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iouinotes · 22 days

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Burning Love | Leo Valdez

pairing: Leo Valdez x aphrodite!reader

book: The Heros of Olympians (Percy Jackson Universe) by Rick Riordan

I DONT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS

warnings: suggestive themes (kissing), little bit of angst

summary: reader fell in love with the camps busiest, funniest (prettiest) demigod, that makes her heart beat faster (and tries not to burst into flames all the time). But she likes that about him too.

authors note: soo, I read Heros of Olympus and Leo was just pure comedy. His character was so charasmatic and funny, I really liked him. Of course, I needed to write for him, ENJOYYYY

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Of course I was doomed to fall in love with him. Letting my heart get broken in the process, because I am physically not able to dare myself to talk to him.

What else had I expected? As a daughter of Aphrodite, this was foreseen in my fate. Well, actually it should be the other way around. After all, the ongoing tradition for centuries of the Aphrodite cabin is to break a boy's heart, but in my case it is a little complicated.

I always thought love would be something pleasant, a feeling like butterflies flying around in your stomach and wearing stylish, rose-colored glasses, that makes everything he does seem perfect. Or maybe being in love would feel like watching a beautiful fire work.

The last part is sort of true- my love literally burns for him, just as sometimes his hair sparks, when red flames are dancing through the brown strands.

I remember one time very vividly, when he walked out of the forest, visibly happy, with his hands dirty and his clothes smeared with motor oil, a satisfied grin on his face. His eyes would lighten up, as soon as found someone to talk about his projects.

Leo Valdez is the embodiment of a loyal soul, combined with an incredible humor and a talent for fixing literally anything. And I silently wish sometimes, that he could mend my broken heart too.

He's not like the other guys in this camp who always need attention, act like they're the best, like they're above everyone. No, Leo may have his pride, but he knows what he can do and he knows when to ask for help. This is usually connected with a following joke or a charming grin.

When I look at him, I often wonder how he can be so unconsciously attractive.

It's just that when my eyes find him, I'm almost in another world. And there, only he exists.

It's like he can affect my heartbeat, confuse my thoughts, charge me with electricity and set my heart on fire. All with just a lame joke, a funny remark, a wink or one of his exaggerated smiles.

I don't dare talk to him, only watch his figure from a safe distance, in a crowd where my longing stares go unnoticed. In these moments, where I realise he doesn't even know me, my emotions feel so overwhelming, as if I am the one carrying the sky instead of Atlas.

I wish I had more control over myself, that my cheeks wouldn't blush every time he glanced my way. Because he does that every now and then. And I always stare at the floor in a matter of seconds, letting my hair fall in front of my face. After all, I can't like him that obvious.

Even though I was careful, my feelings were noticed by a few others, all from my cabin. Unfortunately Piper did too. In her opinion, I should just walk up to him, bat my eyelashes and start smiling. She´s convinced, that if I would just talk to him, he would like me.

But that's the problem. If he only liked me, I couldn't handle that. If I actually became friends with him and he wouldnt fall in love with me, then I could be close to him. I mean, not in the way I want it. Like holding his hand, styling his burning hair, kissing him, watching him build something. And being crazy and proud about it afterwards, showing it off with an excited look in his eyes. Wanting appreciation for his work.

I would gladly fulfill his every wish, if he asked.

But it would be terrible having to pretend not to be completely in love with him, at least if I had to let him believe that. Maybe it's actually better if I keep my distance and he never finds out about my crush. Maybe, I would start to believe it too.

All the thoughts make my head ache and I open my eyes to concentrate on something else.

The sun shines on my skin, the waves hit the beach loudly, the straps of my green bikini top hang loosely over my shoulder. I braid a few small braids into my hair, two in the front and one in the back, where my sister helped me. I still leave my hair down so that it tickles my shoulder, I find to like it more that way.

I brush the sand off my shorts and slowly stand up, stretching my muscles and feeling a light breeze on my skin. The summer months are always the most beautiful, such as the holidays are always the quietest time. The camp is emptier than usual, many campers are spending the holidays with their families. Of course with their mortal family, the gods are not very generous when it comes to holiday visits. Nevertheless, the idea of staying on Mount Olympus for two weeks is ridiculous anyway.

Still, there are a few people left behind, including me. My father died a few years ago, and our family is so scattered around the world, so I have no close contact with them. I wouldn't want to put anyone in danger anyway. It's always sad to hear how happy the others are going home, even though I'm happy for them. But for me, Camp Half Blood is my home.

For my benefit, it is the same for Leo. I don't know much about his past, but he doesn't have a parent to visit either. But he claims, that he has more time now to work on his project, something that needs to be finished until the summer solistice arrives.

The path to the camp leads through the forest, always a bit of a nuisance with all the branches and angry nymphs that sometimes insult you. Just because you accidentally stepped on a root or sang too loudly.

Anyway, I just whistle quietly to myself, after all I'm not keen on arguing today and I'm just looking around lost in my thoughts. And because I have nothing to do, I stroll along a few other paths and explore the forest, looking up to the sky and watching the birds. It's quiet and peaceful, it feels beautiful.

Several minutes must have passed because the sun is getting closer to the horizon and the air cools down. I put on the jacket that hangs around my waist, leaving it open and continue to show my skin. When I choose another path, I suddenly see a clearing infront of me.

The next thing I know, I almost have a heart attack. In front of me lays a huge ship with a dragon's head attached to the front. I feel like I almost want to run away, but then I remember something. I know this dragon. It is Leo's metallic friend Festus, who was destroyed on their first quest. I know, because I remember the devastated look on his face, when he talked about it.

Okay, I think to myself. Two options, I go back to camp and forget I was here. Or I'll go in and have a look around. Would that be an invasion of his privacy? But if I would meet him there, we could share a moment. Like in these romance books I read about.

I think for a moment, but being curious was always a bad habit of mine. My legs move in the direction of the ship, it takes me a few minutes to find the entrance, but I manage. When I'm inside I'm amazed, my eyes seem to can't see enough. There are banners with funny inscriptions, maps full of plans, forgotten tools, furniture and weapons hanging everywhere. It's such a mess that it clearly has Leo's handwriting on it.

My fingers run over the open books, I read a few sentences and try to understand the technical language. Maybe he'll like me if I could actually understand his interests. But after just two pages it's hard to remember which button is for which function or which metal is the strongest. I could try to get the same copy, but when I try to read the title, the cover is torn and illegible. And not because of my dyslexia.

I'm so absorbed in my surroundings that I don't hear the footsteps coming. And then I almost have a heart attack for the second time, only this time from someone I'm used for it to happen.

"If I had known I would have visitors today, I would have cleaned." At his voice I freeze. I remind myself to breathe. I slowly turn around, my eyes immediately finding his face, a grin graces his lips, his hair is sweaty and when I lower my gaze, I notice that he is only wearing an apron. Which means, he is shirtless underneath.

Does he want to kill me?

Before I can say anything, he speaks again. Sweet like always.

"I think I know you. You're one of Piper's siblings. She's not here if you're looking for her?" His eyes look apologetically in my direction and I feel my heart beating in my chest. I've never spoken to him. Would now be the right time to ask the gods for help?

"No I- I'm not looking for her." I see his eyebrows raise in question.

"No? Then what gives me the honor?" As he takes a few steps towards me, I almost lose myself in his eyes. Brown and warm, as if a fire of its own glowed within them.

I feel the table at my back and say the first thing that comes to mind.

"The- uh, books." Crap. What should I do now?

"The books here? What do you need them for?" It feels like the temperature is rising, but I don't know if it's me or him. I mean, he's the one who can conjure fire with his bare hands.

"I like to read and thought it would be good to learn something about...metal?" That's probably the stupidest thing I've ever said and I can feel my cheeks turn red again.

"Oh well, luckily I can help you with that. Although I don't read the books for my enjoyment, they are quite useful. Are you looking for specific bands?" He is now standing next to me, looking at me from between the books that are laying on the table.

"No...not really. I thought I might ask you? After all, you are an expert." He seems to like the compliment, because his eyes light up and he winks at me.

"To be honest, I think it's better to learn something from practice. But I can show you some of the books later. Do you want to see what I'm currently working on? I won't light anything on fire in your presence, promise."

His comment makes me laugh and I feel myself relax, I nod and try to mentally prepare myself not to show my admiration for him too much.

He goes ahead and explains some of the functions of his ship - the Argo II. Seeing how proud he is and how he glows with an aura of joy make me never want to let me take my eyes off him.

He's so charismatic and I almost laugh at every word that comes out of his mouth. I feel so comfortable around him. And I didn't think it was possible, but actually talking to him, just made me fall in love with him even more.

He shows me his collection of tools, his magic table, the functions of the different rooms and finally his belt. Which allows him to create almost any tool he wants. It is fascinating, all of it. Him.

"It was just left behind, when I found it here. Whoever left it must have been crazy and I mean crazier than me." We stand facing each other and I smile at him. He looks at me too and I'm weak for just a moment. It's only for a second, when my eyes linger on his lips.

“Did you really come here for the books?" My eyes slowly find his and I shake my head.

"Then why?" We're so close, I can see every birthmark and every stray strand of hair on his forehead.

"I just-" our faces are so close, as if something is pulling us together. I feel his breathing, the heat radiating from him, my heart is beating as fast as if it couldn't keep up.

"-think I'm in love with you, Valdez and I will probably burst in flames, if I would kiss you now. But- thats just a side effect. Can-can I kiss you?" I notice, the tips of his hair bursting into flames.

"You wouldn't even need to charmspeak me to convince me, beautiful."

When I kissed him, the irony of our world hit me, because this time I was the one who felt like I was on fire.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #heros of olympus #leo valdez #x reader #fanfic #in love #love #funny #camp half blood #demi god

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s-b-party · 6 months

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Lepus: Amber and the Hare

****Possible spoilers ahead!!!

It is finally time for me to talk about the famous Outrider & Gliding Champion of Mondstadt, Amber! I’ll be honest, I never really thought that I’d be doing a constellation analysis for her or even for other characters that I don’t really care much about but I decided that I will try to do constellation analyses for all of them EXCEPT for Aloy

To start off, Amber’s constellation is called Lepus, which means “hare”. Rabbits don’t generally use Lepus as part of their scientific name, but they are considered part of the Leporidae family, Leporidae meaning “those similar to Lepus” (thus meaning “those similar to the hare”). Although hares & rabbits look very similar, there are some differences between them: one of them is that hares are generally larger & faster than rabbits, they’re also not domesticated unlike rabbits

****There are times when the constellation’s names will be a bit from what we may expect (a good example that I’ve done already is Cyno’s constellation analysis; the animal we tend to associate w/ him is the jackal bc of Anubis but his constellation [even in CN translation] literally translates to “golden wolf” which is an actual animal but it is not the same as the jackal); I usually try to stay consistent to what the constellations translate in both EN & CN unless I can’t make a good case for it for some reason (the hare & rabbit are very similar so there is bound to be a lot of interchanging between the terms across different languages; in CN, it translates to “Little Rabbit Constellation” but it should be noted that the CN character used for “rabbit” doesn’t really make a distinction between rabbits & hares, it’s used to refer to all leporids, so the translation itself could very well be referring to a young hare as well)

TLDR: a note about technicalities on translations of constellations & translations being different from each other (I’m going to try my best to stick to “hare” as opposed to “rabbit” in this thread mostly bc their speed & wildness are more in line with Amber’s lore, just remember that hares≠rabbits ^_^)****

When we look at Amber, you can tell that her character design is meant to look like a hare, especially w/ her headband representing the ears & having the same design in her constellation; she’s also agile as it is part of her job as an Outrider, which is essentially a scout

To emphasize her agility, our first meeting with her was when she was running & jumped out from the forest we were walking in; in addition, she is the gliding champion of Mondstadt as well, which speaks to her skill in controlling her glider while maintaining speed in the air

Aside from the obvious connection to swiftness, hares are symbols for a number of concepts, some of which we might not necessarily think are related to them while others can be more easily connected

They are related to fertility/abundance, innocence, the moon (nocturnal creatures), good luck, spring, love (usually associated w/ romantic love, having connections to Venus/Aphrodite), resurrection & rebirth (in line w/ spring when flowers grow after winter), wisdom/knowledge, mischief (fun fact: hares could sometimes be the familiars of witches before black cats became more associated with witches)

Some of these concepts can be found sprinkled throughout Amber’s lore; the ones that I find prevalent are mischief, wisdom/knowledge, rebirth, and the moon

It turns out that Amber was quite the troublemaker when she was younger & it was usually her grandfather, the senior/leading Outrider, who had to clean up after her messes; looking at her now in the game, we see that she doesn’t seem like someone who would cause trouble for others

As someone who tries her best to help/guide others, she has her own sense of wisdom which wasn’t present in her childhood; she has been a mentor to Collei mostly

The Windblume’s Breath event with Collei can speak to this wisdom

There is a point where she, Eula, and Klee see Collei & Sucrose interacting w/ each other; Klee wants to join in but Amber stops her bc she understands that Collei still struggles interacting w/ others & what she needs at the moment is someone who can relate to her like Sucrose before she can go on to interacting with more extroverted people including Amber herself

Now w/ the concept of rebirth, this is shown more so figuratively when the Outriders group started to deteriorate due to her grandfather no longer being there; at some point, it was just her alone

We can see a bit of transformation happening for Amber, going from a mischievous child to a mature & helpful Outrider in her Character Story; it almost feels strange to think of her as a former troublemaker when she has helped a lot in Mondstadt

Now the moon is an interesting aspect to consider when we look at how it fits into the overall world building; aside from the fact that Amber calls Mondstadt (Moon City in German) her home, rabbits and hares are often times associated w/ the moon due to them being usually nocturnal but what stands out to me is that she is the first person with a Vision we meet & she hails from the first nation that we visit which has connections to the moon; I think that although she might not have strong ties to the moon itself, she does help to establish the importance of the moon in the world of Teyvat with her intro to Mondstadt

I know we like to joke at times that Mondstadt may be the favorite child of HYV but I think there’s something to be said about how Mondstadt helped to establish much of the lore for many of us especially with Istaroth & the Moon Sisters presented to us early on; there’s also the duo of time & wind being established as important concepts by Mondstadt as well

So if anything, Amber’s connection to the moon seems more as a driver of the game’s starting lore rather than as a symbol to her own lore

Maybe the answer of the truth points to Mondstadt after all 👀

****This was supposed to be out in March.....for Easter.....because you know......rabbits and hares.....RIP to this thread and a few others which have been sitting in my drafts for a long time T^T

#genshin impact #genshin spoilers #genshin lore #genshin constellations #genshin amber

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twoidiotwriters1 · 8 months

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Daughter of Olympus (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: Does Ara deserve all the shit she's going through? Maybe. I am not allowed to share that info yet -Danny Words: 3,586 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Listen to: 'All a Dream' -by Vacation Manor

IV. I'm Straight-Up Not Having a Good Time

"Hold it!" Annabeth says. "How can he be the son of Zeus? The Big Three... their pact not to have mortal kids... how could we not have known about him sooner?"

Ara scoffs. "I'm not even surprised."

"The important thing," Rachel intervenes, "is that Jason's here now. He has a quest to fulfill, which means he will need his own prophecy."

Someone brings a stool and helps her sit. A green, familiar mist surrounds Rachel's body. "Child of lightning, beware the earth," she starts in her oracle voice. "The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage."

"Is that normal?" Piper blurts out. "I mean... does she spew green smoke a lot?"

"Gods, you're dense!" Drew rolls her eyes. "She just issued a prophecy—Jason's prophecy to save Hera! Why don't you just—"

"Drew," Annabeth stops her. "Piper asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely isn't normal. If breaking Hera's cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of death... why would we free her? It might be a trap, or—or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She's never been kind to heroes."

"That's not true," Ara tries to be the voice of reason. "Prophecies are misleading, it could be talking about a god—"

"You mean Hades?"

"Maybe, or some other minor god. We have to be careful, you know what happens when we take a prophecy too literally."

Jason stands up. "Hera took my memory. I need it back. Besides, we can't just not help the queen of the heavens if she's in trouble."

Nyssa stands up. "Maybe. But you should listen to Annabeth. Hera can be vengeful. She threw her own son—our dad—down a mountain just because he was ugly."

"Real ugly," an Aphrodite kid mutters.

"Shut up! Anyway, we've also got to think—why beware the earth? And what's the giants' revenge? What are we dealing with here that's powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?"

Behind Ara, Annabeth and Chiron have a silent conversation. Ara's seen that too many times, and right now she doesn't want to, she wants to get things done.

"It's Jason's quest," Annabeth sighs, "so it's Jason's choice. Obviously, he's the child of lightning. According to tradition, he may choose his companions... but our Strategus must greenlight the whole thing. Ara?"

The girl rolls her eyes. "Like I would say no to saving the queen of Olympus! I allow Jason to take this quest, and I'm going with him."

Someone else adds: "Well, obviously you too, Annabeth. You've got the most experience."

"No, Travis," Annabeth makes a face. "First off, I'm not helping Hera. Every time I've tried, she's deceived me, or it's come back to bite me later. Forget it. No way. Secondly, I'm leaving first thing in the morning to find Percy."

The girl looks at Ara with a hint of annoyance mixed with pity. She's upset Ara can't help, the gods are her priority whether she likes it or not, but at the same time... Ara chose that.

"It's connected," Piper insists. "You know that's true, don't you? This whole business, your boyfriend's disappearance—it's all connected."

"How?" Drew scoffs. "If you're so smart, how?"

"You're mouthy today," Ara replies moodily. "If the big prophecy's happening, who do you think will be a part of it? Surely not the boy from the last one, that's too obvious!"

Annabeth forces herself to move on from that. "You may be right, Piper. If this is connected, I'll find out from the other end—by searching for Percy. As I said, I'm not about to rush off to rescue Hera, even if her disappearance sets the rest of the Olympians fighting again. But there's another reason I can't go. The prophecy says otherwise."

"It says who I pick," Jason nods. "The forge and dove shall break the cage. The forge is the symbol of Vul—Hephaestus."

Nyssa looks uncomfortable but tries to be polite. "If you have to beware the earth, you should avoid traveling overland. You'll need air transport. The flying chariot's broken, and the pegasi, we're using them to search for Percy. But maybe Hephaestus Cabin can help figure out something else to help. With Jake incapacitated, I'm senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest..."

Leo stands up. "It's me."

Ara doesn't think this is selfless, there was something in the way he looked at Hera before, he's hiding something. Leo's siblings try to pull him back to his seat, but he pushes them away. "No, it's me. I know it is. I've got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try—I can fix this!"

"We started this together, Leo," Jason smiles a little. "Seems only right you come along. You find us a ride, you're in." To Ara's surprise, he looks at her waiting for approval. "That okay?"

"It's the right call," she agrees.

"Yes!" Leo raises a fist to the sky.

"It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warns him. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive."

"Oh," he stops, then studies the place and smiles again. "I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this."

Ara chuckles. It's not at all like her real laughter, but it's enough to catch his attention. Ara locks eyes with Leo and sees his face brightening at her reaction.

"Then, Jason," Annabeth continues, unaware of this exchange. "You only need to choose the fourth quest member. The dove—"

"Oh, absolutely!" Drew stands. "The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I am totally yours."

"Wait, Annabeth," Ara steps forward. "I'm a daughter of Aphrodite—"

"No," she gives her a look. "You were."

"That doesn't mean I'm not the dove!"

"I don't see why the oracle would call you that."

Piper stands up. "I don't think it's about you, Ara."

"Oh, please, Dumpster girl," Drew frowns. "Back off."

"I had the vision of Hera; not you. I have to do this."

"Anyone can have a vision. You were just at the right place at the right time. Isn't that right, Ara?" She mocks. "Look, fighting is all fine, I suppose, and people who build things... Well, I suppose someone has to get their hands dirty. But you need charm on your side. I can be very persuasive. I could help a lot."

"I have as much charm as you," Ara argues. "And I'm better at it too."

"Really? 'Cause it hasn't been that way for—"

"I don't like manipulating people when they're vulnerable—"

Annabeth stops them again. "Given the wording of the prophecy, Ara, Jason needs another Aphrodite. If Drew wants to..."

"No!" Piper raises her voice, it changes and echoes. "I'm supposed to go."

"Get over it!" Drew hisses. "What can Piper do? She's not from our cabin!"

Ara's smile is hard to hide as she notices the glow surrounding Piper. "Lady Aphrodite disagrees."

Piper sees herself wearing a different set of clothes than the ones she was wearing a second ago: A silky gown, a necklace, and armbands make a nice contrast against her skin. Her hair is no longer chopped off irregularly. "Oh, god... What's happened?"

"Beautiful," Jason breathes. "Piper, you... you're a knockout."

"Smooth," Ara whispers next to him.

"No!" Drew whines. "Not possible!"

"This isn't me," Piper objects. "I... I don't understand."

"It's not meant to be you," Ara explains. "It's your mother."

"Hail, Piper McLean," Chiron kneels. "Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love."

Ara doesn't know whether to walk away or go to Piper, but then Jason moves first, so she goes back to the Big House. Lily Saggio is waiting for her on the porch.

"Busy day?"

"And I still have to get you a birthday present," she gives her a tired smile. "What is it, Lils?"

The black-haired girl looks at her worryingly. "You're going?"

"That was the whole point of this, remember?"

"But if Annabeth leaves too, we'll have no leader. You're supposed to be our protector—"

"I'm protecting camp by going on this quest," Ara raises a brow. "If Hera doesn't show up by solstice time..." she pauses, Lily wasn't around when Zeus's lightning was stolen. "It'll be like when Annabeth and Artemis went missing."

Her friend sighs. "As your second in command, I say you should think twice before leaving."

"Saggio, take a look at the group that's been chosen," Ara says in a serious tone. "Jason doesn't know who he is, and the other two have zero training. I gotta protect them as much as I gotta protect camp, if not more."

Her friend understands, but she isn't pleased. Lily is rarely pleased. "You know, it feels like all you do is say no to me nowadays."

"Well, if you didn't suggest I quit every time we talk, I wouldn't do so," she teases her.

"I'm asking you to set your priorities straight," Lily states, seemingly not amused. "What about Percy?"

"Percy loves this camp, he was once willing to die for us."

"And now his sister is too," the girl scowls. "Mike knew how to talk you out of stuff..."

The name sends a powerful detonation of pain through her and she has to take a moment before speaking. Ara shakes her head and pats Lily's shoulder as she walks past. "G'night, piccola."

As she makes her way into the house and up to her room, Michael's ghost haunts her. Ara's not even capable of saying his name out loud, and when others do, she has a hard time keeping it together.

She likes to imagine him in the islands... but he's probably chosen rebirth, 'cause that's the kind of obstinate jerk he always was. They never got to see him one last time, not even Lily during all those weeks she helped Hades in the Underworld.

I look at the Isles of the Blest—three lives experienced at their fullest—and I have a pleasant tug on the pit of my stomach.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth says dreamily. "That's the place for heroes."

"I wish I could go..."

"It's not too late," she nudges my side. "You can be a hero one day, you're still young."

"Three times in a row? Unlikely," I grimace. "Make sure to wave when I walk past your huge mansion once I die?"

Annabeth frowns. "What makes you think I'll die first?"

"I'm not saying you'll die tomorrow," I argue. "But I am younger."

"Only by two years!"

"Whatever," I tease her. "Is there a shortcut to the Isles? Like if you die during a less busy time of the year you get a free pass?"

She laughs. "Don't think so."

"There is," Grover informs us. "The children of Olympus got a direct pass."

"So that's a no-go too," Annabeth dismisses it. "One of them didn't even die, did he? He became a God."

"It was a different time, being a hero meant something. Now is just a term," Grover shrugs. "The Gods won't give that title now, but Ara asked if there was a shortcut, and that's it."

Percy calls after us and my friends walk away without another glance at the Isles. I look over my shoulder, wishing I could get in. No need to suffer a tough childhood again...

The next morning, Ara takes the aviator jacket, maybe she shouldn't, but Nico had it coming (he fell asleep in her bed once and refused to leave, he kicked her in his sleep the whole night).

She visits cabin ten, feeling weird about going there as a guest. A little girl rushes past holding a bunch of clothes, all of her siblings are cleaning but Drew is nowhere to be found. Piper's talking to Mitchell and Lacy.

Ara knocks on the doorframe. "Is this a bad time?"

The kids beam at her, they're the only ones in camp who don't salute her because they keep forgetting they're supposed to. When Drew is around, they can't show how much they like her, though. One of her brothers hugs her and complains, wishing she were still around. Ara hasn't slept in this cabin since the war ended.

"I wanted to give you a proper welcome, knowing Drew would give you the lousiest," she jokes once her siblings go away. "How're you holding up?"

"Are you really an Aphrodite?" Piper questions right away. Ara's not very Aphrodite-looking at the moment, with her scowling and the cold-blooded way she talks. That, without mentioning the worn-out clothes and dirty shoes.

"This place didn't always look like this," she leans against the bunk bed. "The old counselor was a neat freak, but she didn't like things to look so... dolly."

Piper gives her a longing smile. "I have the feeling you're the only one who can control Drew, it's a bummer you moved out."

Ara raises a brow. "Drew's charmspeak did a number on me too. I have Mom's blessing now, that's all, but it's not my place to stop her," her eyes go back to Lacy and the pile of clothes. "Is that for her?"

Lacy smiles big, she turns to Piper. "You can change clothes. The blessing won't stop you. This is just, you know, a backpack, some rations, ambrosia and nectar for emergencies, some jeans, a few extra shirts, and a warm jacket. The boots might be a little snug. But—well—we took up a collection. Good luck on your quest!"

Lacy drops everything on the bed and tries to leave, but Piper stops her. "Hold on. At least let me thank you! Why are you rushing off? "

The girl blushes. "Oh, well..."

"Drew might find out," Mitchell explains.

"I might have to wear the shoes of shame!" Lacy gulps.

"The what?"

Lacy and Mitchell point to a pair of orthopedic nurse's shoes at the back of the room, Ara doesn't think they're awful, but she's always been about comfort. Her siblings, however... "I had to wear them for a week once," Lacy cries. "They don't go with anything!"

"And there're worse punishments," Mitchell continues like it's a horror story. "Drew can charmspeak, see? Not many Aphrodite kids have that power; but if she tries hard enough, she can get you to do some pretty embarrassing things. Piper, you're the first person beside Ara that is able to resist her."

"That's because she has it too," Ara says casually.

"Charmspeak ..." Piper raises a brow. "You mean, like, you could talk someone into doing things. Or... giving you things. Like a car?"

"Oh, don't give Drew any ideas!" Lacy's eyes widen in horror.

"But yeah, she could do that," Mitchell says miserably.

"So that's why she's head counselor," Piper guesses. "She convinced you all?"

Mitchell glances at Ara. "She inherited the post when Silena Beauregard died in the war. It was Ara's right to get it, but she's no longer an Aphrodite. Drew was next in line. The oldest camper automatically gets the post, unless somebody with more years or more completed quests wants to challenge, in which case there's a duel, but that hardly ever happens. Anyway, we've been stuck with Drew in charge since August. She decided to make some, ah, changes in the way the cabin is run."

"Yes, I did!" Drew shows up suddenly. "I think you missed some trash, sweetie. You'd better make another pass."

Piper and Ara look toward the bathroom, a trashcan was turned over and all of the gross contents are on the floor. Mitchell flushes with anger. "Fine."

The boy tries to walk but Ara stops him. "You're not doing that."

Drew's face flushes. "This is not your cabin anymore!"

"He's part of my army, just like you are. If I tell you to pick up the trash, you do it. Any problem with that?"

The girl looks like she wants to murder Ara, but she smiles in the end. "Of course not!" Drew looks at their newest sister. "See, Piper, hon, we're a good cabin here nowadays. A good family! Silena Beauregard, though... you could take a warning from her. She was secretly passing information to Kronos in the Titan War, helping the enemy."

"Shut up!" Ara steps forward to choke her, but Mitchell gets in the way.

"Oh, none of the other cabins talk about it," Drew continues, checking her nails. "They act like Silena Beauregard was a hero."

"She sacrificed her life to make things right," Mitchell huffs, struggling to keep Ara away. "She was a hero."

"Mmm-hmm," Drew looks up. "Another day on garbage patrol, Mitchell. But anyways, Silena lost track of what this cabin is about. We match up cute couples at camp! Then we break them apart and start over! It's the best fun ever. We don't have any business getting involved in other stuff like wars and quests. I certainly haven't been on any quests. They're a waste of time! If Mom gives birth to a couple of mistakes... Probably the fault of the mortals she mingled with..."

Three boys are now keeping Ara from massacring Drew. Lacy speaks quietly. "But last night you said you wanted to go on a—"

"Most of all," Drew raises her voice, "we certainly don't need our image tarnished by spies, do we, Piper? We're disgraced enough thanks to Ara, you don't want to be like her and dear of Silena."

Ara knows she shouldn't listen, that she's above it, but she does not feel above it. When she taunts her, Ara turns into the thirteen-year-old she was when Drew decided to start bullying her.

"...if you survive your little quest, don't worry, I'll find somebody to match up with you. Maybe one of those gross Hephaestus guys," the boys start to drag Ara out of the cabin. "Or Clovis? He's pretty repulsive. Honestly, I didn't think it was possible for Aphrodite to have an ugly child, but... who was your father? Was he some sort of mutant, or—"

"Tristan McLean," Piper snaps. The boys let go of Ara so abruptly that she falls, almost landing on her face. "My dad's Tristan McLean."

"Oh my god!" Several campers gasp. Ara sits up confused by the change in the room, she has no idea who that guy is. "Sweet! The dude with the sword who killed that other dude in that movie?" One of her brothers asks.

"He is so hot for an old guy," one of her sisters adds. "I mean I'm sorry. I know he's your dad. That's so weird!"

"It's weird, all right," Piper looks totally uncomfortable.

"Do you think you could get me his autograph?"

"Yeah, no problem," she smiles tensely.

"Have you had your rite of passage?"

"Rite of what?"

"The rite of passage for an Aphrodite child. You get someone to fall in love with you. Then you break their heart. Dump them. Once you do that, you've proven yourself worthy of Aphrodite."

"Break someone's heart on purpose? That's terrible!"

"Silena wasn't a fan of it either..." Ara gets up and dusts off her clothes.

"Silena wasn't a good role model, though, was she?" Drew asks.

Ara tries to seize her, but her siblings get in the way once more.

"Oh my god!" A girl squeals. "I bet Aphrodite broke your dad's heart! I bet he never loved anyone again, did he? That's so romantic! When you have your rite of passage, you can be just like Mom!"

"That's bullshit!" Ara shouts from the back.

"Forget it! I'm not breaking somebody's heart just for a stupid rite of passage!"

"Well, there you go!" Drews says in delight. "Silena and Ara said the same thing! They broke the tradition—Silena fell in love with that Beckendorf boy and stayed in love. Ara rejects love and that's why things have gone so horribly!"

"That's not true!" Lacy squeaks, but one harsh look from Drew is enough to silence her.

"You know nothing about me!" Ara says in anger.

"Hardly matters," Drew insists. "Because, Piper, hon, you couldn't break anyone's heart anyway. And this nonsense about your dad being Tristan McLean—that's so begging for attention."

"You mean he's not her dad?" A confused kid asks.

"Please," Drew rolls her eyes. "Now, it's time for breakfast, people, and Piper here has to start that little quest. So let's get her packed and get her out of here! Is that okay, Strategus?"

Fighting would get Ara punished for longer than the bruises or shame would stay on Drew's body. "You're dismissed," she says, her voice harsh but defeated.

She glances at Piper as if apologizing and moves her brothers away from her so she can walk out with a bit of dignity. As she turns around, Ara hastily dries her tears.

She would give anything to talk to Percy right now.

"What are you daydreaming about?"

Now, while looking at the fireworks, I have the feeling I'm looking in the right direction. "Tomorrow's my birthday."

"Really?" Percy frowns. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I shrug. "I'm telling you now. Silena always makes sure I have a fun day, and so does Annabeth... Clarisse remembers too. Anyway, that's not why I'm telling you." Percy stares at me waiting. I like that he listens, even when I have nothing worth saying. "I never ask for things, but I think this year I'll ask."

Percy grins. "Gee, I wonder..."

"I want to work in the forges."

"Mhm... are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Percy!"

"I have reasons!" He disputes. "You break more than you fix!"

"I could fix if I knew how!" I respond. "I could make me a sword, traps, and then on our next quest—"

"Won't be another one," Percy replies in alarm.

"If there is one," I correct myself. "I don't want to stand behind you while you risk your lives. I have to learn... and you said it before, how can I be good at something if I don't practice?"

Before, I was content watching others do the hard work. I still am, but I've never tried the forges. Who knows? Maybe I'll be good at it if I practice hard enough.

"Alright," Percy sighs in defeat. "You wanna do it, then do it. If it turns out you're good at it, you'll make me a cool armor, right?"

"I'll make it bright blue," I smirk.

"Now we're talking!" He smiles and ruffles my hair.

Next Chapter ->

Taglist.

@siriuslysirius1107 @ask-giggles1303 @ash-the-hoarder @im-planning-something-look @bandshirts-andbooks @coolninjapaper @thewaterlily @whenisthefall @1randomcomic @you-bloody-shank @sunflowergraves @owlalex44 @taylordaughter @typicalsolangelolover @writingmia @espressopatronum454 @slytherinnqueen

#twoidiots writing #pjo fanfic #pjo hoo toa #pjo fandom #percy jackon and the olympians #leo valdez x oc #leo valdez fanfic #heroes of olympus #doo

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seraandthebees · 1 year

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OC question (not really a question but whatever): pick a work written in classical Greek or Latin to recommend to each of your OCs! What would they enjoy reading or which works would include valuable information for them?

Ohhh this is a good one!! Thanks Vanamo!! You know me well so you’re not gonna be surprised when this is a long answer 😅

I think Herah would really love the poetry of Sappho. I know this is kind of an obvious choice but I think the personal nature of lyric poetry would suit her well. The sense of community and the performance context are things I think would remind her of her Tal Vashoth community. I’ll probably do a post on this at some point but, since it’s relevant here, I think that the Vashoth probably have an oral tradition given that that’s an important part of almost all communities ever. It’s a way for members of a community to connect to one another over common stories/experiences, a way to impose a moral code, and to define how we ought to treat each other and what happens when that goes wrong. Connecting with those ideas and exploring how another culture is similar/different to her own would be really rewarding for Herah.

Also hearing Sappho communicate directly with Aphrodite, reading her symptoms of love, listening her play into existing myth and look at it in new ways would be really appealing to Herah. The differences in language and metre would also give her the opportunity to get stuck in and do the kind of close analysis that she loves so much. She’d really be able to dig her teeth into it and see all the nuances of word order and emphasis, and admire how compact and economical these poems are.

I know this is cheating but I just wanna add that I think Herah would really love to read some Athenian comedy with Sera. They’d have so much fun with the Cyclops with all its sex jokes and taking the absolute piss out of Odysseus as this self-important war hero whose fame means nothing without a social framework in which to operate.

After much debate, I think I’d recommend to Naerselle the Iliad. She’d really like the close descriptions of battle (I almost said Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars for that reason) but I think she’d really understand the sorrow of Achilles, his attempt to defy destiny, how his action (or inaction) hurt a lot of people, but in time he realises just how much that cost him on a personal level. Not only that though, I think she’d also relate to Hector at times, not because of his nobility (in the moral sense) but because of how alone he is at times even when he has such an extensive family. She and her own family are mostly at odds and I think she sees something of them in Paris making her by extension a Hector-like figure.

Given that she’s Andrastian (probably my OC with the strongest sense of faith), I think she’d enjoy how present the gods are in this text, even if they are perhaps portrayed as ambiguous at times. Her faith doesn’t necessarily mean that she thinks that the Maker has a strong sense of right and wrong which he imposes upon the world. She sees it more as he has an overarching plan (like Zeus’ Βουλή in the proem) which may indeed require suffering along the way.

I know Senna would love historiography so I think I’d recommend Sallust’s War on Catiline or Jugurthine War. Sallust’s style is moralising and very self-conscious as his discussion of events often reveals either explicitly or implicitly where he himself lies politically. It’s also pretty important to him to justify why he’s taking the time to write history when he maybe should be dedicating time to politics. The position of being stuck between personal pursuit and political duty is something Senna could relate to, being at the centre of politics for as long as she can remember. Sallust, in my opinion, has this surface view of binary morality, but also his deeper ambiguity on whether we are right to accept the official narrative (particularly in the Catiline). I think that’d feel familiar to Senna, especially after her exile from Orzammar.

I also think it’d be helpful for her from a rhetorical and political point of view as seeing the shades of grey and how people might do bad things for good reasons or vice versa would give her perspective on how she herself should or could view the world around her. The end of the Catiline is particularly striking because all of the remaining supporters of the Catilinarian conspiracy fight valiantly and to the death — notably within no wounds to the back (ie they didn’t flee from battle). Seeing a political opposition be so sure that what they’re doing is right might make her question her own actions and think about how she’ll be remembered in history.

For Nesiril, I’m stuck between either Euripides’ Medea or Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. I think they’d like to see how gender roles can be pushed and even totally disregarded at times and she’d definitely take the reading of extreme support of the women in these plays in the face of the abominable actions of the men around them. Moreover, I think they’d see Jason and Agamemnon as parallels for the Templars in the Circle — controlling, power-hungry, and neglecting their duties or outright contradicting them.

I think she’d also see herself in Medea in particular from a gender point of view because there’s this scene in which Medea renounces her femininity and basically steps outside of the gender binary. Given that Nesiril is non-binary, I think she’d find this a really powerful moment and really gender affirming.

#answered asks #thanks for the ask!#dragon age #oc: herah adaar #oc: naerselle cadash #oc: senna aeducan #oc: nesiril surana #hannah talks classics

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percabethfeelsfandom · 4 years

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Godly Parents

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to figure out who their godly parents is/are purely based on the face value of how Percy sees them and what they’re known for. For example, people claiming they cannot possibly be a child of Athena because they’re not wise or not smart. That’s not how it works.

I have always said that I was a child of Athena, and I have the tests to back me up (even though I’m also very likely a child of Poseidon)

And I don’t say this because I’m trying to become Percy or because I related on such a deep level with Percy and Annabeth and their characters. But because Athena is the goddess of knowledge, I have never known a closer, more valuable friend than words on a page. Never been so at peace than I was in the quiet of the night, reading under the covers while I know distantly owls are just waking for the night. I know I’m a child of Athena because no other god values the history of our world, the literature of our world, and it’s importance. In Athena, and in Annabeth I saw grit, determination, and I saw how they valued words in a way that spoke to my soul. And I knew. Knew that I was looking into a mirror.

On the flip side. I can see my potential as a child of Poseidon. It’s not just my inner dream and goal to be a waterbender. But it’s the utter calm that washes over me when I’m at the beach, the water lapping at my feet. The breeze in my hair. The whisper of the waves telling me I’m home. It’s the freshness of stepping into a shower, and coming out of it feeling alive. The way my temper ebbs and eases with the tide, clouding over and storming when things don’t work out. The way it slows down, to barely a ripple when things do.

Children of Hades aren’t just emo children ‘going through a phase’, they are the shadows in the group, the constant presence, laughing in the background, always there when you need them, though it may not always be obvious. They are the constantly cold hands, even in the heat of the summer. Soft voices that can command armies should they decide to. The temper that runs in their blood is different to their uncles (Zeus and Poseidon), their temper simmers, slowly growing over time, tending to it like a cold flame. These are the children of the night, burning the midnight oil, working on passion projects. You know you’re a child of the god of the dead, when you find comfort in silence, but still need that time with the people you love, because family is still family.

Children of Zeus are the leaders struggling with the pressure of being leaders. They’re the ones people turn to when things go wrong, wanting to know what to do. But they’re just trying their best. And their best is enough. They are the smell just before it rains. They are charismatic personalities that turn heads in a room. Extroverted people who thrive in crowds and gain their own personal power in being around like-minded people. They’re strong and resilient, but flighty.

Children of Hermes, keep your eye on these kids. Because they’ll pass you if you blink. And I don’t necessarily mean just by their speed. Their minds are constantly working, running, sprinting. Rivalling even the genius children of Athena and Hephaestus, these children throw themselves into work, working on half a dozen passion projects, pouring their heart in soul into them. Master on none, but master of many, indeed, they are the future entrepreneurs, innovators and CEO’s of the world. Helping the world keep going round, with the cheeky smile of their father and the smart aleck comment to match. Quick hands that never stop fidgeting, and unfocused eyes which are already thinking of the next thing to learn. They have new hobbies each week, and never bore.

Artemis

There may not be any children of Artemis. But there are hunters. They are immortal beings with grace unattainable by mere mortals. They are liquid in physical bodies, moving with ease, notching an arrow, taking aim and watching it fly. Running across fields without a sound. Braids whipping in the wind, and hair coming loose to frame faces of women who are free. Like the children on Athena their time is the night, illuminated by the moon their patron goddess rules over. The hunters are queens and princesses in their own right with their regal movements and the knowledge they have from living for decades.

Apollo

Children of Apollo are the wheels that keep camp turning. They are constantly working in tandem with the Hermes kids, always lending a helping hand, catching you when you fall, healing you when you need it. They are melodic voices and harmonious laughter. The embodiment of light, reminding you, reminding us that this is why we have art, because art and music, and everything that Apollo represents is what makes life living. They are the ones that light up rooms, drawing eyes in a crowd. People pleasers, that thrive in crowds. Similar to children of zeus, which makes sense as they are family. They may not be leaders, but they do set trends. Like the hunters, Apollo’s children have immense skill with a bow and arrow, letting arrow after arrow fly with precision and ease.

Dionysus

Children of Dionysus are the party animals. The ones with all the connections. They’re the friend that everyone references when they say ‘I know a guy’. They are the ones you can always count on to have a good time. They make you laugh so hard that you cry, they’re the ones you call when you’re upset and just want to forget about reality for a night. But they’re more than that, they work close with the children of Demeter, tending to the strawberry fields, their powers responding to the touch of their fingertips. Like their father they are stubborn, their thoughts set in and hard to break like the vines that grapes grow on. But be wary for, no matter how easy-going they may seem, they sometimes don’t know limits and can influence others to descent into the same madness that only they can control.

Demeter

Children of Demeter are the steady roots of camp. Unable to be uprooted if they don’t agree with plans. Stubborn but their feelings well intentioned. They’re always there to lend a hand. With faces tanned from time in the sun, and noses burnt, they have kind smiles and hands rough with callouses that come with working hard. They’re the one’s who seem to always know where to find the best snacks, and sneak them in to you when you need it. Like all Olympians children of Demeter are proud, tending to their plants with utmost care, always secretly thinking that theirs are the best. They are the quiet listeners of camp, taking in all of the information before speaking, acting mediator when they decide.

Aphrodite

Children of Aphrodite are the ones you turn to when all hope is lost. Because when nothing is left, there will still always be love. Beauty is subjective, but the children of Aphrodite are the pioneers for body positivity, constantly advocating for self love all around camp telling people that they are beautiful and reminding them of their self worth. They are the children you roll your eyes at, not realising the power they have in words. The true mediators of camp, calming fights between the hot heads and the stubborn blood. With hair that always seems to change colour the next time you see them, children of Aphrodite remind you that they are in fact children of a goddess, and they’re not about to let you forget.

Ares

Children of Ares are warriors from the moment they are born, but they don’t have to be. In typical olympian fashion, they are stubborn, the most stubborn of the family. But they are also the ones you talk to when someone says something bad behind your back and you want to get back at them. They persevere, they always push back and they never give up. On the field they are the ones you look to for guidance, for they show no fear. They keep to themselves in camp, preferring to stay with their siblings to avoid the way that campers look at them. But you just need to approach them like you would a cat scared of new strangers. Because they do have a soft side, because all warriors need to rest sometimes.

Hephaestus

Children of Hephaestus are the faces behind the scenes. The welders of the weapons you wield. The people that shape the shields that protect you. They are the immovable force that remains steady no matter what. Their hands always fidget wanting- needing to be tinkering something. They tend to be warmer than most demigods, their bodies naturally also more fire resistant. Working in tandem with children of Athena, they are all about creating, because without them there is no camp. They look at a junkyard and see the greatest treasure known to humankind. Turning any trash into treasure. They are soft despite their exterior, meticulous with their creations, pouring all the love and care into them that their father never received from his family. There’s an awkward edge to them but despite that they remind kindhearted, and always happy to help.

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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

Text

More Hades thoughts:

Chaos just told me, "This space grows more interesting when you occupy a small amount of it." Chaos is, without doubt or exception, my favorite family member. They are so completely different and removed from everything and they still love us. In their own primordeal strange way that does not experience love in any mortal sense and yet still experiences emotions of good and yes and approval when Zagreus is near, when they can see what we're doing, when we come by to talk. I put their aspect on my shield. They are my stepmom's parent and that makes them my grandparent, sorry, no take-backs, you used to play hide-and-go-seek with Nyx when the universe was little, and you told me about it, and now I love you forever, kthxbye.

I continue to love the family relationships in this game entirely. We have seen more and more cracks between the Olympians, where they don't entirely like or trust each other even as they put on big smiles and talk about being a Big Happy Family Up Here, Come On Zag, What's Taking You So Long, Why Would Hades Ever Want To Leave This? (The dialogue for Zeus and Aphrodite's duo boon makes me cringe, it's perfect and also perfectly awful). The game does such a good job of being subtle about highlighting some of the issues within this family. Athena is the Reasonable One, who talks about how Nyx seems sensible in the same breath that she mentions how the Olympians don't have much to do with cthonic gods, of course, and also that underworld is simply wretched, let's get you up here where you belong--and okay, the underworld is wretched for Zagreus, but also, hey, I just put down new rugs and installed an oven in the lounge kitchen, it's not that bad, and not only has Nyx been endlessly kind to me, you are currently under the impression that she's my mother, so maybe don't give me that "you won't be judged for your parentage up here on Olympus" like she's something to be ashamed of, ok?

Speaking of relationships, I've finally met Thanatos, and, welp. First of all, he is great (his accessory gives me more attack if I don't take damage in a room! He doesn't want Zagreus to get hurt!!!). He is terse and full of Emotions that he pretends not to be experiencing. He is also, based on the way he said "you didn't even say goodbye" the first time I ran into him, very clearly Zagreus's actual, current boyfriend (unlike Meg who is very clearly his ex), who we didn't actually technically break up with before we started trying to escape Hades and get up to the surface, so that's Extremely Awkward. (Achilles called him our "closest friend". Why not just call him our "dear companion", Achilles, come on, and also yes I am still keeping an eye out for your boy, he's got to be in Elysium somewhere do I need to nectar you up to get you to spill details come on.) Like, you could make a case for platonic affection with a vast unplumbed reservoir of UST, I guess, but that is not the most obvious interpretation. (Also awkward: given the timing of everything, Zagreus probably last saw Than before the Persephone-discovery, which means that if they were in fact dating, then, welp. Congrats, Zag, you are definitely a Greek god. Thanatos and Hypnos's dad is canonically Nyx's brother in the first place, it's probably fine. Do love that dialogue line they decided they had to put in about 'I should've known you couldn't be my mother, Thanatos and Hypnos couldn't possibly be my brothers', though. Got to be very delicate about admitting to such things when you're making a game about Greek mythology.) Anyway love the dynamics of Meg who loves but also feels owned by her job enough that she has to try and stop us, vs Thanatos who pretends he's not helping us while absolutely helping us, vs Nyx who knows so much more than she's telling anybody but has an agenda here that we can only be glad is probably for our benefit. (Fun fact, in the Aeneid, the three Furies were the children of Nox and Pluto, aka Roman Nyx and Hades, so like, there's that, too.)

You know, running the same gauntlet of enemies again and again should get boring, and at points it does, a little, but there's something almost meditative about the pattern of it. And I think the really rewarding thing might be that as Zagreus gets stronger, I do too. I might do a little more backstab damage and have a lot more hit points than I did when I started, but none of that matters if I can't position myself to do the backstabbing. I think I may have figured out how to take out the giant purple crystal miniboss without absolute misery and spending fifty hit points on it, and that's not just Zag's build getting better, that's me as a player. Hell yeah.

It's increasingly clear how this game intends to keep going even after I reach the surface, which I am almost going to manage to do. (Yes, it's going to take me ninety runs. Whatever.) Because, look, it says right in the codex: "The darkness, having taken root within, connects the bearer to the Underworld and makes them inseparable." Unless I strip every point of Darkness out and make a full run with zero buffs--which, spoiler alert, is NEVER going to happen--Zagreus is gong to be four thousand points into the darkness by the time I get up to the surface no matter how many times I try. It's not the pomegranates, it's the dark of he underworld itself, and whether we are going to be the Persephone of this myth or simply take her place so she doesn't have to descend again and again each year, we will never get to stay on the surface for long. We can visit, maybe, if we're willing to battle our way back out past every enemy and exit each time we go. But we're not going to live on Olympus, and we're not going to move in with our mom in her little cottage by the sea. Not right away. Maybe not ever. Even though the Fates have prophesied that we'll escape--the reward for fulfilling that one is so much more Darkness. We will leave, soon. But that sure doesn't mean we're going to get to stay.

#hades game #hades spoilers #c plays stuff

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chaoticminhos · 4 years

Text

mistakes were made

pairing: changbin x reader

genre: angst, smut

warnings: mentions of cheating, degradation, slight biting kink??

word count: 4k

a/n: thank you guys so much for being patient with me!! i hope you enjoy it :) both an ex with benefits with changbin and jealous changbin smut were requested.

pulling your clothes back into your sweaty body, you collected your things and headed for the door.

“woah,” changbin’s voice stopped you, “leaving already?”

“i have to go to my dorm and shower before my 4 pm class.”

“you can shower here.”

you gave him a painfully obvious fake smile, “nice try.”

that boy would do anything to get your clothes off, and despite having been broken up for two months now, you near always let him.

you quickly cleaned yourself up and dried your hair as much as you could with a towel before making your way to class. right as you walked through the door, jisung was waving you over to sit beside him.

he reached out and grabbed a chunk of your damp hair, “needed to shower the changbin off?”

you swatted his hand away, not bothering to nod. he knew the answer.

“jesus, you two are like rabbits. who the hell calls their ex at 3:30 in the afternoon for a quick fuck?”

“a stressed out collage student who has three tests to worry about.”

“he should spend his time studying something other than your naked body then.”

you let out a puff of air that you hoped jisung would accept as a laugh- you knew what he thought of changbin. he had been elated when you told him the news of the breakup, letting out a sigh of relief and saying he was proud of you for letting him go. he was so ready to help you find someone who actually deserved you. so when you showed up to your usual saturday movie night with hickeys littering across your neck— new, fresh hickeys— and after much pushing finally admitted that they were changbin’s work, jisung wasn’t all too happy.

changbin wasn’t a bad boyfriend. he wasn’t the perfect one, but he wasn’t as bad as jisung seemed to think. the breakup couldn’t be attributed to any problem that jisung saw with your and changbin’s relationship, it was all because of one stupid, asshole move. even you wouldn’t defend changbin on the reason you broke up with him.

but again, just like anything he did, it wasn’t enough to keep you away from him for good.

in your defense, you had every intention of never seeing him again. after what he’d done, you didn’t ever plan to forgive him in any way, shape, or form. but alas, not even aphrodite was immune to adonis’ charm.

you’d been at a party only a couple of weeks after the breakup. you went with your friends, but in typical jisung and minho fashion, you didn’t actually spend the party with your friends. instead, you found yourself in the middle of a crowd, dancing along to the music alone or with whoever happened to be near you. it wasn’t like you to be so casual with any strangers hands on you, but most people weren’t exactly like themselves when they were 4 shots in.

feeling hands on your waist, you turned to size up whoever they belonged to. it had been a while since you’d let a random stranger at a party bed you, but you had to get back into the game somehow, right?

wrong. even through the drunken haze, your heart fell to your stomach when you turned only to find yourself once again in changbin’s arms.

he was looking at you in exactly the same way he always had, like he couldn’t see any girl but you.

you knew he could, he’d made it very clear that he could, but that’s something that didn’t pass through the wall the alcohol had built. so you let him keep his hands on your waist. you let him pull you close and dance with you, and as the night went along, you let him take you home to his apartment and into the bed that the sober you had sworn you’d never find yourself in again.

after that, sober you retracted the promise she’d told herself. agreeing to be friends with benefits with changbin meant in no way that you were forgiving him, it just meant that you were well aware of the fact that he knew your body better than even you did, and it would take forever to find someone who could make you feel the same way he could, and college was stressful, and his fingers took away that stress and therefore it was in your best interest to let him keep acting as your stress reliever, even if he was also the cause for some of that stress.

from then on, that had been the relationship you had with changbin. you two never texted unless it was to arrange a time and place. you didn’t stay afterward or talk, you didn’t spend the night at each other’s places, you did your business and parted ways.

he’d tried a few times at the start of it all to talk to you, but you refused. you didn’t want to hear his excuses. you didn’t want to hear them because you knew you’d fall for them and you couldn’t imagine the thought of being with him after what he’d done. you couldn’t get the picture out of your head unless his head was between your thighs, and a romantic relationship couldn’t be built purely on sex.

the conversation was dropped when the teacher called to get everyone’s attention and class began, but it would come up again. it always came up.

jisung elbowed you to get your attention, “chan is having a party tonight. come with me?”

you glanced at the teacher to make sure he wasn’t looking your way before responding.

“didn’t he just have one?”

jisung shrugged, “he can’t have another?”

you nodded, he had a good point. plus, chan was always a great host. you didn’t know the guy too well, but his house was perfect for throwing parties.

“sure.” you said, what could it hurt? “i’m down.”

the answer was everything. it could hurt everything.

as soon as jisung’s car stopped on the road in front of chan’s house, you were out of it. parties at chan’s were always a good time.

jisung got out of his car and made his was around to you. you could heard the music, clear as day, before you’d even stepped onto the lawn. good thing chan’s family had enough money for a yard large enough to put space between the noise and the neighbors.

jisung opened the door for you and followed you inside, there wasn’t any point in knocking, and right to the drinks table. your arm was stopped by jisung when you went to reach for whatever flavor of vodka was out.

“don’t drink too much.” he said, “i don’t want to babysit tonight.” he paused, “and if you run into changbin, for christ’s sake, please use protection. i don’t want to babysit in the near future either.”

you pulled your arm from his grip, sending a glare his way.

“i didn’t come here to fuck changbin.”

he didn’t respond, but with an accusatory raise of his eyebrows, he was lost in the crowd of people.

you huffed, looking around for someone you knew or at least a place to sit until you found someone. your eyes glanced over him at first, but you did a double take and decided that, although you didn’t really know him, the host of the party would be a fine pass time.

he noticed you headed his way and met you halfway there, right in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, which in reality was just a living room.

“y/n, right?” he spoke first.

you nodded, “and you’re bang chan, the owner of this monstrosity of a house.”

he looked around his house with a pout on his face, “what’s wrong with my house?”

you laughed, “nothing, it’s just huge.”

he chuckled, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. he said something, but you didn’t catch it.

“what?”

he leaned in close to you so you could hear him over the music. as he spoke into your ear, you felt his hot breath tickle your neck.

“i asked if you’d want to dance.”

he leaned back just enough to see your face, keeping the distance between you two short.

you glanced around the room quickly, changbin wasn’t anywhere to be seen. not that it mattered.

“i don’t see why not.”

it didn’t take long of being on the dance floor before you decided you knew chan well enough to let him keep a tight grip on your waist as he pressed your back to his chest, dancing with you. you spun in his grip, turning so you were pressed front to front with him. you raised your hands to rest around his neck, toying with a stray curl that fell from his head.

“you’re quite the dancer.” he smiled down at you.

you hummed, “you’re not so bad yourself.”

“i’m a dance minor, what do you mean not so bad?”

you laughed at his reaction, leaning forward to rest your head on his chest. you could feel him laugh against you. it was nice.

you felt his hand reach below your chin to tilt your head up, making you realize just how close your face was to his. you didn’t mind it.

his eyes ghosted from your eyes to your lips and back again before he closed the gap, pulling away only to check to make sure you were still okay with it. and oh boy, were you ever.

you were more than okay with the way you felt his lips turn into a smile against yours when you pulled him back down for a kiss, taking it upon yourself to heat it up. you’d told jisung that you weren’t here to fuck changbin, not that you wouldn’t fuck anyone else.

he slowly walked you backwards, careful not to bump into anyone, until your back was pressed against the wall of his living room.

normally, you’d be embarrassed to be blatantly making out with someone in the middle of a crowded room, but you knew no one there cared. and quite frankly, with the way chan’s lips tasted like watermelon, you wouldn’t have cared if they did.

you let out a noise when your back collided with the wall and chan groaned into your mouth.

“how can i hear more of that?”

you grinned as his lips connected with your neck, trying to pull together an answer. you opened your eyes momentarily and over his shoulder, your eyes connected with a figure you knew all too well dancing with his friends. you felt a rush go through you, was it guilt or fear or exhilaration at the fact that you were having a good time with someone other than him? you didn’t know. either way, changbin hadn’t noticed you, and that was fine by you.

your gaze locked on changbin was broken when chan connected his lips to yours again, tongue swiping your bottom lip to ask for entrance. you gave it to him, one hand finding purchase in his hair. you tangled your fingers through his curls, lightly tugging on them.

he let out a soft whimper and you did it again, smiling when you got the same reaction.

his grip on your hip tightened.

“you don’t want to test me, y/n.”

your fingers tightened around his hair for a third time, “what if i do, though?”

he let out a sound that you could only describe as a growl as he slid his hands down your thighs, ordering you to jump. you did, wrapping your legs around his torso and connecting your lips to his. he pressed you firm against the wall again and gave you a rough kiss before beginning to walk to what you assumed would be his bedroom. he kept his head up to navigate, but you kept yours pressed to his throat, leaving wet kisses and light bites wherever you touched. you were in the middle of sucking a new bruise onto an open spot when you felt him abruptly stop. you raised your head to ask him why only to find changbin’s arm wrapped around chan’s, which you assume is what made him stop in the first place, and their eyes locked onto each other.

“what the fuck, changbin spit, “do you think you’re doing?”

chan hurried to set you down, “i’m so sorry man, i thought you two were split up-“

“we are.” you glared at changbin, reaching for chan’s hand and moving to pull him towards whatever door he was carrying you towards earlier.

changbin hurried to get in front of you and block your way.

“y/n, cut it out. right now.”

you scoffed, “there’s nothing to cut out, changbin. now if you’ll excuse me,” you gestured to yourself and chan, “we have plans.”

you moved to step around him and he shifted to he was in your way again.

“okay, well cancel them.”

you met his eyes to spit back an argument, but you found something in them that always did have a way of making you go speechless and compliant. he saw the way you went blank and chuckled, reaching for the wrist of the hand that you were holding chan’s in and pulling it from his grip. he began leading you away and called over his shoulder to chan.

“sorry, buddy. she’s not happening.”

you couldn’t see chan’s reaction, but you heard him call something about using a room that wasn’t his, please.

you hadn’t had enough time to figure out what chan’s room looked like, but you were sure it wasn’t the one changbin drug you into. the room you were in had barely anything to distinguish it from looking like a hotel room and the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept on in months. years, even.

you didn’t have much time to look at the bed before changbin had your back pressed against the mattress and his body looming over you.

“did you think that was fun, princess?”

“i didn’t do anything wrong.”

“you call letting one of my friends put his hands all over my girl nothing wrong?” he scoffed, “you’ve always been a little slut.”

you tried to defend yourself, but he cut you off by attaching his lips to yours. you immediately melted into the kiss, forgetting completely that you were supposed to be upset with him for not only cock blocking you, but insulting you, too.

he broke the kiss to pull your shirt over your head, tossing it somewhere to be found later.

“what would have happened if i hadn’t been there to stop you, whore?”

he connected his lips to your stomach, kissing a trail down to the waistline of your pants, which he promptly undid and slid off of you as well.

“would he be the one doing this right now?”

he placed a kiss to your clothed head and you whimpered.

“you don’t even care, do you?” he scoffed, sounding almost marveled, “as long as someone’s fucking you, you don’t care who it is, do you?”

he moved so he was face to face with you again, “answer me.”

“i do care, i’m not a slut.” you weren’t sure if you’d said it confidently enough to even convince yourself.

you felt his fingers grab your chin and tilt your head side to side, probably checking your neck for bruises. chan must not have left any, judging by the sound of approval changbin released before attaching his lips to your neck in the same spot chan’s mouth had been only minutes before.

“changbin,” you put your palms to his chest and pushed him up. reluctantly, he rose to look at you.

“we agreed on no marks.”

his eyes got impossibly darker, he didn’t like being told what to do.

“that was before i learned that you like to throw yourself at random guys.”

his mouth found your neck again, biting down lightly.

“obviously i need to do something to show you’re not available.”

it took so much out of you to continue to argue when he knew exactly which spots on your neck made you go weak.

“i- fuck, changbin- i am available. we aren’t together anymore.”

apparently you were in the mood to say the wrong things, because for the second time in just a few minutes, you’d let something slip from your mouth that really hit his nerves. you knew that immediately when you felt him bite down on the junction between your shoulder and neck.

you let out a whine that morphed into a moan as he drug his tongue over the tender skin, slightly soothing the sting.

he chuckled, “you wanted this, didn’t you? wanted to piss me off?”

“no,” you tried to form a coherent sentence, but your mind was clogged with lust, “didn’t mean to-“

he cut you off, completely ignoring your answer.

“well it worked, angel.”

with that, he pulled his shirt from over his head and undid his pants, kicking them aside. you hadn’t even realized that he had been fully clothed. he positioned himself between your legs, pushing your panties to the side.

“i don’t need to prep you, do i? you’ve already had my cock once today.”

he ran his length through your folds, collecting your wetness and coating his cock in it.

“did you really need to be stuffed full again so bad that you tried to let a random guy fuck you?”

“chan isn’t a random guy.”

you found it amazing that you still had it in you to disagree with him.

one hand still holding himself, the other moved to roughly wrap around your throat, effectively keeping you from saying anything more.

“you’re saying you came to his party tonight with the intent of letting him fuck you?”

he loosened his grip to let you respond, “no.”

he cocked his head, “then he’s a random guy.”

hand still loosely wrapped around your throat, he easily slid himself fully into you. you let out a loud moan, the stretch wasn’t that bad since it hadn’t been long at all, but his size still always managed to surprise you.

any ounce of defiance you had left was thrown out the window as he began to thrust into you roughly, shifting your legs to rest on his shoulders.

he leaned down to kiss you and your legs burned with the stretch, but it only made everything so much better. he shifted his hand from your neck and slid it down your torso, stopping when he reached your clit. his other hand was tangled in your hair as you clung to his shoulders for dear life.

you clenched around him as he toyed with your clit and he let out a groan. you couldn’t help but moan in response to the heavenly sound. he delivered a particularly hard thrust directly into your soft spot and you nearly screamed, that plus the constant pressure on your clit almost felt too good.

“please, i’m so close.”

he hushed you, “i know baby, you can let go.”

a couple more hard thrusts directly to your sweet spot and you did just that, clenching helplessly around him as white clouded your vision. he followed soon after, and you were so glad that you’d came down soon enough to watch him tip over the edge. his face scrunched up in pleasure as he pulled himself out of you, taking it upon himself to stroke his length until he was spilling his seed all over your stomach.

he fell down beside you, his chest heaving up and down. after catching his breath, he rolled over, placed a kiss to your lips, and got up to go to the bathroom. he returned soon after with some toilet paper to clean you up with. he wiped himself off of you and tossed the paper in the trash bin before crawling back onto the bed beside you, pulling the covers up and shifting both of you underneath them. you gladly accepted his open arms and buried yourself into his chest.

“i’m sorry if i was too hard on you.”

you smiled at him, “it was perfect.”

a pout found its way onto his face, “next time you want my attention, just ask.”

he’d obviously been partially joking, but you didn’t find it funny. you sat up.

“what are you talking about?”

he sat up to meet your stance, “that’s why you pretended to like chan, right? to make me jealous?”

you let out a forced laugh. he really thought everything was about him.

“no,” you laughed again, “believe it or not, changbin, i didn’t do any of this to get your attention.”

you stood from the bed and searched for your clothes, beginning to pull your pants back into your legs. he frowned, confused, so you continued.

“i fully intended to sleep with chan, and honestly, now i’m wishing you’d just let me. i seriously thought you’d interfered because you genuinely didn’t want to see me with another guy, but you just can’t get it through your head and massive fucking ego that i could be interested in anyone but you!”

“you have no clue what the hell you’re talking about.”

“then please, changbin, enlighten me! tell me why you act like i’m your everything and the next you completely ditch me.”

“ditch you?” it was his turn to laugh, “you’re the one who stepped away from whatever we had going on between us.”

“yeah, because i saw you kissing another girl!”

his expression faltered, but it was back to normal before you noticed. “when?”

“jisung’s party, end of first semester?”

“that?” now he was remembering, “yeah, because i saw you let lee felix take you into a fucking room!”

“don’t you think if anything had happened we would have been in that room for longer than the five minutes it took you to find a girl to make out with?”

“i don’t know y/n, i’ve heard felix is pretty good.”

“well i wouldn’t fucking know.”

“then what? tell me why exactly you let some guy take you into an empty bedroom.”

you sighed, gritting your teeth. “he took me into a room to talk to me in private, he thought he saw someone spike my drink.”

did changbin seriously think it had been anything else?

the anger drained from his eyes and was replaced with worry, “what? why didn’t you tell me?”

“i don’t know, maybe because when i went to, i found you with your tongue down another girls throat!”

he sputtered, “well- in my defense, i-“

“in your defense nothing, changbin! you made a fucking assumption and decided i was that replaceable within five minutes.”

by now tears were falling from your eyes. he stepped towards you and you backed away from his touch. he reached out again.

“y/n, please.”

you let him guide you to sit on the bed.

“you’re not replaceable. i was just angry and stupid and i made a mistake. a huge mistake.”

he wiped a tear from your cheek, “it’s the biggest mistake i’ve ever made. i should have just talked to you. i’m so sorry.”

you stared at him through wet lashes for a while before reaching out a hand and slapping his shoulder, hard.

“you’re such an asshole, why do i like you?”

a small smile found its way onto his lips and he pulled you into his chest.

“i don’t know, baby, but i’m so glad that you do.”

there was a moment of silence for him to enjoy holding you in his arms again. it had been so long. even with the hookup situation, you never stayed after long enough to let him hold you. he missed it.

“y/n?”

“hmm?”

“can i take you on a date tomorrow?”

you thought for a moment before responding.

“what if we just skip that and you ask me to be your girlfriend now.”

a smile took over his features.

“y/n, will you be my girlfriend?”

you shook your head, “nope. take me on a date first.”

he made a faux offended face and gasped, “but you-“

“somewhere expensive, please.”

he wanted to keep up his façade of being upset with you for tricking him, but he couldn’t. not when you were finally back in his arms and smiling at him again.

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teawiththegods · 3 years

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30 Days of Aphrodite: Day 1

What first drew you to Aphrodite?

Aphrodite is what drew me to Aphrodite!

Let me explain. While I have been a fan of Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology my entire life, I was not a fan of Aphrodite. Most of it came from my own insecurities along with not knowing enough about Aphrodite so I judged her purely on mythology. I didn’t give her much thought and she was never on my radar until I began looking for a deity to worship.

At the time I was a sea witch so I knew I wanted to work with a sea deity. Given my love for Greek Mythology Poseidon and Amphitrite seemed like the obvious options. However, something did not feel right about it and my instincts were telling me to keep searching. I questioned whether a sea deity was really the right choice for me thinking I should instead work with the god I have loved my whole life: Apollo. Surely it would make sense for me to start with him as opposed to a god I had zero knowledge of or history with, but again my instincts pushed me towards a sea deity.

I can still remember this moment like it had just happened. I was flipping through one of my sea witchcraft books and noticed a list of sea deities. I began looking through the list thinking I might find this elusive sea deity my instincts kept urging me seek out. I barely began looking when I paused on a name. “Aphrodite”. I stared at her name for a moment before saying to myself “Huh, I didn’t realize Aphrodite was a sea deity. I guess it’s because she was born from sea foam. Interesting.” Then I continued to scan through the rest of the list however the entire time my brain was buzzing. It was like a switch flipped and I couldn’t turn it off. My thoughts were just an endless stream of “Aphrodite, Aphrodite, Aphrodite, Aphrodite”. She was pulling me towards her but at the time I refused to believe it.

As I said before, my insecurities played a big part in the wall I built between Aphrodite and me. I was convinced that someone like me did not belong in Aphrodite’s embrace nor would I even be welcomed. It’s really the classic tale of an Aphrodite devotee. Aphrodite is marketed in the modern world as the mean perfect popular girl so most of us believe she’s as inaccessible (and cruel) as the popular girls are. I didn’t see myself as pretty at all. I barely wore makeup and my skills were (and still are) lackluster. My fashion was more about comfort than style. Frankly, I never thought I was good at being a girl (whatever the hell that even means, tho a lot of this makes sense now that I understand my gender identity more but that’s a whole other post). So it’s not surprising that I fought Aphrodite’s advances for a while.

Obviously something changed though. I couldn’t ignore the signs or the constant prodding anymore so I decided that there was no harm in looking more into Aphrodite. Once I did an entire universe opened to me. The universe that is Aphrodite! I very quickly realized that everything I had assumed about her was completely wrong. But it wasn’t until I came across her connection to “self-love” that the pieces all finally came to together. I knew why she was reaching out to me and I did an entire 180. Went from Elsa in Frozen 2 all “Nope strange voice I don’t hear you!” to “Aphrodite’s my homegirl now!” And we’ve been inseparable ever since!

If you’d like a more deep dive into my relationship with Aphrodite I actually made an entire podcast episode about it!

#30 days of aphrodite #aphrodite april 2021 #aphrodite april #aphroditedeity #aphrodite

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jason-pipers · 3 years

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the jason/piper breakup and jason’s subsequent death

it is a long and angry post so you have been warned

I’m really sick of seeing Jason Grace/Piper McLean slander in their own tag, and I’m really, really sick of seeing people justify their breakup/his death as good writing.

As I’ve been studying literature and text for the past four years at Uni- I can say with absolute confidence that The Burning Maze utilizing Jason and Piper was horrible. Like a bag of shit mixed together then smeared on paper and published kind of horrible. Actually, you don’t even really need a degree to be able to point out the very basic absurdity of them appearing in TBM. So even though I have a paper due on a completely unrelated topic and a lot of homework, I naturally decided this was a much better thing to write about:

Maybe in another world, Rick’s ghostwriters will be better at writing his books. The reason why the Jason/Piper breakup was extremely confusing and done very poorly in the sense of their character arcs was that there was no buildup to the breakup. In fact, I think these two got together off-screen and broke up off-screen. Yet, I’m sure Riordan sat at his desk thinking “now why don’t people just like Jason and Piper?? I give them so much!” Actually, you gave them nothing. It’s also considerably easy to disguise their breakup as logical when it isn’t. Now, people will argue that the basic foundation of the relationship was poorly made because of Hera’s meddling and that’s why they broke up. This is a lazy way to think about it because it’s obvious you don’t care about the characters so you should just say that and go. Hera’s meddling (putting false memories of Jason in Piper’s head and wiping Jason’s brain) really only gave Piper a vague notion of Jason (based on real attributes the Mist pulls) and also gave PERCY and Jason multiple relationships after the switcheroo. But Piper actually meets Jason and then has a subsequent breakdown that maybe he’s not her boyfriend. However, once she gets to know the real Jason (very accurate to the one she knew in her memories because Aphrodite said she could sense real possibilities hinting at their romance), she is still developing romantic feelings for him. It’s implied that the reason why Piper is falling so fast is because the memories she has of Jason are based on the real Jason. It’s easy to establish that Piper has real romantic feelings for Jason, not the made up Jason because the majority of TLH is them getting to know each other. If she felt like there was some confusion on her part about developing feelings for him because of Hera switching Percy and Jason- why did it not come up EVER? The months where Jason and Piper started dating. How about that long ass quest on the Argo? It could have been a valid plot line but it never came up. If it had come up near the end of the series or maybe even if it was a small subplot in the series, it would make the breakup logical, at least narratively. But no, we end Blood of Olympus with Jason and Piper coming full circle with the moment in the stars. Flash forward three years later to TBM where everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) about Piper and Jason are thrown into the trash. They’re broken up due to the false memories and overall I guess it’s implied Piper doesn’t have feelings for him anymore or something? Or the trauma of being in something like that prophecy was a lot for her to handle and she needed some time to figure things out? Yeah of course! Just like when she will go through another trauma (Jason dying for her) and start dating someone new right after. This would be so much easier to read and digest if these things are shown- in their own series and maybe not as a side thing to Apollo’s series. Reading it in TOA was completely out of left field. I know SO MANY PEOPLE were like that makes so much sense! Good for you Piper! But I was like girl, who are you? I feel like I have not spent any time with you and none of what you’re saying is connecting to anything you were like before. Which leads me to believe people just did not like Piper in HOO but just say that and go. HOO Piper is not TBM/TOA Piper. RR doesn’t know how to characterize his own goddamn characters. Furthermore, everything in canon up until TBM implies and directly states that Jason and Piper are endgame. It’s not to say they didn’t have problems that were resolved or that the way they got together was conventional. There was not even a smidge bit of reluctance to admit they were canon endgame- I think RR even had Cupid involved. There was no prediction or even hint of what would happen in TBM in HOO, which is a very big narrative problem. Jason, always isolated by loved ones and quite frankly always shouldering way more than a human can handle dies exactly the way he suffers. There is no growth or even a small lovely moment where we can see Jason.

This brings me to the most unnecessary death I’ve ever read in my life. I know RR’s ego hurt from the complaints about Jason/Piper/Frank/Hazel/Leo (basically a non-Percabeth character) being underdeveloped. I know his ego was fucked when he “killed” Leo but didn’t really kill Leo so everyone was like what the fuck. I know he wanted to prove he is a good writer but like any other bad writer, he decided to jump the shark. And I know he wanted Jason and Piper to be more likable but the fandom really wanted a Leo-esque character. The breakup really happened because he wanted to demonstrate to critics that he could live with couples not being endgame and knew Jasiper was relatively unpopular compared to Percabeth/Caleo/etc. He wasn’t thinking in terms of ‘does this fit what I’ve created’ but in terms of ‘people might be like oh shit this is violent and they’re finally gone!’. I don’t know what idiotic thought process made him reach the point of killing one of them but he obviously got there. See, there is no difference between Jason or Piper dying in TBM. It could’ve easily been Piper who was impaled by Caligula and reminded Apollo “what it’s like to be human”. They were made *that* insignificant in TBM. Pretty much fucking interchangeable. IN DEATH. It also could’ve been anybody else in the world. It could’ve been that cheerleader from The Battle of the Labyrinth. It could’ve been Piper’s dad. It could have been Sally Jackson. Not a single part of Jason’s death was really related to Jason or his growth. Jason was the main/lead from HOO and if he was destined to die (which he wasn’t because RR doesn’t think anything through anymore), he should have died in his own series. That would make his sacrifice more compelling and important, but dying in TOA is just a big fuck you to his character. I think the only equivalent I can think of is if HOO had solely been Jason’s series but RR pulled up Percy to simply kill him and then just kept writing. What the fuck does TOA have anything to do with Jason or Piper? Or even Leo? I usually love when characters make cameo appearances to remind us of the past we loved them in. Kind of like when Lynda Carter appeared as Asteria in WW1984. Conversely, involving them in the plot and then using them as a plot device for the main character- AKA USING YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AS A PLOT DEVICE FOR ANOTHER MAIN CHARACTER IN A SEPARATE SERIES- is not only dumb but it truly makes everything else you’ve written for the first main character devoid of any real significance. Jason was never a fully fleshed-out character, the way he deserved to be written, because RR couldn’t world build as well as he thought and that ‘every single character gets a POV’ didn’t do the legendary thing he thought it did. However, anything that mattered about Jason was pretty much killed in TBM because he was easily killed by a villain that was not even remotely interested in Jason or aware of his existence. What does FUCK does Caligula mean to Jason? Nothing. Did the final battle create a full circle for Jason other than the line “remember?” which is not really related to his amnesia- no. His character arc was about an identity crisis- being pushed and pulled in two directions. Jason barely means anything to Apollo so RR using Jason as a convenient kill to send home a message is also shitty for Apollo. Lead hero characters can die- they sometimes just have to. Marissa Cooper’s death in the OC narratively makes sense due to the nature of the character being a damsel in distress from the very beginning- a foil to her counterpart, Ryan Atwood. But in this case, RR knew he had to shock people to keep getting $$$. I never got the impression RR cared about Jason or Piper, especially since he was incredibly disrespectful and lazy when writing about Piper. (For that- I can link really detailed posts explaining his racism). The truth is Riordan cannot live without putting his characters in relationships- Frazel, Caleo, Tyson/Ella (?), Hedge/Mellie- but he wanted to prove that he could which is why Jasiper broke up.

Piper’s girlfriend in TON- I didn’t read TON for the reasons above and I don’t think I’ll ever read a Riordan book again: I did find out that Piper gets a GF in TON which at first I thought was incredibly neat but then later became angry when I learned it was only months after Jason’s death? I have always wanted Piper to explore her sexuality but RR has this case of never giving important things the development it deserves. He’s incredibly messy and inconsistent when he creates lgbtqia+ characters, usually only including them so he can get credit for including them. He’s never actually explored Piper’s sexuality fully in the series, but he threw her in yet another relationship we didn’t get to read about right after she was almost beaten to death and then witnessed the murder of her ex-boyfriend. If you think that is representation, please rethink that. We don’t get to hear her talk about anything at all, except maybe mentioning the girl’s name. A subtle hint. Just representation is not good representation and it is right that we demand better representation. Don’t settle for less. For fuck’s sake, Riverdale is only really good at queerbaiting but they get so much praise. (Do they? At this point I can’t tell). If we wanted to explore Piper’s sexuality, it could have been done while she was with Jason or even broken up with him in her own series- why didn’t RR explore the nature of being lgbtqia+ in an Indigenous family? He had the chance to demonstrate an awareness of intersectionality through Piper but he fucked up. He had so much to write about. So, people who are yelling happily about that Piper appearance in TON-???

This was long and frustrating to write. But I had feelings.

#jason grace #Piper McLean #percy jackson #pjo #jasiper #jasper #jiper #toa #trials of apollo #Heroes of Olympus

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moddieeeex · 4 years

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Ok because I’m a big Tarot nerd and I wanna write and work out a couple things for my own bitter suite tarot bUT IT WOULD BE FUN TO SHARE SO HERE WE GO

There’s a lot of moments and costumes in the episode that are of course very literal, and may not line up with the original narrative behind the cards, BUT there are so some cards that dont REAAALLY have a direct 1:1 in the episode, so i can at least try to compare moments to said original narrative in stead

HERE WE GO

The Fool is one of the ones that are really obvious, from the attire and even including the dog (which is very very fun). Traditional meanings of the fool also include, him being the arrival of the irrational, he is not bound to the limits of our reality. His naïveté marks the beginning of the journey through out the major arcana, which traditionally the journey to finding the truth of the world and escaping illusion (see what they did there with Illusia 😏)

Uugggh the magician is one of the first to not really have a proper equivalent in the show. The closest I can get to something is Gabrielle before they even get to Illusia. The magician acts to be the intermediate between the Earth and the celestial world, and aims to share that knowledge, which is part of Gabrielles character as a bard. The magician also symbolises the need to achieve unity within yourself, accept the light and the dark, which again, whoop whoop, is part of Gabbys overarching journey throughout the show. (Another little thing to note is the infinity symbol which we will come back to later👀👀👀)

A lot about the high priestess in the show, is mostly an aesthetic one. There ARE tiny little nuggets narratively, the high priestess is wise and asks to slow down and make careful decisions, and to not isolate yourself and make those decisions on your own (Xena you dumb motherfucker, just talK TO GABRIELLE) The moon is another little symbol that we’ll come back to later

Another very obvious ~aesthetic~ is the empress. The is the symbol of traditional femininity, like motherhood (👀👀👀*COUGH HOPE COUGH*) she has a strong connection with the goddess of love, Venus (or in Gabrielles case Aphrodite). The Empress and High Priestess are very closely connected in some interpretations, they tend to be the female equivalents to the Emperor and Hieropahnt. Take note of the stars on her crown for another call back later.

Here’s my little bastard man. He’s mostly meant to be the masculine version of the Emperess, and while her and the high priestess advise you to absorb much knowledge from others and take your time in making a decision. The Emperor advises to be quick and confident in your decisions and actions, to not waste time. Gabrielle and Ares have always been the two choices for Xena, the conflict to pick which path she should take.

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meta-squash · 3 years

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Brick Club 1.3.4 “Tholomyes Is So Happy, He Sings A Spanish Song”

I think this chapter title is actually yet another pun. In a later chapter, Favourite mentions that Tholomyes’ first name is Felix, which is Latin for “happy.”

This first paragraph feels like a pretty blatant comparison of the group to the nature mentioned. The flower beds are balmy with perfume, as the ladies may have been, the boughs are gesticulating as the men (and maybe the women) were, the bees pillaging the jasmine is certainly a pretty obvious metaphor, the “bohemian crew of butterflies” would probably be the men, landing briefly on these women for a year or so and then taking flight elsewhere.

(I just looked up bindweed and flashed back to elementary school, where it grew as a weed all over the campus and we’d pick it and put it to our noses and inhale so the petals stuck to our faces, so now I’m imagining them doing that.)

The fact that everyone but Fantine is kissing everyone else is yet another clue that she doesn’t exactly fit in. It also seems like another indication that Favourite should have been paired with Tholomyes.

Fantine’s “dreamy, fierce resistance” (FMA) or “dreaminess and wildness” (Hapgood) is an aspect about her that I feel comes out a little more when she’s back in Montreuil-sur-Mer and has unfortunately hardened a bit. She has quite literally no lines of dialogue until 1.3.8, and her lines up through the letter are superficial, except perhaps for the line about the stagecoaches. Everything we see of Fantine is observational; she’s watching her friends to follow suit, we’re watching her. Later on, in M-sur-M, she’s fiercer, more willing (or perhaps more desperate) to talk back, to talk aloud to herself. The fierce part of her is very inward here, and it’s poverty and desperation that really brings it out. Her confrontation with Bamatabois later, and the moments just before it, bring the “dreaminess” and the “wildness/fierceness” together quite violently.

(Sidenote: The more I read and think about it, the more I’m loving the Fantine-as-autistic headcanon. She’s quiet here because she’s working hard at masking and mimicking; once she’s at her lowest points in M-sur-M, she’s totally given up that effort because she absolutely does not have the energy or mental capacity. So we then get her talking to herself, self-soothing by wringing her hands, shrinking back, etc etc. Idk who came up with that headcanon or where I read it mentioned, but I love it.)

This entire massive paragraph about love in springtime feels very romantically pastoral in its imagery. It certainly fits with the whole leaving urban Paris to go to the park and nature in Saint Cloud (despite the weirdly dark aspects of the area). He continues the theme by mentioning Honore d’Urfe, a pastoral romance author, and Watteau and Lancret, both painters of light, colorful, Baroque style paintings. Watteau painted “The Embarkation for Cythera,” a painting of a fete galante, which is essentially what’s going on in this scene. Cythera is the Greek island said to house a cult of Aphrodite. I’m not sure what the Diderot reference is doing there; I know about his reason vs feeling philosophy, and I know he wrote a “naughty” novel, but I’m not sure how either of those fit into these themes in the rest of the paragraph?

"Beautiful girls lavish their charms with sweet prodigality. We imagine it will never end.” What an interesting pairing of sentences. The second line takes on a tone of quite dark foreshadowing when reading the Brick again. But that first line is interesting to me for the idea of women wasting their charms on men. It feels like an expansion of his “poverty and coquetry are fatal counselors” line, but from a different angle. Flirting or falling in love with a man who is only going to use you for his own pleasure and then drop you is a waste of emotion, not to mention painful if you’re not ready for it. Lavishing “charms” on men only for them to treat a woman in a way that could potentially ruin her is Bad. But if you don’t realize that’s what’s happening, if you think that instead of shallowness or emotional manipulation, you’re actually getting real love and connection, you’re not going to ever want it to end. And then when it does that shock and hurt is so much the worse. Again it’s the difference between Fantine and the others; she seems to think it’s real love on Tholomyes’ side like it is for her, while everyone else seems fairly aware that it’s just a fun little fling and nothing more.

Riding donkeys seems like kind of a ripoff in terms of a date? Maybe another example of Tholomyes’ cheapness as a date as well as an example of his charisma. If he can sell riding an ass as a fun and cute outing instead of a bit of a let down, then no wonder he’s the one in control of this whole endeavor.

I have no idea what plant it is they’re viewing at the Jardins des Plantes, and it’s really bothering me. The only thing I could think of is wisteria, but that can’t be right, since it has leaves, and I have no idea how to search that on google. I’m also wondering what the “mannikin anchorite” at the Chateau d’Issy was. There’s a statue of the actual St. Cloud (Clodoald) in Saint Cloud, but they’re in Issy at this point as far as I can tell, so I have no idea.

As far as I can tell, the satyr-millionaire/Turcaret-Priapus lines are just a joke about rich horny people. I’m not sure why the hall of mirrors is an aphrodisiac? But I suppose the joke is something about voyeurism and watching the person you’re attracted to via means only available to those with lots of money to build a hall of many mirrors? Unless I’m interpreting the entire “cabinet of mirrors” wrong and it’s not even real mirrors. I’m just making guesses at this point.

I think the “Abbe de Bernis” line is a reference to Casanova, but I’m not 100% sure.

Fantine refuses to swing, and Favourite thinks she’s being superior. This seems like another moment pointing out Fantine’s modesty; the “flying skirts” produced by the swinging are maybe a little much for her taste. But it’s another thing that makes me think that maybe the other girls don’t like her very much and are maybe a little frustrated at her prudish behavior compared to the others, or think that that modesty is her thinking she’s better than them.

They’ve now been out and about for about 10 hours, which is a lot. There’s a post somewhere on tumblr about the Russian Mountains, but I love that there was a rollercoaster in Paris in the 1810s. The roller coaster also seems like perhaps an interesting chance at a metaphor for what’s coming: a big climb upward, a rush, and then suddenly much lower than you were a moment ago. For the other women, being back down on the ground is expected at the end of the ride, but for Fantine, it’s an unexpected, painful let down.

Ten (or more) hours is a long time to wait for this “surprise.” I’m wondering if this whole outing has a sort of twofold objective: one as a sort of “last hurrah” date, where they do all the fun things and then there’s the cruel “surprise” at the end. And two, as a way to tire everybody out, so the women would do exactly what they do later on in 1.3.9: get distracted with chatting or just gazing out the window in thought until they suddenly realize how much time has passed, giving the men plenty of time to get away.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.3.4 #les mis #les mis meta #oops i was accidentally 2 days early with this one #got my chapter chunks confused

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revalise · 4 years

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After the Sun [M] | 01

Pairing: Chrollo Lucilfer x Fem. OC

Genre: Romance and eventual smut

Rating: M

Words: 2500+

Notes: Huge thanks to Sky @pixiewombat for beta reading this chapter!

All characters are humans unless otherwise stated in their description. Hence, Zazan is human in the story.

Masterlist | Prologue | 02

Chrollo Lucilfer gets everything he wants, when he wants-even if it means undergoing extreme measures. Nothing bothered him, until an aphrodite, Astra Gerber, appeared one night and stole from the infamous thief. In return that Chrollo doesn’t report her, he strikes a deal. But it could be more than what Astra bargained for.

BOLD

“What do you mean your necklace was stolen?” Pakunoda eyed Chrollo carefully as he sat behind his desk at his penthouse, looking over the magnificent, illuminating lights of Yorknew City, while she stood in front of him.

“It just was stolen,” he deadpanned.

Pakunoda clicked her tongue. There was no way someone could steal from Chrollo—a bandit himself, and a good one at that.

She thought to herself for a moment. ‘Is he planning to steal the poor girl’s hatsu?’

Once, he had charmed the pants off of a girl who could write fortunes and stole her ability. Despite his obvious antics, he wasn’t found out, thanks to the girl’s inexperience. But when he managed to get a hold of how it should be done, he started doing it again and again.

Pakunoda didn’t complain. Chrollo’s Bandit’s Secret was a trump card, not only for him, but for the rest of the group. When Chrollo noticed the drastic advantage the ‘strategy’ gave him, he started using it more often. To him, it felt like a shortcut.

And who would expect someone so sophisticated and pretty-boy looking?

She sighed and put the folder down on his desk.

Chrollo had asked Pakunoda to find the girl who had stolen his necklace. He remained vague about it, but knowing Chrollo, it might be something extremely important.

He looked over the files, silently reading their contents, taking them in just as he consumed knowledge from his ancient books. His fingers traced the letters of the name written in bold on one of the pages.

ASTRA BEATRIZ GERBER

Pakunoda gazed at him with suspicion. Meddling with this girl could endanger the nature of the group. She was nowhere near a simple girl, alright. The girl spelled trouble.

She was the illegitimate child of an acknowledged former lawyer, Martin Gerber, before he took over the Gerber family dynasty.

This information wasn’t exactly kept a secret. It was silent gossip within the small circle of socialites and elites. Illegitimate children weren’t news to the circle. Three out of five families in the circle had a case of their own. But it so happened that the Gerber family was known to be conservative—faithful to their betrothed, or as painted by the media.

Nevertheless, it only took that mistake to have the head of the family, Rod Gerber, wavering in his trust in Martin. To his dismay, this almost cost him the whole dynasty. Fortunately, Rod was a good man, unlike his son. To secure his position in becoming the next successor as the eldest, Martin had to keep the child and take her as his own.

It shamed Martin to do so, keeping an illegitimate of his own accord. Though his wife was noticeably against it, she had to agree if she wanted to be the wife of the very powerful man. Cleverly, she argued that it would bring discomfort to her family if the child were to live in the same house as them. Rod then agreed that Martin would just have to sustain the needs of the child in the mother’s care.

Chrollo took all of the information in, almost feeling bad for the girl, if it weren’t for his own experiences.

The same thought as Pakunoda had crossed his mind. Her father had connections in law. If Chrollo, say for example, met the girl’s father and he decided to look deeper into Chrollo and his background, it wouldn’t really be a problem. The group knew how to cut their ties. They eliminated those who had seen them. But if worse came to worst, this could have blown the group’s cover.

The Phantom Troupe weren’t regular thieves. They were thieves with intellect that calculated their every movement. Before they acted on anything, Chrollo, who had a personal philosophy of theological dualism - the balance between good and evil - that influenced his decisions, would first weigh his options. His actions were always calculated.

It was not that they feared the law or the man himself, but the Phantom Troupe managed to blend in with the crowd, no one knew of who they were. And the group loved being free despite the criminality they commit.

From the moment he first laid his eyes on her, he knew she was trouble.

But none of the information stopped him.

***

Zazan promised Astra dinner. But it was way past dinner, and the staff of the three-star Michelin restaurant she had booked kept going back and forth, assisting and asking for her order, which she refused to give until her aunt arrived.

Her aunt, Zazan, was her father, Martin’s, little sister. For all her life, she was her mother figure. Zazan always had her back whenever her father didn’t. Her aunt loved designer and luxury items, and was a designer herself. Hence, her love for luxury and designer.

To state it simply, Astra was given to her aunt after she lived with her dad for two years when her mother died. She was only six then.

She remembers how much scorn she received from Martin’s legitimate family, and how she was treated as less than a freeloader, being an illegitimate child. Not once did her father defend her from them.

After all, she was a nobody, aside from the Gerber blood running through her veins.

Astra, at four, never spoke with anyone, not even the maids that served the family in their mansion. She remained quiet, hiding inside her room, but doing everything she was told—even standing for hours, with no food and water, beside the silver knight decorations in the hallway of their house because her older half-sister told her to. She ignored the numbing sensation in her knees until a helper saw her.

That was, until Zazan returned to the city and took interest in the meek, little girl she once was. And for the first time in two years, she spoke and her voice sounded hoarse. Her words were: “Can I come with you?”

From then on, Zazan took her as her own. Martin had no objections, nor did his family. In fact, the situation was in their favor. In his father’s eyes, as long as Astra wasn’t disobedient or brought problems—more than she already had, being an illegitimate—upon the family, it’d be fine.

However, it seemed Astra grew up to be a spitting image of Zazan’s personality. Astra grew bolder, braver, and stronger, all because she had Zazan to look up to. But Astra wasn’t nice on a daily basis. She was nowhere near a saint.

“May I take your order, miss?” a smiling boy, who looked a few years younger than Astra, came to assist her. But a girl, wearing the same uniform as him, came to them, gripping his arm.

“Sorry, miss.” The staff leaned in closer to the boy’s ear to whisper, “I’ve been trying to take her order. She’s waiting for someone, but I think she got stood up.”

“Oh...” the boy muttered “Too bad, she actually looks pretty.”

He turned his attention to Astra, about to apologize, when she interrupted him.

Astra laced her fingers together, her elbows on the table, and rested her head on her hands. With a sarcastic tone, she said, “If you’re going to talk shit about me, consider doing it somewhere else where I can’t hear you.”

“S-sorry, miss…” the staff muttered, afraid. All of their customers had power, because only the rich could afford the place. They feared they could lose their jobs. Most of all, they knew who Astra was. They knew of her influence.

“But thanks for complimenting my looks.” Astra flashed a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “Get me some champagne.”

They scurried to give her what she wanted, too obvious in wanting to leave her sight.

Astra leaned on her chair, her arms crossed over her chest. She clicked her tongue in impatience. For once, she regretted asking for champagne. She felt the urge to leave. To elites like her, hunger didn’t come, anyway; she’d still have a lot of food at home. She could leave before they gave her champagne, and leave cash three times the bill, but her pride made her stay.

And she hated to admit it, but she really needed to see her aunt. She needed someone.

She needed someone to hold her at times she felt like slipping away.

As Astra waited impatiently, a man sat at the opposite end of the table. It happened so quickly, she didn’t have the time to process it. The man looked studly in his crisp suit. He wore a white shirt underneath, topped with a dark blazer and slacks.

“I’m sorry. Did I keep you waiting?” He asked in his most polite tone while he pulled at the opening of his blazer.

Her eyebrows shot up and she clicked her tongue, but she tried to maintain her composure. After all, it was a restaurant for the high-class. Manners above all.

“Sorry, you must have the wrong table.”

The man chuckled. “Oh, have you forgotten about me, miss? Allow me to reintroduce myself,” he grinned, “I’m the man you stole from a few nights ago.”

For a moment, perplexity was etched on her face, ‘Bitch, which one?’

Yes, the man looked a little familiar, but with the amount of people she was acquainted with, it was hard to keep track of the long list.

“Oh, I see,” she said plainly. “I must’ve stolen from you when I was drunk.”

Astra leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. She whispered, “You see, I have a habit of doing those when I’m drunk.” She flashed her sultry smile.

Her hands reached for her fuchsia devotion bag made of python skin. It featured an exclusive bejeweled personalized heart closure, inspired by the techniques of fine jewelry, which etched her initials in it.

ABG

Astra clicked her tongue when her eyes met her initials on her bag. She laughed inwardly at how she sent it back to Italy when her initials weren’t in bold.

“How much was it? I could pay for it right now.”

The way the man grinned at her assured her that it’s done for. Game over. She wins. Whatever she did, she got away with it. Not because of her pull and connections, but because of her charm. And she knew it. She grinned at this.

“Actually,” the man began, “I have other things in mind.”

“Oh,” Astra had a knowing smirk. She knew of what the man could possibly ask. It was no different. He was no different from all the other men she’d met before. ‘A night, perhaps?’

“Let’s hear it,” she said sultrily.

It was the man’s turn to lean closer and rest his elbows on the table. He laced his hands together and flashed a smile. “I was thinking of jail time.”

Her hypocritical smile dropped. She was rendered shaken. Just as quick as the change in her mood, the sourness and bitterness of being embarrassed in front of the mysterious man in front of her, she showed her true colors.

‘Where the fuck is my champagne?’ she thought.

Her back rested on her chair and she crossed her arms. “Name?” her tone was as rude as it could get.

“Now we’re talking,” the man chuckled, and he rested his back on his chair as well. “Chrollo Lucilfer. I believe I already told you that. I’m hurt you forgot about me so easily.”

Astra didn’t reciprocate the demeanor Chrollo was showing. While Chrollo looked composed and polite, Astra, on the other hand, was irking in anger.

“What do you want?” she spat, so rudely you wouldn’t think that it was the same woman who had been flashing sultry and inviting smiles.

“Nothing much, actually,” he grinned but it didn’t reach his eyes. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll discuss the matter, and I promise you it’d be done with.”

If it were only a few minutes ago, she would have gone with him at that very moment. She would’ve taken him to some backroom and let them do their business. But it was different now.

To her, it seemed like the man didn’t want any physical relationships. He was danger, nothing else.

“And if I refuse?”

“Your scandalous actions will not only be known by your father, Martin Gerber, but your little circle as well,” he replied.

“I’m impressed. You’ve done your research about me,” she scoffed.

One of the staff who assisted her earlier appeared with champagne in her hands. She kept her head down, but kept a shy smile and gave continuous glances toward Chrollo as she poured the liquid into their respective glass.

“Thanks, miss,” Chrollo flashed the girl a sweet smile.

Astra could have sworn she saw the girl almost curtsy at that. She rolled her eyes.

When the girl left, Astra arched her brow. Chrollo on the other hand, ignored her demeanor. “Shall I order you some real food?”

He was about to call the staff again, but Astra stopped him. “I’m not hungry.”

For a moment, Astra almost regretted her actions because Chrollo might be hungry. But if it’d be the same staff who keep annoying her with how they tried to get the man’s attention, forget it.

‘What is with this restaurant anyway? Why are they always the same people?’

Once the foam settled on her champagne, she drank it quickly, picked up her bag, and stood up. When she looked over at Chrollo, who still sat on his seat gazing at her, she scoffed. “I’m coming with you. Wait for me outside in a moment.”

“You’ve said that before,” he replied, reminiscing to when she said the exact thing when they met the other night, and then she was gone with his St. Peter’s cross necklace.

“You seriously have something on me. Do you think I’ll run away from you?” Astra argued. “Besides, you’ve done your research on me. So I expect you to appear wherever I am.”

“I don’t believe you,” Chrollo stood up. “Wherever you’re going, I’ll come with you.”

Astra rolled her eyes. If she didn’t have something, it would obviously be his trust. And she had to get it no matter what, if she wanted to get out of the situation quickly.

She turned on her heel and Chrollo followed closely behind her. Suddenly, something rang from Chrollo’s pocket when they stepped out of the restaurant and into the lobby of the luxury hotel. Astra turned her attention to it and then to his eyes looking back at hers.

“Go,” she nodded at him in a dismissive manner. “I promise I won’t leave.”

Chrollo eyed her carefully, weighing the sincerity of her words, to which she responded with widening her eyes at him. There was a faint smile in Chrollo’s face before he finally took his phone out and turned his back on her.

Astra lightly shook her head. She didn’t notice, but there was a small smile on her face as well. And just as if the timing couldn’t be more perfect, someone she knew all too well appeared in front of her, looking down at her, mocking her.

“Dad…” she whispered.

#hunter x hunter #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucilfer fanfiction #chrollo lucilfer x reader #chrollo lucilfer x oc #chrollo lucilfer smut #hxh #hxh fanfiction #phantom troupe #afterthesun

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duck-writer · 4 years

Text

Aphrodite’s Broken Heart: Donald’s Slumber

You can read the first part Here

Scrooge’s grip on Donald was like a vice, “He’s not waking up...why isn’t he waking up?”

“I placed him in a slumber,” Xandra answered.

He felt his eyes sting with emotion as anger began to rise. Never did he think he would feel this way about the Goddess of Adventure but he'll damn and curse any and all deities who dare hurt his family! His family had lost Della because of adventure. He had lost Della to adventure, and as much as he hated it and denied it, he cost Donald his twin.

Adventure was supposed to be he legacy and badge of honor, not the source of pain and heartache.

She didn’t flinch when Scrooge snapped his head at her and demanded the reason for her actions. Xandra began with, “It was his request."

Scrooge practically growled at her because he couldn't believe that. There wasn't any way that Donald would willingly allow himself to be kept from his boys. There was more to this, more she wasn't telling him!

Xandra could see how difficult it was for the older duck to accept it, so she did her best to explain. "The world's ability to love stems and originates from that heart. Not anyone's love would be strong enough to replace that of godly proportion. Donald's love is fueling the world's. I know it hurts, but it needed to be done. He did it for the world. He did it for his boys." The Three Caballeros were her heroes, and losing one of her champions was devastating. "He didn’t want the boys to see him without love...the love for them was the only thing that kept him going for over a decade. And now, that same love will keep the earth alive.”

"Wake him. Please." Scrooge pleaded quietly. "Surely it can't be that bad. We can find a way to fix this!"

"I'm sorry, Scrooge. The deed is done. There's no reversing it. There is...nothing to fix." Xandra told him sadly.

"I CAN'T LOSE HIM TOO!" Scrooge cried out. Xandra's eyes widened slightly. For all she's heard and seen of Scrooge, losing his composure or cool, wasn't really his style. At least, not with this much emotional pain. He looked at her pleadingly, "We've recently made amends...but there was still more...more..." He swallowed thickly as he blinked away the tears, "He's my boy! I needed to be there more for him. Please...as one of earth's best adventurers, I beseech you, help me save him!"

"I am sorry, Scrooge. But I will not undo Donald's last request."

~~~

Gyro looked at the machinery that Scrooge sent for him to bring the to manor. Fenton was pulling everything along, chatting but he only heard every other word. Scrooge’s tone was...different. For better or worse, depending on who you asked, Scrooge was unapologetically...Scrooge. Gyro had his moments of feeling light ire for his employer but it was mostly when his funding was affected. It didn’t last too long since Scrooge allowed him funding at all and didn’t try to tell him too much about what he could and couldn’t do...although asking him to make sure his intentions didn’t go evil every so often. Which they didn’t! They were mostly just misunderstood! Anyway, the point was, he knew how to pick his moments of when to address Scrooge about his projects and funding depending on his tone. Sometimes dealing with other board members put him in a mood. Certain dates did so as well. But he hasn’t heard the tone Scrooge had on the phone since....well, since the Spear of Selene.

“Are we not going through the front door Dr. Gearloose?” Fenton asked as he kept following the goose towards the back of the manor.

“Scrooge made the order. He wants a secure route.” Gyro answered.

“A secure route? Why? Is the front door of the manor not secure?” Fenton asked.

"I'm assuming this isn’t something the children know about and he wants to keep it that way,” Gyro spoke honestly but with a tone that he hoped Fenton would catch. He didn’t mind Fenton’s plucky attitude, at least not as much as he used to. But there was a time and a place and something in the pit of his stomach was telling him that whatever they were about to learn was on the somber side.

Fenton only paused for a moment to tilt his head before he began to understand this was a far more serious business matter than he initially thought.

As they approached a back door, they were greeted by Mrs. Beakley. She was a hard person to read, but given her background, it wasn’t too surprising. Though Gyro wished he could read more about what they were about to walk into.

“Follow me, please. And try not to make too much noise. The children are enjoying their television time.” Mrs. Beakley told them.

“So they don’t know...about whatever this is about?” Fenton asked quietly. Then followed up with, “What is this about, exactly?”

She sighed sorrowfully, and Gyro watched as Fenton’s eyes widened in a slight panic. Before he could accidentally make a scene that would make too much noise and call attention from the children, Gyro spoke, “These machines will need a proper energy source. I couldn’t bring it today, but they’ll need a generator.”

“Will they work properly tonight?” Mrs. Beakley asked as she led the way.

“Yes. Scrooge might see a spike in his energy bill though.” Gyro commented. He didn’t want to be blamed, or have their funding cut because of this.

“He won’t mind.” Mrs. Beackley said.

Both Gyro and Fenton stopped and shared a look with each other before staring at Mrs. Beakley as if she grew another head. She was very aware of what she said, so she added. “Come on. You’ll see.”

When they stepped into the room Mrs. Beakley showed them to, it wasn’t hard to spot Scrooge or the reason they were there. Scrooge was sitting next to a bed that had Donald resting on it. Or it looked like he was resting...but with how tightly Scrooge was holding his hand, it was clear something wasn’t right with the younger Duck.

“Set up the machinery as needed. Being mindful of the cords and the addition of the generator tomorrow.” Mrs. Beakley told them.

Gyro nodded and began setting up the machines. Working around Scrooge and not bothered by being ignored.

Fenton helped here and there but he was more focused on the duck lying in bed. He knew he should probably keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help but state, “He doesn’t look hurt. He’s not, is he?”

The machines began to boot up before Mrs. Beakley could answer. There was a heartbeat beeping, there was a rise and fall of Donald’s chest, and the numbers of other vitals popping up on screens. Fenton’s been in the hospital enough times to know what each number meant and for all intents and purposes...Donald was fine.

“My boy will be alright. He’s just...resting. He’s very tired and he’ll have his rest. But he’ll wake...he’ll wake soon.”

Fenton frowned lightly at the wording as well as the tone. It was...off somehow.

Before he could comment, however, Gyro answered Scrooge. “Of course he will.”

Gyro gave him a small stare, which Fenton’s recognized by now and kept quiet. After explaining to Mrs. Beakley what each machine did, adding information about a few others that were also set up but not connected to Donald directly, Fenton learned that one of them provided a warding barrier of some sort, while the other worked as a sort of power detector.

Mrs. Beakley walked them back out and once they reached the door and Fenton was sure they wouldn’t accidentally be overheard by anyone he asked, “What happened?”

Mrs. Beakley told them all she knew. Discovering Donald’s duties to the Goddess of Adventure, Xandra, what she’d asked of him, and what he’s given up.

“And the children do not know this?” Fenton asked with a frown.

“No.” Beakley shook her head. “Donald made an excuse about helping out an old friend and didn’t give a date of return. Scrooge is hoping to...fix this and hopes to spare the children of this knowledge.”

“He sounds...” Fenton didn’t really know what the proper term was.

“He’s been researching nonstop for a few days. Locked himself up, making excuses it was company business. The truth is too close, but he’s unwilling to accept it, no matter how glaringly obvious it is.”

“The truth?” Fenton echoed.

“Donald’s lost.” Gyro stated.

It was heated but unlike other times when hearing that tone, it wasn’t also laced with irritation. At least not with him or anyone nearby. The words hit Fenton a bit hard. “But...but he was...his vitals are fine! He’s alive and his heart and pulse are strong!”

“The heart beats to circulate the blood, the lungs inflate and deflate to allow him to breathe. He is alive...but he’s lost. The last time Scrooge was like this...” Gyro began.

It took a moment to realize, but Fenton felt his heart sink as he remembered Donald wasn’t the first twin Scrooge has ‘lost’. “But Della came back! Donald can come back too!”

“Scrooge will try,” Beakley stated.

Gyro nodded, “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”

She nodded and Gyro and Fenton began making their way out of the estate. Fenton kept eyeing Gyro, really unsure of what to say.

“How can we help?” Fenton finally asked.

“Honestly? There’s little we can do. We can use science to monitor him and make sure he gets the nutrients he needs but considering it was caused by something mythical, there’s little we can do to help Donald himself. That said...he won’t be able to keep this a secret from the rest of his family too much longer. The kids will be affected the most.”

“Pobre chiquitines.” Fenton muttered. It hurt to imagine their heartache.

~~~~~~~~

"I can fix this!" Scrooge insisted.

"I know you'll mean to try, sir. But the children are beginning to worry. About their uncle as well as you. You know them. They'll begin to investigate. It won't be easy...but it will be better if they hear it from you." Beakley told him gently.

His grip on Donald's hand tightened. Whenever his eyes hurt too much from his research and he couldn't read anymore, he would sit by Donald's side and watch his vitals. Holding his nephew's hand he would obsessively watch the monitors that were connected to Donald until exhaustion took hold and he had yet another restless sleep.

It was like losing Della all over again, yet with a new spin of heartache. Donald wasn't lost as Della had been. He was right in front of Scrooge...physically there, vitals strong, and he honestly was sleeping!

Yet...

"Organize a family meeting..." Scrooge mumbled.

Beakley nodded and went to inform everyone in the house.

Scrooge remained for a while longer. "You've got a lot of adventure stories to tell me, lad. I plan to hear them. Every single last one. And maybe join you and your friends on a Caballero quest if I may..." He tried to smile and feel some hope, but his smile quickly turned into a frown. "I should have tried harder, Donald. I'm so sorry...I'm going to fix this. I promise you I will!"

He took a moment longer to simply watch Donald before he went to do his best to tell his family what happened. Their reactions were all as he expected. Varying in shock and anger and disbelief.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the evidence she had about what happened, she just couldn't believe it. She refused to accept defeat! She was Della Duck! Between her and Scrooge, they would find something! They had to! Though Scrooge told her there wasn't any point in visiting any of the deities that remained on Ithaquack, she still had to try.

“I’m so sorry Della...but it’s simply not possible.”

“Don’t give me not possible! Do you guys even care?” Della cried out, tears of frustration falling down her cheeks.

Selene sighed and gently brushed them away. “I won’t take that personally, for I know how much your heart aches. Storkules is beside himself as well...”

“Then help us! Do something!” Della begged.

“We simply cannot. Even if we wanted to. Not I, nor Storkules though he is more than willing, and not father. Even if he wanted. Which...he doesn’t. But the point is my dear...no god or goddess can undo the work of another deity.”

“This isn’t fair! I came back from the moon, from practically the dead, for my family! Not just my kids! I came back for Donald too. He’s my twin! My other half! This...this isn’t how it was supposed to go! Especially not for him! He gave up everything for my boys! Me coming back wasn’t just so I can get my time with my boys, but it was to make amends with Donald. And somehow help make up for everything he’s done and has personally given up for me and the boys!" She was panting after her burst of emotions. Sniffing a few times, she continued to beg Selene to understand her plight, "I’m hurting this bad....they’re hurting even worse! Can’t Xandra understand this?”

“We’ve spoken with her...”

“You have?” Della asked, a bit shocked.

“Of course. After father refused to help and then reminded Storkules as to why he can’t, my brother went straight to her. He asked, he begged, he threatened...”

“Threatened? Storkules?” Della was glad someone was doing something, but it was still strange to hear of sweet and friendly Storkules wanting to use force.

“For his Donald? Anything...”

“What did she have to say?” Della asked as she wiped her eyes, even if it seemed futile as more tears just kept appearing.

Selene sighed again, “It wasn’t an easy task to ask of him. But Donald was a hero. Not just an adventurer. He had a lot more to do under Xandra’s guidance. A lot more than what some of the adventures with your uncle have called for. In the end, she refused to hear my brother’s pleas and told him it was for the boy’s sake...and his as well.”

“That’s bull,” Della grumbled and crossed her arms.

Selene gave her a sympathetic smile, “Your brother was so full of love, Della. It fueled him as much as his anger did. He melded the two, and used his love to fuel his fury and wielded it like a weapon to protect his family. That...is the brother you remember. That is the Donald my brother and your boys know and love. That is not that Donald they will meet should we wake him.”

“Wha...I....but....”

Selene reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry. I am. And though Donald without love wouldn’t immediately mean he’d be cruel...but he would be indifferent. I’ve only met him once since you two stopped visiting after your accident. And trust me, with Storkules, I’ve heard plenty of him in between and since...and even filtering out my brother’s feelings for him, he was an amazing person. Who cared. Despite how angry he could get at their actions of heroics and dangerous deeds, under it all...it was worry. Because he cared and loved those who did those dangerous heroics. All of that is gone, my darling. He won’t care if the boys are ill, or if they get hurt, he won’t care if they did well in an event or if accomplished something incredible...”

“That would hurt the boys.” Della relented.

“I know...and so did he. It was his choice, Della.”

“I won’t stop looking for a way to fix this!” Della declared, anger burning behind her desperation, along with love.

Selene smiled gently at her and repeated, “I know.” The doors to the pantheon opened and an exhausted, dirtied, bruised, dejected, and defeated Storkules stumbled through. Selene and Della watched him pass silently, before Selene added, “Trust me...you’re not alone.”

~~~~~~

Huey:

“I made this for you today,” Huey said as he placed the new sleeping mask on his uncle’s closed eyes. “Violet helped me with the elastic band. It’s really tricky. I remember you used to do it for me...I kinda wanna learn it to impress you when you wake up. But I also want you to be the one to help me master it. Violet says hi, by the way. She’s actually helping Webby research. I promised to join them later...I just had to check on you first. I’ve made sure all the monitors are working and calibrated. I’ll check them again before I go to sleep...we’re gonna find an answer. Ducks don’t back down! You taught me that...and there’s so much more. We’re gonna be hitting puberty soon and honestly, I want to learn to shave from you. No offense to Scrooge or Launchpad...I also just miss you, Uncle Donald.” ~~~~~~~

Dewey:

“And it was all so epic! But in the face of danger, I did the responsible thing!” Dewey exclaimed, but then he lost his confidence a bit as his shoulders sagged as he looked at his uncle’s unreactive and unmoving form, “At least I think I did. I uh...It’d be nice having you seeing me try to be responsible...so I’d know it was the responsible thing to do.” He closed his eyes and sighed before opening them again and pleading, “Please wake up Uncle Donald...” ~~~~~~~~~~

Louie:

It was late at night and Louie didn’t care if he looked like a baby at all. He was curled up to his Uncle Donald’s side, holding on tightly and hiding his face in his uncle’s chest. Small sniffles could be heard in the spacious room that didn’t feel as much as Uncle Donald’s room as his hammock on the houseboat. Into the darkness and against his uncle’s form, he whispered, “If I promise to be good from now on, will you come back to us, Uncle Donald?”

#Aphrodite's Broken Heart #Fanfic #Ducktales 2017 #Donald Duck #Huey Duck #Dewey Duck #Louie Duck #Della Duck #Scrooge McDuck #Gyro Gearloose #Fenton Crackshell #Bentina Beakley #Selene(Ducktales)#Mention of Storkules #Feels #Xandra Goddess of Adventure

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thusatlas · 3 years

Text

Ask for what you want, not what you think you should have

I have a theory. Well, I have many, but this particular theory is a doozy. The theory is… (wait for it) …

Everything is connected. I know, I am a genius. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I’ll collect my Nobel Award whilst I pick a up cucumber canapé on my way out.

But seriously, as obvious as it is, the more I reflected inward on my stream of conscious and started asking why, the more I have begun to connect the dots. I have become more aware that my actions, feelings and emotions that can be explained through cause and effect.

Here I want you all to take one mental step to the left to avoid falling down the free will and determinism rabbit hole before you. That is not today's topic. It might be next weeks, but not today. So just shimmy on over to this mental path that I’m laying for you here. On this path, we are accepting that we as individuals are moral agents, accountable for our actions and behaviours. Therefore, you have free will in a world that has been pre-determined by other free moral agents. Or if that’s too deep for you, just move right on past this philosophical premise and carry on enjoying the allegory I’m about to weave for you.

This all began some time ago, way back in high school, when I had to write my CV for the first time. I know that feeling of discomfort one feels when you fill out a job form, write a personal statement or cover letter is not individual to myself. This is a widespread phenomenon and yet the only way that you can progress professionally or academically is to sell yourself. Hence there is an entire profession in which you can be paid for writing somebody else’s CV. Furthermore, hence the reason why the widely understood, highly inaccurate statistic accepted as truth is that all CEO’s and higher business people are psychopaths; one of the defining features of psychopathy being arrogance and narcissism (that part is true but again, not the point of today��s topic…moving on). We, the neuro-typical, non-psychopathic, really struggle to write about our best selves when it comes to applications of any kind. We do it because we have to, not because we want to.

Now think about it. I write and talk about many things throughout my days, from objective truths to subjective feelings. I process categorical facts and infer meaning that is hidden within the subtext. I imagine stories, characters, worlds, conversations and ensuing emotions. All without effort.

And yet.

I cannot write about myself. I cannot write about my good qualities with ease, without that feeling of discomfort. I cannot do it as easily as I am writing this now.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, then firstly what’s your secret? If that does resonate with you, keep following me down the yellow brick road of this allegory. I’m going to turn it into something less deep, far easier to swallow and then bring it back to filling in application forms.

It’s going to be cool.

Hopefully…

The list of top 10 most loved/dreaded questions. Somewhere on this list is: what do you want for Christmas/your birthday because I find answering it be an egoistic minefield to navigate. Apparently, it’s considered impolite to ask for all one’s problems to be solved or a million pounds or a new car/house/holiday. What I used to say, was what I actually wanted in an exaggerated way that would generally garner a chuckle. Both myself and the other participant in the conversation knew that I was being 100 per cent serious and if the person asking was happy to buy me my dream house then I would shamelessly have accepted (whilst also repeatedly enquiring if they were sure because I couldn’t possibly, hoping beyond hope that they would not come to their senses). However, this rarely (never) happened. Thus, the usual rapport was:

Person A - “What do you want for your birthday?”

Person B - “I would love a 50-foot yacht and a butler named Steve to attend my every whim”

A and B participate in the prescribed requisite chuckle.

Person B – “But seriously, I haven’t really thought about it.”

Person A – “let me know if you think of anything”

Person B – “Of course, though you don’t have to get me anything”

Person A – “nonsense, it’s your birthday”

End scene. I will pick up the Oscar for lead performance whilst I sample these delectable mini-hamburgers. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I had this conversation for years until I questioned what’s the point of it if nobody gets anything out of it. Having been both Person A and B, it’s uncomfortable for both parties because Person B doesn’t want to be perceived as selfish while Person A is asking to avoid the stress of having to guess what Person B wants. Now, while I love a good humble moment, this is not the time to be humble. Similar to job interviews, CV writing or personal statements. Why is it that we are not comfortable with celebrating our wants, our needs even when we are being directly asked to sell ourselves or literally tell someone what we want.

So I had a revelation a couple of years ago. I am aware that this is not going to be groundbreaking for other people but stay with me here. As of now, my life in regards to birthdays and Christmas’ consists of throwing the humble pie out of the window. My birthday is fast approaching and my family have begun to ask what I want.

AND HERE IS THE POINT OF THE ALLEGORY!

Bedsocks.

(Groundbreaking isn’t it.)

But seriously, my feet get cold because my house is old and the end of the bed is right by a window. You see the issue. Might as well sleep with my tootsies exposed to the winter’s chill.

However, (plot twist) I also want the new Jean Paul Gaultier Classique perfume which retails from £44 - £88 depending on the outlet.

I’m going to pause here because this is a Q.E.D moment. While the point of this post is not about asking the internet to get me what I want for my birthday, I feel the need to point out that I would, of course, be happy with just a card or a hug or a text for my birthday. I am merely using this as an example for the said allegory which has not yet been fully actualised. I am not some entitled princess who’s going to throw a tantrum reminiscent of Dudley Dursley if I don’t get what I want.

(If you’re not getting that reference then shame on you).

Now that I am 80 per cent sure that you don’t think I’m Veruca Salt (you better get that one), I shall continue with my point. I chose to embrace and show that yes, I want bedsocks and yes I also want magnificent perfume. Two drastically different items for the same person but these are items that I objectively want. I was asked so I answered. I am a bougie queen with cold feet.

What was interesting was the reaction of person A. There was an acceptance of my bedsock suggestion, though they did amend with, “Is that all? It’s not much”. The response to the Jean Paul Gaultier suggestion was “you don’t want much do you?” said with a scoff. We shall gloss over the mixed signals and possible shadiness and explore the duality of these responses to the embracing of my wants.

If you ever need to ground yourself or remind yourself that you are a product of all that came before you and all that will come after you, look to the Ancient Greeks. For a society that existed over 4000 years ago, we are still practising and preaching the philosophies of Thales, Aristotle, Socrates and Plato. You can find watermarks of the Greek thinkers hidden in the folds of much of modern societies ideologies, legalities, politics and psychology.

Does that mean they were ahead of their time or with all that society has evolved over that time, the human condition remains the same, regardless of how wise and savvy we think we have evolved to be?

Now it was widely accepted amongst theologians, philosophers, sociologists and psychologists that if you wish to look at the skeletal structure of a society in a snapshot, then look to their religious beliefs.

I’m going to need you to take a mental step to the right to avoid falling down the ‘is God real’ rabbit hole. We are not here to discuss the objective existence of the divine. So, I’m going to need you to hope back on our yellow brick road where we are accepting the truth that all pantheons have objectively exist in the narrative of human history within their respective societies.

To the point, the Ancient Greeks believed in a pantheon full of diverse Gods (big G, we don’t theologically discriminate here). When I first thought of the Greek pantheon, my thoughts immediately go to Zeus and his ilk. However, I’ve been on the Google and am now more informed than I was 5 minutes ago (look at me and my fact-checking… if only Fox News were the same).Anyway, briefly for your understanding, the Greek pantheon is split into 8 parts.

Parts one through to four covers the Gods who are the essential ingredients for the fabric of reality. So, Gaia who is the Earth, Pontos the Sea, and Ouranos the Dome of Heaven. The Daimones (spirits) and Nymphai who nurture the life of the four elements and so on. The Daimones that affect the body and mind: Eros the spirit of love (not to be confused with lust or attraction), Phobos the spirit of fear, Thanatos the spirit of Death. The Gods who control the forces of nature and who interacted and taught mankind. Helios the sun and Anemoi the wind; the agricultural earth Gods Ploutos, not to be confused with the pastoral Gods Pan, nor the city Gods Hestia. The Titan Gods Themis, Kronos, Prometheseus etc, are not to be confused with the defied mortals who are considered to be part of this section of the pantheon: Herakles, Asklepios etc. Nor should they be confused with the Olympian Gods Hebe and Mousai. This condensed list is actually very long.

Now we have the fifth part that everyone knows. The 12 Olympians who preside and govern over the aforementioned and the ones who have yet to be mentioned. They are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Athene, Aphrodite, Hephaistos, Hermes, Dionysos and Hestia. Part six through to eight covers the constellations and the horoscopes, the monsters and the semi-divine love children of the Olympians who defeated them

That is a majorly condensed list however its extensiveness is the point I am trying to make here so I appreciate you if you have stuck with me thus far. If you wish for a full list of the Greek Pantheon here are links to further your own reading: (1, 2, 3).

So, the Greeks had this diverse belief system. These beings who governed their every action. Literally everything, physical and metaphysical alike.

Now tell me what they missed.

Tell me what’s missing from this very extensive list.

Evil.

Ah, but there is Hades the God of the underworld you say! There are monsters!

Hades was made evil by Disney I’m sorry to say (though he was fabulous).

Hades in the Greek pantheon is the God of the dead and Zeus fucked up and much as he did. Odysseus is a soap opera, I swear. Anyway, the monsters? They’re as neutral as death. They are creatures doing exactly what is within their nature to do. Thus the underlying ethos of the pantheon. Every one of those deities commits actions that can be perceived to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ by the humans they lived alongside. The Greeks did not revere them to be absolute good, nor absolute evil. What they did, was perceive them to portray unavoidable facets of our day-to-day lives that should be celebrated, acknowledged and respected. For example, take Dionysus, the God of wine, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy. Basically, this bitch was the life of the party. As such, large banquets and hedonistic orgies were often held in his name, celebrating pleasure, life and the loss of control within the madness of relinquishing stress.

But we aren’t the Ancient Greeks are we (though I know I look fetching in a toga if I do say so myself).

Western civilisation, take the United Kingdom, for example, founded its legal system upon the 10 commandments of the monotheist pantheon of Christianity. Furthermore, The Act of Supremacy in 1534 appointed King Henry VIII the first Supreme Governor of the Church of England. A largely ceremonial title that has been passed on to reigning monarchs ever since. Within the United Kingdom, Church and State have been very much intertwined since the days of the court governance. As such, themes of Christian teachings and concepts became entwined within our culture, and over the years have become so embedded that accepted behaviour and social nuances are not intrinsically associated with its religious teaching. The obvious examples to point out are the recent milestone law amendments to same-sex marriages and abortion. Going deeper into social norms: the concepts of purity and promiscuity, humbleness and arrogance, greed, sin and punishment. I have been brought up in a time where I have heard the rhetoric about my own body change from ‘do not sleep around, don’t be easy’ to ‘it’s your body, equality, if men can do it, you can to’. Aside from my own personal views on this topic, this social rhetoric is a symptom of the culture in which we live. They also echo some (not all) Christian teachings. Triandis and Triandis (1988-2004) have produced many works on the development of culture, the bare bones of the explanation being that culture of a society is a product of history, language and stories. Prior to written print, all information was passed on from generation to generation through stories. These stories contained information about countries' histories, experiences, and beliefs. The languages and gestures telling the stories are a creole of invading forces and immigrating travellers. These are the bare ingredients for culture. All that is left to perfect this recipe is time. Leave to mature of a few centuries and you’ve got a fine wine and a handful of convoluted social norms. Hence, the aforementioned rhetoric and the continued acceptance within British culture that the Monarch is the head of the Church.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t have time. Their teachings and stories are still hailed today, but their civilisation did not survive long enough for their culture to become a social norm.

Now, the reason why we’ve gone through this is to point out that the Christian pantheon is heavily reliant upon the idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Absolute good. Absolute evil. I could do an entire blog on the different theological branches of Christianity and how they have affected Western culture. In this instance, we shall focus on the concept of sin. Though it is obvious, it must be pointed out:

Sin is bad.

Bad is punished.

Ergo - Must avoid sin.

What is sin? Well, sinning is many things if we go by the Bible and the wholesome Leviticus, but here we are focusing on the widely known and accepted concept of the Seven deadly sins. Though these little devils didn’t specifically make a named appearance in the Bible, their themes were present throughout. Thereafter they were popularised and named via Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Purgatory.

Hopefully, you’re beginning to see all the threads of this post coming together now.

The Seven deadly sins are as such:

Greed

Envy

Lust

Gluttony

Wrath

Sloth

Pride

It is accepted within Western culture that behaviour must avoid ‘evil’ to avoid punishment. Ergo, we must avoid behaving in any way that can be associated with the aforementioned fiendish sins.

And so. The point.

I want bougie perfume and bedsocks for my birthday. Bedsocks is an acceptable humble and utilitarian item. It is not frivolous.

Bougie perfume? It is frivolous. It is a luxury. It is Greed. The fact that I boldly stated as such? Maybe a hint of Pride in my request? Either way, it is a social norm to at least raise an eyebrow at somebody stating frankly that they want an expensive item for their birthday.

To stress this point: if I had asked for driving lessons which are double the price of the perfume, no comment would have been made because of its utility. And so I bring you right back to the beginning. I am applying for jobs and finding the whole process unbearably uncomfortable because I am wondering if me toting all my achievements in one go and really selling myself will come across as arrogant (pride).

I should be humble, shouldn’t I? Humble me in the face of power…Isn’t that the social norm here? Which leads me to my final conclusion. Here are two different worldviews and neither are false and neither are true. If everything is connected (and that is what we call a callback) and if I were an Ancient Greek, how would I apply for jobs? How would I tote my credentials when there is no punishment for being proud of my accomplishments? When there is no concept of sin within the narrative of my worldview and just differing aspects of my nature, surely applying for jobs, asking for presents, networking etc, etc, etc, would be a far less painful experience?

#blog #greek gods #mental health #theory #religion #politics #everything is connected #psychology #philosophy #theology #all human constructs #created by humans #to understand the human condition #diaries of a snowflake #experimental life of a snowflake #short essay

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houseofzoey · 4 years

Text

Characters

Zoey To no one’s surprise, Zoey didn’t do much in this book. And that should be justifiable! She just learned that her mom died, right on the heels of Jack’s death and the complicated separation into a second House of Night. Zoey taking a more passive role in this book should feel natural and be easily sympathized with.

But, like with Awakened, Zoey has always been a very passive character, so this doesn’t feel earned or even different from usual. She complains about and resents her responsibilities just as much as she always has – I’m not even sure I can honestly say she cries more, because she does a lot of that in past books, too. As cold as it sounds, grief comes across as another excuse for Zoey to sulk and moan and refuse to address her problems until they become unavoidable.

And boy did she avoid problems in this book! Or, rather, she avoided easy solutions and obvious paths forward. Nyx sends her a vision of her mother’s spirit entering the Otherworld? Zoey doesn’t contact her Grandma or say much of anything to anyone about it. Zoey sees Stark seemingly possessed via the seer stone, including a moment where it looks like he might attack her? Nope! Not gonna talk about it, try to make sense of it, or make any effort at intervention and preventing future incidents. Zoey knows Aurox is old magic, a servant of Neferet, and generally feels super weird around him? Well, better not look through the seer stone to find out what exactly he is because that sounds stressful and scary!

This is bad enough on its own, but this sort of inaction is supported (even mandated) by other characters. Lenobia, for example, fully supports Zoey choosing not to look through the seer stone at Aurox, and dismisses what Zoey saw with Stark as some sort of residual affect of being in the Otherworld. There’s no push for Zoey to investigate or even really worry about these things – that’s inconvenient and uncomfortable for Zoey, and therefore it’s unfair and unreasonable to expect her to actually do anything.

None of this is meant to be a flaw on Zoey’s part, nor does she ever face real consequences for this sort of inaction or apathy. Zoey failing to accomplish anything isn’t a matter of character development; it’s a plotting technique. The author didn’t want the mystery of Aurox to be resolved until the climax, so Zoey refuses to look at him through the seer stone. But it doesn’t matter if these writing decisions were plot-driven or character-driven – the end result reflects on the character, and it reflects poorly. Which is stupid, because all the author had to do was come up with an actual reason for Zoey not to use the seer stone (maybe every time she has used it has backfired or hurt her in some way), or outside interference that prevents her from using it or prevents it from working when directed at Aurox.

Stevie Rae For the last several books, the central conflict of Stevie Rae’s arc has been her and Rephaim’s relationship, because they’re meant to be enemies and had to keep their relationship secret. Now that Rephaim has been gifted with a human body from Nyx and they no longer have to hide their relationship, her personal conflict is… still centered on Rephaim.

This doesn’t even accomplish anything or create an avenue of growth for her, either. Stevie Rae’s conflict is being sad about Rephaim turning into a bird right before she goes to bed, and being frustrated that he wants to have a real relationship with his father. Both these points become overdone very quickly, and are resolved with no real affect on Stevie Rae’s character. She just sorta… decides not to be upset about Rephaim transforming anymore, and all their arguing about Kalona is for naught because – surprise! – Kalona was a good father deep down this whole time. (We’ll get to that.)

One could argue that these two character conflicts center on Stevie Rae’s protectiveness of Rephaim and fear of losing him now that he’s finally hers. Which… okay. There isn’t much build-up or background for this to make sense with, but it’s not an inherently illogical concern for her to struggle with. The problem is that she 1000% contradicts this when it makes the least sense. Aphrodite has a vision foretelling Rephaim’s death, knows the exact setting and situation in which it will happen, and Stevie Rae steadfastly refuses to listen to this warning and insists that Rephaim still has to accompany them to the ritual out of completely baseless paranoia that he’ll get hurt if he’s left alone in the tunnels.

So far, in this girl-power, matriarchal, feminist fantasy series, two of the most important female leads have absolutely no agency on the plot, and one of them has all her conflict centered around the problems of her boyfriend.

The Twins Actual separate arcs! Sort of.

Shaunee apparently has a tumultuous relationship with her parents, especially her father – but we literally have no hint of this in previous books. She talks about her parents uncritically, including reference to them visiting her, and had no qualms about calling people out for being messed up by bad relationships with their parents (especially Aphrodite).

Erin is suffering the early stages of complete and utter character sabotage. She’s shown as cold, shallow, and unfeeling, but has never (intentionally) been written with these traits previously. She was written with the same traits as Shaunee, who is portrayed in an extremely positive light.

Erin, or course, doesn’t understand Shaunee’s sympathy toward Rephaim and his conflict with his father, and had no idea about Shaunee’s similar familial problems. This creates a rift between them, which could have been interest, but the conflict is given way more weight than it warrants, especially because the Twins have barely been present in the last several books. It just becomes too drawn out and melodramatic, which results in it having no actual emotional impact.

Also, it ends up pointless, at least to the overarching plot of this book. Their falling out has no impact on the reveal ritual or any other aspect of the climax.

Damien Damien still doesn’t have any real role in the plot, personal arc, or any sense of agency within the story. For this book, he was sort of a parallel for Zoey’s grief (though obviously Zoey’s grief was much more profound than his, because she’s Zoey and that’s how the world works). I mean, honestly, it felt like that was his whole purpose – to be tragic.

This series has certainly delved into the trope of Gay Tragedy before – Damien has a terrible relationship with his parents, he was bullied, the last book had a Bury Your Gays subplot, etc. – but it feels extra emphasized now. Previously, Damien was at least allowed to be fabulous and sassy and fashion-savvy about half the time he was being stereotyped, but now the majority of the focus on his sexuality is on how tragic it is that Jack died. It functions as an extension of the Bury Your Gays trope, and it just makes the whole situation worse.

That’s not to say that we aren’t still treated to other gay stereotypes, of course. Damien is, as always, called Queen, and Jack is in the gay section of the Otherworld doing arts and crafts and watching Project Runway. But Jack dying created a void in the series’ staple stereotypes. Rather than let that be, the author decided to fill in the gaps – by having Damien suddenly take on Jack’s traits, such as carrying a “manpurse”, even though that was never part of his character previously All this tells me is that P.C. Cast sees her gay characters as monolithic and interchangeable, which is not a good look for anyone.

Stark Remember the previous book, when Stark’s one point of growth was about embracing his affinity and not letting his fear of his Dark side hold him back from his Goddess-given gift? Well, forget all that! There is one single instance where Stark has his bow at the ready, but he doesn’t actually fire it once in this entire book – not even during the climax, when Aurox shows up in bull form and tries to kill Rephaim. In fact, based on descriptions of that scene, Stark doesn’t even have his bow with him! No, instead he’s using a sword, which he is significantly less skilled with and – oh yeah – cannot instakill someone at range with.

But, as with Zoey and her refusal to use the seer stone, this isn’t meant to be a reflection of Stark’s character or personal conflicts or anything of that sort. It’s just the author finding excuses to prevent quick and simple solutions to the problems she has laid out in the book. It doesn’t matter that this completely contradicts Stark’s growth in the previous book because this isn’t supposed to have anything to do with Stark; he’s collateral damage to the needs of the plot.

He does have another subplot, though, which was introduced in the previous book. Kalona is still using the sliver of soul he gave to Stark to enter into his dreams and manipulate him. He mostly uses this connection to spy on Stark’s dreams and vicariously have sex with Zoey. This is built up as something very dangerous, considering the first scene in the book is Zoey seeing a shadow overtake Stark’s form and make him summon his sword. If Kalona can do that to Stark, then that spells huge trouble for our heroes – especially Zoey, who shares a bed with him and is therefore close to him when he is most vulnerable to being controlled.

But this subplot is just… dropped. Nothing comes of it. Not even the tension and unease it creates between him and Zoey amounts to anything. They have a couple spats, he feels tired and grumpy for a while, and then it’s over with no real consequence.

Rephaim In talking about Stevie Rae, I already talked about Rephaim’s core conflict: wanting his father’s love. It gets repetitive extremely fast, isn’t handled in a very interesting or thoughtful manner, and ultimately ends with this weird feeling that abuse should be forgiven as long as the parent tells their child they love them.

We also get to see Rephaim navigating life as a human for the first time, which is… entirely squandered. We get no culture shock, not displays of oddities or misunderstandings, no struggle with arbitrary rules of the classroom when he attends school for the first time, etc. No, Rephaim adapts flawlessly. The conflict for this portion of the story instead comes from ~*bullying*~. And by bullying, I mean Dallas being mad at Rephaim for winning Stevie Rae’s heart and the two of them fighting over her, because this plotline has not been done to death in this series and is a great girl power message.

Kalona I already explained the pointlessness of his soul-connection to Stark and how unceremoniously that subplot is dropped without consequence, so I won’t get into that too much here.

What’s more important for this book is Kalona’s relationship with Rephaim. Or, more importantly, how much he misses having Rephaim at his side and wishes for him to return. This is framed as nefarious. But Kalona doesn’t actually do anything bad or cruel to this end. He has Nisroc and Maion politely speak with Rephaim and ask him to be a spy, he mopes constantly, and he borrows a cell phone from Shaunee so he can call his son. He even agrees to a truce with Zoey to help her take down Neferet!

None of this feels villainous, but the book also isn’t doing enough work to make him truly sympathetic. For one thing, the whole point of his “redemptive” moment at the end of Awakened was that he gave Rephaim the freedom to make his own choices and pursue his own path. The importance of this moment and its push toward his ultimate redemption is shown by him shedding a single white feather. But if Kalona immediately goes back on his word the next day and starts trying to pressure Rephaim into returning to his side, then what was the point of that? He’s just completely counteracted the small amount of growth he showed in the previous book.

But wait! There’s more! In my final thoughts for Awakened, I also talked about how that scene didn’t even make sense as a redemptive moment because Kalona’s role as a villain was never about him being a bad father; it was about the atrocities he committed against the Cherokee. Well, this book continues that! His big moments at the end are a) him not hitting Nisroc and thanking him for his support and loyalty, and b) apologizing to Rephaim, asserting that he will always be his son, and crying over his body. But having his role as a father be the locus of his change toward good completely dismisses all that he did to the Cherokee, effectively rendering their deaths and suffering unimportant. You can’t make up for crimes against humanity by telling your son you love him.

He also declares himself the new Sword Master of the school and swears a Warrior’s Oath to Thanatos for… some reason. Becoming Sword Master is one thing – he was a Warrior to Nyx and is skilled enough in combat that it’s not unreasonable to say he could pass those skills on to students – but why swear an Oath? Dragon didn’t do that with Neferet, so why should Kalona do that for Thanatos? He barely even knows her and this is not a casual or reversible bond to form.

Aphrodite As with the previous book, Aphrodite doesn’t offer anything to the story except abrasiveness and bigotry. The casual homophobia is there, as always, but now we have the added bonus of ableist ranting! Better yet, it’s clearly done vicariously for the author, given how closely it parallels a similar rant the author posted on her blog months before this book came out.

I mean, I guess she technically also contributes to the plot through her vision, but… Well, no, she doesn’t. She has a vision, everyone makes a big deal about it, and then it’s promptly ignored. The message of the vision was clear: Rephaim should not go to the reveal ritual at Grandma’s farm. But no one heeds this warning, so Rephaim still goes with them. The vision could have been completely omitted and nothing would have changed. Which just makes Aphrodite worse than useless in this book.

Erik There’s literally no reason for Erik to be in this book, and certainly no reason for him to have an entire chapter from his perspective. He Marks a fledgling and she’s red instead of blue. That’s it. That’s all he offers. As soon as that’s done, he vanishes from the book.

And it’s not like Shaylin ends up being super important to the book, either! She’s built up as significant, what with her affinity for True Sight and Kramisha’s latest poem mentioning True Sight, but that turned out to be a very nonsensical misdirect. All Shaylin actually does is state blatantly obvious things about people by reading their auras. She doesn’t even participate in the reveal ritual, despite the poem implying that she’ll be important!

But Shaylin is still a very special character. She was blind, giving us about 2.5 minutes of disability rep before being magically cured when she’s Marked. And of course she’s grateful and this is the greatest thing ever and she never wants to go back to being blind because everyone knows living with a disability must mean abject misery, even though she’s been blind most of her life and should have found it extremely disorienting and disconcerting to suddenly be able to see again. There’s some lip service paid to the idea that Neferet is cruel for saying Shaylin was Marked red because she was “broken” as a human, but it doesn’t really land because the way this whole subplot is constructed seems to agree with her. Shaylin’s blindness isn’t just something that made her different – it’s a hardship that vampyrism freed her from. The fact that there isn’t a convincing alternative explanation (“Erik said the words wrong” doesn’t make any sense) only makes it more believable that, in the logic of this series, Shaylin was broken due to her blindness and her being Marked red is a consequence of that brokenness.

Neferet I consistently wonder if the author ever had a clear idea of what she wanted for Neferet. Obviously she planned for Neferet to be the villain, but to what end? What are Neferet’s goals? What does her ideal future look like? What motivates her? You can have a simplistic or clichéd villain and still tell a good story, but neither of those terms exactly describe Neferet because I don’t know what she’s trying to accomplish or why.

Now, this book does declare her evil plot: to create such chaos and disruption that Nyx herself must intervene, thereby defying her golden rule of free will and non-interference, which will lay the ground work for Neferet to oust Nyx and become a goddess in her own right. But this just doesn’t work. For one thing, where was this desire for chaos in previous books? Even as recently as Tempted, Neferet sought the most ordered possible avenue for power – the High Council. She was using official channels to achieve official power, and she was already calling herself Nyx Incarnate in the process. Then she wanted to start a war with humans as means of destroying the High Council, which would create a power vacuum for her to fill so she could start a war with humans. This didn’t make any sense, because the author didn’t think it through or, like, say it out loud in plain terms, but it was an idea that still clearly involved using power structures to her advantage. Now she just… wants to create general confusion and unrest.

And it’s not even like she creates chaos effectively. Like, I could buy the argument that war is a form of chaos and that pursuing chaos in its own right is a natural extension of that idea, but that’s not even remotely close to what Neferet tries to do in this book. Her idea of chaos is bringing human staff into the House of Night to cause confusion and unrest, and inviting the rogue red fledglings back to classes so they can butt heads with Zoey and co. That’s not chaos; that’s being a mild annoyance!

Neferet is supposed to be intelligent and calculating, but this comes across less and less as the series goes on, and the subplot with Aurox is a prime example of that. She was told in plain terms that Aurox would be flawed because she failed to provide the appropriate sacrifice for his creation. So when Aurox starts to show shortcomings (such as feeling emotions or saving Zoey from a falling branch), Neferet should logically conclude that this is a result of the flaw in his design, right? NOPE! She either ignores it entirely or assumes it’s part of a clever scheme the white bull concocted to help her.

Then there’s the fact that she’s just a really ineffective antagonist, which is only made worse by her reliance on Darkness. Succumbing to the temptation of the power of Darkness was supposed to make her stronger, more formidable, but through most of this book Neferet was consistently unable to do what she wanted because Darkness refused to obey without an appropriate sacrifice. And I mean, like, Darkness refused to do very simple acts, often in contradiction with past events in the series. Neferet can’t request that a branch fall from a tree and crush Zoey because Zoey is a High Priestess and requires an equally powerful sacrifice to kill – even though Neferet killed Shekinah, the High Priestess of High Priestesses, with absolutely no issue. It’s hard to feel intimidated or tense about a villain who just can’t do anything because of the restrictive nature of her powers, especially when you contrast it with the seemingly limitless nature of the heroes’ powers.

Nyx

Why continue giving Zoey visions when she consistently dismisses them/assumes they’re just a weird dream? Would it not be more effective to appear before Zoey in a vision or a dream and just directly, plainly tell her what’s going on? I’ve harped on the ineffectiveness of vague visions and messages before, but it’s especially egregious in Zoey’s case because she so consistently ignores them. Plus, Nyx has appeared and spoken directly to Zoey before, so it’s not like there’s no precedent.

Why trap Zoey and her friends in the circle after they had completed the reveal ritual? Why require a death sacrifice for that ritual? How does this make Nyx any different from the white bull, who also requires death sacrifices for rituals but is upfront about it and won’t allow the ritual to be completed or power to be granted before the sacrifice is made?

If Nyx was trying to tell Zoey she should use the seer stone in the poem Kramisha wrote, why did she reference True Sight? A Seer Stone and True Sight are completely separate things.

Nyx speaks directly through Aphrodite at the ritual when Aurox is attacking Rephaim, but she doesn’t actually help. She just warns them not to break the circle. Why does Nyx have to be the one to intervene and say that – everyone else present, especially Zoey and Thanatos, should know that leaving the circle will ruin everything they’ve done thus far and prevent the reveal ritual from being completed. If Nyx was there to help them, why not grant them some insight or ability to stop Aurox, or at least help him revert to his natural form? Or, better yet, why not make it so they can at least call on their affinities from within the circle to fight Aurox and protect Rephaim?

Nyx thinks religious headscarves are so inherently oppressive that she would use them as punishment by having a sexist, abusive man reincarnate into the body of a Muslim woman. But she lets Rephaim have a human body after years of rape and murder because he loves his girlfriend and said he would be a good boy now. This is completely contradictory, not to mention Islamophobia.

Just like Nyx gives feminine affinities to gay men, she has a whole section of the Otherworld dedicated to being Gay Stereotype Heaven, apparently.

Nyx will show up to forgive Rephaim, but she won’t publicly denounce Neferet, nor will she appear to declare that Neferet is lying when she claims that Aurox is a gift from the Goddess.

#final thoughts #destined #house of zoey

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