured, passing them over a glass of water from his bedside table as well. “I promise it’s okay.”

“You’re fine, Nardo,” Donnie mumbled, having already flopped down onto his stomach, curled up against his twin’s side. He reached over so he could rub Leo’s back. Or maybe kind of smack it. Flail his arm at it? “Dad won’t fuck it up or poison you. Please just take your meds.”

And Leo considered this for a second. And yeah, okay.

He supposed that checked out. 

He was still scared. But he took the pill anyway, tipping his head back to swallow it down.

“Thank you,” Dad said, resisting a yawn, plucking the water back from his hands to place out of harm’s way before patting his back a few times. “Come on. Lay down.”

Donnie muttered what might have been agreement, snuggling his way under the covers, his eyes already closed. Leo hummed softly in response, and then very slowly, carefully, eased his way down in bed beside the others.

He blinked up at the ceiling, shifting a bit to settle in, laying his head down against the pillow. Donnie adjusted the blankets around Leo, yanking them up over him, wriggling somewhat to force Leo to scootch over slightly so he could curl up against his side. And on his other side, Dad settled in as well, rolling over slightly so that he could wrap an arm around Leo.

And so Leo settled in, too. 

And he waited.

Waited to see if the drugs were gonna kick in properly and knock him out or not.

And it was kind of nice, at least, because he could feel both of them breathe like this.

He started doing that thing he tried to do sometimes, where he made a mental list of some random category in alphabetical order, because, in theory, it would help you get to sleep. He was doing comic book characters this time, rolling his tongue around in his mouth as he stared up at the ceiling.

Astro Boy. Batman. Catwoman. Daredevil. Eddie Brock. Fantastic Four. Ghost Rider. Hawkgirl.

He was surprised when, in his second rotation through the ABC’s, he heard Donnie very softly mumble.

“Are you asleep yet?”

Leo gaped for a moment.

“... You’re not?”

“No, dum-dum. I’m waiting for you,” Donnie whispered in response, and he heard his father very softly hum on the other side of him, drawing him in just a bit closer and giving him a gentle squeeze.

“... You don’t have to--”

“Shut up,” Donnie interrupted. “Are you doing the deep breathing thing?”

“... No, I’m doing the alphabet thing.”

“Okay. Keep going,” Donnie bade, nuzzling up against his shoulder slightly, and Leo couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah. Okay,” he whispered into the darkness of the room, laying his head back down again and settling in properly this time, sandwiched between the two.

“Oh. Also, I love you too. Let the record show that I said it back.”

Leo laughed a tiny bit.

He closed his eyes.

Iron Man. Jean Grey. Kitty Pryde. Lightspeed.

… Moon Knight… Nightcrawler…

…Obelix…

…

… Professor X…

…

… … …

[whoxeology]

⛧☾༺♰Restless♰༻☽⛧

WARNINGS: Mentions of past relationship with Luke, Spoilers for Ep 8 PJO, Angst, Cliffhanger, very much so not canonically accurate, not proofread

W.C: 0.7

A/N: I have not read the books only knowledge I have of PJO is from the movies, TV series, and multiple fics I have read. With that being said this is purely for fun. You are more than welcome to disagree and leave feedback.

A/N: I kinda fell out of my PJO phase after the last episode but I wrote like right after the last episode dropped and forgot to post it 🧍🏻......... its here now 🤗

Again. Again. Again. Again. You continue to hit the dummy over and over again. The wooden sword dug into your palm as it hit the stuffed mannequin. You had hoped that training would help take things off your mind but the events from last night played over and over in your head. It was like a broken record or a taunting little kid annoying and making you bubble with anger.

You weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to be with Annabeth watching Clarrissa. Annabeth had disappeared and you were left alone with the target. She had made a snarky comment about if you wanted to make friendship bracelets with her since you seem to be glued to her ass. She and you weren’t friends mainly because of how rude she was to Percy. Her comment made you realize that she wasn't Percy's friend and that meant that the prophecy couldn't have been about her. 

You had rushed to find Percy and Luke. You couldn’t believe your thoughts you didn't want to think that Luke, amazing boyfriend Luke, your Luke could be the traitor. You had hidden in the treeline just a few feet from Percy and Luke. Everything seemed to be okay which made your chest loosen up a bit. Then you heard it. 

“I didn’t think you’d give ’em to Grover to wear.” 

“How long have they been doing that? '' Percy’s voice pulled you from your mind. The loud clank of the sword could be heard as it made contact with the dummy. Actually, dummy would be an overstatement at this point. This was just a bag of straw on a pole with a face on it. A face that awfully resembled Luke's. The hitting got harder the pole holding the bag of straw was shaking with every hit. 

“Since this morning, they couldn't sleep and as soon as the curfew was over they got up and immediately came here” Annabeth spoke. You knew it was her. She's been periodically checking in on you since you got here. 

“Have they eaten or drunk anything at all? It's nearly 100 degrees out here” When was the last time you ate or drank anything. The subtle grumble in your stomach reminded you that it had in fact been a while. You ignored it fueled by anger the hunger faded. 

The once loose feeling tightened by a lot. Your chest felt as if you had been hit full force by a bull. Your hands shook as you reached for your sword. The sword Luke had gifted you. Tears spilled from your eyes leaving wet trails down your face and a salt ting on your lips. It was Luke all along. How could your Luke do this? Everything you thought you knew about him. Gone. 

“I am your friend.” 

The loud crack of your sword drew you from your thoughts. You had broken the wooden sword in half. The large blade splinted jaggedly down the middle. Tossing it aside you hastily pulled out your sword. The beautiful golden glimmer on the handle reminds you of Luke. You swung at the dummy and you swung hard. The harsh bangs were heard throughout the camp. 

“She’s going to end up breaking the poor dummy”  Percy tried to joke to ease the tension in the air. You didn’t acknowledge the joke still hitting the dummy as if it was Luke all over again. 

“Better the dummy than us” Annabeth muttered barely loud enough for you to hear. You swear Luke had said the exact same thing to you when you had pissed off Clarrissa. The memory of you and him laughing turned sour in your mind. A loud almost thunder-sounding crack echoed throughout the camp. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to look at the source. The source was you. You had hit the dummy so hard you had cracked it in half.  

You were panting hard. Sweat covered your entire body as your shirt stuck to your back uncomfortably and your bare thighs stuck together the shorts you wore in hopes of keeping you cool failing. Your fingertips were white from how hard you had been gripping your sword. The blood-red gems leave imprints on your palms. 

You were still thinking of last night. 

“Are you okay you don’t look so good?” You could hear his voice. It was fuzzy and spun around in your head. You turned to face him. To tell him you were fine. You spun around fast only to be met with two Percy Jacksons. 

“Huh?” was all you said as your sword slipped from your grasp and you fell to the side. Head hitting the land before it all went black. 

 “Percy, none of this was meant to betray you”